PN>>19108081 A Shocking Analysis of Election Night Reporting and the Companies that Manufacture Election Results

(This article is too important not to read, long 6-7 portions)

A Shocking Analysis of Election Night Reporting and the Companies that Manufacture Election Results. 1/6

by Guest Contributor Jul. 1, 2023 5:30

US Election reporting is dependent on a few suspicious companies that provide results that are arguably manufactured.

Post by Erin and David Clements

The number of Americans who believe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election has grown to 62 percent, with another 6 percent who say they don’t know if he won or not. An enormous mountain of evidence, including whistleblower testimony, expert analysis, or proven machine vulnerabilities has awakened a huge majority of American voters to the realization that our elections are largely rigged.

As independent analysts and auditors improve their understanding of the centralization of election system architecture, the evidence revealed during the initial aftermath of November 3, 2020, is taking on new and vital importance. Case in point, millions of Americans that watched election results witnessed impossible changes to their vote tallies. Millions saw the “F-Curves” demonstrating an inexplicable injection of hundreds of thousands of votes in key races across the country. The F-Curve has come to represent rigged elections and corruption.

A trusting public relies on “Election Night Reporting” or “ENR” to find out who won on election night. ButENR broadcast on election night is not a report of real tallies but a tool to shape perceptions about election results. What was reported on television was perceived as reality and races were called by the media – outcomes that that any political or judicial institution was loath to challenge after the fact for fear of media bullying.

Election Night Reporting is another smoking gun that proves our elections are centrally manipulated.

Sources of Election Night Reporting Data

There are several places to find ENR data. All secretaries of state (SOSs) report results on their websites and some counties join in reporting efforts. But the real powerhouse in election night reporting comes from a foreign owned,Spain-based company, called Scytl.

Scytl collects all state ENR data andprovides it to Edison Research. Edison works in tandem with all the legacy news agencies that televise election results. The vote tracking features you see on the bottom of the screen during an election on Fox and CNN all come from Scytl-Edison. Two corporate entities with no Congressional oversight, one with foreign ownership—have a monopoly on what the public sees on election night.

This self-evident national security threat wasn’t lost on the media during the Trump administration. The Guardian warned of the threat posed by Scytl having total control of ENR, and Dominion Voting Systems possessing a near monopoly on tabulation. Those concerns, however, evaporated after Joe Biden was installed.

The Fraud Curve(pic)

Examples of ENR anomalies include one viewer noticing an exact 19,958 vote switch from Trump to Biden that occurred in Pennsylvania, and another observing 351,000 votes disappearing in the vote totals during the recall election of California governor, Gavin Newsom.

But what became the most famous and unexplainable ENR phenomenon were the datasets showing thousands of votes being injected for one candidate, while simultaneously showing a negligible or nonexistent increase for the other candidate. This became known as the “F- Curve” or “Fraud Curve” in election integrity circles because of the shape the curves made in the plot of total votes for each candidate over the election count:

Unsurprisingly, after the F-Curve materialized in the ENR datasets, the losing candidate would leap ahead to victory – typically in the middle of the night. The swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania all exhibited an F-Curve after each had stopped counting at around 10 pm on November 3, 2020.

At the TCF Center in Detroit for example, Michigan, surveillance video showed a white van delivering thousands of ballots in the middle of the night, well after the delivery deadline, at the same time an F-Curve showed up in Michigan’s ENR data.…

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/shocking-analysis-election-night-reporting-companies-that-manufacture/

>>19110004

2/6(graph)

The “F Curve” has since been found in dozens of races in the 2020 and 2022 elections. This includes the January 5th, 2021, runoff-election in Georgia where the fate of two U.S. Senate races were decided. After the runoff-election, Democrats controlled the White House, the House, and the Senate. The following year, candidates like John Fetterman, who campaigned in a hoodie and shorts with glaringly obvious cognitive impairments, defeated a well-known public figure in Pennsylvania. Katie Hobbs, who ducked the debate stage and hid in a bathroom from reporters, was also able to ride the fictitious perception wave provided by ENR to a stolen victory in Arizona.

ENR Exhibits Centralized Manipulation

Most local election officials take criticism over the 2020 election personally. They vigorously defend the handling of their elections. And most have a good-faith belief in the vendor-provided talking points of how decentralized their election processes are. Evidence of centralized control of election night reporting, however, has shattered those talking points.

After the 2020 Election impossible anomalies were identified in multiple states. We found in Georgia and numerous other states that there were patterns in their Edison data that made no sense.

We labeled this “The Drop and Roll”:

Multiple analysts have confirmed the above analysis and found them in multiple races in dozens of states. Former systems consultant and MBA, Todd Buffington, is one of these. He found evidence of theF-Curve in at least 20 states.Buffington also confirmed that the Scytl and Edison datasets are identical. (Comparison of Nebraska SCYTL vs Edison Research Data (rumble.com))

Buffington’s analysis of Georgia further highlights the impossibility of the ENR data. (https://rumble.com/v10r7y1-proof-of-election-fraud-using-official-results-data.html) Up until Line 371 in the data, Trump was ahead of Biden. At Line 372 of the data – 5,972 votes were added in a batch weighted 91% for Biden, bringing Biden’s total to exactly match Trump’s total of 2,447,591 votes.

While a batch coming in 9 to 1 for Biden to exactly match Trump’s total is alarming,what is observed next in the ENR data is impossible. Thenext 55 batches of votes added to the tally are split exactly 50/50—such that Trump and Biden’s totals remain equal for the next 55 batches. Even more bizarre, is that in many of these batches, there were an odd number of votes, making it mathematically impossible to split batches equally between the two candidates.

The likelihood of any of this happening randomly is likely zero. Election night reporting has a tenuous tie, if any, to the reality of what is occurring in each election jurisdiction. The only explanation for the phenomena observed is thatvotes are being fractionalized and automated through an algorithm. The algorithm being witnessed throughout the country is known as a proportional-integral-derivative control function, or “PID control.”

PID Control

The discovery that ENR data is little more than perception-shaping theater is demonstrated by the work of Draza Smith. Smith is a control system expert and was a senior cyber engineer at Sandia National Labs focusing on Cyber and Grid Security. Smith’s extensive research into election night reporting and the data produced by the election system has proved that ENR in all 50 states is automated. Smith’s work can be found here discussed in detail here. (https://t.me/ladydraza, https://rumble.com/vkgtqh-draza-smith-election-fraud-on-cruise-control.html)

When Smith looked at the ENR data, rather than looking at the repeating ratios of vote distribution in each batch as discussed in the previous section, she looked at theratio between the cumulative distribution of votesfor each candidate. For the presidential race, that would be the number of Trump votes divided by the number of Biden votes at each timestamp provided in the ENR dataset – or what she calls the “Trump to Biden ratio.”

When she looked at the data this way, she noticed that the resulting curves resembled a function she was very familiar with as a control systems engineer – the function she saw in the ENR data is called aproportional-integral-derivative control function, or PID control.

PID control is a commonly used function in car cruise control systems and home thermostats. It is used to keep a system in a steady state or gradually move it from one state to another. For example, let’s say it’s the middle of winter and is 55 degrees in your house. You turn your thermostat up to 68 degrees. Your furnace will turn on at its highest setting and start to warm up your house. As the temperature approaches the set point of 68 degrees, the system switches to a lower setting until it warms your house to a temperature slightly above the set point, and then it turns off.

>>19110031

3/6(NM, CO, ARK & WI, MI, GA)

The exact same behavior in the Trump to Biden ratio was found in the ENR in every state. Plotting the Trump to Biden ratios over the “count” of the election looks exactly the way a plot of the temperature inside your home would look. Below are three plots of the Trump to Biden ratio from three states that are representative of what most states looked like over the election “count.” Notice that theTrump to Biden ratio gradually rose until it exceeded an apparent set point, then it decreased gradually into that set point and remained there through the end of the count.

Now recall the previous section (The Drop and Roll) describing successive batches with impossible repeating percentages in the Georgia presidential race. Draza Smith’s work perfectly reconciles with Buffington’s independent analysis. The period at the end of the count where the results are settling into their set points explains the number of repeating percentages awarded to each candidate. At the end of the count, after the set point had been reached – the function (or algorithm) controlling the ENR data wasn’t really keeping track of any additive process, it wasjust updating the total number of votes cast and distributing the percentages to each candidate as needed to hold the set point, even if it meant it had to split single votes between candidates.

Most states behaved as the representative plots from Colorado, New Mexico, and Arkansas shown above. But theswing states that all stopped counting in the middle of the night behaved differently. In fact, they behaved exactly as a PID control algorithm would behave if it had itsset point changed in the middle of the count.

The plots for the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia all exhibit PID controlled behavior. All settled into a Trump-to-Biden ratio that would have resulted in a Trump victory.Then the swing states “stopped counting.” When they started counting again, they were approaching anew set point– one that would result in the swing states going to Biden.

The Edison Zero(green yellow-proof algo)

In the time that elapsed between the change in set points in the swing states, a very strange thing shows up in the ENR data.All fifty states show a total of zero votes for a period. This event is called the “Edison Zero” in election integrity circles.

Below is a dual plot from the website of analyst Jeff O’Donnell. The yellow line is the total cumulative votes across the entire country and the green line is the Trump-to-Biden ratio. The yellow and blue vertical lines are the points when the states of Florida and Texas were called for Trump respectively.

In simple terms, after Florida and Texas were called for Trump, it isbelieved that all the votes in the national Scytl-Edison ENR system were pulled and reset back to zero. It took almost two days to put those same votes back in the system. Prior to 10 pm, when all the swing states decided to “stop counting,” Trump was in the lead. After the Edison Zero and re-insertion of votes that had supposedly already been counted, Biden lept ahead and stayed there until the end of “counting.”

Several experts in election analysis circles believe thatFlorida and Texas were originally slated to go to Biden, but when Trump received more support than expected, “Plan B” was deployed. Thisrequired seven smaller states to: (1) stop counting, (2) recalculate the algorithms, (3) reboot the ENR system, and (4) retabulate the votes in different percentages to give the election to Biden.

To make it seem normal and expected, “Plan B” was floated out to the public a few days before the electionby Bernie Sanders on late night television when he made an exact prediction of which states would stop counting at 10 pm:

Several states exhibited a clear reset in their ratio control after the Edison Zero. Virginia is one of these:

More Proof of an Algorithm Reset

More evidence that the ENR is controlled by an algorithm was discovered by Jeff O’Donnell in some county-level ENR data that was reported by Scytl-Edison on election night in Chester and Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania; Fulton, Macomb, and Bibb Counties in Georgia; and Chatham and Surry Counties in North Carolina.

In these seven counties, the ENR data is more detailed. It shows the total ballots cast and breaks those into in-person and mailed ballots. The videos below graphically depict thenumbers of ballots in the in-person and mailed categories performing impossible feats of increasing and decreasinghow many were in each category from the evening of November 3rd and for several days following. The data is showing an algorithm that is attempting to solve itself but cannot do it with the original constraints:

>>19110038

4/6

All the evidence points to the fact that theENR data Americans see on election night is not a straight report of a real tally, but rather an algorithm. And that algorithm is set up ahead of time with a pre-determined set point of percentages to each candidate that every state is expected to reach by the end of election night.Support for Trump on November 3, 2020, overwhelmed whatever “Plan A” was, necessitating a complete re-bootof the reporting of election results,which required the swing states to all “stop counting” at 10 pmso their set-points could be changed to give Biden a win.

Where does the Plan to Steal an Election Come From?

To steal a national election, it would have to be modeled ahead of time. Estimates would have to be made as to how many votes needed to be fraudulently inserted into certain jurisdictions to swing the election in the desired direction.

Campaign strategists model elections all the time to create campaign strategies for their candidates. Consultants study historic elections down to the county and precinct levels and they estimate how many people in which locations need to be won over to their candidate to give them a win. They plan campaign stops, phone calls, and door knocking accordingly. Then during early voting and on election day, the candidate’s campaign will follow up with the people who were favorable to him or her during campaign season and remind them to go out and vote.

If elections can be modeled honestly, they can also be modeled dishonestly. Just like a candidate, bad actors that plan to steal an election would need to know: (1) how real voters intend to cast their ballots (pre-election polling), (2) they would need to know what the turnout was through early voting and election day (collected by internet-connected electronic pollbooks and distributed by SOSs), and (3) they would need to know how those people were casting their ballots (exit polling). They would also need (4)a censorship regime to crush all discussion of what citizens noticed going wrong during the election.

Turnout data can easily be collected by internet-connected electronic pollbooks – data which is regularly distributed by SOSs across the country. Thecensorship regimealso exists and was recently revealed by the U.S. House Oversight Committee to beheaded up by the Department of Homeland Securitycolluding with election officials, social media giants, and leftist organizations.

Is there anyone out there who is collecting sufficient pre-election and exit polling in every county in the U.S. that would fill in the data gaps left by electronic pollbooks and the DHS’s censorship regime?

Yes, there is.

The aforementioned Edison Research – the entity working with Scytl we just discussed as having a complete monopoly on Election Night Reporting. According to their website, “Edison provides the National Election Pool [ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News] with pre-election polling, early voter exit polling, Election Day exit polling, and tabulation of the national vote across every county in the United States.” (emphasis added)

They go on to explain thatEdison handles “election polling for international clients, most recently Venezuela, Iraq, Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia.”

Venezuela and Ukraine are two countries where widespread election fraud is commonly believed to be occurring. In 2018 a phone call between Victoria Nuland, U.S. State Department Assistant Secretary and Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, discussing their plan to overthrow a democratically elected president in Ukraine. Interesting that Edison happens to have a presence there.

With the data collected in all fifty states by Edison, it is perfectly possible to make an estimate of how many ballots need to be inserted in specific jurisdictions during early voting to swing an election. Then using the real-time vote count as it comes in on election day, those estimates can be updated and revised in real-time. Since Scytl controls the flow of ENR data nationwide, they can slow it down when adjustments need to be made – for weeks if necessary.

>>19110041

5/6

Is there any evidence that elections were being manipulated during early voting?Yes, there is a lot of it. Most notable is the research effort by an election integrity organization, True the Vote, to gather video surveillance and cell phone data which showed “ballot mules” illegally inserting thousands of ballots into drop boxes all over the country during early voting.

There was also the truck driver that reported that he was directed to drive hundreds of thousands of ballots from New York to Pennsylvania in late October of 2020, with a recent postal service report validating his account of what occurred.

Gaslighting About ENR(RI)

Hostile “fact-checkers” and election officials have offered two insufficient explanations for why ENR is not solid proof that elections are centrally manipulated and fraudulent. The first, and most common explanation election officials offer, is that the ENR is third-party data. Thus, with no refutation of the actual data, they merely exclaim: “We don’t know where it comes from! We are not responsible for what is in it!”

This is ridiculous because states pay vendors thousands of dollars every election for software to take their election data and populate their SOS websites with the results. The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) expressly provides that states are responsible for their ENR data and that it needs to be an accurate representation of the results, as it is perceived by the public as the official outcome of the election.

The second explanation is that ENR data are “projections” and subject to change as claimed by a Fox News reporter below when the number of votes that had been processed in thePennsylvania 2022 Primary inexplicably dropped from 99 percent down to 95 percent on live TV:

Thetruth is that with the almost universal deployment of electronic pollbooks across the country, the number of votes that have been cast should be known within 1 percent as soon as the polls close in most jurisdictions – a five percent drop in total ballots processed is not believable unless fraud is underway. And if five percent is to be the new norm for ENR accuracy, Fox News had no business calling the Presidential race for Biden in 2020 based on such flimsy projections.

More importantly, the EAC leaves no room for using projections or polling to report the election results to the public. Neither is there any mention of projections or polling in any of the contracts ENR vendors have with states. The reporter in the video above accidentally revealed an incriminating truth. He accidentallytold the American public that the data Scytl-Edison feeds the public are not real election results.

Election Night Reporting is a show—political theater—set up ahead of time to fool the American people into believing that they are watching an honest process. And if the American people don’t wake up to the truth now, they will watch another election cycle of leaders being selected rather than elected.

The claim in the last paragraph is a bold one, but not hard to understand for technical experts who have studied the data and realized there is no other explanation. But thefinal nail in the coffin for the “fact-checkers” and brainwashed election officialscan be found in little Rhode Island. A state so small that they process the entire state’s election on a single Election Management System (EMS) – a technical term for a central computer where the election data is aggregated and stored.

The figure below shows two graphs created by Draza Smith. The graph on the top is a plot of the Trump and Biden votes as they accumulated on TV screens across America on November 3, 2020. (Notice Rhode Island has a F Curve just like all the swing states.) The graph on the bottom are the votes as they are stored within the computer that houses the official election results.

As anyone can see, these two graphs are not the same even though there is no legitimate reason why they should not be. There are only three explanations for this: (1) the data broadcast on election night is manipulated, (2) the data stored in the central computer is manipulated, or(3) both the election night reporting and official results are manipulated. Whichever of these is the truth (and experts suspect it is the third), there is no other conclusion that can be reached other than that our elections are not honestly portrayed to the public.

>>19110049

6/6

Who is Responsible for Manipulated ENR Data?Look to Georgia.(SOS Sytl)

Now to shed some light on who is most likely responsible for showing the public at least partially fabricated data on election night and claiming they are real election results.

Recall that election officials brush off massive evidence of fraud in the ENR data. They claim it is simply third-party data and can’t be held responsible for it.There are at least nine states for which this excuse holds no water: Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, New Jersey, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia. These states contract directly with Scytl to provide their election night reporting. That means that the numbers that float across the TV screen are provided by Scytl, and Scytl alone, who get it directly from election officials. According to the EAC, this means that the state election officials are responsible for those numbers.

Since we shared Georgia’s data in this article, let’s look at the Georgia Secretary of State’s election results. Click on the election results for any election since 2012, and you will be taken to a Clarity Election website – which is owned by Scytl. Scytl even copyrights Georgia’s ENR data.

Earlier in this article, we showed impossible numbers of batches of votes in a row came in at exactly the same percentage for two candidates, which also happened to match the overall percentage. Georgia’s data also shows all the hallmarks of being calculated by a PID control algorithm with an original setpoint that was revised after Florida and Texas were called for Trump.

Georgia’s Secretary of State and Scytl are directly responsible for the impossibilities in the election results in the 2020 General and Runoff elections. In other words,Scytl is easily identified as a major culpable party behind the famous “Fraud Curve” when examining the evidence.

The Rabbit Hole Goes Deeper

Election integrity activists have become awarehow impossible it is to overturn a fraudulent election after a result has been announced, even when election fraud can be proven without a doubt and there is video surveillance of the steal taking place. This means that controlling the mechanism by which winners are announced gives unfathomable power over elections. And it doesn’t matter what evidence comes out afterwards—because if history is our guide—nothing will be done about it.

Scytl doesn’t only have a monopoly on ENR reporting, but they also have their fingers on the official election data in 26 statesafter acquiring “100% of SOE Software, the leading software provider of election management solutions in the United States.” SOE Software owns a product called “Clarity,” a suite of 8 software modules spread throughout 900 jurisdictions across the United States. Scytl-Edison’s publication of what looks like bogus ENR data on live television is a terrifying reality. With the ability to control the official election data, there are no limits on what they can do.

Scytl also has an unfortunate connection to Konnech through a man named Luis Nabergoi-Puentewho lives in Spain and has been Konnech’s Worldwide Technical Director as well as a program manager at Scytl.

Konnech is an election company who claims to have distributed its software to “thousands of election offices across North America,” but have also been proven to be storing sensitive election worker information in China, as well as giving Chinese nationals full access to their software. (https://open.ink/konnech)

Konnech’s illegal connections to China were discovered by True the Vote. After the information reached the Washington D.C. FBI headquarters and after the D.C. office got involved, the FBI did everything possible to shut down the investigation into Konnech and implicate the researchers who discovered the breach.

There is a powerful force behind Scytl, Edison and Clarity. How they ever obtained influence in US elections is not clear. Their activities in US elections are suspect at best as well.

Gorka – The Coup that Wasn’t: Wagner’s ‘Mutiny’ Against Putin Just Doesn’t Add Up

July 1, 2023

Revolutions can be good. Like the one that erupted in 1776 and gave us America. Others, not so much.

“News” about thousands of mercenaries heading to Moscow to take over the government from Vladimir Putin was disturbing, to say the least.

But not everything was as it may, at first blush, seem. Allegedly the regular Russian forces shelled and fired rockets at Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner unit. All this came after months of accusations flung back and forth…

As a result, the former restauranteur ordered his men to pull out of the warzone that is Ukraine and head for the Russian capital.

But was it really to replace the regime?

Why it just doesn’t add up:

Firstly, there’s the numbers thing.

Yes the current state of the Russia Federation’s military capabilities is depleted – yet the fact remains that the nation still countsmore than a millionmen in uniform,2 million reservists, plus thenewly created National Guard, established by Putin and directly subordinated to him for use in exactly such an eventuality as a real coup.

The Wagner Group, on the other hand, can count on an absolutemaximum of 25,000blood-thirsty fighters…but 25,000 against over a million, or 3 million… Are we positing that Prigozhin – and all his men – are suicidal?

Secondly, the language of the putative coup was, let’s just say “strange.”

If you’re moving militarily on the capital, then it’s clear you are trying to effect a regime change, the decapitation of the existing old guard. But Prigozhin’s militant statementsfailed to include one name: Putin. The official pronouncements flung invective at the Minster of Defense… Did Prigozhin really believe he could take on the might of the Russian Military… Or was thereanother reasonthe President wasn’t targeted by name? (And Putin in his speeches, has not used Prigozhin by name as the ones responsible.)

Thirdly, why did Wagner suddenly stand down?

If the mercenary forces had truly been so successful that they hadcaptured a regional command centerand made their way across the administrative line of Moscow Oblast in just 2 days… – why the sudden volte face, and the decision to withdraw?

…If you’re winning and the “enemy” had made zero concessions, you really shouldn’t just turn around and run away.

Then there’sPutin’s response to the “coup”and the location of Wagner units today.

Despite the world being told that this was “banditry” and “a crime against the state,” with the blockades still smoldering, Putin declared that the members of theunitswhich made amove against Moscow would not be prosecuted. More than strange. Why would the man who thinks nothing of having journalists disloyal intelligence officers murdered suddenly say coup-plotters go scot-free? It makes no sense. None.

Then we come to thewhereaboutsof Pregozhin’s mutinous mercenaries.

Apparently the Wagner Group’s failed revolutionaries are allnow in Belarussia, being protected by none other than Alexander Lukashenko. (100 miles from Kiev)

Now most people will have no idea where Belarussia is, let alone anything about its President. But if you want to judge whether or not what we have been hearing out of Eastern Europe about this supposed coup is credible, it is essential toknow at least this: Alexander Lukashenko is an even worse human being than the former KGB colonel Putin.

Lukasheno an unreconstructed dictator…who has wholly subordinated his nation to the Kremlin. Ask yourself one question: why would Vladimir Putin’s mostloyal lackey harbor and protect those who tried to violently remove him?

What really happened last weekend? That’s impossible to divine right now.

However, if you’re a paranoid President who feels threatened by those around you but are unsure who’s loyal and who’s a potential traitor, what better way to smoke out your hidden enemies than toask a loyal subordinate to stage a fake coupand see who decides to join in, or simply to do nothing?

In the meantime, just remember Churchill’s words about Russia.

As Winston Churchill warned us,Russia is “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Remember Viscount Slim’s wise rule that tells us all initial reports from the battlefield are wrong, and we should dig deeper for the Truth.

(Finally someone gets it!)

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2023/07/01/gorka-putin-wagner-mutiny/

2 Jul, 2023 01:03

Ukraine warns against ‘repeating Merkel’s mistake’

It would be “suicidal” to reject Kiev’s bid to join NATO, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said

NATO should draw lessons from the past and not tank Kiev’s aspirations to join the alliance like it did 15 years ago at the behest of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said on Friday. (He’s basically stating Ukraine should get a participation trophy since they are losing the war. The requirements of NATO are vast including financially.)

“Do not repeat the mistake Chancellor Merkel made in Bucharest in 2008 when she fiercely opposed any progress towards Ukraine’s NATO membership,” the minister argued in an interview with Axel Springer media group in Berlin. (Merkel opposed it because NATO countries along with the US Bush Sn.had promised Russia after the Soviet Union fell, that they would never surround Russia with NATO countries; and had promised Russia to be included in NATO.)

In 2008, NATO states decided against providing Ukraine with a Membership Action Plan (MAP), a roadmap to becoming a full-fledged member of the US-led military bloc. Merkel, who retired from politics in 2021, has since defended her opposition to granting the MAP to Ukraine and has refused to denounce her past policies towards Russia.

Kuleba insisted that “after the war ends, it will be suicidal for Europe not to accept Ukraine into NATO because it will mean that the option of … war will remain open.” Ukraine formally applied to join NATO in September 2022, months after Russia launched its military operation in the neighboring state. (A delusional starement, the war will not end until Russia has fulfilled their mission, and Ukraine will not win this and they should go to peace negotiations now.)

Kuleba’s comments come ahead of a NATO summit that is scheduled to take place in mid-July in Vilnius, Lithuania. Ukrainian officials said that President Vladimir Zelensky would not attend the event unlessKiev is provided with a concrete path to membership.

“What we are asking for is to start the procedure,” Igor Zhovkva, one of Zelensky’s aides, said recently.

Russia has opposed NATO membership for Ukraine, listing Ukraine’s neutrality as one of the conditions for a lasting peace between the two countries. Moscow has repeatedly said that it views NATO’s expansions to the east as a threat to its security.

(This whole statement by Kuleba takes threatening and terrorism to a new level. He’s actually saying even though Ukraine has made no progress to remove corruption from the country, and they can’t win the war with Russia, that if NATO countries do not give them membership their terrorism will be directed at these countries. This is a public statement of extreme blackmail! Ukraine should be very cautious now because as much as the may have on these leaders, the countries have more on Ukraine. They have gone too far in this strategy, none of the leaders in Ukraine are safe now. The only country that is suicidal now is all of Ukraine leadership.)

https://www.rt.com/russia/579062-kuleba-nato-merkel-ukraine/

2 Jul, 2023 07:19

Russian kamikaze drones are major headache for Ukraine – Telegraph

Kiev needs more Gepard air defense systems to fight Lancet UAVs, an adviser to the defense minister told the outlet

Russian Lancet kamikaze drones have become a major thorn in the side of Ukraine’s frontline troops, and Kiev needs more advanced Western weaponry to tackle this threat, the Daily Telegraph reported on Saturday, citing a senior Ukrainian official.

According to Yury Sak, an adviser to the Ukrainian defense minister, Kiev’s intelligence believes that Russia has “started investing more in the production of these drones.”

“To understand why they are a concern to us,anything that is capable of damaging our equipment or posing a risk to our troops is a concern to us,” Sak said. “Without giving the Russians credit,it’s not a bad bit of kit.”

Russian Lancets, which carry up to 3kg of explosives, fly at low altitudes to avoid detection, are highly maneuverable, andcan loiter in the airuntil the target exposes itself. These factors make them a major threat to Ukrainian artillery, especially given that Kiev isreluctant to use air defense missiles on these relatively cheap aircraft, the report says.

Sak told the paper that the West can help Ukraine fight these UAVs by sending additional air defense systems, particularly German-made Gepards, which are armed with anti-aircraft guns.

“They’re mobile, they can move around quickly and they have a good radar that can be integrated into the line,” he said.

Germany has already sent 34 Gepardsto Ukraine, with another 18 on the way. In total, according to German officials, Berlin plans to supply Kiev with 45 Gepards by the end of 2023.

Sak also saidLancets can be neutralizedthrough electronic warfare measures. “Modern jamming equipment is a very important aspect of our anti-drone capability,” he noted. “But we’re badly lacking and looking to our allies, and hopefully one day we’ll have more of it.”

In an April interview with The Economist, Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, described theLancet as “the most dangerous drone for us”and “very useful for destroying artillery.”

In recent weeks, the Russian military has on numerous occasions reported the successful use of these types of UAVs, which have been used todestroy mortar teams, self-propelled artillery, tanks, and other heavy vehicles.

https://www.rt.com/russia/579076-russia-kamikaze-drones-headache-ukraine/

2 Jul, 2023 03:14

Hundreds face axe from liberal Soros NGO

A global charity run by the billionaire will cut at least 40% of its staff

The non-profit organization Open Society Foundations run by billionaire philanthropist George Soros is laying off much of its staff as part of a reorganization.

The process includes “a substantial reduction in headcount of no less than 40% globally,” a spokesperson told US news agencies. Thecharity employed more than 500 peopleas of the end of 2021, according to Bloomberg.

On Friday, the nonprofit’s board of directors released a statement, announcing “significant changes” to the operating model “intended to maximize Open Society’s impact in helping to counter the forces currently threatening open and free societies.”

Soros, 92, is in the process of handing over control of his $25 billion empire to his 37-year-old son, Alexander. The younger Soros told the Wall Street Journal last month that his views are similar to his father’s, and that he is “more political.”

Soros, who made his fortune in finance and hedge-fund managing, has championed various liberal and progressive causes at home and abroad, which has often drawn criticism from conservatives.

Countries such as Russia and Hungary have accused Soros of meddling in their domestic affairs. In 2015, Russia banned several Soros-affiliated NGOs as “undesirable” organizations.

(This doesn’t they are not going to work with 100s or 1,000s of other NGOs but its a good start. With all the billions this creature has, why didn’t he ever get a facelift?)

https://www.rt.com/news/579064-soros-announces-job-cuts/

1 Jul, 2023 05:30

EU state’s hotel industry boss counts cost of anti-Russia sanctions

Latvia has lost a third of its tourists following a ban on most Russian visitors, Andris Kalnins has said

Latvia has lost a third of its tourists since downgrading ties with Russia over the Ukraine conflict and isunlikely to ever recover the loss, the president of the Association of Hotels and Restaurants of Latvia, Andris Kalnins, said on Friday.

The Baltic nation had long been a popular destination for Russian travelers, due to its close proximity to Russia, and historical ties as a former part of the Soviet Union.

In September 2022 Latvia clamped down on tourism from Russia, with Foreign Minister Edgar Rinkevics tweeting: “You're not welcome here – you need to end the war against Ukraine and be gone from that beautiful country!”

The ban – which covers most Russian visitors, except for EU residence permit holders and some other categories – has dealt a major blow to Latvia’s tourism industry. Russians previously accounted for a third of all visitors to the country.

“It is impossible to cover all the Slavic market that we have lost. We used to haveabout 30% of tourists coming from Russia,” Kalnins said.

Last week, following the Wagner Group mutiny in Russia, Latviafurther tightened its border controls, and stopped issuing all types of visas to Russian citizens.

The country's tourism industry players have acknowledged that “Russia was an important market.”

Vladislav Koryagin, CEO of the Baltic Travel Group, admitted that “of course, we miss it,”adding that “from an economic perspective, thisdecision may not have helped local businesses.”

https://www.rt.com/business/578988-latvia-russia-tourism-loss/

1 Jul, 2023 10:03

Polish PM taunts EU over migration with French unrest video

“We do not want such scenes on Polish streets,” the clip uploaded by Mateusz Morawiecki said

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has taken a swipe at proposed EU migration overhaul,currently blocked by Hungary and Poland, by sharing a video that juxtaposed scenes of violent protests in France against peaceful cities in his country. The premier himself has floated his own plan seeking to curb mass migration.

On Friday, Morawiecki uploaded a clip on his Twitter page in support of a Polish-backed plan called “Europe of Secure Borders.” The video depicted French streets and cars engulfed in flames, with rioters smashing store windows. The pictures of contrasted with peaceful and tidy Polish cities bustling with life.

“We do not want such scenes on Polish streets,” the caption in the video read.

The violence in France erupted over the death of a 17-year-old at the hands of a police officer on Tuesday. According to local authorities, nearly 1,000 people have been arrested across the country and 45,000 police officers deployed to handle the upheaval.

Morawiecki’s tweet coincides with his harsh criticism of a migration overhaul proposal that would give EU members three options:accept relocated asylum seekers, pay €20,000 ($21,000)for each rejected applicant, orfinance operational support.

By embracing this migration reform “Europe encourages smugglers to send more transports,” the Polish premier charged. “If we invite 30,000, [then] 300,000 will come. If we invite a million, 30 million will come. It’s an endless spiral,” he said, adding that opening Europe’s borders would not only empower criminals but also result in “an increased risk of terrorism in Europe.”

However, touting Poland as “an example of a successful migration policy,” Morawiecki proposed his own plan that envisages ramping up investment in guarding the EU’s external borders and buttressing Frontex, the bloc’s border agency.

He also suggested supporting development in countries that are the source of mass migration,reducing social benefitsfor people from outside the EU, andcracking down on smugglers and the black market.

The EU has had a hard time dealing with the inflow of migrants for at least several years. According to Frontex data, the bloc’s authorities registered330,000 illegal border crossings at the EU external border in 2022, which the agency described as the highest number since 2016 and anincrease of 64% from the previous year.

https://www.rt.com/news/579029-poland-eu-migration-reform/