Tag: perpetual war

US ‘flirting with neo-Nazis’ – Kremlin

Washington will stop at nothing, including the use of neo-Nazis, to damage Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, following a US decision to lift a ban on supplying weapons to Ukraine’s Azov Brigade.

The unit has notoriously welcomed into its ranks people who espouse ultranationalist and neo-Nazi ideologies, and has been described by the Western press as a magnet for such individuals from across the world.

On Monday, the US Department of State cleared the brigade to receive American military assistance, stating that it found no evidence of human rights violations by the group.

“This sudden change of stance by Washington proves that [US officials] would stoop to anything in their attempts to suppress Russia, using the Ukrainian people as a tool. They are even fine with flirting with neo-Nazis,” Peskov told journalists during a media briefing.

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Yemen strikes UK warship in response to Israel’s Nuseirat massacre

Yemen’s Armed Forces announced on 9 June several operations in the Red and Arabian Seas, including the targeting of a UK warship. 

The operations were carried out as a response to Israel’s massacre in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp on 8 June, which killed nearly 300 Palestinian civilians during an operation to retrieve four living Israeli captives. 

“In response to the Zionist enemy’s crime in the Nuseirat camp yesterday … The missile force carried out a military operation targeting the British warship destroyer (Diamond) in the Red Sea with a number of ballistic missiles, and the hit was accurate,” said army spokesman Yahya Saree.

“The naval forces, missile force, and unmanned air force of the Yemeni [army] also carried out two joint military operations against two ships belonging to companies that violated the decision to ban access to the ports of occupied Palestine. They are the NORDERNEY ship, which was directly hit, causing a fire to break out, and the MSC TAVVISHI ship, in the Arabian Sea, which was directly hit,” Saree added.

“The two operations were carried out with a number of naval and ballistic missiles and drones.” 

The UK maritime security firm Ambrey reported on Sunday that a cargo transport vessel flying the flag of Antigua and Barbuda was hit by a missile 83 nautical miles southeast of Yemen’s Aden. The British Maritime Trade Operations Authority reported on Saturday another incident on a ship 80 nautical miles southeast of Aden.

Saree’s announcement came a day after 274 Palestinians were killed and nearly 700 injured during an Israeli military operation to rescue captives in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp. Israeli undercover units, aided by US forces, infiltrated Nuseirat disguised as displaced civilians and using an aid truck as cover before indiscriminate bombardment wreaked havoc upon the camp 

Four prisoners were retrieved alive, and one Israeli officer was killed. The spokesman for Hamas’ Qassam Brigades said a number of Israeli captives were killed in the operation.  

As part of the naval campaign waged by the Ansarallah movement and the armed forces of Yemen’s Sanaa government in solidarity with the people and resistance in Gaza, Yemeni forces have recently expanded their operations against Israeli maritime interests to include the Mediterranean Sea.

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Israel perpetrated Nuseirat massacre to ‘block’ ceasefire deal: Hamas

Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas movement’s political bureau, says Israel launched its bloody massacre and captive rescue operation in Gaza’s Nuseirat camp Saturday to block a ceasefire deal.

Speaking with Al Jazeera Arabic on 10 June about the US-proposed ceasefire deal and prospects for ending the war, Haniyeh said Israel attacked the Nuseirat camp, killing at least 274 Palestinians and retrieving four Israeli captives to block any agreement that would end the war.

Israeli forces bombed various civilian areas of Gaza from the air to create chaos and pave the way for Saturday’s operation while executing Palestinians in cold blood in their homes where no Israeli captives were present.

Haniyeh also accused the US of being a part of the attack, saying the Biden White House is “no less criminal” than the Israeli leadership.

A video posted by an Israeli soldier showed the captives being extracted by helicopter from the beach in Gaza where the US built a floating port, allegedly to deliver humanitarian aid.

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US Deploys Sub Hunter P-8 Poseidon Off Florida Coast To ‘Shadow’ Russian Flotilla

According to Newsweek, multiple open-source intelligence analysts have said the US has deployed air and naval assets off Florida’s eastern coast to ‘shadow’ Russian warships. This comes as Russian warships are expected to arrive in Cuba this week ahead of military drills in the Caribbean.

Open source intelligence (OSINT) analysts on Tuesday posted updates showing the CG Stone coastguard vessel, the USS Truxtun and USS Donald Cook destroyers, and the Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Ville de Quebec travelling southwards down the Florida coast, purportedly following the Russian ships headed to Cuba. Above them, at least one US Navy P-8A Poseidon appeared to be conducting surveillance. -Newsweek

OSINT analysts on X weren’t clear which of Russia’s four-ship grouping, made up of the Gorshkov frigate, the nuclear-powered submarine Kazan, the fleet oil tanker Pashin, and the rescue tug Nikolai Chiker, were transiting in international waters off the coast of Florida. Still, they posted flight tracking data that showed at least one Boeing P-8 Poseidon circling above. 

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Biden to Ukraine: You’re not getting into NATO, but that doesn’t mean you can stop bleeding for us

If Vladimir Zelensky is Ukraine’s most inflated politician, its most important one is not from Ukraine at all. Kiev’s war and its political regime both vitally depend on Washington’s faltering, though obstinate, octogenarian, President Joe Biden. Without his support, Western support as a whole would either collapse entirely or decrease decisively; the war would be over, and so would Zelensky.

That is why an interview that his US counterpart recently gave to Time Magazine was a severe blow to Kiev’s ruler, as even the ultra-hawkish British Telegraph noted. NATO, Biden explained, is not part of his plans for Ukraine’s future. To be precise, while NATO membership during an ongoing war has always been an absurd idea, Biden has ruled it out for the future postwar peace as well. Instead, he suggested that Ukraine would be supplied with weapons so “they can defend themselves.”

To add insult to injury, the American president also mentioned Ukraine’s record of “significant corruption,” a thing he should know a thing or two about from family experience: It was money from nepotistic non-work for the Ukrainian company Burisma that, according to Biden’s son Hunter’s own autobiography, “turned into a major enabler during my steepest skid into addiction,” while enabling him to “spend recklessly, dangerously, destructively. Humiliatingly.”

Let’s set aside the fact that Joe Biden’s statements contradict Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent promise that the upcoming NATO meeting in Washington will be used to build a “strong and well-lit bridge” to membership for Ukraine. Bridge to nowhere, it turns out, at least according to Blinken’s boss.

Is Biden reliable? Of course not. For one thing, he is clearly incapable of remembering most of his own statements. Indeed, the Time interview as a whole displays his rambling confusion all too clearly. (Almost as if he had been set up by those among the Democrats who’d still like to replace him with another candidate, but let’s not dwell on that.) In addition, even among politicians, he stands out as unusually immoral (ask the Palestinians), dishonest, and corrupt. And by openly permitting Ukraine to use American arms to strike within Russia (if with restrictions, for now), he has just shown again that his own declared ‘red lines’ are always up for revision.

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NATO When You Don’t Want It; No NATO When You Do

After being promised a future in NATO in 2008, Ukraine is still waiting for membership. At last year’s NATO summit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s pleas for membership, or at least a timeline to membership, was unceremoniously rebuffed by the alliance.

“Ukraine isn’t ready for NATO membership,” President Joe Biden said at the July 2023 NATO gathering. He reiterated that position in a recent interview with TIME. While American officials continue to say that Kiev’s future is in the bloc, that alliance is pressuring Zelensky to downplay the issue at this year’s NATO summit.

Last year, Zelensky reacted furiously to his demands for NATO membership not being met. “It’s unprecedented and absurd when time frame is not set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership. While at the same time vague wording about ‘conditions’ is added even for inviting Ukraine,” he said.

This year’s NATO summit, to be held in Washington in July, will be presented differently to the world. Though Zelensky and Biden are expected to sign a security agreement between the two countries in July, NATO will not offer Ukraine membership or a timeline for membership at the upcoming summit.

After another year of fighting for NATO’s right to expand to Ukraine, Zelensky will be even angrier than last year. But no one will know it. To avoid last year’s embarrassing rejection of Ukraine’s aspirations, NATO officials have engaged in “expectation management,” muting NATO members supportive of Ukraine’s accession while warning Zelensky not to demand the “impossible.” NATO officials have asked Zelensky not to pressure NATO members to publicly support a timetable for NATO membership this time.

The NATO charter makes it clear to Ukraine that it cannot become a NATO member until the war ends. The NATO charter says that countries that aspire to membership must not be at war, must be committed “to resolve conflicts peacefully,” and cannot have territorial disputes.

NATO officials have also made it clear that Ukraine will not become a member until after the war has ended. The irony, though, is that it is becoming increasingly likely that the war can only be ended by a Ukrainian promise not to join NATO.

The bleak reality of Ukraine’s potential future in the bloc does not reflect the rosy public narrative. NATO membership has historically been promised to Ukraine and withdrawn from Ukraine in a provocative and divisive manner.

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US defence industry struggles to manufacture basic artillery for Ukraine

The United States arms industry is not producing the basic ammunition required to sustain support for Ukraine and Israel, Bloomberg reported on June 8. This is an extraordinary situation since Russia’s armed industry is booming despite facing major Western sanctions.

According to the outlet, the US defence industry gave priority to the manufacture of high-tech ammunition and halted the production of basic artillery such as 155-millimetre ammunition, the most used in the wars that are being fought today. The US is also facing a shortage of basic products, such as gunpowder or trinitrotoluene (TNT), to produce these munitions and have had to turn to other countries, such as Poland and Turkey, to obtain supplies.

At some point an attempt was made to replace the 155-millimetre ammunition with higher-tech projectiles on the battlefront in Ukraine, but the effort failed because the new weaponry was neutralised by the Russian military.

“Higher-tech shells that were intended to replace the traditional 155mm munitions failed an early test in Ukraine, when their targeting systems were thwarted by Russia,” Bloomberg reported. “The prospect that future wars could resemble the grinding combat taking place there has stirred fears that the US arsenal could someday be stretched to the breaking point.”

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Medvedev Warns That Any U.S. Strike on Russian Targets Will Be the ‘Start of World War’

A former Russian president is warning that a strike by the United States on any Russian target will amount to the “start of world war.”

Dmitry Medvedev, who has been quite vocal lately about the West’s behavior towards Russia, announced to the world this week that World War III will be set in motion the moment the U.S. strikes Russia in any capacity.

The current Deputy Chair of Russia’s Security Council, Medvedev said this after Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski stated that the U.S. will conduct such a strike if Russia uses any kind of nuclear weaponry in Ukraine.

In a post on X, Medvedev made the suggestion that Sikorski “apparently has decided to scare his masters” with such a statement, unlike the U.S. which is “more cautious” than the Poles.

“Americans hitting our targets means starting a world war, and a Foreign Minister, even of a country like Poland, should understand that,” Medvedev added.

(Related: According to Medvedev, Ukraine is “a classic failed state.”)

Poland pushing for world war

Medvedev also addressed similar statements made last month by Polish President Andrzej Duda about Poland’s willingness to host U.S. nuclear weapons if offered the chance under NATO’s sharing mechanism.

If any such arrangement comes to fruition and results in a nuclear strike on Russia, “Warsaw won’t be left out and will surely get its share of radioactive ash,” Medvedev assured about the outcome.

Sikorski, responding to Medvedev’s warning, expressed skepticism about Russia ever even launching a nuclear strike in Ukraine.

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Macron Says France Working To ‘Finalize’ Plan To Send Troops to Ukraine

On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said France was working to “finalize a coalition” of NATO countries that are willing to send troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces, a step that would mark a huge escalation in the proxy war.

During a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris, Macron said Ukraine’s request for NATO trainers was “legitimate” and downplayed the risk of escalation.

“It’s much more efficient and practical for certain capacities in certain conditions to train on Ukrainian soil, it’s a legitimate request,” Macron said. “We’re going to use the coming days to finalize the broadest possible coalition.” He added that several NATO countries have already agreed to the plan.

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US Admits Role In Israeli Rescue Operation That Killed Over 200 Palestinians

The United States has denied ongoing allegations that it was militarily involved in Israel’s Saturday raid on a central Gaza Hamas stronghold which returned alive four hostages who had been kidnapped on Oct.7. 

“Well, the one thing I can say is that there were no U.S. forces, no U.S. boots on the ground involved in this operation. We did not participate militarily in this operation,” US National Security advisor Jake Sullivan said in a CNN interview on Sunday. There have been widespread claims that US special forces advisers were on the ground in some capacity, but this hasn’t been met with confirmation.

However, it has been reported that “A U.S. official told Axios the U.S. hostage cell in Israel supported the effort to rescue the four hostages.” The precise level of ‘support’ and details of this involvement hasn’t been revealed, but The New York Times has so far described that US officials in Israel had been “providing intelligence and other logistical support.”

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