The US summons the Russian ambassador to Washington to protest the crash of a US MQ-9 drone into the Black Sea.
A US MQ-9 Reaper drone in Afghanistan, March 2016 (Reuters)
The Russian Defense Ministry denied US allegations and said its fighter jets did not come into contact with the US MQ-9 drone that crashed into the Black Sea earlier, pointing out that the drone crashed due to “sharp maneuvering”.
Earlier, the US European Command claimed that a Russian fighter jet dumped fuel on an American drone over the Black Sea and then collided with it, causing the drone to crash. The White House called the crash a result of “reckless” behavior by Russia.
“The Russian fighters did not use their onboard weapons, did not come into contact with the UAV and returned safely to their home airfield,” the Ministry confirmed.
The Russian Defense Ministry indicated that the US drone fell into the Black Sea on Tuesday morning due to its own sharp maneuvering, confirming that Russian fighters did not come into contact with it and did not use weapons.
“As a result of sharp maneuvering around 09:30 Moscow time [06:30 GMT], unmanned aerial vehicle MQ-9 went into an uncontrolled flight with a loss of altitude and collided with the water surface,” the Ministry said.
The Ministry clarified that on Tuesday morning, the airspace control of the Russian Aerospace Forces had recorded the flight of the US unmanned aerial vehicle MQ-9 over the Black Sea in the region of the Crimean peninsula in the direction of the Russian state border.
The flight of the drone “was carried out with transponders turned off, violating the boundaries of the area of the temporary regime for the use of airspace, established for the purpose of conducting a special military operation, communicated to all users of international airspace and published in accordance with international standards,” the statement read.
It added that Russian fighters from the air defense forces on duty were scrambled in order to identify the intruder.
US summons Russia ambassador over drone crash
Following the incident, the US summoned Russia’s Ambassador to protest the crash, the State Department confirmed.
“We are engaging directly with the Russians, again at senior levels, to convey our strong objections to this unsafe, unprofessional intercept, which caused the downing of the unmanned US aircraft,” State Department Spokesperson Ned Price told reporters.
Price said the Russian Ambassador in Washington has been convened at the State Department Tuesday afternoon and the American ambassador in Moscow registered a “strong objection” to the incident.
The spokesperson said the incident marked a clear violation of international law.
US had to crash drone in Black Sea after damage: Pentagon
On the other hand, the Pentagon claimed that the US military was forced to essentially crash its MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone because of the damage caused when it was allegedly struck by a Russian jet.
“Because of the damage, we were in a position to have to essentially crash into the Black Sea,” Brigadier General Pat Ryder told reporters, adding that the drone was basically unflyable after the damage.
Ryder said Russia had not recovered the crashed drone at this point.
The Pentagon spokesperson declined to disclose whether the Reaper drone was armed, saying he is not “going to get into the specific profile of this particular aircraft. As you know the MQ-9 does have the ability to be armed.”
Austin not in contact with Shoigu over drone crash
Elsewhere, Ryder said that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has not talked to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu after the recent incident.
“In terms of Secretary Austin talking to his counterpart, not at this time,” Ryder said. “To my knowledge, DOD [Defense Department] officials have not spoken specifically to Russian authorities on this particular incident.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the US Patriot missile defense systems would “definitely” be a target for Russia.
This comes shortly after two United States officials and a senior administration official revealed that Pentagon is finalizing plans to send the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine, which could be announced as soon as this week, US media outlets reported on Tuesday.
The plan needs to be approved by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin before it is sent to President Joe Biden for his signature, with the three officials telling CNN that approval is expected.
For months, Kiev has been calling on Washington to send Patriot missiles, which are highly effective at intercepting ballistic and cruise missiles.
In late November, Pentagon Press Secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder said the US has no plans “to provide Patriot batteries to Ukraine but again, we’ll continue to have those discussions.” The statement came on the same day that another senior Defense Department official stated that the United States is considering sending Patriot surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine.
Patriot would help secure airspace for NATO in eastern Europe
Should the plan be approved, the Patriot “would be the most effective long-range defensive weapons system sent to the country and officials say it will help secure airspace for NATO nations in eastern Europe,” according to CNN.
It pointed out that “it is not clear how many missile launchers will be sent but a typical Patriot battery includes a radar set that detects and tracks targets, computers, power generating equipment, an engagement control station, and up to eight launchers, each holding four ready-to-fire missiles.”
The media cited officials as saying that “once the plans are finalized, the Patriots are expected to ship quickly in the coming days and Ukrainians will be trained to use them at a US Army base in Grafenwoehr, Germany.”
On that note, the deployment of Patriots and any supporting NATO personnel to Ukraine has received considerable opposition from Moscow, with Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, saying that they would turn into “legitimate targets” for Russian forces.
Tel Aviv is also allowing NATO members to supply Ukraine with weapons systems containing Israeli components, after the White House called on them to ‘team up’ with the west against Russia
Israel has allowed NATO member states to provide Ukraine with weapons that contain Israeli-made components and has funded the delivery of “strategic materials” to Kiev, under pressure from the White House, according to an exclusive report by Haaretz.
Citing three senior European diplomatic officials, the report alleges that several weeks ago, US officials pushed Israeli authorities to “team up with NATO and the west in the struggle against Russia.”
Specifically, Washington wanted Tel Aviv to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft batteries, as the US is reportedly “running low” on some high-end weapons systems and ammunition to transfer to Kiev.
According to US officials that spoke with CNN, after nine months of funding hostilities, the Pentagon is seeing its stockpiles “dwindle.” As such, Washington redoubled its push to have its allies fill in the gaps, allowing the war machine to march forward undisturbed.
But after talks between US and Israeli officials, Tel Aviv instead agreed to fund the delivery of “strategic materials,” with the approval of outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz.
In order to do this, Israel transferred several million dollars to an unidentified NATO member state that is “deeply involved in supplying military equipment to Ukraine.”
The unnamed country used the Israeli funds to purchase the “strategic materials” for Ukraine, in a scheme reminiscent of Poland’s recent role as a middleman to acquire Israeli anti-drone systems for the Ukrainian military.
While Hareetz claims to have knowledge of what the “strategic materials” actually are, they have refused to identify them at the request of their anonymous sources, likely to prevent a retaliatory response from the Kremlin.
In addition, the Israeli defense ministry has reportedly “eased its guidelines and agreed that NATO members such as the UK could supply Ukraine with weapons systems containing Israeli components.”
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky has repeatedly pleaded with Israel to supply his country with weapons, including the Iron Dome missile defense system. Israel – which depends on diplomatic ties with Moscow to illegally bomb Syria – has officially refused.
Russia has issued stern warnings to Israel against supplying weapons to Ukraine. But despite this, on several occasions, Tel Aviv has not only openly backed what Moscow calls the “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine, but many Israelis have flocked to join the Ukrainian army as mercenaries.
The civil unrest in Iran in response to the recent death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while she was waiting at a Tehran police station, although rooted in legitimate grievances, also bears the hallmark of a western-sponsored covert war, covering multiple fronts.
Mere days after the protests erupted on 16 September, the Washington Postrevealed that the Pentagon had initiated a wide-ranging audit of all its online psyops efforts, after a number of bot and troll accounts operated by its Central Command (CENTCOM) division – which covers all US military actions in West Asia, North Africa and South and Central Asia – were exposed, and subsequently banned by major social networks and online spaces.
The accounts were busted in a joint investigation carried out by social media research firm Graphika, and the Stanford Internet Observatory, which evaluated “five years of pro-Western covert influence operations.”
Published in late August, it attracted minimal English-language press coverage at the time, but evidently was noticed, raising concerns at the highest levels of the US government, prompting the audit.
While the Washington Post ludicrously suggested the government’s umbrage stemmed from CENTCOM’s egregious, manipulative activities which could compromise US “values” and its “moral high ground,” it is abundantly clear that the real problem was CENTCOM being exposed.
#OpIran
CENTCOM’s geographical purview includes Iran, and given the Islamic Republic’s longstanding status as a key US enemy state, it’s perhaps unsurprising that a significant proportion of the unit’s online disinformation and psychological warfare efforts were directed there.
A key strategy employed by US military psyops specialists is the creation of multiple sham media outlets publishing content in Farsi. Numerous online channels were maintained for these platforms, spanning Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and even Telegram.
In some cases too, fake journalists and pundits, with numerous “followers” on those platforms emerged, along with profile photos created via artificial intelligence.
For example, Fahim News claimed to provide “accurate news and information” on events in Iran, prominently publishing posts declaring “the regime uses all of its efforts to censor and filter the internet,” and encouraging readers to stick to online sources as a result.
Meanwhile, Dariche News claimed to be an “independent website unaffiliated with any group or organization,” committed to providing “uncensored and unbiased news” to Iranians within and without the country, in particular information on “the destructive role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in all the affairs and issues of Iran and the region.”
Their respective YouTube channels pumped out numerous short-form videos, presumably in the hope they would be mistaken for organic content, and go viral on other social networks. The researchers identified one instance in which media outlets elsewhere had embedded Dariche News content into articles.
An army of bots and trolls
Some of the fake news organizations published original material, but much of their output was recycled content from US government-funded propaganda outfits such as Radio Farda and Voice of America Farsi.
They also repurposed and shared articles from the British-based Iran International, which appears to receive arm’s length funding from Saudi Arabia, as did several fake personas attached to these outlets.
These personas frequently posted non-political content, including Iranian poetry and photos of Persian food, in order to increase their authenticity. They also engaged with real Iranians on Twitter, often joking with them about internet memes.
Pentagon bots and trolls used different narrative techniques and approaches in an attempt to influence perceptions and engender engagement. A handful promoted “hardliner” views, criticizing the Iranian government for insufficiently hawkish foreign policy while being excessively reformist and liberal domestically.
One such bogus user, a purported “political science expert,” accrued thousands of followers on Twitter and Telegram by posting content praising Shia Islam’s growing power in West Asia, while other “hardliner” accounts praised the late General Qassem Soleimani of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), slain in an illegal US drone strike in January 2020, as a martyr, and encouraged the wearing of hijabs.
The researchers state the purpose of these efforts was unclear, although an obvious explanation is the Pentagon sought to foster anti-government discontent among conservative Iranians, while creating lists of local “extremists” to monitor online.
Orchestrated opposition
Overwhelmingly though, Pentagon-linked accounts were viciously critical of the Iranian government, and the IRGC. Numerous Pentagon bots and trolls sought to blame food and medicine shortages on the latter, which was likened to ISIS, and posting videos of Iranians protesting and looting supermarkets captioned in Pashto, English, and Urdu.
More sober posts criticized Tehran for redistributing much-needed food to give to Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, while others highlighted embarrassing incidents, such as a reported power outage that caused the country’s chess team to lose an international online tournament.
Furthermore, multiple fake users claimed to seek “justice for the victims of #Flight752”, referring to the Ukraine International Airlines flight accidentally shot down by the IRGC in January 2020.
Using hashtags such as #PS752 and #PS752justice hundreds of times, they blamed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei personally for the incident.
Following the outbreak of war in Ukraine in February, these accounts used Persian versions of widely-trending hashtags #No_To_Putin and #No_To_War – themselves overwhelmingly disseminated on Twitter by pro-Ukraine bot and troll accounts, according to separate research.
The users condemned Khamenei’s verbal support of Putin and accused Iran of supplying drones to Moscow, which it was claimed were used to kill civilians.
They also pushed the narrative that Iran’s collusion with Russia would result in adverse political and economic repercussions for Tehran, while making unflattering comparisons between Khamenei and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“One has sold Iran to Russia and ordered their peoples’ murder,” one account tweeted. “The other is wearing a combat uniform alongside his people and has stopped the colonization of Ukraine by Russia with all his might.”
Scattershot fury
There were also cloak-and-dagger initiatives intended to damage Iran’s standing in neighboring countries, and undermine its regional influence. Much of this work seems to have been concerned with spreading panic and alarm, and creating a hostile environment for Iranians abroad.
For instance, accounts targeting audiences in Afghanistan claimed that Quds Force personnel were infiltrating Kabul posing as journalists in order to crush opposition to the Taliban. They also published articles from a US military-linked website that claimed on the basis of zero evidence that the bodies of dead refugees who’d fled to Iran were being returned to their families back home with missing organs.
Yet another damaging false narrative perpetuated by this cluster in late 2021 and early 2022 was that the IRGC was forcing Afghan refugees to join militias fighting in Syria and Yemen, and that those who refused were being deported.
Iraq was a country of particular interest to the Pentagon’s cyber warriors, with memes widely shared throughout Baghdad and beyond depicting IRGC influence in the country as a destructive disease, and content claiming Iraqi militias, and elements of the government, were effective tools of Tehran, fighting to further Iran’s imperial designs over the wider West Asia.
Militias were also accused of killing Iraqis in rocket strikes, engineering droughts by damaging water supply infrastructure, smuggling weapons and fuel out of Iraq and into Syria, and fuelling the country’s crystal meth epidemic.
Another cluster of Pentagon accounts focused on Iran’s involvement in Yemen, publishing content on major social networks critical of the Ansarallah-led de-facto government in Sanaa, accusing it of deliberately blocking humanitarian aid deliveries, acting as an unquestioning proxy of Tehran and Hezbollah, and closing bookstores, radio stations, and other cultural institutions.
Several of their posts blamed Iran for the deaths of civilians via landmine, on the basis Tehran may have supplied them.
Laying the ground
Other CENTCOM psychological warfare (psywar) narratives have direct relevance to the protests that have engulfed Iran.
There was a particular focus among one group of bots and trolls on women’s rights. Dozens of posts compared Iranian women’s opportunities abroad with those in Iran – one meme on this theme contrasted photos of an astronaut with a victim of violent spousal abuse – while others promoted protests against the hijab.
Alleged government corruption and rising living costs were also recurrently emphasized, particularly in respect of food and medicine – production of which in Iran is controlled by the IRGC, a fact CENTCOM’s online operatives repeatedly drew attention to.
Women’s rights, corruption, and the cost of living – the latter of which directly results from suffocating US sanctions – are all key stated motivating factors for the protesters.
Despite the rioters’ widespread acts of violence and vandalism, targeted at civilians and authorities alike, such as the destruction of an ambulance ferrying police officers away from the scene of a riot, they also claim to be motivated by human rights concerns.
Establishment and fringe journalists and pundits have dismissed as conspiracy theories, any suggestions that protests in Iran and beyond are anything other than organic and grassroots in nature.
Yet, clear proof of foreign direction and sponsorship abounds, not least in the very public face of the anti-hijab movement, Masih Alinejad, who for many years has encouraged Iranian women to ceremonially burn their headscarves from the confines of an FBI safehouse in New York City, then publicizes the images online, which travel round the world and back via social media and mainstream news outlets.
A regime-change war by other means
Alinejad’s activities have generated a vast amount of fawning and credulous media coverage, without a single journalist or outlet questioning whether her prominent role in the supposedly grassroots, locally-initiated protest movement is affiliated with foreign hostile interference.
This is despite Alinejad posing for photos with former CIA director Mike Pompeo, and receiving a staggering $628,000 in US federal government contracts since 2015.
Much of these funds flowed from the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the US government agency that oversees propaganda platforms such as Radio Free Europe, and Voice of America, the latter of which has produced a Farsi-language show fronted by Alinejad for seven years.
These clusters of social media posts may appear innocuous and authentic in an age of click-bait and viral fake news, yet when aggregated and analysed, they form a potent and potentially dangerous weapon which it turns out is one of many in the Pentagon’s regime-change arsenal.
Bloomberg reported that “An American hypersonic missile test flight ended in a failure in Hawaii on Wednesday.”
The US military department offered few details of what happened, stating only that “an anomaly occurred following ignition of the test asset.”
“While the Department was unable to collect data on the entirety of the planned flight profile, the information gathered from this event will provide vital insights,” Pentagon spokesman Navy Lieutenant Commander Tim Gorman was quoted as saying by the news agency.
The botched test was part of the Conventional Prompt Strike [CPS] program, under which Lockheed Martin is trying to develop weapons capable of flying at speeds of Mach 5 and above, for the use of submarines and surface ships.
It suffered another setback in October 2021, when a booster rocket failed to deliver its hypersonic glide vehicle during a test at the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Kodiak, Alaska. The booster was not part of the weapon system, defense officials stressed at the time.
Despite the failure of both tests, the Pentagon said it remains confident that it is on track to field offensive hypersonic capabilities in the early 2020s.
The US has been struggling to keep up with China and Russia in the development of hypersonic weapons. There have been a number of successful tests under various American programs, but the country is yet to have a modern system in service.
The US Air Force says that an Airman was taken into custody over suspected involvement in the attack that targeted a US military base in Deir-Ezzor.
US President Joe Biden’s administration acknowledges the deployment of around 900 troops in Syria
The Pentagon revealed that a US airman is currently in military custody for suspected involvement in an insider attack on a US base in Deir-Ezzor, in northeastern Syria earlier this year, as the suspect is expected to be charged in the coming weeks.
US Air Force Spokesperson Ann Stefanek announced the arrest on Tuesday and told CNN that the suspect – who has not been publicly identified – was placed in custody earlier this month.
“As part of an ongoing investigation, on June 16, an Airman was taken into custody stateside in conjunction with the attack in Green Village, Syria. After reviewing the information in the investigation, the Airman’s commander made the decision to place him in pretrial confinement,” the spokesperson indicated.
Initially, US officials thought that an April 7 attack on the US base came as a result of indirect artillery or rocket fire.
However, earlier this month, the Pentagon pointed out that the US service member was a “possible suspect”, noting that it found evidence of the “deliberate placement of explosive charges.”
CNN cited two officials as saying that the explosives used in the attack on the US base were “not insignificant”, while another official said the explosives were “military grade.”
Furthermore, the officials revealed that the attack took place in the middle of the night, and have got their hands on surveillance footage where they observed two instances of a figure moving quickly.
It is noteworthy that US President Joe Biden’s administration acknowledges the deployment of around 900 troops in Syria despite objections from the Syrian government.
The US for years has been backing the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), aiding in resource theft and US occupation in northeastern Syria for oil and gas.
US officials revealed to CNN on 17 June that the Kremlin warned Washington before launching airstrikes against US-backed armed groups in southeastern Syria.
Earlier this week, an unidentified drone strike hit Al-Tanf base in southeastern Syria, which stretches for over 50 kilometers and is occupied by the US army.
The airstrikes targeted positions held inside Al-Tanf by fighters from the CIA-trained Maghawir al-Thawra (MaT) armed group, which seeks to overthrow the government in Damascus.
While no casualties were reported from the drone strike, an unnamed US official told CNN that the Russians achieved their goal of “sending a message” that the attack could be carried out without fear of retaliation.
After receiving the Kremlin warning, the Pentagon alerted the fighters to move their positions, according to the unnamed officials.
The drone attack came in response to a roadside bomb attack that MaT had carried out against Russian troops. It also marked the first time that Russian forces had attacked a US-occupied military base in Syria.
Al-Tanf base is one of the most strategic military garrisons for the US occupation in Syria. In addition to housing hundreds of troops, the base is also used to train armed groups waging war against the government of Syria.
Over recent months, Moscow has intensified its military cooperation with Damascus in an effort to help authorities regain full control of the country.
On 15 June, Vladimir Putin’s special envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev, said Moscow would “not turn a blind eye” to Turkish military incursions on Syrian soil.
Lavrentyev firmly stated that Russia would not abandon its allies in West Asia.
A day later, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad announced the beginning of the process for Syria to formally recognize Donetsk and Luhansk, the two republics in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.
In an interview with Russia Today (RT) on 9 June, Al-Assad praised the repositioning of the Kremlin on the global scale, saying Russia has restored a much needed international balance.
“We can look at Russia from two angles: the angle of the ally who, if he wins a battle or if his political position on the world stage becomes stronger, is beneficial for us; and from another angle, Russia’s strength today constitutes a restoration of balance,” President Al-Assad said.
The US administration acknowledged the financing of 46 Ukrainian biolabs
Igor Kirillov, the head of the radiation, chemical and biological defense of the Russian Armed Forces, revealed Thursday that employees of the laboratory in the village of Sorokovka in the Kharkov region tested highly active neuromodulators that caused irreversible damage to the central nervous system as part of the US military biological program in the region.
Sorokovka hosted a branch of the Merefa laboratory, built at the expense of the Pentagon, Kirillov said. In Merefa, laboratory staff performed experiments on patients from psychiatric clinics in Kharkov, he added.
“In accordance with the available information, highly active substances of neuromodulators were tested on socially vulnerable citizens of Ukraine, which caused, among other things, irreversible damage to the central nervous system. This is a clear violation of the norms of international treaties in the field of human rights,” Kirillov warned.
Experiments have been ongoing since 2011
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the laboratory in Sorokovka was listed as a company for the production of food additives, and with the start of the war in Ukraine, the equipment under the control of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was taken to the western regions of Ukraine.
Kirillov mentioned that experiments on mentally ill people in Ukraine have been ongoing since at least 2011, adding that one of the curators, US citizen Linda Oporto Alharoun, has repeatedly visited the laboratory near Kharkov.
He recalled that earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry had reported that employees of the biological laboratory in Merefa, built with US funding, had conducted experiments on patients of psychiatric clinics in Kharkov in the period from 2019 to 2021. One of the organizers of this illegal activity was US citizen Alharoun.
US confirmed link between Pentagon & biolabs in Ukraine
The Russian official pointed out that the US had confirmed the connection between Pentagon and biolabs in Ukraine.
Kirillov told a briefing that “on June 9, the Pentagon website published an official statement on US biological activities in the post-Soviet space. In it, the US administration acknowledged the fact of financing 46 Ukrainian biological laboratories and the connection of the US Department of Defense with the Ukrainian Science and Technology Center.”
He also noted that Russia has documents proving the connection between the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and the US on biological laboratories.
Infectious diseases on the rise in Donbass due to biolabs
Kirillov underlined that infectious diseases have become more frequent in the Donbass region after Pentagon started funding Ukrainian biological programs in 2015.
“Infectious diseases have become more frequent among residents and military personnel of the LPR [Lugansk People’s Republic] and DPR [Donetsk People’s Republic] after the start of funding of Ukrainian biological programs by the Pentagon in 2015,” he said.
He also noted during the briefing that the incidence of tularemia in the DPR increased by 9.5 times in 2016 when compared to 2007.
Biolabs in Ukraine caused dengue outbreaks in Cuba
In the same context, the Russian official revealed that biological laboratories in Ukraine cultivated dengue mosquitoes that caused artificial outbreaks in Cuba during the 1970s and 1980s.
Kirillov considered that the history of the outbreaks induced in Cuba in the 70s and 80s of the last century is completely silenced, especially the use of Aedes mosquitoes as biological weapons – the same ones that the US military cultivated in Ukraine.
US War Secretary Lloyd Austin has met with Chinese State Councilor and Minister of National Defense Wei Fenghe amid heightened tensions between the two countries over recent remarks regarding the Taipei regime.
US President Joe Biden stoked tensions when he said in May that Washington would defend Taipei if China were to attack the wayward island.
Two days later, China conducted a military drill near the island.
Speaking at the military leaders’ first face-to-face meeting on Friday on the sidelines of the annual Shangri-La Dialog in Singapore, Austin said that the “US remains committed to our longstanding one-China policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three US-China Joint Communiques, and the Six Assurances.”
According to a statement from the Pentagon, Austin also warned his Chinese counterpart that Beijing must “refrain from further destabilizing actions toward Taiwan.”
“The Secretary reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability across the Strait, opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo, and called on the PRC [People’s Republic of China] to refrain from further destabilizing actions toward Taiwan,” according to the statement.
A US military official present at the meeting told CNN that Austin warned his Chinese counterpart that the People’s Liberation Army had become increasingly aggressive, unsafe, and unprofessional in the region.
“Secretary Austin also raised concerns about … statements by PLA officials that the Taiwan Strait is not international waters. [People’s Republic of China] officials have said that multiple times to the United States over the last several months and that’s deeply concerning,” the US official said. Austin also asked his Chinese counterpart not to provide any material support to Russia, the official added. In China’s post-meeting press conference, Senior Col. Wu Qian insisted China had not provided Russia with material support. “China did not provide military assistance to Russia. That is for sure.” However, Wu described the meeting, which last nearly an hour, almost twice as long as planned, as having a “good effect.” It was “candid’ but “positive and constructive,” he pointed out. Chinese leaders have repeatedly warned the United States’ officials that Taiwan is an inseparable part of the mainland, and Beijing will not hesitate to start a war over the region.
TEHRAN (FNA)- China’s control of nearly 90 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth minerals threatens to ground US military aircraft, halt American tanks in their tracks, prevent the country’s most advanced surface-to-air missiles from taking flight, and stop troops from communicating using their portable radios, according to a report.
Congress and the Pentagon are aware of the issue and want throw cash at the problem to solve it, according to a Fox News report.
Late last month, lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee asked for a special fund in the fiscal 2023 defence budget for rare earth minerals. The Pentagon itself is seeking a $253.5 million cash injection for the procurement of strategic minerals, including titanium, tungsten, and cobalt.
Senate Armed Services Committee lawmakers have put together their own bill, dubbed the REEShore Act, seeking both cash for minerals and government incentives to mine them in the USA.
The bipartisan REEShore Act bill was cosponsored by Republican Tom Cotton and Democrat Mark Kelly, with Kelly, a retired astronaut, claiming he could actually see the impact of China’s rare earths mineral mining while flying in space.
“I’ve flown in space over China many times, orbited this planet hundreds of times. You look down over China and you see like what looks like lakes of very strange colours. And it’s because that they’re processing of things like rare earth metals. It’s a very dirty process”, Kelly told Fox.
Cotton warned that the Pentagon’s existing rare earths stockpiles would last “under a year” if China cut off supplies.
Ronald Reagan Institute director Roger Zakheim complained that the US had effectively “given” China its monopoly in this area.
“We’ve essentially ceded it to China and that impacts everything from our F-35 fighter aircraft to the phones that we use every day in our lives,” he said.
The US was a global leader in rare earths production and processing for most of the 20th century, but ceded its position to China in the 1980s, with the PRC now controlling the vast majority of the market thanks to tightened US environmental regulations, globalisation, and warming US-China ties in the 1990s and 2000s.
Amid the slow souring of relations starting in the mid-late 2010s, US officials and media began complaining about China’s dominance in rare earth minerals, with the issue brought up repeatedly during Washington’s trade wars with Beijing during Donald Trump’s presidency. Over the past three years, US officials and the Pentagon have announced a series of plans to diversify rare earths production and processing to Africa, Australia, and even the UK.
The danger of a Chinese cutoff of US access to strategic minerals has garnered fresh attention under the Joe Biden administration amid the heating up of tensions over a broad range of issues, from US commitments to Taiwan and the challenging of Chinese claims in the South China Sea to Beijing’s diplomatic support for Russia in the Ukraine crisis and unsettled trade and technology disputes.
Chinese industry experts have dismissed the US’ ability to quickly or easily replace the Asian nation’s rare earths, with Renmin University of China researcher Chen Xiaoqin telling Sputnik in 2019 that if the Americans could find an alternative to Chinese supplies, they would have done so a long time ago.
Drew Horn, a former US Army Green Beret-turned-founder of GreenMet, a US hedge fund investing in securing strategic rare earth minerals, told Fox it would take a tremendous amount of effort for the US to challenge China’s hegemony in this sector.
“It’s incredibly difficult to synchronise and bring all of it together in a way that actually moves the needle. Because what you’re talking about is essentially creating a vertically aligned supply chain that now only exists in China,” he complained.
The Russian Defence Ministry continues to study materials on the implementation of military biological programs of the United States and its NATO allies on the territory of Ukraine.
Under the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons, each State Party submits an annual report in the form of a declaration of compliance with the requirements of the convention. It is currently the only reporting document on the implementation of the Convention in the framework of the Confidence Building Measures.
Due to the investigation of US military and biological activities on the territory of Ukraine, we have analysed the documents sent by these states to the UN.
It should be noted that neither Ukraine nor the United States provided information on cooperative biological research and development in the area of biological protection in the said submissions (in Form A, Part 2 “i”). Also, Poland and Germany have not declared engagement with Ukraine in their reports.
In addition, in these reports (Form F) for the period from 2016 to 2020, Ukraine states that: “The Government of Ukraine has not conducted and is not conducting any offensive or defensive activities in the framework of biological research and development programmes. The Government of Ukraine does not have any information on such activities of the former USSR on the territory of Ukraine since January 1, 1946”.
This contradicts a May 20, 2022 statement by Lewis Gitter, U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to the OSCE, that assistance to Kiev is aimed at “…reducing biological and veterinary risks, as well as securing the illegal stockpiles of biological weapons left behind by the USSR…”.
In addition, there are numerous inconsistencies in Ukraine’s reporting. Thus, the Confidence Building Measures form A for 2020 declares the complete absence of national biosecurity programmes. The Research Institute of Microbial Strain Biotechnology in Kiev, as a participant in the biological defence programme, is listed in part 2 “i” of this form.
In addition, the characteristics of the facility (area of laboratory facilities, number of staff) do not match the information previously submitted by Ukraine.
The question arises: Why did the US and Ukraine’s reporting documents to the UN not include work under the joint military-biological projects codenamed UP? Such secrecy is another reason to think about the true goals of the Pentagon in Ukraine.
The official documents before you confirm that the Pentagon, represented by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), is organising work with a clear military-biological focus.
Note the memorandum prepared by the Office of the US Secretary of Defense regarding the UP-2 project to map highly dangerous pathogens in Ukraine.
The document notes that the main objective of this project is to collect information on the molecular composition of pathogens specific to Ukraine and to transfer samples of strains.
Separately, it is emphasised that this work should be in line with the main guidelines for the Ukraine Cooperative Threat Reduction Programme on Preventing the Spread of Biological Weapons on November 29, 2005.
A similar memorandum was prepared as part of the UP-1 project to study rickettsia and other diseases spread by arthropods. The document notes the need to transfer all collections of highly dangerous pathogens to a central reference laboratory in order to facilitate their orderly export to the USA.
As part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Programme, an extensive UP-4 project was carried out to investigate the possibility of spreading highly dangerous infections through migratory birds. Documents received show that 991 biological samples were collected between November 2019 and January 2020 alone.
A total of ten such projects (including UP-3, UP-6, UP-8, UP-10) have been reported to have involved work with pathogens of particularly dangerous and economically important infections – Congo-Crimean fever, leptospirosis, tick-borne encephalitis and African swine fever.
Today, we would also like to draw attention to the numerous breaches of safety requirements in Ukrainian laboratories.
For example, work with dangerous pathogens under Pentagon control in Kharkov, Kiev and a number of other cities was carried out in laboratories with insufficient staff protection. However, according to official data, only three laboratories with a BSL-3 biosafety level are authorised to conduct such tests. These are the Odessa Anti-Plague Institute, the Lvov Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene and the Public Health Centre in Kiev.
The Security Service of Ukraine noted the preconditions for the emergence of biological threats due to systematic violations and poor quality of work in the reconstruction of biolaboratories.
Black & Veatch, for example, declared that it spent UAH 37.8m on upgrading three veterinary laboratories in 2013. An independent expert review found that the actual cost of the work was overstated compared to the reported costs by UAH 17.7 millions.
This difference was reportedly sent to the accounts of fictitious companies such as Golden Ukraine, BK Profbudinvest and Capital Trade Agency, which further confirms the use of “grey” financial schemes in the personal interests of US and Ukrainian officials.
It is noteworthy that the US handlers demanded that the reference laboratory in Merefa be given a higher level of biosecurity. The Kharkovproject organisation said that this was not possible under the prevailing conditions and refused to approve the project. However, the regional administration decided to go ahead with the reconstruction. The facility was commissioned in circumvention of biosafety regulations and requirements. In doing so, the Pentagon’s total cost for its modernisation was around $15 million. But where the funds really went is unknown.
Note the report of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine on the results of an inspection of the strain collection of the Ukrainian anti-plague institute in Odessa, which totalled 654 samples. There were 32 strains of anthrax, 189 of tularemia, 11 of brucellosis and 422 of cholera in storage at the facility.
The report shows gross violations of storage conditions for micro-organisms, lack of access control and management systems and inadequate ventilation systems.
In April 2017, there was a case of internal laboratory infection with tick-borne encephalitis in one of the institute’s laboratories as a result of a safety violation.
According to eyewitness accounts of an incident that took place in 2021, an employee of a biolaboratory removed several vials containing dangerous microorganisms from the institution’s premises. The consequences of such cases can only be guessed at.
It should be noted that all violations occurred during the period of the US bio-threat reduction programme. This demonstrates that Washington’s officially declared goals are merely a screen for the implementation of illegal military-biological activities in Ukraine.
The neglect of pathogens, the unprofessionalism and corruption of the executive branch, and the destructive influence of US handlers pose a direct threat to Ukrainian and European civilians.
Russian Defence Ministry experts have confirmed that Ukrainian biolaboratories are connected to the global communicable disease surveillance system.
The backbone of this network, which has been formed by the Pentagon since 1997, is the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (Maryland). It includes land and naval laboratories as well as military bases around the world.
It should be noted that the deployment of such a network follows a typical scenario.
The Americans are initially concerned about the state of the epidemic in the region. The next step is to ensure that officials, particularly those in the health ministries, have an interest and a financial incentive to work together, and to enter into intergovernmental agreements. As a result, a biocontainment facility is erected and connected to the single biomonitoring system. All of the country’s biological developments become the US domain. Moreover, restrictions are placed on local professionals’ access to a range of tests, as well as on their results.
Meanwhile, the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is actively implementing automated disease monitoring hardware and software, as well as systems to control access and movement of pathogenic biological agents in storage and research facilities.
Equipping biological facilities with these information systems as part of the Biological Threat Reduction Program allows the U.S. to secure its military contingents in deployment areas, remotely monitor biolaboratories outside national jurisdiction and influence the global biological environment.
As part of the special military operation, materials of US instructors training Ukrainian specialists in emergency response to smallpox outbreaks were discovered in biolaboratories in Ukraine.
The Pentagon’s interest in this infection is far from accidental: the return of the smallpox pathogen would be a global catastrophe for all mankind.
Thus, compared to COVID-19, this pathogen is just as contagious (infectious), but its lethality is 10 times higher.
As early as 2003, the US Department of Defense established the Smallpox Vaccination Programme, which requires all US military personnel to be vaccinated. Vaccination in the United States is compulsory for diplomatic and medical personnel. This demonstrates that the US considers smallpox as a priority pathogenic biological agent for combat use, and that vaccine prophylaxis activities are aimed at protecting its own military contingents.
Lack of proper controls and biosecurity breaches in the US could lead to the use of this pathogen for terrorist purposes. Between 2014 and 2021, unaccounted-for vials of the virus were repeatedly found in laboratories at the Federal Drug Administration and the US Army Infectious Disease Research Institute (Maryland) and the Vaccine Research Centre (Pennsylvania).
Work at these organisations was in violation of World Health Assembly Resolution 49.10 of 1996, which stipulated that only one US laboratory, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, could store smallpox pathogen.
It should be noted that smallpox vaccination, which is not currently available in many countries, provides protection against monkeypox.
The World Health Organization has announced an emergency meeting of Member States on the outbreak of this dangerous infectious disease in May 2022.
We know that by now 98% of those affected are men over the age of 20 of non-traditional orientation. Earlier, Dr David Hermann, who heads WHO’s emergency department, told the American press that sexual transmission was the main cause of the spread of the disease.
According to a WHO report, the West African strain of monkeypox originated in Nigeria, another state in which the US has deployed its biological infrastructure.
According to available information, there are at least four Washington-controlled biolaboratories operating in Nigeria.
In this connection, it is worth recalling a strange coincidence that needs further specialist verification. For example, according to European and US media reports, the Munich Security Conference 2021, i.e. against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, was a scenario for dealing with an outbreak caused by a new strain of the monkeypox virus.
Against the backdrop of multiple US biosafety violations and the negligent storage of pathogenic biomaterials, we call on the World Health Organisation leadership to investigate the US-funded Nigerian laboratories in Abuja, Zaria, Lagos and inform the global community of the results.
A detailed look into the deliveries of US armaments and weapons shipments to Ukraine.
The US has few ways to track the substantial supply of anti-tank, anti-aircraft, and other weaponry it has sent across the border into Ukraine
Introduction
The U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that the U.S. wants Russia’s military capability weakened so that it cannot carry out another invasion (April 25, 2022). So the U.S. is arming Ukraine against Russia.
The Biden administration sees the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of equipment to be vital to the Ukrainians’ ability to hold off Moscow’s invasion. But the risk is that some of the shipments may ultimately end up in unexpected places.
The decision of the given short-term needs of Ukrainian forces for more arms and ammunition will lead to the long-term risk of weapons ending up on the black market or in the wrong hands was accepted.
Usually, the U.S. military has a great concern about the end-user of the US made weapons and equipment. They have specialized teams to track these weapons and equipment in almost all countries (except North Korea).
This strict rule does not much apply in the case of Ukraine, where there is a great risk. This conscious risk is up to the Biden administration to take.
1- The goal
The goal now is what Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called a “weakened” Russia, one that won’t be able in the future to “do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”
But first, the supplies of weaponry, notably long-range artillery, have to be delivered, and the Ukrainians have to be trained to use new Western systems, a process that is underway but will take time.
The United States and its allies are speeding up the deliveries. But transferring them from Eastern Europe into Ukraine is going to require an unprecedented logistical effort at a time when the main supply lines are increasingly being targeted by Russian missiles.
Figure 3: S-300 missile
Figure 1: Javelin missile
Figure 2: Stinger missile
Figure 3: S-300 missile
Figure 1: Javelin missile
Figure 2: Stinger missile
Figure 3: S-300 missile
2- The Russian Threat
U.S. Officials are less concerned that the weapons may fall into the hands of the Russians.
A source familiar with the US intelligence said that it does not appear that Russia has been actively attacking western weapons shipments entering Ukraine – although it is unclear exactly why especially since the US has intelligence information that the Russians want to and have discussed doing so both publicly and privately.
There are a number of theories for why the shipments have so far been spared, including that Russian forces simply can’t find them – the weapons and equipment are being sent over in unmarked vehicles and often transported at night.
It could also be that the Russian forces are running out of munitions and don’t want to waste them targeting random trucks unless they can be certain they are part of an arms convoy.
The US has few ways to track the substantial supply of anti-tank, anti-aircraft, and other weaponry it has sent across the border into Ukraine, a blind spot that’s due in large part to the lack of US military on the ground in the country – and the easy portability of many of the smaller systems now pouring across the border.
Both current US officials and defense analysts say that the risk is in the long term, because some of those weapons may wind up in the hands of other militaries and militias that the US did not intend to arm.
US intelligence sources have fidelity for a short time, but when it enters the fog of war, they have almost zero. “It drops into a big black hole, and you have almost no sense of it at all after a short period of time.”
In making the decision to send billions of dollars of weapons and equipment into Ukraine, the Biden administration factored in the risk that some of the shipments may ultimately end up in unexpected places.
4- The American politics
The Biden administration is giving new, heavier weapons to Ukraine because the US military is not on the ground, and the US and NATO are heavily reliant on information provided by Ukraine’s government.
Ukraine has an incentive to give only information that will strengthen its case for more aid, more arms, and more diplomatic assistance.
Top of Form
The US and western officials have offered detailed accounts of what the West knows about the status of Russian forces inside Ukraine: how many casualties they’ve taken, their remaining combat power, their weapons stocks, what kinds of munitions they are using, and where.
But when it comes to Ukrainian forces, officials acknowledge that the West – including the US – has some information gaps. Western estimates of Ukrainian casualties are also not accurate, according to some sources familiar with US and western intelligence. “It’s hard to track with nobody on the ground”.
5- The risk
Recently, the US agreed to provide Kyiv with the types of high-power capabilities some Biden administration officials viewed as too much of an escalation risk, including 11 Mi-17 helicopters, 18 155 mm Howitzer cannons, and 300 more Switchblade drones.
a- Where weapons are used
The U.S. Defense Department couldn’t track the weapons sent for particular units, according to Pentagon press secretary John Kirby.
Trucks loaded with pallets of arms provided by the Defense Department are picked up by Ukrainian armed forces – primarily in Poland – and then driven into Ukraine, “then it’s up to the Ukrainians to determine where they go and how they’re allocated inside their country.”
b- Monitoring Tools
A congressional source said that while the US is not on the ground in Ukraine, It has tools to learn what’s happening, noting that the US has extensive use of satellite imagery and both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries appear to be using commercial communications equipment.
The US military views the information it’s receiving from Ukraine as generally reliable because the US has trained and equipped the Ukrainian military for years, developing strong relationships. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some blind spots, such as on issues like the operational status of Ukraine’s S-300s.
Conclusion
Finally, the western supply to Ukraine is certainly the largest supply to a partner country in a conflict. The Biden administration and NATO countries say they are providing weapons to Ukraine based on what the Ukrainian forces say they need, whether it’s portable systems like Javelin and Stinger missiles or the Slovakian S-300 air defense system.
Javelin and Stinger missiles and rifles and ammunition are naturally harder to track than larger systems like the S-300. Although Javelins have serial numbers, there is little way to track their transfer and use.
The biggest danger surrounding the flood of weapons being funneled into Ukraine is what happens to them when the war ends. Such a risk is part of any consideration to send weapons overseas.
For years, the US sent arms into Afghanistan, first to arm the “mujahidin” in their fight against the Soviet army, then to arm Afghan forces in their fight against the Taliban.
Some weapons ended up on the black market including anti-aircraft Stinger missiles, the same kind the US is now providing to Ukraine. Some US officials feared that they could be used by the Taliban against the United States.
Other weapons have ended up arming US adversaries. Much of what the US left behind to help Afghan forces became part of the Taliban arsenal after the collapse of the Afghan government and military. The problem is not unique to Afghanistan. Weapons sold to other countries found their way into the hands of terrorists. The risk of a similar scenario happening in Ukraine also exists.
In the Defense Department, there are raising concerns about the end-use monitoring of weapons being sent to Ukraine.
The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.
The flow of US weapons to Ukraine might be cut off, at least temporarily, unless Congress quickly approves nearly $40 billion in new spending to help Kiev repel Russia’s offensive in the former Soviet republic, the Pentagon warned.
“May 19 is the day we really, without additional authorities, begin to not have the ability to send new stuff in . . .,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Friday. “By the 19th of May, it’ll start impacting our ability to provide aid uninterrupted.”
Weapons shipments to Kiev wouldn’t immediately stop on May 20 without new funding because there would still be some supplies in the pipeline purchased under the approximately $100 million in spending authority that the Pentagon currently has remaining for Ukraine aid, Kirby said. However, he added, but by losing its ability to source new cargoes, the Pentagon would face “a period of time with nothing moving” if there’s an extended delay in the new funding approval.
“We’ve been moving at a fairly fast clip here, both in terms of the individual packages that have been approved and how fast that stuff is getting into Ukrainian hands,” Kirby said. “Literally, every day, there are things going in, and we would like to continue to be able to continue that pace for as long as we can.”
Washington’s latest Ukraine aid package, valued at $39.8 billion, was overwhelmingly approved by the House on Tuesday night, but the Senate failed in an effort to fast-track the bill for approval on Thursday. Senator Rand Paul [R-Kentucky] objected to unanimous consent – a provision that allows for bills with strong bipartisan support to go to a quick vote without debate – after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer [D-New York] refused to add language to the aid legislation requiring that an inspector general be appointed to oversee how the money is spent.
Schumer excoriated Paul for standing in the way of quickly approving the massive aid package and argued that Washington has a “moral obligation” to help Ukraine fight Russian forces. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell [R-Kentucky] also pressed for an immediate vote on the bill, but Paul’s objection meant that passage would be delayed to next week at the earliest.
Paul argued that Americans are already “feeling the pain” of an inflation crisis, which he said was driven by excessive deficit spending, “and Congress seems intent on only adding to that pain by shoving more money out the door as fast as they can.” He added, “We cannot save Ukraine by dooming the US economy.”
Kirby reiterated a Pentagon request to provide new Ukraine funding by the third week of May. “Obviously, we continue to urge the Senate to act as quickly as possible so that we don’t get to the end of May and not have any additional authorities to draw upon.”
An ongoing U.S. bioweapons program in Ukraine was one of the Top Three reasons that led to the launch of Operation Z, Pepe Escobar writes.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, / You cannot say, or guess, for you know only / A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, / And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, / And the dry stone no sound of water. Only / There is shadow under this red rock, / (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), / And I will show you something different from either / Your shadow at morning striding behind you / Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; / I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land: I. The Burial of the Dead, 1922
This glimpse of “fear in a handful of dust” already ranks as one the prime breakthroughs of the young 21st century, presented this week by Chief of Russian Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Force Igor Kirillov.
The provisional results of evidence being collected about the work of U.S. bioweapons in Ukraine are simply astonishing. These are the main takeaways.
U.S. bioweapon ideologues comprise the leadership of the Democratic Party. By linking with non-governmental biotechnology organizations, using the investment funds of the Clintons, Rockefellers, Soros and Biden, they profited from additional campaign financing – all duly concealed. In parallel, they assembled the legislative basis for financing the bioweapons program directly from the federal budget.
COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna, as well as Merck and Gilead – of Donald “known unknowns” fame, and affiliated with the Pentagon – were directly involved.
U.S. specialists tested new drugs in the Ukraine biolabs in circumvention of international safety standards. According to Kirillov, acting this way “Western companies seriously reduce the costs of research programs and gain significant competitive advantages.”
According to Kirillov, “along with U.S. pharmaceutical companies and Pentagon contractors, Ukrainian government agencies are involved in military biotechnology activities, whose main tasks are to conceal illegal activities, conduct field and clinical trials and provide the necessary biomaterial.”
The Pentagon, Kirillov pointed out, expanded its research potential not only in terms of producing biological weapons, but also gathering information on antibiotic resistance and the presence of antibodies to certain diseases among the population in specific regions. The testing ground in Ukraine was practically outside the control of the so-called “international community”.
These findings, amply documented, suggest a vast “legitimized” bioweapon racket reaching the highest levels of the American body politic. There’s no doubt the Russians plan to thoroughly unmask it for the benefit of world public opinion, starting with a War Crimes Tribunal to be set up this summer, most probably in Donetsk.
An ongoing U.S. bioweapons program in Ukraine was one of the Top Three reasons that led to the launch of Operation Z, side by side with preventing an imminent NATO-managed blitzkrieg against Donbass and Kiev’s desire to re-start a nuclear weapons program. These are Top Three red lines for Russia.
The strength of the collected evidence may directly correlate with what was largely interpreted as a carefully measured Victory Day speech by President Putin. The Kremlin does not bluff. It will certainly privilege the meticulous presentation of – bioweapon – facts on the ground over grandstanding rhetoric.
The return of Nord Stream 2
Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyaniskiy announced Russia’s demand for an open meeting of the UN Security Council to present further evidence related to U.S. biolabs in Ukraine. Even if the meeting would be vetoed by the U.S., the evidence will be entered by Russia on the UN records.
These developments provide an extra indication there’s absolutely no space left for diplomacy between Russia and the U.S./collective West, as Polyaniskiy himself suggested when commenting the possible accession of Ukraine to the EU: “The situation has changed after Mr. Borrell’s statement that ‘this war should be won on the battleground’ and after the fact that the European Union is the leader in deliveries of arms [to Ukraine].”
It gets worse. The next chapter is Finland’s drive to join NATO.
The Americans gamble that Finland – and Sweden – joining NATO will totally discredit Putin’s Operation Z as having accomplished next to nothing strategically: after all, in the near future, potential U.S. hypersonic missiles stationed in Finland and Sweden will be very close to Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
Meanwhile, Russian unmasking of the bioweapon racket will drive a toxic section of American political elites to turbo-charge their warmongering. It’s all following a carefully calculated script.
First, these bioweapon-supervising “elites” ordered the massive Kiev shelling of Donbas in early February. That forced the Kremlin’s hand, pushing it to launch Operation Z.
We should always remember that the ultimate goal in the U.S. plan of training Ukrainians for war since 2014 was to alienate Germany from Russia – as Germany de facto controls Euroland economically.
Imperial control of the oceans allows the Empire to strangle Germany at will into subservience by cutting them off from Russian energy – as the British did to Germany in WWII when Britannia ruled the waves. The Wehrmacht could not supply their mechanized army with fuel. Now, in theory, Germany and the EU will have to look to the seas – and total U.S. dependency – for their natural resources.
The remote-controlled Kiev regime dominated by SBU fanatics and Azov neo-Nazis is making it even harder – by shutting off all natural gas from Russia through Ukraine into Europe, reducing the flow by more than one third.
That translates as U.S.-enforced blackmail to force the EU to increase the Ukro-weaponizing against Russia. The practical consequences for Germany and the EU will be dire – in terms of shut down industries and cost of home heating and electrical power.
Russia, meanwhile, will rely on a bolstered Pipelineistan maze to China and East Asia as well as high-speed rail to transport all its natural resources.
Blowback against the Americans though is not off limits. Stranger things have happened. If gas transit to Europe via Ukraine is totally cut off, there are no alternatives. And that – assuming there are working IQs in Berlin – would open the way for a renegotiation on the future of Nord Stream 2.
As the head of the Energy Development Center Kirill Melnikov notes, “the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline is practically idle and one of the Nord Stream 2 lines is also ready for operation though the German regulator has not issued permission for its launch yet.”
That prompted Melnikov to a priceless comment: “If purchases remain the same, Germany will probably need to urgently allow the launch of one of the Nord Stream 2 lines in order to replace the Ukrainian transit route.”
No one ever lost money betting on the astonishing stupidity permeating EUrocrat decision levels. Even facing economic suicide, the EU is desperate to “abandon” Russian oil. Yet a full ban is impossible, because of energy-deprived Eastern Europe.
Every impartial energy analyst knows replacing Russian oil is D.O.A., for a number of reasons: the OPEC+ deal; the ghastly divide between Washington and Riyadh; the never-ending JCPOA renegotiation, where the Americans behave like headless chickens; and the crucial fact – beyond the understanding of EUrocrats – that European oil refineries are designed to use oil from the Urals.
So just when we thought we could enjoy the summer by watching Europe commit hara-kiri, it’s time to stock up on those Aperol Spritz. Get ready for a new hit series, season 1: Inside the American bioweapon racket.
Milley’s personal opinion is to keep, particularly, Iran’s Quds Force on the terror list.
By Al Mayadeen Net
Pentagon general deplores removing IRGC Quds Force off terror list
The Pentagon’s top general, Mark Milley, vocalized that he was against the delisting of the IRGC as a “terrorist organization”.
“In my personal opinion, I believe the IRGC Quds Force to be a terrorist organization, and I do not support them being delisted from the foreign terrorist organization list,” said Milley in a congressional hearing.
What was noticeable is Milley’s particular singling out of the IRGC Quds Force – whose former commander was assassinated martyr, Qassem Soleimani – at a time when Washington contemplates removing the IRGC off the terror list altogether.
Removing the IRGC off the US terror list, to Tehran, is a main condition for the restoration of the 2015 nuclear deal, which was obstructed by former US President Donald Trump in 2018. Trump designated the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization after withdrawing from the deal.
Israelis panic
While Washington discusses removing the IRGC from the terror list, “Israel” tries everything to obstruct the decision.
Israel Hayom expects that “Israel” will continue to make strong statements against the Biden administration’s intent to remove the IRGC from its terror list, saying that even if this leads to foiling the deal in Congress, “Israel” will continue to publicly oppose the nuclear deal.
It noted that it is expected that the Israeli opposition will make it harder for the deal to be approved in Congress, and that “Israel’s” political leadership believes removing the IRGC from the list is “unethical”, and that it jeopardizes the lives of Israelis and others.
The US administration is currently considering the removal of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps from its terror blacklist in exchange for a commitment from Iran to “de-escalate” in the region, according to Axios.
One of the remaining points in the Vienna Talks is the removal of IRGC’s designation as a terror group. The terror designation means that criminal penalties would be imposed on anyone doing business with any individual or entity connected to the IRGC.
Furthermore, Israeli media reported a source close to the US administration as saying that “Former President Donald Trump’s decision in 2019 to put Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on the list was a dangerous and short-sighted move.”
The same source added that the move prioritized rhetoric over the security of the US and its partnership, stressing that including the IRGC on the list had increased Iran’s hostility.
In the same context, the Israeli Channel KAN reported that “the Gulf countries have called on the White House not to remove the IRGC from the list.
On his account, Channel 12‘s political analyst Amit Segal affirmed that “Israel” is not alone in calling on Biden to refrain from removing IRGC from the terrorist list.”
Last Sunday, Israeli PM Naftali Bennett expressed hope that the decision will not go through.
“We are still hoping and working toward preventing this from happening,” he said.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 
