Yesterday, ceremonies in Belgrade marked the anniversary of the two month NATO aerial bombardment of the Serbian capital that began on March 24 in 1999 and resulted in over 4,000 civilian deaths, including from bombs containing depleted Uranium, and the destruction of most of the civil infrastructure of the city.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is viewed even by staunch anti-imperialists as a terrible mistake, as unnecessary, callous, maybe even counterproductive. And yet, many quietly hope, that USA/NATO one day will pay the price for the millions of victims, the unimaginable destruction and the pain, which USA/NATO wars have caused.
But, helpless and powerless, the tiny voices for peace will not easily be heard in the bombastic drumbeat for war. There are also many people who keep their believes and knowledge to themselves. Once one is in a "fringe" spot, life becomes difficult. Many dissenters see the hypocrisy: Outcry against the invasion of Ukraine while "we" wage wars for commodities to secure our luxurious and wasteful lifestyle at the expense of everybody else.
The dissenting voices keep their heads down right now while the propaganda onslaught is putting pressure in the boiler.
The world condemns Russia
According to Western news media, the world collectively and univocally condemns Russian aggression against Ukraine.
United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres called for Russia to end its "absurd war." "Even if Mariupol falls, Ukraine cannot be conquered city by city, street by street, house by house," he said. "This war is unwinnable. Sooner or later, it will have to move from the battlefield to the peace table."
At an emergency session in New York, 141 of the 193 United Nations member states backed a motion condemning Russia’s decision to go to war with Ukraine.
35 UN members abstained, five voted against and 12 didn’t vote at all. The outliers were:
North Korea, Eritrea, Belarus, and Syria voted against, Algeria, Angola, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burundi, Central African Republic, China, Congo, Cuba, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, India, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar, Mali, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe abstained, Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Morocco, Togo, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela did not vote.
Dissident voices (censored by mainstream media) object, that the countries who did not vote for the UN resolution represent the majority of the world’s population.
Dissident voices, censored by mainstream media but accessible in the dark corners of the internet, highlight the fact, that the USA and NATO expanded up to Russia’s borders, and even beyond to places like Colombia; bombed and invaded one nation after another (e.g., Serbia, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen); acted militarily against other countries (e.g., Serbia, Iraq) without even seeking UN Security Council authorization; ignored the decisions of the International Court of Justice and withdrew from its jurisdiction; and even sanctioned International Criminal Court officials (Fatou Bensouda, Phakiso Mochochoko) for announcing their intention to investigate US war crimes in Afghanistan.
Dissident voices claim, that Russia with its Ukraine operation is acting within the self-defense provision of Article 51 of the UN Charter, given the real and imminent threat that Ukraine forces represented to Russia and to the ethnic Russians living in Ukraine (many of whom are Russian citizens). The Ukraine obstructed the Minsk negotiations and, in violation of the Minsk Protocol, constantly shelled the separatist areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, causing thousands of deaths.
Former Bolivian President Evo Morales (victim of a US-backed coup in 2019) called for an “international mobilization to stop the interventionist expansionism of USA and NATO.”
No neo-Nazis in Ukraine
Or only a few. And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish. Case closed.
In the aftermath of the US supported Euromaidan uprising in 2014 (where Nazi elements played a leading role), the first post-revolution government was quick to install a number of neo-Nazis from the Svoboda & Right Sector parties to high office, including the positions of Deputy Prime Minister (Oleksandr Sych – Svoboda), Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council (Andriy Parubiy – Svoboda), Deputy Secretary of National Security (Dmytro Yarosh – Right Sector), Minister of Ecology & Agricultural (Andriy Mokhnyk – Svoboda), Prosecutor General (Oleh Makhnitsky – Svoboda), and Minister of Internal Affairs (Arsen Avakov – not a member of a fascist party but a nationalist Nazi sympathizer who would go on to become the patron of Azov)
Dmitry Yarosh, leader of the Right Sector (Pravy Sektor) is an adviser to the head of Ukraine's general staff, Valery Zaluzhny.
Yevhen Karas, influential leader of the far-right organization C14, was elected to the Public Council under the Ministry of Veterans, along with a number of other C14 members.
StopFake, a self-described “fact checking” outlet that is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, Atlantic Council, Czech and UK foreign ministries, and the International Renaissance Foundation (funded by George Soros’ Open Society) employs multiple figures closely tied to neo-Nazis.
After the coup-government was put in place, and as fighting broke out in the eastern Russian-speaking regions, a number of neo-Nazi militias emerged in response to the perceived Russian threat.
First among these was the Azov Battalion which came to prominence when they re-captured the Russian-speaking city of Mariupol from separatists. With patronage from Avakov and support from other high level officials, Azov was formally incorporated into the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Azov founder Andriy Biletsky has unapologetically stated that the mission of Ukraine is to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against Semite-led [Jewish] Untermenschen.” Azov, who flies an SS emblem as their battle flag, has proclaimed that they intend to cleanse Europe of immigrants and homosexuals.
Azov, now a “Regiment” is not only active in the south but is additionally taking part in the defense of Kyiv. The organization is also in the process of setting up three more battalions throughout Ukraine.
Azov has also organized Hitler Youth-like summer camps and “educational” programs in line with their Nazi ideology. Presently the Azov regiment is actively recruiting Nazis, fascists, and white nationalists from Europe and North America to join their ranks in Ukraine as ideologically driven armed fighters.
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHA) issued a report on the Azov Battalion in 2016, where it asserts that Azov has been guilty of torturing and raping civilians in areas where it is operational. The US House of Representatives in 2015 voted unanimously to bar US assistance going to the Azov battalion because of its Nazi ties.
The Azov Battalion (now Azov Regiment) is at the moment fighting Russians in southern Ukraine and is central to the Ukrainian defense of Mariupol.
Democratic Axe and the armed wing of Right Sector are two other prominent Nazi-organizations. The National Militia, a paramilitary group allied with Azov, has for some years been operating throughout Ukraine, including in Kyiv, as a kind of fascist vigilante group. These groups are often working in coordination with the local police.
Ukraine has dedicated hundreds of statues, memorials, plaques, and street names to Stepan Bandera and other World War II-era Nazi collaborators who played a direct role in the murdering of thousands of Ukrainian Jews and other ethnic minorities in the 1940s.
Nor can anything negate the reality that Zelenskyy’s government has outlawed the left-leaning opposition parties throughout the country including the Left Opposition, Union of Left Forces, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialist Party of Ukraine, and Socialists Party. Previous governments had already banned the Communist Party of Workers & Peasants as well as the Communist Party of Ukraine (which as recently as 2002 was the third-largest party in the country with 64 seats in parliament).
Parallell universes
The mainstream media information universe is solidly pro Ukraine, pro NATO, and especially reports Russian atrocities and disregard of civilian lives, Russian incompetence and inaptitude, Ukrainian heroism and sacrifice, and Western generosity but lack of courage to stop the Russian war criminals.
All Western observers agree, that Putin and his generals overestimated their own military prowess while grossly underestimating Ukraine's defenses. High combat losses now challenge Kremlin’s ability to sustain the war in Ukraine.
NATO estimates that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in one month of war in Ukraine, where fierce resistance from the country’s defenders has denied Moscow the lightning victory it sought.
Throughout the war, Russian troops have been hampered by persistent supply shortages, struggling to get food and fuel, and lacking proper cold weather gear.
It is now common knowledge that he Russians are bogged down and suffer unsustainable casualties and loss of equipment, but Russia still rains down missiles and bombs on cities.
With its ground forces slowed or stopped by hit-and-run Ukrainian units armed with Western-supplied weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops are bombarding targets from afar.
A no-fly zone is still considered too dangerous but NATO allies eventually could fly patrols to protect Ukraine’s airspace (?).
A tightening noose of sanctions around Russia’s trade and finance is expected to break the economy and maybe even topple the Putin regime. Germany says that it has forged contracts with new suppliers that will significantly reduce its reliance on Russian coal, gas and oil in coming weeks.
Ukrainian authorities claim that about 300 people died when a Russian airstrike blew up a theater in Mariupol where hundreds of civilians were sheltering. This was tweeted with no further evidence offered. Local Ukrainian authorities left the city “in order to better coordinate regional operations,” and there are only industrial areas remaining under control of the defenders.
Ukrainian forces conducted a successful attack on Russian ships docked at the occupied port of Berdyansk, likely sinking a landing ship and damaging or sinking another. Ukraine’s demonstrated ability to inflict serious damage on Berdyansk may disrupt Russian forces from renewing attempts to reinforce operations in Mariupol and around Kherson by sea.
The fire on the hull of the ship Saratov in the port of Berdyansk was acknowledged by Russia. The ship received serious damage and landed on the ground near the quay wall. Another BDC was also damaged in the explosion, the fire on it was extinguished after it left the harbor.
Ukrainian forces repelled renewed Russian attempts to advance toward Brovary from the northeast and complete the encirclement of Chernihiv. In Chernihiv, where an airstrike this week destroyed a crucial bridge, a city official, Olexander Lomako, said a “humanitarian catastrophe” is unfolding, as Russian forces target food storage places. He said about 130,000 people are left in the besieged city, about half its prewar population.
Russian precision-guided missiles are failing up to 60 percent of the time in Ukraine, three US officials with knowledge of intelligence on the issue told Reuters.
Ukrainian troops are recapturing towns east of Kyiv and Russian forces who had been trying to seize the capital are falling back on overextended supply lines, Britain said, one of the strongest indications yet of a shift in momentum in the war. The mayor of a suburb east of Kyiv said Ukrainian troops had recaptured a nearby village and thousands of civilians were now leaving the area, answering a call from the authorities to get out of the way of the counter-attack.
Russian forces continue to shell Kharkiv and struck a humanitarian aid delivery point, killing six and wounding 15.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, that Russian troops have committed war crimes in Ukraine, and the USA will work to prosecute the offenders. He cited evidence of indiscriminate or deliberate attacks against civilians and the destruction of apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, shopping centers, and other sites.
Ukraine accuses Moscow of forcibly removing hundreds of thousands of civilians from shattered Ukrainian cities to Russia to pressure Kyiv to give up. Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s ombudsperson, said that 402,000 people, including 84,000 children, had been taken against their will to Russia, where some may be used as “hostages” to pressure Kyiv to surrender.
Wester media bemoans the enormous trauma being suffered by Ukraine’s zoo animals (they shouldn’t be in a zoo anyway, but live undisturbed in a big enough sanctuary).
Dissident universes, black holes, dark matter
Dissident media, censored but still accessible via cumbersome processes, maintain that Russia tries to avoid civilian casualties, is systematically pursuing its operation plans, and has destroyed crucial military installations and hardware.
For the dissident mind it is clear that this is not only a war in Ukraine, but an attempt by USA and NATO to weaken Russia first, then China, and reinstall “full-spectrum dominance” (hegemony).
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres’ statement, that “Ukraine cannot be conquered city by city, street by street, house by house," is correct. But this was never the aim of the Russian military.
Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian general and military theorist taught, that one needs to destroy the enemy army first before approaching the cities and he warned against urban warfare. The Russian conduct shows clearly, that the destruction of Ukraine’s army is the main goal and that cities are only surrounded to tie up Ukrainian forces.
Ukraine’s air and air defense forces have been almost completely destroyed, and the country’s navy has effectively ceased to exist, Russian General Sergei Rudskoy said.
The campaign to demilitarize Ukraine is taking place via precision strikes against military infrastructure facilities, areas of deployment of formations of troops, as well as airfields, command posts, arsenals and depots containing weapons and equipment, plus battles between Ukrainian and Russian forces.
Ukraine’s armed forces have suffered losses of 14,000 killed and 16,000 injured. The Russian military has prevented the replenishment of forces in Donbass, taking control of railway junctions and key roads. The supply of missiles, ammunition, fuel, and food has been almost completely stopped.
113 tanks and other armored vehicles, as well as 138 trophy Javelin and 67 NLAW anti-tank missile systems which Russia captured have been transferred to the Donetsk and Lugansk militias.
A salvo of cruise missiles launched from ships destroyed a massive Ukrainian fuel base used to supply the Kyiv region’s defenses.
Russian ground forces appear to be digging in and setting up defensive positions 15 to 20 kilometers (9 to 12 miles) outside Kyiv.
Russian troops appear to prioritize the fight in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of the Donbas, in what could be an effort to cut off Ukrainian troops and prevent them from moving west to defend other cities.
Russia acknowledges, that 400,000 Ukrainian civilians were relocated, but said they were from predominantly Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine and wanted to go to Russia.
Reports of Nazi atrocities: https://t.me/boris_rozhin/34690
Rough translation: In Mariupol, two Nazis killed the parents of two kids and tried to pass through the checkpoint with the kids silently crying in the back of the car. The children were spotted in their distress, taken away and asked about their parents at which point they revealed the fact that the persons traveling with them were not their parents. Antifascists took care of the bandits.
Surviving citizens of Mariupol shared with a Russian journalist stories of civilians been thrown out to the ground of thirteen floor high apartments so that Azov fighters could set up firing positions.
Cracks in the narrative
Newsweek writes:
As destructive as the Ukraine war is, Russia is causing less damage and killing fewer civilians than it could, US intelligence experts say.
Russia's conduct in the brutal war tells a different story than the widely accepted view that Vladimir Putin is intent on demolishing Ukraine and inflicting maximum civilian damage — and it reveals the Russian leader's strategic balancing act. If Russia were more intentionally destructive, the clamoring for US and NATO intervention would be louder. And if Russia were all-in, Putin might find himself with no way out. Instead, his goal is to take enough territory on the ground to have something to negotiate with, while putting the government of Ukraine in a position where they have to negotiate.
A retired Air Force officer is quoted: "If we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately, or [that] it is failing to inflict more harm because its personnel are not up to the task or because it is technically inept, then we are not seeing the real conflict."
"I know it's hard ... to swallow that the carnage and destruction could be much worse than it is," says the DIA analyst. "But that's what the facts show. This suggests to me, at least, that Putin is not intentionally attacking civilians, that perhaps he is mindful that he needs to limit damage in order to leave an out for negotiations.
A second article directly undermines Biden’s dramatic warning about a false flag chemical attack. Reuters reports:
“The United States has not yet seen any concrete indications of an imminent Russian chemical or biological weapons attack in Ukraine but is closely monitoring streams of intelligence for them, a senior U.S. defense official said.”
It quotes the Pentagon official as saying, “There’s no indication that there’s something imminent in that regard right now.” Neither The New York Times nor The Washington Post published the Reuters article, which appeared only in the not widely read US News and World Report.
Thought and info splinters
Every participant in this war, including Russia, Ukraine, the USA, and all NATO allies, have in common that their nations have all experienced a massive loss of life from the COVID-19 pandemic. If one contrasts the resources which exist for the military to what has been done to stop the spread of COVID-19, the USA leads the way for sheer indifference to its population.
The trauma of war shapes the mood of a nation for generations. The largest WWII casualties were in China and the Soviet Union, 26 million in the Soviet Union, while China estimates its losses at approximately 20 million deaths.
David C. Gompert, a former acting director of national intelligence under the Obama administration, wrote in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that the US “has more survivable, accurate and reliable offensive nuclear forces that could further decimate Russia’s strategic deterrent on the ground. Whatever Russian missiles survive such disarming strikes would be picked off by US missile defense systems.”
A nuclear decapitation strike is still in the minds of US strategists, and missiles in Ukraine who could reach Moscow or Saint Petersburg in five minutes would be a dream come true for the decapitators.
A few links, some of them maybe outdated
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2022/03/25/media-watch-when-parallel-lines-converge-stand-clear/
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/03/neo-nazis-in-ukraine-fake-incidents-to-gain-more-western-support.html#more
https://news.antiwar.com/2022/03/16/report-secret-cia-training-program-in-eastern-ukraine-helped-prepare-for-russian-invasion/
https://counterinformation.wordpress.com/2022/03/18/was-the-azov-battalion-behind-the-mariupol-theater-bombing-or-was-it-russia
https://www.rt.com/russia/552266-mariupol-theater-civilians-survived/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/03/18/russias-us-biowarfare-claims-in-ukraine-need-serious-answers/
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/03/22/u-s-lied-about-funding-dangerous-pathogen-research-in-secret-ukrainian-biolabs-newly-leaked-documents-reveal/
https://counterinformation.wordpress.com/2022/03/18/who-is-volodymyr-zelensky
https://www.newsweek.com/us-treasury-will-pay-tipsters-who-help-lead-seizure-russian-assets-1688796
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-03-18/south-europe-fears-livestock-culls-as-ukraine-conflict-prompts-feed-shortage
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/high-energy-costs-trigger-unrest-parts-europe-83528123
https://www.rt.com/russia/552233-ukraines-president-nobel-peace-prize/
https://counter-hegemonic-studies.site/ned-ukraine-1/
Washington deletes all details of US/NED funded bodies in Ukraine.
https://www.anti-spiegel.ru/
An alternative view in German. Google translation works fairly well.
https://www.rt.com/news/552295-ukraine-canada-military-aid/
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/LIVE-Russia-Destroys-Arms-Depot-in-Western-Ukraine-20220319-0006.html
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/03/what-will-be-the-geographic-end-state-of-the-war-in-ukraine.html#more
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/03/18/who-are-the-foreign-fighters-traveling-to-ukraine-what-we-know-and-what-we-dont/
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/18/bombing-mariupol-theater-ukrainian-azov-nato-intervention/
https://www.mintpressnews.com/israel-links-to-ukraine-neo-nazi-movement/279936/
https://www.leftvoice.org/italian-airport-workers-stop-arms-shipment-to-ukraine-under-guise-of-humanitarian-aid/
https://johnplatinumgoss.com/2022/03/20/the-mariupol-theatre-bombing-what-really-happened/
http://eu.eot.su/2022/03/19/mariupol-resident-nazis-blew-up-the-drama-theater-with-those-who-wanted-to-evacuate/
https://rumble.com/vxz90v-breaking-ukraine-orders-to-castrate-all-russian-pows-because-they-are-cockr.html
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/03/ukraine-updates-and-scott-ritter-on-russia-military-strategy-and-progress.html
https://www.rt.com/russia/552408-kiev-mall-bombing-military/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/03/22/russ-m22.html
Opposition to war, fault-lines in Russian society. A very astute overview.
https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/larry-c-johnson-the-ukrainian-army-has-been-defeated-whats-left-is-mop-up/
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2022/03/22/what-the-chattering-classes-of-russia-are-talking-about-update/
https://www.donbass-insider.com/2022/03/22/mariupol-civilians-denounce-the-crimes-of-the-fighters-of-the-neo-nazi-azov-regiment/
https://www.mintpressnews.com/ukraine-propaganda-war-international-pr-firms-dc-lobbyists-cia-cutouts/280012/
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/03/23/covertaction-bulletin-podcast-u-s-hypocrisy-cia-trains-insurgents-in-ukraine/
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/03/21/opposition-political-parties-banned-in-ukraine-and-unified-information-policy-imposed/
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/03/24/russias-invasion-of-ukraine-signifies-the-end-of-an-era-of-unipolar-american-power/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqM4psW9M-E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=NFngc_8RiVc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmGEVIAZZqc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMefnsUCQ1Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4slqlALvx-M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OAGgLCp7t4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6UzUMrEEXM&list=LL
Media and propaganda news
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2022/03/15/parallel-worlds-or-parabolic-mirror-images-media-coverage-of-the-russia-ukraine-war/
https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2022/03/18/a-uk-crackdown-on-academic-freedom/
I commented this post: Thank you for still not giving in and not retreating into inner emigration in the face of a gargantuan media machine that is surpassing everything what Orwell predicted.
https://www.rt.com/news/552494-scotland-professor-ukraine-theater/
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/03/john-helmer-zelensky-himself-is-now-in-polish-hands-march-15-summit-with-polish-czech-and-slovenian-prime-ministers-in-przemysl-poland-not-kiev.html
https://fair.org/home/how-much-less-newsworthy-are-civilians-in-other-conflicts/
Important!
https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2022/03/20/hiatus/
https://www.globalresearch.ca/end-free-speech-online/5774673
https://www.mintpressnews.com/ukraine-propaganda-war-international-pr-firms-dc-lobbyists-cia-cutouts/280012/
https://dezayasalfred.wordpress.com/2022/03/25/counterpunch-when-the-good-guys-censor/
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/23/pentagon-drops-truth-bombs-to-stave-off-war-with-russia/
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