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

About Saving Face: Some Advice to Volodymyr Zelensky

November 28, 2022

Source

By Batiushka

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

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

Ditching the Ukraine

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

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

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

Three Reasons To Surrender Now

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

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

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

Ditching Zelensky

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

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

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

Three Reasons To Run Now

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

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

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

Lies, Lies, Lies

October 13, 2022

Source

By Batiushka

Introduction: Narcissists All

One of the laziest but most effective forms of lying (propaganda/spin) is not simply to tell the opposite of the truth, but rather to lie by attributing to your enemy your own weaknesses. That way you do not have to invent anything, you just make a transfer. An example is how the Kiev regime, which at that time had lost 60,000 dead from their armed forces and claimed that the Russians had lost 60,000 dead from their armed forces, rather than the actual figure of 6,000 (1). Children do this: ‘It wasn’t me, it was him’. This is in fact a form of psychological transfer, used by all narcissists and gaslighters: ‘You are the one who is ill, not me’. And it typifies the narcissistic (‘West is best’) Western mentality.

Thus, in 1854 Commodore Perry forced Japan by military threat to ‘trade with’ the USA, in order to ‘take it out of its isolation’ and that led to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those who lived in those two cities then much regretted their lack of isolation. And as for the USA? It was itself still in a state of cultural isolation, having learned nothing from age-old Japanese culture, but instead imposing its own anti-culture on all and sundry. Or then there was that war criminal General Curtis LeMay who boasted of his potential to ‘bomb back into the Stone Age’ in order to bring freedom and democracy, when in fact his brain was in the Stone Age and he had no idea what freedom and democracy are. Or there is the statement that Russia is corrupted by oligarchs, when in reality ‘Russian’ oligarchs (most of them are Jewish) are purely Western creations from the 1990s, following the model of the only system that the Western world has ever practised – Feudalism, with its economic serfdom (2). What are Musk, Bezos, Gates and Buffett, if they are not oligarchs/feudal magnates?

This technique was clearly displayed in the 2006 Litvinenko and 2018 Skripal cases in the UK. In the first case, a Russian traitor and British spy was murdered by polonium. Now, if you wanted to murder someone (who presented no threat to you) without incriminating yourself, would you rather not just employ a hired killer who would leave no trace? It would be much cheaper. Interestingly, polonium is a very rare radioactive substance, but is available to British secret services. In the Salisbury case of the Skripals, involving a retired British spy, who seemed to be wanting to repent for his treason (he had already served his sentence in a Russian prison), and who was poisoned with a substance available in only about three places worldwide, one of which is twelve kilometres away from where he lived in one of the most fearsome chemical weapons establishments in the world. His murder was bungled, on which Skripal and his daughter were then abducted and ‘disappeared’ (to New Zealand?), though an innocent woman did die of the poison. When questions were asked about some very strange aspects of the case, the British media were issued with a ‘DSMA-Notice’, censoring them and forbidding them to report any further on the matter.

Below are just a few examples of this psychological transfer taken from the current War on Russia (WOR) being conducted by the Western elite in what is still for the moment known as the ‘Ukraine’:

Lies

1. This is a war for the freedom of the sovereign and democratic Ukraine.

Now anyone knows that the Ukraine is run by the hated SBU, or Secret Police, which threatens to examine every e-mail, Viber, Whatsapp or Telegram message for any evidence that you may not support the Kiev regime, which overthrew the previous democratically-elected in 2014 and has genocided part of its population. (By the way, if you do not support the Neo-Nazis in Kiev, expect to be waterboarded – after all the SBU are CIA-trained). The Ukraine – a sovereign country? It is in fact a US vassal, a colonial client-state, which has no sovereignty at all and is run by Jewish (Poroshenko, Kolomoisky etc) and US (Hunter Biden and Monsanto) oligarchs.

2. Ukrainians are against Russia.

Some are. Some are not and they greet Russian logistical aid as liberation. The conflict in the Ukraine is basically being fought between US-backed and Russian-backed Ukrainians. Not surprising when you consider that the Ukraine is a purely artificial State, constructed by monstrous, Non-Russian, Marxist dictators, Lenin in 1922, Stalin in 1939 and Khrushchov in 1954. Interesting to see how the ‘Free World’ fully supports the tyrannical decisions of Communist dictators….

3. The war in the Ukraine started in 2022.

It started in 2014 with the coup d’etat which cost the US taxpayer $5 billion. Read a little history.

4. The rouble will be rubble.

Claimed by Biden last February, the opposite soon became true. It is already the euro and sterling that are rubble.

5. The Russian economy will be in tatters.

Claimed by Biden last February, the opposite soon became true. It is Western economies that are in tatters.

6. Russia is Bankrupt

Claimed by Biden last February, the opposite soon became true. It is Western economies that are bankrupt and above all the Ukrainian economy, which depends on a transfusion costing the US taxpayer $1.5 billion per month. According to today’s edition of the Rothschild comic ‘The Economist’, the Russian economy has never done so well.

7. Putin is dying of cancer and has only weeks to live.

Claimed last February, he seems to have made a miraculous recovery since! Whereas Biden is clearly not always compos mentis….

8. Putin is mentally ill.

Is this why he can make high-level speeches with powers of analysis and depth of logic completely lacking in any Western politician? Biden, Johnson, Truss, Zelensky? Here is where you should be looking for mental illness.

9. The Russian armed forces have run out of fuel.

Claimed last April about the armed forces of the country with the largest oil reserves in the world. On the other hand, Kiev forces clearly lack fuel.

10. The Russian have run out of ammunition.

Claimed last April, they have no shortages at all. After all they have a huge and independent arms industry, with arms so technologically advanced that they do not exist anywhere else in the world. (After all, 80% of the International Space Station is Russian-made). On the other hand, Kiev ran out of ammunition just about that time and now NATO supplier-countries are also running out.

11. Ukrainian refugees are fleeing the war for Europe.

Yes, they are. Over 2,000,000 have fled the Kiev regime’s genocide in the Eastern Ukraine and Russia has more Ukrainian refugees than any other European (yes, Russia is a European country) country. I personally know some of them. In Western Europe we also have a lot of Ukrainian refugees. But with rare exceptions, until now they had no reason whatsoever to flee non-War zones where they lived, apart from the large numbers of young men fleeing conscription into the Kiev Army (bribes of up to $5,000 dollars were being paid to Ukrainian border-guards to get out last March; I know cases). Most of them here in Paris are doctors, dentists, interior designers and other professionals, middle-class and upwards, with German cars much better than those owned by the average Western European. They simply left the Ukraine (where in 95% of the country no war was apparent until a few days ago) to get residence permits in Western European countries. Indeed, 4,000,000 of them have returned to the Ukraine since May, when they realised that Western European streets are not paved with gold and that here you have to work for a living.

12. Russians Commit Atrocities

According to the State-controlled media in Kiev, Russians love to waste their missiles on civilian apartment blocks and cultural edifices, like the Philharmonia in Kiev. They also love to murder civilians, especially babies (though not this time round in Belgium or Kuwait, only in the Ukraine) and they especially target hospitals and primary schools. As the filming from Bucha showed, Russians generally murder people three days after they have left the area (by long-distance hypnosis?) and lay out the bodies of their own supporters from local morgues, face down at regular intervals along roads. This is a great aid to filming.

13. The Russian have killed millions of civilians.

Where are the bodies? On the other hand, the graves of the 14,000, including 400 children, murdered by Kiev since 2014, are visible to all in the Donbass.

14. The Russian have lost hundreds of thousands of troops.

Since fewer than 100,000 have been used, this would be rather difficult, unless the Russians have a technique for resurrecting the dead several times over. If it were true, there would be a public outcry in Russia at such losses. On the other hand, Ukrainian losses….

15. The Russians have so few soldiers that they are recruiting new ones in prisons.

The fact is that the Russian Army, at 1,000,000 and with 2,000,000 reservists, is one of the largest in the world. As for recruiting in prisons, this is the technique of the French government. Any convicted murderer in France is offered a choice: Go to prison or else join the Legion (the Foreign Legion).

16. Russia is preparing to start a nuclear war.

The only nuclear threat made so far has been that made by the British Truss. However, since British nuclear weaponry depends on the USA, she will not be allowed to use it without US permission. And the US are frightened.

17. Putin’s operation is doomed.

Claimed by Western journalists in September 2022, the statement has yet to be justified. On the other hand, the Ukrainian operation…

18. The Russians blew up its own Nordstream Pipelines.

Obviously: The Russians are so logical that they always blow up their own pipelines, especially when Biden has announced that he would do something like this, the former Polish Foreign Minister has thanked the USA for doing it, and the pipelines are in NATO-controlled waters, infested with NATO submarines, underwater drones and divers, and the pipelines are not being used anyway because of illegal sanctions.

Conclusion: Mental and Spiritual Feudalism

I am sure that readers can find a host of other examples, the fruit of the creative writing of State-controlled Western media. We mentioned above economic serfdom, the result of Feudalism, which was nothing but a protection racket run from castles (bizarrely now become tourist sites), surrounded by their concentration camp villages. Indeed, the Italian mafia is only a late leftover of Norman-introduced Sicilian Feudalism, which, like its later form of Capitalism, never knew the difference between price and value. However, worse than economic serfdom is mental and spiritual serfdom. And this is the fruit of the institutionalised system of lies, called the State-controlled Western media.

13 October 2022

Note:

1. This miraculous multiplication reminds me of a Ukrainian Uniat (Greek Catholic) bishop I met many years ago. When I asked him, how many Ukrainian Greek Catholics there are, he answered: ‘700,000, but at the Vatican we always tell them 7,000,000. If you don’t multiply the real numbers by ten, they won’t take you seriously’.

2. For the academically-minded, regarding the history of the development of Feudalism around the eleventh century, French historians are the best, naturally, given that Feudalism began there. See, for instance: La Societe Feodale, Marc Bloch; L’An Mil, Georges Duby; L’An Mil, Henri Focillon; L’Europe est-elle nee au Moyen Age, Jacques Le Goff; Le Pape Leon IX et la Reforme de l’Eglise 1002-1054, Charles Munier; Les Grandeurs de l’An Mille, Pierre Riche. In English, apart from Richard Southern’s studies, you have a translation from French with The Feudal Transformation 900-1200, Poly and Bournazel; and original works by, for example: The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950-1350, Robert Bartlett; The First European Revolution 970-1215; R.I. Moore; The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Authority and Deviance in Western Europe 950-1250, R.I. Moore. In German, apart from the older studies of Tellenbach, you have especially Karl Leyser’s Am Vorabend der ersten europaeischen Revolution. Das 11 Jahrhundert als Umbruchzeit and his lecture in English The Ascent of Latin Europe.

Saving Private Ukraina: The End-Game on the Horizon?

October 11, 2022

Source

By Batiushka

Some commentators on this site have always been impatient for more dramatic Russian military action in the Ukraine, a Red Army Blitzkrieg involving the flattening of Kiev and many other cities. I suspect that, unlike military men, they have no idea of the horrors of real war. Unlike warmongering politicians, who do not do the fighting and do not face getting splattered by the brains and guts spilling out from inside other human-beings alive a few moments before, military men are essentially pacifists.

That does not mean that they are cowards, it means that, as professionals, they want to achieve their aims avoiding losses as far as possible. The aim is not to kill other human-beings. All the more so in the Ukraine, where those opposing you are the same race as yourself and with similar values. Kiev is not going to be flattened, it is a Russian City, indeed, it is called ‘The Mother of Russian Cities’. The SMO is to be implemented with as few losses as possible.

The Ukraine is to be freed, not destroyed. This war is against the USA and its blind but subservient vassals, not against the Ukraine and the Ukrainians. The Ukrainian people are being held hostage. The aim of any liberation is to free and save the hostages, not to kill them. The hostages are not the enemy. The enemies are the hostage-takers, Zelensky and Company. This whole operation is about saving the Ukraine, not destroying it.

Another thing that some in Western countries forget is that Russians have Asian patience. This is quite unlike Western impatience. Russia has not forgotten the Teutonic Knights in 1242, the Poles in the Time of Troubles (1598-1613), the Swedes at Poltava in 1709, Napoleon in 1812, the Franco-British in 1854-56, the Kaiser in 1914, Hitler in 1941, or Clinton in the 1990s.

It is all listed and remembered, just as the Chinese have not forgotten the British-run genocide of the Chinese in the Opium Wars, just as the Indians have not forgotten British atrocities in the First Indian War of Independence (the British call it ‘The Indian Mutiny’) in 1857-8, just as the Iranians have not forgotten the overthrow of their democracy by the British in 1953 and then the torture-chambers of the Shah’s secret police.

The point is that you should not poke the bear. Like Asians, Eurasian Russians have huge patience, but they forget absolutely nothing. When Kiev started its massacres in the Ukraine in 2014, all was noted. After the Bridge, that patience came to an end. The Russians have now appointed as Commander in Chief of what is now an anti-terrorist operation General Surovikin, nicknamed ‘General Armageddon’. His name, which comes from the Russian word for ‘severe’, recalls to any Russian the great hero of 18^th century Russian military history, General Suvorov. My advice to Ukrainians after two days with 200 missiles? Either surrender asap or else get out now. Because, just from the news on 11 October:

The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the USA and the UK of breaking off the March negotiations between Russia and Kiev in Istanbul, which came very near to peace and on terms fairly favourable to Kiev. Now, they were broken off, Kiev is not going to receive terms favourable to it in the slightest. All of this since March has cost Russia too much.

https://news.mail.ru/politics/53430648/?frommail=1

The head of Chechnia, Ramzan Kadyrov (and when he speaks, you had better listen) has said that the Ukraine has for ever lost any chance of an armistice with Russia because of the activities of Zelensky and his ‘satanised gang’. ‘What is happening today is retribution for the children, women and old men murdered and maimed in cold blood. The countries who today pose as pacifists and judge at the same time, and condemn the missile strikes on military, communications and energy-supply targets of the Ukraine, for eight long years could not have given a damn about the fates of those who lived in the Donbass’.

https://news.mail.ru/politics/53428975/?frommail=1

But, in a third story, the Chairman of the Belarussian Security Services, Ivan Tertel, has said in Minsk that he expects the turning-point of the Special Military Operation in the Ukraine to take place between November and February. ‘If the Russian Federation carries out a mobilisation of quality and provides its groups with the technical means and advanced arms, then military operations will enter their key phase’. This follows the announcement on 10 October by President Lukashenko that ‘with the degeneration of the situation on the borders of Belarus and the Ukraine, he and President Putin have decided on a joint regional army, to be formed in the next two days’.

https://news.mail.ru/politics/53428353/?frommail=1

This follows the release of information that the Ukraine has grouped 15,000 soldiers on the border with Belarus, mining roads and blowing up bridges. Something is afoot. Is Russia about to cut off the NATO road and rail supply routes from Poland and stop the supply of the Kiev forces with Western military equipment? Is an invasion about to cut through the West of the Ukraine? This would explain the targeting of Lvov with Russian missiles in the last two days. Since 25 March, when the Ukraine was left defeated, it has been revived only by $1.5 billion a month and military supplies coming from NATO countries, nearly all through Poland, with Rzheszow in south-eastern Poland becoming an important supply hub. Since 25 March this has become a war between Russia and the USA, which is hiding behind its poodles in Kiev and Western and Eastern Europe.

The end-game seems to be on the horizon. The winter conditions of November are three weeks away: enough time to get everything in place. Until then Russia can soften up the Ukraine, sending missiles and destroying the buildings of the hated Ukrainian Secret Police (SBU) in Kiev and Lvov and all manner of military and logistical targets and power plants, without which the Ukraine cannot function. However, Russia will still do its best to save Private Ukraina because it wants to save the Ukraine, not destroy it.

And beyond this, there is another, ultimately far more important, issue. This is the world economic war. Only once the USA has started to see the dollar fall and fail and Western Europe has started to suffer from power failures will things move here. On 8 October, an amendment in the European Parliament calling for the exploration of all avenues for peace in the Ukraine was defeated by 436 to 118 votes. Thus, for the moment nearly 80% of the EU Parliament prefers War to Peace. Last March the numbers would probably have been 554 votes to 0. Things are already moving. Does this mean that 20% of the EU has already come to its senses? Public demonstrations against NATO in Germany, France, indeed all over Western Europe, are taking place. It is the beginning.

The end-game for the Ukraine is then on the horizon. However, beyond the struggle in the Slav province of the Ukraine, saving Private Ukraina, there is the question of saving Private Europe, even indeed saving Private Northern America. This is far more difficult. Ukrainians have been zombified for only 30 years (admittedly the Galician far west for 400 years), but Western Europe has suffered a full thousand years of zombification, first under the pyramid-scheme and racketeering of feudalism (‘give us your cattle, corn and coins, or else we’ll send in the knights from the castle’), today under neo-feudalism (’pay your taxes and shut your mouths, or else we’ll cut you off from your bank card and deprive you of everything that makes your life worth living’).

Dezombifying Western people? Well, if you can drive a wedge between the people and the elite, you have begun. But the whole problem of the Western mentality is one of the self-flattery of infallibility. It began 950 years ago, as the Western Pope was declared infallible (1), then it trickled down to all Catholic clergy, but since then the Reformation democratised infallibility to Western men, then in the last hundred years to Western women, and in the last fifty years to all who accept the Western mentality, regardless of their sex, race, creed and, as they say now, ‘sexual orientation’. This is the foundation of the totalitarian ‘liberalism’ of Secular Humanism: ‘The West is Best and therefore so am I’.

Flatter yourselves in your delusions, if you want. It won’t last. The end-game is on the horizon.

Note:

1. Article 1 of the 1075 Dictatus Papae (‘Dictated by the Pope’) reads: The Roman Church was founded solely by God. Article 2: Only the Pope can rightly be called ‘Universal’. Article 9: All princes shall kiss the feet of the Pope alone. Article 19: He himself may be judged by no one. And Article 22: The Roman Church has never erred. Nor will it err, to all eternity.

Substitute ‘The West’ for ‘The Roman Church’ and ‘The US President’ for ‘the Pope’, and there you have the whole descendance and origin of the UN, sanctions, the WEF and many other horrors you can name.

11 October 2022

Terror on Crimea Bridge forces Russia to unleash Shock’n Awe

The western narrative of a ‘losing Russia’ has just been decimated by Moscow’s blitzkrieg against Ukraine and its foreign-backed terror operations

October 10 2022

Photo Credit: The Cradle

By Pepe Escobar

The terror attack on Krymskiy Most – the Crimea Bridge – was the proverbial straw that broke the Eurasian camel’s back.

Russian President Vladimir Putin neatly summarized it: “This is a terrorist attack aimed at destroying the critical civilian infrastructure of the Russian Federation.”

The head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, confirmed face-to-face with Putin that Terror on the Bridge was carried out by the SBU – Ukrainian special services.

Bastrykin told Putin, “we have already established the route of the truck, where the explosion took place. Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia, Krasnodar… The carriers have been identified. With the help of operatives of the FSB, we managed to identify suspects.”

Russian intel leaked crucial info to military correspondent Alexander Kots. The cargo was ordered by a Ukrainian citizen: explosives packed in 22 pallets, in rolls of film under plastic wrap, were shipped from Bulgaria to the Georgian port of Poti. Afterwards, the cargo was loaded onto a truck with foreign license plates and proceeded overland to Armenia.

Clearance at the Armenia-Russia border was smooth – according to the rules of the Eurasian Customs Union (both Russia and Armenia are members of the Eurasian Economic Union, or EAEU). The cargo evidently avoided detection through X-rays. This route is standard for truckers traveling to Russia.

The truck then re-entered Georgia and crossed the border into Russia again, but this time through the Upper Lars checkpoint. That’s the same one used by thousands of Russians fleeing partial mobilization. The truck ended up in Armavir, where the cargo was transferred to another truck, under the responsibility of Mahir Yusubov: the one that entered the Crimean bridge coming from the Russian mainland.

Very important: the transport from Armavir to a delivery address in Simferopol should have happened on October 6-7: that is, timed to the birthday of President Putin on Friday the 7th. For some unexplained reason, that was postponed for a day.

The driver of the first truck is already testifying. Yusubov, the driver of the second truck – which exploded on the bridge – was “blind:” he had no idea what he was carrying, and is dead.

At this stage, two conclusions are paramount.

First: This was not a standard ISIS-style truck suicide bombing – the preferred interpretation in the aftermath of the terror attack.

Second: The packaging most certainly took place in Bulgaria. That, as Russian intel has cryptically implied, indicates the involvement of “foreign special services.”

‘A mirage of cause and effect’

What has been revealed in public by Russian intelligence tells only part of the story. An incandescent assessment received by The Cradle from another Russian intel source is way more intriguing.

At least 450 kg of explosives were employed in the blast. Not on the truck, but mounted inside the Crimea Bridge span itself. The white truck was just a decoy by the terrorists “to create a mirage of cause and effect.” When the truck reached the point on the bridge where the explosives were mounted, the explosion took place.

According to the source, railroad employees told investigators that there was a form of electronic hijacking; the terror operators took control of the railway so the train carrying fuel received a command to stop because of a false signal that the road ahead was busy.

Bombs mounted on the bridge spans were a working hypothesis largely debated in Russian military channels over the weekend, as well as the use of underwater drones.  

In the end, the quite sophisticated plan could not follow the necessarily rigid timing. There was no alignment by the millimeter between the mounted explosive charges, the passing truck and the fuel train stopped in its tracks. Damage was limited, and easily contained. The charges/truck combo exploded on the outer right lane of the road. Damage was only on two sections of the outer lane, and not much on the railway bridge.

In the end, Terror on the Bridge yielded a short, Pyrrhic PR victory – duly celebrated across the collective West – with negligible practical success: transfer of Russian military cargo by railway resumed in roughly 14 hours.

And that brings us to the key information in the Russian intel source assessment: the whodunnit.

It was a plan by the British MI6, says this source, without offering further details. Which, he elaborates, Russian intel, for a number of reasons, is shadow-playing as “foreign special services.”

It’s quite telling that the Americans rushed to establish plausible deniability. The proverbial “Ukrainian government official” told CIA mouthpiece The Washington Post that the SBU did it. That was a straight confirmation of an Ukrainska Pravda report based on an “unidentified law enforcement official.”

The perfect red line trifecta

Already, over the weekend, it was clear the ultimate red line had been crossed. Russian public opinion and media were furious. For all its status as an engineering marvel, Krymsky Most represents not only critical infrastructure; it is the visual symbol of the return of Crimea to Russia.

Moreover, this was a personal terror attack on Putin and the whole Russian security apparatus.

So we had, in sequence, Ukrainian terrorists blowing up Darya Dugina’s car in a Moscow suburb (they admitted it); US/UK special forces (partially) blowing Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 (they admitted and then retracted); and the terror attack on Krymsky Most  (once again: admitted then retracted).

Not to mention the shelling of Russian villages in Belgorod, NATO supplying long-range weapons to Kiev, and the routine execution of Russian soldiers.

Darya Dugina, Nord Streams and Crimea Bridge make it an Act of War trifecta. So this time the response was inevitable – not even waiting for the first meeting since February of the Russian Security Council scheduled for the afternoon of 10 October.

Moscow launched the first wave of a Russian Shock’n Awe without even changing the status of the Special Military Operation (SMO) to Counter-Terrorist Operation (CTO), with all its serious military/legal implications.

After all, even before the UN Security Council meeting, Russian public opinion was massively behind taking the gloves off. Putin had not even scheduled bilateral meetings with any of the members. Diplomatic sources hint that the decision to let the hammer come down had already been taken over the weekend.

Shock’n Awe did not wait for the announcement of an ultimatum to Ukraine (that may come in a few days); an official declaration of war (not necessary); or even announcing which ‘”decision-making centers” in Ukraine would be hit.

The lightning strike de facto metastasizing of SMO into CTO means that the regime in Kiev and those supporting it are now considered as legitimate targets, just like ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra during the Anti-Terror Operation (ATO) in Syria.

And the change of status – now this is a real war on terror – means that terminating all strands of terrorism, physical, cultural, ideological, are the absolute priority, and not the safety of Ukrainian civilians. During the SMO, safety of civilians was paramount. Even the UN has been forced to admit that in over seven months of SMO the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine has been relatively low.

Enter ‘Commander Armageddon’

The face of Russian Shock’n Awe is Russian Commander of the Aerospace Forces, Army General Sergey Surovikin: the new commander-in-chief of the now totally centralized SMO/CTO.

Questions were being asked non-stop: why didn’t Moscow take this decision way back in February? Well, better late than never. Kiev is now learning they messed with the wrong guy. Surovikin is widely respected – and feared: his nickname is “General Armageddon.” Others call him “Cannibal.” Legendary Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov – also a colonel general in the Russian military – lavishly praises Surovikin as “a real general and warrior, an experienced, strong-willed and far-sighted commander.”

Surovikin has been commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces since 2017; was awarded the title of Hero of Russia for his no-nonsense leadership of the military operation in Syria; and had on the ground experience in Chechnya in the 1990s.

Surovikin is Dr. Shock’n Awe with full carte blanche. That even rendered idle speculations that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov were removed or forced to resign, as speculated by the Wagner group Telegram channel Grey Zone.

It is still possible that Shoigu – widely criticized for recent Russian military setbacks – could be eventually replaced by Tula Governor Alexei Dyumin, and Gerasimov by the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Lieutenant General Alexander Matovnikov.

That’s almost irrevelant: all eyes are on Surovikin.  

MI6 does have some well-placed moles in Moscow, relatively speaking. The Brits had warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the General Staff that the Russians would be launching a “warning strike” this Monday.

What happened was no “warning strike,” but a massive offensive of over 100 cruise missiles launched “from the air, sea and land,” as Putin noted, against Ukrainian “energy, military command and communications facilities.” 

MI6 also noted “the next step” will be the complete destruction of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. That’s not a “next step:” it’s already happening. Power supply is completely gone in five regions, including Lviv and Kharkov, and there are serious interruptions in other five, including Kiev.

Over 60 percent of Ukrainian power grids are already knocked out. Over 75 percent of internet traffic is gone. Elon Musk’s Starlink netcentric warfare has been “disconnected” by the Ministry of Defense.

Shock’n Awe will likely progress in three stages.

First: Overload of the Ukrainian air defense system (already on).

Second: Plunging Ukraine into the Dark Ages (already in progress).

Third: Destruction of all major military installations (the next wave).

Ukraine is about to embrace nearly total darkness in the next few days. Politically, that opens a completely new ball game. Considering Moscow’s trademark “strategic ambiguity,” this could be a sort of Desert Storm remixed (massive air strikes preparing a ground offensive); or, more likely, an ‘incentive’ to force NATO to negotiate; or just a relentless, systematic missile offensive mixed with Electronic Warfare (EW) to shatter for good Kiev’s capacity to wage war.

Or it could be all of the above.

How a humiliated western Empire can possibly raise the stakes now, short of going nuclear, remains a key question. Moscow has shown admirable restraint for too long. No one should ever forget that in the real Great Game – how to coordinate the emergence of the multipolar world – Ukraine is just a mere sideshow. But now the sideshow runners better run for cover, because General Armageddon is on the loose.

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

Massive Wave of Missile Attacks Reported Across Ukraine, Zelensky Confirms Strikes

October 10, 2022

By Staff, Agencies

Multiple missile strikes targeted Ukrainian cities all across the country on Monday morning, according to local officials and media, which attributed the attacks to Russia. This comes two days after a bomb damaged the strategic Crimean Bridge – which Moscow called a Ukrainian terrorist attack.

President Vladimir Zelensky highlighted the attacks on the capital, Kiev and the cities of Dnepr and Zaporozhye, before urging people to take shelter. Local officials in Lviv, Kharkov, and Odessa also reported that their cities came under fire.

The office of Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, reported they had detected at least 75 missiles and claimed they had intercepted 41.

In Kiev, damage from the strikes was reported near the headquarters of the Security Service of Ukraine [SBU], which is located in the government area of the capital. City officials halted operations of the metro system, and the stations are now being used as shelters for civilians.

Kiev mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, issued a statement via his official Telegram account, saying, “Several explosions in the Shevchenskivskyi district – in the center of the capital.”

At least four explosions were heard, the Kiev Independent reported and according to public broadcaster Suspilne, an explosion was heard near a railway station in the city.

A cloud of black smoke was also reported to be seen rising from one area in the city center.

According to Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko, one rocket fell “right in the center of the city”.

“Cars are burning, and windows have been shattered in houses. There are dead,” he tweeted.

The head of Lviv Region, Maksim Kozitsky, reported that elements of the western province’s energy infrastructure came under attack.

Boris Filatov, the mayor of Dnepr, a major city in central Ukraine, confirmed the strikes and said he could only feel “hatred and the wish to fight,” while urging residents to take shelter.

Vitaly Kim, who heads the southern Nikolaev Region which borders Russia’s Kherson Region, reported dozens of projectiles and a number of kamikaze drones coming from Russian troops. He claimed that Moscow was targeting “critical infrastructure” throughout the country.

With similar accounts coming in from many parts of the country, senior Ukrainian officials have expressed determination to fight Russia. “Our courage will never be destroyed by terrorists’ missiles, even when they hit the heart of our capital,” Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov tweeted, also claiming that Russia’s future is that of “a globally despised rogue terrorist state.”

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the explosion. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has, however, declared in a Twitter message that the bombing was “the beginning.”

The blast came amid a February-present Russian “special military operation” in Ukraine, which has been seeking to defend the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk’s pro-Russian population against persecution by Kiev.

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.

Fly like an eagle, Darya Dugina

August 22, 2022

by Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted

Darya Dugina, 30, daughter of Alexander Dugin, a smart, strong, ebullient, enterprising young woman, whom I met in Moscow and had the honor to cherish as a friend, has been brutally murdered.

As a young journalist and analyst, one could see she would carve for herself a glowing path towards wide recognition and respect (here she is on feminism).

Not so long ago, the FSB was directly engaged in smashing assassination attempts, organized by the SBU, against Russian journalists, as in the case of Olga Skabaeyeva and Vladimir Soloviev. It’s mind-boggling that Dugin and his family were not protected by the Russian intelligence/security apparatus.

The key facts of the tragedy have already been established. A Land Cruiser Prado SUV, owned by Dugin and with Darya at the wheel, exploded in a highway near the village of Bolchie Vyazemy, a little over 20km away from Moscow.

They were both coming from a family festival, where Dugin had delivered a talk. At the last minute, Darya took the SUV and Dugin followed her in another car. According to eyewitnesses, there was an explosion under the SUV, which was immediately engulfed in flames and hit a roadside building. Darya’s body was burned beyond recognition.

The Russian Investigative Committee soon established that the IED – approximately 400g of TNT, unencapsulated – was planted under the bottom of the SUV, on the driver’s side.

The investigators consider that was a premeditated car bombing.

What is not already known is whether the IED was on a timer or if some goon nearby pressed the button.

What is already known is that Alexander Dugin was a target on the Myrotvorets list. Myrotvorets stands for a Center for Research of Signs of Crimes against the National Security of Ukraine. It works side by side with NATO collecting info on “pro-Russian terrorists and separatists”.

Denis Pushilin, the head of the DPR, took no time to accuse “the terrorists of the Ukrainian regime” for Darya’s assassination. The inestimable Maria Zakharova was more, well, diplomatic: she said that if the Ukrainian lead is confirmed, that will configure a policy of state terrorism deployed by Kiev.

An existential war

In several essays – this one being arguably the most essential – Dugin had made extensively clear the enormity of the stakes. This is a war of ideas. And an existential war: Russia against the collective West led by the United States.

The SBU, NATO, or quite probably the combo – considering the SBU is ordered by the CIA and MI6 – did not choose to attack Putin, Lavrov, Patrushev or Shoigu. They targeted a philosopher and ended up murdering his daughter – making it even more painful. They attacked an intellectual who formulates ideas. Proving once again that Western Cancel Culture seamlessly metastasizes into Cancel Person.

It’s fine and dandy that the Russian Ministry of Defense is about to start the production of the hypersonic Mr. Zircon as it continues to churn out plenty of Mr. Khinzals. Or that three Mig-31 supersonic interceptors have been deployed to Kaliningrad equipped with Khinzals and placed on combat duty 24/7.

The problem is the rules have changed – and the SBU/NATO combo, facing an indescribable debacle in Donbass, is upping the sabotage, counter-intel and counter-diversionary dial.

They started by shelling Russian territory; spread out around Donbass – as in the attempt to kill the mayor of Mariupol, Konstantin Ivachtchenko; even launched drones against the HQ of the Black Sea Fleet in Sebastopol; and now – with the Darya Dugina tragedy – are on the gates of Moscow.

The point is not that all of the above is irrelevant in terms of changing the facts on the ground imposed by the Special Military Operation. The point is that an upcoming series of bloody psyops designed for pure PR effect can become extremely painful for Russian public opinion – which will demand devastating punishment.

It’s clear that Moscow and St. Petersburg are now prime targets. The Ukrainian ISIS is a go. Of course, their handlers have vast experience on the matter, across the Global North/South. All red lines are gone.

The coming of the Ukrainian ISIS

The cokehead comedian has duly pre-empted any Russian reaction, according to the NATO script he’s fed on a daily basis: Russia may try to do something “particularly disgusting” this coming week.

That’s irrelevant. The real – burning – question is to what extent the Kremlin and Russian intel will react when it’s fully established SBU/NATO concocted the Dugin plot. That’s Kiev terrorism at the gates of Moscow. That screams “red line” in bloody red, and a response tied to the reiterated promise, by Putin himself, of hitting “decision centers”.

It will be a fateful decision. Moscow is not at war with the Kiev puppets, essentially – but with NATO. And vice-versa. All bets are off on how the tragedy of Darya Dugina may eventually accelerate the Russian timetable, in terms of a radical revision of their so far long-term strategy.

Moscow can decapitate the Kiev racket with a few hypersonic business cards. Yet that’s too easy; afterwards, who to negotiate the future of rump Ukraine with?

In contrast, doing essentially nothing means accepting an imminent, de facto terrorist invasion of the Russian Federation: the Darya Dugina tragedy on steroids.

In his next before last post on Telegram, Dugin once again framed the stakes. These are the key takeaways.

He calls for “structural, ideological, personnel, institutional, strategic” transformations by the Russian leadership.

Drawing from the evidence – from the increased attacks on Crimea to the attempts to provoke a nuclear catastrophe in Zaporozhye – he correctly concludes that the NATO sphere has “decided to stand on the other end to the end. They can be understood: Russia actually (and this is not propaganda) challenged the West as a civilization.”

The conclusion is stark: “So we have to go all the way”. That ties in with what Putin himself asserted: “We haven’t really started anything yet.” Dugin: “Now we have to start.”

Dugin proposes that the current status quo around Operation Z cannot last for more than six months. There’s no question “the tectonic plates have shifted”. Darya Dugina will be flying like an eagle in an otherworldly sky. The question is whether her tragedy will become the catalyst to propel Putin’s strategic ambiguity to a whole new level.

Sabotage, terrorist and other diversionary attacks are a real risk for Russia (+addendum)

August 18, 2022

Source

Interesting news two days in a row.  First, the Russian MoD did conclude that the explosions at the Russian airfield in Crimea where the result of a diversionary operation (I use the term “diversionary” in the Russian sense of “diversiia” meaning sabotage/wrecking).  And today, the Russians have announced that they have arrested two employees of the Zaporozhiie nuclear plant (one guard and one engineer!) who were providing the Ukrainians with targeting coordinates and strike correction.  Now Russia is warning that a major strike on this nuclear plant would have catastrophic consequences.

My purpose today is not to discuss the situation around the ZNP, but to treat this as a tip of a much bigger iceberg.

So far, only my friend Andrei Martyanov has mentioned the very real risks of sabotage and/or terrorist attacks by Ukrainian diversionary groups, including the possible sabotage of the Moskva cruiser and the attack on the airfield in Crimea.  As usual, Andrei Martyanov is spot on.  What I want to do next is to expand a little on this topic in my favorite bullet-style format.

• First, it is simply undeniable that the Ukronazi SBU/GUR have proven that they can, and have, conducted very effective diversionary attacks, including the murder of plenty of LDNR leaders.  Sometimes the Ukronazis used special SBU/GUR units, other times they have successfully recruited locals (be it in the LDNR or Crimea) to conduct acts of sabotage and terrorism.
• Second, it is important to understand that while the SMO is not a real civil war, it has definite civil war ASPECTS, beginning with the undeniable reality that there are pro-Russian segments of the population in the Nazi occupied Ukraine but also that there are pro-Urkonazi segments of the LDNR/Russian population.  Thus both sides have people capable and willing to help the other side, including anti-Russian and pro-Ukrainian elements in LDNR/Russian controlled areas (including Crimea)
• Third, besides ideological motives and simple corruption, you have to understand that both the SBU/GUR and the Russian SVR/G(R)U have access to databases which allows them to blackmail a person on the other side into collaboration.  They can use compromising information of any activity (past or present) which can, if made public, get a person in a lot of trouble, but they also can pressure family members, they can even directly threaten and cajole someone into collaboration.  Finally, there are a lot of poor and destitute people on both sides, and they need money badly, maybe not to purchase a multi-million dollar yacht but to, for example, get medical treatment for a family member.  Western special services are very good at spotting and using such people.
• Fourth, as with any other conflict, when a war occurs, there is going to be some people who will benefit from it, but there is always going to be those who will lose a lot and who might be really unhappy about that.  Resentful people make for great recruits for special services (most Soviet defectors betrayed their country not for money, though some did, but because they fell unfairly treated by their superiors or the Soviet state).
• Five, special services are very skilled at 1) spotting vulnerabilities and 2) making use of them.  Since, by definition, humans being humans, there will be such vulnerable people on both sides of the conflict.
• So far, the Ukrainians have already made extensive use of such diversionary tactics, while the Russians have not (at least as far as we know, and there is a lot we don’t know).  The point is not to call one side “good” and the other “bad”, but to realize that both sides can, and will, use such special operations to disrupt the operations, and morale, of the other side.

Now one thing which will have a HUGE impact on this is the Russian decision to basically hand out Russian passports to any Ukrainian wanting one.  No, I am NOT critical of this decision, which was made on both moral and pragmatic grounds, but I will point out that this decision will come at a very real cost: a sharp increase in the numbers of Russians citizens whose true loyalties lie not with Russia, but with the Euromaidan or even Ukronazi ideology.  There are even such people in Russia proper!

The fact that such people are only a tiny fraction of the Russian population is irrelevant: all the SBU/GUR needs is a few, maybe a few tens, of such people.

And yes, of course, this is a direct challenge to the Russian intelligence and security agencies (SVR, FSB, GUSB/MVD, FSO, G(R)U and others).  But the reality is this: no matter how good the Russian intelligence and security services are, you cannot catch absolutely everybody, and neither can you place all potentially suspicious people under 24/7 surveillance (even if you knew who these people are).  The truth is that there will always be “leakers” who will successfully elude detection and interception.  You can catch many hundred of such people, but a few will always seep through the net and they will be used by the other side.

By the way, for the West and the Nazis in Kiev to declare that all the explosions in the LDNR/Russia (including Crimea) are the result of missile attacks makes perfectly good sense!  Not only does it boost the morale of the Ukronazis (Wunderwaffe and all that), it shows the western curators of the Nazi regime in Kiev how “effective” and “combat capable” the Ukrainian military still is.  Last, but not least, giving the credit to missiles is a very logical way to try to move the spotlight away from saboteurs and terrorists.  The Russians perfectly understand that, but the folks in the West apparently not, hence the systematic dismissal of the diversionary operation by so many commentators who prefer to daydream about some super-dooper missiles and other assorted Wunderwaffen and dismiss less “sexy” acts of simple sabotage.

Bottom line is this: if the SBU/GUR managed to recruit 2 employees of the ZNP, whom else do you think they might recruit in the future (or have already recruited)?  Think about folks involved in technical maintenance, transportation, logistics, prisons and POW facilities. etc. etc. etc.  Heck, the Ukies even tried to corrupt a Su-34 pilot and have him fly his Su-34 to the Ukrainian side in exchange for a EU passport and money.  This SBU/GUR plot pathetically failed, and the Russians even managed to get some classified info about the Ukrainian air defenses, which were promptly demilitarized.  However, the main reasons here are probably double: first, Su-34 pilots are definitely a highly motivated elite type, and they are also very closely monitored by Russian counter-intelligence services.  So, maybe next time, the SBU/GUR needs to “aim” for a more modest and less protected target.

And who is to say that the next time around the SBU/GUR will fail?

Some will wonder why the Russians could not do in the Ukraine what they did in Chechnia.  There are many key differences here, including:

• Chechnia is a tiny piece of land compared to the Ukraine and it is comparatively easy to “lock”
• Chechnia’s population is dwarfed by the Ukrainian population (even after millions left)
• There is no equivalent of Ahmad Hadji Kadyrov or his son Ramzan in the Ukraine
• Chechens Takfiris never had the kind of firepower or weapons the Ukronazis do

So no, the precedent of Chechnia does not in any way imply that the Nazis in the Ukraine will be as comparatively quickly defeated as the Takfiris were.

This is a major problem for Russia and, worse, this is a problem which will not go away anytime soon.

The only thing Russians can do is to 1) prepare for a very long counter-intelligence and counter-diversionary operations lasting many years and 2) accept the reality of war for what it is and not freak out the next time the Ukronazis blow up something, be it a ship, a train, an aircraft, a bridge or any other target in the LDNR or Russia.

The one good news the Russians also need to keep in mind is that most of such diversionary/terrorist attacks are still fundamentally part of PSYOPs and are mostly designed for PR effect.  In terms of their actual impact on Russian military capabilities, it is close to zero,  just like the Israeli strikes in Syria have made exactly *zero* difference on the ground in Syria.  To really affect military operations you need to have a large, viable and sophisticated partisan/”stay behind” force, which the Ukrainians do not have, not by a long margin.  Also, to really affect military operations, such diversionary tactics need to be carefully coordinated with “regular” friendly military forces (like the Soviet partisans during WWII who closely worked with the Soviet armed forces).

So yes, this is a problem, a very unpleasant one, one which will be hard to deal with, but not one which will affect Russian military operations.  Even if the Ukronazis blow up both the Chernobyl AND Zaporozhiie NPs, this will not significantly affect the SMO or even the war between Russia and the united West.  The entire Russian military is trained, and well trained, to operate in a hostile nuclear, chemical or bacteriological environment.  As for Russian logistics, they are extremely sophisticated and highly redundant, so even if the Ukronazis blow up one node of the resupply network, it will be quickly fixed and/or easily replaced or bypassed.

That being said, I would personally recommend that we all mentally prepare for what is almost certainly about to happen in the not too distant future.  If we understand what such operation can and cannot achieve we will see them in a sober, pragmatic way, and not cave in to the hysterics (by many sides, including the Russian 6th column) which will inevitable follow any such attack.

Andrei

Addendum: with so many commentators freaking out about a potential meltdown of all the nuclear reactors at the ZNP, I would say this: the reactors themselves are far tougher to strike that the used nuclear fuel storage facilities which are not nearly as well protected.  Again, the real danger is not the one we instinctively think of first.

Gonzalo Lira: Things Are Disintegrating (The Red Tide Is Coming)

May 28, 2022

Things Are Disintegrating

A major national embarrassment is being hidden from Ukrainians

May 23, 2022

Source

By Nikolai Storozhenko and translated

Original Link: https://m.vz.ru/world/2022/5/17/1158916.html

There was no surrender by Azov National Battalion militants, Kiev assures us. There was only an “evacuation” (not clear to where), and this bit of demagoguery was happily picked up by both Ukrainian and world mass media. The effort to conceal the embarrassing truth about the situation on the frontlines is consistent with how Kiev explains the catastrophic state of the economy.

“If I had the Pravda newspaper, the world would have never learned of Waterloo!”, Napoleon Bonaparte said in a famous Soviet anecdote. Pravda is no more, but the anecdote’s punchline holds true, since narratives need not depend on events.

Today the role of the collective Pravda is played by the talking heads on Ukrainian TV (president Zelensky, press secretaries of SBU, Ministry of Defense, political scientists, it doesn’t matter who).

This time Waterloo is the Azov Steel Works with the Azov Regiment militants who have been trapped there (for the most part). Together with soldiers from several AFU brigades, border guards and, as has been persistently claimed by the media, an uncertain number of either mercenaries or instructors. Who was and was not there, we’ll find out soon enough.

The myth of heroic 82 day defense is already actively promoted by Ukrainian media, even though since late March that defense consisted largely of Azovite efforts to break out of the trap. First on helicopters, then with the help of Macron and Erdogan. And recently they’ve tried to involve everyone who came to mind: Israel, UN, Doctors Without Borders, the Pope, and Elon Musk.

In the end, on May 16 and 17 we saw what we were fated to see. Some of the Azovites and AFU soldiers came out of Azov Steel underground, existed using the corridor specified by Russia’s military, were searched and sorted (the wounded to hospitals, the rest to filtration points) and…went into captivity.

Not an evacuation, not an exit, not an “extraction”, but captivity. A simple Russian word, though not a merry one. But that’s what we saw. The Ukrainian viewer saw and was told something entirely different.

The Ukrainian language also contains a word for captivity. But Ukrainian media try to avoid it at all costs.

Azov’s commander was actually the first. Already on the evening of May 16, as if anticipating questions, he said he’s implementing a decision by top military authorities. OK, but what decision? We know, but Ukrainians viewing his statement in a Telegram channel could not understand a thing and said as much.

Then came Zelensky. He mentioned the AFU, UN, ICRC, and at the end: “…soldiers were transported to occupied territory for future exchange.”

Who did the transporting? Not a word about that.

But instead we learned this is called an “operation to preserve the lives of Azov Steel defenders.” Russians think they took someone prisoner. But in reality there’s an ongoing military operation, so stop panicking. And it’s not just any operation. No, it’s an operation by Ukraine’s military intelligence (that’s how it was officially reported)! These announcements were picked up by not only Kiev-controlled media but also the most authoritative (well, until recently) world media platforms, including CNN. They also don’t use the word “captivity”, only “evacuation”!

But since it’s difficult to ignore videos of Azovites going into captivity, Zelensky’s office simultaneously launched several interpretations. Some talking heads tell Ukrainians it’s actually a victory, others that the prisoners should soon be exchanged for Russian soldiers in Ukrainian captivity. But the treacherous Putin cheated the naïve Zelensky. Yet we are dealing with Ukraine’s national embarrassment. People who swore to fight Russians until the last drop of blood surrendered. Kiev is now trying to whitewash that embarrassment.

We can, of course, laugh, and often with a good reason. But that chorus of “not a surrender but carrying out orders”, “not a surrender but an evacuation,” “not an surrender but an exchange” is that Pravda newspaper from the anecdote.

A citizen can focus on a topic for several days. Kiev hopes that by the end of the week everyone will happily forget Azov surrendered, if they are not reminded of it. And who is to remind them of it when Ukraine’s media have been purged and placed under government control?

It’s the same in the economy.

Azov’s surrender is not unique. In April we closely followed the worsening economic situation in Ukraine. At that time top leadership in the person of Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko and President Zelensky actively speculated on the topic of IMF infusions of cash in order to cover budget deficit. The spoke of 5-7 billion dollars a month.

And now Marchenko says that if conflict continues for three or four more months, government will have to cut budgets and raise taxes. Economists debate whether the minister’s assessment is correct or it’s an attempt to exert pressure on the United States and the IMF. There is no need for debates. One can see the same matrix with the budget deficit and the economy as with the situation at Azov Steel.

The matrix consists of a topic to be passed over in silence (captivity), and a whole range of signals mean to camouflage it. We can assume the matrix functions the same way in regard to Ukraine’s economy.

Here the topic to be passed over in silence is the actual state of Ukraine’s economy. Marchenko described it to the Economist, which is not read by most Ukrainians. The monthly sum of 5 billion dollars is presented by Ukrainian media as something the IMF will simply give Ukraine.

They managed to survive March and April due to the taxes collected earlier and war loans. Money is gone even today, and the period of 3-4 months which the minister mentioned is the time during which that fact can be successfully concealed.

Incidentally, one of Marchenko’s complaints concerned military salaries. He called them a heavy burden (they’ve been greatly increased, and the budget did not reflect it). But what then of Ukraine’s minister of defense’s plans to increase the size of the army to one million?

Ratings Wars

The “we have almost won, any minute now” approach might seem naïve. But Kiev has perfected it. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Azof or the economy. It all revolves around the effort to protect Zelensky’s ratings. The purpose of stubborn resistance is the same.

Could Zelensky have resolved the crisis peacefully, since he knew of Russian demands before the start of the operation? Yes, he could have. But then his only remaining course of action would be to resign.

The current situation is not easy, either. The country is in ruins, there are thousands killed, even the closest advisors predict an economic catastrophe. But some of these problems can be solved with money, which means they are not problems but expenditures. The remaining ones can be dealt with Pravda.

Sitrep Operation Z – Where are we?

May 11, 2022

Source

The main observation which one cannot help but agree with, comes from Andrei Martyanov and I rephrase somewhat:

The rate of change is markedly accelerating as the first result of the crumbling and implosion of the Ukraine as a state and the structure of its armed forces.

Things will go quicker now and they are, as discussed further!

First though, pure fantasy. We call it ‘narrative’ but it is fantasy!

This was found on a Ukrainian site : https://t.me/ice_inii

Take a look at a few things here: The US influence, the fantasy of being the Robin Williams character in the movie Good Morning Vietnam and the fantasy of being the gook! These fighters live in a movie. And then, the breakdown of the fantasy. This is another example of exactly what Martyanov means.

We stay for a moment in fantasy.

Andrei Martyanov commented on Lieutenant-General Kellog who, contrary to his statement about “everything he learned about war”, never learned shit.  http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/05/when-bs-meter-goes-off-scale.html

A quick comparison of the US and the UK commentary on Putin’s speech

Here we have UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace. This can only be classified as repugnant and if Kellog according to Martyanov ‘never learned shit’, this one only ‘talks shit’. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/speech-by-defence-secretary-on-russias-invasion-of-ukraine

A short snippet:

“I thought about the scale of their (ordinary Russian soldier) suffering across the Soviet Union, but also how the suffering was used, then as it is now, to cover up the inadequacy of those ruling in safety and comfort from behind the Kremlin walls above and within the General Staff nearby.

Foreign Minister Baerbock has no idea what she is saying and her grasp of history is non-existent.

“Germany is responsible for the defense of Ukraine and all of Europe,”

Zelensky, besides his other problems, is tone deaf ..

Anti-Zelensky journalist Gonzalo Lira released by SBU

23 Apr 2022

Source: Agencies

By Al Mayadeen net 

The American-Chilean journalist Gonzalo Lira has made his first online appearance confirming he was picked up by the SBU.

Lira confirmed he was “picked up” by the SBU on April 15

Chilean-American writer and filmmaker Gonzalo Lira, who was residing in Ukraine, lost contact with his family and acquaintances on April 15, and has made his first reappearance online since.

Yesterday, Lira had a video conference with Alex Christoforou, in which he confirmed he was in Kharkov and “a little rattled,” after he was picked up by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on April 15.

He stated that he did not have his phone or laptop during the time and that anything posted on his Twitter and Telegram feed should be discounted.

Lira thanked the people for caring about his absence, and advocated concern for others that have disappeared, highlighting some of them have been killed.

Lira confirmed he was physically okay, and stated that he was unable to give any details publicly at the moment. 

He explained that the authorities in Kharkov have told him he cannot leave.

BREAKING: Gonzalo Lira captured by SBU. Does not appear to have been tortured.#WhereIsGonzaloLira https://t.co/xv0zCtECaS

— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) April 22, 2022

Lira’s last tweet on March 26 was: “Want to know the truth about the Zelensky regime? Google these names Vlodymyr Struk, Denis Kireev, Mikhail and Aleksander Kononovich, Nestor Shufrych, Yan Taksyur, Dmitri Djangirov, Elena Berezhnaya; if you haven’t heard from me in 12 hours, put my name on the list.”

Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Thursday she hoped Gonzalo Lira Lopez who disappeared following his criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was alive and well.

The journalist provided on-the-ground coverage of the war in Ukraine from Kiev at first and then from Kharkov, Zakharova said, adding that his reporting drew the attention of the Ukrainian security services and the far-right nationalist Azov battalion.

Still looking for confirmation on the whereabouts of Gonzalo Lira

April 20, 2022 

Eva Bartlett

A couple of days ago, I noted that Chilean citizen journalist Gonzalo Lira was no longer reading/replying to messages on Telegram, not in character as he usually replied very quickly.

Worrying that @realGonzaloLira has been offline for longer than usual. I messaged yesterday, he hasn't read, he usually replies quite quickly.

Wishing for his safety, I share his grim warning of late March, knowing well what Zelensky's regime & Nazis around him are capable of. pic.twitter.com/bso0tgw3qD

— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) April 17, 2022

In late March, he pinned a tweet stating that if he was offline for more than 12 hours, add his name to a list of journalists and people disappeared (killed) by Ukraine (whether by the Ukrainian SBU or by the Nazis in Ukraine).

Like others, my last communication with him was morning (Moscow time) April 15:

Since then, no one can confirm his whereabouts.

There are a couple of possibilities at this point.

He is in hiding.

He has been captured and worse by the Ukrainian army or by the Nazi criminals in Kharkov.

I hope he is safe & we hear from him soon.

I am now in Donetsk. I was offline since I left Moscow afternoon of the 18th and until I got here yesterday afternoon. I had no mobile connection for most of that time, so am catching up on what information we have on Gonzalo’s disappearance.

Gonzalo was due to appear on different media in subsequent days but has not.

On April 18, journalist Dan Cohen tweeted that someone was accessing Gonzalo’s Telegram & reading Dan’s messages.

My last Telegram messages to Gonzalo have double checks, indicating that whoever has access to his account has seen them. So the issue doesn’t seem to be internet connectivity.

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) April 18, 2022

Nadezda Kuznetsova, Former Journalist at Московская правда, noted:

“For those who are seeing strange activities on Telegram channels of the people who have disappeared in Ukraine and have been supposedly kidnapped by SBU or neo-Nazi formations, Ukrainian authorities can break into the Telegram account via the mobile operator if it is in Ukraine. They did it to many Ukrainian opposition members.

For instance, they have broken into and are now using Tatiana Montyan old verified account ( The real Tatiana is now on the new, unverified channel.) She did apply to Pavel Durov and Telegram support team, so did thousands of her followers – no reaction.

And once again – they don’t need your mobile device or even password. As long as you are using a Ukrainian mobile net. So don’t be fooled seeing some unusual activity on Gonzalo Lira`s Telegram channel – it means… the activity is most likely not by him.”

There are claims, by Ukrainian Nazis & their grotesque media cheerleaders embedded with Nazis, that Gonzalo has been captured, but no evidence has been provided.

A so-called "journalist" cheering the capture of Gonzalo Lira! 🤢⬇️@EvaKBartlett @VanessaBeeley @KitKlarenberg @PiersRobinson1 @KevorkAlmassian @manaf12hassan @Malinka1102 @wyattreed13 @Dr_ShahidPk @ElefantImRaum2 @MichaKobs https://t.co/UOufUAn6vh

— Carmen Renieri (@RenieriArts) April 18, 2022

Note, this supposed journalist is embedded with Nazis:

What did you expect from the so-called 🇺🇸 "journalist" embedded with #Ukraine #Neonazis? pic.twitter.com/e15MBxmhtb

— Malinka🔸Tanya P (@Malinka1102) April 18, 2022

She also refers to Russians as “orcs” and “pig dogs”, “not human”.

her tweet

Twitter search

This is the mentality of the extremists in Ukraine & their supporters.

As for the claims of his capture, I truly hope this is merely fear-mongering (to dissuade Gonzalo from speaking out further on the crimes of the Nazis in Ukraine as he has been doing, to dissuade others from doing the same)…

For more information:

-See Kevork Almassian’s informative video on Gonzalo’s disappearance & the threat which Ukraine and the Nazis in Ukraine pose Gonzalo & other citizen journalists, journalists, and normal citizens, even.

Please watch & share: -Read Vanessa Beeley’s compiled list of *some* of the journalists assassinated by the Zelensky regime.

-Read my own 2019 interview with wrongly imprisoned Ukrainian journalist & editor, Kirill Vyshinsky, to illustrate how Ukraine trumps up false charges to imprison, torture, assassinate journalists.

-Do also note this tweet

#IMPORTANT—#Ukraine|ian #SBU (State Security Service) have kidnapped, from his own home in #Odessa, journalist, physicist, progressive Yuri #Tkachev, a neutral observer of war in #UA, whose sole fault was that he did not cheerlead on the #Zelensky regime, but loved Ukraine. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/3aO5AF4w2W

— Gleb Bazov (@gbazov) March 19, 2022

Ukraine & Western media will of course paint those abducted, imprisoned and murdered as somehow deserving of these criminal acts. The bottom line is that Ukraine has since the 2014 violent coup been brazenly targeting, murdering, imprisoning its civilians, journalists, opposition party members…and killing (formerly eastern Ukrainian) citizens of Donbass.

Just another reminder, you who “Stand with Ukraine” are literally standing with Nazi murderers, you are standing for a country ruled by these criminals & where civilians are not safe, much less journalists or opposition party members.

Oleg Novikov—opposition activist from my city, Kharkov, persecuted in the past by the Zelensky regime—was kidnapped 5/04/22 at 6am by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and taken to an unknown place. Oleg is disabled and has 3 young children. (Pic is from a previous arrest) pic.twitter.com/KSeHYC7DWJ

— Gonzalo Lira (@realGonzaloLira) April 9, 2022

Related: My article, “I’m on a ‘hit list’ Kiev allows to silence dissent & journalism. That’s all you need to know about Ukrainian ‘democracy’”

“It seems to be a hit list, a target for journalists or anybody that goes against the grain in Ukraine. If you’re reporting on them, they see you as some kind of threat and put you on this list.

…the personal data of journalists, artists or politicians who have visited Crimea, Donbass, or for some other reason have caused a negative assessment of the authors of the site, have been blacklisted by Peacemaker…

A few days before his death, Oles Buzina’s details had been posted on Mirotvorets website, created with the initiative of Anton Gerashchenko, the Ukrainian deputy minister of internal affairs. People listed on it are recommended for liquidation and arrest…

in April 2015, the then-adviser to Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashchenko stated that the work of the site was “extremely important for the national security of Ukraine.”

Zelensky has refused to have the website shut down…”

Russia Today Report Disappearance of Gonzalo Lira

APRIL 19, 2022

The 2nd phase of the Russian SMO + personal note

April 19, 2022

Dear friends

While there are not official confirmations (that I know of) from the Russian military, it appears that Lavrov is the first, and so far only, Russian official who declared that the 2nd phase of the operation has begun.  Truth be told, pretty much everybody else thinks likewise.  Considering the intensity of Russian bombings and artillery strikes overnight, which were reported by numerous sources, it certainly appears reasonable to me to conclude that this 2nd phase has indeeed begun.  For example, the Russian defense ministry reported on Tuesday morning that its troops had delivered artillery strikes at 1,260 Ukrainian military targets overnight, including 1,214 locations where Ukrainian troops amassed their forces.

How long this phase of the war will last is anybody’s guess.  Optimists think a week, pessimists a month, but in reality nobody really knows because the outcome will be determined not by maneuver like during the first phase, but by logistics, specifically fuel and ammunition, in other words by mobility and firepower.

I remind you that the Ukronazi forces in the eastern Ukraine have been in a de facto “cauldron” (as I explained, you can be physically surrounded or you can be “blocked by fire”) since over one month, and that the Ukrainians were not able to meaningfully resupply them while the Russian side has quasi limitless fuel and ammo (in spite of the Pentagon’s hallucinations).  Russia also has air supremacy and very heavy weapons, neither of which the Ukrainians have.

In other words, while the Nazi forces in the eastern Ukraine get slaughtered, the US administration in Kiev will have to change the narrative about “the glorious Ukrainian military is winning” to “Russians are killing babies” (without ever wondering WHY and HOW civilians and even kids ended up inside the Avtostal complex, assuming the recent photos of kids hiding there are real and not made in Kiev).

Nobody really knows how many Ukrainians are still in the Donbass cauldron, and neither do we know how their morale and determination to stand and fight to the end is.  For all these reasons giving even an approximate timeframe for this battle is impossible, at least for me.

This week is Passion Week for Orthodox Christians and I will be leaving tomorrow to attend the church services in our parish, about a 4 hour drive one way, so I will stay there until very late Sunday evening.  In other words, my presence at the blog for the next 6 days will be minimal, I will travel with a laptop, but I will mostly be busy with the preparations for, and the celebration of, Holy Paskha.

So I leave you in the tender care of my colleagues Amarynth and Herb who will continue to post guest posts and keep you informed.

For daily reports, I suggest you follow the (excellent) situation reports written by Nightvision.  Just please keep in mind that due to the nature of this second phase, there will be less maps of troop movements and that moving one or two kilometers against the very heavily and deep defenses of the Ukrainians might mean much more than moving 10 or 20 kilometers on open terrain.

By the way, the Empire of Hate and Lies knows the true score, and they are massively freaking out.

They are now even declaring war on old Russian musical instruments.  As for “Ze” – he has now become a UN National Hero:

Will these infantiles every grow up?

I doubt it, if anything, their antics “by infantiles – for infantiles” combined with the most massive exercise in world history to “cancel” any “wrong” information, show both how desperate and helpless these folks are.

As for the Nazis occupiers, they just passed a law allowing foreigners to work for the Ukrainian “intelligence” services.  What a surprise, at least for those who had not realized that the USA has been running the SBU, and everything else, in Nazi occupied Ukraine since the Euromaidan (and even before).

In conclusion, I just want to end with a reminder.  This is not a war between Russia and the Ukraine.  This is a war between Russia and the united West, the latest one is a series going back at least a thousand years.  Russia has been singled out for “cancellation” and we don’t want to be canceled.

While for eight years Russia did all she could NOT to get involved, the Empire of Hate and Lies did successfully force her into an open military intervention in the Ukraine, and now that Empire will do all it can to prolong that war and have it result in the maximal loss of human life and the total destruction of the Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, exactly the OPPOSITE of what the Kremlin wants: to disarm and denazify the Ukraine with the minimum of human loss of life and with as much of the civilian infrastructure preserved as possible.  These goals are as asymmetrical as can be, and it is much MUCH easier to destroy than to preserve.  Please keep that in mind when the next propaganda Tsunami hits.

One last request: unless this is both urgent and important, please do not email me between today and next Monday.  I will have very little time to reply, and I rather stay focused on the spiritual matter during these sacred days.

Many thanks and kind regards

Andrei

Testimony Reveals Zelensky’s Secret Police Plot to ‘Liquidate’ Opposition Figure Anatoly Shariy

April 14th, 2022

Accounts from the Ukrainian SBU’s torture prison reveal Zelensky’s plot to assassinate exiled opposition figure and leading journalist Anatoly Shariy.

By Dan Cohen

Source

KIEV, UKRAINE — On March 7, Anatoly Shariy, a Ukrainian opposition figure and one of the country’s most popular journalists, received an email from Igor, an old acquaintance with whom he had not communicated for years (Igor is an alias used to protect his identity).

“Please help me find a place to live, suggest an apartment or an agent. I’m ready to do any work for you, whatever you say,” the email read.

“I realized that he was in the hands of the SBU,” Shariy told me, using the acronym for Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency, notorious for its persecution of anyone accused of sympathy for Russia. “I understood whom I was talking to and did not particularly answer anything.”

Shariy suspected that the SBU wanted Igor to surveil him for an assassination attempt.

Four days later, Shariy received an email from a different address. This time, it was Igor, confirming Shariy’s suspicion that the first email had been written by an SBU agent. Igor explained that he had been interrogated and tortured for his ties to Russia.

“I realized that the SBU officers were preparing an assassination attempt on Anatoly and decided to agree to warn him that his life was in danger,” he told me in a phone call.

Shariy has lived in exile since 2012, having fled during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych and received political asylum in the EU. His opposition to the 2014 Maidan coup d’etat grew his profile and made him a target of Petro Poroshenko, who came to power in its wake. The neo-Nazi movements he had exposed in prior years had gained serious political power and intensified their aggression against him. In 2015, Lithuanian media branded Shariy as a “favorite friend of Putin,” and the Lithuanian government soon revoked his asylum. Shariy, meanwhile, had sought protection elsewhere and relocated to Spain, where he has continued to grow into one of the most popular critics of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

However, his predicament has hardly improved. In 2019, Alexander Zoloytkhin, a former soldier of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, published the address and photos of the house where Shariy, his wife Olga Shariy and young child live, as well as photos of Olga’s car. Ukrainian neo-Nazis demonstrated outside his house and he received numerous death threats.

Today, he is a top target of the Kiev government, neo-Nazi paramilitaries, and the SBU.

‘I helped him to become the president’

Shariy began his career in journalism in 2005, first writing for women’s magazines, and then conducting investigations into Ukrainian oligarchs, organized crime, and neo-Nazi networks.

He became a well-known critic of the 2014 U.S.-orchestrated Maidan coup d’etat, using his YouTube channel video blog to amass an enormous online following. Today, he has nearly 3 million subscribers on YouTube, 340,000 on Facebook, and 268,000 on Twitter, becoming one of the country’s most popular journalists despite living outside its borders for a decade.

In 2019, months ahead of the presidential election, Shariy founded a center-right Libertarian political party, naming it after himself: The Party of Shariy. Appealing to young professionals and small and medium business owners, Shariy’s online popularity transformed him into an important player in building a coalition, consistently polling between three and six percent.

Shariy actively supported Zelensky during the campaign, attacking the incumbent Poroshenko. “I thought he [Zelensky] was determined to follow up on his election promises. I helped him to become the president. It’s true me and my team did anything for him to get the post,” Shariy told m

Shariy’s activists were effective in disrupting Poroshenko’s campaign events.

“We were following Poroshenko everywhere we went with his pre-election tour. There were so many people in each city and town organizing themselves in groups and asking Poroshenko hard questions,” Shariy recalled.

In one July 2019 event, Shariy’s supporters trolled Poroshenko’s campaign motto – “Army – YES, Language – YES, Faith – YES” – answering “Shariy” instead of “YES.”

But Zelensky’s carefully-crafted campaign image of a political outsider dedicated to stamping out rampant corruption – copy-pasted from his hit television series, “Servant of the People” – turned out to be a farce.

Zelensky cut deals with oligarchs and stacked his cabinet with the same figures he spent his campaign criticizing. He spurned the coalition-building efforts that typify Ukraine’s multi-party parliamentary democracy, preferring to cut backroom deals for votes. He even sided with his former bitter rival Poroshenko’s own party in Odessa’s 2020 municipal elections despite his famous quote during the pre-election debates when he told Poroshenko, “I AM YOUR VERDICT” – “Я – ваш приговор”.

“When I realized he was not intending to change anything, the corruption was the same or even worse, we changed our mind,” Shariy said.

Following Zelensky’s victory, he proceeded to eliminate state funding for parties that received under 5% of the vote in the elections. Shariy’s party, having received only 2.23%, was among those that were cut off.

Spurned by the new president who he helped get elected, Shariy publicly denounced Zelensky, remarking that he should “curtail their state funding and shove it up their ass.”

Zelensky betrayed his campaign promises of reform and meaningful progress in the Donbass stalemate, leading to a rapid decline in popular support. This left a niche open which was quickly filled by the Party of Shariy. While older voters traditionally supported Viktor Medvedchuk’s “Opposition Platform – For Life”, Shariy’s online presence and style appealed to younger generations.

On the ground, Party of Shariy activists began to protest Zelensky with the same tactics they had wielded in his favor against Poroshenko, appearing at his events and demanding his resignation.

As Shariy gained political capital and was even considered a possible contender for the presidency in a future election, the war of words between him and Zelensky turned into a bitter rivalry.

Zelensky lashed out at Shariy, accusing him of “trying to increase your rating at the expense of my rating, the rating of the president.”

Ukrainian journalist Yuri Tkachev, who was recently arrested by the SBU, commented that Shariy’s party is much stronger than the polls indicate. “It is strange to think that the government would spend so much energy on an insignificant opposition party. All this makes us think that their ratings are higher than they are trying to show us,” he remarked.

Hunting dissidents on a political ‘safari’

Throughout the election, the anti-Poroshenko antics of the Party of Shariy were met with severe violence from the president’s base, which included ultra-nationalists and neo-fascists. Some who dared to ask Poroshenko difficult questions were beaten. In Zaporizhzhya, a man’s car was set on fire and a woman was assaulted by Poroshenko himself.

This violence continued after Zelensky won the election and his rivalry with Zelensky intensified.

At a June 2020 demonstration in which Party of Shariy members demanded an investigation into the politically motivated attacks on their members, neo-Nazi groups attacked using smoke bombs and tear gas, followed by brawls inside the subway. Afterward, these groups announced a political “safari,” offering rewards for attacks on Party of Shariy members. This marked the escalation of violence meted out against the political opposition, especially targeting the Party of Shariy and its supporters.

In one incident, masked men beat a young man in Kharkiv, leaving him severely injured and hospitalized. In Vinnytsia, men from the neo-fascist group Edelweiss beat a party member in broad daylight, breaking his ribs and puncturing a lung. In another incident, a member of the U.S.-trained neo-Nazi Azov Battalion attacked a member inside their party office.

While members of his party were beaten in the streets and inside their offices, Shariy was under threat. On July 8, 2020, he accused Zelensky of ordering his assassination, publishing a confession given to Catalan Police by Zoloytkhin, the man who had published his address the year before. Zoloytkhin was wanted in Ukraine for numerous serious crimes, including participation in the 2016 kidnapping and beating of journalist Vladislav Bovtruk. Zoloytkhin confessed to police that top figures in the Zelensky government had instructed him to murder Shariy, and Shariy published a video confession from Zoloytkhin.

In February 2021, the SBU charged Shariy with treason, accusing him of “spreading Russian propaganda,” and summoned him to an interrogation by the SBU. After he declined to appear, he was put on the national wanted list.

Shariy is blacklisted on Myrotvorets (Peacemaker), an online database of what its owner declared “enemies of the state,” containing personal information and addresses. The blacklist is affiliated with the Ukrainian government and SBU and was founded by Anton Herashchenko, now an advisor to Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs. The site accuses Shariy of violating the sovereignty of Ukraine and financing terrorists.

Multiple figures were killed soon after their names were added to the list. On April 15, 2015, Oleh Kalashnikov, a politician from the pro-Russia Party of Regions, the party of ousted president Victor Yanukovych, was shot to death in Kiev. The next day, Oles Buzina, a prominent journalist and author who advocated for unity among Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia and campaigned to outlaw neo-Nazi organizing, was shot and killed near his apartment. The culprits were found to be Andrey Medvedko and Denis Polishchuk, neo-Nazis who had served in government and military positions – their confessions were published by Shariy. Yet Buzina’s murderers not only walk free but have received government funding.

The scene of Oles Buzina’s murder. Credit | Ruptly

Zelensky has opened numerous criminal cases against Shariy. He personally enacted sanctions against him, his wife Olga Shariy, and his wife’s mother, Alla Bondarenko. Shariy’s political party was banned in Zelensky’s sweeping March 20 decree that criminalized all opposition parties, accusing them of ties to Russia.

‘An ordinary person confesses at least to the murder of John F. Kennedy’

Prior to the Russian offensive, Shariy appeared often on Russian television, positioning himself as a neutral alternative to Zelensky and his regime of pro-EU neoliberals and neo-fascists. When Russian tanks rumbled across the Ukrainian border, he immediately denounced the invasion, calling the Kremlin foolish for invading a country that he believed would collapse on its own. Nonetheless, the threats against him intensified and Zelensky sought to eliminate Shariy from political life and kill him altogether.

On March 2, Ukrainian intelligence agents arrived at the Kiev home of Igor. The following is an account he gave to MintPress over the phone on April 7.

They took him into custody, handcuffing him and placing a sack over his head, then took him to a sports complex-turned temporary prison, connected to the main SBU headquarters, located in central Kiev between Vladimirskaya, Irininsky, Patorzhinsky, and Malopodvalna streets. Originally constructed as a Trade Union Palace following the Russian revolution, this building became the Bolshevik headquarters of Ukraine. Since 1938, it served as headquarters of the Gestapo during the Nazi occupation, the NKVD of the U.S.SR, and today, as a torture center for Russian prisoners of war and Ukrainians accused of having ties to Russia.

Inside the narrow underground rooms converted to an expansive state security complex, Igor says, SBU agents oversee members of the “Territorial Defense” – ultra-nationalist civilians and criminal elements who the government gave weapons in the streets in the first days of Russia’s offensive – as they beat, torture and even kill their prisoners.

Numerous prominent figures have been kidnapped and tortured by the Territorial Defense and the SBU. Among them are mixed martial arts fighter Maxim Rindkovsky, who was beaten on video and allegedly killed, Denis Kireev, the Ukrainian negotiator who was murdered after being accused of treason, and Volodymyr Struk, the Mayor of Kreminna, who was murdered after being accused of supporting Russia. Even Dmitry Demyanenko, former SBU head of the Kiev region, was shot dead in his car on March 10, accused of sympathy for Russia.

Russian MMA fighter Maxim Ryndovsky was captured by Ukrainian forces.

There is a horrifying video of him being tortured. I will not post it, but it's becoming a big story in Russia.

Authentic Ukrainian war crimes are now being used to justify escalating the war. pic.twitter.com/9xYrxJbSnn

— Clint Ehrlich (@ClintEhrlich) March 5, 2022

In fact, the SBU is a project of the CIA. Following the 2014 coup, the security service was headed by Valentin Nalyvaichenko, who was recruited by the CIA when he was the Consul General of Ukraine in the United States. The CIA reportedly has an entire floor in the SBU headquarters.

In November 2021, Zelensky appointed Oleksandr Poklad to head the SBU’s counterintelligence. A former lawyer and cop with ties to organized crime, Poklad is nicknamed “The Strangler” – ​​a reference to his favorite method of obtaining testimony from his victims. One article describes another torture method known as ‘The Elephant:’

“A gas mask is put on the victim of torture, and pepper tear gas from a spray can or a poisonous aerosol such as dichlorvos is launched into the gas mask hose. After such torture, an ordinary person confesses at least to the murder of John F. Kennedy.”

Shariy say Zelensky's SBU intelligence – which he likens to Hitler's SS – is using the Russian offensive as a pretext to carry out crimes.

"No one can help these people now." pic.twitter.com/1XsuuQqrUo

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) March 20, 2022

The United Nations and Amnesty International have both documented SBU torture prisons.

The SBU also closely collaborates with neo-Nazi groups including Right Sector, Azov, and C14, which was contracted by the Ukrainian government to conduct street patrols.

‘A small Guantanamo’

Inside the sports complex-turned temporary torture prison, Igor says the sack over his head was replaced with a blindfold, leaving him only he could only see his legs.

A Ukrainian businessman who had long worked in transportation logistics – including stints in Moscow – a story typical of many Ukrainians, since returning to Kiev, Igor had maintained business ties to Moscow and Crimea, which had joined the Russian Federation after a successful referendum in 2014.

Several family members, including his mother, live in Russia and he regularly visited them until relations between the two countries reached a boiling point in 2021. “With the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the events of February 24, my mother started to call me very often because she was very afraid of my status,” he told me.

Territorial Defense began to round up anyone suspected of sympathizing with Russia, as well as Ukrainians with cross-border ties, whether family or business.

Inside the makeshift prison, Igor says he identified 25 to 30 distinct voices of imprisoned men, and saw 10 to 12 men in Russian military uniforms, what he believes were prisoners of war. Two of the Russians were severely beaten in order to motivate the others to give on-camera testimony about their hate for Putin and opposition to the war.

Other detainees were religious people known for assembling at military installations to pray for peace and homeless people who had no way to abide by the evening curfew and were swept up by nighttime patrols.

While many of those inside the complex were kept for a couple of hours and released, others were severely beaten. “It was like a small Guantanamo,” Igor recalled.

Igor says that he was interrogated three times, with each session lasting between 15 and 30 minutes. The beatings were carried out by Territorial Defense volunteers while SBU officers instructed them on how to torture and asked him questions.

“They used a lighter to heat up a needle, then put it under my fingernails,” he told me. “The worst was when they put a plastic bag over my head and suffocated me and when they held the muzzle of a Kalashnikov rifle to my head and forced me to answer their questions.

But he says the suffering he endured was minor in comparison to the torture of the Russian prisoners of war, who were beaten with metal pipes while the Ukrainian national anthem played on repeat in the background. “I could hear it because all the torture was done in a nearby room. It was psychologically severe. This was done at night, the sounds of beatings were constant. It was difficult to sleep.”

Listening to conversations of other prisoners, Igor understood that two prisoners from Belarus were beaten to death, identifying one as a man named Sergey.

‘Like a Jew in Nazi Germany’

The existence of the torture prison was corroborated by an account I received from Andrey, a man with citizenship from Russia and a western European country (Andrey is also an alias to protect the identity of the source).

When he was first brought to the prison, Andrey recalls, he witnessed police beating what they told him was a Russian saboteur.

“It’s like mob justice, you know? You just find somebody that roughly fits the description and you take it out on him,” he said.

Tied to a chair, police repeatedly punched the man in the torso, the face, and back of the head as blood poured from his mouth.

“The police weren’t even interested in what he had to say. They would ask a question, he would start speaking slowly and they would hit him in the head,” he said. “They were taking out aggression and fear on him like a punching bag.”

Andrey says police threatened him with the same but he was spared because he held citizenship from a western European country. “I was told that If it wasn’t for my second passport, I’d be killed. I don’t know how much of that was to influence and scare me, or how much it was real,” he said.

During one interrogation, he says he was blindfolded, his hands were taped behind his back, and he was driven to an unknown location. After being taken into a building and up and down flights of stairs, he was thrown to the floor and kicked in the head.

Andrey recalls hearing ultra-nationalistic Ukrainian music in the prison. “Hard bass, electro, rock, rap – it was either to deprive us of sleep or to mask what was going on behind the music.”

Inside the prison, Andrey met Igor, who slept on an adjacent mat. He recalled being uncertain if Igor was an actual prisoner or if he was a plant that would attempt to extract information. In their brief exchanges, Andrey memorized a phone number Igor gave him and contacted him after he was released.

Andrey remains inside Ukrainian borders since his release, worried that the anti-Russia hysteria engulfing Ukraine could lead to his injury, or worse. “I’m like a Jew in Nazi Germany,” he told me.

The Ukraine Crisis with Dan Cohen and Scott Ritter

Dan Cohen is joined by former United Nations Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter to discuss the crisis in Ukraine.

Dan Cohen•Mar 1

They were very interested in his daily routine’

During Igor’s interrogation, SBU agents found contact information for his uncle, a former Soviet military officer. Believing that his uncle had influence in the Russian military, SBU agents called him to demand he facilitate an exchange of Igor for prisoners of the Snake Island incident.

When SBU agents found videos of Shariy on Igor’s phone, officers from a separate department were called in. From then on, they began to treat him better, removing his handcuffs and giving him larger quantities of food.

Igor’s connections to Shariy were minimal, limited to occasional contact via text message. In 2015, Shariy published a video about an incident in which Igor’s truck cargo was held for ransom by Aidar Battalion militants at a border crossing between Crimea and Ukraine.

Igor subsequently filmed interviews and events for Shariy, though they never met face to face. Nonetheless, SBU agents apparently saw Igor as an opportunity to gather sensitive information about Shariy’s habits.

Hours later, the chief officer came to interrogate him about materials and interviews he had worked on for Shariy. He was then given a blanket and allowed to sleep for two days.

After another interrogation, they instructed him to travel to Spain, where Shariy is taking refuge.  “Their main intention was that I would stay at Shariy’s side, assist him in preparing materials, and report to the officers what he is working on, what his status is, what his family is doing, what foods he eats, and where he shops. They were very interested in his daily routine, his movements, and people close to him. They wanted me to be as close as possible to him and at his side as often as possible.”

It was then that Igor realized Shariy’s life was in danger.

“As far as I understood, based on the information that I had to convey, the liquidation of Anatoly Shariy was being prepared, since he poses a danger to the government of Ukraine and criticizes the actions of the SBU, the government, and President Zelensky,” he told me.

The SBU told him an agent stationed in Spain would contact him after his arrival and provide him with further instructions.

Another department of the SBU notified his brother of his arrest, demanding a $1,000 bribe for his release. “For the SBU, this is just a way of making money. They were detaining people and asking for money in exchange,” he said. His brother paid the bribe on March 10, freeing Igor, though Igor’s car was confiscated as collateral. “There are many cases like this. They take civilian cars for the needs of SBU and the Ukrainian army.”

SBU agents had assured Igor that he would be able to pass through Ukrainian borders and enter the European Union, a nearly impossible task for Ukrainian males aged 18 to 60 who are subject to mandatory conscription.

After his release, Igor says he stayed in Kiev for ten days, resting and regaining his health. He then traveled to Transcarpathia, a region in Western Ukraine. Instead of following the orders of the SBU, Igor went to a different western European country. On April 2, he contacted Anatoly Shariy by email, informing him that he believes he is under threat.

“I warned Anatoliy Shariy that there could be an attempt to kill him in Spain.” Shariy understood that Igor’s call represented an extraordinary threat. “I was very tense with questions about the fact that he could be sent to me so that he could find out the places I visit, up to where I eat. The direction of these questions clearly indicates that they have the idea of ​​my physical elimination,” Shariy told me by email.

Now in an EU country, Igor is facing an uncertain future and is unable to return to Ukraine. “I am afraid, not only for my own life but for my relatives and my friends,” he says.

Medvedchuk’s face is clearly bruised, apparently a result of beatings from Zelensky’s SBU goons. Don’t expect any questions about this image to appear in the pages of the NYT or in CNN’s 24 hour media circus. Can’t allow anything to undermine the pro-war narrative. pic.twitter.com/A0qhhmeaj8

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) April 12, 2022

With opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk, bruised and apparently beaten, in the custody of SBU, the threat against Shariy is clear. He continues to receive death threats against him and his family, sometimes 100 per day, he says.

Left: “Look it’s your future.” Right: “I hope they will find you soon.” Screenshots courtesy of Anatoly Shariy

Dan Cohen is the Washington DC correspondent for Behind The Headlines. He has produced widely distributed video reports and print dispatches from across Israel-Palestine. He tweets at @DanCohen3000.

Zelensky’s miscalculation regarding Medvedchuk

April 15, 2022

Source

By Batko Milacic

April 12 was a black day for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In Mariupol, more than 1,000 marines surrendered in a day – the remnants of an abandoned and defeated marine brigade. Even Zelensky’s entourage, who did not react particularly painfully to the loss of life during the special operation of the Russian troops, became well aware that the prisoners needed to be pulled out. However, the Ukrainian president has one trump card up his sleeve, but whether he will be able to play it.

Recall, having silenced a major surrender of the Ukrainian military in the Ukrainian information field, Zelensky on April 12 demonstrated to the whole world the disgraced oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, captured by the SBU, who had escaped from house arrest at the beginning of the military campaign in Ukraine. Medvedchuk, a major businessman, leader of Ukraine’s largest opposition party “For Life“, now banned by the Ukrainian authorities. Like other politicians who advocated dialogue with Moscow and opposed the war, he was charged with treason back in 2020. However, the point here is not only in the political views of a politician. Medvedchuk is considered a close friend of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, with which the Kremlin wanted to democratize Ukraine and free it from fascism. Just imagine someone arresting the leader of the second strongest party in Germany, France or some other European country? It is on this basis that we can see what kind of state Ukraine is and that Ukraine needs denazification.

According to the statements of the Ukrainian security forces, Medvedchuk, captured in army-style clothes, tried to get into Russia, allegedly while trying to cross the front line. However, Medvedchuk was probably arrested, held and tortured a long time ago, and only now has it been made public in order to divert the attention of the Ukrainian public from the defeat of the Ukrainian army in Mariupol and to show to the Ukrainian public that Ukraine has someone to exchange for Ukrainian military prisoners in Mariupol.

But Vladimir Zelensky, at the wrong time, remembered his acting past and obviously played too much.

The Ukrainian leader took this detention as a personal victory and, with his usual emotions, began to brag about the professionalism of the SBU and to declare that the detention of Medvedchuk would allow the release of Ukrainian soldiers. Thus, the leader of Ukraine said that since Medvedchuk was captured in military uniform, it means that he is a soldier and will be exchanged for Ukrainian prisoners. We will keep silent about the fact that half of Ukrainians now wear military-style clothes, which does not make them combatants, but the question arises, why is Vladimir Zelensky going to change Medvedchuk as a simple soldier? So it’s 1 for 1? Of course, this is beneficial for Moscow and they will agree to such a deal there, unless, of course, the former comic actor goes back on his words, which has happened more than once.

However, Zelensky has another opportunity to pull out the prisoners captured in Mariupol. According to reliable sources from Moscow, the Kremlin offered Kiev an unprecedented exchange of prisoners of war. Zelensky and the company were offered to change 500 marines (there are almost 1,500 of them now in Russian captivity) for 10 people. But not Medvedchuk and his relatives, not Russian officers, no! Russia wants to get 10 repulsed Nazis who tortured and killed its soldiers.

Recall that at the end of March, social networks spread around videos of torture and murder of Russian soldiers, which were quickly recognized as genuine. The investigation conducted by the Russians also revealed the authors of the savage videos, they turned out to be the militants of the “Kraken” unit of the “Azov” battalion, Sergey “Chili“ Velichko, Ruslan Oleynik and Konstantin Nemichev. The extreme cruelty of the video forced even Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to the President of Ukraine, to recognize that as a war crime. However, the perpetrators themselves were not brought to justice.

By the way, for “Chili“ himself and his killer buddies, this is the only way to save lives – in Russia there is no death penalty even for war crimes, but in the war zone they are the prey. After all, the extradition of war criminals for a fair trial would show Ukraine’s European and overseas partners Kyiv’s readiness to comply with international law in any conditions.

However, not all is so simple. The main units of the volunteer nationalist regiment “Azov” are blocked in Mariupol. Some of its militants, including the “Kraken” unit, are fighting near Kharkov. There are other nationalist formations in Ukraine that are poorly subordinate to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As we can see, Kyiv cannot control them even enough to avoid public torture and murders, videos of which are circulating on the Internet. Therefore, it is unlikely that the Ukrainian military police or the SBU will be able to arrest war criminals and hand them over for exchange. Neo-Nazis will simply give an armed repulsion to those who try to arrest their colleagues.

So, Zelensky will have to play up and bargain with Moscow, presenting Medvedchuk either as a military man or as the leader of the pro-Kremlin opposition in order to get more prisoners in exchange for his only trump card. But the Kremlin is unlikely to want to play by its rules.

Russian SMO: day 47 “crazies in the basement” and a poem

April 12, 2022

Today let’s begin with this news item today:

Seven-in-Ten Americans Now See Russia as an Enemy Attitudes toward NATO increasingly positive.

You got to love the “logic” of these folks!

Russia intervenes in a country which neighbors Russia, thousands of miles away, and the US Americans see that as a threat to the USA.  And nevermind that the USA is the country which forced Russia into this war which the Kremlin spent eight years trying to avoid.

How is such a result even possible?  Here are a few options:

1. A majority of US Americans are simply stupid and cannot think
2. A majority of US Americans are unbelievably ignorant
3. A majority of US Americans are brainwashed by their media and schools
4. A majority of US Americans have been trained/conditioned to fear and hate whomever their rulers designate for demonization
5. A majority of US Americans sincerely believe that the USA ought to be the planet’s cop and no matter where a conflict starts, even when that conflict started by the USA, they believe that it is Uncle Shmuel business to deal with it.  In their tiny minds, the USA has a God given right to intervene anywhere and attack anyone.
6. A majority of US Americans perceive any truly sovereign country as a direct threat to their way of life.
7. The PYSOP campaign to demonize Russia has been a resounding success.

A mix of all of the above is probably the most accurate cause for such a result.

Next, I bumped into a Foxnews propaganda piece featuring a clown which, apparently, in some very distant past was a US Lt. General in the USA military, his last name is Kellogg.  I decided to give it a try and I have to say that I sat absolutely *transfixed* listening to him: according to him, Russia has already suffered a huge defeat at the hands of the Ukronazis and with NATO’s help the Ukraine can, and probably will, win this war.

And both that “general” and the presstitute “interviewing” him delivered that crock of shit with great gravitas and appropriate facial expressions (angled eyebrows, the way the journos try to look very sincere).  I was expecting at least one of them to burst out laughing but, no, of course not.

These two simply lack both the brain and the humor to realize how terminally stupid and ridiculous they both sound.

As I have written many times in the past, US generals are much more “corporate CEO in combat fatigues” than real combat officers.  By Russian standards this guy would not even be allowed to clean latrines in a construction battalion.  A man who says with a straight face that delivering 20 Soviet era aircraft or S-300 to the Ukrainians will make a difference in this war is either a clueless civilian or a deliberate liar prostituting his (putative and now former) officer’s honor for a few bucks.

No wonder the Russians have stopped taking telephone calls from these clowns.

Does anybody still wonder why “Kabul” happened or why the USA cannot win a war against anybody except Grenada (and that one barely, they had to bring the 82nd to fix the usual SNAFU created by US “special” operation forces)?

As for the German Eurolemmings, they have truly lost any sense of decency or even basic common sense: they are now seriously thinking about sending old Leopard 1 tanks to the Ukraine!

Let me explain something really basic here:

• You cannot just send weapons to the Ukraine and have that make a difference.  I mean, yes, if you send AKs, bullet and clubs, they might get used.  But modern weapon systems require training.  They also require maintenance.  Then they need to be integrated into the rest of the armed forces.  Then your forces need to train and practice a lot to perfect their combat coordination.  Then you need a supply/maintenance/repairs network to maintain/repair your systems.  Advanced air defense systems require crews with sometimes many years of training.  Considering that the reinforcements sent by Kiev to the Donbass even include their Volkssturm, you can imagine how utterly useless the operators of the few weapons systems surviving the trip from Lvov to the Donbass will be.  And the interval between the moment this ancient S-300 goes live and the moment a Russian ARM hit it will be counted in minutes at most.
• Next, old weapons (ex-Soviet or ex-NATO) are just fat targets.  In almost all cases, Russian equivalents are one or even two generations ahead, so why are all the EU sending them?  Well, for a couple of reasons, the main one is to get rid of them, since storage or recycling of such systems is rather costly.  The next reason is that it makes NATO politicians look “tough” – after all, if Zelenskii wants old tanks, artillery or air defense systems (he ain’t exactly a military genius either!) then, by all means, we give it to him and look like we are doing *something*.  By the way, the four S-300 sent by the Slovaks were, apparently, already destroyed in a strike yesterday.  And the Slovak taxpayer did not spend a penny on this.  How is that not a good deal for Slovakia?  Oh sure, this is an act of war, a casus belli, as are ALL but UNSC approved “sanctions”, but the Euroemmings Master Race are so superior in every sense to the accursed Rooskies that, screw that!  The only thing which can bring the Eurolemmings back to reality is a Russian strike on such a weapons convoy INSIDE a NATO member country because, as I have already explained, when the Eurolemmings to hide behind Uncle Shmuel’s back, all he will offer them are statements of support, outrage, freshly printed fiat money and the usual mix of threats, fear and hate western politicians always spew about Russia.  But the US won’t allow NATO to go to war with Russia over one such strike, especially if the Russians clearly explain what they did and why (I actually expect that quite a few “old-time” western officers will get a good kick out of their newfound NATO “allies” hysterics once that happens).
• As I have mentioned in the past, weapons convoys in the western Ukraine (and, possibly, even inside Poland) make for easy and lucrative targets for the Russians.  Just mix in enough civilians and, voilà!, sooner or later you will have a “Russian atrocity”, something like “the Russians kill scores of innocent feeling Ukrainian civilians” or “the Russians attacked trucks clearly marked with red crosses” (FYI – the SBU and Azov uses red crosses on its vans and ammo/supply trucks!).  This is likely one of the reasons the Russians have, so far, chosen not to attack early on but to wait for solid intelligence and then strike the NATO forces/hardware when it is nicely concentrated somewhere.  Still, we know that Azov ALWAYS used civilians (especially those perceived as “not sufficiently patriotic”!) as human shields.  By the way, NATO taught them this technique.  Anyway, to expect NATO weapon convoys NOT to be protected by human shields would be simply stupid.  The Russians simply have to ASSUME that NATO/SBU/Azov will ALWAYS be surrounded by captive civilians.

Which brings us to the issue of false flags.  Here are a few headlines about this topic:

• CNN: ““All options are on the table” for the West’s response if Russia uses chemical weapons“
• Vesti: “French gendarmes arrived in Lvov” (to investigate Russian war crimes and atrocities)
• Sputnik: “US Cannot Confirm Use of Chemical Agents in Mariupol, Senior Defense Official Says“

Need I say anything more?

Even by British standards, this is the most pre-announced pre-publicized false flag in history, I am amazed I don’t see ads and previews for it on Amazon and Netflix…

I guess, I will just say that if the public opinion is being prepared for a Russian chemical attack (maybe even with the – apparently harmless –  “Novichok”) then we know for sure which side is winning and which side is not winning.

Medvechuk, one of the main leaders of the opposition at held in the SBU offices, according to Zelenskii who is very proud of that “capture”

There are also a few other reasons why the Empire of Hate and Lies badly and urgently needs a false flag:

• Mariupol has fallen and all the rescue or escape attempts have failed.  Yes, there are probably several hundred, possibly around 1000 Nazis still left in the deep and many underground facilities under the industrial complex, but they have become militarily irrelevant so the Russian National Guard forces are taking their sweet time to avoid any unnecessary losses on the Russian side.
• Reports of Nazi atrocities are literally all over the place, especially on Telegram.  A few of these have leaked into the legacy corporate ziomedia thereby creating the first, still tiny, cracks in the official narrative.
• Nobody knows what/who exactly is hidden deep in the bowels of Azovstal, but considering the immense efforts to get “it/him/them” out of there, the inevitable takeover of the underground floors by the Russians will result in some major embarrassment for the Empire, unless the Kremlin decides to show “goodwill” again and mistakenly believe that any such goodwill will be appreciated in the West.  IF there is a deal made, it will have to offer the Russians something really substantive and very quickly verifiable since just promises won’t do, not even with the Atlantic Integrationists (who are now busy rebranding themselves as “patriotic Russians”).
• There are also lots of reports of atrocities in the Nazi-controlled Ukraine, including public floggings and executions.  Again, Telegram is flooded with such reports and footage and the Bucha false flag petered out without providing the needed “distraction” and return to the “correct” narrative.  The Ukronazis even reportedly told the Brits that they have no intention of abiding by the Geneva Conventions (what a surprise!).

• On the photo above and on the closeup, check out the face and expression of Viktor Medvedchuk, the leader of the Ukrainian opposition.  If that is how the SBU OFFICIALLY – the photo is from ‘Ze’ himself – treats a top political figure, just imagine what they have done to the thousands of people they have “disappeared” over 8 years now!

Over the past week or so, the western PSYOPs have begun to lose control of the narrative, which means that they need to seize the initiative and regain control of the narrative.  Not exactly a difficult task when dealing with a terminally stupidified public in Zone A.

In the meantime, the Eurolemmings are continuing their acts of highway robbery.  European “values” at work, from the Crusades to the modern age 🙂

A few weeks back I wrote that while the immediate objective of the SMO in the Ukraine was to denazify and disarm the Nazi-occupied Ukraine, the real end goal was to chance the European collective security architecture which, itself, is the cornerstone of our entire, worldwide, international order.  I called that “denazify the planet” and I am pretty sure that many readers reading these words thought “what’s Andrei smoking?”.

Well, how about we now listen to both Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Karaganov?

The first one, Lavrov, called the “end of the course for US hegemony as the goal of the operation in Ukraine“.  As for Karaganov, he declared that “we are at war with the West. The European security order is illegitimate“.

Still, for the time being, the big event will be the initiation of the 2nd phase of the war: the elimination of the Ukrainian forces inside the Donbass cauldron.  Very few people know how long such an operation would last, it depends on so many things that it makes no sense to try to guess it, but the outcome itself is not in doubt.

Only God, and Satan, know what kind of demented scheme the likes of Nuland or Blinken will come up next.

All we can say is that a rabid dog is cornered, it makes it even more dangerous.

And we have to keep in mind that they REALLY and SINCERELY thought they would (finally!) break the will of the Russian people and that they know this long awaited and oh-so-sweet revenge-victory is slipping away from them – just imagine the rage they must feel.  After eight years of endless provocations, insults and “negotiations” the Neocons have FINALLY forced Russia to intervene openly, which was always the dream of the Neocons.  But what they did not expect (and neither did anybody else, myself included) was that instead of “just” liberating the LDNR from constant Ukronazi strikes, Putin chose to liberate the entire Ukraine and change the entire collective security architecture of Europe.  Even better, Putin has confirmed this openly in his ultimatum and many times since.

You could say that Putin’s message to NATO was short: “We are coming for you”.  I think of it as the modern equivalent of the ancient words “хочу на вы идти” (pronounced “khochu na vy idti”) spoken to his enemies by the famous commander of ancient Russia, the Grand Duke of Kiev Svyatoslav Igorevich (955-972) and which can be loosely translated as “my intention is to attack you”.

I don’t believe that NATO has fully understood this or, to the extent they did, they will dismiss it as “bluff” (as if Putin ever bluffed, which is really something Russians very rarely do).

But by the time the 2nd phase is over, this reality will have trickled into the delusional minds of the likes of Borrell or Stoltenberg and you can be sure they will run to their beloved Uncle Shmuel for protection.  At which point the Empire of Lies will have exactly two options left:

1. Admit a total political defeat of NATO in Europe or
2. Commit suicide and try to attack Russia.  And since the US/NATO/EU/etc do not have anywhere near the force levels to take on the Russian military a direct US military intervention, this would be utterly pointless and bring the leaders of the USA to the same choice (to nuke or not to nuke?), except that a really embarrassing military defeat will be added on top of an already really embarrassing political defeat

So, apparently, the Eurolemmings are totally willing to die for the Ukraine, as long as the fighting is done by the Ukrainians themselves.

The same Eurolemmings are also willing to eviscerate their own economies only for the privilege to brown-nose Uncle Shmuel and get a “certificate of democratic credentials” as a reward.

But will US soldiers be willing to die for either the Ukraine or the Eurolemmings?  Will the Neocons have enough influence and power to force the US military to execute a civilization-ending order?  Or will there appear some personality/group which would do, but this time REALLY DO, what Trump promised and “drain the swamp” and get rid of the likes of Bliken or Nuland?

I very much doubt it.  But I can still hope for it.

And then there is China which clearly supports Russia, and which is clearly preparing for a war against the USA.  Even their minister of defense said so quite openly.  And here are two things the Chinese know for sure:

• If the Empire defeats Russia, China will be next, thus China cannot afford a Russian defeat under ANY circumstances (and neither can Russia afford a hypothetical Chinese defeat at the hands of the Empire).
• If the US and Russia go at each other in earnest, this will be the perfect time to not only solve the Taiwan issue, but to boot the US out of the Far East just as Iran booted the USA out of the Middle-East.  From the Chinese point of view, “just” liberating Taiwan is not enough – the US must be removed from Taiwan, Japan and even the ROK.  So yes, China also wants to denazify the planet, they are less blunt about it than the Russians, but it is clear to me that this world denazification plan was agreed to by both Putin and Xi.

The folks at the Pentagon must realize that – at least a sufficient critical mass must do so.  Yes, I agree with Andrei Martyanov, the former US generals on TV sound like ignorant infantiles, but I will never believe that all US military commanders are that stupid.  I studied in Washington DC from 1986 to 1991 and most of my teachers were active-duty military, and none of them were stupid.  I also had a lot of fellow students who were from the US military, in the “lieutenant to major” range, and, again, these were smart men, very well educated and, I believe, honorable men.  By now some of them must hold very senior ranks and they could make the difference.

Again, I don’t expect that to happen, but I get to still hope that it will.

I did not study with either General Mattis or General Milley and I know very little about them except this: Mattis seems to be the person who deliberately botched the US missile strike on Syria to avoid a possible Russian reaction leading to war and General Milley called his Chinese counterpart to tell him that the US has no intention of striking at China thereby telling the Chinese that they are NOT in a “use them or lose them” situation, which would have put the entire USA in the very real danger of getting nuked by a desperate China.  In both of these cases, these generals appear to have contravened direct orders for the greater good of service to their country and protection of the US population of the imbecilic orders given by imbecilic US Presidents.  Mattis was “let go” pretty soon by The Donald while Milley was subjected to a vicious smear campaign.

So if “Biden” (meaning Nuland, Sullivan, Blinken or any other demented psychopath) gives the order to attack Russian forces I still want to believe that there will be a critical mass at the Pentagon to tell the “crazies in the basement” to finally shut up and get back to where they belong: the basement they crawled out of.

Is there enough true and real patriotism left in the USA?  Or is patriotism just waving (Chinese made!) US flags, vote for the “lesser evil” from either branch of the Uniparty, and remain an Israeli colony forever?

Click on the image above to appreciate the irony of HIAS aiding Nazis!

If it wasn’t for the US nuclear triad (old, but still formidable and capable!), I truly wouldn’t give a damn, but alas that is a luxury nobody can afford, at least until the USA is finally denazified and disarmed too.  But until all of Zone A is absorbed and re-civilized by Zone B, that danger will threaten every human being on the planet (and now even in the southern hemisphere courtesy of the comprador leaders of the US colony in Australia which have decided to paint a big Chinese nuclear crosshairs on their brainless heads!).

Okay, I will end with some major good news: the entire 36th Marine Infantry Brigade in Mariupol has surrendered!  That is over 1000 soldiers, including 300 wounded and 90 seriously injured.

Now, careful here, these are NOT the Azov forces hiding in the underground floors of Azovstal.  First, they are not Azov but regular Ukrainian military and, second, they were barricaded in the Illich industrial complex, near the Azovstal, but already cut off from Azovstal.

The Ukrainian 36th Naval Infantry Brigade has surrendered

It is important to note that unlike the Azov Nazis, the Naval Infantry forces are NOT considered as Nazis by the Russians and that they will all get full POW protection under the Geneva Convention.

The very best the Azov people can expect is to be identified and arrested on suspicion of war crimes, crimes against humanity and all kinds of atrocities.  If some of them are clearly clueless idiots who made some bad choices, they might return home one day after either being found innocent (a minority) or after serving their time in Russian jails.

Those found with tattooed swastikas or those who are already on the FSB wanted list will get harsh sentences in equally harsh high-security prisons.

As for Azov commanders, they have already been told by everybody that they will get no mercy.  Which means that they will get interrogated and executed.

[Sidebar: Russia has had a moratorium on the death penalty to appease the Eurolemmings.  Now that Russia has quit all EU institutions, you can expect the death penalty to be reinstated under popular pressure.  Besides, the LDRN republics DO have the death penalty.  As does every single Chechen subunit :-)]

The bottom line is this: while the surrender of the 36th Naval Infantry Brigade is absolutely wonderful news – just think of the saved lives – it is very unlikely to set a precedent to the Azov forces in Mariupol or elsewhere.  Worse, I strongly suspect that the two reasons why the 36th Naval Infantry Brigade could surrender were that:

• They were cut off (by the Russian National Guard units) from the Azov forces in Azovstal
• They were considered an elite unit that the Nazis of Azov could not simply and safely massacre

In the Donbass, the situation is, reportedly, much worse: the ratio of Nazi to normal soldier seems to be close to 1:10 which means that the Nazis can act as “barrage forces” and shoot anybody refusing to advance or trying to retreat – a technique which the West loves to blame on Stalin, but which was invented by the Nazis on the Eastern Front.  They can also act as “political commissars”, a category invented by Leon Trotsky himself to force former officers of the imperial Russian military to obey orders given by these commissars or face execution.  And those who will say that 1:10 is a great ratio for the Ukrainians to dispose of their “Nazi commissars” miss the point as any such conspiracy will be detected long before it materializes.

Yet again, I am not expecting this to happen, but I will keep hoping with all my heart that a huge massacre (because that is exactly what this is shaping up to be) can still be avoided.  I really hope that the Russian PSYOPs are doing all they can to reach out to the Ukrainian soldiers in the Donbass cauldron and that the RU+LDNR forces will do everything short of taking serious losses to spare the lives of the 60-70 thousand or so Ukrainians who are now waiting to be obliterated by heavy Russian strikes.

One of my favorite Russian poets, Maksimilian Voloshin, wrote a poem entitled “Civil War” which I love and which I will share with you, in Russian and in a somewhat corrected machine translation:

Одни восстали из подполий, Из ссылок, фабрик, рудников, Отравленные темной волей И горьким дымом городовДругие из рядов военных, Дворянских разоренных гнезд, Где проводили на погост Отцов и братьев убиенных.В одних доселе не потух Хмель незапамятных пожаров, И жив степной, разгульный дух И Разиных, и Кудеяров.В других – лишенных всех корней – Тлетворный дух столицы Невской: Толстой и Чехов, Достоевский – Надрыв и смута наших дней.Одни возносят на плакатах Свой бред о буржуазном зле, О светлых пролетариатах, Мещанском рае на земле…В других весь цвет, вся гниль империй, Все золото, весь тлен идей, Блеск всех великих фетишей И всех научных суеверий.Одни идут освобождать Москву и вновь сковать Россию, Другие, разнуздав стихию, Хотят весь мир пересоздать.В тех и в других война вдохнула Гнев, жадность, мрачный хмель разгула,А вслед героям и вождям Крадется хищник стаей жадной, Чтоб мощь России неоглядной Размыкать и продать врагам:Сгноить ее пшеницы груды, Ее бесчестить небеса, Пожрать богатства, сжечь леса И высосать моря и руды.И не смолкает грохот битв По всем просторам южной степи Средь золотых великолепий Конями вытоптанных жнитв.И там и здесь между рядами Звучит один и тот же глас: «Кто не за нас – тот против нас. Нет безразличных: правда с нами».А я стою один меж них В ревущем пламени и дыме И всеми силами своими Молюсь за тех и за других.

Some have risen from the underground, From exiles, factories, mines, Poisoned by the dark will And the bitter smoke of cities.Others from the ranks of the military, Nobles from now ruined nests, Where they would accompany to the graveyard The fathers and brothers of those murdered.In some the flame of ancient fires has not been snuffed out yet And in the steppes, rebellious spirit of Razins and Kudeyars remains aliveIn others – devoid of all roots – The corrupting spirit of the capital on the Neva: Tolstoy and Chekhov, Dostoevsky – The anguish and turmoil of our days.Some are posting slogans about Their nonsense and bourgeois evil, About the bright proletarians, A petty-bourgeois paradise on earth…In others, all the color, all the rot of empires, All the gold, all the decay of ideas, The brilliance of all the great fetishes And all scientific superstitions.Some go to liberate Moscow and unite Russia again, Others, unleashing the elements, They want to recreate the whole world.In both, the war breathed in Anger, greed, the dark intoxication of rioting,And following the heroes and leaders A stalking a greedy pack of predators crawls near To betray and sell out Russia’s boundless power to her enemies:Rot her wheat piles, Her dishonor skies, Devour riches, burn forests And suck up dry her seas and springs.And the roar of battles does not cease Across all the expanses of the southern steppe Amidst the golden splendors Horses are trampling upon the harvests.And there and here between the rows The same voice sounds: “Whoever is not for us is against us. There are no indifferent ones: the truth is with us.”And I stand alone between them In the roaring flames and smoke And with all my strength I pray for both of them.

These verses were written in November of 1919 and they refer to the Russian Civil war.

Today, the situation is radically different in too many ways to list, but on a spiritual level, I think that this is again yet another Russian civil war.  I have exactly ZERO sympathy or, even less so, empathy for the Ukrainian Nazis, but when I see the young faces of Ukrainian POWs I can’t help it – I see *my* people.  Yes, confused, mistaken, misguided, possibly stupid and even deeply sinful.  And I would not hesitate for 1 second to fight them with more than a keyboard.  But as long as they don’t embrace the Ukronazi/Baderista/Azov/SBU/NATO/EU/US ideology I will always see them as my people and I will never rejoice in their suffering or demise.

Finally, when Voloshin wrote “I pray for both sides” it was not a political statement.  It was a recognition of our common humanity. Even if the core of the Ukronazi/Baderista/Azov/SBU/NATO/EU/US ideology and even IDENTITY is to deny us, Russians, that common humanity (other than in vapid words, of course).

To the demons in Washington DC we need to oppose our saints, both living and long dead.

Our most formidable weapon is not a nuke or any “Tsar-Bomba” but our modest prayer ropes.

Let’s use that most formidable weapon of ours which only we have (there is no real hesychasm in the West, and there has not been for many centuries now),

And strictly in that sense, I do the same, I also pray for our people on both sides.

Andrei

A disturbing trend in Ukraine

April 10, 2022

A disturbing trend in Ukraine

This article provides an overview into a deeply disturbing trend in Ukraine, one that started in 2014, that has accelerated and intensified since 24 February 2022. Extrajudicial killings, harassment, arbitrary detentions by men in camouflaged uniforms, beatings and disappearances continue to take place on a regular basis in Ukraine.  Most of the detentions and disappearances are often carried out by the Ukrainian Security service, (SBU), under a sweeping repression.

While we have all heard about the egregious processes that took place in the USA, a witch hunt for suspected communists, better known McCarthyism,  a similar course of action is taking place in Ukraine.  The Ukrainian authorities and associated ultra-nationalist groups are after people who were not only very critical of the former but also the current Ukrainian government.   Threats, harassment and calls for violence has been and continue to be made against those who:

• publicly supported the Minsk Agreements,
• are against “de-communisation”,
• highlight human rights abuses,
• advocated for a settlement of the conflict in Donbass,
• are deemed to be “pro-Russian”.
• Church representatives and clergy;
• For reading the news in Russia.

Add into this maelstrom another layer of extra-judicial repression, in the form of impromptu justice being meted out to civilians, bound up, tied to posts, beaten, humiliated and some killed as a result.  There are simply hundreds and hundreds of video clips and photos showing these events, which are outlined in another article.

People are not only being tied up to street furniture as suspected looters, but people are being bound up or arrested for being pro-Russian, for not being able to say the word “Palyanytsya” in Ukrainian.  Not every ethnic Russian speaker in Ukraine can speak good Ukrainian, and some have trouble pronouncing certain words in Ukrainian.  People have been reportedly killed for not pronouncing the shibboleth word correctly and thus assumed to be part of subversive Russian reconnaissance groups.

The so called” international community” has expressed no interest or desire to take a closer look at this disturbing situation in Ukraine.  Once again, the moral high ground as avidly promoted by thousands of NGOs’, think tanks and a multitude of reports, dissipates rapidly in reality into a dark void.  The silence is deafening and all of them mute on the repression that is taking place in Ukraine, likely start the process of EU accession in June.  Obviously, a highly repressive with systematic serious human rights abuses committed against civilians, by members of the military and police are not an impediment to being part of the European and NATO family.

Once upon a time, there would have been prisoners of conscience that Amnesty International would have supported and denounced human right abuses, now it is a case of total amnesia, right across the board, a deadly silence reigns over the widespread instances of human right abuses and atrocities, unless it is finger pointing at Russia.

For 8 years Ukrainian nationalists have internalised naked hate against Russian speaking Ukrainians and by default judged them to be guilty of being pro-Russian. Within this scope includes being pro-Minsk agreements, advocating for peace in Donbass or highlight human rights abuses. Against this background of feverish witch-hunts, any hint of the slightest suspicion of cooperation or aiding Russians is tantamount to a summary execution in some situations, or more likely, a beating and being handed over to the SBU.

A short list of those who have fell foul of the Ukrainian government and its policies:

Vlodymyr Struk (Major of Kreminna)

Denis Kireev  (high-ranking government official)

Mikhail & Aleksander Kononovich (political party leaders)

Nestor Shufrych (Verkhovna Rada deputy)

Yuri Tkachev (journalist)

Yan Taksyur (writer)

Elena Berezhnaya (Human rights activist / ex-figure skater)

Dmitry Dzhangirov,  (TV presenter, political scientist);

Yuriy Dudkin, (political scientist);

Maxim Rindkovsky (MMA fighter);

Dmitry Skvortsov (journalist);

Aleksandr Matiushenko (activist organisation “Livytsia”);

Oleg Smetanin (violinist);

These individuals and others are listed in further details later on in the article.

Remember these people, these Ukrainians who for various reasons fell afoul of the authorities, imprisoned, tortured, disappeared, or killed.   Those detained are often put under huge stress, threatened, beaten, or tortured into giving confessions.   Another aspect to consider is that many lawyers do not wish to represent these people, as doing so may lead to being accused of being an accessory and likewise accused of being “agents of the enemy”.

The SBU, human rights abuses and paramilitaires

The SBU has a history of torture, brutal interrogations, extra judicial murders and other violence and threats carried out with total impunity.  The Ukrainian government knows this, more so since Zelensky, since he  appointed Oleksandr Poklad as the SBU’s counter-intelligence chief in 2021.  Poklad has a sinister reputation as the ‘The Strangler’ . He is known to have links to organised crimes and involvement in extrajudicial killings. This person is now a top-level official and just one of a number of decidedly highly unscrupulous characters that are law enforcement officers.

A glimpse of some of the attitudes tolerated within the law enforcement structures, starting with 2018, when an ex-SBU adviser,  former deputy in the Rada, member of the far-right nationalist party Svoboda [Freedom], Yuri Michalchyshyn, advocated the following:

“To propagate a total extermination of the Kremlin vultures and ghouls, local traitors and turncoats, its voluntary helpers and accomplices — instead of “reconciliation” with the traitors of the Motherland and the enemies of the Ukrainian people.”

Another paramilitary group, Right Sector also has wide connections with the SBU.

SBU officer, with Right Sector insignia on 6^th April. Notice the other insignia, one SS Galicia of WW2 notoriety.

Prior to the start of the Russian military operation against Kiev,  a few instances of the brutality, torture and extra judicial killings were reported by a host of organisations, HRW,  OSCE, Amnesty International, OHCHR and in France — OFPRA.  These reports provided a glimpse into a situation that was overwhelmingly swept under the carpet by EU, U.S. officials and the corporate MSM alike.   Most of the cases were connected to the conflict in Donbass, yet there were many instances elsewhere in Ukraine.

“OHCHR documented allegations of enforced disappearances, arbitrary and incommunicado detention, and torture and ill-treatment, perpetrated with impunity by Ukrainian law enforcement officials, mainly by elements of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).”

Source: OHCHR

The June 2016 UN report noted that the cases of incommunicado detention and torture brought to their attention in late 2015 and early 2016 “mostly implicate SBU”

Source: HRW Report 2016

The SBU accounts for a large percentage of reported “arbitrary detention, torture, and abuse of detainees”,  from a period from 2014 to 2019. In reality, this is a fraction of what took place, given the one-sided assessment of many of these reports in the first place.  Horrid glimpses into these detentions were provided:

Several also alleged that after being transferred to SBU premises they were, variously, beaten, subjected to electric shocks, and threatened with rape, execution, and retaliation against family members, to induce them to confess to involvement with separatism-related criminal activities or to provide information. (HRW 2016)

Notably, during the Donbass conflict, the Ukrainian side committed extremely  heinous crimes, such burying people alive, beheadings (as reported by Newsweek), pitiless systematic acts of torture, rapes, looting, on a significantly much larger scale compared to the reported crimes committed by the “pro-Russian side”  also featured in these reports.  On the flip side, the Russian side has also documented the human rights abuses and repression:  report of violations from 2017-2020.

Tellingly, even the U.S State Department managed to notice and picked up on these disturbing aspects of Ukrainian law enforcement behaviours:

“UN noted significant deficiencies in investigations into human rights abuses committed by government security forces …into allegations of torture, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, and other abuses reportedly perpetrated by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).”

Source:  U.S. Report

These reports made for grim reading, yet no one in the corporate Western media dare to make references to these, but instead continue to whitewash the hideous crimes committed by Ukrainian law enforcement & military units.  The worst cases are carried out by paramilitary and ultra-nationalist units.

More recently:

“No justice, truth or reparation was attained for any of the victims of enforced disappearance, secret detention and torture of civilians by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) from 2014 to 2016, and not a single suspected perpetrator was prosecuted”

2020 Amnesty International 

The SBU has a harrowing track record of serious human right abuses, which continues today.  Worse still, is the participation of  the likes of ‘Azov’, Right Sector and others in the detentions and also disappearances of people.  The Neo-Nazi group C-14 leader, Yevhen Yaras openly acknowledged working with the Ukrainian security service, (SBU).

Now, we are being told repeatedly that this is “Russian misinformation” by certain corporate MSM outlets or being told that this is not relevant any longer. As if this was remotely possible to gloss over or make light of absolutely odious human rights abuses. Washington, Brussels are indeed capable of doing, as they shown a long-standing ability to sweep under the carpet, Contras in Nicaragua, death squads in South and Central America,  KLA crimes in Kosovo, moderate rebels in Syria and now Ukrainian ultra-nationalists. Mykola Azarov made references to death squads in a video.

These practices and human right abuses still take place on a regular basis in Ukraine.  Details of arrests, detentions are always sketchy as legal representation is practically nil and no communication is possible.

In short, under Zelensky’s rule, the government agencies and others armed groups are detaining, imprisoning, and killing people in Ukraine. Anyone that criticises or is considered as opposing his government, any perceived actions, (current or historical) is duly noted,  and thus is likely to get persecuted, detained by either the SBU or irregular paramilitary groups.  The government knowingly allows these human rights abuses for its own interest.

It must remembered that the Ukrainian authorities have continued to use a  database, the Mirotvorets (Peacekeeper) website, to highlight those that they consider as ‘enemies of Ukraine’.  This controversial website created in 2014, under the initiative of Anton Gerashchenko, (the Ukrainian deputy minister of internal affairs).    Gerashchenko stated that the site was “extremely important for the national security of Ukraine.” He then added that “anyone who does not understand this or tries to interfere with this work is either a puppet in the hands of others or works against the interests of national security.” [2]

The inclusion of details of individuals, recommended for liquidation and arrest, has in the past led to people, Ukrainian and foreigners, being targeted, arrested, and murdered.  A Ukrainian journalist, Oles Buzina, had his personal details published on the site in 2015, which led to his murder shortly afterwards. All of this in a supposedly democratic Ukraine.

Remember that Zelensky has now outlawed all opposition parties —but not  all, those parties who support him are allowed to continue, with ultra-nationalists & Neo-Nazis part of these political parties and who happen to be highly influential too. Facebook and other social media platforms also helped in this process by deleting sites and accounts of opposition organisations and individuals.

Top-level officials and media outlets are wilfully ignoring what is taking place in Ukraine, by believing that the Russians are far worse, in scope and extent of human right abuses, while at the same time sanitising a wide range of heinous abuses, disappearances and killings in Ukraine. Additionally, this is swept under the vague categories of ‘treason’, support for the Russians or “saboteurs”:

Individual cases

Case: Vlodymyr Struk

Mayor of Kreminna

Event: kidnapped & extra judicially killed

Date: 01 March 2022

Accused of: being a traitor  and pro-Russian

Ref: New York Post  /  Daily Mail

Notes: Anton Gerashchenko, Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, announced on his social media account that the Mayor of Kreminna, Volodymyr Struk, was shot dead by “unknown patriots” after he was kidnapped from his home. He also added that Struk ‘was judged by the court of the people and called hime a traitor.

Case: Denis Kireev 

A member of the Ukrainian government negotiating team.

Event: murdered on the street of Kiev, near Pechersky Court building by the SBU security service.

Date: 5 March 2022

Accused of:  allegedly for having “pro-Russian position” and ‘ suspicion of treason’.

Ref: Times of Israel / Daily Mail / Kyiv Independent

Notes: gunned down while “resisting arrest”.   Reportedly a member of the Ukrainian military intelligence service.

Case: Nestor Shufrych

Verkhovna Rada deputy  (Opposition Bloc)

Event: Arrested and kidnapped

Date: 4 March 2022

Accused of: allegedly “providing Russia with intelligence”.

Ref:  Reportedly detained by the 206th Territorial Defense Battalion.  Photos + video clip of him being intimated and threatened.

Case: Mikhail & Aleksander Kononovich

Leading members of the outlawed Leninist Communist Youth Union of Ukraine.

Event:  Arrested and detained by SBU

Date: 6 March 2022

Accused of: “spreading “pro-Russian and pro-Belarusian views.” and ‘treason’.

Ref:

Notes: Currently held in a pretrial detention centre, been beaten and are facing execution on false charges.

Case:  Yan Taksyur

Writer and TV journalist / presenter.

Event: Arrested and detained by the SBU.

Date:  10 March 2022

Accused of: ‘treason’

Ref:  70-year-old native of Kiev, an Orthodox journalist and TV presenter, “Pershiy Kozatsky”. Currently in a pre-trial detention centre.

Case:  Yuri Tkachev 

Scientist and independent journalist

Editor-in-chief of the online magazine https://timer-odessa.net/.

Event: Arrested and detained in Odessa

Date: 19 March 2022
Accused of: ‘ treason’.

Ref: No contact or information on his current status. Wrote just before his arrest: “They came for me, it was a pleasure to talk”.

Case: Dmitri Dzhangirov

TV presenter, political scientist

Member of the “Novyi Sotcialism” (“New Socialism”) party

Event: detained by the SBU (?)

Date: 7 March 2022

Accused of: ?

Ref:  According to social media information, “subscribers denounced that an anti-Russian statement was published on his Youtube channel “The Capital”.  He was subsequently forced to make a anti-Russian speech on camera and on his YouTube channel as well.

Case: Elena Berezhnaya 

Sportswoman / human rights activist

Event: Detained by the SBU (?)
Date: 16 March 2022

Accused of:

Ref:  article

Case: Maxim Rindkovsky

MMA fighter

Event: detained, beaten and tortured by ultra-nationalist group

Date:  Precise date unknown-  1st week of March 2022

Accused of: having trained  with MMA fighters from the Chechen Ahmat club during his sports career.

Ref:  Article /   Current status is unknown although alleged to have been killed.

Case:  Dmitry Skvortsov 

Journalist and peace activist of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Event: Detained by the SBU

Date: 10 March 2022

Accused of:

Ref:  tweet 

Case: Mikhail Pogrebinsky

Political scientist

Event: Arrested by the SBU

Date: 27 March 2022

Accused of: treason and illegal enrichment.

Ref: Considered to be pro-Russian as he appeared on Russian TV channels.

Case: Vladimir Ivanov

Left-wing activist

Date:  4th March

Case: Aleksandr Matiushenko

Militant of the Ukrainian left-wing organisation “Livytsia”

Date: 3rd March

Charged with “participation in the aggressive war”.

Ref: Arrested by SBU and ‘Azov’

Case: Oleg Smetanin 

Violinist

Date: 4th March

Accused of: passing information about an airport to the Russians.

Case: Vasily Volga

Former leader of the Union of Left Forces,

Date: 7 March

Case: Yury Dudkin

Journalist

Date: 7 March

Case: Aleksandr Karevin

Writer

Date: 7 March

Ref: wrote on his FB page: “The SBU has arrived”

Case: Oleg Pankartiev

Assistant to a deputy of the opposition party “OPZZH (Opposition Platform for Life)

Date: 9 March

Accused of: ?

Ref: Brutally beaten during arrest and is still detained by SBU.

Case:   Spartak Golovachiov 

Left-wing activist

Date: 11 March

Ref: Managed to write on social media : “They are breaking down my door armed with Ukrainian uniforms. Goodbye.”  Whereabouts unknown.

Case: Elena Viacheslavova

Human rights activist

Date: 11 March in Odessa

Detained by SBU

Ref: The daughter of Mikhail Viacheslavov, burned alive on 2 May 2014, in the Odessa House of Trade Unions.

Case: Artiom Khazan

Representative of the Shariy Party

15 March

Detained by the SBU

Ref: He was severely beaten during his arrest by the SBU,

The next day, a video appeared on social networks, in which Khazan slandered the party chairman Anatoli Shariy. Current whereabouts unknown.

Case: Yury Bobchenko

Chairman of the trade union of Ukrainian steelworkers and miners

Date: 19 March

Arrested by Ukrainian military.

Ref: A worker from the Arcelor Mittal Krivoi Rog company.

Case: Gleb Lyashenko 

Political scientist and blogger

Date:  29/30 March

Arrested by SBU (?) and charged with treason.

Case: A German

Ex-journalist — Radio Liberty

Case: Oleg Novikov

Opposition Activist

Date: 5 April

Arrested by SBU

Ref: Managed to write on Telegram: “They came for me. Don’t think ill of me. Stay yourself”

As you can see from the list, the whereabouts of many are not known, actual accusations against them are not known either.  Just an accusation, having your name on a blacklist can get you kidnapped, brutalised, and potentially killed in Ukraine.

Situation in Ukraine

There are still some brave few who try to gather information on the arrests and detentions.   The increasing levels of lawlessness and repression makes it very difficult to collect precise information.

Embedded into the already volatile mix of state repression, Ukrainian ultra-nationalists operate outside of any legal oversight, thus not accountable to state political structures.  Moreover, many had total impunity since 2014 and despite a couple of incidents between the SBU and Right Sector, they still have undeclared support by all levels of Ukrainian officialdom.

It is only to be expected that ultra-nationalists have taken matters in own their hands, such as the kidnapping, beating and torture of an MMA fighter, Maxim Rindkovsky, solely based on the fact he had trained in the past with a Chechen MMA club. Unverified claims made indicate the participation of Azov members in the torture and disappearance of Maxim Rindkovsky.

Other recent instances of the rule of the mob, ultra-nationalist, territorial defense enforcers:

13 March, the house of Dmitry Lazarev, a left-wing activist, was burnt down, (in a village near Odessa).

16 March, in the village of Tomashevka in the Kiev region: Guennady Batenko, a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was kidnapped by an armed commando. He was released by the SBU the next day.

27/28 March: Slema, Cherkasy region. A priest is filmed being forcibly taken away by a detachment of “territorial defense” ultra-nationalists (Teroborona), along with parishioners who try to protect him. His whereabouts are not known.

Solely judging by the list as outlined in this article, it is just a little indication of the broader situation where there are hundreds of detainees in Ukraine, their circumstances and status hasn’t warranted the attention to make their disappearance / arrest on social media, their whereabouts are not known at all.  As the conflict continues, the repression continues to build up against a wide-ranging category of people.

While this is all happening, the Western authorities and corporate MSM are completely indifferent to the situation and turmoil.   The MSM are indeed complicit in whitewashing these abominable events.   As expected, the West organisations are all too eager to publicise any crackdown of dissenting voices in Russia. Yet, they have no time or inclination whatsoever to do likewise for those critical of Zelensky’s government, state- repression that is innumerably and unrelentingly cruel, harsher, and significantly deadlier.

The long list of human rights abuses and ill-treatments by the SBU has been amply catalogued in the past, along with the assistance of ultra-nationalist groups, who are tacitly permitted to act indiscriminately against anyone they deem as an “enemy of Ukraine”.

The fate of at least a dozen well-known opposition activists, political analysts, journalists, politicians, and bloggers remains unclear. All this taking place with a cold indifference of well-known Western human right organisations and more strikingly, the Western corporate MSM, all under the auspices of the supposedly ‘enlightened’, ‘civilised’ Europe and North America. No one is raising a voice against these actions.

———-

* 2016 OSCE-report “War crimes of the armed forces and security forces of Ukraine: torture and inhumane treatment”.

[2] https://www.defenddemocracy.press/killing-and-terrorizing-journalists-in-ukraine/

Against the background of rampant corruption, by the end of 2021, Ukraine fell to 122nd place out of 180 countries in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (Transparency International, 2021).