Ukrainian saboteurs hit by ‘massive strike’ – Moscow

A cross-border raid by Kiev’s operatives has been thwarted, the Russian Federal Security Service has said

Kiev's operatives, who had crossed into Russia’s Bryansk Region on Thursday, have been forced back into Ukrainian territory and hit with a “massive artillery strike,” the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has said.

Earlier, the Russian military and security services reported that saboteurs had crossed into the Bryansk Region bordering Ukraine and launched raids on several local villages. At least two civilians were killed in those attacks, which also left a child injured, the local authorities said.

“In order to avoid civilian casualties as well as damage to civilian infrastructure, the enemy was pushed back to Ukrainian territory, where they were hit with a massive artillery strike,” the FSB told the Russian media. “A raid by the Ukrainian nationalists in the Klimovsky District of the Bryansk Region has been thwarted.”

In a separate statement earlier the same day, the FSB said that a large number of explosive devices of various types had been found in the area. Bomb squads were deployed to disarm the explosives. Bryansk Governor Aleksandr Bogomaz also reported artillery and mortar strikes in the area.

Russian President Vladimir Putin branded the incident a “terrorist attack,” calling people responsible for such acts “neo-Nazis and terrorists.” He also suggested that those behind Thursday's raids might have also been behind the assassination of Russian journalist Darya Dugina, whose car was blown up near Moscow in August.

Russian regions bordering Ukraine have regularly come under attacks by Kiev’s forces since the start of the ongoing conflict. The local authorities in Bryansk and Kursk Regions have repeatedly reported shelling by the Ukrainian forces, which has sometimes resulted in civilian casualties.

https://www.rt.com/russia/572349-fsb-strike-kiev-operatives/

Blinken and Lavrov meet at G20

In their first face-to-face encounter in more than a year, the US’ top diplomat asked his Russian counterpart to return to a nuclear treaty

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi on Thursday. Blinken said he urged Russia to return to the New START arms control treaty, but Moscow has already insisted that Washington’s “hybrid war” on Russia makes serious discussions impossible.

The two diplomats met for around ten minutes. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters that Blinken “asked for contact” with Lavrov. However, the brief encounter was conducted on the fly and could not be considered “negotiations,” she added.

In his own press conference after the meeting, Blinken said that he reaffirmed the US’ support for Ukraine, raised the possibility of a prisoner exchange for captured American Paul Whelan, and “urged Russia to reverse its irresponsible decision and return to implementing the New START treaty.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law this week to suspend the treaty, which was the last remaining nuclear arms agreement between the US and Russia. The treaty placed limits on the number of deployed missiles, bombers, launchers, and warheads each side could possess, and allowed both countries to inspect each others’ nuclear sites.

Earlier this week, Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, said that “Washington must reconsider its hostile anti-Russian policy” before Moscow would contemplate a return to the agreement. Given that the US has “launched and dragged its European allies into a large-scale hybrid war against Russia,” and insists on inspecting the same Russian bases that its Ukrainian proxies are attacking “with the help of the Pentagon,” the deal would remain suspended.

Antonov also accused the US of violating the treaty long before Russia’s withdrawal, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a day later that Washington’s actions prior to the outbreak of conflict in Ukraine – which included rejecting all of Russia’s security requests – showed that “they were not ready to talk about anything with us.”

The US has also accused Russia of breaching the treaty by preventing American inspectors from traveling to its bases.

Blinken and Lavrov last met in Geneva last January, and spoke by phone in July. Throughout the intervening time, Blinken has maintained that the US will keep up its military support for Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” and Lavrov said in January that a subsequent message he received from Blinken offered no “serious proposals” for resolving the conflict.

The US has for a long time been “in favor of the escalation of conflicts,” Zakharova said on Thursday. “Diplomacy, unfortunately, has been relegated to the background.”

https://www.rt.com/news/572348-blinken-lavrov-meeting-g20/

Blackstone Defaults On $562MM CMBS As It Keeps Blocking Investor Withdrawals From $71BN REIT

Now that soaring rates have burst the commercial real estate bubble, the carnage is coming fast and furious.

This morning Bloomberg reports that Wall Street's largest commercial real estate landlord, private equity giant Blackstone, has defaulted on a €531 million ($562 million) bond backed by a portfolio of offices and stores owned by Sponda Oy, a Finnish landlord it acquired in 2018.

While the PE firm had sought an extension from holders of the securitized notes to allow time to dispose of assets and repay the debt, the surge in market volatility triggered by the war in Ukraine and rising interest rates interrupted the sales process and bondholders voted against a further extension, the Bloomberg sources said.

And since the security has now matured and has not been repaid, loan servicer Mount Street has determined that an event of default has occurred, according to a statement Thursday. The loan will now be transferred to a special servicer.

“This debt relates to a small portion of the Sponda portfolio,” a Blackstone representative said in an emailed statement. “We are disappointed that the servicer has not advanced our proposal, which reflects our best efforts and we believe would deliver the best outcome for note holders. We continue to have full confidence in the core Sponda portfolio and its management team, whose priority remains delivering high-quality retail and office assets.”

And while Blackstone is understandably trying to minimize the news, the PE firm clearly continues to scramble to stabilize the bleeding in its massive real estate portfolio and on Wednesday it said that it had blocked investors from cashing out their investments at its $71 billion real estate income trust (BREIT), as the private equity firm continues to grapple with a flurry of redemption requests.

BREIT said it fulfilled redemption requests of $1.4 billion in February, which represents only 35% of the approximately $3.9 billion in total withdrawal requests for the month, the firm said in a letter to investors as Reuters first reported.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/blackstone-defaults-531-property-backed-cmbs-it-keeps-blocking-investor-withdrawals-71bn

Over a Dozen Federal Whistleblowers Come Forward Claiming Hunter Biden Involved in Criminal Activity

Senator Chuck Grassley released information yesterday that over a dozen individuals came forward with information indicating Hunter Biden was committing crimes but the corrupt DOJ has done nothing.

The Daily Mail reported:

Sen. Charles Grassley said at a Wednesday hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland that more than a dozen ‘whistleblowers’ have provided ‘potentially criminal’ information about Hunter Biden to the FBI.

The Republican from Iowa told Garland – who was testifying on Capitol Hill for the first time this year – that the Justice Department must review the president’s son, who was subject to a federal probe involving tax matters and a potentially false statement on a form for a gun purchase.

‘Recent lawfully protected whistleblower disclosures to my office indicate that the Justice Department and FBI had at one time over a dozen sources that provided potentially criminal information relating to Hunter Biden,’ said Grassley, who has a long record of dealing with whistleblowers in the Senate.

Senator Grassley asked Biden’s corrupt DOJ AG Merrick Garland a question regarding whether it was a national security issue when there is evidence of foreign persons making unlawful payments to elected officials to influence policy decisions (i.e. bribes).

Next Grassley noted that more than a dozen whistleblowers had come forward with evidence against Hunter Biden. AG Garland said he’s not doing a damn thing about it.

We know that the Bidens received $1 billion from China in the past. It’s believed that Joe Biden reciprocated by providing the Chinese access to US markets without having to abide by the same financial controls that US companies have to adhere to.

And we also know that the corrupt and criminal DOJ is covering up for the corrupt and criminal Bidens.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/over-a-dozen-whistleblowers-came-forward-claiming-hunter-biden-involved-in-criminal-activity/

Senate Votes Unanimously To Declassify COVID-19 Wuhan Lab Leak Intelligence

A pair of Republican senators on Wednesday night declared the U.S. Senate had unanimously passed their bill requiring the Biden administration to declassify intelligence related to the origins of COVID-19.

The bill, known as the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, specifically aims to investigate the possibility that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Republican Sens. Mike Braun and Josh Hawley reintroduced the bill on Monday after the Department of Energy (DOE) provided a classified intelligence report to the White House and certain members of Congress, which concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic most likely arose from a lab leak. The FBI had previously come to a similar conclusion.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) made a request for unanimous consent of the bill, which was granted “without objection.” Unanimous consent enables a bill to pass without a recorded vote.

“Tonight the Senate UNANIMOUSLY passed my bill to declassify all the intelligence the government has on #covid origins. Let the people see the truth!” Hawley wrote on Twitter.

In further comments during an appearance on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Hawley cited the importance of transparency and accountability in allowing the public to understand the origins of the pandemic.

Hawley told Watters that the bill needs to pass in the House of Representatives, “and then we can get this thing done.” They previously introduced a similar bill which passed unanimously in 2021.

The bill would require Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to declassify the information in the U.S. government’s possession on the most likely origins of COVID-19.

“Listen, the American people—it’s past time—let’s show them what the government has. Let everybody see for themselves. Let everybody read it,” he told Fox News after the vote.

Braun also declared the unanimous passage of the motion, likewise calling on the House to pass the bill.

“The House needs to pass this bill to let the American people see the facts! President Biden can’t ignore this: time to let Americans decide for ourselves,” he wrote on Twitter.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/senate-votes-unanimously-declassify-covid-19-wuhan-lab-leak-intelligence

UPDATE: Biden Regime Confirms Commitment To “Legally-Binding” Agreement Which Will Surrender U.S. Pandemic Authority To Chinese-Backed World Health Organization “For Generations To Come”

The Biden regime publicly affirmed their commitment to a “legally-binding” accord in a press release Monday which will give the World Health Organization (WHO) control over U.S. pandemic policies, though work remains in certain areas.

International leaders are meeting this week in Geneva to consider a so-called “Zero Draft” of the agreement.

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As previously covered by The Gateway Pundit, the zero draft gives the WHO the power to declare and manage a global pandemic emergency.

Once a health emergency is declared every signatory, including the United States, must submit to the authority of the WHO. This includes caving to them on treatments, lockdowns and vaccine mandates along with government surveillance.

https://www.state.gov/statement-by-ambassador-hamamoto-who-fourth-meeting-of-the-inb/

Zelensky: “US Will Have to Send Sons and Daughters to War”

https://youtu.be/rA5gvRMlL-c

JUDAS MOFO

“Different Times Call for Different Leadership” – Turncoat Mike Pence Won’t Commit to Supporting Trump if He’s 2024 Nominee

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/different-times-call-for-different-leadership-turncoat-mike-pence-wont-commit-to-supporting-trump-if-hes-2024-nominee/