Connexion
Israel is now vowing to respond to Iran’s retaliatory attack, and while the Biden regime claims to have told Netanyahoo that the U.S. won’t aid in any offensive action, they are still promising to provide air defense… just like they did when Tehran retaliated for Israel’s deadly attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria.
Journalist and Editor-in-Chief of The Cradle, Sharmine Narwani, reported that an Iranian military security official revealed exclusively to The Cradle that the U.S. reached out and asked Iran to allow Israel “a symbolic strike to save face,” which was “outright rejected” and met with warnings that any attack from Israel targeting Iran will be met with immediate action.
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Choreographed retaliations impacting Iran proper, or its interests anywhere else, as during the mild and lawful Round One Iranian barrage, were rejected by Iran for Round Two.
Iran warned ANY support of Zion’s aggression by the deranged West (such as needed aerial refueling and air defense) will bring retaliation on their bases throughout the region, and closing Hormuz, perhaps selectively a la Houthis?!
Zion is committed to regaining permanently lost deterrence. F-UKUS is committed to Zion. The circle is about to be squared
In this interview, we are joined by the renowned geopolitical expert Pepe Escobar, who delves into the pages of his latest book “Eurasia v. NATOstan”. Brace yourself for an insightful exploration of the imminent collision between the Western Empire of Chaos and the emerging multipolar world order led by Eurasia. @SyrianaAnalysis
A l’occasion du 30ème anniversaire de l’attentat du 06 avril 1994 contre l’avion des présidents rwandais et burundais qui a
L’article Repentance pour le Rwanda: Macron joue encore contre la France est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
US Ambassador April Glaspie with Saddam Hussein, 1990: ‘[W]e have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait…’
Israel is provoking an expanded regional war that it cannot win
By Abdel Bari Atwan at Rai Al Youm.
When and how will Iran retaliate?
Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a man of few words. When he publicly threatens a harsh response to Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus — which killed seven people including senior Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) commanders — that means retaliation is impending.
The question is whether it will be immediate or postponed for few days; and, also, if it will be carried out directly by the IRGC or by its paramilitary allies in South Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, or both.
If there’s a war, there is no need for the element of surprise, and it may be militarily or politically unwise to defer it. The decision to retaliate was already taken by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council at an emergency meeting convened immediately after news broke of the airstrike on the consulate, according to a source close to the council. This could entail launching hundreds or thousands of missiles at Israeli targets, and even striking Israeli diplomatic missions in the Gulf region or elsewhere.
The demonstrations held by thousands of Iranians in Tehran to condemn the Israeli attack were different to previous rallies held in support of Gaza. This time, demonstrators criticised their own political leaders for their failure to respond firmly and directly to a succession of earlier Israeli assassinations and attacks, and demanded they retaliate decisively this time. Iranian leaders are bound to take account of this growing frustration with their policy of ‘strategic patience’.
Allied resistance groups are likely to play a role in this retaliation. Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah has said retaliation is certainly coming. Abu Ali al-Askari of Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah spoke of thousands of armed fighters prepared to cross from Jordan into occupied Palestinian to join the struggle there. As for the Yemenis, they have no need for a call-to-arms. They began their battle against Israeli-linked shipping — and then the US navy — in support of Gaza months ago.
The reference to Jordan was significant. Some weeks ago, tens of thousands of Iraqi Hashd ash-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) members rallied at the Iraqi-Jordanian border and chanted calls for it to be opened so they could reach Palestine and fight in defence of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In the event of an expanded war, US military bases in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and the Gulf region could also be targeted. Washington had reached secret understandings with Tehran not to expand the Gaza war into a regional one. But it did not live up to its side and failed to restrain its Israeli ally. By carrying out a succession of deliberately provocative attacks against Iranian targets, and further escalating the genocidal war against civilians in Gaza, Netanyahu belittled and humiliated Biden, and demonstrated that it is he who calls the shots in the White House.
If the Iranian state join the prospective war directly alongside its Lebanese, Iraqi, and Yemeni allies, I expect that the Syrian army will do to. Shortly after the al-Aqsa Flood operation, the Iranian foreign minister visited Damascus to sound the Syrian president out about the need to join the war on all fronts in support of the Palestinian resistance. According to high-level Syrian sources, President Bashar al-Asad replied: “Syria is a state, not a front. If the Iranian state enters into this war, we will be by its side, without hesitation.”
Iran is a regional superpower with a huge arsenal of missiles, drones, and submarines. It has been a nuclear breakout state for three years and may have already manufactured nuclear weapons. If it enters a war that Israel forced on it by attacking its consulate — a blatant violation of its sovereignty — it may prove to be the region’s last war, and the beginning of the end of the Zionist occupation state in its current form.
It would probably be a rolling conflict, starting with a limited retaliation and escalating into all-out war. The occupation state has been reopening public shelters. Its settlers have been stocking up on food and cash. The military has been placed on alert, air defence reservists have been called up, and home leave for combat units cancelled. Its current leaders want a war and are preparing for one.
But it is a war it cannot win. It failed, despite the full backing of the US, to overcome the resistance fighters of the miniscule and vulnerable Gaza Strip after six months of merciless bombardment. Can it withstand a war against the Axis of Resistance led by Iran?
‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.’
King Henry V, 1415, the Hundred Years War.
By Pepe Escobar at Strategic Culture Foundation.
The Mechanism: how the “order” based on made-up rules is descending into savagery
As the de facto North Atlantic Terror Organization celebrates its 75th birthday, taking Lord Ismay’s motto to ever soaring heights (“keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down”), that thick slab of Norwegian wood posing as Secretary-General came up with a merry “initiative” to create a 100 billion euro fund to weaponize Ukraine for the next five years.
Translation, regarding the crucial money front in the NATO-Russia clash: partial exit of the Hegemon – already obsessing with The Next Forever War, against China; enter the motley crew of ragged, de-industrialized European chihuahuas, all in deep debt and most mired in recession.
A few IQs over average room temperature at NATO’s HQ in Haren, in Brussels, had the temerity to wonder how to come up with such a fortune, as NATO has zero leverage to raise money among member states.
After all, the Europeans will never be able to replicate the time-tested Hegemon money laundering machine. For instance, assuming the White House-proposed $60 billion package to Ukraine would be approved by the U.S. Congress – and it won’t – no less than 64% of the total will never reach Kiev: it will be laundered within the industrial-military complex.
Yet it gets even more dystopic: Norwegian Wood, robotic stare, arms flailing, actually believes his proposed move will not imply a direct NATO military presence in Ukraine – or country 404; something that is already a fact on the ground for quite a while, irrespective of the warmongering hissy fits by Le Petit Roi in Paris (Peskov: “Russia-NATO relations have descended into direct confrontation”).
Now couple the Lethal Looney Tunes spectacle along the NATOstan front with the Hegemon’s aircraft carrier performance in West Asia, consistently taking its industrial-scale slaughter/starvation Genocide Project in Gaza to indescribable heights – the meticulously documented holocaust watched in contorted silence by the “leaders” of the Global North.
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese correctly summed it all up: the biblical psychopathology entity “intentionally killed the WCK workers so that donors would pull out and civilians in Gaza could continue to be starved quietly. Israel knows Western countries and most Arab countries won’t move a finger for the Palestinians.”
The “logic” behind the deliberate three tap strike on the clearly signed humanitarian convoy of famine-alleviating workers in Gaza was to eviscerate from the news an even more horrendous episode: the genocide-within-a-genocide of al-Shifa hospital, responsible for at least 30% of all health services in Gaza. Al-Shifa was bombed, incinerated and had over 400 civilians killed in cold blood, in several cases literally smashed by bulldozers, including medical doctors, patients and dozens of children.
Nearly simultaneously, the biblical psychopathology gang completely eviscerated the Vienna convention – something that even the historical Nazis never did – striking Iran’s consular mission/ambassador’s residence in Damascus.
This was a missile attack on a diplomatic mission, enjoying immunity, on the territory of a third country, against which the gang is not at war. And on top of it, killing General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon, his deputy Mohammad Hadi Hajizadeh, another five officers, and a total of 10 people.
Translation: an act of terror, against two sovereign states, Syria and Iran. Equivalent to the recent terror attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow.
The inevitable question rings around all corners of the lands of the Global Majority: how can these de facto terrorists possibly get away with all this, over and over again?
The sinews of Liberal Totalitarianism
Four years ago, at the start of what I later qualified as the Raging Twenties, we were beginning to watch the consolidation of an intertwined series of concepts defining a new paradigm. We were becoming familiar with notions such as circuit breaker; negative feedback loop; state of exception; necropolitics; and hybrid neofascism.
As the decade marches on, our plight may at least have been alleviated by a twin glimmer of hope: the drive towards multipolarity, led by the Russia-China strategic partnership, with Iran playing a key part, and all that coupled with the total breakdown, live, of the “rules-based international order”.
Yet to affirm there will be a long and winding road ahead is the Mother of All Euphemisms.
So, to quote Bowie, the ultimate late, great aesthete: Where Are We Now? Let’s take this very sharp analysis by the always engaging Fabio Vighi at Cardiff University and tweak it a little further.
Anyone applying critical thinking to the world around us can feel the collapse of the system. It’s a closed system alright, easily definable as Liberal Totalitarianism. Cui bono? The 0.0001%.
Nothing ideological about that. Follow the money. The defining negative feedback loop is actually the debt loop. A criminally anti-social mechanism kept in place by – what else – a psychopathology, as acute as the one exhibited by the biblical genocidals in West Asia.
The Mechanism is enforced by a triad.
1. The transnational financial elite, the superstars of the 0.0001%.
2. Right beneath it, the politico-institutional layer, from the U.S. Congress to the European Commission (EC) in Brussels, as well as comprador elite “leaders” across the Global North and South.
3. The former “intelligentsia”, now essentially hacks for hire from media to academia.
This institutionalized hyper-mediatization of reality is (italics mine), in fact, The Mechanism.
It’s this mechanism that controlled the merging of the pre-fabricated “pandemic” – complete with hardcore social engineering sold as “humanitarian lockdowns” – into, once again, Forever Wars, from Project Genocide in Gaza to the Russophobia/cancel culture obsession inbuilt in Project Proxy War in Ukraine.
That’s the essence of Totalitarian Normality: the Project for Humanity by the appallingly mediocre, self-appointed Great Reset “elites” of the collective West.
Killing them softly with AI
A key vector of the whole mechanism is the direct, vicious interconnection between a tecno-military euphoria and the hyper-inflationary financial sector, now in thrall with AI.
Enter, for instance, AI models such as ‘Lavender’, tested on the ground in the Gaza killing field lab. Literally: artificial intelligence programming the extermination of humans. And it’s happening, in real time. Call it Project AI Genocide. — Sidebar: [01] [02] [03] [04] [background]
Another vector, already experimented, is inbuilt in the indirect assertion by toxic EC Medusa Ursula von der Lügen: essentially, the need to produce weapons as Covid vaccines.
That’s at the core of a plan to use funding of the EU by European taxpayers to “increase financing” of “joint contracts for weapons”. That’s an offspring of von der Lügen’s push to roll out Covid vaccines – a gigantic Pfizer-linked scam for which she is about to be investigated and arguably exposed by the EU’s Public Prosecutor Office. In her own words, addressing the proposed weapons scam: “We did this for vaccines and gas.”
Call it Weaponization of Social Engineering 2.0.
Amidst all the action in this vast corruption swamp, the Hegemon agenda remains quite blatant: to keep its – dwindling – predominantly thalassocratic, military hegemony, no matter what, as the basis for its financial hegemony; protect the U.S. dollar; and protect those unmeasurable, unpayable debts in U.S. dollars.
And that brings us to the tawdry economic model of turbo-capitalism, as sold by collective West media hacks: the debt loop, virtual money, borrowed non-stop to deal with “autocrat” Putin and “Russian aggression”. That’s a key by-product of Michael Hudson’s searing analysis of the FIRE (Finance-Insurance-Real Estate) syndrome.
Ouroboros intervenes: the serpent bites its own tail. Now the inherent folly of The Mechanism is inevitably leading casino capitalism to resort to barbarism. Undiluted savagery – of the Crocus City Hall kind and of the Project Gaza Genocide kind.
And that’s how The Mechanism engenders institutions – from Washington to Brussels to hubs across the Global North to genocidal Tel Aviv – stripped down to the status of psychotic killers, at the mercy of Big Finance/FIRE (oh, such fabulous seafront real estate opportunities available in “vacant” Gaza.)
How can we possibly escape such folly? Will we have the will and the discipline to follow Shelley’s vision and, in “this dim vast vale of tears”, summon the transcending Spirit of Beauty – and harmony, equanimity and justice?
The Russian population has handed to the Kremlin total carte blanche to exercise brutal, maximum punishment – whatever and wherever it takes.
By Pepe Escobar at Strategic Culture Foundation.
Let’s start with the possible chain of events that may have led to the Crocus terror attack. This is as explosive as it gets. Intel sources in Moscow discreetly confirm this is one of the FSB’s prime lines of investigation.
December 4, 2023. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Mark Milley, only 3 months after his retirement, tells CIA mouthpiece The Washington Post: “There should be no Russian who goes to sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the middle of the night (…) You gotta get back there and create a campaign behind the lines.”
January 4, 2024: In an interview with ABC News, “spy chief” Kyrylo Budanov lays down the road map: strikes “deeper and deeper” into Russia.
January 31: Victoria Nuland travels to Kiev and meets Budanov. Then, in a dodgy press conference at night in the middle of an empty street, she promises “nasty surprises” to Putin: code for asymmetric war.
February 22: Nuland shows up at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event and doubles down on the “nasty surprises” and asymmetric war. That may be interpreted as the definitive signal for Budanov to start deploying dirty ops.
February 25: The New York Times publishes a story about CIA cells in Ukraine: nothing that Russian intel does not already know.
Then, a lull until March 5 – when crucial shadow play may have been in effect. Privileged scenario: Nuland was a key dirty ops plotter alongside the CIA and the Ukrainian GUR (Budanov). Rival Deep State factions got hold of it and maneuvered to “terminate” her one way or another – because Russian intel would have inevitably connected the dots.
Yet Nuland, in fact, is not “retired” yet; she’s still presented as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and showed up recently in Rome for a G7-related meeting, although her new job, in theory, seems to be at Columbia University (a Hillary Clinton maneuver).
Meanwhile, the assets for a major “nasty surprise” are already in place, in the dark, and totally off radar. The op cannot be called off.
March 5: Little Blinken formally announces Nuland’s “retirement”.
March 7: At least one Tajik among the four-member terror commando visits the Crocus venue and has his photo taken.
March 7-8 at night: U.S. and British embassies simultaneously announce a possible terror attack on Moscow, telling their nationals to avoid “concerts” and gatherings within the next two days.
March 9: Massively popular Russian patriotic singer Shaman performs at Crocus. That may have been the carefully chosen occasion targeted for the “nasty surprise” – as it falls only a few days before the presidential elections, from March 15 to 17. But security at Crocus was massive, so the op is postponed.
March 22: The Crocus City Hall terror attack.
ISIS-K: the ultimate can of worms
The Budanov connection is betrayed by the modus operandi– similar to previous Ukraine intel terror attacks against Daria Dugina and Vladimir Tatarsky: close reconnaissance for days, even weeks; the hit; and then a dash for the border.
And that brings us to the Tajik connection.
There seem to be holes aplenty in the narrative concocted by the ragged bunch turned mass killers: following an Islamist preacher on Telegram; offered what was later established as a puny 500 thousand rubles (roughly $4,500) for the four of them to shoot random people in a concert hall; sent half of the funds via Telegram; directed to a weapons cache where they find AK-12s and hand grenades.
The videos show that they used the machine guns like pros; shots were accurate, short bursts or single fire; no panic whatsoever; effective use of hand grenades; fleeing the scene in a flash, just melting away, almost in time to catch the “window” that would take them across the border to Ukraine.
All that takes training. And that also applies to facing nasty counter-interrogation. Still, the FSB seems to have broken them all – quite literally.
A potential handler has surfaced, named Abdullo Buriyev. Turkish intel had earlier identified him as a handler for ISIS-K, or Wilayat Khorasan in Afghanistan. One of the members of the Crocus commando told the FSB their “acquaintance” Abdullo helped them to buy the car for the op.
And that leads us to the massive can of worms to end them all: ISIS-K.
The alleged emir of ISIS-K, since 2020, is an Afghan Tajik, Sanaullah Ghafari. He was not killed in Afghanistan in June 2023, as the Americans were spinning: he may be currently holed up in Balochistan in Pakistan.
Yet the real person of interest here is not Tajik Ghafari but Chechen Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, the former leader of the jihadi outfit Ajnad al-Kavkaz (“Soldiers of the Caucasus”), who was fighting against the government in Damascus in Idlib and then escaped to Ukraine because of a crackdown by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – in another one of those classic inter-jihadi squabbles.
Shishani was spotted on the border near Belgorod during the recent attack concocted by Ukrainian intel inside Russia. Call it another vector of the “nasty surprises”.
Shishani had been in Ukraine for over two years and has acquired citizenship. He is in fact the sterling connection between the nasty motley crue Idlib gangs in Syria and GUR in Kiev – as his Chechens worked closely with Jabhat al-Nusra, which was virtually indistinguishable from ISIS.
Shishani, fiercely anti-Assad, anti-Putin and anti-Kadyrov, is the classic “moderate rebel” advertised for years as a “freedom fighter” by the CIA and the Pentagon.
Some of the four hapless Tajiks seem to have followed ideological/religious indoctrination on the internet dispensed by Wilayat Khorasan, or ISIS-K, in a chat room called Rahnamo ba Khuroson.
The indoctrination game happened to be supervised by a Tajik, Salmon Khurosoni. He’s the guy who made the first move to recruit the commando. Khurosoni is arguably a messenger between ISIS-K and the CIA.
The problem is the ISIS-K modus operandi for any attack never features a fistful of dollars: the promise is Paradise via martyrdom. Yet in this case it seems it’s Khurosoni himself who has approved the 500 thousand ruble reward.
After handler Buriyev relayed the instructions, the commando sent the bayat – the ISIS pledge of allegiance – to Khurosoni. Ukraine may not have been their final destination. Another foreign intel connection – not identified by FSB sources – would have sent them to Turkey, and then Afghanistan.
That’s exactly where Khurosoni is to be found. Khurosoni may have been the ideological mastermind of Crocus. But, crucially, he’s not the client.
Oleh Tyahnybok, with McCain and Nuland
The Ukrainian love affair with terror gangs
Ukrainian intel, SBU and GUR, have been using the “Islamic” terror galaxy as they please since the first Chechnya war in the mid-1990s. Milley and Nuland of course knew it, as there were serious rifts in the past, for instance, between GUR and the CIA.
Following the symbiosis of any Ukrainian government post-1991 with assorted terror/jihadi outfits, Kiev post-Maidan turbo-charged these connections especially with Idlib gangs, as well as north Caucasus outfits, from the Chechen Shishani to ISIS in Syria and then ISIS-K. GUR routinely aims to recruit ISIS and ISIS-K denizens via online chat rooms. Exactly the modus operandi that led to Crocus.
One “Azan” association, founded in 2017 by Anvar Derkach, a member of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, actually facilitates terrorist life in Ukraine, Tatars from Crimea included – from lodging to juridical assistance.
The FSB investigation is establishing a trail: Crocus was planned by pros – and certainly not by a bunch of low-IQ Tajik dregs. Not by ISIS-K, but by GUR. A classic false flag, with the clueless Tajiks under the impression that they were working for ISIS-K.
The FSB investigation is also unveiling the standard modus operandi of online terror, everywhere. A recruiter focuses on a specific profile; adapts himself to the candidate, especially his – low – IQ; provides him with the minimum necessary for a job; then the candidate/executor become disposable.
Everyone in Russia remembers that during the first attack on the Crimea bridge, the driver of the kamikaze truck was blissfully unaware of what he was carrying,
As for ISIS, everyone seriously following West Asia knows that’s a gigantic diversionist scam, complete with the Americans transferring ISIS operatives from the Al-Tanf base to the eastern Euphrates, and then to Afghanistan after the Hegemon’s humiliating “withdrawal”. Project ISIS-K actually started in 2021, after it became pointless to use ISIS goons imported from Syria to block the relentless progress of the Taliban.
Ace Russian war correspondent Marat Khairullin has added another juicy morsel to this funky salad: he convincingly unveils the MI6 angle in the Crocus City Hall terror attack (in English here, in two parts, posted by “S”).
The FSB is right in the middle of the painstaking process of cracking most, if not all ISIS-K-CIA/MI6 connections. Once it’s all established, there will be hell to pay.
But that won’t be the end of the story. Countless terror networks are not controlled by Western intel – although they will work with Western intel via middlemen, usually Salafist “preachers” who deal with Saudi/Gulf intel agencies.
The case of the CIA flying “black” helicopters to extract jihadists from Syria and drop them in Afghanistan is more like an exception – in terms of direct contact – than the norm. So the FSB and the Kremlin will be very careful when it comes to directly accusing the CIA and MI6 of managing these networks.
But even with plausible deniability, the Crocus investigation seems to be leading exactly to where Moscow wants it: uncovering the crucial middleman. And everything seems to be pointing to Budanov and his goons.
Ramzan Kadyrov dropped an extra clue. He said the Crocus “curators” chose on purpose to instrumentalize elements of an ethnic minority – Tajiks – who barely speak Russian to open up new wounds in a multinational nation where dozens of ethnicities live side by side for centuries.
In the end, it didn’t work. The Russian population has handed to the Kremlin total carte blanche to exercise brutal, maximum punishment – whatever and wherever it takes.
Why is the biggest political story of our era so underreported?
with thanks to Ramin Mazaheri via Ramin’s Substack.
I have returned to Paris and can report that things are as politically bleak as ever, continuing a trend which began with the rubber bullet-smashing of the Yellow Vest movement in 2019. The European Union has become truly American (which was often alleged to be the ultimate goal): it’s politically apathetic.
There are no domestic political movements to report on – the French MSM just reports on Ukraine, Israel and (as usual) ecology.
This is not as it used to be.
Prior to the six months of bloody Saturdays over 2018-19 France had seen a full decade of incredible political activism. Leftist planning agendas were full of protests, gatherings and strikes concerning: Sarkozy’s bailouts in late 2008, Hollande’s hopeful Socialist Party election, his subsequent U-turn on austerity, the forceful imposition of austerity by Brussels, the fabrication of Macron, his immediate detestation, the spectacularly unprecedented support for – and then the spectacularly unprecedented repression of – les gilets jaunes – this was a 10-year period of intense, intense activism.
Were it not for Israel’s latest and most brutal invasion of Gaza, and combined with Macron’s incredible 7-years-running refusal to interact with the press (the exact opposite of Sarkozy), I’m not sure I’d have much work to do here?
There is a story to cover, and it’s the most important one, but it’s almost impossible to cover via PressTV news reports: the obvious failure of the pan-European project.
This is the biggest political story of the 21st century, and yet it’s going undiscussed year after year. Brexit put it on the front pages, and then so did the Yellow Vests, but Euroscepticism has been suppressed for four years now.
But what’s a bigger story in the 21st century than the economic, political and confidence collapse of the biggest economic bloc in the world?
The war on the Muslim world since 9/11? That’s something, indeed, but this is the re-sundering of a region which was already suppressed by two centuries of colonialism and then neo-colonialism.
The rise of China? That was something inevitable and unstoppable, due to the superior planning and cohesion of socialist-inspired governments. Of course, China’s sudden rise was aided by the Great Financial Crisis which devastated the West, who then exacerbated it with their predictably awful, inequality-generating policies of bailouts, austerity, QE and ZIRP.
Fifteen years ago who did not expect that a united Europe, and one working in what is now clearly lockstep with the United States, would become an unstoppable project?
That’s the big story: that Europe has not just stopped in its tracks but stagnated, regressed, devolved, disappointed, etc. and etc.
It’s truly historical. What the demise of the pan-European project means is the end of the “social democratic” model: if any region had implemented a “third way” between liberalism and socialism it was Europe. The alleged solution of “social democracy” goes way back to the 1890s – what we have witnessed hasn’t been the “death of communism” but the “death of social democracy” instead.
What a story, no? It was as the proponents of socialist democracy always predicted: social democracy inevitably reverts back to mere liberal democracy. It’s truly historical.
Back in the US someone recently asked me why I kept referring to the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, saying it was old history, and it made me pause. They never talk about it in the US anymore, that’s true. However, as soon as I returned to France I was confronted with multiple references to it in journalism and art. But they only get the dates right – roughly.
Yes, Europe took a more far-right economic approach (austerity) than the US (Europe had more social democracy to roll back, of course), but the problem is not the 2007-8 Great Financial Crisis nor austerity – the problem is the pan-European project itself, and this is precisely what is suppressed.
It is easy to suppress, or just be confused, because the timelines are so similar: the pan-European project didn’t truly begin until the undemocratic passage of the Lisbon Treaty of 2009, which was forced through thanks to the chaos surrounding the Great Financial Crisis and subsequent European Debt Crisis (starting 2009).
Why has nobody kept referring to the Lisbon Treaty of 2009? I am definitely one of the very few journalists who do. Now that the UK is out the Anglophone world doesn’t care, I suppose.
The 15-year summation of the pan-European can only be judged to be atrocious, but who is talking about these things: the decrease in economic power; the sustained collapse in the euro’s value; the constant, continent-wide protests against the decisions of Brussels; the decrease in democratic credibility; the increase in militaristic domestic repression; the decrease in social economic protections for the average person; the rise of neo-fascist parties – what on earth does this reporter who has covered the EU since birth have to do get some real talk about United Europe anymore?
The Fall of Phaeton, 1605, Peter Paul Rubens
Ukraine will make or break the pan-European project
The European Union succeeds at nothing and nor do they stand for anything, so they’re desperate for any rallying cry for “Europe!”, and they’ve found one in Ukraine.
Of course, Europe has already failed Ukraine: their weaponry is being defeated, their production capabilities aren’t up to the job, everybody knows they’re just setting Ukraine up for the same debt traps they laid for country like Greece, and they have failed (purposely) to find a diplomatic solution. Their only success is in their spectacularly prejudiced prioritising of Ukrainian refugees: this was, of course, to keep flooding the labor market with desperate, low-wage accepting workers amid record-high inflation – anything to keep wage demands down.
The reality is that Ukraine is going to either be the EU’s final undoing, or it will somehow lead to the “more Europe” that is the only way this misguided economic-but-not-political federalist project could ever possibly succeed.
Europe’s leaders know Ukraine is their best – given the far-right victories looming in European Parliament elections this spring – chances, which are diminishing, to rally Europe behind the pan-European project and away from Euroscepticism.
Remember that in two years Macron has gone from “we must not embarrass Russia” to calling other European countries “cowardly” for not buying Ukraine even more weapons, and even threatening to land NATO troops. Why the huge shift?
Of course war is good for business – France has soared to become the #2 arms merchant in the world. But in a bloc which has a pre-Covid history which no one in the 1% wants anyone to remember, it’s only via war with Russia that European public opinion could possibly be united in favor of “Europe!”.
European imperialists have run out of racism and now can only rely on nationalist prejudice – this is what the EU has revealed itself to be. Furthermore, during the 2010s we were constantly told in France that the pan-European project was the only reason war didn’t break out in Europe – recall how the EU won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, amid mass anti-austerity repression? This is justification is now out the window.
No peace, no public opinion in public policy, no prosperity – no success for the EU, and when will success ever arrive?
Now isn’t the time, Europeans are being told, to argue about the lack of results in the pan-European project – Putin is at the doorstep. Marine Le Pen fairly accused Macron of creating a situation – surrounding this week’s French Parliamentary approval of a 10-year military pact with Ukraine – where, “You’re either with Macron or you’re with Putin”. That’s not just Russophobia or scapegoating – that is the summation of Macron’s whole political policy now.
Nobody – no popular democratic majority – has ever been or will ever be with Macron, but the fabrication of false unity is what Ukraine is being manipulated for here in Europe.
But it’s going to be even bigger than that in the coming months and maybe even years, namely: “Either you’re with the pan-European project or you’re with Putin”.
After all, how else can support for the pan-European project possibly be created in 2024? They cannot stand on their results, and they cannot stand on hopes that the project will suddenly become workable, profitable, democratic, morally responsible, inspire confidence, etc.
The failure of Europe – that’s the biggest story of the 21st century.
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Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His latest book is France’s Yellow Vests: Western Repression of the West’s Best Values. He is also the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese. Any reposting or republication of any of these articles is approved and appreciated. He tweets at @RaminMazaheri2 and writes at substack.com/@raminmazaheri
US Troops as close as 2.5 miles from China Mainland and key city Xiamen.
By Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com
Taiwan Confirms Presence Of US Green Berets On Islands Very Close To China’s Coast
Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng confirmed on Thursday the presence of US Army Special Forces soldiers in Kinmen, a group of islands that are controlled by Taiwan but located just off the coast of mainland China.
Some parts of the Kinmen islands are just 2.5 miles away from the mainland Chinese city of Xiamen. The presence of US troops on the islands was first reported by Taiwanese media last month.
Chiu confirmed the highly provocative deployment when asked about a new report from the US outlet SOFREP that said US Green Berets have taken up “permanent positions” as military advisors in Kinmen. The US soldiers are also deployed in Penghu, a Taiwanese-controlled archipelago about 30 miles west of the main island of Taiwan and 70 miles east of mainland China.
The SOFREP report said the US Green Berets were stationed at the Taiwanese Army’s amphibious command centers. The deployment was carried out under provisions in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which called for the US to create a comprehensive training program for the Taiwanese military.
The new collaboration includes the US troops training Taiwanese forces on the Black Hornet Nano, a compact military drone. Chiu said the presence of the US Green Berets was a “learning opportunity” for Taiwan’s military.
The US has significantly increased its military and diplomatic support for Taiwan in recent years, ratcheting up tensions with China. Last year, the US deployed around 200 troops to Taiwan, marking the largest known US military presence on the island since the US pulled its troops out after Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979.
The US also recently began providing Taiwan with unprecedented military aid. Since 1979, the US has always sold weapons to Taiwan but never financed the purchases or provided arms free of charge until last year.
The saga of Bundeswehr officers plotting to blow up the Kerch bridge with Taurus missiles and getting away with it is a gift that keeps on giving.
By Pepe Escobar at Strategic Culture.
The Four Stooges saga of Bundeswehr officers plotting to blow up the Kerch bridge in Crimea with Taurus missiles and getting away with it is a gift that keeps on giving.
President Putin, in his comprehensive interview to Dmitry Kiselev for Russia 1/RIA Novosti, did not fail to address it:
“They are fantasizing, encouraging themselves, first of all. Secondly, they are trying to intimidate us. As for the Federal Republic of Germany, there are constitutional problems there. They correctly say: if these Taurus hit that part of the Crimean Bridge, which, of course, even according to their concepts, is Russian territory, this is a violation of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.”
Yet it gets curioser and curioser.
When the transcript of the Taurus leak was published by RT, everyone was able to hear Brigadier General Frank Gräfe – head of operations of the German Air Force – speaking with Lieutenant Colonel Fenske from the German Space Command Air Operations on the plan to deploy Taurus systems in Ukraine.
A key point is that during the plotting, these two mention that plans were already discussed “four months ago” with “Schneider”, the successor of “Wilsbach”.
Well, these are German names, of course. Thus it did not dawn on anyone that (Kevin) Schneider and (Kenneth) Wilsbach could instead be… Americans.
Yet that did raise the eyebrows of German investigative journalist Dirk Pohlmann – who I had the pleasure to meet in Berlin years ago – and his fellow researcher Tobias Augenbraun.
They found out that the German-sounding names did identify Americans. Not only that: none less than the former and the current Commanders of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces.
The Four (actually Six) Stooges element gets an extra boost when it is established that Liver Sausage Chancellor Scholz and his Totalenkrieg Minister Pistorius learned about the Taurus plan no less than four months later.
So here apparently we have a clear cut case of top German military officers taking direct orders regarding an attack on Crimea – part of the Russian Federation – directly from American officers in the Pacific Air Forces.
That in itself opens the dossier to a large spectrum ranging from national treason (against Germany) to casus belli (from the point of view of Russia).
Of course none of that is being discussed on German mainstream media.
After all, the only thing that seems to disturb Brigadier General Gräfe is that German media may start seriously prying on the Bundeswehr’s Multiple Stooges methods.
The only ones who actually did proper investigation were Pohlmann and Augenbaun.
It would be too much to expect from German media of the “Bild” type to analyze what would be the Russian response to the Multiple Stooge shenanigans against Crimea: a devastating retaliation against Berlin assets.
It’s so cold in Alaska
During the jolly Bundeswehr conversation yet another “plan” is mentioned:
“Nee, nee. Ich mein wegen der anderen Sache.” (“No, no. I mean the other matter.”) Then: “Ähm … meinst du Alaska jetzt?” (“Ahm, you mean Alaska now?”)
It all gets juicier when it is known that German Space Command Air Operations Centre officer Florstedt will meet none other than Schneider next Tuesday, March 19, in Alaska.
And Gräfe will also “have to go back to Alaska” to explain everything all over again to Schneider as he is “new” in the post.
So the question is: Why Alaska?
Enter American shadowplay on a lot of “activities” in Alaska – which happen to concern none other than China.
And there’s more: during the conversation still another “plan” (“Auftrag”, meaning “mission”) also surfaces, bearing a not clearly understandable code name sounding like “Kumalatra”.
What all of that tells us is that the Crash Test Dummy administration in the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon seem to betting, in desperation, on Total War in the black soil of Novorossiya.
And now they are sayin’ it out loud, with no shadow play, and coming directly from the head of the CIA, William Burns, who obviously sucks at secrecy.
This is what Burns told the members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this week:
“I think without supplemental assistance in 2024, you’re going to see more Avdeevkas, and that – it seems to me – would be a massive and historic mistake for the United States.”
That spells out how much the Avdeevka trauma is impressed on the psyche of the U.S. intel apparatus.
Yet there’s more: “With supplemental assistance, Ukraine can hold its own on the front lines through 2024 and into early 2025. Ukraine can continue to exact costs against Russia, not only with deep penetration strikes in Crimea, but also against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.”
Here we go: Crimea all over again.
Burns actually believes that the humongous $60 billion new “aid” package which must be approved by the U.S. Congress will enable Kiev to launch an “offensive” by the end of 2024.
The only thing he gets right is that if there’s no new package, there will be “significant territorial losses for Ukraine this year.”
Burns may not be the brightest bulb in the – intel – room. A long time ago he was a diplomat/CIA asset in Moscow, and seems to have learned nothing.
Apart from letting cats and kitties galore out of the bag. It’s not only about attacking Crimea. This one is being read with surpreme delight in Beijing:
“The U.S. is providing assistance to Ukraine in part because such activities help curb China.”
Burns nailed his Cat Out of the Bag Oscar win when he said “if we’re seen to be walking away from support for Ukraine, not only is that going to feed doubts amongst our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific; it’s going to stoke the ambitions of the Chinese leadership in contingencies ranging from Taiwan to the South China Sea”.
The inestimable Andrei Martyanov perfectly summed up the astonishing incompetence, peppered with tawdry exceptionalism, that permeates this performance by Burns.
There are things “they cannot grasp due to low level of education and culture. This is a new paradigm for them – all of them are ‘graduates’ of the school of ‘beating the crap from defenseless nations’ strategic ‘studies’, and with the level of economic ‘science’ in the West they cannot grasp how this all unfolds.”
So what is left is panic, as expressed by Burns in the Senate, mixed with the impotence in understanding a “different warrior culture” such as Russia’s: “They simply have no reference points.”
And still they choose war, as masterfully analyzed by Rostislav Ishchenko.
Even as the acronym fest of the CIA and 17 other U.S. intel agencies have concluded, in a report shown to Congress earlier this week, that Russia is “almost certainly” seeking to avoid a direct military conflict with NATO and will calibrate its policies to steer clear of a global war.
After all the Empire of Chaos is all about Forever Wars. And we are all in the middle of a do or die affair. The Empire simply cannot afford the cosmic humiliation of NATO in Novorossiya.
Still every “plan” – Taurus on Crimea-style – is a bluff. Russia is aware of bluff after bluff. The Western cards are now all on the table. The only question is when, and how fast will Russia call the bluff.
The endless ennui and envy of those incapable of abandoning phantom pains. Most useful putty in the hands of Empire
By Ambassador MK Bhadrakumar at the Indian Punchline.
Ever since its ignominious defeat in the Napoleonic wars, France is entrapped in the predicament of countries that get sandwiched between great powers. Following World War II, France addressed this predicament by forging an axis with Germany in Europe.
Caught up in a similar predicament, Britain adapted itself to a subaltern role tapping into the American power globally but France never gave up its quest to regain glory as a global power. And it continues to be a work in progress.
The angst in the French mind is understandable as the five centuries of western dominance of the world order is drawing to a close. This predicament condemns France to a diplomacy that is constantly in a state of suspended animation interspersed with sudden bouts of activism.
But, for activism to be result-oriented, there are prerequisites needed such as the profiling of like-minded activist groups, leadership and associates and supporters and sympathisers — and, most important, sustainment and logistics. Or else, activism comes to resemble epileptic fits, an incurable affliction of the nervous system.
The French President Emmanuel Macron’s halcyon days in international diplomacy ended with the recent dissolution of the Franco-German axis in Europe, which dated back to the Treaties of Rome in 1957. As Berlin sharply swerved to trans-atlanticism as its foreign-policy dogma, France’s clout diminished in European affairs.
The stakes are high in the reconciliation meeting on Friday as Macron travels to Berlin to meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who not only snubbed him by ruling out the use of ground troops from European countries in the Ukraine war, but also digging in on Taurus missile issue arguing that it would entail assigning German staff in support to Ukraine, which, he announced on Wednesday in the Bundestag, is simply “out of the question” while he remained the chancellor.
Of course, this is not to decry Macron’s formidable intellect — such as when he declared in a blunt interview in late 2019 with the Economist magazine that Europe stood on “the edge of a precipice” and needed to start thinking of itself strategically as a geopolitical power lest it will “no longer be in control of our destiny.” Macron’s prescient remark preceded the war in Ukraine by 3 years.
According to the newspaper Marianne, which interviewed several French soldiers, the military reportedly estimates that the Ukraine war is irretrievably lost already. Marianne quoted a senior French officer saying derisively, “We must make no mistake facing the Russians; we are an army of cheerleaders” and sending French troops to the Ukrainian front would simply be “not reasonable” . At the Élysée, an unnamed advisor argued that Macron “wanted to send a strong signal… (in) milli-metered and calibrated words”.
Marianne’s editor Natacha Polony wrote: “It is no longer about Emmanuel Macron or his postures as a virile little leader. It is no longer even about France or its weakening by blind and irresponsible elites. It is a question of whether we will collectively agree to sleepwalk into war. A war that no one can claim will be controlled or contained. It’s a question of whether we agree to send our children to die because the United States insisted on setting up bases on Russia’s borders.”
The big question is why Macron is doing this nonetheless — going to the extent of cobbling together a ‘coalition of the willing’ in Europe. A range of explanations is possible starting with Macron posturing and trying to earn political points at minimal cost, motivated by personal ambitions and intra-European friction with Berlin.
But then, until fairly recently, Macron was a supporter of dialogue with Moscow. The perception in most European capitals, including Moscow, is that Macron is making an attempt to bring the Ukrainian crisis to a new level by announcing western combat deployment against Russia publicly as an obvious political manipulation.
The geopolitical salience is that Macron who once not too long ago called for dialogue with Moscow and offered his mediation in it, who made the famous declaration of a “Greater Europe” in 2019 and maintained contacts with Russian President Vladimir Putin thereof; who as of February last year, while speaking about Russia’s “certain defeat” in Ukraine, called for avoiding Moscow’s “humiliation”; who repeatedly underscored his commitment to the matrix of diplomacy attributed to Charles de Gaulle, which assigned France the role of a “bridge between East and West” — has now swung to the other extreme of harsh Euro-Atlantic rhetoric.
This appalling inconsistency can only be seen as stemming out of the unfavourable development of events in the scenario of the Ukrainian crisis with the prospect of a Russian defeat in the war no longer in the cards even remotely and replaced by the growing possibility that peace will ultimately be attainable only on Russia’s terms. Put differently, the power dynamic in Europe is shifting dramatically, which, of course, impacts Macron’s own ambitions to “lead Europe.”
Meanwhile, Russian-French relations have also been undergoing a stage of fierce competition and rivalry — even confrontation — in a number of areas. For a start, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejournet said in an interview with Le Parisien in January that Russia’s victory in Ukraine would lead to 30% of world wheat exports being controlled by Moscow. For Paris, this is a question of the sustainability of one of the key sectors of French national economy.
French agriculture is marked by its history that had its beginning with the Gaulois in 2000 BC. It needs to be understood that In modern history, French Revolution of 1789, which altered every part of the French social order and led to the abolition of privileges for upper classes, was also an Agricultural Revolution, which allowed a broad land redistribution. Suffice to say, the bond of French people to their agriculture is very strong.
As it is, African states are changing the structure of grain imports due to the technical regulations introduced by the European Union as part of its green agenda and French farmers consequently face rising costs, and over and above that, there is now also the looming loss of regional market share to Russia.
This is on top of the inroads Russia is making in arms exports to the African continent lately. In politico-military terms too, France has lost ground to Russia in the resource-rich Sahel region, its ex-colonies and playpen traditionally. The fact of the matter is that the birds are coming to roost over France’s neo-colonial strategies in Africa, but Paris prefers to put the blame on Russia’s Wagner group which has moved in to fill the security vacuum in Sahel region, as anti-French forces have come to power in several countries at once — Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, CAR.
In the best traditions of geopolitics, France has begun retaliating in regions sensitive to Russian interests — Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine where Russian military presence is in French crosshairs. Unsurprisingly, Ukraine is the most strategic turf where Macron hopes to achieve a bigger French presence.
Through that, Macron hopes to advance his leadership ambitions in Europe as the navigator of the EU’s foreign policy strategy in a wide arc from the African continent across the Mediterranean to Transcaucasia — and potentially all the way to Afghanistan.
All this is unfolding against the historic backdrop of an inevitable US retrenchment in Europe as Indo-Pacific hots up and the simmering rivalry with China becomes an all-consuming passion for Washington. Indeed, alongside, the towering presence of Russia across Europe is beginning to be felt intensely as it surges as the number one military and economic power in the strategic space between Vancouver and Vladivostok.
Today, the paradox is, then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev had proposed way back in 2008 a legally binding pan-European security treaty, which would develop a new security architecture in Europe, involving the reshaping of existing, and creating new institutions and norms regulating security relations in Europe in a wider geopolitical space stretching east “from Vancouver to Vladivostok.” But, alas, the US encouraged the Europeans to see the so-called ‘Medvedev Initiative’ as a trap to enfeeble NATO, the OSCE, the EU and other European bodies, and reject that wonderful idea which would have anchored the post-cold war era firmly on a binding security architecture.
PEPE ESCOBAR Interview: Ukrainian PR Stunt on the Russian Border, NATO in Ukraine, Multipolarity and More
The ‘Rockstar of Geopolitics’ Returns to the DDG Show! Discussing Desperate Attempts to Create Chaos Before Russian Elections, NATO Troops in Ukraine, the Collective West Running Out of Options for ‘Project Ukraine,’ and More!
China 
and Geopolitics is LIVE with journalist and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar TODAY March 8th at 10am eastern, 6pm Moscow!
We discuss a series of events hosted in Russia 
and attended by our guest on multipolarity, and how they contrast with NATO’s march to WWIII which has intensified in recent weeks.
What is the U.S. and its NATO vassals offering via Biden’s SOTU speech and Macron’s threats, and how does it compare to the Russia and China-led alternative?
Russian President Putin’s Day Down on the Farm in Stavropol Territory
with thanks to Karl at karlof1’s Geopolitical Gymnasium
Clearly not a traditional farm; rather, it’s a bio-organic non-gmo “food factory” that produces much more than tomatoes. All the open ground at the top of the pic is for the next expansion phase. Krasnodar region is at the same latitude as Crimea and boasts 300 days of sunshine annually. From its website:
Solnechniy Dar is one of the largest greenhouse farms in Russia. We use the latest innovative technology to provide fresh produce year-round. We operate 83.27 hectares of high-tech greenhouses that produce more than 38 000 tons of high quality fresh vegetables annually. [My Emphasis]
Impressive rows of hydroponically grown tomatoes at the Solnechny Dar greenhouse complex of the ECO-Culture agro-industrial holding in Stavropol Krai.
Exquisite tomatoes grown year-round.
One of the most impressive aspects of Russia’s import substitution project since the illegal sanctions assault escalated in 2014 is its food production that made Russia sovereign regarding its food security—something that has always plagued it and gave leverage to its opponents. In relation to Putin’s visit, TASS ran an article announcing “Russia becomes 4th country for agricultural exports with revenues of $43.5 bln.” Putin noted that amounts to a 30-fold increase since 2000—not percentage but 30X.
After touring the facility, Putin shared lunch with the workers and discussed their work. Afterwards, Putin participated in the opening ceremonies of new industrial facilities in the Leningrad and Belgorod regions and the Republic of Mordovia:
PhosAgro Group’s mineral production complex was put into commercial operation in the Leningrad Region. fertilizers, including an innovative product – pure water-soluble ammophos.
Plant of EFKO Group of Companies for deep processing of soybeans and other oilseeds began work in the Belgorod region.
In addition, the Talina Group of Companies for the production of meat and sausage products was opened in the Republic of Mordovia.
All are members of what’s known in Russia and the Agro-Industrial sector. Putin then met with the Stavropol Territory Governor Vladimir Vladimirov and capped his day by meeting with representatives of the agro-industrial complex of Russia. The three main events will not fit into one article, so the last meeting will be provided in part two.
There was a lot more talking than eating during the discussion as the video shows. Of course, much traditional farming occurs throughout Russia, even in Siberia where many think it stays frozen all the time. Here’s what they had to say:
Vladimir Putin: Hello!
Remark: Good afternoon!
Vladimir Putin: Please sit down. How are you?
Remark: Good.
Vladimir Putin: I looked at your farm, which is impressive, to be honest. A whole city was built. Five years of building, right?
Alexander Rudakov: Yes, five years.
Vladimir Putin: They said it was the biggest farm in Europe, right?
Alexander Rudakov: The most important thing is that it is the biggest in Russia. Europe has not been so long ago for us.
Vladimir Putin: Do you like working here?
Remark: Yes.
Vladimir Putin: What questions do you have?
Remark: There are some sore spots.
Vladimir Putin: Come on.
Vladimir Kultyaev: Let me get started. Vladimir Kultyaev, power engineer.
Vladimir Vladimirovich, I read that in your youth you worked in a student group.
Vladimir Putin: Exactly, there was such a thing.
V. Kultyaev: Share a memory?
Vladimir Putin: What’s there to share? Take more – throw more.
I have already mentioned this, there are no secrets here, we worked in the Komi ASSR, near Syktyvkar, in some other places, and I went there for several years in a row. At first we were engaged in construction, not even construction, but major repairs of wooden houses. You know, wooden houses, designed for two families, with a veranda on both sides. So we demolished these verandas and demolished the roofs, leaving the center.
Replica: Box.
Vladimir Putin: Well, yes. Added verandahs and roofs were made. But the work was quite stressful. It was necessary to carry such healthy logs, to drag them up.
Vladimir Kultyaev: Thank you. Could you recommend that modern students practice in our greenhouse? We are very much waiting for them.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, with pleasure. How much is your average salary?
A. Rudakov: 56 thousand.
Vladimir Putin: This is more than by region.
[Stavropol governor] Vladimir Vladimirov: We have 49.
Vladimir Putin: In the conditions in which we worked, the conditions were difficult: construction, and then cutting down power lines – this is hard work, it was necessary to thresh. There was someone older, I was still snotty, of course, but why, I just came, and we mostly took guys after the army or with work experience, in my opinion, at least three years. So the guys were stronger after the army, and I came right after school. I thought that I was an athlete, honestly, I was a candidate or a master of sports, what do I need there, what nonsense, but it turned out that I wasn’t: by the end of the day I was barely dragging my feet. And the older guys were stronger.
You know, I can [tell you] – a household thing, but curious. I remember when we worked for a week, sorry, we went to the bathhouse – it was as if I had come to the Hermitage, to this bathhouse. It was a feeling of rest, absolute, complete.
But we made a decent living there – I asked for a salary for some reason. We worked, of course, very hard – for 12 [hours], and even [more]. No one followed any norms or labor legislation. And when the power lines were cut down in the taiga, and when the houses were repaired, we probably worked for 15 hours. But on the other hand, we earned decent money, which at that time was very decent money: 900, 1000 rubles, some even more.
But nevertheless, these were different forms of construction teams, they are still different, and we revived this system of construction teams. And the guys are working in agriculture now. But it’s certainly a pleasure to work at a facility like yours. Especially, probably, for specialists who plan to work in agriculture in the future. It is becoming more and more interesting, high-tech, and requires a good education and special knowledge. Now it is difficult to achieve such results without this knowledge, without these technologies: here both genetics and biology are included-what is not. This is a very interesting type of activity.
A few years ago, when my Administration started talking about high technologies, they created special groups. To be honest, I’m ashamed, but it seemed to me that this is somehow redundant, one direction is purely in agriculture. I even asked my colleagues: “How is high technology?” “Of course! Without this, it is impossible to develop.”
And indeed, a lot has been done, the Ministry is doing a lot in this direction, supporting science. In this regard, of course, construction teams are a practice. Although I know for sure that people from different fields work at agricultural enterprises in the summer, they work with pleasure. It is important to create an appropriate atmosphere here. I am sure that this is possible with such managers. Why do I say “with such managers”, because if they are so creative that they have created such a huge enterprise – it takes your breath away! By car we go, we go, I think, where does it end? No end in sight. It’s not for my arrival here so cleaned? So everything is clean.
Remark: This is always the case with us.
Vladimir Putin: Everything is clean, everything is clean, everything is working. Now we have looked at and shown new cleaning devices, also made with the help of artificial intelligence and robotics, which will clean up four times more than one person. But it won’t make you unemployed, will it?
Alexander Rudakov: Absolutely not. We’ll build more.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, the company will expand. This is great!
We are talking about this now, and the media will process it all and issue it accordingly.: a) advertising and b) attracting possible construction teams to work for you.
Vladimir Kultyaev: Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: Thank you, it’s so cool and beautiful here.
S. Gubaz: Good afternoon!
Vladimir Putin: Good morning.
S. Gubaz: Leading agronomist-agrochemist of “Sunny Gift” Gubaz Sabina Lavrentievna.
Vladimir Vladimirovich, I would like to start by saying that our company devotes a lot of time to improving the prestige of working in greenhouse complexes. People come to us who are really in love with working with plants. But we also understand that it is important to feed this love, for example, with care on our part. I think that such issues as benefits for purchasing housing, perhaps the construction of houses for young professionals, are taken care of to attract personnel, of course, not far from the place of work.
Vladimir Vladimirovich, are any projects being considered for the construction of apartment buildings for specialists or preferential conditions for the purchase of housing for agronomists in our region?
Vladimir Putin: Yes, for everyone, we also have preferential mortgages for agriculture. Moreover, they are different for different categories, but from 0.1 to 3 percent per annum. They also work. Don’t they build anything here?” (To Vladimir Vladimirovich.) Don’t build anything?
Vladimir Vladimirov: Alexander Sergeyevich [Rudakov] and I have a joint project specifically for Sunny Gift – to start construction on a preferential mortgage. Therefore, we are entering the next cycle of the national project and will also build it. It is under a preferential mortgage.
Vladimir Putin: After all, why did so much housing was built in Russia last year? This is an absolute record, never seen before in the Soviet Union – over 110 million square meters of land. Mainly because of mortgages and preferential mortgages. And we decided to keep the preferential mortgage for agriculture, it will work.
So you just need to get organized here, Mr Putin.
Vladimir Vladimirov: That’s it!
Vladimir Putin: Of course, do it. And as soon as you get organized, we will do everything possible to work out these tools for you. Here, at such enterprises, how many employees do you have?
A. Rudakov: 2400.
Vladimir Putin: 2400. Especially for specialists.
By the way, the second option that you need to use is service housing for the duration of work. We do this in order to increase the mobility of labor resources. It goes on and on, it is being used more and more widely and is in quite high demand. And from all that we are building, we are now starting to use wooden housing construction more and more widely. It’s probably great to build something out of wood in an area like this. Moreover, they also build apartment buildings from wooden structures. Very eco-friendly.
So all options are possible here, Mr President, and we must do it. Of course, we will support you. I will tell Marat Shakirzyanovich [Khusnullinu], you will call him, work with him. The funds we have are allocated, and they are very decent. And the banks work flawlessly. Moreover, they do not want the volume of housing construction to decline. It’s a good business for them.
However, due to the fact that a lot of housing is being built, and on this preferential mortgage, there are already concerns on the part of regulators who deal with the financial market, cash flows, as if there is too much money supply, this leads to inflation, and so on. Therefore, we have to adjust a little now.
But we still keep these benefits for the village.
Irina Enina: Managing Technologist of Sunny Gift Irina Enina.
Vladimir Vladimirovich, I was curious to ask you. Do you prefer cucumbers or tomatoes?
Vladimir Putin: It depends on what we eat.
If in a serious way, then both.
Irina Enina: We recommend you to try our tomatoes. They are the best here.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, I’ll try. Just put it there. “He asked me to come visit and said that the old lady-mother would be very happy, but he didn’t leave an address” – there is such a thing in our classics. I will definitely try it now.
In general, it’s hard for me to say, both are delicious. After all, we have tomatoes relatively recently. They came to us, as you probably know, from Latin America. They were brought to Europe by the Spaniards in the XVI century. And only under Catherine the Great, which is already, in my opinion, the XVII-XVIII century, they appeared in Russia. Very popular dish. So let’s give it a try.
It’s just from these twigs where we were just now, isn’t it? Delicious.
Alexander Rudakov: Thank you. We are very pleased. We try our best.
N. Batrak: Foreman of the vegetable growing brigade, my name is Natalia Batrak.
Today, ECO-culture produces the largest amount of tomatoes in Russia.
Vladimir Putin: In an enclosed area?
N. Batrak: In the closed ground, yes.
Alexander Rudakov: There will be even more, don’t worry.
N. Batrak: The Stavropol Territory is our homeland. We can say that it is practically the birthplace of tomatoes, because here is the largest greenhouse complex in Russia – almost 122 hectares.
Vladimir Putin: That’s great.
N. Batrak: Many regions and cities have their own business cards. Somewhere they celebrate the tomato festival, the cucumber festival, and we even have an All-Russian Onion Day.
I previously worked at Domodedovo Airport, and a lot of Russians use the North Caucasus for vacations. As a rule, this is the Black Sea coast. We would very much like the Stavropol Territory to attract tourists, in addition to tourists, so that they know about us and hear about us.
How do you like the idea of creating a tomato festival in the Stavropol Territory?
Vladimir Putin: You probably know, you probably know…
N. Batrak: In Spain, right?
Vladimir Putin: Yes, they throw tomatoes.
N. Batrak: No, we want beautiful things.
Replica: We will eat.
Vladimir Putin: But why? Why not?
N. Batrak: So that some fairs can be included in this festival.
Vladimir Putin: The local authorities should help you. Not even regionally, but locally. What’s the name of the district here?
V. Vladimirov: Izobilnensky city district.
Vladimir Putin: Talk to your superiors. There are no local bosses here?
N. Batrak: No.
Vladimir Putin: Why do you discriminate? I should have invited him.
Vladimir Vladimirov: He went to the SVO.
Vladimir Putin: By the way, I looked at the portraits of your guys – vegetable growers, standing with machine guns, vegetable growers are strong. Don’t forget about our children, especially their families. We have just spoken with the managers.
And the idea itself is a great, cool idea. I don’t think we have one yet, do we?
N. Batrak: No.
Vladimir Putin: Well, why not do it?
Vladimir Vladimirov: We have a Watermelon festival, a wine festival, and a grape festival.
Vladimir Putin: We need to combine the wine festival with the tomato festival. But then they will throw themselves, of course. But the idea is good, wonderful, let’s do it.
Vladimir Vladimirov: Very well.
Vladimir Putin: And if you need to help-come on, what’s the problem?
Vladimir Vladimirov: We’ll manage.
Vladimir Putin: (To Dmitry Medvedev).To Patrushev). Dmitry Nikolaevich?
[Minister of Agriculture] D. Patrushev: I support it. Very good initiative.
Vladimir Putin: Of course. What kind of events do we have? Cucumber festival, what else is there?
Dmitry Patrushev: We have a cucumber festival, we have an onion festival.
Vladimir Putin: The onion festival?
Dmitry Patrushev: Yes, it is held in different regions. In general, we have “Tastes of Russia”, we did all this within the framework of your instructions, and there any products, including vegetable growing, can be presented and receive appropriate medals, win competitions and continue to develop exactly those industries where these products are produced. We have done a very good job, we have been holding this competition for the last three years, and the regions and small businesses are happy to take part. This is a large enterprise, but nevertheless also, I think that if they participate, then there is every chance to take first place and further promote their products.
Vladimir Putin: And what will this first place give?
Dmitry Patrushev: Well, first of all, we will also provide financial support for the development of this brand, and we will promote it, including by making it easier to enter export markets. And this gives certain advantages for further promotion. Often regional brands, they are not widely known on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Vladimir Putin: The advertising will be good.
Dmitry Patrushev: Yes, this allows almost the whole of Russia to know about this brand.
Vladimir Putin: Please support us.
Dmitry Patrushev: We’ll do it.
Vladimir Putin: Vladimir Vladimirovich [Vladimirov] will help his colleagues, and you are from the ministry.
Dmitry Patrushev: Yes.
Vladimir Putin: It won’t hurt to involve the media and various agencies that could help organize this beautifully. It’s a good idea.
A. Rudakov: And the growth of consumption will be very useful, the popularization of the product.
Vladimir Putin: It is good that there is an increase in consumption, only then we will need to ensure an increase in supply in the market, so that we do not ask our friends from Turkey, as in some other types, from other countries, to urgently supply us with this or that product.
Dmitry Patrushev: We will study.
Vladimir Putin: Our tomato production has grown significantly in recent years, right?
D. Patrushev: In general, we grew up very well on greenhouse vegetables. We didn’t have such an industry at all until 10 years ago. In fact, we re-organized it, and in my opinion, we collected more than 1.5 million tons of vegetables from the closed ground last year. This is also, in principle, one of our records and achievements.
Vladimir Putin: What is important is that we have our own production of this equipment, right? Where did you say it was produced?
Alexey Rudakov: In Lipetsk, in the Lipetsk special Economic Zone, as you probably know, the plant is modern and new. We provide for our own projects and our partners who build in Russia, and there are no problems with this, Mr Putin. Russian equipment – 90% of our production is made in Russia.
Even the film, we have a film complex, there is a slightly different technology, probably you know. It was the best in Greece. We made a film in Lipetsk, tested it in Switzerland, it surpasses this Greek one, the best, in terms of light transmission capacity. We produce everything ourselves, everything that makes economic sense. Well, we bribe something in China, some fees. There are no problems with this.
Vladimir Putin: You’re doing everything you can, aren’t you?
Alexander Rudakov: Yes.
Vladimir Putin: That’s great.
Alexey Rudakov: If we have a stronger dialogue with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, we need them to support us a little bit.
Vladimir Putin: What do you need?
Alexey Rudakov: At least by 10 percent, as the Ministry of Agriculture supports us in every possible way.
Vladimir Putin: What do you need?
Alexander Rudakov: Metalworking is their industry.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, of course.
A. Rudakov: There is also some kind of preferential financing there, and so on. We are trying to build a dialogue, but so far we have to use our own resources to implement all this.
Vladimir Putin: And the benefits and tools that we envisage for agriculture cannot be applied there?
Dmitry Patrushev: Mr President, we only have support for the production of food products, agricultural producers, but if they produce food, food. And if they do something else, we do it carefully.
Vladimir Putin: And on all sorts of investment platforms and so on?
Dmitry Patrushev: You can watch it. I think that Alexander Sergeyevich [Rudakov] and I will just think about what programs the Ministry of Industry and Trade can integrate into in order to have some benefits in terms of, perhaps, soft loans, perhaps there are some grants.
There is an industry support fund, I do not know, I am currently fantasizing whether it will be possible to use it or not, but we will think about it and join forces.
Vladimir Putin: Why is it impossible? We also have various investment platforms. Here, not just any investment platform will be used, but for agriculture. Let’s talk to Manturov.
Dmitry Patrushev: All right.
Vladimir Putin: Agreed. So you did the right thing.
N. Batrak: We will wait.
Irina Morozova: Irina Morozova, Chief Specialist of the HR Department.
I have a question, probably more of a request than yours. We have a large greenhouse complex, as already announced, 2,400 employees, but most of the employees live outside the village of Solnechnodolsk, these are rural areas and remote areas. Delivery of our employees is carried out by official transport. What’s the point? Personnel reserve. We are always waiting for people, we are always happy to see them, we have covered a large radius of settlements in order to attract people.
Vladimir Putin: How many employees do you have in total?
I. Morozova: 2400.
A. Rudakov: This was collected from a radius of 100 kilometers.
Vladimir Putin: I understood.
Irina Morozova: Even in some places there are more than 100 kilometers.
Our municipal roads are not very comfortable. There are a lot of people who want to go, but it’s not very comfortable to get there. Not only do we create conditions, people want to work, there are people who want to, but the road is not very comfortable. And especially in the off-season, it is not very convenient and problematic. I would like your help in repairing inter-municipal roads. Such a problem.
Vladimir Putin: You know, I’m going to turn back to the governor. I’ll tell you why. Vladimir Vladimirovich [Vladimirov] knows this, and we have divided our competence between the federal center and the regions. And it is divided as follows: the federal center deals with federal roads, and the money comes from the federal budget. There we have a task: to bring 85 percent of these federal roads into a standard state, and in principle the task is fulfilled.
As for the regional ones, I didn’t mention this in my Address just now, because the financial authorities there are somehow worried about the amount of funding. But now I will say that there is nothing here that is not a state secret, especially since this figure has already been mentioned, 60 percent of interregional roads need to be brought into a standard state. And appropriate finances are allocated. Whether it will work or not, I just didn’t want to get ahead of myself right now, because there are certain restrictions, because we have a lot of money allocated in other areas, in the social sphere, and we need to understand how much and what it will be possible to do there. But nevertheless, the reference point is approximate.
This is the responsibility of the regions. But we also help the regions with this, and we allocate money from the federal budget. In my opinion, 300 billion rubles were allocated last year for inter-municipal roads in general. But this is still the task and responsibility of the regions of the Russian Federation, in this case, of course, the Stavropol Territory itself.
I will ask you now, and Mr Putin will say a few words about what they are planning there. But we provide assistance from federal funds, from the federal budget.
I think that it is necessary, of course, to pay attention – not just to all the sisters in the same earrings, but in this case, when you have a large enterprise, then you absolutely need to collect employees from the district, so let’s say, of course, you need to pay primary attention to such situations.
Vladimir Vladimirovich, Izobilnensky city District is part of the Stavropol agglomeration. When you gave instructions to create the national project “Safe, High-quality Roads”, the Stavropol agglomeration was included in this project. We have received about 15 billion rubles in 6 years, in addition to the fact that our road fund has grown to 19 billion. Currently, the regulatory status of inter-municipal, i.e. regional roads in this agglomeration corresponds to 81 percent.
I think that we will work with the management, in addition to the direction of where, what is not covered. You correctly say, you cannot “by earrings”. Overall figures always look nice – we are the third best road quality company in Russia.
Vladimir Putin: So, by the way, I forwarded it.
Vladimir Vladimirov: In addition to the direction where there are difficulties on the roads…
Vladimir Putin: Until you praise yourself, not a single piglet will say a good word.
V. Vladimirov: I never promise anything, we won’t do it in a year, but within a year and a half, taking into account the design, I think that we will decide on the direction that is very important for ECO-culture.
Vladimir Putin: This is a specific enterprise.
Vladimir Vladimirov: Direction – meaning from where? Where is the bad road? You just tell me.
Vladimir Putin: It’s just a specific enterprise here. They use a vacuum cleaner to collect people from all over the area – of course, this is important.
I. Morozova: I can tell you that much. Novoaleksandrovsky district, Vorovsky farm. Problematic.
Vladimir Putin: Do you also need specialists from there?
Irina Morozova: Wait a minute. We have a large number of vegetable growers. Such work is carried out, these are the people who support production. After all, tomatoes are a colossal work. So we are waiting for everyone. Even from such a locality. And the people there are wonderful employees, by the way.
Vladimir Putin: I don’t doubt it, I don’t question it in any way.
Why did I just say that this is a regional level of responsibility? Because even when we give money from the federal budget for support, we give a transfer, we don’t ask the region where it wants to send it, it is the region itself that decides. We are sitting here right now, Vladimir Vladimirovich is listening, and of course, I am sure that he understands this very well: if an enterprise has been established, it needs to be provided with labor resources, people need to be brought in.
The same applies to transport, by the way, and we also allocate money for this.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Vladimirov: 260 buses, thank you very much, we have received them. Thank you very much for this decision, because today we cover almost all economically impractical routes with so-called municipal transport. Thank you so much.
Vladimir Putin: In six years, 40 thousand [units] of transport should be delivered additionally [to the regions].
Vladimir Vladimirov: We have just received the first ones.
Vladimir Putin: So it’s not for nothing that we discussed it.
Irina Morozova: We are expanding the talent pool of Sunny Gift and we are very much hoping for Vladimir Vladimirovich.
Vladimir Putin: Mr Putin will tell us later what exactly he decided to do.
Vladimir Vladimirov: I already remember Vorovsky.
Vladimir Putin: We need specialists from there to work at the enterprise.
With.Vorontsov: Sergey Vorontsov. I work as an agronomist here at the complex. I like my job, I like working in this industry, but when I communicate with my peers and peers, many people simply do not know what kind of job it is, what kind of profession it is, and what I do. Before I got a job here, I didn’t know that agronomists worked here.
Vladimir Putin: What did you finish?
With.Vorontsov: I’m a chef.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, but you love tomatoes.
With.Vorontsov: Yes, I love tomatoes. What do you think, maybe it’s time to somehow modernize the name, rename, maybe, the agronomist? Maybe a plant-growing designer of some sort?
Vladimir Putin: No, it doesn’t inspire confidence – the designer is a plant breeder. The content is needed, not the appearance. I do not know, you know better. I think an agronomist sounds proud. If memory serves, this word is of Greek origin. Agros is land, arable land, and nomos is a norm or law. Arable land, land and law. And this makes a lot of sense. I do not know if you think it doesn’t sound like it, but in my opinion, it is…
With.Vorontsov: Closer to the youth, maybe.
Vladimir Putin: Suggest something. I wouldn’t change it at all. The agronomist-this is me as if in jest, but I say it without joking: it sounds so solid, you know. If you know what this means and what a person does, especially in modern conditions, what is modern arable land, what is modern science about agriculture. Agronomists are in hot demand in the country today.
Dmitry Patrushev: Absolutely true.
Vladimir Putin: There is a huge shortage of good specialists. This is a very prestigious job, it requires both knowledge and good experience, and the ability to gain this knowledge again and again, because in such an area as agriculture, of course, at the pace that is gained in agriculture, in world agriculture. You know, this is also breeding, this is the same genetics, there are a lot of such high-tech things there. They require deep knowledge and the ability to constantly work on yourself.
With.Vorontsov: Can we somehow popularize this profession?
Vladimir Putin: Yes, that’s another matter, of course.
Here you are absolutely right, to show what kind of work it is, not just to walk around in knee-high rubber boots…
With.Vorontsov: Many people don’t know, really.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, you are right here. I don’t mind any innovations, but where they are needed, I don’t see the need here. But popularization, show development prospects, prospects for creative and industrial growth – this is of course. The significance of this type of activity today for the country, its charms are diverse. I repeat, from the point of view of career growth – this, of course, needs to be discussed. It’s true.
The Ministry initiated these things at that time.
To be honest, it all sounded a little unusual for me, this question, this suggestion. Because I thought that against the background of a large deficit, the demand for agronomists in the country, in the industry, I thought that this issue would be solved.…
With.Vorontsov: Maybe that’s why there is a shortage, because few people know?
Vladimir Putin: No, there is a shortage, because there is rapid development, very rapid development. How much land have we introduced recently?
Dmitry Patrushev: Mr President, we have introduced millions of hectares over the past few years. We now have a sown area of about 84 [million hectares]. It increases regularly, so, of course, specialists are needed.
We have a certain problem. Our specialized universities do not always train specialists who are in demand in agriculture. There were fashionable certain professions in their time-economists, lawyers, and they retrained. True, it was all done for extra-budgetary funds, but it was still blurry. Now we are still retraining our universities, and the main focus, the main emphasis is on those professions that are in demand in our industry, in the agro-industrial complex.
And you are absolutely right, a high-quality, professional agronomist is a profession that is currently in great demand. Alexander Sergeyevich knows that serious, professional, competent people with this profession, indeed, there is a very competitive struggle between large enterprises for them. Therefore, on the contrary, we will introduce more hours for training such specialists.
Vladimir Putin: As for the training of specialists, we do it in all industries, pay attention to the training that is in demand on the labor market and production. And these universities were transferred from you, right?
Dmitry Patrushev: No, these are our universities.
Vladimir Putin: What prevents you from restoring order then?
Dmitry Patrushev: Mr President, we are doing this. This work is being carried out quite actively, and our students who are graduating are in demand. We train high-quality guys.
Vladimir Putin: Then, you see, the result largely depends on agronomists. If not 100 percent, at least more than 50 percent, that’s for sure. And the result is what we have-such results have never been! Last year, how much, 157 [million tons of crop], right?
D. Patrushev: 147 [million tons].
Vladimir Putin: And the year before last?
Dmitry Patrushev: The year before last – 157 [million tons], in my opinion.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, 157 [million tons], then 147 [million tons] in the last year of harvest. There have never been such harvests! You see, we have become the fourth country in the world to export agricultural products. And for wheat – the first country in the world. Revenue was what-45 billion?
Dmitry Patrushev: 43.5.
Vladimir Putin: $ 43.5 billion in revenue from sales of products on the foreign market alone.
We have become one of the first countries in the world to produce meat, and this is also related to agronomic activities, because feed is needed, this is the same chain. There have never been such results in the country’s agro-industrial complex. I do not know, even under the tsar-father, probably, there were no such results.
Dmitry Patrushev: It wasn’t. There were no such technologies there.
Vladimir Putin: Everything is becoming more and more high-tech. But popularization is needed, it’s quite obvious, it’s for sure. We’ll do it, try, and say it more accurately.
Mikhail Dorokhov: Hello. I am a specialist in civil defense and emergency situations Dorokhov Maxim Vitalievich.
Vladimir Putin: What is a specialist in?
M. Dorokhov: On Civil Defense and Emergency Situations.
Vladimir Putin: It’s clear.
Mikhail Dorokhov: Our colleagues mostly talk only about their work and problems. I also have a question, but I would like to start with something positive.
Vladimir Putin: We also talk about positive things.
Mikhail Dorokhov: I want to tell you a little bit about myself. I live in a private house in a rural area. I’ve been waiting for more than five years for the gas line to come to my house. Since I had electric heating, it was very difficult for the family pocket.
Finally, in 2022, as part of the social gasification program, gas came to my house right on New Year’s Eve, December 31. I want to say thank you to the guys, gas workers, who turned on the power at 10 o’clock…
Vladimir Putin: It was a New Year’s gift.
Mikhail Dorokhov: Yes. Comfort came to the house.
When I found out that I would have the opportunity to see you, I was delighted, and I want to personally thank you from the bottom of my heart for the changes in my life that have come to my house.
Vladimir Putin: Thanks to Gazprom, not me. A little bit and they worked.
Mikhail Dorokhov: And now I have a question, a very relevant question, which concerns all the residents of our village, nearby villages and settlements. This is more than 30 percent of the residents of the Izobilny city district.
This question is “on the pencil” with our governor, but we want you to also pay attention to it and help in this matter. Our question is as follows. “ECO-culture” constantly supports our city district in financial and social matters, and it has renovated our hospital, brought it into a modern form, and there are no doctors in it. There are no doctors. We have to travel to Izobilny, often to Stavropol. The main issue is that life is solved in minutes, and Izobilny is 30 kilometers away. We ask that intensive care, surgery, and therapy return to us as before. We even had gynaecology, I’m sorry, it was the most advanced in the surrounding areas. That’s what I wanted to ask you.
Vladimir Putin: The clinic itself, or what is it?
Mikhail Dorokhov: No, this is a hospital. There used to be a maternity hospital here, and I think some of them were born here.
Vladimir Putin: Is the hospital in order now?
Mikhail Dorokhov: Yes, ECO-culture helps the village a lot. We now have a modern overhaul done, even ahead of time, before the New Year, and our governor knows, in my opinion. So what we’re asking is very important. Moreover, we already have more people in the village, it is growing, the village itself.
Vladimir Putin: How many people live there?
Mikhail Dorokhov: Well, last time there were more than 12 thousand people. And it increases.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, look, first of all, as for gasification. The program is good, we are extending it, first for a certain category of households, we did it, then expanded it to social facilities. And now, perhaps you noticed, I said in my Message that we will also distribute it to horticultural areas and partnerships. Over a million households have already used this project, one million and one-tenth. The networks are already connected to them. And we will continue to do so. I am very pleased that there are concrete results. This is the first one.
Now, the second thing is that as far as healthcare and education are concerned, by the way, it’s the same. Of course, this is one of the most important areas of rural social development. I’m not going to list everything that is being done here, but you’ve probably heard that we have introduced such tools as additional payments to rural paramedics, rural doctors, and so on. But now, I also said this quite recently, we are adding more to this (I did not accidentally ask how many people live in your village), in localities we are adding less than 50 thousand doctors to what we did before, we are adding another 50 thousand to this increase for doctors and 30 thousand for the average medical staff. In localities from 50 to 100 thousand inhabitants, the increase will be smaller: 29 and 13 thousand, respectively.
We have a big program to develop the so-called primary health care system. These are FAPs, including midwifery centers, and so on. But what should I mention? We give this money, but regional leaders should also determine priorities.
I was recently in the Tula region, came to the FAP – this is a paramedic and midwifery center, it is simple, but everything should be there in order to provide primary care to people – and the manager says to me: “And we still have several FAPs that need urgent support, restoration or even new construction”.
But the Federation only gives money, and the local leadership determines to whom in the first, second, third place and how much to give. It’s not up to us to decide, it’s up to the governor and his team, and they have to do it. We give this money to doctors and nurses, and the regional and local authorities should determine who should use these support tools first and how. They are there.
Since we are both here, the two Presidents, so I think that the Governor and I will have a separate discussion today and decide what can be done specifically for your object, for your locality.
Mikhail Dorokhov: Thank you very much.
Elena Apalkova: Mr President, your visit is a great honor for us. Once again, I would like to ask you what impression you got from visiting our greenhouse? What did you like? Or maybe, in your opinion, we need to work on something else?
Vladimir Putin: Alexander Sergeyevich said that they plan to develop and develop new areas. We must do what we can. I understand that these construction companies are also yours, right? In Lipetsk. This is a mixed type of activity being mastered.
We have now shown representatives of a young, small, but very interesting company that deals with robotics. I have already mentioned this. Apparently, you know the vending machine that collects these tomatoes. This is the second direction you have. It’s already two, three. There may actually be a lot of them. But, of course, those who are engaged in business, first of all, look at making it efficient, in order to pay salaries, in order to create jobs, in order to develop markets at home and abroad.
Since both the Minister and the governor are here, I think that we will support any initiative that will benefit you, the region, and the country as a whole. Only you formulate what you want.
Elena Apalkova: Thank you.
Alexander Rudakov: Mr President, please take this opportunity to follow up. We are building two large projects – in the Omsk region and in the Rostov region. By the way, Governor Khotsenko reported to you for our Omsk project, which we are building in Siberia. They are fully illuminated.
Could you help us with the issue of direct connection to the Federal Grid, because we are deployed at IDGC, where kilowatt-hour is twice as expensive, and we will not have savings. If possible.
Vladimir Putin: You know, it would be better if you whispered this in my ear right now. I’ll tell you why.
Alexander Rudakov: I was too shy.
Vladimir Putin: I shouldn’t have. Because connecting to these networks, as a rule, the vast majority of consumers want to be directly connected. Then who will connect to other networks and how do I maintain other networks? But it doesn’t matter, we’ll talk to you separately.
Alexander Rudakov: Thank you very much.
Vladimir Putin: Please.
Elena Apalkova: We will have a request for you.
Vladimir Putin: Please.
Elena Apalkova: Can I take a photo with you as a keepsake?
Vladimir Putin: With pleasure. [My Emphasis]
The banter in this discussion was rather hard to follow in places, particularly with Putin referring to himself in the third person. As I’ve written many times, Russia remains a developing nation in many areas that were neglected during the Soviet era. Roads are just one instance. Russia also shares the global problem of their being too few doctors in rural regions, which is related to an overall shortage of doctors. Now, in Russia the problem isn’t sky high tuitions that require massive loans to finance and then repay; rather, it’s the demographic problem that sees shortages of trained people in many areas—new specialized agronomists as noted here. The USSR tried to deal with this shortage by directly assigning people to their positions. Now that’s being done by incentive programs in pay and housing, but that still doesn’t solve the underlying problem of too few people. Putin could probably bemoan that issue everywhere he goes but doesn’t. Success at times breeds problems. The agro-industrial complex is growing rapidly and competes for workers with other areas. The problem isn’t in the lack of rural regions to develop; the problem is infrastructure of which the potential workforce is one component that can’t be manufactured. IMO, the one nation most likely to become close to having the robotic density described in Asimov’s Foundation will be Russia.
Meeting with Stavropol Territory Governor Vladimir Vladimirov.
The discussion between the two Vladimirs, one Russia’s President, the other Stavropol’s President, probably went well beyond what the transcript provides as what we read deals with some of the issues raised at the farm.
Vladimir Vladimirov: I would like to draw your attention to two aspects. As always, according to the standard report about today. Now we are on the threshold of spring field work. In general, we have almost 4 million hectares of land – 3 million 924 thousand hectares. Two million we sow for winter, winter crops, two million we sow for spring. 84 thousand pieces of equipment, and I want to say that the Ministry of Industry and Trade helps us very well here. Every year, we replace imported equipment by 10 percent. Now we have increased 10 percent again, bought 8 thousand units of Russian or Belarusian equipment, and, accordingly, we have literally 16 thousand units of imported equipment left. Everything is going well.
On seed production. We also discussed breeding work at the meeting. All from 7 to 19 percent of the replacement of imported seeds. Now we were in teplitsy, a regional investment park that we created in 2015. There is an American plant for the production of corn here, the Americans have not left, they are also working, they have mimicked the Russian jurisdiction, they are working calmly and we are already almost 50 percent provided with corn. On grain completely on 100 percent.
Socio-economic indicators. I specifically gave you six years, why? National projects, after all. We have received 131 billion rubles for national projects over 6 years. Almost all indicators are either double growth or two and a half times growth. Our exports have grown from 400 million this year to 2 billion. And here I thank the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Agriculture, because both there and there are a billion rubles each.
By salary. Also growth, we entered 30 thousand, now we have 49 thousand salaries. GRP per capita increased by two and a half times. It was 200 thousand rubles, and today it is 450 thousand rubles per capita. Everything goes, everything turns out slowly.
By budget efficiency. The most important element, but in terms of numbers.
Vladimir Putin: Let’s see how it turns out.
Vladimir Vladimirov: Mr President, we have a record. This year, for the first time, we have passed the budget of 200 billion rubles. 10 years ago, it was 55 billion.
Vladimir Putin: And the debt load has decreased?
Vladimir Vladimirov:The debt burden has decreased: it was 130 percent, but today we have reached 23 percent. And then, 23 percent is not because we borrow something somewhere, thank you very much for the investment and budget loans. As for infrastructure, we transfer it through investment and budget loans, so they appear in the structure as over-credited, but we haven’t taken out a single ruble of loans since 2018. We go and slowly everything is replaced.
I can’t help but focus on supporting a special military operation. During this time, 19 billion rubles were allocated to support families and children who are fighting. We pay for rewards, injuries, and the loss of a breadwinner. We took over the children’s education completely. Today, we encourage contract work by making lump-sum payments through our regional budget. Now we have taken the food, the uniform, and the tuition fees have already been taken care of.
We meet people. On your behalf, I also held a meeting with the widows of our departed children. There are instructions there – they asked to increase the preparation for school, they asked me to double the payments, all this is being resolved. There were questions about registration, and now we are making changes to our legislation. We try to respond quickly to all requests that come from people. 19 billion rubles were allocated for social support, 9 billion-this is our business support for children: copters, uniforms, clothing, weapons – all that is necessary for them to be able to fight today. And about 9 billion rubles have been allocated to our sponsored territories today.
By your Decree, we had the city of Anthracite and the Anthracite district. We have restored 384 objects there since 2022, and now the third season is starting. Now, by your order, we have entered the city of Stakhanov together with the Omsk region, with Vitaly Pavlovich Khotsenko. I visited there on February 21, the same situation as in Anthracite, where Russians were deliberately killed.
Everything is ruined, everything is killed. I’m asking: what’s happening? We haven’t invested a penny in 30 years. We went to the House of Culture – honestly, there are no such people even in Stavropol. Apparently, Stakhanov was, broke through the situation at the time-he was just there in the recruit was standing. A good House of Culture – unfortunately, it arrived on purpose. Apparently, they were bombed with Hymars, and one part of the House of Culture was bombed. We will now undertake to restore it.
If you want to see – a real Stalinist Empire style. It was from 1936 to 1945 that they built it. There’s a decent House of Culture right there, and we’re going to restore it now. The pool was requested – there are a lot of questions.
Issues are resolved here. Vladimir Vladimirovich, I can’t help but stop-criticize me, of course, on the roads – I know that from the farm Vorovsky.
Vladimir Putin: Well no…
Vladimir Vladimirov: 81 percent of [roads] meet [the standards], I will deal with Vorovsky exactly, there will be no problems.
Vladimir Putin: There is a large enterprise there. Employees need to be delivered…
V. Vladimirov: BCD [“Safe, high-quality Roads”] is our most recognizable national project. Another major renovation of schools and BCD. As I have already reported to you, there are 19 billion rubles for the BCD. For an agglomeration, this is a crazy leap. 81 percent of roads in the agglomeration meet the standard, and 87 percent are located within the urban agglomeration. This is a good result. We are here-honestly – in a leading position in Russia. For private matters, it doesn’t matter: now the patching will also go. We will try to [solve it].
Vladimir Putin: Is it 30 percent higher than in the Russian Federation as a whole?
Vladimir Vladimirov: It worked, in general. Thank you to the Ministry of Transport.
Education. The most important element. I really want to say a big thank you for the school. What we have today…
Vladimir Putin: What a colleague just said at the meeting: there is not just an external update, but really deep work.
Vladimir Vladimirov: We went to the school, stripped everything down to the bare walls, and if the walls – we still have many people thrown on the crate – the crate was stripped off, everything was completely re – made – water, sewerage, electricity, weak power, fire – everything was re-made. Actually a new school. The windows, roofs, facade, and entire territory were tried [to improve] – everything works out here.
3.6 billion rubles were allocated for major repairs of schools a year – this is simply an incredible figure. Today, thank God, it works.
Rural schools – now we can go to Solnechnodolsk, each rural school has 347 growth points. This is 347 places, and children are engaged in additional education. It turns out perfectly. We have launched Sirius, we have two Avangard schools, one Warrior school, eight IT cubes and two places for robotics classes. All this is the national project “Education”. [My Emphasis]
As I said, there seems like more is there but was cut. It seems like the Governor is on top of his job. The region has certainly grown and progressed, and as with many rural Russian regions there remains lots of work to do.
CHINA OPEN THREAD
In the last days, the US has taken fateful steps toward conflict with China. It deliberately crossed one of China’s red-lines, officially stationing “permanent troops” on its province of Taiwan, even though they had been permanent since transfer by the United States Seventh Fleet of the losing fascists to this island in 1949. March is promising to be a month to remember for the millennium..
Why is the Empire making the move now? To threaten China against bringing sense to the Europeans and end the Ukrainian bloodbath before it openly turns into Russia versus NATO? A nothing-burger to change narratives from absolute catastrophes in 404 and West Asia? It can’t handle the Ansar Allah gauntlet and wants to poke the Dragon, standing in ranks with Russia and DPRK..
I have limited knowledge on Asia-Pacific, and lack time as remain focused on West Asia. And for sure I am no exorcist-cum-shrink, which would needed to unwind what the sinking Empire of Chaos hopes to achieve in detonating a THIRD front for its favored ritual of seppuku. Pl those with access to the China writer’s group or locals there or knowledgeable, share with us! Use as Open Thread
@MyLordBebo:
ESCALATION: Deployment of American special forces in Taiwan and its islands is reported.
American special forces are training units of the Taiwanese Army
The United States has taken the unprecedented step of permanently stationing special forces in Taiwan.
Since 2023, American special forces have been training Taiwanese in operating Black Hornet Nano microdrones, and also helping to develop manuals and training materials.
This year, U.S. military advisers began permanently stationing themselves at army bases on Kinmen and Penghu islands, expanding their training program to include new special forces units.
We are talking about Alpha Company from the 2nd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group of the Green Berets, which is reportedly located at the base of the 101st Airborne Reconnaissance Battalion (Kinmen Headquarters) of the Taiwanese Armed Forces.
US plans also include sending officials to Taiwan, but their movements remain secret.
In addition, since last year, American special forces have been stationed at the Taiwanese special forces base in the Longtan region (Taoyuan), which manages expensive equipment and training facilities used to train the island’s units.
Taiwan Institute of National Defense and Security official Su Ziyun stated that “Green Berets are special forces designed to build defenses and counter infiltration by the enemy in cooperation with Taiwanese intelligence units.
These include the 1st Reconnaissance Company in Kinmen, the 2nd Reconnaissance Company in Matsu, and the 3rd Reconnaissance Company in Penghu, as well as at the mouth of the Tamsui River
— china3army
Germany Retreats into Medieval Superstition and Taboo
By Henry Johnston at Russia Today (RT)
Sidebar: Continuing the story of the astonishing suicide of Old Europe, now to Germany. The sadness of Lavrov was remarked at “the rage, intolerance and total absence of critical thought exhibited especially by the Europeans.” This dovetails poignantly into this piece… Europe is plunged into self-inflicted darkness. Germany’s situation is even more bleak than Italy’s. As the major losers of the very last world war, and savagely occupied, mindwashed into atomization and endless generational guilt and controlled to this day by green fanatics, they have even less leeway than proud Italy, and farther to fall.
I recommend this movie, “The Lives of Others” which details the methods of the East German Stasi. Germans have been rendered frighteningly passive, fearful of their own shadows, in perpetual grasping to maintain fleeting lifestyles, trite wokeness and triviality and green craze and adherence to long-gone western “liberal ideals.” Merkel and many of the post-1991 cadre are East German; their people may have lost in the unification transition, but their more adept and amoral nomenklatura arose to the great satisfaction of Anglo-America.
What unfolds for Germany is an even steeper fall than Italy, which had been gradually plundered, deindustrialized, and dismantled since 1970s. The bitterness and anger which this will predictably raise will be used to marshal the society into reaction and greater superstition and feudal fascism. Sad days ahead.
≈≈≈
“An abandonment of reason is among the symptoms of a nation suffering from a collapse in the prevailing narratives”
Bloomberg recently foretold the end of Germany’s days as an industrial power in an article that begins with a depiction of the closing of a factory in Dusseldorf. Stone-faced workers preside with funereal solemnity over the final act – the fashioning of a steel pipe at a rolling mill – at the century-old plant. The “flickering of flares and torches” and “somber tones of a lone horn player” lend the scene a decidedly medieval atmosphere.
Intentional or not in their inclusion of such evocative detail, the Bloomberg writers offer potent imagery for Germany – not only because the country is regressing economically but because its elites are increasingly guided by an atavistic force: the abandonment of reason.
As hard economic realities lay bare the futility of its utopian energy plan and the consequences of numerous terrible decisions mount, Germany is experiencing what Swedish essayist Malcom Kyeyune calls “narrative collapse.” The peculiar offspring of this, Kyeyune argues, is a turn toward ritual, superstition, and taboo. It is a malaise afflicting the entire West, but Germany is suffering a particularly acute case.
Kyeyune defines this as an occurrence “when social and political circumstances change too rapidly for people to keep up, the result tends to be collective manias, social panics, and pseudo-religious revivalist millenarianism.”
The abandonment of reason can be conceived of in various ways. Quite a lot of ink has already been spilled about the irrationality behind Germany’s fantastically improbable climate policy. Indeed, the quasi-religious verve with which this program has been rolled out speaks to something of a loosening of the country’s moorings. But as we will see shortly, the problem goes far beyond an attachment to unattainable policy goals.
Prominent German business executive Wolfgang Reitzle argued that for the government to deliver on its climate and energy policy, capacities for wind and solar power would have to be more than quadrupled, while storage and back-up capacities would have to be massively increased. Such a plan is “neither technically feasible nor affordable for a country like Germany,” Reitzle argues. What it is then, he concludes, “is simply insanity.”
Annalena Baerbock and Joschka Fischer
Michael Shellenberger, in a piece for Forbes magazine in 2019, points out that the initial impetus for seeking to transition to renewables emerged from the idea that human civilization should be scaled back to sustainable levels. He cites German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s 1954 landmark essay ‘The Question Concerning of Technology’ and subsequent work by the likes of Barry Commoner and Murray Bookchin as espousing what emerged in the 1960s as a much more austere vision for the future of civilization.
Shellenberger concludes that the reason why “renewables can’t power modern civilization is because they were never meant to. One interesting question is why anybody ever thought they could.”
The cohort who suddenly began thinking they could is the German political and intellectual elite in the early 2000s. Gone was the bucolic environmentalism of the 1960s and in its place came an aggressive and utterly detached-from-reality agenda that was imposed with millenarian fervor.
Before circling back to the idea put forth by Kyeyune – that the German elite is now mired in superstition due to the onset of narrative collapse – we must back up for a moment and examine what animated Germany prior to Bloomberg’s flickering flares and melancholy horn.
Modern Germany has long been an object of admiration for the West’s liberal elite, upheld as the ideal incarnation of the post-Fukuyama ‘history-has-ended’ world where liberal democracy triumphed and ideological conflict is a thing of the past. Germany, a nation with a penchant for militarism and authoritarianism, had expurgated its past sins and humbly assumed its place in the grand liberal order, magnanimously refusing to translate its economic prowess into bullying of others.
The country’s status was enhanced even further when the US and UK went off the rails, as the elite saw it, with the populist rebellions of Donald Trump and Brexit. Germany, with its staid, consensus-driven, common-sense politics, was the ‘adult in the room’, in stark contrast to the Anglosphere.
Meanwhile, its economy was humming. The hyper-globalization of the 2000s played right into Germany’s hands. It was a confluence of propitious global circumstances. China was growing at astronomical rates and needed cars and machines – Germany provided both. The expansion of the EU into Eastern Europe opened up new markets for German exports. Germany was prospering and its success was an important driver of economic development across Europe.
All of this helped foster what was perhaps the primary trait of the German elite during this time: a supreme confidence. It was this confidence that led Angela Merkel to famously assert “wir schaffen das” (“we can do this”) when confronted with the task of assimilating over a million migrants. It was the same confidence that led to the idea of jettisoning both nuclear power and coal at essentially the same time, an announcement that was met with a certain disbelief but also awe. “If anyone can do it, it’s the Germans,” was a commonly heard response.
However, the last few years have witnessed a shaking of that assuredness and unraveling of the prevailing narratives as Germany’s vaunted stability and prosperity have been challenged and the benevolent globalized world that nurtured it began fading. But narrative collapse, like many other forms of collapse, at first happens slowly and at the margins before being catapulted forward by some trigger into its more rapid terminal phase.
What was happening at the margins was that the economic model that sustained Germany over the past two decades came under increasing strain as China moved up the value chain and began importing less of Germany’s manufacturing output; it had also become a competitor in the automobile market. Meanwhile, Germany’s economy largely failed to diversify and has been slow to embrace innovation.
Likewise, doubts about the prospects for the energy transition had begun creeping in, again at the margins, long before the events of 2022. Germany has made little progress toward its 2030 emissions target, and it is laughably far behind in its aim of putting 15 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030. It has had to delay plans for the phase-out of coal, and in fact even as of 2021 coal still accounted for a quarter of electricity output. In other words, rather than effecting an actual transition, Germany had merely set up a clean energy system that ran parallel to the dirty one. The clean one spoke to the narrative while the dirty one still powered much of the country. This could not help but plant the seed of the cognitive dissonance that would later assume such bewildering proportions.
Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate in the colors of the Ukraine
Nevertheless, it was undoubtedly the start of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022 that has precipitated the cascade of failure we see now. Certainly, Germany has made many poor decisions during this time, not the least of which was its headlong plunge into supporting the US-led proxy war against Russia. Relatedly, watching Russia’s sanctions-ridden economy rebound and return to growth – while their own economy struggled – defied everything the German elites would have imagined. That in itself is a narrative-shaking development.
But perhaps more important than the particular economic and political setbacks has been a sense that the benevolent, familiar world of recent decades is receding ever faster and in its place is coming something ominous, as if from a strange and turbulent dream.
To quote Kyeyune again, it’s as if
“the future that they were promised – and that they promised the rest of us – was one of continued Western progress, prosperity, and geopolitical dominance. But that’s looking less and less plausible, and they neither like nor understand the future that is coming into view.”
For the elites, the world is crumbling around them and nothing is playing out as they had desired, which has deeply shaken their confidence.
The quotes from public officials and business leaders offered in the Bloomberg piece are bleak and a far cry from the “wir schaffen das” confidence of a few years back.
Stefan Klebert, the CEO of a company that has been supplying manufacturing machinery since the late 19th century, said: “To be honest, there is not much hope. I’m not really sure if we can stop this trend. Many things have to change quickly.”
Finance Minister Christian Lindner told a Bloomberg event earlier in February: “We are no longer competitive. We are getting poorer and poorer because we are not growing. We are falling behind.”
Volker Treier, foreign trade chief at Germany’s Chambers of Commerce and Industry, remarked: “You don’t have to be a pessimist to say that what we’re doing at the moment won’t be enough. The speed of structural change is dizzying.”
The last quote, a lament about the speed of structural change, is particularly telling and makes us recall Kyeyune’s assertion that when social and political circumstances change too rapidly for people to keep up, strange flora can sprout.
This sense of no longer being able to control events and the fear this has engendered have bred a sense of impotence among the European elites – a sort of ‘deer frozen in the headlights’ paralysis – with Germany at the vanguard of this. No longer confident that their actions can produce certain desirable outcomes, the elites have shed their sophisticated modern veneer and technocratic sensibility and retreated into symbolism and superstition.
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.
The EU’s rush to approve an absolutely token package of sanctions by February 24 – the anniversary of the beginning of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine – is not being carried out with the slightest expectation that a motley assortment of obscure companies and third-tier public officials coming under EU sanctions will achieve any policy aims. The entire value of the endeavor is in its symbolism. Because the symbolism is ‘correct’ the action becomes important.
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.
Kyeyune gives what may be the most vivid example of this principle at work. “Germany still has one functioning pipeline through the Baltic Sea but refuses to use it,” he correctly notes, referring to one line of Nord Stream 2 that was not damaged in the sabotage attack carried out in September 2022. “The problem is that the alternative approach to meeting its energy needs means buying liquefied natural gas… and some of this gas comes from Russia. In other words, Germany still buys natural gas from Russia, less efficiently and at a higher cost, in order to maintain a quasi-ritualistic prohibition against use of the pipeline.”
Meanwhile, he continues, a similar operation takes place with Russian oil, which is now sent to India or China to be refined before being imported by Europe. It is “as if the act of mixing it with other oil in a foreign refinery removes the evil spirits contained in it.” In other words, Russian oil must undergo some sort of purification process before it can enter the EU garden. European refiners, meanwhile, suffer, while all sorts of middlemen are enriched along the way, and consumers are left paying higher prices. There is not an ounce of economic logic to it – but we have now passed into a realm beyond economic logic.
Policies governing energy, the lifeblood of industrial civilization, are now subject to the tyranny of ritual, taboo, and superstition. Such is the predicament of the German elite as it seeks to navigate the country through a turbulent period of epochal transition. The abandonment of reason is quite a handicap in carrying out that job.
Addendum:
Venting about the dishonor of the German Government:
The Soviet Union lost 27m people during WW2 because of the Nazis. The Soviet Union made by far the biggest contribution of the Allied forces in defeating Hitler and eventually granted the reunification of East and West Germany…
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) March 2, 2024
Italy formalized entry into the combined western war against Russia
General Fabio Mini interviewed by Alessandro Bianchi at the Anti-Diplomat for “Hegemony”
The heartbreaking ongoing scenes of the surreptitious suicide of our Italia, seduced by the parasitical Piper! Absolute madness. Of a piece with the Annihilation of all in Rummy’s “Olde Europe” — we see French agony and maning of sabotage units in the rear of Russia; the Germans hellbent on leveling symbolic Russian bridges; and the Brits equally focused on sea targets.. At the end, a Beast begins to devour its own viscera, with mindless passion and devotion. None of it apparently articulated to their citizenry in this occult age.
In isolation, this behavior of Italy’s is an unremarkable gesture by a failing senile state with limited MIC and current means. In tandem with every significant western and NATO (and Israeli) state pledging similar support to the Ukraine to defeat Russia to overcome NATO gridlock from Hungary, Slovakia, Turkey and few other sane members, it accrues ominous tones.
In setting of the intercept releases indicating Germany is tasked with air strikes, the Brits naval strikes, and the French rear sabotage missions, and now the Italians with Baltic front, a capable and potent division of labor is establish by nearly a billion belligerents still capable of burning down much of Russia west of the Urals, especially as cost to Ukrainians is not a consideration. Medvedev messaged earlier that NATO still enjoys conventional superiority, which is true numerically, in potential, and in using these dastardly swarm terrorist technique now being unveiled. And that this would prompt a nuclear response as they threaten the very continued existence of the Russian state, per their nuclear doctrine.
Legion – pleasant, chic, woke and bumbling though it may appear, has been unrolled against Russia through these 10+ “bilateral guarantees” given to the Ukrainian fascists. How will Russia respond? Clearly the maddened will not be reasoned with, if they still double down at this bleak late hour.
≈≈≈
(a machine translation)
“I don’t think there is the right perception of how serious the situation is for the whole of Europe”
The Disturbing Military Agreement with Kiev: Risks and Scenarios
Many of the voters who chose Giorgia Meloni in the last election would certainly not have expected a more draghian foreign policy than Draghi, more atlantist than the director of Repubblica Molinari or more Zelensky thread than any Ursula. Still, our premier’s last trip to Kiev as the G7 president in the Ukrainian capital has cleared up all the doubts left. The ten-year agreement with which Meloni, without any parliamentary passage, linked the country to the Kiev regime remains the darkest and most disturbing side.
None more than General Fabio Mini, author of “Europe at war” (Paper First, 2023) and the premise to the new book by Giuseppe Monestarolo “Ukraine, Europe world” (Asterios, 2024) can help us shed light, identify details and future scenarios. Mini is one of the most coherent and strong voices in denouncing the risks associated with the European attitude towards the ongoing conflict. With his articles on Limes and the Daily Fact, he managed to break the dominant propaganda. That propaganda which, as cleverly announced by the general himself, is bringing our continent one step away from an increasingly visible abyss.
We asked General Fabio Mini to help us resolve several doubts for “Hegemony.”
The Interview
Q: The absence of Macron and Scholz next to Meloni in Kiev deserves a necessary General premise.
« Absences speak much more about presences. Absence is a diplomatic and political instrument and experienced countries such as France and Germany know this well. If they have not sent their leaders, there is a political-diplomatic reason, but I do not think it concerns a way out of the conflict with Russia. It seems to me more likely that they have escaped Zelensky’s kissing, also sacrificing those of the two ladies or who do not share in this period the decision-making of the individual states or the centralizing aims proper to von der Leyen for the management of European rearmament and aid in Kiev. »
Q: General helps us to frame the scope of the military agreement signed by the Italian premier in Kiev. What do you expect?
« These are military and civil cooperation measures with Ukraine, already declared to NATO, within the European Union and in all the other international fora in which our government has been present. In practice, it reaffirms military support for Ukraine in the event of future attacks and right now to reject Russia within its borders and even beyond ».
Q: All members of the government wanted to reiterate that we are not an active part of the conflict. Is this so?
« The agreement reaffirms the measures already taken against Moscow such as sanctions, the freezing and confiscation of assets of private Russian citizens abroad and the charge of war damages – including those caused by the Ukrainian bombing in Donbass which is the area that has suffered i more serious damage. Our government insists that “ we are not at war with Russia ” and knows very well that the majority of Italian citizens, unlike parliamentary and government citizens, he doesn’t want this or any other war. But the agreement provides for one-way aid and cooperation in the military, industrial, commercial and political fields. Therefore, the possibility of a negotiation »
Q: Negotiated for an agreement. Agreement that is known as it had already been reached by Ukrainians and Russians a few weeks after the start of operations, in March 2022 in Istanbul. Does this decision by the Italian government make it increasingly complicated?
« It promises everything Ukraine asks for and needs to continue the war. You do not venture into any consideration or proposal that favors the cessation of the conflict. Indeed, by supporting the so-called 10-point Ukrainian peace plan, which denies any negotiation on the borders with Russia, any way out other than defeat on the Russian or Ukrainian field is excluded. »
Q: Are there specific clauses that make our involvement in the conflict greater?
« No, and they are not necessary. The entire document is dedicated to making explicit and strengthening, at least in words, the political and military alignment alongside Ukraine and against Russia.
There is no sign of encouragement for diplomatic action towards peace or suspension of conflict. The essential purpose of this cooperation is not lasting and just peace, nor greater security for Ukraine and Europe itself. In fact, Italy participates and collaborates in the war against Russia, aware that this means the continuation and worsening of the conflict ».
Q: General in the agreement it is said to defend Ukrainian sovereignty and democracy but no reference is made to the guarantees that should be given to the populations of Ukraine itself who would return under its sovereignty…
« This means exactly canceling the ten years of past abuses and massacres and authorizing future ones. It means forgetting what democracy really has to guarantee. The Ukrainian one and ours. I don’t think the document itself involves a surprise for Russia or an extra concern. If anything, the tone and words, copied and pasted by similar American and English documents, may have irritated because they come from a government that represents a population and a culture that Russia respects. Or respected. »
Q: In short, nothing but sovereignty. The drift that began with the Draghi government continues, is intensified and Italy has definitively lost its traditional role of mediation. Are we more at risk today?
« We do not risk today more than we risked yesterday, but this is not a consolation because I do not think there is the right perception of how serious the situation is for all of Europe. And how much our pilots are risking in the border control operations of the Baltic countries. The tightening of relationships or only irritation may be sufficient to bring down any qualms in reactions to any trespassing, even if involuntary. And the general approach to being weak and dangerous.
Italy is betting on the Ukrainian victory, on a rapid conclusion of the conflict and on the slice of cake that can derive from it with arms supplies and with reconstruction. None of the three things are safe and indeed the chances of them happening are decreasing. It is betting on the European rearmament that von der Leyen would like to coordinate and manage on behalf of all of Europe, it is not clear whether to do Germany or the United States a favor by constituting a single pole for imports. Exactly as a success for Covid’s drugs which she herself leads to model for war supplies.
We are continuing along the lines of global conflict by passively following the aims and methods of the United States and Great Britain in Europe against Russia and in the world against China. »
Q: Two years after the start of the Russian operation, his predictions on the Daily Fact and Limes have come true practically all of those, obtusely NATO wire, carried out by the newspapers of the dominant media groups in Italy denied (as usual). General what to expect now from 2024? Will we experience a new escalation?
« I try to be realistic and not hypocritically optimistic. For this year, I see no international will to end the conflict with a negotiation. Instead, I see the outlet for negotiation as a consequence of military operations. The whole world is looking for an honorable compromise to save Ukraine but it is precisely it that does not want to be saved and indeed claims to sacrifice itself to save all of us. As long as you resort to this rhetoric, you don’t get to anything ».
Q: The option to send other weapons and even men – as French President Macron recently said – to fight Russia where it can take us?
« This is exactly what Russia expects to switch to the nuclear option. But he still needs US insurance that the use of tactical nuclear power does not trigger the strategic one. With the current American president, insurance in this sense would not have meant. It should be a gentlemen agreement and so far nothing has been seen that characterizes a gentleman. Within a few months, however, he will be crippled and the new president, whoever he or she is, would have the task of unraveling the skein. Considering that an American president takes at least six months before becoming operational – even if experienced or re-elected – because of the compromises he had to weave to be elected and the changes of the international situation – I believe that this type of tacit or secret agreement is not possible before mid-2025 ».
Q: So in the meantime?
« In the meantime, Russia should pull the war long by increasing the friction on the Ukrainian forces and try to get a good compromise from the exhaustion of Kiev. It is not a short-term thing because aid tends to prolong agony rather than switch to euthanasia. As long as there is war there is hope of business and profits. A less bloody solution could come from a coup d’état in Moscow or Kiev that eliminating the main interlocutors allows the transition to compromises. I see it difficult in Russia and more likely in Ukraine, but always uncertain: successors are not always better than predecessors. »
The extent of the European suicide and the abyss that agreements such as that signed by Meloni in Kiev is now, perhaps, clearer.
Host of the Mother of All Talk [MOAT] Shows and former UK MP George Galloway came on the show to discuss the situation in the Middle East and how the growing opposition to Israel’s war spells doom for Netanyahu and the regime. This conversation took place last month but is just as prescient as Yemen’s Red Sea blockage continues and Iran, Lebanon prepare for broader regional war.
Les autorités russes ont demandé une réunion sur l’Ukraine au Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU le 12 février, jour anniversaire
L’article Moscou demande une réunion du Conseil de sécurité à l’occasion de l’anniversaire des accords de Minsk est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Yeah, darlin’ gonna make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space
— Steppenwolf, Born to be Wild, 1967
by Pepe Escobar at The Strategic Culture Foundation.
Washington is actively splitting the EU in favor of a rabidly Russophobic Vilnius-Warsaw-Kiev axis.
The world has got to be thankful to the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council Dimitri Medvedev. Paraphrasing that iconic Cold War era string of ads about a beer that refreshes the parts other beers cannot each, Medvedev refreshes those – sensitive – parts the Kremlin and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for diplomatic reasons, cannot reach.
As astonishing tectonic shifts keep turning geopolitics and geoeconomics upside down, and the Angel of History looks East while the United States, corroded from the inside, desperately clings to scraps of its dwindling Full Spectrum Dominance, Medvedev makes no bones about how much he enjoys “smoke and lighting”, not to mention “heavy metal thunder”.
Exhibit One is something for the ages. It deserves a full quote – complete with colorful English translation:
Humiliating defeat or Totalen Krieg
Heavy metal thunder Medvedev is complemented by a superb analysis by Rostislav Ishchenko, who I had the pleasure to meet in Moscow years ago.
These are two key takeaways:
The inevitable conclusion: the whole U.S. architecture of “Russian containment” is “crumbling.”
Ishchenko correctly notes that “the West is not able to wage a proxy war against Russia beyond 2024” (Defense Minister Shoigu, on the record, already said last year that the SMO will end in 2025).
Ishchenko adds, “Even if they manage to hold out not only until the fall, but until December 2024 (which is very doubtful), the end of Ukraine is still near, and to replace them, the West was not able to prepare yet another one who wanted to die for the United States in a proxy war with Russia.”
Well, they are trying. Hard. For instance by regimenting a bunch of hyenas for the Three Seas scam. And by giving the CIA’s darling Budanov in Kiev free reign to stage serial terror attacks inside the Russian Federation.
Meanwhile, a confidential memo designed at the London School of Economics suggests close cooperation between the German government, USAID and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation to build a sort of “new Singapore in Kiev”: that is, a “reconstruction” profiting corporate Germany out of a low-wage hellhole.
Well, no one knows what sort of “Kiev” will survive, and in what form. So there won’t be any remixed “Singapore.”
There will be no compromise
German analyst Patrik Baab has offered a meticulous breakdown of the key facts underlying Medvedev’s outburst.
Of course he needs to quote NATO’s Stoltenberg, who has already elliptically confirmed, on the record, that this is not an “unprovoked” war of aggression – NATO in fact provoked it; moreover it’s a proxy war, essentially about NATO’s eastward expansion.
Baab also correctly acknowledges that after the peace negotiations in Istanbul in March/April 2022, imploded by U.S. and UK, there is zero trust in the Kremlin – and in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – of collective West politicos.
Baab also refers to one of Sy Hersh’s Deep State sources:
“The war is over. Russia has won.”
Still, the key point – which does not escape Medvedev’s attention – is that “no concessions are to be expected in Washington. The military confrontation continues. The war has become a battle of attrition.” That ties in with Medvedev already making it explicit that Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkov, Mykolaev and Kiev are “Russian cities.”
Hence, “a compromise is therefore de facto ruled out.”
Russia’s Security Council clearly understands how the strategic concept adopted by NATO at the 2022 summit in Madrid totally militarizes Europe. Baab: “It proposes multi domain warfighting against a nuclear-armed peer-competitor. In other words, nuclear war. It says: ‘NATO enlargement has been a historic success.’”
That’s the rhetoric parroted non-stop by Stoltenberg straight out of NATO’s think tank, the Atlantic Council.
Feeling the pulse in Moscow, in a series of in-depth exchanges, it becomes clear that the Kremlin is prepared for a nasty war of attrition that could last years – beyond the current Raging Twenties. As it stands, the song remains the same in Ukraine: a crossover of snail technique and the ineluctable meat grinder.
The endgame, as Baab clearly understands, is that “Putin is seeking a fundamental security agreement with the West.” Even as we all know it’s not gonna happen with Straussian neocons dictating policies in the Beltway, the facts on the – geoeconomic – ground are unmistakable: sanctioned-to-death Russia already surpassed Germany and the UK and is now the strongest economy in Europe.
It’s refreshing to see a German analyst quoting historian Emmanuel Todd (“WW III has already begun”) and crack Swiss military analyst Jacques Baud, who explained how there has been “a sophisticated philosophy of war in Russia since Soviet times”, including economic and political considerations.
Baab also refers to the inimitable Security Council’s Scientific Council stalwart Sergei Karaganov in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta: “Russia has completed its European journey… The European and especially the German elites are in a state of historical failure. The foundation of their 500-year dominance – the military superiority on which the West’s economic, political, and cultural dominance was built – has been stripped away from them (…) The European Union is moving… slowly but surely towards disintegration. For this reason, European elites have shown a hostile attitude towards Russia for about 15 years. They need an external enemy.”
When in doubt, read Shelley
It’s now crystal clear how Washington is actively splitting the EU in favor of a rabidly Russophobic Vilnius-Warsaw-Kiev axis.
Meanwhile, the “no compromise” in Ukraine is deeply determined by geoeconomics: the EU desperately needs access to Ukraine’s lithium for the “decarbonization” scam; the vast mineral wealth; the rich black-earth soil (now mostly property of BackRock, Monsanto and co.); the sea routes (assuming Odessa does not revert to its status of “Russian city”); and most of all, the ultra-cheap workforce.
Whatever happens next, Baab’s diagnosis for the EU and Germany is gloomy: “The European Union has lost its central function”, and “historically, it has failed as a peace project.” After all now it’s the Washington-Vilnius-Warsaw-Kiev axis that “sets the tone.”
And it gets worse: “We are becoming not only the backyard of the United States, but also the backyard of Russia. The energy flows and container traffic, the economic centers are moving eastwards, forming along the Budapest-Moscow-Astana-Beijing axis.”
So as we crisscross Medvedev, Ishchenko and Baab, the inevitable conclusion is that the proxy war on country 404 will keep going on and on and on – in myriad levels. “Peace” negotiations are absolutely out of the question – certainly not before the November elections in the U.S..
Ishchenko understands how “this is a civilizational catastrophe” – perhaps not “the first since the fall of the Roman Empire”: after all, several civilizations collapsed across Eurasia since the 4th century. What is blatantly clear is that the collective West as we know it is fast flirting with a one-way ticket to the dustbin of History.
And that brings us to the genius of Shelley encapsulated in one of the most devastating sonnets in the history of literature, Ozymandias, published in 1818:
As we keep searching for light in the darkness of insanity – complete with a genocide running 24/7 – we may visualize the pedestal standing in the middle of a vast desert, painted by Shelley with a couple of sublime alliterations, “boundless and bare” and “lone and level.”
This is all about a vast empty space mirroring a political black void: the only thing that matters is the blind obsession for Total Power, the “sneer of cold command” asserting the perpetuity of a hazy “rules-based international order”.
Oh yes, this a heavy metal thunder sonnet that outlasts Empires – including the “colossal wreck” vanishing in front of our eyes.
Un nouveau Premier ministre a été nommé au Kazakhstan. Personne n’avait deviné le fonctionnaire choisi par le président Kassym-Jomart Tokaïev.
L’article Le Kazakhstan change de Premier ministre pour “lutter contre la corruption” est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
As usual, the Russian Foreign Ministry brings clarity, cutting through the flagging production of the fogging machine: (1) the British, who said they would not participate in the aggression, lied and did participate in last night’s criminal bombing. And (2) the larger operation to torch the entire region, as with Europe through the Ukraine, remains unchanged through the ongoing calculated behavior of the Anglo-Zionists.
≈≈
3 February 2024 15:22
Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s comment on US strikes on Iraq and Syria
The US strategic bomber attack on Iraq and Syria, which destroyed and damaged dozens of facilities and killed numerous civilians, has once again demonstrated to the world the aggressive nature of US policy in the Middle East and Washington’s total disregard for international law.
The obedient participation of British Royal Air Force in the US attack should not give anyone the illusion of an “international coalition” taking action. London has yet to answer for its zealous support of the provocations launched by its bosses in Washington.
It is clear that the airstrikes were specifically intended to further escalate the conflict. By relentlessly attacking the facilities of allegedly pro-Iranian groups in Iraq and Syria, the United States has been purposefully attempting to draw the largest countries in the region into the conflict.
Confident of its impunity, Washington continues to sow chaos and destruction in the Middle East. The largest US air operation in the region since 2003, presented by Joe Biden as an “act of retaliation” for an unknown UAV attack on a US base in Jordan, has no justification. The attempts to flex their muscles in order to influence the political situation in the United States, as well as their desperation to salvage the failed international policies of the current US administration in the context of the ongoing election campaign are leading to a further escalation of international tensions and further undermining US credibility in the Arab world.
The recent events have confirmed that the United States is not seeking solutions to the region’s problems, nor has it ever sought any. Washington has always been content with a situation where chronic disagreements in the Middle East were only getting worse. It is not even about American strategists’ usual indifference towards the regional states’ aspirations or interests; rather, it is their obsession with creating hotbeds of tension from Finland to the Suez Canal, from Libya to Afghanistan, far from their own borders, closer to their “adversaries,” but also closer to their loyal allies in NATO and the EU.
We strongly condemn this new outrageous act of US-British aggression against sovereign states. We insist on the urgent consideration of this situation by the UN Security Council. (emphasis in original on the Ministry’s Telegram channel)
Le site en ligne anglo-saxon «Global Fire Power» publie chaque année le classement des grandes puissances militaires en se fondant
L’article Classement des puissances militaires de 145 pays est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Original and Video at Ministry of Foreign Affairs website
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement and answers to media questions during a news conference on Russia’s foreign policy performance in 2023, Moscow, January 18, 2024
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am glad to welcome you at our annual event. Every year, we come together right after the New Year and Christmas break. I would like to offer those of you who celebrate these holidays my greetings and wish you a Happy New Year 2024. We all want to make it a better year in every respect, as President Vladimir Putin explained in quite some detail.
We have a clear vision for our domestic development plans. The Government of the Russian Federation is hard at work. President Vladimir Putin held a series of meetings with Government members over the past few days to discuss various ways to promote sustained economic progress in today’s environment, considering the aggressive and unlawful policies of the United States and its satellites. The goal is clear. It is to eliminate our dependence on any manufacturing, supply and logistics chains, financial and banking systems whenever our Western colleagues exercise too much control over them in one way or another. Previous and future decisions articulate this policy without any ambiguity.
As far as foreign policy is concerned, we have also defined our priorities for the foreseeable future. In March 2023, President Vladimir Putin approved a totally new and updated Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation. It responds to the present-day reality in international affairs. The West has demonstrated its total inability to make deals and has proven to be an unreliable partner in all undertakings. The Global Majority can no longer tolerate this selfish approach and wants to prioritise its own national interests and the interests of every single country in its development efforts while strictly abiding by the principles enshrined in the UN Charter, starting with respecting the sovereign equality of states. Since the Charter was adopted in 1945, there has not been a single foreign policy initiative by the West on the international stage which took into account or respected the principle proclaiming the equal rights of nations large and small, as the Charter reads, without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.
On the foreign policy front, we have a clear objective to develop our relations with those who are ready to work with us on an equal, mutually beneficial and mutually respectful footing by engaging in a frank dialogue and talks for finding a balance of interests instead of taking decisions that serve someone’s selfish agenda only, which is what happens with discussions involving the US-led West in an overwhelming majority of cases.
The past year showed that there is no acceptance of the manners traditional to the Western hegemon, manners based squarely on its vested interests and disregard for the opinion of all others. Yes, 500 years of ruling the world and having no serious rivals almost for this entire period (with the exception, perhaps, of the Soviet period) seems to have made it addicted to being hegemon. But life never stops. New centres of economic growth, financial might and political influence have emerged and gained strength, significantly outpacing the United States and other Western countries in terms of development.
I am sure you know how we assess the development of Russia’s relations with the People’s Republic of China. This is the fastest growing economy along with India’s. Our relations with China are at the highest level in their entire centuries-long history. We particularly appreciate the fact that President Xi Jinping paid his first post-reelection state visit to Moscow in March 2023. In turn, President Vladimir Putin visited China in October 2023 to attend the Third Belt and Road International Forum.
The specially privileged strategic partnership with India has been making headway as well. We have established regular top-level dialogue and contacts between corresponding agencies through the foreign ministries.
Considering our immediate environs, it certainly includes the Middle East countries, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Accordingly, we are interested in expanding not only bilateral relations, but also ties with regional organisations that include many of our partners. I am referring to the Gulf Cooperation Council, the League of Arab States, ASEAN, the African Union, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, and others.
We are working to take our partnership with Africa to a truly strategic level. This was confirmed at the second Russia-Africa Summit held in St Petersburg in July 2023.
An important milestone in the development of our relations with Latin America was the Russia – Latin America International Parliamentary Conference held in Moscow in autumn 2023. We consider Africa, Latin America and Asian countries as emerging independent centres in a multipolar world.
We were active on the UN platform in 2023. The Group of Friends in Defence of the United Nations Charter has been successfully operating there since it was established several years ago. The group has adopted joint statements on fundamental issues of global development. This group catalyses and stimulates the General Assembly’s work, promoting joint initiatives, including Russian ones. We support the ideas of our partners in this new entity.
I will note another important milestone – the adoption of a resolution on combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. It was adopted at the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly by an overwhelming majority of the vote, despite the chicanery of the West. However, I have to point out that for the second time in a row, Germany, Italy and Japan voted against that resolution – the Axis countries that publicly repented for the crimes committed during the Second World War after their defeat, and assured everyone that it would not happen again. These states have been voting against the resolution demanding that Nazism never be revived for the past two years, which provokes serious contemplation and makes us wonder where these ideological processes are leading, not only in these states but also in the West as a whole.
We constructively worked in other formats as well. I should specifically note our closest allies, the Union State of Russia and Belarus and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation through which we promoted stability in all dimensions, including military, biological and general security against new threats and challenges such as terrorism, drug trafficking and other forms of organised crime. The Eurasian Economic Union adopted important decisions for deepening Eurasian integration and coupling these processes with projects like China’s Belt and Road Initiative, cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, ASEAN and all the other associations and countries on our common enormous Eurasian continent.
This year, Russia presides in the CIS. We plan to continue the useful projects launched in 2023. As one such project, we will pay special attention to the International Russian Language Organisation founded at the CIS summit in Bishkek last autumn. All the CIS members approved this initiative proposed by Kazakhstan. The organisation is open to any country wishing to join. We know that the Russian language is popular across all continents and we hope there will be many interested participants.
I mentioned the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as an umbrella project. Along with the Eurasian Economic Union, in the context of cooperation with ASEAN and other sub-regional bodies, this organisation objectively and organically helps us form the Greater Eurasian Partnership. President Vladimir Putin spoke about this at the very first Russia-ASEAN summit. The outlines of this partnership are already visible.
In the current conditions, it is important to have an economic partnership that meets the interests of all the countries on the continent we share. It was God’s will that we use the objective competitive advantages of sharing the same space that, as it happens, has been a driver of growth for the global economy for a very long time. And it will maintain this role for many years ahead. In addition to mutually beneficial economic projects, it is important to ensure, regardless of other factors, military and political security in Eurasia. We will support the idea that the countries on the continent should deal with this task without attempts by countries from other regions to intervene in these processes with their own rules. We are convinced that the Eurasian countries are capable of handling these tasks independently.
I have listed several regional entities, but there is also a supra-regional global association called BRICS which epitomises the diversity of the multipolar world. The decision adopted during the summit in South Africa last year to expand the number of BRICS members came as a particularly important step to strengthen the position of BRICS. Russia, which assumed the BRICS chairmanship on January 1, will pay special attention to ensuring that newcomers seamlessly join in the common work and contribute to the strengthening of positive trends not only within the association, but also in the international arena in the interests of the Global Majority. Since over 20 (even closer to 30) countries are interested in establishing close ties with BRICS, we see a bright future for this association with global representation.
We have continued to prioritise the protection of the legitimate interests and rights of Russian citizens abroad. You are well aware of how they are discriminated against in the countries of the collective West. Unlike your Western colleagues who are increasingly trying to hide the truth about journalists’ working conditions in the countries with “established democracies” (pardon the expression), many of you write about this. But in addition to the everyday problems faced by our citizens in the United States, Europe, and other countries, natural and man-made emergencies didn’t go anywhere.
Recently, we have been providing broad-based assistance to evacuate Russians and citizens of CIS countries and some other countries from Gaza and, several months before that, from Sudan riven by internal conflict.
In terms of public diplomacy, I would like to single out the milestone of creating in March 2023 of the International Russophile Movement, which is an informal association of people living on different continents with spiritual and cultural affinity for Russia. The founding meeting of this movement was successfully held and its first full-fledged congress will be held in the first half of this year.
We will continue to promote the ideals of truth and justice in international affairs. We will do our utmost to make international relations more democratic. In this sense, our Ministry strongly supports United Russia’s initiative to hold in Moscow an international inter-party forum of supporters of combating the modern practices of neo-colonialism. It is a popular theme given that the neocolonialist nature of Western policy is present in a big way in the current policies pursued by the United States and its allies. Its thrust remains the same – to use the resources of other countries to their benefit and to live off of others. The upcoming forum promises to be an engaging and important event.
Russia will host a number of major international cultural events, including the World Youth Festival, which is fast approaching, the Games of the Future which is a mix of physical sports and cybersports, and the sports games of the BRICS countries. Both games will be held in Kazan (the Games of the Future in February, and the BRICS Games in the summer of 2024.)
The Intervision international song contest is being prepared. Many countries of the Global Majority showed interest in it. We will do our best to make sure that our guests who will come to these and numerous other events fully experience Russian hospitality as in 2018, when we hosted the finals of the FIFA World Cup.
In closing, I would like to reiterate our openness to communicating with media representatives in a variety of formats. I hope the Ministry representatives present here cannot be accused of ducking the media. Other senior ministerial officials, heads of departments, and our employees (especially when they travel as part of a delegation to international events) are simply under obligation to share information about our work and to make our work clear and transparent. This is what we strive to achieve.
Question: If elections take place in Ukraine this year, can a person willing to talk to Russia come to power there? Kiev signed a security agreement with London and may sign similar agreements with other G7 countries. How important is it for Russia in the context of the future settlement of the conflict? Does it mean that Ukraine won’t have a neutral status?
Sergey Lavrov: Frankly, we are not too concerned over the details in the discussion of Ukraine’s political affairs. The issue of elections surfaced. We heard that the West strongly advised Vladimir Zelensky to hold these elections, apparently in the hope that the election campaign and the voting itself will make it possible to bring him into line with Western interests, because he is getting harder and harder to control.
Zelensky announced in public that he would not hold any elections because of the ongoing war. This reminds one of another staged performance and reflects exclusively the desire of this man and his well-known underlings to hold on to power as much as possible. This is the desire I see.
The West would like to have more flexibility. Apparently, they have already understood that the much-publicised blitzkrieg with the ultimate goal of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia is a mere illusion. There has been a fundamental shift, primarily in Western minds. They realised their mistake. It is hard to admit it. Now they are looking for some external signals that would allow them to still support Ukraine while pushing Kiev to become more accommodating and listen to its Western bosses. I find it hard to predict how successful they will be in that.
As for the second part of your question, this story is nothing new. Several months ago, there were “clashes” in the West over whether to admit Ukraine to NATO or the European Union. Not everyone was in favour of this and not everyone was happy. Everyone understood that this was yet another completely senseless, irresponsible and risky move for European security. The signing of bilateral agreements with individual Western countries was invented as a product requiring additional assembly. I heard about the contents of the document agreed upon by Zelensky and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. I did not see in its analysis any legally binding provisions unless we consider as such Ukraine’s obligation to come to the defence of Great Britain in case of an attack. This sounds like a joke. But, on the other hand, we can regard it as a continuation of Studio Kvartal-95. Probably, now it will go by a different name.
We do not object to the agreements that other countries sign with Ukraine but this does not change our goal one iota. President Vladimir Putin confirmed this the other day. We will steadfastly pursue the goals of the special military operation and we will achieve them.
The West periodically sends us some signals and then cancels them. We take a philosophical attitude to them. President Vladimir Putin said many times that Russia does not refuse to negotiate. He said this as early as in 2022, when Boris Johnson and other Anglo-Saxons prohibited Kiev from signing an already agreed-upon treaty to reach a settlement with the Russian Federation. This is a well-known episode. It took place in April 2022. Speaking in 2022 about this issue, President Putin said again that we do not reject talks. However, those who do should realise that the more they drag it out, the harder it will be to come to terms later. Now we see how this prediction is coming true. There is no hope at all that Russia will be “defeated.” This was said many times. Those who have not studied history (there are many of them in the West) and geography know little and may engage in flights of fancy. Or they may come up with another plot for the afore-mentioned Studio Kvartal-95. But it will have nothing to do with real life.
Question: I would like to wish you a happy New Year and victory on all fronts to the Russian people.
The United States is creating “international political and military coalitions” which are committing acts of aggression against Yemen and continue to support and encourage Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people, as well as military operations against Syria and Lebanon. What is Moscow’s stance on these issues?
Sergey Lavrov: We have made numerous public statements to present our views on the developments in the Middle East, not only in Gaza but also in the Palestinian territories as a whole and in Lebanon, Iraq and, of course, Yemen.
It is obvious that the United States, Britain and some of their other allies have trampled underfoot all the norms of international law, including the UN Security Council resolution, which only called for protecting commercial shipping. Nobody was given the right to bomb Yemen, just as nobody gave NATO the right to bomb Libya in 2011. A resolution adopted back then only established a no-fly zone over Libya, which meant that the Libyan Air Force aircraft must not fly over the country, and they did not. There was not even the most far-fetched pretext for using armed force there. But the country has been bombed to dust and turned into a black hole. Nobody has been able to reassemble the Libyan state to this day. A huge number of migrants flooded Europe, making it suffer. But the Americans and the British are not suffering. The terrorists whom the West used to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi moved towards central Africa.
We can see the same arbitrariness with regard to Yemen now. It is obvious to everyone. I would say that Washington’s justifications are pathetic.
The other day, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Davos that virtually every country in the Middle East wanted the United States and they wanted it leading. I cannot confidently say if the regional countries want this. We should ask them. But one of these countries, Iraq, adopted a decision several years ago stating that the United States had been in the country, its military bases had been in the country for a long time, and that this should end, and the United States should go home. But the Americans refuse to leave.
Baghdad has recently made another statement on the Americans’ reluctance to go home even though they have been encouraged to leave long ago. It is especially regrettable that Secretary of State Blinken also implied that only the United States can help negotiate peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. He said this. We are aware of such semi-secret contacts involving the United States, Israel and several Arab countries. But these contacts do not involve a direct dialogue between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Instead, they imply that the “big guys” will sit at a table somewhere to decide how the Palestinians should live and will present their decision to them. This cannot succeed. Only a direct dialogue, which must be relaunched, can bring about progress. It went on, with difficulties, but it continued with support from the quartet of international intermediaries. We have always said that the activities of the quartet – the United States, Russia, the UN and the EU – must also involve representatives from the Arab League. It is deeply regrettable that the Americans and the Europeans blocked that idea. And then the United States dissolved all such quartets and monopolised the entire mediation process.
In September 2023, US National Security Adviser Jack Sullivan said that the Middle East region was quieter today than it has been in the past few years. A month later, a conflict broke out in Gaza. This calls for collective efforts, which the United States seems to have lost the habit of. It has become addicted to dictating.
Next Tuesday, the UN Security Council will hold a special meeting on this issue. We plan to attend it, and I will personally travel to New York for this purpose. We will put forth our ideas aimed at resuming collective efforts and ending the attempts to decide everything single-handedly, and not only in the Middle East. The United States wants to promote its agenda throughout the world. We’ll see what comes of it.
Ultimately, life itself will likely teach our Western colleagues a lesson. Regional countries must clearly show that it is their region, and the security of all states in the region is of crucial importance. While external recommendations will not be disregarded, the final decisions must be taken by the regional countries themselves.
The main focus of these efforts should be the establishment of a Palestinian state in strict compliance with the UN Security Council’s decisions. This state should be viable, as the decisions state, and live side by side with Israel and other regional countries in peace and security. Otherwise, we will continue to see outbreaks of violence like the current situation in Gaza. Without a state of their own, the Palestinian people will continue to feel disadvantaged and injured. One generation of young Palestinians after another will be aware of this injustice and will pass on this feeling to their children. This injustice must be put to an end through the establishment of a Palestinian state. I hope that the Israeli leadership will ultimately reach the same conclusion. Currently, very few people consider this solution acceptable to Israel, but this only means that efforts must continue to help them see the truth, which is that Israel’s security cannot be guaranteed without the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Russia wants Israel and its people to live in security. Israel is our long-time partner. Our country was the first to recognise Israel’s independence. About 2 million Israeli citizens also hold Russian passports and have come from Russia. Of course, we are concerned about this. We are ready to play an active role in bringing about a comprehensive settlement that will guarantee Israel’s security while strictly complying with the UN resolution on the Palestinian issue.
To be continued…
≈≈≈≈
Traditionally, Sergey Lavrov holds a large-scale press conference at the beginning of the year to assess the foreign policy events of the past year.
Sputnik Africa goes live as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is summing up the past year at a major press conference.
The event is held in a hybrid format: some Russian and foreign journalists have joined the conference directly in the press center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while others have connected via the Internet. Moreover, the representatives of the press were able to send their questions in advance.
Russian FM Lavrov’s statements on the Ukraine crisis:
Russia sees no US, NATO readiness for fair settlement of Ukrainian conflict, they continue escalation;
West pushing Ukraine to use long-range missiles on Russian territory shows no interest in peace settlement;
Moscow is not concerned about political life in Ukraine, West wants to have more flexibility in Ukraine’s leadership;
Security issues in Eurasia must be resolved without countries outside the region.
West is talking more about clash of nuclear powers, there are fewer deterrents, Lavrov states. The Russian foreign minister has also noted that the US wants to resume control over Russian nuclear arsenal under the guise of reciprocity.
The main focus of efforts on Palestine should be the creation of a Palestinian state, Lavrov says. He also noted that without the creation of a Palestinian state, the recurrence of violence in Gaza will continue and Israel’s security will not be ensured.
US, UK violated all norms of international law with strikes on Yemen, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov says. The UN did not give the US the right to strike Yemen, as before it did in Libya, the Russia’s top diplomat has also underscored.
Lavrov: “One of the large European countries that does not speak English” invited the Russian ambassador to think about joint projects in Africa to help regain this country’s lost influence amid the strengthening of Russia’s relations with Africa, in particular with Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Chad and Niger.
“The cynicism is off the charts. You remain our enemy […] but in Africa you will somehow help us… There will never be such negotiations,” added the foreign minister.
Argentina’s refusal to join BRICS is the country’s sovereign decision, the Russian foreign minister says.
Highlights from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statements at the press conference on the results of 2023:
Africa and BRICS:
Moscow is taking its partnership with African countries to a truly strategic level;
Argentina’s refusal to join BRICS at this time is a sovereign decision of this country;
BRICS symbolizes the abundance of a multipolar world;
Russia will pay special attention to ensure that new BRICS members fit seamlessly into the bloc.
Ukraine:
The situation with the elections in Ukraine is increasingly reminiscent of a staging and reflects Zelensky’s desire to cling to power as much as possible;
There are no legally binding provisions in the London-Kiev security agreement;
Russia does not see the US interest in a settlement in Ukraine.
Yemen:
The US and UK trampled international law by striking at Yemen;
Washington’s excuses in the situation with Yemen look pathetic.
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict:
Semi-closed contacts involving the US, Israel and some individual states on Palestine will not be successful;
Only direct dialogue is needed to resolve relations between Israel and Palestine;
Russia is ready to play an active role in ensuring a full resolution of the conflict in the Middle East.
The security dialogue with the US:
It is impossible to talk about the prospects for strategic dialogue with the US in isolation from other issues;
The US has created unacceptable conditions for the implementation of disarmament treaties;
In December 2023, Russia conveyed its assessments on strategic stability to the US and warned that they had no alternative.
Western Cold War win? Israel’s collapse, Iran’s rise, China’s dominance & Russia’s conquest prove otherwise
Cold War II includes 4 blocs, not only 2
with thanks to Ramin Mazaheri via Ramin’s Substack
The Cold War was always only “cold” for the two main combatants – the USSR and the USA. For everyone else it was as hot as blood, and nowhere more so than in the attempted colonisation of Palestine.
It’s often forgotten that the 1947 creation of Israel is permeated with the West’s three primary Cold War goals: fending off de-colonisation (failure), destroying the rise of socialism (failure) and entrenching as many far-right reactionaries as possible to foment the 1%-er ideology of liberal democracy (successful).
The propping up of Israel immediately after the end of World War II didn’t happen by accident: it was the Western beachhead to try and ensure Western control of oil, French domination of West and North Africa, and Anglo-American control of the Indian Ocean and its passageways.
Israel is now crumbling internally and externally, and their atrocious military and diplomatic decisions ensure that it’s not a viable colony for much longer. The writing is on the wall, and the biggest graffiti reads: The West lost the Cold War.
We can imagine the incredible grudging with which The New York Times two longtime Middle East correspondents – David Sanger and Stephen Erlanger – were forced to publish the following analysis on January 7th:
“‘I see Iran as well positioned, and it has checkmated the U.S. and its interests in the Mideast,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, aka the British Royal Institute of International Affairs. Vakil isn’t being lawyerly (forgive a Persian language joke) – the Beltway, Wall Street and 10 Downing Street have been forced to admit that they have been outplayed by a revolution expressly unobsessed with earthly profit.
The fundamental Achilles’ heel of Western thought – and elevated to a global scale by pretentiously aristocratic and arrogantly bourgeois Liberal Democracy – is that the natives are simply incapable of any progress.
It’s a belief which has existed for over five centuries (and which allegedly permitted the genocide of so many peoples) and it explains why the West has been repeatedly caught off-guard by military advancements by Russia, urban planning advancements by China and nuclear technology by Iran, to name just a few key areas. The non-West is playing for survival, but the West merely plays for the profits of a few.
This Achilles’ heel is destined to be endlessly pierced and poisoned by that arrow of the 99% – socialist-inspired democracy, which demands more progress, more distribution of wealth and more social peace.
Those four major Western defeats helps explain the world’s new political architecture.
But the same principle of “hands off the big guys” applies in our new Cold War II, only the number of “hands off” combatants has increased to four: there will be no direct attacks on the US, Russia, China or Iran by these four adversaries, and this fact was relayed by one of those same top propagandists of The New York Times (Erlanger) in an article on January 14:
“Yet in Ukraine, nearly two years in, a similar, unspoken set of restraints has worked – somewhat to the amazement of even President Biden’s closest aides. Early on, Mr. Biden directed the military to do anything it could to support Ukraine – as long as American forces did not take on Russia’s directly, whether in land, in the air or on the Black Sea.”
The article relates what appears clear to many: Washington and Tehran are going out of their way to warn each other of attacks so that their own citizens don’t get killed and spark World War III. There’s no red phone between them, but implicit is the idea that both are too powerful to attack each other directly. The idea of a US attack on Chinese nationals is similarly considered impossible.
This is a huge development in modern history.
It means there’s a new Cold War pitting the West versus China, Russia and Iran – everywhere else, including Israel, is part of the front lines again.
The conflict in Palestine is unfolding as I predicted: Iranian allies (falsely called “Iranian proxies” by the West) are doing damage to Israeli and Western imperialism long before Iran ever gets directly involved, and also that we remain just one major unexpected development away from a free Palestine.
Hezbollah is so strong they are not even being tested – instead it’s the Houthis who have proven unexpectedly successful in the resistance. Anglo-American power has rested on the navy for over two centuries – following 25 years of attacks on the progressive French Revolution by reactionary, monarchical England – but Yemen is closing off the Mediterranean from the Indian Ocean for Western interests.
In the January 14 article the illustrious Times reporters published a quote from a retired US Navy Admiral which illustrates both reckless wishful thinking and foolish journalistic analysis, and I am referring to after when the Admiral said, “the Houthi rebels, who are really just Iranian pirates”. He continued, “‘Our experience with Somali pirates shows years ago that you can’t just play defense; you have to go ashore to solve a problem like this.”
Yemen’s involvement isn’t something that can be stopped – they are not like Japan in 1853, to be cowed, “opened” and converted to a lifetime of Western-aping via the arrival of a few gunboats. Pained Western shipping giants, like the Dutch, would like to sabre-rattle that they’re about to disembark and fight in Yemen – a war theatre possibly even more treacherous than even Afghanistan – but the fact is that they’re just going to have pay more to ship tulips until they rein in Israel’s genocidal desires.
The idea that the Houthis have no agency in their relationship with Iran stems from the false mindset of the capitalist-imperialist colonist: i.e. one who wages total societal control to aim at war ends, which is the basis of “totalitarianism”, and who assumes the natives can do nothing without their consent. The mistake here is assuming that Iran is capitalist-imperialist when it’s clearly been fighting that awful ideology since 1979.
Iran has no grand control; did not know about Hamas’ counter-attack on January 7; simply provides support for local grassroots struggles when those struggles are politically righteous. The “guidance” is mainly political and technical – give a man a drone and he can stop shipping for a day, but teach him how to make a drone and he can stop shipping for… who knows how long the Houthis can keep this up? They’ve already resisted American bombs – launched by the House of Saud – for over a decade, after all.
Cold War I wrested away Eastern Europe for the Western 1%’s colonisation schemes – this is the clear result of the European Union. Cold War II finds impregnable and allied China, Russia and Iran – and their loud or quiet allies across the Global South – facing an American superpower in decline with their vassals in turmoil. How can capitalism, imperialism and elitist Liberal Democracy become rejuvenated enough to defeat any of the ideologically-supercharged three, or even supposedly apolitical Yemeni “pirates”?
<—>
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His latest book is France’s Yellow Vests: Western Repression of the West’s Best Values. He is also the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese. Any reposting or republication of any of my articles is approved and appreciated.
A day after a US strike assassinated Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) commander Talib Al-Saedi (Abu Taqwa) in Iraq, Prime Minister Al-Sudani announced this morning intentions to set a date for a bilateral committee to discuss the “final termination of the presence of coalition forces in Iraq.”
He added, “We affirm our firm position regarding the termination of the presence of the international coalition after the end of the justifications.”
Al-Sudani stated, “The attack that led to the martyrdom of Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis and Qassem Soleimani represented a blow to all the norms and laws that govern our relationship with Washington,” and noted, “The Popular Mobilization Forces represent an official presence affiliated with the state and subject to it, and it is an integral part of our armed forces.”
As of today, there remain 2,500 US soldiers in the country under the pretext of “fighting ISIS.” (https://t.me/PalestineResist/25286) In reality, these criminal occupiers are in Iraq to impede anti-colonial resistance work in the region. In Syria, there are 900 US forces who continue to exploit the nation’s resources, stealing the majority of its oil.
The PMF is a coalition of dozens of a resistance groups that successfully defeated ISIS in Iraq in recent years. In 2019, PMF was integrated into the Iraqi Armed Forces, thus making any attack on its leaders an attack on an official Iraqi body. Notably, the martyr Abu Taqwa was a Nujaba movement commander (https://t.me/PalestineResist/25194), a part of PMF.
It should be noted that, since October 18th, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which is also a coalition, has carried out nearly 150 operations targeting US bases in Iraq and Syria, as well as the zionist entity directly (“Eilat (https://t.me/PalestineResist/23699)” four times, the occupied Golan Heights (https://t.me/PalestineResist/24679), and sites near the Dead Sea (https://t.me/PalestineResist/17900)). Recently, the operations have escalated in quantity and quality, causing significant damage to the US and affecting the zionist entity it guards. These operations are carried out explicitly in support of Gaza as part of a support front such as Yemen’s and Lebanon’s.
While the Islamic Resistance in Iraq is not the PMF, there is overlap in groups, such as Kataeb Hezbollah (which holds “israeli” spy Elizabeth Tsurkov prisoner, Al-Nujaba Movement (to which Abu Taqwa belongs), and others, operating outside the official PMF framework. Both PMF and Islamic Resistance in Iraq have offered martyrs during Al-Aqsa Flood, with eight PMF members ascending on November 22nd, and five Islamic Resistance cadre ascending on December 5th.
And soon after this address:
In continuation of our path in resisting the American occupation forces in Iraq and the region, and in response to the massacres of the zionist entity against our people in Gaza, the fighters of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq attacked, with drones, two American occupation bases deep in Syria, namely Al-Tanf Base and Al-Shaddadi Base.
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