Tag: russia

Russia Says Ukraine Shot Down Plane Carrying Ukrainian POWs

Russia said on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian military transport plane over Russia’s Belgorod Oblast, killing all 74 people onboard, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that its forces registered two anti-aircraft missiles fired from Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast, which borders Belgorod, that hit the IL-76 aircraft. The ministry claimed the POWs were being transported as part of a planned prisoner swap with Ukraine.

Ukraine has not officially confirmed or denied responsibility for the downing of the plane, but sources told Ukrainska Pravda that Ukrainian forces were responsible. The Ukrainian military also hinted it was behind the incident.

In response to the news, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement that it would “continue to destroy means of delivery and control the airspace to eliminate the terrorist threat, including on the Belgorod-Kharkiv front.”

Ukraine’s military intelligence acknowledged in a statement that a prisoner swap was scheduled to take place on Wednesday but said it had no information about who was onboard the downed Russian plane.

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No direct threat from Russia – NATO

NATO sees no threat from Russia toward any of its members, the US-led bloc’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Tuesday during a press conference in Brussels. His comments come as several countries, including Germany and the Baltic states, have raised concerns of a potential future Russian attack.

Answering questions from journalists following the signing of major new investments in artillery ammunition productions, Stoltenberg stated that, “We don’t see any direct or imminent threat against any NATO ally.”

At the same time, he stressed that the bloc nevertheless “closely monitors what Russia does” and has increased its “vigilance and presence in the eastern part of the alliance,” in order to prevent any attacks on allied nations.

Meanwhile, German news outlets have reported in recent weeks that Berlin was preparing for a scenario in which Russia launches an “open attack” on NATO as early as the summer of 2025 after securing a major victory in Ukraine.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also warned on Monday that his country should be ready to respond to a possible Russian attack even though there is no real threat as of now.

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Senior NATO Official Says There Will Be A Hot War With Russia

A high ranking NATO official has stated that people in Europe should prepare for a full on war with Russia sometime in the next two decades.

Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of Nato’s Military Committee, told reporters following a meeting of Nato defence chiefs in Brussels that governments need to start putting preparations in place, and that civilians will need to be mobilised on a large scale.

“We have to realise it’s not a given that we are in peace. And that’s why we [Nato forces] are preparing for a conflict with Russia,”Baur declared.

He continued, “But the discussion is much wider. It is also the industrial base and also the people that have to understand they play a role.”

“It starts there,” Bauer continued, adding “The realisation that not everything is planable and not everything is going to be hunky dory in the next 20 years.”

The Telegraph reports that Baur also heaped praise on Sweden for telling its people to brace for war.

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Conscription may be on its way back after Nato warns of all-out war with Russia

Atop military officer has warned people could be conscripted into the armed forces after Nato admitted it is preparing for an all-out war with Russia.

Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of Nato’s military committee, delivered a chilling message that civilians must brace themselves for the prospect of being called up for military service.

In a stark warning, he said we must all be ready for a full-scale conflict with Russia in the next 20 years that would completely change lives.

The 61-year-old also said large numbers of civilians would need to be mobilised in case World War Three breaks out and that governments would need systems in place to manage the process.

‘We have to realise it’s not a given that we are in peace,’ he told reporters after a meeting between Nato defence chiefs in Brussels.   Continue reading

‘And that’s why we have the plans, that’s why we are preparing for a conflict with Russia.

‘But the discussion is much wider. It is also the industrial base and also the people that have to understand they play a role.’

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Leaked German Military Docs Warn of WWIII with Russia by 2025, Hundreds of Thousands of Troops Deployed in Europe

Leaked classified documents from the German military have warned of a potential full-blown war between Russia and NATO in which hundreds of thousands of troops are deployed in Europe.

Germany’s Bild, the largest circulation newspaper in Europe, has claimed to have obtained classified documents from the Bundeswehr labelled “Classified Information – For Official Use Only” in which the Defence Ministry lays out details for a possible “path to conflict” between Russia and NATO beginning as soon as next month.

Under the scenario laid out by the German military, the Kremlin would begin a mobilisation of 200,000 soldiers in February and launch renewed efforts to capture the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, which it failed to do so at the outset of the invasion in 2022. This would be followed by a series of cyber attacks and other forms of hybrid warfare waged by Moscow intended to destabilise the Baltic states.

Using the destabilisation and potential clashes in border regions as a pretence, Russia would then — the Gemran planning assumptions state — deploy 50,000 soldiers to western Russia and Belarus by September, with massive troop buildups along the Polish and Lithuanian borders as well as the deployment of medium-range missiles to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad between Lithuania and Poland to pre-empt an alleged NATO attack.

The German military then predicted that by December, when the United States will likely be in the transition period between presidents — assuming the defeat of President Joe Biden — a border conflict with “riots with numerous deaths” will be artificially sparked by Russia in the Suwałki Gap, a strategically important corridor between Lithuania and Poland that separates Belarus and Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave.

The border crisis would be used as justification for Russia to send soldiers onto NATO territory to seize the Suwałki Gap while the United States will be in a state of flux. In the plans,  the German army predicted that this would ultimately spark a full-scale war between the West and Russia, with hundreds of thousands of troops being mobilised throughout Europe and fighting to break out by the summer of 2025.

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What Did Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Bridget Brink Have to Do with the Death of US YouTuber Gonzalo Lira in Ukraine Prison?

The Gateway Pundit has filed a FOIA request with the US State Department to find out what role Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland played in the death of US journalist Gonzalo Lira Jan. 11. Disinformation expert Eoin Lenihan called for an investigation of Ukraine’s loony trans spokesperson going by the name of “Sarah Ashton-Cirillo” in connection with Lira’s death.

The Gateway Pundit filed the following Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the State Department today:

What communication was there since Feb. 24, 2022 between the US State Department and the US Embassy in Kiev regarding US citizen Gonzalo Lira?

Specifically, what communication was there since Feb. 24, 2022 between Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador in Kiev Bridget Brink regarding US citizen Gonzalo Lira?

What communication was there since Feb. 24, 2022 within the US Federal Government, and between the US Federal Government and the Ukrainian Government, specifically with the Ukrainian Security Service SBU, regarding US citizen Gonzalo Lira?

It usually takes approx. one month to receive a response to a FOIA request, according to the Office of Information Policy of the Department of Justice.

According to ZeroHedge contributor Liam Cosgrove, Gonzalo Lira’s father Gonzalo Lira Sr. wrote:

My son, GONZALO LIRA, died in a hospital in Kharkiv between 11-12 pm Ukraine time yesterday January 11th, 2024.

I cannot accept the way my son has died. He was tortured, extorted, incommunicado for 8 months and 11 days and the US Embassy did nothing to help my son. The (person responsible for) this tragedy is the dictator Zelensky with the concurrence of a senile American President, Joe Biden.

Please read his file enclosed from that kangaroo Court hearings and you will see that the charges were a political question and Biden gave the green light to that bloody dictator to put my son in prison. My pain is unbearable. The world must know what is going on in Ukraine with that inhuman dictator Zelensky.

IF YOU BELIEVE IN DEMOCRACY AND DECENCY, MAKE THE WORLD KNOW WHAT THEY HAVE DONE TO A DECENT AND VERY INTELLIGENT MAN WHO PREDICTED THAT UKRAINE WOULD NEVER WIN A WAR AGAINST RUSSIA AND THE FINANCIAL PUNISHMENTS WOULD BACKFIRE ON THE USA.

Gonzalo Lira Sr. then posted a link to all the Ukrainian court documents charging Gonzalo Lira with “spreading Russian propaganda”.

There is no evidence Gonzalo Lira had any ties to Russia.

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Russian journalist promising to release details of ‘gigantic corruption’ found dead on side of the road

A journalist who took aim at Russian officials and promised to release details of “gigantic corruption” was found dead near a roadside over the weekend, but the circumstances of his death remain shrouded in mystery.

“It will be almost impossible to determine whether foul play was involved Rybin’s death or whether he died of heart disease as some Russian media outlets claim,” Rebekah Koffler, a strategic military intelligence analyst and the author of “Putin’s Playbook,” told Fox News Digital.

Alexander Rybin, 39, was found near a highway some 130 miles outside the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, where he had spent time reporting on the Russian invasion.

The official cause of death was that he died from “cardiomyopathy” after an autopsy, The Sun reported, citing Russian state media.

Some outlets have described Rybin as a pro-Kremlin journalist, but in the last few weeks of his life he had grown highly critical of officials in the region.

He blamed rampant corruption for the slow rebuilding of the city and Donetsk region. 

In one of his last reports, Rybin reported that Mariupol had “gigantic money” and “gigantic opportunities for corruption.”

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Inside the cult top model joined after visiting Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘pedo island’: Ruslana Korshunova was lured into Moscow’s ‘Rose of the World’ that humiliates members and tells rape victims it was THEIR fault

The last person Kazakh-Russian model Ruslana Korshunova called before she leaped to her death from her Manhattan apartment wasn’t her family, best friend, or even her boyfriend.

Minutes before her suicide on June 28, 2008, the 20-year-old called her ‘life coach’ who months earlier introduced her to shadowy cult Rose of the World.

Vladimir Vorobeyv, who was 22 at the time, met Korshunova at a party in Moscow in December 2007 and began a three-month romance.

Korshunova was at a crossroads, worn out by her frenetic life as a top model that had her at a shoot one day, and partying with billionaires the next.

One of those rich men was convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who flew her on his ‘Lolita Express’ to his private Caribbean island in June 2006, newly released documents revealed on Thursday.

Knowing she was despondent, Vorobeyv introduced her to Rose of the World just weeks after they met, initially signing up for a three-day $900 course.

Rose of the World is run by flashy Russian millionaire Vladislav Novgorodtsev, who shows off his wealth and exotic holidays online. 

Korshunova kept going for three months, along with her friend, fellow model Anastasia Drozdova, who also jumped to her death in 2009.

By the end of March she returned to New York in search of new modelling work but was making increasingly concerning posts on a Russian social media site.

The last day of her life began with a 10am walk next door to buy fruit, then she talked to her boyfriend Mark Kaminsky, then 32, about 12pm.

They made plans to got to a friend’s birthday party that night, before logging back in to the social media site at 12.19pm.

Soon after she called Vorobeyv, telling him: ‘I’m going to go out. I have friends coming by’.

‘She said she was feeling unwell, that she did not want to talk to anybody,’ he said.

‘She was not in a right mood. Before this, she often complained about her bad mood.’

Vorobeyv said just two days earlier she told him: ‘Even if I am not here any more, the whole world will talk about me’.

Minutes before she jumped to her death, Korshunova tried calling Vorobeyv a second time, but he was drinking at a bar and told her to call back later.

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Ukrainian Tragedy That Might Escalate Into Armaggedon

The war in Ukraine is about to enter its 3rd year with no signs of ending, meaning more deaths and destruction for this unfortunate country. It was provoked by those in the U.S. who decided to use Ukrainians for their geopolitical gains which is sort of innovation in military affairs contrary to the U.S. wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries where American soldiers were sent to the battlefields.

Members of Congress from both parties, for example, Richard Blumenthal,  Lindsey Graham, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, and many other politicians and journalists like Washington Post’s Lee Hockstader applauded American military and financial aid to Ukraine presenting it as a well spent bargain because it is “without a single American service woman or man injured or lost.” None of them obviously cares about hundreds of thousands lost lives of Ukrainians as long as they are dying for the sake of U.S. hegemonic ambitions.  So much for their Western and Judeo-Christian values.

This war was easily avoidable until February 23, 2022 when one phone call from Biden to Putin saying that the U.S. accepts neutral status of Ukraine, no longer insists on its entrance to NATO, and agrees to enter into serious strategic security and negotiations which Moscow proposed in December 2021.

However, Biden and his advisors Blinken, Sullivan, Nuland with the bipartisan congressional backup missed this chance because they were sure about having the most powerful packages of sanctions in their pocket that were capable of inflicting a devastating strategic defeat on Russia and pushing it in the geopolitical corner for good.

Still the war that started on February 24 could end quickly in a month or two when the peace deal between the Russians and Ukrainians was ready for signature. Enter British premier Boris Johnson who obviously with the blessing if not instructions from Biden rushed to Kyiv to disrupt it.  Ukrainian comic turned president Zelensky shamefully obeyed in exchange for promises of money and weapons for “as long as necessary.”  Human costs for all of them were not important but the results for Ukrainians were devastating. Now the future waves of Ukrainian cannon fodder including their women and old or sick men are about to be mobilized and thrown into the meat grinder.

This tragedy shouldn’t have happened. After the collapse of the USSR Ukraine not only could have its land intact, including Crimea, but to become one of the most prosperous European states.  The neutrality status would be a roadmap for peace and prosperity but unfortunately for Ukrainians Washington and the West had other plans for their country, which were to turn it into a strategic anti-Russia beachhead.  Two color revolutions, Orange in 2004 and Maidan in 2014 were openly backed by Washington while Maidan was directly coordinated by Biden, Blinken and Sullivan with Nuland working on the location.

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Former Pentagon Official Says War in Ukraine is Basically “Over”

A former top Pentagon official says that the war in Ukraine is effectively “over” because Kiev’s counter-offensive has failed and there is no appetite in America to continue funding it.

Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst, told Sputnik that President Volodymyr Zelensky would have to seriously consider some form of negotiated end to the conflict with Russia.

“There’s no stomach right now any longer to fund the Ukrainians,” he said. “Frankly, the people see that the war is over. Basically, the [Ukrainian] counteroffensive failed, and there’s no way that they can pick it back up and turn things around, because they’ve gone into total defensive mode. The so-called counteroffensive just does not exist.”

The US Congress has failed to reach a deal on sending a further $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, a roadblock that could cause the US government to shut down in January, warned Maloof, predicting a “tumultuous” start to 2024.

“The United States has their appropriations hung up. The US government could shut down by January 17 if the administration and Congress can’t negotiate and work out an arrangement for funding Ukraine and Israel, but at the same time to enforce the border,” he said.

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