Tag: russia

Ukraine parliament passes mobilisation bill to boost troop numbers

Ukraine’s parliament has passed a bill to overhaul how the military drafts civilians in an attempt to boost its number of soldiers more than two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The bill, which dropped a set of draconian draft-dodging penalties that sparked public outrage, was backed by the armed forces.

Before the bill’s passage on Thursday, a general told parliament that Russia has up to 10 times more soldiers than Ukraine on battlefields in the east.

“Pass this law and the Ukrainian armed forces will not let down you or the Ukrainian people,” General Yuriy Sodol told lawmakers.

“We are maintaining our defences with our last strength,” he said as lawmakers stood up and applauded more than a dozen commanders who attended the session.

Military analysts have said Ukraine’s armed forces need to address acute problems with manpower and their artillery shell shortage as better-equipped Russian forces make advances in the east.

“The enemy outnumbers us by seven to 10 times. We lack manpower,” said Sodol, who commands Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine.

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Ukraine at “Serious Risk” of Losing War, Warns Top Ex-General

Ukraine is at “serious risk” of having to admit defeat to Russia this year, according to the former commander of the UK’s Joint Forces Command.

General Sir Richard Barrons, the former head of Strategic Command (StratCom), issued the warning during an interview with the BBC.

Barrons said that pessimism is starting to set in amongst the population, generating a general malaise and a feeling that Ukraine “can’t win.”

“And when it gets to that point, why will people want to fight and die any longer, just to defend the indefensible?” Barrons asked.

Despite deploying massive resources and manpower to try to seize back territory, Ukraine has been largely unsuccessful, and an expected Russian summer offensive could mark the beginning of the end, according to Barrons.

“At some point this summer, we expect to see a major Russian offensive, with the intent of doing more than smash forward with small gains to perhaps try and break through the Ukrainian lines,” he asserted.

The former general warned that Russia has a five to one advantage in terms of artillery and ammunition, as well as superior troop numbers who are ensuring the Ukrainian frontline in the east of the country is being “battered away.”

“And if that happens we would run the risk of Russian forces breaking through and then exploiting into areas of Ukraine where the Ukrainian armed forces cannot stop them,” said Barrons.

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US Helps Pro-Ukraine Media Run A Fog Machine Of War

Ukraine’s American-backed fight against Russia is being waged not only in the blood-soaked trenches of the Donbas region but also on what military planners call the cognitive battlefield – to win hearts and minds.

A sprawling constellation of media outlets organized with substantial funding and direction from the U.S. government has not just worked to counter Russian propaganda but has supported strong censorship laws and shutdowns of dissident outlets, disseminated disinformation of its own, and sought to silence critics of the war, including many American citizens.

Economist Jeffrey Sachs, commentator Tucker Carlson, journalist Glenn Greenwald, and University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer are among the critics on both the left and the right who have been cast as part of a “network of Russian propaganda.”

But the figures targeted by the Ukrainian watchdog groups are hardly Kremlin agents. They simply have forcefully criticized dominant narratives about the war.

Sachs is a highly respected international development expert who has angered Ukrainian officials over his repeated calls for a diplomatic solution to the current military conflict. Last November, he gave a speech at the United Nations calling for a negotiated peace.

Mearsheimer has written extensively on international relations and is a skeptic of NATO expansion. He predicted that Western efforts to militarize Ukraine would lead to a Russian invasion.

Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning independent journalist who has criticized not just war coverage but media dynamics that suppress voices that run counter to U.S. narratives.

“What they mean when they demand censorship of ‘pro-Russia propaganda’ is anything that questions the US/EU role in the Ukraine war or who dissents from their narratives,” Greenwald has observed.

There’s no evidence of Kremlin influence over their viewpoints, but their comments alone are enough for a network of U.S.-backed Ukrainian media groups to tarnish these experts as Russian propagandists.  

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US General Says NATO Could Surge Troops into Eastern Europe

A top US commander told Congress that NATO was prepared for a massive troop surge into Eastern Europe. The alliance has already positioned thousands of troops in its most eastward states. 

Gen. Christopher Cavoli, head of US European Command, told Congress on Wednesday that NATO is prepared to triple its troop deployments to Eastern Europe. “In the immediate aftermath of the invasion, NATO took the decision to establish new battlegroups on a standing basis,” he said. “By design, they can all go up to brigade size at a time of need. And a number of nations have already elected to go up to that.”

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the North Atlantic alliance engaged in a massive eastward buildup, adding l battle groups in four additional countries it dubs its “eastern flank.”

NATO now has battlegroups consisting of at least 1,000 soldiers in each country. Generally, a brigade is 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers, meaning the NATO deployments could be more than tripled. The general explained that the deployments are a part of “a definite shift eastward.”  

The US now has over 100,000 troops in Europe. Other countries, such as Germany, have also moved troops eastward. Earlier this week, Berlin announced it had permanently moved troops into Lithuania for the first time since World War II. 

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German Troops Arrive in Lithuania for First Permanent Deployment Since WWII

On Monday, Germany began deploying troops to Lithuania, where they will be stationed permanently, marking the first deployment of its kind for the German military since World War II.

Only two dozen German soldiers have arrived in Lithuania so far, and the force will increase to 4,800 by 2027. Germany already leads a NATO deployment in Lithuania with 1,000 troops, but the new force will be permanent.

“This is the first time that we have permanently stationed such a unit outside of Germany,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said at a farewell ceremony in Berlin, according to The Associated Press. He said the deployment was “an important day for the German army.”

Lithuania shares a border with Kaliningrad, the Russian Oblast on the Baltic Sea that’s separated from the Russian mainland. The country also borders Belarus, a treaty ally of Russia that now hosts Russian nuclear weapons.

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Is There A CIA Link To The Crocus City Center Terrorist Attack?

Real life is better than the movies. No doubt. Today’s surprise comes out of Moscow, with an announcement from the State organization charged with investigating major crimes that the Ukrainian company Burisma was involved with financing terrorists:

Russia’s top investigative body announced Tuesday that it has launched a criminal probe into senior officials in the United States and NATO member countries who are suspected of “financing terrorism.”

Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said it has “established” that money from commercial organizations had been used to “eliminate prominent political and public figures” inside and outside Russia in recent years, as well as to “inflict economic damage” against the country. . . .

The top law enforcement body named the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings as one of the implicated organizations. U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden served as a member of Burisma’s board of directors between 2014 and 2019.

So, what’s the big deal. We already knew about Hunter. What does that have to do with the CIA? Does the name Cofer Black ring a bell?

International Energy Group Burisma has expanded its Board of Directors to include an expert in the field of security and strategic development. Joseph Cofer Black, a former Director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center and Ambassador at Large for counter-terrorism recently joined the Board as an independent director at Burisma Group. Ambassador Black resigned from public service in 2005 after a 30 year career  and is considered a  leading expert and significant figure on  U.S. and international security issues.  

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‘Neo-Nazi Satanist cannibals’ who lured woman to her death as a human sacrifice then ‘roasted and ate another victim’s flesh and ribs’ are jailed in Russia

Four ‘neo-Nazi Satanists’ accused of luring a woman to her death as a human sacrifice and then ‘roasting’ and eating another her have been jailed in Russia.

Andrey Tregubenko, 36, was found to have invited Victoria Zaitseva, 27, on a trip to Karelia, near the Finnish border, in June 2016, where the victim was ambushed by Tregubenko and his girlfriend, Olga Bolsakova, 36, in a forest.

Zaitseva, who is understood to have been in love with Tregubenko, died after she was stabbed multiple times with a knife. She was then thrown into a pre-dug hole, covered with brushwood and set alight.

In August, the couple met Alexander Perevozchikov-Khmury and Tatyana Deryugina, also sentenced Tuesday, who agreed to commit another ‘sacrifice’ with them.

Platon Stepanov, known as Wilhelm Torquemada, 27, was named locally as the man drawn into a forest in the Leningrad region after being groomed by Bolshakova, with whom he shared an interest in black magic and Satanism.

Stepanov was then beaten severely and stabbed to death, as reported by state-owned agency RIA. The killers would later confess to slicing off his flesh and ribs – and roasting and eating the human meat. The body was, again, hidden in a hole and ‘burned at the stake’.

In the third such killing, also in August 2016, Tregubenko stabbed to death aquaintance while drunk during an argument. The group then retired to a nearby apartment where they performed a ritualistic ceremony with the victim’s blood before disposing of the knife in a pond.

After three years of intensive investigation, the Moscow Regional Court sentenced the gang to varying terms in prison for their involvement in the killings.

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Moscow Accuses Hunter Biden-Linked Company Burisma Of Financing Terror Attacks

Russia says it has uncovered more damning evidence connecting the US and NATO to recent terror and assassination campaigns in Russia, including making connections to the March 22 Crocus City Hall terror attack which resulted in over 140 Russians dead and hundreds more wounded and injured.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, which is the country’s top investigative body, announced Tuesday that it has launched a criminal probe into senior US and Western officials who are believed to be “financing terrorism”. 

The formal statement claims that an ongoing investigation has “established” that money from commercial organizations tied to NATO were used to “eliminate prominent political and public figures” inside and outside Russia, as well as to “inflict economic damage” against the country. Lately there’s also been a spate of devastating cross-border attacks on refineries, ports, and oil facilities.

Another major event and probe which is high on the Kremlin’s agenda is the August 20, 2022 assassination of Darya Dugina outside of Moscow, in a car bombing which authorities believe was likely intended to kill her father, Alexander Dugin, prominent philosopher and pundit who is seen as a close ally of President Putin. There’s also the assassination of famous pro-Kremlin military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, killed in an April 2023 cafe bombing in St. Petersburg..

While it is nothing new that Russian officials would raise suspicions that such targeted attacks had covert NATO support, whether directly or indirectly, what is new – and a bit surprising – is that the name Burisma Holdings appears in the fresh statement of the Russian Investigative Committee. 

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Ukraine Resorting to Drafting Retarded Men

Video has surfaced apparently showing a mentally retarded man within the ranks of the Ukrainian military after the war torn nation abolished its ‘fit for limited military service‘ requirement.

While the notion of drafting retarded individuals may sound insane and abusive, just 8 percent of Ukrainian citizens are willing to take up arms against Russia, and with poll numbers like that it makes more sense why the Zelensky regime would be attracted to soldiers who cannot grasp the concept of death.

The nation also recently lowered its conscription age from 27 to 25 in a bid to replace the dwindling fighting force in its ongoing war against Russia.

The shortage of able-bodied, able-minded men has gotten so severe that entire towns are devoid of men and teams of conscription officers are kidnapping 14 year old boys in an attempt to fill the ranks.

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Senators Condemn Russia Over American Citizen’s ‘Ludicrous’ Incarceration For Medical Marijuana

A coalition of more than 20 U.S. senators has filed a resolution condemning the arrests of American citizens in Russia, including a Pennsylvania medical cannabis patient, Marc Fogel, who is serving a a 14-year sentence over simple possession of marijuana.

Sponsored by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), the measure was filed to mark the one-year anniversary of the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich over unfounded allegations of espionage.

“By introducing this resolution, we’re yet again bringing to light the cruelty of the Russian government,” Durbin, who also chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a press release on Tuesday. “As fellow Americans, we demand the release of all American citizens who face arbitrary arrests by the Russian government.”

The senator said in a floor speech on Thursday that Fogel’s arrest over possession of medical cannabis he was prescribed in a legal state resulted in a “ludicrous 14-year sentence in Russian labor camps.”

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who is among the prime cosponsors, said Fogel was “detained for carrying a small amount of medical marijuana, which was prescribed by his doctor.”

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