Part 1 of 4

The Whys Behind the Ukraine Crisis

September 3, 2014

Exclusive: Given the very high stakes of a nuclear confrontation with Russia, some analysts wonder what’s the real motive for taking this extraordinary risk over Ukraine. Is it about natural gas, protection of the U.S. dollar’s dominance, or an outgrowth of neocon extremism, asks Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

A senior U.S. diplomat told me recently that if Russia were to occupy all of Ukraine and even neighboring Belarus that there would be zero impact on U.S. national interests. The diplomat wasn’t advocating that, of course, but was noting the curious reality that Official Washington’s current war hysteria over Ukraine doesn’t connect to genuine security concerns.

So why has so much of the Washington Establishment from prominent government officials to all the major media pundits devoted so much time this past year to pounding their chests over the need to confront Russia regarding Ukraine? Who is benefiting from this eminently avoidable yet extremely dangerous crisis? What’s driving the madness?

Of course, Washington’s conventional wisdom is that America only wants “democracy” for the people of Ukraine and that Russian President Vladimir Putin provoked this confrontation as part of an imperialist design to reclaim Russian territory lost during the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. But that “group think” doesn’t withstand examination. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Who’s Telling the Big Lie on Ukraine?”]

The Ukraine crisis was provoked not by Putin but by a combination of the European Union’s reckless move to expand its influence eastward and the machinations of U.S. neoconservatives who were angered by Putin’s collaboration with President Barack Obama to tamp down confrontations in Syria and Iran, two neocon targets for “regime change.”

Plus, if “democracy promotion” were the real motive, there were obviously better ways to achieve it. Democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych pledged on Feb. 21 in an agreement guaranteed by three European nations to surrender much of his power and hold early elections so he could be voted out of office if the people wanted.

However, on Feb. 22, the agreement was brushed aside as neo-Nazi militias stormed presidential buildings and forced Yanukovych and other officials to flee for their lives. Rather than stand behind the Feb. 21 arrangement, the U.S. State Department quickly endorsed the coup regime that emerged as “legitimate” and the mainstream U.S. press dutifully demonized Yanukovych by noting, for instance, that a house being built for him had a pricy sauna.

The key role of the neo-Nazis, who were given several ministries in recognition of their importance to the putsch, was studiously ignored or immediately forgotten by all the big U.S. news outlets. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s ‘Dr. Strangelove’ Reality.”]

So, it’s hard for any rational person to swallow the official line that the U.S. interest in the spiraling catastrophe of Ukraine, now including thousands of ethnic Russians killed by the coup regime’s brutal “anti-terrorist operation,” was either to stop Putin’s imperial designs or to bring “democracy” to the Ukrainians.

That skepticism combined with the extraordinary danger of stoking a hot war on the border of nuclear-armed Russia has caused many observers to search for more strategic explanations behind the crisis, such as the West’s desires to “frack” eastern Ukraine for shale gas or the American determination to protect the dollar as the world’s currency.

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/09/03/the-whys-behind-the-ukraine-crisis/

>>15798584

Part 2 of 4

Thermo-Nuclear War Anyone?

The thinking is that when the potential cost of such an adventure, i.e. thermo-nuclear warfare that could end all life on the planet, is so high, the motivation must be commensurate. And there is logic behind that thinking although it’s hard to conceive what financial payoff is big enough to risk wiping out all humanity including the people on Wall Street.

But sometimes gambles are made with the assumption that lots of money can be pocketed before cooler heads intervene to prevent total devastation — or even the more immediate risk that the Ukraine crisis will pitch Europe into a triple-dip recession that could destabilize the fragile U.S. economy, too.

In the Ukraine case, the temptation has been to think that Moscow hit with escalating economic sanctions will back down even as the EU and U.S. energy interests seize control of eastern Ukraine’s energy reserves. The fracking could mean both a financial bonanza to investors and an end to Russia’s dominance of the natural gas supplies feeding central and eastern Europe. So the economic and geopolitical payoff could be substantial.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Ukraine has Europe’s third-largest shale gas reserves at 42 trillion cubic feet, an inviting target especially since other European nations, such as Britain, Poland, France and Bulgaria, have resisted fracking technology because of environmental concerns. An economically supine Ukraine would presumably be less able to say no. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Beneath the Ukraine Crisis: Shale Gas.”]

Further supporting the “natural gas motive” is the fact that it was Vice President Joe Biden who demanded that President Yanukovych pull back his police on Feb. 21, a move that opened the way for the neo-Nazi militias and the U.S.-backed coup. Then, just three months later, Ukraine’s largest private gas firm, Burisma Holdings, appointedBiden’s son, Hunter Biden, to its board of directors.

While that might strike some of you as a serious conflict of interest, even vocal advocates for ethics in government lost their voices amid Washington’s near-universal applause for the ouster of Yanukovych and warm affection for the coup regime in Kiev.

For instance, Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, dismissed the idea that Hunter Biden’s new job should raise eyebrows, telling Reuters: “It can’t be that because your dad is the vice president, you can’t do anything,”

Who Is Behind Burisma?

Soon, Burisma a shadowy Cyprus-based company was lining up well-connected lobbyists, some with ties to Secretary of State John Kerry, including Kerry’s former Senate chief of staff David Leiter, according to lobbying disclosures.

As Time magazine reported, “Leiter’s involvement in the firm rounds out a power-packed team of politically-connected Americans that also includes a second new board member, Devon Archer, a Democratic bundler and former adviser to John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. Both Archer and Hunter Biden have worked as business partners with Kerry’s son-in-law, Christopher Heinz, the founding partner of Rosemont Capital, a private-equity company.”

According to investigative journalism in Ukraine, the ownership of Burisma has been traced to Privat Bank, which is controlled by the thuggish billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky, who was appointed by the coup regime to be governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a south-central province of Ukraine. Kolomoysky also has been associated with the financing of brutal paramilitary forces killing ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/09/03/the-whys-behind-the-ukraine-crisis/

>>15798590

Part 3 of 4

Also, regarding this energy motive, it shouldn’t be forgotten that on Dec. 13, 2013, when neocon Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland reminded Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations,” she was at a conference sponsored by Chevron. She even stood next to the company’s logo.

So, clearly energy resources and the billions of dollars that go with them should be factored in when trying to solve the mystery of why Official Washington has gone so berserk about a confrontation with Russia that boils down to whether ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine should be allowed some measure of autonomy or be put firmly under the thumb of U.S.-friendly authorities in Kiev.

There’s also the issue of Russia’s interest in exploring with China and other emerging economies the possibility of escaping the financial hegemony of the U.S. dollar, a move that could seriously threaten American economic dominance. According to this line of thinking, the U.S. and its close allies need to bring Moscow to its geopolitical knees where it was under the late Boris Yeltsin to stop any experimentation with other currencies for global trade.

Again, the advocates for this theory have a point. Protecting the Mighty Dollar is of utmost importance to Wall Street. The financial cataclysm of a potential ouster of the U.S. dollar as the world’s benchmark currency might understandably prompt some powerful people to play a dangerous game of chicken with nuclear-armed Russia.

Of course, there’s also the budgetary interest of NATO and the U.S. “military-industrial complex” (which helps fund many of Washington’s “think tanks”) to hype every propaganda opportunity to scare the American people about the “Russian threat.”

And, it’s a truism that every major international confrontation has multiple drivers. Think back on the motives behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Among a variety of factors were Vice President Dick Cheney’s lust for oil, President George W. Bush’s psychological rivalry with his father, and the neocons’ interest in orchestrating “regime change” in countries considered hostile to Israel. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Mysterious Why of the Iraq War.”]

There are also other reasons to disdain Putin, from his bare-chested horseback riding to his retrograde policies on gay rights. But he is no Stalin and surely no Hitler.

The Neocons’ ‘Samson Option’

So, while it’s reasonable to see multiple motives behind the brinksmanship with Russia over Ukraine, the sheer recklessness of the confrontation has, to me, the feel of an ideology or an “ism,” where people are ready to risk it all for some larger vision that is central to their being.

That is why I have long considered the Ukraine crisis to be an outgrowth of the neoconservative obsession with Israel’s interests in the Middle East.

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/09/03/the-whys-behind-the-ukraine-crisis/

>>15798595

Part 4 of 4

Not only did key neocons the likes of Assistant Secretary Nuland and Sen. John McCain put themselves at the center of the coup plotting last winter but the neocons had an overriding motive: they wanted to destroy the behind-the-scenes collaboration between President Obama and President Putin who had worked together to avert a U.S. bombing campaign against the Syrian government a year ago and then advanced negotiations with Iran over limiting but not eliminating its nuclear program.

Those Obama-Putin diplomatic initiatives frustrated the desires of Israeli officials and the neocons to engineer “regime change” in those two countries. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even believed that bombing Iran’s nuclear plants was an “existential” necessity.

Further, there was the possibility that an expansion of the Obama-Putin cooperation could have supplanted Israel’s powerful position as a key arbiter of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Thus, the Obama-Putin relationship had to be blown up and the Ukraine crisis was the perfect explosive for the destruction. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Why Neocons Seek to Destabilize Russia.”]

Though I’m told that Obama now understands how the neocons and other hardliners outmaneuvered him over Ukraine, he has felt compelled to join in Official Washington’s endless Putin-bashing, causing a furious Putin to make clear that he cannot be counted on to assist Obama on tricky foreign policy predicaments like Syria and Iran.

As I wrote last April, “There is a ‘little-old-lady-who-swallowed-the-fly’ quality to neocon thinking. When one of their schemes goes bad, they simply move to a bigger, more dangerous scheme. If the Palestinians and Lebanon’s Hezbollah persist in annoying you and troubling Israel, you target their sponsors with ‘regime change’ in Iraq, Syria and Iran. If your ‘regime change’ in Iraq goes badly, you escalate the subversion of Syria and the bankrupting of Iran.

“Just when you think you’ve cornered President Barack Obama into a massive bombing campaign against Syria with a possible follow-on war against Iran Putin steps in to give Obama a peaceful path out, getting Syria to surrender its chemical weapons and Iran to agree to constraints on its nuclear program. So, this Obama-Putin collaboration has become your new threat. That means you take aim at Ukraine, knowing its sensitivity to Russia.

“You support an uprising against elected President Viktor Yanukovych, even though neo-Nazi militias are needed to accomplish the actual coup. You get the U.S. State Department to immediately recognize the coup regime although it disenfranchises many people of eastern and southern Ukraine, where Yanukovych had his political base.

“When Putin steps in to protect the interests of those ethnic Russian populations and supports the secession of Crimea (endorsed by 96 percent of voters in a hastily called referendum), your target shifts again. Though you’ve succeeded in your plan to drive a wedge between Obama and Putin, Putin’s resistance to your Ukraine plans makes him the next focus of ‘regime change.’

“Your many friends in the mainstream U.S. news media begin to relentlessly demonize Putin with a propaganda barrage that would do a totalitarian state proud. The anti-Putin ‘group think’ is near total and any accusation regardless of the absence of facts is fine.”

Yet, by risking a potential nuclear confrontation with Russia — the equivalent of the old lady swallowing a horse — the neocons have moved beyond what can be described in a children’s ditty. It has become more like a global version of Israel’s “Samson Option,” the readiness to use nuclear weapons in a self-destructive commitment to eliminate your enemies whatever the cost to yourself.

But what is particularly shocking in this case is how virtually everyone in U.S. officialdom and across the mainstream media spectrum has bought into this madness.

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/09/03/the-whys-behind-the-ukraine-crisis/

>>15798844

Full pf shit shilly

>>15798721

Dont do it.

Chelation and other things may be able to pull out the things injected. It may not be as easy as you think.

If you have multiple offers you can get a doctor that writes a medical exemption

Find out if they will soon ne required to drop the mandate…i believe that is coming

If you have money hold out

https://twitter.com/DJT1946Official/status/1500310726006939649?s=20&t=85-MfKoPL6t-O1EWTEy0Nw

https://twitter.com/carlosvecchio/status/1496996604544528394?s=20&t=85-MfKoPL6t-O1EWTEy0Nw>>15798584

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1500543643526090753?s=20&t=85-MfKoPL6t-O1EWTEy0Nw

Russia became great again

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1500534709184516109?s=20&t=85-MfKoPL6t-O1EWTEy0Nw

where’s Waldo, I mean Fauci

https://twitter.com/chiproytx/status/1500270543563636739?s=20&t=85-MfKoPL6t-O1EWTEy0Nw

>>15798948

Never had support, dont expect it except when here at times. Why do you need support?

>>15798923

I dont believe anything out if Uk

6 Mar, 2022 17:54

Russia claims Ukraine destroying evidence of US-funded bioweapons program

Russia’s Defense Ministry says Kiev ordered scientists to destroy samples of plague, anthrax, and other lethal pathogens

As Russian troops entered Ukraine, the government in Kiev ordered the “emergency destruction” of pathogens including plague and anthrax at US-funded laboratories near the Russian border, the Ministry of Defense in Moscow claimed on Sunday. Earlier rumors that the Russian military was targeting US-run biolabs were written off as conspiracy theories, but the ministry has promised to back up its claims with documents.

“We have received documentation from employees of Ukrainian biolaboratories on the emergency destruction on February 24 of especially dangerous pathogens of plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other deadly diseases,” read a statement from the ministry.

The statement accused the “Kiev regime” of conducting an “emergency cleansing” to hide evidence of the supposed biological weapons program, which the ministry claimed was funded by the US, and involved the production of “biological weapons components” at at least two laboratories in the cities of Poltava and Kharkov, both of which have seen intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces in recent days.

The documents published by the ministry purportedly include an order from the Ukrainian Ministry of Health to destroy the pathogens, and lists of the germs in question.

RT can not independently verify the authenticity of these documents. Russia’s Defense Ministry said that they are currently being analyzed by radiation, chemical and biological protection specialists.

“In the near future we will present the results of the analysis,” the ministry said, adding that it believes the documents will prove that Ukraine and the US were violating Article 1 of the UN Biological Weapons Convention. The US, Ukraine and Russia are among more than 180 parties to this treaty, and under Article 1 of the agreement, all parties agree “never under any circumstances to develop, produce, stockpile, acquire, or retain” biological weapons.

As of the moment of this article’s publication, Washington has not commented on the ministry’s claims, and neither has Kiev.

In the initial days of Russia’s military offensive last month, claims circulated online that Russia was targeting western-funded biolabs with missile strikes. These allegations were never verified and were derided by western sources as conspiracy theories, although the Pentagon has publicly stated that it works with the Ukrainian government to “consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern in Ukrainian government facilities,” for “peaceful research and vaccine development,” according to the US embassy in Kiev.

https://www.rt.com/russia/551374-ukraine-biological-warfare-labs/

6 Mar, 2022 17:34

Putin decides on meeting over Ukraine’s nuclear plants

Attempts to blame Moscow for the incident at the Zaporozhskaya NPP are part of a ‘propaganda campaign,’ Russia's president said

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is open to a meeting on the safety of Ukrainian nuclear plants, but that it should not be in Chernobyl, the location suggested by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi.

In a phone call with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, on Sunday, Putin accused Ukrainian radicals of creating a “provocation”at the Zaporozhskaya nuclear power plant “with the involvement of a sabotage group.”

The shootout and fire at Ukraine’s Zaporozhskaya nuclear power plant on March 4 sparked worldwide concern and accusations that Russia was risking a nuclear disaster. Kiev and Moscow, however, accused each other of provoking the situation.

“Attempts to blame the Russian military for this incident are part of a cynical propaganda campaign,” Putin said, according to statement from the Kremlin.

Putin responded to the suggestion by Grossi to hold a trilateral (IAEA, Ukraine and Russia) meeting in the Chernobyl zone. He noted that “in principle this idea could be useful” but suggested it would be better to hold the meeting “via videoconference or in a third country.”

According to the Elysee, Putin accepted during the almost two-hour call, that the IAEA should take immediate steps to ensure the safety of Ukrainian nuclear plants.

The “physical and nuclear safety” of the Zaporozhskaya plant is being maintained by Russian troops in cooperation with Ukrainian security and personnel, Putin said, adding that Russian forces remained in control of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant – the site of the biggest nuclear disaster in history.

“All this is being done in order to exclude the possibility of provocations fraught with catastrophic consequences by Ukrainian neo-Nazis or terrorists,” the Kremlin said.

The Russian leader said Moscow was ready to talk with Kiev subject to the “unconditional fulfillment of well-known Russian demands.”Macron, in turn, underlined the importance of a negotiated solution “fully acceptable to the Ukrainians” and shared his concern over a suspected “imminent attack” on the city of Odessa.

An Elsysee spokesperson, speaking to French media after the call, said the Russian president had shown his determination to achieve his goals, either “by negotiation or by war.”

Putin announced what he called a “special military operation” on February 24, saying it was necessary to “demilitarize” and “denazify”Ukraine urgently and to protect both the security of the Donbass republics and Russia’s own national security. The West has collectively responded to the attack on Ukraine by imposing severe sanctions on Moscow covering various sectors of the Russian economy.

https://www.rt.com/russia/551369-putin-macron-nuclear-security/

6 Mar, 2022 11:37

EU comments on warplanes for Kiev

Ukraine insists it needs jet fighters to repel the Russian attack

European Council President Charles Michel has said that the bloc’s military aid to Ukraine will not include jet fighters, which Kiev has insisted it badly needs to fend off the ongoing Russian invasion.

“The European Union is definitely not at war with Russia. A war is what Russia has launched against Ukraine, a country very friendly and very close to the EU. That is why we support Ukraine on all levels,” Michel said in an interview with several European newspapers on Saturday.

The chief of the EU’s top political body confirmed that the EU pledged €500 million ($547 million) in military aid to Kiev, €450 million ($492 million) of which will go to buying weapons.

“But these European funds will not be used to finance the delivery of combat aircraft to Ukraine,” Michel noted. He said, however, that the funds may be used by individual EU member states to supply the Ukrainian Air Force with spare parts and other equipment.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been asking NATO countries to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine, or at least provide Kiev with jet fighters. A no-fly zone could see NATO shoot down Russian planes in Ukraine, likely leading to a direct confrontation with Moscow, and has been rejected by the military bloc

Several US news outlets reported on Saturday that the White House was working with Warsaw in order to deliver Soviet-era aircraft from Poland to Ukraine. However, Poland previously ruled out sending planes to Kiev.

Russia invaded its neighbor last week, arguing that it was defending the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which seceded from Ukraine in 2014 and were recognized by Moscow as independent states in February.

Moscow said it sought the “demilitarization and denazification” of the country, without elaborating, but made it clear that it wants Ukraine to officially become a neutral country, renouncing its bid to join NATO.

Kiev said the attack was entirely unprovoked and appealed to the international community for help.

https://www.rt.com/news/551356-eu-chief-warplanes-ukraine/

6 Mar, 2022 14:12

Moody’s downgrades Russia’s credit ratings to pre-default

The agency cuts Russia rating to Ca on rise in default risk

Reminder Moodys never downgraded the insurance companies that caused destruction in the US through credit default swaps. So fuck Moodys

On Sunday, international rating agency Moody’s Investors Service has lowered Russia’s credit rating to Ca, the second-lowest grade of its ratings ladder. The decision was “driven by severe concerns around Russia’s willingness and ability to pay its debt obligations.”

According to the agency, capital controls earlier introduced by Russia’s central bank are expected to restrict payments on the country’s foreign debt and may lead to default.

Last week, the Bank of Russia temporarily halted payments and said it had barred coupon payments for foreign investors holding OFZs, rouble-denominated sovereign debt.

On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a new regulation allowing Russia and Russian companies to pay foreign creditors in rubles, the measure establishes temporary rules for sovereign and corporate debtors to provide payments to creditors from “countries that engage in hostile activities”against Russia, its companies, and citizens.

On Sunday, the Central Bank said that creditors from Russia and states that have not joined the sanctions will be able to receive debt payments in rubles or in foreign currency after getting a special permit by the regulator.

On March 16 Russia is to pay $107 million in coupons across two Eurobonds. Moody’s warned of increasing risks, saying that foreign bondholders were likely to recoup only part of their investment.

“The likely recovery for investors will be in line with the historical average, commensurate with a Ca rating,” it said.

“At the Ca rating level, the recovery expectations are at 35 to 65% (of face value).”

Moody’s along with two other credit rating majors Fitch and S&P Global had previously scored Russia at investment-grade levels of Baa3/BBB. Since then, all three have lowered their scores by several notches, putting Russia’s credit firmly in the “junk,” or non-investment grade status. S&P rates Russia at “CCC-minus” while Fitch has it on B, with a negative outlook, meaning a further downgrade is likely.

https://www.rt.com/business/551361-moodys-downgrade-srussia-credit-ratings/