Inside a Nazi run prison near Lugansk

 

 

From March 2014 to March 2022, Aidar took over and militarized a sausage factory near the village of Polovinkina, north and slightly west of Lugansk. They turned part of it into a prison for LPR civilians and military, near-starving them, torturing them, and killing some. It is unknown how many were held there over the years, many didn't return to their families. If dead, their bodies have not yet been found. 

Based on what I heard at that former prison, and the testimonies published before and since its March 2022 liberation, Aidar were indeed very much guilty of war crimes. 

Although Ukrainian forces and secret services have committed the same heinous torture and executions as the Nazi battalions, it is important to emphasize the Nazi presence and crimes, given the wave of “I stand with Ukraine” virtue signalling which has overtaken the woke world since late February. 

To be clear, those who make that statement are, naively or otherwise, standing with active Nazis who proudly declare their hate-filled ideologies and proudly imprison, rape, torture and execute civilians.

One soldier's story....

 

There is a mass surrender of Ukrainian soldiers in the LNR against the backdrop of the surrender of the Azov militants from Azovstal: “We want to live,” says a serviceman of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. 

Facing 8 years for leaving his position [from the US puppet regime in Kiev] to survive at any cost, the POW of the 1st battalion of the 79th Ukrainian Brigade nonetheless chose to preserve his life.

Scott Ritter on US Withdrawal from Disarmament Treaties w/ Russia

 

 

Our guest this time is Scott Ritter, former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer. He also served with the United Nations implementing arms control treaties.

We thank GN board member Will Griffin for doing all the tech work to make this show happen.

These are the questions that I placed before Scott.
 

• Soon after the 2003 US initiated ‘shock and awe’ in Iraq I was watching C-SPAN one evening. The speaker at a big event, loaded with Pentagon & CIA brass, was then Naval War College professor Thomas Barnett. He spoke about his new book called ‘The Pentagon’s New Map’. During his talk Barnett said the US would not ‘do treaties’ anymore. In recent years we’ve seen the US withdraw from the ABM and INF treaties. Why is the US moving away from ‘Arms control’ – particularly with Russia and China?

• The ABM Treaty was a 1972 arms control treaty between the US and the former Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending against ballistic missile-delivered nuclear weapons. Talk a bit about the treaty and why George W. Bush pulled the US out of it.

• The INF Treaty was an arms control treaty between the US and the Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev signed the treaty in 1987. The treaty in part was created due to huge international protests against US and Soviet nuclear missile deployments in Europe during the early 1980’s. Talk about the treaty and what happened to it.
  

•  Today the US has built two missile launch facilities called ‘Aegis Ashore’ in Romania and Poland that can fire so-called ‘missile defense’ systems (the shield after a Pentagon first-strike attack) or nuclear-capable cruise missiles. Isn’t this a Cuban missile crisis in reverse for Russia? 

Bruce

Feeding the people after liberation

 

 

Пища жизни Донецк (Food for Life Donetsk)

I don't know alot about this organization but have been watching many of their videos.

Early on as Mariupol was liberated by Russian and DPR forces these folks came into the city to feed the people who could for once safely come out of their basements where they had been hiding.

Their website says:

During the 5 years of its activity, the volunteers 'Food for Life. Donetsk' were able to cook more than 1,760,618 servings of hot meals.

The military actions are continuing for more than five years in Donbass. During these years of war, the social infrastructure and economy of Donetsk region has been destroyed. People of different social status and age found themselves in a dire life situation.

The duty of a civilized cultural society is to join forces and help all those in trouble. This is the hallmark of a human being – to show compassion for another one’s misfortune!  

771 more surrender at steelworks in Mariupol

On May 16, the surrender of the militants of the Azov nationalist grouping and Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen plus a number of foreign mercenaries blocked at the basement of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol began. Presumably, more than 2,000-2,500 Ukrainian militants were hiding at the enterprise having 27 km corridors before that moment, about 800 of them have been members of the Azov nationalist faction banned in Russia. 

In the past 24 hours, one more group of 771 militants of the Azov nationalist formation have surrendered at the Azovstal plant.

A total of 1,730 militants have surrendered since May 16th by the evening May 19th, including 80 wounded.

All those in need of inpatient treatment are treated in medical facilities in the Donetsk People's Republic in Novoazovsk and Donetsk. 

The Ukrainian military who have come out and laid down their arms have been taken to the pre-trial detention center in the Yelenovka, the Donetsk People's Republic, where investigative actions are being carried out with them.

It is significant to note that on the morning of May 17th, this center was fired at by the AFU [Kiev's US-backed army] from a multiple launch rocket system. The Kiev regime has always treated its citizens in this way. This story was no exception.

 

Inside the Azovstal steelworks where Nazis hide during the Russian liberation of Mariupol. The city had been controlled by the Azov Battalion since just after the US directed coup d'etat in Kiev in 2014.

Russia's firm position is that no Nazi criminal will escape responsibility. Now only the court will determine the involvement of each surrendered person in the commission of war crimes and will impose a fair punishment on the guilty. Only servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine who have not stained themselves with criminal activity will be subject to subsequent exchange. The State Duma of the Russian Federation is already considering an initiative to legislate a ban on the exchange of military and Nazi criminals.

The actions of the Russian side are consistent and logical. On the contrary, the Kiev authorities and the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who have repeatedly stated the impossibility of unblocking Mariupol by military means, stubbornly delayed the beginning of the inevitable surrender.

Neo-Nazis from Azov began large-scale child recruitment activities back in 2015, organizing the so-called Youth Corps camps on the initiative of the leader of the National Corps, A. Biletsky. In 2015, children from 9 to 18 years old were admitted to them, and since 2016, from 7 to 18 years old.

According to eyewitnesses, neo-Nazis from "Azov" did not limit themselves to "children's camps" and expanded their grouping at the expense of underage orphans. Confirmation of this is the situation with the Pilgrim orphanage in Mariupol. For all 8 years since 2014, the "Azovites" have been working closely with the pupils of this orphanage, teaching them military affairs, including sniper shooting. According to media reports, in 2014, children from "Pilgrim" helped the APU to dig trenches near Mariupol, and in October of the same year to build roadblocks. According to residents of Mariupol, during the events of February-April 2022 the Children's Rehabilitation Center "Republic Pilgrim" was the headquarters of the territorial defense, where militants from "Azov" and other radical groups were based. There is video evidence that teenagers from the "Pilgrim" participated in hostilities on the side of neo-Nazis, and also set fire to the homes of civilians.

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

Hard to laugh at Bush's slip of tongue

 

 

 In a speech at his presidential center in Texas, former President George W. Bush accidentally switched "Ukraine" with "Iraq" in a line meant to criticize Vladimir Putin's "wholly unjustified and brutal invasion."

Time to put an end to US hypocrisy

 

 

 
By Xin Ping (China Daily)

As the US and its allies imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia, a new economic and cultural Iron Curtain is descending on the European continent. While the unilateral sanctions continue to hurt Europe and the world at large, the US has launched a new campaign to isolate Russia in international organizations.

On April 7, the United Nations General Assembly voted to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council, after the US accused Russian troops of torturing and killing Ukrainian civilians in the town of Bucha. The US also tried to put pressure on Indonesia, which holds the G20 Presidency this year, to kick Russia out of G20 forum of major economies of the world. To the disappointment of the US, however, Indonesia insisted on inviting President Putin to the G20 Summit. But for the US and its Western allies, there is no shortage of occasions for them to display rudeness and arrogance: having their representatives walk out of the G20 finance ministers' meeting when the Russian delegate began to speak. On the Latin America front, supported by the US, the Organization of American States recently approved suspension of Russia's observer status. The US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman even went so far as to indicate that the US has been "investigating the prospects" of expelling Russia as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Behind the attempts to exclude Russia from all international organizations and turn Russia into the "pariah on the international stage" as President Biden put it, the real purpose of the US is to maintain its hegemony in international affairs. But the hypocrisy is that the country itself is the biggest transgressor of international rules.

Despite its own track record of mass killing and human rights violations, the US constantly criticizes the human rights situation of other countries, a typical act of double standards. From Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan to Libya, Somalia and Syria, the US started 10 wars between 1989 and 2017 and caused 6 million casualties. From the end of World War II in 1945 to 2001, among the 248 armed conflicts that occurred in 153 regions of the world, 201 were initiated by the US. A report from Brown University revealed that the wars launched by the US in the two decades following the 9/11 terrorist attack killed more than 900,000 people. In June 2018, the US pulled out of the Human Rights Council, calling it a "cesspool of political bias" and "hypocritical body" that "makes a mockery of human rights". As it rejoined the council this year, the US not only failed to reflect upon its own human rights record and take concrete steps to improve it, but instead expelled Russia from the body out of political bias and purpose.

 

 

Obsessed with its self-conceived "exceptionalism", the US keeps criticizing others for violating international law while applying international rules selectively or placing its own "house rules" above international law. The US asks others to follow the "rules-based order", but tramples on international rules and withdraws from international organizations at will itself, as evidenced by its unilateral military intervention or wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, as well as its pulling out of UNESCO, JCPOA, and the Paris Agreement. It also puts domestic law above international law, and has exercised long-arm jurisdiction and imposed economic sanctions against Russia, Iran and the DPRK, which seriously damaged the fair and just international trade environment. The US is undoing its own credibility and reputation and undermining international order by bringing the world back to the era of a lawless jungle. Just as Noam Chomsky pointed out, "We're a rogue state, the leading rogue state by a huge dimension—nobody's even close. And yet we can call for war crimes trials of others, without batting an eyelash."

As the conflict in Ukraine continues, negotiation rather than confrontation is the only way out. US unilateral sanctions against Russia are illegal and not authorized by the United Nations. Excluding Russia, a permanent member of UN Security Council and a nuclear power, from international organizations is by no means a constructive move. The spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Stephane Dujarric once warned that such a move will set "a dangerous precedent." After all, there are already enough lessons from the wishful attempts to provoke confrontation and division and preserve hegemony.

~ Xin Ping is a commentator on international affairs, writing regularly for the Global Times, China Daily, etc.

959 Azov Nazis surrender at Mariupol steelworks

 

 

On Wednesday, the Russian MoD reported that a total of 959 militants, including 80 injured, surrendered to Russian forces over the past three days.

Western corporate media did not use the word 'surrender'. Instead they followed their 'leader' elensky in Ukraine calling it an 'evacuation' of the Azovstal steelworks underground bunkers where the Nazis have been hiding for weeks.

The New York Times reported the following: 

Breaking News: Ukraine ended its “combat mission” in Mariupol and said fighters were being 'evacuated', signaling that the battle at a steel plant was over.

 

This is basically why I largely boycott the western media. They lie all the time.

These soldiers are not being sent to Ukraine, but to the DPR [Donbass] and Russia. All the communication strategies that Kiev can use to try to transform this mismanagement into a pseudo-victory will not change this fact, this reality!

Although Volodymyr elensky has tried to make people believe that those who are now leaving the Azovstal factory will be exchanged, and will therefore be able to return home, this is not the case for many of them. The fighters of the neo-Nazi Azov regiment, and some or all of the soldiers of the 36th brigade of the FAU, will have to answer for their crimes against the civilians of the Donbass, and will therefore be tried, with no possibility of being released at the end of the military operation or exchanged for Russian soldiers. Potential foreigners present in Azovstal [still not surrendering] will not be exchangeable either.

Bruce 

 

Good reporting from the Donbass

 

 

By Eva K Bartlett

Report from Kirovsk, a Lugansk People's Republic city I visited on May 5. It continues to be shelled by Ukrainian forces who were at the time reportedly 15-20 km away. According to local media, it was again shelled a few days ago.

The city's head of administration, Victoria Ivanovna, said its proximity to the line of separation has meant the shelling has been intense, with Ukrainian forces from 2014 targeting infrastructure, including  schools and kindergartens. According to her, for a year and a half, the city was deprived of water, blocked by Ukraine—a war crime.

Andrey Vitalievich Marochko, a Lieutenant Colonel of LPR said that the reason the advance of LPR & Russian forces is not very fast is due to Ukraine's tactics of holding civilians hostage as human shields.

"What makes it difficult to advance is that on the other side, on the occupied side, there are citizens like us, citizens of the Lugansk People's Republic, who were forced to be in occupation for all these eight years. So, we care for their lives, naturally. We request pinpoint strikes on military infrastructure facilities and the accumulation of enemy manpower and equipment.

When planning an offensive, the leaders of the people’s militia of the Lugansk People’s Republic, as well as the military of the Russian Federation, take into account the principle that we shouldn’t leave scorched earth behind us, but liberate the territory. That is why we have  difficulty advancing in all areas of the terrain.

Let’s not forget that the Ukrainian troops are using civilians as human shields. There is a lot of confirmation of the testimonies of people we have already liberated that the Ukrainian troops are literally putting civilians in front of them to prevent our troops from hitting concentrations of their equipment and armaments.

They also hold people as hostages. Just recently, in Popasnaya village we liberated over 20 people whom Ukrainian nationalists locked away in a basement, and the youth who were kept there, they used them as a slave labour, to carry manpads, create some fortifications... They threatened them that unless they take up arms, their relatives would be killed. All of this combined complicates the advancement of our troops." 

~ Eva Bartlett is a Canadian activist, commentator, journalist and blogger who has spent time reporting on the US-NATO war in Syria. While in Syria she helped blow the lid on the fake chemical attacks that the US tried to use to discredit the Syrian government. She's been in the Donbass region the past couple months.

Our move to Brunswick

 

 

 

I love this tree - very majestic.

My office and artwork from friends over the years.

 

MB and I moved back to Brunswick on May 1. 

We sold our house in Bath and are now renting a small apartment near downtown. We are very concerned that the US economy (like many across the west) is going to crash due to blow-back from US-EU sanctions on Russia. So we wanted to downsize our lives. 

I also have a plot in a community garden just .9 mile from our home. Already weeded it and put some new compost on. Built a shaky trellis and planted peas. Rained last night just on time.

Bruce

Washington moves to annex northeast Syria by proxy

 

By Vanessa Beeley

Under cover of media focus on the NATO proxy war in Ukraine and the Zionist assassination of Al Jazeera senior correspondent Shireen AbuAkleh, Washington is making moves to annex Syrian territory.

On May 11th during the meeting of the “global coalition against Islamic State” in Marrakech, Morocco the U.S acting assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, made an extraordinary move that has largely gone under the radar of even independent media. Everyone is distracted by events in Ukraine and the Palestinian Occupied Territories.

Nuland who famously exclaimed “Fuck the EU” during recorded conversations that exposed the US State Department involvement in the 2014 coup in Ukraine and the subsequent massacre in Odessa by the Washington’s Nazi Contras is now turning her attention to Syria’s north-eastern territory.

Nuland has announced that the US will allow foreign investment in north-east Syria under the control of the Kurdish Separatists, another US Coalition proxy in Syria. These investments will not be affected by the unprecedented sanctions that are effectively blockading Syria.

The most savage of these economic measures were introduced under the Trump administration – the Caesar sanctions that are designed to inhibit any external assistance for Syria from within the Syrian alliance, including Russia and Iran.

    The Caesar Syrian Civilian Protection Act is also fraudulent by claiming to “protect civilians”. In reality, it is punishes and hurts the vast majority of 17 million persons living in Syria. It will result in thousands of civilians suffering and dying needlessly. – Rick Sterling

Needless to say that the de-facto unilateral sanctions being applied as a collective punishment for the entire Syrian population living in areas protected by the Syrian government are illegal. To extend those sanctions to sovereign nations providing assistance to rebuild Syrian infrastructure is barbaric and a deliberate attempt by the US to ensure that Syria cannot recover from the eleven year war waged against it.

The correlation between economic and military coercion in Syria was made clear by previous Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo’s point-man on Syria, Ambassador James Jeffrey, who not only described Al Qaeda as a “US asset” in Syria but also bragged openly about the misery that sanctions had brought to the Syrian people:

    And of course, we’ve ratcheted up the isolation and sanctions pressure on Assad, we’ve held the line on no reconstruction assistance, and the country’s desperate for it. You see what’s happened to the Syrian pound, you see what’s happened to the entire economy. So, it’s been a very effective strategy….

Journalist Rick Sterling also pointed out the illegality and brutality of the Caesar sanctions:

    The US has multiple goals. One goal is to prevent Syria from recovering. Another goal is to prolong the conflict and damage those countries who have assisted Syria. With consummate cynicism and amorality, the US Envoy for Syria James Jeffrey described his task: “My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians.”

Nuland said Washington would issue a general licence, which frees companies from U.S. sanctions restrictions in north-east Syria.

    “The United States intends in the next few days to issue a general license to facilitate private economic investment activity in non-regime held areas liberated from ISIS in Syria.”

The irony here of course is that ISIS is in reality another proxy of the US Coalition that had benefited from the oil resource revenue prior to the occupation of the oil fields by the Kurdish Contras. There is also a degree of collaboration mired in corruption between the Kurdish Separatists and ISIS both focused on the ethnic cleansing of the north-east to make way for an “autonomous region” effectively controlled by Washington, London and Israel. As Syrian researcher, Ibrahim Wahdi, wrote back in February 2022:

    We can clearly see that the largest organized smuggling and mass transfer of ISIS militants towards the Syrian Badia connected with the Iraqi border north of Al-Tanf region, which coincided with the Ukraine crisis and the negotiations of the Iranian nuclear deal, aims to trigger chaos by CIA and Israeli intelligence through reviving ISIS to keep it as a pretext for the US occupation of Syrian lands.

 

Nuland’s claims that investment in areas “previously held” by ISIS are “needed to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State by allowing it to recruit and exploit local grievances” is hypocrisy of the highest order. Washington and London are recruiting, arming and equipping ISIS terrorists and embedding their fighters in areas of the Badia desert (East of Homs) where they can do the most damage to Syrian Arab Army installations and convoys – this includes the disruption of the meager oil supply to Damascus from the north-east. As Wahdi pointed out:

The danger of the ISIS card lies in the large numbers distributed among 9 prisons in the US-backed SDF-controlled areas, which are potential targets for similar attacks [to release ISIS terrorists], especially the “Kamba Al-Bulgar” prison, east of Al-Shaddadi city in the southern countryside of Hasaka, which includes 5,000 ISIS militants.

In addition to Al-Sina’a prisons, Al-Shaddadiyah, Derek/ Al-Malikiyah, Al-Kasra, Al-Raqqa Central Prison, Rmelan and Nafker in the Qamishli city, from which 60 ISIS militants were transferred to a prison in Al-Hasakah last September.

Both ISIS and the Kurdish Contras are responsible for the theft of oil from Syria. Al Qaeda has the monopoly of the processing of the stolen oil via its WATAD organisation. The US Coalition has a vested interest in bringing the Syrian population to its knees and to stir up dissent against the Syrian government that has trashed the Coalition military plans for regime change.

The war against Russia in Ukraine is also revenge for Russia’s role in genuinely fighting ISIS in Syria and forcing the terrorist entity to withdraw to the north-east and Iraq where it is equally responsible for the destruction of civilian infrastructure in particular electrical installations to further punish any Iraqi resistance to US occupation.

Nuland and Washington are deliberately inflaming local grievances and enabling ISIS recruitment and expansion.

Not only will these sanction-free licenses apply to the Kurdish Contras but the Turkish backed militia occupying the northern border zones of Syria will also be included in the deal. This means that Syrian territory will be de-facto annexed by these NATO-member-state proxies including Al Qaeda (Turkey) and affiliates.

According to a diplomat who has discussed the issue extensively with U.S officials, the license will apply to agriculture and reconstruction work but not to oil. I guess there is no need to include oil as that is already considered a U.S benefit of the war they started in 2011. After all Trump said very clearly “we’re keeping the oil – I’ve always said that — keep the oil. We want to keep the oil, $45 million a month. Keep the oil. We’ve secured the oil.”

If the license will apply to reconstruction and agriculture, this will legitimize the building of settlements and the continued theft (by the Kurds) of Syrian agricultural produce in the region, the occupation of the wheat storage centers and the reduction in supply to Damascus of these essential resources. Essentially doubling down on the siege of the Syrian people who are already suffering severe food insecurity, poverty, fuel and energy deprivation on a terrible scale.

The act of withholding means of sustaining life to innocent civilians in order to coerce an entire nation into submission to foreign agendas in the region must surely qualify as economic terrorism. The destruction of essential civilian infrastructure is a war crime, the withholding of essential resources or occupation of those resources is also a war crime. One could argue that the US Coalition is responsible for genocide in Syria under Genocide Convention article II (e) – deliberately inflicting on the group, conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.

When Washington talks about “stabilisation” activities in the areas its “allies” took from Islamic State they are lying. Its “allies” are being led to believe they will benefit from cooperation with the U.S. In reality they are useful tools to facilitate the U.S and Israeli agenda in the region – to balkanise Syria and above all to secure the illegal US Al Tanf military base in the south-east (bordering Jordan) to prevent the linking of the Resistance Axis from Iran to Lebanon and ultimately Palestine. To protect “Israeli security” in the region.

The organised smuggling and transfer of ISIS terrorists towards the Syrian Badia connected with the Iraqi border north of Al Tanf is to maintain the CIA/MI6/Israeli chaos strategy in Syria and to justify US occupation of Syrian territory under the faux ISIS pretext.

 

What Nuland is proposing is a step forward for Washington in the annexation of Syria’s most resource rich territory. It is annexation by proxy. Turkey will also benefit from these licence schemes and will further embed its Al Qaeda-led militia in the northern border areas thus ensuring permanent insecurity for Syria to the north.

Arabs, Assyrians and Armenians will necessarily be ethnically cleansed from these zones to make way for these US-sanctioned settlements and it is common knowledge that the Kurdish Contras have been preparing for this for some time – banning the Syrian curriculum in schools and razing Arab houses in the area while forcing conscription onto local communities, running campaigns of kidnapping and detention.

Nuland informed coalition members in Marrakech that “Washington wanted to raise $350 million for these alleged “stabilisation” activities in north-east Syria during 2022. Iraq is also the target of the same “stabilisation” campaign. What Nuland really means is that Washington under cover of Ukraine will move to secure permanent violation of Syria’s territorial integrity while feigning outrage that Russia is violating the sovereignty of Ukraine already occupied by NATO and little more than Washington’s satellite vassal state on the border with its arch enemy Russia.

Poland to make a move on western Ukraine?

 

 

There is growing talk about Poland making a military invasion into western Ukraine by the end of this week.

I've heard this from a couple sources including a politically astute Ukrainian friend who had to escape to Russia soon after the US directed coup in Kiev in 2014. He had to flee to Russia like many political activists that found their lives in danger at the hands of the Nazis who have been used as 'enforcement muscle' on behalf of the right-wing government that the US installed and continues to control.

My friend said that there are three provinces in western Ukraine, near the Polish border, that the right-wing Polish government (and strong US-NATO ally) has long had its designs on. At one point in time these provinces were part of Poland. (This is the Ukrainian region where the Nazis predominate.)

The US-UK are pushing Poland to make this military move.

It now appears that a 'deal could be in the works' to break Ukraine up into three parts. 

First, the red part on the map (Donbass) of eastern Ukraine near the Russian border will grow in size as a result of Moscow's military operation to liberate much of this land from the Nazi-led Ukrainian army.

Secondly, the blue western part of Ukraine near Poland could be carved off to some yet unknown degree by Warsaw. 

That leaves a middle section of Ukraine (parts of the blue and pink areas) which would then likely remain under Kiev's control.

It is possible, if Russia is able to liberate Odessa from the Nazis, that Ukraine could lose its access to the Black Sea. 

Likely at some point a ceasefire would be agreed to as Ukraine is now nearly out of fuel for their army. My friend in Russia believes that a ceasefire would not hold for long as the US-UK-NATO war machine really wants the hostilities to continue as tinder in their effort to destabilize and force regime change in Moscow.

Before the war began in February I wondered if a deal had been made during all the shuttle diplomacy that was going on between Russia and the western powers. At the time I speculated that such a deal might include the carving up of Ukraine similar to what I just outlined. If it turns out to be the case then it would have made so much more sense to have done that deal without all the deaths that have taken place on both sides.

But such a deal would largely have left the Nazis in place in various parts of eastern Ukraine and these fascists would never have agreed to such a plan. Thus Moscow had few if any viable options to consider. Already 14,000 mostly civilians had been killed, with 34,000 wounded, at the hands of the Nazi-led army attacks on the Donbass region since the 2014 coup in Kiev.

It's likely that elensky in Kiev, the Polish government, and Russia had one common desire. To see the major strength of the Nazis destroyed. It appears that the US-NATO were always the primary agents who really wanted the Nazis around. It was Washington and Brussels that armed, trained and directed the Nazis since 2014. 

So keep an eye on this bouncing ball to see where it lands. Time will tell for sure.

Bruce 

Empire of Bioweapon Lies

 

By Pepe Escobar

    What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, / You cannot say, or guess, for you know only / A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, / And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, / And the dry stone no sound of water. Only / There is shadow under this red rock, / (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), / And I will show you something different from either / Your shadow at morning striding behind you / Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; / I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

    T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land: I. The Burial of the Dead, 1922

This glimpse of “fear in a handful of dust” already ranks as one the prime breakthroughs of the young 21st century, presented this week by Chief of Russian Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Force Igor Kirillov.

The provisional results of evidence being collected about the work of U.S. bioweapons in Ukraine are simply astonishing. These are the main takeaways.

• U.S. bioweapon ideologues comprise the leadership of the Democratic Party. By linking with non-governmental biotechnology organizations, using the investment funds of the Clintons, Rockefellers, Soros and Biden, they profited from additional campaign financing – all duly concealed. In parallel, they assembled the legislative basis for financing the bioweapons program directly from the federal budget.

• COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna, as well as Merck and Gilead – of Donald “known unknowns” fame, and affiliated with the Pentagon – were directly involved.

• U.S. specialists tested new drugs in the Ukraine biolabs in circumvention of international safety standards. According to Kirillov, acting this way “Western companies seriously reduce the costs of research programs and gain significant competitive advantages.”

• According to Kirillov, “along with U.S. pharmaceutical companies and Pentagon contractors, Ukrainian government agencies are involved in military biotechnology activities, whose main tasks are to conceal illegal activities, conduct field and clinical trials and provide the necessary biomaterial.”

• The Pentagon, Kirillov pointed out, expanded its research potential not only in terms of producing biological weapons, but also gathering information on antibiotic resistance and the presence of antibodies to certain diseases among the population in specific regions. The testing ground in Ukraine was practically outside the control of the so-called “international community”.

These findings, amply documented, suggest a vast “legitimized” bioweapon racket reaching the highest levels of the American body politic. There’s no doubt the Russians plan to thoroughly unmask it for the benefit of world public opinion, starting with a War Crimes Tribunal to be set up this summer, most probably in Donetsk.

An ongoing U.S. bioweapons program in Ukraine was one of the Top Three reasons that led to the launch of Operation Z, side by side with preventing an imminent NATO-managed blitzkrieg against Donbass and Kiev’s desire to re-start a nuclear weapons program. These are Top Three red lines for Russia.

The strength of the collected evidence may directly correlate with what was largely interpreted as a carefully measured Victory Day speech by President Putin. The Kremlin does not bluff. It will certainly privilege the meticulous presentation of – bioweapon – facts on the ground over grandstanding rhetoric.

The return of Nord Stream 2

Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyaniskiy announced Russia’s demand for an open meeting of the UN Security Council to present further evidence related to U.S. biolabs in Ukraine. Even if the meeting would be vetoed by the U.S., the evidence will be entered by Russia on the UN records.

These developments provide an extra indication there’s absolutely no space left for diplomacy between Russia and the U.S./collective West, as Polyaniskiy himself suggested when commenting the possible accession of Ukraine to the EU: “The situation has changed after Mr. Borrell’s statement that ‘this war should be won on the battleground’ and after the fact that the European Union is the leader in deliveries of arms [to Ukraine].”

It gets worse. The next chapter is Finland’s drive to join NATO.

The Americans gamble that Finland – and Sweden – joining NATO will totally discredit Putin’s Operation Z as having accomplished next to nothing strategically: after all, in the near future, potential U.S. hypersonic missiles stationed in Finland and Sweden will be very close to Saint Petersburg and Moscow.

 

Meanwhile, Russian unmasking of the bioweapon racket will drive a toxic section of American political elites to turbo-charge their warmongering. It’s all following a carefully calculated script.

First, these bioweapon-supervising “elites” ordered the massive Kiev shelling of Donbas in early February. That forced the Kremlin’s hand, pushing it to launch Operation Z.

We should always remember that the ultimate goal in the U.S. plan of training Ukrainians for war since 2014 was to alienate Germany from Russia – as Germany de facto controls Euroland economically.

Imperial control of the oceans allows the Empire to strangle Germany at will into subservience by cutting them off from Russian energy – as the British did to Germany in WWII when Britannia ruled the waves. The Wehrmacht could not supply their mechanized army with fuel. Now, in theory, Germany and the EU will have to look to the seas – and total U.S. dependency – for their natural resources.

The remote-controlled Kiev regime dominated by SBU fanatics and Azov neo-Nazis is making it even harder – by shutting off all natural gas from Russia through Ukraine into Europe, reducing the flow by more than one third.

That translates as U.S.-enforced blackmail to force the EU to increase the Ukro-weaponizing against Russia. The practical consequences for Germany and the EU will be dire – in terms of shut down industries and cost of home heating and electrical power.

Russia, meanwhile, will rely on a bolstered Pipelineistan maze to China and East Asia as well as high-speed rail to transport all its natural resources.

Blowback against the Americans though is not off limits. Stranger things have happened. If gas transit to Europe via Ukraine is totally cut off, there are no alternatives. And that – assuming there are working IQs in Berlin – would open the way for a renegotiation on the future of Nord Stream 2.

As the head of the Energy Development Center Kirill Melnikov notes, “the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline is practically idle and one of the Nord Stream 2 lines is also ready for operation though the German regulator has not issued permission for its launch yet.”

That prompted Melnikov to a priceless comment: “If purchases remain the same, Germany will probably need to urgently allow the launch of one of the Nord Stream 2 lines in order to replace the Ukrainian transit route.”

No one ever lost money betting on the astonishing stupidity permeating EUrocrat decision levels. Even facing economic suicide, the EU is desperate to “abandon” Russian oil. Yet a full ban is impossible, because of energy-deprived Eastern Europe.

Every impartial energy analyst knows replacing Russian oil is D.O.A., for a number of reasons: the OPEC+ deal; the ghastly divide between Washington and Riyadh; the never-ending JCPOA renegotiation, where the Americans behave like headless chickens; and the crucial fact – beyond the understanding of EUrocrats – that European oil refineries are designed to use oil from the Urals.

So just when we thought we could enjoy the summer by watching Europe commit hara-kiri, it’s time to stock up on those Aperol Spritz. Get ready for a new hit series, season 1: Inside the American bioweapon racket.

Ritter denounces more NATO expansion

An interview with Scott Ritter, former Marine intelligence officer and U.N. weapons inspector, about the war in Ukraine and what will happen if Finland and Sweden join NATO.

Ukraine troops surrender

 

 

Andrei Martyanov (former Soviet naval officer now living in Seattle) writes:

 

Allegedly the 115 Brigade of Territorial Defense of 404 [Ukraine] who complain that they have nothing, know nothing and begin to suspect that they are a cannon fodder.

 

It gives a good impression of the state of the morale in VSU and the quality of personnel it gets through all those numerous "mobilizations". Territorial "Battalions" were a good opportunity for thugs to get weapons and begin to terrorize local Ukrainian civilians, including robbing them under the pretext of a "defense of 404". Fighting a real war was never in their plans. Well, it is now. Make no mistake, everyone wants to live and so do they, but judging by the speed of the formation of the massive cauldron with the "entrance" on the axis Popasnaya-Belogorovka (remember, the one where VSU "defeated" two Russian armies... in Twitter and YouTube) and by reported intensity of fire on VSU positions, well... again, Lord Austin called Shoigu for a reason and demanded to "cease fire". Make you own conclusions.

Buffalo shooter wearing Azov Nazi logo

 

 

By Al Mayadeen English

A groundbreaking fact about the shooting is that it was carried out by a neo-Nazi white supremacist, who had published a fascist manifesto using the "black sun" Nazi symbol. The insignia is used by the Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov battalion.

Pictures were circulated of the militant wearing the "black sun" on his chest in photos taken prior to the mass shooting.

US President Joe Biden commented on the incident, saying, "Any act of domestic terrorism, including an act perpetrated in the name of a repugnant white nationalist ideology, is antithetical to everything we stand for in America", though he continuously voices support for the Kiev regime, which backs the nationalist, neo-Nazi Azov battalion, notorious for its white supremacy. 

 

The Soufan Center

In the wake of the New Zealand mosque attacks, links have emerged between the shooter, Brenton Tarrant, and a Ukrainian ultra-nationalist, white supremacist paramilitary organization called the Azov Battalion. Tarrant’s manifesto alleges that he visited the country during his many travels abroad, and the flak jacket that Tarrant wore during the assault featured a symbol commonly used by the Azov Battalion. Tarrant’s transnational ties go beyond Ukraine, however. Tarrant claimed that he was in touch with Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist, and he took trips throughout Europe, including the Balkans, visiting sites that symbolized historical battles between Christians and Muslims.

• The Azov Battalion is emerging as a critical node in the transnational right-wing violent extremist movement.

• Recruits from the U.S., Norway, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Sweden, and Australia, among others, have reportedly traveled to train with the Azov Battalion. 
  

No to more aggressive NATO expansion

 

 

A local organization called "Say no to NATO" launched a demonstration against Sweden's potential NATO membership in Stockholm on Saturday. 

The protest came a day before Sweden's ruling Social Democrats decides whether to apply to join NATO. 

Protesters said the Swedish government's main task should be protecting the country's independence and peace. Joining NATO would run counter to that task and intensify the current situation, they said.

Sunday song