Tag: ukraine

Biden says Putin ‘cannot remain in power’

President Joe Biden declared forcefully Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin should no longer remain in power, an unabashed challenge that came at the very end of a swing through Europe meant to reinforce Western unity.

“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden announced at the conclusion of a capstone address delivered in the cold outside the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

The White House afterward downplayed the remark: “The President’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region,” a White House official said. “He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”

The line was not in Biden’s prepared remarks, a separate White House official said.

But his remark was already reverberating as Biden departed Poland to return home to Washington after his last-minute trip to attend snap summits in Brussels and to reassure allies along NATO’s eastern edge.

It was the furthest he had gone in calling for changes atop Russia’s government and reflected a significant escalation in his rhetorical approach to Moscow. US officials had said previously said removing Putin from power was not their goal.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to Biden, saying, “This is not to be decided by Mr. Biden. It should only be a choice of the people of the Russian Federation.”

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Anonymous hackers tell companies still operating in Russia to ‘pull out – or you’re next’ after Kremlin websites were hit by cyberattacks in retaliation for Ukraine war

International hacking collective Anonymous has warned Western companies who are continuing to operate in Russia to pull out or risk facing cyberattacks in light of the invasion of Ukraine.

Anonymous is responsible for several attacks of Russian state-controlled media and government websites in which it forcibly swapped Kremlin-directed programming for videos of the bloodshed on the ground in Ukraine and anti-war statements.

The collective has also conducted cyber raids on the likes of Russia’s media regulator Roskomnadzor and Russian intelligence and security service FSB, leaking thousands of classified documents to expose the details of Putin’s plans to conquer Ukraine and undermine the Kremlin’s domestic propaganda drive.

But now, the hacktivists are turning their attention to large corporations who have not yet suspended their operations in Russia amid the war.

Anonymous’ official Twitter account posted yesterday that companies had 48 hours to ‘pull out’ of Russia or face becoming a target of further attacks.

The same account declared on Thursday that its #OpRussia cyber campaign was ‘launching unprecedented attacks’ on Russian government websites and would double the capacity of its attacks.

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ADL Defends Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis: They “Don’t Attack Jews or Jewish Institutions”

The Anti-Defamation League, the leading pro-Israel lobbying group in America, published a Q&A defending Ukraine’s neo-Nazi groups on the grounds that they “don’t attack Jews or Jewish institutions.”

In an article titled, “Why is Putin Calling the Ukrainian Government a Bunch of Nazis?” the ADL interviewed David Fishman, professor of Jewish History at The Jewish Theological Seminary, to explain why Ukraine’s neo-Nazis aren’t so bad.

“There are neo-Nazis in Ukraine, just as there are in the U.S., and in Russia for that matter. But they are a very marginal group with no political influence and who don’t attack Jews or Jewish institutions in Ukraine,” Fishman said.

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More Evidence That The US Is Trying To Prolong This War

The Washington Post has a new article out bemoaning the fact that Russian military commanders are declining calls from the Pentagon to discuss their operations in Ukraine (I dunno guys, might have something to do with the fact that the US is sharing extensive military intelligence on exactly those operations directly with the Ukrainian government). Tucked all the way down in the eighteenth paragraph of the article, we find a much more interesting revelation: that Washington’s top diplomat has made no attempt to contact his counterpart in Moscow since the war began on the 24th of February.

“Secretary of State Antony Blinken has not attempted any conversations with his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, since the start of the conflict, according to U.S. officials,” The Washington Post reports.

So the US government is continuing its policy of refusing to attempt any high-level diplomatic resolutions to this war despite its public hand-wringing about the horrific violence that’s being inflicted upon the people of Ukraine. This revelation fits nicely with a recent report by Bloomberg’s Niall Ferguson that sources in the US and UK governments have told him the real goal of western powers in this conflict is not to negotiate peace or end the war quickly, but to prolong it in order “bleed Putin” and achieve regime change in Moscow.

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Biden’s War Drums Spook Americans Who Fear a Potential Military Draft

On Wednesday, the Selective Service System (SSS) announced that “In the event of a draft, our agency would partner with @fema to provide opportunities to conscientious objectors to ensure our nation keeps moving forward.” The announcement rattled Americans, especially those of draftable age who do not want to go fight for a foreign country in which the United States doesn’t have a critical interest.

Why on earth would the government agency responsible for registering young men for the draft start talking about non-combat opportunities for conscientious objectors “in the event of a draft,” unless they know something? Either a military draft is in the works or the agency understands that fighting-age men are worried that it is. Even if a draft was not being considered, the SSS’s announcement is certain to increase anxiety about it.

Newsweek is reporting that a new poll shows most Americans are fearful of getting sucked into a war with Russia:

As the NATO-EU summit on the conflict begins Thursday, the survey from the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research revealed Americans’ opinions on the war and President Joe Biden’s handling of it. The poll shows the vast majority of Americans are at least somewhat concerned that the U.S. will be pulled into a war with Russia, with nearly half very or extremely concerned.

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Pentagon Officials Cast Doubt on Hysterical Hate-Russia Propaganda. Chemical Attack Not Imminent as Russia Restrains Its Power

It appears that some Pentagon officials aren’t as anxious to embark on World War III over Russia’s war in Ukraine as one might be led to believe.

Reports from Reuters and Newsweek suggest that some in the military, and others recently retired, do not believe Russian leader Vladimir Putin will launch a chemical attack, as President Biden recently suggested. Nor is Russia using all of its might to crush Ukraine’s resistance.

The question is whether saner heads in the armed forces will prevail over the Deep Staters and media leftists. They can’t wait to see American boys die face down in the mud for “democracy” in a country that just outlawed 11 opposition political parties.

Those military officials, Joe Lauria wrote for Consortium News, are “engaged in a consequential battle with the U.S. State Department and the Congress to prevent a direct military confrontation with Russia, which could unleash the most unimaginable horror of war.”

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Biden Tells US Troops in Poland They’re Going to Ukraine

Joe Biden spoke to troops with the 82nd Airborne in Poland Friday, telling them what to expect to see when they go to Ukraine. Biden also appears to have let slip that some troops have already been in Ukraine. The White House later clarified there has been no change in U.S. policy about not sending troops to Ukraine. Who to believe, Biden or his handlers?

“The Ukrainian people, Ukrainian people have a lot of backbone, they have a lot of guts. And I’m sure you’re observing it. And I don’t mean just the military which is, we’ve been training since back when they uh, Russia moved into the southeast, southeast um, Ukraine. But also the average citizen. Look at how they’re stepping up. Look at how they’re stepping up. And you’re gonna see when you’re there, and some of you have been there, you’re gonna see, you’re gonna see women, young people standing, standing in the middle, in front of damn tank just, just saying, “I’m not leaving, I’m holding my ground.” They’re incredible. But they take a lot of inspiration from us. And you know, woman who just died, the secretary of State used to have an expression, she said, “we are the essential nation.” It sounds like a bit of uh, hyperbole but the truth of the matter is you are the organizational principle around which the rest of the world, the free world is moving.”

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U.S. Media Decries Brutal Russia Invasion of Ukraine—Yet an Intrepid Reporter Finds that the Russians Were Welcomed as Liberators in the Southern Ukrainian City of Henichesk along the Sea of Azov

Last week I was embedded with the Russian army and visited two towns in southeastern Ukraine. The first town was called Henichesk, a port city along the Sea of Azov in Kherson Oblast (province) of southern Ukraine, bordering on Crimea.

The Russian army, patrolling the city, went with us—the embedded journalists—for protection. But actually the protection was not really needed; the people in Henichesk, at least the majority with whom I spoke, were very happy that the Russian army was there.

The people that I spoke to all said the same thing: They felt protected from the criminal gangs, with their Nazi ideology, who raged the towns. They in turn hoped that Ukraine will prosper again.

Since the coup d’état of 2014, the economy of Ukraine has become very bad, according to many citizens in Henichesk.

I could see that people were standing in line to get money from ATM machines outside the banks, money which was barely there.

At the market, the food was scarce. The Russian army is providing humanitarian aid, which they do in every village and town, liberated from these criminal gangs. This is how many Ukrainians call them.

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Joe Biden: Food Shortages ‘Going to Be Real’ Due to Russia War in Ukraine

President Joe Biden acknowledged during a press conference in Brussels on Thursday that food shortages will hit the world as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“It’s going to be real,” Biden said when asked about discussions with world leaders about food shortages.

He pointed out that Russia and Ukraine were considered the “breadbasket of Europe,” producing nearly a third of wheat exports around the world. Biden also previewed tough times ahead for food supplies across the globe.

“The price of these sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia; it’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries, as well, including European countries and our country, as well,” Biden said.

Biden said he and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised European leaders the United States and Canada will act to bolster their supplies of grain.

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