Puppet MastersS


USA

Pentagon justifies rejection of Zelensky's goading for a no-fly zone


RT
Sat, 19 Mar 2022 03:23 UTC
US jets
© Russian Defense MinistryUS Airforce KC-135 Stratotanker refuels a B-1B Lancer in flight over the Black Sea, Oct. 19, 2021 recorded by Russian crew member aboard a Sukhoi Su-20 fighter jet.
Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said a no-fly zone over Ukraine remains off the table, explaining that the move would mean direct confrontation between US and Russian fighter jets and likely a hot war with Moscow.

Asked about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's repeated calls on Western powers to take control of his country's airspace to repel a Russian attack, Austin said the Joe Biden administration would not grant the request, citing the risk of escalation.

"Enforcing a no-fly zone actually means that you're in combat, you're in a fight with Russia. And that's one of the things that we have said, that our president has said, that we weren't going to do," the defense secretary said.

Comment: Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Russian Operations in Ukraine Proceeding as Planned, But Risk of War Contagion Grows



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Rocket

Zelensky 'dismisses' General after missile strike in Donetsk city centre

Kosta Papadopoulos
Greek City Times
Wed, 16 Mar 2022 11:11 UTC
Alexander Pavlyuk
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has allegedly dismissed the commander of Kiev's military operation in Donbass, Alexander Pavlyuk, over his decision to fire a Tochka-U missile towards Donetsk without authorization, deputy department head of the DPR Militia Eduard Basurin said on Tuesday, according to reports from Russian news agency TASS.

"The decisive factor in Pavlyuk's dismissal was his arbitrary decision to fire a missile with a cluster warhead from the Tochka-U tactical system towards the Donetsk city centre, which left 21 citizens of the republic dead and 37 injured," Basurin said in a statement, posted in his Telegram channel.

Among other reasons behind the dismissal, he named several major failures of the Ukrainian armed forces in Donbass.

"According to our source, the military leadership of Ukraine lost credibility due to Pavlyuk's total inability to organize proper defense of the Ukrainian armed forces, as well as due to the loss of Volnovakha and the blocking of Ukrainian troops in Mariupol," Basurin said.

Comment: If the allegations are true, then it's basically admitting that they were the ones responsible for the attack - not the Russians.

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Light Sabers

I did not expect Russia to invade Ukraine. What I got wrong and why

Patrick Armstrong
Russia Observer
Fri, 18 Mar 2022 10:15 UTC
ukraine war map
I did not expect Russia to invade Ukraine. I was quite definite about it several times: "Russia will not invade Ukraine" I said. I envisaged several possibilities but nothing like what we have seen in the last weeks. My argument was based on the assumption that Moscow did not want to take ownership of, in Åslund's words, "the poorest country in Europe". I still do not think that it does - I believe that Moscow wants a neutral and de-nazified Ukraine that is a buffer between it and NATO. I am also coming to believe that Novorossiya, more or less in its historical borders as formed by Katherine when recovered from the Ottomans, will be independent. The chance that it would remain part of Ukraine has probably passed. As I wrote in 2014 "In short, the West broke Ukraine, it now owns it. Or, to put it more precisely, it owns that part that Moscow doesn't want. And what part that is is entirely up to Moscow to choose". Moscow is choosing now.

So why was I wrong? What did I miss?

I believe I missed three things - two I didn't know about and one that I did but did not properly weigh. These are: the nuclear weapons issue, the planned strike on LDNR and the biolabs.

Comment: See also: Russia and Ukraine 2

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Gold Coins

Putin proposes five-year extension of Central Bank Chairwoman's term


RFE/RL
Fri, 18 Mar 2022 00:00 UTC
Russian central bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina
© (file photo)Russian central bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina
Russian President Vladimir Putin has submitted a proposal to the State Duma to nominate Elvira Nabiullina to serve another term as the head of the central bank of Russia.

A document on the lower house of parliament's website on March 18 said the it will consider the proposal on March 21.

Her current five-year term ends in June, and federal law says Putin must nominate her or another candidate by March 24.
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Oil Well

So, what's behind the US' flip-flopping on the Iran nuclear deal?

Scott Ritter
RT
Fri, 18 Mar 2022 17:01 UTC
JCPOA
© Reuters / EU Delegation in ViennaJCPOA Joint Commission in Vienna, Austria. America may well reenter the JCPOA, but it'll surely leave it again as soon as its domestic strategy changes
Economic sanctions have been the cornerstone of US policy toward Iran for more than two decades. It turns out that, as the US moves to lift sanctions on that nation by rejoining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), global energy security is more important than the much-hyped Iranian nuclear threat.

It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican, when it comes to using economic sanctions as a weapon, politics don't matter. The case of Iran and its nuclear program stands out as a clear example of this. Under the administrations of Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama alike, the US used the alleged threat posed by that program - claimed by the US to be military in nature, but to be used for exclusively peaceful purposes by Iran - as justification to impose stringent economic sanctions ostensibly designed to compel the Iranian government to cease its acquisition and use of uranium enrichment technology.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Russian Operations in Ukraine Proceeding as Planned, But Risk of War Contagion Grows



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Binoculars

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson trolls US with memes


RT
Fri, 18 Mar 2022 17:38 UTC
Zhao Lijian
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian
Chinese deputy foreign minister Zhao Lijian has exposed what the US and its allies really mean when they refer to the "international community," trolling Washington with devastating accuracy in a tweet on Friday.

Comment: The US has become the joke of the international community; well, the other one, the one in grey:

the international community


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Target

'Zelensky goading Biden into war with Russia' and other highlights from Lavrov interview with RT


RT
Fri, 18 Mar 2022 13:48 UTC
Lavrov
© Russian Foreign Ministry/TASS/Getty ImagesRussian FM Sergey Lavrov
The Russian foreign minister revealed how Moscow views its confrontation with the West

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed Russia's standoff with the US and other Western nations in an interview with RT on Friday, and outlined the direction in which Moscow is moving.

He said the West had encouraged Ukraine to turn into an "anti-Russia," and now its leader is trying to goad US President Joe Biden into going to war for Kiev.

Lavrov argued that Moscow is being subjected to "info-terrorism" by its opponents, who have dropped all pretence of adhering to the values they preach. Tensions will calm down, but Russia will no longer be under any illusion that it would be welcomed as an equal in the West, the foreign minister added.

Here are some of the highlights from the interview:
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Stop

US quietly backtracks on Russian oil ban


RT
Fri, 18 Mar 2022 17:00 UTC
oil tanker
© Getty Images/Stephen SwintekRussian oil tanker
The US has been vocal about restricting Russian oil imports, but sources say an actual ban is unlikely as it would further propel gasoline prices, which are already record high.

On March 8, President Joe Biden announced his administration was banning Russian oil, natural gas and coal imports to the US as part of a sanctions package in response to Russia's military operation in Ukraine. Two days later, the House of Representatives passed a bill to ban Russian energy imports. The media, which speculated how long it would take for sanctions to turn toward energy carriers, quickly picked up the news, with some Western experts saying the US move could be followed by other countries.

However, according to CNN, US Senate sources are now saying it's unlikely their chamber will move on the bill to turn it into law. The sources explain that the move by the Senate is considered unnecessary after the president took executive action to ban the imports. Also, according to Senator Joe Manchin, who chairs the Senate Energy Committee, the House bill is weaker than Biden's executive action, so the Senate is reluctant to move on the measure.

If the Senate does not approve the bill, the import ban won't turn into law, and US importers can continue buying Russian energy.

Comment: Logic over emotion? Reason over hate? Nothing so lofty...the US serves itself.

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Boat

Russia highlights 'collapse of sanctity of private property' in the West


RT
Wed, 16 Mar 2022 12:45 UTC
Yacht/Police
© AP/Antonio CalanniAn Italian Finance Police car is parked in front of the yacht "Lady M", owned by Russian oligarch Alexei Mordashov
The clampdown on Russian businessmen is "hijacking at the state level." The seizure of yachts, planes, and real estate from Russian tycoons is illegal and contradicts the very ideals on which Western society has been built, the Kremlin has said.

Such actions against the businessmen who were sanctioned due to their claimed ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the wake of Moscow's offensive in Ukraine signal "the collapse of the sanctity of private property and private business [and] demonstrate the danger of doing business there," Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.

Russia's leading entrepreneurs are actually "international businessmen" as their companies operate around the globe, he pointed out. Yet, they are treated in a manner that "can't be described in any other way than hijacking at the state level."

France claimed to have seized a yacht believed to belong to Russia's state oil giant Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin in early March. Several other countries followed suit and also arrested vessels and other property of the Russian tycoons.

Peskov acknowledged that the issue of sanctions had been raised at the peace talks between Moscow and Kiev, but added that revealing any further details would be "impossible" as the negotiations were still ongoing.
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Yoda

Dilyana Gaytandzhieva: Pentagon biolabs in Ukraine and the threat of ethnic bio-warfare

Vanessa Beeley
SoundCloud
Thu, 17 Mar 2022 20:09 UTC
Dilyana Gaytandzhieva
© News FrontInvestigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva
My conversation with courageous Bulgarian journalist and documentary maker Dilyana Gaytandzhieva who broke the story of NATO supplying weapons to Al Qaeda in Syria from Bulgaria - and then went on to expose the Obama-incubated Pentagon global Biolab program in Georgia and Ukraine.

As Dilyana points out, the biolabs are strategically placed on the borders of Russia, Iran and China, the perceived "enemies" of the West and a threat to US unipolarity.

The creation of these programs in these countries also circumvents the 1972 Geneva Convention on the prohibition of development and production , stockpiling of bio and chemical weapons ratified by the US in 1973.

Comment: Dilyana Gaytandzhieva has been sounding the alarm on undocumented biological research facilities for years, along with tracking illegal arms sales around the world. A brave, intrepid reporter of the old school.

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