SARAH FERGUSON DID A SHOCKING INTERVIEW WITH THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO AUSTRALIA, TONIGHT ON 7:30.... WE SUPPOSE SHE'S PAID BY THE AMOUNT OF AGGRESSION SHE CAN SHOW PER MINUTE. ANYWAY, IT'S HER PROBLEM, NOT RUSSIA'S...

 

SEE ALSO:

the "symbolic" meat-grinder of artyomovsk.....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiOhYTXxZwE

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fv_nKyF_5g

 

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS FROM THE WASHINGTON POST. THE FACTS AND FIGURES QUOTED ARE ERRONEOUS IN FAVOUR OF UKRAINE, DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE UKRAINE ARMY (NOW IN ITS THIRD INCARNATION) IS BEING DECIMATED... WE ALREADY HAVE PUBLISHED THE STATISTICS (ALREADY A MONTH OLD) ACCORDING TO MOSSAD (NOT DENIED).

 

 

Ukraine short of skilled troops and munitions as losses, pessimism grow

 

Sonne and DeYoung reported from Washington. Souad Mekhennet in Munich, David L. Stern in Kyiv and Siobhán O’Grady in Kharkiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

 

DNIPROPETROVSK REGION, Ukraine — The quality of Ukraine’s military force, once considered a substantial advantage over Russia, has been degraded by a year of casualties that have taken many of the most experienced fighters off the battlefield, leading some Ukrainian officials to question Kyiv’s readiness to mount a much-anticipated spring offensive.

U.S. and European officials have estimated that as many as 120,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the start of Russia’s invasion early last year, compared with about 200,000 on the Russian side [THIS FIGURE IS FICTION, THE RUSSIAN ARMY "INVADED" UKRAINE WITH 120,000 SOLDIERS, OF WHICH 20,000 TROOPS RETREATED FROM THEIR PSEUDO-ATTACK TOWARDS KIEV AS A DISTRACTION TO ALLOW THE REST OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY TO "WALK" INTO THE DONBASS — AND RUSSIA HAS NOT USED ANY "RESERVES" YET], which has a much larger military and roughly triple the population from which to draw conscripts. Ukraine keeps its running casualty numbers secret, even from its staunchest Western supporters.

Statistics aside, an influx of inexperienced draftees, brought in to plug the losses, has changed the profile of the Ukrainian force, which is also suffering from basic shortages of ammunition, including artillery shells and mortar bombs, according to military personnel in the field.

 

“The most valuable thing in war is combat experience,” said a battalion commander in the 46th Air Assault Brigade, who is being identified only by his call sign, Kupol, in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol. “A soldier who has survived six months of combat and a soldier who came from a firing range are two different soldiers. It’s heaven and earth.”

“And there are only a few soldiers with combat experience,” Kupol added. “Unfortunately, they are all already dead or wounded.”

Such grim assessments have spread a palpable, if mostly unspoken, pessimism from the front lines to the corridors of power in Kyiv, the capital. An inability by Ukraine to execute a much-hyped counteroffensive would fuel new criticism that the United States and its European allies waited too long, until the force had already deteriorated, to deepen training programs and provide armored fighting vehicles, including Bradleys and Leopard battle tanks.

The situation on the battlefield now may not reflect a full picture of Ukraine’s forces, because Kyiv is training troops for the coming counteroffensive separately and deliberately holding them back from current fighting, including the defense of Bakhmut, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid.

 

Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said the state of the Ukrainian force does not diminish his optimism about a coming counteroffensive. “I don’t think we’ve exhausted our potential,” Yermak said. “I think that in any war, there comes a time when you have to prepare new personnel, which is what is happening right now.”

And the situation for Russia may be worse. During a NATO meeting last month, U.K. Defense Minister Ben Wallace said that 97 percent of Russia’s army was already deployed in Ukraine and that Moscow was suffering “First World War levels of attrition.”

 

Kupol said he was speaking out in hopes of securing better training for Ukrainian forces from Washington and that he hopes Ukrainian troops being held back for a coming counteroffensive will have more success than the inexperienced soldiers now manning the front under his command.

“There’s always belief in a miracle,” he said. “Either it will be a massacre and corpses or it’s going to be a professional counteroffensive. There are two options. There will be a counteroffensive either way.”

 

How much increased Western military aid and training will tip the balance in such a spring offensive remains uncertain, given the scars of attrition that are beginning to show.

 

One senior Ukrainian government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid, called the number of tanks promised by the West a “symbolic” amount. Others privately voiced pessimism that promised supplies would even reach the battlefield in time.

 

“If you have more resources, you more actively attack,” the senior official said. “If you have fewer resources, you defend more. We’re going to defend. That’s why if you ask me personally, I don’t believe in a big counteroffensive for us. I’d like to believe in it, but I’m looking at the resources and asking, ‘With what?’ Maybe we’ll have some localized breakthroughs.”

“We don’t have the people or weapons,” the senior official added. “And you know the ratio: When you’re on the offensive, you lose twice or three times as many people. We can’t afford to lose that many people.”

 

Such analysis is far less optimistic than the public statements by Ukraine’s political and military leadership.

 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described 2023 as “the year of victory” for Ukraine. His military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, touted the possibility of Ukrainians vacationing this summer in Crimea, the peninsula Russia annexed illegally from Ukraine nine years ago.

 

“Our president inspires us to win,” Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s ground forces commander, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “Generally, we all think the same, and we understand that for us it is of course necessary to win by the end of the year. And it is real. It is real if we are given all the help which we have been promised by our partners.”

On the front lines, however, the mood is dark.

Kupol, who consented to having his photograph taken and said he understood he could face personal blowback for giving a frank assessment, described going to battle with newly drafted soldiers who had never thrown a grenade, who readily abandoned their positions under fire and who lacked confidence in handling firearms.

 

His unit withdrew from Soledar in eastern Ukraine in the winter after being surrounded by Russian forces who later captured the city. Kupol recalled how hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in units fighting alongside his battalion simply abandoned their positions, even as fighters for Russia’s Wagner mercenary group pressed ahead.

 

After a year of war, Kupol, a lieutenant colonel, said his battalion is unrecognizable. Of about 500 soldiers, roughly 100 were killed in action and another 400 wounded, leading to complete turnover. Kupol said he was the sole military professional in the battalion, and he described the struggle of leading a unit composed entirely of inexperienced troops.

“I get 100 new soldiers,” Kupol said. “They don’t give me any time to prepare them. They say, ‘Take them into the battle.’ They just drop everything and run. That’s it. Do you understand why? Because the soldier doesn’t shoot. I ask him why, and he says, ‘I’m afraid of the sound of the shot.’ And for some reason, he has never thrown a grenade. … We need NATO instructors in all our training centers, and our instructors need to be sent over there into the trenches. Because they failed in their task.”

He described severe ammunition shortages, including a lack of simple mortar bombs and grenades for U.S.-made MK 19s.

 

Ukraine has also faced an acute shortage of artillery shells, which Washington and its allies have scrambled to address, with discussions about how to shore up Ukrainian stocks dominating daily meetings on the war at the White House National Security Council. Washington’s efforts have kept Ukraine fighting, but use rates are very high, and scarcity persists.

 

“You’re on the front line,” Kupol said. “They’re coming toward you, and there’s nothing to shoot with.”

Kupol said Kyiv needed to focus on better preparing new troops in a systematic way. “It’s like all we do is give interviews and tell people that we’ve already won, just a little bit further away, two weeks, and we’ll win,” he said.

Dmytro, a Ukrainian soldier whom The Post is identifying only by first name for security reasons, described many of the same conditions. Some of the less-experienced troops serving at his position with the 36th Marine Brigade in the Donetsk region “are afraid to leave the trenches,” he said. Shelling is so intense at times, he said, that one soldier will have a panic attack, then “others catch it.”

 

The first time he saw fellow soldiers very shaken, Dmytro said, he tried to talk them through the reality of the risks. The next time, he said, they “just ran from the position.”

 

“I don’t blame them,” he said. “They were so confused.”

The challenges stem from steep losses. Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s commander in chief, said in August that nearly 9,000 of his soldiers had died. In December, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, said the number was up to 13,000. But Western officials have given higher estimates and, in any case, the Ukrainian figures excluded the far larger number of wounded who are no longer able to fight.

A German official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid, said that Berlin estimates Ukrainian casualties, including dead and wounded, are as high as 120,000. “They don’t share the information with us because they don’t trust us,” the official said.

Meanwhile, a Russian offensive has been building since early January, according to Syrsky. Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, told The Post last month that Russia had more than 325,000 soldiers in Ukraine, and another 150,000 mobilized troops could soon join the fight. Ukrainian soldiers report being outnumbered and having less ammunition.

 

The stakes for Ukraine in the coming months are particularly high, as Western countries aiding Kyiv look to see whether Ukrainian forces can once again seize the initiative and reclaim more territory from Russian control.

Russia is also facing ammunition, manpower and motivation problems — and has notched only incremental gains in recent months despite the strained state of Ukraine’s force. As bad as Ukraine’s losses are, Russia’s are worse, the U.S. official said.

“The question is whether Ukraine’s relative advantage is sufficient to attain their objectives, and whether those advantages can be sustained,” said Michael Kofman, a military analyst at Virginia-based CNA. “That depends not just on them, but also on the West.”

 

Despite reports of untrained mobilized Russian fighters being thrown into battle, Syrsky said those now arriving are well-prepared. “We have to live and fight in these realities,” he said. “Of course, it’s problematic for us. … It forces us to be more precise in our firing, more detailed in our reconnaissance, more careful in choosing our positions and more detailed in organizing the interaction between the units. There is no other way.”

Russia’s recent gains — notably around Bakhmut — have not significantly tilted the battlefield, and U.S. military officials have said that even if Russia seizes Bakhmut, it would be of little strategic importance. But given the heavy casualties Ukraine is suffering there, officials in Washington have questioned Kyiv’s refusal to retreat. The United States has been advising Ukraine to retreat from the city since at least January, the U.S. official said.

A Ukrainian official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the battle for Bakhmut was depleting Russian forces there — mainly Wagner fighters who have been Moscow’s most effective of late — and that Ukrainian units defending the city were not slated to be deployed in upcoming offensive operations anyway.

Ukraine has lost many of its junior officers who received U.S. training over the past nine years, eroding a corps of leaders who helped distinguish the Ukrainians from their Russian enemies at the start of the invasion, the Ukrainian official said. Now, the official said, those forces must be replaced. “A lot of them are killed,” the official said.

At the start of the invasion, Ukrainians rushed to volunteer for military duty, but now men across the country who did not sign up have begun to fear being handed draft slips on the street. Ukraine’s internal security service recently shut down Telegram accounts that were helping Ukrainians avoid locations where authorities were distributing summonses.

 

Initially, the United States focused its training on new weapons systems Washington had decided to provide Kyiv, such as M777 artillery pieces and HIMARS rocket launchers. In January, after nearly a year of all-out war, the United States began training Ukrainian forces in combined-arms warfare. Just one battalion, of about 650 people, has completed the training in Germany so far.

Additional Ukrainian battalions will complete the training by the end of March, and the program will adjust as Ukraine’s needs evolve, said Lt. Col. Garron Garn, a Pentagon spokesman.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “remains laser-focused on ensuring that Ukraine is receiving the training it needs for the current fight,” Garn said. The United States is “working around-the-clock” to fulfill Ukraine’s security needs, in addition to investing billions of dollars to produce and procure artillery ammunition, he said.

“The bottom line is that we are getting the Ukrainians what they need, when they need it,” Garn said. “And as President Biden and Secretary Austin have emphasized repeatedly, we will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

Even with new equipment and training, U.S. military officials consider Ukraine’s force insufficient to attack all along the giant front, where Russia has erected substantive defenses, so troops are being trained to probe for weak points that allow them to break through with tanks and armored vehicles.

 

Britain is also training Ukrainian recruits, including about 10,000 last year, with another 20,000 expected this year. The European Union has said it will train 30,000 Ukrainians in 2023.

Ukraine has been holding back soldiers for a spring offensive and training them as part of newly assembled assault brigades. Kyiv is also organizing battalions around the new fighting vehicles and tanks that Western nations are providing.

Syrsky said he is focused on holding the line against Russian attacks while his deputies prepare soldiers for the next offensive.

“We need to buy time to prepare reserves,” Syrsky said, referring to the Ukrainian soldiers training abroad with Western weapons. “We know that we have to withstand this attack to prepare the reserves that will take part in future actions properly. … Some people defend, others prepare.”

U.S. officials said they expect Ukraine’s offensive to start in late April or early May, and they are acutely aware of the urgency of supplying Kyiv because a drawn-out war could favor Russia, which has more people, money and weapons manufacturing.

Asked at a recent congressional hearing how much more U.S. aid might be required, Pentagon policy chief Colin Kahl told House lawmakers that he did not know. “We don’t know the course or trajectory of the conflict,” Kahl said. “It could end six months from now, it could end two years from now, three years from now.”

Sonne and DeYoung reported from Washington. Souad Mekhennet in Munich, David L. Stern in Kyiv and Siobhán O’Grady in Kharkiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

 

READ MORE:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/13/ukraine-casualties-pessimism-ammunition-shortage/

 

----------------------------

 

NOW A SHORT RECAP:

UKRAINE LOSSES 250,000 SOLDIERS, PLUS 88,000 MISSING PRESUMED DEAD PLUS WOUNDED (3 WOUNDED FOR ONE DEAD).

RUSSIAN LOSSES 18,800 SOLDIERS PLUS WOUNDED (3 WOUNDED FOR ONE DEAD).

 

PRESENTLY NATO IS PREPARING TO PLAY DIRTY WHILE THE WESTERN ECONOMY IS COLLAPSING....

NOTE: WHAT FOLLOWS IS A COLLECTION OF SOURCES THAT SEEM UNRELATED, BUT ADD UP TO THE WESTERN PANIC!....

AND "PUTIN IS A DICTATOR".... YOU ARE ALLOWED TO LAUGH!!!!!

 

 

LOONIES!!!!

 

 

NATO is racing to arm its Russian borders [WITH 300,000 SOLDIERS]. Can it find the weapons?

Allies are worrying about dwindling war chests just as NATO seeks commitments for new stockpiles and troops along the eastern flank.

 

BRUSSELS — Add NATO’s military planners to the list of those concerned about having enough shells. 

In the coming months, the alliance will accelerate efforts to stockpile equipment along the alliance’s eastern edge and designate tens of thousands of forces that can rush to allies’ aid on short notice — a move meant to stop Russia from expanding its war beyond Ukraine. 

To make that happen, though, NATO must convince individual countries to contribute various elements: Soldiers, training, better infrastructure — and, most notably, extensive amounts of pricey weapons, equipment and ammunition. 

With countries already worried about their own munitions stockpiles and Ukraine in acute need of more shells and weapons from allies, there is a risk that not all NATO allies will live up to their promises to contribute to the alliance’s new plans. 

“If there’s not somebody hosting the potluck and telling everybody what to bring, then everyone would bring potato chips because potato chips are cheap, easy to get,” said James J. Townsend Jr., a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy. 

“Nations,” he added, “would rather bring potato chips.”

It’s a challenge NATO has faced in the past, and one that experts fear could become a persistent problem for the Western alliance as Russia’s war drags into a second year. While the U.S. and EU are making plans to source more weapons — fast — the restocking process will inevitably take time. 

That could run into NATO’s aspirations. Military leaders this spring will submit updated regional defense plans intended to help redefine how the alliance protects its 1 billion citizens. 

The numbers will be large, with officials floating the idea of up to 300,000 NATO forces needed to help make the new model work. That means lots of coordinating and cajoling.

https://www.politico.eu/article/nato-is-racing-to-arm-its-russian-borders-can-it-find-the-weapons-eastern-edge-military-leaders-james-j-townsend-jr-us-one-billion-citizens-army-europe/

 

——————————————

Poland's president says that his country plans to give Ukraine around a dozen MiG-29 fighter jets, which would make it the first NATO member to fulfil the Ukrainian government's increasingly urgent requests for warplanes.

Key points:

• 
  President Andrzej Duda says Poland will hand over four Soviet-made MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine "within the next few days", with more to follow
• 
  Polish authorities have detained members of a Russian espionage ring, alleged to have been preparing acts of sabotage
• 
  At least one person has been killed and two injured in a blast and fire at a Russian FSB security service building in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don

 

President Andrzej Duda said on Thursday that Poland would hand over four of the Soviet-made warplanes "within the next few days" and that the rest needed servicing and would be supplied later.

The Polish word he used to describe the total number can mean between 11 and 19.

"They are in the last years of their functioning, but they are in good working condition," Mr Duda said of the aircraft.

He did not say whether other countries would follow suit, although Slovakia has said it would send its disused MiGs to Ukraine. Poland also was the first NATO nation to provide Ukraine with German-made Leopard 2 tanks.

On Wednesday, Polish government spokesman Piotr Mueller said some other countries also had pledged MiGs to Kyiv, but he did not name them.

Both Poland and Slovakia had indicated they were ready to hand over their planes, but only as part of a wider international coalition doing the same.

Germany's government appeared to have been caught off-guard by Mr Duda's announcement.

"So far, everyone has agreed that it's not the time to send fighter jets," German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters.

"I don't have any confirmation from Poland, yet, that this has happened.”

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-17/poland-to-be-first-nato-member-to-give-ukraine-fighter-jets/102108848

 

—————————————————

 

Former U.S. President Donald Trump claimed Saturday on his social media platform that he "will be arrested" on Tuesday and implored his supporters to "protest" and "take our nation back," sparking fears of additional right-wing violence.

Trump's call to action was reminiscent of how, six weeks after losing the 2020 presidential election, he took to Twitter to urge his supporters to join a "big protest" in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021. "Be there, will be wild!" he wrote. Hundreds of far-right insurrectionists showed up and, after Trump told them to march from a rally near the White House to the Capitol, stormed the halls of Congress in a bid to prevent lawmakers from certifying President Joe Biden's win. Multiple people died as a result of the failed coup, which was fueled by Trump and his Republican allies' incessant lies about voter fraud.

Trump is expected to be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in a criminal case involving hush money paid to women who said they had sexual encounters with the former president, but its timing is unclear.

Just before 7:30 am ET on Saturday, Trump baselessly declared on Truth Social: "Illegal leaks from a corrupt and highly political Manhattan district attorney's office... indicate that, with no crime being able to be proven... the far and away leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States of America will be arrested on Tuesday of next week. Protest, take our nation back!"

Alluding to Trump's prior use of social media to provoke the Capitol attack, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked, "Will Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube allow him to use their platforms to incite riots?"

Mother Jones' D.C. bureau chief David Corn, meanwhile, noted that Trump has recently "excused or dismissed the violence of January 6."

"He is an authoritarian willing to (again) use violence for his own ends," Corn tweeted. "That is a threat to the nation.”

 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/donald-trump-says-he-will-be-arrested-manhattan-da

 

————————————————-

 

The head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, asked his committee to produce the legal assessment, Russian state news agency TASS reported on March 19.

The Investigative Committee of Russia also announced its decision to add to its sanctions lists the persons who issued the warrant against the Russian dictator. This applies to the judges of the International Criminal Court Rosario Salvatore Aitala, Antoine Kesia-Mbe Mindua and Tomoko Akane.

The International Criminal Court or ICC, based in The Hague, the Netherlands, issued arrest warrants for Putin and Russian Children's Ombudsperson, Maria Lvova-Belova on March 17. They are accused of a war crime – deporting thousands of children from Ukraine to Russia since Feb. 24, 2022.

 

Read also: South Africa would have to arrest Putin if he attends BRICS summit

The Prosecutor General's Office has recorded the deportation of more than 16,000 children from Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, and Kherson oblasts, but the real number may be much higher. Ukraine has only managed to return 308 children home.

Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin has said that Putin can be arrested in the 123 countries that have ratified the Rome Statute – the founding charter of the ICC. Germany and all the other EU countries are signatories.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov have said the Kremlin considers the warrant "legally null and void" because Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute.

We’re bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

 

https://news.yahoo.com/russia-reacts-german-ministers-statement-171000086.html

 

FANTASTIC! YAHOO SUPPORTS THE NAZIS IN UKRAINE!~!!! NO EFFIN' CLUE!

 

——————————————————-

 

The Biden administration is raising alarm that Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to call for a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine, warning that support for such a move would play to the favor of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said Friday that an unconditional cease-fire halting Russia’s offensive in Ukraine would legitimize Moscow’s hold on an estimated 17 percent of Ukrainian territory that was taken by force.

 

“A cease-fire now is … effectively the ratification of Russian conquest,” Kirby said.  

“And of course, it would be another continued violation of the U.N. Charter.”

The remarks from the White House come ahead of an expected summit early next week between Xi and Putin in Moscow.

Xi’s visit to Russia also comes following Beijing’s publication of a “12 point peace plan” to end Russia’s war in Ukraine but criticized by the U.S. and its allies as an empty position paper that fails to hold Moscow accountable for its aggression. 

Kirby called for Xi to reach out to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky if the Chinese are serious about being a neutral arbiter. 

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Thursday said he spoke with China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, where the two discussed “the significance of the principle of territorial integrity” and underscored the importance of Zelensky’s “Peace Formula” to end Russia’s war, which in part calls for Russia to withdraw its troops from all the territory it occupies in Ukraine.  

 

https://thehill.com/homenews/3905251-ahead-of-xi-putin-meeting-in-moscow-white-house-rejects-cease-fire-in-ukraine/

 

NOTE: SHOULD THE CEASEFIRE BE DELAYED, UKRAINE COULD LOOSE UP TO 40 PER CENT OF ITS TERRITORY BY JULY, AND UNLESS THE WEST PLAYS DIRTY, THIS WILL HAPPEN SOONER THAN LATER.... SO MAKE PEACE NOW.... NOW, NOW NOW!!!!

 

———————————-

 

Republicans urge White House to crack down on Russia-China nuclear co-operation

Letter follows reports Moscow’s state-owned nuclear energy company is providing highly enriched uranium to Beijing

 

THE USA GETS THE SAME DEAL FROM RUSSIA!!!!!

 

https://www.ft.com/content/119b77ad-60b7-4a3f-9dd9-eecb57636e5e

 

Top Republicans are urging the White House to crack down on nuclear co-operation between Russia and China following reports that Moscow’s state-owned nuclear energy company is providing highly enriched uranium to Beijing. In a letter sent to US National Security adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday, the chairs of the House armed services, foreign affairs and intelligence committees expressed concern that Russia’s Rosatom is supplying uranium for Chinese fast-breeder reactors. These facilities are used to produce plutonium that could help China increase its stockpile of nuclear warheads. “ We call on the administration to view this co-operation for what it is, a direct threat to US security and more evidence that Russia and China are working in tandem against the United States,” said the letter from Mike Rogers, Michael McCaul and Michael Turner.

“The administration should use all tools at its disposal to stop Rosatom and the PRC’s dangerous co-operation,” it added. Last month the Biden administration sanctioned three Rosatom subsidiaries, saying they formed part of Moscow’s broader effort to use nuclear energy resources to exert political and economic pressure on its customers globally. The state-owned civilian nuclear power conglomerate is reportedly also supplying Russia’s arms industry, helping to fuel Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The lawmakers praised the initial sanctions measures but urged the White House to apply additional sanctions and export controls to curtail Rosatom’s activities. The US National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “Rosatom’s pivotal role in helping the Russian military get around the international sanctions regime and its support for China’s strategic nuclear build-up are threats to US national security,” McCaul told the Financial Times.

“It’s far past time to use the tools at our disposal to stop these destructive actions.” John Plumb, assistant secretary of defence for space policy, told the armed services committee last week that Russia and China’s nuclear co-operation is “very troubling”. “There’s no getting around the fact that breeder reactors are plutonium, and plutonium is for weapons,” he said. “The department is concerned, and of course, it matches our concerns about China’s increased expansion of its nuclear forces as well, because you need more plutonium for more weapons.” US military officials have repeatedly warned about China’s nuclear weapons ambitions, saying it has accelerated its nuclear expansion in recent years. According to the Pentagon’s most recent report to Congress on the Chinese military, Beijing has developed 400 nuclear warheads and is on track to expand its arsenal to 1,500 weapons by the middle of the next decade.

 

https://www.ft.com/content/119b77ad-60b7-4a3f-9dd9-eecb57636e5e

 

——————————

 

Putin Orders Russian Nuclear Weapons on Higher Alert

 

March 2022
By Shannon Bugos

Amid a full-scale military assault on Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his country’s nuclear forces to move to the heightened alert status of a “special regime of combat duty,” further escalating a catastrophic war in Europe and upending international stability and nuclear arms control and disarmament.

“Western countries aren’t only taking unfriendly economic actions against our country, but leaders of major NATO countries are making aggressive statements about our country,” Putin said on Feb. 27 during a meeting with defense officials. “So, I order to move Russia’s deterrence forces to a special regime of combat duty.”

Belarus, Russia’s client-state, followed up by agreeing to abandon its status as a non-nuclear weapon country and reaffirming its offer to host Russian tactical nuclear weapons on its territory.

Asked at a press conference at the United Nations on Feb. 28 if there is a scenario under which Russia would use nuclear weapons, Russia's UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, replied, "On the use of nuclear weapons, god forbid it." He said Moscow was exercising “a kind of deterrence.”

Although Putin’s decision raised the risk of nuclear weapons confrontation, it was not entirely unexpected given that a few days earlier the Russian leader threatened any country that tries to interfere in Ukraine with consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history.”

The United States and NATO immediately criticized Moscow’s move, but their response was measured and there was no indication that the status of U.S. and NATO nuclear forces would mirror Russia.

“This is really a pattern that we’ve seen from President Putin through the course of this conflict, which is manufacturing threats that don’t exist in order to justify further aggression,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Feb. 27. “At no point has Russia been under threat from NATO [or] has Russia been under threat from Ukraine.”

“This is dangerous rhetoric,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said of Putin. “This is a behavior which is irresponsible.”

It was not immediately evident exactly what changes to Russian nuclear forces and command and control systems Putin had demanded. One senior U.S. defense official cautioned that although there is “no reason to doubt the validity of this order [,]…how it’s manifested itself I don’t think is completely clear yet.”

Putin’s move to place Russian nuclear forces on a higher alert occurred in the early days of Moscow’s invasion. During an address on Feb. 24, Putin stated that Russia will undertake “a special military operation” in Ukraine. Soon after, Russian military forces launched deadly missile attacks and invaded the country from southern Belarus, western Russia, and Crimea, a part of Ukraine that Putin occupied in 2014. By Feb. 25, they had reached the capital Kyiv.

“President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in response.

 

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-03/news/putin-orders-russian-nuclear-weapons-higher-alert

 

———————————————

 

(Paris - March 8, 2023)

President Macron spoke on the telephone to Mr Joe Biden, President of the United States of America, on Tuesday 7 March 2023.

The two presidents talked about the situation in Ukraine. They reiterated their determination to provide Ukraine with the necessary military support for as long as necessary to thwart the Russian aggression. They likewise reaffirmed their shared goal of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity being restored.

Following on from the discussions in Paris on 8 February 2023 with the Ukrainian President and German Chancellor, President Macron talked to his American counterpart about the longer-term prospects of a return to peace in Europe. Among other things, the two presidents discussed security guarantees which could be provided to Ukraine in this framework.

President Macron also welcomed the continuation of discussions on the Inflation Reduction Act following the State visit in December 2022, in order for the legislation’s impact on European countries to be taken into account.

Finally, the two presidents talked about the situation in the Indo-Pacific region and in Iran./.

 

https://franceintheus.org/spip.php?article10690

 

THE OLD SLEEPY DOG TALKS TO THE PRETTY USELESS BOY!!!!

 

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/m-le-mag/article/2023/03/19/inside-the-ecb-where-the-euro-is-defended-at-all-costs_6019941_117.html

 

---------------------

 

INVESTIGATION

    The European Central Bank has been the guardian of the European single currency for almost 25 years. During the pandemic, its massive cash injections saved the eurozone. But with the war in Ukraine and soaring prices, it is going back to its severe stances.

The "French" apple pie from the very chic café-restaurant Siesmayer, one of the best in Frankfurt, is not very French. But with its thick pastry and sweet custard, it is invigorating. It was with this caloric bomb, and a few other pastries, that Fabio Panetta arrived at Christine Lagarde's home on Wednesday, March 18, 2020, in the middle of the afternoon.

 

The Italian, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB), knew that the night ahead with the president of the institution would be long and difficult. They would need energy.

 

Country after country, Covid-19-related lockdowns were being enforced across Europe. The financial markets were teetering dangerously. More than 10 years after the subprime crisis and the collapse of United States' Lehman Brothers, which had plunged the markets and the world economy into turmoil, the specter of a new disaster in global finance was looming.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/m-le-mag/article/2023/03/19/inside-the-ecb-where-the-euro-is-defended-at-all-costs_6019941_117.html

 

—————————————

 

IN THE UK:

The government has launched a new emergency alert system that will send a siren-like alert to mobile phones.

The system will give the government and emergency services the ability to send a message directly to mobile phones when there is a risk to life. When your device receives the alert it will vibrate and play a loud siren-like sound for up to 10 seconds.

 

The siren will be accompanied by a notification on your home screen, which you will have to acknowledge before you can use other features. The notification may include telephone numbers or website links containing further information.

The new system, which will go live on Sunday 23 April, should allow the government and emergency services to get urgent messages quickly to nearly 90 per cent of mobile phones in a defined area. Any compatible device within range will receive the message.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/emergency-alert-system-test-phones-b2303467.html

 

————————

 

FIGHTING THE NGOs IN RUSSIA

In recent days, the Kremlin has struck more blows against independent civil society and media. On January 25, a Moscow court ruled to close the Moscow Helsinki Group, Russia’s oldest human rights organization and the inspiration for citizens’ groups monitoring human rights in the Europe-Eurasia region and around the world. The Kremlin’s crackdown on independent civil society and media at home creates a climate of impunity that enables its aggression against its neighbors.

The Moscow Helsinki Group is among the most recent targets of Russian authorities’ expanding crackdown on the exercise of human rights, including freedom of expression. Recent Russian designations of the Andrey Sakharov Foundation and independent news outlet Meduza as “undesirable,” effectively outlawing their activities in Russia, are further examples of the Kremlin’s intensifying campaign to cut off independent sources of information and silence voices of conscience.

The United States stands in solidarity with courageous human rights defenders, independent journalists, and pro-democracy advocates in Russia who continue their work despite considerable risk. We call for the unconditional release of the hundreds of political prisoners Russia continues to hold, including those deprived of their freedom for taking a principled stance against the Russian government’s war of aggression against Ukraine. We call again on the government of Russia to end its brutal aggression abroad and acts of repression at home, both of which violate international law and contravene Helsinki Final Act principles on respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states and the human rights of all people.

https://www.state.gov/russias-intensifying-crackdown-on-independent-civil-society/

 

FREEING JULIAN ASSANGE NOW WOULD MAKE THESE (SILLY) ARGUMENTS A BIT MORE PLAUSIBLE......

 

------------------------------

 

 

by Mikhail Gamandiy-Egorov

The main non-Western powers are asserting themselves day by day, including economically. And begin to gradually take over the western bloc, only confirming the many forecasts of recent years.

At the end of 2022, the association of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) has overtaken the G7 club (composed of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan) in terms of combined GDP, écrit the indian portal The Eastern Herald. Thus, in the world economy the BRICS now had a share of 31,5% against 30,7% for the G7.

This reality confirms the numerous forecasts dating from several years ago and demonstrates that the BRICS bloc now weighs almost 1/3 of world GDP. And not more than 1/4 as was the case in the not at all distant past. The very moment when the member countries of the bloc are increasing actions in order to obtain full independence from Western financial instruments, such as Observatory Continental had it recently recalled. 

Another interesting analysis comes from the South African weekly Mail & Guardian which raises the question of how countries in the Global South can escape the stranglehold of the US dollar, écrit by Nontobeka Hlela, who collaborates with the Institute for Social Research tricontinental and is seconded to the office of the National Security Adviser of South Africa as a researcher.

The South African analyst rightly points out that since the US dollar became the international reserve currency, it has allowed the United States to control the financial markets and print money as it sees fit. . This reality had given the United States extraordinary global power and, together with the structure of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations Security Council, this means that although there are so-called democratic states, there there is in fact no state democracy.

According to her – over the years, it has often been argued that building a fairer world requires, among other measures, the democratization of the global financial system. And for this purpose – it would require, along with other measures, a move away from the dollar as the world's main reserve currency.

According to Nontobeka Hlela, there have been proposals precisely to break with the grip of the dollar. And these projects aimed at combating this grip on the economies of the countries of the South were at the heart of the American motivations to drive out Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

Today, new attempts to circumvent the quasi-monopoly of the dollar as the main currency of international trade have emerged. The South African analyst cites Saudi Arabia's decision to accept other currencies in exchange for its oil - referring to the Chinese yuan. But for her the question of abandoning the dollar was suddenly intensified by the conflict in Ukraine.

Recalling that following the freezing of Russia's assets by the West and its expulsion from the SWIFT international banking system, Moscow responded by demanding payment for its gas deliveries in its own currency – the Russian ruble. This was a clear demonstration that international trade can be done without depending on the US dollar. Still according to her, the rapid development of the possibilities of international trade without the mediation of the dollar represents an important moment for the countries of the global South, which have long found themselves considered as vassal states of the United States in particular, and of the West of In General.

These relations with the West have in fact become so crude that, as we saw recently in Afghanistan where Washington appropriated $9,5 billion from the Central Bank of Afghanistan – it only confirmed that the dollar reserves of other countries held at the US central bank are not secure.

More generally speaking, the South African expert also recalls that this is a long-standing process, where the United States seeks to isolate economically and to sanction the States which they perceive as a threat to their power. And this – since the Haitian revolution against slavery in 1804 or even during the XNUMXth century, in particular with the assassination by the CIA of Chilean President Salvador Allende.

As for the economic war unleashed by the West against Russia, including the freezing of its dollar-denominated reserves, this has amply proved that no country that goes against the United States can feel safe. And this should be an urgent wake-up call for countries of the South to fully embark on an alternative financial system that does not depend on the US dollar.

The South African analyst also recalls once again that the combined GDP of the BRICS countries is now higher than that of the G7 group. And that the BRICS nations can most certainly find a better way to work together to build a financial system that is not under US control, as the US has continually blocked attempts to develop new, fairer rules for global trade.

For Nontobeko Hlela, the BRICS must also strengthen their institutions and those of the New Development Bank so that it can be this anchor point that creates and supports an alternative system for the countries of the South. Finally, the South African expert recalls that the world order built by Westerners (commonly called unipolarity) – indeed fits the description of neocolonial. And that this order does not work for the countries of the South. While insisting that the more multilateral system of global governance concerns not only the economic aspect of the question, but also the political one.

In conclusion, it is becoming evident today that regardless of the stubbornness of Western elites who continue to refer to a (Western) "rules-based world order", an order now represented by the remnants of unipolarity – within the main non-Western world powers and more generally in the countries of the Global South, representing together the overwhelming majority of humanity – it will be completely unacceptable to live according to the so-called rules of an extreme planetary minority. A minority very often not even representing its own populations.

Mikhail Gamandiy-Egorov

source: Observatory Continental

 

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

 

 

Henry Kamens Are Young Soldiers being used as White Rats in Georgia and Ukraine?

 

Once something is denied, and adamantly, you can suspect it is either true or something which raises too many inconvenient questions. Old news, such as US Produced Sarin Gas Used in Syria in Ukraine Lab, is now very current when we see vivid clips of Russian soldiers suffering horrific deaths from canister of poison gas dropped from drones.

The news in question dates back to 2014, when several US defence contractors apparently died in the same manner in Tbilisi Georgia, after working in the US-funded Lugar Lab. Their deaths were officially described as food poisoning, and Georgian journalists were threatened not to cover the story by Georgian intelligence.

However, several sources from the US military-intelligence journal Veterans Today, including the US Veterans Gordon Duff and Jeffrey Silverman, both frequent contributors to NEO, have gone to lengths and described how “US Contractors were involved in Syrian Chemical Attacks” blamed on the Government of Syria as part of a false flag attack in 2014.

Duff has detailed the mechanism for transferring chemical weapons by sea from Georgia to Syria. Silverman has confirmed how Duff provided him with information, based on reliable sources, and that he and a team of American veterans found that the supply of chemical weapons in Syria entered from outside, via Turkey.

In fact, Silverman was detained several years ago by Georgian Security for following a shipment from a BP warehouse in Borjomi to the Turkish border, by truck that was then intercepted by Turkish intelligence, MIT, posing as sheep herders, and moved forward for apparent end use by Syrian rebels.

It is worth nothing that Silverman had previously been stationed, whilst attending the University of Kentucky, at the Bluegrass Army Depot, Richmond Kentucky, the main Chemical Weapons Storage site in the US, and knew as an insider how such weapons are stored, transports and can be deployed — and the links between Bechtel National and claims of a network of US bio weapons labs, research facilities, public health as their purported mandate, in Georgia and the former Soviet Union.

 

Ukraine as well!

Blue Grass Army Depot (BGAD) is committed to providing America’s Joint Warfighters with reliable, timely and cost-effective munitions and chemical defence equipment in support of full spectrum Military Operations, so it says. That most likely includes Ukraine as well, though it doesn’t say that

But BGAD is home to more than a chemical weapons stockpile. Amongst its other missions, it’s also the location of 902 earth-covered magazines, known as igloos, of which 853 are used to store a variety of conventional munitions destined for the US’s joint warfighters around the world.

Duff and Silverman have also detailed how heavy materials, which can be used to build underground bunkers and special chemical, biological or even nuclear research facilities, were imported into Georgia back in 2010.

Russian State TV, Izvestia, aired a series of investigative reports in late February on how the US military has relocated some of its bio materials (ESPs, especially dangerous agents) from Ukraine, and detailed how Nazi-style experiments with dangerous viruses are still being carried out in the Georgian capital on its population, including young military recruits.

It is claimed that mass indignation about this has already flared up in Tbilisi. More and more is being learned about the dangerous experiments still being conducted in the Lugar Center, which is controlled by the Pentagon, Georgy Dzhabishvili, the Georgian-based freelance correspondent reported.

 

US military projects in Georgia, Ukraine and NATO allies

Dzhabishvili recently interviewed several respondents who have been collaborating in investigating the inconvenient links between US military projects in Georgia, Ukraine and NATO allies. Following earlier investigations by Jeffrey Silverman and Gordon Duff, in tandem with Georgian investigators have also managed to obtain evidence of chemical and biological weapons for use by the Ukrainian military.

For example, there is a short clip in which two Russian soldiers on an operation go into convulsions, likely from a nerve agent capable of causing an agonising death. This can be watched in the link above, but viewer discretion is advised.

According to General Tristan Tsitelashvili, a retired Georgian General, the reaction seen could only be produced by poisoning, and is “scary to look at”. Biological and chemical weapons are forbidden to be used, and the United States, like Ukraine, has signed all the conventions and documents which ban them.

“As a military man, I can’t even imagine how you can get to the point where you decide to use such weapons. They should all be tried in the Hague Tribunal. Everyone! Both the organizers and those who use weapons of this type”, said former Georgian General Tsitelashvili.

The General is confident of his allegations, as he has received copies of secret documents tracking the route of the “test tubes”- canisters, petri dishes – hurriedly taken out of Ukraine and subsequently delivered to the Richard Lugar laboratory.

“I know for sure about at least a whole shipping container that was brought here. There could be almost anything: in Ukraine they produced, for example, special pills, after taking which soldiers will throw themselves under tanks, or asphyxiating gas, the stocks of which were already used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, he said.

It was such laboratories, in Ukraine and other locations, that Russian President Vladimir Putin was referring to in his State of the Federation speech two weeks ago when he stated that that their threat was one of the reasons for launching a special military operation.

The result of American biologists’ work was widely apparent in Tbilisi back in 2012, just a year after the grand opening of the laboratory and even years before. Silverman suggested the same in several TV interviews two months ago, and detailed that “when history is written, one of the main reasons for the Russian special operation in Ukraine will be that of the bio threat it presents to Russian National Security and International Public Health and Safety.”

The existence of such biological laboratories in Ukraine was officially confirmed by the United States on March 8. Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said that biological research should not fall into the hands of Russian forces, which it couldn’t do if it wasn’t there.

 

Bring it home

It is becoming clear that all effort is being made for this not to happen, and the US military and its civilian contractors are working together to transport the bio-laboratories from Ukraine to Georgia. Experiments with dangerous viruses are now being conducted in the Georgian capital.

It is hard to say where all this is leading, as there are many allegations of what these labs are actually involved with. Back in May, Jeffrey D. Sachs, along with Columbia University professor of Neil L. Harrison, penned an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggesting Covid-19 had originated in a laboratory.

It is hard on one’s reputation and career to question what appears to some as the obvious. However,  “In June, [Sachs] went even further in his public statements at a Spanish think-tank, describing the COVID virus as probably having an American origin, and considering links with the NIH and China, via EcoHealth Alliance, there is a can of worms waiting to be opened”.

 

Truth will set you free

FBI director now says COVID pandemic ‘most likely’ originated from Chinese lab Department of Energy has also concluded COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from lab leak in China

They act like this is “news”—with three years of silence, and silencing everyone who suggested this. It was always obvious and why only now does the FBI and the Department of Energy finally admit what was actually known. What about all those people they silenced in recent years who were saying this all along? Will they even get an apology?

We know from US military documents that in Georgia and Ukraine, a total of 3,000 young recruits, often under duress and without proper informed consent, had their blood used as part of the Pentagon’s offensive programme covered by the flimsy veil of civilian research. It is hard to find any public mention of this study, only described as Human diseases epidemiology and EDPs surveillance in Georgia CBR/DTRA, GG-21.

Some of the studies being conducted include those into anthropoid-borne and zoonotic infections such as Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF, West Nile virus (WNV) brucellosis, tularemia, anthrax, Q fever, etc. Despite the alleged importance of these for public health, the GG-21 programme is only ever mentioned as a footnote; however, all of its insidious purpose has been cleansed from the internet.

The author has compromising documents related to this research, provided by concerned citizens working in the Lugar Lab, both US and Georgian citizens. These state its purpose as to:

(1) Determine the prevalence and serological diversity of CCHFV and Hantaviruses in patient populations using samples collected from previously funded CBEP projects, human samples (GG-21). Selected samples will be sent to the USAMRIID for virus-specific neutralization tests in BSL-3 or BSL-4 containment laboratories.

All this is purported to be part of the effort to establish strategic research collaboration between the Georgian Military Hospital and the US Army Research United (USMRU-G) to target EDPs, especially dangerous pathogens. The experimental nature of this work is confirmed by the Military’s own documents, which describe how most of the material used in the study is not licensed by the US Food and Drug Administration, and are the not very accurate ELISA, rapid tests.

The research is to determine epidemiological risk factors associated with prior exposure, and to make use of the military disease surveillance system for scientific research on especially dangerous pathogens (EDS). It is expected that the blood samples from 1,000 young military recruits, often draftees, will be used as part of a broader US military project, which also involves 2,000 so-called recruits from Ukraine. The knowledge gained will establish baseline for 14 pathogens; and, together with a survey and medical review will be used for military purposes.

To put this in simpler language – as Silverman described in a recent TV interview, “They took hundreds of soldiers, young naive people who should not be allowed to sign any contracts, gave them insurances—claimed they provided informed consent, drew blood from them, and then tested them on what they could resist and “possibly” what they could not.

“According to PISA tests results, and varies media reports, 60-70 percent of 15 year olds in Georgia in every given year are functionally literate. The PISA plus Report of 2009 showed that only 38% of students in Georgia were estimated to have a level of reading literacy at or above the baseline needed to participate effectively and productively in life.

“Naturally many of those who end up in the military are those unable to circumvent the draft by going to university or finding medical or other innovative ways, including payment, to avoid mandatory service. Naturally their literacy level is lower, and as a young solider, you are scared shitless of authority, your stronger peers in training, and do what you are told, or you may face harsh consequences, at least in their imaginations, when they get back to the barracks”.

 

Was this a test of bio weapons?

The anticipated duration of the Georgian study is approximately 5 years, according to confidential US military documents.  It is anticipated that sooner or later, since the records will be held indefinitely by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency, history will be written as to the true intentions of this apparently illegal research.

Investigators in the study seem to have ignored the Nuremberg Protocols and the legal grounds for the protection of human subjects in clinical research, and may face the same legal remedy. The Nuremberg Code, drafted at the end of the Doctor’s Trial in Nuremberg in 1947, has served as the basis of medical and research ethics for the past 60 years.

Close examination of it reveals that it was based on the Guidelines for Human Experimentation of 1931. Did not the Germans draw blood from children in Ukraine and parts of the former Soviet Union for their war wounded?

It is good to know that, according to the project report, “it is very unlikely that the amount of blood drawn from each volunteer during this study would lead to any symptoms of anemia.” However the report also states that “there is no direct benefit to individual volunteers for participating in this research study.” 

Therefore the only purpose of this study is bio weapons-related research, which is illegal under international treaty law. All exclusion criteria will be self-reported, no verification of age will be performed and none the listed side effects considered.

Many recruits, aside from not being literate, come from minorities in Georgia. This, coupled with the fact that informed consent, as specified by US DOD regulations and public health regulations in Georgia, was never sought, brings the study close to a Joesph Mengele style war crime.

 

Informed consent translation 

The regulations of the study state: “If the volunteer is unable to read the Informed Consent Document, it will be read aloud to them by a study team member, the volunteer will place his mark or fingerprint on the signature line, and a non-study team member witness will observe the process and provide their signature and date on the ICD”. But this document is written in the Georgian language, and not all recruits know it, as they belong to the Azeri, Armenian or other ethnic groups.

No mention is made of how to deal with those who don’t know Georgian well, only that all translations will be performed by a trained translator who will translate the English version into the Georgian language. I wonder if this was the case in Nazi death camps.

Naturally the deaths associated with this study have been attributed to COVID. The last section of the report, 9:0 Reporting of Unanticipated Problems and Deaths, sets very restrictive criteria for the definition of these, which are:

• Unexpected (in terms of nature, severity, or frequency) given the approved research procedures and the subject population studies;
• Related to possibly related to a subject’s participation in research; and
• Suggest that the research places subject or others at greater risk of harm (physical, psychological, economic, or social hard) than was previously known or recognized.

These documents have been shared by those working in the military and the Lugar Lab with investigative journalists. Some fact checking sites want to dismiss them as fake news, Russian disinformation, and attack the journalists involved.

There have even been threats and physical attacks against the main investigative journalist who exposed the bio weapons program in Georgia. So this is about public health?

Henry Kamens, columnist, expert on Central Asia and Caucasus, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”

 

 

 

READ MORE:

https://journal-neo.org/2023/03/21/are-young-soldiers-being-used-as-white-rats-in-georgia-and-ukraine/

 

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

 

INTERVIEW: The drums of war are beating

 

"INTERVIEW: The chance of war is high over Taiwan, says Professor Seyed Marandi. The US is taking a position from which it can’t back down. Taiwan is a Chinese province so China won’t back down

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTELnl-tXFk

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

 

 

Will America decline peacefully? By Lau Siu kai

 

 

There are numerous signs that the United States is undergoing a secular and irreversible process of decline, especially relative to China and other powerful developing nations.

The global influence of the US in the military, diplomatic, economic, technological, ideological, and cultural realms is declining unabatedly. In recent years, this process has sped up and is tangibly reflected in the obvious decline of US influence in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia’s rejection of US “demands” to increase oil production, the fact that hardly any non-Western countries in the world refuse to side with it in the Russia-Ukraine war, the failure of the US to isolate China diplomatically, and the spectacle that most countries in the Global South choose to be “fence-sitters” among major powers. Countries around the world, including allies of the US, are briskly adopting variegated forms of “de-dollarisation”. Despite erosion of the hegemony of the US dollar, the US continues to wield the big stick of sanctions to expel adversaries from the US dollar system. However, as the American scholar Daniel W Drezner points out, this obsession with economic sanctions is an indicator of the decline of the US as it can no longer rely on diplomatic and military means to achieve its strategic goals.

Graham Allison, who specialises in the study of great-power relations, has popularised the concept of “the Thucydides’ Trap” in his book Destined for War, referring to the severe structural stress caused when a rising power threatened to upend a ruling one. After analysing a batch of historical phenomena, Allison believes that in most cases, war between the rising power and the existing power is inevitable.

Although the political elites of many other countries believe that the decline of the US is indisputable, most American political elites are unwilling to admit it, or at least they will not make it public. Some of them do not believe in the decline of the United States at all and still believe that the US will remain the hegemon of the world. However, China’s rapid rise does make many Americans jittery. Most of the American political elites worry that a rising China will pose a pacing and existential threat to their country. It is now a bipartisan consensus among American political elites that to maintain the primacy of the US, it is imperative to contain and thwart China’s rise.

Regardless of the attitudes of American political elites toward the US decline, whether the US will decline peacefully or nonpeacefully matters immensely to world peace and development. Past experiences are not reassuring. Some scholars believe that a declining great power poses a momentous threat to world peace, especially when it does not acknowledge or accept its decline because it will do everything to maintain its hegemony and the privileges and benefits derived therefrom. Kirchik points out that historical experience suggests that countries in decline are usually the least risk-averse. In the past, the British Empire, the French Empire, and the Soviet Union were not cognisant of and prepared for their decline. Instead, they acted strenuously but futilely to resist any threat to their hegemony. The results were a waste of national strength and harm to themselves. What’s more serious is that other countries have suffered great collateral damage because of the “overreaching” of the declining nations to sustain their hegemony. Britain’s aggressive venture in the 1956 Suez Crisis, France’s reluctance to give up Vietnam and Algeria, and the Soviet Union’s use of force against Afghanistan are all examples. Nations in decline are often more prone to launch provocations and wars than the rising ones, thus posing a major threat to world peace.

As far as Sino-US relations are concerned, although China has no intention to compete with the US for global hegemony, the US firmly believes that China is deliberately trying to “usurp” it. Therefore, the US regards China as a “heinous”, “implacable” and “incorrigible” foe. In the view of American adviser Kori Schake, “a peaceful transition from American to Chinese hegemony is highly unlikely. … Hegemony with Chinese characteristics will not hew to the rules of order established by the United States. Instead, should it become the hegemon, China will project onto the international order its domestic ideology, just as America has.”

After World War II, the mainstream strategic view that emerged in the US was that the US should always maintain its global hegemony to defend its interests, security, values, and way of life, maintain world peace and justice, and promote human development and well-being. Robert Kagan, an influential American scholar, cavalierly proclaimed that “the messy truth is that in the real world, the only hope for preserving liberalism at home and abroad is the maintenance of a world order conducive to liberalism, and the only power capable of upholding such an order is the United States”.

Since the survival of the international order fabricated and dominated by the US is deemed to be critical to the well-being of the US and all humanity, maintaining forever the global hegemony of the US is necessary. In the eyes of American scholar Stephen Wertheim, this enduring addiction to primacy has never ceased bringing serious harm to the US and many other countries. Being spellbound by this addiction, the US will relentlessly use all means to destroy any existing or potential challenger to its global supremacy. Hence, the rise of China or other countries (including other Western countries) is not acceptable to the US.

For the US, China’s threat to American hegemony is not only massive but also unique. Compared with Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union in the past, China has a much larger population than the US, and its economic and military capability dwarfs that of America’s previous challengers. As a huge country, China’s comprehensive national power is comparable to that of the US. What makes the US particularly apprehensive is that China has risen in its unique way instead of following the “Western model”, thus eroding substantially the ideological influence of the US and even the West in the world. More importantly, in the eyes of American political elites, China strives to replace the US-led “liberal international order” with an “authoritarian international order” built in the image of China.

Another unique feature of China’s rise is that Chinese are not Caucasians. Over the past few hundred years, white people in the West resorted to slavery, colonisation, war, plunder, unfair trade, and other unjust means to control and exploit other countries and nations, realise modernisation, and establish global hegemony. It is easy for Westerners to think that they are the superior race ordained by God and that they alone have the qualifications and “legitimacy” to rule the world and dominate other races. The rise of the Chinese is a historical change repugnant to the US and the West. Although political elites in the US and the West try their best not to adduce race as a reason to contain China, they still cannot avoid “slips of the tongue” from time to time. In February 2019, Kiron Skinner, the US State Department’s director of policy planning, admitted at the Future Security Forum that challenging the long-term threat of China is difficult because the country is “not Caucasian”.She elaborated, “In China, we have an economic competitor, we have an ideological competitor, one that really does seek a kind of global reach that many of us didn’t expect a couple of decades ago. And I think it’s also striking that it’s the first time that we will have a great-power competitor that is not Caucasian.”

In addition to being conceived as a racial rivalry by American political elites, the Sino-US dispute is also construed as a civilisation confrontation. Well-known American scholar Samuel Huntington in his book The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order, published in 1996, explains how the population explosion in Muslim countries and the economic rise of East Asia are changing global politics. These developments challenge Western dominance, promote opposition to supposedly “universal” and Western interests, and civilisation conflict over such issues as nuclear proliferation, immigration, human rights, and democracy. The Muslim population surge has led to many small wars throughout Eurasia, and the rise of China could lead to a global war of civilisations.

US political elites, especially President Joe Biden, deliberately hype the Sino-American rivalry as a confrontation between “democracy” and “authoritarianism” or “autocracy” or between “good” and “evil”, thus turning it into an ideological struggle. In this manner, the goal that the US needs to achieve can only be the demise of socialist China. Fareed Zakaria, an influential American political commentator, bemoans that America’s foreign policy has lost all flexibility.

For American political elites, regardless of race, religion, civilisation, or politics, the nature of China’s challenge to the US is an unprecedented “existential” threat to the US. Consequently, the contest cannot but be a deadly “zero-sum game”. Unless these political elites fundamentally change their views on China’s rise, the struggle will only intensify and spill over into various fields and the world. It can be envisaged that, in the foreseeable future, the animus of American political elites toward China will become more malicious, hysterical, and irrational. This is related to their need to save their “colour of skin”. American scholar Benjamin Shobert is candid in his book Blaming China. He argues that “American society is angry, more fragmented, and more polarised than at any time since the (US) Civil War. It harbours deep insecurities about our economic future, our place in the world, our response to terrorism, and our deeply dysfunctional government. … These four insecurities will be perverted and projected onto China in an attempt to shift blame for errors entirely of our own making.”

To shirk responsibility and divert attention, unscrupulous and unconscionable politicians in the US wantonly play up China as the biggest enemy of the US and a country that must be defeated. As many problems in the US are getting worse and intractable, American politicians will ratchet up their anti-China spleen to serve their narrow personal and partisan interests.

The decline of the US will not be a peaceful process, especially when it faces a powerful, unique, and unprecedented opponent in China. Looking into the future, the US is poised to use all means available to suppress the rise of China. Nevertheless, future developments will prove that not only will China not be overcome, but it will redouble its efforts to unite and fight against the US, making it pay a hefty and unbearable price. Thoughtful American scholar Stephen Wertheim lamented, “As time goes on, the United States may find itself overwhelmed and risk a war against American interests.” He goes on to predict, “If the US applies to peer competitors the same will to dominate that brought it into Iraq, a far weaker country, the consequences will be severe. The ‘next Iraq’ could well take the form of a great-power war. … How China will react is not yet known, but its capability to harm the United States is substantial. In defending its preeminent power position, … the United States is assuming enormous risks without appreciating how intensified rivalry could make Americans poorer and less safe.”

The decline of the US is not likely to be a peaceful process. Paraphrasing the title of Kagan’s old book Dangerous Nation might be informative and prophetic: Today’s United States poses a danger to itself and the rest of the world.

 

First published in China Daily HK Edition May 2, 2023

 

 

READ MORE:

https://johnmenadue.com/will-america-decline-peacefully/

 

IT SEEMS THE THE AMERICAN EMPIRE WILL KILL US ALL BEFORE DECLINING PEACEFULLY.....

 

READ FROM TOP. 

 

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

 

 

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

 

EASY.

 

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

 

AND FREE JULIAN ASSANGE FOR HISSSAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!