NATO issues RED ALERT! What Putin and China are doing will change EVERYTHING! pic.twitter.com/Pn1PQ0tUkn
— Redacted (@TheRedactedInc) February 6, 2023
Russia
Rockets have hit peaceful neighborhoods once again. Why does Kiev continue its policy, if not purely out of hate?
https://www.rt.com/russia/570954-logic-behind-ukrainian-terrorism/
By Vladislav Ugolny, a Russian journalist based in Donetsk
Feb 5, 2023
FILE PHOTO: Partially destroyed and damaged buildings are viewed after shelling in Bakhmut, Donetsk. © Metin Aktas / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
At least ten rockets hit central areas of Donetsk on Saturday morning, damaging three residential buildings, a local Russian official has reported on his Telegram channel.
One of the projectiles fired by Ukrainian forces hit an apartment building in the Kievsky district. While rescuers continue to search for survivors under the rubble, preliminary information suggests that there were three people in one of the apartments.
There was no information on casualties at the time of writing, but the absence of victims would be unusual; indeed, the Ukrainian shelling of the capital of the Donetsk People’s Republic intensified weeks before the Russian attack in February 2022 and has taken a heavy toll ever since.
The suffering of Donbass residents
According to the human rights commissioner of the DPR, Daria Morozova, at least 1,091 civilians were killed and another 3,533 were recorded as injured last year as a result of combat operations. The figures do not include places such as Mariupol, where the full scale of the tragedy has yet to be assessed.
The 4,624 people mentioned above were victims of regular artillery strikes on urban areas of Donetsk and Gorlovka.
When Donetsk residents are asked why the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to attack civilians, people usually have no explanation other than the desire of the Ukrainian government and military to destroy Donbass and its people. This is supported by a massive campaign to dehumanize local residents and a number of hateful statements by Ukrainian politicians. “We will kill them with nuclear weapons,” warned former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, while ex-president Pyotr Poroshenko has vowed: “Our children will go to school, while their children will go sit in basements. That’s how we will win this war.”
Ukrainian forces continue to bomb Donbass despite the shortage of shells experienced by both sides of the conflict. However, while Russia can solve this issue by activating its military-industrial complex, Ukraine is entirely dependent on foreign supplies.
It should make a lot more sense for Ukraine to use scarce ammunition on military targets rather than on peaceful residential areas. Even if a lot of the time, Kiev’s forces misfire. A typical example is a Ukrainian shell landing in the frozen Kalmius River that divides Donetsk.
How Ukraine explains the attacks
Whenever Ukrainian artillery hits a civilian object – for example, a flower market – or kills civilians, officials in Kiev deny it. Unofficial voices resort to false claims that no such thing ever happened. Over the past eight years, the latter have come up with several memes allegedly proving that the Ukrainian Army wasn’t involved – with explanations such as “the air conditioner exploded.” Even if Ukrainian forces manage to hit a military facility, such as a warehouse, they usually deny involvement, claiming that “someone smoked in the wrong place” and that the explosion wasn’t related to the conflict. Thus, an information environment is created that denies the fact that Kiev attacks cities.
People inspect the damages at the central market after a recent shelling in the course of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, in Horlivka, Donetsk People’s Republic, Russia. © Sputnik / Taisija Voroncova
The Ukrainian side claims the attacks on civilians are “self-inflicted” – implying that the Russian Army attacks cities under its control, supposedly to blame Ukrainian forces and demonize them in the eyes of the population, as well as for propaganda purposes. This kind of post-truth has given rise to a whole area of fact-checking, where journalists collaborate with open-source intelligence to calculate the trajectory of the strikes.
For Donbass residents, all this is extremely painful. Discussions of terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure often end in profanities. According to Donbass locals, Ukrainians keep on attacking Donetsk simply because they can. Meanwhile, people are just trying to survive and are waiting for the front to move away from the area. Other details don’t concern them.
However, this is a distorted view of the situation; there is every reason to believe that the regular shelling of cities in Donbass is part of Ukrainian strategy and follows military logic. Perhaps Kiev’s “hybrid war” era military doctrine has adopted terrorist methods. So, how do these attacks on the civilian population help Ukraine?
Psychological pressure
Let’s take a clear example. In June 2022, the units of the first corps of the People’s Militia of the DPR were dislodged from their permanent locations because of the battle for Lisichansk – they had to storm a huge section of the front from Popasnaya to Verkhnekamenka, moving from south to north. The Russian Armed Forces then lacked personnel and had to use troops from Donetsk. Ukraine intensified strikes on the city to force the leadership to return the units back to their locations.
A similar thing is happening now. Some areas are under pressure – in particular, the fighters of the Wagner Group are pressing in Soledar and Artyomovsk (known in Ukraine as Bakhmut). They are advancing backed by the artillery of the Russian Armed Forces. Ukrainians use civilian strikes to provoke politicians, hoping that they will influence the military and interfere with the army’s plans. In June, this plan failed and the Ukrainians, taking advantage of the lack of counter-battery fire in the Donetsk region, committed a number of atrocities.
Commenting on the situation in a private conversation, one fighter explained why the army didn’t take the bait: “Normally, no military man – from simple soldier to general – suffers if the enemy attacks the city. This sounds harsh, but it’s better for the enemy to attack the city than the army’s manpower. This would be the usual military logic, but there is one key detail: 95% of our corps are made up of local residents who are worried about their cities. So, after completing the mission in Lisichansk, our soldiers were very angry when they got back to Donetsk.”
Residents are seen outside a residential building damaged as a result of shelling by Ukrainian troops in the course of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, in Donetsk, Donetsk People’s Republic, Russia. © Sputnik / Sergey Baturin
This is all very close to home for fighters from Donbass. In the case of a fast-paced conflict without a stable front line, such attacks would have motivated the soldiers, by enraging them. Perhaps this explains the near-complete silence of the Ukrainian artillery in the first month of the Russian military campaign. In those days, when the front line was mobile, it was better not to further motivate the enemy.
However, in positional warfare, fighters are conscious of a permanent threat to their relatives and other civilians in their hometowns. Motivated warriors who identify themselves as “defenders” feel as if they don’t have enough strength to break through. This acts to discourage. Concern for those who are not on the front line returns the soldier to his other life, behind the front lines, and distracts him from battle. By itself, this does not break morale, but soldiers are also affected by constant adrenaline swings, a risk of death or injury to themselves or their brothers in arms, the cold and damp conditions, the monotony of their work (for example, a good soldier digs more often than shoots), and numerous other factors.
Today, Ukraine bombed a Donetsk hotel full of journalists – here’s what it felt like to be there
Russia doesn’t have a strong memory of World War I – it has been replaced by that of World War II. However, the current fighting resembles the trench warfare of the early 20th century. With the possibility to adjust and fine-tune firing using Chinese drones and the chance to search the internet for how to repair military equipment. The rest of it – mud, trenches, the frozen front line – is like World War I, including politicians demanding a large-scale and ambitious offensive.
Why can’t the strikes be stopped?
At the end of July 2022, such an event began in the Donetsk region. Its main goal was to free the city from artillery strikes. The Donetsk corps were successful for several days, but then became stuck in positional battles. By the end of January, six months into the operation, the army had barely advanced 10km (6 miles).
The fighters were unable to break through the pre-established line of defense, and the forces only managed to wedge and slowly push through the three lines of fortifications near the villages of Vodianoye and Opitnoe, north of Donetsk airport. However, the fighters cannot give up on storming these fortifications – the strikes on Donetsk and Makeyevka must end for good. 
A woman sits in a kiosk at the central market damaged as a result of shelling in the course of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, in Horlivka, Donetsk People’s Republic, Russia. © Sputnik / Taisija Voroncova
As a result, there have been signs of an emerging contradiction. On the one hand, military leaders who are interested in achieving military goals and saving manpower, and on the other, politicians who express the interests of the civilian population and want to put a swift end to the artillery terror. Politicians want the public to like them. They don’t want to deal with the consequences of hostilities, hoping for things to return to normal so they can receive funding to restore the affected regions. As a result, they view the situation quite differently from the military.
Ukrainian army used Tochka-U rocket in fatal Donetsk missile attack, local expert claims
Through manipulation, propaganda and informational and psychological influence, Ukrainians have made cunning use of the differences between civilian and military interests. This comes down to a grotesque choice between “killing the army in Avdeevka” and “allowing the Ukrainian Armed Forces to wipe Donetsk off the face of the Earth.” If politicians push the army to force the assault, the latter will make more mistakes, which will reduce their power. This, in turn, favors Kiev.
Perhaps seeking rational reasons behind the artillery strikes in Donbass is pointless – maybe it’s just the manifestation of rage on behalf of Ukrainian nationalists. However, if we ask ourselves “who benefits from this,” there is a creeping suspicion that terrorizing the population with NATO ammunition is a strategy initiated by Ukraine’s top military leadership. Firstly, these attacks tie up the forces of the Russian Army and distract it from concentrating on other areas. Secondly, they negatively affect the combat spirit of the fighters from Donbass. And finally, they allow political factors to intervene in military strategy, dealing a serious blow to its quality.
The US was never held to account over its 2003 invasion of Iraq, which was based on deception, Vyacheslav Volodin has said
“The UN should investigate Washington’s crimes against humanity. And the decision-makers should be punished for the millions of victims, refugees, broken destinies, destroyed states,” Volodin added.
https://www.rt.com/russia/570989-russia-american-empire-lies/
Feb 5, 2023
State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin © Sputnik / Ramil Sitdikov
The UN should open an investigation into Washington’s crimes against humanity, Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin suggested on Sunday.
Writing on Telegram on the 20th anniversary of the infamous 2003 speech by then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN Security Council, during which he justified the ill-fated invasion of Iraq, Volodin offered a scathing criticism of what he described as the American “empire of lies.”
According to the speaker of the lower house of Russia’s parliament, this date marks “one of the biggest deceptions of the global community by the United States.” He recalled that during the landmark Security Council meeting Powell “accused Iraq of producing weapons of mass destruction, providing a vial with ‘white powder’ as proof.” At the time, the US secretary of state said the vial could be used to store anthrax.
While the UN did not approve the Iraq invasion, the US attacked the country anyway, he added. “Half a million civilians fell victims, the president was executed, the country was gone,” Volodin wrote, pointing out that Powell later admitted that the vial stunt was “a hoax,” but Washington was never held to account.
US must get over its ‘sense of entitlement’ – Moscow
“All policies of the United States and the collective West are based on lies,” the Duma speaker stressed.
He noted that the same applied to NATO’s promises not to expand eastwards after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc, as well as to the 2014 and 2015 Minsk Agreements. The latter were signed by Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany in a bid to pave the way for peace in Ukraine by granting the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics special status within the Ukrainian state.
These accords “also turned out to be a deception – but [former German Chancellor Angela] Merkel and [former French President Francois] Hollande acted as Powell did”, Volodin said. He was referring to the bombshell confessions by the two ex-leaders, who admitted in December that the Minsk Agreements were simply meant “to give Ukraine time” to strengthen its army.
“The UN should investigate Washington’s crimes against humanity. And the decision-makers should be punished for the millions of victims, refugees, broken destinies, destroyed states,” Volodin added.
3 Feb 2023
Scott Ritter on War in Ukraine “no one believes anymore that Ukraine can win”, “neither NATO, nor European Union, nor the United States care about Ukraine”.
Scott Ritter is US Marine former intelligence officer and UN Chief weapons inspector, military and geopolitical analyst and author.
Moscow could retaliate “in any way possible” should Kiev decide to attack Crimea, Dmitry Medvedev has said
https://www.rt.com/russia/570962-ukraine-strike-crimea-burn-medvedev/
Feb 4, 2023
FILE PHOTO: Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev © Sputnik / Yekaterina Shtukina
Washington’s decision to supply Ukraine with longer-range missiles and allow Kiev to use them at will can only lead to further escalation, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday. He added that the US appears to not want the Ukraine conflict to end.
In an interview with Russian journalist Nadana Fridrikhson, Medvedev denied that Ukrainian strikes against the Crimean peninsula would force Moscow to sit down at the negotiating table. “The result would be exactly the contrary. There would be no talks in such a case. There would only be retaliatory strikes,” he warned .
Medvedev insisted that if Washington wanted peace in Ukraine, it could simply urge Kiev to engage in talks with Moscow, but that US President Joe Biden’s administration and “hawks” in Congress are “simply not interested in it.”
Russia could “retaliate in any way possible” should Ukrainian forces strike targets in Crimea or deep inside Russian territory, the former president warned. “We do not set any limits depending on the nature of threats, and are ready to use all types of weapons,” he insisted, adding that Russia would only be guided by its own doctrines, including the nuclear protocol.
Pentagon will allow Ukraine to fire long-range missiles at will
“I can assure you a response would be swift, hard and convincing.”
Medvedev also accused European leaders, who have been supporting Kiev through various means, including weapon shipments, of acting at the behest of Washington and to the detriment of their own people. The cost of sanctions, military aid to Ukraine, trade wars, and embargoes are borne by ordinary EU citizens, he added.
Medvedev’s remarks came a day after the Pentagon announced it was supplying Kiev with ground-launched small diameter bombs (GLSDB) – munitions consisting of a rocket motor and an airplane bomb, with a range of up to 150 kilometers.
According to US Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, Washington will not prevent Ukraine from using these munitions to strike targets deep within Russia.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that providing heavy weapons to Ukraine could see the US and its allies directly involved in the conflict, and spiral into a military standoff between Russia and NATO.
We are about to witness the end of the US empire. Good riddance.
“We are getting dangerously close to a point of no return. For months, both sides have been continuously escalating the war in Ukraine, and now it appears that we are on the verge of the biggest escalation of them all. As I have been repeatedly warning my readers for weeks, the Russians have been gathering hundreds of thousands of fresh troops for a massive winter offensive. The exhausted Ukrainian forces are already stretched incredibly thin, and the losses that they have been suffering over the past couple of months have been nothing short of catastrophic. If the Russians decide to bring the hammer down, the Ukrainians will be in very serious trouble.”
Kiev and the US are also keeping a close watch on the recent Russian military drills in neighboring Belarus. “Russia is preparing for maximum escalation,” defense minister Danilov had also told UK media this week. “It is gathering everything possible, doing drills and training.”
BY TYLER DURDEN
FRIDAY, FEB 03, 2023
The Ukrainian government is sounding the alarm ahead of the upcoming one-year Feb.24 anniversary of the Russian invasion, saying that Kremlin forces are amassing more troops on the border in preparation for a major new offensive. The warnings come amid widespread reports that Russian forces are gearing up for an inevitable Spring offensive.
In a Wednesday interview with a French media outlet Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov claimed that Putin has ordered a whopping 500,000 troops to ready the new assault in the coming weeks.
“Officially, they announced 300,000, but when we see the troops at the borders, according to our assessments it is much more,” he said.
And separately, Yuriy Sak, a senior defense ministry official, told NBC News on Thursday that “We should understand that the threat of a new and another offensive will remain until we defeat Russia.”
Ukraine expects the attacks to happen from the east and south: “As their main forces are concentrated in the east, we do expect them to begin an offensive there, perhaps around Bakhmut,” Sak said.
And President Zelensky in his latest evening video address to the nation said, “The situation has become tougher” in the area, and further that “The enemy is trying to achieve at least something now to show that Russia has some chances on the anniversary of the invasion.”
Kiev and the US are also keeping a close watch on the recent Russian military drills in neighboring Belarus. “Russia is preparing for maximum escalation,” defense minister Danilov had also told UK media this week. “It is gathering everything possible, doing drills and training.”
If the assessments are accurate, the Kremlin likely wishes to keep its positive momentum strong amid an intense fight for Bakhmut, especially before the arrival of Western-supplied main battle tanks. Russia has warned it is prepared to escalate in response. Russian troops, including Wagner mercenaries, are on the brink of having the city encircled.
“Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization that is leading the assault in Ukraine’s east, said Wednesday that his forces had seized the village of Sacco and Vanzetti, north of Bakhmut,” writes The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. “Rybar, a Telegram channel linked to the Kremlin, said Thursday that Wagner was claiming territory on the contested east side of the city, expanding control around a sparkling-wine factory and a meat-processing plant.”
Total control of Bakhmut could make pacification of the whole of Donetsk much easier – though at the moment both the Russian and Ukrainian sides are suffering heavy losses.
Putin does not bluff.
The U.S. and NATO are pouring into Ukraine huge amounts of heavy artillery munitions supplied to the Kiev armed forces. The U.S.-according to official figures-has so far sent more than one million rounds of ammunition for 155 mm howitzers to Ukraine, plus tens of thousands of missiles. About 300,000 rounds of ammunition come from U.S. military depots in Israel. The arms shipment is managed by an international network, in which Camp Darby- the largest U.S. arsenal outside the motherland, connected to the port of Livorno and Pisa military airport – plays a central role. Britain, France, Poland and Finland are supplying Kiev with tanks, and Poland is purchasing Abrams tanks from the U.S. Some of which may be destined for Ukraine.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/whole-europe-turned-battlefield/5805460
Global Research, January 22, 2023
Region: Europe, Russia and FSU
Theme: Militarization and WMD, US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: UKRAINE REPORT
***
The Federation of American Scientists confirms in January the news given by Grandangolo in December 2022 based on a U.S. Air Force document: the C-17A Globemaster aircraft has been authorized to carry the U.S. B61-12 nuclear bomb to Italy and other European countries. Since Biden Administration officials had announced that the B61-12 shipment would be brought forward to December, we believe that the new US nuclear bombs are already arriving in Europe to be deployed against Russia.
Enormous U.S. Military Spending, EU Dragged into Abyss of War against Russia. Italy Out of the War!
The U.S. and NATO are pouring into Ukraine huge amounts of heavy artillery munitions supplied to the Kiev armed forces. The U.S.-according to official figures-has so far sent more than one million rounds of ammunition for 155 mm howitzers to Ukraine, plus tens of thousands of missiles. About 300,000 rounds of ammunition come from U.S. military depots in Israel. The arms shipment is managed by an international network, in which Camp Darby- the largest U.S. arsenal outside the motherland, connected to the port of Livorno and Pisa military airport – plays a central role. Britain, France, Poland and Finland are supplying Kiev with tanks, and Poland is purchasing Abrams tanks from the U.S. Some of which may be destined for Ukraine.
At the same time, the U.S. and NATO are enhancing the deployment of their forces in Europe, increasingly close to Russia. In Romania, NATO deployed AWACS aircraft, equipped with the most sophisticated electronic equipment, kept constantly in flight near Russian airspace. Also in Romania, the Pentagon deployed the 101st Airborne Division, which is being deployed to Europe for the first time since World War II.
NATO and the EU establish “a task force on resilience and critical infrastructure.” “NATO,” declares the Council of the European Union, “remains the foundation of our collective defense. We recognize the value of a stronger European Defense that contributes to transatlantic security and is complementary and interoperable with NATO.”
*
Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
This article was originally published on byoblu.
Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Manlio Dinucci, Global Research, 2023
Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil
Snipers from the US and Britain have been sent to Bolshoy Potemkin Island near Kherson to kill civilians in order to pass them off as victims of Russian troops, an employee of the Russian law enforcement agencies told RIA Novosti
WORLD AT WAR
Patriarch Kirill blames “madmen” for believing Russia can be defeated.
January 20, 2023
Contributor via Getty Images
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has warned that any attempt to “destroy Russia” by “madmen” trying to impose their values will lead to “the end of the world.”
The comments were made by Patriarch Kirill after a religious service marking the Orthodox Christian holiday of Epiphany.
According to Patriarch Kirill, “madmen” are stupid enough to believe that Russia, which “has powerful weapons and is populated by extremely strong people,” can be defeated despite the fact that it has “never given in to an enemy and had always emerged victorious.”
The church leader also decried how such “madmen” were trying to “impose on them certain values that cannot even be called values, so that they would be like everyone else and obey those who have the power to control most of the world.”
“We pray to the Lord so that he enlightens those madmen and helps them understand that any desire to destroy Russia will mean the end of the world,” said Patriarch Kirill.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev made similar remarks when he asserted that Russia had “never lost a major conflict on which their fate depended” and that the result of defeat in a conventional war would be the triggering of nuclear war.
Meanwhile, in a potentially massive new escalation, the New York Times reported that the United States is considering working with Ukraine to attack Crimea, emboldened by the belief that “fears that the Kremlin would retaliate using a tactical nuclear weapon have dimmed.”
“Biden’s neocon handlers are essentially taunting Russia to use nukes against Ukraine,” comments Chris Menahan.
In another Orwellian speech, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Davos globalists that military escalation is the only way to bring about the end of the war, remarking, “Weapons are the way to peace.”
https://tass.com/politics/1564113
This was the Russian president’s reply to a proposal by Sergey Machinsky, first deputy head of the Northwestern Federal District’s Military-Historical Center
ST. PETERSBURG, January 18. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged further efforts on Wednesday to track crimes by the Kiev regime, including against civilians.
Addressing WWII veterans in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, he said: “We certainly must record [the crimes] they have been committing, especially against civilians, and we will do so. The Investigative Committee has been handling this, not only documenting, but analyzing these materials and providing them with a legal assessment. We will definitely continue along this path further.”
This was the Russian president’s reply to a proposal by Sergey Machinsky, first deputy head of the Northwestern Federal District’s Military-Historical Center. Machinsky mentioned the long-time joint endeavors between his colleagues and the Investigative Committee in establishing the circumstances of Nazi war crimes during WWII. “They are ready to continue this work in the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions right now,” Machinsky assured Putin, as he asked the president to authorize an investigation into the current Nazi crimes, “so that they [neo-Nazis] would be brought to justice.”
The Russian president explained what led to the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine
https://www.rt.com/russia/570084-putin-ukraine-operation-explanation/
Russia could not stand idly by when Kiev started eliminating people just for associating themselves with Russian culture, language and traditions, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday as he explained the reasoning behind Moscow’s ongoing military operation in Ukraine.
Jan 18, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with World War Two veterans, residents of besieged Leningrad and representatives of patriotic civil society associations at the State Memorial Museum of the Defence and Siege of Leningrad in St. Petersburg, Russia. © Sputnik / Ilya Pitalev
Russia could not stand idly by when Kiev started eliminating people just for associating themselves with Russian culture, language and traditions, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday as he explained the reasoning behind Moscow’s ongoing military operation in Ukraine.
Speaking at an event dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the breakthrough of the blockade of Leningrad, Putin noted that the Donetsk and Lugansk regions were “historical territories” of Russia and that he ultimately made the decision to launch the military operation in order to end the eight-year-long war in Donbass and to protect its people.
“We endured for a long time, tried to reach an agreement for a long time. But, as it turns out now, we were simply led by the nose, deceived,” the president added, apparently referring to the admissions by former German chancellor Angela Merkel and former Ukraine president Pyotr Poroshenko that the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015, designed to bring peace to Donbass, were a ruse by Kiev to buy time in order to build up its forces.
Russia indicates when Ukraine conflict may end
“It’s not the first time this has happened,” Putin admitted, stating Russia had done its best to resolve the situation by peaceful means. “It is now clear that this was, by definition, impossible. The enemy was preparing to transfer the conflict into an acute, hot phase. We had no choice but to do what we are doing now,” Putin explained.
Earlier on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that Russia will consider its objectives in Ukraine fulfilled when no military infrastructure that poses a direct threat to Moscow remains. He also stated that, in order to bring the conflict to an end, Kiev must stop harassing and discriminating against Russian speakers.
Former Russian leader and Putin ally warns Ukraine’s Western allies ahead of a key meeting in Germany.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/19/medvedev-warns-of-nuclear-war-if-russia-defeated-in-ukraine
Published On 19 Jan 2023
Dmitry Medvedev, an outspoken former Russian president who is close to Vladimir Putin, has warned NATO that Moscow’s defeat in Ukraine could trigger a nuclear war.
“The defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war may trigger a nuclear war,” Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of Putin’s powerful security council, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
“Nuclear powers have never lost major conflicts on which their fate depends,” said Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012.
He warned that NATO and other Western defence leaders, due to meet at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday to discuss support for Ukraine, should consider the risks of their policy.
The Kremlin was quick to endorse Medvedev’s remarks, saying they were in full accordance with Moscow’s principles.
Moscow’s doctrine allows for a nuclear attack after “aggression against the Russian Federation with conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened”.
Medvedev, 57, who once presented himself as a reformer who was ready to work with the United States to liberalise Russia, has recast himself as the most publicly hawkish member of Putin’s circle.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine almost a year ago on February 24, Medvedev has repeatedly raised the threat of nuclear chaos and used insults to describe the West.
https://omny.fm/shows/the-take/will-russias-vladimir-putin-go-nuclear/embed
Russia and the United States, by far the largest nuclear powers, hold about 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads.
Russia has 5,977 nuclear warheads while the United States has 5,428, China 350, France 290 and the United Kingdom 225, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
As president, Putin is Russia’s ultimate decision-maker on the use of nuclear weapons.
Washington has not detailed what it would do if Putin ordered what would be the first use of nuclear weapons in war since the United States unleashed the first atomic bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
While NATO has conventional military superiority over Russia, when it comes to nuclear weapons, Russia has nuclear superiority over the alliance in Europe.
Putin casts Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine as an existential battle with an aggressive and arrogant West and has said that Moscow will use all available means to protect itself.
Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered one of the deadliest European conflicts since World War II and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
The United States and its allies have condemned the invasion of Ukraine as an imperial land grab, while Ukraine has vowed to fight until the last Russian soldier leaves its territory.
Since a grim New Year’s Eve message describing the West as Russia’s true enemy in the war on Ukraine, Putin has sent several signals that Moscow will not back down.
He has dispatched hypersonic missiles to the Atlantic and appointed his top general to runRussia’s war effort.
Putin said on Wednesday that Russia’s powerful military-industrial complex was ramping up production, and was one of the main reasons why his country would prevail in Ukraine.
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES
Russia’s top diplomat says the West is searching for ways to anger China on a host of issues, including Taiwan and Tibet.
Russia’s relations with the West “will never be the same”, he said, as he accused the West of failing to observe signed agreements with Moscow. “Never again there will be a situation when you lie, sign documents and then refuse to fulfil them,” he said.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/18/lavrov-hails-moscow-beijing-ties-accuses-us-of-provocations
Jan 18, 2023
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has hailed joint military drills between Moscow and Beijing as a move that strengthens the pair’s new strategic partnership.
Addressing reporters in Moscow on Wednesday, Lavrov also accused the West of searching for ways to anger China on a host of issues, such as the status of Tibet and Taiwan.
Russia’s relations with the West “will never be the same”, he said, as he accused the West of failing to observe signed agreements with Moscow.
“Never again there will be a situation when you lie, sign documents and then refuse to fulfil them,” he said.
Last month, the Chinese and Russian navies held joint drills in the East China Sea.
According to China’s Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army, the exercises were designed to demonstrate “the determination and capability of the two sides to jointly respond to maritime security threats”.
Meanwhile, Russia and China are also said to be “sharing a toolkit” of approaches and strategies to undermine NATO, according to Julianne Smith, US ambassador to NATO.
“Those two are increasingly sharing a toolkit that should concern the NATO alliance, Smith told the Financial Times in an article published in December.
“There’s just no question that the [People’s Republic of China] and Russia are both working to divide … the transatlantic partners. And we are now very aware, we all have a deeper appreciation of those efforts and are intent on addressing them,” Smith said in an interview.
NATO in June listed China among its strategic challenges for the first time, saying Beijing’s ambitions and “coercive policies” undermined the Western military bloc’s “interests, security and values”.
Lavrov compares West’s approach to Hitler’s ‘final solution’
Elsewhere in his speech on Wednesday, Lavrov said the US had assembled a coalition of European countries to solve “the Russian question” using Ukraine as a proxy, in the same way Adolf Hitler had sought a “final solution” to eradicate Europe’s Jews.
“Just as Hitler wanted a ‘final solution’ to the Jewish question, now, if you read Western politicians … they clearly say Russia must suffer a strategic defeat,” he said.
Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Moscow, said Lavrov’s news conference was an attempt to contextualize the war into the “Russian-Western confrontation”.
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES
Tales from the Conspiratum 