abcnews | Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador started a five-day tour to four Central American countries and Cuba on Thursday by lashing out at the U.S. government.
López
Obrador criticized American officials sharply for being quick to
send billions to Ukraine, while dragging their feet on development aid
to Central America.
On his first stop in neighboring Guatemala, López Obrador demanded
U.S. aid to stem the poverty and joblessness that sends tens of
thousands of Guatemalans north to the U.S. border. The Mexican leader
had been angered that the United States rebuffed his calls to
help expand his tree-planting program to Central America.
“They
are different things and they shouldn't be compared categorically, but
they have already approved $30 billion for the war in Ukraine, while we
have been waiting since President Donald Trump, asking they donate $4 billion, and as of today, nothing, absolutely nothing,” López Obrador said.
“Honestly,
it seems inexplicable,” he added. “For our part, we are going to
continue to respectfully insist on the need for the United States to
collaborate.”
López Obrador's pet program, known as “Planting
Life,” pays farmers a monthly wage to plant and care for fruit and
lumber trees on their farms.
Mexico has asked the U.S. government to help fund the program, something that so far hasn’t happened. Mexico is also touting another program that apprentices young people to companies. Critics say both programs lack accountability.
Mexican
Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard wrote in his social media
accounts that meetings with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei
and other officials focused on development, migration and strengthening
bilateral ties.
Ebrard said Mexico was starting the tree program in the Guatemalan province of Chimaltenango.
It
is only be the third overseas trip in more than three years for López
Obrador, who is fond of saying that the best foreign policy is good
domestic policy. The tour is an opportunity for Mexico to reassert
itself as a leader in Latin America and will be welcomed by some leaders
under pressure from the U.S. government and others for their alleged
anti-democratic tendencies.
johnhelmer | Antonio Guterres, the United Nations Secretary-General, is refusing
this week to answer questions on the role he played in the recent
attempt by US, British, Canadian and other foreign combatants to escape
the bunkers under the Azovstal plant, using the human shield of
civilians trying to evacuate.
In Guterres’s meeting with President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on
April 26 (lead image), Putin warned Guterres he had been “misled” in
his efforts. “The simplest thing”, Putin told
Guterres in the recorded part of their meeting, “for military personnel
or members of the nationalist battalions is to release the civilians.
It is a crime to keep civilians, if there are any there, as human
shields.”
This war crime has been recognized since 1977 by the UN in Protocol 1 of the Geneva Convention.
In US law for US soldiers and state officials, planning to employ or
actually using human shields is a war crime to be prosecuted under 10 US Code Section 950t.
Instead, Guterres ignored the Kremlin warning and the war crime law,
and authorized UN officials, together with Red Cross officials, to
conceal what Guterres himself knew of the foreign military group trying
to escape. Overnight from New York, Guterres has refused to say what he
knew of the military escape operation, and what he had done to
distinguish, or conceal the differences between the civilians and
combatants in the evacuation plan over the weekend of April 30-May
1.May.
Russian officials have remained publicly polite towards Guterres,
despite what Moscow regards as his taking sides with the US, the NATO
alliance, and the Kiev government from the beginning of the military
operation on February 24. “We are dealing”, the Secretary-General
declared on April 5,
“with the full-fledged invasion, on several fronts, of one Member State
of the United Nations, Ukraine, by another, the Russian Federation — a
permanent member of the Security Council — in violation of the United
Nations Charter, and with several aims, including redrawing the
internationally recognized borders between the two countries.”*
Putin told Guterres his interpretation of the military operation and of the UN Charter was wrong and biased.
To Guterres, Putin also made a clear distinction between civilians
and combatants using the civilians as hostages or human shields. Putin
identified this as a war crime. “The Azovstal plant has been fully
isolated. I have issued instructions, an order to stop the assault.
There is no direct fighting there now. Yes, the Ukrainian authorities
say that there are civilians at the plant. In this case, the Ukrainian
military must release them, or otherwise they will be doing what
terrorists in many countries have done, what ISIS did in Syria when they
used civilians as human shields. The simplest thing they can do is
release these people; it is as simple as that. You say that Russia’s
humanitarian corridors are ineffective. Mr Secretary-General, you have
been misled: these corridors are effective. Over 100,000 people,
130,000–140,000, if I remember correctly, have left Mariupol with our
assistance, and they are free to go where they want, to Russia or
Ukraine. They can go anywhere they want; we are not detaining them, but
we are providing assistance and support to them.”
“The civilians in Azovstal, if there are any, can do this as well.
They can come out, just like that. This is an example of a civilised
attitude to people, an obvious example. And anyone can see this; you
only need to talk with the people who have left the city. The simplest
thing for military personnel or members of the nationalist battalions is
to release the civilians. It is a crime to keep civilians, if there are
any there, as human shields.”
In his many public statements before the Kremlin meeting, and in his remarks at the Russian Foreign Ministry the same day,
, Guterres has not mentioned war crimes except to repeat the US and
Ukrainian allegations about the Russian side. “The war has led to
senseless loss of life, massive devastation in urban centres and the
destruction of civilian infrastructure,” he said on April 5.
“I will never forget the horrifying images of civilians killed in
Bucha. I immediately called for an independent investigation to
guarantee effective accountability. I am also deeply shocked by the
personal testimony of rapes and sexual violence that are now emerging.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights has spoken of possible war
crimes, grave breaches of international humanitarian law and serious
violations of international human rights law. The war has displaced
more than 10 million people in just one month — the fastest forced
population movement since the Second World War.”
reuters | Cowering
in the labyrinth of Soviet-era bunkers far beneath the vast Azovstal
steel works, Natalia Usmanova felt her heart would stop she was so
terrified as Russian bombs rained down on Mariupol, sprinkling her with
concrete dust.
Usmanova,
37, spoke to Reuters on Sunday after being evacuated from the plant, a
sprawling complex founded under Josef Stalin and designed with a
subterranean network of bunkers and tunnels to withstand attack. read more
"I
feared that the bunker would not withstand it - I had terrible fear,"
Usmanova said, describing the time sheltering underground.
"When the bunker started to shake, I was hysterical, my husband can vouch for that: I was so worried the bunker would cave in."
"We
didn't see the sun for so long," she said, speaking in the village of
Bezimenne in an area of Donetsk under the control of Russia-backed
separatists around 30 km (20 miles) east of Mariupol.
She recalled the lack of oxygen in the shelters and the fear that had gripped the lives of people hunkered down there.
Usmanova
was among dozens of civilians evacuated from the plant in Mariupol, a
southern port city that has been besieged by Russian forces for weeks
and left a wasteland.
Usmanova
said she joked with her husband on the bus ride out, in a convoy agreed
by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC), that they would no longer have to go to the lavatory with a
torch.
"You
just can't imagine what we have been through - the terror," Usmanova
said. "I lived there, worked there all my life, but what we saw there
was just terrible."
MOA | The Russian military forces are grinding down Ukrainian ground forces
by extensive use of heavy artillery. The Ukrainian artillery has been
destroyed or lacks ammunition.The Ukrainian forces have orders to stay
in their position and to hold the line. That only makes sure that
Russian artillery strikes will destroy them.
The order was given because the 'west' has pushed the Ukrainian
president to not make peace with Russia. The consequence will be the
assured destruction of the Ukrainian military.
There are claims that the Russian progress in Ukraine has been slow or has even come to a halt:
The United States assessed last week that Russian troops
were making “slow and uneven” progress in the Donbas, often of no more
than “several kilometers ... on any given day, just because they don’t
want to run out too far ahead of their logistics and sustainment lines,”
one senior U.S. official told journalists.
But in its daily reports, the Institute for the Study of War noted
that Russian forces made no confirmed ground attacks on Monday or
Tuesday. It said a Ukrainian artillery strike April 30 on a Russian
command headquarters near Izium has slowed the Russian push, and noted
that, farther north, a Ukrainian counterattack Monday pushed Russian
forces back 25 miles east of Kharkiv.
Those claims do not hold up to reality. As Clausewitz wrote about the Schwerpunkt in 'On War':
[N]o matter what the central feature of the enemy's power may be—the point on which your efforts must converge—the defeat and destruction of his fighting force remains the best way to begin, and in every case will be a very significant feature of the campaign.
Basing our comments on general experience, the acts we consider most important for the defeat of the enemy are the following:
Destruction of his army, if it is at all significant.
Seizure of his capital if it is not only the center of
administration but also that of social, professional, and political
activity.
Delivery of an effective blow against his principal ally if that ally is more powerful than he.
Accordingly the Russian military is tasked with demilitarizing the Ukraine, Clausewitz' task one, and that is what it is doing.
Russia is using the best available means to destroy the Ukrainian military. On the ground that means ruthless systematic mass use of artillery.
Reports about the high morale of the Ukrainian soldiers who halt
Russian advances are copium when compared with the reality of the
battlefield.
Artillery dominated the battlefields of World War I. That
was seen in various ways, from wounding patterns and doctors’ clinical
data, to memoirs, diaries, and letters, through to changed military
doctrine after the war. No nation that had experienced significant ground combat would blithely assume morale could replace firepower. Artillery even holds the dubious distinction of causing a new diagnosis, shellshock.
Morale can not replace firepower. Morale gets destroyed when soldiers
come under concentrated artillery fire. Russia has plenty of the later.
As I wrote a week ago after reading the Russian military report for that day:
The nearly 1,000 artillery missions in the last 24 hours and
on the days before speak of intense preparations for upcoming attacks
by Russian mechanized forces. Over all artillery will do the most damage to the Ukrainian troops.
In World War II and other modern mechanized wars some 65% of all
casualties were caused by artillery strikes. The recent rate on the
Ukrainian side will likely be higher.
There were at that time few reports about the artillery situation at
the frontline. I have now found three which have since come out. They
convey what the power of artillery does to an army and confirm my
previous take.
The Head of the Russian State warmly congratulated Naftali Bennett and the Israeli people on the national holiday celebrated today - Independence Day. Mutual interest was expressed in the further development of friendly Russian-Israeli relations and the maintenance of useful contacts between the leadership of the two countries.
A thorough exchange of views on the situation in Ukraine continued. Particular attention is paid to humanitarian aspects, including the evacuation of civilians from the territory of the Azovstal plant, held by militants of nationalist formations, carried out in cooperation with representatives of the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Russian military remains ready to ensure the safe exit of civilians. As for the militants remaining at Azovstal, the Kyiv authorities should give them an order to lay down their arms.
On the eve of Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War, which is celebrated in Russia and Israel on May 9, Vladimir Putin and Naftali Bennet emphasized the special significance of this date for the peoples of both countries, who carefully preserve the historical truth about the events of those years and honor the memory of all the fallen, including victims of the Holocaust. The President of Russia recalled that out of the six million Jews tortured in ghettos and concentration camps, killed by the Nazis during punitive operations, 40 percent were citizens of the USSR, and asked to convey wishes of health and well-being to the veterans living in Israel. Naftali Bennet, in turn, noted the decisive contribution of the Red Army to the Victory over Nazism.
haaretz | In a call with Prime Minister Naftali
Bennett, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized for Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov's assertion that Adolf Hitler had Jewish
origins.
#BREAKING: Israel PM office says: Putin apologized to PM Bennett for Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov's anti-semitic remarks;
Bennett thanked Putin for the president's attitude toward the Jewish people and the memory of the Holocaust
Bennett
accepted Putin's apology for Lavrov's remarks and thanked him for
clarifying the Russian president's attitude toward the Jewish people and
the memory of the Holocaust, Bennett's office said in a statement.
The
two leaders also stressed the importance of May 9 – the day of victory
of Nazi Germany – to Israelis and Russians, as well as the memory of
victims of war and the Holocaust.
Bennett
mentioned the contribution of the Red Army to the victory in the Second
World War. During the conversation, he brought up Zelenskyy's request
to find a solution to the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol,
where it is estimated that several hundred people are trapped. Putin
said that Russia was still ready to provide safe passage for civilians
to leave the plant and called on Kyiv to order Ukrainian fighters holed
up in Azovstal to put down their weapons.
Putin also sent his congratulations to President Isaac Herzog to mark Israel's Independence Day.
"I extend my sincere wishes on the occasion of Israel's Independence Day," Putin wrote to Herzog.
"I
believe that relations between Russia and Israel, based on the
principles of friendship and mutual respect, will continue to develop
for the benefit of our people and in order to strengthen peace and
security in the Middle East.
"I wish you good health and great success, as well as joy and prosperity for all Israeli citizens," he added.
mid.ru |Question: After your statement about the possibility
of a nuclear war, of the third world war, the whole world is asking: is
there a real risk of that happening?
Sergey Lavrov: It
looks like by the whole world you mean Western media and politicians.
This is not the first time I note how skillfully the West twists what
Russia’s representatives say. I was asked about the threats that are
currently growing and about how real the risk of the third world war is.
I answered literally the following: Russia has never ceased its efforts
to reach agreements that would guarantee the prevention of a nuclear
war. In recent years, it was Russia who has persistently proposed to its
American colleagues that we repeat what Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald
Reagan did in 1987: adopt a statement reaffirming that there can be no
winners in a nuclear war, and therefore it must never be unleashed.
We failed to
convince the Trump Administration, because it had its own ideas on this
issue. However, the Biden Administration agreed to our proposal. In June
2021, at a meeting between President of Russia Vladimir Putin and US
President Joseph Biden in Geneva a statement was adopted on the
inadmissibility of a nuclear war. Let me stress: this was done at our
initiative.
In January
2022, five permanent members of the UN Security Council adopted a
similar statement at the highest level, also at our initiative: there
can be no winners in a nuclear war. It must never be unleashed. In order
to achieve this goal, President Vladimir Putin proposed convening a
summit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. This
proposal was supported by our Chinese colleagues and France. The United
States and the United Kingdom, which always defers to it, are holding
back this important event for the time being.
After I said
this, I urged everyone to exercise utmost caution not to escalate the
existing threats. I was referring to the statement made by President
Vladimir Zelensky in February that it had been a mistake for Ukraine to
give up its nuclear weapons and it was necessary to acquire them again.
There was also a statement made by the leadership of Poland about their
readiness to deploy American nuclear weapons on their territory, and
much more.
Somehow there
were no questions from the media about the statements made by Vladimir
Zelensky and Poland. Or after the statement by Foreign Minister of
France Jean-Yves Le Drian, who said suddenly: Let us not forget that
France also has nuclear weapons. This is what I was talking about. When
Western journalists take words out of context and distort the meaning of
what I or other Russian representatives actually said, this does them
no credit.
Question: Several days ago, President Vladimir Putin said Russia had “unparalleled weapons.” What did he mean?
Sergey Lavrov: Everyone
knows this well. Three years ago, during his Address to the Federal
Assembly, President Vladimir Putin presented the latest Russian
innovations. First of all, these included hypersonic weapons. He gave a
frank and detailed explanation that Russia began developing them after
the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Back
then President George W. Bush, answering the question why his country
was destroying this essential document, which ensured global stability
to a large extent, told President Vladimir Putin they were going to
withdraw from the treaty to create an anti-missile system that would not
be aimed against Russia. He said they were concerned about North Korea
and Iran, and “you can do whatever you want in response.” They will also
consider this as not aimed against the United States.
We had no
choice but to work on hypersonic weapons because we knew perfectly well
that the US missile defence system would not be aimed at North Korea and
Iran but against Russia and then China. We needed weapons that were
guaranteed to overpower missile defences. Otherwise, a country that has
missile defence systems and offensive weapons may be tempted to launch
the first strike thinking that a response will be suppressed by its
missile defence systems.
This is how
we developed these weapons. They are described in detail in specialised
publications. We don’t hide that we have them. We were even ready to
hold talks with the US on including a discussion on the new systems that
have already been developed or will be developed in the future in the
treaty on strategic stability that would replace the current New START.
Today the Americans have suspended all these talks. We will rely on our
own resources.
Question: When
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was visiting Kiev, the city was
hit by missile strikes. What would you say in response to Western media
and President Vladimir Zelensky who regard these strikes as a
provocation against the UN?
Sergey Lavrov: We
gave constant warnings. When he announced the launch of the special
military operation, President Vladimir Putin said it will be aimed
against the military infrastructure in Ukraine used to oppress civilians
in the east of the country and create a threat to the security of
Russia. They know very well that we are attacking military targets in
order to deprive the Ukrainian radicals and the Kiev regime of the
opportunity to receive reinforcements in the form of weapons and
ammunition.
On the other
hand, I have not heard President Vladimir Zelensky say a word about a
situation that is in no way related to either a military plant (whatever
it is called) or any other military facilities. I mean the Tochka-U
missile strikes at the centre of Donetsk over the recent weeks, or the
civil railway station in Kramatorsk and several other places, including
Kherson (just the day before yesterday). The reason for these strikes
was clearly to terrorise civilians and prevent the people living in
these regions from deciding their fate. The majority of people there are
tired from the oppression they have been suffering all these years from
the Kiev regime, which is increasingly becoming a tool in the hands of
neo-Nazis, the United States and its closest allies.
Those who
came to power after a bloody unconstitutional coup launched a war
against their own people and against everything Russian, banning the
Russian language, education, and media. They adopted laws promoting Nazi
theories and practice. We have warned them. All our warnings met a wall
of silence. As we understand now, back then the West led by the United
States already intended to encourage the Ukrainian leaders (Petr
Poroshenko and Vladimir Zelensky, who came after him) in every possible
way in their desire to create threats for Russia.
Our warnings
issued in November and December 2021 about the need to stop NATO’s
reckless expansion to the east and agree on security guarantees that
that will not be related to the accession of new countries to the
military-political bloc were rejected. I would even say the answer we
received was not very polite: “It’s none of your business,” “we will
expand NATO as we wish,” and “we won’t ask for your permission.”
At the same
time, the Ukrainian regime gathered about 100,000 troops along the
conflict line with Donbass and intensified strikes thus violating the
Minsk agreements and the ceasefire. We had no choice but to recognise
these two republics, sign an agreement on mutual assistance with them
and, upon their request, defend them from the militarists and Nazis who
are flourishing in today’s Ukraine.
Question: This
is how you see it, while Vladimir Zelensky puts it differently. He
believes denazification doesn’t make any sense. He is a Jew. The Nazis,
Azov – there are very few of them (several thousand). Vladimir Zelensky
refutes your view of the situation. Do you believe Vladimir Zelensky is
an obstacle to peace?
Sergey Lavrov: It
makes no difference to me what President Vladimir Zelensky refutes or
does not refute. He is as fickle as the wind, as they say. He can change
his position several times a day.
I heard him
say that they would not even discuss demilitarisation and denazification
during peace talks. First, they are torpedoing the talks just as they
did the Minsk agreements for eight years. Second, there is nazification
there: the captured militants as well as members of the Azov and Aidar
battalions and other units wear swastikas or symbols of Nazi Waffen-SS
battalions on their clothes or have them tattooed on their bodies; they
openly read and promote Mein Kampf. His argument is: How can there be
Nazism in Ukraine if he is a Jew? I may be mistaken but Adolf Hitler had
Jewish blood, too. This means absolutely nothing. The wise Jewish
people say that the most ardent anti-Semites are usually Jews. “Every
family has its black sheep,” as we say.
As for Azov,
there is evidence being published now confirming that the Americans and
especially the Canadians played a leading role in training the
ultra-radical and clearly neo-Nazi units in Ukraine. During all these
years, the goal was to insert neo-Nazis into the regular Ukrainian
troops. Thus, the Azov fighters would play a leading role in every unit
(battalion or regiment). I read such reports in Western media. The fact
that the Azov battalion is clearly a neo-Nazi unit was recognised by the
West without any hesitation until the situation in early 2022, when
they began to change their minds as if on cue. Japan even apologised to
Azov recently for having listed it as a terrorist organisation a few
years ago because of its neo-Nazi ideology.
Journalists
(from some Western media outlet) interviewed Vladimir Zelensky and asked
him what he thought about Azov and the ideas that Azov preaches and
puts into practice. He said there were many such battalions and “they
are what they are.” I would like to emphasise that this phrase – “they
are what they are” – was cut out by the journalist and it was not
included in the interview that was aired. This means the journalist
understands what this person says and thinks. He thinks about how the
neo-Nazis can be used to fight Russia.
Question: There
are several thousand or perhaps tens of thousands of neo-Nazi
militants. Can their presence excuse the denazification of a country
with the population of 40 million? There are such battalions as the
Wagner Group, who also draw inspiration from neo-Nazi ideas, serving
with the Russian troops.
Still looking into that mysterious seventh
reactor now being mentioned at Zaporizhzhia. It's only a six-unit
plant. See why the Russian seizure might be most inconvenient for
certain
entities? Proper link for 'seventh' reactor at ZNPP. Maybe for cooking up some weapons magic dust, or maybe just a typo (because nuclear
gulators never proofread public statements... heh).
"...The Russian Federation attacked the following nuclear installations and facilities in Ukraine: [list]
...the site of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant with seven nuclear facilities on-site (March 3, 2022)..." "Perhaps that 7th entity is an enrichment array made to go beyond the 3% needed for reactor fuel and designed for enrichment
to weapons grade."
Enriching uranium today is a mechanical process - no reactors involved. It's done almost exclusively in gas centrifuges.
Neutron bombs (low yield, little fallout, high
'people-killing' neutron flux) require a lot of tritium. Most boosted
weapons use a little tritium, but China and Israel's neutron bombs
require a lot. Tritium decays at over 5% a year, so
you need to keep replenishing it whether it's just in storage for bombs
or actually inside a warhead. You make tritium by irradiating lithium
rods made for that purpose and inserting them (usually in place of
regular fuel rods) in a nuclear reactor for the
entire fuel cycle (12 - 18 months).
Russia can (or may have already) collected evidence
if Zaporizhzhia reactors were used for that purpose. Chances are pretty
good because so many were shut down ahead of schedule for mysterious
reasons earlier this year. Reactors have to
be reconfigured a bit for tritium production - they run under different
parameters, produce less power and use less boron in the cooling water.
I suppose it could be concealed with enough effort, but Rosatom built
Ukraine's VVER1000 reactors and (until recently)
has supplied all their fuel rods. They know exactly what to look for
including, I suppose, an 'extra' reactor that could be used for that
purpose.
Ukraine would have no reason to make substantial
quantities of tritium for weapons, and certainly not in 'neutron bomb'
quantities... unless THEY had developed neutron bombs, or were producing
tritium for some unnamed third party to use
in theirs. Did I mention that the Dimona reactor is end-of-life and
can't be used for tritium production anymore?
I see the reactor operators have recently been
crying about Rosatom nuclear engineers asking for 'sensitive' ZNPP
operating data, which they refuse to give them. So something fishy going
on for sure. Maybe Rosatom should send in a few Chechens
to ask again - politely at first, then not so politely.
Ukraine would also need plutonium for weapons, but
that comes from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. They did that in
Ukraine in Soviet times but shouldn't have any reason to be doing that
now. Pretty hard to hide any quantities of radioactive
plutonium. You would need catacombs under a steel plant or something
like that, but what do I know...
axios | The Biden administration last week asked the Israeli government to
consider increasing its military aid to Ukraine, U.S. and Israeli
officials tell Axios.
Why it matters: Taking a careful approach to the war, Israel has so far refused Ukraine's requests for advanced weaponry, and only last month agreed to send thousands of helmets and bulletproof vests for medical teams and first responders. But as Israel takes a more critical public line against Russia, it's signaling it is increasingly open to supplying Ukraine with certain nonlethal military equipment.
Behind the scenes:
Israel last week sent Dror Shalom, the head of the political-military
bureau at the Ministry of Defense, to Ramstein Air Base in Germany for a
U.S.-led meeting on sending weapons to Ukraine.
The Biden
administration made it clear to the Israelis that the U.S. understands
its complicated situation with Russia and appreciates what it has done
so far in terms of aid to Ukraine, but hopes it could do more in
providing military equipment, U.S. and Israeli officials said.
This message was delivered during a meeting
between White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his
Israeli counterpart, Eyal Hulata, at the White House last week and in
conversations between the Pentagon and the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
The White House declined to comment.
State of play:
A senior Israeli official said the Israeli government is considering
increasing its military aid to Ukraine and is likely to do it as the war
continues. But the official stressed Israel will only provide nonlethal
military equipment.
snriu | The Russian Federation attacked the following nuclear installations and facilities in Ukraine:
the radioactively contaminated 30-km
Chornobyl Exclusion Zone and nuclear facilities on its territory, such
as the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, spent nuclear fuel storage
facilities, Ukrainian enterprise for storage and disposal of radioactive
waste, more than 700 temporal storage sites with Chornobyl radioactive
material (from February 24, 2022);
the radioactive waste storage facility of the Kharkiv Inter-regional Branch of the Radon enterprise (February 26, 2022);
the radioactive waste disposal facility of the Kyiv branch of the Radon enterprise (February 27, 2022);
the site of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant with seven nuclear facilities on-site (March 3, 2022);
numerous medical facilities, civilian
industrial enterprises, and research institutions that used or manage
radionuclide sources and radioactive material (systematic from February
24, 2022);
the research nuclear installation
“Neutron Source Based on a Subcritical Assembly Controlled by a Linear
Electron Accelerator” with 37 loaded nuclear fuel cells in Kharkiv
(systematic shelling from March 6, 2022);
also military attacks of the Russian
Federation on March 9, 2022, and afterwards resulted in blackouts at the
Chornobyl nuclear power plant and other nuclear facilities in the
Chornobyl Exclusion Zone.
Obstruction by the Russian military of
normal work and variability of personnel creates conditions for
violation of radiation safety, creating a radiation threat.
The Russian Federation brutally violates
international laws and nuclear and radiation safety requirements by
committing military attacks on nuclear installations and other nuclear
facilities that use radioactive material and radionuclide sources. By
attacking Ukrainian nuclear installations, the Russian Federation also
hinders the fulfilment of Ukrainian commitments under the Convention on
Nuclear Safety, the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel
Management and Radioactive Waste, and the Agreement between Ukraine and
the IAEA on the application of guarantees within the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The acts of nuclear terrorism of
the aggressor threaten the lives and health of the civilian population
in Ukraine and globally. Specifically, the Russian Federation violates:
gilbertdoctorow | In the past couple of days, there were two major diplomatic scandals at
the international level. One concerns the Ukrainian ambassador to
Berlin, who grossly insulted the Chancellor. The other concerns Russian
Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov’s offhand remarks in an
interview regarding anti-Semitism, which immediately riled the political
establishment in Israel. Though both incidents have been featured in
news bulletins, neither has been approached from the angle of
investigative journalism.
However, no one asked the question which begs to be addressed: how,
why would Sergei Lavrov, who is surely the most experienced diplomat on
the world stage, make remarks that could only do damage to
Russian-Israeli relations?
I admit that there is an innocuous explanation. Lavrov intended his
words as a counter to Western denial that Kiev is a Nazi-dominated
regime on grounds that President Zelensky himself is Jewish. But Lavrov
had to be aware how Jerusalem would react to his words, so we should
look further.
Let me hazard a guess. Lavrov knew well what he was doing and
probably had discussed this subject with his boss, Vladimir
Vladimirovich, before he opened his mouth.
The Russians are very dissatisfied with Israel over its past military
cooperation with Ukraine, and Lavrov’s statement was only the opening
round. If we go back to the very first days of Russia’s ‘special
military operation,’ when they took control of the Zaporozhye nuclear
power station and seized there documents relating to Ukraine’s efforts
to build a ‘dirty nuclear weapon,’ the Russian Ministry of Defense
announced that there were foreign enablers active there. Then the next
day, unexpectedly and in great haste, Israeli Prime Minister Bennett
flew to Moscow for unscheduled talks with Putin. Almost nothing was
disclosed about the subject of their talks. But subsequently the foreign
enablers were never identified by the Russians.
Though I have been praised by some readers for avoiding
‘speculation,’ I will permit myself just this once to speculate: it is
not inconceivable that the Israelis were among the key advisers to Kiev
on its program to build nuclear weapons. If that is so, we may expect
Russian-Israeli relations to get a lot worse in the coming weeks and
months.
The immediate cause is a passage in an interview Lavrov had with the Italian TV network Mediaset:
Question: This is how you see it, while
Vladimimmmmmmmmmmkladimir Zelensky refutes your view of
the situation. Do you believe Vladimir Zelensky is an obstacle to peace?
Sergey Lavrov: It makes no difference to me what
President Vladimir Zelensky refutes or does not refute. He is as fickle
as the wind, as they say. He can change his position several times a
day.
I heard him say that they would not even discuss demilitarisation and
denazification during peace talks. First, they are torpedoing the talks
just as they did the Minsk agreements for eight years. Second, there is
nazification there: the captured militants as well as members of the
Azov and Aidar battalions and other units wear swastikas or symbols of
Nazi Waffen-SS battalions on their clothes or have them tattooed on
their bodies; they openly read and promote Mein Kampf. His argument is:
How can there be Nazism in Ukraine if he is a Jew? I may be mistaken but
Adolf Hitler had Jewish blood, too. This means absolutely nothing. The
wise Jewish people say that the most ardent anti-Semites are usually
Jews. “Every family has its black sheep,” as we say.
The Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, condemned on
Monday a recent claim by the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov,
that Jews were “the biggest antisemites.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry also summoned the Russian ambassador to
Israel to explain Mr. Lavrov’s remarks, while the Israeli foreign
minister, Yair Lapid, demanded an apology. ... Mr. Bennett said
that he viewed Mr. Lavrov’s remarks with the “utmost severity,” saying
that the comments were “untrue and their intentions are wrong.”
Mr. Bennett added, “The goal of such lies is to accuse the Jews
themselves of the most awful crimes in history, which were perpetrated
against them, and thereby absolve Israel’s enemies of responsibility.”
Separately, Mr. Lapid said that Mr. Lavrov’s comments were “both an
unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical
error.”
“Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust,” he added. “The
lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of
antisemitism.”
Mr. Lapid has a big mouth that hides the whitewashing of Jewish Nazi collaborators in which his own family was involved.
But first let us tackle the question of Adolf Hitler's ancestry. The History channel has a piece on it:
In the decades since Adolf Hitler’s death, the Nazi leader’s
ancestry has been a subject of rampant speculation and intense
controversy. Some have suggested that his father, Alois, born to an
unwed woman named Maria Schickelgruber, was the illegitimate child of
Leopold Frankenberger, a young Jewish man whose family employed her as a
maid. (She subsequently married Johann Georg Hiedler–later spelled
“Hitler”–whose surname her son adopted.)
In 2019 the Jerusalem Post reported of new research on the issue:
[A] study by psychologist and physician Leonard Sax has shed
new light supporting the claim that Hitler’s father’s father had Jewish
roots.
The study, titled “Aus den Gemeinden von Burgenland: Revisiting the
question of Adolf Hitler’s paternal grandfather,” which was published in
the current issue of the Journal of European Studies, examines claims
by Hitler’s lawyer Hans Frank, who allegedly discovered the truth.
Hitler asked Frank to look into the claim in 1930, after his nephew
William Patrick Hitler threatened to expose that the leader’s
grandfather was Jewish.
In his 1946 memoir, which was published seven years after he was
executed during the Nuremberg trials, “Frank claimed to have uncovered
evidence in 1930 that Hitler’s paternal grandfather was a Jewish man
living in Graz, Austria, in the household where Hitler’s grandmother was
employed,” and it was in 1836 that Hitler’s grandmother Maria Anna
Schicklgruber became pregnant, Sax explained. ... Sax writes in
the study that according to the letters in Frank’s memoir,
“Frankenberger Sr. sent money for the support of the child from infancy
until its 14th birthday.”
“The motivation for the payment, according to Frank, was not charity
but primarily a concern about the authorities becoming involved: ‘The
Jew paid without a court order, because he was concerned about the
result of a court hearing and the connected publicity,’” the letters
state.
It seems to me that Lavrov has that one right. It really seems that
Adolf Hitler had some Jewish ancestors who even paid for the upbringing
of his father.
Now onto the other issue, Lavrov's claim that:
.. the most ardent anti-Semites are usually Jews. “Every family has its black sheep,” as we say.
Yair Lapid does not agree with that. Well, his father didn't either
until, to his embarrassment, some new facts proved him wrong. There is
for example the well known case of Rudolf Kasztner in which Lapid's
father was involved.
[The British Jewish historian Paul] Bogdanor was “extremely
shocked” to find that everything pointed towards Kasztner’s having been
“a collaborator” with the Nazis, and a “betrayer of the Zionist movement
and the Jewish people.”
Bogdanor’s new book, “Kasztner’s Crime,” published in October, sets
out the case against the Jewish leader in damning detail. Even the most
devoted defender might have second thoughts after reading his book. ... Kasztner
was a leader of a small Zionist grouping in Budapest towards the end of
World War II. He led a Jewish rescue committee which, before the Nazis
entered Hungary, did succeed in saving the lives of a number of Jews.
But once the Nazis arrived, Kasztner, an ambitious lawyer, became
embroiled in prolonged negotiations with the Nazi leadership,
particularly Adolf Eichmann.
After complex dealings with Eichmann, Kasztner succeeded in getting
the Nazis to agree to the deportation of a group of 1,684 Hungarian
Jews, the so-called “Kasztner Train,” who eventually ended up in freedom
in Switzerland.
But thousands more continued on the doomed path to Auschwitz.
Bogdanor says that not only did Kasztner know they were being sent to
their deaths, but that he actively kept such information secret from
other Jews in Hungary and the wider Jewish world.
Kasztner deliberately put selected strong Zionists who wanted to
emigrate to Palestine on his list. Those Hungarian Jews who did not want
to emigrate were deceived by him to believe that the Nazis were no
danger to them. Kazstner himself later found a role in the Zionist
establishment:
Kasztner himself did not get on the train, but survived the
war and made his way to Palestine. By 1952 he was a spokesman for the
Ministry of Trade and a would-be member of Knesset, though he did not
succeed in obtaining a place high enough on the Mapai list to become
elected.
Nevertheless, when, in 1953, an embittered Hungarian Jew named
Malkiel Gruenwald distributed a pamphlet about Kasztner, naming him as a
Nazi collaborator, the Israeli government thought highly enough of him
to bring a libel suit on his behalf, accusing Gruenwald of defamation.
During the trial, dozens of witnesses testified about Kasztner’s
actions during the war. The case lasted 18 months and did not end well
for him. The presiding judge ruled that Kasztner had indeed
collaborated, and in words which echo down the years, said he had “sold
his soul to the devil.”
The Israeli government of the day fell and Kasztner and his family
became virtual prisoners in their home. He resigned from his post, his
wife sank into depression and his daughter spoke, years later, of having
been ostracized and mocked by other children at school.
On March 3, 1957, right-wing extremists shot Kasztner dead. The
following year, too late for him, the court verdict was reversed,
suggesting that much of what was claimed against him was not correct. Leading
the campaign in ensuing years to rehabilitate Kasztner was journalist
and political Tommy Lapid, himself a Hungarian Jew and father of Yair
Lapid, the leader of today’s Yesh Atid party.
The father of the current Foreign Minister of Israel Yair Lapid tried
to rehabilitate Kasztner. But the British historian found that Kasztner
was indeed guilty:
“Kasztner didn’t start out as someone evil,” says Bogdanor.
“He started out as someone who wanted to rescue Jews, and before March
1944, he did rescue Jews. But when the Nazis occupied Hungary, he began
negotiating with them and, very quickly, I argue, he became a
collaborator.” ... The central charge made against Kasztner by
the surviving Hungarian Jews was, says Bogdanor, “not just that he
failed to warn them [of the Nazis’ intention]. It was that Kasztner had
instructed local Jewish leadership to mislead them, and to deceive them
into boarding the trains to Auschwitz. After Kasztner had visited the
local communities, the leadership spread false information — which he
had given them — that the Jews were going to be resettled inside
Hungary. Agranat and the other judges overlooked this matter of
deception.”
Bogdanor admits to being profoundly shocked by the depth and extent
of what he found out about Kasztner. It would have been bad enough, he
argues, if Kasztner had passively collaborated with the Nazis. But he
actively collaborated, he says, taking steps to mislead both Jews inside
Hungary and his Jewish contacts in the outside world.
Yair Lapid, just like his father, is wrong. There were quite a number of Jewish collaborators and some were even officers in Hitlers Wehrmacht.
bloomberg |Two months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of
Defense Lloyd Austin convened an extraordinary conclave of allies and
partners at the U.S. military base in Ramstein, Germany. They were there
to establish a wartime coalition whose announced aim, at the time, was
to protect Ukraine from further Russian aggression.
The
participants were mostly members of the NATO alliance. They were joined
by a dozen or so pro-U.S. nations. Among them was Israel, a country
that began the war with the hope of remaining neutral but has been
reluctantly, incrementally and inexorably drawn toward the American
side. Israel’s presence at the conference signaled that it was now all
in.
The question is, all in on what?
Israel accepted the invitation assuming that it would be asked to play a
small part in arming Ukraine with advanced weapons that would enable
Kyiv to hold off and push back the invaders. But after the conference,
Austin told journalists that the goal of the Ramstein alliance would be
to weaken Russia in a way that would prevent it from using military
force against its neighbors. In other words, to reduce Russia from a
superpower to a more minor status. The Ramstein Group would be meeting
once a month, moreover, a sign America is anticipating a long war.
Russia
replied by signaling that it wouldn’t accept the sort of total defeat
that the U.S. and its partners had in mind. Putin made it clear that
Russia would, if necessary, use nuclear weapons to prevent such an
outcome.
The
government of Israel didn’t tell the public in advance that it had
decided to join a wartime alliance that in theory could lead to a
nuclear war. And it has yet to react to the Russian threat. But going to
Ramstein was a defining decision. There is no off-ramp.
Military
alliances are new to Israel. In the 1991 Gulf War its efforts to join
the U.S.-led coalition were rebuffed by Arab members. It isn’t a NATO
nation, which means that it has no mutual security guarantee. It also
has no formal defense treaty with the U.S. Israel is a
country accustomed to fighting neighborhood battles on its own. Signing
up for a prolonged conflict against Russia in Ukraine, perhaps a wider
war in Europe or even Armageddon isn’t something Israel appears to have
thought about deeply.
Most
of the Ramstein countries don’t have Russian troops on their borders.
Israel does, in Syria. In recent years, Israel and Russia have
coordinated military efforts that allowed Israel to wage a shadow war
against Iran and its proxies. An antagonized Russia will be much less
likely to prevent Iran from supplying its proxy army in Lebanon or
moving its own Islamic Republic army closer to Israel’s frontier. It’s
clear that ties
between Russia and Israel are already fraying. On Monday, Israel
denounced recent comments by Russia’s foreign minister saying he
believed Hitler had Jewish roots.
As
the war in Ukraine evolves, Jerusalem will do what Washington asks, up
to clear red lines. No presently conceivable Israeli government would
send large combat forces to fight in Ukraine. There is also little
chance Israel will ship heavy military gear there. NATO countries have
more than enough advanced weapons to go around, especially now that the
U.S. is ramping up domestic arms production. Israel also will refrain
from sharing its closely held military secrets with coalition
allies (although there are very few that the U.S. isn’t privy to).
thepostil | Since 2007, Putin was systematically demonized in the West. Whether
or not he is a “dictator” Is a matter of discussion; but it is worth
noting that his approval rate in Russia never fell below 59 % in the last 20 years. I take my figures from the Levada Center, which is labeled as “foreign agent” in Russia, and hence doesn’t reflect the Kremlin’s views. It is also interesting to see that in France, some of the most influential so-called “experts” on Russia are in fact working for the British MI-6’s “Integrity Initiative.”
Third, in the West, there is a sense that you can do whatever you
want if it is in the name of western values. This is why the Russian
offensive in Ukraine is passionately sanctioned, while FUKUS (France,
UK, US) wars get strong political support, even if they are notoriously
based on lies. “Do what I say, not what I do!” One could ask what makes
the conflict in Ukraine worse than other wars. In fact, each new
sanction we apply to Russia highlights the sanctions we haven’t applied
earlier to the US, the UK or France.
The purpose of this incredible polarization is to prevent any
dialogue or negotiation with Russia. We are back to what happened in
1914, just before the start of WWI…
TP: What will Russia gain or lose with this
involvement in the Ukraine (which is likely to be long-term)? Russia is
facing a conflict on “two fronts,” it would seem: a military one and an
economic one (with the endless sanctions and “canceling” of Russia).
JB: With the end of the Cold War, Russia expected
being able to develop closer relations with its Western neighbors. It
even considered joining NATO. But the US resisted every attempt of
rapprochement. NATO structure does not allow for the coexistence of two
nuclear superpowers. The US wanted to keep its supremacy.
Since 2002, the quality of the relations with Russia decayed slowly,
but steadily. It reached a first negative “peak” in 2014 after the
Maidan coup. The sanctions have become US and EU primary foreign policy
tool. The Western narrative of a Russian intervention in Ukraine got
traction, although it was never substantiated. Since 2014, I haven’t met
any intelligence professional who could confirm any Russian military
presence in the Donbass. In fact, Crimea became the main “evidence” of
Russian “intervention.” Of course, Western historians ignore superbly
that Crimea was separated from Ukraine by referendum in January 1990,
six months before Ukrainian independence and under Soviet rule. In fact,
it’s Ukraine that illegally annexed Crimea in 1995. Yet, western
countries sanctioned Russia for that…
Since 2014 sanctions severely affected east-west relations. After the
signature of the Minsk Agreements in September 2014 and February 2015,
the West—namely France, Germany as guarantors for Ukraine, and the
US—made no effort whatsoever to make Kiev comply, despite repeated
requests from Moscow.
Russia’s perception is that whatever it will do, it will face an
irrational response from the West. This is why, in February 2022,
Vladimir Putin realized he would gain nothing in doing nothing. If you
take into account his mounting approval rate in the country, the
resilience of the Russian economy after the sanctions, the loss of trust
in the US dollar, the threatening inflation in the West, the
consolidation of the Moscow-Beijing axis with the support of India
(which the US has failed to keep in the “Quad”), Putin’s calculation was
unfortunately not wrong.
Regardless of what Russia does, US and western strategy is to weaken
it. From that point on, Russia has no real stake in its relations with
us. Again, the US objective is not to have a “better” Ukraine or a
“better” Russia, but a weaker Russia. But it also shows that the United
States is not able to rise higher than Russia and that the only way to
overcome it is to weaken it. This should ring an alarm bell in our
countries…
TP: You have written a very interesting book on Putin. Please tell us a little about it.
JB: In fact, I started my book in October 2021,
after a show on French state TV about Vladimir Putin. I am definitely
not an admirer of Vladimir Putin, nor of any Western leader, by the way.
But the so-called experts had so little understanding of Russia,
international security and even of simple plain facts, that I decided to
write a book. Later, as the situation around Ukraine developed, I
adjusted my approach to cover this mounting conflict. The idea was
definitely not to relay Russian propaganda. In fact, my book is based
exclusively on western sources, official reports, declassified
intelligence reports, Ukrainian official medias, and reports provided by
the Russian opposition. The approach was to demonstrate that we can
have a sound and factual alternative understanding of the situation just
with accessible information and without relying on what we call
“Russian propaganda.”
The underlying thinking is that we can only achieve peace if we have a
more balanced view of the situation. To achieve this, we have to go
back to the facts. Now, these facts exist and are abundantly available
and accessible. The problem is that some individuals make every effort
to prevent this and tend to hide the facts that disturb them. This is
exemplified by some so-called journalist who dubbed me “The spy who loved Putin!”
This is the kind of “journalists” who live from stirring tensions and
extremism. All figures and data provided by our media about the conflict
come from Ukraine, and those coming from Russia are automatically
dismissed as propaganda. My view is that both are propaganda. But as
soon as you come up with western data that do not fit into the
mainstream narrative, you have extremists claiming you “love Putin.”
Our media are so worried about finding rationality in Putin’s actions
that they turn a blind eye to the crimes committed by Ukraine, thus
generating a feeling of impunity for which Ukrainians are paying the
price. This is the case of the attack on civilians by a missile in
Kramatorsk—we no longer talk about it because the responsibility of
Ukraine is very likely, but this means that the Ukrainians could do it
again with impunity.
On the contrary, my book aims at reducing the current hysteria that
prevent any political solution. I do not want to deny the Ukrainians the
right to resist the invasion with arms. If I were Ukrainian, I would
probably take the arms to defend my land. The issue here is that it must
be their decision. The role of the international community should not
be to add fuel to the fire by supplying arms but to promote a negotiated
solution.
To move in this direction, we must make the conflict dispassionate
and bring it back into the realm of rationality. In any conflict the
problems come from both sides; but here, strangely, our media show us
that they all come from one side only. This is obviously not true; and,
in the end, it is the Ukrainian people who pay the price of our policy
against Vladimir Putin.
TP: Why is Putin hated so much by the Western elite?
JB: Putin became Western elite’s “bête noire” in
2007 with his famous speech in Munich. Until then, Russia had only
moderately reacted to NATO expansion. But as the US withdrew from the
ABM Treaty in 2002 and started negotiations with some East European
countries to deploy anti-ballistic missiles, Russia felt the heat and
Putin virulently criticized the US and NATO.
This was the start of a relentless effort to demonize Vladimir Putin
and to weaken Russia. The problem was definitely not human rights or
democracy, but the fact that Putin dared to challenge the western
approach. The Russians have in common with the Swiss the fact that they
are very legalistic. They try to strictly follow the rules of
international law. They tend to follow “law-based International order.”
Of course, this is not the image we have, because we are used to hiding
certain facts. Crimea is a case in point.
In the West, since the early 2000s, the US has started to impose a
“rules-based international order.” As an example, although the US
officially recognizes that there is only one China and that Taiwan is only a part of it, it maintains a military presence on the island and supplies weapons. Imagine if China would supply weapons to Hawaii (which was illegally annexed in the 19th century)!
What the West is promoting is an international order based on the
“law of the strongest.” As long as the US was the sole superpower,
everything was fine. But as soon as China and Russia started to emerge
as world powers, the US tried to contain them. This is exactly what Joe Biden said
in March 2021, shortly after taking office: “The rest of the world is
closing in and closing in fast. We can’t allow this to continue.”
As Henry Kissinger said in the Washington Post:
“For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it
is an alibi for the absence of one.” This is why I felt we need to have a
more factual approach to this conflict.
TP: Do you know who was involved and when it was
decided by the US and NATO that regime change in Russia was a primary
geopolitical objective?
JB: I think everything started in the early 2000s. I
am not sure the objective was a regime change in Moscow, but it was
certainly to contain Russia. This is what we have witnessed since then.
The 2014 events in Kiev have boosted US efforts.
These were clearly defined in 2019, in two publications of the RAND
Corporation [James Dobbins, Raphael S. Cohen, Nathan Chandler, Bryan
Frederick, Edward Geist, Paul DeLuca, Forrest E. Morgan, Howard J.
Shatz, Brent Williams, “Extending Russia : Competing from Advantageous
Ground,” RAND Corporation, 2019; James Dobbins & al., “Overextending
and Unbalancing Russia,” RAND Corporation, (Doc Nr. RB-10014-A), 2019].
.This has nothing to do with the rule of law, democracy or human
rights, but only with maintaining US supremacy in the world. In other
words, nobody cares about Ukraine. This is why the international
community (that is, Western countries) make every effort to prolong the
conflict.
Since 2014, this is exactly what happened. Everything the West did was to fulfill US strategic objectives.
Firstpost | The first event was the ‘sudden departure from the scene’ of US
Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh, who was the architect of
the brutal sanctions imposed on Russia. Such an apt instance of a pithy
phrase trademarked by a TV journalist named Karan Thapar about Narendra
Modi: A Freudian slip that confirmed what we suspected was Thapar’s deep
desire.
The second event is the God-awful keening and weeping by the
lunatic-fringe-Left and Deep State over the proposed purchase of Twitter
by Elon Musk. One would have thought that the heavens were, literally,
falling. It’s merely that one rather popular social media site is being
taken over by someone who claims he is fed up with their partisan
censorship. Funny, these are the same people who ‘cancelled’ Julian
Assange, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning.
I must admit to a certain prejudice against Daleep Singh for his
hatchet-job in India, where he threatened grave but unnamed
“consequences” if India didn’t abjectly toe the US line on sanctions. In
the event, in one of those “the dog it was that died” scenarios that
show how Karma loves a good joke, it was Singh who lost his job, and the
Russian rouble is at levels abovewhere it was before his supposedly crippling sanctions were imposed.
I figure I am permitted schadenfreude for a moment about Singh, but
then reality strikes. (In truth, you can’t blame him alone: There are
tons of Indian-origin people in the US who work assiduously against
India’s interests, such as Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, Vijay Prashad,
Biju Mathews, Sunitha Viswanathan, et al). But the real story is how
badly his sanctions have fared.
Despite the coercive pressure on India to not buy Russian oil, which
India has largely adhered to, at significant cost because the Russians
are willing to give large discounts, it turns out that the US itself has
bought more Russian oil than India since the war began. Not to speak of
massive EU oil and gas purchases, and most recently Poland and Hungary
agreed to pay in roubles. So the gamble has failed, but EU energy
security has been damaged.
In fact, the entire gamut of Western actions could be seen as
counter-productive. The only cohort that has benefited at all is the
Deep State, especially the Military Industrial Complex in the US, which
needs a good little war somewhere to support its raison d’etre and to
make reliable profits. The $80 billion of arms left behind in
Afghanistan is water under the bridge (the US taxpayer has already paid
for it), and nobody cares where it ends up (probably in India).
The sanctions on Russia are not quite so crippling because the EU
needs Russian gas, if it is to keep the factories humming. For instance,
the German economy may grind to a halt if the Russians turn off the
taps. There is the irony that all the climate-change noise has
eviscerated alternatives such as coal and nuclear, and there simply
isn’t enough renewable energy available to compensate. This is what
happens when you outsource policy to teen-aged Greta Thunberg.
But there are other, longer-term consequences for the US as well. The
nascent rouble trade and even the declaration that the rouble will be
backed by gold (although I am not sure how practicable that is) suggests
that there will be a bifurcation of the global financial system, which
has long dominated by the US dollar. For instance, China would just love
it if more and more trade happened in the renminbi/yuan.
The threat of confiscation of national forex reserves held in the US
is also non-trivial. The US recently did this with Afghanistan’s
reserves, arbitrarily allocating a significant portion of it to the
families of the victims of 9/11. India has the majority of its gold
reserves (some 400 tons out of a total of 700) held in the UK and at the
Bank of International Settlements. Are these safe?
Technical solutions may come to the rescue of the rouble which is now
out of the SWIFT inter-bank transfer system. There was a news item that
Russian banks have tied up with China’s UPI-like digital payments
infrastructure. So why not with UPI, if the downside risks are judged
worthwhile by the Indian government? It is possible to visualise a
fragmented financial system, with increasing transaction costs, where
the US dollar is only primus inter pares.
This may affect the US economy and the lifestyle of Americans. There
are several issues: One is that the US has become the largest debtor
nation in the world, and has been pretty much living beyond its means.
For instance, China is sending its massive savings, along with its
plethora of products, to the US, and this cannot go on forever. The
effects of the deindustrialisation of America are being exacerbated by
the war.
As Brahma Chellaney puts it, “For China, Biden’s coming to power has
been the gift that keeps on giving. US pressure on it has eased. China’s
trade surplus with the US jumped 21.5 per cent in 2021 over a year
earlier to $396.6 billion, and now makes up 58.6 per cent of China’s
total trade surplus.”
American reliability is also in question. Quoting the South China Morning Post, here’s
Chellaney again: “Team Biden, even at the risk of leaving Taiwan
vulnerable to a Chinese amphibious invasion, informs Taipei that the
delivery of an important artillery system would be delayed until 2026 at
the earliest. Biden has prioritised Ukraine over Taiwan’s defence.”
I suggest those with all types of arcane imperialist
motives for why BidenCorp® is determined to maintain the proxy war for
as long as possible, consider Mike Hudson's comments to Halper &
Mate in his
interview on useful idiots.
Hudson is
really worth putting the work into to listen to
on this subject.
Prof Hudson maintains that the huge inflation
combined with a shortage of food that is the result of this war and
the concomitant sanctions, is not a bug, it is a feature. In fact, according to Hudson, it is the number
one reason for the conflict.
He tells us that most of the 'global south' that is
Africa, Latin America and some parts of Asia are going to be ripped
apart by un-affordable food prices throughout 2022 and 2023. BidenCorp® has created a special loans deal through the IMF to 'assist' these nations.
However in order to qualify for the loans, nations
must sign up to a deal whereby they agree to reduce wages, destroy any
organised labor and agree to privatize all state functions, particularly health and education. In addition, public utilities
and producer boards will also be made private, leaving those nations which attempt to prevent
their populations from starving to death, with economies run entirely by
outsiders, plus a huge debt which they will struggle to service, much
less repay.
Hudson maintains that the plan emanated from the
WEF, where billionaires maintained that there are 20% too many people on
this planet. They claim to want to get rid of the 'unproductive
people'.
That last assertion by the WEF is insane when one considers that in the
third world, global south, whatever you want to call it, unproductive
people already die. There are virtually no means of supporting such
types in a poverty ridden society.
It is types like most of us, aging baby boomers,
living off pensions, superannuation and bourgeois family until we hit 90
or so - who most qualify for that. One part of me says they don't target us because (i) we consume, or
(ii)we vote for their puppets in great numbers or (iii) they had a go
with covid, while the last part says we'll be next.
The only way Western elites are more capable and evil
than evil and stupid, is if you believe they are demonic. Because there
is no material payoff in this earthly realm that puts them in a better
position after this war is over.
Within their delusional realm of consensus status-seeking, they cannot allow under any circumstance the
combination of European engineering, Chinese manufacturing, and Russian natural
resources to happen. That landmass from Vladivostok to Lisbon and from
the Arctic Circle to the Bay of Bengal, if allowed
to function in economically complimentary manner, will exert
unparalleled control and influence over the Earth.
The US knows that
much, however stupid its elites may be. Whereas Putin can’t imagine a
world in which Russia doesn’t exist, the US elites cannot
imagine a world not controlled by the US. It’s an apocalypse
when these two worldviews collide for real.
Putin was talking about such a thing in a major
speech back during the Obama administration. He was talking about an economic union
stretching from Vladivostok to Lisbon to the EU and all the benefits
that that would achieve.
The Gini coefficient of Russia is 35.1 and has been
slowly falling in recent years. That is only a little worse than
Australia’s at 34.4
The US Gini coefficient is 41.1.
Higher Gini coefficients = more inequality.
I guess that Washington saw
that as a threat that had to be destroyed.
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