12 Jun, 2024 16:36

Arming Ukrainian neo-Nazis a sign of US desperation – ex-Pentagon official

Washington is just trying to “prick” Moscow by allowing the infamous Azov Brigade to use American weapons, Michael Maloof has told RT

Washington’s decision to greenlight the use of US-supplied weapons by Kiev’s notorious Azov Brigade is a desperate move that only reinforces Russia’s claim that it is fighting neo-Nazism in Ukraine, Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst at the US Department of Defense, has told RT.

On Monday, the US State Department scrapped a ban on deliveries of arms to the Azov Brigade, which had been imposed by Congress in 2018 over the unit’s ties to neo-Nazism. According to the agency, a recent review has found “no evidence” of the military formation being in violation of the Leahy Law, which prohibits Washington from aiding foreign security force units that violate human rights with impunity.

“Clearly, the Azov group didn’t go from sinners to saints overnight,”Maloof said in an interview on Tuesday. “There still is a list of atrocities that they had committed, human rights abuses… you still see them marching around as a group with their symbols, with their camaraderie and their discipline in support of fascism.”

This change of stance on the Azov Brigadeby Washington means “you no longer can really believe anything the State Department says, let alone the intelligence community,”he stressed.

According to the former Pentagon official, the US move is “a sign of desperation” and a belated attempt to “bolster morale” among Ukrainians amid Russian gains on the front line this year.

“I question the rationale of wanting to continue tosupport a Nazi outfit like this because the war is basically lost already. To support the Azov just adds fuel to the fire… and reinforces and bolsters Russia’s point of view that this is about fighting Nazism in Ukraine,” he said.

Maloof noted thatthe Azov fighters “haven’t really performed” in combat;they were defeated by Russian forces in the battle for Mariupol early in the conflict. It is unlikely that they would do any better if they are armed with American weapons, he believes.

The lifting of the ban by the US is “an effort to just prick the Russians because of their adamant opposition to Nazism,” which wouldn’t lead to any changes on the battlefield, the former Pentagon official stressed.

Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday thatMoscow’s attitude towards Washingtongiving weapons to “ultra-nationalist armed units” like the Azov Brigadewas “extremely negative.” The US wants to “suppress” Russia so much that it is ready to go as far as to begin “flirting with neo-Nazis,” he said.

https://www.rt.com/news/599136-azov-us-weapons-ukraine/

12 Jun, 2024 16:38

Moscow exchange suspends trading in dollars and euro

The move has been prompted by a new round of sanctions imposed by the US, the exchange says

The Moscow Exchange (MOEX) suspended trading in dollars and euros on Wednesday, the move having been prompted by a new sanctions package unveiled by the US Treasury earlier in the day.

The suspension affects foreign and precious metals trade as well as stock and money trading on the platform, MOEX said in a statement.Except for dollars and euros, all other financial instruments remain operational on the platform. The derivatives market has also been unaffected by the changes, with trade going on as usual, MOEX noted.

Russia’s Central Bank elaborated on the matter in a separate statement, explaining that“transactions in the US dollar and euro will continue on the over-the-counter market.”To establish exchange rates, the Bank of Russia will be using “bank records and information from digital over-the-counter trading platforms,” the regulator added.

Earlier on Wednesday, the US Treasury Department rolled out a new package of restrictions against Russia, targeting the country’s “foundational financial infrastructure.” Announcing the package, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen claimed Russia has fully transitioned into a “war economy” and is now “deeply isolated” from the international financial system.

“Today’s actions strike at their remaining avenues for international materials and equipment, including their reliance on critical supplies from third countries,” Yellen asserted.

Apart from the MOEX, which operates Russia’s largest public trading markets, thesanctions package targeted its two subsidiaries, namely the National Clearing Center (NCC) and the National Settlement Depository (NSD).

The suspension of dollar and euro trade on the platform, which has been booming lately, comes into effect on Thursday. The MOEX reported registering all-time high private investor activity back in February, with a total of 4.1 million individuals conducting transactions on the platform.Last month, the total trade volumes across the platform’s marketsmeasured at 126.7 trillion rubles($1.4 trillion) compared to 94.2 trillion ($1 trillion) during the same period a year ago.

https://www.rt.com/business/599188-euro-dollar-suspense/

(Money anons what does this mean on the effect on trading WW?)

12 Jun, 2024 18:11

German MPs snub Zelensky

Ukraine’s leader has turned into a ‘president of war and beggary,’ according to legislators from Germany’s right-wing AfD party

Lawmakers from two German opposition parties, the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the new left-wing populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), haverefused to attend a speech by Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky in the Bundestag. Both have expressed opposition to Kiev’s policies, warning that they could only lead to further bloodshed.

Zelensky delivered his second speech to the German parliament since the start of the conflict between Kiev and Moscow on Tuesday, the first time he has addressed the legislature in person, rather than via a video link. The Ukrainian leader thanked Berlin for its support and called on the country to make sure Russian President Vladimir Putin “loses this war.” The outcome of the conflict should leave no doubt about “who had won,” he insisted.

The event, however, was boycotted by all BSW MPs and most AfD lawmakers. Four of the right-wing party members did attend Zelensky’s speech, calling it “basic courtesy.” The leaders of the AfD in the legislature sharply criticized the Ukrainian leader ahead of the session.

“We refuse to listen to a speaker in a camouflage suit,Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla said, referring to Zelensky’s habit of wearing the military-style clothes he acquired during the conflict. The two politicians alsostated that his term had “expired” and he now only remains “a president of war and beggary.”Ukraine was due to hold presidential elections in March, but Zelensky cancelled the vote, citing martial law. His term then formally expired in May.

Now Ukraine doesn’t need a “president of war” but a “president of peace, [who] is ready to negotiate,” the AfD parliamentary leaders said. The BSW, a party formed by the German left-wing icon Sahra Wagenknecht, also issued a statement ahead of the event, in which it announced its boycott of the speech.

Zelensky is promoting “very dangerous” escalation, the document warned, adding that the Ukrainian leader was ready to risk a nuclear conflict to achieve his goals. Such policies “should not be honored with a special event in the German Bundestag,” the statement said. The BSW maintained that it condemned Moscow’s military operation against Kiev but still pointed to Russia’s readiness for peace negotiations.

The parliamentary snub drew strong criticism from the German political establishment. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s office condemned it as a “lack of respect,” adding that the Social Democrat was “very disturbed but not surprised” by the development.

A member of the parliament’s defense committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, was quick to accuse both parties of doing Moscow’s bidding.

Russia has repeatedly stated that it is ready to engage in peace talks at any moment, as long as the situation on the ground is taken into account. In autumn 2022, four former Ukrainian regions joined Russia following a series of referendums. Kiev never recognized the vote, and continues to demand that Moscow withdraw its troops from all the territories Ukraine claims as its own, including Crimea, before any talks start.

https://www.rt.com/news/599191-german-mps-snub-zelensky/

Bernie Sanders has lost Vermont Working-class voters are fleeing the state

Samuel McIlhagga JUNE 12, 2024 5 MINS

A large, bearded man in a bandana strides out of a cabin surrounded by rusted trucks and spare car parts. He waves and points to a large sign on his roof, which reads: “Muslim Free Zone”. Looming over the nearby train-tracks, it is well placed to shock commuters and tourists hurtling by on their way to more appealing destinations.

Welcome to Rutland, a small city in one of Vermont’s beautiful mountain valleys. Here in so-called “Old Vermont”, the people are poorer and more conservative than in the liberal and wealthy city of Burlington. Rutland is a world apart from the pampered lands of “New Vermont”, with its affluent college towns, weed dispensaries, ski resorts and lakeside houses. Rural people here have been left behind, and their politics are growing more radical by the year.

For a long time, Vermont’s golden boy, US Senator Bernie Sanders, kept the peace between the state’s rural working class and liberal transplants from the coast. Despite a raging “Take Back Vermont” movement in the early 2000s, Sanders’s Left-wing populist policies settled tensions between the “woodchucks” and “flatlanders”. Sanders was and still is a contradictory figure, which suited his constituency perfectly. He is hesitantly pro-gun rights, but against the billboards that market them; fiercely libertarian while also supporting “big state” welfare policy; vocally pro-LGBT and veterans’ rights.

Yet the Sanders compact between Old and New Vermont is growing increasingly fragile. The gap between the poorest Vermonters and wealthy new arrivals is widening, as inflation, deindustrialisation, farming constraints and high property prices squeeze rural populations. Though the Green Mountain State is often considered a bastion of liberalism, it is no longer immune from the political fury poisoning the rest of America.

To get a sense of Vermont’s delicate political situation, I travelled to Burlington: the birthplace of New Vermont. In the late Sixties, refugees from the hippy movement, including Sanders, pitched up here and refashioned themselves as socialists. These hippy exiles — along with the expansion of college education — are credited with transforming Vermont from a Protestant Republican stronghold into a liberal Democratic one.

“This used to be a very Republican state up until the Sixties” says Janet Metz, Chair of Chittenden County Republicans. “You had a lot of people coming to study at the University of Vermont and staying here. A lot of the hippy generation came up here too — not going to school, but living on communes.”

Eventually these starry-eyed bohemians would grow up, start businesses and buy houses. Politics became pragmatic as the Progressive Party replaced New Left radical movements such as the Liberty Union. Sanders’s former comrades in the Liberty Union would go on to disavow him in 1999 as a “bomber”, “imperialist” and “sell-out” over his supposed support of Nato’s intervention in Yugoslavia. At one point, they even occupied his Burlington congressional office. But it wasn’t enough to stop the rise of Vermont’s new Progressive nobility.

From Burlington I head to the small farming town of Hinesburg. When I arrive, Vermont’s Progressive Lieutenant Governor, David Zuckerman, picks me up in a rundown car he uses for farming organic chickens, pigs and CBD. Zuckerman has known Sanders since the Nineties, and the two are cut from the same cloth: like Sanders, Zuckerman is a Vermont expat hailing from the Boston suburbs; a progressive, but also a pragmatic, straight-talking social democrat. You can see glimmers of Vermont’s old New Left libertarian ethos in his opposition to mandatory government vaccination among other things. And there is talk that he might one day succeed Sanders as a Vermont senator.

For now, Zuckerman believes Vermont’s communities haven’t yet been ruined by polarisation. “People are respectful to their neighbours,” he tells me. “It’s still a value, because you might go off the road in the middle of the night in a snowstorm. Everyone’s going to help — it doesn’t matter what bumper stickers are on your car. Compared to the rest of the country, it’s a strong ethic.” Yet, Zuckerman admits that this compact between Vermonters is less strong than it was decades ago…..

https://unherd.com/2024/06/bernie-sanders-has-lost-vermont/