Category: Russia

  • There is something deeply moving about the ignorance and scatty nature of politicians.  At points, it can even be endearing.  In the apparently wide wake left by the mauling of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in front of the press at the Oval Office on February 28, backers of Kyiv’s war effort were wondering: What next?  How do we prevent Ukrainian defeat at the hands of Russia?  Having irresponsibly cuddled, coddled and insisted that Ukraine was in with more than a sporting chance to bloody and beat the clumsy Russian Bear that shows no signs of stepping down and hibernating, they now find themselves without a war sponsor in the United States.

    The previous US President Joe Biden had been more than willing to keep the war machine fed by proxy, furnishing Zelensky handsomely.  The Washington war establishment purred, happy that Ukrainians were doing the dying and bleeding Russia’s soldiery white.  Cant and righteousness were in abundant supply: the Ukrainians were foot soldiers wrapped in civilisation’s flag, democracy worn on their sleeves.  Accusations from the Russian side that Ukrainian nationalism was also adulterated by a history of fascist inclination were dismissed out of hand.  A country famously seized by kleptocrats, with a spotty, ill-nourished civil society, had been redrawn as a westward looking European state, besieged by the Oriental Barbarism of the East.

    If words of support could be counted as weapons, then Zelensky would have had a fresh arsenal in the aftermath of his tongue lashing by President Donald Trump and his deputy J.D. Vance.  Much of these were provided by leaders gathered at Lancaster House on March 1 hosted by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.  Starmer, for his part, promised that Europe would continue sustaining Ukraine’s efforts and, were a peace deal to arise, aid the country in improving its defences to ensure that “Ukraine can draw on munitions, finance and equipment to defend itself”.

    French President Emmanuel Macron tried to clarify any doubt that had arisen in the Oval Office savaging.  “There is an aggressor: Russia.  There is a victim: Ukraine.  We were right to help Ukraine and sanction Russia three years ago – and to keep doing so.”  The “we” in this case, Macron went on to add, involved “Americans, the Europeans, the Canadians, the Japanese, and many others.”

    Germany’s Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz also declared that “we must never confuse aggressor and victim in this terrible war”, affirming that “we stand with Ukraine”.  The country’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, thought it prudent to point out that the Oval Office brawl “underlined that a new age of infamy has begun”, adding that Russia would be withstood “even if the US withdraws support, so that it [Ukraine] can achieve a just peace and not a capitulation”.

    Other leaders expressed supportive words of standing.  Donald Tusk of Poland: “Dear [Zelensky], dear Ukrainian friends, you are not standing alone.”  Spain’s Pedro Sánchez: “Ukraine, Spain stands with you.”  Canada’s Justin Trudeau: “[we] will continue to stand with Ukraine and Ukrainians in achieving a just and lasting peace.”

    When they were not standing, many of these effusively supportive leaders were scrambling, teasingly suggesting a bloc of military support that may, somehow, be formed in the absence of US involvement.  This would comprise the sillily worded “coalition of the willing” (that expression, when used in 2003, saw the United States, UK and Australia, along with a motley collective, violate international law in invading Iraq).  Such a coalition, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen dreamily envisaged, would transform Ukraine into a “steel porcupine that is indigestible for potential invaders”.

    This imaginatively foolish and recklessly irresponsible undertaking does little to patch up the irreplaceable role the US plays in a number of areas, not least the budgetary coverage of NATO, coupled with the promise for military intervention in the event a member state is attacked.  Macron has, at stages, taken pot shots at NATO as cerebrally obsolete, a brain dead creature best be done away with.  But these articulations, beyond such reports as NATO 2030, have not resulted in anything significant that would cope with an absentee US.

    European states, furthermore, are divided ahead of the March 6 summit, where the EU will supposedly approve some 20 billion euros for the purchase of missiles and air defence equipment for Ukraine.  Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in a letter to European Council President António Costa, offered the view that the EU, “following the example of the United States – should enter into direct discussions with Russia on a ceasefire and sustainable peace in Ukraine”.

    Slovakia’s Prime Minister, Robert Fico, was even harder in his response, suggesting that financial and military assistance to Kyiv could be refused were ceasefire efforts not pursued, rejecting such notions as “peace through strength” being advocated by various EU members.  It was also incumbent, Fico went on to insist, that any settlement “explicitly include a requirement to reopen the transit of gas through Ukraine to Slovakia and Western Europe.”

    With this in mind, and the pressing, crushing implications of power, not as fantasy, but as coarsening reality, other options must be entertained.  Given their lack of punch and prowess, one arising from years fed by the devitalising US teat, European states are simply playing with toy soldiers.  Eventually, they will have to play along if peace in Ukraine, however much detested in its form, is to be reached.

    The post Europe’s Ukrainian Predicament first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Myanmar’s military junta chief arrived on Monday in Moscow, where he is expected to discuss security and economic cooperation -– including Russia’s investment in a deep-sea port in southern Myanmar –- with President Vladimir Putin.

    Tuesday’s scheduled meeting between Putin and Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing was announced by junta-controlled state media and the Russian Presidential Office last week.

    The head of the junta that seized power in February 2021 flew out of Naypyidaw along with junta Cabinet members and top military officials, according to state television MRTV.

    The visit is Min Aung Hlaing’s fourth to Russia since the coup. Putin first met Min Aung Hlaing in 2022 in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine after the Myanmar junta defended Russia’s actions.

    Both Myanmar and Russia have faced diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions. Over the last four years, the two sides have sought to spur trade, particularly with Russian military sales to Myanmar.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with Myanmar's Prime Minister Min Aung Hlaing during a meeting 
 at the 2022 Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia,  Sept. 7, 2022.
    Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with Myanmar’s Prime Minister Min Aung Hlaing during a meeting at the 2022 Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia, Sept. 7, 2022.
    (Valeriy Sharifulin/Sputnik via REUTERS)

    Most of the weaponry and other arms-related equipment sent to the junta in the two years after the coup came from Russia, according to a 2023 report to the U.N.’s Human Rights Council from Tom Andrews, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Myanmar.

    Radio Free Asia tried to contact junta’s spokesperson Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun on Monday for more details about the trip, but he didn’t immediately respond.

    Indian Ocean port

    This week’s official visit was scheduled after the junta approved Russian investment in the Dawei port and industrial trade zone in Tanintharyi region, according to Thein Htun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank formed by former military officers.

    The Dawei port project stalled in 2013 after it failed to attract enough investment.

    Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development said on Feb. 23 that Russian investment in the revived project will go toward port construction, a coal-fired power plant and an oil refinery.

    “Both sides are expected to discuss economic cooperation and expansion between Myanmar and Russia,” Thein Htun Oo told RFA. “Myanmar and Russia have already signed a strategic military partnership agreement, and that military cooperation will be enhanced in the next phase.”

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    Russia’s involvement at Dawei would give it a presence on the Indian Ocean, political analyst Than Soe Naing said.

    “This is a significant opportunity for Russia,” he said. “It marks its first step into the Bay of Bengal and opens more investment opportunities in Southeast Asia.”

    However, an economic analyst who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons said investors from other countries are expected to have a greater role.

    “Russia is not considered a good economy in the world,” he said. “There’s doubt about its ability to follow through on investments. In reality, we are looking forward to greater international investment.”

    Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The supporters of the Ukraine Solidarity Network (USN) inhabit the same contradictory moral and political space as the European leaders who met with Volodymyr Zelensky, their frontman from Ukraine, to reaffirm their collective commitment to the proxy war in Ukraine. The language of self-determination and rights easily flowed from their lips but not one of them had a word to say about the self-determination of Palestinians who are now facing another illegal siege by Israel in occupied Gaza.

    This is the terrain of white privilege that must be confronted. The power to define who is human and who has rights.

    The post Eurocentric US ‘Left’ Carries Water For Neoliberal Right, Again appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Asia Pacific Report

    The Green Party has called on Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to rule out Aotearoa New Zealand joining the AUKUS military technical pact in any capacity following the row over Ukraine in the White House over the weekend.

    President Donald Trump’s “appalling treatment” of his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a “clear warning that we must avoid AUKUS at all costs”, said Green Party foreign affairs and Pacific issues spokesperson Teanau Tuiono.

    “Aotearoa must stand on an independent and principled approach to foreign affairs and use that as a platform to promote peace.”

    US President Donald Trump has paused all military aid for Ukraine after the “disastrous” Oval Office meeting with President Zelenskyy in another unpopular foreign affairs move that has been widely condemned by European leaders.

    Oleksandr Merezhko, the chair of Ukraine’s Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, declared that Trump appeared to be trying to push Kyiv to capitulate on Russia’s terms.

    He was quoted as saying that the aid pause was worse than the 1938 Munich Agreement that allowed Nazi Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia.

    ‘Danger of Trump leadership’
    Tuiono, who is the Green Party’s first tagata moana MP, said: “What we saw in the White House at the weekend laid bare the volatility and danger of the Trump leadership — nothing good can come from deepening our links to this administration.

    “Christopher Luxon should read the room and rule out joining any part of the AUKUS framework.”

    Tuiono said New Zealand should steer clear of AUKUS regardless of who was in the White House “but Trump’s transactional and hyper-aggressive foreign policy makes the case to stay out stronger than ever”.

    “Our country must not join a campaign that is escalating tensions in the Pacific and talking up the prospects of a war which the people of our region firmly oppose.

    “Advocating for, and working towards, peaceful solutions to the world’s conflicts must be an absolute priority for our country,” Tuiono said.

    Five Eyes network ‘out of control’
    Meanwhile, in the 1News weekly television current affairs programme Q&A, former Prime Minister Helen Clark challenged New Zealand’s continued involvement in the Five Eyes intelligence network, describing it as “out of control”.

    Her comments reflected growing concern by traditional allies and partners of the US over President Trump’s handling of long-standing relationships.

    Clark said the Five Eyes had strayed beyond its original brief of being merely a coordinating group for intelligence agencies in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

    “There’s been some talk in the media that Trump might want to evict Canada from it . . . Please could we follow?” she said.

    “I mean, really, the problem with Five Eyes now has become a basis for policy positioning on all sorts of things.

    “And to see it now as the basis for joint statements, finance minister meetings, this has got a bit out of control.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Kenneth Roth, visiting professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and former executive director of Human Rights Watch, responds to the shocking Oval Office meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President JD Vance, in which Vance and Trump publicly admonished Zelensky over the Russia-Ukraine war and accused him…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.


  • This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • From day one, we humans have reacted to the extraordinary with awe and dread. Unprecedented phenomena evoke acute anxiety – even when not immediately threatening – because they are inexplicable. They sow fear because their nature, and whatever mysterious realm they emerge from, are beyond our comprehension. Thus, the compulsion to fit them into some ordered frame of reference. That entailed populating the earth and the sky with spirits, demons, gods and a host of related forces. In the imagination of more literate societies, they were composed into entire families of the supernatural – endowed with human attributes so as to make their persona and machinations more accessible to our mortal minds. The previously unknown becomes not knowable in any overt sense but it can be referenced. Calamities and boons alike can be ascribed to them – either as divine whim or provocation by human actions: (failure to propitiate the divine powers or consorting with malign spirits) Or, we might be victimized by the plotting by the juju men deploy witchcraft in the service of enemies and blasphemers.

    These days, we do the exact opposite: we reduce the extraordinary to the banal ordinary. We normalize it. We neutralize by confining it to the mundane categories we rely on in order to understand how the world works and to navigate it. In this way, we alleviate stress – emotional or mental.  That allows us to avoid the need to contend with the challenging, with what disturbs our comfort and convenience. This response is recognizable even when the phenomena encountered are of consequence, even among responsible leaders. At this moment, we are witnessing a remarkable example of this phenomenon.  America is experiencing an imminent threat to its very essence as a Constitutional Republic – to its foundational values, to its principles of collective life. Yet, the reaction is decidedly undramatic. There is no general sense of crisis or desperate efforts to counter it. No urgency. The numerous assaults on the body politic by Trump and his henchmen are judged as serious, but each is addressed as if it were self-contained rather than part of a comprehensive, revolutionary – if erratic – plan to remake the country in MAGA’s perverse vision.

    The harsh reality is that the country is under the brutal rule of a mentally unhinged autocrat with strong Fascist instincts. He, and his Rasputin Elon Musk, share the mentality of juvenile delinquents driven by the impulse to destroy and to coercive use of power. They are dismantling the federal government and subverting our political system. In textbook coup fashion, they have decapitated the senior ranks of every federal administrative unit, supplanting incumbents with loyalists who will do the bidding of their master in the White House.1 They command the blind loyalty of tens of millions of cultists. They control cyberspace. They have intimidated the formal opposition into passive acquiescence. Massive success in these twin projects has been achieved within just six weeks. In four years’ time, little will be left of the political system in place for the past 250 years; our society will be prey to pillage and oppression. The system’s reconstitution would be a Herculean project – even under the most favorable circumstances. At the moment, there is no evidence of such circumstances emerging.

    The sine qua non for improving the odds, however slightly, on building some measure of countervailing force, is to cease-and-desist from the deleterious practice of normalizing Trump’s depredations. That includes casting him and his machinations in a positive light whenever a particular action of his conforms to our own views.  The outstanding case in point is the termination of the open-ended Ukraine project of exploiting that benighted country as a weapon for subordinating Russia. That catastrophic failure should be recognized as such, and reversion from it is called for. Let us bear in mind, though, that the campaign that was launched by Barack Obama in 2014 was deepened by Trump I and turbocharged by Joe Biden. It reflected an overwhelming consensus by the country’s political class that the plan served major national interests. Several of Trump’s appointees have been vocal promoters of the campaign. Trump is anything but a natural conciliator and humanitarian – as evinced by his plan for extirpating the Palestinians, but his bullying of every country fend or foe in sight, and by his full dedication to confrontation with China. The expediency of calming relations with Russia has much to do with the girding of loins for the priority given aggressive campaigns in the Middle East and East Asia rather than earnest concern for European peace.

    At the more practical level, the White House notion as to what should be the basis for an agreement with Russia bears no relation to the realities on the ground or to the Kremlin’s oft-repeated statement of its unnegotiable core objectives. Trump will not be happy with terms, however dressed up, that constitute a clear humiliation of the U.S. Similar ignorance, and fantasy, attaches to the proposal of a ceasefire which makes zero sense from a Moscow perspective. Simply put, the White House has no viable plan to end the war in Ukraine.

    Instead of a sober appreciation of these truths, we find many critics of the Ukraine venture tossing bouquets of praise at Trump for his takedown of Zelensky in the White House. This disgraceful display of arrogance backed by mendacity is now being justified and often praised. We are told that Trump “schooled” him, “took him to the woodshed,” “taught him a lesson.” Whatever one thinks of Zelensky, the entire episode was an acute embarrassment for the United States. Our President behaving like a mafia capo engaging in an extortionate shakedown of a fellow gangster registers worldwide in a manner damaging to America’s image and interests. There is widespread backing for the White House claim that Zelensky ‘insulted’ the President and, thereby, the United States – a sin for which he should publicly apologize. This from a man who called Zelensky a “dictator,’ accused him of stealing tens of billions of dollars, lies about his alleged failure to thank Americans for all the wonderful things they have done for Ukrainians, and blames him for starting a war which Washington forced on Kiev. The last is carried to the extreme of coercing Zelensky to back away from the agreement with Russia, initialed in Istanbul at the end of March 2022, which would have spared hundreds of thousands of lives – and America’s (the West’s) ignominious defeat. Who owes whom an apology?

    Trump sees Ukraine as a financial investment that went sour. So, you blame your agents for the failure and grab whatever tangible assets are lying around. He never will admit that our aid in fact was spent to make possible the spilling of Ukrainian blood for American purposes. Mea Culpa is not in his vocabulary.  How will he react when his simple-minded ideas for ending the war prove to be fanciful? Find a scapegoat – Biden, Zelensky, the Europeans? Concoct another fictional narrative eagerly spread by credulous mass media? Create a noisy distraction? Or, fall on his face as occurred repeatedly in a career as real estate mogul featuring serial bankruptcies?

    The blunt truth is that the United States no longer is capable of conducting normal diplomacy. Evident under Biden, it is even more alien to the Trump team. The man is a malignant narcissist, borderline psychotic whose only methods for dealing with the world are bullying, intimidation, and domination. We have seen that in living color for 9 years. He thinks in slogans and indulges any whim that passes through an addled mind. Still, there remain distinguished analysts who put forth the thesis that the displays such as we saw with Zelensky are just calculated showmanship, that in private Trump engages with colleagues in sober, disciplined, informed exercises in policy formation., and the careful weighing of tactical options. Picture Churchill’s war cabinet in May 1940 – substituting Trump, Vance, Rubio, Hegseth, Waltz and Musk for Churchill, Halifax, Attlee, Greenwood, Bevin and Chamberlain.

    Even the best of us are not entirely free of the instinct to tint reality to match our wishes.

    ENDNOTES:

    The post Normalizing the Abnormal first appeared on Dissident Voice.
    1    In key departments, the purge is being carried out well into the organization chart. At State, a special unit led by a fresh MAGA appointee is tasked with reviewing all 13,000 treaties and agreements that the U.S. has internationally. The aim of the sifting is to abrogate some considerable number. That number as well as the criteria to be applied in identifying disposable agreements is a mystery to those working on the project. When one staff official inquired of the non-entity in charge what methodology would be employed, his foggy response was to ask what is meant by “methodology.”

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • There was a revolting tabloid quality to the Oval Office reception given to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on February 28, but then again, President Donald Trump is a tabloid brute, a man incarnated from the nastiest, shallowest precepts of yellow press clippings and, ultimately, the reality television empire that gave him a crown and forever enshrined him in the culture of brash Americana.  From the foamy cable television rot of the republic, Trump’s progress was inexorable.

    With such ingredients, the White House has become a studio, with the statesmanship of the bullying show paramount.  The electors are to be entertained by what might be called colosseum politics.  They want bread, but are very keen on the circuses.  They want season tickets to the MAGA tent where they can witness muscular events.  They want to know that the US will recoup what it gives, with interest.

    When the satirically gifted Hugh Hector Munro (“Saki”) warned that being a pioneer was never wise, seeing as the Early Christian tended to get the fattest lion, it would be better to say that the lions here – Trump and his shock troop deputy J.D. Vance – seemed to have been on lettuce offerings and stale water for a week.  The lean, mean duo were remorselessly and disgracefully hungry, making sure the Ukrainian leader was subject to a battering that proved unusually long.  (These Oval office briefings before the press are usually short, snappy matters: a few anodyne questions; a few general remarks that barely ripple.)

    It was also evident that Zelensky had not gotten the brief about Trump, prompting Marek Magierowski in the National Interest to describe him as “a worse psychologist than [French President] Emmanuel Macron and [UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer], who had paid a visit to the White House just before him and, to some extent, ‘charmed’ the US president.”

    Unlike the two leaders who had come before him, Zelensky thought it wise to engage in a squabble about Russian intentions and the character of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the factual record (always dangerous in dealing with Trump, who regards facts as, as best, malleable), a duel that saw shock trooper Vance weigh in.  According to the Veep, Zelensky was not there to “litigate” the matter before the American public, which is precisely what he and Trump seemed to be doing.  This was the language of prefects and school masters, with the student reluctant to play along.

    It was a salient reminder that support for Ukraine has iced over, that it is no longer the blue-eyed boy of US politics, Western civilisation’s consecrated prop against Russian savagery.  Republican Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham even went so far as to demand that the Ukrainian leader “either … resign and send somebody over and we can do business with, or he needs to change.”

    Trump’s opponents have fumed at the president for having laid an ambush for the Ukrainian leader and promoting Russian talking points, naturally exonerating previous administrations for their contributory role (former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s intervention comes to mind) in feeding the conflict.  “Zelenskyy flew to Washington,” quipped Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Jake Auchincloss, “but he walked into the Kremlin.”

    What remains crudely apparent is that Zelensky had been given ample warning about what awaited but seemingly failed to see the billowing smoke signals.  At a Saudi-sponsored investment meeting in Florida, Trump had declared that the Ukrainian leader was only “really good” at one thing: “playing Joe Biden like a fiddle.”  He was also a “dictator” who had refused to have elections.  “He’s low in the Ukrainian polls.  How can you be high with every city being demolished?”

    Zelensky had also done little for his own cause last year by injudiciously involving himself in the US elections, speaking at a Kamala Harris campaign rally and paying a visit to a munitions plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania last September.  “It is in places like this where you can truly feel that the democratic world can prevail,” Zelensky stated at the time.

    That the visit was also conveniently located in a battleground state that the presidential contenders had to win hardly helped his case in the Oval Office skirmish.  Vance could not resist unsheathing his sword.  “You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October,” he snapped.  “Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who is trying to save your country.”

    As a result of colosseum politics, no deals were reached, and certainly not one regarding US access to Ukrainian rare earth minerals, leaving Zelensky to seek solace in the bosom of weak European powers unhinged by the values of Trumpland.  The lustre of the cause, at least across the pond, has not entirely vanished, though European support is hardly likely to swing matters on or off the battlefield for Kyiv.

    The post Zelensky: Victim of Colosseum Politics first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • There was a revolting tabloid quality to the Oval Office reception given to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on February 28, but then again, President Donald Trump is a tabloid brute, a man incarnated from the nastiest, shallowest precepts of yellow press clippings and, ultimately, the reality television empire that gave him a crown and forever enshrined him in the culture of brash Americana.  From the foamy cable television rot of the republic, Trump’s progress was inexorable.

    With such ingredients, the White House has become a studio, with the statesmanship of the bullying show paramount.  The electors are to be entertained by what might be called colosseum politics.  They want bread, but are very keen on the circuses.  They want season tickets to the MAGA tent where they can witness muscular events.  They want to know that the US will recoup what it gives, with interest.

    When the satirically gifted Hugh Hector Munro (“Saki”) warned that being a pioneer was never wise, seeing as the Early Christian tended to get the fattest lion, it would be better to say that the lions here – Trump and his shock troop deputy J.D. Vance – seemed to have been on lettuce offerings and stale water for a week.  The lean, mean duo were remorselessly and disgracefully hungry, making sure the Ukrainian leader was subject to a battering that proved unusually long.  (These Oval office briefings before the press are usually short, snappy matters: a few anodyne questions; a few general remarks that barely ripple.)

    It was also evident that Zelensky had not gotten the brief about Trump, prompting Marek Magierowski in the National Interest to describe him as “a worse psychologist than [French President] Emmanuel Macron and [UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer], who had paid a visit to the White House just before him and, to some extent, ‘charmed’ the US president.”

    Unlike the two leaders who had come before him, Zelensky thought it wise to engage in a squabble about Russian intentions and the character of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the factual record (always dangerous in dealing with Trump, who regards facts as, as best, malleable), a duel that saw shock trooper Vance weigh in.  According to the Veep, Zelensky was not there to “litigate” the matter before the American public, which is precisely what he and Trump seemed to be doing.  This was the language of prefects and school masters, with the student reluctant to play along.

    It was a salient reminder that support for Ukraine has iced over, that it is no longer the blue-eyed boy of US politics, Western civilisation’s consecrated prop against Russian savagery.  Republican Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham even went so far as to demand that the Ukrainian leader “either … resign and send somebody over and we can do business with, or he needs to change.”

    Trump’s opponents have fumed at the president for having laid an ambush for the Ukrainian leader and promoting Russian talking points, naturally exonerating previous administrations for their contributory role (former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s intervention comes to mind) in feeding the conflict.  “Zelenskyy flew to Washington,” quipped Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Jake Auchincloss, “but he walked into the Kremlin.”

    What remains crudely apparent is that Zelensky had been given ample warning about what awaited but seemingly failed to see the billowing smoke signals.  At a Saudi-sponsored investment meeting in Florida, Trump had declared that the Ukrainian leader was only “really good” at one thing: “playing Joe Biden like a fiddle.”  He was also a “dictator” who had refused to have elections.  “He’s low in the Ukrainian polls.  How can you be high with every city being demolished?”

    Zelensky had also done little for his own cause last year by injudiciously involving himself in the US elections, speaking at a Kamala Harris campaign rally and paying a visit to a munitions plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania last September.  “It is in places like this where you can truly feel that the democratic world can prevail,” Zelensky stated at the time.

    That the visit was also conveniently located in a battleground state that the presidential contenders had to win hardly helped his case in the Oval Office skirmish.  Vance could not resist unsheathing his sword.  “You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October,” he snapped.  “Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who is trying to save your country.”

    As a result of colosseum politics, no deals were reached, and certainly not one regarding US access to Ukrainian rare earth minerals, leaving Zelensky to seek solace in the bosom of weak European powers unhinged by the values of Trumpland.  The lustre of the cause, at least across the pond, has not entirely vanished, though European support is hardly likely to swing matters on or off the battlefield for Kyiv.

    The post Zelensky: Victim of Colosseum Politics first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Volodymyr Zelensky has become accustomed to being feted in Western cities as the second-coming of Churchill, appearing before awards ceremonies, film festivals, the New York Stock Exchange and various national parliaments, (though the Academy Awards twice turned him down.)

    All that came crashing down on him Friday in the 102-foot circumference, 816 sq. foot office at the epicenter of still the most powerful nation on earth, He was met by a buzzsaw of resistance from the president and vice president of the United States. Zelensky was dressed down, even about his dress, being told he was ungrateful, disrespectful, had lost to Russia and was risking “World War III.”

    The post Trump, Vance School Zelensky On Reality Of His War appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Over a thousand Vermonters lined both sides of Route 100 in Waitsfield, Vermont, Saturday morning protesting Vice President JD Vance, who was visiting nearby Sugarbush Resort this weekend with his family. Vance’s ski vacation comes right after Friday’s disastrous meeting where US President Donald Trump and Vance ambushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • On 1 March, Donald Trump hosted a nightmarish press conference in which he berated Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

    While America betraying its allies or using them for its own imperialist agenda is nothing new, it is unprecedented for a president to do so in such an un-diplomatic fashion.

    It proved hard for many watchers to stomach – particularly those who still believe the Western powers are the peacekeepers of the world rather than its plunderers.

    In fact, it’s proven so hard to watch that even the UK Conservative Party felt a need to distance themselves from Trump’s actions:

    Badenoch VS Trump

    Speaking to journalists, the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said:

    I thought it was quite an extraordinary press conference.

    This was putting it mildly. For those who’ve somehow not seen it yet, this clip shows where it all started to go wrong, with vice president J.D. Vance scolding Zelenskyy like a child:

    This is how it ended, with Trump shouting “you’re not winning!” over the top of his guest and chastising ‘stupid Biden’ for the money he gave Ukraine:

    So yes, for once we’re in complete agreement with Badenoch; it certainly was “extraordinary”.

    Past this, Badenoch continued:

    And we all need to remember that President Zelenskyy is a hero. He represents the Ukrainian people’s strength and their resistance to an authoritarian regime that is trying to destroy them. He needs all of the support that he can get, and I think that it is inappropriate to conduct that kind of disagreement in front of cameras, as the only person who benefits from that is President Putin.

    Badenoch expanded on what she said in an interview with Laura Kuenssberg:

    It shows just how much Trump has fucked up when the failing UK Conservative Party feels like they have no choice but to admonish him. This is especially true given that we’ve all seen how Trump and goons like Elon Musk treat those who speak out.

    So why is this happening?

    Donald Trump: car-crash propaganda

    What Trump seems oblivious to is that he can’t just unravel decades of Western propaganda in a single press interview. Citizens in the West – particularly in the US and the UK – have been conditioned to see ourselves as ‘the good guys’; to see ourselves as the ‘international rules based order’; to see ourselves as the bulwark against malign foreign threats like Russia. There are also two important factors at play with the Ukraine war:

    1. It’s one of the rare conflicts post-WWII in which we’ve sided with the invaded force (as opposed to just invading someone ourselves).
    2. Ukraine has a majority white population, meaning a wider range of people in the West can put themselves in the shoes of those being invaded.

    The message from politicians and the media has been clear; we are the good guys, Russia are the bad guys, and supporting this war is righteous. And then Trump grabbed the handbrake, sending everything into a spin.

    It’s worth pointing out that Badenoch agrees with our assessment of how Western politics usually operates; just look at how she phrased it:

    I think that it is inappropriate to conduct that kind of disagreement in front of cameras

    In other words, there’s one reality for the cameras and another behind closed doors.

    Or there was, anyway.

    Awake to the American nightmare

    Towards the end of the Zelenskyy haranguing, Trump said:

    I think it’s good for the American people to see what’s going on. I think it’s very important; that’s why I kept it going so long.

    What Trump meant was that he wants Americans to see what a ‘bad deal’ they got with Ukraine. As often happens with Trump, though, there’s a truth to his words beyond his intentions. This was an instance in which the American people got to “see what’s going on”, as this is precisely how America treats its allies once it can no longer benefit from them.

    One recent example of America betraying a key ally is when they abandoned the Kurds to an attack from Turkey. The Kurds played a key role in defeating ISIS, but they never enjoyed the popular coverage that Ukraine did, so it was easy for America to abandon them (not to mention the fact that they come from a part of the world we’ve been conditioned is inherently prone to conflict).

    The trope of America abandoning its allies is such that people are actually meming about it:

    Moreover, Trump also pulled the curtain down on the entire American imperialist project. For him, Ukraine and the ill-fated meeting with Zelensky was, in his own words, about a deal; a business deal at that.

    This, once again, is no different to how Western leaders view their relationships with the rest of the world. However, again these comments are usually reserved for behind close doors – and a humanitarian facade is created for the public.

    Here, Trump made it clear that Ukraine, its people, and their lives, were little more than chips on a poker board to him – much like Biden before him. It’s just that Trump said the quiet part out loud.

    Hard power

    From what we’ve seen of Trump’s second term so far, it’s clear that he’s on a mission to drastically shift politics in a similar fashion to how post-war governments moved towards social democracy and how Reagan/Thatcher moved towards deregulation. The Trump project so far has involved ending ‘soft power‘, gutting the federal government, and declaring a trade war on something like half of the planet.

    What happened with Zelenskyy is that Trump replaced soft power (trading aid for influence) with hard power (taking what he wants at no benefit to Ukraine). What remains to be seen is if he can make this pivot stick, or if the people of the West need the propaganda to stomach how we behave on the world stage.

    It really was an extraordinary press conference.

    Featured image via Kemi Badenoch / The White House

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • “Mueller Finds No Trump Russia Conspiracy …” proclaimed a portion of a New York Times headline on March 24, 2019. Two years of special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation ended with a whimper after endless screeds about “walls closing in” on an alleged Trump conspiracy with the Russian government. The corporate media and elements of the surveillance state fed public dislike of the seemingly accidental president with false tales of “pee tapes,” Russians hacking the Democratic National Committee, and other claims later found to be false.

    The post Ukraine, War Propaganda, And The Return Of Russiagate appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • A televised Oval Office screaming match between U.S. and Ukrainian leaders on Friday led to politicians worldwide reaffirming support for Ukraine, congressional Democrats decrying the Trump administration, and human rights advocates expressing alarm about what lies ahead. U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance took turns berating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Thanks to all of you for the chance to be together and to think together. This is indeed a complicated and fast-changing time and a very dangerous one. So, we really need clarity of thought. I’m especially interested in our conversation, so I’ll try to be as succinct and clear as I can be.

    I’ve watched the events very close-up in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine, very closely for the last 36 years. I was an adviser to the Polish government in 1989, to President Gorbachev’s economic team in 1990 and 1991, to President Yeltsin’s economic team in 1991 to 1993 and to President Kuchma’s economic team in Ukraine in 1993 to 1994.

    The post The Geopolitics Of Peace appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.


  • This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • When America’s Founders declared on 4 July 1776 their willingness to risk “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor,” in order to establish justice in their land — our land — they were throwing down the gauntlet to the evil acts that their exploiters had perpetrated upon them, and against their evil perpetrators who had carried it out. They did this not by calling them evil, but by categorizing and providing an itemized list of their “usurpations,” such that “a candid world” would recognize these acts as being the evils that they were. And it would not have succeeded if those evils had not been itemized on the basis of facts that then were well known (especially to their own countrymen).

    There is a limit to what victims can bear, before they will risk their lives in revolt. America is not there yet, but it is getting close — close to a Second Revolution.

    On February 25, I posted “It’s time to fire President Trump” and presented reasons in domestic policy why Trump is even more brazen than his recent predecessors have been at stripping the American public in order to further enrich America’s billionaires — the economic inequality in this country isn’t high enough for him as it already is, and I documented there that his priorities for where federal spending needs to be cut are the public’s priorities for where federal spending needs to be increased — his priorities are exactly opposite to those the American citizenry hold, so, he is ruling like a dictator, against the public will, regardless of his campaign promises; this is a dictatorship.

    Like all U.S. Presidents, and virtually all members of the U.S. Congress, so far in this century, he has been rabidly hostile against the courageous individuals who have blown the whistle on their Government’s illegal, and even unConstitutional, actions — a Government like this can only be called a tyranny, which Britain’s also was at America’s founding.

    America’s Declaration of Independence, as I said, listed usurpations extending over a long time and not merely in the present, and likewise Trump’s violations of his promises and of the public’s priorities are merely more of— even if they might be worse than — those that were practiced by his recent predecessors; and, for documenting this, I shall focus here not on domestic policies (like I did on February 25) but instead on foreign polices, and will be showing here that the evilness is not ONLY Trump’s, but is climaxing under his Presidency, and so is actually institutional and therefore needs now to end entirely. This is a slightly expanded list from Brian Berletic’s list provided on February 18th:

    1994: Clinton co-signs Budapest Memorandum enshrining Ukrainian neutrality;
    2001: Bush withdraws from Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia;
    2003: Bush oversees overthrow of the Georgian government;
    2003: Bush 2008: US begins arming and training Georgian forces;
    2008: Bush in April invites Ukraine to join NATO in violation of the Budapest Memorandum;
    2008: Bush In August — Georgian forces attack Russian peacekeepers triggering Russian-Georgian war;
    2009: Obama Under the Obama administration — Secretary Clinton organizes a “reset” with Russia;
    2010: Obama & Hillary meet privately w. Yanukovych, fail to get him to back NATO membership
    2011: Obama — Following the US-engineered “Arab Spring,” US Senator McCain claims Russia is next;
    2014: Obama’s coup replaces Ukraine’s government, installs rabidly anti-Russian one;
    2014-2019: Obama-Biden US trains Ukrainian forces;
    2019: Trump withdraws from the INF Treaty with Russia;
    2019: Trump begins arming Ukrainian military;
    2022: Biden — US trained and armed Ukrainian troops begin intensifying operations in the Donbass along Russia’s border followed by the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine;
    2022-2025: Biden — US exhausts arms/ammunition in proxy war against Russia;
    2025: Trump seeks “reset” with Russia, while proposing Western troops enter Ukraine to freeze conflict as the West expands arms/ammunition production.

    And that doesn’t even include Trump’s continuing Biden’s policy of unlimited arming and ammunition of Israel so that Israel can exterminate the Gazans and expel or exterminate the Palestinians in the West Bank.

    Nor does it include the fact that on February 26, Trump agreed with Ukraine’s Zelensky that U.S. taxpayers will continue to fund Ukraine’s war against Russia, and that if Putin won’t accept the deal that Trump has made with Zelensky, then America’s war against Russia in the battlefields of Ukraine and of Russia, will continue; but, in any case, there will be NOT EVEN A CEASEFIRE — it will be a continuing war to the end, between America and Russia. The beneficiaries will be the U.S. armaments companies whose weapons will continue to be supplied by U.S. taxpayers to Ukraine, and also the U.S. billionaires who will receive ownership shares in Ukraine’s oil, gas, and rare earth elements, if America wins the war.

    NONE of these things, either, reflect the priorities of the American people (no more than Trump/Musk’s taking a “chainsaw” approach to the U.S. federal Government’s domestic policies does), and each of these extremely aggressive U.S. Governmental policies — especially the foreign policies violating international law — brings Americans (as a nation) into international disrepute, which Americans likewise do not want. It drives Americans to feel ashamed of being Americans. This is what we are to get from his “MAGA”?

    Here is how this situation is getting worse day-by-day:

    On February 14, the AP headlined “Where US adults think the government is spending too much, according to AP-NORC polling,” and listed in rank-order according to the opposite (“spending too little”) the following 8 Government functions: 1. Social Security; 2. Medicare; 3. Education; 4. Assistance to the poor; 5. Medicaid; 6. Border security; 7. Federal law enforcement; 8. The Military. That’s right: the American public (and by an overwhelming margin) are THE LEAST SUPPORTIVE of spending more money on the military, and the MOST SUPPORTIVE of spending more money on Social Security, Medicare, Education, Assistance to the poor, and Medicaid (the five functions the Republican Party has always been the most vocal to call “waste, fraud, and abuse” and try to cut). Meanwhile, The Military, which actually receives 53% (and in the latest year far more than that) of the money that the Congress allocates each year and gets signed into law by the President, keeps getting, each year, over 50% of the annually appropriated federal funds.

    On February 25, Huffington Post headlined “White House Finally Comes Up With An Official Answer For Who Is Running DOGE: An Obama Honoree,” and reported that “The White House on Tuesday provided an answer to a weeks-old mystery — who is actually running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency — but is immediately facing new questions about the apparent obfuscation of the precise role of billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk.” The White House was finally legally forced to reply to questions about whom the actual person was at Musk’s “DOGE” who was issuing the orders that have fired thousands of federal workers, and the White House alleged that it was “Amy Gleason, a nurse-turned-technology expert who was once honored by former President Barack Obama and who then worked in Trump’s White House during his first term and also in the first year of President Joe Biden’s term.” Furthermore, Weijia Jiang, CBS News Senior White House correspondent, reported that, “Gleason told my colleague [Michael Kaplan, CBS News Investigative Producer] that she was (vacationing) in Mexico when he reached her by phone” earlier that same day. The HufPo article made clear that because neither Gleason nor Musk has been confirmed yet by the Senate, the firing-orders from DOGE — whomever wrote them — are illegal: “Lawyers say the reason administration officials refuse to admit that Musk is the de facto DOGE administrator is simple: To do so would guarantee losing those lawsuits filed in recent weeks that challenge DOGE’s authority.” Unfortunately, that article failed to explain how or why they are “illegal,” and why Gleason was falsely identified as the Administrator in order to reduce the likelihood that courts would rule them to be illegal. However, regardless of what the answers to those questions might be, the clear inference from HufPo’s poor reporting there, is that this IS illegal, and that the White House is lying about whom DOGE’s Administrator is, in order to increase the likelihood of getting some court to say that what DOGE is doing IS legal.

    Also on February 25, HufPo headlined “House Adopts Republican Budget That Calls For Medicaid Cuts: Lobbying by President Donald Trump himself helped sway Republican holdouts.”, and reported that “The budget resolution [just passed in the House] calls for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and $1.5 trillion in spending cuts,” and that “Democrats all voted against the budget, denouncing its 11% reduction in Medicaid spending over 10 years and its 20% cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.” So: Trump’s enormous tax-cuts for billionaires would be partially paid for by cutting Medicaid to the nation’s poor. However, the Republican argument (as is always the case regarding their efforts to punish the poor) is that “We can eliminate all these fraudulent payments and achieve a lot of savings.” The “fraudulent payments” hadn’t been documented but estimated by Elon Musk’s DOGE, Musk being, of course, not only the wealthiest of America’s billionaires but also by far the biggest donor ($279 million) to Trump’s re-election campaign (as well as a large and rapidly growing seller or “contractor” of Starlink and other weapons and services to the only U.S. federal Department that has never yet been audited, the ‘Defense’ Department). The article said that, “President Donald Trump personally lobbied some of the holdouts with phone calls on Tuesday, including Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who withheld his vote until it was already clear the House would adopt the measure without him.” So: Trump’s DOGE cuts funding of healthcare for the nation’s poor, while his lobbying gets the thing to pass in the House though all Democrats voted against it.

    So: whereas the American public wanted increases in federal spending, and decreases in federal spending, to be ranked as (INCREASE) 1. Social Security; 2. Medicare; 3. Education; 4. Assistance to the poor; 5. Medicaid; 6. Border security; 7. Federal law enforcement; 8. The Military (DECREASE) — Trump and his Republican Congress are passing into law cuts in numbers 4 and 5 (Assistance to the poor, and Medicaid) the two priorities that are specifically for the poor; and they will presumably be increasing the most: 8. The Military; 7. Federal law enforcement (mainly against poor people); and 6. Border security (which includes Trump’s demand to eliminate ALL refugee-admissions into the U.S.). These are extraordinarily ‘libertarian’ (or “neoliberal”) policies, but they definitely are NOT the priorities of the American public. To THEM, this is a hostile country.

    An important point to be made here is that both #s 4&5, Assistance to the poor, and Medicaid, are “discretionary federal spending” (i.e., controlled by the annual appropriations that get voted into law each year), whereas #s 1&2 (Social Security and Medicare) are “mandatory federal spending” (i.e., NOT controlled by Congress and the President). So, Trump and the Republicans are going after the poor because they CAN; they can’t (at least as-of YET) reduce or eliminate Social Security and Medicare. However, by now, it is crystal clear that Trump’s Presidency will be an enormous boon to America’s billionaires, and an enormous bane to the nation’s poor. The aristocratic ideology has always been: to get rid of poverty, we must get rid of the poor — work them so hard they will go away (let them seek ‘refugee’ status SOMEWHERE ELSE).

    THEREFORE: if any nation needs to be regime-changed, it is right here at home; and our now blatantly evil leaders (and the former ones, such as Bush, Obama, and Biden) ought to be driven out, just like happened during America’s First Revolution. The longer that this is delayed, the worse that things will get — this is, by now, clear in every day’s headlines. America is declining; it has been happening for a long time now (see this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, for examples), and our desperate leaders do only the bidding of their campaign megadonors — which means more war, and more economic inequality. This is NOT democracy. To accept it as-of it were, is to accept a regime of lies that is based on lies about what it is. And it’s getting deeper all the time — until it ends. The longer we wait, the worse it will get.

    (This article, and its conclusion that America is now perilously close to a Second American Revolution, might shock some people; so, here is a reader-response — comment — from a reader of a closely related article I posted February 23 to my Substack, and showing also my response to it. I acknowledged there that though I believe that we are already in an authentically Revolutionary moment, we might not yet have reached the stage of the public’s knowledge of this, and that — if I may say so here — the public before the First American Revolution were aware of it when Thomas Paine published his Revolutionary Common Sense on 10 January 1776. So, in that sense, this article might be premature. However, premature does not, at all, mean false. I invite anyone here who doubts what I have said, to click onto the link at any point where you disagree, so that you can see and evaluate the evidence on your own.)

    The post The Need to Confront the Evilness in Evil Leaders first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • New York, February 27, 2025—CPJ calls on Russian authorities to drop legal proceedings against 64-year-old Russian journalist Ekaterina Barabash, who is under house arrest and could be jailed for up to 10 years for criticizing Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    On February 25, Ukrainian-born Barabash, a film critic for the independent outlet Republic, was detained and charged with spreading “fake” news. The following day, a Moscow court placed her under two months’ house arrest ahead of her trial. Barabash’s reporting frequently has a political and anti-war stance.

    Also on February 26, a court in the Far East city of Khabarovsk fined Sergey Mingazov, a news editor with the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, 700,000 rubles (US$8,062) for publishing false information about the Russian army.

    “The criminal cases against Ekaterina Barabash and Sergey Mingazov demonstrate how Russian authorities are weaponizing ‘fake’ news legislation to silence those who dare to contradict Kremlin-approved narratives on the Ukraine war,” said CPJ’s program director, Carlos Martínez de la Serna.

    The charges against Barabash stem from four Facebook posts in 2022 and 2023, three of which have since been removed. In the fourth, she condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — a recurring theme in her commentary.

    “While under house arrest, she is not allowed to publish anything or communicate via social media or a phone,” her son Yury Barabash told CPJ, adding that he believed the charges were “politically motivated” and linked to “her social media or/and her professional activities.”

    Mingazov was put under house arrest in April for three reposts on his Telegram channel of news about the 2022 massacre in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. 

    Russia was the fifth worst jailer of journalists worldwide, with at least 30 reporters behind bars on December 1, 2024, in CPJ’s latest annual global prison census. Of these, six were jailed for “fake” news.

    CPJ did not receive a response to its request for comment sent to the Moscow branch of the Russian Investigative Committee, a federal body in charge of investigating crimes, via its website.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.


  • This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Natika Kantaria is a human rights advocate with nearly a decade of experience planning and implementing advocacy campaigns in human rights. She has worked with international organizations and watchdog NGOs and collaborated with the public and private sectors. For the ISHR she wrote a piece on 26 February 2025 about a worrying trend: ‘Foreign agent’ laws have been introduced in various countries, violating international human rights law and threatening to silence human rights defenders. This pattern is particularly evident in Eastern Europe, where NGOs courageously resist and need the support of the international community. See e.g. my earlier posts:

    Societies thrive when everyone can work, speak out, and organise freely and safely to ensure justice and equality for all. Legislation requiring NGOs to register as ‘foreign agents’ is a barrier to this virtuous cycle. Despite the European Court of Human Rights’ 2022 ruling that Russia’s 2012 foreign agent law violated freedom of expression and association, the governments of HungaryGeorgiaSlovakiaSerbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina have proceeded undeterred to introduce similar laws. 

    These laws specifically target NGOs and not-for-profits that receive foreign funds and require them to register as foreign agents, organisations serving the interests of a foreign power, or agents of foreign influence. By doing so, they restrict the capacity of  human rights defenders to organise, participate and exercise their right to defend rights by:

    • imposing disproportionately high fines and heavy sanctions to NGOs refusing to comply, which may ultimately lead to the termination of their operations 
    • using vague wording, that ultimately gives too much room and power for government interpretation. For instance, the requirement for NGOs to register in official records or identify themselves as ‘agents of foreign influence’ lacks clarity and specificity.  
    • increasing the burden of NGOs by introducing heavy reporting and auditing requirements. The State’s alleged need for transparency as their primary purpose can, therefore, be effectively addressed through existing legislation regulating NGOs.
    • employing a negative narrative that stigmatises and delegitimises the work of the civil society organisations and human rights defenders. This rhetoric promotes hostility and distrust toward civil society and encourages attacks against defenders.

    Furthermore, such laws contradict the commitments of these countries under international human rights law. Article 13 of the 1998 UN Declaration on human rights defenders recognises the right of defenders to solicit, receive and utilise resources.

    Article 10 of the Declaration +25, a supplement to the UN Declaration put forward in 2024 by civil society, human rights defenders and legal experts, addresses States’ attempts to prohibit foreign contributions or impose unjustified national security limitations. It stipulates that States should not hinder financial resources for human rights defenders and outlines measures to prevent retaliation based on the source of their funding. These laws violate rights related to freedom of expression, association, and privacy, as outlined in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Foreign agent laws also run counter to commitments made by countries at the regional level as members of the Council of Europe (CoE) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), including recommendation CM/Rec(2018)11, which emphasizes the protection and promotion of civil society space and OSCE guidelines for protecting human rights defenders. 

    NGOs are increasingly becoming a primary target for repressive governments. According to the CIVICUS Monitor 2024 report, the countries mentioned above that have introduced ‘foreign agent’ laws have either ‘closed’ or ‘obstructed’ civil society space. In addition, the Trump administration’s rhetoric and its decision to freeze foreign aid have contributed to strengthening hostile narratives already present in ‘foreign agent laws’ in Eastern Europe and have emboldened governments in their efforts to publicly undermine these organisations.  

    While the silencing of NGOs has become part of the agenda for many governments, and the rise of ‘foreign agent’ laws serves as a step towards establishing authoritarian regimes, civil society actors continue to mobilise in response. Strengthening engagement with international human rights mechanisms, fostering joint global advocacy, and providing support to targeted organisations and groups are essential steps that international NGOs and the international community should take to build resistance, reinforce coalition efforts, and protect the work of human rights defenders.

    International and regional human rights mechanisms have called for governments to either repeal these laws, or not to adopt them in their current forms. On 7 February 2025, three UN independent experts issued a statement in relation to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the government reintroduced the ‘Law on the Special Registry and Publicity of the Work of Non-Profit Organisations’ after its initial withdrawal in May 2024. The statement stressed that creating a register of non-profit organisations receiving foreign funding in one of the entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina will impose severe restrictions on NGOs and would grant government control over their operation, including the introduction of an annual inspection, with further reviews of legality of CSOs receiving foreign funding possible upon requests from citizens or relevant authorities.

    In this unsupportive environment, donors have a fundamental role to play. ‘As civil society actors devise strategies to push back against these repressive tactics, private philanthropy and bilateral and multilateral donors have vital support roles to play,’ writes James Savage, who leads the Fund for Global Human Rights’ (FGHR) programme on the Enabling Environment for Human Rights Defenders. ‘They can help civil society prepare for future challenges, so that it is organised not only to respond to evolving forms of repression but also to get ahead of them by tackling their root causes,’ Savage concludes.

    https://ishr.ch/latest-updates/spread-of-foreign-agent-laws-in-eastern-europe-pose-increasing-threats-to-civil-society

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • TAIPEI, Taiwan – South Korea’s main spy agency said North Korea had deployed more troops to Russia, with media reports estimating the number at more than 1,000.

    As many as 12,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia to fight Ukrainian forces who occupied parts of the Kursk region in August, according to Ukraine and the United States, although neither Pyongyang nor Moscow has acknowledged their presence.

    “North Korea appears to have deployed some additional troops to support the Russian military. The exact scale is still being assessed,” South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, or NIS, said on Thursday.

    The NIS added that it believed North Korean troops were redeployed to the Kursk front in the first week of February.

    The spy agency said in January that North Korean troops in Kursk had not shown any sign of participating in combat since January, citing the large number of casualties as a possible reason.

    “After scaling back about a month, North Korean troops were redeployed to the Kursk front in the first week of February,” said the NIS, without elaborating.

    The NIS’s confirmation came a few hours after South Korean media outlets reported, citing unidentified military sources, that the North sent more than 1,000 additional troops to Russia between January and February.

    The sources said, however, it was unclear whether the additional forces were sent to Kursk.

    Ukraine said earlier that about 4,000 North Korean troops in Russia had been killed or wounded, with its leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy estimating that an additional 20,000 to 25,000 North Korean soldiers could be sent to Russia.

    Separately, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in January that the North was accelerating preparations to send more troops to Russia amid an increasing number of casualties.

    A Washington-based think tank reported in January that North Korean troops supporting Russia could be wiped out within three months if their high casualty rates persisted.

    The Institute for the Study of War estimated that North Koreans had suffered about 92 casualties a day since early December 2024, with up to half of their forces in Russia’s Kursk wounded or killed.

    President of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Seth Jones, also said that casualty rates among North Korean troops have been significant, possibly reaching 50%.

    RELATED STORIES

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    Possible mass surrender

    A Ukrainian newspaper reported that a contingent of North Korean soldiers was trapped in Nikolske, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, and were running out of supplies and unable to break free. Their mass surrender looked increasingly likely, Euromaidan Press reported.

    Donetsk in the east of Ukraine has been one of the most heavily contested regions in the Russia-Ukraine war.

    While North Korea’s initial deployments were primarily to Russia’s Kursk region, there has been evidence suggesting they are also in Donetsk. Ukrainian officials have reported casualties among North Korean soldiers in Donetsk.

    Euromaidan Press citing Ukrainian military sources, reported on Wednesday that the North Koreans trapped in Nikolske were struggling with exhaustion and a lack of coordination with Russians. It did not say how many North Koreans were trapped.

    Ukrainian forces had blocked escape attempts, further tightening their hold on the encirclement, the news outlet added. Drone footage showed weakened soldiers struggling to move, indicating a large-scale surrender of North Korean troops is increasingly likely, it reported.

    To rescue the stranded North Korean troops, Russian forces launched a two-pronged assault but faced overwhelming resistance. Logistical challenges and language barriers hindered their effectiveness, said the report, adding that this indicates Russia’s diminishing reserves.

    Edited by Mike Firn.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The way to prevent the Ukraine war from being understood is to suppress its history.

    A cartoon version has the conflict beginning on Feb. 24, 2022 when Vladimir Putin woke up that morning and decided to invade Ukraine.

    There was no other cause, according to this version, other than unprovoked, Russian aggression against an innocent country.

    Please use this short, historical guide to share with people who still flip through the funny pages trying to figure out what’s going on in Ukraine.

    The mainstream account is like opening a novel in the middle of the book to read a random chapter as though it’s the beginning of the story.

    The post Ukraine Timeline Tells The Tale appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • TAIPEI, Taiwan – Britain has imposed sanctions on senior North Korean officials linked to their country’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine as part of what the United Kingdom said was its largest sanctions package against Russian individuals and institutions since the early days of the war.

    As many as 12,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia to fight Ukrainian forces who occupied parts of Russia’s Kursk region in August, according to Ukraine and the United States, although neither North Korea nor Russia has acknowledged their presence.

    The British foreign office announced sanctions against five North Korean defense officials on Monday to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    They included Kim Yong Bok, No Kwang Chol, Ri Song Jin, Ri Chang Ho and Sin Kum Chol, as well as 102 other individuals and entities.

    Kim Yong Bok, the deputy chief of staff of the Korean People’s Army, reportedly arrived in Russia in October to oversee North Korean troops there helping Russia.

    Kim’s profile has risen over the past year. His position as deputy chief of the army was confirmed when he was reported in state media as a member of leader Kim Jong Un’s entourage on a visit to an operational training base in western North Korea in March.

    No Kwang Chol is known to have played a major role in strengthening military ties with Moscow since resuming his position as defense minister in October, including holding talks with his Russian counterpart, Andrei Belousov, in November.

    Ri Song Jin, the North’s top missile engineer, has risen in prominence in recent years as an official at both the National Aerospace Technology Administration and the General Missile Bureau, often appearing alongside Kim Jong Un at military sites.

    Ri Chang Ho holds a high-ranking position in North Korea’s hierarchy as the head of the U.S.-sanctioned Reconnaissance General Bureau, its top military intelligence agency, while Sin Kum Chol serves as director of the Operations Bureau of the Korean People’s Army General Staff.

    Ri Chang Ho and Sin Kum Cho were also included in the sanctions list announced by the European Union on Monday, alongside more than 80 individuals and entities, over supporting Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine.

    The U.K. added it was also sanctioning producers and suppliers of machine tools, electronics and dual-use goods including microprocessors used in weapons systems. These were based in a range of third countries including Central Asian states, Turkey, Thailand, India and China.

    There was no immediate response from Russia or North Korea to the British sanctions but a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in London said they harmed the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies, adding that they had “no basis in international law.”

    “China firmly opposes this and has made solemn representations to the U.K. side,” the embassy said in a statement on its website.

    RELATED STORIES

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    Australia, New Zealand and Canada

    Britain’s Commonwealth allies, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, joined in imposing sanctions on Russia and people and entities promoting military cooperation between it and North Korea.

    Australia announced on Tuesday that financial sanctions and travel bans were imposed on 70 people, while financial sanctions were imposed on 79 companies, adding that the individuals supported Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territories.

    New Zealand also announced sanctions on 52 entities and individuals linked to Russia’s military-industrial complex, energy sector, North Korea’s support for Russia’s war, and the forced deportation or re-education of Ukrainian children.

    Three North Korean officials – Kim Yong Bok, Ri Chang Ho and Sin Kum Chol – were included in the sanctions list by both Australia and New Zealand.

    Separately, Canada announced sanctions on Friday against 76 individuals and entities and 109 ships linked to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

    Although Canada did not target North Korean officials, it did include multiple companies allegedly involved in North Korea-Russia cooperation.

    These include the shipping services Toplivo Bunkering Company, Vostochnaya Stevedoring Company, Global Ports Managing Company, Azia Shipping Holding and Ibex Shipping.

    North Korea and Russia have been deepening their military and economic ties in recent months, with Pyongyang reportedly supplying Moscow with large quantities of munitions and other military aid for its war in Ukraine.

    In return, Russia has provided technological assistance and expanded cooperation in various sectors, fueling concerns over potential arms transfers and security threats.

    High-level meetings between officials from both countries, including defense ministers, have signaled a growing strategic partnership.

    Edited by Mike Firn.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • America joined Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Israel, led by indicted corrupt criminal and Putin pal Netanyahu, wanted for war crimes, to vote against Ukraine’s United Nations resolution calling for peace and an end to Russia’s genocidal invasion. In this week’s Gaslit Nation, Andrea and Terrell Starr, of the Black Diplomats Podcast and Substack, joining from Kyiv, explain how we got here and what to do about it. Fascism helped build America, and global resistance to fascism will help us overcome the threats we face in this dangerous crossroads for America, and the world. 

     

    People are waking up from their shock and fighting back. Over $250,000 was raised on GoFundMe for Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl, the woman roughly dragged out of a town hall. The sheriff who threatened her with arrest from the stage is under investigation, along with his three unidentified rent-a-cops. Protests continue at Tesla dealerships, as well as Republican town halls across the country. Tesla owners face vandalism threats and pay to remove the logo, as the company’s stock plummets. Twenty-one civil servants of the United States Digital Service, taken over by DOGE, resigned, writing in their letter: “We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations. However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.” France’s President Emmanuel Macron fact checked Trump at the White House and helped a banned AP reporter ask a question, and promised to strengthen security across Europe, including for Ukraine. At the Governors Ball in the White House, before Trump, the Army Choir sang the resistance anthem against tyranny, from Les Miserables, “Do You Hear the People Sing?” 

     

    To help us lift up our hearts and minds for the work ahead, this week’s bonus show, for our Patreon members at the Truth-teller level and higher, is our recorded first ever Gaslit Nation book club, looking at Albert Camus’ The Stranger (Matthew Ward translation) and Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, to see what wisdom they hold for us today, and how these two works “talk to each other.” Thank you to everyone who supports the show–we could not make Gaslit Nation without you!

     

    Want to enjoy Gaslit Nation ad-free? Join our community of listeners for bonus shows, ad-free episodes, exclusive Q&A sessions, our group chat, invites to live events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!

     

    Show Notes: 

     

    Want ideas on how to resist? 

     

    Two days after a woman was dragged from a Coeur d’Alene town hall, Sheriff Bob Norris and other parties will face investigation into conduct https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/feb/24/two-days-after-a-woman-was-dragged-from-a-coeur-da/

     

    Justice for Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl: Fight for the First https://www.gofundme.com/f/justice-for-dr-borrenpohl-fight-for-the-first/cl/s?lang=en_US&utm_campaign=fp_sharesheet&utm_content=amp13_t1-amp14_c&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=copy_link

     

    Hegseth Defends Trump’s Firing of Joint Chiefs Chairman Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an interview on Sunday that Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. was “not the right man for the moment” and praised President Trump’s handling of the war in Ukraine. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/23/us/politics/hegseth-trump-cq-brown-pentagon.html

     

    Trump and Hegseth’s Pentagon purge undermines the armed forces How to damage military morale and recruiting? Trump and Hegseth seem to be trying to find out, alas. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/23/trump-hegseth-pentagon-generals/

     

    New FBI director Kash Patel plans to relocate up to 1,500 employees https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/new-fbi-director-kash-patel-plans-relocate-1500-119064886

     

    Mike Galsworthy ‪on BlueSky: “Just America & Israel voting with Russia, Iran, North Korea… …against Ukraine.” https://bsky.app/profile/mikegalsworthy.bsky.social/post/3lix7n4o4tc2w

     

    French prosecutor seeks 5-year jail sentence and ban from office for far-right leader

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/french-far-right-leader-marine-le-pen-faces-5-year-ban-office-rcna180103

     

    TikTokers Are ‘Hunting’ Tesla Cybertrucks to Project Anti-Musk Messages on the Tailgate https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tiktokers-hunting-tesla-cybertrucks-project-174834791.html


    This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • If French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit with President Donald Trump White House on Monday was a pop quiz about the United States’ longstanding geopolitical interests in Europe, Trump would have flunked the portion on Russia’s war on Ukraine. As Macron stressed that peace in Ukraine must not mean surrender to Russian invaders, Trump repeated his false claim that the U.S. spent $350 billion…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Three years into the 2022 Ukraine war, European leaders have unveiled yet another round of sanctions against Russia, its allies, and companies that engage with them—but continue to reject options that might actually bring an end to the conflict. This latest package in the EU’s ongoing effort to stun Russia targets not just Russian individuals and enterprises, but also officials in the Korean People’s Army and Chinese companies.

    European officials insist these sanctions are working, weakening Russia’s military capabilities. “Today’s decision maintains pressure on the Russian military and defense by listing several industry companies manufacturing weapons, ammunition, and other military equipment and technologies,” the Council of the EU stated.

    The post Three Years Into Ukraine War, Europe Introduces More Sanctions appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • At the rural orphanage where I volunteered, the place resembled a Dickensian workhouse. The staff’s main tools were antipsychotics and violence. The experience gave me a window into Putin’s Russia

    In the summer of 2007, I joined a group of 30 Russian and English students to work on a month-long summer camp at a state orphanage for mentally and physically disabled children in the Pskov region, south of St Petersburg. We lived in a house nearby, or in tents pitched in the garden. Every day, we walked up to the orphanage to put on developmental activities, sporting events, solve puzzles, play games, stage shows and go on camping trips.

    I volunteered at the orphanage, in the village of Belskoye Ustye, for almost a decade, but it was the first visit that made the biggest impression. I had seen nothing like it. My closest reference point was probably workhouses or orphanages from a Charles Dickens novel. I vividly remember the smells – cooked food, unwashed bodies, chlorine and urine – and how the children crowded you, grabbing hands and clothes, pinching, pulling hair, jostling and asking questions. Dressed in an odd collection of what seemed to be adult castoffs, the kids spent most of their waking hours in rooms furnished with just a few scuffed tables and chairs, a bookcase and television. At night, and for long periods during the day, cast-iron metal grilles across corridors were locked, confining the older teenagers to their dormitories at one end. Children vulnerable to self-harm were tied up.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Donald Trump has been flayed alive by Western media and leaders for saying Ukraine started the war. Here are facts, not myths.

    The post Yes, Ukraine Started The War appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The Donald Trump administration is holding talks between the United States and Russia, and he says he wants to end the war in Ukraine.

    Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio has even proposed that the US could “partner with the Russians, geopolitically”.

    What is happening here? The simple answer is that this is all about China.

    Trump is trying to divide Russia from China, in an attempt to isolate Beijing.

    The United States sees China as the number one threat to its global dominance. This has been stated clearly by top officials in both the Trump administration and the previous Joe Biden administration.

    The post Trump Wants US To ‘Partner’ With Russia To Weaken China appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The last few years have seen Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Both invading forces stand accused of war crimes, and the costs in terms of human lives and spending have been enormous. While neither conflict is settling in a fashion which is equitable for the invaded parties, it does seem like both conflicts are coming to a close. Strange, then, that the British political and media class – specifically the BBC – have chosen this moment to tell us that now is the time to increase our ‘defence’ spending:

    In other words, defence contractors have gotten used to the extra income they made from arming Ukraine and Israel, and they don’t want the gravy train to end.

    The BBC bubble

    On Sunday 23 February, Laura Kuenssberg interviewed Labour Party education secretary Bridget Phillipson. The fact that Kuenssberg questioned Phillipson on defence spending and the armed forces rather than education tells you a lot about the ideology of the psychopaths at our national broadcaster. It’s important to understand, though, that while some described this exchange as a ‘grilling’, what’s far more disturbing is how closely aligned the BBC and Labour are:

    In a clip the BBC felt worthy of sharing, Kuenssberg said:

    And many of, people who work in this world, many of your political rivals, other people even like the boss of NATO, would say it’s also urgent that countries like Britain right now commit to spend more money, potentially a lot more money on defence.

    Wow – shocking that the head of NATOan organisation which exists solely to encircle Russia with an ever-growing web of expensive military bases – would want more money. Here’s what NATO boss Mark Rutte had to say in December 2024:

    Russia is preparing for long-term confrontation, with Ukraine and with us. We are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years… It is time to shift to a wartime mindset, and turbocharge our defence production and defence spending.

    As of 2024, Russia had about 1.3 million active soldiers, about 2 millions reserve forces, and 250,000 paramilitary units. Statista shows how this compared to Ukraine:

    Recent statistics reported by the BBC estimate that:

    the true number of Russian military deaths could range from 146,194 to 211,169. If one adds estimated losses from DPR and LPR forces, the total number of Russian-aligned fatalities may range from 167,194 to 234,669.

    This means Russia has probably lost something like 10% of its ‘Russian-aligned’ fighting forces. And that’s not to mention the financial cost, with Reuters reporting US claims in February 2024 that:

    Russia has probably spent up to $211 billion in equipping, deploying and maintaining its troops for operations in Ukraine and Moscow has lost more than $10 billion in canceled or postponed arms sales

    It’s worth noting that despite the above, recent reports show that Russia’s economy has been more resilient than some analysts initially predicted. It’s also worth noting that these human and financial costs are the result of Russia engaging a singular enemy. Now let’s have a look at NATO.

    The NATO forces

    The following comparison from Statista compares NATO’s military capabilities with Russia’s as of 2024:

    Spread across its 32 member countries, NATO has around twice as many military personnel as Russia. Importantly, it also has more than five times as many aircraft.

    Now let’s look back at what NATO boss Mark Rutte had to say:

    We are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years

    We aren’t?

    Because it looks like we’re more than ready. Unless you know something we don’t, like perhaps every Russian soldier will gain the ability to split into two like amoeba.

    But forgetting all that, there’s also the glowing-green megaton elephant in the room that nobody seems to be talking about.

    Nuclear NATO

    Is everyone forgetting what the word ‘deterrent’ means in ‘nuclear deterrent’? Because our understanding is that we have a nuclear deterrent to deter other nuclear powers from going to war with us. And we know we’re not imagining that, because this is what the UK government has to say:

    The purpose of nuclear deterrence is to preserve peace, prevent coercion and deter aggression. Potential aggressors know that the costs of attacking the UK, or our NATO allies, could far outweigh any benefit they could hope to achieve. This deters states from using their nuclear weapons against us or carrying out the most extreme threats to our national security.

    That’s weird, because over the past few years there have been many instances of British military bigwigs telling us that war with Russia is possible, such as general Roly Walker in 2024:

    BBC

    So what’s going on here?

    Is the British military going rogue, and announcing to Russia and the rest of the world that we will forego using our nuclear deterrent for no apparent gain?

    Or are military bigwigs like Mark Rutte and Roly Walker simply exaggerating the threats we face to secure more funding?

    We’d lean towards the latter, because exaggerating the threats we face to secure more funding is literally the job of every military boss – at least it is under the Western neoliberal order, anyway.

    This isn’t a new phenomenon; it’s simply one which persists, because there is zero pushback from journalists or politicians. It’s a topic Lewis Page covered in his 2006 book Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs, with an Independent review noting at the time:

    The high offices of the police, the medical profession and the universities have fallen under ever more scrutiny and suspicion in recent years, but the media has largely ignored the Ministry of Defence. If the former naval officer Lewis Page has his way, all this is set to change.

    The formal naval officer did not have his way unfortunately, and military bigwigs are still able to spew nonsense unchecked in the establishment safe space that is the British media.

    Labour responds to the BBC

    In the Kuenssberg interview, this is how Phillipson responded:

    the defence secretary has also been clear that alongside increased spending, there has to be better spending. There is far too much waste, poor procurement, and bad decisions that are being made. So alongside extra investment, there has to be that programme of reform that John Healy, the defence secretary, has set out.

    So Labour’s plan is to increase military spending while cutting down on military waste. It’s hard to see how they’ll achieve this given that most military spending is waste by design, whether it be preparing for a land war with Russia we’ll never have or this long, long list of failed projects published by Declassified.

    Another important thing to remember is that we don’t simply exaggerate the threats we face; we also create new ones, and then we waste more money ‘countering’ them.

    The axis of defence spending opportunities

    In 2022, NPR published a piece giving some context to the shifting relationship between NATO and Russia. It reported in the piece:

    The question: Should NATO, the mutual defense pact formed in the wake of World War II that has long served to represent Western interests and counter Russia’s influence in Europe, expand eastward?

    NATO’s founding articles declare that any European country that is able to meet the alliance’s criteria for membership can join. This includes Ukraine. The U.S. and its allies in Europe have repeatedly said they are committed to that “open-door” policy.

    But in the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin, NATO’s eastward march represents decades of broken promises from the West to Moscow.

    “You promised us in the 1990s that [NATO] would not move an inch to the East. You cheated us shamelessly,” Putin said at a news conference in December.

    The article carried a map showing the members who joined before 1992 and those who joined after:

    What’s the relevance of 1992?

    1992 was a year after the Soviet Union ended, and the beginning of the new relationship between the US and the Russian Federation. Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s then-leader, was described at the time as a Western “stooge who followed IMF and World Bank advice”. How easy it would have been for the West to treat Russia as just another victim of neoliberal extraction policies; instead, NATO continued to expand eastward as if the Cold War never ended, and this made the rise of a figure like Vladimir Putin more and more likely.

    This isn’t to say Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was justified; it is to say that it wasn’t unexpected. Hostility, it turns out, breeds further hostility. There are many such cases, with examples from recent history including ISIS rising from the ashes of the Iraq war, and Iranian politicians taking a more hardline stance after the US branded them part of the Axis of Evil. Few in the West know that Iranian politicians and citizens responded sympathetically to American losses following 9/11, and of course they wouldn’t, because that narrative wouldn’t support further defence spending.

    The military industrial complex, Labour, and the BBC

    In his 1961 farewell address, US president Dwight Eisenhower warned of the “military-industrial complex”. As he described it, this was a system in which the arms industry and political sphere became so entwined that they pursued war solely for their mutual enrichment. Sadly, this is the world we all now inhabit. It’s why president Joe Biden and his NATO allies turned down peace talks with Russia; it’s also why this same group refused to use their influence to stop Israel committing a genocide.

    The total acceptance of military-industrial complex dogma is beyond apparent in the interview between Kuenssberg and Phillipson. Ignore the fact that our military ambitions only seem to make the world more dangerous – war is profit, and profit is the only thing that matters in the neoliberal world order:

    Featured image via the BBC

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.