January 2024

Jan 31, 2024

Featured • Zelensky Bound to Stoke Standoff With Russia, Further Fuelling Ukraine Conflict - Report, Oleg Burunov, Sputnik International, Jan 30, 2024

Doubts about the West’s willingness to further prop up the Kiev regime may drive Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to stir up the Ukraine conflict even further by ordering riskier attacks against Russia, Time magazine reported.

Zelensky is already taking “bigger risks” in order to turn the conflict around and bolster his political standing at home, according to the publication.

Every one of these actions is ripe with the potential for Russian retaliation, which may in turn deepen the hostilities and directly drag in NATO, Time magazine notes, adding that neither Moscow nor Brussels wants such a development.

Armed conflicts “take on a life of their own, particularly with one of the key players—in this case, Zelensky—becoming a wild card to watch,” the magazine concluded.

This follows Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling reporters that Zelensky is currently in a tight spot because no one is providing him with money and Ukraine is up against a crisis at the moment.

"Zelensky is in a tough position. He has stopped receiving money, there are not enough shells for him abroad, he is also facing a tense situation inside the country, and many people are dissatisfied. In order to cloak his positions, he resorts to disguising them with utterly ludicrous decrees. It is unlikely that this can help the Kiev regime in any way, [so] the difficulties will only mount. This is despite the fact that there certainly are still more or less bright minds who understand what needs to be done to get out of this situation," Peskov said, commenting on Zelensky's decree entitled "On the territories of the Russian Federation historically inhabited by Ukrainians."

Time's report comes after The American Conservative pointed out that Zelensky has issued frenzied orders to attack civilians in order to fuel the conflict and secure further assistance from the West.

Jan 30, 2024

Featured • Biden Working to Prevent Possible Trump Cuts to Ukraine Aid, Kyle Anzalone, The Libertarian Institute, Jan 29, 2024

President Joe Biden is working on a document that would promise military assistance to Ukraine for the next decade. The White House hopes to get Congressional approval and prevent Donald Trump from changing course in Ukraine if elected. With the commitment to Kiev, Biden is seeking President Zelensky to adopt a defensive position and abandon aspirations to retake territory.

The Washington Post reports that the White House is working with the State Department to compile a document that will pledge short and long-term military assistance to Ukraine. The administration will seek Congressional buy-in. A portion of the policy would be included in a $111 billion supplemental defense spending bill that includes $61 billion in military assistance for Ukraine.

“According to US officials, the American document will guarantee support for short-term military operations as well as build a future Ukrainian military force that can deter Russian aggression,” The Post explains, “ It will include specific promises and programs to help protect, reconstitute and expand Ukraine’s industrial and export base, and assist the country with political reforms needed for full integration into Western institutions.”

It continues, “Not incidentally, a US official said, the hope is that the long-term promise will also “future-proof” aid for Ukraine against the possibility that former president Trump wins his reelection bid.”

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Trump started to criticize Biden for failing to prevent the war. Trump claims that, if elected, he will be able to end the conflict within days of retaking office.

It is unclear how Trump plans to accomplish this. As president, he significantly escalated tensions with Russia in Ukraine by providing Kiev with lethal arms.

Around noon several reliable political sources in Ukraine reported that President Zelensky had signed a decree to fire the Commander in Chief General Zaluzny. Hours later the Ministry of Defense denied that Zaluzny was fired.

From information gained since we can somewhat reconstruct what had happened.

Zaluzny had been ordered into the President's office. He was asked to write his resignation. As consolation gift he would receive an ambassadorship in some western European country.

Zaluzny rejected the request and insisted of getting fired or being allowed to stay in place.

Zelenski had planned to promote the Chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence in Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov as the new Commander in Chief....

I am pretty sure that the Pentagon and even the White House may have called Kiev and stopped Zelenski from implementing such nonsense.

Zaluzny will, for now, stay in his position.

But the whole affair will have diminished the military's view of Zelenski and his consorts. In just one day a military coup In Kiev has suddenly become much more possible. As further the military situation deteriorates the higher are the chances that it will eventually happen.

The conditions of “security” defined by the U.S. are also omnipresent at Davos, as an “absent spectator”. A safe world is a world without Russia, the country removed, authoritatively and discretionarily, from the event. It says a lot about a so-called “world” event that removes the largest nuclear power and one of the two largest military powers on the planet. It’s also the largest country in the world in terms of territory, with the greatest diversity/number of natural resources, a strategic partner for important countries that represent more than half of the world’s population, such as China, India and Iran; a technological leader in the space, aerospace, nuclear, naval and military fields; and one of the largest producers of food and cereals in the world. Talking about “security”, “cooperation”, “energy”, “nature” and “climate” without involving Russia can only be a bad joke.

The Ukrainian president has said that his army now numbers nearly 900,000 soldiers.

There are currently 880,000 people serving in Ukraine’s armed forces, according to President Vladimir Zelensky, who insisted that Kiev wants to mobilize even more troops, primarily males who left the country after the start of the conflict with Russia.

Just last month, Zelensky claimed that Kiev’s ground forces numbered over 600,000 service personnel, while in February 2022, when Russia launched its offensive, the Ukrainian army officially had only about 260,000 servicemen.

In an interview with the German public channel ARD news broadcast on Monday, the Ukrainian leader stated that Kiev now has “a million-strong army,” adding that there are also over 30 million people who are working in the country right now, one million of whom are employed in the defense and security sectors.

At the same time, Zelensky noted that between 6.5 million and 7.5 million people had left Ukraine since the start of the conflict and stated that Kiev wants to repatriate citizens who are eligible for military service.

While Kiev doesn’t publish its casualty figures, Russia’s Defense Ministry has estimated that Ukraine’s forces have lost as many as 160,000 service personnel since the launch of their failed summer counteroffensive, and that, over the course of the conflict, nearly 400,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded....

The US outlet Daily Beast also reported last week, citing interviews with Ukrainian men who have been avoiding mobilization, that Kiev was now sending untrained conscripts to the frontline shortly after drafting them from the streets, with many of them failing to last even a few days on the battlefield.

In light of these personnel shortages, late last year Kiev intensified its mobilization efforts, with Zelensky stating at the time that the military was looking to call up an additional 500,000 new recruits. One Ukrainian official even proposed mobilizing the country’s entire population.

Jan 28, 2024

 • WH’s New Strategy on Ukraine ‘Will De-Emphasize’ Retaking ‘Lost Territory’, Oleg Burunov, Sputnik International, Jan 27, 2024

The Biden administration’s new strategy will “de-emphasize” Kiev’s recovery of the so-called “lost territories” this year and instead focus on Washington helping the Zelensky regime survive amid Russia’s ongoing special military operation, the Washington Post quoted unnamed sources as saying. The sources were apparently referring to the territories previously reunited with Russia as a result of popular referendums. They claimed that the Biden administration, “still smarting” from Kiev’s bungled counteroffensive in 2023, is “putting together the new strategy,” which includes helping the Zelensky regime strengthen its armed forces and economy in the face of the Ukraine funding impasse in the U.S. Congress.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to crush modern-day forces that promote Nazism, singling out Ukraine and the Baltic states as countries where the authorities have embraced such ideologies. Speaking on Saturday at the opening of a memorial to Soviet civilians killed by Nazi German forces in Leningrad Region, the Russian head of state said: “these days the outcomes of the Nuremberg trials are effectively being revised.” He claimed that some countries have gone from rewriting history and whitewashing the Nazis to “arming themselves with Hitlerites’ ideology and methods.”

President Putin cited the Baltic states, in an apparent reference to their treatment of Russian-speaking minorities, which Moscow deems discriminatory. “The regime in Kiev lionizes Hitlers’ accomplices, SS members, and uses terror against” those who resist it, the Russian leader alleged, accusing the Ukrainian authorities of subjecting the elderly, women and children to “barbaric shelling.” According to President Putin, “in a number of European countries, Russophobia is being promoted as the state policy.” “We will do everything – everything to undercut and eradicate Nazism for good,” the Russian head of state pledged.

The US assured Kiev that the Russian assets that remain frozen in the West are going to be seized and used to rebuild Ukraine after the conflict, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal has said. The US, EU, and their allies blocked some $300 billion of Russian central bank assets as part of sanctions in response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. Around $200 billion of that money is held in the EU. Politico reported on Thursday that it asked Shmygal if he was concerned that US funding for the Kiev government would come to a complete stop if Donald Trump won the presidential election in November and returned to the White House for his second term. ”We have all the assurances from the US about long-term support for Ukraine – for example, the seizure of Russian assets to fund the Ukrainian recovery,” he claimed.

On Wednesday, a US Senate committee approved the “Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity (REPO) for Ukrainians Act,” which should help pave the way for such a move by Washington. If it passes both houses and is signed into law by President Joe Biden, Washington could seize the Russian central bank assets, using such a measure against a country that it’s not directly at war with for the first time in history. Reuters reported this week, citing a senior official in Brussels, that the EU will be unlikely to join the US in confiscating the Russian funds as there’s no agreement on such a step between the bloc’s member-states. Earlier in January, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned that Moscow would respond to a possible seizure of its assets by the West, inducing tit-for-tat measures.

Former US President Donald Trump and Republican policymakers have subjected a draft bipartisan US border security deal to harsh criticism, casting doubt on the future of military aid packages for Ukraine and Israel. The border security deal is seen by Democratic lawmakers as a necessary evil to ram a new multi-billion Ukraine aid bill through the US Congress. Last December neither chamber managed to reach a compromise on the provision of further funds to Kiev despite pleas and even threats from the White House. Eventually, Republican and Democratic senators come up with a draft border agreement. Even though the formal text of the deal has not been officially released yet, leaks keep coming irritating US conservatives, as per Just the News, an independent US media outlet.

Media reported that the draft bipartisan agreement could allow up to 5,000 migrants to enter the US daily at the border. To that end, the White House is reportedly requesting at least $14 billion to help cities to absorb the flow of migrants released by US border authorities into the country. Former President Donald Trump denounced that as a bad deal in every way: “I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get everything needed to shut down the invasion of millions and millions of people, many from parts unknown, into our once great, but soon to be great again, country!” he wrote on his Truth Social media site on January 25. The US mainstream media warns that the former president’s comment was a “serious blow to the talks”. Trump has emerged as the leading Republican presidential candidate following the party’s first two primaries this month, with the power to influence the outcome of the negotiations....

Still, some US senators warn that the effort is doomed. US Senator Ted Cruz said on Wednesday that the Ukraine aid-border security supplemental bill is a train wreck and has no chance of passing the US House of Representatives. Senator Rick Scott echoed Cruz, saying that the bill will be dead on arrival in the House. Earlier this week the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft suggested that House Republicans may kill the foreign aid bill even if a bipartisan border security and immigration deal is passed. The lower chamber’s Republican majority has no appetite for throwing good money after bad to Ukraine, according to the institute. The DC-based think-tank also noted House Speaker Mike Johnson’s ardent support for a sweeping migration reform and his record of opposing Ukraine funding packages. Some House Republicans, such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, even threatened to introduce a “motion to vacate” and oust the speaker if Johnson passes funding to Ukraine.

Former US President and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump is undermining Republican efforts to strike a border deal with Democrats that will pave the way for more funding from Washington to Ukraine, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

The administration of US President Joe Biden has for weeks been asking Congress to approve a supplemental budget request which includes another $60 billion for Kiev. Republicans have been blocking the package by demanding that the White House does more to address security on the US-Mexico border in return.

Jan 26, 2024

Featured • Pepe Escobar: Five Variables Defining Our Future, Sputnik International, Jan 25, 2024

 • ‘Suicide Mission’: Ukrainian Troops Reveal Dire Situation on Battlefield, Svetlana Ekimenko, Sputnik International, Jan 25, 2024

 • Ex-Pentagon Adviser Macgregor Says at Least 400 Americans Died in Ukraine, Sputnik International, Jan 25, 2024

 • Debunking Zelensky’s Propaganda That After Ukraine Putin Will Invade Europe, Emanuel Todd, X/Twitter, Jan 24, 2024

 • Euromaidan Ten Years On: Color Revolution That Brought Ukraine to Ruin, Ilya Tsukanov, Sputnik International, Nov 21, 2023
You don't always get what you want. Would-be violent revolutionists everywhere, beware. Violence poisons the air and kills everything desirable. The ends won't justify the means.

Jan 24, 2024

Featured • Breaking: Ukraine Shot Down Russian IL-76 with 65 Ukrainian Prisoners of War on Board, SouthFront, Jan 24, 2024

Featured • Belgorod plane attack: Kiev deliberately shot down plane carrying its POWs, Moscow says, RT, Jan 24, 2024

74 people, including 65 Ukrainian service members, were killed in the crash in Belgorod Region.

Ukraine has knowingly downed a Russian plane with its own prisoners of war in order to pin this “terrorist act” on Moscow, the Defense Ministry has said, adding that Kiev has once again shown its true colors.

In a statement on Wednesday, the ministry revealed the details of the crash of an IL-76 cargo plane in Belgorod Region, which claimed the lives of 65 Ukrainian POWs, as well as six crew members and three Russian soldiers.

Gunnar Beck, Member of the European Parliament for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party who is currently Vice-President of the Identity & Democracy Group in the Parliament, told Sputnik[:]

“Ever since 1990, at the end of the Soviet Union, the Russian government has gone out of its way to intensify economic relations between Russia and Germany. We had extremely favorable energy contracts with Russia. And Russia was a growing export market for our agricultural and industrial goods. It’s due to our government’s policy, vis-a-vis Ukraine conflict that relations with Russia are now almost at an all time low. So, on the one hand, I think, German policy and EU policy has been a provocation. Nonetheless, I think that the Russian reaction to the sanctions in particular has been tough, but at the same time measured. So in my view, Russia is no immediate security threat to Germany. Categorically not.” Not only is Germany’s justification for rearmament in question but also the nation’s ability to afford it, according to Beck. German industry is in a dire state as a result of the government’s policies, he stressed.

“Germany currently finds itself in what is probably the most serious economic crisis since the Second World War,” Beck said. “The government’s policies (…) are affecting all leading branches of German industry, which is suffering from high inflation, lack of qualified labor, bureaucracy and high tax levels. As a result, our exports have declined significantly. So we are in crisis, and German industry, which has always been the backbone of German prosperity, in particular, is in crisis.”

NATO sees no threat from Russia toward any of its members, the US-led bloc’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Tuesday during a press conference in Brussels. His comments come as several countries, including Germany and the Baltic states, have raised concerns of a potential future Russian attack.

Answering questions from journalists following the signing of major new investments in artillery ammunition productions, Stoltenberg stated that, “We don’t see any direct or imminent threat against any NATO ally.”

In an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF on Monday, the defense chief pointed out that while Germany is not currently under a direct threat of attack, the country should do its best to be prepared for it.

If Germany wants to be ready for an attack “that you don’t know if and when it will occur, then that means you have to arm yourself – and that’s what we’re currently doing together with allies in NATO,” he explained.

Pistorius went on to say that “deterrence is the only effective means of positioning oneself against an aggressor from the outset” as it signals to a potential adversary that the target is capable of striking back. To achieve such a posture, however, Germany must have “a credible deterrent” and be able to “wage a war that is forced upon us,” he noted.

Jan 21, 2024

   Featured • Western Leaders Disregard Zelensky's Murderous Attack on Donetsk, Oleg Burunov, Sputnik International, Jan 22, 2024
   • Ukraine's New Year Attack on Donetsk 'Pure Terrorism' Enabled by US – Ex-CIA Analyst, Ilya Tsukanov, Sputnik International, Jan 1, 2024
Which is why Russia launched the SMO. The West was happy to support terrorism and -- if you listen to what Poroshenko and other Ukrainian leaders were saying -- the intent to ethnically cleanse the Donbass. One difference between residents of the Donbass and residents of Gaza is that the former have Russia to protect them -- reluctantly and partially from 2014 to 2022, and then fully.

Featured • Ukrainian Shelling of Donetsk Market Kills at Least 27, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, Jan 21, 2024
Throughout this conflict, Russia has to my knowledge never targeted civilians. Some civilians die, as always happens in war. Ukraine has from the beginning placed military assets in civilian areas, and often air defense rockets fall into residential buildings. Russia has targeted military and dual-use assets, which have created civilian casualties. But never, to my knowledge, as Russia intentionally hit purely civilian targets or otherwise intentionally killed civilians. The underlying racism and neo-Nazi ideologies, widespread in Ukraine and inculcated through propaganda, public education, and state action since 2014, lead to brutality like this. It has been going on since 2014 and was a major reason for the Russian "special military operation" which, after the failure of peace talks in the spring of 2022, has become a real war. To the temporary delight of U.S. neocons.

Featured • Scale of Steadfast Defender Drills Marks Return of NATO to Cold War-Era Patterns - Moscow, Sputnik International, Jan 21, 2024

The scale of NATO exercises Steadfast Defender-2024 marks the final and irrevocable return of the alliance to the Cold War schemes to oppose Russia, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told Sputnik. On Thursday, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Gen. Christopher Cavoli said that the alliance would begin Steadfast Defender-2024, “the largest NATO exercise in decades,” next week. About 90,000 servicepeople will be involved in the drills, he added. “These exercises are another element of the hybrid war unleashed by the West against Russia. The exercises of such scale – 90,000 servicepeople with the participation of 31 countries – mark the final and irrevocable return of NATO to the Cold War support schemes, when the military planning process, resources and infrastructure are being prepared for confrontation with Russia,” Grushko said.

He also noted that the preparation for the exercises “takes place in an artificially heated atmosphere of military psychosis.” “Irresponsible statements about a possible war with Russia, for which European citizens ‘should prepare,’ were made by the German defense minister, the Swedish commander-in-chief and the chairman of the NATO Military Committee. The goal is clear: by demonizing Russia, intimidating the average person, to justify the unbridled increase in military spending and the completely failed policy of supporting the Kiev regime with the aim of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia. And at the same time, force the Europeans to join the arms race even more energetically, to the delight of the American military-industrial complex,” Grushko said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced last month that Budapest had vetoed 50 billion euros in the EU macro-financial aid for Ukraine.

The European External Action Service (EEAS) is developing a new plan to provide military assistance to Ukraine that will allow EU members to override Hungary's veto of the bloc's aid to Kiev, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Under the plan, a draft of which was seen by the newspaper, EU members will provide Ukraine with more than 20 billion euros ($21.8 billion) in military aid over the next four years.

The conflict in Ukraine can only end with a “complete liberation” and “restoration of its 1991 borders,” Kiev’s deputy defense minister Ivan Gavrilyuk told the newspaper Der Tagesspiegel last week. Only then can Moscow and the pro-Kiev “coalition” sign a document to “create preventive mechanisms so that Russia will never think about another war against Ukraine or any country in the future.”

“This document must include Russia's renunciation of nuclear weapons, because it poses a threat to the world,” Gavrilyuk claimed.

A senior adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, Mikhail Podoliak, voiced a similar idea, claiming that the negotiation should take place only when Moscow “suffers a global defeat,” or at the very least a series of “tactical defeats,” and “internal riots” that would threaten political stability in Russia and force it to “voluntarily give up nuclear weapons.”

“What is a global defeat? The Russian Federation will no longer be able to dominate… will not be able to use its veto right in the UN Security Council,” Podoliak explained. “Then conditions are possible for nuclear weapons, and for the number of carriers of nuclear weapons, including missiles of a certain range, and for cross-border buffer zones, etc.”

Bratislava will block Kiev’s bid to join the US-led NATO alliance and will stand by a decision to stop supplying weaponry to Ukraine amid its conflict with Russia, Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico has said.

The PM made the remarks on Saturday ahead of his visit to Ukraine to meet his counterpart Denis Shmygal in the western Ukrainian city of Uzhgorod. Fico stressed that his visit serves solely “humanitarian” purposes and promised to openly communicate Bratislava’s stance to Kiev on different issues, including Ukraine’s potential accession to EU or NATO membership.

“I will tell him that there are things on which we have completely different opinions,” Fico told broadcaster RTVS. “I will tell him that we respect them when it comes to joining the EU, but they must fulfill the conditions,” he added, explaining that a situation where “a country that absolutely does not meet any requirements” joins the EU is unacceptable.

He ruled out any possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, insisting such a move would only result in a global catastrophe, apparently caused by a direct collision between NATO and Russia over the issue.

The irony is that the threats and chaos that these political charlatans adduce are largely the result of Western lawlessness, as evidenced by their de facto support for the genocide in Gaza and the relentless funding of a Neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine to provoke Russia. For decades, the Western powers have gotten away with mass murder, illegal wars, and global vandalism. The difference now is that a convergence of crises has exposed their malevolence and machinations.

The slaughter in Gaza has exceeded 100 days and the death toll is approaching 30,000. It is the most transparent genocide in history, as Richard Falk deplores. And, what is more, the United States and its European allies are fully complicit in the shocking crimes committed by the Israeli regime...

The complacency and smugness of Western political leaders like U.S. President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken are nauseating. The United States as well as the European Union are enabling and arming the Israeli regime with no restraint.

Indeed, when South Africa presented its charges of genocide against Israel at the United Nations International Court of Justice at the Hague last week, it was apparent to the world that the U.S., Britain, and other European powers were de facto in the dock as well over their complicity.

Washington, London, and Brussels have pointedly refused to demand a ceasefire in Gaza under the guise of cynical excuses that recycle odious Israeli propaganda lies, such as the Palestinian militant group Hamas allegedly using human shields or hospitals as bases.

Yet these Western powers turn around and suddenly bomb Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab region because it has taken the principled action of blocking Red Sea shipping as a leverage point to force a ceasefire in Gaza. The Yemenis are invoking their right under the 1948 Genocide Convention to act in solidarity to prevent the genocide of Palestinian people.

Jan 19, 2024

Featured • Andrey Sushentsov: Here’s why Russia and the US are set for a long confrontation, RT, Jan 19, 2024

The Ukraine conflict is only the first phase in the new struggle between Moscow and Washington.

Relations between Russia and the United States have entered a prolonged phase that can be described as a "long confrontation." If the interactions between Moscow and Washington were still the central process of international life, as was the case during the Cold War, this new phase might be considered temporary. But the Moscow-Washington confrontation is now one of many. More importantly, it is taking place in conditions that occur once every few centuries – a period of global redistribution of power and resource potential.

About 90,000 troops will participate in the drills to prepare for a potential conflict with Russia.

NATO will launch major war games next week with about 90,000 troops to prepare for a potential conflict with Russia that will mark the alliance’s largest military exercises since the end of the Cold War.

“Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024 will be the largest NATO exercise in decades, with participation from approximately 90,000 forces from all 31 Allies and our good partner Sweden,” Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, told reporters.

The drills will take place across Europe and will involve reinforcements coming from North America. “This reinforcement will occur during a simulated emerging conflict scenario against a near-peer adversary,” Cavoli said.

Adm. Rob Bauer, the Dutch chairman of the NATO military committee, made clear the drills were about preparing for war with Russia. “I’m not saying it is going wrong tomorrow, but we have to realize it’s not a given that we are in peace,” Bauer said, according to Stars & Stripes.

Bauer suggested last year that NATO countries should discuss shifting their economies to a “war economy,” where civilian factories would start producing military goods, similar to what the United States did during World War II, and said on Thursday that European societies need to be ready for a conflict. “It is the whole of society that will get involved (in a war) whether we like it or not,” he said.

Moscow finally understands that it can never have a real partnership with the US-led bloc, the foreign minister has explained.

The Ukraine conflict has helped Russia overcome the misconception that it can trust the West, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday on Moscow’s diplomacy in 2023, Lavrov argued that Russia’s military operation against Kiev has had positive consequences domestically, including a reinvigorating effect on society which has helped to bring people together.

He added that the conflict, which also ushered in unprecedented Western sanctions, allowed the country’s economy to make great strides in both civilian and military production.

The West’s “hybrid aggression,” which encompassed many areas, played a role in “making us understand how to go on living,” Lavrov said. “If there had been any illusions left over from the 1990s, that the West would open its arms to embrace us and that democracy would unite us all, they have been completely dispelled.”

“The West cannot be trusted. Even now, it wants only one thing – to live at the expense of others and to be more clever than others.”

Lavrov’s comments come after Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted last month that he was “naive” early on in his political career, despite having served in the Soviet KGB. He said he believed that there was no fundamental reason for the West and Moscow to be at odds after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

However, in reality, the former was seeking to break Russia into several entities with less ability to protect their national interests, the president stated. Putin had previously warned that a breakup of the country could lead to the Russian people ceasing to exist altogether, adding that unity is the key condition for the country’s success.

On Wednesday, US House Speaker Mike Johnson revealed his determination to continue with a stalemate between Democrats and Republicans regarding legislation that would pave the way for continued funding to Ukraine. The deal is currently being worked on in the Senate with the aim to pair border and immigration policy changes (what Republicans want) alongside funding for Ukraine (what Democrats are asking for). “I don’t think now is the time for comprehensive immigration reform because we know how complicated that is,” Johnson said early Wednesday. “You can’t do that quickly. I do think it’s past time to secure the border.” Biden called for the top four congressional leaders and other lawmakers, including Johnson to the White House in an effort to move forward with an agreement on legislation for border security and funding for Ukraine. The Senate has been working for weeks in an effort to craft some common ground legislation, but some senators last week said significant disagreements remain an issue.

“With regard to Ukraine, we have needed, we have requested publicly and privately in every form, answers to critical questions: What is the end game and the strategy in Ukraine? How will we have accountability for the funds?” said Johnson, seeming to suggest that a bipartisan deal may not be enough to encourage their support of continued funding for Ukraine. “We need to know that Ukraine would not be another Afghanistan.” “And you see a lot of the American people scratching their heads, having real questions about why that would continue without these appropriate answers. So I’m going to push for those. But before we even talk about Ukraine, I’m going to tell the president what I’m telling all of you and we’ve told the American people: border, border, border, we have to take care of our own house,” the house speaker said at a conference on Wednesday.

“We have to secure our own borders before we talk about doing anything else. And that’s the message I’ve had since day one. It’s the message we’ll continue to have.”

The Ukrainian side has given conflicting accounts of Tuesday’s strike, first saying the missiles hit an unused hospital and then that a residential building was struck causing civilian casualties. Donbass Insider Editor-in-chief Christelle Neant told RT on Thursday that “many wounded French-speaking individuals were admitted to hospitals” in Kharkov, according to Ukrainian intelligence sources.

Neant said that Kiev uses foreign mercenaries “primarily for media purposes” and that the Frenchmen in Kharkov may have been instructors teaching the Ukrainians how to handle weapons provided by the West. Earl Rasmussen of the Eurasia Center told RT that the Kharkov strike might be a message to Ukraine that Russia won’t treat Western fighters any differently than Ukrainian ones. He also allowed for the possibility the stricken foreigners may have been instructors. Thousands of fighters from the West flocked to Ukraine after the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022, but their enthusiasm dropped off after up to 180 of them died in a missile strike on base in Yavorov in mid-March. Since then, almost 6,000 of the 13,500 foreigners who came to fight for Ukraine have been killed, and over 5,600 have returned home, the Russian Defense Ministry said earlier this month.

Russia’s elimination of foreign mercenaries in Ukraine hurts the West because it demonstrates how Moscow can inflict “huge losses” with single precision strikes, Finnish news editor Janus Putkonen has told RT. The Russian military said that it targeted a “temporary assembly point of foreign fighters” in Kharkov on Tuesday, killing 60 foreign fighters and injuring more than 20 others, the majority of whom were “French mercenaries.” The French foreign ministry on Thursday denied the presence of any French mercenaries in Ukraine, although a pro-Russian resistance group in Kharkov told RIA Novosti that French-speaking personnel were present at the targeted building, and that some foreigners there had been “supervising” the RDK, a Ukrainian paramilitary unit associated with the country’s military intelligence agency.

"My country… was a prosperous country years before, before the coup, before everything happened in '14, Ukraine was prosperous,” he explained. “His situation [Gonzalo Lira’s] is the face of what is happening in Ukraine today, because there's thousands of people like Gonzalo Lira who we don't even know about. I had three friends who got shot in Ukraine because they are political and analytics experts – great, great guys that didn't work for anybody, that just had their point of view of peace and the truth, and they got killed in the first weeks of the conflict.”

“The Secret Service of Ukraine came to their house and shot them. One of them got killed in the prison. And this is what's happening in Ukraine today… This is what's happened in a so-called democracy which the deep state is financing today in Ukraine.”

A security agreement signed last week is further proof that London is maintaining a firm grip on the Kiev government and is working to prevent any prospect of peace, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

On Friday, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a £2.5 billion ($3.2 billion) military assistance package for Ukraine – Britain’s largest to date. The two sides also signed a ten-year security guarantee, with the UK pledging “swift and sustained” aid for Ukraine in the event of a Russian attack in future. Kiev also promised to come to Britain’s defense in the event of Russian “aggression” against the country.

Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, Zakharova suggested that the deal was an indication that “Ukraine is literally being stripped of any chance to get out of the conflict through negotiations.” As a result, Kiev is being turned into “a bargaining chip in the reckless ventures of the Anglo-Saxons,” she added, claiming that the UK wants to keep the country in conflict with Russia.

Jan 17, 2024

Featured • Zelensky threatens Putin’s grandchildren, RT, Jan 16, 2024

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has threatened Russian President Vladimir Putin’s entire family with “criminal trials” and long prison sentences, during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday.

Zelensky’s address to the gathering of aspiring global leaders focused on asking for more weapons, money, and ammunition so he could continue to fight Russia. At one point, however, he made a reference to the Russian leader’s family.

Putin will not “rest in peace, both in this world and in the next,” said Zelensky. "Neither his children, nor his grandchildren.”

The Russian leader is “the sole reason why various wars and conflicts persist” and he must be held accountable so his “aggression” doesn’t embolden other “autocracies,” Zelensky insisted.

“Yes, we are not terrorists, and therefore these will be criminal trials,” after which Putin and his entire family would spend “a long, multi-year vacation” behind bars, he added.

Zelensky has repeatedly insisted that Ukraine does not engage in terrorism, while admitting he would have Putin assassinated if the opportunity arose. The Ukrainian security service, the SBU, has operated a dedicated assassination unit since 2015, according to its former chief.

The Washington Post recently highlighted the SBU’s campaign of assassinations while attempting to deflect any blame from the CIA, which is deeply embedded in Ukrainian intelligence.

Ukraine has targeted local Russian officials, as well as journalists such as Darya Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky. Writer Zakhar Prilepin survived an assassination attempt, while Russian security services thwarted a SBU hit on RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan in November.

Zelensky’s mention of Putin’s grandchildren came just a day after Anne Applebaum – an American journalist and wife of Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski – claimed that the Russian president “has a grandson with Dutch citizenship.” Her source was an associate of Alexey Navalny, a Russian blogger imprisoned for embezzlement.

The Nazi leadership aimed to exterminate Leningrad’s entire population by enforced starvation. Death by starvation was a deliberate act on the part of the German Reich. In the words of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler “intended to have cities like Moscow and St Petersburg wiped out.” This was “necessary”, he wrote in July 1941, “because if we want to divide Russia into its individual parts,” it should “no longer have a spiritual, political or economic centre.”

Hitler himself declared in September 1941, “We have no interest in maintaining even a part of the metropolitan population in this existential war.” Any talk of the city surrendering had to be “rejected, as the problem of keeping and feeding the population cannot be solved by us.”

Simply put, the population of Leningrad was left to starve to death – much like the millions of Soviet prisoners of war held by the Wehrmacht. The historian Jörg Ganzenmüller later wrote that this form of mass murder was cost-effective for Berlin, for, it was “genocide by simply doing nothing”.

“Genocide by doing nothing”! Those chilling words are as well applicable today to the West’s “sanctions from hell” with an ulterior agenda to “erase” Russia and carve out five new states from its vast landmass with fabulous resources that can be subjugated by the industrial world.

The mother of all ironies is that Germany is even today at the forefront of the “genocide by doing nothing” strategy to weaken and bring down the Russian Federation on its knees. The Biden administration depended on a troika of three German politicians to do the heavy lifting in that failed effort to erase Russia — EU’s top bureaucrat in Brussels Ursula von der Layen, German Chancellor Olaf Schulz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Apart from superior battlefield weapons, Russia has a manpower advantage. Russia is smaller in terms of population than the combined NATO countries, but it is providing standardized training to soldiers that share a common cause — i.e., defending the motherland. NATO? It is a hodgepodge of different nationalities who have no unifying cause other than a hatred of Russia, which is rooted in racism. On top of that, most of the major NATO countries are struggling to meet recruitment goals.

Almost forgot. The war in Ukraine has revealed that NATO countries no longer have the military industrial capability to produce the volumes of artillery shells and combat vehicles and air defense missiles needed to fight Russia. Russia’s industry is running on all cylinders and cranking out prodigious quantities of ammunition, tanks, aircraft, combat vehicles, missiles, rockets and drones.

Hoffman is not alone in believing that NATO represents a superior military force compared to Russia. He is a prime example of the delusion that pervades Western military leadership. The West is preoccupied with LGBTQ and pronouns. Russia is busy training and equipping warriors. Ask yourself, would you rather have a division of Chechen fighters or a unit cobbled together with Germans, Swedes, Finns, French and Spaniards? I rest my case.

Emphasis added. Yes, the anti-Russia ideology which has swept and eaten the West, including many arms control and disarmament NGOs, is a thinly-disguised racism. "Oh, Putin this, Putin that," they say. It is acquiescence to the officially-required hatred and fear of Russia -- that is, racism -- which kills the spirit of inquiry and keeps otherwise intelligent people from trying to understand the Other Side. Such understanding is the first requirement of diplomacy and peace. The lack of interest in diplomacy and facts-on-the-ground is a dead giveaway, along with the use of gratuitous shibboleths stuck into so-called "analyses" by the mindless herd of Western suck-ups, such as "Russia's unprovoked aggression." When I see drivel like that I stop reading.

 • Ukraine Copies Russia's 'Active Defense' Tactic, Moon of Alabama, Jan 17, 2024

 • Why Joe Biden Is a Foreign Policy Failure, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Antiwar.com, Jan 17, 2024

 • UK working to prevent peace – Moscow, RT, Jan 17, 2024

       • Ukrainian statehood poses ‘mortal danger’ for its people – Medvedev, RT, Jan 17, 2024
       • "Aren't They Fools?": Putin Says Ukrainian Statehood Risks 'Irreparable Blow' If War Continues, ZeroHedge, Jan 17, 2024

 • Biden Admin Wants Ukraine to Switch Proxy War Strategy ‘to Defense’ - Report, Svetlana Ekimenko, Sputnik International, Jan 16, 2024

Jan 16, 2024

Featured • Gut Feelings Make for Strategic Errors – U.S. Lured Into Battlescape in Gaza, Yemen and Now Iraq, Alastair Crooke, Strategic Culture Foundation, Jan 15, 2024

The point here is that Biden, at the centre of the storm, is no cool-headed Sun-Tzu. His politics are personal and highly visceral: As Noah Lanard has written in his forensic analysis of How Joe Biden Became America’s Top Hawk, his own team say it plainly: Biden’s politics is seated in his ‘kishkes’ – his guts.

That can be seen in the disdainful and graphic way in which Biden sneers at President Putin as an ‘autocrat’, and the way he talks about victims of the Hamas attack being massacred, sexually assaulted, and taken hostage, whilst “Palestinian suffering is left vague – if mentioned at all”. “I don’t really think he sees the Palestinians at all”, says Rashid Khalidi, Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University.

There is a long and reputable history of leaders making the right spur of the moment decision from their unconscious, without careful rational calculous. In the ancient world this was a highly prized quality. Odysseus exuded it. It was called mêtis. But this ability was contingent on having a dispassionate temperament and an ability to see things ‘in the round’; to grasp both sides to a coin, we would say.

But what happens if, as Professor Khalidi implies, the ‘kishkes’ are filled with anger and bile; instinctive sympathy for Israel, fuelled by an outdated view of the Israeli domestic scene. “He just does not seem to acknowledge the humanity of [others]”, as a former Team Biden member put it to Lanard....

The Ukrainian military taste the bitter fruits of this fact daily. Many in Kiev’s ruling classes ‘get it’ too, but are frightened to speak out. The cadre of hardliners behind Zelensky however insist to press on with their delusion of mounting a new offensive.

It would be a kindness to ‘those about to die’ in another futile mobilisation for the West to call a halt. The endgame is inevitable: An agreement to end the conflict on Russia’s terms.

Ahhh, but do not forget Biden’s ‘kishkes’: This outcome would mean Putin ‘winning’ and Biden’s hope of a victory garland turning to ashes. The war must be kept going, even if its only achievement be to fire long-range missiles directly into the civilian cities of Russia (a war crime).

It is obvious where this is going. Biden is in hole that only can deepen. Can’t he stop digging? Some in America may wish he would, as the Democratic electoral prospects dim. But it seems probable that he can’t, for then his nemesis (Putin) would ‘win’.

Of course, his nemesis has already won.

The average age of the soldiers is over 40, a senior military official says.

The average age of soldiers in the Ukrainian army is over 40 years old, Aleksey Tarasenko, commander of Kiev's 5th Assault Brigade, has claimed, adding that the military is in dire need of younger recruits.

Speaking to Espresso TV on Sunday, Tarasenko said it is “outlandish and perplexing” to hear that some people doubt the need for another mobilization.

“The military is eagerly awaiting fresh reinforcements because the situation in many units is critical in terms of personnel,” he explained. “Even those who do come often leave much to be desired. Mostly, these are men of a much older age with a multitude of problems that typically arise.”

The UK is set to deploy around 20,000 service members – as well as modern warships and fighter jets – to take part in major NATO war games amid rising tensions with Russia, the Defence Ministry in London has announced.

In a statement on Monday, the ministry, citing excerpts from a speech to be delivered by Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, said that some 16,000 army troops – along with tanks, artillery, and helicopters – will join other bloc members on the continent to participate in Exercise Steadfast Defender 24, scheduled to take place in the first half of this year.

The effort will be supported by eight warships and submarines, as well as 2,000 Royal Navy sailors. The UK will also deploy a number of aircraft, including F35B Lightning fighters and Poseidon P8 surveillance aircraft, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, Shapps is expected to call the drill “one of NATO’s largest deployments since the end of the Cold War,” adding that the UK and its allies have found themselves “in a new era” and “must be prepared to deter our enemies,” according to the statement. The statement specifically referred to the threat from the Russian “menace.”

Jan 15, 2024

Featured • Ukraine Crisis Won’t End Until NATO Sponsors Push Kiev to Negotiating Table, Ilya Tsukanov, Sputnik International, Jan 15, 2024
Don't count on Russia being fooled again.

 • Patrick Lawrence: The End of Global Leadership, Scheerpost, Jan 14, 2024

 • Former Presidential Spokesman Arestovich Speaks Of Peace And A Multinational Ukraine, Moon of Alabama, Jan 15, 2024

Jan 14, 2024

 • US Launches Strikes on Yemen, and Other Updates, Simplicius, Jan 12, 2024

 • UK pledges largest military aid package to Ukraine yet, RT, Jan 12, 2024

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak confirmed during a visit to Kiev on Friday that his government is to supply Ukraine with £2.5 billion ($3.2 billion) in military assistance over the next financial year. It is to be the UK’s most significant annual aid commitment since the start of Russia’s offensive in February 2022. The aid package, which will begin in the next financial year in April, was confirmed in a statement by Downing Street earlier on Friday and comes amid rising concerns in Kiev about dwindling support from its backers in Washington and Brussels. Political in-fighting on either side of the Atlantic has threatened to legislatively curtail the torrent of Western financial assistance that has aided Ukraine in the conflict as dissent grows among some European and American lawmakers over failed efforts on the battlefield.

Moscow would consider the open deployment of British troops to Ukraine as a “declaration of war,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has warned. He was responding to a visit to Kiev on Friday by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is set to sign a security agreement with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Sunak’s arrival in the Ukrainian capital is meant to “set out a major new package of support and reaffirm the close UK-Ukraine partnership,” his office said in a statement. The security document is a follow-up to agreements reached by G7 and NATO members last year, it noted. The statement did not mention any plans for a British military deployment in Ukraine....

Moscow has on several occasions accused the UK of helping Ukraine organize attacks against Russia, particularly in the Black Sea. The Russian Defense Ministry has claimed that British military personnel already have a presence in Ukraine.

Dozens have died while trying to cross into Romania amid Kiev's conflict with Russia, the newspaper reported.

More than 20 Ukrainians have died while trying to escape the country since the start of the conflict with Russia, The Times newspaper reported on Thursday, citing a Ukrainian border guard.

The deaths were registered by a single guard unit, responsible for a 320km stretch of the border with Romania and Hungary. The unit is based in the western Ukrainian city of Mukachevo, which has become a popular destination for people trying to flee, given its proximity to four neighboring states – Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.

The illegal import of Russian literature poses a threat to Ukraine, the country’s language ombudsman claimed a post on his official Facebook page on Friday. While stressing the importance of promoting the Ukrainian language, Taras Kremen expressed regret at the lack of state-owned publishers and printers, which means the government has no control over book production. Kremen also argued that the “smuggling of Russian-language imports, including banned literature, is a huge threat to the national interest of Ukraine.” He stressed that although the market is not large, the government should do everything within its power to prevent it from growing. “The sooner we block this, the stronger our standing will be both domestically and internationally,” the ombudsman said....

Lawmakers have since imposed complete bans on Russian-language works of art, performances, films, songs, and books, and have also outlawed the study of Russian in schools and universities. Kiev has banned the sale and distribution of all Russian-language books inside the country, along with the import of any literature printed in Russia and Belarus, with the exception of those that were written by former Russian and Belarusian citizens before 1991, subject to special government approval. Moscow claims that such laws violate the rights of Russian-speaking people, who make up around half of Ukraine’s population.

The White House has indicated its “in principle” support for a bill that would potentially allow the US government to seize around $300 billion in frozen Russian assets and redirect them to Ukraine. While this measure seeks to penalize Russia, it brings up significant concerns surrounding the integrity and reliability of the US financial system. Critics are cautioning that these actions have the potential to erode global trust in the greenback. Consequently, international partners may reconsider their reliance on the dollar, driven by fears of possible future US sanctions.The declaration made by the Biden administration, expressing its support for legislation that permits the seizure of Russian assets, has triggered widespread tremors across the global financial sphere. While the motive behind this is to support Ukraine during the ongoing conflict, this move is teeming with serious risks.

Jan 12, 2024

Featured • Ukraine SitRep: High Losses, Mobilization Problems, Too Few Air Defenses, Moon of Alabama, Jan 10, 2024

 • US confirms Ukraine military supplies have stopped, RT, Jan 12, 2024

The White House has reiterated its call for Congress to approve additional funds for Kiev

The flow of US military aid to Kiev has now stopped, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday. His remarks came amid a debate in Congress on whether to continue support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.

Viktor Shokin has dirt on the US president’s family and Kiev is using him as a bargaining chip, Andrey Derkach has claimed.

The former Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Viktor Shokin, who was famously sacked by then-President Pyotr Poroshenko under pressure from US President Joe Biden, is being used by the current government in Kiev as a bargaining chip with Washington, controversial former MP Andrey Derkach has claimed in an interview.

Biden had Poroshenko sack Shokin in 2016, when he was vice president in the Obama administration, threatening to withhold a $1 billion loan unless his demands were met. The now-incumbent US president claimed that the Ukrainian prosecutor was corrupt, but also bragged about getting rid of the man. Critics of Biden have alleged that he used his office to derail an investigation into the gas firm Burisma, which infamously retained his son Hunter on a well-paid board position during his father’s tenure as Obama’s VP.

Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said that Western leaders have "repeatedly erred in assessing" the war between Russia and Ukraine, writing in a recent opinion piece that Kyiv is incapable of launching any meaningful counteroffensive despite receiving billions of dollars in military aid.

Fico, a member of the left-wing Smer party in Slovakia, criticized other NATO countries in an op-ed published by Slovak newspaper Pravda.sk on Tuesday, writing that the West's "failed strategy" against Russia's aggression is "beginning to cause wrinkles on my forehead." He also wrote about rejecting the "black-and-white vision" of the war that is "desired in Washington or Brussels," and blamed Moscow's invasion on the United States' influence on Kyiv's government, starting in 2014.

"Russia responded to the security situation and Ukraine's pressure to join NATO by violating international law, using military force without an international mandate," Fico wrote. "Big countries often do that, let's see what the US accomplished in Iraq."

"And the West, instead of immediately making every effort to achieve a quick ceasefire, at the beginning of 2022 without even losing a tenth to Ukraine, made a huge mistake," he added. "[The West] incorrectly evaluated the use of Russian military force as an opportunity to bring Russia to its knees."

Jan 9, 2024

Featured • Something Lost, Never to Be Found Again, Alastair Crooke, Strategic Culture Foundation, Jan 8, 2024

A strange ennui and distracted attention envelops the West today.

Hat-tip to Simplicius’ Bones of Tomorrow, in which he reflects on a Culture that has become debased; its lures that used to trap us into the ‘Myth of the West’ lie withered, as patently false idols. The dimming fire has squandered any sense of ‘magic’ in the guttering West, or indeed of hope to recoup this something ‘lost’. It is the wistful realisation that – as it stands – the myth is never likely to offer anything of lasting value again.

The figments of a utopian future once promised, nonetheless continue their seductive hold on our psyche, but only on attention-hopping, hypnotic touch-screens. Cultural touchstones crumble around us like rotting edifices one after another. Yet, we are too distracted to take real notice, or to absorb the significance. Counter ‘currents’ in the shadows gleefully applaud....

If the West had any remaining sense, it would concentrate more on setting a ‘narrative of western defeat’ in Ukraine, rather than promulgating yet another rotting ‘narrative of victory’.

Why so?

Because a wise leadership would be preparing its people for defeat. Unlikely and false stories of glory on the battlefield come back to bite the perpetrators, as (metaphorically) the wounded and dead return to contradict visibly the tale of victory.

The West, by contrast, is still fed on stories of western leadership, election, innate qualities and exceptionalism. Put simply, this ‘influencer’ fad signally is failing to help westerners cope with the tectonic shifts occurring across the globe. Its peoples are wholly unprepared for the ‘Winter that is Coming’.

Yet, the purveyors of ‘winning’ hug themselves in sheer glee as their ‘flipped’ delusions are relayed through a compliant MSM.

Childish propaganda and lying however will only serve to make the new era all the more painful. A ‘narrative of defeat’, told with integrity, by contrast, is one that helps a people to understand how a particular crisis arose and came to afflict them. It should also signal a way forward....

The need for a return to an integrity of messaging is all the more pressing as attempts to repair one reversal, with a false narrative – inverting realities to achieve the putative ‘win’ – will only lead to further losses.

Deceit is exposed in the instant. Trust takes a decade to build. Does the West really believe it can recoup in this way? Nobody beyond their authors believes these western Intelligence narratives, post- Ukraine. They are now tainted for the long run.

Ukraine’s leaders should frankly admit that they have lost 500,000 service members since the start of the conflict with Russia, and that the monthly casualty rate is at around 30,000, former prosecutor general Yury Lutsenko has said.

President Vladimir Zelensky's goverment could convince reluctant citizens to join the fight by publicly admitting the heavy losses on the battlefield and declaring that the country’s very existence is in jeopardy, he believes.

Ukrainians “must know how many have died, and then all debates about the mobilization will be settled,” he added.

Jan 8, 2024

 • French Historian Predicts Imminent NATO Defeat in Ukraine, Russia-Europe Reconciliation, Chimauchem Nwosu, Sputnik International, Jan 7, 2024

A renowned French historian and sociologist better known for predicting the Soviet Union's dissolution well in advance now foretells the West's overthrow in his newest book.

French historian Emmanuel Todd believes that NATO is already losing the Ukrainian conflict. He likewise concluded that the defeat would eventually culminate in Russia's reconciliation with Europe and its rapprochement with Germany, contrary to the wishes of the United States.

This view was expressed to Le Point Magazine during an interview ahead the release of his new book La Defaite de L'Occident (The Defeat of the West).

In the book, he denounces the Western attitude toward Russia, stating that “Avoiding the rapprochement between Germany and Russia was one of the US goals. This rapprochement would have signed the ejection of the United States from the European system of power. Americans have preferred to destroy Europe rather than save the West.”

Todd decried the dominant narrative in the West about the conflict in Ukraine: "We are in a completely Putinophobic and Russophobic world." He went on to argue for a pluralistic view that recognizes different perspectives. "I am fighting to keep the West pluralistic. If we look for my values, they are values of truth and pluralism," he remarked.

Jan 7, 2024

Featured • This is a War that should have never happened, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, X, (twitter), Jan 6, 2024
Sure we don't like his stance on Israel. We don't like the Israel position of any major American politician.

We do like this. Almost nobody understands the "why" of U.S. wars -- and this particular war. It's not the whole truth but it's a decent slice of it. The greater truth is that this war was cultivated in order to break, or break up, Russia.

I am slowly working my way through his book on the origins of covid. He is a really smart man who knows how to build a smart team to help him. Like his prior book on the topic, this one is very, very good.

People have no idea how our country is being run. Again, almost everybody believes in fairy tales about it, because they themselves are too ethical, and accountable, to understand those who are not. This is precisely what Hitler said, by the way, in his famous passage about why big lies are more effective than small ones.

 • Scott Ritter addresses 25,000 Chechen Soldiers, X (twitter), Jan 6, 2024

"One of the most interesting experiences of my life—meeting Ramzan Kadyrov, and then being asked to address 25,000 Chechen soldiers of the Grozny garrison with no advance notice. My Russian is poor, but my message was communicated clearly."

Jan 6, 2024

Featured • US Foreign Policy Is a Scam Built on Corruption, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Common Dreams, Dec 26, 2023
This article is a must read. I guess we never posted this excellent article. The holidays got in the way.

In my experience, U.S. peace and disarmament activists know the U.S. government is corrupt, but they don't know HOW corrupt. By now, many of the survivors have become Democratic Party shills. Others are engaged in campaigns that look at lot like Ghost Dance social phenomena. Both are readily fundable. Neither produces useful results.

Here Sachs addresses the Realist School -- Mearsheimer, Walt, etc. -- which is at this point naive.

In my experience, the White House Office of Management and Budget understands all this as it relates to NNSA, which is ~97% privatized. They are not however able to do anything about it. The nuclear Deep State is too powerful.

 • Russophrenia: The West can't decide whether Russia is a pussycat or a lion, Tarik Cyril Amar, RT, Jan 5, 2023

Consider the issue of how Russia has been fighting the current war between it, on one side, and Ukraine and (de facto) NATO on the other. Initial – and gleeful – Western observations about Moscow’s mistakes and predictions that, with its call-up of September 2022, Moscow would fall flat on its face and even trigger large-scale rebellion, if not revolution, were a classic example not only of wishful groupthink but of the Orientalist, Backward-Other register. Put crudely: “Those Russians just can’t hack it, because – they are Russians.”

Yet, when Russia did succeed in mobilizing and also adjusted its military tactics, at least some Western perceptions shifted into the Sinister-Other key: as Barry R. Posen, an unusually perceptive Western observer wrote in Foreign Affairs, “the most alarming thing about Russia’s bombing campaign is that Moscow knows what it is doing.” Indeed. But where’s the news?

It is crucial to understand that this Western pattern is not merely about passive observation. On the contrary, there is a proactive aspect to it: We can read the last decades, essentially since the end of the Soviet Union, as marked by the West’s obstinate attempt to not only imagine Russia as backward and weak. Rather, Russia – and Russians – were supposed to fit that image: Under Western eyes, Russia was to be relegated in the real-existing hierarchy of international politics – a big country (and market), sure, but still one that, when push comes to shove, can be coerced and even defeated. And because Moscow has resisted this demotion successfully, Russia is now the Sinister Other again.

That shift illustrates the single most depressing thing about the West’s views of Russia: the West may change its tone from time to time, it may even produce two very different, mutually exclusive narratives about Russia at the same time, when stuck in a moment of transition or confusion. But it never actually learns. All it does, collectively and with all too few exceptions, is alternate between different frameworks of stereotypes. What a missed opportunity. Again and again.

Jan 4, 2024

Featured • Scott Ritter: LIVE from Moscow, Russia - Russians on Putin, Judging Freedom, Jan 2, 2024
Another superb interview. If you don't have time to listen, please listen to the last few minutes, starting at 26:30. Ritter believes "Russophobia is the biggest threat to the United States today" and while it's hard to pick among the crowded field, I more or less agree. Hence this web page and these comments, begging the arms control and disarmament world to come to its senses. To repeat what I said yesterday, Russophobia is racism. Cut it out.

 • Ukraine SitRep: Zelenski's Propaganda Outlet Is Leading His Decline, Moon of Alabama, Jan 4, 2024

Zelenski's attempt to pass the mobilization buck to Zaluzny has failed. As the reality of a lost war bubbles to the surface his public ratings will sink to new lows.

Gordon Hahn describes the atmosphere in Ukraine as pre-revolutionary:

Kiev is now gripped by crisis politics. With the Ukraine’s defense lines and army in slow-motion collapse and extreme discontent among top military commanders and across the political elite, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy is fighting for his political and personal survival. More importantly, the stakes could not be higher for the Maidan regime’s coalition of nationalists, neofascist, corruptionaires, new oligarchs, and the occasional republican. Meanwhile, the young Ukrainian state, based on still poorly consolidated quasi-republican institutions and a nationalist ideology, is at risk of disintegration, dissolution, and even disappearance. It surrounded by growing threats: the Russian army, angry Ukrainian soldiers and commanders, Kiev’s financial and economic insolvency and dissipation, popular desperation, and the risk of palace or military coups, even a new ‘Galician’ civil war.

Soon something will break.

Very few of the Leopard 2A6 tanks delivered by Berlin to Ukraine are still in service, according to Green Party member Sebastian Schafer. The majority of the machines were damaged in battle and spare parts are scarce, he stressed.“Unfortunately, we must admit that Ukraine can now use only small number of tanks delivered,” Schafer wrote to Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann arms manufacturers, which was reported on by German media.

The politician noted that some of the Leopard tanks were further damaged by Ukrainian servicemen who tried to repair them. He stresses that there is a shortage of spare parts in the Lithuanian repair center.

Jan 3, 2024

Featured • Pay Attention to What Vladimir Putin Says, Larry Johnson, Jan 2, 2024
If we in the West were operating according to Mr. Mearsheimer's realist principles, we would listen. "Know the enemy," at the very least. But we aren't operating by those principles. We don't listen. We have a runaway group of elite state managers who are driven by personal career and ego needs, not public service. They are sick people, and they are in charge.

Many Western leaders also hate this man because his competence outshines theirs manyfold.

Featured • Ukraine SitRep: Tit For Tat, Tat, Tat - Russia Intensifies Missile Strikes, Moon of Alabama, Jan 2, 2024

 • "No Stomach" In US To Keep Funding Ukraine As 'War Is Over': Ex-Pentagon Official, ZeroHedge, Jan 2, 2024

 • Sergey Karaganov: Russia's European journey is over, RT, Jan 1, 2024
I agree with what Karaganov says here about the West.

It has been our refrain for a long time now that there will be no arms control initiatives without rapprochement with Russia. As Karaganov says here, this will not be possible without a leadership replacement in the West. It also now requires a change in Western society, which is a slow process that hasn't even started as far as I can tell. I see what is now a deep-seated Russophobia in Western elites, based on careerism, herd behavior, and racism in NGOs, academia, and politics.

There is a short good (and rather beautiful) video that expresses the new Russian confidence and self-understanding at the end of Simplicius' year-end report (I can't seem to send just the link): https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/end-of-2023-roundup-update-on-the. When I first saw this, my reaction was "Russia is back. Get used to it." Unbelievably, our thought leaders can't seem to manage such a rapprochement with reality. This is the psychotic style of leadership Freud warned against (in a longer version of these remarks I will expand this.) Again I say this is racist, covered with a thin veneer of hating Putin personally for frustrating "the end of history" and triumph of "Western Values" ©). He is a very popular man in Russia, for good reason. So the roughly 80% of Russians who support him are all wrong? To say so is both arrogant and racist. Now, as was pointed out last night, the reactions and non-reactions of many Western progressives re the genocide in Gaza reveals how deeply racism has penetrated the ranks of the supposed "anti-racists" with respect to Palestinians and Arabs in general.

Often we who want arms control and disarmament lump our current hybrid wars with Russia and China in the same basket. That is not at all correct. These conflicts have very different characters. We in the US and in Europe could not live without Chinese products and resources. That is much less obvious for Russia, as there are intermediaries and of course we have our fantasies. We have fooled ourselves to think Russia is a dispensable (in another break with reality). "We" of course are indispensable. The conflict with Russia is kinetic -- a hot war, not a cold war. With China it is not. Our material dependence on China dampens the development of hate, while hatred of Russia is intense and unbridled in especially the Democratic Party leadership. It is very useful to their military donors and hence to themselves. A minority of congressional Republicans wonder why we are at war with Russia and fear the outcome. Good for them, and for sane people wherever they may be found. The conflict with China is in a much earlier stage, one where backing down is much easier for both political as well as economic reasons. But as Karaganov says, weak Western leaders are looking for some external enemy to hate, to unite and distract, as they blunder forward fearfully. "Oh, we don't hate Russia -- it's that dastardly Putin!" Bullshit.

What Karaganov does not say is that Europe in particular has too few fossil fuel resources to ever be independent and economically strong again, in the old way. Solar, wind, and nuclear power (with what uranium?) cannot replace oil and gas as the basis for an industrial European economy (or any economy), even assuming there is enough coal. Climate change is here, which will also affect regions differentially.

 • Britain’s weapons stockpiles reduced to ‘nothing’ – The Times, RT, Jan 1, 2024

Britain’s weapons stockpiles have been nearly completely emptied out by almost two years of deliveries to Ukraine, The Times has claimed. The British newspaper also reported that the UK, together with other European nations, is scrambling to ramp up arms production ahead of the 2024 presidential election in the US. While London has spent more than £4.6 billion ($5.7 billion) on arming Kiev since February 2022, NATO’s deputy supreme allied commander for Europe, Gen. Tim Radford, warned in July that the UK was running the risk of losing its status as a major power within the US-led bloc. The general cited personnel shortages, among other issues. In its article on Sunday, The Times quoted an anonymous Ukrainian military source as saying that Britain had “nothing” left in terms of weapons it could donate.

4) His main message in recent years has been about the importance of people developing scepticism about the narrative that the world is fed, and instead, realise we are being taught to hate the people America wants us to hate. “The United States dominates the Western world’s media. All but one of the top ten media companies are based in North America. The internet and social media – Google, Twitter, Facebook – are mostly American owned and controlled,” he told a conference audience in Norway on 6 September, 2022. Pilger regularly said that it was vital that the world’s public abandoned the western corporate media and turned to the new, small, independent voices rising up, using the internet to tell the truth about the world.

But now, as the Kremlin has warned, things have changed. Previously when Moscow regarded Helsinki, it saw a peaceful neighbor. Now it sees an enemy. You think not? Then explain Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent order recreating the Leningrad Military District on Finland’s borders. That district began to be demilitarized in November 1990 and was completely disbanded in 2010. Now it’s back. And it covers the entire Russian-Finish border. Suffice it to say if Finland eventually goes up in flames, it will be NATO, with its military bases coating that nation, that lit the match.

More accurately the United States, not NATO. For, as AP reported on December 14, Finland will sign a defense pact with the U.S., which will permit “U.S. soldiers access to 15 military areas and facilities covering the entire Nordic nation all the way from a key southern naval base and inland airbases to a vast remote army training area in Lapland, in the Arctic north.” These American bases in Finland include some directly on the Russian border. Fortunately, the U.S. probably lacks sufficient troops and equipment to pack its new Finnish bases with boots on the ground, as military expert Will Schryver has tweeted. But still, no wonder Putin reactivated the Leningrad Military District. His adversary, Biden, who allegedly gave the order to blow up the Nordstream pipelines, doubtless smirks with success and doing everything possible to goad Russia into World War III.

Jan 1, 2024

 • Will 2023 be known as the last year of global US hegemony?, Timur Fomenko, RT, Dec 31, 2023

 • Ex-CIA Officer Compares Ukrainian Officials to ‘Rats Fleeing Titanic’ Amid Recruitment Crisis, Ilya Tsukanov, Sputnik International, Dec 31, 2023

 • Scott Ritter: Belgorod Attack Meant to Provoke Russian Overreaction, Prevent West From Dumping Kiev, Ilya Tsukanov, Sputnik International, Dec 31, 2023

 • Fyodor Lukyanov: 2024 could be the year when the West’s liberal elites lose control of the world order, RT, Dec 28, 2023

December 2023

November 2023

October 2023

September 2023

August 2023

July 2023

June 2023

May 2023

April 2023

March 2023

February 2023

January 2023

December 2022

November 2022

 • ‘The Real Purpose In Making The Bomb Was To Subdue The Soviets.’ Now It’s Happening Again, On A Vast Scale. Why? – July 22 At Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos Reporter, Jul 19, 2023

 • Bulletin 330: "'The real purpose in making the bomb was to subdue the Soviets.'* Now it's happening again, on a vast scale. WHY?" A conversation with acclaimed historian Peter Kuznick and Greg Mello in Los Alamos, July 22, Jul 7, 2023

 • Ukraine War Makes it Harder to be a Nuclear ‘Dove’ | Our Land, Laura Paskus, New Mexico in Focus, Jun 30, 2023

 • Bulletin 329: Russia rules out nuclear disarmament negotiations; second week of Ukrainian offenses fail; what will US and NATO do? Build 60 projects in LANL's Pajarito Corridor?, Jun 17, 2023

 • Ukraine; Biden's Manicheism; the U.S. cannot even conduct a nuclear arms race, let alone win one, LASG friends ltr, Mar 16, 2023

 • Ukraine protest and updates, pit production delays and cost increases in NNSA's new budget, LASG friends ltr, Mar 14, 2023

 • Antiwar rally 2 pm Saturday in Albuquerque; LANL pits delayed, endorse the "Call for Sanity"; Ukraine update; the Nordstream investigation (and likely impeachment) "imperative" LASG friends ltr, Mar 11, 2023
 • Ukraine losses mount toward critical point; ANSWER rally against the war is now 2 pm (not 1 pm), March 18, Albuquerque; nearly half U.S. citizens believe WWIII is near, LASG friends ltr, Mar 7, 2023

 • Ukraine news and views; antiwar rally March 18; pending guest editorial; pit production precis, LASG friends ltr, Mar 3, 2023

 • Bulletin 325: Understanding the Nordstream sabotage and punishing those responsible, Feb 18, 2023

 • Ukraine news with comments and excerpts; bookmark for future reference if desired,LASG friends ltr, Feb 8, 2023

 • Bulletin 324: Opposition to Ukraine war gains visibility in New Mexico and via our web site, more broadly, Feb 6, 2023

 • Anti-nuclear activist opposes helping Ukraine, encourages peace, Santa Fe New Mexican, Feb 5, 2023

 • Bulletin 323: "Nuclear Hotseat" interview / Ukraine war updates, Feb 4, 2023

 • Bulletin 322: Right and Left To Join in D.C. Protest: ‘Not One More Penny for War in Ukraine’ / Bulletin of Atomic Scientists resets clock, blames Russia, Jan 25, 2023

 • $10 Trillion for Nuclear War: Racing to the Nuclear Cliff, The Socialist Program with Brian Becker, Jan 10, 2023

 • Bulletin 321: Last day for 2022 donations! / A few quick updates, Dec 31, 2022

 • Bulletin 320: Neocon humiliation -- or nuclear exchange / The centrality of war resistance in moral politics / 3 days left for 1:1 donation match!, Dec 29, 2022

 • Bulletin 319: Ukraine; NDAA: omnibus appropriations bill; fundraising --thank you; some matching funds still available, Dec 21, 2022

 • Stop the war now, Jean Nichols, The Taos News, Dec 19, 2022

 • Bulletin 318: Speak out now against further U.S. escalation in Ukraine; daily updates for your use, Dec 14, 2022

 • Agenda for tonight's emergency Ukraine meeting in Albuquerque, and by Zoom, Nov 15, 2022

 • Bulletin 314: Reminder re next week's antiwar, disarmament, & nuclear safety events: come if you can or tune in, outreach needed; pit interview on KNME tonight 7 pm; fundraising drive continues; erratum, Nov 11, 2022

 • Bulletin 313: Important meeting about Ukraine next week; DNFSB hearing in Santa Fe; more, Nov 7, 2022

 • Biden Administration releases aggressive nuclear strategy envisioning "first use" of nuclear weapons in wars like Ukraine, press release, Oct 27, 2022

 • Bulletin 310: Speak up! We urge you to take up the call for peace in Ukraine, Sep 25, 2022

 • Pope Francis: "World War III has been declared." We agree. Stop LANL's pit factory; Stop the U.S. war against Russia, presentation, Jun 15, 2022

 • Bulletin 301: Oppose the war! Demand and create accountability for lawmakers who fund and promote more war in Ukraine, May 16, 2022

 • Grave dangers loom in Ukraine war votes and escalations; opportunities open for journalists and citizens; We urge news media to widen debate, pose questions, create accountability, press release, May 16, 2022

 • LASG friends ltr: Thursday evening public discussion in Albuquerque: Ukraine, propaganda, progressives supporting Nazis and war, May 10, 2022

 • Escalation in Ukraine: The Nuclear War Danger is Real, Brian Becker & Greg Mello discuss the U.S. policy of waging proxy war on Russia, BreakThrough News, May 4, 2022

 • Bulletin 299: Emergency call to action: stop Biden's proposed $33 billion war escalation, Apr 28, 2022

 • Bulletin 298: Talk on pits & renewed U.S. nuclear weapons production Tuesday evening 4/26/22; antiwar billboard; what you can do, Apr 25, 2022

 • The core debate, Searchlight New Mexico, Mar 23, 2022

 • Bulletin 294: Please consider forwarding this fine statement from UNAC re Ukraine, Mar 23, 2022

 • Nuclear expert speaks on the dangers of war between the US and Russia, World Socialist Website, Mar 15, 2022

 • A Proposed Solution to the Ukraine War, Consortium News, Greg Mello, Mar 7, 2022

 • Bulletin 293: Ukraine conflict: If you want a ceasefire (as we do), stop firing, Mar 5, 2022

 • Bulletin 292: Statement on the Ukraine conflict and war with Russia, Mar 1, 2022

 • "What can we in New Mexico do?," LASG letter, Feb 23, 2022

 • Bulletin 288: US nuclear weapons since 2020: continuity and change, Dec 7, 2021 (see discussion of US, NATO, and Russia)

 • Nuclear experts speak on the dangers of war between the US and Russia, World Socialist Web Site, Apr 15, 2017

 • US Leaders Reject “Nuclear Winter” Studies, Ignore Existential Danger of Nuclear War. Turn a Blind Eye towards Armageddon, Steven Starr, Global Research, Nov 1, 2016

 • The Ukraine Conflict: What's Behind It? Why Is It Important?, Sep 26, 2015

 • Bulletin 200: Warhead budget bloat; U.S.-caused Ukraine catastrophe at the brink; hello peak oil, Feb 8, 2015