Tag: russia

SECOND Russian shopping mall is mysteriously destroyed by fire, raising suspicions of sabotage attacks

A new inferno at a Russian shopping mall today has raised suspicions of coordinated sabotage attacks. 

StroyPark Mall in Balashikha, to the east of Moscow, was filmed in flames early Monday as thick black smoke streamed into the sky.

It comes after another fire at the Mega shopping centre in Khimki, also near Moscow and 30 miles from Balashikha, caused explosions which killed one person.

Monday’s fire was reported to cover more than 230,000 sq ft. 

One Telegram channel asked: ‘Fires at Russian shopping centres seem to be breaking out really often these days. Are these sabotage…or?’

The Russian emergencies ministry has officially blamed Monday’s blaze on building materials catching fire inside a construction supplies store.

Ministers did not say how the materials had caught light.

The first last week was also focused around a construction store, with canisters of gas thought to be behind the blasts.

Building material caught fire for unexplained reasons, according to the Russian emergencies’ ministry.

Other recent fires have hit the Mikoyanovsky meat factory, in Moscow, and the Pushkin national art gallery in the centre of the Russian capital.

Keep reading

Incoming House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul Calls for More Arms to Ukraine to Destroy Russian Military

Incoming House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) called for arms to Ukraine to help destroy the Russian military as public officials have increasingly warned about the prospect of a “major war” between the West and Russia.

CBS News asked McCaul about House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) claim that a House Republican majority would not send a “blank check” to Ukraine.

McCaul did not speak to any limitations on aid to Ukraine; instead, the Texas Republican spoke about how arming Ukraine is doing well to destroy the Russian military.

“I support Ukraine. I think going with the amount of investment we’ve had is very small relative to destroying the Russian military. And that’s what we’ve done without one American soldier being attacked, killed, or in country. To me, that’s a pretty good investment,” McCaul said in a Friday interview with CBS News.

McCaul then said that more aid to help Ukraine’s conflict with Russia will come with “oversight,” “transparency,” and “accountability.”

Asked if he favors sending heavier arms to Ukraine in its protracted war with Russia, he said, “One hundred percent because the longer you drag this out, the more bloodshed. And the will of the American people and the Congress will dwindle until we can get this thing over with.”

McCaul spoke after NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned on Friday that a full-blown “major war” between Russia and the West could possibly break out over Ukraine.

Keep reading

The “Nation Rebuilding Industry” Salivates Over Ukraine

The powerful military-industrial complex, with generous campaign contributions funneled via K-Street lobbyists to both parties, celebrated a huge victory yesterday. By getting overwhelming majorities in both chambers to approve a whopping, unprecedented $856 billion Pentagon bill, America’s defense industries are assured of continued prosperity for years to come. Pentagon budgets are rarely cut year after year and generally only rise with time.

The amount was $45 billion more than what President Biden, a huge spendthrift who loves deficit expenditures, requested. The war in Ukraine and tensions in the Taiwan Strait were used as justification for the massive bill. Never mind that neither issue was on Congressional minds a year ago or need have been today had the State Department resorted to diplomacy rather than promoting war.

Keep reading

US to unveil new military aid package for Ukraine

Washington is about to send another security assistance package to Kiev, which will include anti-drone and air defense systems, Reuters reported, citing sources. The $275 million measure is expected to be officially announced on Friday.

According to officials and documents cited by the news agency, the security aid will also include rockets for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), 155mm ammunition, Humvee vehicles, and generators. At the same time, there are no details on the air defense equipment, the report says. In addition to this, the contents and the size of the aid package may change before it is approved by US President Joe Biden.

The new measure is expected to be covered by the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows Washington to dispatch military equipment quickly and without congressional approval.

Keep reading

NBC Scrubs Bombshell Report That Russia Offered America Brittney Griner OR Paul Whelan in Exchange for Viktor Bout – Biden Had a Choice

NBC News scrubbed its bombshell report that Russia offered the US Brittney Griner OR former Marine Paul Whelan in exchange for the “Merchant of Death.”

Joe Biden on Thursday announced he traded the world’s most wanted fugitive, Russian Viktor Bout, AKA, the “Merchant of Death” for pot-smoking anti-American baller Brittney Griner.

The White House on Thursday said Joe Biden did not have a choice.

“Unfortunately, the choice became to either bring Brittney home or no one,” Karine Jean-Pierre said.

However, according to NBC News, Joe Biden had a choice: Brittney Griner OR Paul Whelan.

Citing a senior government official, NBC News said, “…Russia has treated Whelan differently because he is an accused spy, and that the Kremlin gave the White House the choice of either Griner or Whelan – or none.”

Keep reading

Brittney Griner freed in prisoner swap for ‘Merchant of Death’ Viktor Bout

WNBA star Brittney Griner was released from a Russian prison Thursday as part of an exchange for notorious international arms dealer Viktor Bout, almost ten months after she was arrested on drug charges at a Moscow airport.

“She’s safe, she’s on a plane, she’s on her way home,” President Biden said in remarks from the White House, where he was joined by Griner’s wife, Cherelle. The two spoke with the Phoenix Mercury center over the phone, according to senior White House officials.

“She’s on her way home, after months of being unjustly detained in Russia, held under intolerable circumstances,” Biden said. “Brittney will soon be back in the arms of her loved ones and she should have been there all along. This is a day we’ve worked toward for a long time. We never stopped pushing for her release.”

Keep reading

The US Is Now Propping Up Tiny Moldova’s Energy Sector Too

This week US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the US is prepping more aid to the Ukrainian government, particularly focusing on propping up its devastated energy infrastructure, but also for the first time unveiling that the tiny country of Moldova will be receiving significant aid for its failing energy grid.

“We know that standing up for Ukraine means accepting difficult costs, particularly for our European allies, but the cost of inaction would be far higher,” Blinken began in Wednesday comments. “Caving to Russia’s aggression, accepting its brazen attempts to redraw borders by force, to tear up the rulebook that has made all of us more secure – that would have repercussions not only in Europe but quite literally around the world.”

That’s when he announced decisions made at a NATO meeting of ministers in Romania: “When we convened that group yesterday here in Bucharest, I announced that the United States will commit over $53 million to send equipment to help stabilize Ukraine’s energy grid and keep Ukraine’s power and electricity running.”

He specified $1.1 billion going to both Ukraine and Moldova:

We’ve also submitted a request to Congress for $1.1 billion to secure Ukraine and Moldova’s energy sector and restore their energy supply.  And we will take strong, coordinated action to ensure that President Putin cannot hold the rest of the world hostage to weaponized energy.

Starting last month, Moldovan authorities began informing Western allies it is suffering “massive” blackouts in relations to stepped of Russian airstrikes in neighboring Ukraine.

Keep reading

NATO Exists To Solve The Problems Created By NATO’s Existence

NATO has doubled down on its determination to eventually add Ukraine to its membership, renewing its 2008 commitment to that goal in a meeting between the foreign ministers of the alliance in Bucharest, Romania this past Tuesday.

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp writes:

The Romanian city was where NATO initially made the promise to Ukraine back in 2008, and at the time, US officials acknowledged that attempting to bring the country into the alliance could spark a war in the region.

“We made the decision in Bucharest in 2008 at the summit,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday. “I was there … representing Norway as Prime Minister. I remember very well the decisions. We stand by those decisions. NATO’s door is open.”

In a joint statement, the NATO foreign ministers, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said that they “reaffirm” the decisions that were made at the 2008 Bucharest summit.

It has become fashionable among the mainstream western commentariat to claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had nothing to do with NATO expansion, but as recently explained by Philippe Lemoine for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, that’s a completely false narrative that requires snipping past comments made by Putin out of the context in which they were made. Many western experts warned for years in advance that NATO expansion would lead to a conflict like the one we’re seeing today, and they were of course correct.

The recent push to expand NATO in Ukraine along with nations like Finland and Sweden as justified by “Russian aggression” is a good example of what professor Richard Sakwa has called the “fateful geographical paradox: that NATO exists to manage the risks created by its existence.” As the late scholar on US-Russia relations Stephen Cohen explained years before the Ukraine crisis erupted in 2014, Moscow sees NATO as an “American sphere of influence,” and the expansion of NATO and NATO influence as expansion of that sphere. It reacts to this with hostility just as the US would react to China or Russia building up aggressive military alliances on its borders, and arguably with vastly more restraint than the US would.

Keep reading