Tag: russia

WHO’S IN CHARGE? Biden AWOL After Approving Long-Range Missile Strikes

President Joe Biden gave Ukraine the green light to use U.S.-provided missiles to strike deep inside Russia, and now he’s nowhere to be found to explain to the American people what changed his mind from just weeks ago, Jeffery Sachs, the Columbia University professor, told “Judging Freedom.”

Sachs called the decision “shockingly irresponsible” on its merit because the administration opted against their use just a few weeks ago. But he said it was “especially shocking” for a “lame-duck, not even a lame-duck…a dead-in-the-water administration that has been repudiated to be putting the world at risk in this way.”

He continued, “It’s disgusting.”

“It also shows the profound flaws of our political system: one person, ostensibly — we don’t even know whether it’s him anymore [making the decisions] because we don’t hear from him…he may not be even responsible for this. But in the name of one person — without public debate — on an existential issue” and on a decision that the Pentagon reportedly rejected just a few weeks ago because of the risks, one person could bring the world to the precipice of WWIII, he said.

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Zelensky AGAIN Refuses to Hold Elections as Most Ukrainians Oppose War

Ukrainian ruler Vladimir Zelensky, whose term has ended in May of this year, presented his Internal Resilience Plan in the country’s parliament Tuesday where he again ruled out holding elections. This comes as the wartime leader guides his country toward global nuclear armageddon with a people who largely wish the war to end.

“We all know that the Constitution of Ukraine and the law do not permit elections during wartime, and no one in the world has demanded and does demand this from Ukraine. However, there are some people in Ukraine who may be so ‘hungry’ for [elections] that they want to fight within our state more than for our state. They seek political disputes in the trenches, like in film studios. This is detrimental to Ukraine,” Zelensky said, according to RT on Tuesday. “First, Ukraine needs a just peace, and then Ukrainians will hold fair elections. We must prioritize the common interest over any personal desires.”

Interestingly, a recent poll revealed that a slim majority of Ukrainians wish for the war to end soon.

“A majority of Ukrainians now favor a rapid end to the ongoing conflict with Russia through peace negotiations, according to a recent survey conducted by Gallup,” RT said Tuesday. “In its latest report, on Tuesday, the American pollster reported that 52% of respondents believe Kiev should pursue peace talks to end the war as soon as possible. This marks a substantial rise from 27% in 2023 and just 22% in 2022.”

While the majority that want peace is slim, it still constitutes a major increase since the war began.

“Support for continuing military action until a decisive victory is achieved has been on the decline. In February 2022, 73% of Ukrainians backed continued hostilities. By 2023, that number had fallen to 63%, and it has dropped further, to 38% in 2024. The poll indicates that Ukrainians are reconsidering their positions as the conflict drags on, and their military continues to retreat,” RT said Tuesday.

Ukraine is under martial law until at least February 2025. This has allowed Zelensky to refuse to leave office, outlaw opposition parties, jail politicians and ‘purge’ people deemed disloyal, according to RT.

The highest seat in Ukraine, held by Zelensky, is not operating under its own power however. The West, which has green-lit heavy bombardment of Russia on Sunday, controls the strings of the proverbial marionette, Zelensky.

“Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, who has been described in Western media as “the real power broker” in Kiev, stated that presidential elections would be held immediately after the war ends. According to Verkhovna Rada Chairman Ruslan Stefanchuk, the next presidential elections would take place within 60 days after martial law is lifted,” RT said Tuesday.

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Russia Using Nuclear Weapon in Ukraine Would Collapse Global Economy, Warns Declassified Intel Document

The use of a nuclear weapon by Russia in Ukraine would plunge the global economy into chaos, leading to food insecurity and high inflation, according to a declassified national security document.

The National Intelligence Council’s (NIC) memorandum from November 2022, titled “Potential Global Economic Consequences of a Use by Russia of Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine,” was declassified by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines in September.

The NIC, established in 1979, reports to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and bridges the Intelligence Community with policy makers in the United States.

Unsurprisingly, the document states that a nuclear attack on Ukraine would trigger long-term global financial instability, push emerging markets into default, and lead to food insecurity.

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Russia’s New Nuclear Doctrine: What Has Changed?

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier said that the update of the doctrine was necessary due to heightened tensions around Russian borders and nuclear nations supporting Kiev in its conflict with Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has authorized the country’s updated nuclear doctrine, bringing into force changes that he first announced in September. What are the updates about?

The previous version singled out four situations in which the Russian head of state may decide on the use nuclear weapons: a ballistic missile attack on Russia; an attack on the country using weapons of mass destruction; an attack on Russian state or military facilities; and an aggression against Russia with the use of conventional weapons when “the very existence of the state is at risk.”

Under the current doctrine, in addition to the aforementioned clauses, Russia can also press the red button if:

There is an attack with the use of conventional weapons against Russia and (or) Belarus as members of the Union State, which poses “a critical threat to their sovereignty and (or) territorial integrity” (“the very existence of the state is at risk” term has been omitted).

There is “reliable information about a mass launch of means for an aerospace attack” (strategic and tactical warplanes, cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as hypersonic and other systems) and their crossing of Russia’s state border.

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Russian Air Defenses Down 5 ATACMS Missiles Over Bryansk Region

The armed forces of Ukraine struck with six ATACMS ballistic missiles at the Bryansk Region, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.

“At 3:25 a.m. tonight [local time, 00:25 GMT], the enemy struck a facility in the Bryansk Region with six ballistic missiles. According to confirmed data, US-made ATACMS tactical missiles have been used,” the report read.

Russian air defense systems shot down five missiles, one was damaged. Its fragments fell on the technical territory of a military facility in the Bryansk region, which caused a fire, which was promptly eliminated, the ministry said, adding that there were no causalities or destruction.

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Ukraine Reportedly Carries Out First Strike Inside Russian Territory Using US-Made Long-Range Missiles

The escalation of the war in Ukraine has reached peak level, as Ukraine is reported to have launched western missiles at a target inside Russia, a move that can lead to a potential nuclear retaliation by Moscow.

The first Ukrainian strike targeted the border region of Bryansk in Russia, and it comes just as President Vladimir Putin updated the nuclear doctrine greatly expanding the conditions for using atomic weapons.

Ukrainian forces fired six ATACMS missiles at a facility in the Russian Bryansk region, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Bloomberg reported:

“Ukraine deployed ATACMS missiles to strike a military facility in the western Bryansk region, RBC Ukraine reported on Tuesday, citing an official in the nation’s military. It was the first known attack following the decision by President Joe Biden’s administration to approve Kyiv’s limited use of the weapons to hit targets inside Russia.

Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed a strike on a warehouse in the city of Karachev, detonating ammunition stored at the site some 115 kilometers (71 miles) from the border with Ukraine. Neither the General Staff nor the Defense Ministry would comment on what missiles were used, saying the information is classified.”

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Have the US and NATO Decided to Play FAFO With Russia?

FAFO is a social media acronym that means F**k Around Find Out. It appears that the United States and NATO have decided to play that dangerous game with Moscow. I had an offline chat with Alastair Crooke this morning. He flagged an article in the Times of Israel that I had missed, and he discussed it with the Judge. The article is an interview with retired Israeli General, Itai Brun, the former head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence research and analysis division. Here are the salient points:

[Brun] warned Saturday that Israel’s inability to recognize that Hamas was preparing to invade shows a far-reaching systemic failure that cannot be fixed simply by replacing key officers and officials.

Correcting that strategic failure, said Brun in a TV interview, requires a fundamental change in the approach and culture of intelligence gathering, the processing of intelligence by the security establishment, and the interaction with the political leadership. . . .

But while Israel’s military intelligence community recognized that it had refused to even consider that Hamas could and would burst through the border fence, and “they realized that they needed to rethink” as regards Gaza, some fundamentally false conceptions continued to be held even after the invasion and slaughter.

Israeli intelligence still failed to recognize and internalize that the Iran-led axis believed it could destroy Israel, Brun specified. “They didn’t understand this change.”

He said Israeli intelligence had so much data, all indicating that Hamas was deterred and was not seeking a war, that there was a refusal to so much as countenance the possibility that this conception was erroneous — not even when the IDF obtained documentation such as the Jericho Wall material showing Hamas’s attack plans.

This intelligence failure is the result of at least two kinds of bias — reporting bias and confirmation bias.

Reporting bias is when managers and analysts selectively report or omit information based on the outcome of the research or personal beliefs.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to favour, seek out, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms one’s pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses, whilst giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities.

This is different than lying. And this phenomenon is not unique to Israel. In fact, I believe it is a major reason the US intelligence community has been so wrong, so often in its analysis of Russia and the war in Ukraine. We are seeing a manifestation of that now with Biden giving the Ukrainians the green light to use ATACMs inside Russian territory. Biden and his inept advisors have convinced themselves that they can unleash Ukraine and Russia will not respond. If Ukraine goes forward and launches the missiles — with the help of US intelligence data to program the missiles — then Russia will respond in a forceful way. Initially, I believe they will limit their response to Ukrainian territory, but Putin will authorize targeting NATO sites that have gone unscathed until now.

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Is Joe Biden Trying To Start World War 3 Before He Leaves Office?

As if everything that Joe Biden has done so far was not enough, now he has decided to push us to the brink of nuclear war.  On Sunday, Joe Biden decided to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles provided by the United States to hit targets deep inside of Russia.  This is a bombshell.  I don’t know how else to put it.  The Russians have already warned us how they will respond if long-range missiles provided by the United States and other NATO countries start raining down on their cities.  Sadly, most Americans have no idea what a direct conflict with Russia would mean.

When I first heard what Joe Biden had done, I reacted very emotionally.

I am still feeling very emotional at this moment.

Everyone needs to clearly understand what just happened, because this is a major turning point…

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Russia’s Veto Of The UNSC Resolution On Sudan Saved It From A Neocolonialist Plot

The text was ambiguous about the authorities’ legitimacy even though they represent their country at the UN, didn’t call for the RSF to cease its attacks against the SAF, could have led to more arms smuggling to the group under the cover of aid, eroded Sudan’s sovereignty via the ICC, and could have led to a disastrous military intervention.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy railed against Russia at the UNSC on Monday following the latter’s veto of a draft ceasefire resolution in Sudan, which Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy responded to right afterwards. His words can be read in full here and will be summarized in the present piece, but before doing so, here are five background briefings for readers to review if they forgot about the origins of this conflict or weren’t aware of them to begin with:

* 16 April 2023: “Sudan’s ‘Deep State’ War Could Have Far-Reaching Geostrategic Consequences If It Continues”

* 21 April 2023: “Here’s Why The US Is Trying To Pin The Blame For Sudan’s ‘Deep State’ War On Russia”

* 27 April 2023: “Russia Is Right: ‘Political Engineering’ From Abroad Is Responsible For The Sudanese Crisis”

* 4 May 2023: “The Mainstream Media’s Admissions That American Meddling Ruined Sudan Are Misleading”

* 15 July 2023: “Sudan’s Neighbors Signaled That They’re Disinterested In Fighting A Divide-And-Rule Proxy War”

To oversimplify, the rivalry between Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti”) exploded in spring 2023, exacerbated as it was by foreign pressure to complete the political transition. Burhan didn’t believe the rumors that the RSF was backed by Wagner, which were spread to pressure him into scrapping Sudan’s plans to host a Russian naval facility in exchange for Western support.

The military dimension of the conflict has since stalemated even though the humanitarian consequences continue to worsen. An estimated 24.8 million people out of the country’s nearly 50 million total population are now in need of humanitarian assistance, there are over 8 million internally displaced people, and 3 million fled abroad as refugees. These startling facts are the reason why the UNSC tabled the latest draft resolution for a ceasefire, but as could have been expected, the West sought to exploit it.

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Ex-security adviser accuses Biden of trying to ‘sabotage’ Trump’s effort to end Russia-Ukraine war

Aformer top security aide to Donald Trump on Monday accused the Biden administration of trying to intentionally “sabotage” the President-elect’s efforts to bring an end to the Russian war against Ukraine.

Former National Security Council chief of staff Fred Fleitz said President Joe Biden was repeatedly unwilling to authorize Ukraine to use U.S.-made missiles to strike deep inside Russia before the election, and his lame-duck decision this weekend to authorize it now smacks of an effort to thwart Trump’s effort to create a ceasefire and peace deal.

“The timing is really curious, because Biden was reluctant to do this before the election, because he was worried he would escalate the war. He would take a lot of criticism for possibly escalating the war,” Fleitz told the John Solomon Reports podcast. “And now that the election is over, he’s made this decision, which Putin has said is a red line and could put Russia at war with the United States.

“I don’t think this is an effort to give Ukraine leverage in negotiations with Russia, because it’s going to make the war worse,” he added. “I think this is a deliberate attempt by Joe Biden to sabotage President Trump’s efforts to negotiate a ceasefire.”

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