8 Aug, 2022 11:16

West wants to destroy Russia – former president

The conflicts in both Ukraine and Georgia are links in the same chain, Dmitry Medvedev says

The West has launched an aggressive “geopolitical process” aimed at destroying Russia, former President Dmitry Medvedev claimed in an interview with TASS published on Monday.

Asked if the hostilities between Russia and Georgia in 2008 and the current conflict in Ukraine are “links in the same chain,”Medvedev said they are without a doubt part of the same scheme orchestrated by the West.

“This is a single process and a common plan directed against Russia. It consists of the desire of the West, primarily the United States and other Anglo-Saxon countries, to rock the situation in our country. How? Through neighbors in close proximity to the borders of Russia,” Medvedev, the deputy head of the National Security Council, and president of Russia from 2008 to 2012, explained.

He noted that before the conflict with Georgia began in 2008, when Tbilisi’s forces began shelling the disputed region of South Ossetia and killed a number of Russian peacekeepers and civilians, the US was “cynically engaged”in the training, funding, and arming of the Georgian Army, and Washington was actively encouraging then-Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to launch an attack against the civilian population in the area.

The same “provocative and, let’s face it, criminal policy of the US” is currently being aggressively pursued in Ukraine, Medvedev said, adding that this time, the process is receiving more active support from theEU, which he says has “finally lost its independence.

“But the end goal remains the same,” he claimed, “to destroy Russia,” arguing that this goal is the root cause of the “extremely aggressive, Russophobic geopolitical process initiated by the West.”

The former president went on to say that despite NATO’s attempts to expand along Russia’s borders, which has become “a global problem that makes all reasonable people sick,” the US-led bloc has no intention of allowing either Ukraine or Georgia to become members.

“They understand that anything they undertake in beleaguered countries such as Ukraine or Georgia, which are in territorial disputes with Russia, will be more expensive for themselves. The costs will be enormous,”Medvedev noted, adding that neither Kiev nor Tbilisi will ever become members of NATO or the EU, and that “even the unshaven guy in a green T-shirt from Kiev” understands this.

https://www.rt.com/news/560452-medvedev-west-destroy-russia/

8 Aug, 2022 11:54

Pentagon-hired contractors ‘everywhere on battlefield’ in Ukraine – media

US “auxiliaries” are propping up Kiev’s armed forces, French intelligence reportedly believes

Ukrainian forces have “had the American military at their side” from the start of the conflict with Russia, the magazine Causeur cited a “well-placed analyst” in French intelligence as saying. Pentagon-hired contractors are allegedly “everywhere on the battlefield.”

The claim was published by the right-leaning outlet last week in an analysis of the five-month-long Russia-Ukraine conflict, which, it stated, “is not the fight of David against Goliath,” contrary to what many people believe.

“In Ukraine, the Pentagon for the first time subcontracted large-scale warfare,” the magazine cited its source as saying. These “mercenaries” come in addition to the “gigantic” military aid provided to Kiev by Washington, and are not necessarily frontline fighters, according to Causeur.

As an example of ‘subcontracted’ warfare, it cited the widely-publicized supply of SpaceX satellite internet access for Ukrainian military officials. CEO Elon Musk initially framed this as an act of charitable support, but media reports later revealed that it was paid for with US taxpayer money.

The US decided not to involve its troops in Ukraine, claiming it did not want a direct confrontation with Russia. However, the French magazine said Washington is apparently ignoring the threat of escalation as it pours weapons and private manpower into Ukraine for the sake of “bleeding” Russia, which, the US government hopes, will result in a strategic defeat for Moscow.

The magazine also said that Russia appears to be slowly gaining the upper hand over Ukraine as its superior firepower is prevailing over Kiev’s eight-year preparations for a fight for Donbass. The heavy damage caused by Russian artillery and aerial forces have led to dissertations and insubordination among the Ukrainian troops, it said. If the Russian forces progress beyond the heavily urbanized Donbass with its unfavorable terrain, the balance of power could quickly shift in Moscow’s favor, the report said.

https://www.rt.com/russia/560458-ukraine-american-contractors-battlefield/

8 Aug, 2022 14:51

HomeRussia & FSU

CBS caves into Ukrainian pressure on weapons revelations

The about turn comes after heavy pressure from Kiev press and think-tank supporters on social media

CBS News has pulled a documentary and amended a story featuring claims that 70% of foreign weapons never make it to the front lines in Ukraine. The changes were made amid an outcry from the Ukrainian government and its supporters.

The documentary originally featured an interview with Jonas Ohman, the founder of a Lithuania-based organization supplying the Ukrainian military. Ohman told CBS that getting foreign weapons to Ukrainian troops involves navigating a network of “power lords, oligarchs [and] political players,” and that of all the aid arriving at the border in Poland, “kind of like 30% of it reaches its final destination.”

Amnesty International’s Donatella Rovera also appeared in the film, saying that “there is really no information as to where [the weapons are] going at all.”

The documentary was released online on Thursday, and was set to air on CBS on Sunday evening.

Pro-Ukrainian social media accounts hounded CBS over the weekend, accusing the American network of spreading “Russian propaganda.” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhail Podoliak waded in, saying there is “no proof” that weapons entering his country are unaccounted for, despite similar warnings from the Russian government, Europol, Canada, the CIA and a number of US Republicans.

The documentary was pulled from CBS’ website on Sunday night, and Ohman’s quote removed from a text version of the story. Atop this story, CBS placed a note saying that arms deliveries have “significantly improved” since its filming in April, and that the US sent a senior military official to Kiev in recent days “for arms control and monitoring.”

Ohman’s organization issued a statementsaying that the documentary took his words “out of context,”but did not deny that 70% of incoming military aid was going missing in April. Weapons were not being “stolen” or “sold on the black market,” the organization explained, but ending up in the hands of “different power players” attempting to “solidify their positions.” Who these players were was left unexplained.

CBS said that it is “updating” its documentary and will air the edited version at a later date.

Rovera, already slated by the Ukrainian government and its supporters over a recent Amnesty report accusing Kiev of placing weapons in civilian areas in violation of humanitarian law, also attempted to backpedal. In a Twitter post on Sunday,she claimed that the responsibility for tracking arms shipments lies with the states providing the weapons, not with Ukraine.

The Ukrainian government welcomed the CBS retraction. Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba nevertheless declared that the US network had “misled a huge audience by sharing unsubstantiated claims and damaging trust in supplies of vital military aid to a nation resisting aggression and genocide.”

“There should be an internal investigation into who enabled this and why,” he concluded.

Others criticized the changes, which journalist Max Blumenthal said were made following “a coordinated freakout by the Ukraine lobby.”

“Amazing how the national security state can make a news agency delete accurate information,” conservative podcaster Scott Greer tweeted. “The only counter argument was that the situation was improving, according to the Pentagon lol.”

Ukraine has repeatedly argued that an uninterrupted flow of Western weapons are key to its survival on the battlefield. Since February, the US has approved more than $54 billion of economic and military aid to Ukraine, while the UK has committed nearly $3 billion in military aid alone, and the EU has spent another $2.5 billion on arms for Kiev.

Despite the influx of weapons, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky remarked last week that his military remains outnumbered and outgunned by Russia’s. Describing the fighting in Donbass as “hell,” Zelensky appealed to the US and its allies for even more arms and equipment, particularly HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems.

https://www.rt.com/russia/560473-cbs-deletes-ukraine-documentary/

Fucking outrageous