Ukraine: US Lies, Provocation, Broken Promises, Fake News

[Anthea]

Click to Enlarge:


Above is the flag of AZOV as it is now part of the official Ukrainian army

[Anthea]

Relax and watch a movie, I suggest

MACH 2 (2000)

A Presidential candidate running against the Vice-President plans a trip to the Balkans to negotiate the release of American servicemen being held hostage. Before he leaves, he receives a disk documenting evidence that the Vice-President has been trying to revive the American economy by causing a war in the Balkans

I think Biden may have already watched it

[Anthea]

Ukraine must meets terms

Russia has told Ukraine it is ready to halt military operations "in a moment" if Kyiv meets a list of conditions, the Kremlin spokesman said on Monday.

Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was demanding that Ukraine

cease military action

change constitution to enshrine neutrality

recognise separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states

It was the most explicit Russian statement so far of the terms it wants to impose on Ukraine to halt what it calls its "special military operation", now in its 12th day.

Ukraine was aware of the conditions. "And they were told that all this can be stopped in a moment."

There was no immediate reaction from the Ukrainian side.

But the Kremlin spokesman insisted Russia was not seeking to make any further territorial claims on Ukraine and said it was "not true" that it was demanding Kyiv be handed over.

The main thing is that Ukraine ceases its military action

They should stop their military action and then no one will shoot

On the issue of neutrality, Peskov said: "They should make amendments to the constitution according to which Ukraine would reject any aims to enter any bloc."

The outlining of Russia's demands came as delegations from Russia and Ukraine prepared to meet on Monday for a third round of talks aimed at ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The war began soon after Putin recognised two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine, which Ukrainian government forces (including AZOV) have been attacking since 2014

"This is not us seizing Lugansk and Donetsk from Ukraine. Donetsk and Lugansk don’t want to be part of Ukraine. But it doesn’t mean they should be destroyed as a result," Peskov said.

For the rest. Ukraine is an independent state that will live as it wants, but under conditions of neutrality

He said all the demands have been formulated and handed over during the first two rounds of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, which took place last week.

"We hope that all this will go OK and they will react in a suitable way," Peskov said.

The war was in order to protect the 3 million Russian-speaking population in these republics, who he said were being threatened by 100,000 Ukrainian troops.

Peskov said Russia had also had to act in the face of the threat it perceived from NATO, saying it was "only a matter of time" before the alliance placed missiles in Ukraine as it had in Poland and Romania.

"We just understood we could not put up with this any more. We had to act," he said.

All extremely reasonable requests:

cease military action
change constitution to enshrine neutrality
recognise separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states

[Anthea]

I mentioned some time ago that the US is involving itself in the Ukraine as a DISTRACTION to assorted political corruption and other investigations taking place

PRESTIDIGITATION

A distraction, a way to make someone focus on one thing rather than seeing what is happening elsewhere

Documentation on the Pfizer vaccine has recently been released

I knew it was going to be bad when Pfizer tried to keep the reports hidden for 70 YEARS but I had no idea how bad

Please visit our thread on COVID and look at the list of adverse reactions

It goes a long way towards explaining why, after the DONDASS region of Ukraine has been under attack for 8 YEARS Biden suddenly decided to leap in, and why there has been WORLDWIDE outcry in support of the Ukrainian government

The power of propaganda

Biden's family has interests in Ukraine so supported the Right Wing Ukrainian government

[Anthea]

Who are Ukraine’s far-right AZOV regiment?

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, a Ukrainian far-right military regiment is back in the headlines

Russian President Vladimir Putin referenced the presence of such units within the Ukrainian military as one of the reasons for launching his so-called “special military operation … to de-militarise and de-Nazify Ukraine”.

Ukraine’s national guard tweeted a video showing AZOV fighters coating their bullets in pig fat to be used allegedly against Muslim Chechens – allies of Russia – deployed in their country.

AZOV has also been involved in training civilians through military exercises in the run-up to Russia’s invasion.

So what is the AZOV regiment?

AZOV is a far-right all-volunteer infantry military unit whose members are ultra-nationalists and accused of harbouring neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology.

The unit was initially formed as a volunteer group in May 2014 out of the ultra-nationalist Patriot of Ukraine gang, and the neo-Nazi Social National Assembly (SNA) group. Both groups engaged in xenophobic and neo-Nazi ideals and physically assaulted migrants, the Roma community and people opposing their views.

As a battalion, the group fought on the front lines against separatists in Donetsk, the eastern region of Ukraine. Just before launching the invasion, Putin recognised the independence of two rebel-held regions from Donbas.

A few months after recapturing the strategic port city of Mariupol from the Russian-backed separatists, the unit was officially integrated into the National Guard of Ukraine on November 12, 2014, and exacted high praise from then-President Petro Poroshenko.

“These are our best warriors,” he said at an awards ceremony in 2014. “Our best volunteers.”

Who founded AZOV?

The unit was led by Andriy Biletsky, who served as the the leader of both the Patriot of Ukraine (founded in 2005) and the SNA (founded in 2008). The SNA is known to have carried out attacks on minority groups in Ukraine.

In 2010, Biletsky said Ukraine’s national purpose was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [inferior races]”.

Biletsky was elected to parliament in 2014. He left AZOV as elected officials cannot be in the military or police force. He remained an MP until 2019.

The 42-year-old is nicknamed Bely Vozd – or White Ruler – by his supporters. He established the far-right National Corps party in October 2016, whose core base is veterans of AZOV.

Before becoming part of Ukraine’s armed forces, who funded AZOV?

The unit received backing from Ukraine’s interior minister in 2014, as the government had recognised its own military was too weak to fight off the pro-Russian separatists and relied on paramilitary volunteer forces.

These forces were privately funded by oligarchs – the most known being Igor Kolomoisky, an energy magnate billionaire and then-governor of the Dnipropetrovska region.

In addition to AZOV, Kolomoisky funded other volunteer battalions such as the Dnipro 1 and Dnipro 2, Aidar and Donbas units.

Neo-Nazi ideology

In 2015, Andriy Diachenko, the spokesperson for the regiment at the time said that 10 to 20 percent of AZOV’s recruits were Nazis.

The unit has denied it adheres to Nazi ideology as a whole, but Nazi symbols such as the swastika and SS regalia are rife on the uniforms and bodies of AZOV members.

For example, the uniform carries the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel symbol, which resembles a black swastika on a yellow background. The group said it is merely an amalgam of the letters “N” and “I” which represent “national idea”.

Individual members have professed to being neo-Nazis, and hardcore far-right ultra-nationalism is pervasive among members

In January 2018, AZOV rolled out its street patrol unit called National Druzhyna to “restore” order in the capital, Kyiv. Instead, the unit carried out pogroms against the Roma community and attacked members of the LGBTQ community.

“Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces,” a correspondent for the US-based magazine, the Nation, wrote in 2019.

Human rights violations and war crimes

A 2016 report by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHA) has accused the AZOV regiment of violating international humanitarian law

The report detailed incidents over a period from November 2015-February 2016 where Azov had embedded their weapons and forces in used civilian buildings, and displaced residents after looting civilian properties. The report also accused the battalion of raping and torturing detainees in the Donbas region

What has been the international response to Azov?

In June 2015, both Canada and the United States announced that their own forces will not support or train the AZOV regiment, citing its neo-Nazi connections.

The following year, however, the US lifted the ban under pressure from the Pentagon.

In October 2019, 40 members of the US Congress led by Representative Max Rose signed a letter unsuccessfully calling for the US State Department to designate AZOV as a “foreign terrorist organisation” (FTO).

Last April, Representative Elissa Slotkin repeated the request – which included other white supremacist groups – to the Biden administration.

Transnational support for AZOV has been wide, and Ukraine has emerged as a new hub for the far right across the world. Men from across three continents have been documented to join the AZOV training units in order to seek combat experience and engage in similar ideology.

The oscillation of Facebook

In 2016, Facebook first designated the AZOV regiment a “dangerous organisation”.

Under the company’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, AZOV was banned from its platforms in 2019. The group was placed under Facebook’s Tier 1 designation, which includes groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and ISIS. Users engaging in praise, support or representation of Tier 1 groups are also banned.

However, on February 24, the day Russia launched its invasion, Facebook reversed its ban, saying it would allow praise for AZOV

“For the time being, we are making a narrow exception for praise of the AZOV regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine national guard,” a spokesperson from Facebook’s parent company, Meta, told Business Insider.

“But we are continuing to ban all hate speech, hate symbolism, praise of violence, generic praise, support, or representation of the AZOV regiment, and any other content that violates our community standards,” it added.

The reversal of policy will be an immense headache for Facebook moderators, the Intercept, a US-based website, said.

“While Facebook users may now praise any future battlefield action by AZOV soldiers against Russia, the new policy notes that ‘any praise of violence’ committed by the group is still forbidden; it’s unclear what sort of nonviolent warfare the company anticipates,” the Intercept wrote.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1 ... v-regiment

[Anthea]

Strengthen bioweapons treaty

Moscow called on signatories of the Biological Weapons Convention to implement verification mechanisms stonewalled by the US

Mandatory international inspections could keep US labs in check, Russia suggested

An international treaty banning bioweapons needs to be strengthened with a compliance verification mechanism, contrary to the US position on the issue, Moscow said on Wednesday. The call comes in the wake of the reported discovery of evidence that there were lethal pathogens at Pentagon-backed labs in Ukraine.

The Russian military reported this week that Ukrainian authorities had ordered the destruction of highly pathogenic samples that were stored at US-backed biological labs throughout the country.

The purported documents indicate that both Ukraine and the US breached the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which both nations signed and ratified, the Russian foreign ministry alleged on Wednesday. The order to destroy the samples was an attempt to cover up the violations of the treaty, it said.

“We stand for the resumption of the work on a legally binding Protocol to the Convention for an effective verification mechanism, which the US has been stonewalling since 2001,” the ministry said.

The BWC, which came into force in 1975, bans the development, stockpiling and use of biological and toxin weapons. Unlike its counterpart for chemical weapons, the Convention for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the treaty lacks an international watchdog organization to verify compliance.

An attempt to establish such an organization took place in the 1990s. The VEREX ad hoc committee spent a decade formulating proposals for surveillance, inspections, information sharing and other confidence-building measures.

The effort ultimately failed due to objections from the George W Bush administration which, in 2001, rejected a 210-page draft protocol. Washington claimed that it would not have improved the BWC, if implemented, and would have hurt US national security and commercial interests

Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland testifies before a Senate Foreign Relation Committee hearing on Ukraine on March 08, 2022 © Getty Images/Kevin Dietsch
US comments on Ukrainian ‘biolabs’

John Bolton, then-Undersecretary of State, said at the time that Washington was focusing its anti-germ warfare interest on Iraq. The existence of Saddam Hussein’s bioweapons project was “beyond dispute,” he claimed at the time. Two years later the US invaded Iraq under the pretext that it needed to destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which was later proven to be false.

Russia has been voicing concerns for years over US military-funded labs hosted by some nations in its proximity, most notably Georgia. Moscow believes that Washington is conducting military research there that may pose a threat to Russia. The foreign ministry statement said activities held on foreign soil should be subjected to reporting under the BWC, just like domestic programs.

The proposed measures “would allow subjecting military-biological activities of the US and its allies … to international control and ensure full verifiable compliance with the BWC by member states,” Moscow said.

Following Russia’s claims about labs in Ukraine, China called on the Pentagon to publicly comment on bio research conducted in foreign nations with its funding. Beijing claimed the US military controlled “336 biological laboratories in 30 countries around the world.”

The US denies that anything nefarious is being done in the labs, claiming they are used to monitor possible emerging infection threats around the world. US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland confirmed on Tuesday that her country was involved in Ukraine

If nothing nefarious has been taking place, why does the US not have these labs on American soil - remember it took some time before US confessed to paying for work taking place in the well known Wuhan biolab in China - we already knew that the Biden family had financial connections in the Ukraine

There is a lot we have yet to find out about the corrupt US government - for those who say surely US would not involve themselves with a right-wing government such as the Ukraine - REMEMBER - after WW2 the US gave sanctuary and employment to many of Germany's top NAZI scientists, including the one who invented the V bomb that destroyed much of London

[Anthea]

However much money Biden throws at Ukraine to keep the fight going and however much anti Russian propaganda US circulates - they are not going to be able to suppress the corruption for much longer

Eventually, people will start to add

1 + 1 = 2

The corrupt US government is also telling the American people that Russia is the cause of their current economic difficulties and fuel price rises - in fact US receives only a small percentage of it's fuel from Russia - just checked:

US only gets 3% of its gas from Russia

[Anthea]

BioArms Production In Ukraine

At the request of the Russian government, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will meet on Friday to discuss the U.S.-funded manufacture of biological weapons in Ukraine

The Russian mission to the UNSC recalled that their country’s soldiers found traces of eradication operations of dangerous pathogens such as anthrax and cholera when they started the special military operation on Feb. 24.

“Scientific data showed that the testing of such pathogens in animals prompted changes in the behavior of birds in Ukraine," the Mission highlighted, stressing that the international community deserves to know if all materials produced at these facilities were effectively destroyed.

On Tuesday, the United States recognized its support to biological programs developing in Ukrainian laboratories. However, it denied that such an initiative had military purposes

“We are working with the Ukrainian army on how it can prevent these research materials from falling into the hands of the Russian forces,” Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland insisted, recalling that most of the bio-labs are located near the Russian border.

Despite this, Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky alleged that the Russian military spread rumors of the pathogens manufacturing to defend its geopolitical interests.

“I am the president of a decent country and a decent people. No one is developing any chemical or mass destruction weapons in my territory,” he stated, stressing that the World Health Organization (WHO) has not considered the evidence presented by Russia.

United States has already admitted its support to biological programs developing in Ukrainian laboratories

[Anthea]

Required Reading when I took Behavioral Studies

The manipulation of the American mind:

Edward Bernays and the birth of public relations

“The most interesting man in the world.” “Reach out and touch someone.” “Finger-lickin’ good.” Such advertising slogans have become fixtures of American culture, and each year millions now tune into the Super Bowl as much for the ads as for the football.

While no single person can claim exclusive credit for the ascendancy of advertising in American life, no one deserves credit more than a man most of us have never heard of: Edward Bernays. (that's because Sheeple do not read}

I first encountered Bernays through an article I was writing on propaganda, and it quickly became clear that he was one of the 20th century’s foremost salesmen of ideas. The fact that 20 years have elapsed since his death provides a fitting opportunity to reexamine his legacy.

Bernays pioneered public relations

Often referred to as “the father of public relations,” Bernays in 1928 published his seminal work, Propaganda, in which he argued that public relations is not a gimmick but a necessity:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, and our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of…. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.

Bernays came by his beliefs honestly. Born in Austria in 1891, the year Sigmund Freud published one of his earliest papers, Bernays was also Freud’s nephew twice over. His mother was Freud’s sister Anna, and his father, Ely Bernays, was the brother of Freud’s wife Martha.

The year after his birth, the Bernays family moved to New York, and Bernays later graduated from Cornell with a degree in agriculture. But instead of farming, he chose a career in journalism, eventually helping the Woodrow Wilson Administration promote the idea that US efforts in World War I were intended to bring democracy to Europe.

Bernays rebrands ‘propaganda’

Having seen how effective propaganda could be during war, Bernays wondered whether it might prove equally useful during peacetime.

Yet propaganda had acquired a somewhat pejorative connotation (which would be further magnified during World War II), so Bernays promoted the term “public relations.”

Drawing on the insights of his Uncle Sigmund – a relationship Bernays was always quick to mention – he developed an approach he dubbed “the engineering of consent.” He provided leaders the means to “control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it.” To do so, it was necessary to appeal not to the rational part of the mind, but the unconscious.

Bernays acquired an impressive list of clients, ranging from manufacturers such as General Electric, Procter & Gamble, and the American Tobacco Company, to media outlets like CBS and even politicians such as Calvin Coolidge. To counteract President Coolidge’s stiff image, Bernays organized “pancake breakfasts” and White House concerts with Al Jolson and other Broadway performers. With Bernays’ help, Coolidge won the 1924 election.

Bernays’ publicity campaigns were the stuff of legend. To overcome “sales resistance” to cigarette smoking among women, Bernays staged a demonstration at the 1929 Easter parade, having fashionable young women flaunt their “torches of freedom.”

He promoted Lucky Strikes by convincing women that the forest green hue of the cigarette pack was among the most fashionable of colors. The success of this effort was manifested in innumerable window displays and fashion shows.

In the 1930s, he promoted cigarettes as both soothing to the throat and slimming to the waistline. But at home, Bernays was attempting to persuade his wife to kick the habit. When would find a pack of her Parliaments in their home, he would snap every one of them in half and throw them in the toilet. While promoting cigarettes as soothing and slimming, Bernays, it seems, was aware of some of the early studies linking smoking to cancer.

Bernays used the same techniques on children. To convince kids that bathing could be fun, he sponsored soap sculpture competitions and floating contests. These were designed to prove that Ivory bars were more buoyant than competing products.

Bernays also used fear to sell products. For Dixie cups, Bernays launched a campaign to scare people into thinking that only disposable cups were sanitary. As part of this campaign, he founded the Committee for the Study and Promotion of the Sanitary Dispensing of Food and Drink.

Bernays’ ideas sold a lot more than cigarettes and Dixie cups

Even though Bernays saw the power of propaganda during war and used it to sell products during peacetime, he couldn’t have imagined that his writings on public relations would become a tool of the Third Reich.

In the 1920s, Joseph Goebbels became an avid admirer of Bernays and his writings – despite the fact that Bernays was a Jew. When Goebbels became the minister of propaganda for the Third Reich, he sought to exploit Bernays’ ideas to the fullest extent possible. For example, he created a “Fuhrer cult” around Adolph Hitler.

Bernays learned that the Nazis were using his work in 1933, from a foreign correspondent for Hearst newspapers. He later recounted in his 1965 autobiography:

They were using my books as the basis for a destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me, but I knew any human activity can be used for social purposes or misused for antisocial ones.

What Bernays’ writings furnish is not a principle or tradition by which to evaluate the appropriateness of propaganda, but simply a means for shaping public opinion for any purpose whatsoever, whether beneficial to human beings or not.

This observation led Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter to warn President Franklin Roosevelt against allowing Bernays to play a leadership role in World War II, describing him and his colleagues as “professional poisoners of the public mind, exploiters of foolishness, fanaticism, and self-interest.”

Today we might call what Bernays pioneered a form of branding, but at its core it represents little more than a particularly brazen set of techniques to manipulate people to get them to do your bidding.

Its underlying purpose, in large part, is to make money. By convincing people that they want something they do not need, Bernays sought to turn citizens and neighbors into consumers who use their purchasing power to propel themselves down the road to happiness.

Without a moral compass, however, such a transformation promotes a patronizing and ultimately cynical view of human nature and human possibilities, one as likely to destroy lives as to build them up.

https://theconversation.com/the-manipul ... ions-44393

[Anthea]

Exclusive-WHO says it advised Ukraine to destroy pathogens in health labs to prevent disease spread

(Reuters) - The World Health Organization advised Ukraine to destroy high-threat pathogens housed in the country's public health laboratories to prevent "any potential spills" that would spread disease among the population, the agency told Reuters on Thursday

Like many other countries, Ukraine has public health laboratories researching how to mitigate the threats of dangerous diseases affecting both animals and humans including, most recently, COVID-19. Its labs have received support from the United States, the European Union and the WHO.

In response to questions from Reuters about its work with Ukraine ahead of and during Russia's invasion, the WHO said in an email that it has collaborated with Ukrainian public health labs for several years to promote security practices that help prevent "accidental or deliberate release of pathogens."

"As part of this work, WHO has strongly recommended to the Ministry of Health in Ukraine and other responsible bodies to destroy high-threat pathogens to prevent any potential spills," the WHO, a United Nations agency, said.

The WHO would not say when it had made the recommendation nor did it provide specifics about the kinds of pathogens or toxins housed in Ukraine's laboratories. The agency also did not answer questions about whether its recommendations were followed

Ukrainian officials in Kyiv and at their embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.

Ukraine's laboratory capabilities are at the center of a growing information war since Russia began moving troops into Ukraine two weeks ago.

On Wednesday, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova repeated a longstanding claim that the United States operates a biowarfare lab in Ukraine, an accusation that has been repeatedly denied by Washington and Kyiv. (cast your minds back to Wuhan)

Zakharova said that documents unearthed by Russian forces in Ukraine showed "an emergency attempt to erase evidence of military biological programmes" by destroying lab samples.

In response, a Ukrainian presidential spokesperson said: "Ukraine strictly denies any such allegation." U.S. government spokespeople also strongly denied Zakharova's accusations, saying that Russia may use its claims as a pretext to deploy its own chemical or biological weapons.

The WHO statement made no reference to biowarfare. The agency said it encourages all parties to cooperate in "the safe and secure disposal of any pathogens they come across, and to reach out for technical assistance as needed." It offered to help wherever possible with technical guidance and coordination.

The United Nations Security Council will convene on Friday at Russia's request, diplomats said, to discuss Moscow's claims, of U.S. biological activities in Ukraine.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/exclusive-say ... BMfwtdk20_

[Anthea]

Biolabs in Ukraine everyone should ask

Wednesday, we told you that the Biden administration is funding a number of secretive biolabs in Ukraine, labs that are conducting experiments on highly dangerous pathogens

In fact, we didn't think it could be true. It's so over-the-top and bizarre and in any case, the administration had repeatedly and very aggressively denied that they were doing anything like this and then they attacked anyone who has questions about it as a tool of Russia.

We foolishly assumed that in this one instance, they might be telling the truth

Then out of nowhere, the Biden official in charge of Ukraine confirmed the story. Toria Nuland, the Under Secretary of State, casually mentioned in a Senate hearing on Tuesday that actually, YES, the Biden administration does fund a series of biolabs in Ukraine and whatever is in these labs is so dangerous that she is deeply concerned these materials will fall into the hands of the Russian military.

Now, that struck us as a shocking development. Once again, not for the first time, what had seemed like a nutty conspiracy theory turned out to be TRUE. Toria Nuland's testimony raised at least two immediate questions.

What exactly are these labs doing with our money and in our name? And why didn't the Biden administration secure the contents of these labs before the Russians invaded?

Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland testifies before a Senate Foreign Relation Committee hearing on Ukraine on March 08, 2022 in Washington, DC.

So far, we haven't received any answer at all to the second question. We think we're the only ones who have even asked it. Whoever decided to leave deadly biological materials sitting in Ukraine as Russian troops massed on the border has not yet been identified. We hope that person will be identified. We'll keep asking.

As for the first question, what exactly is going on in these labs? We've gotten several answers, all of them insulting. Initially, the administration claimed the labs were designed to help the Ukrainians fight tuberculosis, as well as various livestock diseases. That's what officials told members of Congress.

t didn't seem plausible and, in fact, it's not plausible. And then after our show last night, the Pentagon released what it non-ironically called a fact sheet designed to make the biolab story seem small and ridiculous. Virtually every news organization in America, with almost no exceptions, repeated the administration's claim verbatim with no verification of any kind.

The Washington Post assured us of the same thing, so did countless other so-called news organizations. OK, so no big deal. This is not actually a story.

The Pentagon's been doing it since 2005, working with Ukrainians to "eliminate biological weapons left behind by the Soviets." That makes sense, but wait. 2005 was 17 years ago.

How long does it take to eliminate Soviet bioweapons? Seventeen years seems like a long time. If you had 17 years and ample funding from Congress, you could probably remove and catalog every grain of sand on Waikiki Beach and yet somehow, over that same period 17 years, the Pentagon has not finished removing test tubes from Soviet-era freezers.

How does that work exactly? How heavy are these bioweapons? Do we lack the transportation capacity to get them out of Ukraine and bury them in the desert in Nevada?

When was the Pentagon planning to finish this important job? In 20 years? In 50 years? Those all seem like very obvious questions, but not a single reporter asked any of those questions.

Meanwhile, over at CNN, perhaps where the first explanation didn't make sense once you thought about it, offered a new alibi. According to CNN's site, the labs in Ukraine exist to "secure old Soviet weapons." Ok, secure, not eliminate, which raises the question: what does it mean to secure a bioweapon?

Why has it taken 17 years to do it? And by the way, if these are really just old Soviet weapons, why is Toria Nuland so worried they will wind up in the hands of old Soviets who presumably already have these very same weapons—probably don't need more.

It's absurd when you think about it. So, don't think about it and that was the point of today's coverage of the Biden administration's secret Ukrainian biolabs. Stop thinking about it. Start accepting what they tell you at face value. Otherwise, you are an agent of Russia.

The claims were debunked several years ago, when in 2020, the United States issued a statement to "set the record straight," explaining the facilities are in fact for vaccine development and to report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats.

We did some digging of ourselves to see what we could find and here's we came up with.

The day after Russia invaded Ukraine, Robert Pope, the man who heads the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program at DOD, sat for an interview with the website Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Pope was the man in charge of securing or eliminating Soviet-era bioweapons, so he knows a lot about the subject, maybe more than anyone else.

It turns out that not all of these Soviet weapons are being destroyed or even secured, and Pope acknowledged that in the interview.

According to his interview, Pope said the labs "may hold pathogen strains left over from the Soviet bioweapons program preserved in freezers for research purposes." Pope said that "scientists, being scientists, it wouldn't surprise me if some of these strange collections and some of these laboratories still have pathogen strains that go all the way back to the origins of that program."

US VOWS TO HALT GASLIGHTING AFTER RUSSIA ASKS UN SECURITY COUNCIL FOR SPECIAL MEETING ON ‘BIOLABS’ IN UKRAINE

In other words, because as Pope put it, "scientists are scientists," they don't want to destroy all the bioweapons. Instead, they're using them to conduct new bioweapons research. That's what he said and not just on strains left over from the Soviet Union.

The second lie. In fact, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv has acknowledged joint American and Ukrainian research on other pathogens such as hemorrhagic fever virus. Apparently, there's a lot of this going on in Ukraine funded by the United States. Did you know that?

Why Ukraine? We don't know. We can only guess

We do know that in 2010, the U.S. government helped fund construction of a brand-new level-3 biolab in Odessa, Ukraine

The purpose of that lab was not to eliminate or secure aging Soviet weapons. No. That lab was designed for research a new and "especially dangerous pathogens" in Ukraine, the poorest country in Europe. Again, not a hotbed of biomedical research

Why Ukraine? We don't know. Someone should find out.

We do know that the Pentagon talking points you saw reported as fact on television today and last night were an utter lie

Did the reporters, who repeated those talking points verbatim, know they were a lie?

Maybe they did. On the other hand, how would they know?

They didn't bother to do any reporting whatsoever. They got a text from some Biden administration flack and they just read it on the air like it was true.

You shouldn't be surprised because that's what they do and it's possible they're afraid not to do that. They know if they stray from the script the White House has written for them, they'll be denounced from the briefing room as tools of Putin. Here's Biden's publicist doing the very same thing today.

So, the objective was to make clear the inaccuracy of the information, the misinformation they're trying to put out, and make clear to the world that they not only have the capacity, they have a history of using chemical and biological weapons, and that, in this moment, we should have our eyes open.

The questions are:

Why is the United States funding these biolabs that are not doing anything close to what the Pentagon claims they are doing?

Why is the White House press secretary from the podium contradicting what the director of the Pentagon's bioweapons control program has already admitted is true?

Why is she doing that and how should we feel about all of this? Insulted, but also very concerned.

There is absolutely a story here, a story that matters, clearly. That's why they're lying about it.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker- ... one-asking

[Anthea]

Are you doing your research?

Below is something from Reuters dated March 19, 2018:

Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem

As Ukraine’s struggle against Russia and its proxies continues, Kiev must also contend with a growing problem behind the front lines: far-right vigilantes who are willing to use intimidation and even violence to advance their agendas, and who often do so with the tacit approval of law enforcement agencies

A January 28 demonstration, in Kiev, by 600 members of the so-called “National Militia,” a newly-formed ultranationalist group that vows “to use force to establish order,” illustrates this threat. While the group’s Kiev launch was peaceful, National Militia members in balaclavas stormed a city council meeting in the central Ukrainian town of Cherkasy the following day, skirmishing with deputies and forcing them to pass a new budget.

Many of the National Militia's members come from the AZOV movement, one of the 30-odd privately-funded “volunteer battalions” that, in the early days of the war, helped the regular army to defend Ukrainian territory against Russia's separatist proxies. Although AZOV uses Nazi-era symbolism and recruits neo-Nazis into its ranks, a recent article in Foreign Affairs downplayed any risks the group might pose, pointing out that, like other volunteer militias, AZOV has been “reined in” through its integration into Ukraine’s armed forces. While it’s true that private militias no longer rule the battlefront, it’s the home front that Kiev needs to worry about now.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin’s seizure of Crimea four years ago first exposed the decrepit condition of Ukraine’s armed forces, right-wing militias such as Azov and Right Sector stepped into the breach, fending off the Russian-backed separatists while Ukraine’s regular military regrouped. Though, as a result, many Ukrainians continue to regard the militias with gratitude and admiration, the more extreme among these groups promote an intolerant and illiberal ideology that will endanger Ukraine in the long term. Since the Crimean crisis, the militias have been formally integrated into Ukraine’s armed forces, but some have resisted full integration: AZOV, for example, runs its own children’s training camp, and the careers section instructs recruits who wish to transfer to AZOV from a regular military unit. (sounds very similar to the Hitler Youth Movement)

According to Freedom House’s Ukraine project director Matthew Schaaf, “numerous organized radical right-wing groups exist in Ukraine, and while the volunteer battalions may have been officially integrated into state structures, some of them have since spun off political and non-profit structures to implement their vision.” Schaaf noted that “an increase in patriotic discourse supporting Ukraine in its conflict with Russia has coincided with an apparent increase in both public hate speech, sometimes by public officials and magnified by the media, as well as violence towards vulnerable groups such as the LGBT community,” an observation that is supported by a recent Council of Europe study.

In recent months, Ukraine has experienced a wave of unchecked vigilantism. Institute Respublica, a local pro-democracy NGO, reported that activists are frequently harassed by vigilantes when holding legal meetings or rallies related to politically-controversial positions, such as the promotion of LGBT rights or opposition to the war. Azov and other militias have attacked anti-fascist demonstrations, city council meetings, media outlets, art exhibitions, foreign students and Roma. Progressive activists describe a new climate of fear that they say has been intensifying ever since last year's near-fatal stabbing of anti-war activist Stas Serhiyenko, which is believed to have been perpetrated by an extremist group named C14 (the name refers to a 14-word slogan popular among white supremacists). Brutal attacks this month on International Women’s Day marches in several Ukrainian cities prompted an unusually forceful statement from Amnesty International, which warned that "the Ukrainian state is rapidly losing its monopoly on violence.”

Ukraine is not the only country that must contend with a resurgent far right. But Kiev’s recent efforts to incorporate independent armed groups into its regular armed forces, as well as a continuing national sense of indebtedness to the militias for their defense of the homeland, make addressing the ultranationalist threat considerably more complicated than it is elsewhere. According to Schaaf and the Institute Respublica, Ukrainian extremists are rarely punished for acts of violence. In some cases — such as C14's January attack on a remembrance gathering for two murdered journalists — police actually detain peaceful demonstrators instead.

To be clear, the Kremlin’s claims that Ukraine is a hornets’ nest of fascists are false: far-right parties performed poorly in Ukraine’s last parliamentary elections, and Ukrainians reacted with alarm to the National Militia’s demonstration in Kiev. But connections between law enforcement agencies and extremists give Ukraine’s Western allies ample reason for concern. C14 and Kiev's city government recently signed an agreement allowing C14 to establish a "municipal guard" to patrol the streets; three such militia-run guard forces are already registered in Kiev, and at least 21 operate in other cities.

In an ideal world, President Petro Poroshenko would purge the police and the interior ministry of far-right sympathizers, including Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who has close ties to Azov leader Andriy Biletsky, as well as Sergei Korotkykh, an Azov veteran who is now a high-ranking police official. But Poroshenko would risk major repercussions if he did so; Avakov is his chief political rival, and the ministry he runs controls the police, the National Guard and several former militias.

As one Ukrainian analyst noted in December, control of these forces make Avakov extremely powerful and Poroshenko’s presidency might not be strong enough to withstand the kind of direct confrontation with Avakov that an attempt to oust him or to strike at his power base could well produce. Poroshenko has endured frequent verbal threats, including calls for revolution, from ultranationalist groups, so he may believe that he needs Avakov to keep them in check.

Avakov’s Peoples’ Party status as the main partner in Ukraine’s parliamentary coalition increases Avakov’s leverage over Poroshenko’s Bloc. An attempt to fire Avakov could imperil Poroshenko’s slim legislative majority, and lead to early parliamentary elections. Given Poroshenko’s current unpopularity, this is a scenario he will likely try to avoid.

Despite his weak position, Poroshenko still has some options for reducing the threat from the far right. Though Avakov controls the Ukraine’s police and National Guard, Poroshenko still commands Ukraine’s security and intelligence services, the SBU, and could instruct the agency to cut its ties with C14 and other extremist groups. Poroshenko should also express public support for marginalized groups like the Roma and LGBT communities, and affirm his commitment to protecting their rights.

Western diplomats and human rights organizations must urge Ukraine’s government to uphold the rule of law and to stop allowing the far right to act with impunity. International donors can help by funding more initiatives like the United States Agency for International Development’s projects supporting training for Ukrainian lawyers and human rights defenders, and improving equitable access to the judicial system for marginalized communities.

There’s no easy way to eradicate the virulent far-right extremism that has been poisoning Ukrainian politics and public life, but without vigorous and immediate efforts to counteract it, it may soon endanger the state itself.
About the Author

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohe ... SKBN1GV2TY

This is how Ukraine was commented on prior to recent propaganda brainwashing

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Are you doing your research?

Below is something by Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right dated November 30, 2019

Zelensky Struggles To Contain Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Problem

Militiamen of Ukraine’s nationalist movement are espousing white supremacist views. This is one of the challenges Ukrainian President Zelensky is facing

On October 10, during a “marathon” press conference in Kiev, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that it is impossible to separate the opposing forces of the Ukrainian army and the forces of the self-proclaimed republics in the territory of Donetsk and Lugansk regions, “while a different people from both sides will come there and accidentally shoot. ” In the same interview, he said that now this issue depends also on the Ukrainian side.

Why did not the entire world dashing in to protect the self-proclaimed republics in the territory of Donetsk and Lugansk regions

There is a serious problem behind all of this, because despite the signing by Ukraine of the so-called the “Steinmeier formula”, which defines the mechanism for enacting of the law on a special procedure for local self-government on this territory, despite the process of exchange of prisoners, as well as the obvious intention of the new Ukrainian authorities to fulfill their election promises and achieve peace in the east of their country, this goal remains unattainable. Moreover, this is due to the tough position of the Ukrainian radical right.

What happened and why do we speak about the radical right? We are talking about the militants of the National Corps Party, linked directly to the “AZOV” National Guard Corps of Ukraine (the former “Azov volunteer battalion”), and the neo-Nazi organization C-14, which were recognized in 2018 by the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor as a “Nationalist Hate Group”.

In 2016, BBC journalist Dina Newman published an article about “AZOV”. She wrote the following: “The key figures in the “AZOV” Battalion are its commander, Andriy Biletsky, and his deputy, Ihor Mosiychuk. Andriy Biletsky is also the leader of a Ukrainian organization called the Social National Assembly. Its aims are stated in one of their online publications:

"to prepare Ukraine for further expansion and to struggle for the liberation of the entire White Race from the domination of the internationalist speculative capital”;

“to punish severely sexual perversions and any interracial contacts that lead to the extinction of the white man”. This, according to experts, is a typical neo-Nazi narrative"

C-14 holds roughly the same view, which, as OpenDemocracy writes, “combine generic ‘healthy patriotic’ message with subtler hints which can be easily deciphered by members of the subculture (such as the symbolic date of the Roma pogrom on Hitler’s birthday or indeed the very name of the organization).”

Over the past, nothing has changed. These groups organize gypsy pogroms, acts of vandalism against Jewish shrines and property, attack their political opponents, whom they call pro-Russian, what very often is far from the truth, and so on. There is one problem – the neo-Nazis did not get to today’s Ukrainian parliament where the overwhelming majority are represented by deputies from the pro-presidential party “Servant of the People.”

The radical nationalist bloc has not received a single mandate; the representation in Rada lost the former leader of the neo-Nazi party “Right sector” Dmitry Yarosh, one of the leaders of the ultra-radicals Borislav Beresa, as well as commander of the “Azov” Andriy Biletsky. And that’s why they are very worried.

To restore their political influence, the right-wing radicals need to mobilize their electorate, who is also tired of the unpredictability of the extreme rights and in the recent elections voted for the more moderate politicians Petr Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, although they failed to gain a majority in the Parliament. However, P. Poroshenko signed the Minsk agreements in 2015, which the veteran of Ukrainian politics, the former presidential candidate Y. Tymoshenko, did not fail to point out recently, speaking in the Rada.

That is why the Azov veterans, members of the National Corps and other nationalists led by A. Biletsky decided to intervene in the process of disengaging the armed forces of the warring parties near the villages of Zolotoye and Petrovsky. They hoped that their action would attract the attention of all those who are dissatisfied with the president’s peaceful initiatives. And they justified themselves.

On October 8, armed Right-wing radicals, primarily veterans of the “Azov” Battalion, arrived at the demarcation line and tried to break through the Ukrainian National Police checkpoints. Law enforcement officers had to shoot in the air to drive them away, but they broke through the cordon and went into battle positions.

“If the President and the Government do not fulfill their direct duty to protect every inch of the Ukrainian land, then we, the volunteer veterans, will do it again,” Biletsky promised at an organized meeting in Zolotoy. He said that he and his team will impede the disengagement of forces in the Donbass and, in the event of withdrawal of the Army troops, they will occupy their positions at the front.

According to the one of the separatists’ Representatives, militants from the “Azov” National Battalion at the entrance to the Petrovskoye-Bogdanovka checkpoint shot regular units of the Ukrainian army. According to the deputy head of the “People’s Police Directorate” of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk Peoples Republic” (DPR), Eduard Basurin, four people were killed and four more were injured. “The nationalists tried to get to the checkpoint on the border with the DPR, bypassing the units of the Armed Forces. They answered with fire. A skirmish ensued, as a result of which both sides suffered losses,” he said.

These losses are not confirmed by the Ukrainian side. According to the Representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, after clashes with nationalists, the military and police did not take illegal and harsh actions against those who tried to break through the border. “Acting in accordance with the law of Ukraine “On the National Police”, the commando fired a warning shot into the air. They didn’t use any special means or weapons to persons who refused to comply with the lawful requirements of the police, the Statement said. – Please read this information carefully. There were no illegal actions against citizens of Ukraine! Only compliance with the law! ”

Judging by this official statement, there is a slight panic in the power circles of Ukraine. The authorities are extremely afraid of the intra-Ukrainian conflict, which already once, in 2014, led to a change of power. Now protests against the “Steinmeier formula” pose no threat to the rating of the president, nor to stability in society. However, if clashes between activists and the Ministry of Internal Affairs lead to casualties, this will increase the protest potential of the nationalist part of Ukrainian society. Political opponents of Zelensky are now expecting from the head of state such careless and harsh actions. The president of Ukraine has repeatedly stated that the lives of Ukrainians are above all for him, that’s how Zelensky gained popularity among citizens tired of the war. The head of state cannot allow new victims.

All this would lead to a sharp activation of the nationalist-minded electorate. The rally against Zelensky’s peace initiatives in Kiev on October 6, (the “All-Ukrainian Chamber “Stop Capitulation”), which gathered according to various estimates from 5000 to 10,000 people, is evidence of how great its protest potential of nationalists is. It should be added that absolutely all local authorities of western Ukraine and some regional councils of the Right-Bank of Dnepr- River, for example, the Khmelnitsky region, opposed the consent to the implementation of the “Stanmeier formula”. Western Ukraine protests, first of all, against granting special status to Donbass.

A. Biletsky himself expressed their position at a press conference in the Ukrainian capital on October 11, 2019. He said that the withdrawal of troops will not lead to the fact that the Ukrainian side will be able to control the elections in the Donbass. Kiev will still not be able to follow the elections, and “observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe are unreliable”.

The fact of signing the Minsk Agreements by P. Poroshenko in 2015, is considering by the nationalists as a successful “tactical maneuver” and nothing more. The famous Ukrainian oligarch and former Zelensky show-business partner I. Kolomoisky said, “the signing of these agreements was a tactical trick – the Ukrainian army suffered severe defeats from militias, and Poroshenko had to avoid a final defeat.”

On the other hand, to make an acquiescence to the radical right is also not permissible for V. Zelensky. This will undermine his credibility as a leader capable of influencing the political situation in the country and having full control over the parliament. The reputation of a “weak politician” could ruin this artist of the post-Soviet show business, who soared to a political olympus, having a 71% rating today.

A crisis of trust may well occur too in the West, which is also disastrous for the young president. It is unlikely that they will be able to write off the unwillingness to fulfill his part of the arrangements on the Minsk agreements to the activity of the nationalists. This will demonstrate the President’s weakness also to European partners. Moreover, now, in the eyes of the international community, the guilty party in delaying a peace settlement is the Ukrainian, and not the Russian side, which has been living in the regime of Western sanctions for more than five years and requires only the “strict implementation of the Minsk agreements”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking in Ashgabat at the CIS summit 11/10/19, blamed the Ukrainian “nationalist armed groups” for disrupting the separation of the parties in the areas of the Zolotoye and Petrovsky settlements. He did not say whether the lack of breeding in the Golden and Petrovsky summits in the “Norman format” would hinder, but his assistant Yuri Ushakov made it clear that Russia insisted on fulfilling this condition.

Thus, the radical right can once again interfere with a peaceful settlement in Ukraine, which became a pan-European headache.

True, there remains one more opportunity to solve the problem. On October 8, 2019, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko announced it at the Minsk “Dialogue International Forum”. He said that he is ready to enter his military peacekeepers to the Donbass: “If you want us to close the border of 400 kilometers between Ukraine and Russia, which is now not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities,” referring to the Ukrainian delegation, “we will close this border.” According to him, troops entering will be a “big problem” for Minsk, as the Belarusians do not want to get involved in the conflict. Nevertheless, the Belarusian leader added, he can do it with the consent of “both sides”.

In this statement, it is interesting not only that the president of the closest Russian ally-state declared his readiness to send his troops to the border between Russia and Ukraine. For the first time, to the Kremlin’s obvious displeasure, Lukashenko called Russia a “Party to the Conflict“. Therefore, speaking of the “both sides” that require consent to the Belarusian troops enter, he did not mean the Ukrainian side and the separatists, but Ukraine and Russia. And this indicates a fundamental change of the trend in Minsk. “And it is not necessary after me to say that this is not a conflict between Russia and Ukraine,” BelTA news agency quotes the president of Belarus.

Another important point in Lukashenko’s speech is his statement that the conflict in Ukraine cannot be resolved without the participation of the United States, with which Moscow also categorically disagrees.

It is difficult to say whether such a position will help resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine, in particular, whether the entry of Belarusian peacekeepers to the Russian-Ukrainian border will help a peaceful settlement, and V. Zelensky himself, given the mood of right-wing militants and the Ukrainian population supporting them. However, for the Ukrainian president, this is an another chance.

Another thing is interesting. The Belarusian leader unequivocally took up European and even American positions, demonstrated his independence from Russia, supported the Norman format and the policy of a united Europe. If this is not another attempt to knock out new economic benefits from the Kremlin, then we can talk about the upcoming changes in the alignment of political forces both in the Ukrainian conflict and in the international arena as a whole, which will certainly strengthen the position of the West in the confrontation against Moscow. Obviously, both Brussels and Washington should be grateful to A. Lukashenko for a different position from Russia, not only in the Crimea, which he did not recognize as a part of Russia, but also in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where he clearly wants to become a key player.

https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/20 ... i-problem/

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About 50% of Americans Have Below-Average Intelligence Due To Lead in Petrol

[Anthea]

US Stops Training Program

for Ukrainian Forces

After many years of secret training programs given by the U.S. military to Ukrainian forces, Washington has reportedly canceled the project, allegedly for fear of potential interference in negotiations with Russia for a peaceful solution to the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine

Diplomatic relationships between Russia and the U.S. collapsed before Moscow launched its special military operation in Ukraine last February 24 because Washington continued to ignore Russia's concerns on NATO 'expansion eastward and the expulsion of Russia's diplomatic staff from the country.

The plan was presented to the U.S. Congress in December 2021 by Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, where "a few hundred" U.S. special operations troops would be deployed to Ukraine and coach militants in "unconventional warfare." Russian forces in Ukraine have found several documents under the approval of Colonel-General Nikolai Balan, commander of the Ukrainian National Guard, that allowed the incorporation of neo-Nazi militias for a major offensive against the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk republics in the east.

The documents found disclosed that the troops had been selected and trained according to the 80th Separate Air Assault Brigade in Yavorov near Lvov — a unit that has trained with U.S. and British forces. The Yavorov 'International Peacekeeping and Security Centre' barracks, located 12 miles from Poland's border, were destroyed on Sunday morning by a Russian missile strike.

U.S. Army Green Berets and the CIA's 'Ground Branch' had arrived in Ukraine to teach conventional and insurgent warfare methods. In January, the British Ministry of Defence said had personnel teaching Ukrainians to use the NLAW anti-tank missiles it has gifted to Kiev in the city of Lvov itself. At the time, Ben Wallace, British Defence Secretary, announced that 30 soldiers of the army's Ranger Regiment were sent to Ukraine for the mission.

The announcement of the British side emerged the same month that the CIA's 'Ground Branch' had been training Ukrainian units. In contradictory statements, a spokesperson said that "no such plans were ever presented" to the White House or the National Security Council. The Pentagon indicated that Biden did not "cancel any planned training activities for Ukraine until U.S. forces were repositioned in February."

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/US- ... -0015.html

US has been funding neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine