Persistent persecution of ethnic Russians in Ukraine was one of the key reasons behind Moscow’s decision to launch its special military operation in that country, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said, adding that the Ukrainian authorities have since gone completely “crazy”in their policies.

The president made the remarks earlier this week when he hosted distinguished servicemen at the Kremlin to award them Hero of Russia medals. Excerpts from Putin’s speech on the sidelines of the event were published by Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday.

“We would never have done anything like [the special military operation] if they had not started to destroy Russia in our historical territories, expel people from there, declared Russians a non-indigenous ethnic group in Ukraine. Have they gone completely crazy? Are they completely – how can I put it more bluntly – nuts?” Putin told the medal recipients.

The president was apparently referring to Ukraine’s Law On Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2021. The legislation recognized only three ethnic groups – Crimean Tatars, Crimean Karaites and Krymchaks (Crimean Jews) – as the country’s indigenous peoples.

The legislation denied indigenous designations to Russians, which amounted to at least one fifth of Ukraine’s population, according to various estimates, and to other minorities, such as the ethnic Hungarians and Belarusians who reside in the country’s west and north, respectively. Moreover, all three ethnic groups recognized by the ‘indigenous peoples’ law predominantly live in Crimea, which split from Ukraine in 2014 and joined Russia after a peninsula-wide referendum.

In addition to questionable ethnic policies, the Ukrainian leadership has been openly courting and honoring Nazis, Putin said, invoking a recent scandal in Canada’s House of Commons. The legislature celebrated Ukrainian-Canadian Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Waffen SS veteran, hailing him as a “Canadian hero” who’d “fought the Russians” during World War II. The whole body, with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in attendance, engaged in a standing ovation to honor Hunka.

“And who exactly fought Russians during the war? Nazis. Everyone knows that and the Ukrainian president knows that. The entire parliament stood up and applauded him. What is it, if not a manifestation of Nazism?” Putin asked, adding that a large proportion of Nazi atrocities were committed by Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with them.

“They are not just fools, they are also neo-Nazis. It’s an obvious fact. They are ready to cooperate with just anyone to try and hurt Russia,” the president noted.

The Hunka affair triggered a major international scandal, which led to the downfall of the House Speaker Anthony Rota, who accepted entire responsibility for inviting the Waffen SS veteran to the legislature. Russia has charged Hunka in absentia with genocide, claiming that archive documents serve as evidence that he and fellow SS Galicia members had killed at least 500 civilians in late February 1944, and Moscow is now seeking the extradition of the Nazi veteran.

https://www.rt.com/russia/588829-putin-crazy-ukrainian-leadership/

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US President Joe Biden has promised another $200 million in emergency military aid for Ukraine. He made the pledge during an Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on Tuesday.

The meeting comes after a bill intended to provide $60 billion in aid for Kiev was blocked in the US Senate last week, as Republicans demanded tougher immigration control on the southern US border in exchange for approving Ukraine assistance.

Speaking to reporters after the Tuesday meeting, Biden insisted that Congress “pass the supplemental funding for Ukraine” before breaking for recess, adding that failure to do so would be “the greatest Christmas gift” to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The decisions we make now are going to determine the future for decades to come, particularly in Europe,” Biden said.

The latest $200 million in aid announced by Biden will come from the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the Biden administration to transfer weapons from US stocks without congressional approval in case of an emergency.

The package will include ammunition for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), high-speed anti-radiation missiles, anti-armor systems, artillery rounds, missiles, demolition munitions, 4 million rounds of small arms ammunition, generators and other equipment and spare parts, the Associated Press reported, citing US officials.

Earlier in the day, Zelensky met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to advocate for more aid amid its ongoing conflict with Russia. The Ukrainian leader met with House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as a number of other senators. Posting on X (formerly Twitter), Zelensky said he had a “friendly and candid conversation” with senate leaders.

Republican leader Mitch McConnell told reporters on Tuesday, however, that it would be “practically impossible” for Congress to pass the supplemental funding package, which includes the stalled $60 billion for Kiev, before Christmas, saying it needed to be done as part of a broader package that includes changes to border security policy.

On Monday, Ohio senator Senator James David Vance called Zelensky’s trip “utterly disgraceful,” accusing the Ukrainian leader of coming to the US, “lecturing”Americans and “demanding” more of their taxpayer dollars.

Zelensky’s pleas to keep economic and military aid flowing come amid a six-month counteroffensive against Russia which has failed to yield significant results. Kiev’s troops have lost more than 125,000 military personnel and 6,000 pieces of heavy equipment since the beginning of June, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that the continued supply of Western aid and weapons will only prolong the conflict, but won’t change its ultimate outcome

https://www.rt.com/news/588962-biden-zelensky-white-house-meeting/

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The US’ decision to continue arming Israel and Ukraine with weapons banned by international law only shows how isolated and desperate its international position has become, a former senior CIA officer told Sputnik.

Israel has been accused of using white phosphorus munitions several times since the conflict with Hamas began on October 7 - as well as in previous conflicts with the Palestinians and other groups in the region.

These accusations have come from locals who witnessed the strikes as well as NGOs like Human Rights Watch. One recent report in particular from a prominent US newspaper shed light that one attack in southern Lebanon in late October included white phosphorus artillery shells supplied to Israel by the United States.

While legal to use in warfare for purposes of target illumination or marking, the use of white phosphorus rounds against “soft” targets such as buildings or soldiers, and especially against civilian targets, is considered a war crime and banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international treaty either ratified or acceded to by all but a handful of countries.

The day before the report dropped, the US used its veto power to block a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where more than 18,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7. It was the only country to vote against the resolution, and hours after the vote, US Congress used a special emergency power to circumvent normal approval processes and rush $106 million worth of weapons to Israel.

Ray McGovern, a former CIA officer who prepared the president’s daily brief during the Ronald Reagan administration, told Sputnik that Washington’s willingness to arm its partners with internationally-banned weapons showed the level of desperation and isolation it has on the geopolitical stage.

“That vote on Friday was shameful,” he said. “You had 13 countries, of the 15 on the Security Council, voting for a ceasefire. You had one veto, one ‘no’ vote, that was the United States, and then the US vassal called the United Kingdom abstained.”

“Now, I expect that the [UN] General Assembly to take this up in another day or two, that's a little different. The General Assembly has less teeth in it, less enforcement, less directive power. But it will be very interesting, because I would expect that if some 185 people vote for a ceasefire, and you have the United States and Great Britain and Fiji and the Marianas Islands and maybe Albania voting against the ceasefire - what more need I say about how isolated the United States has become?”

He said that there would not be accountability for the use of weapons like white phosphorus “unless Israel loses.”

“It's possible that that might happen. In other words, Hamas is not being defeated, Israel is way out on a limb; its only supporter, the United States, is taking a real black eye for supporting them. And so what's likely to happen now? If the United States has given white phosphorus to the Israelis, well, that's just as bad as giving cluster munitions - again, banned by 110 countries in the world, phosphorus as well - to the Ukrainians. And when they ran out of 155-millimeter shells, they gave them cluster munitions, and then when they ran out of those, they've already given them depleted uranium shells for their tanks. And now what's next?”

McGovern said he “wouldn’t put it past” men like US Secretary of State Antony Blinken or White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan to dare to try and give Ukraine “mini-nukes” if the situation became dire enough.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231212/ex-cia-officer-ceasefire-veto-and-white-phosphorus-shells-for-israel-show-us-isolatation-1115541630.html

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