by Dénes Albert via ReMix News

The EU, under the control of the global elite, is systematically crushing agriculture through its policies, but this is happening not only in Europe but also across the wider West.

The European Commission and the member states that slavishly follow it, such as Germany, are taking one measure after another that can have no other result than to make traditional farming and livestock breeding impossible, an act that has been practiced for thousands of years.

EU policies threaten to destroy what has provided us with our daily bread and food and make it impossible for farmers to survive. The adage of “No farmers, no food” is apt. Without them, we will all ultimately starve to death.

Denmark has recently announced that it will introduce cattle, pig, and sheep taxes in 2030. They say (…) these animals cause huge damage, as they emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Behind this is the green ideology, the European Union’s Green Deal, which is based on the idea that global warming is caused by human carbon dioxide emissions, and agriculture is linked to this, since cows, for example, emit a lot of methane into the atmosphere.

The measures that the EU and individual Western countries are putting in place are diverse, but they all point in the same direction. First, forcing farmers not to cultivate certain areas, to clear land, and to stop their activities in order to protect the climate. This is what farmers in the Netherlands were forced to do a few months ago, and the measures put some 3,000 farmers in an impossible situation.

The release of Ukrainian agricultural products onto the European market is a concrete, tangible crime by Brussels, which poses a direct, clear, and present danger to European farmers, especially those in Eastern and Central Europe. It is well known that the standards for Ukrainian agricultural products are far more lax and permissive than those within the EU, and the quality of Ukrainian products (from cereals to foodstuffs) is far inferior to that of European products — but that is why EU farmers simply cannot compete with the prices of Ukrainian products.

It is clear, therefore, that every move by Brussels and the European leaders who serve the globalist elite in Brussels is deliberately destroying European agriculture. Normal leaders would not do this.

Behind it are the left-liberal and globalist aspirations. This is what they believe, and it is now manifested in the fact that global warming is increasing in a devastating way, that the earth’s climate is becoming unbearable, but they believe that this is due to one single cause: human activity, mainly and decisively anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions.

ECJ finds Hungary guilty of not accepting migrants at border – slams Budapest with €1mn fine per day

On top of that, Hungary will need to pay a base fine of €200mn.

PM Orban slams “financial blackmail”.

A European Union court has ordered Hungary to pay a fine of €200 million for refusing to adhere to the bloc’s rules imposing open borders on all its member states.

Okay, look, I get it. But this isn’t “financial blackmail.” When Hungary joined the EU it agreed to follow the rules. You don’t go to a place you’re not allowed to go and after getting fined complain that it’s “financial blackmail.” No, you got fined because you didn’t follow the rules.

Now, if you’re unhappy with the rules, just leave. The EU is a failed project anyway. There’s nothing Europeans like more than killing each other over being from a village 100 miles away. The idea that they’ll forever cooperate and everything will be fine and dandy was always naive. If the EU stayed the way it was meant to be, a coal-trading union, then sure. But this superstate with unelected bureaucrats won’t survive for long.

An interesting quote by the new Russian Minister of Defence Andrey Belousov: ‘By preserving traditional values of the West, which are originally the values of Western Christian European civilization, Russia can become a guardian of these values. This may seem like a paradoxical idea, but it is nonetheless true. Therefore, it is incorrect to say that the West is our enemy.’

Ed. Note: It is pretty clear by now that the globalists are not kidding. They want nothing to do with Trump, they want Netanyahu out (because they want to rally the Arabs to their cause), and they want Biden for a second term and most significantly, they are going for WWIII:  War by NATO against  Russia and war by the collective West against China. Full speed ahead.

Will they succeed?

*****************************************

by Stephen Bryen via https://weapons.substack.com
Dutch Minister of Defense Kasja Ollongren on April 17, 2024, tries out the cockpit of a Dutch F-16s, three of which were delivered to the European F-16 training center in Romania. Training of Ukrainian pilots reportedly is going slowly, suggesting that experienced non-Ukrainian pilots may be needed to fly the sophisticated planes against the Russians in the Ukraine War. Photo: X

NATO is starting to deploy combat troops to Ukraine. Soldiers from Poland, France, the UK, Finland and other NATO members are arriving in larger numbers.

Although Russia says there are over 3,100 mercenaries in Ukraine, these newly arriving troops are not mercenaries. They are in uniform, home country proclaimed via insignia. They mostly are concentrated in the western part of the country, although in some cases they are close to the actual fighting in the east.

NATO is putting out the word these are not combat soldiers but are in Ukraine to operate sophisticated western hardware. But if they are firing at the Russians the only proper way to interpret their presence is that they are playing an active part in the shooting war.

More or less this is the same pattern that the US used when it sent “advisors” to Vietnam. In fact, they were US Special Forces who engaged in combat.

The Biden administration, at least for public consumption, says it opposes sending NATO soldiers to Ukraine. But Biden in truth may be waiting for his reelection before he gives the order for US soldiers to fight in Ukraine. After Biden is reelected, he will have a free hand. The recent passage of the $60 billion air bill for Ukraine signals that Congress will go along with whatever the Biden administration wants to do “fighting the Russians.”

The national security establishment fears a Russian victory in Ukraine. It would constitute a major setback in America’s security strategy and would be a blow, even a fatal one, to NATO.

Reportedly the Russian army is now 15% bigger than it was before the Ukraine war. It is also far more experienced, and the Russians have found ways to deal with US high tech systems, such as jamming and spoofing.

Meanwhile NATO is far behind Russia in weapons, manpower and industrial might. Furthermore, stockpiles of weapons are very low and equipment supposedly for national defense has been sent to Ukraine, leaving defenses wanting.

The consensus opinion in the US National Security establishment is that Ukraine is losing its war with the Russians and could potentially face the collapse of its army.

There already are reports that some brigades in the Ukrainian armed forces refused orders from their commanders. Those include the 25th Airborne Assault Brigade; the 115th Brigade; the 67th Mechanized Brigade (which abandoned positions in Chasiv Yar) and the 47th Mechanized (which demanded rotation after more than a year on the front lines). These are top Army brigades and not territorial defense units.

The Russians know what is going on and they are targeting foreign forces while also grinding down Ukrainian fighting units, inflicting heavy casualties. The Russians say Ukraine has already lost almost 500,000 troops in the war, and the numbers destroyed in combat grow on a daily basis.

Ukraine is desperate to find new recruits, and it is getting some help from countries where Ukrainian draft-age refugees are hiding out. Lithuania is planning to send Ukrainian draft-age men home. So is Poland.

A report on training of Ukrainian F-16 pilots also is revealing. According to some of the western officers working with the Ukrainians, progress even after a year teaching pilots to operate F-16s has been less than a success. Language barriers and unfamiliarity with western systems and combat tactics, has proven to slow the learning process. Rumors have it that when the F-16s finally begin arriving in Ukraine this summer, the planes are likely to be handled by “retired” pilots from European air forces.

NATO’s plan to try and ward off disaster seems to be to fill in gaps in Ukraine’s forces by importing “advisers,” waiting for the US to commit its army to the battle after the election in November. The Russians know this and are in a race to try and collapse Ukraine’s army before Biden returns to office, if in fact he does. If the Russians are successful, a bigger war in Europe will be avoided. If not, with the introduction of US forces, Europe will be plunged into World War III.

Stephen Bryen served as staff director of the Near East Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.

This article was first published on his Weapons and Strategy Substack and is republished with permission.

via Moon of Alabama

Due to a flurry of western support for Ukraine, now escalating to ground troop insertions, Russia had to move its special military operation in Ukraine into the bigger scope of a full fledged war.

Over the last month the Ukrainian military intelligence directorate GUR and its civilian secret service SBU have attempted to disturb the recent presidential election in Russia. They did this by:

1. sending forces, with U.S. made equipment (Bradleys), to attack Russian border villages in the direction of Belgorod (Belgograd),
2. by launching missiles from Czech Vampire (RM-70) multiple launch rocket systems towards Belgorod,
3. by launching somewhat successful drone strike against Russian oil refineries.

The election in Russia saw a record turnout. As expected President Putin did win by a very large margin. His legitimacy is a geopolitical reality:

If Nato expansion is about the perpetuation of US hegemony and de-dollarisation is about the burial of the western financial system that underpins that hegemony, Putin is playing a pivotal role in that historical process. If Putin remains in power till 2030 and fulfils even one half of the ambitious blueprint of social and economic programme for Russia that he outlined in his landmark speech at the Federal Assembly of the parliament, the global strategic balance will have shifted irrevocably and cemented a multipolar world order as the anchor sheet of 21st century politics.

The West knows it, the Russian people know it, the vast majority of nations realise it. That said, it must be understood as well that this is not only Putin’s victory personally but also a consolidation of Russian society around him. And that accounts for the last week’s election turning into such a high-stakes affair.

With the election out of the way Russia was free to hit back.

Moon of Alabama @MoonofA – 13:24 UTC · Mar 20, 2024Ru Ministry of Defense claims 1725 Ukrainian casualties over the last day (650 in Belgograd direction alone)
https://function.mil.ru/news_page/…

Over the last six days the Russian MoD reports claimed no less than nine hits on the Czech Vampire systems which targeted Belgorod.

The Ukrainian incursion towards Belgorod has thus been defeated.

On Wednesday Jake Sullivan, the U.S. National Security Advisor, had visited Kiev. He was noticed for what he did not say:

Jake Sullivan, US National Security Adviser, has said that Ukraine will win if it comes out of the war as a sovereign, democratic and free country. At the same time, he did not mention restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrityamong the conditions of victory.

It is believed that Sullivan delivered a warning to Kiev. As the Financial Timesreported (archived):

The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warning the drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation, according to three people familiar with the discussions.The repeated warnings from Washington were delivered to senior officials at Ukraine’s state security service, the SBU, and its military intelligence directorate, known as the GUR, the people told the Financial Times.

Both intelligence units have steadily expanded their own drone programmes to strike Russian targets on land, sea and in the air since the start of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The U.S. concern is not about Ukraine but about Biden’s chance for reelection:

Russia remains one of the world’s most important energy exporters despite western sanctions on its oil and gas sector. Oil prices have risen about 15 per cent this year, to $85 a barrel, pushing up fuel costs just as US President Joe Biden begins his campaign for re-election.
…
The US objections come as Biden faces a tough re-election battle this year with petrol prices on the rise, increasing almost 15 per cent this year to around $3.50 a gallon.“Nothing terrifies a sitting American president more than a surge in pump prices during an election year,” said Bob McNally, president of consultancy Rapidan Energy and a former White House energy adviser.

The Ukrainian government denied and confirmed the FT report (machine translation):

Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanashina actually confirmed the information to the Financial Times , saying that “we understand the calls of American partners,” but Ukraine responded to such calls by “achieving its goals” and “very successful operations” on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Sullivan’s warning about provoking retaliation was too late.

Yesterday, for the first time in 44 day, Russia launched a missile attack against Kiev (archived):

The Ukrainian Air Force said that air defense systems had intercepted all 31 of the Russian missiles that targeted Kyiv. Still, debris from the downed missiles fell in various parts of the city, causing the injuries and damage. No deaths have been reported so far.
…
In the Podilskyi district, which is home to industrial facilities that Russia has targeted in the past, a plume of black smoke was rising early in the morning, suggesting a hit. Mr. Klitschko said a fire had broken out at a power substation in the area. Ukrainian officials rarely confirm strikes on strategic industrial and military targets.
…
Thursday’s attack on Kyiv echoed a strategy used by Russia during air assaults in late December that consisted of overwhelming Ukraine’s air defenses with multiple launches of various types of missiles, including ballistic and hypersonic ones.Russia has launched relatively few large-scale missile attacks in recent months, despite a capacity to produce more than 115 long-range missiles per month, according to Ukrainian officials.

Yesterday’s Russian MoD report said:

Last night, the Russian Aerospace Forces delivered a strike by long-range precision weaponry including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles at AFU decision-making centres, logistic bases, temporary deployment areas of special operations forces and foreign mercenaries.The goal of the strike has been achieved. All the targets have been engaged.

Such Russian strikes are complex. Drones are send first to reveal Ukrainian air defense systems. Then follows a wave of attacks against those system. A third strike is then launched against the real targets of the attack. In this case those were a drone factory in Kiev as well as a headquarter of the military intelligence service GUR.

Another large scale strike followed today. The primary targets were elements of the electricity infrastructure:

Large areas of Ukraine are suffering blackouts after Russian missiles targeted energy infrastructure.There is no electricity in the second-largest city of Kharkiv, says regional head Oleg Synehubov.

Fifteen blasts were reported in Kharkiv, while more than 53,000 households in Odesa were without power.

Ukraine’s energy minister, German Galushchenko, accused Russia of trying to provoke “a large-scale failure of the country’s energy system”.

A power line feeding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant had been cut, he added.

Regional head Ivan Fedorov said the power station was “on the verge of a blackout”, adding that seven buildings in the region had been destroyed and 35 others damaged.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched more than 60 Shahed drones and about 90 missiles into Ukraine during the wave of overnight attacks.

Internet access in Ukraine has dropped significantly.

This was again a complex attack:

Lord Bebo @MyLordBebo – 9:42 UTC · Mar 22, 2024Russian missile attack on Ukraine during March 22nd, 2024.

-> Notice the flight patterns of the missiles.

Aviation:
At 01:12, the takeoff of 3⨯ Tu-95ms from the Olenya air base was noted.
At 02:30, information on the movement of 13 Tu-95ms to the launch lines was clarified.
At 03:34, the launch of the KRPB Kh-101/555/55 was carried out from the Volgograd region.
At 04:18, the takeoff of 5 Tu-22m3s from the Mozdok air base was noted.
During the attack, a total of 10 MiG-31Ks were raised (7 were used before the attack).

Armament:
55/63x “Shahed-136/131” Type Shock Unmanned Aerial Vehicles;
0/12x OTR “Iskander-M”;
35/40 X-101/X-555 cruise missiles;
0/5x NKR Kh-22;
0/7x ARPB Kh-47M2 “Dagger”;
2/2x CAR X-59;
0/22x ZKR S-300/S-400.

The targeted air attack vector during today’s day is marked on the map.

bigger

The Ukrainian air defense claimed to have shut down 55 of 63 Shahid drones. But the Iskander, Dagger and S-300 fired against it all came through.

The Russian MoD reports (machine translation):

Today, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation delivered a massive strike with high-precision long-range weapons of air, sea, land-based and unmanned aerial vehicles against energy facilities, military-industrial complex, railway junctions, arsenals, places of deployment of formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and foreign mercenaries.As a result of the strike, the functioning of industrial enterprises for the production and repair of weapons, military equipment and ammunition was disorganized.

In addition, foreign military equipment and weapons delivered to Ukraine from NATO countries were destroyed, transfers to the front line of enemy reserves were disrupted, and units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and mercenaries in the areas of restoring combat capability were hit.

All the goals of the massive strike have been achieved.

Some European politicians are eager to join the fight.

bigger

As demonstrated today, Russia is ready for it. But unlike a still training Macron Russia has taken its gloves off (machine translation):

Peskov: Russia is in a state of war, everyone should understand thisRussia will continue to act in such a way that the military potential of Ukraine could not threaten the security of its citizens and its territory, he said in a conversation with reporters.

“What is the president talking about? We have four new regions of the Russian Federation. And the main thing for us is to protect people in these regions and liberate the territory of these regions, which is currently de facto occupied by the Kiev regime,” Peskov said.

According to the presidential press secretary, Russia cannot allow the existence of a state on its borders that has documented the intention to use any methods to take Crimea from it, not to mention the territory of new regions.

“We are at war. Yes, it started out as a special military operation, but as soon as this little group was formed there, when the collective West became a participant in this on the side of Ukraine, it already became a war for us. I am convinced of this. And everyone should understand this for their internal mobilization,” Peskov added.

In parallel to Peskov’s declaration of war talk, Russias announced the mass production of the three ton heavy FAB-3.000 aerial bombs with 1,400 kg of explosives. These will be fitted, like the currently used FAB 500 and FAB 1.500, with the universal planning and correction module (UMPC) which allows the bombs to glide some 40 miles after being launched to then hit its planned target with high precision. There is little that can survive such a strike.

In his (highly recommendable) book “The Russian Art of War”, the former Swiss military intelligence officer Jacques Baud described the reason why the current fighting in Ukraine started out as a “Special Military Operation” within a larger context:

The use of the word “war” would imply a different structure of conduct than that envisioned by the Russians in Ukraine, and would have other structural implications in Russia itself. Moreover – and this is a central point – as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg himself acknowledges,”the war began in 2014” and should have been ended by the Minsk Agreements. The SMO is therefore a “military operation” and not a new “war”, as many Western “experts” claim.

That was then. Now Russia is at war.

This will have, as Baud says, a different structure of conduct and other structural implications in Russia and beyond.

Those ‘western’ politicians who are dreaming of fighting Russia have no idea of what will hit their troops the moment they try to join the war.

NATO however, and especially the United States, will not go to war. At least not yet.

President Biden has his hands full with the genocidal war the Zionists are waging against the Palestinian population. There is also a chance for a war to suddenly start in Asia. (Could North Korea be asked to flex its muscles?)

Neither the U.S. nor Europe are in the shape of winning a multi-front war of global dimensions. The military leaders in the relevant countries know this well.

In consequence ‘Western’ politicians will have to bite the bitter pill of a decisive strategic defeat.

via Voltairnet

When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, states were created according to the regional divisions of the USSR. However, Transnistria, which was annexed to Moldova by the Soviet administration after World War II, declared independence five days after the dissolution of the USSR.

Moldovans dreamed of the American way of life, while Transnistrians pursued Mikhail Gorbachev’s model: to build a nation that was both democratic and communist. Furious, the United States tried to destroy this country in 1992 by recruiting a Romanian army under the command of NATO special advisor Colonel Howard J. T. Steers [1]. Boris Yeltsin’s Russia abandoned it, but the Transnistrians defended themselves and won their freedom.

Today, social benefits and salaries of public sector employees are not paid by Chisinau (Moldova), which does not recognize the independence of the Dniester Moldovan Republic while still claiming that Transnistrians are its citizens.

While an agreement had been reached between Moldova and the unrecognized Moldovan Republic of the Dniester (Transnistria) for it to have access to both the European Union market and the global market, Chisinau issued new standards at the beginning of 2024. Transnistrian companies, which trade with 90 countries, must be registered in Moldova in order to transit their goods through it. However, they cannot do so because the Moldovan banks refuse it to them. Nor can they do so via Ukraine due to the war.

Throughout the month of January, demonstrations were held in Tiraspol to protest against this economic strangulation. Two-thirds of Transnistrians have triple Moldovan /Transnistrian/Russian citizenship. 1,500 to 2,000 Russian troops make up a permanent peace mission in the DMR.

On 21st February Transnistrian President Vadim Krasnosselski convened all deputies in an extraordinary Congress for the first time in 18 years. Ukraine, which had tried to assassinate the Transnistrian president last September, immediately sent its ambassador, Paun Rogovei, to ensure that the situation did not escalate. On February 27, the U.S. State Department dispatched Christopher W. Smith, an assistant to Undersecretary Victoria Nuland.

On February 28, the Congress of Deputies met and appealed to Russia for help, but did not ask for annexation to the Federation, even though its citizens had done so in 2006 in a referendum with 97% of the votes cast and its government had done so in 2014 when Crimea was annexed.

In 2019, the Rand Corporation, a think tank of the US military-industrial complex, had drafted a plan to weaken the Russian rival by forcing it to intervene in Ukraine, then in Transnistria [2]. The plan was introduced in the House of Representatives on September 5, 2019.

In January 2022, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell visited the Ukrainian-Transnistrian border to meet with the European Union Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM). The objective was to plan for the current crisis [3].

Notes:

[1] “En 1992, les États-Unis tentèrent d’écraser militairement la Transnistrie“, par Thierry Meyssan, Réseau Voltaire, 17 juillet 2007.

[2] “Ukraine: It Was All Written in the Rand Corp Plan”, by Manlio Dinucci , Global Research, Voltaire Network, 8 March 2022.

[3] “Josep Borrell sets up siege of Donbass and Transnistria”, Voltaire Network, 10 January 2022.

An abandonment of reason is among the symptoms of a nation suffering from a collapse in the prevailing narratives

by Henry Johnson via RT

Excerpts

[ . . . ]

In a way this should come as no surprise. It is an age-old human response to the lack of control – think about rain dances instead of irrigation – that once again confirms the words of George Bernard Shaw that “the period of time covered by history is far too short to allow of any perceptible progress in the popular sense of evolution of the human species. The notion that there has been any such progress since Caesar’s time is too absurd for discussion. All the savagery, barbarism, dark ages and the rest of it of which we have any record as existing in the past, exists at the present moment.”

As a result of this, actions, emptied of their utilitarian contents, come to be seen as inherently meaningful only if they conform to the prevailing superstitions and carry the necessary symbolism. The policies being pursued are thus detached from reason in the sense that they are no longer evaluated or even undertaken with an expectation of a particular outcome – in fact, the outcomes are often quite the opposite of the presumed intention, leading to all manner of absurdities.

[ . . . ]

Germany’s Green Party, a leading voice both in the fanatical climate program and the anti-Russia camp, has in the last two years promoted policies that have directly led to an increase in the burning of coal in the country. This is certainly not an outcome the party would have ever lobbied for. But its actions no longer have anything to do with specific desired outcomes; rather they exist entirely in the mist-filled world of symbolism and, in the logic of this new age of superstition, are to be evaluated only in relation to their symbolic potency.

by Serghei Markov

The EU has formalized a plan to steal money from Russia. The essence of the plan is to hide the theft from the world community by distributing the theft over many stages. So that at no particular stage can it be said that theft has taken place. This is the plan. 1. Freeze Russian assets. Already done.
2. Issue bonds to finance Ukraine. 3. Frozen Russian money is used as collateral for issuing bonds. 4. Sell bonds.
5. Use the proceeds to finance the Ukrainian regime. Wars come first, but frame war as peace. 6. Spend all that money.
7. Offer Russia to pay reparations as if Russia had lost the war.
8. If Russia refuses to pay reparations, the frozen money that was used as collateral for issuing bonds will be confiscated by the court. 9. Transfer this money to bondholders.
10. In order for the bonds to be bought up, a decision will be made to force the largest corporations to buy back these bonds. Then their price will go up.
11. All this concerns 192 billion euros frozen in Belgium, as the financial capital of Europe, where the securities depository is located. 12. The Council of the EU approved this money theft plan today.
13. If the EU succeeds in stealing Russia’s money, this plan will then be used to steal money from other countries.
14. Keeping money in securities of NATO countries was a huge mistake by the Russian financial authorities.

It is absolutely mind-boggling what such high-level Western puppets are made to believe. Looking at each other through the glass wall at the other’s perceived reality, it is obvious that one side is in a medically certified state of lunacy. Are we the lunatics, seeing the results of the battleground in Ukraine, or what? The Russian economy is in ruin?! It is now the largest economy in Europe, and just about to overtake Japan as the 4th largest economy in the world.

Can one even have a serious argument over what this man is saying from the perspective of Western insanity?

From the interview in Newsweek:

Words from Permanent Secretary at the Estonian Ministry of Defence Kusti Salm, in an interview with Newsweek, regarding the conflict in Ukraine:

Russia needs to walk away with the understanding that they lost, that they will lose the next war…Economically, they are ruined; we outlasted them; we kept our industry on a better footing; we have the technological advantage; we have better training, better morale; that they don’t stand a chance…

They need to walk away with the understanding that international law and the rule-based world functions, and that you cannot bend it as you wish…

This is the only way to draw a line there, so that this wouldn’t happen again. If one of those elements is not fulfilled, then in a few years, we will face another crisis, and not only from Russia, because everyone is learning…

We think that it’s three years before they will have the opportunity [to restore full military capabilities to pre-SMO levels]. Others go for five years; we have also heard seven or eight years. But the consensus is that they will regenerate, and they will come back. There is no one in intelligence, no one in defence circles who would dispute that…

For Europe, for NATO, it’s very simple – if Ukraine fails, NATO will be next…

Deterring needs a lot more effort, a lot more investment, a lot more shifts in public opinion. It’s actually a very high return on investment to keep on supporting Ukraine…120 billion [Euros] a year would be something that would do the trick – 0.25% of GDP.

It’s not a lot, it’s not a strategic topic, it’s not something that we cannot afford…With that money, you also ramp up your own industry [and] most of the money will remain in your own economies. It would be a stimulus package at a time of an incoming recession…Europe hasn’t found a way to package this…

Take what you will from Salm’s interview…

by Fantine Gardinier via Sputnik

© Sputnik / Grigory Sysoev
/ Go to the mediabank

Since veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed in February that the US blew up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline the previous September, Western media has rushed to create an alternate narrative involving Ukrainian operatives possibly working at Kiev’s direction, and to discredit Hersh’s revelations.

The White House had already made the decision to destroy the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline by early 2022, several weeks before the start of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, Seymour Hersh has reported in his latest expose story.

According to his report, based on comments from an American official “who is knowledgeable about the political use of energy,” by the time US President Joe Biden hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the White House on February 7, 2022, he had already given the order to a CIA-led team in Norway to find a way to destroy the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a liquified natural gas line from Russia to Germany that was slated to soon open.

That was, he noted, “a few weeks before” Ukraine intensified its attacks on the Donbass people’s republics, forcing Moscow’s hand in recognizing the independence of the breakaway states from Kiev and sending its forces into the Donbass to defend them – events that set in motion the launching of Russia’s special operation to neutralize and de-Nazify the country several days later.

After Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics on February 22, 2022, Scholz announced the termination of the Nord Stream 2 project – something he had been under pressure from Washington as well as some other European Union leaders, such as Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, to do for years.

The month prior, Republicans in the US Congress attempted to pass a billthat would have sanctioned the Russian side of the pipeline project regardless of whether or not Russia sent troops into Ukraine, and Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, had repeatedly deferred implementation of other sanctions against the pipeline in order to keep Berlin in their good graces.

According to Hersh’s report, the CIA-led team had planted the explosives on three of the four Nord Stream 2 pipes along the seafloor of the North Sea by May of 2022, but Biden delayed their detonation for months without explanation until finally giving the order in late September of that year. The bombs were detonated using a “low frequency sonar device,” he reported.

The veteran investigative journalist suggested the timing was chosen, coming at the start of autumn, in order to ensure Berlin didn’t get cold feet about the operation.

Successive German governments had been enthusiastically in support of the pipeline, which would have brought plentiful and cheap gas into Western Europe, and downplayed Washington’s suggestion that it would give Moscow leverage over European affairs.

Earlier this week, Germany’s Sefe and Norway’s Equinor, their state-owned gas firms, struck a massive $55 billion deal that would see Norway supply one-third of German gas needs for the next 10 years – essentially the same volume that Nord Stream 2 would have brought.

The US official with whom Hersh spoke quipped that the deal was “an amazing stroke of good luck for Scholz, just when his base was facing another gas-free winter.”

“Magically,” the source added, “the deal coincides with Russia’s earlier closure of gas and oil fields that – except for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines – would have been the source of gas for the two pipelines.”

It’s unclear to what exactly the official was referring; possibly the May 2022 closure of western traffic in the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which runs from the northwestern Siberian Yamal Peninsula westward into Europe via Poland.