Paradise News

Tag: Europe

  • Former Ukrainian MP Blows Whistle On Burisma’s Connections To Terrorism

    By Andrew Korybko

    The dirt that Andrey Derkach shared about Hunter’s Burisma corruption scandal made him an enemy of the American and Ukrainian governments.

    Former Ukrainian MP Andrey Derkach, who’s reviled by the Biden Administration for sharing dirt about Hunter Biden’s Burisma corruption scandal with Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani ahead of the 2020 elections, just gave a very important interview to Belarus’ BelTA where be blew the whistle even louder. According to him, the $6 million bribe that was paid in cash to shut down the investigation into the First Son’s scandal eventually found its way to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and its military-intelligence agency.

    Derkach claimed to have proof of the secret court order that divided these funds between those two, with the first investing its portion into building up their country’s drone army while the second financed terrorist attacks like the assassination of Darya Dugina, which he specifically mentioned in the interview. These allegations expand upon the ones that he shared earlier this year regarding the real-world impact of Hunter’s corruption scandal, which were analyzed here at the time.

    On the subject of Ukrainian assassinations and terrorism, Derkach said that the CIA and FBI actually condone these actions despite their public claims to the contrary, but he warned that this immoral policy will inevitably ricochet into the US itself. In particular, he cited FBI chief Christopher Wray’s testimony to Congress last April where he said that law enforcement officials fear that Crocus-like attacks are presently being plotted against their country.

    About that, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Ukraine’s military-intelligence service GUR is the chief suspect of Russia’s investigation into what became one of the worst terrorist attacks in its history, thus meaning that the portion of Burisma’s $6 million bribe that made its way into their hands likely financed part of it. In other words, the third-order effect of Hunter’s corruption scandal is that it was partially responsible for the brutal murder of innocent civilians halfway across the world some years later.

    That’s already scandalous enough, but Derkach shared even more details about the other indirect consequences of this cover-up into the First Son’s illicit activities, adding that some GUR-linked figures have been connected to the Western narrative about September 2022’s Nord Stream terrorist attack. He regards that story as a distraction from the US’ complicity, the view of which was elaborated upon here at the time that it entered the discourse, but lauded the CIA for the lengths it went to cover up its role.

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    In his view, the CIA might very well have sent a highly trained Ukrainian diving team to the Baltic Sea exactly as the Western media reported, though only to plant fake bombs. In his words, “when a cover story is made, it is done quite well. We shouldn’t belittle the experience of the CIA or the experience of MI6 in preparing cover operations. They have quite a lot of experience in using proxies, in using cover stories to form a certain position in order to dodge responsibility. This is actually what happened.”

    Looking forward, Derkach expects Ukraine to attempt more terrorist attacks against Russia, which the US public is being preconditioned to accept via the CIA’s various leaks to the media. While many might lay the blame for all this on Zelensky’s lap, Derkach believes that it’s actually his Chief of Staff Andrey Yermak who’s running the show, albeit as a Western puppet. Nevertheless, he’s also convinced that the West is indeed preparing to formally replace Zelensky, but doesn’t yet know when or with whom.

    Altogether, the importance of Derkach’s interview is that he’s a former veteran Ukrainian politician who still retains a lot of sources inside the regime, having served in the Rada for a whopping 22 years from 1998-2020. While his homeland charged him with treason after he fled to Russia in early 2022, which followed the US charging him with election meddling on behalf of that country in September 2020, the argument can be made that these are politically driven attempts to intimidate a top whistleblower.

    The dirt that Derkach shared about Hunter’s Burisma corruption scandal, not to mention its newly revealed third-order effects that led to the brutal killing of civilians halfway across the world after part of his company’s bribe made its way into GUR’s hands, made him an enemy of the US Government. They and their Ukrainian proxies will therefore always try to discredit him with sensational allegations, but everyone would do well to listen to what he says and then make up their own minds about it.

  • Philips Shares Surge 33% Post $1.1 Billion Settlement in US Respiratory Device Lawsuit

    By Ken Ibenne

    Shares of Philips witnessed a remarkable surge on Monday, spurred by the resolution of a significant legal dispute in the United States involving its respiratory devices.

    The Dutch medical technology giant settled a lawsuit related to the recall of several sleep apnea treatment products, which resulted in a recall of millions of units in 2021 due to potential cancer-causing elements. At 9:00 a.m. London time, Philips shares soared by 33%, reflecting investor optimism following the $1.1 billion settlement.

    The company has earmarked 982 million euros ($1.1 billion) to cover medical monitoring and personal injury claims arising from the litigation. While asserting its denial of any liability, Philips emphasized its commitment to patient safety and quality.

    CEO Roy Jakobs emphasized, “Patient safety and quality are our top priorities, and we have taken significant steps to address the repercussions of the Respironics recall.”

    Jakobs further reassured patients, stating, “The devices used for sleep therapy are nearing completion of repairs, and preliminary test results suggest no significant health risks associated with their use. We sincerely apologize for any concerns patients may have experienced.”

    READ ALSO: Apple Faces New Hurdle: After iOS, EU Now Identifies iPadOS as Digital Gatekeeper

    Despite the settlement, Philips reported a first-quarter loss of 998 million euros ($1.07 billion) on Monday. However, adjusted earnings for the quarter exceeded analyst expectations, reaching 388 million euros. Quarterly sales for the first quarter of 2023 totaled 4.14 billion euros, slightly down from the previous year’s figure of 4.17 billion euros, according to Reuters.

  • Former NATO commander calls to bomb Crimea

    By Lucas Leiroz

    Recently, Western support for Ukraine has been declining, leaving the regime’s officials concerned about the future of Kiev’s fighting capabilities. However, despite this tendency, there are still public figures in the West calling for a new escalation and the sending of more heavy weapons to Ukraine.

    In a recent statement, American retired General Philip Breedlove, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, stated that the West should send heavy weapons to Kiev to enable intense attacks on the Crimea region. According to Breedlove, only by attacking Russian positions in the Black Sea will Ukraine be able to make Moscow “rethink its posture”.

    Breedlove classified Crimea as the “center of gravity” and “the decisive terrain of the war.” For him, the key to “defeat” Russia is to hit Crimea as much as possible. He believes that the more attacks in the region, the more Russia will be affected and forced to retreat throughout the entire conflict zone. So, faced with the imminent depletion of Ukraine’s military capabilities, the general advises that NATO return to sending weapons at a massive level, mainly long-range missiles that allow deep attacks on Crimea.

    “If we enable Ukraine to be able to strike Crimea — pervasively, persistently and precisely —Russia will be forced to rethink its posture there. Strike them all, strike them repeatedly, and destroy them in detail,” he said.

    Breedlove’s opinion has long been shared by other officers. Neutralizing Russian positions in Crimea has been a Ukrainian ambition since 2022, with several unsuccessful attacks having taken place in the region. One of the main objectives is to destroy the Kerch Bridge, which is considered the logistical key of Crimea. Not by chance, Kiev launched terrorist attacks on the Bridge, killing civilians but failing to cause major damage to the infrastructure.

    Not only that, but General Breedlove himself has already become well known for his radical stance regarding Crimea. In October last year, he published an article in Western media outlet stating that bombing Crimea was necessary in order to achieve the “Ukrainian victory”. He openly called for the destruction of the Kerch Bridge, labeling it a “legitimate target”. At the time, he also criticized all analysts’ arguments about the need to take precautions with these attacks to avoid an escalation in the conflict. Breedlove appears not to care about the possibility of an increase in the violence of hostilities, stating that it is necessary to inflict damage on Crimea regardless of the side effects.

    “Several people I have spoken to say ‘dropping’ [destroying] Kerch bridge would be a huge blow to Russia. Kerch bridge is a legitimate target (…) I am a trained civil engineer and I know about bridge construction. All bridges have their weak points and if targeted in the right spot it could render Kerch bridge unserviceable for a period of time. But if they wanted to drop the bridge, that would require a more dedicated bombing operation (…) I hear a lot of people asking whether it is right for Ukraine to take such aggressive action and whether the West would support it, but I cannot understand that argument”, he said at the time.

    It is also necessary to clarify that the strategic calculation behind this type of opinion is absolutely wrong. It is believed that by increasing pressure on Crimea, the Ukrainians will force the Russians to concentrate efforts in the region, neglecting the defense lines on the battlefield and facilitating Kiev’s territorial advance. With this, it would allegedly be possible for Ukrainian troops to reach the Black Sea by advancing on the ground, reversing the current military scenario.

    However, this mentality seems naive. The Russian reaction to possible recurrent attacks on Crimea would not be through any abrupt change in the situation on the front lines, but rather through an exponential increase in bombings against strategic targets throughout Ukraine. Moscow’s military doctrine establishes artillery as the main factor in a combat scenario. To each Ukrainian attempt to escalate the fighting, the Russians react with heavy artillery, neutralizing military facilities, critical infrastructure and enemy decision-making centers.

    In practice, Ukraine is at an impasse as it suffers more and more losses every time it tries to reverse the situation. The country is unable to change the scenario, having as an alternative only the peace negotiations under Russian terms – which NATO obviously does not allow Kiev to do. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the Atlantic alliance will resume sending long-range weapons in large quantities in the near future, as the US is deeply involved in the Middle Eastern conflict, diminishing its interest in the Ukrainian front.

    About the Author

    Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

    Source: InfoBrics

  • Lamborghini’s car sales exceed 10,000 for the first time in 2023, with Europe, Middle East and Africa seeing the largest growth

    By Ben Nsemo

    According to Reuters, Lamborghini Chairman and CEO Stephan Winkelmann announced today that Lamborghini’s sales in 2023 will exceed 10,000 vehicles for the first time. “I am so proud that we have reached another historic milestone!”

    Winkelmann announced detailed delivery data for Lamborghini last year: a total of 10,112 supercars and SUVs were delivered, up from 9,200 in 2022. Among them, Europe, the Middle East and Africa were the regions where Lamborghini saw the largest growth in deliveries last year, with an increase of 14% and nearly 4,000 vehicles delivered. Sales in the Americas increased by 9%, with deliveries of 3,465 vehicles; in the Asia-Pacific region, sales increased by 4%, with deliveries of 2,660 vehicles.

    READ ALSO: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Apple, Epic’s requests, refuses to make final antitrust ruling

    According to reports, Lamborghini’s old rival Ferrari will announce 2023 delivery data later this year.

    According to previous reports from IT House, Lamborghini plans to make its car lineup fully hybrid this year. This year, a new model of the crossover SUV Urus will be launched to replace the original Huracan.

    The Huracan successor is expected to be unveiled by the end of 2024 and will also be a plug-in hybrid, although it is currently uncertain whether it will retain the naturally aspirated V10 engine or downsize to a V8 engine. In addition, the pure electric version of Urus will be officially unveiled around 2029.

  • Ukraine’s opposition leader warns Zelensky could be ousted

    By Uriel Araujo

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shall be ousted this year – having alienated allies domestically and abroad (the military, the far-right, and the West), he is seen by many Ukrainians as a “traitor to the nation”, and thus getting rid of him will, after all, be a good thing. So says Ukraine’s exiled opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk, in a January 10 column. Previously, he had stated Zelensky “gambled away Ukraine”, took advantage of “Nazi ideology”, and has overestimated the West’s will to support his country. Such rhetoric is to be expected from someone like Medvedchuk (who has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin), right? He is not a lone voice, though, and the political camp he is part of should be taken seriously.

    Medvedchuk is not a very familiar name except to Ukrainians and to analysts. Who is this man? An “oligarch” (as Eastern European multimillionaires and billionaires are often described in the West), this lawyer and businessman, running under the “Opposition Platform — For Life” (OPZZh) party banner, was elected as People’s Deputy of Ukraine on 29 August 2019. That same year, the OPZZh party won 43 seats in Parliament – and came second in the elections. Its program? Undoing the controversial “de-communization” and “Ukrainization” policies, and renegotiating the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement, while reviving trade with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a bloc of 9 post-soviet states (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Moldava). Moreover, it called for the “neutrality of Ukraine in the political-military sphere and [its] non-participation in any military-political alliances.”

    The OPZZh party was thus yet another example of a political tradition in Ukraine that, until 2014 (the year of the ultra-nationalist Maidan revolution), was part of a “large camp”, according to Volodymyr Ishchenko, a research associate at the Institute of East European Studies (Freie Universität Berlin). This camp has been labeled “pro-Russian”, marginalized and finally banned (Ukraine has suspended no less than 11 political parties – the entire left and opposition), and in fact, comprises a number of “sovereigntist, state-developmentalist, anti-Western, illiberal, populist, left-wing, and many other” stances, writes Ishchenko. It has traditionally called “for closer integration with Russia-led international institutions rather than with those in the Euro-Atlantic sphere.”

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    When Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine started in February 2022, the OPZZh condemned it. In April, Ukrainian defense authorities suspended the party on suspicion of treason. That same month, Medvedchuk was arrested. In September 2022, members of Ukraine’s National Guard, including the infamously far-right Special Operations Detachment Azov (also known as the Azov Regiment) were liberated from captivity in a prisoners swap between Moscow and Kyiv. They were exchanged for no other than Viktor Medvedchuk. In January 2023, Kyiv stripped him of his Ukrainian citizenship.

    As I wrote before, Ukraine today has a minority rights issue and a civil rights problem, as it relegates Russian speakers “to permanent second-class status”, according to Nicolai N. Petro, who was a US Fulbright scholar in Ukraine in 2013-2014. Quoting prominent Ukrainians such as philosopher Sergei Datsyuk and Oleksiy Arestovich (former presidential advisor to Zelensky), Nicolai N. Petro, in his opinion piece for Foreign Policy, elaborates on how “freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and minority rights” are all areas of concern in the country, all of them “deeply intertwined with the issue of minority rights, specifically with the treatment of the country’s largest minority, Russophile Ukrainians—those who identify themselves with Russian heritage, be it through language, culture, history, or religion.”

    So much has been written and said about NATO’s expansion being the key factor that triggered Moscow’s decision to launch its military campaign on February 2022 – that context and aspect needs to be acknowledged. But there is also another factor for instability in Ukraine, namely the way post-Maidan “ukrainization” policies have alienated the “pro-Russian” and Russian speaking population. This civil rights and domestic policy issue directly impacts matters related to foreign policy. One should keep all of that in mind whenever one sees the “pro-Russian” label being used to discredit Zelensky’s critics – whatever faults such dissents may have, many of them nonetheless represent a popular point of view in the country, especially in the eastern part of it, and they have valid points.

    Back to Medvedchuk’s points (on Zelensky having alienated allies domestically and abroad), one could hardly disagree. Last month, for instance, the Ukrainian President suddenly called-off a high-profile briefing with US senators. There is an impasse amid the Americans about any future funding of the Eastern European country.

    As for the domestic sphere, Konstantin Skorkin, an expert on Ukrainian politics writing for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s website, comments on how the military in that country is increasingly involved in politics, and how this worsens “the risks of Ukraine’s internal destabilization”. Although Zelensky is “already talking about the threat of a third Maidan” (which, the Ukrainian president alleges, could be “plotted” by Moscow), the real risk, argues Skorkin, lies in “discord among Ukrainians themselves”, with a real “specter of civil strife”. There is no longer unity among the Ukrainian political and military elite, the “most dangerous fault line” being “personified by President Volodymyr Zelensky and Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny”. As I’ve written, Pulitzer winner journalist Seymour Hersh reported that aforementioned General Valery Zaluzhny of Ukraine is supposedly directly negotiating a peace deal with Russian general Valery Gerasimov, “with or without Volodymyr Zelensky.”

    All things considered, Viktor Medvedchuk’s warning about a possible overthrow of Zelensky merits some attention. It has been reported Washington itself could be interested in “getting rid” of Zelensky, as it has been pressuring for elections in Ukraine. It remains to be seen whether such a hypothetical scenario could in fact bring about an even more complicated situation: the US-led West, after all, has funded, supported and white-washed far-right violent extremism and even neo-Nazism in that country for years. Thus, with Zelensky out, even worse problems could surface – even after the end of the current conflict. The “Russian question” in Ukraine will simply not go away until it is properly addressed and the concerns and interests of that population taken into consideration.

    About The Author

    Uriel Araujo is a PhD candidate (UnB), journalist and researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

  • Russia not enemy of Slovakia – top lawmaker

    By Lucas Leiroz

    Hostility towards Russia is beginning to weaken in some EU countries. In a recent statement, an important Slovak politician made it clear that his country is not an enemy of Moscow and that he seeks to maintain friendly relations with the Russians. Although the European bloc continues to be hostile towards Russia, it is believed that opinions like these will begin to grow among member countries as rivalry with Moscow proves unviable.

    The statement was made by Lubos Blaha, deputy leader of the Slovak parliament. According to him, Slovakia and Russia are not enemy nations and should seek fraternal and mutually beneficial relations. Blaha also commented on a sentiment of gratitude on the part of the Slovak people towards Russia for the fact that the Red Army liberated Slovakia from Nazi control during the WWII.

    The lawmaker also publicly committed himself on a personal level to struggling for Russian-Slovak relations to be normalized as quickly as possible. He believes that normalization is supported by the majority of the country’s population, given the memory of the war against the Nazis and the common Slavic heritage of both peoples.

    “Slovakia wants to have good relations with countries from all sides of the world (…) I have always considered Russia a friendly nation (…) I am sure that most Slovaks feel the same way (…) Russia is not our enemy. I personally will do everything to return Slovak-Russian relations to normal again. That’s what ordinary Slovaks want”, he wrote on his social media after attending an important meeting with Russian Ambassador Igor Bratchikov.

    Regarding the conversations he had with the Russian diplomat, Blaha described it as “cordial” and said that Bratchikov warned him about NATO’s plans to supply F-16 fighters to the Kiev regime. Blaha made it clear that he does not agree with the measure and that his country is in favor of peace negotiations, opposing any escalatory policy.

    “For the Russian Federation, this is a red line and they warn that there would be an open conflict (…) escalation could lead to the third world war (…) Slovakia must stand on the side of peace (…) Does anyone really want a nuclear war?!”, he added.

    With this, Slovakia joins Viktor Orban’s Hungary as a country tending to neutrality and diplomacy, despite membership in the EU and NATO. This change in national policy is a result of some recent events in the country, such as the election of Robert Fico as Prime Minister. Accused of being “pro-Russian” and “a Kremlin agent” by Western propaganda, Fico was emphatic in his election campaign when he said that he would not send a “single bullet” to Kiev.

    Obviously, the Western media describes this stance as some kind of “alliance with Russia”, but in fact it is just a strategic policy that brings benefits to Slovakia. Supporting the Ukrainian regime does not make any sense for the country, as this puts Slovakia in a diplomatic crisis with Russia, in addition to forcing the government to spend on military aid to the losing side in the conflict.

    The two previous governments of Slovakia placed the country in a delicate situation due to their systematic support for Ukraine. Slovakia not only adhered to the suicide sanctions imposed by the EU, but also sent thirteen military aid packages to Kiev. In total, support was valued at more than 700 million euros, with weapons of high strategic value, such as armored vehicles, air defense systems and MiG-29 fighter jets, being exported to the neo-Nazi regime. Slovakia never had anything to gain from this type of policy, just passively obeying NATO’s war plans, which shows how Fico’s attitudes restored Slovak sovereignty.

    In this sense, recently, the Slovak government also made clear its absolute opposition to Ukraine’s entry into the EU. Joining the Hungarian position, the Fico government stated that no “special procedures” for Kiev can be tolerated. According to the Slovak Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ukraine must actually go through all the necessary reforms to adapt itself to the European bloc, if it really wants to move forward with its membership process. The same was said in relation to Moldova, a country that has been encouraged by the Collective West to engage in hostilities against Russia in the Transnistrian region.

    In fact, the emergence of a political alternative to the pro-Kiev lobby within the EU shows a path of hope for European pacifists. The continent’s security policy obviously depends on friendly and stable relations with Russia, as geography places Russia and Western Europe as natural partners in common challenges. By being hostile to Russia, the EU is simply harming its own interests and uselessly fighting against its own geographical condition as Russia’s neighbor. In other words, the EU is just irrationally obeying US war plans without taking into account its own local circumstances.

    With the strengthening of anti-war and neutral governments within the bloc, the tendency is for more and more politicians like Fico and Orban to gain popularity in European electoral processes, giving new hope for the future of Russia-EU relations.

    Source: InfoBrics

  • Gender Pronouns Row Keeps Irish Teacher in Prison

    A court has ruled that an Irish school teacher who refused to use a student’s chosen pronouns will spend Christmas in prison.

    Irish teacher Enoch Burke was initially suspended in May last year after he refused to refer to a transgender student as ‘they’ saying that it was against his Christian beliefs.

    This caused a chain of events that led to him being jailed twice for repeatedly showing up at Wilson’s Hospital School in County Westmeath after being sacked.

    At the moment he is in Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison with no prospect of release because he has refused to comply with a court order to stay away from the school premises.

    RT reports: Enoch Burke, formerly a history and German teacher at Wilson’s Hospital School in Co. Westmeath, was imprisoned for a second time in September. The teacher, who comes from an evangelical Christian background, had repeatedly failed to heed a court order barring him from entering the grounds of the school, from which he was fired last year.

    Burke, who has been told by the court that he will be released from custody if he verbally agrees to comply with the order, said at a hearing in Dublin’s High Court on Tuesday that doing so would be “giving up” his religious beliefs and an endorsement of “transgenderism.”

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    Presiding over the court, Mr Justice Mark Sanfey said it had become clear that Burke had no intention of complying with the court order, and that there was no justifiable reason to release him until he did so. The next review will be on February 27, Sanfey said, adding that Burke can secure his release at any point before then by saying he will abide by the order.

    Last year, Burke was accused by Wilson’s Hospital School of gross misconduct after he objected to an email sent by school officials requesting that a transitioning student be referred to by a gender-neutral pronoun. It was claimed by school authorities that Burke had unprofessionally confronted the headmaster about the request.

    Despite being suspended in May 2022 with full pay pending an investigation into his alleged misconduct, Burke continued to arrive at the school each day. He was fired the following August, and in May 2023, the Irish High Court found that the school had acted lawfully in its initial suspension of Burke – who it said had been “trespassing” on its grounds.

    At a hearing last year, Burke told the court: “I am a teacher and I don’t want to go to prison. I want to be in my classroom today, that’s where I was this morning when I was arrested.”

    He added: “I love my school, with its motto Res Non Verba, actions not words, but I am here today because I said I would not call a boy a girl.” However, the court has said that Burke is not being persecuted for his religious beliefs, but specifically for refusing to stop trespassing on school property.

    Meanwhile, Burke has accused the courts of failing to recognize his constitutional right to religious freedom, and says that these rights were breached when he was asked to refer to a student by they/them pronouns.

  • Russia’s goal is “conquering Ukraine”, say Western media…Not so, say experts

    By Uriel Araujo

    The Ukrainian former defense minister Oleksii Reznikov recently stated that the Kremlin’s goal is to “destroy” Ukraine completely, “assimilating” its citizens into the Russian Federation. Such wild claims have not been much challenged by journalists and opinion-makers in the West. After all, according to Western media Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “plan” is and has always been “to conquer” Ukraine all along. This pervasive Western narrative, also pushed by Kyiv, far from being a kind of self-evident truth, is challenged by voices within the US Establishment such as Jeffrey Sachs and by many respected scholars in the West, including some who are very critical of Moscow. Such a one-sized narrative in fact removes any context regarding the current crisis and completely ignores Russian perspective, goals, and security concerns.

    Although a harsh critic of Russian ongoing military campaign in Ukraine, Wolfgang Richter (a Senior Associate in the International Security Division at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik – SWP) acknowledged, for example, in a 2022 article that in December 2021, Moscow had “made clear in two draft treaties” what it was after: “preventing a further expansion of NATO to the east and obtaining binding assurances to this end.” The Alliance and Washington, however, according to Richter, “were not prepared to revise the principles of the European security order” and thus Moscow obviously “did not accept this and resorted to the use of force.”

    According to this expert, although the US is “far from the theater of conflict in Europe”, French and British nuclear weapons and “the deployment of US sub-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe and NATO’s conventional forces on Russia’s borders” are indeed a security risk in the European continent from Moscow’s perspective. This is so, he argues, quite convincingly, because Russia understands that a future threat could arise from the new American intermediate-range weapons in the continent, which could even reach Russian strategic targets (in the European part of the country) “should Washington and NATO partners decide to deploy them.” Moreover, NATO’s enlargement “has created more potential deployment areas in Central and Eastern Europe.” The Kremlin sees the Atlantic Alliance today, after all, as merely an American tool to advance its geopolitical interests (to the detriment of Russian security).

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    Sometimes, critics claim that the fact that Moscow cooperated in varying degrees with NATO from the nineties to around 2010 “proves” that Russian claims about NATO’s enlargement should not be taken seriously. This fact, if anything, corroborates Moscow’s arguments.

    In his 2018 associated professorship habilitation thesis, Sao Paulo University History Professor Angelo de Oliveira Segrillo describes Putin as a moderate (albeit ambiguously) “Westernist”, rather than an Eurasianist, citing as evidence for it the Russian President’s well know admiration for Peter the Great. Segrillo argues that Putin was never a radical Westernist such as Boris Yeltsin, but rather a pragmatic and moderate one, while also being a gosudarstvennik, that is, someone who advocates for a strong State, in line with Russia’s political tradition. The Brazilian professor thus compares Putin to the French leader Charles de Gaulle, who often opposed Washington and NATO not simply out of an “anti-Western stance” but as someone who is in a position of defending the national interests of one’s own country.

    Alas, whether the aforementioned thesis is fully accurate or not, that being something which interests mostly historians and biographers anyway, one can in any case argue that far from being staunchly “anti-Western” due to the supposed personal inclinations of the President (as Western propaganda would have it), the Kremlin in fact has had to take a defensive and counter-offensive approach towards the US-led West over the latter’s many provocations and developments which, from a Russian perspective, constituted crossing red lines.

    In the NATO-Russia Founding Act of May 1997, NATO in fact pledged to limit the number of stationed troops, promising not to bring about any “additional permanent stationing of sub­stantial combat forces”, while  claiming it had no plan to deploy nuclear weapons in the accession countries. Such agreements eroded over several episodes, as Ritter demonstrates. Countries that did not belong to the CFE started joining the Alliance in 2004 and, to make matters worse, Washington in 2007 established a permanent military presence on the Black Sea. The US had withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 which for the Kremlin was a threat to strategic stability, a perception enhanced by Washington’s 2007 bilateral agreements with the Czech and Poland to deploy missile defense systems in these countries (allegedly to counter an Iranian “threat”).

    NATO’s war against Serbia in 1999 (denounced by Russia) had of course already violated the ban on the use of force, and the 1997 and 1999 agreements. Moreover, the brutal invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 demonstrated America’s capacity and willingness to break international law, by relying on a “coaling of the willing” of new Eastern European partners and allies (even without NATO consensus). One could also cite Western recognition of Kosovo’s (unilateral) declaration of independence and the 2008 offer of the prospect of joining NATO to Ukraine and Georgia which, according to Richter, was “the breaking point in NATO’s relations with Russia.”

    The 2014 Crimea referendum and the Donbass War might have been the culmination of the erosion of an already declining European security order, argues Richter but such erosion “had already begun in 2002 with the growing potential for conflict between Washington and Moscow”, George W. Bush having played an important role in this.

    Which brings us to the current situation. For American political scientist John Mearsheimer, if Kyiv and Moscow had reached a deal, which could have happened if it were not for Western interference, Ukraine today would control a greater share of territory. As he writes, “Russia and Ukraine were involved in serious negotiations to end the war in Ukraine right after it started on 24 February 2022”. Regarding that, he adds: “everyone involved in the negotiations understood that Ukraine’s relationship with NATO was Russia’s core concern… if Putin was bent on conquering all of Ukraine, he would not have agreed to these talks.” The main issue was NATO.

    To sum it up, although at times Russia considered the possibility of engaging in further dialogue and cooperation with NATO, there have always  been tensions about the Atlantic Alliance’s expansion, and Moscow security concerns pertaining to it, far from being a mere excuse, are in fact well-founded.

    Uriel Araujo (PhD candidate (UnB), is a journalist and researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts

  • No NATO for Ukraine, Ukrainian politician says

    By Uriel Araujo

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is pressuring European diplomats to cease any talks about Ukraine joining NATO, according to a member of Rada (the Ukrainian parliament), Oleksiy Goncharenko. This is no minor politician. The son of a former Odessa mayor, he is a member of the Ukrainian Permanent Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). The allegations were publicly made in a series of texts posted in his Telegram channel (in Ukrainian). He wrote: “Unfortunately, there will be no NATO [for Ukraine]. Forget about it – it won’t happen.” Goncharenko claims that “several sources” in Washington told him the topic of Ukraine’s accession to the Atlantic Alliance “annoys the US elite” and even “after war” the country should not expect it.

    The politician also commented on the ongoing friction between the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhny. According to Goncharenko, Washington is “not happy” about it. In addition, he says, one should expect the next aid package to Ukraine to be the last one: “In a year, at the end of 2024, we will not be given any more money… Most likely, we will switch to a credit form of cooperation. They’ll give a loan. Not a grant that won’t need to be repaid.”

    Could such allegations be a fabrication created for propaganda purposes? There is no reason to think so and the logic of it in this case would be far from clear. In fact, Goncharenko’s claims make perfect sense in light of what we already know by now.

    We know the US has been pressuring its ally to hold elections. Moreover, the US Mission to NATO last month posted on X (formerly Twitter) a vague message about Washington being “focused on setting the conditions for a just, durable, and sustainable peace” in Ukraine. We also know that European Union (EU) member states are divided over the bloc’s common budget, including additional funding for Kyiv in 2024.

    In addition, Pulitzer winner journalist Seymour Hersh has written that, according to his American diplomacy and intelligence sources, the aforementioned General Valery Zaluzhny has been directly negotiating a peace deal with Russian general Valery Gerasimov, independently of Zelensky, who is described as a “wild card”. According to the journalist: “The two generals may continue to talk and Putin may indeed be interested in a settlement that gives him permanent control of Crimea and the four provinces he has claimed, but Zelensky remains the wild card. The American official said that Zelensky has been told that “this is a military-to-military problem to solve and the talks will go on with or without you.” If necessary, the American official told me, “We can finance his voyage to the Caribbean’.”

    We know that the unprecedented sanctions against the Russian Federation have been backfiring since the beginning, with the Eurasian great power reaching record trade surplus as early as May 2022. That has sparked division within the European continent, and how de-industralized post-Nord Stream Europe has been hurt by the ongoing conflict and by American subsidy war.

    As early as April 2023, as I wrote, former US ambassador to Finland, Earle Mack wrote that the US-led West had been “propping up Ukraine to fight a proxy war” but he could only see “a decade of death and chaos” for the country.

    In May Zelensky was planning a number of bold actions against Russia, including bombing the Druzhba pipeline that provides Russian oil to Hungary (a NATO member), and even occupying Russian villages plus targeting the Russian Federation with long-range missiles. Such plans crossed some red lines and were a huge problem from the point of view of both the US and that of Ukraine’s neighbors.

    That same month, aforementioned Serymour Hersh also reported that countries such as Hungary, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and the Czech Republic, led by Poland (with Germany playing some role in it too) had been pressuring the Ukrainian leader “to find a way to end the war, even by resigning himself if necessary, and to allow the process of rebuilding his nation to get under way.” According to Hersh’s CIA source at the time, these European leaders had “made it clear that ‘Zelensky can keep what he’s got – a villa in Italy and interests in offshore bank accounts – ‘if he works up a peace deal even if he’s got to be paid off, if it’s the only way to get a deal’.” Few months later, in September, Poland stopped sending Ukraine weapons, allegedly over a trade dispute, as bilateral relations deteriorated.

    All of this points to a clear picture emerging, one that had been haunting Ukraine for a while: Western abandonment and betrayal – something of which Washington has a solid record. From an European perspective, the picture is even more dramatic: it is about the bloc’s own interests. As I wrote, in December 2021, American and European energy interests are far from converging and in fact the energy crisis in that part of the Old World is something that has benefited Washington, while hurting its European allies – and the same can be said about the American proxy attrition war in Eastern Europe. It is about time to admit NATO’s expansion has been a recipe for disaster and about time to admit Ukraine has a far-right problem and a problem with the way it deals with the Russian minority – and not just in Donbass. And all of that is a problem for Europe, too.

    It remains to be seen how European leaders will conduct their policy pertaining to Ukraine and also to the strategic energy interests of the continent. One may expect many European voices urging the bloc to reconsider sanctions against Russia, for instance, as has been the case already. For a start, it could reconsider its stance on the issue of the rights of ethnic minorities.

  • Russia right to engage with Hamas

    By Uriel Araujo

    Russian national “outside the list” released from Hamas a diplomatic win for Moscow

    On November 26, 2023, Ron Olegovich Krivoy, a Russian national held as a hostage by Hamas was released, together with fourteen Israeli, and three Thai nationals. The latter were set free as part of an Iranian-Thai agreement. All of them were handed to the Red Cross. Krivoy’s release, reportedly a sign of good will towards Russia, is remarkable and can be described as a diplomatic achievement by the Kremlin because the 25-year-old was not part of the list Hamas had agreed with Israel.
    Krivoy was working as a sound engineer at a rave music festival in the Israeli kibbutz Reim, wich was attacked by the Palestinian political movement. Such an attack was part of the so-called  Al-Aqsa Flood Operation launched by the military wing of the movement, which subjected Israel to an unprecedented series of rocket attacks from the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip. The action, which was internationally condemned, resulted in the death of over a thousand people, including military and civilian, although numbers and responsibility are still being disputed.
    In response, Israel launched its Operation Iron Sword, and started conducting air strikes, targeting also civilian infrastructure, residential buildings, hospitals etc. This was also unprecedented in scale and Israel’s ongoing military campaign is facing global criticism and even being denounced as an attempt at ethnic cleansing or genocide, as Tel Aviv announced a full blockade of Gaza, which stopped supplies of food, water, medical items, and energy. The death toll so far has exceed 14 thousand people, with over 36 thousand injured.
    Over 240 hostages were captured by the Islamic group on October 7, and started being freed after a Qatar-brokered agreement struck between Israel and Hamas, the first large-scale deal since October 7. It involved exchanging hostages and detainees held by both the Jewish state and Hamas, and it resulted in a four-day truce starting on November 24. The truce is to continue as long as the Palestinian organization keeps releasing ten hostages daily and around a hundred have been set free thus far. However, Israel has just announced it has resumed its combat operations in Gaza allegedly because Hamas failed to provide a list of hostages’ names demanded by Tel Aviv for extending the cease-fire. The consequences of this remain to be seen.
    Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on for decades since the 1947 UN resolution determined the creation of both a Jewish and a Palestinian state. Only after the 1993 Oslo I Accord between Israel and the Palestinian Authority did the two actors conditionally recognize each other’s right to exercise government in specific parts of the Holy Land (as the region is often called by Jews, Christians, and Muslims). However, Israeli History and Geography text books routinely treat “Jewish control and the Palestinian’s inferior position as almost natural and self-evident”, according to a 2020 study by Avner Ben-Amos, a Tel Aviv University professor.

    The State of Palestine however faces internal divisions, with Gaza today also being a disputed area in an ongoing intra-Palestine conflict between the Islamic group Hamas and the secular Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority. The former exercises de facto administration in Gaza while the latter controls the West Bank.

    Israel routinely compares Hamas to the terrorist group ISIS, also known as Daesh or Islamic State. However upon engaging in negotiations with the combatant group, it has implicitly recognized it as a legitimate political actor. Moscow has been heavily criticized for engaging with Hamas, especially after October 7, however the recent developments have shown that this approach is rational and fruitful.

    The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs assessed the “good will gesture” by Hamas leaders pertaining to the release of a Russian hostage in a very positive way. It was announced by Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s official representative, on November 27, who said: “We would like to draw your attention to the fact that our compatriot was given the opportunity to return home without being bound by the fulfillment of the conditions agreed upon through the mediation of Qatar between Israel and Hamas for the exchange of some of the women and children hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.” Zakharova confirmed that this humanitarian outcome happened solely thanks to Russian diplomacy without Qatar’s mediation. Moscow in any case notified Tel Aviv about such an operation and signaled its readiness to pursue similar work in the future.

    Diplomacy today is an incredibly complex business. Far from consisting in relations, agreements and dialogue between nation-states solely, it increasingly involves dealing with non-state or quasi-state actors as well as others whose status might be ambiguous or disputed such as de facto governments, rebel groups, unrecognized or partly-recognized states, and so on. In addition, religious institutions plus non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Red Cross play a very important role in mediating conflicts.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken, echoing many other voices, the stance that the so-called “two-state” formula, approved by the UN Security Council, would be a viable solution for the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So far Israeli-Russian pragmatic good relations have endured. It remains to be seen how the escalation in Gaza will affect this complex relationship.

    Uriel Araujo is a journalist, researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.