A new post about Ukraine on this line of comments disturbed the peace with a HUGE smiling emoji (a sad case of interference). The only way to restore sanity here was to actually delete the entire post — as comments cannot be delete once posted. This why the original line of comments is now saved with the original comments in a singular posting. 

 

Happy Xmas...

 

L'Antidiplomatico Interview: Andre Vltchek interviewed by Alessandro Bianchi

Russia » News from the Kremlin 

 

AB: Let's start from today's crisis in the Sea of Azov. The European Union and NATO have given full support to Ukraine after the violation of Russian sovereignty by two Ukrainian vessels. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gave his full support to Poroshenko, who declared martial law. What does a country like Italy risk in continuing its accession to NATO?

AV: Russia intercepted three Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait. The ships had, even according to Ukrainian authorities, several intelligence officers on board, as well as a number of light arms and machine guns. It was clear provocation, as the ships refused to inform Russian authorities about their intentions, and behaved in an aggressive manner. They were passing through Russian territorial waters. Ukrainian intelligence officers were obviously in charge of the entire operation. So, what is really so 'alarming' for the West? The ships were stopped, some crew members detained, and there is a serious investigation underway.

The 'incident' took place just days before the G20 meeting in Argentina, where Presidents Trump and Putin were supposed to meet. Also, it is only 4 months before the Ukrainian Presidential elections (March 2019), and Poroshenko is trailing behind the two leading candidates with only 8% of support. Ukraine under his leadership is so messed up that many flats in the capital city of Kiev will not be heated during this winter. Logically, Poroshenko provoked the crises, so he could pose as a strongman, hoping to at least gain some popularity. He has imposed martial law, for 30 days, although originally, he wanted it to last for 2 months. What does it mean? The press will be censored and criticism of the government, limited. Good for the grotesquely unpopular president? Definitely.

Also, it is obvious that the West, particularly the EU and NATO, are behind this new wave of dangerous madness.

Italy is part of both EU and NATO. As I am writing in my new essay, it is a nonsense to believe that "Europeans are brainwashed; that they do not know what the West is doing all over the world". They know, or they at least suspect - most of them. But they pretend that they don't know. In Europe, there is a shadowy deal between the government, corporations and the people. People want more benefits, and they do not care that the benefits come from plundering the world. If they get their benefits, they shut up. If they think they are getting too little, they protest, like recently in Paris. But do they care if tens of millions of 'un-people' die for those benefits? Of course not!

The same when it comes to Russia, China or Iran. Europeans in general and Italians in particular, know that there is some sort of vicious propaganda against those countries that refuse to yield to the Western diktat. But they will do nothing to stop it. It is sweet, isn't it, to feel superior, 'democratic', and 'free'. And it is horrible to admit that one lives in a place that is spreading terror to all corners of the world, robbing even the poor of all they have. These six weeks vacations could turn sour, if Italians were to decide to see who is really paying for them. So, they shut up, and will shut up, until it is 'too late'.

Remember, countries like Russia and China have their own 'democracies' (rule of the people). It is not the Western system. Rulers and the masses communicate and interact in a direct way, in a very distinctive manner. And in both Russia and China, the people have 'had enough' of being bullied and brutalized by the West, for decades and centuries. Just a little bit more, and things will explode. If pushed further, Russia and China will respond. If provoked militarily, they will defend themselves. The same goes for Iran. Being part of the grouping that is terrorizing the world, Italy will have to pay the price, too.

AB: Russian Minister Sergei Lavrov asked the Western allies in Kiev to "intervene" and "calm down" the Ukrainian authorities, warning about the potential crossing of a "point of no return" between Russia and the West. Is the risk of war real even in light of the great gathering of NATO troops at the border?

AV: Yes of course it is real. Just turn the tables around: if Iran or China or Russia or Venezuela or Syria or Cuba did to the West what West is doing to them, would there be real risk of war?

This impunity and racist belief in total superiority, which is so prevalent in the West, has to stop. And soon it will stop. As they say in Chile: 'By reason or by force'.

AB: You were recently in Syria, a country that thanks to the Russian intervention and the resistance of the Syrian people supported by the regional allies - Iran and Hezbollah above all - is slowly trying to return to normal. What country did you find?

AV: I found a beautiful, confident and proud country. I am also writing a long report about my visit there.

I met many victims, common people, but also a General, and a Minister of Education, who is also an accomplished novelist. His motto is: "Ministry of Education is like Ministry of Defense". Correct: education without ideology and passion is just a waste of time.

Syria won. And there, the entire Arab world won together with it. Arabs were, for decades, thoroughly humiliated - by the West, by Israel, by their own leaders who were put on the throne by London, Paris and Washington.

As I have written many times, Aleppo is the Stalingrad of the Middle East. The losses were terrible, all over Syria. But the victory is tremendous, too. Pan-Arabism will blossom again. People in all countries of the region are watching and now they know: it is possible to defeat Western imperialism and its spooks, its terrorist implants.

Russia stood by its Arab sister with determination, but also very wisely. It used diplomacy whenever it could, and it used force only when there was no other way. In Syria, the Russians won people's hearts. 'Thank you, Russia!', is everywhere, even engraved on traditional wooden boxes. The Russian language being my native tongue, opened so many doors, as it opened thousands of doors to me in Afghanistan (I never expected it there).

Syria has to finalize its victory, soon. And I will be back, to cover events there. At the front if needed.

It is tremendously optimistic and beautiful to be in a country which did not prostitute itself; a country that stood tall, fought hard, for its own people and for the entire region. There is great confidence and kindness on the faces of people. Celebration is not loud, because, after all, so many people died. But people are out, till the morning, men and women, boys and girls. Cafes are packed; the streets of Damascus are bustling. But even in Homs and the destroyed suburbs of Damascus, life is defiantly returning to normal.

What a nation! Yes, they say 'Thank you Russia!". As an internationalist, I say: "Thank you Syria!"

AB: The chemical attack by the "rebels" in Aleppo yesterday unmasks the lies in the mainstream of these years. What role did the media play in allowing the terrorist gangs supported and funded by the West and Gulf allies to destroy Syria?

AV: A tremendous role. In Syria, the Western mass media finally ceased to exist. It became a prostitution force for the Empire, nothing else. But we all know that both the media and education are basically used for indoctrinating people, at least in the West and in its 'client' states.

There was so much provocation. The Gulf and the Western broadcasting companies were literally igniting the conflict, spreading lies, pushing people into rebellion against the government. They have blood on their hands, the same as Pashtun Service of the BBC has blood on their hands, as the VOA, Radio Free Europe and 'free whatever' have blood up to their armpits.

AB: Before Syria you did two important reports in Argentina and Mexico telling about the mutations under way in Latin America. Bolsonaro has won in Brazil, while in the next few days Lopez Obrador is preparing to settle in a Mexico that has turned left. At what stage is the dispute in Latin America, and what are the prospects for the left in the continent?

AV: Well, I worked for three weeks all over Mexico, before going to Syria. My big work in both Argentina and Brazil, had been done earlier.

Look, Ale, you and I know; are very well familiar with Latin America. I used to live in Mexico, Chile, Peru (during the so-called Dirty War) and Costa Rica. I have worked all over the continent.

What happened in Mexico is great, although one could say 'overdue'. Now let us hope that President-Elect Obrador will be able to turn his magnificent country around, towards socialism. It will not be easy. There is plenty of terrible inertia. There are horrible 'elites' of European stock. And there is the United States, right next door, always ready to 'intervene'. But I think he can do it. I trust him. I travelled all over this huge country, I spoke to people. It was all summarized by a gangster in Tijuana, a man who became a criminal out of desperation. He said, and I paraphrase: "I think it is close to impossible for Obrador to change things, but if he will do what he is promising, I will drop everything, and support him. This is the last chance for Mexico to change things peacefully. If he fails, we will take up the arms."

Brazil, this is so difficult to explain. But essentially, there, in Latin America, more than anywhere else, the mass media which is in the hands of the right-wing, played an extremely significant and thoroughly destructive role. When I visited Amazonia, around Manaus and Belem, or Salvador Bahia, people would tell me: "Our life improved significantly. Now we have this and this and that. But Dilma has to go!" My God, I thought, am I dreaming? No, I was not. Basically, somehow, the elites hammered into people's brains that if they are better off now, then it is because of their own personal success. But if some things are not going too well, it is the fault of the government.

"Corruption" is always used in the combat against left-wing governments in Latin America. Microscopes are used, to encounter any wrongdoing. It was used against Kristina Kirschner, against Lula, even against poor Dilma who was not corrupt at all, but suffered from the right-wing and West-backed 'constitutional' coup. But just imagine that stupidity, that absurdity: right-wing dictatorships in the Southern Cone but also in Brazil used dogs to rape women; they tortured prisoners, killed, 'disappeared' people, robbing everything they could put their hands on. And that is not 'corruption', right? Then some company offers to renovate an apartment of Lula's, and he is in prison! Suddenly those fascists are playing the moral card. Do you know what Bolsonaro will do now? He will screw the entire Amazonia; do it almost 'Indonesia-style'. He will allow that horrid deal with the Western corporations, the privatization of the aquifer shared with Paraguay, to go through. The third biggest passenger airplane manufacturer on earth - Embraer - will be sold to Boeing, for petty cash. Brazil will lose its rainforest, its industry, and its poor will lose their lifeline - government support. And this is not called corruption! Argentina under Macri is allowing the US to operate in Tierra de Fuego. The entire country is screaming from pain: electricity prices have gone up, the famous film industry is losing support, and the middle class is again going down the drain.

But I am optimistic. Latin American people have a great desire for socialist, in some places, communist societies. Whenever they are left alone, they fight for it, or vote for it. Then they get smashed. The West has overthrown, basically, all the truly left-wing governments of the continent, from the Dominican Republic, to Chile. But the process never stops. It begins all over again.

I only hope that one thing changes: you know, the West was very successful in implanting the idea in the heads of Latin Americans, that after all that has happened, Europe and even the US are somehow superior nations. And so, people look down on the truly great nations like China and Russia, in places like Brazil. It appalls me. I speak the language, and I clearly see what is happening. In Argentina, there is not much of a real left: the intellectuals there are connected to those defunct theories in Europe and North America, like 'anarcho-syndicalism'. And there is nothing really revolutionary about those ideas. There are too many Westerners influencing Latin American revolutionary movements. They lost at home, became irrelevant, but still they insist on judging the world from a Western perspective. Still, somehow, many of them are admired in Latin America. And it always backfires: Westerners dilute revolutionary spirit. They also kidnap the South-South narrative. I would love to see Russian, Chinese, Venezuelan, Cuban, Syrian, Iranian or South African comrades running the state media in countries where the true left is winning. It would make a great difference!

AB: Argentina continues to sink under the weight of Mauricio Macri's neoliberal austerity but the mainstream media are silent. Meanwhile, Evo Morales' Bolivia continues, to the contrary, to record the highest growth rates in the region in a climate of stability. So, socialism works contrary to what they try to make us believe?

AV: Yes of course socialism works, Ale. If left alone, if it is not bathed in pus and blood, it prospers. Unfortunately, so far, whenever any country decides to go socialist, the West unleashes its campaign of terror, lies and economic banditry. Socialism is not some extreme utopia, but the most logical goal. The majority of people want to live in an egalitarian society, where they feel secure and safe, and where when sick they get treated, when they are thirsty for knowledge, they get educated for free. They want the state to work for them, not against them. They want their government to control companies, instead of companies controlling their governments.

AB: Meanwhile, in Venezuela, the economic, psychological and media war goes on. Will the Bolivarian government succeed in resisting this unprecedented attack?

  

AV: Yes, it will. But again, look how fragmented Latin America has become. People in Chile or Argentina watch CNN and FOX and they know much more about Miami or Paris, than about Caracas. The Brazilian President-Elect said that he would murder Maduro - still, people voted for him.

Latin America is mostly run by European elites. They robbed the continent, turned it into the part of the world with the greatest disparities. For any revolution to succeed here, it has to be radical and decisive. Democracy should be direct, not that multi-party idiotism implanted from the West - that is so easy to pervert and divert from outside, or with the use of social and mass media. Latin America cannot try to ape Europe and hope that it will prosper. Europe is based on the plunder of other parts of the world. Latin American countries do not have colonies, and the plunder is internal - the rich of European stock are plundering both the land and the native people.

AB: In one of his last articles Fidel wrote how "The alliance between Russia and China is a powerful peace shield able to guarantee the survival of the human race". What is the legacy of Fidel Castro today two years after his death?

  

AV: Just tremendous! Even when the entire Latin America betrayed Cuba, Fidel and his people never surrendered. This is the spirit I admire. Cuba has a big heart - it fought for the independence of several African nations, it helps so many places on earth with their doctors, teachers, and rescue teams during natural disasters. Cuban art is some of the greatest on the planet. That is why, Cuba has had a tremendous impact on me personally, and on my work as well. I proudly call myself a 'Cuban-style internationalist'. I am endlessly grateful to Fidel, to the Cuban revolution and to Cuban people. In many ways, it is perhaps the greatest country in the world. A country I would never hesitate to fight for, or even to die for.

*

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel "Aurora" and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: "Exposing Lies Of The Empire". View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky "On Western Terrorism". Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.

See more at http://www.pravdareport.com/russia/kremlin/02-12-2018/142075-andre_vltch...

When violent protests shook Kiev in 2013, Western analysts and leaders quickly threw their support behind the anti-government ‘revolution’ — but after weeks of Yellow Vest protests in France, the reaction has been very different.

While Western governments and commentators denounced the Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych and urged that he give in to protesters’ demands five years ago, this time around, they are denouncing the French protesters and urging President Emmanuel Macron, whose popularity stands at about 25 percent, to stand firm against dissatisfied citizens.

Western media coverage has also differed drastically with reports describing French protesters as rioters, while Ukrainian protesters were described as revolutionaries. The contrasting reaction has prompted many to ask the question: If a so-called revolution is allowed to happen (and even applauded) in Ukraine, why not in France?

French police have cracked down on the ‘Yellow Vest’ protesters in bloody clashes, during which water cannons and tear gas were deployed to disperse huge crowds, who responded by throwing stones at officers. The extent of the chaos has even caused officials to mull imposing a state of emergency and prompted concerns that protest movement could spread to countries like Germany and the Netherlands. Worried government officials and French and European political commentators have eagerly called for the “rule of law” to be respected and for violent protesters to respect French institutions.

In Kiev, however, when protesters set fire to cars, defaced public property and attacked police officers, they were held up as heroes. Law and order was of little concern to Western media which wholeheartedly supported the Maidan movement. Similarly, when anti-government protests kicked off in Syria in 2011, Western leaders and commentators advocated the swift overthrow of the government and provided moral (and material) support to anti-government rebels during the subsequent civil war which ripped the country apart.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/445475-france-protests-hypocrisy-media/

 

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Who profits from the incident in the Strait of Kertch?

 

by Valentin Vasilescu

 

Valentin Vasilescu, an expert on military affairs, comments on the role of the Israeli and US reconnaissance planes in the incident at Kertch. These facts have been confirmed by the Russian FSB (which the Russian Federation’s Coast-Guards depend on) and which has disclosed videos recorded during the interrogations of the captured Ukrainian marines and a document seized on board one of their ships.

 

US spy plane photographed during a reconnaissance near the Strait of Kertch The international media has not presented us with an accurate picture of what went down in the Strait of Kertch. The media has been trying to make us think that it was an act by Russia to limit international maritime traffic. In my opinion, this incident can have serious military consequences for Russia and could lead to the loss of Crimea.

The ground troops do not always have enough information on the enemy and therefore turn to a process known as “reconnaissance” to gather more information. For example, a reconnaissance group, which moves about in very mobile vehicles, engages in combat against the enemy for a few minutes. Then, if it is not captured, the group withdraws ever so quickly.

At the time of the incident that occurred on 25 November 2018 in the Strait of Kertch, two small Ukrainian armed battleships (Berdyansk and Nikopol), class Gyurza-M, executed a reconnaissance mission. Their aim was not to cross the Kertch Strait but to kick off a reaction of the Russian combat set up, tasked with defending a bridge, running above the strait. The two ships were ideally suited for this type of mission. This is because they are the fastest and far easier to manœuvre than the very well armed ships belonging to the Coast Guard and Navy.

This is the visible part of the incident. There was another aspect, which in contrast, was invisible, and yet far more important than the media made it out to be.

In fact, the information the fruit of “the reconnaissance operation” was not collected by the reconnaissance group that is in contact with the enemy, which in this case is, the small ships (Berdyansk and Nikopol) belonging to the Ukrainian military navy. The information was gathered by another reconnaissance structure which acts in secret. This secretive structure, is specialised in putting in place for surveillance the enemy reaction (that is, the defence set up of the Russian bridge and the Strait of Kertch) thanks to points of land observations, air resources, naval resources, systems for intercepting radio frequency emissions, radar/infrared detection systems, etc. The Ukrainian army has not deployed as complex a reconnaissance set up near the Strait of Kertch, because it does not have the resources to do so. But as we have already demonstrated in a previous article published a little while before the incident, the United States and Israel have become very active in the region.

5 November 2018: a Su-27 Russian plane intercepted a US plane ELINT EP-3E, series 157316, indicator AS17. This Russian [-intercepted] plane had taken off from the base of Souda on the island of Crete, flying close to Crimea’s territorial waters. On 19 November, an Israeli reconnaissance plane Gulfstream G-550 Nachshon Aitam (indicator of flight 537) flew over the Black Sea around the Strait of Kertch.

The incident that took place in the Strait of Kertch was closely observed for an entire day by US reconnaissance planes, SIGINT. One of them, type RC-135V, series 64-14841, indicator JONAS 21, based in the Souda Bay, on the island of Crete, flew over the coast looking onto the Black Sea, near Crimea. A second US aircraft, a drone of high altitude, type RQ-4B, series 11-2047, indicator FORTE10, flew to the east of Ukraine near the Azov Sea. This drone, the RQ-4B. is controlled from the US naval base at Sigonella, which is located on the island of Sicily.

On 27 November another reconnaissance plane P-8A, series 168859, executed a reconnaissance flight in the Strait of Kerch and Crimea from the base at Sigonella.

Signals intelligence (SIG-INT) is a system of surveillance that includes the interception of the following: 

• Communications Intelligence (also known as COM-INT): radio, mobile phone, channels of data transmission and Internet; 

• Electronic intelligence (also known as EL-INT): radar signals and other devices for navigation, detection or disturbance: infrared, laser, etc.

Thanks to these devices, which are fitted in the reconnaissance planes, the incident sparked off by the Ukrainian planes in the Strait of Kertch has enabled the US to have a detailed grasp of the following:

–      Composition and location of the Russian land and maritime set up destined to protect the strait.

–      Management structure of the situation and the radio frequencies used

–      Stages of the procedure for intervention

–      Responsibilities of the different Russian air, land and naval sub-units, under the Cooperation Plan.

–      Sectors that are badly defended or vulnerable.

Thus, whilst the small Ukrainian boats and their crews have been arrested by the Russian forces, they have done what they were supposed to do. A mission that could only have come from the United States.

 

Read more:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article204195.html

 

Present restraint from Russia has prevented the shooting down of the US and Israeli spy planes (read above) "by accident".

 

45 years ago things were slightly different.

 

On 28 November, 1973, a Soviet MiG-21 brought an end to the joint US-Iranian reconnaissance mission in the USSR's airspace. The Russian pilot, 35-year-old Captain Eliseev, sacrificed his own life to upset the spy operation, which was part of the Cold War-era CIA programme ‘Project Dark Gene’.

Exactly 45 years ago, a Soviet MiG-21 jet fighter operated by Captain Gennady N. Eliseev rammed into an RF-4C Phantom spy jet at supersonic speed, thus preventing it from getting away with sensitive data from the USSR's airspace.

The RF-4C Phantom plane was piloted by Imperial Iranian Air Force Major Mohamed Shokouhnia and US Air Force Colonel John Saunders in the backseat. The cover story was that it was a US instructor teaching the Iranian cadet to fly on a new type of aircraft that accidentally entered the USSR's airspace.

However, in reality, this team was part of an aerial reconnaissance programme, codenamed Project Dark Gene, run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) from the 1960s to the late 1970s.

The main purpose of the joint CIA-IIAF operation was to find and exploit gaps in the USSR's air defence system along the Soviet-Iranian border, stretching from the Caucasus to Central Asia.

 

From the 1953 coup d'etat until the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran and the United States maintained close relations. Under Mohammad Reza Shah, Iran used to be nothing short of a US foothold in the Middle East and a reliable supplier of crude. In turn, Tehran received economic and military aid from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean: Washington generously supplied it with weapons, equipment and dispatched military consultants to the monarchy.

According to security and military analyst Sebastien Roblin, in 1971, Tehran acquired two dozen RF-4C Phantom reconnaissance planes ‘with special modifications for listening in to Soviet communications'.

The aircraft had several aerial cameras in its specially elongated nose. Additionally, the RF-4C crew could use a long-focus camera located in an outboard container. The plane took pictures in daytime and at night, from both extremely low and high altitudes. It was equipped with an infrared scanner and a radar station. The spy jet was armed with four air-to-air guided missiles.

‘The two-seaters would typically fly on spy missions twice a month with a mixed crew of American and Iranian personnel', the military analyst noted in his 2017 op-ed for The National Interest.

The Feat of the Soviet Pilot

On 28 November, 1973, Soviet ground-based air defence systems once again detected a border violation. Captain Gennady Eliseev, a 35-year-old deputy commander of a squadron of the 982nd Fighter Aviation Regiment, was sent to intercept an unknown aircraft from the Vaziani Airfield, located in the then Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Eliseev's MiG-21 drew up with the RF-4C Phantom when the spy plane was already leaving the USSR's airspace. At that time, the Phantom's speed was almost Mach 1.4 (1074.18 mph). Captain Eliseev made the decision to open fire since it was a combat aircraft that had to be forced to land as per instructions.

He fired off both of his Vympel K-13 short-range, infrared homing air-to-air missiles at the spy plane, but failed to shoot it down. Although the MiG-21 was equipped with a 23 mm cannon, it is believed that it jammed when Eliseev pressed the trigger. However, he could not let the Phantom go: It was unclear what task it had conducted in Soviet airspace and what kind of weapons and equipment it was carrying on board. The only option left for the Soviet pilot was to ram the recon jet.

 

Thus, the supersonic Soviet warplane struck the RF-4C, sending the intruding aircraft into an uncontrolled dive. As a result, the MiG-21 broke apart in the air, killing the pilot, while the Phantom's crew managed to leave the damaged aircraft.

After landing, Shokouhnia and Saunders were captured by Soviet border guards. The two pilots returned to Iran just a couple of weeks after the incident. They were exchanged for information from a Soviet satellite that had previously fallen onto Iranian territory. Shokouhnia continued to serve in the Iranian air force. In a strange twist of fate, he was shot down by a MiG aircraft operated by an Iraqi pilot in 1982, during the Iran-Iraq War.

Captain Gennady N. Eliseev was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/military/201811281070215894-cia-iran-spy-ussr/?

 

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The Guardian has a an opinion piece today, titled: The EU’s response to Russia must be bold and unanimous. It is written by German politician Norbert Röttgen, head of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee…and it is simply massively dishonest and one-sided.

The “mainstream” narrative on Ukraine has been corrected to death in the alternate media, there is no need to go back over old ground, suffice to say, here are just few of the relevent facts which Mr Röttgen leaves out of his article:

• The Kerch Strait is incredibly shallow, it has a canal carved into to the sea bed to allow deep-draft ships to pass. Using the canal requires a pilot, and ships can only go in single file. The Ukrainian naval ships ignored these rules.
• Ships using the Kerch strait are required to give 72 hours notice, due to the narrowness of the passage and the shallowness of the sea. These rules have been in place for years. Ukraine ignored them.
• There have been calls – both inside and outside Ukraine – to blow up the Crimean bridge.
• The Ukrainian naval vessels were sailing with their guns uncovered and refusing to answer radio communications.
• Petro Poroshenko, incumbent President of Ukraine, has an 8% approval rating heading into the Presidential elections in March of next year.
• In response to this “incident”, Poroshenko has declared martial law in the 10 Eastern regions of the country. Notably, these are the regions that voted for ousted President Yanukovych and will unquestionably vote against Poroshenko if the elections go ahead in march.
• The US passed a bill in 2017 legalising attempts to undermine or sabotage “export pipelines” of “hostile nations”. This, among other things, was directly related to the Nordstream 2 pipeline.

If these omissions and inaccuracies have annoyed you to the point you’re thinking of heading over to the Graun to make a comment, well…bad news:

The comments on this story are being pre-moderated, this is being done to keep the thread on topic, and NOT to control the narrative and silence disagreement BTL. So that’s alright.

However, a totally accidental upshot of this drive to keep everyone on topic is that the usually fractious Guardian comments section seems to be broadly in consensus. Funny that.

So don’t waste your time writing a comment that won’t get published over there. Instead, discuss it here – where you won’t pre-emptively censored for disagreeing with the government line.

Important Questions –

1. Is the re-opening of the “conflict” in Ukraine a response to the complete defeat of NATO’s agenda in Syria?

2. Why are some Western politicians so insistent Russia ship gas through Ukraine?

3. Who sees Nordstream 2 as a threat? And why?

4. How far down the road to outright fascism will Ukraine have to go, before Western politicians comment on it?

5. Will NATO/EU back Poroshenko is he declares martial law and cancels the March election? Or will they move on to the next incompetent puppet?

Read more:
https://off-guardian.org/2018/12/12/discuss-kerch-strait-and-azov-sea-te...
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Flashpoint in Ukraine provides insight into today's gravest 
geopolitical crisis since WW II. Possible global war looms.  

Viewed from the perspective of Western mainstream media, the 
crisis arose due to pro-democracy activists overturning a brutal 
dictatorship, which led swiftly to Russian incursion into Ukraine and 
annexation of Crimea.  

Viewed from the perspective of the 22 highly-credentialed analysts 
who have contributed to this anthology, it’s an entirely different 
story.  Obama's pivot is global, in pursuit of unchallenged worldwide 
dominance, leading to multiple direct and proxy wars. Neocon-
dominated Washington seeks to marginalize its Russian and Chinese 
rivals, surrounding both countries with US bases. Ukraine is in the 
eye of the storm, the crown jewel of NATO eastward expansion, the 
last step in Washington's drive to incorporate all former Soviet 
republics and Warsaw Pact countries into NATO and install missile 
defense sites on Russia’s very border.

To that end, the US has poured some $5 billion into “pro-democracy” 
NGOs which, counter to intention or not, were soon swept aside by 
neo-Nazi groups, and leading to the installation as President of 
former banker, Arseniy Yatseniuk, advance leaked as the unelected 
pick of Victoria Nuland, US Assistant Secretary of State for European 
and Eurasian Affairs.

While, as it is argued here, Russia did not invade Crimea and in fact 
has taken an extremely measured response with primary emphasis 
on diplomacy and ending the crisis, NATO, European and US 
spokespersons and media are seeking to dramatize and indeed 
resurrect a “Russian threat”. Eastern resistance forestalls Obama's 
imperial project. The West appears willing to pursue it, at the risk not 
just of Ukrainian civil war and potential East/West confrontation but 
of global nuclear war.

The flashpoint in Ukraine risks the unthinkable.

This book explains what everyone needs to know, to get the world 
off the bandwagon to war.

 

Read more:

https://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

 

The Western media is blind to the US deceit but then what else is new?

 

 

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From Eric Zuesse

 

Finally, it appears that there is realistic hope for an end to the brutal, far-right, regime that U.S. President Barack Obama, through his chief agent on Ukraine, Victoria Nuland, had imposed upon Ukraine, by means of an extraordinarily violent coup in February 2014, which replaced Ukraine’s democratically elected sitting President, by a rabidly anti-Russian imposed regime.

Although, until recent days, there were signs that none of the three leading Presidential candidates in Ukraine’s upcoming March 31st election would veer far off the coup-installed regime’s hard-right path, that has changed drastically in recent days.

On March 15th, French Ambassador to Ukraine, Isabel Dumont, communicating privately on behalf of all seven of the G7 Ambassadors, warned Ukraine’s far-right Minister of the Interior, Arsen Avakov, that “the G7 group is concerned by extreme political movements in Ukraine.” As America’s Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported this on March 22nd, under the headline “G7 Letter Takes Aim At Role Of Violent Extremists In Ukrainian Society, Election”, the G7’s concern referred specifically to “products of the Azov Battalion.”

This battalion is (though RFERL carefully ignores the fact) a white-supremacist Ukrainian organization. Its founder and leader, Andrei Biletsky (or “Beletsky”), calls his movement “Ukrainian Social Nationalism,” and he has laid out in writing its program as “racial purification of the Nation” and specifically as a return to “old Ukrainian Aryan values forgotten in modern society.” His followers had, under Obama (during and since the coup), powerfully helped to install the far-right new regime, which now possibly could finally end — Obama’s coup in Ukraine thus to become terminated in abject failure (which it actually already is) and ultimately abandonment by the Europeans (unless the U.S. Government gets out of there).

Avakov had, himself, been instrumental in the campaign to exterminate anyone in Ukraine who opposed the political movements active in Ukraine that had supported Hitler against Stalin during the 1940s. This is why Ukraine’s hard-right calls itself “Social Nationalist” in order to hide its admiration for what had been German National Socialism or the original Nazism — the ideological pattern for all nazisms (racist fascisms) since.

In 2004, America’s CIA instructed Ukraine’s Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine to rename itself the “Freedom,” or Svoboda, Party, in order for more Ukrainians, and most Americans, to find it acceptable publicly to back. (Though this name-change turned out to be a successful tactic, the Party never won even as much as 2% of the vote nationwide. It was nothing without the CIA, but still is almost nothing, even after the name-change.)

Then, on March 23rd, UA Wire headlined “Front-runner in Ukraine’s election race names condition for returning Crimea”, and reported that the leading candidate, Volodmyr Zelensky, suddenly made the radical statement: “Crimea will return only when power changes in Russia. There is no other choice.”

He was, tactfully — so as not to be killed by the racist anti-Russians who had carried out the coup on behalf of Obama — asserting implicitly that he rejected the constant refrain by the other two leading candidates, Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, that Ukraine must invade and conquer Crimea. The far-right were passionate about restoring Crimea to Ukraine, which it had been (part of Ukraine) starting in 1954, and up till the coup in 2014. U.S. President Barack Obama was steadfast in his support of Ukraine’s far-right, to the extent even of overriding his Secretary of State John Kerry when Kerry ordered Poroshenko to stop promising Ukrainians that he would return to Ukraine the two territories that had rejected the coup-imposed regime, Crimea and Donbass. Obama sided then with Kerry’s subordinate, Nuland, against Kerry, and told Poroshenko that invading Crimea and Donbass would be okay.

Zelensky was now saying that the restoration to Ukraine of the two rejectionist territories would require a change-of-government in Russia, and a change-of-heart in the residents of those two former Ukrainian regions. He tactfully avoided noting that neither condition would be likely to be possible anytime soon, and (especially after the post-coup Ukraine’s intense hostility toward those rejectionist regions) probably never. Any Russian Presidential candidate who would repudiate Putin’s support of those rejectionists couldn’t stand any chance of being elected as a President of Russia, and Zelensky (like any other politician) knows this; but, perhaps, Ukraine’s voters don’t, and Zelensky needs their votes.

Zelensky himself had been endorsed on 21 February 2019 by NATO’s Atlantic Council, in an article “Why Zelenskiy Is the Only Decent Choice for Ukraine”, and this is despite the continuing insistence by 98%+ (virtual unanimity) of both houses of the U.S. Congress — almost the entire U.S. Congress (419 to 3 in the House, and at first 97 to 2 in the Senate and then 98 to 2 there) — to sanction Russia and to arm Ukraine however much will be necessary in order for Ukraine’s Government to conquer the two rejectionist parts of former Ukrainian territory. Behind the scenes, there is now immense pressure from the EU (such as that Atlantic Council writer, who is a former high official of the EU) against the U.S. regime’s insistence upon Ukraine’s conquest of those two former Ukrainian territories.

Zelensky had previously been in the employ of Ihor Kolomoyskyi, the Ukrainian aristocrat about whom I had headlined on 18 May 2014, shortly after the coup, “The Key Man Behind the May 2nd Odessa Ukraine Trade Unions Building Massacre: His Many Connections to the White House”. As I mentioned there, Arsen Avakov and Ihor Kolomoyskyi had jointly planned that massacre. So, either Kolomoyskyi has now decided to cast his lot no longer with America but with the EU against America, or else Zelensky has decided on his own to cast his lot with the EU against America. (Kolomoysky has heretofore been particularly a patron of the family of Joe Biden.)

On March 21st, I headlined “Three Neo-Nazis Lead Ukraine’s Presidential Contest”, and reported that “Zelenskiy has no political track-record, but only political blatherings, by which his alleged policy-views can become (however dubiously) inferred by voters.” But now, with his clear (though entirely tactful) break away from Kolomoyskyi’s political record, Zelensky is, at the very least, pretending to be decent. And the EU and even NATO are clearly coming out against the virtually unanimous policy of the U.S. Congress to push Ukraine toward outright war against Russia, and are backing, instead, Zelenskiy — the only leading candidate who is against invading Crimea and Donbass.

The present international trend is toward a break-up of the Western Alliance. Obama’s coup in Ukraine has set this into motion. Trump has since been accelerating the process, by continuing Obama’s policies towards Ukraine, and towards Russia (and generally, by Trump’s other policies, some of which don’t continue Obama’s). There is bipartisan, near-100%, support in the U.S. Congress for that anti-Russia policy, and also for Trump’s anti-Iran policy; and, so, the tensions toward ending NATO are increasing, regardless of what the outcome of Ukraine’s Presidential election turns out to be.

 

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2019/03/27/hope-for-ukrainians-at-last/

 

 

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Me thinks Eric is a bit too hopeful and this "change" could be a trick in the ebbs and flows of controlling the US empire. Fooling people that things "can get better" is the purpose of the empire's manipulation through whichever mouthpiece such as a French Ambassador and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty... I could be wrong.

The United Nations Third Committee - in charge of social, humanitarian and cultural issues - approved on November 18 the Resolution "Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance”.

The Resolution, recalling that "The victory over Nazism in World War II contributed to the creation of the United Nations in order to save future generations from the scourge of war" raised alarm for the spread of neo-Nazi, racist, and xenophobic movements in many parts of the world.

The Resolution expressed "deep concern for the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and former members of the Waffen-SS" in whatever form. The Resolution, therefore, emphasized that "neo-Nazism is more than just the glorification of a past movement: it is a contemporary phenomenon." Neo-Nazi and other similar movements "fuel contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, antisemitism, Islamophobia, Christianophobia, xenophobia and related intolerance".

The Resolution therefore called on the States of the United Nations to undertake a series of measures to counter this phenomenon.

The Resolution, already adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 18, 2019, was approved by the Third Committee with 122 votes in favor, including the votes of Russia and China, two permanent members of the Security Council.

Only two members of the United Nations voted against it: The United States (a permanent member of the Security Council) and Ukraine.

The other 29 country NATO members, including Italy, certainly due to an internal directive, abstained. So did the 27 members of the European Union, 21 of them belonging to NATO. Among the 53 abstentions are also Australia, Japan, and other NATO partners.

The political significance of this vote is clear: NATO members and partners boycotted the Resolution that calls into question Ukraine first of all without naming it, Ukraine’s neo-Nazi movements have been and are used by NATO for strategic purposes.

There is ample evidence that neo-Nazi teams were trained and employed, under US / NATO direction, in the Maidan square putsch in 2014 and in the attack on Ukrainian Russians to provoke, with the detachment of Crimea and its return to Russia, a new confrontation in Europe similar to that of the Cold War.

The role of the Azov battalion - founded in 2014 by Andriy Biletsky, the "white Führer" who is a supporter of the "racial purity of the Ukrainian nation, which must not mix with inferior races," is emblematic.

After being distinguished for its ferocity, the Azov battalion was transformed into a regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard, equipped with tanks and artillery. It preserved the emblem, modeled on that of the SS Das Reich, and the ideological formation of its recruits is modeled on that of the Nazis. The Azov Regiment is trained by US instructors, transferred from Vicenza to Ukraine, flanked by others from NATO.

Azov is not just a military unit, but an ideological and political movement. Biletsky is the charismatic leader especially for the youth organization, which is educated in hatred against Russians and militarily trained. At the same time, neo-Nazis from all over Europe, including Italy, are being recruited in Kiev. Thus, Ukraine has become the "nursery" of the resurgent Nazism in the heart of Europe.

Italy’s abstention is part of this framework, even not voting for the Resolution at the General Assembly. The Parliament agreed, as when in 2017 it signed a memorandum of understanding with the President of the Ukrainian Parliament Andriy Parubiy, who is the founder of the Ukrainian National Social Party organized on the Hitlerian National Socialist model; he is the head of the neo-Nazi squads that are responsible for murders and ferocious beatings of political opposers.

He will be the one to congratulate the Italian government on the UN Resolution on Nazism non-vote, in line with what he declared on television: “The greatest man who practiced direct democracy was Adolf Hitler.”

Manlio Dinucci
Source
Il Manifesto (Italy)

Read more:https://www.voltairenet.org/article211772.html

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Check the history of Nazis in Ukraine...