July 2024

Jul 31, 2024

Featured • Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: US Subservient to Israel, Judging Freedom, Jul 31, 2024
Every bit of this interview is very important and very well-expressed. The title does not do it justice. The U.S. has no democratic politics left. It has been destroyed. Netanyahu's speech to Congress was the clincher.

The Ukraine portion begins at 18:00. At 20:5 7, there is a segue to arms control and the U.S. announcement that it will place intermediate-range missile weapons in Germany. Sachs: "I think people really need to understand something that may be the single most important fact of our reality today. And that is that the United States has destroyed the nuclear arms control framework. It has done so willfully. It has done so repeatedly. And it has done so until today."

Featured • Scott Ritter: Voting Against Nuclear War, Consortium News, Jul 29, 2024

No matter who wins among the two major candidates in November, the United States is on track for a major existential crisis with Russia in Europe sometime in 2026. The re-introduction of INF-capable systems by the U.S. will trigger a similar deployment by Russia of nuclear-capable INF systems targeting Europe.

Back in the 1980’s, the deployment of INF systems by the U.S. and Russia had created an inherently destabilizing situation where one mistake could have set off a nuclear war.

The experience of Able Archer ’83, a NATO command and control exercise that took place in the fall of 1983, bears witness to this reality. The Soviets interpreted the exercise as being a cover for a nuclear first-strike by NATO and put its nuclear forces on high alert.

There was no room for error — one miscalculation or misjudgment could have led to a Soviet decision to pre-empt what it believed to be an imminent NATO nuclear attack, thereby triggering a full-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

The INF treaty, signed in 1987, removed these destabilizing weapons from Europe. But now that treaty is no more, and the weapons that brought Europe and the world to the brink of destruction in the 1980’s are returning to a European continent where notions of peaceful coexistence with Russia have been replaced with rhetoric promoting the inevitability of conflict.

When one combines the existence of a policy objective (the strategic defeat of Russia) which, when coupled with a policy of supporting a Ukrainian victory over Russia predicated on Ukraine regaining physical control over Crimea and the four territories of Novorossiya (New Russia — Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, and Lugansk), one already has a recipe for disaster....

When one examines these factors in their aggregate, the inescapable conclusion is that Europe will be faced with an existential crisis which could come to a head as early as the summer of 2026.

The potential for the use of nuclear weapons, either by design or accident, is real, creating a situation that exceeds the Cuban Missile Crisis in terms of the risk of a nuclear war by an order of magnitude or more.

Jul 27, 2024

 • Pentagon Finds Another $2 Billion in Ukraine Aid ‘Accounting Errors’, Connor Freeman, Antiwar.com, Jul 26, 2024

The Pentagon discovered $2 billion in additional accounting errors regarding its valuation of missiles, ammo, and other equipment provided to Kiev, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found on Thursday. The Defense Department made a similar claim last year, saying it availed Washington of $6.2 billion in weapons to fuel the Ukraine proxy war with Russia.

This latest report brings the improperly valued military material to a total of $8.2 billion, with the error said to be a result of unclear accounting definitions. In June 2023, the Pentagon insisted that weapons shipped to Ukraine from US military stockpiles, under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), over the past two years were overvalued using the “replacement value” of the arms as opposed to the “depreciated value.” This bought the White House some time to continue sending weapons to Kiev after much of the US funding then allocated for the war had dried up.

Congrats, General Zaluzhny: bullseye in crowd-pleasing. Yet, once again, there is a less farcical side to Zaluzhny’s somewhat crude opportunism.

In essence, he called on his audience to see Ukraine as a laboratory where the West can develop its future military technology. Ukraine, he admitted, cannot “scale up” its inventions and innovations made in the midst of battle. Yet its Western “partners” – “users” would be a better, more honest term – have the resources needed for such upscaling, “but there is no applied and practical field to test them.” In other words, Ukrainians can keep dying, while the West can field-test new military technologies. And make no mistake: Zaluzhny does not believe that fewer Ukrainians will be needed because the new technologies will replace them. The whole meaning of his labelling the current war merely “transitional” and not yet one of “the future” is to strand Ukraine in the worst of both worlds where, as he admits, “the only way out may be to increase the number of human resources involved in hostilities.”

And there you have it. Ukraine’s real future, according to Zaluzhny, is one where more Ukrainians will be fed into the meatgrinder of a losing war, but on the upside, the meatgrinder will be constantly modernized and updated with the newest ways of killing and dying, compliments of the West. It is one thing that this fantasy of a forever war as a forever laboratory will not come to pass. It is another that it is the real message – if you pay attention – of Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief and current ambassador in London, and future who-knows-what, when speaking to an elite Western audience. One of Ukraine’s tragedies is being abused by the West; the other being betrayed by its own leaders.

Jul 26, 2024

Featured • Biden’s Bitter Legacy Signals ‘Culmination of Betrayal’ of Post-Cold War Hopes for Peace, Ilya Tsukanov, Sputnik International, Jul 25, 2024

“I look at what’s happening today through the scope of what’s been happening since…the end of the Cold War, since 1991,” former NYT and Bloomberg contributor-turned independent foreign affairs observer John Varoli told Sputnik, commenting on the meaning of Joe Biden’s address beyond their immediate implications.

“It’s just been a horrifying time in American history,” Varoli said of this period of roughly 35 years. “It is the most disgraceful, wicked period in American history. And it’s just the feeling of betrayal…The Biden years are the culmination of this betrayal. You have to understand, we Americans, young Americans like myself…met [the end of the Cold War] with enthusiasm, with optimism. We were like ‘this is all great. It’s going to be peace in the world. No nuclear war. We’re going to get along with Russia.’ We were so full of optimism that we were going to build a better world.”

Instead, the journalist recalled, the decades since 1991 have been filled with US wars, regime change operations and other aggression, from the Gulf War and the bombing of Yugoslavia, to NATO’s expansion, culminating with the Euromaidan coup in Ukraine, all in the interest of building and propping up the American unipolar moment.

“What the hell’s wrong with these people?” was the natural reaction to these processes, Varoli said. “Then you realize, it was a plan. Professor Jeffrey Sachs said it. He saw it. He was there...This is nothing accidental…Biden is the culmination of this absolute insanity and madness. Imperial madness, imperial insanity, this bid for global domination.”

What’s taking place today in US politics is “basically the final chapter in [the] collapse” of “this whole imperial project,” according to the observer, with even mainstream outlets basically admitting, by reporting on Biden’s big donors pulling the plug on his reelection bid, that the US has turned into “an oligarchy.”

“We are really now in uncharted territory, people just have no illusions. I did some research…[and] found a poll from 2022 that said 85% of Americans think there are serious problems with our political system. 85%! That was two years ago. Now it’s probably obviously like 100%. People say there could be a civil war. People just zone out. They become apathetic,” Varoli said.

Analysts who see themselves as Ukraine’s boosters often insist the West mustn’t cave to “nuclear blackmail” because escalation to nuclear war is unlikely. But the accurate name for “nuclear blackmail” is “nuclear deterrence,” and it doesn’t require assurance that disaster will occur, only fear that it might. These commentators seem to believe our ability to deter Russia relieves us of the burden of being deterred by them — like playing chicken without comprehending that the risk of collision is mutual.

Jul 25, 2024

Featured • Ukraine FM Signals Readiness To Resume Talks With Russia During China Visit, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, Jul 24, 2024

Featured • The Berlin Wall Falls Again, This Time on the State Prosecution of Heinrich Buecher, John Helmer, Jul 23, 2024

One of Germany’s most notorious prosecutions of free speech has collapsed, as the Berlin prosecutor’s office has dropped a case designed to stop Germans discussing the war against Russia in the Ukraine. Heinrich Buecher, owner of the COOP Anti-war Café on Rochstrasse, has been prosecuted in a Berlin district court and then in the higher regional court for statements he had made in a city park on June 22, 2022. On the anniversary of the German Army’s Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, Buecher had declared: “Never again may we as Germans get involved in a war against Russia in any form. We need to unite and join to oppose this madness together.” In the court proceedings which followed, the judges refused to allow Buecher to speak in his own defence. Instead, he published on the website of his café a re-statement of what he had been convicted of saying in June 2022....

The Buecher case has been followed by the Russian media but not the Anglo-American media. The mainstream German press has also avoided reporting the case. In January 2023, a Berlin district court judge named Tobias Pollman issued a summary judgement without hearing evidence or argument, ruling that Buecker’s crime came under Section 140 of the German Criminal Code, and had consisted of “publicly approving a crime of aggression (Section 138 of the International Criminal Code) in a manner likely to disturb the public peace at a meeting.” Pollman convicted Buecker of approving “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in violation of international law, the illegality of which you knew.” In German law, it wasn’t Buecher’s speech but the substance of what the judge said he meant which was judged illegal. He was sentenced to pay a €2,000 fine or 40 days in jail....

Buecher appealed, and on April 27, 2023, another Berlin judge named Marieluis Brinkmann ruled after a 90-minute proceeding in which she repeatedly stopped Buecher and his lawyer from testifying in defence. Brinkmann announced that the first judge had correctly applied the law in finding Buecher guilty of the crime of supporting Russia. But she dismissed the conviction and fine on the ground that Buecher’s speech had been a private one in front of his “fans”, not a public speech at all. The Berlin prosecutor, who refused to give her name in court or to allow photographs of herself, then appealed to the higher, Berlin region court. The higher court judges refused to reinstate Buecher’s conviction, and the prosecutors began new appeals. This month these appeals were dropped, and the prosecutors abandoned the case.

Slovakia could take retaliatory measures against Ukraine if Kiev continues to stop Russian oil transiting via the Druzhba pipeline, President Peter Pellegrini has warned. Kiev stopped the flow of crude through the Druzhba pipeline to its energy-dependent neighbors – Hungary and Slovakia – last week, citing sanctions against Russia’s second-largest oil company Lukoil, thus depriving the two EU member states of oil that meets up to 40% of their needs. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Pellegrini described Kiev’s actions as a “very unpleasant interference in our good relations.” “I firmly believe that Ukraine will be able to put this in order as soon as possible, because Slovakia, as a sovereign state, will eventually have to take some kind of countermeasures,” he said without specifying the nature of a possible response.

He added, however, that this “would not benefit either Ukraine or its citizens.” Pelligrini recalled that Slovakia had helped Ukraine with the reverse flow of gas and has also been sending electricity to the country.

Jul 24, 2024

 • NATO Spins Spiral of War, South Front, Jul 23, 2024
The Russian POV more or less. But what, factually speaking, is wrong? The reality of those B-52s as seen here, exercising for nuclear war in ways not seen before, taunting the Russians, is disgusting.

 • Growing number of Ukrainians open to territorial concessions – poll, RT, Jul 23, 2024

 • EU state issues €6.5bn ultimatum to Ukraine, RT, Jul 23, 2024

Budapest will block funds the European Union has earmarked for Ukraine until Kiev resumes the transit of Russian crude oil to Hungary and Slovakia, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. Ukraine stopped the flow of oil through the Druzhba pipeline last week, citing its sanctions against Russian energy giant Lukoil, thus depriving the two EU members of an estimated 30-40% of their needs. “As long as this issue is not resolved by Ukraine, everyone should forget about the payment of the €6.5 billion of the European Peace Facility compensation for arms transfers,” Szijjarto announced on Tuesday. “Ukraine’s decision to not allow Lukoil to transit oil supplies through Ukraine poses a fundamental threat to the security of energy supplies to Hungary and Slovakia,” Szijjarto said, describing Kiev’s move as “unacceptable and incomprehensible,” as well as incompatible with its aspirations to join the EU.

At this week’s EU Foreign Affairs Council, countries of the European Union were divided on the matter of where to hold the next gathering of the bloc’s foreign ministers, with almost half preferring Budapest instead of Brussels, which was picked by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, Politico reported on Tuesday. On Monday, Borrell said that the next meeting of the foreign ministers would be held in Brussels, not Budapest, due to Hungary’s position on Ukraine. In total, 13 countries said that they preferred to meet in Budapest, while five others, especially states in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, said that they would boycott the gathering in the Hungarian capital, according to Politico. In the end, Borrell picked Brussels in a move that aims to “send a signal, even if it is a symbolic signal,” to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the newspaper added.

Jul 23, 2024

 • German Officials at Odds Over Planned US Missile Deployment, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, Jul 22, 2024

Jul 22, 2024

 • US B-52s On First Time Mission Over Northern Finland, Russia Scrambles MiG Jets, ZeroHedge, Jul 21, 2024

Jul 21, 2024

Featured • Scott Ritter: With Dark Eagle Hypersonic Missiles in Europe, ‘One Mistake’ Could Spark All-Out War, Ilya Tsukanov, Sputnik International, Jul 20, 2024

Russia has vowed a military response to US’ plans to deploy strategic, ground-based missiles in Germany by 2026. Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector-turned international affairs observer who literally wrote the book on arms control in Europe in the 1980s, tells Sputnik why the prospective deployment is so dangerous.

The White House announced plans to deploy three types of strategic missiles in Germany last week, with the new capabilities set to include:

• Ground-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles, which became available to the Pentagon after the US unilaterally scrapped the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia in 2019. The Raytheon-manufactured missiles have a range anywhere from 460-2,500 km, and can be armed with conventional or low-to-intermediate yield nuclear warheads.
• The SM-6 – a long-range surface-to-air-missile system which can be launched from the US Army’s new Typhon Mid-Range Capability (MRC) missile system, or the Aegis Ashore air and missile defense systems the US has deployed in Romania and Poland. Manufactured by Raytheon. Firing range of 240-460 km.
• Unnamed ‘hypersonic’ capabilities widely speculated to be the Army’s Dark Eagle Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) – the only one of the half-a-dozen plus US hypersonics programs anywhere near operational status. Developed by Lockheed Martin. Reported range up to 3,000 km. Payload unknown.

“It’s the Dark Eagle that is perhaps the most destabilizing,” former weapons inspector and US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter told Sputnik. “While it is not a nuclear-capable missile, it is a system that has the ability to strike deep inside Russia with precision hypersonic warheads that are virtually impossible to intercept,” Ritter explained.

Scott Ritter and I were hosted by Ania K. Scott and Ania wrote a book based on Ania’s interviews with Scott since the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation aka the invasion of Ukraine. It appears it is number one on Amazon, even though the actual release date is 1 August. I wrote the afterward for the book. I wish them much success.

One of the key insights from our discussion was Scott’s revelation about what happened to his daughter, who just earned a Master’s Degree at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Scott’s daughter, who is majoring in Russian studies, accompanied him on his December 2023 trip to Russia. She gathered valuable firsthand experience during that trip. When she returned to school in January, instead of being invited to address a seminar of graduate students and professors to discuss what she gleaned while in Russia, she was vilified and threatened with expulsion. That right there explains why U.S. academia is rotten-to-the-core and out of touch with the reality of the modern world.

Trump may sound more reasonable on the issue of conflict in Ukraine with Russia. That alone makes him a more plausible candidate compared with the reckless warmongering of Biden and the Democrat-Deep State nexus.

The war in Ukraine must be stopped as soon as possible and a more reasonable security arrangement for Europe must be negotiated as Russia has long been consistently advocating.

Any diplomatic opening towards achieving peace and ending the killing must be welcomed.

Trump and Vance might just deliver on ending the hostilities in Ukraine which in itself would be a huge step forward away from the abyss of all-out war with Russia. On that score alone, their election might bring about an improvement.

But alas there is a contradiction. Don’t expect world peace to break out in other parts of the globe, because U.S. imperialism is cranking up its war machine. Trump and Vance are hawkish in their policy towards China and Iran.

A comprehensive solution to ending U.S. aggression and militarism is not a change of personnel at the White House. A profound, systematic change in American politics and economics is required.

Is partial peace sufficient? Maybe it is for now.

Grenell has been rather vocal about the Ukrainian conflict lately, floating a proposal earlier this month on how exactly the hostilities could be brought to an end. The diplomat said Ukraine should not become a member of NATO any time soon, and that transforming the country into a federation of sorts with more autonomous regions could be the key to ending the hostilities. “Autonomous regions can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but you got to work through those details,” Grenell stated during a Bloomberg News roundtable.

The proposal received a cold response in Moscow, with Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissing it as an attempt to re-imagine the long-defunct 2014–15 Minsk Agreements. The deal, which had provided a roadmap out of the conflict in then-Ukrainian Donbass, was ultimately revealed both by Kiev and its Western backers to be a mere ruse to buy time for arming Ukraine. “Where were you, Rick, when the Minsk agreements dedicated to exactly this were on the table of the international community, and Russia did its best in support of them and called for finding a form of federalization of Ukraine to preserve its integrity?” Zakharova wrote in a Telegram post.

On the occasion of NATO’s 75th anniversary meeting, only two leaders of NATO member states dared openly speak about issues that in a reasonable organization shaped by mutual respect that seeks the most effective and responsible policies would be the subject of intense debate among all members. The president of Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, made their dissent clear on the eve of the meeting. A third leader, Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, issued an urgent warning afterwards, arguing that making Ukraine a NATO member – not the same as the misguided but fortunately non-binding talk about ‘irreversibility’ that the meeting proudly produced – would be a “guarantee of World War III.” Both Erdogan and Orban broke with the conformism that is the unwritten law of NATO now more than ever. Instead of simply following the often misguided and selfish lead of the US, they signaled three things:

Rational dissent on policy reflecting both reason and national interests; that such dissent is normal, useful, and should be welcome; and that they won’t join in the ideological and detrimental groupthink that suppresses dissent inside NATO, and more broadly, the Collective West. Orban delivered his dose of healthy independence through diplomacy, traveling to Kiev, Moscow, and Beijing on the eve of the summit (meeting with former and likely future US President Donald Trump was just a final touch). Erdogan made his views explicit most of all in an important set of statements in the American magazine Newsweek. Türkiye, it is worth recalling in this context, has the second-largest military in NATO. Its officers and troops have extensive experience in actual military operations, its arms industry is both growing and constantly modernizing, and last but not least, its location, spanning Europe and Western Asia and controlling access to the Black Sea, is as strategically significant as can be.

Former US president Donald Trump directly told Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky that he will bring the conflict between Moscow and Kiev to an end - should he return to the White House - during a phone call between the two on Friday.

The Republican candidate for November's presidential election wrote in a post on Truth Social that he “had a very good phone call” with Zelensky, who congratulated him on a “very successful” Republican National Convention and condemned last weekend's “heinous assassination attempt.”

Trump went on to say that he appreciates Zelensky “for reaching out because I, as your next President of the United States, will bring peace to the world and end the war that has cost so many lives and devastated countless innocent families.”

Zelensky said he had “agreed with President Trump to discuss at a personal meeting what steps can make peace fair and truly lasting.”...

Trump said nothing about agreeing to a meeting with Zelensky, and neither he nor Kiev released any further details of the conversation.

Jul 19, 2024

 • Putting Ukraine first is ‘a middle finger in the face’ of Americans – Carlson, RT, Jul 19, 2024

The political elites in Washington, DC are making a point to not pursue policies that the American public wants, journalist and conservative political commenter Tucker Carlson has said.

The former Fox News host blasted the lack of responsiveness of the American political system to the will of the people at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Thursday. He praised former President Donald Trump, the party’s nominee, for being the opposite of standard politicians.

In the US capital, lawmakers can be seen “stepping over the prostrate bodies of their fellow citizens ODing on drugs to go cast votes to send money to some foreign country,” Carlson said. Prioritizing Ukraine’s needs, for example, over those of Americans is “too much actually. It’s too insulting. It’s a middle finger in the face of every American. It’s a very clear statement, which is unmistakable.”

Ursula von der Leyen has said she plans to turn the EU into a “defense union,” should she secure a second term as European Commission president. The German’s vision for the 27-nation bloc includes creating a single defense market. In a speech ahead of a vote on her position in the European Parliament on Thursday, von der Leyen stated that “Russia is still on the offensive in eastern Ukraine” and claimed that Moscow is “banking on Europe and the West going soft.” She pledged that “Europe will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” warning that “for the very first time our liberty is at stake.”

“We must do everything we can to protect our citizens, it is our duty. I do believe it is now time to build a veritable European union of defense,” von der Leyen added. Outlining her vision for the EU, the former German defense minister said the bloc must keep control of its security and armies within the hands of member states, while NATO will remain “the pillar of our collective defense architecture.” Her vision, however, entails a single market for defense, joint arms-related investment programs, and common defense projects such as an EU-wide air defense system. According to von der Leyen, the EU’s defense sector in its current form is too “dependent on foreign allies,” with “spending on defense too low and ineffective.”

Jul 18, 2024

Featured • Russia Empowered by ‘Naive and Ignorant’ Western Aggression – Scott Ritter, John Miles, Sputnik International, Jul 18, 2024

Two years after President Joe Biden claimed US sanctions and export controls were “crushing” Moscow, Russia continues to grow at a faster rate than that of the United States and all other advanced nations. The country’s resilience was confirmed earlier this year by the International Monetary Fund, which predicted Russia’s economy would expand at a rate of 3.2% in 2024. On the diplomatic front Russia is as influential as ever as a key player in the growing BRICS economic bloc, which was recently forced to turn away new members amid strong interest from the Global South. Internally, Russia remains politically stable and unified with President Vladimir Putin enjoying an overwhelming mandate and widespread support for the country’s military operation against Ukraine.

With Russia not only surviving, but thriving against the backdrop of US-led opposition, one can only conclude that Russophobic leaders are operating from a position of deep ignorance and naivete regarding the Eurasian world power. Such is the conclusion of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Wednesday to discuss the state of relations between Moscow and the West. “The West is under the impression that it can strategically defeat Russia,” claimed Ritter, a former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer. “That means bringing about the existential end to the Russian Federation, as we now understand it. We heard the former Baltic leader turned European Union senior diplomat brag about how she envisioned breaking up Russia into tiny little component pieces,” he noted, referring to comments by Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas suggesting Russia should be split into several “small nations.”

“What they don’t understand are two things,” said Ritter. “Such a desire is literally a suicide pill because Russia’s nuclear arsenal is tied to a doctrine that says if the survival of Russia is placed under existential threat, that Russia will use nuclear weapons to ensure that that threat no longer exists.” “But fortunately we don’t have to worry about that because Russia itself has shown a proclivity not only to be able to outmaneuver the West, turning sanctions against Russia back on the West – a devastating factor – but also turning the attempt to diplomatically isolate Russia back on the West.” Anti-Russia sanctions have provided Moscow the opportunity to both become more self-reliant and strengthen its alliances with other global powers. India has become a major buyer of Russian oil, as has China, which continues to carry on a robust trade relationship with Moscow.

To preview my conclusions, NATO has just committed the West’s post-democracies to an era of institutionalized war, global violence, and disorder — this with, by design, no plan to end it. The same threat of annihilation familiar to those who recall the Cold War will prevail once again.

Spending on armaments will take automatic priority over the well-being of the societies paying for this profligacy. Russia and China will be normalized as permanent enemies. The West’s estrangement from the non–West will be an established fact of life.

The Deep State, an entrenched trans–Atlantic phenomenon now, will ally with liberal authoritarian elites to enforce this regime and suppress all those who question or challenge it...

This is the trans–Atlantic alliance as it has become. It operates on the basis of fantastic conjurings, and no member questions them. You have read absolutely no mainstream media challenging these silly fabrications and none analyzing NATO’s purpose or policies with any seriousness.

This is what I mean by frightening. This is what makes NATO as it is now dangerous. Its stated purpose makes no sense and its unstated purpose is as noted above.

And here is the diabolic truth it is important not to miss: Biden and everyone in his summit audience knows Ukraine is losing its war, knows Moscow has no designs on Europe, knows there is no “global coalition” standing with the alliance. These are simple facts beyond dispute, matters of record.

But Biden’s speech was not meant for the other leaders present and the other leaders present did not applaud for Biden: Biden’s true audience was the public in the trans–Atlantic post-democracies, and the applause he received amounted to their instructions in the necessity to approve.

NATO summits as performance, as exercises in mass propaganda conducted entirely in the open: I confess I cannot fully register the implications of an organization as powerful as the Atlantic alliance operating this emptily and cynically.

NATO has a purpose all right, but its political figureheads, generals, and bureaucrats must make one up for public consumption, its actual purpose — global dominance at whatever cost —being too objectionable to profess.

Russia will choose from the widest possible range of options when developing its response to the deployment of US long-range missiles in Germany, while not ruling out any options, including the deployment of similar nuclear-equipped systems, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters on Thursday.

"I do not rule out any options," Ryabkov said, answering whether the Russian response to the deployment of US missiles in Germany would involve the deployment of similar nuclear-equipped systems.

He noted that due to the fault of both Germany and, first of all, the United States, "standing at the head of the NATO bloc, there was a total destruction of agreements in the field of arms control."

"In this situation, taking into account the totality of countries that are members of NATO, we must calibrate our responses without experiencing any internal constraints, so to speak, in terms of what, where and when is possible, necessary and whether they should be deployed. That is, the widest possible option," the deputy minister said.

"This is not a threat to anyone. This is a way to find the most effective, including cost-effective, algorithm for responding to changing challenges," he added.

Addressing the discussions in Washington about the reconversion of B-52 heavy bombers, Ryabkov indicated that Russia is bracing for the possibility of a significant increase in the United States' nuclear capabilities and is devising effective and cost-efficient response strategies.

"We also see from this example that there are no restraints left in the United States in terms of how to handle the potential in the field of strategic nuclear weapons. We must prepare for all sorts of scenarios, including undesirable scenarios in terms of a possible significant buildup of nuclear potential by the Americans," Ryabkov told reporters.

"We are ready for this, because the whole logic of Washington’s behavior in this area leads to the fact that they will follow exactly this path. But so far there are no solutions, until the final formula for what will happen to these bombers in the future has been worked out, we have time to calculate different options and provide the most effective and least costly ways to respond," the deputy minister added.

At the same time, Ryabkov emphasized that Moscow firmly believes there is no inevitable escalation in the ongoing security tensions between the West and Russia.

"Nothing is predetermined. In particular, there is no predestination for further escalation. So far, unfortunately, the West, under far-fetched pretexts in search of reasons to attribute this to us again, from the point of view of attacks on security, is following exactly this path," Ryabkov told reporters.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Thursday he was working to convince the European leaders to shift the bloc's policy on the Ukraine conflict from "pro war to pro people," adding that the solution can be found at the negotiating table.

"Solution is not on the battlefield, solution is on the negotiation table, ceasefire, negotiation, that is what I try to convince them [EU leaders], but you know it takes time. My job is to convince them to shift from the pro war policy to pro people policy," Orban said ahead of the 4th European Political Community Summit at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, the United Kingdom.

The Hungarian prime minister said he was aware of "the whole context" and that it was "impossible" to find a solution to the Ukraine crisis on the battlefield.

The EU’s criticism of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban over his Ukraine peace initiative indicates that Brussels’ pro-war policies will not change, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday. The Hungarian leader wants the EU leadership and fellow member states to adjust their policies from arming Kiev to seeking a negotiated resolution with Moscow. He traveled to Ukraine, Russia, China, and the US, before detailing his proposal in a letter sent to Brussels this week. Senior EU and national officials, including Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, have blasted Orban for engaging with Moscow. Brussels has reportedly rejected his proposal.

Peskov was asked during a daily press call whether Moscow received the text of Orban’s plan or the EU’s response to it. He said neither document was shared with the Russian government, but conclusions can be made based on the public condemnation of Orban. ”The Europeans have targeted Orban, have disavowed any authority he could claim regarding this issue. They have expressed resolve in supporting Ukraine militarily. I guess that is the answer,” the Kremlin spokesman said.

The European Parliament has strongly condemned Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s recent visit to Russia and his Ukraine peace efforts, in the legislature’s first resolution since elections in June. In a press release detailing Wednesday’s resolution, the parliament described Orban’s trip to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a blatant violation of the EU’s treaties and common foreign policy.” The statement went on to claim that the Hungarian leader’s “alleged peace efforts” were “irrelevant,” and that Budapest should face “repercussions” for Orban’s actions. The EU Parliament is holding its first plenary session in Strasbourg this week since elections to the law-making body were held in June.

Jul 17, 2024

Featured • Trump’s VP pick promises ‘rapid close’ to Ukraine conflict, RT, Jul 16, 2024

Donald Trump will bring about a “rapid close” to the Ukraine conflict if reelected as US president in November, the Republican’s newly announced running mate, JD Vance, has said. Vance argued that Washington should shift its focus to China, describing Beijing as the “biggest threat” to the US.

Trump announced Vance as his running mate on Monday at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Ohio senator’s candidacy was approved later the same day.

If Trump returns as president after the November 5 election, his policy on Ukraine will be “very simple,” Vance told Fox News shortly after being officially nominated.

“Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Donald Trump had been president. Everybody agrees with it. Even a lot of my Democratic colleagues privately agree with that,” he said.

Vance again accused the administration of US President Joe Biden of lacking a coherent policy on the conflict. “We have now spent $200 billion [on aiding Ukraine]. What is the goal? What are we trying to accomplish? Is there a risk of escalation into a nuclear war? Because there is, when you have a buffoon running foreign policy, and we have got a lot of them right now in Washington, DC,” he said.

“I think what President Trump has promised to do is go in there, negotiate with the Russians and Ukrainians and bring this thing to a rapid close, so that America could focus on the real issue, which is China. That’s the biggest threat,” Vance stressed.

Russia and the West need mutual security guarantees for the crisis to be resolved, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

The world should address the “root causes” that led to the “crisis” in Europe and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a ministerial summit at the UN Security Council on Tuesday. Ending the standoff between Moscow and Kiev should be accompanied by the removal of the threat posed by the West to Russia’s security, he said.

Conditions for a “sustainable peace” between Russia and Ukraine had already been presented by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the top diplomat noted. In June, Putin outlined Moscow’s terms for initiating a ceasefire. They involved a full withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from all Russian territories, including the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, and the regions of Kherson and Zaporozhye, as well as a legal commitment from Kiev never to join NATO.

Any final deal should be recognized in Western capitals and pave the way to lift sanctions against Russia, Putin added. Both Kiev and its Western backers dismissed the offer.

Any “political and diplomatic settlement [of the Ukraine conflict] should be accompanied by specific steps aimed at removing the threats to the Russian Federation posed by the [West],” Lavrov told the UNSC as he listed the measures needed to “restore trust and stabilize the situation” on the international arena. “The root causes of the crisis that has broken out in Europe should be dealt with once and for all.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has written to Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, urging him to resume dialogue with Russia and involve China in the effort to resolve the Ukraine conflict, Bild reported on Monday. The plea comes after Orban went on a “peace mission” to Ukraine, Russia, China, and the US. According to the letter cited by the German tabloid, Orban provided Michel with a summary of his talks with the Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, and Turkish leaders, as well as Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump. It also reportedly contained “some suggestions for [Michel’s] consideration.” Warning Michel that “the intensity of the military conflict [in Ukraine] will radically intensify in the near future,” Orban urged the EU official to hold talks with China on a ‘peace conference’ as well as reestablish diplomatic relations with Russia, according to the letter.

He further called for a “political offensive” in the Global South, arguing that the region is disillusioned with the EU’s stance on the Ukraine conflict. Orban also reportedly suggested that US President Joe Biden is “not in a position to change the current [US] pro-war policy.” However, he is said to have written that if Trump is reelected, he will “immediately be ready to act as a peace mediator.” Trump also “has detailed and well-founded plans” for ending the conflict, the letter reportedly said. Trump, who survived an assassination attempt at the weekend, has promised to end the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev within 24 hours if elected.

No mercy must be shown towards Ukrainian neo-Nazis who murdered an unarmed Russian soldier, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has said. The only response that should follow is across-the-board executions, he added.

Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, was commenting on a video depicting the brutal execution of a Russian serviceman that was published by the Azov Brigade on its Telegram channel on Monday. The helmet-camera video shows an unarmed soldier asking a purported Azov militant not to shoot him, before he gets shot several times in the face at point-blank range.

The commander of Russia’s Akhmat Special Forces unit Apty Alaudinov said the incident violated the Geneva Conventions. Under the provisions of the 1949 treaties, “members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, or detention” should be treated humanely.

Medvedev said, however, that reference to the Geneva Conventions is pointless, as there should be “no mercy” to perpetrators of war crimes. The politician quoted the Soviet WWII-era war poet Konstantin Simonov’s verse “Kill him” and called for the expedited execution of those who murdered the captured serviceman.

“There is no place for good here. Just kill! Like Simonov, to whom I have referred many times!” he wrote on his Telegram channel on Tuesday. “Only total executions. No choice. There are no words about mercy. No humanity. No pardon. They have no right to life,” Medvedev insisted.

Echoing his remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Tuesday that Ukrainian Neo-Nazis should be “destroyed.”

“Fascists are fascists,” he told reporters. “We must treat them this way and they must be destroyed,” Peskov added.

Jul 16, 2024

Featured • SITREP 7/15/24: Crumbling NATO Buys Time for Broad European War, Simplicius, Jul 16, 2024
As always, an interesting take, with numerous military details that can serve as an antidote to the U.S. mainstream lies, which are nonstop. Somewhat one-sided in what is included, but not untruthful. That young female Ukrainian medic's story is 100% credible and brave, IMO. I also find the "Mad Max" Russian assault group "Espanola" to be a rather sad -- very brave, yes, but psychically awful. How do you re-integrate with society after being so careless with your own life?

There is also a methodological lesson to the learned here for peace activists. Keep writing, keep thinking, keep learning, keep speaking out. As Matthias DeSmet said so well, in a society gripped by mass formation, i.e. the psychology of totalitarianism, everything depends on those who can muster enough moral courage to keep speaking out. In a way, the "controlled self-abandonment" of the motorcycle assault team -- which is also a skilled, disciplined team -- is a metaphor for truth-telling in a hostile environment. We can be nonviolent, respectful, and humble as we set aside our petty fears to speak, freeing ourselves.

Featured • Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and Mercs Kill and Torture Russian PoWs While Westerm Media Stays Mum, Ekaterina Blinova, Sputnik International, Jul 16, 2024

Featured • “Operation Jupiter” and a revolution in the making, Alastair Crooke, Strategic Culture Foundation, Jul 15, 2024

Some EU leaders – those dangerously haemorrhaging political support at home, as their cordons Sanitaires against Left and Right fracture – may similarly see war as the exit to an EU approaching an insoluble fiscal train-wreck.

War, conversely, allows all fiscal and constitutional rules to be broken. Political leaders suddenly transform into Commanders-in-Chief.

Sending troops and offering fighter jets (and longer range missiles) could be interpreted as intentionally aiming for a wider, European war. The fact that the U.S. apparently thinks to use F-16 bases in Romania might be intended as the way to cause a war in Europe, and save various sinking Atlanticist political fortunes.

There is, by contrast, clear evidence that Europeans (88%) say that “NATO member countries [should] push for a negotiated settlement in Ukraine” – with only a tiny minority of those polled believing that the West should prioritize goals like “Weakening Russia” or “Restoring the pre-2022 borders of Ukraine”.

Rather, the European public overwhelmingly is shown to favour goals such as “avoiding escalation” and “avoiding direct war between nuclear armed powers”.

What is more likely, seemingly, is that pent up anti-war feeling in Europe will burst forth – perhaps even ultimately leading to the rejection of NATO in its entirety. Trump may then find himself pushing at an open door with his NATO stance.

“For this thing is from Israel,” said one of the writers whose compilation of warnings against worship of idols and competing gods is called the book of Hosea. “A craftsman made it, and it is not God. It will be broken to pieces, that calf of Samaria. For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” That warning comes from the late 8th or early 7th century BC.

Almost eight hundred years later, when Paul of Tarsus (aka Saint Paul) was writing his letter to the Galatian community of Christians, he warned: “A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

The Russian reaction to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump is a combination – idol, whirlwind, sin, destruction, God, payoff — plus deep suspicion that either President Joseph Biden or Trump’s organization, or both of them, had a hand in fabricating what happened, plus conviction that they are now capitalizing on the outcome for all they are worth.

The official line was given by the Foreign Ministry’s spokesman on sowing the whirlwind. The Kremlin spokesman followed with the calf of Samaria.

“Yesterday,” wrote Maria Zakharova of the Foreign Ministry on Telegram, “one of the leaders of the Kiev regime, [Kirill] Budanov, openly admitted that Ukrainian intelligence was preparing attempts on the President of Russia. So this attempt was being prepared, again, for American money, without which there would have been no malicious activity of the GUR, the SBU and, in general, Bankova [the presidential office]. With massive financing and uncontrolled supply of weapons, Washington has created a terrorist structure in Ukraine – the Kiev regime. It is a machine of murders, bombings, exterminations, and terrorist attacks against both political figures and civilians…TheUnited States of America should take stock of its policy of inciting hatred against political opponents, countries and people, and sponsoring terrorism. The bell is already ringing for Washington!”

Jul 15, 2024

Featured • “Operation Jupiter” and a revolution in the making, Alastair Crooke, Strategic Culture Foundation, Jul 15, 2024

Some EU leaders – those dangerously haemorrhaging political support at home, as their cordons Sanitaires against Left and Right fracture – may similarly see war as the exit to an EU approaching an insoluble fiscal train-wreck.

War, conversely, allows all fiscal and constitutional rules to be broken. Political leaders suddenly transform into Commanders-in-Chief.

Sending troops and offering fighter jets (and longer range missiles) could be interpreted as intentionally aiming for a wider, European war. The fact that the U.S. apparently thinks to use F-16 bases in Romania might be intended as the way to cause a war in Europe, and save various sinking Atlanticist political fortunes.

There is, by contrast, clear evidence that Europeans (88%) say that “NATO member countries [should] push for a negotiated settlement in Ukraine” – with only a tiny minority of those polled believing that the West should prioritize goals like “Weakening Russia” or “Restoring the pre-2022 borders of Ukraine”.

Rather, the European public overwhelmingly is shown to favour goals such as “avoiding escalation” and “avoiding direct war between nuclear armed powers”.

What is more likely, seemingly, is that pent up anti-war feeling in Europe will burst forth – perhaps even ultimately leading to the rejection of NATO in its entirety. Trump may then find himself pushing at an open door with his NATO stance.

Vladimir Zelensky is becoming more and more concerned for his life as the conflict between Moscow and Kiev continues, Reuters has reported, in a profile about the Ukrainian politician on Saturday. Zelensky “has grown increasingly paranoid about suspected Russian attempts to assassinate him and destabilize Ukraine’s leadership,” a senior European official told the agency. “And rightly so,” he added. Reuters said that it had spoken with eight current and former Ukrainian and foreign officials, as well as with “several friends and colleagues from [Zelensky’s] past.” According to the agency, “they paint a portrait of a leader who has become tougher and more decisive, less tolerant of mistakes and even prone to paranoia, as he copes with round-the-clock stress and fatigue.”

...Russian authorities deny accusations of attempting to get rid of Zelensky. “We have no such plans,” Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, said earlier this year. Throughout the conflict, Zelensky has become intolerant of alleged incompetence among his officials and advisers, an unnamed member of his team told Reuters. “If he sees people are not prepared or are contradicting each other, he will say ‘get out of here. I don’t have time for this’,” the source said.

Zelensky is also relentless when it comes to pressuring his foreign backers for aid, according to a senior European official. “He repeats 15 times what he needs, that we need to do more or face the consequences, and he doesn’t let it go,” the official stressed. Ukraine’s former defense minister Aleksey Reznikov, who was sacked last year amid corruption accusations against him, said that Zelensky operates in “a sleep-deprived regime.” The Ukrainian politician’s life consists of “consultations at night and addresses to parliaments, senates… regardless of the time,” he explained. According to Reznikov, Zelensky has a “grab bag” with a change of clothes and a toothbrush because he often doesn’t know where he would be spending the night. “He is in stress mode 24 hours a day, seven days a week – it’s a never-ending marathon,” he added.

On Saturday, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence claimed that there had been several attempts at assassinating Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“There have been [attempts to assassinate Putin], but as you can see, they have been unsuccessful so far,” said Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, known as the GUR.

Budanov didn’t offer any details about the alleged assassination attempts. He has previously made similar claims, and other officials in the GUR have threatened that Kyiv was preparing to target the Russian leader.

Last year, Ukrainian drones targeted the Kremlin, and Russia treated the attack as an attempt on Putin’s life. In response to Budanov’s comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the “security of the president is established at the proper level.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said assassination attempts on Putin are funded with “US money.” She said the US would be better off spending the money on domestic security, pointing to the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

Undoubtedly, one of the main concerns of the Kiev Junta today is how to maintain control over the armed population. At the beginning of the special military operation, the regime distributed heavy weapons and explosives to civilian citizens with the alleged objective of fostering the conditions necessary to create “popular resistance”. Fear and propaganda mixed in the early stages of the conflict and led Ukrainian officials to commit one of the biggest strategic mistakes ever made by a state in the history of warfare. At the time, the discourse behind the distribution of weapons was simple: the Russians were arriving in the capital, having already reached positions in the suburbs of Kiev. There was no time to move troops from all regions of Ukraine to the capital, so it was necessary to deliver weapons to the people and establish a guerrilla war against the Russians, in case the Ukrainian Army’s positions in Kiev quickly collapsed.

However, the Ukrainian calculation was disastrous. The regime’s officials actually believed their own propaganda and began to act as if the Ukrainian capital was indeed under “threat.” Clearly, Russia would not enter Ukraine with around 150,000 troops if it aimed to capture Kiev. The most experienced Ukrainian military officers knew that it was all just a distraction and that as soon as the regime moved troops to the capital, Moscow would retreat from Kiev to the Donbass – where there really was Russian interest.

However, in a decision-making context during war, it is not just the opinion of the military that is taken into account. The need to feed the propaganda machine appears to have played an even more central role in the regime’s decisions, as from the beginning it seemed clear that the only Ukrainian advantage in this conflict was the ability to mobilize opinions and minds around the world – through of the two great weapons of the Western allies: mass media and anti-Russian censorship.

Jul 14, 2024

Featured • Why Is the West Preparing for War?, Paul Craig Roberts, Jul 12, 2024

One result of the just concluded NATO Summit is Germany’s decision to host US intermediate-range missiles. Prior to 2019 when Washington cancelled the INF Treaty, the treaty prevented such deployment. The INF Treaty was signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev on December 8,1987, and the treaty was ratified on June 1, 1988. The treaty was part and parcel of ending the cold war. Reagan called the treaty a “step toward a safer world.” “The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty required the United States and the Soviet Union to eliminate and permanently forswear all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. The treaty marked the first time the superpowers had agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals, eliminate an entire category of nuclear weapons, and employ extensive on-site inspections for verification. As a result of the INF Treaty, the United States and the Soviet Union destroyed a total of 2,692 short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missiles by the treaty’s implementation deadline of June 1, 1991.”

Blaming Russia the Trump administration pulled out of the treaty. The consequence was to kill the nuclear disarmament that the INF Treaty began and to renew the arms race. If I had to bet I would say Washington’s withdrawal was a consequence of the US nuclear industry needing the source of profits that the arms race provided and the neoconservatives’ determination to revive US hegemony through the buildup of force. If Russia was truly out of compliance, Trump’s focus should have been to work to bring Russia into compliance, not terminate the treaty. The efforts of several American presidents and Soviet leaders in the 20th century to defuse tensions and to build trust were squandered by Washington in the 21st century. Regardless, what is clear is that Washington is pushing both Europe and Russia into preparing for war, and is itself preparing.

On Thursday, Russian officials reacted strongly and vowed to respond to the US announcing that it will deploy missile systems to Germany starting in 2026 that were previously banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

“Without nerves, without emotions, we will develop a military response, first of all, to this new game,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov. He called the US decision “destructive to regional safety and strategic stability.”

Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador in Washington, said the deployment could lead to confrontation. “The Americans are increasing the risk of a missile arms race. Here, they forget that going the way of confrontation may set off an uncontrollable escalation amid the dangerous aggravation of tensions along the Russia-NATO track,” he said.

Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, warned of a strong response if the US goes through with the deployment. “I hope that it will not happen, because Russia’s response will be harsh and adequate. This is simply unacceptable,” she said.

The INF prohibited land-based missile systems with a range between 310 and 3,400 miles. The US and Germany said in a joint statement that the planned deployment includes a land-based version of nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles, which have a range of about 1,000 miles and are primarily used by US Navy ships and submarines.

The US and Germany also said that the deployment will include SM-6 missiles, which have a range of about 290 miles, and “developmental hypersonic weapons.” The statement said the missiles have “significantly longer range than current land-based fires in Europe.”

There’s no indication yet that the missiles will be armed with nuclear weapons, but the statement leaves open the possibility. The US already has nuclear bombs stationed in Germany as part of NATO’s nuclear sharing, but they are B61 gravity bombs that need to be dropped from aircraft.

The two sides had been quiet since a call in March 2023, but communications have been picking up, after a June 25th call which reestablished communications.

But Russia likely registered its anger at the NATO summit committing to an “irreversible path” for Ukraine’s NATO membership. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg still admitted in will be a very long path, as much as ten years or more. He said in a CBS News interview days ago: “Well, no one has said exactly 10 years but- but- but it’s obvious that it is a very serious issue to bring in Ukraine. Because Ukraine is now a country at war.” “Ukraine has been attacked by- by Russia. So the most important thing we should do is to step up our support to Ukraine to ensure that Ukraine prevails,” he continued. “That’s a precondition for any future membership for Ukraine.” According to The Hill, another recent issue which has roiled Russia and was likely conveyed by Belousov to Austin, is seen in the following:

“What’s more, NATO has backed Ukraine’s push for more latitude in its use of Western-supplied weapons to strike inside Russia, with the United Kingdom announcing it would allow Kyiv to hit targets over Russian borders with British-provided long-range missiles.” There’s also the US decision to deploy long-range missiles to Europe in violation of the previously in place INF treaty, which the US pulled out of in 2019.

Moscow has enough capabilities to counter such hostile moves by Washington as its just-announced deployment of new missiles to Europe, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. European nations, however, are only becoming victims of the standoff between the US and Russia. The spokesman made the remarks to Russian Journalist Pavel Zarubin, who published the excerpts of the interview on his social media on Saturday. “There has always been a paradoxical situation: the US deployed different types of missiles, of different ranges, but traditionally aimed at our country. Our country, accordingly, identified European locations as targets for our missiles,” Peskov stated. While Washington continues to “profit” from the escalation, the EU nations are only serving as targets in the standoff, Peskov explained.

US President Joe Biden on Thursday reaffirmed the limits on how Ukraine can use American-supplied weapons, arguing that it “wouldn’t make sense” to allow Zelensky to strike deep inside Russia.“We have allowed Zelensky to use American weapons in the near border regions of Russia. If he had the opportunity to strike Moscow, strike the Kremlin, would that make sense? No, it wouldn’t,” Biden said at a press briefing in Washington. The UK, which has a ban on using its long-range Storm Shadow missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia, has also apparently distanced itself from earlier statements by Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The premier on Wednesday signaled he was loosening restrictions on how the missiles are used, saying “it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy [them].” However, according to a report by The Telegraph citing Downing Street, UK government policy “had not changed” regarding the deployment of the long-range missiles, and the limitations remain in place.

With the Washinton and Brussels establishment apparently only interested in more bloodshed, someone has to speak sense.

Robert Bridge: One of the greatest farces of these modern times is that those who scream the loudest about democracy and human rights are the very same people who violate international norms at every opportunity.

In the June issue of The New Republic, a left-leaning US political journal, a scowling Donald Trump was featured on the cover sporting a Hitler moustache above a caption that read: “American fascism, what it would look like.”

“We chose the cover image, based on a well-known 1932 Hitler campaign poster, for a precise reason: that anyone transported back to 1932 Germany could very, very easily have explained away Herr Hitler’s excesses and been persuaded that his critics were going overboard,” the editors explained in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “After all, [Hitler] spent 1932 campaigning, negotiating, doing interviews – being a mostly normal politician. But he and his people vowed all along that they would use the tools of democracy to destroy it, and it was only after he was given power that Germany saw his movement’s full face.”

There’s just one problem with the journal’s nervous handwringing: Trump has already served a four-year term as US leader and there was no visible sign of fascist goosestepping down Main Street during that period. In fact, just the opposite is true. While Adolf Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, thus triggering World War II, Trump went down in the history books as the first American commander-in-chief in modern times to avoid a military conflict. Now on the campaign trail for the second time, with the insatiable defense industry licking its chops for more profits, the Republican frontrunner has declared he would end the Ukraine-Russia conflict in 24 hours if reelected.

When it is considered that ‘democracy’ today primarily works on behalf of the military industrial complex and other associated business interests, it is easier to understand how Trump is described in the corporate-owned media as an existential threat to the American republic. Peace is the last thing on Washington’s mind, and Russia understands that better than any country....

Almost eight years after the 2014 Maidan Revolution, and months before Moscow kicked off its special military operation in Ukraine, the Kremlin released its plan for peace on the continent. Among other things, the draft treaty called for the US and Russia to refrain from deploying troops in regions where they could be perceived as a threat to each other’s national security, as well as a ban on sending their troops and military hardware into areas where they could strike each other’s territory. The treaty was also designed to ban the deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Europe. Had the Western powers consented to the plan – it barely made headlines in the NATO countries – it’s not difficult to imagine decades of peace between east and west, the very last thing that Washington wants.

Claims by Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky that the UK has cleared him to order attacks deep inside Russia with British-supplied weapons are not true, according to The Telegraph. After a meeting with Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday, the Ukrainian leader announced that he had “learned about the permission to use Storm Shadow missiles against military targets in Russian territory.” The two officials “had the opportunity to discuss the practical implementation of this decision” he added. The Telegraph reported on Thursday that the situation was “more nuanced,” according to a senior defense source. In fact, there has been no policy change regarding the weapons after the new Labour government came to power, the British newspaper explained.

US President Joe Biden has said he has no reason to talk with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, including about the Ukraine conflict. However, he also said he would not refuse to engage with any world leader. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Biden was asked whether he would still be able to “deal” with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in a few years. “I’m ready to deal with them now,” he replied, noting that he maintains contact with Xi. However, when it comes to the Russian leader, Biden said he had “no good reason to talk to Putin” at the moment. “There’s not much that he is prepared to do in terms of accommodating any change in his behavior,” he added, referring to the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev. “I’m not ready to talk to Putin unless Putin is ready to change his behavior.”

Jul 12, 2024

Featured • The Cover Your Ass Olympics, James Howard Kunstler, Jul 12, 2024
In case we forgot any of this.

Featured • The Folly of Empire and the Albatross of Debt, David Stockman, Antiwar.com, Jul 12, 2024

Like the case of Rome before it, Empire is bankrupting America. The true fiscal cost of the national security budget is now upwards of $1.3 trillion per year (counting veterans expense and international operations and aid), but there is no way to pay for it.

That’s because the 78-million strong Baby Boomers are in the driver’s seat of American politics. They plainly will not permit the $3.5 trillion per year retirement and health care entitlements-driven Welfare State to be curtailed. At the same time, Washington has become the War Capital of the World where the ruling UniParty insists that the massive fiscal claims of the Warfare State are non-negotiable.

Indeed, during 2017-2020 the Trumpite/GOP already sealed the deal. Trump massively increased the Warfare State budget, even as the Congressional GOP refused to reform Social Security and Medicare and proved to be utterly incapable of even laying a glove politically on Obamacare/Medicaid, Food Stamps or any of the other Welfare State entitlements. Meanwhile, the GOP remained all-in for its anti-tax allergy, thereby refusing to tax the American public to close Washington’s yawning deficits.

Accordingly, the Federal budget is now simply on a doomsday track. With interest rates finally normalizing and the debt compounding at rates far higher than the growth of nominal GDP, interest costs on the public debt is headed into the fiscal stratosphere.

Indeed, the outlook is now so dire that the CBO doesn’t even dare print the long-term debt numbers....

To wit, the hoary ideology of American exceptionalism and the Indispensable Nation was also, ironically, liberated from the shackles of cold war realism when the iron curtain came tumbling down.

Consequently, it burst into a Washington-based quest for unadulterated global hegemony. In short order (under Bush the Elder and the Clintons) Washington morphed into the War Capital of the World, and became an imperial beehive not only of militarism, but of an endless complex of think-tanks, NGOs, advisories and consultancies, “law firms”, lobbies and racketeers.

The unspeakable prosperity of Washington flows from that Imperial beehive. And it is the Indispensable Nation meme that provides the political adhesive that binds the Washington political class to the work of Empire and to provisioning the massive fiscal appetites of the Warfare State. (emphasis in original)

No matter how many and what kind of air defense systems NATO plans to donate to the Kiev regime, Russia will continue to pursue its military objectives while grinding through those weapons, underscored Scott Ritter. Fueling the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine will leave the West facing depleted stocks of its own air defense systems.

Russia is able to wipe out the military equipment provided to the Kiev regime, especially air defense, at a rate "far greater than the West can even replenish its own stocks," former US marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter told Sputnik.

“This is a losing equation. And without air defense, Ukraine is literally an open target for Russia to take apart as it best sees fit,” said Ritter.

As expected, Russia has reacted with fury to the new missile plan for Germany, with Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov stating on Telegram Thursday that the move is a "serious mistake" as "such extremely destabilizing steps are a direct threat to international security and strategic stability."

The envoy further said this only "increases the risks of a missile arms race," given that it could unleash "uncontrolled escalation amid dangerously soaring Russia-NATO tensions."

Antonov said that Russia has desired to keep safeguards in place, but "Instead of the desire for peace that Russia has demonstrated many times, the Americans have embarked on the dangerous path of militarism."

He further warned that this brings European states like Germany in the crosshairs and that Moscow's patience is limited. The ambassador posed: "Doesn’t Germany understand that the emergence of American missile assets on German soil will lead to these facilities ending up in Russian crosshairs? This is not saber-rattling, it is the simple logic of a normal person."

The end of Cold War era treaty was negotiated precisely to avoid and reduce weapons build-up in Europe...

If Donald Trump takes the White House after November, it will be interesting to see whether he sticks by these provocative missile expansion plans, or if he halts it while desiring to deescalate tensions over arms placement with an aim of of finding Ukraine peace. (emphases in original)

NATO officials have announced several major moves which collectively mark a significant escalation with Russia at the annual NATO summit in Washington DC this week. First, President Biden on Tuesday unveiled that the US is sending dozens of anti-air defense systems to Ukraine forces amid stepped-up Russian aerial assaults. Next, a joint statement from Washington, the Hague and Copenhagen confirmed that an initial batch of US-made F-16 jet fighters are en route to Ukraine. This alone marks a massive escalation, given Moscow has already vowed it will target the jets. On Wednesday, yet another ultra-provocative announcement was made aimed at ‘deterring’ Moscow. Poland’s army chief of staff General Wieslaw Kukula called for his country to prepare its soldiers for all-out conflict. “Today, we need to prepare our forces for full-scale conflict, not an asymmetric-type conflict,” General Kukula told a press conference. “This forces us to find a good balance between the border mission and maintaining the intensity of training in the army,” he said.

His ‘border mission’ reference alludes to the ongoing tensions with Belarus, a close Russian ally which forms part of the ‘Union State’. Poland recently implemented its “East Shield” program, a $2.5 billion initiative to beef up defenses along the Poland-Belarus border. Going back to 2021, Belarus has been accused of intentionally flooding the Polish border with Middle East migrants as a form of hybrid warfare. The European Union has charged President Alexander Lukashenko with orchestrating a border crisis in order to bog down Polish troops and border guards. Another issue is that China’s military has kicked off exercises with Belarusian forces in Brest in recent days, which lies within miles of the Polish border.

Jul 11, 2024

Featured • NATO Declaration Is Stark Neoconservative Recommitment to US Hegemony - Sachs, Sputnik International, Jul 11, 2024

NATO's latest joint declaration [https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_227678.htm] serves as a stark neoconservative recommitment to US hegemony, Jeffrey Sachs, a world-renowned economist and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, told Sputnik.

"The NATO Declaration is a stark neoconservative recommitment to US hegemony. It calls for NATO to back the 'rules-based order,' which is actually the US-based order that is often directly contrary to the UN Charter," Sachs said.

On Wednesday, NATO released a joint Washington Summit Declaration, which outlines the alliance's efforts to further isolate Russia, bolster the alliance's security on its eastern flank, increase security assistance for Ukraine, and claim Ukraine is on an "irreversible path" into NATO, among other initiatives.

"It describes NATO as a defensive force despite the fact that NATO is repeatedly engaged in offensive regime-change operations, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Serbia, Libya, Ukraine, and others," Sachs said.

Sachs explains that NATO's declaration also restates Article 10 of the Washington Treaty, which claims that Russia has no input if NATO expands to surround Russia.

Moreover, Sachs said NATO's joint statement describes its commitment to advanced biotechnologies, which raises concerns of biowarfare.

Sachs also pointed out that the declaration shows NATO’s intention to continue to deploy anti-ballistic missiles throughout Europe as it's previously done in Poland, Romania, and Turkiye, which has directly destabilized the nuclear arms control architecture ever since the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002.

The White House announced earlier that the United States will begin episodic deployments of the long-range fires capabilities of its Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany in 2026.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said US plans to deploy intermediate- and shorter-range missiles to Germany pose a direct threat to international security and increase the risks of a missile arms race.

When your enfant terrible is also (almost) the only adult in the room, then something is very wrong with your room. For “the room” read the EU – and the West more broadly – and, for both the enfant terrible and the adult in the room, Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary, and there you have it: the shortest possible description of what the big brouhaha about his recent trips to first Kiev, then Moscow and Beijing is really all about....

By now, after Orbán’s visit to China, this odd, anxious, slightly comical, and exorcism-like ritual of banishing the faintest suspicion the EU could, almost by accident, have engaged in an act of diplomacy is reaching an elevated level of displaced collective aggression. A bloc that can’t even name the fact that its Washington “ally” has committed an act of war and eco-terrorism against it by having Nord Stream detonated, is now producing voices – some of them courageously anonymous – calling for punishing Hungary, for instance by cutting short its Council presidency.

We also see painstaking analyses of how Orbán’s trips could be construed to be in contradiction with EU treaties. Here, the key idea is to accuse him of infringing on not merely the great if, really, rather baseless and improvised “don’t-play-with-the-Russians” rule but, more profoundly, the duties that all member states have toward the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, and, beyond that, toward a “general principle of sincere cooperation.” And that is where we have definitely entered the realm of self-defeating irony.

The US and its allies are planning to continue ramping up defense spending, which will ensure long-term demand for weapons, US Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks told a gathering of arms manufacturers during a NATO event on Tuesday. Speaking at the NATO Summit Defense Industry Forum, the official praised NATO members for boosting their military budgets since the initial flare-up of the Ukraine conflict in 2014, and particularly after the open hostilities between Ukraine and Russia erupted in 2022. Over the past decade, the average annual increase in spending was 72% [??], adjusted for inflation, she said. That reversed a period when “defense industries across the Atlantic were affected by decades of inconsistent funding and blinkered demand signals,” she said. She said the current thinking is: “Production matters. Production is deterrence.”

Western arms manufacturers have the ability “not just to compete, but to out-compete and prevail” over Russia and other nations that the US considers its rivals, including China, North Korea and Iran. “That includes ensuring we are prepared for the possibility of protracted war, which every ally must be prepared for – and not just in Europe, either,” Hicks warned. Developing the manufacturing base on both sides of the Atlantic in a way that combines “information-age ingenuity and industrial-era capacity” will benefit US allies in the Pacific, such as Australia, Japan and South Korea, the official said. She claimed that Western political systems are inherently beneficial for building “arsenals of democracy,” since they foster innovation and transnational cooperation. On the other hand, “autocracies,” according to her reasoning, can’t move beyond “just landing at each other’s airfields, or sailing ships alongside each other for a few days at a time.” (emphasis added)

The US announced on Wednesday that it will deploy missiles to Germany that would have been banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which the US withdrew from in 2019.

The INF prohibited land-based missile systems with a range between 310 and 3,400 miles. The planned deployment to Germany includes a land-based version of nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles, which have a range of about 1,000 miles and are primarily used by US Navy ships and submarines.

“The United States will begin episodic deployments of the long-range fires capabilities of its Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany in 2026, as part of planning for enduring stationing of these capabilities in the future,” the US and Germany said in a joint statement released amid the ongoing NATO summit in Washington.

“When fully developed, these conventional long-range fires units will include SM-6, Tomahawk, and developmental hypersonic weapons, which have significantly longer range than current land-based fires in Europe,” the statement added.

Based on the statement, the US likely plans to deploy a Typhon launcher, a covert system concealed in a 40-foot shipping container that can fire Tomahawks and SM-6 missiles. The SM-6 can hit targets up to 290 miles away, below the levels previously banned by the INF.

The US has previously deployed Typhon launchers for military exercises in the Philippines and Denmark. The announcement of a regular deployment of the missile system to Germany comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow should follow the US in developing weapons previously banned by the INF.

When the US withdrew from the INF treaty, it claimed Russia was violating the agreement by developing the ground-launched 9M729 cruise missile. Russian officials denied the missile was a violation, saying it had a maximum range of 298 miles.

Russia also accused the US of potentially violating the INF by establishing Aegis Ashore missile defense systems in Romania and Poland. The systems use Mk-41 vertical launchers, which can fit Tomahawk missiles.

The US refused to negotiate with Russia on either issue, and the Trump administration tore up the treaty. It was clear the US exited the treaty so it could deploy intermediate-range missiles near China, leading Russia to propose a moratorium on the deployment of INF missiles in Europe. But the US never accepted the offer.

Land-based missiles with a range between 500km and 5,500km were banned on European soil under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. In 2019, the US pulled out of the Cold War-era pact, accusing Moscow of having violated it.

Ryabkov said deploying US missiles to Germany is primarily aimed at damaging Russia’s security.

“Without nerves, without emotions, we will develop, first of all, a military response to this new game,” the diplomat said, adding that the Russian military had already “taken this message to task.”

The weapons systems to be deployed in Germany will include the SM-6 anti-air missile, which has a range of up to 460km, and the Tomahawk cruise missile, which can reportedly strike targets more than 2,500km away.

Virtually no quantity of weapons that the US and its allies supply to Kiev for its fight with Russia will be enough, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has said. The Ukrainian leader is visiting the US this week as the heads of NATO states hold a summit in Washington DC. Zelensky called for more arms deliveries at the Ronald Reagan Institute on Tuesday, where he participated in an event alongside US Senator Mitch McConnell. While he highlighted his determination to continue hostilities with Russia, he stressed on several occasions the disparity in military strength between the two sides in the conflict. ”It’s not enough. It’s never enough,” he said, referring to the five additional Patriot missile systems, which US President Joe Biden pledged the same day to Kiev on behalf of his nation, Germany, Romania and others.

Asked about the fate of the 31 Abrams main battle tanks supplied by the US last year, Zelensky said the number was too low to “change the situation on the battlefield.”He went on to say the number of F-16 fighter jets pledged by Western donors has been insufficient. Russia uses some 300 jets in the Ukraine conflict, while Kiev would only be able to field 10 to 20 F-16s anytime soon, he said. ”Even if we will have 50 it’s nothing. They have 300,” Zelensky said. Being on the defense, Ukraine would need a fleet of 128 F-16s for parity with Russia, he stated.

Russia’s electronic warfare capabilities have rendered precision-guided Western munitions “useless” in the Ukraine conflict, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. With their guidance systems scrambled, some of these weapons have reportedly been retired within weeks of hitting the battlefield. When the US announced the delivery of GPS-guided Excalibur artillery shells to Ukraine in 2022, pro-Kiev outlets predicted that the $100,000-per-shot projectiles would make “Ukrainian artillery a whole lot more accurate” and “cause Russia a world of pain.” However, the Russian military adapted within weeks, Ukrainian commanders told the Wall Street Journal. Russian signal-jamming equipment was used to feed false coordinates to the shells and interfere with their fuses, causing them to veer off course or fall to the ground as duds.

“By the middle of last year, the M982 Excalibur munitions, developed by RTX and BAE Systems, became essentially useless and are no longer employed,” the newspaper stated, paraphrasing the Ukrainian commanders. The Soviet Union invested heavily in electronic warfare (EW) during the 1980s, viewing jamming technology as a crucial bulwark against the guided missiles and shells that the US was beginning to develop at the time. While weapons such as the 1990s-era Excalibur shells were used by the US to devastating effect in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials and analysts in Washington have since concluded that they are far less effective against a peer-level opponent like Russia. “The Russians have gotten really, really good” at interfering with guided munitions, US Deputy Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante told the WSJ.

Western allies intend to supply Ukraine with entire “squadrons” of modern American-made F-16 fighter jets, according to a joint statement from the leaders of the US, Netherlands, and Denmark. They announced that the transfer of the first of these aircraft has already begun, allowing Ukrainian forces to start using them this summer. “We are committed to further enhancing Ukraine’s air capabilities, which will include squadrons of modern fourth generation F-16 multi-role aircraft,” US President Joe Biden said in a joint statement with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen at the NATO summit in Washington. The coalition, according to the leaders, intends to assist with the maintenance, armament, and pilot training for these jets. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in turn, announced that a transfer of F-16 fighter jets was currently underway from Europe to Ukraine.

“I’m also pleased to announce that as we speak, the transfer of F-16 jets is underway, coming from Denmark, coming from the Netherlands, and those jets will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against the Russian aggression,” Blinken said at the NATO Public Forum. Commenting on the development, Andrey Kartapolov, head of the State Duma Defense Committee told Sputnik that the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will not affect the course of the special operation and will change nothing. “We have known for a long time that they would give them something by the end of the summer; they have nothing else left but the F-16. Now they will be giving them, perhaps a dozen or so, but it will not change anything at all. We have been expecting them for a long time, and we have been preparing. It will not affect the course of the special operation,” said Kartapolov. He noted that after the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine, Russian pilots and air defense personnel “will have new stars on their fuselages and new medals on their chests.”

The UK is set to boost its military capabilities and plans to gradually increase defense spending to 2.5% of its GDP, new Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday as he departed for a NATO summit in Washington. Starmer has pledged to publish a roadmap for defense expenditure following calls from both the UK military and NATO states to clarify his policy, his office has said. “I am committed to that 2.5% [of gross domestic product] within our fiscal rules, but that strategic review needs to come first,” he told Reuters ahead of the NATO summit. His predecessor Rishi Sunak had promised earlier this year that London would reach this target by 2030. According to Starmer’s office, the government will launch a strategic review next week to “determine the future defense posture” of the UK and the military capabilities it needs. The timeline for the review or when the spending goal might be achieved has not been specified, however.

EU member states have increased their joint defense spending by 30% in the last three years, while in 2024, the bloc’s defense spending is expected to reach approximately 2% of GDP, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Wednesday. “In the last three years, the total expenditure [in the defense sector] in Europe … has increased by 30% and this year we will be reaching almost an average all together of 2% [of GDP], it is not enough, but is much better and it is growing,” the high-ranked EU official said during his speech at the 75th NATO Anniversary Summit in Washington. The NATO summit kicked off in Washington on Tuesday and will run through July 11. In late June, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the European Union needed to invest 500 billion euros ($535 billion) in defense in the next 10 years.

The European Union “regrets” that people are dying in Ukraine, but it will continue to supply weapons to Kiev to counter Russia’s actions, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Wednesday. “We certainly regret that people are dying, but Ukrainian soldiers are fighting and dying because they are defending their country,” Borrell said during a speech at the fifth NATO Anniversary Summit in Washington. The EU will continue to support Ukraine, Borrell added. “I am happy to have heard [US] President Biden a moment ago to say that Russia cannot prevail, for that we have to increase our [military] industrial capacity, putting more money on the table, more technological development,” Borrell said.

The latest Russian Defense Ministry daily bulletin was issued on Tuesday afternoon, July 9. Since then the Pentagon and the White House have been as silent as the tomb. Make that thirty-five American tombs. “During the day [July 9],” said the Defense Ministry briefer in Moscow, “the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation carried out a group strike with high-precision weapons on American HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems prepared for strikes on the territory of Crimea, as well as the venue of an official meeting of the AFU [Armed Forces of the Ukraine] command staff. The objectives of the strike have been achieved. Four US-made HIMARS MLRS launchers were destroyed, as well as up to 35 foreign specialists who serviced them.” Several hours later, the Pentagon briefer, Major General Pat Ryder, announced “a great kickoff to NATO summit events this week.”

General Ryder wasn’t referring to the largest number of US battlefield deaths ever recorded under hostile Russian fire. He had nothing to say about the Ukraine battlefield action, and the reporters attending failed to ask him about it.

Jul 10, 2024

Featured • NATO SUMMIT: Alliance’s Endgame Appears to Be Nuclear War, Consortium News, Jul 9, 2024

Featured • Scott Ritter: US Thrives on Continuous Conflict, Judging Freedom, Jul 9, 2024

 • Ukraine Seeking to Convince US to Fully Lift Ban on Strikes Inside Russia - Reports, Sputnik International, Jul10, 2024

Kiev is seeking to convince Washington to lift a ban on Ukrainian strikes inside Russian territory with US-supplied weapons in the course of the NATO summit, Politico reported, citing Ukrainian presidential office head Andriy Yermak.

In May, the Biden administration authorized Ukrainian forces to use the transferred weapons against targets on Russian territory adjacent to the Kharkov (also known as Kharkiv) region for counter-fire purposes, but left in place a ban on cross-border strikes using ATACMS missiles and other long-range firearms.

The Ukrainian authorities plan to increase pressure on the White House during the ongoing NATO summit so that it lifts all restrictions on striking Russian territory with US weapons, including the use of ATACMS, Yermak told Politico in an interview out Tuesday.

Nevertheless, Moscow will continue to “tell the truth about what has happened, both domestically and in countries where the audience is ready to hear us and where we have technical means to reach them,” Peskov stressed. Since 2022, the EU has banned several Russian news broadcasters, including RT, citing “systematic information manipulation and disinformation.” YouTube similarly began to crack down on Russian-linked content, removing more than 70,000 videos and 9,000 channels related to the Ukraine conflict, according to The Guardian. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has branded the sanctions “political censorship and a campaign to completely wipe out alternative viewpoints.”

It is one thing for the addled Joe Biden to be clueless about the true situation on the ground, but many of the NATO leaders in the audience also were applauding this crap. They cannot plead guilty by way of cognitive decline. The claim that, “Ukraine is winning and Russia is losing,” is a craven lie. Ukrainian forces are being pulverized by missiles, 3000 kg FAB bombs and drones. And neither the United States nor the rest of the NATO countries have a stockpile of 155mm artillery shells and air defense systems that they can send to Ukraine. This is pure malpractice by Biden’s speech writers.

In the weeks leading up to this summit, Ukraine was under enormous pressure from NATO leaders to do something dramatic on the battlefield to at least create the impression that a Ukrainian offensive, if properly supplied, could push the Russians back. The anticipated mini-counteroffensive never materialized. Instead, Russia is hitting Ukraine all along the 1000 km front and Ukraine is steadily retreating.

Kremlin responds to Kiev hospital attack allegations.

Moscow has vehemently denied responsibility for the tragedy at the Okhmatdet children’s hospital in Kiev, after a missile hit the facility on Monday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has insisted that the incident was caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Peskov stressed that Russia “does not strike civilian targets” and that all strikes carried out by the Russian military are exclusively aimed at “critical infrastructure facilities and military targets that are somehow related to the regime’s military potential.”...

Pro-Kiev media outlets have claimed that the weapon that struck the hospital was a Russian air-launched Kh-101 cruise missile. However, others have argued that the projectile, which can apparently be seen in a video filmed from a distance by a witness, was probably an AIM120 fired by a NASAM missile system or an interceptor fired by the MIM-104 Patriot missile system. Western donors have provided Ukraine with this type of US-developed weapon.

Jul 9, 2024

Featured • Ukraine Bombs Its Own Children's Hospital and British Journal Says Palestian Death Toll is Astronomical, Larry Johnson, Jul 8, 2024
The notion that Russia would have struck a children's hospital, and on the eve of a NATO summit to boot, is absurd.

Featured • ‘Untrue’: Russia slams Ukrainian claim of attack on civilian targets, RT, Jul 8, 2024

Claims by Ukrainian officials that Russia deliberately attacked civilian targets in Kiev on Monday are “absolutely untrue,” the Defense Ministry in Moscow has stated. The Ukrainian capital was rocked by a series of powerful explosions earlier in the day, according to numerous videos published by local media. Civilians on the ground were reportedly injured. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has accused Moscow of deliberately targeting a prominent children’s hospital, claiming that “it’s impossible that Russia does not know where its missiles fly and must fully answer for its crimes.” Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klimenko has branded Russia “a nation of terrorists and scum,” adding that at least seven people were killed in the capital.

The Russian military confirmed firing a barrage of long-range missiles on Monday, but stressed that it was targeting military factories and airfields in Ukraine. “Claims by representatives of the Kiev regime alleging a purportedly deliberate Russian strike on civilian sites are absolutely not true,” the statement said. “Numerous photos and videos from Kiev irrefutably confirm destruction by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile, which was fired by a launcher positioned inside the city,” it stated.

A top Russian diplomat stressed that the Kremlin is unwilling to engage with the White House on arms control issues due to the Biden administration’s Russophobic stance. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov argued that President Donald Trump left the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) to provoke China.

In an interview with The International Affairs published on Monday, Ryabkov explained Moscow’s position on arms control talks with Washington. “We do not have the foundation right now and we are not even close to shaping one in order to launch a tentative dialogue, not talks even, in this field. This is a result of Washington’s destructive policy course,” he stated.

There is no more existential issue than that of nuclear war.

As was the case in June 1982, we, the people of the United States, need to send a collective signal to all who seek to represent us in the highest office of the land, that we will not tolerate policies that lead toward nuclear war.

That we insist on policies that promote nuclear disarmament and arms control.

That we demand that our diplomats begin talking with their Russian counterparts.

I’m tired of watching my life’s work melt before my very eyes.

Jul 7, 2024

Featured • SITREP 7/6/24: Narrative Builds that Putin Desperate to End Conflict - Is He Really?, Simplicius, Jul 7, 2024
Quite worthwhile. Especially: de-electrification of Ukraine continues apace, and demoralization of the Ukrainian military as well. It is criminal for the West to prolong this agony. Russia has presented logical -- that is, politically-sustainable, by both East and West -- terms for concluding this conflict. It is only being continued in order to save face for various Western leaders and as a source of power and profit for Western military-industrial complexes. Meanwhile their domestic position is unwinding, slowly, slowly, as Ukrainian (and a much smaller but still awful number) of Russian soldiers die and are badly hurt. The prospects for Ukraine's long-term viability continue to decline. It seems that when the West is done using Ukraine as a failed way to hurt Russia and Russians, they will throw Ukraine and Ukrainians away like a dirty rag. Too many in the West are fixated neurotically on what they think should be, rather than first understanding what is.

Featured • West Still Graspoing at Straws as Ukraine's Military Situation Becomes More Dire, Larry Johnson, Jul 7, 2024

Zelensky is lying. Ukraine does not have 14 fully manned, trained brigades just standing around waiting to go into action but are forced to wait for the arrival of promised NATO weapons. Even if NATO weapons arrive, the Ukrainian brigades likely are not trained to use them. We are not talking about pistols and rifles, the weapons the Ukrainians want are air defense systems, artillery with ample rounds and missile systems.

The author of this Politico article, VERONIKA MELKOZEROVA, grudgingly concedes that Russian air assaults are wreaking havoc on Ukrainian soldiers:

...If Chasiv Yar is captured, Russian forces will be able to launch an offensive against the next series of Ukrainian strongholds guarding their last foothold in the Donetsk region.

It is no longer, “if.” Chasiv Yar has been captured and the Ukrainians are scrambling to find a new defensive position to try to stop the Russian offensive. Ukraine faces a tactically insurmountable problem. Russia is attacking all along the 1,000-kilometer line of contact and Ukraine does not have sufficient trained soldiers to stop them. Russia’s key advantage is air power, which it is using to pummel Ukrainian positions with massive glide bombs. Even if Ukraine could somehow muster sufficient manpower to match up with Russian numbers, it has no solution to stopping the aerial bombardment of their defensive positions.

Ms. Melkorezova fails to grasp this essential point, i.e., that Ukraine has no way to neutralize attacks by Russian fixed-wing aircraft. Ukrainian officials and military officers continue to churn out propaganda about Russia’s “slow” progress on the battlefield. Nazar Voloshyn, a Ukrainian army spokesperson, tried this spin on POLITICO.

Russians have been storming Chasiv Yar for more than six months and, despite the retreat, they have still not taken the town, Voloshyn added. He said that Ukrainian troops have prepared defenses on the other side of the canal.

Voloshyn failed to admit that even in the new “prepared defenses,” Ukraine is powerless to stop the Russian advance. Russia is in no hurry. It is content to inflict massive casualties on Ukrainian defenders while pushing forward cautiously. Despite Western hopes, Russia is not using human wave attacks and risking massive casualties among its troops. This could be dubbed Operation Anaconda. Like a giant snake squeezing the life out of its prey, Ukraine is being methodically strangled. Western reporters, for the most part, refuse to accept that fact.

Asked about Trump’s peacemaking offer, President Putin responded politely this week, saying that he believed the American was sincere, but pointed out the lack of detail in Trump’s proposal. That’s the rub. Donald Trump is not known for coherent details. His style is bluster and braggadocio. Taken with a large pinch of salt. Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, was not convinced by Trump’s peace musings. Nebenzia indicated that the Republican candidate lacked the necessary understanding to resolve the conflict. That would involve an intelligent appreciation of history: the relentless expansionism of NATO, the treacherous backsliding by Washington over past security agreements, and the inherent workings of U.S. imperialism as an insatiable aggressor going back to the foundation of NATO 75 years ago. There is more than a suspicion that “the Donald” is merely motivated by superficial electioneering. The former real estate magnate has acumen for tapping popular sentiment.

The trouble is Trump has no credibility. The last time he was in the White House (2016-20), he proved useless at standing up to the deep state despite his promises to normalize relations with Russia. Admittedly, his presidency was assailed by the baseless Russia-gate hysteria promoted by the U.S. establishment and its servile media to undermine him. Nevertheless, on key issues, Trump showed himself to be a willing instrument for U.S. imperialist interests. A major sign of weakness was Trump’s approval of sending lethal weapons to the Kiev regime. He broke a crucial taboo. Even his predecessor, the Democrat President Barack Obama, had refused to go that far. Obama and his then Vice President Joe Biden oversaw the CIA-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 ushering in a NeoNazi Russia-hating regime. But the sending of lethal U.S. weaponry to that regime was off the cards – so provocative was it deemed. Trump broke that taboo in 2019 when he ordered the supply of $47 million worth of Javelin anti-tank missiles to the NeoNazis.

That move emboldened the Kiev regime to ramp up its aggression against the ethnic Russian population in the Donbass region. That genocidal offensive eventually led to Russia intervening in February 2022 and safeguarding the region as a new part of the Russian Federation. Moreover, it was Trump who scrapped two key arms control measures with Russia, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and the Open-Skies Treaty. We can be sure that Trump did not personally initiate those provocative moves. He was obeying the deep state planners and their agenda of pushing confrontation with Russia. By revoking the INF, the United States has found a legal way to supply medium-range ballistic missiles to Ukraine which are being used to strike Russia’s territory. In that way, arguably, Trump played a pivotal and baleful role in stoking the proxy war in Ukraine that was primed in 2014 under Obama and eventually erupted in 2022 under Biden.

We can see that Kiev is not ready to give up waging war until the end, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement to the press after holding talks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

"The way we see the situation, including what the prime minister said today, Kiev is still not ready to give up waging the war until the ‘victorious’ end," the president told the press.

Putin added that implementing Russia’s peace initiatives would allow the cessation of hostilities and the start of the negotiation process.

Russia stands for completely ending the conflict in Ukraine, and not for a ceasefire or a pause so the Kiev regime can rearm itself, Putin emphasized.

"It should not just be a truce or a temporary cease-fire, not some kind of pause that the Kiev regime could use to recover losses, regroup and rearm itself. Russia stands for a full and final end to the conflict," he said.

According to Putin, Kiev is rejecting the ceasefire proposals because they will lose the pretext for extending the martial law. Ukraine will have to hold a presidential election in the absence of the martial law, and the current rulers will have a low chance for reelection, Putin said....

At the same press event, Viktor Orban said that he will continue working with Russia and Ukraine on achieving peace, adding that their positions are too far from each other.

"I was in Kiev, now I am in Moscow. I realized from experience that the positions [of the two sides] are very far from each other. There are a lot of steps to be taken in order to get closer to the end of the war. But we have made the most important step — we have established contact, and I will continue to work in this direction," he said after his meeting with Vladimir Putin, adding that the conversation was open and honest.

The pledge will be made at next week's NATO summit, where Ukraine is also expected to be told it's too corrupt to join the alliance.

NATO allies have agreed to pledge $43 billion in military aid for Ukraine, which will be provided next year, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was looking for the alliance to make a multi-year commitment to ensure long-term support for the proxy war, but the allies did not agree. Instead, they will re-evaluate military aid for Ukraine each year.

The agreement says that NATO allies will “aim to meet this pledge through proportionate contributions.” If the $43 billion is funded based on how much each member contributes to NATO, most of the burden would be on the US since it pays for about two-thirds of the alliance’s budget.

The $43 billion is part of a slew of measures NATO will announce at its summit next week in Washington. NATO is also expected to station a civilian official in Kyiv and establish a new command in Germany that will oversee military aid and training for Ukraine, taking over duties currently overseen by the US.

While planning to provide tens of billions in new military aid, NATO will also tell Ukraine that it’s too corrupt to join the alliance. The Telegraph reported this week that the alliance will release a communique calling on Ukraine to take more anti-corruption steps before talks on its NATO membership could progress.

President Biden has frequently cited Ukraine’s corruption as a reason why the country couldn’t join NATO. But that hasn’t stopped him from providing over $100 billion in aid to Ukraine, which includes tens of billions in the form of direct budgetary aid that funds the government.

London’s support for Kiev during the conflict with Moscow will remain at the same level under his leadership, the new Prime Minister of Britain Keir Starmer has told Vladimir Zelensky.

Starmer replaced Rishi Sunak as the head of the UK government on Friday after the Labour Party he leads claimed a landslide victory in a general election, securing at least 412 of the 650 seats in parliament. One of his first phone calls in the new role was with Zelensky.

The Ukrainian leader wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday that during their conversation he congratulated Starmer on becoming prime minister and “wished him success in fulfilling the British people’s expectations of the new government.”

“I am grateful to Prime Minister Starmer for reaffirming the UK’s principled and unwavering support for Ukraine,” he said.

A US media outlet's report has claimed to shed light on atrocities committed by foreign hirelings dubbed by the West as so-called “volunteer soldiers” fighting in the proxy war in Ukraine.

Foreign mercenaries fighting on the side of the Kiev regime reveled in executing Russian prisoners, the New York Times has reported.

The atrocious killings are believed to have been carried out by members of the so-called "Chosen company." One incident in August 2023 was described to the outlet by a witness, the unit’s medic, a German called Caspar Grosse.

Grosse explained that a wounded and unarmed Russian soldier seeking medical help from his foreign captors was shot in cold blood. First one mercenary shot the Russian in the torso, and then, as he slumped still breathing, another soldier “just shot him in the head,” Grosse recalled.

According to several accounts, video footage and text messages exchanged by members of the unit and reviewed by the outlet, such “unwarranted killings” continued.

In another episode, a Chosen company fighter “threw a grenade at a surrendering Russian soldier who had raised his hands, killing him,” the outlet stated, referencing reviewed drone footage. It was added that the Ukrainian military published a video of this episode, but edited out the surrender moment.

Talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday revolved around finding the “shortest way out” of the Ukraine conflict, the latter revealed during a joint press conference following the closed-doors negotiations. Moscow’s and Kiev’s positions remain very “far apart,” Hungary’s PM admitted, citing his recent trip to Kiev to meet the Ukrainian leadership. “A lot of steps have to be taken to get closer to a resolution of the war. Still, we’ve already taken the most important step—establishing the contact, and I will continue to work on this in the future,” Orban stated. The enduring conflict between Russia and Ukraine is affecting the broader European region, Orban noted, adding that the continent has enjoyed the most rapid and sustainable development only during peacetime.

“As I’ve already told Mr President, Europe needs peace. Yet this peace will not emerge by itself, we must work to reach it,” the visiting premier said. The Russian president has reiterated Moscow’s readiness to resolve the hostility through negotiations. The Ukrainian leadership, however, appears to be still incapable of abandoning its idea of waging a war “until the end,” Putin noted. Moscow is seeking to reach lasting, sustainable peace rather than opting for a temporary ceasefire or a “frozen conflict” of any sort, the Russian president warned. There should not be a “ceasefire or some kind of pause that the Kiev regime could use to recover losses, regroup, and rearm. Russia is in favor of a complete and final end to the conflict,” he stressed.

Other EU leaders have expressed concern over media reports that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban may be meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday. Mr Orban – whose country now holds the EU rotating presidency – is the bloc’s only head of national government to have kept close ties to the Kremlin following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. European Council President Charles Michel said Mr Orban had “no mandate to engage with Russia on behalf of the EU”, while Polish PM Donald Tusk asked for clarification. Several media outlets reported about Mr Orban’s apparent forthcoming visit, quoting their sources. The Financial Times said one Hungarian and two EU officials had confirmed media reports that Mr Orban would meet Russia’s president on Friday. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a US-government funded media organisation, quoted a Hungarian government source. It also said that Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto would accompany Mr Orban.

On Monday, according to AFP news agency, Mr Orban promised “surprising news from surprising places”. In a post on X, Mr Michel wrote: “The EU rotating presidency has no mandate to engage with Russia on behalf of the EU. “The European Council is clear: Russia is the aggressor, Ukraine is the victim. No discussions about Ukraine can take place without Ukraine.” Mr Tusk asked: “The rumours about your visit to Moscow cannot be true@PM_ViktorOrban, or can they?” Earlier this week, Mr Orban visited Kyiv, saying a “a quick ceasefire could be used to speed up peace negotiations”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – who has had frosty relations with Mr Orban – did not publicly respond to the proposal.

You cannot make peace from a comfortable armchair in Brussels. Even if the rotating EU-Presidency has no mandate to negotiate on behalf of the EU, we cannot sit back and wait for the war to miraculously end. We will serve as an important tool in making the first steps towards #peace. This is what our peace mission is about.

The US is nudging Ukraine towards committing new war crimes and helping to prolong the conflict by continuing to send military aid to the embattled country, Moscow’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, has said. On Wednesday, the administration of US President Joe Biden announced another military assistance package for Kiev totaling around $2.5 billion. It includes air defense munitions, HIMARS missiles, artillery rounds, anti-tank weapons and other equipment. Since the start of the conflict in February 2022, the Biden administration has committed more than $53 billion in military aid to Ukraine. In a statement on Telegram, Antonov denounced the latest American aid package, charging that Washington “continues its course towards war” and “harbors illusory dreams of a strategic victory over Russia.”

Jul 4, 2024

 • Western talk of Ukraine peace just for show – Moscow, RT, Jul 3, 2024

Any Western talk of peace in the Ukraine conflict is merely a “decoy” as the US and its allies remain intent on inflicting a strategic defeat on Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban visited Kiev on Tuesday, where he urged Vladimir Zelensky to seek a ceasefire with Russia to facilitate peace talks. The Ukrainian leader rejected the proposal, saying he has a different way to end the conflict. Whatever discussions Ukraine and Western nations have about peace are mere “decoys, screens, tropes and memes,” said purely for their own sake, Zakharova said on her weekly radio show on Wednesday. The Ukraine conflict is dominated by the goal of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, which the US and its allies have declared “absolutely clearly and specifically,” the official explained.

In practical terms, the West seeks to dismantle Russia and to end its existence, she claimed. What did you expect from the people chosen by the US as their tools? Tools don’t have a say in what they do. Clear-eyed politicians in the EU can see the place allocated to their nations in the US grand plan, which is that of a sacrificial animal on the altar of victory against Russia, Zakharova added. Europe’s grim future is evident in the state of its economy, she said. ”What is happening to Europe is not just a crisis, or collapse, or loss of position. It truly is a disaster,” she argued. Western officials such as Hungary’s Orban, who publicly object to the course of action chosen in Washington, probably want to set the record straight for the future generations of Europeans, who will blame the leaders of today for their inaction, Zakharova said.

Jul 3, 2024

Featured • This is what US allies should learn from the Biden-Trump debate, Tarik Cyril Amar, RT, Jul 1, 2024

Jul 2, 2024

Featured • Confronting NATO’s War Summit in Washington, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, Antiwar.com, Jul 2, 2024

After NATO’s catastrophic, illegal invasions of Yugoslavia, Libya and Afghanistan, on July 9th NATO plans to invade Washington DC. The good news is that it only plans to occupy Washington for three days....

But the main feature of the summit will be a superficial show of unity to try to convince the public that NATO and Ukraine can defeat Russia and that negotiating with Russia would be tantamount to surrender....

The endgame of this non-strategy is that Ukraine will only be allowed to negotiate with Russia once it is facing total defeat and has nothing left to negotiate with – exactly the surrender NATO says it wants to avoid....

The fundamental question is whether NATO can ever be a force for peace or whether it can never be anything but a dangerous, subservient extension of the U.S. war machine.

We believe that NATO is an anachronism in today’s multipolar world: an aggressive, expansionist military alliance whose inherent institutional myopia and blinkered, self-serving threat assessments condemn us all to endless war and potential nuclear annihilation.

Jul 1, 2024

Featured • The West – indubitably – has lost Russia, and is losing Eurasia too, Alastair Crooke, Strategic Culture Foundation, Jul 1, 2024

The Russian public however, is plain furious.

The diplomatic argot of ‘there now being a state of betweenness; not war and not peace’ is but the ‘half of it’.

The West has ‘lost’ Russia much more profoundly than is understood.

President Putin – in his statement to the Foreign Ministry Board in wake of the G7 sword-rattling – detailed just how we had arrived at this pivotal juncture (of inevitable escalation). Putin indicated that the gravity of the situation demanded a ‘last chance’ offer to the West, one that Putin emphatically said was to be “No temporary ceasefire for Kiev to prepare a new offensive; nor a freezing the conflict – but rather, needed to be about the war’s final completion”.

It has been widely understood that the only credible way to end the Ukraine war would be a ‘peace’ agreement emerging through negotiation between Russia and the U.S.

This however is rooted in a familiar U.S.-centric vision – ‘Waiting on Washington …’.

Lavrov archly commented (in paraphrase) that if anyone imagines we are ‘waiting for Godot’, and ‘will run for it’, they are mistaken.

Moscow has something much more radical in mind – something that will shock the West.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia should follow the US in developing missile systems that were previously banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which the US withdrew from in 2019.

The INF prohibited land-based missile systems with a range between 310 and 3,400 miles. After leaving the treaty, the US immediately began developing and testing batteries that could fire nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles, which have a range of about 1,000 miles and are primarily used by US Navy ships and submarines.

“We need to start production of these strike systems and then, based on the actual situation, make decisions about where — if necessary to ensure our safety — to place them,” Putin said on Friday, according to The Associated Press.

The US recently deployed one of its new, previously banned missile systems for exercises in the Philippines. The missile system, known as the Typhon launcher, is concealed in a 40-foot shipping container and can fire Tomahawks and SM-6 missiles, which can hit targets up to 290 miles away, below the levels previously banned by the INF. The US has also previously deployed the Tyhpon system and the US Navy’s variant for exercises in Denmark.

“Today it is known that the United States not only produces these missile systems, but has already brought them to Europe for exercises, to Denmark. Quite recently it was announced that they are in the Philippines,” Putin said.

Ukrainian officials are pushing NATO countries to impose a no-fly zone over western Ukraine using air defense systems in eastern Europe, a step that would mean direct NATO involvement in the war with Russia.

“I don’t understand why NATO doesn’t deploy Patriot systems along the Polish border,” Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker, told AFP. “After all, Russian missiles have already entered Polish and Romanian airspace. This would protect the borders of Poland and Romania, and this would create a safe zone in the west and south of Ukraine.”

The idea is for NATO to protect Ukrainian industry and energy infrastructure in the western portion of the country. But a no-fly zone would require NATO to shoot down Russian missiles and potentially Russian aircraft, and the direct NATO involvement would make nuclear war much more likely.

In response to Ukrainian attacks on the Crimean Peninsula, tensions between the US and Russia have significantly escalated, with Moscow threatening US drones operating over the Black Sea. The Kremlin says the drones are part of the Ukrainian operations in the region.

On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said there had been an uptick in American drone operations in the Black Sea “carrying out reconnaissance” of the Crimean Peninsula. The statement explained that the Russian military was instructed to prepare an “operational response” to the flights.

The remarks followed a Ukrainian attack using US cluster munitions that caused the death of four civilians and wounded hundreds of others. Moscow argues that Washington’s support for Kiev makes the US effectively a party to the conflict. “This demonstrates the increasing involvement of the United States and NATO countries in the conflict in Ukraine on the side of the Kiev regime,” the Defense Ministry said.

June 2024

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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