Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has agreed on direct deliveries of modern weaponry from several NATO countries, a statement on his website said Monday.

"Agreements with a number of NATO countries have been reached ensuring direct supplies of modern weaponry, which will help us to defend ourselves and achieve a victory," the statement said.


"We are counting on ourselves, but we desperately need financial and technical-military aid. And we will get it," the document said.

On September 7, Yuri Lutsenko, senior aide to the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, claimed that the United States, France, Italy, Poland and Norway had agreed to supply modern armaments to Ukraine at the September 4-5 NATO summit in Wales. Reuters disproved the information by citing an anonymous high-profile US official. Italy, Norway and Poland have also denied the existence of any arrangements to supply weapons to Ukraine. France declined to comment on the issue, Reuters reported.

On the sidelines of international forums, many Western ministers try to explain away sanctions imposed against Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview for the ITAR-TASS Top Officials project.

The minister said he felt no discomfort from work in the current difficult international situation. "Firstly, this is professional challenge, if you will. Secondly, it is rather my colleagues who feel inconveniences when they have to obscurely explain over the telephone or through our ambassadors why they are postponing a visit to Moscow that was coordinated. For God's sake! Love can't be forced," he said.

Western colleagues feel the same discomfort about sanctions imposed on Russia over events in Ukraine. "At different international forums, ministers from the countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia, come up to me one by one, taking me aside and asking me confusedly to take it easy and understand; saying that they don't want to but are compelled to," the top Russian diplomat said.

"Maybe tense periods in international relations are inevitable. But they end sooner or later. And this one will be left behind. But at first everybody must get used to the idea that the world will not be one-polar any longer. Meanwhile, we have to see relapses and muscle flexing," he said.

The failed US politics in the Ukraine who, under the threat of having its army destroyed and with an economy on the verge of collapse, was forced to negotiate a ceasefire with Novorussia, made Washington to shift the focus of its attack against Russia from Europe to the South. Both the Near and Middle East, especially the Gulf Region, yet again became the point of application of White House's main efforts aimed at weakening and breaking up Russia.

First of all, Saudi Arabia and Iran as the world's major energy exporters may become the primary partners for Washington given the fact that Russia's dependence on oil and gas is the weakest point of its economy. However, Washington will have to first "modify" the current Iranian regime to fit into its standards to be able to fully tear Tehran away from Moscow.

Preconditions for this are in place given the pro-Western inclination of President Rouhani and his team who are counting on massive Western investments in the Iran economy, especially in the hydrocarbon sector. In addition, there is already a "fifth column" of local liberals and minorities - Kurds, Azeris, Baluchis, etc. - active in Iran. And there is no doubt that the Americans will try to involve Qatar in this too, which will be quite easy, as well as Iraq, where Russia's presence is already being undermined after Prime Minister al-Maliki was replaced for a more accommodating Al-Abadi, and, of course, Syria, where, however, they will have to first get rid of Bashar al-Assad's regime.These were the main topics of discussion during President Obama's closed private meeting immediately before the NATO summit in Wales and the Minsk meeting of representatives of Kiev with the Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

Western mainstream media whores are already jumping all over a single sentence in the Preliminary report [on the] Crash involving Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 flight MH17, that reads:

Damage observed on the forward fuselage and cockpit section of the aircraft appears to indicate that there were impacts from a large number of high-energy objects from outside the aircraft.

According to paragons of bullshit like the BBC, this "pretty much rules out anything else other than a [BUK] missile".

What the BBC and just about every other mouthpiece of Western anti-Russian propaganda are studiously ignoring is the evidence provided by Russia, which was corroborated by eyewitnesses, that a fighter jet was in close approach to MH17 when it went down. And in case everyone forgot, large caliber bullets are also "high-energy objects".

Saudi Arabia has agreed to an American request to provide a base to train moderate Syrian opposition fighters, American officials said on Wednesday.


"We now have the commitment from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to be a full partner in this effort - the train-and-equip program - to host that program," said a senior Obama administration official, who added that discussions were underway to determine the specific site and other details.


The Saudi willingness to host a training program comes as Secretary of State John Kerry is preparing to fly to Jidda, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday morning for a high-level strategy session on how to counter the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

The meeting that is being hosted by the Saudis will also include senior officials from Arab states in the Persian Gulf region, as well as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq.

A senior State Department official said a number of initiatives to weaken ISIS would be stepped up, including efforts to stop the flow of money to the terrorist group by cracking down on oil smuggling and curtailing contributions from private donors.

The neoconservative foreign policy doctrine advanced by officials in President George W. Bush's administration was defined by the ideological belief that America has a "unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity and our principles." In other words, America is the one indispensable nation in the world. That ideological belief inspired the Bush administration to manufacture a case for war in Iraq that was based on lies. And now, more than eleven years later, that same ideological belief is driving President Barack Obama's administration.

In Obama's speech announcing his strategy to "degrade and ultimately destroy" the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), he invoked the September 11th attacks and the economic recession.

"My fellow Americans, we live in a time of great change. Tomorrow marks 13 years since our country was attacked. Next week marks 6 years since our economy suffered its worst setback since the Great Depression. Yet despite these shocks; through the pain we have felt and the grueling work required to bounce back - America is better positioned today to seize the future than any other nation on Earth."

Obama proceeded to fervently rattle off accomplishments, which will, for the most part, have absolutely no bearing on what happens in Iraq and Syria, as the US further escalates war. He mentioned tech companies, universities, manufacturing, auto industry and job creation.

"Abroad, American leadership is the one constant in an uncertain world. It is America that has the capacity and the will to mobilize the world against terrorists," Obama declared.

A member of the Ukrainian parliamentary probe into the Odessa massacre has retracted her signature under the document, saying it was heavily redacted after signing. Multiple Odessa news outlets published what they said was the original probe conclusions.

Svetlana Fabrikant, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and secretary of the parliamentary commission probing into the massacre in Odessa on May 2, as well as other episodes of violence in eastern Ukrainian cities, withdrew her signature under the commission's report, saying it was "different" from what she had signed.

"Regrettably, other members of the commission made some adjustments to the document after I had signed it," she said. "After the document was published on the official website of the parliament, I found my signature under a different document - and I cannot agree with this document," Itar-Tass quotes her as saying.

After the comparison of the version published by the parliament and the one obtained by Odessa media outlets, it can be concluded that the 'redacted' version got rid of witnesses' accounts implicating the involvement of Andrey Parubiy, then-secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, in organizing the Odessa massacre.

Parubiy resigned from his post in August.

The final version of the report presented by Kiev is also reportedly missing witnesses' accounts about the involvement of about 500 radicals who have been transferred to Odessa with the help of the region's governor, Vladimir Nemirovsky. It also failed to mention the head of Odessa branch of the Udar party, Andrey Yusov, and other Euromaidan leaders who allegedly instigated radical nationalists to set ablaze the Trade Unions House.

The Russian President has taken personal control of the body that assures cooperation between the military and the defense industry, days after ordering a major reform of the sector.

Vladimir Putin also signed a decree on Wednesday giving presidential status to the Military Industrial Commission. The Deputy PM in charge of the weapons industry, Dmitry Rogozin, was appointed deputy chairman of the commission.

Also on Wednesday Putin spoke with a group of top defense industry officials and told them that while Russia did not intend to artificially halt cooperation with foreign partners, the priorities lay in the ability to independently produce all critically important equipment, materials and devices. "We must do everything to ensure that national security is absolutely guaranteed," the President said.

Earlier this week Putin ordered the winding up of the Rosoboronzakaz and Rosoboronpostavka agencies which are responsible for placing and executing weapons orders for the military. Their functions will be transferred to the Defense Ministry, Finance Ministry and Audit Chamber.

Russia is currently running a major program to rearm the military. It started in 2008 and will continue till 2020. By then 70 percent of all weapons in the military must be replaced by newer models. The state is allocating significant sums for the purpose - in 2014 the total defense budget amounted to 2.3 trillion rubles ($60 billion), compared to just 600 billion rubles ($15 billion) in 2003.

The crisis in Ukraine has shown the need for even more reforms in the Russian defense sector. Facing the turmoil and hostility of the present Kiev regime, Russian authorities decided to cut ties with Ukrainian weapon makers and go for domestic production. President Putin discussed the plan with Deputy PM Rogozin in late July and said that the inevitable hardships and complications would eventually benefit the nation - new factories will appear in previously underdeveloped places, and old enterprises will be replaced with modern ones.

Three British military bases could be set up in the Persian Gulf to fight the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), a source in the Ministry of Defence said. The bases could be part of a larger US-led offensive to battle militants in Iraq and Syria.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman and Bahrain are all potential candidates to host the bases, the ministry source told the Times on Wednesday. The move would follow an agreement by NATO leaders to ramp up efforts to contain the terror threat emanating from the region.

UK forces already use the Al-Minhad airbase near Dubai to fly troops in and out of Afghanistan. "You could see an infantry battalion based in Al-Minhad, being able to train alongside the Emirates," a defense source said. It is also believed the Royal Navy would like to see the port in Bahrain expanded to accommodate more sailors and bigger warships.

Work reportedly began on establishing new bases before the rise of the IS. The effort is part of a review of the UK's presence in the Gulf following the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan in December.

"The effect is that we are making a strategic adjustment, which is in my view quite sensible," said Michael Clarke, director of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank. "But it is not something that I think has come from Downing Street. This has come through the armed forces working it out." The bases would be "smart footprints,"unlike the large facilities seen in Afghanistan, said Clarke.

While still in the development stages, a spokesman for the MoD said any new UK military presence in the region would represent a continuance of the UK's partnership with its Gulf allies.

The end goal of the US and NATO is to divide (balkanize) and pacify (finlandize) the world's biggest country, the Russian Federation, and to even establish a blanket of perpetual disorder (somalization) over its vast territory or, at a minimum, over a portion of Russia and the post-Soviet space, similarly to what is being done to the Middle East and North Africa. The future Russia or the many future Russias, a plurality of weakened and divided states, that Washington and its NATO allies see is/are demographically in decline, de-industrialized, poor, without any defensive capabilities, and hinterlands that will exploited for their resources.

The Plans of the Empire of Chaos for Russia

Breaking the Soviet Union has not been enough for Washington and NATO. The ultimate goal of the US is to prevent any alternatives from emerging in Europe and Eurasia to Euro-Atlantic integration. This is why the destruction of Russia is one of its strategic objectives.

Washington's goals were alive and at work during the fighting in Chechnya. They were also seen in the crisis that erupted with EuroMaidan in Ukraine. In fact, the first step of the divorce between Ukraine and Russia was a catalyst for the dissolution of the entire Soviet Union and any attempts at reorganizing it.

The Polish-American intellectual Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was US President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor and an architect behind the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, has actually advocated for the destruction of Russia through gradual disintegration and devolution. He has stipulated that «a more decentralized Russia would be less susceptible to imperial mobilization». [1] In other words, if the US divides Russia up, Moscow would not be able to challenge Washington. In this context, he states the following: «A loosely confederated Russia - composed of a European Russia, a Siberian Republic, and a Far Eastern Republic - would find it easier to cultivate closer economic regulations with Europe, with the new states of Central Asia, and with [East Asia], which would thereby accelerate Russia's own development». [2]

These views are not merely constrained to some academic's ivory tower or to detached think-tanks. They have the backing of governments and have even cultivated adherents. One reflection of them is below.