Puppet MastersS


Sherlock

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin reportedly killed in plane crash north of Moscow

Yevgeny Prigozhin
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin
Russian authorities say Prigozhin was one of ten passengers listed for the flight, although it is not yet clear whether he was on board at the time.

A business jet en route from Moscow to St Petersburg crashed Wednesday, killing all ten people on board, Russian emergency officials said.

Unconfirmed media reports said the jet belonged to Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private military company.


Comment: Wagner worked for, and has now been incorporated into, the Russian government.


Russia's civilian aviation regulator, Rosaviatsia, confirmed that Prigozhin was on the passenger list. However, it was not immediately clear if he had boarded the flight.

Comment:



Footage and further details of the crash:








Bullseye

'Impossible': Ex-NATO General says Kiev has no chance against Moscow

ukraine air strike
© APFILE: Smoke rises from an air defense base in the aftermath of an apparent Russian strike in Mariupol, Ukraine, Thursday 24, 2022
An former NATO Italian general, Marco Bertolini, says Ukraine will not prevail against Russia on the battlefield and that the Ukrainian goals of taking back Crimea and other lost regions are "unrealistic".

Italian general Marco Bertolini, who is now retired but had previously headed Italy's Joint Operations Command and the Folgore paratroopers brigade in the 2000s, stressed, in an interview with Libero Quotidiano, on Monday, that Ukraine will probabaly fail to defeat Russia on the battlefield.

The general said "The Ukrainian victory is inconceivable. We must take note of this fact and sit at the negotiating table," adding that "This war should've been stopped much earlier, but in recent months the rhetoric of 'we will win' has been cultivated, fueling the expectations in the public opinion of a victory that is impossible on the ground. The Ukrainians will not prevail."

Comment: These admissions from former, and even current, figureheads in the West, and that have increased significantly in recent months, that the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is failing miserably, reveals that at least one faction in the establishment is ready to admit to defeat (albeit not in so many words, and that's not to say that they won't try again at a later date):


Quenelle - Golden

Russia's Medvedev warns Georgian breakaway regions could be annexed

Dmitry Medvedev
© Yekaterina Shtukina/Sputnik/pool via ReutersDeputy head of Russia's Security Council Dmitry Medvedev visits a weapons manufacturing plant in Dubna, Moscow region, Russia, in February 2023
Russia's Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy secretary of the Kremlin's powerful Security Council, has warned that Moscow could annex Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the Reuters news agency reported.

Medvedev, who has cast himself as one of Moscow's most hawkish political voices since Russian forces launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, accused the West in a newspaper article published on Wednesday of creating tension over Georgia by discussing its possible membership in the NATO military alliance.

"The idea of joining Russia is still popular in Abkhazia and South Ossetia," Medvedev, a former Russian president, wrote in an article published by the Argumenty I Fakty newspaper.

"It could quite possibly be implemented if there are good reasons for that," he said in the article.

Comment: Is Medvedev bringing it up now because there's reason to believe that the West will attempt a provocation of some kind in the region and these considerations of annexation may become more urgent? Western interference in the region is definitely nothing new.

Either way, Russia has already successfully annexed a number of regions from Ukraine, with the West apparently incapable of doing much about it, and, as with Donbass and Crimea, it seems these former Georgian regions would be willing to fully secede:


Stock Down

Putin: De-dollarization is 'irreversible'

Putin
BRICS will become economically more powerful than the G7, the Russian president said in an address to the Johannesburg summit

The US dollar is losing its global role in an "objective and irreversible" process, the Russian president told participants at the BRICS Summit in South Africa on Tuesday. Vladimir Putin spoke via videolink, after choosing not to attend the event in person.

De-dollarization is "gaining momentum" Putin declared, adding that members of the group of major emerging economies are seeking to reduce their reliance on the greenback in mutual transactions.

The Russian leader claimed the five BRICS members - Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa - are becoming the new world economic leaders, adding that their cumulative share of global GDP has reached 26%.

Comment: the U.S. populace will not understand what has hit them, when all those unwanted dollars come sloshing back home in a Weimar-style tidal wave. Ripe pickings for an authoritarian government to take advantage of.


Black Cat

Best of the Web: Neocon dark money front launches desperate ad blitz as support for Ukraine forever war is cratering

billboard support ukraine republicans neocons
According to archneocon Bill Kristol, this image will feature on ten billboards during the Republcan presidential debate in Milwaulkee, August 20, 2023
A PR offensive to inundate the American public with pro-Ukraine war advertisements during the 2024 election is the latest initiative of neocon chickenhawk Bill Kristol. While targeted at GOP voters, the campaign appears to be another Democratic Party front.

Defending Democracy Together, a neoconservative outfit led by career chickenhawk scribe Bill Kristol, has launched a new initiative called "Republicans for Ukraine" to transform the 2024 presidential election into a referendum on US funding for the NATO proxy war.

Urging Republicans in Congress to support more funding for Ukraine in the upcoming appropriations bill is also a key item on the agenda.

Kristol had defined himself as a leader of the Republican Party's neoconservative faction, bashing isolationist and antiwar GOP figures on the pages of his now-defunct Weekly Standard magazine while laying the intellectual groundwork for the invasion of Iraq through his Project for a New American Century.

Arrow Down

The EU doesn't know how to not be a vassal of the US any more

biden sunak von der leyen scholz g7 summit hiroshima
© Kenny Holston / POOL / AFPFrom L to R) US President Joe Biden, Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the G7 Leaders' Summit in Hiroshima on May 19, 2023
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has tried to show Americans how Washington has exploited Western Europe

Tucker Carlson, of Fox News fame, recently met with Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic in Budapest, Hungary. The journalist pointed out that the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline has put a serious strain on the European Union's economy and mentioned that the world was "resetting" in reaction to the conflict in Ukraine and the West's pledged support for Kiev.

Carlson raises some good issues, and an important one to expand upon is the fact that the EU economy is lagging significantly since the outbreak of the war last year. A June piece by the Financial Times titled 'Europe has fallen behind America and the gap is growing' details how the EU is now considerably dependent on the US for its technological, security, and economic needs.

Network

Qatari Emir visits Hungary, signs bilateral agreements on energy, agriculture, economy

qatar hungary
© Mohammed AldosariThese agreements include enhanced bilateral cooperation in the fields of economy, investment, agriculture, sports, youth, and energy
Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani arrived in Budapest on 20 August for talks with Hungarian President Katalin Novak, which resulted in the signing several bi-lateral agreements and memoranda of understanding (MOU).

The Qatari Emir traveled with a delegation, including Doha's Minister of State for International Cooperation, Lolwah al-Khater, and the President of the Qatar Olympic Committee, Joaan bin Hamad Al-Thani.

According to a statement from Qatar's Foreign Ministry, Doha's Emir participated in bilateral talks with the Hungarian President to bolster relations in the fields of economy, investment, and energy.

Target

I crashed an anti-Syria lobby meeting where they pushed for a new Caliphate and more starvation sanctions

Alzayat
I crashed the meeting of a lobbying front that ended the life-saving General License 2023 on Syria, and is now pushing to extend Washington's economic war for another 8 years.

Behind closed doors, the former State Department official leading the workshop revealed the group's ultimate goal: partitioning Syria and creating a de facto Caliphate for a rebranded Al Qaeda offshoot.

This July 30, I registered under an alias to join a workshop organized by the Syrian American Council (SAC), the leading voice of the lobby that aims to starve and destabilize Syria into submission to the West's demands. The workshop instructed SAC members to advocate for the most recent Syria regime change bill, H.R. 3202, during those visits.

During the seminar, I was able to witness firsthand the impact of the anti-Syria lobby and understand the cynical tactics it employs to condemn the population of Syria to poverty and famine.

Most recently, the lobby successfully ended the life-saving sanctions exemption known as General License 23 (GL 23), which allowed humanitarian aid into Syria following the catastrophic earthquake that struck the country this February. The lobby succeeded in ending GL 23 by pushing a lie that workshop leaders repeated without end: "the sanctions only affect the Syrian government and not the people."

In truth, the sanctions have done incalculable damage to the Syrian people, as the UN's Special Rapporteur on sanctions, Alena Douhan, noted in an interview with The Grayzone in 2021. Relaying the words of a civilian she'd spoken with earlier that day, Douhan explained that "the impact of unilateral sanctions on the Syrian population can be pretty equivalent to those of the conflict itself."

Jet5

Biden rival labels F-16s for Ukraine 'a disaster for humanity'

RFKJet
© John Thys/AFP/Hans Pennink/KJNRobert F. Kennedy, Jr. • A Dutch Air Force F-16 fighter jet
Supplying US-made fighter jets to Kiev would only benefit the defense industry, RFK Jr. says...

The looming delivery of US-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will not prevent the "collapse" of the country's military and will only benefit the military-industrial complex, Democrat presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Junior has claimed.

The Ukrainian conflict should be resolved through negotiations, RFK Jr. argued in a thread on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), stating:
"Supplying F-16s to Kiev was a "great decision for the defense industry, but a disaster for Ukraine and humanity.

"F-16s won't stop the collapse of the Ukrainian military (which some experts say is imminent). These planes require a lot of training and maintenance. This isn't the movies."
The presidential hopeful has long-opposed the enduring Western aid to Ukraine, spearheaded by Washington, arguing that the US should admit its "failure" in the country and focus on domestic issues instead. Kennedy's criticism of the fighter-jet delivery comes after Washington enabled its European allies to re-export older planes to Ukraine, and hours before the move was officially announced by Denmark and the Netherlands.

Attention

Zelensky is 'dangerous' for Ukraine - ex-Presidential aide

Vzelensky
© Ludovic MarinUkraine President Volodymyr Zelensky
The president is not up to the job of leading his country, Oleg Soskin has claimed...

The "inadequate" leadership of Vladimir Zelensky has caused a national catastrophe in Ukraine and MPs should hold him accountable, according to Oleg Soskin, who served as an aide to two Ukrainian presidents.

The country's economy has been "destroyed" amid the conflict with Russia, he said in a video that was posted on his YouTube channel on Saturday.

"There's no breakthrough anywhere" by Ukrainian forces on the front line, Soskin continued, adding that the public "shouldn't believe retired colonels," who are speaking about Kiev's military gains.

Zelensky's insistence that Ukraine will defeat Russia and his reluctance to acknowledge the actual situation is a sign that the president is "inadequate" both as a manager and a person, he said.

Comment: With Zelensky as the West's useful idiot, it's doubtful Soskin's concerns will be resolved any time soon.