13527 Views
January 10, 2023
How NATO “celebrated” the Orthodox Nativity
NATO did “celebrate” the Orthodox Nativity, but in its own way. First, a few headlines:
Remember the truce offered by Russia? It was rejected. Instead we got this:
And, just to clarify, NATO uses Serbia as a defenseless victim to
show Russia what it can do to its allies, the message being, as Stoble
Talbott said, “after Serbia, you are next”, so the link here is strong.
NATO did not stop at that, it also continued its policy of persecutions, see these headlines:
Speaking of issues of freedom of religion, NATO is planning to
completely ban the parishes which used to have an autonomous status
under the Moscow Patriarchate, which then turned against Moscow and
condemned the SMO. But that was not enough, so, just like in NATO
occupied Kosovo, the persecution of Orthodox clergy and faithful is both
a “feel good” operation for Orthodoxy-haters and a “message” to Moscow.
NATO did not stop at that, it also announced yet another military aid package for Banderastan: (no translation needed I suppose)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
The
U.S. relationship with Ukrainian fascists began after the Second World
War. During the war, units of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
(OUN-B) took part in the Holocaust, killing
at least 100,000 Jews and Poles. Mykola Lebed, a top aide to Stepan
Bandera, the leader of the fascist OUN-B, was recruited by the C.I.A.
after the war, according to a 2010 study by the U.S. National Archives.
The
government study said, “Bandera’s wing (OUN/B) was a militant fascist
organization.” Bandera’s closest deputy, Yaroslav Stetsko, said:
““I…fully appreciate the undeniably harmful and hostile role of the
Jews, who are helping Moscow to enslave Ukraine…. I therefore support
the destruction of the Jews and the expedience of bringing German
methods of exterminating Jewry to Ukraine….”
The
study says: “At a July 6, 1941, meeting in Lwów, Bandera loyalists
determined that Jews ‘have to be treated harshly…. We must finish them
off…. Regarding the Jews, we will adopt any methods that lead to their
destruction.’”
Lebed himself proposed
to “’cleanse the entire revolutionary territory of the Polish
population,’ so that a resurgent Polish state would not claim the region
as in 1918.” Lebed was the “foreign minister” of a Banderite government
in exile, but he later broke with Bandera for acting as a dictator. The
U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps termed Bandera “extremely
dangerous” yet said he was “looked upon as the spiritual and national
hero of all Ukrainians….”
The C.I.A. was not interested in working with Bandera, pages 81-82 of the report
say, but the British MI6 was. “MI6 argued, Bandera’s group was ‘the
strongest Ukrainian organization abroad, is deemed competent to train
party cadres, [and] build a morally and politically healthy
organization….’” An early 1954 MI6 summary noted that, “the operational
aspect of this [British] collaboration [with Bandera] was developing
satisfactorily. Gradually a more complete control was obtained over
infiltration operations …
Russia and Ukraine have publicly agreed on a fundamental and important issue.
The question is who Russia is fighting in Ukraine.
During an interview with a Ukrainian TV station the Oleksii Reznikov,
the defense minister of Ukraine, answered that the Ukraine has "already
become a de facto member of the NATO alliance."
bigger
The interview, given four days ago, is available
on Youtube. English language subtitles can be generated by
autotranslate. The sentence pictured above comes at about 1:25 minutes
in.
Sputnik, which seems to be the only international outlet that has picked up on this, has more (from ~11:05 min):
“At the NATO Summit in Madrid” in June 2022, “it was clearly
delineated that over the coming decade, the main threat to the alliance
would be the Russian Federation. Today Ukraine is eliminating this
threat. We are carrying out NATO’s mission today. They
aren’t shedding their blood. We’re shedding ours. That’s why they’re
required to supply us with weapons,” Reznikov said ...
The official said Kiev was being constantly reminded by its “Western
partners” that it, “like a real shield, is defending the entire
civilized world, the entire West,” from the Russians, and said that he
personally has recently received holiday greeting cards and text
messages from Western defense ministers to that effect.
Reznikov expressed “absolute” certainty in Ukraine’s eventual entry
into NATO, saying he was “convinced that this is an absolutely realistic
possibility... Of course they won’t accept this political decision via
consensus before our victory. This is clear. But after the victory,
after all this ends and some kind of peace arrives, NATO countries,
first and foremost, will be interested in the construction of this
security architecture. They have seen their own weak spots, they have
seen who is strong and powerful. Today they are teaching us but tomorrow
our officers, sergeants and even privates will be teaching them how to
fight the Russians. Russia remains one of the threats to NATO, and for
Europe as a whole.”
10232 Views
January 09, 2023
by Pepe Escobar, first publish at The Cradle and reposted by author’s permission
As Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative enters its 10th year, a
strong Sino-Russian geostrategic partnership has revitalized the BRI
across the Global South.
The year 2022 ended with a Zoom call to end all Zoom calls:
Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping discussing all aspects of the
Russia-China strategic partnership in an exclusive video call.
Putin told Xi how “Russia and China managed to ensure record high
growth rates of mutual trade,” meaning “we will be able to reach our
target of $200 billion by 2024 ahead of schedule.”
On their coordination to “form a just world order based on
international law,” Putin emphasized how “we share the same views on the
causes, course, and logic of the ongoing transformation of the global
geopolitical landscape.”
Facing “unprecedented pressure and provocations from the west,” Putin
noted how Russia-China are not only defending their own interests “but
also all those who stand for a truly democratic world order and the
right of countries to freely determine their own destiny.”
Earlier, Xi had announced that Beijing will hold the 3rd
Belt and Road Forum in 2023. This has been confirmed, off the record, by
diplomatic sources. The forum was initially designed to be bi-annual,
first held in 2017 and then 2019. 2021 didn’t happen because of
Covid-19.
The return of the forum signals not only a renewed drive but an
extremely significant landmark as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),
launched in Astana and then Jakarta in 2013, will be celebrating its
10th anniversary.
