THE WEST PROPAGANDA IS NOW GOING UP A NOTCH, BECAUSE THE.... (RUSSIANS MAY BE WINNING ON THE BATTLEFIELD?)... AS THE WAR IN "UKRAINE" IS GOING ON AND IS MOSTLY WON BY THE RUSSIANS, AT THEIR OWN PACE, THE WESTERN NEWS IS PUMPING ITS PROPAGANDIST DRIVEL TO THE MAX, USING THE HEAVING WEIGHTS OF BULLSHIT:

HERE FOLLOWS AN ARTICLE IN THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, IT SEEMS IT MADE SURE NOT TO MENTION A WORD ABOUT THE NORD SEA PIPELINES SABOTAGE, NOR ABOUT THE FACT THAT THE KIEV GOVERNMENT IS RUN BY NAZI FASCISTS THAT HAS DESTROYED FREEDOM AND MULTI-CULTURALISM IN ORDER TO OBEY THE WEST'S WISHES. IT'S UGLY PROPAGANDA BUT ONE NEEDS TO READ IT, WHILE ALSO KNOWING WHAT WE HAVE EXPOSED ON THIS SITE:

How the world has changed since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022

As the public watches missiles rain down on cities and tanks burst into flame, there is a sense that the world reached a turning point when Russia invaded Ukraine. So what has changed?

By Rob Harris, Chris Barrett, Eryk Bagshaw, Farrah Tomazin, Stephen Bartholomeusz, Chris Zappone and Lia Timson
FEBRUARY 20, 2023

HERE WE NEED TO SWITCH TO THE DONBASS:

Kiev’s forces have launched a rocket attack on the city of Donetsk, a local organisation monitoring Ukrainian strikes on the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics said on Sunday. In just two minutes, a total of 40 projectiles were fired at the Russian city, using multiple rocket launchers, the statement claimed.

It is so far unclear whether the bombardment resulted in any casualties. Videos allegedly taken at the scene and published on social media by Russian news outlets show some local shops were severely damaged, with smashed windows and holes in the walls. The area around the buildings is littered with debris.

According to the monitoring group, the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC), Ukrainian attacks earlier in the day also caused power outages at eight electrical substations throughout the city, leaving some 800 residents without power.

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/russia/571734-ukraine-targets-donetsk-strike/

WE ALSO NEED TO REMIND OURSLEVES THAT THE KIEV GOVERNMENT NEVER INTENDED TO ADHERE TO THE MINSK AGREEMENTS AND HAS SINCE 2015 BOMBED THE AUTONOMOUS REGIONS, CONTRARILY TO THE SAID AGREEMENTS. MORE THAT 15,000 PEOPLE IN THE DONBASS HAVE BEEN KILLED BY THE KIEV NAZI GOVERNMENT. ZELENSLY LIED TO THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE IN ORDER TO GET ELECTED. HE WAS PREPARING AN OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE DONBASS REGION, FOR EARLY MARCH 2022. THE TARGETTING OF KIEV BY RUSSIAN TROOPS WAS A DIVERSION SO THAT THE "UKRAINIAN" ARMY HAD TO ABANDON ITS POSITIONS BOMBING THE DONBASS  — ALLOWING A SMALL RUSSIAN ARMY TO COME AND PROTECT THE DONBASS. "UKRAINE ISN'T ONE COUNTRY" BUT AN AGGLOMERATION OF PROVINCES WITH POLES, RUSSIANS AND GALICIANS (THE NAZIS). READ THE HISTORY, PLEASE!

WE ALSO KNOW THAT BY END OF MARCH 2022, KIEV WAS ABOUT TO MAKE AN AGREEMENT WITH RUSSIA. BOJO, THE IMBECILIC POMMY CLOWN, WENT TO KIEV UNDER INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE US ADMINISTRATION TO PREVENT THIS DEAL.

ANYWAY, THE SMH PROPAGANDISTS CONTINUE:

From the direction of trade flows, to crowd control outside the Australian Open. From the room temperature of homes in Europe, to the future of the Olympics.

Sanctions have been imposed, news channels have been banned, refugees in the millions have fanned across Europe, military alliances have been revived.

Russia’s decision to launch a full-scale land invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has reverberated around the world. Among its worst consequences are the deaths of at least 42,000 people, 15,000 people missing and 14 million displaced.

There are fears for thousands of children forcibly removed to Russia. Arms are flowing to the war from the West and Russia’s allies.

As missiles rain down on Ukrainian cities and power stations, there is a sense that the world cannot be the same after this.

One year after Russia started the war, how has the globe beyond Australia and beyond Ukraine changed? And what will likely never be the same? Our correspondents take a look.

European governments have been at the forefront of military and humanitarian support to Ukraine since the war began. There are nearly 7.9 million refugees across Europe, while around 4.8 million were registered for temporary protection or similar national protection schemes as of January.

Nations have fast-tracked plans to eliminate dependency on Russian fossil fuel imports. They have temporarily restarted mothballed coal-fired power plants and triggered measures to mitigate skyrocketing energy prices, which have prompted homes to cut back energy use.

The transatlantic alliance has been put back in the spotlight, rejuvenating NATO and leading to a dramatic increase in European defence spending, most notably in Germany. Support for NATO membership has also risen in previously neutral countries such as Sweden and Finland.

Individual countries have imposed their own sanctions on Russia and Russian oligarchs, particularly in Britain, while sending tanks, weapons, ammunition, medical supplies and financial assistance to Ukraine.

The Russian economy has severely contracted as a result of the sanctions, with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development estimating its gross domestic product dropped by 2.2 per cent in the best-case scenario and by 3.9 per cent in the worst case.

Russia’s war has ratcheted up regional anxiety about being drawn into a conflict between major powers.

Nations in the region were already keenly aware of the impact that the rivalry between China and the United States could have on them, with potential flash points like the South China Sea and Taiwan on their doorstep. Moscow’s invasion, though, has heightened sensitivities.

South-East Asia’s 11 countries tend to sit on the fence when it comes to geopolitics, not wanting to be forced to choose sides. This tendency has constrained their response to the war in Europe, beyond calling for it to end.

Singapore, the geographically smallest and richest of the ASEAN member states, took the almost unprecedented step of imposing financial sanctions on Russia and condemned its aggression in strong terms.

At the other end of the spectrum, military-ruled Myanmar has gone as far as to express support for the invasion and deepened ties with the Kremlin as it embarked on its own campaign to crush internal resistance. Between these extremes, reactions of others have been coloured by existing relations with Russia, the region’s largest arms supplier.

The war has also complicated South-East Asia’s emergence from COVID-19.

Nowhere was that more obvious than at the G20 world leaders’ summit in Bali in November, when the efforts of host Indonesia to prioritise recovery from the pandemic were railroaded by events in Ukraine.

In a day-to-day economic sense, the ripple effects of Putin’s actions have been felt from Thailand to East Timor, with soaring prices of commodities like fertiliser and wheat and rising inflation has reinforced cost of living pressures and food security as pressing issues.

Indonesia, for example, has endured a cooking oil crisis and Malaysia has experienced a shortage of eggs. More recently the supply chain problems associated with the conflict in Ukraine have helped drive up prices of onions in the Philippines, where they’re a kitchen staple, to the point where they cost more than meat. – Chris Barrett

For Beijing, the invasion that started just four days after the end of the Beijing Winter Olympics, where Putin and Xi Jinping had paraded their “unbreakable friendship”, has become an embarrassment. Kyiv was meant to be taken within weeks.

China’s energy costs have surged and so has pressure on Beijing to condemn the invasion. But China has straddled the fence for long enough that people have stopped asking questions.

y June, it had become Russia’s biggest importer of crude oil and coal imports hit a five-year high. Next year the Power of Siberia-2 pipeline will begin construction. When it is finished, Russia will become China’s primary gas supplier, making Moscow more dependent on Beijing than ever before as its markets in Europe and the West disappear.

The corollary is that the invasion of Ukraine has drawn Japan, South Korea and Australia closer to the US and triggered a military build-up aimed at deterring any threat to Taiwan. Beijing may have gained a short-term geopolitical and economic boost from Russia’s actions, but its long-term plans to unify with Taiwan have become a lot harder.

If Russia had any illusions about its great power status, they were destroyed after Putin’s meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, with Xi in September. Putin, cap in hand, walked into the meeting with the Chinese president with his troops demoralised and his supply lines choked.

China had long ago overtaken the Russian economy in size and strength, but this was the moment where its dominance crystallised. “We understand your questions and concerns,” Putin said publicly in front of Xi – the only time in the year-long invasion that the Russian leader has displayed a semblance of contrition. – Eryk Bagshaw

Putin’s invasion has defined President Joe Biden’s foreign policy agenda, rattled the country’s economy and led to growing unease among millions of Americans.

Rallying international support against Russia’s aggression has been a major focus for the Biden administration. However, some Americans are becoming concerned about their country’s escalating involvement in a protracted war.

This month a study by Pew Research suggested that more than a quarter of the country believes the US is providing too much support, the highest rate since the war began.

This is also presenting a political challenge for the president, as Republicans, who won control the House of Representatives at the November midterms, are starting to voice opposition to continued funding.

America’s economy has also been shaken. The combination of sanctions against Russia and Moscow’s retaliation has reverberated through global food and energy markets, exacerbating inflation in the US, which rose to record highs last year, and undercutting growth.

The oil shock sparked by the war sent average petrol prices above $US5 a gallon (3.7 litres) last June, making life harder for Americans already struggling with the soaring price of everything from food and furniture to rents. Yet Biden has consistently said he will stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes”. – Farrah Tomazin

Before it decided to invade Ukraine, Russia supplied about 40 per cent of Europe’s gas and produced more than 10 per cent of the world’s oil. After the war, regardless of the outcome, it will have lost its major market for gas and will be producing significantly less oil.

Global energy markets have been changed, probably forever.

Europe won’t renew its contracts, so Russia has lost its main energy market. The alternative customers – mainly China and India – are more opportunistic and the cost of getting oil and gas to them is far higher.

Europe is now importing gas from the US and LNG from the Asia Pacific market while accelerating its clean energy generation, reopening coal mines and nuclear facilities and reducing energy usage.

Of particular consequence for Australia is that the emergence of Europe as a new and substantial buyer of gas in our region means that, in an LNG market where supply and demand were roughly balanced, prices have surged.

Because the three big Queensland coal seam gas producers have connected what was once a purely domestic market for Australian gas to the international market, domestic prices have also spiked and domestic supply is under pressure.

The sanctions and price caps on Russian oil and refined products, along with the withdrawal of Western expertise and technology, are damaging Russia’s oil fields and infrastructure and will significantly diminish what used to be about 45 per cent of its government’s revenue base. – Stephen Bartholomeusz

As Russia had become isolated from Europe and the US, it has sought to expand diplomatic and trade relationships in Africa.

The tactic has often succeeded, most recently in Central African Republic, where mercenaries from the Wagner Group and other Russian private military companies have gained access to lucrative gold and diamond mining.

Of the 34 countries that abstained from voting on a draft UN resolution condemning Russia’s aggression and demanding full withdrawal of troops from Ukraine last year, several were African: South Africa, Mali, Mozambique, the Central African Republic, Angola, Algeria, Burundi, Madagascar, Namibia, Senegal, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

French President Emmanuel Macron last year accused Russia of feeding anti-French propaganda in Africa to serve its “predatory” ambitions. 

– Rob Harris

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed the US to rethink its rocky relations with oil-rich Venezuela. In November, the US eased fuel sanctions on the country, in a deal that would see the United Nations administer a fund of humanitarian aid to the Venezuelan people. It’s a first step to bringing Venezuela back into the oil market.

Brazil has maintained a policy of neutrality, even as it changed leadership from far-right president Jair Bolsonaro to leftist Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. In a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Lula attributed some responsibility for the war to Ukraine. But last week, Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira verbalised for possibly the first time that Brazil recognised Russia’s invasion as an act of aggression. He denied this meant a change of policy to one of “taking sides”.

Argentina and Colombia have joined Brazil in refusing to send equipment and munitions to Ukraine. The Chilean position is less clear, with its president Gabriel Boric promising Scholz it would contribute to multilateral efforts to find peace.

The war has caused regional price increases in fuel, gas, fertilisers and foodstuffs including wheat, soy, corn and meat, but in Brazil’s case at least, some of these have been offset by its own increased exports as Russia and Ukraine’s products disappeared from the market. – Lia Timson

In cyberspace, Western governments were forced to acknowledge the geopolitical reality behind ransomware gangs – namely that the most destructive and costly ones operated with impunity from Russian-controlled territory.

In October, the White House convened the ransomware taskforce to boost global and private sector cooperation in countering cybercrime.

When the US imposed a raft of sanctions on Russian oligarchs and froze their assets, the White House directed the Department of Treasury to scrutinise cryptocurrency exchanges for the movement of tokens that could benefit the oligarchs.

The US also stepped up what it calls “hunt forward” operations, which involve government cybersecurity experts sitting “side-by-side” with partner nations such as Ukraine, Poland and Estonia, to “hunt on the networks of the host nation’s choosing, looking for bad cyber activity and vulnerabilities”.

As pro-Kremlin hackers and exploits are discovered, the information is cycled back to the US government – and importantly – big tech firms, to close gaps in their software and networks. This frustrates the ability of Russia’s hackers to conduct intrusions on the computer networks of democracies. This marks an evolution in the Western approach.– Chris Zappone

Days after the invasion began, FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) suspended Russian teams from their competitions with immediate effect. UEFA moved its 2022 Champions League final match from St Petersburg to Paris.

The All England Club banned Russian and Belarusian players from competing on Wimbledon’s courts, while the Australian Open banned the two countries’ flags and insignia, which meant women’s champion Aryna Sabalenka, from Belarus, took her title under a neutral flag.

International opposition to both nations’ participation in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics is growing. Thirty-five countries, including the US Germany and Australia, are expected to demand that Russian and Belarusian athletes be banned.

The move will put intense pressure on the International Olympic Committee as it seeks to uphold the event’s peaceful symbolism. Any ban will evoke memories of Cold War-era boycotts, while Russian participation could lead to scenes reminiscent of the clash between Hungarian and Soviet athletes at the 1956 Games in Melbourne. – Chris Zappone

HELLO? IF the clash between Hungarian and Soviet athletes at the 1956 Games in Melbourne IS THE ONLY HISTORY YOU KNOW ABOUT RUSSIA IN REGARD TO UKRAINE, GET A LIFE... AND PLEASE ALWAYS FINISH YOUR ROTTEN ARTICLES WITH:

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NOW ASK YOURSELVES, YOU CLEVER WRITERS OF DRIVEL, THIS:

QUESTIONS

1. What do you know about Stepan Bandera?
2. Do you think that Russia will loose this conflict?
3. What are Russia’s goals?
4. How many Ukrainian dead soldiers?
5. How many Russians soldiers killed?
6. What do you know about the Donbass provinces?
7. Can there be a peaceful solution?
8. Is Russia going to give up the regained Russian provinces?
9. Which side of Ukraine to stand for?
10. What about China?

POSSIBLE ANSWERS:

1. the travails below the skin of propaganda.....BANDERA was a Ukrainian nazi whose organisation killed 600,000 jews during World War 2. He is a hero of the Kiev government for his “independence” stand for Ukraine. He was placed in prison by his friends, the German nazis, because of this “independence” stand which was contrary to the German wishes. He became an asset for the American OSS spy network but was murdered by the Russians when he was about to be sent to America to spur Russophobia in the USA.
2. The probable answer is NO. Russia won’t loose this conflict.
3. Russia’s main goals are: a) protect the Russian population in the Donbass region, now fully integrated into Russia. b) denazify and demilitarise Western Ukraine. c) prevent NATO in Ukraine.
4. The total varies between 150,000 and 250,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers.
5. The figure varies from 9,000 to 25,000 dead Russian soldiers.
6. The Donbass provinces used to be Russian. This also includes Crimea and Odessa.
7. Peace can only come on Russia’s term. Accept the return of the Russian territories to Russia or more grief will come.
8. No, Russia isn’t going to give up anything.
9. There are two main sections in Ukraine, in a dozen or so provinces. Eastern Ukraine (formerly Russian, now back in Russia) and Western Ukraine (Galicia).
10. China isn’t seeking biffo, but reunification with its CHINESE territory: Taiwan

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BY Jeffrey Sachs

The greatest enemy of economic development is war. If the world slips further into global conflict, our economic hopes and our very survival could go up in flames. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock to a mere 90 seconds to midnight.

The world’s biggest economic loser in 2022 was Ukraine, where the economy collapsed by 35% according to the International Monetary Fund. The war in Ukraine could end soon, and economic recovery could begin, but this depends on Ukraine understanding its predicament as victim of a US-Russia proxy war that broke out in 2014.

The US has been heavily arming and funding Ukraine since 2014 with the goal of expanding Nato and weakening Russia. America’s proxy wars typically rage for years and even decades, leaving battleground countries like Ukraine in rubble.

Unless the proxy war ends soon, Ukraine faces a dire future. Ukraine needs to learn from the horrible experience of Afghanistan to avoid becoming a long-term disaster. It could also look to the US proxy wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

Starting in 1979, the US armed the mujahideen (Islamist fighters) to harass the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan. As president Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski later explained, the US objective was to provoke the Soviet Union to intervene, in order to trap the Soviet Union in a costly war. The fact that Afghanistan would be collateral damage was of no concern to US leaders.

The Soviet military entered Afghanistan in 1979 as the US hoped, and fought through the 1980s. Meanwhile, the US-backed fighters established al-Qaeda in the 1980s, and the Taliban in the early 1990s. The US “trick” on the Soviet Union had boomeranged.

In 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The US war continued for another 20 years until the US finally left in 2021. Sporadic US military operations in Afghanistan continue.

Afghanistan lies in ruins. While the US wasted more than $2-trillion of US military outlays, Afghanistan is impoverished, with a 2021 GDP below $400 per person! As a parting “gift” to Afghanistan in 2021, the US government seized Afghanistan’s tiny foreign exchange holdings, paralysing the banking system.

The proxy war in Ukraine began nine years ago when the US government backed the overthrow of Ukraine’s president Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych’s sin from the US viewpoint was his attempt to maintain Ukraine’s neutrality despite the US desire to expand Nato to include Ukraine (and Georgia). America’s objective was for Nato countries to encircle Russia in the Black Sea region. To achieve this goal, the US has been massively arming and funding Ukraine since 2014.

The American protagonists then and now are the same. The US government’s point person on Ukraine in 2014 was Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who today is Undersecretary of State. Back in 2014, Nuland worked closely with Jake Sullivan, president Joe Biden’s national security adviser, who played the same role for vice pesident Biden in 2014.

The US overlooked two harsh political realities in Ukraine. The first is that Ukraine is deeply divided ethnically and politically between Russia-hating nationalists in western Ukraine and ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

The second is that Nato enlargement to Ukraine crosses a Russian redline. Russia will fight to the end, and escalate as necessary, to prevent the US from incorporating Ukraine into Nato.

The US repeatedly asserts that Nato is a defensive alliance. Yet Nato bombed Russia’s ally Serbia for 78 days in 1999 in order to break Kosovo away from Serbia, after which the US established a giant military base in Kosovo. Nato forces similarly toppled Russian ally Moammar Qaddafi in 2011, setting off a decade of chaos in Libya. Russia certainly will never accept Nato in Ukraine.

At the end of 2021, Russian president Vladimir Putin put forward three demands to the US: Ukraine should remain neutral and out of Nato; Crimea should remain part of Russia; and the Donbas should become autonomous in accord with the Minsk II Agreement.

The Biden-Sullivan-Nuland team rejected negotiations over Nato enlargement, eight years after the same group backed Yanukovych’s overthrow. With Putin’s negotiating demands flatly rejected by the US, Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

In March 2022, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky seemed to understand Ukraine’s dire predicament as victim of a US-Russia proxy war. He declared publicly that Ukraine would become a neutral country, and asked for security guarantees. He also publicly recognised that Crimea and Donbas would need some kind of special treatment.

Israel’s prime minister at that time, Naftali Bennett, became involved as a mediator, along with Turkey. Russia and Ukraine came close to reaching an agreement. Yet, as Bennett has recently explained, the US “blocked” the peace process.

Since then, the war has escalated. According to US investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, US agents blew up the Nord Stream pipelines in September, a claim denied by the White House. More recently, the US and its allies have committed to sending tanks, longer-range missiles, and possibly fighter jets to Ukraine.

The basis for peace is clear. Ukraine would be a neutral non-Nato country. Crimea would remain home to Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet, as it has been since 1783. A practical solution would be found for the Donbas, such as a territorial division, autonomy, or an armistice line.

Most importantly, the fighting would stop, Russian troops would leave Ukraine, and Ukraine’s sovereignty would be guaranteed by the UN Security Council and other nations. Such an agreement could have been reached in December 2021 or in March 2022.

Above all, the government and people of Ukraine would tell Russia and the US that Ukraine refuses any longer to be the battleground of a proxy war. In the face of deep internal divisions, Ukrainians on both sides of the ethnic divide would strive for peace, rather than believing that an outside power will spare them the need to compromise.

READ MORE:

https://johnmenadue.com/what-ukraine-needs-to-learn-from-afghanistan-about-proxy-wars/

NOTE: THE ARTILCE ABOVE BY THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD IS A PIECE ABOUT THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF FALSE PERCEPTIONS VIA PROPAGANDA, NOT ABOUT REALITIES....

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RT’s Murad Gazdiev delves into how, from the bands of Ukrainian nationalists fighting Russian forces to Islamic extremists in Iraq and Syria, the West has used terror to advance its political goals around the globe.

During World War II, Adolf Hitler’s forces trained and equipped Ukrainian nationalists who would later massacre hundreds of thousands of Poles, Russians and Jews.

The current generation of Ukrainian nationalists is being armed to the teeth with NATO-supplied weapons, just as social media has been flooded with videos purportedly showing their units torturing and executing captured Russian soldiers, as well as civilians.

In the Middle East, the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) was born through radicalization in US-run camps and prisons in Iraq, former detainees say. The group later unleashed its terror on the region and got their hands on US and British weapons. Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai has openly accused Washington of using IS to destabilize his country.

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/news/571751-west-terror-links-groups/

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