Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine has been presented to us, in the West, as unprovoked and unjustified. We have not been told about Russia's legitimate security concerns in the face of NATO expansionism. Nor has Ukraine's significant Nazi problem been honestly reported, with some Western propagandist even promoting them.
The Russian government claims that its recognition and defence of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) are born from "compassion" for the people who have been under siege for eight years. However, Russia also needs the new republics as satellite states, providing a foothold for its own national security as it opposes NATO's advance.
It should be noted that Russia's military actions, in trying to oust Nazis from their strongholds in Mariupol, Kharkiv and elsewhere, has led to the near destruction of many cities and towns in Eastern Ukraine. As of the 19th March the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCR) estimate that 847 civilians were killed in three weeks, primarily as a result of shelling.
The OHCR noted that the "actual figures are considerably higher" but could not be verified. Credible eye witness reports and video evidence indicate that the Nazis in Mariupol and other besieged areas had stopped civilians leaving through humanitarian corridors opened by Russia. There are many reports of Nazi (Asov) atrocities, including the murder of fleeing civilians.
More torrential rainfall has fallen in parts of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, including in areas around Greater Sydney, causing floods and prompting further evacuation orders.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) figures show Rose Bay in Sydney recorded 167.2 mm of rain in 24 hours on 07 April 2022. The suburb of Centennial Park recorded 163 mm and Sydney Airport 125.5 mm. The mean average of rain for April in the city is around 126.5 mm. The latest rainfall has seen Sydney surpass its annual rainfall average of 1,213.4mm in just the first three months of 2022.
The heavy rain caused rivers to rise. BoM said on 07 April that there were "flood warnings for minor to major flooding in the Hawkesbury-Nepean and Georges rivers has been issued for the Sydney area with major flooding possible for Menangle, Liverpool and Milperra this afternoon."
It was an attention-grabbing assertion that made headlines around the world: U.S. officials said they had indications suggesting Russia might be preparing to use chemical agents in Ukraine.
President Joe Biden later said it publicly. But three U.S. officials told NBC News this week there is no evidenceRussiahas brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine. They said the U.S. released the information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions.
It's one of a string of examples of the Biden administration's breaking with recent precedent by deploying declassified intelligence as part of an information war against Russia.The administration has done so even when the intelligence wasn't rock solid, officials said, to keep Russian President Vladimir Putin off balance. Coordinated by the White House National Security Council, the unprecedented intelligence releases have been so frequent and voluminous, officials said, that intelligence agencies had to devote more staff members to work on the declassification process, scrubbing the information so it wouldn't betray sources and methods.
Observers of all stripes have called it a bold and so far successful strategy — although not one without risks.
Comment: "Intel not rock solid" sounds a lot like "let's make up a bunch of crap" and see what sticks. Doesn't really sound all that much like a winning strategy.
Dr. Robert Malone, one of the initial founders of mRNA vaccines, turned into the most prominent critic, plans to expose everyone in the World Economic Forum (WEF). "They've been working for 30 years to train people to be their gophers...to do their bidding...there are videos of Klaus Schwab bragging about it," Malone stated. "All of these people who want to lock us up and disrespect us are not very smart. I mean, have you watched Trudeau?"
Malone admitted it is usually unethical to dox people online, but with "this crowd," ousting them is the only way to beat them. So the doctor spent millions compiling a list of over 4,000 people who are working with the WEF to push forward the Great Reset.
Comment: Dr. Robert Malone has, over the last two years, made a deeply impressive effort at not only picking apart the fallacious government/media narrative promulgated about the Covid-19 virus, but at connecting the dots around the malevolent agenda that surrounds it. His credibility, clarity, and outspokenness has made him a true warrior and hero of our time.
Vucic claims to have won election as pollsters predict incumbent will dodge runoff.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has declared himself the winner of Sunday's presidential election, as polls close and an early projection places him far enough ahead to avoid a runoff election. Analysis by the Center for Free Elections and Democracy has given Vucic 59% of the votes, a comfortable margin of victory.
Speaking from his party headquarters, the incumbent leader declared "Serbia will remain on the European and reformist path, but also friends with Russia and China." The country is currently in the process of joining the EU, but has declined to cut off all relations with Moscow amid the conflict in Ukraine, unlike many of its NATO-member neighbors.
Comment: Serbia has steadfastly maintained its neutral/friendly stance towards Russia right from the beginning of the Ukraine mess in 2014. This position will serve them well in the future. Russia wants friends and allies, not vassals.
Skyrocketing oil prices and falling imports are the main factors, experts say
Russia's balance of payments surplus could hit a historic high this year, amounting to $200-$300 billion, business news outlet RBC reported on Monday. Economists polled by RBC have predicted record capital inflows into the country, despite the tightening Western sanctions.
They pointed to major factors behind the inflow, such as the increase in the value of Russian energy exports, and a reduction in merchandise imports to Russia by up to 50%.
Comment: He who holds the gold (and oil, and wheat, etc.) gets to make the rules.
RUSSIA blamed Britain today for blocking a meeting of the UN security council to discuss alleged war crimes committed in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reiterated the call today after a request for an emergency session was refused on Sunday as reports of mass graves emerged following the withdrawal of Russian troops.
"Russia today will again demand the convening of the UN security council in connection with the criminal provocations of the Ukrainian military and radicals in this city," she said.
Comment: TASS confirms the report above and provides more details:
"It is hard to imagine and realize, but the British presidency of the Security Council, which has just begun, is trying to deny us our right to request a separate Security Council meeting on the terrible Ukrainian provocation in Bucha. We requested the April 4 meeting at 3 P.M. (10 P.M. Moscow time - TASS), 24 hours before the scheduled meeting [on Tuesday] in full compliance with the Security Council's rules of procedure," Polyansky said in his Telegram channel.
"We will insist that the meeting be held on Monday, as requested," the diplomat said.
"We are shocked at the scale and brutality of the staging organized in Buchain the best traditions of 'white helmet cinema,'"Polyansky pointed out, "Today's Ukrainian neo-Nazis are completely faithful to Goebbels' old Nazi school of provocations and are trying to shift the blame to Russia." He noted that "there are striking inconsistencies and mistakes in the production." "It has already been refuted on the Internet," he noted.
Polyansky added that the British are trying to use procedural excuses to reject the Russian initiative because another UN Security Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday on a broader issue. "They obviously want us not to bring this up separately because it would cause reputational damage to Western countries that have already accused Russia of killing civilians in Bucha. But it won't work, and the world will know the truth," he said.
Polyansky reminded the British that such actions are not worthy of a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and Russia, as chairman of the Council in February, "despite all the Ukrainian provocations and the tense situation on the ground, has not opposed a single meeting on Ukraine, no matter how much time has passed since its request." "London, on the other hand, has now compromised the presidency of the Council from its inception. We hope that the obvious commitment to respect Council traditions will prevail over dishonest tactical calculations," he concluded.
Two Security Council meetings
Ukraine on Sunday requested that the UN Security Council meet on Tuesday to consider, among other things, the situation in Bucha. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to speak at it. Later on Sunday, Russia asked the Security Council president to hold a meeting on Bucha.
According to Council procedure, the president is required to convene a meeting no later than 24 hours after receiving the request. However, the president can state that, for various reasons, he received the formal request much later than it was sent. As a result, the president has a formal right to convene a meeting later than the requesting country would like.
In addition, there is a practice where the president can decide to discuss related topics in the framework of one meeting of the Security Council without scheduling a second one within the required procedural time. The last time agendas were merged was in 2018, when Ukraine and Russia also proposed to discuss related topics.
What have the Brits got to hide? Are they afraid that their involvement in the false-flag will be revealed?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has received a green light from Washington to offer Russia relief from international sanctions in exchange for ending its military offensive against the former Soviet republic.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken opened the door to such an offer on Sunday, confirming in an NBC News interview that Zelensky has the ability to negotiate sanctions relief for peace. He said President Joe Biden's administration will support whatever the Ukrainian people want to do to bring the war to an end.
"We'll be looking to see what Ukraine is doing and what it wants to do," Blinken said. "And if it concludes that it can bring this war to an end, stop the death and destruction and continue to assert its independence and its sovereignty - and ultimately that requires the lifting of sanctions - of course, we will allow that."
Comment: That's nice of the US to them to do that; what was that they were saying about sovereignty?
Comment: Contrary to the propaganda media messaging, this 'offer' not only reveals that the sanctions aren't working, but also that Ukraine is losing.
Over the past 24 hours, the Western media have been fueling allegations that Russia committed mass killings of civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bucha as footage has shown city streets strewn with bodies. The Russian Defence Ministry dismissed the accusations, underscoring that the footage is nothing short of yet another provocation.
With Kiev quickly accusing Russia of "genocide" and "massacre" in Bucha, Western media seems eager to automatically criminalise Moscow without a full investigation - and it looks like the media is a tool for the West to make up for frustrations caused by the failures of its own propaganda, experts have stated.
Doubts were cast at allegations that Russia is behind the purported "war crimes" in Bucha shortly after a video posted by one of the Kiev territorial defence battalion leaders resurfaced online. In the video, titled "BOATSMAN BOYS' work in Bucha", fighters are heard asking whether they can shoot people without blue armbands (an identifier of the Ukrainian forces) - and receiving "F***, of course!" in response.
Vanessa Beeley, an independent investigative journalist, points at how "NATO-aligned" media plays its role to "protect their 'side' from repercussions for the war crimes they have been committing for decades", while also highlighting inconsistencies in the Western-promoted narrative.
Comment: The very first noises about this claimed 'hundreds of bodies' were found. Already, it's down to '20'. The 'play' here is obvious: Kiev is crying 'Srebrenica' in this its umpteenth attempt to draw direct NATO engagement against Russian forces in Ukraine...
Ukraine said Saturday Russian forces were making a "rapid retreat" from around the capital Kyiv and the city of Chernigiv, as evidence emerged of possible civilian killings in areas they have been occupying.
AFP reporters saw at least 20 bodies on a single street in the town of Bucha near Kyiv, including one with his hands tied, and the body of a missing photographer was discovered in a nearby village.
"All these people were shot," Bucha's mayor Anatoly Fedoruk told AFP, adding that 280 other bodies had been buried in mass graves in the town.
Comment: He also claimed that some of the victims "had tried to cross the Buchanka river to Ukrainian-controlled territory and had been killed." He doesn't mention it, but this leaves open the possibility that they were killed by Ukrainian military. There are dozens of reports of Azov shooting civilians trying to escape Mariupol, for example.
As it withdraws from northern areas, Russia appears to be focusing on the east and south of Ukraine, where it already holds vast swathes of territory.
"Russia is prioritising a different tactic: falling back on the east and south," Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said on social media.
"Without heavy weapons we won't be able to drive (Russia) out," he said.
Comment: See South Front for videos and analysis. Zelensky is claiming genocide:
Projection... Blinken and Stoltenberg won't go that far, instead simply referring to it as "brutality against civilians." In response to these allegations, the EU will "tighten sanctions" and strengthen military support to Kiev.
Footage shared by locals days ago confirmed that there were civilians killed in fierce clashes that broke out during the Russian withdrawal. ...
there almost no blood near the dead who were allegedly shot dead by Russian servicemen at close range along the road ...
Numerous craters are seen on the streets, as well as destroyed Russian tanks.
While Russian troops were withdrawing, the AFU opened heavy artillery fire trying to destroy as much as Russian equipment as possible. As a result, a big number of civilians were killed.
There is also this video, titled "The work of the Bossman Boys in Bucha" (Bossman is the call-sign of Sergei Korotkov, of the Kiev territorial defense):
Moon of Alabama tweeted this suspicious timeline:
The Russian MOD released this denial:
⚡️🇷🇺Russian Defence Ministry denies accusations of Kiev regime of allegedly killing civilians in Bucha, Kiev Region
❗️All the photos and videos published by the Kiev regime allegedly testifying to some "crimes" committed by Russian servicemen in Bucha, Kiev region are just another provocation.
▫️During the time that the town has been under the control of the Russian armed forces, not a single local resident has suffered from any violent action. Russian servicemen have delivered and distributed 452 tonnes of humanitarian aid to civilians in Kiev Region.
▫️For as long as the town was under the control of the Russian armed forces and even then, up to now, locals in Bucha were moving freely around the town and using cellular phones.
❗️The exits from Bucha were not blocked. All local residents were free to leave the town in northern direction, including to the Republic of Belarus. At the same time, the southern outskirts of the city, including residential areas, were shelled round the clock by Ukrainian troops with large-calibre artillery, tanks and multiple launch rocket systems.
❗️We would like to emphasise that all Russian units withdrew completely from Bucha as early as March 30, the day after the Russia-Ukraine face-to-face round of talks in Turkey.
▫️Moreover, on March 31, the mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk, confirmed in a video message that there were no Russian servicemen in the town, but he did not even mention any locals shot in the streets with their hands tied.
▫️It is not surprising, therefore, that all the so-called "evidence of crimes" in Bucha did not emerge until the fourth day, when the Security Service of Ukraine and representatives of Ukrainian media arrived in the town.
▫️It is of particular worry that all the bodies of the people whose images have been published by the Kiev regime are not stiffened after at least four days, have no typical cadaver stains, and the wounds contain unconsumed blood.
❗️All this confirms conclusively that the photos and video footage from Bucha are another production by the Kiev regime for the Western media, as was the case in Mariupol with the maternity hospital, as well as in other cities.
Given the number of fake Ukrainian atrocity reports, no one should believe a word they say without evidence. Someone killed these people. Simply based on past probabilities, it's more likely that the Ukrainians killed these people and are now using their bodies to frame Russia for crimes against humanity. After all, this comes in the weeks after Ukraine has had to engage in a major PR effort to massage the fact that their own servicemen are on film torturing and murdering civilians and Russian POWs.
UPDATE:
Victor comments: "An amazing thing, the National Police of Ukraine published a video yesterday, April2, under the heading "Bucha - cleaning the city from the occupiers." "Occupiers", as we know, have not been there since March 30. And where did the bodies that lay everywhere on the roads go? Why was not a word said about this for 8 minutes? And today, on April 3, these bodies suddenly appeared and everyone is just talking about it."
Comment: In late March: Sydney battered by heavy rain