Back in March, I had the opportunity to participate in an on-line forum where a well-known Russian expert provided a briefing on the "ground truth" as he saw it from Moscow.

Following the briefing, the floor was opened for questions. I had noted that the briefer, the moderator, and indeed the audience made repetitive use of the term "invasion" to describe what Russia has called a "Special Military Operation."

I brought up the limited objectives of the Russian military effort at the time of its initiation, namely the goal of compelling Ukraine to agree to a negotiated settlement and asked if the term "Special Military Operation" was not a more accurate description of reality.

The expert understood my question and agreed that the term "Special Military Operation" carried with it a specific connotation which distinguished it from a classic military invasion. However, in the group chat, where participants were able to comment on the proceedings, one individual offered the following observation: "'Special Military Operation?' What's that? I don't speak Putin."

This forum was intended as a way to better inform the participants about one of the most pressing issues of the day — the conflict between Russia and Ukraine — and to better prepare them for assessing the consequences of this conflict globally.

The main significance of the Houthi attack is that that the era of ballistic missile warfare against ships at sea has begun.

In scoring a direct hit on the MSC Palatium 3 vessel with their anti-ship ballistic missiles, Yemen's rag tag Houthi militia have ushered in a new era in naval warfare not only in the Red Sea but further afield as well.

With BP pausing all oil tanker transits through the Red Sea, the Houthis have certainly made a splash. The Houthi's success, if success it was, is being carefully studied by Iran, China, Russia, Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines and all others caught up in the naval wars that lie ahead.

Although the Palestinians, desperately fighting their own regional war, might regard this attack as a victory, tactically it pales in comparison to NATO's attacks on Russian shipping in the Black Sea and the terrorist attack on the Nordstream pipeline. The European lie of the land is that Russia must devote much more military resources to fend off NATO's land armies and Germany, despite sending 5,000 troops to Lithuania, is economically and militarily kaput. As far as the European front goes, for the United States, it is game over as Germany is down and Russia is permanently locked out of dealing with Europe, so much so that all of Western Europe is now in bondage to Uncle Sam for the foreseeable future. Europe, for all intents and purposes, is no longer an independent or even important actor; geopolitically, it is an irrelevance.

Russia's forces have repeatedly reported destroying or capturing tanks and fighting vehicles donated to Kiev...

Ukraine is facing significant battlefield losses, and its counteroffensive has failed to impress Kiev's foreign backers, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a Defense Ministry Board meeting on Tuesday. Putin said that Kiev's forces faced these pitfalls despite receiving high-grade Western military equipment.

Kiev has lost over 14,000 tanks and infantry fighting vehicles since the start of Russia's military operation in the country, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said during the meeting.

"The myth of the invulnerability of Western military equipment has collapsed," said Putin.

Throughout the Ukraine conflict, countries like the US, Germany, France, and the UK have supplied Kiev with hundreds of pieces of state-of-the-art Western-made heavy military equipment such as Leopard 2, Abrams and Challenger tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and more.

Russian forces, however, have repeatedly reported either destroying or capturing this hardware, which had often been touted in Western media as superior to anything Russia has to offer.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that former President Donald Trump is disqualified from holding the presidency under the Constitution's so-called insurrection clause and ordered the secretary of state to exclude his name from the state's Republican presidential primary ballot.

The landmark decision from the divided Colorado Supreme Court that Trump cannot hold public office under the Civil War-era provision is unprecedented, and it marks the first time a court has found him to be ineligible to return to the White House due to his conduct surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Never before has a court determined that a presidential candidate is disqualified under the clause, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Asked about the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling on Wednesday, President Biden told reporters it is up to the court to determine the application of Section 3, but said there's "no question" Trump supported an insurrection.

The ruling does not apply outside of Colorado, and the state high court, whose justices were all appointed by Democratic governors, paused its decision until Jan. 4 — one day before the deadline for Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold to certify the candidates for the state's March 5 primary.

The Ukrainian government needs to look at what Germany did in WWII to stand a chance against Russia, according to Ben Hodges, former commander of US Army forces stationed in Europe.

Hodges, who retired as a lieutenant-general in 2017, has long been an outspoken supporter of Ukraine. In an interview with the Australian YouTuber Perun, published over the weekend, he repeatedly cited examples from the Second World War to argue that Kiev can defeat Moscow on the battlefield.

"They are gonna have to increase production of ammunition and weapons in Ukraine," Hodges said. "Some of these things are already happening, but it is possible when you are at war to increase production, even with Russian missiles raining down on your cities."

The US must ensure Russia does not defeat Ukraine in order to preserve America's global hegemony, Republican Congressman Rich McCormick has said in an interview with C-SPAN's Washington Journal.

The comments come as US lawmakers remain deadlocked over continued financial assistance to Kiev. Republicans have refused to support President Joe Biden's latest military aid package, including an additional $60 billion for Ukraine, unless a deal is reached on domestic border security and significant tightening of immigration laws.

Georgia Congressman McCormick was asked to comment on concerns that the US could end up "betraying Ukraine" if it delays further assistance, spelling defeat for Kiev's forces. The lawmaker stressed that he supports Ukraine, while claiming that "every single former [US] secretary of defense" that he has talked to also believes that Washington must prevent a Russian victory.

The "peace formula" promoted by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has no chance to succeed without Russia's involvement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

Kiev and its Western backers have for months been discussing Zelensky's so-called ten-point peace plan. This proposal includes calls for Russia to withdraw from all territories claimed by Kiev, for Moscow to pay reparations, and for the formation of a war crimes tribunal. Russian authorities instantly rejected the proposal as "unrealistic" and out-of-touch with the situation on the ground.

"One should open their eyes and look at the facts: They're trying to search for a peace formula without Russia. To say the least, this is an absurd process. But, seriously, this is a process that has no potential of delivering any results," Peskov told journalists on Wednesday.

The press secretary was commenting on claims made by Zelensky on Tuesday that "the issue of negotiations with Russia is not relevant at the moment." The Ukrainian leader also said that Kiev has a "peace plan" and that it will be presented to Russia once "the corresponding document is ready and all states unite around it." If Moscow "accepts it, it will signal its readiness to negotiate," he stated.

Ukraine has been using "terrorist methods" with "direct support" from foreign intelligence agencies, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

Putin made the statement on Wednesday as he greeted the employees of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Federal Guard Service (FSO) and the Main Directorate for Special Programs as part of Security Agency Worker's Day.

"We are aware that, with direct support from foreign intelligence agencies, the Kiev regime has openly resorted to terrorist methods, engaging, in fact, in state terrorism," the president stressed in his address.

Those activities by Ukraine include acts of sabotage on civilian sites, transport and energy infrastructure as well as terrorist attacks against representatives of the Russian authorities and public figures, he said.

As the Ukraine conflict disappears from the world's collective conscience, now is a good time to strive for truth in a truthless maze of misinformation. Russia's defensive move to counter an ever-encroaching NATO has made headlines for almost two years. But the biggest battles have raged in an insurmountable war of lies. At the end of the day, the victors in this conflict, as is always the case, are revealed on the battlefield. With Israel eradicating Palestinians as if they were insects and Ukraine virtually destroyed, it's almost as if the whole Gaza affair was orchestrated to make us forget the hundreds of thousands killed and the millions displaced in the Western alliance's biggest promised land.

"I understood why we won the Great Patriotic War. It is impossible to defeat this kind of nation with this kind of attitude. We were absolutely invincible. And we are the same now." V.V. Putin

A Picture of a Thousand Lies

As I type this, I am looking at two recent photographs used to reflect the real situation in Russia's demilitarisation of Ukraine. The first is by a famous photographer named Evgeniy Maloletka, who supposedly shows hundreds of Russian casualties at Stepove, a village on the battlefront just north of Avdiivka. The second photo is from Reuters photographer Vitalii Hnidyi, showing hundreds of recently buried Ukraine soldiers and new graves dug to accommodate more.

Maloletka, some may recall, is the Pulitzer-winning photographer credited with the sensationalistic pregnant woman leaving bombed-out hospital ruins in Mariupol. The photographer is one of the "chosen" of the Western mainstream now, he even has his own Wikipedia page, even though many experts said the hospital scene was a set piece. Like the notorious White Helmets of Barack Obama's Syria proxy war, corporate-owned media has its superstar fabricators and blind-eyed editors and journalists.

The point here is that no one knows who to believe anymore. And in this dark playground of treachery, the antagonists are free to do as they please - and no one is fit to judge anymore. Russia's methodical advance on Ukraine's obliterated forces near Avdiivka is yet another win for the Zelensky puppet. Or so my countrymen are being led to believe. As a note, here, The Economist is buying Google Ads to boost traffic to the magazine's horrifying Russian death toll stories. Advertising over corpses of valiant soldiers! Another weird irony is that the IMF and other Western institutions still call for billions in aid to ensure Kyiv's tentative economic recovery (Financial Times). It's as if all our leaders and institutions are in a fog.

The reality is over half a million dead Ukrainian soldiers and perhaps a million more wounded. For those who still believe the mainstream about Ukraine casualties and the situation there, all you have to do is compare reports. Wikipedia quotes BBC from February 2022, putting Ukraine dead at just under 90,000. Jimmy Wales' open-source library of truth also cites the Russian dead as about twice that of Ukraine. A few days ago, Reuters reported that U.S. intelligence calculates the Russians have accumulated 315,000 dead and injured troops. And out of every Western mainstream media, Washington think tank, and government press office, the Russians are losing, losing, and losing some more.

No one ever lost money betting on the ability of the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder to construct a "coalition of the willing" whenever faced with a geopolitical quandary.

In every case, duly covered by the reigning "rules-based international order", "willing" applies to vassals seduced by carrots or sticks to follow to the letter the Empire's whims.

Cue to the latest chapter: Coalition Genocide Prosperity, whose official - heroic - denomination, a trademark of the Pentagon's P.R. wizards, is "Operation Prosperity Guardian", allegedly engaged in "ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.

"Translation: this is Washington all but declaring war on Yemen's Ansarullah. An extra US destroyer has already been dispatched to the Red Sea.

Ansarullah sticks to its guns and is by no means intimidated. The Houthi military have already stressed that any attack on Yemeni assets or Ansarullah missile launch sites would color the entire Red Sea literally Red.

The Houthi military not only reaffirmed it has "weapons to sink your aircraft carriers and destroyers" but made a stunning call to both Sunnis and Shi'ites in Bahrain to revolt and overthrow their King, Hamad al-Khalifa.

As of Monday, even before the start of the operation, the Eisenhower aircraft carrier was around 280 km off the closest Ansarullah controlled latitudes. Houthis have Zoheir and Khalij-e-Fars anti-ship ballistic missiles with a range of 300 to 500 km.

Ansarullah Supreme Political Council member Muhammad al-Bukhaiti felt compelled to re-stress the obvious: "Even if America succeeds in mobilizing the entire world, our operations in the Red Sea will not stop unless the massacre in Gaza stops. We will not give up the responsibility of defending the Moustazafeen (oppressed ones) of the Earth.

"The world better get ready: "Aircraft carrier sunk" may become the new 9/11.