Mar 25, 2023

Vasquez: Fake Valor?

Via the NYT h/t to @Slavyangrad Telegram channel
NYT (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/25/world/europe/volunteers-us-ukraine-lies.html) : Stolen Valor: The U.S. Volunteers in Ukraine Who Lie, Waste and Bicker

They rushed to Ukraine by the thousands, many of them Americans who promised to bring military experience, money or supplies to the battleground of a righteous war. Hometown newspapers hailed their commitment, and donors backed them with millions of dollars.

Now, after a year of combat, many of these homespun groups of volunteers are fighting with themselves and undermining the war effort. Some have wasted money or stolen valor. Others have cloaked themselves in charity while also trying to profit off the war, records show.

One retired Marine lieutenant colonel from Virginia is the focus of a U.S. federal investigation into the potentially illegal export of military technology. A former Army soldier arrived in Ukraine only to turn traitor and defect to Russia. A Connecticut man who lied about his military service has posted live updates from the battlefield — including his exact location — and boasted about his easy access to American weapons. A former construction worker is hatching a plan to use fake passports to smuggle in fighters from Pakistan and Iran.

Such characters have a place in Ukraine’s defense because of the arms-length role the United States has taken: The Biden administration sends weapons and money but not professional troops. That means people who would not be allowed anywhere near the battlefield in a U.S.-led war are active on the Ukrainian front — often with unchecked access to weapons and military equipment.

'A Million Lies’
One of the best-known Americans on the battlefield is James Vasquez. Days after the invasion, Mr. Vasquez, a Connecticut home-improvement contractor, announced that he was leaving for Ukraine. His local newspaper (https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Norwalk-Army-veteran-James-Vasquez-joins-fight-in-17029470.php) told the tale of a former U.S. Army staff sergeant who left behind his job and family and picked up a rifle and a rucksack on the front line.

Since then, he has posted battlefield videos online, at least once broadcasting his unit’s precise location to everyone, including the opposing side. He used his story to solicit donations. “I was in Kuwait during Desert Storm, and I was in Iraq after 9/11,” Mr. Vasquez said in a fund-raising video (https://youtu.be/OaESL5WeMsk?t=179). He added, “This is a whole different animal.

Mr. Vasquez, in fact, was never deployed to Kuwait, Iraq or anywhere else, a Pentagon spokeswoman said. He specialized in fuel and electrical repairs. And he left the Army Reserve not as a sergeant as he claimed, but as a private first class, one of the Army’s lowest ranks.

Still, Mr. Vasquez had easy access to weapons, including American rifles. Where did they come from? “I’m not exactly sure,” Mr. Vasquez said in a text message. The rifles, he added, were “brand-new, out of the box and we have plenty.” He also tweeted that he should not have to worry about international rules of war while in Ukraine.

He fought alongside Da Vinci’s Wolves, a Ukrainian far-right battalion (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-war-russia-bakhmut-zelensky-b2296581.html), until this past week, when The Times asked about his false military service claims. He immediately deactivated his Twitter account and said that he might leave Ukraine because the authorities had discovered that he was fighting without a required military contract.

Mr. Vasquez said he had been misrepresenting his military record for decades. He acknowledged being kicked out of the Army but would not talk publicly about why. “I had to tell a million lies to get ahead,” Mr. Vasquez said in an interview. “I didn’t realize it was going to come to this.”

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Mar 9, 2023

Russia strikes close to the Polish Border (Western Ukraine)

Mar 8, 2023

What is Behind the Recent Protests in Georgia?

From the excellent Telegram channel @Slavyangrad comes the following synopsis. It seems like a reasonable law to me for a country that wishes to retain its sovereignty!


Kommersant: “At the end of February, members of the Georgian movement Power of the People submitted to parliament two bills on foreign agents—“On Transparency of Foreign Influence” and “On Registration of Foreign Agents.””
The draft law “On Transparency of Foreign Influence” recognizes as agents of foreign influence non-profit organizations and media outlets with more than 20% of their annual income coming from foreign funding. This will not affect organizations founded by administrative bodies and sports federations. Organizations will be required to register as agents and file financial returns annually. In case of violation, they will face a fine of 25 thousand lari (approximately $9.5 thousand). It was this document that was approved by the Georgian parliament on March 7. Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili has repeatedly spoken out against the bill, promising to veto it.
The draft law “On registration of foreign agents” provides not only administrative, but also criminal liability. Any natural or legal person with foreign funding will be required to register as a “foreign agent”. Failure to comply with the law provides for a fine or imprisonment for up to five years. The Power of the People movement claimed that the Foreign Agents Registration Bill was completely copied from the US FARA Act (adopted in 1938; requires foreign agents in the States representing the interests of foreign powers in a “political or quasi-political capacity” to disclose their relations with a foreign government and information about related activities and finances). The vote on this bill should take place on Thursday, March 9"


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Feb 23, 2023

That Paper is Dead

Excellent article from MediaLens today on the decline of journalism standards from what was a great profession back in the 70s. Now, most of the mainstream press doesn't speak truth to power the way they should. Yet, most westerners assume that what is disseminated is truthful. Unfortunately, that's not the case. I'll paste the entire article below. Please read:

On 21 February 2023, climate scientist Professor Bill McGuire issued a stark warning:

‘Remember this date. First rationing of food in UK due to extreme weather. Things will only get worse as climate breakdown bites ever harder.’

This was in response to the news that British supermarkets are rationing fresh produce, including tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. Rationing could last weeks. The shortages were caused by ‘poor weather’, as the Guardian put it, in southern Europe and north Africa. In fact, in June and July 2022, extreme heatwaves caused temperatures to climb above 40 degrees Celsius in places and broke many long-standing records. Europe experienced its hottest summer on record. In North Africa, Tunisia endured a heatwave and fires that damaged the country’s grain crop. On 13 July 2022, in the capital city of Tunis, the temperature reached 48 degrees Celsius, breaking a 40-year record.

As well as harvest losses in southern Europe and north Africa last year, there has been a reduction in UK salad produce after field crops were badly damaged by frost before Christmas. Food supply problems have been compounded by the rising energy costs of growing plants in heated greenhouses.

Although there was some media coverage of fresh produce rationing by supermarkets, including on the front pages, there was little more than passing mention of the systemic connection to the climate crisis. And, par for the course, no headlines or in-depth analysis of the urgent need to shift course from the current path of corporate-driven destruction. Nothing about the very real risk that we are already undergoing the collapse of modern civilisation.

It was symptomatic, once again, of the deeply propagandised society in which we live.

In our previous media alert, we noted the silence across virtually the whole of the state-corporate media in response to legendary journalist Seymour Hersh’s report that the US blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines delivering cheap gas from Russia to Europe.

In a public debate, the renowned US economist Jeffrey Sachs said that:

‘The Swedes went in to clean up the debris [following the explosive destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines] and said, “We cannot share our findings with Germany because of national security” […]. How could Sweden not share its findings with Germany and Denmark? But their job was to clean up so nobody else could investigate either.’

This two-minute clip is extraordinary (as is the full 8-minute video). But the lack of ‘mainstream’ reporting? It is as if the whole of journalism has just…vanished.

Sachs said that he spoke with ‘a leading reporter of one of our leading papers’ whom he has known for forty years. Sachs told his friend that he believed the US carried out the attack on Nord Stream. The reporter replied, ‘Of course the US did it.’

Sachs responded, ‘Why doesn’t your paper say so?’

The reporter blamed his editors. ‘It’s hard; it’s complicated.’

Sachs continued:

‘When I was young, I used to read your newspaper, because you went after Nixon and Watergate, and because you published the Pentagon Papers.’

The reporter replied:

‘Yes, but that paper is dead.’

In fact, one might as well say that all the ‘leading papers’ are dead.

The function of what passes for ‘journalism’ is ever more clear: to propagandise the population to allow ‘national interests’ to determine foreign and domestic policy. These ‘national interests’ are the billionaire class that own the country, and the political, military and intelligence forces that run the country.

They are still terrified of even the prospect of a leftward shift in society, following the near-success of Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour in the 2017 General Election. That is why it is so important for establishment stooge Sir Keir Starmer to be promoted across the permissible ‘spectrum’ of news and opinion as the next safe pair of hands to maintain the status quo of power and a monarch-supporting establishment. The Guardian now has a permanent section on its opinion page titled: ‘Starmer’s path to power’.

It is worth highlighting the insidious role played by Starmer, when head of the Crown Prosecution Service, in the persecution of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, as John Pilger reminded viewers in a recent interview:

‘Starmer’s CPS deliberately kept Julian in this country when the Swedes were saying, “That’s it. We’ve had enough.” […] it was Starmer’s CPS that kept it going [the case against Assange.]’

Starmer has now said that Corbyn cannot stand as a Labour candidate in the next election. Indeed, he has essentially said that the left is no longer welcome in the Labour Party:

‘If you don’t like the changes that we’ve made, I say the door is open, and you can leave.’

As Financial Times journalist Stephen Smith pointed out on Twitter:

‘It’s amazing how Labour have calculated they will never need these voters, or all the people these voters could influence in the future’.

The liberal media are happy with this state of affairs. Sonia Sodha, chief leader writer at the Observer and deputy opinion editor at the Guardian, published an opinion piece last Sunday under the title, ‘Keir Starmer was right to exile Corbyn. Labour has a duty to voters, not rebellious members’. It would take an entire media alert to go through her column, line by line, to point out all the egregious distortions and deceptions.

In one sense, it was remarkable that the Observer would publish a piece so riddled with untruths and distortions. That it was written by the paper’s chief leader writer is even more astonishing. But, in fact, it is not remarkable at all. This abysmal low standard – a babbling brook of bullshit, to quote Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Larry David – is entirely predictable from the Observer/Guardian stable of establishment ‘journalism’.

This statement alone was appalling:

‘Corbyn has never apologised for the role he played in the institutional antisemitism that characterised the party under his leadership, including interference in the complaints process by his own staff…’

This was cynical fiction. There was no ‘institutional antisemitism’ under Corbyn. As for ‘interference in the complaints process’, the Al Jazeera ‘Labour Files’ series blew a hole through this narrative. As the series showed, Corbyn had been stymied by the party’s central bureaucracy which resisted the leftward shift his victory had initiated when elected as Labour leader in 2015. When he was finally able to have Labour general secretary Iain McNicol (now Baron McNicol of West Kilbride) replaced by Corbyn ally Jennie Formby in 2018, the painfully slow processing of disciplinary cases on antisemitism came to light. It was swiftly improved under Corbyn. The Observer’s leader writer is continuing to use the same debunked nonsense which the media used then to attack Corbyn.

Political writer Simon Maginn has exposed ten fraudulent tropes of the supposed ‘Labour antisemitism crisis’ that are constantly recycled to this day. For instance, Guardian columnist Rafael Behr indulged in a disgusting live attack on Corbyn, and the left, on the BBC Politics Live show earlier this week. Under Corbyn, Behr claimed, Labour ‘became infested with anti-Jewish racism’; he was ‘a magnet for anti-semitism’. This was utterly false. And this is a regular, high-profile columnist from a supposedly progressive newspaper!

As the composer and musician Matt Scott pointed out on Twitter:

‘Antisemitism levels went down under Jeremy Corbyn & were lower than in the general public by all known evidence.’

It was such an appalling diatribe from Behr, that if the BBC had any standards at all, that would have been his last appearance.

As Matt Kennard, co-founder of Declassified UK, noted:

‘The Labour “antisemitism crisis” propaganda campaign only stayed robust because critical analysis of the campaign – and its pushers – was locked out of the mainstream media.’

Kennard added:

‘It was critical the Guardian’s left-wing columnists either joined in the campaign, like Owen Jones, or took an oath of silence, like George Monbiot. That way anyone telling the truth about it was restricted to independent media and easily dismissed as a “crank” or “antisemite”.’

Monbiot was hardly ‘silent’. In 2018, for example, he tweeted:

‘It dismays me to say it, as someone who has invested so much hope in the current Labour Party, but I think @shattenstone [Guardian features writer Simon Hattenstone] is right: Jeremy Corbyn’s 2013 comments about “Zionists” were antisemitic and unacceptable.’ 

Monbiot tweeted this over a screen grab of Hattenstone’s Guardian article titled:

‘I gave Corbyn the benefit of the doubt on antisemitism. I can’t any more.’

It could hardly have been more damning.

Self-Awareness In Short Supply

The current fever pitch of propaganda about Ukraine and Russia, now surely far surpassing that which preceded and followed the West’s attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, is all the more galling because we are supposed to swallow the notion that we live in a propaganda-free society. Propaganda, we are told, is the preserve of the Official Enemy (insert Russia/China/North Korea/Iran/Venezuela/etc, as required). We (the ‘civilised’ West, creator of universal human rights, moral values and true democracy, etc) have responsible, fair and informative media.

Yes, of course, it is grudgingly admitted, there’s the tabloid press filled with tittle-tattle, fluff, tawdry scandals and other diversionary nonsense. But, we have ‘quality’ newspapers and broadcast media, such as the Times, the Independent, the Guardian and Channel 4 News. Heck, we have BBC News: the world’s ‘most trusted’ international news organisation (as they keep reminding us).

But we could easily fill pages daily with examples of BBC News propaganda (quite apart from the endless omissions that are a fundamental feature of BBC News). Choosing a ‘winner’ each day would be tough. But the BBC’s Russia editor Steve Rosenberg is often a serious contender.  Reporting recently from the Russian city of Belgorod, just 40km north of the border with Ukraine, he observed that:

‘Belgorod locals live in fear but won’t blame Putin’.

He wrote:

‘In addition to the slogans on the street, there’s also the propaganda on Russian state TV. From morning till night news bulletins and talk shows assure viewers that Russia is in the right; that Ukraine and the West are the aggressors and that in this conflict the very future of Russia is at stake.’

Adding:

‘The messaging works.’

As an example, Rosenberg cited a local woman, Olga:

‘She accepts the official view – the version of events that much of the world dismisses as the Kremlin’s alternative reality.’

The lack of self-awareness by Rosenberg – ‘the messaging works’ – is standard for a prominent journalist at the news organisation that has been pumping out state propaganda since its inception under Lord Reith.

The serial dearth of news reporting and analysis that could offer some semblance of counterbalance to the Nato view of events in Ukraine is a damning indictment of BBC News and the rest of the national media.

Perhaps, for many in the media and political circles, there is a genuine fear of challenging official doctrine lest one be smeared as a ‘Putin apologist’. It is a favoured, shameful tactic of Monbiot, for example, who has done an excellent job of trashing his own reputation.

On 9 February, Monbiot tweeted:

‘There is a left – the majority – that’s principled and consistent in denouncing all imperialist war. And there’s another left, represented by Roger Waters, John Pilger, Media Lens etc, that denounces Western wars of aggression but makes excuses for Russian wars of aggression.’

We replied:

‘Fake! We denounce both Western and Russian wars of aggression. Our media alert, 4 March 2022:

‘”Russia’s attack is a textbook example of ‘the supreme crime’, the waging of a war of aggression. So, too, was the 2003 US-UK invasion and occupation of Iraq.”’

We asked Monbiot to explain how repeatedly denouncing Putin’s war of aggression was the same thing as making ‘excuses for Russian wars of aggression’. One of the Guardian’s highest-profile columnists then spent the morning trawling through our Twitter history until he eventually found an example of us retweeting someone who described Russia’s invasion as ‘provoked’. Monbiot considered this an example of us making ‘excuses’ for Putin. We cited Chomsky:

‘They know perfectly well it was provoked. That doesn’t justify it, but it was massively provoked. Top US diplomats have been talking about this for 30 years, even the head of the CIA.’

Former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook summed up his and our position exactly:

‘This really shouldn’t need stating. I focus on the West’s crimes, provocations and distortions not because I’m a Saddam, Assad, Putin apologist. I do so because I’m trying to fill in knowledge gaps for *western audiences* starved of critical information by western corporate media.

‘You don’t need more western propaganda from me. Your eyes and ears are stuffed with it. You need to hear other sides, and missing information, to be able to judge whether what you’re being told by the establishment media is true or propaganda.

‘Not least, you need that counter-information to judge whether the state-corporate media have a collective agenda – and whether that agenda is about empowering you against the establishment, or about empowering the establishment against you.’

What is so remarkable about Monbiot’s relentless attacks on us is that he initially understood exactly what we were trying to do and why. In February 2005, he emailed us:

‘I know we’ve had disagreements in the past, but I wanted to send you a note of appreciation for your work. Your persistence seems to be paying off: it’s clear that many of the country’s most prominent journalists are aware of Medialens, read your bulletins and, perhaps, are beginning to feel the pressure. If, as I think you have, you have begun to force people working for newspapers and broadcasters to look over their left shoulders as well as their right, and worry about being held to account for the untruths they disseminate, then you have already performed a major service to democracy. I feel you have begun to open up a public debate on media bias, which has been a closed book in the United Kingdom for a long time. As you would be the first to point out, this does not solve the problem of the corporate control of the media, but it does sow embarrasment [sic] in the ranks of the enemy, while reminding your readers of the need to seek alternative sources of information.

‘Your columns in the New Statesman have been effective in reaching a wider readership, and I’m glad the Guardian gave you a platform: have you tried to persuade the BBC to let you on? I’m thinking in particular of Radio 4’s programme The Message.

‘With my best wishes, George Monbiot’ (Monbiot, email to Media Lens, 2 February 2005)

But here’s the problem: our ethical approach and rationale were exactly the same in 2005 as they are in 2023. How can Monbiot not understand now what he understood so clearly then: that we are indeed trying to persuade ‘newspapers and broadcasters to look over their left shoulders as well as their right’, to hold them accountable ‘for the untruths they disseminate’? Our work has nothing whatever to do with ‘apologising’ for tyranny. So, who changed: us or Monbiot?

The Purple Prose Of BBC News

Two weeks ago, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky came to London to give a speech pleading for fighter jets, to an adoring audience of the political and media establishment in Westminster Hall. BBC News waxed lyrical:

‘The 900-year-old medieval hall was bathed in sunlight from its vast stained glass windows, as MPs, peers, members of the clergy, reporters and assorted dignitaries assembled in an atmosphere of hushed anticipation.’

Labour’s Stephen Doughty, a member of the all-party Ukraine group, was ‘among those left with a sense of awe’. He said of Zelensky:

‘He’s the real deal. You don’t get many leaders quite like that in the world.’

At the end of his speech, Zelensky gave a ‘Churchillian “V for victory” sign’ as the Ukrainian national anthem played in the background. That, reported the BBC, ‘was the most powerful moment for’ Doughty, particularly:

‘as the stained glass windows that bathed the whole occasion in light are a memorial to the staff and members of both houses of Parliament who died in the Second World War.’

Doughty added:

‘The symbolism of that is incalculable.’

BBC impartiality was truly out the window – stained glass or otherwise – when a BBC reporter proclaimed to Zelensky:

‘Greetings, Mr. President, I would really like to hug you.’

It was a propaganda show that would be mocked mercilessly here if something similar happened in Russia.

Earlier this week, US president Joe Biden made a ‘surprise’ visit to Ukraine before heading on to Poland. His speeches were reported diligently and respectfully by Western media. Meanwhile, as the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approached, Vladimir Putin addressed the Russian people. A live BBC News page emphasised the key points for the BBC audience:

‘Putin suspends key US nuclear arms deal in bitter speech against West’

‘Putin rages against West’

And:

‘[Putin] goes through a list of familiar grievances in an angry speech in Washington’

Can you imagine BBC News ever describing in similar terms a speech given by a US president or British prime minister?

‘Biden rages against Russia’

Or:

‘Biden goes through a list of familiar grievances in an angry speech in Moscow’

Media analyst Alan MacLeod drew attention in a powerful Twitter thread to the glaring contrast between:

‘When they do it vs. when we do it.’

For example, the Time double issue of 14/21 March 2022 had a cover depicting a Russian tank invading Ukraine with the title:

‘The Return of History: How Putin Shattered Europe’s Dreams’

By contrast, when the Time cover of 11 September 1995 depicted a huge explosion as Nato bombed Serbs in Bosnia, the title was:

‘Bringing the Serbs to Heel: A Massive Bombing Attack Opens the Door to Peace’

This recalls Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s bizarre comment at the World Economic Forum that ‘weapons are the way to peace’.   

Truly, we are living in an Orwellian era.

MacLeod also highlighted the title of a piece by Times columnist David Aaronovitch from 28 April, 2022:

‘Russia’s casual savagery is seared into its soul’

By contrast, on 30 November 2017, the Times ran an opinion piece by Nigel Biggar, an Anglican priest and theologian, titled:

‘Don’t feel guilty about our colonial history’

And on and on.

In a brilliant ten-minute presentation by film director Ken Loach, he said:

‘The mass media are our enemy – they’ve declared war, and we know whose interests they represent.’

Finally, perhaps, the left is beginning to understand the role of the Guardian, the BBC and the rest of the ‘MSM’ in maintaining the established system of power in the UK, including its endless support for war.

Feb 8, 2023

Former advisor to the Ukrainian president's office, Arestovich

Former advisor to the Ukrainian president's office, Arestovich

(https://t.me/dimsmirnov175/43695), has begun to prepare Ukrainians for the worst. He said: "87% of our society says that the liberation of all Ukrainian territory by military means is our goal." Another 4% say they are ready to bargain for Crimea, but Donbass is definitely a military option. 

Now the question is, what if that doesn't happen? What will happen to the society, which had inflated expectations and, as a result, received the conditional Minsk-3? It's the return spring of unrealized expectations that will kick us, our morals, and everything else, so much so that we'll just be stunned. That's why the way out of this war may be quite different from what we all thought six months ago, or even three months ago. And not because the insidious Americans don't give us weapons, but because, in principle, we need about 400 thousand perfectly trained troops, armed from head to toe with NATO weapons. to seriously grind it all up and liberate the territory. Do we have it? No. Will we have it in the next year? not going to happen. 

So the moral of this fable is simple. Are we, as a society, ready for a different outcome than we thought we'd get? We're not. [Not ready because no one has ever talked about it in principle.] So I decided to talk about it.

#source (https://t.me/c/1866321410/7838)
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May 3, 2022

About anti-Semitism

About anti-Semitism


We paid attention to the anti-historical statements of Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, which largely explain the course of the current Israeli government to support the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv. The Israeli minister said literally the following: “The Jews did not destroy themselves during the Holocaust. Blaming Jews for anti-Semitism is a blatant level of racism against Jews."


For some reason, the Western press (and some of our liberals) are still arguing about whether there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine. As one of the "reinforced concrete" arguments, the Jewish origin of Vladimir Zelensky is given. The argument is not only untenable, but also crafty. History, unfortunately, knows tragic examples of cooperation between Jews and the Nazis. In Poland and other countries of Eastern Europe, the Germans appointed Jewish industrialists as heads of ghettos and Jewish councils (“Judenrats”), some of whom are remembered for absolutely monstrous deeds. Jakub Leikin in Warsaw conducted surveillance of the Jews and reported everything to the German occupation administration, dooming his compatriots to certain, and sometimes painful death, and Chaim Rumkowski generally offered the Jews of Lodz to give their children to the Nazis in exchange for saving the lives of adult residents of the ghetto,


It remains only to agree with the professor of history at Tel Aviv University, H. Dreyfus, that the complicity of Jews in the Holocaust is a “marginal phenomenon” (but not a taboo and is the subject of research ). At the same time, the historical tragedy lies in the fact that if during the Second World War some Jews were forced to participate in crimes, then V. Zelensky, who speculates on his roots, does this quite consciously and quite voluntarily. He hides behind the origin himself and covers them with natural neo-Nazis, spiritual and blood heirs of the executioners of his people.


The Jewish origin of the president is not a guarantee of protection from rampant neo-Nazism in the country. Ukraine, by the way, is not the only one like this now. The President of Latvia, E. Levits, also has Jewish roots. And he also “successfully” covers up the rehabilitation of the Waffen SS in his country.


Lapid and his cabinet don't see this? Just as cynically they ignore the epidemic of destruction and desecration of monuments to the real righteous people of the world - the soldiers of the Red Army who stopped the Holocaust and saved the Jewish world. How many times did the Israeli Foreign Ministry call for the delivery of sharp protests on this occasion from the ambassadors of Poland, Bulgaria, the Baltic countries, the same Ukraine? 


Lapid and his cabinet do not see that Zelensky is simply “completing” the scenario described by the German pastor M. Niemoller. First, in Ukraine in 2014, they came for the communists, then for the socialists, then, the entire "civilized" world was silent when the Russians were "abolished" in Ukraine. Is there not enough imagination to understand what kind of “non-indigenous” people will go “to the knives” and “to the Gilyak” for the Muscovites? 


Clue.

That's what really exists in Ukraine, even if we leave out the frenzied Russophobia and the fight against everything Russian, it's the most extreme anti-Semitism and Romophobia, even thinking about which not so long ago was unthinkable.


Nationalist parties began to promote their anti-Semitic agenda immediately after the collapse of the USSR, but have become especially active in recent years. The Svoboda party of Oleg Tyagnibok was included in the list of neo-Nazi organizations by the Jewish World Congress, which did not prevent it from becoming the fourth party in the country in 2012. Since the coup in 2014, anti-Semitism has flourished in Ukraine. The reportIsraeli Minister for Diaspora Relations N. Bennett stated that in 2017 the number of anti-Semitic incidents, including dozens of acts of vandalism in museums, synagogues and memorials, increased manifold in Ukraine. Ukraine has become the leader among all the countries of the former USSR in terms of the number of anti-Semitic incidents, and some publications indicate that Ukraine generally surpasses all the countries of the former USSR combined in their number.


One of the prominent representatives of the Jewish movement in Ukraine, Eduard Dolinsky, recently feared the termination of the activities of his organization (“Ukrainian Jewish Committee”). Torchlight processions with portraits of Stepan Bandera through the streets of Kiev with the slogans “Get out of the Yude!”, as well as the inscriptions of vandals on the synagogues (“death to the Jews”) speak for themselves.


Last year, on Hanukkah, neo-Nazis desecrated the menorah in Kyiv, and in Nikolaev, anti-Semites cut the garland on Hanukkah. So far - only a garland.


It is not only the Jews who suffer. Roma are also often persecuted for their ethnic origin. Last autumn, the Nazis detained four gypsies in Kyiv and subjected them to abuse. Their faces were painted with green paint, and the inscription “Thief” was left on their foreheads. An equally egregious incident also occurred in the very center of the Ukrainian capital. An unknown person met gypsies on the street, and, using profanity, ordered the representatives of the community to leave Independence Square. Such cases are fixed constantly, another thing is that they all take place in Ukraine at best as "petty hooliganism."


Despite the existence of the law “On Preventing and Combating Anti-Semitism in Ukraine”, which Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed in 2020, its provisions do not apply. Everyday and political anti-Semitism and Nazism are not suppressed, on the contrary, they are nurtured. The authorities and law enforcement agencies are calm about the Judeophobic cries at the "Bandera" marches, all because the current Kyiv regime is confident in its infallibility. Such “state building” is especially immoral for a country that lost 1.5 million Jews during the Holocaust, and in whose capital there is a memorial to those who died in Babi Yar.


Apr 27, 2022

Ukraine-Russia War Events for April 27, 2022

MoD Russia, [2022-04-27 4:00 PM]

🗓 Top News Today


💥 High-precision long-range sea-based Kalibr missile strikes (https://t.me/mod_russia_en/1146) destroyed hangars with a large batch of foreign weapons and ammunition supplied by the United States and European countries for Ukrainian troops on the territory of the Zaporozhye aluminum plant.

💥 Artillery units have carried out 309 firing missions (https://t.me/mod_russia_en/1157) during the day. Destroyed: 14 command posts, 292 areas of AFU manpower and military equipment concentration, as well as 3 ammunition depots near Chervonoe and Illichevka in Kharkov Region.

📹 Footage of another high-precision guided missile strike (https://t.me/mod_russia_en/1149) on AFU infrastructure, a destroyed Ukrainian nationalist and AFU stronghold (https://t.me/mod_russia_en/1150), and captured trophies from Ukrainian depot (https://t.me/mod_russia_en/1153) by Russian Armed Forces have been published.

🤝 Russian military police (https://t.me/mod_russia_en/1154) assisted a family with young children from Kharkov region to evacuate to Russia.

🏥 Russian military medics (https://t.me/mod_russia_en/1152) in Kharkov Region continue to provide medical assistance to civilians who have been subjected to shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

❗️ The Kiev regime has not ceased its attempts at provocations to accuse the Russian Armed Forces of war crimes (https://t.me/mod_russia_en/1161). Ukrainian armed formations continue to use medical infrastructure to equip strongholds (https://t.me/mod_russia_en/1160) and deploy heavy weaponry.

🚛 Over the past day, without the participation of Kiev, 16,480 people were evacuated (https://telegra.ph/Statement-of-the-Joint-Coordination-Headquarters-for-Humanitarian-Response-in-Ukraine-April-27-2022-04-27) from dangerous areas of Ukraine.

#MoD #Russia #Ukraine
@mod_russia_en



MoD Russia, [2022-04-27 12:31 PM]

🇷🇺🇺🇦Briefing by Russian Defence Ministry


▫️The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation in Ukraine.

💥High-precision air-based missiles of the Russian Aerospace Forces hit 17 Ukrainian military assets.

▫️Among them: 2 command posts of Ukrainian troops' units, as well as 15 areas of manpower and military equipment concentration.

✈️💥Operational-tactical and army aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces hit 38 military assets of Ukraine.

▫️Among them: 7 command posts, 2 anti-aircraft missile systems: 1 S-300 near Nikolaevka and 1 Osa-AKM near Velikaya Kamyshevaha, 2 fortified areas, as well as 27 areas of Ukrainian manpower and military equipment concentration.

▫️Up to 210 nationalists, as well as more than 43 armoured and motor vehicles, were destroyed.

💥Artillery units have carried out 309 firing missions during the day.

▫️Destroyed: 14 command posts, 292 areas of AFU manpower and military equipment concentration, as well as 3 ammunition depots near Chervonoe and Illichevka in Kharkov Region.

💥Russian air defence means shot down 1 Mi-24 helicopter of the Ukrainian Air Force near Cherkasskya Lozovaya, Kharkov Region.

▫️2 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were also destroyed near Peski-Radkovskoe and Borschevka.

📊In total, 141 aircraft and 111 helicopters, 609 unmanned aerial vehicles, 275 anti-aircraft missile systems, 2,616 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 297 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,139 field artillery and mortars, as well as 2,426 units of special military vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed during the operation.


#MoD #Russia #Ukraine #Briefing
@mod_russia_en



The operation of the Fara-VR portable reconnaissance radar station in combat conditions in Mariupol. Exclusive footage of our military officer Andrey Filatov @FilatovCorr, who made this report on the eve of the blocking of Azov workers at Azovstal. The video shows how the reconnaissance officer scans the area, detects the enemy’s manpower and directs tankers and the crew of the BMP at him.



Military situation in Eastern Ukraine for April 26, 2022






German reporter on what he has observed in Ukraine over the past weeks.






Wasn't feeling well yesterday, therefore why no updates.



 MoD Russia, [2022-04-27 3:36 AM]

🇷🇺🇺🇦Briefing by the Russian Defence Ministry


▫️The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue a special military operation in Ukraine.

💥High-precision long-range sea-based Kalibr missile strikes destroyed hangars with a large batch of foreign weapons and ammunition supplied by the United States and European countries for Ukrainian troops on the territory of the Zaporozhye aluminum plant.

✈️💥Operational-tactical and army aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces hit 59 military facilities of Ukraine overnight.

▫️Among them: 50 areas of concentration of Ukrainian manpower and military equipment, 4 weapons and ammunition depots near Chervonoe, Dolgenkoe, Pashkoe and Veseloe, and 1 Buk-M1 anti-aircraft missile system near Slavyansk.

▫️As a result of the strikes, over 120 nationalists and 35 armored vehicles and vehicles were destroyed.

💥Missile troops and artillery performed 573 firing tasks during the night.

▫️Destroyed: 432 areas of concentration of enemy manpower and military equipment, 67 artillery positions, 2 batteries of multiple rocket launchers, as well as 7 ammunition depots.

💥Russian air defence means shot down 18 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles near Alexandrovka, Balakleya, Bryanka, Zaporozhskoe, Izium, Kapitolovka, Peremoga, Petrovka, Popasnoe, Proletarskoe, Trudolyubovka, including 2 Bayraktar-TB2 UAVs near Kalesnikovka and Krasny Liman.

▫️In addition, 1 Ukrainian tactical missile Tochka-U was shot down over Ilyichevka.

📊In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 141 aircraft, 110 helicopters, 607 unmanned aerial vehicles, 273 anti-aircraft missile systems, 2,596 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 296 multiple rocket launchers, 1,134 field artillery and mortar guns, as well as 2,413 units of special military vehicles have been destroyed.

#MoD #Russia #Ukraine #Briefing
@mod_russia_en

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Vasquez: Fake Valor?

Via the NYT h/t to @Slavyangrad Telegram channel NYT (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/25/world/europe/volunteers-us-ukraine-lies.html) : Sto...

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