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“Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
— George Orwell, 1946
EVERYTHING MR. EMORY HAS BEEN SAYING ABOUT THE UKRAINE WAR IS ENCAPSULATED IN THIS VIDEO FROM UKRAINE 24
ANOTHER REVEALING VIDEO FROM UKRAINE 24
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FTR#1247 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: This program features a reading of an interview done with Colonel Jacques Baud by The Postil.
Key Points of Discussion and Analysis: As with the two analytical pieces Baud did on the conduct and progress of the war itself, Colonel Baud stresses that the picture of the Ukraine War being presented by Western politicians and media voices consists of what they want to happen, rather than the information that would be provided by a good intelligence service, which would present the situation as it actually exists:
- “ . . . . As a result, we tend to portray the enemy as we wished him to be, rather than as he actually is. This is the ultimate recipe for failure. . . .”
- “ . . . . First, most people, including politicians and journalists, still confuse Russia and the USSR. For instance, they don’t understand why the communist party is the main opposition party in Russia. . . .”
- “ . . . . Most people, including the top brass, tend to confuse ‘Russia’ and ‘USSR.’ As I was in NATO, I could hardly find someone who could explain what Russia’s vision of the world is or even its political doctrine. Lot of people think Vladimir Putin is a communist. . . .”
- “ . . . . In 2014, during the Maidan revolution in Kiev, I was in NATO in Brussels. I noticed that people didn’t assess the situation as it was, but as they wished it would be. This is exactly what Sun Tzu describes as the first step towards failure. . . .”
- “ . . . . We like to call him [Putin] a ‘dictator,’ but we have a hard time to explain what we mean by that. As examples, people come up invariably with the assassination of such and such journalist or former FSB or GRU agents, although evidence is extremely debatable. . . .”
- “ . . . . the German doctors in the Charité Hospital in Berlin, were not able to identify any nerve agent in Navalny’s body. Surprisingly, they published their findingsin the respected medical review The Lancet, showing that Navalny probably experienced a bad combination of medicine and other substances. The Swedish military lab that analyzed Navalny’s blood—redacted the name of the substance they discovered, which is odd since everybody expected ‘Novichok’ to be mentioned. . . .”
- “ . . . . In fact, it appeared clear to me that nobody in NATO had the slightest interest in Ukraine. The main goal was to destabilize Russia. . . .”
- “ . . . . The problem here is that these far-right fanatics threatened to kill Zelensky were he to try to make peace with Russia. As a result, Zelensky found himself sitting between his promises and the violent opposition of an increasingly powerful far-right movement. In May 2019, on the Ukrainian media Obozrevatel, Dmytro Yarosh, head of the ‘Pravy Sektor’ militia and adviser to the Army Commander in Chief, openly threatened Zelensky with death, if he came to an agreement with Russia. . . .”
- “ . . . . I am not sure about the so-called ‘color-revolutions’ aim at spreading democracy. My take is that it is just a way to weaponize human rights, the rule of law or democracy in order to achieve geo-strategic objectives. . . .”
- “ . . . . Ukraine is a case in point. After 2014, despite Western influence, it has never been a democracy: corruption soared between 2014 and 2020; in 2021, it banned opposition media and jailed the leader of the main parliamentary opposition party. As some international organizations have reported, torture is a common practice, and opposition leaders as well as journalists are chasedby the Ukrainian Security Service. . . .”
- “ . . . . But as soon as you come up with western data that do not fit into the mainstream narrative, you have extremists claiming you ‘love Putin.’ . . .”
- “ . . . . Our media are so worried about finding rationality in Putin’s actions that they turn a blind eye to the crimes committed by Ukraine, thus generating a feeling of impunity for which Ukrainians are paying the price. This is the case of the attack on civilians by a missile in Kramatorsk—we no longer talk about it because the responsibility of Ukraine is very likely, but this means that the Ukrainians could do it again with impunity. . . .”
- “ . . . . With the end of the Cold War, Russia expected being able to develop closer relations with its Western neighbors. It even considered joining NATO. But the US resisted every attempt of rapprochement. . . .”
- “ . . . . The purpose of this incredible polarization is to prevent any dialogue or negotiation with Russia. We are back to what happened in 1914, just before the start of WWI. . . .”
- “ . . . . Since 2014, I haven’t met any intelligence professional who could confirm any Russian military presence in the Donbass. In fact, Crimea became the main ‘evidence’ of Russian ‘intervention.’ Of course, Western historians ignore superbly that Crimea was separated from Ukraine by referendum in January 1990, six months before Ukrainian independence and under Soviet rule. In fact, it’s Ukraine that illegally annexed Crimea in 1995. . . .”
- “ . . . . Regardless of what Russia does, US and western strategy is to weaken it. From that point on, Russia has no real stake in its relations with us. Again, the US objective is not to have a ‘better’ Ukraine or a ‘better’ Russia, but a weaker Russia. . . .”
- “ . . . . As Henry Kissinger said in the Washington Post: ‘For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.’ . . .”
- “ . . . . I think the decay of US hegemony will be the main feature of the next decades. . . . . The loss of confidence in the US dollar may have significant impact on the US economy at large. . . . a significant deterioration could lead the United States to engage in more conflicts around the world. This is something that we are seeing today . . . .”
1. We begin by reading an interview The Postil did with Colonel Baud. We will continue with this interview next week.
Key Points of Discussion and Analysis: As with the two analytical pieces Baud did on the conduct and progress of the war itself, Colonel Baud stresses that the picture of the Ukraine War being presented by Western politicians and media voices consists of what they want to happen, rather than the information that would be provided by a good intelligence service, which would present the situation as it actually exists:
- “ . . . . As a result, we tend to portray the enemy as we wished him to be, rather than as he actually is. This is the ultimate recipe for failure. . . .”
- “ . . . . First, most people, including politicians and journalists, still confuse Russia and the USSR. For instance, they don’t understand why the communist party is the main opposition party in Russia. . . .”
- “ . . . . Most people, including the top brass, tend to confuse ‘Russia’ and ‘USSR.’ As I was in NATO, I could hardly find someone who could explain what Russia’s vision of the world is or even its political doctrine. Lot of people think Vladimir Putin is a communist. . . .”
- “ . . . . In 2014, during the Maidan revolution in Kiev, I was in NATO in Brussels. I noticed that people didn’t assess the situation as it was, but as they wished it would be. This is exactly what Sun Tzu describes as the first step towards failure. . . .”
- “ . . . . We like to call him [Putin] a ‘dictator,’ but we have a hard time to explain what we mean by that. As examples, people come up invariably with the assassination of such and such journalist or former FSB or GRU agents, although evidence is extremely debatable. . . .”
- “ . . . . the German doctors in the Charité Hospital in Berlin, were not able to identify any nerve agent in Navalny’s body. Surprisingly, they published their findingsin the respected medical review The Lancet, showing that Navalny probably experienced a bad combination of medicine and other substances. The Swedish military lab that analyzed Navalny’s blood—redacted the name of the substance they discovered, which is odd since everybody expected ‘Novichok’ to be mentioned. . . .”
- “ . . . . In fact, it appeared clear to me that nobody in NATO had the slightest interest in Ukraine. The main goal was to destabilize Russia. . . .”
- “ . . . . The problem here is that these far-right fanatics threatened to kill Zelensky were he to try to make peace with Russia. As a result, Zelensky found himself sitting between his promises and the violent opposition of an increasingly powerful far-right movement. In May 2019, on the Ukrainian media Obozrevatel, Dmytro Yarosh, head of the ‘Pravy Sektor’ militia and adviser to the Army Commander in Chief, openly threatened Zelensky with death, if he came to an agreement with Russia. . . .”
- “ . . . . I am not sure about the so-called ‘color-revolutions’ aim at spreading democracy. My take is that it is just a way to weaponize human rights, the rule of law or democracy in order to achieve geo-strategic objectives. . . .”
- “ . . . . Ukraine is a case in point. After 2014, despite Western influence, it has never been a democracy: corruption soared between 2014 and 2020; in 2021, it banned opposition media and jailed the leader of the main parliamentary opposition party. As some international organizations have reported, torture is a common practice, and opposition leaders as well as journalists are chasedby the Ukrainian Security Service. . . .”
- “ . . . . But as soon as you come up with western data that do not fit into the mainstream narrative, you have extremists claiming you ‘love Putin.’ . . .”
- “ . . . . Our media are so worried about finding rationality in Putin’s actions that they turn a blind eye to the crimes committed by Ukraine, thus generating a feeling of impunity for which Ukrainians are paying the price. This is the case of the attack on civilians by a missile in Kramatorsk—we no longer talk about it because the responsibility of Ukraine is very likely, but this means that the Ukrainians could do it again with impunity. . . .”
- “ . . . . With the end of the Cold War, Russia expected being able to develop closer relations with its Western neighbors. It even considered joining NATO. But the US resisted every attempt of rapprochement. . . .”
- “ . . . . The purpose of this incredible polarization is to prevent any dialogue or negotiation with Russia. We are back to what happened in 1914, just before the start of WWI. . . .”
- “ . . . . Since 2014, I haven’t met any intelligence professional who could confirm any Russian military presence in the Donbass. In fact, Crimea became the main ‘evidence’ of Russian ‘intervention.’ Of course, Western historians ignore superbly that Crimea was separated from Ukraine by referendum in January 1990, six months before Ukrainian independence and under Soviet rule. In fact, it’s Ukraine that illegally annexed Crimea in 1995. . . .”
- “ . . . . Regardless of what Russia does, US and western strategy is to weaken it. From that point on, Russia has no real stake in its relations with us. Again, the US objective is not to have a ‘better’ Ukraine or a ‘better’ Russia, but a weaker Russia. . . .”
- “ . . . . As Henry Kissinger said in the Washington Post: ‘For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.’ . . .”
- “ . . . . I think the decay of US hegemony will be the main feature of the next decades. . . . . The loss of confidence in the US dollar may have significant impact on the US economy at large. . . . a significant deterioration could lead the United States to engage in more conflicts around the world. This is something that we are seeing today . . . .”
“Our Interview with Jacques Baud”; The Postil; 5/1/2022.
In this penetrating interview, Jacques Baud delves into geopolitics to help us better understand what is actually taking place in the Ukraine, in that it is ultimately the larger struggle for global dominance, led by the United States, NATO and the political leaders of the West and against Russia.
As always, Colonel Baud brings to bear his well-informed analysis, which is unique for its depth and gravity. We are sure that you will find this conservation informative, insightful and crucial in connecting the dots.
The Postil (TP): We are so very pleased to have you join us for this conversation. Would you please tell us a little about yourself, about your background?
Jacques Baud (JB): Thank you for inviting me! As to my education, I have a master’s degree in Econometrics and postgraduate diplomas in International Relations and in International Security from the Graduate Institute for International relations in Geneva (Switzerland). I worked as strategic intelligence officer in the Swiss Department of Defense, and was in charge of the Warsaw Pact armed forces, including those deployed abroad (such as Afghanistan, Cuba, Angola, etc.) I attended intelligence training in the UK and in the US. Just after the end of the Cold War, I headed for a few years a unit in the Swiss Defense Research and Procurement Agency. During the Rwanda War, because of my military and intelligence background, I was sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo as security adviser to prevent ethnic cleansing in the Rwandan refugee camps.
During my time in the intelligence service, I was in touch with the Afghan resistance movement of Ahmed Shah Masood, and I wrote a small handbook to help Afghans in demining and neutralizing Soviet bomblets. In the mid-1990, the struggle against antipersonnel mines became a foreign policy priority of Switzerland. I proposed to create a center that would collect information about landmines and demining technologies for the UN. This led to the creation of the Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining in Geneva. I was later offered to head the Policy and Doctrine Unit of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. After two years in New York, I went to Nairobi to perform a similar job for the African Union.
Then I was assigned to NATO to counter the proliferation of small arms. Switzerland is not a member of the Alliance, but this particular position had been negotiated as a Swiss contribution to the Partnership for Peace with NATO. In 2014, as the Ukraine crisis unfolded, I monitored the flow of small arms in the Donbass. Later, in the same year I was involved in a NATO program to assist the Ukrainian armed forces in restoring their capacities and improving personnel management, with the aim of restoring trust in them.
TP: You have written two insightful articles about the current conflict in the Ukraine, which we had the great privilege to translate and publish (here and here). Was there a particular event or an instance which led you to formulate this much-needed perspective?
JB: As a strategic intelligence officer, I always advocated providing to the political or military decision-makers the most accurate and the most objective intelligence. This is the kind of job where you need to keep you prejudice and your feelings to yourself, in order to come up with an intelligence that reflects as much as possible the reality on the ground rather than your own emotions or beliefs. I also assume that in a modern democratic State decision must be fact-based. This is the difference with autocratic political systems where decision-making is ideology-based (such as in the Marxist States) or religion-based (such as in the French pre-revolutionary monarchy).
Thanks to my various assignments, I was able to have an insider view in most recent conflicts (such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria and, of course, Ukraine). The main common aspect between all these conflicts is that we tend to have a totally distorted understanding of them. We do not understand our enemies, their rationale, their way of thinking and their real objectives. Hence, we are not even able to articulate sound strategies to fight them. This is especially true with Russia. Most people, including the top brass, tend to confuse “Russia” and “USSR.” As I was in NATO, I could hardly find someone who could explain what Russia’s vision of the world is or even its political doctrine. Lot of people think Vladimir Putin is a communist. We like to call him a “dictator,” but we have a hard time to explain what we mean by that. As examples, people come up invariably with the assassination of such and such journalist or former FSB or GRU agents, although evidence is extremely debatable. In other words, even if it is true, we are not able to articulate exactly the nature of the problem. As a result, we tend to portray the enemy as we wished him to be, rather than as he actually is. This is the ultimate recipe for failure. This explains why, after five years spent within NATO, I am more concerned about Western strategic and military capabilities than before.
In 2014, during the Maidan revolution in Kiev, I was in NATO in Brussels. I noticed that people didn’t assess the situation as it was, but as they wished it would be. This is exactly what Sun Tzu describes as the first step towards failure. In fact, it appeared clear to me that nobody in NATO had the slightest interest in Ukraine. The main goal was to destabilize Russia.
TP: How do you perceive Volodymyr Zelensky? Who is he, really? What is his role in this conflict? It seems he wants to have a “forever war,” since he must know he cannot win? Why does he want to prolong this conflict?
JB: Volodymyr Zelensky was elected on the promise he would make peace with Russia, which I think is a noble objective. The problem is that no Western country, nor the European Union managed to help him realize this objective. After the Maidan revolution, the emerging force in the political landscape was the far-right movement. I do not like to call it “neo-Nazi” because “Nazism” was a clearly defined political doctrine, while in Ukraine, we are talking about a variety of movements that combine all the features of Nazism (such as antisemitism, extreme nationalism, violence, etc.), without being unified into a single doctrine. They are more like a gathering of fanatics.
After 2014, Ukrainian armed forces’ command & control was extremely poor and was the cause of their inability to handle the rebellion in Donbass. Suicide, alcohol incidents, and murder surged, pushing young soldiers to defect. Even the British government noted that young male individuals preferred to emigrate rather than to join the armed forces. As a result, Ukraine started to recruit volunteers to enforce Kiev’s authority in the Russian speaking part of the country. These volunteers were (and still are) recruited among European far-right extremists. According to Reuters, their number amounts to 102,000. They have become a sizeable and influential political force in the country.
The problem here is that these far-right fanatics threatened to kill Zelensky were he to try to make peace with Russia. As a result, Zelensky found himself sitting between his promises and the violent opposition of an increasingly powerful far-right movement. In May 2019, on the Ukrainian media Obozrevatel, Dmytro Yarosh, head of the “Pravy Sektor” militia and adviser to the Army Commander in Chief, openly threatened Zelensky with death, if he came to an agreement with Russia. In other words, Zelensky appears to be blackmailed by forces he is probably not in full control of.
In October 2021, the Jerusalem Post published a disturbing report on the training of Ukrainian far-right militias by American, British, French and Canadian armed forces. The problem is that the “collective West” tends to turn a blind eye to these incestuous and perverse relationships in order to achieve its own geopolitical goals. It is supported by unscrupulous far-right biased medias against Israel, which tend to approve the criminal behavior of these militias. This situation has repeatedly raised Israel’s concerns. This explains why Zelensky’s demands to the Israeli parliament in March 2022 were not well received and have not been successful.
So, despite his probable willingness to achieve a political settlement for the crisis with Russia, Zelensky is not allowed to do so. Just after he indicated his readiness to talk with Russia, on 25 February, the European Union decided two days later to provide €450M in arms to Ukraine. The same happened in March. As soon as Zelensky indicated he wanted to have talks with Vladimir Putin on 21 March, the European Union decided to double its military aid to €1 billion on 23 March. End of March, Zelensky made an interesting offer that was retracted shortly after.
Apparently, Zelensky is trying to navigate between Western pressure and his far right on the one hand and his concern to find a solution on the other, and is forced into a “back-and-forth,” which discourages the Russian negotiators.
In fact, I think Zelensky is in an extreme uncomfortable position, which reminds me of Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky’s during WWII. Rokossovsky had been imprisoned in 1937 for treason and sentenced to death by Stalin. In 1941, he got out of prison on Stalin’s orders and was given a command. He was eventually promoted to Marshall of the Soviet Union in 1944, but his death sentence was not lifted until 1956.
Today, Zelensky must lead his country under the sword of Damocles, with the blessing of Western politicians and unethical media. His lack of political experience made him an easy prey for those who were trying to exploit Ukraine against Russia, and in the hands of extreme right-wing movements. As he acknowledges in an interview with CNN, he was obviously lured into believing that Ukraine would enter NATO more easily after an open conflict with Russia, as Oleksey Arestovich, his adviser, confirmed in 2019.
TP: What do you think will be the fate of the Ukraine? Will it be like all the other experiments in “spreading democracy” (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc.)? Or is Ukraine a special case?
JB: I have definitely no crystal ball… At this stage, we can only guess what Vladimir Putin wants. He probably wants to achieve two main goals. The first one is to secure the situation of the Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine. How, remains an open question. Does he want to re-create the “Novorossiya” that tried to emerge from the 2014 unrests? This “entity” that never really existed, and it consisted of the short-lived Republics of Odessa, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov and Lugansk, of which only the Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk “survived.” The autonomy referendum planned for early May in the city of Kherson might be an indication for this option. Another option would be to negotiate an autonomous status for these areas, and to return them to Ukraine in exchange of its neutrality.
The second goal is to have a neutral Ukraine (some will say a “Finlandized Ukraine”). That is—without NATO. It could be some kind of Swiss “armed neutrality.” As you know, in the early 19th century, Switzerland had a neutral status imposed on it by the European powers, as well as the obligation to prevent any misuse of its territory against one of these powers. This explains the strong military tradition we have in Switzerland and the main rationale for its armed forces today. Something similar could probably be considered for Ukraine.
An internationally recognized neutral status would grant Ukraine a high degree of security. This status prevented Switzerland from being attacked during the two world wars. The often-mentioned example of Belgium is misleading, because during both world wars, its neutrality was declared unilaterally and was not recognized by the belligerents. In the case of Ukraine, it would have its own armed forces, but would be free from any foreign military presence: neither NATO, nor Russia. This is just my guess, and I have no clue about how this could be feasible and accepted in the current polarized international climate.
I am not sure about the so-called “color-revolutions” aim at spreading democracy. My take is that it is just a way to weaponize human rights, the rule of law or democracy in order to achieve geo-strategic objectives. In fact, this was clearly spelled out in a memo to Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump’s Secretary of State, in 2017. Ukraine is a case in point. After 2014, despite Western influence, it has never been a democracy: corruption soared between 2014 and 2020; in 2021, it banned opposition media and jailed the leader of the main parliamentary opposition party. As some international organizations have reported, torture is a common practice, and opposition leaders as well as journalists are chased by the Ukrainian Security Service.
TP: Why is the West only interested in drawing a simplistic image of the Ukraine conflict? That of “good guys” and the “bad guys?” Is the Western public really now that dumbed down?
JB: I think this is inherent to any conflict. Each side tends to portray itself as the “good guy.” This is obviously the main reason.
Besides this, other factors come into play. First, most people, including politicians and journalists, still confuse Russia and the USSR. For instance, they don’t understand why the communist party is the main opposition party in Russia.
Second, since 2007, Putin was systematically demonized in the West. Whether or not he is a “dictator” Is a matter of discussion; but it is worth noting that his approval rate in Russia never fell below 59 % in the last 20 years. I take my figures from the Levada Center, which is labeled as “foreign agent” in Russia, and hence doesn’t reflect the Kremlin’s views. It is also interesting to see that in France, some of the most influential so-called “experts” on Russia are in fact working for the British MI‑6’s “Integrity Initiative.”
Third, in the West, there is a sense that you can do whatever you want if it is in the name of western values. This is why the Russian offensive in Ukraine is passionately sanctioned, while FUKUS (France, UK, US) wars get strong political support, even if they are notoriously based on lies. “Do what I say, not what I do!” One could ask what makes the conflict in Ukraine worse than other wars. In fact, each new sanction we apply to Russia highlights the sanctions we haven’t applied earlier to the US, the UK or France.
The purpose of this incredible polarization is to prevent any dialogue or negotiation with Russia. We are back to what happened in 1914, just before the start of WWI…
TP: What will Russia gain or lose with this involvement in the Ukraine (which is likely to be long-term)? Russia is facing a conflict on “two fronts,” it would seem: a military one and an economic one (with the endless sanctions and “canceling” of Russia).
JB: With the end of the Cold War, Russia expected being able to develop closer relations with its Western neighbors. It even considered joining NATO. But the US resisted every attempt of rapprochement. NATO structure does not allow for the coexistence of two nuclear superpowers. The US wanted to keep its supremacy.
Since 2002, the quality of the relations with Russia decayed slowly, but steadily. It reached a first negative “peak” in 2014 after the Maidan coup. The sanctions have become US and EU primary foreign policy tool. The Western narrative of a Russian intervention in Ukraine got traction, although it was never substantiated. Since 2014, I haven’t met any intelligence professional who could confirm any Russian military presence in the Donbass. In fact, Crimea became the main “evidence” of Russian “intervention.” Of course, Western historians ignore superbly that Crimea was separated from Ukraine by referendum in January 1990, six months before Ukrainian independence and under Soviet rule. In fact, it’s Ukraine that illegally annexed Crimea in 1995. Yet, western countries sanctioned Russia for that…
Since 2014 sanctions severely affected east-west relations. After the signature of the Minsk Agreements in September 2014 and February 2015, the West—namely France, Germany as guarantors for Ukraine, and the US—made no effort whatsoever to make Kiev comply, despite repeated requests from Moscow.
Russia’s perception is that whatever it will do, it will face an irrational response from the West. This is why, in February 2022, Vladimir Putin realized he would gain nothing in doing nothing. If you take into account his mounting approval rate in the country, the resilience of the Russian economy after the sanctions, the loss of trust in the US dollar, the threatening inflation in the West, the consolidation of the Moscow-Beijing axis with the support of India (which the US has failed to keep in the “Quad”), Putin’s calculation was unfortunately not wrong.
Regardless of what Russia does, US and western strategy is to weaken it. From that point on, Russia has no real stake in its relations with us. Again, the US objective is not to have a “better” Ukraine or a “better” Russia, but a weaker Russia. But it also shows that the United States is not able to rise higher than Russia and that the only way to overcome it is to weaken it. This should ring an alarm bell in our countries…
TP: You have written a very interesting book on Putin. Please tell us a little about it.
JB: In fact, I started my book in October 2021, after a show on French state TV about Vladimir Putin. I am definitely not an admirer of Vladimir Putin, nor of any Western leader, by the way. But the so-called experts had so little understanding of Russia, international security and even of simple plain facts, that I decided to write a book. Later, as the situation around Ukraine developed, I adjusted my approach to cover this mounting conflict.
The idea was definitely not to relay Russian propaganda. In fact, my book is based exclusively on western sources, official reports, declassified intelligence reports, Ukrainian official medias, and reports provided by the Russian opposition. The approach was to demonstrate that we can have a sound and factual alternative understanding of the situation just with accessible information and without relying on what we call “Russian propaganda.”
The underlying thinking is that we can only achieve peace if we have a more balanced view of the situation. To achieve this, we have to go back to the facts. Now, these facts exist and are abundantly available and accessible. The problem is that some individuals make every effort to prevent this and tend to hide the facts that disturb them. This is exemplified by some so-called journalist who dubbed me “The spy who loved Putin!” This is the kind of “journalists” who live from stirring tensions and extremism. All figures and data provided by our media about the conflict come from Ukraine, and those coming from Russia are automatically dismissed as propaganda. My view is that both are propaganda. But as soon as you come up with western data that do not fit into the mainstream narrative, you have extremists claiming you “love Putin.”
Our media are so worried about finding rationality in Putin’s actions that they turn a blind eye to the crimes committed by Ukraine, thus generating a feeling of impunity for which Ukrainians are paying the price. This is the case of the attack on civilians by a missile in Kramatorsk—we no longer talk about it because the responsibility of Ukraine is very likely, but this means that the Ukrainians could do it again with impunity.
On the contrary, my book aims at reducing the current hysteria that prevent any political solution. I do not want to deny the Ukrainians the right to resist the invasion with arms. If I were Ukrainian, I would probably take the arms to defend my land. The issue here is that it must be their decision. The role of the international community should not be to add fuel to the fire by supplying arms but to promote a negotiated solution.
To move in this direction, we must make the conflict dispassionate and bring it back into the realm of rationality. In any conflict the problems come from both sides; but here, strangely, our media show us that they all come from one side only. This is obviously not true; and, in the end, it is the Ukrainian people who pay the price of our policy against Vladimir Putin.
TP: Why is Putin hated so much by the Western elite?
JB: Putin became Western elite’s “bête noire” in 2007 with his famous speech in Munich. Until then, Russia had only moderately reacted to NATO expansion. But as the US withdrew from the ABM Treaty in 2002 and started negotiations with some East European countries to deploy anti-ballistic missiles, Russia felt the heat and Putin virulently criticized the US and NATO.
This was the start of a relentless effort to demonize Vladimir Putin and to weaken Russia. The problem was definitely not human rights or democracy, but the fact that Putin dared to challenge the western approach. The Russians have in common with the Swiss the fact that they are very legalistic. They try to strictly follow the rules of international law. They tend to follow “law-based International order.” Of course, this is not the image we have, because we are used to hiding certain facts. Crimea is a case in point.
In the West, since the early 2000s, the US has started to impose a “rules-based international order.” As an example, although the US officially recognizes that there is only one China and that Taiwan is only a part of it, it maintains a military presence on the island and supplies weapons. Imagine if China would supply weapons to Hawaii (which was illegally annexed in the 19th century)!
What the West is promoting is an international order based on the “law of the strongest.” As long as the US was the sole superpower, everything was fine. But as soon as China and Russia started to emerge as world powers, the US tried to contain them. This is exactly what Joe Biden said in March 2021, shortly after taking office: “The rest of the world is closing in and closing in fast. We can’t allow this to continue.”
As Henry Kissinger said in the Washington Post: “For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.” This is why I felt we need to have a more factual approach to this conflict.
TP: Do you know who was involved and when it was decided by the US and NATO that regime change in Russia was a primary geopolitical objective?
JB: I think everything started in the early 2000s. I am not sure the objective was a regime change in Moscow, but it was certainly to contain Russia. This is what we have witnessed since then. The 2014 events in Kiev have boosted US efforts.
These were clearly defined in 2019, in two publications of the RAND Corporation [James Dobbins, Raphael S. Cohen, Nathan Chandler, Bryan Frederick, Edward Geist, Paul DeLuca, Forrest E. Morgan, Howard J. Shatz, Brent Williams, “Extending Russia : Competing from Advantageous Ground,” RAND Corporation, 2019; James Dobbins & al., “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia,” RAND Corporation, (Doc Nr. RB-10014‑A), 2019]. .This has nothing to do with the rule of law, democracy or human rights, but only with maintaining US supremacy in the world. In other words, nobody cares about Ukraine. This is why the international community (that is, Western countries) make every effort to prolong the conflict.
Since 2014, this is exactly what happened. Everything the West did was to fulfill US strategic objectives.
TP: In this regard, you have also written another interesting book, on Alexei Navalny. Please tell us about what you have found out about Navalny.
JB: What disturbed me about the Navalny case was the haste with which Western governments condemned Russia and applied sanctions, even before knowing the results of an impartial investigation. So, my point in the book is not “to tell truth,” because we do not know exactly what the truth is, even if we have consistent indications that the official narrative is wrong.
The interesting aspect is that the German doctors in the Charité Hospital in Berlin, were not able to identify any nerve agent in Navalny’s body. Surprisingly, they published their findings in the respected medical review The Lancet, showing that Navalny probably experienced a bad combination of medicine and other substances.
The Swedish military lab that analyzed Navalny’s blood—redacted the name of the substance they discovered, which is odd since everybody expected “Novichok” to be mentioned.
The bottom line is that we don’t know exactly what happened, but the nature of the symptoms, the reports of the German doctors, the answers provided by the German government to the Parliament, and the puzzling Swedish document tend to exclude a criminal poisoning, and therefore, a fortiori, poisoning by the Russian government.
The main point of my book is that international relations cannot be “Twitter-driven.” We need to use appropriately our intelligence resources, not as a propaganda instrument, as we tend to do these days, but as an instrument for smart and fact-based decision-making.
TP: You have much experience within NATO. What do you think is the primary role of NATO now?
JB: This is an essential question. In fact, NATO hasn’t really evolved since the end of the Cold War. This is interesting because in 1969, there was the “Harmel Report” that was ahead of its time and could be the fundament of a new definition of NATO’s role. Instead, NATO tried to find new missions, such as in Afghanistan, for which the Alliance was not prepared, neither intellectually, nor doctrinally, nor from a strategic point of view.
Having a collective defense system in Europe is necessary, but the nuclear dimension of NATO tends to restrict its ability to engage a conventional conflict with a nuclear power. This is the problem we are witnessing in Ukraine. This is why Russia strives having a “glacis” between NATO and its territory. This would probably not prevent conflicts but would help keep them as long as possible in a conventional phase. This is why I think a non-nuclear European defense organization would be a good solution.
TP: Do you think that NATO’s proxy war with Russia serves to placate internal EU tensions, between conservative Central/Eastern Europe and the more progressive West?
JB: Some will certainly see it that way, but I think this is only a by-product of the US strategy to isolate Russia.
TP: Can you say something about how Turkey has positioned itself, between NATO and Russia?
JB: I have worked quite extensively with Turkey as I was in NATO. I think Turkey is a very committed member of the Alliance. What we tend to forget is that Turkey is at the crossroads between the “Christian World” and the “Islamic World;” it sits between two civilizations and in a key region of the Mediterranean zone. It has its own regional stakes.
The conflicts waged by the West in the Middle East significantly impacted Turkey, by promoting Islamism and stimulating tensions, in particular with the Kurds. Turkey has always tried to maintain a balance between its desire for Western-style modernization and the very strong traditionalist tendencies of its population. Turkey’s opposition to the Iraq War due to domestic security concerns was totally ignored and dismissed by the US and its NATO Allies.
Interestingly, when Zelensky sought a country to mediate the conflict, he turned to China, Israel and Turkey, but didn’t address any EU country.
TP: If you were to predict, what do you think the geopolitical situation of Europe and the world will look like 25 years from now?
JB: Who would have predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall? The day it happened, I was in the office of a National Security Adviser in Washington DC, but he had no clue about the importance of the event!
I think the decay of US hegemony will be the main feature of the next decades. At the same time, we will see a fast-growing importance of Asia led by China and India. But I am not sure Asia will “replace” the US strictly speaking. While US worldwide hegemony was driven by its military-industrial complex, Asia’s dominance will be in the research and technology area.
The loss of confidence in the US dollar may have significant impact on the US economy at large. I don’t want to speculate on future developments in the West, but a significant deterioration could lead the United States to engage in more conflicts around the world. This is something that we are seeing today, but it could become more important.
TP: What advice would you give people trying to get a clearer picture of what is really driving competing regional/national and global interests?
JB: I think the situation is slightly different in Europe than in North America.
In Europe, the lack of quality alternative media and real investigative journalism makes it difficult to find balanced information. The situation is different in North America where alternative journalism is more developed and constitutes an indispensable analytical tool. In the United States, the intelligence community is more present in the media than in Europe.
I probably could not have written my book based only on the European media. At the end of the day, the advice I would give is a fundamental one of intelligence work:
Be curious!
TP: Thank you so very much for your time—and for all your great work.
Questions of ‘how did we get here?’ are bound to proliferate as the conflict in Ukraine intensifies and deepens in the country’s east. But if the warnings in the following Opinion piece recently published in the New York Times pan out, those questions are going to be asked for the foreseeable future because this conflict may already be at a point where it can’t really be stopped. That’s the conclusion arrived at by conservative journalist Christopher Caldwell, who writes about the warnings issued by Heni Guaino, a top adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy when he was president of France, about how Europe was “sleepwalking” into a war with Russia. A sleepwalk that appeared to be part of a kind of “Peace through Strength” US strategy that was predicated on preventing a Russian invasion by building up Ukraine’s military strength. A strategy that obviously already failed. But a strategy that’s still in place. It’s that strategy — a strategy of “peace through strength, and if that doesn’t work winning the war through more strength” — that Caldwell warns is effectively unstoppable. Each side has to win...or else.
But Caldwell also points out an event that shouldn’t be glossed over in answering the “how did we get here?’ question: back on November 10, 2021, the US and Ukraine signed a “charter on strategic partnership” that called for Ukraine to join NATO, condemned “ongoing Russian aggression” and affirmed an “unwavering commitment” to the reintegration of Crimea into Ukraine. According to Guaino, that charter “convinced Russia that it must attack or be attacked.” As Guaino wrote, “It is the ineluctable process of 1914 in all its terrifying purity.”
Recall how this isn’t the first time Ukraine’s NATO ambitions have been publicly touted. President Petro Poroshenko had a similar kind of NATO ambition ceremony back in February 2019 involving European Commission President Donald Tusk, who attended the ceremony where Ukraine adopted constitutional amendments that included an amendment committing Ukraine to joining NATO by 2023.
As we’re also going to see, it was during this signing ceremony where we heard some of the first public warnings about the threat of a Russian troop build up and invasion plans. At that same ceremony we hear Ukraine’s foreign minister basically articulate this ‘Peace through Strength’ doctrine and his hopes that by making it clear that Ukraine has powerful military allies that Russia can be dissuaded. A strategy that obviously didn’t work. But we’re doubling and tripling down on it anyway:
“Even if we don’t accept Mr. Putin’s claim that America’s arming of Ukraine is the reason the war happened in the first place, it is certainly the reason the war has taken the kinetic, explosive, deadly form it has. Our role in this is not passive or incidental. We have given Ukrainians cause to believe they can prevail in a war of escalation.”
The US has given Ukrainians cause to believe they can prevail in a war of escalation. Which is obviously a recipe for ever greater escalation. That’s the thrust of Caldwell’s argument.
But the US hasn’t given Ukraine this impression that it can win a war of escalation just by flooding the country with weapons. On November 10, 2021, the United States and Ukraine signed a “charter on strategic partnership” that called for Ukraine to join NATO, condemned “ongoing Russian aggression” and affirmed an “unwavering commitment” to the reintegration of Crimea into Ukraine.
It was just the US and Ukraine who signed this charter. But don’t forget how President Petro Poroshenko had a similar kind of NATO ambition ceremony back in February 2019 involving European Commission President Donald Tusk, who attended the ceremony where Ukraine adopted constitutional amendments that included an amendment committing Ukraine to joining NATO by 2023. So when the US and Ukraine made this mutual commitment to get Ukraine in NATO, it’s a commitment that really does include more than just the US and Ukraine:
It’s a rather high stakes strategy: commit to providing Ukraine with whatever support it needs to defeat Russia as a means of dissuading a Russian invasion. It’s the kind of strategy that ignores the fact that arming Ukraine with advanced weapons and pledging to have it join NATO are, from the Kremlin’s perspective, basically bait to force Russia into doing something. There are no easy answers when it comes to these kinds of seemingly intractable international crises. And yet flooding Ukraine with more and more weapons while making pledges to make Ukraine a NATO member are basically being treated as a kind of easy answer to this situation. And easy answer that’s already proven wrong.
But it’s also worth noting something else the US and Ukraine were declaring on November 10, the day of the “charter on strategic partnership” was signed: during a press conference at the State Department, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba expressed their concerns about large Russian military build up along Ukraine’s border and the possibility of an upcoming Russian invasion.
Now, what is not at all mentioned in the article is the NATO ambitions expressed during that signing ceremony. There’s a reference to the signing of a renewed Ukraine-US Strategic Partnership, but that’s it. Neither is there a mention of the large build up of Ukrainian military forces in the east following the March 24, 2021, decree by Zelensky to recapture Crimea that began a redeployment of Ukrainian forces which Jacque Baude has talked about. And that more or less captures the dynamic Caldwell is warning about. After all, the US did indeed follow the strategy of arming Ukraine to the teeth and pledging ever deeper military alliances, ostensibly as part of a strategy of warding off a Russian response. That’s what this signing ceremony and renewed strategic partnership signing ceremony were all about. The strategy of making ever deeper military commitments was followed. And either backfired entirely or worked exactly as planned:
“Blinken and Kuleba addressed reporters at the conclusion of a strategic dialogue that led to the signing of a renewed Ukraine-US Strategic Partnership. The Ukrainian official expressed gratitude to the US for deepening defense and security cooperation “to help Ukraine build its capacity to defend itself and also to deter Russia to demotivate them from taking further aggressive actions.”
A renewed Ukraine-US Strategic Partnership ceremony that involves a commitment to having Ukraine join NATO. So at a ceremony where the US and Ukraine were pledging to do something that has long been viewed as a kind of ‘red line’ by the Kremlin — having Ukraine join NATO — was the venue last November where we some some of the first public pronouncements from the US government about concerns of Russian invasion. Ukrainian foreign minister Kuleba was quite explicit bout this “Peace through Strength” policy, declaring that the “best way to deter aggressive Russias is to make it clear for the Kremlin that Ukraine is strong.” So, if nothing else, this signing ceremony really captured an important aspect of that underlying dynamics driving this conflict. There really was a strategy of making conflict inevitable by adopting a kind of ‘Peace Through Strength’ policy and acting like that was wasn’t a massive provocation:
That’s the dynamic Caldwell is warning about: ‘Peace Through Strength’ for Ukraine has been a driving force for getting us into this situation and also the core strategy for getting us out. So while we don’t know how this is going to end, we can be pretty confident Ukraine is going to be a giant pile of rubble by the end up it. Perhaps a victorious pile of rubble. We’ll see. But the only peace that’s going to be allowed in Ukraine clearly going to come through one side winning by force. It’s a reminder that ‘Peace through Strength’ doesn’t mean there’s never going to be war. It just means war, or the threat of war, is the only way anything is going to be solved.
The war in Ukraine has obviously been a massive boon for US defense contractors. A gift that promises to keep on giving. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise to learn that Palantir is reportedly involved in the Ukrainian war effort. We don’t yet know exactly what services Palantir is providing to Ukraine’s military, but as the following Bloomberg article from a few days ago makes clear, the Ukrainian government is quite interested in expanding Palantir’s involvement in Ukraine’s military operations. Something that Palantir is also very interested in, And as Palantir CEO Alex Karp also makes clear.
But as we’re going to see in the following articles, Palantir’s interest in the war in Ukraine isn’t just about getting another government client. As Karp has been expressing in interviews in recent months, Palantir views the war in Ukraine as a possible inflection point for civilization. An inflection point that could bring about a bifurcation of the global economy and a New Cold War between the ‘West’ on one side and China and Russia on the other side. Karp also included his now standard criticisms of Silicon Valley firms that are willing to do business in Russia and China. So in this sense, Karp’s comments were an extension of the ‘Yellow-peril’ kind of commentary we’ve been hearing from figures like Peter Thiel and Steve Bannon for years. It’s a reminder that when Karp warns about a global bifurcation, he’s also calling for it.
But Karp isn’t just warning about the risk of the conflict in Ukraine triggering a global bifurcation. He’s also warning that the West’s institutions appear to be incapable of dealing with today’s stresses and predicting massive institutional failure and social disruptions. But there’s a far more dire warning: Karp put the odds of nuclear war at 20–30% if the war in Ukraine becomes a long-term conflict.
Interestingly, Karp isn’t predicting a renewed nuclear arms race. Instead, he foresees a new Cold War with AI as the key technology instead of nukes. As Karp sees it, the countries with the most advanced AIs will in effect have the most power in coming decades, much like how nuclear weapons defined power in the last century. This is obviously a highly self-serving prediction given that this is the exact service Palantir provides. But that doesn’t mean there’ isn’t more than a grain a truth to what Karp is predicting. AI really is set to be increasingly important in the national security realm.
So how does Karp address concerns about the potential government abuses that will surely come as national security AIs play ever greater roles in our lives? Well, he assures us that Palantir’s software makes third-party auditing available. That’s it. So if Palantir’s clients decide to police themselves, they can do so.
Finally, as we’re going to see an in interview Karp gave back in April, Palantir won’t just be providing national security intelligence to government clients. Karp also envisions Palantir facilitating data sharing between nations. In particular, Japan’s data sharing with the Five Eyes. Karp thinks Palantir can help with that. It’s a hint about the company’s ambitions. Palantir wants to become the West’s international intelligence broker. A role that it will assume as part of a long-term new AI Cold War conflict that will play out in a bifurcated world. And if this scenario plays out, Palantir also envisions a major possibility of nuclear war and mass institutional failure. So the company that governments hire to analyze data and make predictions is both calling for a major New Cold War and also predicting predicting a global meltdown will result from it:
“Palantir’s technology has been in use by Ukraine, the US and other NATO countries since the beginning of the conflict three months ago, according to a person familiar with the company who asked not to be identified discussing private information.”
We don’t know what exactly Palantir is doing in relation to Ukraine’s war effort. But as the first foreign CEO to visit the country since the start of the conflict, Palantir is clearly very interested in Ukraine.
But if we take Alex Karp at his word, his interest in Ukraine isn’t just the potential new market Ukraine presents for Palantir’s services. According to Karp, the conflict in Ukraine represents a kind of global security inflection poin. An inflection point that could “shatter our collective illusions of stability and perpetual peace.” It’s a profoundly dark prediction:
So what kinds of turmoil is Karp predicting might come with this global institutional meltdown? Well, we got a hint for Karp in an interview a couple weeks ago where he shared a prediction: If the war in Ukraine turns into a long-term conflict, Karp puts the odds of a nuclear war at 20–30%:
““I think, of course, it depends on the duration. If you have a long duration, I think the risk is modellable and it’s probably in the 20–30% range.””
A 20–30% change of nuclear war. Those are the odd Karp was placing on the risk of a nuclear war between Russia and the West if the conflict in Ukraine ends up becoming a long running conflict. But beyond that grim prediction, Karp appears to be suggesting that the world is poised for a period of mass institutational failure and complete irrationality. He’s predicting a kind of global mental meltdown:
So will the nuclear war happen before or after the institutional meltdowns? We’ll find out.
But the invasion of Ukraine and Palantir’s role in that fight hasn’t just prompted fears of a nuclear exchange in Karp’s mind. As he describes in the following Asahi Shimbun article from back in April, Karp views the West as being locked in a long-term strategic full spectrum Cold War with Russian and China. But unlike the last Cold War, AI will be the critical technology in the future of national security.
And what about the concerns about the kinds of services Palantir offers governments being abused as these national security AIs become more and more powerful and invasive? Well, Karp assures us that Palantir’s software allows for oversight by third parties within organizations who do not have a stake in project outcomes. In other words, Palantir isn’t actively monitoring its clients for abuses, but if those clients wanted to monitor themselves the tools are available. It’s not exactly assuring.
But we also get a rather remarkable statement about Palantir’s ambitions in relation to Japan: the company wants to play a role in facilitating intelligence sharing between Japan and the Five Eyes alliance. So Palantir is warning about a coming AI Cold War. A Cold War that’s going to require massive volumes of data collection and sharing shared international across the West and its partners, with Palantir at the heart of it as the West’s intelligence sharing hub:
““The country that controls the best software, in this case AI software and its many manifestations, will dictate the norms of the future, the same way the countries that controlled the nuclear bomb in the last half decade de facto defined the rules of the game,” Karp said.”
AI is the new nukes. That’s how Karp was characterizing the role he envisions AI playing in the geostrategic landscape of tomorrow. The countries with superior AI capabilities will dominate the future.
Of course, under this AI-centric vision, that also means the mass collection of data to feed these AIs are going to be more and more of a national security issue. So how to Karp envision this battle of super-AIs playing out in the context of an ostensible global divide between the ‘free’ West and authoritarian governments? Authoritarian regimes would obviously have a massive advantage in terms of data collection and uses. Karp echoed the ‘yellow peril’ criticism Peter Thiel and Steve Bannon have long issued against Palantir’s Silicon Valley rivals for their willingness to do business in countries like China. He goes on to warn about a global bifurcation. A bifirucation that, of course, he is simultaneously calling for when he makes his demands that Western companies simply stop doing business with Russia or China.
So how does Karp address concerns that Palantir’s services are providing tools ripe for government abuse as this AI Cold War plays out? Well, Karp offers bland assurances about how “software allows for oversight by third parties within organizations who do not have a stake in project outcomes.” In other words, Palantir isn’t actually monitoring how its software is used, but if its clients want to set up their own internal abuse-tracking measures they are free to do so. It’s the kind of none-answer answer that’s a remind that the issue of civil rights abuses by government AIs is poised during the upcoming AI Cold War. An AI Cold War that will be guided by figures like Alex Karp who want to simultaneously assure us that the AI services provided by Palantir are both absolutely vital for international security and also safe from abuse:
And then we get this fascinating hint about another area of growth Palantir has in mind in this future AI Cold War landscape: As AI becomes more and more important for global security, so will information sharing between nations. As such, Karp apparently envisions Palantir playing a role in that information sharing global infrastructure. For example, facilitating the sharing of information between Japan and the Five Eyes. So Palantir is trying to become a kind of Five Eyes international data broke middle-man:
It’s worth keeping in mind thebizarre contradiction in Palantir’s stance here: it wants to be a hyper-nationalistic company with a focus on nationalist security while simultaneously offering similar services to just about any government on the planet that isn’t Russia or China. It’s the kind of business plan that raises the question of how long before Palantir has more access to intelligence than any other entity on the planet? And what are the global security implications of giving a private entity run by known fascists that much power? We’ll find out. But don’t be shocked if it ends in global calamity. That is what Palantir is predicting, after all.
The unofficial — yet basically official — crackdown on Consortium New had an disturbing, if not unexpected, new twist: following on PayPal’s decision to permanently cut off Consortium News from its payment services for mysterious unexplained reasons, we’re now learning that Consortium News has been “reviewed” by a new US government affiliated entity called “NewsGuard”, which has assumed the role of judging news outlets for the quality of their news coverage. So in addition to cutting off Consortium News’s ability to finance itself, the site is also being attack as a purveyor of false news by an app being pushed on the public with government backing.
As we should expect, NewsGuard has charged Consortium News with publishing “false content”. As we should also expect, those charges of “false content” are focused on the outlet’s coverage of the events in Ukraine. Charges of “false content” that are absolutely outrageous and easily refuted using a myriad of mainstream sources. And that’s more or less what the following article by Joe Lauria of Consortium News lays out in extensive detail. It’s just one giant refutation of NewsGuard’s attacks, filled with mainstream news reports backing Consortium News’s reporting. A giant refutation of NewsGuard filled with mainstream news reports backing Consortium News’s reporting that will presumably be entirely ignored by NewsGuard and the rest of the mainstream media:
“Getting a red label means that potentially millions of people that have the NewsGuard extension installed and operating on their browsers will see the green or red mark affixed to websites on social media and Google searches. (For individuals that do not already have it installed and operating on Microsoft’s browser, it costs $4.95 a month in the U.S., £4.95 in the U.K., or €4.95 in the EU to run the extension.)”
The threat is clear: NewsGuard is threatening to put a government-sponsored “False News!” label that will show up next to any links to any Consortium News sites on computers where the NewsGuard app is installed. That’s part of what makes the government sponsorship of NewsGuard so significant. NewsGuard doesn’t just have a kind of US government stamp of approval. It’s also going to have the government’s implicit support in paying for the NewsGuard services at places like public libraries:
And as Joe Lauria lays out in his piece, not only was NewsGuard accusing Consortium News of publishing falsehoods about the forces behind the 2014 Maidan revolution, but NewsGuard’s own version of the ‘truth’ of those events is itself filled with blatant falsehoods. Like the objectively false assertion that protesters only took control of government buildings following the collapse of the Yanukovych government. It underscores how NewsGuard’s mission isn’t just to discredit independent media outlets but also to reinforce official lies:
It’s also worth recalling one of the other major aspects of the 2014 Maidan revolution that is conveniently obscured by NewsGuard’s narrative: by not acknowledging the protester’s presence in these buildings, it’s a lot easier to also obscure the evidence of the role far right snipers played in the sniper attacks that catalyzed the final collapse of the Yanukovych government.
And, again, that was all just a subset of Lauria’s giant article that doesn’t just shred NewsGuard’s attack but also points out how NewsGuard’s own narratives are false. A massive refutation of NewsGuard that relies almost entirely on the citation of the very same mainstream news sources NewsGuard endorses. It’s that kind of gross bad faith from NewsGuard that poses the ever present question: what’s next? Since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine less than four months ago, Consortium News has had its finances attacked and now its editorial credibility smeared. Consortium News’s reporting is clearly seen as a threat. The kind of threat that can’t really be dealt with directly and remains threatening just by existing. The truth is like that. So what’s next in this war on the truth of what’s happening in places like Ukraine? We’ll see. Although we presumably won’t see if everything goes according to plan.
Following up on the disturbing story of NewsGuard — the US government-backed app that purports to give ‘nutrition’ labels to various news outlets — and its absurd attacks on Consortium News’s coverage of events in Ukraine, here’s a stunning new report out The Grayzone about a parallel intelligence recently set up in the UK to carrying out the same mission. The operation is run by former Trotskyist and BBC journeyman, journalist Paul Mason and Amil Khan, the founder of a shadowy intelligence contractor called Valent Projects. According to a series of leaked emails, Mason and Khan have been working with UK spies to orchestrate an attack on The Grayzone that won’t just deplatform the site but potentially financial destroy it.
At the center of this scheme is an assumption that The Grayzone must be secretly financed by Russia and China. It’s an assumption that Mason and Khan appear to hold about virtually all independent media that question official narratives on foreign conflicts, including Consortium News. Amusingly, Mason even reached out the now-former US Disinformation Czar, Nina Jankowicz, about his concerns about Consortium News’s Kremlin funding. Jankowicz reportedly saw Consortium News as a case of “useful idiots rather than funding,” but Mason’s suspicions of Kremlin funding apparently remained. It’s one of aspects of Mason’s thinking that comes out in these emails: the guy really seems to genuinely be absolutely convinced that independent media outlets must be funded by hostile foreign powers. Considering we’re talking about a former Troskyite-turned-spy, It’s the kind of perspective that gives you a hint as to how profoundly cynical Mason’s view of the world must be. If you’re challenging official lies, you must be a spy.
It also sounds like filing formal complaints in the UK against The Grayzone is also part of the plan. The idea would be to get a complaint submitted by the various ‘targets’ of The Grayzone’s reporting, and use that a pretext to start an official UK investigation into the Grayzone’s financing. The UK’s newly formed psychological operations unit, the Government Information Cell, could also be involved in these efforts.
Oh, an it also turns out that Mason and Khan are planning on setting up their own “International Information Brigade” dedicated to countering what it deems to be Russian or Chinese propaganda. So overall, between the US government-backed NewsGuard attacks on Consortium News and this newly revealed UK government plot against The Grayzone, it’s pretty clear that the kind of reporting challenging official narratives on these foreign conflicts has been deemed to be too dangerous be allowed to continue:
“It is uncertain how Mason and Khan became acquainted, but their mutual coincidence of needs, motives and vendettas is obvious. The public interest in releasing the pair’s private communications is also abundantly clear. If their planned criminalization of The Grayzone for publishing facts and opinions they abhor is successful, it will have dire ramifications for any and all journalists and independent media institutions seeking to challenge the status quo.”
Yes, while we don’t know how these two British spies became acquainted, it’s clear they have a shared mission. And that mission appears to start with the destruction of The Grayzone. But it obviously won’t end there because their shared mission is to destroy independent outlets that put out reporting contradicting the UK national security state’s preferred narratives on foreign conflicts. They’re going after The Grayzone because they see it being at the center of this network of independent voices. A network they are apparently convinced is being financed and operated by the governments of Russia and China. Or at least that’s the convenient excuse. And on one level it shouldn’t be too shocking that these obvious intelligence assets view everyone else as also being an intelligence asset. Paul Mason and Amil Khan inhabit a hall of mirrors world where the truth goes to die. It’s got to be tempting to assume everyone is cynically running an intelligence operation when that’s the environment you’re operating in:
And note how the assumption that The Grayzone is secretly being financed by Russia and China is treated like such an article of faith by Mason that he apparently continued to suspect Consortium News was foreign asset even after Nina Jankowicz, the person tapped for the short-live role of US Disinformation Czar, told him the website was more just a bunch of “useful idiots”. It underscores how the label of foreign asset appears to be at the center of this intelligence operation:
And that brings us to Mason’s communications with a representative of the UK Foreign Office, where they imagined creating a situation where the UK government filed a formal complaint against The Grayzone. A scheme that will potentially involve the UK’s newly founded psychological warfare unit, the Government Information Cell. Under this scheme, the people ‘targeted’ by The Grayzone would get together and submit materials required to get a formal complaint issued, at which point the UK government could begin investigating The Grayzone’s finances:
Also note how Mason doesn’t just want deplatforming. He wants the financial destruction of independent journalism:
And note how Mason was reportedly unimpressed by the scope of this plan. A formal UK investigation into The Grayzone wasn’t enough. But Khan assured Mason that such an investigation could result in actions like algorithmic discrimination and shadow banning:
Finally, note the broader context that this operation is taking place in: Mason and Khan aren’t just trying to destroy outlets like The Grayzone that punch holes in the official narratives. They’re also planning on setting up a new “International Information Brigade”. So this attack on the The Grayzone should be viewed as in part a response to impact The Grayzone’s past reporting has had in revealing state sanctioned lies. But it’s also a preemptive move to neutralize The Grayzone in anticipation of setting up even more brazen propaganda operations:
How will the “International Information Brigade” fare when actually tasked with waging these information wars? Well, as we saw with Joe Lauria’s devastating take down of NewsGuard’s attacks on Consortium News, they’re probably not going to do very well. At least not in any direct debate. But they can potentially silence the opposition. Hence the plan.
As reporting on the intensifying fighting in Eastern Ukraine continues to depict slow but steady Russian gains, questions about what exactly Russia has in mind for Ukraine in the long run are growing all the more relevant. Especially after Palantir CEO Alex Karp recently predicted a 20–30% probability of a nuclear war emerging should this end up becoming a long-term conflict. So what’s the plan? Well, we’re getting a better idea of what that long-term plan might be: territorial expansion, with parts of Eastern Ukraine joining Russia via public referendum. In other words, the Crimea playbook. At least that’s what we can infer based on reports out of the Russian-installed administration in the occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, where officials have announced plans for a public referendum to join Russia that will be held some time this year. The exact timing is unclear, but it sounds like it will happen at some point in the next 6 months.
Now, we have no idea how realistic these declared plans are. But it does give us at least a putative timeline for this opening phase of this conflict: at point this Russia, these Russian occupied regions in Eastern Ukraine could potentially decide to join Russia. Now, what happens at that point is entirely unclear. Perhaps we achieve a new kind of frozen stalemate. But there’s also the obviously possibility that this is exactly the kind of scenario that turns this into a long-term conflict, with NATO resolving to provide Ukraine with whatever it deems is necessary to recapture these territories. It’s the kind of scenario that makes direct conflict between Russia and NATO all the more likely, especially if Russia considers it a NATO invasion of Russia at that point. So as we’re hearing these reports about planned referendums in Russian occupied regions of Ukraine, it’s going to be worth keeping in mind that we could be seeing what is the next major pivot point in this conflict unfolding. Perhaps it’s a pivot back to a frozen conflict. Or maybe a pivot towards WWIII. Time will tell:
““The people will determine the future of the Zaporizhzhia region. The referendum is scheduled for this year,” the official, Vladimir Rogov, was quoted by TASS as saying, giving no further details about the timing.”
We don’t know when the referendum is going to happen in the Zaporizhzhia region. Nor will the region necessarily be entirely under Russian control when it happens. But a referendum appears to be in the works for some time in the next six months:
So does a referendum actually stand a chance of passing a legitimate popular vote? It seems like a dicey proposition. Keep in mind that these are the cities that chose not to join the independent republics back in 2014 and have been experiencing a low level conflict for the past eight years. Odds are opinions are pretty entrenched at this point. But at the same time, let’s not forget that it’s the cities in the East where the brutalities of Nazi battalions like Azov and Right Sector are going to be most directly felt. Brutalities that have presumably only gotten worse since the start of Russia’s invasion. And presumably, in some cases, by the local authorities. Don’t forget that, while regions like Zaporozhzhia chose to stay in Ukraine, a large percent of the populace likely had deep sympathies for the independent republics. How are those elements of the populace been treated by the far right elements of Ukraine’s government in the East? It’s a potentially significant aspect of this story that we haven’t really have very much coverage of in the reporting.
And that brings us to the comments by Ivan Fedorv, the mayor of Melitopol, dismissing the prospect that the populace would ever support a referendum to join Russia. Recall how Federov, a member or Right Sector, was abducted by Russian forces for interrogation early on in the conflict. Abducted and returned unharmed. It was an episode that underscored how unusual this military adventure really is in terms of stated aims. Aims that might now include territorial expansion via referendum that is guaranteed to illicit the most extreme kind of response from Ukraine’s nationalists:
Will Ukraine’s far right get nasty enough to convince the local populace to join Russia? It’s part of the dynamic of this situation.
But there’s also the question of how Ukraine’s international allies are going to respond to these referendums, especially if they result in these regions joining Russia, whether or not the vote is valid. How will territorial expansions affect the ability for this conflict to come to an end? Will annexing parts of Eastern Ukraine be the events that effectively end the conflict? Or deepen it? Again, don’t forget Alex Karp’s prediction: if this conflict turns into a long-term one, there’s a 20–30% chance of nuclear war. So when we’re seeing early indications of these kinds of territorial ambitions, are we seeing the pretext for the resolution of this conflict? Or a dramatic escalation of it? We’ll find out. But as the following TPM piece makes clear, the topic of territorial expansion is something Vladimir Putin isn’t shying from. So if Ukraine’s NATO allies want to use these referendums as an pretext for dramatically deepening NATO’s involvement in the conflict they’ll have plenty of excuses to do so:
““Judging from everything, it’s fallen to us to also return and strengthen,” he added. “And if we start from these basic values forming the foundation of our existence, we will unconditionally succeed in solving the tasks that stand before us.””
Returning and strengthening. It’s an ominous theme for Putin to be publicly championing. Especially ominous when the historic capture of places like the capitol of Estonia are brought up. It’s the kind talk that is guaranteed to fuel claims that Putin is planning on taking land from NATO members next:
Will talk of Russian expansion have a kind of sobering effect on world leaders or will this be treated as cause for greater alarmism and escalation? Again, time will tell. If the referendum timeline is accurate we’re going to find out how world leaders will react within the next six months or so. It’s ominous. On the one hand, some sort of referendum like this is almost the default kind of end to this conflict. But it could also be the trigger point for something far worse. In other words, we’re looking at the beginning of the end. We’re just not sure which end.
What is the actual casualty rate for the Ukrainian forces in the Donbas? It’s largely been a mystery from the outbreak of the conflict, although we could be pretty confident the true number was higher than the official numbers. Recall those reports from a few weeks about Ukrainian volunteers in the Donbas contacting reporters to share with the world the awful conditions under which they were expected to fight, with little to no training or equipment. That’s all part of the context of a disturbing pair of new official updates to the Ukrainian death rate in the Donbas.
First, that official number jumped from 100 to 200 troops a day in a BBC report last week. Then, just yesterday, another Ukrainian official just bumped it up to 200–500 deaths per day for Ukraine’s forces. Despite that, Ukraine maintains that no peace negotiations are possible as long as Russia holds Ukrainian territory. Negotiations can only start after Ukraine wins back its lost territory. So in the last week, the official death rate has jumped 2–5 fold at the same time the government doubled and tripled down on no peace negotiations until it starts winning:
“Mr Podolyak’s suggestion that 100 to 200 Ukrainian soldiers are dying each day is higher than previous estimates. On Thursday, Ukraine’s Defence Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said Ukraine was losing 100 soldiers a day, and 500 more were injured.”
It was just a week ago when the official estimates for the daily number of killed Ukrainian soldiers jumped from 100 to 200. And yet, despite this dire news, the message coming out of the Ukrainian side was that negotiations are still off the table and peace talks could only resume following a complete Russian withdrawal back to the Feb 24 pre-conflict lines. Ongoing mass casualties are the plan:
So how much longer is Ukraine planning on sustaining these casualty rates? Well, we got a rather disturbing update on that front yesterday from David Arakhamia, who leads Ukraine’s negotiations with Russia and is described as one of Zelensky’s closest advisers. According to Arakhamia, 200–500 Ukrainian soldiers are being killed each day in the Donbas region. In just over a week, the official estimates have jump from 100 to 200–500 deaths per day.
How is this catastrophic death rate affecting the peace negotiations? Well, according to Arakhamia, he continues to contact his Russian counterparts once or twice a week but “both sides clearly realize that right now, there is no place for negotiation.” “Our negotiating position is actually quite weak, so we don’t want to sit at the table if we are in this position. We need to reverse it in some way,” Arakhamia said, who went on to stress the need for a counter-operation to regain lost territory.
Arakhamia also pointed out that Ukraine has recruited one million people into the army and has the capacity to recruit two million more, leaving it adequate potential manpower. It’s weapons that the country needs. In other words, the worse the war goes for Ukraine, the less possible negotiations become and the greater the call for more weapons because Ukraine will accept as high a casualty rate as is necessary to win the war. That’s the message coming out of Ukraine’s government.
So how long can we expect Ukraine to be able to maintain this death rate? Well, we got a bit of a hint from Arakhamia on that matter. When discussing the relative lack of economic impact sanctions have had on Russia’s economy, Arakhamia countered that it will take three to four years for the sanctions to fully take effect, adding “The question is if we (Ukraine) are still here in three or four years to enjoy the show”:
“Up to 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers are being killed or wounded each day in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, with 200 to 500 killed on average and many more wounded, a top Ukrainian official said on Wednesday.”
The official death rate jumped 2–5 fold in just a week. It’s the kind of jump that raises the obviously question of whether or not this new death rate is even accurate. Could it be even worse? Don’t forget the recent reports about new conscripts being sent to the front lines in the Donbas with little or not training and equipment. Ukraine is going to have to start tapping that reserve capacity for its armed forces soon rather than later because it appears to be treating its soldiers as an expendable resource:
And yet, despite this dire news, Arakhamia is reiterating the position that no peace negotiations are possible until Ukraine wins back its lost territory:
How long will this continue? Three to four years maybe? Will Ukraine still have a functioning military by that point? It’s an open question. And yet, despite that open question, Ukraine appears to be absolutely committed to the current strategy. A strategy that appears to demand that Ukraine commit itself ever more to winning at all costs the more lives are lost. It’s a recipe for an extremely bloody eventual victory. Or an extremely bloody eventual defeat. Maybe it’s not the best strategy.
The purging of all things Russian from Ukrainian society got another boost: Ukraine’s parliament just passed a law banning books and music from Russia.
But it’s not just content from Russia. Even Russian-language content from other countries will need to get a special exemption for import. In other words, this is effectively an attempt to ban the Russian language, making it the latest extension of a trend of suppressing the Russian language that was started immediately following the 2014 Maidan revolt and precipitated the ensuing civil war.
So in a country where ~1/3 of the populace are native Russian speakers, how much support does the new law have? ~2/3 of MP supported it and 1/3 opposed. Imagine that. So while the law is being touted as the latest example of Ukraine fighting back against Russian cultural imperialism or something, it’s important to keep in mind that we’re looking at the latest example of the same Ukrainian chauvinist impulses that helped spark Ukraine’s civil war in the first place:
““The laws are designed to help Ukrainian authors share quality content with the widest possible audience, which after the Russian invasion do not accept any Russian creative product on a physical level,” the Ukrainian cabinet’s website quoted him as saying.”
Any “creative product” generated by Russian authors or musicians is officially physically rejected by Ukrainians, according to Ukraine’s Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko. It’s just the latest example of the “decommunisation”/“derussification” agenda that’s been increasingly both purging Ukrainian society of anything associated with Russia while Ukrainian-language content is official elevated. Even Russian-language books from countries other than Russia or Belarus will require special import permissions. That’s a key aspect to keep in mind here in this country where ~1/3 of the populace speaks Russian at home: this isn’t just an attempt to ban content for Russia. It’s designed to purge the Russian language out of Ukrainian society:
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And while we’re told that this new lawa has ‘broad support’ in the the parliament, it’s important to recognize just how limited that broad support really was. AS the following article notes, 303 of the 450 deputies voted for the new law. So in a country where ~1/3 of the populace prefers to speak Russian, 32% of the MP voted against his law. In other words, while we’re being told that this is move is widely embraced by the Ukrainian populace, that doesn’t actually appear to be the case. Quite the contrary:
“It secured support from 303 of the 450 deputies in the Ukrainian parliament.”
Yep, in a country where ~1/3 of the populace prefers to speak Russian, ~1/3 of the parliament voted against effectively banning the Russian language. Imagine that.
On one level, this is just the latest move in a trend that’s been going on 2014. It’s also a grim reminder that the civil war that erupted in 2014 was very much fought along these language-identity lines.
But it’s hard to ignore the reality that its the regions of the country with the largest Russian-speaking populations that are being occupied by Russian forces, potentially with end goal of annexing these territories. It’s part of the dark context of this move by the Ukrainian parliament: at the same time the Russian-speaking parts of the country are being cleaved off, the Ukrainian government is taking steps to ensure those Russian-speakers know they are seen as second-class citizens in their society. The villainization of Ukraine’s Russian-speakers continues. Even now.
When the Ukrainian parliament fired Omdudsman Lyudmila Denisova back in May, in part, over her dissemination of unverified claims of Russian atrocities against civilians it raised the question of whether or not we were going to see a pull back in the number of ungrounded claims from the Ukrainian government of Russian genocide and terrorism. Well, on July 1, we sort of got an answer: : Dmytro Lubinets will be replacing Denisova. And according to this tweet by journalist Leonid Dragozin, Lubinets happens to be an MP with a large far right fan base that was quite excited to this “Friend of nationalists” elevated to such a position:
That’s all part of the context of the following set of articles about the recent missile attack near a mall in the city of Kremanchuk a week and a half ago. There’ no question as to whether or not the mall was destroyed as a result of a June 27 missile strike. No one disputes that happened. The first dispute is over whether or not the mall actually targeted by a missile. Ukraine’s government asserts that the mall itself was directly targeted as part of a terror strike intended to kill civilians. Russia insists that the Kremanchuk mechanical plant adjacent to the mall was the actual target and that fire from the plant spread to the mall.
The second major dispute about the basic facts of the attack is whether or not the mall was open and crowded, or largely empty. As we’re going to see, the evidence on this front is quite conflicted. On the one hand, the Ukrainian government claim that over 1000 civilians were shopping at the mall at the time. President Zelenskiy described the death toll as likely “unimaginable” at the time. And yet that doesn’t seem to square with available evidence. For starters, video of the minutes after the attack show a largely empty parking lot. That’s juxtaposed to a video posted on June 25 on Telegram showing what appears to be a full mall filled with people and with a full parking lot too. Vlodymyr Zelenskiy himself claimed that the mall had been evacuated after air sirens went off earlier in the day, which was a contradiction of his own claims about 1,000 civilians being inside. So the recent circumstantial evidence suggests the mall may indeed have been open to the public in recent weeks, but wasn’t actually full of people at the time of the attack.
Yet we were warned by Zelenskiy in the wake of the attack that the number of dead would be “unimaginable”, with initial reports of at least 18 killed. And as we’re going to see in the second article except below featuring an interview of a woman who claimed to have been at the mall in the minutes before the attack, this witness claims the mall was filled with young families and largely staffed by young women. The witness, who is described in the article as “a local political activities”, also claims that she learned that 9 people in the computer store she was just in had died in the attack. So based on these claims, we should expect a large number of additional deaths to have been confirmed in the following days. And yet that’s not at all what we’ve found. A July 2 update on the casualty numbers puts the number of dead at 21 and there doesn’t appear to be any additional updates. In other words, the total number of dead in this mall full of young families has apparently barely budged from that initial report of 18 dead. Which does seem rather unimaginable if you think about it:
“The crucial Russian counterclaim was not reported by most news media outlets, including alternative media. The Ukrainian commissioner for human rights, Lyudmila Denisova, was recently fired by parliament in part because she was fabricating and feeding false reports of Russian atrocities to Western news media.”
Yes, Ukraine was just forced the replace its commissioner for human rights because the last commissioner, Lyudmila Denisova, was fired for list of complaints that included promoting unverified claims of civilian atrocities. Her replacement, Dmytro Lubinets — the new ombudsman who is being cheered on by the Azov Battalion on social media — wasn’t actually appointed until July 1. So these claims of an intentional Russian attack on a mall filled with civilians took place during the interim period between the ombudsman who was fired for fabrications and the new one being championed by Azov. That’s the sad context of this controversy. So when we hear claims about this shopping mall being filled with more than 1,000 civilians and an “unimaginable” number of deaths, juxtaposed with images showing an empty mall parking lot and only 20 deaths, it’s hard not to avoid suspicions that we’re being fed a garbage storyline:
Then there’s the evidence about the mall’s current activity that is openly available online: all of the online reviews for the mall end four months ago. Now, as the article points out, there’s a June 25 video that appears to show the mall being open and full of civilians. But if you watch that video, it’s also hard not to notice how full the parking lot is with cars, a complete juxtaposition to the images of an empty lot on the day of the attack. So while that video does represent circumstantial evidence that the mall was at least partially open to the public in recent weeks, that same circumstantial evidence suggests it wasn’t open to the public when the attack actually happened:
So was the mall actually open to shoppers or not? Was it perhaps some sort of hybrid situation, where the mall had a few shops open but was largely empty? That remains unclear, in large part because the claims by witnesses and the available evidence just isn’t aligning. Beyond that, we’ve received basically no information on the identities of the people killed at the mall. Were they random civilians or people working in the government and military? Well, here’s a report out of CBC Radio with one of the few interviews of someone who claims to have been at the mall when the attack happened. Oksana Guida, described only as ‘a local political activist’, claims she had been at a computer store at the mall minutes before the attack. She asserts that the mall was filled with young families and primarily staffed by young women. So, at a minimum, we should expect the dead should include a number of women and children. Guida had left the store because they didn’t have what she needed and had gone back to her car with her family and suffered head trauma and hearing damage. Guida also claims that she later learned that 9 people in the computer store died in the attack. The article states that 18 people we confirmed dead at the time of the report. So half of the confirmed dead were apparently in this one computer store in a mall full of over a 1000 people, filled with young families. The story just doesn’t add up:
“On Monday, Oksana Guida went to a mall in Ukraine’s central city of Kremenchuk to buy a computer. Minutes later, that same mall was engulfed in flames after being hit by a Russian missile attack.”
Oksana Guida, a ‘local political activist’, narrowly escaped a fiery demise. A fiery demise that would presumably have been the fate of the many young families she claims filled the mall at the moment of the attack. In fact, nine people were killed in the computer store she had just visited. Keep in mind that, at the time of that report, 18 people were confirmed dead. So half of the confirmed dead apparently were killed in the computer store she was just inside right before it happened:
It’s quite an eyewitness testimony. The kind of testimony that doesn’t actually seem to align with the other available facts. The death count started off in the mid teens and by July 2 had risen to 21, with no apparent new deaths having been confirmed since. Shouldn’t there be dozens more confirmed dead by now? How is it possible that this mall allegedly filled with people got hit by a direct missile strike and how the death count had barely budged from the initial shockingly low tally?
But perhaps the biggest part of this eyewitness testimony that doesn’t align with the other witness testimonies is the fact that Oksana Guida’s name is being used, making her basically the only named eye witness in any reports about the activity at the mall during the attack. For example, here’s a reporting in the Guardian purporting to debunk the Russian government’s claims about the target of the attack being the adjacent factory and not the mall. As we’re going to see, the report refers to dozens of workers and people who lived nearby who confirm that the mall was open to the public. Not one of those witnesses is named or even quoted.
The report does claim that parts of a missile were found in the mall. If true, that would indeed suggest the mall was struck. Whether it was targeted or not would still be in question, but missile fragments would be pretty conclusive evidence. Of course, pieces of missile fragments could have simply been taken from the factory. Staging that kind of evidence would be trivial, which is why the Ukrainian government’s credibility on these matters is so paramount when it comes to these kinds of questions and why the world really needs independent investigations of these events if there’s going to be any hope of making sense of them.
Another part of this report’s apparent debunking of the Russian government’s claims that the mall itself was never targeted or directly struck by a missile involves a CCTV video released by the Ukrainian government that does indeed show a missile hitting something but it’s entirely unclear from the video which building is being struck. That footage is followed by a monologue of Zelenskiy insisting that the attack was an intentional terror strike targeting civilians.
Another interesting fact tucked away in this article has to do with the mystery of Zelenskiy’s claims that the mall had been evacuated after air sirens went off earlier in the day. According to this Guardian report, multiple employees at the mall were given orders to ignore the air raid sirens and continue working. So it’s as if that discrepancy in Zelenskiy’s story was being address in this subsequent reporting. But that’s quite a revelation if true: mall employees were apparently told to ignore air raid sirens. And an air raid siren apparently went off before the attack. Shouldn’t that be a scandal?
“However, witness statements, information released by Ukrainian prosecutors and analysis by independent military experts point to three possible erroneous statements in that account – that the Ukrainian military was hiding weapons nearby, that the mall was not a target, and that nobody was using it.”
Witness statements, government reports, and independent military expert analysis. That’s the array of evidence this Guardian report is claiming to have deployed to debunk Russia’s claims. Let’s take a closer look at that evidence.
First, there was the CCTV video that purports to show the missile hitting the mall. Watch the video. It’s basically impossible to tell what exactly the missile is hitting because it’s striking something below the horizon. Is it hitting the mall or an adjacent building? We have no idea:
Then there’s the independent military experts for Molfar who insist that an explosion at the factory couldn’t have triggered a fire strong enough to reach a building 500 m away. Of course, that raises a question these analysts probably don’t want to ask: so what about if the factory was story weapons as Russia claims? What kind of explosion can we predict from a weapons depot?
Then there’s the X‑22 Russian missile fragments allegedly found inside the mall. Note how the evdidene as obviously already been moved. But also keep in mind what we aren’t being shown: pictures showing an obvious missile explosion at the mall. There’s plenty of footage of a burn out structure consisent with a vicious fire. But it seems like a missile strike should have an impact zone. Where are the pictures of that impact zone?
Finally, there’s the dozens of witnesses who claim to have been working there at the time. While these witnesses aren’t named, note their remarkable claims: the local management told mall employees on June 23 to stop responding to air raid sirens:
Will a more sensible picture eventually emerge? Like the actual names of dead shoppers and employees? Mourning over the death and devastation at the computer store where at least nine people died? We’ll see. But so far, the story of the Kremenchuk mall attack is such a mess that the only thing we can confidently conclude is that the nearby factory was hit with a missile and the neighboring mall burned down as a result. Where’s a credible ombudsman when you need one?
We’re getting reports about another major announced shakeup in Ukraine’s government. This time, it sounds like President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is looking for a replacement for Ivan Bakanov, the head of the powerful SBU and a long-time friend of Zelenskiy. It’s the kind of story that echos back to the alarming warnings we got from Zelenskiy back in December about a looming coup plot by a group of oligarchs. Is Zelenskiy facing a new round of internal threats? It’s hard to avoid suspicions after news like this.
And that renewed reports of potential security concerns inside the Ukrainian government brings us to a fascinating recent piece in Jacobin about the radical, and deeply destabilizing, economic and monetary policies being effectively imposed on Ukraine by its Western financial backers in the US, EU, and IMF. It’s a story that, at this point, is pretty familiar. Don’t forget how Viktor Yanukovych reportedly ultimately backed out of the EU Trade Association talks due primarily to the harsh austerity the EU was going to demand in exchange. Decades of harsh austerity with minimal financial assistance. The cost of joining the EU was putting Ukraine through the neoliberal meat grinder. For generations to come.
And, of course, that’s exactly the path Ukraine ended up going down following the Maidan revolution and large-scale adoption of policies demanded by Ukraine’s new Western backers. This isn’t a new path for Ukraine. But it sounds like the war has dramatically accelerated Ukraine down this path. A path of no return as Ukraine’s increasingly dire economic and financial position makes it even more dependent on Western aid. As a result, the population of Ukraine can expect lower wages, fewer employee protections, lower government support, and potentially the loss of their savings in engineered bank collapses designed to week out the ‘weak’ financial institutions. That’s all part of the plan. A plan that envisions Ukraine as a grand experiment in what happens what you just allow ‘market forces’ to reign supreme and determine the development of a country. That’s actually how Canada’s former ambassador to Ukraine describe the nation in 2020: a laboratory for ideal-world experimentation.
That’s part of the context of any reports raising questions about the stability of Ukraine’s government: A radical neoliberal destabilization of Ukrainian society is the plan for Ukraine. Or, rather, is the planned ‘ideal-world experiment’ for Ukraine:
“Instead of effective wartime interventions, the government sticks to its old formula of justifying present sacrifices in the name of promised EU prosperity. Worsening labor conditions, the “Europeanization” of gas prices (but with Ukrainian wages), the central bank’s “independence” from “its” country’s national interests — all this is justified in the name of the shining European Future, or rather, possibly receiving the marginal status EU-candidate country Turkey has had for decades. Ukrainian and international media never cease to remind us that this war is being fought in the name of Ukraine’s “European Future” — and what are these economic sacrifices compared to all the blood being shed for this “grand ideal”?”
This isn’t you’re father’s ‘wartime intervention’ taking place in Ukraine. What we’re seeing is effectively a grand experiment on a national scale: what happens for strict neoliberal economic orthodoxy is imposed on a poor nation at war? We’re all going to find out, with Ukrainians learning the lessons of these grand experiment first hand. As the article describes, Ukraine is in the midst of a economic and fiscal meltdown. A meltdown that is obviously precipitated by the Russian invasion, but is being deepened and exacerbated by the kind of ‘economic orthodoxy’ being demanded by Ukraine’s Western backers. And with Ukraine increasingly reliant on these creditors the worst its financial status gets, the more invested it gets in this neoliberal experiment. A long-term experiment that leaves Ukraine increasingly reliant on foreign donors and investors. And therefore increasingly unable to say ‘no’ to their demands. In other words, Ukraine isn’t just facing the loss of territory to Russia as a consequence of this war. It’s also losing the economic freedom to government itself:
As part of that loss of sovereignty, note how Ukraine is effectively being forced by agencies like USAID and George Soro’s Open Society Foundation to adopt measures that prevent Ukraine from preferring domestically produced goods and services when making government expenditures. So not only is Ukraine being blocked from engaging in the kind of nationalizations that are historically routine during a time of war, it’s also being forced to abandon the state’s support for domestic private industry. All under the banner of ‘anti-corruption’ measures. Internationally imposed anti-corruption measures that ensure Ukraine imports more than ever from its international partners:
But Ukraine isn’t just being effectively forced to import more goods from its Western backers. It’s also being forced adopt labor laws that will likely see even more Ukrainians becoming economic refugees. Labors laws that appear to be another gift from USAID:
And then there’s the ‘trickle-down’ policies: when war broke out, Ukraine slashed import taxes and tariffs, while talk of post-wear tax-free export zones grows. Ukraine is being positioned to be a post-war export hub. An export hub dominated by international investors with low taxes, low labor protections, and a shrunken ‘efficient’ government set up to cater to these international investors. This is actual goal of the West’s grand ‘ideal-world experimentation’ in Ukraine:
Then there’s the monetary policy: Western backers have demanded Ukraine’s central bank (the NBU) be set up on the model of strict “independence” where inflation concerns reign supreme over all others. So what do we find the NBU doing during this period of extreme national monetary stress? Making that stress worse by prioritizing inflation concerns and hiking interest rates. Who benefits from this? Powerful interests who want to move their wealth out of the country as better foreign exchange rates, that’s who:
And note how these actions by the NBU appear to be risking the collapse of the “bond pyramid” that could trigger a major collapse in Ukraine’s banking system. Again. A collapse that the IMF apparently sees as desirable because it got rid of “corrupt ghost banks”. Ghost banks that happened to be holding a lot of people’s savings. Even a collapse of Ukraine’s banking system is seen as fine by Ukraine’s Western ‘partners’ as long as that collapse happens in response to policies dictated by neoliberal orthodoxy:
How many more bank collapses should Ukrainian savers expect in response to teh NBU rate hikes? We’ll see. The more the merrier apparently, at least from the IMF’s perspective. Neoliberalism as a built-in plan for mass bank collapses: at some point the strongest institutions will just gobble of the remains of the weak and be even stronger. Problem solved. At least the financial problems for the strongest remaining financial institutions will be solved. It’s unclear how this economic orthodoxy is planning on solving all of the social problems created by these kinds of events. And that raises what is one of the grimmest questions we have to ask in this situation: So what is the neoliberal solution that Ukraine’s Western sponsors have in mind for the collapse of the Ukrainian public’s faith in this grand neoliberal experiment? And a collapse of faith in the viability of Ukraine’s future as a European partner? What happens with the hope of a better futures is replaced with a sense of betrayal and despair as none of the West’s imposed ‘solutions’ actually work? We’ll see...although we have a pretty good idea of what to expect.
And it’s official. Almost: Ukraine’s historic stripping of labor rights is almost complete with the passage of two new bills by Ukraine’s parliament. The bills now await President Zelenskiy’s signature. One of the bills formalizes gig-style short term labor contracts. The other, Bill 5371, promises to radically transform the nature of labor relations in Ukraine. As we’ve seen, in reality this is a promise to transform Ukraine’s labor laws back to the pro-collective bargaining modality of the 19th century, where individuals and employers all separately negotiate their own labor contracts. And as we’ve also seen, that bill was crafted in partnership with groups like USAID and the Open Society Foundation. Dragging Ukraine’s workers back to the 19th century wasn’t just a random scheme by Ukraine’s parliamentarians. Its part of the envisioned future of Ukraine held by the country’s Western backers. Or, as Canada’s former ambassador for Ukraine described it in 2020, post-Maidan Ukraine had become a laboratory for ideal-world experimentation. That ‘ideal-world experiment’ is about to enter its next phase.
So how are Ukraine’s workers going to react to have their rights to collective bargaining stripped away? We’ll see, but that points towards one of the other intriguing aspects to this whole situation: the backers of this law are portraying it to the public as a move that puts Ukraine more in line with EU labor standards. Now, as we’re going to see, labor experts see the new laws as going in the exact opposite direction from EU standards. This is a loss of collective bargaining rights, after all. So the new laws appear to be in conflict with EU standards and yet these laws were crafted in partnership with agencies like USAID and are taking place at the same time Ukraine is a member of a trade association with the EU and on track for EU membership. So if any Ukrainian workers got the impression that this really is an EU-backed law, you can’t blame them. The EU appears to be more than happy to stand by and watch this happen.
And let’s also not forget that attacking labor rights was one of the key features of so many of the austerity battles fought within the EU not that long ago. It was just 2015 when EU leaders were demanding that Greek PM Alexis Tsipras not restore the collective bargaining rights that had been stripped away under Greece’s austerity regime. And that’s part of what makes this story much bigger than just the latest story of Ukraine’s descent into a new Dark Age. What’s happening to Ukraine’s labor protections is a model for the rest of the EU. That’s why there’s so little international outcry:
“In two laws passed on Monday and Tuesday, MPs voted to legalise zero-hours contracts and made moves towards removing up to 70% of the country’s workforce from protections guaranteed by national labour law.”
The writing was on the wall for months now, so we can’t really be surprised. Still, it’s a shocking move by Ukraine’s parliament, made all the more shocking by the disturbing neoliberal language being used by the backers of these laws. Language mimicking the 19th century farcical notion that employers and employees can negotiate with each other on a level playing field, and therefore collective bargaining is unnecessary. Ukraine really is being turned into a giant experiment. An experiment of shackling a populace in the middle of a war-triggered economic meltdown with 19th century labor laws. The kind of experiment where we more or less already know how it’s going to turn out. That’s part of what makes this such a shocking move: it’s guaranteed to create massive hardship for the Ukrainian populace. Unless you happen to be a business owner, you’re life is poised to get A LOT worse as a result of this law. And that’s on top of all of the hardship from the war. The passage of these kinds of laws at any point would be an act of cruelty, but doing this in the middle of war is just a shocking level of cruelty:
And it’s not like the real motive for draft law 5371 was the war despite the current claims by the law’s backers. As we saw, Zelenkskiy’s party has been trying to pass this law for over a year. As we also saw, the politician who crafted 5371 did so under the auspices of a USAID program. They just couldn’t get the parliamentary support until now. That’s why the assurances by some of the law’s backers that bill 5371 is just a temporary wartime measure can’t be taken seriously. Ukraine has clearly been turned into a international neoliberal experiment. The kind of experiment that might get started with the war but obviously isn’t meant to end with the war. It’s intended to be a permanent experiment:
But when we listen to the advocates for the new law, they don’t describe what is happening in Ukraine as a grand experiment. Quite the contrary, they describe it as being in line with EU standards. A claim that’s hard to dismiss considering all of this is happening in the context of Ukraine’s EU member candidate status. And yet, as we’ve seen, labor experts warn that Ukraine’s moves are decidedly against the EU’s labor standards that includes the right to collective bargaining. How are Ukrainian attitudes towards joining the EU going to shift as a result of what is effectively a giant betrayal:
So what’s going on here? Is Ukraine actually crafting laws that are antithetical to EU labor protections? Or is Ukraine ahead of the curve on these matters? Again, let’s not forget that it wasn’t that long ago that the EU was imposing brutal austerity on the workers of countries like Greece that included mass privatizations and other measures following neolioberal dogma. It was just 2015 when EU leaders were demanding that Greek PM Alexis Tsipras not restore the collective bargaining rights that had been stripped away under Greece’s austerity regime. The EU of 2022 is a lot less ‘labor friendly’ than it was in 2002, before all of the various crises presented one opportunity after another to pare back those protections. And as the radical nature of the changes in Ukraine demonstrate, long-term crises present long-term opportunities for even more radical changes. It’s something EU workers will probably want to keep in mind as the war in Ukraine steadily morphs into a long-term economic crisis across the EU. A long-term economic crisis that doubles as a very juicy long-term opportunity for the same forces currently ‘helping’ Ukraine in its time of need.
The fact that a Saky air base in Crimea suffered a significant attack isn’t really in dispute at this point. But just about everything else involving the attack on the air base located at least 150 kilometers from the closest launch sites usable by Ukrainian military forces remains mystery. In part that’s because the Ukraine government itself is treating the attack like state secret. The only thing reporters are being told by anonymous government officials is that “a device exclusively of Ukrainian manufacture was used.”
So a Russian air base thought to be well out of range of the longest-range Ukrainian missile systems is struck by a number of explosions and the only information being released by the Ukrainian government about the attack is that a domestically-produced “device” was used. What’s going on here?
Well, as we’re going to see in the second article except below from the Kyiv Post, observers are starting to suspect the Ukrainian-built Grim heavy missile launching platform was used in the attacks. The Grim launcher was developed between 2013–2019 and has four times the range of US-delivered HIMARS.
There’s a problem with this Grim theory. Only two copies were known to exist as of 2019: one for testing and one for overseas sales. And yet, as we’re going to see, the quick succession of explosion at the airbase suggests that Ukraine would have needed at least 6 of these system in operation. These are the kinds of nagging detail that has at least one observer suggesting that the Grim narrative is just a diversion.
If Ukraine didn’t carry out that attack using Grim missiles, what did it use? Sabotage is one possibility, but the Kremlin is already making another obvious suggestion: secret US-delivered long-range missile systems, which would be in violation of the White House’e repeated pledges to not deliver long-range missiles to Ukraine.
So while we don’t yet know if Ukraine is in secret possession of a game-change long-range missile system that it developed domestically, we had probably better hope that’s the case. Because the alternative is that Ukraine is sporting long-range missile systems secretly delivered by its Western partners despite assurances that no such escalations would take place, which would be an act of MADness:
“Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters, the official said the air base was one from which planes regularly took off for attacks on Ukrainian forces. The official would not disclose what type of weapon caused the explosions, saying only that “a device exclusively of Ukrainian manufacture was used.””
Some sort of very successful mystery attack was carried out against the Saky air base in Crimea. Ukraine won’t say what it used in the attack but still insists that “a device exclusively of Ukrainian manufacture was used.” We’re also told that partisan resistance forces were involved, but nothing about whether they played a direct role:
So is Kyiv being coy about a network of saboteurs operating in Crimea? It’s possible. But as the following article in the Kyiv Post describes, observers have other suspicions. Surprising suspicions centered on the Grim long-range missile system. It’s been far from confirmed that Grim missile systems were used, but they’re the logical suspect for a simple reason: Ukraine doesn’t have any other long-range missiles capable of strike a target that far away. The surprising part is that Ukraine has any Grim missile systems at all. The weapon was being developed between 2013 and 2019 and only two systems were thought to have been built. This is why some experts suspect the talk about Grim missiles is just a distraction. Russia has already started suggesting that US-delivered long-range miss were used. If so, a Grim distraction makes sense given the US’s repeated pledges of not delivering any long-range missiles to Ukraine. So did Ukraine use a domestically-produced long-range missile system that it secretly possesses? Or is that just a cover for secretly-delivered long-range missiles delivered by the West?:
” Saky air base, as the missile flies, is at least 150 kilometers from the closest launch sites usable by Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) units. Until Tuesday, it was unclear to the Kremlin and independent observers alike whether Ukraine had a weapon capable of shooting even close to that distance.”
No one was expecting an attack like this was even possible. That’s why suspicions were immediately directed at the Grim heavy missile launcher, which has four times the range of the US-delivered HIMARs. And yet no one thought Ukraine had any Grim systems ready to field, hence the Kremlin’s suggestions that Ukraine may have received long-range missiles from the US:
Adding to the mystery is that only two Grim systems were known to have been built, and one of those systems was a sample for overseas sales. And yet, based on the quick succession of explosions in Crimea, that would suggest more than one Grim system was used to launch that attack. A minimum of six Grim launcher would have been needed to carry out that attack. So that would be quite a debut for this previously secret missile system if true:
So did Ukraine secretly build 4 extra Grim missiles launchers and missiles? Because if not, sabotage or Western-delivered long-range missiles are the only other realistic options left. And it doesn’t really sound like this was sabotage.
Here’s a recent WaPo article that underscores one of the most important facts about the conflict in Ukraine to keep in mind: Ukraine is a global mineral powerhouse filled with not just bountiful stores of traditional minerals like coal but the rare earth metals like lithium that are crucial to modern high-tech economies. A lot of coverage has been given to stories involving Ukraine’s vast natural gas reserves. It’s easy to forget that Ukraine also has 117 of the 120 most widely used minerals and metals. Tens of trillions of dollars in mineral reserves are at stake.
And as the article also points out, those mineral reserves are now trading at deep discounts as the war creates enormous investor uncertainty. As the article also points out, that fire sale on Ukraine’s mineral wealth is unlikely end until a long-term peace agreement with Russia has been achieved. Frozen conflicts are bad for investment. So as long as Ukraine and Russia are technically at war, Ukraine’s vast mineral wealth is going to be for sale. .
So it’s worth keeping in mind that Ukraine’s possession of one of the largest reserves of strategic mineral wealth in Europe was probably a major factor motivating the years-long efforts to pull Ukraine into a ‘Western’ orbit, culminating in all of the Western involvement with the 2014 Maidan revolution. And it’s also worth keeping in mind that, the more ownership of Ukraine’s mineral wealth is in the hands of international investors, the greater the international pressure will be for the conflict in Ukraine to not just come to a peaceful settlement but to end with Ukraine back in control of all of the areas where those investors own those reserves:
“After nearly six months of fighting, Moscow’s sloppy war has yielded at least one big reward: expanded control over some of the most mineral-rich lands in Europe. Ukraine harbors some of the world’s largest reserves of titanium and iron ore, fields of untapped lithium and massive deposits of coal. Collectively, they are worth tens of trillions of dollars.”
Trillions of dollars in mineral wealth are at stake in this conflict. Ukraine is an international mineral powerhouse and home to some of Europe’s largest reserves of rare earth minerals like lithium that are crucial for the modern economy:
But the war is creating a powerful opportunity for one group: there’s a fire sale on those mineral deposits. And as experts warn, that fire-sale is expected to last as long as the conflict in Ukraine continues. Even a frozen conflict would continue to suppress those prices. Trillions of dollars in mineral wealth stuck in a fire sale, with an long-term peace agreement being the necessary ingredient for ending that sale:
Also keep in mind that any internationally-backed rebuilding of Ukraine will almost certainly involve turning the country into a neo-liberal experimental employee hell hole, which is already happening whether or not the conflict ends.
And don’t forget one the other beneficiaries of this conflict: coal exporters. Ukraine was importing 40 percent of its coal consumption in 2021:
Note that the EU’s ban on Russian coal just kicked in a day ago. It’s a grand time for coal exporters. And it will eventually be a grand time for the investors in Ukraine’s strategic mineral reserves. But only after the war is over and Ukraine has completely recaptured control of the country. In the mean time, the Ukrainian fire sale continues to smolder.
With the prospect of the US’s nuclear secrets being trafficked by a former president suddenly in the news following last week’s FBI raid of a Mar-a-Lago, it’s a weirdly appropriate to see a new interview of Henry Kissinger suddenly show up in the Wall Street Journal. The 99 year old former secretary of state just published a new book profiling various 20th century leaders. And while the interview is in part about his new book, Kissinger shares his concerns about the state of the world today and his fears of a disequilibrium taking hold in the struggles between the world powers, in particular when it comes to brewing conflicts with Russian and China. Kissinger appears to take a generally critical view of the decisions made by the West in relation to the fomenting of both conflicts.
But it’s particularly worth noting his take on the situation in Ukraine, in large part because he’s been a critic of the US’s policy in Ukraine. It’s especially worth noting Kissinger’s perspective given the lack of any viable ‘off ramp’ for the current war in Ukraine: As Kissinger describes it, Ukraine should have never been seen as a future member of NATO, especially given that many of its territories were long viewed by Russia as essentially Russian lands, even if the Ukrainians disagreed. But, as Kissinger sees it, the die has been cast now that the invasion has happened. As Kissinger puts it, “now I consider, one way or the other, formally or not, Ukraine has to be treated in the aftermath of this as a member of NATO.” So that’s a pretty big statement coming from Kissinger. But there’s a catch. Kissinger goes on to add that he foresees a settlement that preserves Russia’s gains from its initial incursion in 2014, when it seized Crimea and portions of the Donbass region. Now, Russia has already seized quite a bit of territory well beyond Crimea and the the separatist republics, so it would appear that Kissinger is taking a stance that suggests Ukraine and NATO should set a goal of driving Russia back to the pre-2022 invasion borders. But given that this is Kissinger we’re talking about we can reasonably assume he would be flexible on those details.
So in Kissinger’s view, the US and the West kind of blundered its way into this showdown with Russia driven, in part, from a lack of long-term strategic thinking on the part of US policy-makers. Long-term realistic strategic thinking that goes beyond simply containing Russia and China and envisions how to live and survive in a world where the US isn’t the sole military superpower. The kind of strategic thinking that managed to get the world through the Cold War without things getting to ‘hot’. But here we are with a major crisis in Ukraine. And in Kissinger’s view the way out of that crisis will include both the kind of resolve that kept the West united curing the Cold War — like granting Ukraine a kind of de facto NATO-like status — while simultaneously recognizing the need for realistic compromise in areas like Crimea and the Donbass. A strategic maintenance of a nuclear equilibrium that Kissinger sees as currently wildly out of balance:
““In my thinking, equilibrium has two components,” he tells me. “A kind of balance of power, with an acceptance of the legitimacy of sometimes opposing values. Because if you believe that the final outcome of your effort has to be the imposition of your values, then I think equilibrium is not possible. So one level is a sort of absolute equilibrium.” The other level, he says, is “equilibrium of conduct, meaning there are limitations to the exercise of your own capabilities and power in relation to what is needed for the overall equilibrium.” Achieving this combination takes “an almost artistic skill,” he says. “It’s not very often that statesmen have aimed at it deliberately, because power had so many possibilities of being expanded without being disastrous that countries never felt that full obligation.””
The challenge isn’t just maintaining the equilibrium. It’s an equilibrium of equilibriums. A balance of values and ambitions coupled with a balance of conduct and self-imposed limitations. A balance that has swung wildly out of whack in the case of the West’s relationship with Russia. So much so that Kissinger now views some sort of de fact NATO-like status for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion. And yet, crucially, Kissinger isn’t calling for some sort of NATO-backed expulsion of Russia from all of Ukraine. Some sort of settlement that preserves Russia’s pre-2022 territorial gains in the Donbass and Crimea is going to be required. How that settlement differs from the failed Minsk agreements remains unclear, but Kissinger doesn’t appear to see an alternative to conceding those territories:
On one level, it’s not particularly remarkable that Henry Kissinger feels some sort of realpolitik solution is going to be required. Of course that’s his approach. He’s Henry Kissinger.
What is notable, however, is that Kissinger feels the need to publicly express these views in an interview where he is lamenting what appears to be a long-term strategy by the US that lacks a strategic vision beyond containing Russia and China. In other words, the long-term strategic vision for the US doesn’t appear to really go beyond maintaining the long-term strategic disequilibrium of a unipolar world dominated by a single military hyperpower. That’s kind of the start and end of it. And maintaining that kind of disequilibrium in status invariably involves a disequilibrium in action. It’s a recipe for the kinds of disaster Kissinger spent a lot of time thinking about decades ago. At least that’s how Kissinger sees it.
It will be interesting to see if Kissinger’s commentary triggers any response from the US foreign policy establishment. But given that Kissinger’s thesis appears to be that the US foreign policy establishment lacks a coherent vision, a lack of a coherent response from that foreign policy establishment might be more telling.
@Pterrafractyl–
Henry the K is 99 years old!
Well, as they say, the good die young.
NB: As discussed in FTR#‘s 1244 and 1245, among other programs, there is no convincing evidence that Russia ever “invaded” either the Donbass or Crimea.
https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr1244-how-many-lies-before-you-belong-to-the-lie-part-17/
https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr1245-how-many-lies-before-you-belong-to-the-lie-part-18/
Another, major, problem concerns would Russia believe what the U.S. says?
Uncle Same and his supporting cast lied about, and/or, withdrew from:
1.–The marching of NATO to the East.
2. The ABM Treaty.
3.–The Open Skies Treaty.
4.–The Intermediate Range Missile Treaty.
5.–The Minsk Accords.
Why would Russia believe them now?
Having lived through Rockefeller protégé Kissinger’s managing of the secret B‑52 raids into Cambodia during the Vietnam War, with the conscious and achieved aim of killing 10,000 civilians a day, I would have a tough time believing the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s words.
Keep up the great work!
Best,
Dave
I’ve read quite a few of your posts and listened to many of your podcasts, in fact I briefly volunteered at KKUP maybe 44 years ago. Your research as always is impeccable, but I have one simple question: At this point what do we do about it, other than “getting the word out.”
Perhaps some clues are in a new book by Halik Kochanski: Resistance: the underground war against Hitler 1939–1945
The book covers all of the resistance movements in Europe, not only in Poland (best organized), Yugoslavia (largest), and France (overhyped by Hollywood), but in all of the occupied countries.
Myself, I believe we need to get smart and get stealthy, quickly.
Cheers.
@Khane Eudigette–
I’ve only been on the air for 43 years.
Other than “getting the word out,” I don’t think there is anything to be done.
Social control is maintained by controlling the flow of information.
Building any kind of military resistance would play right into the hands of the Powers That Be.
Thanks for the kind words.
Best,
Dave
Are we seeing the start of a new phase in the conflict between Russia and the West? A phase that might involve violent regime change operations and targeted assassinations? Those are the huge questions raised by a stunning assassination of Daria Dugina — daughter of far right Kremlin strategist Alexander Dugin — over the weekend in a plot that appears to have targeted her father.
The FSB is pointing the finger as an alleged member of the Azov battalion, Natalya Vovk, who apparently slipped into the country some time under cover with her 12 year old daughter in July and managed to get an apartment on the same block of Dugina. From there, Vovk surveilled Dugina for a month before planting a bomb on her car and then slipping out of the country with her daughter following the bombing. The FSB has released video of the alleged assassin. It hasn’t yet been confirmed if the women was indeed Vovk.
But if what the FSB claims is true it would be a huge intelligence failure, in part because Vovk was reportedly doxxed back in April by Russian hacked. And in that doxxed material she was shown to be a member of the Azov battalion. Russian media is already circulating photos of this doxxed Azov ID:
Note that while Max Seddon understandably notes that it would be an unusual choice to take your Azov ID card with you on an undercover assassination mission, don’t forget that she was reportedly doxxed in April so that’s presumably where these photos came from.
At the same time, if you’ve been recently doxxed and shown to be a member of Azov, it was be all the more remarkable that you choose to go on an undercover assassination mission in Russia. With your 12 year old daughter, no less. But that’s what the Russian authorities are claiming. It’s a wild story.
And it gets a lot wilder. Because we already have a group claiming responsibility for the bombing: Ilya Ponomarev — a former “libertarian communist” member of the Russian Duma who was the only member to vote against the annexation of Crimea in 2014 — appeared on Ukrainian TV claiming his group — the National Republican Army (NRA) — carried out the attack. Ponomarev read from a manifesto that promised many more attacks on Russia’s leadership. It was basically a declaration of violent regime change campaign.
As Professor Ivan Katchanovski noted in a series of tweets, Ponomarev also asserted that the targeting of Dugina was in part revenge for the deaths of the Avoz POWs in Russian-controlled prison camp in Olenivka. It’s an important detail that’s left out of virtually all of the coverage of Ponomarev’s televised claims:
Keep in mind that the bombing of the Azov POWs took place on July 29, just over three weeks prior to Dugina’s bombing. So if Vovk arrive in Russia in July, it was presumably before that bombing took place.
But then Professor Katchanovski makes this crucial observation about Ponomarev’s claims of responsibility: Ponomarev also admitted links between the NRA and a group of Russian neo-Nazis were where involved with an apparent pipeline-sabotage plot inside Russia last week. That’s part of the context of Dugina’s assassination: it was a week after Russian authorities killed two members of a Russian neo-Nazi gang allegedly involved with a pipeline plot they were coordinating with members of Azov:
So last week we have Russian authorities apparently thwart a Russian neo-Nazi/Azov sabotage plot. Then a week later we have the car bombing of Daria Dugina, which Russian authorities immediately blame on an alleged Azov member Natalya Vovk — with her 12 year old daughter — who was doxxed months ago as an Azov member. At the same time, a former member of the Russian Duma appears on Kyiv-based TV claiming responsibility while acknowledging that his group was involved with that Azov-connected pipeline plot.
Oh, and it turns out Ponomarev gained Ukrainian citizenship in 2019 and made his claims of responsibility on a Russian-language opposition TV channel that was allowed to launch in Kyiv earlier this year. So while the Ukrainian government is insisting it had no involvement in the plot, the guy claiming responsibility just got to open a Kyiv-based TV channel a few months ago. Again, it’s a wild story. And poised to get a lot wilder if Ponomarev’s claims about a sleeper assassin army ready to wage more high profile attacks are true.
Ok, first, here’s a report in the Telegraph describing the FSB’s claims against Vovk. Note how the analysts dismissing the claims are basing their dismissals on the idea that Vovk shouldn’t have been able to slip in and out of Russia undetected after having already been doxxed back in April. So it sounds like the credibility of the FSB’s claims hinge, in part, on whether or not it’s realistic to imagine that someone planning an assassination campaign would be able to adequately hide their identity:
“The FSB released a passport photo of Vovk alongside a video purporting to show her in Moscow. Pro-Kremlin websites claimed she was part of the nationalist Azov regiment, which Russia accuses of “Nazism”.”
Yes, the FSB almost immediately pointed the finger in the direction of Natalya Vovk, who Russia also accuses of being a member of Azov, which the Western press still can’t openly acknowledge is a Nazi outfit, hence the phrases like “which Russia accuses of “Nazism””.
But if what the FSB asserts is true, it would indeed be an intelligence failure since it sounds like Vovk allegedly managed to rent an apartment on the same block of Dugina and had her under surveillance. But intelligence failures happen:
Interestingly, while Azov denies any links to Vovk, it sounds like Russian hackers doxxed her back in April as a member of the Ukrainian military. It’s that doxxing that is cited is circumstantial evidence suggested that it could have been Vovk who carried this out since she was already a known entity of the Ukrainian military. And as we saw, the Kremlin is already circulated purported photos of Vovk’s doxxed military ID card that clearly identifies her as being a member of Azov. So hackers doxxed her as a member of Azov (which would likely the point of the doxxing in the first place) back in April, then she apparently slipped into Russia with her 12 year old daughter back in July and managed to rent an apartment on the same block as Dugina and surveilled her for a month, and slip back out. It’s a pretty wild story if true. But, again, intelligence failures do happen and it’s not like people don’t have means of concealing their identities. Still, taking her 12 year old daughter with her on a mission like that would be a rather extreme move:
Finally, note how the planned Nuremburg-style trial of the Azov soldiers is being treated by Kyiv as a dealbreaker for any peace negotiations. It underscores the symbolic significance that group has been elevated to in Ukrainian society:
So the FSB is immediately blaming Azov, which denies any culpability. That brings us to the remarkable claims made by Ilya Ponomarev — a former member of the Russian Duma and the sole vote against the 2014 annexation of Crimea — claimed responsibility for the bombing in a manifesto that promised many more attacks to come on Russia’s leadership. It was basically a declaration of a violent regime-change campaign.
And while the following article doesn’t mention how Ponomarev admitted that the attack was done in part as retaliation for the bombing of Azov POWs last month, don’t forget that Professor Katchanovski reported that Ponomarev did indeed make that claim. So we have what amount to a kind of declaration of war against the Kremlin made by someone who was just given permission to launch their Kyiv-based Russian-language opposition TV channel earlier this year. At a minimum it complicates the Kyiv government’s claims of no involvement:
““This action, like many other partisan actions carried out on the territory of Russia in recent months, was carried out by the National Republican Army (NRA),” Ponomarev said. He was speaking in a 7pm broadcast on February Morning, a Russian-language opposition TV channel he launched in Kyiv earlier this year.”
So Ilya Ponomarev made these claims on a Russian-language opposition TV channel he launched in Kyiv earlier this year. Making statements like that on a newly-launched Kyiv platform certainly makes it more difficult for Kyiv to deny any involvement.
And this was just an openly blow, according to Ponomarev. The National Republican Army (NRA) is ready for more high profile attacks on Russia’s leadership. That’s according to a Ponomarev’s manifesto:
Finally, note how Ponomarev was reportedly a leftwing member of Russia’s parliament, and the only deputy to vote against the annexation of Crimea in 2014. He described himself as a “libertarian communist” during an interview with the Washington Post in 2015. It’s a rather nebulous term, at a minimum:
So given Professor Katchanovki’s observation that Ponomarev has apparently admitted links to a group of Russian neo-Nazis recently killed in Volgograd with an Azov-linked plot, here’s a report from least week about that plot. According to the FSB, it was a planned pipeline attack being devised by were part of the so-called Restruct group, created by the nationalist Maxim Martsinkevich. Martsinkevich was a Russian neo-Nazi previously jailed by Russian authorities after he made a video of himself beating and torturing a gay Iraqi man in 2014. So it sounds like Ponomarev’s NRA has been palling around with Russian neo-Nazi gangs. And based on Professor Katchanovski’s tweet it sounds like Ponomarev is openly admitting this. And that all suggests Ponomarev’s claims of additional plots might be more than just puffery:
“The Russians say that the citizens killed during the detention were part of the so-called Restruct group, created by the nationalist Maxim Martsinkevich (Tesak); he committed suicide in a Russian pre-trial detention centre in 2020.”
The alleged pipeline sabotage plot was being devised by the so-called Restruct group, created by the nationalist Maxim Martsinkevich. An important detail left out of this report is that Martsinkevich was a Russian neo-Nazi previously jailed by Russian authorities after he made a video of himself beating and torturing a gay Iraqi man in 2014. So if this is the crew Ponomarev has been hanging around with he appears to have strayed pretty far from his far left roots.
Also note the claims by Russian authorities that one of the organizers of the plot serves in the Azov battalion. A member of a Nazi battalion working with a Russian neo-Nazi gang. Who knows if it’s true, but It tracks:
All in all, it’s quite a wild mystery. Last week, we had Russian authorities killing two citizens who appeared to be members of a Russian neo-Nazi gang that was plotting pipeline attacks in concert with members of Azov. That was the FSB’s claims. Flash forward a week, and we have the bombing of the daughter of one of the most prominent figures in Russia. The FSB immediately blames a previously-doxxed member of Azov who allegedly managed to pull off a daring undercover assassination campaign with her 12 year old daughter tagging along. But then a dissident former parliamentarian based in Kyiv claims responsibility on a Kyiv-based TV channel he started earlier this year, claiming the bombing was done in retaliation for the deaths of the Azov POWs while and promising many more attacks in the future. And this dissident, by his own admission, also appears to have some sort of connection to last week’s Azov-connected pipeline plot. A lot of the details in this story seem rather unbelievable and yet there’s no denying the fact in this mystery are starting to gel. We’ll presumably get a lot more updates on the nature of group behind this if Ponomarev’s warnings about many more attacks to come are credible.
@Pterrafractyl–
Byzantine indeed!
A probable explanation involves the complex nature of counter-intelligence, double and triple agents.
The cardinal rule for a good double agent is to make oneself indispensable to the effort.
A double agent working for the opposition is going to do things to further the cause they are ostensibly working for.
My guess is that those considerations are at work here.
The fact Vovk was an apparently documented Azov person may have facilitated her entry, with FSB attempting to track her to identify other elements of the Nazi network that is allegedly at work in the country.
In the early stages of the war, an SBU official claimed they had penetrated Russian intel.
Note, also, the level of lying that we have seen in the coverage of the war: Ukraine winning (not), No Nazis in Ukrainian government and national security establishment (not) etc.
Also, note that Ukrainska Pravda is an overtly OUN/B publication.
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/05/12/army-of-secret-propagandists-in-ukraine-funded-by-u-s-to-win-western-hearts-and-minds-for-nato-policies/
Best,
Dave
Here’s a pair of articles relate to the Russian/Iranian push to create a ‘Gas OPEC’ at the same time the ongoing European energy crisis continues to only get worse as winter approaches. They also indirectly relate the expected duration of war in Ukraine and the West’s economic showdown with Russia, because it sounds like Big Oil is preparing the West for a future without Russian oil and gas. A future that’s going to involve a lot more record profits for the energy sector:
So how much longer can we expect oil and gas shortages across the continent, bleeding into a elevate prices around the world? For years to come. That was prediction recently made by the heads of Shell and Total, and echoed by European energy ministers. Belgium’s energy minister predicted difficult times for European energy consumers for the next 5 to 10 years. Beyond that, there’s talk of transition the EU to a future where it’s not reliant on Russian oil and gas at all. A post-Russia-powered EU economy. Those were the kinds of comments were heard from the heads of Shell and Total and various EU energy ministers during a signing ceremony for a new carbon capture and storage facility. Comments that do indeed suggest the EU — and the West in general — is going to be dealing with high energy prices for years to come.
Now, if the EU takes this opportunity to actually transition to renewable green energy technologies, well, that could make an extended period of elevate prices worth it. If, on the other hand, this ends up just being an extended period of record profits the energy sector, that would obviously be awful. So while it sounds like the EU is increasingly poised for an extended multi-year period of painfully high energy prices, it’s not at all clear what kind of EU economy we can expect by the end of that pain: is the EU going to experience a painful transition to a green energy tomorrow? Or just a painful period of high prices and no green tomorrow and extra huge record profits for the energy sector?
“Speaking at a press conference in Norway on Monday, Ben van Beurden said the situation could persist for several years. “It may well be that we will have a number of winters where we have to somehow find solutions,” he said.”
The energy emergency is going to be the status quo for years to come. That was the prediction from Shell CEO Ben van Beurden during a signing ceremony for a new carbon capture storage deal. As Van Beurden describes, the necessary solutions including a “very, very quick buildout of alternatives”. He, of course, made these statements at the same time Shell is experiencing record profit, which is reminder that Shell’s investors may not actually share the expressed sense of urgency. The emergency status quo is going quite nicely for Shell:
Echoing those sentiments at the signing ceremony was the head of TotalEnergy, Patrick Pouyanné, who indicated that Euope needed to build a future without Russian gas at all. In other words, record profits for the energy sector for years to come...at least until that energy sector finally builds out the alternatives that could replace Russian energy:
Now, if this was just energy company executives making these kinds of predictions of elevated energy prices for years to come it would be easier to dismiss this as wishful thinking from the industry. But when you have Belgium’s energy minister predicting 5 to 10 more years of “difficult” energy prices, it sounds like EU governments are thinking along similar lines:
And as the lessons from the UK price spikes remind us, this isn’t just an EU issue. The European scramble to replace that Russian gas and oil has been pushing up wholesale prices for everyone:
And that brings us to the following article about the global nature of the energy price crisis. A global crisis that’s leading to record-breaking profits for one oil and gas multinational after another:
“But for major multinational fossil fuel companies, it’s the best of times.”
It’s not just great times. It’s the best of times. At least if you’re a major multinational oil and gas firm. Not just European firms. Chevron and ExxonMobil joined Shell and Total in recording blockbuster returns. Even coal miners are getting in on the action. And when EU countries have tied to claw back some of those exorbitant profits, the companies are apparently just ignoring the windfall taxes. Good times:
And note the observations from climate activists regarding the claims from these oil giants that high energy prices will help fuel a transition to greener alternatives: It’s all talk and not actually happening. And why would it without governments forcing it to happen? The current situation is perfect for the energy giants. Why ruin it:
Endless war coupled with endless dithering on alternatives is indeed the industry’s sweet spot. There’s no real denying it. False promises from Big Oil about a greener tomorrow is a cottage industry. A cottage industry set to get turbo charged with record profits for years to come. Record profits that are going to be a lot more sustainable without green alternatives or Russian energy.
That’s the depressing takeaway lesson from these articles: while it might be tempting to assume that a period of elevated energy prices is just what ‘the market’ needs to finance a transition to a green energy tomorrow, ‘the market’ might have other ideas for how to spend those windfall profits. It’s all a reminder that the industrial scale collapsing of the environment isn’t just an existential threat. It’s also the greatest profit opportunity in history. Mostly short-term profits, obviously.
The celebration over Ukraine’s rapid recapture of lost territories around Kharkiv has unsurprisingly already led to talk about the ‘liberation’ of the entirety of Ukraine’s lost territories, including the separatist republics of Luhansk and Donetsk. We’re even hearing talk of Ukraine driving Russia out of Crimea. And while all of that talk may be wildly premature, it’s worth noting what we aren’t hearing amidst all this talk about the recapture of those lost territories: what to do with all of the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who actually live in those territories, many who no longer feel any sense of loyalty to a Ukrainian government that has long treated them as an enemy? What’s the plan for all of these people?
That’s the question the following piece wrestles with. A piece made all the more powerful by the fact that it was written by a Ukrainian who clearly opposes Russia’s role in this conflict and wants Ukraine to ultimately win back all those lost territories. As the author puts it, the “superfluous people” of Eastern Ukraine are basically going to be two choices: go live in Russia, or stay in Ukraine in a society locked in a permanent mental war with Russia and all things ‘Russian’ including any internal ‘Russian’ enemies. A society defined by its opposition to Russia. An obsessive opposition poised to become the new ‘Great Reason’ for a permanent war footing and a permanent internal war against anything or anyone perceived to be sympathetic with a permanent enemy always just over the border. That’s the plan for these ‘superfuous people’. At least that’s what we have to assume since there’s never any talk about any other plans for them:
“Since Russia won’t disappear from the globe, the proximity to it and the memory of the invasion will always make it possible, even necessary, to prepare for war. This is how the war becomes the Great Reason, the question and the answer, the unifying, initiating force, nation’s idea, our very orbit. In the meantime, while the main external enemy remains out of reach, we will deal with the reachable, internal “enemy.””
The writing is on the wall. It’s abundantly clear that there is zero interest insider the Ukrainian government in any meaningful reintegration of the ‘superfluous’ populations in the country’s east. On the contrary, all signs point towards these populations becoming the new internal enemy who precipitating the war and who will have to be dealt with once and forever:
And let’s not forget that it’s going to be groups like Azov and other modern-day offshoots of the OUN‑B/UPA perpetrators of Holocaust in Ukraine who are likely to be playing increasingly prominent roles in Ukraine’s national security state for the foreseeable future.
So while it may seem like there’s no plan for these ‘superfluous’ populations, we can be pretty confident that groups like Azov or political parties like Svoboda have a plan for dealing with populations they would rather just disappear. That’s all part of the grim context of this story: just because we aren’t hearing from Ukraine’s leadership about plans for the reintegration of the Donbass and Crimea, that doesn’t mean there aren’t plans. These movements do have a history of getting away with unspeakably horrific plans no one was openly talking about, after all.
With Russian President Vladimir Putin declaring a national mobilization for the war in Ukraine and the prospects of years-long conflict growing by the day, here’s a pair of articles to keep in mind regarding the growing role of the US as Europe’s energy-supplier of choice. Because as the articles make clear, the longer this war in Ukraine goes, the greater the fundamental transformations to both the European and US economies. Because the longer the conflict goes, the more we should expect to see European heavy industries literally relocate their long-term operations to the US in search of steady cheap energy. European industries can handle a couple of years of elevated energy prices, but beyond that they’re going to to start looking elsewhere.
And with the recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act by the Biden administration, the US is an even more tempting long-term destination. That’s largely thanks to the industrial subsidies for ‘blue hydrogen’ — hydrogen produced from fossil fuels where the carbon produced is capture — that form one of the centerpieces of the bill. Subsidies for production of blue carbon are guaranteed for the next decade and will obviously likely be extended. And thanks to those subsidies, there’s an expected explosion of investments in US hydrogen production. Hydrogen that is projected to be dominated by use in the transportation industry (to power electric vehicles) but can also be used for everything from electricity production to coking coal in steel production. In other words, thanks to a war with no end, the newly subsidized US hydrogen economy is exactly what energy-hungry European industries are increasingly looking for:
“Danish jewelry company Pandora A/S and German auto maker Volkswagen AG announced U.S. expansions earlier this year. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported Tesla Inc. is pausing its plans to make battery cells in Germany as it looks at qualifying for tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act signed by President Biden in August.”
The US isn’t just becoming Europe’s new natural gas provider of choice as a result of the war in Ukraine. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, and with the war in Ukraine looking like it could last for years, the US is increasingly being viewed as the location for future major industrial investments under the premise of more stable of affordable long-term energy costs. European manufacturers can handle a couple of years of elevated energy prices. But if this goes on much longer than that, the US starts looking more and more like the place for major future industrial investments. Investments backed by the new US government ‘blue hydrogen’ subsidies found in the newly-passed Inflation Reduction Act. In other words, the longer the war in Ukraine keeps energy prices elevated in Europe, the better the prospects for the US economy. It’s not exactly a healthy dynamic:
As we can see, the US made a very big bet on hydrogen and this is coinciding with a European energy crisis with no end in sight. And the worse the situation gets for European industries, the more tantalizing the energy-subsidized US-economy looks for those industries. As the following article excerpt describes, the Inflation Reduction Act is granting these subsidies for 10 years, although we can be pretty confident they’ll be extended. Subsidies for the energy industry tend to linger. But that’s just part of what is expected to be a massive national investment in the hydrogen economy and all of the infrastructure needed for this economy. It’s a long-term agenda. The kind of long-term agenda that aligns well with the kinds of long-term decades-long investments major industries make when deciding where to locate their production facilities. That’s part of the context of the temptation the current situation in Europe creates for European industries: Europe’s war-driven energy crisis is tempting these industries to make very long-term decisions to relocate at the same time the US promising long-term subsidies to industries:
“The tax credit will spur hydrogen producers to develop cleaner ways to synthesize hydrogen, which is used to make fertilizer and in other industrial processes. But it could also catalyze a whole new category of companies looking to use clean hydrogen as a replacement for fossil fuels in areas such as shipping, aviation, heavy industry, and as a way to store and transport energy.”
It’s an industrial revolution. At least that’s the hype/promise of the next-generation hydrogen economy getting turbo-charged with by the newly-passed Inflation Reduction Act, with a 10 year tax credit that will presumably be extended for decades to come. As long as companies capture the carbon released in the processes used to make the hydrogen, they get the subsidies. And expectations are that these incentives are enough to get the kind of infrastructure needed for this technology in 7–8 years. So at the same time Europe is seeing its industries face a multi-year freeze, the US is double-down on a major investments poised to lure those European industries away. The key ingredient is an extended war in Ukraine and extended high European energy prices:
The appeal to heavy industry includes using hydrogen as a replacement for energy intensive industrial processes like coking coal in the production of steal. And yet note how heavy industry is still only viewed as a minor consumer of the hydrogen-based economy. It’s transportation where the usage is expected to be extensive. That’s part of the context of this overall story: the emergence of the US hydrogen economy that could lure away European heavy industry is really just a sub-chapter in a much larger story of a planned industrial transformation across the transportation economy:
Another part of this story is how it relates to the disaster-prone Texas electricity grid. 95% of the hydrogen produced in the US is based on a process called steam methane reforming, based on a source like natural gas. At the same time, hydrogen can be used to produce electricity in turbine similar to natural gas and can even by spiked into existing natural gas turbines. It’s a situation that suggests Texas is going to be central in both producing and consuming hydrogen-based energy. With all of the nightmare this such a situation entails. So good luck to the residents of Texas as they are increasingly living in the middle of giant energy-industry profit-center. A profit center focused on exporting as much of that energy out of the area as possible:
Also note how the hydrogen produced in China is, currently, primarily based on coal gasification. In other words, some sort of variation on the Fischer–Tropsch reaction. It will be interesting to see if the US attempts to develop its own Fischer-Tropsh industry in response as this hydrogen economy is fleshed out:
As long as the hydrogen generated from fossil fuels is capture, it’s considered ‘blue hydrogen’ and open to these subsidies. But the hydrogen doesn’t just have to come from fossil fuels. Electricity from any source is all that’s required to generate hydrogen from simply water. Solar, wind, and any other renewable can produce hydrogen. Still, with just 1 percent of hydrogen in the US produced using green electricity, it’s clear that the fossil fuels have a huge advantage in this sector. Hopefully the subsidies shift that balance:
But then there’s the palpable interest in nuclear-powered hydrogen, or ‘pink hydrogen’. Recall how a group of US billionaires including Bill Gates have been aggressively pushing next-generation ‘cheap’ nuclear reactor designs for US electricity production. It sounds like hydrogen-production could be the end-use for some of that ‘cheap’ nuclear power:
Let’s hope this doesn’t end up becoming a nuclear ‘boom’. Don’t forget one of the major downsides of those new Natrium sodium-cooled nuclear reactors Bill Gates keeps promoting: they run on Uranium so highly enriched it could potentially be used to make nuclear weapons. Promoting the proliferation of industrial uses for weapons-grade nuclear weapons seems like a rather high price to pay for clean energy.
And along those lines, we had better not hope WWIII develops as a result of war that’s going to be driving this historic transformation to both the US and European economies. Plenty of nuclear-weapons-related risks there too.
With inflation caused by the global energy crisis and sanctions against Russian gas potentially remaining elevated for years to come, here’s a pair of article that underscore one of the big decisions the EU has to make soon. Big decisions with potentially big long-term commitments behind them. Decisions like whether or not to focus on expanding the EU’s renewable energy capacity vs signing up for new decades-long LNG investments with exporters like Qatar.
It’s not going to be an easy decision. As we’re going to see, the EU is already generating record levels of renewable energy, which is played a significant role in tamping down inflation this year. But there’s been another factor helping to keep a lid on energy prices as Europe enters the winter months: the continent managed to nearly fill up its natural gas storage capacity this year.
And as we’re also going to see, there’s no guarantee the EU is going to be able to repeat that goal of topping off the tanks next year. That’s the prediction we’re getting from Qatar’s energy minister, Saad al-Kaabi, who is predicting that the EU isn’t going to be able to refill those storage tanks next year without Russian gas. It’s just not possible, in al-Kaabi’s view, even with a renewed emphasis on renewables. Without Russian gas, the EU is going to be forced to restart nuclear power plants and deepen its reliance on coal and other dirty fossil fuels. That’s just the reality of the situation, as Qatar sees it.
In addition, al-Kaabi is warning that Qatar isn’t interested in short-term contracts. It prefers to deal in contracts that last decades. So if EU members want to use Qatar gas to fill in the gap created by lost supplies of Russian gas, they might have to make multi-decade-long contracts.
This is a good time to recall how Russia and Iran are reportedly eyeing Qatar for the creation of a ‘gas OPEC’ and Qatar has indicated some interest in the idea. Will the EU be refilling its storage tanks in the face of a new ‘gas OPEC’ this time next year? It sounds possible.
Also recall how we’ve been hearing warnings about European gas shortages for years to come from the petroleum industry itself. Recall how the chief of Shell was predicting European gas shortages for “several winters” back in August.
Finally, recall how China accounts for nearly half of the world’s renewable energy capacity. That’s also a factor in this situation: China is moving further and further ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to renewable energy. And as Europe and current learning, renewables have a lot of advantages.
That’s all part of the what makes the decisions the EU needs to make soon incredibly difficult decisions to make. The EU is locked in a short-term crisis that threatens to become a permanent crisis. How should the continent respond? Are decades-long Qatari LNG contracts a good response to what might be a short-term conflict in Ukraine? Should the continent use this as an excuse to build for the future with an emphasis on renewables? Those decisions have to be made and made soon. Because as cold as this winter is looking for Europe, it’s going to be a warm cozy delight compared to what’s coming next year:
“Nineteen of the EU’s 27 member states have achieved record wind and solar generation since March, the report found.”
Record renewables across Europe. It’s unambiguously good news, even if this good news is happening within the context of the war in Ukraine. Increased renewables may not be enough to fill the gap created by the sanctions on Russian gas. But its undeniable that the EU’s untapped renewable energy capacity — which is finally being tapped this years — has been playing a major role in countering the massive inflation sweeping the continent. It’s a valuable lesson: renewables aren’t just vital for combating the existential long-term risk of climate change. They’re great hedges against energy-related inflation:
Let’s hope Europe internalizes this lesson, but let’s also hope it’s not just Europe. The whole world needs to be transitioning to renewables, after all.
And also note the important detail that has helped the EU avoid even higher energy prices heading into this winter: the EU’s LNG storage capacity is nearly full. A situation that’s obviously not going be maintained throughout the winter:
And that brings us to the following Financial Times article with an ominous warning from Qatar’s energy minister Saad al-Kaabi. Recall how Russia and Iran are reportedly eyeing Qatar for the creation of a ‘gas OPEC’ and Qatar has indicated some interest in the idea. That looming ‘gas OPEC’ should be kept in mind when interpreting al-Kaabi’s predictions for the EU’s energy crisis heading into next winter. Predictions that the EU won’t actually be able to refill its gas storage tanks by this time next year. At least not without Russian gas:
“LNG prices have soared globally since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Benchmark prices for north Asia hit $70 per million British thermal units (mmbtu) in August, more than twice the price at the start of the year. TTF, the European benchmark for pipeline gas and LNG, reached €311 per megawatt hour ($88.5/mmbtu) in August, up nearly 250 per cent compared with the start of the year. Prices have since fallen in both Europe and Asia because of milder weather and Europe’s gas storage reaching nearly full capacity.”
It could be worse. That’s the ominous assessment of the EU’s disastrous energy markets. It could be a lot worse if the EU hadn’t managed to top off its gas storage capacity and the weather wasn’t relatively mild. It could have been worse and will be worse next year if Qatari energy minister Saad al-Kaabi’s prediction is correct. A prediction that Europe isn’t going to be able to repeat the goal of filling up those storage tanks. In other words, next winter could be an exceptionally cold one for the EU. Brutally cold if it happens to be a colder-than-average winter:
So what’s the EU going to do in preparation for next winter? This is where al-Kaabi’s warnings get particularly ominous. Because it doesn’t sound like there’s a lot the EU can in the short-run. Energy infrastructure takes years to build. The short-term decisions are largely limited to fighting over existing gas supplies in the global markets and/or approving the use of readily available energy alternatives that aren’t already being used at maximum capacity like coal, nuclear, and other fossil fuels. And with renewables already getting maxed out it’s not like there’s readily available extra renewable capacity to tap. New renewable infrastructure will have to be invested in, which takes time.
At the same time, as EU nations are discovering, LNG suppliers like Qatar aren’t interested in short-term contracts. If the EU wants to secure new LNG supplies from Qatar its going to have to make multi-decade commitments for supplies that aren’t going to be available for years. And as al-Kaabi also warned, all of this new European interest in securing new LNG contracts has Asian nations scrambling to secure their own long-term contracts with suppliers like Qatar:
The EU has some major decisions to make with the war in Ukraine showing no sign of abating and the growing prospect of no Russian gas for years to come. Short-term and long-term decisions. With the continent refocus on expanding its renewables capacity? Open the flood gates to nuclear and coal? Or commit to decades of LNG supplies from places like Qatar? The answer will presumably be a mix of all of the above. But it’s still going to be interesting to see how that mix is allocated. Grimly interesting as the case may be.
Is a new ‘Iron Curtain’ on the way for Europe? Yes, if Poland has anything to say about it. At least that’s the conclusion that’s hard to avoid arriving at when watching the border spat between Poland and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad play out. As we’re going to see, Poland is raising the alarm about a new form of Russian warfare that’s about be launched against it out of Kaliningrad. Hybrid warfare in the form of swarms of Middle East and North African refugees who are going to be forced into Poland by Russian authorities. Yep, Poland is laying down razor wire across its entire border with Kaliningrad over fears that hordes of people from the Middle East and North Africa are going to invade Poland from the enclave.
So how exactly are people from the Middle East and North Africa going to reach this Russian enclave in the first place? Russia is going to fly them all in. That’s the accusation Poland’s government is making following the decision by Russia’s aviation authorities to allow flights from the Middle East and North Africa into Kaliningrad. It’s all part of a giant plot to fly in thousands of refugees who will be unleashed on Poland. Hence the need for razor wire across the entire Poland-Kalningrad border.
Keep in mind that Kaliningrad only shares borders with two countries: Poland and Lithuania. Also recall how Lithuania cut off rail access to Kaliningrad over the summer, only lifting the blockade in July after EU courts order a reversal of the policy. So both of Kaliningrad’s direct neighbors appear to be very keen to cut of land access to the Russian enclave.
How is this going to play out? As the following article notes, Poland has already built a high steel wall on its border with Belarus in responds to refugees from the Middle East flowing to Poland from Belarus. Is the razor wire along the border of Kaliningrad set to be replaced with a steel wall? We’ll see, but Poland is clearly in a wall-building mood.
And let’s not forget that the underlying factor driving all this wall-building fervor — the conflict with Russia — doesn’t look likely to end any time soon. In other words, Poland and Lithuania are both going to have plenty of time to finish any desired walls before the underlying tensions are allowed to dissipate. And that’s all why we have to start asking whether or not we’re in store for a new kind of ‘reverse-Berlin-Wall’ built by the West designed to keep people from reaching the West and impose and economic stranglehold on that enclave:
“Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said a recent decision by Russia’s aviation authority to launch flights from the Middle East and North Africa to Kaliningrad led him to reinforce Poland’s 210-kilometer (130-mile) border with Kaliningrad.”
Kaliningrad is allowing people from the Middle East and North Africa to fly into the country. WE BETTER BUILD A WALL! That’s the over-the-top antics Poland’s government has been engaging in over the past few weeks. And that’s on top of the high steel wall Poland built on its border with Belarus over the past year. It’s the era of ‘Fortress Poland’, apparently:
First we had Lithuania cutting off Kaliningrad’s rail access until the EU forced the country to lift the blockade back in July. And now we have Poland laying down razor wire across the entire border, with the prospects for building a full steel wall. What’s next?
Beyond the question of ‘what’s next’ is are all the questions of what’s after ‘what’s next’? This is a conflict that could go on for years. These kinds border games are presumably only going to get amplified over time. Both of Kaliningrads direct neighbors have an appetite for some sort of Kalinigrad blockade. So what are the odds that we aren’t going to see a full blockade by the time this conflict is over?
And with the prospects for a ‘steel curtain’ ringing Kaliningrad growing as this conflict deepens, it’s worth taking a look at what kinds of lessons we can take from the Berlin Wall experience. Europe is is building itself a new political/economic enclave. What can we learn from that last enclave of this nature? So here’s a recently republished piece by William Blum — first published in 2011 — looking back on the general misunderstanding in the West about the nature of why the Berlin Wall was put up in the first place. Contrary to the popular myths, the wall wasn’t set up to prevent the oppressed citizens of East Germany from getting exposed to Western freedoms. Thousands of East Germans routinely commuted to jobs in the West only to return home in the East in the evening and many went back and forth for shopping or other reasons. There were concerns about East Germans ‘fleeing’ to the West, although it wasn’t so much flee as getting aggressively recruited as part of a Western campaign of recruiting as many East German skilled professionals. Professionals whose value to the West German economy became very apparent after the Wall was put up and West Berlin suffered economically after experiencing the loss of ~60,000 skilled workers who made daily commutes.
But beyond this aggressive recruitment campaign of East German skilled professionals was an outright sabotage campaign being orchestrated by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies. Agents reportedly used explosives, arson, short circuiting, and other methods to damage power stations, shipyards, canals, docks, public buildings, gas stations, public transportation, bridges, etc. The Berlin Wall less about preventing the East German public was getting seduced by the allure of the West than it was an economic security move driven by an active sabotage campaign. The sabotage made free commerce too expensive. It’s a rather salient fact given that Poland is now basically justifying its walls on the pretext of preventing Russian ‘hybrid warfare’. It was literally hybrid economic warfare that the East Germans were dealing with. Real economic warfare, as opposed to Poland’s hyped claims.
And as Blum also points out, flash forward to 1999 — 10 years after the fall of the Berlin wall — polls found East Germans were largely disappointed with life under capitalism and looking back fondly on what communism provided. A majority of East Germans at the time said their lives were happier under communism. It’s not exactly the story the West tells itself about why the Berlin Wall went up in the first place and what happened after it fell. So with a new political/economic ‘wall’/blockade popping up in Europe looking increasingly possible, it’s worth recall how we still don’t really understand why the last ‘wall’ happened in the first place:
“It was in the post-unification period that a new Russian and Eastern Europe proverb was born: “Everything the Communists said about Communism was a lie, but everything they said about capitalism turned out to be the truth.””
It’s one of the West’s best kept and worst kept secrets: life under capitalism actually sucks for most people. At least sucks in comparison to what it could be. Sure, it could be worse. But it could be so much better. And was better for the people of East Germany. The longing for that better life was still palpably there in 2009, 20 years after the fall:
But beyond a general misunderstanding of what the quality of life was like under communism — a collective misunderstanding that assures valid critiques of how capitalism is practice are never really learned — is the misunderstanding of why the Wall was put up in the first place. It was a response to sabotage. Deadly sabotage in some cases including arson and mass poisonings:
Full-spectrum economic sabotage. That was the West’s actual covert policy and the underlying reason for the Wall in the first place. Flash forward to 2022, and we have Poland justifying the construction of walls across two of its borders based entirely on accusations of Russia and Belarusian ‘hybrid-warfare’. The kind of ‘hybrid-warfare’ that requires a wall to stop it. As they say, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. So it’s also worth recalling that it was the side that built the wall last time that ultimately ended up tearing it down in an act of collective public defiance fueled by a sense of profound disillusioned with the government. It will be interesting to see how much rhyming of that nature we end up hearing this time around.
Here’s a set of stories that are particularly alarming in light of the bust of the “Order of Hagal” Italian terror plot by neo-Nazi group with close ties to Ukrainian Nazi battalions and a member currently fighting with Azov. The kind of story that raises the question, “what if those Italian neo-Nazis planning the terror plot also had weaponized drones capable of dropping bombs?” Questions like that. Along with questions about the general budget of Nazi terror cells because it sounds like the weaponized drones they’re using in Ukraine to drop bombs can be put together for around $20k. And that’s only going to get cheaper.
The threat of drone-based terrorism isn’t new for the US. We’ve been getting warnings about that growing threat for years, including an attack on the electrical grid at a Pennsylvania electric substation last year with a cheap commercially available drone. A still-anonymous attack.
But as we’re going to see in the following set of articles, there is something new about today’s drone-based threat environment. Commercially-available drones haven’t always being heavily used as weapons of war on the battlefield. But they are now. Drones are turning out to be central to Ukraine’s war effort. Military-grade drones but increasingly commercially available drones too. Modified commercially available drones that are being turned into sophisticated bomb-delivery systems proven capable of taking out hundreds of Russian armor vehicles. In additional to powerful battlefield intelligence tools.
And as we’re also going to see, the sophisticated modern battlefield information systems Ukraine is using — a system that shares real-time battlefield intelligence from disparate sources that helps makes decisions on when and where to attack — was developed with NATO and represents a cutting-edge battlefield platform that NATO is increasingly learning from. In other words, Ukraine is turning into a next-generation weapons-testing giant experiment. Lessons that will shape NATO military investments for decades to come are being learned. And it sure sounds like those lessons are that drones are increasingly the future.
Sure, we already knew drones are the future of warfare. But that future is looking even more drone-centric thanks to the lessons being learned in Ukraine. Lessons like the power of remote-controlled boats packed with explosives. And also lessons about the military utility of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite cluster. There’s going to be a lot more satellite clusters in the future. Drone warfare will depend on them. At least until there’s a catastrophic ‘Kessler’s Syndrome’ chain-reaction event that takes the clusters out.
That’s all part of the context of the latest warning issued by the US government about the growing domestic terror posed by drones. As FBI director Christopher Wray acknowledge during a congressional hearing, “As the threat continues to grow, we’re investigating, even as we speak, several instances within the US, of attempts to weaponize drones with homemade IEDs [improvised explosive devices], and that is the future that is here now.” The future of homemade IED drones is here now. That was Wray’s comment during a hearing about a bill co-sponsored by Senators Gary Peters and Ron Johnson that would renew and expand authority under the Justice Department and Homeland Security to track, seize, or even destroy an unmanned drone when it poses a credible threat. Senator Peters specifically expressed concern about the use of commercial drones in Ukraine to drop bombs and the possibility of that coming home to the US.
The US government’s existing authority to counter malicious drones is set to expire on Dec. 16, so we’re presumably going to see some sort of reauthorization of that authority. It’s kind of hard to imagine that not happening at this point. Methods for weaponizing commercial drones into lethal anonymously controlled weapons systems are being honed in Ukraine, today’s international hub for white supremacist terror networks. It’s the kind of threat is presumably freaking out governments around the world. And especially governments in the West where so many of the foreign fighters who are going to be bringing home these drone-modification skills hail from. The killer-drone future is now thanks to the war in Ukraine:
“Commercial drones are already being used in the war in Ukraine for both surveillance and to drop drop bombs. Sen. Peters is now worried the same could take place in the US.”
Yeah, that’s quite an alarming warning to get from the head of the FBI: commercial drones might be used in the US the same way they’re currently being used in Ukraine. As lethal weapons of war. Affordable DIY weapons of war.
The kind of weapons that are perfect for a domestic destabilization campaign. This is a good time how the US was reportedly working with the Venezuelan militants that carried out a drone assassination attempt against Nicolas Maduro that nearly worked.
And, of course, there’s the fact that the US has already been supplying Ukraine with military-grade drones like the quasi-autonomous Switchblade drones and Phoenix Ghost drones, with minimal ability to track where these weapons go after they reach the battlefield. So while the current warnings from the FBI are specifically related to cheap lethal commercially-available drones being used in the US, there’s also the very real risks of these military-grade drones falling into the wrong hands.
But as the following Business Insider article from back in April makes clear, these commercially available drones are plenty lethal. At least if you know what you’re doing. That’s been one of the powerful lessons military observers are drawing from the fighting in Ukraine. In particular, the fighting done by Aerorozvidka, a unit of volunteers specializing in taking commercially available drones and converting them in lethal battlefield weapons. For example, the octocopter R‑18 built from scratch has a range of 4km, a 40 minute flight time, and can drop 5kg bombs. It cost ~$20k to build and can be reused over and over.
As the article describes, Aerorozvidka is broken up into three units: the drone team, a cybersecurity team, and the Delta team. Delta is a NATO-supported web-based situation awareness system that creates a map of Russian targets using information from various sources. Drone reconnaissance data from the drone team is part of the Delta information streams. So when it comes to the question of what types of intelligence the FBI is working from when it issued its warnings about drone-based IEDs, the fact that NATO is working with a Ukrainian unit that specializes in making bomb-dropping drones is presumably one of the alarming pieces of intelligence they were working with:
“The unit uses a range of drones, many of which are commonly available store-bought drones that they modify and militarize, including Chinese DJI drones and Autel drones, French Parrot drones, and more.”
The weaponization of commercially-available drones. It’s quite a skillset. And that skillset is getting honed with each passing month in Ukraine, and has been developing since the Aerorozvidka group’s start in 2014. They had eight years already to learn how to do this:
For just $20k, you can build a drone capable of dropping 5 kg bombs, which have proven to be enough to destroy Russian vehicles. Imagine the terror potential from such a device. How many people know how do build these things by now? It’s unclear, but what is unambiguous is that Ukraine has an incentive to ensure a large number of people know how to build them. In other words, this is presumably a skill that proliferating in Ukraine right now:
But the bomb-dropping drones are just one part of what Aerorozvidka does. There’s also the Delta team, which works with the NATO-developed Delta battlefield situational awareness system:
And that reference to the Aerorozvidka’s Delta team brings us to the following New York Times article about the transformation of Ukraine into a next-generation weapons-testing platform that could shape the nature of military investments by military powers around the world for years to come. Powerful lessons are being learned about the next generation of warfare. And as the article makes clear, one of those powerful lessons is vital importance of drones in modern combat. Whether it’s intelligence-collecting drones or bomb-dropping drones, or even drone-boats capable of attacking large ships, the future if warfare is remotely controlled:
“Delta is one example of how Ukraine has become a testing ground for state-of-the-art weapons and information systems, and new ways to use them, that Western political officials and military commanders predict could shape warfare for generations to come.”
Delta isn’t just a new weapons platform build for Ukraine. It’s a cutting edge state-of-the-art information system. One of many NATO-developed platforms getting tested on the Ukrainian battlefield. Wildly successfully tested in the case of the drone use against the columns of Russian vehicles advancing towards Kiev:
It’s also worth noting how much Delta resembles the original mission of the internet’s ARPANET predecessor built for collecting disparate intelligence sources for the Vietnam war. Delta is like an advanced ARPANET, with additional bomb-dropping capabilities.
And then there’s the remote-controlled boats provided to Ukraine by the US and Germany. Remote controlled boats packed with explosives. It’s a reminder that the domestic terror threat from drones includes a lot more than just the flying drones everyone is now familiar with. Boat drones are an option too. And you can pack a lot more explosives onto a boat than you can into a flying drone:
And if the words of Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s vice prime minister and minister of digital transformation, are any indication of what to expect as this war plays out, Ukraine is only going to be more and more invested in military drone technology for years to come. Presumably with NATO’s assistance:
Ukraine sees the “maximum drones and minimal humans” future because it’s living it. From the military-grade drone donated by the US and other NATO allies to the DIY commercial drone, the Ukrainian military is going to want all things drone and will for the foreseeable future.
Of course, terrorists of all stripes are also going to be salivating over weaponized drones as these technologies become more and more accessible, which is what Christopher Wray was testifying about before Senators worried about drone tech in Ukraine coming home. We can be pretty confident the US is going to extend its authorization to take down suspicious drones. Drone defenses are going to increasingly seen as vital to not just nation security but private security. Drones are only going to get more and more powerful. Along with all the technologies drones are going to be capable of carrying. Today it’s cameras, bombs and missiles. Who knows what tomorrow will bring for the world of weaponized drones. But DIY drone weaponization techniques are getting turbo-charged in Ukraine right now so we can also be pretty confident drone-delivered terror is coming home to a NATO member at some point.
It’s just a matter of time. Yes, it was always just a matter of time. It’s just a lot less time thanks to all the inevitable blowback.
What are the implications of a transatlantic trade war given the going fighting in Ukraine? As the following pair of articles describe, it’s a question we might get an answer to sooner rather than later. Because there’s an economic dispute brewing between the US and EU and it’s unclear what’s going to resolve it outside of an end to the conflict in Ukraine and a resumption of Russian oil and gas flows to Europe.
As we’ve seen, US oil and gas companies are making incredible profits as a result of the war in Ukraine and resulting sanctions on Russian gas. But it’s not just US energy firms recording these record profits. EU firms are experiencing them too. As we’ve also seen, energy prices are so much cheaper in the US and look likely to remain cheaper far enough into the future that EU firms are increasingly considering relocating to the US.
Those record profits are very much still irking EU governments. Large profits for US defense manufacturers making a killing from the war in Ukraine are also part of the dispute. But as the articles describe, there’s another growing reason for EU anger at the US that’s not directly related to the war in Ukraine although very much tied into the overall energy crisis: the “Buy American” provisions in the Democrats’ historic Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). As the EU sees it, the IRA’s subsidies for green energy — including a $7,500 for electric vehicles built in the US — are discriminatory against EU car manufacturers. France and Germany appear to be particularly angered by the new law.
But as we’re also going to see, the Democrats have no appetite for modifying their signature legislation that was designed to create new green manufacturing jobs in the US. So how is this dispute going to be resolved? Dueling subsidies, it appears. At least that’s what EU leaders are hinting at. A new transatlantic industry subsidy ‘race’.
So that’s the fascinating new dynamic unfolding as the war in Ukraine plays out. The longer the conflict goes, keeping energy prices sky high in the EU, the more intensely that subsidy ‘race’ is going to get. Which presumably also means the record profits currently experienced by the US and EU energy sector will be even greater for years to come. At least that’s the dynamic in play as long as the EU remains firmly committed to supporting the war in Ukraine and the energy sanctions that come with that support:
““The fact is, if you look at it soberly, the country that is most profiting from this war is the U.S. because they are selling more gas and at higher prices, and because they are selling more weapons,” one senior official told POLITICO. ”
All’s fair in love and war. But excessive profit taking between allies is just unseemly. That appears to be the gist of the EU’s simmering anger over the growing number of ways the US has been profiting handsomely at the expense of the EU lately. First, there’s the immediate issue of the war in Ukraine and subsequent sanctions on Russian gas forcing the EU to buy expensive US LNG that somehow ends up costing four times as much by the time it reaches EU consumers. The US points the finger at EU middlemen, but EU officials don’t seem to find that explanation convincing:
There’s also the obvious profiteering taking in the US defense sector. Profiteering that could go on for years as the depleted stocks of military equipment are slowly replaced with US-made hardware:
But it’s an issue that has nothing directly to do with the war in Ukraine that appears to be most angering the US’s EU allies, although it’s very tangentially-related: the “Buy American” subsidies for electric vehicles in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that only applies to cars built in the US. Recall how the prospects of high energy prices for years to come in the EU, coupled with the new subsidies for green energy in the IRA that has a growing number of EU businesses considering relocating their operations to the US. That incentive to relocate to the US is potentially even higher for EU car manufacturers. That’s what the EU is freaking out about:
And that EU panic could end up manifesting into a new trade war. A trade war of dueling energy subsidies for industry. It points towards a potential dynamic as the war in Ukraine continues: the longer the war goes and the worse the economic situation gets for EU industries, the greater the public subsidies for industries. Subsidies that could easily end up staying in place long after the war in Ukraine in over:
So what are the odds of the US relenting and modifying the IRA to include EU manufacturers in the green subsidies? Well, as the following article describes, the Democrats have basically zero appetite for the idea of reopening and modifying their historic legislation. Which means a fight is probably what we should expect. The kind of fight that will likely result in a new race. A race over dueling energy subsidies for industry:
“The legislation’s $369 billion in climate investments provide subsidies for U.S. green industry and offer a hefty consumer tax credit for electric vehicles built in North America. And that’s exactly how it should work, the Democrats say.”
The $369 billion green energy centerpiece of the Democrats’ historic legislation
. Subsidies designed to encourage electric vehicle and other green energy investments are built in the US. That’s the thing that the EU is demanding be modified. And while it does appear that there are options that could satisfy the EU — like granting the $7,500 per vehicle subsidy to EVs built in the EU — it doesn’t sound like Democrats have any appetite for these proposals. It’s no mystery as to why. The IRA is great politics, at least domestically speaking:
And then there’s the reality that the existing trade relationship between the US and EU wasn’t exactly fair and balanced. As we’ve seen, the eurozone monetary union — and the Ordoliberal economic philosophy guiding it — is effectively a giant boon for EU exporters in countries like Germany due to the relatively cheap value of the euro vs Deutschmark or other high-value domestic currencies. Plus there’s all the other asymmetric protectionist measures tilted in favor the EU. In other words, the protectionist measures in the IRA that has the EU all riled up is arguably long overdue:
So how will the EU respond? It appears it’s going to use both a carrot and stick approach, with the stick being the threat of a “Buy European Act” unless the US agrees to include EU-built cars in the IRA’s subsidies:
But it’s the ‘carrot’ threat of setting up dueling EU industry subsidies intended to keep EU industries from relocating that appears to be what we should expect at this point. A clean energy subsidy race:
Who’s going to ultimately win this subsidy race? The US or the EU? Neither, of course. The winners are the industries that are going to be getting all these subsidies. As well as the energy sector on both sides of the Atlantic, which will presumably continue raking in exorbitant now-subsidized profits. And, hopefully, the environment the future generations will end up winners. At least in the long, run should these subsidies actually result in the explosion of green energy technologies as intended. We’ll see if that’s what actually happens. It’s a gamble. The kind of gamble that the most profitable industries on the planet are guaranteed to win no matter how it plays out, as per usual.
The Ukrainian neoliberal paradise isn’t just continuing to take shape, but accelerating, one rushed radical new set of laws at a time. That’s the grim message delivered in the following openDemocracy report on the recently passed bill that promises to put private property developers in control of urban planning for Ukraine. A bill that was filled with so many last minute amendments that standard legislative procedures were bypassed and the final version of the bill wasn’t even publicly available during the December 13th vote. A vote that only passed by two votes, which was remarkable for a bill that previously had much stronger support. It’s a reflection of just how awful a bill it ultimately ended up being.
Remarkably, it appears the bill was only passed with the support of a number of MPs from the ‘pro-Russian’ parties banned by the Zelenskiy government earlier this year. The very next day, a vote was done to strip those MPs of their seats (the stripping of MPs’ seats is something that’s been going on throughout the year). So this abomination of a property development bill was barely passed with the support of MPs who were poised to have their seats stripped the very next day.
But it’s also important to keep some other important timing here: that is bill was passed one week before Zelenskiy made a trip to DC where he implored the US government for more military aid. And it’s hard to imagine the rushed passage of that property developer bill the week before wasn’t done with Zelenskiy’s upcoming trip in mind. Because while that bill was a boon for Ukraine’s domestic property developers, it’s also obviously the kind of ‘pro-international investor’ law the that US and IMF has imposing on Ukraine for close to a decade now. Step by step, Ukraine really is being turned into a neoliberal paradise. A paradise for international investors. Not so much for Ukrainians, who are poised to lose the right to protest at construction sites to protect historic buildings as a result of this law.
As we’ve seen, collective bargaining is no longer an option for most Ukrainian workers thanks to the recently passed bill, Bill 5371. A bill developed by a Ukrainian NGO, the Office of Simple Solutions and Results, which was set up by former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, together with Ukrainian employers’ associations and a USAID programme. The international investor community is being given an offer it can’t refuse in the form of a completely disempowered and impoverished workforce with no other options.
Then there’s the report from back in May where the head of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Werner Hoyer, called for a multi-trillion-euro “Marshall”-style plan to rebuild Ukraine. Hoyer also warned that Europe alone cannot be left footing that bill and called for the international investor community to play a major role in that effort. Along those lines, Hoyer said a critical part of the plan would be for the West’s large state-sponsored banks to provide “guarantees” to underwrite Ukraine’s government once the war ends. “If we want to entice the investor community to give us their money... we need to give them reassurances,” Hoyer said, referring to the guarantees against heavy losses for investors. So the head of the EIB is basically calling for tax-payer-backed subsidies for international investors in Ukraine.
Finally, there’s the other major lure being dangle before the international investor community: the trillions of dollars in mineral wealth. Recall the report from a month ago about how Ukraine is a treasure trove of tens of trillions of dollars in mineral wealth. But much of that mineral wealth is now under Russian control. So those trillions of dollars in wealth are being made available to the international investor community, but only if Ukraine expels Russian from all of that territory. It’s presumably going to be that much easier to overcome any regulatory barriers or protests over accessing that mineral wealth as a result of this new law.
And as we’ll going to see in the second article excerpt below, the person leading a delegation of influential DC operatives who compromised a kind of ‘Zelenskiy cheer squad’ during his trip to DC was none other than Natalie Jaresko, someone who played a major ‘economic hitman’ role as Ukraine’s finance minster from December 2014 to April 2016. Jaresko went on to lead the austerity efforts imposed by the US on Puerto Rico, but stepped down from that post in February of this year. So at this point Jaresko is presumably again focused on Ukraine. And presumably very pleased that the ‘economic hitman’ policies she began back in 2014 are clearly still being dutifully imposed, whether those policies are popular or not:
“On 13 December, the Ukrainian parliament rushed through radical amendments to planning laws. The vast majority of property developers supported them, but journalists, architects and other public figures have sounded the alarm.”
A rushed frenzy of radical amendments pushed through at the last minute on December 13, the day of the vote, resulting in the kind of bill only the property developers seemed to love. It’s what passes for ‘democracy in action’ in war torn Ukraine. And as a result of this new law, historic buildings are at risk of set to be being destroyed proactively, whether or not there’s a planned development. Hence popular joke: “No one in Ukraine believes in the armed forces as much as property developers”:
The bill was apparently so corrupt that it only barely passed after previously having significant support. It’s a sign of just how bad a bill it became: standard procedures were not observed, the final draft of the bill wasn’t even made public before the vote, and the whole thing was rushed through at the last minute with massive radical amendments:
Casting a further shadow on the bare minimum support needed to pass the bill is the fact that some of the support came from the members of ‘pro-Russian’ parties banned earlier this year. Moves to formally remove those members were initiated by members of Zelensky’s party literally one day after this fateful December 13 vote where the law barely passed by just two votes. It’s just a bizarre twist in this sordid story: this wildly corrupt law got so corrupt that it almost didn’t pass, but still managed to pass thanks to the support from lawmakers scheduled to be kicked out of the parliament the next day:
Also note how Ukraine’s intelligence service, the SBU, appears to have been engaged in some sort of intimidation campaign targeting the union of architects who oppose the bill over concerns that it will hand the power to make major changes to proposed developments — such as using cheaper materials or efforts to bypass building codes — out of the hands of the architects designing these structures and into the hands of property developers. That’s some ominous state intimidation. Ukraine is setting itself up for an extra shoddy rebuilding period. Extra profitable too, presumably:
And don’t assume Ukraine’s democratic institutions will be capable of addressing any potential abuses of this new law. Protests at construction sites are also banned as part of the law. As a result, nearly two thirds of Ukraine’s historic buildings are at risk of being demolished in coming years:
Finally, note how one of primary supporters for the bill — which critics claim would lead to private companies being in control of issuing most permits — is Ukraine’s minister of communities, territories and infrastructure development, Oleksandr Kubrakov, someone seen as a possible candidate as a future prime minster. It’s another reflection of the state of Ukraine’s democracy:
As we can see, the ‘economic hitman’ treatment Ukraine has been receiving since 2014 has accelerated in a big way since the start of the war in February
. A war with no end in sight. Which raises the grim question: so what’s the next ‘radical reform’ slated to be imposed on Ukraine under the pretense of wartime emergency action? Time will tell, but as the following Grayzone piece reminds us, the ‘economic hitmen’ targeting Ukraine aren’t just residing in Kyiv. It was a lesson convenient put on display during President Zelenskiy’s trip to DC last month when Max Blumenthal spotted a delegation of what would be Zelenskiy’s official cheering squad at the making made its way to the Capitol. It was like a ‘Who’s who’ of the Ukrainian diaspora in DC, with none other than Natalie Jaresko acting as a kind of spokesperson for the group. As we’ve seen, Jaresko is like the ‘OG’ of Ukraine’s ‘economic hitmen’, serving as Minister of Finance from December 2014 to April 2016, a period during which Ukraine suffered from brutal austerity imposed by its Western partners. Following that position, Jaresko went on to oversee the neoliberal pillaging of Puerto Rico. So, at least symbolically, Natalie Jarestko was kind of the perfect person to lead this delegation. Especially seeing as it was days after Ukraine’s parliament passed a bill only a property developer could love:
“Just outside the police barricades, at the eastern side of the Capitol grounds, as a demonstration by a small but dedicated group of antiwar activists wound down, a group of around 20 Ukrainians in dark business attire gathered for a photo. They were on their way into the Capitol, where they were to function as Zelensky’s personal cheering section, representing the Ukrainian diaspora before a nationally televised audience.”
Zelensky’s personal cheering section on their way to the Capitol. That’s the scene Max Blumenthal came across during Zelensky’s recent visit to DC where he implored the congress to increase its military aid to Ukraine. And as the article describes, this group of elite cheerleaders has done a lot more than just cheerleading for Ukraine. It was a ‘Who’s Who’ of the most influential members of the Ukrainian diaspora in the US. Most notably, Natalie Jaresko, the Ukainian-American who actually received Ukrainian citizenship in 2014 on the same day she was appointed to become the post-Maidan government’s new Minister of Finance, a position where she oversaw the decimation of Ukrainian living standards as Ukraine embraced . As we’ve seen, Jaresko’s résumé to be finance minister included her prior work as a US State Department officer and the head of a USAID-backed fund for Ukraine that was reportedly involved with substantial insider dealings, including $1 million-plus in fees to a management company Jaresko also controlled. Before that, Jaresko was an appointee of Viktor Yushchenko’s Foreign Investors Advisory Council and the Advisory Board of the Ukrainian Center for Promotion of Foreign Investment. It was all tragically fitting experience for the radical IMF-imposed neoliberal economic shock doctrine she helped unleash on the Ukrainian public as Finance Minister. A radical neoliberal template for ‘reform’ predicated on maximizing foreign investor profits that Ukraine is still in the process of implementing under the Zelenskiy government. So when we see Jaresko in this crew of Zelenskiy super cheerleaders during his trip to DC, it’s important to keep in mind that Zelenskiy has been dutifully implementing the same radical economic shock doctrine the US first imposed on Ukraine back in 2014 under Jaresko:
And when we see how Jaresko went on from her position as Ukraine’s Finance Minister to leading the economic shock doctrine imposed by the US on Puerto Rico, don’t forget that the radical gutting of Ukraine’s labor laws signed into law by President Zelenskiy back in August didn’t happen until after the outbreak of war months earlier that made the situation in Ukraine even more desperate and dire than before. The worse it gets the more radical the ‘reforms’:
Now, regarding the person who indignantly replied “no!” when asked whether or not he also opposed the shelling of civilians in the separatist republics, it’s worth noting that Orest Deychakiwsky is reportedly the brother of Yuri Deychakiwsky, the figure featured in a January 2019 article in Bloomberg Business Week about the private fundraising networks in the US financing weapons like drones for Ukraine’s forces. Yuri is described as expressing discomfort when shown a video of one of the drones his network helped to finance dropping a bomb on a separatist, telling the reporter, “It gives me an uneasy feeling as a physician and a Christian that I’m participating in this,” Deychakiwsky says. “I try not to step on ants. I don’t hunt. I couldn’t shoot Bambi. But of course I eat hamburgers, too.” So Orest’s brother Yuri appears to have more misgivings about killing or maiming separatists:
It’s also worth recalling that the civilians living in the separatist republics of Donetsk the Luhansk have been broadly ignored or treated as ‘superfluous’ populations since the outbreak of the civil war in 2014. In other words, Orest Deychakiwsky’s views on the bombing of the people of the Donbass may be cruel, but it’s a pretty common cruelty these days, as echoed by the Hromadske guest back in March:
Finally, regarding the presence of Andrew Mac — described as “one of the biggest Washington power players for Ukraine” — it’s worth recalling how Mac was one of the sources about Erik Prince’s attempts in late 2019 and early 2020 to purchase three Ukrainian aircraft manufacturing firms, two of which were owned by the state. It was none other than Andreii Artemenko who Prince was working with to make the purchases happen. While he didn’t ultimately succeed in buying any of the firms, prince apparently got as far as meeting with officials close to Zelensky. It was the kind of story that hints at Andrew Mac’s influence in Kyiv too:
All in all, you have to wonder how many of the members and that cheer squad had clients or associates who had been avidly waiting for that property development ‘reform’ bill rushed through Ukraine’s parliament a week earlier. Either way, this is clearly a group that views Ukraine’s crisis as a grand opportunity. A wartime opportunity to reshape Ukraine into the neoliberal paradise its people never actually wanted it to become.
How much escalation can a proxy war between Russia and NATO undergo before it’s no longer just a proxy war? That’s the ominous question that’s been raised this week as lines previous uncrossed over fears of escalating the conflict into WWIII are suddenly crossed.
First, the line against sending Western amour to Ukraine was not only crossed last week with the apparently coordinated announcements by the US, Germany, and France of plans to donate a range of armored vehicles that are seen as one-step below the heavy armor of, for example, the US Abrams tank or the UK’s Challenger 2. Those announcements were then followed up with reports that the UK is consider sending Challenger 2s. So the line against armored vehicles was just crossed with the high prospects of heavy armor coming soon.
Then there’s the other lines crossed. The kind of rhetorical lines that you really don’t want to cross if avoiding WWIII is to remain a goal: the defense minister of Ukraine, Oleksii Reznikov, not only predicted Ukraine’s acceptance into NATO but declared that Ukraine has “already become a de facto member of the NATO alliance.” Reznikov went on to make a number of comments about how Ukraine is spilling its own blood on behalf of NATO.
Those comments were again echoed by multiple sources in the Kremlin who made the same conclusion: Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev declared during an interview that the “events in Ukraine are not a clash between Moscow and Kyiv — this is a military confrontation between Russia and NATO, and above all the United States and Britain.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov largely concurred when asked about the Patrushev’s comments.
That crossing of rhetorical lines is part of the context of the push to arm Ukraine with tanks: Ukraine’s growing status as a proxy NATO army is becoming so undeniable that they aren’t bothering to deny it anymore. It’s a season for escalation:
“At the end of last year, the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, Gen Valeriy Zaluzhny, called for 300 tanks and 600–700 fighting vehicles to help Ukraine defeat the Russian invaders. But until last week Nato countries had been unwilling to provide western made armour to Kyiv, fearing it would be interpreted by Moscow as escalatory.”
That sure sounds like an escalation: western made armour is now flowing into Ukraine, overcoming previous fears that such a move would be seen as escalatory. Those fears were apparently overcome with the joint announcements last week by the US, Germany, and France. But even then, the line on heavy armor had yet to be crossed. And now we’re learning that the UK is thinking about crossing that line with Challenger 2 tanks:
So with the crossing of more escalatory lines on the military aid front, it’s worth noting another line that was just crossed by Ukraine’s defense minster Oleksii Reznikov. A rhetorical line that Ukraine has been pretty disciplined about not crossing: As Reznikov put it in an interview, Ukraine is fighting NATO’s war against Russia and has “already become a de facto member of the NATO alliance.” It was a point Reznikov made in the context of asking the West for more military aid and a rare point of agreement between the Kremlin and Kyiv. As Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev put it in a recent interview, “The events in Ukraine are not a clash between Moscow and Kyiv — this is a military confrontation between Russia and NATO, and above all the United States and Britain.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov concurred when asked about Patrushev’s comments, “De facto they have already become an indirect party to this conflict, pumping Ukraine with weapons, technologies, intelligence information and so on”:
“During an interview with a Ukrainian TV station the Oleksii Reznikov, the defense minister of Ukraine, answered that the Ukraine has “already become a de facto member of the NATO alliance.””
We’ve long been hearing memes about how Ukraine is ‘fighting Russia on the West’s behalf’, but this kind of blunt language from the Ukrainian Defense Minister is something new. It was a significant rhetorical escalation. An escalation echoed in the sentiments coming out of the Kremlin. All sides seem to be edging towards an acknowledgment that the war in Ukraine is a proxy war between Russia and NATO:
Will acknowledging the proxy-war realities of this conflict only result in an accelerating escalation of the situation? Or might this injection of blunt rhetorical realism prompt the parties to finally make attempts to arrive at a realistic settlement? Hopefully it will be the latter scenario. But when your best shot at avoiding WWIII is to finally acknowledge that you’re effectively already in WWIII, it’s hard to optimistic.
With the war in Ukraine increasingly looking like a battle and attrition, here’s a set of articles describing how the US is planning on winning that battle. As we’re going to see, the US has big plans to increase its capacity to produce a range of munitions, but especially the 155mm artillery shells that have become central to how the war is being fought. Big plans that, if fulfilled, will see the US dwarf Russia’s artillery munitions manufacturing capacity. Big plans will take at least 3–5 years to ramp up. And it’s that timeframe — multiyear plans to dramatically increase munitions production capacities for the purpose of winning a war of attrition — that’s really the big story here. Because we’re talking about plans that envision the war in Ukraine continuing for years to come with major increases in fighting yet to come as the manufacturing capacity comes online.
But as we’re also going to see, those big long-term plans have to deal with the immediate reality that the Ukrainians are using those 155mm shells at twice the rates they can currently be produced. As a result, the US has been force to deplete the munitions reserves in two major regional munitions hubs. One in Israel and the other in South Korea. Pledges by the US to resupply those hubs later were part of the deal.
And let’s not forget the other major piece of context here: the US is preparing to fight a war with China too. So at the same time we’re seeing a massive commitment by the US to a sustain war of attrition with Russia, the US is ramping up for a parallel conflict in the Pacific. Preparations for war with China that will presumably have quite a bit of synergy with the ongoing plans for Ukraine.
It’s that dynamic — an immediate supply chain issue for the key munitions Ukraine needs to fight today, coupled with big plans for major supplies but not for a few years and even bigger plans for war with China — that could prove to be pivotal in terms of how the war in Ukraine evolves in the coming years. What kinds of weapons systems will the US and other allies supply to Ukraine in the interim while these supply chain issues are worked out? We’ll see, but it’s clear at this point that the plan is to keep Ukraine in the fight long enough for the big plans for a much larger war effort in the future to come to fruition.
Ok, first, here’s a report about how the Navy Secretary is warning that the US defense industry is running into so many supply chain issues that, should the war in Ukraine continue for even another six months to a year, the US Navy is going to have to start deciding whether or not to arm Ukraine or arm itself:
“Del Toro replied, “With regards to deliveries of weapons systems for the fight in Ukraine…Yeah, that’s always a concern for us. And we monitor that very, very closely. I wouldn’t say we’re quite there yet, but if the conflict does go on for another six months, for another year, it certainly continues to stress the supply chain in ways that are challenging.””
The US has about six months to a year before major supply chain issues begin to impact not just the US’s ability to continue supplying Ukraine’s military but the US’s own ability to supply the its own military. Again, this is all happening in the middle of an unofficial build-up for a major conflict with China in coming years. These aren’t just ‘Ukraine’-related issues. These are major WWIII-planning issues.
And that brings us to this interesting critique from Adm. Daryl Caudle, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command: Caudle isn’t buying the excuses from US defense contractors about COVID being a valid reason for a range of supply-chain issues. It raises the question about what else might be snarling the US’s supply chains for high-end weapons like interceptor missiles. Which is the kind of question that could loom ever larger as this conflict becomes more and more of a battle of attrition:
But let’s not forget about one of the other major potential implications that could arise from the US simply being unable to provide Ukraine with the weapons and ammunition needed to sustain the war effort: the US might be forced to start giving different, potentially more advanced, weapons systems that it still has in stock.
And that brings us to the following NY Times piece about the ongoing struggles to maintain supplies of a much more technologically simple, but vital, part of the war effort: artillery shells. As the article describes, Ukraine is current burning through artillery at roughly twice the rate at which US defense contractors can resupply them. It’s a supply/demand imbalance that has required the US to resort to depleting to major munitions stockpiles: one in Israel and a second stockpile in South Korea. Stockpiles that have been depleted for months now, with US pledges to resupply them later.
As the article also notes, artillery has become even more important for both sides of the conflict as defensive lines have solidified. It’s a battle of artillery attrition at this point and the clock is ticking:
“Artillery constitutes the backbone of ground combat firepower for both Ukraine and Russia, and the war’s outcome may hinge on which side runs out of ammunition first, military analysts say. With stockpiles in the United States strained and American arms makers not yet able to keep up with the pace of Ukraine’s battlefield operations, the Pentagon has turned to two alternative supplies of shells to bridge the gap: one in South Korea and the one in Israel, whose use in the Ukraine war has not been previously reported.”
The side that maintains an artillery supply wins. That’s the dynamic that’s emerging in this conflict. A dynamic that has required the US to tap two major regional munition depots. Along with pledges to resupply those depots later. In other words, it’s a plan that relies on US defense contractors actually succeeding in ramping up their production in a sustained manner in coming years. A ramp up in production that apparently has yet to happen:
So how is the US planning on actually addressing this giant supply gap? We got an answer last month, with the announcement of a dramatic new plan to triple, and then double again, the US’s capacity to produce 155mm artillery munitions over the next few years. Or as Doug Bush, the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, technology and logistics, put it, “We are in a position to support Ukraine, but it’s more the mid and long term...By creating this capacity ... if this war goes three or four years, we’ll be in a position to just vastly outproduce the Russians all by ourselves — and if you combine that with our allies, then we’re just dwarfing their capability. They won’t be able to keep up.” That’s the plan: to dwarf Russia’s artillery manufacturing capacity to win the war of attrition. In a few years:
““Funding is already in place, contracts are underway to basically triple 155mm production,” Bush told Defense News on the sidelines of the Reagan National Defense Forum. “There’s funding on the Hill, in the supplemental, to more than double that again. That would take a period of years.”
A tripling of 155mm munition production, followed by a another doubling. That sounds like a planned six-fold increase in the US’s capacity to manufacture artillery munitions over just the next few years. Or as Doug Bush, the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, technology and logistics, put it, the US is planning on having the capacity to outproduce Russian artillery manufacturing capacity all on its own:
Is Ukraine going to be given so much artillery that it can effectively bombard Russian forces out of the annexed regions? We’ll see, but that’s the plan. Just overwhelm Russia’s industrial capacity while running a long-war of attrition. This is a good time to recall the report by Jack Murphy about extensive CIA-led sabotage efforts hitting inside Russia. It’s a good bet that the facilities involved with this industrial war-capacity race are going to be prime sabotage targets.
And how about the separatist regions that don’t want to be part of Ukraine, which remains one of the root cause of the conflict? Is the plan to just bombard those populations into submission? It’s hard to see how that wouldn’t be the plan. The years-long shelling of the ‘superfluous’ ethnic Russian populations will be taken to another level.
Finally, keep in mind that we’re getting these reports about these big plans for the future at the same time we’re seeing a significant ‘loosening’ on the types of weapons platforms delivered to Ukraine, most notably the UK’s delivery of Challenger 2 heavy tanks. That’s along with reports about the Biden administration warming to the idea of providing Ukraine with the kinds of weapons that can hit Crimea. So at the same time the West is planning for a massive increase in its ability to supply Ukraine with traditional weapons like artillery munitions in coming years, we’re also seeing the West offer Ukraine more and more advanced weapons systems in the immediate future as the West struggles to keep Ukraine supplied today. In other words, the plans are for a significant increase in Ukraine’s immediate war-fighting capabilities coupled with an even more dramatic increase in those military supplies in coming years with an overall goal of swamping Russia’s military manufacturing capacity and, eventually, winning a war of attrition that will drive Russia out of Ukraine entirely through overwhelming military force. At the same time preparations for war with China become ever more intense. That’s the plan. Which is a grim reminder that if you’re going to wage WWIII, you better have your supply-chain issues worked out in advance. They’re clearly working on it.
That was unexpected: the Atlantic Council just made a series of long-overdue acknowledgements. Conflict of interest acknowledgements. Now, in this case, the acknowledgements were triggered by the enormous climate-change-related conflicts of interest created by the think tank’s donors list that includes a number of petro-state governments. But as we’re going to see, those conflicts and interest go far beyond petro-states and include donations from an array of Western oil giant like Exxonmobile, BP, and Chevron. Oil giants who had major decades-long operations in Russia until the outbreak of war last year. That’s on top of all the donations from major defense contractors look Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing.
It’s that much broader range of the Atlantic Council’s conflicts of interest that’s the big story here. A story still largely unacknowledged by the Atlantic Council itself and barely acknowledged by the rest of press. But at least when it came to a slew of columns celebrating the appointment of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s CEO Sultan Al Jaber as president-designate of the COP28 Climate Summit to be hosted by the UAE from November 30 to December 12 this year. Three Atlantic Council columns were published last week praising Al Jaber, including a Jan 14th column written by Atlantic Council CEO and President Frederick Kempe. And it was only after getting called out on the fact that the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and Masdar, where Sultan Al Jaber serves as CEO and chairman, respectively, are sponsors of the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Forum that we find conflict-of-interest disclosures belatedly appearing on these columns:
“The Atlantic Council receives funding from foreign countries — including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Japan, and South Korea — and weapons manufacturers — including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing — which poses numerous potential conflicts of interest for a think tank that characterizes itself as “a nonpartisan organization that galvanizes US leadership and engagement in the world.””
Petro-governments and major defense contractors. In terms of conflicts of interest it’s hard to find a more conflicted list of donors. All the more conflicted given the Atlantic Council’s hardline stance on the conflict in Ukraine. A conflict that’s proven to be great for both defense contractors and petro-states and promises to be even greater the longer it goes.
So when we read that the Atlantic Council was pumping out columns heaping praise on Sultan Al Jaber — the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s CEO who was appointed president-designate of the COP28 Climate Summit to be hosted by the UAE from November 30 to December 12 — and then suddenly decided to issue a series of belated conflict-of-interest disclosures after getting called out for it, it’s apparent that the Atlantic Council is simultaneously aware of its palpable conflicts of interest but also still intent on maintaining those conflicts of interest. It’s effectively acting as a lobbying group. Lobbying for the interests of its donors that include petrostates and major defense contractors:
And with all these gross conflicts of interests involving petro-states finally getting called out, we have to also note that it’s not just the petro-states. And Big Oil giants also show up on the Atlantic Council’s donors list, including Chevron, ExonnMobil, and BP. So it’s worth noting the extra special conflicts of interest posed by those donations from BP and ExxonMobile: the two oil giants, along with Shell, have been operating in Russia for decades. Until the war, which effectively forced them to shut down their operations:
“To maintain their corporate reputations and relationships with key interest groups, BP, Shell, Equinor and ExxonMobil clearly have decided that it is important to cut their ties in Russia completely, immediately and publicly. BP’s current and former chief executive officers resigned from Rosneft’s board of directors on Feb. 27, three days after the invasion began, “with immediate effect.”
A line was finally crossed for the Western oil giants last February. Their decades of operations inside Russia were coming to a close. At least until the conflict is over or some sort of regime change takes place inside Russia. Also note that while Chevron — an Atlantic Council donor — wasn’t reference in that article, Chevron also has major operations in Russia.
So we have to ask: just how much of a financial stake do these oil giants have in regime change for Russia after all this? Will they be allowed back into a Russia — allowed by their own governments — after the war is over or are we looking at a future where Western investments in Russia are verboten until Russia experiences some sort of pro-Western regime change? That’s unclear, but it’s hard to imagine that these powerful corporations aren’t keenly interested in both resuming their operations in Russia and, ideally, replacing the Russia government with the kind of highly compliant puppy-dog governments that defined their experiences with Russia in the 90s:
And let’s not forget that chilling report by Jack Murphy about the growing CIA-directed sabotage operations getting run by an unnamed major NATO partner. As we saw, the sabotage campaign was described as being less like a GLADIO-style stay-behind operation involving local sleeper cells and more like the sabotage operations run my the CIA in Iraq in 2003, where Kurdish teams were sent in to territory held by the Iraqi government forces. In addition, we were told that networks of front companies — some set up almost two decades ago — are playing a role in this. So it’s worth keeping in mind the experiences of BP, for example, and the tumultuous relationship its had with the Russian government going back to 2003 when the TNK-BP disputes first boiled over.
It points towards one of the potentially under-recognized factors fueling this conflict: the immense profit potential Russia’s oil and gas reserves presented to Western oil giants paired with their decades of strained relationships with the Russian government. On the one hand, the fact these oil giants were still operating in Russian up to 2022 is a sign of their strong desire to maintain those operations. On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine these oil giants wouldn’t love to see Russia experience some sort of pro-Western regime change operation that results in far more favorable partnerships. And now that they’re effectively forced out of Russia altogether, what are the stances of these oil giants when it comes to the West’s policies on the war in Ukraine and the relationship with Russia in general? Are ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, and Shell clamoring for some sort of peace deal that will create the political conditions that would facilitate their return to Russia? Or, instead, are they doubling and tripling down on the war in Ukraine and the much more ambitious agenda of regime change in Russia? That’s unclear at this point, but it’s going to be a factor worth keeping an eye on as this nuclear-power showdown plays out.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that the interests of companies like Exxonmobile and BP that have been operating inside Russia may not align exactly with the interests of petro-states like the UAE when it comes to a shared stance on Russia. For example, while BP might want to be allowed back into Russia ASAP to resume operations along with a normalization and Russia’s relations with the West, it’s not hard to imagine the petrostates being largely fine with seeing the perma-elevated petro-prices as a result of the West’s sanctions on Russia. In other words, it’s going to be grimly interesting to see how the Atlantic Council navigates its various conflicts of interests’ own conflicts of interest.
You know you’re heading in a dark direction when one side of a conflict feels the need to remind everyone that they have the capacity to wage a nuclear war if they feel adequately threatened. An “escalate to deescalate” doctrine in the face of overwhelming conventional forces. But we got another reminder. This time it was from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who sent the following reminder to the world via Telegram:
“The loss of a nuclear power in a conventional war can provoke the outbreak of a nuclear war. Nuclear powers do not lose major conflicts on which their fate depends”
And that message was, of course, delivered just days before Western leaders met in Germany to decide on a new round of military aid for Ukraine. But as we’re going to see in the NY Times piece below, there was another crucial piece of context for Medvedev’s message: it sounds like the Biden administration has come around to the idea that Ukraine needs to be given the capacity to attack Crimea directly. Not that the administration is convinced that Russia can be dislodged from Crimea. No, instead, It’s a plan to escalate the conflict, but escalate with an eye on ending it sooner rather than later. That’s a potentially key detail here. The escalation is being rationalized as a means of enhancing Ukraine’s leverage during upcoming negotiations. The idea being that Ukraine will have greater leverage in any upcoming negotiations should it have the ability to attack Crimea. It’s the kind of strategy that had better work. Because otherwise all you did was escalate the conflict with an adversary that already has a “escalate to deescalate” doctrine in response to overwhelming conventional forces.
But beyond that, we’re told that part of the reason the Biden administration has come around to this escalatory strategy is due to a growing conclusion that Russia’s prior nuclear threats were a bluff. So what has given rise to this new ‘nuclear bluff’ consensus? Well, it sounds like the relatively lack of a response by Russia to the various attacks inside Russia proper are what led to this assessment. Yep. That’s the reasoning at work here.
This is a good time to recall the report by Jack Murphy about extensive CIA-led sabotage efforts hitting inside Russia involving another unnamed key NATO partner. This is also a good time to the damning Grayzone report about the secret British intelligence plot to blow up Crimea’s Kerch bridge. Finally, recall that opinion piece published back in April by former Reagan/Bush Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy Seth Cropsey. As Cropsey saw it, the risk of a Russian use of tactical nukes is very real, in part because a Ukrainian military win in the eastern half of the country still seemed very plausible at the time given the relatively poor performance of Russia’s force. Cropsey then had some recommendation for the US in response to a Russian tactical nuke: the US shouldn’t respond with the use of nukes of its own, but it can’t back down either. Instead, the US should take steps that give the Kremlin pause about the viability of a full-scale nuclear war with the West. Specifically, Cropsey recommended rearming the US Navy’s surface ships with nuclear weapons, as was done during the Cold War. Also, US should hunt down and sink Russian nuclear subs in response to the Russian use of nukes. The idea being that those nuclear subs are critical for Russia’s second-strike capacity, and if that second-strike capacity is taken out the Kremlin would be much more wary of escalating the situation. In other words, if Russia uses a tactical nuke, the West should knock out Russia’s second-strike capacity, leaving Russia with its first-strike capacity alone! And that is apparently what would prompt the Kremlin to back down and avoid a nuclear catastrophe. Taking out Russia’s second-strike capacity and hoping that somehow doesn’t end in a nuclear exchange but instead prevents one.
That’s the disturbing direction of the conflict. A growing sense that Ukraine can’t continue this conflict indefinitely and that it somehow needs to be brought to an end. And the way to bring about that end is to increase the number of military strikes inside Russian territory. At the same time, let’s not forget those recent reports describing a multi-year war plan by the US strategists that involving dramatically increasing the US’s artillery shell manufacturing capacity by 2025 with the goal of effectively outproducing Russia’s military capacity. In other words, a multi-year battle of attrition.
So what are we looking at here? Plans for a multi-year battle of attrition? Or plans for a short-term escalation with the intent on forcing as negotiated settlement by giving Ukraine the capacity to strike Russia? Keep in mind that there’s no reason these plans can’t be carried out simultaneously. And that’s the really disturbing dynamic at work here: the plans for a war of attrition are overlapping with the ‘escalate to bring it to an end’ plan. And one of the key things in common in both of these plans is a conviction that we’re looking at a Russian nuclear bluff no matter much things escalate. Hence Dmitry Medvedev’s ominous reminder:
“Medvedev, who is the currently deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, and has also served as the country’s prime minister, made his comments on the Telegram messaging app in advance of Western leaders meeting in Germany to pledge more military aid to Ukraine.”
The reiteration of Russia’s warning about the use of nuclear weapons to avoid losses in “major conflict on which their fate depends” wasn’t a random comment. It was delivered in advance of the meeting of Western leaders in Germany where Western leaders were set to hammer our the next round of military aid and Ukraine. And, crucially, two days after the New York Times published the following piece describing a shift in the Biden administration’s thinking on the limits of that aid. Specifically, new thinking about ‘loosening’ those limits and giving Ukraine the ability to strike Crimea directly. Along with new thinking about the seriousness of Russia’s threats to use tactical nuclear weapons. It appears that Russia’s responses to the various strikes inside Russia by Ukrainian forces has been interpreted by Western war planners as a sign that Russia’s nuclear threats were a bluff.
So is the West planning on arming Ukraine with the kinds of weapons that will effectively drive Russia out of Crimea? Nope. Instead, it sounds like the Biden administration still doesn’t think Ukraine has a real chance of dislodging Russia from Crimea, but has concluded that giving Ukraine the capacity to attack Crimea will give Ukraine more leverage in any upcoming negotiations.
In addition, with the delivery of Bradley fighting vehicles and other equipment that can protect troops as they move closer to Russian defensive positions, the expectation is that Ukraine will be in a position to threaten Russia’s control of the “land bridge” area connecting Russia with Crimea some time in the Spring. So the plans we’re hearing from Ukraine’s western sponsors include giving Ukraine the ability to attack Crimea directly at the same time the land bridge is taken back. Plans to give Ukraine as much leverage as possible in advance of the expectation of negotiations. That’s the context of Medvedev’s nuclear threat. A threat that the West appears to no longer be taking seriously. So on the one hand, it’s good to hear talk about preparations for negotiations. But on the other hand, it’s not super great when those negotiation plans involve the intentional crossing of nuclear red lines as a form of negotiating leverage:
“After months of discussions with Ukrainian officials, the Biden administration is finally starting to concede that Kyiv may need the power to strike the Russian sanctuary, even if such a move increases the risk of escalation, according to several U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive debate. Crimea, between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, is home to tens of thousands of dug-in Russian troops and numerous Russian military bases.”
Ukraine needs the power to strike Crimea even if it risk an escalation of the conflict. That’s the reasoning we are told the Biden administration has “conceded” in recent weeks. Reasoning that appears to include a roll back in nuclear retaliation fears. The West can escalation by giving Ukraine the weapons it needs to attack Crimea without fears of a dangerous counter escalation. That was the message delivered to the world via the anonymous government sources in this article. Days before Medvedev’s comments:
And this plan to attack Crimea and the land bridge in coming months is coming at the same time we’re told that the Biden administration remains convinced that Ukraine still can’t actually take back Crimea. It’s all about negotiating leverage. It points towards one of the dynamics at work here: Western leaders are following an apparent plan of escalation in anticipation of negotiations. Let’s hope the plan works! Because otherwise you just have escalation. Potential nuclear escalation:
And that ‘escalate to bring this conflict to a quicker resolution’ thinking more or less echoes the calls Ukrainian officials have been making. Attacking Crimea to force a negotiation is the plan. At least, that’s the publicly stated plan that assumes this escalation doesn’t result in an even worse conflict:
But it’s not just the White House pushing the ‘escalate to the negotiating table’ strategy. This is a good time to recall that Grayzone report documenting the British intelligence role in plotting attacks on the Kerch bridge connecting Crimea to Russia. Are more attacks on that bridge planned for coming months? It sure sounds like it:
Finally, note the ominous words from Philip Breedlove, the retired four-star Air Force general who was NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe: “To give Russia sanctuary from which to fight, without fear of reproach, is absolutely absurd. It makes no military sense.” Translation: the path to ending the conflict is to turn it into a war on Russian soil. That’s the underlying strategic logic at work here:
It makes no military sense to “give Russia sanctuary from which to fight, without fear of reproach” according to the former NATO supreme allied commander for Europe. That sure sounds like plans for ending the war in Ukraine by turning it into a war on Crimea, along with more and more attacks inside Russia proper. A plan, in the not-too-distant past, would have sounded like a plan for WWIII.
It’s that time again. Time for another Doomsday Clock update. Doom is closer than ever. It’s the usual update.
But as we’re going to see, that Doomsday update might need another update. Or two. First, we had Stefano Sannino, Secretary General of the European Union’s European External Action Service announce that Vladimir Putin “moved from a concept of special operation to a concept now of a war against NATO and the West.” Those were his comments in defense of the US and Germany agreeing to send Ukraine heavy tanks. It’s Russia vs NATO now, according to senior EU officials.
But Doomsday isn’t just licking its chops over the growing prospects of nuclear war between Russia and the West. War with China got its own boost thanks to a top US Air Force general Gen. Michael A. Minihan, who just predicted war between the US and China breaking out as early as 2025. And that accelerating timeline made preparing for war with China all the more urgent, as Minihan sees it.
And those were just two of the apocalyptic stories published after the Doomsday Clock update. Tick Tock:
“The “Doomsday Clock,” created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to illustrate how close humanity has come to the end of the world, moved its “time” in 2023 to 90 seconds to midnight, 10 seconds closer than it has been for the past three years.”
A new doomsday record. Go team. And it’s not just a growing threat of nuclear war. Biological warfare is also seen as a growing possibility as a result of the conflict in Ukraine. And given that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists report was specifically referring to a growing possibility of some sort of Russian biological warfare attack, this is a good time to recall how Ukraine really does have a network of US-affiliated biological research institutes known to work on pathogens like bird flu. Which is a remind that the dismissal of the risks those labs pose in the middle of a war zone area all the more enhanced by a denial of their existence:
And that was just last week. So here’s a pair of article from just the last few days that suggest the Doomsday Clock may not have been nudged enough.
First, here’s a report on the recent apocalyptic declaration made by Stefano Sannino, Secretary General of the European Union’s European External Action Service. According to Sannino, Vladimir Putin “moved from a concept of special operation to a concept now of a war against NATO and the West.” Yep, the ‘Russia is already at war with NATO’ stage of the conflict is formally getting underway:
“Stefano Sannino, Secretary General of the European Union’s European External Action Service, defended German and U.S. provisions of the military equipment to Ukraine, and criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for waging a war on NATO and the West.”
The US and German delivery of heavy tanks to Ukraine does NOT represent a new stage of the war. No, it is Putin who is unilaterally expanding the war in Ukraine into a new phase. A ‘war against NATO and the West’ phase. That was the message delivered by Stefano Sannino, Secretary General of the European Union’s European External Action Service, in comments that were, ironically, described as marking the first stage of a coordinated effort by the West to provide dozens of the heavy weapons:
It’s a prelude of ‘new stages’ to come: whenever there’s an escalation in the weapons deliveries, we can expect new announcements about how Russia is in an even deeper state of undeclared war against NATO and the West.
But, of course, the growing threat of a ‘war with the West’ involving Russia isn’t the only reason to give the Doomsday Clock another nudge towards midnight, as a top Air Force commander, Gen. Michael A. Minihan, just reminded us. There’s also the ever-louder drumbeats for war with China. War that, as Minihan sees it, could could come as soon as 2025:
“The warning came from a top Air Force commander, Gen. Michael A. Minihan, who cited Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s securing of a third term and the January 2024 presidential elections in Taiwan, the self-governing democracy of 23 million that Beijing claims as its territory, as reasons to accelerate troop preparation.”
2025 is going to be a very bad year. At least for most of life on earth. Defense contractors will presumably look back fondly on the formal outbreak of WWIII. Either way, we had better hop Gen. Michael A. Minihan’s predictions aren’t accurate. It doesnn’t leave much time before the global military conflagration everyone seems to be enthusiastically prepping for. You don’t spend hundreds of billions of dollars on your military just for fun:
. It’s also rather interesting to note that a US defense official was sure to anonymously stress to reporters that Minihan’s comments were his own view and not the US government’s. It’s an example of the disturbing kind of information war going on, where preparations for war involve predictions of war — even ‘unofficial predictions’ like this — that can be used to justify even further preparations for war. It’s a deeply destabilizing dynamic at work:
Yes, Minihan’s memo is a timely warning to both sides that “they need to stop overplaying the Taiwan issue.” But, of course, it’s also the latest reminder that such warnings are going to be entirely ignored. Which why those Doomsday Clock warnings are increasingly relevant. And increasingly behind the times.
The war in Ukraine is obviously a giant tragedy. But as the following articles remind us, the war is an opportunity too. A giant opportunity for monumental changes, including an opportunity to fundamentally overall the EU’s defense policy. A defense policy that’s long been limited by constitutional limits on joint military spending. The EU is, after all, largely a trading bloc. It’s not a military alliance. Or rather, it wasn’t originally a military alliance. But times change, especially during war.
As we’re going to see, while that constitutional limit on joint defense spending remains in place, the EU found a loophole. The kind of highly flexible loophole that has proven effective at providing a constitutionally viable mechanism for the collective financing of the arming of Ukraine, including the training of Ukrainian troops in Poland of Germany.
It’s also a particularly ironically-named loophole: the European Peace Facility (EPF). Yes, it looks like the EU is going to be expanding its joint military spending dramatically in coming years by primarily relying on a “peace facility” which was formed just 11 months before the outbreak of the war last February.
So how does the EPF pass constitutional muster? Well, for starters, it’s an ‘off budget’ fund, so it won’t violate the rules against joint budgetary financing of military spending. Instead, the EPF is a separate fund used to retroactively compensate member states for military contributions they unilaterally make. So, for example, if Germany donates 10 Leopard tanks to Ukraine, the EPF will attempt to assess the value of that donation and pay Germany back for at least part of the cost. That’s the loophole: EU member states are free to individually donate towards military causes and can be compensated for that...just as long as there’s no joint purchases. The facility was set up initially for facilitating the financing of non-lethal aid to other nations, but it appears that lethal aid can be financed too.
And as we’re also going to see, the EU isn’t just looking at the EPF as a means of continuing its military support for Ukraine. The EU’s defense policy as a whole is shifting towards treating Russia as a long-term security threat that is going to require a joint response, and the EPF remains the vehicle of choice for financing that joint response. And that we we shouldn’t just look at this as the next step in the EU’s investment in the war in Ukraine. It’s also a stepping stone for the long-discussed ‘EU Army’ concept. A concept that EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — a politician with a long track record for shilling for corporate interests and deep ties to Germany’s deep state — championed during her time as Germany’s Defense Minister and continues to champion as Commission President.
So in addition to asking questions about whether or not we’re seeing the kernel of the EU Army forming via the EPF, we also have to start asking what the long-term implications are going to be of an EU Army financed via the EPF, financed exclusively by member states who choose to donate. Yes, creating an ‘army of the willing [to pay]’ seems like a dicey way to structure a joint security arrangement. But keep in mind that the EU’s existing treaties basically preclude the formation of a jointly-financed EU military, and changing treaties isn’t an easy feat. The EPF approach to financing joint a joint military might be the only legal option of the EU for the foreseeable future.
That’s all part of the context of the following articles: the EU found a loophole for joint military spending in the form of jointly compensating the unilateral military spending of member states. That constitutional viable paradigm is currently financing the EU’s joint efforts to arm Ukraine. But it doesn’t have to be limited to the arming of Ukraine. As Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, put it, “The EU was based on the refusal of the idea of power...We don’t make war. We don’t even coerce you. We just trade with you. We preach and we trade...And now ... we train soldiers and we arm them.” As Borrell then noted, the only remaining step is to actively participate.
Ok, first, here’s an article from a couple of weeks ago about a proposal under consideration by the EU Commission. A proposal for direct joint funding of the arming of Ukraine Ukraine in the EU budget. In other words, an unconstitutional proposal that, as we’ll see, was shot down by the EU’s Budget Commissioner a few days later:
” The European Commission is exploring how it could leverage the bloc’s budget to provide downpayments to arms manufacturers in order to incentivise increased production, people briefed on the plans told the FT. The plans come in response to concerns over whether Europe can produce sufficient armaments as fast as Kyiv is consuming them in its defence against Russian aggression.”
Direct financing of the arming of Ukraine via the EU’s budget. That was the idea getting bandied about by the European Commission a couple of weeks ago. An idea that would potentially open up the EU budget — already 1 trillion euro seven year budget — for the kind of military financing that is expressly forbidden in the EU’s governing treaties:
That was the plan as of a couple of weeks ago. But then, a few days later, we got an update: the EU Budget Commissioner shared his opinion on the proposal. It’s not going to happen.
But Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn did have an alternative proposal that would pass constitutional muster: the arming of Ukraine can be financed by the European Peace Facility (EPF) instead. The now-ironically named European Peace Facility, established to retroactively reimburse countries for weapons donated to Ukraine.
That was Hahn’s proposal, which is not an outlandish idea. As the article notes, the EU has already been relying on the EFP to finance the arming of Ukraine over the last year. So the plan is presumably to expand that EPF-financing, leaving the agency even more ironically named:
““[It’s] not possible due to the treaty,” the Austrian commissioner told reporters. “I have been crystal clear what is possible due to our treaty and what is not.””
It’s not possible. That was European Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn’s message in response to the reports about direct EU-budget financing of weapons for Ukraine. Instead, the EU should continue relying on the EPF, a pool that allows each member state to donate whatever they choose to Ukraine and get retroactively reimbursed. So instead of joint military action via the EU budget banned by the EU constitution, the EU is left relying on a ‘whatever each member wants to contribute’ model that appears to be constitutionally viable:
And that proposal from the EU Budget Commission to just rely even more on the so-called European Peace Facility to finance the arming of Ukraine bring us to the following piece describing just how central a role the EPF has been playing in the EU’s arming of Ukraine within days of the from the outbreak of the war. As we’re going to see, not only was the EPF tapped almost immediately to start paying for military aid to Ukraine, but it appears to have paved the way for a fundamental overhaul in EU defense policy. The kind of overhaul that is going to result in A LOT more military spending by the EU in coming years. As Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, put it, “The EU was based on the refusal of the idea of power...We don’t make war. We don’t even coerce you. We just trade with you. We preach and we trade...And now ... we train soldiers and we arm them.” As Borrell then noted, the only remaining step is to actively participate. In other words, the EPF is a stepping stone to the long-discussed EU Army:
“Russia’s war against Ukraine has, in the space of 12 months, rewritten European defence policy. Decades of engagement with Moscow, through trade, investment and diplomacy, in the belief that it would stop the Kremlin threatening the continent’s security, has been exposed as a monumental error.”
A virtual rewrite of the EU’s defense policy. That happened over the past year. And as we can see, it was the EPF — founded just 11 months earlier — that made this quiet transformation possible in the early days of the war in Ukraine. It was a “watershed moment” as EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put it:
And in addition to providing weapons, note how the EPF is also being used to train 30,000 Ukrainian troops in Poland and Germany. It’s a flexible financing facility:
The EPF is so flexible, in fact, that Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, even publicly stated that the facility could be used to finance fighter jets for Ukraine. While that has yet to happen, it’s a sign of the potential future use of this ‘peace facility’:
And while using the weapons sent to Ukraine through the EPF to purchase weapons is indeed ironic, adding to the irony is that use of the EPF to arm Ukraine wasn’t, itself, the biggest factor in elevating the EU’s military assistance to Ukraine. Instead, it was the loophole the EU Commission deployed to use the EPF in this manner — a loophole where individual member states are free to give as much military aid bilaterally as they want — that was the biggest factor. Once the EPF made clear bilateral military aid was constitutionally fine, the bilateral military aid began to flow, at least from the most enthusiastic member states:
And as the article warns, with no end to this conflict in site, there’s no end to the potential growth in the EU’s reliance on the EPF either. A reliance that will be increasingly focused on treating Russia like a permanent imminent military threat. A warming New Cold War with Russia that laying the foundation for a new EU defense policy paradigm:
Finally, note the ominous observation from Joseph Borrell: “The EU was based on the refusal of the idea of power...We don’t make war. We don’t even coerce you. We just trade with you. We preach and we trade...And now ... we train soldiers and we arm them.” And there’s only one step left in this progression: active EU military participation. We’ve been warned:
How long before we see active participation of the ‘EU military’? We’ll see, but plans are in motion. Plans that, at this point, appear to be focused on using a ‘peace facility’ to finance the creation of a joint EU
military industrial complexpeace industrial complex. A brand new heavily armed peace industrial complex built custom made to fight WWIII.Well that’s weirdly convenient: in what US officials are describing as a potential “nightmare of the Five Eyes”, a trove of leaked secret documents is roiling the Pentagon and prompting the latest mole hunt in DC. Someone is leaking highly sensitive documents and they don’t appear to be close to done.
That’s the story that suddenly erupted over the past week, although as we’re going to see, this leak appears to have started much earlier. Potentially as early as mid-January. It’s part of the mystery of this story: a number of the documents that suddenly showed up on Telegram and 4chan last week were already leaked a month earlier on various Discord servers.
But there’s another mystery in the latest round of leaks: when the documents showed up on 4chan on the evening of April 5, they purported to show top secret US intelligence assessments that showed what looked like horrific casualty rates for Russia and much much better rates for Ukraine. A few hours later, a crudely doctored version of the document showed up on a pro-Russian Telegram channel. Following all of that was a wave of media reports about the leak and the controversy over the authenticity of the documents and speculation whether or not it’s some sort of Russian disinformation plot.
But as we’re going to see, a Bellingcat report looking into the online origins of the documents found that they were first leaked online in early March on various Discord servers: on March 4, the documents — including the version of the Ukrainian casualty assessment showing horrific Russian losses — showed on on a Minecraft Discord server that were first posted on the “WowMan” Discord server on March 1 and 2. But according to screen shots shared by WowMan users, the documents were actually first posted on the “Thug Shaker Central” Discord server as early as mid-January. Thug Shaker Central appears to be a staunchly conservative channel with a focus on Orthodox Christianity and racists memes. But we can’t be sure because the channel has been deleted and the only evidence of the January posts of these documents are in the form of redacted screenshots shared with Bellingcat by the WowMan channel users.
Yes, it appears that the latest “nightmare for the Five Eyes” is a document dump that was actually first leaked over a month ago but no one noticed despite the message it delivered of extremely high Russian casualties. It was only after the document was re-leaked last week — followed by a crudely doctored alternate version a few hours later — that the story got legs and started getting extensive international attention.
At the same time, this leak is far from focused on Ukraine and includes top secret documents ranging on topics from China to the Middle East.
So what are we looking at here? There’s obviously heavy spin on this story. But are we looking at heavy spin designed to mitigate the damage caused by a very real leak? Or spin designed to propel a planed propaganda operation? Were the Jan/March leaks real, but these April re-leaks more manufactured and designed to control the damage and shape the message? That’s unclear at this point. Which, on one level, is the sign of a job well done for whoever is handling the messaging on this. Because there’s enough spin already to make for very a dizzying story that has yet to settle:
“The scale of the leak — analysts say more than 100 documents may have been obtained — along with the sensitivity of the documents themselves, could be hugely damaging, U.S. officials said. A senior intelligence official called the leak “a nightmare for the Five Eyes,” in a reference to the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the so-called Five Eyes nations that broadly share intelligence.”
“A nightmare for the Five Eyes.” That’s how the leak of more than 100 documents — photographs of physical documents — is being described by US officials. A nightmare for the Five Eyes that appears to have its origins inside the US government, with a number of these documents falling into the “Secret/NoForn” category of secrets that aren’t shared with allies:
And yet, it’s not just US officials warning the public about the origins and possible manipulation in the data. Russian bloggers are issuing the same warnings, a reflection of the fact the multiple versions of some of these documents are floating around: one version showing high Russian and low Ukrainian casualties, and another version showing the opposite. Nor are the leaks exclusively related to Ukraine, with some of the photographed slides including briefings on China or the Middle East. If this is indeed a disgruntled US intelligence community insider leaking these documents, they have a lot they are disgruntled about:
Also note how we are being told that the modified versions of the leaked documents are the versions that are overstating Ukrainian deaths and understating Russian deaths. In other words, the original leaked documents showed the opposite with an underlying message that Russia was losing bad. It’s part of the reason Russian bloggers are warning this could be a US influence operation:
Finally, note how these documents were just leaked last week. They’ve been circulating on sites like 4chan and Discord since early March. They’ve only just now started receiving major attention:
It’s quite a nebulous origin story for a weirdly damaging set of leaks. On the one hand, we’re told this is some sort of nightmare of the Five Eyes. But on the other hand, the underlying message is that Russia is losing bad. It’s a weird leak. Weirder when we look closely at the following Bellingcat report describing what is known about the origins of the leaked documents. Because as we’re going to see, it appears that the promotion of the document showing extremely high Russian casualties just keeps happening. It was April 5 when the document showed up on 4chan, only to have a crudely modified version showing low Russian and high Ukrainian casualties showing up on Telegram a few hours later. But as Bellingcat found, the same document — showing high Russian casualties — first leaked on various Discord servers starting in early March. Bellingcat was able to trace them from March 4 posting on a Minecraft Discord server to March 1 and 2 posts on the “WowMan” Discord server. But interviews of the anonymous WowMan posters indicate that these documents were first showing up on the “Thug Shaker Central” Discord server — a server dedicated to staunch conservative, Orthodox Christianity, and racism — as early as mid-January. And yet none of this can be confirmed because Thug Shaker Central has already been deleted.
So the way this story has played out, the online origins of the documents was already obscured before this story started getting all of its recent media attention. But based on what we know, it appears the original version of the recently re-leaked document on the status of the Ukraine war and relative casualty rate are promoting exactly the kind and narrative we would expect the US to want to be pushing right now. A narrative about massive Russian losses and surprisingly low Ukrainian losses:
“Ukrainian officials have cast doubt on the veracity of the documents, with Mykhailo Podolyak, the adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, stating on Telegram that he believes Russia is behind the purported leak. But US security officials quoted by the New York Times appeared to hint at their authenticity.”
While Ukrainian officials are calling the documents a Russian hoax, US officials aren’t really disputing their authenticity, with the exception of a handful of documents related to the war in Ukraine. The documents are probably real, but maybe not. That’s the meta-message we’re getting from US officials. And while that may seem like a surprising spin, all things considered, it’s a lot less surprising when we note that the dispute over the manipulation of the documents appears to show that the original version of the leaked documents show dramatically higher Russian casualties and lower Ukrainian casualties. In other words, the original version of those disputed documents convey a message the US wants conveyed. The message that Russia is losing bad.
Also of interest is that the disputed document has been pushed multiple times. As the Bellingcat investigation found, the ‘original’ version of the document showed up on April 5 on 4chan’s notorious /pol/ board. It was a a few hours later that the modified version of the document shows up on a pro-Russian “Donbass Devushka” Telegram channel:
And according to this Bellingcat investigation, it’s the version of the document posted to the Telegram channel that shows signs of crude data manipulation. All in all, it was a great way to draw Russian attention to the leaked documents and, ultimately, share the message that Russia was losing bad and suffering high casualty rates:
But that April 5 promotion of those documents involving the faked version took place a month after these documents were reportedly first leaked online. That original leak happened in early March on multiple Discord servers and included the version of the document with the elevated Russian casualty rates that was later re-leaked in April on 4chan. That’s an important part of the context of the April 5 4chan/Telegram kerfuffle over the two different versions of that document: that kerfuffle was a very high profile event with heavy media attention but it was preceded by over a month by the quiet leak of that document that the world largely ignored. A quiet leak that included a March 4 leak on an obscure “Minecraft Earth Map” Discord server:
But that March 4 Discord leak wasn’t the apparent origin of the leak. Instead, it appears the poster on that Minecraft server found them posted earlier on the “WowMan” Discorder server, which did indeed have 30 “Top Secret” documents posted on March 1 and 2. And yet “WowMan” apparently wasn’t the first Discord server where these documents surfaced. The original Discord server appears to be “Thug Shaker Central” and at least some top secret documents may have first showed up on January 13. At least that’s what we have to assume because “Thug Shaker Central” no longer exists and evidence of the sharing of documents there is based exclusively on screen images anonymous board members decided to share with Bellingcat. That’s another detail worth keeping in mind in this story: the online origins of these leaked documents have apparently been effectively scrubbed the way this played out:
Finally, note the nature of this “Thug Shaker Central” board: staunchly conservative, racist, and focused on video games, Orthodox Christianity, and popular Youtuber named “Oxide” who is described as a racist military simulation blogger. So if indeed these leaks are coming from a real disgruntled government employee, it would appear that employee is a fan of far right online forums:
Are there any big “Oxide” fans working in the US intelligence community who also had access to these documents? We’ll see what the investigation reveals. It’s an odd platform for the initial dissemination of what are presumably intended to be damning disclosures. Unless, of course, obscuring the online origins was part of the intent. It’s all part of the weird nature of this story: we have the leaking of documents by an ostensibly disgruntled US intelligence official that actually promote an anti-Russian narrative that first leaked on an obscure and now-deleted Discord server. Whoever did the original leak didn’t appear to be going for a big splash. But someone did indeed get that big splash, thanks to the crudely doctored version of that document that ensured the “Russia has alarmingly high casualties that it’s hiding with a disinformation operation” became the prevailing narrative for this story. It’s quite the silver lining for this apparent nightmare
Following up on the evolving story of the multiple US intelligence document dumps, here’s a piece that includes a potentially very important detail regarding the nature of the these leaks: first, recall how that Bellingcat analysis concluded that the apparently started in an obscure right-wing “Thug Shaker Central” Discord server back in mid-January. It was only in early March when the documents started showing on other Discord servers — WowMan and a Minecraft-focused server — but even then almost no one noticed. It was only last week, when someone posted a batch of documents that included the US assessment showing extremely high Russian casualties that the story started getting attention, in part because it was that specific intelligence assessment that had a crudely made fake version quickly created and disseminated, generating the “is this a Russian disinformation op?” narrative that initially shaped the coverage.
So someone with access to these documents apparently started sharing them in January, but they didn’t make a high-profile splash with them until early April. That brings us to the important detail in the following CNN piece: after reviewing 53 of the documents, CNN concluded that they were all generated in February or March. Whoever is doing this leaking apparently started leaking in January, and then continued to obtain and photograph more classified documents in February and March which were further leaked. In other words, whoever did this is potentially still active with ongoing access to classified materials.
At the same time, as we’re also going to see in the piece, when we look at many of the reports included in these leaks, they aren’t particularly damning for the US outside of the ‘duh’ revelations that the US is spying on its allies. A case could be made that many in the intelligence community are quietly pleased to see some of these reports go public, like the report concluding that Ukraine will likely have a very difficult time taking and hold territories this year. And that brings us to the other context we have to keep in mind with this story: the ongoing Nord Stream bombing leaks to Sy Hersh. Someone very high up inside the US intelligence community has been talking to Hersh. And while we still have no idea who they are or what exactly their motives are, it’s not a stretch to suspect many in the US government with accurate access to the state of the war in Ukraine are deeply alarmed by how the conflict is playing out and the prospects for ending it.
Another angle to the story is the leaks revealing the spying on US allies like South Korea and Israel. While the South Korean spying disclosure is certainly embarrassing, it’s not exactly shocking. And in the case of Israel, let’s not forget that this is happening a low point in US/Israeli relations. A low point that possibly includes that March report by James Bamford revealing how “Guccifer2.0” and the “Russian hack of the DNC” in 2016 appears to have been coordinated by Netanyahu in a bid to get Trump elected. The US public may not have noticed that report but we can be confident the intelligence community was paying closer attention.
That’s all part of the context of these leaks that raise the question: are these leaks really intended to damage US relations and policies? Or might there be other objectives at work here?:
“The leak has also led the Pentagon to take steps to tighten the flow of such highly sensitive documents, officials said, which are normally available on any given day to hundreds of people across the government.”
Who dunnit? Well, at this point we can roughly narrow it down to any of the hundreds of people across the routine government with daily access to these kinds of join intelligence reports, including reports generated by the Joint Staff’s intelligence arm. Someone apparently managed to fold them up and extract them from a secure location. Notably, all of the reviewed documents appear to have been produced between med-February and early March. Again, recall how the first alleged instance of the sharing of these documents took place in January on the “Thug Shaker Central” Discord server. So assuming it’s the same person behind all of these leaks, it appears they leaked documents in January and then stole some more and February and March before leaking them too. It’s a potentially important detail in this investigation: whoever did this apparently did it multiple times over a course of months. Which, of course, is someone who might strike again:
And yet, while the document dumps are certainly embarrassing for the US intelligence community, it’s hard to say that they’re particularly damning disclosures. If anything, they seem like the kinds of reports that some in the intelligence community might want to see released to the public, in particular when it comes to the stark assessments of the prospects for Ukraine making and keeping any gains this year. Don’t forget, this is all happening amidst the parallel ongoing mysteries of who blew up Nord Stream and who inside the US intelligence community is it acting as a source of Sy Hersh? Is this possibly the same source?
As another example of a report that’s embarrassing, but not necessary something some might not want to see publicly released, we find a report on President Zelensky proposing strikes deep inside Russia using long-range drones. Recall the reports from January about Ukraine jerryrigging long-range drones by attaching Starlink terminals to them, followed up by reports in February about SpaceX restricting Ukraine’s access to Starlink to the Ukrainian battlefield to prevent Starlink from being adapted into an offensive weapons platform that can strike inside Russia. It’s the kind of development at least some in the US intelligence community see as destabilizing. So when we see a leaked report effectively warning against Ukrainian long-range missile plans, we have to ask just how unhappy people inside the intelligence community really are about that disclosure:
And, again, as we saw, all the kerfuffle about a faked document was focused on a single document that contains the US assessment of massive Russian casualties. That seems like the kind of report a lot of people would love to see leaked:
But then we get to the disclosures about spying on allies like South Korea and Israel. Disclosing the spying on South Korean officials is pretty unambiguously awful. Same with Israel. Awful, but not really shocking.
At the same time, it’s also the case that relations between the US and Israel are at a relative low in the face of Netanyahu’s ‘judicial reform’ push. A push that resulted in Joe Biden and Netanyahu public rebuking each other. At the same time, don’t forget that remarkable March report in the Nation disclosing the apparent role Israeli agents played in the “Guccifer2.0” antics of the 2016 US election. There’s no shortage of potential friction between the US and Israel right now. So when we see this leak about Mossad approving of protests against Netanyahu, we have to ask: is there a faction in the US intelligence community that wanted to see this leaked right now to shape the crisis in Israel? Or perhaps just as a kind of tit-for-tat revenge?
That’s quite a few references to US signals intelligence in these reports about allies. It’s obviously awkward. But it was also obviously happening and anyone with a clue knew it long before this report came out. It’s an awkward temporary embarrassment. Probably. Time will tell if there are any long-term consequences over these leaks when it comes to the US’s relations with allies.
This is also a good time to recall how Sy Hersh has repeatedly emphasized how the Nord Stream bombing operation was conducted in a manner that kept the operation secret from congress. But the Nord Stream bombing isn’t the only ‘holy sh#t!’ event involving Western intelligence in Ukraine. Also recall that Grayzone report on the planning the UK had on blowing up the Kerch bridge. So we have to ask: what do the US intelligence community’s internal assessments about the Nord Stream or Kerch bridge bombing actually say about who did it? We don’t know yet. The mystery leaker doesn’t appear to have leaked about those events. Which, given the overall context of this story, is an additional bit of mystery.
That didn’t take long. the Pentagon leaker has been identified and arrested. A 21 year old member of the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, Jack Teixeira, is the culprit. Specifically, it was Teixeira who appears to have posted the documents originally to the Thug Shaker Central chat group on Discord. Recall how a Bellingcat investigation concluded that the documents were first disseminated on the private Thug Shaker Central forum — a forum dedicated to Orthodox Christianity, guns, and racist memes — back in January, eventually ended up on on other Discord forums — a Minecraft forum and the WowMan forum — in early March. But it was only when someone posted a collection of the documents to Telegram and 4chan last week that the leak started gaining attention. Importantly, the documents leaked last week included one purporting to show extremely high Russian casualties compared to shockingly low Ukrainian casualties, along with the dissemination of a crudely made fake version. It was the kind of public debut that raised the question of whether or not we’re looking at some sort of intentional leak, something many pro-Russian bloggers immediately suggested given the lopsided nature of the casualty numbers that don’t seem to match reality.
As we’re going to see, the motive of the dissemination of the documents remains very unclear. it appears that Teixeira was the leader of this Thug Shaker Central group. In fact, he was the “OG” who was apparently older than everyone else and seen as the charismatic leader of the group. And based on what we know so far, it’s not at all clear that the intent of sharing the documents with the group was to see them leaked online. Instead, it was almost as if Teixeira was just sharing them for private consumption and the group’s edification. So how these documents went from Thug Shaker Central to Telegram and 4chan remains unexplained.
Another major unexplained aspects to their story involves how Teixeira got his hands on the documents in the first place. When he joined the service in September 2019, his official job was Cyber Transport Systems journeyman, meaning he had a role in making sure the service’s “vast, global communications network” is “operating properly.” In other words, he sounds like someone who was in a position to grab all sort of intelligence digitally. Like a new Ed Snowden.
And yet, as we saw, the leaked documents appear to have been photographs of printouts. And as many noted, print outs of classified documents are routinely shared daily in binders delivered to senior government officials. In other words, we can’t yet rule out the possibility that this 21 year old National Guardsman somehow got his hands on one of these binders normally limited to a senior government official.
And that brings us to one of the immediate forms of fallout from this story: it turns out there have recently been steps taken to expand the daily sharing of intelligence briefings across government agencies. That expanded sharing has already ended in response to this story.
So while we don’t know yet what Teixeira’s motives were for sharing this information, we can be pretty confident that anyone who wanted to see a reigning in on the sharing of classified information across government agencies is probably pretty happy with this story:
“The National Guardsman, whose name is Jack Teixeira, oversaw a private online group called Thug Shaker Central, where about 20 to 30 people, mostly young men and teenagers, came together over a shared love of guns, racist online memes and video games.”
The leaker was a 21 year old member of the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard who also happens to be the leader of an obscure online group of mostly teenagers. It’s not exactly the expected profile of someone with access to highly classified information. But that’s how this story is unfolding:
Interestingly, it sounds like reporters had already identified Teixeira and approached his mom’s home where he was staying before his Thursday afternoon arrest. And it also appears that the family was fully aware of that looming arrest:
Also recall how, based on prior reporting, it appeared that the documents first leaked to “Thug Shaker Central” in January eventually made their way to other Discord forums like a Minecraft forum and the “WowMan” forum in early March. But it was only after someone posted the files to Telegram and 4Chan last week that the documents started getting widespread attention, and it was specifically documents purporting to show extremely high Russian casualties juxtaposed with surprising low Ukrainian casualties that this still-anonymous poster was initially hyping, leading to the creation of a crudely doctored version of the document with the numbers flipped. So was it Teixeira who posted those documents to Telegram and 4chan in an attempt to get wide attention? Or another member of the private chat groups? That whole chapter in this story remains very unclear:
Finally, note this very intriguing detail: according to a 17 year old member of Thug Shaker Central, “We have some people in our group who are in Ukraine”. So we have to ask: are these Ukrainian members of the group? Or people who traveled to Ukraine to fight in the conflict? Don’t forget that Thug Shaker Central was described as a forum with a focus on Orthodox Christianity, guns, and racist memes, so when we learn that members of the group are in Ukraine, the question of whether or not this group was effectively disseminating intelligence directly to extremists fighting in Ukraine is a scenario worth keeping in mind:
So given that Teixeira was a member of the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, and yet observers question how he could have had access to so much classified intelligence, we have to ask what actual intelligence did he have access to? Well, according to the following report, when Teixeira joined the service in September 2019 his official job was Cyber Transport Systems journeyman, a role described as being tasked with making sure the service’s “vast, global communications network” is “operating properly.” In other words, it sounds like he had access to a vast amount of digital information. And yet, the leaked documents appeared to be photographs of printouts. So was he printing out and photographing documents? Or photographing printouts he already had access to?
“Teixeira is an enlisted airman at the Massachusetts Air National Guard, according to details from his service record released by the Air Force Thursday. He joined the service in September 2019 and his official job is Cyber Transport Systems journeyman. According to the Air Force, Cyber Transport Systems specialists are tasked with making sure the service’s “vast, global communications network” is “operating properly.””
Teixeira had immense access to digital information. So was that the information he actually stole? That’s unclear. But what is clear at this point is that this whole incident is being used as an excuse for reigning in the sharing of this information across the government:
And that brings us to the following CNN report describing one of the immediate responses to this leak: ending a new program that had recently been started that expanded the level and intelligence sharing across government agencies. As one source put it, “Having to scale that distribution back, even temporarily, is a bitter pill”:
“Some US officials who used to receive the briefing materials daily have stopped receiving it in recent days, sources familiar with the matter told CNN, as the Pentagon’s Joint Staff continues to whittle down its distribution lists.”
The restrictions are already in place. Specifically, restrictions on emailed daily intelligence briefings. Will they be temporary or permanent? Time will tell:
And yet, as observers note, it doesn’t actually appear that Teixeira necessarily took these documents from some digital source like an email. Instead, the documents were photographed print outs, which looks like the kind of printouts that could have come from the briefing books that staffers put together for senior officials daily. So in response to the possible leaking of information from these physical printouts that are normally only given to senior officials, we’re seeing a dramatic scaling back of emailed intelligence briefings. It’s an interesting response:
And it just happens to be the case that, prior to all this, there was a push to make these daily intelligence briefings more accessible across the government. So anyone who may have been opposed to that broader intelligence sharing is probably pretty pleased with how this has all played out:
Are we looking at just a temporary restriction on the sharing of intelligence? Or something more permanent? Time will tell. But it’s worth keeping in mind that the reigning in on intelligence sharing is happening at a time widely seen as pivotal for the conflict in Ukraine. Pivotal and potentially even more bloody than anything seen so far. And potentially involving the quiet embedding of NATO troops on a level not yet seen. Don’t forget that NATO special forces in Ukraine was one of the topics of these leaked documents. In other words, don’t be surprised if that shockingly low estimation of Ukraine’s casualties ends up being the last estimation of Ukraine’s casualties we hear for a while. The casualty numbers coming out of Ukraine could be getting extra messy this year.
Question about how Jack Teixeira managed to access the range of classified documents have been at the forefront of the Pentagon leaker story since it broke a few weeks ago. But those questions just became a lot more relevant following a series of recent updates on the story. For starters, an investigation by the New York Times discovered that not only did Teixeira first start posting documents within 48 hours of the start or Russia’s invasion in February 2022, but he apparently did it on a larger and more publicly accessible Discord message board than previously known. Interestingly, it’s not clear if US authorities were aware of this much longer posting history before the New York Times published their investigation.
Beyond that, prosecutors are revealing an alarming part of Teixeira’s history as part of their argument for not allowing Teixeira out on bail: they point to the fact that Teixeira has a history of posting about his desire to kill large numbers of people and was previous suspended from high school for unspecified “concerning comments” about “Molotov cocktails and other weapons.” In one Nov. 23, 2022 chat cited by prosecutors, Teixeira wrote “If I had my way I’d kill a fu ck ton of people...“Bc in all honesty you have to/Whether or not you like it/Seriously I would be forcibly culling the weak minded.” He also discussed building an “assassination van” in other chats and mused about “bomb[ing]” his school. That’s the high school track record of the 21 year old who had seemingly unfettered access to top secret intelligence.
Keep in mind that we already knew the forum Teixeira started posting classified documents to in January, Thug Shake Central, was described as having a focus on Orthodox Christianity and racist memes. So this isn’t a particularly surprising revelation given what we knew. But it also underscores the chilling reality that in this story we have all of the ingredients needed to create a mass shooter. Which is precisely the prosecution’s argument.
Ok, first, here’s the New York Times investigation showing a far more extensive history of leaking than previously recognized. A history of leaking that started within 48 hours of the start of the invasion that US investigators seemingly didn’t know about before this report:
“In February 2022, soon after the invasion of Ukraine, a user profile matching that of Airman Jack Teixeira began posting secret intelligence on the Russian war effort on a previously undisclosed chat group on Discord, a social media platform popular among gamers. The chat group contained about 600 members.”
The leaks didn’t start in January of this year. They started in February of 2022, less than 48 hours after the initial invasion. It’s as if Teixeira leaked at the first available opportunity. At least the first opportunity to leak something topically interesting to this Discord chat group:
Amazingly, this timeline revelation didn’t come from investigating authorities. It came from the New York Times’ own investigation. So far all we know, the US government only learned about the full scope of this leak with the publication of this report. Is that plausible?
And then there’s the fact that this initial Discord chat group that he was posting to was not only larger than the Thug Shaker Central Discord group but publicly listed on a YouTube channel. Again, how is it possible that, at this point, it was the New York Times that only now discovered all of this without US authorities previously finding out?
Of course, it’s entirely possible US government investigators did indeed discover all of these earlier leaks and didn’t disclose them for some reason. There’s presumably all sorts of things they’ve learned that have yet to be publicly released. Like Teixeira’s history of threatening and fantasizing about mass violence. We didn’t see those details show up in prior reporting and yet those were the details prosecutors cited in making their case to keep Teixeira in custody. Details suggesting Teixeira poses the kind of direct physical threat to his community that a wannabe school shooter
poses:
“Prosecutors included the allegations as part of an argument that Teixeira presents not only a national security and counterintelligence threat, but also poses a direct physical threat to the community via his access to weapons and penchant for at least musing about mass casualty events.”
It’s quite an argument for prosecutors to use to keep someone who, until last month, had access to an array of top secret intelligence: we can’t release this guy because he might go a mass shooting spree.
And yet, it’s not like they are exaggerating. Teixeira really does appear to be a mass-shooter in the making. He’s got the weapons, the training, a desire for mass violent purges, and a demonstrable propensity to take enormous risks. All in all, we’re kind of lucky he didn’t try to make that fantasy a reality before getting arrested:
It’s also worth noting how Teixeira apparently told at least one chat group on March 19th that he was no longer going to post new content. Recall how this whole story only got mainstream attention after someone posted some of these leaked documents to a Telegram channel and 4Chan. So it appears that the high-profile leaking only started after Teixeira let his audience know he was going silent:
The more we learn, the more familiar this story is becoming. Familiar and at the same time a kind of fusion of two story templates: the disgruntled leaker and the wannabe mass shooter. We’ve seen plenty of stories about disgruntled leakers and way to many mass shooter stories. But it’s hard to think of another story with both of these elements.
But let’s not forget another story from recent with strange echos to this case: the neo-Nazi satanist Ethan Melzer who plotted attacks on his own military unit. It turns out Melzer was sentenced last month. And as we can see in the following report, Melzer wasn’t simply plotting these attacks. He was also sharing intelligence he had access to with an online “Order of the Nine Angles” community he only discovered after joining the military. An online community led by a 15 year old pretending to be an ex-paratrooper:
“According to Melzer’s defense attorney, Jonathan Marvinny, Melzer discovered the O9A group online in early 2019 – three months after he had enlisted in the US Army – and, after being “confined to his barracks” in Italy during the pandemic, began “drinking heavily, and spending far too much time online.””
Another case of online radicalization. In this case, Melzer appeared to think he was dealing with a group of fellow soldiers, with the leader of the sub-group being a 15 year old pretending to be an ex-paratrooper. And Melzer wasn’t just plotting attacks. He was sharing highly classified intelligence too:
So Melzer was radicalized and interacting with the cell of an extremist group. What about Teixeira, who appears to be a leader in this online community. Is this just a random group of people who Teixeira randomly came into contact with? Or something more organized like the situation Melzer stumbled into? At this point we don’t know. But at this point, with a story already this twisted, we also know we should probably expect a few more twists. In other words, we don’t know how this story will get worse, but we can be pretty confident that’s the direction this story is going. It’s going to get worse. Probably weirdly worse if trends continue.
It keeps getting weird. And more intriguing: the New York Times published a new update on the Jack Teixeira military intelligence ‘Discord leak’ story. The Times obtained access to a much larger trove of old messages from the Discord server Teixeira posted on, giving us a better idea of his general motives and worldview. And yet, it’s not like the motives are really clear at this point. It’s still a muddle.
For starters, we got a few more disturbing details on Teixeira’s pattern of fantasizing about mass shootings. In addition to acquiring a number of new guns in recent months, Teixeira even posted a video back in February showing him shooting a rifle from the bed of a truck. Days before that post, he asked the board about firing and AR-style rifle “out of an suv” in “a crowded urban or suburban environment.”
In terms of politics, he appears to be focused primarily on opposing any sort of gun control. Along those lines, We’re also told that he discussed ambitions that included confronting protesters during the 2024 presidential campaign.
Interestingly, given his apparent mass-shooting fantasizing, Teixeira also espoused an Alex Jones-style worldview that saw the CIA and other intelligence agencies are seeking out mentally ill young men to convince them to carry out mass shootings in order to justify gun control policy. It’s kind of the perfect example of how two seemingly contradictory motives can coexist when looking at a phenomena like mass shootings. One obviously can’t rule out the possibility of government-sponsored false flag attacks. That’s an implicit danger than can always exist. But the that Teixeira himself was like a mass-shooter-in-training at the same time he was convinced mass shooters are a government false flag only underscores how mass shootings can be organic phenomena too. They aren’t mutually exclusive.
Very interestingly, Teixeira even claimed to the Discord chat group at various points that his buddies were warning him about mass shootings that were about to happen. Those predictions didn’t pan out we are told. Still, if indeed Teixeira was passing along real ‘intelligence’ that he had somehow come across, it points towards a kind of military intelligence gossip culture that might be part of this overall picture. It’s kind of chilling to imagine what military spies gossip about but that’s sort of what this story is about.
And that brings us to a highly intriguing topic of gossip that Teixeira shared with the Discord group in March of 2022, weeks into the Russian invasion: “As of now Ukraine has ordered the US biolabs it still has to destroy all of the dangerous pathogens they hold...We got a comm interception from high ranking commanders stating that Russia was going to start trying to take them.”
So Teixeira was claiming “we got a comm interception” indicating that Russia was planning on seizing the US-backed biolabs in Ukraine, and all of the dangerous pathogens had to be destroyed in advance of those seizures. While that might be gossip, that doesn’t sound like gossip. It sounds like an intelligence report on intercepted communications. How many more juicy morsels like that did he leak over the past year? Keep in mind that the New York Times apparently got its hands on more than 9,500 posts from Teixeira and that’s what wasn’t already deleted. It’s a reminder that there could be A LOT more highly explosive content that was quietly leaked over the past year. And who knows, maybe more on those biolabs:
“The posts are part of a huge trove of previously unreported chat logs obtained by The New York Times. The Discord server, exclusively reviewed by The Times, is one of at least two in which Airman Teixeira shared U.S. intelligence on Ukrainian readiness, battlefield commands from the Kremlin and secret arms shipments by American allies, along with reports of internal friction on all sides. The airman, who was charged with two counts related to the unauthorized handling of classified materials, could face 25 years in prison for his involvement in the leak.”
The more media outlets investigate, the more posts they’re finding from Airman Teixeira. And while we are getting a clearer idea of his motives, it’s not exactly crystal clear. For example, it’s still not clear why he leaked the documents beyond an apparent desire to impress this anonymous Discord chat group. It’s like he’s acting as a private whistleblower for just this online anonymous audience, operating from a right-wing mindset that sounds like merger of InfoWars-style analysis of world events with the kind of exterminationist ‘cull the weak-minded’ rhetoric we expect from groups like Atomwaffen. He even reportedly solicited advice about firing an AR-style rifle “out of an suv” in “a crowded urban or suburban environment,” back in February, days before posting a video of him firing various rifles. We when we hear that he was plotting to confront protesters during the 2024 presidential campaign, you have to wonder what kind of ‘confrontation’ he had in mind:
And it’s that ‘mass-shooter-in-training’ trail of breadcrumbs in this story that makes his conclusions about intelligence-orchestrated mass-shootings so ironic. He was both soliciting advice from this chat group on how to better carrying out a mass-shooting and simultaneously informing this group that intelligence agencies were contacting mentally ill kids to convince them to do mass shootings as part of a plot to get gun control passed. This is a good time to recall that government-backed terror plots and genuine non-government-backed terror plots aren’t mutually exclusive phenomena. Both can exist. It’s also a good time to recall how the government’s seizure of guns has long been seen by the far right as one of the most potent trigger points for starting a full blown fascist race war:
Intriguingly, Teixeira even claimed to have received tips from intelligence co-workers about upcoming mass shootings. Tips that didn’t pan out, mind you, but he appeared to believe them enough to pass them along. It’s the kind of detail that hints at a broader military intelligence gossip-culture angle to this story:
And that brings us to this absolutely fascinating piece of apparently top secret military intelligence gossip that Teixeira shared in March of last year, as the conflict in Ukraine was still unfolding: “As of now Ukraine has ordered the US biolabs it still has to destroy all of the dangerous pathogens they hold...We got a comm interception from high ranking commanders stating that Russia was going to start trying to take them.” If this is really what he was hearing, it sounds like the US-backed Ukrainian biolabs were a high priority topic precisely because of all the dangerous pathogens they hold. At least that was military intelligence chatter at the time:
Finally, we get to this interesting new details on the timing of these Discord leaks: while it sounds like he was posting on this Discord server at least as far back as the fall of 2021, it was Feb 25, 2022, when he first started posting insider information. That all seemingly ended on March 19, 2023, when Teixeira announced that he wasn’t going to be posting any more, but then left the intriguing promise that he would still fields information requests through direct messaging. That’s all part of the context of the bizarre way his posts were effectively thrust into the public in early April when someone else started posting the same leaked documents, some crudely doctored, on a Telegram message board: the leaks that had been quietly fed to world for over a year were ending, but not necessarily entirely:
Did anyone ever follow up with a direct message request for more information? We have no idea, but they wouldn’t have had much time. It was only a couple weeks before the new leaks starts and Teixeira’s leak-faucet was shut off for good.
And, again, don’t forget that hundreds of people around the world had access to this content, much of which was deleted before journalists started investigating. We don’t know what was ultimately all leaked. We just know that the person doing the leaking had remarkable access that they exploited for over a year and hundreds of anonymous people acquired that info. It’s the kind of situation that suggests there’s a lot more left to leak in this story. Along with a lot more disinfo to muddy the waters.
With the US justice system still trying to determine whether or not Jack Teixeira can be released pending his trial — with prosecutors noting his apparent interest in carrying out mass shootings — it’s worth noting the other member of the US military who has also become ensnared in this story: Sarah Bils, the ‘pro-Russian’ blogger who has become the public face for the still-mysterious network of individuals behind the early April Telegram leaks that propelled the Teixeira leaks into the mainstream in the first place.
Yes, it turns out the “Donbass Devushka” social media account that initially leaked a set of documents from Teixeira’s much larger series of leaks onto a pro-Russian Telegram account in early April had a former Navy officer as its public face. Remarkably, Bils only became a former Navy officer in November 2022 when she was honorably discharged. And yet her online activities with the Donbass Devushka appears to have started on February 24, 2022, the day of the start of the conflict in Ukraine. Keep in mind that we are also told Teixeira first began his leaks to the Discord group less than 48 hours after the start of the conflict. So both Bils and Teixeira got started on their ‘extracurricular activities’ right around the same time.
Bils went on to become the co-host for a Donbass Devushka podcast that managed to score a number of relatively high profile interviews with critics of the US’s Ukraine policies including Scott Ritter. Also during this time, Bils had a top-secret security clearance while working at the U.S. naval air station on Whidbey Island. How did a Navy officer with a top secret security clearance end up playing a role at the co-host for the Donbass Devushka podcast?
Of course, there’s more to the mystery. For starters, when Bils received her honorable discharge in November of 2022, she held the rank of E5, two ranks below the E7 rank she previously held. What happened? Well, it appears that Bils was behind the wheel in a September 2021 drunk driving incident that put her in the hospital with injuries. We are told it was only after this event that she began taking on a public Donbass Devushka role. It’s not clear what type of Donbass Devushka-related activities she was involved with between September 2021 and February 24, 2022, when she started a series of Donbass Devushka-related online accounts to cover the unfolding conflict.
We’re also told that, after a number of these new accounts were suspending for posting violations, this Donbass Devushka network somehow managed to recycle a “PeImeniPusha” Twitter account that was originally started in 2012. So Bils got involved with a network of people who had access to old recyled ‘pro-Russian’ twitter accounts. Who else is in this network? At this point we have no idea, although Bils claims that 15 people “around the world” have admin privileges for the Donbass Devushka.
That claim is part of her defense against charges of leaking the documents. Bils asserts it was one of the other admins who leaked the documents to Telegram and this person has been disciplined. Interestingly, given that she was discharged from the Navy at the time of the leaks, it’s possible she didn’t actually break any US laws. Another interesting detail in relation to those initial leaks is that court records show Bils legally changed her name to the more Russian-sounding “Lyudmila Mikhailova Karakova” on March 31, 2023. So just days before this network made the very high-profile leaks of a handful of documents from Teixeira’s much large cache, Bils changed her name. Interesting timing.
Again, don’t forget that the high-profile Telegram leak included the document that was so crudely manipulated that the Kremlin warned it was a US psyop targeting Russian morale. That’s a big part of the mystery surrounding this entire story. And it turns out the source of that provocative leak included a US Navy officer with top secret clearance who was still in the Navy when she got involved in all this. And that’s the only person identified in this network. What are we looking at here?
“A purported Russian blogger known as Donbass Devushka, which translates as Donbas Girl, reposted the files from obscure online chat rooms. The blog is the face of a network of pro-Kremlin social-media, podcasting, merchandise and fundraising accounts. But the person who hosted podcasts as Donbass Devushka and oversees these accounts is a Washington-state-based former U.S. enlisted aviation electronics technician whose real name is Sarah Bils.”
It wasn’t Jack Teixeira who tried to popularize the leaked documents. It was the Donbass Devushka, the online persona that appears to be shared by a network of individuals. And the public ‘face’ of that Donbass Devushka persona happens to be Sarah Bils, a 37 year who served at the the U.S. naval air station on Whidbey Island until late 2022. A position that would have come with a security clearance. But Bils claims she wasn’t the one to post the documents. It was another one of the 15 people “all over the world” who has admin privileges with the Donbass Devushka persona who did the posting:
So why did Bils leave the Navy last year? That wasn’t entirely clear at the time this story was first reported, but the fact she left with an honorable discharge at a lower rank suggested some sort of event took place that forced her out of the Navy. It’s a mystery that’s all the more intriguing when we consider that she someone with her rank and position would have typically had a top-secret clearance:
Adding to the mystery around Bils is the fact that she claims to have been born in Luhansk but, according to a “NAFO” investigation, she isn’t from there at all and instead lives in Washington State:
And then there’s the fact that the Donbass Devushka persona’s Twitter account has been in existence since 2012. So the group that leaked these files has been collectively operating some sort of pro-Donbass online persona since 2012? And the recent public face for this persona was US Navy officer with top secret clearances? What are we looking at here?
So a Twitter account created in 2012 was used as part of this Donbass Devushka online campaign. It raises the question as to how long this network has operated, who runs it, and when exactly did Bils get involved. And that brings us to the following open source investigation by Malcontent News and NAFO with a number of additional details on this network. Confusing details.
For starters, it appears that Bils’s November 2022 honorable discharge and her lower rank were related to a September 2021 drunk driving incident with Bils behind the wheel. According to this investigation, it was only after that September 2021 accident that Bils started to publicly take on this Russian heritage persona and presenting herself as an expert on geopolitics and history. On Feb 24, 2022 — the date of the start of the conflict in Ukraine — Bils created a number of online accounts focused on the conflict. When those online personas were suspended for various reasons, the Donbass Devushka network even recycled a PeImeniPusha Twitter account created in 2012. Within months, this network managed to secure interviews with personalities that included Scott Ritter.
Then we get to the leak of the Teixeira documents: it appears that Bils legally changed her name to the more Russian-sounding “Lyudmila Mikhailova Karakova” on March 31, 2023. So Bils changed her name just days before someone in this Donbass Devushka network leaked a small cache of the Teixeira docs, including the crudely modified document that made the entire thing look suspicious and even prompted the Kremlin to call it a US psyop. Another twist is that, despite Bils have held a top secret security clearance during her time posting as the Donbass Devushka while she was still in the Navy, it’s not clear she broke any laws even if she did leak those documents because she was already discharged from the Navy by April of this year.
Keep in mind that we have no idea about the identities or even locations of the other Donbass Devushka admins in this network. How many other members of the US military with security clearances are involved? We still have no idea. The only thing we know about this broader network is that a lot more people than Bils are behind it and it played a key role in both publicizing and defusing the impact of the Teixeira leaks:
“Things started to unravel for Donbass Devushka when reputable members of the pro-Ukrainian online movement “NAFO” collaborated with reporters from Malcontent News. Our investigation into Donbass Devushka included analyzing open-source material, conducting interviews with multiple sources, and obtaining public records. We confirmed the true identity of the mysterious woman born in three places: former United States Navy Legal Clerk Sarah Bils. She was recently released from active duty.”
A joint investigation between NAFO and “Malcontent News” appears to be what led to the unmasking of Sarah Bils. And according to that investigation, Bils was born in the US, joined the Navy in 2009 until her active duty status ended in November 2022. In 2021, Bils was promoted to the rank of Chief Petty Officer in a role that would require a security clearance. Finally, she legally changed her name to “Lyudmila Mikhailova Karakova” on March 31 of this year, days before the documents were first leaked by someone in the Donbass Devushka network:
Now, regarding Bils’s apparent demotion not long before her honorable discharge, it appears that a drunk driving incident from September 2021 that resulted in injuries to Bils was the catalyst, although court documents aren’t clear on that:
Interestingly, it was only after the September 2021 car accident that Bils took on the “Donbas Devushka” role. In particular, it was after the start of the Feb 24, 2022, launch of the conflict that Bils began creating online personas. At some point, this included recycling the PelmeniPusha Twitter account created in July of 2012. This was presumably done as part of this larger network of people behind the Donbas Devushka account. So it was during Bils’s last year in the Navy, following that car accident and only months before the launch of the conflict in Ukraine, that she appears to have become involved with an existing online network behind the Donbass Devushka:
Notably, this group still managed to get interviews with figures like Scott Ritter. It has the appearance of being a network dedicated to promoting a ‘pro-Russian’ narrative. And yet, as this report acknowledges, we are faced with the irony that the actions of this network — in particular the crude manipulation of the images that made it obvious someone doctored the documents — effectively promoted the narrative that Russia was facing devastating casualties and ultimately ended up getting the full cache of leaked documents dismissed by the Kremlin as a US psychological operation. That’s part of the mystery here: while the Donbass Devushka is ostensibly ‘pro-Russian’, and even had real ‘pro-Russian’ interviews with figure like Scott Ritter, it ultimately operated in a manner that seemed to simultaneously highlight and defuse the impact of Teixeira’s leaks:
And then we get to a very interesting detail in this story: it’s not actually clear that Bils broke any laws with the sharing of those then-leaked documents given that she was fully discharged from the Navy at the time of the leaks:
So let’s review: In September 2021, Sarah Bils, then a Naval officer with top secret clearance, was the driver in a drunken driving incident that resulted in injuries. Following that crash, Bils apparently became more and more involved with this still-anonymous global network of admins operating the Donbass Devushka social media personality, including becoming the public face of the persona. This while she was still in the Navy with a security clearance. In November of 2022, Bils was honorably discharged, but at a lower rank than before the crash. On March 31, 2021, she legally changed her name to “Lyudmila Mikhailova Karakova”. Days later, someone operating the Donbass Devushka Telegram account posted a small cache of the leaked Teixeira documents, including the crudely doctored document that had the Kremlin declaring the entire thing a US psychological operation.
It’s going to be interesting to see how many other members of the US military were involved with this. And even more interesting to see what, if any, interest there is in pursuing an official investigation into this network at all. But it’s worth noting that, in theory, the Donbass Devushka network might be in possession of ALL the documents Teixeira reportedly leaked starting in Feb of 2022, including all of the documents that have been deleted from the Discord servers and investigators can only speculate about. Are we going to see any ‘bonus leaks’ from this network? And don’t forget that Bils had top secret clearances while she was acting as a co-host for the Donbass Devushka podcast. While she doesn’t appear to be the original source of these leaks, she presumably could have been. How many other members of this network are there who also possess US security clearances? These are just some of many questions we have yet to answer about this story. Including the general question of whether we’re looking at an ongoing counter-intelligence operation.
As questions over the Jack Teixeira leaks continue to accumulate as we learn more and more about how Teixeira held a worldview in line with a school shooter or member of Atomwaffen, it looks like we might be forced to re-ask one of the basic questions at the center of this story: Who did the high-profile Telegram leaks and why?
Up until now, we’ve been told that the leaked documents first first posted on the Thug Shaker Central Discord channel by Teixeira, starting within hours of the launch of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. We were then told the documents didn’t ultimately end up receiving public attention until a small cache of them were posted on Telegram in early April by the “Donbass Devushka”. As we’ve also seen, the Donbass Devushka online persona appears to be managed by a network of individuals that includes former Navy officer Sarah Bils, who didn’t leave the Navy until November of 2022. But it now appears that story has shifted. Maybe. Either that, or one of the members of the Thug Shaker Central Discord channel was also a member of the Donbass Devushka. Because we are now told that it was a young member of Thug Shaker Central who first posted the leaked documents on Telegram.
At least that’s according to several other Thug Shaker Central members who spoke with the Washington Post in the following article that fleshes out Teixeira’s terrifying far right worldview. A worldview focused on preparing for “race war” and rebellion against the “Zionist Occupied Government” that is apparently shockingly common among conservative-minded Discord chat groups. Overall, it sounds like Teixeira was leaking not as a whistleblower but, rather, as a means of influencing these Discord groups in their views on the US government and its ‘ZOG’ nature. In other words, he was using the leaked documents to impress and radicalize the Discord audiences. This is a good time to recall that 2018 investigation that found 173 chat groups on the Steam gaming platform dedicated to celebrating school shooters.
We’re also now informed that Teixeira wasn’t just posting these leaked documents to the relatively smalle Thug Shaker Central Discord server, where he seemed to be playing a kind of ‘wise elder’ role to a younger audience. He was also posting to the Abinavski’s Exclusion Zone Discord channel, which is dedicated to war video games and, importantly, has a much larger members in the hundreds. Teixeira apparently started posting to this larger channel in February of 2022 too, which makes it all the more remarkable that it wasn’t until April of 2023 that any of this apparently made it out of these Discord channels and into the public discourse.
So as we gain greater clarity on the headspace guiding Teixeira’s motives when it come to why the documents were leaked in the first place, it’s now less clear who ultimately initiated the Telegram leaks. No mention of the “Donbass Devushka” even made it into this article. Instead, we’re now told that Telegram leaks — which converted this from a story about Teixeira’s private leak-based radicalization efforts into a much broader story about classified documents with potentially embarrassing information about the war in Ukraine getting leaked to the public at large — came from a young unnamed Thug Shaker Central member. It’s a pretty huge change in the narrative for a story that just keeps getting worse and worse the more we learn:
“Previously unpublished videos and chat logs reviewed by The Washington Post, as well as interviews with several of Teixeira’s close friends, suggest that he was readying for what he imagined would be a violent struggle against a legion of perceived adversaries — including Blacks, political liberals, Jews, gay and transgender people — who would make life intolerable for the kind of person Teixeira professed to be: an Orthodox Christian, politically conservative and ready to defend, if not the government of the United States, a set of ideals on which he imagined it was founded.”
He was preparing for civil war. Specifically, war against Blacks, political liberals, Jews, gay and transgender people. The far right archetypal civil war. Or as Teixeria put it, “race war”. He even cheered on the Christchurch massacre. The guy appears to be mentally aligned with Atomwaffen. But perhaps the most alarming detail in this picture is how typical these worldviews apparently are in online gaming war gaming communities. Preparing for ‘race war’ is apparently a mainstream hobby in the contemporary conservative online communities:
And as we should expect, those preparations for ‘race war’ double as preparations for war against the US government. Or, using the Nazi terminology Teixeira used, the “Zionist Occupied Government”:
We also learned a little bit more about how Teixeira not only managed to get a top secret security clearance despite his worldview and despite the fact that he had previously been suspended from high school “when a classmate overheard him make remarks about weapons, including Molotov cocktails, guns at the school, and racial threats.” Amazingly, not only was Teixeira given the top secret clearance, but he then proceeded to use his Air Force security clearance to obtain a firearms identification card for the state of Massachusetts that had previously been denied over the school school shooting threats:
But then we get to these very confusing details regarding how all of the leaked documents ultimately gained public attention: First, we are informed that the Thug Shaker Central Discord server Teixeira first started sharing these leaked documents on back in February of 2022 wasn’t the only server he was leaking to. There was also the Abinavski’s Exclusion Zone server, a much larger Discord server with hundreds of users. Teixeira apparently started posting leaked documents to that server too also as early as February 2022. But as we’ve seen previously reported, it was the posting of a subset of documents to much more high profile Telegram channels in early April of this year that ultimately ended up making this a public story. And as we’ve also seen, those posts to Telegram were apparently done via the “Donbass Devushka” online persona that is apparently collectively managed by a network of people that includes former Naval officer Sarah Bils. And yet here we find the assertion that the Telegram leaks came from “a young Thug Shaker Central member.” At least that’s according to other members of the Discord channel. It’s quite a shift in the overall narrative:
Are we seeing Sarah Bils and the Donbass Devushka effectively getting written out of this story? Time will tell. There is presumably a lot more reporting to come, especially with the Teixeira investigation still underway and yet to play out. There’s plenty of time for more information to come out. But also plenty of space to rewrite the story and write out any inconvenient loose threads. Again, time will time. Especially the narrative shifts over time.
Here’s one of those bad news stories that doesn’t really have particularly sympathetic victims but it’s still awful: The economic neoliberal shock therapy being inflicted upon Ukraine has taken on a new dimension. It appears that some sort of oligarch turf war is playing out in Ukraine. A rather mismatched turf war since one side has the government backing it with sanctions against the other side. Yep, large conglomerates are getting sanctioned over nebulous ‘Russian ties’, including Smart Holding, one of Ukraine’s largest investment conglomerates.
So what is Smart Holding charged with? Well, its founder, Vadym Novynskyi, is a onetime oligarch and former Ukrainian lawmaker who is now a full-time priest in the Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The SBU has yet to publicly detail how it is that Novynskyi helped Russia. Nor has the government explained how Novynskyi is even still involved with the company given that he stepped away from management activities in 2013 and divested himself of ownership last year and receives no income from the company. But that didn’t stop the government from seizing $96 million in assets including the deeds to 40 companies and 30 natural gas wells. Disturbingly, hours before those raids on Smart Holdings, the company was given a fire-sale buyout offer to sell its assets to US and British investors. So while this has the appearance of being some sort of Ukrainian oligarchic turf war, the intended beneficiaries appear to be foreign investors.
Interestingly, while we aren’t told the identities of these British and US investors, we are told that they have no experience in the energy sector. Given the immense growth of US investor interest in the EU natural gas sector over the past few years, it’s rather odd to hear that these investors have no experience in the sector.
Now here’s where it gets extra interesting: recall the bizarre allegations by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the fall of 2021 about a Kremlin-backed coup plot led by Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. Well, it turns out Smart Holding owns a 23% of Metinvest, Akhmetov’s giant mining and metals conglomerate. It is feared that Metinvest is going to be facing these kinds of sanctions next. So while we never really got an explanation on what exactly was going on with those coup accusations, it appears that the underlying oligarchic conflict is still ongoing. With one siding backing teaming up with US and British investors now:
“But these moves against Ukraine’s most successful companies are raising eyebrows — not just in Kyiv — and risk deterring foreign investors, adding to behind-the-scenes worry regarding the country’s seemingly endemic and intractable corruption problem, which has dogged it for decades. Last year, some European Union countries, including Germany, even delayed the distribution of financial aid to Ukraine due to accountability concerns that money could be diverted into corrupt schemes.”
What kind of official shakedowns are taking place under the auspices of sanctions for ‘supporting Russia’? Or to put it another way, is there a non-corrupt explanation for what’s appears to be happening to Smart Holding, one of Ukraine’s largest investment groups?
And then we get to these very interesting details on the Smart Holding shakedown: First, it’s important to note that Smart Holding’s 23% investment in Metinvest is a huge stake in a massive conglomerate that happens to be owned by Ukraine’s wealthiest oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. And Metinvest is now seen as a likely next sanctions target. Recall the bizarre allegations by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the fall of 2021 about a Kremlin-backed coup plot led by Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. We never really got clarity on what exactly that whole affair was about, but it appears that oligarchic turf war is still playing out.
But then there’s there’s very damning offer that was apparently made hours before the Smart Holding raids: a fire-sale buyout offer for its natural gas interests from British and American investors. Investors with no actual experience in this area, oddly enough. It’s the kind of details that suggests there’s more backing for these moves among allied governments than EU protests suggest:
But it’s not just Smart Holding. Global sports betting company Parimatch also appears to be betting muscled out of its market position for yet-to-be explained reasons involving unsubstantiated claims of Russian links:
And here we get to some very interesting spin on situation from Kiryanova of Smart Holding: they believe this is part of a bid to strip the old elites of their wealth in order to shape a new oligarchic elite. Not strip them of their wealth to share with the public. It really is like a mob-on-mob shakedown situation:
Again, it’s hard to be very sympathetic towards any of the players in this story. It’s not like Rinat Akhmetov is some great guy. And it’s not like this is some sort of populist uprising against Ukraine’s oligarchs. If anything it’s the opposite, with Ukraine’s economy set to get more concentrated and simultaneously even more sold off to foreign investors.
The presidents of France, Germany, and Poland just held a summit where the topic of Ukraine was in unsurprisingly at the top of the agenda. Somewhat more surprising is that we told that Polish president Andrzej Duda pressed for Ukrainian membership in NATO, a move that is obviously not possible while the war in Ukraine is ongoing without turning that into a war between NATO and Russia.
So what is the ultimate goal of these calls for Ukrainian NATO membership? Time will tell, but as the following report from last week indicates, Poland and its Baltic neighbors appear to be working on a plan to force the issue of Ukraine’s NATO membership: according to former NATO chief Anders Rasmussen, who is serving as an adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Ukraine’s place in a future European security architecture, either Ukraine be given a clear path toward NATO membership or we might see Poland and its Baltic neighbors sending in troops on their own:
“His striking suggestion that some states may regard the stakes as momentous enough to use their own troops could be seen as a warning to countries that the risks, including the threat to Nato unity, do not only come if Ukraine is provided a quick path to Nato membership, or powerful security guarantees. Germany remains wary of going too far, fearing it would provoke Russia.”
NATO member boots on the ground. That’s now been put on the table by none other than former NATO chief Anders Rasmussen, who seemed to be making those comments in relation to his role as official advisor to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenkiy. But while Rassmussen was only seemingly sharing his own thoughts on how the process could play out, it’s hard not to read his comments as having the implicit backing of the government of Poland and possibly the Baltic states when he made these comments. So are we seeing some sort of intra-NATO shakedown underway? Demands that Ukraine get specific guarantees of a deeper NATO involvement in the conflict under the threat that Poland and the Baltic will otherwise just unilaterally blow up the conflict on their own?
So what is is that Rasmussen is demanding? Well, that’s not entirely clear, but he seems to be demanding some sort of path for Ukrainian NATO membership while the war in Ukraine continues. How exactly that is supposed to work without triggering a war between Russia and NATO remains entirely a mystery:
Those were the threats Rasmussen was issuing on behalf of Ukraine last week in the lead up to the current talks. But, of course, this message wasn’t simply issued on Ukraine’s behalf. It was a message from Poland and the Baltic governments to the rest of Europe. A message that some sort of escalation was coming whether the rest of NATO liked it or not. Will it be a unilateral escalation that drags the rest of NATO into the conflict? Or are these threats going to be used as a collective excuse for a deepening of NATO’s involvement? We’ll presumably get more clarity on these questions as the July 2023 NATO summit in Vilnius approaches. But with the creation of ambiguity around NATO’s involvement in the conflict seemingly a strategic objective here, don’t be surprised if that clarity comes in the form of a lot more ambiguity about what NATO might be willing to do.
It’s obviously not too soon to start thinking about how the rebuilding of Ukraine is going to happen. But it’s not too soon to start celebrating. At least not if you happen to be an international investor with an eye on scoring some incredible fire sale deals in years to come. That was the message the investor community got at a conference hosted in London last week by the governments of the UK and Ukraine.
As conference attendees learned, there’s a plan in the works for making that rebuilding process happen on the scale necessary as soon as hostilities end. A plan that sure sounds awful close to the the plan described in reports from May of 2022 backed by top EU officials for a multi-trillion euro plan to rebuild Ukraine laid out by Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment Bank (EIB). A plan that focused on providing “reassurances” to private investors. And when we hear about governments planning on achieving infrastructure goals by provided private investors with ‘assurances’, that’s just a cute way of describing a ‘public private-partnerships’ scheme set up to have public funds absorb all of the initial losses.
So it shouldn’t come as as surprise to learn that public-private-parterships designed to have public funds take the first hit on investments is the big plan. Yep. That’s what investors got to learn at last week’s conference, where US financial giants BlackRock and JP Morgan described to investors how they were guiding the Ukrainian government in the creation of a new Ukrainian Development fund that would be leading that effort. The idea is to first raise public funds from governments and then use that pool of money as “concessional capital” that will absorb the first losses in investments. The goal is to use that public concessional capital to incentivize between 5 and 10 times that amount in private capital. In other words, the plan is for public-private-partnerships that is overall 80–90% private capital but 100% of initial losses going to the public money.
Keep in mind that this is all happening in the context of the ongoing neoliberal gutting of Ukraine’s labor laws that is turning Ukraine’s labor protections back to the 19th century. So it’s not just that investors are being enticed with public money to cover their losses. Their also being attracted to a country that effectively has a captured population with almost no labor protections left.
Oh, and guess who the big investors are that BlackRock and JP Morgan have in mind: pension funds. In addition, we are told that this new Ukraine Development Fund will is expected to stock its board with representatives of international financial institutions and governments and hire investment professionals to execute its strategy, which sure sounds like a euphemism for the hiring of private equity firms to manage these investments. Which makes this all sound like a turbo-charged version of growing private equity business model of managing ‘alternative investments’ like hospitals and real estate to pensions funds. A business model that increasingly includes plowing billions of dollars of pension fund money into commercial and residential real estate.
So if the trend of private equity-managed pension fund investing already seemed out of control, get ready for the next stage of that trend, when grandma and grandpa’s retirement will now be dependent on the successful looting of Ukraine. Because that’s the plan:
“The Ukraine Development Fund remains in the planning stages and is not expected to fully launch until the end of hostilities with Russia. But investors will have a preview this week at a London conference co-hosted by the British and Ukrainian governments.”
It’s only in the planning stages right now, but it’s pretty clear that the plans to have something ready to go as soon as possible following the end of hostilities. Who knows when that ending of hostilities will actually happen, with the obvious caveat that the longer the hostilities go, the higher we can expect Ukraine’s rebuilding costs to climb. But at some point this war will end, or at least open hostilities will end, and at that point the rebuilding process can begin. A rebuilding process that will apparently be led by BlackRock and JP Morgan, with some sort of ‘rebuilding bank’ planned to lead the financing of all this rebuilding.
So who is going to pay the enormous and growing price tag for this rebuilding effort? Private investors. At least that’s the plan we’re hearing from BlackRock and JP Morgan at a London conference last week co-hosted by the British and Ukrainian government’s. In other words, the rebuilt Ukraine is going to be an increasingly privately owned entity. A privately owned for-profit entity that exists for the profits of its international investors. Sure, the Ukrainian government will still technically be a sovereign entity. But it will be a sovereignty entity that used its sovereign power to contractually sign away most of the functions of government to a for-profit business model operating at the behest of its international investor patrons.
But hey, at least the private investors will be shouldering the risks and costs of the rebuilding effort under this plan, right? Of course not. No, that burden will first fall on the public. Yep, that’s the plan. A plan to use public money provided by governments to operate as a kind of sweetener to attract international capital, with the idea being that the initial losses on these public-private investments will fall on the publicly provided capital. The hope is that by providing these incentives, private investors will be willing to piling between five and 10 times the amount of public capital towards to overall rebuilding effort. So 80–90% of the rebuilt Ukraine will be owned by private investors while the bulk of the initial losses all fall on the public. Because that’s how we roll in the 21st century!
And note the particular investors in mind for this program: pension funds. Also note how the plan is to hire investment professionals to execute its strategy. That sure sounds an awful lot like the private equity-led investment model targeting assets like commercial and residential real estate that has become increasingly alluring to US pension funds chasing higher yielding returns. In other words, the rebuilding of Ukraine is looking to be another pension fund-fueled private equity bonanza:
Finally, recall how none of this is really a surprise. We’ve been getting warnings about exactly this kind of plan for a while now. Recall the reports from May of 2022 about how top EU officials backed a multi-trillion euro plan to rebuild Ukraine laid out by Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment Bank (EIB), that focused on providing “reassurances” to private investors. And, of course, this is all in keeping with the broader neoliberal transformation of Ukraine’s economy into an entity seemingly designed to strip workers of all modern day labor protections and building a society designed exclusively by and for the ‘ownership class’. An ‘ownership class’ economic capture of Ukraine with pension funds as the public face. It’s a truly nightmarish future for Ukraine unless you happen to be a remorseless financier. And also exactly what we should have expected at this point.
There’s a meltdown coming. A man made meltdown. And no, that’s not a euphemism for global warming. This is an imminent meltdown that’s due any day now at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. That’s the big warning we’ve been getting in recent days. Or rather, warnings, with Ukraine and Russia each accusing the other side of planning some sort of nuclear provocation. Russia claims Ukraine will try to attack the Zaporizhzhia station using long-range precision equipment and kamikaze attack drones, while Ukraine is asserting that Russia has already planted explosives on the rooftops of reactors 3 and 4 in anticipation of staging a fake Ukrainian attack.
What is the evidence for these plots? Neither side has provided any evidence, with Ukraine citing some sort of “operational data”. Interestingly, as we’re going to see, the British Ministry of Defence said back in April that satellite footage from March showed Russia had set up “sandbag fighting positions on the roofs of several of the six reactor buildings” at the plant, which is a reminder that this plant is extensively covered by an array of satellites, both military and private. And yet here was have Ukrainian claims of explosives having been planted on the rooftops of reactors 3 and 4, but no rooftop satellite photos. Just claims of “operational data”.
So how is situation getting resolved? Well, the IAEA is on the ground at the plant in conducting inspections, with no explosives yet to be reported, although the agency also stated that it has yet to gain access to the rooftops of reactor buildings 3 and 4. Interestingly, The Ukrainian government has also started attacking the IAEA, calling its investigation “clownish” and preemptively blaming IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi for any upcoming disaster.
Oh, and it turns out the US issued a new ‘Article 5’ warning less than two weeks ago: according to a joint statement during a news conference by Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, any Russian-engineered nuclear incident that impacts a NATO member would trigger Article 5. So while it’s very unclear why Russia would want to stage a Ukrainian attack on that plant, Ukraine motives are overwhelmingly clear. And it’s that clarity of motives that makes this situation so alarming:
“A statement issued by the Ukrainian armed forces quoted “operational data” as saying that “explosive devices” had been placed on the roof of the station’s third and fourth reactors on Tuesday. An attack was possible “in the near future”.”
Russia is planning on staging a nuclear meltdown at the third and fourth reactors that it can blame on Ukraine. Those are the claims we’re hearing coming from the Ukrainian government. It’s not entirely clear why Russian would want to do this, but that’s the claim. What is the evidence for the plot? “Operational data” is cited, but never shown. Despite that lack of evidence, Zelenskiy adviser Mykhailo Podolyak is already accusing IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi of “clowning around” and not doing enough to thwart this attack:
We’ll see if rhetorically attacking the IAEA yields the desired results. But in the mean time, the IAEA is insisting that it has yet to see any evidence of this plot. At the same time, the agency claims it still needs access to the rooftops of reactor buildings 3 and 4, the two reactors Ukraine claims was specifically targeted. So we don’t yet have an ‘all clear’.
And as the following Reuters piece also notes, the British Ministry of Defense said in April that satellite footage from March showed Russia had set up “sandbag fighting positions on the roofs of several of the six reactor buildings” at the plant. Which begs the question: where is the satellite footage of the explosives on the rooftops of these reactors? There are incredibly powerful satellites these days. Shouldn’t there at least be a ‘before-and-after’ photo showing new possible explosives that have been placed on the rooftops? It seems like that should be available given the extensive satellite coverage of this conflict zone. But at this point it’s still just Ukraine’s unsourced claims:
“IAEA experts “have in recent days and weeks inspected parts of the facility — including some sections of the perimeter of the large cooling pond — and have also conducted regular walkdowns across the site, so far without observing any visible indications of mines or explosives,” an IAEA statement said.”
No explosives have been discovered, according to the IAEA. But the agency hasn’t given the ‘all clear’ yet. It’s still asking for access to the rooftops of reactor units 3 and 4, the two units Ukraine claims have been targeted in this plot. And while it doesn’t sound like IAEA inspectors have yet gained access to those rooftops, there’s the question of whether or not such access should even necessarily be necessary to spot the alleged explosives. There’s satellites watching these rooftops, after all. We know this because the British Ministry of Defence said in April that satellite footage from March showed Russia had set up “sandbag fighting positions on the roofs of several of the six reactor buildings.” So of the British have satellite footage that can pick up sandbags on these rooftops, have there been some sort of anomalous-looking new objects that are now showing up in that satellite footage? Presumably not. Otherwise we’d have been shown those images over and over. Instead, we just get Ukraine’s references to
“operational data”:
We’ll see what the IAEA is eventually allowed to inspect. But for now, it’s hard to avoid the dark suspicion that some sort of major nuclear false flag incident is in the works. And it’s not just the fact that Ukraine is loudly making these claims without providing any evidence while simultaneously attacking the IAEA as clownish. It’s also the fact that Ukraine has a very clear and compelling motive for seeing a melt down at that plant that is ultimately blamed on Russia. A clear and compelling motive handed to Ukraine less than two weeks ago by US Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal when the pair issued a joint statement during a news conference warning that any Russian-engineered nuclear incident that impacts a NATO member would trigger Article 5. So while it’s not at all clear why Russia would want to stage a Ukrainian-caused nuclear meltdown at that plant, it’s alarmingly clear why Ukraine would want to do the opposite:
“While the US has already warned Russia of dire consequences should the Kremlin make use of tactical nuclear weapons, this is the first time that US officials say this also applies if Russia engineers a nuclear accident at a civil nuclear central.”
It was less than two weeks ago that US officials issued the first ‘Article 5’ warning regarding a possible staged meltdown. For the sake of clarity, apparently. And here we are less than two weeks later, with claims and counter-claims of imminent false flag attacks and general confusion, all playing out amidst alarmingly clear Ukrainian motives.
The risk that the conflict in Ukraine morphing into a much larger conflict involving more countries is arguably one of the great perils facing the world today. Especially because, from Ukraine’s perspective, expanding the conflict really is its best shot at coming out ‘victorious’. It’s also the best shot at leaving Ukraine a smouldering pile of rubble but that’s the nature of this conflict. The stakes just keep getting higher.
And while those risks have long been seen as primarily the risk of creating a direct conflict between the US and Russia, it’s worth noting that Ukraine apparently has plans of its own to expand the battlefield to other countries. Yes, that’s what was revealed in the following Guardian article about an analysis of the global supply chain that feeds into Russia’s drone-building capabilities. A supply chain that appears to include a number of parts built by European manufacturers.
But another major part of Russia’s drone supply chain includes Iran’s drone manufacturing facilities since Iran is now a major drone supplier, thanks, in part, to Iranian facilities now operating in Syria, along with some production shifting to Russia itself. In other words, Iran has been expanding its drone-building facilities to multiple countries, with Ukraine ultimately facing a number of those drones.
And Ukraine has a plan to deal with it: In a 47-page document submitted by Ukraine’s government to the G7 governments in August, Ukraine not only lays out the evidence of European parts being used to building Russia’s drones but also makes a few suggestions for how to end Russia’s drone supplies. Suggestions that included missile strikes on the production plants of these UAVs in Iran, Syria, as well as on a potential production site in the Russian federation. Missile strikes that Ukraine was volunteering to carry out. As the document stated, “The above may be carried out by the Ukrainian defence forces if partners provide the necessary means of destruction.”
So Ukraine volunteered to carry out missile strikes against facilities in Syria, Iran, and Russia. All they needed was the missiles. That’s the proposal Ukraine made just last month:
“According to the document, Iran has already diversified its production through the use of a Syrian factory delivering to the Russian port of Novorossiysk but the production of drones is shifting to Russia, to the central Tartar region of Alabuga, although Tehran continues to supply the components.”
If Ukraine is going to thwart Russia’s supplies of Iranian drones, its going to have to somehow disable the drone-building facilities not just in Iran but in Syria and Russia too. And as we can see, Ukraine has made proposals to do exactly that: if the West supplies Ukraine with a means to conduct strikes inside these countries, Ukraine is ready and willing to do so. It’s a remarkable willingness to expand the conflict to not just new countries but new regions of the world:
So how likely is it that we’ll see Ukraine expanding the battlefield to other countries? Well, let’s just say there’s a demonstrable Western interest in seeing someone launch attacks against Iran’s drone-building facilities. At least that’s what we can reasonably infer from the Israeli drone strike against an Iranian drone-building facility back in January. An Israeli drone strike that prompted a cryptic tweet from President Zelensky’s senior aide, Mykhailo Podolyak: “Explosive night in Iran...Did warn you.”:
“The attack came amid tension between Iran and the West over Tehran’s nuclear activity and its supply of arms — including long-range “suicide drones” — for Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as months of anti-government demonstrations at home.”
Yes, when we got reports of this apparent Israeli drone attack on an Iranian drone-building facility back in January, it’s wasn’t hard to suspect that this was somehow in relation to Iran’s decision to supply Russian with drones. Especially after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s senior aide, Mykhailo Podolyak, went out of his way to fuel those suspicions:
It was a provocative move by Israel. But not remotely as provocative as it would have been if it was a missiles strike launched from Ukraine. These kinds of incidents between Israel and Iran aren’t great but they aren’t exactly unprecedented either. Missile strikes from Ukraine against Iran or Syria would, on the other hand, be pretty unprecedented. The kind of unprecedented escalation that could gives all sorts of players an excuse to turn this into a much bigger conflict. It’s not like a war with Iran hasn’t been on many Western power players’ wish lists for quite some time now. It’s a reminder that, while the current path to WWIII still appears to travel through Ukraine, it also might take a few detours along the way. Detours that Ukraine is already working on.