foreignpolicy | The United States is pulling the plug on its drone operations in
southern Ethiopia as demands on its fleet of unmanned aircraft expand
elsewhere across the continent with the rise of the Islamic State in
Libya, and extremist militants in Nigeria, Mali, Chad and Cameroon.
Since 2011, the U.S. had been using the air base in Arba Minch, 250
miles south of the capital, to launch surveillance drones aimed at
groups in East Africa with links to al Qaeda. U.S. personnel primarily
focused on al-Shabab, a Somali group which has waged deadly terrorist
attacks across East Africa.
Pentagon officials remained tightlipped on Monday about the reasons
behind the move. Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza, a Defense Department
spokeswoman, said the U.S. and Ethiopia agreed that the continued
presence of the drone base was “not required at this time.”
Some experts say the fight against
Shabab was going well enough that the Pentagon’s Africa Command, or
Africom, had the opportunity to redistribute its scarce resources
elsewhere.
“Shabab remains virulent, but as a significant terrorist threat with
high profile leaders in range for drone attacks, much less so,” said
Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.
Other
groups, by contrast, are rapidly gaining strength — and presenting far
more tempting targets for the Pentagon and its drone operators.
In recent months, the Islamic State has consolidated its power in Libya, allowing it to easily move
into the port city of Surt, and now control an estimated 150 miles of
territory along the country’s Mediterranean coast. Its presence has
reportedly forced the U.S. to focus on gathering intelligence there in
order to better monitor militant movements in North Africa.
The continued strength of Boko Haram —
the extremist group terrorizing northeastern Nigeria and parts of
Cameroon, Chad, and Niger — has also forced Washington to dedicate more
resources in the Lake Chad region as well. Since 2009, Boko Haram has
killed more than 10,000 people and by last year the group controlled an
area the size of Belgium. After the militants were forced out of some of
their Nigerian strongholds by a multinational African task force last
spring, they switched to more asymmetrical tactics and increased suicide
bombings and cross border raids. In September, President Barack Obama
pledged $45 million to help countries in the Lake Chad region beat back
the group. And in October, the U.S. sent a fleet of surveillance drones and 300 troops to Cameroon.
Those pressures have forced Africom to reevaluate where it allocates resources, say experts.
“Africom remains under-resourced and our entire drone program,
although it’s grown tremendously over the years, is facing a wide array
of demands,” said Pham.
Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa
program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in
Washington, said that the U.S. military is likely facing pressure to
tackle other African threats, and is trying to consolidate its bases in
the region.
“It may be that with a base in Djibouti there’s just not the need for as many positions in East Africa as before,” she said.
medium |The
West’s Horn of Africa experts have been meeting with a TPLF leader and
TPLF/OLF supporters in secret, even as its governments claim to be
impartial — TPLF’s Berhane Gebre-Christos speaks as TPLF member,
proposed head of “transitional government” (limo/Uber drivers) and
Washington-based Ethio-American diaspora.
Donald Yamamoto, recently the U.S. Ambassador to Somalia who just retired this year, to TPLF official Berhane Gebre-Christos:
“Abiy
is not listening… Obasanjo has not been extraordinary helpful or very
active, and so are there any other opportunities that you see?”
Vicki Huddleston,
former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs
and US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa to Berhane
Gebre-Christos:
“I couldn’t agree more that you know, Abiy should step down, there should be an all-inclusive transition government.”
Former
ambassadors and current diplomats for the United States, Britain and EU
had a Zoom meeting this past Sunday with an official for the TPLF in
what amounts to a green light from the West for the terrorist group’s
attempts to overthrow the democratically elected Ethiopian government.
And there’s evidence to prove it: a phone-cam video of the two-hour
meeting.
“I
hope that you’ll have military success fairly soon, because it seems as
if the situation is only becoming more drastic,” said Vicki Huddleston,
who was Chargé d’Affairs ad interim in Ethiopia during years the TPLF
were in power.
France’s
retired diplomat and writer Stéphane Gompertz openly speculated on the
potential for Abiy to be forced from power. “Even if Abiy sticks to his
guns, which unfortunately he seems to be doing, you either hope that
people around him either in government or in the military realize that
this is going nowhere and might force him to, well, accept the cessation
of hostilities or force him to step down?”
The
Western powers — Britain, the EU and especially the United States —
have been posturing for months that they have not taken sides in the
conflict and are pushing negotiations only in the interests of peace.
But the Zoom talk rips away the façade, revealing a chummy circle of
foreign policy elite, both retired and still active who mostly know each
other and are in sympathy with TPLF objectives. They include Donald
Yamamoto, one of the U.S. government’s most senior Africa experts who
just retired this year as the American ambassador to Somalia, and
Spain’s diplomat Carmen de la Peña.
Former
EU ambassador to Ethiopia Tim Clarke admitted that all of the
attendants “maintain contacts with our former employees. Just the other
day I was talking to the existing EU ambassador to Ethiopia.”
NC | There’s a simple lesson here: Tigrayans are the bulk of
combat power in the Highlands of the Horn. You’d think that would lead
to the conclusion that you shouldn’t mess with Tigray unless you’re
ready to get in a long, nasty war, even when the conventional military
wisdom is that the Tigrayans don’t have a chance. They weren’t supposed
to have a chance against the Europeans in 1896, either–or the Ethiopian
Derg in the 1980s. If you’re running a war-nerd bookmaking business, put
a sign on the window: “No bets on wars in Tigray.”
One reason we all underestimated Tigray is that no one
outside TPLF circles seems to have admitted to themselves how much of
the combat power of both Eritrean and Ethiopian forces came from ethnic
Tigrayans. Admitting that would be politically unwise, especially in
Ethiopia. Officially, Ethiopia is a federal, multi-ethnic state in which
all ethnic groups are equal. But that’s a polite fiction. The Ethiopian
state is the product of 19th-c. conquests by the “Habesha,” which is
what the Highland Orthodox peoples, Tigrayan and Amhara, call
themselves. Ethiopia was created by Habesha armies pushing south and
east, absorbing Somali, Afar, Oromo, Sidamo, and dozens of other peoples
who became Ethiopian citizens, but had very little share in ruling the
country.
The real struggle for power was always between the two
Habesha peoples, Tigrayan and Amhara. Since Menelik II moved the capital
southward to Shewa, the Amhara seemed like the stronger of the two
groups. Amhara are a much bigger group, for starters. Tigrayans are only
about 6% of the population, Amhara about 26%.
But after the Eritrean/Tigrayan insurgents destroyed the
Derg in the late 20th c., it was the Tigrayans of the TPLF who really
ruled Ethiopia. Their domination was so clear that the TPLF tried to
minimize their power, dutifully talking about their multi-ethnic
coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). No one was fooled; it was the TPLF who had the power in Ethiopia.
The TPLF leader Meles Zenawi was
the ultimate power in the country all through the first two decades of
this century. Zenawi knew that the TPLF was so much better organized
than the other members of the EPRDF coalition that he and his fellow
Tigrayans could let the EPRDF make a show of ethnic equality while
keeping Tigrayan control. Henri IV went through the motions of
converting to Catholicism in return for the throne with the line “Paris
is worth a mass or two,” and Zenawi seems to have decided “Addis and the
whole GDP is worth letting those weaker militias from other ethnic
groups share the credit.”
Zenawi’s PR campaign worked so well that Ethiopians forgot
the hard truth that it was the Tigrayans who had the real combat power.
The Tigrayans’ only rival in terms of military power was the
Eritrean army (EDF.) The “Eritrean” label made people forget that the
EDF is also dominated by ethnic Tigrayans. Tigrinya-speakers are the majority in Eritrea, not only the dominant but the biggest ethnic group.
That has never stopped Eritrean Tigrayans from killing other
Tigrayans. That shouldn’t be a surprise — when have people of the same
ethnic group ever fretted about killing each other? — but it does
underline what seems like the dominant fact at the moment: The Tigrayans
are the most formidable people in the Horn.
kremlin.ru |Vladimir Putin:
Alexei Evgenievich, this year, in December, 15 years have passed since
the law on the creation of the Rosatom Corporation was signed. During this time, a lot of work has been done.
Alexander Likhachev : Yes. We regard the date of the establishment of the state corporation as a very memorable one for us.
In
general, the industry is in its 77th year, we are the same age as the
Great Victory, but at the same time, the creation of the state
corporation marked a completely new stage in the development of the
industry. Indeed, a single
management mechanism was created from a group of enterprises with
common economic indicators, with a unique corporate culture. At
the same time, nuclear competencies were combined - from uranium mining
to the creation and operation of nuclear power plants. And of course, new divisions were created literally from scratch: machine-building, logistics, digital, and a number of others.
If
we talk about performance indicators for 15 years, then you can’t call
it anything other than a “quantum leap”: a 4.5-fold increase in revenue,
a five-fold increase in labor productivity, investments are growing in a
special way - a 15-fold increase in annual investments. Science and research are actively developing, we have 13 times the annual growth of patents.
Over the past five years, we have actively entered new products and the global market. Revenue for five years on new products has almost doubled, foreign revenue has grown by one and a half times.
Vladimir Putin: The most important thing is to increase labor productivity.
Alexander Likhachev: Labor productivity is growing at a faster rate, [faster] than wages, this is very important.
And digital revenue grew a hundredfold. This, of course, with a low base. We will continue to develop, of course.
In the past year, we have a number of regular record indicators. With
the 100% fulfillment of the state defense order, the proceeds reached
1.5 trillion, and this is only in the open part, that is, naturally, we
have much more. The record is 222 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. Commissioning of new blocks, the second Leningrad, the first Belarusian blocks. And the Northern Sea Route also set a record of transportation - almost 35 million tons.
We are implementing the decisions taken at your meeting on the Northern Sea Route. Under
the leadership of the Government, we have already moved forward in the
construction of nuclear-powered icebreakers, an ATO [nuclear
technological service] vessel, and in the creation of a unified
navigation management system on the Northern Sea Route. And I hope that in the shortest possible time we will put this work, as they say, on the usual track.
In the first quarter of this year, we have a serious increase: for the same electricity - plus two percent; first-quarter revenue for new products grew 26 percent and foreign products grew 13 percent.
On
the other hand, we understand that we have been living and working
under completely new conditions in recent months and will continue to
work this way, so I would like to draw special attention to a few
points.
Vladimir Putin: Please.
Alexander Likhachev: On international projects. We continue to implement all our international projects as long as they go according to plan. We see the risks with certain individual projects, develop appropriate compensatory measures. I hope that the vast majority of the projects will be successfully completed.
We have reached the second place in uranium mining in the world in recent years. We
confidently hold the first place in terms of enrichment and conversion
and are consistently among the top three in terms of fuel fabrication. In all areas there are groundwork aimed at further development.
We continue cooperation with the IAEA , we participate in the international large thermonuclear project in France (ITER). And
I want to say again that in this sense, the international nuclear
community is not breaking ties yet, as long as this cooperation is
developing.
According to the internal agenda. Our main service, apart from the state defense order, is nuclear energy. In ten years, we have built 11 units and achieved 20 percent of the electricity in the country. You
gave us a plan to increase the share to 25 percent, and by increasing
the share to 25 percent, we have to build another 16 innovation blocks
in the horizon until 2035. The government approved the General Scheme, so we understand where and what to build.
I also want to thank you from the industry for adopting a decree on April 14 to extend our national project until 2030. This
is indeed a very serious decision, it also creates a technological
platform for the fourth generation of nuclear energy, and, most
importantly, gives us the opportunity to build a specific object on
earth. This is the Seversk
project "Breakthrough", this is a multi-purpose fast research reactor,
this is a tokamak fusion facility with reactor technologies, a prototype
of tomorrow's fusion, this is a number of experimental reactors, and,
of course, this is cooperation with Roskosmos, including on rocket
engines for near space, for deep space. All this will be included in the extended national project.
What
is important to emphasize: 95 percent of the Russian nuclear power
plant, as they say, is made in Russia, and five percent are not
critical. We see criticism
at half a percent of our cost – electrical engineering, electronics,
some types of diesel equipment, some types of pumping equipment, and in
principle, we are already creating import substitution alliances with
businesses.
First thought. Russian nuclear technologies are import-independent. And we don't see any limiting factors here.
Second thought. We will place at least a trillion rubles a year outside the industry as orders for the implementation of our national project. This, of course, is a very serious vector for the development of both engineering and the economy as a whole. And
not only, as they say, in large orders, but also in innovation, the
nuclear industry has always been famous for its advanced developments.
Vladimir Putin: Exactly.
A. Likhachev:
I remember very well how in Soviet times, even under the conditions of
the Iron Curtain, both mathematical modeling and work on security
systems developed - all this gave impetus to the creation of a whole
program of new products.
I
myself was surprised to learn that over the past year we have satisfied
the needs of more than 2600 Russian companies and enterprises in
high-tech products, that is, the Russian industry is already returning a
huge stock to us as new innovative orders and directions.
I would like to share the most important of them, in my opinion. At the same meeting on the Arctic, remember, NOVATEK management raised the issue of LNG equipment. We
have built the first test stand in Europe at the Efremov NIIEFA in St.
Petersburg, a solution has been prepared and implemented for cryogenic
heat exchangers. This is the heart of all liquefaction technology. We have learned how to make medium-tonnage ones, and I think we will learn how to make large-tonnage ones as well.
We
are actively receiving requests from the oil and gas industry both for
specific equipment, and in general for new approaches to technologies,
including in the production of hard-to-recover hydrocarbons. Such work is underway, and, for example, we have exemplary cooperation with Gazprom Neft.
We
have completely closed the chain in composites and are moving on to the
production of specific, quite modern medical equipment.
Vladimir Putin: We helped a lot of people with composites right away.
Alexander Likhachev: Yes.
We
are moving forward in digital terms, creating alliances with
enterprises, both small and private Russian companies, large companies,
Rostec, and Russian Railways.
We
ourselves will be two years ahead of your instructions: as early as
2023, one hundred percent of software purchases for critical
infrastructure will be done, and we will generally transfer to Russian
software at a faster pace.
Quantum progressed. We have been working on this topic for two years. According to experts, we have reduced the gap by about half from our foreign partners, competitors somewhere. But in general, in fact, for some technologies they entered the top three. There
is an opinion that a separate type of quants, qudits, is the most
promising for the corresponding processors, and now, along with the USA
and Austria, we have achieved the corresponding prototype of a quantum
processor. And by the way,
they were the first to make a real program, that is, software for a
quantum algorithm in the interests of the nuclear industry.
I cannot but say a few words about the environmental project, this is also a series of your instructions.
A system for controlling industrial waste of the first and second hazard class has been launched, more than 25 thousand users. Seven
factories are being set up on the ground throughout the Russian
Federation for processing, and I am sure that we will put things in
order in this direction.
Plus work with heritage. We completed last September in Chelyabinsk the work on the landfill for household waste. We are going to Krasny Bor for practical work. And all the necessary priority work was carried out both in Usolye-Sibirsky and at the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill.
Vladimir Putin: And what did they do in Usolye-Sibirsky?
Alexei Likhachev: The mercury electrolysis shop has been completely dismantled there, and all the consequences have been eliminated. We started working with the oil lens, where there were dangers of waste going to the Angara. We have prepared all the design work in order to begin full-scale system liquidation this year. There were several dozen extremely dangerous wells, and, in fact, no one knows what was stored in them and in what volumes. Therefore, their neutralization and blocking were also among the priorities.
And in conclusion I would like to say a few words about the team. Indeed, we are not just a technological leader, not just one of the leaders in the global nuclear industry. This is a unique team with its own traditions. We consistently occupy the first places in the ratings of employers. A
very important indicator is engagement, the readiness of people to give
more every day to work, which is at a level that even exceeds the best
world indicators (84 percent). I would like to say that this figure has increased in recent weeks. That
is, there is a certain rallying of the team, and people, rolling up
their sleeves, get to work, see this as their contribution to solving
the problems, the tasks that the country is facing today.
Vladimir Putin: Rosatom is certainly one of our technology leaders. I hope this trend continues.
We talked about materials – we helped many industries at once, from aircraft manufacturing to medicine.
Alexei Likhachev: Mr
Putin, we are now very focused on the machine-building sector, we have
strengthened our machine-building assets, and there are many orders.
And one more thought. The more pressure is put on us, the more work we have, the more the team is mobilized.
The theme of our annual report is "Environment for the Development of the New". A lot has been done in 2021. Our consolidated revenue grew by almost 10 percent and amounted to two trillion 60 billion [roubles]. We have crossed an important psychological milestone of two trillion. We have been striving for this for a long time, and finally last year we overcame this barrier, this milestone.
Consolidated net profit increased by almost 47 percent and amounted to 163.5 billion rubles. EBITDA increased by 18 percent and reached 335 billion. The
total market value of assets, a new indicator that we have introduced
since last year, is 980.5 billion rubles, which is one and a half times
higher than in 2020, that is, the value of our assets is constantly
growing.
The share of civilian products in the consolidated revenue reached 45.5 percent.
Vladimir Putin: Good.
Sergei Chemezov: Yes. You set us the task of reaching 50 percent by 2030. We set ourselves the task of 2025, but last year the share of civilian products was 45.5 percent.
This, of course, thanks primarily to KamAZ. We have enterprises that produce a fairly large volume of civilian products, such as KamAZ and Russian Helicopters. The
same UAC has begun to produce civilian aircraft in large quantities -
not yet in large enough quantities, but we are striving for this.
Vladimir Putin: Now there is a chance to occupy the domestic market.
Sergei Chemezov: That is correct, of course.
Our pharmaceutical holding Nacimbio did a great job last year and the year before last. We
have delivered more than 100 million sets of all kinds of vaccines to
our consumers all over Russia: against covid, flu, and various other
diseases. We manufacture most vaccines ourselves.
The
achieved financial results have made it possible to increase the volume
of investments by 18 percent, which already amounts to 242 billion
rubles today. Thus, at the end of 2021, the corporation achieved all the goals that we set for ourselves.
I would like to dwell on some of the events that took place in the life of our corporation. 72 technological modernization projects were completed. First
of all, this is the modernization of the aviation complex of
enterprises producing helicopters and airplanes, as well as aircraft
engines, because today this is the most important area in which we work.
We
carried out the technical re-equipment of the enterprises of the
optical industry at the Vologda and Novosibirsk optical plants. And the equipment has been replaced, and the technologies are modern.
Vladimir Putin: Modernization.
Sergei Chemezov: Yes. We carried out a deep modernization.
57
innovative technologies have been mastered and put into production,
including technologies for manufacturing aircraft engine parts using
direct laser growth, glazing technologies for the cabin of a new
domestic cruise liner, which is currently under construction, called
"Peter the Great", which will sail along the Volga and the sea, the
river - sea.
Service for urban management.
We
completed the development of 233 innovative products, including the
MS-21-300 aircraft with a wing made of Russian composite, and the
Okhotnik combat unmanned aerial vehicle. I will talk about these projects in more detail later.
A deep modernization of the Tu-160M missile carrier with a new NK-32 engine has been completed. We have actually created a new machine. Only
the former appearance remained, but, in fact, everything is new there:
the engine is new, and the on-board equipment, all units have been
replaced. All documentation was completely digitized, because the last car was produced at the Kazan plant somewhere in the 1980s.
Issued 834 patents and 474 know-hows. The total investment in research and development work has reached 170 billion rubles.
What products did we create last year? First of all, this is a Checkmate light tactical aircraft. Why is it named in English? Because it is mainly export-oriented. We are creating this aircraft at our own expense, without attracting budget money. We hope that, perhaps, the Ministry of Defense will mature and also acquire such an aircraft. I think that this plane will be very good. This is a fifth generation machine, a light aircraft. We first showed it at MAKS last year. This is a new generation multifunctional platform. It is capable of effectively countering fifth-generation aircraft in long-range and close combat.
Vladimir Putin: Easy, right?
Sergei Chemezov: Yes, it is light, it has one engine.
We took the basis of the onboard equipment, the engine, from the fifth-generation Su-57 aircraft, but slightly modified it. Now the design documentation is being developed, a new sample has been created.
Vladimir Putin: I saw him.
Sergei Chemezov: Yes, we did. We plan to start mass production in 2027.
PD-14 engine is already running.
Vladimir Putin: Excellent.
Sergei Chemezov: We have certified it. Serial production will begin in 2023. In 2023, certification tests will be carried out on our composite wing and on our engine.
Vladimir Putin: On MS-21?
Sergei Chemezov: MS-21. In 2024, we will produce the first six machines.
Drone "Hunter": its distinguishing feature is a flat engine nozzle. The new technical solution made the aviation complex less visible to radars. In addition, a new ground control post is being created for the drone. In 2021, the first flight model was rolled out. Already in 2023, we will start mass-producing it and supplying it to the Ministry of Defense.
The first offshore helicopter Mi-171A3. We also showed him for the first time at MAKS last year, he made his first flight. Designed for offshore operations and maintenance of offshore drilling platforms. There are already customers: our gas workers, oil companies. In 2023, we will start mass production. Certification tests are currently underway. The first deliveries are scheduled for early 2024.
Created a new marine diesel-gas turbine unit M55R. This is a new engine that is installed on our frigates. This is the first such Russian engine. We are already starting to mass-produce it.
In the field of healthcare, we have done a lot, and covid has spurred this on. In this regard, we have increased the share of civilian products. In particular, we have created the Diathera magnetotherapy device. It is intended for the treatment and prevention of eye diseases. It
treats myopia, farsightedness and, in addition, computer vision
syndrome - it has now become very common among young people, because
they sit at the computer all day. This device does not require special medical training: treatment can be done at home or in any clinic. We started to produce it, it is already on sale. It is in the rating of the program "100 best goods of Russia" for the last year. A very interesting device.
The
drug COVID-globulin is a drug created from the plasma [blood] of people
who have recovered from covid and already have antibodies. Last year, it was actively used to treat patients. He is very helpful and in high demand.
Portable
ventilator "Aventa-Vita": can be used in ambulances, and in ambulance
helicopters, in ambulance aircraft, as well as at home. At the end of this year, we will start mass production and sale.
The neonatal ventilator SLE 6000 is a new version of the ventilator for supporting breathing in newborns. It
differs from analogues in the function that eliminates air retention in
the lungs, and the ability to automatically control saturation.
The Oxipolus oxygen concentrator is a very interesting device: it produces oxygen from the air. It produces, cleans, disinfects it, after which it delivers a sterile stream directly to the patient. In
this regard, you can put a ventilator with this device anywhere, in any
room, in any hospital, and it is not necessary that it be provided with
special gases.
Vladimir Putin: How long did it take to create all this?
Sergei Chemezov: About one and a half to two years. As soon as covid started, we started working on it.
Vladimir Putin:
So, by and large, in a year and a half or two, it is possible to
achieve import substitution for those products that are now difficult to
import?
Sergei Chemezov: Of course. In 2022, we will start mass-producing these devices, oxygen concentrators.
wsws |This is the first article in a multi-part series.
The
US and its NATO allies, Canada included, are waging war on Russia in all
but name. Their governments, corporate media and establishment parties
claim that the NATO powers are funneling tens of billions of dollars in
weaponry to Kiev in order to protect Ukraine’s “sovereignty” and save
its “democracy.” In reality, their provocative actions have brought the
world to the precipice of a global conflagration fought with nuclear
weapons.
As the World Socialist Web Site has exhaustively documented,
American imperialism long planned for and instigated war with Moscow
over Ukraine. It led NATO’s eastward expansion over the past three
decades to encircle Russia, and goaded Putin into launching his
reactionary invasion by refusing to so much as discuss Moscow’s security
concerns. Washington and Wall Street are determined to subjugate
Russia, plunder its abundant resources and tighten thereby the
military-strategic encirclement of China.
In pursuit of these
predatory geostrategic and economic objectives, the US and its allies
have aligned with Ukraine’s far-right parties and fascist militia; that
is, with forces that venerate and seek to emulate the Ukrainian fascists
who collaborated with and sought the Nazis’ patronage during World War
II. In pursuit of an ethnically “pure” Ukrainian state, the Ukrainian
fascists participated in some of the most monstrous crimes of the 20th
century, including the Holocaust.
Washington, aided and abetted by
its German and Canadian allies, used the fascist Right Sector as its
shock troops in the February 2014 coup that removed Ukraine’s elected
pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. The imperialist powers then
placed in power a government committed to harnessing Ukraine to NATO and
the European Union. Washington subsequently rearmed and reorganized
Ukraine’s armed forces, overseeing the merger of the fascist Azov
Battalion into Ukraine’s security forces. Today these fascists comprise
an important part of Ukraine’s elite troops. As Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky has himself boasted, they are pivotal frontline
fighters in the Russian-majority Donbas region.
Canadian
imperialism has long sought to pass itself off as an altruistic force in
global affairs. But Ottawa is playing an especially provocative and
belligerent role in the Ukraine war. This is a continuation of its
substantial role in the war’s preparation and instigation.
Under
both Liberal and Conservative governments, Canada has worked closely
with Washington, first in its drive to expand NATO to include former
Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet republics; and then, since 2016, to
permanently deploy NATO expeditionary forces on Russia’s borders. Canada
leads one of NATO’s four enhanced Forward Presence Battle Groups in
Poland and the Baltic states, and routinely dispatches warplanes and
warships menacingly on Russia’s doorstep. From 2015, hundreds of
Canadian Armed Forces’ trainers were deployed to Ukraine, where they
worked alongside American and British military personnel to reorganize
Ukraine’s armed forces. This included helping integrate and train the fascists of the Azov battalion.
moderndiplomacy | The Ukrainian war started when the democratically elected
President of Ukraine (an infamously corrupt country), who was committed
to keeping his country internationally neutral (not allied with either
Russia or the United States), met privately with both the U.S. President
Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
in 2010, shortly after that Ukrainian President’s election earlier in
2010; and, on both occasions, he rejected their urgings for Ukraine to
become allied with the United States against his adjoining country
Russia. This was being urged upon him so that America could position its
nuclear missiles at the Russian border with Ukraine, less than a
five-minute striking-distance away from hitting the Kremlin in Moscow.
On 1 March 2013 inside
America’s Embassy to Ukraine in Kiev, a series of “Tech Camps” started
to be held, in order to train those Ukrainian nazis for their leadership
of Ukraine’s ‘anti-corruption’ organizing. Simultaneously, under Polish
Government authorization, the CIA was training in Poland the military
Right Sector leaders how to lead the coming U.S. coup in neighboring
Ukraine. As the independent Polish investigative journalist Marek
Miszczuk headlined for the Polish magazine NIE (“meaning “NO”) (the original article being in Polish): “Maidan secret state secret: Polish training camp for Ukrainians”. The article was published 14 April 2014. Excerpts:
An informant who introduced himself as Wowa called the “NIE”
editorial office with the information that the Maidan rebels in Wrocław
are neo-fascists … [with] tattooed swastikas, swords, eagles and crosses
with unambiguous meaning. … Wowa pleadingly announced that photos of
members of the Right Sector must not appear in the press. … 86 fighters
from the then prepared Euromaidan flew over the Vistula River in
September 2013 at the invitation of the Polish Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. The pretext was to start cooperation between the Warsaw
University of Technology and the National University of Technology in
Kiev. But they were in Poland to receive special training to overthrow
Ukraine’s government. … Day 3 and 4 – theoretical classes: crowd
management, target selection, tactics and leadership. Day 5 – training
in behavior in stressful situations. Day 6 – free without leaving the
center. Day 7 – pre-medical help. Day 8 – protection against irritating
gases. Day 9 – building barricades. And so on and on for almost 25 days.
The program includes … classes at the shooting range (including three
times with sniper rifles!), tactical and practical training in the
assault on buildings. …
Excited by the importance of the information that was presented to me, I started to verify it.
The Office of the Press Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs refused to answer the questions about the student exchange
without giving any reason. It did not want to disclose whether it had
actually invited dozens of neo-fascists to Poland to teach them how to
overthrow the legal Ukrainian authorities. …
Let us summarize: in September 2013, according to the information
presented to me, several dozen Ukrainian students of the Polytechnic
University will come to Poland, at the invitation of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. In fact, they are members of the Right Sector, an
extreme right-wing and nationalist Ukrainian group led by Dmytro Jarosz –
he declined to comment on his visit to Legionowo.
Poland’s ‘fact-checking’ organization is (appropriately) titled demagog dot org (Demagog Association), and it is funded by the Stefan Batory Foundation. Demagog’s article about that NIE
news-report rated it “NIEWERYFIKOWALNE” or “ NOT VERIFIABLE”. The sole
reason given was: “The Ministry [of Foreign Affairs] strongly opposes
such news, emphasizing that the weekly (magazine) has violated not only
the principles of good taste, but also raison d’etat (reasons of
state).” No facts that were alleged in Miszczuk’s article were even
mentioned, much less disproven. How can his article be “unverifiable” if
the evidence that it refers to isn’t so much as even being checked?
Fair | These “disinformation” claims also ignore the more contemporary
evidence that Western officials have an explicit agenda of weakening
Russia and even ending the Putin regime. According to Ukrainska Pravda (5/5/22; Intercept, 5/10/22),
in his recent trip to Kyiv, UK prime minister Boris Johnson told
Volodymyr Zelensky that regardless of a peace agreement being reached
between Ukraine and Russia, the United States would remain intent on
confronting Russia.
The evidence doesn’t stop there. In the past months, Joe Biden let slip
his desire that Putin “cannot remain in power,” and US officials’ have
become more open about their objectives to weaken Russia (Democracy Now!, 5/9/22; Wall Street Journal, 4/25/22).
Corporate media have cheered on these developments, running op-eds in
support of policies that go beyond a defense of Ukraine to an attack on
Russia (Foreign Policy, 5/4/22; Washington Post, 4/28/22), even expressing hope for a “palace coup” there (The Lead, 4/19/22; CNN Newsroom, 3/4/22).
As famed dissident Noam Chomsky said in a discussion with the Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill (4/14/22):
We can see that our explicit policy—explicit—is rejection
of any form of negotiations. The explicit policy goes way back, but it
was given a definitive form in September 2021 in the September 1 joint policy statement that was then reiterated and expanded in the November 10 charter of agreement….
What it says is it calls for Ukraine to move towards what they called
an enhanced program for entering NATO, which kills negotiations.
When the media denies NATO’s culpability in stoking the flames of war
in Ukraine, Americans are left unaware of their most effective tool in
preventing further catastrophe: pressuring their own government to stop
undermining negotiations and to join the negotiating table. Dismissing
these realities threatens to prolong the war in Ukraine indefinitely.
Squelching dissent
As the Biden administration launches a new Disinformation Governance
Board aimed at policing online discourse, it is clear that the trend of
silencing those who speak out against official US narratives is going to
get worse.
Outlets like Russia Today, MintPress News and Consortium News have been banned or demonetized by platforms like Google and its subsidiary YouTube, or services like PayPal. MintPress News (4/25/22) reported YouTube
had “permanently banned more than a thousand channels and 15,000
videos,” on the grounds that they were “denying, minimizing or
trivializing well-documented violent events.” At the same time,
platforms are loosening the restrictions on praising Ukraine’s far right
or calling for the death of Russians (Reuters, 3/11/22). These policies of asymmetric censorship aid US propaganda and squelch dissent.
After receiving a barrage of complaints from the outlet’s supporters, PayPal seemingly reversed its ban of Consortium News’ account, only to state later on that this reversal was “mistaken,” and that Consortium was in fact permanently banned. The outlet’s editor-in-chief Joe Lauria (5/4/22) responded to PayPal’s ban:
Given the political climate it is reasonable to conclude that PayPal was reacting to Consortium News’ coverage of the war in Ukraine, which is not in line with the dominant narrative that is being increasingly enforced.
As Western outlets embrace the framing of a new Cold War, so too have
they embraced the Cold War’s McCarthyite tactics that rooted out
dissent in the United States. With great-power conflict on the rise, it
is all the more important that US audiences understand the media’s
increasing repression of debate in defense of the “dominant narrative.”
In the words of Chomsky:
There’s a long record in the United States of censorship,
not official censorship, just devices, to make sure that, what
intellectuals call the “bewildered herd,” the “rabble,” the population,
don’t get misled. You have to control them. And that’s happening right
now.
What, specifically, is the "DHS's work" when it comes to disinformation? Do they decide what is and is not disinformation? Do they use specific powers to "combat" it? It's not just the new Board itself that is unclear. DHS's entire role in all of this is unclear - and creepy. https://t.co/0PJGcTlqul
politico | President Zelensky has made ending the war in Ukraine’s eastern
Donbas region—which was instigated and is sustained by Russia and has
claimed 13,000 lives and counting—his administration’s top priority. He has made some progress toward that goal, overseeing a historic prisoner swap
with Russia that saw one of Ukraine’s most respected filmmakers as well
as 24 sailors captured last November returned home. According to
information from the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, fewer
civilians have been killed in the conflict this year than any year
previously. A July cease-fire at the contact line seems to be holding
firmer than its previous incarnations.
For Zelensky,Trump could be the key to ending the war in the
Donbas. The American president has made his admiration for and cozy
relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin no secret. Likewise,
Trump’s views about Ukraine—ambivalence about the status of Crimea,
which Russia illegally seized in 2014, and support for ending the
sanctions placed on Russia in response to its activities in Ukraine—make
Ukrainians nervous. A cordial relationship between Trump and Zelensky
could give Trump insight into Ukraine’s perspective and give Ukraine
leverage it did not enjoy under former President Petro Poroshenko, who
struggled to connect with the U.S. leader.
Ukraine does not have the luxury to pick and choose its international
partners, something I learned when I served as an adviser to the
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry in 2016 and 2017 under the auspices of a
Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship. Ukraine relies on its larger, richer
allies as it attempts to shed its post-Soviet legacy. The United
States—its largest and richest ally—provides not only for the now-famous
military aid package, but hundreds of millions of dollars in civilian aid,
supporting projects in just about every sector. The containment of the
Chernobyl nuclear site, fighting HIV/AIDS, building cybersecurity
capabilities, and creating government bodies that are more responsive to
citizens are just a few of the projects that U.S assistance makes
possible. Continued reform, including the pursuit of energy independence
from Russia and the cleanup of the court system, the biggest obstacle
to Ukrainian anti-corruption efforts, would be imperiled without this
assistance. The United States also plays a key role in corralling
European partners to uphold their own sanctions on Russia and to
continue to support Ukraine as it walks the long and often bumpy road of
democratic reform.
There are reasons to believe Zelensky’s slippery answers to President
Trump’s repeated requests that he investigate former Vice President Joe
Biden and his son Hunter were deliberate. According to congressional
staff who recently visited Ukraine and spoke with senior Ukrainian
officials, the Zelensky administration was upset at feeling that it was
being used and didn’t want to be a pawn in America’s domestic political
machinations. In the phone call and at the meeting of the two presidents
Wednesday at the U.N. General Assembly, Zelensky was careful not to let
the name Biden cross his lips. Instead, Zelensky says he will “look
into the situation” related to Burisma, the company on whose board
Hunter Biden sat, more generally. At the U.N., Zelensky also mentioned a
few of the other important cases he hoped his new prosecutor would
investigate in addition to Burisma, and maintained that he didn’t want
to be dragged into American politics.
Nina Jankowicz, who served as a Fulbright fellow, works in a press room
at Volodymyr Zelensky's campaign headquarters in 2019 in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Jankowicz was recently named the head of the Department of Homeland
Security's Disinformation Governance Board.
WaPo | On
the morning of April 27, the Department of Homeland Security announced
the creation of the first Disinformation Governance Board with the
stated goal to “coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland
security.” The Biden administration tapped Nina Jankowicz, a well-known
figure in the field of fighting disinformation and extremism, as the
board’s executive director.
In
naming the 33-year-old Jankowicz to run the newly created board, the
administration chose someone with extensive experience in the field of
disinformation, which has emerged as an urgent and important issue. The
author of the books “How to Be a Woman Online” and “How to Lose the Information War,”
her career also featured stints at multiple nonpartisan think tanks and
nonprofits and included work that focused on strengthening democratic
institutions. Within the small community of disinformation researchers,
her work was well-regarded.
But
within hours of news of her appointment, Jankowicz was thrust into the
spotlight by the very forces she dedicated her career to combating. The
board itself and DHS received criticism for both its somewhat ominous
name and scant details of specific mission (Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said
it “could have done a better job of communicating what it is and what
it isn’t”), but Jankowicz was on the receiving end of the harshest
attacks, with her role mischaracterized as she became a primary target
on the right-wing Internet. She has been subject to an unrelenting
barrage of harassment and abuse while unchecked misrepresentations of
her work continue to go viral.
theintercept |Before he walked into the Tops
Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York, on a mission to murder as many
innocent Black shoppers as he could, 18-year-old Payton Gendron posted a
rambling manifesto online outlining his motives.
His reasoning was familiar from other far-right shooters:
This country isn’t going to be resource-rich enough for everyone in the
future, so a race war over what is left is necessary today. However
heinous, this vision of a bleak, impoverished future, in which there is
not enough wealth to go around and the environment is near collapse, is
motivating an ever-growing number of young men like him to carry out
racist massacres across the West.
People who commit acts of terrorism tend to
act for more than one reason. The racist hatred of Gendron toward Black
Americans, Jews, and immigrants was ultimately what made his murders
possible. For that, many are to blame, including far-right politicians
and talking heads who have continued to wink at the “great replacement”
as being the true source of white Westerners’ troubles.
Addressing this violence, though, also requires considering the role
of scarcity — not a conspiracy theory, but a very real system of extreme
inequality and ecological destruction. It is a system in which the most
wealthy and powerful continue to see their wealth and power grow — at
the expense of the masses. Faced with actual strained resources and
environmental calamity, some of these forsaken people are turning to
dark fantasies like the “great replacement theory” to make sense of it
all.
This is not just about a toxic media ecosystem, but the larger way we
have organized our lives in the West. This organizational structure
could go by many names — neoliberalism, consumer capitalism,
exploitation — but there can be little doubt that the pessimism it
engenders is leading many young people into nihilism.
Payton Gendron, 18, allegedly was recording with a camera affixed to
his helmet and broadcasting to Twitch when he killed 10 people in a
racially-motivated attack at a Tops Friendly Market, police and reports
said.
Hochul said social media outlets need to crack down on content
concerning white supremacy and other dangerous ideologies and found it
inexcusable that Gendron’s graphic stream wasn’t taken down “within a
second.”
“These outlets must be more vigilant in monitoring social media
content. And certainly, the fact that this act of barbarism, this
execution of innocent human beings could be livestreamed on social media
platforms and not taken down within a second, says to me that there is a
responsibility out there,” Hochul, a Buffalo native, told reporters at a press conference Saturday night.
“And we’re going to continue to work on this and make sure that those
who provide these platforms have a moral and ethical, and I hope to
have a legal responsibility to ensure that such hate cannot populate
these sites, because this is the result,” she said.
Law enforcement officials said that Gendron drove three and a half
hours from his home in Conklin in Broome County to the Buffalo
supermarket — which is located in a predominantly black neighborhood.
Reportedly armed with multiple weapons and tactical body armor, Gendron opened fire in the grocery store parking lot before shooting more victims inside. Of the 13 people he shot, 11 were black and two were white.
A Twitch spokesperson told The Post the streaming service “has a
zero-tolerance policy against violence of any kind and works swiftly to
respond to all incidents.”
The thing to remember about ANY/EVERY single person who leaves Azovstal previously, presently or in the future is this:
1. The Russians are not stupid or sloppy.
2. First they are taken under guard to a processing place. Wounded are
under guard during treatment until fit for normal processing.
3. They are scrupulously checked for real identity by their papers and
every civil database the Russians have access to. Local Mariupol LDPR
investigators are also there to use their local knowledge to verify all
claims of civilian neutrality.
4. They are stripped to look for any fascist sympathetic tattoos, men
and women alike, it has been reported by one woman evacuee.
5. They are FINGERPRINTED AND PHOTOGRAPHED and their future intended
residential address documented as they may be called as witnesses to war
crimes in future criminal trials. The LDPR and Russians are fkn serious
about legal retributions for the 8 year war and about making sure that
not a single nazi sympathiser ever gets back into social circulation.
6. They are interrogated about all personal matters and all knowledge
about what is going in inside Azovstal. Obviously, anyone NOT completely
forthcoming is held for future interrogation.
7. Only after all the above tests, they are sorted into:
* free civilians to go home, their choice of Uk or LD or RF territory or to refugee camps;
* harmless Ukrainian Regular soldiers who go to LDPR POW camps awaiting
exchange for Regular Russian POWs as per Geneva Convention;
* foreign low level mercenary fighters who go to LDPR POW camps awaiting criminal prosecution;
* high level foreigner (eg NATO staff), who most probably go to FSB
Headquarters in Moscow for future intel and political purposes;
* Azov fighters who will all get kept as non-swapable POWs to be
prosecuted by the LDPF for war crimes. The LDPR Public Prosecutors have
publically clearly stated their guilty punishments may be as high as the
death penalty.
So that's the strict filtering regime. So have no fear that any of
the "Rats of Azovstal" will escape their rightful fates. Even after
another 1000-2000 surrenders, the exact same processing will be done to
each and every one. The LDPR and Russian military jails are gunna be
real full, real soon.
thecradle | Strategic primacy, for Byzantium, more than diplomatic or military, was a psychological affair. The word Strategia itself is derived from the Greek strategos
– which does not mean “General” in military terms, as the west
believes, but historically corresponds to a managerial politico-military
function.
It all starts with si vis pacem para bellum: “If you want
peace prepare for war.” Confrontation must develop simultaneously on
multiple levels: grand strategy, military strategy, operative, tactical.
But brilliant tactics, excellent operative intel and even massive
victories in a larger war theater cannot compensate for a lethal mistake
in terms of grand strategy. Just look at the Nazis in WWII.
Those who built up an empire such as the Romans, or maintained one
for centuries like the Byzantines, never succeeded without following
this logic.
Those clueless Pentagon and CIA ‘experts’
On Operation Z, the Russians revel in total strategic ambiguity,
which has the collective west completely discombobulated. The Pentagon
does not have the necessary intellectual firepower to out-smart the
Russian General Staff. Only a few outliers understand that this is not a
war – since the Ukraine Armed Forces have been irretrievably routed –
but actually what Russian military and naval expert Andrei Martyanov
calls a “combined arms police operation,” a work-in-progress on
demilitarization and denazification.
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is even more abysmal in
terms of getting everything wrong, as recently demonstrated by its chief
Avril Haines during her questioning on Capitol Hill. History shows that
the CIA strategically blew it all the way from Vietnam to Afghanistan
and Iraq. Ukraine is no different.
Ukraine was never about a military win. What is being accomplished is
the slow, painful destruction of the European Union (EU) economy,
coupled with extraordinary weapons profits for the western
military-industrial complex and creeping security rule by those nations’
political elites.
The latter, in turn, have been totally baffled by Russia’s C4ISR
(Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance
and Reconnaissance) capabilities, coupled with the stunning
inefficiency of their own constellation of Javelins, NLAWs, Stingers and
Turkish Bayraktar drones.
This ignorance reaches way beyond tactics and the operational and
strategic realm. As Martyanov delightfully points out, they “wouldn’t
know what hit them on the modern battlefield with near-peer, forget
about peer.”
thesaker | Make no mistake about it: The tragic war that is currently taking
place on Ukrainian battlefields is not between the Russian Federation
and the Ukraine, but between the Russian Federation and the
US-controlled NATO. The latter, also called ‘the collective West’,
promotes an aggressive ideology of organised violence, a politically-
economically- and militarily-enforced doctrine euphemistically known as
‘Globalism’. This means hegemony by the Western world, which arrogantly
calls itself ‘the international community’, over the whole planet. NATO
is losing that war, which uses NATO-trained Ukrainians as its proxy
cannon fodder, in three spheres, political, economic and military.
Firstly,
politically, the West has finally understood that it cannot execute
regime change in Moscow. Its pipedream of replacing the highly popular
President Putin with is CIA stooge Navalny is not going to happen. As
for the West’s puppet-president in Kiev, he is only a creature of
Washington and its oligarchs. A professional actor, he is unable to
speak for himself, but is a spokesman for the NATO which he loves.
Secondly,
economically, the West faces serious resistance to the 6,000 sanctions
it has imposed on Russia and Russians. Those sanctions have
backfired. In the West, we can testify to this every time we buy fuel or
food. The combination of high inflation (10% +) and even higher energy
prices, caused almost solely by these illegal anti-Russian sanctions,
are threatening the collapse of Western economies, much more than
threatening Russia or China. As a result of this reverse effect of
sanctions against Russia, the rouble is at a three-year high, standing
at about 64 to the US dollar and rising, though immediately after the
sanctions it had briefly gone down to 150 to the dollar.
After
strenuously denying that they would do it, already most countries in
Europe (at least 17 for now), including Germany and Italy, have agreed
to open accounts with Gazprombank, as Russia advised them to do and to
pay for oil and gas in roubles. And this number is growing by the week.
The problems will be even greater with food shortages, as the world food
chain is highly integrated and the agricultural production of Russia
and the Ukraine (now controlled by Russia) is at least 40% of the
world’s grain production. Just days ago it was announced that Russia
expects record grain production this year (130 million tonnes). Russia
may yet demand payment in roubles for all this as well.
The sanctions against Russia have divided Europe and are threatening to divide NATO. President
Erdogan of Turkey, a NATO member, has announced that he would veto the
entry to NATO of Finland and Sweden into NATO. At the same time, Russia
has announced that it will cut off Finland’s natural gas supply. Swedish
leaders are re-thinking their entry to NATO.
Thirdly, militarily,
it is clear that the Ukraine, with huge numbers of desertions and
surrenders, has no chance of winning the war against Russia. Most of its
military equipment has already been wiped out and newly-delivered and
often antiquated Western equipment will make little difference, even if
it is not destroyed by Russian missiles as soon as it reaches the
Ukraine. The conflict could now be over within weeks, rather than
months. The US ‘Defense Secretary’ (= Minister for Offense), Lloyd
Austin, has desperately called the Russian Defence Minister Sergey
Shoigu to beg for a ceasefire. Would you agree to a ceasefire when in
less than three months and with only 10% of your military forces you
have already occupied an area greater than England inside the Ukraine,
an area that produces 75% of Ukrainian GDP?
The panic of financial
disaster in the West has begun to set in. As a result, the French
President Macron has told President Zelensky (that is, told Washington)
to give up part of Ukraine’s sovereignty and at last start serious
negotiations with Russia. Macron is also trying to free French
mercenaries from Azovstal in Mariupol, but the problem is much bigger
than this, as the whole of Europe is facing economic meltdown. And the
Italian Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, has asked President Biden to
contact President Putin and ‘give peace a chance’. Note that Mario
Draghi is a former president of the European Central Bank and a Goldman
Sachs puppet – just as Macron is a Rothschild puppet.
There have
always been empires and invasions throughout history. However, they have
always been local and not been justified as the only possible global
ideology, a ‘New World Order’, to be imposed by violence all over the
planet. After the NATO war is over, lost by ‘the collective West’, NATO
Centralism, the ideology of a ‘Unipolar World’, controlled from
Washington, must end. However, Centralism must also come to an end
everywhere else, like that under Soviet-period Moscow (1).
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