Ex-CIA Director Joins Board of Ukraine’s Largest Drone Company

Jeremy Kuzmarov | Covert Action Magazine

Mike Pompeo, CIA Director and Secretary of State in the first Trump administration, has long been a Ukraine war hawk, calling Russia’s actions genocide, stating that Crimea should be returned to Ukraine (when its people voted overwhelmingly to be part of Russia) and consistently advocating for increased military aid to Ukraine.

Pompeo’s tenure as CIA Director in 2017-2018 coincided with a significant expansion of the CIA’s involvement in Ukraine. The CIA set up 12 clandestine bases following the February 2014 CIA-backed Maidan coup that fueled the conflict with Russia.

In November, AP News reported that Pompeo had joined the advisory board of Ukraine’s leading defense company, Fire Point, which develops long-range drones capable of striking targets deep inside Russia.

At a press conference announcing his appointment, Pompeo said that his mission with the company was to help Fire Point become an important supplier for Western hardware [i.e., drones].”

CovertAction Magazine reported last February on how the CIA—going back to Pompeo’s time as Agency director—had played a key role in the development of Ukraine’s drone industry by making billion-dollar investments in it and sending intelligence officials to help out with it.

The same article detailed how Ukrainian drone strikes had struck oil refineries and gas processing plants, causing terrible environmental damage, and struck civilian infrastructure, including apartment buildings and hospitals, and killed three civilians walking on the street in the Belgorod border region.

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CIA taught Ukraine how to target Putin’s Achilles heel

Comment: Anyone who supports President Trump after he blessed this sabotage and his strikes against Venezuela must be delusional. Trump certainly deserved to be given the benefit of the doubt after the Russiagate hoax and January 6 psyops but unfortunately, he has proved to be just like all the other Presidents - wholly under the thumb of the Zio-cons. 

In the bin with you. 

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The Telegraph (UK)

Attacks on oil refineries have cost Moscow $75m a day, according to US intelligence

The CIA secretly taught Ukraine how to target crucial components of Russia's oil refining infrastructure and its sanction-busting shadow fleet, according to officials.

Despite Washington pulling back its support for Kyiv's war effort under the Trump administration, it has emerged that US intelligence and military officers continued to find new ways to stifle Vladimir Putin's war machine.

Since June, the CIA, with Donald Trump's blessing, has been covertly providing specific intelligence to bolster Ukraine's aerial offensive against oil refineries inside Russia, according to the officials.

The move came amid Mr Trump's growing frustration with Putin's unwillingness to negotiate while Russian forces accelerated attacks on Ukrainian cities.

The US has long shared intelligence with Kyiv that helps with attacks on Russian military targets in occupied parts of Ukraine and provides advanced warning of incoming Russian missiles and drones.

Under persuasion by Ukraine sceptics in the White House, led by JD Vance, the vice-president, and his allies, Mr Trump froze military aid in March and intelligence sharing was suspended as a result.

However, The New York Times, citing officials, said the CIA heavily lobbied for the agency to keep sharing intelligence.

Before summer, the impact of the strikes on Russia's energy infrastructure - which often hit storage depots or structures easily repaired - had been relatively minimal.

Under a new plan, crafted by the CIA and US military, the campaign was concentrated exclusively on oil refineries, targeting a newly found Achilles heel.

A CIA expert had identified a coupler device that is so difficult to replace that it could lead to a facility remaining shut for weeks.

The strikes became so successful that Russian oil refining was reduced by as much as a fifth on certain days, cutting exports and leading to domestic fuel shortages.

It was costing its economy an estimated $75m (£55m) a day, according to US intelligence.

In response, Mr Trump praised the strikes for the leverage and deniability they gave him as Putin continued to stonewall negotiations, according to the sources.

It was first reported in October that Washington was closely involved in the planning of such strikes, but it wasn't known that the CIA was responsible for the new focus of the campaign and identifying specific weaknesses in its energy infrastructure.

In late November, Ukraine also began a maritime campaign against Moscow's shadow fleet, a clandestine network of hundreds of vessels carrying sanctioned oil to keep the Russian economy afloat.

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The persecution of Colonel Jacques Baud: A hero in Europe's age of conformity

The Postil Magazine

In the shadowed theatre of contemporary European politics, where spectacle often substitutes for substance and moral posturing masks a vacuum of principle, the figure of Colonel Jacques Baud emerges not as a rabble-rouser, but as a profound and unsettling reflection. A former Swiss strategic intelligence officer, NATO planner, and United Nations peacekeeping expert, Baud is the antithesis of the caricatured dissident. His method is not the megaphone but the microscope; his weapon, not rhetoric, but evidence; his arena, not the public square, but the dispassionate realm of analysis.

Yet, for committing the most subversive act possible in our era — the insistence on thinking clearly and speaking truthfully about war, power, and the West's complicities — he has been systematically hounded, professionally ostracized, and publicly vilified. The persecution of Jacques Baud is not an anomaly; it is the diagnostic symptom of a Europe that has tragically confused democracy with docility, freedom with fealty to consensus, and its own enlightened values with a rigid, pusillanimous conformity. In an age that demands heroes of conviction over heroes of conquest, Baud stands as a necessary one, a man persecuted precisely for embodying the intellectual rigour Europe claims to revere.

I. The Crime of Independent Thought: From Analyst to Heretic

Jacques Baud's biography reads as a curriculum vitae of the ideal European technocrat. Swiss, multilingual, educated at elite military and diplomatic institutions, and seasoned in the complex labyrinths of NATO, the UN, and arms control, he represents the apotheosis of the continent's self-image: rational, cosmopolitan, pragmatic, and humane. This very pedigree, however, magnifies the perceived treachery of his conclusions. When such a man, trained within the system and privy to its inner workings, begins to articulate analyses that deviate from the sanctioned narrative, the system reacts not with intellectual engagement, but with institutional excommunication.

Baud's "crime" is a tripartite heresy against the new orthodoxy. First, in his analyses of the Ukrainian conflict, he refused the simplistic morality play of unalloyed good versus absolute evil. Drawing upon open-source intelligence, military history, and a nuanced understanding of post-Soviet geopolitics, he detailed the sequence of provocations, the Minsk Agreements' collapse, and the strategic miscalculations on all sides. He did not absolve Russian aggression, but he contextualized it within a longer chain of actions and reactions, arguing that understanding cause is not the same as excusing effect. For a media-political ecosystem demanding unequivocal condemnation, such nuance is intolerable.

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The real story behind the Russia-Ukraine war — and what happens next

David Stockman | International Man

Notwithstanding the historic fluidity of borders, there is no case whatsoever that Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was "unprovoked" and unrelated to NATO's own transparent provocations in the region.

The details are arrayed below, but the larger issue needs be addressed first.

Namely, is there any reason to believe that Russia is an expansionist power looking to gobble up neighbors which were not integral parts of its own historic evolution, as is the case with Ukraine?

After all, if despite Rubio's treachery President Trump does manage to strike a Ukraine peace and partition deal with Putin you can be sure that the neocons will come charging in with a false Munich appeasement analogy.

The answer, however, is a resounding no!

Our firm rebuke of the hoary Munich analogy as it has been falsely applied to Putin is based on what might be called the double-digit rule. To wit, the true expansionary hegemons of modern history have spent huge parts of their GDP on defense because that's what it takes to support the military infrastructure and logistics required for invasion and occupation of foreign lands.

For instance, here are the figures for military spending by Nazi Germany from 1935-1944 expressed as a percent of GDP. This is what an aggressive hegemon looks like in the ramp-up to war: German military spending had already reach 23% of GDP, even before its invasion of Poland in September 1939 and its subsequent commencement of actual military campaigns of invasion and occupation.

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Netanyahu's new slant to lure Trump into war with Iran

Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation

Neither Hamas, nor Gaza Phase Two, lies predominantly behind Netanyahu's summit intent - but rather Iran.

In these last days, the Trump Administration has boarded or seized three tankers either loaded with Venezuelan oil or destined for Venezuela (such as the Bella1). The most egregious seizure - in terms of illegality - being a Chinese-owned, Panama-flagged vessel reportedly destined for China - and on no one's sanctions list.

In a different zone of conflict, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) last Friday claimed that it had struck a Russian so-called 'shadow fleet' tanker, the Qendil, with aerial drones in waters of the Mediterranean Sea off Morocco. The SBU did not give further details of the attack, including how the SBU deployed a drone in the Mediterranean (2,000 Km from Ukraine), or the site from which it was launched. The SBU source said the cargo ship was empty at the time of the attack.

President Putin, in midst of his annual question and answer marathon, vowed that Russia would retaliate.

'Blockades', seizures and attacks, very plainly, are acts of war (despite the U.S. claim that America owns all oil produced by Venezuela - until all historical U.S. legal claims against Venezuela are satisfied). This tanker-episode is yet another ratchet to the drift to lawlessness in U.S. foreign policy.

These acts pre-eminently are aimed at China (which has large equities in the Venezuelan oil industry) and Russia, which has longstanding ties to both Venezuela and Cuba (now under Trump 'blockade' too). Add to that the $11bn in weapons being sent to Taiwan — with a significant amount of medium to long-range missile systems being part of the planned transfer, including 82 HIMARS launchers with Army ATACMS missiles, allowing Taipei forces to hit targets across the Taiwan Strait.

This latter transfer has infuriated China.

What this suggests is that the National Strategy Statement (NSS) in respect to China (it states that Washington views China as no longer constituting a 'prime threat', but only as an economic competitor) is meaningless rhetoric. China is being treated as an adversarial threat and will respond as such.

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'A lie and propaganda': DNI Gabbard fact-checks Reuters' Russia scaremongering in real time

Zero Hedge 

On Saturday afternoon, Reuters posted an anonymously-sourced story pushing the idea that Russia is bent on reconstituting the Soviet Union. Before the metaphorical ink had dried, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi  Gabbard pounced, condemning the story as "a lie and propaganda" on behalf of "warmongers" seeking to derail President Trump's drive to end the long and bloody Ukraine war.  

From selling the Iraq invasion to achieving a news and social media lockdown on Hunter Biden's laptop, the Deep State has long used major media outlets like Reuters, the New York Times and Washington Post to inject their agenda-advancing narratives into America's town square. Displaying the typical modus operandi with its Saturday night story, Reuters vaguely attributed the purported US intelligence conclusions about Russia to "six sources familiar with US intelligence." 

According to those sources, "US intelligence reports" are warning that, despite Putin's outwardly earnest claims that he wants to end the Ukraine war -- claims credited by Trump -- Russia not only wants to conquer all of Ukraine but also other European territories that were part of the Soviet Union. "The reports present a starkly different picture from that painted by...Trump and his Ukraine peace negotiators," wrote Reuters journalists Jonathan Landay, Erin Banco and John Irish. Shortly after Banco promoted the story on X, Gabbard lashed out: 

"No, this is a lie and propaganda Reuters is willingly pushing on behalf of warmongers who want to undermine President Trump’s tireless efforts to end this bloody war that has resulted in more than a million casualties on both sides.

Dangerously, you are promoting this false narrative to block President Trump’s peace effort, and fomenting hysteria and fear among the people to get them to support the escalation of war, which is what NATO and the EU really want in order to pull the United States military directly into war with Russia.

The truth is the US intelligence community has briefed policymakers, including the Democrat HPSCI member quoted by Reuters, that US Intelligence assesses that Russia seeks to avoid a larger war with NATO. It also assesses that, as the last few years have shown, Russia’s battlefield performance indicates it does not currently have the capability to conquer and occupy all of Ukraine, let alone Europe."

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UK plotting to undermine Trump's Ukraine peace efforts - Russian intelligence

Comment: MI6 playbook for years...

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RT

London is pushing for the EU to seize frozen Russian assets hoping to drag the conflict out "to the last Ukrainian," the SVR claims.

The UK is reportedly trying to convince the European Union to take control of frozen Russian assets, aiming to undermine US President Donald Trump's efforts to advance peace initiatives that could end the Ukraine conflict, according to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).

After the launch of Russia's Special Military Operation in February of 2022, Kiev's Western backers froze approximately $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets, of which $246 billion has been immobilized by EU member states. Discussions concerning the frozen Russian assets intensified within the bloc in recent weeks after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed using the funds to back a "reparations loan" to Ukraine.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the SVR claimed that the UK's leadership was "desperately pushing for Brussels' decision to seize Russian assets." Aside from the clear goal of providing financial support to Kiev, London is also seeking to diminish US interest in facilitating any peace mediation between Ukraine and Russia, according to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service.

The SVR concluded:

"The UK's endgame is to use Kiev against Russia without any obstacles, 'down to the last Ukrainian'. Although the former grandeur of Great Britain has long sunk to oblivion, appropriation and deceit are still the creed for so-called 'London gentlemen'."

Last week, EU member states voted to keep the Russian sovereign funds temporarily frozen. To push through the controversial agenda, the bloc's leadership had to invoke emergency powers to bypass the unanimity requirement.

Several member states, including Hungary, Slovakia, and Belgium, have raised objections. The latter is the seat of the Euroclear depositary, which holds the bulk of the frozen Russian assets. Brussels has expressed concern that it would be left in the lurch by the bloc in the face of Russian lawsuits.

Moscow has characterized any use of its immobilized funds as "theft." On Friday, the Bank of Russia announced that it was filing a lawsuit seeking compensation from Euroclear for damages stemming from its "inability to manage" the assets.

Late last month, the SVR similarly claimed that Britain was concocting a smear campaign aimed at damaging US President Trump's standing, with the aim of derailing his efforts to end the Ukraine conflict.

The West discovers Zelensky is not really a good guy

Tarik Cyril Amar | RT

 

In a fleeting glimpse of lucidity, the mainstream media has noticed a tiny fraction of the corruption and authoritarianism in Kiev.

It's that time of the great proxy war crusade against Russia again. Someone in the mainstream West has woken up to, if not the facts about the politics of Ukraine, then at least a quantum of disquiet.

The last major wave of the likes of the Financial Times, The Economist, and The Spectator suddenly noticing - all at the same time, as if on cue - that Ukraine has an authoritarianism and corruption problem (and then some) took place less than half a year ago.

Now it's Politico - usually a steadfast party organ of Russophobia, Zionism-come-what-genocide-may, and servility to NATO - that feels vaguely troubled by the realities of the Kiev regime or, as the publication puts it, the "dark side" of Vladimir "I don't like elections" Zelensky's rule.

Not all of those realities, of course. That would be asking too much. Instead, Politico is homing in on one great scandal (out of countless ones) concerning one man and the anguish of a few "civil-society"-NGO types, both with good connections to the West. This time, the scandal concerns the obvious, shameless political prosecution of Vladimir Kudritsky, formerly a high-ranking and effective energy infrastructure executive and de facto civil servant.

Yet what about noticing the murder in Ukrainian detention of critical blogger - and US citizen - Gonzalo Lira? Or the vicious persecution of leftist war critic Bogdan Syrotiuk? Or the mean, indecent harassing of Christian clergy and believers for not saying their prayers in quite the right Ukrainian-nationalist-approved manner? Perish the thought!

In a similar spirit of extreme selectiveness, some Western outlets are now registering - a little and very slowly - the brutal realities of Ukrainian forced mobilization that feed the Western proxy war: Recently, a war - pardon, "defense" - editor of the ultra-gung-ho British tabloid The Sun has returned shell-shocked from NATO's de facto eastern front, not because of the bloody and wasteful fighting but because the uncouth Ukrainians press-ganged his fixer.

In a similarly traumatic experience, Hollywood's Angelina Jolie had her local driver snatched away at a Ukrainian military roadblock. Yet violent forced mobilization has been an everyday occurrence in Ukraine for years already. So much so that Ukrainians have chosen the term "busification" (from minibus, a popular vehicle for mobilization manhunts) as word of the year for 2025.

For quite a few of its victims, it ends up even worse than for those privileged enough to work for Western movie stars and British propagandists. Roman Sopin, for instance, who did not even resist, has just been beaten to death in a mobilization precinct in central Kiev, as an official medical assessment of his cause of death implies as clearly as anyone may dare under Zelensky's regime.

But let's get back to the few things Western media deign to notice occasionally: Already dismissed last year, Kudritsky is now facing the courts under transparently trumped-up charges. The reason is obvious to everyone. He has been too popular and far too vocal about corruption at the highest levels and the authoritarian power grabs of Zelensky's presidential office in particular.

Kudritsky's case - comparatively harmless, really - does raise many disturbing questions: why is it that the Zelensky regime has such a nasty record of abusing arbitrary financial sanctions and politically perverted legal processes, or lawfare? And haven't we been told that this regime under its "Churchillian" leader is fighting for Western values of democracy and legality?
 

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Poland, Slovakia, Hungary Defy EU By Keeping Bans On Ukraine Imports

ZeroHedge

 

A new European Union deal to liberalize trade with Ukraine took effect Wednesday, but Poland, Hungary and Slovakia are defying it, maintaining their protectionist bans on imports from the country. Their defiance comes amid mounting grievances over EU prioritization of the West's proxy war on Russia over the prosperity of EU member states and their citizens.

Approved on Oct 13, the new EU arrangement expands tariff-free Ukrainian access to European markets, replacing a temporary lowering of trade barriers adopted after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. "We believe (the agreement) is a stable, fair framework, that can be reliable both for the EU and for Ukraine, to ensure a gradual integration in our single market, while providing stable trade flows," said European Commission spokeswoman Ariana Podesta. The European Commission (EC) is the EU's principal executive branch.

Rebelling against the Brussels regime, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia say they will maintain the bans on agricultural imports from Ukraine they put in place in 2023. The three countries' bans were a reaction to a wartime glut of Ukrainian products, which resulted from Black Sea ports being disrupted by the war with Russia. The glut sank prices and hammered domestic producers.

 

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Lavrov talks Russia-NATO relations, arms control and dialogue with US: Key takeaways from the foreign minister’s speech — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union

RT

Moscow has no intention of attacking the US-led military bloc and is prepared to give official guarantees to that effect, the top diplomat has said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has outlined Moscow's vision of relations with an increasingly belligerent NATO, US President Donald Trump's administration, and the security architecture in Eurasia.

Lavrov touched on these and other topics at an international security conference in Minsk, Belarus on Tuesday. Here are the key takeaways from his address:

Russia-NATO relations

Moscow "has repeatedly said that we have had no intention of attacking any of the current NATO and European Union member states," Lavrov stressed. He added that Russia is prepared to give official guarantees to this effect as part of a future security architecture in Eurasia.

According to the foreign minister, EU leaders are studiously avoiding these discussions, aiming instead for "security guarantees against Russia, as opposed to with Russia."

Lavrov claimed that the West is openly preparing for a "new big European war" against Russia and key ally Belarus. He said there is ongoing militarization across most European NATO member states.

"NATO's expansion has not stopped for a single minute, despite assurances not to move eastward by an inch given to Soviet leaders," he said, accusing the West of seeking to preserve its "global dominance" despite the dawn of a new era.

The Western military bloc is attempting to establish a foothold as far afield as the Asia-Pacific, with a view to containing China, North Korea, and Russia, Lavrov stated.

Russia-US dialogue

Russia needs "guarantees" that a potential summit between President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, "will yield a concrete result," the foreign minister explained.

Tentative discussions on a meeting in Budapest, Hungary began after the two presidents spoke by phone earlier this month. Last week, Trump clarified there are no plans for talks in the near future, as he wants to make sure it would not be "wasted time" in terms of resolving the Ukraine conflict. On Sunday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov similarly said that both Moscow and Washington have to do a substantial amount of "preparatory work before top-level negotiations can take place."

Moscow hopes that the US president "really wants a stable peace," Lavrov said. He expressed incredulity at the apparent change in Trump's rhetoric in recent days, as the US president called for an immediate ceasefire along the current front lines. Moscow has rejected this scenario, insisting that the root causes of the Ukraine conflict should be addressed first. 

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Ukraine Conflict Destroying Europe - Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson | RT

The conflict with Russia cannot be won by Ukraine, the US media host has argued.

European leaders are being "stupid" and "reckless" by continuing to back Kiev against Russia, effectively destroying both Ukraine and Europe itself, American political commentator Tucker Carlson said in an interview published on Monday.

Speaking to RTVI US, a New York-based Russian-language media outlet, Carlson mocked the idea that Kiev could prevail over Moscow on the battlefield.

"They cannot win this war. All it's doing is destroying Europe. It has already destroyed Ukraine.

"Of course they are not going to beat Russia. Russia is an industrial power, a resource power, a close military ally of China at this point. It's a joke. All they can do is destroy themselves and destroy the world with a nuclear exchange. This is deranged.

"Europe is falling apart because the same people and the same ideas that got us into this war have dominated for 80 years."

A vocal Christian conservative, Carlson tied Europe's current economic decline to decades of secular liberal policies, claiming that the same elites who provoked a confrontation with Moscow had already undermined the continent's cultural foundations.

He also pointed to Ukraine's escalating demographic crisis and its plans to import foreign nationals to beef up the workforce. Carlson argued that should a plan like that be implemented, "there will be no Ukraine" and that "that was the plan" from the start, in his opinion.

Pro-Kiev European nations have spent billions of euros on military aid for Ukraine and pledged to continue funding the country's government for years to come. Meanwhile, Western attempts to curb Russian energy imports have contributed to a sharp surge in energy prices in the European Union, which is working to replace affordable Russian products with more expensive alternatives.

Germany, widely considered the EU's driving economy, is undergoing a "dramatic" economic decline, the ifo Institute, a leading economic think tank, cautioned last week.

Anti-Russian Propaganda and Preparation for War Against Russia

Thierry Meyssan | Voltairenet.org

While deep state propaganda convinces public opinion that Russia is evil, armies are being prepared for war before our very eyes. The Chief of Staff of the French Army, General Pierre Schill, has just announced to the National Assembly that he is preparing for the next war against Russia. Meanwhile, the Polish Deputy Prime Minister has announced that he will intercept Vladimir Putin's presidential plane. Alone against all his allies, Donald Trump is trying to preserve world peace.

The confrontation between President Donald Trump and the coalition of British, American, Israeli, and Ukrainian deep states is likely to extend to the Far East. In Japan, Sanae Takaichi has just formed a LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) government thanks to his alliance with the Innovation Party, which shares his warmongering views.

Far East

Although Prime Minister Takaichi is the first woman to hold this office, she is nonetheless a champion of "Japanese imperialism" from the Showa era. Barely inaugurated, she announced her intention to rewrite the National Defense Strategy (NDS), the Defense Enhancement Program (DBP), and the National Security Strategy (NSS). These texts are, in principle, updated every ten years, but will be reformed seven years ahead of schedule.

Sanae Takaichi claims that she simply wants to honor President Trump's wish that each US ally devote 5% of its GDP to defense; everyone has understood that she wants to restore the Emperor's army, amend the Constitution to end Japanese neutrality, and attack the Korean Peninsula and the People's Republic of China.

To be clear, her predecessor and outgoing Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, sent an offering to the Yasukuni Shrine in memory of Japanese criminals against humanity. Ishiba is the largest private collector of World War II memorabilia. His home is a shrine to war criminals.

Ms. Takaichi certainly did not go to the Yasukuni Shrine this year, unlike in previous years. She refrained from using anything too provocative, and Shigeru Ishiba went there very rarely. But she did appoint seven men from among the parliamentarians corrupted by the Moon sect as ministers and secretaries of state.

Following the assassination of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on July 8, 2022, by a victim of the Moon sect, the police discovered that she had not only bribed him, but also parliamentarians from her own party, the Liberal Democratic Party. In previous years, she had paid them half a billion dollars. Yes, half a billion dollars. The largest parliamentary corruption scandal in history; a scandal that remains unsolved and has only led to three indictments.

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Straussians take control of the United Nations and NATO

Thierry Meyssan | Voltairenet.org

It had not been planned, but the proponents of the generalized war, the Straussians, expelled from the governing bodies of the United States, have regrouped in intergovernmental organizations. To everyone’s surprise, they are certainly present in the European Union, but especially in the United Nations and in the Contact Group on the Defence of Ukraine. Institutions dedicated to peace have been recovered by the warmongers.

For almost a year, President Donald Trump has been handing order to the United States. It has restored the principles of equality before the law and promotion to merit to the detriment of those of diversity, equity and inclusion (IED). He slashed in federal budgets everything that corresponded to imperial expenses and tried to restore the primary function of the armies, the defense of the homeland. 

At the same time, we all see how he fails to conclude the peace he hoped for in Ukraine and Palestine. He lets the Europeans fight not for Ukraine, but against Russia and the coalition of Benjamin Netanyahu persist in his program of a “Greater Israel”, that is to say annexation of his neighbors.

However, we do not see the most serious: the Straussians, who held the dragee high under the mandates of George Bush Jr., Barack Obama and Joe Biden are still not defeated. They have withdrawn to two intergovernmental organizations: NATO and the UN.

On the sidelines of NATO, they have taken control of the Contact Group on the Defence of Ukraine (formerly the Ramstein Group) which, since 9 September, no longer meets alternately at the US military base in Ramstein and at NATO headquarters in Mons-Brussels, but now also in London.

They were the ones who organized, with the Ukrainian secret services, drone flights over the Western and North European airports. Then, they pushed for the delivery of German Patriot missile batteries to Ukraine, after secretly organizing the transfer of the first batteries from Israel.

They are still the ones who falsified the reports of the United Nations General Secretariat on the meetings of 19 and 26 September of the Security Council. Unlike these – which we have been wrong to believe in – the Security Council has not validated the return of sanctions against Iran. He did not have the power.  

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Danish PM Alleges Russian 'Hybrid' Drone War 'Only The Beginning'

Zero Hedge 

Some of the more tiny NATO countries are pretending to carry the biggest stick, at least judging by their outspoken jingoistic rhetoric of late. Small 'Eastern flank' countries like Estonia and Lithuania have long exhibited this loud anti-Moscow rhetoric, but Denmark is increasingly joining in.

Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen in a fresh interview given to Financial Times has declared NATO must step up its response to Russia, warning that recent drone incursions are "only the beginning" of an alleged 'hybrid war' and sabotage campaign aimed at dividing Europe.

"We need to be very open about [the fact] that it probably is only the beginning," she told FT. "We need all Europeans to understand what is at stake and what's going on. When there are drones or cyber attacks, the idea is to divide us."

Over the last couple weeks Danish authorities have claimed that hundreds of mystery drones have at various times over that span sought to disrupt commercial and military aviation over the small northern European country. Top officials have linked these to Russian operations, though without presenting any evidence.

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New MH17 Documentary Proves Beyond a Doubt that a Cover-Up Took Place

Andrew Korybko
Global Research

The newly released documentary directed by Yana Yerlashova together with independent Dutch investigator Max van der Werff proves beyond a doubt that Ukraine and its Western partners did all that they could to cover up the true cause of MH17’s tragic downing half a decade ago, introducing new evidence and testimonies that cast serious doubt on the “official” narrative of what really took place on that dreadful day.

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The entire world is already aware of the two competing theories about MH17’s downing half a decade ago, with the West insisting that a supposedly Russian-supplied BUK surface-to-air missile accidentally destroyed the passenger aircraft while Moscow has always maintained its innocence and claimed that it’s being framed as part of a politically motivated cover-up. Most people have already made up their minds about what they think really happened on that dreadful day, but those who doubt that an actual conspiracy took place might finally reconsider their views after the newly released documentary by Yana Yerlashova together with Dutch investigator Max van der Werff.

The “official” narrative blames Russia for this tragedy, but it’s since been revealed through the new evidence and testimonies that active efforts involving a broad array of countries were undertaken from the get-go to paint Moscow as the culprit despite there being no facts whatsoever to back up that provocative claim.

“MH17 – Call For Justice” sheds light on the dark truth of what happened immediately after the plane’s downing, with journalist John Helmer’s summary of the 28-minute-long documentary pointing out the key takeaways for those who don’t have the time to watch it in full. The video powerfully includes a brief interview with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir, who had earlier spoken out about the cover-up and reaffirms that Russia was blamed for what happened even before any information was conclusively known about the incident.

India’s “Playing Hard to Get” with America by Letting the AIIB Fund China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)

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Ukraine: Far Right Parties Unite for Parliamentary Elections

Avis Krane
Essence of Time

Coalition adopts new slogan that mirrors Nazi’s “Deutschland Uber Alles!”

 

Six ultra-right and extremist organizations have formed an alliance led by Ukrainian nationalist Svoboda party leader Oleg Tyagnibok, the Svoboda party’s press service reports on June 9. 

 

The coalition includes: Svoboda, the National Corps, the Right Sector ‌(organization banned in Russia), the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (organization banned in Russia) and the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists.

Representatives of these organizations are going to participate in early elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (Ukrainian Parliament) in a single coalition as the Svoboda party. The decision to create a coalition was made at the congress on June 9.

“Ukraine is above all!” is the nationalist coalition’s program slogan. It is a copy of the “Germany is above all!” slogan of Nazi Germany.

Oleg Tyagnibok is heading the electoral list. The top five names include: the leader of the National Corps Andrei Biletsky; the former and current leaders of the Right Sector ‌ (organization banned in Russia) Dmitry Yarosh and Andrei Tarasenko, as well as the deputy chairman of the Svoboda party, former vice-speaker of the Ukrainian Rada Ruslan Koshulinsky.

Almost half of the candidates are members of the Svoboda party. The alliance also plans to nominate candidates with its program in single-member districts.

Tyagnibok addressed the audience with a speech.

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Mueller Caught In Another Deception; Key ‘Russia Link’ Exposed As Informant For US, Ukraine

Zero Hedge

A Ukrainian businessman painted in the Mueller report as a sinister link to Russia was actually a “sensitive” intelligence source for the US State Department who informed on Ukrainian and Russian issues – and passed messages between the Washington and Kiev, according to The Hill‘s John Solomon.

Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked for Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, was described on page 6 of the Mueller report as having “ties to Russian intelligence” – and was cast in a sinister light as a potential threat to democracy. Mueller completely omitted the fact that Kilimnik was working as an informant and intermediary between America and Ukraine, and subsequently indicted him for obstruction of justice.

Kilimnik was not just any run-of-the-mill source, either.
He interacted with the chief political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, sometimes meeting several times a week to provide information on the Ukraine government. He relayed messages back to Ukraine’s leaders and delivered written reports to U.S. officials via emails that stretched on for thousands of words, the memos show.
The FBI knew all of this, well before the Mueller investigation concluded. –The Hill

What’s more, the chief political officer at the Kiev embassy from 2014 to 2017, Alan Purcell, told the FBI that State officials – including senior embassy officials Alexander Kasanof and Eric Schultz, thought Klimnik was such a valuable asset that they wouldn’t mention his name in official cables out of fear that WikiLeaks would expose him.

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Trump Targets UK, Australia And Ukraine Over 'Greatest Hoax In The History Of Our Country'

Zero Hedge

President Trump on Friday said that he wants Attorney General William Barr to investigate the UK, Australia and Ukraine for their roles in the 'greatest hoax in the history of our country.'

Speaking with reporters at the White House on Friday before his trip to Japan, Trump discussed his decision this week to issue a sweeping declassification order - leaving it in the hands of Barr to determine exactly what happened to Trump and his campaign before and after the 2016 US election. 

"For over a year, people have asked me to declassify. What I've done is declassified everything," said Trump, adding "He can look and I hope he looks at the UK and I hope he looks at Australia and I hope he looks at Ukraine." 

"It's the greatest hoax probably in the history of our country and somebody has to get to the bottom of it. We'll see. For a long period of time, they wanted me to declassify and I did."

"This is about finding out what happened," said Trump. "What happened and when did it happen, because this was an attempted takedown of the president of the United States, and we have to find out why."

"We're exposing everything. We're being a word that you like, transparent. We're being, ultimately we're being transparent. That's what it's about. Again, this should never ever happen in our country again."

After the Mueller report made clear that Trump and his campaign had in no way conspired with Russia during hte 2016 election, Democrats immediately pivoted to whether Trump obstructed the investigation. Trump and his supporters, however, immediately pivoted to the conduct of the US intelligence community, including the involvement of foreign actors and possibly their governments. 

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The Buried Maidan Massacre and Its Misrepresentation by the West

Ivan Katchanovski
Consortium News

The new Ukrainian government is faced with reopening an inquiry into evidence of an organized mass killing in Kiev that Poroshenko stonewalled. Ivan Katchanovski investigates.

Five years ago, the Maidan massacre in Kiev, Ukraine, of Feb. 18-20, 2014, was a watershed event, not only for the politics and history of Ukraine but also for world politics generally. This mass killing in downtown Kyiv set the stage for the violent overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine and a new Cold War between Washington and Moscow.

Therefore, it is remarkable that five years after this massacre shook the world, no one has been sentenced for any of the Maidan killings. This was the best documented case of mass killing in history, broadcast live on TV and the internet, in presence of thousands of eyewitnesses. It was filmed by hundreds of journalists from major media in the West, Ukraine, Russia, and many other countries as well as by numerous social media users. Yet, to this day, no one has been brought to justice for this major and consequential crime.

From the start, the dominant narrative promoted by the Ukrainian and Western governments and mainstream media has placed the blame for this tragedy firmly on the Yanukovych government. It contends that forces loyal to former President Victor Yanukovych— either snipers and/or the Berkut, a special anti-riot police— massacred peaceful Maidan protesters on the direct orders of Yanukovych himself. Such charges against Yanukovych, his ministers and commanders and a special Berkut unit—whose five ex-members were tried for the murder of 48 Maidan protesters on Feb. 20, 2014 — are generally taken at face value. With some limited exceptions, challenges to this narrative are treated dismissively.

For the most part, mainstream news media in the U.S. and other Western countries ignored trial evidence, public statements by officials and politicians and scholarly studies that put the standard narrative under question. This includes non-reporting about my own academic studies of the Maidan massacre.

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‘Vibrant democracy’: US congratulates Ukraine on holding elections that reflect ‘will of people’

RT

The US State Department has hailed Ukraine’s presidential elections as “peaceful” and “competitive” as it congratulated comedian Volodymyr Zelensky on his victory and pledged “steadfast support” to Kiev. 

Washington didn’t mince its words and went out of its way to assure the new Ukrainian leader-in-waiting of its full support. “We look forward to working with President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky to advance our two nations’ shared goal of a secure, prosperous, democratic, and free Ukraine,” a statement issued by the State Department’s spokesperson, Morgan Ortagus, said.

The US also could not help but congratulate ordinary Ukrainians for holding elections, which, according to Washington, “reflect Ukraine’s vibrant democracy” that managed to survive despite what the State Department called “years of unrelenting Russian aggression.”

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