Tag: ukraine

Canada’s Speaker Resigns After Honoring Nazi Now-Wanted For Extradition By Polish Minister

The Speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, Anthony Rota, has resigned after leading Parliament in praising a Ukrainian man who moved to Canada after fighting for a Nazi unit.

“I must step down as your Speaker,” Rota said, adding “I reiterate my profound regret.“

Still no opinion on the matter from the ADL… Weird!

Developing…

*  *  *

A high ranking Polish government official is pressing for Warsaw to begin an extradition request for Yaroslav Hunka, the 98-year-old Ukrainian Canadian who served the Nazi SS Galizien formation in WWII. Hunka was hailed as a “Ukrainian hero” and a “Canadian hero” by Justin Trudea’s government days ago, receiving a standing ovation in the House of Commons also as Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky looked on and cheered.

Polish Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek announced on Tuesday he has “taken steps” to initiate the extradition of Hunka to Poland for possible war crimes.

Keep reading

Apologies in Canada for Honoring Ukrainian Nazi

A top Canadian lawmaker apologized on Sunday for honoring Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian man who fought for a notorious Nazi military unit during World War II.

Anthony Rota, speaker of Canada’s House of Commons and a member of the Liberal Party, hailed Hunka during a ceremony late last week as “a Ukrainian hero” and “a Canadian hero” who fought for “Ukrainian independence against the Russians” and “continues to support the troops today.”

Canadian lawmakers in attendance gave Hunka a standing ovation, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — who had just delivered a speech to the House of Commons — “raised a fist during the applause,” NBC News reported.

Rota’s description of Hunka — who fought in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the Nazi SS — sparked outrage, with the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies saying in a statement that “the fact that a veteran who served in a Nazi military unit was invited to and given a standing ovation in Parliament is shocking.”

Keep reading

US To Keep Paying Salaries For Tens Of Thousands Of Ukrainians During Government Shutdown

A newly aired “60 Minutes” segment entitled The unexpected way American tax dollars are being used in Ukraine has uncovered that the US government is paying the salaries of some 57,000 Ukrainian civic services personnel.

The report details the various ways non-military aid is being spent at a moment GOP Congressional leaders are intensely debating whether to move forward with a proposed defense budget that includes Biden’s push for $24 billion more in military assistance for Kiev. Watch:

60 Minutes discovered the U.S. is financing more than weapons in Ukraine. The government is buying seeds/fertilizer for farmers, paying the salaries of 57,000 first responders and subsidizing small businesses. https://t.co/vKWwWDqUwM pic.twitter.com/BxXItNgQce

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) September 24, 2023

“The U.S. has spent just over $43 billion on military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded. That’s equivalent to about 5% of the American defense budget. European countries combined have contributed around $30 billion,” the 60 Minutes report narrates.

Keep reading

This War Wasn’t Just Provoked — It Was Provoked Deliberately

In an interesting speech about the way US imperial aggression provokes violence around the world, antiwar commentator Scott Horton made reference to an April 2022 article from Yahoo News that had previously escaped my attention.

The article is titled “In closer ties to Ukraine, U.S. officials long saw promise and peril,” and it features named and unnamed veterans of the US intelligence cartel saying that long before the February 2022 invasion they were fully aware that the US had “provoked” Russia in Ukraine and created a powderkeg situation that would likely lead to war.

“By last summer [meaning the summer of 2021], the baseline view of most U.S. intelligence community analysts was that Russia felt sufficiently provoked over Ukraine that some unknown trigger could set off an attack by Moscow,” a former CIA official told Yahoo News’ Zach Dorfman, who adds, “(The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.)”

Dorfman writes that initial support provided to Ukraine during the Obama administration had been “calibrated to avoid aggravating Moscow,” but that “partially spurred by Congress, as well as the Trump administration, which was more willing to be aggressive on weapon transfers to Kyiv, overt U.S. military support for Ukraine grew over time — and with it the risk of a deadly Russian response, some CIA officials believed at the time.”

Keep reading

New York Times Admits Kiev’s Counteroffensive Has Failed

According to a recent report in the New York Times, the Pentagon are no longer pushing the idea that Ukraine’s much vaunted counteroffensive is succeeding. In fact, their tacit admissions are a damning indictment of the entire ‘counteroffensive’ narrative. 

Things are so bad now that Ukrainian armed forces have admitted that they will need to ‘pause’ for weeks, or even months, in order to ‘restock and recover’ from a disastrous  summer military campaign, according to sources cited.

Their capitulation, combined with the ambiguous statements coming out of Washington and NATO top brass, demonstrate a real schism between the regime in Kiev and its American paymasters who believe Ukraine should be focusing more on the southern regions. According to sources, American officials believe that “the fight in Bakhmut has become something of an obsession for Mr. Zelensky and his military leaders.”

Incredibly, President Volodymyr Zelensky has declared during his latest fundraising tour of Washington – that his Armed Forces would somehow liberate the town of Bakhmut ‘by the end of the year’ – a specious idea which seems directly at odds with US war planners.

Moreover, officials in Washington believe that Ukrainian forces won’t be able to sever Russia’s land bridge from Donbas to Crimea by reaching the Sea of Azov in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region – a reality which alternative media have been reporting since last spring.

Keep reading

Zelensky asks Marina Abramovic to be ambassador for Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelensky has asked Marina Abramović, the performance artist, to be an ambassador for Ukraine.

‌Ms Abramović, a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion, said the Ukrainian president had asked for her help in rebuilding schools.

‌The 76-year-old Serbian is holding her first solo exhibition in the UK and is the first female artist to have a major show in the Main Galleries of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

‌Visitors to the exhibition must squeeze between two nude models to enter the show, or opt to bypass what one journalist dubbed the “naked gates”.

‌“I was the first artist to support the Ukraine war against Russia and to give my voice. It is definitely a repetition of history,” she said in an interview with the Modern Art Museum in Shanghai.

‌“I have been invited by Zelensky to be an ambassador of Ukraine, to help the children affected by rebuilding schools and such.”

‌She added: “I have also been invited to be a board member of the Babyn Yar organisation to continue to protect the memorial.”

Keep reading

US Can’t Deal with Defeat

One could say that it is facing defeat — or, more starkly, that it is staring defeat in the face. Neither formulation is appropriate, though. The U.S. doesn’t look reality squarely in the eye. It prefers to look at the world through the distorted lenses of its fantasies. It plunges forward on whatever path it’s chosen while averting its eyes from the topography it is trying to traverse.  Its sole guiding light is the glow of a distant mirage. That is its lodestone.

It is not that America is a stranger to defeat. It is very well acquainted with it: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria — in strategic terms if not always military terms. To this broad category, we might add Venezuela, Cuba and Niger. That rich experience in frustrated ambition has failed to liberate Washington from the deeply rooted habit of eliding defeat. Indeed, the U.S. has acquired a large inventory of methods for doing so.

Defining & Determining Defeat 

Before examining them, let us specify what we mean by “defeat.” Simply put, defeat is a failure to meet objectives — at tolerable cost. The term also encompasses unintended, adverse second-order consequences.

No. 1. What were Washington’s objectives in sabotaging the Minsk peace plan and cold-shouldering subsequent Russian proposals, provoking Russia by crossing a clearly demarcated red line, pressing for Ukraine’s membership in NATO, installing missile batteries in Poland and Rumania, transforming the Ukrainian army into a potent military force deployed on the line-of-contact in the Donbass ready to invade or goad Moscow into preemptive action? 

Keep reading

Next Arms Package For Ukraine Includes More Internationally-Banned Cluster Bombs

President Biden’s expected new weapons package being announced when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits Washington on Thursday is expected to have more internationally-banned munitions, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Sources told Reuters that the package will be worth $325 million and is expected to include the second tranche of widely-banned cluster bombs in the form of 155mm artillery shells. The US began providing Ukraine with cluster munitions in July despite their history of killing and maiming civilians.

The cluster munitions the US is providing Ukraine are packed with 72 submunitions, known as bomblets, that are scattered over a large area.

Cluster bombs are so hazardous to civilians because many of the submunitions do not explode on impact, and can be found years or decades later. Due to their indiscriminate nature, cluster bombs are banned by over 100 countries by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but the US, Ukraine, and Russia are not signatories to the treaty.

A US official also told Reuters that the new weapons package will not include Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which can be fired from the HIMARS rocket systems and have a range of up to 190 miles.

ATACMS have been long sought by Ukraine, and recent media reports said they could be soon on their way, but the White House said this week no decision has been made.

Providing ATACMS would mark a significant escalation of US support for Ukraine as they could potentially hit targets inside Russia. When asked earlier this month about Ukraine using ATACMS to target Russian territory, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said targeting decisions are up to Ukraine.

Keep reading

Ukraine’s Transgender Spokesperson Suspended by Military, Zelensky Claims No Knowledge, as U.S. Citizen Journalist Still Remains Behind Bars in Ukraine

The Ukrainian military has announced that it has suspended controversial transgender spokesperson Sarah Ashton-Cirillo for allegedly making unapproved statements on social media; however, there have been no updates from the Ukrainians or the Biden administration on the fate of an American citizen journalist currently imprisoned in Ukraine.

Following a row sparked by inquiries initiated by Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), as reported by Breitbart News, the Command of the Territorial Defense Forces (TDF) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) announced on Wednesday that Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, an American transgender individual, has been suspended from the role of spokesperson.

On social media, the TDF said: “The statements of (Junior Seargant) Ashton-Cirillo in recent days were not approved by the command of the TDF or the command of the AFU. When conducting military operations against the aggressor, the defense forces of Ukraine strictly observe the norms of international humanitarian law.

“The command of the TDF will conduct an official investigation into the circumstances of these statements. Appropriate decisions would be taken. Sergeant Sarah Ashton-Cirillo will be suspended immediately pending the investigation.”

Keep reading

The Clintons Are Masters of ‘Disaster Capitalism’ — and Ukraine Is Their Next Big Project

The Clinton Foundation is back, and it’s headed to Ukraine.

Founded by former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the foundation put its annual “Clinton Global Initiative” on a hiatus for a few years when their relevance ebbed and fundraising dried up, but their scandal-plagued charity has returned with a plan to provide humanitarian relief to warn-torn Ukraine, complete with a benediction from Pope Francis.

The Clinton Foundation’s shady dealings were exposed in 2015 by Peter Schweizer in the bestselling book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. On the most recent podcast of The Drill Down, Schweizer commented on the return of the Clintons and their historical gift for grift.

“The problem is that the Clintons have turned [disaster relief] into disaster capitalism,” Schweizer said. “What we found is that the Clintons were doing a lot of relief work and then working with major corporations that wanted deals in countries that were having a war.”

Clinton Cash documented examples of this in countries around the world, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia, and Haiti, where the Clinton Foundation operated various disaster relief and reconstruction activities. Very often, the companies receiving the government contracts to perform those activities were major donors to the Clinton Foundation, not to mention relatives of the Clintons themselves.

Indeed, the largest single contributor to the Clinton Foundation in the 2010s was one Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch whose fortune came from making piping used in the energy industry. In 2008, Mr. Pinchuk made a five-year, $29 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. The pledge was to fund a program to train future Ukrainian leaders and professionals “to modernize Ukraine,” according to the Clinton Foundation.

Keep reading