These ‘third-world’ nationalist forces were identified by the UK as an extension of the ‘Soviet threat’, as well as an occurrence of Cold War dynamics that needed to be reverted.
In this June 18, 1956 file photo, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser waves as he moves through Port Said, Egypt, during a ceremony in which Egypt formally took over control of the Suez Canal from Britain (AP Photo, File)
A recent report published by Declassified UK details a somewhat exhaustive timeline of the UK’s involvement in plotting coups across the world, both overt and covert, and in most cases conducted with the collaboration of the CIA to depose or assassinate democratically elected leaders.
The report counts a total of 47 coups put into action in 27 different countries since 1945, but the numbers could her higher.
The point in doing so is obvious: as a former colonial empire, the UK is structurally and historically pre-disposed to impede all signs of democratic and socioeconomic developments across the Global South.
After WWII, the Soviet Union supported the massive wave of anti-colonial wars to gain national independance.
These ‘third-world’ nationalist forces were identified by the UK as an extension of the Soviet threat, as well as an occurrence of Cold War dynamics that needed to be reverted.
Some of the most prominent coups orchestrated against leaders include the overthrow of democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953.
They also include the assassination of the former Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Patrice Lumumba who was killed in the most tragic way one could possibly think of.
But the UK did not always succeed in effecting a regime change, as it did in Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, and so many African countries.
For instance, in the 1950s, the British regime tried to draw two consecutive uprisings against the government in Syria – the first in 1956 and the second in 1957 – which were both unsuccessful.
Another covert operation that foiled was one conducted in 1957 against Indonesia’s Sukarno, the leader of the Indonesian struggle for independence from the Dutch colonialists who propelled Indonesia out of morbid poverty.
Sukarno was ousted a decade later in what appeared to “one of the 20th century’s worst bloodbaths” with the purge of communists and socialists by the Indonesian military under Suharto – an event which was later revealed to have been backed by the UK in 1965-1966.
Other countries which have been targeted during the 1950s and 1960s include Brazil, British Guiana, Egypt, and several countries in the Gulf region.
One leader took about four decades for the UK to take down, namely Muammar Gaddafi, who nationalized British oil operators as soon as he seized power in 1969.
After several failed attempts to kill the strongman leader, the UK finally managed to rid of him in 2011 with the assistance of NATO.
Other leaders that were targeted for assassination include Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic in 1992, Ugandan President Milton Obote in 1969, and his successor Idi Amin in the late 1970s.
The list also includes countries of the former Soviet Union, namely Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
It further includes Italy because the Communist Party “looked as if it might win or influence the next government,” the report states.
The most recent coup attempts include failed attempts to depose Syrian President Bashar el-Assad during the Arab Spring, as well as several attempts to depose leaders in Latin American countries, namely lithium-rich Bolivia and oil-rich Venezuela.
Venezuela recently joined the ranks of failed coups after Juan Guaido was ousted and his government dissolved.
The report is relevant to the modern context because the West has recently tried to push for regime change in Iran and Peru.
In the case of Peru, former President Pedro Castillo had charges fabricated against him to justify his impeachment and imprisonment.
All-in-all, the UK’s habitus of conducting coups across the Global South is always motivated by strategic interests. These include a wide range of interests but almost always concern the privatization of oil resources.
In the case where no oil is involved, the UK intervenes to simply ward off the presence of progressive ideologies that strengthen the people against the will of the West.
Declassified information reveals that the CIA has played a significant role in the Indonesia 1965 massacres and that former President Barack Obama has been influenced by the incident and has learned much from that experience.
Prisoners captured by the Indonesian Army during the Trisula Operation, Indonesia, 1965 (Museum Brawijaya).
“From our viewpoint, of course, an unsuccessful coup attempt by the PKI [Indonesian Communist Party] might be the most effective development to start a reversal of political trends in Indonesia,” explained Howard P. Jones, the American ambassador to Indonesia until April 1965 when discussing with the US State Department how to extract power from those refusing to put the Jakarta economy at the service of US multinationals.
On Wednesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo voiced his regret regarding a dozen instances of “gross human rights violations” that took place during Indonesia’s modern history.
One of these instances, Widodo explained, was the US-backed massacre executed by the Indonesian military during the 1965 coups and the era that followed.
The 1965 bloodbath was targeted against the Indonesian Communist party. It is worth noting that, according to The Intercept report, Indonesia was, at the time, the world’s sixth-largest population, and the PKI was the third-biggest Communist Party on Earth, preceded only by China and the Soviet Union.
President Sukarno, who governed over Indonesia from World War II until the successful CIA-backed coup, was not himself a communist. However, he was for a strong liberated Indonesia, which led him to shepherd the Indonesian resistance in the face of Dutch colonization and later helped create the Non-Aligned Movement of countries that wished to stay out of both the Soviet and US blocs.
Based on that, Sukarno, according to The Intercept, “did not leap to put the Indonesian economy at the service of U.S. multinationals.”
The abovementioned were reason enough, the report noted, for the US to seek to overturn Sukarno’s rule. Sukarno himself was not a communist, nor did the PKI have any intention of inciting violence, rather the main goal was to have a strong independent nation, both politically and economically.
The CIA was involved
The Intercept’s report noted that at least 500,000 Indonesians were slaughtered during the coup, many with machetes or knives. Shortly after the coup succeeded, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was crucial in assisting the massacre, referred to it as “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century.”
Former US President Barack Obama described the Jakarta coup in his 1995 autobiography “Dreams From My Father,” using analogous terminology. Obama said the 1965 Indonesia coup was “one of the more brutal and swift campaigns of suppression in modern times.” A matter that will later prove to show that the US has continued to use The Jakarta Method to maintain and grow its influence.
The Jakarta Method is a book written by journalist Vincent Bevins, in which he showed how the 1965 Indonesia coup “was one of the most important turning points of the twentieth century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile,” adding “But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA’s secret interventions were so successful.”
On this note, The Intercept report noted that “the US goal, then, was to extract Sukarno from power in favor of someone ‘reliable’ (from the American perspective), while creating a pretext for the Indonesian military to destroy the PKI.”
According to the report, Howard said, to a meeting of State Department officials in 1965, “From our viewpoint, of course, an unsuccessful coup attempt by the PKI might be the most effective development to start a reversal of political trends in Indonesia.” Howard believed, at the time, that such a move give the Indonesian army a “clear-cut kind of challenge that would galvanize effective reaction.”
Significantly, as shown in the report there was a British Foreign Office official involved who added to Howard’s approach and explained that “there might therefore be much to be said for encouraging a premature PKI coup during Sukarno’s lifetime.”
The plan: Make things up
The Intercept reported that during that the above-discussed premature PKI coup was triggered through a pre-planned narrative where “a group of young military officers kidnapped six Indonesian generals, claiming that they planned to overthrow Sukarno.” Obviously, the kidnapped generals were later murdered.
The plan was not just to kill the generals but to ignite internal strife. As such Suharto, an Army general, stated together with his allies, according to Bevins’ book as cited by The Intercept, that “the dead generals were castrated and tortured by female PKI members in a ‘depraved, demonic ritual’.”
This plan succeeded when Sukarno was driven out of leadership and Suharto took over. Later, however, it was revealed that none of this story was true. The six generals, Bevins noted, were all shot but one.
Under Suharto’s rule, the killing began in an operation that was known to the Indonesian army Operasi Penumpasan [Operation Annihilation].
Discussed, Revealed, Declassified
The US was not only cognizant of what was going on, but was also a willing accomplice, supplying the Indonesian military with names of PKI members.
One US official, as cited by the report, revealed, “They probably killed a lot of people, and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that’s not all bad,” adding “There’s a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment.”
James Reston, the New York Times columnist, has also written on the topic. He noted that US citizens must understand that “without the clandestine aid [Indonesia] has received indirectly from here [US],” the Indonesian massacre would have never happened.
Several recently declassified documents prove that the US was indeed not only complicit but rather also an innovator in the Jakarta Method.
For example, a recently declassified memorandum recounts a conversation between Second Secretary of the Embassy Robert Rich and Adnan Buyung Nasution, an assistant to the attorney general, where Nasution told Rich that they must “continue to crack down on the Communists in order to break the back of the PKI power,” and that “the Army had already executed many communists but this fact must be very closely held.”
In another memorandum, US Ambassador Green explained that he would request that the Johnson administration “explore [the] possibility of short-term one shot aid on covert, non-attributable basis” as a sign of “US support, precipitating an expansion of US covert support for the Army which would include money, communications equipment, and arms.”
‘Power’ in US perception
In Obama’s 1995 published autobiography, he spoke of his time in Indonesia, given that he and his mother lived there for some time with his Indonesian stepfather, an engineer named Lolo.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner wrote that his mother told him, given that at her job as an English teacher for Indonesians affiliated with US embassy in Jakarta, that several of her pupils, many of which were journalists and government officials, “explained how Sukarno had frayed badly the nerves of a U.S. government already obsessed with the march of communism through Indochina, what with his nationalist rhetoric and his politics of nonalignment — he was as bad as Lumumba or Nasser! — only worse, given Indonesia’s strategic importance.”
The autobiography even went further to note that even back then, there was word that the “CIA had played a part in the coup.”
His mother, he explained, was shocked at the idea. He explained in the book that “the notion that history could be swallowed up so completely, the same way the rich and loamy earth could soak up the rivers of blood that had once coursed through the streets; the way people could continue about their business beneath giant posters of the new president as if nothing had happened.”
Later, the boy whose mother was terrified by the notion of massacres being covered up and life returning to normal following thousands of deaths, became President of the country that played an integral role in this specific massacre.
In an unintentionally revealing paragraph, Obama wrote “Power…In America, it had generally remained hidden from view until you dug beneath the surface of things; until you visited an Indian reservation or spoke to a black person whose trust you had earned. But here power was undisguised, indiscriminate, naked, always fresh in the memory.”
Obama believed that masked aggression was more accepted than open aggression. In other words, systematic genocide is a more easily ignored problem than the shocking sight of blood, even if the crime is committed by the same people.
One thing remained clear, Obama’s stepfather taught him a lesson he never forgot and it was not one of ethics and morality but rather one of power, superiority, and the rule of the jungle.
Lolo taught young Obama “Men take advantage of weakness in other men. They’re just like countries in that way. … Better to be strong. If you can’t be strong, be clever and make peace with someone who’s strong. But always better to be strong yourself. Always.”
Have the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran begun to regain the initiative in the “combined war” that was imposed on them? What is the horizon for the next stage in dealing with the emerging internal-external challenge?
When Leader of the Islamic Revolution His Eminence Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei indicated in a speech to a gathering of school students earlier this month that the enemy had a “plan” behind igniting the “combined war” currently targeting Iran, His Eminence was recalling the information contained in a joint statement of the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards on October 28. The statement included data, most notably:
The involvement of the CIA and the British, “Israeli” and Saudi intelligence in the disturbances within the “plan to destroy Iran”. The planning and practical implementation of the bulk of the riots was carried out by the Mossad.
Smuggling military and espionage equipment for subversive networks into Iran.
The CIA organized training courses for some of its Iranian agents, including “N.H.” who took the first photo of the late Mahsa Amini while she was in the hospital.
Setting American institutes for riots several months before they occurred, as they ordered their agents to abuse sanctities, burn the Holy Quran and mosques, and target security forces and clerics.
The decline of “protests” and the progress of assassinations
About two months after the outbreak of the protests, it can be said that their course is taking a downward turn based on several indicators. The first chapter of it, which is to stir people up and push them to the street, has exhausted its energy, even if it has not completely ended yet. Now it is mainly dependent on armed groups carrying out assassination attacks against security personnel. Over the past few days, these groups carried out attacks that led to the killing of security officers who were working to control the situation and interview some people on the street [in Mashhad, Isfahan, Kurdistan, Khuzestan, and Baluchistan]. It seems that the aim of these attacks is to escalate the situation again in the street by provoking the security forces to draw them into a reaction that sheds more blood.
The shootings took place in provinces where the activities of separatist armed groups are concentrated, such as Khuzestan, Baluchistan, Kurdistan and West Azerbaijan, and incidents took place in other regions [Isfahan, Tehran, Mashhad] to give the impression that all of Iran is a hotspot. However, the movements remain limited in comparison to the vastness of Iran, and the number of participants in each movement in the street is in the hundreds at best.
In a preliminary reading, it appears that the security services are acting according to a plan that takes into account the following objectives:
Luring: Detecting riot groups and their organizers by giving them an opportunity to go out in public, as what happened in the past weeks, when a large number of people were arrested based on what was captured from cameras, drones and information of informants on the ground.
Gaining public opinion: To allow people who were affected by the demands raised by the rioters to see the truth about these people through their practices and to reveal the fall of a large number of security personnel during the protests at the hands of armed and rioting groups. It is worth noting here that the climate in which these disturbances were born affected some of the political elites in the country who did not take a position on what was happening, which the Iranian president referred to as “a clouding of the minds of the elite”. This reveals a loophole similar to what happened in Lebanon after October 17, 2019, where some figured had been affected by the propaganda atmosphere on social media and foreign media. This imposes a tax on solution that has a greater political and security cost.
Reducing casualties among people during security measures on the ground to prevent the enemy from benefiting from any mistakes that might contribute to the siding of bewildered Iranians to the rioters against public order. This may lead to losses and sacrifices among the officers of the security forces, but this price remains small given the goal of not harming the largest number of people.
The Iranian security services were able to defuse the tension in some areas after opening dialogues with many social elites, as many people who were concerned about the safety of their regions and countries confirmed that the issue was not related to specific demands, but rather to dragging the country into an open confrontation with dangerous consequences.
In parallel, the security services are carrying out local operations to dismantle many cells responsible for killing people and security personnel and arresting their members, which is expected to lead to the dispersion of these groups and the scattering of their efforts and ability to communicate. And the security services show that they have accurate information about the people involved, based on technical tracking and relying on surveillance cameras and drones that play a role in monitoring movements on the ground.
In his speech to a delegation from the people of Isfahan a couple of days ago, Imam Khamenei drew attention to two points: the first is reassuring, in which he said that the current events will be accommodated and that “rioters and those behind them are too despicable to be able to harm the regime”. The second is that the people respond to these practices with greater awareness through massive participation in the funeral ceremonies of security personnel who are killed by the enemy. This last observation was tested and seen clearly in the funerals of martyrs who died in different provinces, and this would “turn the threat into an opportunity” to mobilize the people in the face of the enemy’s plans.
Direct US Intervention
Also, within the combined war, there are direct interventions led by the United States to add fuel to the fire and encourage the continuation of the unrest through:
Statements by American and European political leaders criticizing what they call “violations against protesters in Iran”, in an unbalanced view that reflects a strategy pursued to undermine the Islamic Republic’s government.
The mobilization of the media and the use of the capabilities of social media platforms in order to undermine Islamic values and transform the current problem into a position on the Islamic identity of Iranian society [the hijab, turban, flag of the Islamic Republic, pictures of martyrs, various religious symbols]. This malicious endeavor is being carried out by some idiots who see the West as their reference, and not the broad masses of the Iranian people who are proud of their religious values.
Imposing commercial sanctions on Iranian companies and others on Iranian media personalities, particularly on state television, which broadcasts video clips of confessions of those arrested in the assassination crimes.
Pressure through the United Nations General Assembly, where Western countries pushed for a session that voted to condemn Iran regarding alleged “violations” of human rights, noting that the number of countries that supported the resolution [78 votes] represents less than half of the number of countries that participated in the session [178 countries], where the rest preferred to abstain [69 countries], and a smaller number dared to refuse to condemn [31 countries]. This comes at a time when the US State Department exempted the Saudi Crown Prince from prosecution in a case brought before US courts in the case of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in exchange for US commercial interests.
Pressure through the United Nations Human Rights Council as well, as it will meet within days to vote on a project directed against Iran, after it was prepared in a text proposed by Western countries.
Pressure in the United Nations Women’s Committee “to get Iran out of the committee,” as US Vice President Kamala Harris pledged.
Pressure through the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] by holding a meeting condemning Iran for “not cooperating with the agency in the investigation of uranium enrichment activities”, without regard to the steps presented by Tehran in this context, including the signing of the Additional Cooperation Protocol. Washington hopes, in coordination with its partners, to bring Iran’s file to the Security Council, claiming that it poses a threat to international peace and security. This claim is not approved by several countries, including Russia and China, which indicates that the ultimate US goal is to defame Iran and harm its reputation and credibility in international forums, in preparation for its isolation, to prevent it from achieving great gains in the event that an agreement regarding the nuclear file was reached later.
Thus, the US administration proves that it uses the United Nations with all its bodies to implement its own agenda aimed at subjugating Iran and achieving what it failed to achieve in the Vienna meetings. It is concretely confirmed that the Biden and Trump administrations are two sides of the same coin, as the current administration completes the investment in what its predecessor began in terms of the strict blockade against the Islamic Republic.
There remains a final sign: Iranian media reported that Iran had informed Qatar that it would not respond during the period of the World Cup hosted by Doha to external parties that planned and organized interference in its internal affairs, in response to Qatar’s positive position of not cooperating with the efforts aimed at preventing the participation of Iran’s national team in the event. And if this is true – and it appears that it is according to some evidence – then this means that the authorities of the Islamic Republic will take advantage of the period of the Qatar World Cup in order to rearrange the internal security situation, after which it will devote itself to dealing with the sources of the external threat.
Former US army officer Scott Bennett stressed that the American people have been through years deceived by the pro-Zionist media, underlining importance of addressing these crowds in a bid to “let them know the truth” about Palestine, Hezbollah and other resistance factions in the region.
In a recent exclusive interview, the ex-officer in the US’ 11th Psychological Operations Battalion revealed to Batoul Wehbe, the Editor-in-chief of Al-Manar English Website, how the US administration funded ISIS (ISIL), Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra Front and other terrorists.
He narrated how he was jailed by the US government after he exposed the US support to Takifris in the region.
Mr. Bennett also slammed double standards in dealing with Ukraine and Palestine, as he revealed that the 9/11 attacks in 2001 was plotted by the Zionists.
“Americans Brainwashed”
The former US officer described the American people as “brainwashed”, noting that they “need to wake up” and stand by the Palestinian people against Israeli crimes.
He pointed to a change in the political powers in the world, “with the decrease of the western influence and the rise of independent states.”
Asked about the possibility of having a third Intifada in Palestine, Mr. Bennett said: “we may be in the verge of the Israelis being foolish enough to start another fight but if they do they will lose it and they will also recognize no one in America or Europe supports Israel’s genocide, apartheid and racist bigotry.”
Ukraine: Hypocrisy, Double Standards Talking about Ukraine, the former Psychological officer slammed what he called “hypocrisy and double standards” in dealing with Ukraine and Palestine.
In this context, he stressed that Ukraine is “a wasted effort”, adding that the US and the EU “stand on the wrong side” while Russia “stands on the right side.”
Affirming that Russia has already won the war against Ukraine, he pointed to US’ betrayal of Europe and destroying its gas ability, expecting a ‘revolution’ against Washington in the European countries this winter.
Bennet Exposed US’ Financing of Terrorists
Asked to define terrorism, Dr. Bennett narrated how he came out as a “different man” after being jailed because of a report he handed over to the US army command that exposed the US government’s financing of terrorists.
He also mentioned that he had worked with American whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Hezbollah and Sayyed Nasrallah Psychological Tactics
Praising Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah as a powerful speaker, Mr. Bennett hoped that Sayyed Nasrallah can address the western crowds and “tell them the truth.”
He noted meanwhile, that America “is greatly suffering as t’s embroiling with all kinds of perversions,” stressing that this country “needs to be spiritually healed.”
9/11 Attacks Plotted by Zionists, CIA
The US Psychological analyst lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “war criminal.” In this context, he revealed that the Zionist entity’s Mossad was behind the 9/11 attacks in 2001, alongside with intelligence of several other countries.
The remarks of the French President that the alleged “revolution” in Iran will have an impact on the Iranian nuclear talks corroborate the Iranian accusations of French meddling in the country.
French President Emmanuel Macron (AFP)
During an interview for France Inter radio on Monday, November 14, the French President estimated that the current alleged “revolution” in Iran has an impact on the nuclear deal negotiations. The interview was recorded Friday with Elysée, after Emmanuel Macron’s meeting with four members of delegations of Iranian regime-change mouthpieces, as described by Fars news, including a Washington-based journalist, Masih Alinejad.
Macron commented on the Western-induced hysteria surrounding the Iranian riots, saying that the “revolution changes a lot of things,” adding that “the regime is weakened by Iran’s internal situation and the demands that are hard to obtain.”
He called for international sanctions against Iranian officials saying, “I am in favor of a strong diplomatic reaction and sanctions on the figures of the regime who have a responsibility” in what he called “the repression of this revolution,” in an interview for France Inter radio.
Macron described the crackdown as “unprecedented,” adding, “We don’t rule out any option,” he said, noting that Iran’s government was already the target of numerous sanctions.
He repeatedly used the word “revolution” to describe what was happening in Iran, while accusing the government of “cracking down” on the western-instigated riots.
Was it a mere coincidence that when he welcomed pro-Western Iranians who are strong advocates of regime change in Iran he brought up the issue of the so-called “revolution” having an impact on Iran’s nuclear talks? Or does it stand as clear proof of the real intentions of the west, particularly France in this case?
As a matter of fact, one can only say that the French President has actually confessed to interference in Iran’s affairs, albeit indirectly and unintentionally, having brought up the impact of the riots on the nuclear talks, which only confirms the Iranian accusations of Western interference in the country.
But how is it so? The answer lies in Iran’s statements via different officials all along, from day one.
Western meddling in Iran
The Assistant Commander of the IRGC for Political Affairs, Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, confirmed on November 11 that one of the enemy’s goals in destabilizing the country and trying to repeat the Syrian scenario in Iran is to influence the nuclear negotiations and obtain some concessions.
During a speech at a symposium entitled “From protests to riots,” Javani said all the “enemies have united to confront the government in Iran.”
In the same context, Iranian Army Commander, Maj. Gen. Seyyed Abdolrahim Mousavi, considered on November 7 that the riots in Iran were part of the US plan to disrupt the negotiations on the restoration of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Mass riots began in Iran in mid-September in connection with the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Iranian authorities have accused Western countries of fueling the riots, and European diplomats were given a note of protest in connection with anti-Iranian media reports and calls to overthrow the country’s government.
“The recent unrest in Iran was part of US efforts to disrupt the negotiations in Vienna [on the JCPOA],” Mousavi was quoted as saying by Iranian state broadcaster IRIB.
Foreign intelligence services behind riots
Foreign intelligence was never absent from the Iranian arena ever since the riots started.
Earlier, a spokesperson for the Iranian Parliament’s presiding board, Nizamuddin Mousavi, stated that the Minister of Interior submitted a report on recent developments in the investigation into Mahsa Amini’s death.
On September 23, the Iranian Minister of Interior Ahmad Vahidi confirmed that “reports, evidence, and medical examinations confirm that Amini was not beaten,” which refutes western media claims that the Iranian woman was brutally beaten while in morality police custody.
Mousavi said that “there are individuals linked to foreign organizations, intelligence services, and terrorist groups that had a hand in fomenting the recent riots.” He pointed out that “estimates indicate that some 45,000 people formed networks across the country, some of whom have been arrested.”
Referring to the recent riots, Vahidi considered that the enemy harnessed all its energies, including the media, in order to undermine national unity but suffered defeat in the face of the vigilance and insight of the coherent Iranian people that were able to thwart this scheme.
It is noteworthy that in late October, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry and the IRGC’s intelligence wing revealed that intelligence obtained by Tehran indicates that the CIA and allied intelligence services planned a conspiracy against the Islamic Republic.
“The conspiracy’s goal is to commit a crime against the Iranian people and the territorial integrity of Iran,” the statement underlined.
“The main perpetrators were the CIA, the British and Saudi intelligence services, the Israeli Mossad, and the intelligence services of other countries,” it read, indicating that “the planning and the execution of the majority of the riots were carried out by the Mossad in collaboration with terrorist organizations.”
French nationals confess to unrest in Iran
It is worth noting that Iran released a video on October 6 of two French citizens, Cecile Kohler and Jacque Paris, arrested for espionage in Tehran. The two are unionists with France’s National Federation of Education, Culture, and Vocational Training.
In the clips, Kohler confessed to being an “intelligence and operation agent of French foreign security service.” The two French nationals infiltrated into Iran as tourists on April 28 but turned out to be spies for Western intelligence agencies.
According to the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, the duo attempted to foment instability and social disorder earlier in June when some teachers took to the streets in peaceful protests to demand fair wages and better working conditions.
Macron’s ‘double standards’ exposed through social media
Some wrote on social media platforms against Macron’s anti-Iran statements, highlighting the French President’s double standards. Some reminded him of France’s colonial past, stating that Iran will teach him a lesson this time, while others slammed him for undertaking the mission of defending what he called a “revolution” to describe riots in a country while turning a blind eye to the crimes and slavery practices of Qatar.
Alors que la 🇫🇷est au bord de l'explosion #Macron se permet de donner des leçons à l'Iran. En effet, pas un mot sur le Qatar et ses crimes ses pratiques esclavagiste. La 🇫🇷 devient un autre islam, venu de celui qui a enlevé le sourire aux 🇫🇷 tartufferie, foutaises et incompétence
Translation: While France is on the verge of exploding, Macron allows himself to give Iran lessons, while not saying a word about Qatar and its crimes and slavery practices.
La france n'a décidemment pas retenu la leçon de ses nombreuses ingérences dans la politique interne des autres pays apparemment. L'iran va vous apprendre ça
Translation: France decided not to learn from its past interferences in the internal affairs of other countries. Iran will teach it that.
Now, what about the French protests, and how did Macron handle them? The President demonstrated utmost hypocrisy by criticizing Iran while his people were prevented from merely expressing themselves during the recent French protests.
Macron confidently defended the Iranian riots as a “revolution”, while designating the French protests as riots. He criticized the Iranian government’s “violent suppression” while allowing his security forces to crack down on protests against the deteriorating livelihood in France.
Moreover, 100 injuries were reported in clashes between environmentalists and French police at a protest on October 31 against the building of a sizable water reservoir for farm irrigation in western France, according to the authorities. About 60 gendarmes and 30 demonstrators were injured in the protest, which the authorities tried to suppress in the Sainte-Solin area.
Regimi fasciti, la Russia? Noooo la Francia: 🇫🇷⚡French police use tear gas and plastic bullets on protesting schoolchildren
On October 11, the police forcefully suppressed a protest by high school students at the Lycee Joliot curie school in Nanterre and arrested 14 students. pic.twitter.com/CbpGQn3gbW
Additionally, tens of thousands of French people took to the streets last month in protest of the government’s performance, Macron’s economic plans for the country, and the rising costs of living. The protests were predominantly led by the country’s leftist coalition.
So, technically, when people protest for their most basic rights in a European country, they are attacked and beaten under the pretext of putting an end to riots.
In stark contrast, the actual riots taking place in Iran, coupled with vandalism, violence, murders, and arson, which are in fact instigated by the very natural death of Mahsa Amini, are hailed as acts of “democracy” that ought to be protected by all means necessary, even if that leads to the violation of a country’s sovereignty and interference in its internal affairs through collaborators and proxies, such as the terrorist groups MEK and ISIS.
The aim behind all that is going on in the Islamic Republic of Iran is terrorizing and fomenting unrest in the West Asian country after all the development and progress it has achieved at all levels. Rising as a key influential player in the region, all eyes, whether friends’ or foes’, remain focused on the Islamic Republic either to build or to tear down bridges.
The civil unrest in Iran in response to the recent death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while she was waiting at a Tehran police station, although rooted in legitimate grievances, also bears the hallmark of a western-sponsored covert war, covering multiple fronts.
Mere days after the protests erupted on 16 September, the Washington Postrevealed that the Pentagon had initiated a wide-ranging audit of all its online psyops efforts, after a number of bot and troll accounts operated by its Central Command (CENTCOM) division – which covers all US military actions in West Asia, North Africa and South and Central Asia – were exposed, and subsequently banned by major social networks and online spaces.
The accounts were busted in a joint investigation carried out by social media research firm Graphika, and the Stanford Internet Observatory, which evaluated “five years of pro-Western covert influence operations.”
Published in late August, it attracted minimal English-language press coverage at the time, but evidently was noticed, raising concerns at the highest levels of the US government, prompting the audit.
While the Washington Post ludicrously suggested the government’s umbrage stemmed from CENTCOM’s egregious, manipulative activities which could compromise US “values” and its “moral high ground,” it is abundantly clear that the real problem was CENTCOM being exposed.
#OpIran
CENTCOM’s geographical purview includes Iran, and given the Islamic Republic’s longstanding status as a key US enemy state, it’s perhaps unsurprising that a significant proportion of the unit’s online disinformation and psychological warfare efforts were directed there.
A key strategy employed by US military psyops specialists is the creation of multiple sham media outlets publishing content in Farsi. Numerous online channels were maintained for these platforms, spanning Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and even Telegram.
In some cases too, fake journalists and pundits, with numerous “followers” on those platforms emerged, along with profile photos created via artificial intelligence.
For example, Fahim News claimed to provide “accurate news and information” on events in Iran, prominently publishing posts declaring “the regime uses all of its efforts to censor and filter the internet,” and encouraging readers to stick to online sources as a result.
Meanwhile, Dariche News claimed to be an “independent website unaffiliated with any group or organization,” committed to providing “uncensored and unbiased news” to Iranians within and without the country, in particular information on “the destructive role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in all the affairs and issues of Iran and the region.”
Their respective YouTube channels pumped out numerous short-form videos, presumably in the hope they would be mistaken for organic content, and go viral on other social networks. The researchers identified one instance in which media outlets elsewhere had embedded Dariche News content into articles.
An army of bots and trolls
Some of the fake news organizations published original material, but much of their output was recycled content from US government-funded propaganda outfits such as Radio Farda and Voice of America Farsi.
They also repurposed and shared articles from the British-based Iran International, which appears to receive arm’s length funding from Saudi Arabia, as did several fake personas attached to these outlets.
These personas frequently posted non-political content, including Iranian poetry and photos of Persian food, in order to increase their authenticity. They also engaged with real Iranians on Twitter, often joking with them about internet memes.
Pentagon bots and trolls used different narrative techniques and approaches in an attempt to influence perceptions and engender engagement. A handful promoted “hardliner” views, criticizing the Iranian government for insufficiently hawkish foreign policy while being excessively reformist and liberal domestically.
One such bogus user, a purported “political science expert,” accrued thousands of followers on Twitter and Telegram by posting content praising Shia Islam’s growing power in West Asia, while other “hardliner” accounts praised the late General Qassem Soleimani of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), slain in an illegal US drone strike in January 2020, as a martyr, and encouraged the wearing of hijabs.
The researchers state the purpose of these efforts was unclear, although an obvious explanation is the Pentagon sought to foster anti-government discontent among conservative Iranians, while creating lists of local “extremists” to monitor online.
Orchestrated opposition
Overwhelmingly though, Pentagon-linked accounts were viciously critical of the Iranian government, and the IRGC. Numerous Pentagon bots and trolls sought to blame food and medicine shortages on the latter, which was likened to ISIS, and posting videos of Iranians protesting and looting supermarkets captioned in Pashto, English, and Urdu.
More sober posts criticized Tehran for redistributing much-needed food to give to Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, while others highlighted embarrassing incidents, such as a reported power outage that caused the country’s chess team to lose an international online tournament.
Furthermore, multiple fake users claimed to seek “justice for the victims of #Flight752”, referring to the Ukraine International Airlines flight accidentally shot down by the IRGC in January 2020.
Using hashtags such as #PS752 and #PS752justice hundreds of times, they blamed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei personally for the incident.
Following the outbreak of war in Ukraine in February, these accounts used Persian versions of widely-trending hashtags #No_To_Putin and #No_To_War – themselves overwhelmingly disseminated on Twitter by pro-Ukraine bot and troll accounts, according to separate research.
The users condemned Khamenei’s verbal support of Putin and accused Iran of supplying drones to Moscow, which it was claimed were used to kill civilians.
They also pushed the narrative that Iran’s collusion with Russia would result in adverse political and economic repercussions for Tehran, while making unflattering comparisons between Khamenei and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“One has sold Iran to Russia and ordered their peoples’ murder,” one account tweeted. “The other is wearing a combat uniform alongside his people and has stopped the colonization of Ukraine by Russia with all his might.”
Scattershot fury
There were also cloak-and-dagger initiatives intended to damage Iran’s standing in neighboring countries, and undermine its regional influence. Much of this work seems to have been concerned with spreading panic and alarm, and creating a hostile environment for Iranians abroad.
For instance, accounts targeting audiences in Afghanistan claimed that Quds Force personnel were infiltrating Kabul posing as journalists in order to crush opposition to the Taliban. They also published articles from a US military-linked website that claimed on the basis of zero evidence that the bodies of dead refugees who’d fled to Iran were being returned to their families back home with missing organs.
Yet another damaging false narrative perpetuated by this cluster in late 2021 and early 2022 was that the IRGC was forcing Afghan refugees to join militias fighting in Syria and Yemen, and that those who refused were being deported.
Iraq was a country of particular interest to the Pentagon’s cyber warriors, with memes widely shared throughout Baghdad and beyond depicting IRGC influence in the country as a destructive disease, and content claiming Iraqi militias, and elements of the government, were effective tools of Tehran, fighting to further Iran’s imperial designs over the wider West Asia.
Militias were also accused of killing Iraqis in rocket strikes, engineering droughts by damaging water supply infrastructure, smuggling weapons and fuel out of Iraq and into Syria, and fuelling the country’s crystal meth epidemic.
Another cluster of Pentagon accounts focused on Iran’s involvement in Yemen, publishing content on major social networks critical of the Ansarallah-led de-facto government in Sanaa, accusing it of deliberately blocking humanitarian aid deliveries, acting as an unquestioning proxy of Tehran and Hezbollah, and closing bookstores, radio stations, and other cultural institutions.
Several of their posts blamed Iran for the deaths of civilians via landmine, on the basis Tehran may have supplied them.
Laying the ground
Other CENTCOM psychological warfare (psywar) narratives have direct relevance to the protests that have engulfed Iran.
There was a particular focus among one group of bots and trolls on women’s rights. Dozens of posts compared Iranian women’s opportunities abroad with those in Iran – one meme on this theme contrasted photos of an astronaut with a victim of violent spousal abuse – while others promoted protests against the hijab.
Alleged government corruption and rising living costs were also recurrently emphasized, particularly in respect of food and medicine – production of which in Iran is controlled by the IRGC, a fact CENTCOM’s online operatives repeatedly drew attention to.
Women’s rights, corruption, and the cost of living – the latter of which directly results from suffocating US sanctions – are all key stated motivating factors for the protesters.
Despite the rioters’ widespread acts of violence and vandalism, targeted at civilians and authorities alike, such as the destruction of an ambulance ferrying police officers away from the scene of a riot, they also claim to be motivated by human rights concerns.
Establishment and fringe journalists and pundits have dismissed as conspiracy theories, any suggestions that protests in Iran and beyond are anything other than organic and grassroots in nature.
Yet, clear proof of foreign direction and sponsorship abounds, not least in the very public face of the anti-hijab movement, Masih Alinejad, who for many years has encouraged Iranian women to ceremonially burn their headscarves from the confines of an FBI safehouse in New York City, then publicizes the images online, which travel round the world and back via social media and mainstream news outlets.
A regime-change war by other means
Alinejad’s activities have generated a vast amount of fawning and credulous media coverage, without a single journalist or outlet questioning whether her prominent role in the supposedly grassroots, locally-initiated protest movement is affiliated with foreign hostile interference.
This is despite Alinejad posing for photos with former CIA director Mike Pompeo, and receiving a staggering $628,000 in US federal government contracts since 2015.
Much of these funds flowed from the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the US government agency that oversees propaganda platforms such as Radio Free Europe, and Voice of America, the latter of which has produced a Farsi-language show fronted by Alinejad for seven years.
These clusters of social media posts may appear innocuous and authentic in an age of click-bait and viral fake news, yet when aggregated and analysed, they form a potent and potentially dangerous weapon which it turns out is one of many in the Pentagon’s regime-change arsenal.
The vile assassination of Darya Dugina, or terror at the gates of Moscow, is not really solved – as much as the FSB seems to have cracked the case in a little over 24 hours.
It’s now established that the main perpetrator, Azov batallion asset Natalia Vovk, did not act alone but had an Ukrainian sidekick, one Bogdan Tsyganenko, who provided false license plates for the Mini Cooper she was driving and helped to assemble a crude car bomb inside a rented garage in the southwest of Moscow.
According to the FSB, Vovk followed the Dugin family to the Tradition festival, and detonated the car bomb by remote control. The only missing pieces seem to be when the bomb was placed under Dugin’s SUV, and by whom; and whether such a sophisticated cross-border targeted assassination was aimed at both father and daughter.
As recalled by geopolitical analyst Manlio Dinucci, even the Los Angeles Times had made it public that “since 2015, the CIA has been training Ukrainian intelligence agents in a secret facility in the United States”.
Russian intel was more than aware of it. In fact, in an interview to Italian media in December 2021, Darya Dugina herself, based on FSB information, revealed, “they had identified 106 Ukrainian agents who were preparing attacks and massacres in 37 regions of Russia.”
Yet now a high-ranking member of Russian intel – who for obvious reasons must remain anonymous – has shed some information that, in his words, “will add the whole picture to this incident.”
It goes without saying that this is as much as he’s been allowed to reveal by his superiors. According to his analysis, “the tragedy was in the evening. In the next two days the FSB shared the whole data about SBU people who were involved with the incident. The majority of people think that it was a political kill. There are a lot of political kills in Ukraine but this tragedy has no political root. It is actually connected to organized crime money flow.”
The source asserts, “Darya was inside the patriotic movement and had connections in Moscow and Donetsk area. As you know there is a large money flow to the Donbas to restore the economy. This huge money flow provides an extreme incentive for criminal activity. Donetsk crime organizations are more dangerous than others because they operate in the war territory. Thus, someone was afraid that Darya was going to compromise money flow schemes by making this public.”
The source makes the important point that “Boris Nemtsov [a key actor in the liberal reforms imposed on post-Soviet Russia] was also killed by an organized crime group who was afraid that he might compromise some money flow schemes by making them public despite the fact that he was a quite powerful politician. Also [journalist] Anna Politkovkaya. She was given $900,000.00 in cash at Chubais election office during the election days for a political purpose. But some other guys knew it and grabbed the bag. She was slain.”
Cui bono?
Disclosure: I prize my friendship with Alexander Dugin – we met in person in Iran, Lebanon and Russia: a towering intellectual and extremely sensitive spirit, eons away from the crude stereotype of “Putin’s brain” or worse, “Putin’s Rasputin” slapped on him by Western media sub-zoology specimens. His vision of Eurasianism should be granted the merit of an ample intellectual discussion, a real dialogue of civilizations. But obviously the current woke incarnation of the collective West lacks the sophistication to engage in real debate. So he’s been demonized to Kingdom Come.
Darya, who I had the honor to meet in Moscow, was a young, shining star with an ebullient personality who graduated in History of Philosophy at Moscow University: her main research was on the political philosophy of late Neoplatonism. Obviously that had nothing to do with the profile of a ruthless operative capable of “compromising” money flows. She did not seem to understand finance, much less “dark” financial ops. What she did understand is how the Ukrainian battlefield mirrored a larger than life clash of civilizations: globalism against Eurasianism.
Back to the assertions by the Russian intel agent, they cannot be simply dismissed. For instance, at the time he came up with the definitive version of the hit on the Moskva – the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet.
As he emailed to a select audience, “the destruction of the flagship of the fleet was planned as a strategic task. Therefore, the operation of delivering the PKR [anti-ship missile] to Odessa took place in strict secrecy and under the cover of electronic warfare. As the ‘killer’ of the cruiser, they chose the PKR, but not the Neptune, as spread by Ukrainian propaganda, but the fifth-generation NSM PKR (Naval Strike Missile, range of destruction 185 km, developed by Norway-USA). The NSM is able to reach the target along a programmed route thanks to the GPS-adjusted INS, independently find the target by flying up to it at an altitude of 3-5 meters. When reaching the target, the NSM maneuvers and puts electronic interference. A highly sensitive thermal imager is used as a homing system, which independently determines the most vulnerable places of the target ship. A stationary container installation secretly delivered to Ukraine was used as a launcher. Thus, after the damage to the cruiser Moskva, which led to its flooding (…) the Black Sea Fleet, unfortunately, no longer has a single ship with a long-range anti-aircraft missile system. But not everything is so bad. A three-band radar ‘Sky-M’ is located in Crimea, which is capable of tracking all air targets at a range of up to 600 km.”
So there you go. The hit on the Moskva was a NATO operation, ordered by the US. The Russian Ministry of Defense knows – and the Americans know they know. Retaliation will come – in the time and place of Moscow’s choosing.
The same will apply to the response for Darya Dugina’s assassination. As it stands, we may have 3 hypotheses.
1. The FSB official story, pointing to the SBU in Kiev. The FSB is obviously revealing only a fraction of what they know.
2. The high-level Russian intel agent pointing towards organized crime.
3. The usual Zionist suspects – who loathe Dugin for his fierce anti-globalism: and that would point to a Mossad operation, who in many aspects enjoys way more qualified local intel in Russia than the CIA and MI6.
A fourth hypothesis would point to a perfect storm: a confluence of interests of all the above organized crime syndicates. Once again, resorting to hegemonic American pop culture, and to borrow from Twin Peaks; “The owls are not what they seem”. Black ops can also reveal themselves as much darker than what they seem.
During the period from 28 April to 11 May of 2022, the European Council on Foreign Relations polled 8,172 respondents who were in ten European countries, on the question “Who is mainly responsible for the outbreak of the war in Ukraine?” and here were the options that were presented:
Here is the actual historical evidence regarding the question that was polled:
A coup occurred in Ukraine during February 2014 under the cover of pro-EU demonstrations that the U.S. Government had been organizing ever since at least June 2011, which U.S. coup even top officials in the EU didn’t know about until they found out about it on 26 February 2014, right after this illegal coup had been successfully completed, and which coup shocked them to discover, but they kept silent about it instead of exposing it to the world. (This coup was subsequently called “the most blatant coup in history”, by the head of the ‘private CIA’ firm Stratfor.)
The main evidence of the coup was a phone-conversation on 27 January 2014 between U.S. President Barack Obama’s appointee to plan and run the coup, Victoria Nuland, speaking to Obama’s appointed Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt in Kiev, in which Nuland selected whom for Pyatt to get appointed to lead the post-coup Ukraine. Here is that phone-conversation, and here is its transcript along with explanations (to enable understanding of whom she was referring to in it, and why).
The second main evidence displayed that it was a specifically U.S. Government coup (and that the EU were merely America’s vassal-nations who didn’t know about it until it was already over) was a phone-conversation between the EU’s Foreign-Affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, and her investigator in Ukraine reporting to her from Kiev on 26 February 2014, to tell her what he had found had actually happened there, Urmas Paet. Here is that phone-conversation, and here is its transcript along with explanations (to enable understanding of what he was telling her, and of what her response to it indicated — that though it was a disappointment to her, she wouldn’t let the fact that it had been a coup affect EU policies).
And here is yet more evidence. It indicates that the main purpose of the coup was for the U.S. ultimately to place its nuclear missiles on Ukraine’s border a mere five-minute-missile-flight-distance away from being able to nuke Moscow in order to prevent Russia from being able to retaliate against a planned blitz-U.S. nuclear attack. And it also documents that a more immediate U.S. goal was to steal Russia’s major naval base, which is in Crimea, and to turn it into a U.S. naval base. But Russia was able to block that part of the plan. However, the main objective, to place U.S. missiles five minutes away from Moscow, remains unwavering.
On 17 December 2021, Russia delivered to both the U.S. Government and its NATO anti-Russian alliance Russia’s red-line demands to stop further aggressing against Russia; and, on 7 January 2022, both America and its NATO finally and clearly said no to those demands (which were basically for U.S./NATO finally to honorits verbal commitments on the basis of which Mikhail Gorbachev had ended the Soviet Union in 1991). On February 24th, Russia invaded Ukraine, in order to prevent U.S. nuclear missiles from ever being posted in Ukraine, just five minutes away, at the nearest place anywhere, to Moscow on Russia’s borders.
This was like the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, but this time with America posing the unacceptable nuclear threat (not the Soviet Union) — and just five minutes away (instead of being 30 minutes away).
Does all of this evidence prove that Europeans have been profoundly deceived? How can it not? Have not even the most stringent of standards for a criminal conviction been met in this particular case? In addition, there have been participants in the coup who have publicly admitted that it was a coup (even though they didn’t know what the top of it had been). What more evidence could possibly be needed in order to conclude that Europeans have been profoundly deceived?
So, please spread this article (with its linked-to evidences) to all of your European friends and acquaintances, so that they too will know.
Reposts are welcomed with the reference to ORIENTAL REVIEW.
All Global Research articles can be read in51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
“I am saying to you today, that for the first time, Pakistan’s policies won’t be for the few rich people, it will be for the poor, for our women, for our minorities, whose rights are not respected. My whole aim will be to protect our lower classes and to bring them up.”
In the early hours of April 9, the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi, faced a no-confidence motion in the country’s National Assembly resulting in his removal from power. This was the first time ever that an official of his stature was removed in such a manner. [2]
What makes this move so geopolitically significant was the unique significance of this state as a square on the tabletop of the grand chessboard between the United States, and Russia and China.
On the one hand, Pakistan has traditionally used the country’s military and the intelligence services, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), as partners. Over the course of the last twenty years, the Islamic State was a leading local site from which to launch air and ground operations in favor of America’s War on Terrorism. And as Michel Chossudovsky wrote back at the time of the infamous September 11th terrorist attacks, the ISI played a key role in acting as a “go-between” between the CIA and the Islamic jihadists in Afghanistan going back to 1979. This would in large part lead to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. [3][4]
On the other hand, Pakistan has gained partners both in Russia and in China. There was a vital 1100km gas pipeline project between Lahore and Karachi in which the goods would be provided from Russia. And in November of 2014, Russia and Pakistan signed a defense cooperation pact followed by a military-technical cooperation agreement all of which would serve toward “Strengthening of mutual trust and international security, counter-terrorist and arms control activities.” [5][6][7]
And then there was China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative, which would ultimately help undermine dependence on the Strait of Malacca and building a conduit between China and West Asia and the Middle East. [8]
These alliances have been tightening under the new leader Khan. On the same night Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized the Ukraine intervention, Khan had been meeting with him to discuss a wide variety of subjects including economic and energy cooperation. He did not announce a formal disapproval of the intervention in Ukraine then, nor did he do it when he returned home. [9][10]
Did Khan then cross the rubicon and slot himself in the bad books of Washington? Maybe it’s a coincidence, but in the lead-up to the National Assembly vote of no confidence, Prime Minister Khan cited the following quote of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu as evidence the U.S. was behind this move:
“If Prime Minister Imran Khan remained in office, then Pakistan will be isolated from the United States and we will take the issue head on; but if the vote of no-confidence succeeds, all will be forgiven.” [11]
Was this yet another plot of regime change by the United States? And how would the people coming out in unprecedented number in support of their removed Prime Minister prevail in his return to power? We will examine these questions on this edition of the Global Research News Hour.
In Part One of our series, we will talk to Professor Junaid Ahmad, who has a background in Pakistan about the details of the coup, the reasons for Khan to go, and the resulting push back from the people of Pakistan. And in our second half hour, we present a repeat broadcast from October of 2012 of an interview with Professor Michel Chossudovsky, founder/director of the Centre for Research on Globalization. His talk mostly deals with Afghanistan and 9/11, although he touches also on Pakistan’s then pivotal role in the military-intelligent quagmire surrounding the whole affair.
Junaid S. Ahmad teaches Religion, Law, and Politics and is the Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Decoloniality. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Michel Chossudovsky is the author of thirteen books including The Globalization of War: America’s Long War Against Humanity (2015), and the international best America’s “War on Terrorism” Second Edition (2005). He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization.
CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.
WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.
Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.
CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am.
Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.
I am not a technical-military man, but I have very strong military connections and a keen interest in military history, both Russian and Western, and also in geopolitics, having lectured on it. I lived in Soviet Russia in the 1970s, experienced its weaknesses, its strengths and also its hollowness, understanding that it would eventually fall, for even then nobody believed in Communism any more. All continued by inertia. Collapse was inevitable. I also know contemporary Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltics and Moldova very well. In fact, I was in Kiev only last October, being shown the SBU/CIA Secret Police building in the centre and being told to hush my voice as we walked past. No-one wanted to visit the torture-chambers in the basement.
The special operation to free the Russian Donbass from Fascist oppression which began on 24 February 2022 meant a war between the Russian Federation and the Kiev regime, which under Western pressure would refuse to back down. This would inevitably mean a war between Russia and NATO, even if the actual battleground would still be limited to the Ukraine. I firmly believe that the Russian government knew all this and foresaw the consequences, that the West would intervene with all the economic, political, military and technological might of the US/NATO military complex. This knowledge was why the Donbass had had to wait for liberation for eight long and grim years. Russia had had to get ready for the inevitable very carefully.
The Preparation
Let us recall how Soviet Russia fell through treason, ending up dissolving itself on 25 December 1991. In October 1993, 4,000 US Marines (I know one of them) were flown to a base outside Moscow. This was just in case the popular rising against ‘democracy’ and the drunkard Western puppet and traitor Yeltsin went Russia’s way and against the neocons and their privatisers’ ‘shock therapy’. The repression of the October bid for freedom left 5,000 Russian dead. The US support had been there, though it did not have to be used, as there were enough Russian traitors to do the dirty deed themselves.
Russian weakness and internal treachery was why the Russian government betrayed Serbia in the 1990s and Libya in 2011 – it was far too weak to stand up to the West. After the Crimea democratically returned to Russia after 60 years (1954-2014) with the internationally-observed referendum in 2014, the West still applied illegal sanctions to Russia. Then Moscow knew that any action to free the Ukraine from the Western junta in Kiev would have to be prepared very carefully, for the sanctions would only be multiplied. What preparations had to be made?
Firstly, there was the diplomatic and trade front. Allies had to be brought onside, in Eurasia with China, Iran, India, Turkey (Russia rescuing Erdogan from the US assassination attempt at the last moment in July 2016), Hungary, then, from Venezuela to Brazil, Latin America and then, from Egypt to South Africa, Africa. As regards the Western world, especially the EU, there was a chance to present the Russian point of view through RT, as at that time Western censorship was not yet total.
Secondly, there was the modernisation of the Russian Armed Forces to be undertaken, with new, non-nuclear weapons, hypersonic missiles, drones, electronic technology, some of which would be tested out in Syria.
Thirdly, there was the policy of import substitution to be implemented in order to make Russia independent in case of further illegal Western sanctions.
Why Did It Start on 24 February 2022?
There were four triggers which sparked off the special operation on 24 February.
Firstly, the Zelensky regime wanted the Ukraine to become a NATO member. The weak post-Communist Russian Federation had already made that mistake many times, allowing Eastern Europe, notably the Baltics, Poland and Romania, to join that aggressive protection racket. In that way the post-War buffer states of Eastern Europe, providing a demilitarised zone for Russia, ended. After all, if you have been invaded from the West very regularly for 800 years, leaving 27 million of your citizens dead in the most recent invasion, would you not also want a demilitarised buffer zone to protect you? Post-War offensive NATO was the only reason why the defensive Warsaw Pact had to be set up.
Secondly, with missiles on American bases in Poland and Romania and NATO troops smugly parading at the Estonian border with Russia, the Ukraine then threatened to obtain nuclear arms. Did Zelensky, reading his American script as a true actor, really expect Russia not to react to this?
Thirdly, the US, not without the help of its local pronconsul, the cocaine-addled Hunter Biden, had set up some thirty biolabs in the Ukraine. Their target? To find genetically-concocted viruses to infect Russians. Would Russia not defend itself?
Fourthly, though possibly this may not have been discovered by Russia until a day or two after the special operation began, though possibly they knew perfectly well beforehand, the NATO-manipulated, instructed and armed Kiev Army had a plan to invade the Russian Donbass and genocide its people. Had they succeeded, it is doubtful they would have stopped at the Russian border. Truss, the supremely stupid British Foreign Secretary, let slip that NATO already had Russian Rostov and Voronezh in its sights.
After eight years of attempts to negotiate, which Russia used to buy time to prepare for the War in case of Western idiocy, it was only because there was no alternative that it sent in some troops in an initially limited military operation.
A Fight for Survival
This is now a war of attrition. Russia has to destroy all Western/NATO arms and troops that get into the Ukraine from Poland or elsewhere as soon as possible, quicker than they can be sent. And this must go on until the West caves in, because so much Western war material will have been destroyed at huge financial loss to itself.
Russia is also relying on the self-imposed economic problems that the West faces. The West, and not just the EU, is already suffering economically. There could easily be popular uprisings as a result of inflation and the incredible cost of energy. This will hit very hard next autumn and winter. And the embargos on Russian grain and fertilisers have not hit yet. Wait till food costs go up by 100% in Western countries, instead of just going up by 10% as now: then you will have rioting in the streets and looting of supermarkets. As for the Ukrainian currency, it is worthless, propped up by the IMF run by the US, which in 2014 stole the $15 billion of Ukrainian gold reserves in expectation. Otherwise, the Ukraine would long ago have defaulted.
The stakes are huge for all. China stands behind Russia because Russia is like a shield for it. If Russia falls, then China is next and it knows that, which is why it supports Russia. The White Peril will next head towards China, making the British-imposed mass suicide of the so-called ‘Opium Wars’ look like a picnic. There will be no taking back of Taiwan in the near future, instead there will be Harvard economists and merchant bankers taking power and grasping billions in Beijing, as in Russia after 1991. And then, amid civil wars, millions and millions of Chinese will take the path of suicide, exactly as happened in 1990s Russia. Make no mistake, this is a battle for survival of the world’s seven billion against the one billion.
This is why today Russia remains firm, with 80% of the population behind President Putin, unlike in the Western world where it is rare to find a leader who has more than 30% of support. Why? It is simple: President Putin loves his country, he is a patriot: Western leaders are not patriots, they are venal mercenaries, no more so than the US puppet governments in Eastern Europe. The only Russians against President Putin are the traitors, recruited by the CIA, and there are still quite a few in Moscow and elsewhere, but we will not here name names.
True, many of the fifth column of traitors in Moscow have already left or are leaving, Tel Aviv being a popular destination for them. For Russia this is not some localised conflict on its borders, as it still appears to most Western people, lulled into delusions by their Goebbels propaganda ministries (‘media’). For Russia this is just as much a fight for survival as World War Two. This is the Third Great Patriotic War. Let me explain.
For those who do not know, the 1812 invasion of Russia by Napoleon and his multinational barbarian hordes is known as the First Patriotic War. The 1941 invasion by Hitler and his multinational barbarian hordes is known as the Second Patriotic War. It is our view that just as the 1941-1945 defensive War was called the Second Patriotic War, the 2022- ? defensive War will be known as the Third Patriotic War. Warsaw and Bucharest, Berlin and Paris, pay attention.
When Did It All Begin?
When did it all begin? Actually, it was not on 24 February 2022. Some, grudgingly, will admit that it was the US-run regime change of 2014 with its $5 billion price-tag for the hapless US taxpayer. Grudgingly, some might admit that it goes back even further to November 1989, the Fall of the Wall. Some might suggest two generations before that, in September 1939, when Stalin took the poison-chalice of the western Ukraine, Galicia, from Poland and had to fight a CIA-supplied war there against Fascist partisans until 1958.
Some might suggest exactly 100 years ago in 1922, when the brain-syphilitic Lenin transferred from Russia the southern and eastern half of the present Ukraine to the Ukraine, as he wanted the pro-Communist industrial proletariat of the south and east to counterbalance the real Ukrainian agricultural north and west. But we could also go back to 1914, the invasion of the Russian Empire by Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey. This is exactly 100 years before the 2014 US-orchestrated colour-revolution in Kiev, with its Lithuanian snipers on the roof of the American Embassy in Kiev murdering Ukrainian policemen and then the US blaming ‘repression’ on the democratically-elected pro-Russian government.
Conclusion: A Fight to the End
Russia must win this War against NATO. However, the last thing Russia wants is a nuclear war, however much some fools in the West talk that up. And however tempting as targets the 1,000 or so US bases around the world may be, Russia certainly does not want the war to spread outside the current Ukrainian territory. If Russia does not win, the Russian Federation will be humiliated and dismantled and become just another group of colonies for Western asset-strippers and slavers. Then the British dream for its 1917 coup d’etat, turned into a nightmare because the stupid dream permitted Bolshevism to come to power, will become real.
After that, China will fall next and then the rest of the still free, if for the moment impoverished and exploited, world will fall just like dominos into neo-colonial Western hands. And that will be the end of the world under a US Global Dictatorship, euphemistically known as ‘the Unipolar World’. We are not ready for that. We prefer to fight. As President Putin has said, a world without Russia is not one we wish to live in. As we have said before, this is our ONLY chance to work towards a Union of Sovereign (NOT Soviet) Social (NOT Socialist) Republics and an Alliance of countries which favour Prosperity and Justice, not Poverty and Injustice.
A Baloch suicide bombing targeting Chinese workers in Karachi comes a mere month after the US-backed ousting of PM Imran Khan. Pakistan is a critical BRI hub in Beijing’s vast Eurasian connectivity project, and it looks like CPEC is the ultimate target of this disruption.
Balochistan can only benefit from Chinese infrastructure investment in the immensely impoverished Pakistani province. But an uptick in attacks on Chinese workers by militant separatists suggests that external agendas may be in play. Photo Credit: The Cradle
This is the concise story of how a suicide bombing may carry the potential to subvert the whole, ongoing, complex process of Eurasia integration.
Recently, the Balochistan Liberation Movement (BLA) had released an ISIS-influenced video threatening “Chinese officials and installations” in Pakistan’s vast province.
Yet what actually happened in late April was a suicide bombing outside of the University of Karachi’s Confucius Institute – not Balochistan – and targeting Chinese teachers, not “officials and installations.”
The suicide bomber was a woman, Shaari Baloch, alias Bramsh, who detonated her vest just as a van carrying Institute staff members approached the entrance. The attack was claimed by the BLA’s Majeed Brigade, which stressed that this was the first time they used a female suicide bomber.
Shaari Baloch was a schoolteacher with a Zoology degree, enrolled to pursue a second Master’s degree, married to a dentist and professor at Makran Medical College in her hometown of Turbat, in southern Balochistan. Her three brothers include a doctor, a deputy director at a government-funded project, and a civil servant. So Shaari Baloch was far from being a mere destitute online-indoctrinated Salafi-jihadi.
The Pakistani Foreign Office had to stress the obvious: this was a “direct attack on the Pakistan-China friendship and ongoing cooperation,” always qualified, by both sides, as “iron brothers.” Pakistan is an absolutely key node of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to connect the Eurasian landmass.
This was no standard terrorist attack. Its reverberations are immense – not only in one of Pakistan’s provinces and South Asia regionally, but for the whole of Eurasia. It may be a harbinger of serious turbulence ahead.
Shaari Baloch’s act of desperation should be seen, to start with, as the embodiment of a deep-seated Baloch alienation felt by the educated middle classes, from lawyers and traders to students, constantly permeating the complex relationship with a distant Islamabad. A significant part of the puzzle is that 26 Pakistani intel agencies never saw it coming.
Baloch leaders instantly made the point that the best possible reaction would be to call a Grand Jirga – modeled on the Shahi Jirga practiced at the time of the partition of the subcontinent – that would unite all tribal elders to address the most pressing local grievances.
Round up the usual suspects
Balochistan, geostrategically, is as valuable as rare earth minerals: an immense desert positioned east of Iran, south of Afghanistan, and boasting three Arabian Sea ports, including Gwadar, practically at the mouth of the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
Comprising nearly 48 percent of Pakistan’s area, Balochistan is rich in uranium and copper, potentially very rich in oil, produces more than one-third of Pakistan’s natural gas, and sparsely populated. The Baloch account for the majority of the population, followed by Pashtuns. Quetta, the large provincial capital, for years was considered Taliban Central by the Pentagon.
Gwadar, the port built by China on the southwestern Balochistan coast of the Arabian Sea – directly across from Oman – is the absolute key node of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and doubles as the essential link in a never-ending pipeline saga. The Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline, previously known as the “peace pipeline,” with plans to cross from Iranian to Pakistani Balochistan (India still has not made up its mind) is absolute anathema to Washington since the George W. Bush era.
CPEC remains an endless source of controversy even inside Pakistan. Beyond all the links planned between Gwadar and Xinjiang by the year 2030, most of this ambitious connectivity corridor deals with energy, industrial zones and road and rail projects in different parts of the country – an overall improvement of its lagging infrastructure. The Chinese, for years, have quipped that in fact “all of Pakistan is a corridor.”
The US security establishment, predictably, has been planning for years to instrumentalize an insurgency in Balochistan to – what else – “disrupt” first the possibility of an energy pipeline from Gwadar to Xinjiang, and then the overall CPEC project. Usual suspects like the US’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) are very much present in Balochistan. WikiLeaks had revealed a great deal of the game back in 2015.
A Carnegie Institute report noted how “many Baloch nationalist leaders now come from the urbanized districts of Kech, Panjgur, and Gwadar (and to a lesser extent from Quetta, Khuzdar, Turbat, Kharan, and Lasbela). They are well connected to Karachi and Gulf cities, where tribal structures are non-existent. In fact, while there is violence all over the province, the insurgency seems to concentrate mainly in these urbanized areas.”
Suicide bomber Shaari Baloch came from Turbat, the province’s second largest city, where the BLA is very much active. From the point of view of the usual suspects, these are choice assets, especially after the death of important tribal leaders such as Akbar Bugti. The report duly noted how “the educated and middle-class Baloch youth are in the forefront” of the insurgency.
The anti-China instrumentalization of the BLA also ties in with the regime-change parliament operation in Islamabad that recently deposed former prime minister Imran Khan, who was always a fierce adversary of the American “Forever War” in Afghanistan. Khan resolutely denied Pakistan’s use in “over the horizon” US military ops: that was one of the key reasons for him to be ousted.
Now, with a pliant, Washington-approved, new regime in town, a miracle has just happened: the Pentagon is about to clinch a formal agreement with Islamabad to use Pakistani airspace to – what else – keep interfering in Afghanistan.
Beijing, as well as other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), won’t be amused. Only weeks before the white coup, Khan had met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and once again underscored how Pakistan and China are “iron brothers.”
Imran Khan was a serious thorn in the side of the west because he kept impressing on Pakistanis that the Forever War in Afghanistan was militarily unwinnable. He knew how all the proxies – including the BLA – that destabilized both Afghanistan and Pakistan for decades were, and continue to be, part of US covert operations.
Not an Iran-India plot
Balochistan is as deeply tribal as the Pashtun tribal areas. Local tribal chiefs can be as ultra-conservative as Islamabad is neglectful (and they are not exactly paragons of human rights either). Most tribes though bow to Islamabad’s authority – except, first and foremost, the Bugti.
And then there’s the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which both Washington and London used to brand as a terrorist group, and then forgot about it. The BLA operated for years out of Kandahar in Afghanistan (only two hours away from Quetta), and already in the previous decade – simultaneous to the announcement of the New Silk Roads and CPEC – stressed it was getting ready to attack non-Balochis (code for the government in Islamabad as well as Chinese foreigners).
Balochis are inclined to consider the BLA as a resistance group. But Islamabad has always denied it, saying their support is not beyond 10 percent of the provincial population.
An ample controversy has raged in Pakistan for years on whether the BLA was totally hijacked by the CIA, the MI6 and the Mossad. During a 2006 visit to Iran, I was prevented from going to the Sistan-Balochistan province in southeast Iran because, according to Tehran’s version, infiltrated CIA from Pakistani Balochistan were involved in covert, cross-border attacks. It was no secret to anyone in the region that since 9/11 the US virtually controlled the Baloch air bases in Dalbandin and Panjgur.
In October 2001, while waiting for an opening to cross to Kandahar from Quetta, I spent quite some time with a number of BLA associates and sympathizers. They described themselves as “progressive, nationalist, anti-imperialist” (and that would make them difficult to be co-opted by the US). They were heavily critical of “Punjabi chauvinism,” and always insisted the region’s resources belong to Balochis first; that was their rationale for attacks on gas pipelines.
Stressing an atrocious, provincial literacy rate of only 16 percent (“It’s government policy to keep Balochistan backward”), they resented the fact that most people still lacked drinking water. They claimed support from at least 70 percent of the Baloch population (“Whenever the BLA fires a rocket, it’s the talk of the bazaars”). They also claimed to be united, and in coordination with Iranian Balochis. And they insisted that “Pakistan had turned Balochistan into a US cantonment, which affected a lot the relationship between the Afghan and Baloch peoples.”
Two decades later, and after the whole ISIS saga in Syria and Iraq, it’s a completely different story. BLA sympathizers may still be prepared to remain within a Pakistani confederation, although with infinitely more autonomy. But now they seem to be willing to use western imperial help to strike not only at the central government in Islamabad, but also at the “near abroad” foreign profiteer (China).
After the Karachi suicide bombing, a narrative started to emerge in some Pakistani circles that Iran and India were in cahoots to destabilize Balochistan.
That makes absolutely no sense. Both Tehran and Islamabad are tightly linked to Beijing through several nodes of the New Silk Roads. Iran would draw less than zero benefit to collude with India to destabilize an area that borders Afghanistan, especially when the SCO is fully engaged in incorporating Kabul into the Eurasia integration process. Moreover, the IPI has its best chances ever to come to fruition in the near future, consolidating an umbilical cord from Southwest Asia to South Asia.
During the late years of Barack Obama’s administration, the BLA, though still a fringe group with a political wing and a military wing, was regrouping and rearming, while the chief minister of Balochistan, Nawab Raisani, was suspected of being a CIA asset (there was no conclusive proof).
Already at the time, the fear in Islamabad was that the government had taken its eye off the Balochistan ball – and that the BLA was about to be effectively used by the US for balkanization purposes. That seems to be the picture right now. Yet the heart of the matter – glaringly expressed by the Karachi suicide bombing – is that Islamabad still remains impervious to the key Baloch grievance: we want to profit from our natural wealth, and we want autonomy.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Prosecutor General, colleagues,
Earlier this year, we celebrated 300 years of the Russian Prosecution Service, once again emphasising its significant role in the history of the Fatherland, the development of our society and the building of the foundations of a rule-of-law state.
During the annual expanded meeting of the Prosecutor General’s Office Board today, we will sum up the results of your work in 2021, considering the current situation, and will discuss objectives for the short and long term.
I should note that over this latest period, the prosecution bodies have maintained positive momentum with respect to a whole range of key performance indicators. Prompt intervention by prosecutors helped to protect the social rights of over 1 million citizens, including paying almost 20.5 billion rubles in wage arrears.
Prosecutors of different ranks receive members of the public, showing a higher effectiveness rate. The number of appointments increased by more than 11 percent last year, exceeding 1 million people. Statistics show that the majority of issues reported by people were resolved. The Prosecutor General personally took charge of the most critical cases.
Here is what I would like to say in this connection. There are a number of appeals filed by our citizens concerning the issues they raise regularly but which often take years to resolve – this is what we must focus our attention on. I would like to say that prosecutors’ efforts on a specific issue are not always effective for objective reasons or because of [the lack of] funding or because of the regional and local authorities’ policies. Nevertheless, members of the prosecution service must work together with regional and municipal teams, involving the federal authorities to deal with the essential aspects of the problems each particular person is facing. I ask you not to take a formal attitude to these matters, limiting your work to reporting on the prosecutor’s response measures taken, but to really work towards the settlement of problems at the given level.
Next, it is largely thanks to your contribution that the number of unjustified inspections of businesses has decreased. You have cut short the propaganda of extremism in the information space and the illegal activities of some NGOs.
The prosecution agencies must continue improving their performance in the key areas, giving more attention to the protection of legitimate civil rights and freedoms, including social and labour rights.
Of course, I simply must mention the unprecedented sanctions pressure the Western countries have put on Russia over recent years. As all of us are aware, this pressure increased after we launched the special military operation to support the Donbass people’s republics.
The Government and our regions are taking large-scale measures to support the citizens of Russia, and we must ensure the uninterrupted operation of these social protection mechanisms at all levels. I am referring, in part, to the timely transfer of pensions, payments and benefits to low-income and large families, and the enhancement of employment assistance programmes.
In this connection, I would like to ask prosecutors, acting within the framework of their authority, to develop a special system to oversee compliance with laws during the implementation of support measures for people and all the key, socially-oriented programmes.
The state is also there to support the key manufacturing sectors, which employ millions of people in our country. The Russian economy has everything it takes to operate in a stable and uninterrupted manner in this new reality.
At the same time, it is the freedom of entrepreneurship and flexible business mechanisms that ensure that the market gets the goods it needs, help mitigate deficits and smooth out price surges. I would like to urge you to make sure that all the rights of entrepreneurs are complied with and to create a business-friendly environment for them.
However, if someone abuses their monopoly or engages in behind-the-scenes price-fixing, both the anti-trust watchdogs and the prosecutor’s office must respond in a timely and concise manner.
Russian businesses have been acting with a lot of dignity these days. Many small and medium-sized companies have yet to recover from the pandemic, but they are now facing new barriers related to the aggression against Russia, which took on the form of sanctions. In fact, aggression through sanctions – this the only way I can define what it is going on. In this situation, we need to do everything to support Russian businesses and use all the available means to this effect, including by reducing the administrative burden.
Of course, there are spheres that require inspections, especially on matters affecting people’s lives and health. In all other situations, we decided to declare a moratorium.
We need to let Russian businesses and those of the foreign companies who continue, against all odds, performing their obligations in good faith, work in peace. We need to shield businesses from excessive, unjustified and unnecessary controls. We have all the instruments we need to do this.
Of course, we must be firm in curbing any impairment of rights of businesses receiving state support or preferences. The system to support entrepreneurs must operate in all clarity and create a business-friendly environment.
Colleagues,
I would like to specifically discuss the tasks facing the prosecution agencies and the entire law enforcement sphere in connection with the special military operation in Donbass and Ukraine.
The special operation has exposed multiple violations of international law by Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups as well as foreign mercenaries. We are referring to extreme atrocities such as killing civilians, using people, including children, as human shields, and other crimes. Flagrant provocations against our Armed Forces, also with the use of resources such as foreign media and social networks, also require a thorough investigation.
At the same time, it is also necessary to suppress any crimes on the territory of the Russian Federation in the most decisive manner. This morning, the Federal Security Service thwarted a terrorist group that planned to attack and assassinate a well-known Russian television journalist. They will definitely deny this now, but the facts and evidence are irrefutable.
In this regard, I would like to say the following. To our surprise, high-ranking diplomats in Europe and the United States are urging their Ukrainian satellites to use their resources to win on the battlefield. Our partners in the United States are using such strange diplomacy – diplomats are even calling for this. But as they realise that this is impossible, they try to achieve a different objective instead – to split Russian society, to destroy Russia from within. But here, too, there is a hitch; this hasn’t worked either. Our society has shown maturity and solidarity; it supports our Armed Forces and supports our efforts to ensure Russia’s ultimate security and help the people living of Donbass. This actually means support for our people living in Donbass. So when they failed to achieve their information goals – they continued to fool their citizens of course, using their monopoly position in their countries’ information space and in some other countries, but they failed here, on the territory of Russia – they switched to terror, to arranging the murder of our journalists.
In this regard, it should be noted of course that we know the names of all the Western handlers, of all members of Western services, primarily the CIA, who are working with Ukrainian security agencies. Apparently, they are giving them such advice. This is their attitude towards the rights of journalists, towards the dissemination of information; this is their attitude towards human rights in general. All they care about is their own rights, some cherishing imperial ambitions, others holding on to their colonial past in the old-fashioned way. But this will not work in Russia.
I am asking the Investigative Committee of Russia, and all investigative bodies to record such crimes in detail, to identify their masterminds and perpetrators, to initiate criminal cases and bring them to trial, as they should. Prosecutors and investigators should carefully study these and all other facts, collect the necessary evidence to make a case, which should be used in court proceedings, including at the international level. Let me emphasise that such evidence should be accumulated for all the crimes committed by neo-Nazis and their accomplices, starting with the coup d’état in Kiev in 2014, which paved the way for civil war, bloodshed and violence in Ukraine.
Next point. We should pay special attention to people arriving to Russia from Ukraine, from the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics. As of today, they number nearly one million, including over 100,000 children. People who had to leave their homes are not always in possession of the documents needed to get material aid, medical support, and to enrol children in schools or kindergartens. I urge the Prosecutor General’s Office to render these people legal assistance and protect their rights, including by reviewing their applications within the shortest possible timeframes. It is hard for these people, help them.
Colleagues,
As before, coordinating the law enforcement agencies in the fight against crime remains among the absolute and most important tasks facing the prosecution service. Yes, the fact that an almost 100-percent solve rate has been achieved with regard to the gravest crimes can be described as a good result.
But the statistics are not so good as far as the solve rate for thefts and fraud is concerned. I discussed this in detail at the Interior Ministry’s board meeting in February. I would like you to offer proposals on how to change the situation and improve the solve rate for these crimes.
The prosecutors should also be more proactive in fighting extremism. It is important to consolidate the positive results achieved in this area and put a firm stop to any actions directed at interfering in Russia’s internal affairs from the outside, destabilising our society, and fomenting xenophobia, militant nationalism and interfaith enmity. And, of course, it is necessary to respond without delay to any instances of spreading on the internet radical ideologies and false information that provoke violations of law and order or preparations for illegal actions. They are often organised from abroad, and this is done in different ways, with either information or money coming in from those parts.
As before, protecting the rights of minors is among the priorities of the prosecution agencies. It is necessary to follow more closely and impose more severe punishments for crimes committed against children and adolescents, as well as to take additional measures to radically reduce the number of offences in this area, including pre-emptive and preventive measures.
Next, we should focus on checking how the federal budget funds are spent, primarily funds allocated for federal and national projects, as part of our fight against corruption. But, of course, we should not forget about the municipal level and the regional level, and also keep an eye on the funds spent to fulfil the state defence order and develop the defence industry.
You should pay close attention to some other important areas, including skilled support for government cases in court, environmental protection and management, and oversight of compliance with the rights of inmates of detention facilities.
I am confident that the prosecutors are well aware of the scope and importance of the tasks facing their agency and will do all they can for their effective implementation.
Colleagues, I want to thank the heads and the personnel of the prosecution service for their dedicated work.
I wish you new, significant achievements. Thank you very much.
❗️ The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (https://t.me/mod_russia_en) held an urgent briefing, (https://t.me/MFARussia/12376) detailing a provocation against the Russian Federation prepared by the USA and NATO with the accusation of using nuclear, biological and chemical weapons
💬 The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation possesses the information related to the preparation of provocations by the United States of America in order to accuse the Russian Armed Forces of using chemical, biological or tactical nuclear weapons.
There are three scenarios to be applied in order to accuse the Russian Federation.
👉 The first one is a ‘staged incident under a false flag’ that is the most probable.
👉 The second one refers to a ‘Maximally covert use of weapons of mass destruction in small volumes’ for neutralising the will power and the capacity to resist within the fulfilment of a particular operational task.
👉 The third and the least probable one is the ‘overt use of weapons of mass destruction at a combat area’.
The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation possesses the information related to the preparation of provocations by the United States of America in order to accuse the Russian Armed Forces of using chemical, biological or tactical nuclear weapons. This plan has already been developed and represents a response to the success of Russia in conducting the special military operation.
▫️Only in March and April senior officials of the Western countries have been making regular provocative ‘warning’ statements. The mass media propagate the points about the possibility of using weapons of mass destructions by Russia.
▫️For example, the National Security Advisor J.Sullivan has commented on Biden’s words that the USA “in kind” to the possible use of weapons of mass destructions by our country. And on February 27 the American permanent representative to the UN Greenfield announced an intention of Russia to use any instruments ‘under a false flag’, including chemical and biological weapons for intimidating the Ukrainian population and the international community.
▫️Against this background, the US State Department considered positively the transfer of up to 400 sets of personal protection equipment, 390 NBC reconnaissance devices and 15 ‘Stryker’ reconnaissance vehicles.
Staged use of WMD is aimed at accusing Russia of using prohibited weapons with the subsequent implementation of the so-called «Syrian scenario», in which the state is subjected to economic and political isolation, as well as exclusion from international organizations, including the UN Security Council.
▫️A possible way forward is to put pressure on the countries loyal to and friendly to the Russian Federation, including India and China, to compel them to impose sanctions on our country.
❗️We would like to recall that the Russian Federation completely destroyed its chemical arsenal on September 27, 2017, which is confirmed by an OPCW certificate. In turn, the United States, with its strong financial, economic and technical potential, is the only country party to the Chemical Weapons Convention that still possesses an impressive arsenal of chemical warfare agents (672.5 tons).
▫️CIA Director Burns’ statement about Russia’s possible use of tactical nuclear weapons is absurd. With the current level of technical equipment of the international nuclear test monitoring system, it is impossible to conceal the use of such weapons. If the CIA director does not understand this, then he is either unprofessional, or he is being misled.
▫️The biological weapons programs in the USSR were completely phased out in 1972. At the same time, the number of U.S. biological laboratories is incomparable to other countries. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Washington controls 336 laboratories in 30 countries, which is of great concern.
To date, the United States is the only state in world history that has used all three types of weapons of mass destruction.
▫️The dropped nuclear bombs during the Second World War on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the use of toxic chemicals in Vietnam and Iraq – all these crimes were not properly assessed by relevant international organizations.
❗️Thus, in an attempt to discredit the special military operation of the Russian troops, the Kiev regime, at the suggestion of the American administration, is able to implement scenarios in the near future that will lead to the death of tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens and cause an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe.
The various posts on the Mod Telegram channel starts here:
Let’s start with the obvious, that all bells are sounding regarding the start of the much awaited ‘Phase 2’ of the SMO. However, I for one am not yet entirely convinced it has fully begun and take the side of caution in line with what the Pentagon and analysts like Colonel Cassad have stated:
“We have not yet observed offensive actions using large forces of infantry and tanks, only local centers of breakthroughs along the Izyum-Kremennaya and Popasnaya lines. In advance, to the east of Gulyai-Polye, where our forces have clearly become more active. Elsewhere, rocket and field artillery, aviation and high-precision missiles are intensified everywhere. But so far the lines of contact have not changed. It is worth noting, perhaps, the deterioration of the weather in the Donbass.”
“The Pentagon is being much more conservative in describing Russia’s military operations in Donbas than Zelensky. U.S. thinks this is a prelude to a bigger offensive, with still adding troops. is now up to 78 BTGs in Ukraine, up 13 from last week.”
I agree in the regard that we haven’t seen the full usage of built up troops yet, nor have all the new troops even fully completed deployment. With that said, certainly a new phase of activity appears to have begun BUT my distinction is simply that it now seems that Russia may ‘ramp’ it up increasingly, and that it won’t be a massive blitzkrieg from the onset as the action we’ve seen the past two days is still relatively limited. This may be a testing phase with some Recon-In-Force actions to probe enemy defenses before larger combined arms activity is observed.
With that said, some updates:
Firstly there was a large Kaliber missile strike on Lyvov and we are now seeing confirmations from several places of what was struck:
“A stockpile of American, German and British anti-tank missiles was destroyed at a military depot in Lvov. According to our source in the SBU, the attack on the logistics base in Lvov was a complete surprise. Several tens of tons of various anti-tank weapons were destroyed at the facility, including German PanzerFausts, British NLAWs and American Javelins. It was expected that these funds should be enough for a month of active hostilities against Russian troops. According to our source, the plant was carried out secretly on commercial and civilian vehicles. Therefore, an investigation is now underway as to why the Russians were able to figure out all three storage sites.”
(note, some of my links have not been working recently for some reason. If that becomes the case, simply highlight the link, right click it, then “copy” and “paste” it manually into your browser for the video to work)
While we’re on the topic of Western arms, here’s Scott Ritter confirming something we’ve written about many times, how ineffective the Javelin missile really is: https://www.bitchute.com/video/hEsyUPnRjZdt/
A lot of places were hit in Nikolayev and Kharkov as well, destroying storage facilities and AFU troop gathering points.
In Mariupol, the advances continue in various axes around Azovstal plant, but still only on the outskirts of it. Russian planes and artillery hammer Azovstal nonstop: https://www.bitchute.com/video/l2nFk74hqKVP/
If you notice on the eastern edge of the red outline on this map, there are still some blocks of suburb high-rises just outside the actual industrial grounds of Azovstal. There are still battles and clearings taking place in these northeast districts, but it is only a few blocks left.
A reported 20-30 new prisoners managed to surrender near Azovstal as well, in this video only a handful are pictured:
Reports are indicating that 80% of the remaining Azov battalion wants to surrender, but the 20% who don’t are basically holding them at gunpoint and refusing to allow them to surrender. More and more evidence comes to light as proof of this – for instance this video of an AFU soldier who was shot in the back by his comrades, and had leaflets with surrender directions in his hand (18+):
you can see what the leaflets look like that are being fired by artillery over Azovstal. They have specific instructions on how the prisoners are to surrender (for safety purposes, exactly how they should come out, what they should do, where their hands should be, which corridors they should use, etc). And you can see the same leaflet is under the body of the murdered AFU marine.
And then there’s this:
“According to the content of the radio intercepts, the commanders of the armed formations remaining at Azovstal, realizing the hopelessness of their situation, are ready to lay down their arms, but only on the appropriate order (command) from Kyiv. Without receiving such an order, the commanders of the Ukrainian armed formations cannot make a decision on their own, since a military tribunal with a sentence, up to and including execution, awaits them for these actions in Ukraine.”
There have been written orders from Kiev posted that appear to show a direct no-surrender order from high up. For obvious reasons the elites in Kiev don’t want these guys to surrender, the same ones they were sending upwards of 10 helicopters and boats to try and rescue. Clearly these guys know too much valuable information that they can’t risk to give up to the Russians and so Kiev prefers they are killed and their deeds lost to history.
Serhiy Volyna, commander of the entire 36th Marines Brigade that’s left in Azovstal (and one of the 2 last high ranking people there along with Prokopenko the leader of Azov Regiment) has issued this final desperate plea where he now says there may only be ‘days or hours’ left for them:
I’d say there’s still another good week or two left unless they happen to surrender because clearing this giant factory complex will be difficult. Photos have emerged showing how the subterranean system beneath the complex works, and it’s no easy job. The plant was evidently designed to withstand nuclear attack so one can imagine how deep and fortified some of the underground systems are. There’s still no indication of how they truly plan to clear it.
The above map shows some of the incursion areas where troops are entering the industrial grounds at the northeast corner.
In other regions, the largest gains by far of the 2nd phase have been along the Izyum and LPR axis. Russian forces are pushing in from the north downward towards the Donets river.
However we’re waiting on full confirmation as some sources say there still may be a piece of the city to the south not liberated.
Meanwhile heavy battles continue in Popasna, a key strategic city, and LPR/Chechen troops are said to have advanced past the midway mark of the city, and it is likely to fall in the near future. Reports that as much as 70-80 prisoners were taken here, though a video has only showed a dozen or so thus far:
Next to Rubizhnoe, the town of Kreminna was also fully taken. This creates a dangerous risk for a cauldron-within-a-cauldron for AFU forces because once Popasna falls, troops can link up with the ones in the north by Rubizhnoe/Kreminna, thus trapping the AFU forces in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in the following manner:
So because of this threat, there is now increasing reports that AFU plans a ‘mass retreat’ along the Rubizhnoe-Lysychansk-Severodonetsk ‘triangle’, as it’s being called, in order to prevent this cauldron from being formed. One must remember there is a very large AFU grouping in this ‘triangle’ as it is the 2nd largest after the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk-Druzhkivka grouping. However other reports were quick to caution that there will not be any mass retreats, at least not yet, and that AFU continues to hang on. With that said, some captured prisoners in the area stated that higher command officers have already pulled back and fled, but there’s no 100% confirmation of this.
From the frontline:
Map of Popasna city control. Popasna in center. Red is LPR forces, blue is AFU. This is a key city that controls the gateway both west and north to the region.
Northwest of there, Russian forces have made major advances in the Izyum region since the start of Phase 2.
The town of Torske was captured, pictured on this map circled in Red:
As well as several settlements around Lozove such as Yatskivka and Rubtsi were said to be captured by RF forces – slowly working towards Lyman. The forces south of Izyum continued to work towards Slavyansk as well with uncertain results as there is a heavily forested area there that is reportedly difficult to work through, with Ukrainian units deeply embedded all over it.
In short, there is heavy pressure bearing down now from the north onto the cauldron grouping, and we could eventually see the Severodonetsk “triangle” become a cauldron cut off from the rest then sieged.
In the south, Russian forces have made some moves towards Velyka Novosilka and captured a few settlements like Makarivka, Storozhevoe, Rovnopol, and Novoselka, but it’s nothing too big to speak on yet so we’ll wait till next time to update on this front. Either way, this front is still likely waiting for the fall of Mariupol to free up all the reinforcements before it can get into full swing.
In other news: “U.S. has BEGUN training about 50 Ukrainian military advisors on using American provided howitzer artillery systems at an undisclosed location in Europe: senior U.S. defense official Ukrainians should be able to learn to use systems within days, officials believe.”
And the UK is considering sending a “handful” of advanced Stormer armored vehicles with Starstreak missile launchers on them.
Personally I think this is good news because it will give Russian forces a rare opportunity to ‘practice’ and scrimmage in real time against the top NATO equipment, to learn its secrets and vulnerabilities. So even though it’s a threat, I believe it will only work towards chiseling Russian troops into more capable forces in preparation for future conflict vs. NATO.
And in light of all the vehicle repair shops, workshops, factories, etc, that Russia has been hitting, it appears Ukraine is running out of ways to repair its own vehicles.
“The actions of the Russian missile forces, which over the past few months have been regularly attacking the military industry facilities of the Kiev regime, have borne fruit. Now the repair of damaged equipment of the Kiev regime will be handled by Czech defense enterprises. Since Kyiv is no longer able to repair armored vehicles on its own.
Note that the transportation of damaged equipment to the Czech Republic, its repair and transportation back will take much more time and cost the enemy many times more. In fact, it’s easier to just buy a new one.”
And on that note, there’s reports like this one:
“❗️Poland is secretly preparing a “liberation campaign” against Ukraine. For this purpose, a set of measures is being carried out – the supply of weapons, equipment and mercenaries across the Polish-Ukrainian border. Several formations of the Polish Army – the 18th motorized rifle division and the 6th airborne brigade – are preparing for a “peacekeeping mission”
The Polish Army stepped up measures to the maximum extent possible to complete the units to wartime states. The recruitment of “volunteers” is carried out through the websites of the Ministry of Defense of Poland.”
Unconfirmed of course, and dubious but it’s something to think about, and something many of us have already expected for a long time.
On the topic of funding, it’s been announced total aid is nearing $3 billion from the U.S. alone.
“U.S. has sent $2.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, with DoD weapons reaching the battlefield within 48 to 72 hours: senior U.S. defense official”
What’s interesting about that is, the U.S. spent 3 billion on funding the Taliban in the 80’s, over the course of an entire decade.
From wiki: “The thrust of U.S. policy for the duration of the war was determined by Carter in early 1980: Carter initiated a program to arm the mujahideen through Pakistan’s ISI and secured a pledge from Saudi Arabia to match U.S. funding for this purpose. U.S. support for the mujahideen accelerated under Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, at a final cost to U.S. taxpayers of some $3 billion.”
“Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken.[2] Funding officially began with $695,000 in mid-1979,[3] was increased dramatically to $20–$30 million per year in 1980, and rose to $630 million per year in 1987,[1][4][5] described as the “biggest bequest to any Third World insurgency”.[6]”
So this was the “longest and most expensive” CIA operation in history, and ended up at $3 billion in 10 years. But the Ukraine has already gotten $3 billion in a single month. Imagine how much they’re going to pump into it by the end of this year? This goes to show what I’ve said before that this is likely now the single costliest program of this sort in history. And that’s only counting the U.S. aid, NATO/EU are pouring in billions more.
Lastly, like I said in the beginning, I don’t believe we’re seeing the full onset of Phase 2 yet. It appears to still be the opening probing stage as the full available forces have yet to be committed. But we’ll see if this week confirms this view or not.
I’ll leave a few videos from the past day or so:
Tribute to the legendary Red Backpack Man you might’ve all seen leading some units in Mariupol:
He’s a commander for a unit of the Russian Black Sea Fleet Naval Infantry (Marines) operating in Mariupol.
Pakistan Tahreek-i-Insaf supporters protest in solidarity with former prime minister Imran Khan, who was ousted by the Opposition that he accuses of conspiring with Washington because of his opposition to US foreign policy.
Former prime minister Imran Khan’s supporters demonstrate against his ousting.
Pakistan Tahreek-i-Insaf (PTI) supporters took to the streets at Lahore’s Liberty Chowk against the ouster of former prime minister and party chairman Imran Khan.
Pakistan became an independent state in 1947; but the freedom struggle begins again today against a foreign conspiracy of regime change. It is always the people of the country who defend their sovereignty & democracy.
Other demonstrations took place in different parts of the Punjab province, including Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala, Vehari, Jehlum, and Gujrat districts.
With his majority gone, Khan accused the opposition of buying support in the assembly with “open horse-trading… selling of lawmakers like goats and sheep”, further accusing them of conspiring with Washington due to his opposition to US foreign policy.
However, he accepted the motion but was “disappointed with the Supreme Court decision,” adding that he wants to “make it clear that I respect the Supreme Court and Pakistan’s judiciary.”
In a message on Twitter later in the day, the PTI chairman thanked the protestors and claimed that the agitation signaled Pakistanis’ “rejection of the foreign conspiracy”.
“Thank you to all Pakistanis for their amazing outpouring of support & emotions to protest against US-backed regime change abetted by local Mir Jafars to bring into power a coterie of pliable crooks all out on bail,” Imran wrote.
Thank you to all Pakistanis for their amazing outpouring of support & emotions to protest against US-backed regime change abetted by local Mir Jafars to bring into power a coterie of pliable crooks all out on bail. Shows Pakistanis at home & abroad have emphatically rejected this
Khan also acknowledged the spontaneous protests standing with him against the Opposition’s decision. He believes that this “shows Pakistanis at home & abroad have emphatically rejected this.”
Never have such crowds come out so spontaneously and in such numbers in our history, rejecting the imported govt led by crooks. pic.twitter.com/YWrvD1u8MM
The Supreme Court ordered on Thursday that the court session be convened after it found that Khan acted illegally by dissolving parliament and calling for fresh elections following the prevention of an earlier no-confidence vote by the deputy speaker of the national assembly.
A new prime minister will be appointed today, with centrist Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif already picked to lead the nuclear-armed country of 220 million people.
Related Videoa
Mass demonstrations in Pakistan in support of Imran Khan
Pakistan: Khan’s signing of major agreements with China was not allowed by the US
Evening Bulletin | Imran Khan… Washington’s revenge and Beijing’s absence?
Pakistan .. Khan’s supporters organize protests in various regions of the country
While staff members of The Kyiv Independent grandstand about how “independent journalism is the cornerstone of democracy,” they are quietly being funded by Western governments – a fact that should ring alarm bells with critical media consumers.
KIEV, UKRAINE – As the Russian attack on Ukraine has come to dominate global news feeds, so has a previously little-known outlet called The Kyiv Independent. Since its inception in November of last year, the Independent’s profile has risen rapidly and has been promoted and endorsed by both social media giants and the corporate press.
The Kyiv Independent has become the toast of the town. It seems virtually impossible to turn on cable news without seeing its reporters on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, or other networks. Its staff has been given the opportunity to write multiple op-eds in the pages of The NewYork Times and TheWashingtonPost, something considered the ultimate seal of approval by many journalists. NPR listeners might also have heard interviews with reporters from the Independent.
But, while almost universally presented as a collective of unbiased journalists producing credible content, the Independent’s history, funding sources, and the proximity of many of its key staff to Western governments suggest that the news organization is not nearly as independent as its name implies.
Since November, the outlet has amassed over two million Twitter followers, up from around just 20,000 one week before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Twitter also constantly promotes its content on its homepage, encouraging hundreds of millions of people to read and follow them.
The Independent has also managed to raise more than $3.2 million from two separate crowdfunding campaigns on GoFundMe and rakes in more than $72,000 per month from supporters on Patreon. This is partially down to ringing endorsements from the likes of The Washington Post, CBS News and PBS, who endorsed their funding drives as the perfect way to do something to help Ukrainians.
“Journalists with The Kyiv Independent have done tremendous work covering the war, offering the world constant updates as they fear for themselves, their families, and their homes,” the Postwrote. Meanwhile, the Times has regularly signal-boosted its coverage as well, recommending it to readers as a way to “avoid drowning in an ocean of information.” Another article instructing teachers on how to discuss the war states that “Ukrainian sources like The Kyiv Independent” are a “good starting point” as “reliable news sources.”
In short, there has been nothing short of a ringing, wall-to-wall endorsement of the startup news organization. However, few, if any, of these reports and appearances hint at how close The Kyiv Independent and many of its staff members are to Western governmental power.
A newborn raised on the milk of regime change
The Kyiv Independent was born in November when dozens of staff members from The Kyiv Post clashed with ownership on that paper’s political coverage. New Post owner Adnan Kivan reportedly wished his employees to be more deferential to the administration of President Volodymyr Zelensky, leading to an acrimonious split whereby dozens of Post employees were fired and began their own outlet. While some have pointed to this as an example of the Independent’s credibility and unwillingness to be controlled, others are not so sure.
Commenting on the split, journalist Mark Ames remarked that, “Ukraine’s western-backed civil society (along with the hardline Ukrainian diaspora) loathed Zelensky right up to the invasion, suspecting him of being insufficiently nationalist.” Ames’ Moscow-based newspaper, The eXile, was closed down by Vladimir Putin in 2008. His analysis seems to have been proven correct by the Independent’s editor-in-chief, Olga Rudenko, who wrote in the pages of TheNew York Times that, “Mr. Zelensky, the showman and performer, has been unmasked by reality. And it has revealed him to be dispiritingly mediocre.”
The 30 KyivPost staff members were immediately able to fund their new venture, thanks to more than CA$200,000 in cash from the Canadian government, which made the donation through the European Endowment for Democracy. Outside of Russia, Canada has the largest Ukrainian diaspora in the world and has taken an active role in trying to shape the country’s political trajectory.
Established in 2013 and directly modeled after the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the European Endowment for Democracy is an EU organization that functions in much the same way as the NED does. Although it couches its actions in the language of “democracy promotion,” it exists to hand out large sums of money, support, and training to political groups, journalists, and NGOs in enemy countries with the goal of promoting EU interests, including the overthrow of hostile governments. It does not “promote democracy” inside the EU; its operations are limited to Eastern Europe and the Middle East-North Africa region. In recent years, it has backed anti-government movements in Belarus, Russia, Syria, and Lebanon.
None of this information, including any connection to Canada or the European Endowment for Democracy, is on The Kyiv Independent’s website. Indeed, the outlet presents itself as totally independent and supported by readers. In its “About” section, it proclaims that “The Kyiv Independent won’t be dependent on a rich owner or an oligarch. The publication will depend on fundraising from readers and donors and later on, commercial activities.” It does not expand on who these donors are. However, its staff presents its funding as above board: “We’re not taking dirty money,” said one reporter. MintPress asked both TheKyiv Independent and the Canadian Embassy in Ukraine for comment about their funding arrangement but has not received a response.
Troubling CVs
The troubling connections undermining The Kyiv Independent’s credibility do not end there, however. For example, its contributing editor, Liliane Bivings, used to work and write for the NATO think tank The Atlantic Council, specifically covering Ukraine. Producer Elina-Alem Kent worked for the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv in 2017; not exactly the background one would associate with grassroots, independent media. Chief financial officer Jakub Parusinski was previously employed by the International Center for Policy Studies, a Ukraine-focused think tank sponsored by numerous Western governments. In 2020, culture reporter Artur Korniienko was awarded a fellowship to work for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, an organization that The New York Times once described as a “worldwide propaganda network built by the CIA.” Meanwhile, contributor to The Kyiv Independent Lucy Minicozzi-Wheeland previously worked for the Council on Foreign Relations, was given a scholarship by the State Department to study Ukraine, and also worked at the Ukraine Crisis Media Center, an organization directly funded by the U.S. government.
The unquestioned star of The Kyiv Independent, however, is defense reporter Illia Ponomarenko, who, in a short time, has built up a following of over 1.1 million people on Twitter. From the front lines, his tweets and videos go viral daily and provide the basis for much of the Western media’s reporting on the conflict. Yet Ponomarenko is far from a neutral actor, and spends an inordinate amount of his time embedded with the Azov Battalion, the Neo-Nazi group whom he describes as his “good friend[s]” and his “brothers in arms.”
The Azov Battalion is a Neo-Nazi paramilitary group that has been formally incorporated into the Ukrainian armed forces. Their units wear the mark of the wolfsangel on their sleeves, the symbol that the notorious Nazi 2nd SS Panzer Division – a unit infamous for overseeing the systematic extermination of Jews and Slavs in Eastern Europe – wore during the Second World War.
Azov’s first leader, parliamentarian Andriy Biletsky, said that his mission was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen,” the word Hitler used to describe Jews and other “subhumans,” including Ukrainians.
Ponomarenko has, on at least two separate occasions, declared himself to be “consecrated” by the Azov Battalion and has previously used language potentially hinting at his political leanings. For instance, in 2019, he tweeted that he was “absolutely devastated to learn that my good friend, Sn. Lt. Igor Prozapas, the former chief artillery officer with the Azov Battalion, has passed away. Valhalla today meets a dedicated gunman and true patriot. He was a Kyiv Post contributor too.” Modern Nazis regularly appropriate Viking concepts such as the Valhalla afterlife for warriors killed in combat.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given their contributors, neither The Kyiv Post nor The Kyiv Independent seems particularly interested in scrutinizing the Azov Battalion or the insurgent Neo-Nazi movement in Ukraine. Indeed, the latter calls Azov the “defenders of Mariupol”.
Independent journalism™: brought to you by the CIA
As noted previously, virtually all of The Kyiv Independent’s essential staff came from The Kyiv Post exodus. Yet the Post’s sources of income are, if possible, even more eyebrow-raising than the Independent’s, coming as they do from the CIA cutout organization National Endowment for Democracy.
At the time of the Russian invasion, the NED pulled from its website all records of its widespread project of funding a broad range of Ukrainian political parties, NGOs, media outlets, and civil-society groups. From the few, unofficial and incomplete archived records of NED grants that still exist, however, MintPress has ascertained that, through its affiliated foundations, The Kyiv Post has sought and received at least $459,000 in NED cash. A minimum of $394,000 went through the Media Development Foundation (MDF), a fundraising vehicle The Post launched in 2013 and one of its primary sources of income, according to former Editor-in-Chief Brian Bonner.
A further $65,000 went to another Post project, the Free Press Foundation (FPF), including one $35,000 grant to “support the editorial team of a leading independent newspaper to produce investigative reporting on corruption and violations of media freedoms.” That this “leading independent newspaper” was The Kyiv Post is barely in question, given that the FPF’s founder and executive director was the Post’s commercial director, and therefore responsible for fundraising. Furthermore, The Kyiv Post shares the same address as the FPF, whose website makes it clear that the two organizations are essentially one and the same.
A second, $30,000, NED project, the FPF boasts, paid for over 100 Kyiv Post articles, podcasts, and videos covering the 2019 elections, plus the establishment of a fact-checking team. In Ukraine, the U.S. Dollar evidently goes a very long way.
A further example of just how far the NED’s money goes is a $15,000 grant to the MDF entitled “promoting reforms in key sectors.” In return for the cash, the agreement states that the Post would “publish at least 100 articles and analyses on the progress of reforms” in sectors such as defense, the judiciary and healthcare, suggesting that they were directly paying for content to be produced. On its website, however, The Kyiv Postinsists that “the donor doesn’t influence the content.”
A 2019 Kyiv Post article acknowledges the papers NED funding
What “reform” could allude to here is the massive course of economic “shock therapy” in which the government conducted a firesale of state-owned businesses and assets, in the process dismantling its welfare state and removing barriers to Western corporations’ operations in the country. This process has helped to keep Ukraine the poorest country in Europe, although both the domestic and international billionaire classes have benefited enormously.
The Kyiv Post was already strongly supportive of many of these reforms. Indeed, the outlet has an entire “Reform Watch” vertical, replete with more than 2,600 articles dedicated to assessing and promoting them, more than 1,500 of which have been published since 2017. It has also published glossy infomercials aimed at foreign investors, describing in glowing detail how the “profound reforms” have reshaped Ukraine into a promising space for international business.
Reading the language of these grants, it is clear that “increasing the capacity” of outlets like The Kyiv Post was of primary importance to the U.S.. This led Washington to pay for the training of huge numbers of interns in writing, video editing, camera usage and other journalism skills at “leading Kyiv media outlets” – principal among them, the Post. The level of funding also rapidly increased through the years, starting with relatively modest sums in 2014 but rising to over $200,000 by 2018, no doubt building considerable capacity indeed.
“Without the NED, there would be nothing”
The NED was set up by the Reagan administration in the 1980s explicitly as a front for the CIA, whose public image had been seriously tarnished by a series of scandals. Technically a private organization, and therefore not subject to the same public scrutiny or legal regulations, the NED carried out the CIA’s dirtiest operations abroad, specifically those of regime change and foreign interference. In this, they are relatively open, although they are careful to couch their activities in the language of “democracy promotion.”
“It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA,” NED President Carl Gershman said, explaining its creation. NED co-founder Allen Weinstein agreed: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” he toldThe Washington Post.
The NED has played a key role in recent U.S. regime-change attempts. In Hong Kong, it funneled money to the leaders of the domestic protest movement, in order to sustain it. In Venezuela, it has organized music concerts to undermine the Maduro administration. Last summer, it fomented a nationwide campaign of demonstrations in Cuba. And it currently has 40 active projects in Belarus, all with the goal of removing President Alexander Lukashenko from office. Ukraine, however, is the NED’s “top priority” according to its 2019 annual report.
The Kyiv Post also sought out and received other highly questionable sources of funding, including, by its own admission, the Danish government and NATO itself.
During the NATO-backed 2014 Euromaidan insurrection, in which the democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown and replaced by a successor handpicked by the United States government, the European Endowment for Democracy also rushed through what it described as “emergency support” to The Kyiv Post. What exactly this support entailed is not disclosed in much detail, leaving cynics wondering whether the European Union was channeling cash to pliant local media in order to push through a coup.
The Post’s post-split staff might also raise a skeptic’s eyebrow. Among them is the new chief editor, Bohdan Nahaylo, who spent two decades working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, rising to become its director of Ukrainian services between 1989 and 1991. Nahaylo’s boss, Richard Carlson (Tucker Carlson’s father) stated that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty played a “very critical role” in the dissolution of the USSR and the transition to a hyper-capitalist model, adding:
International broadcasters were equally important in laying the groundwork for the democratic revolutions that we have seen. Isn’t it incredible how Western all those Eastern Europeans sound in talking about freedom, democracy, free enterprise, environmental concerns. And they didn’t get those ideas from their own media or from textbooks in their own countries; they got them mainly from international broadcasters like Voice of America, the BBC, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe.”
These sources of income mean that almost everybody at The Kyiv Post or The Kyiv Independent was, for quite some time, in the pay of NATO and/or the U.S. national security state. Indeed, in 2015, Daryna Shevchenko, current CEO of The Kyiv Independent and then a staff writer for The Kyiv Post, openly acknowledged how much the CIA cutout organization had done for her and her colleagues. “To our partners, the National Endowment for Democracy, without them there would be nothing,” she wrote. Shevchenko made the comments after a Media Development Foundation training event attended by a host of Kyiv Post/Kyiv Independent journalists. Also attending was Aric Toler of Bellingcat, another NED-sponsored outlet which masquerades as independent journalism. Toler went on to work for The Atlantic Council.
While these journalists often speak in the language of objectivity and neutrality, they are, at the same time, crystal clear that the purpose of The Kyiv Independent is to “counter the Russian narrative,” in the words of Editor-in-Chief Rudenko. Thus, they see themselves as fighters in an information war. And as the battle for public opinion rages, they are among the West’s most potent weapons.
A necessary skepticism
While experts disagree on how well or poorly the military invasion is going, it seems clear that Russia is losing the information war. President Putin has been widely condemned, has breathed new life into NATO, and has united European countries in resistance. Russian media and pro-Russian sources have been wiped from the Internet. And while Putin declared that the point of his “special military operation” was to “denazify” his neighbor, few have accepted that premise, despite the well-documented far-right insurgence in Ukraine. Further undermining this claim was a video released this week of the head of the Russia-backed Donetsk People’s Republic awarding a medal to a soldier sporting two separate fascist symbols on his jacket.
Despite Russia being the chief belligerent in this war and some Russian sources spreading false information, we must still be skeptical of claims made by the other side. In war, the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus noted, truth is always the first casualty.
As ferocious as the fighting has been, the propaganda war has been, if anything, more intense. And supposedly “independent” Ukrainian media have been a key part of it. There is already a serious problem in modern discourse with the term “independent media,” a phrase commonly used to refer to any media outlet, no matter how big an empire it is, that is not owned or funded by the state (as if that is the only form of dependence or control to which media is subject).
But even at this extremely low hurdle, The Kyiv Post and The Kyiv Independent fall. While key staff members grandstand about how “independent journalism is the cornerstone of democracy,” they are quietly being funded by Western governments – a fact that should ring alarm bells with critical media consumers. Again, this does not mean that what they publish is false or that there is no worthwhile reporting being done. But it does undermine their claims of independence or impartiality. That The Kyiv Independent does not even acknowledge its foreign funding and presents itself as reader-supported is especially troubling.
The biggest news of today’s cycle is the wild admission by the Pentagon, U.S. media, etc., that the U.S. has in fact employed a “strategy” of outright lying and making up fake intelligence to ‘combat Russia’.
Astounding quote from article: “President Joe Biden later said it publicly. But three U.S. officials told NBC News this week there is no evidence Russia has brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine. They said the U.S. released the information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions.”
They also admitted that most of the intelligence surrounding the conflict, such as the infamous ‘China is providing Russia with equipment’ was complete ‘malarky’, as the demented zombie-in-chief would say. How any reasonable and self-respecting country or people could trust the U.S.’s ongoing claims from this point on are beyond me. How could you possibly take in this announcement, and yet still believe the U.S. side of the story about the ‘Bucha massacre’ amongst other things?
This amazing feat of neuro-linguistic-programming must be seen to be believed:
The reporters here celebrate the ‘novelty’ of this method of utilizing intelligence (as if the amazing technique of ‘lying’ has only just been discovered by them). They dance around the real description of the concept as basically being “lying”, by continually describing it in fancy ways to frill it up and legitimize the “technique” as something other than what it is on its bare-faced surface: outright lies and propaganda meant to control the narrative of the conflict favorably.
And by the way, the reporter in the video is this guy:
And was actually fired by the LA Times for how deeply in bed he was with the CIA
After these admissions how can ANYTHING from the U.S. be believed? Russian “casualties” of 30,000+? Bucha massacre? Chemical weapons usage? Russia’s “failed objectives” and “failing campaign”? These are all individual claims that fall under the purview of this ‘new’ and ‘amazing’ technique called complete b.s. from the CIA.
Obviously this has been U.S.’s chief tactic for decades. But the full admission brings up a starker reality. That behind the curtains, the CIA has in recent times shifted to conducting its Ops “in the open”, but presenting them in a way that makes them seem acceptable. For instance we know during the last election, a remarkable series of articles came out in the MSM detailing the entire deep-state covert ops, how various apparatuses of the democratic party came together with corporate assets, Facebook, NGOs, etc., to take control of the 2020 election. They even fully admit to it being a secretive “shadow campaign”, but rebranded as a ‘good cause’.
In previous times this would have been an unprecedented scandal but now, rebranded and ‘in the open’, it’s given the cachet of legitimacy. The reason for the method shift is obvious: in today’s integrated online/social media environment, it’s pretty much impossible for the western intel agencies to operate in pure secrecy anymore. That era is over with. And so they’ve shifted to a strategy of conducting their Ops in full view but utilizing their media arm to repackage them to look justified in a certain light.
It’s akin to this – Hannity proudly and openly wearing a CIA pin (the Mockingbird is no longer caged, as you can see, it can fly freely and proudly in the open now) while decrying that, “Vladimir Putin has forfeited his right to live.”
“The “very small number” of Ukrainian soldiers, who have been in the U.S. since last fall for military training, were taught to use the drone with the expectation that they would soon return to their country to train others on the equipment, press secretary John Kirby told reporters.
“We took the opportunity — having them still in the country — to give them a couple of days’ worth of training on the Switchblade so that they can go back — and they will be going back soon, back home — to train others in the Ukrainian military,” Kirby said.”
More confirmation of how deeply invested and entrenched the U.S. is in this war. But no different than the billions spent on training Syrian rebels and ‘moderate terrorists’ to fight against Russians and Assad in Syria.
Here’s today’s print-up from the Pentagon itself. I can’t stress enough how massive the scale of this operation by the west to fund/supply Ukraine is. It dwarfs anything in history. When you consider that less than ~2000 Stingers were provided to the Taliban in the 80’s war, and that was considered an unprecedented scale operation at the time, then look at the above list and realize we’re only at the very earliest stages of what the West will be supplying to Ukraine (tanks, jets, etc likely all incoming eventually). There are some unconfirmed reports that even British Harpoons are already delivered and placed in Odessa. This is orders of magnitude more powerful/dangerous than the ‘Sea Skuas’ they were talking about, but this rumor may be fake propaganda from the Ukrop side.
More and more each day the scale of this operation is revealed and how deeply invested the west is, and it is breathtaking. New videos appear daily of large groups of foreign fighters, Georgian, etc., being heavily equipped and sent into the Ukraine.
And this list above is only from the U.S., there is much more from the other western ‘allies’ as well. Planes from North Macedonia landed in Reznow airfield in Poland today, likely bringing goodies as every other European country has. And add that to the billions already allotted recently in general aid and the billions spent on achieving Euromaidan, as admitted by Nuland when she said over $5 billion had been spent by the U.S.
The entire project has been in development for a very long time and it is the culmination of the western empire’s attempts to destroy Russia. Just listen here how Soros himself explains his involvement in the events of Ukraine dating back to the late 80’s and early 90’s. And how Adam Schiff admits that “the U.S. is fighting Russia over there so it doesn’t have to do it over here.”
On frontline news: As the big showdown in Donbass looms, a lot of forces are pouring in on both sides. Russia has shifted strategies and is now striking railway stations and reinforcement hubs / corridors, as many have hoped it would do. Overnight there were several reports of important railway hubs being hit by missiles. One near Zhytomir, which is possibly the single most important reinforcement hub to the frontlines in all of western Ukraine. Reinforcements being sent to frontlines were reportedly destroyed in the strike, though there’s no visual confirmation. And another in Kharkov region – just south, in Lozovaya – which evoked a video message plea from the Kharkov mayor who said railways were hit, oil has run out, but pleaded for people not to flee (presumably because the militants who control him need citizens to use as hostages / human shields just like in Mariupol).
“#KHARKOV Region—#Lozovaya—#Russia|n forces conduct precision missile strikes at a major supply/logistics centre of #Ukraine|ian forces in Lozovaya, which boast a key intersection of rail tracks enabling the supply and reinforcement of the #Donbass grouping of #UA military.”
As can be seen on this map, the Lozovaya junction is a critical resupply / reinforcement route for the Ukrop Donbass cauldron and specifically their stronghold of Kramatorsk, which had been the central headquarters of the entire JFO for some time. And other reports said a railway bridge was hit leading to that junction as well.
Just north of there, Russia continues to progress around Izyum. Our forces are now fighting at Sulihyvka/Suligovka on the way to Dovhen’ke in the direction towards Slavyansk.
Not only does this photo below show the progress downward from Izyum, but you can start seeing how this salient is now beginning to create the opening pincer that will enclose the ‘Great Cauldron’.
The battle for Kam’yanka, directly south of Izyum was quite destructive for the UAF, they suffered many losses and there are fields littered with their dead, as well as many trophies taken. https://www.bitchute.com/video/2qjB8t89mK2a/
Reports indicate that UAF forces are now amassing a huge force in the Kramatorsk / Druzhkovka region in preparation for RF’s advances. But they continue putting up stiff resistance along the road towards Slavyansk as well. The highways from Horlivka towards Kramatorsk are said to be filled with UAF troops. This appears to be their single largest agglomeration of the cauldron.
In the south, RF have blockaded Ugledar and Novomikhailovka, and begun storming the latter. Also, Basurin has estimated 3,000 to 3,500 enemy fighters remain in Mariupol. And the map there looks something like this:
With that said, most of the ‘weak’ ones have surrendered and only the most hardened Azov fanatics remain, so there is some possibility that the fighting can still go on for a decently long time. With that said, the more they retreat towards the ports, the more they are running out of residential areas with civilians to use as human shields, which allows allied forces to use increasingly heavy-handed tactics and strikes against them. I reported last time how for the first time heavy duty artillery units like 2S3 and 2S4s were brought in, such as those you can see in the latest Wargonzo video
So it’s difficult to guess – the fight could take another two weeks, or it can suddenly collapse in the next day or two if the remaining Azov abruptly surrender. Unfortunately cities take a long time to siege, many of us remember following the events of Aleppo or Sarajevo, and the years it took. Even in the final stages of Aleppo when rebel forces were already collapsing and SAA had the upper hand, it was weeks for every neighborhood, and months to clear districts.
But right now things are advancing according to plan. Large Russian reinforcements have poured into the Kharkov area to head to the Izyum front, and meanwhile Ukrop reinforcements/resupplies are finally being hit in their train stations and railyards by the RuAF, so the stage is being favorably set for our forces.
And for those that continue to doubt that the RF has vastly destroyed the Ukrainian military in terms of armor and capabilities. New videos continue to show the total lack of Ukrainian armor or vehicles. Here is one showing a large Ukrainian force, all on foot, not a vehicle among them – forced to use a civilian truck to evacuate their wounded – whom, by the way, have obvious swastikas on their person.
A force this large should always be supported with mechanized units and some sort of infantry fighting vehicle at the minimum, yet here they are taking lots of casualties in the video, no armor in sight.
A week or so ago, the American mercenary James Vasquez bragged on twitter how him and his squad “commandeered” (read: stole) a Lexus in Kiev so they can get to the frontline, such is their lack of military transport vehicles or APCs.
Lastly, the Ruble is now in the mid 70’s to the USD.
To the utter bewilderment of the West, it just keeps gaining in strength against the dollar.
I’ll leave you with this last video: to those that still question the Russian air power, or say Russia is not utilizing it, or doesn’t have air supremacy, etc. Here’s what a Ukrainian soldier said when asked what he fears most in this war: https://www.bitchute.com/video/xbWbfp7v5nJH/
First, in Hungary, Viktor Orban won a supermajority in the latest elections. This makes perfect sense, as Orban’s policies have guaranteed that Hungary will get her energy at a low and stable price for the next 15 years (if I remember correctly) while the Eurolemmings will get their at astronomic prices on the spot markets which they themselves chose over long term contracts. The same goes for food items, fertilizer, etc.
I want to congratulate the Hungarian people not only on being the smartest in Europe, but for showing and proving that even a nation which is part of the EU and NATO can defend its own national interests.
Now about the Bucha fake, I won’t repeat it all here, I rather simply refer you to these:
Unlike Gonzalo Lira who is in Kharkov, Lancaster reports from Mariupol. They have very different styles, but they both deserve the recognition for the crucial work they are doing.
I also noticed that the Chinese channel CGTN has very good correspondent in the Ukraine, although I have heard him only on the Russian-language CGTN chanel. Here is the main one, FYI: https://www.youtube.com/c/cgtn.
Finally, it appears that the USA is trying to color-revolutionize Imran Khan in Pakistan and that this might even involve a plot to kill that man. Makes me wonder – did the CIA really learn nothing from Belarus or Kazakhstan???
In Russia the mass exodus of pro-western 5th columnists is continuing, which is a real cause for celebration. The sad part is that the official spokesman for the Kremlin, Peskov, seems to think that these folks are not traitors. Considering how the Atlantic Integrationists in the Presidential Administration and the Russian Government have totally mismanaged PR war, and then sent a pitiful figure like Medinsky to talk, which resulted in a real panic in Russia as most Russians are much more afraid to have diplomats negate all the efforts of the military. Frankly, sending Ramzan Kadyrov to negotiate would have been a much better move.
If the first phase of the war has shown that the Russians could achieve amazing results against a major force with a smaller force and the focus on maneuver, it has, alas, also shown that Russian PYSOPs and Civil Affairs capabilities are minimal and mostly ineffective. Now, wars can be won with little or not efforts allocated to PYSOPs and Civil Affairs, but such wars are much more costly not only in time and money, but also in human lives. Negotiations, PSYOPs, Civil Affairs and military operations have to work together, towards a common goal – then they act as a force multiplier. But when civilians do their own thing and the military their own, this needlessly complicates military operations and make wars much harder to end.
In all fairness to the Russians, they never had the kind of propaganda resources the Empire of Lies has. In fact, since US forces are typically of poor military value, the US has developed very sophisticated capabilities which they now bring to bear with great efficiency. So Russia faces two very different enemies:
The Ukrainian soldiers who are just the cannon fodder for Uncle Shmuel
The formidable propaganda machine of the Empire of Lies
The only good news here is that INSIDE Russia the Empire of Lies has totally failed, Putin’s personal popularity is now well above 80% and the popular disgust with the Russian fake “intelligentsia” (the self-applied label of “creative class” the Russian 5th columnist always claim for themselves) is real. So more and more of them are resigning, moving abroad, or openly caving into the immense pressure of the Empire to condemn their own President and country.
Lastly, remember how for YEARS I wrote that a Russian invasion of the Ukraine would be a dream come true for the Neocons?
Now that this has happened, do you see what I was referring to? We can now say that thanks to this war, the Empire of Lies can now officially “cancel Russia” – their 1000 year old dream.
That being said, I think that the West also overplayed its hand. Yes, they managed to make hatred for Russia and Russians a new type of woke virtue signalling, but they went so far overboard that they got the undivided attention of the Russian people who now see the true face and intentions of the Empire of Lies. And now that most Russians have understood that:
Russia and the Empire of Lies are in an existential war which only one side can walk away from and
The Empire of Lies wants to genocide the Russian nation (by a combo of means), this is a fight for survival, and for the right to live in a sovereign country
At this point in time, Ze has indicated that he will make no concessions, etc. etc. etc. so the negotiations are going nowhere. Good. I think that the Russians need to get rid of the Ukrainian force inside the Donbass cauldron first, and then offer negotiations again. But until that battle is over, I don’t see the point of talk unless these are talks about the surrender of this force.
The silence of Western media on the causes of confrontation and the criminal involvement of their own governments is complicity in creating conditions for war.
Russia provided more evidence this week that NATO and the Kiev regime were planning a deadly offensive on Donbass, which Russia pre-empted with its military intervention beginning on February 24. Russia has called its intervention a special military operation, while Western states have condemned it as “an unprovoked invasion” of Ukraine.
One senses that it is absolutely imperative for Western media to deny all Russian claims for why it took military action. To do so might lead to some acknowledgement that Russia has just cause, as well as attribute onerous responsibility to Western governments.
It should also be noted, although this is denied too in Western media, that Moscow assiduously tried to address its security concerns through dialogue with the United States and its NATO partners. But those efforts were continually rebuffed. Moscow was treated like it was a non-entity whose long-held security concerns were non-existent or a figment of its imagination.
Russia’s latest information this week substantiating its claims involves a grave multidimensional national security threat. The gravity of the threats makes them impossible to ignore, which makes Western media silence all the more damnable. Moscow says its security analysts are still processing the full extent of information and it will provide more details at a future date. Suffice to say that so far, Russia has identified three major areas where its national security was being threatened by the U.S. and NATO-backed regime in Ukraine. Those threats were greater and more pressing than previously understood, which then presaged the military conflict that is underway in Ukraine.
First, there has emerged more information that the Kiev regime was planning to launch a major offensive on the self-declared people’s republic of Donetsk and Lugansk. The military formations assigned for the attack were the National Guard whose ranks are packed with Neo-Nazi brigades such as the notorious Azov Battalion. Those brigades have been trained and weaponized by the United States, Britain, Canada, Poland, and other NATO members. The Kiev regime has been waging a low-intensity war on the Russian-speaking populations of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics for the past eight years since the CIA-backed coup in 2014. Some 14,000 people have been killed and up to one million displaced from their homes. The new intensified offensive was to be launched this month. Thus when Moscow recognized the independence of the Donbass Republics on February 21 and went to their defense three days later on February 24, it effectively preempted a military attack that in all probability would have been coordinated by NATO powers. Russia has said that its objectives in Ukraine are to denazify and demilitarize the Kiev regime. That necessarily means taking the military operation to the Ukrainian capital and terminating it as a hostile power center.
Second, the threat to turn Ukraine into a nuclear weapon state was a real covert project, not some idle threat, according to Russian foreign intelligence. It claims to have evidence that the U.S. and other NATO powers were well aware of plans for Ukraine to acquire nuclear weapons. When Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky mentioned at the Munich Security Conference on February 19 that his country might abrogate the 1994 Budapest Memorandum banning such weapons in the former Soviet Republic it was not merely an idle whim or braggadocio.
Third, it has now transpired that the United States was funding biowarfare laboratories at dozens of sites across Ukraine. This has long been a Russian concern over many years since Ukraine’s independence in 1991. But this week, the Russian authorities were able to cite documents recovered from laboratories that showed that these facilities were indeed engaged in producing deadly pathogens or bacterial warfare agents. The facilities were apparently ordered to hastily destroy samples on February 24. Such activity is a violation of international bacterial warfare treaties and posed an unacceptable national security threat to Russia. The Pentagon is on record for publicly funding the laboratories. The State Department official with responsibility for Ukraine, Victoria Nuland, this week confirmed in congressional hearings that the laboratories were involved in producing hazardous materials because she expressed fears that Russian forces might obtain them. If they weren’t hazardous or illicit then why was Nuland so alarmed?
All in all, these three subject areas provide prima facia evidence for why Russia needed to launch its military operation into Ukraine nearly three weeks ago. Ever since the CIA-orchestrated coup d’état in 2014 against an elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, the country has been riven by civil war and used as a cat’s paw to destabilize eastern neighbor Russia. This of course conforms neatly with the deep imperial planning by the United States as articulated by people like Zbigniew Brzezinski for pursuing its hostility towards Russia and for continued Cold War division of geopolitical relations.
What is instructive, however, is the near-total silence among Western media outlets on all of the above. To his credit, Tucker Carlson at Fox News has been almost alone among the corporate media outlets in highlighting the warmongering duplicity of the Biden administration and its NATO acolytes.
By and large, though, the vital circumstances explaining the present conflict in Ukraine have been ignored or omitted by Western media. Any brief mention of Russia’s concerns that may be aired is quickly dismissed and ridiculed as “Kremlin propaganda”. It certainly does not help the public interest that Western states have recently taken draconian steps to ban Russian news media from broadcasting. The hypocrisy of Western claims about free speech is astounding.
But what is even more deplorable is the attempt by Western governments and their dutiful media to demonize and criminalize Russia. The climate of Russophobia is giving license to violent attacks on Russian citizens abroad. One reprehensible incident was a truck-ramming attack at the Russian embassy in Ireland.
The ignorance and bigotry being fostered by supposedly free media is lending policies of hostility and aggression by NATO powers. Weapons and war finance are being funneled to Ukraine from U.S. and European taxpayers under the guise of “defending democracy from Russian aggression”. There are real reasons for why the conflict in Ukraine has erupted and there is grievous responsibility by NATO governments. The silence of Western media on the causes of confrontation and the criminal involvement of their own governments is complicity in creating conditions for war.
This week the Russian government expressed again a readiness for diplomatic engagement to end the war in Ukraine. It wants a commitment to end the systemic threat of NATO, the end of aggression by the NATO-backed Kiev regime, and recognition of its historic territorial claim to Crimea. Rational dialogue can solve conflict and ensure peace. But how is dialogue feasible when Western governments and media do not even begin to accept an alternative perspective, let alone one that might even be valid?
To the utter bewilderment of the West, it just keeps gaining in strength against the dollar.
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UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 
