30 Jun, 2023 20:19

Study reveals extent of Western aid to Kiev

Some of Ukraine’s backers have spent more than 2% of their GDP in aid, German research has shown

Ukraine received more than $170 billionin military, financial, and humanitarian assistance between January 2022 and February 2023, according to a fresh study published this month by a German economic research center.

The data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) coversaid provided by Ukraine’s 41 largest donors, which mostly consist of the US and its Western allies.

Washington unsurprisingly emerged as Kiev’s largest single donor, with its total aid accounting for more than 45% of all assistance provided to Ukraine over that period. Roughly 60% of that money was spent on weapons, the data shows.

TheUK’s military assistanceto Kievaccounted for 67%of London’s total aid to Ukraine over that period. Most money Warsaw and Amsterdam allocated for Ukraine was also spent on arms, the research indicated.

The EU’s support, including both the aid provided by Brussels and bilateral assistance provided by the bloc’s members, amounted to almost 40% of the total aid for Ukraine over the same period.

TheUS was also the biggest military aidprovider for Ukraine, spending atotal of $47.16 billionon arms for Kiev’s troops, leaving all other nations far behind. The UK became the second largest contributor by spending $7.1 billion on weapons for the Ukrainian forces.

According to the IfW, both theUS and the UK were not the most transparent assistance providers, when it comes to aiding Kiev. London and Washington took the 17th and 18th places out of 41 respectively in the list of most transparent donors compiled by the German research center. The first two places on this list were occupied by Switzerland and Germany respectively.

Some of Kiev’s Western backers shouldered additional costs due to the need to accommodate refugees coming from Ukraine, the IfW study showed. Poland, which spent 0.6% of its GDP on bilateral aid to Ukraine, had to spend another 2.2% on Ukrainian refugees, according to the data.

The accumulated costs of helping Ukraineexceeded 2% of GDPin the case of Latvia and Estonia as well. (But the never meet the 2% of GDP that NATO requires)

This week, thePentagon announceda new package of weapons for Ukraine, including 30 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. More than a dozen of the armored vehicles have reportedly been damaged or destroyed since Kiev launched its counteroffensive against Russian forces earlier this month.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Washington is also mulling sending long-range missiles to bolster Ukrainian capabilities in its ongoing campaign, which has largely stalled so far.

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh recently criticized US military aid to Kiev by calling it a “very bad investment.” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also said this week that Ukraine could not defeat Moscow on the battlefield and called for a negotiated solution to the conflict instead. (Sye its not an investment its money laundering, reveal it!)

https://www.rt.com/news/579010-western-aid-kiev-extent-study/

1 Jul, 2023 00:24

Russia blocks Wagner-linked media

The crackdown takes place a week after the failed rebellion of the private military company

Russia has blocked access to several news websites linked to businessman Evgeny Prigozhin, whose private military company Wagner Group was involved in the short-lived mutiny last week.

Public access has been “restricted” to riafan.ru and four other websites operating under the umbrella of the Patriot Media Group, according to the database run by the regulator Roskomnadzor (RKN). The group’s website has also been blacklisted.

The websites mostly focus on covering Russia’s standoff with the West and Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.

News agency TASS cited employees of the affected outlets as saying that their parent company would be closed and all of its subsidiaries cease operation.

Prigozhin, who initially made his fortune as a restaurateur and catering tycoon, was listed as the head of the Patriot Media Group’s board of trustees until May.

Earlier, the RKN ordered popular Russian social media platform VK to take down web pages associated with Wagner to “prevent the spread of calls to armed rebellion.”

On June 23, Prigozhin, who accused the Defense Ministry of mishandling the operation in Ukraine, declared a “march for justice” on Moscow. His fighters halted their advance on Saturday evening and returned to their bases after a deal was struck with the authorities. The charges of leading an armed rebellion were dropped as part of the arrangement, and Wagner members were given a choice to sign contracts with the Russian military, return to civilian life, or move to Belarus.

this is interesting!

https://www.rt.com/russia/579016-russia-blocks-wagner-media/

(The “believe me look” won’t work)

30 Jun, 2023 19:59

Ukraine must explain how €70 billion was spent – EU state

Hungary will not allow the bloc’s money to keep pouring into Ukraine unaccounted for, Viktor Orban has said

Hungary will opposethe European Commission’splans to give Ukraine €50 billion in financial aiduntilKiev explains what it did with the last €70 billion, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday. Budapest and Brussels have repeatedly clashed over the supply of cash and arms to Ukraine.

According to the latest figures from Brussels, the EU has given Kiev €72 billion ($79 billion) in economic, military, and humanitarian aid since Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began last February. Despite this unprecedented outflow draining its coffers, the European Commission announced earlier this month that it would offer Kiev an additional €50 billion in loans and grants.

"One thing is clear, we Hungarians…will not give more money to Ukraineuntil they say where the previous around 70 billion euros worth of funds has gone," Orban told Hungarian radio, according to a Reuters report.

"And we find itutterly ridiculous and absurd, that we should contribute more money tofinance debt service costs of a loan, from which we have still not received the funds we are entitled to get,” he continued, referring to the commission’s recent announcement thatinterest costs on the bloc’s external debts would doublethis year due to inflation.

The commission is currently denying Hungary and Poland access to post-coronavirus recovery funds over ideological differences with their conservative governments. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen admitted last year that the withholding of funds is one of several “tools”that Brussels can use to force member states to “work with us.”

Hungary blocked an €18 billion financial aid package for Ukraine last year until Brussels freed up a separate batch of funding withheld from Budapest. More recently, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated on Monday that Hungary would extend for another month its veto on a €500 million arms package from the EU’s common weapons fund for Ukraine.

Orban and Szijjarto have both repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire and peace talks in Ukraine. Earlier this week, Orban explained that a Ukrainian victory on the battlefield is “impossible” and that without an immediate ceasefire and an end to Western arms deliveries, Ukraine will “lose a huge amount of wealth and many lives, and unimaginable destruction will occur.”

https://www.rt.com/news/579008-orban-ukraine-eu-aid/

30 Jun, 2023 20:00

Trans influencer slams Bud Light in first public statement since ad debacle

The CEO of parent company Anheuser-Busch has refused to commit to working with Dylan Mulvaney again

Transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney lashed out at Bud Light and parent company Anheuser-Busch in a video posted to social media on Friday,accusing them of abandoning the “Days of Girlhood” TikTokerafter Mulvaney’s promo spot for the beer triggered a very expensive backlash.

Revealing why Mulvaney had waited until three months after the Bud Light promo was posted to come forward, the 26-year-old explained, “I was waiting for the brand to reach out to me, but they never did.”

“For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse than not hiring a trans person at all. Because it gives customers permission to be as transphobic and as hateful as they want,” Mulvaney said, warning Anheuser-Busch that LGBTQ people drink beer too.

The performer complained that public reaction was totally out of proportion to an Instagram video shared with Mulvaney’s 1.8 million followers. “You would have thought I was, like, on a billboard or on a TV commercial,” Mulvaney said, observing, “What transpired from that video was more bullying and transphobia than I could ever imagine.”(we don’t feel sorry you, FREAK!)

That harassment continued offline, Mulvaney added, claiming to have been followed, taunted, and threatened in real life as well as on the internet. “To turn a blind eye and act like everything’s OK – it just isn’t an option right now,” the actor stated.

The original video featured Mulvaney in a black cocktail dress, elbow-length gloves, and an Audrey Hepburn hairdofeigning ignorance about sportsand carrying a six-pack of Bud Light. A second spot showed Mulvaney in a bathtub covered in foam, brandishing a can with the influencer’s face on it.

Despite transitioning to female just over a year ago – the custom can was a gift celebrating “365 days of girlhood” – Mulvaney reportedlymade as much as $1 million last year promoting productsnormally associated with women, including sports bras and tampons, despite lacking the relevant anatomy.

While the exact amountAnheuser-Busch lostin the boycott is unknown,it was at least $20 billion– as well as Bud Light’s coveted spot as Americans’ favorite beer, a title which has since been seized by Modelo.

Amazingly, the company’s US CEO Brendan Whitworth has not ruled out collaborating with Mulvaney again – though he has not exactly said he would, either. Asked by a CBS anchor whether he would send the influencer another can, Whitworth dodged the question with a canned response about the “social conversation” the marketing fail had inspired.

The company has denied rumors it fired the executives responsible for the disastrous promotion, claiming marketing VP Alissa Heinerscheid and mainstream brands VP Daniel Blake instead took “voluntary leaves of absence” after their advertising choice cost their employer billions of dollars. (That’s absolutely believable, kek!)?

(His money train is ending, so sad, too bad! Not!)

https://www.rt.com/news/579009-dylan-mulvaney-budweiser-transphobic-video/

30 Jun, 2023 21:18

US Supreme Court rules in landmark LGBTQ case

The court defended the right of a conservative designer to refuse to create websites for gay weddings

The US Supreme Court has ruled that a conservative web designer is legally entitled to refuse to create websites for same-sex weddings. The court’s liberal justices bitterly condemned what they saw as an attack on a“protected class.”

Web designer Lorie Smith is a devout Christian who runs a business creating bespoke websites for weddings. Her lawyers claim that she is “willing to work with all people, regardless of classifications such as race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender,”but when Smith placed a message on her website in 2016 explaining that she would not create content celebrating homosexual marriage, she found herself in violation of Colorado’s 2015 Anti-Discrimination Act and sued the state.

The case made its way up to theSupreme Court, whichsided with Smith in a 6-3 decisionalong ideological lines on Friday.

Writing the majority opinion, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch stated that by insisting that Smith create pro-LGBTQ websites, Colorado authoritieswere trying to “compel speech she does not wish to provide,” which the US Constitution’s First Amendment expressly forbids.

"The opinion of the Court is, quite literally, a notice that reads: 'Some services may be denied to same-sex couples,'" Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, claiming that speech is not protected when its use amounts to an “act of discrimination.”

Gorsuch gavea scathing response to Sotomayor in his opinion. “It is difficult to read the dissent and conclude that we are looking at the same case,” he wrote. “The dissent abandons what this court's cases have recognized time and time again: A commitment to speech for only some persons and some messages is no commitment at all."

In a similar case in 2018, the Supreme Court sided with Christian baker Jack Phillips – also from Colorado – who refused to bake a cake celebrating a gay wedding. While the court found that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission acted with “hostility” toward Phillips’ religious beliefs, it did not issue a ruling on whether cake decoration constitutes “speech,” as Phillips argued, or on the specific circumstances under which people may seek exemption from anti-discrimination laws.

By definitively ruling that web design constitutes “speech,” Friday’s decision could pave the way for similar rulings in the30 US states that have laws requiring businesses to serve everyone, regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

(“They” are just draining these people dry, they will never get what they want.)

https://www.rt.com/news/579011-supreme-court-lgbt-weddings/

>>19102920

Absolutely, they should tell the world they will never push trans or perversions again and they would get customers back. But they won’t do it because EU countries would reject it. Not really the countries but the activist loud voices. The never should freaks again that hate normal people that believe in God.

>>19102896

He’s worth millions and more and you really think thats his motivation. I think this is the first time in his life, he’s been honest.

>>19102929

the only country revealing the scam, look for the EU attacks next week, he will be call a “putin stooge”, agent etc

>>19102953

Holy shit, that is disgusting. How much harder can they try to kill children