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Ukraine-Russia Sanctions: Oil Embargo – Iran, Venezuela and Arab nations join Russia’s rally against the West The long lines for Gas under President Jimmy Carter Posted 8March2022 TFIglobal ” Iran, Venezuela and Arab nations join Russia’s rally against the West “: Remember the long lines for Gas under President Jimmy Carter? |
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Interesting Comments:
“Geopolitics for Dummies” – Chapter 2022, First edition. DemJoe + 6Chi (Demented uncle Joe and 6 Chihuahuas = G7) play a Poker game against a Bear and a Dragon. Chihuahuas have bad hands but are very keen on making big gains. Usually, the Bear and the Dragon do not bluff. If they have bad cards, they accept little humiliation and try to cut losses (See Chapters 2014-2021). A new round begins. The DemJoe is betting high followed by the 6Chi. This time the Bear plays tough but the Dragon remains calm. As the game progresses the Bear gets irritated by the barking Chihuahuas, shows some teeth and knocks on the neighbor’s door. Later, the Dragon is provoked by DemJoe to breath fire. Further, the game is intensified by exponentially rising stakes and this pushes the Bear and the Dragon to get closer. Suddenly, halfway through the game, DemJoe confuses everyone. He declares that they play game of chickens now, appearance is the most important and realities do not matter… Let see how the second half of Chapter 2022 will develop. One is clear, some Chihuahuas will get cold feet (no pun intended), innocent people will pay the price (as always), and puppeteers lurking in the dark will get filthy rich. (Disclosure – Editing of the chapter 2022 is greatly appreciated.) |
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 Nefesh B’Nefesh: Live the Dream US & CAN 1-866-4-ALIYAH | UK 020-8150-6690 or 0800-085-2105 | Israel 02-659-5800 https://www.nbn.org.il/ info@nbn.org.il It’s time to come home! Nefesh B’Nefesh: Live the Dream 1-866-4-ALIYAH |
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Bolsonaro Asks WTO Not To Sever Russian Trade As 27 Fertilizer Ships Inboundby Tyler Durden 27April2022 – 01:00 AM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/bolsonaro-asks-wto-not-sever-russian-trade-27-fertilizer-ships-inbound The latest example of G-20 countries not bowing down to US pressure to halt trade relations with Russia comes from South America.
On Tuesday, in response to the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s request for Brazil to increase more food exports, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro asked the WTO not to sever trade flows with Russia. He said there are 27 Russian vessels hauling fertilizer to Brazil.
Now, why would Bolsonaro go against the wishes of the US and EU politicians to eliminate trade with Russia?
Well, the South American country imports more than 85% of its fertilizer demand. Russia is its top supplier, and Belarus provides 28% of the total.
Restraining fertilizer consumption would be absolutely disastrous, crush harvest yields, and threaten the world’s food security. The country is a top exporter of coffee, sugar, soybeans, manioc, rice, maize, cotton, edible beans, and wheat.
This is more evidence that G-20 countries, such as Brazil, India, and China, widely known as BRICs, disregard US pressure to halt trade with Russia. Many of these countries are dependent on Russia and Belarus for commodities. In one chart, here is Russia’s commodity reach:  Russia’s commodity reach: Defiant G-20 countries imply the old economic order, in which the dollar’s centrality to global trade remains king, is fading. Numerous countries are already trading outside the dollar system (see & here) because Western sanctions isolated Russian banks from the SWIFT payment system. This has given rise to commodity-based currencies.
It remains to be seen if South American traders will use a Brazilian real-Russian ruble payment system for the fertilizer purchases. |
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Chinese Oil Giant To Exit US, Canada And UK Over Fears Of Western Sanctionsby Tyler Durden 16April2022 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/chinese-oil-giant-exit-us-canada-and-uk-over-fears-western-sanctions An odd thing happened this week: for obvious reasons, Russian usage of the Chinese yuan has been booming in recent weeks, with the Nikkei reporting that Russia boosted yuan holdings over dollar just before the invasion (having previously dumped all of its Treasury holdings all the way back in 2018 telegraphing what was coming to anyone who was paying attention), and even though Chinese trade with Russia has soared…
 China Exports-Import with Russia April 2022 … many Chinese companies had refused to side fully with Russia, amid concerns that they would be swept up in various secondary sanctions should the increasingly erratic Biden administration decide to lash out at Beijing.
That’s not the odd thing, in fact it is to be expected: after all, if you go after the king – in this case the king of global reserve currencies, the dollar, you better not miss and according to most experts, China is nowhere near ready to dethrone the US as the world’s biggest superpower (with or without the assistance of Russia). What was odd, is that Reuters reported that China’s top offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC, was preparing to exit its operations in Britain, Canada and the United States, because of concerns in Beijing the assets could become subject to Western sanctions, industry sources said.
In other words, one of China’s largest and most important companies has decided to pull the plug before it absolutely has to, in what appears to be a clear indication that what comes next will be very troubling.
The United States said last week China could face consequences if it helped Russia to evade Western sanctions that have included financial measures that restrict Russia’s access to foreign currency and make it complicated to process international payments. Additionally, the US has also made very clear that any Chinese invasion of Taiwan will result in an identical response to that faced by Russia now. The implication: one of those two things may be about to happen.
Some background: according to Reuters, while companies periodically carry out reviews of their portfolios, the exit being prepared would take place less than a decade after state-owned CNOOC entered the three countries via a $15 billion acquisition of Canada’s Nexen, a deal that transformed the Chinese champion into a leading global producer. The assets, which include stakes in major fields in the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and large Canadian oil sand projects, produce around 220,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, Reuters calculations found.
However, it now appears that CNOOC has had enough, and last month, Reuters reported CNOOC had hired Bank of America to prepare for the sale of its North Sea assets, which include a stake in one of the basin’s largest fields. That’s just the start, however, and Reuters adds that CNOOC has launched a global portfolio review ahead of its planned public listing in the Shanghai stock exchange later this month that is aimed primarily at tapping alternative funding following the delisting of its U.S. shares last October. CNOOC is also taking advantage of a rally in oil and gas prices, driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, and hopes to attract buyers as Western countries seek to develop domestic production to substitute Russian energy.
As it exits the West, CNOOC is looking to acquire new assets in Latin America and Africa, and also wants to prioritize the development of large, new prospects in Brazil, Guyana and Uganda, the Reuters sources said.
Even before its exit, CNOOC faced hurdles operating in the United States in particular, such as security clearances required by Washington for its Chinese executives to enter the country.
And just to make it even clearer what’s coming, in its prospectus ahead of the initial public offering, CNOOC said it could face additional sanctions. “We cannot predict if the company or its affiliates and partners will be affected by U.S. sanctions in future, if policies change,” CNOOC said.
In the United States, CNOOC owns assets in the onshore Eagle Ford and Rockies shale basins as well as stakes in two large offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico, Appomattox and Stampede. Its main Canadian assets oil sands projects are Long Lake and Hangingstone in Alberta Province.
All of the above is a very long-winded way to put what Rabobank’s Michael Every summarized in just a few words:
The answer? Because China will do things that will cause it to be subject to sanctions |
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Israel Dumps The Dollar For China’s Renminbiby Tyler Durden Apr 22April2022 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/israel-dumps-dollar-chinas-renminbi Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance Over the last 48 hours, China and Russia have taken big steps toward separating themselves from the monetary policy and economies of the west – and nobody has even noticed.
Those who have been reading my blog for the last couple of weeks know that I have been predicting that China and Russia would grow far closer economically, creating, in essence, a second global monetary system where the US dollar is no longer the reserve currency.
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article proclaiming that Russia would back the ruble with gold as a way to fight back against western economic sanctions. I also made similar predictions about the new digital Chinese currency last summer when I first started Fringe Finance.
This shift is happening as a result of the United States and the rest of the western economies foolishly thinking that they’re going to be able to effectively sanction Russia economically, despite the fact that Russia is a massive producer of oil and the country seems prepared to back its currency, the ruble, with this productive capacity.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we continue to run enormous deficits and have very little productive capacity, and even less to back our currency with. Our destiny seems to be to continue printing money regardless of the negative consequences. We’re nothing more than printing press junkies that won’t cease our inflationary addiction until we inevitably hit rock bottom.  US M2 Money Supply (via TradingEconomics)
US M2 Money Supply (via TradingEconomics) If you haven’t read them yet, a couple articles that explain my position on Russia and China creating their own monetary system include:
Today’s post is not behind a paywall because I feel its contents are too important. If you enjoy my work, and have the means to support, I’d love to have you as a subscriber: Subscribe now There’s been several new developments to this thesis over the last 24 hours.
First, it was little noticed yesterday when Bloomberg reported that “Israel’s central bank has made the biggest changes to its allocation of reserves in over a decade, adding the Chinese yuan alongside three other currencies to a stockpile that last year exceeded $200 billion for the first time ever.”
The report read:
 Bank of Israel FX Mix 2020 – 2022 In other words, Israel is reducing its exposure to the dollar and to the Euro to add exposure to the Renminbi.
And so perhaps isn’t just little old me here chipping away at my blog daily that has noticed that China and Russia could be on the verge of effecting meaningful change to the global monetary landscape. It sure seems like Israel is catching on.
I expect other countries to follow suit.
Then, another prediction of mine started to come to fruition this morning when it was announced that China was considering buying some of Shell’s Russian LNG assets. Bloomberg reported:
I had previously argued on my podcast and on my blog that even though the west was going to be ignoring Russian investments, there would definitely be a strategic buyer who would come in and scoop up what can only be described as long-term strategic energy assets from Russia.
Many people smarter than I am, including macro analyst Luke Groman, predicted that China would be the strategic buyer for such transactions. I agreed.
Now, it looks like that is exactly what’s happening. These purchases will only serve to knit China and Russia’s economies even closer together.
 Liquified Natural Gas Shipping Tankers If the picture hasn’t come into focus, it soon will – even for most people that aren’t paying attention yet.
China and Russia continue on a cooperative path together: doing business together, backing their currencies with tangible commodities and, as I wrote just days ago, we’re in the process of watching the dollar become dethroned as the global reserve currency. We just don’t notice it yet.
The next prediction I have, that hasn’t yet taken place, is that China will back its digital currency with gold. I’ve predicted this since August of 2021, long before the current macro picture has emerged. Now, my convictions are even stronger.
When the rest of the world catches on to what is playing out here, there’s going to be a mad dash for gold, in my opinion. I still prefer gold over any fiat currency and, as I wrote weeks ago, consider miners to be one of the market’s truly undervalued sectors.
Thank you for reading QTR’s Fringe Finance . This post is public so feel free to share it: Share |
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JerusalemCats Comments: The Hatred for Israel by the Democrats is not new. Just look at their past Democratic National Conventions.At the Democratic National Convention 2016
Protester burn Israeli flag outside DNC, Byron Tau/ Wall Street Journal
Palestine sic flag at Democrat Convention, Social Media Protesters burn Israeli flags outside the DNC and DNC delegates wave Palestine sic flags inside the DNCThe long-time Jewish worship of the Democratic Party is based on the false premise, that U. S. President F.D. Roosevelt was pro-Jewish and saved the world by defeating the Nazis. He is also credited with ending the Great Depression, and that is another untruth.
Report: Netanyahu to Visit China, a Broadside to BidenBy David Israel – 8 Tammuz 5783 – June 27, 2023 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer waiting for an invitation to the White House and plans instead to visit China next month, according to journalist Shalom Yerushalmi, reporting in Zman Israel. Advanced contacts are currently taking place between the office of the Prime Minister and the office of President Xi Jinping.
Yerushalmi cites senior Israeli political officials who told him that the extraordinary visit is intended to signal to Washington that Netanyahu has additional policy options, following President Joe Biden’s declaring him persona non grata in the White House.
“Netanyahu will not stand and wait for an invitation to visit the White House that never comes,” the source said, adding, “He works through parallel channels. China has been very involved in what’s happening in the Middle East lately, and the prime minister should be there and represent the Israeli interest.”
China has enormous economic investments in Israel. According to a December 2022 report on foreign investments issued by the Chief Economist at Israel’s Finance Ministry, China and Hong Kong are in third place in terms of the volume of incoming investments into Israel. In 2020, the total value of those transactions reached an estimated $26.5 billion. Among other prominent Chinese holdings in Israel is the Tnuva food production and marketing corporation which is among the top three or four vendors in the market, and the Haifa harbor, the largest free port in the Mediterranean basin, which is frequented by the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet.
China’s involvement in Israel has become so vast that the Biden administration is worried about protecting critical technology being developed by Israel and the US from the Chinese. The US sees China as the biggest geostrategic challenge it faces and wishes to restrict just how far Jerusalem can go in collaborating with Beijing.
Yerushalmi speculates that since last March, China mediated between Iran and Saudi Arabia to renew their diplomatic after a decade of hostilities between them, Netanyahu will try to promote Israel’s relations with Saudi Arabia through China’s influence, which would make Washington very unhappy.
Last week, Xi Jinping hosted PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Beijing and presented a new Chinese plan for settling the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Officially, the Prime Minister’s office released the following statement: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Tuesday, 27 June 2023), at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, met with members of the US House of Representatives and informed them that he has been invited to visit China.
The projected visit will be Prime Minister Netanyahu’s fourth visit to China; the American administration was updated one month ago.
Prime Minister Netanyahu stressed to the members of Congress that the security and intelligence cooperation between the US and Israel is at an all-time peak, and emphasized that the US will always be Israel’s most vital ally and irreplaceable ally.”
Netanyahu last visited Beijing in 2017, to mark the 25th anniversary of Israeli-Chinese diplomatic relations. He brought with him a large delegation of Israeli business people eager to do business with China. There’s no reason to think Israel’s hurting hi-tech executives won’t see the visit as an opportunity to infuse their industry with some yuans. On Tuesday, the value of 1 yuan is half a shekel (exactly the amount every Jew must pay for the upkeep of the holy Temple). |
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The Allianceby Tyler Durden, 13August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/alliance Authored by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic, Banging one’s head against the wall is not a wise strategy…  Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin share a toast. Photo: AFP / Zuma
Russia and China head an alliance that poses the first direct challenge to the American empire since its inception at the end of World War II. Their strategy has been to follow Napoleon’s advice—not interrupting the U.S. government while it makes mistake after mistake—and to pursue the opposite of its hapless policies. Their power waxes; American power wanes.
August 29, 1949, the day the Soviets detonated their first atomic weapon, was the beginning of the end of the American empire. The U.S. government’s unrivaled power lasted four years and 23 days, from when it dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The Soviet bomb gave the world a counterweight to an American nuclear monopoly.
It is unclear if the Cold War was anything but a giant psyop on the part of the U.S. and the Soviet Union. By 1960 they had enough bombs between them to wipe out the planet, John F. Kennedy’s “missile gap” notwithstanding. This left a world where sane people believed that military conflicts had to be nonnuclear.
The U.S. became the national security, or warfare, state with which the nation is burdened today. In dollars and cents, it’s the second largest grift in history, surpassed only by the U.S. welfare state. The U.S. populace is always threatened by some megalomaniacal and evil power somewhere. Even conflict far from U.S. shores threatens the U.S. because of falling dominoes or because it’s better to fight them there than here.
Or because U.S. “interests” are at risk. This has become the go-to justification: “interests” are anything the war lobby says they are. The U.S. is fighting Russia via Ukraine to push NATO to Russia’s doorstep. Beyond the specious rhetoric of saving democracy and freedom in a police state riddled with neo-Nazis, it has to do with taking Ukraine’s natural and agricultural resources, hiding U.S. bioweapons labs, preventing disclosure of U.S. politicians’ links to Ukrainian corruption, and effecting regime change in Russia.
Someday there will be general recognition of Putin’s adroit conduct of the Ukraine-Russia war and the strategic masterstroke that is the Russia-China alliance. Losers on a roll require a hard, painful landing before they begin to wise up, if they wise up at all. The losers running the U.S. and its vassals are in for some hard, painful landings. When they look up from the gutter, drunks soaked in their own vomit, they’re going to see Putin and Xi Jinping, staring down at them with nothing but contempt.
It is well-earned. The U.S.’s annually spends three times what China and ten times what Russia spend and gets inferior weapons and a bloated, politically correct military. The waste of blood and treasure on imperial misadventures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now Ukraine has been incalculable. Wasted treasure funds rampant corruption and has helped shove the U.S. into an abyss of debt. American self-confidence and justifiable pride in its history and culture have been thrown over in favor of nonsense. The U.S. government is the world’s most hated institution. If Ukraine doesn’t end its imperial misadventures Taiwan will, and there will no longer be an American empire.
Russia has mostly achieved its military objectives in Ukraine. Putin has been criticized for the slow grind, but Russia has annexed the Russian-speaking areas of eastern and southern Ukraine and secured land access and the water supply to Russian-speaking Crimea, already annexed. Russia has minimized its loss of life and destruction of weaponry and maximized Ukraine’s. An open question is whether Russian mounts an offensive against Odessa in southwestern Ukraine, completely cutting off its access to the Black Sea.
Ukraine’s president Zelensky talks of taking back captured territory. Such deluded bravado lends credence to the claims he’s a cocaine addict. Ukraine’s counteroffensive has been a dismal failure, floundering on Russia’s defensive strategy. Ukraine has seldom been able to advance past Russia’s buffer zones, much less penetrate its complex multi-layer defenses. Estimates vary, but casualty ratios of seven- to ten-to-one against Ukraine are probably in the right ball park. Men and machinery have been fed into a Russian meat grinder, leaving Ukraine woefully unprepared for a Russian counteroffensive should the Russians decide to mount one.
Ukraine has an estimated 300,000 to 350,000 killed, including the cream of its military. Millions of Ukrainians have fled the country, and Russia now controls most of its best farmland and mineral wealth. If it cuts off Black Sea access Ukraine will be a carcass state with little to offer to Western financial vultures.
Early on in the war Russia and Ukraine had a tentative peace deal, which the U.S. and Great Britain nixed. You only get one chance to accept a Russian deal, and then the offers get progressively worse. The nixed deal would have been far more favorable to Ukraine and NATO than the terms Russia will eventually impose. The meme-fodder picture of a forlorn Zelensky standing by himself at a NATO reception starkly illustrates that his “allies” are backing away.
Not only does a country that spends a tenth of what the US does have superior weaponry, it has superior production capabilities. Wagner PMC head Eugene Prigozhin’s complaints notwithstanding, the Russian military seems to have what it’s needed to decimate Ukraine. Meanwhile, arsenals are running low in the U.S. and Europe and they’re resorting to desperation weapons—cluster munitions and depleted uranium shells—which will render parts of Ukraine toxic for decades.
Just as humiliating for the West has been its economic sanctions. They were designed to devastate the ruble, stop foreign trade, and bring Russia’s economy to its knees. They’ve done none of the above and the Russian economy is growing.
Cutting off cheap Russian natural gas and replacing it with expensive American liquified natural gas hasn’t had a salutary effect on European economies. Western economic statistics are a division of Propaganda Central, but it appears that recession either looms or has arrived for much of Europe. Cheap Russian oil and natural gas isn’t coming back. If Seymour Hersh is to be believed, the U.S. blew up the European-Russian Nord Stream pipeline. Further proof of the old adage that you’re better off being America’s enemy than its friend.
For decades, America’s foreign policy doyens have counseled against doing anything that would bring Russia and China together. That wisdom is out the window. While international diplomacy has no matches made in heaven, the Russian-Chinese alliance is about as close as it gets. Marry Russian natural resources to the Chinese industrial machine and maintain joint control of what’s been considered the center of the world since Halford MacKinder’s seminal paper back in 1904, and you’ve got one of history’s most formidable alliances.
It is deftly incorporating much of the non-Western world, what Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko calls the “Global Globe.” Trade arrangements, infrastructure financing and construction, and new transport, communications, and computer links are the face of an emerging, assertive multipolarity. Initially centered in Eurasia, this complex web of political and commercial agreements is extending to the Middle East, South America, and Africa.
The U.S. call for universal mobilization against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was met with indifference outside the West. The Global Globe has grown weary of the U.S.’s rules-based international order, which amounts to acceptance of U.S. diktat . . . or else. The U.S. government follows or disregards its own rules at its convenience.
Not only are the Russians and Chinese offering better terms, but their carefully crafted rhetoric is that of partnerships, equality, and multipolarity. The American empire’s subjugation and hypocrisy are sandpaper on billions of open wounds. Only Americans are surprised by the seething resentment. It’s not going away anytime soon.
The alliance has another ace up its sleeve. The ideas that fiat emissions are money and that something can be had for nothing have left Western governments with mountains of debt and unfunded obligations that will never be paid. Debt has reached its hamster-wheel inflection point: more spending leads to more debt leads to higher interest costs leads to more spending.
Gold is money; everything else is credit, and fiat debt and currencies are barbarous relics. Shifting the Global Globe away from fiat towards gold is going to be a monumental task, but indications are that gold-rich Russia and China are undertaking it. If they eventually adopt a currency or currencies that can be freely exchanged for gold, the dollar’s days as the global reserve currency will be over. Good as gold beats barbarous fiat every time.
Feeble and corrupt Joe Biden is America’s nominal leader. His camarilla is made up of nonentities who would require substantial upgrades to hit either mediocre or amoral. The rest of the West’s so-called leadership is no better. This state of affairs must strike Putin and Xi Jinping as fortuitous. They have to worry about global reverberations of Western economic collapse and the possibility that Western leaders, desperate from their Ukrainian military failure, might take it nuclear. However, nothing is quite as satisfying as watching your adversaries checkmate themselves.
Russia and China are winning the global chess match. That’s not to say they’ll always win. Both governments are the usual top-down, repressive, organized crime that carries the seeds of its own destruction. However, the U.S. government is banging its head against a wall trying to impose its brand of imperialism on the two. Reality, the ultimate wall, always wins. Only after the tidal wave of consequences breaks will the U.S.—or parts of it—have a chance to recover.
Recovery will lie in the rediscovery of enduring truths. The game of thrones is a game of fools. A nation’s greatness is the liberty of its citizens to live their lives and pursue their happiness. The best foreign police is peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Anything the government gives you it took away from someone else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything that you have. Like fire, government is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. A is A. |
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Luongo: EU’s Oil Price Cap Is “Simply Moronic”, Chindia Already Filling Gapsby Tyler Durden, 10December2022 – 04:20 PM https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/luongo-eus-oil-price-cap-simply-moronic-chindia-already-filling-gaps Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog, The EU and the US went forward with their long-debated, long-telegraphed move to put a price cap on Russian oil at $60 per barrel.
By believing they can pressure suppliers into not hauling Russian oil lest they run afoul of the sanctions that support the price cap, they believe they can take only Russian oil off the market for the long run. Because of the way oil is actually traded in the real world, versus the way it trades in Janet Yellen’s head, this policy is actually much harder to implement than it actually looks. You don’t buy oil at the crude oil counter at Target or Wal-Mart.
There isn’t a price tag you can look at and say yes or no too. As Tsvetana Paraskova at Oilprice points out, crude contracts are written based on a discount or premium to a benchmark price at a particular moment in time.
To complicate things further, the EU wants to remain flexible to change the cap at its discretion.
If this sounds like a recipe for complete disaster, it is. No matter what happens here, the quantity of oil to be produced under this cap, even if it isn’t successful, will go down. Period. See chart below. If you disagree with this then you might just qualify to replace Yellen as Treasury Secretary of the US.
That said, Janet Yellen may be stupid, but she’s not that stupid. She knows what this price cap she’s championed will do. So, as always, with these people the question you shouldn’t be asking isn’t, “Will this work?” or “How will Russia respond?” but rather, “Is this the point of the exercise?”
I was contacted by Sputnik News for my comments on this (article here) and this is the tact I took in answering their questions.
If everyone involved knows that price floors and price ceilings always and without fail create production shortages, then why did they do this when the world clearly need more oil?
Because this is a feature of the policy, not a bug. By doing this, like every other intervention into oil delivery since the start of the war in Ukraine, the goal was to take Russia’s supply offline and hope that other producers would see the opportunity to take market share from the evil Russians while simultaneously trying to push capital investment into competing energy technologies — like nuclear, hydrogen and unicorn farts.
It hasn’t worked. Russia happily sells their oil at a major discount to Brent Crude, but will it remain the $30 China and India have been paying below Brent? Only if Brent stays at $90+ per barrel. With Brent now trading in the high $70’s those discounts will attenuate.
And with Vanguard following Blackrock’s lead in ditching ESG as a policy driver for investment flows, we’ve likely reached the limit of this stupidity, because despite the protestations of commies the world over, capital flows to where it is treated best.
That flow is now distinctly around Europe rather than the intended target, Russia.
There are many goals of this price cap, some stated, some implied, my comments are in italics afterwards.
I’ve maintained for years that Europe feels they have some kind of monopsony (single buyer) power over Russian energy. And all they have to do is hold their nose and refuse to buy Russia’s products and this will force them to sell to them at whatever price they demand.
What I’m still trying to figure out, however, is how much better a deal do they want than the one they had pre-Ukraine War, a war they did nothing substantial to stop?
To believe that the EU only pursued this antagonistic relationship with Russia because it is a colony of the US Empire is simply delusional at this point. At no point did Europe try to make peace with Russia financially, economically or diplomatically.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated recently in an interview with Die Zeit that the Minsk Accords were designed as a delaying tactic to arm Ukraine for the future war against Russia.
This admission blows up that entire coping narrative of ideological leftists who hate the US (and all that it supposedly still stands for, i.e. capitalism) so much they can’t accept the reality of their insanity.
Europe chose this path. They chose freely to freeze Russia’s foreign exchange reserves, decline to buy their oil and gas, and sanction Russia to the point of destabilizing not just their own food and energy security, but also everyone else’s in the process.
Davos hates the freedom that oil and gas represent. Their strategy is to starve the entire oil complex of needed capital and hope it collapses. What it’s doing is accelerating the creation of parallel markets for shipping, insurance, payment clearance and investment banking for base commodities in markets outside of their control.
They’ve interfered in elections/governments the world over in key pockets of resistance — the US, Brazil, now Peru, the UK, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, — to disrupt any further integration of Asia.
Most of these have failed, but have succeeded in making the world less safe, less predictable.
The price cap is a stupid policy implemented by people with a clear animus against humanity itself that they would drive the world to the brink of nuclear war. It’s nothing more than the same scorched earth policy that’s been on display for years now.
If we can’t rule the world, we will burn it down. All it’s really doing is accelerating the split between East and West. Russia is done with Europe. They have turned East and will wait for Europeans to come to their senses and find common ground. Both they and the Chinese realize now there is no return to normalcy without the West collapsing in a fit of rage.
All over a few miserable dollars per barrel. As always, my full replies to Sputnik are below the line. As the price cap on Russian oil comes into force, how will the global market react? What long-term consequences do you expect?The price cap is simply moronic from a price perspective. Any 1st semester student of economics understands that price caps/floors create shortages. So, we shouldn’t look at price directly. Price is a consequence of supply and demand, in this case a deliberate attempt to create a shortage by introducing unnecessary friction all throughout the oil supply chain to create a global shortage of energy.
Oil prices will rise in the short term because of this and investment in new oil sources will now accelerate but outside of the West who have turned completely hostile to new sources of oil entering the market. The price cap was conceived with the objective of punishing Russia over its special military operation in Ukraine – what are traps and pitfalls of energy supply politicization?As always with moves like this, there is the story we’re told and then there is the real story. This cap will not deter Russia in any significant way from exporting oil. What will happen is the map of oil delivery worldwide will change. Energy that flowed west will now flow east and south. The ESPO pipeline will see full utilization as demand from SE Asia rises.
Projects that previous to the divorce between Russia and the EU were uneconomic are now economic as a price floor has now been put on the market. That’s what is so funny about this ‘price cap’ on Russian oil, it’s actually a ‘price floor,’ ensuring that Russia, the country with the lowest cost per barrel of any major producer, has guaranteed minimum income going forward.
I believe the goal of Janet Yellen, the person most responsible for this idiocy, is to both raise the price of oil to accelerate investment into renewables but limit the amount of money Russia gets, starving them, and other oil producers of capital.
In short, it’s nothing new. These are the same people who put sanctions on Russia to make the ruble weak while the price of oil rose. How can the move backfire on G7 countries and the EU in particular?It already has. As I said, this is just an extension of the same policy that’s always been in place. What will (and is) happening is that the investment they are trying to retard into replacement oil and gas reserves will now occur outside of the western financial system and western currencies, i.e. the US dollar and the euro.
Capital flows both to where it’s needed and where it’s treated best. What’s happening in the West is one big policy to freeze capital where it is currently trapped and beat it with the ESG stick. I could write a book here about why this is dumb and counterproductive, but I’ll just state that, in short, it won’t work.
This price cap is the beginning of the major shift towards the East becoming the center for global capital investment. The price cap had sown discord within the EU and resulted in months of bickering – do you expect further split within the EU members now, as the measure came into force?Yes. But the European Commission isn’t listening and is continuing to play hardball with every EU member state and Russia on every issue. At the same time, they also support NATO expansion, which is tantamount to an open war declaration against Russia. Now it’s War Crimes Tribunals against Russia for a war it won’t fight or can even win.
The internal politics of gas delivery within the EU is now facing a shift with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni clearly angling to replace Germany as the port of entry for most piped gas into Europe. France and Germany are hopping mad about this.
This energy crisis in the EU is designed to break the spirit of Europe’s people to accept full totalitarian/centralized control over everything. The outward face of the EU is one of inevitability, while masking the deep divisions that are tearing it apart at the seams. What kind of problems will the EU face given that Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak specified earlier that if the cap came into effect, Russia would either redirect its crude supply or slash production?China and India are already filling the gaps. Russian oil will be blended in the Bahamas or other storage ports and then sent back to EU refineries. It’s all shadow play and theater. The main goal, as I said, was to make the oil markets less efficient, raising costs while starving it of capital at the same time.
The EU will face continued high energy prices, a net outflow of capital from lack of investment and a falling currency as their competitiveness on the global market collapses. Considering that they are also an unreliable trade partner who constantly changes the terms of contracts while they are still active, will see trade that used to be done with it go somewhere else.
All they are doing is ensuring no one will want to do business with them after 2030, hence their full-throated support of further war with Russia over Ukraine…. If the EU will suffer, then so will the whole world. It’s the ultimate game of brinksmanship. And they are the ones driving this bus, along with certain old money connected players in the US, while simultaneously using those players in the US, like Yellen, as a smokescreen for their preferred outcomes.
The clear story now is that the EU is blaming the US for all of its ills, exactly like I said they would do over a year ago. EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen just did this, complaining about the US subsidies for green energy projects. French President Emmanuel Macron complained that the US was making too much money off selling the EU natural gas.
Are they serious? Putin offered them a way out of this but, as always, the Eurocrats want their cake and eat it too… they want to punish Putin and get their energy at subsidized rates. Seriously, why does anyone take these apparatchiks seriously?
Everything they do is the equivalent of pointing a gun to their head, pulling the trigger but only grazing the skull and then blaming everyone else for letting them do it and telling the Americans to go kick Russia out of Ukraine.
It’s pathological. What will be the market’s reaction in the event of Russia curbing its production?Clearly oil prices will rise. China and India will still buy Russian oil, refine it and sell it back to the EU at value-added prices. The money Europe used to make refining cheap Russian oil will now go to China and India, who paid for it at a discount, using their own currencies or rubles, and Europeans get stuck with the bill.
So, in 2023, expect another major wave of inflation based on rising energy prices, China re-opening its economy putting upward pressure on metals prices and food shortages from the EU’s war on the periodic table of elements. |
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Whitney: A US-Led ‘Coalition Of The Willing’ Foreshadows The Splintering Of NATOby Tyler Durden, 19february2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/whitney-us-led-coalition-willing-foreshadows-splintering-nato The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline was a gangster act that reveals the cancer at the heart of the “rules-based order”.  Nord Stream pipelines map
How can there be peace and security when the world’s most powerful nation can destroy the critical infrastructure of other countries without deliberation or judicial proceedings? If Hersh’s report can be trusted—and I think it can—then we must assume that senior-level advisors in the Biden administration as well as the president himself deliberately perpetrated an act of industrial terrorism against a long-term friend and ally, Germany. What Biden’s involvement in the act implies, is that the United States now claims the right to arbitrarily decide which countries may engage in commerce with which others. And, if for some reason, the buying and selling of energy supplies conflicts with Washington’s broader geopolitical objectives, then the US believes it has the right to obliterate the infrastructure that makes such trade possible. Isn’t this the rationale that was used to justify the blowing up of Nord Stream?
Sy Hersh has done the world a service by exposing the perpetrators of the Nord Stream sabotage. His expose not only identifies the people involved but also infers that they should be held accountable for their actions. But while we don’t expect any thorough investigation in the near future, we do think the magnitude of the attack has been a “wake up” call for people who cling to the belief that the Unipolar model can produce morally-acceptable outcomes. What the incident shows is that unilateral action inevitably leads to criminal violence against the weak and defenseless. Biden’s covert operation hurt every man, woman and child in Europe. It’s a real tragedy. Here’s a quote from a recent interview with Hersh:
 tim anderson-tweet-13February2023-SeymourHersh, whom the war media now wants to smear He’s right, isn’t he? The Biden administration has vastly miscalculated the impact these revelations will have on the public. The reputational damage alone is going to be immense, but they will also be used as the prism through which many critics see the war. In fact, there are signs that that may already be happening. On Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that the real objective of Washington’s war was not simply to “weaken” Russia and eventually splinter it into smaller pieces, but to force a split between Germany and Russia. Here’s what he said on Saturday:
Lavrov’s comments reinforce our own view that the conflict was concocted by Washington’s foreign policy experts who realized that German-Russo economic integration posed a serious threat to America’s dominant role in the global order. That is why Nord Stream became the primary target of US aggression, because the pipeline was the vital artery that connected the two continents and drew them closer together into an economic commons that would eventually become the world’s biggest free trade zone. This is what Washington feared most, and that is why Biden and Co. took such desperate steps to prevent the strengthening of economic relations between Germany and Russia. In short, Nord Stream had to be destroyed because Nord Stream marked the end of the unipolar world order.
 Ukraine President Zelensky-I told Biden if he did not give me money I would expose his corruption Instead, of expanding on this belabored theory, let’s take a minute and see if we can figure out something about Hersh’s shadowy “source” of information. Allow me to frame it in the form of a question: Why did Sy Hersh’s source provide him with detailed, top-secret information about the Biden administration’s sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline?
If you chose “d” then pat yourself on the back, because that is the right answer. No one in their-right-mind would take the risks that Hersh’s source took unless he felt the country was in grave danger. And, keep in mind, we might not even know what that what that danger is yet, since we don’t know what future escalations the neocons are planning. For example, it could be that US plans are already underway to deliver F-16s and long-range missile systems that will be used to strike deeper into Russian territory. It could be that the neocons want to detonate a nuclear device in Ukraine as part of a “false flag” operation. Or it could be that Biden plans to organize a ‘coalition of the willing’ (Uk, Poland, Romania) that will fight alongside US Special Forces in combat operations in east Ukraine. Any of these developments represent a serious escalation in the hostilities which would increase the probability of a direct clash with nuclear-armed Russia. In Joe Biden’s own words, “That’s what you call World War 3.”
He’s right, it would be WW3, which might explain why Hersh’s source summoned the courage to provide the author with the damning information about Nord Stream. He might have believed that the world was on the fasttrack to nuclear annihilation, so he risked his own life for ours. “No greater love hath any man…”.
And the source is not the only person who put himself at risk. Hersh could face charges as well. In fact, I would argue, that if Hersh was not as widely-respected as he is, he would probably be sharing a cell with Julian Assange right now. After all, what is the difference between what Assange did and what Hersh did? Not much, except for the fact that Hersh’s stellar reputation makes him “untouchable. (We hope.)  The UN General Assembly adopts ‘Towards a New International Economic Order’ by a vote of 123-50 14-Dec-2022
In any event, if the motive behind the article was to prevent nuclear Armageddon, then we are very grateful for their bravery and selflessness.
Even so, there might have been other motives driving the article which are worth our consideration. Let’s imagine, for a minute, that Hersh’s source has information concerning the neocons plans for the near future. In other words, it is quite possible that the sabotage of Nord Stream alone was not the main impetus for Hersh’s report, but some other sinister plan on the horizon, that is, a military escalation that could trigger a catastrophe of unprecedented severity.
As we said earlier, such a plan might involve F-16s and long-range missile systems, or a nuclear “false flag” operation, or it could be that Biden will organize a ‘coalition of the willing’ that will fight alongside US Special Forces in combat operations in east Ukraine. US combat troops in Ukraine would make a direct clash with Russia effectively unavoidable. It would put the US on-track for another World War, which is what the neocons want. Unfortunately, I suspect that this is the most probable near-term scenario; the forming of a US-backed coalition organized to directly engage Russia in Ukraine. Here’s a “Statement from Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on President Biden’s Travel to Poland:
As it says in the official statement, Biden will not merely talk to the Polish president about “collective efforts to support Ukraine”, but will also discuss US-Polish “bilateral cooperation as well”. But what type of bilateral cooperation does Biden want besides more weapons? Combat troops? Is that what Biden is looking for; coalition boots-on-the-ground to make up for Ukraine’s heavy casualties? Here’s an article from a website called Notes From Poland that announces a sharp uptick in Polish recruitment goals. Not surprisingly, the article does not explain the reason why Poland intends to more-than-double the size of its army within a year’s time.
Are we expected to dismiss this sudden expansion of the Polish military as a mere coincidence or is it more likely that a deal has already been made with Washington regarding future troop deployments to Ukraine? According to the White House statement, Biden will “also meet with the leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9)” which is a group of nine NATO countries in Eastern Europe that became part of the US-led military alliance after the end of the Cold War…and includes Romania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All nine countries were once closely associated with the now dissolved Soviet Union, but later chose the path of democracy. Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria are former signatories of the now dissolved Warsaw Pact military alliance led by the Soviet Union…Check it out:
An army of Russophobes; is that what they want to create? It sure looks like it.  NATO-U.S. Military Presence in Poland
Maybe, we’re making a ‘mountain out of a molehill’; that’s certainly a possibility. But now that the Russian army is advancing on all fronts along the Line of Contact, we think that the desperate neocons are bound to do something colossal. In fact, we are sure of it. Check out this clip from an article at Larry Johnson’s web site, “The Son of a New American Revolution”:
Something is afoot although we cannot be certain whether it will materialize or not. But—keep in mind—there would be no need for terrorist attacks, false flags or additional combat troops if the official narrative was actually true and the Ukrainian army was winning the war. But that is not what’s happening. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are losing and losing badly. In fact, they don’t even have sufficient ammunition stockpiles to sustain long-term fighting. Here’s the story from Reuters:
How do you take a country to war with Russia without enough ammo to fight the enemy?  NATO Wars
The incompetence is mind-boggling, and it’s not a short-term problem either. Western nations no longer have the industrial base to provide the necessary supplies and equipment for “large-scale, high-intensity warfare.” Building up capacity will take years. In the meantime, the war will be settled by well-equiped Russian combat troops who will continue to grind away at the demoralized Ukrainians who increasingly find themselves outmanned and outgunned at every turn. This is from an article at the UK Telegraph:
And this is from the New York Times:
And one more excerpt from the Paper of Record:
Get the picture? The war will undoubtedly drag on for some time, but the outcome is now certain. And as the noose tightens in the east and the prospects for success grow more remote, we think the neocons are bound to do something even more desperate, foolhardy and violent. We expect the next move will be an attempt to build a coalition of the willing (UK, Romania, Poland and US) that will push the reluctant NATO allies to the breaking point by pitting a makeshift US-led Army against Russia Forces on Ukraine’s killing fields. With every reckless action, Uncle Sam increases the probability of a critical split within NATO that will end Washington’s stranglehold on Europe and lay the groundwork for a new order. |
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Has The Counter Revolution Arrived In The US?by Tyler Durden, 07December2022 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/has-counter-revolution-arrived-us Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,
There is no bigger heresy at this point in history than to suggest the US is not the main source of great evil in the world. There was a time, when the exact opposite was the case.
Today, however, As war rages in Ukraine and everyone in power in the West says they want peace but keep shoveling money and weapons into the conflict, the message is clear.
We want this war. We need this war and it doesn’t matter what the people want.
We will have this war.
But, here’s the big heresy, it’s not just the US that wants this war. Here’s another one is ‘The US’ as a global actor even exist anymore?
We are now digesting the most irresponsible escalation yet by “Ukraine,” a drone strike on a strategic airbase deep inside Russia attacking one leg of its nuclear triad — damaging strategic bombers capable of delivering nuclear warheads.
This is an explicit redline for Russia.
Regardless of what side of the line you stand on, Ukraine’s or Russia’s, in this war (or refuse to even define where the line is), this is a moment that should crystallize for you that this is a turning point in the war… and not for the better.
Escalations like this are a sign of weakness. They are tantamount to begging Russia to over-react, to force Putin’s hand and strike Ukraine mercilessly, which it seems they did in response.
Ukraine crossed the line where Russia would be free to use nuclear weapons per their use doctrine on attacking their nuclear deterrence capability.  Moving Go board pieces
Counterparts
The Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union were fresh in our minds when RUSH recorded this deep cut off the album Roll the Bones. 1991 was supposed to be a time of hope, right? The Cold War was over. The free world triumphed over totalitarianism again.
A triumph of our system over theirs.
But at what cost? The US began the rapid rise into empire, eschewing the humble foreign policy directives of the Founders to expand NATO into the vacuum created by the end of the USSR. The European Union began its formalization into a political and economic behemoth, introducing the euro while its agents deep within the UK overthrew a rightfully obstinate Margaret Thatcher to bring the UK into the fold.
These western institutions were supposed to be the promise of a better life was supposedly for the former Warsaw Pact… well, except Serbia, but only Putin apologists talk about that.
The costs for the Cold War were obvious to everyone east of the Berlin Wall. But the costs for the West were equally substantial. To fight the Cold War the US was turned into a massive corporatist nightmare, the security state justified at every turn and our monetary system of hard money dismantled.
That counter revolution really was at the “counter of the store” as the US morphed from the country with the cleanest balance sheet in the world into the biggest debtor the world has ever, and likely, will ever see via a voracious consumer gorging on ever cheaper fiat money.
The free world was enslaved by its leaders’ arrogance and hubris and the people bought off with cheap money for disposable goods to mollify the anxiety and psychological damage done to two generations with living under the threat of nuclear war.
Now make that four generations thanks to “Ukraine.”
Then when the system broke in 2008 we papered over the sins of the banking system, went full retard ‘printer go brrrrrr’ and ushered in the truly irresponsible era of zero-bound interest rates, round-robin Central Bank coordinated balance sheet expansion which funded a massive security state through portable technology while selling it all as ‘hope and change’ for a world safe for trannies and pedophiles. Hold Yer Fire
We were supposed to be beyond the ‘dull gray world of ideology,’ but ideology is all we have left after having sold our souls for so little. As Alastair Crooke points out in his latest article, the West suffers from an ideological bias which precludes any other from being allowed to coexist on the planet.
This is where Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have practiced real heresy. They’ve said no to the Climate Change agenda of the West. But it goes far beyond that. They’ve said no to the entire western ideological framework of system over civilization.
Every argument made by European leaders like EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen is suffused with this ideological bias, this rightness of our system over any other.
And no escape route can be allowed. The EU is the one providing the ideological framework for continuing the war against Russia. The US is just cynically providing the weapons.
They are peas in the same aggressive collectivist pod. It’s why there is a 9th sanctions package on the way. It’s why they are forming War Crimes Tribunals in courts not recognized by Russia, and looking for legal means to steal all Russian assets within their geographical borders.
This is nothing more than wholesale looting that goes far beyond the initial violations of international law even the most hardened Ukraine supporter can accuse Russia of over the February 24th invasion.
This war should have been over in March but the UK didn’t want it to end and blew up the Ankara peace talks. Everything that has happened since then can then be laid at the West’s feet.
And I mean everything. The escalations have but one theme, take options away from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin until we get to the unthinkable moment.
For this defiance Putin is to be Milosevic’d for daring to say no to the EU and NATO for denying them control over Russia’s future and for embarrassing them by reminding the world of NATO’s involvement in the breakup of Yugoslavia.
And the worst part is that to say anything other than they are they are vassals to a crazed US government bent on global domination is, itself, heresy.
But is it really? By their words and deeds we shall know them.
Because the EU had many chances to stop this war but chose at every turn to double down. And now, they will deal with the flood of Ukrainians rightfully fleeing Russia’s now righteous indignation for keeping alive a war it didn’t want against people it considered brothers.
These escalations have a pattern. Ignore all of Russia’s security concerns and corner them into an invasion and use each move they make as justification for more aggression, until we’re now at the moment we’ve been groomed for for months, the decision by Putin to finally go nuclear.
So what’s really going on here? How did it come to this? Crooke reminds us of a 2013 speech by Xi on the subject.
The neocons and the Brits have tried to level this criticism at Putin, but that is clearly not the case. Putin, as any sober analyst will tell you, is the moderate in Russia. These crazed lunatics don’t want him deposed because they believe it will blow apart Russia, but rather they want Putin gone so that his replacement goes off half-cocked and nukes someone.
Because that is the only way to achieve their goals of having the war they need to reset their failing system.
Again, with these latest drone strikes from “Ukraine” that’s now on the table.
Putin is being ground into an untenable position, not by his own weakness but by the relentless ideological nihilism of western globalists who fear their own loss of power and need this war.
What else can you conclude as they pursue policies that can only result in the deaths of hundreds of millions of people? Vapor Trails
Their full support of Ukraine has reached its religious zenith with their oil price cap, which will cause further turmoil in a market that doesn’t need it. Davos’ puppet in Kiev, Zelenskyy, is now outlawing the orthodox church and openly threatening the hands that feed what’s left of his regime.
They tell us the ‘future of democracy’ hangs in the balance in “Ukraine,” a place where no democracy exists, apartheid-like laws are in place for ethnic Russians and is supported only by our tax dollars funding drone strikes on a nuclear power.
Who makes this case harder than Eurocrats like Von der Leyen?
To save democracy we have to abolish it. To save free speech we have to end disinformation.
Zelensky knows his time is short. Russia is making mincemeat of his country and this drone strike on the Engels airbase should be viewed as a last ditch effort to secure future NATO involvement. Open war between NATO and Russia is clearly the final goal of this attack.
With the follow up strikes on Russian oil tankers we’re rapidly reaching the point of no return.
The message is what it has always been: there can be no escape from the EU’s promised land of technocracy and the ideological nihilism of Davos.
That said, here’s the next bit of heresy. As bad as things are there are still forces alive who see where this is headed and are working diligently to keep Putin’s options open.
The attacks on Davos via the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes, Elon Musk’s buying Twitter and the smart game Giorgia Meloni plays in Italy are having their effect. I realize that all of these things are open to multiple interpretations and many believe I’m chasing smoke in a windstorm. But the incentives align here.
Remember, in geopolitics there are no allies, only interests.
Only the most ideologically nihilistic would pursue Davos’ path. Only those with a hatred of humanity born of a deep wellspring of love for all things Malthusian would bring us to this point. And to deny that there’s no one in a position to oppose this from our side of the new Berlin Wall is just surrender masquerading a cynicism.
To understand how fragile Davos really is I put it to you like this: For the price of a few hundred basis points, the Fed forced a coup in the UK, the ECB into a tightening cycle with more yield curve control, likely blew up FTX and its burgeoning offshore crypto-dollar Ponzi Scheme, and forced the Swiss National Bank to intervene against the bank run on Credit Suisse.  The bank run on Credit Suisse US Dollar / Swiss Franc
These are major weapons to have fired. Four major weapons. And none of those missile launchers can be reloaded. And all it did was buy the EU a few more months (weeks?) of undeserved euro strength.
Powell and company, on the other hand, have even more ammunition to tighten things further with the US 10-year trading at 3.5% now and US stocks going on a year-end rally. In fact, the SNB likely gave the Fed the biggest Christmas gift it could have by intervening in the Swiss Franc market to help Credit Suisse.
Davos’ Nuclear Triad of derivative control over commodity and currency markets, control over the US military through the “Biden” administration and narrative control through the media has been dealt a far bigger blow than “Ukraine” dealt to Russia’s supply of strategic bombers.
The war in Ukraine and the West’s over-the-top sanctions response crystallized the Global South against them. So, color me not shocked to hear no less than Saudi Arabia is coming to Credit Suisse’s rescue buying a major stake in its investment banking spin-off.
They’re giving Elon Musk the “Donald Trump treatment” for having the temerity to believe a free society rests on open communication. Musk’s moves since buying Twitter all point to the real goal of the exercise; buy the database of the Bluechecked Sneetches DMs and release the evidence of government pressure on Twitter to censor perfectly legal speech on every major Davos sanctioned operation against humanity.
We knew they were doing it but now we have something akin to proof that they were doing it. The initial response has been predictable — deny, screech, make fun, downplay and attack Musk and his agents like Matt Taibbi personally. But all that does is prove further they are caught red-handed.
The Davos response is always to double-down, it’s the psychopath’s way. They continue to act as if nothing matters, that they are untouchable. And they have to, it would be heretical to do otherwise as the entire fragile narrative edifice would collapse like a Jenga Tower made out of Styrofoam in a summer breeze.
These drone strikes inside Russia are to try and further weaken Putin, give spine to Russian hardliners and force things closer to the unthinkable.
And this is the real heresy here, the pressure coming from within the West is helping Putin execute his off-battlefield strategy of forcing monetary Armageddon on Russia’s enemies through control over commodity prices.
Putin’s on-battlefield strategy has been to drain Western coffers of munitions and warm bodies to fill increasingly cold trenches along the Dnieper River. I’m not saying that Putin is winning this war, but this is clearly the strategy being employed.
Has it empowered crazed neocons in Whitehall, the Pentagon and K-Street to think they can beat Russia once NATO officially gets involved in this conflict? Yes.
Is this a high-risk strategy at this point? Also yes. Could Putin have played this better? Absolutely.
But, this is the world we have now and the real heresy is not acknowledging everyone’s complicity in allowing it to get to this tragic state.
There’s a counter-revolution happening. The only question now is, will it mature in time to stop this train running on Davos’ time?
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Escobar: Geopolitical Tectonic Plates Shifting, Six Months On…by Tyler Durden, 25August2022 – 06:40 AM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-geopolitical-tectonic-plates-shifting-six-months Six months after the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO) by Russia in Ukraine, the geopolitical tectonic plates of the 21st century have been dislocated at astonishing speed and depth – with immense historical repercussions already at hand. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, this is the way the (new) world begins, not with a whimper but a bang.  Geopolitical tectonic plates shifting
The vile assassination of Darya Dugina – de facto terrorism at the gates of Moscow – may have fatefully coincided with the six-month intersection point, but that won’t change the dynamics of the current, work-in-progress historical drive.
The FSB may have cracked the case in a little over 24 hours, designating the perpetrator as a neo-Nazi Azov operative instrumentalized by the SBU, itself a mere tool of the CIA/MI6 combo de facto ruling Kiev.
The Azov operative is just a patsy. The FSB will never reveal in public the intel it has amassed on those that issued the orders – and how they will be dealt with.
One Ilya Ponomaryov, an anti-Kremlin minor character granted Ukrainian citizenship, boasted he was in contact with the outfit that prepared the hit on the Dugin family. No one took him seriously.
What’s manifestly serious is how oligarchy-connected organized crime factions in Russia would have a motive to eliminate Dugin as a Christian Orthodox nationalist philosopher who, according to them, may have influenced the Kremlin’s pivot to Asia (he didn’t).
But most of all, these organized crime factions blamed Dugin for a concerted Kremlin offensive against the disproportional power of Jewish oligarchs in Russia. So these actors would have the motive and the local base/intel to mount such a coup.
If that’s the case that spells out a Mossad operation – in many aspects a more solid proposition than CIA/MI6. What’s certain is that the FSB will keep their cards very close to their chest – and retribution will be swift, precise and invisible.
The straw that broke the camel’s backInstead of delivering a serious blow to Russia in relation to the dynamics of the SMO, the assassination of Darya Dugina only exposed the perpetrators as tawdry operatives of a Moronic Murder Inc.
An IED cannot kill a philosopher – or his daughter. In an essential essay Dugin himself explained how the real war – Russia against the collective West led by the United States – is a war of ideas. And an existential war.
Dugin – correctly – defines the US as a “thalassocracy”, heir to “Britannia rules the waves”; yet now the geopolitical tectonic plates are spelling out a new order: The Return of the Heartland.
Putin himself first spelled it out at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. Xi Jinping started to make it happen when he launched the New Silk Roads in 2013. The Empire struck back with Maidan in 2014. Russia counter-attacked coming to the aid of Syria in 2015.
The Empire doubled down on Ukraine, with NATO weaponizing it non-stop for eight years. At the end of 2021, Moscow invited Washington for a serious dialogue on “indivisibility of security” in Europe. That was dismissed with a non-response response.
Moscow took no time to confirm a trifecta was in the works: an imminent Kiev blitzkrieg against Donbass; Ukraine flirting with acquiring nuclear weapons; and the work of US bioweapon labs. That was the straw that broke the New Silk Road camel’s back.
A consistent analysis of Putin’s public interventions these past few months reveals that the Kremlin – as well as Security Council Yoda Nikolai Patrushev – fully realize how the politico/media goons and shock troops of the collective West are dictated by the rulers of what Michael Hudson defines as the FIRE system (financialization, insurance, real estate), a de facto banking Mafia.
As a direct consequence, they also realize how collective West public opinion is absolutely clueless, Plato cave-style, of their total captivity by the FIRE rulers, who cannot possibly tolerate any alternative narrative.
So Putin, Patrushev, Medvedev will never presume that a senile teleprompter reader in the White House or a cokehead comedian in Kiev “rule” anything. The sinister Great Reset impersonator of a Bond villain, Klaus “Davos” Schwab, and his psychotic historian sidekick Yuval Harari at least spell out their “program”: global depopulation, with those that remain drugged to oblivion.
As the US rules global pop culture, it’s fitting to borrow from what Walter White/Heisenberg, an average American channeling his inner Scarface, states in Breaking Bad: “I’m in the Empire business”. And the Empire business is to exercise raw power – then maintained with ruthlessness by all means necessary.
Russia broke the spell. But Moscow’s strategy is way more sophisticated than leveling Kiev with hypersonic business cards, something that could have been done at any moment starting six months ago, in a flash.
What Moscow is doing is talking to virtually the whole Global South, bilaterally or to groups of actors, explaining how the world-system is changing right before our eyes, with the key actors of the future configured as BRI, SCO, EAEU, BRICS+, the Greater Eurasia Partnership.
And what we see is vast swathes of the Global South – or 85% of the world’s population – slowly but surely becoming ready to engage in expelling the FIRE Mafia from their national horizons, and ultimately taking them down: a long, tortuous battle that will imply multiple setbacks. The facts on the groundOn the ground in soon-to-be rump Ukraine, Khinzal hypersonic business cards – launched from Tu-22M3 bombers or Mig-31 interceptors – will continue to be distributed.
Piles of HIMARS will continue to be captured. TOS 1A Heavy Flamethrowers will keep sending invitations to the Gates of Hell. Crimean Air Defense will continue to intercept all sorts of small drones with IEDs attached: terrorism by local SBU cells, which will be eventually smashed.
Using essentially a phenomenal artillery barrage – cheap and mass-produced – Russia will annex the full, very valuable Donbass, in terms of land, natural resources and industrial power. And then on to Nikolaev, Odessa, and Kharkov.
Geoeconomically, Russia can afford to sell its oil with fat discounts to any Global South customer, not to mention strategic partners China and India. Cost of extraction reaches a maximum of $15 per barrel, with a national budget based on $40-45 for a barrel of Urals.
A new Russian benchmark is imminent, as well as oil in rubles following the wildly successful gas for rubles.
The assassination of Darya Dugina provoked endless speculation on the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense finally breaking their discipline. That’s not going to happen. The advances along the enormous 1,800-mile front are relentless, highly systematic and inserted in a Greater Strategic Picture.
A key vector is whether Russia stands a chance of winning the information war with the collective West. That will never happen inside NATOstan – even as success after success is ramping up across the Global South.
As Glenn Diesen has masterfully demonstrated, in detail, in his latest book, Russophobia , the collective West is viscerally, almost genetically impervious to admitting any social, cultural, historical merits by Russia.
And that will extrapolate to the irrationality stratosphere, as the grinding down and de facto demilitarization of the imperial proxy army in Ukraine is driving the Empire’s handlers and its vassals literally nuts.
The Global South though should never lose sight of the “Empire business”. The Empire of Lies excels in producing chaos and plunder, always supported by extortion, bribery of comprador elites, assassinations, and all that supervised by the humongous FIRE financial might. Every trick in the Divide and Rule book – and especially outside of the book – should be expected, at any moment. Never underestimate a bitter, wounded, deeply humiliated Declining Empire.
So fasten your seat belts: that will be the tense dynamic all the way to the 2030s. But before that, all along the watchtower, get ready for the arrival of General Winter, as his riders are fast approaching, the wind will begin to howl, and Europe will be freezing in the dead of a dark night as the FIRE Mafia puff their cigars. |
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From The Royal United Services Institute https://www.rusi.org/ A unique institution, founded in 1831 by the Duke of Wellington, RUSI embodies nearly two centuries of forward thinking, free discussion, and careful reflection on defence and security matters.  Royal United Services Institute The Return of Industrial WarfareAlex Vershinin 17 June 2022 https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/return-industrial-warfare
Can the West still provide the arsenal of democracy?The war in Ukraine has proven that the age of industrial warfare is still here. The massive consumption of equipment, vehicles and ammunition requires a large-scale industrial base for resupply – quantity still has a quality of its own. The mass scale combat has pitted 250,000 Ukrainian soldiers, together with 450,000 recently mobilised citizen soldiers against about 200,000 Russian and separatist troops. The effort to arm, feed and supply these armies is a monumental task. Ammunition resupply is particularly onerous. For Ukraine, compounding this task are Russian deep fires capabilities, which target Ukrainian military industry and transportation networks throughout the depth of the country. The Russian army has also suffered from Ukrainian cross-border attacks and acts of sabotage, but at a smaller scale. The rate of ammunition and equipment consumption in Ukraine can only be sustained by a large-scale industrial base.
This reality should be a concrete warning to Western countries, who have scaled down military industrial capacity and sacrificed scale and effectiveness for efficiency. This strategy relies on flawed assumptions about the future of war, and has been influenced by both the bureaucratic culture in Western governments and the legacy of low-intensity conflicts. Currently, the West may not have the industrial capacity to fight a large-scale war. If the US government is planning to once again become the arsenal of democracy, then the existing capabilities of the US military-industrial base and the core assumptions that have driven its development need to be re-examined.
Estimating Ammo ConsumptionThere is no exact ammunition consumption data available for the Russia–Ukraine conflict. Neither government publishes data, but an estimate of Russian ammunition consumption can be calculated using the official fire missions data provided by the Russian Ministry of Defense during its daily briefing.
Number of Russian Daily Fire Missions, 19–31 May  Number of Russian Daily Fire Missions 19–31 May 2022 Although these numbers mix tactical rockets with conventional, hard-shell artillery, it is not unreasonable to assume that a third of these missions were fired by rocket troops because they form a third of a motorised rifle brigade’s artillery force, with two other battalions being tube artillery. This suggests 390 daily missions fired by tube artillery. Each tube artillery strike is conducted by a battery of six guns total. However, combat and maintenance breakdowns are likely to reduce this number to four. With four guns per battery and four rounds per gun, the tube artillery fires about 6,240 rounds per day. We can estimate an additional 15% wastage for rounds that were set on the ground but abandoned when the battery moved in a hurry, rounds destroyed by Ukrainian strikes on ammunition dumps, or rounds fired but not reported to higher command levels. This number comes up to 7,176 artillery rounds a day. It should be noted that the Russian Ministry of Defense only reports fire missions by forces of the Russian Federation. These do not include formations from the Donetsk and Luhansk separatist republics, which are treated as different countries. The numbers are not perfect, but even if they are off by 50%, it still does not change the overall logistics challenge.
The Capacity of the West’s Industrial BaseThe winner in a prolonged war between two near-peer powers is still based on which side has the strongest industrial base. A country must either have the manufacturing capacity to build massive quantities of ammunition or have other manufacturing industries that can be rapidly converted to ammunition production. Unfortunately, the West no longer seems to have either.
Presently, the US is decreasing its artillery ammunition stockpiles. In 2020, artillery ammunition purchases decreased by 36% to $425 million. In 2022, the plan is to reduce expenditure on 155mm artillery rounds to $174 million. This is equivalent to 75,357 M795 basic ‘dumb’ rounds for regular artillery, 1,400 XM1113 rounds for the M777, and 1,046 XM1113 rounds for Extended Round Artillery Cannons. Finally, there are $75 million dedicated for Excalibur precision-guided munitions that costs $176K per round, thus totaling 426 rounds. In short, US annual artillery production would at best only last for 10 days to two weeks of combat in Ukraine. If the initial estimate of Russian shells fired is over by 50%, it would only extend the artillery supplied for three weeks.
The US is not the only country facing this challenge. In a recent war game involving US, UK and French forces, UK forces exhausted national stockpiles of critical ammunition after eight days.
Unfortunately, this is not only the case with artillery. Anti-tank Javelins and air-defence Stingers are in the same boat. The US shipped 7,000 Javelin missiles to Ukraine – roughly one-third of its stockpile – with more shipments to come. Lockheed Martin produces about 2,100 missiles a year, though this number might ramp up to 4,000 in a few years. Ukraine claims to use 500 Javelin missiles every day.
The expenditure of cruise missiles and theatre ballistic missiles is just as massive. The Russians have fired between 1,100 and 2,100 missiles. The US currently purchases 110 PRISM, 500 JASSM and 60 Tomahawk cruise missiles annually, meaning that in three months of combat, Russia has burned through four times the US annual missile production. The Russian rate of production can only be estimated. Russia started missile production in 2015 in limited initial runs, and even in 2016 the production runs were estimated at 47 missiles. This means that it had only five to six years of full-scale production.
The initial stockpile in February 2022 is unknown, but considering expenditures and the requirement to hold substantial stockpiles back in case of war with NATO, it is unlikely that the Russians are worried. In fact, they seem to have enough to expend operational-level cruise missiles on tactical targets. The assumption that there are 4,000 cruise and ballistic missiles in the Russian inventory is not unreasonable. This production will probably increase despite Western sanctions. In April, ODK Saturn, which makes Kalibr missile motors, announced an additional 500 job openings. This suggests that even in this field, the West only has parity with Russia. Flawed AssumptionsThe first key assumption about future of combat is that precision-guided weapons will reduce overall ammunition consumption by requiring only one round to destroy the target. The war in Ukraine is challenging this assumption. Many ‘dumb’ indirect fire systems are achieving a great deal of precision without precision guidance, and still the overall ammunition consumption is massive. Part of the issue is that the digitisation of global maps, combined with a massive proliferation of drones, allows geolocation and targeting with increased precision, with video evidence demonstrating the ability to score first strike hits by indirect fires.
The second crucial assumption is that industry can be turned on and off at will. This mode of thinking was imported from the business sector and has spread through US government culture. In the civilian sector, customers can increase or decrease their orders. The producer may be hurt by a drop in orders but rarely is that drop catastrophic because usually there are multiple consumers and losses can be spread among consumers. Unfortunately, this does not work for military purchases. There is only one customer in the US for artillery shells – the military. Once the orders drop off, the manufacturer must close production lines to cut costs to stay in business. Small businesses may close entirely. Generating new capacity is very challenging, especially as there is so little manufacturing capacity left to draw skilled workers from. This is especially challenging because many older armament production systems are labour intensive to the point where they are practically built by hand, and it takes a long time to train a new workforce. The supply chain issues are also problematic because subcomponents may be produced by a subcontractor who either goes out of business, with loss of orders or retools for other customers or who relies on parts from overseas, possibly from a hostile country.
China’s near monopoly on rare earth materials is an obvious challenge here. Stinger missile production will not be completed until 2026, in part due to component shortages. US reports on the defence industrial base have made it clear that ramping up production in war-time may be challenging, if not impossible, due to supply chain issues and a lack of trained personnel due to the degradation of the US manufacturing base.
Finally, there is an assumption about overall ammunition consumption rates. The US government has always lowballed this number. From the Vietnam era to today, small arms plants have shrunk from five to just one. This was glaring at the height of the Iraq war, when US started to run low on small arms ammunition, causing the US government to buy British and Israeli ammunition during the initial stage of the war. At one point, the US had to dip into Vietnam and even Second World War-era ammo stockpiles of .50 calibre ammunition to feed the war effort. This was largely the result of incorrect assumptions about how effective US troops would be. Indeed, the Government Accountability Office estimated that it took 250,000 rounds to kill one insurgent. Luckily for the US, its gun culture ensured that small arms ammunition industry has a civilian component in the US. This is not the case with other types of ammunition, as shown earlier with Javelin and Stinger missiles. Without access to government methodology, it is impossible to understand why US government estimates were off, but there is a risk that the same errors were made with other types of munitions. ConclusionThe war in Ukraine demonstrates that war between peer or near-peer adversaries demands the existence of a technically advanced, mass scale, industrial-age production capability. The Russian onslaught consumes ammunition at rates that massively exceed US forecasts and ammunition production. For the US to act as the arsenal of democracy in defence of Ukraine, there must be a major look at the manner and the scale at which the US organises its industrial base. This situation is especially critical because behind the Russian invasion stands the world’s manufacturing capital – China. As the US begins to expend more and more of its stockpiles to keep Ukraine in the war, China has yet to provide any meaningful military assistance to Russia. The West must assume that China will not allow Russia to be defeated, especially due to a lack of ammunition. If competition between autocracies and democracies has really entered a military phase, then the arsenal of democracy must first radically improve its approach to the production of materiel in wartime. The views expressed in this Commentary are the author’s, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution. JerusalemCats Comments: Russia and the Global South also has this against the NATO NAZIs
 JerusalemCats-tweet-21August2023-You have a choice, Be a man and fight the NATO Terrorists or just go through life as a Couch Potato. Remember the Great Patriotic War. It is your turn now to defend the World against that Terror. |
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The Incredible Shrinking NATOby Tyler Durden, 16July2023 https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/incredible-shrinking-nato I’ve been waiting for the hubbub to die down since the NATO conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 11-12 July 2023, waiting for someone — anyone — to point out the obvious reason for why the Ukraine’s cocaine-sniffing mascot-president Zelensky, having been lionized only a year ago, has suddenly fallen into disfavor with this organization.
Yes, the Ukraine might still some day be invited to start the long and arduous process of joining NATO, but only after some undefined number of NATO members decide that it has done enough to comply with “NATO standards” (I’ll explain what those are later) and various other vague things. Keeping in mind that back on 20 September 2018 the Ukrainian parliament approved amendments to the constitution that would make the accession of the country to NATO and the EU a central goal and the main foreign policy objective, such a turn of events is most embarrassing for the mascot president and his backers and handlers.  Ukraine President Zelensky at NATO conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 11-12 July 2023 Oh, the vicissitudes of fortune! Lots of analysis and commentators offered ready explanations for this turn of events. Yet not a single one of them saw it fit to dig just the tiniest bit and discover the glaringly obvious reason for this momentous shift.
Perhaps all of them, for a variety of reasons, loathe to admit the reality of what NATO is, what it does, and why the Ukraine is suddenly a threat rather than a boon to its core mission.
You may want to read all of that commentary at your leisure — if you have trouble falling asleep. The official NATO Summit Communiqué, fantastically verbose and filled with irrelevancies, makes for particularly somniferous reading.
So, what did the Ukraine do to fall into such disfavor? Perhaps it did something that jeopardized NATO’s core mission? That seems like a good guess. But then what is NATO’s core mission?
In the movie “Silence of the Lambs,” Hannibal Lecter refers to a quote by Marcus Aurelius when he says to Clarice Starling, “First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?” The quote is from Book Three of “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius, and it emphasizes the importance of understanding the essence of things.
NATO was formed on 4 April 1949 with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, more popularly known as the Washington Treaty, supposedly for the purpose of thwarting the Soviet Union in Europe. The USSR responded by forming the Warsaw Treaty Organization (also known as the Warsaw Pact) — a political and military alliance established on May 14, 1955 between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries for the express purpose of defending them from NATO. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved on 1 July 1991 and, shortly thereafter, on 26 December 1991, the USSR itself followed suit, but NATO continues to exist. By this point, the Warsaw Pact had existed for slightly less than NATO has existed, and the USSR had existed for only slightly more than that. Clearly, the communist threat as a rationale for NATO’s existence was but a ruse, a smokescreen… a red herring.
So, what was NATO’s real purpose? There are many ways to answer this question, but the Ukraine’s sudden fall from grace offers what is perhaps the most graphic explanation.
So, what did the Ukrainians do to raise the ire of the Pentagon so suddenly, and as a direct consequence, fall into disfavor with NATO? In short, the Ukrainians demonstrated that NATO’s weapons are crap. Evidence of this built up slowly over time. First, it turned out that various bits of US-made shoulder-fired junk — anti-aircraft Stingers, anti-tank Javelins, etc — are rather worse than useless in modern combat.
Next, it turned out that the M777 howitzer and the HIMARS rocket complex are rather fragile and aren’t field-maintainable.
The next wonder-weapon thrown at the Ukrainian problem was the Patriot missile battery. It was deployed near Kiev and the Russians quickly made a joke of it. They attacked it with their super-cheap Geranium 5 “flying moped” drones, causing it to turn on its active radar, thereby unmasking its position, and then fire off its entire load of rockets — a million dollars’ worth! — after which point it just sat there, unmasked and defenseless, and was taken out by a single Russian precision rocket strike.
This was sure to have seriously pissed off US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, whose major personal cash cow happens to be Raytheon, the maker of the Patriot. Yes, the Patriot proved useless using the First Gulf War, where it failed to protect Israel against ancient Iraqi Scud missiles; and it proved useless later on when it failed to protect Saudi oil installation against ancient Yemeni Scud missiles… but you aren’t supposed to advertise that fact. And now this!
And to top it all off, the German-donated Leopard 2 tanks and the US-donated Bradley infantry vehicles, not to mention the silly French wheeled non-tanks, performed absolutely miserably during the recent Ukrainian efforts to approach, never mind penetrate, Russia’s first line of defense. Rubbing salt into the wounds, Putin remarked off-the-cuff that Western armor burns rather more easily than the old Soviet-made stuff.
The latest desperate move would be to give the Ukrainian air force (which, by the way, no longer exists) some older F-16 fighter jets. These can be anywhere up to 50 years old and are peculiar in having an air intake that’s very close to the ground, making them very effective as runway vacuum cleaners during takeoff. They cannot operate from the dirty and pitted runways that are typical in the Ukraine because the debris would get sucked into the engine and destroy it. If the Ukrainians attempt to pave new runways for them, the Russians would instantly spot this from the geosynchronous satellite that is permanently pointed at Ukrainian territory. Rather than put some fresh bomb craters on these new runways, they could do something more subtle: use one of their super-cheap Geranium 2’s to spread metal shaving for the F-16’s engines to vacuum up… and burn up in flight. And since these are single-engine planes, there is no possibility of limping home on the remaining engine: the pilot would have to catapult and the plane would crash. But there is an even more important reason why the idea of giving F-16’s for the Ukraine is unworkable: these planes are able to carry nuclear bombs and Russia has already announced that it would see this step as a nuclear escalation. But provoking a nuclear conflict with Russia is verboten, so F-16’s are a no-go.
Why is the failure of relentlessly propagandized Western weaponry more important than just about anything else, including the increasingly dire state of Western finances, the ridiculous failure of anti-Russian sanctions, the obscenely huge numbers of Ukrainian casualties or the general Western fatigue with all things Ukrainian and especially with the flood of Ukrainian refugees that the West can no longer cope with?
The reason is simple: NATO is not a defensive organization (remember, USSR has been gone for over 30 years); nor is it an offensive organization (well, it did bomb Serbia and a few other relatively defenseless countries, but it can’t possibly think about facing off against Russia or any other well-armed nation).
Rather, NATO is a captive buyers’ club for US-made weapons. That is what vaunted NATO standards, with which the Ukraine must comply before it is deemed worthy to be invited to join NATO, are all about: to comply with these standards, your weapons have to be mostly US-made. That is also the reason for all of the various wars of choice, from Serbia to Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya and Syria: these were demonstration projects for US weapons, with the additional goal of using up the weapons and the munitions so that the Pentagon and the rest of NATO would have to reorder them. The geopolitical rationales for these military conflicts are mere rationalizations. For instance, between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. dropped more than 2.5 million tons of bombs on Laos during 580,000 bombing sorties—equal to a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years. What was the geopolitical rationale? Nobody can even remember if there ever was one. But those bombs were about to expire and needed to be used up and reordered to keep the money flowing.
In response to such strange inducements, US-made weapons tend to be overly complex (so that their makers can charge more for the useless extra features) and rather fragile (never tested against a peer adversary like Russia or China, or even against Iran), developed slowly (to clean up on R&D funding), built slowly (because what’s the rush?) and very high-maintenance (so that US defense contractors can get even richer delivering spare parts and service). These weapons were supposed to be tested every so gently by giving hell to backward tribesmen armed with old Kalashnikovs and RPGs.
Ukraine is a different story altogether. There, the Ukrainians, with their mismatched hand-me-down Western armor, are being asked to penetrate three lines of hardened Russian defenses. After about a month of effort and staggering losses of men and equipment, they haven’t yet been able to reach the first defensive line. The sight of Western armor ablaze does not make good advertising. Consequently, the US defense contractors must be very eager to stop this steady stream of negative advertising for their products to stop right this second — before their reputations end up completely ruined; hence the unseemly haste with which the entire Ukrainian project is being orphaned.
The alternative to active warfare, now that that’s failed, is what in the West is usually called “negotiation” but in reality would involve acceding to Russian demands made in November of 2021 (which include NATO rolling back its weapons to where they were in 1997), plus more recent requirements, such as denazification, demilitarization and neutrality for what remains of the Ukraine, recognition of Russia’s new borders (which include Crimea, Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Lugansk regions) and prosecution for all of the Ukrainian war criminals, including all the ones that have been torturing prisoners of war and shelling civilians since 2014. Oh, and the lifting of all the insipid sanctions would be required as well.
But this is rather a lot to take in at a single sitting, and so NATO has decided to take lots of bite-sized pieces. The official NATO document linked above is maximally verbose and full of fluff, but a close reading of its turgid bureaucratese will reveal quite a number of concessions, or at least hints at concessions:
And that’s where it stands. Europe looks in horror at the US, which is still its weapons purveyor and security guarantor, but is headed by a barely functioning senile old man whose furious outbursts are causing his cabinet members to shy away from the Oval Office, and whose only possible replacement — the imbecilic, cackling Kamala — would hardly be any better.
It may be slowly dawning on some of the more lucid European leaders that a way of backing out of the Russophobic cul-de-sac, of their own creation, in which they now find themselves, must somehow be found, but they see no way of achieving that without a massive loss of face. Let’s give it another year and see whether by then they still have a face to save. |
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Ukraine aid scam: Only 30% of weapons shipped to besieged country have made it to the front lines11August2022 by: Mary Villareal https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-08-11-only-30-percent-weapons-ukraine-made-it.html This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author (Natural News) Most weapons shipped to Ukraine have not made it to the front lines. This is something Republican lawmakers have warned about when they opposed a $40 billion aid package.
CBS quoted an NGO worker who said that only 30 percent of the Western weapons flooding into Ukraine are actually making it to the front lines of the country’s war against Russia. It later updated the report, saying that the NGO worker gave the assessment in late April and that the delivery has since improved.
However, the damage has been done.
“This is one of the reasons I voted ‘no,’” said Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Twitter, quoting the CBS News post.
She was one of 57 House Republicans who voted against the massive aid bill that was passed overwhelmingly in May with the support of all Democrats and most GOP lawmakers. The bill passed in Senate with a large 86-11 margin.
CBS noted that getting weapons to the troops involved navigating a complex network of “power lords, oligarchs and political players.” Amnesty International senior crisis adviser Donatella Rovera also told CBS that there is really no information on where the weapons are going.
There has been a growing number of reports about Ukrainian corruption during the war. (Related: US weapons package for Ukraine includes 100 KILLER DRONES.)
German newspaper Die Welt published extracts from Zelensky’s biography, detailing “corruption on an industrial scale” over offshore deals. The New York Times also reported about the “deep mistrust” between the White House and Zelensky.
Boebert: Majority of Ukraine aid is a scamMeanwhile, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert said that scrutiny regarding the aid had been dismissed before the CBS report was released. “How many people were called Russian bots for saying this exact same thing since March? Now, when CBS says it, it’s perfectly fine. Whatever the case, glad the facts are out now. The majority of the Ukraine aid is a scam,” she tweeted.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul delayed the Senate’s vote on the bill by insisting on adding a provision appointing an inspector general to monitor how the money was being spent, but colleagues refused to include the oversight requirement and passed the massive package just days later.
A U.S. intelligence official told CNN back in April that the arms shipments were dropping “into a big black hole” upon reaching Ukraine.
The 57 House Republicans who voted against the bill had been called out by critics for not supporting Ukraine.
Greene pointed out that the U.S. government had been sending billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine at a time when American mothers couldn’t even buy formula milk for their babies. But Democrat lawmakers accused her of “standing with President Putin” in the face of Russian aggression.
Visit WWIII.news for more news about corruption involving assistance for Ukraine.
Watch the video below about the CBS article and the corruption involving Ukraine aid funds. CBS Deleted This Video Today “Arming Ukraine” (70% of the Weapons Being Delivered to Zelensky Go to the Black Market)This video is from the Global Agenda channel on Brighteon.com. |
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Pentagon Fails 5th Consecutive Audit Amid Ukraine Oversight Concernsby Tyler Durden, 18November2022 – 12:00 AM https://www.zerohedge.com/military/pentagon-fails-5th-consecutive-audit-amid-ukraine-oversight-concerns Dave DeCamp via The Libertarian Institute, Amid concerns about the lack of oversight for US arms pouring into Ukraine, the Pentagon’s comptroller said that the department has failed its fifth consecutive audit.
The Pentagon began independent financial audits in 2017 and has failed everyone since. Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord told reporters that things didn’t look much different in the audit from the previous year and that it was “not the progress I would have hoped for.”
The audit of the Pentagon’s $3.5 trillion in assets and $3.7 trillion in liabilities concluded that the department’s internal tracking of money and arms is still not good enough for a passing grade. Pentagon officials have said they hope to pass their first audit by 2027.
When it comes to providing arms to Ukraine, McCord said arming the Ukrainians is an example of why there should be better oversight since they’re supplying a military that needs to replenish equipment quickly.
“We’ve not been in a position where we’ve got only a few days of some critical munition left. Right? But we are now supporting a partner who is … that’s a, to me, a really great example of why it matters to get this sort of thing right, of counting inventory, knowing where it is and knowing when it is,” he said.
McCord said there haven’t been any examples of the US promising equipment to Ukraine that it doesn’t have in its stockpiles. But there is very little oversight of the weapons once they are shipped to Ukraine.
The State Department recently announced some oversight measures after over eight months of pouring billions of dollars worth of weapons into the country. As part of this effort, the Pentagon said its personnel have begun conducting weapons inspections inside Ukraine, marking the first official confirmation of a US military presence on the ground in Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24.
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Seymour HershTRADING WITH THE ENEMYAmid rampant corruption in Kiev and as US troops gather at the Ukrainian border, does the Biden administration have an endgame to the conflict?Seymour Hersh12April2023 ∙ Paid https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/trading-with-the-enemy The Ukraine government, headed by Volodymyr Zelensky, has been using American taxpayers’ funds to pay dearly for the vitally needed diesel fuel that is keeping the Ukrainian army on the move in its war with Russia. It is unknown how much the Zelensky government is paying per gallon for the fuel, but the Pentagon was paying as much as $400 per gallon to transport gasoline from a port in Pakistan, via truck or parachute, into Afghanistan during the decades-long American war there.
What also is unknown is that Zelensky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it, and Washington, are at war, and the Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments. One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war, “although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from the Ukraine.”
“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me. “And who’s paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions” on it.
Many government ministries in Kiev have been literally “competing,” I was told, to set up front companies for export contracts for weapons and ammunition with private arms dealers around the world, all of which provide kickbacks. Many of those companies are in Poland and Czechia, but others are thought to exist in the Persian Gulf and Israel. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are others in places like the Cayman Islands and Panama, and there are lots of Americans involved,” an American expert on international trade told me.
The issue of corruption was directly raised with Zelensky in a meeting last January in Kiev with CIA Director William Burns. His message to the Ukrainian president, I was told by an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting, was out of a 1950s mob movie. The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelensky’s greed, so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because “he was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals.”
Burns also presented Zelensky with a list of thirty-five generals and senior officials whose corruption was known to the CIA and others in the American government. Zelensky responded to the American pressure ten days later by publicly dismissing ten of the most ostentatious officials on the list and doing little else. “The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,” the intelligence official told me. |
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Dmitry Medvedev-Telegram-31May2023-The UK’s Foreign Secretary Cleverly Dmitry Medvedev-Telegram-31May2023-The UK’s Foreign Secretary Cleverly |
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- Erev Tisha B´Av 2014 ערב תשעה באב תשע״ד
- 100th anniversary of the San Remo Conference
CORONAVIRUS POSTS
- Truth or Consequences Covid-19: The Truth
- They Suffered Myocarditis After COVID-19 Vaccination. Years Later, Some Still Haven’t Recovered
- Watchdog: COVID-19 Vaccines Revealed as ‘Neither Safe, Nor Effective’
- Israeli MOH is hiding a study showing a 2-4 times higher rate of adverse events reports following Pfizer COVID vaccine in kids aged 5-11 vs ages 12-17
- Pfizer-Funded Study Shows Poor Effectiveness for COVID-19 Vaccine in Young Children
- Truth or Consequences Covid-19: More Consequences
- Truth or Consequences Covid-19: The Consequences
- Truth or Consequences Covid-19: More Truth
- Truth or Consequences Covid-19: Save the Children
- Truth or Consequences Covid-19: The Grim Reaper Edition
- Truth or Consequences Covid-19
- Coronavirus COVID-19 Vaccine: Bill Gates “Another Final Solution”
- Coronavirus COVID-19 in the US
- Coronavirus COVID-19 in Israel
- Be Prepared and Stay Healthy
- Wuhan Coronavirus COVID-19 in China
- Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation “Another Final Solution”
GLOBALISM POSTS and Ukraine Posts
- Colour Revolution in Israel
- BRICS
- Buy Locally
- Winter is coming
- Military biological activities of the United States in Ukraine
- News Ukraine Adar 5782
- klopse western
- The Weather report 1 Adar II-5782
- The prophecies are true
- Russia’s Military Operation
- Donbass: Azov Nazi Ukraine Terror
- UKRAINE: DONBASS. YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW
- BURNT ALIVE IN ODESSA. Documentary | 2May2014 Odessa, Ukraine firebombed by Nationalist
- The Dreizin Report – 2022-05-17 – The Fall of the Azov
- Fast Forward to Fascism [Ukraine today]
- Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding
- Interview with a Stormtrooper
- The Azov Battalion: Laboratory of Nazism
“BDS is an anti-Semitic campaign led by supporters of terror with one purpose: the elimination of the Jewish state.” Download the report MSA-report-Behind-the-Mask
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Common Palestinian surnames that confirm where ‘Palestinians’ originate from
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Why Do All These Rabbis Warn Against Getting the Covid-19 Vaccine?
Why Do All These Rabbis Warn Against Getting the Covid-19 Vaccine?
PRAYER TO BE SAVED FROM CORONAVIRUS
Master of Universe, who can do anything!
Cure me and the whole world of the Coronavirus, because redemption is near.
And through this reveal to us the 50th gate of holiness, the secret of the ibbur, and may we begin from this day onward to be strong in keeping interpersonal commandments (i.e. being kind to others).
And by virtue of this may we witness miracles and wonders the likes of which haven’t been since the creation of the world. And may there be sweetening of judgments for the entire world, to all mankind, men women and children.
Please God! Please cure Coronavirus all over the world, as it says about Miriam the prophetess, “Lord, please, cure her, please.”
Please God! Who can do anything! Send a complete healing to the entire world! To all men, women, children, boys and girls, to all humanity wherever they may be, and to all the animals, birds, and creatures. All should be cured from this disease in the blink of an eye, and no trace of the disease should remain.
And all will merit fear of Heaven and fear of God, O Merciful and Compassionate Father.
Please God, please do with us miracles and wonders as you did with our forefathers by the exodus from Egypt. And now, take us and the entire world out from this disease, release us and save us from the Coronavirus that wants to eliminate all mortals.
We now regret all the sins that we did, and we honestly ask for forgiveness. And in the merit of our repentance, this cursed disease, that does not miss men, women, boys, girls, and animals, will be eliminated.
Please God, as quick as the illness came it will go away and disappear immediately, in the blink of an eye, and by this the soul of Messiah Ben David will be revealed.
Please God, grant us the merit to be included in the level of the saints and pure ones, and bless anew all the fruit and vegetation, that all will be healed in the blink of an eye, and we will see Messiah Ben David face to face.
Please God, who acts with greatness beyond comprehension, and does wonders without number. Please now perform also with us miracles and wonders beyond comprehension and let no trace of this cursed disease remain. And may the entire world be cured in the blink of an eye.
Because Hashem did all this in order for us to repent, it is all in order for us to direct our hearts to our Father in Heaven, and by that He will send blessings and success to all of our handiwork.
Important Posts
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Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation: Vaccine News
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After Monsey, and New York – Kristallnacht!
- How to help YOUR Relatives Escape from New York
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A Portrait of Jewish Americans
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The Jewish People Policy Institute-Raising Jewish Children 2017
- Jonathan Pollard
- We have no other country – אין לנו ארץ אחרת
- You are a Princess
- Modesty for Women – Wig Vs Scarf
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BDS Know the Facts
- CAMERA: Quantifying the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict’s Importance to Middle East Turmoil
- Warnings to American Jews
- A response to the EU Boycott of Yesha Israel
- Israel is not America
- A School is connected to a Congregation or a Rabbi, Who are they?
- Another reason to use a good Kosher certification hecksher
- Health Risks of Genetically Modified Food or The benefits of keeping Kosher
- What’s in Your Milk? 20+ Painkillers, Antibiotics, and More
- Cholov Yisroel: Does a Neshama Good
- Cell Phones:The Day Einstein Feared Has Arrived
- Death in Advertising – Coke and Cigarettes
- College life in America
- 1 sheep and 70 wolves-Hanukah Geography
- A Heart to Heart talk about Christian missionaries and Jewish Assimilation
- Anatomy of a smear
- Remembering the hard times predating the startup nation
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Israel: The World’s First Modern Indigenous State
- Rosh Hashanah Foods
- How to assemble an Israeli Succah
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Hanukkah Posts and Recipes
- 1 January is Sylvester Day יום סילבסטר
- Tu B’Shevat-How and What to check for Bugs
- How to Celebrate Purim
- Purim for Cats: Purim behind the Scenes
- The Day After Purim-How to Prepare for Pesach
- Pesach Tips and Schedule
- Preparing for Pesach
- Sell your Chametz online:
- Pesach Wonder Pot סיר פלא Recipes
- Pesach and Beyond פסח ומעבר
- La Haggada De L’idee Juive
- Counting The Omer ספירת העומר
- Shlissel or Key Challah
- YOM HASHOAH יום שואה
- Yom Hazikaron : יום זיכרון We Remember and Honor our fallen
- Yom HaAtzma’ut- יום העצמאות
-
Shavot Wonder Pot סיר פלא Recipe-Cheesecake
- Tisha B’Av 2013 תשעה באב תשע”ג
- Tisha B’AV Love your fellow Jew
הסערה הבאה שרת התרבות מירי רגב הורתה להכניס ללוגו הרשמי של חגיגות היובל לאיחוד ירושלים את המילה שחרור ירושלים במקום איחוד העיר
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Jewish Agency Toll Free Phone Numbers
Nefesh B’Nefesh: Live the Dream
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The Jewish Agency Global Service Center
All Israeli Cats are required to take IDF Officers Military Training
Point of No Return: Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries
From the 1940s until the 1970s, and heightening with the founding of Israel in 1948, nearly million Jews were expelled from their homes across Arab countries such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Algeria and Iran.
Jews were frequently subjected to pogroms, systemic violence and religious persecution. Their exiles were largely attributable to Arab regimes increasing their hostility toward Jews because of the very existence of Israel.
Today, while stories abound of many Arab refugees, few are aware or even acknowledge this forgotten exodus of Jewish refugees. Only in Israel has Nov. 30, the day after the UN voted to approve the Jewish-Arab partition plan of Palestine, been marked to commemorate their plight.
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The Canary Mission database was created to expose individuals and groups that are anti-Freedom, anti-American and anti-Semitic in order to protect the public and our democratic values.
http://jerusalemcats.com Jerusalem Cats; All about Cats and life in Jerusalem Israel
1948 Jewish 5 Palestine Pounds Note
Issuer Israel
Issuing bank Anglo-Palestine Bank Limited
Period State of Israel (1948-date)
Type Standard banknote
Years 1948-1952
Value 5 Palestine Pounds
Currency Palestine Pound (1948-1949)
Composition Paper
Size 105 × 68 mm
Shape Rectangular
Demonetized 23 June 1952
Number N# 207999
References P# 16 -
Jerusalem-80-percent- Jewish-British-1864-Census
An important piece of evidence: The British Palestine Exploration Fund survey map – 1871-1877 – The PEF people delineated every wadi, every settlement, tree, and home. They crisscrossed the territory, and an examination of the map shows how empty and barren the land was, and how few people lived there.
“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity… Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people… to oppose Zionism.” Zuheir Muhsein, the late Military Department head of the PLO and member of its Executive Council.; March 1977, Dutch daily Trouw
London cab driver’s answer to a request from a Muslim to turn off the radio. (You just got to love the Brits.)
A devout Arab Muslim entered a black cab in London .
He curtly asked the cabbie to turn off the radio because as decreed by his religious teaching, he must not listen to music because in the time of the prophet there was no music, especially Western music which is the music of the infidel.
The cab driver politely switched off the radio, stopped the cab and opened the door.
The Arab Muslim asked him, “What are you doing?”
The cabbie answered, “In the time of the prophet there were no taxis, so get out and wait for a camel.”
I wonder how many years (hundreds for sure) Jewish people have lived in Quebec. I don’t believe that they have ever demanded that pork be removed from the school’s menu where their children attend…
Excellent reply by the Mayor of Dorval, Quebec, to the demands of the Muslim population in his community.
Put some pork on your fork.
Too bad the USA doesn’t have the common sense to publish this nationwide, even if they have a muslim in the white house. Should also be posted on signs all along U.S. borders.Let’s hear it for a Quebec mayor.
MAYOR REFUSES TO REMOVE PORK FROM SCHOOL CANTEEN MENU. EXPLAINS WHY
Muslim parents demanded the abolition of pork in all the school canteens of a Montreal suburb. The mayor of the Montreal suburb of Dorval, has refused, and the town clerk sent a note to all parents to explain why..
“Muslims must understand that they have to adapt to Canada and Quebec, its customs, its traditions, its way of life, because that’s where they chose to immigrate.
“They must understand that they have to integrate and learn to live in Quebec .
“They must understand that it is for them to change their lifestyle, not the Canadians who so generously welcomed them.
“They must understand that Canadians are neither racist nor xenophobic, they accepted many immigrants before Muslims (whereas the reverse is not true, in that Muslim states do not accept non-Muslim immigrants).
“That no more than other nations, Canadians are not willing to give up their identity, their culture.
“And if Canada is a land of welcome, it’s not the Mayor of Dorval who welcomes foreigners, but the Canadian-Quebecois people as a whole.
“Finally, they must understand that in Canada ( Quebec ) with its Judeo-Christian roots, Christmas trees, churches and religious festivals, religion must remain in the private domain. The municipality of Dorval was right to refuse any concessions to Islam and Sharia.
“For Muslims who disagree with secularism and do not feel comfortable in Canada, there are 57 beautiful Muslim countries in the world, most of them under-populated and ready to receive them with open halal arms in accordance with Shariah.
“If you left your country for Canada, and not for other Muslim countries, it is because you have considered that life is better in Canada than elsewhere.
“Ask yourself the question, just once, “Why is it better here in Canada than where you come from?”
“A canteen with pork is part of the answer.”
If you feel the same forward it on.
Judea and Samaria not West Bank
This reminds me of a Morty Dolinsky story from the time he was head of the Government Press Office:
When the late Morty Dolinsky was in charge of the Government Press Office in the 1980s, he once famously replied to a reporter, who asked for information about the West Bank, that he knew no West Bank as he banked at Leumi. -
Sun in Taurus
Moon in Libra
12 degrees
Waxing Gibbous Moon
11 days old
The Weather report 1 Adar II-5782
The Weather report 1 Adar II-5782-Page 1
The Weather report 1 Adar II-5782-Page 2
The Godfather Theme Song
Countries sanctioning Russia 2022
The Rest of the World wants nothing to do with this mess!
JerusalemCats Comments: The following is for your information.
Azov-patch-2022-5-17 Ukraine Nazi Azov Battalion – source https://thedreizinreport.com/2022/05/17/the-fall-of-the-azov/
Ukraine Nazi Azov Battalion
The Dreizin Report – 2022-05-17 – The Fall of the Azov
Posted 17May2022 The Dreizin Report:
How did the Azov come about? Why were they never a part of the Ukrainian army? Why are almost all of them bearded? What is their place in history? What is the significance of their downfall? And everything else you ever wanted to know about the Azov! Stepan Bandera
-https://thedreizinreport.com/2022/05/17/the-fall-of-the-azov/
TOP
Why the War? Cui bono? Who benefits? :
Ukraine is a proxy war between the US Military Industrial Complex/Corrupt Deep State and Russia
The Truth about Russian Ukraine War
23February2023 Brachaim’s:
The truth about the war with Russian and Ukraine: The same corrupt Elite Globalists who orchestrated the Pandemic and Covid-19 are now pushing the world into World War 3.
https://reesereport.com/
TOP
The Russian do a lot to let the Ukrainians know how to get help to surrender but this video is as powerful and truthful as they come
Parsin_5_25-tweet-29August2023-The Russian do a lot to let the Ukrainians know how to get help to surrender
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Inside Russia’s Military Operation
Posted 09Novembe2022 iEarlGrey:
The West is shipping arms to Ukraine, and American and EU leaders keep discussing more supplies of tanks and planes instead of peaceful solutions. Military aid provided to Ukraine don’t change the course of the conflict and only increases the number of deaths among civilians and soldiers. Why the ongoing fighting in Ukraine is the fault of a years-long policy of the West and a boon for the American defence industry – in this documentary.
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Kyiv Seizes Assets Of Russian Orthodox Clerics
by Tyler Durden, 14December2022 – 10:30 AM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/kyiv-seizes-assets-russian-orthodox-clerics
Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,
Ukraine has ratcheted up its campaign against a branch of the Eastern Orthodox church with ties to Russia. On the order of President Volodymyr Zelensky, seven senior clerics from the Russian Orthodox church will have their assets seized and face bans on a range of economic and legal activities.
During his nightly video address on Sunday, the Ukrainian president said “by decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, sanctions were applied against seven people,” adding that his administration is “doing everything to ensure that the aggressor state does not have a single string of Ukrainian society to pull.”
St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kiev, Ukraine. Wikipedia image
According to Reuters, the new penalties mean that the seven clerics will have “their assets seized and are subject to a ban on a range of economic and legal activities as well as a de facto travel ban.”
The vast majority of Ukrainians belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church, with many worshiping in parishes that take direction from the Moscow Patriarchate. On December 1, Zelensky announced that Kiev would attempt to expel all religious institutions with ties to Russia, arguing the move would make it “impossible for religious organizations affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation to operate in Ukraine.”
The president went on the claim that the Russian Orthodox Church poses a threat to Ukrainian culture, saying “we will never allow anyone to build an empire inside the Ukrainian soul.”
He additionally denounced Ukrainians who continue to attend the allegedly Russia-controlled parishes as succumbing to “the temptation of evil.”
Orthodox Christianity-tweet-13December2022-Ukraine sanctions five more hierarchs
Kiev has conducted a series of raids on Russian Orthodox parishes and claims to have uncovered clerics attempting to subvert the Ukrainian government, though has provided little evidence to support its assertions.
Nonetheless, Kiev sanctioned 10 top clerics of the church last week, suggesting they threatened “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
Max Blumenthal-tweet-11December2022-Ukraine Russian books music banned
TOP
Nuclear Blackmail | The shelling of Zaporozhye power plant puts intl safety at risk (the shelling by Ukraine)
Posted 07Novmeber2022 iEarlGrey “Nuclear Blackmail | The shelling of Zaporozhye power plant puts intl safety at risk”:
The Zaporozhye nuclear plant in Energodar is the largest in Europe. Since March 2022 it has been under Russian control and Zaporozhye Region recently voted in a referendum to join Russia. In the meantime, Kiev continues to attack the plant, putting Europe at risk of a disaster six times bigger than the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Despite IAEA warnings and the referendum, Kiev continues to use the Zaporozhye plant as a blackmail tool. The documentary shows the timeline of the attacks and focuses on potential risks of Ukrainian provocations.
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Donbass: I’m Alive! | Mariupol survivors of Ukrainian attacks find shelter
Posted 15November2022 iEarlGreyTV: These are the NAZI Terrorist that Biden and the Neocon Democrats have installed in Ukraine and are supporting. Thank you, Victoria Nuland for the needless death and destruction, May you roast in Hell.
“It’s the Azov battalion. They forced people out of their houses and into basements. Then tanks started shooting from here, from there,” a Mariupol resident shared her story with the film crew. Over 400,000 people in Mariupol had to go underground because they couldn’t leave the city. The film tracks stories of people who had to survive in Mariupol under Ukrainian shelling. Sheltering in cellars and watching Ukrainian tanks firing at residential buildings. They have all gone through hell and back. Now they’re happy to be alive and hope for a new beginning.
A Russian military officer drives across shelled Mariupol to distribute humanitarian aid. A volunteer from Texas, who came to Donbass eight years ago, as he refused to believe American propaganda, helps reunite families separated during the evacuation. A hieromonk who was taken hostage by Azov members and tortured miraculously survived and dedicated his life to studying the origins of nazism in Ukraine. A courageous OB-GYN who runs a maternity ward helped give birth to 25 women during the bombing.
Hundreds of people who got a chance to be evacuated lost connections with the rest of their families who stayed. With no cell service and internet connection, their only hope was to get a word through Russian soldiers who would find relatives and friends and relay their messages.
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Is the West aiding and supporting the Hamas Nazis like it is supporting the Ukrainian Nazis?
Hamas Child suicide Bomb Terrorist
Shmuel HaNavi bus bombing From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Shmuel HaNavi bus bombing was the suicide bombing of a crowded public bus (Egged bus 2) in the Shmuel HaNavi quarter in Jerusalem, Israel, on August 19, 2003. Twenty-four people were killed and over 130 wounded. Many of the victims were children, some of them infants. The Islamist militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
Gaza “protesters” loft molotov cocktail on swastika kite over Israeli border
International Neo Nazi Fund
Victoria Nulland meets with Svoboda neo-nazis
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Stockman: No More Ukraines
by Tyler Durden, 28February, 2023 – 11:45 PM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/stockman-no-more-ukraines
Authored by David Stockman via LewRockwell.com,
Joe Biden must think that he’s the world’s Rich Uncle. In a meeting with the so-called Bucharest Nine today he promised these former Warsaw Pact nations—which should never have been admitted to NATO in the first place—unlimited economic and military support.
Nine more Ukraines if need be.
Biden conveyed reassurances that the United States is prepared to speed to their defense if they come under offensive action by Moscow. These nations include Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
For want of doubt, here’s the just-in-case-you-missed-the-message amplification from NSC spokesman John Kirby. Said the Deep State’s favorite shill, who is apparently serving the national security complex in endless rotation, having moved from State to DOD and then to the National Security Council during the last decade, with a stop in between at CNN:
He said the president’s purpose in the meeting is to “reaffirm the United States’ unwavering support for the security of that alliance and trans-Atlantic unity.” It’s also meant to send a message to Putin that his country can’t intimidate these democracies, some of them relatively new and fragile.
Well, let’s see. Where is it documented that Putin has ever threatened Bulgaria or Hungary or Slovakia or Lithuania or any of the others for that matter? As it transpired, Hungary’s leader even refused to attend this pointless Biden photo op.
After all, what in the world could Putin gain by attacking these nations and occupying what would be hostile populations and damaged economies? A tremendous fiscal drain on his already beleaguered finances would be the only certainty.
The fact is, Washington has become so crazed with anti-Putin war fever that it doesn’t even ask, let alone answer, these foundational questions. Instead, it has just lapsed into grade school reasoning by analogy. If Putin attacked the government of Ukraine, why then it’s a sure bet that the nine yellow dominoes highlighted in the map below are next on the list to fall.
Bucharest Nine NATO European Countries
No, not at all. Ukraine is sui generis. It’s a hodge-podge of variant histories, ethnicities and religious traditions that never belonged under the roof of a single state.
Moreover, its propinquity to things Russian is an unassailable matter of history. Prior to the arrival of communist rule after WWI, its various regions had marinated for centuries as vassals under the tutelage of Czarist Russia. Ukraine’s historically meandering boundaries, in fact, were only finally frozen in current form by the brutal dictates of Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev.
During the long amalgamated history of these neighboring, mainly Slavic populations the eastern and southern portions of the current Ukraine map became populated and economically developed by Russian speaking migrants. At length, they converted the largely empty, herder-dominated steppes into the flourishing bread basket, mining district and industrial work shop of old Russia.
This arrangement was essentially continued by the communist commissars after they consolidated control in 1922, save only for an arbitrary administrative re-arrangement which put the old “Novorossiya” (New Russia) of Catherine the Great’s time into a wholly unnatural state rechristened as the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine.
These artificial borders and the ethnic hodge-podge within them were held together at the gun point of Ukraine’s local communist rulers until 1991, when the scourge of Soviet Communism perished from the earth. And almost immediately thereafter, the elections showed that the state confected by Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev had never been built to last; and that the verdict of Ukraine’s nascent democracy was that partition would someday be the only answer.
As it happened, Viktor Yanukovych was the last democratically elected politician before Washington essentially took-over the country. Of course, by the writ of the Ukraine’s de facto rulers on the Potomac he was illegally deposed and driven out of the country via the coup d’ etat in February 2014.
Needless to say, Yanukovych had been the champion of the Russian speaking populations of the Donbas and southern rim of the Black Sea. He ran on what was called the “Regions” party platform in both 2004 and 2010, against vehemently pro-Ukrainian candidates, whose bases of support were in the central and west geographies.
As shown in the two maps below, both elections were a case of red state versus blue state electoral division on steroids. Except unlike the US where a GOP gubernatorial candidate actually got a 47% showing in the deep blue state of New York this past election, the vote split in the most hard core of the respective regions (dark red and dark blue) was upwards of 90/10 in many localities.
In the 2004 election, Yanukovych narrowly lost the overall count, even as he dominated overwhelmingly in the east and south.
2004 Election Results in Ukraine
2004 Election Results in Ukraine
By contrast, in 2010 Yanukovych retraced the same massive domination of his own Russian-speaking regions while striking out in the west. But this time with the help of Washington-based election consultants (i.e. the infamous Paul Manafort) he managed to accumulate enough incremental votes to come out on top in the nation-wide tally.
2010 Election Results in Ukraine
2010 Election Results in Ukraine
Needless to say, when the foolish neocons led by the detestable Victoria Nuland, who surrounded then Vice-President Joe Biden, fomented the coup against Yanukovych in February 2014 they had no clue as to the tenuous political balance they were upending.
But it didn’t take long to strike the match. In short order the followers of the WWII Hitler ally, Stephan Bandera, who dominated the unelected, Washington-installed government in Kiev, made two destructive moves that amounted to a signal to “let the partition begin”.
The first of these was to abolish Russian as an official language in the Donbass and elsewhere. And the second was the massacre by fire of pro-Russian trade unionists in a building in Odessa by supporters of the Kiev government.
It was only a matter of time, therefore, before most of the red-colored territories on the maps above declared their independence. It was also in short order that the people of what had been the Russian province of Crimea after Catherine the Great purchased it from the Ottoman’s in 1783 voted overwhelmingly to re-join the Russian Federation. That ended their brief sojourn in the Ukrainian state, which had been Khrushchev’s 1954 gift to the communist thugs in Kiev who had helped him seize power after Stalin’s death.
Also, in short order the new proto-Fascist government in Kiev moved to deeply antagonize its historic neighbor and former fealty overlord in Moscow by seeking to join NATO and launching a brutal, unrelenting war on the breakaway Republics of the Donbas. This onslaught ended up killing upwards of 15,000 civilians during the eight year run-up to Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Needless to say, Putin was no more interested in having nuclear missiles planted even closer to his own border than was President John Kennedy in October 1962. Nor was he about to countenance the continued slaughter of Russian speakers in the Donbass after Kiev launched a drastically stepped up shelling and bombing campaign on these beleaguered areas one week before the February 24th invasion.
Below, we will amplify further on the overwhelming reasons why the Ukraine situation is a one-off civil war situation and the unfinished and unstable residue of a state which was never built to last.
Accordingly, it is not a case at all of legitimate sovereign borders being violated. Nor does it involve an assault on the hypocritical notion of a “liberal international order” that has not actually ever existed and which, instead, has been a cover for Washington’s global hegemony all along.
But the lessons are nonetheless profound. History accumulates and eventually leads to destructive, but wholly unnecessary outcomes.
That is the case today with the utterly foolish action of Washington during the 1990s and 2000s to bring former Warsaw Pact Nations, and even breakaway Soviet Republics into a NATO alliance whose mission was over and done in 1991.
It should have been dismantled then and there. When the old Soviet monster with its 50,000 tanks and 7,000 nuclear warheads posed along-side the Bucharest Nine pictured above disappeared into the dustbin of history, there was no longer a threat to the east. There was no “front line” to defend.
At that point Washington should have and easily could have led the world to disarmament and to a revival of the lasting peace that had disappeared in the “Guns of August” in 1914.
But now the NATO section 5 mutual defense commitment to these nations is equivalent to a stupid charity that the nearly bankrupt Federal government cannot afford in any case.
There is absolutely nothing in it for the enhancement of America’s homeland security, and huge incentives for the politicians of these nations to caterwaul against Russia rather than seek peaceful accommodation.
But Sleepy Joe is a captive of the Dems “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and cannot think rationally for a moment about the Russian President.
Still, the latter most definitely did not cause the Dems to loose the 2016 election. They brought Trump’s freakish victory upon themselves by their choice of candidate and embrace of policies that much of Flyover America found deeply repugnant.
When Washington began its foolish campaign to expand NATO to Russia’s doorstep in 1997, there was one American who actually possessed more knowledge, experience and analytical savvy about Russia and eastern Europe than the entire treaty-ratifying US Senate combined.
We are referring, of course, to Ambassador George F. Kennan. The latter was the intellectual father of the post-war containment policy against the Soviet Union and had spent decades in the US embassies of Europe and the Soviet Union, before going on to hold high rank in the State Department during the crucial years after WWII when the Cold War was born. Thereafter he joined academia at Princeton, where he produced a prodigious flow of scholarly work on national security policy, including a ringing dissent on the folly of LBJ’s war on Vietnam.
So by the time he penned a New York Times op ed upon the initial expansion of NATO in 1997, which he succinctly entitled “A Fateful Error”, the 93-year old Kennan had decades and decades of wisdom under his belt as a policy-maker and historian. And almost all of it was directly pertinent to the disorder left behind in the wake of the sudden collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991.
Kennan pulled no punches on the matter of NATO expansion:
A fair share of the script readers and stenographers who comprise today’s mainstream media, of course, have a faint knowledge of George Kennan and his unequivocal stance against NATO expansion, if any at all. Their blinders are simply the product of a quarter-century of accumulated recency bias—a process by which the once unthinkable becomes the unchallenged status quo.
The fact is, once the Soviet Union with its 50,000 tanks, 40,000 nuclear warheads, 5 million men under arms and frightfully militarized economy disappeared into the dustbin of history there was no purpose whatsoever for the perpetuation of NATO.
In that sense, Kennan’s “containment” policy had achieved 100% of its goal. The fearsome enemy on the eastern flank of Europe had literally vanished, meaning that what had been a one-time expedient of the Cold War could and should have been disbanded. In the rubble of the dismembered Soviet Union there was no threat left and nothing to defend or contain.
NATO’s warranted interment didn’t happen, however, and for the immensely trivial reason that the utterly unprincipled Bill Clinton determined to make hay one more time in the political posturing grounds of the “Captive Nations”. And with respect to this long forgotten matter your editor happened to have held a front row seat.
When we went to work on Capitol Hill for a GOP congressman at the peak of the Cold War in 1970 our first assignment was drafting a resolution during Captive Nations Week calling for the liberation of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania etc from yoke of Soviet tyranny. Such resolutions had nothing to do with actual policy, of course, which was to leave the Great Russian Bear undisturbed in his lair called the Warsaw Pact. But as a home-front politicking matter such resolutions were catnip to the eastern European constituencies.
After eastern Europe was peacefully liberated in 1991, however, this Captive Nations gambit became self-evidently obsolete, but the Clinton Administration soon had a handy PR substitute. Namely, NATO membership for the woebegone remnants of the Warsaw Pact—a seemingly harmless gesture that had no real purpose other than to express solidarity with back home constituencies of eastern European descent.
NATO expansion, in effect, was a way for Washington politicians to say: We are still with you!
Indeed, since there was no plausible reason for maintaining a war alliance against an enemy that didn’t exist, NATO became the equivalent of a diplomatic American Legion hall. It was a place for bureaucratic veterans of the Cold War to swap combat stories and to pretend they still had something worthwhile to do.
Unfortunately, it didn’t stay that harmless. The military-industrial complex soon realized that it needed a tangible enemy to justify current procurement and new weapons systems and also that the former Captive Nations comprised an expanded market for its wares.
So the 14 new NATO nations formed a ready-made shopping mall for additional weapons sales.
new NATO nations by Date
That all might have been harmless enough, save for two untoward developments. The first was the designation of Russia and Putin as enemy #1 by the neocons after their adventures against “terrorism” in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the middle east came a cropper a few years after the memory of 9/11 had dimmed.
The demonization of Putin became especially urgent in late 2013 when he deftly put the kibosh on the neocon’s plan for regime change in Syria. By convincing Assad to give up his chemical weapons under international supervision, the case for military removal of the Syrian president quickly evaporated.
In short order, however, these same neocons got their revenge by fomenting a coup d’ etat on Putin’s doorstep in Ukraine. And it was led by Washington’s hand-picked proto-fascists who detested all things Russian, including the considerable populations and regions of Ukraine which were Russian-speaking.
As it happened, you don’t need a tinfoil hat to recognize the near-conspiracy on the banks of the Potomac that sent the fragile politics of the artificial state of Ukraine into a tail-spin, and which at length paved the way to the catastrophe underway there at present.
The fact is, the detestable Kagan family comprises the high preisthood of the neocon synod that has infiltrated the foreign policy establishment of both parties. And it just so happens that the very high priest of that lamentable synod, Robert Kagan, is married to Victoria Nuland, a war-mongering national security apparatchik who has served every administration since Bush the Younger, and who was the archetict of the Maidan coup on the streets of Kiev in February 2014.
From that moment on, Putin was transformed from a mere bad guy into the incarnation of evil itself in the neocon narrative. And his rational actions after the coup to reclaim Moscow’s centuries old naval bases in Russian Crimea and to offer succor to the imperiled Russian-speaking populations of the Donbas only added fuel to the fire.
But then came the deluge. In a word, the freakish election of Donald Trump in 2016 was falsely laid at Putin’s doorstep, even as Washington’s bipartisan ruling elites and their henchman in the mainstream media went berserk against the Donald.
At length, it turned into a a full-fledged mania—a Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) that pales into insignificance prior outbreaks of American political irrationality, such as the McCarthyism of the 1950s and the Red Hunts of 1919.
In a word, the TDS has utterly destroyed Washington’s foreign policy compass. The demonization of Putin has become so extreme and un-moored from reality that Washington is literally possessed by a ghost of the old Soviet Union. That is, it imagines a ferocious and powerful enemy on the “eastern front” that simply does not exist.
For crying out loud, GDP is a measure of latent capacity to make war, but the GDP of NATO is 26 times larger than that of Russia. Likewise, defense budgets are a measure of actual current military capacity, of which NATO’s war spending is 15 times larger. And that’s in the here and now.
Moreover, from the point of view of Vlad Putin leaping over the Atlantic and Pacific ocean moats to invade the American shores, the question recurs: How many aircraft carriers does he have compared to America’s 20 aircraft and heliocraft carriers?
One!
And it’s 38 years old!
In a word, the absurdity of Washington’s proxy war against Russia and this week’s meeting of the so-called Bucharest Nine is the product of a foreign policy compass that has been shattered by two decades worth of myths and lies that served the short-term interests of Washington’s career politicians and their Deep State masters.
But go back to the fact that George Kennan was right 26 years ago and the truth that nothing has changed in the interim to alter his judgement.
In that context, what would a president not entombed in the false narrative of the past quarter century actually do?
Here are a few possible starters:
That would be a start. It would put America back on the road toward rational homeland security, and enable a global future not imperiled by the threat of Nuclear Armageddon.
* * *
Originally posted at David Stockman’s Contra Corner.
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Fast Forward to Fascism [Ukraine today]
Posted 12November2022 iEarlGreyTV:
The nationalist movement in Ukraine didn’t just happen; it took years to build. It’s been growing for years, nurtured by western curators and supported by western funds. By the beginning of the Maidan, an entire network of neo-nazi units had already been up and running in Ukraine, but the Ukrainian government didn’t prosecute them. Ready and able military and terrorist units dispersed and showed up at anti-Maidan meetings in Ukraine’s cities. The years 2019 and 2020 saw meetings and protests in Kiev demanding the denial of special status for the DNR and LNR breakaway regions.
One of its main goals was to form an ideology that would dehumanize Russians and break all ties that existed for decades before. Initially, Russians weren’t seen as a minority in Ukraine, but the anti-Russian sentiment gradually became overwhelming. Nationalists have been taught how to lead a war on social media, eventually launching a guided communication battle against the Russian people.
Stepan Bandera was the head of the Ukrainian nationalist organisation in 1929. In 1934, the Gestapo accepted the Berlin chapter of the organization — he organized terrorist acts, killing officials. In 1941, the Ukrainian nationalist organization was responsible for the biggest Jewish pogrom in Lvov, killing about 7,000 people. Yet, in 2010, Stepan Bandera was pronounced a national hero, with torch-lit marches in his honour ever since.
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Zelensky awards Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the ‘Hero of Ukraine’ award
How Ukraine’s Jewish president Zelensky made peace with neo-Nazi paramilitaries on front lines of war with Russia
Alexander Rubinstein and Max Blumenthal, March 4, 2022 https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/04/nazis-ukrainian-war-russia/
While Western media deploys Volodymyr Zelensky’s Jewish heritage to refute accusations of Nazi influence in Ukraine, the president has ceded to neo-Nazi forces and now depends on them as front line fighters.
Back in October 2019, as the war in eastern Ukraine dragged on, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to Zolote, a town situated firmly in the “gray zone” of Donbas, where over 14,000 had been killed, mostly on the pro-Russian side. There, the president encountered the hardened veterans of extreme right paramilitary units keeping up the fight against separatists just a few miles away.
Elected on a platform of de-escalation of hostilities with Russia, Zelensky was determined to enforce the so-called Steinmeier Formula conceived by then-German Foreign Minister Walter Steinmeier which called for elections in the Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.
In a face-to-face confrontation with militants from the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion who had launched a campaign to sabotage the peace initiative called “No to Capitulation,” Zelensky encountered a wall of obstinacy.
With appeals for disengagement from the frontlines firmly rejected, Zelensky melted down on camera. “I’m the president of this country. I’m 41 years old. I’m not a loser. I came to you and told you: remove the weapons,” Zelensky implored the fighters.
Liveuamap-tweet-26October2019-Zelensky has visited disengaging area in Zolote today
Once video of the stormy confrontation spread across Ukrainian social media channels, Zelensky became the target of an angry backlash.
Andriy Biletsky, the proudly fascist Azov Battalion leader who once pledged to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen”, vowed to bring thousands of fighters to Zolote if Zelensky pressed any further. Meanwhile, a parliamentarian from the party of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko openly fantasized about Zelensky being blown to bits by a militant’s grenade.
Though Zelensky achieved a minor disengagement, the neo-Nazi paramilitaries escalated their “No Capitulation” campaign. And within months, fighting began to heat up again in Zolote, sparking a new cycle of violations of the Minsk Agreement.
By this point, Azov had been formally incorporated into the Ukrainian military and its street vigilante wing, known as the National Corps, was deployed across the country under the watch of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, and alongside the National Police. In December 2021, Zelensky would be seen delivering a “Hero of Ukraine” award to a leader of the fascistic Right Sector in a ceremony in Ukraine’s parliament.
A full-scale conflict with Russia was approaching, and the distance between Zelensky and the extremist paramilitaries was closing fast.
This February 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukrainian territory on a stated mission to “demilitarize and denazify” the country, US media embarked on a mission of its own: to deny the power of neo-Nazi paramilitaries over the country’s military and political sphere. As the US government-funded National Public Radio insisted, “Putin’s language [about denazification] is offensive and factually wrong.”
In its bid to deflect from the influence of Nazism in contemporary Ukraine, US media has found its most effective PR tool in the figure of Zelensky, a former TV star and comedian from a Jewish background. It is a role the actor-turned-politician has eagerly assumed.
But as we will see, Zelensky has not only ceded ground to the neo-Nazis in his midst, he has entrusted them with a front line role in his country’s war against pro-Russian and Russian forces.
The president’s Jewishness as Western media PR device
Hours before President Putin’s February 24 speech declaring denazification as the goal of Russian operations, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “asked how a people who lost eight million of its citizens fighting Nazis could support Nazism,” according to the BBC.
Raised in a non-religious Jewish family in the Soviet Union during the 1980’s, Zelensky has downplayed his heritage in the past. “The fact that I am Jewish barely makes 20 in my long list of faults,” he joked during a 2019 interview in which he declined to go into further detail about his religious background.
Today, as Russian troops bear down on cities like Mariupol, which is effectively under the control of the Azov Battalion, Zelensky is no longer ashamed to broadcast his Jewishness. “How could I be a Nazi?” he wondered aloud during a public address. For a US media engaged in an all-out information war against Russia, the president’s Jewish background has become an essential public relations tool.
Alex Rubinstein-tweet-28February2022-Watch left & right wing factions of MSM unite
A few examples of the US media’s deployment of Zelensky as a shield against allegations of rampant Nazism in Ukraine are below (see mash-up above for video):
Behind the corporate media spin lies the complex and increasingly close relationship Zelensky’s administration has enjoyed with the neo-Nazi forces invested with key military and political posts by the Ukrainian state, and the power these open fascists have enjoyed since Washington installed a Western-aligned regime through a coup in 2014.
In fact, Zelensky’s top financial backer, the Ukrainian Jewish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, has been a key benefactor of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and other extremists militias.
The Azov Battalion marches with Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel flags in Mariupol, August 2020
Backed by Zelensky’s top financier, neo-Nazi militants unleash a wave of intimidation
Incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard, the Azov Battalion is considered the most ideologically zealous and militarily motivated unit fighting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donbass region.
With Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel insignia on the uniforms of its fighters, who have been photographed with Nazi SS symbols on their helmets, Azov “is known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology…[and] is believed to have participated in training and radicalizing US-based white supremacy organizations,” according to an FBI indictment of several US white nationalists that traveled to Kiev to train with Azov.
Igor Kolomoisky, a Ukrainian energy baron of Jewish heritage, has been a top funder of Azov since it was formed in 2014. He has also bankrolled private militias like the Dnipro and Aidar Battalions, and has deployed them as a personal thug squad to protect his financial interests.
In 2019, Kolomoisky emerged as the top backer of Zelensky’s presidential bid. Though Zelensky made anti-corruption the signature issue of his campaign, the Pandora Papers exposed him and members of his inner circle stashing large payments from Kolomoisky in a shadowy web of offshore accounts.
President Zelensky (C) meets with billionaire oligarch and business associate Ihor Kolomoisky on September 10, 2019
When Zelensky took office in May 2019, the Azov Battalion maintained de facto control of the strategic southeastern port city of Mariupol and its surrounding villages. As Open Democracy noted, “Azov has certainly established political control of the streets in Mariupol. To maintain this control, they have to react violently, even if not officially, to any public event which diverges sufficiently from their political agenda.”
Attacks by Azov in Mariupol have included assaults on “feminists and liberals” marching on International Women’s Day among other incidents.
In March 2019, members of the Azov Battalion’s National Corps attacked the home of Viktor Medvedchuk, the leading opposition figure in Ukraine, accusing him of treason for his friendly relations with Vladimir Putin, the godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter.
Zelensky’s administration escalated the attack on Medvedchuk, shuttering several media outlets he controlled in February 2021 with the open approval of the US State Department, and jailing the opposition leader for treason three months later. Zelensky justified his actions on the grounds that he needed to “fight against the danger of Russian aggression in the information arena.”
Next, in August 2020, Azov’s National Corps opened fire on a bus containing members of Medvedchuk’s party, Patriots for Life, wounding several with rubber-coated steel bullets.
The Eurasianist-tweet-27August2020-bus carrying members of Ukraine’s opposition party was attacked by Ukrainian National Corps
Zelensky failed to rein in neo-Nazis, wound up collaborating with them
Following his failed attempt to demobilize neo-Nazi militants in the town of Zolote in October 2019, Zelensky called the fighters to the table, telling reporters “I met with veterans yesterday. Everyone was there – the National Corps, Azov, and everyone else.”
A few seats away from the Jewish president was Yehven Karas, the leader of the neo-Nazi C14 gang.
Zelensky meets with “veterans” including Yehven Karas (far right) and Dmytro Shatrovsky, an Azov Battalion leader (bottom left).
During the Maidan “Revolution of Dignity” that ousted Ukraine’s elected president in 2014, C14 activists took over Kiev’s city hall and plastered its walls with neo-Nazi insignia before taking shelter in the Canadian embassy.
As the former youth wing of the ultra-nationalist Svoboda Party, C14 appears to draw its name from the infamous 14 words of US neo-Nazi leader David Lane: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
By offering to carry out acts of spectacular violence on behalf of anyone willing to pay, the hooligans have fostered a cozy relationship with various governing bodies and powerful elites across Ukraine.
C14 neo-Nazi gang offers to carry out violence-for-hire: “C14 works for you. Help us keep afloat, and we will help you. For regular donors, we are opening a box for wishes. Which of your enemies would you like to make life difficult for? We’ll try to do that.”
A March 2018 report by Reuters stated that “C14 and Kiev’s city government recently signed an agreement allowing C14 to establish a ‘municipal guard’ to patrol the streets,” effectively giving them the sanction of the state to carry out pogroms.
As The Grayzone reported, C14 led raid to “purge” Romani from Kiev’s railway station in collaboration with the Kiev police.
Alex Rubinstein-tweet-28February2022-C14 Nazi terror gang carrying out a pogrom against a Romani camp
Not only was this activity sanctioned by the Kiev city government, the US government itself saw little problem with it, hosting Bondar at an official US government institution in Kiev where he bragged about the pogroms. C14 continued to receive state funding throughout 2018 for “national-patriotic education.”
Karas has claimed that the Ukrainian Security Serves would “pass on” information regarding pro-separatist rallies “not only [to] us, but also Azov, the Right Sector and so on.”
“In general, deputies of all factions, the National Guard, the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ministry of Internal Affairs work for us. You can joke like that,” Karas said.
Throughout 2019, Zelensky and his administration deepened their ties with ultra-nationalist elements across Ukraine.
Then-Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk onstage at the neo-Nazi “Veterans Strong” concert
After Prime Minister attends neo-Nazi concert, Zelensky honors Right Sector leader
Just days after Zelensky’s meeting with Karas and other neo-Nazi leaders in November 2019, Oleksiy Honcharuk – then the Prime Minister and deputy head of Zelensky’s presidential office – appeared on stage at a neo-Nazi concert organized by C14 figure and accused murderer Andriy Medvedko.
Zelensky’s Minister for Veterans Affairs not only attended the concert, which featured several antisemitic metal bands, she promoted the concert on Facebook.
Also in 2019, Zelensky defended Ukrainian footballer Roman Zolzulya against Spanish fans taunting him as a “Nazi.” Zolzulya had posed beside photos of the World War II-era Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera and openly supported the Azov Battalion. Zelensky responded to the controversy by proclaiming that all of Ukraine backed Zolzulya, describing him as “not only a cool football player but a true patriot.”
In November 2021, one of Ukraine’s most prominent ultra-nationalist militiamen, Dmytro Yarosh, announced that he had been appointed as an advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Yarosh is an avowed follower of the Nazi collaborator Bandera who led Right Sector from 2013 to 2015, vowing to lead the “de-Russification” of Ukraine.
Dmytro Yarosh poses with Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces
A month later, as war with Russia drew closer, Zelensky awarded Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the “Hero of Ukraine” commendation. Known as “Da Vinci,” Kosyubaylo keeps a pet wolf in his frontline base, and likes to joke to visiting reporters that his fighters “feed it the bones of Russian-speaking children.”
Zelensky awards Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the ‘Hero of Ukraine’ award
Zelensky awards Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the ‘Hero of Ukraine’ award
Ukrainian state-backed neo-Nazi leader flaunts influence on the eve of war with Russia
On February 5, 2022, only days before full-scale war with Russia erupted, Yevhen Karas of the neo-Nazi C14 delivered a stem-winding public address in Kiev intended to highlight the influence his organization and others like it enjoyed over Ukrainian politics.
Alex Rubinstein-tweet-27February2022-Yevhen Karas the leader of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi terror gang C14’s speech
“LGBT and foreign embassies say ‘there were not many Nazis at Maidan, maybe about 10 percent of real ideological ones,’” Karas remarked. “If not for those eight percent [of neo-Nazis] the effectiveness [of the Maidan coup] would have dropped by 90 percent.”
The 2014 Maidan “Revolution of Dignity” would have been a “gay parade” if not for the instrumental role of neo-Nazis, he proclaimed.
Karas went on to opine that the West armed Ukrainian ultra-nationalists because “we have fun killing.” He also fantasized about the balkanization of Russia, declaring that it should be broken up into “five different” countries.
Yevhen Karas delivering the Nazi salute
“If we get killed…we died fighting a holy war”
When Russian forces entered Ukraine this February 24, encircling the Ukrainian military in the east and driving towards Kiev, President Zelensky announced a national mobilization that included the release of criminals from prison, among them accused murderers wanted in Russia. He also blessed the distribution of arms to average citizens, and their training by battle-hardened paramilitaries like the Azov Battalion.
With fighting underway, Azov’s National Corps gathered hundreds of ordinary civilians, including grandmothers and children, to train in public squares and warehouses from Kharviv to Kiev to Lviv.
Max Blumenthal-tweet-1March2022-Azov Battalion’s fighters training and passing out arms to residents of Kharkiv
On February 27, the official Twitter account of the National Guard of Ukraine posted video of “Azov Fighters” greasing their bullets with pig fat to humiliate Russian Muslim fighters from Chechnya.
НГУ-tweet-27February2022-Azov fighters of the National Guard greased the bullets with lard against the Kadyrov orcs
A day later, the Azov Battalion’s National Corps announced that the Azov Battalion’s Kharkiv Regional Police would begin using the city’s Regional State Administration building as a defense headquarters. Footage posted to Telegram the following day shows the Azov-occupied building being hit by a Russian airstrike.
Besides authorizing the release of hardcore criminals to join the battle against Russia, Zelensky has ordered all males of fighting age to remain in the country. Azov militants have proceeded to enforce the policy by brutalizing civilians attempting to flee from the fighting around Mariupol.
According to one Greek resident in Mariupol recently interviewed by a Greek news station, “When you try to leave you run the risk of running into a patrol of the Ukrainian fascists, the Azov Battalion,” he said, adding “they would kill me and are responsible for everything.”
Footage posted online appears to show uniformed members of a fascist Ukrainian militia in Mariupol violently pulling fleeing residents out of their vehicles at gunpoint.
Deus Abscondis-tweet-26February2022-Ukrainian NAZI are preventing people from leaving Mariupol and are shooting at them
Other video filmed at checkpoints around Mariupol showed Azov fighters shooting and killing civilians attempting to flee.
On March 1, Zelensky replaced the regional administrator of Odessa with Maksym Marchenko, a former commander of the extreme right Aidar Battalion, which has been accused of an array of war crimes in the Donbass region.
Meanwhile, as a massive convoy of Russian armored vehicles bore down on Kiev, Yehven Karas of the neo-Nazi C14 posted a video on YouTube from inside a vehicle presumably transporting fighters.
“If we get killed, it’s fucking great because it means we died fighting a holy war,” Karas exclaimed. ”If we survive, it’s going to be even fucking better! That’s why I don’t see a downside to this, only upside!”
Alex Rubinstein
Alexander Rubinstein
Alex Rubinstein is an independent reporter on Substack. You can subscribe to get free articles from him delivered to your inbox here. If you want to support his journalism, which is never put behind a paywall, you can give a one-time donation to him through PayPal here or sustain his reporting through Patreon here.
Max Blumenthal
Max Blumenthal
Editor-in-Chief
The editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.
The Real Politick with Mark Sleboda
Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief is an Open Banderite Fascist
Mark Sleboda
Mark Sleboda, 14January2023 https://marksleboda.substack.com/p/ukraines-commander-in-chief-is-an?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
The Real Politick with Mark Sleboda – Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief is an Open Banderite Fascist
Since the openly West-backed Maidan Putsch in 2014, January 1st has been proclaimed a national holiday in Ukraine, celebrating the birthday of the genocidal WW2-era West Ukrainian fascist and anti-semite ideologue, terrorist insurgent leader, Nazi collaborator, and Holocaust perpetrator, Stepan Bandera.
Nazi Stepan Bandera
celebration of Stepan Bandera
For the last eight years it has been marked by horrifying torchlit nighttime parades of the regime’s NeoNazi deathsquads and brownshirts goose-stepping through the streets of the capital, Kiev.
Ukraine: march for Bandera’s birthday
This year the Kiev Putsch regime’s Parliamentary body the Rada, celebrated the fascist holiday with a tweet, now deleted, on Twitter showing the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 4 star general Valery Zaluzhny, standing smiling smugly, in front of a portrait of Stepan Bandera, accompanied by one of Bandera’s quotes,
“The complete and final victory of Ukrainian nationalism will come when the Russian empire ceases to exist.” And then added, “A fight against the Russian empire is currently underway. And the precepts of Stepan Bandera are well known to the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.”
Christopher Lash-tweet-2January2023-tweet commemorating Stepan Bandera
This is hardly the first such revelation. Zaluzhnyi is infamously known as open ideological supporter of Stepan Bandera, now officially glorified by the West-backed Kiev Putsch regime as a hero and “founding father” of the new Ukraine under their rule and vision.
This is almost certainly one of the criteria for which he was chosen to lead the Kiev regime’s military forces.
In 2021, right after becoming the Kiev regime’s Commander-In-Chief, Zaluzhny officially appointed Dmitry Yarosh, the head and founder of the NeoNazi & white supremacist paramilitary group, the Right Sector, as his personal “senior military advisor”.
Ukraine appoints former neo-Nazi paramilitray leader to senior army advisory role
And Zaluzhny obviously loves throwing around pr photo shoots of himself brazenly displaying his Banderite fascist bona fides. Yes –despite the fact that his President, Zelenskiy, has a Jewish daddy.
This year, the Kiev regime’s Commander-in-Chief posted to his own Twitter account a “frontline” photo of him striding in uniform, with assault rifle in hand, prominently displaying a bracelet carved with swastikas.
Lamely the Western MSM echoed every crypto-NeoNazi ever by claiming, “Its not a swastika, its just an ancient Viking symbol”. Seriously?
Yeah, I’m sure the Bandera-worshipping head of the Ukrainian military was wearing swastikas just because he’s secretly a Norse pagan.
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine-tweet-6October2022
Ukrainian army’s commander-in-chief poses with swastika bracelet
In another photo from this year, Zaluzhnyi is shown in uniform standing in a military office with several other soldiers in front of a desk adorned with busts of OUN-B leaders and Nazi-collaborators Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych. Photos of both Shukhevych and Bandera are also prominently hanging on the wall in the background along with the red and black Banderite flag.
Zaluzhnyi is shown in uniform standing in a military office
A separate photo taken of Zaluzhnyi’s office also has a bust of Bandera displayed prominently for all to see on a table against the wall.
Zaluzhnyi’s office also has a bust of Bandera
In a recent interview with the Economist, Zaluzhny said flat out-
“We’ve been at war since 2014… And the most important experience we had and the one which we have practiced almost like a religion is that Russians and any other enemies must be killed, just killed, and most importantly, we should not be afraid, not hesitate, to do it. And this is what we are doing.”
Yes they have been indeed killing Russians since 2014.
In a civil conflict in country where 20% of the population is ethnic Russian and a significant proportion of the rest, particularly in the East, are Russian-speaking and regard Russians as a brother people, not as “the enemy”.
Percentage of Ethnic Russian in Ukraine by region in 2001 Ukrainian census
Ukraine and Crimea by ethnic identity
This is the Banderite fascist Commander-in-Chief of a military armed, trained, given C4ISR, directed and puppeted by NATO and funded to the cost of now hundreds of billions of Western taxpayer dollars in a proxy war on Russia. He’s celebrated in Western media reports, magazine covers, and newspaper front pages as a hero!
How can this be?
The grim reality is that as long as Zaluzhny’s hatred and violence, and that of his NeoNazi hordes, are directed, for the moment, primarily against ethnic Russians, “pro-Russian Eastern Ukrainians” and leftists, then his brand of Banderite fascism is geopolitically useful to the West, and thus “kosher”.
Indeed the US and Canada have a long documented history of supporting Banderite fascists in Ukraine, and their analoques in the Baltics, back to the immediate aftermath of WW2.
Zaluschny…Hey – the bastard may be a fascist, but he’s OUR fascist, god-damn it!
Ukraine’s Commander in Chief is an Open Fascist
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PRRESS – Trending Italian News
Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding
Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding
by Alex Viajaenmoto https://prress.com/world/heres-what-the-azov-battalion-tattoos-are-hiding/
[EDD: Original Post:
Ecco cosa nascondono i tatuaggi del Battaglione Azov
23 Maggio 2022 – 08:57
Il ministero della Difesa russo mostra le immagini dei prigionieri del Battaglione Azov, accusato di simpatie neonaziste. Abbiamo analizzato i tatuaggi dei militari ucraini: cosa rappresentano
Matteo Carnieletto
23May2022 Matteo Carnieletto https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/mondo/ecco-cosa-nascondono-i-tatuaggi-battaglione-azov-2036447.html ]
The soldiers of the Azov Battalion they are called one by one. A nod from the Russian soldiers, who ask
the surrendered to lift their shirt and put on their underwear, is enough. The men of the Kremlin scan the militiamen in search of tattoos that, in some way, recall the Nazi symbolism. And they find many.
After all, the president Vladimir Putin – announcing the start of the “special operation”, as the Kremlin called it – he promised he would “denazify“ Ukraine.
And these images, released by the Ministry of Defense and aimed primarily at the Russian people, prove it. What the soldiers of Moscow are fighting is a war against the new Nazism.
The most common symbol is that of the Battalion, wrapped in the yellow and blue colors of the Ukrainian flag. As we have already explained, it is the Wolfsangel the love of the wolves, which was the first coat of arms of the party founded by Adolf Hitler then also entered the iconography of SS.
Other soldiers wear the black Sun used before by the Thule company one of the esoteric organizations that contributed to the thought and rise of Nazism, and then from the Schutzstaffel, the aforementioned SS.
Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 2
Another frequently recurring element is the Totenkrof, the “death’s head”. It is a skull from whose nape emerge some crossbones. Starting in 1809, this symbol was widely used in German military and political iconography. But it is during the Third Reich that the use of the Totenkrof reaches its peak. It is used by the SS and, in particular, by SS-Totenkopfverbände. Founded in 1936, after the annexation of Austria by Germany, Hitler entrusted them with the custody of the concentration camps.
Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 3
Runes are widely used by Battalion soldiers. In particular the Ôþalan, literally “heritage, inheritance”. Symbol of iron, in ancient times it was worn to protect against trolls and, in general, evil influences. Under the Nazis, this rune was used by the Seventh Mountain Division “Prinz Eugen”, a unit of the SS that was used on the Yugoslav front during the Second World War.
Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 4
In addition to the Ôþalan, some soldiers of the Battalion were branded with the Lebensrune used by the SS used in the (insane) Lebensborn eugenics project strongly supported and supported by Heinrich Himmler, to defend the Aryan race. Tattooed swastikas seem widespread. And it is hard to believe – as stated by Michail Pirog, chief of the 4th Azov Battalion stationed in Zaporizhzhia – whether it is just an “ancient Slavic, pan-European, even Indian symbol”.
Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 5
Also because there are those who have had the Sigrunea symbol that indicated the sun but which was then associated with victory (in German Siegin fact) and then at the initials of the SS. These images were recorded outside the Azovstal factory, as can be guessed from the background and the long avenue behind the soldiers of the Azov Battalion.
Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 6
However, the Russian Defense Ministry has also released other photos, taken in an indoor location, impossible to identify. So we don’t know if they are pictures of Azov prisoners or not. But they are significant, as long as they are taken with some caution (like all the images that come from this conflict). In the first weeks of the war, in fact, various Russian media released some carefully edited videos and photographs in which Nazi flags and copies of the Mein Kampf, strangely intact
among the incinerated walls. More recently, the same media also showed a helmet, fresh from green paint, on which the Sigrune of the SS stands out. It is difficult to say where the documentation ends and where the propaganda. Having made this necessary premise, among the frame widespread by the Russians we see a soldier with a large tattoo on his
chest that depicts a hooded man who seems to be holding a torch or, perhaps, a Molotov cocktail. A scene depicting a stadium curve (a man with a megaphone is also present) or an image celebrating the Euromaidan? Impossible to say. But one cannot fail to notice the great one Celtic cross that dominates the chest of man. A little further up, two digits: 14 And 88. The site ofAnti defamation league explains the meaning of these numbers: “It is a combination of two popular white supremacist number symbols. 14 is short for the slogan 14 words: we must guarantee the existence of our people and a future for white children. “88 instead represents the exclamation Heil Hitler (the H is in fact the eighth letter of the alphabet).
Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 7
Yet another soldier preferred to immortalize Hitler, with swastika in the arm. Another one, Stepan Bandera the
leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Oun) who collaborated – in a very turbulent way – with the Nazis against the Soviets and was one of the ones responsible for the extermination of Jews in Ukraine.
Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 8
Then there is a last vein that the Azov soldiers have decided to represent on their bodies, that one esoteric,
obviously also present in the runes that have, in fact, a hidden meaning. Some militiamen have tattoos with goats, mythological animals and pentacles which recall Satanism. After all, Nazism, even before being a political movement, was first of all an (esoteric) culture born in the undergrowth of German circles between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, as the political scientist Giorgio has documented in detail.
Gauls.
Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 9
Putin is not fighting to “denazify” Ukraine. Just look at the numbers to figure it out. The Ukrainian army can count on about 200,000 troops, which can reach 900,000 if we consider reservists. The Azov Battalion, which in 2014 had a few hundred followers, today can count on a few thousand men. A minimal percentage if you compare it to the armed forces of Kiev. Yet the tattoos on the body of Ukrainian volunteers demonstrate the link between them and the Third Reich. A bond that, in these eighty days of conflict, has been forgotten for too long to justify their resistance to the troops of Moscow.
We want to thank the author of this article for this outstanding content
Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding
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Interview with a Stormtrooper
Published bydreizinreport on https://thedreizinreport.com/2022/07/01/interview-with-a-stormtrooper/
Star Wars Stormtrooper
If the Star Wars rebels took as prisoner an Imperial stormtrooper clone, and sat him down for an on-camera interview, without his armor, with a cigarette, he would come across much like this.
This Azov prisoner was recently interviewed in captivity. Among other things:
He is supernaturally calm and confident, cocky at times, knows he won’t be mistreated, says he is safe because he is on Russian territory (i.e. not in Donetsk.)
He says about five times that he is a soldier and not a war criminal, his unit was ethical, his unit was ethical, Russia has nothing to charge him with, “I am a prisoner of war, I am not a criminal, I am a soldier”, his unit was ethical, basically you got nothin’ on me, detective. He’s obviously repeating a short script that was drilled into him and all his comrades before the Azov’s surrender.
He claims that his sniper squad (in which he was the number two in rank) didn’t know if they actually killed anyone; they absolutely never kept any records of how many they shot, they never even talked about it. (LOL, this is fantastical, but at least he’s not claiming to have been just a cook or mechanic.)
He says, OK sure there were Azov guys with swastika tattoos, but not in his squad. He’s not a Nazi, the Azov are not Nazis. All the guys with Swastikas, checked out of the Azov by late 2015 (which contradicts the first sentence of this paragraph.) In fact, he knows a guy in Russia with a swastika tattoo, so what’s the big deal about all this Ukraine Nazi stuff?
(If you didn’t know, ticky-tacky Viking-ism is a quasi-religion among “ultranationalist” young Ukrainian men of low intelligence. It was likely introduced by more intelligent people as an “acceptable”—to foreign sponsors—alternative to Nazism, although many of its adherents do have Nazi tattoos and/or collect Nazi paraphernalia.)
He claims the Azov never shot any Russian prisoners, the infamous video from the Azov’s Kharkov affiliate is fake, or they’re lying when they say there’s a video, whatever.
He says Bandera is THE national hero of the Ukraine. Bandera couldn’t have been a bad guy, because the Germans locked him up at one point.
He claims to know Ukrainian history very well. Claims that Kharkov was founded by a Cossack named Kharko (this is a folk story or sort of a joke, not historical.)
He claims that his squad released 11 Russian/Donetsk prisoners for no particular reason—just didn’t feel like bringing them to the bunkers when the Azov was retreating into the steel plant. (LOL. As I said, this guy has been “coached.”)
One of the Russian prisoners, whom he so much enjoyed talking to, and with whom he really hit it off, was a Caucasus guy with the given name of Shakh (which means Shah, as in the Shah of Persia—literally no one in Russia, or perhaps anywhere, has this name.) There are family names like Shakhnazarov and other derivatives, but Shakh by itself, as a given or family name, is fantastical.)
He is grateful for the protection that the vakk-seenz continue to provide. (Haha, just kidding, he didn’t say that, but surely this guy has much in common with people you know!)
(1) The Azov is a cult. Literally.
(2) The Azov’s zampolits (political officers) are/were operating on a very high level.
(3) The practice of inculcating dumb “talking points” into the broad population, is as well developed in the Ukraine as it is in the USA—indeed, Russia lags far behind in this capacity.
Just remember please, since 2015, the Azov was the main “behind the scenes but not always” authority in Mariupol, and operated a business empire in the city, also setting up affiliates in Kharkov and Kiev, as well as running the Ukraine’s single largest politically-oriented youth organization.
At its peak (just prior to the Russian invasion), the Azov had likely close to 10,000 uniformed personnel and civilian employees. It was by far the single largest military component within the Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, and also the only one that was essentially also a political organization in its own right.
The Azov is not marginal in the Ukraine, the Azov is the Ukraine, or one of the Ukraines, anyway—the dominant one.
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The Azov Battalion: Laboratory of Nazism
The Alternative World 23 May2022 https://thealtworld.com/thealtworld/the-azov-battalion-laboratory-of-nazism
The Azov Battalion
Western propaganda continues to present the defenders of Mariupol as heroic martyrs, but every day it becomes harder to do so. They have been involved in the murder and brutal torture of women and children. The Azov Battalion is a symbol of hell and years of terror for the people of Donbass.
On 30 October 2014, Ganja was detained in Mariupol by five men in military uniform with Azov Battalion chevrons and balaclavas. Already in a car, they beat her with their guns and urinated on her. They took her out of her car, kicked her, and fired a volley of shots over her head. They took her to Mariupol airport, where they carried on torturing her until 8 November. After that, they took her to court and a pre-trial detention centre.
Tatiana was a member of the Communist Party of Ukraine, now outlawed in the country. She took part in protest rallies in Mariupol and the 11 May referendum over the future of the Donetsk region. She was not even aware that she was blacklisted as an “intransigent separatist”.
In March 2019 during a press conference in Moscow, former officer of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) Vasily Prozorov spoke about “The Library”: a secret prison at Mariupol airport, a city controlled by the Azov Battalion. The “Library” contained “books”, the name given to captured DPR militiamembers and ordinary citizens “suspected of separatism”. They were tortured there. The place had two disconnected refrigerated cells with sealed doors and no furniture. Prozorov showed photographs of nine prisoners from the “Library” – among them were a teenager in a khaki t-shirt and two old men. All of them showed signs of beatings.
Former SBU Lieutenant-Colonel Vasily Prozorov shows a picture of one of the “Library” prisoners at a press conference in Moscow.
© Sputnik / Vladimir Astapkovich
Former SBU Lieutenant-Colonel Vasily Prozorov shows a picture of one of the “Library” prisoners at a press conference in Moscow.
© Sputnik / Vladimir Astapkovich
Azov survivors also confirmed his declarations to Sputnik
Former “Library” inmate Tatiana Ganja described the prison as a “real hell and place of death”.
On 8 November 2014, Ganja was taken from the airport for investigative actions. She was released following a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and the Donetsk People’s Republic on 26 December. Since then, she has been living in Donetsk in one of the dormitories for refugees. Azov looted her home in Mariupol.
One day, Elena Blokha, a journalist from Mariupol, also found herself in the “Library’s ‘fridge’”.
They detained Blokha along with her son and placed him in a male cell with several other prisoners.
Azov: The Beginning
In April 2014, after the Maidan triumph and when a street war between supporters and opponents [of Maidan] broke out in all major cities in southeastern Ukraine, the then-Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov announced an Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) in Donbass. While the NATO was started in order to form “volunteer battalions”, these batallions later became infamous for their atrocities against civilians and captured militiamembers.
The Azov Battalion was officially established on 5 May 2014 in the Kharkov neo-Nazi organisation Patriots of Ukraine*, the power wing of the Social-National Assembly. The “patriots” opened their first congress in 1999 with a torchlit procession similar to the marches seen in Hitler’s Germany.
The unit of 50-60 fighters possessed several smooth bore rifles and traumatic pistols. The head of the press service, Stepan Baida, described the Azov’s level of equipment at the time as “reinforced troops”.
The Black Corps patches, which directly allude to Reichsführer SS Himmler’s military (“Das Schwarze Korps”, translated from the German as “Black Corps”, the official printed media of the SS), continued to be used by the Azov even after its incorporation into legalranks commanded by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
At first, it was a deemed a volunteer battalion in the Special Tasks Patrol Police of Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Then, in October 2014, it became a regiment of the National Guard. As a military unit, Azov was authorised to acquire artillery and tanks.
Azov Battalion cadets deployed in the conflict zone in southeastern Ukraine, 2014.
© Sputnik / Alexander Maksimenko / Go to the photo bank
Azov Battalion cadets deployed in the conflict zone in southeastern Ukraine, 2014.
© Sputnik / Alexander Maksimenko / Go to the photo bank
Mariupol Massacre
The presence of Azov became fatal for the residents of Mariupol long before 2022. What happened there in the spring of 2014 was the most important episode of the Donbass conflict.
The Victory Day demonstration on 9 May 2014 ended in clashes near the city police headquarters. According to Kiev’s official information, 13 people were killed, including police officers, National Guard members and Azov Battalion fighters, as well as civilians.
The local police were sympathetic to the Donetsk People’s Republic, but did not take any action against their own superiors or the Ukrainian authorities in general.
Former SBU Lieutenant-Colonel Vasily Prozorov addressing the situation in Ukraine after the coup at a press conference in Moscow.
© Sputnik / Vladimir Trefilov / Go to the photo bank
Former SBU Lieutenant-Colonel Vasily Prozorov addressing the situation in Ukraine after the coup at a press conference in Moscow.
© Sputnik / Vladimir Trefilov / Go to the photo bank
A referendum on the independence of the Donetsk People’s Republic was scheduled for 11 May 2014. According to Former SBU Lieutenant-Colonel Prozorov, Mariupol police officers received orders to prevent the voting by blocking polling stations and detaining election commission members. However, the majority refused to obey, as they wanted to avoid conflicts with their fellow compatriots, including relatives.
Flowers and candles in memory of those killed at Mariupol police headquarters in May 2015.
© Sputnik / Natalia Seliverstova
Flowers and candles in memory of those killed at Mariupol police headquarters in May 2015.
© Sputnik / Natalia Seliverstova
The list of those killed in Mariupol that day include only police officers, security forces and civilians.
‘White Leader’
Andriy Biletsky, the leader of the National Corps political party.
© Sputnik / Stringer
Andriy Biletsky, the leader of the National Corps political party.
© Sputnik / Stringer
Andriy Biletsky, a neo-Nazi known as White Leader (a nickname that a civilised person would find absurd which was given to him by his supporters before the Maidan), became Azov’s leader. That same year, 2014, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament].
So what did White Leader do before Azov? Shortly before heading the battalion, Biletsky was released from prison. He was freed from the Kharkov pre-trial detention centre in late February 2014 thanks to Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who favoured Azov and admitted that he had “special plans” for the unit.
Biletsky and his accomplices were imprisoned on charges of assaulting Sergei Kolesnik, who, as a result of an incident, sustained open skull and brain injuries and multiple stab wounds. The case was opened under the article of “robbery”.
The reason for the attack stemmed from an online argument in which the victim had been careless in speaking out against fascism. Biletsky was arrested and immediately became a “martyr” to the victorious Euromaidan; his detention was seen as political repression.
Biletsky has never concealed his Nazi views. Here are some of his most striking quotes.
On his mission and Jews:
On blood purity:
On his perception of Nazi collaborators the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA, an extremist organisation banned in Russia):
According to Kharkov journalists, Biletsky’s supporters began holding more or less visible actions in the fall of 2005. As early as 14 April 2006, on the anniversary of Koliivshchyna (the Cossack uprising of 1768, which led to a mass slaughter of Poles and Jews), they organised a xenophobic “Ukraine against the occupation” march in the city’s centre. According to various estimates, between 100 and 200 people took part in the rally. This event was followed by actions against the Vietnamese hostels in Kharkov.
Biletsky’s unit skillfully recruited or attracted representatives of far-right youth subcultures to join its ranks. The young neo-Nazis were drawn by their focus on violent methods of struggle: beatings, raids and pogroms.
The “vyshkols” – training camps – of the Patriots of Ukraine organisation were completely different from, for example, the [far-right paramilitary organisations] Tryzub of Stepan Bandera (another extremist organisation banned in Russia), the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists or the Youth Nationalist Congress. In these camps, the organisation held activities for schoolchildren shooting air rifles, marching through forests and singing songs around a campfire. Biletsky, in turn, taught how to storm buildings or “remove” a guardsman from behind (how to strangle and stab him in the heart).
The Kharkov branch alone had between 200 and 300 fighters in the early 2010s, some of whom lived permanently in the barracks at the organisation’s premises.
Radicals protest outside Russian banks in Kiev
© Sputnik / Stringer / Go to the photo bank
Radicals protest outside Russian banks in Kiev
© Sputnik / Stringer / Go to the photo bank
Where Did the Money Come From?
The Azov was funded – at least partially – by oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, as was the case with the other volunteer battalions operating in the ATO. Furthermore, Svetlana Zvarich, director of the Ukrainian National Information Service (one of the largest companies in the local information collection, transmission and processing market), provided assistance.
On 16 April 2015, Ukrayinska Pravda mentioned the charity foundation for educational innovations, which officially “works with Azov and provides it with everything it needs” in a report from Azov’s base at the ATEK engineering plant in Kiev , citing a comment by “the chairman of the supervisory board of the foundation, Svetlana Zvarich”.
But that is not the whole story. On 15 July 2016, the public learned that Azov had links to criminals when SBU Special Forces liquidated a group of Azov officers armed with assault rifles and a grenade launcher in Zaporozhye . They had attacked a money collectors’ car, a raid that was clearly not their first.
Radicals protest outside Russian banks in Kiev
© Sputnik / Alexei Vovk / Go to the photo bank
Radicals protest outside Russian banks in Kiev
© Sputnik / Alexei Vovk / Go to the photo bank
SBU Chief Vasyl Hrytsak said at the time that the Secret Service was checking Azov’s involvement in at least ten similar crimes.
There is also knowlegde of a bribe of two million hryvnias ($68,000) extorted from a Kiev businessman by the battalion’s head of manning Vladimir Brzezinski and former Azov Chief of Staff Vadym Troyan under threats of reprisals.
In other words, the Azov militiamembers were simply engaged in racketeering. According to the owner of one of the gambling halls, the so-called patriots showed up in mid-2015. Couriers from local radical organisations visited all the gambling halls, offering to “negotiate”.
‘Laboratory of Nazism’
The Azov Battalion stands out for its strong ideological background. Neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and racists are at the forefront of the unit. Its symbols contain elements that refer to the emblems of Third Reich military units.
Fighters of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion take the oath of allegiance to Ukraine in Sophia Square in Kiev before being sent to Donbass. Members of the Nazi battalion have committed hundreds of war crimes against the population of Donbass over eight years. The Azov flag has an inverted image of the runic symbol “Wolfsangel”, which was used by the Nazis.
© Sputnik / Alexander Maksimenko
Fighters of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion take the oath of allegiance to Ukraine in Sophia Square in Kiev before being sent to Donbass. Members of the Nazi battalion have committed hundreds of war crimes against the population of Donbass over eight years. The Azov flag has an inverted image of the runic symbol “Wolfsangel”, which was used by the Nazis.
© Sputnik / Alexander Maksimenko
The photo shows Azov fighters taking the oath of allegiance before being sent to Donbass in July 2014. The regiment’s flag bears a black Wolfsangel (“wolf’s hook” in German). This sign was the emblem of Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP). Subsequently, the Wolfsangel became the tactical mark of the SS Panzer Division “Das Reich”, and was also used in other SS and Wehrmacht units, in particular, the 34th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division “Landstorm Nederland”.
Over time, representatives of the Social National Assembly, Automaidan and Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists activists, ultras (hooligans) of the Dynamo (Kiev) and Shakhtar football clubs, members of Dmytro Korchynsky’s Bratstvo party* and the Cossack Rifle Brotherhood joined Azov.
The open demonstration of misanthropy attracted radicals and neo-Nazis from all over the world to join the Azov Battalion.
Biletsky said in an interview that there were representatives of three dozen nationalities in Azov, but “not once did a Chinese or a Nigerian come to them”.
The Azov expanded, fought against the Donbass militia, and attracting new volunteers, including foreigners.
A series of video interviews with foreigners associated with the regiment were published on the page of the National Corps and National Druzhina units, both projects set up in 2016 by the Azov.
Alexei Levkin from Tver, Russia, is one of the typical characters. He is a neo-Nazi fugitive convicted of being part of a gang that committed numerous ethnic murders. He is also the lead singer of the band M8L8TH, which glorifies fascism, the SS and the concentration camps of the Third Reich.
Quotes from Levkin’s diary hit the internet in 2008.
Another volunteer, Joachim Fürholm from Norway, calls himself a “national socialist revolutionary” and “admires” what [2011 far-right Norway bomber Anders] Breivik did. In an interview with the Nazi radio Radio Wehrwolf, found by Bellingcat (an organisation recognised as a foreign agent in Russia), Fürholm considers Azov to be a “laboratory of fascism”.
Beat the Dog Before the Lion
From the outset, all of the volunteer battalions were haunted by scandals: looting and sexual violence (Shakhtersk and Tornado Battalions were the most prominent), kidnapping and killing of civilians (by the notorious Donbass Battalion) and the seizure of businesses.
There was less talk about the Azov. After all, it was an extremely closed unit and the strict hierarchy and the constant threat of reprisals against one’s own people played a role.
However, some who joined Azov as volunteers without right-wing radical ideas could not get along in the Nazi environment and revolted. They were the ones who made the White Leader’s unpleasant juicy details public.
From ‘Hateful’ to ‘Heroes’
Now, almost 80 years after the demise of the Third Reich, Nazi battalions openly marching through the streets of European cities with their symbols which are banned in the civilized world, the unpunished killing of civilians, looting, extortion, reprisals and punitive operations are again a reality.
Back in 2015, the US Congress banned the Pentagon from supplying portable anti-aircraft missile systems to Ukraine and from training and equipping the Azov Battalion. Congressional representatives called it a “disgusting Nazi formation”. This was a reaction to a number of publications in the US press in which shocked journalists wrote about the openly Nazi views of both the leadership and fighters of Azov.
But seven years later, the world is witnessing how the “hideous Nazi formation” began to be fashioned into valiant heroes, the “defenders of Mariupol”.
https://sputniknews.com/20220522/the-azov-battalion-laboratory-of-nazism-1095700345.html
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This is who the West/EU/NATO is supporting
The following is a “People to Kill List” put out by the NAZI Ukraine SBU
Security Service of Ukraine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_Service_of_Ukraine
The Security Service of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Служба безпеки України, romanized: Sluzhba bezpeky Ukrayiny) or SBU (Ukrainian: СБУ) is the law enforcement authority and main intelligence and security agency of the Ukrainian government, in the areas of counter-intelligence activity and combating terrorism.
Ukraine SBU Hitlist-myrotvorets.center-Banner
source: https://rumble.com/v1gxbrr-live-stream-monday-august-22nd-2022-news-from-saint-petersburg.html
JerusalemCats Comments: If an Antisemite such as Roger Waters is on the Ukraine SBU Azov Hitlist (People to Kill List), what about Jew who want to visit Rebbe Nachman’s Kever In Uman, Ukraine?
https://myrotvorets.center/criminal/uoters-rodzher/
Roger Waters added to Ukraine Myrotvorets SBU-Hitlist-Chrome
The Homepage of the Ukrainian Security Service SBU Kill list Warning Graphic
https://myrotvorets.center/
screenshots – website of Ukraine SBU Hitlist myrotvorets center https://myrotvorets.center/
Ukrainian Nazis Celebrate Independance Day With PoW ISIS Video
Posted 25August2022 iEarlGreyTV:https://rumble.com/v1hatx5-ukrainian-nazis-celebrate-independance-day-with-pow-isis-video.html
Journalists who challenge NATO narratives are now ‘information terrorists’: https://beeley.substack.com/p/journalists-who-challenge-nato-narratives
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Stepan Bandera
Stepan Bandera
In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming conventions, the patronymic is Andriyovych and the family name is Bandera.
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera (Ukrainian: Степа́н Андрі́йович Банде́ра, romanized: Stepán Andríyovyč Bandéra, IPA: [steˈpɑn ɐnˈd⁽ʲ⁾r⁽ʲ⁾ijoʋɪt͡ʃ bɐnˈdɛrɐ]; Polish: Stepan Andrijowycz Bandera; 1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was an Ukrainian nationalist leader, politician and theorist of the militant wing (OUN-B), served as head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists,[1][2] organization responsible for ethnic cleansings and also implicated in collaboration with Nazi Germany.[1][3]
Born in the economically backward Galicia (officially Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, created after the first partition of Poland) into the family of a priest of Eastern Catholic Church.[4] After the Empire disintegrated in the wake of World War I, Galicia briefly became a West Ukrainian People’s Republic; following the Polish–Ukrainian War of 1918–1919, it was again integrated into eastern Poland. In this period, Bandera became radicalized. He enrolled at the Lviv Polytechnic, where he organized Ukrainian nationalist organizations. For orchestrating the 1934 assassination of Poland’s Minister of the Interior Bronisław Pieracki, Bandera was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In September 1939, as a result of the invasion of Poland, he was freed from Bereza Kartuska prison, and moved to Kraków, in the German-occupied zone, where he maintained close connections with Abwehr and Wehrmacht.[5][6]
For a time, Bandera collaborated with Nazi Germany. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, he prepared the 30 June 1941 Proclamation of Ukrainian statehood in Lviv, pledging to work with Nazi Germany.[7][5] For his refusal to rescind the decree, Bandera was arrested by the Gestapo and on 5 July 1941 held under house arrest.[8] After January 1942 Bandera was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp but kept in special, comparatively comfortable detention.[9][10][11] In 1944, with Germany rapidly losing ground in the war in the face of the advancing Allied armies, Bandera was released in the hope that he would be instrumental in deterring the advancing Soviet forces. He set up the headquarters of the re-established Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council, which worked underground. After the war, Bandera with his family settled in West Germany where he remained the leader of the OUN-B and worked with several anti-communist organizations such as the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations[12] as well as with the US and British intelligence agencies.[12][4] Fourteen years after the end of the war, Bandera was assassinated in 1959 by KGB agents in Munich, West Germany.[13][14]
On 22 January 2010, the President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko awarded Bandera the posthumous title of Hero of Ukraine.[15] The European Parliament condemned the award, as did Russia, Poland and Jewish politicians and organizations.[16][17][18][19][20] President Viktor Yanukovych declared the award illegal, since Bandera was never a citizen of Ukraine, a stipulation necessary for getting the award. This announcement was confirmed by a court decision in April 2010.[21] In January 2011, the award was officially annulled.[22][23] A proposal to confer the award on Bandera was rejected by the Ukrainian parliament in August 2019.[24]
Bandera remains a highly controversial figure in Ukraine,[25][26][27] with some Ukrainians hailing him as a liberator who fought against the Soviet Union, Poland and Nazi Germany trying to establish an independent Ukraine, while other Ukrainians condemn him as a fascist[28] and a war criminal[28] who was, together with his followers, largely responsible for the massacres of Polish civilians[29] and partially for the Holocaust in Ukraine.[30][31][32][33]
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BURNT ALIVE IN ODESSA. Documentary | 2May2014 Odessa, Ukraine firebombed by Nationalist
Posted 27December2021 Bonanza Media: May 2, 2014 people of Ukrainian Odessa were trapped in a building and set on fire. Because they protested against new nationalist government that came to power in Kiev as a result of a coup d’état. Officially, 42 were announced dead, including 7 women and 1 minor. No one has been held responsible for this massacre. Alexander, one of the few survivors, shares his memories of what really happened and new battles he has to fight in the aftermath.
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The Uman Massacre
What really happened in Uman? Why did Rebbe Nachman want to be buried there? Tal Rotem gives an historical overview of a monumental “Kiddush Hashem”. Uman and Emuna go together…
Tal Rotem Posted on 31.05.08 https://breslev.com/307327/
The Massacre of Uman took place in the year 1768, a mere four years before the birth of Rebbe Nachman of Breslev. 33,000 Jews from Uman and the surrounding villages who took refuge from the murderous Jew-hating Ivan Gonta, the Ukrainian rebel that led the revolution against Poland, who then governed the Ukraine and was relatively decent to the Jews.
Uman and the Haidameks
Uman was a well-fortified city where a major part of Polish troops in the Ukraine were stationed. This fact made Uman one of the primary objectives of the Kolivivschyna movement, known popularly as the “Haidameks”, the organization of bitterly anti-Semitic Ukrainian Cossacks and their peasant supporters who revolted against Poland. Commanded by cut-throat Ivan Gonta who prided himself that he drank a fresh glass of his enemies’ blood every morning, the Cossacks began their siege on Uman.
In early June of 1768, on the way to Uman, the Ukrainian rebels by Gonta and Maxim Zalizniak razed a number of Jewish cities in one of history’s most cruel pogroms. As Zalizniak openly encouraged the slaughter of Jews, Uman filled with refugees from all over the Podolia region of the Central Ukraine in the Jewish Pale of Settlement.
A large camp filled with Polish nobility and their private militia, regular soldiers and Jewish refugees was stationed outside the city walls. The Cossacks routed the Polish encampment on June 14th and tried to take the city by surprise but to no avail. After this first unsuccessful attempt, the siege on Uman began on June 17th. The very first day large number of Ukrainians deserted the ranks of Polish forces and joined the rebel Cossacks when the city was surrounded.
After three days of the siege the city fell to Zalizniak in spite of a courageous defense in which the Jews also played an active role. The tragic point occurred during the peace negotiation on the third day of the siege that concluded in a combat and subsequent takeover of the city. It is unclear whether the resulting fight was initiated by Ukrainian or Polish side as the accounts of the event differ. What we do know is that the Jewish fighters led by Leib Shargorodski and Moses Menaker in an attempt to defend themselves, and barricaded themselves in one of Uman’s synagogues, but they were destroyed by cannon fire. All but a handful of Uman’s 33,000 Jews were subsequently killed by Gonta and his henchmen.
Martyrs in “Kiddush Hashem”
Gonta set up a tremendous cross in a lot in front of a church. He then set up a low canopy in front of the cross. After his men rouned up all the Jews that weren’t slaughtered in the fierce hand-to-hand and house-to-house fighting, he told them that anyone who passed through the canopy would be spared. But, in order to do so, one would have to prostrate oneself before the cross. Not a single Jewish man, woman, or child agreed to do so, despite the fact that parents were slaughtered in front of their children and children were brutally maimed in front of their parents. This became the greatest sanctification of Hashem’s name in history.
Gonta’s Execution
Fearing that the rebellion would spread into her domain, Catherine the Great, then Empress of Russia, dispatched a regiment of her best soldiers to help Poland suppress the rebellion. The commander of the Russian unit, Guriev, made the Haidameks believe he was siding with them against Poland and managed to capture approximately 900 of them without firing a single shot. He siezed Ivan Gonta and handed him over to the irate Poles and was tried for high treason. Sentenced to a bitter and agonizing death by grand, Gonta’s nailed to gallows and exhibited in 14 towns of Podolia.
The Ukranian View of Gonta
Although an arch-criminal and murderer, Gonta is a Ukrainian folk hero, immortalized in songs, legends, and poetry, such as Shevchenko’s controversial epic poem “Haidamaki”.
As a whole, the Cossacks and the haidameks are respected and worshipped in Ukraine, considered defenders of their motherland who fought against invaders. Ukrainians believe that the rowdy, brutal, and bloodthirsty insurgents defended social freedoms, the Ukrainian Orthodox faith and Ukraine’s independence. They view the Haidameks as paragons of courage, patriotism and dignity. Ukrainian many parents used to bring up their children. One Ukrainian history book. To this day, Ukrainians believe that the Haidameks fought against “Polish occupiers and Jewish landlords,” as one high school teacher in Uman told me, but this is of course a falsity since Jews were not allowed to own land in the Ukraine.
Why Uman?
Why did Rebbe Nachman choose Uman as his place of eternal rest?
Once, on the way from eastern Ukraine to his new home in Brelev, he passed by the mass grave of Uman’s Jews. He stopped the wagon driver, pondered, took a deep breath and said, “Here is the scent of Heaven. This is a good place to lay in rest.” He chose Uman because of its many holy martyrs who gave their lives for their “emuna”, their pure and complete faith in Hashem. Uman is therefore an eternal monument of emuna, may the holy martyrs lay in eternal peace, amen.
(Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Gonta)
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Statue of Ivan Gonta, Cossack murderer of Uman’s 33,000 Jews in 1768
Ivan Gonta
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Gonta
Ivan Gonta (Ukrainian: Іван Ґонта; died 1768) was one of the leaders of the Koliivshchyna, an armed rebellion of peasants and Ukrainian Cossacks against Bar confederation in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Born in Rożyszki (modern Rozsishky) near Uman’ in Bracław Voivodship, Gonta served as a sotnik (captain) of Cossack household militia of Franciszek Salezy Potocki, the Voivode of Kiev, and commanded a small unit in the garrison of Uman since 1757. During the Koliivshchyna he was ordered to fight the approaching haidamaka forces of Maksym Zalizniak. Instead, he and his militia joined the rebels, and the joint forces captured and ravaged the town of Uman on June 21, 1768. In what became known as the Massacre of Uman, thousands of local Polish szlachta, Jews, Uniates and other people were slaughtered. After that, Gonta was proclaimed colonel and commanded the garrison of Uman.
When Gonta sent a detachment to spread rebellion into the Ottoman Empire, Catherine the Great, the Empress of Russia, dispatched a regiment of Don Cossacks fighting against Bar confederation to help Poland suppress the rebellion to prevent Ottomans from waging a war against Russia. The commander of the Russian unit, Guriev, made the rebels believe he was siding with them for the joint trip against Bar confederation and managed to capture approximately 900 of them without a single shot. After that, Ivan Gonta was handed over to the Poles and was tried for high treason. Sentenced to death by grand Crown Hetman Franciszek Ksawery Branicki, he was then executed in the village of Serby (modern Gontivka) in the Podolian Voivodship. As an added measure, his body was partitioned and nailed to gallows in 14 towns of Podolia.
Although largely non-notable during his life, after his death he became a hero of countless folk songs and legends that portrayed him as a hero and a martyr. He was immortalized in Taras Shevchenko‘s controversial epic poem Haidamaky though Gonta had never killed his Roman Catholic sons, because his wife and children were of Orthodox faith and in fact he had never initiated the massacre of Uman himself.
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UKRAINE: DONBASS. YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW (Warning: Graphic)
4March2022 TruthFreedom
WARNING: Not for the faint of heart. Learn some background about Ukraine. It’s been almost eight years since a US-inspired coup divided Ukraine and war erupted in the country’s east. The Donetsk and Lugansk republics, next to Russia’s border, are collectively known as Donbass, a coal-mining industrial centre. The two declared independence from Kiev in 2014, and civil war erupted.
There are mass graves scattered across Donbass, from which bodies of civilians are regularly exhumed. Yet, while the shelling and killings continued, Western media remained silent. According to UN estimates, over 13,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
The Donbass people call it a ‘genocide of the Russian-speaking population’. Kiev outlawed the Russian language from everyday life, endeavouring to limit its use, despite Russian being the native language in large areas of the country.
Donbass. Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow takes a look back at events that unfolded before the start of the crisis in 2014. Historians and journalists share their views on the conflict, players and motives, while ordinary citizens from the Donetsk and Lugansk regions describe the horrors of war.
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From Rabbi Lazer Brody’s Lazer Beams website:
Donetsk: Nuremburg Laws with a Russian Accent
17 April 2014 http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2014/04/donetsk-nuremburg-laws-with-a-russian-accent.html
Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20140424135614/http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2014/04/donetsk-nuremburg-laws-with-a-russian-accent.html
Ukraine-Donetsk Jewish property registration fee
Donetsk. This is a name that could end up being Nuremburg revisited.
Suppose you’re watching a boxing match between a rapist and a murderer. Who do you cheer for? I would cheer for both, hoping that they’d knock each other out simultaneously…
One cannot walk a single meter in the Ukraine without stepping on ground that’s soaked with Jewish blood. A third of our people lost there lives in the uprisings of 1648-49, the Cossack rebellion of 1768 and intermittent pogroms that continued until the Soviet Revolution.
Hitler could not have accomplished what he did without the cooperation of the vehemently anti-Semitic Ukraine population.
So, don’t shed a tear for the Ukraine, which is on the verge of a civil war. Before Moshiach comes, Hashem is systematically giving each nation what it deserves.
As for the Russians, maybe they didn’t kill Jewish bodies like Hitler and the Ukrainian Cossacks did, but they killed millions of Jewish souls, waging their seventy-year war against Torah and Judaism while the Communists were in power from 1921-1991. Don’t think the Russian on the street loves Jews any more than the Communists did.
The Russian nationalists who have taken over the Donetsk region in the Eastern Ukraine yesterday disturbed the sanctity of Pesach prayers in the local synagogue to pass an official leaflet demanding Donetsk Jews to register, declare their property, or be deported. This is something that the civilized world should not tolerate for a moment, yet it’s no surprise. We now see the pro-Russian militias – none other than KGB operatives – in all their disgusting ugliness. The Russians and the Ukraines deserve each other.
We pray for the welfare of our Jewish brethren in Donetsk. I for one call them to make Aliya immediately and not wait until they’re herded into a ghetto.
Historically, whenever there was war between Poland, the Ukraine and Russia, the Jews were caught in the middle and killed by both sides.
Gunte, the Cossack who murdered Uman’s 33,000 Jewish martyrs in 1768, is celebrated as a Ukrainian national hero.
The Jews of the Ukraine should leave en masse and come to Israel immediately. Donetsk is only the beginning. Brothers and sisters, it’s time to come home and be free. Time is running out. Don’t stay in your 21st Century version of Egypt. No wonder this is happening during Pesach. We’re waiting for you with open arms.
– See more at: http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2014/04/donetsk-nuremburg-laws-with-a-russian-accent.html#sthash.DR28edE7.dpuf
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From Rabbi Lazer Brody’s Lazer Beams website:
Svoboda: Another State Department Bad Bet
24April2014 http://www.lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2014/04/svoboda-another-state-department-bad-bet.html Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20140503105533/http://www.lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2014/04/svoboda-another-state-department-bad-bet.html
Ukraine Svoboda-neo-Nazi leader Oleh Tyahnybok
The Israeli media reports that the USA is really pieved about Israel’s failure to condemn Russia about the Crimean annexation and recent tension in Eastern Ukraine.
I’m sharply critical about our current government in Israel for a long list of reasons, but they did do one thing right: they didn’t vote in favor of the USA’s condemnation of Russia in the UN.
The facts on the ground are that, according to the highly authoratative Global Research Center, the USA has spent over $5 billion to install an extreme right-wing government in the Ukraine, while giving support and legitimacy to the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party. This is not hearsay, for the facts have been confirmed by US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.
Don’t shed a tear for the Ukraine. Antisemitism there is getting worse by the minute. In recent days alone, the grave of the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s brother has been desecrated and a synagogue firebombed. Try Googling “Ukraine Antisemitism”, and see how many millions of results you get in less than a quarter of a second. What’s so disgusting is that the current forces behind the perpetrators of hate crimes against the Ukrainian Jews is the United States State Department. This is the same State Department that supported the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt and supports Al Qaida in Syria. How do you like where your tax dollars are going, America?
Yet, we look at everything in the world through eyes of emuna. Like everything else in the world, the chaos in the Ukraine is also from Hashem. How much more must Hashem shout at our brethern in the Jew-hating Ukraine to leave there right away? Why a Ukrainian Jew remains for another 5 minutes in the Ukraine is beyond my comprehension. It’s time to get out of there and to come home to the only true home a Jew has on earth – the Land of Israel.
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From Rabbi Lazer Brody’s Lazer Beams website:
Uman, Ukraine and Geula
06 May 2014 http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2014/05/ukraine-and-geula.html
Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20140509131414/http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2014/05/ukraine-and-geula.html
According to Breslever tradition, the annual gathering of Breslever Chassidim in Uman on Rosh Hashana and the Geula, the full and final redemption of our people, are closely intertwined. Hashem gave Rebbe Nachman both secrets. Consequently, Rebbe Nachman said before his death that we should all come to Uman on Rosh Hashana. He also said that his fire shall burn until the coming of Moshiach. That could be ever so close, as many of today’s spiritual leaders are saying.
Let’s see what’s happening now in the Ukraine:
Map: Ukraine 9 May 2014
Double-click on the above map of the Ukraine to view it enlarged and more clearly
The red circle in the center of the map is Uman, the site where Rebbe Nachman of Breslev is buried. Uman is slightly north of the imaginary line, which I drew in blue, that separates the northwestern pro-Ukraine half of the Ukraine from the southeastern pro-Russia side of the Ukraine. The purple box at the bottom right is the Crimean Peninsula, which has already been annexed by Russia. The black boxes indicate places where violence has already erupted on a large scale.
According to Reuters, the Ukraine is quickly slipping into a civil war. Few would have believed that several days ago, but since 42 people were killed in Odessa this past Friday, violence has been spreading fast. Odessa is a mere 2.5 hour drive from Uman.
People have been writing and asking what will be with Uman this Rosh Hashana. As it is, the USA and Germany have already issued travel restrictions to the Ukraine. Israel has not at this point. Flights are on schedule between Kiev and Tel Aviv, and every day, new immigrants from the Ukraine are arriving in Israel in growing numbers.
I can’t verbally explain how, but my heart tells me that the unrest in the Ukraine is closely tied to the Geula. Interestingly, Uman is the pivot point between the two sides. If the hostilities blow over, then we’ll certainly be in Uman on Rosh Hashana. And if the Ukraine is ablaze, with travel there impossible, then it means that we’ll hopefully celebrate this coming Rosh Hashana in our rebuilt Holy Temple in Jerusalem, amen!
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Is the West aiding and supporting the Hamas Nazis like it is supporting the Ukrainian Nazis?
Hamas Child suicide Bomb Terrorist
Shmuel HaNavi bus bombing From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Shmuel HaNavi bus bombing was the suicide bombing of a crowded public bus (Egged bus 2) in the Shmuel HaNavi quarter in Jerusalem, Israel, on August 19, 2003. Twenty-four people were killed and over 130 wounded. Many of the victims were children, some of them infants. The Islamist militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
Gaza “protesters” loft molotov cocktail on swastika kite over Israeli border
International Neo Nazi Fund
Victoria Nulland meets with Svoboda neo-nazis
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Explosive Report Confirms Expansive CIA ‘Stealth Network’ Of Spies & Commandos Inside Ukraine
by Tyler Durden 27June2022 – 02:00 AM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/explosive-report-confirms-expansive-cia-stealth-network-spies-commandos-inside-ukraine
A fresh New York Times report has confirmed what many already suspected – that the CIA is still very active inside Ukraine – especially with training as well coordinating weapons among its Ukrainian allies. The Times report details “a stealthy network of commandos and spies rushing to provide weapons, intelligence and training,” based on US and European intelligence officials with knowledge of the operations. The report says Ukrainian forces are reliant on this Western clandestine network “more than ever” while outgunned by the Russians.
This comes months after investigative journalist Zach Dorfman’s bombshell expose in Yahoo News which detailed how a prior 8-year long CIA covert program to train Ukrainian fighters helped provoke the Russian invasion. The only question that remained after that March report was the extent to which the CIA was still active in the ongoing fight against the invading Russians.
Special operations file image via Sandboxx
The new Times reporting confirms that the US program is not only active and ongoing, but appears larger in scale than previously thought given the CIA’s close cooperation with the Ukrainians is happening both inside and outside the country, across multiple locations.
“Much of this work happens outside Ukraine, at bases in Germany, France and Britain, for example. But even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the vast amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces, according to current and former officials,” the report indicates.
It appears much the CIA’s work in Ukraine is centered on coordinating intelligence with local intel services and counterparts. “Few other details have emerged about what the C.I.A. personnel or the commandos are doing, but their presence in the country — on top of the diplomatic staff members who returned after Russia gave up its siege of Kyiv — hints at the scale of the secretive effort to assist Ukraine that is underway and the risks that Washington and its allies are taking,” NY Times continues.
Over the weekend, Canada also has been reported to have special operations troops inside Ukraine. This was reported months ago, but with a separate NYT report offering further confirmation. “Both CTV and Global News reported in late January that Canadian special forces had been sent to Ukraine, but National Defence did not comment on that deployment,” Ottawa Citizen writes Sunday. Back in January, a full two months before the invasion, Yahoo News disclosed the following:
These details further seems to authenticate those voices which have been insisting NATO and Russia are in fact waging a proxy war inside Ukraine, a label which Biden administration officials have previously sought to deny and downplay.
Caitlin Johnstone-tweet-25June2022-Ukraine is full of CIA personnel.
Writes NY Times further of the international nature of Ukraine’s on-the-ground assistance, “At the same time, a few dozen commandos from other NATO countries, including Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania, also have been working inside Ukraine.”
But the report adds the caveat that “The United States withdrew its own 150 military instructors before the war began in February, but commandos from these allies either remained or have gone in and out of the country since then, training and advising Ukrainian troops and providing an on-the-ground conduit for weapons and other aid, three U.S. officials said.”
This strongly suggests the very scenario that many long suspected: that CIA operations which had gone on for eight years in Ukraine didn’t wind down or cease upon the Feb.24 start of the Russian invasion, but only increased and were ramped up. Of course, the same goes for the Pentagon’s special operations presence inside the country and along its Western borders, particularly in Poland.
On Sunday, the Kremlin underscored angrily that even as such clandestine programs are made public via deliberate “leaks” to the media, Washington has refused to answer simple questions regarding Western operatives and mercenaries inside Ukraine – also after a couple of American fighters were recently captured.
Michael Tracey-tweet-26June2022–CIA and NATO ‘boots on the ground’ in Ukraine
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday:
She charged the West with only seeking to perpetuate the conflict, saying, “They are sparing no effort so that the conflict in Ukraine continued as long as possible. We remember what US 43rd President George Bush Jr said: Ukraine’s mission is to kill as many Russians as possible…. They have endowed Ukraine and the Kiev regime with this duty.
“They are using (Ukraine – TASS) as an instrument and the entire logistics are centered round that – weapons supplies, sending people, anything to keep the conflict burning, as [UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson told [French President Emmanuel] Macron today, to prevent the settlement of this situation. Otherwise, their plan will fail,” Zakharova said according to TASS.
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Escobar: Megalopolis x Russia – Total War
by Tyler Durden 09May2022 – 04:00 AM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-megalopolis-x-russia-total-war
Authored by Pepe Escobar,
After careful evaluation, the Kremlin is rearranging the geopolitical chessboard to end the unipolar hegemony of the “indispensable nation”.
Operation Z is the first salvo of a titanic struggle: three decades after the fall of the USSR, and 77 years after the end of WWII, after careful evaluation, the Kremlin is rearranging the geopolitical chessboard to end the unipolar hegemony of the “indispensable nation”. No wonder the Empire of Lies has gone completely berserk, obsessed in completely expelling Russia from the West-centric system.
Russian President Putin and a European chessboard – opinion
The U.S. and its NATO puppies cannot possibly come to grips with their perplexity when faced with a staggering loss: no more entitlement allowing exclusive geopolitical use of force to perpetuate “our values”. No more Full Spectrum Dominance.
The micro-picture is also clear. The U.S. Deep State is milking to Kingdom Come its planned Ukraine gambit to cloak a strategic attack on Russia. The “secret” was to force Moscow into an intra-Slav war in Ukraine to break Nord Stream 2 – and thus German reliance on Russian natural resources. That ends – at least for the foreseeable future – the prospect of a Bismarckian Russo-German connection that would ultimately cause the U.S. to lose control of the Eurasian landmass from the English Channel to the Pacific to an emerging China-Russia-Germany pact.
The American strategic gambit, so far, has worked wonders. But the battle is far from over. Psycho neo-con/neoliberalcon silos inside the Deep State consider Russia such a serious threat to the “rules-based international order” that they are ready to risk if not incur a “limited” nuclear war out of their gambit. What’s at stake is nothing less than the loss of Ruling the World by the Anglo-Saxons.
Mastering the Five Seas
Russia, based on purchasing power parity (PPP), is the 6th economy in the world, right behind Germany and ahead of both the UK and France. Its “hard” economy is similar to the U.S. Steel production may be about the same, but intellectual capacity is vastly superior. Russia has roughly the same number of engineers as the U.S., but they are much better educated.
The Mossad attributes Israel’s economic miracle in creating an equivalent of Silicon Valley to a base of a million Russian immigrants. This Israeli Silicon Valley happens to be a key asset of the American MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex), as indelibly named by Ray McGovern.
NATOstan media hysterically barking that Russia’s GDP is the size of Texas is nonsense. PPP is what really counts; that and Russia’s superior engineers is why their hypersonic weapons are at least two or three generations ahead of the U.S. Just ask the indispensable Andrei Martyanov.
The Empire of Lies has no defensive missiles worthy of the name, and no equivalents to Mr. Zircon and Mr. Sarmat. The NATOstan sphere simply cannot win a war, any war against Russia for this reason alone.
The deafening NATOstan “narrative” that Ukraine is defeating Russia does not even qualify as an innocuous joke (compare it with Russia’s “Reach Out and Touch Someone” strategy). The corrupt system of SBU fanatics intermingled with UkroNazi factions is kaput. The Pentagon knows it. The CIA cannot possibly admit it. What the Empire of Lies has sort of won, so far, is a media “victory” for the UkroNazis, not a military victory.
Gen Aleksandr Dvornikov, of Syria fame, has a clear mandate: to conquer the whole of Donbass, totally free up Crimea and prepare the advance towards Odessa and Transnistria while reducing a rump Ukraine to the status of failed state without any access to the sea.
The Sea of Azov – linked to the Caspian by the Don-Volga canal – is already a Russian lake. And the Black Sea is next, the key connection between the Heartland and the Mediterranean. The Five Seas system – Black, Azov, Caspian, Baltic, White – enshrines Russia as a de facto continental naval power. Who needs warm waters?
Moving “at the speed of war”
The pain dial, from now on, will go up non-stop. Reality – as in facts on the ground – will soon become apparent even to the NATOstan-wide LugenPresse.
The woke Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Mark Milley, expects Operation Z to last years. That’s nonsense. The Russian Armed Forces may afford to be quite methodical and take all the time needed to properly demilitarize Ukraine. The collective West for its part is pressed for time – because the blowback from the real economy is already on and bound to become vicious.
Defense Minister Shoigu has made it quite clear: any NATO vehicles bringing weapons to Kiev will be destroyed as “legitimate military targets”.
A report by the scientific service of the Bundestag established that training of Ukrainian soldiers on German soil may amount, under international law, to participation in war. And that gets even trickier when coupled with NATO weapons deliveries: “Only if, in addition to the supply of weapons, the instruction of the conflict party or training in such weapons were also an issue would one leave the secure area of non-warfare.”
Now at least it’s irretrievably clear how the Empire of Lies “moves at the speed of war” – as described in public by weapons peddler turned Pentagon head, Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin. In Pentagonese, that was explained by the proverbial “official” as “a combination of a call center, a watch floor, meeting rooms. They execute a battle rhythm to support decision-makers.”
The Pentagonese “battle rhythm” offered to a supposedly “credible, resilient and combat-capable Ukraine military” is fed by a EUCom system that essentially moves weapons orders from Pentagon warehouses in the U.S. to branches of the Empire of Bases in Europe and then to the NATO eastern front in Poland, where they are trucked across Ukraine just in time to be duly incinerated by Russian precision strikes: the wealth of options include supersonic P-800 Onyx missiles, two types of Iskander, and Mr. Khinzal launched from Mig-31Ks.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stressed Moscow is perfectly aware the U.S., NATO and UK are transferring not only weapons but also loads of intel. In parallel, the collective West turns everything upside down 24/7 shaping a new environment totally geared against Russia, not caring for even a semblance of partnership in any area. The collective West does not even consider the possibility of dialogue with Russia.
Hence talking to Putin is “a waste of time” unless a “Russian defeat” in Ukraine (echoing strident Kiev P.R.) would make him “more realistic”. For all his faults, Le Petit Roi Macron/McKinsey has been an exception, on the phone with Putin earlier this week.
The neo-Orwellian Hitlerization of Putin reduces him, even among the so-called Euro-intelligentzia, to the status of dictator of a nation chloroformed into its 19th century nationalism. Forget about any semblance of historical/political/cultural analysis. Putin is a late Augustus, dressing up his Imperium as a Republic.
At best the Europeans preach and pray – chihuahuas yapping to His Master’s Voice – for a hybrid strategy of “containment and engagement” to be unleashed by the U.S., clumsily parroting the scribblings of denizens of that intellectual no-fly zone, Think Tankland.
Yet in fact the Europeans would rather “isolate” Russia – as in 12% of the world’s population “isolating” 88% (of course: their Westoxified “vision” completely ignores the Global South). “Help” to Russia will only come when sanctions are effective (as in never: blowback will be the norm) or – the ultimate wet dream – there’s regime change in Moscow.
The Fall
UkroNazi P.R. agent Ursula von der Lugen presented the sixth sanction package of the Europoodle (Dis)Union.
Top of the bill is to exclude three more Russian banks from SWIFT, including Sberbank. Seven banks are already excluded. This will enforce Russia’s “total isolation”. It’s idle to comment on something that only fools the LugenPresse.
Then there’s the “progressive” embargo on oil imports. No more crude imported to the EU in six months and no more refined products before the end of 2022. As it stands, the IEA shows that 45% of Russia’s oil exports go to the EU (with 22% to China and 10% to the U.S.). His Master’s Voice continues and will continue to import Russian oil.
And of course 58 “personal” sanctions also show up, targeting very dangerous characters such as Patriarch Kirill of the Orthodox Church, and the wife, son and daughter of Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov.
This stunning display of stupidity will have to be approved by all EU members. Internal revolt is guaranteed, especially from Hungary, even as so many remain willing to commit energy suicide and mess up with the lives of their citizens big time to defend a neo-Nazi regime.
Alastair Crooke called my attention to a startling, original interpretation of what’s goin’ on, offered in Russian by a Serbian analyst, Prof. Slobodan Vladusic. His main thesis, in a nutshell: “Megalopolis hates Russia because it is not Megalopolis – it has not entered the sphere of anti-humanism and that is why it remains a civilization alternative. Hence Russophobia.”
Vladusic contends that the intra-Slav war in Ukraine is “a great catastrophe for Orthodox civilization” – mirroring my recent first attempt to open a serious debate on a Clash of Christianities.
Yet the major schism is not on religion but culture: “The key difference between the former West and today’s Megalopolis is that Megalopolis programmatically renounces the humanistic heritage of the West.”
So now “it is possible to erase not only the musical canon, but also the entire European humanistic heritage: the entire literature, fine arts, philosophy” because of a “trivialization of knowledge”. What’s left is an empty space, actually a cultural black hole, “filled by promoting terms such as ‘posthumanism’ and ‘transhumanism’.”
And here Vladusic gets to the heart of the matter: Russia fiercely opposes the Great Reset concocted by the “hackable”, self-described “elites” of Megalopolis.
Sergey Glazyev, now coordinating the draft of a new financial/monetary system by the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) in partnership with the Chinese, adapts Vladusic to the facts on the ground (here in Russian, here in an imperfect English translation).
Glazyev is way more blunt than in his meticulous economic analyses. While noting the Deep State’s aims of destroying the Russian world, Iran and block China, he stresses the U.S. “will not be able to win the global hybrid war”. A key reason is that the collective West has “put all independent countries in front of the need to find new global currency instruments, risk insurance mechanisms, restore the norms of international law and create their own economic security systems.”
So yes, this is Totalen Krieg, Total War – as Glazyev spells it out with no attenuation, and how Russia denounced it this week at the UN: “Russia needs to stand up to the United States and NATO in its confrontation, bringing it to its logical conclusion, so as not to be torn between them and China, which is irrevocably becoming the leader of the world economy.”
History may eventually register, 77 years after the end of WWII, that neocon/neoliberalcon psychos in Washington silos instigating an inter-Slavic war by ordering Kiev to launch a blitzkrieg against Donbass was the spark that led to the Fall of the U.S. Empire.
Map: Ukraine 9 May 2014
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The real reasons why Ukraine is so important To Biden, Clinton and their ‘global crime cabal’: Ukraine is their ‘little crime playground’ where their devastating secrets are hidden
04March2022 by: News Editors https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-03-04-reasons-ukraine-important-biden-clinton-crime-cabal.html
This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author
(Natural News) If anyone needed to see the ‘bigger picture‘ of everything now happening in Ukraine, Russia, here in America and all across the world, we get it in numerous new stories out recently, and some time ago, across the internet.
Summed up perfectly in this new story over at The Week titled “REMEMBER AFGHANISTAN: U.S. and Britain reportedly believe the Ukraine war could last 10-20 years, become a Russian quagmire”, the ‘military industrial complex‘ we were warned of over 61 years ago by then President Dwight Eisenhower NEEDS new wars to fill the coffers with the 20-year war/occupation of Afghanistan having come to an end.
(Article by Stefan Stanford republished from AllNewsPipeline.com)
And while we could never see what’s happening in Ukraine going on for 10 to 20 years with Russia’s unstoppable hypersonic nuclear missiles and the potential of an EMP or two that sends America and Europe back to the dark ages thrown into the mix, we get several HUGE pieces of the puzzle into what is REALLY going on in Ukraine, and why, if we look back at news stories over the past several years.
As we’ll explore within this ANP story, Ukraine is nothing less than the ‘Playground‘ of the ‘global elite crime cabal‘ that ‘runs the world‘, with huge amounts of drugs and human trafficking being run out of the country, along with their ‘world disinfo/control‘ operation, and Ukraine also gives them a ‘front doorstep‘ into Russia, not a word of any of this reported by their ‘controlled‘ mainstream media.
Each of the videos at the bottom of this story take looks at various aspects of that ‘Ukrainian cabal playground‘ that Joe Biden is risking America’s nuclear annihilation over, with the 1st video below featuring US Army Colonel Doug MacGregor joining former US Senator Trey Gowdy on Fox News and telling him and America that the Ukrainian government is deeply corrupt, and Biden and America definitely shouldn’t help them.
Yet it appears another one of the ‘real reasons‘ that Biden will most likely get America involved in the ‘quagmire‘ there is because there are some absolutely devastating ‘Biden family secrets‘ hidden in Ukraine, as well as secrets held by the ‘global crime cabal‘, secrets that Russia could possibly get ahold of if they take Ukraine if they haven’t all been destroyed by then.
And just listen to the desperation and panic in the voices of Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi as heard in these linked twitter videos. What are they hiding? After everything that’s now happening we can surely see that the globalist crime cabal playground runs deep in Ukraine.
So are you ready to financially support a US ‘war‘ in Ukraine that lasts for 10 to 20 years as this new story over at The Week suggests is a very real possibility? Reporting within it that ‘lawmakers‘ at the US Capitol had been told on Monday that this mess that just recently restarted will likely last 10, 15, or 20 years, although ultimately in their minds, Russia will lose, just think about how much TAXPAYER money a long, drawn-out quagmire would bring in to that military-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned us about 61 years ago!
And while Joe Biden, Democrats, the mainstream media and the ‘globalist cabal‘ attempt to paint Ukraine as a ‘democracy‘ and a ‘free country‘ which ‘freely elected‘ their President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, anybody paying attention to ‘real history‘ remembers that Ukraine’s government consists of very real neo-Nazi’s, many who were ‘installed‘ as ‘puppets‘ by the globalists cabal.
And while this story is certainly no attempt to paint Vladimir Putin as a ‘hero‘, as we hear in the 1st video below, Ukraine is one of the most corrupt, globalist-owned countries in the entire world, quite literally the ‘headquarters‘ of the globalist crime cabal.
One of the only countries in the world that they can fully control that has had the stability and infrastructure to be used for money laundering, bioweapons research and fully controlled by the ‘puppets‘ of the ‘cabal‘ itself, Ukraine in 2022 is also much like America in 2022, a country where nearly all the govt movers and shakers are totally compromised so there’s a big fat ZERO PERCENT chance of anything being investigated.
100% proven by none other than Joe Biden himself as seen in the 3rd video at the bottom of this story when he was talking to the “Council on Foreign Relations” and he quite literally bragged about how he’d hold back a Billion Dollars in aid to Ukraine unless a Ukrainian prosecutor stopped investigating him and his sons dealings, then laughed about it as the crowd joined in, let that sink in for a moment.
Read more at: AllNewsPipeline.comTOP
Regardless Of Who’s Elected, Imperial Corruption Rules The Nation
by Tyler Durdeny, Nov 10November2022 – 12:00 AM https://www.zerohedge.com/political/regardless-whos-elected-imperial-corruption-rules-nation
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
But in the meantime, enjoy the political theatrics down on the sand-strewn floor of the Coliseum.
Are you not Entertained-Roman Coliseum
While the much-touted differences between America’s political parties get obsessive, hysterical attention, the sameness of Imperial corruption, waste and squalor regardless of who’s in power gets little notice.
Scrape away the differences–mostly in domestic issues–and we see the dead hand of Imperial Corruption is on the tiller.
The core of Imperial Corruption is the disconnect between the nation’s ideals of representational democracy and open markets and the sordid reality: elites serve their interests by corrupting both democracy and open markets.
Unfettered democracy and markets cannot be controlled by a tiny, self-serving elite.
Stripped of corruption, democracy and markets are free-for-alls that are constantly evolving, as highly adaptive islands of coherence coalesce that influence the quasi-chaos, competing with other islands of coherence but never gaining dominance due to the open-ended dynamism of collaboration-competition that is the beating heart of both democracy and open markets.
The only way to control democracy and markets to serve the interests of the few at the expense of the many is to corrupt them completely by destroying the dynamism of collaboration-competition.
Democracy is replaced by an auction of political power to the highest bidder that rewards cronies and devotes all its resources not to solving the nation’s problems but to whipping up conflagrations of divisiveness and partisan hysteria that wash away the middle ground where problems can actually be addressed.
This crippling of the nation’s ability to actually solve difficult problems serves the interests of self-serving elites whose sole interest is accumulating personal wealth and power. Their proclaimed interest in solving the nations’ real-world problems are fraudulent tissues designed to hide the putrid reality that all their so-called “solutions” distill down to sluicing huge sums of state money to cronies and campaign contributors under the guise of “solving problems.”
The only “problem” America’s elites know how to solve is the “problem” of how to get personally richer while tightening their control of the nation-state’s vast flood of (taxed / borrowed) money.
Cronies and contributors get tax breaks hidden in 1,000-page legislation and overflowing rivers of money (here’s looking at you, Big Pharma, Big Defense, Higher Education, Sickcare, et al.).
America’s elites are masters at misdirection and distraction: it’s always the other side’s fault that the nation is sliding down the wrong side of the S-Curve.
The Lifecycle of States and Empires-Expansion and Collapse
The elites don’t really care which side is in power, as they control them both to serve their own interests.
But something funny happens on the way to gaining control of complex emerging systems: that control destroys the system’s self-correcting mechanisms and adaptability.
Rigging the system to serve one’s own interests destroys the system’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances and selective pressures.
Once a system has been crippled to serve the interest of an elite, when forced to adapt or die, it can only die as its mechanisms of adaptation were destroyed by the power-grab of elites.
An economy dominated by a handful of cartels and quasi-monopolies is an economy that is doomed to slide into the dustbin of history, as cartels and monopolies “win” by crushing competition and competing islands of coherence, as competition threatens their profits and control of markets and governance, a.k.a. “democracy.”
Any system that serves the interests of the few by choking off adaptability and the dynamisms of a free-for-all churn lacks the tools needed to avoid systemic collapse.
By enabling elites to organize the nation to serve their personal interests, America has been stripped of the dynamics needed to adapt. Without these dynamics, collapse is the only possible outcome.
But in the meantime, enjoy the political theatrics down on the sand-strewn floor of the Coliseum. While Imperial Corruption undermines what’s left of the nation’s ability to adapt fast enough and successfully enough to survive what lies ahead, we can cheer the “winners” of the bloodsport and ignore the winds of disorder sweeping the land.
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Escobar: How Russia Will Counterpunch The US/EU Declaration Of War
by Tyler Durden 05MarchMar 05, 2022 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-how-russia-will-counterpunch-useu-declaration-war
Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,
Only self-sufficiency affords total independence. And the Big Picture has also been keenly understood by the Global South…
One of the key underlying themes of the Russia/Ukraine/NATO matrix is that the Empire of Lies (copyright Putin) has been rattled to the core by the combined ability of Russian hypersonic missiles and a defensive shield capable of blocking incoming nuclear missiles from the West, thereby ending Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D.)
This has led the Americans to nearly risk a hot war to be able to place hypersonic missiles that they still don’t have on Ukraine’s western borders, and so be within three minutes of Moscow. For that, of course, they need Ukraine, as well as Poland and Romania in Eastern Europe.
In Ukraine, the Americans are determined to fight to the last European soul – if that’s what it takes. This may be the last roll of the (nuclear) dice. Thus the next-to-last gasp at coercing Russia into submission by using the remaining, workable American weapon of mass destruction: SWIFT.
Yet this weapon can be easily neutralized by rapid adoption of self-sufficiency.
With essential input by the inestimable Michael Hudson I have outlined possibilities for Russia to weather the sanction storm. That didn’t even consider the full extent of Russia’s “black box defense” – and counter-attack – as outlined by John Helmer in his introduction to an essay that heralds no less then The Return of Sergei Glaziev.
Glaziev, predictably detested across Atlanticist circles, was a key economic adviser to President Putin and is now the Minister for Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). He has always been a fierce critic of the Russian Central Bank and the oligarch gang closely linked to Anglo-American finance.
His latest essay, Sanctions and Sovereignty, originally published by expert.ru and translated by Helmer, deserves serious scrutiny.
This is one of the key takeaways:
De-offshore or bust
Glaziev essentially recommends:
The Russian Central Bank seems to be listening. Most of these measures are already in place. And there are signs that Putin and the government are finally ready to grab the Russian oligarchy by the balls and force them to share risks and losses at an extremely difficult for the nation. Goodbye to stockpiling funds taken out of Russia offshore and in Londongrad.
Glaziev is the real deal. In December 2014 I was at a conference in Rome, and Glaziev joined us on the phone. Reviewing a subsequent column I wrote at the time, between Rome and Beijing, I was stunned: it’s as if Glaziev was saying these things literally today.
Allow me to quote two paragraphs:
Gotta pay the “tax on independence”
A consensus seems to be emerging in Moscow that the Russian economy will stabilize quickly, as there will be a shortage of personnel for industry and a lot of extra hands will be required. Hence no unemployment. There may be shortages, but no inflation. Sales of – Western – luxury goods have already been curtailed. Imported products will be placed under price controls. All the necessary rubles will be available though price controls – as happened in the U.S. in WWII.
A wave of nationalization of assets may be ahead. ExxonMobil announced it will withdraw from the $4 billion Sakhalin-1 project (they had bailed out on Sakhalin-2, deemed too expensive), producing 200,000 barrels of oil a day, after BP and Norway’s Equinor announced they were withdrawing from projects with Rosneft. BP was actually dreaming of taking all of Rosneft’s participation.
According to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, the Kremlin is now blocking asset sales by foreign investors looking to divest. In parallel, Rosneft, for instance, is bound to raise capital from China and India, who are already minority investors in several projects, and buy them out 100%: an excellent opportunity for Russian business.
What could be construed as the Mother of All Counter-Sanctions has not yet been announced. Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev himself hinted all options are on the table.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, channeling the patience of 10,000 Taoist monks, still expecting the current hysteria to fade away, describes the sanctions as “some kind of a tax on independence”, with countries barring their companies from working in Russia under “huge pressure.”
Lethal counterpunches though are not excluded. Apart from completely de-dollarizing – as Glaviev recommends – Russia may ban the export of titanium, rare earth, nuclear fuel and, already in effect, rocket engines.
Very toxic moves would include seizing all foreign assets of hostile nations; freeze all loan repayments to Western banks and place the funds in a frozen account in a Russian bank; completely ban all hostile foreign media, foreign media ownership, assorted NGOs and CIA fronts; and supply friendly nations with state of the art weapons, intel sharing and joint training and exercises.
What’s certain is that a new architecture of payment systems – as discussed by Michael Hudson and others – uniting the Russian SPFS and the Chinese CHIPS, may soon be offered to scores of nations across Eurasia and the Global South – several among them already under sanctions, such as Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, the DPRK.
Slowly but surely, we are already on the way to the emergence of a sizeable Global South bloc immune to American financial warfare.
The RIC in BRICS – Russia, India and China – are already increasing trade in their own currencies. If we look at the list of nations at the UN that voted against Russia or abstained from condemning Operation Z in Ukraine, plus those that did not sanction Russia, we have at least 70% of the whole Global South.
So once again is the West – plus satrapies/colonies such as Japan and Singapore in Asia – against the Rest: Eurasia, Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America.
The coming European collapse
Michael Hudson told me, “the U.S. and Western Europe expected a Froelicher Krieg (“happy war”). Germany and other countries haven’t begun to feel the pain of gas and mineral and food deprivation. THAT’S going to be the real game. The aim would be to break Europe away from U.S. control via NATO. This will involve “meddling” by creating a New World Order political movement and party, like Communism was a century ago. You could call it a new Great Awakening.”
A possible Great Awakening certainly will not involve the NATOstan sphere anytime soon. The collective West is rather in serious Great Decoupling mode, its entire economy weaponized with the aim, expressed in the open, of destroying Russia and even – the perennial wet dream – provoking regime change.
Sergey Naryshkin, the head of the SVR, succinctly described it:
Arguably the apex of Western hysteria is the onset of a 2022 Neo-Nazi Jihad: a 20,000-strong mercenary army being assembled in Poland under CIA supervision. The bulk comes from private military companies such as Blackwater/Academi and DynCorp. Their cover: “return of Ukrainians from the French Foreign Legion.” This Afghan remix comes straight from the only playbook the CIA knows.
Back in reality, facts on the ground will eventually lead entire economies in the West to become roadkill – with chaos in the commodities sphere leading to skyrocketing energy and food costs. As an example, up to 60% of German and 70% of Italian manufacturing industries may be forced to shut down for good – with catastrophic social consequences.
The unelected, uber-Kafkaesque EU machine in Brussels has chosen to commit a triple hara-kiri by grandstanding as abject vassals of the Empire, destroying any remaining French and German sovereignty impulses and imposing alienation from Russia-China.
Meanwhile, Russia will be showing the way: only self-sufficiency affords total independence. And the Big Picture has also been keenly understood by the Global South: one day someone had to stand up and say, “That’s Enough”. With maximum raw power to back it up.
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Test Of Russia-Iran-India Trade Route Highlights Shifting Geopolitics
by Tyler Durden 14June2022 – 12:20 AM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/test-russia-iran-india-trade-route-highlights-shifting-geopolitics
Forty-one tons of wood laminate sheeting is on its way from Russia to India. The cargo isn’t newsworthy, but the fact that it’s traveling through Iran absolutely is—potentially marking the opening of a significant new trade corridor that strengthens Iran’s relationship with India…with big geopolitical implications.
On Saturday, Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) announced that a pilot run for the new trade route was underway, with the wood laminate’s transit being managed by the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines Group. The shipping arrangement enables the use of one bill of lading for the entire journey, which reduces transport costs, red tape and wait times, reports IRNA.
Testing the ease of logistics, customs and other processes, two 40-foot shipping containers will first make their way from Saint Petersburg to the Caspian Sea. After arriving by ship at the northern Iranian port of Anzali, they’ll be trucked across Iran to the Persian Gulf port of Bandar Abbas, and then shipped to the Indian port of Nhava Sheva. The trip is expected to take 25 days, according to an Iranian official.
IRNA portrayed the pilot as a partial realization of the long-brewing International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). That 22-year old initiative aspires to link the Caspian Sea to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf via Iran—connecting major ports and dramatically reducing transit times compared to alternative routes through the Suez Canal, Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean and North Sea.
Russia-Iran-India – International North-South Transport Corridor map
Initiated by India, Russia and Iran in 2000, the INSTC association now includes Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, Oman and Syria.
Iran’s INSTC aspirations include building a rail line from the Caspian Sea to the southeastern Iranian port of Chabahar. A far more ambitious vision calls for the construction of a canal directly linking the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf. Spanning 750 miles from north to south, the Caspian Sea is the world’s largest inland water body, covering an area larger than Japan.
The INSTC pilot comes on the heels of a friendly official visit to India by Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who was granted meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India’s national security advisor.
The Indian government’s official statement summarizing the visit said the countries “share close historical and civilizational ties. Our bilateral relations are marked by strong linkages across institutions, culture and people-to-people ties.” India lauded Iran for facilitating India’s medical assistance to Afghanistan, and the provision of Covid-19 vaccines to Afghan citizens living in Iran.
India also noted the value of Iran’s Persian Gulf port of Chabahar, which “has provided much needed sea-access to landlocked Afghanistan and has also emerged as a commercial transit hub for the region, including for Central Asia.”
At The Diplomat, Rajeev Agarwal argues that India-Iran ties are ripe for a reset:
Caving to U.S. pressure, India stopped buying Iranian oil in mid-2019. Before that, India was Iran’s second-biggest customer, behind China. With negotiations to resume the Iran nuclear deal at an impasse, Agarwal speculates that India’s calculations could change:
India is the world’s sixth-largest economy. If it were to opt out of the Iran sanctions regime, other countries might follow its lead.
Note that India has been building stronger economic links to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. In what could be a complementary development, Iran has been entertaining reconciliation with Saudi Arabia, via five rounds of talks hosted by Iraq.
In May, Saudi foreign minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said, “We continue to encourage our neighbors in Iran to lean into what can be a very, very important sea change in our region…a new era of cooperation” could be beneficial to everyone.
All these developments point to the potential for a significant geopolitical shift, writes Argawal:
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India’s Largest Cement Maker “Circumventing The Dollar” In Russian-Coal-For-Yuan Deal
by Tyler Durden 29June2022 – 11:20 PM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/indias-largest-cement-maker-circumventing-dollar-russian-coal-yuan-deal
The Russian economy is currently experiencing unprecedented pressure from a group of countries led by the United States, with more than 10,000 sanctions imposed on the country, its citizens, and companies.
Despite all the amplification of sanctions threats by the media, and vilification of anything Russian by western leaders, many of the world’s largest nations (by population and economy), are continuing to adjust to current conditions, ignoring the virtue-signaling, and sending Russia’s currency and current account balance soaring.
But, in yet another example of the far-less-unified-than-Biden-claims new world order, it appears Indian industrialists have no problem dealing with Putin for their key materials.
UltraTech Cement – India’s biggest cement producer
The latest example comes from India as Reuters reports that UltraTech Cement – India’s biggest cement producer – is importing a cargo of Russian coal and paying for it using Chinese Yuan.
UltraTech is bringing in 157,000 tonnes of coal from Russian producer SUEK that loaded on the bulk carrier MV Mangas from the Russian Far East port of Vanino, the document showed. It cites an invoice dated June 5 that values the cargo at 172,652,900 yuan ($25.81 million).
The increasing use of the yuan to settle payments could help insulate Moscow from the effects of western sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and bolster Beijing’s push to further internationalise the currency and chip away at the dominance of the U.S. dollar in global trade.
India has explored setting up a rupee payment mechanism for trade with Russia, but that has not materialized. Chinese businesses have used the yuan in trade settlements with Russia for years.
An Indian government official familiar with the matter said the government was aware of payments in yuan.
Finally, we are reminded of what First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) told The Financial Times earlier in the year: that the recent financial sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine are threatening to weaken the dominance of the U.S. Dollar as the world currency,
Russia had been planning for years to reduce its dependence on the petrodollar since the United States imposed sanctions in retaliation for its annexation of Crimea in 2014.
The current crisis in Ukraine has only accelerated those plans… and it now seems the entire BRICS group may be ready to cross the chasm as Bretton Woods III begins to form.
The implications, needless to say, are staggering (and, worse, while Zoltan Poszar does not explicitly state it, he clearly believes that world war is coming):
A BRICS-based payment system would be the ultimate challenge to the dollar-hegemon-based system in place today.
At a BRICS summit earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the bloc, consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, is currently working on setting up a new global reserve currency that would be based on the currency basket of the five nations. Earlier, the bloc said it was working on establishing a joint payment network to abate the reliance on the Western financial system.
BRICS 14th Summit-2022-06-29_Country Leaders
Even if this is nothing but talk, it underscores the fact that the dollar is on shaky ground. US policymakers would be wise to consider future dollar weaponization carefully.
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Escobar: Everybody Wants To Hop On The BRICS Express
by Tyler Durden 29October2022 – 07:00 AM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-everybody-wants-hop-brics-express
Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,
Eurasia is about to get a whole lot larger as countries line up to join the Chinese and Russian-led BRICS and SCO, to the detriment of the west…
Russia and Chinas BRICS and SCO lead the Global South
Let’s start with what is in fact a tale of Global South trade between two members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). At its heart is the already notorious Shahed-136 drone – or Geranium-2, in its Russian denomination: the AK-47 of postmodern aerial warfare.
The US, in yet another trademark hysteria fit rife with irony, accused Tehran of weaponizing the Russian Armed Forces. For both Tehran and Moscow, the superstar, value-for-money, and terribly efficient drone let loose in the Ukrainian battlefield is a state secret: its deployment prompted a flurry of denials from both sides. Whether these are made in Iran drones, or the design was bought and manufacturing takes place in Russia (the realistic option), is immaterial.
The record shows that the US weaponizes Ukraine to the hilt against Russia.
The Empire is a de facto war combatant via an array of “consultants,” advisers, trainers, mercenaries, heavy weapons, munitions, satellite intel, and electronic warfare. And yet imperial functionaries swear they are not part of the war. They are, once again, lying.
Welcome to yet another graphic instance of the “rules-based international order” at work. The Hegemon always decides which rules apply, and when. Anyone opposing it is an enemy of “freedom,” “democracy,” or whatever platitude du jour, and should be – what else – punished by arbitrary sanctions.
In the case of sanctioned-to-oblivion Iran, for decades now, the result has been predictably another round of sanctions. That’s irrelevant. What matters is that, according to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), no less than 22 nations – and counting – are joining the queue because they also want to get into the Shahed groove.
Even Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gleefully joined the fray, commenting on how the Shahed-136 is no photoshop.
The race towards BRICS+
What the new sanctions package against Iran really “accomplished” is to deliver an additional blow to the increasingly problematic signing of the revived nuclear deal in Vienna. More Iranian oil on the market would actually relieve Washington’s predicament after the recent epic snub by OPEC+.
A categorical imperative though remains. Iranophobia – just like Russophobia – always prevails for the Straussians/neo-con war advocates in charge of US foreign policy and their European vassals.
So here we have yet another hostile escalation in both Iran-US and Iran-EU relations, as the unelected junta in Brussels also sanctioned manufacturer Shahed Aviation Industries and three Iranian generals.
Now compare this with the fate of the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone – which unlike the “flowers in the sky” (Russia’s Geraniums) has performed miserably in the battlefield.
Kiev tried to convince the Turks to use a Motor Sich weapons factory in Ukraine or come up with a new company in Transcarpathia/Lviv to build Bayraktars. Motor Sich’s oligarch President Vyacheslav Boguslayev, aged 84, has been charged with treason because of his links to Russia, and may be exchanged for Ukrainian prisoners of war.
In the end, the deal fizzled out because of Ankara’s exceptional enthusiasm in working to establish a new gas hub in Turkey – a personal suggestion from Russian President Vladimir Putin to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
And that bring us to the advancing interconnection between BRICS and the 9-member SCO – to which this Russia-Iran instance of military trade is inextricably linked.
The SCO, led by China and Russia, is a pan-Eurasian institution originally focused on counter-terrorism but now increasingly geared towards geoeconomic – and geopolitical – cooperation. BRICS, led by the triad of Russia, India, and China overlaps with the SCO agenda geoeconomically and geopoliticallly, expanding it to Africa, Latin America and beyond: that’s the concept of BRICS+, analyzed in detail in a recent Valdai Club report, and fully embraced by the Russia-China strategic partnership.
The report weighs the pros and cons of three scenarios involving possible, upcoming BRICS+ candidates:
And then there’s Iran, which has already already shown interest in joining BRICS.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has recently confirmed that “several countries” are absolutely dying to join BRICS. Among them, a crucial West Asia player: Saudi Arabia.
What makes it even more astonishing is that only three years ago, under former US President Donald Trump’s administration, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MbS) – the kingdom’s de fact ruler – was dead set on joining a sort of Arab NATO as a privileged imperial ally.
Diplomatic sources confirm that the day after the US pulled out of Afghanistan, MbS’s envoys started seriously negotiating with both Moscow and Beijing.
Assuming BRICS approves Riyadh’s candidacy in 2023 by the necessary consensus, one can barely imagine its earth-shattering consequences for the petrodollar. At the same time, it is important not to underestimate the capacity of US foreign policy controllers to wreak havoc.
The only reason Washington tolerates Riyadh’s regime is the petrodollar. The Saudis cannot be allowed to pursue an independent, truly sovereign foreign policy. If that happens, the geopolitical realignment will concern not only Saudi Arabia but the entire Persian Gulf.
Yet that’s increasingly likely after OPEC+ de facto chose the BRICS/SCO path led by Russia-China – in what can be interpreted as a “soft” preamble for the end of the petrodollar.
The Riyadh-Tehran-Ankara triad
Iran made known its interest to join BRICS even before Saudi Arabia. According to Persian Gulf diplomatic sources, they are already engaged in a somewhat secret channel via Iraq trying to get their act together. Turkey will soon follow – certainly on BRICS and possibly the SCO, where Ankara currently carries the status of extremely interested observer.
Now imagine this triad – Riyadh, Tehran, Ankara – closely joined with Russia, India, China (the actual core of the BRICS), and eventually in the SCO, where Iran is as yet the only West Asian nation to be inducted as a full member.
The strategic blow to the Empire will go off the charts. The discussions leading to BRICS+ are focusing on the challenging path towards a commodity-backed global currency capable of bypassing US dollar primacy.
Several interconnected steps point towards increasing symbiosis between BRICS+ and SCO. The latter’s members states have already agreed on a road map for gradually increasing trade in national currencies in mutual settlements.
The State Bank of India – the nation’s top lender – is opening special rupee accounts for Russia-related trade.
Russian natural gas to Turkey will be paid 25 percent in rubles and Turkish lira, complete with a 25 percent discount Erdogan personally asked of Putin.
Russian bank VTB has launched money transfers to China in yuan, bypassing SWIFT, while Sberbank has started lending out money in yuan. Russian energy behemoth Gazprom agreed with China that gas supply payments should shift to rubles and yuan, split evenly.
Iran and Russia are unifying their banking systems for trade in rubles/rial.
Egypt’s Central Bank is moving to establish an index for the pound – through a group of currencies plus gold – to move the national currency away from the US dollar.
And then there’s the TurkStream saga.
That gas hub gift
Ankara for years has been trying to position itself as a privileged East-West gas hub. After the sabotage of the Nord Streams, Putin has handed it on a plate by offering Turkey the possibility to increase Russian gas supplies to the EU via such a hub. The Turkish Energy Ministry stated that Ankara and Moscow have already reached an agreement in principle.
This will mean in practice Turkey controlling the gas flow to Europe not only from Russia but also Azerbaijan and a great deal of West Asia, perhaps even including Iran, as well as Libya in northeast Africa. LNG terminals in Egypt, Greece and Turkiye itself may complete the network.
Russian gas travels via the TurkStream and Blue Stream pipelines. The total capacity of Russian pipelines is 39 billion cubic meters a year.
Turkey and Russia proposed pipelines
Map of Russian gas route via Turkey
TurkStream was initially projected as a four-strand pipeline, with a nominal capacity of 63 million cubic meters a year. As it stands, only two strands – with a total capacity of 31,5 billion cubic meters – have been built.
So an extension in theory is more than feasible – with all the equipment made in Russia. The problem, once again, is laying the pipes. The necessary vessels belong to the Swiss Allseas Group – and Switzerland is part of the sanctions craze. In the Baltic Sea, Russian vessels were used to finish building Nord Stream 2. But for a TurkStream extension, they would need to operate much deeper in the ocean.
TurkStream would not be able to completely replace Nord Stream; it carries much smaller volumes. The upside for Russia is not being canceled from the EU market. Evidently Gazprom would only tackle the substantial investment on an extension if there are ironclad guarantees about its security. And there’s the additional drawback that the extension would also carry gas from Russia’s competitors.
Whatever happens, the fact remains that the US-UK combo still exerts a lot of influence in Turkey – and BP, Exxon Mobil, and Shell, for instance, are actors in virtually every oil extraction project across West Asia. So they would certainly interfere on the way the Turkish gas hub functions, as well on determining the gas price. Moscow has to weigh all these variables before committing to such a project.
NATO, of course, will be livid. But never underestimate hedging bet specialist Sultan Erdogan. His love story with both the BRICS and the SCO is just beginning.
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Breaking China: A rupture looms between Israel and the United States
For years, Israel has been working to dramatically expand trade with China. Now, that push is running up against strong opposition from the White House.
By RON KAMPEAS/JTA
Published: 3JUNE2020 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/breaking-china-a-rupture-looms-between-israel-and-the-united-states-630101
PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands ahead of their talks in China in March 2017 (photo credit: ETIENNE OLIVEAU/POOL/REUTERS)
Israel’s announcement last week that an Israeli consortium would build Sorek 2, the world’s largest desalination plant, surprised many who had been watching the deal: The contract had been expected to go to a Hong Kong-based company.
But that was before the Trump administration ramped up pressure on Israel to diminish its ties to China.
For years, Israel has been working to dramatically expand trade with China, one of the world’s largest markets. That push is suddenly running up against strong opposition from the White House, as the Trump administration pivots from the decades-old policy of increasing US engagement with China to treating the country as an increasingly bitter rival.
The Sorek 2 deal was widely seen as a bow to pressure from the Trump administration, which is pushing Israel and other key allies to curtail trade with China. But observers of this deepening dynamic say it may not be enough to head off a US-Israel crisis over China.
A Chinese company, SIPG, is building a major port in Haifa and will control it for 25 years. The Trump administration, according to multiple insiders, wants Israel to roll back at least part of that deal. The Israelis consider it a done deal, even if they may have regrets over it.
“It’s a bit of a shock to the system,” Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president of a think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, that has close ties with the Trump administration and with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said of the looming crisis. “We had been hearing from the administration officials and even some Israeli diplomats about some of the complications arising from the intensification of the great power competition between the U.S. and China.”
In mid-May, the Trump administration unveiled a 16-page revised approach for relating to China amid American fury with the Chinese for obfuscating the origins of the coronavirus and failing to contain the pandemic. The US has not publicly spelled out potential consequences for countries that do not go along with its anti-China push.
But those with ties to both the Israeli and US government said there is a real risk of diminished security cooperation if Israel does not accede to American pressure to stringently review any commercial deals with China and nix those that might impinge on Israeli and US security interests.
Doug Feith, a top Pentagon official under President George W. Bush who helped resolve the last US-Israel crisis over China — over Israel’s weapons sales to China in the mid-2000s — said the Trump administration was poised to act unless Israel took steps to alleviate US concerns.
Feith pointed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s brief trip to Israel in mid-May — only his second visit abroad since the coronavirus pandemic shut down the United States — to make sure Jerusalem got the message. During his one-day visit, Pompeo openly accused China of “obfuscating” and “hiding” information related to the pandemic. (China’s ambassador to Israel responded by calling the accusations “absurd,” saying China “has never covered up the outbreak.” He died of an apparent heart attack in his apartment in Israel less than a week later.)
Pompeo had warned Israel earlier in the month “that further Israeli economic linkage with China will hurt relations with the US,” Feith, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, wrote in a May 15 Wall Street Journal op-ed.
In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Feith said he learned of Pompeo’s warning from Israeli and American officials. (Requests for comment from the State Department and from Israel’s embassy here were not returned.)
Israel is not alone, Feith said, noting similar recent warnings issued by Trump administration officials to Britain and Australia.
“What the government is saying is that it applies to Israel in the same way that it would apply to other countries, including very close friends,” he said.
Those warnings could rupture the close relationship between President Donald Trump and Netanyahu, who have been joined at the hip on policy and politics, ranging from Israel’s claims to territories won in the 1967 Six-Day War, to heightening confrontation with Iran, to disdain for the Democratic Party’s left wing.
“This administration likely feels particularly empowered to have tachlis discussions with Israel about limitations since it [rightly] views itself as having provided Netanyahu and the last government with wall-to-wall support,” said Scott Lasensky, a visiting professor at the University of Maryland and an adviser on Israel policy to the Obama administration.
A resolution to the crisis could sink in Haifa’s port
The biggest deal Israel has signed with a Chinese company was in December: The Shanghai International Port Group, or SIPG, is to build and operate a port in Haifa for 25 years. The agreement followed years of negotiations.
The Trump administration wants controls in place to limit Chinese malfeasance, if not a complete abrogation of the deal. Breaking the contract is unlikely, as Israel does not want to risk alienating its trade relationship with China. Those ties, according to an analysis last year by the Rand Corp., a think tank that advises the Pentagon, was worth $8 billion in Chinese exports to Israel and $3 billion in Israeli exports to China in 2016.
Netanyahu has made his cultivation of ties with China a feather in his cap, and China has already warned Israel against acquiescing to “US bullying.”
SIPG’s control of the port allows the Chinese intelligence-gathering proximity to Israeli naval bases, and to information that flows from the port, as well as the ability to frustrate access in an emergency.
“Ports are high-tech,” Gary Roughead, a retired U.S. Navy admiral who last year co-authored with Feith a Hudson Institute report on US-Israel cooperation in the eastern Mediterranean, said in an interview. Port operators “have control systems and the data that goes with it.”
Roughead said that could give China eyes into Israeli-US communications and, more broadly, into Israel’s military, which would raise concerns for its allies.
“It would be important to know, do [Israel’s] security services have access to the port to monitor for the capabilities that are focused on your naval base, is that allowed, or does Shanghai say, ‘No, you can’t sweep the port, or peer into the types of activity or intercept the communications,’” he said.
Other concerns Roughead noted: US military vessels that stop in Haifa for servicing and whether China would be able to intervene in U.S. assistance to Israel during a military crisis.
Feith said that Israeli officials have endeavored to reassure Americans that they have checks in place at the port, but the Americans remain wary.
Shaul Chorev, a retired rear admiral in the Israeli Navy and a co-author with Feith and Roughead of the Hudson Institute report, said the port deal was a mistake on national security grounds, but Israel was not about to substantially retreat.
“If Israel goes to China and says let’s roll back, we will lose face, we will lose our economic relations,” said Chorev, who directs the Haifa Research Center for Maritime Policy and Strategy.
The crisis has come on suddenly
Until around 2018, few in Israel or the United States saw this crisis coming. Dealing with China, with its deep pockets and resources, had been a no-brainer across the planet for years. Its Belt and Road initiative, bringing infrastructure on the cheap to developing countries, is transforming Africa.
But then some critics began to claim that Chinese information technology companies were allowing China’s government to spy on countries that use their cellular technology. And Beijing also began facing claims that it was using Belt and Road to squeeze diplomatic concessions from participating countries. In 2018, Trump administration officials began to aggressively warn allies against deals with China. Lawmakers from both parties have issued similar warnings.
Those concerns were simply not on anyone’s radar in 2015, said Daniel Shapiro, then the US ambassador to Israel. Yisrael Katz, then Israel’s transportation minister, approached Shapiro seeking US contractors to redo Haifa’s port. That never eventuated, in part because the project was seen as too small by US contractors, so Israel turned to the Shanghai International Port Group.
“They went ahead with their process, they signed a deal with the firm,” Shapiro said. “No one in the US government — not in the Navy, not in the Defense Department — called me and said ‘Hey, we have a problem.’”
A renewed process to vet Israel’s international deals
Last year, Israel launched a foreign investment review board at the behest of John Bolton, then Trump’s national security adviser and one of Israel’s closest-ever friends in US government. The goal of the board is to ensure that agreements are vetted with national security concerns in mind — and avoid a situation like the Haifa port deal, where negotiations took place for several years, yet parts of Israel’s security establishment were caught off-guard by the agreement.
The review board is seen as feckless and ineffectual, in part because it was formed under Israel’s interim government and lacked a mandate. Now that Netanyahu has set up a government, the Americans expect him to strengthen the mechanism.
“The first thing that Israel should do for its own sake, even if America and China were not on this collision path, is to have a real foreign investment screening mechanism,” said Shira Efron, a visiting fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies who co-authored the 2019 Rand report.
Efron said the mechanism should be legislated — the committee last year was a Cabinet decision — which would give it the power to compel compliance. Its scope should be extended to the technological sector, she said, and it should be an independent entity.
The Israeli government should make clear that strengthening the mechanism is in Israel’s interest and not at the behest of the United States, Efron added.
“If it’s in response to US pressure, it’s insulting to China,” she said.
It’s not about 5G
Trump administration officials have formally warned Britain and Australia that allowing Huawei, the Chinese communications giant, to help establish 5G communications networks in their countries would adversely affect intelligence sharing. The US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network.
Democrats and Republicans alike see Chinese communications companies as arms of China’s intelligence network.
There were concerns last year that Israel was considering similar contracts, but Israel has put them to rest, said a March report by Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies.
“In view of the absence of Chinese technology from previous generations of communications infrastructure in Israel, and despite the lack of clear official announcements by the Israeli government on the matter, the likelihood of its 5G infrastructure being built with Chinese technology is low to nonexistent,” the report said.
But there’s a lot more to talk about
China has been building infrastructure in Israel since at least 2007, when the China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. brought in 300 workers to build the tunnel system linking the southern entrance to Haifa with the suburbs to the city’s north. That success has led to a thirst for Chinese construction, and there was talk of China building new rail links in Israel. China’s Bright Food Group owns a controlling stake in Tnuva, Israel’s preeminent dairy.
Decoupling from China won’t be easy. And China appears prepared to place its own pressure on Israel.
After Pompeo’s visit last month, the Chinese embassy’s spokesman declared that his country trusted that its “Jewish friends are not only able to defeat the coronavirus but also the ‘political virus,’ and choose the course of action that best serves their interests.”
Still, Israel’s willingness last week to cut China out of the Sorek 2 desalination deal shows it is ready to roll back engagement on some fronts.
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies released a paper last month outlining how to avert a deeper crisis. Its recommendation: “The United States should work with Israel and other allies to facilitate alternatives to help Israel pivot away from China.
“Other Indo-Pacific countries, such as Japan, Canada, India, Australia, South Korea, and Taiwan, already invest in Israel and may be eager to increase their engagement to replace Chinese investment,” the paper said.
There are other spheres in which Israel will be under US pressure to apply greater scrutiny, including Chinese investment in Israel’s high-tech sector, said Vance Serchuk, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and once a foreign policy adviser to former US Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
“In many cases on the surface, the companies that are working in these areas are not primarily focused on military applications, but the capabilities themselves have the potential to be leveraged for strategic impact,” Serchuk said. “Both Israelis and Americans agree that Israeli capabilities should never be leveraged or weaponized against the United States, but figuring out exactly what that means is very tricky.”
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The Sultan 2.0 will heavily tilt east
It’s not that Erdogan has a scheme to head east at the west’s expense. It’s just that the world’s grandest infrastructure, development, and geopolitical projects are all in the east today.
By Pepe Escobar
31May2023 https://thecradle.co/article-view/25429/the-sultan-20-will-heavily-tilt-east
Pepe Escobar on Erdogan and the Turkish elections Photo Credit: The Cradle
The collective west was dying to bury him – yet another strategic mistake that did not take into account the mood of Turkish voters in deep Anatolia.
In the end, Recep Tayyip Erdogan did it – again. Against all his shortcomings, like an aging neo-Ottoman Sinatra, he did it “my way,” comfortably retaining Turkiye’s presidency after naysayers had all but buried him.
The first order of geopolitical priority is who will be named Minister of Foreign Affairs. The prime candidate is Ibrahim Kalin – the current all-powerful Erdogan press secretary cum top adviser.
Compared to incumbent Cavusoglu, Kalin, in theory, may be qualified as more pro-west. Yet it’s the Sultan who calls the shots. It will be fascinating to watch how Turkiye under Erdogan 2.0 will navigate the strengthening of ties with West Asia and the accelerating process of Eurasia integration.
The first immediate priority, from Erdogan’s point of view, is to get rid of the “terrorist corridor” in Syria. This means, in practice, reigning in the US-backed Kurdish YPG/PYD, who are effectively Syrian affiliates of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – which is also the issue at the heart of a possible normalization of relations with Damascus.
Now that Syria has been enthusiastically welcomed back to the Arab League after a 12-year freeze, a Moscow-brokered entente between the Turkish and Syrian presidents, already in progress, may represent the ultimate win-win for Erdogan: allowing control of Kurds in north Syria while facilitating the repatriation of roughly 4 million refugees (tens of thousands will stay, as a source of cheap labor).
The Sultan is at his prime when it comes to hedging his bets between east and west. He knows well how to profit from Turkiye’s status as a key NATO member – complete with one of its largest armies, veto power, and control of the entry to the uber-strategic Black Sea.
And all that while exercising real foreign policy independence, from West Asia to the Eastern Mediterranean.
So expect Erdogan 2.0 to remain an inextinguishable source of irritation for the neocons and neoliberals in charge of US foreign policy, along with their EU vassals, who will never refrain from trying to subdue Ankara to fight the Russia-China-Iran Eurasia integration entente. The Sultan, though, knows how to play this game beautifully.
How to manage Russia and China
Whatever happens next, Erdogan will not hop on board the sanctions-against-Russia sinking ship. The Kremlin bought Turkish bonds tied to the development of the Russian-built Akkuyu nuclear power plant, Turkiye’s first nuclear reactor. Moscow allowed Ankara to postpone nearly $4 billion in energy payments until 2024. Best of all, Ankara pays for Russian gas in rubles.
So an array of deals related to the supply of Russian energy trump possible secondary sanctions that might target the steady rise in Turkiye’s exports. Still, it’s a given the US will revert to its one and only “diplomatic” policy – sanctions. The 2018 sanctions did push Turkiye into recession after all.
But Erdogan can easily count on popular support across the Turkish realm. Early this year, a Gezici poll revealed that 72.8 percent of Turkish citizens privilege good relations with Russia while nearly 90 percent rate the US as a “hostile” nation. That’s what allows Interior Minister Soylu to remark, bluntly, “we will wipe out whoever is causing trouble, including American troops.”
China-Turkiye strategic cooperation falls under what Erdogan defines as “turning to the East” – and is mostly about China’s multi-continent infrastructure behemoth, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Turk Silk Road branch of the BRI focuses on what Beijing defines as the “Middle Corridor,” a prime cost-effective/secure trade route that connects Asia to Europe.
The driver is the China Railway Express, which turned the Middle Corridor arguably into BRI’s backbone. For instance, electronics parts and an array of household items routinely arriving via cargo planes from Osaka, Japan are loaded onto freight trains going to Duisburg and Hamburg in Germany, via the China Railway Express departing from Shenzhen, Wuhan, and Changsha – and crossing from Xinjiang to Kazakhstan and beyond via the Alataw Pass. Shipments from Chongqing to Germany take a maximum of 13 days.
It’s no wonder that nearly 10 years ago, when he first unveiled his ambitious, multi-trillion dollar BRI in Astana, Kazakhstan, Chinese President Xi Jinping placed the China Railway Express as a core BRI component.
Direct freight trains from Xian to Istanbul are plying the route since December 2020, using the Baku-Tblisi-Kars (BTK) railway with less than two weeks travel time – and plans afoot to increase their frequency. Beijing is well aware of Turkiye’s asset as a transportation hub and crossroads for markets in the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, West Asia, and North Africa, not to mention a customs union with the EU that allows direct access to European markets.
Moreover, Baku’s victory in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war came with a ceasefire deal bonus: the Zangezur corridor, which will eventually facilitate Turkiye’s direct access to neighbors from the Caucasus to Central Asia.
A pan-Turkic offensive?
And here we enter a fascinating territory: the possible incoming interpolations between the Organization of Turkic States (OTS), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BRICS+ – and all that also linked to a boost in Saudi and Emirati investments in the Turkish economy.
Sultan 2.0 wants to become a full member of both the Chinese-led SCO and multipolar BRICS+. This means a much closer entente with the Russia-China strategic partnership as well as with the Arab powerhouses, which are also hopping on the BRICS+ high-speed train.
Erdogan 2.0 is already focusing on two key players in Central Asia and South Asia: Uzbekistan and Pakistan. Both happen to be SCO members.
Ankara and Islamabad are very much in sync. They express the same judgment on the extremely delicate Kashmir question, and both backed Azerbaijan against Armenia.
But the key developments may lie in Central Asia. Ankara and Tashkent have a strategic defense agreement – including intel sharing and logistics cooperation.
The Organization of Turkic States (OTS), with a HQ in Istanbul, is the prime energizer of pan-Turkism or pan-Turanism. Turkiye, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan are full members, with Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Hungary, and Ukraine cultivated as observers. The Turk-Azeri relationship is billed as “one nation, two states” in pan-Turkic terms.
The basic idea is a still hazy “cooperation platform” between Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus. Yet some serious proposals have already been floated. The OTS summit in Samarkand late last year advanced the idea of a TURANCEZ free trade bloc, comprising Turkiye, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and as observers, Hungary (representing the EU) and Northern Cyprus.
Meanwhile, hard business prevails. To fully profit from the status of the energy transit hub, Turkiye needs not only Russian gas but also gas from Turkmenistan feeding the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) as well as Kazakh oil coming via the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.
The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) is heavy on economic cooperation, active in a series of projects in transportation, construction, mining, and oil and gas. Ankara has already invested a whopping $85 billion across Central Asia, with nearly 4,000 companies scattered across all the “stans.”
Of course, when compared to Russia and China, Turkiye is not a major player in Central Asia. Moreover, the bridge to Central Asia goes via Iran. So far, rivalry between Ankara and Tehran seems to be the norm, but everything may change, lightning fast, with the simultaneous development of the Russia-Iran-India-led International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), which will profit both – and the fact that the Iranians and Turks may soon become full BRICS+ members.
Sultan 2.0 is bound to boost investment in Central Asia as a new geoeconomic frontier. That in itself encapsulates the possibility of Turkiye soon joining the SCO.
We will then have a “turning to the East” in full effect, in parallel to closer ties with the Russia-China strategic partnership. Take note that Turkiye’s ties with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan are also strategic partnerships.
Not bad for a neo-Ottoman who, until a few days ago, was dismissed as a has-been.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
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Failures Of An Economic Hitman In Turkey: Erdogan Re-elected
by Tyler Durden, 04June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/failures-economic-hitman-turkey-erdogan-re-elected
Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,
President Erdogan’s re-election in Turkey is a monumental failure of Western pressure. Because of it, it’s time to take our eyes off Ukraine and look at a different theater of World War III with equal if not bigger implications.
Turkey is another in a now long string of failed Economic Hitman operations cum Color Revolutions. The last big one to fail was in Belarus in 2020 following the re-election of Alexander Lukashenko.
Turkey has been the subject of a seven-year campaign to be rid of Erdogan, beginning with the 2016 coup attempt organized out of the NATO airbase at Incerlik. Turkey’s been through a persistent five-year brutal devaluation of its currency, the lira, seeing it drop from less than 2 versus the US dollar to nearly 21 this week in the wake of Erdogan’s victory.
I’ve covered this story in detail (see my Turkey archives here) being one of the lone voices out there trying to parse Erdogan’s monetary policy actions which I’ve argued sought to de-dollarize Turkey’s foreign exchange liabilities and forge an independent path.
Erdogan, wily as a fox, has been deftly playing the US and Russia/China off each other for years, positioning Turkey simultaneously as a member of NATO, the gatekeeper to the Black Sea, and the financial and trade crossroads linking East and West.
The West’s campaign to overthrow President Assad in Syria beginning in 2011 couldn’t have gone forward without Erdogan’s help. He went along with it very willingly having been promised Turkey claiming Idlib province in the West and taking most of the north. Vladimir Putin accepting Assad’s invitation for assistance in fighting ISIS and Erdogan’s pets in Idlib (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham or HTS) began the unraveling of those plans.
Turkey shooting down a Russian SU-31 in November 2015 was supposed to push Putin to war against Turkey, giving NATO every reason to engage the Russians directly. But Putin and Erdogan came to an understanding over this incident, implying that it wasn’t on Erdogan’s orders the Russian plane was shot down, but rather the usual suspects at Foggy Bottom, Langley, GCHQ in London who did.
If you wonder why I’m never worried by the latest lame attempt to draw Russia into a wider conflict in Ukraine by events like the Nordstream or Kerch Strait bridge bombings it was Putin’s handling of this moment with Erdogan and then later the shooting down of the Russian IL-20 ELINT plane over Syria by someone who definitely wasn’t Syria, who took the blame to avert WWIII.
These were moments where Russia and NATO were being pressed into conflict and Putin refused to follow the ready-made Tom Clancy script prepared for him by the spooks who never seem to run out of at-bats no matter how many times they strike out.
It is against this background that we have to analyze the complete failure that is the West’s campaign to unseat Erdogan and his AKP party from power in Turkey.
The ZIRP years in the West coincided with the big degradation of Turkey’s finances as Erdogan invited Western investment into the country to support his territorial ambitions. But, Erdogan, as pointed out by Baris Doster of Marmara University noted:
I agree. In effect, Erdogan’s pragmatism led him to nearly every move he’s made over the past decade, going along with NATO when they were on the offensive, but quickly pivoting and cutting bait on a policy the minute they were put on the defensive, c.f. my above comments about Syria.
In fact, it’s easy to argue that Erdogan’s breaking point with the West over Syria is what has dominated geopolitical headlines for the past seven years. He relishes the role as the guy with the leverage over all NATO policy in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, whose access he controls thanks to the 1936 Treaty of Montreaux.
He’s still holding Sweden’s entry hostage, something I get the feeling the new government in Stockholm prefers.
With his re-election and Turkey’s finances improving Turkey’s importance will only grow. He will not leave NATO willingly, instead using his veto power to slow the roll of the neocons, Eurocrats, and globalists who have betrayed not only him but Turkey. For all of his aspirations, Erdogan is a Turkish nationalist through and through.
He will now throw more sand in the gearworks of NATO’s plans for wider conflict in the region from Ukraine to Iran and Armenia until the West kicks Turkey out or someone assassinates him.
All the while he will continue to invite Russian, Iranian and Chinese money into Turkey with the goal of lowering its dependence on foreign energy trades settled in the dollar.
The Turkish people have given him another five years to complete this transition away from the West to an independent trade hub. If the West is smart they will not antagonize him further.
I was asked by Sputnik News for my thoughts earlier this week on these issues directly. You can find my comments in these two articles (here and here). As always, I am publishing the full Q&A below the break in the interests of transparency and to ensure that the context of my comments haven’t been lost.
In the run-up to election day on 28 May, the Turkish lira came under unprecedented pressure from major financial giants. For example, analysts of Western banks JPMorgan Chase and HSBC Holdings began to spread information about the inevitable weakening of the lira to levels of 24-25 lire per dollar. We also saw many other Western financial investors short selling the Turkish lira.
Here are the questions we were thinking about:
Why do you think that Western financial giants have taken these moves against the lira in recent days? Could this be an effort to influence the Turkish election?
Yes, absolutely. The US has made no bones about their unhappiness with the way President Erdogan has conducted foreign policy in recent years. I’ve felt and published previously that the lira has been under consistent foreign actor attack since the summer of 2018, when this issue first reared its ugly head.
Back then only the admission that Italian and French banks had loaded up on dollar-denominated Turkish corporate debt, putting their balance sheets at risk ended that round of pressure. Erdogan, for his part, saw the situation for what it was and took control over the central bank to wrest control of monetary policy from the IMF.
There was little option and the lira was destined for this hyper-devaluation versus the dollar. Turkey’s net foreign exchange liability position, which in 2018 was over $240 billion, was its Achilles heel.
Today that number is down to ~$80 billion, according to recent Bank of Turkey data. So, while the situation is improving, it is still the vector on which Erdogan is most vulnerable. To fix this Erdogan has rightly invited Chinese and Russian capital into Turkey and cut major energy deals with Putin to mitigate their chronic current account and trade deficits as a major energy importer.
So, yes, financial and monetary instability, crushing hyperinflation of the lira, and questionable geopolitical interventions have undermined Erdogan’s popular support putting him in today’s runoff election.
The recent notes from US banks are simply pushing the situation to the extreme. Turkey has few options but to continue to de-dollarize.
Who do you think the Biden admin and Western financial giants prefer in this election? Why?
Clearly not Erdogan. They have put considerable support behind his opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu, cobbling together a Not-Erdogan “Table of Six” coalition which is the only thing they agree on. It is reminiscent of last year’s Not-Orban coalition in Hungary.
The results there were far more embarrassing for the EU/US neoliberals because Orban wasn’t dealing with the chronic currency issues plaguing Erdogan. That said, Erdogan’s victory wasn’t really in doubt after the general election which he nearly won outright.
Biden and Europe want a Turkey loyal to NATO and their program to maximally confront the Russia/China/Iran axis. Erdogan has been a thorn in that program since late 2015 and Russia’s intervention in Syria laid bare both his and NATO’s complicity in balkanizing it.
He has played both sides against each other to forge an independent path for Turkey. Many of his moves have been questionable but viewed through that lens the pattern of his behavior is quite clear. His attempts to forge a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia last year was likely the last straw for the West.
Turkey is the lynchpin to the Eastern Mediterranean and continued US presence in the Middle East. Despite the economic troubles of Turkey, he was able to communicate them as continued US anti-Arab behavior. From here, with him in power for another four years (and likely the last four), he has a big task in front of him to stabilize Turkey’s finances. He’s already made the case successfully that NATO turned its back on Turkey, now he’s going to have to turn that into a definitive policy.
Erdogan’s unorthodox monetary policy has been the topic of extensive discussion among Western economists. What is your assessment of it?
I’ve written about this in detail in the past here. Erdogan’s ‘unconventional’ monetary policy was the basis for his exit strategy from the West for Turkey. Erdogan challenged conventional IMF policy of raising interest rates to attract foreign investors.
Why would you want to attract the same people who previously pulled their money out of your country, destabilizing it. Foreign capital inflow under this model is just blackmail, leaving the government dependent on foreign largesse.
If they don’t like your policies, they pull their money out, crash the currency and hope to effect political reform more to their liking. What Erdogan did at the end of 2021 when the lira hit a peak of 18.2 versus the dollar was to use Turkey’s relatively clean balance sheet (less than 40% debt-to-GDP) to encourage Turks to save and invest in lira (which I went into detail in the article linked above) while encouraging Russian and Chinese investment in Turkish sovereign debt and infrastructure/trade projects.
Those have been excellent investments for those investors. In November 2021, Turkish 10-year debt was yielding more than 23%. Today that number is 9.2%. The lira depreciated from an average of 15 to today’s 20 versus the dollar. Even accounting for the exchange rate losses, these have been excellent returns. Remember bond prices rise as yield falls.
Now, with his re-election, Erdogan and Turkey are on the other side of political risk of new leadership changing the course. Turkey isn’t out of the woods yet, but the economic data is improving, in some areas like Manufacturing Confidence (108) and Capacity Utilization (75.4%) quite rapidly.
Political stability is what is needed now. Militaristic adventurism isn’t. Erdogan has been given another four years to complete the turnaround and reimagining of the Turkish economy.
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5 Reasons Why Much Of The Global South Isn’t Automatically Supporting The West In Ukraine
by Tyler Durden, 27February2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/5-reasons-why-much-global-south-isnt-automatically-supporting-west-ukraine
Authored by Krishen Mehta via EurAsiaReview.com,
In October 2022, about eight months after the war in Ukraine started, the University of Cambridge in the UK harmonized surveys conducted in 137 countries about their attitudes towards the West and towards Russia and China.
The findings in the study, while not free of a margin of error, are robust enough to take seriously.
These are:
Sentiments of this nature have caused some ire, surprise, and even anger in the West. It is difficult for them to believe that two-thirds of the world’s population is not siding with the West.
What are some of the reasons or causes for this?
global chess
I believe there are five reasons as explained in this brief essay.
1. The Global South does not believe that the West understands or empathizes with their problems.
India’s foreign minister, S. Jaishankar, summed it up succinctly in a recent interview: “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.” He is referring to the many challenges that developing countries face whether they relate to the aftermath of the pandemic, the high cost of debt service, the climate crisis that is ravaging their lives, the pain of poverty, food shortages, droughts, and high energy prices. The West has barely given lip service to the Global South on many of these problems. Yet the West is insisting that the Global South join it in sanctioning Russia.
The Covid pandemic is a perfect example—despite the Global South’s repeated pleas to share intellectual property on the vaccines, with the goal of saving lives, no Western nation was willing to do so. Africa remains to this day the most unvaccinated continent in the world. Africa had the capability to make the vaccines but without the intellectual property they could not do it.
But help did come from Russia, China, and India. Algeria launched a vaccination program in January 2021 after it received its first batch of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines. Egypt started vaccinations after it got China’s Sinopharm vaccine at about the same time. South Africa procured a million doses of AstraZeneca from the Serum Institute of India. In Argentina, Sputnik became the backbone of their vaccine program. All of this was happening while the West was using its financial resources to buy millions of doses in advance, and often destroying them when they became outdated. The message to the Global South was clear—your problems are your problems, they are not our problems.
2. History Matters: Who stood where during colonialism and after independence?
Many countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia view the war in Ukraine through a different lens than the West. Many of them see their former colonial powers regrouped as members of the Western alliance. The countries that have sanctioned Russia are either members of the European Union and NATO or the closest allies of the United States in the Asia Pacific region. By contrast, many countries in Asia, and almost all countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America have tried to remain on good terms with both Russia and the West, and to shun sanctions against Russia. Could it be because they remember their history at the receiving end of the West’s colonial policies, a trauma that they still live with but which the West has mostly forgotten.
Nelson Mandela often said that it was the Soviet Union’s support, both moral and material, that helped inspire Southern Africans to overthrow the Apartheid regime. It is because of this that Russia is still viewed in a favorable light by many African countries. And once Independence came for these countries, it was the Soviet Union that supported them even though it had limited resources itself. The Aswan Dam in Egypt which took 11 years to build, from 1960 to 1971, was designed by the Moscow based Hydro project Institute and financed in large part by the Soviet Union. The Bhilai Steel Plant in India, one of the first large infrastructure projects in a newly independent India, was set up by the USSR in 1959. Other countries also benefited from the support provided by the former Soviet Union, both political and economic, including Ghana, Mali, Sudan, Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Mozambique.
On February 18, 2023, at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the foreign minister of Uganda, Jeje Odongo, had this to say, “We were colonized and forgave those who colonized us. Now the colonizers are asking us to be enemies of Russia, who never colonized us. Is that fair? Not for us. Their enemies are their enemies. Our friends are our friends.”
Rightly or wrongly, present day Russia is seen by many countries in the Global South as an ideological successor to the former Soviet Union. These countries have a long memory that makes them view Russia in a somewhat different light. Given the history, can we blame them?
3. The war in Ukraine is seen by the Global South as mainly about the future of Europe rather than the future of the entire world.
The history of the Cold War has taught developing countries that getting embroiled in great power conflicts generates few benefits for them yet carries enormous risks. And they view the Ukraine proxy war as one that is more about the future of European security than the future of the entire world. Furthermore, the war is seen by the Global South as an expensive distraction from the most pressing issues that they are dealing with. These include higher fuel prices, food prices, higher debt service costs, and more inflation, all of which have become more aggravated because of the Western sanctions that have been imposed on Russia.
A recent survey published by Nature Energy states that up to 140 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty due to the higher energy prices that have come about over the past year.
Soaring energy prices not only directly impact energy bills, but they also lead to upward price pressures on all supply chains and consumer items, including food and other necessities. This hurts the developing countries even more than it hurts the West.
The West can sustain the war “as long as it takes” since they have the financial resources and the capital markets to do so. But the Global South does not have the same luxury. A war for the future of European security has the potential of devastating the security of the entire world.
The Global South is also alarmed that the West is not pursuing negotiations that could bring this war to an early end. There were missed opportunities in December 2021 when Russia proposed revised security treaties for Europe that could have prevented the war and which were rejected by the West. The peace negotiations of April 2022 in Istanbul were also rejected by the West in part to “weaken” Russia. And now the entire world is paying the price for an invasion that the Western media like to call “unprovoked” and which could have been avoided.
4. The world economy is no longer American dominated or Western led and the Global South does have other options.
Several countries in the Global South increasingly see their future tied to countries that are no longer in the Western sphere of influence. Whether this is their perception of how the power balance is shifting away from the West, or wishful thinking as part of their colonial legacy, let us look at some metrics that may be relevant.
The U.S. share of global output declined from 21 percent in 1991 to 15 percent in 2021, while China’s share rose from 4 percent to 19 percent during the same period. China is the largest trading partner for most of the world, and its GDP in purchasing power parity already exceeds that of the United States. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, China, India, and South Africa) had a combined GDP in 2021 of $42 trillion compared with $41 trillion in the G7. Their population of 3.2 billion is more than 4.5 times the combined population of the G7 countries, at 700 million.
The BRICS are not imposing sanctions on Russia nor supplying arms to the opposing side. While Russia is the biggest supplier of energy and foodgrains for the Global South, China remains the biggest supplier of financing and infrastructure projects to them through the Belt and Road Initiative. And now Russia and China are closer than ever before because of the war. What does it all mean for developing countries?
It means that when it comes to financing, food, energy, and infrastructure, the Global South must rely more on China and Russia more than on the West. The Global South is also seeing the Shanghai Cooperation Organization expanding, more countries wanting to join the BRICS, and many countries now trading in currencies that move them away from the dollar, the Euro, or the West. They also see a deindustrialization taking place in some countries in Europe because of higher energy costs, along with higher inflation. This makes quite apparent an economic vulnerability in the West that was not so evident before the war. With developing countries having an obligation to put the interests of their own citizens first, is it any wonder that they see their future tied more to countries that are not Western led or American dominated?
5. The “rule based international order” is lacking in credibility and is in decline.
The “rule based international order” is a concept that is seen by many countries in the Global South as one that has been conceived by the West and imposed unilaterally on other countries. Few if any non-Western countries ever signed on to this order. The South is not opposed to a rule-based order, but rather to the present content of these rules as conceived by the West.
But one must also ask, does the rule based international order apply even to the West?
For decades now, for many in the Global South, the West is seen to have had its way with the world without regard to anyone else’s views. Several countries were invaded at will, mostly without Security Council authorization. These include the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. Under what “rules” were those countries attacked or devastated, and were those wars provoked or unprovoked? Julian Assange is languishing in prison, and Ed Snowden is in exile, for having the courage (or perhaps the audacity) to expose the truths behind these actions.
Sanctions imposed on over 40 countries by the West impose considerable hardship and suffering. Under what international law or “rules-based order” did the West use its economic strength to impose these sanctions? Why are the assets of Afghanistan still frozen in Western banks while the country is facing starvation and famine? Why is Venezuelan gold still held hostage in the UK while the people of Venezuela are living at subsistence levels? And if Sy Hersh’s expose is true, under what “rules-based order” did the West destroy the Nord Stream pipelines?
There appears to be a paradigm shift that is taking place away from a Western dominated world and into a more multipolar world. And the war in Ukraine has made more evident those differences or chasms that are part of this paradigm shift. Partly because of its own history, and partly because of the economic realities that are emerging, the Global South sees a multipolar world as a preferable outcome in which their voices are more likely to be heard.
President Kennedy ended his American University speech in 1963 with the following words: “We must do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless for its success. Confident and unafraid, we must labor on towards a strategy of peace.”
That strategy of peace was the challenge before us in 1963 and they remain a challenge for us today. And the voices for peace, including those of the Global South, need to be heard.
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