Tag: russia

Ukrainian Intelligence Says China Helping Russia Target Western-Funded Facilities In Ukraine

Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Agency official Oleh Alexandrov has told the state news agency Ukrinform that China has been directly assisting Russia with intelligence for use on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Specifically he said China is providing foreign intelligence to target those sites in Ukraine which benefit from foreign investment, meaning Western-backed and funded facilities, likely such as weapons production sites.

“There is evidence of a high level of cooperation between Russia and China in conducting satellite reconnaissance of the territory of Ukraine in order to identify and further explore strategic objects for targeting,” said Alexandrov. “As we have seen in recent months, these sites may belong to foreign investors.”

The Kremlin on Monday responded by rejecting the allegation, saying that it possesses all capabilities to not have to rely on any outside country or ally.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov when specifically asked about the new allegation from Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Agency said as follows:

“We have our own capabilities, including space capabilities, to accomplish all the tasks the special military operation poses,” he told reporters.

But the last year of the war has seen Moscow deepen its cooperation both with the Chinese and North Korean militaries.

The presence of North Korean troops within Russian forces is well-known, but Kiev has more recently alleged Chinese troops are fighting alongside Moscow forces as well.

There’s also reported to be training programs between Russian and Chinese militaries. For example, Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Directorate has told local media, the Kyiv Post, that “The Kremlin has decided to allow Chinese military personnel to study and adopt the combat experience Russia has gained in its war against Ukraine.”

Also, Iran has factored into the equation given it has established a drone production facility within southern Russia.

Beijing has additionally in the past issued statements calling out NATO for its constant expansion, and activity which has even been lately introduced in the Pacific region, and growing ties to Japan.

Keep reading

Zelensky Floated Stepping Down from Power ‘For Peace’, but Instead He Is Intimidating and Silencing Opponents, Paving the Way for a Vote That Keeps Him in Office: REPORT

Zelensky is working hard to remain in power.

Between his endless trips abroad to get support and money from his war sponsors, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky is moving strongly to cement his chances in the event of an upcoming election.

But because his popularity is so low, to achieve that, he has to neutralize his opponents.

Almost no one believed his recent claims that he is ‘ready not to go for the second term’ because ‘it’s not [his] goal’, repeating the claims he made last winter.

Politico reported:

“In a move presumably aiming to take the sting out of the ‘autocrat’ allegation, Zelenskyy announced [last winter] dramatically that he was ‘ready’ to go if his resignation would help secure a ceasefire with Russia and gain Ukraine’s admission into NATO. ‘If [it guarantees] peace for Ukraine, if you really need me to resign, I am ready. I can exchange it for NATO’, he said.

This time round he told Axios: ‘My goal is to finish the war’ and not necessarily to continue to run for office. He also vowed to ask Ukraine’s parliament to organize elections if a ceasefire is agreed.”

Keep reading

Russian tycoon dies in mysterious window fall tragedy

Russian police are investigating yet another prominent figure who fell to his death from a window in western Moscow.

The secretive head of Pravda publishing house, Vyacheslav Leontyev, 87, fell 70ft from his home on Saturday evening.

He was the former head of Soviet newspaper Pravda, meaning Truth, which was the main organ of the ruling Communist Party. He continued this role long after the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

Leontyev was seen as knowledgeable about the secret wealth of the Kremlin.

Police are investigating whether it was an accident, suicide or foul play, but it’s the latest in a series of deaths by a window fall in Russia.

Exiled journalist Andrey Malgin wrote about the ‘strange death’, saying: ‘The window falls continue. Leontyev fell from a window. He was found near his home on Molodogvardeyskaya Street, where he lived.’

Keep reading

Kremlin Denies Drone Incursions – ‘Something Fishy Going On’, Zelenskiy Ramps Up Drone Production

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov today denied Russian involvement in European drone incursions in recent weeks.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov cautioned EU leaders against blaming Russia for any drone incursion, saying they should expand their horizons instead, reported Russian state news agency TASS.

He rejected related accusations against Russia as groundless, referring to a recent report about the arrest of a European aircraft enthusiast for testing a drone. “The report said that guy was not even affiliated with Russia at all. While that is just a small unrelated case, well, [they should] expand their horizons,” Peskov concluded.

Europe has been swept with “drone hysteria” in recent days, with closures of the airspace over cities amid unidentified drone incursions. Mass media and politicians tend to link every such incident to Russia or its alleged plans to somehow strike the European Union amid the “drone wall” proposal put forward by Brussels, added TASS.

“There’s no reason to blame Russia for the drones spotted across Europe.

“There’s something strange about this whole story.”

Russia’s former president Medvedev chimed in.

“European cities have been engulfed by an epidemic of UFDs, or Unidentified Flying Drones. 

“UAVs are everywhere: near military bases, airports, fields, and cities. Whose they are remains unclear.

“The main thing is for short-sighted Europeans to feel the danger of war, to tremble and shake like dumb animals driven to slaughter, to soil themselves with fear of their coming end.

“Maybe then they will understand war and tear the heads off freaks like Merz and Macron, who profit from blood.”

Ukrainian President Zelenskiy highlighted the country’s progress in building domestic drone production.

“Our production potential for drones and missiles next year will already be $35 billion.

“We are already producing 40 Bohdan howitzers per month… and 2.4 million mortar and artillery munitions last year.

“We have successfully used Neptunes… soon we will regularly use our own ballistic missiles.

“Already, more than 40% of the weapons used on the front are Ukrainian. By the end of the year, no less than 50% must be our own weapons.

“The time has come to launch the export of our Ukrainian weapons.”

Keep reading

Deterring The Next Quasi-World War: China–Russia–North Korea Versus US

Russian planes recently flew into Polish and Romanian airspace to test NATO’s resolve while the world veers toward a conflict in Asia—one that could be far worse than the situation in Ukraine—where true deterrence and resolve remain largely absent.

Let’s backtrack a little.

On Sept. 3, Beijing staged a military extravaganza to parade a full suite of fearsome weapons. Many journalists were awed, and some defeatist experts advocated Chamberlainian appeasement. Others, mostly China observers, tried decoding the seating plan of senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials atop Tiananmen Square for clues about the power struggles in Zhongnanhai.

However, what is often overlooked in the discussion about the event is that it represents the financing and support mechanisms behind a new type of quasi-world war. The ongoing Russia–Ukraine war is one example, and the potential invasion of Taiwan by the Chinese regime is another. Let’s explore this further.

The Xinhua images of the Sept. 3 event, featuring Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un consorting in solidarity, should be interpreted as a calculated response to the new tripartite model the West has devised for militarily supporting Ukraine. That model conveys that Kyiv identifies its military hardware needs, European allies provide the financing, and the United States produces and delivers the hardware.

The Beijing event showcased a parallel model: Moscow requests war materiel, including troops, China and North Korea supply them in exchange for cheap Russian energy, with India and a few other countries dipping in. Thus, even though the war’s actual fighting is confined within Ukraine and Russia, its financing involves a much wider array of adversarial states. The coalitional symmetry in this financing mechanism can prolong the bloody conflict indefinitely, which Russia and Ukraine, if left to their own devices, cannot achieve.

A way to stop the war is to break that symmetry, which seems to be the goal of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “secondary tariffs.” On Aug. 6, he doubled the headline tariff on India to 50 percent for buying cheap Russian oil. It is showing results. India reportedly bought much less Russian oil in August. Notably, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in Tianjin from Aug. 31 to Sept. 1, quietly skipped the Sept. 3 military parade.

Now, Trump is pressuring Europe to immediately end its remaining reliance on Russian energy and join him in a similar effort against Beijing, and has called for imposing up to 100 percent additional tariffs on China for buying Russian crude oil. The EU leadership is not yet entirely on board, but has proposed to advance its target of ending all energy imports from Russia from 2027 to 2026 or even sooner.

But whatever happens to the war in Ukraine, the world would not be okay even when Putin agrees to call it quits, because Xi has all the intentions to do a sequel. Xi’s primary interest in supporting Russia lies in an expected reciprocation from Moscow if China invades Taiwan. What would a China–Taiwan war look like?

The Russia–Ukraine war is already a quasi-world war. Despite the combat space being narrowly confined, it nevertheless involves the participation of approximately 50 countries on four continents in various capacities.

Keep reading

Was Scandinavia’s Russian Drone Scare A False Flag To Crack Down On Russia’s Shadow Fleet?

It’s highly suspicious that Zelensky just claimed without any evidence that they were launched by Russian tankers and subsequently demanded that Europe close the straits to its shipping in response…

Unknown drones recently flew in close proximity to Danish and Norwegian airports, prompting speculation among some that they were Russia’s delayed hybrid retaliation against NATO for backing Ukraine’s drone flights in proximity to Russia’s own airports over the past few years.

No evidence has emerged in support of that hypothesis, but Zelensky still dishonestly passed off such claims as fact during his speech at the latest Warsaw Security Forum.

According to him, “there is growing evidence that Russia may have used tankers in the Baltic Sea to launch drones – the drones that caused major disruption in Northern Europe. If tankers used by Russia are serving as drone platforms, then such tankers should not be free to operate in the Baltic. This is de facto Russia’s military activity against European countries, so Europe has the right to close straits and sea routes to protect itself.”

His proposal for NATO to close the Danish Staits to Russian shipping on this pretext, which would amount to an illegal blockade that could thus legitimize offensive action by Russia in self-defense, was predictable given Ukraine’s and some of its patrons’ interest in escalating the bloc’s tensions with Russia. In fact, it might even be the case that this was the false flag that Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service twice warned could soon be staged by the UK and Ukraine, albeit ultimately taking a different form.

They assessed that those two might orchestrate potentially forthcoming provocations in the Baltic that would then be blamed on Russia in order to justify cracking down on its sanctioned energy trade that the West dramatically describes as being conducted by a “shadow fleet” transiting through that sea. While no US ship was targeted with Ukrainian-transferred Soviet/Russian torpedoes nor were such mines fished out of the Baltic, Scandinavia’s Russian drone scare still arguably fulfills the same role.

Keep reading

Ukrainian Drones Hit Oil Refinery, Chemical Plant 1500km Deep Into Russia

Despite fresh warnings from President Vladimir Putin issued the day prior at the Valdai summit in Sochi, Ukrainian drones have once again targeted two major industrial facilities deep inside Russia overnight – an oil refinery in the Orenburg region and a chemical plant in the Perm region – regional officials announced Friday.

The Orsknefteorgsintez oil refinery was struck and suffered damage in the first attack, which lies near the border with Kazakhstan. Videos circulating on social media showed a drone crashing within the refinery grounds, followed by thick black smoke rising above the site.

Regional Governor Yevgeny Solntsev stated that no one was injured and claimed that operations at the refinery were not disrupted, however.

Orsknefteorgsintez is one of Russia’s top oil refineries, with a capacity of 6.6 million tons per year and producing around 30 petroleum products including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and bitumen, regional reports say.

In Perm, the Azot chemical plant was also attacked, resulting in a disruption of operations there, after eyewitnesses widely reported two loud blasts. At least three drones may have been involved in the strike. Azot is part of billionaire Dmitry Mazepin’s Uralchem holding.

The plant reportedly manufactures products such as ammonium nitrate, nitric acid, sodium nitrate, and urea – and is also said to be Russia’s only producer of higher aliphatic amines and crystalline sodium nitrite.

Keep reading

Putin claps back at Trump’s ‘paper tiger’ comment

Following accusations from President Donald Trump that Russia is a “paper tiger” in the war against Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not hold back.

“We are fighting against the entire bloc of NATO and we keep moving, keep advancing and feel confident and we are a paper tiger; what NATO itself is?” Putin said. “A paper tiger? Go and deal with this paper tiger then.”

The fiery comments come as the White House is considering approving a request from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Tomahawk cruise missiles that would allow Ukraine to hit targets deep inside Russia.

During a forum of international foreign policy experts in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi, Putin said this request would bring a “new stage of escalation” between Russia and the U.S.

However, he added that with the missiles, not much would change in their air defenses.

Keep reading

Russia To Nationalize and Sell Foreign Assets in Its Territory if Warmongering Leaders Seize Russian Frozen Assets in Europe: REPORT

Europe never sees a bad idea that it doesn’t love.

Whether or not you give credence to widespread reports in the MSM that the Russian economy is ‘on the brink of collapse’, the fact remains that Ukraine is a broken country, and its European sponsors are also suffering major economic difficulties, with surging cost of living and slowing down economies.

Without any further US financial help, the unpopular European leaders are struggling to find ways to keep the war going – and one of the ‘great ideas’ they’ve come up with is to seize the frozen Russian assets in Europe.

This idea has been around for years, and is always discarded because not only can Russia retaliate against European assets in Russia, they’d also be destroying the reputation of their banking institutions – and no one would ever again have assets under their custody.

But the idea has resurfaced again, stronger than ever, so reports now say that Russia may nationalize and sell foreign assets in their country, in retaliation for any European moves to seize Russian holdings abroad.

Bloomberg reported:

“President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed an order allowing for fast-track sales of state-owned assets under a special procedure.

The decree is intended to speed up the sale of various companies, both Russian and foreign, the person familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public. Should the European Union begin seizing Russian assets, Moscow may respond with symmetrical measures, the person said.”

Keep reading

Putin accuses France of piracy

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced France’s detention of an oil tanker that it claims carried Russian cargo as “piracy,” noting the seizure took place in neutral waters without justification.

Speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi on Thursday, Putin argued that investigators were searching for “military cargo, drones, or something of that kind,” but insisted “none of that is there, never was, and never could be.”

Media reports have suggested the investigation may be linked to unidentified drones spotted near Danish airports and military sites last month. There have been suggestions that the UAVs may have been Russian, an accusation Moscow has denied.

Putin also noted that the tanker was sailing under a foreign flag with an international crew, questioning whether it had any connection to Russia at all.

The vessel in question, the Boracay, is sanctioned by the EU and was sailing under a Benin flag when French naval forces boarded it last week. It remains anchored near Saint-Nazaire, with its captain and first mate in custody as prosecutors investigate “serious irregularities.”

Keep reading