Tag: ukraine

Russian official warns of World War Three if Ukraine joins NATO

If Ukraine is admitted into the U.S.-led NATO military alliance, then the conflict in Ukraine would be guaranteed to escalate into World War Three, a Russian Security Council official was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin formally proclaimed the annexation of up to 18% of Ukraine on Sept. 30, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced a surprise bid for fast-track membership of NATO.

Full NATO membership for Ukraine is far off because all the alliance’s 30 members would have to give their consent.

“Kyiv is well aware that such a step would mean a guaranteed escalation to World War Three,” TASS quoted Alexander Venediktov, the deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, as saying.

Venediktov, who is deputy to Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, a powerful Putin ally, said he felt Ukraine’s application was propaganda as the West understood the consequences of Ukrainian membership of NATO.

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US Rejection Of Moscow’s Offer For Peace Talks Is Utterly Inexcusable

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow was open to talks with the the US or with Turkey on ending the war in Ukraine, claiming that US officials are lying when they say Russia has been refusing peace talks.

Reuters reports:

Lavrov said officials, including White House national security spokesman John Kirby, had said the United States was open to talks but that Russia had refused.

“This is a lie,” Lavrov said. “We have not received any serious offers to make contact.”

Lavrov’s claim was given more weight when US State Department spokesman Ned Price dismissed the offer for peace talks shortly after it was extended, citing Russia’s recent missile strikes on Kyiv.

“We see this as posturing,” Price said at a Tuesday press briefing. “We do not see this as a constructive, legitimate offer to engage in the dialogue and diplomacy that is absolutely necessary to see an end to this brutal war of aggression against the people and the state, the Government of Ukraine.”

This is inexcusable. At a time when our world is at its most perilous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis according to many experts as well as the president of the United States, the US government has no business making the decision not to sit down with Russian officials and work toward de-escalation and peace. They have no business making that call on behalf of every terrestrial organism on this planet whose life is being risked in these games of nuclear brinkmanship. The fact that this war has escalated with missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital makes peace talks more necessary, not less.

This rejection is made all the more outrageous by new information from The Washington Post that the US government does not believe Ukraine can win this war and refuses to encourage it to negotiate with Moscow.

“Privately, U.S. officials say neither Russia nor Ukraine is capable of winning the war outright, but they have ruled out the idea of pushing or even nudging Ukraine to the negotiating table,” WaPo reports. “They say they do not know what the end of the war looks like, or how it might end or when, insisting that is up to Kyiv.”

These two points taken together lend even more credibility an argument I’ve been making from the very beginning of this war: that the US does not want peace in Ukraine, but rather seeks to create a costly military quagmire for Moscow just as US officials have confessed to trying to do in Afghanistan and in Syria. Which would explain why US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the US goal in Ukraine is actually to “weaken” Russia, and also why the empire appears to have actively torpedoed a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia in the early days of the conflict.

This proxy war has no exit strategy. And that is entirely by design.

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Only Adult Children Still Believe US Propaganda

It should now be quite clear to any reasonable person that the Biden administration is hell-bent on destroying Russia and will risk nuclear war in doing so.  It has already started World War III with its use of Ukraine to light the final match.

The problem is that reasonable people are in very short supply, and, as Ray McGovern recently wrote in “Brainwashed for War with Russia,” the Biden administration and their media lackeys

… will have no trouble rallying Americans for the widest war in 77 years, starting in Ukraine, and maybe spreading to China …. Most Americans are just as taken in by the media as they were 20 years ago, when they were told there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They simply took it on faith. Nor did the guilty media express remorse – or a modicum of embarrassment.

Many good writers – all of whom are banned from mainstream media – have  made clear why the corporate media propaganda about the US/NATO war against Russia via Ukraine is false and egregiously dangerous. The government of the USA is led by morons in the demonic grip of the “The U.S. Should Rule the World” ideology. It is nothing new.

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Sweden Refuses To Share Results Of Nord Stream Pipeline Explosion Investigation With Russia

Sweden is refusing to share the preliminary results of its official investigation into the Nord Stream pipeline explosions with Russia, asserting that the information is “confidential.”

Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said that the outcome of the inquiry into what severely damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in late September would not be revealed to Moscow.

“In Sweden, our preliminary investigations are confidential, and that, of course, also applies in this case,” Andersson told reporters.

The investigation found that the blasts were an act of sabotage, although the culprit has not been named.

The Swedish leader said that Russia was free to conduct its own investigation into the incident, adding that Sweden had removed cordons from the area.

“The Swedish economic zone is not a territory that Sweden disposes of,” said Andersson.

President Vladimir Putin, who has accused the US and Britain of carrying out an “act of international terrorism” in targeting the pipelines, reacted to Sweden’s denial of access to the investigation by insisting, “We all know well who the ultimate beneficiary of this crime is.”

As we previously highlighted, a former Pentagon advisor said the most likely culprits behind the Nord Stream pipeline blasts are the United States and Britain, and that the attack was carried out to prevent Germany from bailing on the war in Ukraine.

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‘Russian judge who oversaw cases involving Gazprom and Putin crony Ramzan Kadyrov’s daughter was killed in Crimean bridge explosion’

An ‘independent-minded’ Russia judge who oversaw high-profile cases was killed in the blast which crippled the Kerch Bridge, it has been claimed.

Sergey Maslov, 42, is thought to have been driving his black Cadillac Escalade alongside a truck when a huge explosion ripped apart the bridge in the early hours of Saturday – prompting a furious response from Vladimir Putin.

Maslov was riding alongside history-guide husband and wife Eduard Chuchakin, 53, and Zoya Sofronova, 33 – who he was friends with – and fitness instructor Gleb Orgetkin, 26, when the blast struck. All four were killed. 

The judge had previously overseen court cases involving the daughter of Putin crony Ramzan Kadyrov, and state energy giant Gazprom. 

Local newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets was first to report Maslov’s death, claiming he was driving the car seen on CCTV footage overtaking a truck which Russian investigators said had caused the explosion.

The car fell into the ocean after the blast caused part of the bridge to collapse, with bodies of the victims pulled from the water.

Russian investigators initially said three people had died: Chuchakin, wife Sofronova, and the driver of the truck, 52-year-old Makhir Yusubov.

But it now appears the actual death toll was five, including Maslov and instructor Orgetkin. It is not clear why their deaths was not reported until now.

The dead couple ‘had long been acquainted with the judge of the Moscow Arbitration Court, 42-year-old Sergey Maslov,’ reported MK.

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Before Ukraine blew up Kerch Bridge, British spies plotted it

The secret British intelligence plot to blow up Crimea’s Kerch Bridge is revealed in internal documents and correspondence obtained exclusively by The Grayzone.

The Grayzone has obtained an April 2022 presentation drawn up for senior British intelligence officers hashing out an elaborate scheme to blow up Crimea’s Kerch Bridge with the involvement of specially trained Ukrainian soldiers. Almost six months after the plan was circulated, Kerch Bridge was attacked in an October 8th suicide bombing apparently overseen by Ukraine’s SBU intelligence services.

Detailed proposals for providing “audacious” support to Kiev’s “maritime raiding operations” were drafted at the request of Chris Donnelly, a senior British Army intelligence operative and veteran high ranking NATO advisor. The wide-ranging plan’s core component was “destruction of the bridge over the Kerch Strait.” 

Documents and correspondence plotting the operation were provided to The Grayzone by an anonymous source. 

The truck bombing of the Kerch Bridge differed operationally from the plot sketched therein. Yet, Britain’s evident interest in planning such an attack underscores the deep involvement of NATO powers in the Ukraine proxy war. At almost precisely the time that London reportedly sabotaged peace talks between Kiev and Moscow in April this year, British military intelligence operatives were drawing up blueprints to destroy a major Russian bridge crossed by thousands of civilians per day.

The roadmap was produced by Hugh Ward, a British military veteran. A number of strategies for helping Ukraine “pose a threat to Russian naval forces” in the Black Sea are outlined. The overriding objectives are stated as aiming to “degrade” Russia’s ability to blockade Kiev, “erode” Moscow’s “warfighting capability”,  and isolate Russian land and maritime forces in Crimea by “denying resupply by sea and overland via Kerch bridge.”

Read the complete blueprint: Support for Maritime Raiding Operations – Proposal

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Biden: We’re Trying To Figure Out How Putin Can Exit This War

The president of the United States made headlines the other day by just casually mentioning “Armageddon” as a possible outcome of the rapidly escalating war in Ukraine.

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” President Biden said, adding the false claim that Vladimir Putin “talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons” in this conflict.

“First time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have the threat of a nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path they are going,” the president said in the same speech. “We are trying to figure out what is Putin’s off-ramp? Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself where he does not only lose face but significant power?”

As though the US government itself has not played a major role in both provoking and sustaining this extremely dangerous conflict.

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A Good And Righteous Proxy War Wouldn’t Need Such Cartoonish PR

Star Wars megastar Mark Hamill was recently named an ambassador for United24, the fundraising platform of the Ukrainian government, where according to The Times his attention will center on “the procurement, repair and replacement of drones as well as pilot training.”

From The Times:

“In this long and unequal fight, Ukraine needs continuous additional support. That’s why I was honoured President Zelensky asked me to become an ambassador for the Army of Drones,” Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker, said in a statement. “I know for certain that Ukrainians need drones to protect their land, their freedom and the values of the entire democratic world. Right now is the best time for everyone to come together and help Ukraine stand up in this war with the evil empire.”

In a statement thanking Hamill for his support, Zelensky said: “The light will win over darkness. I believe in this, our people believe in this. Thank you for taking on this difficult mission of being the first ambassador to help Ukraine raise funds for the Army of Drones to support our defenders. It is really important!”

Hamill, 71, is among an expanding list of celebrities who have lent their support to United24, which Zelensky launched in May. The website is reported to have raised nearly $188 million in donations, including a recent $5 million contribution from the Pfizer Foundation to support Ukraine’s medical needs.

Last week Barbra Streisand announced that she would also serve as an ambassador, hailing the “capability and courage” of the Ukrainian people as an “inspiration for all those worldwide who promote democracy and fight authoritarianism”.

So for the record if you were under the impression that this proxy war could not possibly get any more Disneyfied, you were wrong.

Hamill celebrated his new position by tweeting a graphic showing a Star Wars spaceship wearing the Ukrainian flag colors, which the actor captioned in Polish because Hollywood is brain poison.

Other recent Twitter PR shenanigans for this proxy war includes the Ukrainian government account talking to its “Crimea” account in the cringiest imitation of viral brand tweets you could possibly imagine.

“hey @Crimea what’s new?” tweeted the Ukraine account in lowercase letters just like the cool kids do.

“@Ukraine getting unchained, on my way home,” the Ukrainian government’s “Crimea” account replied.

Both of these accounts would of course be run by the same person, who would have been hired specifically for their understanding of social media, internet memes, and marketing. Because this is the most phony, PR-intensive proxy war of all time.

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The Road to World War III: How US-NATO Forces Turned Libya into Hell on Earth

The war in Ukraine is basically about the US-NATO’s long-term plan to destroy Russia’s rise as a major player on the world stage.  In 2019, The Rand Corporation published ‘Overextending and Unbalancing Russia: Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options’ which recommended several measures that would essentially disrupt Russia’s inevitable rise. 

The Rand Corporation’s measures are extremely dangerous and irresponsible, in fact, one of the measures that has been already implemented since the war began between Russia and Ukraine has resulted in serious consequences that can lead the world into a nuclear war:

“Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability. But any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages”

The other measure that would be a direct threat to Russia which would have allowed NATO to place all sorts of military weapons in Ukrainian territory and that is something Russia would not allow close to its borders,

“Reposturing bombers within easy striking range of key Russian strategic targets has a high likelihood of success and would certainly get Moscow’s attention and raise Russian anxieties.”  

Lastly, deploying tactical nuclear weapons pointing at Russia as a measure would be an open invitation to a nuclear war between the West and Russia,

“deploying additional tactical nuclear weapons to locations in Europe and Asia could heighten Russia’s anxiety enough to significantly increase investments in its air defenses.” 

To the West, it seems like a risk they are willing to take,

“In conjunction with the bomber option, it has a high likelihood of success, but deploying more such weapons might lead Moscow to react in ways contrary to U.S. and allied interests.”

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CIA, US Special Forces Presence Now “Far More Extensive” In Ukraine

US special operations forces are on the ground in Ukraine as part of a broad covert operation that includes CIA personnel, The Intercept reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed US intelligence and military officials.

The report said that the US withdrew its CIA and special operations assets from Ukraine shortly before Russia’s invasion, although one US official said the CIA “never completely left.”

The CIA initially predicted that Kyiv would fall quickly to Russia, but after it became clear that wouldn’t happen, the Biden administration sent its covert assets back into Ukraine.

The report said that US clandestine operations inside Ukraine “are now far more extensive than they were early in the war, when US intelligence officials were fearful that Russia would steamroll over the Ukrainian army.”

Several current and former intelligence officials said that there “is a much larger presence of both CIA and US special operations personnel and resources in Ukraine than there were at the time of the Russian invasion in February.”

Back in June, The New York Times reported that there was a CIA presence in Ukraine, but it made no mention of US special operations forces. The Times report did say that several US allies have special operations troops in Ukraine, including Britain, France, Canada, and Lithuania.

The Intercept report said the covert operations inside Ukraine are being conducted under a covert presidential finding that indicates President Biden has quietly notified Congress of a “broad program of clandestine operations inside the country.”

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