The Biden administration has depleted the strategic reserve to levels
not seen since the 1970s, and lifted exports permitted by Obama for
the first time since Carter banned them, in an attempt to limit the rise
in US gasoline and natural
gas prices before the mid-term elections. Unfortunately, the oil
companies have taken the reserves, refined them, and exported most of
the resulting fuel, as this allowed them to increase their profits far
above their normal larceny. Then, the administration
has already committed to replace the reserves at market and given that
the oil companies control the fuel price, we know that this will be at
the highest price ever achieved in history. In this way, our politicians
continue to enable their owners to make out
like the looters they are, as usual, at public expense.
schiffgold | Even as the August inflation data was coming out higher than expected, President Joe Biden was bragging about his “Inflation Reduction Act.” Peter Schiff appeared on NewsMax and argued that the president is putting Americans at risk just so he can improve his image as we approach election time.
Peter
pointed out that one reason energy prices have come down is because the
Biden administration dumped millions of barrels of oil from the
strategic reserve into the market.
That’s not going to
last. And if you look below the surface, we’re seeing an acceleration
in food prices, in shelter, in health care — so, everything is really
going up. We just have one thing right now that’s pulled back. But of
course, energy prices are still up dramatically from where they were a
year ago. So, the inflation tax is falling even more heavy on
middle-class Americans now than it was a few months ago.”
Peter said the “Inflation Reduction Act” is inappropriately named. It should be called “The Inflation Acceleration Act.”
That is going to have consequences next year in helping push that inflation rate even higher than the inflation from 2022.”
As far as the strategic oil reserve goes, now Biden will have to
refill it at a much higher price. Peter said he doesn’t think they’ll
refill it at all.
I think more likely, they’re going
to deplete the reserve until it’s empty. And then what are we going to
do? Then we’ll have no oil to sell. And what if we have an actual
emergency, and we have shortages? We won’t have any strategic reserve to
fall back on.”
Peter reminded the audience that inflation is even worse than advertised because the CPI formula is rigged.
You
really have to double the CPI to get the actual increase in prices that
Americans are experiencing. Take one example, which is shelter, which I
think rose about 6.1%, which really was the highest, I think, since the
1980s. If you look at the real cost of housing, … medium home prices
are up 30% and mortgage rates have gone from 3.1 to 6.1. So, the cost of
buying a home and paying a mortgage in the last two years is up by 84%.
… And of course, rents are skyrocketing too. And so, what the
government claims as the increase in the cost of shelter is just a small
fraction of what Americans are actually paying for shelter.”
The
anchor pointed out that interest rates need to rise above the CPI in
order to tame inflation. Meanwhile, we’re already technically in a
recession. Peter agreed we are in a recession, as much as the Biden
administration and others, including the Fed, try to deny it.
We’ve
already had two quarters of falling GDP. We’re about to have a third,
because I think this quarter is going to be another negative quarter.
And I think the fourth quarter will also be negative.”
And Peter said the anchor was also correct in asserting rates need to go much higher to tackle inflation.
What worries American diplomats is that Germany, other NATO
nations and countries along the Belt and Road route understand the gains
that can be made by opening up peaceful trade and investment. If there
is no Russian or Chinese plan to invade or bomb them, what is the need
for NATO? And if there is no inherently adversarial relationship, why do
foreign countries need to sacrifice their own trade and financial
interests by relying exclusively on U.S. exporters and investors?
These are the concerns that have prompted French President Macron to
call forth the ghost of Charles de Gaulle and urge Europe to turn away
from what he calls NATO’s “brain-dead” Cold War and beak with the
pro-U.S. trade arrangements that are imposing rising costs on Europe
while denying it potential gains from trade with Eurasia. Even Germany
is balking at demands that it freeze by this coming March by going
without Russian gas.
Instead of a real military threat from Russia and China, the problem for American strategists is the absence of such a threat.
What the U.S. needed was to provoke Russia, and later China, into
reacting to U.S. arranged threats in a way that would oblige its
'allies' to follow its sanction policies.
The rather dimwitted European leadership fell for the trick.
Pres. Biden: "If Russia invades...then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."
Reporter: "But how will you do that, exactly, since...the project is in Germany's control?"
The U.S. arranged for a Ukrainian attack on the rebel held Donbas
region. This started on February 17 with intense artillery preparations
against Donbas positions as recorded by the OSCE observers
at that border. Russia had to react or see the ethnic Russians in those
areas getting maimed and killed by Nazi devoting Ukrainians.
There was no way to prevent that but by other than military means. On
February 22 Russia recognized the Donbas republics as independent
states and signed defense agreements with them.
The same day the German chancellor Olaf Scholz canceled the launch of
the undersea Nord Stream II pipeline which was to transport Russian gas
to Germany's industries and consumers.
The Europeans launched a sequence of extremely harsh economic
sanctions against Russia which, prodded by the U.S., had been prepared
months in advance.
Russia's Special Military Operation, under Article 51 of the UN Charter, commenced on February 24.
A follow-up piece by Michael Hudson on February 28 stated that Germany had been defeated for a third time in a century:
The active military force since 1991 has been the United
States. Rejecting mutual disarmament of the Warsaw Pact countries and
NATO, there was no “peace dividend.” Instead, the U.S. policy by the
Clinton administration to wage a new military expansion via NATO has
paid a 30-year dividend in the form of shifting the foreign policy of
Western Europe and other American allies out of their domestic political
sphere into their own “national security” blob (the word for special
rentier interests that must not be named). NATO has become Europe’s
foreign-policy-making body, even to the point of dominating domestic
economic interests.
The recent prodding of Russia by expanding Ukrainian anti-Russian
ethnic violence by Ukraine’s neo-Nazi post-2014 Maiden regime aims at
forcing a showdown. It comes in response to the fear by U.S.
interests that they are losing their economic and political hold on
their NATO allies and other Dollar Area satellites as these countries
have seen their major opportunities for gain to lie in increasing trade
and investment with China and Russia. ... As President
Biden explained, the current military escalation (“Prodding the Bear”)
is not really about Ukraine. Biden promised at the outset that no U.S.
troops would be involved. But he has been demanding for over a year that
Germany prevent the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from supplying its industry
and housing with low-priced gas and turn to the much higher-priced U.S.
suppliers. ... So the most pressing U.S. strategic aim of
NATO confrontation with Russia is soaring oil and gas prices. In
addition to creating profits and stock-market gains for U.S. companies,
higher energy prices will take much of the steam out of the German
economy.
(Some people currently peddle a 'Secret RAND study from January
2022'. It is obviously faked. It is simply a write up of Hudson's
analysis.)
Nord Stream II was created to make Germany independent from pipelines
running through Poland and the Ukraine. Blocking it was the most stupid
thing for Germany to do and thus chancellor Scholz did it.
In the following months Poland blocked the Yamal pipeline which also
brought Russian gas to Germany. Ukraine followed up with cutting off two
Russian pipelines. The main compressor stations of the Nord Stream I
pipeline, which the German company Siemens had build and has the
maintenance contract, failed one after the other. Sanction are
prohibiting Siemens from repairing them.
It is not Russia that has blocked its gas and oil from European
markets. It were the German, Polish and Ukrainian governments that did
it.
Russia would in fact be happy to sell more. Putin has recently again offered to push as much Russian gas as possible through Nord Stream II to Germany:
After all, if they need it urgently, if things are so bad,
just go ahead and lift sanctions against Nord Stream 2, with its 55
billion cubic metres per year – all they have to do is press the button
and they will get it going. But they chose to shut it off themselves;
they cannot repair one pipeline and imposed sanctions against the new
Nord Stream 2 and will not open it. Are we to blame for this?
It is the German government that is to blame for rejecting that offer.
The economic war against Russia that the sanctions against were meant
to win has failed to move Russia. The Rubel is stronger than ever.
Russia is making record profits even while selling fewer gas and oil
than before the war. Russia may have a small recession this year but its
standard of living is not in decline.
As was easy predictable and, as Michael Hudson explained, the
economic consequences of the anti-Russian sanctions within Europe have
in contrast huge catastrophic consequences for the Europe's industries,
its societies and its political standing in the world.
Governments and the media had so far refrained from noting the
gigantic problems that are coming up and which industry leaders had
pointed out early on. Only over the last two weeks or so have they
picked up the urgent warnings.
The first German companies have begun throwing in the towel
and consumption is collapsing in response to the fallout from exploding
energy prices. The economy is sliding almost uncontrolled into a crisis that could permanently weaken the country.
The piece discusses the five stages along which the catastrophe will happen.
Act One: Freezing Production - It is becoming prohibitively expensive to produce in Germany. Act Two: The Price Trap - No one buys at the high prices German products now cost. Act Three: The Consumer Crisis - Needing to pay high energy prices German consumers buy less of everything else. Act Four: The Wave of Bankruptcies. Act Five: The Final Act on the Labor Market.
When Germany will have some 6 to 10 million unemployed people, and
the government less tax income as only a few companies will be
profitable, the social system will break down.
Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest carmaker, warned last week
that it could reallocate production out of Germany and eastern Europe if
energy prices don’t come down.
Europe is paying seven times as much for gas as the US, underscoring a
dramatic erosion of the continent’s industrial competitiveness that
threatens to cause lasting damage to its economy. With Russian President
Vladimir Putin redoubling his war efforts in Ukraine, there’s little
sign that gas flows - and substantially lower prices - would be restored
to Europe in the near term.
All eyes may be on the Italian election results this
morning, but Europe’s got much bigger problems on its hands than the
prospect of a Right-wing government. Winter is coming, and the
catastrophic consequences of Europe’s self-imposed energy crisis are already being felt across the continent.
As politicians continue to devise unrealistic plans for
energy rationing, the reality is that soaring energy prices and falling
demand have already caused dozens of plants across a diverse range of
energy-intensive industries — glass, steel, aluminium, zinc,
fertilisers, chemicals — to cut back production or shut down, causing thousands of workers to be laid off. Even the pro-war New York Times was recently forced to acknowledge
the “crippling” impact that Brussels’s sanctions are having on industry
and the working class in Europe. “High energy prices are lashing
European industry, forcing factories to cut production quickly and put
tens of thousands of employees on furlough,” it reported. ... It’s
truly a sign of the feebleness of Europe’s politicians that despite the
fast-approaching cliff, no one can bring themselves to state the
obvious: that the sanctions need to end. There’s simply no
moral justification for destroying the livelihoods of millions of
Europeans simply to school Putin, even if the sanctions were helping to
achieve that aim, which they clearly aren’t.
The U.S., while also going into a recession, will profit, as it had planned, from the European catastrophe.
The Handelsblatt, a business daily, reports that Germany companies are moving production to North America.
Washington is attracting German companies with cheap energy and low taxes.
RT | Preliminary results on the third of five voting days shows the threshold
having been reached in Donbass and Zaporozhye and almost met in Kherson
The referendums on joining Russia are continuing in the Donbass
republics and Russian-controlled regions of southern Ukraine. On Sunday,
the turnout already reached the required 50% threshold in the Donetsk
and Lugansk republics and Zaporozhye Region, with only Kherson lagging
behind.
In the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), more than 76% of
eligible voters have already cast their votes, according to official
figures. The referendum in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) is
proceeding at a similar pace, with some 77% of voters having shown up at
the polling stations.
Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, which were largely seized by Russian
forces amid the ongoing conflict, have demonstrated a lower turnout.
Still, the latter region has already met the required legal threshold,
with some 51.55% of registered voters already casting their ballots,
according to the head of the Zaporozhye electoral committee, Galina
Katyshenko. Kherson has so far demonstrated lower turnout, with nearly
49% of voters showing up for the referendum. Polls across the two
regions and in the Donbass republics are set to stay open for the next
two days.
Ukraine and its Western backers have rejected the referendums on
joining Russia as illegal and have vowed to not recognize them
regardless of their outcome. Speaking to US broadcaster CBS on Sunday,
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky warned that should Russia complete
the referendums, it would “make it impossible, in any case, to continue any diplomatic negotiations” with Moscow.
voltairenet |It was immediately after the creation of the United Nations that
American leaders found it necessary—as a matter of interest—to break the
new rules they publicly lauded. In doing so, they developed new systems
by which to evade accountability for lawbreaking–including an enormous
apparatus for covert intervention–and, by means of extraordinary effort,
to present the United States’ actions, whatever their nature, as in
accord with international law. [5]
At the same time as the west was planning its covert actions against
its WWII ally, it also created the formation of the terror club known as
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Almost in its entirety it
was a Nazi enterprise. Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen, for example, who
had headed the Russia Desk in the Oberkommando der Wermacht (OKW -
Hitler’s Supreme Headquarters) and a consultant on the Final Solution,
was secretly brought to the United States where he would deliver his
vast storehouse of previously hidden files on the Soviet Union and then
set up the Russia Desk for the soon-to-be-formed CIA. [6]
Gehlen would then be returned to postwar Germany where he was put in
position as head of Germany’s new Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the
German Secret Intelligence Service. In essence, two Russia desks (at
least) now functioned instead of just one; both with the same ultimate
aim: destroy the Soviet Union and communism.
Hundreds if not thousands of old Nazis found new life working for the US,
Britain, and Canada as the Cold War was cranked up and now the mass
murderers were brought into policy making for the same Lords of the
Manor who had supported Hitler to begin with. And, with the same old
Nazis back in charge, every foul means was employed against the Soviets
to prevent any challenge of global capital’s right to dictate the terms
of enslavement.
West Germany, now being run by ex-Nazis under Chancellor Konrad
Adenauer, joined NATO in 1954 and Gehlen liaised with his pro-Nazi
mentor Allen Dulles who would become head of the CIA, with brother John
Foster as Secretary of State. Soon NATO began appointing the old tried
and true Nazis into high positions within the organization.
General Hans Speidel, for example, became commander-in-chief in 1957
of AFCENT (Allied Forces Central Europe). Nazi Admiral Friedrich
Guggenberger joined the highly important NATO military committee in
Washington and General Adolf Heusinger (Gehlen’s old chief at Hitler’s
OKW), became its chairman. At Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in
Europe (SHAPE), Gehlen managed to install several Nazi collaborators
into vital positions [7].
Amongst these was Col. Hennig Strumpell, who became deputy to British
Maj. Gen. Charles Traver, the Assistant Chief of Staff (Intelligence) at
SHAPE. Col. Heinz Koller-Kraus was made head of logistics at Speidel’s
AFCENT. Many other Gehlen men would soon join NATO to define its
policies. [8]
With the same Nazis well integrated into NATO and the CIA becoming an extension of Gehlen’s old Nazi intelligence agency, the Nieue World Ordnung was essentially relocated from the Reichstag in Berlin and dropped into the Pentagon and CIA Langley, Virginia.
Added to the anti-Soviet battle plans, US elites recognized the value
of Goebbel’s Ministry of Truth and turned the lessons learned into the
world’s most sophisticated propaganda network ever created. All western
wars would now be given illusionary titles, such as: "wars for
democracy", "wars for peace", "wars for justice", "wars for
humanitarianism" and on and on. The corporate funded elites that run the
UK and Canada were quick to adopt the same essential elements.
Two of those components of the propaganda wars for the US/UK/Nazi Nieue World Ordnung was the creation of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty - both staffed with Gehlen’s old Nazis and funded by the CIA. [9]
These Nazi mass murderers set up an Hungarian Desk, provided arms and
assistance to underground pro-Nazi elements in Hungary and together
with the CIA, instigated the Hungarian uprising - which the Soviets
brutally put down [10].
The prime use of this episode however, had little to do with the dead
and dying, rather it was the propaganda value which portrayed an "Evil
Empire" that had to be destroyed. [11]
Dr. Eberhardt Taubert joined the Nazi party in 1931 and was soon promoted to the rank of Sturmführer,
following Goebbels to the Ministry of Propaganda. After the war Taubert
slid down to South Africa where he found comfort among the neo-Nazis in
power in Johannesburg busy designing the apartheid system. In 1950 he
returned to Germany and joined his old Nazi pal Reinhard Gehlen,
becoming a member of the BND. In his new BND/CIA post, Taubert became
chairman of the CIA-backed "National Association for Peace and Freedom"
becoming also an adviser to German Minister of Defense, ex-Nazi Franz
Josef Strauss and was then assigned by Strauss to NATO as adviser to the
"Psychological Warfare Department". Goebbel’s Ministry of Truth being
recirculated to feed the Christian fundamentalists some newly
constructed, yet old and familiar Tales from the Dark, only having
different packaging. [12]
NATO has also been closely linked to a series of terrorist bombings
in Italy in the 1980s in order to create a "Strategy of Tension"
designed to allow the fascist right wing into power and thereby bring
"stability" to the country. This program made use of numerous far right
terrorists like Stefano Delle Chiaie of Ordine Nuovo and other
demented souls who planted bombs in public places that killed hundreds,
aided in implementation by Gehlen’s NATO/Nazi terrorists. Though well
covered in Europe, thanks to media complicity, the story barely made a
blip here.
kunstler | Historians of the future, grilling spatchcocked plovers over their
campfires, will need not ponder for even a New York minute who started
World War Three in the rockin’ 2020s. They will point straight to the
waxy, furtive, larval figure known as “Joe Biden,” by then judged a
moral weevil of such epic low degree that he became an embarrassment to
all the other sewer-dwelling denizens of the dank DC underworld,
including the roaches, the rats, the humble shipworms eating through
sunk oaken foundations of buildings long forgotten, the writhing maggots
rinsed from a thousand restaurant dumpsters, the slithering
hellgrammites, millipedes, silverfish, pillbugs, termites, dung-beetles,
woodlice, and, not least, the scaly lawyers spawned out of the
infestation beneath K Street called Perkins Coie LLP. Even these would
loathe and disdain the thing that came into this world as “Joe Biden.”
Let us agree that the place called Ukraine was never any of America’s
business. For centuries we ignored it, through all the colorful cavalry
charges to-and-fro of Turks and Tatars, the reign of the dashing
Zaporozhian Cossacks, the cruel abuses of Stalin, then Hitler, and the
dull, gray Khrushchev-to-Yeltsin years. But then, having destroyed Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and sundry other places all on a great
hegemonic lark, the professional warmongers of our land and their
catamites in Washington made Ukraine their next special project. They
engineered the 2014 coup in Kiev that ousted the elected president, Mr.
Yanyukovich, to set up a giant grifting parlor and international
money-laundromat. The other strategic aim was to prepare Ukraine for
NATO membership, which would have made it, in effect, a forward missile
base right up against Russia’s border. Because, well, Russia, Russia,
Russia!
An early beneficiary of these arrangements, you might recall, was one
Hunter Biden, the drug-addicted, sex-obsessed, no-account son of Barack
Obama’s no-account vice-president then known simply as Joe Biden sans
quote-marks — because in 2014, he was a closer approximation of a real
person than is sadly now the case. In fact, he was known as “The Big
Guy” among Hunter’s business coterie (though listed as “Pedo Peter” on
Hunter’s speed-dial). After the 2014 coup, and for years beyond, Hunter
pulled a steady revenue stream out of Ukraine’s Burisma Holdings, a
natgas distributor (among other things), serving as a know-nothing,
no-show board member. When this monkey business came to the attention of
President Trump, and he made a telephone inquiry about it, he was
instantly beset by swarms of DC swamp vermin hoisting writs of
impeachment.
Fast forward through the past eight years and you have Kiev’s
persecution of the Russian-speaking Donbas provinces, the constant
shelling and harassment by Banderite Nazis. Between that and the ever
more strident urgings for Ukraine to join NATO, President Putin of
Russia, Russia, Russia apparently had enough. In February of this year,
he started the Special Military Operation to put an end to these
hostilities. By April, when whole battalions of Ukrainian Nazis had been
exterminated, a call to peace talks was issued by Mr. Lavrov, the
Russian foreign minister. This was shot-down without ceremony by “Joe
Biden” (that is, by the junta behind him). The genius strategists in
Foggy Bottom aimed to “weaken” Russia. To what end? (you might ask).
Okay: Reasons….
Hence, many hard-fought battles on-the-ground later, Ukraine has lost
roughly 70,000 troops killed to Russia’s roughly 6,000 KIA. The USA
pours $10-billion-a-month into this venture, including missiles aplenty
and other ordnance, in a stupid effort to prolong the conflict and
bankrupt our own land. Thus, Mr. Putin has decided to stop pussyfooting
around Ukraine, and declared an upgrade in Russia’s effort to put a
conclusive end to these shenanigans. He set this forth clearly in a
sober speech Wednesday, which included a reminder to the geniuses in the
White House basement game room that Russia is a nuclear power.
“Joe Biden” (looking like the ghost of Konstantin Chernenko) answered
in a speech to the UN General Assembly the next day, a maundering
recitation of sanctimonious bluster, larded with climate hysteria to
alarm and bamboozle the UN’s scores of Third World delegates, with not a
word about any possible peace talks — because peaceful resolution of
the conflict is the last thing that our government wants. It wants war,
meaning we citizens of this land will get it, good and hard, if the
puppeteers working “Joe Biden’s” mouth get their way. Prepare to live in
an ashtray.
alexberenson | The First Amendment does not apply to private companies like Twitter.
But if the companies are acting on behalf of the federal government
they can become “state actors” that must allow free speech and debate,
just as the government does.
Previous efforts to file state action
lawsuits against the government and social media companies for working
together to ban users have failed. Courts have universally held that
people who have been banned have not shown the specific demands from
government officials that are necessary to support state action claims.
In my case, though, federal officials appear to have gone far beyond
generically encouraging Twitter to support Covid vaccines or discourage
“misinformation” (i.e. information that the government does not like).
Instead, top officials targeted me personally.
Andrew
Slavitt, senior advisor to President Biden’s Covid response team,
complained specifically about me, according to a Twitter employee in
another Slack conversation discussing the White House meeting.
“They
really wanted to know about Alex Berenson,” the employee wrote. “Andy
Slavitt suggested they had seen data viz [visualization] that had showed
he was the epicenter of disinfo that radiated outwards to the
persuadable public.”
According to an interview he gave to the Washington Post
in June 2021, Slavitt worked directly with the most powerful officials
in the federal government, including Ron Klain, President Biden’s chief
of staff, and Biden himself.
The Slack conversations also
show the pressure Twitter employees felt internally to respond to the
government’s questions about whether the company was doing enough to
suppress “misinformation” about Covid and the vaccines. An employee
writes that the questions at the meeting were “pointed” but “mercifully,
we had answers.”
At the time, employees said internally they did not believe I had
broken the company’s rules. “I’ve taken a pretty close look at his
account and I don’t think any of it’s violative,” an employee wrote on
the Slack conversation a few minutes after the "really tough question
about why Alex Berenson hasn’t been kicked off.”
But the pressure
on Twitter to take action against me and other mRNA vaccine skeptics
steadily increased after that April meeting, and especially in July and
August, as the government began to consider the unprecedented step of
mandating Covid vaccines for adults.
On July 16, 2021, President
Biden complained publicly that social media companies were “killing
people” by encouraging vaccine hesitancy. A few hours after Biden’s
comment, Twitter suspended my account for the first time.
On
August 28, 2021, barely four months after the meeting, Twitter banned me
- for a tweet that it has now acknowledged “should not have led to my
suspension.”
I obtained the message and other documents related to
Twitter’s censorship of me as part of my lawsuit against Twitter over
my August 2021 ban. I filed the suit in federal court in San Francisco
in December 2021. Twitter and I settled it last month, when Twitter
restored my account and acknowledged it had erred in banning me.
herson.tsargrad |Question: Do you concede that not only in the territory of the
border regions of Russia – that’s to say, the Kursk, Belgorod, Voronezh,
Rostov regions, and Crimea — but martial law may be declared
throughout the country?
YP: Very had to believe, but I cannot rule out this
possibility. This is because, in my opinion, the question of creating
the State Defense Committee is already overdue and even overready. We
now live under the laws of peacetime. Accordingly, we can influence
certain structures, including state power and elected power, only
through the laws of peacetime. Holding referendums raises the stakes and
already implies a war to the bitter end, because neither Kiev nor the
West will agree to the outcomes of the referendums. Therefore,
everything will depend on the military, there will be no negotiations.
The essence of the special operation must change – this is inevitable.
Question: Does this mean that the Special Military Operation itself will change in its essence?
YP: I really hope for it. I think it’s inevitable.
Because it makes no sense to announce even partial mobilization within
the framework of the Special Military Operation [SMO] – and this cannot
solve the problem of a referendum. It is clear that the status of the
SMO should be changed; this has been under discussion for a long time.
If, nevertheless, martial law is declared on the territory of Russia,
then we can expect the termination of the transit of natural gas through
the territory of Ukraine and many other negative economic consequences.
Right now I believe that strikes against the critical infrastructure of
Ukraine should simply be unavoidable. And this will quickly put Kiev in
an uncomfortable position. Military operations must now proceed
differently.
Question: But do I understand correctly that there will be an escalation?
YP: Of course, this is the next stage of escalation,
and at the highest level. The next stage is the direct and open
declaration of war. Although the war has in fact already been under way.
You can call this a special military operation as much as you like, but
the essence of it will now change.
Question: How do you think the situation will develop? You have
already said that this is an escalation, that these are quite tough
measures. I have a certain suspicion that Russian society for the most
part is not ready for such a development of the situation. How to convey
to people that this is important? That this is necessary — partial
mobilization and the introduction of martial law?
YP: We woke up on February 24 in a completely
different country. It’s just that people still try not to notice it. But
this is to be expected, really. After all, both at the beginning of the
First World War and at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, people
also did not fully understand the essence of the events that took place
at the beginning. And even the leadership of the Soviet Union finally
designated the Great Patriotic War as the Great Patriotic War only on
August 10–11, 1941, and not on June 22 at all. It’s the same with us
now. The war is already underway, and we have had another country since
February 24. In gradual steps our society should mature to
understanding. And yet we are not going anywhere else. The country will
be different. The world will be different. And we, accordingly, must
win our place under the sun in the new world for our country. There are
no other options. If we do not do this, then we will be in the dustbin
of history.
Question: What will this mean from the practical point of view of our compatriots, ordinary Russians?
YP: In fact, for the ordinary person, nothing
fundamentally will change, not yet. But the rules of the game in the
country will change. That is, many things that could still be done – to
criticize the special military operation, to criticize the army, to
express, as some say, ‘their personal opinion’ about these events which
harm Russian society — all this will gradually be curtailed. It is clear
that you cannot conduct military operations when a powerful fifth
column is fighting against you in the rear. This, first of all, the
ordinary Russian will have to understand.
There is one more problem. Many officials are waiting for everything
to come back to where it was in the expectation that the Russian army
will lose in Ukraine. I feel and see it when I communicate with people.
And I really hope that after Vladimir Putin’s address, all this will
stay in the past. Each official will be subject to completely different
requirements. They will either have to support what is happening, or
they will be removed from their places.
Question: So you are convinced that the behaviour and thinking of the so-called elite will change?
YP: Not right away. But things will change very
quickly. However, the mobilization will affect a very small number of
people. It will be no more than a few hundred thousand people.
Question: I understand what the transition to the mobilization
model of the economy means. However, I have very significant doubts,
taking into account the structure of the domestic economy, taking into
account those owners who control the assets. I am skeptical that this
entire group will begin to change. What do you think the mobilization
economy means?
YP: The mobilization economy can be different –
full, partial, and so on. I do not think that the same emphasis will
be placed on this now as it was in the Soviet Union in 1941. That is,
everything for victory, and nothing else for anything. However, the
production of weapons will be increased; we will see some changes in
priorities. We urgently need to make ourselves independent now,
including in the information space, in the computer business. And if
earlier we tried persuading the asset owners to do this, now we must
compel them by state order.
theatlantic | After President Vladimir Putin
announced this week that Russia was conscripting some 300,000 reservists
and military veterans to reinforce its war effort in Ukraine,
international flights out of Russian cities quickly sold out. This latest wave of Russia’s exodus included Anton Shalaev, a 38-year-old senior manager at an IT company, and 15 colleagues.
On
less than a day’s notice, these men of military age all left their
relatively comfortable lives in downtown Moscow to fly to Yerevan, the
capital of Armenia. Because of Putin’s war, Shalaev tossed a book, an
iPad, and a laptop in a backpack and got out of Dodge.
Shalaev and his co-workers are true tech geeks, producers of high-value
computer games. They represent their country’s brightest and best,
members of a tech elite that was the economic foundation of Russia’s new
middle class. In a last selfie from Moscow, Shalaev brandished a coffee
mug that bore the slogan Not today, Satan.
Anna Nemtsova: Why didn’t you want to be drafted to fight in Ukraine?
Anton Shalaev:
On the day Putin declared the war, I knew I would never fight on behalf
of this new Nazi Reich. They are my personal enemies: mercenaries who
steal my country from me, occupy foreign territories, and kill innocent
people. Putin’s army commanders have had plenty of time to turn down
their contracts; instead, they are recruiting more cannon fodder now.
So
I chose to help Ukrainians suffering from this horror—pay for shelters
in Kyiv with cryptocurrency and write antiwar posts on social media. To
encourage Russians at home, I said: “Guys, look, I am writing this from
Moscow.”
Nemtsova: What do you think of the Kremlin’s decision making?
Shalaev:
A few old men and an army of zombies are leading us to hell. I say that
because people around me in Russia behaved as if they had been bitten
by a zombie, dragging my entire country into a dreadful war. All I saw
was Russian loser husbands beating their wives, while the entire rotting
house of the state system has turned my people into an army of the
dead.
They are my enemies.
Nemtsova: What do you know of the situation in Ukraine?
Shalaev:
I constantly follow the war news in Ukraine—and I seek out the best,
most objective analysts. My main sources on the atrocities are Ukrainian
refugees from cities bombed by Russian forces.
I
realize that I would rather go to prison than go to fight against the
Ukrainian army. I openly embrace my antiwar position. I urge my
social-media followers to donate to Ukrainians. This entire war is a
crime against humanity.
IndianPunchline | What emerges is that Russia has given up hopes
of any negotiated settlement. Moscow was initially optimistic that Kiev
would negotiate, but the bitter experience turned out to be that
President Zelensky was not a free agent. The US-UK tandem undermined the
accord negotiated by Russian and Ukrainian officials in Istanbul in
April under Turkish mediation. The Biden Administration holds the stop
watch for the proxy war. And Washington’s timeline is linked to the
weakening and destruction of Russian state, which has been the ultimate
US objective.Lest we forget,
Joe Biden played a seminal role in installing the new regime in Kiev in
2014 and in moulding Ukraine as an anti-Russianstate.
Suffice to say, the referendum on Wednesday is Russia’s only available course of action under the circumstances, while Kiev maintains a maximalist position as advised by the US, UK and Poland.
The
accession of Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye creates a new political
reality and Russia’s partial mobilisation on parallel track is intended
to provide the military underpinning for it. The accession signifies a
paradigm shift insofar as any further attacks on these regions can be
construed by Moscow as attacks on Russia’s territorial integrity and
sovereignty.
Certainly, Kiev’s wanton attacks on
civilians and civilian infrastructure in Donbass, Kherson and
Zaporozhye will trigger Russian reaction. Any attack will be considered
aggression and Moscow reserves the right to respond “adequately.”The
fact the Russian deployment in these territories will be significantly
augmented and upgraded signals the willingness to use force.
Meanwhile,
Russia’s special military operations will continue until its set
objectives are fully realised. Which means, even more territories may
come under Russian control, creating ever newer facts on the ground,
whilst the track of dialogue has become extinct.
And, of course, all this will be playing out at a juncture when Europe
descends into recession, as sanctions against Russia boomerang. It is
improbable that European public will support their governments to enter
into a war with Russia over Ukraine. Kiev and its mentors in Washington
and London need to factor all this very carefully.
The Pentagon
spokesman Patrick Ryder has reacted as follows: “No one will take such
bogus referendums seriously, and the US will certainly not recognise
their results. How will this affect our and international support for
Ukraine? This will not affect in any way, we will continue to work with
Ukraine and our international partners to provide them with the
necessary assistance to protect their territory.”
That is a sufficiently evasive statement couched in brave words. Neither
Pentagon nor the Russian military command will risk brinkmanship. The
likelihood is that the accession of the new territories to the Russian
Federation will not be militarily challenged by the US or NATO.
That said, Russia is anyway at war with the NATO, as Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu said,
albeit not in terms of US weapons supplies, which “we find ways to
counter,” but in the Western systems that exist — communication systems,
information processing systems, reconnaissance systems and satellite
intelligence systems.
The point is, the accession of Donbass,
Kherson and Zaporozhye regions to the Russian Federation is an
irrevocable step that cannot and will not be undone for as long as
Russian Federation remains an independent state, as Medvedev underlined.
The US — and the “Collective West” and NATO — would know it. Plainly
put, the NATO’s proxy-war algorithm has become obsolete and becomes a
museum piece.
It’s the DNC neoliberal modus operandi – if you can’t get your
way fairly, then just stack the deck – see SCOTUS “Packing things”
seems to be the strategy the Biden regime has settled on as cover for
the pitiful joke
that masquerades as “governing.”
Pack the supreme court, make d.c. and Puerto Rico states to pack the senate - and now - pack the UN security council.
outlookindia | US President Joe Biden supports Germany, Japan, and India as
permanent members of a reformed United Nations Security Council, a
senior official of his administration has said.
At the same time, a lot of work needs to be done in this matter, the
official told reports on Wednesday on condition of anonymity.
"We have historically and continue to stand behind the idea that
Germany, Japan, and India should be permanent members of the Security
Council," the official said in response to a question.
Earlier on Wednesday, President Joe Biden in his address at the UN
General Assembly reiterated his commitment to reforming the UN Security
Council.
Biden said he believes the time has come for the institution to
become more inclusive so that it can better respond to the needs of
today's world.
Members of the UN Security Council, including the United States,
should consistently uphold and defend the United Nations Charter and
refrain from the use of the veto, except in rare and extraordinary
situations, to ensure that the Council remains credible and effective,
he said.
"That is also why the United States supports increasing the number of
both permanent and non-permanent representatives of the Council. This
includes permanent seats for those nations we've long supported," Biden
said.
What the western analysis is missing is that
legally it’s not possible for Russian military units to be active in
foreign countries. There have obviously been workarounds in Ukraine, but
it’s part of why so few regular army units are involved
and the parsimonious use of manpower. That’s the big change that comes
with the referenda and mobilization.
At this point the AFU is significantly but not
catastrophically degraded. The minimal force applied by Russia has had
its share of failures but has done that degradation and mostly held the
line. It likely would have been sufficient for
the whole task except the west has gone all in and is now a direct
participant in the conflict. That’s problematic but has apparently done
terrible things to western military stocks (especially Eastern European
stocks), which does reduce the larger threat
to Russia in the short term.
Partial mobilization means the ability to backfill
rear duties in the conflict as well as border duties in the western
military zone and along the Russian-Ukrainian border. With the
referenda, regular army can be applied at large scale
against a degraded AFU and with loosened rules of engagement concerning
infrastructure. It’s openly telegraphed to give Washington DC another chance to
act rationally. If not, you go NATO on the degraded AFU, infrastructure
and aim to give the west a crushing defeat
on the battlefield of its choosing. It will be costly but could achieve
encirclement of the AFU in Donbas/Kharkov as well as the capture of
Odessa. And I maintain that when Odessa falls, the US taps out.
In this scenario we all have to hope the US doesn’t
further escalate because that escalation ladder will see nukes. NATO
leadership thinks it can manage and win a “limited nuclear war” and it
doesn’t handle losing very well.
Something obscured by the Western MSM’s focus on
playing up the general threat of Putin escalating to nuclear weapons is what Putin actually said:
“Those who are using nuclear blackmail against us should know that the wind rose (NATO symbol) can turn around.”
There’s a very specific threat implied in that
phrasing, which gives Putin and Russia the scope of climbing another
rung up the escalation ladder before actual use of nuclear weapons. The threat is as
follows: –
[1] The Kiev regime’s shelling of the Zaporizhzhia
nuclear power plant, its lies about that, and the subsequent refusal of
the IAEA and the UN to acknowledge those Ukrainian lies - will have
further hardened Russian attitudes towards the EU and the
West .
[2] There are fifteen nuclear reactors located
across four power plants in Ukraine, nine of which remain in the Kiev
regime’s territory.
[3] When the coming referenda are done, the
territories of Donetz and Lugansk will become officially Russian. The
US-NATO will then continue its proxy war and push the Kiev regime to
attack those regions, though they will then be Russia
by Russian lights. At that point, the Russians will take that as an act
of war, conclude the special military operation, and commence the war
proper on Ukraine.
[4] They can then do what they’ve been technically
capable of doing from the beginning and what the USA canonically does
when it invades a country: target and take out with missile and air
strikes both the enemy’s C&C centers — currently
occupied to some greater or lesser extent by the US-NATO personnel
actually directing this war — and the country’s civil infrastructure of
water, railroads, communications, specific bridges and roads, and its
power plants and transmission lines.
[5] In general, as Docotorow suggests, then. But
among those power plants are the nine nuclear reactors. And the
targeting of those could be done on days when the wind is specifically
blowing east to west, towards Europe.
[6] Not only that. Here’s a map of those reactors’ locations.
Presumably, those reactors are built to Soviet
specs and, like Zaporizhzhia, are built to standards whereby
conventional attack by shelling or an aircraft crashing into them won’t
crack their containment vessels (Although spent fuel pools
are far more vulnerable.) A Kinzhal hypersonic missile OTOH — or a barrage
of them — will break open their containment vessels .
An exclusion zone created at South Ukraine Nuclear
Power Plant, a.k.a the Pivdennoukrainsk Nuclear Power Plant, in Mykolaiv
oblast, about 350 kms south of Kiev, would have the effect of focusing a
few minds in the US, NATO, and the EU.
thegrayzone |By April of 2022, Zelensky’s
admiration for the Israeli state had apparently reached new heights.
Immediately following his declaration that Ukraine would soon become “a
big Israel,” Washington’s former ambassador to Tel Aviv, Daniel B.
Shapiro, published a blueprint for Zelensky to achieve that dream at the
Washington DC-based, NATO-sponsored Atlantic Council.
“By adapting their country’s mindset
to mirror aspects of Israel’s approach to chronic security challenges,
Ukrainian officials can tackle critical national-security challenges
with confidence and build a similarly resilient state,” Shapiro, an
Atlantic Council “distinguished fellow,” wrote.
The nearly 900-word outline offered eight bullet points detailing how Ukraine can become more like Israel, a country recently described
by Amnesty International as an “apartheid state.” The points included
advice such as to place “security first,” maintain “Intelligence
dominance,” and remember that “technology is key.”
According to Shapiro, a central component of Israel’s security strategy is that “the whole population plays a role.”
“Civilians recognize their
responsibility to follow security protocols and contribute to the
cause,” Shapiro wrote of the Israeli population. “Some even arm
themselves (though under strict supervision) to do so. The widespread
mobilization of Ukrainian society in collective defense suggests that
the country has this potential.” These comments align directly with
Zelensky’s prediction that in a future Ukraine, “people with weapons”
will be present in nearly every aspect of civilian life.
Like the propaganda touting Israel’s
“success” as a security state, Shapiro’s blueprint imagined Ukraine’s
citizenry united by a “common purpose” with help from Tel Aviv’s
“high-tech innovation” in the military and intelligence sectors. His
game plan portrays Israel’s advancements in security to as an almost
mythical achievement owing purely to the feisty, innovative spirit of
its citizens, overlooking the single greatest material factor in its
success: unprecedented levels of foreign military assistance,
particularly from the United States. Indeed, without US taxpayers
virtually subsidizing its military through yearly aid packages amounting
to untold billions of dollars, it is difficult to see how a country the
size of New Jersey would have attained the status of the world’s
leading surveillance technology hub.
Even as Shapiro urged Zelensky to
maintain “active defense partnerships,” he simultaneously downplayed the
role foreign aid has played in preserving Israel’s settler-colonial
imperatives, arguing that the “single principle” informing Tel Aviv’s
security doctrine is that “Israel will defend itself, by itself—and rely
on no other country to fight its battles.”
Shapiro must have forgotten that principle when he tweeted, “Thank God Israel has Iron Dome” — a reference to Israel’s air defense system that US taxpayers funded to the tune of $1 billion in 2021 alone, on top of $3.8 billion in military assistance earmarked for Tel Aviv that year.
Ukraine
has prepared a draft law that provides for criminal responsibility for
obtaining a Russian passport in the temporarily occupied territories;
the Cabinet of Ministers called for this.
Details: Experts
from the Office of the Prosecutor General, the Security Service, the
Ministry of Reintegration, human rights defenders and people's deputies
have jointly prepared a draft law that introduces criminal liability
for:
acquisition of
citizenship or obtaining a Russian passport by state officials or
representatives of local self-government in the absence of signs of high
treason;
propaganda, public appeals, and coercion to act correspondingly;
restriction of the rights of people who have not received citizenship or passports from the Russian Federation.
The
Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporary Occupied Territories noted
that obtaining a Russian passport in the temporarily occupied
territories is justified only if a person thus tries to return to the
territory controlled by Ukraine through Russia and third countries.
Russian occupiers began to resort to various gimmicks to force people to get a Russian passport in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
The President's Office said that issuing Russian passports to residents of the occupied territories is meaningless because this passport is not recognised worldwide.
The subject of this address is the situation in Donbass and the course of the special military operation to liberate it from
the neo-Nazi regime, which seized power in Ukraine in 2014 as the result of an armed state coup.
Today
I am addressing you – all citizens of our
country, people of different generations, ages and ethnicities,
the people of our great Motherland, all who are united by the great
historical Russia, soldiers,
officers and volunteers who are fighting on the frontline and doing
their
combat duty, our brothers and sisters in the Donetsk and Lugansk
people’s
republics, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and other areas that have been
liberated from the neo-Nazi regime.
The issue
concerns the necessary, imperative
measures to protect the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity
of Russia and support the desire and will of our compatriots to choose
their
future independently, and the aggressive policy of some Western elites,
who are
doing their utmost to preserve their domination and with this aim
in view are
trying to block and suppress any sovereign and independent development
centres
in order to continue to aggressively force their will and pseudo-values
on other countries and nations.
The goal
of that part of the West is to weaken,
divide and ultimately destroy our country. They are saying openly now
that in 1991 they managed to split up the Soviet Union and now is
the time to do the same to Russia, which must be divided into numerous
regions that would be at deadly feud with each other.
They
devised these plans long ago. They
encouraged groups of international terrorists in the Caucasus and moved
NATO’s
offensive infrastructure close to our borders. They used indiscriminate
Russophobia as a weapon, including by nurturing the hatred of Russia
for decades, primarily in Ukraine, which was designed to become
an anti-Russia bridgehead.
They turned the Ukrainian people into cannon fodder and pushed them into
a war
with Russia, which they unleashed back in 2014. They used the army
against
civilians and organised a genocide, blockade and terror against those
who
refused to recognise the government that was created in Ukraine
as the result
of a state coup.
After the Kiev regime publicly refused to settle the issue of Donbass peacefully and went as far as to announce its ambition
to possess nuclear weapons, it became clear that a new offensive in Donbass –
there were two of them before – was inevitable, and that it would be inevitably
followed by an attack on Russia’s Crimea, that is, on Russia.
In this connection, the decision to start a pre-emptive military operation was necessary and the only option. The main goal
of this operation, which is to liberate the whole of Donbass, remains
unaltered.
The Lugansk
People’s Republic has been
liberated from the neo-Nazis almost completely. Fighting in the Donetsk
People’s Republic continues. Over the previous eight years, the Kiev
occupation
regime created a deeply echeloned line of permanent defences.
A head-on attack
against them would have led to heavy losses, which is why our units,
as well as the forces of the Donbass republics, are acting competently
and systematically,
using military equipment and saving lives, moving step by step
to liberate
Donbass, purge cities and towns of the neo-Nazis, and help the people
whom the Kiev regime turned into hostages and human shields.
As you know, professional military personnel
serving under contract are taking part in the special military operation. Fighting
side by side with them are volunteer units – people of different ethnicities,
professions and ages who are real patriots. They answered the call of their
hearts to rise up in defence of Russia and Donbass.
In this
connection, I have already issued
instructions for the Government and the Defence Ministry to determine
the legal
status of volunteers and personnel of the military units of the Donetsk
and Lugansk people’s republics. It must be the same as the status
of military
professionals of the Russian army, including material, medical
and social
benefits. Special attention must be given to organising the supply
of military
and other equipment for volunteer units and Donbass people’s militia.
While
acting to attain the main goals of defending Donbass in accordance with
the plans and decisions of the Defence
Ministry and the General Staff, our troops have liberated considerable
areas in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and a number of other areas.
This has created a protracted line of contact that is over 1,000
kilometres long.
This
is what I would like to make public for the first time today. After
the start of the special military operation, in particular after
the Istanbul talks, Kiev representatives voiced quite a positive
response to our proposals. These proposals concerned above all
ensuring Russia’s security and interests. But a peaceful settlement
obviously
did not suit the West, which is why, after certain compromises were
coordinated, Kiev was actually ordered to wreck all these agreements.
More weapons were pumped into Ukraine. The Kiev
regime brought into play new groups of foreign mercenaries and nationalists, military units trained according to NATO
standards and receiving orders from Western advisers.
At the same time, the regime of reprisals
throughout Ukraine against their own citizens, established immediately after
the armed coup in 2014, was harshly intensified. The policy of intimidation,
terror and violence is taking on increasingly mass-scale, horrific and barbaric
forms.
I want to stress the following. We know that
the majority of people living in the territories liberated from the neo-Nazis,
and these are primarily the historical lands of Novorossiya, do not want to live
under the yoke of the neo-Nazi regime. People in the Zaporozhye and Kherson
regions, in Lugansk and Donetsk saw and are seeing now the atrocities
perpetrated by the neo-Nazis in the [Ukrainian-] occupied areas of the Kharkov
region. The descendants of Banderites and members of Nazi punitive expeditions
are killing, torturing and imprisoning people; they are settling scores,
beating up, and committing outrages on peaceful civilians.
There
were over 7.5 million people living in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s
republics and in the Zaporozhye and Kherson
regions before the outbreak of hostilities. Many of them were forced
to become
refugees and leave their homes. Those who have stayed – they number
about five
million – are now exposed to artillery and missile attacks launched
by the neo-Nazi militants, who fire at hospitals and schools and stage
terrorist
attacks against peaceful civilians.
We cannot, we have no moral right to let our kin
and kith be torn to pieces by butchers; we cannot but respond to their sincere
striving to decide their destiny on their own.
The parliaments
of the Donbass people’s
republics and the military-civilian administrations of the Kherson
and Zaporozhye regions have adopted decisions to hold referendums
on the future of their territories and have appealed to Russia
to support this.
I would
like to emphasise that we will do
everything necessary to create safe conditions for these referendums so
that
people can express their will. And we will support the choice of future
made by the majority of people in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s
republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
whitehouse | THE PRESIDENT: Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, my fellow
delegates, to all those who dedicate themselves to this noble mission of
this institution: It’s my honor to speak to you for the first time as
President of the United States.
We meet this year in a moment of — intermingled with great pain and
extraordinary possibility. We’ve lost so much to this devastating —
this devastating pandemic that continues to claim lives around the world
and impact so much on our existence.
We’re mourning more than 4.5 million people — people of every nation
from every background. Each death is an individual heartbreak. But our
shared grief is a poignant reminder that our collective future will
hinge on our ability to recognize our common humanity and to act
together.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the clear and urgent choice that we
face here at the dawning of what must be a decisive decade for our world
— a decade that will quite literally determine our futures.
As a global community, we’re challenged by urgent and looming crises
wherein lie enormous opportunities if — if — we can summon the will and
resolve to seize these opportunities.
Will we work together to save lives, defeat COVID-19 everywhere, and
take the necessary steps to prepare ourselves for the next pandemic?
For there will be another one. Or will we fail to harness the tools at
our disposal as the more virulent and dangerous variants take hold?
Will we meet the threat of challenging climate — the challenging
climate we’re all feeling already ravaging every part of our world with
extreme weather? Or will we suffer the merciless march of
ever-worsening droughts and floods, more intense fires and hurricanes,
longer heatwaves and rising seas?
Will we affirm and uphold the human dignity and human rights under
which nations in common cause, more than seven decades ago, formed this
institution?
Will we apply and strengthen the core tenets of inter- — of the
international system, including the U.N. Charter and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, as we seek to shape the emergence of new
technologies and deter new threats? Or will we allow these universal —
those universal principles to be trampled and twisted in the pursuit of
naked political power?
In my view, how we answer these questions in this moment — whether we
choose to fight for our shared future or not — will reverberate for
generations yet to come.
Simply put: We stand, in my view, at an inflection point in history.
And I’m here today to share with you how the United States intends to
work with partners and allies to answer these questions and the
commitment of my new administration to help lead the world toward a more
peaceful, prosperous future for all people.
en.kremlin.ru |President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good evening,
I am listening.
Question:
Now that the SCO summit is over, summing
it up, can you tell us how you regard the SCO’s development prospects
and what the most important thing is for Russia in the SCO?
Vladimir Putin: The most important thing always and everywhere is economic development. And the SCO, cooperation with the SCO
countries, creates conditions for the development of the Russian economy, and thus
for the social sphere and for resolving the tasks related to improving the living standards of our citizens.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
includes countries whose population, as has been said many times, comprises almost
or even slightly more than half of humanity. It is 25 percent of world GDP.
And, most importantly, the national economies in the region, those of the SCO member
states, are developing much faster than others in the world.
Now
we had a separate meeting. I sat next to the Prime Minister of India
at the working dinner. India’s GDP grew by 7 percent, China’s
by more than 5 percent. China was in the lead for quite a time and its
potential is tremendous. Our trade with these countries is growing fast.
If these
rates are preserved, and they are bound to be for many objective
reasons, we will
be one of these countries, next to them, ensuring our interests. This is
what we
are doing and this is the main point.
Question:
This question is certainly worrying very many
people in our country. People have already developed certain concerns
over the course of the special military operation in Ukraine. We are
increasingly seeing
strikes, raids and acts of terror even on Russian territory. We are
hearing all
the time very aggressive statements that the final goal of Kiev
and the West is
Russia’s disintegration. Meanwhile, many think that Russia’s response
to all of this is very restrained. Why is that?
Vladimir Putin: There is nothing new about this. Frankly, I find it even a bit strange to hear your question because Western countries have
cultivated the idea of the collapse of the Soviet Union and historical Russia
and Russia as such, its nucleus.
I have
already cited these statements and studies
by some figures in Great Britain during World War I and after it.
I cited excerpts
from Mr Brzezinski’s writings in which he divided the entire territory
of our
country into specific parts. True, later he changed his position a bit
in the belief
that it was better to keep Russia in opposition to China and use it
as a tool
to combat China. It will never happen. Let them address their own
challenges as they see fit. But we are seeing how they are handling them
and, most likely,
they are doing harm to themselves in the process. Their tools are no
good.
But they have always been seeking the dissolution
of our country – this is very true. It is unfortunate that at some point they
decided to use Ukraine for these purposes. In effect – I am answering your
question now and the conclusion suggests itself – we launched our special
military operation to prevent events from taking this turn. This is what some US-led
Western countries have always been seeking – to create an anti-Russia enclave
and rock the boat, threaten Russia from this direction. In essence, our main goal
is to prevent such developments.
With regard to our restrained response,
I would not say it was restrained, even though, after all, a special military
operation is not just another warning, but a military operation. In the course
of this, we are seeing attempts to perpetrate terrorist attacks and damage our civilian
infrastructure.
Indeed, we were quite restrained in our response, but that will not last forever. Recently, Russian Armed Forces
delivered a couple of sensitive blows to that area. Let’s call them warning shots.
If the situation continues like that, our response will be more impactful
Terrorist
attacks are a serious
matter. In fact, it is about using terrorist methods. We see this
in the killing of officials in the liberated territories, we even see
attempts at perpetrating
terrorist attacks in the Russian Federation, including – I am not sure
if this was
made public – attempts to carry out terrorist attacks near our nuclear
facilities, nuclear power plants in the Russian Federation. I am not
even talking
about the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.
We are monitoring the situation and will do our best to prevent a negative scenario from unfolding. We will respond
if they fail to realise that these approaches are unacceptable. They are, in fact, no different than terrorist attacks.
Remark: Good
afternoon, Mr President.
Kiev presented draft security
guarantees for Ukraine the other day…
Vladimir Putin:
Wait a second. I have something to add to my answer to the first question. You
said that we are seeing activity here and there. But Kiev has announced that it
has launched an active counter-offensive operation. Let’s see how it unfolds
and how it ends.
VK | A meeting of States parties to the Convention on the
Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons was held in Geneva from 5 to
9 September in connection with the violation of articles I and IV of
the Convention by the United States and Ukraine, initiated by the
Russian Federation.
The Russian Ministry of Defense
analyzed the materials of speeches made by representatives of the United
States and Ukraine, working documents of the participating states,
joint statements and the final document of the meeting.
Recall
that the Russian Federation was asked more than 20 questions concerning
the illegal activities of Kiev and Washington in the framework of the
BTWC. Here are some of them.
What is the reason for the
choice of pathogenic microorganisms studied on the territory of Ukraine
within the framework of the Threat Reduction Program and why the
nomenclature of pathogens studied is not related to current health
problems, for example, the Tep-6 project on the study of the glanders
pathogen, cases of which have never been recorded on the territory of
Ukraine?
How should the accumulation of highly dangerous
strains of infections and their transfer to other countries contribute
to improving the state of infectious diseases?
Why was
the emphasis placed on studying natural foci and particularly dangerous
infections, which according to the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention lists are considered potential agents of biological weapons?
What
studies using infectious agents and toxic substances were conducted on
Ukrainian military personnel and the mentally ill, who are one of the
most vulnerable categories of citizens?
And finally, why
do the United States and Ukraine hide the facts of cooperation in the
military-biological sphere in international reporting under the BTWC,
while the United States has blocked the development of its verification
mechanism since 2001?
The meeting participants were
presented with copies of real documents previously announced by the
Russian Ministry of Defense, as well as material evidence confirming the
implementation of military biological programs on the territory of
Ukraine.
None of the delegations had any doubts about
the authenticity of the submitted documents, including the accumulation
of pathogenic materials in Ukrainian laboratories, including the
Mechnikov Anti-Plague Institute.
In its speech, Ukraine
acknowledged the fact that the institute was inspected by a commission
of the Ministry of Health, noting that the QUOTE: "... 80 percent of
violations were eliminated...". At the same time, the Ukrainian side
completely ignored questions about the unjustified storage of dangerous
biological agents on the basis of the institution and revealed gross
violations of the conditions for their accumulation: storage of
biomaterials in stairwells, the lack of a functioning access control
system for pathogenic microorganisms.
No explanation was
received regarding the nomenclature of accumulated strains of dangerous
pathogens, although 19 studies aimed at studying potential agents of
biological weapons (Congo-Crimean fever, hantaviruses, anthrax and
tularemia) and economically significant ones have been implemented in
Ukraine since 2008 under the projects codenamed "Yu-Pi" and "Tep".
infections (African and classical swine fever, Newcastle disease).
Neither
Ukraine nor the United States has provided convincing evidence that
cooperation has helped improve the sanitary and epidemiological
situation, which has steadily worsened over the past 15 years.
The
practical results of the activities of the US Department of Defense's
Office for Threat Reduction DITRA in Ukraine presented during the
meeting were reduced to a demonstration of several photos of renovated
laboratory facilities. Most likely, apart from these pseudo
"achievements", no other results were achieved.
The
explanations of the United States and Ukraine regarding the export of
strains and biomaterials of Ukrainian citizens and compliance with
ethical standards when conducting research on military personnel, low –
income citizens, as well as on one of the most unprotected categories of
the population-patients in psychiatric hospitals looked extremely
unconvincing.
When discussing this issue, the American
delegation acknowledged such facts, while noting that the transfer of
samples of pathogenic biomaterials to the United States QUOTE: "...was
infrequent...".
Apart from this wording, which does not
allow estimating the volume and frequency of bioassays transferred
abroad, no other explanations were provided to the meeting participants.
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