Tag: russia

CIA Knew Ukraine Was Planning To Bomb Nord Stream Pipelines

Several Western media outlets reported Tuesday that the CIA warned Ukraine last year not to bomb the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that connect Russia and Germany.

In recent months, US and other Western officials speaking to the media have suggested Ukraine was behind the Nord Stream sabotage. Most reports on the issue have ignored or dismissed the fact that journalist Seymour Hersh has sources who said President Biden ordered the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines.

According to unnamed US officials speaking to The New York Times, Dutch intelligence officials told the CIA in June 2022 that they learned of a Ukrainian military plot to attack the pipelines. The CIA then warned Ukraine not to carry out the attack, and US officials now believe it was postponed to September 2022.

A European official told the Times that Ukraine’s original plan involved Ukrainian special forces renting a submersible vessel to attack the pipelines. The CIA was also said to warn Germany about a potential plot to sabotage Nord Stream.

The latest Nord Stream allegations were first reported by the news outlet Die Zeit and NOS, a Dutch broadcaster. They claimed that the Ukrainian plot was overseen by Valery Zaluchny, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denied Kyiv was involved in the destruction of the pipelines. “I am president, and I give orders accordingly,” he said. “Nothing of the sort has been done by Ukraine. I would never act that way.”

The idea that the US suspected Ukrainian involvement in the Nord Stream bombings first surfaced in a New York Times report that was published on March 7. Sources told Seymour Hersh that the report was a cover-up planted in the paper by the CIA to discredit his story that points the finger at President Biden.

Hersh’s reporting on the Nord Stream plot hasn’t been confirmed, but the US is still a prime suspect as it had a clear motive and US officials made threats against the pipelines. On February 7, 2022, President Biden vowed to “bring an end” to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Russia invaded Ukraine.

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The Government Keeps Lying to Us About Ukraine. Where Is the Outrage? 

On June 4, a group referring to itself as the “Polish Volunteer Corps” issued a boastful announcement confirming its participation in a series of cross-border ground offensives into Russia. News of these audacious raids was jarring enough, given the many prior assurances of U.S. and Ukrainian war planners, who insisted no attacks would be carried out inside Russian territory. It was all the more conspicuous that the incursion units were apparently comprised of Polish soldiers.

Poland, of course, is not only a NATO member state, but the NATO member state with which the U.S. has most assiduously aligned itself since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine (Polish government officials deny any formal connection to the “Polish Volunteer Corps”). So the raids raised an obvious, yet oft-neglected question: Just what the hell is U.S. policy in Ukraine?

If you turn on the TV, you’ll find pundits on every channel loyally reciting from memory the broad parameters of the U.S. mission—at least as it’s being conveyed in daily rhetorical flourishes by Biden Administration officials, assorted Congressional chest-thumpers, and brave think tank warriors. Freedom and autocracy are locked in a great cosmic battle of good versus evil, or so goes the usual storyline—most often narrated with a degree of moral complexity that can be generously compared to a lower-tier Marvel Movie.

But apart from this steady stream of heavily recycled platitudes, was it ever plainly disclosed to Americans—the chief financial sponsors of the Ukraine war effort, after all—that the scope of the war effort they’ve found themselves subsidizing would eventually expand to include platoons of Polish soldiers marching straight into Russia? Did anyone back in Washington, D.C. sign off on this, or was there ever an opportunity granted for public consideration of its potentially foreboding implications?

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Pentagon Personnel Did Not Appropriately Track Weapons Transferred to Ukraine

A report from the Department of Defense Inspector General found Pentagon employees in Poland failed to follow procedures to account for military equipment being transferred to Ukraine. In the shipments of weapons monitored by the office, Pentagon employees failed to properly track the weapons in three of five shipments.

“DoD personnel did not have the required accountability of the thousands of defense items that they received and transferred at Jasionka, [Poland],” it stated. “We observed that DoD personnel did not fully implement their standard operating procedures to account for defense items and could not confirm the quantities of defense items received against the quantity of items shipped for three of five shipments we observed.”

The Pentagon does not “have reasonable assurance that their database of all defense items transferred to the [Ukraine] via air transport in Jasionka was accurate or complete.” The report added, “14 The DoD may risk providing more or less equipment than authorized by [President Joe Biden], and may not be able to verify the quantity of all defense items before they are transferred to [Ukraine].”

One example in the inspector general report explains how weapons are shipped without a manifest. “One shipment containing thousands of small arms, night vision optics devices, and various types of cold weather gear did not include an air manifest.” The report continues, “DoD personnel opened crates to identify the types of defense items contained within the crates, but even then the personnel could not verify whether the number of items they identified represented the true number shipped.”

Since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Washington has shipped tens of billions in weapons to Ukraine, including advanced platforms. The Pentagon inspector general report examined arms shipped to Ukraine directly from American stockpiles. 

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NATO Chief Says Russia Must Lose in Ukraine to Send Message to China

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg met with President Biden in Washington on Tuesday and said Russia must lose in Ukraine to send a message to China as the Western alliance increasingly has its eyes on the Asia Pacific.

“President Putin must not win this war, because that will not only be a tragedy for Ukrainians, but also make the world more dangerous,” Stoltenberg said at the White House before a meeting with Biden.

“It will send a message to authoritarian leaders all over the world, also in China, that when they use military force, they get what they want, and we will then become more vulnerable. So it’s our security interest to support Ukraine,” he added.

Stoltenberg’s comments come as NATO is planning to boost ties with countries in the Asia Pacific. According to a report from Nikkei Asia, the alliance is preparing documents to increase relations with its four main partners in the region, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.

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Ukraine Situation Report: U.S. Sending More Bradleys

The Pentagon tomorrow will announce a new aid package that will include additional Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Stryker Armored Vehicles, a U.S. official tells The War Zone.

“I can confirm that the next Presidential Drawdown Package (expected tomorrow) contains roughly two dozen Bradleys and Strykers,” a U.S. official said in a statement to The War Zone.

The official, confirming earlier reporting by The Voice of America about the types of vehicles to be included, did not know the exact number of each vehicle.

The news about the additional donated armor vehicles comes as the open source tracking group Oryx said that Ukraine has lost 16 Bradleys so far in its counteroffensive. The group, which only tabulates vehicles for which is can visually confirm, does not mention Strykers damaged or destroyed in its latest assessment.

You can read much more about how Ukrainian troops performed in breaching operation that led to a bulk of the destroyed Bradleys in our story here.

To date, the U.S. has donated 109 M2A2-ODS Bradley variants and four B-FIST variants as well as as 90 Strykers.

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The Western Media Is Whitewashing the Azov Battalion

Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has already resulted in millions of losers—chief among them the civilians who’ve been tortured, murdered, forced to become refugees, or forced to spend their days worrying about loved ones fighting Russia.

But there are also winners: the neofascists whom Putin’s war has turned into heroes.

For seven years, Western institutions have warned about Ukraine’s Azov Movement, which began as a neo-Nazi paramilitary group in 2014 and became notorious for its worldwide recruitment of extremists.

Then came Russia’s invasion. Within months, Azov fighters were being feted in Congress and at Stanford University. MSNBC swooned over a Ukrainian soldier whose Twitter account overflowed with neo-Nazi images. Facebook made the stunning decision to allow posts praising the Azov Battalion, even though the company admitted that it was a hate group.

This overnight normalization of white supremacy was possible because Western institutions, driven by a zeal to ignore anything negative about our Ukrainian allies, decided that a neo-Nazi military formation in a war-torn nation had suddenly and miraculously stopped being neo-Nazi.

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White House Set To Approve Depleted Uranium Munitions For Ukraine

The Biden administration is set to transfer depleted uranium shells to Ukraine for the first time since the Russian invasion began The Wall Street Journal reports Tuesday.

Internal administration debate over the controversial munitions has been ongoing for several months, but an admin official quoted in WSJ says at this point there are “no major obstacles” to sending it, which will be used to equip M1 Abrams tanks provided by Washington. 

This came at the request of the Ukrainians themselves: “The Pentagon has urged that the Abrams tanks the U.S. is providing Ukraine be armed with depleted-uranium rounds, which are regularly used by the U.S. Army and are highly effective against Russian tanks,” WSJ writes.

Already the UK has been providing armor piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium for its Challenger 2 main battle tanks. This was first announced by Britain’s defense ministry in late March.

The condemnation from the Kremlin in response to London was swift, with a Russian foreign ministry statement at the time saying it was tantamount to using a “dirty bomb” – given the highly dangerous remnant health effects on the battlefield.

While the UK defense ministry asserted that “Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armored vehicles,” Moscow responded “These shells not only kill, but infect the environment and cause oncology in people living on these lands.”

There have been ongoing attempts over the years of international watchdogs to get depleted uranium shells banned by international treaty. EU parliament, for example, has long pushed for a ban.

A defense analyst cited in the fresh WSJ report describes why they are so sought after by Ukrainian forces: 

“The projectile hits like a freight train,” said Scott Boston, a defense analyst at the Rand Corporation and former Army artillery officer. “It is very long and very dense. So it puts a great deal of kinetic energy on a specific point on an enemy armor array.”

But, as the report also notes, “The proposal has been debated at the White House, where some officials have expressed concern that sending the rounds might open Washington to criticism that it was providing a weapon that may carry health and environmental risks.”

It is the “chemical toxicity” of the metals used which poses the biggest danger, also as upon explosion it is turned into toxic dust which is dispersed on the battlefield and can have a permanent presence. 

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Commodity Prices Debunk The “Blame Ukraine” Excuse For Inflation

Most politicians have used the “Ukraine invasion card” to justify the massive inflationary burst in 2021-2023.

It does not matter if inflation was already elevated prior to the war.

Supply chain disruptions, demand recovery, wage growth… Many excuses were used to justify inflation, except the only one that can make aggregate prices rise in unison, which is the creation of more units of currency well above demand.

Inflationists will blame inflation on anything and everything except the only thing that makes all prices, which are measured in monetary units, rise at the same: Money supply growth rising faster than real economic output.

Supply chain disruption and commodity inflation are caused by monetary expansion: More units of currency going to relatively scarce assets. Profits, wages, or commodities are not causes of inflation, but consequences. The unit used to measure prices is weakened by massive increase of its supply. It is as if I sell apples measured in glasses of milk, and suddenly the issuer of milk puts hundreds of gallons more in the market. My apples will cost more glasses of milk to adjust to the reality of the new unit of measure.

Long-term inflation expectations have risen to 3%, the highest level in twelve years. Furthermore, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in April the Consumer Price Index increased 0.4 percent, seasonally adjusted (SA), and rose 4.9 percent over the past 12 months, not seasonally adjusted (NSA). The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.4 percent in April (SA); up 5.5 percent over the year (NSA). However, commodities have plummeted in the past year.

Crude oil (WTI) is down 38% in the past year, trading below pre-Ukraine invasion level. Gasoil (-44%), gasoline (-40%), heating oil (-44%), natural gas (Henry Hub -74% and NBP -65%) have all plummeted to pre-war levels.

Even wheat is down 30% from a year before June 4th, 2023. The FAO Food Price Index has also corrected to a two-year low in May.

Why do commodities plummet in the middle of the China recovery and elevated demand growth and tight supply? Monetary factors again. The massive rate hikes and the subsequent monetary contraction have impacted the internationally quoted prices of goods all over the world. It is more expensive to purchase storage, finance margin calls, hire tankers and start long positions.

If commodities and the Ukraine war were to blame for inflation, why is the consumer price index remain so elevated? Money supply growth is plummeting but not enough to revert the price expansion of 2020-2023 and, in fact, global money supply has not fallen lower than $101 trillion, according to Bloomberg. That is a significant drop in money supply from its highs, and one that justifies the rapid decline in headline inflation, but not enough to revert the price increases for consumers.

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Germany Fines Woman For Saying Russia Isn’t ‘Aggressor’ And Invasion Of Ukraine Was ‘Necessary’

A Ukrainian national living in the western German city of Cologne has been ordered to pay a fine of around $964 (€900) for making comments in support of Russia’s brazen invasion of Ukraine.

Elena Kolbasnikova — a prominent face among people who support Russian President Vladimir Putin in Germany — “posed a threat to public peace” by delivering a speech at a pro-Russian protest, a court in Cologne said Tuesday while issuing the verdict.

During a protest held last year, Kolbasnikova reportedly said the invasion of Ukraine was “necessary” and also told a television channel that “Russia is not an aggressor,” German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported.

A judge ruled that these comments by the 48-year-old woman were enough evidence to show that she had violated German laws. The woman “endorsed and supported” the Russian war “in a way that was perceptible to others,” the judge said, according to The Telegraph.

Kolbasnikova, nicknamed “Putin‘s fangirl” by German media, was facing a possible prison sentence of up to three years in Germany or a heavy fine. However, the judge only issued the fine after considering the fact that the mother-of-two was unemployed.

The state broadcaster called the fine lenient.

After the sentencing, Kolbasnikova said she was “innocent.”

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RUSSIAN NEO-NAZI FIGHTING PUTIN TAUGHT AT FAR-RIGHT CAMP IN UK

The leader of an anti-Putin militia has disturbing links to an extreme-right wing movement banned in Britain, Declassified has found.

Denis Kapustin, who also uses the names Denis Nikitin and ‘White Rex’, was an instructor at a far-right camp in Wales in 2014.

His presence was noted by a Sunday Mirror investigation that year.

More recently, the White Rex has been in the news for leading the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK).

They are a group of armed dissidents launching raids into Russia from their base in Ukraine since March.

At least two civilians and a child have been killed in their attacks so far, with another 13 wounded.

While the RDK’s far-right ideology was belatedly noted in media reports, the fact its leader spent time teaching neo-Nazis in Britain has so far been forgotten.

He taught at the Sigurd Culture Camp in the Brecon Beacons in August 2014, which was designed to “enthuse them with a sense of racial pride, and to awaken the ‘Spirit Warrior’ within”.

Camp organiser Craig Fraser wanted to recreate Hitler’s SS by drilling his men into shape – and even planned to show footage from ISIS training in Syria at the next session.

The Sunday Mirror said a “key trainer at the event…was Denis Nitikin [sic], the owner and organiser of White Rex, a Russian martial arts and cage fighting club.”

Yesterday immigration minister Robert Jenrick refused to tell parliament what information the Home Office holds on Kapustin’s visit to the UK in 2014 or whether he had since been banned from entering the country, claiming not to comment on individual cases.

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