14 Feb, 2024 14:59

Kiev’s new top general explains frontline hardships

Aleksandr Syrsky has been branded a “butcher” for high attrition rates under his command, but is now pledging to minimize losses

The conditions facing Ukrainian troops on the frontline are “very difficult and tense,” the newly appointed top military commander, Aleksandr Syrsky, acknowledged on Wednesday.

The general described his impressions in a post on social media, after visiting the east of the country with Defense Minister Rustem Umerov. Previously, the general told German media thatKiev was changing its approach to the fighting, and would be less willing to suffer losses to defend positionsthan under the previous leadership.

In his post, Syrsky offered few details about Ukraine’s military movements, focusing mostly on the Russian advantage in manpower and munitions. The Russians “are ramping up their efforts and have a numerical advantage in troops,” he said.

Syrsky, who replaced Valery Zaluzhny as Ukraine’s most senior commander last week, has earned a reputation as a “butcher” for showing an apparent disregard to casualty rates, Politico wrote last week. He is known for “leading forces into a meat grinder in Bakhmut [called Artyomovsk in Russia], sending wave after wave of troops to face opposition fire,” the magazine said in its profile of the general. Soldiers have also given him the nickname ‘General 200’, a reference to the Soviet military code for soldiers killed in action.

Speaking earlier to the German TV channel ZDF,Syrsky stressed the importance of conserving soldiers’ lives, saying he would “rather leave a position” than allow casualties. The same intention was expressed in his statement on Telegram on Wednesday.

In contrast to that pledge, during the battle of Artyomovsk in early 2023, Syrsky reportedly followed the instructions of President Vladimir Zelensky to hold the location at all costs for political reasons, while US advisors and Zaluzhny urged a retreat. The general at the time was the commander of the Ukrainian ground forces.

https://www.rt.com/russia/592430-syrsky-frontline-meat-waves/

(Is Kiev preparing peace negotiations, or are they faking out the soldiers and those that they don't want to fight for Kiev?)

14 Feb, 2024 14:23

Hunter Biden’s phone contained images of illicit drugs – US Justice Dept

The son of the US president has been accused of lying during a 2018 federal background check about his use of narcotics

Hunter Biden had images on his personal phone of “apparent” crack cocaine and other drug paraphernalia, around the time he was accused of lying about his use of illegal substances on a federal form ahead of an October 2018 firearm purchase, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Tuesday.

In a ten-page court filing, the DOJ shared drug-related images and text messages allegedly composed by Hunter Biden, the second son of US President Joe Biden, that prosecutors say were from April, November and December 2018.

In September, Biden was issued three charges of gun-related crimes by Special Counsel David Weiss. These included making false statements on a federal firearms form as well as the illegal possession of a gun as a prohibited person.

“Prior to October 12, 2018, the defendant took photos of crack cocaine and other drug paraphernalia on his phone,”the Justice Department filing reads. “Also prior to his gun purchase, the defendant routinely sent messages about purchasing drugs.”

The filing also states that Hunter Biden “messaged his girlfriend about meeting a drug dealer and smoking crack” on October 13 and 14 of 2018. His former partner Hallie Biden – previously the wife of his late brother Beau Biden – discarded the firearm on October 23, 2018, the DOJ said.

“Are you insane? This is no game,” one text message directed to Biden on October 23 says. “You’re being totally irresponsible and unhinged.”

The documents also note that the text messages were sent following “interactions with law enforcement.”

Additionally, the documents state that Biden acknowledged his status as “an addict” in messages in late 2018, writing in one text message in December thathe will “fing get sober when I want to get fing sober.”

The details submitted by the DOJ in its filing appear to undermine a claim made by Hunter Biden in a federal background check that he was not addicted to drugs at the time of the October 2018 firearm purchase.

Last October, Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to three federal gun charges weeks after a plea deal arranged with prosecutors collapsed. Under the terms of that agreement, Biden would have admitted guilt to misdemeanor tax charges in exchange for the firearm charges being dropped.

If convicted of all of the firearm charges, Hunter Biden could face a maximum term of 25 years in prison and fines of up to $750,000. However, his status as an alleged first-time offender in a non-violent crime would likely see his punishment be dramatically reduced, legal analysts have said.

https://www.rt.com/news/592435-hunter-biden-phone-drugs/

(DOJ dropping the Bidan's they are too much of a problem!)

14 Feb, 2024 16:29

US spies behind ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy – report

The CIA asked its ‘Five Eyes’ allies to monitor Trump campaign aides, according to a new investigation

The US intelligence community inappropriately used foreign allies to target Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign to set up the ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy ahead of the 2016 election, according to a trio of investigative journalists.

Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag – of ‘Twitter Files’ fame –published the first part of an investigation on Tuesday, in which they claim theso-called 'Five Eyes' were operationalized against Trump staffers, citing anonymous sources close to the House Intelligence Committee.

According to their report, President Barack Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, had sent America’s partners – the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand – a list of 26 Trump associates to target with data collection, misinformation and manipulation.

The Russiagate conspiracy involved multiple failures across western media networks to critically assess US intelligence claims that Russia had interfered in the 2016 US presidential election. A 2018 Pulitzer prize was awarded to Washington Post and New York Times journalists for their reporting on what was later to exposed as a false story.

“They were making contacts and bumping Trump people going back toMarch 2016,” said a committee source.“They were sending people around the UK, Australia, Italy — the Mossad in Italy. MI6 was working at an intelligence school they had set up,” the journalists claim.

Officially, the FBI only started looking into the Trump campaign that summer, after an Australian diplomat reportedly overheard an aide mention Russia. If confirmed, these findings would demonstrate that theUS intelligence community had worked for monthsbefore that to set up just such a pretext.

In a statement to the investigative journalists, the FBI said it had made “missteps” in the 2016 and 2017 investigation of the Trump campaign, but has since implemented reforms to prevent it from happening again.

“The allegations that GCHQ was asked to conduct ‘wiretapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense,” a spokesman for the British surveillance agency said. “They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”Shellenberger, Taibbi and Gutentag said they had never asked the GCHQ about “wiretapping.”

According to Shellenberger,there is a “10-inch binder” containing previously unknown documentsabout the intelligence community’s surveillance of the Trump campaign. The 45th US president had ordered these documents declassified, but they went missing instead. In a Fox News appearance on Tuesday evening, Shellenberger suggested the FBI’s August 2022 raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort may have been related to the missing binder. (Trump has the binder, that is why the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, no wonder they are freaking out. FBI doing the work for many Agencies. Hmm did someone give access to “info in the binder” to Shellenberger, Taibbi and Gutentag?)

After the US intelligence community created a pretext for investigating Trump for ‘ties to Russia,’ they spied on his campaign – and then his presidency – using a falsely obtained FISA warrant. The warrant was based on the ‘Steele dossier,’ a file compiled by a British spy in the pay of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, through several intermediaries. The FBI knew the dossier was false as early as January 2017, but continued using the FISA warrant for almost a year thereafter.

The FBI lawyer who altered evidence to obtain the warrant, Kevin Clinesmith, ended up sentenced to probation and his law license has since been restored.

https://www.rt.com/news/592439-cia-russiagate-illegal-trump/

14 Feb, 2024 11:44

German FM admits economy ‘unfit’

Christian Lindner believes that structural reforms are needed to strengthen the competitiveness of the EU’s economic heavyweight

Germany needs structural reforms to boost its competitiveness, Finance Minister Christian Lindner said at an event at the London School of Economics on Monday, as cited by Reuters.

The comments came in response toGermany once again being given the label of “the sick man of Europe” after it turned in the weakest performance among large economies in the world last year, according to the IMF. The German economy contracted by 0.3% year-on-year in 2023, as soaring energy costs, lackluster global orders, and elevated interest rates bit into growth.

Linder, however, denied the comparison, remarking that “some say Germany is the sick man of Europe, I don’t think so,” Lindner. “We are an unfit man.” The “sick man” label was famously applied to Germany by The Economist in 1999 as the country grappled with the challenges of reunification and reduced export demand.

The IMF projects the German economy growing by only 0.9% in 2024, well below the 1.4% expected for advanced economies.

Germany is “healthy, but not in the best shape,” Lindner said. Comparing the German and UK economies, he added that “both are in a downturn.” Last month, the minister, sticking with the same metaphor, compared Germany to a “tired man” in need of a cup of coffee of structural reforms.

Linder also discussed how, in his view, the EU needs a single capital market for private investment, instead of endless subsidizing.“It is unlikely that any economy is capable of paying subsidies for a very long time,” he said.

In a separate comment made to Bloomberg, the minister stated that Germany’s economy would be ruined if it followed the UK out of the EU, adding that the single market is of the “utmost importance” to Germany.

Last month, Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, called Brexit a “model for Germany.” She has proposed holding a referendum to “let the people decide, just as Britain did.”

“It would ruin our economy,” Linder said commenting on the proposal. “This is why we have to tell people, OK, you maybe are not in line with government policies but this is no reason for changing the complete system and for changing what our wealth is based on.”

(Interesting he backtracks on the truth, they never mention the billions Germany lost by blowing up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.)

https://www.rt.com/business/592422-germany-economy-unfit-man-lindner/

Hungary resignations leave Viktor Orban in biggest crisis yet

By Nick Thorpe BBC (BBC blowing this out of proportion as usual)1/2

Katalin Novak resigned as president on Saturday, then the justice minister stood down as an MP.This has become the biggest threat to Prime Minister Viktor Orban's rule since he returned to power in 2010.

Hungary has been shaken by the sudden resignations of the two most popular and successful women in an otherwise strongly male-dominated governing party. President Katalin Novak and former Justice Minister Judit Varga have both taken responsibility for the decision to grant clemency to Endre K, former deputy director of a state orphanage. (I think they Poop asked them to release pedos before he would come.)

Endre K was jailed for persuading children to withdraw their testimony against the director of the orphanage for sexual abuse. He was one of 25 people pardoned by the president during a visit by Pope Francis last year. But his name only became public on 2 February.

The issue has become deeply problematic for a government which has made protection of children and traditional family values the cornerstone of its policies. Worst of all for Mr Orban and his party, the departures of the two women have been followed by an avalanche of allegations about the way he runs the country.

And this double resignation, coming amid increasing protests, has deprived Viktor Orban of two very different but essential allies. President Novak radiated a "mother of the nation" image, closely identified with popular policies to encourage couples to have more children. She also promoted a more inclusive, less aggressive style than the prime minister in her largely symbolic role as head of state.

The tough-talking Judit Varga had been due to lead the governing Fidesz party into battle against the "Brussels bureaucrats" in the European elections in June. Now she has resigned as an MP and withdrawn from public life. Until her resignation, Judit Varga was a high-profile Fidesz figure destined to play a key role in the European elections in June

Two other key figures have come under attack too - Mr Orban's communications chief Antal Rogan, who is also in charge of the secret services, and Zoltan Balog, a Protestant bishop and personal adviser to the prime minister. Mr Balog isallegedto have lobbied behind the scenes for the presidential clemency in the Endre K case. He has denied the allegation.

Within minutes of Judit Varga's resignation, her ex-husband, powerful Fidesz insider Peter Magyar, announced: "I do not want to be part of a system for a minute longer where the real culprits hide behind women's skirts." "For a long time, I believed in an ideal, in a national, sovereign, civic Hungary," he complained. "However, over the past few years and especially today, I have come to realise all this is indeed just a political product, a sugary coating that serves only two purposes: to conceal the operation of the power factory and to acquire enormous wealth."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68285304

>>20412829

2/2

He followed that up with a 100-minute interview on Sunday evening to the government-critical Partizan channel on YouTube, which has now been viewed 1.4 million times. Each day, he posts new criticism of government figures on Facebook. On Tuesday, he singled out Antal Rogan, the government's communications maestro, asking him why he was staying silent, hiding behind the prime minister's spokesman.

"You used to cut a much tougher figure," he said. "Why are you hiding from your constituents? Why haven't you held a press conference for years? Are you afraid to answer questions?" Then he turned on Istvan Tiborcz, the son-in-law of the prime minister and husband of Mr Orban's daughter Rahel.

"Dear Stephen [Istvan], you are a really talented person, at the age of 37, you have 100bn Forints (£220m), so many hotels, banks, fund managers, valuable former state-owned properties."

"What other companies have you taken over lately? What is the total of government loans or grants you received to build your portfolio? Have you recently visited villages in Borsod [in northeast Hungary], where children sometimes play in the yard without warm clothes in winter?"

Ahead of President Novak's resignation protesters marched in Budapest to object to the pardon she had given last year. Opposition parties have tabled demands to investigate how the clemency was granted, how the state is run, and to call for the direct election of the next president. The response of the government and of pro-government media has been furious.

"We do not respond to the desperate attempts of people in hopeless situations," insisted the prime minister's spokesman, Bertalan Havasi, about Peter Magyar. "We must demonstrate our strength, because the pack of hyenas, these completely amoral, lying bastards… now smell blood because they think that the moment has come," wrote Zsolt Bayer in the government flagship daily, Magyar Nemzet.

He went on to propose a show of strength by government supporters on 15 March, a national holiday: ""Let's show them that the moment hasn't bloody well come!" Another commentator, Zsolt Jeszenszky, did not hold back in the government tabloid, Pesti Sracok.

"Those who proclaim [Judit Varga] an ally of paedophiles, who foam at the mouth demanding her head, are the same vile, satanic mob who demanded the death of Christ from Pontius Pilate," he fumed. "The scum, the sewer rats, have not changed in 2,000 years." From the prime minister himself there has been strict silence. At least for now.

It is without doubt his biggest challenge in 14 years of uninterrupted Fidesz rule and the high-profile resignations have dented but not yet seriously damaged his power.An anti-Orban protest is planned for Friday, but the prime minister will come out fighting, presumably on Saturday when he is due to deliver his annual state of the nation address.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68285304

(Obviously, Color Revolution Heist Again, these countries should learn to never elect women as powerful leaders, they are all woke and NWO. The EU countries got together and planned this somehow or wanted a problem in government before they activated their assets. Orban and the country should withdraw from the EU, if possible.)

14 Feb, 02:01

Vatican effectively facilitates Russia-Ukraine prisoner swap — ambassador

Ivan Soltanovsky considered the bilateral work "an important area of cooperation in the humanitarian sphere"

MOSCOW, February 14. /TASS/. The Vatican facilitates the exchange of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine, Russian Ambassador to the Vatican Ivan Soltanovsky told TASS in an interview.

The diplomat called the Russian embassy’s work in the Vatican's facilitation of the prisoner exchange process between Russia and Ukraine "an important area of cooperation in the humanitarian sphere."

"The Vatican provides us with information about Ukrainian prisoners of war, which we send to the relevant Russian authorities and which is then used to prepare the exchange. We know about concrete positive results of our work," the ambassador said.

On February 8, one hundred Russian servicemen were returned from captivity in Kiev-controlled territory, and the same number of captured Ukrainian servicemen were handed over in return. The Russian Defense Ministry reported the previous exchange on January 31. At that time, 195 Russian servicemen were returned from Kiev-controlled territory as a result of negotiations, and 195 Ukrainian servicemen were handed over to the Ukrainian side in exchange.

https://tass.com/politics/1745979