Tag: russia

Syria, Iran Proxies In Danger Of Collapsing To ISIS Sunni Jihadis-Sunni Mega State In Middle East?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called an emergency meeting of the cabinet to discuss the very possible collapse of the Iranian and Russian backed regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

This development has massive complications as the power vacuum created by Israel’s destruction of Hezbollah and Hamas is being filled by Sunni jihadist rebels supported by Turkey. In other words, ISIS.

The rebels have taken the strategic Syrian city of Hama, and are now advancing on another important area – Homs, and are only 5km away. Rebel leaders have announced full control of Hama.

Reports from the area state the foreign ministers of Iraq, Syria, and Iran will meet today in an attempt to stop the bleeding of power centers, as a massive Sunni state develops in the region, controlled by jihadist extremists.

Turkish military elements, the SNA, are clashing with Kurdish fighters in northern Syria.

Russia has been largely silent as the rebels advance, surprising Israeli officials, wrote Israeli journalist Amir Tsarfati.

Fears are now rising of a massive Iranian effort to move large numbers of troops to Syria to support Assad.

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The West’s Lies About Ukraine Are Refuted by Their Own Words

The strategy of constructing a narrative of lies to justify going to war is certainly nothing new. There is a long history in the U.S. that appeared to reach its apogee with the lie that Iraq had a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. That false narrative was reused with various faces with chemical weapons in Syria and, currently, with nuclear weapons in Iran.

“T]ruth is invariably the first casualty of war, but,” as Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent and this generation’s most distinguished specialist on Russia, says in his soon to be published book, The Culture of the Second Cold War, “propaganda in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict is exceptionally intense.” Sakwa argues that “[a]t its heart” the Second Cold War, “is the struggle to control narratives, to shape popular perceptions of reality. This is an age-old endeavour,” he says, “but in Cold War 2 the misrepresentation of situations is exacerbated by the decline of high modernist ideals of fact-based journalism and impartial scholarship.”

Sakwa cites Jacques Baud, a Swiss army colonel who served in NATO and the UN, who argues that the false narratives that result from the refusal to conduct impartial investigations into important events has shaped the foreign policy of Western countries. Sakwa adds that this has been especially so with Russia, who has become the target of a “whole ‘anti-disinformation’ industry,” leading to especially “damaging consequences on international politics.”

The art of heresthetics, or the structuring of political reality to advantageously fit your narrative, seemed to reach its perfection in the Downing Street Memo, during the Iraq war, which reported that American “intelligence and facts were being fixed” around the policy. But the art of heresthetics seems to have burgeoned during the Russian-Ukrainian war. Several lies have been told to justify and sustain the war. And several of those lies told by the West have been revealed and refuted by the West’s own words.

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Zelensky’s Flip-Flop On Ceasefire Terms Is A Faux Concession

Ukraine will still remain a de facto member of NATO so long as its security guarantees with the bloc’s members remain in effect.

Zelensky recently flip-flopped on ceasefire terms by signaling that he’d accept a cessation of hostilities in exchange for Ukraine being admitted to NATO, though without Article 5 applying to all the territory that he claims as his own while the conflict remains ongoing. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry then released a statement about how their country won’t accept any alternative to NATO membership. The Kremlin predictably described this demand as unacceptable.

This coincided with NATO Secretary General Rutte clarifying that his bloc’s focus right now is on arming Ukraine, which corroborated reports from Le Monde that several members such as Hungary, Germany, and even the US oppose Ukraine joining at this time. The larger context concerns Putin finally climbing the escalation ladder after authorizing the historic use of the hypersonic medium-range MIRV-capable Oreshnik missile in combat after the US let Ukraine use its ATACMS inside of Russia’s pre-2014 territory.

Nevertheless, what’s lost amidst the latest news about Zelensky’s flip-flop on ceasefire terms is the fact that this is actually just a faux concession since there isn’t any chance that he’ll capture all of his country’s lost territory, plus he’s still demanding NATO membership, which is at the root of this conflict. At the same time, Ukraine is already arguably a de facto member of NATO after clinching a spree of security guarantees with many of its members over the past year, which resemble Article 5 in spirit.

About that, this clause is popularly misportrayed as obligating countries to dispatch troops in support of allies that are under attack, though it only actually obligates them to provide whatever support they deem necessary. The security guarantees that it clinched institutionalize those countries’ existing support for Ukraine in the form of arms, intelligence sharing, and other aid, which is essentially the same as Article 5 but without any implied (key word) pressure to dispatch troops like full membership carries.

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Kremlin Trolls South Korea & US: ‘Professed Democracy’ Can Morph Into ‘Absolute Chaos’ In Couple Of Hours

The Kremlin in a fresh Wednesday statement appeared to engage in a bit of trolling of South Korea and its Western backers like the US following the prior day’s wild and short-lived martial law events.

“North Korea’s concerns over its security are understandable given the political instability in the South,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, which is somewhat ironic given the West constantly stresses the real threat and source of regional instability is actually Pyongyang. 

Her comments sought to emphasize the unpredictability of democracies supported by Washington. “In my opinion, many have understood why the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea)… is so concerned over its security,” she said.

“It’s because they see that in a couple of hours [South Korea] can morph from a professed democracy into absolute chaos, with tanks on the streets, a storming of parliament, popular confrontation and some brute-force tactics,” Zakharova continued. 

This means the north’s vigilance and constant state of war readiness – which has included increased weapons testing of late – is entirely justified, she suggested in her explanation, given the “unpredictable” neighbor to the south.

Just before 5am local time on Wednesday South Korea’s president Yoon Suk Yeol lifted his martial-law declaration after parliament voted unanimously against the measure. Troops had at one point stormed the parliament building, and there were bizarre scenes of lawmakers scaling fences to get back in.

He had argued his drastic move was necessary as his political opponents made the nation vulnerable to North Korean “communist forces” as government couldn’t function. Parliament rejected the rationale.

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Russia Raises Military Budget for Next Three Years

What began as a special military operation has turned into the start of the next world war, and Russia is paying heavily. Russian President Vladimir Putin passed a new budget over the weekend that will allocate 32.5% of the total budget (13.5 trillion rubles) for FY25 to defense spending, which accounts for 6.2% of total GDP.

The amount in proportion to the total budget spent on defense in FY24 was 28.3%. Notably, the budget is factoring in military costs for the next three years – this war will not simply end with Trump. Russia’s pre-war military expenditure was only 3.6 trillion rubles, rising to 5.5 trillion at the beginning of the war from 5.5 trillion rubles in 2022 to 6.4 trillion rubles in 2023.

Russia must find a way to finance this war. The Kremlin estimates GDP for 2024 to come in at 195.8 trillion rubles, although last year’s GDP was 172.1 trillion rubles. The GDP for 2025 is anticipated to be 214.6 trillion rubles. The nation is confident it will continue earning but that is not enough to fund the growing war.

Putin has already raised taxes for the first time in nearly 25 years. The corporate tax rate will rise by 5% from 20% to 25%. The government expects to generate an additional 2.6 trillion rubles in revenue once the tax is implemented in 2025. Russia’s Finance Ministry believes that 2 million people, 3.2% of the working population, will see a rise in their taxes. Taxes on investments will not change. “The changes are aimed at building a fair and balanced tax system,” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said, adding that the additional funds would bolster Russia’s “economic well-being.”

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Media Distorting North Korean Role in Russo-Ukraine War

On November 24, Newsweek ran a story by Ellie Cook with the headline “Russian and North Korean Troops Shrink Ukraine’s Gains in Kursk.”

The title made it seem like North Korea was fighting on the front-lines with the Russians to push back the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk.

However, the opening of the article stated: “Moscow is taking territory back from Ukrainian forces in Russia’s western Kursk region, according to new assessments, as the U.S. says it expects North Korean reinforcements to head for front-line clashes soon.”

Further down in the piece, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is quoted as stating that he “expected to see North Korean soldiers engaged in combat soon.”

Meaning that they were not yet in combat, so Newsweek’s title was misleading.

Cook went on to write that “the State Department confirmed in mid-November that North Korean soldiers were ‘engaging in combat operations with Russian forces’ after undergoing training in how to use drones, artillery, and carry out ‘basic infantry operations.’”

These latter statements contradict what Austin said and what Cook reported on at the beginning of her article.

The contradictory statements and record of deceit of the U.S. State Department make one question what the real story is with North Korea.

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Ukraine’s best hope for peace looks a lot like Donald Trump

Last week, people who fear a third world war got more reasons to worry. Ukraine, with permission from the White House, struck Russian territory with long-range missiles supplied by the United States. Russian President Vladimir Putin has long warned that such an attack would mean that NATO and Russia “are at war,” and he has raised the specter of nuclear retaliation. Granted, these threats could be bluffs, but last week Putin gave them some credibility by (a) loosening the conditions for Russia’s use of nuclear weapons, (b) firing a multiple-warhead, nuclear-capable missile at Ukraine for the first time in the war, and (c) declaring, in a speech after the strike, that Russia would be entitled to attack any nations that aid Ukraine’s strikes into Russian territory.

While Putin’s caution during previous crises suggests he’s not about to reach for the nuclear button just yet, his dramatic response has complicated any path to a peace deal. Meanwhile, some liberal voices have predicted that Trump’s looming presidency, far from hastening an end to the conflict as Trump has promised to do, will prolong it. If Trump were to cut off arms to Ukraine, he’d remove an important incentive for Putin to call it quits, according to Ben Rhodes, a former White House official under Barack Obama. Among conservatives who advocate foreign policy restraint, there is worry that Trump’s hawkish cabinet nominees portend a departure from the peace agenda he campaigned on. As for hawkish critics of Trump on both left and right, many believe that he may end the war by just giving away the farm to Putin.

These concerns are valid. But Trump has good reasons to try proving the doubters wrong. He understands that foreign policy debacles can crater a president’s approval ratings, and he has staked his reputation on being able to end a conflict that started and continues to escalate on President Joe Biden’s watch. “I’m the only one who can get the war stopped,” he told Newsweek this September. Brokering a respectable peace would be a boon to his legacy and an embarrassment for his political opponents—and Trump loves splattering egg on the faces of his detractors. So there is room for optimism alongside the worry. Trump may well manage not only to stop the war but also to get Ukraine the best deal it could realistically hope for.

Some say Trump’s Ukraine promises are hollow since he hasn’t outlined a viable peace deal. But Trump maintains, plausibly enough, that he can’t reveal details of a plan without boxing himself in. It would be better, he says, to hammer out a deal with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky behind closed doors, which means keeping mum on specifics for now. Despite Trump’s reticence, there are signs of the kind of deal he’d push for—and signs that both Putin and Zelensky would go for it.

This fall, J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate and now vice president-elect, laid out a likely settlement: The current battle lines become a “heavily fortified” demilitarized zone to prevent future Russian aggression; Kyiv retains its sovereign independence; and Russia gets assurances that Ukraine won’t join NATO. Moscow would presumably also get to keep the lands in eastern and southern Ukraine that it now holds.

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Visualizing Ukraine’s Collapsing Front Lines Amid The Steady Russian Onslaught 

As we detailed earlier, the White House is currently overseeing a ‘massive surge’ in arms to Ukraine with just 50 days left before President-elect Trump enters office. The US is also this week announcing $725 million in more aid, which is the latest defense package for Ukraine drawn directly from US inventories.

It will include a second shipment of antipersonnel mines, and comes the same day that Germany also unveiled another $680 million in Ukraine aid. The Western allies have asserted that they want to see Zelensky and Ukraine forces in as favorable a position as possible before negotiations to end the war inevitably proceed (something which Trump has repeatedly promised from day one of his second administration). But the prime question remains: what good will the rapid infusion of more weapons do when the real problem is Ukraine’s collapsing manpower? To illustrate the reality of Russia’s rapid advance of the past several months…

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Russian state media says Oreshnik missiles can hit American bases within minutes

Russia’s Oreshnik missiles have been in the spotlight since last week, when one of them hit the Ukrainian city of Dnipro and spurred three hours of explosions that damaged the city’s infrastructure. The strike was so strong that Ukrainian officials likened it to that of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Hours later, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly bragged about the new weapon, which he characterized as a “conventional intermediate-range” missile that was given the code name Oreshnik and traveled at a speed of Mach 10, which is 10 times the speed of sound and around 2.5 to 3 kilometers per second.

He issued a warning to Russia’s enemies that “there are currently no ways of counteracting this weapon.”

Ukrainian military intelligence has said they believe the missile is a newer ICBM. They report that it traveled at Mach 11 and took 15 minutes to make its way there across a 620-mile journey. It was reportedly equipped with six warheads that boasted six sub-munitions each. They believe Russia has stockpiled up to ten of these missiles.

Either way, these missiles are incredibly fast, reaching their target in just minutes and giving defending militaries very little time to prepare or react. Moreover, because they gain kinetic energy as they follow their arc back down from the atmosphere to their destination, they become more difficult for surface-to-air missile systems to intercept.

Even more alarmingly, the Oreshnik missile is capable of delivering nuclear warheads, which is not a comforting thought at a time when Russia has been increasing its threats of nuclear war amid the ongoing fighting in Ukraine.

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Boris Johnson admits Ukraine conflict is “proxy war” against Russia

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson admitted that the West organized a proxy war against Russia, an effort that has not only caused untold deaths and apocalyptic carnage in Ukraine but has raised fears of a nuclear conflict, especially after Moscow announced its intentions to review its nuclear policy following Kiev regime missile attacks on Russian territory.

It is recalled that as prime minister (July 2019-September 2022), Johnson encouraged the Europeans to send more weapons to Ukraine after he urged the Kiev regime to abandon negotiations with the Kremlin and continue a futile war effort. In effect, the former prime minister saw an opportunity to use Kiev as a proxy to continue London’s centuries-old foreign policy tradition of hostility with Moscow.

“We’re waging a proxy war, but we’re not giving our proxies the ability to do the job. For years now, we’ve been allowing them to fight with one hand tied behind their backs and it has been cruel,” Johnson told The Telegraph.

The former British prime minister also said that a multinational group of European peacekeeping forces should be responsible for protecting any possible future ceasefire line in Ukraine.

“I don’t think we should be sending in combat troops to take on the Russians. But I think as part of the solution, as part of the end state, you’re going to want to have multinational European peace-keeping forces monitoring the border [and] helping the Ukrainians,” he said. “I cannot see that such a European operation could possibly happen without the British.”

However, while Johnson said that British troops should not be deployed to fight the Russians, he did stress that London was “morally responsible” for Ukraine and supported the use of British Storm Shadow missile against Russia.

“[Britain took] far too long [to] break the taboo” on providing Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine and the accompanying policy permission to fire the weapons into Russia, he said, adding: “We could have forced the pace.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on November 28 at a press conference in Kazakhstan that major “decision-making centres” in Kiev would be devastated by the powerful Oreshnik missile in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russia and warned that all weapons could be used if the Kiev regime were to acquire nuclear arms.

“We do not rule out the use of Oreshnik against the military, military-industrial facilities or decision-making centres, including in Kiev,” Putin said, adding that although the weapon was “comparable in strength to a nuclear strike” if used several times on one location, they were not currently fitted with nuclear warheads.

“The kinetic impact is powerful, like a meteorite falling,” the Russian president explained. “We know in history what meteorites have fallen where and what the consequences were.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hypocritically accused Putin of a “despicable escalation” even though it was Kiev that had long been requesting permission from the US, Britain and France to fire long-range missiles provided by them against military targets inside Russia. Following the granting of permission, the Kiev regime launched British Storm Shadow missiles and American ATACMS to strike targets inside Russia for the first time, prompting anger from the Kremlin.

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