Tag: ukraine

U.S. Mercenaries Killed in Russia, West Goes Hysterical on Dubious North Korea Claim

NATO and Western leaders would prefer to fantasize about North Korea than to admit the truth of their “grave escalation” on Russia’s borders and reckless threat to world peace.

“It’s a grave escalation in this war and a threat to global peace,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen this week.

It certainly is an alarming development that American, Canadian and Polish mercenaries were killed in action on Russian soil this week. The members of a recon and sabotage unit were eliminated by Russian forces as they crossed into Russia’s Bryansk region from Ukraine.

But von der Leyen and other Western leaders said nothing about that. They were hyperventilating instead over ropey claims about North Korean troops sent to Russia.

Credible Russian security footage showed the dead men lying beside supplies of heavy weapons, including Semtex explosives and anti-tank grenade launchers, “enough to blow up a small city,” it was reported. One of the casualties bore the tattoo of the U.S. 75th Ranger Regiment, an elite airborne special forces unit. It is unclear if the American soldier was a former member of the U.S. Army who had joined a private mercenary contractor or if he was redeployed from army ranks to fight in Ukraine against Russia.

Either way, the presence of military combatants from the United States and other NATO states on Russian territory is stark evidence that the NATO powers are directly involved in the Ukrainian proxy war against Russia.

Washington and Brussels have maintained the tenuous fiction that they “only” supply weapons to Ukraine but that NATO is not a participant in a conflict with nuclear-powered Russia.

That fiction has always been an insult to common sense. NATO countries have been actively involved in recruiting foreign mercenaries to go fight in Ukraine. Russia estimates that 15,000-18,000 militants have traveled to deploy with the Armed Forces of Ukraine since the conflict erupted in February 2022. Large numbers have been killed or taken prisoner.

Mercenaries have been identified from the U.S., Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Poland, the Baltics, and Georgia, as well as jihadists from Syria trained by American occupation forces at bases such as Al Tanf. It is estimated that foreign fighters from over 100 countries have ended up in Ukraine, aiding the NATO-sponsored Kiev regime.

Some of them are no doubt “soldiers of fortune” making a payday. Others would have to be NATO servicemen because the operation of technical weapons such as HIMARS artillery and so on must involve NATO handling expertise.

The desperate incursion into Russia’s Kursk region that began on August 6 was thought to have included many foreign mercenaries. One American private military contractor identified was the Forward Observation Group.

The Western media have largely ignored or obscured the reports of NATO connections to the ground fighting. Not surprising given the propaganda function of Western “news” media in what is information warfare.

Keep reading

US Provides Proof that North Korean Troops are on the Ground in Ukraine

Gotcha! While the claim is ridiculous, the United States continues to lead the charge in pushing this nonsense. One of the most outspoken is US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin:

North Korea’s deployment to Russia to aid its war against Ukraine has the potential to lengthen the already 2-1/2-year old conflict and draw in others, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday.

Some 10,000 North Korean forces have already been deployed to eastern Russia, wearing Russian uniforms and carrying Russian equipment, Austin said, in what he added increasingly looked like a deployment to support Russia’s combat operations in the Kursk region, near the border with Ukraine. . . .

The United States has said the North Korean deployment could be further evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin was having trouble filling military ranks after more than 600,000 casualties so far, according to U.S. estimates.

Austin noted he was already seeking to replenish his arms inventories by turning to North Korea and Iran.

“We know that Putin has gone tin-cupping to get weapons from (North Korea) and Iran. Turning to a pariah state like North Korea just underscores how much trouble he is in,” the defense secretary said.

He and Kim both called on North Korea to withdraw its forces. But it was unclear whether there were any steps Washington or its allies could take to prevent Pyongyang from joining the war.

Keep reading

Moscow Warns German Arms Factory In Ukraine Is ‘A Legitimate Target’

The Dusseldorf-based German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall this week announced that it has completed delivery of twenty more 20 Marder 1A3 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) to Ukraine.

But its relationship with Kiev has gone much further, becoming among the very first major European arms companies to open a factory in Ukraine. This has provoked outrage among Kremlin officials, who are now warning that military action could be taken against the Rheinmetall plant.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told reporters in a briefing that “A plant of Rheinmetall, a German arms manufacturer, launched in Ukraine, is a legitimate military target for the Russian Armed Forces.”

“Certainly it is,” he emphasized in response to a question on whether the factory is now a target by being established inside Ukraine.

Not only is the German company going to produce armored vehicles, and maintain and repair them from inside the war-ravaged country, but it is even seeking to develop a local gunpowder and munitions plan.

TASS notes that Rheinmetall is NATO member Germany’s largest defense contractor. “It substantially profits from the Ukrainian conflict and anticipates further increased revenues. In 2023, its turnover went up by 12%, to 7.1 bln euros, with its net income growing by 9%, up to 0.6 bln euros,” the report reviews.

Rheinmetall has indicated it eventually plans to open no less than four military production installations inside Ukraine, with the ammo side expected to begin within the next two years.

The company downplayed the Tuesday threat from Peskov, saying the “production of weapons in Ukraine is well protected and this is not the first time they have heard threats from the Kremlin.” It plans to move forward despite the threats.

Among Russia’s key rationales for the February 2022 invasion was to ‘demilitarize’ Ukraine amid accusations that NATO is building up its military infrastructure inside the country which shares a large border with Russia. But now it appears the Western military alliance is rushing to do just that.

CEO of Rheinmetall AG, Armin Papperger, issued the following statement earlier this week: “Things are progressing. The first plant is already ready. The second one is on the way. And now I insist on speeding up all of this work, because we don’t have much time, we shouldn’t waste it.”

Keep reading

Trump’s Former Advisors Discuss How He Could End Ukraine War

Donald Trump has long stated that he would end the war in Ukraine if elected president. Confident in his ability to do so, the former president has stated he could end the conflict in 24 hours, and has guaranteed to do so before he actually enters the White House. He finally revealed how he intends to accomplish such a feat.

It begins by revisiting the failed Minsk Agreement – the entire premise of the current war. François Hollande and Angela Merkel representing France and Germany at the time brokered the agreement between Russia and Ukraine. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitored negotiations and both sides agreed to an immediate ceasefire. Russia withdrew troops from Ukraine for one primary reason — the Donetsk and Luhansk regions were to be occupied territories that would have the autonomy to vote in their own elections.

These regions were never Ukrainian territory. It was occupied by Russians for centuries. The people there had a right to their own lives. The Ukrainians demanded they no longer speak Russian and they sought to deny them even their own religion and they were to report to Kyiv instead of Moscow. This was like Mexico reclaiming Texas and demanding English was to be outlawed and only Spanish was to be spoken and all religions were to be outlawed except allegiance to the Archbishop of Mexico.

The ethnic Russians in the Donbas did not want to submit to a central government from Kyiv itself. The Obama Administration really opposed this sort of settlement on the grounds of old-world empire theory predicated on the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Such policies have led to the death of hundreds of millions of people over the centuries.

Keep reading

Why Russia Will Likely Take All of Ukraine

When a soldier willingly risks one’s life for one’s country — for example: “Give me liberty, or give me death”, said Patrick Henry on 23 March 1776, advocating for Britain’s Virginia colony to go to war against the British Empire — it’s because this person believes a life in slavery to be worse than no life at all. It is to choose serving one’s country (or else country-to-become), over serving an evil foreign master. When those are the only two options that are left, a person whose conscience is even larger than the person’s fear is, will revolt, and serve one’s conscience.

A person of conscience does what that person thinks to be right, even when one knows that this will probably lead to one’s death. A person of expediency does not. This is an important difference in human motivation, and so persons who are on opposite sides of that divide might have difficulty in understanding each other.

During the third U.S. Presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, on 20 October 2016, Clinton said, “There is about four minutes between the order being given and the people responsible for launching nuclear weapons to do so.” Vladimir Putin too knows this, and he behaves accordingly, as will here be explained.

The country that has by far the border that is the closest of all to Russia’s central command in The Kremlin in Moscow is Ukraine, which is less than 317 miles — a mere five minutes of missile-flight-time away from him. This means that if Ukraine joins NATO, America’s anti-Russian military alliance, then, just as happened when Finland, which is the second-nearest to Moscow at a mere 507 miles or 7 minutes of missile-flying-time, joined NATO and was required by the U.S. Government to allow it to place American nukes there, Ukraine would also be required by the U.S. Government to allow it to position its nukes anywhere it wants to in Ukraine — and Russia, which is a Patrick Henry type of country — fiercely independent — would then do a Patrick Henry type of thing against the UK/U.S. empire: it would be for Russia then to initiate World War Three (WW3) against the ever-expanding UK/U.S. empire, because 317 miles is way too close “for comfort,” for any Russian, and Russia would then respond preemptively in order to avoid becoming beheaded before the major exchange of nukes starts between the two sides.

Keep reading

Ukraine launches 51,000 court cases over DESERTION in the first 9 months of 2024 amid troops’ waning morale

Ukraine has launched 51,000 cases of troop desertion in the country’s courts, with the cases coming in the wake of service members’ dwindling morale.

The Libertarian Institute noted that several media outlets have reported on the trend, with estimates of desertion varying widely. The Times of London cited government data revealing that “51,000 criminal cases for desertion and abandonment of military units” were opened from January to September. The Kyiv Post suggested that around 60,000 individuals are facing charges for fleeing since the start of the war, with nearly half of these cases initiated this year.

Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that 45,000 Ukrainians faced prosecution for desertion from the start of the year through August. Meanwhile, Qatar’s Al Jazeera noted at least 30,000 desertions.

At the beginning of the year, estimates indicated that Kyiv had between 500,000 and 800,000 active-duty soldiers, along with an additional 300,000 reservists. But given the 51,000 desertion cases launched by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office for the first nine months of 2024 alone, the actual number of deserters could triple last year’s total. The number of desertion prosecutions has surged during the war – from 9,000 cases recorded in 2022, it almost tripled to 24,000 last year.

The country has suffered significant casualties in its defense against Russian advances and during the ongoing Kursk invasion. Alongside this, more Ukrainian soldiers have deserted the army in 2024 than at any time since the war began, with prosecutions for desertion reportedly exceeding 30,000 – potentially even higher. This figure marks a significant increase from previous years, when the initial influx of volunteers helped push back Russian forces.

Keep reading

Allowing Ukraine to join NATO ‘risks World War III’: Former NSA Robert O’Brien

Robert O’Brien, the former National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump, says the West has to be realistic about allowing Ukraine to join NATO and realize that such membership is anathema to Russia. “To bring a country into NATO and the alliance that’s in a war with Russia is very provocative to the Russians, and could lead to escalation, even nuclear war,” he told Fox News.

“We can certainly give Ukraine security guarantees … put eastern European troops [in Ukraine] to help secure peace after a peace deal gets done. But NATO is too provocative at this point,” he said, adding that it “risks World War III.”

O’Brien’s willingness to accommodate the hard reality of realpolitik sounds like a reflection of Republican presidential nominee Trump’s desire to find peace in Ukraine and not continue to endlessly finance Ukraine’s defense. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “victory plan” involves granting his country NATO status and embroiling the US in a war with Russia: both direct trips to a nuclear confrontation.

O’Brien could be back in the NSA role or perhaps even secretary of state if Trump wins reelection on Nov. 5. When asked if he would accept a cabinet position in a new Trump White House, O’Brien told Fox News, “Of course” “It’s always an honor to serve the country and to serve the president. But I’m not campaigning for a job,” he said. “There are a lot of really great people who’d like to work for the president.”

O’Brien believes Russia must be brought to the negotiating table in order to secure a meaningful peace. He advocates harsher economic sanctions against Russia if its president, Vladimir Putin, is unwilling to participate in a ceasefire.

Keep reading

Zero Battlefield Gains Force Ukraine to Send Foreign Mercs on ‘Revenge’ Sabotage Missions – Expert

An attempt by a Ukrainian sabotage team to covertly infiltrate Russia’s Bryansk region was thwarted by Russian border guards, with four enemy saboteurs eliminated. Foreign weapons, equipment, and personal items on the corpses of four saboteurs indicated the presence of foreign mercenaries in the unit.

The lack of any battlefield success has prompted Ukraine and its NATO handlers to resort to expanded use of “revenge” sabotage missions using foreign mercenaries, Joao Claudio Pitillo, historian and researcher at the Center for the Study of the Americas at Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ), told Sputnik.

“These mercenaries are recruited, trained, and increasingly directed towards this type of sabotage action that takes the form of revenge… The realization of the impossibility of victory for Ukraine and NATO against Russia prompts expanded use of punitive actions,” he said.

“Such training takes a lot of time and requires experienced personnel. Ukraine likely lacks the manpower to cover both fronts,” Brazilian naval reserve officer and defense consultant Robinson Farinazzo added.

As part of Ukrainian sabotage groups, Western military personnel from elite units, such as the US Rangers, are also engaged in collecting intelligence on enemy routes, weak points, etc., which may subsequently prove useful for “NATO command and future operations on Russian territory,” Farinazzo told Sputnik.

Keep reading

Who Perpetrated the 2014 Ukraine ‘Maidan Coup’ That Started Ukraine’s War?

On 22 October 2024, the BBC headlined “The ex-British army chief on why peace with Russia is not possible,” and at 5:00 in the podcast he said “We’ve been there [in Ukraine] since 2014, we’ve had a presence in Ukraine, we’ve been working with them, and trying to build up their capability,” and then he immediately skipped forward to 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. He didn’t say from what precise date in 2014 was — was it before, or instead only after, the 20 February 2014 coup — that the UK’s Army was “working with them, and trying to build up their capability,” to use those weapons so as to bring down the democratically elected President of Ukraine, but he went on to say that The West unfortunately “frittered away” “that wonderful unipolar moment” [the UK/U.S Governments’ control over the entire world] into “serious competition with the great powers — Russia, China, Iran, North Korea — this Axis [he was saying that this is the modern equivalent of WW2’s “Axis” or fascist-imperialist powers], and I think the world is as dangerous as I’ve known it, in some respects more dangerous than the Cold War, because The System, you know, The International Order, which kind-of kept us safe, that is a period of extraordinary peace and prosperity, has ended … and we’ve now got these great powers, this Axis of powers, trying to overturn The World Order, and I don’t think that peace with Russia is possible.” He is saying that unless and until The West will conquer Russia, there wil be war between The West and Russia. “Russia sees itself in existential conflict with The West. Putin’s aims are … take over Ukraine, dominate its near east, including parts of Eastern Europe, and dismantle the Euro-Atlantic security order that we enjoy. And so, this isn’t a crisis, this is a campaign … and it will go on for decades. … And this is why Ukraine is so important, because if you allow Russia to prevail in Ukraine, if you follow the path we’re on at the moment, which is leading inexorably to a Russian victory … then The International Order is unfrayed, so things like sovereignty, territorial integrity, don’t matter, war wins, you begin to see the dismantling of The European Order — these are institutions that have been tested by this conflict, and on a practical level, you end up with a bitter and angry Ukraine, a quarter of the world’s grain supplies being held by Russia, all of its [Ukraine’s] extraordinary military capability and technology — Ukraine is the most heavily armed country in Europe now — falling to Russia, … we should be really clear that the cost of failure is far greater than the price it would take in order to make sure that Ukraine prevails. … This is about OUR security, but by keeping Ukraine in the fight, you can get to a point where you achieve a mutually [blurred syllable] stalemate. … And we need to give Ukraine the ability to strike deep into Russia [bomb The Kremlin].” He wants World War Three, which the UK’s Prime Minister and Denmark’s Prime Minister likewise want.

Keep reading

Russian Foreign Minister – “If Ukraine Joins NATO Eeither Ukraine Disappears, Or NATO Does.”

Important quotes from the BRICS Summit where the other ‘new world order’ is shaping against Western hegemony.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia declared that if Ukraine joins NATO, Russia would destroy Ukraine as a nation, or even NATO itself.

President Putin also said he hoped NATO heard his warning about the consequences of allowing Ukraine to use Western-supplied missiles to strike inside Russia.

Russian President Putin warned failure to recognize a state of Palestine will fuel “permanent crisis and inevitable large-scale violence.”

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared, “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory. The Taiwan question is not about freedom of navigation but about China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Keep reading