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The EU Is Willing to Go to War Over Lithium?

Posted by M. C. on January 3, 2024

Cars are, by far, the biggest import and export commodities. So, when these autos finally go electric, just imagine how desperate EU industry and consumers will be for Lithium! The Europeans will flounder if forced to import quantities of this strategic mineral from distant sources that have their own batteries to make. If there is a WWIII over the Russia/Ukraine situation, I am sure we’ll be able to name it “The Great Lithium War.”

https://journal-neo.su/2024/01/02/the-eu-is-willing-to-go-to-war-over-lithium/

Author: Phil Butler

The EU Is Willing to Go to War Over Lithium?

The riddle of unhinged EU support for the Zelensky regime in Kyiv is now solved. Anyone inclined can unravel why the Germans, in particular, backstabbed Russia in the Minsk peace boondoggle. Lithium.

Energy Monitor’s parent company, GlobalData, recently released a report showing that Europe’s biggest lithium reserves lie in the Donbass region of Russia. The former Ukrainian Shevchenkivske field in the Donetsk region and the Kruta Balka block in the Zaporizhzhia region are now part of Russia. These reserves add tremendously to Russia’s humongous Lithium deposits (now 1.5M metric tons) and solidify the country’s top ten position globally. If we consider other BRICS nations’ reserves, including China (2M metric tons), EU industry is at a leverage point.

What’s most significant about this is that the EU, and Germany in particular, desperately need the rare mineral to manufacture green energy technologies such as wind turbines, electric vehicles, and a wide variety of electronic devices. This text from the Critical Minerals Thematic Intelligence Report overview is telling:

“Critical minerals are key to transitioning to a low-carbon world. There are over 70 countries globally that have set net-zero targets and pledged to lower their emissions. However, these widespread measures for a greener future are straining natural resources, especially the minerals required to produce energy transition technologies such as electric vehicles (EVs) and solar panels…”

The report goes on to reveal how these rare minerals are monopolized by just a few regions and how supply chain problems affect their recovery and distribution. In short, if Europe does not procure more Lithium, the energy transition EU President Ursula von der Leyen toots her horn about every other day will either be delayed or made unfeasible because of demand shortages.

While the United States, Australia, and a few Latin American countries hold the lion’s share of Lithium reserves, EU access to these supplies will be expensive. In addition, the U.S. and these emerging nations will surely use the biggest part of their reserves for domestic needs.

The demand (need) for European Lithium supply is so intense, German CDU MP Roderich Kiesewetter came right out and admitted the Russia-Ukraine conflict is all about the 500,000 tons or more of the mineral under the ground of the Donbass region. Kiesewetter said, “The European Union supports Ukraine because of lithium deposits in the Donbass.” The politician also took note of the Donbass being part of Russia now, means Berlin’s dependence on Moscow.

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Escobar: Russia-China Are On A Roll

Posted by M. C. on December 28, 2023

Tyler Durden's Photo

by Tyler Durden

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

While the dogs of war bark, lie and steal, the Russia-China caravan strolls on…

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-russia-china-are-roll

2023 may be defined for posterity as The Year of the Russia-China Strategic Partnership. This wonder of wonders could easily sway under a groove by – who else – Stevie Wonder: “Here I am baby/ signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours.”

In the first 11 months of 2023, trade between Russia and China exceeded $200 billion; they did not expect to achieve that until 2024.

Now surely that’s One Partnership Under a Groove. Once again signed, sealed and delivered during the visit of a large delegation to Beijing last week, led by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and revisited and upgraded the whole spectrum of the comprehensive partnership/strategic cooperation, complete with an array of new, major joint projects.

Simultaneously, on the Great Game 2.0 front, everything that need to be reaffirmed was touched by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s detailed interview to Dimitri Simes on his Great Game show.

Add to it the carefully structured breakdown written by head of the SVR Sergey Naryshkin, defining 2024 as “the year of geopolitical awakening”, and coming up with arguably the key formulation following the upcoming, cosmic NATO humiliation in the steppes of Donbass: “In 2024, the Arab world will remain the main space in the struggle for the establishment of a new order.”

Confronted with such detailed geopolitical fine-tuning, it’s no wonder the imperial reaction was apoplexy – revealed epidermically in long, tortuous “analyses” trying to explain why President Putin turned out to be the “geopolitical victor” of 2023, seducing vast swathes of the Arab world and the Global South, solidifying BRICS side by side with China, and propelling the EU further into a black void of its own – and the Hegemon’s – making.

Putin even allowed himself, half in jest, to offer Russian support for the potential “re-annexation” of country 404 border regions once annexed by Stalin, eventually to be returned to former owners Poland, Hungary & Romania. He added that he is 100% certain this is what residents of those still Ukrainian borders want.

Were that to happen, we would have Transcarpathia back to Hungary; Galicia and Volyn back to Poland; and Bukovina back to Romania. Can you feel the house already rocking to the break of dawn in Budapest, Warsaw and Bucharest?

Then there’s the possibility of the Hegemon ordering NATO’s junior punks to harass Russian oil tankers in the Baltic Sea and “isolate” St. Petersburg. It goes without saying that the Russian response would be to just take out Command & Control centers (hacking might be enough); burn electronics across the spectrum; and blockade the Baltic at the entrance by running a “Freedom of Navigation” exercise so everyone becomes familiar with the new groove.

That China-Russian Far East symbiosis

One of the most impressive features of the expanded Russia-China partnership is what is being planned for the Chinese northeastern province of Heilongjiang.

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On Ukraine, the World Majority Sides with Russia Over U.S.

Posted by M. C. on April 30, 2022

Russia pivots to the dynamic East and fast developing Global South

JOHN V. WALSH 

https://www.unz.com/article/on-ukraine-the-world-majority-sides-with-russia-over-u-s/

2014 saw two pivotal events that led to the current conflict in Ukraine.

The first, familiar to all, was the coup in Ukraine in which a democratically elected government was overthrown at the direction of the United States and with the assistance of neo-Nazi elements which Ukraine has long harbored.

Shortly thereafter the first shots in the present war were fired on the Russian-sympathetic Donbass region by the newly installed Ukrainian government. The shelling of the Donbass which claimed 14,000 lives has continued for 8 years, despite attempts at a cease-fire under the Minsk accords which Russia, France and Germany agreed upon but Ukraine backed by the US refused to implement. On February 24, 2022, Russia finally responded to the slaughter in Donbass and the threat of NATO on its doorstep.

Russia Turns to the East – China Provides an Alternative Economic Powerhouse.

The second pivotal event of 2014 was less noticed and in fact rarely mentioned in the Western mainstream media. In November of that year according to the IMF, China’s GDP surpassed that of the U.S. in purchasing power parity terms (PPP GDP). (This measure of GDP is calculated and published by the IMF, World Bank and even the CIA. Students of international relations like economics Nobel Laureate, Joseph Stiglitz, Graham Allison and many others consider this metric the best measure of a nation’s comparative economic power.) One person who took note and who often mentions China’s standing in the PPP-GDP ranking is none other than Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

From one point of view, the Russian action in Ukraine represents a decisive turn away from the hostile West to the more dynamic East and the Global South. This follows decades of importuning the West for a peaceful relationship since the Cold War’s end. As Russia makes its Pivot to the East, it is doing its best to ensure that its Western border with Ukraine is secured.

Following the Russian action in Ukraine, the inevitable U.S. sanctions poured onto Russia. China refused to join them and refused to condemn Russia. This was no surprise; after all Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China had been drawing ever closer for years, most notably with trade denominated in ruble-renminbi exchange, thus moving toward independence from the West’s dollar dominated trade regime.

The World Majority Refuses to Back U.S. Sanctions

But then a big surprise. India joined China in refusing to honor the US sanctions regime. And India kept to its resolve despite enormous pressure including calls from Biden to Modi and a train of high level US, UK and EU officials trekking off to India to bully, threaten and otherwise attempting to intimidate India. India would face “consequences,” the tired US threat went up. India did not budge.

India’s close military and diplomatic ties with Russia were forged during the anti-colonial struggles of the Soviet era. India’s economic interests in Russian exports could not be countermanded by U.S. threats. Now India and Russia are now working on trade via ruble-rupee exchange. In fact, Russia has turned out to be a factor that put India and China on the same side, pursuing their own interests and independence in the face of U.S. diktat. Moreover with trade in ruble-renminbi exchange already a reality and with ruble-rupee exchange in the offing, are we about to witness a Renminbi-Ruble-Rupee world of trade – a “3R” alternative to the Dollar-Euro monopoly? Is the world’s second most important political relationship, that between India and China, about to take a more peaceful direction? What’s the world’s first most important relationship?

India is but one example of the shift in power. Out of 195 countries, only 30 have honored the US sanctions on Russia. That means about 165 countries in the world have refused to join the sanctions. Those countries represent by far the majority of the world’s population. Most of Africa, Latin America (including Mexico and Brazil), East Asia (excepting Japan, South Korea, both occupied by U.S. troops and hence not sovereign, Singapore and the renegade Chinese Province of Taiwan) have refused. (India and China alone represent 35% of humanity.)

Add to that fact that 40 different countries are now the targets of US sanctions and there is a powerful constituency to oppose the thuggish economic tactics of the U.S.

Finally, at the recent G-20 Summit a walkout led by the US when the Russia delegate spoke was joined by the representatives of only 3 other G-20 countries, with 80% of these leading financial nations refusing to join! Similarly, a US attempt to bar a Russian delegate from a G-20 meeting later in the year in Bali was rebuffed by Indonesia which currently holds the G-20 Presidency.

Nations Taking Russia’s side are no longer poor as in Cold War 1.0.

These dissenting countries of the Global South are no longer as poor as they were during the Cold War. Of the top 10 countries in PPP-GDP, 5 do not support the sanctions. And these include China (number one) and India (number 3). So the first and third most powerful economies stand against the US on this matter. (Russia is number 6 on that list about equal to Germany, number 5, the two being close to equal, belying the idea that Russia’s economy is negligible.)

These stands are vastly more significant than any UN vote. Such votes can be coerced by a great power and little attention is paid to them in the world. But the economic interests of a nation and its view of the main danger in the world are important determinants of how it reacts economically – for example to sanctions. A “no” to US sanctions is putting one’s money where one’s mouth is.

We in the West hear that Russia is “isolated in the world” as a result of the crisis in Ukraine. If one is speaking about the Eurovassal states and the Anglosphere, that is true. But considering humanity as a whole and among the rising economies of the world, it is the US that stands isolated. And even in Europe, cracks are emerging. Hungary and Serbia have not joined the sanctions regime and of course most European countries will not and indeed cannot turn away from Russian energy imports crucial to their economies. It appears that the grand scheme of U.S. global hegemony to be brought about by the US move to WWII Redux, both Cold and Hot, has hit a mighty snag.

For those who look forward to a multipolar world, this is a welcome turn of events emerging out of the cruel tragedy of the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine. The possibility of a saner, more prosperous multipolar world lies ahead – if we can get there.

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Ex-NATO Analyst Paints a Completely Different Picture of Ukraine War

Posted by M. C. on April 27, 2022

After the Maidan coup in 2014, the Russian-speaking part of the population – civilians – were attacked by Ukrainian soldiers. In cities like Odessa, Mariupol, Luhansk and Donetsk massacres were carried out by them.

Ex-NATO analyst paints a completely different picture of Ukraine war

The retired Swiss Colonel Jacques Baud has written a lengthy article in which he paints a completely different picture of the war in Ukraine than portrayed in the Western media. The former NATO analyst helped Ukraine build its army for years.

Baud noted that the so-called Russian-backed separatists in Donbass were never supported in any way by Russia for the past eight years. After the Maidan coup in 2014, the Russian-speaking part of the population – civilians – were attacked by Ukrainian soldiers. In cities like Odessa, Mariupol, Luhansk and Donetsk massacres were carried out by them. Since then, a civil war has raged in the country.

Baud was working as an army analyst for NATO in 2014, when his team discovered that the rebels’ weapons were not supplied by Russia, but by Russian-speaking defectors from the Ukrainian armed forces.

How did he know this?

There was a massive exodus, after which Baud had to help to rebuild the image of the Ukrainian army. This turned out to be a long and arduous process. In the process, extremist paramilitary militias, including the Azov Battalion, sprung up.

In 2020, 40 percent of the Ukrainian army consisted of these militias, Baud said. He describes the members as cruel fanatics. They were funded, trained and armed by the United States, Great Britain, Canada and France.

Baud further pointed out that President Zelensky announced last year that he intended to take Crimea and he sent his troops south to complete the task. In February, the Ukrainian army began bombing Donbass on a large scale.

The former colonel added that US President Biden announced on February 17 that Russia would attack Ukraine within days. How did he know this? Since February 16, the civilian population of Donbass has been massively bombed by the Ukrainian army. The European Union, media, NATO and Western governments nonetheless kept mum as this was happening.

Three reasons

It seems the European Union and Western countries deliberately did not say anything about the massacre in Donbass because they knew it would provoke a Russian response, the ex-NATO analyst said.

He also pointed out that in January saboteurs with Western equipment were caught in Donbass who spoke Polish. They had wanted to cause incidents with chemical substances in Gorlovka. Baud said Joe Biden knew the mass bombing and acts of sabotage would lead to a Russian invasion.

According to him, there are three reasons for this war: the expansion of NATO, refusal of the West to implement the Minsk agreements and the large-scale attacks on the civilian population of Donbass over the past eight years.

Read the Whole Article

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Experts from Russia, Europe and US discussed the reasons for the geopolitical clash of the West with Russia

Posted by M. C. on February 21, 2022

“The Biden administration simply needs a new cold war to satisfy the appetites of the Pentagon. American politicians are investors and shareholders of the largest arms companies, so they have a financial interest in supporting conflicts around the world, regardless of the loss of life, ”Dugan said.

Among the largest contracts, Dugan mentioned the supply of hundreds of tons of weapons to the Ukraine, a contract for 250 Abrams tanks to Poland and 64 F-35 fighter jets to Finland.

Experts from Russia, Europe and US discussed the reasons for the geopolitical clash of the West with Russia

From Batko Milacic for the Saker Blog

On February 15, the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation hosted an international conference “Geopolitical war of the West against Russia: Ukrainian case”. During the event, political scientists, experts, journalists and public figures from Russia, United States, Italy, Germany, Finland, Belgium and other countries discussed possible developments around Ukraine.

Director of the Democracy Research Foundation Maxim Grigoriev reminded the audience about the Colin Powell’s accusations that Iraq has nuclear weapons, which launched the US attack on Iraq and about the massive disinformation campaign in the part of Western press against Syria. Grigoriev was a member of the commission that traveled to the Syrian city of Douma, where, according to some media reports from the West, government forces carried out a chemical attack against the civilian population, which served as a pretext for Washington to launch another missile strike.

“I personally was in the same house and entrance where video footage of dead people was allegedly filmed,” Maxim Grigoriev said. “We interviewed the people who lived there. None of them were hurt. We described in detail that information war against Syria and the activities of the White Helmets group in our book.”

The situation in Ukraine that has developed over the past eight years has much in common with the information provocations of the United States against Syria.

“As you know, the shelling of the civilian population of Donbass, whose victims include women and children, is qualified by international humanitarian law as war crimes,” Grigoriev stressed.

Director of the Center for Geopolitical Expertise Valery Korovin in his speech emphasized that the massive information campaign against Russia is an obvious evidence that the US is interested in new war and it is preparing for it. Experts from the US and Europe discussed the reasons for the geopolitical war of the West against Russia.

“The fact is that from a geopolitical point of view, Washington needs this war for several reasons,” Korovin explained. – Firstly, this war will very seriously throw Russia away from Europe and create a huge number of problems in building Russian-European relations, including building a geopolitical axis. Secondly, Washington certainly needs some kind of common enemy. There was a moment when the US lost this enemy. They were assigned international terrorism, then Islamism, which was equated even with fascism. Now such an enemy is again being made from Russia.

Another reason for the aggressive policy of some Western countries towards Russia, Korovin see in the need to consolidate the NATO bloc, which has lost all meaning without a clear geopolitical opponent, in the role of which the USSR used to act. The policy of sanctions and pressure is also one of the elements of the geopolitical game of the US with Russia.

“Ultimately, the imposed sanctions should greatly undermine the position of the Russian president, turn the elites against him and thereby accelerate what Western strategists want – the removal of the Russian president,” Korovin said.

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Washington Has Prepared an Invasion Narrative

Posted by M. C. on February 19, 2022

The report of an invasion of Donbass would be labeled a Russian false flag attack, and the Russian intervention would become the predicted invasion.  If anything happens, I think I have described it.

Washington Has Prepared an Invasion Narrative

Paul Craig Roberts

Feb 17, 2022

The other day I asked, “What is Washington up to?”  It is already time to ask that question again. 

While writing my article suggesting that only a judicious use of Russian force would sober up the West, Washington doubled down on its anti-Russian position, predicting in two news venues–the Secretary of State’s UN speech and the State Department spokesman’s press briefing–that Russia was about to launch a false flag attack that Russia would use as the excuse to invade Ukraine. 

The State Department claims are pure fantasy.  Why after just rejecting the Russian’s proposal for a mutual security agreement does the Biden regime keep fanning the flames of war?

It makes no sense for the State Department to predict something that is not going to happen. As there is no aerial or satellite evidence or evidence of any kind except assertions that “US intelligence has concluded” of a concentration of attack forces on Ukraine’s border, the only way the State Department could know of a false flag event would be if it is a US false flag attack for which Russia is being set up for blame.

We have heard excessively about 150,000 invasion troops allegedly assembled on Ukraine’s border with Russia. We have not heard about 150,000 British and US trained Ukrainian troops on the border of the Donbass republics.  We have not heard about the massive arms that the West has sent to Ukraine or about the CIA trained neo-Nazi militias. If we hear anything, we hear that these Ukrainian forces are there to protect against a Russian invasion, a statement that is nonsensical.  Why would the Ukrainian forces be concentrated on the Donbass border? The Russians would simply come in behind them, and the Ukrainians would be trapped between the Russians and the Donbass forces.  How is it possible that US and UK military advisers would make such a mistake?

The Saker reports that the latest information from Donbass is that the Ukrainians are using UR-77 mine clearing vehicles to clear mines from the Donbass border.  This is the operation that is conducted just prior to a ground attack.  

It would seem that if any invasion is planned, it is a Ukrainian invasion of Donbass calculated to bring the Russians in.  The report of an invasion of Donbass would be labeled a Russian false flag attack, and the Russian intervention would become the predicted invasion.  If anything happens, I think I have described it.

Washington has prepared the narrative with Blinken’s UN address today and with the State Department spokesman’s press briefing.  NATO and the Western media know the narrative and would repeat it endlessly.  No actual facts would enter the story. Those who challenge the new narrative would be accused of being Russian agents.  Sanctions would be imposed. The military/security complex’s budget would be increased. Europe would be pressured off Russian natural gas. US/NATO military presence on Russia’s border would be beefed up.

The growing burden of deceit and frustration will one day make Russia dangerous.  To forestall an explosion of fury, Russia needs to enforce its red lines now.  Washington needs to be taught a lesson before Washington goes too far.

Update:  The scenario I sketched appears to be unfolding. In an “intelligence update” the British defense minister stated that reports from Donbass of “alleged abnormal military activity by Ukraine in Donbas are a blatant attempt by the Russian government to fabricate pretexts for invasion.”  The incompetent British Defence Ministry has prepared a map with arrows drawn of the lines of advance of the Russian forces.  As the Ukrainian army is concentrated on the Donbass border, there are no forces for the Russians to encounter in their advance along 9 lines of invasion imagined by the British.  https://www.rt.com/russia/549776-uk-military-russia-invasion-map/ 

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A war with Russia would be unlike anything the US and NATO have ever experienced — RT Op-ed

Posted by M. C. on February 6, 2022

This is what a war with Russia would look like. It would not be limited to Ukraine, but extend to battlefields in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere. It would involve Russian strikes against NATO airfields, depots, and ports throughout the depth of Europe.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/548322-war-russia-us-nato/

Scott Ritter

is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

In a recent press conference held on the occasion of a visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about continued NATO expansion, and the potential consequences if Ukraine was to join the trans-Atlantic alliance.

“Their [NATO’s] main task is to contain the development of Russia,” Putin said. “Ukraine is simply a tool to achieve this goal. They could draw us into some kind of armed conflict and force their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions that are being talked about in the United States today,” he noted. “Or they could draw Ukraine into NATO, set up strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the issue of Donbass or Crimea by force, and still draw us into an armed conflict.”

Putin continued, “Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and is stuffed with weapons and there are state-of-the-art missile systems just like in Poland and Romania. Who will stop it from unleashing operations in Crimea, let alone Donbass? Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and ventures such a combat operation. Do we have to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought anything about it? It seems not.”

But these words were dismissed by White House spokesperson Jen Psaki, who likened them to a fox “screaming from the top of the hen house that he’s scared of the chickens,” adding that any Russian expression of fear over Ukraine “should not be reported as a statement of fact.”

Psaki’s comments, however, are divorced from the reality of the situation. The principal goal of the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is what he terms the “de-occupation” of Crimea. While this goal has, in the past, been couched in terms of diplomacy – “[t]he synergy of our efforts must force Russia to negotiate the return of our peninsula,” Zelensky told the Crimea Platform, a Ukrainian forum focused on regaining control over Crimea – the reality is his strategy for return is a purely military one, in which Russia has been identified as a “military adversary”, and the accomplishment of which can only be achieved through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using military means has not been spelled out. As an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate any offensive military action to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russia. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine’s membership, if granted, would need to include some language regarding the limits of NATO’s Article 5 – which relates to collective defense – when addressing the Crimea situation, or else a state of war would de facto exist upon Ukrainian accession.

The most likely scenario would involve Ukraine being rapidly brought under the ‘umbrella’ of NATO protection, with ‘battlegroups’ like those deployed into eastern Europe being formed on Ukrainian soil as a ‘trip-wire’ force, and modern air defenses combined with forward-deployed NATO aircraft put in place to secure Ukrainian airspace.

Once this umbrella has been established, Ukraine would feel emboldened to begin a hybrid conflict against what it terms the Russian occupation of Crimea, employing unconventional warfare capability it has acquired since 2015 at the hands of the CIA to initiate an insurgency designed specifically to “kill Russians.”

The idea that Russia would sit idly by while a guerilla war in Crimea was being implemented from Ukraine is ludicrous; if confronted with such a scenario, Russia would more than likely use its own unconventional capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of course, would cry foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for collective defense under Article 5. In short, NATO would be at war with Russia.

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The Blackwater Is in Donbass with the Azov Battalion – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

Posted by M. C. on February 2, 2022

https://www.globalresearch.ca/blackwater-donbass-azov-battalion/5768869

By Manlio Dinucci

he phone call between President Biden and Ukrainian President Zelensky “did not go well”, CNN headlines: while “Biden warned that a Russian invasion is practically certain in February, when the frozen ground makes it possible for tanks to pass through”, Zelensky “asked Biden to lower his tone, arguing that the Russian threat is still ambiguous”. As the Ukrainian president himself takes a more cautious stance, Ukrainian armed forces are massing in the Donbass near the area of Donetsk and Lugansk inhabited by Russian populations.

According to reports from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, obscured by our mainstream which only talks about the Russian deployment, Ukrainian Army and National Guard units, amounting to about 150 thousand men, are positioned here. They are armed and trained, and thus effectively commanded, by US-NATO military advisers and instructors.

From 1991 to 2014, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, the U.S. provided Ukraine with $4 billion in military assistance, which was added to by over $2.5 billion after 2014, plus over a billion provided by the NATO Trust Fund in which Italy also participates. This is only part of the military investments made by the major NATO powers in Ukraine. Great Britain, for example, concluded various military agreements with Kiev, investing among other things 1.7 billion pounds in the strengthening of Ukraine’s naval capabilities: this program provides for the arming of Ukrainian ships with British missiles, the joint production of 8 fast missile launchers, the construction of naval bases on the Black Sea and also on the Sea of Azov between Ukraine, Crimea and Russia. In this framework, Ukrainian military spending, which in 2014 was equivalent to 3% of GDP, increased to 6% in 2022, corresponding to more than $ 11 billion.

In addition to the US-NATO military investments in Ukraine, there is the $10 billion plan being implemented by Erik Prince, founder of the private US military company Blackwater, now renamed Academy, which has been supplying mercenaries to the CIA, Pentagon and State Department for covert operations (including torture and assassinations), earning billions of dollars. Erik Prince’s plan, revealed by a Time magazine investigation, is to create a private army in Ukraine through a partnership between the Lancaster 6 company, with which Prince has supplied mercenaries in the Middle East and Africa, and the main Ukrainian intelligence office controlled by the CIA. It is not known, of course, what would be the tasks of the private army created in Ukraine by the founder of Blackwater, certainly with funding from the CIA. However, it can be expected that it would conduct covert operations in Europe, Russia and other regions from its base in Ukraine.

Against this background, it is particularly alarming that the Russian Defense Minister Shoigu denounced that in the Donetsk region there are “private US military companies that are preparing a provocation with the use of unknown chemicals”. It could be the spark that causes the detonation of a war in the heart of Europe: a chemical attack against Ukrainian civilians in Donbass, immediately attributed to the Russians of Donetsk and Lugansk, which would be attacked by the preponderant Ukrainian forces already deployed in the region, to force Russia to intervene militarily in their defense.

In the front line, ready to slaughter the Russians in the Donbass, is the Azov battalion, promoted to a special forces regiment, trained and armed by the US and NATO, distinguished for its ferocity in attacks on the Russian populations of Ukraine. The Azov, which recruits neo-Nazis from all over Europe under its flag traced from that of SS Das Reich, is commanded by its founder Andrey Biletsky, promoted to colonel. It is not only a military unit, but an ideological and political movement, of which Biletsky is the charismatic leader, especially for the youth organization that is educated to hate the Russians with his book “The Words of the White Führer”.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

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Victoria “F*ck The EU” Nuland Is In Moscow Negotiating The Status Of Ukraine’s Donbass | ZeroHedge

Posted by M. C. on October 14, 2021

As a senior state department official, Nuland took an active part in what transpired in Ukraine back in 2014, namely the Euromaidan. She visited Kiev on several occasions during the height of the protests.

From 2019 onwards she’s been entirely banned from entering Russia. Her visit on October 11th was completely at the initiative of the American side.

Nuland who was a part of the “very successful” destabilization efforts in Kiev is now being sent to Moscow in order to foster “stable and predictable” relations.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/victoria-fck-eu-nuland-moscow-negotiating-status-ukraines-donbass

Tyler Durden's Photoby Tyler Durden

Look who’s back in Eastern Europe – this time forced to deal directly with the Kremlin after a half-decade of military and political stalemate in war-torn eastern Ukraine. Victoria “F*ck The EU” Nuland is currently in Moscow for high-level talks with top Russian officials. Among multiple tense issues, there’s reportedly been progress on the situation in eastern Ukraine, related to working out a potential lasting political settlement leading to the cessation of violence there.As Biden’s Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Nuland kicked off three days of talks Tuesday and into Wednesday with Yury Ushakov, the top foreign policy aide to Putin. Interestingly the Kremlin agreed to a temporary lifting of travel sanctions against her just to enter the country for the meeting. 

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Rudderless, Leaderless, and Drifting | Kunstler

Posted by M. C. on May 1, 2021

Then there is the fantastically stupid agitation and provocation on the home-front of the Democratic Party-sponsored Woke Jacobins, who are too dumb to even understand that if you want a police-state, you need police. Rather, they want to live in chaos and anarchy, the Satanic version of the Big Rock Candy Mountain, where the looters play in the stores all day and the jails have gone away. Joe Biden pimped for that hustle Wednesday night, too, declaring the nation systemically racist and “white supremacy” the nation’s greatest domestic menace. Oh really? Not our own DOJ, FBI, and the rest of the Intel Community?

When it comes to real geopolitical friction, look in the other direction, at China. Not only is US weakness vividly obvious to them, they are substantially responsible for it, having successfully launched the bio-weapon Wuhan virus that pushed the disordered US economy over a cliff, and then helped install their errand boy in the oval office. Among other stupidities, the USA allowed most of its advanced microchip manufacturing capacity to relocate in Taiwan. We can’t run anything here from cars and refrigerators to municipal water systems, and probably even our war weaponry, without continuous supply and resupply of these chips. Game this out.

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/rudderless-leaderless-and-drifting/

James Howard Kunstler

While the China-sponsored hologram known as Joe Biden dazzled a sparsely-filled House chamber Wednesday night with a plan to turn the USA into the Big Rock Candy Mountain, events were spinning out of control so fast elsewhere that Rachel Maddow’s head was revolving like the demon-possessed little girl in The Exorcist, spewing a pea soup stream of Woke hysteria at her credulous audience. What’s got her noggin in a twist?

“Conspiracy Theorists” are auditing the 2020 election ballots in Arizona, causing “grave concern,” she gushed. An army of DC-based Lawfare attorneys attempted to quash the audit earlier in the week on the grounds that the vote had already been certified and that was that. But Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Daniel Martin ruled otherwise, that it was the prerogative of the state Senate to authorize it, and the audit continues. Democrats continue trying desperately to hit the pause button on the process. The venue, an old civic arena, is only rented until May 14, so physically disrupting the audit may be their only hope to prevent discovery of massive, widespread election fraud — exactly what the Democrats have aimed their firehose of propaganda against since last November.

The question is: what actually happens if the auditors come up with clear and conclusive evidence proving that the ballot count was wildly incorrect due to fraud? Might the Arizona legislature have to de-certify the results? One big tamale is the US Senate seat that former astronaut Mark Kelly, Democrat, took from Republican Martha McSally, giving the Dems a 50 plus one (Kamala Harris) vote advantage. Whoops, there goes Ol’ Joe’s agenda, right there. Might Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan have to submit to audits? Will it take lawsuits to prompt the courts in those states to order it? More importantly, does it shift public opinion further in the direction of cynicism and mistrust of the establishment — including their local officials and the news media?

The numbers are already pretty grim: 70 percent of Republicans and 30 percent of Democrats say they doubt the veracity of the 2020 election. Will the discovery that massive, widespread election fraud actually occurred lead to a constitutional crisis? How will Joe Biden survive in office if a growing percentage of the public sees him as illegitimate? And what might happen if the establishment attempts to blow the whole matter off? Can they still say “nothing to see” when the public has seen so much that they can’t unsee?

None of that will happen in a vacuum. Plenty of other events are roiling in the background with the potential to go critical. Joe Biden’s proposals to jack the US economy by $5-plus-trillion won’t be very good for the credibility of the US dollar, with other countries already eager to dissociate themselves from dollar-based global trade payment arrangements. But that’s just financial esoterica compared to what’s happening on-the-ground across America, with households running on debt and back payments for rent and mortgages piling up, and landlords and banks taking the hit in the meantime. There’s no Heimlich maneuver for a nation choking on debt. And that plan to become the Big Rock Candy Mountain, where they hung the jerk who invented work, is liable to disappoint even the mesmerists in the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Also, meanwhile, the US continues to stupidly stir the pot in Ukraine, to provoke war over the breakaway Donbass region in order to give NATO a reason to exist. The Russians don’t want or need to take responsibility for what has become a failed state. But Ukraine has been their buffer from European invasions for centuries and they won’t permit it to become a forward base-of-operations for NATO. Does the USA actually have any real interests there — other than to justify the earnings of defense contractors? The Biden family is not even taking any more payments out of there (as far as we know).

When it comes to real geopolitical friction, look in the other direction, at China. Not only is US weakness vividly obvious to them, they are substantially responsible for it, having successfully launched the bio-weapon Wuhan virus that pushed the disordered US economy over a cliff, and then helped install their errand boy in the oval office. Among other stupidities, the USA allowed most of its advanced microchip manufacturing capacity to relocate in Taiwan. We can’t run anything here from cars and refrigerators to municipal water systems, and probably even our war weaponry, without continuous supply and resupply of these chips. Game this out.

Then there is the fantastically stupid agitation and provocation on the home-front of the Democratic Party-sponsored Woke Jacobins, who are too dumb to even understand that if you want a police-state, you need police. Rather, they want to live in chaos and anarchy, the Satanic version of the Big Rock Candy Mountain, where the looters play in the stores all day and the jails have gone away. Joe Biden pimped for that hustle Wednesday night, too, declaring the nation systemically racist and “white supremacy” the nation’s greatest domestic menace. Oh really? Not our own DOJ, FBI, and the rest of the Intel Community?

The FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani was an interesting development on that front. The little imp that is Merrick Garland may have chosen the wrong guy to mess around with. If the bozos in DOJ actually charge him with something, they’ll find themselves in a special hell of discovery — that is, discovery of conclusive evidence that the DOJ has become a criminal operation actively working against the public interest. I daresay the truth is that just about everything the DOJ has done for the past five years involves the covering up of their own crimes, and a case against Mr. Giuliani will be just the wedge to open up public recognition of all that. That’s going to be a little bit of a problem when the people lose all faith that their public officials were elected fairly and honestly.

There’s a lot to push through and sort out in the months ahead. We’re all on ship, leaderless and rudderless, heading into a summer maelstrom.

Be seeing you

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