Pfizer releases its list of vaccine side effects.
Click to access 5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf
US/NATO is in the Grip of a Daemonic Death-Wish & the Entire World is Threatened
by Edward Curtin via Off-Guardian
Not wanting to sound hyperbolic, but I am starting to conclude that the nuclear madmen running the U.S./NATO New Cold War they started decades ago are itching to start a nuclear war with Russia.
Their hypocrisy and nihilistic thirst for death and destruction are so extreme that it boggles my mind. They accuse Russia of starting a New Cold War when they did so decades ago and have been pushing the envelope ever since. Now they act shocked that Russia, after many years of patience, has struck back in Ukraine.
In 2017, Oliver Stone released his four-part interviews with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Putin Interviews were conducted between 2015, the year after the US engineered the coup d’état in Ukraine installing Nazis to power in that country bordering Russia, and 2017.
Stone was of course bashed for daring to respectfully ask questions and receive answers from the Russian leader who the American media has always cast, like all the mythic bogeymen, as the new Hitler intent on conquering the world, when it is the United States, not Russia, that has over 750 military bases throughout the world and has attacked Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria – the list is endless.
In his Putin interviews, Oliver Stone, a man of truth and honor, lets viewers catch a glimpse of the real Vladimir Putin and the matters that concern him as the leader of Russia. In 2018, I wrote of those interviews:
…he [Putin] makes factual points that should ring loud and clear to anyone conversant with facts.
- that the US needs an external enemy (“I know that, I feel that.”).
- the USA engineered the coup d’état in the Ukraine on Russia’s border.
- the US has surrounded Russia with US/NATO troops and bases armed with anti-ballistic missiles that can, as Putin rightly says to Stone, be converted in hours to regular offensive nuclear missile aimed at Russia.
This is a factual and true statement that should make any fair-minded person stand up in horror. If Russia had such missiles encircling the United States from Cuba, Mexico, and Canada, what American would find it tolerable? What would CNN and The New York Times have to say?
Yet these same people readily find it impossible to see the legitimacy in Russia’s position, resorting to name calling and illogical rhetoric. Russia is surrounded with U.S/NATO troops and missiles and yet Russia is the aggressor.
In the years since those interviews, U.S./NATO has consistently tightened the noose around Russia, including fueling the Ukrainian attacks on the Donbass, killing thousands, all the while pleading innocent and expecting no reply. Now the reply has come.
Although I have no inside information, I get the sense that the Western Empire is planning/initiating counter-measures far more extreme than the highly publicized economic sanctions.
While it is true, as many commentators such as Ray McGovern and Pepe Escobar have pointed out, that a paradigm shift is underway and the once dominant US/NATO bully boys must now contend with the Sino-Russian alliance that has ushered in a dramatic change, nevertheless, as in the past decades, the so-called leaders of the US are a dumb bunch driven by unquenchable demons.
As McGovern says:
Yet, there remain unsettling indications coming from Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, Antony Blinken, and Jake Sullivan that senior administration ‘dolts’ (copyright North Korean leader Kim Jong Un) in the Washington Swamp still don’t get it.
I’m afraid they don’t and never will. That is what frightens me. While it seems counterintuitive and totally irrational that these people would be planning to use some type of nuclear weapon in this current situation, I am not so sure.
They obviously pushed Russia to have no alternative but to attack Ukraine, and now that they have accomplished that goal, it seems to me that they will up the ante. Diplomacy is not their way; violence is.
Pepe Escobar has just written:
This is what happens when a bunch of ragged hyenas, jackals and tiny rodents poke The Bear: a new geopolitical order is born at breathtaking speed.
From a dramatic meeting of the Russian Security Council to a UN history lesson delivered by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the subsequent birth of the Baby Twins – the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk – all the way to the breakaway republics’ appeal to Putin to intervene militarily to expel the NATO-backed Ukrainian bombing-and-shelling forces from Donbass, it was a seamless process, executed at warp speed.
The (nuclear) straw that (nearly) broke the Bear’s back – and forced it to pounce – was Comedian/Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky, back from the Russophobia-drenched Munich Security Conference where he was hailed like a Messiah, saying that the 1994 Budapest memorandum should be revised and Ukraine should be nuclear-rearmed.
As usual, his analysis is correct, but it may fail to grasp the unspeakable nature of the madness that drives desperadoes.
If those running US foreign policy feel that a new geo-political order is being born “at breathtaking speed” as a result of Russia’s move into Ukraine, then they are capable of extreme acts. And they have all the mainstream western media behind them, barking out their non-stop propaganda.
We are inexorably moving toward a global war that will become nuclear if an international movement doesn’t quickly arise to stop it. Most people bemoan the thought of such a war to end all wars, but refuse to analyze the factors leading to it.
It seems so unimaginable, but It happens step-by-step, and many steps have already been taken with more coming soon. It’s so obvious that most can’t see it, or don’t want to.
The corporate mainstream media are clearly part of the continuation of the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird, and those who still rely on them for the truth are beyond reach. We need to use all alternative means to raise the alarm and make sure the ultimate nightmare never occurs.
Perhaps hyperbole is the only way to do so, for it may be closer to the truth than we want to believe.
Jewish Subtexts in Ukraine
“If I put on glasses and look at myself like the whole rest of the world, I see myself as a monster, as a puppet master, as the master of Zelensky, someone making apocalyptic plans. I can start making this real.”
Ihor Kolomoisky, New York Times, November 2019.
In 2015, a fascinating study in Japan found that not only will rats “desert a sinking ship” in accordance with the ubiquitous maxim, but also engage in highly altruistic behavior toward trapped rats to help them escape. They assist one another and flee as a group. The study came to mind when I read a piece published by the Moscow Times on February 14, describing the simultaneous departure of “at least 20 chartered flights … from Kyiv on Sunday, more than at any other time in the last six years of flight observations.” The private jets carried the majority of Ukraine’s oligarchs, who were evidently privy to concrete indications of impending war at a time when a full-scale Russian invasion was mooted but far from being a matter of fact. The sole exception seems to be Petro Poroshenko, who has appeared in the streets of the capital clutching a rifle. Since their departure, the fleeing oligarchs have vanished from media discussions of what is happening in Ukraine. This is a curious fact given that the very meaning of the term oligarchy implies that these billionaires were extremely influential in the political direction adopted by their country until very recently. Years of speculation on the political influence and intentions of these oligarchs have now suddenly been replaced with simplistic, dueling visions that border on the nonsensical: one of an innocent democratic Ukraine fighting against Russian imperialism/quasi-Fascism; and the other of a Russian “special military operation” designed to “denazify” Ukraine. In the following essay I don’t want to critique or debunk either of these obviously flawed perspectives, but instead to return some of the focus to the oligarchs, and to two Jewish oligarchs in particular: Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Victor Pinchuk.
De-Nazifying Ukraine?
“We will strive for the demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine, as well as bringing to justice those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians.” Thus said Putin in what amounts to his declaration of war on Ukraine on February 24. This line, perhaps more than any other in his long, historically-weighted address, has absorbed considerable media attention. The majority of this attention has been devoted to smug portrayals of Putin as deranged or hypocritical. How can Ukraine be a ‘Nazi’ country, goes the logic, when it has a Jewish President in Zelenskyy? To the historiographically literate, it’s obvious that, to Putin and many Russians that share his thinking, the Jewishness of this or that politician or oligarch is irrelevant to the alleged ‘Nazi’ threat facing Russia. Our western-centric background dictates that we view National Socialism and World War II primarily as an action against Jews, and therefore the rhetorical positioning of Nazism and Judaism has a singular, jarring effect. Those media commentators smugly pointing to the Jewishness of Zelenskyy are operating within this paradigm. In the Soviet Union, however, World War II/Fascism was more prominently interpreted as a reactionary capitalist, imperialist, anti-Slavic or anti-Russian affair. Although the slow creep of Holocaust memorials and associated education programs has now reached deep into Eastern Europe, World War II is still primarily remembered for its masses of Slavic, not Jewish, dead. The racial element of National Socialist ideology was acknowledged in early ‘Holocaust’ historiography in the East, but wasn’t foregrounded (even in East Germany) in the way we have become totally absorbed by in the West. When Putin therefore claims he is seeking the de-Nazification of Ukraine, he is speaking, with perfect logic, less of political parties with broad racialist or anti-Jewish ideologies than of a more specific imperialist, militaristic, and anti-Russian movement, and specifically to an incident during the Maidan riots in 2014 when Ukrainian nationalists burned down a building in Odessa, killing 31 Russians who opposed the uprising; this incident was featured in Putin’s post-invasion speech, where he vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice. But there can be no doubt that Putin’s main targets are the NATO-leaning, and Western-orientated politicians and those who have supported or ignored violence against Russian-speaking separatists since 2014.
Legitimate or not, Putin’s condemnation of Ukrainian nationalism has unfortunately kicked off the familiar game of ‘You’re the Real Fascists’ in the West. As if we didn’t have enough of “Antifa are the real Fascists” shenanigans muddying our social discourse, in recent days the Western liberal media has engaged in the production of massive numbers of articles reassuring nervous latte liberals that their support Ukraine is perfectly compatible with their woke political sensibilities. In some instances, this has led to some hilarious and extravagant U-turns, most notably in Facebook suddenly reversing its long-held ban on expressing support for Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, a military unit known for its adoption of certain Far Right and National Socialist symbols. The logic, as expressed in The Guardian by the Jewish self-styled expert on Fascism Jason Stanley (see my previous discussion of his work), is that Putin can be identified as the ‘real Nazi’ because he denies the primacy of Jewish suffering. Stanley:
The Russian leader’s pretext for invasion recasts Ukraine’s Jewish president as a Nazi and Russian Christians as true victims of the Holocaust. … The dominant version of antisemitism alive in parts of eastern Europe today is that Jews employ the Holocaust to seize the victimhood narrative from the “real” victims of the Nazis, who are Russian Christians (or other non-Jewish eastern Europeans). Those who embrace Russian Christian nationalist ideology will be especially susceptible to this strain of antisemitism. With this background, we can understand why Putin chose the actions he did, as well as the words he used to justify them. Ukraine has always been the primary target of those who seek to restore “Soviet power in fascist form”. Echoing familiar fascist antisemitic tropes, in a 2021 article, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev denounced Zelenskiy as disgusting, corrupt and faithless. The free democratic election of a Jewish president confirms in the fascist mind that the fascist bogeyman of liberal democracy as a tool for global Jewish domination is real. By claiming that the aim of the invasion is to “denazify” Ukraine, Putin appeals to the myths of contemporary eastern European antisemitism—that a global cabal of Jews were (and are) the real agents of violence against Russian Christians and the real victims of the Nazis were not the Jews, but rather this group. Russian Christians are targets of a conspiracy by a global elite, who, using the vocabulary of liberal democracy and human rights, attack the Christian faith and the Russian nation.
All of which is to say that Prof. Stanley could do with stepping outside and taking some deep, slow breaths of fresh air.
Ihor Kolomoyskyi
If Putin was in fact looking for a mega-rich, influential cabal-operating Ukrainian Jew guilty of perpetrating violence against Russians, he wouldn’t have to look much further than Ihor Kolomoyskyi. It didn’t surprise me when I read a couple of days ago that the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (Russia’s FBI) has initiated more than 400 criminal cases targeting Ukrainian officials, military servicemen, and volunteer fighters, and that Kolomoyskyi was on the list.
Ihor Kolomoyskyi
Russia has been trying to get it hands on Kolomoyskyi since 2014. Kolomoyskyi, who owns Ukraine’s biggest bank, plus airlines, huge stakes of Ukrainian media, and other companies, was accused in July 2014 of founding and funding Dnipro-1 Special Tasks Patrol Police Battalion. The unit was held responsible by Amnesty International in December of the same year for blocking food aid, and attempting to starve the Russian-speaking populations of the separatist “republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk. Operating under the mask of Ukrainian patriotism, Kolomoyskyi, who offered bounties of thousands of dollars for Russian separatists, was in fact trying to stem the separatist movement so that it wouldn’t expand to the heartland of his business interests, his home city of Dnipropetrovsk. Together with fellow Jew Hennadiy Korban, who was later investigated for embezzlement and exiled to Israel, the pair “not only made political capital by saving [Dnipropetrovsk] from war, but used this emergence of Dnipropetrovsk as a ‘pro-Ukrainian’ city to protect [Kolomoyskyi’s] business interests.”
Kolomoyskyi’s Ukrainian “patriotism” and anti-Russian attitudes had already been significantly inflamed by the 2014 seizure of his assets in Crimea by the new Russian authorities. In 2016, RT reported that the authorities would sell the assets in order to compensate residents of Crimea who had been exploited by Kolomoyskyi’s PrivatBank:
Twenty businesses formerly owned by Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky will be sold by the Crimean authorities. The region’s government is seeking to compensate people who lost money in Ukrainian banks, mostly Kolomoisky’s PrivatBank. Crimea’s Deputy Speaker Konstantin Bakharev says the oligarch’s assets will be sold by year-end for 2 billion rubles (about $30 million). “The money will be transferred to the depositor protection fund for compensation payments to residents of the Crimea, whose deposits in the Ukrainian banks exceeded 700,000 rubles ($10,500),” he said.
When then-President Petro Poroshenko nationalized Kolomoyskyi’s PrivatBank (which was also operated by fellow Jew Gennadiy (Zvi Hirsch) Bogolyubov) in 2016, Kolomoyskyi threw his influence behind fellow Jew and popular actor Volodymyr Zelenskyy, now a hero and darling of the Western media. Zelenskyy’s campaign, strangely enough, began with his appearance on Kolomoyskyi’s media channel as the star of the television series Servant of the People, where he played the role of the president of Ukraine. In the series, Zelenskyy’s character was a high-school history teacher in his 30s who won the presidential election after a viral video showed him ranting against government corruption in Ukraine. In retrospect, the show was a masterwork of social engineering and life imitating art. Reuters later reported:
One of Ukraine’s most popular TV channels 1+1, owned by oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, has given Zelenskiy a powerful platform in recent months during his meteoric rise to the brink of the presidency. On Saturday, a day before Zelenskiy won the first round of the presidential contest and set up a run-off with the incumbent Petro Poroshenko, 1+1 filled its schedule with back-to-back shows by the comedian and actor.
There was initially some unease that the whole thing might be too obvious. “There are legitimate reasons to worry about the future of Ukrainian Jewry,” said Vladislav Davidzon, the editor-in-chief of the magazine Odessa Review. “Having a Jewish president, who is also backed by a picaresque Jewish oligarch might cause any failings to be directed at the Jewish community.” He needn’t have worried. Zelenskyy sky-rocketed to prominence, and one of his earliest measures was to nominate fellow Jew Volodymyr Groysman as Prime Minister and target Poroshenko, setting in motion a sequence of events that would result in the reversal of the nationalization of PrivatBank and the return of the bank to Kolomoyskyi. Although posturing as an anti-corruption populist, Zelenskyy’s links to Kolomoyskyi have continued to dog him, and in October 2021 it was revealed via the Pandora Papers that Zelenskyy, who constantly denied that he was a “puppet” of the Jewish oligarch, and his associates had received $40 million into offshore accounts from funds linked to Kolomoyskyi.
Kolomoyskyi and his creation
Most of this money has been bled from the Ukrainian people. Kolomoyskyi, who acted as President of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, generously shared his wealth with Jews worldwide, and founded the European Jewish Union with Vadim Rabinovich, has been investigated for years by both the FBI and America’s Justice Department, in particular for pursuing a “vast scheme to steal millions of dollars from Ukraine’s largest bank and move the money into the U.S. to buy steel mills and skyscrapers.” In a special investigation, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported last week that Kolomoyskyi’s efforts to launder stolen Ukrainian money in the United States, via his Jewish associates in South Florida Mordechai “Motti” Korf and Uriel Laber, left a wake of economic devastation:
One of the richest men in Ukraine, the 59-year-old oligarch is accused of setting up shell companies, cleaning the money through U.S. properties and ultimately leaving a trail of boarded-up buildings, failed steel facilities, and millions in unpaid property taxes, court records show. While money was transferred into the country for one of the oligarch’s companies, his operators shut down Warren Steel in Ohio in 2016, owing millions in property taxes, utility bills and supplies. For weeks, workers were left without medical coverage because the insurance premium wasn’t paid, records and interviews show. “A lot of people left here very angry,” said Nancy Waselich, a former IT manager for the factory. “People bled for this place.” Though no one so far has been criminally charged, prosecutors have filed legal actions to seize properties that they allege were bought with money stolen from the Ukraine bank, where Mr. Kolomoisky was a major shareholder.
Fedin Shandor, a professor at Uzhgorod University and adviser to the government on tourist development, has described Kolomoyskyi as “a leech who sucks our blood here and puts it in Switzerland.” This “leech” has also made a game for years of poking Vladimir Putin, stating publicly in 2014 that Putin was “a schizophrenic shorty. He is completely inadequate. He has completely lost his mind. His messianic drive to recreate the Russian empire of 1913 or the USSR of 1991 could plunge the world into catastrophe.”
Victor Pinchuk
Less outwardly ebullient than Kolomoyskyi is Victor Pinchuk, founder of both the pro-NATO Victor Pinchuk Foundation and the pro-EU Yalta European Strategy(the lobby group behind all those prominent polls showing massive Ukrainian support for NATO membership and a general tilt to the West). Pinchuk has been highly influential in driving Ukraine in a pro-NATO direction, including his funding of a free concert in 2008 headlined by Paul McCartney that was “shown on giant screens in five cities across the country” and designed to soothe growing splits between West and East Ukraine over Ukraine’s application that year to begin a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP). Pinchuk’s vision of Ukraine is less explicitly orientated for the protection of business interests, and more towards turning Ukraine into a clone of Western liberal democracies. As well as funding Steven Spielberg to produce a feature-length Ukrainian Holocaust film, Pinchuk describes himself as active in “human rights projects with George Soros.” In 2015, Pinchuk began the drive to further liberalize attitudes to homosexuals, and integrate Ukraine into “GloboHomo,” by inviting Elton John to speak at Yalta European Strategy. The speech was in many respects a typical example of neoliberal propaganda. John remarked:
What has [homosexuality] to do with a conference about the future of politics, security and the economy of the Ukraine? Because critical moments also exist in the lives of societies and nations. The choice of freedom over repression; democracy over totalitarianism; acceptance over hatred. Today there are more critical choices. … I suggest to you that your stance on human rights will also be a defining characteristic of the new Ukraine, and that there is no clearer touchstone on the issue of human rights than the respect and dignity afforded your LGBT citizens. … Being tolerant and inclusive is not only the morally right thing to do, for the new Ukraine; it is the smart thing to do. Basic fairness is an investment in human capital, and human capital is what drives business. … I suggest to you that accepting people regardless of age, race, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation is today the measure of an open, tolerant, and democratic society. I ask you to begin this dialogue. … The people in this room are among the most powerful in the Ukraine, and in some cases the most powerful anywhere in the world. You have the power to help bring about this new era.
Russia sanctioned Pinchuk in 2018, as part of a broader approach to anti-Russian figures in Ukraine. Especially noteworthy is Pinchuk’s involvement with the Atlantic Council. A report in The Intercept points out that
The Atlantic Council has also launched “UkraineAlert” which publishes daily pieces on deterring Russia. A recent article, “Survey: Western public backs stronger support for Ukraine against Russia,” notes the survey in question was commissioned by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and Yalta European Strategy, which Pinchuk founded; however, the article does not mention that the foundation is a large contributor to the Atlantic Council, donating $250,000–499,000 a year, or that Pinchuk himself — the second wealthiest man in Ukraine — sits on the international advisory board of the Atlantic Council.
Victor Pinchuk receives an award from Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich
De-Oligarchisation
In a 2017 article, EuroMaidanPress made it clear that “The most important goal for oligarchs is money and not Ukraine’s national interests. … The sooner Ukraine pursues a long overdue policy of de-oligarchisation the better — although this will be impossible as long as Ukraine is led by an oligarch.” It’s clear that at least two of the oligarchs sucking on the blood of Ukraine have led them on a collision course with Putin’s Russia.
All of this, of course, is not to say that Putin’s Russia is much, or any, better. I still find it stunning that, when informed of Kolomoyskyi’s comment that he was a “schizophrenic shorty,” Putin didn’t reply that he was a crook for stealing from Ukrainians, Crimeans, or Russians, but that he was a crook who had “scammed Russian [Jewish] oligarch Roman Abramovich for billions of dollars.” In other words, much of what we are seeing here is not just grand geopolitics and clashing nationalisms, but a subtext of oligarchic feuds. In many respects, what we are seeing play out is a kind of perverse morbid rehash of the Middle Ages, when one king, funded and supported by “his Jews,” would wage war on another funded by his own group of Jews. The end result is normally richer Jews and a lot of European dead.
It’s increasingly clear that Putin’s Jewish oligarchs are unhappy with having to bear the brunt of Western sanctions. The Times of Israel reported that two of the three Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the UK on February 22 were Jewish (and related) — Igor and Boris Rotenberg. Boris Rotenberg is co-owner of SGM Group, Russia’s largest construction and infrastructure company. Igor Rotenberg dominates in drilling, infrastructure and real estate. The international Jewish community is also becoming increasingly active in trying to protect sanctioned oligarchs on both sides — primarily because oligarchs are often extremely generous to Jews, in effect facilitating the transfer of large volumes of money (often illegal and laundered) from gentiles to Jews. Anything that weakens the oligarchs will, in the longer term, weaken the Jews as a whole. A report in Haaretz on February 27 comments:
Several billionaire Jewish philanthropists are the focus of concerned attention from Israeli and Jewish organizations who have benefited from their largesse. Topping that list is Roman Abramovich, the dual Russian-Israeli citizen who made a fortune through the privatization of Russia’s oil companies and is now reportedly the second-wealthiest man in Israel. Representatives of several Israeli organizations and institutions, including the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem, Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer and Tel Aviv University, sent a letter asking U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides to refrain from sanctioning Abramovich for “his contribution to the Jewish people.” The letter earlier this month reportedly included the signature of Israel’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi, David Lau, asserting that sanctioning Abramovich — who, in addition to his philanthropic donations, has business investments in Israel — would harm Jewish causes.
The United States, for its part, hasn’t been moved by these appeals, and in fact “sent Israel messages warning Jerusalem to make sure that Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the international community can’t hide their money in Israeli banks.” The article continues:
Another group of Russian billionaires — some of whom hold Israeli citizenship — who donate generously to Jewish and Israeli causes have already been hit by sanctions put in place against Russian banks. Mikhail Fridman, a co-founder and trustee of the Genesis Philanthropy Group and the Russian Jewish Congress, is the co-founder of Alfa Bank, which is the largest private bank in Russia, and he continues to sit on its board. Forbes listed him as the 11th richest man in Russia in 2020. … The Genesis Philanthropy Group gives to a long list of causes in Israel and across the Jewish world, including Yad Vashem, the Birthright-Taglit organization that provides free, 10-day trips to Israel for Diaspora Jews, Hillel international and Friends of the IDF.
Conclusion
Can Putin be reined in by ‘his’ Jewish oligarchs if they start to feel a financial pinch? This remains to be seen, but early indications are that they certainly don’t fear him. Haaretz reported on February 28 that “Jewish billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Oleg Deripaska have become the first Russian oligarchs to publicly express unhappiness with President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.” I think this is extremely telling.
Eight years ago I wrote an essay on “Nationalists, Jews, and the Ukrainian Crisis,” during which I expressed some sympathy with historically-rooted Ukrainian nationalism but also accepted that the origins of the nation are contested and extremely complex. I think it is difficult, if not impossible, for “Westerners” to form valid opinions on the moral merits of each cause, since both (Ukrainian nationalist and Russian separatist) bear some validity — this is the harsh reality of multiethnic states where the population is divided on self-assertion and self-determination. Such a situation is only made all the more complex by the presence of yet another ethnic group that is extremely influential and may seek its own interests to the detriment of the peace and well-being of others. As such, while the Jews discussed here may not have “caused” or “orchestrated” the war in Ukraine, they clearly form an important, but completely ignored, subtext to it. I’m therefore neither in the pro-Ukraine or pro-Putin camp. I am, however, very firmly in favor of ending any conflict in which innocent Europeans are dying needlessly, and of a thorough “de-oligarchisation” of both parties in the current war.
(Republished from The Occidental Observer
Former Russian Ambassador and Current CIA Director, Bill Burns, Knew Exactly What Would Trigger Vladimir Putin to Enter Ukraine
via The Conservative Tree House
A fantastic piece by Peter Beinart on substack {SEE HERE} puts excellent clarity on the people around Joe Biden baiting Russian President Vladimir Putin to enter Ukraine.
Current CIA Director William “Bill” Burns was the former ambassador to Russia and Jordan. Bill Burns had a 33-year career at the State Department under both Republican and Democratic presidents and speaks fluent Russian. If the people in the background of Joe Biden wanted an intelligence operative to trigger a specific result from Russia, there’s no one more strategically perfect for the job than CIA Director Bill Burns.
The article by Beinart is mainly focused on pointing out the irreconcilable nature of Joe Biden implying Ukraine could join NATO, while his own CIA Director has a history of giving serious warnings emphasizing the “brightest of all red lines” about that specific point.
[…] “Two years ago, Burns wrote a memoir entitled, The Back Channel. It directly contradicts the argument being proffered by the administration he now serves. In his book, Burns says over and over that Russians of all ideological stripes—not just Putin—loathed and feared NATO expansion. He quotes a memo he wrote while serving as counselor for political affairs at the US embassy in Moscow in 1995. ‘Hostility to early NATO expansion,” it declares, “is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here.”
On the question of extending NATO membership to Ukraine, Burns’ warnings about the breadth of Russian opposition are even more emphatic. “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin),” he wrote in a 2008 memo to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” (read more)
Against this backdrop of Bill Burns, the details about the lead up to the Russia-Ukraine crisis gain quite a bit of clarity.
The CIA Director is crystal clear that Russia would be seriously triggered about any prospect of Ukraine entering NATO.
Yet, in December of 2021, the exact same time when U.S. backchannel intelligence was being shared with China about Russian troop movements on the border with Ukraine, Joe Biden was telling Ukraine that membership in NATO was in their hands.
“U.S. President Joe Biden assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Kyiv’s bid to join the NATO military alliance was in its own hands, Zelenskiy’s chief of staff said after the two leaders spoke on Thursday. (link)
Joe Biden was publicly saying something his CIA Director knew to a certainty would trigger Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This is not a mistake.
This is not a strategic blunder or internal messaging error.
This level of provocation now seems completely purposeful.
As noted by ABC during the announcement of Bill Burns as a nominee for CIA Director:
Burns called intelligence the first line of defense for the country and the basis for making sound policy decisions. He also said he would deliver the intelligence to Biden and policymakers “without a hint of partisanship.”
Burns is perhaps an unconventional choice for the CIA job that many thought would go to a career intelligence officer.
However, he is also deeply experienced in the kind of cloak-and-dagger secret contacts that is a hallmark of the agency and won plaudits for his analysis and reporting abilities while he served as an American diplomat overseas. Burns was the author of some of the most insightful State Department cables that were published by Wikileaks in 2010 and is widely respected throughout the national security community. (read more)
If the U.S. was simultaneously influencing Ukraine military to keep targeting the breakaway regions in Eastern Ukraine, well, put it all together and a picture emerges of the people in/around the White House setting up a scenario for months that led up to Russia finally taking the bait and going into Ukraine.
The New York Times expose’ of U.S. intelligence contacting China should be reviewed from the perspective that U.S. intelligence and State Dept operatives were planting information into China – knowing it would be shared with Russia. The U.S. intelligence apparatus, with CIA Director Bill Burns in place, was seeding information into Russia via China for three months prior to the triggering point. Bill Burns would know exactly what type of intelligence would be needed to create maximum anxiety for Vladimir Putin.
WHY?
The Biden team was getting pummeled for negative economic outcomes, massive inflation, skyrocketing energy costs and gas prices set to double. Support for the administration was/is collapsing as the policy outcomes of the administration were felt.
Within the book of instructions for the ideological crew, the Alinsky people behind Biden, there are chapters on how to create off-ramps to cloud their agenda.
If they need a bigger cloud, they create a crisis. The crisis then becomes the cover, the justification to explain the outcomes of their agenda.
As we have witnessed, the White House is shifting blame for the collapsing economy, surging oil prices, massive gas price increases and overall U.S. inflation.
The manufactured crisis in Ukraine then takes on a geopolitical angle and a domestic angle. The rate of inflation, rising oil and gas prices, are now being blamed on Russia-Ukraine.
It is not coincidental that ABC (think George Stephanopolous) took the lead in helping to push this narrative as a cover story for the problems in the economy that are specifically driven by U.S. energy policy (chasing Green New Deal objectives), environmental policy, regulatory policy and massive spending.
The politics of policy are to blame for inflation, so it is the deployment of politics again used to create the cover.
Forget About Two Wars, US is Reluctant to Fight Even One
By Global Times
Illustration: Liu Rui/GT
Perhaps no country in the world yearns for a change in its declining image more than the US. Thus, Kurt Campbell, White House Indo-Pacific policy coordinator, put forward his opinion on Monday: The US can focus on two theaters – the Indo-Pacific and the war in Europe. He wants to prove that the US is still dominant and its might remains unrivaled.
The hard truth is Washington is reluctant to step into even one theater of war.
During an event hosted by German Marshall Fund, a US think tank, Campbell said that Washington had been deeply engaged in two theaters simultaneously before, including during WWII and the Cold War. “It’s difficult. It’s expensive. But it is also essential,” he emphasized.
Campbell’s following remarks soon exposed his attempt to mislead the audience. He named a few events to show the US “determination” to sustain high-level engagement with the Indo-Pacific region, including a scheduled summit with Southeast Asian leaders in March and a planned summit of the Quad grouping of the US, Australia, Japan and India in May.
He was just playing with words. By deliberately mentioning the word “theater,” Campbell equated dealing with two US political rivals at the same time with fighting in two wars against two US adversaries simultaneously, Shen Yi, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University, told the Global Times.
Even if people focus only on the US’ capabilities during the WWII and the Cold War, history tells another story, one that is different from the one Campbell has tried hard to present.
During the WWII, the US did fight in the Pacific Ocean theater and the European theater. Yet, at the 1941 Arcadia Conference between then US president Franklin D. Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill shortly after the US entered the war, the “Europe First” strategy was affirmed. That meant the US and the UK would devote more of their resources to fight in the European theater first.
When it came to the Cold War, reports show that observers used to say that the Pentagon was prepared to fight two and a half wars at the same time, which implied the US should have the capability of fighting two large regional wars and a small one simultaneously.
Really? Then what led to the historic ice-breaking of China-US ties and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries?
“Former president Richard Nixon had long ago done the math for the US – it could not afford to fight two wars at once. That’s why Washington decided to ease tensions with one side, which eventually led to his visit to China,” Shen said.
As for the US strength today, setting aside the fact the country is far from its glory days, Washington is not confident it can win even one regional war. The US’ announcement of not sending its military forces to the frontlines in Ukraine is proof. More examples can be listed – being mired in conflicts in Vietnam, Afghanistan… and failing to claim victory in either. Against this backdrop, fighting two wars will only be a suicide mission for the US.
The US has right now a disastrous domestic economy to cope with. When it plucked up the courage to unleash nuclear-level sanctions – kicking Russia out of the SWIFT system, it had to carefully skirt around the Russian banks involved in the energy sector. “How can Campbell convince anyone that the US can still fight and win two wars with such an overcautious and faint-hearted approach?” Shen questioned.
But the US is afraid to show its weakness to the world, which is what prompted Campbell to have tried so hard to purposefully misguide his audience, giving the false impression that the US is still powerful. The tougher American politicians play, the more they reveal how frail the US has become.
The island of Taiwan is shivering after having witnessed what’s going on in Ukraine. Campbell may try to boost the island’s morale by attempting to talk tough toward the Chinese mainland, pretending it can prevent China’s reunification, said Xu Liang, associate professor at the School of International Relations, Beijing International Studies University.
Campbell might want to assure the island of Taiwan that the US can still offer impenetrable defense for the island, although it has been only watching the Ukraine crisis from the other side of the globe. It remains to be seen how many forces still buy US’ assurances.
Compared with the WWII era, the sun is setting on the US, which is now trying to boost its influence by talking big and launching wars of words. Who is it trying to fool? Who can it intimidate? Forget about two wars, even one theater of war would be too much for the US.
mRNA Incorporates into Human DNA In as Little as Six Hours, A New Study
by Rhoda Wilson via The Exposé
A Swedish study published on Friday demonstrated and confirmed that the mRNA in the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid injections infiltrate cells and transcribes its message onto human DNA within 6 hours, altering our own DNA. The study was conducted in vitro, in other words outside the living body and in an artificial environment.
A previous study published in October 2021 from Sweden found the spike protein enters into our cells’ nuclei and impairs the mechanism our cells have to repair damaged DNA. We’ve included this study here as The Highwire made an easy-to-understand video explaining it, including graphics, and so it is a good starting point to help understand the significance of the latest study from Sweden.
Click on the image below to watch the video on Bitchute.
The Highwire: Is Spike Protein Causing Catastrophic Damage to DNA? 15 November 2021 (9 mins).
Earlier Studies
Preclinical animal studies of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid mRNA injection (BNT162b2) showed reversible effects on the livers of rats including: enlarged liver, vacuolation and increased enzyme levels (γGT, AST, ALP). In the assessment report on BNT162b2 provided to EMA by Pfizer, studies in rats demonstrated that the contents do not stay at the injection site and a relatively large proportion (up to 18%) of the total “vaccine” dose ends up in the liver.
Another study in May 2021 by MIT scientists showed that SARS-CoV-2 RNA can be reverse transcribed and integrated into the genome of human cells and expressed as chimeric transcripts. Although no-one from corporate media or corporate science seemed to ask at the time, the findings of this study give rise to the question of whether this same reverse transcription may also occur with RNA in Covid injections.
ABC 10 News reported on the MIT study shortly after it was published.
What is Reverse Transcription?
Pictures speak a thousand words and so rather than try to write an explanation we found a video which introduces the mechanism of reverse transcription of HIV, a retrovirus. It may be a little dated and overly simplistic but it illustrates how HIV infects a cell and replicates itself using reverse transcriptase and the host’s cellular machinery.
The First Study of Reverse Transcription of Injection Spike Proteins
Because of the findings of the animal studies and the MIT study, a group of Swedish scientists from Lund University conducted a study to investigate the effect the Pfizer/BioNTech injection (BNT162b2) had on human liver cells and if Pfizer’s encoded spike protein RNA can be reverse transcribed into DNA. The study, ‘Intracellular Reverse Transcription of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 In Vitro in Human Liver Cell Line’, was published on 25 February 2022.
“In this study, we investigated the effect of BNT162b2 on the human liver cell line Huh7 in vitro,” the study authors wrote.
The study found that the mRNA injection is able to enter the human liver cell line Huh7 and that the injections’ mRNA is reverse transcribed into DNA as fast as six hours after the cells were exposed to it.
“A possible mechanism for reverse transcription is through endogenous [intracellular] reverse transcriptase LINE-1, and the nucleus protein distribution of LINE-1 is elevated by BNT162b2,” the study authors wrote.
“Huh cells are ‘immortal’ liver tumour cells and grow ad-infinitum if you give them love,” Jessica Rose explained, “LINE-1 is a reverse transcriptase that we carry and comprises ~17% of our genome!”
“Our study shows that [Pfizer’s mRNA injection] … can be reverse transcribed to DNA … and this may give rise to the concern if [injection]-derived DNA may be integrated into the host genome and affect the integrity of genomic DNA, which may potentially mediate genotoxic side effects.”
In the video below, Dr. Mobeen Syed, host of Dr. Been, explains this study in layman’s terms. We have embedded the video to begin at timestamp 8:17 where he begins to explain, over the next 9 mins, reverse transcription, Huh7 cells, LINE-1 gene expression, LINE-1 protein and what this all means.**
The paper concludes: “Our study is the first in vitro study on the effect of Covid-19 mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 on human liver cell line. We present evidence on fast entry of BNT162b2 into the cells and subsequent intracellular reverse transcription of BNT162b2 mRNA into DNA.”
Referring to the study Dr. Peter McCullough tweeted: “Alden et al, Lund University, Sweden, confirms one of our worst fears. The exogenous [extracellular] genetic material coding for the dangerous Spike Protein is reverse transcribed into the human genome; possible long-term constitutive expression / synthesis of disease promoting / lethal Spike.”
Was This the Plan All Along?
To answer the question whether this has been planned, below is a selection of excerpts from infamous individuals regarding gene editing, in their own words. No further comment is required, these excerpts speak for themselves, you decide.
In an interview with Charlie Rose, Klaus Schwab said: “You see the difference of this fourth industrial revolution is it doesn’t change what you are doing, it changes you. If you take genetic editing, just as an example, it’s you who are changing. And of course, this has a big impact on your identity.”
View more: The Charlie Rose Show, Klaus Schwab
Tal Zaks, chief medical officer of Moderna, stated, “In every cell there’s this thing called messenger RNA or mRNA for short, that transmits the critical information from the DNA in our genes to the protein, which is really the stuff we’re all made out of. This is the critical information that determines what the cell will do. So, we think about it as an operating system. …. So, if you could actually change that, … if you could introduce a line of code, or change a line of code, it turns out, that has profound implications for everything, from the flu to cancer.”
Read more: Bombshell: Moderna Chief Medical Officer Admits MRNA Alters DNA, 12 March 2021
During an interview with Anthony Fauci on 30 April 2020, Bill Gates said he was particularly excited about pursuing a new approach called ‘RNA vaccine’. Gates explained, “Unlike a flu shot, which contains fragments of the influenza virus so your immune system can learn to attack them, an RNA vaccine gives your body the genetic code needed to produce viral fragments on its own.”
Around this time Gates made a promotional video for his “RNA vaccines.”
Forbes published an article on 29 November 2021 from Steven Salzberg titled, “Yes, The Vaccine Changes Your DNA. A Tiny Bit. That’s A Good Thing.” And later retitled the article to “Covid Vaccines Don’t Alter Your DNA – They Help Choose Cells to Strengthen Your Immune Response”.
The author changed the headline to emphasise that the vaccines “don’t alter your DNA” without changing any of the article’s content.
Read more: Forbes Admits mRNA Vaccines Alter DNA Then Changes the Headline, 2 December 2021
**Article edited since first published – Added DrBeen’s video to give additional context / explanation of the study ‘Intracellular Reverse Transcription of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 In Vitro in Human Liver Cell Line’, Alden et al, Lund University, Sweden, 25 February 2022.
Putin Slams West’s “Empire of Lies”
Russia’s president has criticized the West as the country faces a new massive wave of sanctions
Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the West an “empire of lies,” responding to a new wave of sanctions that hit the country over its special military operation in neighboring Ukraine.
Speaking to top government officials on Monday, he said: “I invited you to discuss economic and financial issues … bearing in mind the sanctions that the so-called Western community — an empire of lies, as I called it in my address — is trying to implement against our country.”
The “empire of lies” term was coined by Russia’s president last Thursday, when he announced the launch of the offensive in Ukraine. Since the US is a “system-forming power,” the whole collective West has become such an “empire,” he said then.
“By the way, American politicians, political scientists, and journalists themselves write and say that, in recent years, an actual ‘empire of lies’ has been created inside the United States. It’s hard to disagree with that, as it’s true,” Putin stated.
All [the US] satellites not only dutifully agree, sing along to its music, but also copy its behavior, and enthusiastically accept the rules they are offered. Therefore, with good reason, we can confidently say that the entire so-called Western bloc, formed by the United States in its own image and likeness, all of it is an ‘empire of lies.’
Russia’s operation in Ukraine has become the only option left to prevent further bloodshed in the country and stop Kiev from trying to launch an all-out assault on the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in the country’s east, the Kremlin has explained. Ahead of the offensive, Moscow formally recognized the People’s Republics there as independent states.
Must See: Scott Ritter on NATO, Too Weak to Face Russia
Scott Ritter tells Richard Medhurst that the Ukrainians have already lost their country. Not willing to take the position of neutrality, the Ukrainian army is being wiped up, completely disarmed and defanged
This will be over in less than a week with Ukraine rejoining the Slavic family of nations. Amen!
Disarming Ukraine – Day 5 | Money War On Russia
Historian Anne Morelli has summarized Arthur Ponsonby’s classic book Falsehood in War-Time as this:
- We do not want war.
- The opposite party alone is guilty of war.
- The enemy is inherently evil and resembles the devil.
- We defend a noble cause, not our own interests.
- The enemy commits atrocities on purpose; our mishaps are involuntary.
- The enemy uses forbidden weapons.
- We suffer small losses, those of the enemy are enormous.
- Recognized artists and intellectuals back our cause.
- Our cause is sacred.
- All who doubt our propaganda are traitors.
h/t Bernd Neuner
As an example I offer you yesterday’s Policy statement by Olaf Scholz, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
The above are what you hear and see in current ‘western’ news. It is not reality.
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.
This war is waged at a financial size that is unprecedented. The consequences in all markets will be very significant to extreme. But experience from Iran shows that such financial wars have their limits as the targeted country learns to survive. Moreover Russia is in a much stronger position than Iran ever was and is better prepared for the consequences.
The rubel fell some 30% today but Russia’s central bank immediately more than doubled its interest rate to 20%. It is willing to fight inflation before it is really sets in. How much of Russia’s investment and consumption depends on imports from the ‘west’? Can’t most of it not be replaced by imports from China?
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.
‘Western’ central banks are still at practical 0% interest rates and will be reluctant to increase those as that will cause a deeper recession. This makes it likely that inflation in the ‘western’ world will increase at a higher rate than Russia’s.
Germany’s crazy move to add $120 billion to defense spending (up from some $40 billion p.a.) will within a few years create a strong military imbalance in Europe as Germany will then dominate all its neighbors. This is unnecessary and historically very dangerous. The shunning of economic relations with Russia and China means that Germany and its newbie chancellor Olaf Scholz have fallen for the U.S. scheme of creating a new Cold War. Germany’s economy will now become one of its victims.
On February 4 Russia and China declared a multipolar world in which they are two partnering poles that will counter the American one. Russia’s move into the Ukraine is a demonstration of that.
It also shows that the U.S. is unwilling to give up its supremacist urges without a large fight. But while the U.S. over the last 20 years has spent its money to mess up the Middle East, Russia and China have used the time to prepare for the larger conflict. They 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.
Some tactical observations:
This map shows the ground taken by Russian military over the first days.
This map shows the likely current intent of the Russian forces.
- There are 12 to 15 brigades of Ukrainian forces (blue) at the Donbas front. If the Russian’s (red) move fast enough they can cut those off from the rest of the country or bomb them while they try to escape on the only big road between those two pincer arrows.
- After a lull Russia has reintroduced Su-34 fighters to Ukraine. They will attack Ukrainian troop concentrations.
- The Russian elements north of Crimea have taken two important bridges and crossed the Dnieper towards the west. This opens the way to Odessa further west as well as for a march northward towards Kiev on the western side of the Dnieper.
Echoes of Georgia 2008, Not Czechoslovakia 1939
Making up false historical analogies as Western leaders and media are doing is preventing a rational, intelligent discussion to resolve deep-seated problems.
There’s a curious contradiction in the stance of the United States and its NATO allies. They are making out that Russian leader Vladimir Putin is the new Hitler and the Russian military operation ordered in Ukraine is but the beginning of disastrous aggression against Europe.
U.S. President Joe Biden has denounced Russia’s “invasion” of Ukraine. Britain’s Defense Minister Ben Wallace claims Putin has “lost his mind” and that the Russian military will next turn to attack Eastern European states. Wallace compared Putin with Hitler on the cusp of Nazi Germany’s war of conquest unleashed on the rest of Europe.
The analogy with Hitler and World War II is all over the Western media. The Washington Post headlined: “Putin’s attack on Ukraine echoes Hitler’s takeover of Czechoslovakia”. It goes on to say: The Nazi leader used similar tactics to dismember and devour Czechoslovakia before World War II.”
There are shrill calls to not “appease” Putin in the same way that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is accused of being soft on Hitler in 1938 around the time that the Fuhrer was planning to invade Czechoslovakia.
The Washington Post piece is particularly ominous. It implies that Putin’s actions in Ukraine are prefiguring designs on the Baltic states and Poland in an attempt to revive Czarist Russia. Even more darkly, it postulates that the Holocaust inflicted by the Third Reich is potentially unfolding under Putin.
Yet, here is the contradiction. If Western leaders and media really believed in their Putin-Hitler analogy then why are they balking at going to war with Russia?
Biden is busy moving thousands of U.S. troops around NATO countries but insists that there will be no American forces deployed in Ukraine. Likewise, the British are refusing to commit any direct military support for the Kiev regime. Ben Wallace, the defense minister, said the imposition of a No-Fly Zone in Ukraine by British warplanes would mean an open confrontation with Russia, which, he said, was not what London wanted.
But their logic is not consistent. If they believe in the dire comparison of Putin and Hitler, Russia and Nazi Germany, then they should act decisively. But they are not.
Of course, it is possible that the Western powers fear that if they were to go to war with Russia then the outcome could be a nuclear cataclysm.
Another possibility for why they are not willing to go to war for the sake of defending Ukraine is simply this: their analogy of Putin-Hitler is downright false. And they know it.
Granted, Hitler did exploit the presence of ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland as justification for expansionism. He hailed the defense of their rights for invading the eastern strip of land adjacent to Germany.
On a superficial level, that move may resemble Putin’s declared recognition of the Donbass republics and defense of the ethnic Russian population. However, the big difference is that Russia’s argument is actually true, unlike Hitler’s pretense of defense in Sudetenland.
(Besides, it should also be noted that the U.S. and Britain are past-masters for cynically using “protection of human rights” as a pretext for their criminal imperialist wars, as in Libya, Syria and many other interventions. So all their posturing and pontificating have a deafening ring of hypocrisy and self-projection.)
It is a verifiable fact that the Russian population in Donbass was besieged and assailed for nearly eight years by the Kiev regime’s forces. If people in the West are unaware of that it is largely because their media chose to ignore the conflict. The Western media also concealed the nature of the Kiev regime and its Neo-Nazi brigades. The regime was brought to power in 2014 by an illegal coup orchestrated by the United States and other NATO powers. The new authorities were and are infested with Neo-Nazi politics and intense anti-Russia phobia. This is who the U.S., Britain and other NATO countries are sending weapons and trainers for.
The shelling of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics by Neo-Nazi brigades persisted for nearly eight years. Moscow vainly held on to the desire that the Kiev regime might implement the Minsk peace accords negotiated in 2014 and 2015. But it had become apparent that the accord would never be implemented. An internal solution was no longer tenable.
As the United States, Britain and other NATO powers flooded Ukraine with lethal weapons – as well as turning a blind eye by France and Germany to systematic violations of the Minsk deal – the Kiev regime was being given license to kill in the Donbass.
Given this background, Russia was forced to take action to defend its compatriots in southeast Ukraine. The hysterical warnings of an impending Russian invasion by Biden and Britain’s Boris Johnson were intended to do two things: incite the Kiev regime forces to ramp up violence; and to stifle Russia from acting because Moscow could then be accused of “invading” as the Western powers had “predicted”.
Moscow says it has no intention of occupying Ukraine. Its objective is to “demilitarize and denazify” the regime that the NATO bloc had installed in Kiev. The priority was to stop a genocide against the people in the Donetsk and Lugansk republics. Recent discoveries of mass graves show that this is not hyperbole, despite the flippant response from Western politicians and media.
If that’s Russia’s objective then it is justified and principled. It will also show that Western analogies of Nazi aggression on the rest of Europe and the Holocaust are grotesque fear-mongering.
A more accurate analogy to contemporary events is found in the Russian-Georgian war in the summer of 2008. The brief war erupted because the United States and other NATO allies incited Georgia to ramp up aggression in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Putin ordered in Russian troops and quashed the NATO-Georgian offensive. Today, there is a modicum of peace in the Caucasus because Tbilisi backed off from the NATO conspiracy to harass Russia, and to come to terms with its separatist regions.
Will the Kiev regime, or whoever replaces it, likewise come to realize that the NATO-incited aggression against the Donbass and Russia is a path to destruction? A path that the NATO powers do not have the courage nor conviction to actually deploy on.
As ever, the bigger picture here is the steadfast refusal by the United States to commit to a peaceful security order in Europe with Russia. Making up false historical analogies as Western leaders and media are doing is preventing a rational, intelligent discussion to resolve deep-seated problems.