Back in the days when I was one of the British state’s more efficient functionaries, I spoke with British officers who had been in Russia during the Yeltsin period, when they had been able to get up close and effectively inventory the Russian armed forces. (For those who don’t know, I was First Secretary at the British Embassy in Warsaw, I was British Ambassador in Tashkent, and I was taught to be fluent in both Polish and Russian, which included living in St Petersburg as a language student while Ambassador designate).
What we (as I was then a cog in this machine) found was that the strength of the Soviet Union’s Red Army had been massively exaggerated in all our intelligence estimates, on which defence strategy had been based for decades. We had over-estimated the numbers, the mobility and above all the capability of Soviet weapons systems. Much of it was barely functional; the problems with both quality and maintenance were not just the product of the disintegration of the Soviet system, they evidently went back decades.
One interesting thing – and I recall discussing this with a British Brigadier General at the Polish exercise area in Drawsko – was that years of military planning had involved scenarios which revolved around successive defensive lines in Western Europe and eschewed any kind of counter-attacking strategy. That conversation had started because, when the British Army first started exercising on the former Warsaw pact training area at Drawsko, we had to strengthen bridges in Eastern Germany and Western Poland in order to get our tanks there.
We were musing that this had never been considered a problem in cold war strategy, because it was presumed our tanks would never go forward. We now knew they could have, which was interesting the analysts.
The truth, of course, was that it had always been in the interest of MI6, the Defence Intelligence Service, the British armed forces, of their American counterparts, and of all their NATO counterparts, massively to exaggerate the strength of the Red Army. Because the greater the perceived enemy, the more we needed to throw money at MI6, the Defence Intelligence Service, the British armed forces, their American counterparts, and at all their NATO counterparts.
Nothing has changed. Exaggerating the strength of the nominated enemy is still very much in their interest.
It is also, of course, massively in the interest of the arms industry. This is the classic operation of the military industrial complex, which does not just need an enemy, it needs a massive, terrifying, ultra-powerful enemy. Or why would you and I keep feeding the military industrial complex huge sums of money?
We see this operating today. The war profiteers have already made billions from the war in Ukraine. Look at this surge in defence stocks.
The German chancellor has already announced $200 billion of extra defence spending. The market expects to see similar boosts, totalling trillions of dollars across NATO, of money into the arms manufacturers and dealers, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Yet this is an irrational response. What the Russian invasion of Ukraine has actually revealed is the limitations of Russian power. Those limitations consist both of the capacity of its armed forces, and the desire of its people to be a part of European civilisation, not to destroy European civilisation.
You can pretty well stand inside Russia and throw stones into Kharkiv, where Russian is an everyday language (and locals call the place Kharkov), yet Russia has not yet managed to subdue it. Yet we are supposed to be terrified that the mighty Russian army could roll across Western Europe and its tanks could fight their way through Kiev, Warsaw, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris and London? It is plainly an utter nonsense (I address nuclear war later, a quite different proposition).
It says something very interesting about mass psychology that our political and media classes are able to convince the population, both that Russia is an incredible threat to us in our homes, and that the gallant Ukrainians can hold the Russians off. The western political and media class, almost universally, are managing both to crow that Russia is militarily weak, and to claim that we need to throw yet more money at the military industrial complex. As nicely observed by Moon of Alabama.
There are however, even in “respectable” media, a few voices pointing out that what is happening in Ukraine shows NATO defence spending to be already disproportionate. I was very surprised to read this eminently sensible article in Newsweek:
In the longer term, the recognition of Russian military weakness represents a fundamental challenge to U.S. strategy, spending priorities and even its firm hold on the world. It questions Washington’s obsession with a supposed “peer” adversary and the U.S. emphasis on a larger military and ever-increasing defense spending to deal with Russia. Changing the narrative on the Russian military also fundamentally challenges NATO and its European members. Though there might be heightened awareness and even fear of Moscow’s willingness to resort to extreme and even reckless behavior, the reality is that there doesn’t need to be increased defense spending or a renewal of European ground forces….
For Washington, this display of Russian military weakness should be comforting in terms of Moscow’s true military threat to Europe. At the same time though, it exposes the need for a different national security strategy, one that doesn’t imagine Russia as a military equal, and one that doesn’t push Vladimir Putin’s back against a wall.
This war in Ukraine should represent such a moment of epiphany in western political thought.
According to the Russians themselves, Russian military spending is just 5% of NATO military spending. That is about right.
Total NATO spending is over 1 trillion dollars a year. Russian defence spending in 2019 was $65.1 billion a year, just higher than the UK. So nominally Russian spending is a little over 6% of NATO spending a year. Of course, purchasing power in the defence industry makes nominal calculations not entirely helpful. Here is a short link from an excellent discussion from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute of the factors that might make Russian real resources put into defence greater than the nominal total:
Nonetheless, there are strong indications that military goods and services cost less in Russia than in the USA or most of Europe and, therefore, that Russian military spending has a higher purchasing power. For example, unlike the USA and other large European states, Russia still relies on conscription. In addition, Russian career soldiers have lower salaries: for example, in 2019 a Russian lieutenant colonel received approximately $1330 per month, whereas a (lower-ranked) captain in the British Army received more than $4000 monthly. Adequate data to make a similar comparison of the cost of acquiring military equipment is not available.
Converting Russian military expenditure using GDP-based PPP rates (based on data from the International Monetary Fund) gives spending of $166 billion in 2019 (instead of $65.1 billion using market exchange rates). This is still less than one-quarter of US spending of $732 billion. A similar calculation gives Chinese military spending of over $500 billion (instead of $261 billion using market exchange rates).
I would argue that while paying and feeding troops may be indeed be much cheaper in Russia, military hardware costs are much dependent on metals, processors and other internationally traded commodities and an overall comparison to the simple relative cost of living PPP index for Russia is not appropriate. But even using the general IMF PPP calculator, Russian defence spending is, at the very most, 12% of NATO spending.
The idea that NATO has to spend more to match the threat to NATO of Russia is plainly a nonsense.
So those of us who have always opposed NATO’s militarism, NATO’s involvement in illegal wars and NATO’s massive propaganda operation aimed at boosting the funds fed in to the arms manufacturers, the security services and the military, should welcome the opportunity for growing understanding that a large portion of this defence expenditure is not necessary.
The Russian economy is about the size of the Spanish economy. Russian defence spending is, at the highest, 12% of NATO defence spending. Russia is not the great threat to Western Europe. The limit of Russian power has been shown up in its inability quickly to defeat Ukraine, a militarily third rate European power.
But a large section of the western left – including many regular readers of this blog – is not shouting this out. A section of the western left chooses to boost the propaganda of western arms manufacturers by talking up Russian power, claiming the Russian military is massively capable, putting a good gloss on the performance of the Russian military in Ukraine, and insisting that Putin is a strategic genius.
That “left” narrative is music to the ears of NATO and the military industrial complex. So how has the left been manoeuvred into the position of being the amplifiers of the argument of their natural enemies?
The answer, strangely enough, is not intellectual but emotional.
It is rather lonely being a dissident voice in the West, arguing against the consensus of the media and political elite. Even where that political elite completely screws up, as in the invasion of Iraq, where they launched an illegal war, caused the deaths of millions of people, destroyed the infrastructure of a country, yet still lost the war, there are no deleterious consequences for the political elite.
The International Criminal Court is investigating Russian war crimes in Ukraine. It has done nothing effective about western crimes in Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of civilians died.
This level of injustice is hard to stomach. There is a natural yearning for an alternative, for a good power in the world to match the bad power in the world, and to give at least some hope of justice or balance. Thus many on the left have come to idolise Vladimir Putin as the balance to outweigh and thwart the corrupt, warmongering, neo-imperialist Western states.
Syria gave some comfort to this viewpoint. In the war for hegemony that the West has waged all over the Middle East, the contradictions of allying with a country as anathematical to supposed Western values as Saudi Arabia reached their apotheosis. The American-led West was providing arms, finance and logistical and air support to ISIS and closely allied jihadist groups in an effort to overthrow the Assad regime. The western sponsored civil war had already caused devastation and huge refugee flows. Had the western backed jihadists succeeded, the results would have been unthinkable.
Putin saved the world from that, by a small but timely Russian military intervention, and I for one am glad he did. I say that as absolutely no fan of the Assad regime.
So I can sympathise with those who see Putin as the answer to their desire for the West to be counterbalanced. The problem is it is unrealistic. Russia is just not that strong. It has an economy the size of Spain or another second tier Western European state. Any military intervention by Russia that seriously crosses the West is ultimately dependent on nuclear brinkmanship.
The more fundamental point is that Putin is no more a “good guy” than Western leaders. Russia is a massively kleptocratic state where the gap between the extremely wealthy and the exploited general populace is every bit as big as the gap in the West, and until recently was inarguably much bigger. The human rights situation in Russia is poor. In fact in both those respects, the West is moving increasingly to looking like Russia, which is a very bad thing.
Putin’s Russia is no kind of socialist model.
Putin’s image as the strong man of Eurasia is boosted out of all proportion by those on the right who benefit from portraying a powerful enemy: and by those on the left who yearn for a powerful friend. This is the universal boosting of Putin. But in real life he is a much smaller figure, controlling a waning power of very limited resources. He has just made his largest miscalculation. In the last hour the UN General Assembly has condemned the Russian attack on Ukraine. The UN General Assembly is a forum where the US and its allies can normally muster between 2 and 12 votes. They had 141. Russia mustered 5, the kind of position the US, Israel and the Marshall Islands frequently find themselves in. That is the extent of Putin’s diplomatic blunder.
History teaches us it is a huge mistake to attack Russia. The Russian people have an enormous capacity for wartime resilience when attacked. But the plain truth is NATO has never attacked Russia, and though I intensely dislike NATO’s pushing of weapons systems closer to Russia, NATO doctrine has never included plans to initiate war with Russia.
Just as I have frequently stated Russia has never had any intent to attack the UK; to persuade the population otherwise is the everyday job of the military industrial complex.
But the Russian military industrial complex is just as powerful within Russia as the western military industrial complex is here, and the Russian people are just as exploited by their elites as we are in the West. On either side, the offices of heads of government are not the right place to search for the good guys. Everybody gets lied into war.
It is of course a truism that Russian security concerns were made neuralgic by the ever tightening encroachment of NATO and its missiles. It is a valid point. But it is an equally valid point that NATO has never attacked Russia and none of those missiles has ever been fired at Russia. The point of the missiles was never to fire them at Russia. The point of the missiles was to manufacture and sell them at enormous profit margins and provide large salaries and cash funds for politicians, with endless revolving door jobs for ex-military and civilian defence personnel, who all keep the contracts flowing.
We are now in a position where only a severe Russian military setback can reduce the political momentum for more arms spending, more militarism and more censorship of dissenting opinion in the west – and yet many on the left are hoping for a Russian victory. That despite the fact that not only is Putin’s attack on Ukraine illegal, it is an aggressive war with precisely the same spurious justification as the US-led destruction of Iraq; pre-emptive disarmament to prevent possible attack.
To make matters worse, Putin’s attack is popularly seen as justification of the appalling Russophobia that has formed a fundamental part of the Establishment political narrative in recent years. Putin has appeared to justify years of lies by Russophobes.
I first became fully aware of the untruth of the mainstream Russophobic narrative when it was claimed that Wikileaks had published the Clinton material on the rigging of the primaries against Bernie Sanders, in collaboration with Russia. I knew that was definitely untrue. We then saw an expansion of this narrative, including aspects of the official Skripal story that made no sense whatsoever.
As a result of the invasion of Ukraine, popular opinion holds as validated any lunatic suggestion of evil Russian influence ever to emerge from the disorganised brain of Carole Cadwalladr. “Putin has invaded Ukraine. I told you he fixed the 2016 election” is not a proposition that holds up to a millisecond of logical analysis, but logical analysis is the first casualty of war.
Finally, a couple of thoughts on nuclear weapons. Putin has put his nuclear forces at some kind of initial alert level. In a rational world, this would lead to an increased demand for genuine attempts at nuclear disarmament negotiations, but again I fear that is not in the interest of the elites who control governments. NATO’s insistence on pushing missile systems ever closer to a nuclear-armed Russia and continually ratcheting up Russia’s fear of aggressive encirclement, will make it extremely unlikely that Russia will have any interest in disarmament. Which is so obvious, it proves NATO has absolutely no interest in disarmament either.
I have said much which is highly critical of Russia, and rightly so because Russia had started an illegal war. But that in no way reduces the very large amount of blame that attaches to NATO for its absurd militarism and territorial triumphalism, and the complete lack of interest NATO has shown towards finding a less confrontational approach to Russia.
NATO does not defend the interests of the people of Europe. It embodies the interests of the global elite, who benefit from feeding the military industrial complex. NATO is an instrument of the military and the weapons manufacturers. To exist, it needs an enemy. NATO’s role will always be to secure its own existence and its controllers’ cashflow, by creating enemies.
The only good guys in this are the common people of Ukraine, and the unfortunate conscripts in the Russian army. Let us all pray, hope or think on them tonight.
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” Economic measures imposed on Moscow are set to cut UK living standards by £2,500 per household in 2022 “
https://www.rt.com/news/551533-uk-living-standards-russia-sanctions/
and that is for 2022…
That will be quite alot for a significant part of the population.
Yes. Just to underline the obvious, it won’t much bother millionaires.
Good lord, how small can a snickers bar get?
If you want to be healthy and live a longer life, don’t even think about Snickers. Or any other “confectionery”. Eat an egg or a piece of cheese instead, if you want a snack.
Best power snack I could come up with was a single oatcake, spread with guacamole and a single cherry tomato on top.
Cheapest source of protein is peanut butter.
And, that’s without all the brexit ‘benefits’ and green costs. We are truly flicked !
Ah another excuse to perpetuate politically imposed Austerity.
The western postwar social contract is expired and we, the populace, are being put back into our boxes – no more globe trotting for our kids. Not when you are as poor as the places we used to travel to as backpackers and then jet setters.
There has never been such a thing as a “social contract”. It’s a purely abstract idea thought up by political scientists – people who get well paid for doing that kind of thing.
How could there be? A real contract entails two parties who draw up the terms of a contract and agree to it. But even members of governments are mostly unaware of the details of any “contract”, and the vast bulk of citizens never even imagine such a thing.
What actually exists? The people, most of them fairly unintelligent and quite uneducated; and the state, an organisation that evolved to live parasitically on the people.
Called different things in different countries – it is the rewards for the sacrifices of the ‘greatest generation’.
The US had it too when the living standards went up massively – it was to remove the revolutionary pressure for fair treatment by the masses and avoid us all going ‘commie’ on the slave owners arses!
In France called ‘Trente Glorieuses’.
Etc.
The post war social democratic covenant that the ‘West’ had to reward its populations with because of the Red Army’s survival and victory and 20 million Soviet dead, over the Slave Owners / Bankers proxy army of Nazis.
The end was ushered in with Reagan and Thatcher and ‘neoliberals/neocons’ since then. Which via the greates lie, WoT brings us directly to where we are today. A return to the pre WW2 Have’s/Have nots.
There is more – we are now being led to a artificial duopoly to re imagine a two super power world separated by a new iron curtain. It is of course delusional. It is a multipolar world that we are finally moving into and the Old Euro Imperialism of the last 500 years is trying to hang onto its ‘entitlements’! And continents won by gunpowder and steel against spears!!
It’s is just a racist white purity move to insulate away from the rest of the 85% of humanity.
The only good that comes out of it as I say above is that there is going to be a lot less carbon pollution by the west – we need to drastically reduce OUR per capita share – if the CO2 levels are to be controlled.
If that is the deep secret plan of the Rulers of the world – it’s about time, but too little too late and they have lost any moral right over how humanity develops for the next few centuries.
Yup the social contracts of the West are trashed as planned.
Du Contrat Social is the title of a book written in 1762 (I looked the date up) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and was important as factor in the French Revolution. I’m not sure he was well payed though, it seems to me he had money problems. The notion was original at the time as the monarchies of the time, especially in France, believed more in the divine right rather than the more generous idea that there was a kind of agreement between people and government about how the country should be run. Until then the monarch tended to consider that he did what he wanted and the masses were there to obey.
I get a sneaking feeling that once in a while someone is tapping a message through the wall of propoganda even in the CRAP media.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/09/ukraine-urged-to-take-humane-approach-as-men-try-to-flee-war
Reading through that there appear to be some cracks in the narrative.
“I know many [men] are attempting to cross. Many of them are paying smugglers to cross. I heard some people made it to Poland but the majority failed. They have been stopped or arrested. And I don’t know about the destiny of those who have been arrested.”
Also the story in the same outlet of Grant Snapps telling British troops and ex-service personnel it is illegal to try to join the fight in Ukraine.
There also the articles on how fuel prices have rocketed etc. and people will start to ask hard questions. I don’t know that it will make such a difference but the narrative mask is ever so slightly slipping.
George Galloway’s Mother of all Talk Shows Extra on tonight. Another powerful monologue on Ukraine.
First guest on George Galloway show is Scott Ritter.
Ritter was excellent, remarks well thought-out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEIS3wKm6JM
approx 37:28 to 1.00
Indeed Laguerre..
I came over to show you all this But you Did the Job For Me..Thanks
On Thursday on STV News I seen the reporter saying ‘ Russia was Leveling cities to the ground ‘ Outright Lie. Told to the UK.. Scott Ritter is Very Good Analyst .
The cat called WMD is well and truly out of the bag. Tucker Carlson spills the beans on :”Tucker, Why are we funding this”
Secret Biological Weapons labs funded by US in Ukraine. Tucker shows Nuland avoid question under oath. He also amazingly shows both Russian defence spokesman and Chinese Foreign Ministry asking very valid questions about what and why US is developing WMD Bio weapons in Ukraine.
Wikikettle
Unfortunately the MSM is onto the chemical weapons story and is turning it the other way. They are also denying the US/Ukraine bioweapons reveal.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/09/britain-fears-russia-could-be-setting-stage-to-use-chemical-weapons
like
The people who have been in control of Ukraine since 2014 are very nasty: cruel, ruthless, and greedy. But, as Bertrand Russell liked to point out, most tyrannies share a common weakness: they are incompetent. The Ukrainian regime is exceedingly incompetent; and most of the Nazis are quite impractical. They enjoy dreaming of glory, and torturing helpless people. But they are by no means efficient.
Independence …post nuclear holocast? Mad Nato Nic out-roughing the menfolk again.
NEW: Nicola Sturgeon says NATO shouldn’t rule out No Fly Zone over Ukraine.
FM ‘shares concerns’ about risk of direct military confrontation, but says should be considered on ‘day to day basis’.
‘Perhaps only thing’ nuclear weapons are deterring is ‘proper help’ for Ukraine
https://t.co/kuPMm5lgjh
It might be hard to notice the difference a nuclear holocaust would make to Sturgeon’s Scotland. No enemy would bother bombing it, as it contains few strategic targets. Unfortunately the Clyde, my original home, would probably be in line for a few warheads.
I doubt if any serious enemy would even bother taking out the carriers.
Another beautiful morning, feeling good to be alive, feeling badly depressed by everything around. No smileys today.
The head of the regional national-cultural autonomy of the Crimean Tatars, Eyvaz Umerov, believes that among the negotiators from Ukraine who participated in the meetings with the Russian delegation, there was a US spy.
“Three rounds of talks have passed in Belarus. But the presence of a Crimean Tatar and my namesake, deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Rustem Umerov, could not escape my attention in the negotiating group of Kyiv. I have every reason to consider him a US spy and a gray cardinal associated with a fugitive opposition Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen”
In his opinion, the task of Rustem Umerov is to prevent the parties from quickly reaching an agreement and to inform the heads of the US intelligence services as much as possible.
The head of the autonomy of the Crimean Tatars said that Umerov is the main holder of the business assets of the organizer of the blockade of Crimea, the leader of the extremist organization “Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People” banned in Russia, Mustafa Dzhemilev, and a graduate of the Nurcular educational system *, which was actively sponsored and promoted by Gulen.
“Umerov studied in the United States through the special services. Thus, the sworn enemy of Turkish President Erdogan Gulen had his ace in the deck of Dzhemilev, and the American special services had their agent in the Ukrainian parliament”
https://ria.ru/20220310/shpion-1777396472.html
—
For those who get their info from Western sources it may be quite a news that Russia have made friends with Chechnya. I follow Kadyrov’s telegram channel.
Chechen special forces are acting in Ukraine, they say they do it not only as part of our Federation, but also (sic!) to restore good name of Chechen Republic in their relation to fighting Nazis during WW2, and to counter the shameful history of the presence of international terrorism there.
Kadyrov’s channel published THANK YOU to their brother Muslim leaders of UAE and Saudi Arabia, re. their position in Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have reportedly abandoned talks with US President Joe Biden. Through such a dialogue, the US authorities hoped to strengthen international support for Bandera in Ukraine and contain the rise in oil prices.
On my own behalf and on behalf of 30 million Muslims in Russia, I express my sincere gratitude to dear BROTHERS, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman and Sheikh of the United Arab Emirates Muhammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan, for their unequivocal position on the events in Ukraine and support for our country!
We will not forget the friendly position of the KSA and the UAE, which the authorities of these states demonstrate at a time when almost the entire world is up in arms against Russia.
Today, any support is very important for our state and its multinational peoples. At such moments, we are convinced who is the true friend and ally of Russia. We will persevere, bring the task to the end and draw our own conclusions regarding those countries that have shown their real face in relation to Russia.
I wish the mercy of Allah Almighty, peace, stability and prosperity to the peoples of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia!”
Today, they published THANK YOU to their brother Muslim Turkey leader Erdogan
“Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan strongly condemned the ongoing attacks in a number of countries on students and cultural figures from Russia. The leader of the Republic of Turkey called the attacks on Russians because of the events in Ukraine a manifestation of fascism.
This clear and unequivocal position cannot leave us indifferent. And I am doubly pleased that it was a Muslim who demanded to stop the lawlessness committed against our compatriots.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan made it clear to the authorities of various countries that such an attitude towards the Russians is unacceptable. Any kind of violence against peaceful people must be nipped in the bud.
I want to express my special gratitude to Recep Erdogan for his adherence to principles in this matter and for the support of our state. He is a wise politician, a true leader of the Turkish people, a bright and charismatic representative of the religion of Islam.
I can confidently say that the Muslims of Russia enthusiastically accepted the statement of the Turkish leader. Such actions strengthen and improve relations, contribute to the convergence of positions on many issues. In the end, all problems will be solved sooner or later, but fair, beautiful and noble gestures will certainly affect the further development of good-neighbourly, friendly relations. Thanks! We won’t forget this! Peace and prosperity to the fraternal Turkish people!”
—
I must say, I personally is deeply moved by this position. Earlier I only followed cooking channels to learn traitional cuisine, or maybe art, dance, clothes – you know, learning about culture. Now I asked to teach me to say Thank You in Chechen language, as I’m eternally grateful to see this movement for peace, friendship, respect and support, instead of what we had earlier in this country.
My parents told me about the times of USSR, when people were united and worked together and shared the jewels of their national cultures, and only expected support and good will from each other.
This is the Ramzan Kadyrov guilty of numerous human rights abuses including murder and torture, the man who opposes women’s and gay rights?
https://www.amnesty.eu/news/european-courts-judgment-on-natalia-estemirovas-abduction-and-killing-highlights-unabated-impunity-in-russia/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramzan_Kadyrov
Nice friends you have.
I’m sorry, but how is this related to the current conflict? Just curious, what is the logic in your head?
Less human rights, deaths, torture and invasions than Bush & Blair
Fewer. Tatyana you said you followed his Telegram channel.
Yes, fewer.
And “I am personally”
Please don’t forget Venezuela, which is standing up to the US bully admirably. With any luck, all of Latin America will soon begin developing defences against the gringo exploiters and killers.
Venezuela’s position is not clear yet, but looks like Maduro is happy to sell oil to the US
https://www.vtv.gob.ve/mandatario-nacional-anuncia-delegacion-eeuu-venezuela-reunion/
Caracas, March 7, 2022
The President of the Republic , Nicolás Maduro, reported that last Saturday night a delegation from the United States government arrived in the country where they met with a Venezuelan delegation at the Presidential Palace.
During a meeting with sectoral vice presidents, the Political High Command and the General Staff of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB), the Head of State said: “We spent almost two hours talking, for my part I was accompanied by the doctor, Jorge Rodríguez , world champion of the dialogue and my wife , Cilia Flores , were both present, and they know all the details of everything that was discussed».
He explained that they discussed the topics of interest that they agreed to work on an agenda. “I thought it was very important to be able to see each other face to face, discuss topics of maximum interest in Venezuela and the world.”
At the same time, the National President ratified before the US delegation all the will from diplomacy, respect and the highest hope for a better world, thus advancing an agenda that allows the well-being and peace of the peoples of Latin America. and the Caribbean, as part of the manifestations of the main message.
He authorized Dr. Jorge Rodríguez to report in greater detail in the coming days on the issues discussed at the meeting held with the US government delegation.
He recalled that during the government of Commander Hugo Chávez, on several occasions it was his turn as Foreign Minister of the Republic to receive the US delegation. WIL/JMP
The position of Pakistan:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/imran-khan-lashes-out-over-demands-for-pakistan-to-rebuke-russian-invasion-8b5cmz3tb
Imran Khan lashes out over demands for Pakistan to rebuke Russian invasion
“Pakistan’s prime minister has lambasted western diplomats who have urged him to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, demanding to know if they thought he was their “slave”
“What do you think of us?” Imran Khan asked as he addressed a public meeting in the town of Mailsi. “Are we your slaves? That whatever you say, we will do?”
I rather suspect that the answer to Imram Khan’s question is, “yes”.
They are not total angels in Pakistan. They also have bioweapons labs funded by the USA. Their Security Services is rather notorious for its actions the past 40 years.
To me, it looks like Pakistan is waiting to see which way the wind blows as it wants to be on the winning side….
Second day in a row Labour oppose waiving visa for Ukrainian refugees fleeing Putin’s invasion and war crimes. Starmer and co now to the right of virtually every mainstream party in Europe on this issue, despite all the posturing about Ukraine and its people.
Yes, their socialism is becoming very national.
Meanwhile, on the Home Front: https://www.ladbible.com/news/russian-police-stop-people-to-check-their-phones-20220307
I don’t understand what the point of this kind of police action is. I am sure that, just as here in the west every text, phone call (meta data), email is recorded and logged. They shouldn’t need to be doing this as they already have all the required information. Just as they do here in democratic freedom paradise.
Well quite, so what does that tell you about what is actually going on there?
I am still baffled except it is two idiot police men trying to be tough. In the video one of the police men is seen to scroll through a phone at a speed at which he couldn’t possibly be gaining anything useful. Plus, everyone else apart from the tweo blokes is milling about like an ordinary day. SO, I have no idea.
Tatyana, do all your police officers dress up like robocop all the time? Are they trying to be like Paris gendarme? 😀
I don’t think it’s anything like what it is made out to be. The body language of the two guys who are supposed to be having their phones searched is all wrong and they are too calm. They should be simmering in fury. In any case the lad in the first photo is still holding his phone. What’s to say that the phone in the hands of the policeman isn’t his own phone? It would make sense of the speed at which he is scrolling through it, as he knows what he’s looking at and that it’s not what he’s looking for.
I have to agree with you Bayard.
and the joke of the day goes to Mr Lavrov
“Asked if Russia has any plans to attack other countries, Lavrov says they do not and repeats the Russian position that it has not attacked Ukraine.”
Not attacked Ukraine? What does it mean? Are we all just imagining all the russian military there?
Or, does this Lavrov’s statement have any continuation? Did he explain this statement in more words? What is the source, please?
Tatyana
From any point of view political.or military Russia cannot protect the two independent Ukranian States unless there us a buffer zone , guarded by force, dealing with Zelensky ‘s Russophobic apartheid , Neo Nazi and jihadist nutters supplied by USUK and private militias employed by the CIA like Blackwater as was and the SAS as was. Would anybody want Ukranian nuclear material to be lying around for nutters 2 and 3 to pick up and sell?
For peace to be maintained in the long term the Ukranian people will have to agree with USUK flooding their country with terrorists , all allowed in by a pathetically weak puppet who is greener than the Green Room he should have stayed in. Russia calculates that it won’t take long for Ukranians to start to hate America and Britain and the EU, and especially the man who is screaming for more terrorists to be added to the existing Nazi ones.
30 biological warfare labs do not get planted like mushrooms in stable countries. They get planted in countries which have been subjected to regime change. It appears that Israel sides with Russia against the rise of Nazism, so we are talking about Biden and Johnson on their own against the civilised world that detests terrorism.
These are the obvious , publicly available reasons why Russia is in Ukraine, sorting out the USUK Mafia ‘s problems with its hired subcontractors, as they also did in Chechnya and Syria. The USUK Mafia problems in Libya and Yemen and Afghanistan , terrifyingly, are ongoing. Lavrov understands better than anyone why the incompetent mess made by Capitalism, where political and military power is bought and sold, has to be cleaned up by countries who still have principles , and by real men / women.
This is not an invasion , it’s the fat berg team, the ones who unblock the drains.
To put it another way, the Russian government concluded that it would have to use military means to defend the republics. At that stage, decisions had to be shared by the military leadership. Politicians cannot tell the armed forces to carry out a mission if the means are hopelessly restricted.
The generals would have explained that defending the republics “from behind” would be useless. The Kiev junta and NATO would have been able to bring up endless reinforcements, ammunition and supplies. The Russian forces would have been trying to fight in a straitjacket.
Worse, if the Russian armed forces helped the republics to drive back the Ukrainians beyond the borders of the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts, that would lengthen the front line by a very great deal, making it far more vulnerable.
One cannot fight a modern war by exclusively defensive means. To succeed – even by purely military standards – the armed forces required freedom to attack the enemy in depth: to destroy air bases, ammunition dumps, naval bases and ships, air defence installations, etc. That way they could indirectly weaken the Ukrainian forces attacking the republics.
The moment I read that Russia was going to intervene, I looked at a map showing the pronounced salient occupied by the Ukrainian troops, and thought “attack the shoulders of the salient”. That is exactly what has been done – but as well, the Russians attacked the Ukrainian rear echelons, sapping their strength in classic style.
Politically, too, it was useless to fight in Donbass while leaving the Nazi regime installed in Kiev and obeying orders from Washington. Hence the need not only to disarm Ukraine but to denazify it.
It’s coming on multiple channels and is an extract from Lavrov’s news conference following peace talks in Turkey. It doesn’t do whole lot for his overall credibility.
Yes indeed.
I’m an occasional visitor to this forum.
I come for the discussions on Scottish Indy and Mr. Murray’s struggles against the ethically compromised Scottish legal system.
But I will say that the overwhelmingly pro-Putin regime posts here depress me.
Whatever the faults of the Ukraine Government, they are dwarfed by the faults of the kleptocratic Putin regime.
And perhaps ask yourself; why, if the Ukrainian Government is so unpopular, are so many brave Ukrainians will to fight to the death to preserve their independence?
They are so brave and want to fight for their country the Ukrainian government has had to stop any men up to the age of 60 from leaving the country. All I’ve seen so far are photo opportunities, not real civilian resistance.
So, John Kinsella, if Scotland ever becomes independent and decides it wants to allow Russia or perhaps Iraq to station missiles aimed at London, Manchester and Birmingham you would be surprised if the English lost their temper after repeatedly asking for them not to be stationed there and attacked ?
Better to raise the white flag and surrender. Fighting for ‘Queen/Zelenskyy and Country’ is a mug’s game. The young men who were robbed off their lives in both World Wars and many other conflicts are testament to that. You will lay dead, buried and forgotten about as the geopolitical agenda moves on; your memory desecrated, your ‘sacrifice’ thrown under the bus.
I seem to have to reply to my own post?
For Geoffrey@14:12.
IMO any bullying, still less invasion, of an Indy Scotland would be disgraceful.
I can’t see the English electorate, many of whom have friends and family in Scotland, allowing it.
Unless of course, like in Putin’s regime, the people are kept in the dark and fed ****.
@Geoffrey
If such a situation were to arise then I suspect England would already have nukes aimed at Edinburgh and Glasgow. What you are arguing is that it would be ok for England who already has nukes to do that but not for Scotland to bolster their defense similarly. The argument is the same for Russia and USA who both ALREADY HAVE nukes that can be potentially aimed at anyone and are basically telling anyone else near them (and even not near them) you can’t have nukes aimed at us but we can have nukes aimed at you and tough shit if you don’t like that because we will invade you if you try.
If you are in the nuclear club you have an added calamitous and cataclysmic feather to your bully boy bow. The club members want to keep the membership closed because as soon as another country has nukes they almost certainly will be better able to resist that bullying and will have to be admitted to the club. Can you blame other countries for wanting to have a nuclear “deterrant.”
The answer is that no one should have nukes but that is never going to happen, you cannot put the technological genie back in the bottle. The same, in my opinion applies to biological and chemical weapons. Once a technology can be weaponised, it will be. If you are a country managing your strategic interests you cannot afford to ignore such weapons because the other country won’t. Strategic interests, so far in world history, don’t care about morals or ethics.
I watched some Gorbachev interviews over the previous couple of days. He has sage things to say.
The former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev full interview (8 Nov 2019) – BBC News (YouTube, 8m 42s)
Gorbachev: Treachery killed USSR (13 Dec 2016) – BBC News (YouTube, 2m 31s)
“Whatever the faults of the Ukraine Government, they are dwarfed by the faults of the kleptocratic Putin regime”.
I don’t suppose you are malicious, John, so you must simply be misinformed – which is terribly easy these days. Just relax and pay attention to the media.
In fact, I think that you have it exactly backwards. Whatever the faults of Mr Putin’s government, they are dwarfed by the faults of the corrupt, kleptocratic, murderous, torturing Kiev regime. Which, by the way, is a mere puppet of Washington.
If you do some serious digging, disregarding what Western governments and media tell you, I think your opinion may change.
John Kinsella, 15:11
– “I seem to have to reply to my own post?”
Yes; nesting extends to a depth of only four replies.
I understand that it is an extract, I asked for source and possible continuation. Because as it is – it’s just something wild. Can’t believe it. No way.
That is what an out of context extract is supposed to do.
Don’t waste your time searching Tatyana.
Speak Russian, do you?
It is not an attack. It is what is known in military-speak as a ‘technical manoeuvre ‘
Having seen clips of US Senator Marco Rubio questioning ‘The Honorable’ bag of shit Victoria Nuland about Biolabs in Ukraine, I was advised to watch Tucker Carlson for more info. This is his piece:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-we-have-right-know-this
On bio labs.
https://eng.mil.ru/en/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12412437@egNews
I copy it here:
Briefing on the results of the analysis of documents related to the military biological activities of the United States on the territory of Ukraine
Speech by Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, Head of the nuclear, biological and chemical protection troops of the Russian Armed Forces, on the results of the analysis of documents concerning US military and biological activities in Ukraine
The Russian Defence Ministry continues to study materials on the implementation of military biological programs of the United States and its NATO allies on the territory of Ukraine.
The information received from various sources confirms the leading role of the US Defence Threat Reduction Agency in financing and conducting military biological research on the territory of Ukraine.
Details of the UP-4 project became known, which was implemented with the participation of laboratories in Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa and was designed for the period up to 2020.
Briefing material by the Chief of the nuclear, biological and chemical protection troops of the Russian Armed Forces
Its purpose was to study the possibility of the spread of particularly dangerous infections through migrating birds, including highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza, the mortality rate of which reaches 50 percent for humans, as well as Newcastle disease.
Due to the fact that Ukraine has a unique geographical location where transcontinental migration routes intersect, 145 biological species were studied within the framework of this project. At the same time, at least two species of migratory birds were identified, whose routes pass mainly through the territory of Russia. At the same time, information about migration routes passing through the countries of Eastern Europe was summarized.
Of all the methods developed in the United States to destabilize the epidemiological situation, this is one of the most reckless and irresponsible, since it does not allow to control the further development of the situation. This is confirmed by the course of the pandemic of a new coronavirus infection, the occurrence and features of which raise many questions.
In addition, the R-781 project is interesting, where bats are considered as carriers of potential biological weapons agents.
Among the priorities identified are the study of bacterial and viral pathogens that can be transmitted from bats to humans: pathogens of plague, leptospirosis, brucellosis, as well as coronaviruses and filoviruses.
It is noteworthy that the research is carried out in close proximity to the borders of Russia – in the areas of the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus.
The project is being implemented with the involvement of not only Ukrainian, but also Georgian biological laboratories controlled by the Pentagon in cooperation with the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the US Geological Survey.
The analyzed materials on the UP-8 project, aimed at studying the Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever virus and hantaviruses in Ukraine, clearly refute the US public statement that only Ukrainian scientists work in the Pentagon biolabs in Ukraine without the intervention of American biologists. One of the documents confirms that all serious high-risk studies are conducted under the direct supervision of specialists from the United States.
The payroll of Ukrainian contractors clearly demonstrates how they are financed. It has been confirmed that the US Department of Defence paid the money for research participation directly, without the involvement of intermediaries. The extremely modest pay, by US standards, is noteworthy. This indicates a low estimation of the professionalism of Ukrainian specialists and the neglect of their American colleagues.
In addition, the studied materials contain proposals for the expansion of the US military-biological program in Ukraine. Thus, there was evidence of the continuation of completed biological projects UP-2, UP-9, UP-10, aimed at studying the pathogens of anthrax and African swine fever.
The Pentagon is also interested in insect vectors capable of spreading dangerous infectious diseases. The analysis of the obtained materials confirms the transfer of more than 140 containers with ectoparasites of bats – fleas and ticks from the biolab in Kharkov abroad.
Significantly, similar research was carried out in the 1940s on the development of biological weapons components by the Japanese unit 731, whose members later fled to the US to escape prosecution for war crimes.
I would like to remind you that representatives of Western countries are extremely cautious about handing over their biomaterials.
At the same time, available documents confirm numerous cases of transferring biological samples of Ukrainian citizens abroad. For example, 350 cryocontainers with blood serum samples were transferred from the Public Health Centre of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine to the reference laboratory for infectious diseases of the Australian Doherty Institute under the pretext of determining antibody titers.
Another example is the German-funded project No. 68727 EN on the study of Congo-Crimean haemorrhagic fever pathogens and hantaviruses. As part of this project, one thousand blood serum samples of citizens from different regions of Ukraine belonging exclusively to the Slavic ethnic group were donated to the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (Hamburg).
It is highly likely that one of the objectives of the US and its allies is to create bioagents capable of selectively targeting different ethnic populations.
During a hearing of the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on 8 March, Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland reported on the presence of bioweapons in Ukraine where biosecurity research had been conducted. She expressed concern about the possibility of these bio-laboratories and the materials there being taken over by the Russian Armed Forces.
According to available information, the Americans have already managed to evacuate most of the documentation, including databases, biomaterials and equipment from laboratories in Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa to the Lvov Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene and the US Consulate in Lvov. The possibility of transferring part of the collection to Poland has not been excluded.
In fact, with her statement, Nuland indirectly confirmed the Pentagon’s military-biological program in Ukraine in circumvention of existing international agreements.
Related article linked is by Bulgarian journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva. It describes US funded programs in Georgia and Ukraine labs.
http://dilyana.bg/documents-expose-us-biological-experiments-on-allied-soldiers-in-ukraine-and-georgia/
Project GG-21: “All volunteer deaths will be promptly reported
“…. The Pentagon has launched a 5-year long project with a possible extension of up to 3 years code-named GG-21: “Arthropod-borne and zoonotic infections among military personnel in Georgia”. According to the project’s description, blood samples will be obtained from 1,000 military recruits at the time of their military registration physical exam at the Georgian military hospital located in Gori.
The samples will be tested for antibodies against fourteen pathogens:
The amount of blood draw will be 10 ml. Samples will be stored indefinitely at the NCDC (Lugar Center) or USAMRU-G and aliquots might be sent to WRAIR headquarters in US for future research studies. Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) is the largest biomedical research facility administered by the U.S. Department of Defense. The results of the blood testing will not be provided to the study participants.
Such a procedure cannot cause death. However, according to the project report, “all volunteer deaths will be promptly reported (usually within 48 h of the PI being notified)” to the Georgian Military Hospital and WRAIR…”
Tatyana, I am willing to bet that Russia and China and most likely India and Israel and who knows who else have biolabs investigating exactly the same kinds of things. If they are not they are not managing their strategic interests. I suspect one of the reasons USA has so many biolabs outside of USA is so as to be able to do things that are nominally illegal in the USA, to have an element of plausible deniability if something goes wrong, to gather information on diseases and DNA that they just couldn’t if they were limited to USA and to shield USA should there be a disease leak. All terribly callous but Russia has them too.
ET
what makes the discovered material look sinister, it’s that the real power in the Ukraine is in the hands of ultra-nationalist forces. Do you understand the level of Russian concern, when US, NATO and Ukraine are all see Russia as an enemy? All of them refused any negotiation on peaceful settlement of the conflict, refused to give quarantees that their activities are not against us. Having this right on our border … Yeah, scientific research … In Georgia, too. Saaakashvili as the governor in Ukraine is just a coincidence …
I don’t f*cking care if it is friendly or hostile, I just want it to be removed away. Today it is science, tomorrow it is weaponised.
Tatyana
The BBC had a radio programme about Caribbean slaves working for a Welsh Slate Mine. Ukranians being used for biological fatal diseases were described not as slaves, but as volunteers.
Don’t worry, all that will change in the US post- imperialist stage.
Yes, and the UK is up to its armpits in this disgusting business. As an example, read the following books on what goes on at Porton Down:
Porton Down. 75 years of biological and chemical research; and, A Higher form of killing.
They use the excuse that they only do defensive research to protect the UK against attacks. In the past they have released bio agents into the London underground to study the affects !! They were heavily involved in the Novichok affair and work closely with the USA and others.
ET
There is a major difference, you can have all your bio labs in your country under your jurisdiction but having them surrounding your ‘enemy’ under your jurisdiction is the same as having military bases surrounding your enemy.
ET, please take a moment, relax, and listen to yourself. You seem to be saying that it’s perfectly normal and OK for governments to study horrible diseases, with the obvious intention of unleashing them against their enemies. Worse still, you say that they are foolish and negligent if they don’t!
Not only is all such activity utterly illegal, it is extremely immoral. You may shrug and suggest that international law means nothing and nations will do what they gotta do. That may be so, but we should never accept it or give it our approval.
From a practical point of view, it seems far more possible for the human species to be completely wiped out by artificial diseases than by, for example, nuclear or chemical weapons. So, law and morality aside, everyone should do everything in their power to prevent such activities.
Lastly, I deeply resent the way you start by claiming that “I am willing to bet” that Russia and other nations are doing the same thing. Your willingness to bet (and perhaps lose a small amount of cash) is a rather weaker form of evidence than what has now been revealed about the US government’s deep commitment to biological weapons. You then quietly strengthen your position by closing “Russia has them too” – a completely unqualified assertion with absolutely no evidence.
Russia is signatory to international laws and treaties forbidding biological weapons, and from what I know of Russia (and China) I believe that they respect those laws.
This is a very good 16-minute video segment by Tucker Carlson, the American TV host. Carlson is strongly conservative – which in the USA means Republican – so he is instinctively hostile to the Democrats and the Biden administration. Moreover, he is quite hostile to Russia and China – irrationally so, I think. But he does display a logical approach to matters for which there is strong evidence. Do listen to this (or read the full transcript below).
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-we-have-right-know-this
I think in this report Dilyana Gaytandzhieva is making rather too much of the “all deaths to be reported…….” phrases in the protocol. Drawing blood samples won’t cause deaths and that is the only part of the trial I can see she makes reference to. She gives no reference to the papers from which she takes these quotes so I can’t check it further. I suspect that there is more to this trial than just following up anti-bodies in army personnel to certain diseases, perhaps some vaccines or drugs were being trialled, in which case all deaths SHOULD be promptly reported as would be in any protocol from other similar trials. There isn’t enough information in this piece but any medical trial would have such a mandate that trial volunteer deaths or adverse incidents should be reported to the trial admin promptly.
For sinister overtones her earlier report was much more informative:
https://dilyana.bg/the-pentagon-bio-weapons/
Dear Craig
What do you make of the shelling by the Ukrainian army of the ethnic Russians living in the East of Ukraine? Do you not think this was sufficient proovocation for Russia to take out their military hardware? Why is the Western press ignoring this and why the West not insisting on the Minsk agreement being implemented?
Surely this is all a large factor to be considered?
Well, sammy, I don’t know what Mr Murray’s exact position has been on those previous attempts at genocide, but compared to what was done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, etc., the deliberate murder of 15,000 or so civilians is very small potatoes. Anyone who could swallow the vulture of Iraq would surely swallow the gnat of Donbass.
In case there is any doubt, I regard any killing of civilians for any reason whatever to be illegal and contemptible. The more so when it is done on false grounds – as in an illegal war of aggression – and when it is deliberate.
If our relatives and friends were subjected to what the people of Donbass have suffered, I am sure we would be fighting mad and willing to go to very great lengths to save them.
Another fake exposed. Mariupol perinatal center was reported as bombed by Russians.
Russian representative poined out, that the center was taken by Azov at least as far back as March 5, there is an interview from March 8 by an employee who said “people in uniform came. He does not know whether they were fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine or the nationalist battalion “Azov” (banned in the Russian Federation). The military knocked down all the locks, dispersed the staff of the maternity hospital, and set up firing points in the building in order, as they explained to the doctors, to prepare the “fortress of Mariupol” for defense.”
The fake was launched by Eugeniy Maloletka https://instagram.com/evgenymaloletka
who works for The Associated Press and OSCE https://www.osce.org/ru/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine/413540
The “pregnant woman” in photos is in fact pregnant, but she is a professional model https://instagram.com/gixie_beauty
And I dare say her Instagram is all roses and unicorns, as normal for a beauty blogger 🙂
Tatyana
The Lying bbc worked this story for a few days with a vox pop, ” What kind of evil man bombs a hospital.of women and babies … ?” and behind that pukeworthy propaganda our red-nosed clown of a prime minister tramps his huge clown feet over everything to do with Ukraine , swigging novichok from a bottle and falling down.
Russia initially denied that the bombing had taken place at all. Now they’ve suddenly discovered there were Nazis hiding under the beds!
Dead giveaway.
Perhaps Tatyana will answer you with more ‘evidence’?
You don’t need evidence, you just need to apply some common sense: what is more likely, that the Russians, in full knowledge of the shitstorm in the world’s media that it would cause and knowing that it would gain them no military advantage whatsoever, would bomb a maternity hospital full of mothers babies and children, or that the Ukranian forces, in full knowledge of the shitstorm in the world’s media that it would cause and knowing that it would gain them a huge propaganda advantage, would fortify a maternity hospital and then use it to attack the Russian forces? Dead babies, the original and still the best type of propaganda.
The Russians knew what was going on at the maternity hospital in Mariupol.
Zelensky announced that a Russian air strike was performed on a maternity hospital in Mariupol – an atrocity and that there are babies, their mothers and doctors under wreckage, starting another round of worldwide hysteria.
Truth: The maternity hospital was closed after the Russian special operation had begun in Ukraine. The Azov nationalists told the doctors to get out.
? On March 7 Russian diplomats confirmed at the UN Security Council itself that this particular maternity hospital was turned into an operations base and firing point by Azov battalion Neo-Nazis.
In the Russian Statement to the UN SC the Diplomats also tell of how Nazis wre sabotaging
Humanitarian Corridors … By shooting at the legs of those heading for the Corridor – here at 45 mins in –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTUTtkIi3M8
And OSCE photografer Eugeniy Maloletka brought a professional model Marianna Podgurskaya to take some heart tearing photos especially for Westerners, who are so easily buying the ‘victim’ narrative.
I sometimes wonder is this a typical mentality there. Looks like Europeans are very kind hearted people. They stick to their emotions, looking who needs charity, and too proud to aknowlege they are manipulated.
In my part of the world it is considered feminine pattern of behaviour. Male pattern includes this emotional action as first reaction, together with following analysis and fixing the things back to reality.
I gave up on BBC News when they should footage of a teddy bear lying in rubble. *photo-journalists always carry a teddy bear with them for this exact purpose
Social media posts and messages prove that the hospital was operating as such right up to the time it was bombed.
In her blog Marianna Podgurskaya revealed last month that she was heavily pregnant. she has since delivered.
https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1501965477249273857
This is the third hospital destroyed in the course of this WAR.
– “Social media posts and messages prove that the hospital was operating as such right up to the time it was bombed.”
Fair enough, possibly. But was it also being occupied by armed forces, ie. were the legitimate occupants being used as human shields?
That wouldn’t tie in with the Russian version of events which claims that the hospital was closed by Azov and the patients and staff turfed out.
I see that one of the latest high value targets to be destroyed was a shoe factory. I suppose the Russians will claim it was making jackboots.
Pears Morgaine
March 11, 2022 at 12:45
” Social media posts and messages prove that the hospital was operating as such right up to the time it was bombed.
In her blog Marianna Podgurskaya revealed last month that she was heavily pregnant. she has since delivered “
Last Month..??.. The Hospital was occupied in the Last Days of February – By armed men in Uniform
DO You think the Russians are too Stupid to Know this
@Tatyana
Sorry to hear you live in such a sexist culture.
Ironically, the USA has done this sort of thing repeatedly. When they attacked Fallujah, for example, and razed the city to the ground, killing every living thing, their very first move was to destroy the hospitals.
Then there was that hospital in Afghanistan that was repeatedly attacked by a gunship for several hours. The US government claimed that it was a “mistake” made by the Afghans!
One could multiply such examples. The West’s cynical and beastly technique is to accuse their enemy du jour of exactly what they themselves have done and mean to go on doing.
Instagram links don’t work if you don’t have an account and there is not a snowball’s chance in hell I am signing up.
I experience the same now with Twitter.
Another fake ?
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/03/disarming-ukraine-day-13-lies-do-not-win-wars.html#more
Is it a Russian POW or a Ukrainian soldier ?
Yasha Levine with a Russian antiwar view on things
“From a Russian antiwar perspective, this invasion means the total meltdown of living standards, the… worst, most toxic nationalistic cultural and political currents, and the retrenching of a corrupt, centralized oligarchic state security apparatus.”
https://yasha.substack.com/p/a-russian-antiwar-view-on-things?s=r
Yasha Levine lives in California, emigrated there as a child.
This is really disgusting.
Now it is legal to call for people representing Russia, to be killed:
“Twitter has apparently tweaked its ban on violent threats in light of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, according to an internal memo obtained and reviewed by Source Material. After Lindsey Graham tweeted on Friday an explicit request for someone in Russia to step up and assassinate Vladimir Putin, a Twitter spokesperson told The Daily Beast that the Republican senator’s post did not violate the platform’s rules against violent threats. It may have seemed odd that such a post was permitted, despite the tech giant’s ban on threats of “violence against an individual or a group of people” or “wishing or hoping that someone experiences physical harm.” But as it turns out, Twitter has altered its enforcement of such posts, according to the memo we obtained: “Based on the current safety guidelines on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, content wishing, hoping or calling for serious harm against leaders of the Russian government, military leaders, soldiers or para-military fighters will result in No Action.”
https://news.yahoo.com/cnn-boss-signals-truce-fox-095659262.html
(click “story continues” to find the quotation).
Facebook and Instagram will temporarily allow users in some countries to call for violence against Russians when speaking about the Ukraine invasion, reports Reuters.
Meta Platforms will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters on Thursday, in a temporary change to its hate speech policy.
The social media company is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in countries including Russia, Ukraine and Poland, according to a series of internal emails to its content moderators.
These calls for death will be allowed unless they contain other targets or have two indicators of credibility, such as the location or method, one email said, in a recent change to the company’s rules on violence and incitement.
Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Last week, Russia said it was banning Facebook in the country in response to what it said were restrictions of access to Russian media on the platform. Moscow has cracked down on tech companies during its invasion of Ukraine, which it calls a “special operation.”
Many major social media platforms have announced new content restrictions around the conflict, including blocking Russian state media RT and Sputnik in Europe, and have demonstrated carve-outs in some of their policies during the war.
Emails also showed that Meta would allow praise of the right-wing Azov battalion, which is normally prohibited, in a change first reported by The Intercept.
Meta spokesman Joe Osborne previously said the company was “for the time being, making a narrow exception for praise of the Azov Regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine National Guard.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/mar/10/ukraine-news-russia-war-kyiv-vladimir-putin-volodymyr-zelenskiy-russian-invasion-hospital-bombing-latest-live-updates
Facebook and Insta going full on fascist. This is appalling, disgusting, hateful. Time to delete Facebook accounts, if you haven’t already.
“call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers”
I told you, soon you’ll all be shouting pretty nazi slogans and killing the Russians in the streets.
Tatyana
I have no words left for what is going on, west turning more and more sick with the targeting of regular russians! It is racism.
If west somehow believe Putin will be less popular with the war, measures like this will only create more support for him and the russian state by regular russians that are obviously targeted by the western world.
It certainly is racism – the most blatant, unashamed kind.
But it is also a further sign of the rapid degradation of what is left of Western civilisation. At this stage the final collapse must be close.
Are there yet calls to seize
Jew’sRussian’s houses and wealth?We need a new hashtag #RLM (Russian Lives Matter)
Hashtag #RLM (Russian Lives Matter)
I’m afraid that 95% of people working on Capitol Hill should be assassinated if the world wants peace. A considerable majority working inside the House of Commons too.
There is no end to the self-righteous western warmongering and moralising and zero holding those psychopaths to account.
Until dozens of US politicians, bankers, lawyers and Security Service psychopaths are put to death, the world will keep on descending into a cauldron of despair. They’ve had 80 years to be honest, decent human beings and for 80 years they have committed genocides the world over.
The USA and the UK are NOT the goodies on earth, they are just the most organised in their criminality. They have debased every legal system, every international organisation and every principle of accountability, just to ensure that none of their kind will ever receive their just desserts.
How would the Americans like it if the whole world said: ‘Kill any American living outside the USA! Kill them every day to promote world peace!!’??
Rhys Jaggar:
– “95% of people working on Capitol Hill should be assassinated if the world wants peace.”
You’re forever for killing and torturing people in the name of peace. Don’t you ever look into your own heart?
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago.
‘ How would the Americans like it if the whole world said: ‘Kill any American living outside the USA! Kill them every day to promote world peace!!’?? “
Already been done, in 1998:-
” On that basis, and in compliance with Allah’s order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, “and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,” and “fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah.” “
Wow! Who said it? And what the hell were americans doing in Mecca? Doesn’t look like their homeland.
– On February 22, 1998, [Osama] Bin Laden issued a fatwah stating that it is the duty of all Muslims to kill Americans. This fatwah read, in part, that “in compliance with God’s order, we issue the following fatwah to all Muslims: the ruling to kill the Americans and their allies, including civilians and military, is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it.” This fatwah appears to have provided the religious justification for, and marked the start of logistical planning for, the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
Testimony of J. T. Caruso, Acting Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, FBI, before the Subcommittee on International Operations and Terrorism, Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, December 08, 2001.
https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/al-qaeda-international
The testimony began:
– “Al-Qaeda” (“The Base”) was developed by Usama Bin Laden and others in the early 1980’s to support the war effort in Afghanistan against the Soviets. The resulting “victory” in Afghanistan gave rise to the overall “Jihad” (Holy War) movement. Trained Mujahedin fighters from Afghanistan began returning to such countries as Egypt, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia, with extensive “jihad” experience and the desire to continue the “jihad”. This antagonism began to be refocused against the U.S. and its allies.
Jihadism is a purist offshoot of Wahhabism, the state religion and foreign policy tool of the Gulf Monarchies. Arabs who visited the early Soviet Union were inspired by the social advances there, and returning to the Middle East developed and promoted pan-Arab socialism. This of course was a threat to the Arab monarchies, so the state religion was used to inspire fear and hatred of “Godless communists”, and to raise fanatical fighters against them.
Osama bin Laden was one of the Arabs who saw through the hypocrisy and corruption of the monarchies; he was from a rich, powerful family and he saw first hand that they practised the opposite of what they preached – alcohol, drugs, prostitutes, decadence. But instead of abandoning Wahhabism he purified it, applying it against the monarchies and their Western allies. 9/11 was made possible by US cooperation with (ie. exploitations of) and military training of jihadists.
– “And what the hell were americans doing in Mecca?”
They’re still there. The 1945 Quincy Agreement between Roosevelt and Ibn Saud – verbal only, never committed to paper – that for a secure supply of oil, the US undertook to build airbases to protect the Saudi oilfields, engage in military cooperation with Saudi Arabia including training of Saudi military personnel (including, of course, jihadists), and never to oppose the spread of wahhabism.
With the oil money, Saudi Arabia has promoted “radicalised” imams in mosques all over the world. It’s known as “petro-Islam”. They call for jihad in any target of the al Sauds; at present, Syria – which suits the Western alliance just fine, obviously.
Clark
US mercenaries are graded not by their words but by their legitimacy in the eyes of their communities. Johnson is a similar populist in this community, also addicted to warmongering hyperbole and self-destructive threats.
I remember very well the gentle coaxing by the Kurdish CIA agent to follow Osama bin Laden and he istill spying on me to this day and spreading malicious rumours about me because I wasn’t taken in.
Apparently every sucker in the Western world thinks the fatrtwas from Johnson’s backside are written on papyrus on the back of the Dead Sea scrolls.
Alternatively they are both paid liars.
Giyane:
– “I remember very well the gentle coaxing by the Kurdish CIA agent to follow Osama bin Laden and he is still spying on me to this day and spreading malicious rumours about me because I wasn’t taken in.”
That is so insidious. But throughout history, power has subverted religion to incite violence whenever it could. It is done by lies, of course. So lies are deployed to discredit any who see through it. Peace to you Giyane. Peace to all.
I’ve just heard Hamish de Bretton Gordon on Radio 4 telling us that Russia is using precisely the same play-book as in Syria. So you can take it they’re going to be accusing Russia of using chemical weapons in Ukraine, with bio-weapons added in no doubt. The talking point was very, very, obvious. Douma all over again, forgetting the discrediting of the Douma attack.
Boris has said the same thing.
“I’ll make you one other prediction, by the way, which is that the stuff that you’re hearing about chemical weapons – this is straight out of their playbook. They start saying that there are chemical weapons that have been stored by their opponents or by the Americans. And so when they themselves deploy chemical weapons, as I fear they may, they have a sort of maskirovka, a fake story, ready to go. And you’ve seen it in Syria. You saw it even in the UK.”
There will be talk about “red lines” blah blah chemical weapons blah blah must respond etc etc. Someone desperately wants this conflict to escalate. It is all so depressingly familiar.
Another front opened up, Japan on cue claim Sovereignty over Kurill Islands. All-out war on all fronts. US is going down and taking everyone else with it.
Brian Haw was a dear friend bless him. Brian set up a camp in London’s Parliament Square in 2001 in protest against UK and US foreign policy.
He was relentlessly persecuted by the authorities which eventually took its toll on his health. Eventually it was Mayor of London Boris Johnson won a possession order to evict Mr Haw and other campaigners from Parliament Square Gardens.
Years later, today, it is certain, confirmable, democracy is artificial, make believe and synthetic. We have no justice (Assange, Craig) we have no freedom of speech. We are locked down sine die, without end, in a time when a crusade to maintain US dominance and wealth evolves.
The plan to goad, to incite, to prod Russia into war using the Azov regiment in Ukraine and then to destroy her economy was blueprinted in 2013 by the British intelligence services and I believe with many conversant Skripal was involved in later revisions. Skripal in fact was a Russian double agent and had to be eliminated by the ludicrous Novichok operation.
Russia’s collapse would in fact be a harbinger to an economic war with China which the CIA assumes US America can win if Russia collapses and Putin falls,
Brian Haw was a friend of yours? I met him a number of times, and did a couple of lengthy interviews with him for a publication. He was very sincere, but the amount he smoked worried me at the time. Lung cancer, exacerbated by harsh living conditions there for years, is what killed him.
I titled the piece “The last protestor”, because a ban on protesting directly outside Parliament was brought in specifically to target him. Trouble was, the ban didn’t apply to protests in effect at the time of the ban – only to new protests. So he stayed there, keeping the protest continuous, which was the only way any protest was ever to be made there from that point on.
He sacrificed everything to keep that protest going.
Here’s to Brian Haw. I sat with him for a while a couple of times, exchanged a few words. In the maelstrom of fossil-fuel powered traffic, his presence was truly peaceful.
I remember the peace march in February 2003; Brian Haw had already been there for years. At Parliament Square, I felt there was something wrong, a sense of confusion among the protesters; turning right into Whitehall felt wrong, I didn’t want to walk away from Westminster, away from the seat of power. I wish we had confronted it. I wish we had joined Brian and occupied Parliament Square.
Well said Clark – absolutely right- with so many protestors in Parliament square in 2003 the government, a cold sweat in the house may well have kindled a back-pedal and pulled the plug on war.
«Russia’s collapse would in fact be a harbinger to an economic war with China»
If Russia gets “ukrainized”, the obvious consequence is that there there will be series on USA bases on the western and northern side of China, and a pretty complete USA control of overland trade between China and Europe.
American Goetterdaemmerung. Although I don’t quite see Biden (or Trump or Pompeo) as Wotan.
More like Hagen
That thought crossed my mind, SA.
But who is Siegfried? Putin, but I hope Hagen doesn’t manage to hypnotise him and then stab him in the back. CIA SOP.
And I say to Boris Johnson: ‘If the price for you lying in that statement were the immediate assassination of all your children, would you wish to make any changes to what you have said?’
Stop giving that habitual liar the respect worthy of someone who became Prime Minister after a lifetime of competence, honesty, integrity and duty….
Rhys Jaggar:
– “Boris Johnson […] the immediate assassination of all your children…”
Oh, violence against the innocent as well. No surprises there Rhys.
What are you even doing on the site of a human rights activist who blew the whistle on torture? Over half the time I read one of your comments, you’re promoting either violence against individuals or some anti-scientific conspiracy theory. For heavens sake take a look at yourself; the origins of war lie within. We’re all made of the same stuff.
Rhys Jaggar, I wrote:
– “What are you even doing on the site of a human rights activist who blew the whistle on torture?”
I apologise, because that was too harsh. You also post a lot of good, well-informed comments. But please address all this “seal them in pitch and drown them in their own vomit” stuff. This corrupt, violence-endemic world affects us all, including the powerful, including perpetrators. Who knows what they could be in a more compassionate environment, or what any of us would be like in their world of power and violence?
Clark
No.
The origins of war lie within but the consequences of war are supposed to inform our own self control and our leaders ‘ self control over-their actions and their speech.
Johnson has never given a staff about the consequence of any of his words or actions and it is categorically no coincidence that we are confronting Putin’s nuclear power under Johnson’s leadership. He should either ‘ zip it ‘ or explain to us how , with a few spare tanks from Wiltshire, he’s going to avoid Europe getting mini- nuked.
Shut your gob, Boris. I’m sure I’m not the first person in his life who has told him this.
Would that be an “oven-ready” story, Boris?
Jim breaking it down, the $ is on the way out.
Jim Rogers Issues Warning: U.S. Dollar Being Used as “Instrument of War,” It’s the Endgame
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzXs3EdlbzY
The first thing this video does is offer you a copy of a ‘free report’ to show how to ‘protect yourself (and profit) in the coming economic Armageddon’. It gives you a website to go to. The website asks for your email address (spam guaranteed!). You click to ‘download’ the ‘free report’ but no, up pops one of those videos that goes on forever with no way of ‘fast-forwarding’. It begins with someone droning on with a tale of an American soldier who went on to work for Goldman Sachs. Like a car showroom, the intent is to lure you in, grind you down, waste your time, so you will ‘buy’ whatever they are ‘selling’ at the end of the ‘presentation’. Grr.. I hate ‘Stansberry Research’.
I didn’t bother with any of that. Just watched the Rogers interview. When you get an ad, just endure it for the forced 5 seconds and then click on ‘skip ad’, all youtube stuff does that
Vintage Craig Murray, a great piece.
Bearing in mind that my previous invitation to the OSCE website was well received.
Friends, Russia has requested a meeting of the United Nations Security Council today on the issue of US military biological activities in Ukraine. Fortunately, the United Nations is broadcasting the meetings live.
I invite you to engage in “direct journalism” – i.e. to get information directly. Before every *pet groomer* starts pulling out ‘extract’ and telling you how this should be interpreted.
*does not intend to offend anyone, it’s just now a popular meme in Russia, describing the quality of modern journalism, suggesting that people are ready to write for money about things in which they are not experts and have not even conducted a general investigation
United Nations Security Council
https://media.un.org/en/search/categories/meetings-events/security-council
United Nations Meeting and Events
https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1g/k1gb6tjmle
United Nation Live Schedule
https://media.un.org/en/webtv/schedule
Tatyana, good work.
Now they are turning Ukraine into another Somali
Yesterday’s report on mercenaries from Britain arriving to Ukraine to fight the Russians, was followed by another report on the US private companies Academi (ex Blackwater), DynCorp and Cubic, recruiting volunteers.
Today in Russian news they air yesterdays Russian Security Council meeting, Shoigu saying 16,000 volunteers from the Middle East are ready to fight against Kiev, and also asking if they can use captured trophy western weapons, like Javelins and NLAWs. Putin said he doesn’t mind.
So, is it time already to flee? I see no one single voice urging them to stop. Everyone around is busy with sanctions and lost profit calculations!
Tatyana, this feels so feeble, but I wish you well.
– “I see no one single voice urging them to stop”
Those voices are among the people, not the media or establishment of any side. Concentrations of power are themselves evil; “power corrupts”. The only legitimate power is that of consensus within community.
Tatyana & all.
This forum (on the Putin regime’s invasion of Ukraine) is an echo chamber for Putin fans.
Which is a pity.
Meanwhile Lavrov denies that any invasion took place!
https://www.euronews.com/2022/03/10/ukraine-war-russia-did-not-attack-ukraine-says-lavrov-after-meeting-kuleba
“Putin this, Putin that” – pure propaganda. The invasion of Ukraine is a strategic action by the Russian government.
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
From: Russia Moscow (ie. US Embassy in Moscow)
To: Joint Chiefs of Staff | NATO – European Union Cooperative | National Security Council | Russia Moscow Political Collective | Secretary of Defense | Secretary of State
– 1. (C) Summary. Following a muted first reaction to Ukraine’s intent to seek a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the Bucharest summit (ref A), Foreign Minister Lavrov and other senior officials have reiterated strong opposition, stressing that Russia would view further eastward expansion as a potential military threat. NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains “an emotional and neuralgic” issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene. Additionally, the GOR and experts continue to claim that Ukrainian NATO membership would have a major impact on Russia’s defense industry, Russian-Ukrainian family connections, and bilateral relations generally. In Georgia, the GOR fears continued instability and “provocative acts” in the separatist regions. End summary.
Read the whole diplomatic cable on Wikileaks. NATO and the US knew the current situation would develop if they cultivated Ukrainian ties with NATO.
Note also that the cable never mentions Putin. Not once. This was a strategic decision by the Russian government.
Propaganda always holds up an individual, an image, for us to hate; haven’t you read 1984?
OK, fair enough, yet it seems strange that comments which kick off with references to “fans of Putin” or “Russian bots” as the only reason why anyone should oppose the deluge of BS that appears in the various media about Ukraine, like the one to which Clark was replying, should be allowed to stand.
—
[ Mod: If you’d like to discuss what “should be allowed to stand”, then the comment belongs in the Blog Support Forum. You can cite your grounds for stricter moderation rules there. ]
https://www.vesti.ru/article/2687272
Lavrov’s speech here
Foreign Ministry: Russia has not attacked Ukraine, does not plan to attack others
The Foreign Ministers of the Russian Federation and Ukraine Sergey Lavrov and Dmytro Kuleba held a meeting on the sidelines of the diplomatic forum in Antalya, Turkey. Lavrov said at a news conference on Thursday that Russia has not attacked Ukraine and does not intend to attack other countries.
According to the Head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, a situation has developed in Ukraine that directly threatens Russia’s security.
The broadcast is conducted by the TV channel “Russia 24” and the media platform “Watch”. Lavrov recalled that, according to documents obtained during a special military operation in Ukraine, Kiev planned to attack the DPR and LPR this month.
“Contrary to our long-standing reminders, exhortations, appeals, no one listened to us,” Lavrov said.
The Russian operation is going according to plan, Lavrov further assured. Nevertheless, Moscow wants to conduct serious negotiations with Kiev in Belarus.
“Today’s conversation that this track is without alternative,” the minister said. To agree, Lavrov said, it is necessary to agree on a comprehensive settlement of the crisis. Ukraine has been given a Russian package of proposals. Lavrov considers it dangerous to supply Ukraine with Western weapons, Interfax writes.
Thousands of man-portable missile systems can get to terrorists. This poses a threat to civil aviation, Lavrov said.
According to the minister, he discussed the humanitarian situation in Ukraine with his Ukrainian counterpart. Lavrov confirmed that Moscow’s initiative to open humanitarian corridors daily remains in force.
In case here are any journalists here ready to investigate, there’s a public society Memorial in Lughansk, working on Donbass victims. Anna Soroka, their contacts 072-100-34-55, e-mail: [email protected] +380 (7210) 0-34-55
Their VK page
https://vk.com/memorial_lnr – translation
The article on Ria today describes the prison of Aydar batallion in liberated Polovinkino village, Lughansk. Prison looking like a concentration camp. Photos show no crying women with kids in their hands, no teddy bears, rather russian style, than western one.
https://ria.ru/20220311/kontslager-1777625485.html – translation
Six to eight years ago, the BBC and other UK media. were warning us about the far right, neo Nazis in Ukraine. Now, they and others are telling us they don’t exist. The problem with trying to rewrite history, is that there is always someone who will dig up evidence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEKQsnRGv7s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE6b4ao8gAQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMMXuKB0BoY
I have never been a follower of Gorgeous George and his self promoting ways …
So it is with genuine humility when I say his latest 20 minutes off the cuff rant pretty much covers almost all the sensible opinions and subjects that I am lucky to have received and hopefully made here and at these other great journalism sites.
I take my hat off to GG metaphorically- even as he keeps his own (as do I until summer?)
UK sanctions 386 Russian MPs over Ukraine invasion
‘The UK government has imposed sanctions on hundreds of Russian parliamentarians as part of its response to the war in Ukraine.
386 MPs who voted to recognise two rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine as independent last month have been hit by asset freezes and UK travel bans.
began’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60708230
When are all the countries going to have an EMERGENCY Meeting in the United Nations to discuss and hold evidence hearings about the US Biological Weapons Laboratories in Ukraine and around the world numbering three hundred. When are the “scientists” in white coats and hiding behind masks conducting these experiments going to be prosecuted together with their paymasters. When are whistle blowers going to speak out ? When ? A Jullian Assange from these secret Laboratories needs to escape and spread the truth.
Before something else “escapes”…..
I think the UK public have been sanctioned. Our assets are frozen and travel is unpleasantly difficult.
Very rare voice speaks out in Congress. Thomas Massie, one of only three who voted against “Stand with Ukraine” vote. Massie explains how this vote actually supports the overthrow now in Belarus and all the money the US tax payer will pay for more escalations. See Max Blumenthal interview Thomas Massie on The Grayzone ” Why Rep Thomas Massie stood against ” stand with Ukraine ” resolution “.
Stevie Boy. Lavrov has said Russia is working towards becoming totally self sufficient and not relying on any other country. Propoganda war being waged by us in the West is directed at our own populations and won’t win any actual war on the ground, sea or air. Its ironic that there were the Isolationist in US after WW1 who lost out to the ones who wanted to take over the world from the British Empire. Now Russia can defend itself and let the US EU and UK scramble around with projection and mass distraction really milking and making fools and impoverishment of its own populations. Putin has done an amazing job steering his country to independence from the globalist debt ridden neo Liberal project, reducing debt, building up gold reserves, being rich and self sufficient commodities and food production. While we just go around the world destabilising and causing misery and chaos enriching a few. As I said before, we’ve done done our worst, what more can we possibly do now to Russia. Everyone thinks China is not happy with the invasion and it is invested in in global trade for its prosperity, true, but Russia isn’t, and Not in Chinas thrall !
The EU has already made a similar pledge to self-sufficiency.
A retrograde move by both.
Great – game on – let’s see how they like their personal jet set lives curtailed for ever! I guess there is plenty to do in Europe even without free movement and the 5+1 eyes islands reachable by direct flights. But the rest of the world will be sorely missed by them.
Just how are they going to their mistresses girl/boy friends , wives and children about THEIR curtailed existence?
Does anyone know what really happened to Anastasiia Yalanskaya? I had a look on the internet and it was scary, hundreds of websites, most of which were reporting exactly the same thing, word for word. There were about three different versions, but otherwise it was edge to edge gleichschaltung.
This is mildly interesting. A Hungarian take (with subtitles) on the special military operation. I learned that Ukraine was divided in most part by a river 10 miles wide at some parts which fits in where Russian forces are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjIlWjtiN0E
BBC Radio 4 is promoting a humanitarian appeal that goes all out to offer UK places of accommodation and support for Ukrainian refugees in alignment with current propaganda against Russia and it’s efforts to protect citizens of the Donbas who have been massacred by the Azov regiment and others over many years.
I remind the BBC and other broadcasters trumpeting the evil of the so called Russian horrific decimation and carnage in Ukraine, the following history, annals and records written in blood after the illegal war to topple Hussein and smash Iraq into pieces:
As late as 2007 the result of an international conference, the UN and NGO’s pledged paltry sums of money to assist Iraq refugees. In fact the EU proffered a new bid to cope with the resulting mass migration of Iraq refugees into Europe. It ended the Dublin code, which stipulated that asylum should be sought in the country of first refuge. Since this put Greece and Italy in the frontline, it was deemed unfair and unenforceable. The proposal was that all European nations should take a share of refugees proportional to population. Britain has indicated that it will not cooperate with this plan. How shocking; this appalling decision was the fact that Britain has prime responsibility for the cause of the crisis, the anarchy in Iraq.
The US and British invasion, in 2003, may have been unjustified, illegal and unwise. But it is a fact. A regime that posed no threat was toppled, and the new puppet rulers were unable to govern. More than 3 million Iraqis were driven from their homes as a result.
To anyone who visited Baghdad in the early days of the western occupation, breathtaking ineptitude was the prime cause of the chaos. After war, the collapse of order is the worst thing a country can suffer. In Iraq, the army and even the police were effectively disbanded. Administration dissolved. Alien governors were imposed on provinces. Those who did this to Iraq can’t walk away from the consequences… Please watch my third video here ‘interview with an Iraqi exile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK12wgs2mvA
Walk away they did and I was severely attacked in 2005 for helping ‘Doctors for Iraq’ cope with dismembered Iraq children with small supplies of prothetic devices, books, toys and clothes.
It was 2005 when the BBC governors were scrapped on impartiality concerns as a direct result of biased and sympathetic reporting of the carnage resulting from the Iraq war.
Yet not a word from the BBC about the carnage wrought on the Dobas region of Ukraine by UK bought and paid for terrorist, fanatics and extremists. Straightforward, down and dirty hypocrisy by the BBC disinformation unit nestled tightly within the British intelligence services.
On bbc and banning RT and Sputnik, I just met a great words:
“When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”
— George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)
These words in this video. Brave man, added subtitles.
https://youtu.be/ri-cbUOJrMQ
What I don’t understand it why RT was still available on Freeview 24 hours after it was removed from Freesat. According to the UK Government Freeview gets its RT ‘feed’ via Astra and its removal was a direct consequence of the EU diktat being levelled on SES in Luxembourg/France. Maybe there is a ‘technical reason’ but it does seems very strange and suspicious.
BBC CEO Deborah Mary Turness, married to John Toker, the Cabinet Office’s Director of Communications for Security and Intelligence.
Nice! Freedom of speech, yeah. Fair journalism 🙂 most independent and never distorting the reality, sure
Tatyana — shocked, appalled, angry, and horrified by media bias and restrictions on free speech in other countries.
Well spotted. So blatant isn’t it?
How strange the BBC report failed to mention that conflict of interest.
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-59895030
In a statement, Turness said there “has never been a greater need for the BBC’s powerful brand of impartial, trusted journalism”.
This would have been good to hear:
In a statement, Turness said there “has never been a greater need for impartial, trusted journalism”.
The relationship pops in at the bottom of the Wikipedia page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Turness
It may be the case that we are being ‘softened up’ to welcome ‘refugees’ into our own homes. Maybe some sort of legislation will be passed in the future. They have all that ‘census’ data so they know how much ‘spare capacity’ there is. Klaus Schwab himself did say to expect a lot more ‘refugees’ and that ‘we would have to learn to be a lot more accommodating and welcoming’.
They’re going to force Ferris to accommodate one of the miniscule number of Ukranians allowed into the UK in his spare room.
The usual agenda for the UK and refugees based on past events is that we let in single males, who we call children, and we let in MI6 assets. The rest are redirected to Calais to catch the regular dinghy/RNLI/MoD transfer service.
The real question for all the do-gooders is what do you think is going to happen when the immigration service is in the control of right wing, tory, bigots like Patel. We mess up their country and then turn our backs on them, welcome to the UK.
Mark Golding — shocked, appalled, angry, and horrified by carnage in Donbass. But not in the other parts of in Ukraine.
Fonso. Why are the US, EU and UK not sending troops to Ukraine to help ? Why are we not taking Ukrainian refugees in UK or giving them EU membership ? Rank hypocrisy! You’ve USED Ukraine to get at Russia and then betrayed them.
NATO is a curse on all its members and will soon bring about nuclear war. It should have been disbanded after the Soviet Union collapsed. A so called defensive organisation controlled by US to promote arms sales and destroy political and economic Sovereignty of its member states. Good Luck !
Me? The only thing I’ve done is point out the hypocrisy of some of these apologists for carnage and another illegal invasion. Why haven’t you?
Fonso. You are deluded if you think we in England are going to allow Russia to build bases in Scotland, station nuclear missiles and build bio labs to only infect Anglo saxons and Station their nuclear subs in Faslane.
Perhaps, Wikikettle here is not hunting for emotions, but rather tries to find out what’s going on? Think of it.
For you, fonso, I suggest visiting a couple of previous blogs. You click Ctrl+F and type Tatyana in the textfield, so you’d have a full collection of my personal shock, appalled anger and horror. It’s simply you’re too late here today.
Wikikettle
So by your logic England could just invade a sovereign, independent Scotland, half destroy it and kill loads of people, then force it to do whatever England demands.
Tatyana
Please recognise how silly and barbaric your leader is being, show some compassion, oppose his madness, and stop pretending you are a victim.
Fonso. We are repeatedly told the first duty of any government is to protect its population. The US is the puppet master. Its aim is regime change in Russia and to succeed taking over Russian resources when Hitler failed. We in Europe and in North America have never been under any threat from Russia. Ukraine is not Sovereign, it is controlled by US since the violent coup. It is a mere proxy of US using a powerful neo nazi minority to dehumanising Russian speaker slavs. Russia will not do a Chamberlain and appease as did Vichy France to Hitler. All efforts at reason through Lavrov to get Ukraine to be Neutral and “milk” both East and West failed. Austria is Neutral to this day! Why couldn’t all former Soviet countries be? No, US UK want total domination and the invasion was the last resort Russia had.
” So by your logic England could just invade a sovereign, independent Scotland, half destroy it and kill loads of people, then force it to do whatever England demands. “
If they came up with some cock and bull story that Scotland needed ‘de-Nazifying’ I suppose some idiots might believe it.
Think rationally fonso we have collected information and witnessed events in Donetsk for some eight years and I have some interesting thoughts on the embroilment of the Azov regiment’s in Donetsk from someone versed in UK involvement. Fog of war and propaganda has prevented accurate information on Russia’s involvement in other areas of Ukraine
Fonso were you as upset at Israel as you are with Russia? What about our UK war in Yemen and Syria? I can understand if you only get your information from MSM and BBC. But the fact that you know about Craig’s site and his articles, indicate you are trying to research both sides of the argument?
United Nations Security Council live on air
https://media.un.org/en/webtv
Hope someone watched it in full. I only catched them calling each other liers. Someone urged OPCW to visit and investigate?
Meta backs down a little, saying they only will allow hate speech in Ukraine.
Humanitarian corridors
https://youtu.be/YAsYV6z6jXc
Video shared by Russian MoD. Checkpoint near Chernigov. People in black uniforms stop the cars and make them return back. Apparently Ukraine want to hold them hostages.
Nick Clegg, that is the former deputy prime minister of the UK, is the decision maker at Meta.
These people have no idea they are full blown racists, attacking and smearing russians, hating russians and so on is so normal for them so they cannot understand why their new policy is criticized.
Nice story, apparently also raised money for support for Ukraine(*) but everyone was shocked that the designed digital objects raised fifty six million dollars, rather quickly, DAO NFT JA $56M!!!!!! (*The country received $1.86 million after the sale of ‘Censored NFT’, created by digital artist Pak in collaboration with Julian Assange)
https:// finance.yahoo.com/news/assangedao-raised-56m-quickly-split-210057108.html
A joke for the new Soviet era:
A woman goes into a music store in Moscow.
‘I want to buy last month’s news broadcasts, but on CD or DVD.’
‘But you can get them on TV for free’!
‘They’re for my children. They will only listen to samizdat on Echo or Dozhd (Tv-Rain)’.
The EU and NATO is the new ” Soviet ” MJ. European countries have lost their Sovereignty, they do as they are told, millions of refugees on the way and a hot war with Russia in Europe for sure. US doesn’t have to worry about Canada or Mexico invading just a massive insurrection within from its screwed citizens.
US barbarity knows no bounds, WMD labs, get India to fight China, Get Japan to fight Russia, get South Korea to fight North Korea, get that Super “Power” Australia to fight China and even get Germany to send weapons to Nazis in Ukraine.
US finally allows its citizens to send humanitarian help to LNR and DNR. Not so barbarian, after 8 years of war, isn’t it?
Found it on YouTube. Russian representative speech at 25:00
https://youtu.be/zrYwtS-ENps
The State Duma at a plenary session on Friday adopted the chamber’s appeal to the UN and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly on the need to investigate the activities of biological laboratories in Ukraine.
“We will continue to report on biological weapons, as far as we know. The UN does not have a mandate to conduct an investigation unless it is given such a mandate. But we will continue to monitor the situation closely,” Dujarric said at a briefing, answering a question, is the UN going to respond to the call of the State Duma.
https://ria.ru/20220311/mandat-1777767771.html
There are also claims for international tribunal.
“The point of the missiles was never to fire them at Russia. The point of the missiles was to manufacture and sell them at enormous profit margins and provide large salaries and cash funds for politicians, with endless revolving door jobs for ex-military and civilian defence personnel, who all keep the contracts flowing.”
Maybe, though profiteering itself does not push the missiles to Russian borders. However, Putin will reply to this that when the nukes are too close to their target, the temptation to launch them can be too strong to resist. This is exactly the reason why Americans became pissed off when they learned about Soviet missiles in Cuba. Putin will also tell you that although NATO is a defensive union on paper, it never fought a defensive war. Instead, it undertook more than 20 offensive actions.
I am sure it will be great for everyone if Ukraine chose finlandization, or even if Ukraine tried to join NATO as Norway did, meaning, no nukes and no foreign bases or troops on their soil. I believe Putin will grind his teeth but he’ll be OK with that, as long as Ukraine passes gas to Europe and Sevastopol remains under Russian control. But it is also obvious to me that Uncle Sam won’t give a dime to such Ukraine.
As for the timetable, suddenly all the armchair experts forgot that it took Americans 45 days to take Falludjah in 2004.
” As for the timetable, suddenly all the armchair experts forgot that it took Americans 45 days to take Falludjah in 2004.”
False – First Battle of Fallujah Killed / Murdered 20.000 ..Mostly Civilians – 1 WEEK… Russian Invasion of Ukraine 350 – One Week
I was watching Jimmy Dore tonight..showing The Ukraine war crime of Forcing Captured Russian Soldier ‘ confessing, they made him phone his mother .. .. It’s on Youtube Still.
But Jimmy Asks WTF.. Re the Mass Hypnosis going on.. It seems I cannot Even Talk to people… RUSSIA BAD… BBC GOOD.. I’m like What ?
I clearly referred to the Second battle of Falludjah.
Profiteering was ONE reason for the missiles. But another, far more important in the long run, was to crack Russia open like an oyster and loot its natural resources. The Masters of the Universe have always believed that everything belongs to them, and they will never forgive Russia for giving them a glimpse of the treasures in store (during the 1990s) and then slamming the door in their face. Now they not only covet the loot; they also lust for revenge. They want to crush their designated “adversaries” and “antagonists” in the dust.
«to crack Russia open like an oyster and loot its natural resources.»
And like in Ukraine wrt to Russia, once Russia is “ukrainized”, to put a line of USA bases on the western and northern borders of China, blocking their trade routes to Europe, denying China access to siberian oil and gas and russian wheat exports, and completely surrounding it, of course only to “respond to chinese aggression”.
A “color revolution” in Russia and a return to a Yeltsin-like regime would be a truly massive win for the USA.
“A “color revolution” in Russia and a return to a Yeltsin-like regime would be a truly massive win for the USA.”
A democratic government in Russia would be a truly massive wing for the Russian people.