Western Hegemony's Collapse

What’s the end game?! — “After me, the deluge”

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Editor’s Note: What’s the end game?! — I don’t think this is an optional “controlled demolition”. I don’t think that the “elites” have a deliberate strategy of a “great reset” or a “new world order”. I think they are desperately trying to maintain the “old world order” which is indeed slipping out of their hands. They are trying to prolong their agony. They are looking to delay the day of reckoning by one more day. The old guard wants to keep their generation in power till the day after their demise by natural death.

“After me, the deluge” is their motto.

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Authored by Alexandra Bruce via ForbiddenKnowledgeTV.net,

New Zealand tech CEO, Kim Dotcom did the math on the United States’ sovereign debt and he tweeted a thread about it, saying it may the most important thread that he may ever make.

Kim explains that US spending and debt have spiraled out of control and the Government can only raise the money it needs by printing more of it, which means that hyperinflation is guaranteed.

He says this has been going on for decades and there’s no way to fix it and that the US got away with this for so long, because US dollar is the world’s reserve currency.

When the US Government prints trillions, it is thereby robbing Americans and the entire world in what he calls the biggest theft in history.

He says the total US debt is at $90 trillion, which together with $169 trillion in US unfunded liabilities totals $259 trillion, which is $778,000 per US citizen or $2,067,000 per US Taxpayer.

Now, the value of all US assets combined: every piece of land, real estate, all savings, all companies, everything that all citizens, businesses, entities and the state own is worth $193 trillion.

Our total debt, $259 trillion minus our total net worth, $193 trillion equals negative $66 trillion of debt and liabilities after every asset in the US has been sold off.

So even if the US could sell all assets at the current value, which is impossible, it would still be broke.

This is where the ‘Great Reset’ comes in and he asks, “Is it a controlled demolition of the global markets, economies and the world as we know it? A shift into a new dystopian future where the elites are the masters of the slaves without the cosmetics of democracy?”

He notes how the world has changed so much in recent years and how nothing seems to make sense anymore.

He sees the blatant corruption and the obvious gaslighting propaganda media and the erosion of our rights but he doesn’t know where it’s all going and he finishes the thread asking, “What’s the end game?”

As Harrison Smith from the American Journal says, “It’s a pyramid scheme. The people perpetrating the pyramid scheme are in charge of everything…they’re going to sacrifice humanity in order to maintain their system…

“The world economy is being collapsed, the food supply system is being destroyed, the energy that we rely on to maintain civilization is being curtailed and eliminated and we’ll be forced into the Great Reset where we will own nothing.”

Former BlackRock stockpicker, Ed Dowd believes that the entire COVID sham was created as a cover for the financial collapse and that new lockdowns are coming, to try mitigate the inevitable violence and chaos that we can expect to be witnessing in the streets.

We also saw how Dr Mike Yeadon, former Pfizer VP also believes that COVID and the death shot are an elaborate hoax to engineer a collapse of sovereign currencies to bring in the Great Reset and the introduction of programmable central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), for a wholly-controlled population, in which people will not be able to buy food, etc. unless the algorithms permit and the undesirables can basically be starved to death via artificial intelligence.

Kim Dotcom June 5, 2022 Thread

(emphasis ours)
This may be the most important thread I ever make. Big picture stuff about the major global collapse that is coming.
I will try to help you understand why the future is not what we’re hoping for. It’s worse than most can imagine.
Our leaders know.
But what are they planning?
The United States did not have a surplus or a balanced budget since 2001. In the last 50 years the US only had 4 years of profit. In fact all the profit the US had would not be enough to pay for 6 months of the current yearly deficit. So how did the US pay for things?

US spending and debt have spiraled out of control and the Govt can only raise the money it needs by printing it. That causes inflation. It’s like taxing you extra because you pay more for the things you need and all your assets decline in value.
See the US money printing frenzy:

The reason why the US got away with it for so long is because USD is the worlds reserve currency. Nations everywhere hold USD as a secure asset. So when the US Govt prints trillions it’s robbing Americans and the entire world. The biggest theft in history.

The reason why the US got away with it for so long is because USD is the worlds reserve currency. Nations everywhere hold USD as a secure asset. So when the US Govt prints trillions it’s robbing Americans and the entire world. The biggest theft in history. pic.twitter.com/K1UKC7tWf0

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) June 5, 2022

The problem is that this has been going for decades and there’s now no way to fix it. The reality is that the US has been bankrupt for some time and what’s coming is a nightmare: Mass poverty and a new system of control. Let me explain why this isn’t just doom and gloom talk.
Total US debt is at $90 trillion. US unfunded liabilities are at $169 trillion. Combined that’s $778,000 per US citizen or $2,067,000 per US tax payer 
Remember, the only way the US Government can operate now is by printing more money. Which means hyperinflation is inevitable.
The total value of ALL companies listed on the US stock market is $53 trillion. The real value is much lower because the US has been printing trillions to provide interest free loans to investment banks to pump up the stock market. It’s a scam.
Most of the $53 trillion is air.
The value of all US assets combined, every piece of land, real estate, all savings, all companies, everything that all citizens, businesses, entities and the state own is worth $193 trillion.
That number is also full of air just like the US stock market.
US total debt: $90 trillion
US unfunded liabilities: $169 trillion
Total: $259 trillion
Minus all US assets: $193 trillion
Balance: – $66 trillion
That’s $66 trillion of debt and liabilities after every asset in the US has been sold off.
Do you understand?
So even if the US could sell all assets at the current value, which is impossible, it would still be broke.
The US is beyond bankrupt.
This patient is already dead.
This patient is now a zombie.
You probably wonder why are things still going? Why didn’t everything collapse yet.
It’s all perception, denial and dependency.
The perception is that the US has the largest economy and the strongest military in the world. But in reality the US is broke and can’t afford its army.
The denial is that all nations depend on a strong USD or global markets collapse.
The reason why the US zombie keeps going is because the end of the US is the end of western prosperity and an admission that the current system failed as a model for the world. It doesn’t change the reality. The collapse is inevitable and coming.
What are our leaders planning?
You may have heard about the ‘great reset’ or the ‘new world order’. Is it a controlled demolition of the global markets, economies and the world as we know it?
A shift into a new dystopian future where the elites are the masters of the slaves without the cosmetics of democracy?
Without a controlled demolition the world will collapse for all, including the elites. The world has changed so much and nothing seems to make sense anymore, the blatant corruption is out in the open, the obvious propaganda media, the erosion of our rights.
What’s the end game?

Military Affairs

Kudrin Should be Executed by a Firing Squad

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“Ultimately, what is probably required to end the war is a change not in Washington but in Moscow. In all likelihood, given Putin’s deep investment in the war, it will require someone other than him to take steps that would end Russia’s pariah status, economic crisis, and military quagmire. The West should make clear that it is ready to reward a new Russian leader prepared to take such steps even as it keeps up the pressure on the current one.”

This is what Kudrin said. This is way beyond the exercise of democracy in Russia. This is treason at the highest level. Calling for the overthrow of the legitimate president of the country by the 5th column, a Western lackey.

I can predict more trouble ahead for the Anglozionists and an increasingly possible war involving Russia against Israel. The West won’t let it down until the total wipe out by a coalition of Russia-China-Iran-(Turkey?), tacitly supported by India.

The End is Here

When Does China Pull the Rug?

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By Capitalist Exploits

Remember how we just discussed the funding of the profligate US government? Let’s take a look at how bad things are. Here’s the current budget deficit.

The blue is good and the orange is bad. You can see a lot of orange, and after 2008 things have been decidedly “orange.”

Since there is no actual cash in the piggy bank the US government has to borrow it. Meanwhile, debt spirals higher. Total US debt now tops $90 trillion with unfunded liabilities clocking in at $169 trillion.

Folks tend to forget that a government doesn’t produce anything. It merely sucks up resources from the productive and redistributes those resources. The most “productive” governments manage to do this with the least amount of friction or capital stripped from the system, while allocating the resources the most efficiently. And since governments are awful at both of these things, the most “productive” governments are those who do the least, instead leaving it to the private sector to cater to the wants and needs of society.

In any event, the ever-continuous intrusion into citizens’ lives while “providing” for them things such as education, healthcare, pensions, and myriad other things which governments should have no hand in cost money. A lot, especially when the allocation of resources is not governed by the cruel hand of the market. Profligacy abounds in these situations, and so as the debt spirals out of control so does the printing of money.

M1 Money Supply

One reason I have been saying that the probability that a debt reset is in the offing is because the numbers are just too egregious to be managed at this point. Median income per household in the US in 2020 was $67,521. Now consider that when doing simple math by taking US debt and dividing it by citizens we clock in at $778,000 per citizen (not per household). Now, not all citizens are contributing to the pie so to speak. Babies, for example. A more accurate take therefore is dividing this number by the number of US tax-paying citizens. When doing so we clock in at over $2 MILLION per citizen. Do you understand now how hopeless this situation is?

So there are now only two solutions I can think of. One is a hyperinflation of the currency and the other is a debt reset.

This brings up other probabilities. Those in power know that a hyperinflation would likely see them being replaced. History shows us this is true. No, rather they will try to self detonate the system, have an enemy to blame it on (Covid, Russia, etc.) and retain control… or dare I say gain even more control. This is what the entire WEF plan is all about. Right now they’re still using the mask of democracy, but as we’ve seen in the last two years this is merely a mask. Leaders all over the world have been bought and pressured or murdered (Magafuli) when not complying. The corruption is now increasingly brazen and blatant. The energy put into masking it grows weaker each day while the excesses and theft grow more egregious. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. This is the fourth turning. Lucky us, heh?

Something else to consider is that while the Biden administration is sending tens of billions of dollars to thugs in what is arguably THE most corrupt Eastern European country (ostensibly to fight a bad man), they can’t actually afford it. The US military may well be the largest in the world, but as is the case with all militaries it requires funding. Cut off the funding, and no army can or will fight. This is true even if gender confused soyboys in San Francisco champion “taking it to Putin” while placing Ukrainian flags in their bios… right next to their pronouns.

And that means that the acceleration of the collapse of the US government and indeed the European Union (who are just as broke) is being accelerated.

What you choose to own in such a coming storm is going to be critical if I’m even half accurate. At risk of sounding like a prepper, which honestly makes a ton of sense, I continue to believe that energy at its base level is a no-brainer, if only because every single thing that makes our lives more comfortable, more easy is some derivative of fossil fuels. And as mentioned many times here, the supply is just not coming online. Then moving down the chain of needs, naturally food/agriculture and in this space fertilizer is in critical shortage. So that. Precious metals just as a hedge against total collapse in currency markets, though I don’t think we’re there yet.

Military Affairs

Klaus Schwab against Russia

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via Voltaire net

The Chairman of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, organized this year’s Davos meeting to whip up support for Ukraine against Russia. He not only allowed Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk to set up a “Russian War Crimes House,” but he arranged for key speeches to be delivered at the plenary sessions, including one from President Volodymyr Zelensky.

This unconditional support for the Banderites can be explained if one looks into Klaus Schwab’s origin. Contrary to his family legend, he is the son of a Wehrmacht general (photo). The father was decorated not only for his military feats during the two World Wars, but for his actions in the Ottoman Empire/Turkey during the genocide of Christians, mainly Armenians.

In the 70s and 80s, Klaus Schwab was one of the directors at Escher Wyss & Cie (taken over by Sulzer AG) which played an important role in the atomic research program during apartheid in South Africa; contribution that was carried out in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 418.

With the help of then European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Frenchman Raymond Barre (member of the Trilateral Commission), he created a circle of business leaders that became the World Economic Forum. This name change was made with the help of the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), the employers’ branch of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED/CIA). This is why he was registered in 2016 with the Bilderberg Group (an influential body of NATO) as an international civil servant, a status which he has never officially occupied.

A transhumanist and promoter of equitable globalization, he is the author of The Great Reset, a prospective reflection on what civilization could become.

Energy Wars

In War there is No Law

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by John Helmer

A survey of ancient, medieval and modern historians of Europe has so far failed to produce a single example of a war successfully prosecuted on the battlefield when back at staff headquarters the treasurer, banker and auditor were each and all against the army. By contrast, there are many examples of financiers who have been tolerated for playing both sides in war, and who managed to keep their heads and fortunes, even in revolutionary France, the Napoleonic wars, and Adolf Hitler’s Germany.

It is also obvious that the Wall Street bankers and US Treasury officials who have devised the Russian sanctions schemes since 2014, and especially since February 24, don’t aim to attack the Russian oligarchs, bank robbers and grand larcenists who have turned coat and switched sides against the Kremlin. Starting with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, they comprise a long list — Sergei Pugachev, Andrei Borodin, Boris Mints, the Ananiev brothers, Vadim Belyaev, Vladimir Chernukhin, Leonid Lebedev; the list goes on.

The latest to do a runner, fleeing Moscow for his seaside villa on the Ligurian riviera, in Italy, and then residence and citizenship in Israel, is Anatoly Chubais; he was the state treasurer, banker, and auditor all in one for President Boris Yeltsin. He is reported in the Moscow press to be currently under prosecutors’ investigation of offshore bank accounts with stolen state funds suspected of amounting to billions of dollars. Ahead of Chubais’s departure, Moscow reporters have uncovered details of property title transfers for his $3 million Moscow apartment and his $50 million country estate at Odintsovo, outside the city. These have been papered in the names of nominees associated with a steel and pipemaking oligarch in Chelyabinsk. For more details of how Chubais arranged the acquisition of property through a Swiss company cut-out, which then faced court claims for disputed money from Boris Mints and his family, read this. For Chubais’s financial tie to the pipemakers of the Urals, read this.

Chubais is not sanctioned by the US, nor is his protégé, the former finance minister, opponent of defence spending, US candidate for prime minister, and currently the state auditor, Alexei Kudrin.

Read more: http://johnhelmer.net/

Kudrin’s successor as finance minister, still in the job since 2011, is Anton Siluanov; he is under US sanctions, and so are the heads of the state banks, German Gref of Sberbank, Andrei Kostin of VTB, Andrei Akimov of Gazprombank; and Igor Shuvalov of VEB.

Except for his two years of conscription in the Soviet Army in 1985-87, Siluanov has been a finance ministry official since he graduated from the state finance academy at the age of 22. He worked his way up the ranks under ministers Yegor Gaidar, Boris Fyodorov, Alexander Livshits and Chubais – all advocates of the free market reorganization of the Russian economy and unrestricted capital outflow.

In US bureaucratic terminology, Siluanov is more US Office of Management and Budget than US Treasury. He was deputy head of the budget department of the ministry between 1992 and 1997, when he supervised the dismantling of the Russian social welfare and defence budgets required by the IMF’s borrowing terms; delayed payment of pensions and public sector salaries to paper over the revenue shortfall; and dollarized Russian public finance in place of the ruble. In 1998, when the commercial banks were unable to meet their foreign exchange wagers and the Central Bank declared a default on repayment of ministry bonds to service foreign loans, Siluanov was the ministry’s overseer of banking and macro-economic policy; he reported to Kudrin who was first deputy minister at the time. Their roles in the 1998 default and the simultaneous disappearance of several billion dollars in IMF money, have never been disclosed.

In 2011, when Kudrin was attempting to cut the defence budget and publicly trying to replace then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, he was dismissed and Siluanov replaced him.

Since the military operation commenced on February 24, Siluanov has made few public statements. In one he corrected his record, as well as Kudrin’s, during the 1998 default crisis, and declared the suspension of his own budget balancing rule. “There are huge funds [in the state budget] for pension provision – 600 billion [rubles] this year, one trillion next year, and the same amounts in the future. Money for the special operation — huge resources are also needed. Citizens also need money to support the economy, the total amount of the so-called budget stimulus that we have launched into the economy is 8 trillion rubles. Huge funds. We need these resources to support the economy, to support our citizens.”

Siluanov has also assured foreign bond holders that Russia will remain a “reliable borrower” and continue servicing its foreign state debt without defaulting. His method, he told the Moscow business newspaper Vedomosti this week, is to bypass the US Treasury’s ban on repayment in either the frozen reserve dollars or in unfrozen reserve funds, by invoking the bond contract provision to allow the Russian treasury to pay in any currency other than the US dollar in the event of “a court decision, an order of a court of any jurisdiction or any other decision”. In order to collect their bond coupon payments, Siluanov said, creditors will be able to do so through opening special state bank accounts in rubles.

The heading in the May 29 report of Siluanov’s interview with Vedomosti reads: “Russia will use the scheme of payments for gas in rubles for settlements on the national debt -- Investors will have to open accounts in Russian banks and give instructions for the purchase of currency” – source: https://www.vedomosti.ru/

The domestic critics of Siluanov fault him for this technical approach in wartime, and for his career commitment to following orders, the domestic and foreign ones. “He’s the purser of the Titanic totting up the crew wage bill as his ship goes down,” comments a politician active in the Donbass. “He has no image of the future, so all he can do is to plan for the past. He cares about the image of Russia the reliable borrower which he’s spent thirty years administering as an apparatchik. He believes this is important in the world, because he has no other vision of the financial world other than the US and IMF-dominated global order.”

“By reliable borrower, Siluanov means not only and not so much the Russian Federation as he means himself. There are a lot of people in Moscow, not only Siluanov, who still can’t realize there is now no old world left. The old ‘rules based order’ is being used to destroy Russia. Siluanov is trying the impossible – to defend with the weapons of the other side. The sorry thing is that Siluanov has no conception of the future. He is waiting for Biden to lose, and for the Republicans to come to power when sanctions will begin to be lifted and everything will be the same again.”

There is no US sanction for Elvira Nabiullina, head of the Central Bank. In April the Canadian government had placed her on their sanction list; the Australian government had done the same a few days earlier. The New York Times then followed with a ringing endorsement of Nabiullina by a string of international banking officials and academics, all of them hostile to Russia and in favour of removing Putin. She was reported by the newspaper to be “an important beacon of stability for Russia’s financial system”, “the very model of a modern central banker”, “never been suspected of any corruption”, “personable, focused, always well-prepared, an advocate of market forces (despite her Soviet-era economics education)”, and finally “she is actually doing something that she didn’t sign up for.”

Left to right: Anton Siluanov, state treasurer; Alexei Kudrin, state auditor; Elvira Nabiullina, state banker.

The Financial Times, which now reports on Russia from Riga, Latvia, has never published an interview with Siluanov, nor a direct comment by him; it hasn’t mentioned Kudrin since 2019. Nabiullina continues to take the newspaper’s direct calls and was last reported in print on April 29.

On April 13, just days after the New York Times promotion, the Wall Street Journalpublished a feature on Nabiullina. “I did reach out for an interview with Nabiullina,” said Alexander Osipovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter in New York who has also published in the Moscow Times. “I was told that her schedule is very busy right now and they did not have time to have me sit down with her. I have spoken to a lot of different economists, people who are both inside Russia and out of it, people who have known Nabiullina over the years, and tried to assemble this portrait of her. Of course, the biggest thing is when you can’t get a direct interview is you don’t really know what people think and what’s driving them. And one of the questions that I have that I tried to address, but I don’t think I could fully address was what does she think about the war? What is her take on the invasion, all these awful things that are happening? Does she see herself as abetting it? Does she see her own role in it? I can ask these questions. I can speculate about it, but I don’t really know.”

“ I do think that a lot of people who are from her, sort of her set, her educated kind of Moscow background, economists, academics, people like that, many of them are horrified by the war and very much against it. Those who have gotten out of Russia are open about this. Those who have stayed in Russia generally have kept quiet about it because if you speak up about it nowadays you’ll get arrested…There were a lot of rumours shortly after the war started that she wanted to leave and had submitted her resignation. We were able to confirm that she had tried to resign, but under not fully clear circumstances it seems to have been denied.”

“Clearly, Putin wants to have her around. He seems to believe that she is an effective crisis fighter. She’s good at keeping down inflation. She is a good manager of the economy. And he wants to have her around for longer. I think that basically if she were to leave and some new unknown person were to come into place, that could be another cause of Russian economic instability, which is probably the last thing that Putin wants right now. [Question: What tools does she have to work with given that this economic crisis is caused by factors related to the war, like sanctions?] Her tools are limited. There are only so many things that the Central Bank can do in a situation like this. Russia is facing very big problems, and it will be beyond her power to fix them. But she is definitely going to be part of the team of people trying to fix them… I think that she has sort of cast her lot with Putin for now. She will be there for the foreseeable future, and she has her work cut out for her because Russia’s facing an economic crisis. She is going to be a big part of the efforts to deal with that, but it’s going to be tough.”

The Moscow Times, a Dutch Foreign Ministry-sponsored publication, has published a sharp attack on Nabiullina for remaining loyal. The writer, Anders Aslund, was a protégé of Chubais and for many years on the payroll of Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch. Aslund is currently living in Washington where he is associated with a foundation financed by the US and UK governments, George Soros, and state sources in Kiev.

According to Aslund, “the high interest rates [Nabiullina] has set have not been responsible for relatively low inflation — the major currency crises played a significant role in that — and the Russian population has suffered from her extreme austerity policies. For some reason Western economists who condemn Germany’s comparatively mild austerity policy praise Russia’s far more severe policy.”

“At Putin’s behest, Nabiullina built up Russia’s international currency reserves to $640 billion, while the Russian people have suffered from her extreme austerity policies. It is clear now that this was not a sensible economic policy but preparation for war.”

“Putin’s war in Ukraine has finally shaved off the halo from Nabiullina. By building up the large currency reserves, she effectively allowed Putin to start the war. She did not understand that the reserves could be frozen by the West, although it had done so to several other countries, such as Iran and Libya. When the Western sanctions hit on Feb. 28, she lost her nerve and doubled the Russian interest rate to 20 percent, aggravating the financial panic. She closed down all financial markets for one month. When they opened partially, they were heavily regulated. She has also ended the convertibility of the ruble.”

“Instead of securing macroeconomic stability, she has participated in Putin’s return of the Russian economy to Soviet times and destroyed the CBR. It is widely rumoured that she wants to resign, but that Putin has not accepted her resignation. It might be better for all if he did.”

Western Hegemony's Collapse

How Russia Can (And Will?) De-NATO-size Europe

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via Moon of Alabama

In a video published yesterday Gonzalo Lire, currently under house arrest in Karkov, is asking a very interesting question:

What Happens To Europe When Russia Wins? (vid)

Lira states, and I agree with him, that Russia will win the war in the Ukraine, take the south and east to likely create a new country and leave the rest of the cadaver for Poland, Hungary, Romania, Lithuania and others to feast on.

But then what?

The U.S. controlled NATO will still be there. It is practically guaranteed that the U.S. will use it to push for revenge for the loss of Ukraine. This will be done by a steady buildup of troops and long range missile capabilities along Russia’s Nordic and Baltic borders and additional naval threats in the northern Arctic as well as the southern Black Sea. Some ten years from now the U.S. would be able to again try to wage a big (proxy) war against Russia. Then with a decent chance to win.

No negotiations or peace agreements will prevent that. The U.S. is famously non-agreement-capable (недоговороспособны). It has broken ALL promises and agreements it has ever made with Russia.

Dozens of U.S. and European luminaries had promised to Russia that NATO would expand ‘not one inch’ towards Russia. Look where its borders are now. The U.S. and the EU have confiscated huge amounts of Russian state owned money. They have even taken, in contradiction to their own constitutions, the properties of private Russian citizens just because those persons happen to be Russian.

In 2014 Germany and France signed on to guarantee elections for a peaceful regime change in Kiev. A day later the fascists stormed the Ukrainian parliament and those guarantees turned out to be totally worthless. The U.S. simply said fuck the EU. It does not give shit about European interests. Germany and France later negotiated and signed the Minsk-1 and Minsk-2 agreements. They continued to feed billions of EU money into Ukraine even as the Ukrainian government, controlled by the U.S., did nothing to fulfill them. Yes, they were that stupid.

The U.S. has installed ‘missile defense’ systems in Poland and Romania which are in fact designed to lob Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM) onto Moscow. These are a serious danger to Russia.

Even after Ukraine is finished, NATO and its EU proxies will continue to be a danger to Russia. Both have proven to be unable to keep promises. Russia in consequence will have to rearrange them.

Russia could do that by force. But there will be no march towards Riga, Warsaw, Berlin or Paris. (Remember that Russia has been there and done that which every time has led to major changes in Europe.)

Russia has announced its strategic aims. In December 2021 Russia set forth two agreements which the U.S. and NATO. They included demands for a future arrangement in Europe that would guarantee indivisible security for all. On January 21 2022 the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was to meet Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Geneva to talk about Russia’s proposals. Just minutes before that meeting the Foreign Ministry of Russia held a news conference to answer media questions:

Question: What will Russia’s demand that NATO return to the 1997 framework mean for Bulgaria and Romania? Will they have to leave NATO, remove US bases from their territory, or something else?Answer: You mentioned one of the cornerstones of Russia’s initiatives. It was deliberately set forth with utmost clarity to avoid any ambiguity. We are talking about the withdrawal of foreign forces, equipment, and weapons, as well as taking other steps to return to the set-up we had in 1997 in non-NATO countries. This includes Bulgaria and Romania.

Reuters reported:

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The security guarantees that Russia seeks from the West include provisions requiring NATO forces to leave Romania and Bulgaria, the Russian foreign ministry said on Friday.Moscow has demanded legally binding guarantees from NATO that the bloc will stop its expansion and return to its 1997 borders.

Replying to a question about what that would mean for Bulgaria and Romania, which joined NATO after 1997, the ministry said Russia wanted all foreign troops, weapons and other military hardware withdrawn from those countries.

After more than 20 years of watching Lavrov and Putin everyone should know that they do not publicly set out aims if they have no way to achieve them. They always have well thought out plans before announcing their goals.

So how can Russia actually achieve a retreat of NATO back to its 1997 borders?

Sanctions. The U.S. has used its economic and military powers to sanction this or that country that did not do as it was told to do by Washington. Unless enacted by the UN Security Council such sanctions have no basis in international law. Despite that the U.S. even used secondary sanctions. It threatened sanctions against Europe, and everyone else, as it ordered them to not deal with Iran or Venezuela.

Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod – 22:45 UTC · Jun 5, 2022The US is thinking about “allowing” Europe and Venezuela to trade together. Think about what this story tells us about global power relations and who is in charge.

Bloomberg @business – 12:13 UTC · Jun 5, 2022The US could allow Eni and Repsol to ship Venezuelan oil to Europe as soon as July to make up for Russian crude, Reuters reported trib.al/fQ10QlX

Russia can do similar. But as it always follows international law, it will have to do it in a slightly different way.

Russia is a superpower in that it produces all kinds of raw materials the world, and especially the ‘west’, needs. Europe, and especially Germany, is depending on natural gas and oil from Russia. Energy prices in Germany will at least triple if it is completely cut off from Russian supplies.

German industry leader have loudly announced that they will have to close shop if the current European policies of restricting Russian energy supplies continues. The chemical giants BASF and Bayer will have to move to some other country. Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW will have to stop all production in Europe. Steel production would fall to zero. Lack of fertilizer would lead to dependency on foreign agriculture.

Mass unemployment would follow. Millions will be in the street to protest against rolling blackouts, freezing apartments and hyperinflation.

Russia can achieve this at any time. It simply has to stop supplying gas and oil to Europe.

Despite six European ‘sanction packages’ against Russia there has yet to be a reciprocal response from Russia. It may still hope that European leaders will recognized the deadly game the U.S. is playing with them.

matador-s.jpg

Unfortunately the leaders of Europe are dumb and compromised. The ‘olive green’ German Minister for Economic Destruction Robert Habeck still dreams of bringing Russia’s economy to its knees even as the ruble rises and Germany’s economy is falling apart. Chancellor Olaf Scholz was never the brightest bulb in the room. He is deeply compromised through his involvement in the Wireguard scandal. He was the Minister of Finance when reports of the company’s billion dollar fraud were suppressed by his ministry. And don’t get me going about Ursula van der Leyen who has been proven to be corrupt and incompetent ever since she took her first public office. U.S. secret services will know of many other crimes these people have been involved in.

The current ideological leaders of Europe will have to be replaced by clean ones who follow the German tradition of Realpolitik:

Realpolitik (German: [ʁeˈaːlpoliˌtiːk]; from German real ‘realistic, practical, actual’, and Politik ‘politics’), refers to enacting or engaging in diplomatic or political policies based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than strictly binding itself to explicit ideological notions or moral and ethical premises. In this respect, it shares aspects of its philosophical approach with those of realism and pragmatism. It is often simply referred to as “pragmatism” in politics, e.g. “pursuing pragmatic policies” or “realistic policies”.

Only with new and decent leaders will Europe come to its senses.

Russia can help to achieve that while at the same time solving its NATO problem.

It can publicly declare that:

THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER RUSSIAN SUPPLIES OF ANY KIND TO EUROPE UNTIL IT BREAKS WITH WASHINGTON.

What would follow?

Millions of discussions under candlelight would be held in freezing and hungry European households. Political opinions would change. Governments would be replaced with more pragmatic ones.

France and Germany would either have to leave NATO or become impoverished and irrelevant. U.S. troops on European grounds would be asked to leave or be attacked and thrown out by an enraged public. Germany would prohibit the U.S. military from using its airspace. The U.S would lose its grip over the continent.

That can’t happen? Well, Gonzalo Lira disagrees and so do I. In early February, before the Russian intervention in Ukraine, I had warned of the consequences of current ‘western’ policies:

The U.S. strategy to ‘fix’ Russia in Europe by imposing ‘crushing sanctions’ on it to then attack China is failing. That is because it was completely misconceived.Russia is the most autarkic country in the world. It produces nearly everything it needs and has highly desirable products that are in global demand and are especially needed in Europe. Russia also has huge financial reserves. A sanctions strategy against Russia can not work.

The consequences for Europe were obvious:

The U.S. and its proxies in the EU and elsewhere have put up very harsh sanctions on Russia to damage its economy.The final intent of this economic war is regime change in Russia.

The likely consequence will be regime change in many other countries.
…
All energy consumption in the U.S. and EU will now come at a premium price. This will push the EU and the U.S. into a recession. As Russia will increase the prices for exports of goods in which it has market power – gas, oil, wheat, potassium, titanium, aluminum, palladium, neon etc – the rise in inflation all around the world will become significant.
…
[Russia and China] have spent more brain time on the issue than the U.S. has.

The Europeans should have acknowledged that instead of helping the U.S. to keep up its self-image of a unipolar power.

It will take some time for the new economic realities to settle in. They will likely change the current view of Europe’s real strategic interests.

Europe is fortunate in that Russia, even before re-entering the Ukraine, has offered a very decent alternative to U.S. hegemony in Europe:

A man who has Putin’s ear, Professor Sergey Karaganov who is the honorary chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, has written an op-ed that points to an alternative.

The piece was requested by and supposed to be published in the Financial Times, which means that it is directed at the European leadership. But the FT has now rejected it for unstated reasons. It was then published in the Russia in Global Affairs journal and has now been re-published by RT.
…
[Karaganov] states:

The security system in Europe, built largely by the West after the 1990s, without a peace treaty having been signed after the end of the previous Cold War, is dangerously unsustainable.There are a few ways to solve the narrow Ukrainian problem, such as its return to permanent neutrality, or legal guarantees from several key NATO countries not to ever vote for further expansion of the bloc. Diplomats, I assume, have a few others up their sleeves. We do not want to humiliate Brussels by insisting on repudiating its erroneous plea for the open-ended expansion of NATO. We all know the end of the Versailles humiliation. And, of course, the implementation of the Minsk agreements.

But the task is wider: to build a viable system on the ruins of the present. And without resorting to arms, of course. Probably in the wider Greater Eurasian framework. Russia needs a safe and friendly Western flank in the competition of the future. Europe without Russia or even against it has been rapidly losing its international clout. That was predicted by many people in the 1990s, when Russia offered to integrate with, not in, the continent’s systems. We are too big and proud to be absorbed. Our pitch was rejected then, but there is always a chance it won’t be this time.

That last paragraph is the gist of Russia’s real strategic aims. They require to destroy the current system of U.S. hegemony over Europe. Europe will have to be de-NATO-sized. Regime changes in European countries will probably be necessary to see to that.

Russia’s leaders now have a once in a century chance to achieve those aims. They will be condemned by their compatriots if the refrain from doing so. The U.S. has no way to prevent or counter a Russian sales boycott and its consequences.

When will European politicians, or those behind them, finally wake up to those facts?

Update (11:45 UTC):

A soundbite from a press conference Lavrov is currently holding:

Russian Embassy, UK @RussianEmbassy – 11:41 UTC · Jun 6, 2022FM #Lavrov: To all appearances, no one is going to even reform #NATO. They are going to turn this “defensive alliance” into a global alliance claiming global military dominance. This is a dangerous path that is definitely doomed to failure.

Saving Ukrainians from Themselves

The Secret Ukrainian Military Programs

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by Thierry Meyssan

In 2016, the United States committed to arming Ukraine to fight and win a war against Russia. Subsequently, the US Department of Defense organized a biological research program in Ukraine, and then huge amounts of nuclear fuel were secretly transferred to the country. These data change the interpretation of this war: it was not wanted and prepared by Moscow, but by Washington.
 
On March 4, 2022, during an attack by Ukrainian special forces on the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which the Russian army had been occupying for several days, a projectile set off a fire in an adjacent laboratory. At that moment, the world, unaware of what was at stake in the battle, believed that the fighters had gone mad and were taking the reckless risk of blowing up the plant.

This article is a follow-up to : 
 1. “Russia wants to force the US to respect the UN Charter,” January 4, 2022. 
 2. “Washington pursues RAND plan in Kazakhstan, then Transnistria,” January 11, 2022. 
 3. “Washington refuses to hear Russia and China,” January 18, 2022. 
 4. “Washington and London, deafened“, February 1, 2022. 
 5. “Washington and London try to preserve their domination over Europe“, February 8, 2022. 
 6. “Two interpretations of the Ukrainian affair”, 16 February 2022. 
 7. “Washington sounds the alarm, while its allies withdraw”, 22 February 2022. 
 8. “Russia declares war on the Straussians”, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 5 March 2022. 
 9. “A gang of drug addicts and neo-nazis”, 5 March 2022. 
 10 “Israel stunned by Ukrainian neo-Nazis”, 8 March 2022. 
 11. “Ukraine: the great manipulation“, March 22, 2022. 
 12. “The New World Order being prepared under the pretext of war in Ukraine“, 29 March 2022. 
 13. “The war propaganda changes its shape”, 5 April 2022. 
 14. “The alliance of MI6, the CIA and the Banderites“, 12 April 2022. 
 15. “The end of Western domination“, April 19, 2022. 
 16. “Ukraine: the Second World War never ended“, April 26, 2022. 
 17. “Washington hopes to restore its hyper-power through war in Ukraine” May 3, 2022. 
 18. “Canada and the Banderites“, 10 May 2022. 
 19. “New war brewing for post-defeat against Russia,” May 24, 2022.

Throughout this series of articles, which began a month and a half before the war in Ukraine, I have been developing the idea that the Straussians, the small group of Leo Strauss followers in the US administration, were planning a confrontation against Russia and China. However, in the tenth episode of this series, I related how the Azov regiment became the paramilitary pillar of the Ukrainian Banderists by referring to the visit of Senator John McCain to it in 2016 [1]. However, the latter is not a Straussian, but was advised by Robert Kagan during his presidential election campaign in 2008, a central thinker among the Straussians [2], even though he has always cautiously denied his membership in this sect.

THE PLANNING OF THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA

A video, filmed during John McCain’s visit to Ukraine in 2016, has resurfaced. It shows the senator accompanied by his colleague and friend, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The two Americans are traveling on a Senate mission. But McCain is also the president of the IRI (International Republican Institute), the Republican branch of the NED (National Endowment for Democracy). It is known that the IRI has conducted about 100 seminars for the leaders of Ukrainian political parties classified as right-wing, including for the Banderists. The senators are addressing officers of the Azov regiment, the main Banderist paramilitary formation. This should come as no surprise. John McCain has always maintained that the United States should rely on the enemies of its enemies, whoever they may be. Thus, he has publicly claimed responsibility for his contacts with Daesh against the Syrian Arab Republic [3]

In this video, Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain assure that the United States will give all the weapons necessary for them to succeed in defeating Russia.
This video, I repeat, was recorded six years before the Russian army entered Ukraine. The two senators are investing their interlocutors with a mission. They do not see them as mercenaries who are paid, but as proxies who will fight for the unipolar world to the death.

President Petro Poroshenko hands over his new badge to the SBU.

Shortly afterwards, President Poroshenko, who had attended the meeting in battle dress, changed the badge of his secret service, the SBU. It is now an owl holding a sword directed against Russia with the motto “The wise will rule over the stars”. It is clear that the Ukrainian state apparatus was preparing for war against Russia on behalf of the United States.
Three years later, on September 5, 2019, the Rand Corporation organized a meeting in the US House of Representatives to explain its plan: to weaken Russia by forcing it to deploy in Kazakhstan, then in Ukraine and as far as Transnistria [4].
I have explained at length in two previous articles [5] that at the end of the Second World War the United States and the United Kingdom took over many Nazi leaders and Ukrainian Banderists to turn them against the USSR. They mothered these fanatics as soon as the USSR disappeared and used them against Russia. It remained to explore how they armed them.

THE UKRAINIAN MILITARY BIOLOGICAL PROGRAM

Starting in 2014, the Ukrainian state began several secret military programs. The first and most well known is its collaboration with the Pentagon in 30 different laboratories. According to the United States, this program was aimed at destroying the biological weapons that the Soviet Union had manufactured and stored in Ukraine. This is obviously unlikely because it is not clear, 31 years after independence and 8 years after the start of this program, why there would still be any left. On the contrary, according to Russia, the Pentagon had Ukraine subcontract research on weapons prohibited by the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. On the basis of documents seized during its special operation, it asserts in particular that experiments were carried out without their knowledge on mentally ill people at the psychiatric hospital No. 1 (Streletchyé, Kharkov region) and that a tuberculosis agent was manipulated to infect the population of the Slavianoserbsk district (Lugansk People’s Republic). Or that these laboratories were conducting “extremely dangerous experiments aimed at strengthening the pathogenic properties of plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other deadly diseases by using synthetic biology. Another project involves bats as vectors for the transmission of potential biological warfare agents, such as plague, leptospirosis, brucellosis, filoviruses or coronaviruses.

These serious accusations are still not clearly refuted or established. The meeting that Russia convened on this subject at the United Nations Security Council on March 11, 2022 [6] did not produce anything. After denying it, Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland (and wife of Robert Kagan) said at a US Senate hearing on March 8, 2022: “Ukraine has … biological research facilities. We are concerned that Russian troops are trying to take control of them. So we are trying, with the Ukrainians, to make sure that these research materials do not fall into the hands of Russian forces if they get close.” Despite these inconsistencies, the West has rallied behind Washington, accusing Moscow of lying. In their eyes, it is perfectly normal for states to have collections of these diseases in order to study them, their presence should not be interpreted as intended for the manufacture of weapons. Ukrainian laboratories are regularly monitored by the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) [7]. Nevertheless, this interpretation does not allow us to understand Ms. Nuland’s words and does not account for disasters such as, for example, the swine flu epidemic that killed 20 Ukrainian soldiers in January 2016 and forced 200 others to be hospitalized.
The Russian ambassador, Vasily Nebenzia, in particular denounced research on the transmission of dangerous diseases by ectoparasites such as lice and fleas. He recalled that similar experiments had “been conducted in the 1940s by the infamous Unit 731 of the Japanese army, whose members fled to the United States to escape justice. Unit 731 is the Japanese equivalent of Dr. Josef Mengele’s department at Auschwitz.
As if that were not enough, Mr. Nebenzia asked about the transfer of several thousand blood serum samples of patients of Slavic origin from the Ukraine to the Walter Reed Research Institute of the US Army. Research, according to him, selectively targeting specific ethnic groups like the ones Dr. Wouter Basson conducted for apartheid South Africa and Israel during its colonial period against blacks and Arabs (“Coast Project”).
The UN administration denied any knowledge of the program and referred to the confidence-building measures in the treaty. The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was aware of the program but did not know the details. It confirmed in writing to Reuters that it had “strongly recommended to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health and other responsible agencies to destroy high-risk pathogens to prevent any potential leakage” [8]. The Chinese press, meanwhile, reports on experiments to turn insects into cyborgs in order to fertilize or sterilize crops (Operation Insects Allies).

Meeting of experts from the Ministries of Defense and Health of the United States, Poland and Ukraine, organized by the company of Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz in 1996.
Source: Science and Technology Center in Ukraine

These military experiments, whatever they were, were indirectly commissioned by the National Medical Intelligence Center through the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the US company Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP). The latter was founded by Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz, respectively son of President Joe Biden and son-in-law of John Kerry [9]. All the results of this research have been sent to the military biological laboratories at Fort Detrick, which once played a leading role in the US biological weapons program.
As the Chinese representative to the Security Council pointed out, “Any information or leads on military biological activities should be given great attention by the international community… The United States says it is for transparency. If the United States believes that the information is false, it should provide the relevant data and clarification so that the international community can make a decision on the matter.
According to the United Nations, while the United States has provided regular reports on its biological activities under the Biological Weapons Convention, Ukraine has never submitted any [10].
Russia has taken several steps. First, it carefully destroyed the containers of 26 of these Ukrainian laboratories (4 others escaped the Russian army). Second, it invited its CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) allies to monitor any agreements they might have made with the United States. Armenia and Kazakhstan stopped this research. Finally, CSTO members have banned all foreign defense personnel from their laboratories.

The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, revealed at the Davos Forum that Ukraine has huge quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium.

UKRAINE’S MILITARY NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Let’s come to the most problematic part of the story, because it is even more serious. Upon independence, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine inherited much of the Soviet nuclear weapons system. These three new states signed the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 with the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom. The Big Three pledged to secure their borders, while the small three pledged to transfer all their nuclear weapons to Russia and to abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
This memorandum is often referred to by those who want to emphasize the duplicity of Russia, which, after signing it, violated it. This is not true, since the memorandum provides that each of the Big Three will be relieved of its promise of non-intervention in case of “self-defence or in any other manner consistent with the provisions of the United Nations Charter”. Yet, Russia officially recognized the Donbass republics after the Ukrainian state refused to honour its signature of the Minsk Agreements and its army shelled the Donbass for 8 years.
Between 2014 and 2022, Ukraine asked four times for a renegotiation of the Budapest Memorandum. Finally, President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the annual meeting of the Munich Security Conference on February 19, 2022: “I, as president, will do it for the first time. But Ukraine and I are doing it for the last time. I am launching consultations within the framework of the Budapest Memorandum. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has been asked to convene them. If they do not happen again or if their results do not guarantee the security of our country, Ukraine will have the right to think that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and that all the comprehensive decisions of 1994 are being questioned” [11].
Questioning “all the global decisions of 1994” cannot mean anything other than taking back nuclear weapons. Therefore, President Zelensky’s position can be summarized as follows: let us suppress the Donbass separatists or we will restore our military nuclear program. It should be noted that the main leaders of the Atlantic Alliance were present or represented in the room. Yet none of them protested the announcement of a violation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Commenting on the speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “The only thing [Ukraine] lacks is a uranium enrichment system. But this is a technical issue, and for Ukraine it is not an insoluble problem.”
Russian intelligence services were informed that Ukraine had a nuclear military program. We don’t know how much they knew about that program.

Laurence Norman, the Wall Street Journal’s special envoy to the Davos forum on Iran’s nuclear program, reported Rafael Grossi’s statement on Ukraine’s nuclear program on Twitter, but did not publish an article about it. The information was confirmed by another journalist, this time from the New York Times, also on Twitter

Rafael Grossi of Argentina, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, incidentally said at the Davos Forum on May 25 that Ukraine had stored 30 tons of plutonium and 40 tons of enriched uranium at its Zaporizhia plant and that his agency was wondering what had happened to them.
Moreover, the Zaporizhia plant was one of the targets of the Russian army, which took it over on the second day of its special operation, February 26. A fire was set in an adjacent laboratory during a Russian-Ukrainian clash on March 4. At the time, the irresponsibility of the Russian army was denounced. Obviously, it was something else, as Moscow stated. Russia had started to transfer the fuel and Ukrainian special forces tried to stop them.

Plutonium is sold for $5,000 to $11,000 per gram. 30 tons purchased at cost is worth $150 billion. The price of uranium depends on its degree of enrichment. At less than 5%, it can only be used for civilian purposes and must reach at least 80% for military use. Without knowing the degree of enrichment, the price cannot be evaluated. The seizure by Russia of this undeclared stockpile probably repays all the sanctions imposed on them.
The information we have raises several questions: since when has Ukraine, which had given up all its Soviet-era stocks to Russia, been holding these materials? Where did they come from and who paid for them? Alternatively, what is the enrichment level of the uranium and who enriched it?

To these questions, the Russian press adds another: how reliable is the International Atomic Energy Agency, which kept this information secret until last week?
In view of these elements, it is appropriate to revise the common accusation according to which Russia is responsible for this war.
[1] “Israel stunned by Ukrainian neo-Nazis”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 8 March 2022.
[2] “Russia declares war on the Straussians”, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 5 March 2022.
[3] “John McCain, Conductor of the “Arab Spring” and the Caliph”, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 18 August 2014. “John McCain admitted he is regular contact with Islamic State”, Voltaire Network, 20 November 2014.
[4] Overextending and Unbalancing Russia, James Dobbins, Raphael S. Cohen, Nathan Chandler, Bryan Frederick, Edward Geist, Paul DeLuca, Forrest E. Morgan, Howard J. Shatz, Brent Williams, Rand Corporation, April 2019. Voir aussi les détails du plan dans Extending Russia : Competing from Advantageous Ground, Raphael S. Cohen, Nathan Chandler, Bryan Frederick, Edward Geist, Paul DeLuca, Forrest E. Morgan, Howard J. Shatz & Brent Williams, Rand Corporation, May 25, 2019.
[5] “The alliance of MI6, the CIA and the Banderites” and “Ukraine : the Second World War continues”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 12 and 26 April 2022.
[6] “Security Council, 8991st meeting“, United Nations S/PV.8991, 11 March 2022.
[8] «EXCLUSIVE: WHO says it advised Ukraine to destroy pathogens in health labs to prevent disease spread», Jennifer Rigby & Jonathan Landay, Reuters, March 11, 2022.
[11] “Speech by Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the 58th Munich Security Conference”, by Volodymyr Zelensky, Voltaire Network, 19 February 2022.
Translation 
Roger Lagassé
Energy Wars

India Buying Up Cheap Russian Oil and Selling it to the West at Huge Profits

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by Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation

India is buying up cheap sanctioned Russian oil, refining it, then selling it to the US and EU for huge profits, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The US has reluctantly given India permission to buy Russian oil because India has threatened to ditch their alliance with America and ally with China if the US dares to sanction them.

While Americans and Europeans are being forced to pay record prices for gas as “the cost of standing up for freedom,” the free nation of India is buying oil from Russia for a whopping $35 off a barrel and selling it back to us in a hilarious arbitrage scheme.

From WSJ, “Russian Oil Producers Stay One Step Ahead of Sanctions”:

Europe just targeted Russian crude with its toughest sanctions yet, but shippers and refiners are getting the oil to market by obscuring its origins. Some fuels believed to be partially made from Russian crude landed in New York and New Jersey last month.

The cargoes were brought through the Suez Canal and across the Atlantic from Indian refineries, which have been big buyers of Russian oil, according to shipping records, Refinitiv data and analysis by Helsinki-based think tank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

[…] [India’s] imports have skyrocketed to 800,000 barrels a day since the war began, compared with 30,000 barrels a day previously, according to commodity-markets data company Kpler.

[…] A refinery owned by Indian energy giant Reliance Industries Ltd. bought seven times more Russian crude in May, compared with prewar levels, making up a fifth of its total intake, according to Kpler.

Reliance chartered an oil tanker to carry a cargo of alkylate, a gasoline component, departing from the nearby Sikka port on April 21 without a planned destination. Three days later, it updated its records with a U.S. port and sailed over, discharging its cargo on May 22 in New York.

“What likely happened was Reliance took on a discounted cargo of Russian crude, refined it and then sold the product on the short-term market where it found a U.S. buyer,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. […]

Reliance didn’t respond to a request for comment. Its joint chief financial officer, Srikanth Venkatachari, said in a May 6 briefing that the company has minimized feedstock cost by sourcing “arbitrage barrels.”

Indian refined oil-product exports, beefed up by cheap Russian supplies, have grown sharply since the beginning of the war. Daily shipments to Europe have risen by a third and by 43% to the U.S. on a quarterly basis.

We are truly the suckers of the world.

Full article at InformationLiberation.

Woke Lunacy

Are You in a Panic? Turn off the TV!

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by Memoree Joelle

Be it an epidemic, a ‘foreign adversary’, or apocalyptic climate change, the elites will always find a way to keep us scared

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once famously said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Regardless of how you feel about his New Deal, those words hold timeless truth that I wish more Americans today would take the time to consider.

America was founded by men who risked their lives in the pursuit of liberty for all. Our founding fathers stood up to the power of the Crown when they formed the States, knowing full well the potential repercussions if they failed. They also knew that to be free, you must be fearless. You have to believe liberty is worth fighting for and even dying for. You have to believe that you are a divinely created sovereign being, and that your rights come from God, not the government. If you believe this, as they did, you have the basis to create something truly wonderful. How far we have fallen.

America in 2022 more closely resembles a giant mental asylum inside a circus than a country of the brave and the free. Sometimes I wonder if most of my fellow citizens even believe in freedom anymore, or are they so fearful and shellshocked they’ve forgotten what that word means? I see young people in the prime of their lives walking around Los Angeles wearing three layers of face masks because they heard on TV that will keep them safe. Shoulders always slumped, heads always bent. I see people wearing surgical masks while driving alone, locked in their cars.

We’ve had more than two years, multiple vaccinations, a slew of well-documented early viral treatments, and still it’s not enough. Everything is sanitized, every cashier is behind a plexiglass barrier, and every germ is now seen as a threat. Everyday phrases like “See you later” and “Take care” have been replaced with “Stay safe.” It’s almost like safety is the new American pastime, replacing baseball. Or worse, Safety is the new religion. To quote Nabokov, “The poison was in the wound, and the wound remained ever open.” And that’s exactly what our new fearful citizenry has been subjected to – an enormous national fear-wound, inflicted by our own government, whose taste for power has unleashed a monster. That monster both creates and feeds off of the fear, churning out more and more fresh poison with every news headline.

It doesn’t begin or end with Covid-19, or epidemics in general. Lock yourselves down because monkeypox is coming! Along with West Nile, Zika, and Covid variant numbers 5, 6, and 10,000. Oh, and the world is going to end in ten years due to climate change, just like it was about to end ten years ago, and ten years before that. Better stop driving! (So the world’s elite can fly more private jets and buy yachts, of course). And you should definitely be afraid of (insert foreign country) and ohmygod what if aliens attack?! The barrage never ends. And we’ve been living like this for years and years. It’s difficult not to be affected. If you’re an American reading this and you live in a big city, ask yourself this: When was the last time you felt lighthearted and carefree?

Why would our government and their news media lackeys do this to their own people? Simple. To control us. A fearful populace will go along with almost anything, which we witnessed at the onset of Covid-19 and the countless small businesses that were crushed by the lockdowns. When we are controlled by fear, we are easy to divide and conquer. And they got what they wanted. Neighbors ratted on neighbors, calling the cops over a simple house party (or, in my neighborhood, over a family gathering to grieve together after a funeral). All of it driven by instilled fear, all of it devoid of human empathy.

Americans were already facing nationwide crises that impacted our mental health long before Covid. Just look at how obsessed we are with Hollywood, social media, and the new ‘influencer’ class. We have endless pharmaceuticals for anxiety and depression, and an epidemic of porn addiction. We’re dealing with an opioid crisis, and the delusional idea that one can change their sex or pick one of 78 genders. All of this doesn’t bode well for a healthy, functioning society, but when you add in a hysterical media and a ruling class working together to instill fear, you’ve got a direct path to the total destruction of a nation. I’m afraid that if we don’t collectively, as a nation, gain control over this (manufactured) fear, that’s where we’re headed.

Not only are fearful people easy to control, they aren’t capable of functioning in a normal human way. Humans need to be with other humans, not isolated or communicating through phones and computers. We are highly social creatures designed to take risks, to try new things, learn, create, and explore. We can’t do that if we suspect everyone to be a personal health threat, or if we believe we’re on the cusp of nuclear war, or if we fear food shortages, or that we may not be able to pay for the things we need to live. When we reach this point, we begin to develop mental illnesses, addictions, and neuroses like the ones I described earlier.

A president I happen to think was much wiser than Rooselvelt taught us that, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” It’s worth standing up for our God-given human rights and not giving into fear, which only serves to enslave us. Freedom is still worth fighting for, and it’s not as hard as it may seem. Step one: Turn off the fear porn.

Western Hegemony's Collapse

Kissinger Nails It. for Once

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by Mike Whitney via Unz

Do you know why Henry Kissinger’s speech at the World Economic Forum touched-off such a furor?

Kissinger didn’t criticize the way the war in Ukraine is being conducted or the lack of progress on the ground. No. What Kissinger criticized was the policy itself, that’s what triggered the firestorm. He was throwing a bucket of cold water on the people who concocted this loony policy by telling them to their faces that they “got it wrong.”

And, they did get it wrong, because the policy they are currently pursuing is hurting US allies and US interests. That is the metric we use to determine whether a particular policy is stupid or not and, unfortunately, this passes the “stupid test” with flying colors.

Let me explain: Our basic strategy is to “weaken” and “isolate” Russia by severing Russia’s economic ties with Europe and goading them into a long and costly quagmire in Ukraine. That’s the plan.

Now you might think that it sounds pretty reasonable but– according to Kissinger– it’s the wrong plan.

Why?

Because US National Security Strategy identifies China as America’s number one rival (which it certainly is) so, naturally, any policy that makes China stronger, runs counter to US strategic interests.

Got it? So, the question is: Does our proxy-war in Ukraine make China stronger?

And the answer is: Of course, it does. It makes China alot stronger because it forces Russia to strengthen relations with China.

What does that mean in practical terms?

It means that relations between the world’s manufacturing powerhouse (China) and the world’s second biggest producer of hydrocarbons (Russia) just got a helluva alot better because of Washington’s counterproductive war in Ukraine. That’s what it means. It also means that– as relations between the two countries improve– the pace of US imperial decline is going to accelerate as the non-dollar zone expands and bilateral trade gradually replaces the current US-dominated global trade system.

You can see this happening already. The war in Ukraine has triggered a shocking collapse in global trade, major disruptions in critical supplylines, unprecedented food and energy shortages, and the greatest redivision of the world since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Washington has decided to stake its future and the future of the American people on a senseless geopolitical gambit could turn out to be the greatest strategic catastrophe in US history.

Kissinger grasps the gravity of the situation which is why he decided to put in his two-cents. But he wasn’t just critical of the policy, he also offered an ominous warning that has been almost-entirely ignored by the media. Here’s what he said:

“Negotiations need to begin in the next two months before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome. Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante (…) Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself”.

There it is in black and white, but let’s break it into two parts to get a better sense of what he’s saying:

  1. The policy is wrong
  2. The policy must be changed immediately or the damage to the US and its allies will be severe and permanent. (“Negotiations need to begin in the next two months”)

That might sound too apocalyptic for some, but I think Kissinger is on to something here. After all, look at the massive changes the world has already experienced since the conflict began; the disruptions in supplylines, the food and energy shortages, and the rolling-back of the globalization project. Pretty big changes, I’d say, but they’re probably just be the tip of the iceberg. The real pain is still ahead of us.

What is this winter going to look like when home heating bills go through the roof, industries across Europe succumb to the higher energy costs, unemployment soars to Great Depression levels, and rolling blackouts become a regular feature of life in the west? That’s what the future holds for Europe and America if the policy isn’t reversed and a negotiated settlement quickly reached.

Putin has already stated that Russia will not put itself in a position where it is economically dependent on Europe again. Those days are over. Instead, he is redirecting critical energy flows to China, India and beyond. Europe is no longer a priority customer, in fact, they have emerged as a threat to Russia’s survival, which means, Russia will continue to reorient its production eastward.

How will this impact Europe?

That’s easy. Europe is going to pay more for its energy that any country in the world. That is the choice they made by shrugging off Russia’s legitimate security demands, and that is the outcome they will have to live with.

So, here’s what you need to know:

In 2021, Russia provided 40% of all the natural gas consumed in the EU.

In 2021, Russia provided over 25% of the oil consumed in the EU.

If you think that those quantities of hydrocarbons can be replaced by producers in Nigeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia or some other far-flung location, you are sadly mistaken. Europe is walking headlong into the biggest energy crisis in its history, and it can only blame itself. Here’s more from an article at RT:

“The current energy crisis could be one of the worst and longest in history and European countries could be hit particularly hard, the head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, said on Tuesday. In an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, Birol said that the fallout from the events in Ukraine is likely to make the current energy crisis worse than the crises of the 1970s.

Back then it was all about oil. Now we have an oil crisis, a gas crisis and an electricity crisis at the same time,” Birol told the publication, adding that before the ongoing events in Ukraine, Russia was “a cornerstone of the global energy system: the world’s largest oil exporter, the world’s largest gas exporter, a leading supplier of coal.”

As part of its Ukraine-related sanctions, the EU introduced restrictions on Russian fossil fuels and has pledged to gradually phase them out. Birol warned that countries in Europe that are more dependent on Russian gas are facing a “difficult winter,” as “gas may well have to be rationed,” including in Germany. His comments came as Russia’s state gas supplier Gazprom cut off supplies to some energy firms in Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and other countries, after their failure to pay for the fuel in rubles as per new requirements.” (“Fuel rationing may be coming to Europe – IEA“, RT)

So, I guess, freezing to death in the dark is preferrable to insisting that Ukraine remain neutral and stop killing ethnic Russians in the east? Is that the “principal” that Europe is defending?

If so, it’s a bad choice.

Here’s something to mull over: Did you know that all “oil blends” are not alike?

Why would that matter?

Because Germany currently imports 34% of its oil from Russia. And Russian oil is a fully-proven, high quality Urals blend that is delivered in vast quantities via the Druzhba pipeline to German refineries that have been engineered to meet particular processing requirements. Different oil from different providers would throw a wrench in the whole refinery process. It would require significant “modification of new feedstock lines and infrastructure, an atmospheric distillation facility, a vacuum distillation system, a cat-crack unit, a visbreaking facility, an alkylation unit, a catalytic reformer, an isomerisation unit, and an ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE) facility. Plus brand new storage facilities + handling equipment for Rostock feed to substitute the 24x7x365 smooth Druzhba pipeline.” (“Germany’s Refinery Problem”, The Saker)

So, all oil blends aren’t the same?

Nope, not even close. On top of that, industry experts estimate that the refinery modifications would take roughly 6 years to complete. In the meantime, Germany’s economic growth– which is closely aligned with energy consumption– will dip dramatically, businesses will be shuttered, unemployment will spike, and the EU’s most powerful and productive country will be brought to its knees.

Maybe someone in the German government should have thought about these things before they decided to boycott Russia oil?

The point we’re trying to make is simple: Kissinger is right and the neocon clowns that concocted the failed Ukraine strategy are wrong, dead wrong. And, if we don’t convene “Negotiations… in the next two months”, as Kissinger advices, then the break with Russia will be final and irreversible, at which point, Russia’s voluminous energy resources, mineral wealth and agricultural products will be forever routed eastward to friendlier nations. And that is going to inflict terrible suffering on both the United States and its allies in Europe.

The only reasonable course of action is to call for an immediate ceasefire so that peace talks can begin ASAP.