(KEK the NYP believes this! Read this old article)

Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin admits interfering in US elections — and promises to do it again

Evan Simko-Bednarski

November 7, 2022 12:19pm Updated

Russian oligarch and Kremlin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin said Monday that he had interfered in US elections in the past — and intends to keep it up.

Prigozhin, the money-man behind Moscow’s brutal Wagner Group paramilitaries, made the admission in a statement released by his business, the Concord catering firm.

“We have interfered [in US elections], we are interfering and we will continue to interfere. Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do,”read the statement posted to Russian social media platform VKontakte.

“During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once,” the statement added, without further explanation.

The post, made one day before mid-term elections in the US, was in response to questions put to Prigozhin from Russian news outlets.

Prigozhin — colloquially known as “Putin’s Chef” due to his catering firm’s Kremlin contracts — is also thought to be the financier behind Russian internet troll farms.

The 61-year-old was indicted by federal prosecutors in 2018, who accused him of meddling in the 2016 election along with 12 other Russians.

The Prigozhin-linked Internet Research Agency was singled out by prosecutors at the time for having a “strategic goal to sow discord in the US political system, including the 2016 US presidential election.”

At the time, Prigozhin mocked the charges in the Russian press.

“The Americans are really impressionable people. They see what they want to see,” he said. “I greatly respect them. If they want to see the devil — let them see him.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that the oligarch’s comments “do not tell us anything new or surprising.

“It’s well known and well documented in the public domain that entities associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin have sought to influence elections around the world, including in the United States,” she said.

“Yevgeny is a known bad actor who has been sanctioned by the United States, the United Kingdom and also the European Union,” she added.

“We also know that part of Russia’s efforts include promoting narratives aimed at undermining democracy and sowing division and discord — it’s not surprising that Russia would be highlighting their attempted efforts and fabricating a story about their successes on the eve of an election,” Jean-Pierre said.

Prigozhin’s apparent admission Monday is the latest in a series of rare public statements from the Kremlin crony who has previously preferred to stay in the shadows.

In September, he acknowledged his role in financing the Wagner Group — a truth he had previously sued journalists for reporting.

A paramilitary organization with tenuous ties to the Russian armed forces, Wagner has done Russian dirty work in Africa and the Middle East.

Wagner fighters were instrumental in Russia’s 2014 incursion into Ukraine, when the Kremlin seized Crimea and set up puppet governments in the eastern Donbas region.

Wagner fighters are currently engaged with Ukrainian forces on the outskirts of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

In recent weeks, Prigozhin has also been increasingly politically active, both in his native St. Petersburg and elsewhere in Russia.

Last week he opened a defense technology center in St. Petersburg, in an apparent bid to highlight his supposed military bonafides.

https://nypost.com/2022/11/07/russian-oligarch-yevgeny-prigozhin-claims-us-election-interference/

26 Jun, 2023 17:29

US envoy admits Iraq invasion was based on lie

The 2003 war was not a crime because President George W. Bush was never charged, (yet) John Kerry has insisted

The US-led invasion of Iraq was completely different to the current Ukraine conflict, Washington’s special envoy for climate change John Kerry has told French TV channel LCI.

He appeared on LCI’s Sunday evening show hosted by Darius Rochebin, who had previously interviewed him for a Swiss outlet in 2017. Rochebin tweeted a video segment of the interview, in which he confronted Kerry about the West accusing Russia of aggression regarding Ukraine. The French journalist noted that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was an actual war of aggression, based on the lie that Baghdad secretly possessed weapons of mass destruction.

“No,” Kerry replied. “Because there’s never even been, you know, a process of direct accusationof President [George W.] Bush himself.”

He added that there had been “abuses” in the course of that conflict, and that he “spoke out against them.” When Rochebinasked him directly whether the Iraq War had been a crime of aggression, Kerry repeatedly denied it.

“No, No, No. Well, you didn’t know it was a lie at the time. The evidence that was produced, people didn’t know that it was a lie,” the former diplomat said, before telling Rochebin that he doesn’t intend to “re-debate the Iraq War” at this point.

Kerry also claimed he was opposed to the war at the time and thought it was the wrong thing to do.He actually voted in the Senate to authorize the invasion, however. When Rochebin pushed him on theapparent double standard,Kerry began speaking about “climate justice==.”

The Bush administration accused Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of having chemical and biological weapons, as well as being somehow involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. The ‘evidence’ for WMDs offered to the media and the UN Security Council turned out to beentirely fabricated, and no such weapons were ever found. Likewise, no connection between Baghdad and Al-Qaeda was ever established.

The 2003 invasion and the subsequent occupation of Iraq was carried out without UN approval, by whatBush called a ‘coalition of the willing’. The US, the UK, Australia and Poland provided troops for the attack, though Washington later claimed 44 more countries had offered some kind of support.

Kerry ran against Bush in 2004 but lost. He later served as secretary of state in the Barack Obama administration, and was appointed climate change ambassador by the current president, Joe Biden, in 2021.

https://www.rt.com/news/578750-john-kerry-iraq-aggression-lie/

24 Jun, 2023 22:25

Trump cautions those rooting for a Russian coup

The former US president has warned that ousting Vladimir Putin could make matters worse

Former US president Donald Trump has splashed cold water on Western hopes that this week’s conflict between military contractor Wagner Group and Russia’s top generals could lead to the toppling of Moscow’s government, warning that ousting President Vladimir Putin could have unintended consequences.

“A big mess in Russia, but be careful what you wish for,” the former president said on Saturday in a Truth Social post. “Next it may be far worse!”

Trump reacted to the unrest in Russia just before news broke that Wagner founder Evgeny Prigozhin had agreed to end his rebellion and halt his group’s advance on Moscow. Under an agreement with the Kremlin, the former Putin ally will leave Russia and be spared prosecution.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky cheered the short-lived Wagner uprising, but his Western backers refrained from openly rooting for an overthrow of Putin’s government. US President Joe Biden, who has previously called for regime change in Russia, was reported to be “consulting with allies and partners” on the situation in Moscow.

Western media outlets were less restrained in touting the Wagner revolt as an existential crisis for the Russian government. Kurt Volker, former US ambassador to NATO, told CNN that the unrest marked “the end for Putin” and “the beginning of the end of Russia’s war in Ukraine.”

Trump took a shot at his successor, sayingBiden would “do about Russia whatever President Xi [Jinping] of China wants him to do.”Alluding to allegations that the Biden family received bribes from business contacts with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, he suggested that the US president was beholden to Xi.

“China and Russia, until Biden came along, have always been natural enemies, with China wanting large portions of largely unpopulated Russian land to have for their much larger population,” Trump said. “This is China’s heretofore unthinkable opportunity – much bigger than Taiwan, which to President Xi can wait.”

https://www.rt.com/news/578645-trump-reacts-to-wagner-russia-uprising/