The US-led bloc is openly rehearsing for a conflict with Moscow, Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolay Patrushev has warned.

NATO's ongoing 'Steadfast Defender 2024' war games are heightening tensions globally by simulating a military confrontation with Moscow, the secretary of the Russian Security Council has said. Nikolay Patrushev also cited the alliance's growing military spending as an indication of its "increasingly aggressive nature."

The exercises hailed as the largest NATO has held in decades, kicked off in late January and will end in May. According to Supreme Allied Commander for Europe Christopher Cavoli, the drills feature some 90,000 troops from all 32 member states. In addition, 1,100 combat vehicles, including 133 tanks and 533 infantry fighting vehicles, as well as over 50 naval vessels and 80 helicopters, drones and fighter jets are taking part, it is believed.

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has categorically rejected the French president's suggestion...

Discussions about NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine need to end, because nobody actually wants that to happen, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Friday.

Pistorius was in Finland to visit the German troops taking part in NATO's Nordic Response wargames in the Arctic Circle. While there, he held a joint press conference with his Finnish counterpart Antti Hakkanen.

"Nobody really wants to have boots on the ground in Ukraine. Discussions about that should stop." Pistorius said, responding to a question about recent remarks made by French President Emmanuel Macron suggesting that the matter was open-ended.

"Nobody is now supporting 'boots on the ground'," Hakkanen agreed.

Macron said last week that no option should be ruled out, including ground troops, because Russia can't be allowed to win. Only two Baltic states endorsed the idea, however, with most other NATO members publicly denouncing it.

Western media promoted a UN report as proof Hamas sexually assaulted Israelis. Yet the report's authors admitted they couldn't locate a single victim, suggested Israeli officials staged a rape scene, and denounced "inaccurate forensic interpretations."

On March 4, the United Nations released a report into sexual violence which has supposedly taken place amid the Israeli war on Gaza. The report was immediately celebrated in mainstream media outlets as proof of what scores of Israel lobbyists and journalists under their sway have insisted for months (despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary): that Hamas forces engaged in a systematic campaign of rape during their attack on Israel on October 7.

There was just one problem. The report's authors flatly contradicted the idea that any evidence existed to prove a campaign of rape by Hamas.

On Wednesday, February 14^th a highly controversial law was pushed through the National Assembly in France, potentially turning a critic of mRNA treatment into a criminal. The draconian law, which was quietly passed with virtually no debate, could throw anyone who advises against the use of therapeutic or prophylactic treatment (including experimental mRNA gene therapy) into prison for up to 3 years and pay a hefty fine of 45,000 Euros.

A screenshot of the law "aimed at strengthening the fight against sectarian excesses" can be viewed below.
The bill was initially proposed in 2022 following a report from (Miviludes) the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and Fight Against Sectarian Abuses. It is the inclusion of the creation of an offense to punish 'provocation to abandonment or abstention of care' that has sparked such fierce controversy.

The French government's alleged reasoning for this measure is that they hope it will help convict pseudo-therapists and protect victims of sectarian abuses.

Two years into the conflict with Russia, the Pentagon is becoming "frustrated" with Ukraine due to its reluctance to heed battlefield advice from the US military, the New York Times has reported.

Washington has been Kiev's primary backer since February 2022, providing over $111 billion in military and financial assistance. However, relations have recently been "showing signs of wear and tear" and "might be stuck in a bit of a rut," the newspaper reported on Thursday.

According to the NYT, the Pentagon's "exasperation" with the Ukrainians comes down to "a single, recurring issue," which is that American military strategists believe Ukraine needs to concentrate its forces on "one big fight at a time." Contrary to the advice, however, President Vladimir Zelensky has been expending his forces "in battles for towns that US officials say lack strategic value."

The United States was unable to manage the responsibility of being the world's only superpower after the Cold War ended, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the World Youth Festival (WYF) on Wednesday.

The WYF runs in Sochi from March 1-7, hosting some 20,000 young people from Russia and abroad for sporting and cultural events, competitions and panel discussions.

Addressing participants at the festival, Putin noted that after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US elite had an opportunity to take advantage of their new "monopoly on world leadership."

"I believe that the United States has failed to handle the burden of responsibility that fell on its shoulders."

The president predicted that as the multipolar world develops, "fundamental changes will also occur in Europe."

Despite the current hierarchy in the Western world, the "desire for independence and protection of one's sovereignty still breaks through to the surface. This is inevitable for the whole of Europe," the president noted.

The expansion of the BRICS alliance has been viewed by many economists as marking the end of undisputed US hegemony in the international arena.

"The growing appetite for an alternative to the prevailing international order is important in itself — and marks a failure of US leadership," business and finance news outlet Bloomberg wrote last year.

The combined GDP of the BRICS countries has already overtaken that of the G7, and will grow further, Putin predicted.

BRICS, which previously comprised Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, grew in size this January with the inclusion of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

In the past year, the members of the grouping have moved away from using the dollar and euro in internal settlements, instead shifting towards the use of national currencies. Western sanctions related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict have forced Moscow to move away from Western currencies and the SWIFT system and to further develop its own MIR system of payments.

Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has accused Western leaders of selectively applying international law when they condemn Russia's military operation in Ukraine but don't stand up for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war.

Addressing the Australian National University in Canberra on Thursday, Anwar said that, for six decades, the West has given "carte blanche" to Israel to continue its "murderous rampage on the Palestinians."

"Unfortunately, the gut-wrenching tragedy that continues to unfold in the Gaza Strip has laid bare the self-serving nature of much valued, the much-vaunted rules-based order," the PM argued.

The differing and inconsistent responses by the West towards the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza conflicts "defied reasoning," he stressed. It was a "fool's errand" to believe that other countries, including in the Indo-Pacific, would not notice inconsistencies in the application of international law.

"I think he borrowed a little something from Hunter tonight." — Mike Lee, US Senator, Utah

Let's face it: as pure theater, the president's annual address to Congress has become a disconcertingly shabby affair, bursts of gloatish barking wedged into an hour of nearly continuous hand-clapping, as if drowning public utterances in applause might divert the audience from the empty, vicious bluster "Joe Biden" served up Thursday night. You couldn't help but be reminded of the old Supreme Soviet in the twilight hours of Konstantin Chernenko, whose country's renowned mortuary experts managed to embalm a year or so before his actual decease and interment.

The Ruskies back in the day had a secret recipe for premature mummification of their leadership; our pharma-driven experts prefer to mummify not the body but the personality with a cocktail of adderal, clonazepam, and prednisone — the latter responsible for the 'roid rage on view whenever "Joe Biden" is hauled out of his catacomb for public performances.

The Kid from Scranton's most memorably mendacious line got front-loaded, so as not to be lost on the watching millions already nauseated by "JB's" pre-speech triumphal journey from the entrance down the aisle through the mob of his elected admirers clamoring for selfies:

"Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today," the president squawked.

True dat. The part he left out was that said assault emanates entirely from the very government he pretends to head. It's reported (in The Epoch Times today) that since the start of this year the FBI has rounded up 93 new suspects in the event of 1-6-21 touted as "the insurrection" — most of the years-old charges related to trespassing, disorderly conduct, and parading, conduct now regarded as nation-threatening. He also left out the prodigious three-year-long campaign of his inter-agency flunkies to abolish the First Amendment by capturing all the transmitters of free speech. And never mind the regime's banana republic style lawfare op to jail "JB's" chief political opponent on spurious charges before the November election — rank, in-your-face election interference.

Biden and Blinken chose a China hater over their chief Russophobe. This may have pushed her over the edge.

The forthcoming resignation of US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has given rise to various theories as to the reason for her unexpected departure from the State Department. Moscow believes it's due to the failure of the "anti-Russian course" and of the overall American "Ukrainian project." As well as that, eyes in Washington are turning to the nomination of Kurt Campbell, currently responsible for Indo-Pacific policy, to the role of second-ranking official in the State Department. The media and analysts interpret this as evidence that Asia is becoming Washington's top priority against the backdrop of declining US interest in Ukraine.

Nuland's announcement came as a surprise to many. The veteran US diplomat, who played an active part in the 2014 Maidan events in Ukraine, is remembered not only for handing out cookies in Kiev, but also for her involvement in major international crises and conflicts in recent decades.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Thursday that while ties with the U.S. have improved, Washington fundamentally misunderstands China and its unilateral actions against Beijing will backfire.

"The U.S. has been devising various tactics to suppress China and kept lengthening its unilateral sanction list, reaching a bewildering level of unfathomable absurdity," Wang told reporters on the sidelines of the National People's Congress in Beijing.

Wang's critique comes months after Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. counterpart Joe Biden met in California in an effort to stabilize relations, agreeing to step up bilateral dialogue. Wang said subsequent high-level exchanges between the two biggest powers had "met the wishes of both countries and the world."