October 2024

Oct 31, 2024

 • Zelensky is clearly fighting a fantasy war, not the real one, Tarik Cyril Amar, RT, Oct 31, 2024

The Kiev regime seems stuck between the manic and the delusional in its attempts to keep evading the facts.

What do you do when you are losing a war against Russia? In particular, if that war could have been avoided or stopped very quickly and on advantageous terms, but instead you – listening to very false friends – decided to fight on until your country was devastated. And you are also realizing that you have been gambling with your own future as well. That is the key question in Vladimir Zelensky’s life now, whether he can admit it to himself or not.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has asked the US for Tomahawk missiles, which are capable of carrying nuclear warheads and have a range of over 1,000 miles, a request that is part of his so-called “victory plan.”

Zelensky did not make that part of his plan public, but the request was revealed by an unnamed US official speaking to The New York Times for a report that was published on Tuesday. The report said the idea of giving Ukraine Tomahawk missiles was “totally unfeasible.”

“A Tomahawk has a range of 1,500 miles, more than seven times the range of the long-range missile systems called ATACMS that Ukraine got this year. And the United States sent only a limited number of those, senior US officials said,” the report reads.

On Wednesday, Zelensky made clear that he was angry over the leak. “And this was confidential information between Ukraine and the White House. How should we understand these messages? So, it means between partners there’s nothing confidential?” he said.

Oct 30, 2024

Featured • Ukraine SitRep: Kurakhove Cauldron, Broken Deals, Moon of Alabama, Oct 30, 2024
Concisely sums up recent developments on the battlefield and negotiating table.

 • More than 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have deserted – MP, RT, Oct 30, 2024

 • Kremlin comments on reported ‘secret talks’ with Ukraine, RT, Oct 30, 2024

Reports that Russia and Ukraine are now talking about halting strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure are a hoax, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters, Peskov was asked to comment on a Financial Times article which claimed, citing sources, that Moscow and Kiev are “in preliminary discussions” on the issue. FT noted that Ukraine “was seeking to resume Qatar-mediated negotiations that came close to an agreement in August before being derailed by Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk [Region].”

The paper also said that any breakthrough in terms of stopping attacks on energy infrastructure would “mark the most significant de-escalation” in the conflict to date. It added, citing a senior Ukrainian official, that the two sides have already decreased the frequency of strikes “as part of an understanding reached by their intelligence agencies.”

However, Peskov responded to the report by saying that “nowadays there are a lot of bogus stories that have nothing to do with the reality,” adding that “even the most respectable publications do not shy away from planting this misleading information.”

The spokesman also reiterated that the conflict can end only after Ukraine leaves Russian territory, including Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye Regions. He was referring to a peace initiative floated by Russian President Vladimir Putin in June, who said that Moscow would immediately declare a ceasefire and start talks if Kiev started a troop withdrawal from those areas and recommitted to neutrality.

Ukrainian society is growing increasingly resentful of Kiev’s mobilization campaign and is now plagued by divisions, former President Leonid Kuchma has said. In an interview with Interfax on Monday, Kuchma, who held office between 1994 and 2005 and led Kiev’s delegation during talks to settle the Donbass crisis between 2014 and 2020, lamented that Ukraine’s internal unity has eroded since the escalation of hostilities with Russia in February 2022. According to Kuchma, the army, society and the leadership initially managed to set their differences aside and became a “monolith.” “Even in politics, the infighting disappeared for a while. Today it is no longer the case,” he said, adding that Ukrainian elites “have renewed the rat race of their petty interests.” In wider society, there is also dissatisfaction “with the army’s demands for increased mobilization,” Kuchma added.

“The government blames society for not being ready to stand up for the state, while society urges the authorities to lead by example and start with themselves. There are many such contradictions,” he said.

On Tuesday, 13 humanitarian, faith-based, and foreign policy advocacy groups sent a letter to President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urging them to release an unclassified version of America’s strategy on Ukraine.

Sent as a response to the administration’s thus far refusal to release a declassified strategy, in compliance with Section 504 of the FY2024 National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, the group — which includes the Quincy Institute, the publisher of Responsible Statecraft — calls on the White House to “set an example of democratic accountability” by fulfilling the requirements of the law.

Tori Bateman, Advocacy Director of the Quincy Institute, said in a press release, “as the war in Ukraine persists without an end in sight, it’s clear Washington needs to put more thought into how the U.S. can best support Ukraine. We don’t want a situation where we’re engaged in a war without an achievable plan for victory. That’s not good for Ukraine or the United States.”

Ursala Knudsen-Latta, Legislative Director for Peacebuilding Policy for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, another letter signatory, says the issue is about transparency “President Biden's refusal to fulfill the congressional mandate by releasing an unclassified strategy for U.S. engagement in Ukraine hampers the public's ability to know what their government is doing and to hold their government accountable to their values," she said in the press release.

Oct 29, 2024

 • SITREP 10/28/24: Russia Unleashes Lightning Advances in South as 'Red Scare' Hits Fever Pitch, Simplicius, Oct 28, 2024

It’s actually incredible when you step back a moment and consider how the West lives increasingly in a total fantasy construct. On every global issue or flashpoint, Western media no longer exercises even the barest scruples, instead blanketly reporting the most fantastical tales with zero corroboration. In Iran we’re expected to believe Israel “decimated” the entire Iranian air defense network, countless major labs and buildings, despite zero proof apart from a single grainy satellite photo that shows a slight discoloration somewhere—far less proof than we got from Iran’s much more massive strike on Israeli bases during True Promise 2.0.

In Georgia, Western press reports with shameless authority that the election was ‘stolen’ despite no credible evidence. The entire Western order has at this point in its lurid, terminal panic given up on not only truth, but any and all foundational values that have made Western civilization what it was. Threats, lies, and propaganda are flung with no accountability or attempt at justification; it seems we’ve entered the rapid parabolic singularity point of the ‘post-truth’ era in the West. Just like how the Federal Reserve must now exponentiate its printing cycles just to stave off collapse, Western intelligentsia and its corrupt crony political class must now likewise balloon their brazen lies to infinity just to keep from drowning in them as if the buoyancy of volume will keep them up.

Granted, the above is just a general observation on the state of things—particularly in the pre-election news-cycle the sheer unrepentant nature of the gaslighting now witnessed daily is unprecedented. (emphasis added)

The US is not at war with Russia and should not seek one, Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance has said, when asked whether he would brand President Vladimir Putin an “enemy” of America. The senator from Ohio was asked during his appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday whether he saw the Russian leader “as an ally or an enemy.” Putin is “clearly an adversary, he is a competitor,” but Washington needs to be “smart about diplomacy too,” Vance responded. ”Just because we don’t like somebody doesn’t mean that we can’t occasionally engage in conversations with them,” he suggested. Host Kristen Welker pushed him further on whether he would directly refer to Putin as an enemy. ”We are not at war with him. And I don’t want to be at war with Vladimir Putin’s Russia,” the senator said. “I think that we should try to pursue avenues of peace.”

The same logic applies to China, Vance said, adding that he perceives it as a greater threat to American interests than Russia. The US may not like having to talk to its rivals, but in the case of the Ukraine conflict, resolving it will require negotiations, the senator pointed out. When asked whether former President Donald Trump would take the US out of NATO, Vance assured that he wouldn’t. If his running mate returns to office, the country will honor its commitment to the organization, but the bloc “is not just a welfare client, it should be a real alliance,” he said. Vance was referring to Trump’s criticism of insufficient defense spending by its European members.

Oct 27, 2024

Featured • Zelensky allows foreign mercenaries to serve as Ukrainian army officers, RT, Oct 27, 2024

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has signed a law allowing foreign mercenaries to serve as officers in the country’s military during the conflict with Russia. The Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed the relevant legislation on October 10. On Friday, it was signed into law by Zelensky, according to the website of the Ukrainian government. The move means that foreigners who have a contract with the Ukrainian military can now become not only privates or sergeants, but also have positions of authority in the army, regardless of their citizenship. When the law was being discussed in September, the deputy head of the parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence, Egor Chernev, explained that it was needed to address the lack of commanding staff in the armed forces.

“We all understand the current situation with the officer corps. There are problems. Indeed, we have a shortage,” Chernev told the broadcaster Rada at the time. There is interest among former officers from foreign countries in joining the Ukrainian forces, he insisted. Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested in a post on Telegram on Saturday that Zelensky signed the law “so that foreign commanders could finish off the Ukrainians more actively, by throwing them into ‘meat assaults.’” “A Ukrainian [officer] might feel sorry for another Ukrainian and not send him to a certain death. But this is not what Zelensky is being paid for,” she wrote. In March, the Russian Defense Ministry said that at least 13,387 mercenaries from foreign countries had arrived in Ukraine since the escalation between Moscow and Kiev began in February 2022.

Most of them were from Poland (2,960), Georgia (1,042), the US (1,113), Canada (1,005) and UK (822). According to the ministry, at least 5,962 of those soldiers of fortune have been killed in the fighting with the Russian forces. This spring, faced with manpower shortages, mounting losses and military setbacks in the conflict with Russia, Ukraine lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 and significantly tightened mobilization rules, obliging potential recruits to report to conscription offices for “data validation,” which often means a trip straight to the front. Multiple videos have popped up on social media in recent months, showing conscription officers trying to snatch people in the streets, gyms and shopping malls.

The concept of “Euro-speak” entails using emotional rhetoric to legitimise an EU-centric understanding of Europe that de-legitimises alternative concepts of Europe. Centralising decision-making and transferring power from elected parliaments to Brussels is typically referred to as “European integration”, “more Europe”, or “ever-closer Union”. Neighbouring non-member states that adhere to the EU’s external governance are making the “European choice”, confirming their “European perspective”, and embracing “shared values”. Dissent can be delegitimised as “populism”, “nationalism”, “Euro-phobia” and “anti-Europeanism”, which undermines the “common voice”, “solidarity” and the “European dream”.

The language has also changed in terms of how the West asserts power in the world. Torture is “enhanced interrogation techniques”, gunboat diplomacy is “freedom of navigation”, dominance is “negotiations from a position of strength”, subversion is “democracy promotion”, coup is “democratic revolution”, invasion is “humanitarian intervention”, secession is “self-determination”, propaganda is “public diplomacy”, censorship is “content moderation”, and the more recent example of China competitive advantage that is labelled “over-capacity”. George Orwell’s concept of Newspeak entailed constraining language to the point it became impossible to express dissent.

...Diplomacy therefore has been reimagined as a relationship between a subject and an object, between a teacher and a student. In this relationship, NATO and the EU consider their role as “socialising” other states. As a civilising teacher, the Enlightened West uses diplomacy as a pedagogic instrument in which states are “punished” or “rewarded” by their preparedness to accept unilateral concessions. While diplomacy historically has been imperative during times of crisis, the European elites believe they must instead punish “bad behaviour” by suspending diplomacy once a crisis breaks out. Meeting with opponents during crises runs the risk of legitimising them.

Oct 26, 2024

 • How Russia Is Overwhelming Ukrainian Frontlines, Moon of Alabama, Oct 26, 2024

The Shahed type drones, more than 50 per day(!) now, are hitting Ukrainian infrastructure and industry far from the frontline. They are overwhelming Ukrainian air defenses. Even on its best days the Ukrainian military now claims to shot down only half of them. That is down from claims of successfully destroying 90+% of all incoming drones.

But the Russian glide bombs - some 140 per day - are an even more serious issue. The FABs, which carry one ton or more of explosives, are launched by Russian fighter planes from outside of the Ukrainian air defense envelope. They glide some 80 kilometer before hitting their designated targets with utter precision. No field fortification and no regular basement of a Ukrainian town house can withstand such a hit.

The FABs, against which Ukraine has no means to defend, are destroying the Ukrainian units which hold the front lines.

The Ukrainian military will obviously lose this contest. Moving the defense lines back, and building fortifications around Dnipro, will not change anything. As soon as Russian troops come near to those lines all fortifications will be demolished. Only then will the Russian's move in.

It is more than high time for the Ukrainian military to concede that its has no way of winning and that it, moreover, has lost the ability to defend the country.

The Ukrainian military commander in chief must press the politicians to seek peace.

Some Western countries are about to learn the taste of defeat, the Hungarian PM has said.

Most of the West is about to find out what it looks like to lose a war, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said, referring to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Hungary has been trying to not get involved and to advocate for peace, even though most EU and NATO members have backed Kiev, providing nearly $200 billion in weapons, ammunition and equipment. Speaking to the national radio broadcaster Kossuth on Friday, Orban argued that Budapest still has some leeway in policy, even though the pressure from Brussels has intensified.

“The Westerners do not want to end the Russia-Ukraine war, but apparently want it to continue, want to go to war, now they also want to go to war in the economy,” Orban said.

“They are up to their necks in this pickle, they are in a losing war, they are losing a war right now,” the Hungarian prime minister said. “These countries, or most of them, have not lost a war since World War II – well of course the Germans lost it, but most of them were on the winning side. Now they face a completely new experience: they are about to lose a war. Hungary is not, because this is not our war, we didn’t get involved.”

Oct 25, 2024

 • BRICS 2024 Kazan Special Coverage, Simplicius, Oct 24, 2024

Overall, the key takeaway from the BRICS summit can be the following. Look closely at some of the scenes presented: India and China after having just negotiated a settlement to their border conflict, Armenia and Azerbaijan hashing out their disputes, other “ostracized” members of the world community being greeted with open arms, no leering judgmental supremacism, condescending sermonizing and pompous pontificating like so often seen by the West at their global institutions, from the EU to the UN, etc.

The BRICS’ strongest achievement is sending a message of acceptance, compromise, openness, civility, and cooperation—the true definition of anti-illiberal qualities, the same the West so adamantly claims it champions. There was a kind of contagious energy that was palpable in the air: an alternate vision for a world led by sovereign grownups, not the small-minded, nervous little elitist compradors and pushy apparatchiks, the likes seen dotting the halls of the West’s equivalent institutions. In short, a breath of fresh air and maturity. This to me is the strongest message the BRICS sends. Even despite not achieving any major concrete advancements quite yet, it still was a symbolically significant set of optics for the entire developing world and global south to witness, which will only flower in the years to come as the wane of the West sets in.

Russia will respond in kind to the West’s use of the income generated by its frozen central-bank reserves, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has said. The US and its allies have blocked an estimated $300 billion in assets belonging to the Russian central bank since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. The bulk of the funds, around €197 billion ($213 billion), are being held at the Brussels-based clearinghouse Euroclear. On Wednesday, Washington announced a decision to use the proceeds from the frozen assets to repay a multibillion-dollar loan to Kiev. “If Western countries have begun utilizing the income from the frozen Russian reserves, we will do exactly the same,” Siluanov told reporters on Thursday. “We have frozen money from ‘unfriendly’ companies and organizations. We keep this money in our accounts in the same way and will use the income from these assets similarly,” he elaborated.

The income from these funds will be allocated to “the needs of the economy, the needs of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation,” the minister added, noting that the corresponding decisions have already been made. The US said on Wednesday that it will provide Kiev with a $20 billion loan as part of a broader $50 billion G7 package. The use of windfall profits from the blocked Russian assets will provide Ukraine assistance “without burdening taxpayers,” US President Joe Biden stated. A day earlier, the European Parliament backed allocating a loan of up to €35 billion ($38 billion) for Kiev using the immobilized Russian assets as collateral for the repayments. According to Euroclear, the frozen funds had generated €3.4 billion ($3.6 billion) in interest as of mid-July.

The West is using Ukraine to threaten Russia’s security while believing in the “illusion” that it can inflict a strategic defeat on Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. Speaking at the extended Outreach/BRICS Plus format session in Kazan on Thursday, Putin stated that the emergence of a “more just world order” is being hampered by “forces accustomed to thinking and acting in the logic of domination over everything and everyone.” According to Putin, the West’s “unlawful unilateral sanctions” and interference in the affairs of other countries under the pretense of “concern for democracy and human rights” are actively undermining regional and global strategic stability, as well as encouraging “interstate strife.”

Putin pointed to Ukraine as an example, stating that it is being used to “create critical threats to Russia’s security” while Moscow’s vital interests, as well as its “just concerns about the infringement on the rights of Russian-speaking people,” are being ignored. Kiev’s foreign backers “do not even hide any longer their goal of inflicting a strategic defeat on our country.” Putin said, adding that the West’s belief that it can achieve its goals is “a mere illusion.” “Only those who don’t know the history of Russia can believe in this, because they don’t take into account the unity and the strength of spirit of Russians forged over the centuries,” Putin stated.

A sizable group of NATO members led by the US and Germany are reluctant to extend an invitation to Ukraine anytime soon, Politico reported on Wednesday, citing sources. Last week, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky presented his ‘victory plan’, which included a demand to be immediately invited into the US-led military bloc. However, the Politico article, citing four unnamed US and NATO officials, said that Berlin and Washington are “slow-walking” this request, adding that “key alliance members are worried about getting ensnared in a war with Russia.” US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith told Politico that the bloc “has not, to date, reached the point where it is prepared to offer membership or an invitation to Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz earlier said that it was his duty to prevent the Ukraine conflict from spiraling into a full-scale war between Russia and NATO, adding that Kiev would become a part of the bloc later when certain conditions are met. Hungary and Slovakia – which have been critical of the Western approach to the Ukraine conflict and have insisted on an immediate ceasefire – are two other holdouts. Politico described their leaders as following “a generally pro-Kremlin line.” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called Zelensky’s plan outright “terrifying,” while his Slovak counterpart Robert Fico warned that Ukraine’s accession to NATO could lead to World War III.

Oct 24, 2024

 • Russian parliament ratifies security treaty with North Korea, RT, Oct 24, 2024

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin claimed this week that thousands of Pyongyang’s troops had arrived on Russian soil.

The Russian State Duma, the lower chamber of the parliament, has ratified a bilateral treaty with North Korea which President Vladimir Putin signed during his visit to Pyongyang in June and submitted to the chamber earlier this month.

The agreement, which was approved on Thursday, outlines the comprehensive cooperation that the two countries intend to maintain, including on national security issues. Its provisions state that neither side will enter treaties with third parties that infringe on the other’s sovereignty. In the event of an attack on one of the nations, the other vows to provide support, including with military means, as allowed by the UN Charter.

The BRICS Summit in the Russian city of Kazan signals that the world is “tired” of the dictates of the US-led collective West, RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan has said. The gathering also exposes the West’s failed attempts to isolate Russia, she added. Speaking on Tuesday at an event marking the anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and China, the RT editor-in-chief recalled the words of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who once said that his country does not need foreign “masters” who attempt to interfere in internal affairs on the pretense of human rights concerns. The same can be heard in Russia from President Vladimir Putin, Simonyan stated. “We know the price of their [the West’s] hypocrisy when they talk about human rights, and this is being said by the same people who used drug trafficking and the most brutal, most disgusting ways to enslave a nation in an effort to force China not to be China – which they did during the Opium Wars,” Simonyan said.

...UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is also attending, noted the significance of the summit for his organization, as the economic grouping represents nearly half of the global population. Guterres’ presence at the BRICS Summit has sparked criticism from Kiev, especially after he skipped this year’s Swiss-Ukraine ‘peace conference’. The BRICS Summit is set to host high-level bilateral talks and diplomatic discussions focused on multilateralism, with dozens of nations expressing interest in joining or working with the group. BRICS currently comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. The group represents approximately 46% of the world’s population and over 36% of global GDP, according to estimates from leading financial institutions.(emphasis added)

The Joe Biden administration will spend $800 million to help Ukraine manufacture long-range drones. The move escalates the proxy war against Moscow by handing Kiev another long-range munition. Additionally, the aid marks a rare step in Washington by spending American money on weapons produced by non-American arms manufacturers.

An unnamed Pentagon official who spoke with the New York Times confirmed that Washington had approved the aid package. President Volodymyr Zelensky said it would be the first tranche of American funds Kiev would receive to produce weapons in Ukraine.

While the Times did not specify what the capabilities of the drones would be, British Defense Minister John Healey said the UK planned to fund Ukrainian production of long-range drones that would be able to hit targets further away than the Storm Shadow missile that London has already sent to Kiev.

When asked if the UK was prepared to allow Ukraine to buy Storm Shadow missiles, Healey replied, “They are developing very heavily the use of even longer-range drones. They will work with us over how they use this money and on the weapons they most need.” The Storm Shadow has a range of 155 miles.

Oct 23, 2024

Featured • Ukraine - Zelenski Begs Russia To Renew Deals He Had Botched, Moon of Alabama, Oct 23, 2024
Insightful and important, as most of b's posts are.

 • Sharp rise in Russia’s share of EU LNG market – report, RT, Oct 22, 2024

The share of Russian liquified natural gas (LNG) in the EU market has reached 20% this year, the bloc’s energy watchdog reported in a quarterly review released on Tuesday. In 2023, the share of Russian-sourced tanker-movable fuel was 14%, according to statistics cited by the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). The shift came as supplies from Qatar, Nigeria, and minor suppliers declined. The US remains the biggest source of LNG, accounting for 45% of EU imports. The total flow as well as the EU’s share in the global LNG market have both shrunk this year. The bloc now accounts for 18% of all imports, down from 24% last year, the ACER report estimated. Roughly a third of all EU gas imports come in the form of LNG, with the rest being delivered via pipelines, according to the report.

...The EU declared the intention wean itself off Russian supplies in its economy, particularly in the energy sector, following the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. Supplies of expensive US fuel have replaced much of the cheap pipeline gas that was previously delivered by Russia. The change contributed to a drop in the competitiveness of Western Europe, which was highlighted last week by an executive from German industrial giant Siemens. Speaking at a public hearing of the Bundestag’s Financial Committee, Christian Kaeser, the company’s head of global taxation, said it no longer invests at home due to the poor business climate. ”There is no growth in Germany, there is growth in other countries, and the tax situation is not particularly good either,” he stated.

Oct 22, 2024

Featured • About 51,000 Ukrainians Have Deserted Armed Forces This Year, Kyle Anzalone, The Libertarian Institute, Oct 21, 2024

The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office has opened 51,000 cases of desertion through the first nine months of 2024. The number of soldiers abandoning their posts is likely to double last year’s total.

The Times of London reported data from the Ukrainian government showing that “51,000 criminal cases were initiated for desertion and abandonment of a military unit between January and September of this year.” El Pais previously noted that 45,000 Ukrainians were being prosecuted for desertion from the start of the year through August. Al-Jazeera says the number is at least 30,000 desertions.

At the start of the year, Kiev was estimated to have between 500,000 and 800,000 active-duty soldiers and an additional 300,000 reservists. The Ukrainians have also sustained casualties fighting to defend from Russian advances and amid Kiev’s Kursk invasion.

Kiev has struggled to fill its ranks with fresh soldiers, leading Ukraine to drop its conscription age from 27 to 25. As Kiev is still facing manpower shortages, American politicians are pushing Ukraine to drop draft age to 18. Ukraine has also resorted to allowing prisoners to leave jail if they join the military.

One Ukrainian who deserted told the Times that prison was a better option than the military because “at least in prison, you know when you will be able to leave.”

The number of Ukrainians that Kiev is prosecuting for desertion has significantly increased throughout the war. In 2022, the number was 9,000, and it had more than doubled to 24,000 last year.

One brigade was transferred to Sumy Region after staging a mutiny in the Donetsk People’s Republic, according to a Ukrainian officer.

Ukrainian servicemen are increasingly refusing to follow orders and fleeing their positions, accusing their leadership of assigning them suicide missions, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Monday, citing several Ukrainian officers.

The outlet claimed that soldiers from four brigades fighting near the besieged settlement of Kurakhovo in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic have claimed that “the future of the war is bleak for their interests because there are not enough replacements.”

“Why are we retreating? Because we have no rotations, we don’t rest, we are demoralized,” one officer told the outlet, adding that there is a growing problem of Ukrainian soldiers fleeing their positions.

The upcoming BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia could mark a turning point in global geopolitical history. Faced with the slow erosion of the Western world order, a new balance is emerging, driven by a coalition that seems increasingly determined to chart its own course. This unique event brings together 24 heads of state from various nations, including iconic figures such as China’s Xi Jinping. The inclusion of Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, in this assembly raises major questions about the current dynamics of global governance. Traditionally, the UN has been seen as a bastion of multilateralism, but its alignment with the Western powers is being called into question. This summit in Kazan could be the catalyst for a strategic repositioning, where the UN might seek to navigate between old alliances and emerging trends.

The BRICS are no longer just an economic coalition; they are asserting themselves as a viable alternative to the historical dominance of Western countries. The unipolar world, as we have known it, seems to be giving way to a multipolar era, where several emerging powers are claiming their rightful place in the global decision-making process. The Kazan summit represents an unprecedented opportunity for the BRICS to draw a new map of international cooperation. The heads of state present will discuss a multitude of issues, ranging from the economy to security, including environmental challenges. By forming strategic alliances, this group, which represents over 45% of the world’s population, seeks not only to strengthen its influence but also to offer an alternative platform for developing countries that often feel marginalized within traditional Bretton Woods institutions like the IMF or the World Bank.

The US must abandon its ambitions of “world domination” or risk a war which could lead to the “complete extermination” of humanity, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned on Monday. According to Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, Washington’s goal is “domination over the Old World, as well as over the rest of the world.” However, this policy is merely leading to the “weakening and humiliation of the West, including Europe” within the framework of the modern multipolar global order, Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel. The official issued the post in the context of the upcoming BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan, which is set to kick off on Tuesday. Medvedev argued that the world needs a balance of powers rather than a dominant one, meaning there should be a “full-fledged counterweight” to the US, such as during the time of the USSR.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has of late begun pushing hard new accusations that at least 10,000 North Korean troops are being sent to Ukraine where they will fight on behalf of the Russians. South Korea’s spy agency had also backed Zelensky’s claim, chiming in on Friday to say that at least 1,500 North Korean special forces have already been sent. The spy agency says it has satellite images tracking these movements. But over the weekend the Pentagon refused to back the reports, with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin explaining that he can’t confirm this narrative. “I’ve seen those reports in the media. I can’t confirm those reports at this point in time. This is something that we will certainly continue to investigate,” Austin said Sunday.

The EU should return to the idea of putting boots on the ground in Ukraine, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has argued in a statement to Politico. The diplomat insisted that Brussels should revive talks about deploying EU forces in Ukraine in response to reports of North Korean ammunition and soldiers supposedly taking part in the hostilities on the side of Russia. “If information about Russia’s killing squads being equipped with North Korean ammunition and military personnel is confirmed, we have to get back to ‘boots on the ground’ and other ideas proposed by Emmanuel Macron,” Landsbergis told the outlet. Allegations of Pyongyang supplying soldiers and equipment to Russia were originally raised by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky last week and have been seconded by South Korea.

Oct 21, 2024

Featured • Zelensky's Plan Sells Ukraine to West, Turns Army Into Private Military Company - Lavrov, Sputnik International, Oct 19, 2024

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s so-called victory plan suggests that Ukraine will hand over its natural resources to Western allies in exchange for weapons and turn the Ukrainian army into a private military company, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday. “Zelensky, in these points of his, spoke so veiledly about the economic side of the issue. According to the leaks, the secret annexes… stipulate that he is ready to place all of Ukrainian natural resources under the management of his Western masters, hand over controls over them, effectively to sell Ukraine,” Lavrov told reporters after a foreign ministers’ meeting on the South Caucasus.

Some leaks suggest that Zelensky’s main purpose is to get weapons no matter what, Lavrov added. He said that Western countries had already made it clear this was an “unacceptable scenario” that increased risks for the West.

“According to the leaks, also accompanied by a secret annex, the Ukrainian army will be ready to defend Europe and deploy its soldiers under a contract … maybe even replacing US contingent that is already in Europe after it wins. So just, on the one hand, [Zelensky] sold all the land and the valuables that it holds, and on the other hand, offered up his country as a private military company,” Lavrov said.

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s office has issue a strong negative response to Ukrainian Presdient Volodymyr Zelensky’s “victory plan” – which was presented before European Union leaders this week. Zelensky’s plan, if implemented, would be the shortest path to World War III, a statement by the political director of the Hungarian prime minister’s office said. The response further stressed that the EU must be willing to embark on a path of negotiations, de-escalation, and ultimately peace. Orban had posted his initial reaction to the plan on social media on Thursday, which began, “Today President Zelenskyy will present his plan for victory. What he outlined yesterday in the Ukrainian parliament was more than frightening.” It continued, “Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’ is the shortest path to unleashing World War III, so Hungary does not support it.”

And referencing Ursula von der Leyen, he wrote further, “I am one of those who urge the European Union to change its current strategy. The European Union went into this war with a badly organized, badly executed, badly calculated strategy, for which the president of the Commission bears the main responsibility.” “We are losing this war, so the strategy is not working. But this does not mean that we need more war, more dangerous and long-range weapons — it means that we need to change from a war strategy to a peace strategy. We need a cease-fire and peace talks!” he stressed in apparent reference to Europe and the NATO alliance.

Orbán pledged that he will lobby German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron to start negotiations with Moscow “on behalf of the entire EU” as soon as possible in order “to find a way out of this situation.” [..] The Hungarian PM has recently made it clear that he doesn’t share the same enthusiasm for Ukraine’s risky Kursk offensive (which started in August) as other European leaders, having expressed the desire for a ceasefire in the southern Russian oblast, and expressing the need to safeguard European energy supplies ahead of winter.

France would work to rally Western countries behind Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s “victory plan,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said during his visit to Kiev on Saturday. “A Russian victory would be a consecration for the law of the strongest and would push the international order towards chaos,” Barrot told reporters during a press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrey Sibiga. “That is why our exchanges must enable us to make progress on President Zelensky’s victory plan, and to rally as many countries as possible around it.” The diplomat reiterated that Paris would “support, again and again, Ukraine’s resistance against Russian aggression.” Barrot said that France was “open” to the idea of inviting Ukraine into NATO. “It is a discussion that we are having today with our NATO partners,” he said.

The US president has declined Kiev’s request to lift restrictions on the use of Western-supplied weapons.

US President Joe Biden has said there is still no agreement within his administration on whether to allow Ukraine to use foreign-made long-range weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia.

A temporary ceasefire would only allow Kiev’s backers in NATO to rearm and restock ammo, the Russian president has said.

Moscow is interested in a lasting peace with Kiev, but not a short-lived truce, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

Russia’s goal is to ensure its long-term security interests, Putin stressed during a meeting on Friday with the heads of leading BRICS media agencies at the presidential residence in Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow.

"If we are talking about some kind of peace processes, then these should not be processes related to a ceasefire for a week, two weeks, or a year, so that NATO countries [which support Ukraine] could rearm and stock up on new ammunition,” he said.

Moscow is looking to achieve “conditions for long-term, sustainable and lasting peace that provide equal security for all participants in this difficult process,” the Russian leader explained.

Putin stressed that the Russian authorities “respect and understand” the determination of their “friends” in BRICS and elsewhere to see the Ukrainian crisis resolved “as quickly as possible and by peaceful means.”

Moscow realizes that the conflict is “an irritating element in international affairs, in European affairs, in the economy, and so on. We, like no one else, are interested in ending it as quickly as possible and, of course, by peaceful means,” he said.

The US is set to provide up to $20 billion to Ukraine as part of a G7 loan, which will then be repaid using proceeds generated by the Russian assets immobilized by the West as part of Ukraine-related sanctions, Financial Times has reported, citing sources.

A Russian diplomat expressed hope that there are reasonable politicians in the leadership of the alliance who are aware of the destructive consequences that inviting Ukraine into NATO could bring. Kiev’s possible accession to NATO in the current conditions will eliminate the possibilities of a political and diplomatic settlement of the Ukraine conflict and make the alliance’s direct involvement in military operations against Russia inevitable, Aleksey Polishchuk, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s second department for the Commonwealth of Independent States’ countries, told Sputnik. “We constantly warn about the threat of Ukraine’s NATO accession,” Polishchuk said, when asked to comment on Szijjarto’s statement about the possibility of direct Russia-NATO confrontation.

Ukraine’s potential accession to the alliance “will put an end to the possibilities of a political and diplomatic settlement, making it inevitable that the alliance will engage directly in hostilities against Russia, and lead to an uncontrolled escalation,” the official said.

The Kiev regime’s puppet has nothing new to offer. It all boils down to begging for more weapons and money and desperate wishlists of long-range missiles to hit Russian territory with, joining the NATO alliance – and the ultimate insanity, giving the neoNazi regime nuclear warheads. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban called Zelensky’s latest star-turn ludicrous and a frightening, desperate gamble to start World War Three.

...This conflict should never have happened. Russia had offered a comprehensive set of proposals at the end of 2021 to address its long-term security concerns about NATO’s expansion and its relentless promotion of a NeoNazi front in Ukraine on its doorstep. Moscow’s reasonable attempt at diplomacy was dismissed by an arrogant U.S. and NATO, thinking that a military strategic defeat could be achieved against Russia. It was the Western powers that opted for war instead of diplomacy. Through their criminal recklessness, many Ukrainian military lives have been wasted and the former Soviet republic has been shattered. The lands that Russia took were historic Russian territories and they will not be given back. The Kiev regime has forfeited any right to negotiate. It’s remorseless aggression and Russophobia means that the only solution is its complete eradication. Russia is dismantling the regime and its NATO pretensions by force.

Ultimately, the United States and its NATO accomplices will have to recognize that their criminal machinations in Ukraine have been vanquished. The war must come to an end by accepting Russia’s rightful demands for security on its terms. It could have been done the easy way through diplomacy. But the West chose the hard way.

...The trouble is the Western political elites are so ingrained with arrogance and ideological animosity towards Russia, it is hard to see how they will sober up to begin the task of genuine peace negotiations....When the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany in 1945 it was a tremendous victory and blow against fascist aggression. However, tragically, as history has shown, the cause for world peace was not secured. Because it wasn’t the end of Western imperialism. The beast returned over and over again. There must be an end to the ideological disease if the world is ever to establish lasting peace.

"If we don’t settle the outcome of the war according to Russia’s security needs now, by the time there is the next [Russian] presidential election, there will be more war.”

“The issue isn’t what [President Vladimir] Zelensky says publicly. The major security threat for Russia is in the secret annexes [of the Ukrainian ‘Victory Plan’]…What went into the US secret annex in Greece [1981-87] was the deployment of US nuclear weapons aimed at Moscow…Secret annexes mean secret weapons, secret deployments, and dual-capable bombs, missiles and warheads…We know we are back in the world of nuclear targeting on Russia…That brings us back to the general problem – what’s US policy toward Russia? Can anything, anything a US administration ever offer Russia be trusted unless the Russian Army is in place? And that brings us back to the Gorbachev treason, repeated as the Yeltsin treason. No Russian president — no Russian president can repeat those two things. The Russian Army won’t tolerate it, and neither will the Russian people…Without the Russian Army, the signature of the US on an agreement is worthless.”

Oct 18, 2024

Featured • Ukraine must have nukes or NATO – Zelensky, RT, Oct 17, 2024

Ukraine can protect itself either by becoming a nuclear state or a member of NATO, Vladimir Zelensky said on Thursday, claiming that he had offered the same line of reasoning to former US President Donald Trump. Speaking at a press conference after promoting his ‘victory plan’ for the conflict with Russia to European officials, Zelensky suggested that Ukraine would need nuclear weapons, should it not be granted NATO membership. “Which of the big nations, the nuclear nations, suffered? Everyone? No, just Ukraine,” he stated, referring to the signatories of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. The document involved the US, UK, and Russia extending security assurances to Kiev in return for the removal of Soviet nuclear weapons from Ukraine.

“Speaking to Donald Trump, I told him: ‘What is the way out for us?’ Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and they will serve as protection, or we need to be in some kind of an alliance. We don’t know any effective alliances except NATO,” Zelensky added. Ukraine’s choice is to become a NATO member, Zelensky said, claiming that Trump had found his reasoning justified. Ukraine has never controlled nuclear weapons, but claims it was formerly among the major atomic powers before agreeing to relinquish them. In February 2022, weeks before the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, Zelensky expressed regret at the decision in a speech at the International Security Conference in Munich, suggesting that his country had “every right” to reverse it.

That peculiar power of Ukraine’s far right is at the core of a long article recently published by France 24. The head of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Aleksandr Merezhko, we learn, has caused heated discussions. Also a member of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, Merezhko has triggered some of his compatriots with statements he made in the Financial Times.

...It would be easy to ridicule Merezhko’s late and limited insights. For one thing, there is no “democracy” to be endangered in Ukraine. His boss Zelensky, currently over-staying his presidential mandate on dubious grounds, has seen to that, thoroughly. And no, it was not the war that compelled poor Zelensky to become a tyrant. The pronounced authoritarian urges of both the former comedian and his party, which is, in reality, a hybrid between a cult and a ruthless political machine, date back to at least 2021, well before the large-scale escalation of February 2022.

Secondly, for those not brainwashed by inane Ukrainian and Western propaganda, it has always been obvious that the Ukrainian far right is real, powerful, and very dangerous. Welcome to the club, Aleksandr.

...That is the bitter irony of Merezhko’s complaint: It is his boss and his regime who have sold out Ukraine not only to friends from hell in the West, but also to a domestic far right that was bad enough before Zelensky but has become a true monster of ambitions and capacities under him. We have heard much criticism of Russia’s war aim of “denazifying” Ukraine. But what if the real problem we should have paid attention to is how the Zelensky regime has done its best to nazify it?

Now, as the war is about to be lost, this far right will not simply go away. One of its units has long called itself Freikorps. The original Freikorps were, of course, German proto-Nazis whose terror was a postwar response to the country’s defeat in World War I. If Ukraine’s postwar as well will be blighted, among other things, by a far right out for revanche, Ukrainians should blame their own wartime regime and its Western sponsors.

Kiev has the capability to build a nuclear weapon “in a few weeks,” German tabloid Bild reported on Thursday, citing a high-ranking Ukrainian official. The report comes after Vladimir Zelensky alluded to such a possibility during a visit to Brussels on the same day. The Ukrainian leader claimed his country needs either nuclear weapons or membership of NATO. Zelensky is currently promoting his ‘victory plan’ to Ukraine’s Western backers, which he argues can end the conflict with Russia. Bild has now revealed that a Ukrainian official involved in weapons procurement claimed “a few months ago” that Kiev was willing to go nuclear. “We have the material, we have the knowledge. If the order is given, we will only need a few weeks to have the first bomb,” the unnamed official said, according to the German tabloid. He added that the West should “think less about Russia’s red lines and more about ours.”

The first batch of F-16s, which was delivered to the Ukrainian military in late July, failed to change the situation on the battlefield in favor of the Kiev regime, with the Ukrainian Air Force confirming that one such jet crashed just weeks after the first batch supply. The United States has changed its program to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets, adding “younger cadets” with no prior flight experience, the Wall Street Journal has cited unnamed officials as saying. “It is a mix. Some have been experienced pilots, and we still are receiving more experienced pilots. But there’s also those that do not have that kind of pilot training and experience,” one of the officials said The decision to refocus the training on the cadets rather than experienced air force members may extend the timeline in when the Kiev regime could start to operate a full squadron of F-16s on the battlefield “by many months,” according to the sources.

They argued that even before the decision was taken, Ukraine would hardly have 20 F-16s and 40 pilots to operate them until spring or summer next year at the earliest. The insiders also said that the move to change the training program is the result of a lack of experienced Ukrainian pilots “with requisite English-language abilities who can be spared from the battlefield.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier warned the United States and its NATO allies that Moscow perceives the presence of nuclear-capable F-16s in Ukraine as a nuclear threat. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in turn emphasized that Ukraine’s Western-supplied F-16 jets would not have the power to alter the situation on the battlefield. He warned that if these fighter jets are deployed from the territory of third countries, they will be considered legitimate targets for Russian forces.

Oct 17, 2024

Featured • The Grand Poobah's Not-So-Grand Victory Ploy Unveiled, Simplicius, Oct 16, 2024

Featured • Sabotage of the Istanbul Peace Agreement, Glenn Diesen, Oct 13, 2024

The war did not go as expected. Russia built a powerful army and defeated the NATO-built Ukrainian army; sanctions were overcome by reorienting the economy to the East; and instead of being isolated – Russia took a leading role in constructing a multipolar world order.

How can the war be brought to an end? The suggestions of a land-for-NATO membership agreement ignores that Russia’s leading objective is not territory but ending NATO expansion as it is deemed to be an existential threat. NATO expansion is the source of the conflict and territorial dispute is the consequence, thus Ukrainian territorial concessions in return for NATO membership is a non-starter.

The foundation for any peace agreement must be the Istanbul+ formula: An agreement to restore Ukraine’s neutrality, plus territorial concessions as a consequence of almost 3 years of war. Threatening to expand NATO after the end of the war will merely incentivise Russia to annex the strategic territory from Kharkov to Odessa, and to ensure that only a dysfunctional Ukrainian rump state will remain that is not capable of being used against Russia.

Russia has repeatedly warned Western countries against providing the Kiev regime with military aid, which Moscow says adds to prolonging the Ukraine conflict.

US President Joe Biden is set to meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for talks in Berlin that are expected to focus on Ukraine and the Middle East.

The sit-down comes after Biden announced a new $425 million military aid package to the Kiev regime, which includes "air defense capability" as well as air-to-ground munitions, armored vehicles, and critical munitions, according to the White House.

Oct 16, 2024

 • US Politicians Are Pressuring Ukraine to Lower Draft Age to 18, Dave DeCamp, Oct 15, 2024

A Ukrainian official said Tuesday that American politicians are pressuring Ukraine to lower the minimum age of conscription from 25 to 18 to make more young men available for combat.

...Right before Zelensky signed the bill lowering the draft age to 25, he received a visit from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who called for younger Ukrainians to be sent to the frontlines. “I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can’t believe it’s at 27,” Graham said. “You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27. We need more people in the line.”

Oct 15, 2024

Featured • SITREP 10/14/24: Russia Tightens Ring on Key Region on Eve of Zelensky "Victory Plan" Unveiling, Simplicius, Oct 14, 2024
Once again, Simplicius is a good source for the current state-of-play. Ukraine is collapsing, bit by bit.

Featured • Putin asks MPs to approve ‘strategic partnership’ with North Korea, RT, Oct 14, 2024

The document includes an article that states that “if one of the parties is subjected to an armed attack by any state or several states and thus finds itself in a state of war, the other party will immediately provide military and other assistance by all means at its disposal in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter” and national legislation.

Moscow and Pyongyang also pledged not to conclude any agreements “directed against the sovereignty, security, territorial integrity, the right to free choice and development of political, social, economic and cultural systems and other key interests of the other Party” with any third countries.

Ukraine will soon have to abandon the key Donbass city of Pokrovsk as its defenses slowly crumble under Russian attacks, General Harald Kujat, a former chief of staff of the German armed forces and chairman of the NATO Military Committee, believes. In an interview with journalist and podcaster Flavio von Witzleben on Sunday, Kujat, who chaired the NATO Military Committee between 2002 and 2005, suggested that Ukraine’s plan to divert Russian units away from Donbass via its Kursk incursion has failed because Russia has not had to curtail its offensive in the region. “Ukraine originally intended… that the Russians would pull combat troops back [to Kursk Region], but this has now turned out to be to its own detriment because the Russians are now tying up the urgently needed Ukrainian reserves that are now missing in Donbass,” he said, describing the Kursk offensive as an “all-in action.”

“The UK is suffering the worst decline in living standards of any G7 country,” the British Trades Union Congress claimed recently. “Contraction in UK household budgets is going to get worse – despite falling inflation. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts that real house disposable income per head in Britain will fall by an additional 3.4% by the end of the first quarter of 2024. The UK seems set for ongoing political turmoil as well, despite electing a new leader only three months ago. Recent polling reveals new Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s approval rating stands at only 26%. The new head of state has made military assistance to Israel and Ukraine a priority, despite opposition from growing segments of the British public.

Germany’s growth is tanking deeper and deeper, and its economy minister alternates between sugar-coating and scapegoating.

Oct 14, 2024

Featured • Israel does what it does; it was always planned this way, Alastair Crooke, Strategic Culture Foundation, Oct 14, 2024
Very important. On the surface, U.S. support for Israel is about AIPAC, Zionists in government, etc. etc. On a deeper level it is about control of the world, plain and simple, including and specifically oil -- for why, see here and here -- as Hudson says.

For Crooke to endorse Hudson's views in this way -- with his very different, on-the-ground experience in West Asia -- means we should pay close attention.

Featured • Zelensky ‘Left Seething’ After Meeting With Polish Minister Over WWII Massacre by Ukrainian Fascists, Ilya Tsukanov, Sputnik International, Oct 13, 2024

Poland’s political class has generally been at the forefront of powers cheerleading Ukraine’s entry into Western institutions including NATO and the European Union, notwithstanding underlying tensions over the World War II-era massacre of tens of thousands of ethnic Poles by Ukrainian ultranationalists lionized by the post-2014 regime in Kiev. Volodymyr Zelensky was reportedly “left seething” after last month’s meeting with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who impeded the Kiev regime’s aspirations to join the EU by tying the issue to demands that ethnic Poles killed by Ukrainian fascists during WWII be exhumed from their final resting places in what is now western Ukraine. Sources told Bloomberg about the tensions, which are said to have coincided “with mounting war fatigue” among Kiev’s Western sponsors, and growing uncertainty over post-2014 Ukraine’s constitutionally-mandated pursuit of membership in the EU and NATO.

As many as 100,000 ethnic Polish civilians and tens of thousands of Russians, Jews, anti-fascist Ukrainians were murdered en masse by members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainian acronym UPA) – an ultranationalist militia operating in Nazi-occupied western Ukraine during the second World War. Killings and terrorism largely took place between 1943-1944, but continued into the early 1950s. Between 100,000 and 200,000 Ukrainians would fight in the UPA, compared to over six million who served in the Red Army. In post-2005 Orange Revolution Ukraine and especially after 2014, UPA leaders Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych have been idolized as heroes and fighters for Ukraine’s independence, with monuments erected in their honor and streets renamed to carry their names in cities across the country.

Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich revoked his predecessor’s decision to posthumously award Bandera and Shukhevych ‘hero of Ukraine’ titles in 2011 prior to his ouster in a coup three years later. Polish Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz announced publicly last week that Kiev “will not join the EU if it does not address the Volyn issue, if there is no accord, no exhumations and no remembrance.” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk hinted as much at a press conference in August, saying “there is a need to dig into this history [of the WWII-era massacres, ed.] if we are about to build a good future,” and warning that “as long as there is no respect for those standards from the Ukrainian side, then Ukraine will certainly not become part of the European family.”

The answer is simple: the decision-makers in the West – often referred to as the globalists – never truly believed that Ukraine could defeat Russia on the battlefield (Well, let’s say almost never; there was one notable exception, which we’ll discuss later).

Biden’s doctrine implied that the West could achieve its goals through financial and trade strategies. Recognizing that an armed conflict was looming, the globalists spent years developing an “economic nuclear bomb” that was supposed to bring Russia to its knees.

...So, the original plan didn’t work out, and this prompted the West to urgently invent a new strategy.

...Everyone knows how this story ended. Kiev’s operation failed and became a turning point in the conflict. Having fallen far short of achieving its military goals, Kiev lost the trust of its backers who realized that they were initially right to think that Ukraine could never win this conflict on the battlefield.

However, it also became clear that Biden’s doctrine was ineffective. Russia couldn’t be economically crushed and it couldn’t be defeated on the battlefield. So what now?

...NATO has convinced itself that the Kremlin will be happy to freeze the conflict without any commitments, as long as such an option is put on the table.

What happens when this third gamble fails as well? Will the West finally shake off its lethargy and make a clear choice, or will it continue to go with the flow?

It seems that all the scheduled participants of the Ramstein meeting were probably happy enough at the news of its cancellation. Clearly, neither the outgoing US president nor NATO’s European members have any viable ideas regarding Ukraine. This means that, at least until the US elections, Ukraine will continue to endure reverses, to the accompaniment of the globalists’ hollow rhetoric.

The United States and its European allies are destroying their own militaries and economies to fight an increasingly futile crusade against Russia, according to Serbian-American journalist Nebojsa Malic. The analyst joined Sputnik’s The Backstory program recently to comment on the ongoing Ukraine proxy war as voters in Western countries increasingly turn against the quixotic effort. “The enthusiasm for Ukraine in America is just about tapped out after these two hurricanes and the disastrous damage they’ve inflicted, and the fact that it took a week for anybody to even notice that North Carolina and Tennessee are facing biblical floods,” said Malic. “That’s basically the vibe in America that I can see from here: no more, not a penny more to Ukraine.” “The Pentagon is drawing on its [weapons] stockpiles as much as they can,” the analyst claimed. “It’s not the issue of, ‘oh, send everything.’ They are sending everything. This is everything they can spare.”

...

“Most people in the West can’t even conceive of this scale and intensity of warfare,” Malic claimed. “Western militaries aren’t built for it.” “I remember reputable military experts warning five, six, ten years ago when they were trying to ramp up military spending in the West that NATO has the capability to fight for maybe two weeks,” he continued, noting the resources required to build costly Western equipment like Abrams tanks. “That was two and a half years ago, and now they’ve depleted all of their armories and all of their ammunition stocks, and now you have to wonder whether they still have the ability to fight for two weeks.” “If there is a direct conflict with NATO, it will immediately go nuclear, and everybody knows this.” (emphasis added)

Oct 12, 2024

Featured • Why Is the Pentagon Now Pushing the False Narrative About Russian Casualties? Nima and I Discuss the War in Palestine and Lebanon, Larry Johnson, SONAR21, Oct 11, 2024

This [10/9/24 NYT article on Russian casualties] is complete, utter bullshit. So, why is the US military pushing this line of malarkey? A couple of reasons come to mind. First, the Biden Administration and the US military are desperately trying to make the case that Ukraine really is winning the war and that the West just needs to keep pouring in weapons and money. Alternatively, the US is trying to lay the foundation for halting continued funding of Ukraine by claiming that Russia has lost the war by virtue of suffering so many casualties. What is known is that the figures cited by unnamed US officials are fabrications.

How do we know? It is simple mathematics....

What is objectively detectable is that we have arrived at the present day with an American-centric International Law, with transnational organs deputed to various functions all reporting to the main Organization, headquartered in New York. Even the various European international institutions and courts have a dependence on Lady USA.

And we come to the present day From here it is easy to see why, today, we have a crisis of International Law and an obvious problem of trust in its so-called institutions. Equally complicated is the transition to an International Law of a multipolar character. Are the events themselves that have caused people to lose confidence in this branch of Law. For there is very little of “law” left. In Kosovo, NATO was allowed to do whatever it wanted, violating Serbia’s territorial sovereignty and creating the puppet “state” of Kosovo; the U.S. can “export democracy” with bombs by attacking in the Middle East whenever it wants, because it is done in the name of “civilization.” in Ukraine, human rights were valid until a few years ago, when the Kiev regime was put on trial for child trafficking and a fratricidal coup, then once the new “villain” was found magically those rights disappeared and the perspective was reversed; Netanyahu can safely make phone calls from UN headquarters and order a carpet bombing of a city in a country, declaring a war, without anything happening to him, despite the fact that he is a proponent of a genocide that has been going on ruthlessly for more than a year. This macabre and dark “new normality” is an antidote to the lies of International Law – or at least how we have been made to believe and practice it for a century to date.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London on Thursday and again asked for permission to use British-provided missiles for long-range strikes inside Russian territory but was denied.

A spokesperson for Starmer said the UK has not lifted the restrictions on Storm Shadow missiles, which have a range of about 155 miles, and added that “no war has ever been won by a single weapon, and there’s no change in the government’s policy on the use of long-range missiles.”

Oct 11, 2024

Featured • SITREP 10/10/24: From Bad to Worse for Ukraine Amid New Surge of Russian Advances, Simplicius, Oct 10, 2024

Things have gone from bad to worse for Ukraine. Zelensky is again traveling the globe in an attempt to form some type of international consensus for ending the conflict. After half a year of deliberately obfuscating propaganda about Russia “desperately” chasing a ceasefire, it has emerged clearer than ever that it is in fact Ukraine desperate to browbeat allies into forcing Russia into an armistice. In reality, Russia has now signaled more strongly than ever that there is nothing to negotiate about presently.

The Western MSM narrative has fully pivoted to the arc that Ukraine is now ‘flexible’ as to the concessions for ending the war—referring to, namely, the now chief Western demand of giving up land to placate Russia into ceasefire.

...

The whole charade was summarized best by ex-Swiss special services agent Jacques Beaud, who condenses the US’ entire remaining objective in Ukraine as “losing without losing”:...

Another way of saying it would be what I wrote many times long ago: the goal of the US and Ukraine has become to effectively find a way to spin the loss as a ‘victory’, with the most obvious method being to drum up a nonexistent ‘threat to urope’ then paint the ceasefire as “saving Europe” after having stopped Putin’s “imperialist hordes” at the Dnieper—or wherever.

“The NATO game in Ukraine has run its course, and money follows a winning hand, not a losing one,” she said, referring to the Zelensky regime’s failed 2023 counteroffensive and Kiev’s “compound strategic miscalculation” in the Kursk region, that cost the Ukrainians even more loss of territory and depletion of manpower. Kwiatkowski continued that Washington’s allies vis-a-vis Ukraine “already understand that a miracle of military prowess and productivity in the West isn’t coming in time to save Ukraine.” In the meantime, NATO war planners don’t seem to be ready to talk about a post-war Ukraine plan yet, she said, presuming that “it must be made ready soon.”

“Kamala or Trump, they’re going… to blame Europe and Zelensky and the Nazis in Ukraine. [Say] that they didn’t do their job, even though they were given all the money that the world could give them, they didn’t win.” There is also Azov, who never respected Zelensky to begin with and would be furious if he asked for peace. His political rivals are also salivating at Zelensky’s perilous hold on power. “The [Petro] Poroshenko people, the neo-Nazi radical groups, which Zelensky thinks he controls but they’re controlled by the Ukrainian intel and law enforcement, together with the United States [Ukrainian People’s Deputy of Ukraine] Yulia Tymoshenko, [Kiev Mayor Vitali] Klitschko, that crowd, they are going to eat him alive like spiders,” Telizhenko said. Lastly, the people of Ukraine themselves are increasingly turning on Zelensky. Those that wanted, or could be forced to fight in Ukraine have already been sent to the frontline. “The mayor of Dnepropetrovsk today spoke out that there’s a problem, there’s hardly any men in the city, so they have no one to defend the city,” Telizhenko explained.

Over the summer, the anti-war underground in Ukraine started to grow, with multiple videos showing the vehicles used by mobilization officers being burned with gasoline. Without the support of his people, his military, his government, or his nominal allies in the West, Zelensky has one option left: turning to Russian President Vladimir Putin and requesting capitulation. It’s not the end he wanted, but nearly a million Ukrainian men have been killed trying to secure his vision of victory. This is not a game. Zelensky should not worry himself with what he could have had, even though what he was offered by the Russians in Istanbul is far better than he can hope for now. Instead, he needs to look forward and make the only move he can to end the bloodshed. “A win for Ukraine is saving more lives,” argued Telizhenko. “As [many] lives as they can save, as [many] men they can save, women and children to rebuild Ukraine in the future, that’s going to be a win for Ukraine.”

Oct 10, 2024

Featured • Emmanuel Todd On Europe's Hopefully Fading Submission To The U.S., Moon of Alabama, Oct 9, 2024

Q:You argue that Europe has delegated the representation of the West to the United States and is now paying the price. How do you think this trend can be changed?

A: “In the present state we cannot do anything else. A war has begun. It is the outcome of this war that will decide the fate of Europe. If Russia is defeated in Ukraine, European submission to the Americans would be prolonged for a century. If, as I believe, the United States is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free.

Even more important than a Russian victory will be the halting of the Russian army on the Dnepr and the unwillingness of the Putin regime to attack western Europe militarily. With 144 million people, a shrinking population and 17 million square kilometers, the Russian state is already struggling to occupy its territory. Russia will have neither the means nor the desire to expand once the borders of pre-communist Russia are reconstituted. Western Russophobic hysteria fantasizing about the desire for Russian expansion in Europe is simply ridiculous to a serious historian.

The psychological shock awaiting Europeans will be to realize that NATO does not exist to protect us but to control us.”

The United States is in a dangerous hiatus during outgoing President Joe Biden’s lame duck period, which several US allies are trying to exploit, Jeffrey Sachs, a world-renowned economist and president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, told Sputnik. “President Biden is not really in full control anymore, both because of his waning mental status and his lame duck status,” Sachs said. “We are in a dangerous hiatus. [Israel’s Benjamin] Netanyahu is exploiting that hiatus, and [Volodymyr] Zelensky is trying to as well.” The United States backs Israel’s reckless behavior, talks openly about war with China, and continues a delusional policy in Ukraine that is bleeding that country while threatening to provoke more escalation, Sachs explained.

Zelensky has been pushing the Biden administration to allow Kiev to use US-supplied long-range missiles for deep strikes inside Russian territory, which Russia has warned could drag the United States directly into the conflict. To date, Biden has refrained from granting Ukraine its request. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Netanyahu continues to expand his military operation in the region, shifting its focus from Gaza to Lebanon, which provoked Tehran to conduct its second aerial assault against Israel on Tuesday and left open the possibility for more military action by Iran. Sachs added that there is little chance Biden will steer the United States toward a “good direction” throughout the remainder of his term, but there’s also no guarantee that things will improve after either Republican candidate Donald Trump or Democratic candidate Kamala Harris comes into power on January 20.

“I hope for rationality by the next government, because we need a completely new foreign policy, based on negotiation, mutual respect with other great powers, and peace,” Sachs said. “The US doesn’t seem to have much sound thinking at the top right now.” Many other countries are trying to exploit US military power, including the United Kingdom, Poland, and the Baltic states, which are all urging reckless policies by the United States that could land it quickly in World War III, Sachs noted.

The Russian history of end-of-war negotiations for the capitulation of Germany and for the World War II peace settlement requires it to be understood now: it was the Red Army’s defeat of the enemy on the battlefield all the way to Berlin which preceded and which was the precondition for the paper promises and pacts offered to Moscow by those allies whom Joseph Stalin understood to be permanent enemies of Russia — the United States, United Kingdom, and France. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has just spelled this out in an especially timed essay published on October 2. Those lessons are being repeated now because they apply with equal force to the end-of-war negotiations with the US in the process nicknamed Istanbul-II. For Russian decision-makers in Moscow, and for the Russian people across the country, there can be no long-term security for the country without the military defeat of the enemy on the Ukrainian battlefield, capitulation of the Kiev regime, and withdrawal from Ukrainian territory of its US and NATO allies. This is first of all.

The political “guarantees”, “permanent neutrality” of the Ukraine, and treaty promises for the removal of foreign bases, forces, and weapons to continue war against Russia – terms spelled out in the pact of March 2022 known as Istanbul-I — come second. This is because the terms are unreliable and unenforceable, no matter what president of the US is elected next month and promises the day after — unless and until the Russian military has won the unconditional surrender of its enemies, and secured the battlefield against revival of the war in future. This battlefield security extends from the new Russian western border to the old Ukrainian borders with Poland, Hungary, Romania and Moldova. Which must come first now — war or politics?

The Russian answers to this question being debated in Moscow today are turning the old German theory of war and the state upside down, reversing the meaning of the well-known maxim of Carl von Clausewitz, “war is a continuation of politics by other means.” In Europe today — the Russian General Staff and Security Council insist — politics is the continuation of war by other means. Accordingly, the terms of Istanbul-II for the politicians to draft and sign must follow the terms of armistice, unconditional surrender and disarmament to be dictated by the generals.

Ukraine is no longer planning to hold a second peace conference on ending hostilities with Russia, a senior aide to Vladimir Zelensky has said. The meeting had been scheduled for November. Zelensky held an ambitiously-named ‘peace summit’ in June at the Swiss resort of Luzerne, where he sought support for his ‘peace formula’ – a ten-point wishlist that Moscow had rejected as delusional. The event, to which Russia was not invited, was widely seen as a failure. ”The Second Peace Summit will not take place in November,” senior presidential aide Darya Zarivna told the media on Tuesday ...

During his visit to the US last month, Zelensky said he presented a “victory plan” to President Joe Biden and both presidential candidates in the upcoming election, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. While the exact details have not been made public, the five points leaked to the media amount to the West ramping up financial and economic aid to Kiev, admitting Ukraine to NATO and the EU, and allowing long-range missile strikes into Russian territory. Moscow has described the last point as direct participation of the US and its allies in the conflict, which would require an adequate response. Russia has since updated its nuclear doctrine accordingly.

Oct 9, 2024

 • US Navy was at scene of Nord Stream blasts: Danish media, Almayadeen, Oct 9, 2024

 • Biden pulls out of Zelensky ‘victory plan’ meeting, RT, Oct 9, 2024

US President Joe Biden has opted out of a meeting between Western arms donors and Ukrainian officials in Germany, to deal with a powerful hurricane due to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has touted the gathering scheduled for Saturday as “historic” for his country’s fight against Russia. Last month, he traveled to the US to present Biden with his ‘victory plan’. In his recent statements, Zelensky has suggested that Ukrainian proposals will be finalized on the basis of feedback from sponsors this week.

Patrick Pasin, French author and head of Talma studios publisher, who has filed a lawsuit against former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, spoke to Sputnik about the reasons that motivated his decision and the conclusions he has drawn thus far about the Ukrainian conflict.

Former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg had the power to prevent the Ukraine conflict from escalating, but, on the contrary, he fostered it, said Patrick Pasin.

Pasin has been studying the roots of the conflict in Ukraine for a long time, and also said that "he has always scrupulously respected historical facts, especially in the context of the situation between Ukraine and Russia." In particular, he wrote the book "War in Ukraine: the Criminal Responsibility of the West", and also helped with the publication of two books by 15-year-old girl Faina Savenkova from Donbass.

The French author explained that he was motivated to take the unusual step due to understanding that the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine must be stopped and the “next [war], which will come,” averted.

“Last week I told the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, who was in Budapest, that I don’t know what they are telling him, I don’t know what they are trying to convince him of, but when we are alone behind closed doors, the majority [of NATO states] shares the position that I just articulated,” Szijjarto said. Unlike most NATO states, Hungary has openly opposed Kiev’s membership, believing its accession would result in World War III, he pointed out.

Oct 8, 2024

Featured • The War's Pivotal Impasse Crystallizes as Russia Cements Negotiation Terms, Simplicius, Oct 8, 2024
Another really good analysis behind the paywall, both of the prospects for peace and the overall trajectory of the war. He is more optimistic about Ukraine lasting into the summer of 2025 than I am. His analysis of Russia's peace proposals is very good, showing how these proposals imply a kind of Westphalia-redux with some outside guarantors like China, in effect implementing the multipolar world the U.S. is so desperate to prevent. As he says, the Ukraine war will end when the regime collapses internally, not through full military defeat. And the sooner the better. The West could choose peace right now and it would all be over within the month, with everybody better off.

 • West aims to ‘bring Russians to their knees’ – Slovak prime minister, RT, Oct 7, 2024

The West is deliberately fueling the Ukraine conflict because its ultimate goal is to weaken Russia, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said. In an interview with Slovak broadcaster STVR on Sunday, Fico expressed concern over the EU’s increasing involvement in the ongoing hostilities between Moscow and Kiev, arguing that the conflict cannot be resolved on the battlefield.“There is a military conflict in a neighboring country where Slavs are killing each other, and Europe is significantly supporting this killing, which I just don’t understand,” Fico said. He added that the fighting “continues only because it is being strongly supported by the West.” “The sooner it ends, the better it will be,” he added, arguing that Western efforts to use the conflict to inflict a defeat on Russia will fail.

“Everyone thinks that through Ukraine we will bring the Russians to their knees, but this Russophobia does not work. It turns out that this problem cannot be solved militarily,” Fico stated. Fico, a longtime critic of Western military aid to Kiev, promised to block Ukraine from joining NATO, as allowing the country to join the US-led military bloc could prepare the way for a world war, he warned. After winning the parliamentary election last year, Fico’s Smer-SD party halted deliveries of weapons to Ukraine and called for a diplomatic resolution of the conflict. He promised to restore trade and political ties with Moscow once the fighting ends, arguing that “the EU needs Russia, and Russia needs the EU.” Moscow has warned against Western aid to Kiev, saying no amount of foreign support will change the outcome of the conflict.

British and American spies helped Ukraine develop plans for blowing up the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, which would have plunged Europe into another radiation nightmare, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has said. Ukrainian troops crossed into Russia’s Kursk Region in August, but were stopped short of the nuclear plant in Kurchatov. Speaking at a meeting of intelligence and security principals of post-Soviet states in Astana last week, Naryshkin revealed the West’s disturbing plan for the facility. “According to intelligence obtained by the SVR, the planned terrorist attack included taking and mining the Kursk NPP,” he said, according to remarks made public on Monday. ”Had they been able to carry it out, Europe would have faced an environmental and humanitarian disaster comparable to Chernobyl,” Naryshkin added.

A 1986 accident at the Chernobyl NPP caused one of its reactors to explode and catch fire, forcing the evacuation of the town of Pripyat and the creation of a 30km exclusion zone on the border between present-day Ukraine and Belarus. Radioactive fallout from the blaze was carried by the wind all the way to Scotland. According to Naryshkin, British and American intelligence have provided Ukraine with information that allowed it to attack Russian civilian infrastructure, including high-resolution satellite imagery of border regions. Ukrainian artillery used this information to carry out strikes with rockets and drones. ”Available intelligence indicates that Western intelligence agencies, primarily the British MI6, have systematically prepared Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups to organize provocations at a number of nuclear power plants in Russia,” the SVR head claimed, alleging that the British spies and their Ukrainian counterparts were “developing an operation to blow up power lines connecting nuclear power plants with the Russian national energy grid.”

The Zaporozhye NPP in Energodar has been a target of Ukrainian attacks since mid-2022. Europe’s largest nuclear power plant eventually had to shut down due to the hazards, which included drones, rockets, loss of water for its cooling systems and even an amphibious assault by Ukrainian commandos in October 2022.

Oct 7, 2024

Featured • Sergey Lavrov: Ukraine And Its Puppeteers Play With Fire, Restoring Peace Not Part Of Their Plan, Svetlana Ekimenko, Sputnik International, Oct 7, 2024

Lavrov reiterated the prerequisites for a settlement listed by Russian President Vladimir Putin:

• complete withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the DPR, LPR, and Zaporozhye and Kherson regions
• recognition of territorial realities as enshrined in the Russian constitution
• neutral, non-bloc, non-nuclear status for Ukraine; its demilitarization and de-Nazification
• securing the rights, freedoms, and interests of Russian-speaking citizens
• removal of all sanctions against Russia.

Since Ukraine’s Western patrons seek to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia, “we have no choice but to continue our special military operation until the threats posed by Ukraine are removed,” Lavrov stressed, adding that Russia “will take adequate decisions based on [its] understanding of the threats posed by the West.”

The structural problem, essayist Aurelien writes is not simply that the western professional class holds to an ideology – one that is the opposite to how ordinary people experience the world. That certainly is one aspect. But the bigger problem lies rather, with a technocratic conception of politics that is not ‘about’ anything. It is not really politics at all (as Tony Blair once said), but is nihilistic and absent of moral considerations.

Having no real culture of its own, the western professional class views religion as outdated and sees history as dangerous since it contains components that can be misused by ‘extremists’. It prefers therefore not to know history.

This produces the mixture of the conviction of superiority, yet deep insecurity, which typifies western leadership. The ignorance and fear of events and ideas that fall outside the confines of their rigid zeitgeist, they perceive, almost invariably, as innately inimical to their interests. And rather than seek to discuss and understand, that which is outside their capabilities, they use disparagement and character assassination instead to remove the nuisance.

...Hubristic misperception of an adversary, and the misperception of his hidden strengths, is so often the precursor to wider war (WW1). And Israel is awash with fervour for war to establish its ‘New Order’ for the Middle East.

The Biden Administration is ‘more than willing’ – laying the ‘revolver on the table’ – for Netanyahu to pick it up and discharge it, whilst Washington pretends to stand aloof from the act. Washington’s ultimate target is of course Russia.

That in diplomacy the West is not to be trusted is understood. The story’s moral, however, has wider implications. How exactly, in such circumstances, can Russia bring an end to the Ukraine conflict? It would appear that many more will needlessly die, simply because of the uni-party’s rigidity and its incapacity to ‘do’ diplomacy.

Just as many more Ukrainians have perished since the Istanbul II process was trashed.

The West is in the throes of at least one, potentially two, crushing defeats at the moment – and so the question arises: Will lessons be learned? Can the right lessons be learned? Does the professional world order class even accept that there are lessons to be learned? (emphasis added)

Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has said that his country would not allow Ukraine to join NATO as long as he stays in power. Admitting Kiev into the US-led military alliance would trigger a new world war, he warned in an interview with the broadcaster STVR on Sunday. “As long as I am the prime minister of the Slovak Republic, I will lead the legislators, whom I have control over as a party chairman, to never agree to Ukraine’s membership in NATO,” Fico said. “Ukraine’s entry into NATO would serve as a good basis for a third world war.” Fico, a longtime critic of Western military and financial aid to Ukraine, has insisted that the conflict must be resolved through diplomatic means. He repeatedly warned against further escalation with Moscow. The accession of new countries must be approved by all of NATO’s 32 existing members, with national parliaments voting in favor or against new candidates.

Kiev has no plans to cede any territories to achieve peace in the conflict with Russia, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has said, following media reports that the West is considering a settlement with Moscow in which it retains “de-facto” control over some areas formerly controlled by Kiev. In a video address on Saturday, the Zelensky announced that Ukrainian officials would discuss Kiev’s so-called ‘victory plan’ with Western backers next week, claiming it would help strengthen the country, especially in the military sphere. Kiev has yet to release the much-hyped roadmap to the public, though it has promised to do so, at least with regard to the essential points. Several media reports, however, claim that the plan includes NATO-like Western security guarantees for Ukraine, the continuation of Kiev’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region to serve as a territorial bargaining chip, deliveries of “specific” Western-made advanced weapons, and international financial aid for Ukraine.

The plan was presented by Zelensky in the US last month, and was reportedly met with skepticism by officials who suggested that it contains no “real surprises” and largely amounts to a “wish list,” according to Bloomberg. Discussions with Kiev’s Western backers will enable it to move closer to ending the conflict in line with Zelensky’s ‘peace formula’, the Ukrainian leader said, referring to his plan which demands that Russia withdraw troops from territories claimed by Ukraine. This has been rejected by Moscow as a non-starter for talks. “This is our goal – to guarantee Ukraine reliable peace and security. This is possible only based on international law and without any bargaining over sovereignty or trading territories,” he stated.

His remarks come after the Financial Times reported that Western diplomats and some Ukrainian officials “have come round to the view that meaningful security guarantees could form the basis of a negotiated settlement in which Russia retains de facto, but not de jure, control of all or part of the Ukrainian territory.” The outlet noted that this approach implies “tacit acceptance that those lands should be regained through diplomatic means in the future,” adding, however, that this remains a “taboo” for Kiev, at least in public. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow is ready to immediately declare a ceasefire and start peace negotiations as soon as Ukraine starts withdrawing troops from the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye. In August, however, he ruled out any engagement with Kiev as long as Ukrainian troops are occupying parts of Kursk Region. (emphasis added)

Oct 6, 2024

Featured • SITREP 10/5/24: Post-Ugledar Landscape Unfurls into Dark Ukrainian Future, Simplicius, Oct 5, 2024
Excellent details and overview. Some key elements, cut and pasted here without the images, videos and references:

• As the key fortress-town of Ugledar fell days ago, a number of MSM articles began to highlight a truly grisly picture of the situation behind the scenes. The first horrors were recorded from the 123rd Brigade, a commander of which reportedly committed suicide by shooting himself after hundreds of his troops mutinied.

• The Ukrainian front may collapse in three to four months, according to former Ukrainian presidential office advisor Oleksiy Arestovych. "In two to three months, well, three to four, the front, which is currently crumbling in two directions, and slowly retreating in three, will begin to crumble in six or seven. This flow will become uncontrollable. This means a collapse of the front," he said. He stated that in this case, the Russian army will shift the war to maneuver warfare, leading to "the collapse of the front as such." In short, he says the collapse will accelerate in 3-4 months. Russia will for the first time be able to utilize full-on maneuver warfare to get into Ukraine’s “rear” areas, particularly with special ops forces, and all hell will break loose at that point. Essentially, he predicts the collapse of the AFU. He states the two or three breakthrough areas will turn into six or seven, snowballing more and more. Right now there’s Ugledar, Pokrovsk, and Toretsk directions. But it is true that signs of instability are growing for the AFU in several other directions, particularly in the Kupyansk-Seversk axis, where Russia has made steady gains recently. There’s also been signs of upcoming pick-ups in movement in Zaporozhye.

• The latest FT article quotes soldiers on the frontline now changing their minds and preferring negotiations to end the war...The article confirms that now 77% of all polled Ukrainians know someone who died in the war—shockingly adding that this statistic is four times higher than two years ago: 'The survey showed the war was taking an ever heavier toll: 77 per cent of respondents reported the loss of family members, friends or acquaintances, four times as many as two years earlier. Two-thirds said they were finding it difficult or very difficult to live on their wartime income.' The article points to where this all leads—virtually all talks within the global deep state now revolve around pressuring Ukraine to end the war via land concessions to Russia

• “Blow up the Kremlin.” Besides the above, he also names a terrorist attack with large amounts of civilian victims, particularly one on a nuclear power plant. This is precisely Zelensky’s backup plan if the West absolutely pushes him to end the conflict under the duress of withholding further weapons supplies and allowing Ukraine to do provocative “deep strikes” into Russia for the sole purpose of bringing NATO into the conflict. Here Zelensky himself states that the war is unwinnable without these ‘deep strikes’...

• Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Merezhko told FT that the far right will dub any talks with the Russians capitulation and called them “a threat to democracy”. A senior Azov movement figure, Maksym Zhorin, says that yes indeed they will and calls the far right “the foundation of country’s security”. Zhorin is the deputy commander of the 3rd Detached Assault Brigade, an elite unit under the political control of the far right Azov movement. For Azov movement and multinational securocratic interests behind it, the war is a lucrative business - an enormous pie they are sharing with the Russian siloviki mafia. They are not going to give it up easily. One can engage in cheap and silly talk about “only 2% of Ukrainians supporting the far right” but they have all the military and political capability to upset any peace and they care little about 98% of Ukrainians. They succeeded in derailing the 2019 Paris agreements between Putin and Zelensky. Together with other far right movements, they staged a menacing campaign to prevent Zelensky from reaching a last-minute deal on the eve of the Russian full-out invasion in 2022. They are a major political and military force that should be reckoned with when peace talks start in earnest. If peace is finally reached, these professional soldiers and especially drone operators will fill up the ranks of organised crime in Europe and beyond.

• It is inevitable that Ukraine will have to open up the 18+ [conscription] field, the only question is when. They may be banking on a coming freeze to the conflict to stave off the need for now, or at least a slow down during the winter. But if things continue as they are with Russia’s grinding offensive, by spring time it should certainly be a necessity.

Featured • This EU leader is a rare voice of sanity when it comes to Russia, Tarik Cyril Amar, RT, Oct 5, 2024

Fico is to be commended for his good sense and the persistent courage to speak it, especially in view of the fact that he barely survived an assassination attempt by a deranged Ukraine fan, who may or may not have been just that – a crazed loner. The Slovak leader is not giving up and he should not. Yet he is up against something extraordinarily resistant to reasonable arguments – a form of mass delusion among the West’s elites.

The real problem is that so many Western leaders have not simply lost their connection to reality – they are proud of having proactively abandoned it. That’s why, in the final analysis, their obstinate refusal to give up on misguided wishful thinking is not really even about Russia. They are in rebellion against having to heed facts as such, and what annoys them most about the Russian leadership is its insistence on living in the real world.

Think of this Western syndrome as the real-life equivalent of something Orwell foresaw in his novel ‘1984’, which is all too often misunderstood as a silly Cold War pamphlet. In his drab, imaginary future, which is at least as much about the abyss of human hubris as about politics, the ruling elites practice what one of them describes as “collective solipsism.” If we all believe we are levitating, then we are levitating. Gravity be damned. That is as concise a description of the state of mind that prevails in Washington, Brussels, and London as we will get.

Fico said he would not let anyone forget that “freedom came from the East,” apparently referring to the liberation of Slovakia from Nazi occupation by the Soviet Army in spring 1945.

With regard to present-day Ukraine, he said he recently reiterated to authorities in Kiev that he does not understand why they continue to fight the Russians. Since returning to power in 2023, Fico has stopped Slovak weapons deliveries to Ukraine. He has also repeatedly called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict. At a press conference earlier this week, the premier vowed to do everything in his power to restore relations with Moscow once the fighting ends. Earlier this month, Fico lambasted the West for condemning the atrocities committed by the Third Reich during WWII while turning a blind eye to Ukrainian troops wearing Nazi symbols. In a speech the former site of Sered concentration camp in western Slovakia, he called on the global community to stop “silently tolerating” Kiev’s forces using Nazi insignia.

Moscow has long tried to draw the attention of the global community to the growing influence of Nazi ideology among the Ukrainian public, and has made the “denazification” of Ukraine one of the goals of the military operation it launched in February 2022. Russian Security Council deputy chairman Dmitry Medvedev accused the West earlier this year of nurturing and supporting modern Nazis by backing Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin also recently slammed the West for “forgetting the lessons of World War II” and “mocking history” by justifying the actions of current followers of the Nazis.

As Hurricane Helene-related deaths grow and officials in the states of North and South Carolina – reportedly the worst hit – are trying to airdrop supplies, restore power, and clear roads, the administration of US President Joe Biden has put together yet another bulky package of military assistance for Ukraine.

Americans on social media are calling into question how stingy US relief funds for victims of the devastating hurricane Helene are compared with the vast amounts of aid funneled to Ukraine.

The Biden administration unveiled a new $2.4billion aid package for the purchase of new arms for Ukraine last week, as well as $5.55 billion worth of weapons to be drawn from Pentagon stockpiles. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris announced that victims of Hurricane Helene, which claimed at least 223 lives and wrought devastating destruction since making landfall in Florida on September 26, will get $750 apiece as immediate aid money.

What is the agenda behind this crisis? The neoconservatives believe that Putin is so averse to war that he will stand down and sacrifice some of his declared goals of his Special Military Operation for peace in order to avoid the wider war that would result from Russia’s response to missile attacks on Russia.

Such a response from Putin, the neoconservatives believe, would undermine Putin in Russia both with the people and the military. The people would ask the meaning of the sacrifices and lives lost for the sake of surrendering the goals. The military would say, as Admiral Avakyant already has, that if Putin stands down “the pressure on Russia from its historical opponents will only increase, and the escalation process will enter an irreversible phase. The enormous resources currently invested in the indirect hot war of the collective West against our country will be redirected to finance all destructive and anti-state forces (regional separatism, ‘the fight against the rotten corrupt regime’, ‘the promotion of universal freedoms and values’, etc.). Various states ‘historically offended’ by our country will begin to make territorial claims against Russia from all sides.”

In other words, Putin could lose support and the Russian government could become less stable.

The neoconservative’s aim is to destabilize Putin and Russia. The neoconservatives would take advantage of destabilization to encourage the various ethnicities that comprise the Russian Federation to break apart. Washington’s goal is a dismembered Russian Federation into its constituent parts with many countries in the place of Russia.

The breakup of Russia by Washington began in 1991 with the Soviet collapse. Vast areas of Russia were taken from her: Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Central Asia extending from the Caspian Sea in the West to the borders of China, an enormous area encompassing Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Only the Russian Federation remained, itself a collection of ethnicities. Like the Western world, Russia itself is a tower of babel, only unlike in the West, in Russia the emphasis is on unity instead of division.

The neoconservatives believe that if Putin, in order to avoid wider war, reduces his demands on Ukraine, he can be painted as a loser, discredited, undermined, and Russia with him.

The number of combat corps should be expanded from six to 15, and division headquarters from 24 to 38 to manage and support the extra brigades, the Minimum Capability Requirements, presented by NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Christopher Cavoli and French Adm. Pierre Vandier, read, as cited by the broadcaster.

The alliance is also planning to boost the capabilities of ground anti-aircraft units five-fold to 1,467, the report said.

Ukraine may have to recognize the loss of some of its territory to Russia in order to achieve peace and security guarantees, Jens Stoltenberg said in his first long interview after stepping down as NATO secretary-general. Stoltenberg ended his ten-year tenure as the chief of the US-led alliance on October 1. In a conversation with the Financial Times published on Friday, he said that Kiev may be forced to rethink seeing the restoration of the 1991 borders as a prerequisite for any peace deal. Stoltenberg suggested that “a kind of new momentum” would come after the US presidential election in early November, possibly ushering in “ways to try to get movement on the battlefield combined with movement around the negotiating table.” The West should “make the conditions” that would enable Ukraine to “sit down with the Russians and get something which is acceptable… something where they survive as an independent nation”.

Former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte visited Ukraine on Thursday, just two days after replacing Jens Stoltenberg as the head of NATO, demonstrating the alliance’s commitment to the proxy war. “This is now my fifth time in Ukraine since the full onslaught of Russia started in February 2022,” Rutte said alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “But this is my very first time as NATO Secretary General, and it was important to me that I come to Ukraine at the start of my mandate.” Rutte vowed he would work to support Ukraine’s continued move closer to NATO and eventual membership in the alliance. “Ukraine is closer to NATO than ever before. And we will continue on this path until you become a member of our alliance. I very much look forward to that day,” he said.

Rutte’s visit comes as Ukraine continues to lose territory to Russian forces in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. On Wednesday, Ukraine announced it was withdrawing from the strategic Donetsk town of Vuhledar, and Russian troops are closing in on Pokrovsk. Fighting is still raging in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, but the invasion has failed to distract Russia from eastern Ukraine. Russian forces have been slowly pushing the Ukrainians back in Kursk since launching a counteroffensive a few weeks ago. Zelensky is still pushing hard for the US to allow NATO missiles to be used in long-range strikes inside Russian territory, a step that would risk a direct NATO-Russia war and nuclear escalation.

Oct 1, 2024

 • Britain goes full Orwell accusing Putin of imperialism, Tarik Cyril Amar, RT, Sep 30, 2024

Trying to reach an international audience, especially in a Global South that has long given up on the West, Lammy launched into a rant – there really is no other word – about Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. The whole thing was rather cringe, as if trying to outdo his infamous German colleague Annalena ‘360 Degrees of Anti-Diplomacy’ Baerbock in demeaning his own office. Lammy, for instance, apparently felt no shame denouncing Moscow’s “disinformation” – that, from one of the West’s worst deniers and enablers of Israel’s many crimes, including its Gaza genocide and devastation of Lebanon. Frankly Russia, at this point: just wear it with pride.

But the perhaps most stunningly grotesque moment occurred when Lammy sought to make opportunistic use of the horrific history of modern slavery. “As a black man,” he stated, “whose ancestors were taken in chains from Africa, at the barrel of a gun to be enslaved, whose ancestors rose up and fought in a great rebellion of the enslaved” he had a special knack for recognizing “imperialism.” By that he meant, of course, Russian imperialism.

Since then, be assured, there has been much head scratching, perhaps especially in that Global South that Lammy tried so desperately to impress with his rhetorical kamikaze attack. Was not the British – cough, cough – Empire (as in imperialism) one of the worst participants in the Atlantic slave trade that produced 10 to 12 million Black victims?

...Yet there is something else here as well that is, if anything, even more insidious. Since the Ukraine War, we have seen a relentless and widespread effort to mis-appropriate the experience, the suffering, and the resistance of the Global South as a cheap rhetorical device to provide heroic spin for Zelensky’s regime and the West’s proxy war as well as cheap shots at Russia.

There is, of course, a politics of Left and Right here. Traditionally, and for good reasons, criticizing imperialism and colonialism has been a ‘left’ thing. By hijacking ostentatiously ‘anti-colonial’ terms for the proxy war in Ukraine, this potential on the Western Left was supposed to be channeled into serving the US-NATO-EU complex. With some, that rather perverse trick, transparent as it is, has even worked. Think of it as wearing a Che Guevara-print shirt and venerating Ukrainian Azov Neo-Nazis as ‘freedom fighters’.

Politically, this is just another way in which semi-smart people fool semi-simple people. But there is a more serious, moral dimension as well. It is a truly and abjectly colonial and imperialist move to exploit the massive suffering – almost exclusively at the hands of the West – as well as the hard-won insights and hard-fought resistance of what we now call the Global South so as to feed them into the cheap propaganda that the West now uses to sell its geopolitics-101 proxy war in Ukraine as an issue of ‘rules’ and ‘values’. And yet that is precisely what David Lammy has done. What a disgrace.

The President of the Group of Seven (G7) is seeking to finalize a $50 billion loan to Ukraine that will be repaid using frozen Russian funds. Using Moscow’s money to pay for Kiev’s war effort will be a major escalation in the economic war Washington is waging against Russia.

European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis explained, “The G7 presidency is now aiming for a political commitment on participation in this … loans initiative around the end of October, which would allow all G7 lenders sufficient time to operationalize loans by the end of this year.”

The scheme calls for giving Ukraine $50 billion, which will be dubbed a loan. However, rather than Kiev repaying the money, funds from frozen Russian assets in G7 nations will repay the loan.

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 • ‘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