https://twitter.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1631066881908961282?s=20
6 Mar, 2023 09:15
Zelensky at odds with top general – Bild
Commander Zaluzhny called for a withdrawal from a key city, but the president has refused, the newspaper reported
An internal conflict is underway between Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and General Valery Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, according to government sources cited by Bild on Monday. Kiev insiders told the German tabloid that the military commander called for a withdrawal from a key Donbass city weeks ago.
Zaluzhny advised the president to abandon Artyomovsk, known as Bakhmut in Ukraine, rather than keep defending it as Russian troops threatened to take control of the city, the newspaper reported. However theUkrainian leader declared the city a fortress, and refused to pull troops back.
Russian forces have made notable advances in the fight for Artyomovsk this year. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private military company Wagner Group, claimed last Friday that it was “de-facto completely surrounded,”with only one road available for possible evacuation.
According to US media,Washington has been urging Zelensky to pull out of Artyomovskand focus on preparing a major counteroffensive for the spring using Western-supplied weapons, but the Ukrainian president fears a morale hit that such a move would cause.
The city is part of a 70km Ukrainian defense line created since Kiev initiated the fighting in Donbass in 2014. US officials have assessed that its loss to Russia would not affect the strategic situation.
Bild sources claimed that Ukrainian troops on the ground in Artyomovsk “do not understand why the city is being held” and believe they should have withdrawn a long time ago. Zelensky recently stated that Ukrainian forces would defend it as long as it “remains reasonable” to do so.
The German tabloid also noted that Zaluzhny’s popularity for leading the military campaign against Russia makes him aviable challenger to Zelensky in a potential presidential run. The general has not publicly announced any ambition to run for office, but rumors have been circulating in Ukraine for months regarding Zelensky’s concerns over possible competition.
https://www.rt.com/russia/572519-zelensky-zaluzhny-artyomovsk-defense/
Zelensky may be the cause of the downfall of Ukraine
6 Mar, 2023 12:45
EU member state profiteering from Ukraine conflict – media
Bulgaria sold billions of dollars worth of arms to Kiev, paid for and delivered by third-party nations, EURACTIV has reported
Bulgarian arms makers exported products worthbillions of dollars to Ukraine using third-party countriesas intermediaries, EURACTIV revealed in an investigation published on Monday.
It had earlier been reported that former prime minister Kiril Petkov claimed credit for the scheme, which circumvented opponents of such transactions in the Bulgarian government.
The outlet's findings indicate that thepractice of indirect arms supplies predated the outbreak of Russian-Ukrainian hostilities. However once the conflict escalated in February 2022, Bulgarian manufacturers enjoyed a rapid increase in profits, doubling sales last year.
Bulgaria is a major producer of munitions compatible with Soviet-designed weapons, which Ukraine used extensively before the US and its allies supplied it with Western-produced alternatives. Last year alone, at least $1 billion in arms was transferred from Bulgaria to Ukraine, mostly through Poland and Romania, sources told EURACTIV. No direct arms contracts were signed, the outlet added.
The funneling of arms was done through foreign schemes and funded using foreign finance, according to Velizar Shalamanov, the former acting defense minister and a vocal supporter of shipping arms to Ukraine.
“There is a program with good funding in Great Britain, the United States and Poland. Through this program, the armaments needed for Ukraine are bought, that is, the money is not Ukrainian but British, American, Polish or European. That is why it is bought through other companies,” he told EURACTIV.
The clandestine deliveries were repoerted in January by the German daily Die Welt, which gave credit for the scheme to former Bulgarian prime minister Kiril Petkov and ex-finance minister Asen Vasilev. They are both Harvard University graduates and belong to the same pro-NATO political movement, which they founded together.
“We estimate that around a third of the ammunition needed by the Ukrainian Army came from Bulgaria in the early stages of the war,” Petkov said at the time.
The prime minister had taken the steps contrary to public opinion, which was overwhelmingly opposed to giving extensive aid to Ukraine, over concerns that their country would be dragged into the conflict, Die Welt reported. Petkov’s government was backed by a coalition of four parties, and, according to the German paper, he went behind the back of the Socialists – a coalition member that publicly opposed any armament supplies to Ukraine.
Petkov lost his position in a no-confidence vote last June. The Bulgarian parliament failed to form a stable government after snap elections in October and is currently preparing for a new national ballot in April. The countryapproved its first official military aid package to Kiev in December, with President Rumen Radev declining to block the proposal backed by parliament.
https://www.rt.com/news/572532-bulgaria-weapons-sales-ukraine/
6 Mar, 2023 14:59
Fire rips through world’s largest refugee camp
Some 12,000 people have reportedly been left without shelter after Sunday’s inferno in Bangladesh
Authorities in Bangladesh have opened an investigation into the circumstances which led to an inferno at a Rohingya refugee camp on Sunday that destroyed around 2,000 shelters and left thousands of people homeless.
Local media has reported that one man – who is understood to be a refugee – has been detained in connection with the fire. Police are trying to determine whether or not the blaze was started “as an act of sabotage,” according to Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, the chairman of Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief Repatriation Commissioner.
“Some 2,000 shelters have been burnt, leaving about 12,000 forcibly displacedMyanmar nationals shelterless,” Rahman told the AFP.
It is not yet clear how the fire, which occurred at 2:45pm local time on Sunday, began but it is thought to have spread quickly through tarpaulin shelters and by gas cylinders in kitchens. No casualties have yet been reported in the fire, which was brought under control after three hours.
The refugee camp in the country’s southeast is considered to be the largest of its kind. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) tweeted on Sunday that 90 facilities, including hospitals and learning centers, had been destroyed in the fire. Around 35 mosques were also reported to have been damaged or destroyed.
Bangladesh authorities are working with domestic and international aid groups to supply food and temporary shelter to those affected by the blaze.
“Today’s massive fire will have robbed many families of their safety and what little belongings they have left,” the humanitarian organization ‘Save the Children’ stated on Sunday. “They continue to grapple with inadequate education, concerning levels of malnutrition, stunting, child marriage, and child labor.”
Rohingyarefugee camps were affected by 222 fires between January 2021 and December 2022, according to data released by the country’s defense ministry last month. This included 60 cases of arson. In March 2021, at least 15 people died in a fire at the settlement.
The camp offers temporary housing to Rohingya people who fled Myanmar in the wake of a crackdown against the Muslim ethnic minority in the country in 2017.
https://www.rt.com/news/572543-bangladesh-fire-refugee-camp/
Why would they do this? Is it the UN seeking more money?
6 Mar, 2023 15:31
Russian ex-president talks of ‘final nail’ in neocolonialism coffin
Truly sovereign states are no longer afraid of ‘Western diktat,’ Dmitry Medvedev says
Russia is ready to help the world do away with the vestiges of a Western-dominated colonial past, former president Dmitry Medvedev has claimed. The official argued that as a nation “which has never had any colonies,” Russia is well-placed to take part in this process.
In an article published on Monday, Medvedev claimed that “geopolitical turbulence has cut open an abscess of the old problems of our world.”
The ex-president, who now serves as deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, argued that the “malignant tumor of a colonial past” is a problem that calls for “international surgery.”
He noted that the Soviet Union played a major role in dismantling the colonial system of the 20th century.
“We, together with other countries, can now drive the final nail in the coffin of the Western world’s neo-colonial aspirations,” Medvedev proclaimed in the piece, posted on the United Russia party website.
As an example, the former president cited Argentina’s decision to renounce a 2016 deal with the UK with respect to the disputed Falkland/Malvinas islands in the South Atlantic, which were at the center of a military conflict in 1982.
On Thursday, Argentinian Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero said he had notified his British counterpart, James Cleverly, of the move during a meeting in New Delhi, India, on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
Buenos Aires “has proposed to resume negotiations on the question of sovereignty” in compliance with the mandate of the UN General Assembly and the world body’s Committee on Decolonization, Cafiero clarified.
Medvedev argued that the decisions to show French troops the door last year by two former colonies in Africa, the Central African Republic and Mali, fit this pattern too.
Medvedev pointed out, however, that there are still a number of dependent territories around the globe ruled by Western powers, such as the UK and France. He expressed skepticism that those nations will willingly relinquish control of the remains of their former empires.
As more and more countries “stop fearing Western diktat” and start to assert their national interests more actively, the former colonial powers are bound to lose their hold on the regions they once thought were theirs, the ex-president concluded.
Following the start of Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine last February and amid fierce confrontation with the West, top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have increasingly advocated the establishment of a “multipolar world” which does not center around the wishes of one single superpower.
(Russia didn’t have colonies, they stole whole countries. What is the difference? At this point this is propaganda.)
https://www.rt.com/russia/572540-russian-ex-president-neo-colonialism/
6 Mar, 2023 15:13
Pentagon chief downgrades importance of besieged Donbass city
The fall of Artyomovsk, called Bakhmut by Ukraine, won’t mean Russia has changed the tide of battle, Lloyd Austin believes
The city of Artyomovsk, or Bakhmut as it is known by Ukraine, is of more symbolic than operational importance, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has claimed.
The battle for Artyomovsk – a major stronghold and logistics hub for Kiev’s forces in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) – has continued for months, being described by some as the fiercest in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Asked about the city during his trip to Jordan later the same day, Austin suggested that the city was “more of a symbolic value than it is [of] strategic and operational value,” according to Reuters.
Yan Gagin, an adviser to the DPR’s acting head Denis Pushilin, said on Monday that Russian forces have encircled the key city, trapping around 10,000 Ukrainian troops inside.
The Pentagon chief, however, saidhe wouldn’t consider it a strategic setback if Ukrainian troops decide to repositionthemselves on new defense lines west of the city.
“The fall of [Artyomovsk] won’t necessarily mean that the Russians have changed the tide of this fight,” he said.
While acknowledging the possibility of a defeat for Ukraine in Artyomovsk, Austin refused to speculate on whether or when it’ll happen.
German tabloid Bild reported on Monday that the city had become a source of internal conflict between Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces General Valery Zaluzhny. Insiders in Kiev told the outlet thatZaluzhny had called for a withdrawal from the city weeks ago. However, Zelensky’s office said on Monday morning that his top generals supported continuing the defensive operation in Bakhmut.
According to Western media reports, the US government has been urging Kiev topull out of Artyomovsk since late Januaryand to prepare instead for future counter-offensives in other areas. However, Zelensky has insisted the city will fight for as long as possible
Senior Biden administration officials told the Washington Post in late February that the Ukrainian leader “attaches symbolic importance” to the city and fears a setback to morale if it’s captured by Russian forces.
https://www.rt.com/news/572541-artyomovsk-bakhmut-ukraine-austin/
The pipsqueak with no military experience suffers from meglomania
6 Mar, 2023 14:24
UK-led Ukraine arms fund plagued by delays – Guardian
Kiev’s forces may have to wait until summer to receive any weaponry
The UK-led international military aid fund for Ukraine has been criticized for failing to quickly allocate pledged resources. Bidders trying to secure military aid contracts through the fund are frustrated at how slowly the British Defense Ministry is reviewing their applications, the Guardian reported on Monday.
Of the £520 million ($624 million) pledged to the fund by the UK, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Lithuania, only £200 million ($240 million) has so far been allocated, the newspaper reported. Some participants now fear the delays could mean some of the weapons not reaching the Ukrainian frontline until summer.
The fund was initially launched in August as a “flexible low-bureaucracy fund” that would provide equipment, training and money for Ukraine’s armed forces. However, the British Ministry of Defense, which is in charge of overseeing the project, has admitted that awarding contracts “inevitably took time.”
According to the Guardian, over 1,500 suppliers are understood to have submitted bids, cumulatively worth over £27 billion. But some of the bidders claim the number of offers has overwhelmed the fund’s secretariat, which one supplier suggested was staffed by only two people.
Speaking to the Guardian, a source within the British Defense Ministry insisted that there is a larger team working on reviewing the bids, but admitted that the high level of interest was a “complicating factor.”
At the same time, the ministry source insisted that the fund was never intended to be a traditional competitive bidding process, and that the MoD wanted to ensure that it was properly managed in a way that helped Ukraine.
“Ensuring the first round was successful meant we refined the possible purchases from the fund. This inevitably took time,” the source said.
Meanwhile, the UK has reportedly been pushing Ukraine towards negotiating with Moscow, with the promise of even more advanced Western weapons to be provided to Kiev’s forces, as well as security guarantees from NATO. According to the Wall Street Journal, the British proposal has been backed by France and Germany, which have already advised Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to make “difficult decisions.”
(Farage said at CPAC that the UK has giving so much they have less than 10,000 bullets left. He also said BOJO gave away everything because it will make him a famous world leader.)
https://www.rt.com/news/572542-uk-ukraine-aid-fund/
6 Mar, 2023 16:08
Russia bans Transparency International
The Germany-based NGO was designated as a threat to the constitutional order
The Prosecutor General’s Office has declared Transparency International unwelcome in Russia, describing the Berlin-based organization on Monday as going beyond its mandate to interfere into the country’s internal affairs.
“It has been established that the activities of this organization clearly go beyond its declared goals and objectives,” the office said in a statement. “Formally acting as an organization fighting corruptionaround the world, it interferes in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation, which poses a threat to the foundations of its constitutional order and security.”
The Russian chapter of Transparency International was declared a foreign agent in 2015. Monday’s decision means Russian nationals could face prison time if they worked for the organization, and penalties for giving it financial aid or disseminating its materials.
Founded in 1993 by a group thatincluded former World Bank officials and US intelligence operatives, Transparency is best known for its annual ‘Corruption Perception Index’ (CPI), which ranks countries on a scale of their perceived propensity for graft.
The organization withdrew the accreditation of its US chapter in 2017 over “differences in philosophies, strategies, and priorities.” TI-USA was widely criticized forbeing a front for multinational corporations;
giving its Integrity Award to then-US secretary of state Hillary Clinton in 2012and blocking calls to help NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013.
Transparency International Brazil is currently under investigation foralleged collusion with prosecutors in the ‘Car Wash’ scandal, which was used to convict former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on trumped-up corruption charges. Da Silva’s conviction was later thrown out and he won the 2022 election.
https://www.rt.com/russia/572545-transparency-international-unwelcome-prosecutors/
6 Mar, 2023 09:18
Air defenses repel Ukrainian strike over Russia – governor
The attack targeted a town in Belgorod Region bordering Ukraine, Vyacheslav Gladkov says
Ukrainian forces have attempted to target the town of Novy Oskol in Russia’s Belgorod Region with missiles, but the incoming projectiles were intercepted by air defenses, local Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has said.
“In Novy Oskol, our air defense system was activated.Three missiles were shot down,”Gladkov wrote on Telegram on Monday morning.
According to preliminary data, a man suffered shrapnel wounds to his arm as a result of the incident.
The debris from the intercepted missiles also caused minor damage to power lines and several homes in the villages around the town, he said.
All the relevant operational and emergency services have been deployed to the scene, the Belgorod Region governor added.
Novy Oskol is a town of some 18,000 people, located 109km (68 miles) northeast of the regional capital Belgorod.
The Russian regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk, which all border Ukraine, have been the targets of numerous drone and missile attacks by Kiev’s forces since the start of the Russian military campaign a year ago.
The strikes were aimed against energy infrastructure and residential areas, resulting in destruction, injuries, and several civilian deaths.
In recent weeks, Gladkov has been reporting some form ofattacks on settlements in Belgorod Region almost on a daily basis.
Last Thursday, a Ukrainian cross-border incursion into two villages in Bryansk Region left two people dead and a ten-year-old boy injured. The gunmen were forced back to Ukrainian territory and hit with a “massive artillery strike,” according to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). President Vladimir Putin slammed the incident as a “terrorist attack,” in which civilians were targeted deliberately.
https://www.rt.com/russia/572522-ukraine-missile-belgorod-gladkov/
Sneaky Pete: DOT Obstructing Investigation Into Buttigieg's Travel
Matt Margolis
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and his advisers have taken 23 flights on government private aircraft since assuming office, but the Department of Transportation (DOT) is refusing to provide details about the taxpayer expenses of those flights, according to a report.
“The DOT and the agency’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) office both declined to detail how much each flight cost taxpayers over the course of multiple months and in recent weeks,” Fox News Digital reports. “The stonewalling comes amid an ongoing inspector general audit of Buttigieg’s use of the planes, which are part of a small fleet managed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).”
“It’s inexcusable that Secretary Buttigieg’s agency is hiding the detailed costs of these taxpayer-funded flights,” Caitlin Sutherland, the executive director of watchdog group Americans for Public Trust, told Fox News Digital. “Federal law dictates a timely release of exactly these types of records to the public.”
She added, “The American people are entitled to know the true cost of Buttigieg and his entourage of staffers flying private to destinations that have readily available commercial options.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) had requested an investigation into Buttigieg’s excessive traveling in reaction to a Fox News Digital report in December showing that Buttigieg had made 18 flights on FAA planes since January 2021. The DOT’s inspector general announced its plans to investigate last month.
Michael Chamberlain, the director of another watchdog group, Protect the Public’s Trust, is similarly disturbed by Buttigieg’s attempt at secrecy.
“Sadly, reports of unnecessary secrecy and selective release of information are all too common when discussing the self-proclaimed most transparent administration in history,” Chamberlain explained. “And it appears that the more high-profile the issue or event, the greater the efforts to hide the information the public deserves to know.”
He added, “Contrary to what some agencies appear to believe, saving powerful officials from disclosure or embarrassment is not a legitimate reason to keep the public in the dark.”
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/03/06/sneaky-pete-dot-obstructing-investigation-into-buttigiegs-travel-n1675947
The Morning Briefing: Finally—Trump Is Hitting the Right Notes Again
Stephen Kruiser
According to reports from people I’ve met and like, CPAC happened last week. I wasn’t in attendance, but then I rarely am. What I’ve done since the Tea Party days is create the illusion that I go to the conference every year. In reality, I’ve been five times in thirteen years.
My presence lingers.
Donald Trump was, of course, the hit of the show. Much has been made of the fact that Ron DeSantis didn’t show up but — as Stacey wrote — CPAC ain’t what it used to be. I don’t think it’s a big deal that the looming battle between the two didn’t begin right away. We’ve got plenty of time for that.
From what I’ve read of Trump’s speech, it was good that he didn’t have the DeSantis distraction.
Rick wrote about it for us, and I really did like a lot of what Trump said. For example:
“I am your warrior, I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” Trump said. “I will totally obliterate the deep state.”
That’s not just what the base needs to hear; that’s what the country needs. I wonder if he’s gotten a new speechwriter in the last month because that kind of stuff is gold.
Relevant: I’m All-In if Trump Promises a Scorched-Earth Second Term
I’m even willing to get a little amnesia about Trump’s less-than-stellar efforts to drain the swamp and “obliterate the deep state” during his first term. He left a lot of people in positions of power that the deep state then actively used to work against him in 2020. Frequent readers of mine know how often I’ve lamented the fact that he didn’t gut the FBI.
Last month I wrote that I wanted the Trump I like to come back. Reading excerpts from this speech almost made me wish that I’d gone to CPAC.
Almost.
Over at Townhall, Schlichter’s latest column says that Trump has been on a roll the last couple of weeks, which is true. It all began with his trip to East Palestine, Ohio, which Kurt referred to as “the best day of Donald Trump’s ex-presidency.” He connected with people who desperately wanted to know that someone cared about their predicament, and he shamed this clown car administration into finally at least going through the motions.
More importantly, Kurt writes that Trump avoided talking about DeSantis in his speech. That’s a relief. His unprovoked attacks on the Florida governor in recent months have made him look frightened and weak.
Trump needs to be spitting fire, not tossing out pathetic playground digs.
This was a nice start.
https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2023/03/06/the-morning-briefing-finally-trump-is-hitting-the-right-notes-again-n1675870