Russia - Ukraine war

[Wonderfulspam]

Ukraine Fires Own Human Rights Chief For Perpetuating Russian Troop 'Systematic Rape' Stories

For over the past two months, an avalanche of stories have hit Western mainstream press which purported to document instances of mass rape carried out by Russian troops against Ukrainian civilians. One particular story in Time took off, driving outrage and condemnation by Western officials and receiving repeat coverage on CNN and other major US networks.

It alleged "a systemic, coordinated campaign of sexual violence" - relying chiefly on testimony gathered by Ukraine's appointed top human rights representative. It included a particularly shocking story of 25 teenage girls being gang-raped by Russian troops - nine of which became pregnant. According to the report:

Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Lyudmyla Denisova said that 25 teenage girls were kept in a basement in Bucha and gang-raped; nine of them are now pregnant. Elderly women spoke on camera about being raped by Russian soldiers. The bodies of children were found naked with their hands tied behind their backs, their genitals mutilated. Those victims included both girls and boys...


As has been the pattern in prior wars, whether in Syria or Libya, the media claims got more and more sensational and over-the-top as the conflict intensified, and as Western powers became more deeply involved, yet with no concrete or definitive proof.

But one consistent detail in the majority of the stories is that the aforementioned Ukraine human rights ombudsman, Lyudmyla Denisova, is often the central figure feeding Western correspondents the shocking rape stories.

For example, she's featured in this April Newsweek piece:

Lyudmila Denisova, the Ukrainian Parliament's Commissioner for Human Rights, alleged on Friday that Russian soldiers have raped children during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

In a Facebook post, Denisova alleged that an 11-year-old boy was raped by Russians in front of his mother who was tied to a chair and forced to watch as it happened in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

Many such stories which presented ever-more horrifying details as the war progressed quickly went viral, particularly among pro-Ukraine activists on Twitter and other social media, to the point where prominent pundits would begin casually agreeing amongst themself that Russians simply are "animals".

And below is another example among many, which tended to be based on "reports say" for many of the most central, damning claims...

But recently, within the last couple of weeks, as investigators began to dig deeper into the allegations, it seems the media stories started to dry up. The geopolitical analysis blog Moon of Alabama details what happened in the following:

However, a bunch of eager NGOs in Ukraine, hoping for fresh 'western' money for new 'rape consultation and recovery' projects, tried to find real rape cases. They were disappointed when they found that there was no evidence that any rape had taken place

(machine translation):

On May 25, a number of media outlets and NGOs published an open appeal to Lyudmila Denisova calling for improved communication on sexual crimes during the war.
The signatories insist that Denisova should disclose only information about which there is sufficient evidence, avoid sensationalism and excessive detail in their reports, use correct terminology and take care of the confidentiality and safety of victims.

"Sexual crimes during the war are family tragedies, a difficult traumatic topic, not a topic for publications in the spirit of the 'scandalous chronicle.' We need to keep in mind the goal: to draw attention to the facts of crimes," the appeal reads.

An entire global activist movement even sprang up which focused on highlighting Russian sexual crimes in Ukraine, based on the premise that Russia's military is using "rape as a tool" as part of its arsenal to spread a campaign of terror...

And now on Tuesday, Interfax, Politico, The Wall Street Journal, and others are reporting that Lyudmyla Denisova has been fired - precisely for floating and perpetuating fantastical claims of mass rape but without providing evidence...

"Ukrainian lawmakers dismissed the country’s ombudsman for human rights, Lyudmyla Denisova, in a no-confidence vote on Tuesday, concluding that she had failed to fulfill obligations including the facilitation of humanitarian corridors and countering the deportation of Ukrainians from occupied territory," The Wall Street Journal reported late in the day.

"Lawmaker Pavlo Frolov said Ms. Denisova was also accused of making insensitive and unverifiable statements about alleged Russian sex crimes and spending too much time in Western Europe during the invasion," the report added.

Frolov said in a Facebook post announcing her dismissal as the country's top human rights investigator:

"The unclear focus of the Ombudsman's media work on the numerous details of ‘sexual crimes committed in an unnatural way’ and ‘rape of children’ in the occupied territories that could not be confirmed by evidence, only harmed Ukraine."

Needless to say this is an absolutely devastating blow to Ukraine's 'information war' which has been in full force since the Russian invasion (as naturally in war each side will enter into propaganda campaigns against the other simultaneous to the actual ground war, and while seeking to sway world opinion).

Angry pushback has started already within hours after the news of Denisova's removal was confirmed, including from UN accounts and US media pundits...

That Ukraine's parliament took the drastic step of dismissing her in such a public manner also speaks volumes - strongly suggesting that Ukrainian officials themselves don't believe the bulk of the 'systematic rape' claims.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-fires-human-rights-chief-perpetuating-russian-troop-systematic-rape-stories

[Wonderfulspam]

The unpalatable truth in Ukraine

At one point in the novel “Sign of the Four,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s inimitable detective Sherlock Holmes explains and demonstrates to Dr. Watson his method of observation and deduction. Confronted with an apparently inexplicable circumstance, Dr. Watson is utterly perplexed. He simply cannot understand how the event in question came to pass, given the facts as he understands them and the laws of nature. Slightly irritated at his plodding companion’s bafflement, Holmes once again shares with him the methodological key to solving all such mysteries: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

And the truth is, once we have eliminated all the impossible scenarios, the least improbable outcome of the war in Ukraine is a Russian victory.

Note that I did not say such an outcome would be desirable. Russia’s inevitable victory is anything but. Nor did I say it would be total. The outcome of this war is going to fall far short of the Kremlin’s initial hopes and expectations. Nor, finally, did I say it would be without significant cost. Any conceivable Russian victory now will entail such a loss of blood and treasure that it will have to be judged Pyrrhic at best.

But it will be a victory nonetheless — and we in the West had better come to grips with that hard truth.

Let’s begin by eliminating the impossible.

The first unrealistic endgame is the reduction of Ukraine to a vassal state of the Russian empire. This would entail the kind of operation initially envisioned by the Kremlin: a quick decapitating military strike, the installation of a pro-Moscow regime in Kyiv and either the formal incorporation of Ukraine into the Russian Federation or its informal incorporation into a Russian sphere of influence (like Belarus).

While perhaps the initial objective of Russia’s “special military operation,” this outcome is now obviously an impossibility. Russia did not have the ability to impose this vision in February, and it is decidedly less able to impose it 100 days later. Indeed, even the Russians themselves have conceded as much. Their rhetoric and military operations suggest that even they believe such an outcome to be beyond the realm of the possible.

The second impossible scenario is the total defeat of the Russian military and the restoration of Ukraine to its pre-2014 borders. In this scenario, the Ukrainian military, having blunted the initial Russian offensive, launches a successful counter-offensive that ultimately drives the Russians not only out of the territories they captured in 2022 but out of the Donbas and Crimea as well. The resulting political dispensation would be an independent Ukraine restored to its internationally recognized borders and free to join NATO and/or associate with the European Union (EU) as it saw fit.

While advocated by many within and beyond Ukraine, this outcome is simply impossible. Whatever the shortcomings displayed by Russian forces in the opening phase of the war – when they were first stopped at the gates of Kyiv and then driven from the north of the country altogether – recent battlefield developments suggest that they have found their footing and are not going to be pushed out of the territories taken in 2014.

Indeed, there is no reason to believe that they will even be displaced from much of the territory they have seized along the coast of the Sea of Azov. While there will doubtless be shifts on the battlefield as a result of offensives here and counter-offensives there, the correlation of forces simply do not augur a total victory for Ukraine. So, despite the willful delusions of some and the idealistic hopes others, this outcome is simply impossible.

The third and final impossible scenario is a limited Ukrainian victory that would reverse all or most of the Russian gains since Feb. 24, 2022. In this scenario, while the Donbas and Crimea remain in Russian hands, all the territory captured by Russia since its recent re-invasion would be liberated by Ukrainian forces and restored to Ukrainian control.

While once viewed as a realistic outcome, by now it should be obvious that this is impossible. Just as Ukraine lacks the ability to liberate all its pre-2014 territory, it also lacks the ability to liberate the recently conquered territory in the Donbas or along the Azov coast. Unlike in the north of Ukraine, these territories are central to Russian interests in Ukraine and, as such, Russia simply will not withdraw from them as it withdrew from Kyiv earlier in the war. Nor will Ukrainian forces – themselves, it should be noted, suffering terrible attrition all along the battle front and growing weaker with each passing day – be strong enough to compel them to do so. No, like the previous two scenarios, this one is simply an impossibility.

And that leaves only one other conceivable outcome: a fragmented and partly dismembered Ukraine, neither fully part of the West nor entirely within the Russian sphere of influence. A Ukraine fragmented in that the whole of the Donbas and perhaps other territories will be left beyond Kyiv’s control; partly dismembered in that Crimea will remain part of Russia (at least in Russian eyes); and not fully part of the West in that it will not be free to join NATO or even to have a meaningful partnership with the EU. Simply put, this outcome is not only not impossible, it’s not even improbable.

And when this final scenario comes to pass, who will have won the war in Ukraine?

Well, it won’t be Ukraine. While such an outcome will satisfy the basic existential goals of Kyiv, it will be a far cry from the more maximalist ambitions expressed both before and after Feb. 24. No, when this scenario inevitably comes to pass, it will clearly be a defeat for Kyiv.

Similarly, such an outcome will not satisfy the maximalist ambitions of those in Moscow who thought that their initial thunder run would resolve the Ukraine issue once and for all. But it will satisfy the Kremlin’s most basic and fundamental geopolitical desideratum: a neutralized Ukraine beyond both the geopolitical ambit of NATO and the geoeconomic orbit of the EU. It will also “restore” Crimea to its rightful place in Russia. And finally, it will demonstrate that interfering in Russia’s natural sphere of influence is unwise. In these ways, when the impossible has been eliminated, the resulting outcome will clearly be a victory for Moscow.

All of which suggests that, at the end of the day, it might be necessary to tweak Holmes’s aphorism just a bit. At least when it comes to thinking about the possible outcomes of the war in Ukraine, perhaps it ought to read something more like: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable unpalatable, must be the truth.”

Andrew Latham is a professor of international relations at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minn., and a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities in Washington, D.C. Follow him on Twitter @aalatham.

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3509458-the-unpalatable-truth-in-ukraine/

[Wonderfulspam]

I missed this piece by Hitchens from a few weeks ago....


Can anyone explain to me why this was called evacuation and not surrender?

I laughed out loud in Marks & Spencer when I found that they are now selling something called ‘Chicken Kyiv’.

This is apparently just like their old ‘Chicken Kiev’, only with added propaganda. I am told that there is now also a ‘No Chicken Kyiv’ for vegans, without any actual chicken in it.

Not since the wild frenzy after the death of Princess Diana have I ever met such a wave of ignorant sentiment. Nobody knows anything about Ukraine. Everyone has ferocious opinions about it.

The other night I shocked a distinguished Oxford academic by informing her that the lovely, angelic, saintly, perfect Ukrainians had blocked off the water supply to Crimea in 2014.

She was rightly shocked by this nasty, uncivilised act of spite, but it was far more shocking that this highly educated person did not know this important fact.

In the same way almost nobody, in education, politics or journalism, knows about the nasty, racist roots of Ukrainian nationalism, the horrible history of the vicious Stepan Bandera (now a Ukrainian national hero), or the Kiev state’s discriminatory scorn for the Russian language. If Canada treated its French speakers as Ukraine treats its Russian speakers, there would be international outrage.

Worst of all is the widespread ignorance of the fact that President Volodymyr Zelensky, in my view an admirable man, was elected on a programme of peace with Russia. But when he tried to do as he had promised, he was blocked by parts of his own army, who publicly confronted him and humiliated him.

At the same time his political rivals, including the neo-Nazis who very definitely do exist in Ukraine, went on the streets to denounce any sort of deal. President Zelensky crumbled. And the war came.

I have mentioned here before that the first act of violence in this war was actually the Western-backed mob putsch which overthrew Ukraine’s lawful government in 2014.

This was the true beginning of all the horror. And while it does not excuse the idiotic and brutal Putin invasion, it very much helps to explain it.

Look, I respect those who take Ukraine’s side in this war. They have a valid point of view which I happen not to share. But what I object to is the wholly one-sided nature of public opinion here. It is so bad that it is a positive disadvantage to know anything about the subject.

And it reached its peak last week when the Ukrainian defenders of the Mariupol steelworks, many of them in fact the neo-Nazis of the Azov battalion who proudly wear SS emblems on their official uniforms, surrendered.

The UK media coverage of this event strove mightily not to mention the neo-Nazis and to avoid using the word ‘surrender’.

The Mariupol garrison was said instead to have been ‘evacuated’ into Russian-held territory. Pictures showed them disarmed and being frisked by Russian soldiers. But we are so much in the grip of a one-sided view of this conflict that we could not even admit they had capitulated.

Refusal to accept such obvious reality is a sign of madness.

I personally have no idea what British interest is served by slavishly backing the American policy of stirring up trouble in Ukraine and goading Russia into combat.

Perhaps someone could explain it to me, over a plate of ‘Chicken Kyiv’ and a bottle of vodka. But for any debate to take place, we’ll have to start accepting that there are two sides to this argument.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10840777/PETER-HITCHENS-explain-called-evacuation-not-surrender.html


Yeah, it's no wonder he got a DSMA Notice over something, he was pulling no punches, utterly based view of the whole situation right here.

[Wonderfulspam]

There's a change of atmosphere in Donbas - a sense that Russia has momentum

The reality on the ground is the West hasn't sent enough of the heavy artillery and equipment Ukraine needs. What they have is being used up at an astonishing speed and they are losing a lot of men every day.

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-theres-a-change-of-atmosphere-in-donbas-a-sense-that-russia-has-momentum-12632082

Ukraine forces outgunned up to 40 to one by Russian forces, intelligence report reveals
Grinding conflict in east is ‘seriously demoralising’ Ukrainian forces, dossier says

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-war-intelligence-russia-kyiv-military-b2096715.html


Things are not going well for Ukraine & the collective West. How the media mood has changed from the triumphalism in feb/march when the Russians were forced back from Kyiv.

I think Ukraine, what's left of it, may end up landlocked, their last remaining port city is Odesa & I'll be very surprised if Russia don't make a move on it at some point, after capturing the Donbas.

During the 2014 revolution coup, the definitely not Nazi Ukranians burned down the trade union house in Odesa, killing around 40 anti-Maidan (pro Russian) demonstrators. No one has ever been prosecuted for this act of mass murder, & I don't think Mr Putin will have forgotten that.

[Wonderfulspam]

The idiot Liz Truss, who previously encouraged British soldiers to go & fight in Ukraine, has stated that the captured British soldiers that were sentenced to death the other day are prisoners of war.

I think this is incorrect, the captured soldiers are mercenaries, & therefore not covered by the Geneva convention. Unless Britain has declared war on the Donetsk People's Republic.....

[Miss Taken Identity]

I missed this piece by Hitchens from a few weeks ago....


Can anyone explain to me why this was called evacuation and not surrender?

I laughed out loud in Marks & Spencer when I found that they are now selling something called ‘Chicken Kyiv’.

This is apparently just like their old ‘Chicken Kiev’, only with added propaganda. I am told that there is now also a ‘No Chicken Kyiv’ for vegans, without any actual chicken in it.



The other night I shocked a distinguished Oxford academic by informing her that the lovely, angelic, saintly, perfect Ukrainians had blocked off the water supply to Crimea in 2014.

She was rightly shocked by this nasty, uncivilised act of spite, but it was far more shocking that this highly educated person did not know this important fact.

In the same way almost nobody, in education, politics or journalism, knows about the nasty, racist roots of Ukrainian nationalism, the horrible history of the vicious Stepan Bandera (now a Ukrainian national hero), or the Kiev state’s discriminatory scorn for the Russian language. If Canada treated its French speakers as Ukraine treats its Russian speakers, there would be international outrage.

Oh the Hitchins how I do miss Peter THE great!

"I laughed out loud in Marks & Spencer when I found that they are now selling something called ‘Chicken Kyiv’.

This is apparently just like their old ‘Chicken Kiev’, only with added propaganda. I am told that there is now also a ‘No Chicken Kyiv’ for vegans, without any actual chicken in it."

or the pancake without the pan...same thing?

"The other night I shocked a distinguished Oxford academic by informing her that the lovely, angelic, saintly, perfect Ukrainians had blocked off the water supply to Crimea in 2014.

She was rightly shocked by this nasty, uncivilised act of spite, but it was far more shocking that this highly educated person did not know this important fact"

The problem with OXFORD is it is way over rated now, well into cancel culture and going with the tw..ter crew. They  ruling dons and chancellors seem to have joined the ranks of the useful idiots. Can a highly educated person change a fuse wire? well each to their own.

'course Russian cyber crims attacked Ukraine's electric Grid.. poof!! lights out...  yes there was tit for tat spats.




The Pope has joined the 'Russian' side alledgedly by claiming they were provoked by NATO  ooh err  ouch!

There are indeed two sides to every story. AND the Nazis do live and breed in the Ukraine.

[Miss Taken Identity]

The idiot Liz Truss, who previously encouraged British soldiers to go & fight in Ukraine, has stated that the captured British soldiers that were sentenced to death the other day are prisoners of war.

I think this is incorrect, the captured soldiers are mercenaries, & therefore not covered by the Geneva convention. Unless Britain has declared war on the Donetsk People's Republic.....

Someone somewhere will declare war on our behalf. Can we just stop the f..k playing savoir to all and sundry and BUTT OUT of other peoples fights.

Phony Tony and his 'children' with Irish passports did OK out of the Iraq war... big bucks in arms trade. dead people shouldn't have stood in front of bullets and bombs just in case anyone asks ...

[Wonderfulspam]

Yep, who could have foreseen that continually threatening to expand NATO right up to Russia's front door step, might be considered by the Russians as an act of provocation.

I'll tell you who, the United States, they knew exactly what they were doing, only it's backfired & Russia look like reclaiming their sphere of influence , & now we in the collective west can just freeze in the dark as a result of our own refusal to buy affordable Russian fuel.

The United States has locked us allies in.  Europe can't benefit from affordable trade with Russia & China, we need to be at war with them, for the sake of the U.S military industrial complex.

[Miss Taken Identity]

Yep, who could have foreseen that continually threatening to expand NATO right up to Russia's front door step, might be considered by the Russians as an act of provocation.

I'll tell you who, the United States, they knew exactly what they were doing, only it's backfired & Russia look like reclaiming their sphere of influence , & now we in the collective west can just freeze in the dark as a result of our own refusal to buy affordable Russian fuel.

The United States has locked us allies in.  Europe can't benefit from affordable trade with Russia & China, we need to be at war with them, for the sake of the U.S military industrial complex.

Good ole US of A drag us into every dog fight...

Yeah, looks like the greens have won.. we will have net zero emissions very, very soon because only the uber wealthy can afford private jets and heated pools in 20 bedroom mansions. AND food which requires to be cooked using fuel the rest of us can only dream of.

I do believe Russia will grab land from Ukraine- Trukey seems to be piggy in middle they don't want  an expansion of NATO due to the Sunni Muslim terrorists and Kurds (PPK) enclaves apparently enjoying the high life in Sweden.  Pleasant Norway play all faces they have.

SNP Scotlands oil... ooops  hahahaha!

[Wonderfulspam]

Russia is done with the West. The divorce is nearly complete

Russia is done with the West. The divorce is nearly complete. In the past few days we’ve heard from all major Russian leaders the same thing, “The West will play by our rules now.”

You can decide for yourselves whether Russia is writing checks they can’t cash, but in the words of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov telling the BBC bluntly, “We do not care about the eyes of the West.” Lavrov has always been the soul of politeness and discretion when dealing with European media.

His open hostility towards his BBC interviewer was not only palpable, it was hard to argue with. He followed that up with:

“I don’t think there’s even room for maneuver left anymore,” Lavrov replied.

“Because both [Prime Minister Boris] Johnson and [Foreign Secretary Liz] Truss say publicly: ’We must defeat Russia, we must bring Russia to its knees. Go on, then, do it.”

Russia’s leadership never talks in such openly blunt terms. It’s almost like Lavrov was channeling comedian Dennis Miller who used to say, “Feeling froggy, take that leap.”

See where it gets you.

Russia knows it has the West on the ropes. We need what they produce and now they are determined to set the rules on who gets them and for what price. It knows that European leaders are puppets with Klaus Schwab’s hand up their asses.

And it knows Davos has zero leverage over Russia’s actions from here on out.

Which brings me to the statements linked above by Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller, speaking at a panel at the St. Petersburg Economic Investment Forum (SPEIF) who just put the situation in the starkest terms there is.

“The game of nominal value of money is over, as this system does not allow to control the supply of resources. …Our product, our rules. We don’t play by the rules we didn’t create.”

Miller’s statement should be thought of as a statement of principle across all theatres of operation for Russia. This doesn’t just apply to natural gas or oil. This is everything, all of Russia’s dealings with the West from here on out will be on its terms not the West’s.

This is clearly the biggest geopolitical middle finger in the post WWII period.

Miller is clearly laying out the rules for a new, commodity-centric monetary system, one based on what Credit Suisse’s Zoltan Poszar called ‘outside money’ — commodities, gold, even bitcoin — rather than the West’s egregious use of ‘inside money’ — debt-based fiat and credit — to perpetuate old colonialist behavior well past its use-by date.

I laid out the basic problem in an article from March after Russia soft-pegged the ruble to gold.

Today’s “Inside Money” standard, known colloquially as the Dollar Reserve standard, is actually what I like to call “Milton Friedman’s Nightmare.” It is nothing more than a system of competitively devalued and inflated debt-based scrips running around drinking each other’s milkshakes until everyone’s glass is empty.

Miller is definitely a glass full kinda guy now.

These comments came after Gazprom began cutting gas flows to Europe through the Nordstream 1 pipeline using the cover story of repaired gas turbines trapped in fascist Canada which couldn’t be shipped back to Siemens because of sanctions.

Now Germany and Canada are trying to figure out how to circumvent the sanctions to get these turbines back.

At the same time Miller pledged more gas to China (up 67% yoy through May) because Russia is interested in energy stability for its friends, while its enemies can starve.

Reuters is reporting that “Russia’s Gazprom increased gas supplies to China by 67% in the first five months of this year, the company’s CEO Alexei Miller said on Thursday.”

It was also on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their second phone call since the Ukraine war began. Xi told Putin that China is “willing to continue to offer mutual support (to Russia) on issues concerning core interests and major concerns such as sovereignty and security,” as quoted in state broadcaster CCTV.

The arrogance of EU commissars never ceases to amaze me. These people all but declare war on Russia and then act shocked (Shocked, I say!) that Russia then treats them like that.

On the same day that four members of the EU Commission — France, Italy, Germany and Romania — approve fast-tracking Ukraine’s membership application, France’s Emmanuel Macron urges Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to go to the bargaining table with Russia.

Even if Zelenskyy were to make those overtures to Russia, given his public statements on what his terms are, there would be absolutely zero chance that Russia would agree to show up for talks.

At this point I see nothing more than Russia continuing to grind out the Ukrainian army, taking what territory they want and then shepherding through local elections by the conquered territory to either become independent states or part of Russia.

It’s likely the latter at this point since Russia is now issuing Russian passports in regions they’ve taken from Ukraine, which the EU, of course, will refuse to honor until no one cares what they think anymore.

The rules are changing rapidly. Looking ahead there is a real danger that what Russia has set in motion leads to something no one wants to contemplate. Of course the West helped create this situation by forcing Putin’s hand to invade Ukraine, so who’s to blame about where this all leads to may, ultimately, be an irrelevant point.

Let’s hope the noises coming from the West about the sanctions having gone too far and the chest-beating of the worst US and British neocons is no longer being taken seriously by anyone with their fingers anywhere near the launch codes.

If that’s the case than these new rules will be grudgingly accepted only after a lot of borders have been redrawn, new alliances formed and a different world order established.

This morning at the President Putin declared the old world order dead. He finished his speech where he detailed how the West was committing suicide to suit the wishes of The Davos Crowd with the following definitive statement:

“Russia is entering the coming era as a powerful sovereign country. We will definitely use the enormous new opportunities that time opens up for us. And we will become even stronger.”

Putin is correct here. Russia is getting stronger by the day. The West took their best shot at destroying Russia and missed the mark. He clearly identified the real culprits for Europe’s and the US’s problems, subservience to an oligarch class who feel entitled to rule the world.

When the war started I wrote about what I thought Putin’s intentions were. Then it was speculation:

Russia held all the cards in the negotiations over Ukraine and we recklessly pursued a policy of insults and amateurish propaganda, refusing to believe Russia wouldn’t make her final stand.

By putting boots on the ground, planes in the air and missiles up the ass of every Ukrainian military installation across the country, Russia turned the ‘might makes right’ argument of the US and Europe on its head.

The game has changed because the rules have changed. It’s no longer a game of rhetorical chicken and virtue signaling.

Today it is fact. When Putin made his move on Ukraine the ultimate goal was the end of Russia treating the West as an equal and leading the Global South out of what he has called “vassalage.” The reason Putin is hated is because he realizes there are two types of countries, “sovereigns” and “vassals.”

It’s been his life’s work to make Russia into a ‘sovereign’ state free from the West.

From Russia’s perspective their military operation in Ukraine was their Declaration of Independence from the old ‘rules-based order’ of the post-WWII era. Justified or not, we are now in a new age.

The question is now, how many will survive into it.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2022-06-22/russia-done-west-divorce-nearly-complete-analysis

[Wonderfulspam]

Exile On Main Street - The Sound Of The Unipolar World Fading Away

The future world order, already in progress, will be formed by strong sovereign states. The ship has sailed. There’s no turning back.

Let’s cut to the chase and roll in the Putin Top Ten of the New Era, announced by the Russian President live at the St. Petersburg forum  for both the Global North and South.

The era of the unipolar world is over.

The rupture with the West is irreversible and definitive. No pressure from the West will change it.

Russia has renewed with its sovereignty. Reinforcement of political and economic sovereignty is an absolute priority.

The EU has completely lost its political sovereignty. The current crisis shows the EU is not ready to play the role of an independent, sovereign actor. It’s just an ensemble of American vassals deprived of any politico-military sovereignty.

Sovereignty cannot be partial. Either you’re a sovereign or a colony.

Hunger in the poorest nations will be on the conscience of the West and euro-democracy.

Russia will supply grains to the poorer nations in Africa and the Middle East.

Russia will invest in internal economic development and reorientation of trade towards nations independent of the U.S.

The future world order, already in progress, will be formed by strong sovereign states.

The ship has sailed. There’s no turning back.

How does it feel, for the collective West, to be caught in such a crossfire hurricane? Well, it gets more devastating when we add to the new roadmap the latest on the energy front.

Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, in St. Petersburg, stressed that the global economic crisis is gaining momentum not because of sanctions, but exacerbated by them; Europe “commits energy suicide” by sanctioning Russia; sanctions against Russia have done away with the much lauded “green transition”, as that is no longer needed to manipulate markets; and Russia, with its vast energy potential, “is the Noah’s Ark of the world economy.”

For his part Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller could not be more scathing on the sharp decline in the gas flow to the EU due to Siemens’ refusal and/or incapacity to repair the Nord Stream 1 pumping engine: “Well, of course, Gazprom was forced to reduce the volume of gas supplies to Europe by 20%+. But you know, prices have increased not by 20%+, but by several times! Therefore, I’m sorry if I say that we don’t feel offended by anyone, we are not particularly concerned by this situation.”

If this pain dial overdrive was not enough to hurl the collective West – or NATOstan – into Terminal Hysteria, then Putin’s sharp comment on possibly allowing Mr. Sarmat to present his business card to “decision-making centers in Kiev”, those that are ordering the current shelling and killing of civilians in Donetsk, definitely did the trick:

“As for the red lines, let me keep them to myself, because this will mean quite tough actions on the decision-making centers. But this is an area that shouldn’t be disclosed to people outside the military-political leadership of the country. Those who deserve appropriate actions on our part should draw a conclusion for themselves – what they may face if they cross the line.”

Baby please, stop breaking down

Alastair Crooke has masterfully outlined  how the collective West’s zugzwang leaves it lumbering around, dazed and confused. Now let’s examine the state of play on the opposite side of the chessboard, focusing on the BRICS summit this Thursday in Beijing.

As much as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and ASEAN, now it’s time for a reinvigorated BRICS to step up its game. In conjunction, these are the key organizations/instruments that will be carving the pathways towards the post-unipolar era.

Both China and India (which between them were the largest economies in the world for centuries before the brief Western colonial interregnum) are already close and getting closer to “the Noah’s Ark of the world economy”.

The G20 – hostages of the Michael Hudson-defined FIRE scam that is the core of the financialized neoliberal casino – is slowly fading away, while a potential new G8 ramps up: and that is directly connected to BRICS expansion, one of the key themes of this week’s summit. An expanded BRICS with a parallel G8 configuration is bound to easily overtake the Western-centric one in importance as well as GDP by purchasing power parity (PPP).

BRICS in 2021 already added Bangladesh, Egypt, the UAE and Uruguay to its New Development Bank (NDB). In May, at Foreign Ministry-level debates, Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Senegal and Thailand were added to the 5 BRICS members. Leaders of some of these nations will be connected to the Beijing summit.

BRICS plays a completely different game from the G20. They aim for the grassroots, and it’s all about slowly “building trust” – a very Chinese concept. They are creating an independent Credit Rating Agency – away from the Anglo-American racket – and deepening a Currency Reserves Arrangement. The NDB – including its regional offices in India and South Africa – has been involved in hundreds of projects. Time will tell: one day the NDB will make the World Bank superfluous.

Comparisons between BRICS and the Quad, a U.S. concoction, are silly. Quad is just another crude mechanism to contain China. Yet there’s no question India treads on tightrope walker territory, as it’s a member of both BRICS and Quad, and made a vastly misguided decision to walk out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – the largest free trade deal on the planet – opting instead to adhere to the American pie-in-the-sky Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF).

Yet India, long term, skillfully guided by Russia, is being steered to find essential common ground with China in several key issues.

BRICS, especially in its expanded BRICS+ version, is bound to increase cooperation on building truly stable supply chains, and a settlement mechanism for resources and raw material trade, which inevitably has to be based in local currencies. Then the path will be open for the Holy Grail: a BRICS payment system as a credible alternative to the weaponized U.S. dollar and SWIFT.

Meanwhile, a torrent of bilateral investments from both China and India in the manufacturing and services sector around their neighbors is bound to lift up smaller players in both Southeast Asia and South Asia: think Cambodia and Bangladesh as important cogs in a vast supply wheel.

Yaroslav Lissovolik had already proposed a BEAMS concept as the core of this BRICS integration drive, uniting “the key regional integration initiatives of BRICS economies such as BIMSTEC, EAEU, the ASEAN-China free trade agreement, Mercosur and SADC/SACU.”

It’s only (BRICS) rock’n roll
Now Beijing seems eager to promote “an inclusive format for dialogue spanning all the main regions of the Global South via aggregating the regional integration platforms in Eurasia, Africa and Latin America. Going forward this format may be further expanded to include other regional integration blocks from Eurasia, such as the GCC, EAEU and others.”

Lissovolik notes how the ideal path from now on should be “the greater inclusivity of BRICS via the BRICS+ framework that allows smaller economies that are the regional partners of BRICS to have a say in the new global governance framework.”

Before he addressed the St. Petersburg forum on video, President Xi called Putin personally to say, among other things, that he’s got China’s back on all “sovereignty and security” themes. They also, inevitably, discussed the relevance of BRICS as a key platform towards the multipolar world.

Meanwhile, the collective West plunges deeper into the maelstrom. A massive national demonstration of trade unions this past Monday paralyzed Brussels – the capital of the EU and NATO – as 80,000 people expressed their anger at the rising and rising cost of living; called for elites to “spend money on salaries, not on weapons”; and yelled in unison “Stop NATO.”

It’s zugzwang all over again. The EU’s “direct losses”, as Putin stressed, provoked by the sanctions hysteria, “could exceed $400 billion a year”. Russia’s energy earnings have hit record levels. The ruble is at a 7-year high against the euro.

It’s a blast that arguably the most powerful cultural artifact of the entire Cold War – and Western supremacy – era, the perennial Rolling Stones, is currently on tour across a “caught in a crossfire hurricane” EU. On every show they play, for the first time live, one of their early classics: ‘Out of Time’.

Sounds much like a requiem. So let’s all sing, “Baby baby baby / you’re out of time”, as one Vladimir “it’s a gas, gas, gas” Putin and his sidekick Dmitry “Under My Thumb” Medvedev seem to be the guys really getting their rocks off. It’s only (BRICS) rock’n roll, but we like it.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-exile-main-street-sound-unipolar-world-fading-away

[Wonderfulspam]

Anyone been reading about the dangerous & reckless shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant?

I've been thinking this all week & Peter Hitchens is the first British journalist I've seen actually speak the truth about the matter. The western media would have us believe Russia are shelling themselves.


A war in which Ukraine can do no wrong

Have you noticed how Ukraine and Ukrainians cannot do anything bad? I think President Volodymyr Zelensky is actually quite a decent person. But his attempt to get all Russians banned from travelling to Europe is bigoted and foolish. Russians do not all agree with their government’s stupid, bloody invasion. But Zelensky gets away with this proposal because Ukraine is a sainted nation.

Now we have the weird episode of the shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station which has been in Russian hands since they illegally seized it in March.

This, whatever the provocation may be, is an extraordinarily stupid thing for anyone to do. But who is doing it? Well, since the Russian Army is dug in there, it is extremely unlikely that the Russians are doing it.

So who is doing it? Martians? North Koreans? Eskimos? When I put the words ‘Ukrainians shell Zaporizhzhia’ into Google, that search engine responded by saying: ‘No results found for “Ukrainians shell Zaporizhzhia.” ’ Instead I got several accounts of the Russians apparently shelling themselves. The BBC reported online on Friday that the power station had ‘come under heavy fire’. But who from? It is not even stated. Normally reporters are urged to avoid using the passive voice. But for Ukraine, this rule has been suspended.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International, once revered by liberal global opinion, has made a cringing apology for a report in which it pointed out (as far as I know accurately) that Ukrainian troops had been sheltering in civilian buildings. Who really doubts it? Troops do this, even if they are not supposed to.

But Amnesty now says it ‘deeply regrets the distress and anger that our press release on the Ukrainian military’s fighting tactics has caused’. This is ridiculous. If news is reduced to childish one-sided propaganda, how can the citizens of adult democracies possibly make serious decisions about which policy we should follow?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11109173/PETER-HITCHENS-didnt-Doctor-warn-Comprehensives-far-scarier-Daleks.html

[Venturi Swirl]

An example of the absolute madness and / or blatant evil lying b........ry of the Russians:

“If we are talking about the Nazis, then Hitler united the majority of European countries under his banner in order to attack the Soviet Union. Today, roughly the same group of countries support Zelensky,” Lavrov (Russia’s Foreign Minister) said.

[Venturi Swirl]

Putin and his fan club must be feeling a teensy bit concerned right now.  Can’t help but find the current situation rather delicious which is bad of me I know…Ukraine to take control of Moscow would be an outcome no one foresaw this time a year ago.

ETA no sooner had I made this post than the Wagner group under Prigozhin decided to halt their march on Moscow.  Oh well, I wonder what tomorrow will bring, we certainly live in interesting times…