Tag: russia

Lavrov Says West Does Not Have ‘Democracy’ – Everything Is Pre-Arranged

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov answered a question at the Kremlin yesterday regarding the French elections.

Question: You said that Joe Biden was a more preferable president for Russia. But we see what is happening now. How would you comment on that?

Sergey Lavrov: It was President Vladimir Putin who said this in reply to a question about which candidate we “favour.”  

Frankly, it is a pathetic sight. When the system of “American democracy” produces such results and this course of the presidential race, anyone can make their own independent conclusions about the way things are orchestrated and arranged.

Take another “democracy,” France. The first round of the presidential election is over there. There can be two rounds, and it appears that the second round was designed to manipulate voters’ will that was expressed during the first round. When candidates can withdraw from the race, and they are convinced to do that to smooth things down for the “victory” of the conservatives or populists, it does not look like democracy.

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Will Putin Attack Poland and the Baltics?

At Thursday’s debate with Donald Trump, President Joe Biden, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal,” claimed that he “wants all of Ukraine… Do you think he’ll stop?… What do you think happens to Poland and other places?”

Spoiler Alert: Official Ukrainian sources confirm that Putin did stop in March 2022, after Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky agreed to forswear membership in NATO. This was the key provision in the Ukraine-Russia deal initialed by Davyd Arakhamia, who at the time was Zelensky’s chief negotiator (and his party’s faction leader in the Rada) at the talks in Istanbul at the end of March, hardly a month into the war.

The Russians lifted their objection to Ukraine joining the EU, as the Ukrainians agreed to neutrality. Security guarantees sought by Kyiv (short of NATO membership) would be worked out. The fighting would stop. Agreement on the status of Crimea would be put off to the future.

Putin and Zelensky reportedly were micromanaging the March 2022 negotiations, and at that early stage the Russians expressed readiness for the two to meet.

At the same time that Biden and other Western leaders raise the alarm that Putin will attack other parts of Europe when he’s through with Ukraine, they claim Russia can’t even take the Ukrainian province of Kharkiv, has lost more than 500,000 men to just 30,000 Ukrainians and its economy is faltering (none of which is true.)  But Cold War Western power was based on an exaggerated Soviet threat and the same is true today.

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Russia accuses U.S. of expanding biological weapons research in Africa

Russia is now accusing the United States of expanding its bioweapons research on the African continent.

Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian Armed Forces’ Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces, made this claim earlier in the week based on information his troops have garnered. The information alleges that the U.S. is shifting gears after similar programs that America had underway in former Ukrainian territories were stopped by Russia during the conflict there.

Kirillov stated: “Because Russia has managed to halt the implementation of biological warfare programs in Ukraine’s liberated territories, the Pentagon is forced to transfer incomplete research under Ukrainian projects to other regions.”

He claimed that U.S. Department of Defense contractors are working on such programs in a number of African countries, including as South Africa, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

According to Kirillov, the U.S. works with outside parties in an attempt to obscure this activity. They named a number of intermediaries, such as EcoHealth Alliance and Metabiota, that they believe are being used as part of the expanded bioweapon biological warfare programs in Africa.

He also identified several examples to support his claims. For example, he pointed to U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases staff carrying out a large-scale study of hantavirus from bats in Kenya last October.

In a more recent example, he cited a meeting between officials from the Pentagon and the Department of Health and Human Services with disease control officials in Africa to explore the possibility of developing lab capabilities there.

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Russia Says It Will Respond to Finland Giving US Access to Bases

On Wednesday, Russia said it would respond to Finland’s move to allow the US access to military bases inside the Nordic nation, which joined NATO last year and shares an over 800-mile border with Russia.

Under a new Defense Cooperation Agreement that was ratified by Finland’s parliament on Monday, the US can access 15 bases in Finland, including a border guard base only 20 miles from the Russian border.

“I can only confirm that Russia will not leave unanswered the NATO military buildup on our border, which threatens the security of the Russian Federation,” said Andrei Nastasin, a deputy spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.

“We will also take the necessary measures, including of a military-technical nature, to counter aggressive decisions by Finland, as well as its NATO allies,” Nastasin added.

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The Last Wunderwaffe

I shall return yet again to the prospect of “Made in the USA” F-16s sallying forth boldly into eastern Ukraine to “teach the cabbage heads what Airpower (capitalized) really means.”

From what information I’ve been able to glean in recent weeks, it does in fact look as though the US is aggressively setting up air ops housekeeping in Romania, very near the Black Sea coast — ostensibly to serve as the base of F-16 operations against Russia.

I submit that the preparation of this base is implicit proof that they have long-since assembled and, likely for many months, have been honing the skills and teamwork of a few squadrons of “NATO-affiliated contractor pilots” — and the plan must be to use them.

You see, if the “true plan” were to put a dozen woefully undertrained Ukrainian apprentice kamikazes behind the wheel of 1980s vintage F-16s, and then wave them off on a glorious one-way mission into the wild blue yonder … well, you don’t need much of a logistical hub for that operation.

So, if they’re really working to prepare what is reputed to be the “largest NATO base in Europe,” the logical conclusion is that it is intended to house, maintain, and sustain at least a couple squadrons of NATO “volunteer” pilots flying much later F-16 models than the European boneyard relics Ukraine has long been promised.

Hey, I say field five full squadrons, and outfit at least a couple of them with the latest model F-16 Vipers.

Go big or go home.

Make it the last “all in” roll of the wunderwaffe dice.

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Ukraine Pushing NATO To Create No-Fly Zone Over Western Ukraine

Ukrainian officials are pushing NATO countries to impose a no-fly zone over western Ukraine using air defense systems in eastern Europe, a step that would mean direct NATO involvement in the war with Russia.

“I don’t understand why NATO doesn’t deploy Patriot systems along the Polish border,” Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker, told AFP. “After all, Russian missiles have already entered Polish and Romanian airspace. This would protect the borders of Poland and Romania, and this would create a safe zone in the west and south of Ukraine.”

The idea is for NATO to protect Ukrainian industry and energy infrastructure in the western portion of the country. But a no-fly zone would require NATO to shoot down Russian missiles and potentially Russian aircraft, and the direct NATO involvement would make nuclear war much more likely.

Despite the huge risk of escalation, Ukraine’s Western backers appear to be entertaining the idea of a no-fly zone. A European diplomatic source told AFP that talks about the issue were “in progress,” adding that it was “not a simple decision.”

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Russia Threatens US Drones in Black Sea Aiding Attacks on Crimea

In response to Ukrainian attacks on the Crimean Peninsula, tensions between the US and Russia have significantly escalated, with Moscow threatening US drones operating over the Black Sea. The Kremlin says the drones are part of the Ukrainian operations in the region. 

On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said there had been an uptick in American drone operations in the Black Sea “carrying out reconnaissance” of the Crimean Peninsula. The statement explained that the Russian military was instructed to prepare an “operational response” to the flights. 

The remarks followed a Ukrainian attack using US cluster munitions that caused the death of four civilians and wounded hundreds of others. Moscow argues that Washington’s support for Kiev makes the US effectively a party to the conflict. “This demonstrates the increasing involvement of the United States and NATO countries in the conflict in Ukraine on the side of the Kiev regime,” the Defense Ministry said. 

As Ukrainian forces have continued to lose territory to Russia on the battlefield, its Western backers have significantly stepped up support for Kiev. The US has allowed Ukraine to use its munitions to strike Russia, signed off on the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine, and sent Abrams Tanks to Ukraine, all actions the White House previously warned could risk provoking World War Three. 

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US DRONE SHOT DOWN OVER BLACK SEA! UAV from Sicilian USAF-CIA Station

The news of the shooting down of a US drone was reported by two Russian Telegram channels – “Military Informant” and “Fighterbomber” – reported by the Italian newspaper La Stampa, according to which, in the past, these two channels have rarely written less than informed things.

The American UAV Shoot Down by Russia aviation

«By the newspaper’s own admission it is, in the first case, one of the most informed Russian telegram channels on what is happening in Russian airspace and aviation. The article quotes what the channel reports as follows: “A Russian MiG-31 fighter shot down a US Air Force reconnaissance drone over the Black Sea. Presumably it is a high-altitude RQ-4B Global Hawk reconnaissance drone.” Shortly after, the channel publishes an update: “Yes, the incident has now been confirmed.”

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Ukraine: the U.S. starts the conflict and tasks Europe with fueling it

The USA, in Europe, behaved like true arsonists. Like any arsonist, they studied the terrain, identifying the main points conducive to propagation and combustion, finally, they caused the ignition and, today, like a painter, in the perspective and security that only distance can provide, they enjoy their destructive work. Satiated with their incendiary thirst, they turn away and leave the victims in charge of fueling the fire they so calculatedly created.

The last approval process for the 61 billion dollars, with its difficulties, advances and setbacks, was already the result of this internal tension. The anxiety of exploiting another hotbed of tension in the Pacific that “contains China”, as well as the need to turn to Israel and its pyromaniac on duty, Netanyahu, led to an internal struggle that was responsible for a sharp drop in supplies to Kiev.

If between April 2022 and September 2023, every quarter, the USA sent at least 7.8 billion dollars in “aid”, even reaching 14.7 billion between July and September 2022, already in the period October 2023 As of March 2024, Kiev has only received $1.7 billion. Data from Kiel Institute, Ukraine Support Tracker.

Although the amounts have, in the meantime, risen again, at least until we see it, the truth is that, contrary to what has been said so much in the mainstream media, it is the European Union and its member states that owes the largest share of “help”. Until April 2024, the European Union and its member states have committed 177.8 billion euros, while the USA only contributes 98.7 billion euros.

But this number alone tells us a lot about who is really paying the cost of fueling the fire spreading across the USA. While the USA and the EU member states, bilaterally, essentially send weapons, equipment that must be paid for, in the case of EU institutions, what is sent is essentially money. Either outright or in the form of loans in which Ukraine receives the money and the European Commission pays the interest and provides guarantees that future payments are made. The path things take tells us who will bear this payment.

Furthermore, these figures do not include expenditure on refugees which, between Germany and Poland alone, exceeds 50 billion euros in subsidies, housing and other types of support. Even in terms of armament, although the USA, when it comes to some types (howitzers and MLRS) takes the largest share, when we go to tanks, air defense and infantry vehicles, it is the Europeans who send the most, many of these systems supplied despite the lack of protection of its own defenses, which, as we know, does not happen with the USA. Europe helps to defend Ukraine, without needing to defend itself. This is the level of commitment reached.

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US, Israel in talks to supply Ukraine with Patriot air defense system: Report

Washington is in talks with Tel Aviv and Kiev to supply the Ukrainian army with Israel’s US-made patriot air defense system, as reported by Financial Times (FT) on 28 June. 

The developing agreement would see the air defense system transferred first from Israel to the US before being sent to Ukraine. 

The deal is being discussed by ministers and senior officials from the US, Israel, and Ukraine, five people familiar with the matter told FT. 

Israel had said in April that it was planning to retire the eight Patriot batteries in its possession and replace them with more sophisticated systems. But the batteries have still not been uninstalled over fears of an escalation with Lebanon’s Hezbollah. 

The transfer would significantly uptick Ukrainian defensive capabilities, marking a shift in Israeli policy toward Ukraine and its relationship with Russia. Tel Aviv has been cautious not to supply Ukraine with lethal aid, over concerns that it could compromise its use of Syrian airspace, where Russian and Israeli air forces have coordinated for years.

In the past, Israel has rejected providing Ukraine with air defenses. 

Despite this, Israeli military vehicles and radars have been spotted on the Ukrainian battlefield, and Tel Aviv has provided intelligence and training assistance. 

Moscow has previously threatened retaliation if Israel sends weaponry to Ukraine.

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