Feb. 21 — Of late, Ukraine’s Western allies, which include some of the world’s major military powers, have admitted the difficulties they are experiencing in securing supplies of weapons and especially ammunition for a war unmatched by any conflict in which they have participated in recent years. 

Accustomed to conflicts with a great imbalance of forces, in which they have been able to impose their air superiority and artillery power over militias, guerrillas and smaller armies that they have faced – and whom they have not always been able to defeat – Ukraine’s Western allies now face, albeit in a subsidiary way, a well-armed army supported by a country with the military capacity to supply its armed forces in a long conflict.

In the year since the Russian military intervention, Kiev and its partners, especially Washington, London and Brussels, but also the smaller capitals of Europe, have tried to present a discourse of world unity in the face of an aggressor that caused an unstoppable war, unprovoked and unprecedented in the rule-based international order, specifically those of the United States. 

This simplistic speech tries to make us forget the eight years of war that preceded the Russian intervention, Ukraine’s attitude towards the peace agreements signed in 2015 and the use that external actors such as the United States have made of the conflict in their successful attempt at hindering political and economic relations between Moscow and the European capitals, mainly Berlin.

However, as evidenced by the case of sanctions, to which a large part of the countries of Asia, Africa or the Americas have not joined, this global unity against Russia that European and North American officials proclaim lacks a foundation. 

Aware of this, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell has lamented the situation. But even in those moments when the leader of European diplomacy has managed to carry out a correct analysis of the situation, its causes are always found in those commonplaces based on the condescension of seeing the countries of the global south as easy to manipulate through “disinformation.” With Russian media banned from the European Union despite its more than limited diffusion, Borrell observes the danger it poses to those countries that he tries to convince “with arguments.” 

“That battle against misinformation must also be fought. Because whether we like it or not, there is still an anti-colonial sentiment in Africa, and in Latin America, an anti-imperialist sentiment that makes many of its leaders – and its inhabitants – look at this war with different eyes from ours”, affirmed the High Representative of the European Union in one of his many speeches. 

“Minister Lavrov is touring Africa again these days. Mali, Eritrea. Well, those are easy countries for him, but others are not so easy,” he added on another occasion, a comment that can hardly be misunderstood as anything other than European condescension about the credulity of countries that are not part of his garden.

Like Borrell, Emmanuel Macron has also recently been surprised by the unwillingness of the former colonies to accept the discourse of the old metropolis. But beyond disinformation – defined as any message from Russia, whether false or not – France has focused on political and military issues and views, with extreme concern for the tendency of several countries to prefer the presence of Russian mercenaries instead of the armed forces of countries like the one he himself presides over.

The refusal of the African countries to take a position on a war that is completely foreign to them was made clear by Zelensky’s failure in his meeting with the countries of the African Union. Western diplomacy in Africa has only one great success: convincing Morocco, a staunch ally of the United States, to send Russian-sourced tanks purchased from Belarus to Ukraine.

The case of Latin America, for its part, is even more painful for Western countries, since not only has a political position been required of them, but they have also been required to get directly involved in the European and North American effort to finance and equip war. 

Without understanding why progressive governments and the working classes, who have suffered the consequences of U.S. interventionism in the region and their fight “against Moscow” through death squads or coups in the Cold War era, the United States and its European partners are also surprised by the Latin American refusal to join the war drums.

Even before his electoral victory, in an interview published by Time magazine, Lula da Silva described Zelensky as a bad actor and stated that “this guy is as responsible as Putin for the war. Because in war, there is not just one guilty person.” Lula, comparing the current situation with the 1962 missile crisis, a comparison that has been made in recent years, argued that diplomacy should be favored instead of “motivating this guy and thinking that he is the icing on the cake” and, above all, to guarantee Russia that Ukraine will not be part of NATO. 

Lula’s speech, similar to that maintained by other continental political leaders such as Andrés Manuel López Obrador or Alberto Fernández, does not seek to defend the Russian position but simply advocates peace.

However, in the current context of exaltation of the war, this position is such a surprise for Western countries, accustomed to the fact that the global south complies without question with the orders of the United States, that even large media publish reports about it. “The U.S. offer sounded attractive: if Latin American countries donated their aging Russian-made equipment to Ukraine, Washington would replace it with superior U.S. weaponry,” the Financial Times wrote last week, surprised that “far from accepting the U.S. proposal, revealed last month by General Laura Richardson, head of the U.S. Southern Command, Latin American leaders have lined up to denounce it.” 

Richardson, who in the past has not hesitated to speak of Russia and China as enemies “that are there to undermine the United States” or to refer to the natural resources of the region as a fundamental interest of the U.S., presented, smiling, a proposal that always she must have known would be widely rejected. The same thing happened with the European attempt to obtain Western weapons and, above all, ammunition for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

It is possible that the surprise was actually the public way in which, from Mexico to Argentina passing through Brazil, Chile and Colombia, one by one, the Latin American countries have refused to interfere in an alien war between two European countries in which they aspire to mediate. Unlike the European countries, many of which sought war against Russia since the war years in Donbass, the Latin American countries have shown an independence that those who colonized them politically or economically did not expect to face in their backyard.

“With all due respect, we are all America,” said Andrés Manuel López Obrador, criticizing that Joe Biden had welcomed Volodymyr Zelensky “to America,” not to the United States, during his visit. Those same Latin American countries whose existence they forget to the point of having appropriated for themselves the name of the continent, they now demand to join their war against Russia. 

The surprise caused by the Latin American refusal to join a conflict and the autonomy shown in these times of geopolitical pressures is as relevant as the complete lack of independence shown by the European countries in this war that Rishi Sunak has already described as “global.” 

Joe Biden’s visit to Kiev yesterday, more propaganda than strategic, sought to show the importance of the Ukrainian issue for the Western alliance. The war in Ukraine has reached the pinnacle of global prominence to which Kiev has been aspiring for years. But in that global war, a large part of the globe is missing. Unless it is forgotten that the West, defined as NATO and its closest allies, can no longer impose its will on countries that it considers should, as a matter of course, follow orders without question.

Translated by Melinda Butterfield

Source: Slavyangrad.es

The Ukrainian military is recruiting forces for new offensive brigades. In addition to a police unit and a border guard unit, six brigades of the National Guard are said to belong to them. These assault units will be made up entirely of volunteers, most of whom have “been through hell” and “driven by patriotism,” Interior Minister Igor Klimenko said on Feb. 2. “There are a lot of those in our country.” So far, more than 27,000 applications are said to have been received.

The new offensive formation also includes the best-known fascist elite unit of the National Guard, which has achieved cult status in Ukraine and throughout the Western world as the “heroic defenders of Azovstal.” Recently, an Azov delegation with celebrities from France’s politics, business and culture – including former President François Hollande – celebrated the premiere of the propaganda film “Glory to Ukraine” by right-wing publicist Bernard-Henri Lévy in Paris.

A Nazi special unit commanded by Azov founder Andriy Biletsky, which was formed in February 2022 and shortly afterward incorporated into the regular army, was expanded to a brigade three weeks ago. Recently, however, Azov has also again become a paramilitary organization inside the National Guard, where it was originally created in 2014 – a large association that can operate independently. 

“It’s time to go on the offensive” was the call for supporters to volunteer. “Write history with us. Come to Azov!” As a reward, there are privileges that regular soldiers of the army, who are often driven into the meat grinders of the Donbass without any significant training and adequate equipment, can only dream of: several months of intensive training in artillery, tanks, and drones by experienced officers, a lucrative salary, medical treatment in state hospitals, later a university degree or a career in the Ministry of the Interior.

The announcement that “We guarantee combat operations on the front lines with like-minded people” is likely to attract militant right-wingers with a great bloodlust. Ultimately tempting for them is the destination of the “combat trip,” which Biletsky praised as the “most difficult area”: ​​Bakhmut. “The decisive battle of this war is yet to come. It requires a new standard. That’s why the military command is giving us a new responsibility,” Biletsky boasted on Jan. 26 about the increase in power of his troops. He announced a “hot winter” for the Russian enemies: “We are preparing many surprises for you.”

Azov has launched an extensive recruitment campaign. The promotional videos are designed according to the highest cultural-industrial standards of Hollywood war films. With extremely fast cuts from dramatic action images, underlined with archaic battle horns and Wagnerian bombast sounds as well as beats made of pulses to increase the adrenaline output, the lowest violent instincts are appealed to. “Without a fight there is no glory!” was the motto. On Tuesday, Azov already presented footage of the first days of its army brigade’s deployment in Bakhmut.

In January, U.S. tech giant Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and other social media outlets, removed Azov from its list of dangerous organizations. Hundreds of Azov accounts were unlocked. Since then, Azov as a movement – ​​which, in addition to the combat units, also includes militias for terrorizing opposition members and minorities inside Ukraine, a political party, its own fashion and music labels and a merchandise network – has been able to operate worldwide without restrictions.

With its ever-expanding propaganda machine, Azov not only produces fascist warmongering, ideologies of a master race and heroic myths, but also targeted disinformation: above all, the lie that Azov has broken away from Nazism, which is the lie that politicians and the media in the European Union and the United States put forward, being disseminated on a large scale. 

Azov leader Biletsky exposed the lie himself on Feb. 3, on the occasion of the 94th anniversary of the founding of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). He paid tribute to Stepan Bandera, Roman Shukhevych and other collaborators with Hitler’s Germany who shared responsibility for the Holocaust, and urged his followers to act decisively: “The OUN has fulfilled its historic mission. Now is our time.”

Translated by Melinda Butterfield

Source: Junge Welt

Feb. 18 — The last week has meant minimal changes on the front. The slight Russian advances on the Artyomovsk front, although slow, costly, and few, are the only ones of note at a time of fierce positional battles in the fortified areas of Donbass. Possibly seeking more air coverage and munitions, Yevgeny Prigozhin complained this week about the “monstrous Russian bureaucracy” and warned that the capture of Artyomovsk will take months longer than it should. The fight continues to be practically hand-to-hand in a city already destroyed and in which Ukraine calls on the population for an immediate evacuation.

In her usual tone, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Irina Vereschuk, known for having appealed to the citizens of the territories under Russian control not to send children to school, called on “every correct, law-abiding and patriotic citizen” to abandon the city immediately. The presence of civilians, Ukraine alleges, is the determining factor in a battle in which Ukraine defends itself at all costs with the sole objective of concentrating Russian efforts at one point, thus trying to inflict the greatest possible number of casualties and limit the combat capacity of the troops of the Russian Federation and wear them down to the maximum while Kiev and its partners prepare the great spring-summer offensive.

On the political and informational level, Volodymyr Zelensky has enjoyed two major events this week in which to present his demands. The Ukrainian president not only opened the Munich Security Conference yesterday, in which the war in Ukraine will be the main issue, but also the Berlin International Film Festival. Before an audience, that of his previous profession, which has turned to the Ukrainian cause, Zelensky wondered if “art can stay out of politics.” The almost nine years of war have shown that art, like other aspects of culture and life, have never been left out. Examples such as the award-winning film by Sergey Loznitsa, which dehumanized the population of Donbass to the point of turning it into a parody, show that Ukraine has always been favored by the cultural industry, ready to present the Ukrainian side, also at times when it was the only aggressor, as an innocent victim of an evil and inhuman internal or external adversary.

The Munich Security Conference, since 2014 a forum in which Ukraine has sought weapons and support from its partners for a war that, in its vision, was always against Russia, began yesterday without the Russian presence. According to its president, Angela Merkel’s former foreign affairs adviser Christoph Heusgen, the summit should not become “a space for Kremlin propaganda.” However, as the journalist for Televisión Española Víctor García Guerrero recalled, “In 2004, with Iraq in flames, Rumsfeld taught doctrine in Bavaria.”

In his speech at the opening of the conference, the Ukrainian president returned to his usual topic: the demand for arms from his partners, with which he is preparing this offensive with which the West intends to threaten Crimea. However, as Victoria Nuland, who explicitly approved the idea of ​​Ukrainian attacks against Crimea, recalled in her last appearance, Ukraine will have to advance over a large territory before being able to attack the peninsula, “Russia’s red line” according to Anthony Blinken, and territory that Moscow will defend with all its resources. Bringing the war closer to Crimea necessarily implies a significant escalation in terms of violence, the intensity of the use of weapons, and, above all, danger.

None of this, not even the ammunition supply difficulties that Western countries are experiencing due to Ukraine’s rapid squandering of reserves, is the concern of Zelensky, who, as commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, always demands more weapons, more ammunition, and more speed. “We have to hurry. We need speed: speed of our agreements, speed of our delivery… speed of decisions to limit Russian potential. There is no alternative to speed because it is the speed on which life depends,” he stated in the speech that will mark the Munich Security Conference. 

Without the need to maintain a minimum consistency, the reason given for this attempt to speed up, on these occasions, is to speed up peace – in reality, victory – but recently also to prevent a Russian offensive. Like Kiev, Ukraine’s Western partners navigate indistinctly between the idea that Russia is planning an offensive similar to the one that opened the military intervention on Feb. 24, 2022, and the constant allegations that Russian troops have suffered such casualties that they are on the verge of collapse.

The idea of ​​accelerating events was also at the center of Olaf Scholz’s speech, who repeated the idea put forward by Jens Stoltenberg that the West must prepare for a long war. German aid is, according to Chancellor Scholz, “meant to last.” After weeks of pressure and reluctance, the German chancellor not only accepted the export and shipment of Leopard-2 tanks but has also become the main supplier of such precious ammunition. Yesterday, aware that those countries that pressured him for shipments themselves offer only a handful of tanks, the German leader appealed to his partners to send the necessary tanks and “do it now.” The German chancellor finds himself alone again. First, it was to prevent the shipment of Leopard tanks, and now to get the material and ammunition for them.

Faced with the opposition shown, for example, by Lula da Silva, in the shadow of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Baltic countries and Poland and NATO, the two powers of old Europe also show their growing belligerence. The Western countries of the European Union, which have not presented any peace plan since Mario Draghi’s proposal, actually a proposal for a unilateral surrender of Russia in the spring of 2022, have already adapted, not only to the idea of a long war, but to the increasingly belligerent and warmongering discourse.

“This is not the time for dialogue with Russia,” Emmanuel Macron declared in his speech, also inducted in the dynamics of more war. Despite the change in discourse that could be perceived in the only European leader who tried to the end to maintain dialogue with Russia in 2022, the position of the European countries has not changed: It has never been the time for dialogue with Russia, from whom only concessions were demanded and never listened to, especially in the long years of the Minsk process, in which neither Berlin nor Paris sought to pressure Kiev to comply with the signed agreements or to negotiate politically with Moscow, Donetsk and Lugansk. Macron called for a Ukrainian counter-offensive to “force Russia to negotiate.” As the precedent of the seven years of Minsk and the attitude of Kiev, with Paris and Berlin behind it, shows, the term negotiation must always be understood as negotiation under the dictates of Ukraine.

Translation by Melinda Butterfield

Source: Slavyangrad.es

The White House has denounced Seymour Hersh’s Nord Stream bombshell as “fiction”. Oslo claimed that the Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist’s allegations are “nonsensical.” Still, the denials are unlikely to satisfy the public given that EU probes in the attack remain top secret, Sputnik’s interlocutors say.

“Many people – including myself – determined at the time that blowing up the pipeline was a U.S./NATO operation that was being falsely blamed on Russia,” Hans Mahncke, a U.S. investigative journalist and lawyer, told Sputnik.

“Many of the details of Seymour Hersh’s reporting were already known but not reported by Western media, including the fact that the Danish and American governments had agreed to station U.S. military personnel in Bornholm and the fact that NATO’s BALTOPS military exercise in June 2022 took place in the area of the Nord Stream 2 bombing. Hersh has added some details about the exact modalities of how the sabotage was carried out, which he attributes to a source. Hersh’s track record is solid and there is no reason to believe that the source is not credible.”

On February 8, Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh published an article on the U.S. online platform Substack detailing the Biden administration’s plot to destroy Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline network. The blasts occurred on September 26 at three of the four strings of Nord Stream 1 and 2 underwater pipelines, which were built to carry a combined 110 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Europe annually. According to Hersh, the plan was carried out by U.S. operatives in coordination and collaboration with the Norwegian Secret Service and Navy.

Why Norway?

“[NATO Secretary General] Stoltenberg is one reason. Another reason is the competence (excellence) of our Navy Special Forces,” Norwegian investigative journalist and intelligence veteran Geir Furuseth told Sputnik.

Furuseth believes that only a very few Norwegian politicians and officers were in the know about Washington’s alleged covert operation.

“Norway has highly experienced military personnel, especially in connection with underwater and naval operations,” echoed Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel while speaking to Sputnik.

“Norway’s involvement is natural though it seems highly ill-advised. Another set of questions concerns why the governments of Sweden and Denmark [were] willing to play along, as they were informed at high levels concerning this scheme, according to Hersh.”

Hersh revealed that “The Norwegians joined the Americans in insisting that some senior officials in Denmark and Sweden had to be briefed in general terms about possible diving activity” in their respective territorial waters. He specified, however, citing his source, that what Swedish and Danish officials “were told and what they knew were purposely different.”

Remarkably, following the sabotage, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden kicked off separate inquiries into the attack. Sweden was reportedly the first to leave the planned joint investigation team; Denmark followed suit. Thus, Germany was left to investigate the matter on its own.

European states didn’t invite Russian investigators to participate: at that time, the Western media actively disseminated an ungrounded assumption that Moscow blasted the pipelines itself. What’s more, neither of the European countries made their findings public.

Why hasn’t Sweden or any other of the implicated governments made their investigations public? This secrecy undermines all Western credibility!

It appears suspicious that Sweden, Denmark, and Germany are continuing to keep their cards close to their chest. The only thing European investigators and officials have admitted so far is that there is no evidence that Russia destroyed its own pipelines. Moscow had no motive to do this, while several international actors were interested in destroying Russia’s natural gas infrastructure in the Baltics, the U.S. mainstream media acknowledged, adding that the truth about the real culprit may never come out. Hersh’s bombshell appears to have proven the Western mainstream media wrong.

Cold War parallels

In some sense, the secrecy and controversies surrounding the blasts and subsequent investigations resemble Cold War-era cases. “I’m not an expert on the covert ops of the Cold War, but that said, I certainly see similarities,” said Furuseth.

During the Cold War era, Washington routinely attempted covert subversive operations against the USSR, its major rival at that time. Some of those ops have remained a subject of heated debate up to this day.

In February 2004, the U.S. press reported an alleged CIA plan to destroy a Siberian natural gas pipeline which was supposedly approved by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1982. Thomas C. Reed, a former Air Force secretary who was serving in the National Security Council at the time, described this episode in his book “At the Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War.” The USSR did not acknowledge that the explosion had ever taken place.

Still, the Nord Stream sabotage is especially scandalous because it brought the West even closer to a nuclear war, according to Furuseth.

The attack came at a time when the U.S. and its NATO allies have been providing Kiev with sophisticated weapons to counter Russia’s special operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine. In April 2022, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin proclaimed the weakening of Russia as Washington’s top priority.

For their part, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Undersecretary Victoria Nuland openly expressed their satisfaction with the destruction of Nord Stream pipelines. Months before the attack, U.S. President Joe Biden directly threatened to nix the pipelines during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on February 7, 2022. “I promise you, we will be able to do it,” Biden asserted to the press at the time. It seems that the U.S. is overtly provoking Russia while Moscow is showing wise restraint, according to observers.

Investigation could be damning for Team Biden

Apparently, Hersh’s source came forward because he/she was concerned about the escalation of NATO involvement in the Ukraine conflict, suggested Hans Mahncke.

“If Hersh’s source is right – and we have no reason to doubt the source – the executive branch under Biden has unilaterally decided to wage war against Russia,” the lawyer said. “Aside from the obvious folly of such a decision, there are many legal problems, such as failure to inform Congress or even the congressional Gang of Eight. It is ironic that the military service chiefs – who for many years considered it their primary job to keep [then-U.S. President Donald] Trump under control, including having clandestine conversations with Chinese counterparts behind Trump’s back – did not raise any alarms when Biden decided to blow up Nord Stream 2.”

If responsible investigators go further, they would see that “the covert operation clearly increased energy prices substantially to the detriment of countless persons worldwide and likely to the benefit of energy companies, especially including Burisma,” assumed Ortel, referring, in particular, to the Biden family ties to the Ukrainian energy firm and the nation’s notorious oligarchy.

“During the 2020 campaign, we now know that credible allegations of corruption involving payments to the Biden family were suppressed in corporate-owned media and in social media while manifestly ludicrous allegations were intensely fanned against Trump and against Russia,” the Wall Street analyst said.

If Hersh’s allegations are proven true – as Ortel suspects, they shall be – then the world will see how U.S. political families are using the U.S., its military power, and sophisticated intelligence to undermine their competitors and pursue their own vested interests, according to the Wall Street analyst. “Peace through strength seems to have been turned on its head to become perpetual war using graft,” he stressed.

“In 2016, Hersh explained to me that inside many governments there are always pitched battles when it comes to making decisions,” continued Ortel. “In his career, Hersh has distinguished himself by bringing atrocities to light, while protecting his sources. Doing so using Substack, as he has, gave him the needed element of surprise as Hersh did not need to involve editors and others in the mainstream press, he just clicked a button on his Substack control panel and off his bombshell reporting went.”

The Wall Street analyst highlighted that Hersh’s revelation came on the heels of a series of other exposes which had also been almost completely neglected by the Western mainstream media.

One of them, written by U.S. investigative journalist Jeff Gerth, told the story of how the mainstream press brazenly promoted allegations against Donald Trump and then refused to attempt to atone.

Earlier, Matt Taibbi and others shed light on inconvenient truths about former Twitter employees, their censorship of free speech and their collusion with the U.S. federal government.

“I suspect more revelations are coming that will connect dots concerning bipartisan corruption in service of the false god of unregulated globalism,” Ortel pointed out. “The Biden administration has crises over trust, over competence and over decency. No one can puzzle through a disagreement rejecting facts or logic (…) The known facts about Biden family corruption in Ukraine and elsewhere are damning.”

What’s next?

If Hersh is right, all relations between the U.S. and Europe and within the Old Continent will be weakened, according to Furuseth.

“Plausible deniability may be a useful tool at times, but it doesn’t work that well with credibility,” the Norwegian journalist remarked.

He doubts that Norwegian parliamentarians will exert pressure on Oslo to launch an investigation into what Hersh revealed. According to him, the Nordic state’s lawmakers don’t have the guts and the liberty to do it. “As long as our mainstream media buys into the official narrative, they do as they want,” he added.

Furuseth quoted another Norwegian investigative reporter, Alf R. Jacobsen, who wrote a detailed analysis of the Nord Stream sabotage in October 2022, challenging an idea of Russia’s involvement in the blasts. According to Jacobsen, Hersh’s piece is credible, and along the lines, he indicated in his October article. Jacobsen hopes that the bombshell will increase the pressure on Sweden to release its findings.

“Several other nations ought to question their own governments’ involvement, too. That includes my own, for sure,” Furuseth added.

Meanwhile, Germany emerged as the big loser in this story, according to Mahncke.

“Germany should be extremely upset with the U.S. but won’t say anything because Germany is effectively a vassal state which, like all western countries, is completely dependent on U.S. security guarantees,” the U.S. investigative journalist said. “The reality is that the U.S. is running the show among western countries. U.S. contributions to Ukraine exceed those of other countries by a factor of 20 or more. So if the U.S. decides to blow up the pipeline, everyone else will toe the line, irrespective of what their own views are.”

Not only Germany’s industrial base was thrown under the bus, but the U.S. establishment also did everything to undermine Russo-German relations, according to Imelda Ibanez, a specialist in the history of Russian diplomacy and foreign policy at Saint Petersburg State University.

“In general terms, the [Nord Stream sabotage] was a terrorist attack against the alliance between Germany and Russia, which was formed many years ago, and which in geopolitical terms [the United States] wanted to prevent, because the potential that would be generated by both sides would have lessen the United States,” Ibanez argued citing the dichotomy of “maritime” and “continental” powers described by British geostrategist Halford Mackinder in early 20th century.

The attempt to shatter the Russo-German partnership also involves dark symbolism pertaining to Berlin’s decision to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine 82 years after Nazi Germany’s Panthers and Tigers brought death and destruction to the U.S.SR. Washington is believed to have twisted Berlin’s arm into sending the armored vehicles to Kiev.

Sputnik’s interlocutors doubt that the U.S. and European nations will launch an all-out investigation into the sabotage plot discovered by Hersh anytime soon.

However, it appears that the Pulitzer-prize-winning reporter won’t let the potential culprits off the hook.

“You are assuming I am done reporting … not so,” Hersh told Sputnik.

Source: Sputnik

The history of the working class and oppressed peoples is full of positive and negative lessons about the intertwined struggles against war and fascism. Unfortunately, since the destruction of the USSR and the socialist camp 30 years ago, many of these lessons have been lost to new generations and forgotten by older ones. 

At this critical juncture of an unfolding global war crisis unleashed by U.S. imperialism in Ukraine, the destruction of people’s basic rights and livelihoods at home, and the growing climate catastrophe, it is crucial to the success of working-class movements to revive those lessons.

This is the context of an event called “Rage Against the War Machine” planned for Feb. 19 in Washington, D.C., and billed as an alliance of “left and right” against the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine.

While feinting to the left, with a slate of progressive-sounding demands and headlined by some left-ish journalists and social media personalities, the event is being driven by the far right, including allies of Donald Trump. 

It features racist, anti-trans, and anti-worker speakers like “Tea Party” founder Ron Paul, a former member of Congress from Texas; anti-trans bigot Tulsi Gabbard, another former representative; former judge Andrew Napolitano, a past Fox News host who was considered by Trump for a Supreme Court seat; and representatives of the Libertarian Party and Lyndon Larouche’s Schiller Institute.

The most prominent representative of the “left” on the bill is Jimmy Dore, a YouTube personality known for appearing with the likes of arch-bigots Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan. 

It’s no surprise that the announced speakers are almost entirely white, with no recognized representatives of progressive Black, Latinx, Asian, or Native communities and organizations, nor the LGBTQ+ and feminist movements.

Preying on confusion

The ultra-right is preying on the weakness and confusion that has plagued the anti-war movement since the outbreak of open conflict between Russia and NATO’s proxy regime in Ukraine last year. In this, the far right is attempting to lead anti-war forces into a trap that would override the life-and-death concerns of oppressed communities for the false hope of a “broad” alliance against the danger of World War III. 

Its true purpose, however, is to strengthen the grip of the openly fascist, white supremacist movement in the U.S. based on anti-trans panic, hatred of migrants and refugees, censorship of Black and LGBTQ+ history, robbing women of their right to abortion, and so on.

Some of the anti-war left are desperate for an alliance with the far right, having no confidence in the multinational working class, the only force historically capable of stopping imperialist war and halting the advance of fascism. This is reflected in the details of the lineup and sponsors of the Feb. 19 event – including a libertarian wing of the Bernie Sanders electoral movement and so-called “patriotic socialists” like the Center for Political Innovation.

These “leftists” have been part of a trend that platforms fascists while denigrating and dismissing the most oppressed sections of the working class, who have the least to lose and the most to gain from a revival of revolutionary class struggle in the U.S.: Black and Brown people, migrants, Muslims, women, trans people, the LGBTQ+ community, the poor, the disabled, etc. 

They argue that the struggles of these workers for their basic democratic rights somehow detract from the class struggle rather than enhance and strengthen it. Many of them also dismiss the organizing of service industry workers like those at Starbucks, who actually provide grassroots militant leadership to the labor movement. 

Such a policy, put into practice through events like “Rage Against the War Machine” that attempt to play down class divisions and whitewash the far right’s war on the oppressed, can only serve the aims of the imperialist ruling class.

Is the far right really anti-war?

These leftists also ignore the real pro-war politics of the far right. While some of them, like Ron Paul, boast of their isolationism for political gain, their allegiance to unbridled capitalism, racism, and xenophobia speaks the truth about their actual stance.

While there are different schools of left-wing thought on fascism and the most effective ways to fight it, all serious opponents agree that war is as integral to fascism as it is to the imperialist ruling class.

Some on the right oppose the war in Ukraine simply because a Democratic administration is heading it, others because they are still lost in the fever dream of an imaginary “white nationalist alliance” with Russia. 

It should be noted that Congressional Republicans, now dominated by the far right, have again and again voted overwhelmingly to give more money to the Pentagon and the military industry, as well as to strengthen the police waging a racist war on people in the U.S. Donald Trump boasts that his administration put $2.5 trillion into the Pentagon and armaments.

While generally progressive-sounding, the demands of Rage Against the War Machine do not mention opposing war with China, Iran, or other countries targeted by U.S. imperialism. War against those countries was a high priority of Trump and his ruling class backers and the far right inside and outside the Republican Party.

Many are advocating for open military conflict with Mexico to stem the tide of refugees – workers attempting to flee the consequences of U.S.-sponsored wars and economic devastation in South and Central America and the Caribbean.

Anti-war activists should take careful notice of the video speech given by Donald Trump on Jan. 31, in which he declared himself an “anti-war candidate” in 2024 while saying he would outlaw gender-affirming care and trans lives starting on his first day back in office. This is the destructive path Rage Against the War Machine is attempting to lead the anti-war movement down.

Divide and conquer

One of the grave mistakes that facilitated the rise of fascism in Germany in the early 1930s was the decision of the Communist Party leadership there to form an electoral bloc with the fascists in 1931 against bourgeois liberals and social democracy, giving rise to the much-maligned slogan “after Hitler, us.” 

The move confused and demoralized millions of workers and the party’s members. And this alliance of convenience did nothing to prevent the Nazis from outlawing and smashing the Communist Party and the workers’ movement when it had cemented its position with the support of the big German capitalists two years later.

More recently, a similar alliance of convenience in Britain has had serious consequences for the working class after many leftists joined in the right-wing-driven Brexit movement. While the left had long opposed the European Union as an imperialist institution, those who supported Brexit found themselves tailing a white-nationalist movement which, since coming to power, has had devastating effects on the rights of workers, the national health system, the rights of trans people, etc.

There are no shortcuts to building a genuine anti-war movement. And there is no shortage of anti-war sentiment among workers in the U.S. The movement must do the work of linking the fight against imperialist war with the urgent needs of people here – against inflation, low wages, evictions, and police terror, and standing up for the rights of people who are under attack. To be successful, it must be independent of both the Democrats and Republicans.

We urge those genuine anti-war forces who have been misled by the rhetoric of Rage Against the War Machine to consider the consequences of supporting this false “left-right” alliance and to join us in organizing for the march against U.S. endless wars on March 18 initiated by the ANSWER Coalition and endorsed by the Socialist Unity Party and many others.

Melinda Butterfield is a longtime anti-war activist who has organized against U.S. intervention in Ukraine and the war in Donbass since 2014. She is author of the forthcoming book “U.S. Proxy War in Ukraine and Donbass,” co-editor of Struggle-La Lucha and a trans woman.

Seymour Hersch, the investigative journalist, has published a powerful exposé titled “How America took out the Nord Stream Pipeline.” The subtitle says: “The New York Times called it a ‘mystery,’ but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now.”

Hersch reports: “Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.”

Hersch’s full report can be read at SeymourHersch.substack.com.

The chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, called for members of the U.S.-led military alliance to shift to a “war economy” in order to “increase the production in the defense industry.”

Left unsaid is that a “war economy” means austerity. A “war economy” is the NATO countries’ answer to the cost-of-living crisis sweeping Europe.

“We have to increase defense industry production and there are already more and more talks on the subject at the national level. This could mean prioritizing certain raw materials, certain production capacities needed for the defense industry rather than the civilian one. Those priorities should be discussed about, partially, a war economy in peacetime,” Bauer said in an interview with Portuguese television RTP broadcast on Jan. 28.

To carry out a war on Russia, Bauer continued, “we need to increase the production in the defense industry,” citing the wartime measures taken by the United States during World War II. 

Bauer added: “In the first four years in the United States in the Second World War, in the Ford factories, there was no civilian cars made, but only military production. … And that is, in a way, talking about a wartime economy,”

The war buildup was also reflected in the Czech Republic, where retired NATO General Petr Pavel has taken over as president. The BBC calls Pavel “a firm advocate of Czech membership of NATO and the EU.”

Bauer’s “war economy” tirade came just two days after U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland testified at a Jan. 26 Senate hearing. Nuland positively celebrated the destruction of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines due to a sabotage attack on Sept. 26 last year.

Replying to a question from Republican Senator Ted Cruz, Nuland said: “Senator Cruz, like you, I am, and I think the administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”

Many believe that the U.S. was behind the destruction of the pipelines. For example, a top U.N. adviser, Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, said of the attacks: “The main fact is that the European economy is getting hammered by this, by the sudden cut-off of energy. And now, to make it definitive – the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, which I would bet was a U.S. action, perhaps U.S. and Poland. … 

“I know this runs counter to our narrative — you aren’t allowed to say these things in the West, but the fact of the matter is all over the world, when I talk to people, they think the U.S. did it. “

NATO: an imperialist alliance

When Lenin wrote his pamphlet “Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism” in 1916, the world had a handful of imperialist countries — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Japan. Britain was the leading imperialist power then, the empire on which the sun never set.

Since 1945, world capitalism has been politically and militarily dominated by the U.S. empire. Now they say the sun never sets on the U.S. empire. In addition to the United States, there are the imperialist satellite countries — Britain, Germany, France, Japan. As in Lenin’s time, these satellite imperialist countries extract super-profits from the oppressed countries.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the original basis for the NATO alliance no longer exists. The European satellite imperialists don’t need NATO. But the U.S. needs NATO. U.S. finance capital needs NATO in order to assert its interests on the European continent.

“The war in Ukraine is a lucrative cash cow for the U.S. ‘merchants of death,’” writes Professor Joseph Siracusa.

“European officials are accusing the U.S. of making war profits from the conflict, especially in the energy and defense sectors,” Siracusa continues. “All the while, they say, Europe is suffering.”

Politico reports: “Top European officials are furious with Joe Biden’s administration and now accuse the Americans of making a fortune from the war, while EU countries suffer.

“‘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 [natural] gas and at higher prices, and because they are selling more weapons,’ one senior official told Politico.”

The U.S.-NATO proxy war on Russia, Politico adds, “is tipping European economies into recession, with inflation rocketing and a devastating squeeze on energy supplies threatening blackouts and rationing this winter.”

The cost-of-living crisis, as it is known across Europe, the austerity and cutbacks, have sparked a working-class upsurge. In France on Jan. 19 and Jan. 31, some 2 million workers participated in nationwide demonstrations and strikes.

In Britain, there’s been the greatest drop in living standards on record. The Financial Times reports, “Last year the lowest-earning bracket of British households had a standard of living that was 20% weaker than their counterparts in Slovenia.”

On Jan. 31, the biggest day of industrial action in over a decade, around half a million workers joined a mass strike. Thousands of schools were closed — about 85% of schools in England and Wales were said to be affected — and most trains in England were not running. The Daily Mail described “Walkout Wednesday” as a general strike in all but name.

Workers in Britain have been staging mass strikes since last summer — and since then, the scale of the strikes has only escalated.

Immediately after the United States and Germany announced that they were sending Abrams and Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine, Politico reported that the Pentagon is preparing to send F-16 fighter jets. “The campaign inside the Defense Department for fighter jets is gaining momentum,” the report says.

“Ukraine has identified a list of up to 50 pilots who are ready now to start training on the F-16,” says a Pentagon official. “Many of them have already trained with the U.S. military in major exercises before the invasion,” starting in 2014, Politico reports.

‘That’s called World War III’

Almost a year ago, in March 2022, President Joe Biden said, “The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews – just understand, don’t kid yourself, no matter what y’all say, that’s called World War III.”

Since that statement, the U.S. and NATO have steadily expanded operations in Ukraine, from anti-tank Javelins and portable air-defense systems such as Stingers, to HIMARS rocket launchers and, more recently, surface-to-air Patriot missiles, tanks, and armored vehicles.

On Jan. 24, the New York Times headlined the super-expansion of artillery production. “The Pentagon is racing to boost its production of artillery shells by 500% within two years, pushing conventional ammunition production to levels not seen since the Korean War … The effort, which will involve expanding factories and bringing in new producers, is part of ‘the most aggressive modernization effort in nearly 40 years’ for the U.S. defense industrial base, according to an Army report.”

The Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles the Pentagon is sending can be equipped with depleted uranium ammunition. Depleted uranium is a byproduct of manufacturing nuclear weapons. The shells can punch through the thick armor of a tank and ignite everyone inside.

When asked if the Bradleys the U.S. is sending to Ukraine will be equipped with depleted uranium, a senior Biden administration official was slippery: “I’m not going to get into the technical specifics.” The official also declined to answer if the Abrams tanks will be equipped with a depleted uranium cage.

The long-term consequences for the people in Ukraine and Donbass are dire. Depleted uranium ammunition is radioactive, extremely toxic, and linked with a variety of birth defects, cancers, and other illnesses. In Iraq, doctors reported a spike in birth defects and cancers since the Gulf War, when the U.S. fired nearly a million depleted uranium rounds in the invasion of that country.

In 2022, Congress approved more than $113 billion in U.S. “aid” to Ukraine. However, not one cent of that will feed, clothe or house anyone in Ukraine, though there is a great need for that. Every cent of that money goes to the Pentagon and its contractors and suppliers. Whatever gets to Ukraine is through the Pentagon.

Pentagon spending fuels inflation

The increased military spending is a source of inflation, pushing up prices across the economy.

Marx called military spending fictitious capital. It’s money put into circulation without any value (commodities that people need) being produced.

Arms manufacturers do not produce constant capital — that is, factories, machines, electronics, or any infrastructure for productive use. Nor do they produce consumer goods that meet human needs. 

Armaments are the means of destruction, produced to destroy. Military spending does not go to expanding commodity production. Military spending actually contracts the capitalist market. Factories that normally produce commodities for profit are instead producing the means of destruction — no use values — so there’s no profit, no surplus value in Marxist terms. 

This is a source of inflation in the economy.

When the government buys bombs, tanks, jets, missiles, and destroyers and purchases the labor power of soldiers, it does not produce surplus value. It lines the pocketbooks of the military-industrial complex. The use value of the military-industrial complex’s commodities is not that it increases wealth for society but instead that it destroys wealth as well as human lives.

‘A war against Russia’

Since the beginning of the U.S.-NATO proxy war in Ukraine in 2014, the White House has maintained that it’s not a war on Russia. But those are not the words they use in their private conversations, especially inside NATO.

On Jan. 25, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock bluntly said what they’ve been saying privately – that NATO is fighting a war against Russia.

Baerbock said: “Yes, we have to do more also on tanks. But the most important and the crucial part is that we do it together and that we do not do the blame game in Europe, because we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded that this is more proof that NATO was planning a war on Russia all along.

“If we add this to Merkel’s revelations that they were strengthening Ukraine and did not count on the Minsk agreements, then we are talking about a war against Russia that was planned in advance. Don’t say later that we didn’t warn you,” Zakharova said.

Russia is not an imperialist power

Russia is not an imperialist power, economically or politically. Russia is mainly an exporter of raw materials — crude oil, natural gas, and grains.

In 2022, U.S. military spending was $828 billion. Add to that NATO’s $324 billion. Compare that to Russia’s military spending of $65.9 billion, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. 

Russia’s total defense expenditure is only about half of what Congress authorized for the U.S. war effort in Ukraine.

Russia is not one of the historic imperialist powers — the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, and Japan. Originally called the Group of Five, now, with the addition of Canada and Italy, they call themselves the G7. Nevertheless, they are still the imperialist dominators.

Statement from Borotba (Struggle), a revolutionary Marxist organization banned by the government of Ukraine.

Jan. 29 — The situation is escalating. The U.S. decision to supply Ukraine with Abrams tanks is very dangerous. It threatens a world war because the design of the Abrams engines requires constant maintenance. There are no specialists for this in Ukraine. Therefore, civilian specialists from the United States will be involved for repair and maintenance, who will work at Ukrainian enterprises that are targets for the Russian army. 

Everyone understands that as a result of the fighting, there is a very serious risk that these specialists will be killed. However, the death of a U.S. citizen will allow Biden to demand the introduction of a no-fly zone over Ukraine and may become a reason to declare war. 

Thus, Biden intends to use ordinary workers as victims to unleash a war with Russia.

We understand that such a decision by the U.S. authorities carries a huge danger for all humanity. We need all our comrades, all European citizens, and the entire international community to realize that they don’t want to be drawn into someone else’s conflict. 

Neither Russia, nor the anti-fascists of Donbass and Ukraine, have contradictions with common people who live in Europe and the U.S. However, due to such aggressive actions of the American leadership, the world may be on the verge of disaster. Biden doesn’t have much time left to live, but we and our children have. 

It is very important that everyone who is against such a decision will not be silent. Everyone has to express their position openly on social networks, in progressive media and friendly Telegram channels, at rallies and demonstrations, with the help of leaflets and graffiti. 

If we all say NO to the actions of the United States, it will be difficult for our common enemies to take this step. 

Comrades! Your solidarity is more important today than ever!

A protest was held in London Jan. 28 opposite the residence of the prime minister to bring the crimes of the Ukrainian government to the attention of the British people.

A spokesperson for International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity said: “We want the people of Britain to know that the regime in Ukraine, to which the British government has given billions of pounds in financial and military support, has been committing horrific crimes against its own people, including Russian speakers, opposition activists and campaigners, journalists and Roma people, under the cover of accusing them of treason.

“Several mayors and local elected civilian officials in eastern Ukraine have been summarily executed for ‘crimes’ such as negotiating humanitarian corridors with the Russian military. They should have been entitled to a due process of law, instead of being tortured, shot, and then dumped in the street.

“Hundreds of journalists, bloggers, politicians, elected representatives, activists, priests, sportspeople, and even Ukrainian negotiators and military officers have been arrested and beaten, and some tortured or murdered. Most were charged with treason simply for opposing Kiev’s policies and not brought to trial after many months.

“Alexander Matyushenko, one of dozens of leftists arrested in Dnipro, central Ukraine, was an activist with the Livizta (Left) organization, which campaigned against social spending cuts and right-wing propaganda. He was arrested by Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and Azov Brigade members, tortured, and forced to shout the nationalist salute, ‘Slava Ukraini,’ while his wife’s hair was cut off with a knife. 

“One of Ukraine’s most prominent human-rights activists, Elena Berezhnaya, director of the Institute of Legal Policy and Social Protection, who has spoken before the U.N. Security Council, was arrested in March 2022 in Kiev. There has been no news of her since. 

“We know about these crimes because Ukrainian ultra-rightists and even regular soldiers have bragged in social media posts, including posting a Russian soldier who had one of his eyes gouged before he was killed, with the caption ‘One-eyed captured Russian pig.’

“We think it is essential to speak out about the actions of a regime for whom the British government seems to have unlimited resources to support, at a time when millions here in Britain are facing a grim and uncertain future and our basic public services are chronically underfunded and understaffed.”

During the protest, a Lithuanian supporter was attacked by a Georgian rightist, but he was dragged away by police and an Iranian from another nearby protest. Later, a small group of Ukrainian and English supporters of the Nazi-infested regime in Kiev launched an aggressive verbal assault. They were confronted by the protestors before the police intervened to warn them about their behavior.

Members of the parties joined the protest including the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist), Socialist Fight, the Socialist Labour Party, Consistent Democrats, the New Communist Party, the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist), the Labour Party and the Posadists in Britain.

Solidarity messages were received from Chris Williamson, former Labour Party MP and now a leading member of the Socialist Labour Party, Phil Wilayto of the Odessa Solidarity Campaign in Richmond, USA, and Leonid Ilderkin from the Union of Political Refugees and Political Prisoners of Ukraine, who recently moved back to Ukraine.