For the latest on the Russian forces mopping up of the ukrozionist regime of Ukraine, we recommend very few reliable sources. Here are some of them: Spriter or this one Russians With Attitude.

* * *

On a different note, we are also reposting the response by the Head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov:

I would like to say that the whole set of restrictions against Russia is so absurd that we can only laugh at these fruitless attempts. They have frozen the void there. A complete embarrassment! And yet, in spite of all this comedy, it is time to retaliate harshly, and the measures should be mirrored. They should look like this, by comparison:
     British Prime Minister Boris Johnson,

     British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss,

     Head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen,

     Head of the European Diplomatic Corps Josep Borrell

should retract their statements, otherwise the Chechen Republic, considering the impertinent and pretentious nature of the statements by the above mentioned persons, reserves the right to introduce the following sanctions:

   – Close the Chechen skies to flights of their jets;
   – Freeze all of Johnson’s ruble assets in Chechen banks;
   – Impose an embargo on all the assets of the British oligarchs in Achkhoi-Martan, and in case things get worse, in Samashki as well;
   – To recognize the left-hand traffic as a vile relic of the Middle Ages;
   – And to admit, finally, that there is no such thing as English tea!

The deadline is February 31st!

This will be an example to other nations. Henceforth, think before you impose any sanctions.

* * *

Note: some of the text might contain traces of humor.

© AP Photo / Olivier Matthys

by Ilya Tsukanov

The US and its allies in Europe and Asia condemned the Russian military operation in Ukraine as an unprovoked “act of aggression” and “invasion,” slapping Moscow with new sanctions and promising to send additional military aid to Kiev. The current crisis in Ukraine is the culmination of a situation which has festered for over eight years.

NATO has no grounds to call the ongoing Russian military operation in Ukraine “aggression,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

“In the context of NATO countries’ inability to negotiate and their lack of desire to truly strengthen security in Europe on the basis of the principle of equal and indivisible security, we consider their attempts to accuse us of aggression to be groundless,” Zakharova said Saturday in a commentary on Friday’s extraordinary virtual summit of NATO heads of state to discuss the Ukraine crisis.

“Before calling Russia to account for its operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, the nations of the North Atlantic bloc should answer for their military adventurism, as well as their inaction on the matter of encouraging the regime in Kiev to peacefully resolve the Donbass problem,” the spokeswoman said.

According to Zakharova, NATO leaders at the summit expressed all possible support for Ukraine, “a country which, with the the connivance of the West, has become a hotbed of Nazi ideology.”

The spokeswoman went on to accuse the Western bloc of “hypocrisy” related to the alleged destruction of the foundation for peace in Europe caused by Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

“By whose hands was this done? Wasn’t it the NATO countries that looked on silently as the US destroyed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty? They stood by when Washington unilaterally withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. They allowed the Americans to quit the Open Skies Treaty, which made that agreement worthless as an effective mechanism for controlling military activities,” Zakharova said.

“Was it not the NATO countries that took part in the bombing of Yugoslavia, the attack on Libya, the invasion of Iraq? For 20 years, they led the situation in Afghanistan to total degradation, and when they ran away, they left behind weapons worth billions of dollars,” the spokeswoman said.

“For eight years, Western nations have watched passively the killing and abuse of thousands of civilians in southeastern Ukraine. Effectively, they became accomplices to the long-term genocide of the inhabitants of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics,” Zakharova alleged.

“NATO’s intention to continue pumping weapons into Ukraine, including air defence systems, speaks of one thing: the United States and its allies are not interested in resolving the crisis in this country,” she said.

The Western bloc continues to build up its military forces and infrastructure near Russia, and engaging in the military buildup of alliance members near Russia, “using their resources to develop plans to ‘contain’ Russia. We cannot ignore such a confrontational course toward our country. Especially when our key security concerns remain unanswered,” Zakharova said.

NATO Vows to ‘Hold Russia Accountable’

At Friday’s extraordinary summit, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg called on Russia to “stop this senseless war, immediately cease its assault, withdraw all its forces from Ukraine, and turn back to the path of dialogue and turn away from aggression.”

In a joint communique published following the meeting, the alliance accused Moscow of carrying out a “long-planned,” “brutal and wholly unprovoked and unjustified” attack against the “independent, peaceful and democratic” nation of Ukraine, and alleged that Russia had “fundamentally shattered” peace on the European continent.

“The world will hold Russia, as well as Belarus, accountable for their actions. We call on all states to condemn this unconscionable attack unreservedly. No one should be fooled by the Russian government’s barrage of lies,” the communique said.

The bloc went on to accuse Russia of rejecting “the path of diplomacy and dialogue,” and warning that Moscow would be made to pay “a severe price” for its actions, “both economically and politically,” for years to come.

Russia and its Donbass allies began a large scale military operation in Ukraine on Thursday to “demilitarize” and “denazify” the country after continued Ukrainian shelling attacks on the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics even after Moscow’s recognition of the former Ukrainian breakaways as sovereign nations and the signing of a security treaty with them last Monday.

The current emergency is the culmination of a security crisis which enveloped Ukraine following a violent, US and EU-backed coup in Kiev in February 2014, and has festered in the form of a long-running civil war in the country’s eastern regions.

by Global Times

Russian Army Western Military District tank units wait to be loaded on a troop train on February 18, 2022, as they return from recent routine drills to permanent deployment sites in Novgorod. Russia announced a withdrawal of drill troops on February 15 amid the Ukraine crisis. Photo: VCG

The United Nations Security Council held a special meeting on the situation in Ukraine on Thursday, during which US Secretary of State Antony Blinken again quoted intelligence obtained by the US as claiming that Russia was preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days. As February 16, previously cited as the invasion day, became a joke, some US media outlets proposed a new “invasion date” – February 20. It can be assumed that once that day passes, Americans will come up with a new guess. When it comes to a “war,” the US has long launched one against Russia, a hybrid information war.

This time, Russia asked the council to discuss the Minsk agreements, yet the meeting was deviated by the US from the original theme with the hype of the “war.” As a result, the real problem remains unresolved. The longer Russia and Ukraine are in a state of high tension, the more likely an eruption of that tension will be. From this perspective, the risk of an outbreak of war between the two exists and is constantly on the rise.

Blinken argued that the US shared the intelligence to prevent a war, rather than to start one. But the fact is quite the contrary. The fire was lit by the US, and the US has been stoking the fire. After the fire grows, the US made no attempt to end it, but jumped aside, accusing Russia of being the arsonist.

Looking back at the constant escalation of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, it is not hard to find out that almost all the information that pushed up the tension on their border came from “estimates from US intelligent agencies.” And an absurd situation emerged in describing the crisis: Russia and Ukraine were denying fake news, but Washington, on the other side of the globe, was beating the drum and blowing the trumpet. The US used its powerful public opinion propaganda machine to cover the sound of the parties directly concerned, deliberately ignoring Ukraine’s concerns, and forcibly speaking on behalf of Kiev.

People have every reason to suspect that Washington has produced so much “intelligence” just to boost NATO’s power in Eastern Europe and seek to pave the way to satisfy its own unbridled strategic greed.

If Washington really wants to cool down the situation, it can just stop leading the NATO in hyping the tension eastward. But after all its efforts, the US did not weaken Russia as it wished. Instead, Ukraine, which the US claimed to “protect,” has become the biggest victim: In fear of the outbreak of a war, panic has arisen in Ukraine and wealthy businessmen and officials have started to flee. Violent conflicts in eastern Ukraine have escalated, and the situation at the border is more volatile. But Washington doesn’t care about Ukraine’s stability or interests. What it wants is anxiety and chaos in Kiev.

The US has been very used to playing the tactics of fighting a public opinion and information war, and it is good at making conceptual shifts and reversing cause and effect. It frequently plays the trick of a thief crying “Stop thief!” From the Vietnam War to the Iraq War, then to the Syria War, US intelligence agencies have always been the invisible hand behind US hegemony, and the stories of its dark history are countless. They try to deceive the world with typical telemarketing scam tricks – concocting a scene, misleading the “victims” into making wrong judgments, and then asking them to pay for “protection.” Washington has long been familiar with weaponizing fake news for its own political gain.

In recent years, Washington has become more obsessed with using false information for political gain. In order to shirk its responsibility, the US has let intelligence agencies be “in charge” of COVID-19 origins tracing. To smear other countries, the US has continued to fabricate lies under the guise of “human rights.” To maintain its hegemony, the US has suppressed enterprises of other countries with various unwarranted reasons. However, as fake news grows, the anti-intellectualism it fosters has also backfired. Under the title of the world’s No.1 disinformation country, US society has also become a victim of Washington’s disinformation, and its domestic chaos and diplomatic hysteria are two sides of the same coin.

This reminds people of a famous saying: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Just let Washington politicians make up lies, and they will find out that by stubbornly digging holes for other countries, it is the US’ own foundation that will eventually loosen.

via RT

Moscow addressed the situation in Ukraine, US nuclear weapons in Europe, NATO violating treaties, and the law-based way forward

Russia may respond with “military and technical measures” to ensure its own security after the US and NATO ignored key points from its proposal for a long-term European security architecture, and instead cherry-picked issues from a package deal, Moscow said on Thursday.

The overall sentiment of the 10-page document, published by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) on Thursday, was that the US and its allies refused to even address Russia’s “red lines” and key security interests. The MFA also addressed specific issues such as Ukraine, Crimea, US troop presence and weapons build-up along Russian borders, as well as arms control. Here are the key takeaways.

Russia has no plans to invade Ukraine, Moscow says
Moscow insists that there is no “Russian invasion” of Ukraine, nor are there any plans for one. Accusations by the US and its allies about Russian responsibility for the “escalation” in Ukraine can only be seen as an attempt to pressure Moscow and dismiss Russian proposals for security guarantees, the document argues, calling the conflict in Ukraine “entirely internal in character.”

Moscow argues the conflict can only be resolved through the implementation of the Minsk Agreements and the measures envisioned therein. The UN Security Council Resolution 2022 names Kiev and the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk as the parties concerned, while Russia is a mediator alongside France and Germany, in the so-called Normandy Format. To de-escalate the situation in Ukraine, the MFA says, the West needs to compel Kiev to implement the measures agreed in Minsk, stop sending weapons to Ukraine, withdraw all of its advisers and instructors, stop NATO exercises with Ukraine’s military, and pull all foreign weapons previously delivered to Kiev from Ukrainian territory.

Moscow says Crimea case ‘closed’

Russia did not “occupy” Ukrainian territory in 2014, the MFA insisted, arguing that “the loss of territorial integrity by the Ukrainian government is the result of internal processes in that country,” and, specifically, pointing to the coup d’etat backed by the US and its allies, “whose perpetrators embarked on building a nationalist state infringing on the rights of ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking people, as well as other nationalities.”

READ MORE: West ‘deceived & crucified’ Ukraine: Key takeaways from interview with Russian FM spokesperson

In those circumstances, Moscow says, the region of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol held a referendum to rejoin Russia, in line with the UN-guaranteed right of self-determination. “No force or coercion was applied. The question of where Crimea belongs is closed,” the MFA said. Ukraine still considers the peninsula to be part of its territory and its state policy is to “reintegrate” it by any means, including force. The US and NATO likewise do not recognize Crimea rejoining Russia, calling it an illegal “annexation.”

US must withdraw from Russian borders, Moscow insists

Russia has “no forces on the territory of Ukraine,” the MFA said in the document, adding that the deployments of troops within Russia’s own territory “do not and cannot concern the fundamental interests of the United States.” By contrast, Russia said, the US and its NATO allies have expanded their military infrastructure eastward, violating both the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) and the 1997 Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between Russia and NATO. Moscow insists on the withdrawal “of all US armed forces and weapons deployed in Central and Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and the Baltics.”

Russia says NATO’s ‘open doors’ policy violates security

While the US remains committed to NATO’s policy of “open doors” – not ruling out admission of any country that applies to the alliance – Moscow noted that this violates the commitments NATO made in June 1991, to not endanger legitimate interests of other states or create new lines of division in Europe.

It also clashes with the principle of indivisibility of security which the US committed to under the treaties that established the Organization for European Security Cooperation (OSCE), namely to “not to enhance their security at the expense of the security of others,” in Russia’s view. “We call on the US and NATO to return to their international obligations in the sphere of supporting peace and security,” the MFA said. “We expect from the alliance specific proposals on the form and content of legal guarantees that NATO will not expand further to the east.”

Moscow wants indivisible security for all, not just NATO

Washington needs to demonstrate it actually believes in the principle of indivisible security, Moscow argued, accusing the US of refusing to give up its “counterproductive and destabilizing course” of seeking advantages for itself and its allies at the expense of Russian security interests, while threatening Russia’s borders. In Moscow’s view, the right of countries to “freely choose or change their security arrangements, including entering alliances,” which the US cites, is not absolute, but is only half the formula contained in existing European security treaties. The document points out that Washington keeps omitting the second half, about not enhancing one’s own security at the expense of others.

Russia wants NATO to stop putting nukes in Europe

There was no answer to the Russian proposal to stop deploying nuclear weapons outside one’s own territory – something the US has repeatedly done with NATO allies, in violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), the MFA said. Such weapons are currently deployed in the territory of several NATO members and are capable of targeting Russia.

Moscow insists they must be withdrawn, the infrastructure for quickly redeploying them to Europe dismantled, and NATO must stop training non-nuclear members in the handling of such weapons. “Without the removal of this irritant, discussion on the topic of non-strategic nuclear weapons is impossible,” Russia said.

Violation of ‘red lines’ may lead to ‘military-technical’ response – Moscow

The US and NATO are increasing their military activity on Russia’s borders while ignoring Moscow’s “red lines” and fundamental security interests, the MFA said, describing the situation as a “cause for alarm.” Russia described ultimatums and threats of sanctions as “unacceptable” and said they undermine the chances of reaching actual diplomatic agreements. Since the US is not prepared to discuss firm and legally binding guarantees of Russian security, Moscow will be forced to respond, including “through the implementation of measures of a military-technical nature,” the MFA said.

My reading of this panic porn regarding Ukraine is that this is the controlled demolition of the US forces in Ukraine. This is a better organized version of the American retreat from Afghanistan. First take out the civilians and the large contingent of “contractors’/mercenaries and their families. Then?

At the peak of the panic, we will be told that Biden saved world peace by accepting to declare Ukraine a neutral country and that the US is now evacuating its remaining military in an orderly fashion.

Long live the new success in bringing peace to the world by Biden! As the UK Foreign Secretary Wallace just admitted: “there is a whiff of Munich in the air from some in the West”.

Remember, you heard this here first. Claudiu Secara

by Pepe Escobar

ISTANBUL – Emmanuel Macron is no Talleyrand. Self-promoted as “Jupiterian”, he may have finally got down to earth for a proper realpolitik insight while ruminating one of the former French Minister of Foreign Affairs key bond mots: “A diplomat who says ‘yes’ means ‘maybe’, a diplomat who says ‘maybe’ means ‘no’, and a diplomat who says ‘no’ is no diplomat.”

Mr. Macron went to Moscow to see Mr. Putin with a simple 4-stage plan in mind.

1. Clinch a wide-ranging deal with Putin on Ukraine, thus stopping “Russian aggression”.
2. Bask in the glow as the West’s Peacemaker.
3. Raise the EU’s tawdry profile, as he’s the current president of the EU Council.
4. Collect all the spoils then bag the April presidential election in France.

Considering he all but begged for an audience in a flurry of phone calls, Macron was received by Putin with no special honors. Comic relief was provided by French mainstream media hysterics, “military strategists” included, evoking the “French castle” sketch in Monty Python’s Holy Grail while reaffirming every stereotype available about “cowardly frogs”. Their “analysis”: Putin is “isolated” and wants “the military option”. Their top intel source: Bezos-owned CIA rag The Washington Post.

Still, it was fascinating to watch – oh, that loooooong table in the Kremlin: the only EU leader who took the trouble to actually listen to Putin was the one who, months ago, pronounced NATO as “brain-dead”. So the ghosts of Charles de Gaulle and Talleyrand did seem to have engaged in a lively chat, framed by raw economics, finally imprinting on the “Jupiterian” that the imperial obsession on preventing Europe by all means from profiting from wider trade with Eurasia is a losing game.

After a strenuous six hours of discussions Putin, predictably, monopolized the eminently quotable department, starting with one that will be reverberating all across the Global South for a long time: “Citizens of Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia have seen how peaceful is NATO.”

There’s more. The already iconic Do you want a war between Russia and NATO? – followed by the ominous “there will be no winners”. Or take this one, on Maidan: “Since February 2014, Russia has considered a coup d’état to be the source of power in Ukraine. This is a bad sandbox, we don’t like this kind of game.”

On the Minsk agreements, the message was blunt: “The President of Ukraine has said that he does not like any of the clauses of the Minsk agreements. Like it, or not – be patient, my beauty. They must be fulfilled.”

The “real issue behind the present crisis”

Macron for his part stressed, “new mechanisms are needed to ensure stability in Europe, but not by revising existing agreements, perhaps new security solutions would be innovative.” So nothing that Moscow had not stressed before. He added, “France and Russia have agreed to work together on security guarantees.” The operative term is “France”. Not the non-agreement capable United States government.

Anglo-American spin insisted that Putin had agreed not to launch new “military initiatives” – while keeping mum on what Macron promised in return. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not confirm any agreement. He only said that the Kremlin will engage with Macron’s dialogue proposals, “provided that the United States also agrees with them.” And for that, as everyone knows, there’s no guarantee.

The Kremlin has been stressing for months that Russia has no interest whatsoever in invading de facto black hole Ukraine. And Russian troops will return to their bases after exercises are over. None of this has anything to do with “concessions” by Putin.

And then came the bombshell: French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire – the inspiration for one of the main characters in Michel Houellebecq’s cracking new book, Anéantir – said that the launch of Nord Stream 2 “is one of the main components of de-escalating tensions on the Russian-Ukrainian border.” Gallic flair formulated out loud what no German had the balls to say.

In Kiev, after his stint in Moscow, it looks like Macron properly told Zelensky which way the wind blows now. Zelensky hastily confirmed Ukraine is ready to implement the Minsk agreements; it never was, for seven long years. He also said he expects to hold a summit in the Normandy format – Kiev, the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, Germany and France – “in the near future”. A meeting of Normandy format political advisers will happen in Berlin on Thursday.

Way back in August 2020, I was already pointing to which way we were heading in the master chessboard. A few sharp minds in the Beltway, emailing their networks, did notice in my column how “the goal of Russian and Chinese policy is to recruit Germany into a triple alliance locking together the Eurasian land mass a la Mackinder into the greatest geopolitical alliance in history, switching world power in favor of these three great powers against Anglo-Saxon sea power.”

Now, a very high-level Deep State intel source, retired, comes down to the nitty gritty, pointing out how “the secret negotiations between Russia and the US center around missiles going into Eastern Europe, as the US frantically drives for completing its development of hypersonic missiles.”

The main point is that if the US places such hypersonic missiles in Romania and Poland, as planned, the time for them to reach Moscow would be 1/10 the time of a Tomahawk. It’s even worse for Russia if they are placed in the Baltics. The source notes, “the US plan is to neutralize the more advanced defensive missile systems that seal Russia’s airspace. This is why the US has offered to allow Russia to inspect these missile sites in the future, to prove that there are no hypersonic nuclear missiles. Yet that’s not a solution, as the Raytheon missile launchers can handle both offensive and defensive missiles, so it’s possible to sneak in the offensive missiles at night. Thus everything requires continuous observation.”

The bottom line is stark: “This is the real issue behind the present crisis. The only solution is no missile sites allowed in Eastern Europe.” That happens to be an essential part of Russia’s demands for security guarantees.

Sailing to Byzantium

Alastair Crooke has demonstrated how “the West slowly is discovering that that it has no pressure point versus Russia (its economy being relatively sanctions-proof), and its military is no match for that of Russia’s.”

In parallel, Michael Hudson has conclusively shown how “the threat to US dominance is that China, Russia and Mackinder’s Eurasian World Island heartland are offering better trade and investment opportunities than are available from the United States with its increasingly desperate demand for sacrifices from its NATO and other allies.”

Quite a few of us, independent analysts from both the Global North and South, have been stressing non-stop for years that the pop Gotterdammerung in progress hinges on the end of American geopolitical control over Eurasia. Occupied Germany and Japan enforcing the strategic submission of Eurasia from the west down to the east; the ever-expanding NATO; the ever de-multiplied Empire of Bases, all the lineaments of the 75-year-plus free lunch are collapsing.

The new groove is set to the tune of the New Silk Roads, or BRI; Russia’s unmatched hypersonic power – and now the non-negotiable demands for security guarantees; the advent of RCEP – the largest free trade deal on the planet uniting East Asia; the Empire all but expelled from Central Asia after the Afghan humiliation; and sooner rather than later its expulsion from the first island chain in the Western Pacific, complete with a starring role for the Chinese DF-21D “carrier killer” missiles.

The Ray McGovern-coined MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex) was not capable to muster the collective IQ to even begin to understand the terms of the Russia-China joint statement issued on an already historic February 4, 2022. Some in Europe actually did – arguably located in the Elysée Palace.

This enlightened unpacking focuses on the interconnection of some key formulations, such as “relations between Russia and China superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era” and “friendship which shows no limits”: the strategic partnership, for all its challenges ahead, is way more complex than a mere “treaty” or “agreement”. Without deeper understanding of Chinese and Russian civilizations, and their way of thinking, Westerners simply are not equipped to get it.

In the end, if we manage to escape so much Western doom and gloom, we might end up navigating a warped remix of Yeats’ Sailing to Byzantium. We may always dream of the best and the brightest in Europe finally sailing away from the iron grip of tawdry imperial Exceptionalistan:

“Once out of nature I shall never take / My bodily form from any natural thing, / But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make / Of hammered gold and gold enameling / To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; / Or set upon a golden bough to sing /To lords and ladies of Byzantium / Of what is past, or passing, or to come.”

(Republished from Strategic Culture Foundation)

by Scott Ritter

is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

Russian tanks T-72B3 take part in drills at the Kadamovskiy firing range in the Rostov region in southern Russia, Jan. 12, 2022. © AP Photo

In a recent press conference held on the occasion of a visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about continued NATO expansion, and the potential consequences if Ukraine was to join the trans-Atlantic alliance.

“Their [NATO’s] main task is to contain the development of Russia,” Putin said. “Ukraine is simply a tool to achieve this goal. They could draw us into some kind of armed conflict and force their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions that are being talked about in the United States today,” he noted. “Or they could draw Ukraine into NATO, set up strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the issue of Donbass or Crimea by force, and still draw us into an armed conflict.”

Putin continued, “Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and is stuffed with weapons and there are state-of-the-art missile systems just like in Poland and Romania. Who will stop it from unleashing operations in Crimea, let alone Donbass? Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and ventures such a combat operation. Do we have to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought anything about it? It seems not.”

But these words were dismissed by White House spokesperson Jen Psaki, who likened them to a fox “screaming from the top of the hen house that he’s scared of the chickens,” adding that any Russian expression of fear over Ukraine “should not be reported as a statement of fact.”

Psaki’s comments, however, are divorced from the reality of the situation. The principal goal of the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is what he terms the “de-occupation” of Crimea. While this goal has, in the past, been couched in terms of diplomacy – “[t]he synergy of our efforts must force Russia to negotiate the return of our peninsula,” Zelensky told the Crimea Platform, a Ukrainian forum focused on regaining control over Crimea – the reality is his strategy for return is a purely military one, in which Russia has been identified as a “military adversary”, and the accomplishment of which can only be achieved through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using military means has not been spelled out. As an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate any offensive military action to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russia. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine’s membership, if granted, would need to include some language regarding the limits of NATO’s Article 5 – which relates to collective defense – when addressing the Crimea situation, or else a state of war would de facto exist upon Ukrainian accession.

The most likely scenario would involve Ukraine being rapidly brought under the ‘umbrella’ of NATO protection, with ‘battlegroups’ like those deployed into eastern Europe being formed on Ukrainian soil as a ‘trip-wire’ force, and modern air defenses combined with forward-deployed NATO aircraft put in place to secure Ukrainian airspace.

Once this umbrella has been established, Ukraine would feel emboldened to begin a hybrid conflict against what it terms the Russian occupation of Crimea, employing unconventional warfare capability it has acquired since 2015 at the hands of the CIA to initiate an insurgency designed specifically to “kill Russians.”

The idea that Russia would sit idly by while a guerilla war in Crimea was being implemented from Ukraine is ludicrous; if confronted with such a scenario, Russia would more than likely use its own unconventional capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of course, would cry foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for collective defense under Article 5. In short, NATO would be at war with Russia.

This is not idle speculation. When explaining his recent decision to deploy some 3,000 US troops to Europe in response to the ongoing Ukrainian crisis, US President Joe Biden declared, “As long as he’s [Putin] acting aggressively, we are going to make sure we reassure our NATO allies in Eastern Europe that we’re there and Article 5 is a sacred obligation.”

Biden’s comments echo those made during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June 15 last year. At that time, Biden sat down with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America’s commitment to Article 5 of the NATO charter. “Article 5 we take as a sacred obligation,” Biden said. “I want NATO to know America is there.”

Biden’s view of NATO and Ukraine is drawn from his experience as vice president under Barack Obama. In 2015, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work told reporters, “As President Obama has said, Ukraine should … be able to choose its own future. And we reject any talk of a sphere of influence. And speaking in Estonia this past September, the president made it clear that our commitment to our NATO allies in the face of Russian aggression is unwavering. As he said it, in this alliance there are no old members and there are no new members. There are no junior partners and there are no senior partners. There are just allies, pure and simple. And we will defend the territorial integrity of every single ally.”

Just what would this defense entail? As someone who once trained to fight the Soviet Army, I can attest that a war with Russia would be unlike anything the US military has experienced – ever. The US military is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts. Nor does it possess doctrine capable of supporting large-scale combined arms conflict. If the US was to be drawn into a conventional ground war with Russia, it would find itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American military history. In short, it would be a rout.

Don’t take my word for it. In 2016, then-Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, when speaking about the results of a study – the Russia New Generation Warfare – he had initiated in 2015 to examine lessons learned from the fighting in eastern Ukraine, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the Russians have superior artillery firepower, better combat vehicles, and have learned sophisticated use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical effect. “Should US forces find themselves in a land war with Russia,” McMaster said, “they would be in for a rude, cold awakening.”

In short, they would get their asses kicked.

America’s 20-year Middle Eastern misadventure in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria produced a military that was no longer capable of defeating a peer-level opponent on the battlefield. This reality was highlighted in a studyconducted by the US Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, the central American component of NATO’s Rapid Deployment Force, in 2017. The study found that US military forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to confront military aggression from Russia. The lack of viable air defense and electronic warfare capability, when combined with an over-reliance on satellite communications and GPS navigation systems, would result in the piecemeal destruction of the US Army in rapid order should they face off against a Russian military that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a US/NATO threat.

The issue isn’t just qualitative, but also quantitative – even if the US military could stand toe-to-toe with a Russian adversary (which it can’t), it simply lacks the size to survive in any sustained battle or campaign. The low-intensity conflict that the US military waged in Iraq and Afghanistan has created an organizational ethos built around the idea that every American life is precious, and that all efforts will be made to evacuate the wounded so that they can receive life-saving medical attention in as short a timeframe as possible. This concept may have been viable where the US was in control of the environment in which fights were conducted. It is, however, pure fiction in large-scale combined arms warfare. There won’t be medical evacuation helicopters flying to the rescue – even if they launched, they would be shot down. There won’t be field ambulances – even if they arrived on the scene, they would be destroyed in short order. There won’t be field hospitals – even if they were established, they would be captured by Russian mobile forces.

What there will be is death and destruction, and lots of it. One of the events which triggered McMaster’s study of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined arms brigade by Russian artillery in early 2015. This, of course, would be the fate of any similar US combat formation. The superiority Russia enjoys in artillery fires is overwhelming, both in terms of the numbers of artillery systems fielded and the lethality of the munitions employed.

While the US Air Force may be able to mount a fight in the airspace above any battlefield, there will be nothing like the total air supremacy enjoyed by the American military in its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The airspace will be contested by a very capable Russian air force, and Russian ground troops will be operating under an air defense umbrella the likes of which neither the US nor NATO has ever faced. There will be no close air support cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops. The forces on the ground will be on their own.

This feeling of isolation will be furthered by the reality that, because of Russia’s overwhelming superiority in electronic warfare capability, the US forces on the ground will be deaf, dumb, and blind to what is happening around them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and even operate as radios, electronic systems, and weapons cease to function.

Any war with Russia would find American forces slaughtered in large numbers. Back in the 1980s, we routinely trained to accept losses of 30-40 percent and continue the fight, because that was the reality of modern combat against a Soviet threat. Back then, we were able to effectively match the Soviets in terms of force size, structure, and capability – in short, we could give as good, or better, than we got.

That wouldn’t be the case in any European war against Russia. The US will lose most of its forces before they are able to close with any Russian adversary, due to deep artillery fires. Even when they close with the enemy, the advantage the US enjoyed against Iraqi and Taliban insurgents and ISIS terrorists is a thing of the past. Our tactics are no longer up to par – when there is close combat, it will be extraordinarily violent, and the US will, more times than not, come out on the losing side.

But even if the US manages to win the odd tactical engagement against peer-level infantry, it simply has no counter to the overwhelming number of tanks and armored fighting vehicles Russia will bring to bear. Even if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of US ground troops were effective against modern Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably not), American troops will simply be overwhelmed by the mass of combat strength the Russians will confront them with.

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-style attack carried out by specially trained US Army troops – the ‘OPFOR’ – at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, where two Soviet-style Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off against a US Army Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at around two in the morning. By 5:30am it was over, with the US Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. There’s something about 170 armored vehicles bearing down on your position that makes defeat all but inevitable.

This is what a war with Russia would look like. It would not be limited to Ukraine, but extend to battlefields in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere. It would involve Russian strikes against NATO airfields, depots, and ports throughout the depth of Europe.

This is what will happen if the US and NATO seek to attach the “sacred obligation” of Article 5 of the NATO Charter to Ukraine. It is, in short, a suicide pact.

via RT

Washington has “an array of tools” to deal with foreign companies that refuse to observe US sanctions

Ned Price, a spokesperson for US President Joe Biden’s State Department, threatened Chinese businesses with economic punishment if they decide to work with Russia through any hypothetical US sanctions.

During a press conference on Thursday, Price claimed the US has “an array of tools that we can deploy if we see foreign companies, including those in China, doing their best to backfill US export control actions, to evade them, to get around them.”

“If Russia thinks that it will be in a position… to mitigate some of those consequences, by a closer relationship with [China], that is not the case. It will actually make the Russian economy, in many ways, more brittle,” Price warned, in reference to hypothetical US sanctions against Moscow over a hypothetical Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Price continued to warn Russia it cannot survive without the West, claiming that “if you deny yourself the ability to transact with the West, to import with the West, from Europe, from the United States, you are going to significantly degrade your productive capacity and your innovative potential.”

In the same press conference, Price claimed to have US intelligence evidence that Russia was planning a false flag attack in Ukraine to justify an invasion of the country. Price was berated, however, by an AP journalist for refusing to provide a single piece of evidence to the public to justify such claims.

Moscow has repeatedly dismissed accusations that it’s planning an invasion of Ukraine as “hysteria”, and even Kiev at one point has criticized Western officials and media for damaging its economy with constant fear mongering about an “imminent” war.

by Tom Fowdy via RT

Protesters hold placards as they take part in a rally against the extradition bill ahead of 2019 G20 Osaka summit at Edinburgh Place in Central district on June 26, 2019 in Hong Kong, China. © Anthony Kwan / Getty Images

A recent article published by Joshua Kurlantzick in the Council of Foreign Relations dissects what he describes as the declining public image of China. At first glance, he isn’t wrong. Over the past two years, positive opinion of China has indeed collapsed in Western and US-aligned countries. But the reasons he states for why that has happened are as disingenuous as they are outright false. The piece goes off on a tirade listing all the ways he thinks China is bad. From Covid-19, to so-called “wolf warrior diplomacy,” to the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) “being a debt-trap,” to “aggressive and coercive behavior,” to Chinese vaccines apparently being “ineffective” and so on.

What is curious about these reasons is that they do not seem to resemble actual facts as much as anti-China cliches which are commonplace in American discourse, irrespective of whether they’re true or not. For example, he claims that “BRI is stalling” – but there is no evidence of this happening, with much to the contrary.

The author obliviously fails to mention what is in fact truly going on here concerning opinions of China in the West: The United States is and has been, in conjunction with its closest partners, waging a propaganda war against Beijing in order to legitimize its goals of containing China.

If you believe this conventional narrative, China is to be disliked now because all of a sudden it one day started doing bad things, such as those mentioned above, and became an “aggressive” country, alienating everyone with its “wolf warrior diplomacy.” It is as if this randomly happened for no reason, and other countries are perfectly vindicated in their response to it.

At least that’s how the average Westerner has been conditioned to understand it. They would not believe that China is effectively the same state it has been since 1949, with the same ruling party, with highly consistent territorial claims and goals, even if it has different policies to achieve those, but only that it suddenly started “changing for the worse”under Xi Jinping who set it on a course for “world domination.”

What Westerners might never be inclined to think is that they have been manipulated into these beliefs by a deliberate US campaign to change public opinion against China, to demonize, discredit and isolate the country, to derail its international engagement and justify Washington’s new priorities against it.

However, that, of course, is exactly what has happened. America’s foreign policy engine relies on a playbook which is known as “manufacturing consent” – the weaponization of the resources of the state to coordinate experts, think tanks and journalists to focus attention on issues which subsequently sway public opinion to create organic support for Washington’s policy preferences.

It is a strategy designed to create a “self-fulfilling prophecy” by masking aggression under the guise of inciting a “moral case” against the target in question. This is often done using the mantra of human rights, exploiting and manipulating people’s goodwill through the theatrical orchestration of crisis, and subsequently masking the intended foreign policy objectives as a justified act of benevolence and“concern.” It’s what the US has done in the build-up to every war, and it’s what they are doing now regarding China.

It was in 2018 that America, under the Trump administration, launched its public opinion war against China. After having “dealt” with the North Korea issue, the White House turned its focus on Beijing and unleashed a swathe of initiatives against it. It was that year that the national security strategy labeled China a “geopolitical competitor” and launched wars against Chinese trade and technology. In conjunction, the march to manufacture public consent against China began. It was no matter of coincidence that allegations and coverage regarding Xinjiang suddenly began to emerge. There is evidence showing how the wheels were placed in motion here.

The Victims of Communism group, a vitriolic right-wing think tank in Washington, reported that its donations suddenly surged from $2 million to $12 million in 2018. What was going on? Where did the sudden influx of donations come from? And more importantly: Why? The answer was Washington’s new focus on China. This organization suddenly went from something obscure into an important voice advocating anti-China content on Xinjiang through the scholar Adrian Zenz. Other hawkish think tanks, such as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra, which receivesUS State Department funding, also rose to prominence, publishing allegations of “forced labor.” Again, Xinjiang was the focus, and Western mainstream media followed in tandem. The campaign to demonize Beijing was underway.

The Trump administration then used the Covid-19 pandemic to build on this new consensus, scapegoating China for an alleged cover-up. Utilizing this “atrocity propaganda” and jibes about the “China virus” was designed to whip up paranoia and fear against all things China-related. Every Chinese company, organization, or individual were vehicles for espionage, such as Huawei and the Confucius Institutes. Governments who sought to engage with Beijing favorably were denounced, lobbied, and strong-armed into changing their minds.

This is the art of “manufacturing consent” – the US uses its extensive networks to big up dissidents, coordinate mainstream media, set the agenda, poison civil society by weaponizing human rights activists against the target country by giving them preferential coverage and resources (whilst ignoring atrocities elsewhere), and create a self-sustaining narrative that conforms to its own foreign policy goals.

The US conducted an active and successful sledgehammer operation on Western opinion of China. When Beijing has the temerity to hit back at this propaganda war against it, then, insidiously, as you can see with articles like the Council of Foreign Relations, its own analysts blame Beijing for the geopolitical context they created.

The discourse of “wolf warrior diplomacy” in this light is dishonest, misleading, and unhelpful because it frames China as the perpetrator when it is simply reacting to hostility weaponized against it. Beijing is scorned for being forced to make political responses to hostile moves by the US. For example, by the kidnapping of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Canada in 2018 and forcing China to respond in turn, Beijing is then framed as the aggressor and “commits hostage diplomacy.” Likewise, China’s positions on Taiwan, the South China Sea, Hong Kong, and so on, are not new at all, but America has gaslighted these issues by moving the goalposts on them and seeking to force Beijing’s hand.

In a nutshell, there is scant analysis in the West as to how America’s active and deliberative stoking of geopolitical conflict creates such hostility, or any holding Washington to account for its global propaganda.

However, its cold war against China is very much real. It can only truly be understood in the framework of the rivalry between the two powers and appreciating US foreign policy in the dynamics of its continuing desire for sole power, and not the facade of a righteous and heroic nation having “concerns” about certain issues. Such articles as Kurlantzickin’s ultimately insult the public’s intelligence, who are fed an endless array of lies teaching them to hate and fear China. It’s time to wake up to the truth.