General Research #19770 >>>/qresearch/15635601

Russia Claims Ukraine Standoff Is Over

The Russian government claimed on Tuesday that several military units have completed “scheduled drills” along border with Ukraine and will now return to their permanent bases, bringing their armor and artillery with them.

Russian officials taunted the Biden administration by claiming the redeployment “humiliated” Western war hysterics, while Ukrainian and NATO military officials said they did not see any immediate sign of Russian forces actually pulling back from the border.

Russia’s state-run Tass news agency quoted Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov’s claim that Russian troops were packing their gear and preparing to depart on Wednesday morning.

“As combat training measures are coming to a close, the troops, as is always the case, will conduct combined marches to their permanent garrisons. Units of the Southern and Western Military Districts that have accomplished their tasks have already begun loading personnel and equipment on railway and auto transport means and will today begin heading to their military garrisons,” Konashenkov stated.

The Defense Ministry statement implied that withdrawal could take some time because some of the units would be marching home on foot, in column formations, as part of their training.

Russia’s Southern Military District made a similar announcement on Tuesday that its troops were loading their “heavy tracked armor, such as tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and self-propelled artillery guns” onto trains and preparing to return from Crimea to bases in Dagestan and North Ossetia.

“The units of the Southern Military District that have completed accomplishing their tasks as part of scheduled tactical exercises at combined arms practice ranges on the Crimean Peninsula have begun returning to their permanent bases. The personnel of battalion tactical groups have conducted marches to the areas of railway stations where operations to load combat equipment on special platforms have been organized,” the district command stated.

The Ministry of Defense said some troops and naval units are still “training” in the neighborhood of Ukraine, and would begin a fresh round of drills on Tuesday.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Western powers had been “humiliated and destroyed without a single shot fired” because their warnings of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine were ostensibly rendered foolish by the withdrawal announcement.

“15 February, 2022, will go down in history as the day Western war propaganda failed,” Zakharova declared.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday said the alleged conclusion of scheduled drills along the Ukrainian border countered “information terrorism” emanating from the United States and Europe.

“As for drills that Russia conducts on its own territory and in accordance with its own plans – let me specially emphasize that again – they begin, are implemented and concluded as planned. We have repeatedly stated that,” Lavrov said after meeting with Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau in Moscow.

“And this refers to the drills in the country’s west, similar measures in the Far East or the joint Russian-Belarusian drills that are also developing and proceeding in strict compliance with the approved schedule,” Lavrov continued.

“This is done irrespective of who thinks what, who and how is hysterical about this, who and how unleashes this genuine information terrorism and I am not afraid to use this word. The caravan keeps going,” he said.

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2022/02/15/russia-claims-ukraine-standoff-is-over/

General Research #19770 >>>/qresearch/15635613

Hillary Clinton Confronted Over Durham Allegation That Her Campaign Paid To ‘Infiltrate’ Trump Tower, White House

Hillary Clinton on Tuesday morning was confronted with questions regarding special counsel John Durham’s allegation that her 2016 campaign paid a company to spy on former President Donald Trump at the White House and Trump Tower.

The former Presidential candidate declined to comment to a reporter from the Daily Mail. Watch below.

On Monday, White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also refused to address the bombshell allegations.

“That’s something I can’t speak to from this podium, so I refer you to the Department of Justice,” Jean-Pierre said.

https://breaking911.com/watch-hillary-clinton-confronted-over-durham-allegation-that-her-campaign-paid-to-infiltrate-trump-tower-white-house/

General Research #19770 >>>/qresearch/15635748

ICYMI: CNN POLL: 51 Percent of Democrats Do NOT Want Joe Biden as the 2024 Nominee

https://thegatewaypundit.com/2022/02/cnn-po

CNN POLL: 51 Percent of Democrats Do NOT Want Joe Biden as the 2024 Nominee

A new CNN poll reveals 51% of Democrats don’t want 81 million vote recipient Joe Biden as the 2024 nominee.

The fake news media still hasn’t explained how the most popular president in US history lost his popularity in one year.

The reality is Joe Biden was in fifth place during the Democrat primaries in 2020.

Democrat voters weren’t excited about a geriatric Dementia patient.

But the DNC rigged the primaries (again) and installed Joe Biden with ballot harvesting and Zuckerberg ballot boxes.

The Biden presidency is going just about as bad as we expected: Record inflation, soaring gas prices, record unemployment, Russia, Iran and North Korea saber-rattling, supply chain crisis, Covid tyranny and more.

51 percent of Democrats do not want Joe Biden as the 2024 nominee, according to a CNN poll released on Sunday.

WATCH:

A CNN poll released Thursday continues a brutal string of polling for Joe Biden with this poll giving Biden a new low of 41 percent approval and a new high of 58 percent disapproval.

57 percent rate Biden’s first year in office a failure.

Strikingly, among those who disapprove of Biden’s performance, 56 percent say Biden has done nothing they approve of.

But he totally got 81 million votes.

Updated: February 15, 2022

General Research #19773 >>>/qresearch/15637524

GOP senators call on Justice Department to release Crossfire Hurricane records

The senators are concerned that improper redactions may be made by the DOJ.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Tuesday sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling on the Justice Department to declassify the Crossfire Hurricane records that President Donald Trump ordered to be released while he was in office.

Grassley, ranking Judiciary Committee member, and Johnson, ranking Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations member, said that the Department of Justice's "delayed transparency has interfered with congressional investigators’ review of what should already be public records."

Crossfire Hurricane is the name given to the FBI's investigation of the Trump 2016 campaign and possible ties to Russia. Trump ordered the declassification of any documents related to the probe on his last full day as president.

Sen. Johnson and Sen. Grassley in October 2021 demanded answers from the DOJ about the records' release. Since then, "the Justice Department has not only failed to declassify a single page, the Department has failed to identify for Congress records that it knows with certainty to be covered by the declassification directive," the duo wrote to Garland.

The senators voiced concern that the DOJ has yet to identify records "subject to the declassification directive" or confirm that the records have not already been reviewed by congressional staff. They also stressed that the department must ensure that the records will not be improperly redacted.

"[O]ur staff should not have to spend potentially multiple days and countless hours in the Department’s classified facility only to play a guessing game with the Department about what document may or may not be covered by the declassification directive and potentially review records that have already been produced to Congress," the senators wrote.

A previous letter from the DOJ to Grassley and Johnson "failed to provide information" about department actions taken to decide which records should be declassified, among other things, they said.

"Our oversight efforts are based on our unyielding belief that the American people deserve to know the complete truth about the Crossfire Hurricane investigation," Johnson and Grassley told Garland.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) last year released transcripts of interviews from the Senate Judiciary Committee's Crossfire Hurricane investigation. He criticized the FBI's probe as "a massive system failure by senior leadership."

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/gop-senators-call-justice-department-release-crossfire-hurricane-records

>>119614

General Research #19773 >>>/qresearch/15638155

ICYMI

>>119618

This might make it better

>>119623

Here:

Ukraine Crisis: Wall Street Should Forget Putin And Start Counting Ships

John Konrad February 15, 2022

by John Konrad (gCaptain) On Friday President Biden warned that Russia could attack Ukraine “any day now” and “the United States together with our allies and partners will respond decisively.” The stock market sold off sharply with the Dow Jones dropping more than 500 points. Yesterday morning Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said that his country is open to talks and the stock market responded by rallying hundreds of points… then the market fell slowly throughout the day and evening. This morning stock futures were down until Putin said he would start withdrawing troops. The market responded by opening up 400 points.

I don’t know if Russia will invade Ukraine or not. Nobody does. It is possible that Putin hasn’t even made up his mind. With so much uncertainty why is the Stock Market taking every headline at face value? I don’t know the answer to that either.

What we do know for certain is that Putin’s under no obligation to broadcast the specifics of his invasion plans (or lack of plans) to financial news outlets. In fact, there is a strong incentive for him to act a little crazy.

“Build a reputation for being a little crazy. Fighting you is not worth it. Uncertainty can be better than an explicit threat,” writes master strategist Robert Greene in his bestselling book The 33 Strategies of War. “If your opponents aren’t sure what attacking you will cost, they will not want to find out.”

Is The US Ready For War With Russia?

Biden has sent 3,000 troops to Poland which is less than one percent the number of troops Russia has on the Ukraine border. Bosphorus Naval News claims that no US or large NATO warships have entered the Black Sea this year and, according to the maritime intelligence experts at Geollect, there are currently zero US-flagged ships of any type (including sealift ships) transmitting their AIS position in the Black Sea.

The US Army and Marines do have assets prepositioned for war but there is no indication they have been sent to the Black Sea. “Originally the Marine Corps, through the Navy’s Military Sealift Command, maintained three squadrons of ships which could each offload and support a 16,000-person Marine Expeditionary Brigade anywhere in the world for thirty days,” says maritime historian Sal Mercogliano. “In 2012, Squadron One in the Mediterranean was dissolved, and its assets rolled into the other two squadrons or added to the strategic sealift fleet. These ships could be sent to Europe but would require prolonged transits from their bases at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean or the western Pacific.”

In short, moving large forces from the continental United States would require the use of government-owned ships held in reserve. Without these ships – and no amphibious warships, aircraft carriers, submarines, or surface ships in the Black Sea – it’s highly unlikely the US could fight any battle against Russia in Ukraine.

And it’s not just Mediterranean US Army and Marine supply ships that have been cut from the defense budget, but patrols of the Black Sea itself.

According to Stars and Stripes magazine, the U.S. Navy has shouldered most of the burden for patrolling the Black Sea. The number of days its warships spend annually in the strategic waterway mostly has fallen since 2014, when Kremlin forces seized Crimea from Ukraine.

“It is frustrating to see wavering allied presence in the Black Sea,” said Adm. James G. Foggo III (US Navy Retired), Dean of the Center for Maritime Strategy, at the US Navy League. “The inconsistency (of Clack Sea patrols) is driven by competing security priorities among allies, a lack of available ships and resources, and the failure of NATO to devise and implement a strategy in the Black Sea.”

According to the Bosphorus Naval News the last United States Navy warship – USS Arleigh Burke – left the region on December 15th, the French Navy left the day prior, and the UK’s Royal Navy hasn’t been in the Black Sea since last summer.

Biden said that if Russia attacks the Ukrain the “United States together with our allies and partners will respond decisively.” By counting ships, however, it’s clear that a decisive military response is not a legitimate option (at least not in the short term).

Full Article:

https://gcaptain.com/ukraine-crisis-wall-street-should-forget-putin-and-start-looking-at-logistics/