Instead of listening to their gossip, let’s lay out the facts.
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What if Putin is Telling the Truth?
What if Putin is Telling the Truth?
On April 26 Russia’s main national TV station, Rossiya 1, featured President Vladimir Putin in a documentary to the Russian people on the events of the recent period including the annexation of Crimea, the US coup d’etat in Ukraine, and the general state of relations with the United States and the EU. His words were frank. And in the middle of his remarks the Russian former KGB chief dropped a political bombshell that was known by Russian intelligence two decades ago.
Putin stated bluntly that in his view the West would only be content in having a Russia weak, suffering and begging from the West, something clearly the Russian character is not disposed to. Then a short way into his remarks, the Russian President stated for the first time publicly something that Russian intelligence has known for almost two decades but kept silent until now, most probably in hopes of an era of better normalized Russia-US relations.
Putin stated that the terror in Chechnya and in the Russian Caucasus in the early 1990’s was actively backed by the CIA and western Intelligence services to deliberately weaken Russia. He noted that the Russian FSB foreign intelligence had documentation of the US covert role without giving details.
What Putin, an intelligence professional of the highest order, only hinted at in his remarks, I have documented in detail from non-Russian sources. The report has enormous implications to reveal to the world the long-standing hidden agenda of influential circles in Washington to destroy Russia as a functioning sovereign state, an agenda which includes the neo-nazi coup d’etat in Ukraine and severe financial sanction warfare against Moscow. The following is drawn on my book, “The Lost Hegemon” to be published soon…
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Putin Pans Ukraine’s Debt Moratorium As “De Facto Default”, Threatens Court
Putin Pans Ukraine’s Debt Moratorium As “De Facto Default”, Threatens Court
In exactly a month, Ukraine will owe Russia a $75 million debt coupon payment. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters in Moscow today that “if they miss the payment, we will use our right to go to court.” Then it got serious, as Vladimir Putin instructed Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to assume control of Ukraine’s repayment of its $3-billion debt in Eurobonds that Russia bought in 2013, slamming Ukraine’s bill allowing them to impose a moratorium on foreign debt repayments as a de facto announcement of default. As one market participant warned, “I would wait until after June 20 to go forward with” any moratorium, as “if Russia takes Ukraine to court, that might be an incentive for other creditors to go down the same route.”
As we previously noted, on Tuesday, Ukraine’s parliament adopted a bill allowing Ukraine to freeze repayments of its foreign debt. As RT notes,
Experts agree that Tuesday vote meant a technical default for the country and would impede Ukraine’s ability to raise private investment from the EU and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB), a European source told TASS on Wednesday.“Suspension of debt payments not coordinated with creditors results in a technical default, and in the case of Ukraine, it threatens to undermine Kiev’s ability to attract private investment through EU programs,“ the source said.As part of the underpinning of Kiev’s bailout plan, the International Monetary Fund said in March that Russia would not receive the $3 billion bond repayment from Ukraine this year.
IMF is looking for cooperation from creditors to accept a restructuring on Kiev’s debt. That includes Russia.
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No, you can’t go back to the USSR!
No, you can’t go back to the USSR!
One of the fake stories kept alive by certain American politicians, with the help of western media, is that Vladimir Putin (who, they vacuously claim, is a dictator and a tyrant) wants to reconstitute the USSR, with the annexation of Crimea as the first step.
The USSR was officially dissolved on December 26, 1991 by declaration №142-H of the Supreme Soviet. It acknowledged the independence of the 15 Soviet republics, and in the place of the USSR created a Commonwealth of Independent States, which hasn’t amounted to much.
In the west, there was much rejoicing, and everyone assumed that in the east everyone was rejoicing as well. Well, that’s a funny thing, actually, because a union-wide referendum held on March 17, 1991, produced a stunning result: with over 80% turnout, of the 185,647,355 people who voted 113,512,812 voted to preserve the USSR. That’s 77.85%—not exactly a slim majority. Their wishes were disregarded.
Was this public sentiment temporary, borne of fear in the face of uncertainty? And if it were to persist, it would surely be a purely Russian thing, because the populations of all these other Independent States, having tasted freedom, would never consider rejoining Russia. Well, that’s another funny thing: in September of 2011, fully two decades after the referendum, Ukrainian sociologists found out that 30% of the people there wished for a return to a Soviet-style planned economy (stunningly, 17% of these were young people with no experience of life in the USSR) and only 22% wished for some sort of European-style democracy. The wish for a return to Soviet-style central planning is telling: it shows just how miserable a failure the Ukraine’s experiment with instituting a western-style market economy had become. But, again, their wishes were disregarded.
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Is Washington Coming To Its Senses?
Is Washington Coming To Its Senses?
There is much speculation about US Secretary of State John Kerry’s rush visit to Russia in the wake of Russia’s successful Victory Day celebration on May 9. On May 11, Kerry, who was snubbing Russia on the 9th, was on his way to Russia, and Putin consented to see him on May 12.
As time passes we will find out why Kerry was snubbing Putin on May 9 and 3 days later was criticizing Washington’s puppet regime in Ukraine. For what is known at this time, a possible explanation is that Washington is coming to its senses.
If you watched the 1 hour 20 minute video of the Victory Day Parade, you are aware that the celebration sent a powerful message. Russia is a first class military power, and Russia is backed by China and India, whose soldiers marched with Russia’s in the parade.
So, while the increasingly irrelevant West, absorbed in its own self-importance, snubbed
the celebration of the victory that the Red Army gave them over Hitler, the three largest countries in the world were present united. Russia has the largest land mass, and China and India, also large land masses, have the world’s largest populations.
The celebration in Moscow made it clear that Washington has failed miserably to isolate Russia. What Washington has done is to make the BRICS more unified.
With the President of China sitting at the right hand of Putin, the celebration also made it completely clear even to the morons in the Obama regime that Washington is no longer the Uni-power.
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Political Murders in Kiev, US Troops to Ukraine
Political Murders in Kiev, US Troops to Ukraine
Last week two prominent Ukrainian opposition figures were gunned down in broad daylight. They join as many as ten others who have been killed or committed suicide under suspicious circumstances just this year. These individuals have one important thing in common: they were either part of or friendly with the Yanukovych government, which a US-backed coup overthrew last year. They include members of the Ukrainian parliament and former chief editors of major opposition newspapers.
While some journalists here in the US have started to notice the strange series of opposition killings in Ukraine, the US government has yet to say a word.
Compare this to the US reaction when a single opposition figure was killed in Russia earlier this year. Boris Nemtsov was a member of a minor political party that was not even represented in the Russian parliament. Nevertheless the US government immediately demanded that Russia conduct a thorough investigation of his murder, suggesting the killers had a political motive.
As news of the Russian killing broke, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce (R-CA) did not wait for evidence to blame the killing on Russian president Vladimir Putin. On the very day of Nemtsov’s murder, Royce told the US media that, “this shocking murder is the latest assault on those who dare to oppose the Putin regime.”
Neither Royce, nor Secretary of State John Kerry, nor President Obama, nor any US government figure has said a word about the series of apparently political murders in Ukraine.
On the contrary, instead of questioning the state of democracy in what looks like a lawless Ukraine, the Administration is sending in the US military to help train Ukrainian troops!
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The Greek “White Knight” Emerges: Putin To Give Athens €5 Billion For Advance Gas Pipeline Fees
The Greek “White Knight” Emerges: Putin To Give Athens €5 Billion For Advance Gas Pipeline Fees
With Greece teetering on the edge of insolvency and forced to raid pension and most other public funds, ahead of another month of heavy IMF repayments which has prompted even the ECB to speculate Greece should introduce a parallel “IOU” currency, a white knight has appeared out of nowhere for Greece, one who may offer $5 billion in urgently needed cash. The white knight is none other than Vladimir Putin. “Just because Greece is debt-ridden, this does not mean it is bound hand
and foot, and has no independent foreign policy,” Putin said previously.
According to Spiegel, citing a senior figure in the ruling Syriza party, Greece is poised to sign a gas deal with Russia as early as Tuesday which could bring up to €5 billion into the depleted Greek coffers.
The move could now “turn the tide” for the debt-stricken country according to a senior Greek official.
As Reuters adds, during a visit to Moscow earlier this month, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras expressed interest in participating in a pipeline that would bring Russian gas to Europe via Turkey and Greece.
Under the proposed deal, Greece would receive advance funds from Russia based on expected future profits linked to the pipeline. The Greek energy minister said last week that Athens would repay Moscow after 2019, when the pipeline is expected to start operating.Greek government officials were not immediately available to comment on the Spiegel report.
Of course, this being Greece, the probability of actual repayment is negligible: after all the likelihood of a Greek default is astronomical, and €5 billion will do little to change the mechanics of Greek debt sustainability. And Putin very well knows this.
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Kiev, Moscow, Bonds and Haircuts
Kiev, Moscow, Bonds and Haircuts
When money managers talk outside their narrow field, nonsense is guaranteed to ensue. No better example than this Bloomberg piece on Ukraine’s ‘debt restructuring’ plans, which are as much a political tool as they are anything else at all. Ukraine’s American Finance Minister has announced a broad restructuring plan with a wide range of severe haircuts for creditors, and she – well, obviously – wishes to include Russia in the group of creditors who are about to get their heads shaved.
And despite all obvious angles to the issue that are not purely economical, Bloomberg presents a whole array of finance professionals who are free to spout their entirely irrelevant opinions on the topic. If you didn’t know any better, you’d be inclined to think that perhaps Russia is indeed just another creditor to Kiev.
Putin Plays Wildcard as Ukraine Bond Restructuring Talks Begin
As Ukraine begins bond-restructuring talks, it finds itself face-to-face with a familiar foe: Russia. President Vladimir Putin bought $3 billion of Ukrainian bonds in late 2013. The cash was meant to support an ally, then-President Yanukovych.
That is, for starters, a far too narrow way of putting it. Russia simply wanted to make sure Ukraine would remain a stable nation, both politically and economically, because A) it didn’t want a failed state on its borders and B) it wanted to ensure a smooth transfer of its gas sales to Europe through the Ukraine pipeline systems. Whether that would be achieved through Yanukovych or someone else was a secondary issue. Putin was never a big fan of the former president, but at least he kept the gas flowing.
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Putin Security Council Slams Obama Attempts At “New World Order”
Putin Security Council Slams Obama Attempts At “New World Order”
Moscow — which may or may not have to nuke Denmark — says the US has adopted a national security strategy that is decidedly anti-Russian. Although attempts to prove how “isolated” Putin truly is on the geopolitical stage haven’t fared very well of late (what with Russian bombers refueling at former U.S. air bases and Putin plotting Eurasian currency unions) and although Washington’s experience with China’s AIIB membership drive seems to indicate it may be the US that is in fact isolated, The Kremlin doesn’t think The White House is likely to give up on its attempts to ostracize Russia any time soon.
From a Russian Security Council statement entitled “About The US National Security Strategy“:
In the long term, the United States, in cooperation with its allies will continue the policy of political and economic isolation of Russia, including limiting its ability to export energy and the displacement of all markets for military products, while making it difficult for the production of high-tech products in Russia.
Putin’s security council then proceeds to deliver a remarkably accurate description of Washington’s foreign policy aims including the desire to show off NATO military capabilities (on full display along the Russian border currently), installing puppet governments and propping them up with financial and military support (which is precisely what’s going on now in Ukraine as the US is set to provide military assistance and also financial assistance via a Ukrainian bond issue back by the full faith and credit of the US government), and preserving US hegemony by taking unilateral action across the globe at Washington’s behest (something the US does all the time):
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Obama’s Double-Standard on Russia
Obama’s Double-Standard on Russia
He Attacks Russia, then Condemn’s Putin for Defending Russia from His Attack
Ukraine is considered by geostrategists (both Republican and Democratic) to be militarily the most important adjoining nation to Russia, serving as the chief buffer to attacks against Russia from the west. Since 1783, Russia has had its key Black Sea naval base located in Crimea, which used to be part of Russia 1783-1954; the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev blithely donated Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in 1954, though the residents in Crimea didn’t want that — and no referendum was taken on it. After the Soviet Union broke up in 1992, this naval base continued but instead on a long-term lease from Ukraine.
For Ukraine to become anti-Russian would be like for Mexico to become anti-American: even worse than when Cuba became anti-American in 1959. Mexico, of course, isn’t anti-American, but, during Barack Obama’s second term, Ukraine did, indeed, become anti-Russian. It happened not via any democratic revolution (such as American propaganda pretended), but via a bloody coup. Here is how it transpired:
After Mr. Obama (who had been raised surrounded by CIA operatives) finally became elected to a second term, he switched his key official controlling Ukrainian policy from the benign internationalist Philip Gordon, who considered America’s chief enemy to be global jihadism, to the hard-right America-supremacist Victoria Nuland, who considers America’s chief enemy to be instead the nation of Russia.
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How Putin can win global economic war against Russia
How Putin can win global economic war against Russia
What are the objectives of the global economic war against Russia? Will the West disconnect Russia from SWIFT? Will Europe and the USA impose more sanctions on Russia? What’s happening to the oil prices? Will Syrian President Bashar Assad surrender? Pravda.Ru asked these and other questions in an interview with Ron Holland, author of many best-selling books
It has been a year since the US economic war against Russia began by the West. Which objectives have been set and have they been achieved?
I would suggest the objectives have been three fold but in fact I would date the sanctions war from Friday August 30, 2013. This was when President Putin offered a peaceful alternative at the last moment to stop the US military operation against Bashar al-Assad and Syria that was within hours of starting. Surprisingly the US called off the attack and this set in motion a series of events contrary to the goals of the US administration. I believe both Russia and China covertly played the Treasury debt card in order to protect their client states, Syria and Iran, from the impending US invasion.
I wrote in my September editorial at that time; Did Putin Quietly Play the Debt Card Over Syria that both Russia and China might have covertly played the Treasury debt card in order to protect their allies, Syria and Iran, from an impending US invasion.
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It’s Time for Angela Merkel to Stand Up
It’s Time for Angela Merkel to Stand Up
I need to start of off the bat with an update to this piece, which I started writing yesterday, since I now know that Angela Merkel actually did invite Alexis Tsipras on Monday. It only took her two months…. But that doesn’t take away anything from my point that Merkel has been sorely lacking and missing, it just goes to prove that point.
And if she doesn’t get her act together very quickly (why not ask Tsipras to be in Berlin tomorrow morning?!), this will, I’ve said it before, go down as her main legacy. She will be known as the person who let Europe slip into war, for no good reason whatsoever. Here’s what I started off with last night (Oz time):
The increasing ugliness of the ‘negotiations’ between the Greek Syriza government and the rest of the eurozone, which is ruled by the German government, needs to be halted and put in reverse. There is an urgent need for a detente, for cooler heads and for trust. And there is only one person who can act to create these things: Angela Merkel. But Merkel is nowhere to be found or seen.
The increasing ugliness of the propaganda war the west is waging against Russia and its president Vladimir Putin, also needs to be halted. There is an even more urgent need there for a detente, for cooler heads and for trust. There is only one person who can act to create these things: Angela Merkel. But Merkel is AWOL.
There are German voices in the Putin case that call for reason and quiet, and that have labeled people like NATO head Stoltenberg, NATO General Breedlove and US State Department ‘Assistant’ Victoria Nuland more or less insane. But Merkel’s voice is not among them, nowhere to be heard.
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Putin Warns “We Were Ready” To Use Nukes To Secure Crimea
Putin Warns “We Were Ready” To Use Nukes To Secure Crimea
Having re-emerged from his hibernation, Vladimir Putin is wasting no time getting back to business. Having paced 40,000 troops on “snap-readiness,” AP reports that a documentary which aired last night shows Putin explaining that Russia was ready to bring its nuclear weapons into a state of alert during last year’s tensions over the Crimean Peninsula and the overthrow of Ukraine’s president, and admitted well-armed forces in unmarked uniforms who took control of Ukrainian military facilities in Crimea were Russian soldiers. In the documentary, which marks a year since the referendum, Putin says of the nuclear preparedness, “We were ready to do this … (Crimea) is our historical territory. Russian people live there. They were in danger. We cannot abandon them.”
Russia was ready to bring its nuclear weapons into a state of alert during last year’s tensions over the Crimean Peninsula and the overthrow of Ukraine’s president, President Vladimir Putin said in remarks aired on Sunday.Putin also expanded on a previous admission that the well-armed forces in unmarked uniforms who took control of Ukrainian military facilities in Crimea were Russian soldiers.
Putin’s comments, in a documentary being shown on state TV,highlight the extent to which alarm spread in Russia in the weeks following Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster in February 2014 after months of street protests that turned increasingly violent.
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The REAL Reasons We’re At War With Russia
The REAL Reasons We’re At War With Russia
The Empire Doesn’t Like to Be Questioned
We’re at war with Russia.
Specifically, we’ve launched:
- A sanctions war
- A currency war
- A hot war in Ukraine
Indeed, it appears that U.S. leaders have targeted Putin for regime change.
Why?
Syria
Initially, the U.S. targeted Syria for regime change – for the second time – many decades ago.
Putin derailed the imminent American war against Syria by brokering a deal wherein Syria destroyed all of its chemical weapons. The U.S. was very unhappy with the deal … and tried to backtrack.
George Friedman – CEO and founder and CEO of Stratfor, the “private CIA” – said in December that the United States is behind the coup in Kiev … which he called the “most blatant coup in history”. Friedman said that the coup came in response to Russia’s peacemaking in Syria:
[Friedman:] Russia had begun to take certain steps that the United States considered unacceptable. Primarily in Syria. It was there that Russians demonstrated to the Americans that they are capable of influencing processes in the Middle East. And the US has enough problems in that part of the world already without the Russians.
Russians intervened in the process in the Middle East among other reasons because they had hoped to get leverage to influence US policy in other areas. But they miscalculated. The United States thought that it was Russia’s intent to harm them.
***
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Germany Has Had Enough With US Neocons: Berlin “Stunned” At US Desire For War In Ukraine
Germany Has Had Enough With US Neocons: Berlin “Stunned” At US Desire For War In Ukraine
While Russia’s envoy to NATO notes that statements by the deputy head of NATO testify to the fact that the leaders of the bloc want to intervene in Russia’s internal politics, and are “dreaming of Russian Maidan,” Washington has a bigger problem… Germany. As Der Spiegel reports, while US President Obama ‘supports’ Chancellor Merkel’s efforts at finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis, hawks in Washington seem determined to torpedo Berlin’s approach. And NATO’s top commander in Europe hasn’t been helping either with sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove’s comments as “dangerous propaganda.”
This is the view of Russia’s permanent envoy to NATO:
“The speech in Riga demonstrates the concern about Russia’s democracy and internal policy. At last, now we know that NATO has a dream, and this dream is a Maidan in Russia,” Aleksandr Grushko said in comment that was tweeted through the Russian representation office in the alliance.Grushko referred to the words of NATO’s deputy secretary general, Alexander Vershbow, who had told a conference in the Latvian capital Riga that President Vladimir Putin’s “aim seems to be to turn Ukraine into a failed state and to suppress and discredit alternative voices in Russia, so as to prevent a Russian ‘Maidan.'” Both officials used the Ukrainian word ‘Maidan’ to describe a string of protest actions that eventually turned into mass unrest and the ousting of the legally elected president and parliament.
And as Der Spiegel reports, The Germans are not happy.
Breedlove’s Bellicosity: Berlin Alarmed by Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine
US President Obama supports Chancellor Merkel’s efforts at finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. But hawks in Washington seem determined to torpedo Berlin’s approach. And NATO’s top commander in Europe hasn’t been helping either.
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Heroes and Villains
Heroes and Villains
The poet W.B. Yeats was right in 1919 when he said the center cannot hold, as if, following the first great industrial slaughter of modern times, he discovered the lethal vacuum at the center of modernity itself. There was a lot to be nervous about after the First World War. And right away, of course, enter, stage-right, Adolf Hitler. We’re still trying to explain that cat to ourselves, and not just the Germans, either. Who cannot be awed by the appearance of genuine evil in the world?
Although, perhaps most remarkable in our time is not merely the presence of evil, but the eerie dearth of heroes, and by that I do not mean supernatural gym rats in spandex outfits swinging from the Frank Gehry condos on cords of spider silk. I mean living, breathing humans willing to engage with great and implacable forces. American sniper Chris Kyle was one of the rarees, and he was a strange case, really. Not just because of his alleged frailties, his tendency to play up his exploits, brag, maybe lie a little, but because he carried out his lethal deeds mostly at a remove — up there on the dusty rooftops of Fallujah, where he could reach out with his sniper-scope and swat human flies from a position of relative safety. Yet it is not hard to identify with his mission to kill “bad guys” — especially two years after his loopy martyrdom on a Texas gun range at the hands of a deranged fellow soldier driven mad on his own wartime mission.
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