Tag: ukraine

Ukraine has used US-made chemical weapons: Russia

Washington and Kiev have violated articles of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as Ukrainian forces have used illegal munitions on the battlefield, Russian Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov has claimed.

The head of Russia’s Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces provided several examples of Kiev’s alleged use of banned chemical weapons and non-lethal chemical agents that he said were obtained from the US.

Kirillov claimed that Ukraine used drones to drop US-made gas grenades on December 28, 2023 containing “CS” compound – a chemical classified as a riot-control tool that irritates the eyes and upper respiratory tract, and can cause skin burns, respiratory paralysis and cardiac arrest when used in high concentrations.

He said the delivery of such munitions by the US to Ukraine was a direct violation of the rules of the OPCW, which states that a country must “never, under any circumstances, transfer chemical weapons directly or indirectly to anyone.”

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Ukraine’s Top Spy Chief Says Navalny Died From Blood Clot, Rejects ‘Murder’ Narrative

In a very unexpected plot twist, Ukraine appears to be in agreement with the Kremlin on Alexei Navalny’s death inside a far northern Russian prison which occurred on Feb. 16 and was listed by Russian authorities as officially due to “natural causes”. The dominant Western narrative has thus far been that Putin had him “murdered”. 

Yet now Kiev sources are saying that the anti-Putin activist supported by the West died of a blood clot. Surprisingly, this explanation is being advanced among Ukraine media sources after none other than Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR), bluntly stated it to a group of journalists on Sunday. “I may disappoint you, but as far as we know, he indeed died as a result of a blood clot. And this has been more or less confirmed,” Budanov stated.

“This wasn’t sourced from the internet, but, unfortunately, natural [causes],” he added in the remarks which were also caught on video. The spy chief’s words were also picked up in The Daily Mail, though predictably US mainstream outlets have been slow to acknowledge the assessment.

Further, the NATO-friendly pundit Anton Gerashchenko, who also served as former Ukrainian Advisor to Internal Affairs Minister, has said the following:

Vladimir Osechkin, founder of Gulagu. Net, says that, according to his sources, Navalny was killed (finished off with a blow to the chest) after being tortured with frost.

Head of Ukrainian military intelligence Kyrylo Budanov said that according to his sources, “it was a blood clot.”

Over the weekend Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, said her son’s body was finally released to the family. She has said Russian officials are seeking to pressure the family into doing a ‘secret funeral’ so as not to attract public demonstrations. “We do not know if the authorities will interfere to carry it out as the family wants and as Alexey deserves,” she said previously.

Navalny’s wife has laid ultimate blame on Putin for his death, while President Biden too and other Western leaders have said “Putin is responsible.”

“What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality,” Biden had said immediately after Navalny’s death was announced by Russian prison services. Some European leaders quickly branded Putin’s government a “rogue regime” as a result, urging that Moscow “must be held accountable”. The whole situation seems akin to the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage, where there was a rush to blame Moscow, but allegation which were later quieted and walked back.

Meanwhile, Russia hawks in the US are urging the administration to go beyond last Friday’s large round of new anti-Moscow sanctions…

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CIA Built “12 Secret Spy Bases” In Ukraine & Waged Shadow War For Last Decade, Bombshell NYT Report Confirms

On Sunday The New York Times published an explosive and very belated full admission that US intelligence has not only been instrumental in Ukraine wartime decision-making, but has established and financed high tech command-and-control spy centers, and was doing so long prior to the Feb. 24 Russian invasion of two years ago.

Among the biggest revelations is that the program was established a decade ago and spans three different American presidents. The Times says the CIA program to modernize Ukraine’s intelligence services has “transformed” the former Soviet state and its capabilities into “Washington’s most important intelligence partners against the Kremlin today.”

This has included the agency having secretly trained and equipped Ukrainian intelligence officers spanning back to just after the 2014 Maidan coup events, as well constructing a network of 12 secret bases along the Russian border—work which began eight years ago. These intelligence bases, from which Russian commanders’ communications can be swept up and Russian spy satellites monitored, are being used launch and track cross-border drone and missile attacks on Russian territory. 

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Stoltenberg Hints Ukraine Could Use F-16 for Strikes on Military Targets Inside Russia

In an interview with Radio Liberty, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stressed that each ally retains the autonomy to provide F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, affirming Ukraine’s right to self-defense, including striking legitimate Russian military targets beyond its borders.

Ukraine has actively pursued U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to counter Russian air superiority. The United States approved the transfer of F-16s from Denmark and the Netherlands to Ukraine in August, pending completion of pilot training.

Kyiv had long sought to obtain the fighters after heavy losses incurred by its air force, which flies primarily Russian aircraft. The US F-16 has better combat capabilities than those operated by Ukraine.

On the question of when Ukraine will be able to deploy F-16s, Stoltenberg stated that it was not possible to determine.

He reassured that Ukraine’s allies all wish for their early deployment, emphasizing that the effectiveness of the F-16s will significantly depend on the training of pilots and the preparedness of maintenance crews and support personnel.

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Biden and US media lies about Ukraine are reminiscent of Vietnam War

The American Conservative published an article that parallels the Vietnam War, considered the greatest military humiliation in US history, with what they point out is a campaign of deception carried out by the current US Government, which will lead to a defeat for Kiev and NATO.

According to the author James W. Carden, who served as an advisor on US-Russian affairs at the State Department during the Obama administration, the media campaign regarding Ukraine carried out by the White House was a copy of the actions of successive US governments in Vietnam until the Nixon administration withdrew troops and concluded the intervention in 1973. He relates the Vietnam War with the lies with which President Joe Biden and his collaborators have tried to deceive citizens about the progress of the Ukraine conflict and its origin, among other issues.

These false narratives, the article notes, have been put in place and presented to Americans with the help of the “most dutiful accomplices,” such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, media outlets that, until recent times, published the triumphalist comments of Biden and his administration without any type of questioning, in addition to analysis columns where Russian President Vladimir Putin was demonised and falsely stated that Ukraine was on its way to victory.

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‘Era of peace in Europe over’ says Ukraine, as Avdiivka falls to Russians

Russia achieved its first major territorial success in more than nine months in the Ukraine war, capturing the eastern city of Avdiivka last week.

The once-bustling community of 30,000 civilians was gone and it was doubtful whether the local employer, Europe’s biggest coking plant, could be returned to operability soon. But the capture offered Russian President Vladimir Putin bragging rights ahead of the election he faces in March.

Russian forces began to press Ukrainian defenders in earnest last October, after Ukraine’s three-month-long summer counteroffensive had ended, promising to deal Ukraine a winter blow.

They formed a pincer to the north and south of the city, and during the four months of most intense fighting Ukraine’s Tavria forces commander, Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, estimated they had sustained 47,000 casualties, and lost 364 tanks, 248 artillery systems, 748 armoured fighting vehicles and five aircraft.

The news fell like a bombshell on the continuing Munich Security Conference, where Ukraine’s Western allies convened to survey a gloomy outlook for 2024.

“The era of peace in Europe is over,” Dmytro Kuleba, Ukrainian foreign minister, told those present.

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Advanced weapons sent to Ukraine are not tracked correctly

The Pentagon has not thoroughly monitored the transfer of some of the U.S.’s most advanced weapons and devices sent to Ukraine, an Inspector General report released Thursday found.

Pentagon Inspector General Robert P. Storch determined that serial number inventories were “delinquent” for more than $1 billion worth, of 59%, of high-value, technically advanced weapons the Pentagon is required to track through their “end-use.”

The report did not examine whether any of the weapons may have been ‘diverted’ from their intended use, through theft, misuse or loss.

The report also highlighted the DOD’s challenges to maintaining transparency and accountability for U.S. weapon sales through bureaucratic record-keeping while in an active combat zone.

Along with the difficulties of keeping accurate records in an active war zone, the report notes the Ukrainian military’s high consumption rate made proper record keeping difficult, as did the fact that there was “no safe method” to do inventory on the front lines and it was only possible at logistics and storage depots.

One official from the Office of Defense Cooperation-Ukraine told Pentagon investigators that once the pieces of equipment arrive in Ukraine “they are often transferred to the front lines within days for use in active combat.”

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What the Ukraine War, Taiwan, and Gaza Have in Common

In confronting all three foreign policy dilemmas, Washington needs to incorporate an understanding and acknowledgment of the things the United States has done that contributed to them.

Washington is grappling with seemingly intractable foreign policy dilemmas involving the Russian war in Ukraine, percolating tensions across the Taiwan Strait, and the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. In each case, the United States has failed or refused to wholly confront its own share of responsibility for creating the problem. This has profound implications for establishing a stable peace in these three hotspots.

In the case of Ukraine, much ink has been spilled in the debate over the extent to which NATO expansion in the decades after the Cold War fueled Putin’s decision to launch the war. Washington’s response to the invasion has largely treated that debate as irrelevant. Instead, it has essentially adopted the premise that Putin never got over the collapse of the Soviet Union and always intended to reincorporate Ukraine into Russia forcefully. This perspective has largely ignored evidence and historical logic that the invasion was not inevitable and was contingent on external variables, including U.S. actions.

In his seminal 2021 essay “On the Historical Unity of Russian and Ukrainians,” Putin wrote that after the Soviet collapse, Moscow “recognized the new geopolitical realities and not only recognized but, indeed, did a lot for Ukraine to establish itself as an independent country.” This was because “many people in Russia and Ukraine sincerely believed and assumed that our close cultural, spiritual, and economic ties would certainly last. . . . However, events—at first gradually and then more rapidly—started to move in a different direction.” These “events” included Ukrainian political developments that led to closer ties between Kiev and the West. “Step by step,” Putin wrote, “Ukraine was dragged into a dangerous geopolitical game aimed at turning Ukraine into a barrier between Europe and Russia.” But the West deflected Moscow’s concerns about this trajectory.

In his recent interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, Putin reiterated this narrative. He said Russia had “agreed, voluntarily and proactively, to the collapse of the Soviet Union” because it “believed that this would be understood . . . as an invitation for cooperation and associateship” with the West. This could have taken the form of “a new security system” that would include the United States, European countries, and Russia—rather than the enlargement of NATO, which (according to Putin) Washington promised would extend “not one inch” to the east. Instead, there were “five waves of expansion,” and “in 2008 suddenly the doors or gates to NATO were open” to Ukraine. However, Moscow “never agreed to NATO’s expansion, and we never agreed that Ukraine would be in NATO.” Putin went on to blame the subsequent war on what he characterized as the U.S.-backed, anti-Russian “Maidan Revolution” in Ukraine in 2014, the West’s embrace of Kiev at Russia’s expense, and Washington’s persistent disregard of Moscow’s security concerns.

It is easy to dismiss Putin’s narrative as self-serving, disingenuous propaganda. He is indeed a monstrous figure, as the recent death of imprisoned Russian dissident Alexei Navalny demonstrates. But that does not address—instead, it evades—the historical question of whether U.S. policies toward NATO expansion in general and Ukraine’s candidacy in particular contributed to Putin’s ultimate decision to invade Ukraine. 

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EU state will give all its artillery to Ukraine – PM

Denmark will transfer all of its artillery to Ukraine, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said during a panel debate at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. According to her, despite production issues, Copenhagen and the EU in general have enough arms stockpiled to supply the country with the necessary weaponry.

Kiev has increasingly complained of personnel and ammunition shortages on the front lines, appealing to its Western supporters for more financing and arms. However, Brussels is yet to finalize its next aid package, while the EU’s earlier pledge to provide Ukraine with one million artillery rounds by March this year has not been met.

“If you ask Ukrainians – they are asking us for ammunition now, artillery now. From the Danish side, we decided to donate our entire artillery to Ukraine,” Frederiksen stated, adding that other EU member-states should follow suit.

“I am sorry to say, friends, but there is still ammunition in stock in Europe. This is not only a question about production because we have weapons, we have ammunition, we have air defense, that we don’t have to use ourselves at the moment, that we should deliver to Ukraine,” she said.

Frederiksen noted that it would be ineffective to wait for the US aid package to come through to make decisions on supplies to Ukraine. US lawmakers failed to approve additional funding of around $60 billion for Kiev before going on winter break, and are expected to resume discussions on the package on February 28.

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British intelligence operative’s involvement in Ukraine crisis signals false flag attacks ahead

Shadowy UK intel figure Hamish de Bretton-Gordon was at the forefront of chemical weapons deceptions in Syria. Now in Ukraine, he’s up to his old tricks again.

With Washington and its NATO allies forced to watch from the sidelines as Russia’s military advances across Eastern Ukraine and encircles Kiev, US and British officials have resorted to a troubling tactic that could trigger a massive escalation. Following similar claims by his Secretary of State and ambassador the United Nations, US President Joseph Biden has declared that Russia will pay a “severe price” if it uses chemical weapons in Ukraine.

The warnings emanating from the Biden administration contain chilling echoes of those issued by the administration of President Barack Obama throughout the US-led dirty war on Syria.

Almost as soon as Obama implemented his ill-fated “red line” policy vowing an American military response if the Syrian army attacked the Western-backed opposition with chemical weapons, Al Qaeda-aligned opposition factions came forth with claims of mass casualty sarin and chlorine bombings of civilians. The result was a series of US-UK missile strikes on Damascus and a prolonged crisis that nearly triggered the kind of disastrous regime change war that had destabilized Iraq and Libya.

In each major chemical weapons event, signs of staging and deception by the armed Syrian opposition were present. As a former US ambassador in the Middle East told journalist Charles Glass, “The ‘red line’ was an open invitation to a false-­flag operation.”

Elements of deception were especially clear in the April 7, 2018 incident in the city of Douma, when an anti-government militia on the brink of defeat claimed civilians had been massacred in a chlorine attack by the Syrian army.

Veteran inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) found no evidence that the Syrian army had carried out any such attack, however, suggesting the entire incident had been staged to trigger Western intervention. Their report was subsequently censored by organization management, and the inspectors were subjected to a campaign of smears and intimidation.

Throughout the Syrian conflict, a self-proclaimed “chemical warrior” named Hamish de Bretton-Gordon was intimately involved in numerous chemical weapons deceptions that sustained the war and ratcheted up pressure for Western military intervention.

This February 24, just moments after Russia’s military entered Ukraine, de Bretton-Gordon surfaced again in British media to claim that Russia was preparing a chemical attack on Ukrainian civilians. He has since demanded that Ukrainians be provided with a guide he wrote called, “How To Survive A Chemical Attack.”

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