Eye witness to Nazi terror

 

 

Eva K Bartlett interviews:

While in Donetsk a few days ago, I met RT journalist Roman Kosarev, who has been based in the Donbass republics, covering Ukraine's war on the people, a war ignored by Western media and politicians. 

Where did you learn what you think you know about Russia?

 

The story is that at the time of the Bill Clinton administration, Russian President Boris Yeltsin was running for re-election. The polls were showing that he was going to lose to the Communist Party candidate. Clinton sent his favorite political operative Dick Morris, along with a boatload of $$$, to bail Yeltsin out. The imperialist trick was successful.

We hear alot of unproven claims that Russia helped Trump win his election over Hillary Clinton. But in fact Washington has had its dirty hands deep inside of Russian politics since the collapse of the former Soviet Union.

We have developed a very distorted view of Russia and Vladimir Putin. It's been going on so long that few in the US could tell you where they learned what they 'think' they know about Russia. 

It's just part of the air we breathe. It's the dark wallpaper in our lives. And many across the west believe all that they have been led to think. It is called indoctrination and propaganda - served up by a CIA infiltrated western corporate media.

One would imagine that if the Russian people were not happy with their government they would have long ago found a way to replace their current president. But at this moment his favorability ratings are approaching 80%. Joe Biden would be thrilled with numbers that good - his rating is currently at 40% and likely declining as each day he has to walk back another nonsensical statement.

 

The US has long been out to force regime change in Russia. Now, thanks to another slip of the tongue by Biden, it is in the public mind. But as many around the world frequently state, 'We knew that already'.

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and he writes:

The U.S. got its war in Ukraine. Without it, Washington could not attempt to destroy Russia’s economy, orchestrate worldwide condemnation and lead an insurgency to bleed Russia, all part of an attempt to bring down its government. Joe Biden has now left no doubt that it’s true.

Once hidden in studies such as this 2019 RAND study, the desire to overthrow the government in Moscow is now out in the open.

One of the earliest threats came from Carl Gersham, the long-time director of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Gershman, wrote in 2013, before the Kiev coup: “Ukraine is the biggest prize.” If it could be pulled away from Russia and into the West, then “Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

David Ignatius wrote in The Washington Post in 1999 that the NED could now practice regime change out in the open, rather than covertly as the C.I.A. had done.

The RAND Corporation on March 18 then published an article titled, “If Regime Change Should Come to Moscow,” the U.S. should be ready for it. Michael McFaul, the hawkish former U.S. ambassador to Russia, has been calling for regime change in Russia for some time.

This is one of the key fake stories the west tells - 'Putin wants to remake the former Soviet empire'. But in reality Russia this year is spending $65 billion on its military while the Pentagon's budget is $1 trillion (when you add up all the hidden pots of gold like nuclear weapons in the Dept. of Energy budget). Add NATO member military spending to the US numbers and it is well over 60% of the global total. The real story is always on the other side of the mirror.

 

If we are honest with ourselves we will recognize that the US-NATO have been in the regime change business ever since the end of WW II. For example, the secret Operation Gladio was used by Washington-Brussels to create terrorism to ensure that no Communists came to power in Italy when polls showed they were likely to win. The US-NATO in 1999 (again during Bill Clinton's time in office) broke Yugoslavia into pieces and Washington opened up a large military base called Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo. 

Then there was US-NATO take down of Iraq and Afghanistan that were followed by Libya - which today has open slave markets. No 'democracy' in any of those nations. 

The 'North Atlantic Alliance' is still trying to destroy Syria, but Russia was asked by the Syrian government for help - which is legal under international law.

The same treatment was slated for Russia but Putin and the Russian people understood the score and refused to cave in to western pressures. Now out of desperation the US-NATO has pushed this war in Ukraine (actually under way since before 2014) onto the world stage and made a hero out of the T-shirt wearing Zelensky - who is nothing more than an actor reading a script handed to him by his public-relations handlers. 

Zelensky is presently calling on the world to ban the letter 'Z' that Russia paints on its military equipment. I guess we'll have to call him 'elensky' from now on....

One key element that runs through all of the US-NATO regime change operations since the early 1990's is the unrelenting demonization of a leader. This tactic has two purposes - reduce the support for a particular nation's leader inside their own country and brainwash the public globally so that when the US-NATO make their move to overthrow the 'new Hitler' people have become anesthetized to the operation and fall into line.

This is what is happening today with Russia. Ukraine is just a tool - a US 'exceptionalist' sword that the west uses to drive into the heart of Russia. It's illegal, immoral and dare I say - purely evil.

Sadly few (even many so-called 'progressives') pay enough attention to events around the world to really know what has been actually happening in Ukraine during the past eight years. Some who are out on the streets waving the blue and yellow flag because they feel the pain of war, also feel the need to join the accepted crowd. Most people don't have the gumption to go against the prevailing corporate media hype and regime change agenda.

The big difference between Russia and most of the rest of the other nation's that were regime-changed in recent years is that Moscow has the ability to stand their ground and fight back. And they will - the Russians know that the western resource extraction corporations want to bust their country into smaller bits so their vast natural resource base can be stolen. One could say, it is an old story for the proud Russian people.

 

 

In the past 500 years, Russia has been invaded several times from the west. The Poles came across the European Plain in 1605, followed by the Swedes under Charles XII in 1707, the French under Napoleon in 1812, and the Germans—twice, in both world wars, in 1914 and 1941. Every 100 years the west makes its move and fails. 

Now here we are in 2020 and the Modus Operandi of the west is in full ugly display. Most people don't appear to recognize that we are living in the midst of aggressive fascist states throughout the west.

When will the brainwashed masses in the west say STOP the US-NATO bullshit? 

Hopefully before it is too late....

Bruce

The other side of war

 

 

In Mariupol - it is said that 80% of the city have been cleared of the Azov death squads.

'British Bullshit Corporation' Whitewashes Ukrainian Nazis

The Orwellian reality of the Beeb should make it the world’s “most busted” propaganda outlet

 

By Finian Cunningham

There is no Nazi presence in Ukraine, the Azov Battalion are merely excellent fighters, and Russian claims of denazifying the regime are cynical falsifications to justify aggression, according to the BBC.

In a sneaking way, one has to admire the aplomb of the British Broadcasting Corporation which promotes itself as one of the world’s “most trusted” news brands. While it smears and sneers at Russian news media as “state-owned” and “Kremlin propaganda machines”, the BBC is itself 100 percent state-owned and totally aligned with British government and NATO propaganda aims. That propaganda includes distortion and fabrication presented with the arrogant assertion of being independent news information.

Propaganda, old chap, is something that the Russians do. But not the British Bullshit Corporation. Oh no, heaven forbid, we’re British after all… fair play, objective, cricket, stiff-upper-lip, London Calling, fight them on the beaches, and so on, all the self-admiring epithets of a self-declared benign empire.

And so in a recent broadcast, the BBC’s ever-so smug Ros Atkins had the brass neck to assure viewers that there were no Nazis in Ukraine. He said it was a myth concocted by the Kremlin as a pretext for its military intervention in Ukraine. Atkins downplayed the Azov Battalion as having some far-right members who were negligible. He also claimed that the Azov Battalion was formed to defend Ukraine from Russia’s aggression that began in 2014. The BBC’s distortion of the 2014 coup in Kiev is astounding.

The BBC’s barefaced denial of Azov and others Nazi regiments in the Ukrainian military stands in jarring contrast to the well-documented facts. Images of torchlit processions honoring Stepan Bandera and others Ukrainian SS collaborators, images of Nazi flags, Nazi salutes, and Nazi insignia are abundant. Azov leaders like Andrey Biletsky and Olena Semenyaka openly pay homage to the Third Reich.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky may be Jewish and purportedly have relatives who died in the Holocaust. But he is owned by the Nazi brigades. His PR value as a Jewish face for the regime is a big asset (thanks CIA, MI6!). But it doesn’t change the fact that the Ukrainian military is a fascist force that waged a terror war against the Russian-speaking people of Southeast Ukraine for eight years since 2014 – killing 14,000 – until it was stopped by Russia’s intervention on February 24.

 

No wonder the BBC is covering for Azov when the British Ministry of Defense is training and arming their fighters, along with other NATO states.

In the same BBC broadcast, Atkins told viewers that the Russian army had bombed the Mariupol maternity hospital and the Mariupol theater resulting in civilian deaths. No evidence, no images of dead bodies. Just assumption of trust us, because, after all, “this is the BBC”. (Both claims were soon debunked as simple Western disinformartion.—Eds)

Here the corporation goes from denial about the Azov and Nazis to actually promoting their propaganda lies. That’s because the BBC is employing and relying on Ukrainian journalists who are affiliated with far-right politics.

Civilians fleeing from Mariupol have testified to independent news organizations that the Azov fighters detonated both the hospital and the theater in a false-flag operation designed to smear Russia and to bolster NATO support for the Ukrainian regime.

What the BBC is doing here is echoed by U.S. media like CNN, NBC, and others. It is also a replay of how they reported on Syria where they accused the Syrian army and Russian allies of bombing civilians. The reality was that towns and cities like Aleppo were being held under siege by Western-backed mercenaries and their propagandists in the White Helmets who carried out false-flag atrocities. The BBC would tell viewers that the Syrian army and Russia were killing civilians when in reality the civilians were being liberated from a reign of terror. The same is happening with the Azov and other Nazis in Ukraine whom the BBC, CNN, etc., are whitewashing and promoting.

Ask yourself: why does the BBC no longer report from Syria? What about all those hysterical claims of war crimes against civilians when the Syrian army and Russia were liberating towns and cities? Why hasn’t the BBC followed up to interview Syrian civilians to find out how they feel about being liberated? The same BBC “journalists” are too busy spinning the next propaganda war for the British government and NATO in Ukraine.

This year marks the centennial anniversary of the “Beeb” as it is affectionately known. It was founded by the British government as a propaganda service. Earlier names included the British Empire Service. Up until recently, members of staff were vetted by MI5, the British state intelligence service. They no doubt still are, only now even more hush-hush covertly. By law, every British household must buy a TV license (£159 per year) to support the financing of the BBC. Failure to do so results in criminal prosecution and even jail.

The Orwellian reality of the Beeb should make it the world’s “most busted” propaganda outlet. But then again that’s what is so Orwellian about the BBC. It still retains a wholesome image for many people around the world. Even when the whitewashing of Nazis in Ukraine is its latest star turn.
 

~ Finian Cunningham is a leading geopolitical commentator. Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages.

Imagine this.....

 

 

EU feeling the crunch of its own sanctions

 

By Paul Antonopoulos (Independent geopolitical analyst)

Western countries and their closest allies imposed new sanctions on Moscow after Russian troops crossed into Ukraine on February 24 in what Moscow calls a special military campaign to demilitarise the NATO-aspiring country. Although the EU enthusiastically followed Washington’s lead in engaging in an economic war with Russia, the harsh realization of sanctions are beginning to set in, with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis telling CNN on March 25, when referring to rising energy costs, that “Europe must be very careful not to allow them [sanctions] to harm Europe more than Russia.”

A similar sentiment was shared by German economist Aika Hamer, who said that the EU could face backlash from anti-Russian sanctions and warned that if the German economy collapses, then the whole of Europe will fall apart.

“If the German economy collapses because of these measures, then the whole of Europe will fall apart,” he said. “We may face the fact that diesel fuel or gasoline will cost €4-5 or even €6 per liter. We may also face the fact that most Europeans will no longer be able to afford to drive. Without this, the great prosperous West is nothing more than an illusion.” Hamer also noted that the losers in this situation “will be the middle class and the poorest people in Germany, Europe and the United States.”

Hamer’s warning comes as fuel prices have already reached unprecedented heights and broken different records in the US, the UK and across different EU countries. German motorists have been hit at the pump by the skyrocketing fuel prices — forking out €2.14 for a liter of gasoline and at one point in March paying as much as €2.25 per liter for diesel, thus making it more expensive than gasoline for the first time in history despite government subsidies.

It is recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on March 23 that the transfer of gas supply payments from so-called unfriendly countries will from now on be conducted in rubles in light of Russia’s exclusion from SWIFT, and effectively from the US Dollar. The demand for rubles was the obvious outcome as it made no sense to supply energy to the EU and the US whilst receiving payments in their own currency that Moscow in turn cannot use or face having frozen.

For her part, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said that the EU will not allow the payment of Russian gas in rubles as it is, in her view, “a unilateral decision and a clear breach of contract. We will not allow our sanctions to be circumvented. The time when energy could be used to blackmail us is over.” At the same time, she announced a new partnership between the EU and the US, which involves providing more American liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the bloc as a replacement for Russian gas.

 

However, it was naïve for the Europeans to believe that Russia would tolerate such a situation where they are excluded from Western financial mechanisms but are expected to continue receiving payments in Dollars and Euros. In this way, the main aim of wanting rubles for energy is to support the national currency against such pressure.

Although von der Leyen speaks bravely about replacing Russian LNG with the 15 billion cubic meters (15 bcm) of LNG that Washington had pledged, it does nothing to stop European countries from buying an additional 150 bcm of Russian natural gas that is delivered via pipeline.

“Europe has an import capability that is limited, and they don’t have any additional infrastructure that is going to come online,” Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, told VOA regarding greater LNG use in Europe. “Infrastructure that’s currently operational is basically running at capacity right now, and I would expect that it will run at capacity for the remainder of this year.” He added that coming into 2022, the amount of gas held in storage by European countries was well below recent averages, making the continent especially vulnerable to potential supply disruptions.

In effect, in the drive to wean off Russian energy, it will be the West’s Middle Class and poorest who will be most affected by drastically rising costs. At the same time, gas storage amounts throughout 2022 will be at a high-risk level, meaning that if there is a disruption in the supply or there is another unexpected global event akin to a pandemic or to the magnitude of the conflict in Ukraine, it very well could be the case that the EU has allowed sanctions to harm Europeans more so than Russia. Already rising energy and food costs suggests that average European citizens are already suffering.

Surviving the British colonizers

 

 

Prince William and Kate were in the Caribbean to mark Queen Elizabeth's platinum jubilee. 

The visit has was criticized as a PR disaster by royal watchers in Britain. 

Palki Sharma tells you why the Caribbean is not buying this royal cringe. 

Chechen's save civilians, carrying out family in Mariupol

 

  

Chechen's requested to Russian military that they be given the most dangerous job of clearing the city of Mariupol. They have lots of experience navigating inner-urban combat from their own time in the Chechen war.

The CIA was key in stirring up the Chechen war that cost many lives - one more failed attempt by Washington-Brussels to create a festering sore along the vast Russian border. 

Ukraine forces attack civilians in Donetsk

 

 

American journalist Patrick Lancaster has been covering the US-NATO-Ukraine war on the Donbass for the past 8 years.....

Western sanctions impact wheat distribution

 

Written by Piero Messina

Particularly at risk are countries already struggling with crises and widespread food insecurity such as Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Syria. In Egypt, in the face of rising prices and the prospect of a rapid depletion of stocks, President al-Sisi announced new incentives for the agricultural sector and for controlling the price at the sale. Also imposed a three-month ban on the export of oil, corn, legumes, pasta and flour. The crisis also wears down the finances of the country that is looking for new loans. The North African country would only have nine months to see its grain reserves dry up due to a halt to supplies from Ukraine.

Egypt, for example, imports about 85% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine. The spokesman for the Cairo government, Nader Saad, raised the problem by recalling that the available reserves are used to meet internal needs for only five months.

    “There are 14 countries besides Russia and Ukraine that can supply grain to Egypt outside of Europe, including Australia, the United States and Paraguay,” Saad added. “But not at the same price.”

See the entire article here 

Hear from the people whose homes were bombed

 

 

Video has English subtitles

At the six minute mark in the video people start unloading about how the Nazis in Mariupol were destroying the entire city by firing shells at their housing.

I am certain that the western mainstream media is showing photos of these burned out apartment blocks and blaming Russia for them.

I'll take the word of these citizens who have no reason to tell anything except what they know and what they experienced.

Bruce 

We have to reconcile!

 

US and NATO military bases in Hungary

 

 Statement of the Hungarian Community for Peace

 

It is a sad sight of how Western civilization confronts its own values ​​and denies others what it demands for itself. Military conflict could have been avoided if the West had guaranteed Russia's security and not wanted to enforce its own. 

Moscow has made it clear what to expect if its security is not guaranteed. Ukraine is not the cause but the consequence of aggressive Western behavior, and its people are the main victims of anti-Russian politics. 

A collective security system is needed in Europe! We want this to be understood not only in Washington and Brussels, but also in Buda Castle [Royal Palace in Budapest] as soon as possible! It is not enough to say, "we will not allow Hungary to be plunged into the war", but it is also necessary to ensure that we are not plunged into it! 

With the deployment of foreign troops in Hungary and the handover of NATO forces and weapons in our territory and airspace, the words of our government are at odds with his actions. If we want to prevent Hungarian blood from flowing for foreign interests again, we must recognize Russia's legal right to security, and we must agree with it on mutual guarantees of security. We must not be allowed to fall victim to our own allies like Ukraine! 

We must confront anti-Russian sentiment, incitement to hatred against the peoples of the East. We need to reach an agreement with Russia so that we can live and develop in peace! Compromise is not only a national interest, but also a pan-European requirement.
 

~ Simó Endre, Budapest, 27 March 2022  

Latest Global Network Space Video

 

 

What's the newest branch of the armed forces, the Space Force, doing in 2022?  

Video by Will Griffin.

Lavrov speaks the truth

 

 

Russia is facing a total war declared by the West, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on March 25. 

"The goals are not hidden, they are declared publicly - to destroy, break, annihilate, strangle the Russian economy, and Russia on the whole," he said, speaking at a meeting with the board of trustees of the Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund. 

But despite Western efforts, Russia won't be isolated, Lavrov stressed.

The US is working hard to pressure China to renounce Russia and to join the US-EU in placing harsh sanctions on Moscow. China refuses. 

We often hear US-NATO talking heads say that the 'whole world' is with the US in sanctioning Russia. What is never reported in mainstream media is that besides China the following list are just some of the nations not joining the US economic war on Moscow. 

Mexico, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Thailand, India, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Serbia, Qatar, Egypt, Turkey, Brazil, Venezuela, South Africa, Malaysia, Vietnam, Burundi, Senegal, South Sudan, Uganda, Mali, Mozambique, Syria, North Korea, Eritrea, and Pakistan.

What this list shows me (again this is not all of the nations refusing to sanction Russia) is that when you add up their combined population figures (compared to the US and Europe) they are the majority of the global population. 

But why are they staying neutral or actively supportive of Russia? I think it should be fairly clear to us that the vast majority of these nations have had lots of experience for hundreds of years of brutal colonization by the UK, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, and the US. They have not historically had much ability to stand up to these western, white colonizers.

Russia (facing US-NATO's loaded gun pointed at its head) has been pleading for years for secure borders but the arrogant west has disdainfully ignored Moscow's honest pleas. Continual NATO expansion, and the 2014 US sponsored coup d' etat in Ukraine, have essentially forced Russia to reluctantly take a stand. It is generally my opinion that much of the colonized world sees Russia and China as nations that are not bowing before the global bullies - Mr. Big as I like to label the capitalist corporate western oligarchies.

Bruce

More from Mariupol refugees

 

 

Refugees expose Azov battalion war crimes in Mariupol. 

Video by American journalist covering the war since 2014.

English & French subtitles - refugees from Mariupol tell all....

 

 

Refugees confirm that Ukrainian Nazis from "Azov" and "Right Sector" shell their houses 

 

Join Rossa Primavera News Agency international news channel in Telegram: https://t.me/rossaprimavera_int 

 

Source: https://t.me/swodki/52676

 

Pour nos amis Français

Sunday song

 

 

De-mining the Donbass

 

Russian troops de-mining the Donbass region where the Ukrainian army has retreated from.....

A few words from India...

 

 

The whole world is watching.

Photo below from peace protest in Visakhapatnam, India today.

 

A look back: Mariupol in 2014

 

Below is a blog post I did in 2016. In the 2nd to last paragraph below I refer to a video showing Nazis attacking Mariupol residents on May 9, 2014 as they peacefully remembered the May 9 victory of the former Soviet Union over Hitler's Nazi regime. The video is no longer available on YouTube. I searched this morning for a series of videos I posted in 2014-2015 of Azov battalion attacks on the residents of Mariupol but they are all taken down. Following the US orchestrated coup in Kiev in 2014 peaceful protests calling for a 'federated Ukraine' (where people could speak the Russian language without attacks from Kiev) swept throughout the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. Mariupol, being a port city, was one of the most strategic cities in the region. The Nazis were sent there by the US-NATO war project to suppress the public. They've been in control of Mariupol since then. Today Mariupol is about 70% liberated from the Nazis. As refugees are fleeing Mariupol on corridors opened by Russia, they are reporting mass graves in the city where people murdered by the Nazis during the past eight years were thrown. Why have so many people around the world been silent about these atrocities since 2014? Was it because they were Russian-ethnics?

Bruce

 

Obama's US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt on Friday [April 2016] made a trip to Mariupol in eastern Ukraine to essentially praise the May 9, 2014 neo-Nazi battalion shooting of unarmed people in Mariupol.

Pyatt is the other person in the now famous phone call with Victoria Nuland (Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs) when she told the ambassador who the US was supporting to lead the 'new' Ukrainian government after the US sponsored coup d'etat in Kiev.  Nuland told Pyatt, "Fuck the EU". 

The events in Mariupol, Donetsk region (when neo-Nazi Azov fighters shot at a peaceful demonstration of residents on May 9, 2014) were hailed by Pyatt as an example of the struggle against the 'Russian world' for all of Donbass during his meeting with representatives of the local government.

 

 

 

May 9 is a holiday that commemorates the capitulation of Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union at the end of Second World War, known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War.  (27 million Soviet citizens were killed at the hands of the Hitler Army.) It's obvious that the US is trying to erase this history inside of Ukraine by encouraging the current US sponsored puppet regime in Kiev to use their neo-Nazi battalions to suppress any peaceful marches or assemblies that gather to remember the defeat of Hitler's forces.

Below is a short video [no longer available on YouTube] that shows a bit of the May 9, 2014 events in Mariupol where the neo-Nazis broke up peaceful holiday events.  When the unarmed residents tried to chase the Nazis (from western Ukraine) out of town they turned and fired on the peaceful people wounding and killing some unknown number of them.  

 

 

Amazingly these are the very events that Pyatt was celebrating with the 'authorities' in Mariupol.  The US ambassador, appointed under the Democrat administration of Obama, is giving the green light to Kiev to continue this violent suppression of the people both on May 2 in Odessa and throughout the country on May 9 when people attempted to publicly remember the defeat of Hitler. 

Pentagon Drops Truth Bombs to Stave Off War With Russia

Two leaked stories from the Pentagon have exposed the lies of mainstream media about how Russia is conducting the Ukraine war in a bid to counter propaganda intended to get NATO into the conflict.

By Joe Lauria (Consortium News)

The Pentagon is engaged in a consequential battle with the U.S. State Department and the Congress to prevent a direct military confrontation with Russia, which could unleash the most unimaginable horror of war.

President Joe Biden is caught in the middle of the fray. So far he is siding with the Defense Department, saying there cannot be a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine fighting Russian aircraft because “that’s called World War III, okay? Let’s get it straight here, guys. We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine.”

“President Biden’s been clear that U.S. troops won’t fight Russia in Ukraine, and if you establish a no-fly zone, certainly in order to enforce that no-fly zone, you’ll have to engage Russian aircraft. And again, that would put us at war with Russia,” said U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier this month. (The administration plan is to bring down the Russian government through a ground insurgency and economic war, not a direct military one.)

But pressure on the White House from Congress and the press corps is unrelenting to recklessly bring NATO directly into the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, hailed as a virtual superhero in Western media, has vacillated between openness to negotiating a peace settlement with Russia and calling for NATO to “close the skies” above Ukraine. To save his country he appears willing to risk endangering the entire world.  

Meanwhile, Western corporate media, depending almost exclusively on Ukrainian sources, report that Russia is losing the war, with its military offensive “stalled,” and in frustration has deliberately targeted civilians and flattened cities.

Biden has bought into this part of the story, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal.” He has also said that Russia is planning a “false flag” chemical attack to pin on Ukraine.

But on Tuesday, the Pentagon took the bold step of leaking two stories to reporters that contradict those tales. “Russia’s conduct in the brutal war tells a different story than the widely accepted view that Vladimir Putin is intent on demolishing Ukraine and inflicting maximum civilian damage—and it reveals the Russian leader’s strategic balancing act,” reported Newsweek in an article entitled, “Putin’s Bombers Could Devastate Ukraine But He’s Holding Back. Here’s Why.”

The piece quotes an unnamed analyst at the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) saying, “The heart of Kyiv has barely been touched. And almost all of the long-range strikes have been aimed at military targets.”

A retired U.S. Air Force officer now working as an analyst for a Pentagon contractor, added: “We need to understand Russia’s actual conduct. If we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately, or [that] it is failing to inflict more harm because its personnel are not up to the task or because it is technically inept, then we are not seeing the real conflict.”

The article says:

    “As of the past weekend, in 24 days of conflict, Russia has flown some 1,400 strike sorties and delivered almost 1,000 missiles (by contrast, the United States flew more sorties and delivered more weapons in the first day of the 2003 Iraq war). …

    A proportion of those strikes have damaged and destroyed civilian structures and killed and injured innocent civilians, but the level of death and destruction is low compared to Russia’s capacity.

    ‘I know it’s hard … to swallow that the carnage and destruction could be much worse than it is,’ says the DIA analyst. ‘But that’s what the facts show. This suggests to me, at least, that Putin is not intentionally attacking civilians, that perhaps he is mindful that he needs to limit damage in order to leave an out for negotiations.'”

These Pentagon sources confirm what Putin and the Russian Ministry of Defense have been saying all along: that instead of being “stalled,” Russia is executing a methodical war plan to encircle cities, opening humanitarian corridors for civilians, leaving civilian infrastructure like water, electricity, telephony and internet intact, and trying to avoid as many civilian casualties as possible.

Until these Pentagon leaks it was difficult to confirm that Russia was entirely telling the truth and that corporate media were publishing fables cooked up by Ukraine’s publicity machine.

No Evidence of Chemicals

The second article directly undermines Biden’s dramatic warning about a false flag chemical attack. Reuters reported: “The United States has not yet seen any concrete indications of an imminent Russian chemical or biological weapons attack in Ukraine but is closely monitoring streams of intelligence for them, a senior U.S. defense official said.”

It quoted the Pentagon official as saying, “There’s no indication that there’s something imminent in that regard right now.” Neither The New York Times nor The Washington Post published the Reuters article, which appeared in the more obscure U.S. News and World Report.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story — even if it could lead to the most devastating consequences in history.

~ Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. 

Biden's 'suggestions' for Serbia: Part 2

 

Good thing no one listened to him at the time......
 

Biden's new world odor.....

 

 

New 'liberal world order'?

 

Call it a new global fascist/mobster/capitalist odor.....

Biden says the US must lead the 'free world'. 

Free to do what? Plunder, destroy, manipulate, lie and much more. It's a modern day version of  piracy.

All nonsense.

I'll never buy it.

Bruce

Food for thought

 

 

 

By Dr. Vladimir Kozin

What does it mean – neo-Nazism in contemporary Ukraine?

• Not only marches with swastika and portraits of Hitler’s supporters, like Bandera.
• Not only the glorification of fascism.
• Not only adoption of national laws prohibiting Russian language almost everywhere. 
  

Current neo-Nazism in Ukraine means: 

• Creation of ultra-nationalist battalions that torture POW and kill Ukrainian citizens who would like to find safe heaven and asylum in Russia and in other states.
• Continuous shelling of Donbass residential areas without military significance from 2014 till today with heavy artillery fire, ballistic missiles Tochka-U with 15,000 pieces of shrapnel each and MRLS one salvo of which can destroy everything on 20 hectrares.
• Barbaric destruction of all that is left when Ukrainian troops retreat: living quarters, schools, hospitals, etc.
• Permanent destruction of the civilian life support systems in Donbass and in liberated areas.
• Uninterrupted destruction of coal mines’ electric equipment with the aim to trap dozens of coal miners underground.
• Refusal to offer humanitarian assistance to Ukrainian citizens who are in trouble, and using them as human shields.
• Blocking water canal with fresh water to Crimea from 2014 till 2022.

And the collective West is still helping Ukrainian neo-Nazis by lethal weapons, ammunition, mercenaries and blood money? What for? To create an all-out war in Europe?

~  Dr. Vladimir Kozin Member, Russian Academy of Military Sciences; Member, Russian Academy of Natural Sciences; Vice President, Russian National Institute for Global Security Research

NATO Has Been In Ukraine Since 2014, “Stay Behind” Is Operational In Kiev

 

 

Written by Piero Messina

Kiev organized an operational defense of the territory similar to that which had been created in NATO territories and in neutral European territories such as Switzerland, Austria and Sweden, based on a NATO ”Stay behind“ structure, what we call ‘Gladio’. The analysis by General Carlo Jean, university professor and military adviser to the former president of the Italian Republic Francesco Cossiga is concrete proof of NATO’s operational presence in Ukraine, starting from 2014.

Stay Behind was a paramilitary operational structure linked to the Atlantic Pact [NATO] which in the period of the Cold War had the mission of preventing the strength of left-wing political movements, directly or indirectly linked to the Warsaw Pact, from growing in Western countries.

“Stay Behind“, to remember, is precisely a paramilitary operation born of NATO and funded by the CIA which in the post-war period, through secret military sabotage activities, became the author of massacres, murders, attacks, destabilizations of all kinds and types in every corner of Europe.

In Italy, as said by the general, the code name of Stay Behind was 'Gladio' and it was revealed to the public for the first time by Giulio Andreotti only in 1990 and only to avoid the magistrates investigating black terrorists. In the meantime, 'Gladio', through neo-fascists, would have orchestrated – or so some of the most competent magistrates believe on the basis of investigations and confessions of former mafiosi and former terrorists – the worst blood events of the first Republic, starting from the strategy of tension.

The same structure therefore, in addition to having operated in Western Europe as in Italy or Greece  that would have led to the dictatorship of the Colonels, would have been present, and still would be, in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine.

Moreover, a similar structure appeared in 2014 when the country was crossed by a bloody civil war and Nazi-inspired military groups emerged that carried out massacres in Kiev. Under US-NATO direction, through the CIA and other secret services, the nostalgic Nazi militants who stormed government buildings in the capital and were then institutionalized as “national guards” have been recruited, financed, trained and armed for years.

It was they [Nazi death squads] who destroyed party headquarters in 2014, during the coup d’état [in Kiev]. It was they – while a large part of the press acclaimed the riots in Kiev as “revolutionaries” – who lynched executives, tortured and killed journalists, burned activists alive, as in the Odessa Chamber of Labor, and slaughtered civilians as in Mariupol, bombed with white phosphorus in Slaviansk, Lugansk, Donetsk. Not to forget, then, the massacre of Maidan square, where snipers belonging to the extremist groups “Svoboda” and “Pravij Sektor”, stationed on the buildings of the Conservatory and the Ukraine hotel, massacred demonstrators. A “false flag operation”, aimed at blaming the police.

A bit like what happened in Italy in the “years of Lead”. The story of Stay Behind’s presence in Ukraine was told in 2014 by the Italian journalist Manlio Dinucci, according to which Ukrainian neo-Nazi militants of “Una-Unso” had been trained in 2006 in Estonia by NATO instructors, who taught them fighting techniques, urban warfare and use of explosives for sabotage and attacks. It is the same strategy that NATO made in Italy during the Cold War to form the secret paramilitary structure 'Gladio'.

Discussing the U.S. strategy

 

 

 Lavrov explains regime change strategy targeting Russia & China. Kherson adopts ruble. 

Alex reports from the busy streets of Athens, Greece.

 

This is a must watch....

 

 

In an unprecedentedly dimwitted conversation, the hosts on The View all expressed agreement that prominent individuals expressing skepticism about all-out war on Russia like Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard are traitors who need to be investigated and possibly even arrested for their thought crimes. 

The hosts all outdo one another in trotting out McCarthyite smears and denunciations of Russian propaganda while spreading their own form of NATO propaganda and misinformation. 

Jimmy Dore and The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal discuss whether this clip is the most smooth-brained segment of television in history.

U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan

 

By Makiko Sato

This US base in Iwakuni has a long history. It became a US Air Force base in 1952. Then in 1962, it officially became a US Marine Corp military facility.

A lot of numbers of MV-22 and CV-22 (Osprey) has been deployed here in Iwakuni since 2012. 

Iwakuni residents bear the blunt of  'sharing' the burden of Okinawa.

This video above was taken by a newspaper company. A US fighter jet F-35 plays an acrobatic flight in the sky around the Iwakuni base. Unbearable noise to local residents.

That USMF Iwakuni base is overlooked and is convenient for keeping on justifying the never-ending Futenma relocation project to Henoko in Okinawa.

Iwakuni is located 300 miles west of Osaka and 30 miles from Hiroshima. Tokyo is 600 miles east of Iwakuni.

The total US troops deployed in Japan now far exceeds 40,000. 

I hope US citizens know about Iwakuni. 

Talking with refugees fleeing Mariupol

 

 

Donbass Insider

 

While conducting a humanitarian mission near Sartana in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, we met a large number of people who had just fled Mariupol. 

Among these civilians was Nikolay, who agreed to tell us on camera what happened with the maternity hospital and the theatre in Mariupol, and how the fighters of the Azov regiment behaved with the inhabitants.

Mariupol SitRep

 

The Ukie-Nazi's were hiding under this commercial mall building. They were storing military equipment and ammunition there and were hit by a Russian missile (Click on image for a better view)

  Situation over Mariupol is unresolved

 

By Dr. Vladimir Kozin

In Mariupol, which has become a base of operation for the “Azov” battalion, nationalists are preventing the evacuation of local residents and using civilians as human shields while they launch counterattacks at advancing Russian Forces from hospitals, schools, and other civilian infrastructure. The rescued residents of Mariupol, finding themselves in complete safety in Russia, openly talk about all the mass outrages and crimes committed by neo-Nazis.

A severe humanitarian disaster has developed in the city of Mariupol as a result of the outrage created by Ukrainian nationalists. The desperate and mindless extremists, realizing the refusal for providing any assistance from Kiev, staged mass terror in those quarters of the city that they still control. At the same time, the reliable information received by the Russian side testifies to the terrible atrocities of the militants who were distraught from despair. The tone of their active negotiations with officials in Kiev, which is recorded daily in radio intercepts, speaks of their extreme anger towards the Ukrainian authorities because they were simply abandoned, while being forced to strictly follow the order: stand to death, and the status of martyrs of Mariupol has already been assigned to them.

According to available data, up to 130 thousand civilians and 184 foreign citizens from six countries are currently being held hostage in the city.

It has been objectively established that over the past three days, 80 to 235 innocent civilians who are trying to leave the city on their own have been killed by the Nazis.

At the same time, the formations of the Donetsk People's Republic with the support of the Russian Armed Forces, realizing that the neo-Nazis are closed by a human shield of innocent people, are forced to carry out measures to unblock Mariupol only point-by-point, house by house, block by block, without using heavy weapons, thereby avoiding civilian casualties.

Russia called on UAF, territorial defence battalions and foreign mercenaries to cease hostilities, lay down their weapons and withdraw to Kiev-controlled territories using humanitarian corridors agreed with the Ukrainian side. In this case, we guarantee the safe exit from Mariupol and the preservation of life for all those who have laid down their arms. The commanders of the units of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Russian Armed Forces will be prepared for such a scenario and will ensure their safe exit, but only without weapons and ammunition, to any area they so desire. Russia called on official Kiev for prudence and the cancellation of earlier instructions that obliged the fighters to sacrifice themselves and become "martyrs of Mariupol".

For the strict fulfillment of this task, in addition, Russia sent an official appeal to the United Nations, the OSCE, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organizations, whose representatives are invited to accompany the practical measures of this humanitarian operation, as it is called directly on the ground, that is, in Mariupol, while necessarily as part of humanitarian convoys of both Russian and Ukrainian sides.

The Russian Armed Forces strictly observe the ceasefire on all routes without exception, including those declared by Kiev. At the same time, the Ukrainian side continues systematic shelling of humanitarian convoys and attempts to shift responsibility for its own inhumane acts to the units of the Russian troops, as well as the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics.

The Russian side still keeps a sufficient number of vehicles ready at the checkpoints, including comfortable buses for transporting refugees to selected destinations, as well as to temporary accommodation points, where all citizens arriving on the territory of Russia are provided with three hot meals a day and medical assistance is provided around the clock. 

Over the past day, without the participation of the Kiev authorities, 16,434 people were evacuated from dangerous areas of Ukraine, Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics to Russia, including 2,389 children, in total, 330,686 people, of which 68,983 children, have already been evacuated since the beginning of the special military operation.

A total of 1,815 private motor vehicles crossed the state border of Russia, and a total of 38,525.

~ Dr. Vladimir Kozin Member, Russian Academy of Military Sciences; Member, Russian Academy of Natural Sciences; Vice President, Russian National Institute for Global Security Research

US Armament Spree in Ukraine - Last Ditch Effort to Preserve Washington's Dominance

Sputnik International

The US has sent billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Ukraine amid Russia's special operation to demilitarise and de-Nazify the country. Switchblade killer drones are part of an additional $800 million military aid package announced by Washington on 16 March. Who is benefiting from the armament spree?

"One reason for the continued transfer of weapons from NATO nations to Ukraine is to keep the profits of the military industrial complex flowing", says Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus. "The US will 'replace' these weapons to the particular donor country by either charging them for new military equipment or having the US taxpayers pay the bill. Either way, the weapons industry profits big time".

Western defence and cybersecurity stocks began to climb at the end of February as Washington and its NATO allies vowed to step up weapons supplies to Ukraine after the beginning of the Russian special operation, according to Gagnon.

The stocks made substantial progress in slightly over a week and are continuing to rally. Thus, between 24 February and 4 March, defence stocks broadly soared, with shares of Raytheon Technologies rising nearly 8%, General Dynamics 12%, Huntington Ingalls Industries 14%, Lockheed Martin 18%, and Northrop Grumman 22%, according to Fortune. Gagnon notes that Lockheed Martin currently tops the list, followed by other corporations like General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and BAE.

However, even before the Russian operation, major US defence contractors started to benefit from Ukraine, with the Biden administration having increased lethal aid to the Eastern European country since the beginning of his presidency. "In his first year in office, Biden approved more military aid to Ukraine — some $650 million — than the US had ever provided", The Intercept remarked on 10 March.

The US weapons supplies to Ukraine soared substantially in the second half of 2021 amid the Ukrainian military buildup along the contact line with the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics. On 9 March, the Russian Ministry of Defence released secret documents of the command of the National Guard of Ukraine, confirming preparation by Kiev authorities for an offensive operation in Donbass in March 2022.

The US defence contractors are the major beneficiaries of US-NATO warmongering, according to Gagnon.

"All of these weapons corporations have huge numbers of lobbyists who daily walk the halls of Congress", the scholar says. "They also make sure to give Congress members (from both parties) generous campaign donations. So, essentially, the war machine has the political system tightly under their control. During the Iraq War, one Bush administration agent stated during a presentation that the US role under corporate globalisation of the world economy would be 'security export'. That means endless war".

 

US troops in Lviv, western Ukraine, where the Nazis predominate

'Overextending and Unbalancing Russia'

Ukraine has long been in the focus of US politicians and the military industrial complex, according to the scholar. Gagnon cites a 2019 RAND Corporation study entitled "Overextending and Unbalancing Russia", co-authored by ex-State Department and White House adviser James Dobbins and military intelligence branched lieutenant colonel and Iraq War veteran, Raphael Cohen. "Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability", the study emphasised.

"It appears obvious to me that the US is using Ukraine as a tool to destabilise Russia's borderlands and thus forcing Moscow to spend more on the military which takes away from domestic priorities", says Gagnon. "Western sanctions being placed on Russia is even more evidence of this US-NATO plan to 'Overextend and Unbalance' Russia. The US-NATO wants regime change in Moscow. Washington and the EU don't give a damn about the people in Ukraine".

According to The Intercept, the Obama administration provided a wide range of "nonlethal military and intelligence assistance" to Ukraine, including training, while under Donald Trump, "Washington began a relatively modest flow of weapons shipments". Under Biden, arms supplies to Ukraine have already become "unprecedented", according to the media outlet.

Furthermore, the US political class and defence contractors have become intertwined through Washington's "revolving door" politics, notes Gagnon.

"The swinging door between the weapons industry and staff positions inside military and foreign policy institutions is strong evidence of this reality", he says. "There is no democracy in the US. WWII Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini defines fascism as 'the wedding of corporations and government'. This is exactly what we have in the US today - and throughout much of Europe as well".

West's 'Achilles Heel'

Ironically, it is Joe Biden who declared an end to "an era of major military operations to remake other countries" following the US' hasty Afghanistan withdrawal, and stressed that the president’s job is to protect and defend the "fundamental national security interest of the United States of America". According to Gagnon, Washington's Ukraine armament spree is caused by the US' unwillingness to completely lose its fading unipolar leadership.

"The US and NATO fear the coming multi-polar world being led by Russia and China", says the scholar. "Washington, and its puppet allies in Europe, understand that their 'window of opportunity' to destroy Russia and China is closing - thus their desperation. The recent threat by the Biden administration to China (that if Beijing did not renounce Russia it would get sanctioned as well) reveals just how much this new growing economic detachment from Western control is driving US-NATO policy".

However, firm rejection of anti-Russian sanctions by nations throughout the Global South indicates that the West's efforts "will not be successful", says the scholar. The Wall Street Journal's recent report saying that Saudi Arabia is considering selling some oil to China using yuan instead of the "petro-dollar" shows the demise of the Western-centric world order, according to Gagnon.

"The West's arrogance, greed and sense of exceptionalism are their Achilles' heel", the scholar concludes.

Let the truth be spoken....

 

 

Recently, the audience of a Europa League last-16 match in Belgrade, capital of Serbia, unfurled banners with the names of countries and regions that suffered from wars launched by the US and NATO over the last few decades and chanted an anti-war song.

Chinese spokesperson of Ministry of Foreign Affairs Wang Wenbin states: 

I also took note of the relevant report. Football fans at the match unveiled five huge banners to list countries and regions that suffered from the scourge of war waged by the US and NATO over the last few decades. Guatemala, Cuba, Vietnam, the Congo, Nicaragua, Iraq, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria. The list goes on. People all over the world who see these banners revisit the wars launched by the US and NATO in the past few decades and set us thinking. 

Shouldn’t the countries who claim to oppose war avoid starting wars in the first place? Shouldn’t the countries who claim to advocate peace refrain from undermining peace? Shouldn’t the countries who want to uphold their own security respect the security of other countries too? 

This war has been in the works for many years....

 

 

US Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in Ukraine, December 2016. Preparing for a proxy war with Russia.

Lindsey Graham has recently on two occasions called for the assassination of Vladimir Putin. In the video he says, "2017 will be a year of offense." Graham is a fascist without a doubt - as was McCain.

Note just at the end of the video on the left side of the screen next to John McCain in yellow is Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH).  This has always been a bi-partisan war mongering plan against Russia inside the US Congress. 

They were meeting with the Ukrainian Special Forces that the US-NATO created - they brought the Nazi battalions into this new unit as a way to hide them from public scrutiny.

 

Beyond the US-NATO hype: the inside story of Ukraine's war on the Donbass

 

 

One viewer commented on this documentary film:

Watching this in March 2022.  Wow, this guy is a real oracle!  Saw 5 years into the future.  Of course, now the death toll stands at over 14,000 people, over 500 of them children.  
This film is masterfully made, may be even better than the Oliver Stone's Ukraine trilogy.  I am surprised I have not heard about it until just now. 

Still another wrote in the comments about this film:

As a Ukrainian from the donbass region more specifically kramatorsk, I never thought I’d see the day someone covers it from our point of view, from the truth that’s been suppressed, love this!

And one more comment:

This film needs to be shared.  Far too many ppl have the entirely wrong idea about what's happening in Ukraine and Crimea. 

 

This important and moving documentary was created by German filmmaker Mark Bartalmai. 

Near the end of the film Baralmai reveals the depth of US-NATO involvement in pushing the Ukranian army harder in their war against the Donbass. The US understood that at some point Russia would be forced to become directly involved in order to protect the Russian-ethnic population in Ukraine near its border.

Please help share the film with others. 

Zelensky's lies exposed by refugees

 

 

English subtitles are on the video

People can now begin to leave Mariupol after Russian army opens humanitarian corridors. 

Ukraine's Azov battalion death squads have been using the Russian-ethnic civilians in the city as human shields and have refused to allow them to escape.

The people tell these truths in this video.

US Recklessly Eyes China as Target in Economic War

Western officials say Russia is asking China for military help — denied by Beijing — in what is clearly an effort to build a case to include China in its economic war against Moscow.

By Joe Lauria (Consortium News)

The United States is setting up China as a second target of its intense economic war against Russia in what could have cataclysmic effects on the world economy, including the West.

The U.S. could not impose the most stringent sanctions on Moscow without the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and now the U.S. is trying to link China to the war.

Washington’s move to frame Beijing emerged Monday when unnamed U.S. officials told its allies that Russia had asked China for military aid in Ukraine. Reuters reported: “The message, sent in a diplomatic cable and delivered in person by intelligence officials, also said China was expected to deny those plans, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.”  China indeed denied it.

Importantly, Reuters added: “The U.S. government offered no public evidence to back its assertions of China’s willingness to provide such aid to Russia.”

On that same day Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, led a delegation to Rome to meet with Yang Jiechi, a member of the Chinese politburo. After the meeting, an unnamed senior U.S. official in Rome told reporters: “We have deep concerns about China’s alignment with Russia at this time, and the national security adviser was direct about those concerns and the potential implications and consequences of certain actions.”  

The next day NATO Secretary-General Jen Stoltenberg remarked:

    “China should join the rest of the world condemning strongly the brutal invasion of Ukraine by Russia. So China has an obligation as a member of the U.N. Security Council to actually support and uphold international law. And the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a blatant violation of international law so we call on [China] to clearly condemn the invasion and of course not support Russia. And we are closely monitoring any signs of support from China to Russia.”

The English-language, government-owned, Chinese newspaper Global Times accused Stoltenberg of trying to accuse China of being an “accomplice” with Russia in Ukraine and dismissed NATO as a “puppet” of the United States.

After these statements it seemed clear the U.S. was trying to lay the groundwork for a truly reckless idea: to tie China to the war so it could sanction it perhaps along the lines of what the West has already laid on Russia.

Then on Thursday U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spelled it out: “We believe China in particular has a responsibility to use its influence with President Putin and to defend the international rules and principles that it professes to support. Instead, it appears that China is moving in the opposite direction by refusing to condemn this aggression, while seeking to portray itself as a neutral arbiter.” He added: “We will not hesitate to impose costs.”

In retrospect, evidence that the U.S. is trying to open a second front in its economic war first surfaced just before Russia intervened in Ukraine’s civil war, when Blinken implored China to stop Russia from invading. It was portrayed in Western media as a desperate last chance at peace from a concerned United States.

Of course China rebuffed Blinken. It seemed like a ridiculous gambit at the time. But in hindsight it may well have been the first U.S. step in constructing a case for sanctions against China. It allows Washington to say China was given every opportunity to try to stop the invasion and failed to do so and therefore was somehow complicit.

Biden Threatens Xi

All this was preparation for President Joe Biden’s video-call on Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in which Biden warned Chinese President Xi Jinping not to help Russia’s war effort in Ukraine or there would be “consequences” to pay. 

 

Biden “detailed the implications and consequences” if Beijing were to give “material support to Russia” in the war, the White House said in a readout. While the White House didn’t spell out what those consequences would be, it said Biden went into detail about the severe sanctions the U.S. had imposed on Russia, including on its central bank and a number of imports, including oil. In other words, he read China the riot act. Biden was in essence threatening Xi with similar sanctions if China helped Russia.

Xi, however, warned Biden that the U.S. sanctions on Russia could trigger a worldwide economic crisis, apparently implying that that crisis would be far worse if the sanctions were extended to China.  Commodities prices, especially in energy and food, have already soared. The U.S. imported $506 billion in Chinese goods in 2021, according to the U.S. Census Department, an amount that would be extremely difficult for the US to replace.

Before the summit, Global Times wrote in an editorial on Friday: “The close relationship between China and Russia has been a thorn in the US’ side, especially against the backdrop of the ongoing Ukraine crisis. With the simmering of the situation, it couldn’t be any clearer that Washington is eager to exploit the Russia-Ukraine conflict to drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow.”

The U.S. recognizes that its economic war against Russia could well fail because of the close and expanding economic and financial ties between Moscow and Beijing. But it is too late for the United States. Since the invasion, China is buying more oil and other commodities from Russia, Beijing has allowed Russia to use its Union Pay banking system, replaced Russia’s use of SWIFT with China’s Interbank System (CIPS), and China and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), which Russia is a part of, are designing a new monetary and financial system that would bypass the U.S. dollar, threatening it as the world’s reserve currency.  

The Global Times added:  “It’s the US that should put out the fire it lit in Ukraine. Ridiculously, it is demanding Beijing to do this job at the cost of damaging China-Russia relations. This is unreasonable and insidious.”

Russia has committed only a fraction of its military to Ukraine. Other than ordnance to replace, it is not clear what military aid Russia would need from China.  

 

Substitute War and Economic Catastrophe

The U.S. already has sanctions on China, as it had earlier on Russia. However, if the United States is seriously planning similar types of sanctions on Beijing that it has leveled on Moscow — against its major banks, against the central bank, removing it from SWIFT and cutting off key exports — the impact on the world economy — including on Europe and the United States — would be catastrophic.  

The U.S. national security strategy for several years has been aimed at both Russia and China. Knowing it must avoid a direct military confrontation against either, given the potential consequences, the U.S. is turning to economic warfare to ultimately attempt to bring down both governments through popular uprisings. Washington wants to replace them with Western-friendly leaders who would open up their economies to Western exploitation — just like Boris Yeltsin did in the 1990s.   

The United States is acting as though the whole world is the West and that this is the China of 30 years ago. In its bull-headed effort to impose its unilateral rule on the world, while its domestic social problems mount, the U.S. has not only driven Russia and China closer together than ever, but it has now brought in India, much of Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, all of which have refused to sanction Russia and continues to trade with it, into a new bloc with economic power that exceeds the West.  

The U.S. has turned the majority of the world’s population against it. And it is now threatening to blow up the world economy. Cutting off trade and finance to Russia has already boomeranged on Western countries, driving up prices, especially at the pump. Instead of prompting a popular uprising in Russia as a result of its sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s popularity has actually risen since the invasion.

Adding China as a target of its economic war could drive the populations of the U.S. and Europe against their own governments instead.  

~ Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times.