If anything, I see myself as a “witness.” I’d also be pleased, if you’d call me an “interpreter.”
WIM WENDERS
Saturday 30 September 2023
Supporting Ukraine is ‘tough and painful’ – UK foreign secretary
James Cleverly claims, however, that the West would be courting even more trouble for itself by cutting aid
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has acknowledged that backing Ukraine is “tough and painful.” He cautioned NATO allies against wavering, however, as turning their back on Kiev would cause greater problems down the line.
In an interview with The House media outlet on Saturday, Cleverly was asked to comment on “growing anti-Ukrainian sentiment” in some Western nations. He admitted that helping Kiev was “tough and this is painful,” with the conflict generally “putting pressure on countries all over the world.”
However, the foreign secretary insisted that “if we don’t stick with our support to Ukraine, if we send the signal that aggressors can prosper, then all the problems that we are currently facing … will just get worse.”
He urged Western allies to address fatigue, which has become a “big thing.”
Commenting on former US President Donald Trump’s repeated promises to end hostilities between Ukraine and Russia within 24 hours, Cleverly said the Republican “did some very surprising and positive things with regard to international relations” during his first term in the White House. The British minister specifically mentioned the Abraham Accords, which paved the way for the normalization of relations between Israel and Arab nations.
Cleverly added that, while he would be delighted if Trump managed to secure a just peace swiftly, this is not something London is banking on.
In a TV interview on Friday, Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Aleksey Danilov lamented that the country’s Western backers had not made it clear whether they will stand by Kiev until it wins the conflict or only for some limited amount of time. “No one can clearly answer us what our victory means,” he claimed.
Earlier, Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko admitted that the number of nations willing to give Kiev money is “growing smaller and smaller.”
Moscow has repeatedly accused the US and its allies, which have spent billions of dollars supporting Kiev, of using the conflict to wage a “proxy war” against Russia.
Speaking on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused US and UK intelligence agencies of helping to coordinate the latest Ukrainian strike on Sevastopol, Crimea, which targeted the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
The British media has also reported that Kiev used UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles in the attack.
Russia had previously claimed that Western-provided weapons, including those donated by Britain, had been deployed in Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory. Moscow has repeatedly warned NATO member states that the US-led military bloc is getting dangerously close to direct involvement in the conflict.
The Chinese alternative: Beijing reveals its vision for the world
Although US talk about globalization was just a farce, it's still possible to build the real thing – and China claims to have the blueprint
By Timur Fomenko, political analyst
On Tuesday, China’s government released a new white paper titled“A Global Community of Shared Future: China's Proposals and Actions.” The paper made an appeal to human unity, arguing that humanity faces common challenges to its survival and future, and therefore must unite and cooperate.
The paper drew a deliberate contrast to the actions of unnamed third parties which it condemned as “bloc politics,”“alliances,” and “Cold War mentality.” It was quite explicitly a Chinese roadmap to its own foreign policy vision for the world, and as such, an alternative manifesto to American unipolarity.
If the US is a contemporary opponent of globalization, China is its strongest advocate. While America wants to reserve its privileges and kick away the ladder developing countries can use to rise and become prosperous, China envisions openness as the only path to its own advancement and encourages other countries to join it. These two contrasting visions form a critical juncture in the world’s future path, and ultimately the rise of China will be pivotal in whether a multipolar world can succeed, or the US will hold on to its dominance forever.
The US-led Western order
For the past 400 years, the international system has been shaped by an exclusive group of countries who have built an order designed to uphold their respective economic, commercial, technological, and military privileges. This order was built from European colonial empires, and later handed over to the US by the middle of the 20th century. It derives its power from exacerbating inequality and dominance over the states of the Global South, keeping access to capital conditional on ideological, military, and political subjugation. In maintaining this system, only states that have endorsed the order, such as for example Japan or South Korea, have been allowed to rise to prosperity, while states that have opposed it have been deliberately isolated from key financial and technological markets. The US sits atop the hierarchy, with a network of vassals who maintain their privileges by being part of the system, in particular the former empires of Britain, France, Germany and, as mentioned, Japan.
However, the rise of China as an economic and technological power, which the US once believed would be “converted” to its way of life through the ideological impact of capitalism and free trade, has posed a unique challenge to this system. It has created a new global nexus of power that has surpassed the previous big challenger to the West-centric order, the Soviet Union, and is now giving a new avenue for the countries of the Global South to secure their own political and economic autonomy without having to vassalize themselves to former colonial powers. This has led to an all-out campaign by the US to try and suppress the rise of China by various means, including technological embargos, military encirclement, escalation of tensions and a negative publicity campaign.
In doing so, the US has begun to actively dismantle the system of globalization it once built, as a confident and victorious hegemon, in the bid to sustain its inherent privileges and shoehorn the global power distribution back into unipolarity. This sends a message to the Global South that no country will be allowed to become wealthy or developed unless it signs up to US terms and conditions. China, on the other hand, through its economic rise, is the primary benefactor (ironically enough) of the once open system of US globalization. Thus, China’s primary foreign policy strategy is not to engage head on in a confrontational cold war with the US, but rather to avert its impact by keeping the global system open.
China understands, as seen in Europe, that the primary strategy of the US is to incite division between countries in order to promote itself as a guarantor and savior, and therefore in turn gain leverage over countries and profit through the military industrial complex. In this case, the US seeks to break up integration between countries, such as for example by demanding Europe cut off Russian gas. On the other hand, China is promoting what it describes as “win-win” integration and openness between other countries, in order to fully utilize its economic potential and benefit from free trade. In doing so, Beijing warns against the consequences of a divided world and advocates unity as the true human interest, as opposed to America’s binary and uncompromising emphasis on freedom, democracy and conflict. This gives us two deeply contrasting visions for world order, and while countries such as Britain, Canada, and Japan clearly have chosen their side, the countries in the middle have not, and will ultimately have to decide their own fate.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Putin addresses Russia on first anniversary of reunion with four regions
“We are one people, and together we can overcome anything,” he told residents of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson
Millions of people made a conscious choice to unite with their Fatherland a year ago, President Vladimir Putin has said in an address marking the first anniversary of Russia’s reunification with the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, and Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
The signing of agreements on September 30, 2022 incorporating the four territories into the Russian state was a “defining and truly historic event,” Putin stated in a video message, which was published early on Saturday.
“Millions of residents of Donbass and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions made their choice to be with their Fatherland,” he said.
Their reunification with Russia was a “conscious, long-awaited, hard-won and genuinely popular decision ... made collectively through referendums in full compliance with international norms,” the president added.
By going to the polls, “the people showed courage and integrity in the face of attempts to intimidate and deprive them of their right to determine their own future, their destiny, and to take away something every person values. Namely, culture, traditions, and mother tongue,” he said.
According to Putin, all those things had been “loathed by nationalists and their Western patrons who orchestrated a coup in Kiev in 2014 and then unleashed a full-scale civil war and terror against dissenters and organized blockades, constant shelling, and punitive actions in Donbass.”
He was referring to the so-called Euromaidan uprising, which led to the overthrow of the democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich in February 2014, and the conflict between the new government in Kiev and the Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk that started shortly after the coup.
Speaking about Russia’s ongoing military operation in Ukraine, the president said that “by defending our compatriots in Donbass and Novorossiya, we are defending Russia itself. Together, we are fighting for the Motherland, for our sovereignty, spiritual values, unity, and victory.”
The people of Russia fully backed the decision of the new territories, and now all regions of the country are involved in “rebuilding and building schools and hospitals, housing and roads, museums and memorial sites” in the People’s Republics of Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (LPR), and Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, Putin said.
“We are one people, and together we can overcome anything and meet any challenge,” he continued, addressing the residents of the newly incorporated regions.
The results of the referendums, which took place between September 23 and 27 last year, have not been recognized by the Ukrainian authorities and their Western backers. During the votes, the number of those who supported reunification with Russia stood at 99.23% in the DPR, at 98.42% in the LPR, at 87% in Kherson Region, and at 93.11% in Zaporozhye Region.
Yaroslav Hunka in the Canadian Parliament. (Photo: AP)
This writer has spent the past year and a half, mostly on his own dime, ignored, ridiculed or dismissed by friends and colleagues alike, while nevertheless persisting to exhaustively-research any number of articles that sought to document the involvement of international neo-Nazi geo-political-military organizations involved in the war in Ukraine; the involvement of which possesses so many deeply-rooted, fascist/Neo-Nazi ties and connections in NATO in the West, as well as in the United States and Canada.
But finally, “the shit has now hit the fan”, as the old saying goes. The truth of these real forces that exist within Canada’s mainstream corporate geo-political world is finally coming to the fore after an outrageous incident that recently occurred in Canada’s House of Commons; that since has blown the discussion wide open, and become for this writer a personal moment of catharsis that has provided at least some small solace for all those dismissive naysayers and media doors that have been slammed in his face.
Festering geo-political fallout continues to erupt ever since Canada’s Speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota, was forced to resign after all four Canadian political parties protested his outrageously-inappropriate conduct that was precipitated by the honoring ceremony Rota conducted of a 98 year old WWII Ukrainian veteran, Yaroslav Hunka, who, as it later turned out to be the case, after Rota had declared Hunka to be a Ukrainian war hero of the Allied forces but, oops, with a slip of the tongue, admitted instead of fighting the enemy Germans, way back when, Hulka had instead fought against the hated ‘Bolsheviks’ (Russians). When Rota made this admission in front of the entire assembled House of Commons, it was both embarrassing and sad to see how much Canadians, and elected Canadian politicians, have bought into the Canadian mainstream corporate news media’s oppressive brain washing; borne out by the extent of the sustained applause they gave to this one-time ex-Waffen SS foot soldier, who once upon a time had even been required to take a personal oath of allegiance to Adolph Hitler himself. All the while, in that awkward moment in Canada’s House of Commons, Ukraine’s President Volodmyr Zelensky and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau standing close by, side-by-side, began to, energetically join in with them and heartedly applauded for far too many long painful, embarrassing minutes.
To make matters doubly-worse, as the reader soon shall learn, Canada’s honoring of the 98-year-old, so-called hallowed Ukrainian war veteran, occurred on, of all days, the Jewish Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur, the most solemn religious day of penitence and fasting that begins with Rosh Hashana (The Jewish New Year).
Yet Stephan Bandera and his 14th Division of Waffen SS (!st Galicians), of which Yaroslav Hulka was once a member, hated the Jews and are well-known for their murderous massacres of Jews, Poles, Slavak’s and other Eastern Europeans alike. In fact, Himmler himself favoured Bandera’s Waffen SS and the 1st Galicians as being “More Aryan-like than Ukrainian”; so much so, that the term “Ukrainian” could not even be used when addressing the Waffen SS Division.
But, as the truth always reveals in the end, in due time, the choice of honoring this Ukrainian WWII veteran on that given day, wasn’t just an awkward mishap moment but had to have been deliberately, cynically, carefully planned by someone higher up than Speaker of the House Rota; no doubt, perhaps, in the Prime Minister’s own office. Only time will bear out the real story behind who and what caused this serious State foie pas to have occurred.
But the spotlight hasn’t yet been fully shone on the despicable role that Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and his Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland, herself a figure with a shady past mixed up with a Nazi grandfather, and the training (sic ‘indoctrination’) she underwent as a youth in Nazi summer camps, also played into the geo-political incident that now has led to Canada’s Speaker of the House, being thrown under thebus. Who the main culprit is in the Canada government, led by PM Justin Trudeau and his Asst PM Chrysta Freeland, and their long relationship with Nazism in various different ways, as well as those others among Canada’s citizenry and politicians who once were, or still are, pro-Nazi to the extend that they now need to be called out by the recent shameful debacle in the House of Commons.
There yet exists too many loose ends in this story; such as how many hardcore Nazi war criminals, in spite of their despicable past, were actually allowed to enter into Canada after the end of WWII (by some estimates 20,000 to 50,000) and what has since happened to them all? Meanwhile, the reader is encouraged to listen to what other voices around the world already have begun saying and wondering about how much Canada’s incident in its House of Commons is but the tip of a vast iceberg of what really has been going on in the past or present and is yet to happen in the future.
For instance: Canada’s history of minimizing the Ukrainian Waffen SS Galicia Division; how a Ukrainian journalist absolutely destroys Zelensky for applauding a Nazi; or how catastrophically stupid Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been throughout this whole Nazi incident, or; how the question of whether or not Canada is harbouring other Neo Nazi already is being raised by those like Gravitas, and, finally; to what extend Prime Minister Trudeau is truly embarrassed by the Canadian Parliament’s honoring of Nazi Veteran Vasoslav Hulka. See:
Jerome Irwin is a Canadian-American writer who, in previous lives, has been involved in a wide range of diverse and varied worlds, including the Criminology profession with an American police department, and later for a brief-time in the capacity of clandestine communications with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. For decades, in various other professional capacities as an educator, researcher, geo-political analyst, and writer. Irwin has sought to call attention to a broad spectrum of world problems pertaining to the degradation and unsustainability caused by a host of environmental-ecological-spiritual-ideological issues that exist between the conflicting world philosophies of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.
Irwin is the author of the book, “The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey” (www.turtle-island-odyssey.com), a spiritual odyssey among the native peoples of North America that over the decades has produced numerous articles pertaining to: Ireland’s Fenian Movement; native peoples Dakota Access Pipeline Resistance Movement; AIPAC, Israel & the U.S. Congress anti-BDS Movement; the historic Battle for Palestine & Siege of Gaza, as well as; the many violations constantly being waged by industrial-corporate-military-propaganda interests against the World’s Collective Soul. To examine a portion of the eclectic body of his work goggle: “Jerome Irwin, writer” The author and his wife are long-time residents on the North Shore of British Columbia.
The fight for the Black Sea: Ukraine prioritized the capture of Crimea, but eventually barely landed a glove. So, what next?
Kiev's operations in the region have become more powerful, but they have failed to lead to any real gains
By Vladislav Ugolny, a Russian journalist born in Donetsk
The dangers in the Black Sea region escalated to new heights last week after the Ukrainian Air Force attacked the Russian city of Sevastopol on September 20 and 22. The last attack damaged our country's Black Sea Fleet headquarters.
The strikes were carried out by Ukrainian Su-24 aircraft using Franco-British Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles. Kiev said the attacks were part of "Operation Crab Trap," carried out jointly by its Air Force and Special Operations Forces.
The Ukrainian side claimed that 34 Russian soldiers were killed during the attack, including Black Sea Fleet Commander Viktor Sokolov. However, on September 26, Sokolov appeared at a board meeting of the Russian Ministry of Defense, refuting the Ukrainian version of events. According to the official Russian report, one serviceman went missing during the strikes.
Ukraine prepared and planned the attacks well in advance, utilizing reconnaissance missions and drones against Russian air defense systems. Both official spokespeople and unofficial "sources" said that the destruction of the Black Sea Fleet or its expulsion from Crimea was the strategic goal of the strike.
Although such goals sound overly ambitious – especially considering Ukraine’s failure to cut off the land corridor between the peninsula and mainland Russia – they feed into a further escalation of the conflict.
After Crimea rejoined Russia in 2014, Ukraine lost control of important infrastructure in the Black Sea region, which it inherited from the USSR. The Ukrainian Black Sea Fleet, Coast Guard units, and the marines were downgraded since most of their colleagues who served on the peninsula joined the Russian side. Those who remained loyal to Kiev were generallytransferred to Nikolaev and Odessa.
Despite statements about getting Crimea back, the Ukrainian Armed Forces focused on Donbass, where an armed uprising against Kiev broke out in the spring of 2014. Having a relatively low military budget, Ukraine prioritized funding its ground forces.
Nevertheless, Kiev felt the need to compensate for the influence it lost in the crucial Black Sea and Azov Sea regions. In 2014 – utilizing what was left of Soviet military production facilities (the Artem Plant in the capital, the Motor Sich Engine Plant in Zaporozhye, and the Kharkov Aviation Factory) – it developed and produced the Neptune cruise missile. Eight years later, these rockets came to play an important role in Ukraine’s assault on the Black Sea region.
A few weeks before the start of Russia’s military campaign, Ukraine mined its section of the waters to prevent the Russian Black Sea Fleet from carrying out landing operations. The Ukrainians did a poor job, however. Many mines drifted towards other countries, and there were also incidents of civilian deaths.
Starting on February 24, 2022, the Black Sea region became one of the main directions of the Russian offensive. Moscow took control of the strategically important Snake Island located near the Danube Delta and the Kinburn Spit (which completely blocks the Southern Bug river and the city of Nikolaev). However, the Russian Army could not take full control of all infrastructure in the Black Sea region, including the Nikolaev port and shipyard, the Ochakov Naval Base, the ports of the Odessa agglomeration, and the Danube.
As a result, Ukraine retained its influence in the region and gradually gathered enough forces to retaliate. On April 14, last year, Ukraine sank the Black Sea Fleet flagship cruiser Moskva, hitting it with a Neptune. Soon afterwards, the Russian garrison left Snake Island.
Subsequently, there was a period of de-escalation in the region as a result of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which was meant to prevent a global food crisis by ensuring exports of both Ukrainian and Russian grain, as well as Russian fertilizers. As part of the deal, Kiev was required not to use the Black Sea corridor and port infrastructure for military purposes, and the UN had to ensure that Russian goods would have access to international markets.
In July it came to a head. After Ukraine carried out several attacks on Crimea and Russia faced problems with exports, Moscow announced that it would no longer participate in the grain deal. Guarantees of safe navigation in the Black Sea were withdrawn and the sea’s northwestern waters declared a dangerous area. Both sides issued a warning to ships entering the other's Black Sea ports. After that, the situation in the region began escalating.
The region’s geostrategic value
The ports of the Odessa agglomeration became Kiev’s last suitable option, especially after it lost control over Mariupol. A significant share of imports and exports, particularly of agricultural products, goes through them.
They could also be used for the faster and cheaper delivery of weapons by sea, as well as for the hypothetical deployment of a foreign military contingent in Ukraine. The same goes for the port infrastructure on the Ukrainian part of the Danube, which connects the country with Central Europe.
Hydrocarbon deposits are also located between Crimea and Odessa. The infrastructure for their extraction belonged to Ukraine’s Chernomorneftegaz oil and gas company until March 2014, when Russia established control over it. After the war broke out, the drilling rigs known as the ‘Boyko Towers’ have been used for positioning electronic equipment. On September 13, 2023, Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence announced that Ukraine captured the towers.
For Russia, control over Crimea and Sevastopol is crucial for maintaining its influence in the Black Sea. This is where the main infrastructure of the Black Sea Fleet and its command are located. Moreover, after the start of hostilities in February 2022, Crimea became an important logistics hub and ‘operational rear’ for Russian troops deployed in Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions. The importance of Crimea for the Russian Army is also evident from the fact that in 2023, the 18th Combined Arms Army was deployed from the 22nd Army Corps based in Crimea.
The buildup of Ukrainian forces in the region
Ukraine began attacking Crimea in the summer of 2022. On July 31, its forces dropped an explosive device on the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The strikes, which were rare at first and intended to spark conflict in the information domain, gradually became more frequent. The range of weapons used for the attacks also grew. On October 29, Kiev launched an air and naval drone raid on Sevastopol.
After receiving cruise missiles from NATO countries, Ukraine used them in its operations. Employing tactics similar to those used by Moscow, the Ukrainians overloaded Russian air defense systems with the combined launch of cheap drones and more expensive and sophisticated cruise missiles. Kiev claimed to have destroyed several S-400 missile system complexes, but never provided evidence of damaging this particular model.
Ukraine’s most recent ‘achievement’ was the strike on the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet on September 22. This demonstrated Ukraine’s ability to hit strategically important objects in Crimea. Of course, the command of the Russian Black Sea Fleet was not so reckless as to operate inside this building, since the location was well known, but the incident was still perceived in a highly negative way by Russian society.
Ukraine has demonstrated its willingness to use even terrorist methods to destroy Crimean infrastructure. This summer, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine admitted that his agency was involved in the terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge, which was carried out by placing cargo with disguised explosives in a truck. As a result of the attack, five civilians were killed, including the driver. Traffic on the bridge was restored the next day.
The goal of the Ukrainian attacks
The goal of these attacks was most clearly expressed by former presidential aide Aleksey Arestovich: “We will keep striking until we finish [them] off, until we finish this task. Crimea is a rear base [with] five military airfields, huge ammunition and fuel warehouses, and control points. All of this should be destroyed, and the entire Black Sea Fleet should no longer be based in Crimea. Novorossiysk is an option, but we’ll get to Novorossiysk as well, when they move to Novorossiysk, we’ll get them there too.”
The Ukrainians have repeatedly stated that their goal is to occupy the Crimean Peninsula. However, their ground operation in Zaporozhye, designed to cut off the land corridor to Crimea, failed without any tactical success – the Ukrainian Army has so far only been able to capture the ruined village of Rabotino.
As a result, the huge and well-planned attacks of August and September were independent from the actions of the Ukrainian ground forces. This made them less effective, since the strikes on the fleet’s headquarters and infrastructure did not coincide with the ‘Battle for Crimea’ announced by senior Ukrainian officials. Instead of sowing panic in the Russian rear and straining the military command, the attacks came at a moment when the Ukrainian counteroffensive was about to get stuck in rain-soaked mud.
Russia’s actions
It goes without saying that Ukraine’s strikes have not significantly reduced Russia’s potential in the region. Firstly, they have had little impact on logistics, and Russian forces continue to use Crimea as a rear for their groupings deployed along the Dnieper and in Zaporozhye Region.
Also, in order to decrease the risk of another terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge, a railway route is being designed along the northern shore of the Sea of Azov (the project is not only advantageous from a military point of view, but also has significant economic potential after the end of hostilities).
Secondly, Russia is able to inflict heavier damage on Ukrainian infrastructure in the Black Sea region. Regular raids on military facilities in Odessa and its surrounds are difficult to assess due to Ukrainian military censorship, which legally prohibits shooting and publishing videos of Russian attacks. Nevertheless, footage of exploding Ukrainian warehouses in the area may be found online.
Thirdly, Moscow continues to destroy Ukrainian aircraft, including Su-24s capable of launching Western cruise missiles. Russians are also on the lookout for warehouses where these missiles are stored, and still strikes Ukrainian airports.
What can we expect in the future?
Over the year and a half of the military operation, Ukraine has become more capable of acting in the Black Sea region and has gradually moved from exclusively defensive to offensive tactics. This has been possible because of foreign assistance and the transfer of weapons capable of striking the rear positions of the Russian military.
As a result, both sides attack each other’s military infrastructure without being able to completely destroy the enemy’s forces. However, while Ukraine is concentrated only in this region, Russia’s scope of action is broader – it continues to destroy military facilities along the entire length of the front line and can exert pressure on Ukraine’s strategic rear.
Meanwhile, the victory of either side can only be ensured by means of a land operation – eventually, either the Russian flag will return to Odessa or the Ukrainian flag will fly over Sevastopol. Otherwise, the region will only face further escalation and constant threats, including terrorist attacks.
