Odessa Massacre 9 Years On… West’s Shameful Silence

May 5, 2023

This shameful silence is necessary in order to conceal the criminal complicity of the West in Ukraine’s deadly turmoil.

This week saw the ninth anniversary of a shocking massacre of 42 civilians in Odessa by Ukrainian fascists. Only weeks prior to that, the fascists’ political leaders had carried out a violent coup in Kiev.

The barbarity of the Odessa atrocity was unspeakable but emblematic of the NATO-backed fascist regime that seized power illegally in February 2014.

Significantly, and shamefully, the Western media and governments hardly mention that horror, or if they do, they tend to distort the incident and typically, yet baselessly, accuse Russia of disinformation.

On May 2, 2014, hundreds of protesters in Odessa against the fascist Kiev regime became embroiled in violent clashes with supporters of the regime. Thousands of far-right paramilitaries belonging to the NeoNazi Right Sector had been transported from the north to the southern port city of Odessa on the Black Sea under the guise of attending a football match.

Street battles ensued all day with cobblestones, Molotov cocktails and gunfire exchanged by both factions. By evening, the more numerous pro-regime crowds turned their focus on a tent encampment of anti-regime protesters near the Soviet-era Trade Unions building in the center of Odessa. The encampment was a peaceful gathering which included women and children. It had been set up for several weeks to demonstrate opposition to the Maidan events in Kiev.

The anti-regime protesters were opposed to the coup that had taken place in Kiev weeks earlier by the so-called EuroMaidan movement. On February 20, a gruesome sniper massacre in Kiev (later found to have been carried out by CIA-backed fascists) led to the overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych. The latter had maintained friendly with Russia which far-right Ukrainian factions abhorred. Yanukovych’s government was strongly supported by Ukrainians of ethnic Russian heritage mainly in the south and eastern parts of the country.

The fascist regime that came to power in Kiev in February 2014 and which prevails till this day – albeit with a president, Vladimir Zelensky, who is nominally of Jewish ancestry – was opposed from the outset by many Ukrainians. They viewed the new rulers as unelected and illegitimate. They were also fearful of the NeoNazi factions that openly glorified Ukrainian figures like Stepan Bandera who had collaborated with Nazi Germany during the Second World War in the mass murder of their own compatriots.

That is why the people of the Crimea peninsula voted in a referendum in March 2014 to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. In other parts of Ukraine, the southeast Donbass region also repudiated the Kiev regime and its “anti-Russian” hostility. In May, 2014, the Kiev regime proceeded to launch its so-called Anti-Terror Operation on the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Lugansk with the backing of then CIA chief John Brennan on a visit to the country. The U.S. vice president at the time was Joe Biden who served as Washington’s point man for the new regime. That aggression marked the beginning of the civil war in Ukraine which culminated in the present conflict with Russia, and the joining last year of the Donbass and neighboring regions with the Russian Federation.

This was the context in Ukraine in May, 2014. The country was in turmoil and splitting into ethnic and political divides. Cities like Odessa had strong historical and cultural connections with Russia. The city known as the Pearl on the Black Sea owing to its storied trading economy was founded in 1795 by Catherine the Great, the empress of Russia.

When the NATO-backed putschists seized power in Kiev in a bloody coup and began organizing Nazi-style torchlit processions, many ethnic Russian people in Ukraine and others were horrified. Odessa was one such city with a large Russian population. The city had suffered mass killings by Nazi Einsatzgruppen SS death squads and their local henchmen.

When the Kiev regime fascists targeted the protest camp in Odessa on the evening of May 2, some 300 of the protesters took refuge inside the Trade Unions building. The mob outside bombarded the historic building with incendiary devices setting it ablaze. The deliberate intention was to incinerate all those inside. The hatred shown by the Right Sector attackers towards the trapped victims was appalling. Several of the people in the building tried to escape the flames by jumping out of high-rise windows. As their bodies smashed the ground below, frenzied crowds clubbed them to death.

In all, 42 people were murdered in the Trade Unions building massacre. Not one attacker was ever prosecuted. The Kiev regime refused to carry out any adequate investigation.

However, the horror of that day was a turning point for many Ukrainians and Russians. It revealed the hideous nature of the regime that had seized power over the country and its vile fascist hostility toward Russia.

This is the regime that was brought to power by Washington and its NATO partners. Since 2014, it has been armed and built up to be a war machine to aggress Russia and obliterate all cultural connections with Russia.

The massacre in Odessa should be remembered for the sake of the victims that day. But also remembered because it helps explain the background of how the present U.S.-led NATO proxy conflict in Ukraine with Russia has come about.

For that reason, Western news media and their governments chose to studiously ignore the Odessa massacre. Their shameful silence is necessary in order to conceal the criminal complicity of the West in Ukraine’s deadly turmoil.

More Editorials

• The U.S. Proxy War Against Russia & China Is Increasingly Seen Globally As A Disaster Made By American And NATO Lies
• The World is Not Enough for Crazy Western Warmongers… NATO Launches Biggest-Ever War Drills in Atlantic AND Pacific
• Collateral Murder 13 Years On… Julian Assange Persecuted for Truth-Telling
• Finland Joins NATO in Foreboding But Fitting Historical Coming Out
• No More Double Standards and Impunity. West Provokes Russia. Result: Nukes in Belarus on NATO’s Borders

The ICC’s Legal Acrobatics: from Darfur to Donbasselated Stories

 March 29, 2023

Source: Al Mayadeen English

By Sammy Ismail 

A review of Mahmood Mamdani’s “The International Criminal Court’s Case Against The President of Sudan: A Critical Look” (2009): comparing the ICC’s indictment of Omar El Bashir with that of President Putin.

The ICC’s Legal Acrobatics: from Darfur to Donbass

“Against those who substitute moral certainty for knowledge, and who feel virtuous even when acting on the basis of total ignorance.” (M. Mamdani, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the Global War on Terror, 2009)

The recent legal complications between Russia and the ICC, which have resulted in mutual arrest warrants, are eerily reminiscent of the ICC’s case against Sudanese President Omar el Bashir in 2008, which evokes similar legal complications: such that neither El Bashir nor President Putin are nationals of states party to the Rome Statute nor are the crimes they were accused of committing on the territory of a state party to the Rome Statute. The ICC, according to its founding treaty: the Rome Statute, doesn’t have jurisdiction for indicting either person, yet the ICC, which is principally a technocratic apolitical international organization, acted as a front line for the US in isolating its enemies. 

“The decisions of the ICC have no significance for our country, including from a legal point of view,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said after the International Criminal Court’s Pre-Trial Chamber II issued an arrest warrant for President Putin and Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova. 

In “The International Criminal Court’s Case Against The President of Sudan: A Critical Look” (2009), Mahmood Mamdani argues that the ICC was politicized to suit the interests of Western actors by filing an arrest warrant against Omar el Bashir, such that the indictment of Omar el Bashir was built on a sketchy legal basis. 

In 2019, Omar El Bashir was eventually ousted in a military coup ending his three-decade-long streak of iron-grip rule over Sudan. He was then sentenced to two years in prison for charges of corruption by the newly formed government which refused to turn him in to the ICC. The case of El Bashir was swiftly contained with minimal implications to geopolitics in the Middle East to the US interests: One ‘pariah‘ regime accused of bloodshed within Sudan was replaced by an internationally recognized regime involved in bloodshed in Yemen. 

Despite the swift containment of El Bashir, the significance of Mamdani’s argument holds. If anything,  Mamdani’s argument stands as even more relevant when looking at Putin’s case. The indictment of Putin is incomparably consequential compared to the indictment of El Bashir. 

The International Criminal Court 

The mandate of the ICC is expressed by the Rome Statute of 1998 :

• Only individuals are liable for indictment. As opposed to its sister organization, the International Court of Justice, whose mandate presumes a legal personality of states, the ICC can only indict “natural persons” as expressed in article 25. The ICC cannot prosecute states only individuals.
• The jurisdiction of the court, as expressed by Article 5, is restricted to the “most serious crimes of concern for the international community” i.e. mass atrocity crimes which expressly include: Genocide (article 6), Crimes against Humanity (article 7), War Crimes (article 8), Crime of Aggression (article 9).  
• As a precondition for prosecuting an individual accused of committing a mass atrocity, the court can have no jurisdiction over the case unless the alleged criminal is either a national of a state party to the Rome Statute or they had committed the alleged mass atrocity on the territory of a state which is a party to the Rome Statute, as expressed by article 12. 
• Typically, cases studied by the ICC are not autonomously-initiated, rather they are administered following referrals: either by a state party to the Rome Statue or more recently through a referral by the Security Council (as was the case with Omar el Bashir) or following an investigation conducted by the Prosecutor after getting authorization from the Pre-Trial chamber (as was the case with President Putin). 

Revisiting the Case of Omar El Bashir in the Geopolitical Context of the War on Terror

The indictment of Omar El Bashir by the ICC was a landmark event in the practice of international law and international organizations. It set precedence by issuing an arrest warrant for not just any “natural person” but a president of a sovereign state. Furthermore, it manifested a very blatant case of the politicization of justice by coopting an international court for furthering geopolitical interests. 

The prosecution of Omar El Bashir had happened in the context of the ferocious so-called “War on Terror” waged by George Bush on the nations of West Asia. As revealed by General Wesley Clark, Sudan was fourth on the list of the Seven-Country grand strategy devised by the US following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. After the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the failed Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006, Bush was in the last year of his second term and he was still 5 countries short of fulfilling the grand strategy.        

In addition to Western diplomats with actual interests at stake, many civil society groups were very excited about the indictment of El Bashir. Most notorious were the groups that fell under the “Save Darfur” campaign. The campaign has since been irrelevant, but it’s very much comparable to other pertinent campaigns promoting “democracy” and “human rights” like Free Iran or SOS Cuba. 

Mamdani extensively tackles the drives and dynamics of the human-rights-activism phenomena of the “Save Darfur” campaign in his book “Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror” which was published in the same year as his article critiquing the ICC. Despite having been largely dismissed by many of the “Save Darfur” human rights activists as an apologia for El Bashir’s crimes, Mamdani doesn’t argue for el Bashir’s innocence; Mamdani’s article “The International Criminal Court’s Case Against The President of Sudan: A Critical Look” (2009) essentially serves as an ideographic critique of the ICC through the case study of the former Sudanese President.

Framed in the literature on the ontology of international organizations, Mamdani argues that the ICC serves more as a tool rather than an actor in international affairs (I. Hurd, International Organizations: Politics, Law, Practice, Ch2, 2014). The ICC which is typically presented to be uniquely technocratic and apolitical in contrast to other international organizations, actively partook in a geopolitical strategy to take down the enemies of the US.  

Mamdani’s Argument on the Politicization of the ICC

In “The International Criminal Court’s Case Against The President of Sudan: A Critical Look” (2009) Mamdani argues that the politicization of the indictment of Omar El Bashir was evidenced by (1) the historical revisionism in approaching the crisis in Darfur (2) the skimpy investigation and representation of evidence, but most importantly (3) the legal process for the ICC’s indictment of El Bashir. 

El-Bashir was the first president to be indicted by the ICC. Despite being legally consistent with the Rome Statute, the indictment was a novel event in the history of the ICC. Despite standing as the personification of the Sudanese state, El-Bashir was ultimately a “natural person” liable for prosecution by the ICC in theory. However, his indictment was a landmark event in the practice of international law: partly because it was unprecedented but also because it was a clear case of mobilizing the ICC for geopolitical ends. 

Most evidently, the politicization of the case manifested in the double standards exhibited by the ICC; Mamdani points out that El Bashir was prosecuted by the ICC for manning a violent counter-insurgency campaign in Sudan (which was classified as genocide in reference to article 6 of the Rome Statute), less than a decade from the cross-Atlantic invasions which Bush waged against Afghanistan and Iraq (which classify as Crimes Against Humanity per article 7, War Crimes per article 8, and Crimes of Aggression per article 9 of the Rome Statute) without being subject to indictment by the ICC. 

Read more: The Darfur the West Isn’t Recognizing as It Moralizes About the Region 

Furthermore, El-Bashir was indicted for the crime of genocide, which is specified under article 6 of the Rome Statute as a mass atrocity crime that falls under the jurisdiction of the ICC. In his article, Mandami problematizes the arbitrariness of the prospect of genocide. The distinction between a legitimate counter-insurgency campaign and an international-community-shaking mass atrocity such as genocide is manipulated by political semantics. There is no clear distinction between the two. Objectively, one event can be categorized as either. There is no death-count threshold that separates the two in international law. A counter-insurgency can result in more deaths than genocide. The distinction, as stipulated by the definition of genocide adopted in article 6 of the Rome Statute, is conditioned upon the “intentions” of the perpetrator. 

Rome Statute

Article 6 For the purpose of this Statute, “genocide” means any act committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group    

The vagueness of some prospects of the Rome Statute, its susceptibility to the politics of semantic manipulation, and the ICC’s potential for infringing on the sovereignty of governments has led many States to refrain from ratifying the statute: Sudan being one of them in addition to Russia, the US, Ukraine, and many others. The ICC, whose jurisdiction is fundamentally preconditioned on the ratification of the Rome Statute, has acted despite this under the moral pretext of responsibility to protect human lives which suspiciously coincided with the geopolitical interests of the US: by targeting those who are hostile to the US and sparing the US and their allies. For example, El Bashir was indicted for cracking down on insurgents in Sudan, but King Mohammad of Morocco wasn’t for the violent suppression of the Sahrawi people nor was Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman for slaughtering and starving Yemenis nor was Yehud Olmert for attempting to invade Lebanon. The ICC, after all, is mobilized according to what is of “concern” to the “international community”. 

Rome Statute

Article 5 The jurisdiction of the Court shall be limited to the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole.   

Briefly, Mamdani’s argument can be formalized as follows: 

• (P1) Sudan didn’t ratify the Rome Statute
• (P2) thus, the ICC doesn’t have jurisdiction over the alleged crimes committed by El Bashir in Darfur
• (P3) the ICC’s arrest warrant is devoid of a legal basis (or at least is founded on a shaky legal basis)
• (C) Therefore, acknowledging the geopolitical context, the indictment of El Bashir is a case of politicized justice

Counter-argument to Mamdani 

Many have refuted Mamdani’s argument for the illegal nature of the ICC’s indictment by referring to Chapter VII of the UN charter. Sudan isn’t party to the Rome Statute but they are party to the United Nations. The conflict in Darfur was referred by the Security Council to the International Criminal Court through Resolution 1593 of the SC as per article 13 (b) of the Rome Statute. The ICC in itself might not have jurisdiction over Sudan, but the Security Council does. The Council also has the liberty to decide on whatever measure it sees fit to deal with a given situation. The SC which had jurisdiction over Darfur granted the ICC jurisdiction by extension through the referral expressed in Resolution 1593.  

UN Charter: Chapter VII

Article 39 The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken.

Article 41 The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures.

Despite refuting the part about legality, Mamdani’s critique of the ICC, as being subject to politicization for furthering western geopolitical interests, stands. The reason why similar security council resolutions for referral to the ICC have not been posited against Bush for committing comparable and even worse “mass atrocities” in Afghanistan and Iraq or Obama for crimes in Libya and Syria or Olmert for crimes in Lebanon and Palestine is political. The ICC despite being presented as technocratic and apolitical is molded by the power relations of international politics.   

The West’s Game of Legal Acrobatics with Russia

The ICC’s jurisdiction encompasses states which are party to the Rome Statute  

Neither Russia nor Ukraine are parties to the Rome Statute. Russia and Ukraine signed the statute in 2000 but neither ratified it (they didn’t pass it in their respective national parliaments). Russia even withdrew its signature from the statute in 2016 after the legal fiasco of the ICC with Omar Al Bashir.

Thus, neither of the alleged “criminals” (Putin nor Belova) are nationals of a state which is a party to the Rome Statute nor are the alleged “crimes” done on the territory of a state (Russia nor Ukraine) which is a party to the Rome Statute. 

Legally, the ICC doesn’t have jurisdiction over any potential crime that might happen during the military conflict in Ukraine. Unless the alleged criminal is a national of a state which has ratified the statute. If the ICC finds the war in Ukraine a hotspot for “serious crimes of concern to the international community,” the only individuals they have jurisdiction for prosecuting would be Polish, German, British, or  French  “natural persons” involved in alleged crimes (or any other individual who is a national of a state which has ratified the Rome Statute). 

referral to the ICC was done by the ICC Prosecutor 

Furthermore, referral to the ICC was done by the Prosecutor’s investigation, as per article 13 (c) of the Rome statute which wasn’t ratified by Russia or Ukraine. Consequently, the Pre-Trial Chamber II issued an arrest warrant for President Putin and Commissioner Maria Belova. 

Contrary to the case of El Bashir, the ICC’s arrest warrant wasn’t legitimized through extending jurisdiction from a security council resolution. The activation of the ICC was solely based on the Rome Statute. Extending legitimacy for the Rome Statute from the UN charter by a security council resolution as was the case with El Bashir can’t possibly happen such that Russia holds a permanent seat in the Security Council and enjoys veto power against any resolution. 

the pretext for the arrest warrants is the transfer of children from a war zone  

The ICC’s lack of jurisdiction isn’t the only sketchy prospect about the ICC’s case against Putin and Belova. The alleged crime that the two Russian officials were accused of is very peculiar: the forcible displacement of Ukrainian children from Donbass to the Russian Federation, as per article 6(e) of the Rome Statute). 

The ICC’s choice of allegation is very comical in light of the coverage of the war in Ukraine by western media; Putin was accused of unjustifiably invading Ukraine, killing civilians, torture, and a plethora of other crimes which were popularly broadcasted by western media with the onset of the Russian special military operation. 

The Rome Statute abounds with specific crimes which correspond to the narratives of western media about Putin, yet the ICC Prosecutor opted for the most ambiguous to indict Putin for: “Genocide” by the forcible transfer of children.

Rome Statute

Article 6 for the purpose of this Statute, “genocide” means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: 

(e)  Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. 

Even if were to assume that the ICC has jurisdiction over the situation in Ukraine, the alleged crime for which Putin and Belova are being indicted can be problematized on different levels. The transfer of children from Ukraine to Russia doesn’t imply genocide; as expressed by the Statute genocide is defined according to the intentions of the perpetrator.

Putin never expressed intentions to “destroy, in whole or in part” the Ukranian national group. There was no explicit intention of genocide. Furthermore, there are no implicit intentions of genocide that can be stipulated from Putin’s actions. The military operation is in line with its declared objectives of deterring NATO expansion and protecting the Donbass population neither of which can be identified as “genocide”. It’s not clear that the children transferred to the Russian Federation were “forcibly” transferred nor is it clear that the children who were transferred are Ukrainian and not Russian. The population residing in the Ukrainian territories of Donbass are predominantly Russians who have been systematically prosecuted by the Kiev regime since the 2014 coup.    

The pretext for Putin’s arrest is very comical when acknowledging the geopolitics and the legal semantics underlying the ICC’s indictment. One can argue that many school bus drivers are worse genocidal criminals than Putin. 

The US wants the ICC to indict Putin but doesn’t want to provide them with the necessary evidence 

More comical is the US policy towards the indictment. The confusion of the US bureaucracy before and after the ICC’s arrest warrant against Putin is representative of US arrogance: wanting to have their cake and eat it too. The Biden administration, in the final days of its first and seemingly last term, has grown restless to score a swift geopolitical victory by diplomatically isolating Putin: a restlessness that is comparable to that of Bush’s in 2009. 

The White House’s excitement to cooperate with the ICC to isolate Putin was quickly met with concern from other bureaucratic institutions in the US which anticipated a potential backfire from fraternizing with the ICC. 

Back in early March, the New York Times reported that the US Department of Defense opposes Biden’s initiative to hand over evidence that allegedly incriminates Russia for committing ‘war crimes’ in Ukraine to the ICC. The report claimed top-ranking officials in the US military are attempting to stifle the ICC-US cooperation through the provision of evidence in fear of setting a dangerous precedent that might expose the US to similar measures. 

The United States has long avoided the ICC out of concern that the tribunal would go after US officials accused of war crimes. However, back in December, Congress modified the legal restrictions on cooperating with the Court strictly to allow sharing of information on Ukraine in an effort to prosecute Russian individuals. 

Read more: WH to lose moral high grounds in Kiev over Pentagon-ICC complications

The evidence for the arrest warrant is still ambiguous. The Prosecution conducted an investigation and presented it to the Pre-Trial chamber which deemed it reasonable enough to proceed with court proceedings.   

The ICC’s arrest warrant expressed that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” however it’s still not clear whether the evidence on which the Prosecution based their investigation was acquired from the White House. It’s also still not clear what type of evidence it was or if it was sufficient evidence for indicting Putin for genocide. What’s clear however is how international law can be stretched and spun in favor of some against others.       

In brief, regardless of the lack of jurisdiction, the ICC’s case against Putin is still not clearly justified in terms of evidence. The only detectable basis for the ICC’s arrest warrant is the advertised virtuous indignation and moral high grounds of the West. 

Perhaps President Biden’s comment on the situation best captures the oxymoronic confusion and legal acrobatics underlying the ICC’s arrest warrant against Putin. “I think it’s justified, but the question is, it’s not recognized internationally by us, either. But I think it makes a very strong point. Putin clearly committed war crimes”

• International Criminal Court
• ICC
• Putin
• International Law

Russia & NATO

As the Draconian Western-led sanctions on Russia exacerbate the economic crisis worldwide, and as Russian troops gain more ground despite the influx of military aid into Ukraine, exposing US direct involvement in bio-labs spread across Eastern Europe and the insurgence of neo-Nazi groups… How will things unfold?

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Putin’s Collaborators (?) and Distant Echoes of WW2

February 24, 2023

ٍSource

by Jimmie Moglia

By and large, for an ideology to take root among a people or a nation it is necessary to transform the individual into the mass man. For masses are – before in time and now often in the impalpable ether – what crowds are in space. Namely a large quantity of people unable to express their human qualities – for members of masses are not connected to each other either as individuals or as parts of a community. In fact they are only linked through some impersonal, abstract, crystallizing and often de-humanizing factor.

With crowds it can be, for example, a sports match, a huge sale, a morbid murder. With masses it is the drumming repetition of the same thing by the same media. Media – in turn – today overwhelmingly funded and overwhelmingly owned by historically old and yet modernized clever masters of the human mind and apostles of the thought-unique.

In essence, we can agree that masses are those who love they know not why, and hate upon no better ground, ever ready to accept the master’s line even when the verity of it is in strong suspicion.

That said, thanks to the imposed and aforementioned ‘thought unique’ he who does not agree with the US funded Ukrainian coup-d’etat of 2014, with the 8-year bombardment of the Donbass, with the open and openly Nazis nature of the current regime and army, with the banning of the Russian language, with the essential shutting down of the Ukrainian church and the imprisonment of some of its pastors… etc., this individual is variously defined as a ‘Putin’s Stooge’, and nostalgically, at least in France, as a ‘collaborator,’ more familiarly a ‘collabo’.

Collabo’ is a term coined to dishonor those Frenchmen who had acquiesced to live acquiescently within the Vichy regime of Marshal Petain during WW2. After France’s crushing defeat of 1940, Petain had come to terms with Hitler – and the ensuing regime got its name from its capital Vichy, a lovely town in the very lovely French region of Auvergne. It should be added, though easily forgotten, that Marshal Petain had been a hero of WW1, acclaimed as a national hero for having stopped the Germans at Verdun and having assumed command of the French forces in 1917. Which is why he was exiled but not killed after WW2.

I will return shortly to the analysis of who is a ‘collaborations’ and why, but I cannot resist relating an observation made in Paris, years ago, when France still held some independence from the cultural and political hegemony by the exceptional nation – exercised via the ‘collaboration’ within the European Union and, of course, NATO.

Among the large promotional posters attached to the walls of the metro stations, I remember one, featuring the large, beautiful view of a hilly, tranquil, bucolic, green and peaceful countryside, including a few very relaxed cows. The script on the poster said in English, “Auvergne, our Natural Resources.”

At the time, the thought-unique had not, as yet, driven France into the current extreme, self-defeating and demeaning position of subservience to the arrogant part of America, in just about all domains of life and endeavor. The poster was seemingly intended as a mild satire towards a culture that values nothing unless it represents a monetary return on investments.

For a description of the difference between the ‘arrogant’ and the ‘human’ part of America, please refer to my article “A Tale of Two Cultures.”

Returning to Ukraine, in the whole business, as most know, there are some metaphorical elephants in the metaphorical living room, even if, by convention, they are assumed to be invisible.

For in much of the Western world, whoever questions, however mildly and with supporting evidence, the narrative of an event actually inaugurated and named in New York in 1972, (over 30 years after its actual occurrence) this person, thanks to the democratic western values, including ‘freedom of expression’ can easily end up in jail.

Those condemned for this reason have been many. Emblematic is Ms. Ursula Haverbeck, who, being in no way a Hitler apologist, only questioned some of the questionable assertions related to the never-ending campaign launched, as mentioned, in 1972. For this she was jailed in Germany when she was 93-year young.

The whole thing is equally extraordinary and relevant to the issue dealt with here, considering that, in Ukraine, all know and witness a systematic re-interpretation of history, an inversion of values, a revolution in words and a reversal of meanings.

The American mastermind of the ‘Maidan Revolution’, the two ensuing Ukrainian presidents and some of the ministers are chosen people. While the most active and notorious personalities of the Ukrainian army (setting aside the mercenaries) are incontrovertibly Nazis. Even the main avenue in Kiev has been re-named ‘Bandera Avenue,’ in honor of Hitler’s collaborator and most popular partner of the Germans in Ukraine during WW2.

The ‘sponsor’ of the current president is equally chosen-people material, whose fiber and temper would not recommend themselves even to the most forgiving evaluator. (I wrote an article about him in May 2019, titled “The Bottom of the Barrel” https://thesaker.is/?s=The+bottom+of+the+barrel).

Equally notable are the multi-billion $$ ‘donations’ of arms to Ukraine by Giuseppe Biden. And even Bankman Fried – notorious hero of the recent close-to-a-billion $$ ruinous Ponzi scheme – has allegedly contributed 60 million $$ to the regime. While he has equally been hailed as a great co-religionist, great friend and great supporter of the current Ukrainian president.

Let’s now return to the issue of who is or isn’t a ‘collaborator’, or ‘collabo’ and if so, of whom, beginning with the lexicon.

‘Collaboration’ is a word of easy etymological determination. It derives from Latin, meaning ‘to work together’. Historically, ‘collaboration’ referred to the medieval meaning of “shared possessions acquired through work by a married couple.” However, in France, during the German occupation in WW2, it assumed the significance of ‘cooperating with the enemy’. And as if to ensure that the new WW2 meaning could not be confused with the original, the term ‘collaborator’ was shrunk into the shorter and disparaging-sounding word ‘collabo’.

The lexical metamorphosis began on October 24, 1940 when, in the little town of Montoire-sur-le-Loire, a meeting was held at the railway station between Adolf Hitler and Marshall Petain, president of France. A historical photo shows Petain shaking Hitler’s hand.

A transcription of the actual conversation is not available, but six days later, Petain, in a radio speech delivered while sitting by his fireplace, gave the French a status report on the situation. It is during this broadcast that he used the term ‘collaboration,’ in a significantly historical paragraph:

“It is a matter of honor, in order to maintain French unity, a unity spanning ten centuries – and in the context of a constructive new European Order – that today I have begun on a path of collaboration” (with Germany).

One important consideration. As a matter of principle and action, ‘collaboration’ was an integral foundation of Petain’s philosophy, in relation to the ‘new European order’ spoken-of in his radio address. Meaningfully, Petain’s words ‘new European order’ are omitted from French history texts in schools, referring to that period and event. Why? Because, in the sanctioned interpretation of history, it was/is important to emphasize Petain’s submission (to Germany) rather than collaboration. Which, more objectively, at least in my view, should have been called ‘modus vivendi’ – a sentence whose flavor of neutrality and antiquity, would better represent the condition when people who declared a war on an enemy and lost it, attempt to survive in objectively critical circumstances.

Still, given the aftermath of WW2 and the strongly promoted implementation of the European Union, Petain’s ‘new European order’ returned a few years later under a new flag and – we may add – with a vengeance.

Ever since, implicitly, explicitly, officially and unofficially the ‘new European order’ has been imposed, not to say forced-upon the seemingly complacent, compliant, beguiled, gullible, undisturbed and unruffled Europeans.

Furthermore, given that the tale of history cannot be told without (often) strategic and convenient omissions, a curious reader may be interested in another remarkably curious piece of news, usually (or strategically) omitted.

One important protagonist in the establishment of the current European Union was Walter Hallstein, a jurist most close to Hitler during the regime. Hallstein had accompanied Hitler in his state visit to Mussolini in Italy and had established the framework of the notorious ‘axe’ Hitler-Mussolini. Later he set up the legal framework for the ‘new European order’, now renamed ‘European Union’, including the structure of what would become the ‘Treaty of Rome’ of 1957. Equally, Walter Hallstein became the first president of the CEE Commission (Commission Economique pour l’Europe). In other words he was a pedigreed Nazi, though he successfully managed to hide it. So much so that I would wager that most of my 25 readers don’t know it.

While assigning NO value judgment to this historical truth, there is a connecting point or common denominator between Petain’s ‘collaboration in the context of a ‘new European order’ and the ‘collaboration’ in the context of Walter Hallstein even-newer European order. In both cases that connection, or context, or common denominator is submission.

It is because France was invaded that Petain did ‘collaborate.’ And apart from any related value judgment, who declared war on whom in WW2? It may be historically uncomfortable, yet it wasn’t Hitler but France who declared war on Germany, and so did England on the 3^rd of September 1939, one month and a half before the mentioned interview at Montaire.

Any historical consideration fails in its objective of clarification if it is not extracted from the web of intertwining events and – at least temporarily – considered as an independent fact. I am referring here to Hitler’s ‘Lebenraum’ (living space), a German rendering of American President Polk’s 19^th century notion of America’s ‘manifest destiny’ (see more about this later)

And why did France and England declare war on Germany? Because from the middle of the 1930s Germany had risen in power, aiming at agglomerating German-speaking countries, so as to redress the unfortunate and objectively despicable decisions taken at the end of WW1. When the map of Europe was re-drawn, creating new countries that contained a conspicuous proportion of Germans in speech and culture – notably Austria, created after the dismemberment of the millenarian Austro-Hungarian empire, and the Sudeten, the Western part of the new Republic of Czechoslovakia. A German survivor from the Sudeten, emigrated from Germany to Portland after WW2, used to recount harrowing episodes of mistreatment of the Germans by the Czecks after the Checks took over the Sudeten. Treating people as pawns and tokens is usually unadvisable. Even in our historical yesterday, the Czecks and the Slovaks found that they were not the same, or same enough to be part of the same state.

After Germany united with Austria in 1938 the Western powers became worried. They grumbled but accepted the fait-accompli at the famous Munich conference. Henceforth the West split among those in favor and those against the Munich agreement.

Missing, in the German reunification, was the ‘Danzig corridor’ earlier given to Poland. This practically split Prussia (the historical heart of modern Germany) from Germany proper.

On paper Danzig was the item of contention, apart from other German strategies. planned or pending. Poland refused to yield and Germany attacked Poland. Now England and France declared war on Germany.

It is currently fashionable, in certain quarters, to equate Putin with Hitler, but the comparison is not tenable. Russia does not harbor designs to invade other countries. The opposite is true. A map of Russia, produced after the end of the USSR by a US ‘think-tank’ features European Russia split into 4 independent states under US ‘protection’. While Russian Asia is up for grabs because it is ‘too big’ according to that poor imitation of a human, Victoria Nuland (Nudelman) who, Shakespeareanly speaking, is not worth the dust that the rude wind blows in her face.

In fact, after 1991 and the tumultuous dissolution of the USSR, in purely technical and historical terms NATO has assumed Hitler’s role. That is, the US has not ceased to erode and nibble at the geographical and strategic space protecting Russia. Which was accomplished by incorporating the Eastern States into NATO, also using the only slightly more chaste instrument of the ‘European Union’. The whole conducted in platitudinous breach of agreements and justified by the ridiculous claim that nothing in writing existed as a reference.

Therefore, watching the world from Russia’s point of view it is easy to see that all that Russia won in Europe after her enormous sacrifices in WW2, had been shattered.

Historically the situation is the mirror image of Europe in 1938-39, as seen by England and France. Wherefrom it follows that today’s Ukraine is yesterday’s Poland.

Besides, Ukraine is an integral part of Russia, of her people and history since 1654 and the Treaty of Perejeslav. Removing Ukraine from Russia (please refer to my article “America and Russia – Tale of Two Cultures) almost equates to removing Paris from France, Tuscany from Italy or Athens from Greece.

From Moscow’s point of view the situation is dangerous. Recent events show that the US destroyed Iraq and Libya nor has given up on Syria, all on behalf of an artificial, apartheid state that cannot be named. For they – Iraq, Libya and Syria – were the only countries upholding the rights of the Palestinians (along with Iran).

After the US-funded, South-American-style Maidan revolution in 2014, the threat against Russia became obvious and the damage direct – quite apart from the curious and extraordinary alliance of the resurrected Ukrainian Nazis with the new Ukrainian government, made up by members of the chosen people.

Returning to historical analogies, Russia’s action equates to what England and France did in 1939. Who would, today, dare to hold that England and France were wrong in declaring war on Hitler?

Yet at the time, the perception was quite different, starting with Petain and his ‘collaborationists’. Before the battle of Stalingrad, (1943), many in France held that Germany had not attacked France or England. Therefore why declare war on Germany?

In summary, those who compare Putin with Hitler should remember that it is exactly what England and France did to Germany. With a significant difference, England and France declared war on Germany to defend the Poles. Russia launched her military operation to defend the Russians. Quite apart from the remarkable admixture of a Nazi-inspired army and the post-Maidan Jewish government.

Besides, to be a collaborationist implies agreeing, conniving and cooperating with an enemy present in the territory. But Russia does not impose her rule on France or England, or anywhere else for that matter. Therefore those who accuse of collaborationism the dissenters on the American-NATO line on Russia are either not serious, or more likely in bad faith. How can one be a collaborationist with a country that does not occupy or plan to occupy the country of the collaborationists?

Instead, dominating England, France and Europe at large is the exceptional nation. To quote verbatim from a Biden’s statement, (Nov 24, 20) “America is back and ready to lead the world.” Where ‘being back’ meant a sharp break from the ‘America first’ inspired foreign policy of Donald Trump.

Militarily speaking it is difficult to argue that Europe is NOT under US occupation. DeGaulle himself detected and denounced the overpowering, constraining and conditioning presence of the US in France – which led him to exit NATO and impose the closing of the US bases in France in 1966.

Later President Mitterand echoed the same sentiments and policies. Whereas the current French president Macron appears but a reservist of the exceptional nation.

Therefore the label of ‘Putin’s collaborator’ assigned to dissenters is absurd. The real collaborator is he who is hand and glove with those who dominate and impose their geo-political choices in Europe at large.

Besides, nowhere, in Russia’s history or known archives, will be found a document declaring or theorizing that Russia should conquer Europe or the world. Hence it cannot be argued that if Putin takes Ukraine, he will then conquer Poland, Germany, France etc.

Such theory, if it existed, would have manifested itself since long, and comparing the Russian Federation with the Soviet regime is absurd. The USSR was the embodiment of Marxist theories applied to world revolution. Nor it is antisemitic to remember that members of the chosen people made up 95% of the first Politburo. Besides, on the 200^th anniversary of Karl Marx’ birth (April 30, 2018) the New York Times – the official opinion of America – whose ownership, ever since 1895 is politely left unsaid, and yet unbroken and undisputed – published a conspicuous article titled, “Happy Birthday, Karl Marx. You Were Right!”

But returning to the main point, Russia, under Putin, has attempted to reestablish the security that the nation had before its dissolution.

In Asia all that Russia wants is that the ex-USSR countries do not become a threat. There was a hint of another Maidan two years ago in Kazakhstan, fortunately dispelled in time. Interested readers may refer to my related video (https://youtu.be/whXvQ765t-M)

Most of us agree that the sovereignty of a country does not imply the right of being a threat to her neighbors.

Besides, there are no extant text, present or past, theorizing or suggesting that Russia should dominate the universe, or at least entire continents and countries at large. Something equivalent to Kagan’s (Victoria Nuland’s husband), “Plan for a New American Century.”

In comparison, though the fact is not usually explained or discussed in schools, on December 2, 1823, the fifth president of the United States James Monroe, established his ‘Monroe doctrine,’ whereby North and South America should exist under total control of the United States.

The doctrine did not imply isolationism. Rather it implied preventing any intervention or participation by European countries into the affairs of the American continent. That is, the scope of the doctrine was not isolationism but interdiction of any other state or country from having anything to do with the Americas.

Another relevant historical date is December 2, 1845 when the 10^th president of the United States, James Polk pronounced a speech containing the words ‘manifest destiny’, referring to a quasi-supernatural license granted to the United States for dominating all lands from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

At the time, the hub of the United States was in the East, and the Western expansion was still in progress. Much of the center and the whole west were Mexican lands: California, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada. While lands north of Oregon belonged to Britain.

Henceforth, the US would fight Mexico in the South and antagonize Britain in the North to secure ‘full spectrum dominance’ in those lands, because the gods had said so.

The history of Texas deserves a brief mention. Mexico had invited American settlers to Mexico, which they did. But in 1829 Mexico abolished slavery, which Texas was not yet ready to do away with. The settlers rebelled, Texas became independent, and they retained slavery until the 1860s and the Civil War.

Yet, the spirit of independence (leaving the Union) has still its largest appeal in Texas. Showing that history counts and that traditions don’t die quickly.

In the end, President Polk managed to secure the largest territorial expansion and extension of the United States ever. Yet Polk’s ‘manifest destiny’ never died and still informs and inspires current US international policy, as all can see.

Terms other than ‘manifest destiny’ may apply: ‘indispensable nation’, ‘exceptional nation’. Thay are but cosmetic variations on the theme. For in our current society of the spectacle trifle is king rather than meaning. And trifles always require an exuberance of ornament, as provided by commercial media.

For the building which has no strength can be valued only for the showiness of its decorations. The pebble must be masked with care, which hopes to be valued as a diamond; and words can be cleverly labored when they are intended to numb the mind and to replace nothingness.

Besides, expecting a change of mind or heart from current Western politicians is naïve. Theirs is a life of little work and much luxury. And when a position teems with such pleasant consequences, who can without regret confess it to be false? Furthermore, in the current US political landscape, arrogance seems recommended as the supply of every defect and the ornament of every (supposed) excellence. Alternatively, those who are unable to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox, as in the case of the “Putin Collaborators”.

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In Response to Opportunistic Critics: Where I Actually Stand on the Russia-Ukraine War

February 11, 2023

South Africa’s former Minister for Intelligence Services Ronnie Kasrils. (Photo: via Kasrils FB profile)

– Ronnie Kasrils, veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, and South Africa’s former Minister for Intelligence Services, activist and author. He contributed this piece to The Palestine Chronicle

By Ronnie Kasrils

The recent hatchet job by Greg Mills and Ray Hartley in the Daily Maverick shows they believe it is their hallowed duty to strike down any voice daring to question the Western crusade against the evil Russian Empire.

Debate should always be encouraged, but the search for historic truth and a credible understanding of the facts is ill-served by a descent into a childlike morality tale of good versus evil.

In fact, Mills and Hartley, along with the rest of the increasingly shrill and at times hysterical pro-Western lobby in our media, should learn something from the much more sophisticated contributions that have been developed in the West in response to the USA-NATO belligerence, the crossing of bright red lines regarding Russia and China’s security, and the possibility of dire consequences. Learned American academics such as John Mearsheimer, Edward Curtin, John Bellamy Foster, and military intelligence specialists such as Scott Ritter and Jacques Baud, to name just a few prominent Western thinkers, have produced excellent analyses.

Contrary to what Mills and Hartley infer by twisting my words, I am by no means an uncritical fan of Putin or capitalist Russia. Of course, it is true that a strong legacy exists concerning the support the ANC and other fraternal liberation movements received from the former Soviet Union, but it is far more than that which inclines much of the Global South, to understand Russia’s security needs, and sustains its anathema for USA-NATO imperialist domination.

Indeed, the South African position on the conflict is hardly an outlier in the Global South. Brazil’s Luis Inazio Lula da Silva, for instance, has taken a similar position.

My article in News24 focused on the historical connection between the liberation struggle in South Africa and the Soviet Union because the publication specifically asked me to comment from my perspective as an Umkhonto weSizwe cadre who underwent military training there in 1964 – and in Odessa no less. I learned about Russia and the Soviet Union’s immense sacrifice during World War 2, and the people’s opposition to fascism in all its forms, including the Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, and the Soviet people’s deeply-rooted commitment to world peace.

I also referred to the bellicose emergence of neo-Nazis in present Ukraine. Mills and Hartley have the temerity to cynically spin this factual observation and declare themselves “sickened” by my alleged inference that present-day Ukraine is “somehow a Nazi state”. I said no such thing. I wrote: “Little wonder that President Putin has stated that part of Russia’s objective is the de-Nazification of the Ukraine.”

The emergence of neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine became globally visible during the Maidan Square protests in Kyiv, which turned into a violent rampage in 2014. At the time, mainstream Western media highlighted the role of those Nazi gangs.

Since then, the notorious neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and their ilk have become embedded within the Ukrainian armed forces, adorned with Nazi symbolism, and involved in atrocities. Now the Western media has turned a blind eye.

It is a moral duty to point to the rising peril of neo-Nazism in the streets of Europe, the USA and elsewhere, and the broader populist appeal to white supremacism. I will not be quietened in pointing out how emboldened the neo-Nazis have become in Ukraine.

It is important for readers to be aware that the Brenthurst Foundation is hardly a neutral institution when it comes to an ideological worldview. It is funded by white mining capital and, as a casual look at its board and associates shows, deeply enmeshed in the Western military
establishment – apart from a handful of Africans.

There is so much that is factually incorrect, dangerous and superficial in the Mills and Hartley piece. Particularly revealing is what they studiously avoid, because it does not suit their case.

I turn only to some of their more obvious howlers and deliberate omissions.

The Kyiv regime, which they laud as an example of freedom and democracy, has banned the communist and socialist parties, several left-wing organizations, and the For Life parliamentary opposition platform.

The “democrat” Zelensky, has closed down all opposition television and media outlets and instituted crippling legislation against Ukraine’s trade union movement and civil liberties. No word of this from the Brenthurst duo.

They claim that Crimea voted in a referendum to leave the Russian Federation and join Ukraine. But they don’t specify which referendum and when. There was a referendum among Crimea’s people in 2014, which voted for inclusion in the Russian Federation. What other referendums have occurred other than at the dissolution of the Soviet Union? Those related to the independence of the former constituent republics.

At that time, in December 1991, the three Slavic republics – Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine – proclaimed the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). That was
not a referendum specifically concerning Crimea.

As to the sanctity of referenda or elections, there is no sound from the Brenthurst pair concerning the Maidan coup of 2014 which overthrew the democratically elected government of President Yanukovych, and the “color revolution” investment of the USA, Germany, Poland and others.

They state that in Africa a very limited number of countries were against supporting Ukraine. There were seventeen, including South Africa, that abstained from the UN General Assembly vote. As for African countries voting against Russia, President Ramaphosa has referred to South Africa being blackmailed and threatened to toe the US-NATO line.

I am accused of ranting about the “morality of US foreign policy, CIA-sponsored coups, punitive sanctions and blockades, military aggression and intervention globally”. Russia, they state appears exempt from my criticism “when it does the same — and far worse — in Africa under the brutal rule of Wagner military interventions that secure mineral wealth for oligarchs.”

The facts are that whatever the sins of Wagner, the most active and destructive mercenary groups that have plundered Africa and the Middle East are American, British and French. Their boots on the ground are numbered in the tens of thousands.

Wagner personnel are 6,000.

By Wikipedia’s broadest definition of military intervention, the US has engaged in nearly 200
since 1950 with over 25% occurring since 1991.

That explains why so many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America refuse to kowtow to the US-NATO-EU axis. When they do it is either because of fear of the consequences or they are infamous dictators installed by the CIA such as Mobuto Sese Seko, Pinochet, Bolsonaro or Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, loyal to their master’s orders.

As for elephants in the room which Mills and Hartley are silent about, any university undergraduates serious about historical events can point to:

• NATO expansion east to Russia’s doorstep since the collapse of the Soviet Union when it should have been wound up along with the Warsaw Pact;
• Numerous countries added to NATO’s eastern expansion despite promises to Russia to the contrary;
• 15,000 mostly Russian-speaking people in the Donbas killed by Ukrainian forces between 2014 and February 2022;
• 42 massacred at the Odessa trade union building in July 2014;
• Atrocities committed by the Ukrainian forces and Neo-Nazis;
• US rejecting calls from Russia to respect its borders;
• US surrounding Russia with military bases;
• George W. Bush withdrawing the US from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty;
• Trump withdrawing the US from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty;
• The US asserting its right to a nuclear first strike;
• The US waging an economic war on Russia via sanctions for years.

Mills and Hartley venture into the realm of wild conspiracy theories and cheap insults in hallucinating state capture of our democracy by China and Russia “in politics, unions and business” and, following a now debunked US conspiracy theory, warn of Russia “disrupting elections” as a natural next step.

Whilst our government affirms the need for peaceful negotiations, the pro-NATO position of the Brenthurst duo follows the most dangerous hawks in the West by advocating escalation of the war and more lethal weapons for Ukraine at the risk of a nuclear conflagration.

It seems that Greg Mills has forgotten about Afghanistan. In his years in Kabul serving as ‘special advisor’ to a NATO commander, did he ever conceive of an ignominious reversal?

(This article was originally published in the Daily Maverick)

– Ronnie Kasrils, veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, and South Africa’s former Minister for Intelligence Services, activist and author. He contributed this piece to The Palestine Chronicle

Noble Appeal By Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, But Western Warmongers Are Comfortably Numb

February 10, 2023

Source

Pink Floyd rock legend Roger Waters made an impressive and impassioned plea for peace at the UN Security Council this week. The English-born singer-songwriter was invited by Russia to address the specially convened forum on the prospects of finding a peaceful resolution in Ukraine.

Waters spoke eloquently and from the heart for over 14 minutes via a video link to the gathering at the United Nations’ headquarters in New York. Much respect is due to him for his strident call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine as well as for his general anti-war message on behalf of the world’s “voiceless majority”.

The 79-year-old artist has been a life-long advocate for peace and human rights, and many people around the world admire not only his musical creations but also his integrity and indefatigable defense of human rights. As he noted during his speech, his own father was killed in action during the Second World War when he was just an infant in 1944, and so he has been “touched by war”.

To his eternal credit, Waters has not taken megastar retirement in luxurious, mindless oblivion. He has remained as politically active and outspoken as when he was a younger artist, critical of exploitative corporate capitalist power and imperialist warmongering. With fierce integrity and poignant compassion, he has championed the cause of the Palestinian people and the freedom of publisher Julian Assange locked up in a British prison, among other causes. His music and artistry are a holistic expression of his pathos and politics.

He may have been invited by Russia to address the UNSC this week, but Waters showed himself to be no “apologist” for Moscow. During his speech, he claimed that Russia had “illegally invaded” Ukraine in February 2022, and he forthrightly condemned that. He is entitled to his opinion.

Nevertheless, he also condemned the provocations by the United States and NATO in building up Ukraine with armaments in the years before the conflict erupted last February. He denounced the war profiteering by Western powers from their relentless and reckless supplying of weapons to Ukraine which, he said, was risking a nuclear apocalypse if it spiralled into a bigger all-out confrontation.

The reactions to this noble intervention by Roger Waters were telling. While he spoke to the UNSC, the envoys from Ukraine fiddled on their phones, showing contemptible disrespect. Following his speech, the Ukrainian and the American representatives mocked Waters for peddling “Russian propaganda”.

There was little reporting in the Western media of his words. Some reportage tried to undermine his sincere calls for peace and his blistering critique of the warmongering capitalist system by focusing on what they claimed was his justification for Russian military action in Ukraine after he had said the war was “not unprovoked”.

Hardly surprising. Western mainstream news media have become so debased as propaganda channels that anyone who dares to discuss the historical context of the conflict is immediately smeared as a “Kremlin stooge”. Their media function is to prevent any intelligent, truthful understanding of how this conflict manifested or what is really at stake. The same goes for other conflicts and in particular, the next one Washington is fomenting with China.

Waters deserves immense praise for his courageous, unstinting calls for peace and for a broader understanding of the nature and causes of the conflict in Ukraine. But the dismissive response to his supplications illustrates clearly that the Western warmongers and their NeoNazi regime in Kiev have no intention or will to find a just peace. They are, to quote that classic song by Pink Floyd, “comfortably numb” to any feeling of justice and peace.

Thus, lamentably, his demands for an immediate ceasefire are naive. While many people around the world will admire the call for peace, it is misleading to not fully realize how the conflict in Ukraine came about and why it is being pursued by Western powers. Such appeals will not prevail against the war fundamentalists. Indeed, any ceasefire without resolving the root causes of the war would only prolong the conflict by allowing a rearming of the NATO-sponsored Kiev regime against Russia. Besides, Washington and its Western lackeys are “agreement incapable” and have no integrity.

The most effective immediate way to end the conflict is for Western powers to stop fueling it with the madcap armaments they are piling up in Ukraine. Washington and its European allies are embarking on endless rounds of supplying more offensive weapons. They have already committed to deploying battlefield tanks and this week there was more talk of supplying advanced NATO fighter jets as well as long-range missiles that can hit deep inside Russian territory. The lavish indulgence this week by Britain, France, Germany and the rest of the European Union towards Kiev’s incessant demands for more weapons shows that there is no interest in a genuine diplomatic dialogue for a peaceful settlement.

The European elite political class like their masters in Washington have dangerously distorted the conflict in Ukraine into one of absolute necessity for defeating alleged Russian aggression and “defending democracy”.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky – whose regime in Kiev is up to its eyes in corruption from the arms bazaar in that country as well as infested with Nazi-adulating paramilitaries – was feted in Europe this week with the preposterous claim that Ukraine was defending European values from Russian barbarity. The echo of Third Reich ideology and Russophobic propaganda here is truly astounding.

This war is an existential one. On the one hand, the defeat of Russia is being painted (falsely) as the ultimate challenge to supposed Western civilization. The West has made it a zero-sum contest based on false premises. On the other hand, a real existential issue is that the war is all about preserving American hegemony and propping up the floundering Western imperial global order. “Unipolar world domination,” as Roger Waters put it.

The blockbuster report this week by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh revealing well-founded allegations that the U.S. military blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia to Germany last September demonstrates that this war in Ukraine is only a part of a bigger geopolitical conflict. The Western media’s relative silence over what is ostensibly a staggering act of international terrorism by the Americans and their European minions is as damning as it is instructive.

Hersh credibly claims that the plot to sabotage the pipelines – signed off by the Biden administration – predated the Russian intervention in Ukraine. When added to ignominious admissions by European leaders that there was no intention of honoring the 2014-15 Minsk peace agreements because the tacit objective was always to weaponize Ukraine for an eventual showdown against Russia, then we begin to understand that the intrinsic agenda for war makes a mockery of the Western narrative about “defending Ukraine from Russian aggression”.

Appeals like that of Roger Waters – albeit principled and well-intentioned – are in the final analysis naive and, regrettably, futile. Such appeals presuppose that Western elites and their warmongering system are capable of peaceful and moral reasoning. They are not.

Russia had a legal and moral duty to defend the ethnic Russian people of former Ukraine from eight years of NATO-backed aggression after the CIA-backed coup d’état in Kiev in 2014. That NATO aggression will not be stopped now by moralistic appeals. For we are talking about a system that is tantamount to a rabid dog that needs to be put down. And we are not talking about a system that is limited to the vile Kiev regime. We are talking about the entire U.S.-led capitalist system and its imperialist war machine. A system that has ravaged the world for eight decades since the end of World War Two.

Or to put it another way by way of taking issue with a contradiction in Roger Water’s speech: you can’t appeal to a “bully” to do the right thing. You have to punch the bully in the face.

On the bigger historical picture, it can be increasingly seen now in this present time that the Second World War did not bring about an end to Nazism, fascism and imperialism, especially as Western history books would narrate. The end of that horrendous war was only a respite from the disease. There will be no peace in Ukraine or anywhere else until that disease is terminated – once and for all.

Roger Waters interview to Berliner Zeitung

February 09, 2023

Note: reading these moronic questions+statements only confirms to me my conviction that Europe is sub-pathetic and deserves what will come its way.  This is sad, of course, but indisputable.  As for Roger Waters, his willingness to reconsider his views only inspires even more admiration in me.
Andrei

source: https://rogerwaters.com/berliner/

BERLINER ZEITUNG 4^th FEBRUARY 2023

THE TRUTH WILL SET US FREE

Against the backdrop of the outrageous and despicable  smear campaign by the ISRAELI LOBBY to denounce me as an ANTI-SEMITE, WHICH I AM NOT, NEVER HAVE BEEN and NEVER WILL BE. Against he backdrop of them trying to silence me because I lend my voice to the seventy five year old fight for equal human rights for all my brothers and sisters in Palestine/Israel, irrespective of their ethnicity, religion or nationality. Against the backdrop, of the ISRAELI LOBBY trying to cancel my 85% SOLD OUT series of concerts in Germany, the National Newspaper BERLINER ZEITUNG, has today, courageously, published an in depth interview with me in their Saturday Magazine. Thank you so much gentlemen.

And to MY FANS who have purchased tickets for my  forthcoming shows in Europe,

FEAR NOT! I AM DEFINITELY COMING.

WILD HORSES COULDN’T KEEP ME AWAY

AND NEITHER CAN THIS APARTHEID RABBLE

THE TRUTH WILL SET US FREE.

LOVE

R.

Interview translated into English from German:

Roger Waters can rightly claim to be the mastermind behind Pink Floyd. He came up with the concept of and wrote all the lyrics for the masterpiece “The Dark Side of the Moon”. He wrote the albums “Animals”, “The Wall” and “The Final Cut” single-handedly. On his current tour “This Is Not A Drill”, which comes to Germany in May, he therefore wants to express that legacy to a large extent and play songs from Pink Floyd’s classic phase. The problem: Because of controversial statements he has made about the war in Ukraine and the politics of the state of Israel, one of his concerts in Poland has already been cancelled, and in Germany Jewish and Christian organizations are demanding the same. Time to talk to the 79-year-old musician: What does he mean by all this? Is he simply misunderstood – should his concerts be cancelled? Is it justifiable to exclude him from the conversation? Or does society have a problem banning dissenters like Waters from the conversation?

The musician receives his visitors in his residence in southern England, friendly, open, unpretentious, but determined – that’s how he will remain throughout the conversation. First, however, he wants to demonstrate something special: In the studio of his house, he plays three tracks from a brand new re-recording of “The Dark Side of the Moon”, which celebrates its 50th birthday in March. “The new concept is meant to reflect on the meaning of the work, to bring out the heart and soul of the album,” he says, “musically and spiritually. I’m the only one singing my songs on these new recordings, and there are no rock and roll guitar solos.”

The spoken words, superimposed on instrumental pieces like “On The Run” or “The Great Gig in the Sky” and over “Speak To Me”, “Brain Damage” “Any Colour You Like and Money” are meant to clarify his “mantra”, the message he considers central to all his work: “It’s about the voice of reason. And it says: what is important is not the power of our kings and leaders or their so-called connection with God. What is really important is the connection between us as human beings, the whole human community. We, human beings, are scattered all over the globe – but we are all related because we all come from Africa. We are all brothers and sisters, or at the very least distant cousins, but the way we treat each other is destroying our home, planet earth – faster than we can imagine.” For instance, right now, suddenly here we are in 2023 involved in a year old proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Why? Ok, a bit of history, in 2004 Russian President Vladimir Putin extended his hand to the West in an attempt to build an architecture of peace in Europe. It’s all there in the record. He explained that western plans to invite the post Maidan coup Ukraine into NATO posed a completely unacceptable existential threat to The Russian Federation and would cross a final red line that could end in war, so could we all get round the table and negotiate a peaceful future.  His advances were brushed off by the US and its NATO allies. From then on he consistently maintained his position and NATO consistently maintained theirs: “F… you”. And here we are.

Mr Waters, you speak of the voice of reason, of the deep connection of all people. But when it comes to the war in Ukraine, you talk a lot about the mistakes of the US and the West, not about Russia’s war and the Russian aggression. Why don’t you protest against the acts committed by Russia? I know that you supported Pussy Riot and other human rights organizations in Russia. Why don’t you attack Putin?

First of all, if you read my letter to Putin and my writings around the start of the war in February….

…you called him a “gangster”…

…exactly, I did. But I may have changed my mind a little bit in the last year. There is a podcast from Cyprus called “The Duran”. The hosts speak Russian and can read Putin’s speeches in the original. Their comments on it make sense to me. The most important reason for supplying arms to Ukraine is surely profit for the arms industry. And I wonder: is Putin a bigger gangster than Joe Biden and all those in charge of American politics since World War II? I am not so sure. Putin didn’t invade Vietnam or Iraq? Did he?

The most important reason for arms deliveries is the following: It is to support Ukraine, to win the war and to stop Russia’s aggression. You seem to see it differently.

Yes. Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I am now more open to listen what Putin actually says. According to independent voices I listen to he governs carefully, making decisions on the grounds of a consensus in the Russian Federation government. There are also critical intellectuals in Russia, who have been arguing against American imperialism since the 1950s. And a central phrase has always been: Ukraine is a red line. It must remain a neutral buffer state. If it doesn’t remain so, we don’t know where it will lead. We still don’t know, but it could end in a Third World War.

In February last year, it was Putin who decided to attack.

He launched what he still calls a “special military operation”. He launched it on the basis of reasons that if I have understood them well are: 1. We want to stop the potential genocide of the Russian-speaking population of the Donbas. 2. We want to fight Nazism in Ukraine. There is a teenage Ukrainian girl, Alina, with whom I exchanged long letters: “I hear you. I understand your pain.” She answered me, thanked me, but stressed, I‘m sure you’re wrong about one thing though, “I am 200% certain there are no Nazis in Ukraine.” I replied again, “I’m sorry Alina, but you are wrong about that. How can you live in Ukraine and not know?”

There is no evidence that there has been genocide in Ukraine. At the same time, Putin has repeatedly emphasised that he wants to bring Ukraine back into his empire. Putin told former German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the saddest day in his life was in 1989, when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Isn’t the word origin of “Ukraine” the Russian word for  “Borderland”? It was part of Russia and the Soviet Union for a long time. It’s a difficult history. During the Second World War, I believe there was a large part of the population of western Ukraine that decided to collaborate with the Nazis. They killed Jews, Roma, communists, and anyone else the Third Reich wanted dead. To this day there is the conflict between Western Ukraine (With or without Nazis Alina) and Eastern The Donbas) and Southern (Crimea) Ukraine and there are many Russian speaking Ukrainians because it was part of Russia for hundreds of years. How can you solve such a problem? It can’t be done by either the Kiev government or the Russians winning. Putin has always stressed that he has no interest in taking over western Ukraine – or invading Poland or any other country across the border. What he is saying is: he wants to protect the Russian-speaking populations in those parts of Ukraine where the Russian speaking populations feel under threat from the far right influenced post Maidan Coup Governments in Kiev. A coup that is widely accepted as having been orchestrated by the US.

We have spoken to many Ukrainians who can prove otherwise. The US may have helped support the 2014 protests. But overall, reputable sources and eyewitness accounts suggest that the protests arose from within – through the will of the Ukrainian people.

I wonder which Ukrainians you have spoken to? I can imagine that some claim that. On the other side of the coin a huge majority of Ukrainians in the Crimea and the Donbass have voted in referenda to rejoin The Russian Federation.

In February, you were surprised that Putin attacked Ukraine. How can you be so sure that he will not go further? Your trust in Russia does not seem to have been shattered, despite the bloody Russian war of aggression.

How can I be sure that the US will not risk starting a nuclear war with China? They are already provoking The Chinese by interfering in Taiwan. They would love to destroy Russia first. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature understands that, when they read the news, and the Americans admit it.

You irritate a lot of people because it always sounds like you are defending Putin.

Compared to Biden, I am. The US/NATO provocations before February 2022 were extreme and very damaging to the interests of all the ordinary people of Europe.

You would not boycott Russia?

I think it is counterproductive. You live in Europe: How much does the US charge for gas deliveries? Five times as much as its own citizens pay. In England, people are now saying “eat or heat” – because the poorer sections of the population can hardly afford to heat their homes. Western governments should realize that we are all brothers and sisters. In the Second World War they saw what happens when they try to wage war against Russia. They will unite and fight to the last ruble and the last square meter of ground to defend their motherland. Just like anyone would. I think if the US can convince its own citizens and you and many other people, that Russia is the real enemy, and that Putin is the new Hitler they will have an easier time stealing from the poor to give to the rich and also starting and promoting more wars, like this proxy war in Ukraine. Maybe that seems like an extreme political stance to you, but maybe the history I read and the news I garner is just different from you. You can’t believe everything you see on TV or read in the papers. All I am trying to achieve with my new recordings, my statements and performances is that our brothers and sisters in power stop the war – and that people understand that our brothers and sisters in Russia do not live under a repressive dictatorship, any more than you do in Germany or I do in the US. I mean would we choose to continue to slaughter young Ukrainians and Russians if we had the power to stop it?

We can do this interview, in Russia this would not be so easy… But back to Ukraine: What would be your political counter-proposal for a meaningful Ukraine policy of the West?

We need to get all our leaders around the table and force them to say: “No more war!”. That would be the point where dialogue can start.

Could you imagine living in Russia?

Yes, of course, why not? It would be the same as with my neighbours here in the south of England. We could go to the pub and talk openly – as long as they don’t go to war and kill Americans or Ukrainians. All right? As long as we can trade with each other, sell each other gas, make sure we’re warm in the winter, we’re fine. Russians are no different from you and me: there are good people and there are idiots – like everywhere else.

Then why don’t you play shows in Russia?

Not for ideological reasons. It is simply not possible at the moment. I’m not boycotting Russia, that would be ridiculous. I play 38 shows in the USA. If I were to boycott any country for political reasons, it would be the US. They are the main aggressor.

If one looks at the conflict neutrally, one can see Putin as the aggressor. Do you think we are all brainwashed?

Yes, I do indeed, definitely. Brainwashed, you said it.

Because we consume western media?

Exactly. What everyone in the West is being told is the “unprovoked invasion” narrative. Huh? Anyone with half a brain can see that the conflict in Ukraine was provoked beyond all measure. It is probably the most provoked invasion ever.

When concerts in Poland were cancelled because of your statements on the war in Ukraine, did you just feel misunderstood?

Yes. This is a big step backwards. It is an expression of Russophobia. People in Poland are obviously just as susceptible to Western propaganda. I would want to say to them: You are brothers and sisters, get your leaders to stop the war so that we can stop for a moment and think: “What is this war about?”. It is about making the rich in the Western countries even richer and the poor everywhere even poorer. The opposite of Robin Hood. Jeff Bezos has a fortune of around 200 billion dollars, while thousands of people in Washington D.C. alone live in cardboard boxes on the street.

Ukrainians are standing up to defend their country. Most people in Germany see it that way, which is why your statements cause consternation, even anger. Your perspectives on Israel meet with similar criticism here. That is also why there is now a discussion about whether your concerts in Germany should be cancelled. How do you react to that?

Oh, you know, it’s Israeli Lobby activists like Malca Goldstein-Wolf who demand that. That’s idiotic. They already tried to cancel my concert in Cologne in 2017 and even got the local radio stations to join in.

Isn’t it a bit easy to label these people as idiots?

Of course, they are not all idiots. But they probably read the Bible and probably believe that anyone who speaks out against Israeli fascism in the Holy Land is an anti-Semite. That’s really not a smart position to take, because to do so you have to deny that people lived in Palestine before the Israelis settled there. You have to follow the legend that says, “A land without a people for a people without a land.” What nonsense. The history here is quite clear. To this day, the indigenous, Jewish population is a minority. The Jewish Israelis all immigrated from Eastern Europe or the United States.

You once compared the state of Israel to Nazi Germany. Do you still stand by this comparison?

Yes, of course. The Israelis are committing genocide. Just like Great Britain did during our colonial period, by the way. The British committed genocide against the indigenous people of North America, for example. So did the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portuguese even the Germans in their colonies. All were part of the injustice of the colonial era. And we, the British also murdered and pillaged in India, Southeast Asia, China…. We believed ourselves to be inherently superior to the indigenous people, just as the Israelis do in Palestine. Well, we weren’t and neither are the Israeli Jews.

As an English man, you have a very different perspective on the history of the State of Israel than we Germans do. In Germany, criticism of Israel is handled with caution for good reasons; Germany has a historical debt that the country must live up to.

I understand that very well and I have been trying to deal with it for 20 years. But for me, your debt, as you put it, your national sense of guilt for what the Nazis did between 1933 and 1945, shouldn’t require your whole society to walk around with blinkers on about Israel. Would it not be better if it rather spurred you to throw away all the blinkers and support equal human rights for all your brothers and sisters all over the world irrespective of ethnicity religion or nationality?

Are you questioning Israel’s right to exist?

In my opinion, Israel has a right to exist as long as it is a true democracy, as long as no group, religious or ethnic, enjoys more human rights than any other. But unfortunately that is exactly what is happening in Israel and Palestine. The government says that only Jewish people should enjoy certain rights. So it can’t be described as democratic. They are very open about it, it’s enshrined in Israeli law. There are now many people in Germany, and of course many Jewish people in Israel, who are open to a different narrative about Israel. Twenty years ago, we could not have had a conversation about the State of Israel in which the terms genocide and apartheid were mentioned. Now I would say you can’t have that conversation without using those terms, because they accurately describe the reality in the occupied territory. I see that more and more clearly since I’ve been part of the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, ed.).

Do you think they would agree with you here in England?

I can’t say for sure because I’ve hardly lived here for the last 20 years. I would have to go down to the pub and talk to people. But I suspect more and more would agree with me every day. I have many Jewish friends – by the way – who whole heartedly agree with me, which is one reason why it’s so crazy to try to discredit me as a Jew-hater. I have one close friend in New York, who happens to be Jewish, who said to me the other day, “A few years ago, I thought you were crazy, I thought you had completely lost it. Now I see you were right in your position on the policies of the state of Israel – and we, the Jewish community in the US, were wrong.” My friend in NY was clearly distressed making this remark, he is a good man.

BDS positions are sanctioned by the German Bundestag. A success of the BDS movement could ultimately mean an end to the state of Israel. Do you see it differently?

Yes, Israel could change its laws. They could say: We have changed our mind, people are allowed to have rights even if they are not Jewish. That would be it, then we wouldn’t need BDS any more.

Have you lost friends because you are active for BDS?

It’s interesting that you ask that. I don’t know exactly, but I very much doubt it. A friendship is a powerful thing. I would say I’ve had about ten real friends in my life. I couldn’t lose a friend because of my political views, because friends love each other – and friendship begets talk, and talk begets understanding. If a friend were to say, “Roger, I saw you flew an inflatable pig with a Star of David on it during your Wall concerts!”, I explain to them the context and that there was nothing  anti-Semitic either intended or expressed.

What is the context then?

That was during the song “Goodbye Blue Sky” in “The Wall” show. And to explain the context, you see B-52 bombers, on a circular screen behind the band, but they don’t drop bombs, they drop symbols: Dollar signs, Crucifixes, Hammer and Sickles, Star and Crescents, the McDonalds sign – and Star of Davids. This is theatrical satire, an expression of my belief that unleashing these ideologies, or products onto the people on the ground, is an act of aggression, the opposite of humane, the opposite of creating love and peace among us brothers and sisters. I’m saying in the wrong hands all the ideologies these symbols represent can be evil.

What is your ideology? Are you an anarchist – against any kind of power that people exercise over each other?

I call myself a humanist, a citizen of the world. And my loyalty and respect belong to all people, regardless of their origin, nationality or religion.

Would you still perform in Israel today if they let you?

No, of course not. That would be crossing the picket line. I have for years written letters to colleagues in the music industry  to try to convince them not to perform in Israel. Sometimes they disagree, they say, “But this is a way to make peace, we should go there and try to convince them to make peace” Well we are all entitled to our opinion, but in 2005 the whole of Palestinian Civil Society asked me to observe a cultural boycott, and who am I to tell a whole society living under a brutal occupation that I know better than they.

It is very provocative to say that you would play in Moscow but not in Israel.

Interesting that you say that given that Moscow does not run an apartheid state based on the genocide of the indigenous inhabitants.

In Russia, ethnic minorities are heavily discriminated against. Among other things, more ethnic non-Russians are sent to war than ethnic Russians.

You seem to be asking me to see Russia from the current Russo phobic perspective. I choose to see it differently, though as I have said I don’t speak Russian or live in Russia so I’m on foreign ground.

How do you like the fact that Pink Floyd have recorded a new piece for the first time in 30 years – with the Ukrainian musician Andrij Chlywnjuk?

I have seen the video and I am not surprised, but I find it really, really sad. It’s so alien to me, this action is so lacking in humanity. It encourages the continuation of the war. Pink Floyd is a name I used to be associated with. That was a huge time in my life, a very big deal. To associate that name now with something like this… proxy war makes me sad. I mean, they haven’t made the point of demanding, “Stop the war, stop the slaughter, bring our leaders together to talk!” It’s just this content-less waving of the blue and yellow flag. I wrote in one of my letters to the Ukrainian teenager Alina: I will not raise a flag in this conflict, not a Ukrainian flag, not a Russian flag, not a US flag.

After the fall of the Wall, you performed “The Wall” in reunified Berlin, certainly with optimistic expectations for the future. Did you think you could also contribute to this future with your own art, make a difference?

Of course, I believe that to this day. If you have political principles and are an artist, then the two areas are inextricably intertwined. That’s one reason why I left Pink Floyd, by the way: I had those principles, the others either did not or had different ones.

Do you now see yourself as equal parts musician and political activist?

Yes, sometimes I lean towards one, sometimes the other.

Will your current tour really be your last tour?

(Chuckles) I have no idea. The tour is subtitled “The First Farewell Tour” and that’s an obvious joke because old rock stars routinely use Farewell Tour as a selling tool. Then they sometimes retire and sometimes go on another Final Farewell Tour, it’s all good.

You want to keep sending something out to the world, make a difference?

I love good music, I love good literature – especially English and Russian, also German. That’s why I like the idea of people noticing and understanding what I do.

Then why don’t you hold back with political statements?

Because I am who I am. If I wasn’t this person who has  strong political convictions, I wouldn’t have written “The Dark Side of the Moon”, “The Wall”, “Wish You Were Here”, “Amused to Death” and all the other stuff.

Thank you very much for the interview.

***

This is what Dave Gilmour, speaking through his wife (!), had to say:

Needless to say, I now see Gilmour as a (very talented) sad piece of shit.
Andrei

Tamara Lorincz: Canada’s Support For Ukraine’s War on the Donbass & Canada’s Anti-Russia Policies

February 22, 2023 

Eva Bartlett

I spoke with Canadian researcher and writer, Tamara Lorincz, about Canada’s militaristic foreign and defence policies, Canada’s belligerent NATO role in bombing sovereign nations, Canada’s role in fomenting the Maidan protests which preceded the (2014) illegal coup in Ukraine, and, among other things, Canada’s support to Ukraine’s war on the Donbass.

Tamara has a Masters in International Politics and Security Studies and is currently working on her PhD. She has has long been very actively involved in various anti-war, peace & educational initiatives, with an emphasis in exposing the military’s impacts on the environment, Canadian defence and foreign policy, disarmament, & resistance to NATO, among many other things.

See her bio here: https://www.balsillieschool.ca/people/tamara-lorincz/

Follow her: https://twitter.com/TamaraLorincz

Conversation points:

*Trudeau government & Canada’s new defence policy: (June 2017) “Strong, Secure and Engaged”–a “militaristic, belligerent, posture on the world. Canada will spend $553 billion on military over next 20 years…Defence policy very informed by membership in NATO & partnership in NORAD.”

*Canada’s role in the illegal bombing of the former Yugoslavia (1999)

*Canada’s role in the US-led illegal occupation of Afghanistan (Canada has never been held accountable for war crimes committed in Afghanistan)

*(2011) Canadian general led NATO’s bombing of Libya, killing civilians & destroying civilian infrastructure *(2014-2016) Canada’s illegal bombing, with US-led coalition, of Syria.

*Under Harper government, FM Baird was on the ground fomenting the Maidan protests & illegal coup; under Trudeau and Freeland support for Ukraine continues.

LINKS:

Canada’s interference in Ukrainian democracy

https://rabble.ca/politics/world-politics/canadas-interference-in-ukrainian-democracy/embed/#?secret=yQ6g1U0YyZ#?secret=LjqDd4Wf4B

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/operations/military-operations/current-operations/operation-unifier.html

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/canada-failed-when-it-trained-ukrainian-troops-linked-to-the-far-right-says-nazi-hunter

https://banderalobby.substack.com/p/the-canadian-bandera-network

https://coat.ncf.ca/research/Chomiak-Freeland/C-F1.htm

*My reports from the Donbass, under Ukrainian fire.

The Donbass: My Articles, Videos & Interviews From/On the Donetsk & Lugansk People’s Republics (2019-present)

https://ingaza.wordpress.com/the-donbass-my-articles-videos-interviews-from-on-the-donetsk-lugansk-peoples-republics-2019-present/embed/#?secret=GUzISZfvbm#?secret=nyIaF161Q2

Under Fire from Ukraine and Misperceived by the West, The People of the DPR Share Their Stories

https://www.mintpressnews.com/under-fire-from-ukraine-everyday-life-in-the-donetsk-peoples-republic/262363/embed/#?secret=YZGvk5mkkQ#?secret=2Uf6fioYRF

On the OSCE’s claims of Russian war crimes

https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2022/04/28/on-the-osces-claims-of-russian-war-crimes/embed/#?secret=rUMk22Vdk6#?secret=z5k0448b25

*CBC

2/Despite its claims, @ISDglobal is not independent but closely aligned with funders and partners linked to the US @StateDept, @NATO countries and pro-#Ukraine & anti-#Russia organizations like the @OpenSociety. It gets worse. https://t.co/GXWhw0LB35 pic.twitter.com/Sj0VCQyhaO— Tamara Lorincz (@TamaraLorincz) July 6, 2022

Government-Funded CBC Smears Me. Interview With Maverick Media: “CBC Fake News: Hit Piece Targets Journalists (Eva Bartlett)”

https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2022/07/17/government-funded-cbc-smears-me-interview-with-maverick-media-cbc-fake-news-hit-piece-targets-journalists-eva-bartlett/embed/#?secret=Q1OXnffgx7#?secret=spaY727Prt

https://www.thecanadafiles.com/articles/facts-are-subversive-how-canadas-mainstream-media-spreads-disinformation-about-the-conflict-in-ukraine

*Ukraine Intensified Its Shelling of the Donbass Weeks Before Russia’s Special Military Operation:

The Military Situation In The Ukraine

https://www.thepostil.com/the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine/embed/#?secret=hJnKymN5kG

I disrupted #Canada‘s Minister of @NationalDefence @AnitaAnandMP. War in #Ukraine is not about “democracy”. #Canada should call for a ceasefire not send more weapons. @TorontoMet Uni should have a real debate & stand for #peace. @PamSugiman @reggcohn @WBWCanada @Winnipegpeace pic.twitter.com/Lm3JBkpe60— Tamara Lorincz (@TamaraLorincz) October 22, 2022

This morning, I was pleased to disrupt speech by @NationalDefence @AnitaAnandMP. Minister, you’re lying. #Canada training neo-Nazi militias in #Ukraine, killing #Donbass civilians. Sending weapons not calling for peace, risks nuclear war. Tell the truth. https://t.co/FjMCX0Bry2— Tamara Lorincz (@TamaraLorincz) September 19, 2022

Join us to stand for “Peace Now! Stop the #Ukraine #Russia War, Stop #NATO” on Sun. Feb. 26 from 1-2pm at the Waterloo Public Sq. 75 King St. Part of the International Weekend of Action. @VOWPeace @WBWCanada @HamiltonHcsw @bardishkw @kwpeace #StopTheWar pic.twitter.com/VZZtM4Uz9F— Tamara Lorincz (@TamaraLorincz) February 17, 2023

A panicked Empire tries to make Russia an ‘offer it can’t refuse’

January 30 2023

Photo Credit: The Cradle

Does US Secretary of State Antony Blinken think a Washington Post op-ed will move Russian Armed Forces Chief Valery Gerasimov to postpone his planned military offensive on Ukraine?

Realizing NATO’s war with Russia will likely end unfavorably, the US is test-driving an exit offer. But why should Moscow take indirect proposals seriously, especially on the eve of its new military advance and while it is in the winning seat?

By Pepe Escobar

Those behind the Throne are never more dangerous than when they have their backs against the wall.

Their power is slipping away, fast: Militarily, via NATO’s progressive humiliation in Ukraine; Financially, sooner rather than later, most of the Global South will want nothing to do with the currency of a bankrupt rogue giant; Politically, the global majority is taking decisive steps to stop obeying a rapacious, discredited, de facto minority.

So now those behind the Throne are plotting to at least try to stall the incoming disaster on the military front.

As confirmed by a high-level US establishment source, a new directive on NATO vs. Russia in Ukraine was relayed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Blinken, in terms of actual power, is nothing but a messenger boy for the Straussian neocons and neoliberals who actually run US foreign policy.

The secretary of state was instructed to relay the new directive – a sort of message to the Kremlin – via mainstream print media, which was promptly published by the Washington Post.

In the elite US mainstream media division of labor, the New York Times is very close to the State Department. and the Washington Post to the CIA. In this case though the directive was too important, and needed to be relayed by the paper of record in the imperial capital. It was published as an Op-Ed (behind paywall).

The novelty here is that for the first time since the start of Russia’s February 2022 Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, the Americans are actually proposing a variation of the “offer you can’t refuse” classic, including some concessions which may satisfy Russia’s security imperatives.

Crucially, the US offer totally bypasses Kiev, once again certifying that this is a war against Russia conducted by Empire and its NATO minions – with the Ukrainians as mere expandable proxies.

‘Please don’t go on the offensive’

The Washington Post’s old school Moscow-based correspondent John Helmer has provided an important service, offering the full text of Blinken’s offer, of course extensively edited to include fantasist notions such as “US weapons help pulverize Putin’s invasion force” and a cringe-worthy explanation: “In other words, Russia should not be ready to rest, regroup and attack.”

The message from Washington may, at first glance, give the impression that the US would admit Russian control over Crimea, Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson – “the land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia” – as a fait accompli.

Ukraine would have a demilitarized status, and the deployment of HIMARS missiles and Leopard and Abrams tanks would be confined to western Ukraine, kept as a “deterrent against further Russian attacks.”

What may have been offered, in quite hazy terms, is in fact a partition of Ukraine, demilitarized zone included, in exchange for the Russian General Staff cancelling its yet-unknown 2023 offensive, which may be as devastating as cutting off Kiev’s access to the Black Sea and/or cutting off the supply of NATO weapons across the Polish border.

The US offer defines itself as the path towards a “just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity.” Well, not really. It just won’t be a rump Ukraine, and Kiev might even retain those western lands that Poland is dying to gobble up.

The possibility of a direct Washington-Moscow deal on “an eventual postwar military balance” is also evoked, including no Ukraine membership of NATO. As for Ukraine itself, the Americans seem to believe it will be a “strong, non-corrupt economy with membership in the European Union.”

Whatever remains of value in Ukraine has already been swallowed not only by its monumentally corrupt oligarchy, but most of all, investors and speculators of the BlackRock variety. Assorted corporate vultures simply cannot afford to lose Ukraine’s grain export ports, as well as the trade deal terms agreed with the EU before the war. And they’re terrified that the Russian offensive may capture Odessa, the major seaport and transportation hub on the Black Sea – which would leave Ukraine landlocked.

There’s no evidence whatsoever that Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the entire Russian Security Council – including its Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev – have reason to believe anything coming from the US establishment, especially via mere minions such as Blinken and the Washington Post. After all the stavka – a moniker for the high command of the Russian armed forces – regard the Americans as “non-agreement capable,” even when an offer is in writing.

This walks and talks like a desperate US gambit to stall and present some carrots to Moscow in the hope of delaying or even cancelling the planned offensive of the next few months.

Even old school, dissident Washington operatives – not beholden to the Straussian neocon galaxy – bet that the gambit will be a nothing burger: in classic “strategic ambiguity” mode, the Russians will continue on their stated drive of demilitarization, denazification and de-electrification, and will “stop” anytime and anywhere they see fit east of the Dnieper. Or beyond.

What the Deep State really wants

Washington’s ambitions in this essentially NATO vs. Russia war go well beyond Ukraine. And we’re not even talking about preventing a Russia-China-Germany Eurasian union or a peer competitor nightmare; let’s stick with prosaic issues on the Ukrainian battleground.

The key “recommendations” – military, economic, political, diplomatic – were detailed in an Atlantic Council strategy paper late last year.

And in another one, under “War scenario 1: The war continues in its current tempo,” we find the Straussian neocon policy fully spelled out.

It’s all here: from “marshaling support and military-assistance transfers to Kyiv sufficient to enable it to win” to “increase the lethality of military assistance transferred to include fighter aircraft that would enable Ukraine to control its airspace and attack Russian forces therein; and missile technology with range sufficient to reach into Russian territory.”

From training the Ukrainian military “to use Western weapons, electronic warfare, and offensive and defensive cyber capabilities, and to seamlessly integrate new recruits in the service” to buttressing “defenses on the front lines, near the Donbass region,” including “combat training focusing on irregular warfare.”

Added to “imposing secondary sanctions on all entities doing business with the Kremlin,” we reach of course the Mother of All Plunders: “Confiscate the $300 billion that the Russian state holds in overseas accounts in the United States and EU and use seized monies to fund reconstruction.”

The reorganization of the SMO, with Putin, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, and General Armageddon in their new, enhanced roles is derailing all these elaborate plans.

The Straussians are now in deep panic. Even Blinken’s number two, Russophobic warmonger Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland, has admitted to the US Senate there will be no Abrams tanks on the battlefield before Spring (realistically, only in 2024). She also promised to “ease sanctions” if Moscow “returns to negotiations.” Those negotiations were scotched by the Americans themselves in Istanbul in the Spring of 2022.

Nuland also called the Russians to “withdraw their troops.” Well, that at least offers some comic relief compared with the panic oozing from Blinken’s “offer you can’t refuse.” Stay tuned for Russia’s non-response response.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

The Next Stage in Western Escalation

January 27, 2023

Source

by Batiushka

Introduction: The Story So Far

So far the US has carried out regime changes and created military conflicts in countries friendly to or important to Russia: Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq (again), Georgia, Syria, Libya. All this was to make Russia lose important interests or deploy its own forces. It has also staged PR events such as Litvinenko, Pussy Riot, MH17, Skripals, Navalny, Bucha, the destruction of Nordstream – in order to try and blame Russia and make it into a pariah state.

In particular, in 2014 in the Ukraine it carried out a $5 billion coup with the murder of and terror against Russian-speakers. It then installed a puppet government, promoted Nazism through racist indoctrination, besmirched the historic legacy through rewriting history and toppling memorials, terrorised and banned all opposition, set up US military biolabs, supplied and trained an army, made military threats against Russia, threatened the Crimea, and promised that the Ukraine could soon join the US-puppet NATO and install nuclear weapons.

A Message from Boris: Deaths and Sackings

When Boris Johnson turned up in Kiev a few days ago, you knew events would follow. He is after all the office boy for Biden. So last week came the resignation of Zelensky’s spinmaster, Alexey Arestovich, for telling the truth about the Ukrainian military – that it had killed civilians by destroying an apartment block in Dnepro in a military accident and could not win the war. The next day the interior minister Monastyrsky, a longtime aide of Zelensky, and his first deputy died in a helicopter crash in Kiev a week ago (‘caused by flying low in fog’). Strange, since the neo-Nazi militias operate through his ministry.

Then there was the murder of Denis Kireev, who was an important participant in the March peace talks with Russia. It is rumoured that he was too keen on peace – which the US and the UK are totally opposed to. He had to go, so the CIA/SBU (same thing) did the job. Next came a major purge on 24 January following corruption claims, involved a deputy prosecutor general, the deputy head of the president’s office, the deputy defence minister and five regional governors.

Interestingly, Poroshenko, last seen in a luxury hotel in London, living off his now very active cremation business in the Ukraine, promised peace with Russia in one week. Once in power he did not bring peace and lost the next election. He was replaced by Zelensky, who also promised a peace settlement with Russia in the Donbass, but instead prepared war and even sought nuclear weapons. The Ukrainian people are promised peace, but are not given it. Zelensky’s support base is small and there is a majority that wants peace. Is Zelensky the next to be purged?

Escalation: Germany Declares War on Russia Again

Germany is going to send Leopard tanks to the Kiev regime. For the third time since 1914 Germany is now, on paper at least, at war with Russia. The Russians have a choice: they can intervene in the Ukraine from the north-west (Belarus) and the south-west (the sea) and cut off the whole of the Ukraine from all its arms supplies, including several dozen German, American, British and other tanks – and it will take months for the promised tanks to arrive across the Polish border. Or else Russia can bomb anything that comes across the Polish border. It has already warned that anything coming across that border into the Ukraine will be destroyed. Thus, in any case, a barrier will be created. Western Europe must be cut off, for it has become the source of the evil, providing weapons to Neo-Nazis.

Otherwise, the Poles and their reservists too may intervene (in their Leopard tanks? Remember Tiger tanks?) to take over the west of the Ukraine. Is Russia really going to allow the division of the Ukraine into the Russian East and the Polish-led Western West, in other words, its Koreanisation or Vietnamisation? (And we know how those divisions ended). Otherwise, the Anti-Russia of the Ukraine will remain forever. Western Europe must be cut off. What began as a small operation to liberate the two Russian provinces of the Donbass, is now, as a result of Western (= US-led) escalation, an operation to liberate the whole of the Ukraine. Only total Russian victory can work. Only establishing a Russian-led Kiev Protectorate, like the situation in Belarus, can work. All those who disagree with that and have not yet fled for the West had better leave now.

Interestingly, we know that the Russian Black Sea Fleet with its landing craft left port last week. On 25 January Dmitry Medvedev wrote publicly that the Ukraine would have no need of submarines, as it would soon become landlocked. The day before, the President of Belarus, Lukashenko, rejected the offer of a Non-Aggression Pact from the Ukraine (= the US on behalf of Poland). Meanwhile, the somewhat senile Biden has blurted out that the US will support the Ukraine ‘for as long as it exists’. This is not what he used to say. Then it was ‘support to victory’. The only problem here is that the US never admits failure, it never admits that it backed the wrong horse at huge expense to the US taxpayer. How will it get out of this one?

The War

In the Ukraine the NATO war has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands in just the last eleven months is continuing with hundreds more victims today, the same as yesterday, and the same as tomorrow. The doomsaying pessimists with their conspiracy theories of nuclear Armageddon foretell that this war will continue for years, ‘perhaps even a decade’. Others, the optimists, are thinking that the Kiev regime may collapse within weeks, or in three or four months at most, or there will be a coup in Kiev with Kiev forces either surrendering en masse or else turning around and marching on their murderous US puppet-commanders in Kiev. It does sound like wishful thinking. With yet more NATO weaponry and tanks to be destroyed, I think it will all take longer. Not years, as those happy souls, the doomsaying pessimists with their conspiracy theories of nuclear Armageddon foretell, but another 15 months. But I really hope that I am wrong and that the wishful thinkers are right and that it will all be over very soon.

As the Saker in his penetrating analysis has pointed out, if the US cannot prevent a Ukronazi/NATO defeat, it can at least make the war as costly as possible for Russia. Find another attacker. Poland will do. Promise them the five provinces in the far west of the Ukraine, Volyn, Rivne, Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk, and the Poles will do anything you tell them to. After all, there are Poles, and most of them seem to be part of its current incredibly stupid government, who still have a messianic complex, who still dream of glory, of ‘saving Europe from the barbarian Russian hordes’, of a ‘Poland stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea’, and of becoming the most powerful country in Europe, dwarfing those nasty Germans ‘who are going to give us back trillions’. Well, there have always been fantasists. Hitler was one of them. And the American Empire has always known how to manipulate them for its own ends, whether in Argentina, Iran, Iraq, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the Baltics, the Ukraine or Poland.

The fact is that the American Empire knows that it cannot defeat Russia in a straightforward war, so it has always used proxies. In 2008, it took the absurd step of using Georgia. This was far too small, far too weak and irrationally nationalistic. As a Georgian told me quite seriously just a few years ago: ‘God only speaks Georgian and does not understand any other language’. I was surprised to learn that God has such limited linguistic abilities, however, there are plenty of Ukrainians who believe much the same today, not to mention Poles.

And both the Ukraine and Poland are a lot bigger than Georgia. Hence the American choice. Once they are both defeated, the US will be turning to Germany – as they almost did in Churchill’s Operation Unthinkable plan to attack the Red Army on 1 July 1945, using British, American, Polish and German forces to destroy Russia (1). Or why not use Sweden, Turkey, Japan? Why not China? Why not just overthrow Putin with the ‘masses’ of Russians who do not like him? Such today are also the fantasies of ‘the crazies in the basement’ at the Pentagon. No wonder they get on with the Polish government. And don’t forget the biggest crazy in the US basement was Polish: Zbigniew Brzezinski.

For Russians, 2022 was simply a repeat of 1812 and 1941. The Third Great Patriotic War. The West doing its barbaric thing, as usual. The fact is that, though some historians deny it, history does repeat itself, simply because human pride, arrogance and hubris repeat themselves. German tanks with their black crosses trying to destroy Russia on the Ukrainian steppes? We Russians shrug our shoulders. We have seen it all before. The Anti-Russia of the Ukraine will simply never happen. Zelensky is on drugs and so is the Ukraine, addicted to Western transfusions of blood, money, mercenaries and arms.

Afterword: Another Future

Famously, or rather infamously, the British Establishment figure who was the first NATO Secretary General boasted that the aim of NATO was ‘to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down’ (2). As for us, we wish to see a renewal of Kennedy’s ‘Alliance for Progress’, a World Alliance of Sovereign Nations, a global version of the Gaullist spirit (though not the precise words) of ‘l’Europe des Patries’ (Europe of the Nations’). We wish to see a for now geriatric Europe reattached to its historic destiny with Russia and so with Eurasia, where it is all happening. Therefore, our aim is: ‘To keep Russia in, the Americans out and the Germans up’.

Some write that Russia can only win the war in the Ukraine as long as it can help the US to save face after its defeat and then the collapse of NATO and the EU. Remember Saigon? Remember Bush and his ‘Mission Accomplished’? (The world laughed at his farce, but plenty in the US were convinced by it). Remember Kabul? The US just left them and pretended to be in denial about them. Like the British at Dunkirk in 1940, who left their French allies in the lurch, they just ran away back to their island, declaring victory, though leaving lots of their equipment behind them. The Americans can also run away, saying: ‘Forget it. They are not worthy of us’.

Self-isolation would be such a good thing. Go back to the big island of Northern America. If you want, build Trump’s long-promised wall across the south to keep those nasty Latinos out. Lick your wounds and at last start trying to deal with the massive internal problems that you already have: great poverty, racial division, mass shootings, debt, social injustices, lack of healthcare, unemployment, exploitation, an education system that deliberately makes people stupid, drugs, crime and so mass imprisonment. Leave the Europeans to sort themselves out. No more Americans are going to die for or pay for those lazy Europeans. Just don’t tell the American people that this would make those same lazy Europeans only too happy. The only problem is that the US never admits failure, it never admits that it backed the wrong horse at huge expense to the US taxpayer. How will it get out of this one?

27 January 2023

Notes:

1. https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/operation-unthinkable-churchill-s-plans-to-invade-the-soviet-union/#:~:text=The%20plan%20called%20for%20a,his%20domination%20of%20East%20Europe

2. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_137930.htm

The Global South births a new game-changing payment system

November 30, 2022

by Pepe Escobar, first published at The Cradle and posted with the author’s permission

Challenging the western monetary system, the Eurasia Economic Union is leading the Global South toward a new common payment system to bypass the US Dollar.

The Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) is speeding up its design of a common payment system, which has been closely discussed for nearly a year with the Chinese under the stewardship of Sergei Glazyev, the EAEU’s minister in charge of Integration and Macro-economy.

Through its regulatory body, the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), the EAEU has just extended a very serious proposal to the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) which, crucially, are already on the way to turning into BRICS+: a sort of G20 of the Global South.

The system will include a single payment card – in direct competition with Visa and Mastercard – merging the already existing Russian MIR, China’s UnionPay, India’s RuPay, Brazil’s Elo, and others.

That will represent a direct challenge to the western-designed (and enforced) monetary system, head on. And it comes on the heels of BRICS members already transacting their bilateral trade in local currencies, and bypassing the US dollar.

This EAEU-BRICS union was long in the making – and will now also move toward prefiguring a further geoeconomic merger with the member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The EAEU was established in 2015 as a customs union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, joined a year later by Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. Vietnam is already an EAEU free trade partner, and recently enshrined SCO member Iran is also clinching a deal.

The EAEU is designed to implement free movement of goods, services, capital, and workers between member countries. Ukraine would have been an EAEU member if not for the Maidan coup in 2014 masterminded by the Barack Obama administration.

Vladimir Kovalyov, adviser to the chairman of the EEC, summed it all up to Russian newspaper Izvestia. The focus is to establish a joint financial market, and the priority is to develop a common “exchange space:” “We’ve made substantial progress and now the work is focused on such sectors as banking, insurance, and the stock market.”

A new regulatory body for the proposed joint EEU-BRICS financial system will soon be established.

Meanwhile, trade and economic cooperation between the EAEU and BRICS have increased 1.5 times in the first half of 2022 alone.

The BRICS share in the total external trade turnover of the EAEU has reached 30 percent, Kovalyov revealed at the BRICS International Business Forum this past Monday in Moscow:

“It is advisable to combine the potentials of the BRICS and EAEU macro-financial development institutions, in particular the BRICS New Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), as well as national development institutions. This will make it possible to achieve a synergistic effect and ensure synchronous investments in sustainable infrastructure, innovative production, and renewable energy sources.”

Here we once again see the advancing convergence of not only BRICS and EAEU but also the financial institutions deeply involved in projects under the China-led New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Halting the Age of Plunder

As if all that was not game-changing enough, Russian President Vladimir Putin is raising the stakes by calling for a new international payment system based on blockchain and digital currencies.

The project for such a system was recently presented at the 1st Eurasian Economic Forum in Bishkek.

At the forum, the EAEU approved a draft agreement on cross-border placement and circulation of securities in member states, and amended technical regulations.

The next big step is to organize the agenda of a crucial meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council on 14 December in Moscow. Putin will be there – in person. And there’s nothing he would love more than to make a game-changing announcement.

All of these moves acquire even more importance as they connect to fast increasing, interlocking trade between Russia, China, India, and Iran: from Russia’s drive to build new pipelines serving its Chinese market – to Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan discussing a gas union for both domestic supplies and exports, especially to main client China.

Slowly but surely, what is emerging is the Big Picture of an irretrievably fractured world featuring a dual trade/circulation system: one will be revolving around the remnants of the dollar system, the other is being built centered on the association of BRICS, EAEU, and SCO.

Pushing further on down the road, the recent pathetic metaphor coined by a tawdry Eurocrat boss: the “jungle” is breaking away from the “garden” with a vengeance. May the fracture persist, as a new international payment system – and then a new currency – will aim to halt for good the western-centric Age of Plunder.

Sergey Lavrov Interview for Film on Extremism in Europe – November 2022 – English Subtitles

November 28, 2022

Note from Michael Rossi Poli Sci who subtitled that video:

Dear Patreon Supporters,

First off, thank you once again for your pledged support and votes of confidence on my work.

Unfortunately, YouTube decided to remove the latest video I uploaded today (Sunday November 27) of Sergey Lavrov giving an interview on political extremism in Europe AS “hate speech”. How they came to that conclusion is beyond me, but I suppose it had to do with the video title having the word “extremism” in it, and “nazism” in the description.

Either way, YouTube removed the video and I have received my first Community Guideline strike, preventing me from upload, commenting, or interacting in any way on my channel for a week. I have appealed the strike, but I don’t know when I will hear back.

In the meantime, I have uploaded the video here and made it publicly accessible. Please feel free to share with those whom you think would benefit from it. For the next week, you’re my “ambassadors” of sorts 🙂

I hope to get this straightened out ASAP, because YouTube offers no prior warning or review of content before something gets flagged, and videos with direct “hate speech” get published all the time.

I may start moving more of the translated videos over here and making it Patrons Only.

Best wishes,

Mike Rossi

Apparently, YT reversed its decision.  Still, PLEASE SUPPORT MIKE ROSSI ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/MichaelRossiPoliSci

Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’, or, Don’t Spit in the Well

November 27, 2022

Source

By Batiushka

‘The Ukrainian people will be liberated from their Neo-Nazi rulers, they deserve to live as friends and good neighbours and prosper alongside their Slav brothers’.

Sergei Lavrov, TASS, 26 November

Introduction

There is such a thing as retribution. This is what it says directly in the verse, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord’ (Rom. 12: 19) and what lies behind the New Testament, ‘Do as you would be done by’. However, other cultures have other words for retribution, ‘karma’ for example in India. Then there is the proverb, similar in several languages, which in English appears as: ‘Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind’. (See Galatians 6: 7). Then there is another saying which is also pretty universal. The Maltese form says: ‘Don’t spit in the air’ – there is no need to quote the second half – you can imagine the spit falling back onto the spitter.

In Russian we have the same proverb, only that is to do with spitting in the well – since you might yourself need to drink the water. Others quote: ‘What goes around, comes around’. Australians and others speak about ‘the boomerang effect’ and Americans speak of ‘blowback’ and ‘payback’. The fact is that there is a universal spiritual law, the law of cause and effect, that when you do something good, there are always good consequences, and when you do something bad, there are always bad consequences. Sooner or later. Anyone who has lived a little can confirm it from experience. Basically, you simply cannot get away with it. And this is what is happening to the Western world today. It’s payback time.

The Perfect Storm

I mention consequences because the history books of the future will be asking the question: ‘Where did the perfect storm in the Western world in 2022 come from’? One thing for sure, it did not come out of the blue. Any number of dates will be put forward as the origin, as far back as 1492 and even further back, for instance, the First Crusade in 1096. From more recent dates we could suggest:

1917, when after nearly three years the US elite entered the first part of the Europeans’ twentieth-century Civil War, having forced Russia out of it through violent regime change. To this day these utterly corrupt Western propagandists justify this cunning strategy by declaring that the Tsar’s government was utterly corrupt (sic!) and going to collapse anyway (sic!) and all were well rid of it (sic!). Some people actually believe that propaganda. They should investigate it objectively, instead of naively swallowing the West’s self-justification for creating the conditions for its genocide.

1944, when US forces invaded and occupied Continental Europe, making it into the first US-occupied Eurasian peninsula, just as they later did with other Eurasian peninsulas, (South) Korea, and (South) Vietnam, in the latter of which they were defeated.

1991, when the USSR collapsed and was (briefly) colonised by the US, leaving chaos and poverty with Chicago-style gangsters everywhere and millions dying of despair and drinking themselves to death.

2014, when the US took over the Ukraine in a violent regime-change coup.

2021, when the US was humiliated in Afghanistan.

2022, when the US clearly began to lose against Russia’s war of liberation of the Ukraine, its equipment and its relations with Western Europe in ruins.

We will leave other dates and the details of the debate to the history books of the future. But the debate will be there, you’ll see. However, beyond the detail that we can leave to the disputes of the academics, the main question that future generations will be asking is: ‘However did the Western world think it could get away with it?’ Where did its delusion come from? These are the questions I will be trying to answer below.

Losing the War in the Ukraine

The US lost the war in the Ukraine the day it began. Russia had been preparing for it for eight years. Ever since, the US and its vassals have just been prolonging the agony by financing a Nazi regime, supplying it with arms, training its troops and sending it paid-for mercenaries. Pessimists see the agony now dragging on for years and years, whereas optimists think it will be much shorter, just a couple of months more. I would like to think the optimists are right, but I actually go along with a more pessimistic ‘another eighteen months’. I hope I am wrong. Every day is a day too long. The fact is the US elite will have to put a lot of effort into face-saving. They hate losing, even though they lost in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria etc.

Backing down from the confrontations they began and chaos they caused is not something they like doing. But when the last US helicopters take off from the roofs of the US embassies in Kiev and Lvov, we shall see. Last Friday an electrician near Kiev said to my friends there: ‘This war is horrible. And it’s only going to get worse. There’s only one solution. We’ll line up all the politicians from the Rada (Parliament) and shoot them. Then peace will come immediately’. I am told from Kiev that there are more and more Ukrainians saying the same thing: there must be a popular revolt to stop it all. Get ready for it there and, at the rate things are going, get ready for the same thing in Western countries as well.

Losing the EU

In the longer term, however, there is the much more serious problem for the US of losing Europe. The national slogan of the Ukraine since 2014 has been: ‘The Ukraine is Europe’. This is of course nonsense. Geographically, the Ukraine, like the Russia where most Russians live, is obviously Europe. Indeed, most European territory is inside Russia. Of course, what the Kiev regime means is that the Ukraine belongs to Western Europe, the EU, only it does not say that. This is because it obviously does not belong there, apart from the small region of Galicia which is now in the far west of the present borders of the Ukraine, formerly Poland, formerly the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 2014 the EU actually dismissed the Kiev fantasy, telling it that Ukrainian membership of the EU might be considered in 25 years’ from then.

The nonsense about ‘the Ukraine is Europe’ reminds me of a visit to Moldova five years ago. All official buildings flew the EU flag and that was in a country that is not part of the EU and never will be. In other words, ‘The Ukraine is Europe’ is a political daydream, a fantasy. Today, as a result of US incompetence and its lickspittle poodle UK enthusiastically blowing up the Nordstream pipeline, as though that were a present to Germany, we can see that although the Ukraine is not Europe, Europe is fast becoming the Ukraine. In other words, Europe is being corrupted by US political intrigues, being sucked into the same black hole as the Ukraine, without finance, heating, lighting and sewerage. In the words of that old Eastern European joke: ‘Which are the two most corrupt countries in the world? Lithuania is first and the Ukraine is second. But only because the Ukraine bribed Lithuania to take first place, so that it could be second’. Well, today the whole of Europe is being Ukrainianised. Well done, US/UK/EU elite!

Losing the World

Beyond Western Europe, the US elite is also losing the rest of the world. At one time, the US was No 1. Today it is China. At one time Europe was the most populated area in the world. Today over one third of the world’s population is in China and India. At one time the G7 was respected. Today it is a ghetto, representing only a small and increasingly irrelevant part of the world. At one time the G20 represented twenty countries which were pro-Western or at least Western-controlled. Today, definitely not. The G-20 is being taken over by BRICS +.

At one time the dollar was the world’s reserve currency. Today the world is being dedollarised, as countries sell dollars and US treasury bonds and trade in their own countries. After all, who wants to invest in a deindustrialised country which may illegally confiscate (= steal) your assets, gold reserves included, whose currency is not underpinned by gold, but only by printing presses, and whose national debt totals 31 trillion dollars, nearly all of which has been accumulated in the last forty years?

Conclusion

After 500 years of bullying the rest of the world, with the genocides of the native peoples of the Americas and Australia (100 million dead?), the manipulations of imperialism, colonialism, slavery, the Opium Wars, the salt hedge in India, the massacres in the Belgian Congo and in German South-West Africa, the bloodiest Western War in history which it called two World Wars (70 million dead), exporting Marxism outside Western Europe (millions dead), the carpet bombing of Korea, the French massacres in Algeria, the US genocide in Vietnam, uranium-tipped shells in Iraq and Yugoslavia, the pillaging of Eastern Europe and Russia under Western-appointed puppet governments, the war you started in the Ukraine and the mass of arms you are supplying Ukronazis with. However did you think you could get away with it? Where did your delusion come from? Because you came to believe in your own lies. You are delusional.

I do not fear the civil authorities in Western Europe and their death-threats. I fear only the traitors to Russia, who in fact are CIA assets. I fear today’s traitors, who want to make money from this war or have endless zoom meetings with their American masters and let people be massacred by the Gestapo Nazis from Kiev, trained by the CIA and MI6. True, there are fewer of those traitors than there were. Now I will tell you too: You will not get away with it. There are forces at work which are far greater than any of you. ‘The Ukrainian people will be liberated from their Neo-Nazi rulers’. Yes, they will be liberated, just as the German people were liberated from their Nazi rulers, but at such a price. I tremble for you traitors, because your end is coming too. For everything you have done, you will have to repay. Did you really think you could get away with it and that payback time would never come? You spat in the well? Now you will have to drink from it.

Meeting with mothers of servicemen participating in the SVO (transcript)

November 26, 2022

Note: this is a machine translated (Yandex) translation of the full Russian text posted here:

http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69935

It was sent to me from a reader.

Vladimir Putin met with mothers of servicemen participating in a special military operation in Novo-Ogaryovo.

November 25, 2022 17:30

Moscow region, Novo-Ogarevo

Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon again.

You know that the day after tomorrow we celebrate Mother’s Day in Russia. This is not some kind of pretentious noisy holiday, but still a day that is filled with a special, very kind content and emphasizes the attitude inherent in all the peoples of our country towards mom – respect, reverence, adoration.

In this regard, of course, I would like to recall this. But I understand perfectly well that for you, as well as for so many other women in Russia whose sons are in a war zone, of course, the attitude to this event is more than festive, but most likely connected with a sense of anxiety and concern, in thoughts about what is with your boys. Because for a mother, no matter what age her son is, [he is] always a boy, always a child. And for those, including those of you who are present here and who lost their son, of course, this is also connected with thoughts about this tragedy.

In this regard, I want to say that… You know, the language does not turn to say some formal standard things related to the expression of condolences. But I want you to know that I personally, the entire leadership of the country – we share this pain. We understand that nothing can replace the loss of a son, a child. Especially for mom, to whom we all owe the birth, who bore, nursed.

I want you to know that we share this pain with you and, of course, we will do everything so that we do not feel forgotten, we will do everything that depends on us to feel the shoulder next to us.

It is clear that life is more complicated and diverse than what is shown on TV screens or even on the Internet – you can’t trust anything there at all, there are a lot of all sorts of fakes, deception, lies. There are a lot of information attacks, because in the modern world it has always been so, but taking into account modern technologies it has become especially relevant and effective, information is also a weapon of struggle, and information attacks are one of the types, quite effective types of struggle.

This is why we have gathered with you, that’s why I proposed this meeting, because I wanted to listen to you firsthand, as they say, to hear your assessments – you have the same information coming from there. A lot of information flows to me from different sources, but it’s a completely different matter – it’s your ratings, your opinion, ideas, suggestions. I will try to make sure that everything that we are going to talk about today is taken into account and used in real life to the maximum.

This is what I would like to say at the beginning.

And concluding my brief introductory speech, I would like to say what I am constantly talking about, namely that, first of all, everything comes from the family. The fact that your guys – most of them – have chosen such a fate as serving the Fatherland, protecting the Fatherland, protecting the Motherland, Russia, protecting our people, in this case in Novorossiya, in the Donbas, is also the result of your work, without any doubt. This is not the result of some kind of instructions and moralizing – it is the result of a personal example. It’s always like that.

Because no matter what they say at school, which is very important, of course, but still the basis of any person’s self-consciousness, the basis of his value orientations is laid in the family by the personal example of parents. This is the most basic, most important and most fundamental method of education – a personal example.

Judging by the fact that your guys behave like this, heroically, that’s what I wanted to say, this is, of course, your huge contribution – yours and your men, your husbands, of course, this always happens in the family on both sides. But only they, the guys themselves, know that they are truly heroes.

Why? Because no one except them and their closest commanders, who are standing next to them, do not know what hard work it is and how much it involves a real danger to life and health. Only they themselves feel and understand it.

I talk to them sometimes – I talked to some of them directly on the phone, with the guys. In any case, I talked to those who even surprised me with their mood, their attitude to the case. They didn’t expect these calls from me, also through moms, by the way, these calls were. This gives me every reason to say that they are heroes. It’s true.

That’s all I wanted to say at the beginning. Let’s talk freely. As I said, I will definitely try to take into account everything that you will say today.

You are welcome.

S.Nabieva: I am Nabieva Suna Neifelovna from Dagestan.

My son, Enver, graduated from the Kazan Higher Military Tank School, serves in Buryatia. On his own from the first days, he was wounded twice, was in the hospital. After recovering, he returned to his unit.

We call him sometimes. And when he found out that I was going to meet you, he asked me to send greetings from all his guys and say that they would do everything that was required of them. He says: “My grandfather and two great-grandfathers served in the Great Patriotic War, I also must not let them down.” And his fighters on the front line also often remember their grandfathers. He has them from all over the country, republics. You said something recently, once you said: “I am a Lakh, I am a Dagestani, I am a Chechen, an Ingush, a Russian, a Tatar,” and everyone in Dagestan has heard and seen this speech of yours, and this is very correct.

Our family hails from the highland village of Jaba, Akhtyn district. We have a friendly big family, multinational. My mother–in-law is a heroine mother, she has 12 children. I would like to thank you very much for the fact that this high title of “Mother Heroine” – you have introduced it in our time – is very important for the mothers of Dagestan, Russia.

Vladimir Putin: Suna Neifelovna, first of all, thank you very much for the words conveyed from your son. From the very beginning, I asked the guys to have the most reliable and objective information about how the country treats their military work, the fulfillment of their duty.

I hope that our meeting today will also reach them, they will see it, modern means allow us to do this. Although, of course, radium communication poses a certain danger, so there are certain restrictions, but in the end they will certainly see it. Therefore, I want them, when they look, to see that the mother fulfilled her son’s request and this greeting was gratefully accepted.

For my part, I wish all the best to your son and his colleagues.

S.Nabieva: Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: What year did he graduate from college?

S. Nabieva: In 2010.

Vladimir Putin: I am sure that he fulfills his duty with dignity – in the way that is inherent in Russian wars in general, and even more so to soldiers from the Caucasus and Dagestan. There are people of a special temper there, we all know this well. I know this very well from 1999 and I will never forget these days and months that were associated with well-known events for Dagestan.

Dagestan is a multinational republic, and Russia as a whole is a unique civilization, where people of different nationalities, ethnicities, and religions have lived side by side for a thousand years. And the uniqueness lies in the fact that over these centuries of living together, people have not just found a common language with each other, but have learned to respect each other’s customs, religion, celebrate together with each other and, if some hard times come, overcome these hard times together.

Therefore, when I said the words that you have just remembered, of course, you can’t write it – I just spoke from the heart. And I know that it is, I know that the guys there do not divide themselves into any separate castes and nationalities: everyone is equal, everyone helps each other and understands that their lives depend on this mutual help and support – that’s what is very important. And they are very worthy of this service, as I have already said.

So thank you very much, thank you for your son. And to him, in turn, convey the best wishes, to him and his colleagues, to all his subordinates.

S.Nabieva: Thank you.

N.Pshenichkina: Vladimir Vladimirovich, I am from the Luhansk People’s Republic, from the small town of Kirovsk.

The city is on the front line. We are fighting and recovering thanks to the Russian Federation. Our bosses are the Irkutsk Region, and 55 objects are being restored now. Recently, the governor was with us, in my library, at school, and I was here.

But on September 30, as everyone already knows, my girls here, we had a great, joyful, long-awaited event: we have become a subject of the Russian Federation, which is what the militia of the first wave dreamed of.

Russian Russian word, when my son joined the militia in 2014, he said: “Mom, I’m going to fight for Russia, I’m going to fight for the Russian world, I’m going to fight for the Russian word, for the Russian memory.” My dad went through the whole war from 1941 to 1945, came with a Victory. We have been waiting for this event for a very long time, we went the hard way, we lost people dear to us, but we did not lose hope that we would be in Russia, we would come home. And this joyful event has come true for us.

But my son, Konstantin Pshenichkin, died in one of the morning battles defending the city. The situation so developed that the enemy came close to their positions. He jumped out of the trench, called the fire on himself, and his last words were: “Let’s go, brothers, chop “dill”. He was posthumously awarded the medal “For Bravery”.

My heart bleeds, my soul freezes, gloomy memories cloud my mind, tears, tears, and suddenly my son asks me: “Mom, don’t be sad, I’ll see you – you just have to wait. You will go through this life for me, and in that life we will be together again.”

I raised my head, straightened my shoulders and began to actively help the families of the fallen militia. I sought benefits, was a member of the public chamber. I was the organizer of the first two referendums, and the second referendum was a member of the public commission. You know, no one has ever seen such activity: old ladies with sticks were walking with flags and songs. “We’ll drive up to you.” – “No, we want to. And tell Putin hello.” They believe that we are envoys of Vladimir Vladimirovich, so to speak. So I know all this firsthand.

Allow me, Vladimir Vladimirovich, our dear President, to highlight a few issues after all.

Vladimir Putin: Of course.

N.Pshenichkina: We are young subjects, we are just integrating into the legislative field of the Russian Federation, as well as medicine. But we have a problem with the examination of the wounded. They need to go through so much, collect certificates, that a healthy one will not collect. And to drive from Kirovsk to Alchevsk, from Alchevsk to Beloe, where the hospital is, from Beloe back again, then to Lugansk, and the Military medical commission works in Lugansk – only once a week. Is it possible to walk from 20 cities and districts in one day? Is it necessary to hire? And if it’s legless? How to go? You, please, somehow give an instruction so that it is in the “one window” mode or these commissions leave.

And then there’s another thing: commanders don’t always make log entries carefully. He left for the hospital, they don’t write about what wound. And then the guys have to prove the obvious, but they gave their health for the Motherland, they became disabled. I know this because I am being addressed.

And one more question, it is floating in the Donetsk People’s Republic right in the air, and in our republic. Will the benefits that Russian servicemen or the families of the victims currently have be extended to the families of the victims before September 30?

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!

I would like to convey from all the residents of Donbass, from the women of Donbass, from the Union of Women of Donbass, from those mothers who took their sons to the front, words of gratitude to you, support, confidence – we believe in victory, it will be ours – to wish you the strongest health.

And if we are gathered here today, these are the best moms, moms with a capital letter. From the women of Donbass, a fighting greeting to you – from the patient women of Donbass. And, girls, you know what, be proud of your sons, you have brought up real heroes! Everyone who is there now, they are heroes!

I wish you the best of health, to wait for everyone alive and with victory.

Happy holidays, dear ones!

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

Nina Petrovna, first of all, as for 2014. In hindsight, we are all smart, of course, but we proceeded from the fact that maybe Lugansk and Donetsk will be able to come to an agreement somehow within the framework of the Minsk agreements, which you probably know about, will still be able to somehow reunite with Ukraine. We sincerely went to this. But we didn’t fully feel the mood of the people, it was impossible to fully understand what was going on there. But now it has probably become obvious that this reunion should have happened earlier. Maybe there would not have been so many losses among civilians, there would not have been so many dead children under shelling, and so on.

It’s good that this happened at all. And this is happening thanks to your son, who is not with us today, and thanks to the sons of those women who are here, and thanks to our guys who are fighting there now, are on the front line, well, on the second, third line – it doesn’t matter, but they are in the zone of a special military operation, I mean the sight of all our fighters, including those who joined the ranks of the Armed Forces on mobilization. This is the first.

Second. Of course, this is a huge tragedy, this is a void that cannot be filled with anything, you have just said this so very convincingly and vividly when there is no loved one, especially a son.

But you know what comes to my mind, I already mentioned it once. We have about 30 thousand people killed in road accidents, about the same amount from alcohol. And it happens, unfortunately, this is how life develops, life is complex and diverse, more complicated than it is written somewhere in the papers, we are all under the Lord, under Allah, under Christ, I do not know, everyone who believes in higher powers, it does not matter what religion he adheres to, it is important that that we are all mortal, we are all under the Lord. And we will all leave this world someday, it’s inevitable.

The question is how we lived. After all, some people live or don’t live – it’s unclear, and how they leave – from vodka or something else – it’s unclear, and then they left. Lived or did not live – it also slipped unnoticed somehow: whether a person lived, or not. And your son lived, you know? His goal has been achieved. This means that he did not leave his life in vain. Do you understand? In this sense, of course, his life turned out to be significant, lived with the result, and with the one he aspired to. This is the first thing I would like to say.

Nina Petrovna touched upon a very important issue – the organization of the work of social services. Of course you’re right. If there are so many problems there that you just mentioned: with trips, with these endless documents. We have this “one-stop shop” system in the civil sphere in Russia.

N.Pshenichkina: Yes, we talked.

Vladimir Putin: And it works very efficiently.

This is probably more difficult to do here, because it is at the junction of several departments, including the military. The military always closes something, even where there is no need to close anything. Military people are sitting here – they probably know too. Where there are no secrets, they still tell something about some secrets.

But the fact that social services should work more efficiently, should work in such a way that they do not create any problems, is not burdensome for people, especially for the guys who have suffered, injured, this “one window” service, even if it is at the junction of civilian departments and the military, certainly needs to be organized. I will not just give some command and forget. We will bring this to an end.

N.Pshenichkina: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: It may not work out right away, because it’s not easy to do it at the junction of these departments, but we will definitely do it. This is the first.

Now – benefits. Now we have adopted a law according to which all Russian benefits are extended to residents of Lugansk, Donetsk and two other territories. It is possible to spread this, as they say, retroactively, starting in 2014. Where there are one or two lawyers, there are at least three or four opinions, but we will work on this and we will make some kind of system of appropriate benefits.

N.Pshenichkina: For those who have this status.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, we need to see.

I will not hide it, before entering here, I talked with the Minister of Defense, I talked with Tatyana Alekseevna Golikova, I understood where I was going and what questions could be raised. Therefore, in principle, I have already talked to them in general terms, now I have written it down, and these will be more specific instructions. We’ll work on it. Ok?

N.Pshenichkina: Thank you, thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: You know, of course, thank you for paying attention to this topic, I mean that you take care of other guys who are in the special operation zone, you think about their families. This once again underlines [that] special, I think, that is inherent in people from Russia – a multinational, but still a single people who live by the same values. This is very inherent in us.

Thank you very much.

You are welcome.

I.Sumynina: Hello!

Sumynina Irina Viktorovna, Krasnodar city.

First of all, I want to express my gratitude in general for being here today. Although there is no merit of mine, it was our Kuban Cossack army that sent me here.

Vladimir Putin: Are you a Cossack?

I. Sumynina: Yes. We have a Cossack family, we have four sons. The husband and two of the sons are now on combat duty, so to speak. They went as volunteers, not mobilized. Again, they went from the army as Cossacks.

The husband and the eldest son are together, they serve in the LEOPARD, and the youngest child is in the special forces, in intelligence. They have very well–coordinated groups, they support each other very much, in general, the fighters are not exactly my men, but in detachments.

Vladimir Putin: I know the Leopards fight well.

I. Sumynina: They are a mountain for each other, they help each other, support each other both physically and mentally, they will never abandon the fighters – neither the wounded nor the dead. You even have to throw off your uniforms, the same tactical belts, bulletproof vests, just to lighten yourself and could take out comrades, comrades and weapons, of course.

That’s why there is a big problem of staffing, especially in special forces. The Ministry of Defense dressed, shod, but exists… I will speak for the youngest son. He is in intelligence, and he needs a separate uniform so that it is light, warm, seasonal, even stripes in color. They don’t have any masks… Here is the eldest son – a sniper, he also, for example, does not have a camouflage, what kind of uniform is, this is what it is. The uniform generally falls into disrepair very quickly, because in the trenches, there, you know, mud, wet, cold, you can’t make a fire. Of course, a lot of guys are sick. But what’s the point? The fact is that the form should be as close as possible, and so that it would be easier and faster to replace the old form with a new one, because it becomes unusable very quickly. Even the same tactical belts. Here is a machine–gunner husband, and literally a few months – everything, his pouches are already unusable, to carry zinc.

Another big question. In the war zone, when new territories are liberated, there are a lot of street children, a lot. The good news is that our guys have very good food, that is, there are no problems with food. And they constantly feed the locals, especially the kids. They are so happy about these cookies, sweets and so on.

I know that, of course, work is being carried out to find these children, to help them, their families, and this, of course, cannot be abandoned. It is necessary to strengthen, probably, the help to these children. Moreover, in the Krasnodar Territory now, probably, sanatoriums will be free – at least to take them out here, because it is very cold, very wet, there is no light, no water, no food. This is a big problem.

The guys are very united, positive, do not lose heart. Everyone understands that he is in his place – they are like that. They say we even like to laugh – it’s such a release.

Vladimir Putin: Irina Viktorovna, of course, the Cossacks are a special caste here.

I. Sumynina: Cossacks – yes, of course. I forgot to say – our chieftains are constantly collecting cars, at least once a month they try to take humanitarian aid. We, of course, take part in all this – we collect and send the same boxes with sweets, with gingerbread, so that they give it to children. Because our fighters don’t really need it anymore, and the kids – yes, it’s food for them.

Vladimir Putin: The Cossacks have switched from horses to cars, but they use it successfully.

I. Sumynina: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: But this, I repeat once again, of course, is a special caste. The fact that they occupy a special place in the history of Russia, have always been serving people, have always been at a combat post and have always been ahead is an absolutely obvious thing. This has always been the case in the history of Russia. They were ahead, because it all started with the fact that their main task was to protect the borders. Well, then, as the country developed, the frontiers went further, and their service to the Motherland continued in different capacities.

The fact that today they fulfill their duty to the Motherland, to the Fatherland, is, of course, on the one hand, it seems to be in tradition, and on the other hand, it emphasizes that nothing disappears anywhere.

I.Sumynina: This suggests that the Kuban Cossacks are actively participating in a special military operation.

I also wanted to say about the family. We must show by personal example, educate children. Not just to say something somewhere, but by personal example. My husband has been working with children at school for 13 years, he is a Cossack mentor. The children were brought up in the same way, their father instilled military affairs in them – these are both hiking and shooting constantly with Cossacks in our military unit.

I worry, I’m nervous, of course, you forget everything here.

O.Shigina: We didn’t grow up in “golden” diapers.

I.Sumynina: Yes, they did not grow.

My husband was in 2014 in the Crimea and Novorossiya, he has awards. In the spring and summer I was in the Donbass, also has awards. Looking at the father, of course, the sons could not stay at home. This is a personal example of my husband.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, that’s right. That’s what I started with, everything from the family.

I.Sumynina: Yes, I confirm it.

Vladimir Putin: Firstly, there are several Cossack units there, not only the LEOPARD.

I.Sumynina: Yes, there is a “Kuban” there.

Vladimir Putin: And the fact that the supreme ataman is in charge is also important. I am aware of this, and, of course, we will support it in every possible way.

You have two sons, it’s time for one to return, at least to come on vacation.

I.Sumynina: They offered him to go on vacation now, he says: “I won’t go, because my guys are all there.” And he is the commander of the group. He says, “I’m not leaving, I’m staying there.” God forbid, they may be released in January. And so – no.

Now the youngest is 17, I think with horror – he will turn 18, and this one will go there.

Vladimir Putin: Don’t, that’s enough.

I. Sumynina: And everyone says to him: “They left you here for your mother, here are the guards.”

Vladimir Putin: Yes, of course.

I. Sumynina: But you can’t stop him.

Vladimir Putin: Yes. But it seems to me that one of the sons should also return, they have already fought, God forbid, of course.

Look, the fact that you are a Cossack, it is obvious, because such subtleties are tactical: both body armor, and unloading, pouches, zincs. This is a special terminology. It’s all from them, from your men.

About the clothes. I was pleased to hear that the situation with the supply and nutrition has improved. Is this the latest information with clothes?

I. Sumynina: Yes. Just why do I know? When it happens to my son, when they leave everything, and he just writes to me: mom, I need this, this, this. We have, well, in Krasnodar there are good shops where you can buy all this.

Vladimir Putin: I see. The Ministry [of Defense] is trying to organize this work as efficiently as possible, taking into account the time of year. Believe me, I’m telling you quite sincerely, looking straight into your eyes: every time I meet with the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, and they happen every day, I talk about it almost every day. Every day. We’ll see what happens there in the coming days, but I marked it for myself.

I.Sumynina: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: The second important thing is that you mentioned street children. Now only the work of Russian social services is unfolding in these territories, they were not there before.

I. Sumynina: Yes, of course.

Vladimir Putin: There wasn’t much there at all, as far as I understand, but now this work is unfolding. But now that I’ve listened to you, I’ve thought about something – that it’s not enough to simply deploy the work of social services, there you need to take some special measures related to finding these children and supporting them. We will definitely do it.

I.Sumynina: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you for paying attention to this. As well as equipment.

I.Sumynina: And, of course, the Cossacks of the Kuban Cossack army tell you: “Love!”

Vladimir Putin: And thank them very much for everything, for their service, for their loyalty to the Motherland.

I.Sumynina: Thank you. I’ll pass it on.

Elena Nikulnikova: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!

Nikulnikova Elena Viktorovna. I came to you from the Tula land and brought you strong hugs from the Tula people, especially from women, mothers, and handshakes from men. And they asked me to tell you that the people are with you and the people are for you.

I am the mother of a guard corporal of the intelligence unit, who was on another business trip at the time of the start of the special operation and was very sorry that he was absent from his homeland at that moment. But from the first days he announced to me that as soon as he returned home, after a few days of rest, he would immediately go to the front. And there was not an ounce of doubt in his words, and that’s right. Because every man’s duty is to defend his homeland. Just like his father once did, who is no longer with us, but he put 25 years of service to the Motherland. He also participated in hot spots, was a combat veteran. Just like his great-grandfather, who during the Great Patriotic War, from 1940 to 1944, defended our Homeland, and in September 1944, personally leading a battalion, went on the offensive, was wounded in this battle and subsequently died of wounds and was buried on the territory of Ukraine. He was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War I degree, the Order of Alexander Nevsky. He was a little older than my son, he was 26 years old.

Our sons defend our Homeland in the epicenter, and we try to support them in the rear. Our governor Alexey Gennadievich Dyumin, you know, he accepted the mobilization not even as the head of the region, but as a father who personally controls all the processes of providing uniforms, all the processes of training mobilized soldiers, for which everyone is very grateful to him. So we, the common people, do not stand aside. We have in every city, almost in every village, collection points of support for mobilized soldiers. Personally, I observe how everyone wants to participate, to support our soldiers. And even from our small, small town, nine cargoes have already been sent in different directions.

And I agree with the previous mother, Irina Viktorovna, who said about the lost things that it is paperwork that does not allow you to quickly make up for lost things. In the same way, the procedure for writing off both destroyed equipment and the same things is outdated.

Plus I would like to add – now the situation is a little different, of course, about quadrocopters. They should be on the balance sheet not only in special purpose units, but also in all other units that go to the front line.

In conclusion of my speech, I would like to thank you once again from mothers who love our country, and from women – for taking care of women who raised sons, defenders of our Motherland.

Vladimir Putin: Everything from Mom is true.

As for drones, quadrocopters and so on. We are aware of this, we are working on it, and the industry is working on it.

Unlike those with whom we have to deal, and in this sense we have to fight not with them, but with those who supply and pay them everything – they actually use them as cannon fodder. This, without any exaggeration, does not count with losses there, does not count at all. And those who behave incorrectly, as they believe, are shot in front of the line – our guys watched with their own eyes – and the bodies are lying around, they don’t even collect the executed.

Recently, there was another case – five people were shot in front of the formation – those who refused to go or left the positions. There is a completely different moral atmosphere there. This once again confirms that we are dealing with a neo–Nazi regime – without any exaggeration. Not to quarrel with someone, but on the fact of their behavior. They don’t behave like that. But it doesn’t matter. And what is important is that we feel like people and feel that we are doing the right thing, protecting those of our people who now live in the territories that became part of the Russian Federation, which should have been done a long time ago, judging by what Nina Petrovna said. They’ve been waiting for this for a long time.

Regarding the order of property write–off and so on – I marked it for myself, we’ll see. But this should primarily be related to the order of the update. We’ll see about that. And I’ll tell Dyumin what you said. I’m just going to see him today, we have a working meeting.

Thank you very much.

E.Nikulnikova: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.

You are welcome.

M.Kostyuk: I am Maria Kostyuk, the mother of an officer, Senior Lieutenant Andrey Kovtun, who was in the combat zone from the very beginning. As he said, he left to fight and protect us from fascist inhumans, but then, when he returned to his time, he continued, said: “While I’m there, they won’t come here.” “Because,” she says, “if you (I somehow, as a mother, tried to say that everything happens in life, I can make any decision you make, for which I got it very quickly, harshly) knew what they were doing to women and children there, you would even think I couldn’t. While I’m there, they won’t be here. And here you are, my wife, my son, so the boys and I are there.”

Initially, he was a company commander in the 40th engineer-sapper regiment. This is the same crossing over the Seversky Donets, which they have brought several times, the famous one. He returned home, on July 29 he turned 26 years old. He was delighted that he was celebrating his birthday at home for the first time in 10 years, on August 4 he again left for the combat zone as a company commander in the 74th Motorized Rifle Brigade, and on August 10, near the village of Disputable of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the reconnaissance group was ambushed, and, having received a signal for help, Andrey with his characteristic independence and with confidence he rushed to help the guys, covered the direction of fire with his BMP and himself.

He saved the sappers, Andrei himself died, but thanks to him the guys are alive. And you know, when, after his death, a video was played in the American media for a week that they had neutralized Senior Lieutenant Andrei Kovtun, I finally, probably, made his decision that he could not have done otherwise. And the belief in his work, which he did for life, for life, and – our case – at the cost of his own life, took root inside.

And today, as a mother, I tell all our girls, our mothers, that today we are the first to show an example of how to appreciate the feat of our sons, not to reset it and, first of all, to live. Life, no matter how painful, is bitter. Open your eyes every day and live. To live by ourselves, to help others live and to teach them to live and appreciate this life, for which our guys fought there and are fighting now.

Pain does not choose whether you are an entrepreneur, a teacher or an official, it hits a person. Here I am the mother of an officer, but I am the deputy chairman of the Government of the Jewish Autonomous Region. I am the same official about whom they write everywhere today that we hide our loved ones from our own, that we are trying to sabotage the mobilization. I do not know where they see them, where they see such officials, I know completely different examples.

The guys are doing their military duty there today, and we are here in the rear, really in the rear, we must all do civilian duty together today. Because my son defended his big homeland, but each of them has a small one in his soul. And the boys who are there today, they all have a small homeland: they have their own yard, their own entrance, they have the road along which they went to school. And when they come back from there, what will they see?

I think they should see a new country. They should see the country for which they are now fighting and fighting there. They should see it equipped, well-maintained, clean. And, probably, we all have to do this with you. Maybe we can multiply the funding of programs, maybe unite all together, local communities, but we have to change for them.

If I may, literally two examples. They wrote all around – again, social networks, the media – that Moscow was empty, big cities were empty as soon as mobilization was announced. We had queues. The small village of Teploozersk in the Jewish Autonomous Region – at the beginning of the working day, there is a queue at the military enlistment office. Half of the team came from the cement plant and they say: “Take us together with him (with the conscript), he is small, frail, he can’t cope alone, we will go with him.” Is this not an indicator? Isn’t it necessary to try for them?

Or, already when the combat coordination was taking place in the village of Bijan, a mobilized man, Mikhail, approaches the governor Rostislav Ernstovich [Goldstein] and says: “Talk to my wife.” Everyone tensed up: what can he ask, what can he talk about? He says: “She runs around, collects certificates that I am unfit for military service. She doesn’t listen to anyone, you talk. I’m not coming back, I’m not going, I’m going with the guys. I’ll come back from there with them later.” And for their sake, we need to do everything today.

You know, ITS united us all today, it really united us. Today there is such a surge of civic activity, volunteering – a great gratitude that it is supported today, and God grant that it will continue to be supported. Because you and I have replaced the iron curtain with iron doors, we have locked ourselves in our apartments and lost each other. And today it is such a real, big, powerful appeal, a powerful association.

And first of all, I would like to address you with such a request, if I may. Today it is necessary to organize memorable places, some squares of memory, places of memory, to name art objects in honor of our heroes, to break up parks and not listen to those who write everywhere today and say: when everything is over, then. Why? Are we shy of our heroes? Or do we doubt our victory? Who doubts? Here we are, mothers, there are millions more behind us, we can convince any inhabitant of our country and others of what kind of victory, what price is given, and that it will be ours, it is ours. Give us these people who doubt.

And you know, I would like to add here that … of course, I would probably hang stars on the doors of these heroes as a sign of respect from society, as in the Great Patriotic War. But the veterans who come from there, guys, here they need to fill the military enlistment offices today. Why? Because today they know the price of life, and they know that behind every combat unit there is a real human fate. So that there are no cases when a 25-year-old widow comes to the military enlistment office, lost, who does not know what to do and how to do, and they say to her: “Do you know how many people like you? Come back in a month.” And the girl gets lost. And then they stray, excuse the phrase, into the widow’s realms, there are three or four of them, 24-25 years old, and they are already lost. They hire some kind of military lawyers. For what? On the contrary, we must show them that their husband is a hero, that today we appreciate his feat and support this family.

Well, the boys are there – they help them: they fill the refrigerator, and help them to somehow hold on, and they are engaged in children. But then they leave for the tape, they continue to work, they continue to fulfill their duty. Who are these girls for?

They cannot get a pension, because for at least three months, I even say by my example, it is impossible to get a certificate. Our regional military enlistment office has already been connected, but we cannot simply get a certificate that the girl does not receive benefits there. But she has me. And those girls who are single, what do they live on now? How do they feel inside? Their husband gave his life for our country.

In general, I think that it is necessary to make sure that our veterans of the SVO – the guys who are now returning from there – are in schools every day. Because it is they who understand the meaning of life today, who can openly, truly tell who the hero is. They can form a real image of today’s hero, you know, maybe a hero of our time. They will succeed – not all of them, but these will succeed.

If I may, there is one more request. Today, in my understanding, it is a very terrible situation when chat rooms are spread on social networks, where the Ukrainian CIPsO [Center for Information and Psychological Operations] and our foreign agents – “ours”, what does “ours” have to do with it, Lord, I said something – mislead our moms. They convince them, playing on their anxiety, beat them to the most painful, vital point, that they should talk to their sons so that they surrender, leave their place of service, leave military operations. They convince them in such a way that they come there, promising to give up their son from captivity or promising to give up the body. They write to moms in chat rooms, communicating with them like moms. What are our moms doing? They write the current phone number of their son when he is there, and then they arrive there. When they correspond in these chats, they write where exactly the unit or company in which their son is stationed is stationed. And then there’s a flight. Her son and other sons, someone’s husbands, brothers, fathers are dying. It’s scary, I understand that you have to work with moms. We are ready to help in this situation. But here, it seems to me, it is impossible to do without such a very important department as the Ministry of Defense. Because here it is necessary to nip in the bud, here it is necessary to carry out a lot of explanatory work with relatives and here it is necessary to save moms, help them, support them in the fact that in fact everything is not so, everything is completely different.

You know, I have colleagues who are in all regions today, I think they all support me. We are all ready to work 24 by 7 on this story, because it is very important. I am speaking here today, of course, both as a mother and as a person who works in power, because help, care and support will certainly be there. And we are ready to provide it today.

I stopped, I can talk a lot. This is my sore subject.

Vladimir Putin: First of all, Maria Fedorovna, I would like to note. You said about the heroes of our time. Lermontov had another hero. He had an eternal spleen, he lacked something, he doubted. He was sorry, after all, that he had interfered in the lives of honest smugglers and so on and so forth.

You have another son, and here the mothers are sitting those guys, those guys of ours who are really heroes in the literal sense of the word. This is the first.

The second is about what happened. See, he’s a real hero, your guy. He consciously did what he passed away for, dedicated his life to.

I once said: “For my friends.” It’s, you know, in the Bible, in the Torah, and in the Koran – there are things of this kind everywhere, you know? Indeed, a person with only such an upbringing and with such an attitude to his neighbors and to the cause he serves could do as your Andrey did, judging by what you have told.

M.Kostyuk: The guys told me.

Vladimir Putin: The guys told me, especially. They won’t cheat, it’s not fakes from the Internet.

About what you said about families and about military enlistment offices. After all, all of us – and some big bosses, and lower officials, and ordinary citizens – are one people, no matter what position or position we hold. And there are always different people, and there are different officials: there are those like you and your family, and there are those who in some structures – and you have just spoken about them with indignation – and in military enlistment offices treat the families of our servicemen haughtily or bureaucratically, carelessly and with a chill. Therefore, our task, of course, is to get rid of such people and of such a manner of communicating with people.

In this regard, of course, what you are doing, what Nina Petrovna is doing, and many of those present here, is very important. It is very important to rip off this “crust of indifference” from officials of various levels, from some state structures. We need to do this.

Frankly speaking, after all, I asked you to gather today in order to make it clearer to me, too, where the problems are. Of course, I know a lot of what you say – almost everything. But it’s one thing when you know from paper reports, even from oral reports of colleagues, and another thing when directly from you, from life, directly, everything is alive, you know. It matters.

Therefore, what you are saying about it is very right and good, and even better is that you are doing it. Thank you for that. I know that there are various initiatives there, various public groups are being created. They are needed precisely in order for us to act more effectively. In the end, if we do as you suggest, this is the road to our more effective work and to achieving the result that you also said that the country would be different. We must act together in this direction.

And as for, frankly speaking, the actions of the enemy, and your guys are fighting directly with the enemy, he is right on the contrary, and in the information sphere is also an enemy. When you say that they are trying to convince someone of something, to throw in some false information, to encourage some actions. What actions do they encourage? They encourage destructive actions that nullify that, discredit that for which your son passed away.

That’s why it’s being done: to devalue what our guys are doing, and to devalue, in my opinion, our very noble impulse – to protect our people in Donbass, in Zaporozhye, in Kherson. That’s what they do: devalue all our efforts and what our guys are doing, devalue, compromise and ultimately achieve their goals. And we, as you correctly said, as everyone here says, must achieve our own, and we will achieve them, without any doubt.

As for being attentive to the guys, including the injured, who have injuries, so that they work in the same military enlistment offices, this team already exists. The Ministry of Defense is doing this and will continue to do it, but this is not enough. I think it is necessary to make a separate program for children who need additional support related to future employment. We need to make a separate program, and we will do it.

M.Kostyuk: Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

You are welcome.

I.Tas-ool: Hello.

Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon.

I.Tas-ool: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!

First of all, I would like to thank you for your sensitive attention and support of our guys.

My name is Irina Igorevna. I represent the Republic of Tyva. My eldest son serves in the 57th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Khabarovsk Territory. On March 7, he began taking part in a special military operation. On April 30, as I later found out, he was seriously injured. I found out about it myself on May 7. He initially told me that he had problems, that he just had a cold. Of course, I understand him, he didn’t want to upset me. But then, of course, a few days later I still contacted our deputy of the Republic of Tyva, asked for his help – to understand the whole essence of his illness.

Then my son received more than six months of treatment in hospitals: for five months he was in the Vishnevsky Hospital in Moscow and for more than a month he was in a hospital in Khabarovsk. He is currently staying at our home, in the Republic of Tyva. I received help in the form of rehabilitation in the sanatorium “Serebryanka”, which we have in the city of Kyzyl.

As the mother of a wounded soldier who needs long-term treatment, I am concerned about the development of a rehabilitation system and support for their families when they are already injured. I would like some kind of targeted program to be developed, where not only wounded soldiers and fighters, but also their families would receive help, because these mothers, wives, children are also facing this for the first time, and not everyone understands, knows where to turn, to whom to turn. And some families solve this problem for a long time, let’s say.

Also, in the Republic of Tyva, on your instructions, a medical diagnostic center was built in 2020, the main focus of which was to protect the population from coronavirus infection, and this center played a huge help and support during the outbreak of this pandemic. But now this [virus] has been minimized, and I would like this center to have the status of a military hospital, so that the guys, after they arrive at home, in this case in Tyva, know that there is a place where they will receive treatment, rehabilitation.

It’s also good, you just mentioned that you need help finding employment for these citizens. Because my son, when he was just signing a contract, he thought that he would be a military man, his whole life would be connected with this. And when on October 25 of this year the military commission recognized him unfit for service in military units, there is already a rethinking: where, how, further employment. Therefore, it is also necessary to attract these guys to work in military enlistment offices, also in the educational sphere, where they will explain how to be a patriot of their country. In the military enlistment offices, they will give advice because they know, because they have passed it all.

I would also like to thank the Government of the Republic of Tyva. They, too, in turn, provided assistance to the families of mobilized citizens, to which we, the common people, are very happy and grateful.

Thanks for attention.

Vladimir Putin: Good.

Irina Igorevna, first of all, we will see how to help you. And in general: Maria Fedorovna has already said here about military enlistment offices that it is possible to attract children, especially after injuries, to involve them in this work. We will do that. This is the first.

Second. You have raised the issue more broadly. In general, we need to think and create a system not just for rehabilitation. The Minister tells me that military hospitals are only 38 percent full, but the healthcare system itself is ready to work with our guys, the civilian healthcare system, including rehabilitation. We will definitely come back to this, so that rehabilitation takes place not only in the medical institutions of the Ministry of Defense, but taking into account the readiness and desire of the civilian health care system to work with our guys, especially those who have been injured. But we need to sort it out between the departments. We will do this and make greater use of the opportunities of domestic healthcare. This also applies to regional, republican, and federal centers.

And of course, we need a separate rehabilitation program in the broadest sense of the word, including additional training and employment. Additional training is definitely absolutely in demand. Be sure to think about it. I’ve marked it, and we’ll do it.

I. Tas-ool: Thank you.

Yu.Belekhova: Vladimir Vladimirovich, my name is Yulia Belekhova. I head the regional branch of the Popular Front in the Moscow region. A mother with many children. The eldest son left for mobilization in October.

We discussed the topic of supporting the families of our soldiers on November 2 at the forum “Community”, which is held by the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation. By the way, in such a landmark place – the Victory Museum on Poklonnaya Hill, where public organizations and volunteers gathered. Today we talked a lot about the help of volunteers, which is necessary, about the project “We are together”, which has always helped and helps.

We talked about supporting the families of our soldiers today. The conversation was not easy, because almost everyone who has relatives or friends today is either in the zone of a special military operation, or in places of coordination and training was there. But everyone came to the same opinion: the entry point of information from the fighters today is the family. Who will the fighter call? Of course, mom or wife. Of course, in fact, the family is the first to find out what is missing, what worries and worries the fighters there on the front line today.

On the other hand, we understand today what difficulties families face here. These are issues, of course, of psychological, material, economic, organizational, informational assistance. Maria Fyodorovna is right to talk about information assistance, because we should not give our families offense to anyone today. We have to save them, we have to help them.

It was at this site that everyone agreed that we need to work together, we need to organize in order to improve this assistance – both to families and to fighters. We decided to create a committee of families of soldiers of the Fatherland, and the organizers were just our leading Russian organizations – these are “Women of Russia”, “Union of Military Families”, “Union of Women of Russia”, “Mothers of Russia”. It is clear that it is not easy, because there are quite a lot of issues that need to be solved, and solved today.

We have already built a relationship with Tatiana Nikolaevna Moskalkova, the Commissioner for Human Rights, but, Vladimir Vladimirovich, we really need help in building a dialogue with the Ministry of Defense today, because there are a lot of questions from families to this department. Of course, these are the security issues that were just discussed today, these are the issues of missing persons, these are the issues when they get in touch. This is not a matter of three days or a week, when it is no longer just anxiety and anxiety in the family, and here, of course, there are questions that need to be answered. This is a question of interaction with the Ministry of Health today, this is a question of interaction with the social block today. That is, everything that worries both families and fighters today.

Of course, for our part, we have already started work here, and our mothers have joined the Popular Front hotline, because we understand each other like no one else, we understand what we are talking about.

Of course, we will now make New Year’s holidays for children from families who participate in a special military operation. We plan to organize committees in the regions, because there are a lot of issues that can be resolved at the regional level. And we have just announced that we will create a committee, appeals have already been sent to us.

One of them was from Khakassia, where, unfortunately, – Nadezhda Uzunova is present here, – let’s just say that the attitude was not quite right to families and to explain the issues of regional support measures that exist. It is necessary to speak honestly and directly and give, among other things, tools – where to turn and how if this help is not received for some reason. Therefore, of course, there are questions, and here, most importantly, we want to become part of the solution, not part of the problem, we want to help. And here, Mr President, is a very big request to support us in our work.

And, no less important, we definitely need specific people assigned to us from each of the ministries and departments, some are able to answer questions and make decisions. Today we need to do everything quickly, without red tape, without delay. Therefore, here is such a request.

And of course, thank you very much for your trust, because today I am a member of the HRC, the Human Rights Council, and I think this will help today in implementing the plans that we have today, namely in helping both families and fighters.

Vladimir Putin: Yulia Alexandrovna, is that what you called yourself – the Committee of Families of Soldiers of the Fatherland?

Yu.Belekhova: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: Have you formalized it somehow? Is this already some kind of legal entity created?

Yu.Belekhova: Yes, we have already been created. You know, we are quite open here, because there are a lot of organizations that are somehow spontaneously and incomprehensibly formed. We are talking about what we are, we have an official legal status, we will not disappear from the open spaces tomorrow, as, you know, when groups are opened in social networks, and then they disappear somewhere, and families remain without answers to questions, they were simply thrown into an incomprehensible information war. And here we are, we have an official legal status, we have registered. And already today our mothers are helping, answering questions and sharing the experience and information that they have.

Vladimir Putin: You know, I will instruct the Administration and the Government, as you requested, to establish some kind of contact with you directly for the purpose of support. We will definitely do this.

Yu.Belekhova: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: And in the course of the work there, some issues will be clarified that require special attention, require assistance from administrative bodies. Now it’s hard for me to just say – it’s clear about what questions arise, but in each particular case, probably, you need to take a special approach.

In general, this work should be individual. It always becomes the most effective when it is not conducted in general, but individually with each specific person and with each specific family. But each case is still unique, I mean the composition of the family, family problems, the social status of the family, housing issues, receiving all the necessary forms of support required by law, and sometimes even not required, but necessary, especially at the regional level.

I do not know if you have noticed whether it sounds on the air when I have some public events – I do not have time to watch what is happening and how – but always at meetings with the heads of regions, I either start with this, or end with this: I always demand from my colleagues in the regions, from the heads of the regions of attentive, informal, personal participation in the lives of the families of our guys who are fighting. Always. But in the vast majority of cases, I know that work is being built, not only in the capitals, but also in other cities, in almost all subjects.

The fact that you told me that in Khakassia they somehow treat this the wrong way, it’s strange for me, to be honest, but we will check what is really happening there. This work is certainly in demand.

You said it right, I even wrote down that the entry point of all information is the family. People write there, call there when there is an opportunity, and there appears the most objective information about what is happening, and what kind of help and support is needed.

Of course, we will help you, without any doubt.

Yu.Belekhova: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: We just need some of your data, but I’m sure it will be, we will take it. Phones and so on.

You are welcome.

Zh.Agueva: I came from Chechnya, Aguyeva Zharadat Khozhaevna. The mother of two fighters who are currently on the front line. One is Aguyev Ismail, [battalion] “West”, battalion commander, and the second is the head of the Kurchaloyevsky district police department.

Our sons voluntarily went there for the first time, now for the second time, too, with their team, squad. Ismail is wounded, has not yet corrected his leg, walks on crutches, walks on a cane, fights in the Donbass. Maryinka, where they are. I am proud that my sons freely, voluntarily went for the first time. I don’t regret at all that they are there.

Our President Ramzan Kadyrov fully provides everyone with everything they need: clothes, shoes. Not that Ramzan Kadyrov provides them – even wives and children at home – with everything, helps everyone and the guys there too, food, food. Not that the military carries – even Ukrainian people are constantly getting humanitarian aid. Our president is very proud of our guys, looks at everything, does everything necessary. He does not leave his sons, husbands who are in the zone of a special military operation, helps all their families. We don’t have any street children in Chechnya, there are no hungry people, there are no needy people. Our president provides all mothers with everything they need, provides everything. Our guys are doing fine.

I’m proud. I have another son at home. If I have to go, I’ll send the third one. It’s the second time they’ve gone. Our guys who left Chechnya don’t need anything and they don’t need anything. Basically, they have everything. Our president is the best, I think. General – we don’t say. Especially his own. I am grateful to Putin that in 2000, thanks to him and the late Akhmat-Hadji, everything was done to end the war on our side.

We have already survived the war twice, I know. I had one missing in that war, now I have three at the moment. I am proud of my nation and my people – everyone. We have no one in Chechnya who is starving, in need, with outstretched hands. He constantly provides everyone with everything they need, all the children, all the mothers, he does not leave them, he provides everything they need. I’m proud of him.

Thank you too, Putin, that at that time with Akhmat-Hadji Kadyrov you also helped our people a lot so that this war would not happen.

I have nothing more to say.

Vladimir Putin: Zharadat Khozhaevna, thank you for your kind words. What happened on Chechen soil, and the normalization that took place, is primarily the merit of the Chechen people themselves and Akhmat-Hadji, who gave his life for his people.

Zh.Aguyeva: Yes, my people.

Vladimir Putin: For the Chechens. He gave his life for it.

We will see Ramzan Akhmatovich now, I have a working meeting with him, I will tell him your words.

Zh.Agueva: He is very much for his people. What he said – our guys are all mine, I think, even now they will give their lives for him, for his word. It’s the second time I’ve had them there, on the front line.

Vladimir Putin: The fact that you have two sons fighting there is well done.

Zh.Aguyeva: I have two grandchildren there too. And also with our husband’s surname, relatives, nephews, a cousin, four more of our namesakes, the Aguevs, there are a lot of them.

Vladimir Putin: Zharadat Khozhaevna, tell your third son that the order of the Supreme Commander–in-Chief is to stay at home. Let him control the situation in the family.

Zh.Agueva: I told those two: leave the third one for now, we need the third one here at home.

Vladimir Putin: I will tell Ramzan now that the third one is at home, controlling the situation.

Zh.Agueva: And so thank you, thank you very much.

And I am very grateful to my president, my people, my nation, for not leaving us, helping everyone. It doesn’t even happen that he didn’t help somewhere, that we didn’t get something. You can come to Chechnya at any time to find out whether my words are true or not.

Vladimir Putin: I know the difference between today’s Terrible and the Terrible that I saw from the side of a combat helicopter when I flew over the city in 1999 and in 2001.

Zh.Agueva: Yes, it has blossomed, it is a very beautiful city, the sights are very beautiful. This is thanks to our people, the president.

Vladimir Putin: I remember the square for a minute – complete ruins, as it was in Stalingrad.

Z.Agueva: Yes, there was nothing to catch there. We didn’t even think that it would recover like this.

Vladimir Putin: We thought more about moving the capital of Chechnya, because some believed that it was impossible to restore, everything was in ruins. Now a thriving city, chic.

Zh.Aguyeva: My grandson is also studying at Suvorov. “Grandma,” she says, “I will be 18 years old, I will also go to war with my uncles.” I say, “Wait, maybe it will end, it probably won’t reach you.” “No,” he says, “if there is, I will go.” He is studying perfectly at the Suvorov school, his grandson is already 16 years old.

Vladimir Putin: Please convey to all your loved ones, to all Chechens, the words of gratitude for that contribution to the common struggle and victory.

Zh.Agueva: I am proud of my nation and my people.

thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you for what you have said and for what you have done by educating such men.

Thanks.

You are welcome.

M.Bakhilina: I am Marina Bakhilina, Sakha Republic. Also a mother of three sons.

My middle son is a career military man, as he was drafted at the age of 18, and he remained. He serves in the Airborne Forces, reconnaissance. He has been in his own since the first days.

Vladimir Putin: Airborne, right?

M.Bakhilina: Airborne Forces, 83rd Brigade.

When the special operation began, he was there from the first days. In April, he was awarded the Order of Courage.

Vladimir Putin: The Order of Courage is not given just like that.

M. Bakhilina: Yes. It was shown on TV.

He was very badly injured. But I gathered, as they say, willpower, recovered. At the moment, he is in the hospital, undergoing rehabilitation and plans to go back in January.

The eldest son was mobilized in September.

But what I want to say, I’ll be brief, I don’t know how to say much.

In a word, I raised my sons in patriotism. As they say, the party said, the Motherland said – go ahead! No one shirked from the army, everyone joined the army physically, mentally prepared. They don’t hide behind Mom’s skirt. The summons came to the son, he immediately got ready quickly – and to the assembly point. Now he is not far from the front in his own. The only thing (well, rarely, of course, we correspond) that he complains about is food, there is no hot food. Do you understand what’s going on? If our people can’t provide our soldiers with hot meals, I, as a master of sports and a shooting CMC, would love to go there, to the front line to cook. And what’s funny, really.

We have, excuse me, please, in Yakutsk, a lot of mothers want to go to help – someone as a nurse, someone as a cook. There is nothing so shameful. We have some young people running, hiding… Why are we worse than our sons, as they say?

Another question I wanted is that I would gladly go to serve, I don’t need money, my pension allows.

Last. I want to convey from the mothers, from the wives of servicemen – from them personally – a huge thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich, to our Aisen Sergeyevich [Nikolayevich] and the Magansky Possovet for providing material and moral support to servicemen.

You know, everything was done so quickly, quickly and efficiently. I don’t know how it is in the city, but it seems that I go, I also collect parcels – it seems that all of us received compensation for 200-300 thousand, vegetable sets. In Magan, for example, in general, the administration of Magan has oriented itself very well: someone needs water, someone needs to clean the yard, someone needs to bring firewood – in that spirit. So many of us are very well provided for. About this, of course, thank you very much.

Yes, and the wish is for some moms who hide their children: it is not necessary to decide for them, the children themselves should, and not run, pay off and the like.

That’s it, Vladimir Vladimirovich. Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: Marina Konstantinovna, you said that you don’t know how to speak. You are able and speak in such a way that God grant everyone, in a meaningful and in form, very intelligible. But the most important thing is not even what you say, but what you do, and the results of your work are in your sons. This work is of the highest quality and the highest standard, if you have such children. I congratulate you on this and thank you.

As for Aisen Sergeevich, he is an experienced leader, a very sensitive person, he is persistent, able to achieve results. Your republic is gorgeous. It is not only huge in territory, it is inhabited by very talented people, different people, different nationalities, the people are very melodious, interesting, beautiful. A rich republic.

What you said about hot meals on the front line. It would seem that the issues have already been mostly resolved – they were just talking about what seems to be normal with this, but nevertheless, it means that not everything is normal. Let’s see what you need and where you need to do what additionally. First.

Second. Thank you for your willingness to take part in the combat work of your guys. But it seems to me that first the relevant departments in the Ministry [of Defense] should restore order there. With your submission, we will do this and strengthen this work, of course. It’s not the first time I’ve heard this, including recently. Therefore, what I have heard from you is very important.

I understand that you have everything set up in the republic, there are no questions to the local and regional authorities.

Mikhail Bakhilina: Yes, we have a very good setup, well done.

Vladimir Putin: (addressing Yu.Yulia Alexandrovna, keep in mind that there are good examples of the work of regional authorities.

Yu.Belekhova: Vladimir Vladimirovich, there is…

Vladimir Putin: And it is necessary to replicate it.

Yu.Belekhova: And it is necessary to replicate, and we will, and show, because there are really examples of good regional work and caring for families. Why do we want to create a regional committee on the ground – because in terms of issues, maybe even the authorities need to be told somewhere how this is done, how it is implemented. Because after all, there is concern for families today and help them in different situations they face.

Vladimir Putin: You need to tell me somewhere. And positive examples. They just need to be replicated, to show how it is possible and how it is necessary to work here.

O.Shigina: That’s what I’m talking about.

Vladimir Putin (addressing O. Shigina): Yes, please, Olesya Nikolaevna.

O.Shigina: Hello again. I’m sitting next to you here.

I am a documentary filmmaker, poet, mother of a son who was just on military service. But when all this started, he immediately said, “Mom, who if not me?” and signed up for those who are ready to serve the Motherland.

When I found out about my son’s decision, of course, poems and everything else flowed like a river. But most importantly, I realized that I would go to Donbass to understand what was happening there, I would personally go myself, I should see everything myself and understand who these guys are – the same as mine, or maybe what they say in the media…

Vladimir Putin: Not so.

O.Shigina: After all, however, at that time it was all very acute: “no war” and so on.

And, you know, I ended up making a movie. I went by myself, even without a bulletproof vest. The film is called “The Brave”.

Vladimir Putin: Was the film made?

O.Shigina: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: And on what technique, how did you shoot?

O.Shigina: I’m basically a documentary filmmaker, I have the technique. Not the most sophisticated, because the operators did not go with me.

Vladimir Putin: Are you a professional director?

O.Shigina: Yes. I have about 20 movies.

And when I arrived there, you know, as a mother, as a director, as a person who still passes through the soul, I, of course, saw that there were holy guys there. I saw this look of standing before death, before God in the first place. That is, they all understand that they are there for Russia. There is no Chechnya, – they are for all of us, for all together.

I told the women today (I deviate a little from what I wanted to say) how three prayed in one trench. A Dagestani man told me how the three of them, wounded in the trench, prayed in three languages – Chechen, Dagestani and Russian. The Dagestani man was holding a Spas Not made with hands – the flag that I gave him – and says: “I will wear it right under my heart.” And he read to me “Our Father” in Russian.

You see, we are raising Chechnya together, we are all together, and we are raising Donbass together now. And my first film was about the militia, about these people who have been standing on the borders there for eight years. (Addressing N. Pshenichkina.) About your son. Of course, these are heroes, these are our saints.

I have such a poem: “Time of times will hide the former power by turning milestones, // Sin will be called sin again, Russian – Poltava borscht. // The regiments of warriors and saints are growing every minute. // The Time of Times and its sons are sight for the blind.”

This vision [will become] now for the “blind”, for many blinded, whose brains have been clouded by these fakes, these endless terrible information attacks. To fight them off, we need to call up regiments of people who are ready to serve the Motherland in the same way as our sons serve.

We, patriots – documentarians, poets, writers, actors – are real patriots, we are ready to join the ranks of those who will create the cinema that the viewer is waiting for, and he is waiting for him.

A big request. For example, 20 of my films. It’s impossible to break into television, it’s impossible to break into cinemas, you know. The viewer says: where are your films, why don’t we see them? We want to see them. This wall needs to be breached.

By the way, when I went to shoot, I didn’t even have cameramen, the film is called “Absolute Life”. That is, the camera is shaking in my hands, I’m not a military commander, but I understand everything now, I understand how to shoot there.

Thanks to the Foundation for Cultural Initiatives, when I went there [to Donbass], for the second time when I went, I applied before that – this is a social elevator. Because the Ministry of Culture is very difficult to break through. And here I felt that the social elevator exists. That is, the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives picked up my project, they already helped me, and I felt that I was together with the state, that I was not working alone, you know? Just as our sons should now feel there that they are no longer alone, that they have uniforms [provided], that they are expected here. They are wounded, crippled – we will give them a “road map” of how to live on. And this is my first film about the militia coming out soon. I hope it will be shown.

Now I have conceived three more films, they have already suffered, I already understand how to make them. This is just the brave regular army, about our valiant regiments, in one of which my son serves. You just need to know – there is a lot of criticism of the army now, and it often has the right to be, but these valiant regiments exist, which are the honor and conscience of our army. They are there, we know them. I know that you know these commanders, brigade commanders, who are all wounded, with a mangled face, but they will lay down their lives for the guys, they will not leave them. And where the brigade commander does not know how to do this, the guys have problems there, and if the brigade commander is like our guys, everything is fine there. And they will reach you, and they will get everything. There would be more such brigade commanders for us, and I really want to make a film about them.

The second film I conceived about the Cossacks. Cossacks are not only here on the Don, we have Cossacks from Vladivostok to the south. And it is also very important that we have stopped dividing: Don Cossack, Ural Cossack, Vladivostok Cossack. I want to make a film where the Cossacks with their songs, with their courage, with their desire to serve “the faith, the tsar and the Fatherland” will be presented with that maternal love, you know, which is in me when I shoot.

I would like to make the third film about our mobilized guys. You know, the militia tell me on the front line: “Only fools are not afraid.” And this somewhat confused look at the wires – You can’t imagine how in two months it will turn into the look of a warrior, confident that he serves the Motherland.

As one hero of the film says: “Here we have some kind of connection. Because the spirit. For Russia, for Russia.”

Vladimir Putin: Unity.

O.Shigina: For complete unity, yes.

Indeed, patriotic creative people are easy to figure out, because they have not changed their patriotic attitude to the country for the last 20 years. It is very easy to find us – we are here, we are ready to serve the Fatherland. As it is written in my films: “Cinema in the service of the Fatherland.” This is the last frame always after all the movies.

I shoot about mothers with many children, about our soldiers or about people who really create in Russia – I have such films about heroes. I would really like a powerful festival to appear… I’m sorry, of course I’m worried anyway, because there’s so much to say inside.

Vladimir Putin: No, you are very informative, very interesting.

O.Shigina: But the excitement, you know, it is present. And so.

For how many years have festivals like Artdokfest and Kinotavr tormented our people with obscene content, films made with dislike – there is even a film of the same name called Dislike – namely films made about dislike of Russia. We have to call those now – and there the guard is standing and waiting: call us, we are ready to shoot about love for Russia, shoot about our heroes, write about them, live there, in the Donbass, and write books. I personally am ready to just sit in this trench and write about them.

And I hope that this institute – how do we get there – will appear, that the Ministry of Culture will begin to hear us. Because institutions such as the Internet Development Institute, the society “Knowledge” – this, as I understand it, you get directly to the people who hear you. It’s so rare, you know. And it’s such a blessing that we, patriotic writers, poets and filmmakers, began to be heard. That we are no longer “oh, somehow you have everything too there.” They started to hear us.

Vladimir Vladimirovich, the fact that I am here also shows that this social elevator… I think that the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives is still your initiative. And if Zharadat [Aguyeva] is very grateful to the Chechen leader, then, first of all, I think that everything that is being built and happening in Russia is our President who manages it, acts in coordination with people on the ground. If there is a competent leader there [in the region], there is also such a phrase from the front, you know, it does not matter that the company does not think anything, as long as the commander is not a fool. If you are not a fool on the ground, everyone hears all your orders, and everything is done there. Just like in social bodies. This ladder should appear.

Therefore, I have a big request (I formulate a lot, as a creative person I talk a lot).

First, I want to make these films with maternal love, you know, through love. I need the assistance of the Ministry of Defense for this, because it is almost impossible to break into such units. I am ready to shoot on the front line, I have already done this, I have experience now. I’m not afraid as much as possible.

I would really like other documentarians, poets, writers to have access to cinemas, to television, to leading TV channels, so that leading TV channels do not get carried away only with their entertainment content, but finally begin to see us.

I would really like to create a film festival “In the service of the Fatherland”. It doesn’t have to be a movie just about its heroes.

The heroes of my film build airplanes in the village, in an abandoned village they build airplanes, and they take off from chamomile fields. Isn’t that a hero? Or another hero of the film is an inventor who creates the most complex technologies in Russia, which are among the top five. Isn’t that a hero? Hero.

Therefore, I ask you. I am now speaking for the entire creative intelligentsia. I know what everyone really wants to say. Mr President, we are counting on you very much.

Thanks.

Vladimir Putin: Good. Thanks.

In this regard, you know what thoughts came to my mind right now when you spoke about people of creative professions who are patriotic, and said words that some of the cultural events tormented our people.

Why did this happen? I can say it’s very simple. Because we were in a state after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it seemed to us – to many – that a sweet life would begin now, and tomorrow we would live like in Paris or somewhere else. Although now it turns out that many people do not want to live like in Paris.

O.Shigina: Absolutely, yes.

Vladimir Putin: And it was thought that it would be good there. In fact, this is not the case at all, there is a different cultural code. Probably, everything is possible, but the way we celebrate Mother’s Day, the way we are gathered together now and talking about the role of a woman, the role of a mother – in many places there they don’t even know what “mom” is. Really? There’s just “parent number one” and “parent number two”. And there are dozens of genders being measured there, some kind of “transformers” – I don’t even understand what they are talking about. This is not our culture at all, this is a completely different code of some kind.

What Olesya Nikolaevna said, that there are guys from Dagestan…

O.Shigina: Yes, it is a mixture of cultures, and the war, of course, is for spirituality, for our spirituality.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, of course. Our unique civilization is the unification of people of different ethnic groups, different cultures and different faiths into one single whole. This is the first.

Second. At the turn of the 2000s, 90s, it seemed to us that everything would be fine, but it turned out that this was not the case at all. Moreover, we began to live and play in some strange clearing and enthusiastically indulged in the fact that they were trying to control us. And in the end, those who tried to control us – in general, thanks to their efforts, we found ourselves in this situation, including in the zone of a special military operation. After all, they brought it to this.

I understand that we are not here for serious conversations on political issues, but still, if there had not been a coup d’etat in Ukraine in 2014, there would have been nothing, there simply would have been nothing. And so they had a lot of influence over this country, and after 2014 they actually took control of all the authorities and administrations in fact.

And who are they? The Banderites are essentially. And what is Bandera? Neo-Nazis. Bandera was Hitler’s henchman, shot both Russians, and, by the way, Poles, Jews, all in a row on Hitler’s instructions. And today they have elevated such people to the rank of national heroes, that’s what our guys are fighting today in the zone of a special military operation, that’s who. And those who oppose them, many do not even understand what they are doing, do not understand that they are being used simply as pawns in someone else’s game. They are playing someone else’s game, but we have to fight for our interests, for our people, for our country. That’s what we’re doing.

And what happened in previous years was largely due to the fact that we played as if we had always lived in someone else’s clearing. And today’s events are a path to some kind of inner cleansing and renewal. And of course, people like you, people of creative professions who think like you, of course, they have always been in demand, and in such difficult moments for the life of the country in particular.

But since everything has developed in a certain way over the previous years, clearing a clearing is quite difficult for you, believe me, even from my level. Because it’s deep enough there everything sits. But we will definitely do it.

O.Shigina: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, we will. And of course, as for the assistance of the Ministry of Defense, you will be provided with assistance. I don’t even doubt it at all. How to organize this work so that it is with a good result and as safe as possible – we will think about it and try to do it. Ok?

O.Shigina: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: As for the rental and so on. You said that it is difficult to do this through the Ministry of Culture. Probably, there is also its own bureaucracy there. But the Ministry of Culture will also get involved. The Minister [of Culture Olga Lyubimova] is also a woman of patriotic beliefs, views, a very active young woman, already experienced. I’ll talk to her too, we’ll connect her.

O.Shigina: Yes, now is the time for documentaries. By the way, Russian documentary filmmakers are considered to be among the best in the world, because the level of penetration into the problem is very high among documentary filmmakers.

Vladimir Putin: Yes.

And what you said about the guys you saw there, practically on the front line, is, of course, worth a lot. And it was useful for me to hear it now.

O.Shigina: I can show you.

N. Pshenichkina: We watched this movie. She sent it to us.

Vladimir Putin: I will ask you to [send] too, please.

Are we going to finish, everyone? Or something else?

Please, please.

L. Rubanik: Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!

I am a mother of seven children from St. Petersburg, Rubanik Lyubov Sergeevna.

Vladimir Putin: We have such families in St. Petersburg – it’s nice to hear that. Not only in Chechnya, not only in Dagestan, but also in St. Petersburg.

L. Rubanik: We have six sons and an adopted daughter.

Vladimir Putin: That’s great.

L. Rubanik: The eldest two sons, Dmitry and Daniel, have already served in the army, and are now ready to go on mobilization. The middle son, Panteley, went to the military enlistment office himself in June and joined the army. In October, he signed an agreement, and is now in preparation. Vladislav is also with us now, in December, going to his brother’s service. The two youngest children are 11 and 12 years old.

I would like to tell you about patriotic education, since our grandparents went through the entire blockade. Grandfather was a hearing invalid, but from the age of 14 he worked at the Baltic factory, then he reached Berlin, although he was deaf, he fought. And a few years ago, he was already 92 years old, our dad passed away. He also devoted his whole life to the Navy, served in Murmansk. It turns out that this is the grandfather of my children, so we have such an upbringing, initially all children are patriots, everyone knows what our Homeland is.

When we were at school in our time, we had initial military training, we were proud that we were Octobrists, then pioneers, and, of course, everyone was happy and aspired to be in the Komsomol.

I would like to tell you a little about our organization. This is the charity foundation “Tide” of the city of St. Petersburg, which is part of the All-Russian movement “Mothers of Russia”, St. Petersburg branch.

Due to the recent events in the country, of course, we could not stay away either. We do our best to help internally displaced persons who come to St. Petersburg, help pregnant women, and also support the families of [participants] of the SVO who find themselves in a difficult life situation.

Just the other day, one mother turned. She has to give birth to a baby one of these days, and the others are babies, she says: “There is no one to meet me now – dad is fighting – from the maternity hospital.” And our volunteers, respectively, will go to conduct, meet. This is our organizational work. The older children, until they had to mobilize now, they also help us as much as possible as volunteers – they work on targeted assistance, we support families.

What I would like to say, of course, about the “Committee of Mothers of the Fatherland” together with the All-Russian People’s Front. I would like to develop with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Defense exactly step–by-step support for military personnel – post-traumatic support for those guys who return from military operations.

So that we can develop support for everyone while disability registration is underway, and psychological assistance to the family, which we just talked about, and help for these guys, because many, of course, fall into depression. We also have a psychologist at the foundation’s site who also works with families of internally displaced persons. A lot of mothers and even teenagers are in such a difficult state, and the families of the mobilized also tell about their nervous state, and this help is needed.

Vladimir Putin: This problem of rehabilitation, which we have already talked about, is multifaceted, multifaceted. This is not only a purely medical, but also psychological help should be social. I have already said that it is very important, I think, to help people get additional skills, knowledge, some additional education, to help with employment. This is a whole range of works.

And I have already marked, of course, it needs to be done. And of course, Lyubov Sergeevna, with the help of your structures, public organizations, yours, as Yulia Alexandrovna said, we will support everyone in every possible way.

L. Rubanik: Yes. Only together we can win.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, I absolutely agree with you.

L. Rubanik: I would like to say just a few more words that only Russian mothers give birth to the best sons and daughters of our Motherland.

Vladimir Putin: So it is, of course. That’s the way it is, it’s true.

N. Uzunova: Hello, Vladimir Vladimirovich!

Republic of Khakassia, my name is Nadezhda. And as Nina Petrovna has already said, as we all believe, on September 30, an important event really happened for our whole country, and I was lucky enough to be on Red Square, take part and be in this united impulse with our whole country. There are more children in our country, a large number of families have been added. And what is it? It means responsibility, a huge responsibility for these people.

Donbass is familiar to me firsthand, it has been familiar to me since 2017. As part of my favorite organization “Combat Brotherhood”, of which I am a member, under the leadership of Alexander Vekshin, head of the Khakass branch, we evacuated seriously ill and wounded children from the territory of Donbass. And then I saw with my own eyes for the first time this pain of Shakhtersk, Donetsk, Gorlovka, when you pull children out of basements, when you have boys, girls…

Olesya is making a film about the brave, and at that time I had short films, small ones, which we are now showing in schools, because peers understand better than peers – we have developed this system. And when we shot these short films, we shot them with the same name: the name of the child is the name of the film.

My first film is “Vovka”. The boy is ten years old, he takes me to the basement and says: you know, I know how to lie down, I know how to sit, I know how to stand on orders, as I need to, as a soldier, but I’m afraid not to survive this moment. Artem, whose sister died in front of his eyes. How can you forgive it, how can you forget it? And someone also pressed this button when it exploded. Vadim. I know everyone by name.

And I am a mother with many children, this will not surprise anyone here, we are all well done, I also raise foster children myself, alone. Therefore, of course, there are no other people’s children, definitely. And from that moment I decided to help, I decided to go forward.

Recently I was in St. Petersburg, but it is already morally impossible to rest, because you have been rebuilt, you have been rebuilt for a completely different task. And we visited the hospitals of our fighters – the 442nd, VMA. And of course, we visited with our fraternal republic, the Republic of Tyva, because Khakassia and Tyva are native republics, we are very closely connected.

Vladimir Putin: Side by side.

N. Uzunova: And with the women from the fraternity of the Republic of Tyva of St. Petersburg, of course, we visited our guys. You know, even here our unity is manifested. In what? How to please the fighters, how to surprise them? We decided to cook a national dish. And of course, with these buckets of pies, when you go into these wards, communicate with the fighters, somewhere you hear, you know, this: “How delicious, how at home.” Well, what do you need more? When you realize that you are the conductor of the love of these moms who can’t be with our guys today.

When the mobilization began, of course, all the women of our country experienced a great sense of anxiety, this is unequivocal, this is one hundred percent. But at the same time, having literally survived for a couple of hours, I got up and wrote down an appeal, and it is about the unification of forces in our republic, consolidation, female power in women’s energy, that we cannot give up, and the last thing is to lose heart, you can’t do this.

And we began to gather the sons of Khakassia. I am sure that women in other regions did the same. We collected from backpacks to their destination, to their place of deployment with prayers, with provisions, with food. All women united, indeed. It’s such a force, it’s such a power, it’s such a charge. And you realize that you’re getting so strong.

When the guys left, you see everyone off, and 1400 people left us. Then I followed them to the exercises, to the training grounds, accompanying them in hopes, because everything was happening quickly, and some questions and problems remained. Of course, you solve these issues on the ground.

We will go further, Vladimir Vladimirovich, do not doubt, we already know, that’s for sure.

Of course, there are difficulties, as in any problem, case, new case, complicated. Of course, I will tell you this, that in Khakassia everyone still works 24 to 7: both the regional authorities, the municipal authorities, and the residents of the Republic of Khakassia are those who have really united today. There is no caring person.

What difficulties there are, now, probably, I will tell you about them a little and very briefly.

For example, it seems to me, based on experience, because you work all the time, the fighters are always in touch. If I used to ask how the day went, only with my children, sons, now I understand that my evening is increasing. They call, speak, report, roughly speaking, how it is going, what is needed, how to help, what needs to be delivered to the front line, because the list is changing: uniforms are over, there are special communications facilities, other moments.

What is happening on the ground with regional support and assistance, why Yulia made an emphasis. I will explain to you: you need to hear every family, of course. Today, the common task and our task – people who work directly with families – we understand and pay attention to each family. You can’t forget it here, you can’t miss these moments.

At the moment, it seems to me, the hearings before the adoption of the budget are open, and it is impossible to adopt a regional budget without aspirations, without wishes and without problems of mobilized families. They can, they should take part, and then there will be no problems.

And what problems do you get? The following problems are obtained: we are making amendments. What is an amendment? The correction is ten days. So, for ten days some family will not receive certain payments.

At the moment, I will tell you that everything has been settled. Just Julia was making an emphasis, already next Tuesday 29 of these families will receive a regional payment, that is, everything is fine. Because it was a bureaucratic delay, again a residence permit – such moments. I would like to emphasize once again that the topic is new, a complex topic.

Another point that I would like to draw attention to is, of course, benefits. The Government of the Republic of Khakassia has developed a large, serious package of additional measures, in addition to financial payments. But when any benefit is being developed, its mechanism must be worked out. Again, for example, coal. It is clear that we have no problems with coal in the republic, I mean with its quantity, but the mechanism of study was not fully completed. It turns out as follows: coal begins to be issued under this regional system only literally now, and it is already cold in Siberia.

But, again, I will tell you that not a single family was left without him, because we have partners, sponsors, the work of the heads of municipalities, who are very quickly resolving issues on the ground today. Naturally, Khakassia is a small family, and, of course, issues are resolved in a fairly fast mode.

And there is one more point that I would also like to draw attention to. It is clear that everyone is trying, all municipalities. We have 12 municipalities that were affected by the mobilization, and each head of the municipality, of course, tries for his municipality, and there is a difference in benefits. And if there is a difference, it means somewhere less. Of course, next week we will discuss these points, because the heads are always in contact and in direct communication. Of course, we believe that there should be no difference. These are very important points.

And you know, Vladimir Vladimirovich, very strong women have gathered here today. Women who can really show by their example how to live, how to educate, because we are guided, of course, by the examples, probably, of their grandmothers, grandfathers who forged Victory in the rear, unequivocally. That is, we have a good school, a good example.

But no matter how strong we are, we need a strong man’s shoulder – your shoulder, your support, support for our committee. Thank you very much for receiving us today, from us, from mothers. We are moving forward, we are moving forward with our families, because families are all the families of our mobilized guys, volunteers, of whom, by the way, we have a lot. Indeed, there are a lot of them, and we are proud of them.

And, of course, I also can’t help but send you greetings from our fighters, because they talk about it, they know that I’m here today. From all the fighters, from all the guys and volunteers of the Republic of Khakassia, I wish you a huge hello. Please accept it.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.

The issue, it would seem, is such a household one, but it is also significant – these are benefits and their uniform application, mechanisms and speed of decision-making. To do this, you don’t even need any complicated decisions within the budget process, you just need to foresee everything in advance, and this will be done automatically, there are no problems here. But nevertheless, I still marked it, I will pay attention to it.

N. Uzunova: Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: And as for associations – those that are created at the call of the heart, as they say, we have already said here, I already see several such associations here, representatives of these associations are present. And yours, of course, too.

N. Uzunova: I’m talking about our committee, it’s already ours.

Vladimir Putin: Oh, is it common?

N. Uzunova: Of course, this is our common cause. We are burning with our common cause.

Vladimir Putin: Okay, I’m sorry.

N.Uzunova: The committee that Yulia spoke about, I ask you to support it. We are already active, we are already working on the ground, we have experience.

Vladimir Putin: Everything is clear.

Are we going to finish?

What I would like to say in conclusion. Nadezhda Alexandrovna said that support is needed, on the one hand. On the other hand, there will certainly be support, as I have already said.

But you know what I want to tell you: that the most important support is your position and how – I will not be afraid of any big words here – you have lived up to now, and how you have brought up your guys. This is the main foundation and foundation of Russia’s existence.

I’m not just talking about you, about those present, but in general about our mothers, about our mothers. This is the main foundation on which the country stands. This is everything – this is our history, our culture, our traditions, this is confidence in the future of the country, confidence in our victories in the broadest sense of the word, not only within the framework of this military operation.

As Marina Fedorovna said, and I understand that you were talking about the future of the country, that it should be different. In this, if you have noticed, despite all the issues related to the special military operation, we do not change our plans for the development of the state, for the development of the country, for the development of the economy, its social sphere, for national projects. We have huge, big plans, but they can be implemented if we work together to solve all the problems, all the issues that the country faces – both within the framework of this special operation, and within the framework, as we said earlier, of our everyday work.

The most important guarantee of our success is unity. The unity that Olesya Nikolaevna spoke about here, about which Zharadat Khozhaevna spoke, Suna Neifelovna spoke, all from all regions, from our Cossack regions, from new regions, from those who have always believed that they are the very heart and foundation of the Russian state. All this together: the so–called periphery, the center, the south, the north, the east, the west – this is all our huge country Russia.

But this is not only a territory and not so much a territory – it is primarily people, their traditions, their culture, their history, which is passed down from generation to generation and absorbed by all of us with mother’s milk.

All thanks to you.

Thank you very much

Maligned in Western Media, Donbass Forces are Defending their Future from Ukrainian Shelling and Fascism

November 24, 2022 

Eva Bartlett

*The author with Pyatnashka commanders at outpost near Avdeevka, Donetsk People’s Republic. [Source: Photo courtesy of Eva Bartlett]

Published Nov 19, 2022, Covert Action [See the comments section, some apologists for the West’s war on Syria have resurfaced…]

Smeared, stigmatized, and lied about in Western media propaganda, the mostly Russian-speaking people of the Donbass region were being slaughtered by the thousands in a brutal war of “ethnic cleansing” launched against them by the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv, which the U.S. installed after the CIA overthrew Ukraine’s legally elected president in a 2014 coup.

Although the Donbass people had been pleading for Russian military aid to defend them against the increasingly murderous military assaults by the Ukraine government forces, which killed more than 14,000 of their people, Russian President Vladimir Putin declined to intervene. Instead, he tried to broker a peace agreement between the warring parties.

But the U.S. and Britain secretly colluded to sabotage peace negotiations, persuading president Zelenksy to ignore the Minsk III peace agreement that the Ukraine government had previously signed, and which had been countersigned by Russia, France and Germany.

Realizing that the U.S. and its NATO allies would never permit peace negotiations to succeed, Putin finally sent troops into Ukraine on February 24. Russian troops went in to support and reinforce the outnumbered and outgunned Donbass Forces who had been defending their land against attacks by the Kyiv government for nearly eight years.

Voices From the Frontlines of Former Eastern Ukraine Republics

In the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in October, I went to a frontline outpost 70 meters from Ukrainian forces in Avdeevka (north and west of Donetsk), according to the Donbas commanders I spoke with there. [Watch our interview here]

To reach that position, I went with two other journalists to a meeting point with two commanders of Pyatnashka—volunteer fighters, including Abkhazi, Slovak, Russian, Ossetian and other nationalities, including locals from Donbas.

From there, they drove us to a point as far as they could drive before walking the rest of the way, several minutes through brush and trenches, eventually coming to their sandbagged wood and cement fortified outpost.

It has changed hands over the years, Ukrainian forces sometimes occupying it, Donbas forces now controlling it.

*“Vydra,” a unit commander of the Pyatnashka fighters. [Source: Photo courtesy of Eva Bartlett]

One soldier, a unit commander who goes by the call sign “Vydra” (Otter), was formerly a miner from the DPR who had been living in Russia with his family. In 2014, he returned to the Donbas to defend his mother and relatives still there. He spoke of the outpost.

“We dug and built this with our hands. Several times over the years, the Ukrainians have taken these positions. We pushed them back, they stormed us…Well, we have been fighting each other for eight years.”

There, artillery fire is the biggest danger they face. “You can hide from a sniper, but not from artillery, and they’re using large caliber.”

His living quarters is a dank, cramped, room with a tiny improvised bed, with another small room and bed for others at the outpost.

A sign reads: “If shelling occurs, go to the shelter.” The kind of sign you see all over Donetsk and cities of the Donbas, due to Ukraine’s incessant shelling of civilian, residential areas. In a frontline outpost where incoming artillery is the norm, the sign is slightly absurd, clearly a joke.

An Orthodox icon sits atop the sign. Ukrainian nationalists hang and spray Nazi graffiti and slogans of death; these fighters revere their faith.

A poster, with the DPR flag, reads: “We have never known defeat, and it’s clear that this has been decided from above. Donbas has never been forced to its knees, and no one will ever be allowed to.”

The only things decorating the space are tins of tuna and canned meat, instant noodles, and washing powder. Their existence is bare minimum, nothing glamorous about it; they volunteer because, as they told me, this is their land and they will protect it.

Perhaps surprising to some, when Vydra was asked whether he hates Ukrainians, he replied emphatically no, he has friends and relatives in Ukraine.

“We have no hatred for Ukraine. We hate those nationalists who came to power. But ordinary Ukrainians? Why? Many of us speak Ukrainian. We understand them, they understand us. Many of them speak Russian.

I’ve been involved in sports a lot of time, wrestling. So, I’ve got a lot of friends in Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Kirovograd, Odessa, Lvov, Ivano-Frankivsk, Transcarpathia.

I have relatives in western Ukraine, and we still communicate. Yes, they say one thing on the street, but when we talk to each other, they say, ‘Well, you have to, because the SBU is listening.’

Ukraine shouts about democracy, then puts people in handcuffs for no reason. My aunt got in trouble because they found my photo on her Skype.

And I’m on the Myrotvorets [kill list] website.” [As is the author, see this article.]

He spoke of Ukraine’s shelling from 2014, when the people of the Donbass were unarmed and not expecting to be bombed by their own country.

“When the artillery hit the city of Yenakievo, east of Gorlovka, we were defenseless. We went with hunting rifles and torches to fight them. Most of the weapons we had later were captured from them. We had to go to the battlefield without weapons in order to get the weapons.”

When asked if he was concerned that Ukrainian forces might take Donetsk he replied no, of course not, they didn’t succeed in 2014, they won’t now.

When asked whether he had a message for soldiers of the Ukrainian army, Vydra replied without hesitating, “Go home! We’ve been saying that since 2014: Go home. Unequivocally, we don’t want them here, but we don’t want to kill them. I’m not speaking about nationalists, I’m speaking about Ukrainian soldiers, who are drafted or forcefully employed in the Ukrainian army. Guys, go home, either surrender or go. This is our land. We’re not leaving, we’re not going anywhere.”

I asked how he felt to be treated and described as sub-human, to be called dehumanizing names, a part of the Ukrainian nationalists’ brainwashing propaganda. As I wrote previously:

“Ukrainian nationalists openly declare they view Russians as sub-human. School books teach this warped ideology. Videos show the extent of this mentality: Teaching children not only to also hate Russians and see them as not humans, but also brainwashing them to believe killing Donbas residents is acceptable. The Ukrainian government itself funds neo-Nazi-run indoctrination camps for youths.”

“It’s offensive,” Vydra said, “We are saddened: There are sick people. We need to heal them, slowly.”

I asked whether he thought friendship between Ukrainians and Russians would be possible.

“It will take years for any friendship. Take Chechnya, one region of Russia, it was at war. But slowly, slowly…We must all live together. We are one people.” Indeed, now Chechen fighters are one of the most effective forces fighting alongside Donbas and Russian soldiers to liberate Donbas areas from Ukrainian forces.

He opened a zippered trousers pocket and proudly brandished a small plastic sleeve containing children’s drawings, also containing icons of saints and Christ, and prayers…

“This is very personal, it’s like my guardian angel. I put it in plastic, I don’t even keep my ID in plastic. I’ve been carrying this one in my pocket since February. I’ve been in all sorts of hot spots. A child drew this, we receive letters from children. It’s very nice to look at them when it’s hard and we are under fire.”

He read one letter:

“We are waiting for you. Thank you for risking your lives to defend Donbas. Yulia and Ira.”

“I don’t even know who are Yulia and Ira,” he said smiling.

Showing the icons, he said, “This is Saint Ushakov, our great commander. This is Jesus Christ, our Heavenly Protector. This Abkhazi icon was given to me by the guys. This is a prayer book. And here is a prayer,” he said of one page prayer.

“These words are to support when times are very hard. When there is heavy shelling, it can go on for hours. So, while you’re sitting there, you can read this.

Especially for the younger guys, 22, 23 years old, just finished college. This is new to them.”

Commanders Speak of Geopolitical Reasons for Ukraine’s War

Outside, sitting in front of an Orthodox banner and a collection of collected munitions—including Western ones—two platoon commanders, “Kabar” and “Kamaz,” spoke of the bigger geopolitical picture. [See video]

“America is running the show here,” Kabar said. “It builds foreign policy on the basis of how its domestic policy is built, which is through conflicts with external countries. They are accustomed to proving their power to their people through terrorism around the world, inciting fires in Syria, in the east. They played the card of radical Islam there.

And now they are playing the card of fascism. They do not see themselves on the other side of good. They need wars, blood, cruelty, and they signed Europe up for this.

However, they’ve missed one point: Russia, since the days of the Soviet Union, has never retreated in large scale wars. They took Europe and pushed it to slaughter Russia, and they put Russia in such a position that it must secure its national interests. Europe needs to understand this, to pay attention to history, to stop being led by the United States.”

“Kabar,” a commander of the Pyatnashka fighters. [Source: Photo courtesy of Eva Bartlett]

When asked about his feeling regarding Ukrainians, “Kabar” replied similarly to Vydra.

“We don’t blame the whole Ukrainian people. Ukrainians are our friends, they are our relatives. They’ve been struck by evil, and it’s not their fault, ordinary people are not to blame for this. We will liberate them from fascism, we’ll show them brotherhood, and we’ll make friends.

This is a good opportunity for us to defeat evil. God has honored us with this right to fight evil.”

Kamaz, when asked why he is fighting, replied that this is his homeland, he was born here, and that he has a son who he doesn’t want to inherit Ukraine’s war on the Donbas.

“I myself am Greek by nationality. Ukrainians are Slavs, they are our brothers, their grandfathers fought together shoulder to shoulder with our grandfathers against Nazism and fascism. We are here to finish it, so that our children live a normal happy life. We are fighting for the future.”

He spoke of America’s continuous need for war.

“We’ve seen it in Syria and Yugoslavia, where they destroyed everything and then set everything up their own way, so the people must submit, almost like slaves.”

I asked whether he thought peace between Ukraine and Russia is possible.

“Yes, possibly, why not? But at the moment, the President of Ukraine said there will be no negotiations.

Negotiations are possible, but I think not with this president. When he comes to his senses, he will not be able to negotiate, because he took a lot of money.”

Before leaving the outpost, we chatted a bit with the commanders. A puppy sought the attention of a young soldier. Another puppy ran around our feet. The outpost commanders and soldiers take care of the dogs. Their presence added a somewhat surreal touch to the scene: an outpost which is routinely shelled, where life can cease to exist at any moment, and these happy, well-cared for puppies running around like dogs anywhere.

Western Media Inverted Reality, Lauding Nazis and Demonizing Defenders

While many in the West think that this conflict started in February 2022, those following events since 2014 are aware that, following the Maidan coup and Odessa massacre, and the rise of fascism in Ukraine against the Ukrainian people, the Donbas republics wanted to distance themselves from Ukraine’s Nazis and fascism.

The sacrifices which the people of the Donbas republics have endured, particularly those fighting to protect their families and loved ones, have been and continue to be immense.

Just as the heroes of the Syrian Arab Army were maligned, so too have Donbas forces have been maligned by Western media, though both are defending their homelands from terrorist forces trained and funded by the West. Terrorists given the freedom to commit endless atrocities against Donbas civilians.

These defenders, many living in dank trench conditions didn’t choose war, they responded to it, to protect their loved ones and their future. In spite of more than eight years of being warred upon by Ukraine, they retain their humanity.

Reflections on the Coup in Ukraine – 2014-2022

October 25, 2022

Part I

Victor Yanukovich was elected President of the Ukraine in 2010 narrowly defeating Yulia Timoshenko with 49% of votes cast to Timoshenko’s 45%. The Ukrainian Presidential term of office lasts for five years. Yanukovich’s party, the Party of the Regions, together with its coalition partner, the Communist party of the Ukraine, also had a majority in the Ukrainian Parliament, with Mykola Azarov as Prime Minister. The membership of the European Union was one of the more salient issues during this time and was the trigger for subsequent upheavals.

Negotiations for Ukraine’s initial stage of eventual membership of the EU – the Association Agreement – had been dragging on since 2011, with both Yanukovich and Azarov favorably disposed, although the communist coalition partners were not.

This did not go down at all well in Moscow and Azarov tried to assuage Russian misgivings by urging Russia “to accept the reality of Ukraine signing the EU agreement”. The commitment of Yanukovich was eventually to be tested to destruction since he was being pulled in two directions: by Russia on the one hand, and the EU on the other. For their part the Russians offered the Ukraine a $15 billion loan, a discount on gas prices, and membership of the customs union of Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. But the EU was having none of it: President of the Euro-pean Commission José Manuel Barroso stated that the EU will not tolerate “a veto of a third country” (Russia) in their negotiations on closer integration with Ukraine. Thus, Yanukovich was forced into a choice which would be certain to alienate and anger one of the powerful interested partners on his borders.

Negotiations dragged on into 2013. Yanukovich was invited to sign the Association Agreement, but there were a number of conditions. The most significant of these were those concerning an IMF loan. The conditions were very much in the tradition of IMF Structural Adjustment Programmes (the scourge of the developing world). This was enough to scupper the EU deal. Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov stating that ‘’the issue that blocked the signature of the EU deal were the conditions proposed by the IMF loan being negotiated at the same time as the Association Agreement, which would require large budget cuts and a 40% increase in gas bills. This, for a country already verging on bankruptcy. In store for the Ukraine was the usual neo-liberal IMF austerity package, deregulation, privatization, and liberalization. The Greek treatment. Yanukovich took the Russian offer instead.

This seemed like a normal business decision, but it was not perceived as such in the western Ukraine backed by the EU and US. The whole episode then kicked-off.

The battle in Kiev and the Interim Government

Immediately this became known as the mass protest in Kiev and the west was on the world’s TV screens, with demonstrators waving Ukrainian and EU flags (where they got all these EU flags is a mystery to this day). This seemed to be a mass popular protest and the demonstrators were to set up camps in Independence Square, but the carnival atmosphere was not to last.

Ultra-nationalist groups (inveterate fascists, in the shape of Right Sector and Svoboda and even more exotic neo-nazi grouplets) began to appear among the generally moderate majority and battles with the Berkut (riot police) began on a daily basis which the opposition forces finally won. A victory for democracy and ‘people’s power’ as stated in the Guardian editorial? Not quite. For nobody should be in any doubt about the political complexion of these ultra-nationalist groups who went on to hold six portfolios in the new government based in Kiev. Nor should anybody be in any doubt about both the overt and covert role played by both US and EU officials in the formation of the future interim ‘government’. Throughout this period the EU and high-ranking US officials were openly engaged in Ukraine’s internal affairs. The US Ambassador, Geoffrey Pyatt and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs – Victoria Nuland – were strolling around Independence square reassuring the protestors that America stood behind them. Also basking in the limelight were US NGOs such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Although in the case of NED it should be called a GO rather than an NGO since it was not officially funded by the US government. Also involved was Human Rights Watch (HRW); and of course, not forgetting the ineffable George Soros and the Open Society Foundation (OSF). US expenditure on this colour revolution amounted to some $5 billion. This was later made public at a talk given by Ms Nuland to the press club in Washington. These actions could never have taken place without being sanctioned at the highest level of the US government. Additionally, the EU representative – Catherine Ashton – a total nonentity and a complete airhead of the type which is the machine-produced by the British Labour party, carried out much the same function for the EU although at a more official level.

But other important things were taking shape in Ukraine itself.

The ultra-right Svoboda Party had scored six major cabinet ministries in the government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk approved by the Ukrainian parliament on Thursday. Svoboda is the Neo-Nazi, ultra-right, anti-Semitic, Russophobic party with its base of support in the Western Ukraine, with links to the Front Nationale in France and the BNP in the UK … The most important post was claimed by a co-founder of Svoboda, Andriy Parubiy. He was named Secretary of the Security and National Defense Committee, which supervised the defense ministry and the armed forces. The Parubiy appointment to such an important post should, alone, be cause for international outrage. He led the masked Right Sector thugs who battled riot police in the Independence Maidan in Kiev.”

Dmitry Yarosh was Leader of Right Sector. The Ukraine’s own Ernst Roehm – one-time leader of German Brownshirt radicals – the (SA) Sturm Abteilung – Storm Troopers.

The Right Sector is an openly fascist, anti-Semitic and anti-Russian organization. Most of the snipers and bomb throwers in the crowds were connected with this group. Right Sector members have been participating in military training camps for the last two years or more in preparation for street activity of the kind witnessed in the Ukraine over the last events.

The Right Sector, as can be seen by the appointment of Parubiy, was now in a position to control major appointments to the provisional government and succeeded in achieving its long-term goal of legalizing discrimination against Russians. The new parliament has passed legislation that declared Russian speakers no longer have equal rights with Ukrainians.

He is also associated with Prime Minister Yatsenyuk’s Fatherland Party and Yarosh, leader of the Right Sector delegation in parliament, was named Parubiy deputy. These appointments of those openly fascist groups to positions of control over the armed forces are particularly alarming given the possibility of provocations against the Russian naval base in Sevastopol.

Oleksandr Sych, a Svoboda parliamentarian from Ivano-Frankivsk best known for his attempts to ban all abortions in Ukraine, including those resulting from rape, was named deputy prime minister for economic affairs. Svoboda was also rewarded with the Education Ministry under Serhiy Kvit, as well as the Ecology Ministry and the Agriculture Ministry under Andriy Makhnyk and Ihor Shvaiko, respectively. Earlier in the week Svoboda Member of Parliament Oleh Makhnitsky was named prosecutor-general of the Ukraine.

(I hope I got those names right – FL!)

Others with ultra-right associations with the Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian National Self Defense (UNA-UNSO) also received cabinet posts. Tatyana Chernovol was portrayed in the Western press as a crusading investigative journalist without reference to her past involvement in the anti-semitic UNSO, was named chair of the government’s anti-corruption committee. Dmytro Bulanov known for his alleged kidnapping by police, but also with UNA-UNSO connections, was appointed minister of youth and sports.

Yatsenyuk’s Fatherland Party, and figures close to it, obtained ten cabinet posts, including deputy prime minister for EU integration, interior, justice, energy, infrastructure, defense, culture, social issues, and a minister without portfolio. Yegor Sobolev, leader of a civic group in Independence Maidan and politically close to Yatsenyuk, was appointed chair of the Lustration Committee, which was charged with purging followers of President Yanukovich from government and public life.

In a society where oligarchs play such an important political and economic role it is unsurprising that Volodymyr Groysman, mayor of Vinnytsia and close associate of oligarch Petro Poroshenko – one time finance minister in Yanukovich’s government – was chosen as deputy prime minister for regional affairs. Groysman was also close to former President Viktor Yushchenko. The new finance minister, Oleksander Shlapak, is a representative of oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskiy, the second wealthiest man in the Ukraine.

“The remaining cabinet posts went to technocrats, a doctor who organized medical services for the Maidan protestors, and a retired police general.’’

(Global Research 02/03/2014)

The interim cabinet matches exactly the government Victoria Nuland recommended in her intercepted call with the U.S. ambassador in Kiev where she revealed the U.S. plan for a coup in Ukraine. Vitali Klitschko and his UDAR party were excluded, likely because of their close relationship with German chancellor Angela Merkel. Yatseniuk’s Fatherland Party received the majority of portfolios. And as Nuland demanded, so long as Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok did not receive a major cabinet post, Svoboda could receive several ministries.

­FALLOUT

After the assumption of power by the new regime in Kiev the former government parties, namely the Party of the Regions and the Communist Party were both banned in 10 of the western regions of the Ukraine. Additionally party offices were burned down and former members of Yanukovich’s coalition and supporters were intimidated, verbally and physically assaulted by supporters of the new regime.

Then came the bombshell, though not entirely unexpected – and now a virtual coup – to be formalized in the referendum 16th March. This regarding the Crimea’s secession from the Ukraine, an event which stoked up an international crisis with the big beasts getting involved in geopolitical positioning and a propaganda war.

One can only speculate about the consequences –national, regional, and international – of the events in Kiev and the future reaction to these events in the Eastern and southern Oblasts of the Ukraine: an arc stretching from Odessa, through Crimea, East to Mariupol, on the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, and east and north up to Donetsk, Lugansk and the old Ukrainian capital of Kharkov. This is about half the country where most of the industry was situated, particularly in the Don Bass area. Will they, the staunch and solid electoral base for Yanukovich, be willing to be governed by the new regime in Kiev? Or will they follow the Crimean secession?

We shall wait and we shall see. Well, we did see. What happens next one wonders!?

Reflections on the Revolution in Ukraine 2014-2022

Part II

Francis Lee reports on the Crimean Referendum, the double-standards of western government & media reactions and the challenges facing the unelected Kiev regime

The ongoing crisis in the Ukraine has reached another point of (perhaps unexpected) development. It was obvious to most impartial observers that the parliament of the Crimea had staked its position very early – namely, that they were unwilling to accept the authority of the unelected Kiev regime. The first calls for a referendum came as early as February and March 2014. This seemed to chime with what the majority of Crimea’s population, mostly ethnic Russians, also seemed to think, and so it turned out. The arrival of Russian troops would probably not have made any difference to the eventual outcome, but just to make sure Putin sent his special forces to protect his military assets in Sevastopol. Under a prior arrangement with the Ukraine Russia held a 25-year lease on the Sevastopol naval base, for which it also paid a rental of US$500 million per annum. Moreover, the conditions of Russia’s leasehold also included the right to station up to 16,000.00 naval and military personnel in the Crimea.

Having said this, the results of the referendum – which did not come as any great surprise – was rather tarnished by the obvious presence of Russian soldiers at checkpoints, Simferopol airport, railway stations and other strategic locations. This caused the spokespersons for the western alliance – EUSA for short – to go into propaganda overdrive and drive its media sycophants into a state of near apoplexy. It was argued that the referendum was illegal since it violated the constitution of the Ukraine. However, whatever the legal position in the Crimea, the upholders of the Ukrainian constitution – the Kiev regime – were undoubtedly illegal, having come to power by mob violence, so that it was scarcely in a position to declare the Crimean referendum illegal. It has also been pointed out that the referendum in Kosovo resulted in a secession from the disintegrating state of Yugoslavia, took place in the presence of a foreign occupying force, as did the referendum in the Falkland Islands.

What the whole Ukrainian imbroglio was clearly demonstrating was the barefaced hypocrisy and double standards of the western media – including the soi-disant doyen of the liberal-left, the Guardian. No lie it seems is big enough as long as it serves the noble cause of the western alliance. Whether these neo-con foreign policies and neo-liberal economic policies are ‘noble’ remains something of a moot point, however.

UKRAINIAN DOMESTIC POLITICS

What next? The problems facing the Kiev regime are considerable. Firstly, there is the ongoing embarrassment of the neo-fascist element now entrenched in the government, and it’s all too ubiquitous presence on the streets, where Svoboda and Right Sector paramilitaries swagger around in Kiev as if they own the place, and in a certain sense they do. After all they spearheaded the revolution, notwithstanding the fact that they probably only represented a minority in the general protest movement. As has already been made clear they now hold six ministerial portfolios some in extremely sensitive areas. How far does the regime control these ultra-radicals?

It was all very reminiscent of Italy earlier in the 20th century and the emergence of the fasci (Blackshirts) under the leadership of Benito Mussolini which styled themselves as the united front against Bolshevism, and a little later in Germany in 1934, where the Nazi paramilitaries, the (SA)-Brownshirts under the command of the leader and notorious homosexual Ernst Roehm, were calling for a second revolution, which is exactly what Dmitry Yarosh, leader of Right Sector was also calling for. Moreover, he called for nationalization of selected industries – classic fascist economic policy – in the Ukraine and has gone on record that he will blow up the gas pipeline (sic!) from Russia to western Europe if Russia invades the Ukraine. This coming from a minister in a ‘government’ duly recognized by the west. Recent incidents have brought to light this acute PR problem for the new order not only for the head of the Kiev regime. Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and also his western backers spilt the beans when one such incident is reported as follows:

“When state-owned Ukrainian TV broadcast celebrations of Russia’s annexation of Crimea on Moscow’s Red Square, a group of nationalist politicians cried betrayal. They burst into the office of the channel’s executive, accused him of being a Russian stooge, punched him and forced him to sign a resignation letter.

The assault, which prompted condemnation in the West presents an important test for Ukraine’s new pro-western government. … For Ihor Miroshnichenko, a lawmaker with the nationalist Svoboda party, those scenes of Russian domination were all too much. Moreover, the broadcast of Russian celebrations seemed to add insult to injury.

To vent his rage, he led a group of Svoboda colleagues in storming the office of the First National channel’s chief, Oleksandr Panteleymonov, used an insulting term used to describe Russians and punched him repeatedly, while an aide recorded the scene on video.

“His position is complicated by the fact that Svoboda, a vocal force in parliament that took part in the protests that ousted the pro-Russian government, received several key posts in the Cabinet – including prosecutor general, the very figure who will be in charge of investigating the TV station attack.’’

(Maria Danilova, Associated Press Kiev)

But they were the methods by which, whether by design or default, Yatsenyuk and his regime came to power. This is the problem with revolutions, they open a Pandora’s Box of unforeseen and unwelcome outcomes. And this particular incident is just one among many.

Of course Hitler had a short method of dealing with the SA paramilitaries: their leadership was wiped out by the SS during the infamous ‘’Night of the Long Knives’’ in June 1934 and the rank and file drafted into the army. Unfortunately for Yatsenyuk he doesn’t have an SS to do the requisite dirty work, even if he wanted.

The Upcoming election in May for the Ukrainian Parliament provided another litmus test for the Kiev regime. Given the fact that there has been a de facto ban on both the Communist Party and The Party of the Regions, Yanukovich’s party, in the western Ukraine, and a process of ratification to make the ban legal which is now before the Parliament, how fair and free is this forthcoming election likely to be? It would also be a good bet that parties favouring separatism in the past – the Progressive Socialist Party of the Ukraine, for example – or openly separatist parties, will wish to contest the election. Noises coming from Kiev would seem to suggest that this will not be allowed. Thus, the whole swathes of the Ukrainian electorate will be effectively disenfranchised.

This last point brings up yet another problem: what will happen in the Eastern Oblasts. There have al- ready been mass demonstrations in Kharkov and Donetsk for a Crimean style referendum, and this has led to a number of arrests including one Pavel Gubarov, a leading separatist from the Donetsk region and member of the Progressive Socialist Party of the Ukraine. He is now awaiting trial in Kiev. This fissure in Ukrainian politics is not likely to go away any time soon and could lead to open conflict.

THE UKRAINIAN ECONOMY

Turning to the economics, the regime in Kiev has further deep-going problems to deal with; problems which look frankly intractable. Namely, the country is effectively bankrupt. It is now being bounced into a fast-tracked membership of the EU by a non-elected government in the belief that EU membership is, for some obscure reason, thought to be the deus ex machina. In fact, EU membership could simply exacerbate the situation as has been the case in the peripheral regions of western Europe. We need to pose the question as to why, a predominantly, poor, agricultural country, with an industrial base which is basically technologically obsolescent, and which could not compete with the industries of western Europe, wishes to join, and open its markets to the EU. This would be the right royal road to under-development, as local industries would simply disappear, or be subject to take-over by foreign multinationals. The Ukraine would join a long list of East European states which now form a low-wage, outsourcing hinterland for western multinationals.

Additionally, since Ukraine will need considerable credits and loans, it can expect a man from the IMF to come knocking on the door and insisting that the country ‘reforms’ its economic and financial structures before Ukraine gets any cash. – for ‘reforms’ read the dreaded Structural Adjustment Programme: cuts in public expenditure, devalue the currency, privatize state assets, end subsidies, deregulate, open the economy to financial flows (‘hot money’’) lower wage costs … the usual and devastating neo-liberal package which we have seen operationalized from Chile, to Thailand, to Greece.

This destabilization process of Ukraine will not be easily reversed. If only the protest movement had waited until the democratic presidential elections in 2015, much of this might have been avoided. But outside forces wished to force the issue and had no time for such fuddy-duddy notions such as democratic elections. These geopolitical issues will be dealt with in the next bulletin.

Reflections on the Revolution in Ukraine

Part III

It’s the geopolitics stupid!

At an important meeting held in Paris to discuss the future of Ukraine, US Secretary of State, John Kerry, and his Russian counterpart, Foreign Secretary Sergey Lavrov, were unable to find sufficient common ground to come to any firm decisions regarding the future of the country. Kerry rejected the legality of the referendum in the Crimea and, for his part, Lavrov, was firm in his stance on the dubious legality of the present regime in Kiev. It was always going to be tough for the two interlocutors to come to any productive outcomes in this diplomatic context.

Additionally, Lavrov insisted upon the virtual semi- detachment of Ukraine’s eastern oblasts which did not go down at all well in Kiev. The Russian plan was to essentially impose a political solution where Ukraine’s eastern and southern provinces have greater autonomy, the right to speak the Russian language and the ability to pursue much more independent policies from the central government. U.S. and Ukrainian officials say they worry such a formula could provide the Kremlin with a virtual veto over Kiev’s political system.

The plan was briefly outlined by Lavrov as follows:

“We are certain that Ukraine needs profound constitutional reform. In all, fairness, we can’t see any other way to ensure the stable development of Ukraine but to sign a federal agreement,” Mr. Lavrov said in an interview on Saturday (29/03/14) with Russian state media. “Some may know better and are, perhaps, capable of finding some magic spell to ensure living in a unitary state with people in the West, on the one hand, and the southeast, on the other.”

All of which illustrates the position of Ukraine as being on the geo-political fault-lines between the US and its EU allies and Russia. It seems that national sovereignty is now off the agenda for both sides as they jockey for position. It would now appear that the Ukraine which was, is no more, partition and separation are beginning to look inevitable. Had the Presidential elections in Ukraine taken place as they were scheduled, and which Yanukovich would probably have lost, the story might have been very different. Unfortunately, there were outside forces who had little patience with Presidential elections and were more interested in regime change.

Which brings me to one Ms. Victoria Jane ‘f**k the EU’ Nuland (born 1961) the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State. She who along with US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt were strolling around among the crowds at the Maidan offering cookies, doughnuts, as well as encouraging and comforting words. As I said at the time, this could have only taken place with clearance from the White House.

Why do I see fit to mention her and why is she of any importance? Well for one she was engaged in determining the personnel of the interim Ukrainian administration. In a bugged telephone conversation with Pyatt, Nuland argued that boxing champion Klitschko of the Udar (Punch in English) party was not to be included in any forthcoming administration but that the Deputy (and acting) leader of the Fatherland Party, Yatsenyuk (Timoshenko’s party) should be included. Apart from this faux pas there was the admission whereby Ms. Nuland that the US has invested $5 Billion in The development of Ukrainian, ‘Democratic Institutions’.

But perhaps most importantly is the fact that Ms Nuland is the wife of one Robert Kagan. Mr Kagan is an American historian and is important in as much as he was one of the co-founders of The Project for the New American Century, (PNAC) an international relations think-tank based in Washington DC, established in 1997 together with arch US foreign policy hawks, Richard Perle and William Kristol. Their stated goal was to ‘promote American global leader- ship’. Their position that ‘American leadership was both good for America and good for the world’ and that this should be vigorously asserted as a main plank of US foreign policy. Kagan himself was to state that ‘the US is an empire and should be an empire.’ The position of these neo-conservatives, or neo-cons as they became known, was frankly comparable to jihadist ambitions to reshape the world to conform to Sharia law. The neo-cons wanted to shape the world to the American way, which is presumably good in the sight of God. If this took regime change, then so be it. Nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of the great crusade.

If these people had merely been some eccentric fringe group – of which there are many on the other side of the pond – it would not have much mattered. But it becomes clear that with its members in many key administrative positions in the department of State, that the PNAC has exerted influence on high level government officials in the administration of both Bush and Obama. This fact notwithstanding its organization was much reduced by 2006. The worldview had by now become embedded in American strategic thinking. The Westphalian doctrine that no state shall attack another state unless the other state directly threatened its interests, was now considered passé, and regime change, as we have seen in Iraq, Libya and possibly Syria, is now regarded as an acceptable instrument of foreign policy. As Guardian columnist George Monbiot was to write, ‘’to pretend that this battle begins and ends in Iraq requires a willful denial of the context in which it occurs. That context is a blunt attempt by a super-power to reshape the world to suit itself. (The Guardian 11 March 2003)

The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union in 1990/91 and the touted ending of the Cold War, saw the imposition of a virtual Treaty of Versailles on Russia under the puppet dictator and buffoon, Boris Yeltsin. Russia, like Germany in 1919, was to be kept down, humiliated, and have its nose rubbed into its new status at every opportunity. Moreover, its economy was almost destroyed by the economic shock therapy imposed by the IMF/World Bank, under the tutelage of one Jeffrey Sachs. The various ex-Warsaw Pact states – Poland, Hungary, DDR, the Baltics, Czech Republic – were drawn into the EU and then NATO. NATO itself was expanded rather than wound down.

This was an interesting development since the EU’s foreign policy orientation underwent a profound change (its economic policies had already changed – for the worse). Initially the EU was supposed to be a third force standing between American capitalism, and Soviet communism. This at least is how De Gaulle saw it: non-aligned with an independent foreign policy akin perhaps to Yugoslavia under Tito. Additionally, the policy outlined by Jacques Delors was one of managed capitalism of the Germany sozialemark- twirtschaft variety and French etatisme seemed more attractive than the deregulated, financialized systems of the US and UK.

As things unfolded, however, the Delors’ model was discarded, and a neo-liberal regime foisted upon European regardless. The drive to the east meant that EU widening prevented the type of EU deepening that De Gaulle and Delors had had in mind. But now foreign policy was also to become Americanized. The UK, of course had always been incorrigibly Atlanticist, but it would have been safe to assume that continental powers – particularly France – would be less so. After denouncing the Iraq War – along with Russia and Germany – France now (under a socialist government!) was actually front-running US imperialism (let’s call it what it is) and taking the initiative in regime change operations in Libya, Mali and almost Syria.

Thus, we now have a situation whereby the EU has effectively become the spearhead of US operations of subversion and regime change (in the name of enlargement) in driving east into Europe right up to the Russian frontier. In the case of Romania US missiles have already been installed, and the plan is for a broader deployment throughout Europe. Europe apparently has a neo-con foreign policy to complement its neo-liberal economic policy.

“… it is not only Great Britain that is Atlanticist. The continental European states are no less so, despite their seeming intention to construct a political Europe. Proof of this is given by the central position of NATO in this political construction. For some European countries (the ex-COMECON states) NATO’s protection, that is that of the US, against their ‘’Russian enemy’’ is more important than their adhesion to the European Union.’’

(The Implosion of Capitalism – Samir Amin – p.203)

And so, the great game continues. One of the principal things to emerge from this has been the absolute spinelessness of European leaders and their willingness to do the US’s dirty work. One wonders whether this EU is any longer worth belonging to – the Ukrainian imbroglio has been a great game-changer in this respect.

Fake Reporting on the Blown-up Pipelines and Russia’s “Annexation

Open Letter to the New York Times

September 30, 2022

Global Research,

By Peter Koenig

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***

Dear Editor of the once-upon-a-time Famous-for-truth New York Times,

With headlines like this, Sabotaged Pipelines and a Mystery: Who Did It? (Was It Russia?), even suggesting that Russia may have blown up their own pipeline, the NYT is killing its last vestige of credibility.

You know exactly this is a lie.

The only force that has a vital interest in doing so is the US / NATO conglomerate – to make sure, there is no way Germany could change their mind and go back on their decision to let their people freeze to death this winter, and to economically destroy Germany, THE economic force and leader of Europe.

You, and your analysts know that.

Unfortunately, there is no common people’s influence on our reporting. There are stronger forces that have bought into your mind-bending journalism.

Still, once a supporter of the NYT, I feel I want to tell you.

The Same with this reporting

Enormous U.S. Military Spending, EU Dragged into Abyss of War against Russia. Italy Out of the War!

Russian Proxies in Ukraine Push Moscow to Annex Occupied Regions

and

Vladimir Putin will sign agreements on Friday to take over four Ukrainian regions, the Kremlin said, after votes widely denounced as a sham

Here too, these are not “proxy” Russians who signed a sham petition to be annexed to Russia. You know it very well.

These are real Russians, living in the far Eastern part of Ukraine, the Donbas area mostly, who have been discriminated ever since the US instigated the Maidan coup on 22 February 2014 – when a neo-Nazi government was installed that let the Nazi Asov Battalions literally slaughter Ukraine’s own people in Donbas — at least 14,000 were reported killed – about half of them children – in the eight years since the “Victoria Nuland” (“Fuck Europe”) coup. See this.

We are talking about the same Asov Battalions, that helped Hitler during WWII fight against Russia.

Already in 2014 / 2015 the Donbas districts wanted to join Russia. President Putin did not allow it, because at that time he still believed in the “Minsk” Agreements, sponsored by France and Germany.

These agreements were principally meant to protect the Donbas people, as well as to demilitarize – de-Nazify – Ukraine, and to keep NATO out of Ukraine. None of the conditions of the Minsk Agreements (September 2014 and April 2015) were ever adhered to.

If truth-seeking geopolitical analysts around the globe know the real background, you, Editor-in-chief of the NYT, and your journalists, know the real story too. Still, you report lies and half-truths to further influence and promote people’s opinion against Russia.

The New York Times has become weaponized against Russia and China, by your mere reporting.

Don’t you think that this will eventually backfire?

*

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020)

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Featured image is from FAIR

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Peter Koenig, Global Research, 2022

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Will The Ukraine De-Militarise Itself?

September 26, 2022

Source

by James Tweedie

Back in August 2022 I wrote that NATO was ‘demilitarising’ itself, sending such huge amounts of arms to the Ukraine before and during the Russian special military operation (SMO) that its armies had nothing left to fight with.

That process has continued, with Slovenia, the northernmost of the former federal republics of Yugoslavia, sending its entire armoured vehicle fleet to Kiev. The last scrapings of the barrel, just announced, are 28 M-55S tanks. These are modernised Soviet-designed T-55s with some Israeli explosive-reactive armour (ERA) blocks added. But underneath that they’re still a 1950s design, four generations behind the latest Russian tanks.

The question now is: can those arms sustain the Ukrainian military effort? And if the Ukraine, the buffed-up proxy for all NATO and the Five Eyes countries too, is losing the war, when will Russia and its Donbass republican allies achieve victory?

I was born in the mid-1970s, during the Cold War, and I grew up under he shadow of the mushroom cloud. So I must confess to being one of those who were anxious for this conflict to be over quickly, before the nuclear powers came to blows. But one can’t hurry history.

War of Attrition

In his bombshell speech on the morning of 21^st September 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin explained that the apparent slow progress of the SMO by the need to unpick the Gordian Knot of hardened defences the Ukrainian Nazi battalions built up on the front line over eight years.

“A head-on attack against them would have led to heavy losses,” Putin said, “which is why our units, as well as the forces of the Donbass republics, are acting competently and systematically, using military equipment and saving lives, moving step by step to liberate Donbass.”

Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu gave a televised interview the same morning. He gave extremely specific figures for both Russian and Ukrainian military casualties. “Our losses to date are 5,937 dead,” he said, but added that 90 per cent of the wounded had recovered and returned to duty.

According to Shoigu, Ukraine has lost 61,207 killed and 49,368 wounded (a total of 110,575 casualties) from an initial military strength of 201-202 thousand. The caveat to that that the Ukraine has conscripted hundreds of thousands of men into territorial defence units since the start of the conflict. That’s greater than a ten-to-one ratio of Ukrainian to Russian casualties

Shoigu also said that over the previous three weeks — since the launch of Kiev’s counter-offensives in Kherson and Kharkov — the Ukrainians had lost more than 7,000 men and 970 pieces of heavy equipment, including 208 tanks, 245 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), 186 other armoured vehicles, 15 aircraft and four helicopters.

That amounts to about 60 per cent of the roughly 350 tanks, and three-quarters of the 328 IFVs, supplied by Western countries since February 24. If one lumps armoured personnel carriers (APCs) in with IFVs, Shoigu is still talking about 30 per cent losses of NATO-supplied heavy armour.

Kiev is preparing for or has already begun more counter-offensives towards Lisichansk in the LPR, Donetsk city, from Ugledar to the south to Mariupol and towards Berdyansk or Melitopol in Zaporozhye oblast. Russian aircraft, missiles and artillery are already hitting the groups of forces concentrated for that. If those offensives go the same way as the others, surely the Ukrainians will soon run out of both men and machines, right?

Blogger and YouTuber Andrei Martyanov, a Russian who served in the Soviet armed forces, is not worried about about how long it takes to get the SMO over and done with. He has argued that his countrymen can win simply by waiting for the Ukrainians to throw themselves onto their bayonets, until they run out of bodies.

With all due respect, allow me to sound a note of scepticism: that assumes that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his Western backers care how many die, or that the Ukrainian people (more than 8 million of whom are now scattered across Europe and even further afield) have the inclination and the opportunity to rise up against the fascist death-squad state.

The daily Russian Ministry of Defence body-count of hundreds of the miserable ‘territorial defence’ conscripts along the Donbass line — untrained and barely-armed middle-aged men press-ganged in the street — is not much of an indicator of progress.

It’s the territorial gains, no matter how slow, that matter. Russia cannot just count on the Ukrainians to suicidally ‘demilitarise’ themselves.

Putin’s announcement of a “partial mobilisation” of 300,000 army reservists was warmly welcomed by pro-Russian social media commentators. It is hard to exaggerate the importance of this, coupled with the referenda in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson on reunification with Russia.

But there are caveats. State Duma Defence Committee chairman Andrey Kartapolov clarified that those troops would be deployed to defend the country’s borders and to create “operational depth” — in other words as a second defensive echelon. Martyanov argues that will free up regular front-line troops to conquer more territory. But it remains unclear how many of them were deployed to begin with.

Eyes on the Prize

So what is Russia trying to achieve in the Ukraine? Putin said in his Wednesday morning speech that the main task was to defend the Russian-speaking people of the Donbass. That implies capturing the whole of the oblasts of Donetsk and Lugansk.

But some ‘stretch goals’ may be added, including forging a land corridor to the Crimea and maybe even Transnistria, the Russian protectorate in Moldova.

Russia’s other main aim was to stop the Ukraine from joining NATO. That would allow the US to base nuclear weapons just 300 miles from Moscow in a position to launch a first strike attack.

US President Joe Biden’s response to Putin at the UN General Assembly later that day included the comment that “a nuclear war cannot be won — and must never be fought.” While true, that observation was shamelessly hypocritical. It was likely only made out of fear after Putin’s warning that Russia takes national defence and nuclear deterrence seriously.

Securing the Ukraine’s neutrality is not just part of “demilitarisation”: it could also be called “de-Nazification”, since NATO and its shadow the European Union (EU) were behind the 2014 coup by the Azov battalion and their ilk.

But Russia needs a legitimately-elected head of state to sign up to that, and right now that man is Zelensky. A peace deal struck with any military junta which might depose the comedian-turned-president would only be denounced by the next elected leader.

Even if a new civilian government was elected on a pro-peace, non-alignment platform (as Zelensky was), it would only last as long as it took the US, UK and EU to organise a repeat of the 2004-05 ‘Orange Revolution’ and the 2014 ‘Euromaidan’ coups d’etat.

The crazy Ukro-Nazis and their enablers have to ‘own’ the peace and the agreement to cede the Donbass and Crimea — and thereby lose all credibility.

But the Ukraine had already lost the Crimea and effective control over the Donbass before the SMO even kicked off. Kiev won’t sign any peace deal unless it has something else to lose. If Moscow is also serious about readmitting Zaporozhye and Kherson to the Russian motherland following a ‘Yes’ vote in the coming referenda, then there’s nothing to bargain with there either. Russia may need to capture other territories to use as bargaining chips.

To do so, it would have to inflict a defeat on the Ukrainian armed forces that would force them to retreat — not only from Donetsk and Lugansk but from other areas, maybe all the way back to the Dnieper river that divides the country in two.

Such a victory can’t be won unless Russia regains the initiative and actively starts pushing the Ukrainian armed forces back.

The Great M.I.C. Cash-In

The Kiev regime’s aims are clearly to keep grifting off its Western sponsors as long as possible, before fleeing to the sunny tax havens where they have billions stashed. But what does the West really want out of this war?

The stated aims of Washington and friends are to defend Ukraine’s territory and sovereignty (code for invading the Donbass and Crimea and ethnically cleansing them), along with its non-existent “right” to become a NATO launchpad, to “weaken” Russia militarily (by causing as many casualties as possible) and to put “international pressure” on Putin (economic warfare with the goal of regime change).

One should avoid making predictions, but let’s say the US and its satellites fail in all of that (since they have done so far). What will they try to win as a consolation prize?

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, an unelected bureaucrat who made a huge mess of her previous job as German defence minister, has vowed that sanctions on Russia will continue for years to come. That the sanctions are crippling the economies of EU member states, especially her home country, doesn’t seem to bother UVDL. And seeing the EU and its appointed commissioners are increasingly imposing their foreign policy diktats on the 27 governments, she might get her way.

More importantly, NATO desperately needs to save face — now that it has exposed by Russia as a paper tiger. Hence the triumphant crowing over moves, far from complete, to grant existing de-facto allies Sweden and Finland formal membership.

The West may try to claim a kind of moral victory on the basis that it may take Russia more than a year to defeat ‘brave little Ukraine’, or be forced to wipe out most of its military-age male population to win. But whose idea was that? Zelensky, Biden and all other Western leaders have made that bed.

But NATO is really just a pyramid scheme to sell overpriced Western, especially US, arms to its vassals. And therein lies a contradiction, because the US military-industrial complex (MIC) has competition from those of the UK, Germany, France and even Sweden — a country with a smaller population than the city of Moscow.

The Ukraine has used the referenda on unification with Russia as the latest pretext to demand Germany donate its newest models of Leopard 2 tanks and Marder infantry fighting vehicles. But why doesn’t Kiev ask the US for some of its M1 Abrams and M2 Bradleys instead? The Pentagon has many more to spare.

The truth is that neither Germany nor the US can afford to have its supposedly-invincible wunderwaffen shown up, and blown up, in battle with Russian forces. Despite weighing only two-thirds as much as the US and German behemoths, the Russian tanks have about the same effective armour protection — thanks to state-of-the-art ERA technology — and guns of equal destructive power. And there are a lot more Russian tanks, anti-tank missiles, attack jets and helicopters on the battlefield in the Ukraine.

The US has only managed to sell the M1 to eight other countries, compared to 18 for the Leopard 2. The export model of the Abrams is ‘Nerfed’ by removing the depleted uranium rods from its composite armour, so countries like Australia and Saudi Arabia get sub-par tanks. The only overseas customer for the British Challenger 2 is Oman, while the French Leclerc tank has been exported to the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.

By contrast, the Russian T-72 is currently in service in 40 countries, including both Russia and the Ukraine. Like the Russian intervention in Syria, the war in the Ukraine could prove to be a serious marketing tool for the Russian arms industry — eating the US MIC’s lunch.

More Billions to Ukraine as America Falls Apart

The war in Ukraine was caused by the US regime change in 2014 and the neocon insistence that Ukraine join NATO.

 -August 29, 2022

By  Jonas E. Alexis, Assistant Editor

ISKANDARIYA, IRAQ – JULY 19: U.S. soldiers with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment patrol a new ditch they have dug to protect the base from attack on July 19, 2011 in Iskandariya, Babil Province Iraq. As the deadline for the departure of the remaining American forces in Iraq approaches, Iraqi politicians have agreed to meet in two weeks time in order to give a final decision about extending the U.S. troops’ presence beyond the end of the 2011 deadline. Violence against foreign troops has recently picked-up with June being the worst month in combat-related deaths for the military in Iraq in more than two years. Currently about 46,000 U.S. soldiers remain in Iraq. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

By Ron Paul

There is a video clip making the rounds showing President Biden speaking at a recent NATO summit about the seven billion dollars the US government had – at that time – provided to Ukraine. Attached to that is another clip showing the horrific state of several US major cities, including in Pennsylvania, California, and Ohio. The video of American cities is shocking: endless landscapes of filth, trash, homelessness, open fires on the street, drug-addicted zombies. It doesn’t look like the America most of us remember.

Watching Biden bragging about sending billions of dollars to corrupt leaders overseas with American cities looking like bombed-out Iraq or Libya is US foreign policy in a nutshell. The Washington elites tell the rest of America that they must “promote democracy” in some far-off land. Anyone who objects is considered in league with the appointed enemy of the day. Once it was Saddam, then Assad and Gaddafi. Now it’s Putin. The game is the same, only the names are changed.

What is seldom asked, is what is in this deal for those Americans who suffer to pay for our interventionist foreign policy. Do they really think a working American in Ohio or Pennsylvania is better off or safer because we are supposedly protecting Ukraine’s borders? I think most Americans would wonder why they aren’t bothering to protect our own borders.

A reported 200,000 illegals crossed the border into the US in July alone. You can believe they are learning quickly about the free money provided by the US government to illegals. They’ll probably get a voting card as well.

Last Friday the Pentagon announced that yet another $775 million would be sent to Ukraine. As Antiwar.com reported, it was the eighteenth weapons package to Ukraine in six months. Has there ever been a more idiotic US intervention in history?

Supporters of this proxy war may celebrate more aid to Ukraine, but the reality is that it is in no way aid to Ukraine. That’s not how the system works. It is money created out of thin air by the Fed and appropriated by Congress to be spent propping up the politically-connected military-industrial complex. It is a big check written by middle America to rich people who run Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. Americans watch their budget being stretched to the limit while the Beltway fat-cats loosen their belts to continue enjoying the gravy train.

Bloomberg reported earlier this summer that inflation is costing the average American household more than $5,200 this year. Inflation is a tax on middle class and poor Americans. The wealthy – like those who run Raytheon and Lockheed Martin – always get the new money first, before prices go up. The rest of us watch as the dollar buys less and less.

As Washington salivates over fighting Russia in Ukraine, the rest of America feels like we’re becoming Zimbabwe. How long until it takes a trillion dollars for a loaf of bread? Will there be a run on wheelbarrows?

There is a way out. It’s called “non-interventionism.” The war in Ukraine was caused by the US regime change in 2014 and the neocon insistence that Ukraine join NATO. The State Department and CIA thought it was a great victory to overthrow the elected government, but meanwhile the rest of us get the bill. No NATO and not one more penny for Ukraine!

SOURCELibertarian Institute

Jonas E. Alexis, Assistant Editor

Jonas E. Alexis has degrees in mathematics and philosophy. He studied education at the graduate level. His main interests include U.S. foreign policy, the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the history of ideas. He is the author of the new book, Kevin MacDonald’s Metaphysical Failure: A Philosophical, Historical, and Moral Critique of Evolutionary Psychology, Sociobiology, and Identity Politics. He teaches mathematics in South Korea.

• Read Jonas Alexis’s latest posts here >>>

Six months into Ukraine’s collapse, the world has changed forever

The inevitable transfer of power away from the west is leading to a surge in state-sponsored terrorism, but this will do little to reverse the trend

August 24 2022

By Pepe Escobar

Six months after the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO) by Russia in Ukraine, the geopolitical tectonic plates of the 21^st century have been dislocated at astonishing speed and depth – with immense historical repercussions already at hand.

To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, this is the way the (new) world begins, not with a whimper but a bang.

The cold-blooded assassination of Darya Dugina – terrorism at the gates of Moscow – may have fatefully coincided with the six-month intersection point, but will do nothing to change the dynamics of the current, work-in-progress, historical shift.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) appeared to have cracked the case in a little over 24 hours, designating the perpetrator as a neo-Nazi Azov operative instrumentalized by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) – itself a mere tool of the CIA/MI6 combo that de facto rules Kiev.

The Azov operative is just a patsy. The FSB will never reveal in public the intel it has amassed on those that issued the orders, and how they will be dealt with.

One Ilya Ponomaryov, an anti-Kremlin minor character granted Ukrainian citizenship, boasted he was in contact with the outfit that prepared the hit on the Dugin family. No one took him seriously.

What is manifestly serious, however, is how oligarchy-connected organized crime factions in Russia would have a motive to eliminate Alexander Dugin, the Christian Orthodox nationalist philosopher who, according to them, may have influenced the Kremlin’s pivot to Asia (he didn’t).

These organized crime factions blamed Dugin for a concerted Kremlin offensive against the disproportional power of Jewish oligarchs in Russia. So these actors would have both the motive and the local know-how to mount such a coup.

If that’s the case, it potentially spells out a Mossad-linked operation – especially given the serious schism in Moscow’s recent relations with Tel Aviv. What’s certain is that the FSB will keep their cards very close to their chest – and retribution will be swift, precise and invisible.

The straw that broke the camel’s back

Instead of delivering a serious blow to Russia’s psyche that could impact the dynamics of its operations in Ukraine, the assassination of Darya Dugina only exposed the perpetrators as tawdry killers who have exhausted their options.

An IED cannot kill a philosopher – or his daughter. In an essential essay, Dugin himself explained how the real war – Russia against the US-led collective west – is a war of ideas. An existential war.

Dugin correctly defines the US as a “thalassocracy,” heir to “Britannia rules the waves.” Yet now the geopolitical tectonic plates are spelling out a new order: The Return of the Heartland.

Russian President Vladimir Putin himself first spelled it out at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. China’s Xi Jinping put it into action by launching the New Silk Roads in 2013. The Empire struck back with Maidan in 2014. Russia counter-attacked by coming to the aid of Syria in 2015.

The Empire doubled down on Ukraine, with NATO weaponizing it non-stop for eight years. At the end of 2021, Moscow invited Washington for a serious dialogue on “indivisibility of security” in Europe. That was dismissed with a non-response response.

Moscow took no time to assess that a dangerous US-led trifecta was instead in the works: an imminent Kiev blitzkrieg against Donbass; Ukraine flirting with acquiring nuclear weapons; and the work of US bioweapon labs. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

A consistent analysis of Putin’s public interventions these past few months reveals that the Kremlin – as well as Security Council Yoda Nikolai Patrushev – fully realize how the politico/media talking heads and shock troops of the collective west are directed by the rulers of Finance Capitalism.

As a direct consequence, they also realize how western public opinion is absolutely clueless, Plato cave-style, totally captive to the ruling financial class, who cannot tolerate any alternative narrative.

So Putin, Patrushev, and their peers will never presume that a senile teleprompter reader in the White House or a cokehead comedian in Kiev “rule” anything.

As the US rules global pop culture, it is fitting to borrow from what Walter White/Heisenberg, an average American channeling his inner bad, states in Breaking Bad: “I’m in the Empire business.” And the Empire business is to exercise raw power, maintained with ruthlessness, by all means necessary.

Russia broke that spell. But Moscow’s strategy is way more sophisticated than leveling Kiev with hypersonic weapons, something that could have been done at any moment, starting six months ago.

Instead, what Moscow is doing is talking to virtually the entire Global South, bilaterally or to groups of actors, explaining how the world-system is changing right before our eyes, with the key actors of the future configured as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), BRICS+, the Greater Eurasia Partnership.

And what we see is vast swathes of the Global South – or 85 percent of the world’s population – slowly but surely becoming ready to engage in expelling the finance capitalists from their national horizons, and ultimately taking them down: a long, tortuous battle that will imply multiple setbacks.

The facts on the ground

On the ground in soon-to-be rump Ukraine, Khinzal hypersonic weapons launched from Tu-22M3 bombers or Mig-31 interceptors  will continue to be employed.

Piles of HIMARS will continue to be captured. TOS 1A Heavy Flamethrowers will keep sending invitations to the gates of hell. Crimean Air Defense will continue to intercept all sorts of small drones with IEDs attached. Terrorism by local SBU cells will eventually be smashed.

Using essentially a phenomenal artillery barrage – cheap and mass-produced – Russia will annex Donbass, very valuable in terms of land, natural resources and industrial power. And then on to Nikolaev, Odessa, and Kharkov.

Geoeconomically, Russia can afford to sell its oil with fat discounts to any Global South customer, not to mention strategic partners China and India. Cost of extraction reaches a maximum of $15 per barrel, with a national budget based on $40-45 for a barrel of Urals, whose market value today is almost double that.

A new Russian benchmark is imminent, as well as oil in rubles following the wildly successful gas for rubles scheme.

The assassination of Darya Dugina provoked endless speculation about the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense finally breaking their discipline. That’s not going to happen. Russian advances along the enormous 1,800-mile battle front are relentless, highly systematic, and deeply invested in a Greater Strategic Picture.

A key vector is whether Russia stands a chance of winning the information war with the west. That will never happen inside NATO’s realm – even as success after success is unfolding across the Global South.

As Glenn Diesen has masterfully demonstrated in his latest book, Russophobia, the collective west is viscerally impervious to admitting any social, cultural, historical merits by Russia.

They have already catapulted themselves into the irrationality stratosphere: the grinding down and de facto demilitarization of the imperial proxy army in Ukraine is driving the Empire’s handlers and its vassals literally nuts.

But the Global South should never lose sight of the ‘Empire business.’ That industry excels in producing chaos and plunder, always supported by extortion, bribery of local elites, and assassinations on the cheap. Every trick in the Divide and Rule book should be expected at any moment. Never underestimate a bitter, wounded, deeply humiliated, declining Empire.

Fasten your seat belts for more of this tense dynamic for the remainder of the decade.

But before that, all along the watchtower, get ready for the arrival of General Winter, whose riders are fast approaching. When the winds begin to howl, Europe will be freezing in the dead of dark nights, lit up occasionally by its finance capitalists puffing on fat cigars.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

Short message from Andrei

August 21, 2022

Dear friends,

Two quick messages:

First, by now most of you have heard that Alexander Dugin’s daughter has been murdered in a car bomb.  The target was clearly Dugin himself.  All I want to say at this point is that Dugin never was the “‘Russian world’ ideologue“ as RT so stupidly wrote.  (The same goes for another supposed “ideologue of the Russian world” German Sterligov).

How many times did you hear Putin quoting Dugin? If anything, Putin’s ideological influences would be Ivan I’in (also spelled Ilyin) and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, not Dugin.

Dugin was much more of a big thing in the West, not in Russia where most key players never took him seriously or, even less so, where influenced by him.  None of that makes a difference to the abject act of cowardice and pure terrorism which the murder of his daughter is.  And it does not take a genius to guess who was behind this attack – the same folks who have been terrorizing and murdering civilians en masse every since the Euromaidan.

Unlike Russian officials, Dugin was not under the protection of the FSO and was an easy, if symbolic, target.  Just a civilian with no special protective security detail.  The ugly and cowardly nature of this murder has, once again, shown to those with eyes to see and ears to hear the true nature of the US backed Nazi regime in Kiev.

May God rest the soul of this latest victim of Nazi terror and all those who were also murdered before her!

Second, the blog was down for a few hours, but this was not an attack, just an internal issue which has now been solved.

I wish you all a great Sunday!

Kind regards

Andrei