tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5952612320944315702024-03-18T13:56:17.644+05:00PetroimperialismThe power of logic will invariably be stifled if confronted with the logic of power.Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.comBlogger230125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-44277935232036137692024-03-18T13:53:00.002+05:002024-03-18T13:53:52.444+05:00Putin’s Scuttled Peace Initiative and NATO’s Brinkmanship in Ukraine<p><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmXK975qb8_LhnGTlVrnvKFgxh6kPlvxN5mEzDU6S1tzRWT6OtJmLxklBZ4_OGKx96w3DMvtHc202ESeS1N9xYPjWwSsUMiYAIDif3H2Vnbtz4BekMaZUYgF3kSrerH1iHg8akdsRPEa6wZ7Bkvcsz1fEmmWlYYRso_tk-ofsu339pXblEHifBkMazP9rY/s2560/2019-06-14T000000Z_1951021920_RC167BE32BD0_RTRMADP_3_KYRGYZSTAN-SCO-scaled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1805" data-original-width="2560" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmXK975qb8_LhnGTlVrnvKFgxh6kPlvxN5mEzDU6S1tzRWT6OtJmLxklBZ4_OGKx96w3DMvtHc202ESeS1N9xYPjWwSsUMiYAIDif3H2Vnbtz4BekMaZUYgF3kSrerH1iHg8akdsRPEa6wZ7Bkvcsz1fEmmWlYYRso_tk-ofsu339pXblEHifBkMazP9rY/s320/2019-06-14T000000Z_1951021920_RC167BE32BD0_RTRMADP_3_KYRGYZSTAN-SCO-scaled.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Russia’s
invasion had damaged or destroyed up to 30% of Ukraine's infrastructure at a
cost of $100 billion, a Ukrainian minister <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-zelenskiy-condemns-shelling-bodies-line-streets-mariupol-2022-04-18/" style="font-size: 10pt;">alleged
in April 2022</a><span style="font-size: 10pt;">, adding reconstruction could be achieved in two years using “frozen
Russian assets to help finance it.”</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Oblivious to
the concerns of Ukraine’s politicians regarding rebuilding damaged
infrastructure of the embattled country during the war, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/27/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-flood-infrastructure.html">New
York Times reported</a> the infrastructure sustained damage due to the myopic
policy of scorched-earth tactics deployed by Ukrainians in order to hamper
Russia’s blitz north of the capital in the early days of the war.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The
scorched-earth policy played an important role in Ukraine’s success in holding
off Russian forces in the north and preventing them from capturing Kyiv, the
capital,” military experts confided to NY Times. During the war, “over 300
bridges had been destroyed across Ukraine” by Ukrainians themselves, the
country’s minister of infrastructure, Oleksandr Kubrakov, bragged. Elsewhere in
Ukraine, the military had, without hesitation, blown up bridges, bombed roads
and disabled railway lines and airports.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Demydiv, a
town on the outskirts of Kyiv, was flooded when troops blew up a nearby dam and
sent water surging into the countryside. Ukrainian forces flooded the area on
Feb. 25, 2022, the second day of the war. The move was particularly effective,
Ukrainian officials and soldiers said, creating a sprawling, shallow lake in
front of the Russian armored columns.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The flooding
that blocked the northern rim of Kyiv on the west bank of the Dnipro River
played a pivotal role in the fighting in early March 2022, as Ukrainian forces
repelled Russian attempts to surround Kyiv. The waters created an effective
barrier to tanks and funneled the assault force into ambushes and cramped,
urban settings in a string of outlying towns — Hostomel, Bucha and Irpin. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Even two
months later, despite the withdrawal of Russian forces north of the capital in
late March 2022, residents of Demydiv still paddled about in a rubber boat.
Despite unequivocally acknowledging the dam was blown up by Ukrainians
themselves but attempting in vain to implicate Russians, too, in the wanton act
of vandalism, the NY Times report risibly claimed “later, Russian shelling
further damaged the dam, complicating efforts now to drain the area.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Dubious
Ukrainian claims of having repelled Russia’s assault on the capital by mounting
guerrilla warfare and deploying scorched-earth tactics to the contrary, it’s an
incontestable fact that the “40-mile-long” military convoy of battle tanks,
armored vehicles and heavy artillery that descended from Belarus in the north
and reached the outskirts of Kyiv in the early days of the war without
encountering much resistance en route the capital was simply a decoy astutely
designed as a diversionary tactic by Russia’s military strategists in order to
deter Ukraine from sending reinforcements to Donbas in east Ukraine where real
battles for territory were actually fought and scramble to defend the embattled
country’s capital instead. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the early
days of Russia’s military campaign in north Ukraine, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/05/ukraine-military-battlefield-kyiv-mariupol/">Washington
Post reported</a> in March 2022 the main threat to Kyiv appeared to be a
massive Russian convoy, about 40 miles long, approaching Kyiv from the northwest
and believed to be about 20 miles from the capital and stuck near a cargo
airport. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Despite the
wanton destruction of “over 300 bridges, blowing up dams to flood the
countryside and disabling roads, railway lines and airports” in the state of
panic by Ukraine’s security forces as contended by NY Times, the virtually
nonexistent “resistance” and subversive scorched-earth tactics had no effect,
whatsoever, on the lightning quick blitz of Russian forces north of the
capital.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">All the
towns from the Belarus border to the northern approaches of the capital fell in
quick succession. Russian forces continued advancing from the northwest of
Kyiv, capturing Bucha, Hostomel and Vorzel on the outskirts of the capital by March
5, and Irpin by March 9, 2022. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Quite astonishingly,
however, instead of mounting a long-awaited assault on the capital, it was
reported on March 11, 2022, that the convoy had largely dispersed, taking up positions
in forests around the capital, before withdrawing back to Belarus after the
announcement of scaling back Russia’s military campaign in north Ukraine at
Istanbul peace initiative on March 29, 2022. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Clearly,
commanders of the military convoy had explicit instructions to spare the city
of four million people. The indiscriminate bombardment of the densely populated
Ukrainian capital and the ensuing urban warfare against heavily armed Ukrainian
militant groups nurtured by NATO patrons would inevitably have caused thousands
of needless civilian casualties. Therefore, the Russian military’s top brass decided
to spare the rest of the embattled country and restricted Russian military
offensive on liberating Russian-majority Donbas region in east Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">While the
Russian military convoy was knocking on Kyiv’s doors, Ukrainian politicians
were so alarmed that a senior Ukrainian government official announced in the
state of panic that Ukraine must hold off Russia’s attack for the next seven to
ten days to deny Moscow claiming any sort of victory. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Vadym
Denysenko, adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-task-is-hold-off-russia-7-10-days-senior-official-2022-03-09">said
in March 2022</a>: “They need at least some victory before they are forced into
the final negotiations,” Denysenko wrote on Facebook. “Therefore our task is to
stand for the next 7-10 days.” Forget about repelling the assault on the
capital, it was considered a “stellar victory” by Ukraine’s “valiant political
and military leadership” to delay Russia’s inevitable takeover of Kyiv by a
week.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Publicly
acknowledging the impending fall of Kyiv in the face of Russian blitz and
contending that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky would soon form a
government-in-exile, which would lead a guerrilla warfare campaign from safe
havens in Poland, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/05/russia-ukraine-insurgency/">Washington
Post reported</a> in March 2022: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The
possible Russian takeover of Kyiv has prompted a flurry of planning at the
State Department, Pentagon and other U.S. agencies in the event that the
Zelensky government has to flee the capital or the country itself. ‘We’re doing
contingency planning now for every possibility,’ including a scenario in which
Zelensky establishes a government-in-exile in Poland, said a U.S.
administration official.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Zelensky,
who has called himself Russia’s target No. 1, remains in Kyiv and has assured
his citizens he’s not leaving. He has had discussions with U.S. officials about
whether he should move west to a safer position in the city of Lviv, closer to
the Polish border. Zelensky’s security detail has plans ready to swiftly
relocate him and members of his cabinet, a senior Ukrainian official said. ‘So
far, he has refused to go.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“This is a
special military operation. If Russia were fighting a full-scale war, it would
have been over long ago. This would have happened if we used the United States
customary carpet bombings and scorched land tactics, repeatedly employed by
‘the world’s most democratic Air Force’ in Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq and Syria,” Russia’s
State Duma Speaker <a href="https://tass.com/politics/1442515">Vyacheslav
Volodin wrote</a> on his Telegram channel in April 2022.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Russian
President Vladimir <a href="https://www.rt.com/russia/553768-putin-ukraine-operation-timing/">Putin
explained</a> during a joint press conference with his Belarusian counterpart
Alexander Lukashenko in April 2022 that the time frame of the military
offensive in Ukraine was determined by the intensity of hostilities and Russia
would act according to its plan.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I often get
these questions, can’t we hurry it up?’ We can. But it depends on the intensity
of hostilities and, any way you put it, the intensity of hostilities is
directly related to casualties,” said the Russian president. “Our task is to
achieve the set goals while minimizing these losses. We will act rhythmically,
calmly, and according to the plan that was initially proposed by the General
Staff.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Putin
reiterated that Russia’s actions in several regions of Ukraine, implying
diversionary tactics deployed by Russian forces in Kyiv and Chernihiv in the
north, were intended only “to tie down enemy forces” and carry out missile
strikes with the purpose of “destroying the Ukrainian military’s
infrastructure,” so as to “create conditions for more active operations on the
territory of Donbas.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-declassified-intel-fight-info-war-russia-even-intel-isnt-rock-rcna23014">bombshell
NBC scoop</a> published in April 2022, the authors of the report alleged that
US spy agencies used deliberate and selective intelligence leaks to mainstream
news outlets to mount a disinformation campaign against Russia during the
latter’s month-long military offensive in Ukraine lasting from late February to
late March, despite being aware the intelligence wasn't credible, and sometimes
even publicizing downright fabrications.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The US
intelligence assessment that Russia was preparing to use chemical weapons in
the Ukraine War, that was widely reported in the corporate media and confirmed
by President Biden himself, was an unsubstantiated claim leaked to the press as
a tit-for-tat response to the damning Russian allegation that Ukraine was
pursuing an active biological weapons program, in collaboration with
Washington, in scores of bio-labs discovered by Russian forces in Ukraine in
early days of the military campaign.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The NBC report
noted: “It was an attention-grabbing assertion that made headlines around the
world: US officials said they had indications suggesting Russia might be
preparing to use chemical agents in Ukraine. President Joe Biden later said it
publicly. But three US officials told NBC News this week there was no evidence
Russia had brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine. They said the US released
the information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Multiple US
officials acknowledged that the US had used information as a weapon even when
confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn’t high. Sometimes it had
used low-confidence intelligence for deterrent effect, as with chemical agents,
and other times, as an official put it, the US was just ‘trying to get inside
Putin’s head.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The crux of
the NBC report, however, isn’t what’s being disclosed but rather what’s still
being withheld by the US intelligence community that the mainstream news
outlets are not at liberty to report on, as is obvious from the misleading NY
Times report that mounting fierce guerrilla warfare campaign and deploying
scorched-earth tactics by Ukraine’s largely conscript military and allied
neo-Nazi militant groups repelled Russia’s assault on the capital and the
Russian withdrawal wasn’t a consequence of a calculated military strategy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Despite
being aware of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s major unilateral concession
to Kyiv, halting Russian offensive north of the capital and focusing on
liberating Russian-majority Donbas in east Ukraine, practically spelling an end
to Russia’s month-long offensive in Ukraine, US security officials, as quoted
by the corporate media, are still deceptively asserting that Russia’s pullout
from areas around Kyiv “wasn’t a retreat but a strategic redeployment” that
signals a “significant assault on eastern and southern Ukraine,” one that US
officials believe could be a “protracted and bloody fight.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Regarding
the nefarious disinformation campaign mounted by the mainstream media on behalf
of NATO powers, the report notes: “The idea is to pre-empt and disrupt the
Kremlin’s tactics, complicate its military campaign, undermine Moscow’s
propaganda and prevent Russia from defining how the war is perceived in the
world, said a Western government official familiar with the strategy.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By mid-March
2022, after the “40-mile-long” military convoy of armored vehicles that created
panic in the rank and file of Ukraine’s security forces and their international
backers and that didn’t move an inch further after reaching the outskirts of
Kyiv in the early days of the war, it became obvious even to lay observers of
the Ukraine War that it was evidently a diversionary tactic. But US security
agencies insidiously kept feeding false information of impending fall of the
Ukrainian capital to the mainstream media throughout Russia’s month-long
military campaign in Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Only two
conclusions could be drawn from this scaremongering tactic: either it was a
massive intelligence failure and Western security agencies weren’t aware the
“40-mile-long” convoy approaching the capital was a ruse; or the NATO’s spy
agencies had credible intelligence since the beginning of Russia’s military
campaign that real battles for territory would be fought in Donbas in east Ukraine
and the feigned assault on the capital was simply a diversionary tactic but
they exaggerated the threat in order to vilify Russia’s calculated military
offensive in Ukraine, and win the war of narratives that “how the war is
perceived across the world.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Even in the
weeks after the unilateral <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-03-25/russia-says-first-phase-of-ukraine-operation-mostly-complete-focus-now-on-donbass">Russian
peace initiative</a> announced on March 29, 2022, offering scaling back its
blitz north of the capital and focusing instead on liberating Russian-majority
Donbas region in east Ukraine, a task that has already been accomplished in
large measure, Western intelligence community and the mainstream media kept
warning the gullible audience Russia’s pullout from areas around Kyiv “wasn’t a
retreat but a strategic redeployment” and that Russian forces had withdrawn
back into Belarus and Russia simply to “<a href="https://news.antiwar.com/2022/04/06/pentagon-russian-forces-have-completely-withdrawn-from-areas-near-kyiv-chernihiv/">regroup,
refit and resupply</a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Compared to
150-190,000 Russian troops deployed in Ukraine before the withdrawal process
began in late March 2022, the total number of battalion tactical groups in the
country <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/19/russia-ukraine-attacks-east-00026486">stood
at 78 in April 2022</a>, all of them in the south and the east in the Donbas
region. That would translate to about 55,000 to 62,000 troops, based on what
the Pentagon said at the start of the war was the typical unit strength of 700
to 800 soldiers. In other words, two-third of Russian troops deployed in
Ukraine were withdrawn back to Russia and Belarus by April 2022 while only
one-third remained in east Ukraine battling neo-Nazi militant groups <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">trained
and equipped</a> by the CIA.</span></p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-5231045788694890582024-01-07T18:49:00.002+05:002024-01-07T18:49:55.108+05:00Will Trump be Disqualified before Elections?<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfpJGph_REr7Q3BY15WfiVJNXwOB9ikkAO61TRZ_CEmz6Bkft3sl1ixTP7neBDV6rbEH22Pp3Z8q1BjREmXXhwQXLb5LQq6AcoUDdV2f51JpOmvE_EFsymvqMiOkLFMo8LYvgFWtZd95f2AY8D8zZvjuArXH023EUNykZW3oBRVvE8chWBfvkKdf3hIAGi/s1440/VUPXPEWYZZQZ4X26ILCOAXD3GM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1094" data-original-width="1440" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfpJGph_REr7Q3BY15WfiVJNXwOB9ikkAO61TRZ_CEmz6Bkft3sl1ixTP7neBDV6rbEH22Pp3Z8q1BjREmXXhwQXLb5LQq6AcoUDdV2f51JpOmvE_EFsymvqMiOkLFMo8LYvgFWtZd95f2AY8D8zZvjuArXH023EUNykZW3oBRVvE8chWBfvkKdf3hIAGi/s320/VUPXPEWYZZQZ4X26ILCOAXD3GM.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Although
liberal detractors would refuse to acknowledge, Trump is a charismatic
demagogue revered by conservative Americans and has remained a persistent thorn
in the side of political adversaries. Despite losing the re-election bid, he
won over 74 million popular votes, likely the largest number of votes won in
the US history by a losing candidate, and could stage a comeback anytime.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The storming
of the Capitol by a frenzied mob on January 6, 2021, was clearly a conspiracy
orchestrated by the US deep state in connivance with the political
establishment to undermine Trump’s leadership of the Republican Party and
forestall his re-election bid in 2024, as he was deemed a “national security
risk” and derisively sneered at as a “toddler-in-chief” by the Pentagon’s top
brass.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Following
the riots and deaths of four unarmed Trump supporters, notably Ashli Babbitt
who was shot, he was petrified to the extent that, for once, he appeared to
concede defeat and pledged “the transition would be smooth,” though he later
recanted and went back to the characteristic defiant attitude. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s not too
hard to imagine that the deep state must have inserted moles inside the Trump
campaign who were feeding false information to Trump. In all likelihood, they
misled Trump that the outcome of the election was still far from settled and then-Vice
President Mike Pence could refuse to certify the electors’ confirmation of
Biden’s electoral victory.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Trump’s
obvious intention in motivating the mob was that demonstrators would stage a
protest in front of the Capitol to exert moral pressure on Veep Pence and the
electors to refuse to certify Biden’s confirmation. But the Capitol’s security
was overwhelmed by the size and fervid passion of the crowd. The chief of the
Capitol Police acknowledged on the record that his repeated requests to send
reinforcements were denied, not by the White house but by certain “other
quarters” that I would identify later in the article.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-finale-insight/inside-trumps-final-days-aides-struggle-to-contain-an-angry-isolated-president-idUSKBN29J2J3">reported
following the riots</a> [1]: “’We are going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,’
President Donald Trump exhorted his screaming supporters before they marched on
the US Capitol last week, saying he’d go with them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Trump had
wanted to join the thousands of hardcore followers who assembled at Capitol
Hill on Jan. 6. He told aides in the days leading up to the rally that he
planned to accompany them to demonstrate his ire at Congress as it moved to
certify Democrat Joe Biden’s November election victory.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“But the
Secret Service kept warning him that agents could not guarantee his safety if
he went ahead, according to two people familiar with the matter. Trump relented
and instead hunkered down at the White House to watch television images of the
mob rioting he is accused of triggering.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Clearly,
Trump’s intention wasn’t to storm the Capitol. He simply wanted his followers
to go to the Pennsylvania Avenue and register their protest outside the
Capitol. Furthermore, Trump wanted to accompany the demonstrators, but was
advised against it by the intelligence agencies. Had Trump accompanied the
protestors, they would’ve remained peaceful. But in the absence of leadership,
the frenzied mob became rudderless and stormed the building.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The obvious
beneficiaries of the ensuing melee clearly were Trump’s political adversaries,
because the Republican Party has been divided following the storming of the
Capitol. Ten Republican representatives lent their voice favoring the House
resolution for Trump’s second failed impeachment bid and he is finding it hard
to maintain his hold over the leadership of the GOP.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">According to
another <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/dc-guard-capitol-riots-william-walker-pentagon/2021/01/26/98879f44-5f69-11eb-ac8f-4ae05557196e_story.html">informative
report</a> [2] by the Washington Post following the protests, the Pentagon top
brass restricted the authority of the commander of the D.C. National Guard to
send reinforcements ahead of the Capitol riots that could have prevented the
ensuing violence and bloodshed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The report
notes: “The commander of the D.C. National Guard said the Pentagon restricted
his authority ahead of the riot at the U.S. Capitol, requiring higher-level
sign-off to respond that cost time as the events that day spiraled out of
control.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Local
commanders typically have the power to take military action on their own to
save lives or prevent significant property damage in an urgent situation when
there isn’t enough time to obtain approval from headquarters.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“But Maj.
Gen. William J. Walker, the commanding general of the District of Columbia National
Guard, said the Pentagon essentially took that power and other authorities away
from him ahead of the short-lived insurrection on Jan. 6. That meant he
couldn’t immediately roll out troops when he received a panicked phone call
from the Capitol Police chief warning that rioters were about to enter the U.S.
Capitol.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Notwithstanding,
with all the political and corporate lobbying, super-PACs and smear campaigns
in the media, the US presidential contests are never smooth-sailing affairs.
But the presidential contest in November 2020 was far more unpredictable and
tumultuous even by the American standards. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">From the
bombshell <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/politics/biden-son-ukraine.html">New
York Times report</a> [3] in May 2019 detailing leading Democratic presidential
contender Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s murky dealings in Ukraine to the impeachment
proceedings against Trump lasting from September 2019 through February 2020,
and then an unprecedented second impeachment trial in January last year after
Trump had already left the office.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Clearly,
both the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump were nothing more than
show trials. The Democrats initiated the impeachment inquiry against Trump in
September 2019 as a diversionary tactic to cover up the sleazy dealings of
Hunter Biden with Burisma Holdings of Ukraine, and consequent discrediting of
leading Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Although the
Democrats had a thin majority in the House of Representatives to impeach Donald
Trump, the Senate was controlled by the Republicans. Besides, convicting a
president of impeachment requires two-third majority in the Senate that the
Democrats never had. Then what was the purpose of initiating the proceedings if
not to distract public attention away from the media trial of Hunter Biden,
which was bringing damning press coverage not only to Democratic presidential
contender Joe Biden but to the Democratic Party in its entirety?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Capitol
riots and impeachment hoaxes weren’t the only instance when the deep state flagrantly
interfered in the US politics to discredit and, at times, even brazenly
assassinate American presidents who dared to refuse to toe the national
security policy formulated by the high-command of the world’s most powerful
military force.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s worth
recalling that at the height of the Cold War in the sixties when the US
domestic politics was infested with the McCarthyite paranoia and communists
were persecuted all over the country, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin
of John F. Kennedy, was picked up as a scapegoat because he had visited Russia
and Cuba before the hit-job in order to put the blame for the high-profile
political assassination on the communists. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Not
surprisingly, he was silenced by Jack Ruby before he could open his mouth and
prove innocence in the courts of law. The cold-blooded murder of a pacifist and
non-interventionist American president was obviously perpetrated by a
professional sniper on the payroll of the deep state.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It was not a
coincidence that Kennedy was killed in November 1963, and months later, the
Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorized Lyndon B. Johnson to directly engage in
the Vietnam conflict in August 1964 on the basis of a false flag naval
engagement. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s obvious
that the American national security establishment was the only beneficiary of
the assassination of Kennedy. Most likely, the deep state turned against
Kennedy after the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis and Kennedy’s pacifist
rhetoric and conciliatory approach toward Washington’s arch-rival, the former
Soviet Union, in the backdrop of the Cold War.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Besides the
Cuban missile crisis of 1962, another reason the Kennedy administration fell
from the grace of the deep state was the botched Bay of Pigs invasion by the
CIA operatives and the Cuban exiles in April 1961 to topple the government of
Fidel Castro that JFK approved but later severely castigated the CIA for the
fiasco and sacked CIA director Allen Dulles and several employees. The Pentagon
wanted Kennedy to immediately invade Cuba following the foiled plot but he
“vacillated” and let a golden opportunity to dismantle a security threat close
to the US soil slip by. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Similarly,
JFK’s brother Robert F. Kennedy was a leading Democratic candidate for the
presidential office when he was shot dead by a Palestinian Christian Sirhan
Sirhan in June 1968. Being a pacifist himself, Bobby Kennedy opposed the US
involvement in the Vietnam War and wrote a book on the Cuban missile crisis of
1962 in which he credited his brother, JFK, for showing restraint and amicably
resolving the crisis.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As the
former attorney general of JFK, Bobby probably had good leads on the
masterminds of the JFK assassination, and wanted to avenge his brother’s
shocking murder by exposing the assassins after being elected president. This
was the only reason he, too, was silenced before he could be elected president.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Though
serving a life sentence at a California penitentiary, Bobby Kennedy’s murderer
Sirhan, now 77 years old, is a suspicious and deranged character, who
frequently backtracked on his testimonies and confession during and after the
trial, had no recollection of the murder and subsequent events, and his defense
team had pleaded for a retrial several times but the request was summarily
denied. He was due to be released on parole in August but California Governor
Gavin Newsom decided against setting him free in January.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Shortly
before the murder of Bobby Kennedy, Sirhan joined the occult organization
Ancient Mystical Order of the Rose Cross, commonly known as the Rosicrucians in
1966. In fact, Sirhan’s esoteric faith closely resembles a medieval cult
“Hashishin,” from which the English word “assassin” has derived. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Order of
the Assassins was a Nizari Ismaili sect which lived in the mountains of Persia
and Syria between 1090 A.D. and 1275. During that time, they founded a
clandestine organization that orchestrated the assassinations of leading
figures in the Middle East that were considered enemies of their medieval “deep
state.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Nizari
Ismaili State was ruled by Hassan as-Sabbah from 1090 A.D. until his death in
1124. The Western world was introduced to the assassins by the works of Marco
Polo who understood the name as deriving from the eponymous narcotic hashish,
which indeed was used to put the assassins under a spell for political
assassinations. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The more
recent examples of such murderous cults are the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a cultist
political organization founded by the Rajavis of Iran that relocated first to
Iraq and then to Albania, or the Fidayeen or suicide bombers of Islamic
jihadist organizations who are promised paradise in return for mounting terrorist
attacks against adversaries.</span></p><p></p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-23076165893043215762022-12-19T21:02:00.000+05:002022-12-19T21:02:02.940+05:00Why Pakistan’s Deep State Tried to Assassinate Imran Khan?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt0s4rJbk0wFTqsIMpGBdvnex0TNdeI_pFyO7LXoNpKH92x7HoXm_rVvWz96L-mmG-EsOCuL8HeTPGiTKkN8LK51aYsJp00r7oAQ9x1JWcMCm24zPmiSWNx1FFanzHucHKIZdMStkqCt5bpwRj9TBnf022QxiRfI3sU55FHRmZVGbPeiGAkdvypXZZ7w/s2560/2019-06-14T000000Z_1951021920_RC167BE32BD0_RTRMADP_3_KYRGYZSTAN-SCO-scaled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1805" data-original-width="2560" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt0s4rJbk0wFTqsIMpGBdvnex0TNdeI_pFyO7LXoNpKH92x7HoXm_rVvWz96L-mmG-EsOCuL8HeTPGiTKkN8LK51aYsJp00r7oAQ9x1JWcMCm24zPmiSWNx1FFanzHucHKIZdMStkqCt5bpwRj9TBnf022QxiRfI3sU55FHRmZVGbPeiGAkdvypXZZ7w/s320/2019-06-14T000000Z_1951021920_RC167BE32BD0_RTRMADP_3_KYRGYZSTAN-SCO-scaled.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />On Nov. 3, a spine-chilling assassination attempt was
mounted on Pakistan’s most charismatic and popular political leader, Imran
Khan, while he was addressing a political rally in Wazirabad, a small town near
the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Lahore.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As corroborated by eye witness accounts, there were two
shooters. One of them was an amateur religious zealot armed with a pistol and
meant as a diversion who was caught by the supporters of PTI, Imran Khan’s
political party. The other was a professionally trained sniper who shot a burst
of bullets at Imran Khan’s container with a sub-machine gun and escaped the
crime scene unharmed. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s worth pointing out that it wasn’t an assassination attempt
but a shot across the bow meant to send a loud and clear warning to the
leadership of Imran Khan’s PTI. The sharp shooter aimed the gun at Imran Khan’s
legs and emptied an entire magazine of the sub-machine gun, and hit the bull’s
eye. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Clearly, the assassin had explicit instructions only to
target lower limbs of victims and avoid hitting vital organs in upper body that
could’ve caused deaths and needless public furor. Injuries suffered by the rest
of PTI leadership, mainly in the legs, and bystanders was collateral damage. One
bystander, named Moazzam, was killed on the spot, but circumstantial evidence
points that he was likely shot dead from the bullets shot by the guards
protecting the container who mistakenly assumed that he was the shooter. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Multiple bullets and fragments of lead from two to three
feet high metal plate around the container pierced Imran Khan’s both legs. After
taking a close look at Imran Khan’s x-rays, as shown by his personal physician,
Dr. Faisal, one bullet fractured Imran Khan’s right shin bone. A tiny piece of
shrapnel landed near patella on the knee-cap. Another lead fragment almost
pierced femoral artery that could’ve caused profuse bleeding and even death if
left untreated for long.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The amateur zealot, identified as Naveed s/o Bashir, was
armed with a locally made pistol he had bought for Rs.20,000 ($100). Most
pistols found in Pakistan are semi-automatic and are utterly unreliable. They
seldom fire an entire magazine without misfiring a couple of bullets. That’s
what happened with the shooter, too. A bullet got stuck in the chamber and a
valiant PTI supporter, Ibtisam Hassan, leapt on him and snatched the pistol
from his hands.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russian-made Kalashnikovs, on the other hand, are weapons of
choice for sharp shooters. And since the times of Soviet-Afghan war in the
eighties, Kalashnikovs are so easily available in Pakistan that one could
conveniently get an AK-47 from any arms dealer. In all likelihood, the sniper
was armed with an AK-47, as the classic rattling sound of Kalashnikov burst
could be clearly heard in the video of the incident, and he likely escaped the
crime scene in the narrow alleys of the town on a motor-bike with an
accomplice.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The confessional statement of Naveed s/o Bashir was an
eyewash, as he was a decoy. The whole assassination attempt appeared astutely
choreographed. The purported assassin was not only caught red-handed but was
also filmed shooting bullets in the air with a pistol while the actual hitman
who professionally executed the assassination attempt remains as elusive as the
masterminds of the cowardly plot.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Subsequently, Imran Khan implicated incumbent Prime Minister
Shahbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and DG-C of ISI Major Gen.
Faisal Naseer in the plot to assassinate him. But the police refused to
register the first information report due to fear of repercussions from the
deep state for naming a serving military officer in the police report. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In any case, the director of intelligence couldn’t have
ordered mounting an assassination attempt on a popular political leader and the
country’s former prime minister all by himself without a nod of approval from
Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, then the army chief of Pakistan’s military, who retired
from service on Nov. 29, weeks following the assassination plot on Nov. 3.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In Pakistan’s context, the national security establishment
originally meant civil-military bureaucracy. Though over the years, civil
bureaucracy has taken a backseat and now “the establishment” is defined as military’s
top brass that has dictated Pakistan’s security and defense policy since its
inception.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Paradoxically, security establishments do not have
ideologies, they simply have interests. For instance, the General Ayub-led
administration in the sixties was regarded as a liberal establishment. Then,
the General Zia-led administration during the eighties was manifestly a
religious conservative establishment. And lastly, the General Musharraf-led
administration from 1999 to 2008 was once again deemed a liberal establishment.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The deep state does not judge on the basis of ideology, it
simply looks for weakness. If a liberal political party is unassailable in a
political system, it will join forces with conservatives; and if conservatives
cannot be beaten in a system, it will form an alliance with liberals to
perpetuate the stranglehold of “the deep state” on policymaking organs of
state.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The biggest threat to nascent democracies all over the world
does not come from external enemies but from their internal enemies, the
national security establishments, because military generals always have a
chauvinistic mindset and an undemocratic temperament. An additional aggravating
factor that increases the likelihood of military coups in developing
democracies is that they lack firm traditions of democracy, rule of law and
constitutionalism which act as bars against martial laws. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All political parties in Pakistan at some point in time in
history were groomed by the security establishment. The founder of Pakistan
People’s Party (PPP), Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was groomed by General Ayub’s
establishment as a counterweight to Sheikh Mujib’s Awami League, the founder of
Bangladesh, during the sixties.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nawaz Sharif was nurtured by General Zia’s administration
during the eighties to offset the influence of Bhutto’s People’s Party. But he
was cast aside after he capitulated to the pressure of the Clinton
administration during the Kargil conflict of 1999 in disputed Kashmir region
and ceded Pakistan’s military positions to arch-rival India, leading to Gen.
Musharraf’s coup against Nawaz Sharif’s government in Oct. 1999.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Imran Khan’s PTI draws popular support from Pakistani
masses, particularly from younger generations and women that are full of
political enthusiasm. PTI won the general elections of 2018 and formed a
coalition government, and Imran Khan was elected prime minister. But a rift
emerged between Imran Khan’s elected government and the top brass of Pakistan’s
military in Nov. 2021 over the appointment of the director general of Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s powerful military intelligence service. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Eventually, Imran Khan succumbed to pressure and appointed
the spymaster nominated by the top brass. But by then, the military had decided
that Imran Khan had become too powerful a political leader and was encroaching
on the military’s traditional domains, defense and national security policy.
Therefore, deploying the astute divide-and-conquer strategy, the deep state
lent its weight behind the opposition political alliance. Imran Khan’s
political allies abandoned the PTI government and the coalition government fell
apart in April.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Due to the British imperial legacy and subsequent close
working relationship between the security agencies of Pakistan and the US
during the Soviet-Afghan war of the eighties, Pakistan’s security establishment
works hand in glove with the deep state of the United States, like the Turkish
security establishment which is a NATO member.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Before his ouster as prime minister in a no-trust motion in
the parliament on April 10, Imran Khan claimed that Pakistan’s Ambassador to
US, Asad Majeed, was warned by Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu that
Khan’s continuation in office would have repercussions for bilateral ties
between the two nations. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Shireen Mazari, a Pakistani politician who served as the
Federal Minister for Human Rights under the Imran Khan government, quoted
Donald Lu as saying: “If Prime Minister Imran Khan remained in office, then
Pakistan will be isolated from the United States and we will take the issue
head on; but if the vote of no-confidence succeeds, all will be forgiven.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Imran Khan fell from the grace of the Biden administration,
whose record-breaking popularity ratings plummeted after the precipitous fall
of Kabul in August 2021, reminiscent of the Fall of Saigon in April 1975, with
Chinook helicopters hovering over US embassy evacuating diplomatic staff to the
airport, and Washington accused Pakistan for the debacle.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After the United States “nation-building project” failed in
Afghanistan during its two-decade occupation of the embattled country from Oct.
2001 to August 2021, it accused regional powers of lending covert support to
Afghan insurgents battling the occupation forces.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The occupation and Washington’s customary blame game
accusing “malign regional forces” of insidiously destabilizing Afghanistan and
undermining US-led “benevolent imperialism” instead of accepting responsibility
for its botched invasion and occupation of Afghanistan brought Pakistan and
Russia closer against a common adversary in their backyard, and the two
countries even managed to forge defense ties, particularly during the three and
a half years of Imran Khan’s government from July 2018 to April 2022.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since the announcement of a peace deal with the Taliban by
the Trump administration in Feb. 2020, regional powers, China and Russia in
particular, hosted international conferences and invited the representatives of
the US-backed Afghanistan government and the Taliban for peace negotiations. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After the departure of US forces from “the graveyard of the
empires,” although Washington is trying to starve the hapless Afghan masses to
death in retribution for inflicting a humiliating defeat on the global hegemon
by imposing economic sanctions on the Taliban government and browbeating
international community to desist from lending formal diplomatic recognition or
having trade relations with Afghanistan, China and Russia have provided
generous humanitarian and developmental assistance to Afghanistan.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Imran Khan’s ouster from power for daring to stand up to the
United States harks back to the toppling and subsequent assassination of
Pakistan’s first elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in April 1979 by
the martial law regime of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The United States not only turned a blind eye but tacitly
approved the elimination of Bhutto from Pakistan’s political scene because,
being a socialist, Bhutto not only nurtured cordial ties with communist China
but was also courting Washington’s arch-rival, the former Soviet Union. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Soviet Union played the role of a mediator at the
signing of the Tashkent Agreement for the cessation of hostilities following
the 1965 India-Pakistan War over the disputed Kashmir region, in which Bhutto
represented Pakistan as the foreign minister of the Gen. Ayub Khan-led
government. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Like Imran Khan, the United States “deep state” regarded
Bhutto as a political liability and an obstacle in the way of mounting the
Operation Cyclone to provoke the former Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan
and the subsequent waging of a decade-long war of attrition, using Afghan
jihadists as cannon fodder who were generously funded, trained and armed by the
CIA and Pakistan’s security agencies in the Af-Pak border regions, in order to
“bleed the Soviet forces” and destabilize and weaken the rival global power.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Regarding the objectives of the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan in December 1979, then American envoy to Kabul, Adolph “Spike”
Dubs, was assassinated on the Valentine’s Day, on 14 Feb 1979, the same day
that Iranian revolutionaries stormed the American embassy in Tehran.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The former Soviet Union was wary that its forty-million
Muslims were susceptible to radicalism, because Islamic radicalism was
infiltrating across the border into the Central Asian States from Afghanistan.
Therefore, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 in support of
the Afghan communists to forestall the likelihood of Islamist insurgencies
spreading to the Central Asian States bordering Afghanistan. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">According to documents declassified by the White House, CIA
and State Department in January 2019, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/07/history-trump-cia-was-arming-afghan-rebels-before-soviets-invaded/">as
reported</a> by Tim Weiner for The Washington Post, the CIA was aiding Afghan
jihadists before the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. President Jimmy
Carter signed the CIA directive to arm the Afghan jihadists in July 1979,
whereas the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December that year. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The revelation doesn’t come as a surprise, though, because
more than two decades before the declassification of the State Department
documents, in the <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/1998/01/15/how-jimmy-carter-and-i-started-the-mujahideen/">1998
interview</a> to The Counter Punch Magazine, former National Security Advisor
to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, confessed that the president
signed the directive to provide secret aid to the Afghan jihadists in July
1979, whereas the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan six months later in December
1979. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Here is a poignant excerpt from the interview. The
interviewer puts the question: “And neither do you regret having supported the
Islamic jihadists, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?”
Brzezinski replies: “What is most important to the history of the world? The
Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet Empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the
liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite the crass insensitivity, one must give credit to
Zbigniew Brzezinski that at least he had the courage to speak the unembellished
truth. It’s worth noting, however, that the aforementioned interview was
recorded in 1998. After the 9/11 terror attack, no Western policymaker can now
dare to be as blunt and forthright as Brzezinski.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Regardless, that the CIA was arming the Afghan jihadists six
months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan has been proven by the State
Department’s declassified documents; fact of the matter, however, is that the
nexus between the CIA, Pakistan’s security agencies and the Gulf Arab States to
train and arm the Afghan jihadists against the former Soviet Union was forged
years before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Pakistan joined the American-led, anticommunist SEATO and
CENTO regional alliances in the 1950s and played the role of Washington’s
client state since its inception in 1947. So much so that when a United States
U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defense Forces while performing photographic
aerial reconnaissance deep into Soviet territory, Pakistan’s then President
Ayub Khan openly acknowledged the reconnaissance aircraft flew from an American
airbase in Peshawar, a city in northwest Pakistan.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then during the 1970s, Pakistan’s then Prime Minister
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government began aiding the Afghan Islamists against
Sardar Daud’s government, who had toppled his first cousin King Zahir Shah in a
palace coup in 1973 and had proclaimed himself the president of Afghanistan. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sardar Daud was a Pashtun nationalist and laid claim to
Pakistan’s northwestern Pashtun-majority province. Pakistan’s security agencies
were alarmed by his irredentist claims and used Islamists to weaken his rule in
Afghanistan. He was eventually assassinated in 1978 as a consequence of the
Saur Revolution led by the Afghan communists. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s worth pointing out, however, that although the Bhutto
government did provide political and diplomatic support on a limited scale to
Islamists in their struggle for power against Pashtun nationalists in
Afghanistan, being a secular and progressive politician, he would never have
permitted opening the floodgates for flushing the Af-Pak region with weapons,
petrodollars and radical jihadist ideology as his successor, Zia-ul-Haq, an
Islamist military general, did by becoming a willing tool of religious
extremism and militarism in the hands of neocolonial powers.</p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-75185158121254796242022-08-02T15:55:00.001+05:002022-08-02T15:55:14.061+05:00PTI’s Foreign Funding Case and Need for Electoral Reforms<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJjNv3F9_9yPiudokS5j1wRgPIzRx0hiEd3j8YDuJu_fwsy6yYsiCGSFaVOV8np5mPEpyr33W57wMzkTUSwh98avXzBGfKC3v3_AQm5he56fgt9mKlqy2Z6S4CtQDZYBeHh9tiLCViquutg76KGcNFyWiJuKMbK_UXsPur9wa3MWr84veiHr68lZkYVg/s3500/5b7800ae9b66b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2100" data-original-width="3500" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJjNv3F9_9yPiudokS5j1wRgPIzRx0hiEd3j8YDuJu_fwsy6yYsiCGSFaVOV8np5mPEpyr33W57wMzkTUSwh98avXzBGfKC3v3_AQm5he56fgt9mKlqy2Z6S4CtQDZYBeHh9tiLCViquutg76KGcNFyWiJuKMbK_UXsPur9wa3MWr84veiHr68lZkYVg/s320/5b7800ae9b66b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />The Election Commission of Pakistan’s politically motivated
verdict against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), accusing Pakistan’s most
popular political party of receiving funds from foreign nationals and entities,
raises two vital questions: are Pakistani political parties permitted to mount
fundraising campaigns to meet electoral campaign-related expenses, and are
Pakistani expats, even if they have renounced Pakistani citizenship, allowed to
contribute money to such funds?<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Rather than an indictment on PTI’s illicit financial
transactions, the election commission’s verdict, in fact, was the vindication
of PTI’s stance that the party’s financial transactions and record-keeping are
completely transparent and accounted for. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Had Pakistani expats contributed their hard-earned money to
electoral funds of PML-N or PPP, it would certainly have ended up in the benami
bank accounts of Maqsood Chaprasi and Gullu Butt. But even the election
commission’s verdict implicitly acknowledges that the purported “prohibited
funds” were actually deposited in the party’s bank accounts and were used on
running electoral campaigns of PTI’s candidates.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In Pakistan’s political system, there are three major
structural faults. A representative and democratic political system weeds out
corrupt and inept rulers in the long run. But Pakistan’s democracy was derailed
by three decade-long martial laws and every time it got back to square one and
had to start anew. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Democracy works like the trial-and-error method: politicians
who fail to perform are cast aside and those who deliver are retained through
election process. A martial law, especially if it is decade-long, gives a new
lease of life to the already tried, tested and failed politicians. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The second major fault in Pakistan’s political system is the
refusal of the party chiefs of the two national-level political parties,
Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), to hold
genuine intra-party elections. How can one champion democracy on a national
level when one refuses to ensure representation within political parties? Because
of this reason, both these political parties have become personality cults and
family fiefdoms rather than representative political parties, as such. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The only mainstream political party which has consistently held
intra-party elections since the 2013 parliamentary elections is the new entrant
in the Pakistani political landscape: Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
(PTI). Those intra-party elections are far from perfect, but it is a step in
the right direction. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Isn’t it ironic, however, that apart from PTI, the only two
political parties in Pakistan that regularly hold intra-party elections and
that have created a public fund for the election campaign-related expenses are
Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI)? No wonder then, the
Urdu-speaking Mohajir nationalists and the hardline Islamists vote in droves
for these political parties, respectively, because they represent the middle
class of a section of Pakistani society. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Had it not been for the racism and militancy of MQM and the
hardline Islamist ideology of JI, both these parties would have easily swept
the elections, in the same way that PTI won an overwhelming mandate in the
provincial elections of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in 2013 and the general
elections of 2018. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The third principal fault in democracy, not just in Pakistan
but as it is practiced all over the world, is the election campaign funding
part, because individuals and corporations that finance election campaigns
always have ulterior motives: they treat political funding as investments from
which they expect to make profits by influencing executive policy and
legislation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nevertheless, in the developed Western societies, a
distinction is generally drawn between power and money. If we take a cursory
look at some of the well-known Western politicians, excluding a few
billionaires like Trump, others like Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton,
Tony Blair and Francois Hollande, all of them were successful lawyers from the
middle class backgrounds before they were elected as executives of their
respective countries. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Republican, Democratic, Conservative and Labor parties,
all of them accept political contributions which are then spent on the election
campaigns of their nominees, which generally are the members of the middle
class. Nowhere in the developed and politically mature Western countries it is
it allowed for individual candidates to spend money from their own pockets on
their election campaigns, because instead of a political contest, it would then
become a contest between the bank accounts of respective candidates.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although money does influence politics even in the Western
countries, it only happens through indirect means like the election campaign
financing of political parties, congressional lobbying and advocacy groups etc.
In the developing democracies, like India and Pakistan, for instance, only the
so-called “electable” feudals, industrialists and billionaire businessmen can
aspire for political offices due to election campaign-related expenses, and the
middle class and the masses are completely excluded from the whole electoral
exercise. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This makes a sheer mockery of democratic process, because
how can we expect from the ultra-rich elite to protect the interests of the
middle and lower classes? They would obviously enact laws and formulate public
policy which would favor their financial interests without any regard for the
larger public interest. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In Pakistan, politics has become the exclusive monopoly of
the feudal Bhutto fiefdom and the industrialist Sharif dynasty; while in India,
the elitist Nehru dynasty has practically been kicked out of politics by the
Hindu nationalist BJP due to the former’s neoliberal policies and hereditary
leadership. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Fact of the matter is that in Pakistan and India, we have
never had a genuinely representative democracy that would cater to the needs
and interests of the masses. What we have had thus far is quasi-democracy or
more appropriately, an “elitocracy,” that protects the interests of moneyed
elites of the subcontinent.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nevertheless, democracy evolves over time. Instead of losing
faith in political system, one must remain engaged in repetitive electoral
process, which delivers in the long run through scientifically proven
trial-and-error method.</p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-74361805543478859192022-05-19T14:06:00.001+05:002022-05-19T14:06:31.116+05:00Covert Warfare: How NATO’s Defense Contractors Assisted Ukraine in War<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8kBF9PhW9Kuf2g3Wc3D6rwBS7Vag-vF-9eBDFTO7wl-CxCTJgvRWXtwYhMwHXQMPK-nYj4a6Qy4IZrPU_5FWwBUnpd6M3MGH-SHy0AE-BskVYMbFZkk3Udpe-hoeinPVx_7YdQ-ZZ5DoHmP3u6lMNo6OJaELRTgsjcg8qelvKtqDVYOx2LyHqelTImA/s1875/FRLgY9OWUAEQM6n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1250" data-original-width="1875" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8kBF9PhW9Kuf2g3Wc3D6rwBS7Vag-vF-9eBDFTO7wl-CxCTJgvRWXtwYhMwHXQMPK-nYj4a6Qy4IZrPU_5FWwBUnpd6M3MGH-SHy0AE-BskVYMbFZkk3Udpe-hoeinPVx_7YdQ-ZZ5DoHmP3u6lMNo6OJaELRTgsjcg8qelvKtqDVYOx2LyHqelTImA/s320/FRLgY9OWUAEQM6n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />British special forces were training Ukrainian troops in
Kyiv since early this month, Ukrainian commanders <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sas-troops-are-training-local-forces-in-ukraine-32vs5bjzb">told
The Times</a> in mid-April. Captain Yuriy Myronenko, whose battalion is
stationed in Obolon on the northern outskirts of Kyiv, <a href="https://archive.ph/U4qUP">told the news outlet</a> that military trainers
had come to instruct new and returning military recruits to use NLAWs,
British-supplied anti-tank missiles that were delivered in February as the
invasion was beginning.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Former British soldiers, marines and special forces
commandos are also in Ukraine working as training contractors and volunteers,
but the Ukrainian officers were adamant that their training this month was
carried out by serving British soldiers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The elite SAS special forces units [a British army special
forces unit] have been present in Ukraine since the start of the war, as have
the American Deltas [a US special forces unit],” Georges Malbrunot, a reporter
for French Le Figaro newspaper, citing a French intelligence source, <a href="https://twitter.com/Malbrunot/status/1512814126367662088">tweeted on
April 9</a>. The reporter spilled the secret the same day when British Prime
Minister Boris Johnson made his surprise visit to Kyiv. The British leader was
reportedly surrounded by guards from the elite SAS force.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The veteran French journalist who returned from Ukraine
after arriving with volunteer fighters <a href="https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/americans-are-charge-war-says-french-journalist-who-returned-ukraine">told
broadcaster CNews</a> that Americans were directly “in charge” of the war on
the ground. “I had the surprise, and so did they, to discover that to be able
to enter the Ukrainian army, well it’s the Americans who are in charge,” said
Malbrunot. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Adding that he and the volunteers “almost got arrested” by
the Americans, who asserted they were in charge, the journalist then revealed
that they were forced to sign a contract until the end of the war. “And who is
in charge? It’s the Americans, I saw it with my own eyes,” said the French
reporter, adding, “I thought I was with the international brigades, and I found
myself facing the Pentagon.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition to British SAS units and United States special
forces and covert CIA operatives, approximately 6,824 “foreign mercenaries”
from 63 countries came to Ukraine to fight for the Zelensky government, the
Russian Defense Ministry <a href="https://www.rt.com/russia/554029-foreign-mercenaries-ukraine-mariupol/">revealed
last week</a>. Of these, 1,035 have been “eliminated,” while several thousand
remain. Four hundred foreign fighters are holed up in Mariupol, where ultra-nationalist
forces, including the neo-Nazi fighters, have refused to surrender. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The most numerous group of foreign fighters, numbering 1,717,
arrived from Poland, while around 1,500 came from the US, Canada and Romania.
Up to 300 people each came from the UK and Georgia, while 193 arrived from the
Turkish-controlled areas of Syria. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These figures were announced on April 17 by Defense Ministry
spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov. According to the general, 1,035 “foreign
mercenaries” had been killed by Russian forces and 912 fled Ukraine, leaving 4,877
active in the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Nikolaev and Mariupol. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The largest undercover force the world has ever known is the
one created by the Pentagon over the past decade. Some 60,000 people now belong
to this secret army, many working under masked identities and in low profile,
all part of a broad program called “signature reduction,” and a substantial
number of these defense contractors have been assisting Ukraine’s security
forces and allied neo-Nazi militias for over eight years in the proxy war
against Russia since the Maidan coup toppling Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych in 2014.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The force, more than ten times the size of the clandestine
elements of the CIA, carries out domestic and foreign assignments, both in
military uniforms and under civilian cover, the <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-inside-militarys-secret-undercover-army-1591881">Newsweek
reported</a> last May.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The unprecedented shift has placed an ever greater number of
soldiers, civilians, and contractors working under false identities, partly as
a natural result in the growth of secret special forces but also as an
intentional response to the challenges of traveling and operating in an
increasingly transparent world. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The covert warfare operations mounted by the Pentagon’s
“secret army” in conflict zones across the world is not just a little-known
sector of the American military, but also a completely unregulated practice. No
one knows the program’s total size, and the explosion of signature reduction
has never been examined for its impact on military policies and culture.
Congress has never held a hearing on the subject. And yet the military
developing this gigantic clandestine force challenges US laws, the Geneva
Conventions, the code of military conduct and basic accountability.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The signature reduction effort engages some 130 private
companies to administer the new clandestine world. Dozens of little known and
secret government organizations support the program, doling out classified
contracts and overseeing publicly unacknowledged operations. Altogether the
companies pull in over $900 million annually to service the clandestine force.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Special operations forces constitute over half the entire
signature reduction force, the shadow warriors who pursue terrorists in war
zones from Pakistan to West Africa but also increasingly work in unacknowledged
hot spots, including behind enemy lines in places like North Korea, Ukraine and
Iran. Military intelligence specialists—collectors, counter-intelligence
agents, even linguists—make up the second largest element: thousands deployed
at any one time with some degree of "cover" to protect their true
identities. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since the harrowing Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad in
2007, the Blackwater private military contractor, renamed as Academi in 2011
and becoming a subsidiary of Constellis Group following a merger with Triple
Canopy in 2014, has built quite a business empire for itself. In 2013, Academi
subsidiary International Development Solutions received an approximately
$92 million contract for State Department security guards.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After selling Blackwater to a group of investors in 2010,
Erik Prince, a former US Navy Seals officer and the swashbuckling founder of
Blackwater, has founded another security company Frontier Services Group,
registered at Hong Kong Stock Exchange, that advises and provides aviation and
logistical solutions to Chinese oligarchs for the security of their lucrative
business projects in Africa.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Furthermore, besides advising and assisting the UAE’s
petro-monarchy in strengthening the police state, Erik Prince also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/world/middleeast/libya-mercenaries-arms-embargo.html">reportedly
provided</a> weapons and modified aircraft to eastern Libya’s warlord and
former CIA asset Khalifa Haftar, backed by Egypt and UAE, in his thwarted
military campaign against the Tripoli government lasting from April 2019 to
June 2020.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Using the good offices of his sister Betsy Devos, who worked
as Trump’s secretary of education, Erik Prince even made an offer to Trump for
outsourcing of the Afghanistan war to private military contractors advising and
assisting Afghan security forces following the withdrawal of US troops. But
Trump reached a peace agreement with the Taliban in Feb. 2020 and then lost the
re-election bid before he could consider the bizarre proposal.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although the Pentagon’s military contractors have known to
be training and advising several brigades of neo-Nazis backed by Ukraine’s
security forces in the Donbas region since 2014, Erik Prince, alongside top
executives of leading private security firms providing military contractors to
the US Department of Defense, personally visited Kyiv in early February
following the Russian troop build-up and met with security officials of the
Zelensky government, according to informed sources.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Before embarking on the clandestine Kyiv visit, Erik Prince
consulted with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Director National
Intelligence Avril Haines, with whom his relationship goes a long way back to
early nineties after she purchased a bar in Fell's Point, Baltimore, which had
been seized in a drug raid. She turned the location into an exotic bookstore
and café, offering “erotica readings,” among other licentious pastimes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In his meetings with the high-ups in the US national
security agencies, Erik Prince reportedly obtained a “gentleman’s promise,”
though without any documentary assurances due to secretive nature of the
Faustian pact, that he and his associates would not be held legally liable for
the dirty work they do in Ukraine’s proxy war.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In fact, private military contractors in close co-ordination
and consultation with covert operators from the CIA, special forces and Western
intelligence agencies are not only training Ukraine’s largely conscript
security forces and allied neo-Nazi militias in the use of over 60,000 anti-tank
weapons and 25,000 anti-aircraft weapons <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-giving-intel-to-ukraine-for-operations-in-donbas-defense-secretary-says/ar-AAVYrNp">collectively
provided</a> as military assistance to Ukraine by NATO countries but are also
directing the whole defense strategy of Ukraine by taking active part in combat
operations in some of the most hard fought battles against Russia’s security
forces at Mariupol, Kharkiv and Donbas region in east Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a bombshell scoop, <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/western-mercenaries-offered-2-000-a-day-to-fight-against-putin-0l2ddlvmj">The
Times reported</a> on March 4 that defense contractors were recruiting former
military veterans for covert operations in Ukraine for a whopping $2,000 a day:
“The job is not without risk but, at almost $60,000 a month, the pay is good.
Applicants must have at least five years of military experience in Eastern
Europe, be skilled in reconnaissance, be able to conduct rescue operations with
little to no support and know their way around Soviet-era weaponry.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://sputniknews.com/20220304/nato-countries-sending-terrorist-fighters-to-ukraine-russian-intelligence-service-warns-1093592308.html">Russian
media alleged</a> last month that the United States security agencies had
launched a large-scale recruitment program to send private military contractors
to Ukraine, including professionally trained mercenaries of Academi, formerly
Blackwater, Cubic and Dyn Corporation. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russia’s Defense Ministry’s spokesman Igor Konashenkov
warned that foreign mercenaries in Ukraine would not be considered prisoners of
war if detained in line with international humanitarian law, rather they could
expect criminal prosecution at best. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash on April 3, NATO Secretary
General <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/553232-nato-trained-ukrainian-troops-years-stoltenberg/">Jens
Stoltenberg said</a> that “NATO allies have supported Ukraine for many, many
years,” adding that military aid has been “stepped up over the last weeks since
the invasion.” The official clarified that “NATO allies like the United States,
but also the United Kingdom and Canada and some others, have trained Ukrainian
troops for years.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">According to Stoltenberg’s estimates, “tens of thousands of
Ukrainian troops” had received such training, and were now “at the front
fighting against invading Russian forces.” The secretary general went on to
credit the Brussels-based alliance with the fact that the “Ukrainian armed
forces are much bigger, much better equipped, much better trained and much
better led now than ever before.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition to a longstanding <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">CIA
program</a> aimed at cultivating an anti-Russian insurgency in Ukraine,
Canada’s Department of National Defense <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/20/us-neo-nazi-ukraine-afghan-insurgency">revealed
on January 26</a>, two days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that the
Canadian Armed Forces trained “nearly 33,000 Ukrainian military and security
personnel in a range of tactical and advanced military skills.” While The
United Kingdom, via <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60185733">Operation
Orbital</a>, trained 22,000 Ukrainian fighters, as noted by NATO’s informed
secretary general.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In an <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">explosive
scoop</a>, Zach Dorfman reported for the Yahoo News on March 16: “As part of
the Ukraine-based training program, CIA paramilitaries taught their Ukrainian
counterparts sniper techniques; how to operate U.S.-supplied Javelin anti-tank
missiles and other equipment; how to evade digital tracking the Russians used
to pinpoint the location of Ukrainian troops, which had left them vulnerable to
attacks by artillery; how to use covert communications tools; and how to remain
undetected in the war zone while also drawing out Russian and insurgent forces
from their positions, among other skills, according to former officials.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“When CIA paramilitaries first traveled to eastern Ukraine
in the aftermath of Russia’s initial 2014 incursion, their brief was twofold.
First, they were ordered to determine how the agency could best help train
Ukrainian special operations personnel fight the Russian military forces, and
their separatist allies, waging a grinding war against Ukrainian troops in the
Donbas region. But the second part of the mission was to test the mettle of the
Ukrainians themselves, according to former officials.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides the CIA’s clandestine program for training Ukraine’s
largely conscript military and allied neo-Nazi militias in east Ukraine and the
US Special Forces program for training Ukraine’s security forces at Yavoriv
Combat Training Center in the western part of the country bordering Poland that
was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">hit
by a barrage</a> of 30 cruise missiles killing at least 35 militants on March
13, Dorfman claims in a separate <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html">January
report</a> that the CIA also ran a covert program for training Ukraine’s
special forces at an undisclosed facility in the southern United States.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program
in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other
intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national
security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in
2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to
some of those officials.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“While the covert program, run by paramilitaries working for
the CIA’s Ground Branch — now officially known as Ground Department — was
established by the Obama administration after Russia’s invasion and annexation
of Crimea in 2014, and expanded under the Trump administration, the Biden
administration has further augmented it.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By 2015, as part of this expanded anti-Russia effort, CIA
Ground Branch paramilitaries also “started traveling to the front in eastern
Ukraine” to advise and assist Ukraine’s security forces and allied neo-Nazi
militias there. The multiweek, US-based CIA program included “training in
firearms, camouflage techniques, land navigation, tactics like cover and move,
intelligence and other areas.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One person familiar with the program put it more bluntly.
“The United States is training an insurgency,” said a former CIA official,
adding that the program has taught the Ukrainians how “to kill Russians.” Going
back decades, the CIA had provided limited training to Ukrainian intelligence
units to try and shore up a US-allied Kyiv and undermine Russian influence, but
cooperation ramped up after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 following the
Maidan coup toppling Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, a former CIA
executive confided to Dorfman.</p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-56159885351211554742022-04-21T20:42:00.002+05:002022-04-21T20:42:34.426+05:00British Brinkmanship: Salisbury Poisonings and Johnson’s Kyiv Visit<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbxfqc07QKO7nJGQwFReKdBLapTCHaS0Hnej9Hx2C-0wV2UWRvlUkQFP5U6CPES7DDy6e8K4QWlGygH2-qFzUnBzP9wDiB7BrhHzQRCKPS6V8WVBTtmZ0BAyTiVKpOZtbMZXjgKl9_v_0BFiab048P5Ue20wK6Pz5e_9MECfQtBbj7hQmnoHHZg71bnQ/s1800/191222076-a86565d5-56ac-44dc-becf-6f5c6986cfd3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1020" data-original-width="1800" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbxfqc07QKO7nJGQwFReKdBLapTCHaS0Hnej9Hx2C-0wV2UWRvlUkQFP5U6CPES7DDy6e8K4QWlGygH2-qFzUnBzP9wDiB7BrhHzQRCKPS6V8WVBTtmZ0BAyTiVKpOZtbMZXjgKl9_v_0BFiab048P5Ue20wK6Pz5e_9MECfQtBbj7hQmnoHHZg71bnQ/s320/191222076-a86565d5-56ac-44dc-becf-6f5c6986cfd3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Two British citizens, Shaun Pinner and Aiden Aslin, who went
to Ukraine to fight for the now-disbanded “international legion” of foreign
mercenaries created by Kyiv in early days of the war and were fighting
alongside neo-Nazi Azov militia in Mariupol, were captured by Russian forces
and fervently appealed to the British prime minister for their immediate
release.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Britons appeared on Russian state TV on Monday and asked
to be exchanged for Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian politician who is the leader
of Ukraine's Opposition Platform and an ally of Russian President Vladimir
Putin. He was charged with “high treason” and “aiding terrorism” by the
Zelensky government and was placed under house arrest, from where he escaped
and was rearrested last week. He is currently being held at an undisclosed
location by the SBU, the fearsome Ukrainian intelligence agency being used as a
tool for political persecution by the autocratic regime.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One of the captives wearing a T-shirt bearing the emblem of
Ukraine's infamous Azov battalion, Aiden Aslin, made a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/two-captured-britons-appear-russian-state-tv-ask-be-swapped-2022-04-18/">direct
appeal</a> to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson: “If Boris Johnson really
does care like he says he does about British citizens then he would help
pressure Zelensky to do the right thing and return Viktor to his family and
return us to our families.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Asked on Sky News whether a possible swap was something the
government would get involved with, Britain's Northern Ireland minister <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-not-looking-help-russia-minister-says-swapping-putin-ally-captured-britons-2022-04-19/">Brandon
Lewis said</a> on Tuesday: “We're actually going through the process of
sanctioning people who are close to Putin regime, we’re not going to be looking
at how we can help Russia.” Reading between the lines, neither would the Boris
Johnson government be looking at how to help British citizens. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We always have responsibility for British citizens, which
we take seriously. We've got to get the balance right in Ukraine and that's why
I say to anybody: do not travel illegally to Ukraine,” Lewis added while
conveniently overlooking the fact British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss publicly
acknowledged she supported individuals from the United Kingdom who might want
to go to Ukraine to join an international force to fight. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">She <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60544838">told the
BBC</a> on Feb. 27, days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, it was
up to people to “make their own decisions,” but argued it was a “battle for
democracy.” She said Ukrainians were fighting for freedom, “not just for
Ukraine but for the whole of Europe.” The British government is as criminally
culpable for inciting citizens to join NATO’s crusade in Ukraine as gullible
volunteers who actually joined the fight in the war zone on the call of the
government.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Favoring providing lethal weapons only instead of deploying
British mercenaries as cannon fodder in Ukraine’s proxy war, Defense Secretary
Ben Wallace took a nuanced approach and said with diplomatic overtones Ukraine
would instead be supported to “fight every street with every piece of equipment
we can get to them.” In other words, Ukraine would be made an “ordnance depot”
of NATO powers on Russia’s western flank.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On April 9, Boris Johnson undertook a <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-prime-minister-boris-johnson-ukraine-president-volodymyr-zelenskyy-kyiv-war-russia/">clandestine
visit</a> to Kyiv amidst much secrecy and tweeted a picture sitting beside
Zelensky after the visit. Johnson’s trip came a day after the EU’s top
executives, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and foreign
affairs chief Josep Borrell, publicly visited Kyiv and met with Zelensky.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">British media hailed the “daredevil feat” of taking the
train journey in the war zone by the prime minister and compared him to the
fabled British secret agent, James Bond 007. During the visit, he pledged 120
“armored vehicles” and new “anti-ship missile systems” to Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The British government also announced it would be sending
£100 million of military equipment, including more Starstreak anti-aircraft
missiles, helmets, night-vision devices and body armor. The United Kingdom guaranteed
an extra $500 million in World Bank lending to Ukraine, taking the total loan
guarantee to up to $1 billion.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition to the clandestine visit to Kyiv, Boris Johnson
is also credited with another highly provocative incident that happened before
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Last June, the British Royal Navy Defender <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britain-says-dont-get-carried-away-by-warship-spat-with-russia-2021-06-24/">breached
Russia’s territorial waters</a> in the Black Sea and as many as 20 Russian
aircraft conducted “unsafe maneuvers” merely 500 feet above the warship and
Britain also lamented shots were fired in the path of the ship.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“British Prime Minister Boris Johnson would not say whether
he had personally approved the Defender’s voyage but suggested the Royal Navy
was making a point by taking that route,” a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/24/russia-says-next-time-it-may-fire-to-hit-intruding-warships-496011">Politico
report</a> alleged in June. A <a href="https://www.rt.com/russia/527563-johnson-order-warship-crimea-waters/">Telegraph
report noted</a> that former Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had raised concerns
about the mission, proposed by defense chiefs, and that Boris Johnson was
ultimately called in to settle the dispute. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Among the 50-page Ministry of Defense documents <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9732355/Top-secret-dossier-reveals-defence-chiefs-knew-sending-Navy-warship-past-Crimea-provoke-Russia.html">discovered
at a bus stop</a> in Kent and passed to BBC were papers showing that ministers
knew that sending a Royal Navy warship close to Crimea last June would provoke
Russia, and did it anyway, sparking an international incident. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Looking at these highly escalatory moves by the British
government, it would appear Boris Johnson is perhaps motivated by “humanitarian
concerns” for the suffering of Ukrainian masses, which is farthest from truth.
In fact, he has a personal score to settle with the Russian leader and, being a
vindictive and opportunistic politician, he is taking advantage of Russia’s
vulnerability to exact revenge.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s pertinent to recall that on February 7, 2018, US B-52
bombers and Apache helicopters struck a contingent of Syrian government troops
and allied forces in Deir al-Zor province of eastern Syria that <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-casualtie/russian-toll-in-syria-battle-was-300-killed-and-wounded-sources-idUKKCN1FZ2EI">reportedly</a>
killed and wounded scores of Russian military contractors working for the
Russian private security firm, the Wagner Group. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The survivors described the bombing as an absolute massacre,
and Moscow lost more Russian nationals in one day than it had lost during its
entire military campaign in support of the Syrian government since September
2015.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Washington’s objective in striking Russian contractors was
that the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – which are
mainly comprised of Kurdish YPG militias – had reportedly handed over the
control of some areas east of the Euphrates River to Deir al-Zor Military
Council (DMC), which was the Arab-led component of SDF, and had relocated
several battalions of Kurdish YPG militias to Afrin and along Syria’s northern
border with Turkey in order to defend the Kurdish-held areas against the
onslaught of the Turkish armed forces and allied Syrian militant proxies during
Ankara’s “Operation Olive Branch” in Syria’s northwest that lasted from January
to March 2018.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Syrian forces with the backing of Russian contractors took
advantage of the opportunity and crossed the Euphrates River to capture an oil
refinery located to the east of the Euphrates River in the Kurdish-held area of
Deir al-Zor. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The US Air Force responded with full force, knowing well the
ragtag Arab component of SDF – mainly comprised of local Arab tribesmen and
mercenaries to make the Kurdish-led SDF appear more representative and
inclusive in outlook – was simply not a match for the superior training and
arms of the Syrian troops and Russian military contractors, consequently
causing a carnage in which scores of Russian nationals lost their lives.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A month after the massacre of Russian military contractors
in Syria, on March 4, 2018, Sergei Skripal, a Russian double agent working for
the British foreign intelligence service, and his daughter Yulia were found
unconscious on a public bench outside a shopping center in Salisbury. A few
months later, in July 2018, a British woman, Dawn Sturgess, died after touching
the container of the nerve agent that allegedly poisoned the Skripals.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the case of the Skripals, Theresa May, then the prime
minister of the United Kingdom, promptly accused Russia of attempted
assassinations and the British government concluded that Skripal and his
daughter were poisoned with a Moscow-made, military-grade nerve agent,
novichok.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sergei Skripal was recruited by the British MI6 in 1995, and
before his arrest in Russia in December 2004, he was alleged to have blown the
cover of scores of Russian secret agents. He was released in a spy swap deal in
2010 and was allowed to settle in Salisbury. Both Sergei Skripal and his
daughter have since recovered and were discharged from hospital in May 2018. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the aftermath of the Salisbury poisonings in March 2018,
the US, UK and several European nations expelled scores of Russian diplomats
and Washington ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle. In a
retaliatory move, Russia also expelled a similar number of American, British
and European diplomats, and ordered the closure of American consulate in Saint
Petersburg. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The number of American diplomatic personnel stationed in
Russia drastically dropped from 1,200 before the escalation to 120, and the
relations between Moscow and Western powers reached their lowest ebb since the
break-up of the former Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in December 1991.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Boris Johnson was the Secretary of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs in the Theresa May cabinet and held a grudge against
Russian President Putin for treating “Great Britain,” boasting the imperial
legacy, like a “banana republic.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Sunday, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61126391">Russia announced</a>
banning Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Defense
Secretary Ben Wallace, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon and ten other
British politicians from entering Russia over the United Kingdom’s hostile
stance on the war in Ukraine. Included in the list is the name of Theresa May,
even though she is not a member of the Boris Johnson cabinet.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides Britain, Germany has taken the lead in escalating NATO’s
conflict with Russia. On April 15, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/553958-germany-ukraine-weapons-funding/">announced
plans</a> to spend an additional €2 billion ($2.16 billion) on military needs,
most of which is aimed at providing weapons to Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Approximately €400 million ($432.5 million) of the cash is
being allocated to the European Peace Facility, a funding mechanism through
which military aid is being procured for Ukraine. The remaining part of the
additional funds will be deployed directly towards supplies for Kyiv, among
other needs. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Scholz has pledged €100 billion ($112.7 billion) of the 2022
budget for the armed forces and committed to reaching the target of 2% of GDP
spending on defense that is requested by NATO. Following Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine, Berlin initially provided Ukraine with 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500
anti-aircraft Stinger missiles. In mid-March, Germany said that due to security
risks it would not disclose further information about supplies of weapons to
Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The European Union decided last week to massively increase
financial support for Ukraine’s military to €1.5 billion. Most of that support,
which is also supposed to allow Kyiv to buy weapons, is financed by Germany. The
newly announced financial support would allow Kyiv to <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-ukraine-war-boost-military-aid-ertuchtigungshilfe-russia/">directly
buy tanks</a> from German defense companies like Rheinmetall.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Germany was specifically considering sending “Marder” light
tanks, armored vehicles equipped with anti-tank missiles, to Ukraine. The
German defense company Rheinmetall had signaled it could provide 100 such
tanks, which were standing on the firm’s grounds, German officials <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/scholz-holds-up-german-tank-delivery-to-ukraine">told
Politico</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Politicians were also discussing whether Berlin could similarly
supply its heavy-combat “Leopard” tanks to Ukraine. Ukraine’s ambassador to
Germany, Andriy Melnyk, told Deutschlandfunk radio on Thursday that Kyiv was
“expecting” Berlin to deliver Marder and Leopard tanks, as well as the
anti-aircraft “Gepard” tank.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One agreed shipment authorized by the German government
includes 56 Czechoslovak-made infantry fighting vehicles that used to be
operated by East Germany. Berlin passed the IFVs on to Sweden at the end of the
1990s, which later sold them to a Czech company that now aims to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-okays-sale-former-gdr-infantry-fighting-vehicles-ukraine-2022-04-01/">sell
them to Kyiv</a>, according to German Welt am Sonntag newspaper. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite being an industrial powerhouse of Europe, Germany
might have been a sovereign state at liberty to pursue independent foreign
policy during the reign of the Third Reich but, since the defeat of the Nazis
in the Second World War, it has become a virtual colony of the imperial United
States, much like Japan and South Korea in the Far East where 45,000 and 28,500
US troops have been deployed, respectively. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In Europe, 400,000 US forces were deployed at the height of
the Cold War in the sixties, though the number has since been brought down
after European powers developed their own military capacity following the
devastation of the Second World War. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The number of American troops <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/16/world/trump-military-role-treaties-allies-nato-asia-persian-gulf.html">deployed
in Europe</a> now stands at 50,000 in Germany, 15,000 in Italy, 10,000 in the
United Kingdom, and not to mention tens of thousands of additional US troops
that have recently been deployed in Eastern Europe since the escalation of
hostilities with Russia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Historically, the NATO military alliance, at least
ostensibly, was conceived as a defensive alliance in 1949 during the Cold War
in order to offset conventional warfare superiority of the former Soviet Union.
The US forged collective defense pact with the West European nations after the
Soviet Union reached the threshold to build its first atomic bomb in 1949 and
achieved nuclear parity with the US. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the trans-Atlantic military alliance has outlived its
purpose following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and is now being
used as an aggressive and expansionist military alliance meant to browbeat and
coerce the former Soviet allies, the East European states, to join NATO and its
auxiliary economic alliance, the European Union, or risk international economic
isolation, like Russia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All the militaries of the NATO member states operate under
the integrated military command led by the Pentagon. Before being elected
president, General Dwight Eisenhower was the first commander of the Supreme
Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The commander of Allied Command Operations has been given
the title Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), and is always a US
four-star general officer or flag officer who also serves as the Commander US
European Command, and is answerable to the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Among the European powers, only France has adopted a
relatively flexible stance to the Ukraine conflict and that, too, because
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine happened on the eve of presidential elections in
France, in which President Macron is in a tight race against far-right
candidate Marie Le Pen, with a run-off scheduled to take place on April 24.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Emmanuel Macron <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-macron-dialogue-with-putin-has-stalled-after-discovery-massacres-ukraine-2022-04-18/">said
on Monday</a> that his dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin had
stalled after alleged mass killings were discovered in Ukraine: “Since the
massacres we have discovered in Bucha and in other towns, the war has taken a
different turn, so I did not speak to him again directly since, but I don't rule
out doing so in the future.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It comes as a surprise, though, hearing from the mouth of a
Frenchman, whose forebears were responsible for the massacre of millions of
Algerians during the Algerian War lasting from 1954 to 1962, that he has
abandoned peace dialogue with the Russian president as a protest over alleged
“mass killings” in Ukraine.</p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-30188053373776278752022-04-19T00:23:00.001+05:002022-04-19T00:23:12.812+05:00Pakistan’s Pivot to Russia and Ouster of Imran Khan<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7iIEC3swMjgoXnQIzshJ8Pw7PK2WPF3Rwh5rgKaQgqRTBRFPwFqQ-vi3Q7sP-KCc55JkiiocN4zfNJlPrtBQz9D2IunCR8ykDTjIFC_fuM33nCb_4t8SqrmVjXTSChHDssA4GvDy3fJLYJ3Fw7frXWStODxR5NwRuDOSMxgXR9Q5GAbVTIJa2oV33zA/s1280/imran-putin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7iIEC3swMjgoXnQIzshJ8Pw7PK2WPF3Rwh5rgKaQgqRTBRFPwFqQ-vi3Q7sP-KCc55JkiiocN4zfNJlPrtBQz9D2IunCR8ykDTjIFC_fuM33nCb_4t8SqrmVjXTSChHDssA4GvDy3fJLYJ3Fw7frXWStODxR5NwRuDOSMxgXR9Q5GAbVTIJa2oV33zA/s320/imran-putin.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Days before Imran Khan’s ouster on April 10 as prime
minister in a no-trust motion in the parliament orchestrated by foreign powers,
two impersonators were arrested in Washington for posing as US federal security
officials and cultivating access to the Secret Service, which protects
President Joe Biden, one of whom claimed ties to Pakistani intelligence.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Justice department assistant attorney Joshua Rothstein asked
a judge not to release Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali, the men arrested on
April 6 for posing as Department of Homeland Security investigators for two
years before the arrest, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/08/us-agent-department-of-homeland-security-prosecutors-pakistan">Guardian
reported</a> on April 8. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The men also stand accused of providing lucrative favors to
members of the Secret Service, including one agent on the security detail of
the first lady, Jill Biden. Prosecutors said in court filings they seized a
cache of weapons from multiple DC apartments tied to the defendants.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Federal prosecutor Rothstein alleged one of the suspects,
Haider Ali, “made claims to witnesses that he had connections to the ISI, Pakistan’s
military intelligence service.” The Department of Justice (DoJ) is treating the
case as a criminal matter and not a national security issue. But the Secret
Service suspended four agents over their involvement with the suspects. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“All personnel involved in this matter are on administrative
leave and are restricted from accessing Secret Service facilities, equipment,
and systems,” the Secret Service said in a statement. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Clearly, planning and preparations were underway to declare
Pakistan a rogue actor sponsoring acts of subversion against the United States.
Soon after the US-led “regime change” in Pakistan and the formation of
government by imperialist stooges, however, the tone of the judge and
prosecutors changed. The defendants were released on bail and placed in home
detention, though they will not be allowed to go to airports or foreign
embassies or to talk to any of the federal agents they allegedly duped.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">During his hourlong ruling, Magistrate Judge Michael Harvey lambasted
the Justice Department's claims that the men were dangerous, were trying to
compromise agents and were tied to a foreign government, the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/12/politics/impersonation-plot-arian-taherzadeh-haider-ali/index.html">CNN
reported</a> on April 13.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Before his ouster as prime minister in a no-trust motion in
the parliament on April 10, Imran Khan claimed that Pakistan’s Ambassador to
US, Asad Majeed, was warned by Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu that
Khan’s continuation in office would have repercussions for bilateral ties
between the two nations. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Shireen Mazari, a Pakistani politician who served as the
Federal Minister for Human Rights under the Imran Khan government, quoted
Donald Lu as saying: “If Prime Minister Imran Khan remained in office, then Pakistan
will be isolated from the United States and we will take the issue head on; but
if the vote of no-confidence succeeds, all will be forgiven.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">During Imran Khan’s historic two-day official visit to
Moscow on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, besides signing
several bilateral contracts in agricultural and energy sectors, President Putin
reportedly offered Imran Khan S-300 air defense system, Sukhoi aircraft as
replacement for the Pakistan Air Force’s dependence on American F-16s and an
array of advanced Russian military equipment on the condition that Pakistan
abandons its traditional alliance with Washington and forge defense ties with
Russia, according to two government officials who accompanied Imran Khan on the
Moscow visit.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Alongside China, India and Iran, Pakistan under the
leadership of Imran Khan was one of the few countries that adopted a
non-aligned stance and refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite
diplomatic pressure from Washington.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After the United States “nation-building project” failed in
Afghanistan during its two-decade occupation of the embattled country from Oct.
2001 to August 2021, it accused regional powers of lending covert support to
Afghan insurgents battling the occupation forces.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The occupation and Washington’s customary blame game
accusing “malign regional forces” of insidiously destabilizing Afghanistan and
undermining US-led “benevolent imperialism” instead of accepting responsibility
for its botched invasion and occupation of Afghanistan brought Pakistan and
Russia closer against a common adversary in their backyard, and the two
countries even managed to forge defense ties, particularly during the four
years of the Imran Khan government from July 2018 to April 2022.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since the announcement of a peace deal with the Taliban by
the Trump administration in Feb. 2020, regional powers, China and Russia in
particular, hosted international conferences and invited the representatives of
the US-backed Afghanistan government and the Taliban for peace negotiations. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After the departure of US forces from “the graveyard of the
empires,” although Washington is trying to starve the hapless Afghan masses to
death in retribution for inflicting a humiliating defeat on the global hegemon
by imposing economic sanctions on the Taliban government and browbeating
international community to desist from lending formal diplomatic recognition or
having trade relations with Afghanistan, China and Russia have provided
generous humanitarian and developmental assistance to Afghanistan.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Imran Khan fell from the grace of the Biden administration,
whose record-breaking popularity ratings plummeted after the precipitous fall
of Kabul last August, reminiscent of the Fall of Saigon in April 1975, with
Chinook helicopters hovering over US embassy evacuating diplomatic staff to the
airport, and Washington accused Pakistan for the debacle.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley squeamishly
described the Kabul takeover in his historic Congressional testimony that several
hundred Pashtun cowboys riding on motorbikes and brandishing Kalashnikovs
overran Kabul without a shot being fired, and the world’s most lethal military
force fled with tail neatly folded between legs, hastily evacuating diplomatic
staff from sprawling 36-acre US embassy in Chinook helicopters to airport
secured by the insurgents.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Apart from indiscriminate B-52 bombing raids mounted by
Americans, Afghan security forces didn’t put up serious resistance anywhere in
Afghanistan and simply surrendered territory to the Taliban. The fate of
Afghanistan was sealed as soon as the US forces evacuated Bagram airbase in the
dead of the night on July 1, six weeks before the inevitable fall of Kabul on
August 15. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The sprawling Bagram airbase was the nerve center from where
all the operations across Afghanistan were directed, specifically the vital air
support to the US-backed Afghan security forces without which they were simply
irregular militias waiting to be devoured by the wolves.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In southern Afghanistan, the traditional stronghold of the
Pashtun ethnic group from which the Taliban draws most of its support, the
Taliban military offensive was spearheaded by Mullah Yaqoob, the illustrious
son of the Taliban’s late founder Mullah Omar and the newly appointed defense
minister of the Taliban government, as district after district in southwest
Afghanistan, including the birthplace of the Taliban movement Kandahar and
Helmand, fell in quick succession.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What has stunned military strategists and longtime observers
of the Afghan war, though, was the Taliban’s northern blitz, occupying almost
the whole of northern Afghanistan in a matter of weeks, as northern Afghanistan
was the bastion of the Northern Alliance comprising the Tajik and Uzbek ethnic
groups. In recent years, however, the Taliban has made inroads into the
heartland of the Northern Alliance, too.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The ignominious fall of Kabul clearly demonstrates the days
of American hegemony over the world are numbered. If ragtag Taliban militants
could liberate their homeland from imperialist clutches without a fight,
imagine what would happen if the United States confronted equal military powers
such as Russia and China. The much-touted myth of American military supremacy
is clearly more psychological than real.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Imran Khan is an educated and charismatic leader. Being an
Oxford graduate, he is much better informed than most Pakistani politicians.
And he is a liberal at heart. Most readers might disagree with the assertion
due to his fierce anti-imperialism and West-bashing demagoguery, but allow me
to explain.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s not just Imran Khan’s celebrity lifestyle that makes
him a progressive. He also derives his intellectual inspiration from the Western
tradition. The ideal role model in his mind is the Scandinavian social
democratic model which he has mentioned on numerous occasions, especially in
his speech at Karachi before a massive rally of singing and cheering crowd in
December 2012. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">His relentless anti-imperialism as a political stance should
be viewed in the backdrop of Western military interventions in the Islamic
countries. The conflagration that neocolonial powers have caused in the Middle
East evokes strong feelings of resentment among Muslims all over the world.
Moreover, Imran Khan also uses anti-America rhetoric as an electoral strategy
to attract conservative masses, particularly the impressionable youth.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s also noteworthy that Imran Khan’s political party draws
most of its electoral support from women, youth voters and Pakistani expats
residing in the Gulf and Western countries. All these segments of society,
especially the women, are drawn more toward egalitarian liberalism than
patriarchal conservatism, because liberalism promotes women’s rights and its
biggest plus point is its emphasis on equality, emancipation and empowerment of
women who constitute over half of population in every society.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Imran Khan’s ouster from power for daring to stand up to the
United States harks back to the toppling and subsequent assassination of
Pakistan’s first elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in April 1979 by
the martial law regime of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The United States not only turned a blind eye but tacitly
approved the elimination of Bhutto from Pakistan’s political scene because,
being a socialist, Bhutto not only nurtured cordial ties with communist China
but was also courting Washington’s arch-rival, the former Soviet Union. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Soviet Union played the role of a mediator at the
signing of the Tashkent Agreement for the cessation of hostilities following
the 1965 India-Pakistan War over the disputed Kashmir region, in which Bhutto
represented Pakistan as the foreign minister of the Gen. Ayub Khan-led government.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Like Imran Khan, the United States “deep state” regarded
Bhutto as a political liability and an obstacle in the way of mounting the
Operation Cyclone to provoke the Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan and the
subsequent waging of a decade-long war of attrition, using Afghan jihadists as
cannon fodder who were generously funded, trained and armed by the CIA and
Pakistan’s security agencies in the Af-Pak border regions, in order to “bleed
the Soviet forces” and destabilize and weaken the rival global power.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Karl Marx famously said: “History repeats itself, first as a
tragedy and then as a farce.” In addition to a longstanding <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">CIA
program</a> aimed at cultivating an anti-Russian insurgency in Ukraine by
training, arming and international legitimizing neo-Nazi militias in Donbas,
Canada’s Department of National Defense <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/20/us-neo-nazi-ukraine-afghan-insurgency">revealed
on January 26</a>, two days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that the
Canadian Armed Forces had trained “nearly 33,000 Ukrainian military and
security personnel in a range of tactical and advanced military skills.” While
The United Kingdom, via <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60185733">Operation
Orbital</a>, had trained 22,000 Ukrainian fighters.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A “prophetic” RAND Corporation report titled “<a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html">Overextending and
Unbalancing Russia</a>” published in 2019 declares the stated goal of American
policymakers is “to undermine Russia just as the US subversively destabilized
the former Soviet Union during the Cold War,” and predicts to the letter the
crisis unfolding in Ukraine as a consequence of the eight-year proxy war
mounted by NATO in Russian-majority Donbas region in east Ukraine on Russia’s
vulnerable western flank since the 2014 Maidan coup, toppling Ukrainian
President Viktor Yanukovych and consequent annexation of the Crimean Peninsula
by Russia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nonetheless, regarding the objectives of the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan in December 1979, then American envoy to Kabul, Adolph “Spike”
Dubs, was assassinated on the Valentine’s Day, on 14 Feb 1979, the same day
that Iranian revolutionaries stormed the American embassy in Tehran.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The former Soviet Union was wary that its forty-million
Muslims were susceptible to radicalism, because Islamic radicalism was
infiltrating across the border into the Central Asian States from Afghanistan.
Therefore, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 in support of
the Afghan communists to forestall the likelihood of Islamist insurgencies
spreading to the Central Asian States bordering Afghanistan. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">According to documents declassified by the White House, CIA
and State Department in January 2019, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/07/history-trump-cia-was-arming-afghan-rebels-before-soviets-invaded/">as
reported</a> by Tim Weiner for The Washington Post, the CIA was aiding Afghan
jihadists before the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. President Jimmy
Carter signed the CIA directive to arm the Afghan jihadists in July 1979,
whereas the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December the same year. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The revelation doesn’t come as a surprise, though, because
more than two decades before the declassification of the State Department
documents, in the <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/1998/01/15/how-jimmy-carter-and-i-started-the-mujahideen/">1998
interview</a> to The Counter Punch Magazine, former National Security Advisor
to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, confessed that the president
signed the directive to provide secret aid to the Afghan jihadists in July
1979, whereas the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan six months later in December
1979. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Here is a poignant excerpt from the interview. The
interviewer puts the question: “And neither do you regret having supported the
Islamic jihadists, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?”
Brzezinski replies: “What is most important to the history of the world? The
Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet Empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the
liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite the crass insensitivity, one must give credit to
Zbigniew Brzezinski that at least he had the courage to speak the unembellished
truth. It’s worth noting, however, that the aforementioned interview was
recorded in 1998. After the 9/11 terror attack, no Western policymaker can now
dare to be as blunt and forthright as Brzezinski.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Regardless, that the CIA was arming the Afghan jihadists six
months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan has been proven by the State
Department’s declassified documents; fact of the matter, however, is that the
nexus between the CIA, Pakistan’s security agencies and the Gulf states to
train and arm the Afghan jihadists against the former Soviet Union was forged
years before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Pakistan joined the American-led, anticommunist SEATO and
CENTO regional alliances in the 1950s and played the role of Washington’s
client state since its inception in 1947. So much so that when a United States
U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defense Forces while performing
photographic aerial reconnaissance deep into Soviet territory, Pakistan’s then
President Ayub Khan openly acknowledged the reconnaissance aircraft flew from
an American airbase in Peshawar, a city in northwest Pakistan.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then during the 1970s, Pakistan’s then Prime Minister
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government began aiding the Afghan Islamists against
Sardar Daud’s government, who had toppled his first cousin King Zahir Shah in a
palace coup in 1973 and had proclaimed himself the president of Afghanistan. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sardar Daud was a Pashtun nationalist and laid claim to
Pakistan’s northwestern Pashtun-majority province. Pakistan’s security agencies
were alarmed by his irredentist claims and used Islamists to weaken his rule in
Afghanistan. He was eventually assassinated in 1978 as a consequence of the
Saur Revolution led by the Afghan communists. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s worth pointing out, however, that although the Bhutto
government did provide political and diplomatic support on a limited scale to
Islamists in their struggle for power against Pashtun nationalists in
Afghanistan, being a secular and progressive politician, he would never have
permitted opening the floodgates for flushing the Af-Pak region with weapons,
petrodollars and radical jihadist ideology as his successor, Zia-ul-Haq, an
Islamist military general, did by becoming a willing tool of religious
extremism and militarism in the hands of neocolonial powers.</p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-51363203454251489892022-04-15T20:42:00.002+05:002022-04-15T20:42:26.467+05:00Plausible Deniability: Was Russian Warship Sunk by American Harpoons?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFO9Gbq8M3LiNlnSQjpOFTpvrjMFqFo0HV8gBXjlaKfA0xg5mDzLp-w8UVuHW-78gjRsar_wQeuniv4YBnML32rjeChSD5DWIwm8uE7cUMntdCjQ-4480BnTX-Gx8f96gc6MaGe63n2Unt68O49DQOIsKCBTcp_0klldP0EpsdMDrrrua68o_Q0ZGWKQ/s1600/FQVG_7mXMAg1wMq.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1084" data-original-width="1600" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFO9Gbq8M3LiNlnSQjpOFTpvrjMFqFo0HV8gBXjlaKfA0xg5mDzLp-w8UVuHW-78gjRsar_wQeuniv4YBnML32rjeChSD5DWIwm8uE7cUMntdCjQ-4480BnTX-Gx8f96gc6MaGe63n2Unt68O49DQOIsKCBTcp_0klldP0EpsdMDrrrua68o_Q0ZGWKQ/s320/FQVG_7mXMAg1wMq.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />In a significantly escalatory move, Ukraine's Operational
Command South <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-flagship-black-sea-fleet-badly-damaged-by-blast-2022-04-14/">announced
Thursday</a> that it hit a Russian warship with a “Ukrainian-made Neptune
anti-ship missile” that was operating roughly 60 miles south off the coast of
Odesa in southeast Ukraine and that it had started to sink.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“In the Black Sea operational zone, Neptune anti-ship cruise
missiles hit the cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet—it
received significant damage,” the Ukrainian statement said. “A fire broke out.
Other units of the ship’s group tried to help, but a storm and a powerful
explosion of ammunition overturned the cruiser and it began to sink.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russia’s defense ministry claimed the “accidental fire” on
the Soviet-era guided-missile cruiser Moskva had been contained, but left the
ship badly damaged. Though the Russian statement initially claimed the cruiser
“remained afloat” and measures were being taken to tow it to port, it later
admitted the warship had sunk as four Russian ships that had gone to the
Moskva’s rescue were hampered by bad weather and by ammunition exploding on
board. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Late on Thursday, the Russian ministry said in a statement:
“The cruiser ship Moskva lost its stability when it was towed to the port
because of the damage to the ship’s hull that it received during the fire from
the detonation of ammunition. In stormy sea conditions, the ship sank.” The
statement added the crew had been safely evacuated to other Black Sea Fleet
ships in the area. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russian news agencies said the 611-foot-long (186 meters)
Moskva, with a crew of almost 500, was commissioned in 1983 and refurbished in
1998. It was one of the three cruisers in Russia’s formidable Black Sea Fleet.
The Moskva was armed with a range of anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles as
well as torpedoes and naval guns and close-in missile defense systems,
including 16 anti-ship Vulkan cruise missiles with a range of at least 700 km
(440 miles). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Reportedly, the warship was also carrying S-300 anti-air
missiles, which are crucial to Russia’s air-defense capabilities over Crimea and
Ukraine’s Kherson province, captured by Russian troops in early days of the
military campaign. It is the first time Moscow has lost a cruiser since German
planes sank the Chervona Ukraina (Red Ukraine) in 1941 at Sevastopol – the Crimean
naval base to which the Moskva was being towed when it sank. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Maksym Marchenko, the Ukrainian governor of the region
around Odesa, said the Moskva had been hit by two cruise missiles. “Neptune
missiles guarding the Black Sea caused very serious damage,” he said. The
Neptune missile that is claimed to have punched a hole in the Moskva’s hull was
developed and upgraded by Ukraine from a Soviet missile design. It is fired
from a mobile launcher with a range of 100 km.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Western officials reportedly described the Ukrainian claims
to have hit the Moskva with anti-ship missiles as “credible”. A senior US
defense official noted that five other Russian vessels that had been as close
as or closer to the Ukrainian coast than the Moskva had moved at least another
20 nautical miles offshore after the explosion, suggesting an effort to get out
of range of Ukrainian missiles. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“In the wake of the damage that the Moskva experienced, all
of the northern Black Sea ships have now moved out, away from the northern
areas they were operating in,” the defense official <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/14/russia-moskva-cruiser-sunk-stormy-seas-defense-ministry">told
Guardian</a>. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In retaliation for sinking the warship, Russian forces for
the first time, since scaling back Russia’s offensive north of the capital
announced at the Istanbul peace initiative on March 29, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/powerful-explosions-heard-kyiv-after-russian-warship-sinks-2022-04-15/">struck
military targets</a> in Kyiv, Kherson in the south, the eastern city of Kharkiv
and the town of Ivano-Frankivsk in the west, though there were no immediate
reports of casualties.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although Ukraine claimed the Russian warship was struck by a
“Ukrainian-made Neptune anti-ship missile,” developed domestically based on the
Soviet KH-35 cruise missile that became operational in the Ukrainian naval
forces just last year, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/16/us-sends-switchblade-drones-to-ukraine-00017836">Politico
reported</a> on March 16 that Kyiv had specifically demanded “long-range
anti-ship missiles” from Washington.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“A Western diplomat familiar with Ukraine’s requests said
Kyiv specifically has asked the US and allies for more Stingers and Starstreak
man-portable air-defense systems, Javelins and other anti-tank weapons,
ground-based mobile air-defense systems, armed drones, long-range anti-ship
missiles, off-the-shelf electronic warfare capabilities, and satellite
navigation and communications jamming equipment.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lending credence to the reports the United States has
already delivered Harpoon anti-ship missiles to Ukraine, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/05/russia-ukraine-insurgency/">Washington
Post reported</a> on March 5: “During an official visit, a Ukrainian special
operations commander told Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), Rep. Seth Moulton
(D-Mass.) and other lawmakers that they were shifting training and planning to
focus on maintaining an armed opposition, relying on insurgent-like tactics.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Ukrainian officials told the lawmakers that they were
frustrated that the United States had not sent Harpoon missiles to target
Russian ships and Stinger missiles to attack Russian aircraft, Moulton and
Waltz said in separate interviews.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on
April 7, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley revealed that US and
NATO countries have <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-giving-intel-to-ukraine-for-operations-in-donbas-defense-secretary-says/ar-AAVYrNp">collectively
provided</a> roughly 60,000 anti-tank weapons and 25,000 anti-aircraft weapons
during NATO’s “weapons for peace” program to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion on
Feb. 24. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although Milley did not specifically mention providing
Harpoons to Ukrainian forces, according to informed sources, caches of
anti-ship missiles had also been provided to Ukraine’s naval forces deployed in
Odesa in southeast Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition to the CIA’s <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">clandestine
program</a> for training Ukraine’s largely conscript military and allied
neo-Nazi militias in Donbas in east Ukraine aimed at cultivating an
anti-Russian insurgency in Ukraine, and the US Special Forces program for
training Ukraine’s security forces at Yavoriv Combat Training Center in the
western part of the country bordering Poland that was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">hit
by a barrage</a> of 30 Russian cruise missiles killing at least 35 militants on
March 13, the <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/2995038/austin-thanks-ukrainian-force-trained-in-us-returning-to-ukraine/">Pentagon
revealed</a> last week that it had also been training Ukrainian troops that
were inside the US before Russia launched its invasion.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Ukrainian soldiers were participating in a pre-scheduled
professional military education program at the Naval Small Craft Instruction
and Technical Training School in Biloxi, Mississippi, when Russia's invasion of
Ukraine began on Feb. 24, according to Pentagon Press Secretary John F.
Kirby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That school is a security cooperation school, operating
under the US Special Operations Command in support of “foreign security
assistance and geographic combatant commanders’ theater security cooperation
priorities.” The Ukrainian forces received “training on patrol craft
operations, communications and maintenance,” Kirby said. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since the conclusion of the course in early March, the
Department of Defense provided the group “additional advanced tactical training”
on the systems the United States has provided to Ukraine, including on “the
Switchblade unmanned aerial vehicle,” Kirby said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Several batches of Ukrainian naval cadets trained at the
Naval Training School in Biloxi, Mississippi, have already returned home to
Ukraine and were deployed in Odesa and the rest are now headed back to Ukraine.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides receiving advanced tactical training on operating
the Switchblade kamikaze drones and unmanned coastal defense boats, included in
the additional $800 million in military assistance to Ukraine <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-announces-additional-800-million-military-aid-ukraine-2022-04-13/">announced</a>
by the Biden administration on Wednesday, the Ukrainian naval cadets also
received training on operating long-range anti-ship missiles in the United
States.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Reportedly, the US-trained Ukrainian naval forces deployed
in Odesa in the southeast scored two hits of Harpoon anti-ship missiles on the
Russian guided-missile cruiser Moskva operating 60 miles south off the coast of
Odesa that punched a hole in the warship’s hull and ignited a blaze that, in
turn, caused the massive amount of ammunition loaded on the cruiser to explode,
and the battleship subsequently sank to the bottom of the Black Sea. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To return the favor of halting Russian military campaign
north of the capital and focusing on liberating Russian-majority Donbas in east
Ukraine, practically spelling an end to Russia’s month-long offensive in the
embattled country, NATO powers have announced transferring heavy weapons, including
combat tanks, armored personnel carriers, long-range artillery and even
helicopters and <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/slovakia-mig-jets-to-ukraine-prime-minister-eduard-heger-bratislava/">Soviet
MiG</a> aircraft, to Ukraine to escalate the conflict.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The latest $800 million military assistance package to
Ukraine <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-announces-additional-800-million-military-aid-ukraine-2022-04-13/">announced</a>
by the Biden administration on Wednesday includes 11 Mi-17 helicopters that had
been earmarked for Afghanistan before the US-backed government collapsed last
year. It also includes 18 155mm howitzers, along with 40,000 artillery rounds,
10 counter-artillery radars, 200 armored personnel carriers, 500 Javelin
anti-tank missiles, and 300 additional Switchblade drones. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides direct military assistance from the United States,
the rest of NATO member states are also pouring in significant amount of heavy
weapons in Ukraine. Czechoslovakia used to have the most advanced
military-industrial complex in Central Europe during the Soviet era. After the
dissolution of the Soviet Union and subsequent separation of the “conjoined
twins” in 1993, the Czech Republic has inherited the Soviet weaponry. Famous of
its arms black market, Czech weapons have been found in war theaters as far
away as Syria, Libya and South Sudan.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Czech Republic had delivered tanks, multiple rocket
launchers, howitzers and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine among military
shipments that had reached hundreds of millions of dollars and would continue,
two Czech defense sources <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/czechs-ship-tanks-rocket-launchers-artillery-ukraine-2022-04-08/">confided
to Reuters</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Defense sources confirmed a shipment of five T-72 tanks and
five BVP-1, or BMP-1, infantry fighting vehicles seen on rail cars in photographs
on Twitter and video footage last week. “For several weeks, we have been
supplying heavy ground equipment – I am saying it generally but by definition
it is clear that this includes tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, howitzers and
multiple rocket launchers," a senior defense official said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“What has gone from the Czech Republic is in the hundreds of
millions of dollars.” The senior defense official said the Czechs were also
supplying a range of anti-aircraft weaponry. Independent defense analyst Lukas
Visingr said short-range air-defense systems Strela-10, or SA-13 Gopher in NATO
terminology, had been spotted on a train apparently bound for Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One agreed shipment authorized by the German government
includes 56 Czechoslovak-made infantry fighting vehicles that used to be
operated by East Germany. Berlin passed the IFVs on to Sweden at the end of the
1990s, which later sold them to a Czech company that now aims to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-okays-sale-former-gdr-infantry-fighting-vehicles-ukraine-2022-04-01/">sell
them to Kyiv</a>, according to German Welt am Sonntag newspaper. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After the scuttled <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/10/poland-fighter-jet-deal-ukraine-russia-00016038">aircraft-transfer
deal</a> that would’ve seen Poland handing over its entire fleet of 28 Soviet-era
MiG-29s to Ukraine in return for the United States “backfilling” the Polish Air
Force with American F-16s last month, now Slovakia was in talks with NATO about
an arrangement that could allow Bratislava to send fighter jets to Ukraine,
Prime Minister Eduard Heger <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/slovakia-mig-jets-to-ukraine-prime-minister-eduard-heger-bratislava/">told
reporters</a> on April 11. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Considering that the Biden administration has already <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-announces-additional-800-million-military-aid-ukraine-2022-04-13/">announced</a>
delivering 11 Mi-17 helicopters in its latest $800 million military assistance
package to Ukraine, therefore in all likelihood the Slovak aircraft-transfer
deal is also going to go through. The Slovak prime minister did not put a
number on how many MiG-29 aircraft Slovakia would provide to Ukraine, but the
country is reported to have around a dozen. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Eduard Heger said his government wanted to “move away from
reliance on the Soviet MiGs” in any case. “This is equipment that we want to
finish anyway, because we’re waiting for the F-16s,” he added, referring to
US-made jets that Slovakia was scheduled to receive in 2024, though Bratislava
could receive American fighter jets earlier as soon as it transfers the MiG
fleet to Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Asking for permanent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-general-urges-more-us-troops-in-eastern-europe/2022/04/05/d1a2a1a8-b4f8-11ec-8358-20aa16355fb4_story.html">US
military presence</a> in Central Europe to deter Russia, though making an
artificial distinction between “permanent deployment” vs. “rotational
deployment at permanent bases” in order to sound like a peacenik, Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley proposed before the House Armed Services
Committee: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“My advice would be to create permanent bases but don’t
permanently station (forces), so you get the effect of permanence by rotational
forces cycling through permanent bases,” he said. “I believe that a lot of our
European allies, especially those such as the Baltics or Poland and Romania,
and elsewhere — they’re very, very willing to establish permanent bases.
They’ll build them, they’ll pay for them.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I do think this is a very protracted conflict and I think
it’s at least measured in years. I don’t know about decades, but at least years
for sure,” said Milley. “I think that NATO, the United States, Ukraine and all
of the allies and partners that are supporting Ukraine are going to be involved
in this for quite some time.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We are now facing two global powers: China and Russia, each
with significant military capabilities both who intend to fundamentally change
the rules based current global order. We are entering a world that is becoming
more unstable and the potential for significant international conflict is
increasing, not decreasing,” <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/553360-possibility-of-major-conflict/">Gen.
Milley said</a>.</p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-38119154653498614232022-04-14T21:58:00.002+05:002022-04-14T21:58:20.021+05:00Putin’s Scuttled Peace Initiative: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIS2nIb9OO9kXp5JExsGRL2e_O6Z7D1vZG04RETtpQL8wx2MF_2lcxNb7HUMEo4eZxBPcPoLtvflqm0tjVg0pNV4yHTxUDYzRBxdkxcZ7TJ_qfSIUsnRyhvVeq7gvpEyDHUH6DhJwZTzj_HiXblF-puEpVbeJBy7ZU3jFfsfvNpLnBnm8LxFz_4XUW5w/s1199/61a5985ba310cdd3d81dc8ce.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="819" data-original-width="1199" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIS2nIb9OO9kXp5JExsGRL2e_O6Z7D1vZG04RETtpQL8wx2MF_2lcxNb7HUMEo4eZxBPcPoLtvflqm0tjVg0pNV4yHTxUDYzRBxdkxcZ7TJ_qfSIUsnRyhvVeq7gvpEyDHUH6DhJwZTzj_HiXblF-puEpVbeJBy7ZU3jFfsfvNpLnBnm8LxFz_4XUW5w/s320/61a5985ba310cdd3d81dc8ce.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br />On his first foreign visit to Belarus on Tuesday since
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russian President Vladimir <a href="https://www.rt.com/russia/553768-putin-ukraine-operation-timing/">Putin
explained</a> during a joint press conference with his Belarusian counterpart
Alexander Lukashenko that the time frame of the military offensive in Ukraine
was determined by the intensity of hostilities and Russia would act according
to its plan.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I often get these questions, can’t we hurry it up?’ We can.
But it depends on the intensity of hostilities and, any way you put it, the
intensity of hostilities is directly related to casualties,” said the Russian
president. “Our task is to achieve the set goals while minimizing these losses.
We will act rhythmically, calmly, and according to the plan that was initially
proposed by the General Staff.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On the fateful day of Feb. 24, in a three-pronged blitz from
the north, east and south, Russian ground forces, backed by close air support
and volleys of cruise missiles launched by Russian naval forces deployed in the
Black Sea, overran Ukraine and laid siege to the capital, Kyiv, whose impending
fall in days was predicted even by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/05/russia-ukraine-insurgency/">the
mainstream media</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It has become clear now the “40-mile-long Trojan Horse” of
battle tanks, armored vehicles and heavy artillery that descended from Belarus
in the north and reached the outskirts of Kyiv in the early days of the war
without encountering much resistance en route the capital was simply a decoy
astutely designed as a diversionary tactic by Russia’s military strategists in
order to deter Ukraine from sending reinforcements to Donbas in east Ukraine
where real battles for territory were actually fought and scramble to defend
the embattled country’s capital instead. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Except in the early days of the military campaign when
Russian airstrikes and long-range artillery shelling targeted military
infrastructure in the outskirts of Kyiv to degrade the combat potential of
Ukraine’s armed forces, the capital did not witness much action during the
month-long offensive. Otherwise, with the tremendous firepower at its disposal,
the world’s second most powerful military force had the demonstrable capability
to reduce the whole city down to the ashes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite having immense firepower at its disposal that could
readily turn the tide in conflicts as protracted as Chechnya and Syria wars, Russian
advance in Ukraine was slower than expected according to most estimates because
the Kremlin did all it can to minimize collateral damage, particularly needless
civilian losses in the former Soviet republic whose majority population is
sympathetic to Russia. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is precisely what <a href="https://www.rt.com/russia/553768-putin-ukraine-operation-timing/">Putin
explained</a> at a press conference in Belarus Tuesday that “the time frame of
the military offensive in Ukraine is determined by the intensity of hostilities,”
but “the intensity of hostilities is directly related to the number of
casualties,” and “Russia’s task is to achieve the set goals while minimizing
the losses.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In other words, with the tremendous firepower at the
disposal of Russian forces, it was as easy to capture Kyiv as vanquishing
entrenched jihadist militants by Russia’s air force and long-range artillery in
Aleppo in Syria or Grozny in Chechnya. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the indiscriminate bombardment of the densely populated
Ukrainian capital and the ensuing urban warfare against heavily armed Ukrainian
militias nurtured by NATO patrons would inevitably have caused thousands of
needless civilian casualties. Therefore, the Russian peacemaker decided to
spare the rest of the embattled country and restricted the Russian military
offensive on liberating Russian-majority Donbas region in east Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Putin reiterated that Russia’s actions in several regions of
Ukraine, implying diversionary tactics deployed by Russian forces in Kyiv and
Chernihiv in the north, were intended only “to tie down enemy forces” and carry
out missile strikes with the purpose of “destroying the Ukrainian military’s
infrastructure,” so as to “create conditions for more active operations on the territory
of Donbas.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a momentous announcement on March 29, Russian Deputy
Defense Minister Alexander Fomin, leading the Russian peace delegation in
Istanbul talks, told reporters: “In order to increase mutual trust and create
the necessary conditions for further negotiations and achieving the ultimate
goal of agreeing and signing an agreement, a decision was made to radically, by
a large margin, reduce military activity in the Kyiv and Chernihiv directions.”
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The generous Russian offer scaling back its blitz north of
the capital and focusing instead on liberating Russian-majority Donbas region
in east Ukraine, a task that has already been accomplished in large measure,
was a major unilateral concession ending the month-long offensive in Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Whereas the Ukrainian delegation’s “wish-list” at the
Istanbul peace negotiations, naively insisting on the EU membership in the
midst of the war and demanding security guarantees in terms similar to Article
5 of the NATO charter, the collective defense clause of the transatlantic military
alliance, was inconsequential details that could have been discussed later,
either bilaterally between Russia and Ukraine, or on international forums, such
as the UN Security Council or General Assembly. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In any case, Russia has already accomplished its strategic
objectives in Ukraine, as the Crimean Peninsula and the Donbas region are now
de facto independent territories where Russian peacekeeping forces have been deployed
to maintain peace and stability. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since the withdrawal of Russian forces from north Ukraine, although
NATO’s policymakers are predicting “a major new Russian offensive in east
Ukraine” in order to hype the threat, Russia now intends only to consolidate
its territorial gains achieved in the Donbas region in the month-long blitz. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Wednesday, Russian forces triumphantly announced the
complete liberation of strategically significant port city Mariupol, the
second-largest city in the Donetsk Oblast in east Ukraine and the hub of <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">CIA-trained</a>
neo-Nazi militias, thus claiming a major strategic victory in the Russo-Ukraine
War.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ukraine’s infamous Azov Battalion, widely acknowledged as a
neo-Nazi volunteer paramilitary force connected with foreign white supremacist
organizations, was initially formed as a volunteer group in May 2014 out of the
ultra-nationalist Patriots of Ukraine gang, and the neo-Nazi Social National
Assembly (SNA) group. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a battalion, the group fought on the frontlines against
pro-Russia separatists in Donbas, the eastern region of Ukraine, and rose to
prominence after recapturing the strategic port city of Mariupol from the
Russia-backed separatists. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The militant outfit was officially integrated into the
National Guard of Ukraine on November 12, 2014, and exacted high praise from
then-President Petro Poroshenko. “These are our best warriors,” he said at an
awards ceremony in 2014. “Our best volunteers.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In June 2015, both Canada and the United States announced
they would not support or train the Azov regiment, citing its neo-Nazi
connections. The following year, however, the US lifted the ban under pressure
from the Pentagon, and the CIA initiated <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">the
clandestine program</a> to nurture ultra-nationalist militias in east Ukraine
in order to mount a war of attrition against Russia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In one of the most critical battles of the Russo-Ukraine
War, Russia’s defense ministry <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/13/more-than-1000-ukraine-marines-have-surrendered-in-mariupol-says-russia">claimed
Wednesday</a> 1,026 soldiers from Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade, including 162
officers, holed up in the Azovstal industrial district, the lynchpin dividing
Russian-held areas to the west and east of the city, had “voluntarily laid down
their arms” and surrendered the last bastion of militancy in Mariupol to
Russian forces.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mariupol’s capture would help Russia secure a land corridor
between the Donetsk and Luhansk republics in Donbas and Crimea, which Moscow
annexed in 2014, following the Maidan coup toppling pro-Russia Ukrainian
President Viktor Yanukovych.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/13/more-than-1000-ukraine-marines-have-surrendered-in-mariupol-says-russia">reported
Wednesday</a>: “Military experts say local support, logistics, the terrain in
the region and the appointment by Moscow of a new senior general, Aleksandr
Dvornikov [a decorated war hero and the former commander of Russian forces in
Syria] as overall commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, could improve the
performance of a force that Britain’s defense ministry said on Wednesday had so
far been hampered by an inability to cohere and coordinate.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Local support of the native population to the Russian forces
in the Russian-majority region is the key element here, that even the
mainstream media unwittingly acknowledged, as ethnic Russians in east Ukraine,
relentlessly persecuted for eight long years by Ukraine’s security forces and
allied neo-Nazi militias, have by and large welcomed Russian liberators in
Donbas.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To return the favor of halting Russian military campaign
north of the capital and focusing on liberating Russian-majority Donbas in east
Ukraine, practically spelling an end to Russia’s month-long offensive in the
embattled country, NATO powers have announced transferring heavy weapons,
including tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery and even helicopters, to
Ukraine to escalate the conflict.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on
April 7, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley revealed that US and
NATO countries have <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-giving-intel-to-ukraine-for-operations-in-donbas-defense-secretary-says/ar-AAVYrNp">collectively
provided</a> roughly 60,000 anti-tank weapons and 25,000 anti-aircraft weapons
during NATO’s “weapons for peace” program to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion on
Feb. 24.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Biden administration <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-announces-additional-800-million-military-aid-ukraine-2022-04-13/">announced</a>
an additional $800 million in military assistance to Ukraine on Wednesday. The
package, which brings the total military aid since Russian forces invaded in
February to more than $2.5 billion, includes artillery systems, artillery
rounds, armored personnel carriers and unmanned coastal defense boats.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The new package includes 11 Mi-17 helicopters that had been
earmarked for Afghanistan before the US-backed government collapsed last year.
It also includes 18 155mm howitzers, along with 40,000 artillery rounds, 10
counter-artillery radars, 200 armored personnel carriers, 500 Javelin anti-tank
missiles, and 300 additional Switchblade drones. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The new military assistance package to Ukraine will be
funded using Presidential Drawdown Authority, or PDA, in which the president
can authorize the transfer of articles and services from US stocks without
congressional approval in response to an emergency. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As news of the latest security assistance came out,
executives from the top US weapons-makers met with Pentagon officials to
expedite NATO’s “weapons for peace” program in Ukraine. These included executives
from BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Huntington Ingalls
Industries, Harris Technologies, Boeing, Raytheon Technologies and Northrop
Grumman. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But in a significantly escalatory move, virtually scuttling
the Russian peace initiative to Ukraine announced at the Istanbul talks on
March 29 and the subsequent withdrawal of Russian forces from the embattled
country, Ukraine's Operational Command South <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-flagship-black-sea-fleet-badly-damaged-by-blast-2022-04-14/">announced
Thursday</a> that it hit a Russian warship with a “Ukrainian-made Neptune
anti-ship missile” off the coast of Odesa in southeast Ukraine and that it had
started to sink. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“In the Black Sea operational zone, Neptune anti-ship cruise
missiles hit the cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet—it
received significant damage,” the Ukrainian statement said. “A fire broke out.
Other units of the ship’s group tried to help, but a storm and a powerful
explosion of ammunition overturned the cruiser and it began to sink.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russia's defense ministry claimed the “accidental fire” on
the Soviet-era guided-missile cruiser Moskva had been contained, but left the
ship badly damaged, though it “remains afloat” and measures were being taken to
tow it to port. The ministry said the crew had been safely evacuated to other
Black Sea Fleet ships in the area. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russian news agencies said the 611-foot-long (186 meters)
Moskva, with a crew of almost 500, was commissioned in 1983 and refurbished in
1998. The Moskva was armed with a range of anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles
as well as torpedoes and naval guns and close-in missile defense systems,
including 16 anti-ship Vulkan cruise missiles with a range of at least 700 km
(440 miles). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although Ukraine claimed the Russian warship was struck by a
“Ukrainian-made Neptune anti-ship missile,” developed domestically based on the
Soviet KH-35 cruise missile that became operational in the Ukrainian naval
forces just last year, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/16/us-sends-switchblade-drones-to-ukraine-00017836">Politico
reported</a> on March 16 that Kyiv had specifically demanded “long-range
anti-ship missiles” from Washington, and the Russian guided-missile cruiser was
most likely destroyed by long-range anti-ship missiles provided to Ukraine by
the United States.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“A Western diplomat familiar with Ukraine’s requests said Kyiv
specifically has asked the US and allies for more Stingers and Starstreak
man-portable air-defense systems, Javelins and other anti-tank weapons,
ground-based mobile air-defense systems, armed drones, long-range anti-ship
missiles, off-the-shelf electronic warfare capabilities, and satellite
navigation and communications jamming equipment.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In response to escalation of hostilities by Ukraine and its
international backers, despite the Russian peace initiative announced at the
Istanbul talks on March 29, Russian Ministry of Defense spokesperson Maj. Gen.
Igor Konashenkov <a href="https://www.rt.com/russia/553830-kiev-strike-possible/">warned in a
statement</a>: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We see attempts of sabotage and strikes by Ukrainian troops
on objects on the territory of the Russian Federation. If such cases continue,
the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will strike at decision-making
centers, including in Kyiv, from which the Russian army has thus far refrained.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">During the course of the war, Russia has struck military
targets in regions as far away as cities in west Ukraine bordering Poland. On March
13, Russian forces <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">launched
a missile attack</a> at Yavoriv Combat Training Center in the western most part
of the country. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The military facility, less than 25 km from the Polish
border, is one of Ukraine's biggest and the largest in the western part of the
country. Since 2015, US Green Berets and National Guard troops had been
training Ukrainian forces at the Yavoriv center before they were evacuated
alongside diplomatic staff in mid-February. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The training center was hit by a barrage of 30 cruise missiles,
killing at least 35 people, though Russia's defense ministry claimed up to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/diplomacy-efforts-step-up-after-russian-strike-ukraine-base-2022-03-14/">180
foreign mercenaries</a> and large caches of weapons were destroyed at the
training center. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russia obviously has the cutting-edge military technology,
including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and Kalibr cruise missiles, to easily
eliminate not only the top brass of Ukraine’s largely conscript military but
also the perfidious political class, claiming to represent Ukraine’s masses
while taking dictates from NATO’s puppet masters. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But taking mercy on the powerless stooges, Putin spared the
lives of comic actor-turned-politician Zelensky and his duplicitous associates,
because he wanted to resolve the Ukraine conflict politically and
diplomatically instead of using brute military force. But it seems Ukraine’s
myopic leadership and its devious international backers are leaving Russia no
other choice than to go for the jugular.</p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-59120843616040835732022-04-12T22:46:00.001+05:002022-04-12T22:46:16.190+05:00Russia’s Strategic Victory and NATO’s Chemical Weapons Psyops<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQAQm2tRhMjdLGnOfV6TUM1FTwOmzFNIq-of9UwvB7Z4ReK-4mlDSVz7HcgofRDh2fQjnNRU7sWK_khUjWarUwXFldlWROP4tP4t1XtMaWW-Ww0NSkYR5SDqTw7DWBrs2IsCfRNEQ3HKxz6BLjs7ecUND4vD2tGzt-Iye6N_X5y9NK7o_A62CRTubVmQ/s1200/NINTCHDBPICT000725057460.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQAQm2tRhMjdLGnOfV6TUM1FTwOmzFNIq-of9UwvB7Z4ReK-4mlDSVz7HcgofRDh2fQjnNRU7sWK_khUjWarUwXFldlWROP4tP4t1XtMaWW-Ww0NSkYR5SDqTw7DWBrs2IsCfRNEQ3HKxz6BLjs7ecUND4vD2tGzt-Iye6N_X5y9NK7o_A62CRTubVmQ/s320/NINTCHDBPICT000725057460.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />While Russian forces appear on the verge of liberating
strategically significant port city Mariupol, the second-largest city in the
Donetsk Oblast in east Ukraine, thus claiming a major strategic victory in the
Russo-Ukraine War, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss resorted to the oldest
trick in the NATO’s psyops’ playbook of accusing adversaries of staging
chemical weapons attacks and <a href="https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1513636563405713416">tweeted Monday</a>:<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Reports that Russian forces may have used chemical agents
in an attack on the people of Mariupol. We are working urgently with partners
to verify details. Any use of such weapons would be a callous escalation in
this conflict and we will hold Putin and his regime to account.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Inanely parroting the unsubstantiated claim by the NATO
patrons, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy alleged Monday night that
Russia could resort to chemical weapons as it massed troops in the eastern
Donbas region for an assault on Mariupol. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said the
government was checking “unverified information” that Russia might have used
chemical weapons while besieging Mariupol. “There is a theory that these could
be phosphorous munitions,” Malyar said in televised comments. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The self-styled governor of the eastern Donetsk region
appointed by Kyiv, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said he had seen incident reports on
possible chemical weapons use in Mariupol but could not confirm them. “We know
that last night around midnight a drone dropped some so-far unknown explosive
device, and the people that were in and around the Mariupol metal plant, there
were three people, they began to feel unwell,” he <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-braces-new-russian-offensive-moscow-dismisses-rape-allegations-2022-04-12/">told
reporters</a>. They were taken to hospital and their lives were not in danger,
he added.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although Russia unequivocally denied using chemical weapons
in Mariupol, in any case the use of white phosphorous is not banned under the
1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). In fact, the United States itself used
plenty of white phosphorus munitions in its campaign against the Islamic State
in Syria’s Raqqa in 2017. White phosphorus is mainly used for lighting up the
night sky in conflict zones to prevent hit-and-run tactics adopted by insurgent
groups in the dark of the night against regular military forces.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the real reason the dubious allegation of use of
chemical weapons by Russian forces has been leveled by Ukraine’s security
forces and their international backers is that the battle for Mariupol has
reached a decisive phase, with Ukraine’s <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">CIA-trained</a>
neo-Nazi militias holed up in the Azovstal industrial district and considering
laying down their heavy weapons in exchange for getting a safe corridor for
evacuation from the battle zone.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Should the Russian forces seize Azovstal, they would be in
full control of Mariupol, the lynchpin between Russian-held areas to the west
and east, and would proclaim a major strategic victory against Ukraine’s
security forces and allied ultra-nationalist militias.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s obvious much like her suave American counterpart,
Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who has made more asinine gaffes in his
yearlong diplomatic career than “Sleepy Joe” made in over forty-year political
career, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss isn’t much of a news junkie,
either. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Otherwise, before resorting to the absurd allegation that Russian
forces might have used chemical agents in Mariupol, she would certainly have
recalled that in a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-declassified-intel-fight-info-war-russia-even-intel-isnt-rock-rcna23014">bombshell
NBC scoop</a> published April 7, the authors of the report alleged that US spy
agencies used deliberate and selective intelligence leaks to mainstream news
outlets to mount a disinformation campaign against Russia during the latter’s
month-long military offensive in Ukraine, despite being aware the intelligence
wasn't credible.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The US intelligence assessment that Russia was preparing to
use chemical weapons in the Ukraine War, that was widely reported in the
corporate media previously and once again being resorted to by Ukraine’s
politicians and their NATO patrons, was an unsubstantiated claim leaked to the
press as a tit-for-tat response to the damning Russian allegation that Ukraine
was pursuing an active biological weapons program, in collaboration with
Washington, in scores of bio-labs discovered by Russian forces in Ukraine in
the early days of the military campaign.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The NBC report notes: “It was an attention-grabbing
assertion that made headlines around the world: US officials said they had
indications suggesting Russia might be preparing to use chemical agents in
Ukraine. President Joe Biden later said it publicly. But three US officials
told NBC News this week there was no evidence Russia had brought any chemical
weapons near Ukraine. They said the US released the information to deter Russia
from using the banned munitions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Multiple US officials acknowledged that the US had used
information as a weapon even when confidence in the accuracy of the information
wasn’t high. Sometimes it had used low-confidence intelligence for deterrent
effect, as with chemical agents, and other times, as an official put it, the US
was just ‘trying to get inside Putin’s head.’”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Among other revealing facts, the NBC report noted a charge
that Russia had turned to China for potential military help lacked hard
evidence, a European official and two US officials told the news outlet’s
correspondents. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The US officials said there were no indications China was
considering providing weapons to Russia. The Biden administration put that out
as a warning to China not to do so, they said. The European official described
the disclosure as ‘a public game to prevent any military support from China.’”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thus, niftily forestalling the likelihood of strengthening
of mutually beneficial bonds between China and Russia when the latter is badly
in need for economic relief, the United States pre-emptively accused China of
pledging to sell military hardware to Russia, when the latter, itself one of
the world’s leading arms exporters, didn’t even make any such request to China.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan held an intense
seven-hour meeting in Rome with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi on March
15, and warned China of “grave consequences” of evading Western sanctions on Russia.
Besides wielding the stick of economic sanctions, he must also have dangled the
carrot of ending trade war against China, initiated by the Trump administration
and continued by the Biden administration, until Russia invaded Ukraine in late
February.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As far as military power is concerned, Russia with its
enormous arsenal of conventional as well as nuclear weapons more or less equals
the military power of the United States. But it’s the much more subtle and
insidious tactic of economic warfare for which Russia seems to have no answer
following the break-up of the Soviet Union in the nineties and consequent
dismantling of the once-thriving communist bloc, spanning Eastern Europe, Latin
America and many socialist states in Asia and Africa in the sixties. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The current global neocolonial order is being led by the
United States and its West European clients since the signing of the Bretton
Woods Accord in 1945 following the Second World War. Historically, any state,
particularly those inclined to pursue socialist policies, that dared to
challenge the Western monopoly over global trade and economic policies was
internationally isolated and its national economy went bankrupt over a period
of time. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But for once, it appears quite plausible that in its
relentless efforts to internationally isolate Russia, the Biden administration
is likely to unravel the whole neocolonial economic order imposed on the world
after the signing of the Bretton Woods Accord in 1945 after European powers
devastated by the war reluctantly accepted Washington’s diktat of pegging their
currencies to the US dollar, backed by gold reserves, a practice that has since
been abandoned in the seventies, thus conceding the dollar hegemony in the
global financial system.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ukraine’s infamous Azov Battalion, widely acknowledged as a
neo-Nazi volunteer paramilitary force connected with foreign white supremacist
organizations, was initially formed as a volunteer group in May 2014 out of the
ultra-nationalist Patriots of Ukraine gang, and the neo-Nazi Social National
Assembly (SNA) group. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a battalion, the group fought on the frontlines against
pro-Russia separatists in Donbas, the eastern region of Ukraine, and rose to
prominence after recapturing the strategic port city of Mariupol from the
Russia-backed separatists. The militant outfit was officially integrated into
the National Guard of Ukraine on November 12, 2014, and exacted high praise
from then-President Petro Poroshenko. “These are our best warriors,” he said at
an awards ceremony in 2014. “Our best volunteers.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In June 2015, both Canada and the United States announced
they would not support or train the Azov regiment, citing its neo-Nazi
connections. The following year, however, the US lifted the ban under pressure
from the Pentagon, and the CIA initiated <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">the
clandestine program</a> of nurturing ultra-nationalist militias in east Ukraine
in order to mount a war of attrition against Russia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash on April 3, NATO Secretary
General <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/553232-nato-trained-ukrainian-troops-years-stoltenberg/">Jens
Stoltenberg said</a> that “NATO allies have supported Ukraine for many, many years,”
adding that military aid has been “stepped up over the last weeks since the
invasion.” The official clarified that “NATO allies like the United States, but
also the United Kingdom and Canada and some others, have trained Ukrainian
troops for years.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">According to Stoltenberg’s estimates, “tens of thousands of
Ukrainian troops” had received such training, and were now “at the front
fighting against invading Russian forces.” The secretary general went on to
credit the Brussels-based alliance with the fact that the “Ukrainian armed
forces are much bigger, much better equipped, much better trained and much
better led now than ever before.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition to a longstanding <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">CIA
program</a> aimed at cultivating an anti-Russian insurgency in Ukraine,
Canada’s Department of National Defense <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/20/us-neo-nazi-ukraine-afghan-insurgency">revealed
on January 26</a>, two days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that the
Canadian Armed Forces trained “nearly 33,000 Ukrainian military and security
personnel in a range of tactical and advanced military skills.” While The
United Kingdom, via <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60185733">Operation
Orbital</a>, trained 22,000 Ukrainian fighters, as noted by NATO’s informed
secretary general.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In an <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">explosive
scoop</a>, Zach Dorfman reported for the Yahoo News on March 16: “As part of
the Ukraine-based training program, CIA paramilitaries taught their Ukrainian
counterparts sniper techniques; how to operate U.S.-supplied Javelin anti-tank
missiles and other equipment; how to evade digital tracking the Russians used
to pinpoint the location of Ukrainian troops, which had left them vulnerable to
attacks by artillery; how to use covert communications tools; and how to remain
undetected in the war zone while also drawing out Russian and insurgent forces
from their positions, among other skills, according to former officials.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“When CIA paramilitaries first traveled to eastern Ukraine
in the aftermath of Russia’s initial 2014 incursion, their brief was twofold.
First, they were ordered to determine how the agency could best help train
Ukrainian special operations personnel fight the Russian military forces, and
their separatist allies, waging a grinding war against Ukrainian troops in the
Donbas region. But the second part of the mission was to test the mettle of the
Ukrainians themselves, according to former officials.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides the CIA’s clandestine program for training Ukraine’s
largely conscript military and allied neo-Nazi militias in east Ukraine and the
US Special Forces program for training Ukraine’s security forces at Yavoriv
Combat Training Center in the western part of the country bordering Poland that
was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">hit
by a barrage</a> of 30 cruise missiles killing at least 35 militants on March
13, Dorfman claims in a separate <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html">January
report</a> that the CIA also ran a covert program for training Ukraine’s
special forces at an undisclosed facility in the southern United States.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program
in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other
intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national
security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in
2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to
some of those officials.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“While the covert program, run by paramilitaries working for
the CIA’s Ground Branch — now officially known as Ground Department — was
established by the Obama administration after Russia’s invasion and annexation
of Crimea in 2014, and expanded under the Trump administration, the Biden
administration has further augmented it.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By 2015, as part of this expanded anti-Russia effort, CIA
Ground Branch paramilitaries also “started traveling to the front in eastern
Ukraine” to advise and assist Ukraine’s security forces and allied neo-Nazi
militias there. The multiweek, US-based CIA program included “training in
firearms, camouflage techniques, land navigation, tactics like cover and move,
intelligence and other areas.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One person familiar with the program put it more bluntly.
“The United States is training an insurgency,” said a former CIA official,
adding that the program has taught the Ukrainians how “to kill Russians.” Going
back decades, the CIA had provided limited training to Ukrainian intelligence
units to try and shore up a US-allied Kyiv and undermine Russian influence, but
cooperation ramped up after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 following the
Maidan coup toppling pro-Russia Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, a former
CIA executive confided to Dorfman.</p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-59583325667690685262022-04-09T19:51:00.002+05:002022-04-09T19:51:20.315+05:00Russian Peace Initiative and NATO’s S-300 Delivery to Ukraine<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg31jacWjuCMUg3KJuC8qslsV4bJNGLmQx_eULst7pnuH3nb9l6H_yIMForeQ04ZDtR5Mc_8JGHMK7MsFC06uBBCgylDe81sNn0uboQrox9df-y32Cf_Hw1jiBDcEPcEVXnBOMU7CPjPYK-hi4SySv3czqIgzrForEO2ZfDY1rc9kTpeEA-qQw6U5s5Aw/s2559/IHE4ALVVXFGTTHOM3AGMZHVVGA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1706" data-original-width="2559" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg31jacWjuCMUg3KJuC8qslsV4bJNGLmQx_eULst7pnuH3nb9l6H_yIMForeQ04ZDtR5Mc_8JGHMK7MsFC06uBBCgylDe81sNn0uboQrox9df-y32Cf_Hw1jiBDcEPcEVXnBOMU7CPjPYK-hi4SySv3czqIgzrForEO2ZfDY1rc9kTpeEA-qQw6U5s5Aw/s320/IHE4ALVVXFGTTHOM3AGMZHVVGA.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />In order to scuttle the Russian peace initiative to Ukraine
announced at the Istanbul talks on March 29, halting Russian military campaign
north of the capital and focusing on liberating Russian-majority Donbas in east
Ukraine, practically spelling an end to Russia’s month-long offensive in the
embattled country, NATO powers have announced transferring heavy weapons,
including tanks and S-300 air defense system, to Ukraine to further escalate
the conflict.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on
Thursday, April 7, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley revealed that
US and NATO countries have <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-giving-intel-to-ukraine-for-operations-in-donbas-defense-secretary-says/ar-AAVYrNp">collectively
provided</a> roughly 60,000 anti-tank weapons and 25,000 anti-aircraft weapons
to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The Russian air force has not even today established air
superiority let alone air supremacy, which is one of the reasons why they are
having great difficulty on the ground,” the ambitious four-star general, who
appears to have sights set on the presidential office after retirement, like
Dwight Eisenhower, boasted before the committee.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“So the air superiority mission over Ukraine’s airspace has
not been achieved, why is that? It’s because of the survival of the air defense
systems, both the MANPADS (man-portable air defense systems) that we have been
providing – stingers and the like from other NATO countries – plus the longer
range SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) that have been provided and that they
already had.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We are providing Ukrainians intelligence to conduct
operations in the Donbas, that's correct,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
confessed publicly for the first time that the US is providing intelligence to
Ukrainian forces in response to the question from Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of
Arkansas. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We continue to provide useful information and intelligence
to the Ukrainian Armed Forces in their fight,” a senior defense official
acknowledged after Austin's remarks. “As that fight migrates more to the Donbas
region, we will adjust our information content and flow as required.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In most cases, two sources familiar with the
intelligence-sharing system <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/04/politics/us-ukraine-intelligence/index.html">told
CNN</a>, the intelligence being shared involved information about Russian force
movements and locations, as well as intercepted communications about their
military plans. And it is typically provided to Ukrainian officials as quickly
as within 30 minutes to an hour of the US receiving it, making it nearly real-time
intelligence sharing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Literally fawning over the top Pentagon officials, Sen.
Roger Wicker, an establishment Republican, asked Austin on why all of $3
billion in congressional authorization for US arms to Ukraine <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/09/congress-government-funding-package-00014322">previously
pledged</a> by the Biden administration has yet to be provided. “We've only
used $900 million of this – less than a third of the amount authorized. Why
hasn't the administration provided the full $3 billion?” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">US security assistance is flowing into Ukraine “faster than
most people would have ever believed conceivable,” Austin told the committee on
Thursday – at times arriving in Ukraine within days of receiving authorization,
he said. “From the time authorization is provided, four or five days later we
see real capability begin to show up,” Austin said during the hearing on the
Defense Department’s whopping $773 billion budget request. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Asking for permanent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-general-urges-more-us-troops-in-eastern-europe/2022/04/05/d1a2a1a8-b4f8-11ec-8358-20aa16355fb4_story.html">US
military presence</a> in Central Europe to deter Russia, the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs proposed before the House Armed Services Committee: “My advice
would be to create permanent bases but don’t permanently station (forces), so
you get the effect of permanence by rotational forces cycling through permanent
bases,” he said. “I believe that a lot of our European allies, especially those
such as the Baltics or Poland and Romania, and elsewhere — they’re very, very
willing to establish permanent bases. They’ll build them, they’ll pay for
them.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I do think this is a very protracted conflict and I think
it’s at least measured in years. I don’t know about decades, but at least years
for sure,” said Milley. “I think that NATO, the United States, Ukraine and all
of the allies and partners that are supporting Ukraine are going to be involved
in this for quite some time.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We are now facing two global powers: China and Russia, each
with significant military capabilities both who intend to fundamentally change
the rules based current global order. We are entering a world that is becoming
more unstable and the potential for significant international conflict is
increasing, not decreasing,” <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/553360-possibility-of-major-conflict/">Gen.
Milley said</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Czechoslovakia used to have the most advanced
military-industrial complex in Central Europe during the Soviet era. After the
dissolution of the Soviet Union and subsequent separation of the “conjoined
twins” in 1993, the Czech Republic has inherited the Soviet weaponry. Famous of
its arms black market, Czech weapons have been found in war theaters as far
away as Syria, Libya and South Sudan.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Czech Republic had delivered tanks, multiple rocket
launchers, howitzers and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine among military
shipments that had reached hundreds of millions of dollars and would continue,
two Czech defense sources <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/czechs-ship-tanks-rocket-launchers-artillery-ukraine-2022-04-08/">confided
to Reuters</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Defense sources confirmed a shipment of five T-72 tanks and
five BVP-1, or BMP-1, infantry fighting vehicles seen on rail cars in
photographs on Twitter and video footage this week. “For several weeks, we have
been supplying heavy ground equipment – I am saying it generally but by
definition it is clear that this includes tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, howitzers
and multiple rocket launchers," a senior defense official said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“What has gone from the Czech Republic is in the hundreds of
millions of dollars.” The senior defense official said the Czechs were also
supplying a range of anti-aircraft weaponry. Independent defense analyst Lukas
Visingr said short-range air-defense systems Strela-10, or SA-13 Gopher in NATO
terminology, had been spotted on a train apparently bound for Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One agreed shipment authorized by the German government
includes 56 Czechoslovak-made infantry fighting vehicles that used to be
operated by East Germany. Berlin passed the IFVs on to Sweden at the end of the
1990s, which later sold them to a Czech company that now aims to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-okays-sale-former-gdr-infantry-fighting-vehicles-ukraine-2022-04-01/">sell
them to Kyiv</a>, according to German Welt am Sonntag newspaper. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But in a significantly escalatory move, virtually scuttling
the Russian peace initiative to Ukraine announced at the Istanbul talks on
March 29 and the subsequent withdrawal of Russian forces from the rest of the
embattled country, excluding Russian-majority Donbas in east Ukraine, Slovakia
has struck a deal with NATO for transferring its Soviet-era S-300 air defense
system to Ukraine in return for the transatlantic military alliance delivering
four Patriot missile systems to Slovakia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I can confirm that Slovakia donated the S-300 air defense system
to Ukraine based on its request to help in self-defense due to armed aggression
from the Russian Federation,” Slovakian Prime Minister Eduard Heger announced
Friday.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although NATO has provided thousands of anti-aircraft
MANPADS to Ukraine’s security forces and allied neo-Nazi militias, those were
portable shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, whereas S-300 air defense
system, equivalent in capabilities to American Patriots, is a vehicle-mounted
advanced system that could practically enforce a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine’s
airspace, a longstanding demand of Ukrainian politicians, within the range of
the battery. The Slovak army <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/slovakia-gives-s-300-air-defence-system-ukraine-prime-minister-2022-04-08/">website
said</a> its version of the S-300 battery had a range of 75 km and could strike
targets up to 27 km above ground.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Negotiations for the transfer of S-300 air defense system to
Ukraine had been going on for weeks. The <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-03-18/dutch-germans-to-send-3-patriot-missile-defence-systems-to-slovakia">Dutch
government announced</a> on March 18 it would send a Patriot missile defense
system to Sliac, Slovakia, as part of NATO moves to strengthen air defenses in Eastern
Europe. “The worsened safety situation in Europe as a result of the Russian
invasion of Ukraine makes this contribution necessary,” Dutch Defense Minister
Kajsa Ollongren said in a statement. In addition, Germany also sent two Patriot
missile systems to Slovakia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Along with the Patriot batteries, the <a href="https://news.antiwar.com/2022/03/18/germany-netherlands-to-send-3-patriot-missile-systems-to-slovakia/">Dutch
also announced</a> sending a contingent of 150-200 troops, who would operate
and also train Slovak forces in operating the American air defense system, as
the security forces of Slovakia as well as Ukraine are only trained to operate
Russian-made military equipment, which many NATO countries that are former
Soviet states possess. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the top Republican on the House
Foreign Affairs Committee, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/16/us-sends-switchblade-drones-to-ukraine-00017836">told
Politico on March 16</a>: “The U.S. was working with allies to send more S-300
surface-to-air missile systems to Ukraine. The country has had the S-300 for
years, so troops should require little-to-no training on how to operate the
Soviet-era anti-aircraft equipment. CNN reported that Slovakia had
preliminarily agreed to transfer their S-300s to Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“A Western diplomat familiar with Ukraine’s requests said
Kyiv specifically has asked the U.S. and allies for more Stingers and
Starstreak man-portable air-defense systems, Javelins and other anti-tank
weapons, ground-based mobile air-defense systems, armed drones, long-range
anti-ship missiles, off-the-shelf electronic warfare capabilities, and
satellite navigation and communications jamming equipment.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To further help, there is a push to get Eastern European
allies to send new air defense systems to Ukraine that the US doesn’t have. At
the top of the list are mobile, Russian-made missile systems such as the SA-8
and S-300. Like the S-300, Ukraine also possesses SA-8s. The SA-8 is a mobile,
short-range air defense system still in the warehouses of Romania, Bulgaria and
Poland. The larger, long-range S-300 is still in use by Bulgaria, Greece and
Slovakia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s trip to Europe in mid-March
included not only NATO headquarters in Brussels, but also stops in Bulgaria and
Slovakia — countries that own S-300s and SA-8s — before heading back to
Washington.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Previously, Slovakia’s defense minister said on March 17
that the country was willing to give Ukraine its S-300 surface-to-air missile
defense systems if it receives a “proper replacement.” Speaking at a press
conference in Slovakia alongside US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Slovak
Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad said Slovakia was <a href="https://news.antiwar.com/2022/03/17/slovakia-says-it-will-give-ukraine-its-s-300s-if-it-gets-proper-replacement/">discussing
the S-300s</a> with the US and Ukraine. “We’re willing to do so immediately
when we have a proper replacement. The only strategic air defense system that
we have in Slovakia is S-300 system,” he added. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lloyd Austin declined to say whether the United States might
be willing to fill the gap. “I don’t have any announcements for you this
afternoon. These are things that we will continue to work with all of our
allies on. And certainly, this is not just a US issue. It’s a NATO issue,”
Austin said while diplomatically evading confirming the barter deal for which
he had traveled all the way from Washington to Eastern Europe.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NATO member Slovakia had one battery of the S-300 air
defense system, inherited from the Soviet era after the break-up of
Czechoslovakia in 1993. Following the Slovakia visit, Lloyd Austin also visited
Bulgaria on March 18. Bulgaria has S-300 systems, but the country made it clear
it had no plans to send any to Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Bulgarian President Rumen Radev <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/russia-says-will-attack-slovakias-s-300-missile-supplies-to-ukraine/">prudently
said</a> that any arms supplies to Ukraine were equivalent to the country being
dragged into war. Ultimately, he said, such an issue should be decided by the
parliament. He also said that Bulgaria needed its S-300 for its own air
defense, particularly for the Kozlodui nuclear power plant. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Slovakian Prime Minister Eduard Heger said Slovakia would
receive additional equipment from NATO allies to make up for the transfer.
Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad subsequently announced that Slovakia would
receive the fourth Patriot missile system from the United States next week.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the United States
would place one Patriot system in Slovakia in the coming days and it would be
operated by US troops. “Their deployment length has not yet been fixed, as we
continue to consult with the Slovakian government about more permanent air
defense solutions,” Austin said in a statement. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“As the Russian military repositions for the next phase of
this war, I have directed my administration to continue to spare no effort to
identify and provide to the Ukrainian military the advanced weapons
capabilities it needs to defend its country,” President Joe Biden said while
thanking Slovakia for sending its S-300 system to Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a spirit of reconciliation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov <a href="https://news.antiwar.com/2022/04/08/kremlin-says-russias-war-in-ukraine-could-end-in-foreseeable-future/">said
Friday</a> Russia’s military “operation” in Ukraine could end in the
“foreseeable future” as goals were being reached and negotiations were ongoing.
“The operation continues; the goals are being achieved. Substantive work is
being carried out both through the military in terms of advancing the
operation, and through the negotiators who are in the negotiation process with
Ukrainian counterparts,” Peskov told reporters. “We are talking about the
foreseeable future,” he added when asked for a timeline.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Dismissing Russia’s peace overtures to Ukraine as “nothing
more than a smokescreen,” however, US and European officials voiced skepticism
over Russia’s “sincerity and commitment” towards the peace talks, underlining
that only a full ceasefire, troop withdrawal and return of captured territory
to Ukraine would be enough to trigger discussions over lifting sanctions on
Russia’s economy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The notion that you would reward Putin for occupying territory
doesn’t make sense … it would be very, very difficult to countenance” a senior
EU official <a href="https://archive.ph/j2VOM#selection-2041.0-2045.67">confided
to the Financial Times</a>. “There’s a disconnect between these negotiations,
what really happens on the ground, and the total cynicism of Russia. I think we
need to give them a reality check,” the official added. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Advising Ukrainians to hold out instead of rushing for
securing peace deal with Russia, <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dont-back-down-britain-urges-ukraine-wmtfkv3pn">the
Sunday Times reported</a>, senior British officials were urging Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to instruct his negotiators to refuse to make
concessions during peace negotiations with Russian counterparts.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A senior government source said there were concerns that
allies were “over-eager” to secure an early peace deal, adding that a
settlement should be reached only when Ukraine is in the strongest possible
position.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a phone call, Boris Johnson warned President Zelensky
that President Putin was a “liar and a bully” who would use talks to “wear you
down and force you to make concessions.” The British prime minister also told
MPs it was “certainly inconceivable that any sanctions could be taken off
simply because there is a ceasefire.” London was making sure there was “no
backsliding on sanctions by any of our friends and partners around the world,”
he added.</p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-9570152251850698542022-04-07T23:42:00.003+05:002022-04-07T23:42:38.982+05:00How US Intelligence Leaks to Media Backfired in Ukraine War?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkVs4xrJARqgOh9g72JzbgchR2zJLB6IOFEhUupcM1cx_yHaGaTMpzoh70BK9m3r_yZFQB4wkrHKaKCVaWkLHEaSejjZygqRYrfR3cephSFewirCAqk_mypl8JXtSoYSPuqhRRtEFlFbMRLdJFzFJQE5sYR3TQTsTwV_gf-SvqqlSFkBHAd5_MOHmGfA/s3000/157339.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="3000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkVs4xrJARqgOh9g72JzbgchR2zJLB6IOFEhUupcM1cx_yHaGaTMpzoh70BK9m3r_yZFQB4wkrHKaKCVaWkLHEaSejjZygqRYrfR3cephSFewirCAqk_mypl8JXtSoYSPuqhRRtEFlFbMRLdJFzFJQE5sYR3TQTsTwV_gf-SvqqlSFkBHAd5_MOHmGfA/s320/157339.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />In a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-declassified-intel-fight-info-war-russia-even-intel-isnt-rock-rcna23014">bombshell
NBC scoop</a> published Wednesday, the authors of the report alleged that US
spy agencies used deliberate and selective intelligence leaks to mainstream
news outlets to mount an information warfare campaign against Russia during the
latter’s month-long military offensive in Ukraine, despite being aware the
intelligence wasn't credible.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The US intelligence assessment that Russia was preparing to
use chemical weapons in the Ukraine War, that was widely reported in the
corporate media and confirmed by President Biden himself, was an unsubstantiated
claim leaked to the press as a tit-for-tat response to the damning Russian
allegation that Ukraine was pursuing an active biological weapons program, in
collaboration with Washington, in scores of bio-labs discovered by Russian
forces in Ukraine in early days of the military campaign.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The crux of the NBC report, however, isn’t what’s being disclosed
but rather what’s still being withheld by the US intelligence community that
the mainstream news outlets are not at liberty to report on. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite being aware of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s
major unilateral concession to Kyiv, halting Russian offensive north of the
capital and focusing on liberating Russian-majority Donbas in east Ukraine,
practically spelling an end to Russia’s month-long offensive in Ukraine, US
security officials are still deceptively asserting that Russia’s pullout from
areas around Kyiv “wasn’t a retreat but a strategic redeployment” that signals
a “significant assault on eastern and southern Ukraine,” one that US officials
believe could be a “protracted and bloody fight.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Regarding the malicious disinformation campaign mounted by
Western media on behalf of NATO powers, the report notes: “The idea is to
pre-empt and disrupt the Kremlin’s tactics, complicate its military campaign, undermine
Moscow’s propaganda and prevent Russia from defining how the war is perceived
in the world, said a Western government official familiar with the strategy.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It has become clear now the “40-mile-long Trojan Horse” of
battle tanks, armored vehicles and heavy artillery that descended from Belarus
in the north and reached the outskirts of Kyiv in the early days of the war
without encountering much resistance en route the capital was simply a power
projection gambit astutely designed as a diversionary tactic by Russia’s military
strategists in order to deter Ukraine from sending reinforcements to Donbas in
east Ukraine where real battles for territory were actually fought and scramble
to defend the embattled country’s capital instead. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But US security agencies insidiously kept feeding false
information of impending fall of the Ukrainian capital to the mainstream media
throughout Russia’s month-long military campaign in Ukraine. Only two
conclusions could be drawn from this scaremongering tactic: either it was a
massive intelligence failure and Western security agencies weren’t aware the
“40-mile-long Trojan Horse” approaching the capital was a ruse; or the NATO’s
spy agencies had credible intelligence since the beginning of Russia’s military
campaign that real battles for territory would be fought in Donbas in east
Ukraine and the feigned assault on the capital was simply a diversionary tactic
but they exaggerated the threat in order to vilify Russia’s calculated military
offensive in Ukraine, and win the war of narratives that “how the war is perceived
across the world.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Except in the early days of the military campaign when
Russian airstrikes and long-range artillery shelling targeted military
infrastructure in the outskirts of Kyiv to degrade the combat potential of
Ukraine’s armed forces, the capital did not witness much action during the
month-long offensive. Otherwise, with the tremendous firepower at its disposal,
the world’s second most powerful military force had the demonstrable capability
to reduce the whole city down to the ashes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By mid-March, after the “40-mile-long” column of armored
vehicles that created panic in the rank and file of Ukraine’s security forces
and their international backers and that didn’t move an inch further after
reaching the outskirts of Kyiv in the early days of the war, it became obvious even
to the lay observers of the Ukraine War that it was evidently a diversionary
tactic. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But Western security agencies and the corporate media kept
propagating the myth that the purported assault on the Ukrainian capital was
stalled by alleged “fierce Ukrainian resistance,” and if it were up to Russian
forces, they would “ransack the capital Kyiv” and “overrun the whole territory”
of the embattled country.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Even a week after the unilateral <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-03-25/russia-says-first-phase-of-ukraine-operation-mostly-complete-focus-now-on-donbass">Russian
peace initiative</a> on March 25, scaling back its blitz north of the capital
and focusing instead on liberating Russian-majority Donbas region in east
Ukraine, a task that has already been accomplished in large measure, Western
intelligence community and the mainstream media kept warning the gullible
audience Russia’s pullout from areas around Kyiv “wasn’t a retreat but a
strategic redeployment” and that Russian forces had withdrawn back into Belarus
and Russia simply to “<a href="https://news.antiwar.com/2022/04/06/pentagon-russian-forces-have-completely-withdrawn-from-areas-near-kyiv-chernihiv/">regroup,
refit and resupply</a>.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Last week, US officials told reporters they had intelligence
suggesting “Putin was being misled” by his own advisers, who were “afraid to
tell him the truth.” “The degree to which Putin is isolated or relying on
flawed information can’t be verified,” Paul Pillar, a retired career US
intelligence officer, confided to NBC. “There’s no way you can prove or
disprove that stuff,” he said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Two US officials said the intelligence about whether “Putin’s
inner circle was lying to him wasn’t conclusive” — based more on “analysis than
hard evidence.” Multiple US officials acknowledged that the US had used “information
as a weapon” even when “confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn’t
high.” Sometimes it had used low-confidence intelligence for deterrent effect,
as with chemical agents, and other times, as an official put it, the US was
just “trying to get inside Putin’s head.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While attempting to play mind games with Putin, the US
intelligence community must’ve overlooked “an inconsequential detail” that before
venturing into politics, Putin himself led the Cold War’s premier Russian
intelligence agency, the KGB, for many years, and the puerile psyops
orchestrated by the CIA and NSA were nothing more than child’s play for the
seasoned Russian strongman.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Based on declassified intelligence, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/world/europe/putin-advisers-ukraine.html">The
New York Times reported</a> last week: “The Russian military’s stumbles have
eroded trust between Mr. Putin and his Ministry of Defense. While Defense
Minister Sergey Shoigu had been considered one of the few advisers Mr. Putin
confided in, the prosecution of the war in Ukraine has damaged the
relationship. Mr. Putin has put two top intelligence officials under house
arrest for providing poor intelligence ahead of the invasion, something that
may have further contributed to the climate of fear.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Other American officials, as reported in the mainstream
media, had said that “Putin’s rigid isolation during the pandemic” and
willingness to publicly “rebuke advisers who did not share his views” had
created a degree of wariness, or even fear, in senior ranks of the Russian
military. Officials believe that Putin had been getting “incomplete or overly
optimistic reports” about the progress of Russian forces, “creating mistrust
with his military advisers.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The corporate media’s psychological warfare campaign, in
collaboration with Western intelligence community, after the successful
culmination of Russia’s month-long military offensive in Ukraine must have
upset the Russian leader to the extent that instead of summarily sacking and
court-martialing the military’s top brass, he has <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/02/politics/russia-shifting-focus-victory-eastern-ukraine/index.html">decided
to celebrate</a> May 9 as the Victory Day by announcing to organize a Russian
Armed Forces parade in Moscow, and is reportedly considering rewarding
battlefield commanders who valiantly fought in the Russo-Ukraine War with
promotion in ranks and pecuniary benefits.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All the media hype in order to misguide gullible audiences
following the stellar Russian victory in the Ukraine War aside, the fact remains
it’s old wine in new bottles. The intelligence wasn’t declassified last week,
it was declassified a month ago, but nobody paid much attention to the asinine
assertion of an alleged rift between Putin and the Russian military leadership.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/08/putin-is-angry-u-s-intel-heads-warn-russia-could-double-down-in-ukraine-00015177">The
Politico reported</a> as early as March 8, in an article titled “Putin is angry,”
that the US intelligence heads warned before the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence during the panel’s annual hearing on worldwide
threats that Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine was not going as planned and
it could “double down” in Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Although it still remains unclear whether Russia will
pursue a maximalist plan to capture all or most of Ukraine, Director National
Intelligence Avril Haines said, such an effort would run up against what the
U.S. intelligence community assesses is likely to be a persistent and
significant insurgency by Ukrainian forces.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Clearly, DNI Avril Haines spilled the secret before the
House Select Committee on Intelligence that the US intelligence was in dark whether
the Russian forces would overrun the whole of Ukraine, or the Russian blitz
north of the capital was only a diversionary tactic meant for tying up
Ukrainian forces in the north, while Russia concentrated its efforts in
liberating Donbas in the east.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Echoing the “recently declassified intelligence” disclosed
by NYT the preposterous claim that Putin’s rigid self-isolation during the
COVID pandemic allegedly created a rift between him and Russia’s military
leadership, the Politico report from a month ago presciently endorsed the inane
intelligence assessment: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“William Burns, the CIA director, portrayed for lawmakers an
isolated and indignant Russian president who is determined to dominate and
control Ukraine to shape its orientation. Putin has been ‘stewing in a
combustible combination of grievance and ambition for many years. That personal
conviction matters more than ever,’ Burns said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Burns also described how Putin had created a system within
the Kremlin in which his own circle of advisers is narrower and narrower — and
sparser still because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In that hierarchy, Burns said,
‘it’s proven not career-enhancing for people to question or challenge his
judgment.’”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The most notable success of the US information warfare
campaign based on misleading declassified intelligence to media outlets, as
claimed by the NBC report, may have been delaying the invasion itself by weeks
or months, which officials believe they did with accurate predictions that
Russia intended to attack, based on definitive intelligence. By the time Russia
moved its troops in, “the West presented a unified front.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“A former U.S. official said administration officials
believe the strategy delayed Putin’s invasion from the first week of January to
after the Olympics and that the delay bought the U.S. valuable time to get
allies on the same page in terms of the level of the Russian threat and how to
respond.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Contradicting the NBC claim, however, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/03/11/russia-putin-ukraine-invasion-us-intelligence/">The
Intercept reported</a> on March 11, citing “credible intelligence sources,”
that despite staging a massive military buildup along Russia’s border with
Ukraine for nearly a year, “Russian President Vladimir Putin did not make a
final decision to invade until just before he launched the attack on February
24,” senior current and former US intelligence officials told the Intercept.
“It wasn’t until February that the agency and the rest of the US intelligence
community became convinced that Putin would invade,” the senior official added.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Last April, US intelligence first detected that “the Russian
military was beginning to move large numbers of troops and equipment to the
Ukrainian border.” Most of the Russian soldiers deployed to the border at that
time were later “moved back to their bases,” but US intelligence determined
that “some of the troops and materiel remained near the border.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In June 2021, against the backdrop of rising tensions over
Ukraine, Biden and Putin met at a summit in Geneva. The summer troop withdrawal
brought a brief period of calm, but “the crisis began to build again in October
and November,” when US intelligence watched as Russia once again “moved large
numbers of troops back to its border with Ukraine.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Extending the hand of friendship, Russia significantly
drawdown its forces along the western border before the summit last June.
Instead of returning the favor, however, the conceited leadership of supposedly
world’s sole surviving super power turned down the hand of friendship and
haughtily refused to concede reasonable security guarantees demanded by Russia
at the summit that would certainly have averted the likelihood of the war.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After perusing such contradictory reports, citing “credible
intelligence estimates,” it appears the US intelligence community has developed
a novel espionage technique of playing both ends against the middle. The world’s
leading US spy agencies seem to have this uncanny ability of predicting with
absolute certainty that an event is as likely to happen as it is likely that it
may not happen. And since the media watchdog has been tamed to the point where
it dares not question the authority, therefore security agencies would get the
credit whether or not they performed their duties diligently.</p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-3672944468497812582022-04-06T00:24:00.002+05:002022-04-06T00:24:25.788+05:00Friends, not Masters: Can Zelensky Offer Sanctions Relief to Russia?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigjOtyqiqoTuE2j21T38tpm7sdMPk4pFmbcyFdX5HwcVK2IQwuQVtNxv92t9PO-YkagJREkCJIMdWNg6GGCNjLrhPvukaMAak-WZKuGv31LV98GcFwMfih8cZSmTiofyj6bpgXBLOMz7SqNbx3vJGIrdL1N3GXXr_fupLJjKFXpHs2tRBaOWPBqk_uqg/s1280/FJekBFFXoAMiIJJ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigjOtyqiqoTuE2j21T38tpm7sdMPk4pFmbcyFdX5HwcVK2IQwuQVtNxv92t9PO-YkagJREkCJIMdWNg6GGCNjLrhPvukaMAak-WZKuGv31LV98GcFwMfih8cZSmTiofyj6bpgXBLOMz7SqNbx3vJGIrdL1N3GXXr_fupLJjKFXpHs2tRBaOWPBqk_uqg/s320/FJekBFFXoAMiIJJ.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />In the spirit of apparent “reconciliation and
multilateralism” defining the Biden administration’s approach to conducting
international diplomacy, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken handed over the
“power of attorney” to the Ukrainian president to offer Russia relief from
international sanctions in exchange for ending its military offensive in
Ukraine.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Sunday, April 3, confirming in an <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/553240-us-says-ukraine-can-offer-russia-sanctions-relief/">NBC
News interview</a> that Zelensky—one of the most ambitious emerging new leaders
in Central Europe, not to be mistaken for an imperialist stooge—had the ability
to negotiate sanctions relief for peace, Blinken, while assuming the air of
magnanimity and rapprochement, revealed that President Joe Biden’s
administration would support whatever the Ukrainian people wanted to do to
bring the war to an end.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We’ll be looking to see what Ukraine is doing and what it
wants to do,” Blinken said. “And if it concludes that it can bring this war to
an end, stop the death and destruction and continue to assert its independence
and its sovereignty – and ultimately that requires the lifting of sanctions –
of course, we will allow that.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Blinken argued with overtones of diplomatic sophistry that
although Putin had allegedly “failed to accomplish his objectives” in Ukraine –
“subjugating Kyiv, demonstrating Russia’s military prowess and dividing NATO members”
– he said it still made sense to pursue a negotiated settlement. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Even though he’s been set back, even though I believe this
is already a strategic defeat for Vladimir Putin, the death and destruction
that he’s wreaking every single day in Ukraine … are terrible, and so there’s
also a strong interest in bringing those to an end.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lending credence to ostensible “American neutrality” and
“hands-off approach” to the Ukraine crisis, the Wall Street Journal—the official
voice of establishment Republicans, owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, that
has taken the lead in publishing insider scoops during the tenure of the Biden
administration while the Democratic shills, the New York Times and Washington
Post, have taken a backseat out of deference for self-styled “progressives” in
the White House—published a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/vladimir-putins-20-year-march-to-war-in-ukraineand-how-the-west-mishandled-it-11648826461">misleading
report</a> on April Fools’ Day that German chancellor Olaf Scholz had offered
Volodymyr Zelensky a chance for peace days before the launch of the Russian
military offensive, but the Ukrainian president turned it down.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The newly elected chancellor told Zelensky in Munich on
February 19 “that Ukraine should renounce its NATO aspirations and declare
neutrality as part of a wider European security deal between the West and
Russia,” the Journal revealed. The newspaper also claimed that “the pact would
be signed by Mr. Putin and Mr. Biden, who would jointly guarantee Ukraine’s
security.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">However, Zelensky rejected the offer to make the concession
and avoid confrontation, saying that “Russian President Vladimir Putin couldn’t
be trusted to uphold such an agreement and that most Ukrainians wanted to join
NATO.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Following the announcement of partial drawdown of Russian
forces in Ukraine, specifically scaling back Russian offensive north of the capital,
by the Russian delegation at the Istanbul peace initiative on March 29, the
Ukrainian delegation, among other provisions, demanded “security guarantees in
terms similar to Article 5,” the collective defense clause of the transatlantic
NATO military alliance. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-us-and-its-allies-are-weighing-security-guarantees-for-ukraine-but-they-re-unlikely-to-give-kyiv-what-it-wants/ar-AAVK05P">CNN
reported</a> on April Fools’ Day that Western officials were taken aback by
“the surprising Ukrainian proposal.” “We are in constant discussion with
Ukrainians about ways that we can help ensure that they are sovereign and
secure,” White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said. “But there
is nothing specific about security guarantees that I can speak to at this time.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Ukraine is not a NATO member,” Deputy Prime Minister Dominic
Raab told the BBC when asked whether the UK is prepared to become a guarantor
of Ukrainian independence. “We're not going to engage Russia in direct military
confrontation,” he added. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While noting that Russian peace negotiations were “nothing
more than a smokescreen,” Western diplomats contended that an Article 5-type
commitment to Ukraine was unlikely given that the US and many of its allies,
including the UK, were not willing to put their troops in direct confrontation
with Russian forces. The theory that Russia would not attack Ukraine if it had
Western security guarantees appears to still be a bigger risk than the US and
its allies are willing to take. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a way for Russia to “save face in the negotiations,” the
Ukrainians even went to the extent of suggesting that any such security
guarantees would not apply to the separatist territories in the Donbas region
in eastern Ukraine. However, a number of US and Western officials have taken a
skeptical approach to potential security guarantees, with many saying it is
still premature to discuss any contingencies as the negotiations proceed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Contradicting the misleading reports hailing Ukraine’s imperialist
stooges as purported “masters of their own destinies,” President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a3c13f6d-3924-4abd-aa00-b29f1d65e0cf">told the
EU leaders</a> at a summit last month in Brussels that “any notion that we are
going to be out of this in a month is wrong”, and that the EU needed to prepare
for a long-term pressure campaign against Russia. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">US and European officials voiced skepticism over Russia’s “sincerity
and commitment” towards the peace talks, underlining that only a full
ceasefire, troop withdrawal and return of captured territory to Ukraine would
be enough to trigger discussions over lifting sanctions on Russia’s economy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The notion that you would reward Putin for occupying territory
doesn’t make sense … it would be very, very difficult to countenance” a senior
EU official <a href="https://archive.ph/j2VOM#selection-2041.0-2045.67">confided
to the Financial Times</a>. “There’s a disconnect between these negotiations,
what really happens on the ground, and the total cynicism of Russia. I think we
need to give them a reality check,” the official added. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Western countries were discussing both “enforcement of
existing sanctions” and drawing up “potential additional measures” to increase
pressure on Russian president Vladimir Putin, senior EU and US officials told
the British newspaper. They were not discussing a possible timeframe for easing
sanctions, they said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Advising Ukrainians to hold out instead of rushing for
securing peace deal with Russia, <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dont-back-down-britain-urges-ukraine-wmtfkv3pn">the
Sunday Times reported</a>, senior British officials were urging Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to instruct his negotiators to refuse to make
concessions during peace negotiations with Russian counterparts.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A senior government source said there were concerns that
allies were “over-eager” to secure an early peace deal, adding that a
settlement should be reached only when Ukraine is in the strongest possible
position.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a phone call, Boris Johnson warned President Zelensky
that President Putin was a “liar and a bully” who would use talks to “wear you
down and force you to make concessions.” The British prime minister also told
MPs it was “certainly inconceivable that any sanctions could be taken off simply
because there is a ceasefire.” London was making sure there was “no backsliding
on sanctions by any of our friends and partners around the world,” he added.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, April 3, NATO
Secretary General <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/553232-nato-trained-ukrainian-troops-years-stoltenberg/">Jens
Stoltenberg said</a> that “NATO allies have supported Ukraine for many, many
years,” adding that military aid has been “stepped up over the last weeks since
the invasion.” The official clarified that “NATO allies like the United States,
but also the United Kingdom and Canada and some others, have trained Ukrainian
troops for years.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">According to Stoltenberg’s estimates, “tens of thousands of
Ukrainian troops” had received such training, and were now “at the front
fighting against invading Russian forces.” The secretary general went on to
credit the Brussels-based alliance with the fact that the “Ukrainian armed
forces are much bigger, much better equipped, much better trained and much
better led now than ever before.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition to a longstanding <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">CIA
program</a> aimed at cultivating an anti-Russian insurgency in Ukraine, Canada’s
Department of National Defense <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/20/us-neo-nazi-ukraine-afghan-insurgency">revealed
on January 26</a>, two days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that the
Canadian Armed Forces had trained “nearly 33,000 Ukrainian military and
security personnel in a range of tactical and advanced military skills.” While The
United Kingdom, via <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60185733">Operation
Orbital</a>, had trained 22,000 Ukrainian fighters, as noted by NATO’s informed
secretary general.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A “prophetic” RAND Corporation report titled “<a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html">Overextending and
Unbalancing Russia</a>” published in 2019 declares the stated goal of American
policymakers is “to undermine Russia just as the US subversively destabilized
the former Soviet Union during the Cold War,” and predicts to the letter the
crisis unfolding in Ukraine. RAND Corporation is a quasi-US governmental think
tank that receives three-quarters of its funding from the US military. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While designating Russia as an “intractable adversary,” the
report notes that “Russia has deep seated anxieties” about Western interference
and potential military attack. These anxieties are deemed to be “a
vulnerability to exploit.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The RAND report lists several “provocative measures” to
insidiously “destabilize and undermine” Russia. Some of the steps include: repositioning
bombers within easy striking range of key Russian strategic targets; deploying
additional tactical nuclear weapons to locations in Europe and Asia; increasing
US and allied naval force posture and presence in Russia’s operating areas
(Black Sea); holding NATO war exercises on Russia’s borders; and withdrawing
from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Almost all the provocative actions recommended in the RAND
report have practically been implemented by the successive Obama, Trump and
Biden administrations since the 2014 Maidan coup, toppling Ukrainian President
Viktor Yanukovych and consequent annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The full RAND report says: “While NATO’s requirement for
unanimity makes it unlikely that Ukraine could gain membership in the
foreseeable future, Washington’s pushing this possibility could boost Ukrainian
resolve while leading Russia to redouble its efforts to forestall such a
development.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In November 2021, the US and Ukraine signed a <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-ukraine-charter-on-strategic-partnership/">Charter
on Strategic Partnership</a>. The agreement confirmed “Ukraine’s aspirations
for joining NATO” and “rejected the Crimean decision to re-unify with Russia”
following the 2014 Maidan coup. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In December 2021, Russia <a href="https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/rso/nato/1790818/?lang=en">proposed a
peace treaty</a> with the US and NATO. The central Russian proposal was a
written agreement assuring that Ukraine would not join the NATO military
alliance. When the proposed treaty was contemptuously rebuffed by Washington,
it appeared the die was cast.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/03/11/russia-putin-ukraine-invasion-us-intelligence/">The
Intercept reported</a> on March 11 that despite staging a massive military
buildup along Russia’s border with Ukraine for nearly a year, “Russian
President Vladimir Putin did not make a final decision to invade until just
before he launched the attack on February 24,” senior current and former US
intelligence officials told the Intercept. “It wasn’t until February that the
agency and the rest of the US intelligence community became convinced that
Putin would invade,” the senior official added.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Last April, US intelligence first detected that “the Russian
military was beginning to move large numbers of troops and equipment to the
Ukrainian border.” Most of the Russian soldiers deployed to the border at that
time were later “moved back to their bases,” but US intelligence determined
that “some of the troops and materiel remained near the border.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In June 2021, against the backdrop of rising tensions over
Ukraine, Biden and Putin met at a summit in Geneva. The summer troop withdrawal
brought a brief period of calm, but “the crisis began to build again in October
and November,” when US intelligence watched as Russia once again “moved large
numbers of troops back to its border with Ukraine.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Extending the hand of friendship, Russia significantly
drawdown its forces along the western border before the summit last June.
Instead of returning the favor, however, the conceited leadership of supposedly
world’s sole surviving super power turned down the hand of friendship and
haughtily refused to concede reasonable security guarantees demanded by Russia
at the summit that would certainly have averted the likelihood of the war.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Considering this backdrop of the Russo-Ukraine War
deliberately orchestrated by NATO powers to insidiously destabilize and
internationally isolate Russia, it stretches credulity that the Ukrainian
president “wields veto power” over NATO’s decision offering Russia relief from
international sanctions in exchange for ending its military offensive in
Ukraine, as contended by the charismatic albeit devious secretary of state.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Are readers gullible enough to assume the Ukrainian
proposals for a peace treaty with Russia were put forth without prior
consultation with NATO patrons and the latter cannot exercise enough leverage
to compellingly persuade the impervious Ukrainian leadership to reach a
negotiated settlement with Russia, particularly after the Russian peacemaker
has unilaterally offered a major concession to Kyiv, focusing on liberating
Russian-majority Donbas region in east Ukraine and scaling back Russian
offensive in the rest of the embattled country?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">About the author:<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national
security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the
Af-Pak and Middle East regions. His domains of expertise include
neocolonialism, military-industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a
regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to
alternative news media.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">6 April 2022.<o:p></o:p></p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-44646414488883366452022-04-01T20:40:00.002+05:002022-04-01T20:40:44.039+05:00Will Biden Shoot Himself in the Foot to Impose Sanctions on Russia?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Ud80Ds1pIOLdbbryTB1cGepCO7T-de6fl2cb5qn4uqDhejV7Hrmrhmb5_jzWdR_hKPSYUmePeDBl0d-42ZA8A0v3Yn-4S3CmB0y86Cy7kfPLBLlS6vQA01qu4lGGd1sxEK7sGyFFP5XDgDE7vi3Xg7Mn_VPq5IZ8NAV0HMU4VDJJ5WnxoFohMn03yA/s768/768x576.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Ud80Ds1pIOLdbbryTB1cGepCO7T-de6fl2cb5qn4uqDhejV7Hrmrhmb5_jzWdR_hKPSYUmePeDBl0d-42ZA8A0v3Yn-4S3CmB0y86Cy7kfPLBLlS6vQA01qu4lGGd1sxEK7sGyFFP5XDgDE7vi3Xg7Mn_VPq5IZ8NAV0HMU4VDJJ5WnxoFohMn03yA/s320/768x576.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />On Thursday, President Joe Biden ordered the largest release
ever from the US emergency oil reserve in a futile attempt to bring down gasoline
prices that have soared to record levels following the Russo-Ukraine War. Starting
in May, the United States will release 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude
oil for six months from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), amounting to 180
million barrels in total, which is equivalent to only two days of the global
demand.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Invoking the fabled trope of American patriotism, Biden
urged the consumers not to hesitate from paying twice the amount while filling gas
tanks in order for the military-industrial complex to reap billions of dollars
windfalls by providing anti-aircraft and anti-armor munitions to NATO’s proxies
in Ukraine. “This is a moment of consequence and peril for the world, and pain
at the pump for American families. It’s also a moment of patriotism,” Biden <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/biden-release-1-mln-barrels-oil-day-ease-pump-prices-2022-03-31/">said
at an event</a> at the White House.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The US announcement came a day before the International
Energy Agency member countries were set to meet on Friday to discuss a further <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-will-act-appropriately-oil-reserves-release-industry-minister-2022-04-01/">emergency
oil release</a> that would follow their March 1 agreement to release about 60
million barrels that would cover only two-third of a single day’s oil demand,
as the global net oil consumption per day is over 90 million barrels. With over
10 million barrels daily oil production capacity, Russia, alongside Saudi
Arabia, is the world’s largest oil producer accounting for providing over 10%
of the world’s crude oil demand.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As far as military power is concerned, Russia with its
enormous arsenal of conventional as well as nuclear weapons more or less equals
the military power of the United States. But it’s the much more subtle and
insidious tactic of economic warfare for which Russia seems to have no answer
following the break-up of the Soviet Union in the nineties and consequent
dismantling of the once-thriving communist bloc, spanning Eastern Europe, Latin
America and many socialist states in Asia and Africa in the sixties. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The current global neocolonial order is being led by the
United States and its West European clients since the signing of the Bretton
Woods Accord in 1945 following the Second World War. Historically, any state,
particularly those inclined to pursue socialist policies, that dared to
challenge the Western monopoly over global trade and economic policies was
internationally isolated and its national economy went bankrupt over a period
of time. But for once, it appears Washington might shoot itself in the foot by
going overboard in its relentless efforts to punish Russia for invading
Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On March 17, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori,
two British-Iranian nationals held in Iran since 2016 and 2017, respectively,
were unexpectedly set free and were <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60756870">permitted to travel</a> to the
United Kingdom. In return, the British government, in what gave the impression
of a ransom payment, triumphantly announced it had settled a £400m debt owed to
Iran from the seventies.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The thaw in the frosty relations between the Western powers
and Iran signaled that a tentative understanding on reviving the Iran nuclear
deal was also reached behind the scenes, particularly in the backdrop of the
Ukraine crisis and the Western efforts to internationally isolate Russia. After
sanctioning Russia’s 10 million barrels daily crude oil output, the
industrialized world is desperately in need of Iran’s 5 million barrels oil
production capacity to keep the already inflated oil price from causing further
pain to consumers.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Last month, Venezuela <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/venezuela-frees-least-two-americans-after-talks-with-us-sources-2022-03-09/">similarly
released</a> two incarcerated US citizens in an apparent goodwill gesture
toward the Biden administration following a visit to Caracas by a high-level US
delegation, despite the fact that Washington still officially recognizes
Nicolas Maduro’s detractor Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s “legitimate president.”
Nonetheless, Venezuela is one of Latin America’s largest oil producers and
opening the international market to its heavy crude might provide a welcome
relief in the time of global oil crunch.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Niftily forestalling the likelihood of strengthening of
mutually beneficial bonds between China and Russia when the latter is badly in
need for economic relief, the United States pre-emptively accused China of
pledging to sell military hardware to Russia, when the latter, itself one of
the world’s leading arms exporters, didn’t even make any such request to China.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan held an intense
seven-hour meeting in Rome with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi on March
15, and warned China of “grave consequences” of evading Western sanctions on
Russia. Besides wielding the stick of economic sanctions, he must also have
dangled the carrot of ending trade war against China initiated by the Trump
administration and continued by the Biden administration until Russia invaded
Ukraine in late February.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite vowing to treat the Saudi kingdom as a “pariah” in
the run-up to Nov. 2020 presidential elections, the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-emirati-leaders-decline-calls-with-biden-during-ukraine-crisis-11646779430">Wall
Street Journal reported</a> last month the White House unsuccessfully tried to
arrange calls between President Biden and the de facto leaders of Saudi Arabia
and the United Arab Emirates as the US was working to build international
support for Ukraine and contain a surge in oil prices.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the U.A.E.’s
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan both declined U.S. requests to speak to Mr.
Biden in recent weeks, the officials said, as Saudi and Emirati officials have
become more vocal in recent weeks in their criticism of American policy in the
Gulf.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“‘There was some expectation of a phone call, but it didn’t
happen,’ said a U.S. official of the planned discussion between the Saudi
Prince Mohammed and Mr. Biden. ‘It was part of turning on the spigot [of Saudi
oil].’<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“But the Saudis and Emiratis have declined to pump more oil,
saying they are sticking to a production plan approved by OPEC. Both Prince
Mohammed and Sheikh Mohammed took phone calls from Russian President Vladimir
Putin last week, after declining to speak with Mr. Biden.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To add insult to the injury, Saudi Arabia has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-invites-chinas-xi-visit-wsj-2022-03-14/">reportedly
invited</a> Chinese President Xi Jinping for an official visit to the kingdom
that could happen as soon as May, and is also considering pegging its vast oil
reserves in yuan, a move that could spell end to the petrodollar hegemony.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The United States and Britain were ramping up pressure on
Saudi Arabia to pump more oil and join efforts to isolate Russia, while Riyadh
had shown little readiness to respond and had revived a threat to ditch dollars
in its oil sales to China, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/saudi-prince-rebuked-by-west-faces-dilemma-over-russia-china-2022-03-16">Reuters
reported</a> last month.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“If Saudi Arabia does that, it will change the dynamics of
the forex market,” said a source with knowledge of the matter, adding that such
a move—which the source said Beijing had long requested and which Riyadh threatened
as far back as 2018—might prompt other buyers to follow. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Trump aptly observed: “Now Biden is crawling around the
globe on his knees begging and pleading for mercy from Saudi Arabia, Iran and
Venezuela.” It appears quite plausible that in its relentless efforts to
internationally isolate Russia, the Biden administration is likely to unravel
the whole neocolonial economic order imposed on the world after the signing of
the Bretton Woods Accord following the Second World War in 1945.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In order to bring home the significance of the Persian
Gulf’s oil in the energy-starved industrialized world, here are a few stats
from the OPEC data: Saudi Arabia has the world’s largest proven crude oil
reserves of 266 billion barrels and its daily oil production is 10 million
barrels; Iran and Iraq each has 150 billion barrels reserves and has the
capacity to produce 5 million barrels per day each; while UAE and Kuwait each
has 100 billion barrels reserves and produces 3 million barrels per day each;
thus, all the littoral states of the Persian Gulf, together, hold 788 billion
barrels, over half of world’s 1477 billion barrels proven oil reserves.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In many ways, the current oil crunch caused by Washington’s
unilateral decision to impose economic sanctions on Russia’s vital energy
sector is similar to the oil crisis of 1973. The 1973 collective Arab oil
embargo against the West following the Arab-Israel War lasted only for a short
span of six months during which the price of oil quadrupled, but Washington
became so paranoid after the embargo that it put in place a ban on the export
of crude oil outside the US borders, and began keeping sixty-day stock of
reserve fuel for strategic and military needs dubbed the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve (SPR).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Regarding the reciprocal relationship between Washington and
the Gulf’s autocrats, it bears mentioning that in April 2016, the Saudi foreign
minister <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/16/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-warns-ofeconomic-fallout-if-congress-passes-9-11-bill.html?_r=0">threatened</a>
that the Saudi kingdom would sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and
other assets if the US Congress passed a bill that would allow Americans to sue
the Saudi government in the United States courts for its role in the September
11, 2001 terror attack – though the bill was eventually passed, Saudi
authorities have not been held accountable for nurturing terrorism.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s noteworthy that $750 billion was only the Saudi
investment in the United States, if we add its investment in the Western Europe
and the investments of the oil-rich UAE, Kuwait and Qatar in the Western
economies, the sum total would amount to trillions of dollars of Gulf’s
investments in the economies of North America and Western Europe. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Additionally, regarding the Western defense production
industry’s sales of arms to the Gulf Arab States, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-security-idUSKCN11D2JQ">a
report</a> authored by William Hartung of the US-based Center for International
Policy found that the Obama administration had offered Saudi Arabia more than
$115 billion in weapons, military equipment and training during its eight-year
tenure.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Similarly, the top items in Trump’s agenda for his maiden
visit to Saudi Arabia in May 2017 were: firstly, he threw his weight behind the
idea of the Saudi-led “Arab NATO” to counter Iran’s influence in the region;
and secondly, he announced an unprecedented arms package for Saudi Arabia. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The package included between $98 billion and $128 billion in
arms sales and, over a period of 10 years, total sales could reach $400
billion, as Donald Trump himself alluded to in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-woodward-i-saved-his-ass-mbs-khashoggi-rage-2020-9">his
conversations</a> with American journalist Bob Woodward described in the book
“Rage.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">President Donald Trump boasted that he protected Saudi
Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from congressional scrutiny after the
brutal assassination of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered at
the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I saved his ass,” Trump said in 2018, according to the
book. “I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to
stop.” When Woodward pressed Trump if he believed the Saudi crown prince
ordered the assassination himself, Trump responded: “He says very strongly that
he didn't do it. Bob, they spent $400 billion over a fairly short period of
time,” Trump said. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“And you know, they're in the Middle East. You know, they're
big. Because of their religious monuments, you know, they have the real power.
They have the oil, but they also have the great monuments for religion. You
know that, right? For that religion,” Trump noted. “They wouldn't last a week
if we're not there, and they know it,” he added. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In this reciprocal relationship, the US provides security to
the ruling families of the Gulf Arab States by providing weapons and troops;
and in return, the Gulf’s petro-sheikhs contribute substantial investments to
the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars to the Western economies.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All the recent wars and conflicts aside, the unholy alliance
between the Western powers and the Gulf’s petro-monarchies is much older. The
British Empire stirred uprising in Arabia by instigating the Sharifs of Mecca
to rebel against the Ottoman rule during the First World War, as the Ottoman
Empire had sided with Germany during the war.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After the Ottoman Empire collapsed following the war, the
British Empire backed King Abdul Aziz (Ibn-e-Saud) in his violent insurgency
against Sharif of Mecca Hussein bin Ali, because the latter was demanding too
much of a price for his loyalty, the unification of the whole of Arabian
peninsula, including the Levant, Iraq and the Gulf Emirates, under his
suzerainty as a bribe for stabbing the Ottoman Empire in the back during the
First World War. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Consequently, the Western powers abandoned the Sharifs of
Mecca, though the scions of the family were rewarded with kingdoms in Iraq and
Jordan, imposed the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 dividing Arabs into small
states at loggerheads with each other, and lent their support to the nomadic
Sauds of Najd. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">King Abdul Aziz defeated the Sharifs and united his
dominions into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 with the financial and
military support of the British Empire. However, by then the tide of the
British Imperialism was subsiding and the Americans inherited the former
territorial possessions of the British Empire.<br />
<br />
At the end of the Second World War on 14 February 1945, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt held a historic meeting with King Abdul Aziz at Great Bitter Lake in
the Suez Canal onboard USS Quincy, and laid the foundations of an enduring
alliance which persists to this day. During the course of that momentous meeting,
among other things, it was decided to set up the United States Military
Training Mission (USMTM) to Saudi Arabia to “train, advise and assist” the
Saudi Arabian Armed Forces. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Aside from USMTM, the US-based Vinnell Corporation, which is
a private military company based in the US and a subsidiary of the Northrop
Grumman, used over a thousand Vietnam War veterans to train and equip 125,000
strong Saudi Arabian National Guards (SANG) which is not under the authority of
the Saudi Ministry of Defense and acts as the Praetorian Guards of the House of
Saud. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Force,
whose strength is numbered in tens of thousands, is also being trained and
equipped by the US to guard the critical Saudi oil infrastructure along its
eastern Persian Gulf coast where 90% of 266 billion barrels Saudi oil reserves
are located. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Currently, the US has deployed tens of thousands of American
troops in aircraft carriers and numerous military bases in the Persian Gulf
that include sprawling al-Dhafra airbase in Abu Dhabi, al-Udeid airbase in
Qatar and a naval base in Bahrain where the Fifth Fleet of the US Navy is
based.</p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-38526579421154957602022-03-31T21:28:00.000+05:002022-03-31T21:28:05.725+05:00Z for Victory: Russia Wraps Up Military Operation in Ukraine<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjlwqEd8M0oTLSdu22LR3ha0OemlJVGKvOa8sXQT0RmbNE0-Fk9RmsWRTUaCkuNQaP4clEqYbjvDO8XKTk_vhFPGlR-nu7YhlfFoXTY76UpSLH3edXQw6lHA-gVypgwgNOrrX423a63QBzA4gehO6HPBx4x-8Ys1JO7-7q9TRarOtg5_n3VBwta6szzw/s1024/000_326F4JG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="618" data-original-width="1024" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjlwqEd8M0oTLSdu22LR3ha0OemlJVGKvOa8sXQT0RmbNE0-Fk9RmsWRTUaCkuNQaP4clEqYbjvDO8XKTk_vhFPGlR-nu7YhlfFoXTY76UpSLH3edXQw6lHA-gVypgwgNOrrX423a63QBzA4gehO6HPBx4x-8Ys1JO7-7q9TRarOtg5_n3VBwta6szzw/s320/000_326F4JG.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin, leading the
Russian peace delegation in Istanbul talks, told reporters Tuesday: “In order
to increase mutual trust and create the necessary conditions for further
negotiations and achieving the ultimate goal of agreeing and signing an
agreement, a decision was made to radically, by a large margin, reduce military
activity in the Kyiv and Chernihiv directions.”<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ukrainian negotiators said that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-sets-ceasefire-goal-new-russia-talks-breakthrough-looks-distant-2022-03-29/">under
their proposals</a>, Kyiv would agree not to join alliances or host bases of
foreign troops, but would have security guarantees in terms similar to Article
5, the collective defense clause of the transatlantic NATO military alliance. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The proposals, which would require a referendum in Ukraine,
mentioned a 15-year consultation period on the status of Crimea, annexed by Russia
in 2014. The fate of the southeastern Donbas region, which Russia demands
Ukraine cede to separatists, would be discussed by the Ukrainian and Russian
leaders. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Kyiv’s proposals also included one that Moscow would not
oppose Ukraine joining the European Union, Russia’s lead negotiator Vladimir
Medinsky said. Russia has previously opposed Ukrainian membership of the EU and
especially of the NATO military alliance. Medinsky said Russia’s delegation
would study and present the proposals to President Vladimir Putin. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The generous Russian offer scaling back its blitz north of
the capital and focusing instead on liberating Russian-majority Donbas region
in east Ukraine, a task that has already been accomplished in large measure, was
a major concession ending the month-long offensive in Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Whereas Ukrainian demands were minor details that can be discussed
later, either bilaterally between Russia and Ukraine, or on international
forums, such as the UN Security Council or General Assembly. In any case,
Russia has already accomplished its strategic objectives in Ukraine, as the
Crimean Peninsula and the Donbas region are now de facto independent
territories where Russian peacekeeping forces have been deployed to maintain
peace and stability.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Ukrainian negotiators have essentially agreed to Russia's
principal security demands of rejecting NATO membership and regarding the
presence of foreign military bases on its territory,” the Kremlin's chief negotiator
Vladimir Medinsky <a href="https://sputniknews.com/20220330/kiev-has-essentially-agreed-to-russias-key-demands-of-not-joining-nato-deploying-bases-negotiator-1094328708.html">told
Sputnik News</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tacitly acknowledging Russian troop withdrawal north of the
capital as pledged by the Russian peace delegation in Istanbul, Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky referred to Russian troop movements away from Kyiv
and Chernihiv in an early morning <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-preparing-new-russian-offensive-east-zelenskiy-says-2022-03-30/">video
address</a> and said that was not a withdrawal but rather “the consequence of
our defenders’ work.” Zelensky added that Ukraine is seeing “a build-up of
Russian forces for new strikes on the Donbas and we are preparing for that.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The combat potential of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been
significantly reduced, which allows us to focus our main attention and efforts
on achieving the main goal—the liberation of Donbas,” Russian Defense Minister
Sergey Shoigu proudly <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/russia-ukraine-war/russia-has-achieved-main-initial-goals-in-ukraine-defense-chief/2549120">boasted
Tuesday</a>. He added that 123 of Ukraine's 152 fighter jets had been
destroyed, as well as 77 of its 149 helicopters and 152 of its 180 long- and
medium-range air defense systems, while its naval forces had been totally
eliminated. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s noteworthy that the Russian special military operation,
dubbed “Operation Z” by Vladimir Putin, wasn’t a full-scale war. In fact, the
Kremlin strictly forbade Russian media from calling the operation a war. It was
a calculated military incursion having well-defined security objectives: the
liberation of Donbas and denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Those military objectives have already been achieved in
large measure, as not only the Russian-majority Donbas including Kherson and
Mariupol in the southeast have been liberated but the battles are ongoing in
the adjacent areas in the northeast, Kharkiv and Sumy, that will hopefully fall
soon. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sergey Shoigu has already proved through facts and figures
how the country has been demilitarized with the combat potential of Ukraine’s armed
forces significantly degraded. As for denazification, Donbas was the hub of
neo-Nazi Azov, Right Sector, Dnipro 1 and 2, Aidar and myriad of other
ultra-nationalist militias funded, armed and <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">trained
by the CIA</a> since the 2014 Maidan coup toppling Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych and consequent annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia. With
the liberation of Donbas and deployment of Russian peacekeeping forces,
neo-Nazi militias wouldn’t find a foothold, at least, in east Ukraine bordering
Russia’s vulnerable western flank.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As for the “40-mile-long” convoy of battle tanks, armored
vehicles and heavy artillery that descended from Belarus in the north and
reached the outskirts of Kyiv in the early days of the war without encountering
much resistance en route the capital, that was simply a power projection gambit
astutely designed as a diversionary tactic by Russia’s cunning military
strategists in order to deter Ukraine from sending reinforcements to Donbas in
east Ukraine, where real battles for territory were actually fought, and
scramble to defend the embattled country’s capital instead.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Except in the early days of the war when Russian airstrikes
and long-range artillery shelling targeted military infrastructure in the
outskirts of Kyiv to reduce the combat potential of Ukraine’s armed forces, the
capital did not witness much action during the month-long offensive. Otherwise,
with the tremendous firepower at its disposal, the world’s second most powerful
military had the demonstrable capability to reduce the whole city down to the
ashes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What further lends credence to the indisputable fact that
the Russian assault on Kyiv was meant simply as a show of force rather than
actual military objective to occupy the capital is the factor that Belarusian
troops didn’t take part in the battle despite staging military exercises
alongside Russian forces before the invasion and despite the fact that
Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko is a dependable ally of the Russian
strongman, Vladimir Putin.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although Russia incurred 1,351 fatalities during the war, as
candidly admitted by the Russian defense ministry, the myth of countless
charred Russian tanks, armored vehicles and artillery pieces littering the
streets of Ukraine’s towns and cities is a downright fabrication peddled by the
corporate media as a psychological warfare tactic to insidiously portray the
losing side in the conflict as a winning side.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides the handful neo-Nazi militias and foreign
mercenaries fighting pitched battles against Russian forces in Donbas, the
much-touted “resistance” was nowhere to be found in the rest of Ukraine. The
“40-mile-long” column of armored vehicles that created panic in the rank and
file of Ukraine’s security forces and their international backers didn’t move
an inch further after reaching the outskirts of Kyiv in the early days of the
war. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In fact, it wasn’t a fighting force at all. After conducting
joint military exercises with Belarussian troops last month, young Russian
soldiers, dubbed “conscripts” by the Western media, continued their training
exercises on the Ukrainian territory and gained valuable battlefield experience.
Now, they would return home and recount their adventures to their families.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nonetheless, in the parallel reality of the Russo-Ukraine
War conjured up by the spin-doctors of foreign policy think tanks and national
security correspondents of the corporate media, Russia “failed to achieve” its
presumed military objectives of “ransacking the capital Kyiv” and “overrunning
the whole territory” of the embattled country, and that the “botched invasion”
was thwarted by the “valiant Ukrainian resistance.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In line with this illusory narrative of the war, the
mainstream media is abuzz with fabricated reports, citing “credible Western
intelligence,” that President Putin was supposedly “misled by Russia’s military
leadership,” and tensions over the military’s alleged “setbacks have strained
ties and created a rift” between the Russian strongman and his military.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-advisers-too-afraid-tell-him-truth-ukraine-us-official-2022-03-30/">told
reporters</a>: “We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisers
about how badly the Russian military is performing, and how the Russian economy
is being crippled by sanctions because his senior advisers are too afraid to
tell him the truth,” Bedingfield said, without providing details on the
evidence behind the assessment. “It is increasingly clear that Putin’s war has
been a strategic blunder that has left Russia weaker over the long-term, and
increasingly isolated on the world stage.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Speaking in Algiers, Secretary of State Antony Blinken
acknowledged Putin had been given “less than truthful information” from his
advisers. “With regard to President Putin, look, what I can tell you is this,
and I said this before, one of the Achilles’ heels of autocracies is that you
don’t have people in those systems who speak truth to power or who have the
ability to speak truth to power,” Mr. Blinken said. “And I think that is
something that we’re seeing in Russia.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, Pentagon
spokesman John Kirby said that the Defense Department believed that Putin has
not had access to an accurate account of his “army’s failures” in Ukraine. “We
would concur with the conclusion that Mr. Putin has not been fully informed by
his Ministry of Defense, at every turn over the last month,” Kirby said. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“If Mr. Putin is misinformed or uninformed about what’s
going on inside Ukraine, it’s his military, it’s his war, he chose it,”
Pentagon spokesman said. “And so the fact that he may not have all the context
— that he may not fully understand the degree to which his forces are failing
in Ukraine, that’s a little discomforting, to be honest with you.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Other American officials, as reported in the mainstream
media, have said that Putin’s rigid isolation during the pandemic and
willingness to publicly rebuke advisers who do not share his views have created
a degree of wariness, or even fear, in senior ranks of the Russian military.
Officials believe that Putin has been getting incomplete or overly optimistic
reports about the progress of Russian forces, creating mistrust with his
military advisers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/world/europe/putin-advisers-ukraine.html">The
New York Times reported</a>: “The Russian military’s stumbles have eroded trust
between Mr. Putin and his Ministry of Defense. While Defense Minister Sergey
Shoigu had been considered one of the few advisers Mr. Putin confided in, the
prosecution of the war in Ukraine has damaged the relationship. Mr. Putin has
put two top intelligence officials under house arrest for providing poor
intelligence ahead of the invasion, something that may have further contributed
to the climate of fear.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s worth pointing out that these misleading news reports
are based on declassified Western intelligence. But a question would naturally
arise in the minds of perceptive readers that why the intelligence reports are
being leaked to news organizations now. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-advisers-too-afraid-tell-him-truth-ukraine-us-official-2022-03-30/">Reuters
report</a> offers a glimpse into the malicious motive for declassifying the
intelligence now after Russia has wrapped up its military campaign in Ukraine
and claimed victory in achieving security objectives of the intervention: the
liberation of Donbas and denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Washington's decision to share its intelligence more
publicly reflects a strategy it has pursued since before the war began. In this
case, it could also complicate Putin's calculations, a U.S. official said,
adding, ‘It's potentially useful. Does it sow dissension in the ranks? It could
make Putin reconsider whom he can trust.’<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“There were no indications at the moment that the situation
could foster a revolt among the Russian military, but the situation was
unpredictable and Western powers would hope that unhappy people would speak up,
a senior European diplomat said. Military analysts say Russia has reframed its
war goals in Ukraine in a way that may make it easier for Putin to claim a
face-saving victory despite a woeful campaign in which his army has suffered
humiliating setbacks.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All the media hype in order to misguide gullible audiences
on the eve of impending Russian troop withdrawal from Ukraine aside, the fact
remains it’s old wine in new bottles. The intelligence wasn’t declassified now,
it was declassified three weeks ago, but nobody paid much attention to the
asinine assertion of an alleged rift between Putin and the Russian military
leadership.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/08/putin-is-angry-u-s-intel-heads-warn-russia-could-double-down-in-ukraine-00015177">The
Politico reported</a> as early as March 8, in an article titled “Putin is angry,”
that the US intelligence heads warned before the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence during the panel’s annual hearing on worldwide
threats that Russia could “double down” in Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The remarks by Director National Intelligence Avril Haines
and four fellow intelligence agency leaders — Defense Intelligence Agency
Director Scott Berrier, CIA Director William Burns, National Security Agency
Director Paul Nakasone and FBI Director Christopher Wray — represented some of
the most candid assessments of Moscow’s thinking by US officials since the
start of the security crisis in late January.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Although it still remains unclear whether Russia will
pursue a maximalist plan to capture all or most of Ukraine, Haines said, such
an effort would run up against what the U.S. intelligence community assesses is
likely to be a persistent and significant insurgency by Ukrainian forces.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Clearly, DNI Avril Haines spilled the secret before the
House Select Committee on Intelligence that the US intelligence was in dark
whether the Russian forces would overrun the whole of Ukraine, or the Russian
blitz north of the capital was only a diversionary tactic meant for tying up
Ukrainian forces in the north, while Russia concentrated its efforts in
liberating Donbas in the east.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Burns, the CIA director, portrayed for lawmakers an
isolated and indignant Russian president who is determined to dominate and
control Ukraine to shape its orientation. Putin has been ‘stewing in a
combustible combination of grievance and ambition for many years. That personal
conviction matters more than ever,’ Burns said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Burns also described how Putin had created a system within
the Kremlin in which his own circle of advisers is narrower and narrower — and
sparser still because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In that hierarchy, Burns said,
‘it’s proven not career-enhancing for people to question or challenge his
judgment.’”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Read the academic-cum-diplomat CIA Director William Burns’ “candid
assessments” psychoanalyzing Putin’s mental state amidst the war and the
pandemic from early March alongside the recently plagiarized <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/world/europe/putin-advisers-ukraine.html">New
York Times</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-advisers-too-afraid-tell-him-truth-ukraine-us-official-2022-03-30/">Reuters
reports</a> asserting that “Putin’s rigid isolation during the pandemic” made
him surround himself with “yes-men too afraid to tell him the truth” and
consequently he rushed to invade Ukraine to figure out the malicious motive of
insidious smear campaign against the Russian peacemaker on the eve of the
Russian troop withdrawal from Ukraine as pledged by the Kremlin delegation
during the Istanbul peace initiative to Ukraine.</p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-35402871377434791342022-03-30T23:05:00.000+05:002022-03-30T23:05:57.618+05:00Why is Washington Hampering Russia’s Peace Initiative to Ukraine?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF2jkW1uOXjm143sRFIn5Fo1QrcvfjpQcGocj52ejHuezo0xD6XDwSYIGRF3FM9JPuTnjW50Ak577fqZ690ozWdB9v4KUN8uSOBNvBXBkbvvCXyb2tLzOm1ViTMqmWXzx6iZIv6h6S5d-KMZ04XVBB1vaxHwr2D262m_V8_JdCP752UEXizfDq0sWULw/s1200/Shavkat_Mirziyoev,_Sergey_Shoigu,_Alexander_Fomin_(2018-05-22).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF2jkW1uOXjm143sRFIn5Fo1QrcvfjpQcGocj52ejHuezo0xD6XDwSYIGRF3FM9JPuTnjW50Ak577fqZ690ozWdB9v4KUN8uSOBNvBXBkbvvCXyb2tLzOm1ViTMqmWXzx6iZIv6h6S5d-KMZ04XVBB1vaxHwr2D262m_V8_JdCP752UEXizfDq0sWULw/s320/Shavkat_Mirziyoev,_Sergey_Shoigu,_Alexander_Fomin_(2018-05-22).jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />In a bizarre turn of events Tuesday, Russian and Ukrainian
delegations taking part in peace negotiations in Istanbul appeared to have
reached a breakthrough. But following a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-zelenskyy-ap-top-news-europe-istanbul-4625afe04bd10a05c14914bb9f4ef0b0">tepid
response</a> by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, contemptuously dismissing
Russian peace overtures as nothing more than “delaying tactics” meant to “deceive
people and deflect attention,” head of the Russian delegation Vladimir Medinsky
<a href="https://tass.com/politics/1429197">walked back</a> the earlier
optimistic remarks, saying “a gradual military de-escalation does not
necessarily mean an immediate ceasefire.”<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hours later on Tuesday evening, in what appeared to be
either a coincidence or a sabotage attempt, an ammunition depot across the
Ukraine border in Russia “<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-appears-begun-shelling-russian-005724169.html">mysteriously
exploded</a>,” sending thick plumes of smoke into air, visible in videos posted
on social media, <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/03/29/ukraine-missile-may-have-hit-military-camp-inside-russia/">injuring
four</a> Russian soldiers, and effectively pouring cold water over the optimism
generated by the likelihood of the success of the peace process between Ukraine
and Russia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A Ukrainian missile appeared to have hit a temporary Russian
military encampment outside Belgorod, in Russia’s village of Krasny Oktyabr,
about 40 miles from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, said the Russian state-run
news agency Tass. The strike would only be the second that struck a military
target inside Russia and wounded soldiers. Last week, <a href="https://tass.com/emergencies/1426597">Tass reported</a> two men were hurt
when a shell from Ukraine exploded in the same area. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The generous Russian offer scaling back its blitz north of
the capital and focusing instead on liberating Russian-majority Donbas region
in east Ukraine, a task that has already been accomplished in large measure, isn’t
the first time the Kremlin extended the hand of friendship to Kyiv. Last week,
Russia made a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-zelenskyy-ap-top-news-europe-istanbul-4625afe04bd10a05c14914bb9f4ef0b0">similar
peace gesture</a> that wasn’t even dignified with a response by Western
policymakers and went almost unheeded in the establishment-controlled media.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said the
offer to scale back military operations was a confidence building step for the
ongoing negotiations with Ukrainian officials in Istanbul. “In order to
increase mutual trust and create the necessary conditions for further
negotiations and achieving the ultimate goal of agreeing and signing an
agreement, a decision was made to radically, by a large margin, reduce military
activity in the Kyiv and Chernihiv directions,” Russian Deputy Defense Minister
leading the Russian peace delegation told reporters. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ukrainian negotiators said that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-sets-ceasefire-goal-new-russia-talks-breakthrough-looks-distant-2022-03-29/">under
their proposals</a>, Kyiv would agree not to join alliances or host bases of
foreign troops, but would have security guarantees in terms similar to Article
5, the collective defense clause of the transatlantic NATO military alliance. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The proposals, which would require a referendum in Ukraine,
mentioned a 15-year consultation period on the status of Crimea, annexed by
Russia in 2014. The fate of the southeastern Donbas region, which Russia
demands Ukraine cede to separatists, would be discussed by the Ukrainian and
Russian leaders. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Kyiv’s proposals also included one that Moscow would not
oppose Ukraine joining the European Union, Russia’s lead negotiator Vladimir
Medinsky said. Russia has previously opposed Ukrainian membership of the EU and
especially of the NATO military alliance. Medinsky said Russia’s delegation
would study and present the proposals to President Vladimir Putin. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Welcoming the Russian peace initiative, Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-zelenskiy-says-russia-talks-could-be-called-positive-wont-slacken-2022-03-29/">said
Tuesday</a> the signals from peace talks with Russia “could be called positive”
but added that Ukraine would not slacken its defensive efforts until it noticed
“concrete actions.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It would be prudent, however, of the Ukrainian leader to get
rid of the duplicitous NATO interlocutors and try reaching a political
settlement to the conflict with Russia bilaterally if he wishes peace and
stability to prevail in the embattled country, because opportunistic NATO
leaders have their own axe to grind by taking advantage of the humanitarian
crisis unfolding in Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Biden administration doesn’t seem particularly enamored
of Russian peace proposal that could bring much-needed relief to the war-ravaged
country because, as the seasoned American politician and peace activist Ron
Paul <a href="https://original.antiwar.com/paul/2022/03/14/is-washington-fighting-russia-down-to-the-last-ukrainian/">aptly
observed</a>, Washington’s policy appeared to be “fighting Russia down to the last
Ukrainian.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While on a whirlwind Middle East trip in Morocco, Antony
Blinken, the charismatic secretary of state idolized by diplomatic community
for wavy salt-and-pepper hair and suave Parisian etiquette who has childishly refused
to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/23/russia-us-military-leaders-communication/">diplomatically
engage</a> with his counterpart Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov since
the start of the conflict on Feb. 24, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-zelenskyy-ap-top-news-europe-istanbul-4625afe04bd10a05c14914bb9f4ef0b0">derisively
mocked</a> the diplomatic breakthrough achieved in Istanbul as nothing more
than “delaying tactics” meant to “deceive people and deflect attention.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Paranoidly echoing the secretary of state’s imagined
apprehensions, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-isnt-naive-zelenskiy-says-after-russia-pledges-scale-down-attack-kyiv-2022-03-30/">the
Pentagon said</a> Russia had started moving very small numbers of troops away
from positions around Kyiv, describing the move as more of a “repositioning”
than a withdrawal. “We all should be prepared to watch for a major offensive
against other areas of Ukraine,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told a news
briefing. “It does not mean that the threat to Kyiv is over.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not to be left behind in the collective Russophobic hysteria
inflicting Western policymaking circles and the mainstream media alike, Britain’s
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-isnt-naive-zelenskiy-says-after-russia-pledges-scale-down-attack-kyiv-2022-03-30/">defense
ministry said</a> Moscow was being “forced to pull out troops” from the
vicinity of Kyiv to Russia and Belarus, to resupply and reorganize after “taking
heavy losses,” adding that Russia was likely to compensate for its reduced
ground maneuver capability through “mass artillery and missile strikes.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The combat potential of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been
significantly reduced, which allows us to focus our main attention and efforts
on achieving the main goal—the liberation of Donbas,” Russian Defense Minister
Sergey Shoigu proudly <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/russia-ukraine-war/russia-has-achieved-main-initial-goals-in-ukraine-defense-chief/2549120">boasted
Tuesday</a>. He added that 123 of Ukraine's 152 fighter jets had been
destroyed, as well as 77 of its 149 helicopters and 152 of its 180 long- and
medium-range air defense systems, while its naval forces had been totally
eliminated. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s worth recalling that the Russian special military
operation, dubbed “Operation Z” by Vladimir Putin, wasn’t a full-scale war. It
was a calculated military incursion having well-defined security objectives: the
liberation of Donbas and denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Those military objectives have already been achieved in
large measure, as not only the Russian-majority Donbas including Kherson and
Mariupol have been liberated but the battles are ongoing in the adjacent areas in
the northeast, Kharkiv and Sumy, that will hopefully fall soon. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sergey Shoigu has already proved through facts and figures
how the country has been demilitarized with the combat potential of Ukraine’s
armed forces significantly reduced. As for denazification, Donbas was the hub
of neo-Nazi Azov, Right Sector, Dnipro 1 and 2, Aidar and myriad of other
ultra-nationalist militias funded, armed and <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">trained
by the CIA</a> since the 2014 Maidan coup toppling Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych and consequent annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia. With
the liberation of Donbas and deployment of Russian peacekeeping forces,
neo-Nazi militias wouldn’t find a foothold, at least, in east Ukraine bordering
Russia’s vulnerable western flank.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As for the “40-mile-long” convoy of battle tanks, armored
vehicles and heavy artillery that descended from Belorussia in the north and
reached the outskirts of Kyiv in the early days of the war without encountering
much resistance en route the capital, that was simply a power projection gambit
astutely designed as a diversionary tactic by Russia’s cunning military
strategists to deter Ukraine from sending reinforcements to Donbas in east
Ukraine, where real battles for territory were actually fought, and scramble to
defend the embattled country’s capital instead.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Except in the early days of the war when Russian airstrikes
and long-range artillery shelling targeted military infrastructure in the outskirts
of Kyiv to reduce the combat potential of Ukraine’s armed forces, the capital
did not witness much action during the month-long offensive. Otherwise, with
the tremendous firepower at its disposal, the world’s second most powerful
military had the demonstrable capability to reduce the whole city down to the
ashes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What further lends credence to the indisputable fact that the
Russian assault on Kyiv was meant simply as a show of force rather than actual
military objective to occupy the capital is the factor that Belarusian troops
didn’t take part in the battle despite staging military exercises alongside
Russian forces before the invasion and despite the fact that Belarusian
President Aleksander Lukashenko is a dependable ally of the Russian strongman,
Vladimir Putin.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although Russia lost the lives of 1,351 soldiers during the
war, as candidly admitted by the Russian defense ministry, the myth of
countless charred Russian tanks, armored vehicles and artillery pieces
littering the streets of Ukraine’s towns and cities is a downright fabrication
peddled by the corporate media as a psychological warfare tactic to insidiously
portray the losing side in the conflict as a winning side.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides the handful neo-Nazi militias and foreign
mercenaries fighting pitched battles against Russian forces in Donbas, the
much-touted “resistance” was nowhere to be found in the rest of Ukraine. As
soon as the war began last month, the “valiant resistance” fled across the
border to the safety of Poland, Romania and neighboring countries. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The opportunistic militant leaders of the virtually
nonexistent “resistance” are reaping windfalls by reportedly selling caches of
anti-aircraft and anti-armor munitions provided by NATO countries in the
thriving arms markets of Eastern Europe and buying opulent mansions in southern
France and Italy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the 2001 census, nearly a third of Ukraine’s over 40
million population registered Russian as their first language. In fact, Russian
speakers constitute a majority in urban areas of industrialized eastern Ukraine
and socio-culturally identify with Russia. Ukrainian speakers are mainly found
in sparsely populated western Ukraine and in rural areas of east Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian together belong to the
East Slavic family of languages and share a degree of mutual intelligibility.
Thus, Russians, Byelorussians and Ukrainians are one nation and one country
whose shared history and culture goes all the way back to the golden period of
the 10<sup>th</sup> century Kyivan Rus’. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition, Russians and Ukrainians share Byzantine
heritage and together belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, one of the oldest
Christian denominations whose history can be traced back to the Christ and his
apostles. Protestantism and Catholicism are products of the second millennium
after a Roman bishop of the Byzantine Empire declared himself Pope following
the 1054 schism between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In comparison, what do Ukrainians have in common with NATO
powers, their newfound patrons, besides the fact that humanitarian imperialists
are attempting to douse fire by pouring gasoline on Ukraine’s proxy war by
providing caches of lethal weapons to militant forces holding disenfranchised
Ukrainian masses hostage. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While addressing a meeting on socioeconomic support for the
constituent entities of the Russian Federation on March 16, Russian President
Vladimir Putin succinctly elucidated the salient reasons for pre-emptively
mounting a military intervention in Ukraine in order to forestall NATO’s
encroachment upon Russia’s security interests. Here are a few trenchant
excerpts from the lucid and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/279167575450403/posts/5352889218078188/">eloquent
speech</a>:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We are meeting in a complicated period as our Armed Forces
are conducting a special military operation in Ukraine and Donbass. I would
like to remind you that at the beginning, on the morning of February 24, I publicly
announced the reasons for and the main goal of Russia’s actions. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“It is to help our people in Donbass, who have been
subjected to real genocide for nearly eight years in the most barbarous ways,
that is, through blockade, large-scale punitive operations, terrorist attacks
and constant artillery raids. Their only guilt was that they demanded basic
human rights: to live according to their forefathers’ laws and traditions, to
speak their native Russian language, and to bring up their children as they
want.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Kiev was not just preparing for war, for aggression against
Russia – it was conducting it … Hostilities in Donbass and the shelling of
peaceful residential areas have continued all these years. Almost 14,000
civilians, including children have been killed over this time … Clearly, Kiev’s
Western patrons are just pushing them to continue the bloodshed. They
incessantly supply Kiev with weapons and intelligence, as well as other types
of assistance, including military advisers and mercenaries.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Just like in the 1990s and the early 2000s, they want to
try again to finish us off, to reduce us to nothing by turning us into a weak
and dependent country, destroying our territorial integrity and dismembering
Russia as they see fit. The failed then and they will fail this time … Yes, of
course, they will back the so-called fifth column, national traitors – those
who make money here in our country but live over there, and live not in the
geographical sense of the word but in their minds, in their servile mentality.”</p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-39431640098447988842022-03-28T22:18:00.000+05:002022-03-28T22:18:10.334+05:00Academic Terrorism: How Think Tanks Stoked Ukraine Crisis?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyxmi1N5J1AjqcpqacH6sbIuaFoSzcqLat47RMV5JKTEM-u3MWtKZ8PQTgFYvY6LHY--Einwuv-dE2LQeGofCg9J7QwSa2Rlr8W5EFXtD72IPCAnGcZnmdl5dSZwMOC9Z3FNZG6QVy8rObx809tDjT4Ug0FNjrZhxALRA5nEuTzdCEOGvrI1Xaq0mWGA/s2024/Sures-wedding-photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1466" data-original-width="2024" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyxmi1N5J1AjqcpqacH6sbIuaFoSzcqLat47RMV5JKTEM-u3MWtKZ8PQTgFYvY6LHY--Einwuv-dE2LQeGofCg9J7QwSa2Rlr8W5EFXtD72IPCAnGcZnmdl5dSZwMOC9Z3FNZG6QVy8rObx809tDjT4Ug0FNjrZhxALRA5nEuTzdCEOGvrI1Xaq0mWGA/s320/Sures-wedding-photo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Reputed foreign policy think tanks, lavishly funded by
security establishments and military-industrial complex, are the real terrorist
organizations that have a long and checkered history of cheerleading Western
nations into pursuing militarist and belligerent state policies, clandestinely
orchestrating proxy wars, publicly pleading for imposing no-fly zones and
mounting purported “humanitarian interventions,” oftentimes on the ostensible
pretext of so-called “responsibility to protect” and upholding capitalist and
neocolonial exploitation in the garb of promoting bourgeois democracy in the
developing world.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A “prophetic” RAND Corporation report titled “<a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html">Overextending and
Unbalancing Russia</a>” published in 2019 declares the stated goal of American
policymakers is “to undermine Russia just as the US subversively destabilized
the former Soviet Union during the Cold War,” and predicts to the letter the
crisis unfolding in Ukraine. RAND Corporation is a quasi-US governmental think
tank that receives three-quarters of its funding from the US military. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While designating Russia as an “intractable adversary,” the
report notes that “Russia has deep seated anxieties” about Western interference
and potential military attack. These anxieties are deemed to be “a
vulnerability to exploit.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The RAND report lists several “provocative measures” to
insidiously “destabilize and undermine” Russia. Some of the steps include: repositioning
bombers within easy striking range of key Russian strategic targets; deploying
additional tactical nuclear weapons to locations in Europe and Asia; increasing
US and allied naval force posture and presence in Russia’s operating areas
(Black Sea); holding NATO war exercises on Russia’s borders; and withdrawing
from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Almost all the provocative actions recommended in the RAND
report have practically been implemented by the successive Obama, Trump and
Biden administrations since the 2014 Maidan coup, toppling Ukrainian President
Viktor Yanukovych and consequent annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The US Air Force has flown <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/06/if-putin-invades-west-wants-it-hurt/">B-52
strategic bombers</a> and RC-135 reconnaissance planes over eastern Ukraine in
months before the invasion, as part of its effort to deter Russia. To stiffen
Ukraine’s ability to resist, the United States and NATO dispatched teams of
military advisers in months before the invasion to survey air defenses,
logistics, communications and other essentials.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides deploying 15,000 additional troops in Eastern Europe
last month, total number of US troops in Europe is now expected to reach
100,000. “We have 130 jets at high alert. Over 200 ships from the high north to
the Mediterranean, and thousands of additional troops in the region,” NATO Secretary
General Jens <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/09/politics/russia-ukraine-pentagon-nato/index.html">Stoltenberg
told CNN</a> on March 9.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ahead of the NATO summit attended by President Biden
Thursday, March 24, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced the
transatlantic military alliance would double the number of battlegroups it had
deployed in Eastern Europe. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The first step is the deployment of four new NATO
battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, along with our
existing forces in the Baltic countries and Poland,” Stoltenberg said. “This
means that we will have eight multinational NATO battlegroups all along the
eastern flank, from the Baltic to the Black Sea.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NATO <a href="https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nato-doubles-battlegroups-eastern-flank-states-bulgaria-hungary-romania-slovakia">issued
a statement</a> after Thursday's emergency summit attended by Joe Biden and
European leaders: “In response to Russia’s actions, we have activated NATO’s
defense plans, deployed elements of the NATO Response Force, and placed 40,000
troops on our eastern flank, along with significant air and naval assets, under
direct NATO command supported by Allies’ national deployments. We are also
establishing four additional multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary,
Romania, and Slovakia.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Regarding RAND’s recommendation of “augmenting naval force
posture in the Black Sea,” it’s worth recalling that before the Biden-Putin
summit at Geneva last June, the British Royal Navy Defender <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britain-says-dont-get-carried-away-by-warship-spat-with-russia-2021-06-24/">breached
Russia’s territorial waters</a> in the Black Sea and as many as 20 Russian
aircraft conducted “unsafe maneuvers” merely 500 feet above the warship and
Britain also lamented shots were fired in the path of the ship.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“British Prime Minister Boris Johnson would not say whether
he had personally approved the Defender’s voyage but suggested the Royal Navy
was making a point by taking that route,” a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/24/russia-says-next-time-it-may-fire-to-hit-intruding-warships-496011">Politico
report</a> alleged in June. A <a href="https://www.rt.com/russia/527563-johnson-order-warship-crimea-waters/">Telegraph
report noted</a> that former Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had raised concerns
about the mission, proposed by defense chiefs, and that Boris Johnson was
ultimately called in to settle the dispute. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Among the 50-page Ministry of Defense documents <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9732355/Top-secret-dossier-reveals-defence-chiefs-knew-sending-Navy-warship-past-Crimea-provoke-Russia.html">discovered
at a bus stop</a> in Kent and passed to BBC were papers showing that ministers
knew that sending a Royal Navy warship close to Crimea last June would provoke
Russia, and did it anyway, sparking an international incident. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Similarly, signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, <a href="https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-inf-treatys-collapse-means-nuclear-proliferation">the
United States withdrew</a> from the Cold War-era agreement, the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in August 2019. Intermediate range
missiles are considered particularly destabilizing because the missiles can
reach their targets within ten minutes, giving little warning and time for
decision-making and, consequently, raising the specter of miscalculation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The full RAND report says: “While NATO’s requirement for
unanimity makes it unlikely that Ukraine could gain membership in the
foreseeable future, Washington’s pushing this possibility could boost Ukrainian
resolve while leading Russia to redouble its efforts to forestall such a development.”
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In November 2021, the US and Ukraine signed a <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-ukraine-charter-on-strategic-partnership/">Charter
on Strategic Partnership</a>. The agreement confirmed “Ukraine’s aspirations
for joining NATO” and “rejected the Crimean decision to re-unify with Russia”
following the 2014 Maidan coup. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In December 2021, Russia <a href="https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/rso/nato/1790818/?lang=en">proposed a
peace treaty</a> with the US and NATO. The central Russian proposal was a
written agreement assuring that Ukraine would not join the NATO military
alliance. When the proposed treaty was contemptuously rebuffed by Washington,
it appeared the die was cast.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/03/11/russia-putin-ukraine-invasion-us-intelligence/">The
Intercept reported</a> on March 11 that despite staging a massive military
buildup along Russia’s border with Ukraine for nearly a year, “Russian
President Vladimir Putin did not make a final decision to invade until just before
he launched the attack on February 24,” senior current and former US
intelligence officials told the Intercept. “It wasn’t until February that the
agency and the rest of the US intelligence community became convinced that
Putin would invade,” the senior official added.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Last April, US intelligence first detected that “the Russian
military was beginning to move large numbers of troops and equipment to the
Ukrainian border.” Most of the Russian soldiers deployed to the border at that
time were later “moved back to their bases,” but US intelligence determined
that “some of the troops and materiel remained near the border.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In June 2021, against the backdrop of rising tensions over
Ukraine, Biden and Putin met at a summit in Geneva. The summer troop withdrawal
brought a brief period of calm, but “the crisis began to build again in October
and November,” when US intelligence watched as Russia once again “moved large
numbers of troops back to its border with Ukraine.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Extending the hand of friendship, Russia significantly
drawdown its forces along the western border before the summit last June.
Instead of returning the favor, however, the conceited leadership of supposedly
world’s sole surviving super power turned down the hand of friendship and haughtily
refused to concede reasonable security guarantees demanded by Russia at the
summit that would certainly have averted the likelihood of the war.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Current Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria
Nuland said that over 20 years <a href="https://original.antiwar.com/rick_sterling/2022/03/27/rand-report-prescribed-us-provocations-against-russia-and-predicted-russia-might-retaliate-in-ukraine/">the
US invested $5 billion</a> in the project to destabilize Ukraine and provoke
Russia. The culmination was a violent coup in February 2014. Since 2015, the US
has been training ultra-nationalist and <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/">Neo-Nazi
militias</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Prior to 2018, the US only provided “defensive military
assistance” to Ukraine. The RAND report assesses that providing lethal
(offensive) military aid to Ukraine will have “a high risk but advantages will
far outweigh the cost.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Accordingly, US lethal weaponry to Ukraine skyrocketed from
merely a trickle to <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2019-06-18/us-to-send-250-million-in-lethal-aid-to-ukraine">$250
million</a> in 2019, <a href="https://www.axios.com/ukraine-us-aid-c87d76af-c6e5-4eaa-8644-5469299cf20c.html">$303
million</a> in 2020 and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/22/1075064514/ukraine-lethal-aid-us-russia">$650
million</a> in 2021. Total military aid is much higher. A few weeks ago, <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/defense/596824-how-the-us-is-helping-ukraine-fight-russia">the
Hill reported</a>, “The US has contributed more than $1 billion to help Ukraine’s
military over the past year.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On March 16, President Biden announced an unprecedented
package of $800 million in military assistance to Ukraine, which included 800
Stinger anti-aircraft systems, 2,000 anti-armor Javelins, 1,000 light
anti-armor weapons, 6,000 AT-4 anti-armor systems and 100 Switchblade kamikaze
drones.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The $800 million will mean more than $2 billion in the US
military assistance has gone to Ukraine since Biden entered office in Jan.
2021, as the Biden administration had previously pledged $200 million days
before announcing the $800 million package, $350 million were disbursed
immediately following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, and the
administration <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/22/1075064514/ukraine-lethal-aid-us-russia">provided
$650 million</a> in military assistance to Ukraine during Biden’s first year in
office. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Speaking to reporters in Brussels ahead of the European Union
foreign ministers meeting last week, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock
said the EU would provide <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/germany-says-russia-deliberately-bombing-hospitals-civilian-infrastructure-in-ukraine/2541287">$1.1
billion in arms</a> to Ukraine. The United States and its allies have <a href="https://sputniknews.com/20220307/joint-chiefs-chairman-secretly-visited-weapons-shipment-hub-near-ukrainian-border-report-1093664572.html">reportedly
infused</a> over $3 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since the 2014
Maidan coup. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Recently, the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/09/congress-government-funding-package-00014322">Congress
announced</a> $1.5 trillion package for funding the federal government through
September, boosting national defense coffers to $782 billion, about a 6 percent
increase. On top of the hefty budget increase, the package is set to deliver $13.6
billion in emergency funding to help Ukraine, nearly twice the assistance
package initially proposed, including $3 billion for US forces and $3.5 billion
for military equipment to Ukraine, plus more than $4 billion for US
humanitarian efforts.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nonetheless, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month was
only a logical culmination of a long-simmering, eight-year war of attrition
initiated by NATO powers against Russia in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region
after the 2014 Maidan coup.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In an <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">explosive
scoop</a>, Zach Dorfman reported for the Yahoo News on March 16: “As part of
the Ukraine-based training program, CIA paramilitaries taught their Ukrainian
counterparts sniper techniques; how to operate U.S.-supplied Javelin anti-tank
missiles and other equipment; how to evade digital tracking the Russians used
to pinpoint the location of Ukrainian troops, which had left them vulnerable to
attacks by artillery; how to use covert communications tools; and how to remain
undetected in the war zone while also drawing out Russian and insurgent forces
from their positions, among other skills, according to former officials.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“When CIA paramilitaries first traveled to eastern Ukraine
in the aftermath of Russia’s initial 2014 incursion, their brief was twofold.
First, they were ordered to determine how the agency could best help train
Ukrainian special operations personnel fight the Russian military forces, and
their separatist allies, waging a grinding war against Ukrainian troops in the
Donbas region. But the second part of the mission was to test the mettle of the
Ukrainians themselves, according to former officials.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides the CIA’s clandestine program for training Ukraine’s
largely conscript military and allied neo-Nazi militias in eastern Ukraine and
the US Special Forces program for training Ukraine’s security forces at Yavoriv
Combat Training Center in the western part of the country bordering Poland that
was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">hit
by a barrage</a> of 30 cruise missiles killing at least 35 militants on March
13, Dorfman claims in a separate <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html">January
report</a> that the CIA also ran a covert program for training Ukraine’s
special forces at an undisclosed facility in the southern United States.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program
in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other
intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national
security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in
2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to
some of those officials.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“While the covert program, run by paramilitaries working for
the CIA’s Ground Branch — now officially known as Ground Department — was
established by the Obama administration after Russia’s invasion and annexation
of Crimea in 2014, and expanded under the Trump administration, the Biden
administration has further augmented it.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By 2015, as part of this expanded anti-Russia effort, CIA
Ground Branch paramilitaries also “started traveling to the front in eastern
Ukraine” to advise and assist Ukraine’s security forces and allied neo-Nazi
militias there. The multiweek, US-based CIA program included “training in
firearms, camouflage techniques, land navigation, tactics like cover and move,
intelligence and other areas.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One person familiar with the program put it more bluntly. “The
United States is training an insurgency,” said a former CIA official, adding
that the program has taught the Ukrainians how “to kill Russians.” Going back
decades, the CIA had provided limited training to Ukrainian intelligence units
to try and shore up a US-allied Kyiv and undermine Russian influence, but
cooperation ramped up after the Crimea annexation, a former CIA executive told
Dorfman.</p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-38145260139413518852022-03-27T00:52:00.002+05:002022-03-27T00:52:55.724+05:00Polish Brinkmanship: De Facto Leader Settling Score with Putin<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCTQOLaQTUcP1FskIPJf8Z9KAXjy99eYgScG588X-khdoFfdoNlDyOe9cWwVzzV6qJAqOyiLvFj3s5RRZs_tRSh7JkkXDgj0sCGcDpfB-tfgrM86jOAEkBE4VpHE_Orq7Cij_teE9UEj_HidYvdCeJKRs6No4uagTRataaBAFDOF6bWY6mI_o7l3mh9Q/s1200/1200x-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="811" data-original-width="1200" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCTQOLaQTUcP1FskIPJf8Z9KAXjy99eYgScG588X-khdoFfdoNlDyOe9cWwVzzV6qJAqOyiLvFj3s5RRZs_tRSh7JkkXDgj0sCGcDpfB-tfgrM86jOAEkBE4VpHE_Orq7Cij_teE9UEj_HidYvdCeJKRs6No4uagTRataaBAFDOF6bWY6mI_o7l3mh9Q/s320/1200x-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />In a highly symbolic move expressing solidarity with Ukraine,
the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia traveled
together to the embattled Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and met with Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky on March 15.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The three leaders took hours-long train trip on their
journey from the west Ukrainian city of Lviv to the capital Kyiv, allegedly
“endangering their lives” due to security risks involved in traveling within a
war zone, though there was no risk to their lives as such because they had
requested prior permission for the official visit from the Kremlin, which was
graciously granted keeping in view diplomatic conventions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Accompanying the trio of premiers was a “special guest” of
the Ukraine government, Jaroslaw Kaczynski—the deputy prime minister of Poland,
the head of Law and Justice (PiS) Party to which the president and prime
minister of Poland belong and the infamous “puppet master” who hires and fires
government executives and ministers on a whim.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Jaroslaw Kaczynski is the twin brother of the late President
Lech Kaczynski, who died in a plane crash at Smolensk, Russia, in 2010 along
with 95 other Poles, among them political and military leaders, as they traveled
to commemorate the Katyn massacre that occurred during the Second World War.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Subsequent Polish and international investigations led by
independent observers conclusively determined that the crash-landing was an
accident caused by fog and pilot error. Still, Kaczynski, 72, has <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-janez-jansa-jaroslaw-kaczynski-europe-95780a078715eb271edec313bfc683e7">long
suspected</a> [1] that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a role in provoking
the accident, and is harboring a personal grudge against the Russian president.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Speaking alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at
Kyiv, Kaczynski said: “I think that it is necessary to have a peace
mission—NATO, possibly some wider international structure—but a mission that
will be able to defend itself, which will operate on Ukrainian territory.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Kaczynski’s escalatory rhetoric isn’t merely a verbal
threat, as a <a href="https://summit.news/2022/03/23/secret-plan-to-send-10000-nato-peacekeeping-troops-into-ukraine">secret
plan</a> [2] for a “peacekeeping mission” involving 10,000 NATO troops from the
member states surreptitiously occupying Lviv and the rest of towns in western
Ukraine and imposing a limited no-fly zone is allegedly being prepared by the
Polish government that could potentially trigger an all-out war between Russia
and the transatlantic military alliance.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The plan is seemingly on hiatus due to a disagreement
between figurehead Polish President Andrzej Duda and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, as
Duda wanted Washington’s approval before going ahead, whereas Kaczynski
appeared keen to obtain political mileage from the Ukraine crisis and was also
desperate for settling personal score with Putin, even if his impulsive and
capricious attitude risked triggering a catastrophic Third World War.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In another diplomatic fiasco involving Kaczynski’s shady
hand in the Polish policymaking, Secretary of State Tony Blinken suggested
early this month that Poland could hand over its entire fleet of 28 Soviet-era
MiG-29s to Ukraine, and in return, the United States government would
“backfill” the Polish Air Force with American F-16s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We are looking actively now at the question of airplanes
that Poland may provide to Ukraine, and looking at how we might be able to
backfill it should Poland decide to supply those planes,” Blinken told a
briefing in Chisinau on March 6.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The transfer might have been possible if the deal was kept
under wraps, but that became impossible after Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign
affairs and security policy chief, declared unequivocally to reporters on Feb.
27 that the bloc would provide Ukraine with fighter jets.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Ukraine government heard the proposal and ran with it,
producing infographics claiming they were about to receive 70 used Russian
fighter jets from Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria. A Ukrainian government
official <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/10/poland-fighter-jet-deal-ukraine-russia-00016038">told
Politico</a> [3] that Ukrainian pilots had even traveled to Poland to wrap up
the deal and bring the planes back over the border. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Upon getting wind of the illicit deal, Russian defense
spokesman Igor Konashenkov issued a stark warning that any attempt by an
outside power to facilitate a no-fly zone over Ukraine, including providing
aircraft to Kyiv, would be considered a belligerent in the war and treated
accordingly.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hours after the Russian warning, the Polish Foreign
Ministry issued an emphatic denial, saying providing aircraft to Ukraine
was out of question as the MiG-29 fleet constituted the backbone of the Polish
Air Force. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The deal was categorically scuttled on March 3 by Polish
President Andrzej Duda: “We are not sending any jets to Ukraine because that
would open military inference in the Ukrainian conflict. We are not joining
that conflict. NATO is not party to that conflict,” <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-02-22/h_05b83b5d5def16528803b8ba135a0913">Duda
said</a> [4].<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a bizarre turn of events overriding its own president’s
categorical statement, the Polish government announced on March 8 that it was
ready to transfer the aircraft to the Ramstein Air Base in Germany at the
disposal of the United States which could then hand them over to Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Clearly, there was a disagreement between Poland’s
figurehead President Duda and de facto leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski over the
aircraft transfer deal, too. Ultimately, Kaczynski prevailed and the Polish
government announced it was ready to transfer the aircraft to Ukraine via an
intermediary.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The denouement of the comedy of errors, however, came a day
later on March 9, after the United States, while occupying a high moral ground,
unequivocally rejected the “preposterous” Polish offer, initially made on
Warsaw’s behalf by none other than the EU’s foreign affairs head and the US
secretary of state. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The prospect of flying combat aircraft from NATO territory
into the war zone “raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance,” the
Pentagon sanctimoniously revealed on March 9. “It is simply not clear to us
that there is a substantive rationale for it,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby
dignifiedly added.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The only conclusion that could be drawn from the reluctant
Polish offer of transferring its entire fleet of MiG-29s to Ramstein at the
disposal of the United States is that it was simply a humbug designed to
provide face-saving to its NATO patron while it was already decided behind the
scenes that Washington would spurn Poland’s nominal offer.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nonetheless, CNN <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/06/politics/mark-milley-ukraine-military-assistance/index.html">reported
March 6</a> [5] Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley visited a week
before an undisclosed airfield near the Ukraine border that has become a hub
for shipping weapons. The airport's location remains a secret to protect the
shipments of weapons, including anti-aircraft and anti-armor missiles, into
Ukraine. Although the report didn’t name the location, the airfield was likely
in Poland along Ukraine’s border. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“US European Command (EUCOM) is at the heart of the massive
shipment operation, using its liaison network with allies and partners to
coordinate ‘in real time’ to send materials into Ukraine, a Defense official
said. EUCOM is also coordinating with other countries, including the United
Kingdom, in terms of the delivery process ‘to ensure that we are using our
resources to maximum efficiency to support the Ukrainians in an organized way,’
the official added.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides deploying 15,000 additional troops in Eastern Europe
last month, total number of US troops in Europe is now expected to reach
100,000. “We have 130 jets at high alert. Over 200 ships from the high north to
the Mediterranean, and thousands of additional troops in the region,” NATO
Secretary General Jens <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/09/politics/russia-ukraine-pentagon-nato/index.html">Stoltenberg
told CNN</a> [6].<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A spokesman for US European Command told CNN the United
States was sending two Patriot missile batteries to Poland, and was also
considering deploying THAAD air defense system, a more advanced system
equivalent in capabilities to Russia’s S-400 air defense system. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Famous for hosting CIA’s black sites where alleged al-Qaeda
operatives were water-boarded and tortured before being sent to Guantanamo Bay
in the early years of the war on terror, in Poland alone the US military
footprint now exceeds 10,000 troops as the majority of 15,000 troops sent to
Europe last month went to Poland to join the 4,000 US troops already stationed
there. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The airfields and training camps in the border regions of
Poland have a become a hub for transporting lethal weapons and heavily armed
militants to Lviv in west Ukraine, who then travel to the battlefields in Kyiv
and east Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">President Biden arrived in Poland Friday and spoke to
American troops bolstering NATO's eastern flank. Biden shared a meal with
soldiers from the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division stationed in southeastern
Polish city Rzeszow, which has been acting as a staging area for NATO’s
military assistance to Ukraine while also serving as a waypoint for refugees
fleeing the violence. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ahead of the NATO summit attended by President Biden
Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced the transatlantic
military alliance would double the number of battlegroups it had deployed in
Eastern Europe. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The first step is the deployment of four new NATO
battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, along with our
existing forces in the Baltic countries and Poland,” Stoltenberg said. “This
means that we will have eight multinational NATO battlegroups all along the
eastern flank, from the Baltic to the Black Sea.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NATO <a href="https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nato-doubles-battlegroups-eastern-flank-states-bulgaria-hungary-romania-slovakia">issued
a statement</a> [7] after Thursday's emergency summit attended by Joe Biden and
European leaders: “In response to Russia’s actions, we have activated NATO’s
defense plans, deployed elements of the NATO Response Force, and placed 40,000
troops on our eastern flank, along with significant air and naval assets, under
direct NATO command supported by Allies’ national deployments. We are also
establishing four additional multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary,
Romania, and Slovakia.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In an <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ukraine-russia-putin-stoltenberg-nato-1.6377675">interview with
CBC News</a> [8] on March 8, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned
that a Russian attack on the supply lines of allied nations supporting Ukraine
with arms and munitions would be a dangerous escalation of the war raging in
Eastern Europe. “Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is defending itself. If
there is any attack against any NATO country, NATO territory, that will trigger
Article 5.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Reminiscent of the Three Musketeers’ motto “all for one and
one for all,” Article 5 is the self-defense clause in NATO's founding treaty
which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all 30 member
nations. “I'm absolutely convinced President Putin knows this and we are
removing any room for miscalculation, misunderstanding about our commitment to
defend every inch of NATO territory,” Stoltenberg said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NATO chief said there's a clear distinction between
supply lines within Ukraine and those operating outside its borders. “There is
a war going on in Ukraine and, of course, supply lines inside Ukraine can be
attacked,” he said. “An attack on NATO territory, on NATO forces, NATO
capabilities, that would be an attack on NATO.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On March 13, Russian forces <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">launched
a missile attack</a> [9] at Yavoriv Combat Training Center in the western part
of the country. The military facility, less than 25 km from the Polish border,
is one of Ukraine's biggest and the largest in the western part of the country.
Since 2015, US Green Berets and National Guard troops had been training
Ukrainian forces at the Yavoriv center before they were evacuated alongside
diplomatic staff in mid-February. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The training center was hit by a barrage of 30 cruise
missiles launched from Russian strategic bombers, killing at least 35 people,
though Russia's defense ministry claimed up to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/diplomacy-efforts-step-up-after-russian-strike-ukraine-base-2022-03-14/">180
foreign mercenaries</a> [10] and large caches of weapons were destroyed at the
training center. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">International diplomacy is predicated on the principle of
quid-pro-quo. Russia evidently has no intention of mounting an incursion into
NATO territory. But if the duplicitous Polish leadership is hatching treacherous
plots to clandestinely occupy western Ukraine and impose no-fly zone over it,
then Russia obviously reserves the right to give a befitting response to
perfidious henchmen and their international backers, irrespective of the
“sacrosanct and inviolable red lines” etched in the institutional memory of servile
lickspittles of the transatlantic military alliance.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Citations:</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[1] <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-janez-jansa-jaroslaw-kaczynski-europe-95780a078715eb271edec313bfc683e7">Three
EU prime ministers visit Kyiv as Russian attacks intensify:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[2] <a href="https://summit.news/2022/03/23/secret-plan-to-send-10000-nato-peacekeeping-troops-into-ukraine">Secret
Plan to Send 10,000 NATO “Peacekeeping Troops” Into Ukraine:</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[3] <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/10/poland-fighter-jet-deal-ukraine-russia-00016038">How
Biden scuttled Polish aircraft deal:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[4] <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-02-22/h_05b83b5d5def16528803b8ba135a0913">Poland
will not send fighter jets into Ukraine, Andrzej Duda:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[5] <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/06/politics/mark-milley-ukraine-military-assistance/index.html">Mark
Milley visited an undisclosed airfield near the Ukraine border:</a> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[6] <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/09/politics/russia-ukraine-pentagon-nato/index.html">Pentagon
shores up its NATO defenses in Europe:</a><u><o:p></o:p></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[7] <a href="https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nato-doubles-battlegroups-eastern-flank-states-bulgaria-hungary-romania-slovakia">NATO
doubles battlegroups in 'Eastern Flank' States:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[8] <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ukraine-russia-putin-stoltenberg-nato-1.6377675">NATO
chief warns Russia away from attacking supply lines:</a><u><o:p></o:p></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[9] <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">Pentagon
push to send more trainers to Ukraine was scrapped:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[10] <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/diplomacy-efforts-step-up-after-russian-strike-ukraine-base-2022-03-14/">Russian
airstrike killed 180 foreign mercenaries at Yavoriv:</a> </p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-24070947506391487012022-03-26T00:03:00.002+05:002022-03-26T00:03:30.376+05:00Nightmare Scenario: Operational Miscalculation Triggering Nuclear War<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSZsnzZkvAuZx7Dxd21cYIanJHz35bCgN87MryEwYytvE1EBcHIs5sedVqULihE-3fNuGDmhhComhSQ0cHZ9hnug75HcMjbxIRmlYS99Q1oSvc36l3H5yTkGNfQUUEpa9JEul3FMn9depPa7OkToYjgaGlKa3sJgjlqwdQ5GFhPKGoDgz07TntlhXBoQ/s2241/uid_c2c8f9773ba96b4f2713594af5ed236f1647450622170_width_2241_play_0_pos_0_gs_0_height_1260.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1260" data-original-width="2241" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSZsnzZkvAuZx7Dxd21cYIanJHz35bCgN87MryEwYytvE1EBcHIs5sedVqULihE-3fNuGDmhhComhSQ0cHZ9hnug75HcMjbxIRmlYS99Q1oSvc36l3H5yTkGNfQUUEpa9JEul3FMn9depPa7OkToYjgaGlKa3sJgjlqwdQ5GFhPKGoDgz07TntlhXBoQ/s320/uid_c2c8f9773ba96b4f2713594af5ed236f1647450622170_width_2241_play_0_pos_0_gs_0_height_1260.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Defense
Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, have tried to set up phone calls with Defense Minister Sergei
Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov but the Russians “have so far declined to
engage,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby in a statement Wednesday, March 23.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“A nightmare scenario would be a Russian missile or attack
aircraft that destroys a U.S. command post across the Polish-Ukrainian border,”
James Stavridis, a retired admiral who served as the Supreme Allied Commander
at NATO from 2009 to 2013, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/23/russia-us-military-leaders-communication">told
the Washington Post</a> [1]. “A local commander might respond immediately,
thinking the event was a precursor to a wider attack. This could lead to rapid
and irreversible escalation, to include potential use of nuclear weapons.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">According to a <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/23/politics/us-russia-general-meeting/index.html">CNN
report</a> [2] detailing a rare face-to-face meeting between Russian and US
military officials last week, the US believes that the refusal for high-level
meetings is due to Kremlin worries that the encounters would show them to be
vulnerable if they allowed such meetings, because it risks a tacit admission
that an abnormal situation exists, according to the readout of the meeting.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Though the assumption of vulnerability appears misconceived
considering while the Pentagon has allegedly attempted to maintain high-level
contacts with Russian counterparts, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has not
attempted any conversations with his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov, since the start of the conflict last month.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The real reason the Russian military leadership has allegedly
shunned maintaining high-level contacts with the Pentagon’s top brass appears to
be the duplicitous and treacherous role played by the transatlantic NATO alliance
of significantly escalating the conflict by substantially increasing the NATO
military footprint in Eastern Europe along Russia’s western flank, publicly providing
billions of dollars’ worth lethal weapons to Ukraine’s security forces and
allied neo-Nazi militias while asininely claiming to be “peacemakers” extending
chivalrous courtesies to the arch-rival.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ahead of the NATO summit attended by President Biden Thursday,
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced the transatlantic military
alliance would double the number of battlegroups it had deployed in Eastern
Europe. “The first step is the deployment of four new NATO battlegroups in
Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, along with our existing forces in the
Baltic countries and Poland,” Stoltenberg said. “This means that we will have
eight multinational NATO battlegroups all along the eastern flank, from the
Baltic to the Black Sea.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NATO <a href="https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nato-doubles-battlegroups-eastern-flank-states-bulgaria-hungary-romania-slovakia">issued
a statement</a> [3] after Thursday's emergency summit attended by Joe Biden and
European leaders: “In response to Russia’s actions, we have activated NATO’s
defense plans, deployed elements of the NATO Response Force, and placed 40,000
troops on our eastern flank, along with significant air and naval assets, under
direct NATO command supported by Allies’ national deployments. We are also
establishing four additional multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary,
Romania, and Slovakia.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Last week, President Biden announced an unprecedented
package of $1 billion in military assistance to Ukraine in addition to $350
million previously pledged which was disbursed within days of Russia’s invasion
of Ukraine on Feb. 24. The new package includes 800 Stinger anti-aircraft
systems, 2,000 anti-armor Javelins, 1,000 light anti-armor weapons, 6,000 AT-4
anti-armor systems and 100 Switchblade kamikaze drones.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides providing abundance of anti-aircraft and anti-armor munitions
to Ukraine’s largely conscript military and allied irregular militias, a senior
US administration official <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ukraine-urges-halt-russias-assault-biden-heads-poland-2022-03-25/">told
Reuters</a> [4] Washington and its allies were also working on providing
anti-ship weapons to protect Ukraine's coast. Ukrainian forces claimed on
Thursday to have blown up a Russian landing ship in a Russian-occupied port. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nonetheless, what must have exasperated Russia’s military
leadership is a <a href="https://summit.news/2022/03/23/secret-plan-to-send-10000-nato-peacekeeping-troops-into-ukraine">secret
plan</a> [5] for a “peacekeeping mission” involving 10,000 NATO troops from the
member states surreptitiously occupying western Ukraine and imposing a limited
no-fly zone over Lviv and rest of towns which is allegedly being prepared by
the Polish government.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The plan is seemingly on hiatus due to a disagreement
between Polish President Andrzej Duda and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the deputy prime
minister of Poland and the head of Law and Justice (PiS) Party. Duda wants
Washington’s approval before going ahead, whereas Kaczynski appears desperate
to obtain political mileage from the Ukraine crisis.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and
Slovenia traveled via train to the embattled Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and met
with President Volodymyr Zelensky on March 15 in a show of support for Ukraine.
De facto leader of Poland, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, accompanied them. Speaking on
the occasion, Kaczynski said: “I think that it is necessary to have a peace
mission—NATO, possibly some wider international structure—but a mission that
will be able to defend itself, which will operate on Ukrainian territory.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In response, Russian officials condemned Poland's proposal
to send NATO “peacekeeping forces” into Ukraine as a “very reckless and
extremely dangerous” idea that would risk a full-scale war between the alliance
and Moscow. “This will be the direct clash between the Russian and NATO armed
forces that everyone has not only tried to avoid but said should not take place
in principle,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Regarding how operational-level miscalculations could lead
to all-out war between belligerents, it’s pertinent to recall that on February
7, 2018, US B-52 bombers and Apache helicopters struck a contingent of Syrian
government troops and allied forces in Deir al-Zor province of eastern Syria
that <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-casualtie/russian-toll-in-syria-battle-was-300-killed-and-wounded-sources-idUKKCN1FZ2EI">reportedly</a>
[6] killed and wounded scores of Russian military contractors working for the
Russian private security firm, the Wagner Group. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The survivors described the bombing as an absolute massacre,
and Moscow lost more Russian nationals in one day than it had lost during its
entire military campaign in support of the Syrian government since September
2015.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Washington’s objective in striking Russian contractors was
that the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – which is
mainly comprised of Kurdish YPG militias – had reportedly handed over the
control of some areas east of the Euphrates River to Deir al-Zor Military
Council (DMC), which was the Arab-led component of SDF, and had relocated
several battalions of Kurdish YPG militias to Afrin and along Syria’s northern
border with Turkey in order to defend the Kurdish-held areas against the
onslaught of the Turkish armed forces and allied Syrian militant proxies during
Ankara’s “Operation Olive Branch” in Syria’s northwest that lasted from January
to March 2018.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Syrian forces with the backing of Russian contractors took
advantage of the opportunity and crossed the Euphrates River to capture an oil
refinery located to the east of the Euphrates River in the Kurdish-held area of
Deir al-Zor. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The US Air Force responded with full force, knowing well the
ragtag Arab component of SDF – mainly comprised of local Arab tribesmen and
mercenaries to make the Kurdish-led SDF appear more representative and
inclusive in outlook – was simply not a match for the superior training and
arms of the Syrian troops and Russian military contractors, consequently
causing a carnage in which scores of Russian nationals lost their lives.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A month after the massacre of Russian military contractors
in Syria, on March 4, 2018, Sergei Skripal, a Russian double agent working for
the British foreign intelligence service, and his daughter Yulia were found
unconscious on a public bench outside a shopping center in Salisbury. A few
months later, in July 2018, a British woman, Dawn Sturgess, died after touching
the container of the nerve agent that allegedly poisoned the Skripals.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the case of the Skripals, Theresa May, then the prime
minister of the United Kingdom, promptly accused Russia of attempted
assassinations and the British government concluded that Skripal and his
daughter were poisoned with a Moscow-made, military-grade nerve agent,
novichok.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sergei Skripal was recruited by the British MI6 in 1995, and
before his arrest in Russia in December 2004, he was alleged to have blown the
cover of scores of Russian secret agents. He was released in a spy swap deal in
2010 and was allowed to settle in Salisbury. Both Sergei Skripal and his
daughter have since recovered and were discharged from hospital in May 2018. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the aftermath of the Salisbury poisonings in March 2018,
the US, UK and several European nations expelled scores of Russian diplomats
and Washington ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a retaliatory move, Russia also expelled a similar number
of American, British and European diplomats, and ordered the closure of American
consulate in Saint Petersburg. The number of American diplomatic personnel
stationed in Russia drastically dropped from 1,200 before the escalation to 120,
and the relations between Moscow and Western powers reached their lowest ebb
since the break-up of the former Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in
December 1991. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Notwithstanding, five years following a potentially
catastrophic incident that could’ve inundated Islamic State’s former capital
Raqqa and many towns downstream Euphrates River in eastern Syria and caused
more deaths than the deployment of any weapon of mass destruction, the New York
Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/airstrike-us-isis-dam.html">reported
in January</a> [7] that at the height of US-led international coalition’s war
against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, US B-52 bombers struck Tabqa Dam
with 2,000-pound bombs, including at least one bunker-busting bomb that
fortunately didn’t explode.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In March 2017, alternative media was abuzz with reports that
the dam was about to collapse and entire civilian population downstream
Euphrates River needed to be urgently evacuated to prevent the inevitable
catastrophe. But Washington issued a gag order to the corporate media “not to
sensationalize the issue.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The explosive report noted that the dam was contested
between the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the Syrian
government and the Islamic State. A firefight broke out in which SDF incurred
heavy casualties. It was then that a top secret US special operations unit Task
Force 9 called for airstrikes on the dam after repeated requests from the
Kurdish leadership of the SDF.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The explosions on March 26, 2017, knocked dam workers to
the ground. A fire spread and crucial equipment failed. The flow of the
Euphrates River suddenly had no way through, the reservoir began to rise and
authorities used loudspeakers to warn people downstream to flee.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The Islamic State group, the Syrian government and Russia
blamed the United States, but the dam was on the US military’s ‘no-strike list’
of protected civilian sites, and the commander of the US offensive at the time,
then-Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, said allegations of US involvement were
based on ‘crazy reporting.’”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s worth noting that it was the same rogue Pentagon
General Stephen J. Townsend, currently the commander of US AFRICOM and then the
commander of Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) – Operation Inherent Resolve
(OIR) responsible for leading the war against the Islamic State in Syria and
Iraq, whose “operational miscalculation” was responsible for the reckless
confrontation an year later in February 2018 when US B-52 bombers struck Russian
military contractors, killing and wounding scores, a tragic incident that
brought two nuclear powers engaged in the Syrian conflict almost to the brink
of a full-scale war.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Citations:</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[1] <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/23/russia-us-military-leaders-communication/">Top
Russian military leaders repeatedly decline calls from US:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[2] <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/23/politics/us-russia-general-meeting/index.html">Inside
a rare US meeting with a Russian general in Moscow:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[3] <a href="https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nato-doubles-battlegroups-eastern-flank-states-bulgaria-hungary-romania-slovakia">NATO
doubles battlegroups in 'Eastern Flank' States:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[4] <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ukraine-urges-halt-russias-assault-biden-heads-poland-2022-03-25/">Russia
signals scaled-back war aims, Ukrainians advance near Kyiv:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[5] <a href="https://summit.news/2022/03/23/secret-plan-to-send-10000-nato-peacekeeping-troops-into-ukraine">Secret
Plan to Send 10,000 NATO “Peacekeeping Troops” Into Ukraine:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[6] <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-casualtie/russian-toll-in-syria-battle-was-300-killed-and-wounded-sources-idUKKCN1FZ2EI">Russian
toll in Syria battle was 300 killed and wounded:</a> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[7] <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/airstrike-us-isis-dam.html">A dam
in Syria was on a ‘no-strike’ list. The US bombed it anyway:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">About the author:<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national
security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the
Af-Pak and Middle East regions. His domains of expertise include
neocolonialism, military-industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a
regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to
alternative news media.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">25 March 2022.<o:p></o:p></p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-58796464264136829452022-03-22T20:52:00.002+05:002022-03-22T20:52:34.871+05:00The Putin Doctrine: Live a Day as Lion than Lifetime as Sheep<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTdIK0kftxWgKHGwKYIEnkxXQKoiKOSA9Fe9XEAY-SmAVsiScou1zzwwK8OM6z2On_M6jsbSQ-zUEpUDRTTn7YmPBJTEEVJiMzgS-zq4cuSm4j6ZMaWNzzZTxo_CMc0479nOXe4lYYbxn3qjDDkVMV-7c10EVeIJ5MVHlBuJ0f7BpB7AfHbXv3eMLM6Q/s1200/Putin-Original.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTdIK0kftxWgKHGwKYIEnkxXQKoiKOSA9Fe9XEAY-SmAVsiScou1zzwwK8OM6z2On_M6jsbSQ-zUEpUDRTTn7YmPBJTEEVJiMzgS-zq4cuSm4j6ZMaWNzzZTxo_CMc0479nOXe4lYYbxn3qjDDkVMV-7c10EVeIJ5MVHlBuJ0f7BpB7AfHbXv3eMLM6Q/s320/Putin-Original.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Addressing a meeting on socioeconomic support for the
constituent entities of the Russian Federation on March 16, Russian President
Vladimir Putin succinctly elucidated the salient reasons for pre-emptively
mounting a military intervention in Ukraine in order to forestall NATO’s
encroachment upon Russia’s security interests. Here are a few trenchant
excerpts from the lucid and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/279167575450403/posts/5352889218078188/">eloquent
speech</a> [1]:<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We are meeting in a complicated period as our Armed Forces
are conducting a special military operation in Ukraine and Donbass. I would
like to remind you that at the beginning, on the morning of February 24, I publicly
announced the reasons for and the main goal of Russia’s actions. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“It is to help our people in Donbass, who have been
subjected to real genocide for nearly eight years in the most barbarous ways,
that is, through blockade, large-scale punitive operations, terrorist attacks
and constant artillery raids. Their only guilt was that they demanded basic
human rights: to live according to their forefathers’ laws and traditions, to
speak their native Russian language, and to bring up their children as they
want.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Kiev was not just preparing for war, for aggression against
Russia – it was conducting it … Hostilities in Donbass and the shelling of
peaceful residential areas have continued all these years. Almost 14,000
civilians, including children have been killed over this time … Clearly, Kiev’s
Western patrons are just pushing them to continue the bloodshed. They
incessantly supply Kiev with weapons and intelligence, as well as other types
of assistance, including military advisers and mercenaries.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Just like in the 1990s and the early 2000s, they want to
try again to finish us off, to reduce us to nothing by turning us into a weak
and dependent country, destroying our territorial integrity and dismembering
Russia as they see fit. The failed then and they will fail this time … Yes, of
course, they will back the so-called fifth column, national traitors – those
who make money here in our country but live over there, and live not in the
geographical sense of the word but in their minds, in their servile mentality.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Confirming Western support for Ukraine “with weapons and
intelligence, as well as other types of assistance, including military advisers
and mercenaries” that Putin alluded to in the speech, the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/03/17/us-intelligence-ukraine-russia/">Intercept
reported</a> [2] on March 17 the US military had deployed extensive ISR, or
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, assets to countries neighboring
Ukraine to monitor developments within the embattled nation. The aircraft
include MQ-9 Reaper drones, Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joints, and Boeing E-3 Sentry
AWACS, which have been used to eavesdrop on communications and collect imagery
intelligence. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“‘The U.S. is using a variety of drone and fixed-wing
collection assets to obtain tactical information of the battlefield,’ the
official said, adding that the intelligence is then passed on to the Ukrainians
through a liaison officer. On Sunday, a Russian drone briefly crossed into
Poland, a NATO member, leading to a warning from the alliance that it could
respond with force — an alarming threat of direct confrontation with Russia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“An MQ-9 drone pilot with the U.S. military also told The
Intercept that Reapers had been deployed to the region. He said the U.S. was
using MQ-9 services leased from private contractors before withdrawing them and
replacing with government assets, which he said have been slower to stand up.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The U.S. has particular experience with this type of
indirect weapons and intelligence assistance against Russia, having previously
sent arms to Syrian rebels combating the Russian-backed regime of President
Bashar al-Assad.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In many ways, the proxy war in Ukraine resembles the CIA’s
Operation Timber Sycamore and the Pentagon’s $500 million train-and-equip
program to provide guerrilla warfare training and lethal weaponry to rebels
battling the Syrian government in the training camps located at border regions
of Turkey and Jordan during Syria’s decade-long conflict.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In fact, Russia’s military intervention in Syria in Sept.
2015 in support of the Bashar al-Assad government battling Washington’s
jihadist proxies was actually in retaliation for the CIA’s covert program
initiated in 2014 for arming and training mercenaries and neo-Nazi militias in
Russia’s backyard in east Ukraine in order to destabilize and provoke Russia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month was only a logical
culmination of a long-simmering, eight-year war of attrition initiated by NATO
powers against Russia in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region after the 2014 Maidan
coup toppling Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and consequent annexation
of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In an <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">explosive
scoop</a> [3], Zach Dorfman reported for the Yahoo News on March 16: “As part
of the Ukraine-based training program, CIA paramilitaries taught their
Ukrainian counterparts sniper techniques; how to operate U.S.-supplied Javelin
anti-tank missiles and other equipment; how to evade digital tracking the
Russians used to pinpoint the location of Ukrainian troops, which had left them
vulnerable to attacks by artillery; how to use covert communications tools; and
how to remain undetected in the war zone while also drawing out Russian and
insurgent forces from their positions, among other skills, according to former
officials.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“When CIA paramilitaries first traveled to eastern Ukraine
in the aftermath of Russia’s initial 2014 incursion, their brief was twofold.
First, they were ordered to determine how the agency could best help train
Ukrainian special operations personnel fight the Russian military forces, and
their separatist allies, waging a grinding war against Ukrainian troops in the
Donbas region. But the second part of the mission was to test the mettle of the
Ukrainians themselves, according to former officials.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides the CIA’s clandestine program for training neo-Nazi
militias in eastern Donbas and the US Special Forces program for training
Ukraine’s security forces at Yavoriv Combat Training Center in the western part
of the country bordering Poland that was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">hit
by a barrage</a> [4] of 30 cruise missiles killing at least 35 militants on
March 13, Zach Dorfman claims in a separate <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html">January
report</a> [5] that the CIA also ran a covert program for training Ukraine’s
special forces at an undisclosed facility in the southern United States.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program
in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other
intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national
security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in
2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to
some of those officials.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“While the covert program, run by paramilitaries working for
the CIA’s Ground Branch — now officially known as Ground Department — was
established by the Obama administration after Russia’s invasion and annexation
of Crimea in 2014, and expanded under the Trump administration, the Biden
administration has further augmented it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“By 2015, as part of this expanded anti-Russia effort, CIA
Ground Branch paramilitaries also started traveling to the front in eastern
Ukraine to advise their counterparts there. The multiweek, U.S.-based CIA
program has included training in firearms, camouflage techniques, land
navigation, tactics like cover and move, intelligence and other areas.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“One person familiar with the program put it more bluntly.
‘The United States is training an insurgency,’ said a former CIA official,
adding that the program has taught the Ukrainians how ‘to kill Russians.’ Going
back decades, the CIA has provided limited training to Ukrainian intelligence units
to try and shore up an independent Kyiv and prevent Russian subversion, but
cooperation ramped up after the Crimea invasion, said a former CIA executive.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Notwithstanding, at the height of the Cold War in the
sixties when Russia exploded the world’s largest 50-megaton thermonuclear Tsar
Bomba in October 1961 and 400,000 US forces were deployed in Europe that were
still outnumbered by Soviet troops, the Soviet leadership made repeated
requests for signing a “no first use” nuclear treaty precluding the likelihood
of pre-emptive nuclear strike, but the United States balked at the proposal due
to conventional warfare superiority of the USSR in Europe.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev even unilaterally pledged
against the first use of nuclear weapons in 1982, though Russia has since <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/04/world/russia-drops-pledge-of-no-first-use-of-atom-arms.html">dropped
the pledge</a> [1] in 1993 following the break-up of the Soviet Union and
consequent tilting of balance of power in favor of the United States. After
European powers developed their own military capacity following the devastation
of the Second World War, NATO now holds conventional warfare superiority over
Russia with a significantly larger number of ground troops and combat aircraft.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite Russia’s massive nuclear arsenal, several Pentagon
officials, full of hubris and evidently suffering from misplaced superiority
complex, have recently made their misconceived institutional logic public that
they no longer regard Russia as an equal military power, instead they
contemptuously dubbed it “a second-rate regional power,” and if given an
opportunity, they wouldn’t hesitate to take Russia head-on, even if the risk is
as perilous as the conflict spiraling into a catastrophic nuclear war.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Total number of nuclear warheads across the world currently
stands at roughly 13,000: Russia has 5977; NATO has 5943, including 5428 in the
US, 290 in France and 225 in the United Kingdom; China has 350, Pakistan 165,
India 160, Israel 90 and North Korea has 20 nuclear weapons, according to the
Federation of American Scientists.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the height of the Cold War in the sixties, Russia
exploded the world’s largest 50-megaton thermonuclear Tsar Bomba in October
1961. A Tupolev Tu-95V aircraft took off with the bomb weighing 27 tons. The
bomb was attached to a large parachute, which gave the release and observer
planes time to fly about 45 km away from ground zero, giving them a 50 percent
chance of survival.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The bomb was released from a height of 10,500 meters on a
test target at Sukhoy Nos cape in the Barents Sea. The bomb detonated at the
height of 4,200 meters above ground. Still, the shock wave caught up with
the Tu-95V at a distance of 115 km and the Tu-16 at 205 km. The Tu-95V dropped
1 kilometer in the air because of the shock wave but was able to recover and
land safely.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The 8-km-wide fireball reached nearly as high as the
altitude of the release plane and was visible at almost 1,000 km away. The
mushroom cloud was about 67 km high. A seismic wave in the earth’s crust,
generated by the shock wave of the explosion, circled the globe three times.
Glass shattered in windows 780 km from the explosion in a village on Dikson
Island. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All buildings in the village of Severny, both wooden and
brick, located 55 km from ground zero within the Sukhoy Nos test range, were
destroyed. In districts hundreds of kilometers from ground zero, wooden houses
were destroyed, stone ones lost their roofs, windows, and doors. Atmospheric
focusing caused blast damage at even greater distances, breaking windows in
Norway and Finland. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In conclusion, the Ukraine conflict is clearly spiraling out
of control and has the potential not only of dragging NATO powers into the war
but might also spell end to the human civilization by raising the apocalyptic
specter of a catastrophic nuclear war between two formidable nuclear powers
that hold between themselves over 90% of the world’s devastating nuclear
arsenal.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Citations:</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[1] <a href="https://www.facebook.com/279167575450403/posts/5352889218078188/">Putin’s
speech to a meeting published by Russian Embassy in London:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[2] <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/03/17/us-intelligence-ukraine-russia/">U.S.
quietly assists Ukraine with intelligence:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[3] <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">CIA
training program in Ukraine helped Kyiv prepare for Russian invasion:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[4] <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">Pentagon
push to send more trainers to Ukraine was scrapped:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[5] <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html">CIA-trained
Ukrainian paramilitaries may take central role if Russia invades:</a> </p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-46666844368821190712022-03-20T03:32:00.002+05:002022-03-20T03:32:36.701+05:00Washington Persuades Turkey to Deliver S-400 to Ukraine<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLFiW_2sgfmSh_VHnIXJyUmb66x72feDQqbZ9CQZBlWwrsTH-AQeGyphqE55t2LbVO-NDITcWwZ6-fBc9Vh2YeMef1myp3DauK03b47MJAdoa9iBt18ebUUF2T0gklZ286kkq4qilwZ4ZlMOmSdLTpQA1V10p5spANCwIdVFVN2V2m9t9UcZmYEnVsPA=s2113" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2113" data-original-width="1920" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLFiW_2sgfmSh_VHnIXJyUmb66x72feDQqbZ9CQZBlWwrsTH-AQeGyphqE55t2LbVO-NDITcWwZ6-fBc9Vh2YeMef1myp3DauK03b47MJAdoa9iBt18ebUUF2T0gklZ286kkq4qilwZ4ZlMOmSdLTpQA1V10p5spANCwIdVFVN2V2m9t9UcZmYEnVsPA=s320" width="291" /></a></div><br />On Wednesday, March 16, President Biden announced an
unprecedented package of $800 million in addition to $200 million previously
pledged in military assistance to Ukraine, which includes 800 Stinger
anti-aircraft systems, 2,000 anti-armor Javelins, 1,000 light anti-armor
weapons, 6,000 AT-4 anti-armor systems and 100 Switchblade kamikaze drones.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the top Republican on the House
Foreign Affairs Committee, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/16/us-sends-switchblade-drones-to-ukraine-00017836">told
Politico</a> [1]: “The U.S. was working with allies to send more S-300
surface-to-air missile systems to Ukraine. The country has had the S-300 for
years, so troops should require little-to-no training on how to operate the
Soviet-era anti-aircraft equipment. CNN reported that Slovakia had
preliminarily agreed to transfer their S-300s to Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“A Western diplomat familiar with Ukraine’s requests said
Kyiv specifically has asked the U.S. and allies for more Stingers and
Starstreak man-portable air-defense systems, Javelins and other anti-tank
weapons, ground-based mobile air-defense systems, armed drones, long-range
anti-ship missiles, off-the-shelf electronic warfare capabilities, and
satellite navigation and communications jamming equipment. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“To further help, there is a push to get Eastern European
allies to send new air defense systems to Ukraine that the U.S. doesn’t have.
At the top of the list are mobile, Russian-made missile systems such as the
SA-8 and S-300. Like the S-300, Ukraine also possesses SA-8s. The SA-8 is a
mobile, short-range air defense system still in the warehouses of Romania,
Bulgaria and Poland. The larger, long-range S-300 is still in use by Bulgaria,
Greece and Slovakia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s trip to Europe this week
will include not only NATO headquarters in Brussels, but also stops in Bulgaria
and Slovakia — countries that own S-300s and SA-8s — before heading back to
Washington.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Slovakia’s defense minister said Thursday, March 17, that
the country was willing to give Ukraine its S-300 surface-to-air missile
defense systems if it receives a “proper replacement.” At a press conference in
Slovakia with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Slovak Defense Minister
Jaroslav Nad said Slovakia was <a href="https://news.antiwar.com/2022/03/17/slovakia-says-it-will-give-ukraine-its-s-300s-if-it-gets-proper-replacement/">discussing
the S-300s</a> [2] with the US and Ukraine. “We’re willing to do so immediately
when we have a proper replacement. The only strategic air defense system that
we have in Slovakia is S-300 system,” he said. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As with the Slovak defense minister asking for “proper
replacement” in return for handing over its S-300 air defense system to Ukraine,
Secretary of State Tony Blinken similarly suggested that Poland could hand over
its entire fleet of 28 Soviet-era MiG-29s to Ukraine, and in return, the United
States government would “backfill” the Polish Air Force with American F-16s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We are looking actively now at the question of airplanes
that Poland may provide to Ukraine, and looking at how we might be able to
backfill it should Poland decide to supply those planes,” Blinken told a briefing
in Chisinau on March 6.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The transfer might have been possible if the deal was kept
under wraps, but that became impossible after Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign
affairs and security policy chief, declared unequivocally to reporters on Feb.
27 that the bloc would provide Ukraine with fighter jets.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Ukrainian government heard the proposal and ran with it,
producing infographics claiming they were about to receive 70 used Russian
fighter jets from Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria. A Ukrainian government
official <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/10/poland-fighter-jet-deal-ukraine-russia-00016038">told
Politico</a> [3] that Ukrainian pilots had even traveled to Poland to wrap up
the deal and bring the planes back over the border. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Upon getting wind of the shady deal, Russian defense
spokesman Igor Konashenkov issued a stark warning that any attempt by an
outside power to facilitate a no-fly zone over Ukraine, including providing
aircraft to Kyiv, would be considered a belligerent in the war and treated
accordingly.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hours after the Russian warning, the Polish Foreign
Ministry issued an emphatic denial, saying providing aircraft to Ukraine
was out of question as the MiG-29 fleet constituted the backbone of the Polish
Air Force. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The deal was categorically scuttled on March 3 by Polish
President Andrzej Duda: “We are not sending any jets to Ukraine because that
would open military inference in the Ukrainian conflict. We are not joining
that conflict. NATO is not party to that conflict,” <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-02-22/h_05b83b5d5def16528803b8ba135a0913">Duda
said</a> [4].<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a bizarre turn of events overriding its own president’s
categorical statement, Poland announced on March 8 that it was ready to
transfer the aircraft to the Ramstein Air Base in Germany at the disposal of
the United States which could then hand them over to Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the denouement of the diplomatic fiasco came on March 9,
after the United States, occupying a high moral ground, unequivocally rejected
the “preposterous” Polish offer, initially made on Warsaw’s behalf by the EU’s
foreign affairs head and the US secretary of state. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The prospect of flying combat aircraft from NATO territory
into the war zone “raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance,” the
Pentagon sanctimoniously revealed on March 9. “It is simply not clear to us
that there is a substantive rationale for it,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby
dignifiedly added.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The only conclusion that could be drawn from the reluctant
Polish offer of transferring its entire fleet of MiG-29s to Ramstein at the
disposal of the United States is that it was simply a humbug designed to
provide face-saving to its NATO patron while it was already decided behind the
scenes that Washington would spurn Poland’s nominal offer.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/19/us/politics/us-ukraine-russia-escalation.html">reported
Saturday</a> [5], March 19: “American officials have floated the idea of
Turkey’s government providing Ukraine with the sophisticated S-400 antiaircraft
system. It is the very system, made by Russia, that American officials punished
Turkey — a NATO ally — for buying from Moscow several years ago. Now American
diplomats see a way to pull Turkey away from its dance with Russia and give the
Ukrainians one of the most powerful, long-range antiaircraft systems in
existence. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The proposal for Turkey to supply Ukraine with Russian-made
S-400 antiaircraft systems would also test what Mr. Putin is willing to accept
from NATO — and how far a NATO ally that in recent years often appeared to be
building bridges to Moscow is willing to go in reiterating its commitment to
the alliance and backing Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The idea came up when Wendy R. Sherman, the deputy
secretary of state, visited Turkey two weeks ago. Ms. Sherman declined to talk
about her discussions. A different senior American official said the United
States knew the proposal would anger Mr. Putin. Ukraine already uses
Turkish-made drones, but Turkey is worried that providing the antiaircraft
systems could make the country a target of Russia’s wrath. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“At the same time, the upside for Turkey could be
substantial: It was suspended by the Trump administration from the F-35 fighter
program — in which it was both a buyer and a manufacturer of parts for the
advanced aircraft — after its purchase of the Russian S-400s. A deal to send
the antiaircraft systems to Ukraine could open the door to re-entry into the
F-35 program.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Notwithstanding, private military contractors in close
co-ordination and consultation with covert operators from CIA and Western
intelligence agencies are not only training Ukraine’s conscript military and
allied neo-Nazi militias in the use of caches of MANPADS and anti-armor
munitions provided by the US, Germany and the rest of European nations as a
military assistance to Ukraine but are, in fact, directing the whole defense
strategy of Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/03/17/us-intelligence-ukraine-russia/">Intercept
reported</a> [6] Thursday, March 17, the US military had deployed extensive
ISR, or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, assets to countries
neighboring Ukraine to monitor developments within the embattled nation. The
aircraft include MQ-9 Reaper drones, Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joints, and Boeing E-3
Sentry AWACS, which have been used to eavesdrop on communications and collect
imagery intelligence. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“‘The U.S. is using a variety of drone and fixed-wing
collection assets to obtain tactical information of the battlefield,’ the
official said, adding that the intelligence is then passed on to the Ukrainians
through a liaison officer. On Sunday, a Russian drone briefly crossed into
Poland, a NATO member, leading to a warning from the alliance that it could
respond with force — an alarming threat of direct confrontation with Russia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“An MQ-9 drone pilot with the U.S. military also told The
Intercept that Reapers had been deployed to the region. He said the U.S. was
using MQ-9 services leased from private contractors before withdrawing them and
replacing with government assets, which he said have been slower to stand up.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The U.S. has particular experience with this type of
indirect weapons and intelligence assistance against Russia, having previously
sent arms to Syrian rebels combating the Russian-backed regime of President
Bashar al-Assad.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In many ways, the proxy war in Ukraine resembles the CIA’s
Operation Timber Sycamore and the Pentagon’s $500 million train-and-equip
program to provide guerrilla warfare training and lethal weaponry to rebels battling
the Syrian government in the training camps located at border regions of Turkey
and Jordan during Syria’s decade-long conflict.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In fact, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month was only a
logical culmination of a long-simmering, eight-year war of attrition initiated
by NATO powers against Russia in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region after the 2014
Maidan coup toppling Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and consequent
annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In an <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">explosive
scoop</a> [7], Zach Dorfman reported for the Yahoo News on March 16: “As part
of the Ukraine-based training program, CIA paramilitaries taught their
Ukrainian counterparts sniper techniques; how to operate U.S.-supplied Javelin
anti-tank missiles and other equipment; how to evade digital tracking the
Russians used to pinpoint the location of Ukrainian troops, which had left them
vulnerable to attacks by artillery; how to use covert communications tools; and
how to remain undetected in the war zone while also drawing out Russian and
insurgent forces from their positions, among other skills, according to former
officials.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“When CIA paramilitaries first traveled to eastern Ukraine
in the aftermath of Russia’s initial 2014 incursion, their brief was twofold.
First, they were ordered to determine how the agency could best help train
Ukrainian special operations personnel fight the Russian military forces, and
their separatist allies, waging a grinding war against Ukrainian troops in the
Donbas region. But the second part of the mission was to test the mettle of the
Ukrainians themselves, according to former officials.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides the CIA’s clandestine program for training neo-Nazi
militias in eastern Donbas and the US Special Forces program for training
Ukraine’s security forces at Yavoriv Combat Training Center in the western part
of the country bordering Poland that was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">hit
by a barrage</a> [8] of 30 cruise missiles launched from Russian strategic
bombers killing at least 35 militants on March 13, Zach Dorfman claims in a
separate <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html">January
report</a> [9] that the CIA also ran a covert program for training Ukraine’s
special forces at an undisclosed facility in the southern United States.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program
in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other
intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national
security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in
2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to
some of those officials.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“While the covert program, run by paramilitaries working for
the CIA’s Ground Branch — now officially known as Ground Department — was
established by the Obama administration after Russia’s invasion and annexation
of Crimea in 2014, and expanded under the Trump administration, the Biden
administration has further augmented it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“By 2015, as part of this expanded anti-Russia effort, CIA
Ground Branch paramilitaries also started traveling to the front in eastern
Ukraine to advise their counterparts there. The multiweek, U.S.-based CIA
program has included training in firearms, camouflage techniques, land
navigation, tactics like cover and move, intelligence and other areas.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“One person familiar with the program put it more bluntly. ‘The
United States is training an insurgency,’ said a former CIA official, adding
that the program has taught the Ukrainians how ‘to kill Russians.’ Going back
decades, the CIA has provided limited training to Ukrainian intelligence units
to try and shore up an independent Kyiv and prevent Russian subversion, but
cooperation ramped up after the Crimea invasion, said a former CIA executive.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After perusing these informative reports, not only the
defensive rationale for Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine on Feb. 24
becomes abundantly clear but it also shines light on the fact that Russia’s intervention
in Syria was actually in retaliation for the CIA arming and training
mercenaries and neo-Nazi militias in east Ukraine in order to destabilize
Russia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Following the Maidan coup in 2014 after Russia annexed the
Crimean peninsula and the CIA initiated the covert program to train and arm
neo-Nazi militias in order to provoke Russia, the Kremlin’s immediate response
to the escalation by Washington was that it jumped into the fray in Syria in
September 2015, after a clandestine visit to Moscow by General Qassem
Soleimani, the slain commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force who was assassinated in
an American airstrike on a tip-off from the Israeli intelligence at the Baghdad
airport on January 3, 2020.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When Russia deployed its forces and military hardware to
Syria in September 2015, the militant proxies of Washington and its regional
clients were on the verge of driving a wedge between Damascus and the Alawite
heartland of coastal Latakia, which could have led to the imminent downfall of
the Bashar al-Assad government. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With the help of Russia’s air power and long-range artillery,
the Syrian government has since reclaimed most of Syria’s territory from the
insurgents, excluding Idlib in the northwest occupied by Turkish-backed
militants and Deir al-Zor and the Kurdish-held areas in the east, thus
inflicting a humiliating defeat on Washington and its regional allies, Israel,
Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf States. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Karl Marx presciently said: “History repeats itself, first
as a tragedy and then as a farce.” Those who don’t learn from traumatic
experiences are bound to repeat their calamitous mistakes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Citations:</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[1] <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/16/us-sends-switchblade-drones-to-ukraine-00017836">US
sends Switchblade drones to Ukraine:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[2] <a href="https://news.antiwar.com/2022/03/17/slovakia-says-it-will-give-ukraine-its-s-300s-if-it-gets-proper-replacement/">Slovakia
Says It Will Give Ukraine S-300 If It Gets Replacement:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[3] <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/10/poland-fighter-jet-deal-ukraine-russia-00016038">How
Biden scuttled Polish aircraft deal:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[4] <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-02-22/h_05b83b5d5def16528803b8ba135a0913">Poland
will not send fighter jets into Ukraine, Andrzej Duda:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[5] <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/19/us/politics/us-ukraine-russia-escalation.html">For
the U.S., a Tenuous Balance in Confronting Russia:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[6] <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/03/17/us-intelligence-ukraine-russia/">U.S.
quietly assists Ukraine with intelligence:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[7] <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html">CIA
training program in Ukraine helped Kyiv prepare for Russian invasion:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[8] <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">Pentagon
push to send more trainers to Ukraine was scrapped:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[9] <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html">CIA-trained
Ukrainian paramilitaries may take central role if Russia invades:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">About the author:<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national
security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the
Af-Pak and Middle East regions. His domains of expertise include
neocolonialism, military-industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a
regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to
alternative news media.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">20 March 2022.<o:p></o:p></p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-26809125220548912552022-03-17T22:54:00.002+05:002022-03-17T22:54:16.626+05:00Servant of the Deep State: Is Zelensky a Double Agent?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEicwaHG255vufODlqEyk65YOqAkX-FM_SBQvWXvdEwq4ZZz77NBotkXDCoO1XSnXZntvXoo1zj5OzOPo-_WFOjHKYhadoDXRV3sNRgrg0W_xPBznsHpBMBfThGTsk5H3CCpgb2x_drmfMeKvbP00nRWEMuqW2SblxlBnvJ9QHJB9L444mgWaX59l_fiRQ=s2048" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEicwaHG255vufODlqEyk65YOqAkX-FM_SBQvWXvdEwq4ZZz77NBotkXDCoO1XSnXZntvXoo1zj5OzOPo-_WFOjHKYhadoDXRV3sNRgrg0W_xPBznsHpBMBfThGTsk5H3CCpgb2x_drmfMeKvbP00nRWEMuqW2SblxlBnvJ9QHJB9L444mgWaX59l_fiRQ=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br />Amidst Russia’s impending Ukraine invasion last month while
the rest of the world was panicking, there was one man with nerves made of
steel who was as stoically calm and nonchalant as a monk meditating amidst an
earthquake. Ironically, the Zen monk urging Western policymakers not to
exaggerate the Russia invasion threat lest foreign investors and tourists flee
the country was none other than the credulous president of Ukraine.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Either President Zelensky was too naïve to understand the
consequences of the imminent invasion or he not only had forewarning but in
fact had a vital role in orchestrating the Russo-Ukraine War during his
three-year presidency in order to accomplish the top-secret mission assigned to
him by his mentors in Western intelligence agencies.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Born to Jewish parents in a town in central Ukraine in Jan.
1978, his early life remains shrouded in mystery. Volodymyr Zelensky was
groomed by covert CIA operatives in Ukraine since his student life while he was
studying law at the Kryvyi Rih National University. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Instead of pursuing legal career, he chose acting as a
profession at the behest of his influential patrons to gain nationwide
publicity, particularly through comedy television series “Servant of the
People” in which Zelensky “prophetically played” the role of the Ukrainian
president. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In fact, his production company Kvartal 95, which produces
films, cartoons and television shows, was generously funded by deep pockets of
Western security agencies. Comically exposing corruption and sleazy dealings of
Ukraine’s politician and oligarch, the series “Servant of the People” aired
from 2015 to 2019 and struck a chord with Ukrainian masses.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Western security agencies not only lavishly funded his
obscure media organization but also introduced him to a clandestine cabal of
illustrious Hollywood producers and directors adept in psychological warfare
and public relationing. The media success of “Servant of the People” is
attributed as much to the efforts of the employees of Kvartal 95 as to the
skill of international media organizations specializing in global
opinion-making.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Riding on the wave of media publicity, Zelensky won a
landslide presidential election in 2019. Later, his political party, which he
“coincidentally” named “Servant of the People,” won an overwhelming victory in
a snap legislative election held shortly after his inauguration as president. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since 2019, after being elected president through
questionable methods, Zelensky has surreptitiously been working on a
clandestine project to foment a crisis with Russia on a flimsy pretext. Any
other political leader with an iota of rational faculties, even somebody as
rogue as his predecessor Petro Poroshenko, would promptly have agreed to the
Kremlin’s reasonable proposal that Kyiv must give a solemn pledge it won’t join
transatlantic NATO military alliance. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not only did he scornfully rebuff the Russian proposal but
he also let Ukraine’s security forces stage joint military exercises and naval
drills alongside NATO forces in the Black Sea right under Russia’s nose. His
reckless disregard for the suffering of Ukrainian masses and suicidally
provoking Russia into an armed confrontation aside, he is merely a pawn in the
grand scheme of things.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although alleged to be a Jew, the real faith of Zelensky and
his associates is Satanism. That’s why he didn’t hesitate in collaborating with
Ukraine’s infamous Azov Battalion, officially part of the National Guard of
Ukraine, that has been widely acknowledged as a neo-Nazi volunteer paramilitary
force connected with foreign white supremacist organizations.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Azov Battalion was initially formed as a volunteer group in
May 2014 out of the ultra-nationalist Patriot of Ukraine gang, and the neo-Nazi
Social National Assembly (SNA) group. As a battalion, the group fought on the
front lines against pro-Russia separatists in Donbas, the eastern region of
Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A few months after recapturing the strategic port city of
Mariupol from the Russia-backed separatists, the unit was officially integrated
into the National Guard of Ukraine on November 12, 2014, and exacted high
praise from then-President Petro Poroshenko. “These are our best warriors,” he
said at an awards ceremony in 2014. “Our best volunteers.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The unit was led by Andriy Biletsky, who served as the leader
of both the Patriot of Ukraine (founded in 2005) and the SNA (founded in 2008).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2010, Biletsky said Ukraine’s national
purpose was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against
Semite-led Untermenschen [inferior races].” Biletsky was elected to parliament
in 2014. He left Azov as elected officials cannot be in the military or police
force. He remained an MP until 2019. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These forces were privately funded by oligarchs – the most
known being Igor Kolomoisky, an energy magnate billionaire and then-governor of
the Dnipropetrovska region. In addition to Azov, Kolomoisky funded other
volunteer battalions such as the Dnipro 1 and Dnipro 2, Aidar and Donbas units.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Mint Press News <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/israel-links-to-ukraine-neo-nazi-movement/279936/">recently
reported</a> [1]: “Zelensky’s presidential bid in 2019, which saw him win 73%
of the vote, was successful on the basis that he was running in order to combat
corruption and create peace in the country but, as the leaked documents known
as the Pandora Papers revealed, he himself was storing funds in offshore bank
accounts. Zelenskyy’s campaign was at the time boosted and bankrolled by
Israeli-Ukrainian billionaire Igor Kolomoisky – who was himself accused of
stealing $5.5 billion from his own bank.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Muslims seem to be a major issue for the Azov Battalion.
The Islamophobia present not only in Azov, but also in the National Guard of
Ukraine, came through strongly on social media as the official National Guard
site glorified the Azov Battalion as they dipped their bullets in pig fat. The
video was directed at Muslim soldiers from Chechnya who are fighting on the
side of Russia and were described as orcs by the National Guard on Twitter.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In June 2015, both Canada and the United States announced
they will not support or train the Azov regiment, citing its neo-Nazi
connections. The following year, however, the US lifted the ban under pressure
from the Pentagon. In October 2019, 40 members of the US Congress led by
Representative Max Rose signed a letter unsuccessfully calling for the US State
Department to designate Azov as a “foreign terrorist organization” (FTO).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In Feb. 2019, The Nation Magazine published a detailed think
piece: “<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/">Neo-Nazis
and the Far Right are on the March in Ukraine</a>” [2], elaborating Ukraine’s
far-right militant groups’ xenophobic and white supremacist political ideology.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Then-Speaker of Parliament Andriy Parubiy cofounded and led
two neo-Nazi organizations: the Social-National Party of Ukraine (later renamed
Svoboda), and Patriot of Ukraine, whose members would eventually form the core
of Azov.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Even more disturbing is the far right’s penetration of law
enforcement. Shortly after the Maidan coup in 2014, the US equipped and trained
the newly founded National Police, in what was intended to be a hallmark
program buttressing Ukrainian democracy. The deputy minister of the
Interior—which controls the National Police—is Vadim Troyan, a veteran of Azov
and Patriot of Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“In 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed legislation making
two WWII paramilitaries—the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and
the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)—heroes of Ukraine, and made it a criminal
offense to deny their heroism. The OUN had collaborated with the Nazis and
participated in the Holocaust, while the UPA slaughtered thousands of Jews and
70,000-100,000 Poles on their own volition.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Notwithstanding, despite “heroically staying” in Kyiv and “valiantly
mounting” the public-relationing offensive on the Western media while the city
is being surrounded by Russian forces, there is no risk to Zelensky’s personal
safety. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/05/russia-ukraine-insurgency/">Washington
Post reported</a> [3] on March 5: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The possible Russian takeover of Kyiv has prompted a flurry
of planning at the State Department, Pentagon and other U.S. agencies in the
event that the Zelensky government has to flee the capital or the country
itself. ‘We’re doing contingency planning now for every possibility,’ including
a scenario in which Zelensky establishes a government-in-exile in Poland, said
a U.S. administration official.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Zelensky, who has called himself Russia’s target No. 1,
remains in Kyiv and has assured his citizens he’s not leaving. He has had
discussions with U.S. officials about whether he should move west to a safer
position in the city of Lviv, closer to the Polish border. Zelensky’s security
detail has plans ready to swiftly relocate him and members of his cabinet, a
senior Ukrainian official said. ‘So far, he has refused to go.’”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s obvious from reading between the lines the security
detail of Zelensky not only includes operatives of Ukraine's domestic security
service, the SBU, but also highly skilled special-ops professionals of several
Western security agencies, including the formidable CIA and NSA, who would
whisk him away across the border to Poland as soon as it becomes clear the
capital is about to fall to advancing Russian forces.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In fact, private military contractors in close co-ordination
and consultation with covert operators from CIA and Western intelligence
agencies are not only training Ukraine’s conscript forces in the use of caches
of MANPADS and anti-armor munitions provided by the US, Germany and rest of
European nations as a military assistance to Ukraine but are also directing the
whole defense strategy of Ukraine by taking active part in combat operations in
some of the most hard fought battles against Russia’s security forces north of
Kyiv and at Kharkiv and Donbas.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Famous for hosting CIA’s black sites where alleged al-Qaeda
operatives were water-boarded and tortured before being sent to Guantanamo Bay
in early years of the war on terror, in Poland alone the US military footprint
now exceeds 10,000 troops as the majority of 15,000 troops sent to Europe last
month went to Poland to join the 4,000 US troops already stationed there. The
airfields and training camps in the border regions of Poland have a become a
hub for transporting weapons and militants to Lviv in west Ukraine, which then
travel to battlefields at Kyiv and in east Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Washington Post report further notes: “During an
official visit, a Ukrainian special operations commander told Rep. Michael
Waltz (R-Fla.), Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and other lawmakers that they were
shifting training and planning to focus on maintaining an armed opposition,
relying on insurgent-like tactics.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Ukrainian officials told the lawmakers that they were
frustrated that the United States had not sent Harpoon missiles to target
Russian ships and Stinger missiles to attack Russian aircraft, Moulton and
Waltz said in separate interviews.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“As the Russian military struggles with logistical
challenges — including fuel and food shortages — Waltz anticipates that the
Ukrainians will repeatedly strike Russian supply lines. To do that, they need a
steady supply of weapons and the ability to set improvised explosive devices,
he said. ‘Those supply lines are going to be very, very vulnerable, and that’s
where you really literally starve the Russian army.’<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“‘You can’t ship them to Ukraine at the last minute and
expect some national guardsman to pick up a Stinger and shoot down an
aircraft,’ he said. Continuing a resistance campaign will require continued
clandestine shipments of small arms, ammunition, explosives and even
cold-weather gear. ‘Think about the kinds of things that would be used by
saboteurs as opposed to an army repelling a frontal invasion,’ Moulton said.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Clearly, planning and preparations are well underway to lure
Russia into NATO’s “bear trap project,” a term borrowed from the Soviet-Afghan
War of the eighties when Western powers used Pakistan’s security forces and
generous funding from the oil-rich Gulf States for providing guerrilla warfare
training and lethal weaponry to Afghan jihadists to “bleed the security forces”
of former Soviet Union in the protracted war.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The impending fall of Kyiv in the face of Russian blitz is a
forgone conclusion that even Western policymakers acknowledge that Ukraine’s
conscript military and allied irregular militias are simply not a match for
Russia’s professional security forces in regular warfare.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The tumultuous last three weeks since Russia’s invasion on
Feb. 24 were only the prelude to a long and sordid saga of ensuing war of
attrition mounted by myriad heavily armed militant outfits nurtured by Western powers
against global and regional adversaries, as happened in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya and Syria.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Zelensky is being prepared as a “charismatic savior” to lead
a protracted and bloody insurgency against Russian security forces in Ukraine. Although
cutting a dashing figure sporting military fatigues and urging compatriots to
rise up in arms against “Russian invaders” in sentimental addresses while at
the same time pandering to NATO patrons to provide military assistance and
impose harshest sanctions on the Kremlin, what exceptional act of valor has
Volodymyr Zelensky performed thus far? Has he ever been in the line of fire on
the frontlines of the Russo-Ukraine War? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Taking advantage of gullible audience’s innate predilection
for hero worship, the mainstream media is projecting Zelensky as a messiah
waging a crusade against a rival power that dared to stand up to NATO’s further
eastward expansion into Russia’s traditional sphere of influence. The public-relationing
rationale of live-broadcasting his hateful and violent speeches to the
parliaments of Europe and the United States is as much to give publicity to an
expendable stooge as to vilify and internationally isolate an arch-foe on the
global stage.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Citations:</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[1] <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/israel-links-to-ukraine-neo-nazi-movement/279936/">Israel’s
Links to Ukraine’s Thriving Neo-Nazi Movement:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[2] <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/">Neo-Nazis
and the Far Right are on the March in Ukraine:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[3] <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/05/russia-ukraine-insurgency/">U.S.
prepares for a Ukrainian government-in-exile and a long insurgency:</a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-1663778229366619162022-03-17T01:00:00.002+05:002022-03-17T01:00:15.395+05:00Opportunistic Diplomacy: Biden Embraces Rivals to Isolate Russia<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiTNIqbyBZkhBzZEu7WkJAUhxfbl3qKvkEQ74p4JwC3LsO6ftAU48ueSOaNu5TUvidWSEUDGAI0s8NnBvYaENy-fDt9eeOrcoXAiUSFNCWoL_o8-72ketbTMoIAxKAh1xao-tHFzyxWvInHSV15opfB4J-haM2yEZI5VyvJya1d3t14zdgzw6wV_0lFUg=s1100" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="824" data-original-width="1100" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiTNIqbyBZkhBzZEu7WkJAUhxfbl3qKvkEQ74p4JwC3LsO6ftAU48ueSOaNu5TUvidWSEUDGAI0s8NnBvYaENy-fDt9eeOrcoXAiUSFNCWoL_o8-72ketbTMoIAxKAh1xao-tHFzyxWvInHSV15opfB4J-haM2yEZI5VyvJya1d3t14zdgzw6wV_0lFUg=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br />Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, two British-Iranian
nationals held in Iran since 2016 and 2017, respectively, were unexpectedly set
free and were permitted <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60756870">immediately
to travel</a> [1] to the United Kingdom today. In return, the British
government, in what gave the impression of a ransom payment, triumphantly
announced it had settled a £400m debt owed to Iran from the seventies.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The thaw in the frosty relations between the Western powers
and Iran signals that a tentative understanding on reviving the Iran nuclear
deal has also been reached behind the scenes, particularly in the backdrop of
the Ukraine crisis and the Western efforts to internationally isolate Russia.
After sanctioning Russia’s 10 million barrels daily crude oil output, the
industrialized world is desperately in need of Iran’s 4 million barrels oil
production to keep the already inflated oil price from causing further pain to
consumers.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Last week, Venezuela <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/venezuela-frees-least-two-americans-after-talks-with-us-sources-2022-03-09/">similarly
released</a> [2] two incarcerated US citizens in an apparent goodwill gesture
toward the Biden administration following a visit to Caracas by a high-level US
delegation, despite the fact that Washington still officially recognizes
Nicolas Maduro’s detractor Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s “legitimate president.” Nonetheless,
Venezuela is one of Latin America’s largest oil producers and opening the
international market to its heavy crude might provide a welcome relief in the
time of global oil crunch.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Niftily forestalling the likelihood of strengthening of
mutually beneficial bonds between China and Russia when the latter is badly in
need of economic relief, the United States pre-emptively accused China of
pledging to sell military hardware to Russia, when the latter, itself one of
the world’s leading arms exporters, arguably didn’t even make any such request
to China.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan held an intense
seven-hour meeting in Rome with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi yesterday,
March 15, and warned China of “grave consequences” of evading Western sanctions
on Russia. Besides wielding the stick of economic sanctions, he must also have
dangled the carrot of ending trade war against China initiated by the Trump
administration.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite vowing to treat the Saudi kingdom as a “pariah” in
the run-up to Nov. 2020 presidential elections, the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-emirati-leaders-decline-calls-with-biden-during-ukraine-crisis-11646779430">Wall
Street Journal reported</a> [3] last week the White House unsuccessfully tried
to arrange calls between President Biden and the de facto leaders of Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as the US was working to build
international support for Ukraine and contain a surge in oil prices.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the U.A.E.’s
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan both declined U.S. requests to speak to Mr.
Biden in recent weeks, the officials said, as Saudi and Emirati officials have
become more vocal in recent weeks in their criticism of American policy in the
Gulf.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“‘There was some expectation of a phone call, but it didn’t
happen,’ said a U.S. official of the planned discussion between the Saudi Prince
Mohammed and Mr. Biden. ‘It was part of turning on the spigot [of Saudi oil].’<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“But the Saudis and Emiratis have declined to pump more oil,
saying they are sticking to a production plan approved by OPEC. Both Prince
Mohammed and Sheikh Mohammed took phone calls from Russian President Vladimir
Putin last week, after declining to speak with Mr. Biden.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To add insult to the injury, Saudi Arabia has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-invites-chinas-xi-visit-wsj-2022-03-14/">reportedly
invited</a> [4] Chinese President Xi Jinping for an official visit to the
kingdom that could happen as soon as May, and is also considering pegging its vast
oil reserves in yuan, a move that could spell end to the petrodollar hegemony.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Trump aptly observed: “Now Biden is crawling around the
globe on his knees begging and pleading for mercy from Saudi Arabia, Iran and
Venezuela.” It appears quite plausible in its relentless efforts to
internationally isolate Russia, the Biden administration is likely to unravel
the whole neocolonial economic order imposed on the world after the signing of
the Bretton Woods Accord following the Second World War in 1945.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/03/11/russia-putin-ukraine-invasion-us-intelligence/">The
Intercept reported</a> [5] March 11 that despite staging a massive military
buildup along Russia’s border with Ukraine for nearly a year, Russian President
Vladimir Putin did not make a final decision to invade until just before he
launched the attack in February, according to senior current and former US
intelligence officials. It wasn’t until February that the agency and the rest
of the US intelligence community became convinced that Putin would invade, the
senior official added.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Last April, US intelligence first detected that the Russian
military was beginning to move large numbers of troops and equipment to the
Ukrainian border. Most of the Russian soldiers deployed to the border at that
time were later moved back to their bases, but US intelligence determined that
some of the troops and materiel remained near the border.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“In June 2021, against the backdrop of rising tensions over
Ukraine, Biden and Putin met at a summit in Geneva. The summer troop withdrawal
brought a brief period of calm, but the crisis began to build again in October
and November, when US intelligence watched as Russia once again moved large
numbers of troops back to its border with Ukraine.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Extending the hand of friendship, Russia significantly
drawdown its forces along the western border before the summit last June.
Instead of returning the favor, however, the conceited leadership of supposedly
world’s sole surviving super power turned down the hand of friendship and
haughtily refused to concede reasonable security guarantees demanded by Russia
at the summit that would certainly have averted the likelihood of the war.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the 2001 census, a third of Ukraine’s over 40 million
population registered Russian as their first language. In fact, Russian
speakers constitute a majority in urban areas of industrialized eastern Ukraine
and socio-culturally identify with Russia. Ukrainian speakers are mainly found
in sparsely populated western Ukraine and in rural areas of east Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian together belong to East
Slavic family of languages and share a degree of mutual intelligibility. Thus,
Russians, Byelorussians and Ukrainians are one nation and one country whose
shared history and culture goes all the way back to the golden period of 10<sup>th</sup>
century Kyivan Rus’. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition, Russians and Ukrainians share Byzantine
heritage and together belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, one of the oldest
Christian denominations whose history goes all the way back to the Christ and
his apostles. Protestantism and Catholicism are products of the second
millennium after a Roman bishop of the Byzantine Empire declared himself pope
following the 1054 schism between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In comparison, what do Ukrainians have in common with NATO
powers, their newfound patrons, besides the fact that humanitarian imperialists
are attempting to douse fire by pouring gasoline on Ukraine’s proxy war by
providing caches of lethal weapons to militant forces holding disenfranchised
Ukrainian masses hostage. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">CNN’s national security correspondent <a href="https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1504067534684921862">Jim Sciutto
tweeted</a> [6] today: “US & NATO allies are sending several surface-to-air
missiles systems to Ukraine. A senior US official tells me these systems
include Soviet-era SA-8, SA-10, SA-12 and SA-14 mobile air defense systems,
w/range higher than Stingers, giving capability to hit cruise missiles.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Only in the last year, which was incidentally the maiden
year of the purportedly “pacifist and noninterventionist” albeit manifestly
Russophobic Biden presidency, the US has <a href="https://english.alaraby.co.uk/news/biden-set-deliver-800-mn-new-security-aid-ukraine">reportedly
provided</a> [7] over 600 Stinger surface-to-air missiles and approximately
2,600 Javelin anti-armor systems to Ukraine, along with an assortment of radar
systems, helicopters, grenade launchers, guns and ammunition, and $650 million
worth military equipment.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One of Europe’s supposedly “most progressive nations” since
the fall of the Third Reich albeit still a US client, Germany alone has <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-ship-anti-aircraft-missiles-to-ukraine-reports/a-60995325">proudly
bragged</a> [8] of dispatching 500 US-made surface-to-air Stinger missiles and
2,700 Soviet-era, shoulder-fired Strela missiles to Ukraine’s conscript
military and allied irregular militias.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although the mainstream media has publicly acknowledged NATO
member states have provided a total of 2,000 surface-to-air missiles, including
Stingers, and 17,000 anti-armor munitions, including Javelins and NLAWs, to
Ukraine’s security forces, the actual number of weapons sent to Ukraine is many
times the number that has officially been admitted.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In an <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ukraine-russia-putin-stoltenberg-nato-1.6377675">interview with
CBC News</a> [9] on March 8, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned
that a Russian attack on the supply lines of allied nations supporting Ukraine
with arms and munitions would be a dangerous escalation of the war raging in
Eastern Europe. “Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is defending itself. If
there is any attack against any NATO country, NATO territory, that will trigger
Article 5.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Reminiscent of the Three Musketeers’ motto “all for one and
one for all,” Article 5 is the self-defense clause in NATO's founding treaty
which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all 30 member
nations. “I'm absolutely convinced President Putin knows this and we are
removing any room for miscalculation, misunderstanding about our commitment to
defend every inch of NATO territory,” Stoltenberg said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NATO chief said there's a clear distinction between
supply lines within Ukraine and those operating outside its borders. “There is
a war going on in Ukraine and, of course, supply lines inside Ukraine can be
attacked,” he said. “An attack on NATO territory, on NATO forces, NATO
capabilities, that would be an attack on NATO.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides deploying 15,000 additional troops in Eastern Europe
last month, total number of US troops in Europe is now expected to reach
100,000. “We have 130 jets at high alert. Over 200 ships from the high north to
the Mediterranean, and thousands of additional troops in the region,” NATO
Secretary General Jens <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/09/politics/russia-ukraine-pentagon-nato/index.html">Stoltenberg
told CNN</a> [10].<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Russian military had not targeted weapons shipments once
they entered Ukraine, a US official told CNN, but there was some concern Russia
could begin targeting the deliveries as its assault advances.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Sunday, March 13, Russian forces <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">launched
a missile attack</a> [11] at Yavoriv Combat Training Center in the western part
of the country. The military facility, less than 25 km from the Polish border,
is one of Ukraine's biggest and the largest in the western part of the country.
Since 2015, US Green Berets and National Guard troops had been training
Ukrainian forces at the Yavoriv center before they were evacuated alongside
diplomatic staff in mid-February. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The training center was hit by a barrage of roughly 30
cruise missiles launched from Russian strategic bombers, killing at least 35
people, though Russia's defense ministry claimed up to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/diplomacy-efforts-step-up-after-russian-strike-ukraine-base-2022-03-14/">180
foreign mercenaries</a> [12] and a large number of foreign weapons were
destroyed at the training center. The Ukraine conflict is clearly spiraling out
of control and has the potential of dragging NATO powers into direct
confrontation with Russia, which could then lead to a catastrophic Third World
War.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Citations:</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[1] <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60756870">Nazanin
Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori on way to UK:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[2] <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/venezuela-frees-least-two-americans-after-talks-with-us-sources-2022-03-09/">Venezuela
frees two Americans after talks with US:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[3] <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-emirati-leaders-decline-calls-with-biden-during-ukraine-crisis-11646779430">Saudi,
Emirati leaders decline calls with Biden amid Ukraine Crisis:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[4] <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-invites-chinas-xi-visit-wsj-2022-03-14/">Saudi
Arabia invites China's Xi to visit:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[5] <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/03/11/russia-putin-ukraine-invasion-us-intelligence/">US
intel says Putin made a last-minute decision to invade Ukraine:</a><u><span style="color: blue; mso-themecolor: hyperlink;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[6] <a href="https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1504067534684921862">NATO sending
advanced surface-to-air missile systems to Ukraine:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[7] <a href="https://english.alaraby.co.uk/news/biden-set-deliver-800-mn-new-security-aid-ukraine">US
provided 600 Stingers and 2,600 Javelins to Ukraine:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[8] <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-ship-anti-aircraft-missiles-to-ukraine-reports/a-60995325">Germany
to ship anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine:</a><u> <o:p></o:p></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[9] <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ukraine-russia-putin-stoltenberg-nato-1.6377675">NATO
chief warns Russia away from attacking supply lines:</a><u><o:p></o:p></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[10] <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/09/politics/russia-ukraine-pentagon-nato/index.html">Pentagon
shores up its NATO defenses in Europe:</a><u><o:p></o:p></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[11] <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">Pentagon
push to send more trainers to Ukraine was scrapped:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[12] <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/diplomacy-efforts-step-up-after-russian-strike-ukraine-base-2022-03-14/">Russian
airstrike killed 180 foreign mercenaries at Yavoriv:</a> </p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-79141837764736672722022-03-15T17:40:00.002+05:002022-03-15T17:40:21.352+05:00Jewish Zelensky and Zionist Plot to Provoke Russia<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJZrmIvuPLxnlkOU4742fbCly_q0OrTrzPCwvsLm6nc8waphwuX1ofYjJbFL9sX02gVjqj6oM08Y1lWpc8SD2h3Dh3HBP7j5y9bzwy3Ze0UmQ_Eo5LUvumRA2stCeLEKQ-8L-BHR_ORjfhIDKq-pDjkMbVbIVeoUhdLvkIVzZ9v-kC_FRkyKsisLW-gw=s3000" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="3000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJZrmIvuPLxnlkOU4742fbCly_q0OrTrzPCwvsLm6nc8waphwuX1ofYjJbFL9sX02gVjqj6oM08Y1lWpc8SD2h3Dh3HBP7j5y9bzwy3Ze0UmQ_Eo5LUvumRA2stCeLEKQ-8L-BHR_ORjfhIDKq-pDjkMbVbIVeoUhdLvkIVzZ9v-kC_FRkyKsisLW-gw=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br />Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky <a href="https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1503046528071618562">took to
Twitter</a> [1] Sunday to express heartfelt gratitude to Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg
for taking a clear stand on the Ukraine crisis and letting users violate rules
against hate speech: “War is not only a military opposition on UA land. It is
also a fierce battle in the informational space. I want to thank @Meta and
other platforms that have an active position that help and stand side by side
with the Ukrainians.”<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have
temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would
normally violate our rules like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian
invaders.’ We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian
civilians,” a Meta spokesperson <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-instagram-temporarily-allow-calls-violence-against-russians-2022-03-10/">said
in a statement</a> [2] March 11.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It naturally piques the curiosity why the social media
behemoth is bending over backwards to violate its own longstanding regulations
against hate speech to let Zelensky win the propaganda war in “the
informational space” unless one takes into account the obvious fact that both
Zuckerberg and Zelensky are Zionist Jews and take orders from Israel’s
clandestine security agencies.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Born to Oleksandr Zelensky and Rymma Zelenska, both
Russian-speaking Jews, in Jan. 1978, Volodymyr Zelensky was groomed by covert
Mossad operatives in Ukraine since his student life while he was studying law
at the Kryvyi Rih National University. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Instead of pursuing legal career, he chose acting as a
profession at the behest of his influential patrons to gain nationwide
publicity, particularly through comedy television series “Servant of the
People” in which Zelensky “prophetically played” the role of the Ukrainian
president. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In fact, his production company Kvartal 95, which produces
films, cartoons and television shows, was generously funded by deep pockets of
Zionist billionaires. Comically exposing corruption and sleazy dealings of
Ukraine’s politician and oligarch, the series “Servant of the People” aired
from 2015 to 2019 and struck a chord with Ukrainian masses.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Riding on the wave of media publicity, Zelensky won a
landslide presidential election in 2019. Later, his political party, which he
“coincidentally” named “Servant of the People,” won an overwhelming victory in
a snap legislative election held shortly after his inauguration as president. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the 2001 census, a third of Ukraine’s over 40 million
population registered Russian as their first language. In fact, Russian
speakers constitute a majority in urban areas of industrialized eastern Ukraine
and socio-culturally identify with Russia. Ukrainian speakers are mainly found
in sparsely populated western Ukraine and in rural areas of east Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian together belong to East
Slavic family of languages and share a degree of mutual intelligibility. Thus,
Russians, Byelorussians and Ukrainians are one nation and one country whose
shared history and culture goes all the way back to the golden period of 10<sup>th</sup>
century Kyivan Rus’. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What do Ukrainians have in common with NATO powers, their
newfound patrons, besides the fact that humanitarian imperialists are
attempting to douse fire by pouring gasoline on Ukraine’s proxy war by
providing caches of lethal weapons to militant forces holding disenfranchised
Ukrainian masses hostage. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russians and Ukrainians share Byzantine heritage and their
longstanding dispute with Zionist Jews goes back to the medieval era. Byzantine
emperors regarded Jewish subjects as gentiles and were particularly wary of
wealthy Jewish merchants maintaining a stranglehold over banking and commerce
sectors of the empire.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition, Russians and Ukrainians together belong to the
Greek Orthodox Church, one of the oldest Christian denominations whose history
goes all the way back to the Christ and his apostles. Protestantism and
Catholicism are products of the second millennium after a Roman bishop of the
Byzantine Empire declared himself pope following the 1054 schism between the
Orthodox and Catholic Churches.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since 2019, after being elected president through
questionable methods, Zelensky has surreptitiously been working on a
clandestine project to foment a crisis with Russia on a flimsy pretext. Any
other political leader with an iota of rational faculties, even somebody as
rogue as his predecessor Petro Poroshenko, would promptly have agreed to the
Kremlin’s reasonable proposal that Kyiv must give a solemn pledge it won’t join
transatlantic NATO military alliance. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not only did he scornfully rebuff the Russian proposal but
he also let Ukraine’s security forces stage joint military exercises and naval
drills alongside NATO forces in the Black Sea right under Russia’s nose. His
reckless disregard for suffering of Ukrainian masses with whom he does not identify
being a Zionist himself and suicidally provoking Russia into an armed
confrontation aside, he is merely a pawn in the grand scheme of things.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Israel’s Zionist regime, to whom not only Ukrainian but also
American presidents bow, has a score to settle with Russia. Donald Trump
literally forced four Arab states, the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, to sign
so-called Abraham Accords lending official recognition to Israel at the coaxing
of his Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner and in order to canvass Zionist lobbies
for support in the run-up to Nov. 2020 presidential elections. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Washington’s principal objective in Syria’s proxy war was
ensuring Israel’s regional security. The United States Defense Intelligence
Agency’s <a href="http://levantreport.com/2015/05/19/2012-defense-intelligence-agency-document-west-will-facilitate-rise-of-islamic-state-in-order-to-isolate-the-syrian-regime/">declassified
report</a> [3] of 2012 clearly spelled out the imminent rise of a Salafist
principality in northeastern Syria – in Raqqa and Deir al-Zor which were
occupied by the Islamic State from 2014 to October 2017 – in the event of an
outbreak of a civil war in Syria. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Under pressure from the Zionist lobbies in Washington,
however, the Obama administration deliberately suppressed the report and also
overlooked the view in general that a proxy war in Syria would give birth to
radical Islamic jihadists.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The hawks in Washington were fully aware of the consequences
of their actions in Syria, but they kept pursuing the ill-fated policy of
nurturing militants in the training camps located in Syria’s border regions
with Turkey and Jordan in order to weaken the anti-Zionist Bashar al-Assad
government.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The single biggest threat to Israel’s regional security was
posed by the Iranian resistance axis, comprising Iran, Syria and Lebanon-based
Hezbollah. During the course of 2006 Lebanon War, Hezbollah fired hundreds of
rockets into northern Israel and Israel’s defense community realized for the
first time the nature of threat that Hezbollah posed to Israel’s regional
security.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Those were only unguided rockets but it was a wakeup call
for Israel’s military strategists that what would happen if Iran passed the
guided missile technology to Hezbollah whose area of operations lies very close
to the northern borders of Israel. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Therefore, the Zionist lobbies in Washington persuaded the
Obama administration to orchestrate a proxy war against Damascus and Lebanon-based
Hezbollah in order to dismantle the Iranian resistance axis against Israel.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But following the beginning of the Ukraine crisis in 2014
after Russia occupied the Crimean peninsula and Washington imposed sanctions on
Russia, the Kremlin’s immediate response to the escalation by Washington was
that it jumped into the fray in Syria in September 2015, after a clandestine
visit to Moscow by General Qassem Soleimani, the slain commander of the IRGC’s
Quds Force who was assassinated in an American airstrike on a tip-off from the
Israeli intelligence at the Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When Russia deployed its forces and military hardware to
Syria in September 2015, the militant proxies of Washington, the Zionist regime
and their regional clients were on the verge of driving a wedge between
Damascus and the Alawite heartland of coastal Latakia, which could have led to
the imminent downfall of the Bashar al-Assad government. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With the help of Russia’s air power and long-range artillery,
the Syrian government has since reclaimed most of Syria’s territory from the
insurgents, excluding Idlib in the northwest occupied by Turkish-backed
militants and Deir al-Zor and the Kurdish-held areas in the east, thus
inflicting a humiliating defeat on Washington, the Zionist regime and their
regional allies, Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf States.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Over the years, Israel has not only provided material
support to militant groups battling Damascus – particularly to various factions
of the Free Syria Army (FSA) and al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate al-Nusra Front in
Daraa and Quneitra bordering the Israel-occupied Golan Heights – but Israel’s
air force has virtually played the role of the air force of the terrorists and
mounted hundreds of airstrikes in Syria during the decade-long conflict. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/opinion/gadi-eisenkot-israel-iran-syria.html">interview
to New York Times</a> [4] in January 2019, Israel’s former Chief of Staff Lt.
General Gadi Eisenkot confessed that the Netanyahu government approved his
recommendations in January 2017 to step up airstrikes in Syria. Consequently,
more than 200 Israeli airstrikes were launched on the Syrian targets in 2017
and 2018, as <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/benjamin-netanyahu-admits-israel-to-blame-for-damascus-strikes-1.812590">revealed</a>
[5] by Israeli Intelligence Minister Israel Katz in September 2018.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 2018 alone, Israel's air force dropped 2,000 bombs in
Syria. The purported rationale of the Israeli airstrikes in Syria has been to
degrade Iran’s guided missile technology provided to Damascus and Lebanon-based
Hezbollah, which poses an existential threat to Israel’s regional security.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Though after Russia provided S-300 air defense system to the
Syrian military after a Russian surveillance aircraft was shot down by Syrian
air defenses during an Israeli incursion into the Syrian airspace on September
2018, killing 15 Russians onboard, Israeli airstrikes in Syria have been
significantly scaled down. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Following the friendly-fire incident, though Israel has mounted
occasional airstrikes at the capital Damascus, in Daraa and Quneitra in southern
Syria and Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria, Israeli airstrikes in northwest Syria,
including Aleppo, Hamah and Homs, which is within the range of advanced missile
defense systems deployed at Khmeimim Air Base near coastal Latakia, have almost
entirely ceased.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Last month, the Kremlin issued an <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/russia-cites-deep-concern-over-ongoing-israeli-strikes-in-syria/">unequivocal
condemnation</a> [6] of recent Israeli airstrikes in Syria as “crude violation”
of Syria's sovereignty that up until now were reluctantly tolerated by the
Russian forces based in Syria’s Tartus naval base and Khmeimim airbase
southeast of Latakia, and also pledged that the Russian Air Force would conduct
joint air patrols alongside the Syrian Air Force that would pre-empt the
likelihood of further Israeli airstrikes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Israel’s continuing strikes against targets inside Syria
cause deep concern,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
“They are <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">a crude violation of
Syria’s sovereignty</span> and may trigger a sharp escalation of tensions.
Also, such actions pose serious risks to international passenger flights.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although Israel claims its air campaign in Syria is meant to
target Iran-backed militias, the airstrikes often kill Syrian soldiers. Syrian
state media said one soldier was killed and five more were wounded in one of
the latest Israeli attacks at Damascus, which occurred on Feb. 9.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russia has held talks with Israel on Syria, and said last
month it would begin joint air patrols with Syria. The patrols will include
areas near the Golan Heights in southern Syria bordering Israel, a frequent
site of the Israeli airstrikes, and Israel is said to be considering
discontinuing the strikes altogether or slowing them down significantly.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Times of Israel noted that this marked a momentous
change in policy for Russia: “Following the patrol, Ynet reported that Israeli
military officials were holding talks with Russian army officers to calm
tensions.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The report added, “Israeli officials were struggling to
understand why Russia, which announced that such joint patrols were expected to
be a regular occurrence moving forward, had apparently changed its policy
toward Israel.” The report claimed that Israel might limit its air campaign in
Syria as a result of Russia’s inexplicable policy reversal in Syria.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In conclusion, it favored Israel’s strategic objectives to
escalate the conflict in Ukraine in order to divert Russia’s attention and
military resources to Eastern Europe, as the Zionist regime would then get a
free hand to mount airstrikes in Syria and Lebanon with impunity, and might
even attempt to rekindle decade-long proxy war alongside its Gulf Arab, Turkish
and Jordanian allies in order to eliminate security threat posed by Iran-led
resistance axis comprising Syria and Lebanon-based Hezbollah once and for all.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Citations:</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[1] <a href="https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1503046528071618562">Zelensky
tweet thanking Facebook for allowing hate speech:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[2] <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-instagram-temporarily-allow-calls-violence-against-russians-2022-03-10/">Facebook
allows posts urging violence against Russian invaders:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[3] <a href="http://levantreport.com/2015/05/19/2012-defense-intelligence-agency-document-west-will-facilitate-rise-of-islamic-state-in-order-to-isolate-the-syrian-regime/">US
Defense Intelligence Agency’s declassified report of 2012:</a> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[4] <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/opinion/gadi-eisenkot-israel-iran-syria.html">An
interview with Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, Israel’s chief of staff:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[5] <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/benjamin-netanyahu-admits-israel-to-blame-for-damascus-strikes-1.812590">Israel
Katz: Israel conducted 200 airstrikes in Syria in 2017 and 2018:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[6] <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/russia-cites-deep-concern-over-ongoing-israeli-strikes-in-syria/">Russia
cites ‘deep concern’ over ongoing Israeli strikes in Syria:</a> </p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595261232094431570.post-44102164047075729772022-03-14T18:25:00.002+05:002022-03-14T18:25:43.251+05:00Make No Mistake: Putin Will Use Nukes First<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjp9JR2E7XPiXpQFyOYsjdijerLLxGssHaQVRkuKSlfI1RCf08XIr4Lgo4x-ZfdiykQr5Yy6twgBKzV-twm-R6WjfkeePFBRfrmeOL3-3zK0EIATzDIh8_sUmUKjmICyLM0CfJuWhioIKshqX0YkBTDC9JKhw4v9gd4nrgnsX0aiDwdu4fXUCIeo6iuEg=s900" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="763" data-original-width="900" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjp9JR2E7XPiXpQFyOYsjdijerLLxGssHaQVRkuKSlfI1RCf08XIr4Lgo4x-ZfdiykQr5Yy6twgBKzV-twm-R6WjfkeePFBRfrmeOL3-3zK0EIATzDIh8_sUmUKjmICyLM0CfJuWhioIKshqX0YkBTDC9JKhw4v9gd4nrgnsX0aiDwdu4fXUCIeo6iuEg=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br />At the height of the Cold War in the sixties when Russia
exploded the world’s largest 50-megaton thermonuclear Tsar Bomba in October 1961
and 400,000 US forces were deployed in Europe that were still outnumbered by
Soviet troops, the Soviet leadership made repeated requests for signing “no
first use” nuclear treaty precluding the likelihood of pre-emptive nuclear
strike, but the United States balked at the proposal due to conventional
warfare superiority of the USSR in Europe.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev even unilaterally pledged
against the first use of nuclear weapons in 1982, though Russia has since <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/04/world/russia-drops-pledge-of-no-first-use-of-atom-arms.html">dropped
the pledge</a> [1] in 1993 following the break-up of the Soviet Union and
consequent tilting of balance of power in favor of the United States. After
European powers developed their own military capacity following the devastation
of the Second World War, NATO now holds conventional warfare superiority over
Russia with a significantly larger number of ground troops and combat aircraft.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Quoting acclaimed Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy before the
Biden-Putin summit at Geneva last June, the Russian leader uttered an ominous
warning: “There is no true happiness in life, only flashes, a mirage of it is
on the horizon — cherish those.” But the mainstream media mocked the stark
warning as nothing more than rants and raves of a deranged mind.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite staging a massive military buildup along Russia’s
border with Ukraine for nearly a year, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not
make a final decision to invade until just before he launched the attack in
February, according to senior current and former US intelligence officials, as <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/03/11/russia-putin-ukraine-invasion-us-intelligence/">reported
by The Intercept</a> [2] on March 11. It wasn’t until February that the agency
and the rest of the US intelligence community became convinced that Putin would
invade, the senior official added.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Last April, US intelligence first detected that the Russian
military was beginning to move large numbers of troops and equipment to the
Ukrainian border. Most of the Russian soldiers deployed to the border at that
time were later moved back to their bases, but US intelligence determined that
some of the troops and materiel remained near the border.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“In June 2021, against the backdrop of rising tensions over
Ukraine, Biden and Putin met at a summit in Geneva. The summer troop withdrawal
brought a brief period of calm, but the crisis began to build again in October
and November, when US intelligence watched as Russia once again moved large
numbers of troops back to its border with Ukraine.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Extending the hand of friendship, Russia significantly
drawdown its forces along the western border before the summit last June.
Instead of returning the favor, however, the conceited leadership of supposedly
world’s sole surviving super power turned down the hand of friendship and
haughtily refused to concede security guarantees demanded by Russia at the
summit that would certainly have averted the likelihood of the war.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A visibly anxious and panicked <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1502353759455821833">Biden tweeted</a>
[3] Friday, March 11: “I want to be clear: We will defend every inch of NATO territory
with the full might of a united and galvanized NATO. But we will not fight a
war against Russia in Ukraine. A direct confrontation between NATO and Russia
is World War III. And something we must strive to prevent.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The string of rambling tweets betrayed the apprehensive
mental state of a raving executive who was under tremendous pressure from
certain quarters to significantly escalate the conflict with the arch-foe and wanted
to console himself and the listeners that by not committing American ground and
air forces to Ukraine, specifically for enforcing the no-fly zone, he was
making the right decision.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite Russia’s massive nuclear arsenal, several Pentagon
officials, full of hubris and evidently suffering from misplaced superiority
complex, have recently made their misconceived institutional logic public that
they no longer regard Russia as an equal military power, instead they
contemptuously dubbed it “a second-rate regional power,” and if given an
opportunity, they wouldn’t hesitate to take Russia head-on, even if the risk is
as perilous as the conflict spiraling into a catastrophic nuclear war.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/08/putin-is-angry-u-s-intel-heads-warn-russia-could-double-down-in-ukraine-00015177">The
Politico reported</a> [4] March 8 “Putin was angry” and the US intelligence
heads warned before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during
the panel’s annual hearing on worldwide threats that Russia could “double down”
in Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The remarks by Director National Intelligence Avril Haines
and four fellow intelligence agency leaders — Defense Intelligence Agency
Director Scott Berrier, CIA Director William Burns, National Security Agency
Director Paul Nakasone and FBI Director Christopher Wray — represented some of
the most candid assessments of Moscow’s thinking by US officials since the
start of the security crisis late last month.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The nuclear saber-rattling by Putin was extremely unusual,
Haines said, and US officials assess that his current posturing in this arena
is probably intended to deter the West from providing additional support to
Ukraine as he weighs an escalation of the conflict. On a personal level, Haines
said US officials assess that Putin ‘feels aggrieved the West does not give him
proper deference and perceives this is a war he cannot afford to lose.’<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Burns, the CIA director, portrayed for lawmakers an
isolated and indignant Russian president who is determined to dominate and
control Ukraine to shape its orientation. Putin has been ‘stewing in a
combustible combination of grievance and ambition for many years. That personal
conviction matters more than ever,’ Burns said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Burns also described how Putin had created a system within
the Kremlin in which his own circle of advisers is narrower and narrower — and
sparser still because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In that hierarchy, Burns said, ‘it’s
proven not career-enhancing for people to question or challenge his judgment.’”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Clearly, the US intelligence assessment before the House
Permanent Select Committee painted the picture of “an angry and frustrated
statesman” who, if cornered in the battlefield with the back against the wall
due to conventional warfare superiority of the NATO powers wouldn’t hesitate
for a moment before pressing “the big red button” as a method of last resort in
order to deter adversaries from smugly gloating on impending downfall of the
nemesis, even if that entails creating a doomsday scenario not only for
belligerents but for the world at large.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">CNN <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/06/politics/mark-milley-ukraine-military-assistance/index.html">reported
March 6</a> [5] Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley visited a week
before an undisclosed airfield near the Ukraine border that has become a hub
for shipping weapons. The airport's location remains a secret to protect the
shipments of weapons, including anti-armor missiles, into Ukraine. Although the
report didn’t name the location, the airfield was likely in Poland along
Ukraine’s border. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“US European Command (EUCOM) is at the heart of the massive
shipment operation, using its liaison network with allies and partners to
coordinate ‘in real time’ to send materials into Ukraine, a Defense official
said. EUCOM is also coordinating with other countries, including the United
Kingdom, in terms of the delivery process ‘to ensure that we are using our
resources to maximum efficiency to support the Ukrainians in an organized way,’
the official added.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In an <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ukraine-russia-putin-stoltenberg-nato-1.6377675">interview with
CBC News</a> [6] on March 8, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned that
a Russian attack on the supply lines of allied nations supporting Ukraine with
arms and munitions would be a dangerous escalation of the war raging in Eastern
Europe. “Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is defending itself. If there is
any attack against any NATO country, NATO territory, that will trigger Article
5.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Article 5 is the self-defense clause in NATO's founding
treaty which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all 30 member
nations. “I'm absolutely convinced President Putin knows this and we are
removing any room for miscalculation, misunderstanding about our commitment to
defend every inch of NATO territory,” Stoltenberg said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NATO chief said there's a clear distinction between
supply lines within Ukraine and those operating outside its borders. “There is
a war going on in Ukraine and, of course, supply lines inside Ukraine can be
attacked,” he said. “An attack on NATO territory, on NATO forces, NATO
capabilities, that would be an attack on NATO.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Besides deploying 15,000 additional troops in Eastern Europe
last month, total number of US troops in Europe is now expected to reach 100,000.
“We have 130 jets at high alert. Over 200 ships from the high north to the
Mediterranean, and thousands of additional troops in the region,” NATO
Secretary General Jens <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/09/politics/russia-ukraine-pentagon-nato/index.html">Stoltenberg
told CNN</a> [7].<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Russian military had not targeted weapons shipments once
they entered Ukraine, a US official told CNN, but there was some concern Russia
could begin targeting the deliveries as its assault advances.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Sunday, March 13, Russian forces <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">launched
a missile attack</a> [8] at Yavoriv Combat Training Center in the western part
of the country. The 360 square-km facility less than 25 km from the Polish
border is one of Ukraine's biggest and the largest in the western part of the
country. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since 2015, US Green Berets and National Guard troops had
been training Ukrainian forces at the Yavoriv center before they were evacuated
alongside diplomatic staff in mid-February. The training center was hit by a
barrage of roughly 30 cruise missiles launched from Russia strategic bombers,
killing at least 35 people.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Total number of nuclear warheads across the world currently
stands at roughly 13,000: Russia has 5977; NATO has 5943, including 5428 in the
US, 290 in France and 225 in the United Kingdom; China has 350, Pakistan 165, India
160, Israel 90 and North Korea has 20 nuclear weapons, according to the
Federation of American Scientists.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the height of the Cold War in the sixties, Russia
exploded the world’s largest 50-megaton thermonuclear Tsar Bomba in October 1961.
A Tupolev Tu-95V aircraft took off with the bomb weighing 27 tons. The bomb was
attached to a large parachute, which gave the release and observer planes time
to fly about 45 km away from ground zero, giving them a 50 percent chance of
survival.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The bomb was released from a height of 10,500 meters on a test
target at Sukhoy Nos cape in the Barents Sea. The bomb detonated at the height
of 4,200 meters above ground. Still, the shock wave caught up with the
Tu-95V at a distance of 115 km and the Tu-16 at 205 km. The Tu-95V dropped 1
kilometer in the air because of the shock wave but was able to recover and land
safely.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The 8-km-wide fireball reached nearly as high as the
altitude of the release plane and was visible at almost 1,000 km away. The
mushroom cloud was about 67 km high. A seismic wave in the earth’s crust,
generated by the shock wave of the explosion, circled the globe three times. Glass
shattered in windows 780 km from the explosion in a village on Dikson Island. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All buildings in the village of Severny, both wooden and
brick, located 55 km from ground zero within the Sukhoy Nos test range, were
destroyed. In districts hundreds of kilometers from ground zero, wooden houses
were destroyed, stone ones lost their roofs, windows, and doors. Atmospheric
focusing caused blast damage at even greater distances, breaking windows in
Norway and Finland. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In conclusion, the Ukraine conflict is clearly spiraling out
of control and has the potential not only of dragging NATO powers into the war
but might also spell end to the human civilization by raising the apocalyptic
specter of a catastrophic nuclear war between two formidable nuclear powers
that hold between themselves over 90% of the world’s devastating nuclear
arsenal.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Citations:</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[1] <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/04/world/russia-drops-pledge-of-no-first-use-of-atom-arms.html">Russia
drops the pledge against first use of nuclear weapons:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[2] <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/03/11/russia-putin-ukraine-invasion-us-intelligence/">US
intel says Putin made a last-minute decision to invade Ukraine:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[3] <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1502353759455821833">Biden:
Confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War III:</a> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[4] <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/08/putin-is-angry-u-s-intel-heads-warn-russia-could-double-down-in-ukraine-00015177">Putin
is angry: US intel heads warn Russia could double down in Ukraine:</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[5] <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/06/politics/mark-milley-ukraine-military-assistance/index.html">Mark
Milley visited an undisclosed airfield near the Ukraine border:</a><u> <o:p></o:p></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u>[6] <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ukraine-russia-putin-stoltenberg-nato-1.6377675">NATO
chief warns Russia away from attacking supply lines:</a><o:p></o:p></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u>[7] <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/09/politics/russia-ukraine-pentagon-nato/index.html">Pentagon
shores up its NATO defenses in Europe:</a><o:p></o:p></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[8] <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/13/briefing-white-house-nixed-december-plan-to-boost-special-ops-presence-in-ukraine-00016830">Pentagon
push to send more trainers to Ukraine was scrapped:</a> </p><p></p>Nauman Sadiqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15428437331753429569noreply@blogger.com0