Tag: russia

Western press fetishizes Ukrainian amputees as limb loss epidemic grows

With Ukrainian forces reportedly suffering a level of amputations reminiscent of WWI, a New York Times proxy war propagandist is spinning amputees as sex symbols and painting their gruesome injuries as “magical.”

After 18 months of devastating proxy warfare, the scale of the depletion of the Ukrainian military is so extensive that even mainstream sources have been forced to concede the cruel reality. On August 1, The Wall Street Journal reported that “between 20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainians” have “lost one or more limbs since the start of the war.” What’s more, the outlet notes, “the actual figure could be higher” because “it takes time to register patients after they undergo the procedure.”

By comparison, around 67,000 Germans and 41,000 Britons underwent amputations during the entire four-year span of the First World War. The publication quotes the head of a group of former military surgeons who train Ukrainian military medics who maintained that “Western military surgeons haven’t seen injuries on this scale since World War II.”

While the implications of the Journal’s report have largely been studiously ignored by Western media, at least one mainstream journalist has displayed a keen interest in Kiev’s amputees. The New York Times’ columnist and ardent liberal interventionist Nicholas Kristof practically fetishized the mass disfigurement of Ukrainian combat veterans in the name of Washington’s war du jour. 

In a July 8 op-ed titled “They’re Ready to Fight Again, on Artificial Legs,” Kristof insisted that rather than resenting being used as cannon fodder, Ukraine’s newly-disabled veterans “carry their stumps with pride.”

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Biden Admin Sanctions Don’t Apply Again to Russian Oligarchs Who Paid Biden Family

President Joe Biden’s administration spared Hunter Biden’s Russian billionaire business associates from a sanctions list recently issued by the State Department.

Late Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s wife, Yelena Baturina — who dined with then-Vice President Biden in April 2014 — and oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov — who arranged at least two meetings with Hunter Biden while his father was vice president — again escaped the crushing sanctions from the Biden administration levied on the Russian elites as a result of the Ukrainian war.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated Friday that the United States added four more Russian oligarchs to its sanction list. Despite their qualifications of resembling fellow Russian oligarchs, Baturina and Yevtushenkov were kept off the list.

“[T]he United States is imposing sanctions on four prominent members of Russia’s financial elite who have served on the supervisory board of the Alfa Group Consortium, one of the largest financial and investment conglomerates in Russia,” Blinken wrote:

We are also imposing sanctions on the Russian Association of Employers the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), a Russian business organization involved in the technology sector of the Russian Federation economy. The organization has promoted import substitution and convened meetings to promote responses to sanctions.

The United States will continue to take all appropriate action to hold accountable those who enable and profit from Russia’s war against Ukraine.

According to the Atlantic Council, the U.S. has more than 2,700 sanctions against Russia. Since the Ukrainian war began last year, the Biden administration imposed approximately 1,500 new and 750 amended sanctions and export controls against Russia.

Russian oligarchs Baturina and Yevtushenkov, however, are somehow immune to sanctions.

In March, they were also left off a list of sanctioned Russians, as Breitbart News reported. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to answer why the Biden administration refused to sanction the Russian oligarchs.

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Russia heads back to the Moon with Luna 25

Russia’s space agency successfully launched a robotic spacecraft Thursday on a journey to the Moon, the country’s first lunar explorer since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 sample return mission in 1976.

The Luna 25 mission lifted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, located in Russia’s Far East, at 7:10 pm ET (23:10 UTC). Heading east, a Soyuz-2.1b rocket propelled Luna 25 through an overcast cloud deck and into the stratosphere, then shed its four first-stage boosters about two minutes into the flight. A core stage engine fired a few minutes longer, and the Soyuz rocket jettisoned its payload shroud.

A third-stage engine fired next, then gave way to a Fregat upper-stage to place Luna 25 in orbit around Earth. The Fregat engine fired a second time to send the nearly 4,000-pound (1.8-metric ton) lunar probe on a roughly five-day trip toward the Moon. Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, declared the launch a success less than 90 minutes after liftoff, shortly after the Luna 25 spacecraft separated from the Fregat upper stage.

This is historic for Russia’s space program. Russia hasn’t launched a lunar mission in nearly 50 years and hasn’t had a mission successfully fly to any other planetary body since 1988, despite several attempts. Thursday’s launch was a major moment for Luna 25, but its departure from Earth on a reliable and proven Soyuz rocket was not the riskiest part of the mission. That will come in a couple of weeks when Luna 25 begins its powered descent toward the lunar surface.

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American Neo-Nazi Training Forces in Maine to Fight for Ukraine

Christopher Pohlhaus, a former Marine and prominent Neo-Nazi – has purchased land in Maine to train soldiers to fight for Ukraine. He sees the war against Russia as a unique chance to fight alongside the Azov Battalion and defend a nearly “all-white nation.”

Last year, Pohlhaus bought at least ten acres of land in Springfield, Maine. Although he claims he owns over 100 acres. Pohlhaus has discussed his ambitious plans for his Maine training grounds on social media. In a Telegram channel, he posted, “There will likely not be another chance in my lifetime to fight alongside other [National Socialist] men against a multi-ethnic invading empire to defend an almost all white nation.”

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Pohlhaus confirmed he hoped his Blood Tribe would join the Azov Battalion and C14 – prominent Ukrainian Neo-Nazi militias – in the fight against Russia. Scott Horton, Director of the Libertarian Insititute, Tweeted an article about the land in Maine and asked, “They going to fight with the Azov Battalion and C14 on the eastern front?” Pohlhaus – nicknamed “The Hammer” – responded directly to Horton, saying, “Yes, actually.” 

It is unclear how far the Blood Tribe fighters have progressed in their training. One reporter visited the site and said no group members were present. Local officials report Pohlhaus has not begun applying for permits to build structures on his property. Pohlhaus said he has purchased a sawmill and plans to build cabins for his soldiers. 

Since civil war broke out in Ukraine after a coup in 2014, Neo-Nazis have flocked to the country to fight for Kiev. Ukrainian Neo-Nazis have held important positions in government, and national socialist militias have been a crucial part of Kiev’s war machine. 

Early in the war, thousands of Neo-Nazis arrived in Ukraine to fight for a “shared vision for an ultranationalist ethno-state.” While Washington has attempted to dismiss the role of Neo-Nazis in Ukraine as Russian propaganda, the New York Times admitted that Western journalists were asking Ukrainian troops to remove Neo-Nazi symbols before taking photos of them. 

Additionally, the Russian Volunteer Corps – a militia aligned with Kiev – used American weapons to carry out attacks inside Russia. The fighters in the group openly wear Nazi symbols, such as the Black Sun. 

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SECRET PAKISTAN CABLE DOCUMENTS U.S. PRESSURE TO REMOVE IMRAN KHAN

THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT encouraged the Pakistani government in a March 7, 2022, meeting to remove Imran Khan as prime minister over his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to a classified Pakistani government document obtained by The Intercept.

The meeting, between the Pakistani ambassador to the United States and two State Department officials, has been the subject of intense scrutiny, controversy, and speculation in Pakistan over the past year and a half, as supporters of Khan and his military and civilian opponents jockeyed for power. The political struggle escalated on August 5 when Khan was sentenced to three years in prison on corruption charges and taken into custody for the second time since his ouster. Khan’s defenders dismiss the charges as baseless. The sentence also blocks Khan, Pakistan’s most popular politician, from contesting elections expected in Pakistan later this year.

One month after the meeting with U.S. officials documented in the leaked Pakistani government document, a no-confidence vote was held in Parliament, leading to Khan’s removal from power. The vote is believed to have been organized with the backing of Pakistan’s powerful military. Since that time, Khan and his supporters have been engaged in a struggle with the military and its civilian allies, whom Khan claims engineered his removal from power at the request of the U.S.

The text of the Pakistani cable, produced from the meeting by the ambassador and transmitted to Pakistan, has not previously been published. The cable, known internally as a “cypher,” reveals both the carrots and the sticks that the State Department deployed in its push against Khan, promising warmer relations if Khan was removed, and isolation if he was not.

The document, labeled “Secret,” includes an account of the meeting between State Department officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, and Asad Majeed Khan, who at the time was Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S.

The document was provided to The Intercept by an anonymous source in the Pakistani military who said that they had no ties to Imran Khan or Khan’s party. The Intercept is publishing the body of the cable below, correcting minor typos in the text because such details can be used to watermark documents and track their dissemination.

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20,000-50,000 Ukrainians Have Lost Limbs Since Russia Invaded

Between 20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainians have lost one or more limbs since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

The figure is based on estimates made by prosthetics firms, doctors, and charities. The number could be higher as it takes time to register amputees after they undergo surgery, and fighting has intensified since Ukraine launched its counteroffensive in June.

The higher-end estimate of 50,000 came from the German prosthetics manufacturer Ottobock, which cited data from the government and medical partners. The estimate of 20,000 was based on data from the Kyiv-based charity Health of the Ukrainian People ICF. The charity estimates the number of serious injuries in the war is at 200,000 and says about 10% of serious injuries typically require amputations.

The number of Ukrainian amputations puts the war on the scale of World War I. According to the report, some 67,000 Germans and 41,000 Britons had to have amputations during the four-year war. Less than 2,000 Americans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan in this century have had amputations.

Ukraine has kept its casualty rates a secret throughout the war for propaganda purposes, but the staggering number of Ukrainians who lost limbs gives an idea of the human cost of the war.

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When Our Weapons Go Missing

Fears of loose weapons in Ukraine have become reality: Once American weapons arrive, Ukrainian criminals steal them. If U.S. arms transfer policies are not changed, Washington will inevitably accidentally arm groups that actively want to harm the United States.

In June, two separate Department of Defense inspector general reports revealed poor monitoring when U.S. weapons are transferred to Ukraine. Challenges in Ukraine’s war zone have made it nearly impossible to track the weapons.

The first report found that the personnel responsible for ensuring accountability were given no “training or guidance.” It concluded that the Pentagon does “not have accountability controls sufficient enough to provide reasonable assurance that its inventory of defense items transferred to [Ukraine] via the air hub in Jasionka was accurate or complete.”

The second report discovered that the Office of Defense Cooperation–Kyiv was unable to monitor how American military equipment was put to use. Indeed, monitors could not “visit areas where equipment provided to Ukraine was being used or stored.”

Such problems are not unique to Ukraine, but the Biden administration has been open to accepting the possibility of weapons dispersion when it comes to Ukraine’s war. Yet discounting these perils comes with four long-term security risks.

First, larger weapons systems have a high value on the black arms market. In Afghanistan, for example, the Taliban has been able to continue funding itself through its already existing smuggling networks by selling U.S. weapons left behind in the withdrawal. These weapons are now used in attacks in Pakistan, Kashmir, and the Gaza Strip.

Even before the war, Ukraine had one of the largest illegally trafficked arms markets in Europe, according to the 2021 Global Organized Crime Index. This has only intensified since the Russian invasion. For example, in August 2022 a criminal organization in Ukraine stole and intended to sell 60 rifles and 1,000 rounds of ammunition.

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US Was Behind Both Crimean Bridge Attacks: Seymour Hersh

Legendary national security journalist Seymour Hersh has published a report this week alleging US intelligence helped the Ukrainians blow up the Kerch Bridge (or also, Crimean Bridge), which happened earlier this month and corresponded to President Putin refusing to renew the Black Sea Grain Initiative deal.

What’s more is that Hersh’s sources described that the US assisted in the initial, larger Kerch Bridge explosion which had initially temporarily disabled it in October 2022. “The Biden administration’s role in both attacks was vital,” he wrote in a Thursday Substack investigative article.  

“Of course it was our technology,” an unnamed US official told Hersh, referring to the sea drone which detonated under the vital bridge on July 17. “The drone was remotely guided and half submerged–like a torpedo.”

The source cited is said to be a US intelligence official who is speaking out anonymously “from the point of view of those in the American intelligence community who don’t feel they have the ear of President Joe Biden but should.”

“Our national strategy is that Zelensky can do whatever he wants to do. There’s no adult supervision,” the US official complained.

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Some US arms shipments to Ukraine ending up in hands of criminal gangs, arms traffickers, watchdog says

U.S. Defense Department arms shipments to Ukraine have come with very little oversight, and at times end up in the hands of criminal gangs and weapons traffickers.

Criminal gangs within Ukraine have gotten their hands on some U.S. shipments of grenade launchers, machine guns, rifles, bulletproof vests, and thousands of rounds of ammunition since the U.S. began supplying the Ukrainian military with arms, according to a Department of Defense Inspector General report obtained by the Heritage Foundation.

The 19-page report, which was issued last October and only became public after a Heritage Foundation Freedom of Information Act request, details specific instances in which U.S. shipments were intercepted by criminal actors in Ukraine. In one example, Ukraine’s security services, Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrainy (SBU), disrupted a plot by gangs to pose “as members of a humanitarian aid organization who distributed bulletproof vests.”

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New York Times admits, then covers up, massive Ukraine casualties

Since January of this year, the New York Times has published dozens of articles claiming that Ukraine’s “spring offensive” would be a decisive turning point in the war with Russia. But this offensive, now six weeks old, has turned into a debacle. While Ukrainian forces have nowhere breached Russia’s main defensive line, tens of thousands of troops have died.

This is the context in which the New York Times published and quickly edited an article presenting a realistic, and therefore nightmarish, depiction of the Ukrainian troops as little more than cannon fodder, “forced into action” to face almost certain death.

Buried on page A9 and not referenced on the front page of the print edition, the extensive and detailed report on Ukraine’s offensive was titled, “Depleted Troops, Unreliable Munitions: Kyiv’s Obstacles in the East.” It included a sub-headline describing the offensive as a “grisly stalemate.”

With equally little notice, that article had been published online the day before under the title, “Weary Soldiers, Unreliable Munitions: Ukraine’s Many Challenges.”

The article presented Ukraine’s offensive as a bloody debacle, in which Ukrainian forces have suffered massive casualties, who are then replaced with older recruits who are “forced” to fight.

The article documented three new, previously undisclosed revelations:

  • There exists a unit in Ukraine with a “200 percent” casualty rate, meaning that all of its members were killed or injured, then replaced with recruits, all of whom were killed or injured.
  • The munitions provided to Ukraine are often so old that they regularly misfire or accidentally detonate, injuring soldiers.
  • After young troops are killed in combat, they are typically replaced with much older people, a sign that Ukraine is running out of fighting-age troops.

Typically, a journalist who uncovered these facts based on firsthand reporting would proclaim each of them a “scoop” and take to Twitter to publicize them.

But the method of the New York Times is that of the buried lede, to take these potentially explosive revelations and stick them in an article on the inside pages, which is quickly removed from the newspaper’s online front page.

In this case, however, merely burying these revelations was insufficient. It was necessary to erase them.

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