Thanks for your work b.

"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."

- Malcolm X

"Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines’."

- George Orwell, Looking back on the Spanish War, Chapter 4

"Let me control the media and I will turn any nation into a herd of pigs"

- Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels

Posted by: Canadian Cents | Apr 12 2021 17:20 utc | 1

If the jingoism is still running full bore in the imperial mass media then the empire's war is still on. The ukropian comedian's claims otherwise are irrelevant.

Any trainloads of tanks heading west in ukropia? No? There's your proof.

Posted by: William Gruff | Apr 12 2021 17:45 utc | 2

Thanks again b., what will happen/say/write in the next days must be observed

CNN SUCKS! and want to screw

"With growing tensions a dramatic buildup of Russian forces near the Ukrainian border and in Crimea.
Cellphone footage has emerged of armored columns like this one. And military hardware being transported by rail towards the border."

But Blinken was Saturday not so warmonger.

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 12 2021 17:46 utc | 3

History a sequence of lies on which men agree

Posted by: Pietka | Apr 12 2021 17:49 utc | 4

CNN is a joke.

I don't see how their "newscasters" can look themselves in a mirror.

I mean, is this what they went to journalism school for?

Posted by: Mike from Jersey | Apr 12 2021 17:51 utc | 5

"aggressive Russian military build-up on Ukraine border" appears as a coordinated narrative which began to be seeded in corporate press last Friday. This is the narrative which will frame coverage of Blinken at NATO hdq.

Biden admin is stoking potential crisis in Donbass and Taiwan simultaneously. Or, admin is responding to framed narratives for domestic consumption. Both recent Biden and Blinken appearances on network "news" had the interviewer deliberately lead them to outspoken hawkish positions.

Posted by: jayc | Apr 12 2021 17:58 utc | 6

I needed a laugh so I looked to see how many people were wearing masks. Zelensky yes (Politically correct) and a few of the others. The CNN reporter had not yet got the message, neither had the soldier who had forgotten to put on his helmet.

Ahh well, I suppose we have to be thankful they didn't have to wash their hands each time they entered a trench.

(all from the first link)

Posted by: Stonebird | Apr 12 2021 18:00 utc | 7

Hollywood did it, it caused a permanent state of fiction. Rozhin points to the Facebook page of the US State Department in Russian, to mark the International Day of Man in Space they do not mention who that first man was, and the graphics a cosmonaut with a US flag. How meekly miserable and how shocked for life for having lost that one. Long memory for grievances -ask Iran- and forcing down amnesia on everybody’s throats. Yes, Columbus statues are being torn down, so why naming the Columbus of space, it would not make a blockbuster which is what really matters, fiction. The twelfth day of April is not a day to remember in the USA, cause its not only Gagarin, add MIG alley to the mix.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/6697048.html

Posted by: Paco | Apr 12 2021 18:00 utc | 8

Thanks for the posting b

I agree with the sentiments provided by Canadian Cents | Apr 12 2021 17:20 utc | 1

I saw a link at Reuters today to a report alleging gas attacks in Syria in 2018 by Assad. The propaganda machines are running overtime and most Americans are totally engrossed with Covid vaccination detail rather than geo-political stuff...Russia/China bad, Russia/China bad, Russia/China bad is all they intake from that realm

Behind the propaganda machines are the global private finance folk that have held on to their jackboot for centuries by controlling narratives. It is only now with the global private finance folk's inability to corrupt China's financial system and their complete plunder of Russia because of Putin and Russia's military ascendency that the empire of the West is seeing its class based top/bottom system challenged critically....its way past time.

So the shit show continues until it doesn't....sure wish it would hurry up.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 12 2021 18:04 utc | 9

Blinken appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday morning

In an interview with host Chuck Todd,excerpt via Meet the Press:

CHUCK TODD: Are we prepared to defend Taiwan militarily?

SEC. ANTONY BLINKEN: So, Chuck, what we’ve seen, and what is of real concern to us, is increasingly aggressive actions by the government in Beijing directed at Taiwan, raising tensions in the Straits. And we have a commitment to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act, a bipartisan commitment that’s existed for many, many years, to make sure that Taiwan has the ability to defend itself, and to make sure that we’re sustaining peace and security in the Western Pacific. We stand behind those commitments. And all I can tell you is it would be a serious mistake for anyone to try to change the existing status quo by force.

CHUCK TODD: I understand that. So it does sound like you’re saying that, look, we have commitments. And if China does try something in Taiwan, we will militarily respond?

SEC. ANTONY BLINKEN: I’m not going to get into hypotheticals. All I can tell you is we have a serious commitment to Taiwan being able to defend itself. We have a serious commitment to peace and security in the Western Pacific. And in that context, it would be a serious mistake for anyone to try to change that status quo by force.

CHUCK TODD: Why — do you understand, if China looks at what our reaction was to Crimea and Russia, and think, think those commitments are not as rock-solid as you just outlined them as?

SEC. ANTONY BLINKEN: Well, I don’t think that’s, I don’t think that’s true. In the case of Crimea, in the case of the Donbas, the United States back then led a very significant international effort to impose real costs and sanctions on Russia for its aggression in Crimea, in the Donbas.

CHUCK TODD: How’s that worked out? In fairness, sir?

SEC. ANTONY BLINKEN: Well, — so what we don’t —

CHUCK TODD: I mean, it hasn’t worked out very well.

SEC. ANTONY BLINKEN: What we don’t know is, would — has this deterred Russia from doing even more? And as we speak right now, I have to tell you I have real concerns about Russia’s actions on the borders of Ukraine. There are more Russian forces massed on those borders than at any time since 2014 when Russia first invaded. That’s why we’re in very close contact, in close coordination, with our allies and partners in Europe. All of us share that concern. And President Biden’s been very clear about this. If Russia acts recklessly, or aggressively, there will be costs, there will be consequences. He’s equally clear-eyed about the proposition that, when it comes to Russia, there are areas where our interests align, or certainly overlap, and we have an interest in working together. For example, on arms control, as we did in extending the START Agreement. So the question is, “Is Russia going to continue to act aggressively and recklessly?” If it does, the president’s been clear, there’ll be costs, there’ll be consequences.

CHUCK TODD: Mr. Secretary, what you just outlined on Russia sounds like the exact same policy the Obama-Biden administration had towards Russia on this. That was — that has not positioned Russia to be better actors. That didn’t — that policy, arguably, didn’t work. We’re not saying that Trump’s policy worked either. What do you say to that?

SEC. ANTONY BLINKEN: Well, I say, first of all, we can’t go, we can’t go back to four years ago, or six years ago, or eight years ago. Pick your, pick your year. We have to deal with the world as it is now and as we anticipate it will be. What I can tell you is this: the president, before he was elected, made clear that, again, when it comes to Russia’s actions, there’ll be costs and consequences if it acts recklessly and aggressively and you could hold him to that word.

Is this NBC anchor just trying to get his "Putin-murder" breaking?
Or is MSM pushing for real war

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 12 2021 18:09 utc | 10

Mike from Jersey @ 5

I’ve a good friend, known her for sixty years, who is a journalism professor emeritus. Journalism students want the job. Getting the job means getting along and going along. Neither students nor faculty consider their job to have any connection to reality. Factual reporting is history. It’s now about entertainment and service to the corporate overlords.

Posted by: oldhippie | Apr 12 2021 18:14 utc | 11

@10

American media constantly pushes for war because they have no idea what real war is. To them, going to war is like spanking a child: possibly backfiring socially, but no real danger to their own lives. Most of the time, they just send bombers and take cool videos. When guys have to be sent on the ground, their deaths can be used to fuel the national hard-on America has for its military. I call it the "thank you for your service culture.
America has waged war on minor nations for so long that they can't even imagine that fighting another nation might result in aunt Nancy meeting her creator early. To them, Afghanistan, Iraq, China, Russia, it's all the same.
Also, the infantile thinking in terms of good and bad doesn't help.

Posted by: Eeny | Apr 12 2021 18:32 utc | 12

The Gamemaster

As MSM seem to forge narratives, I find it very interesting and impressive how Russia leads the Game.

Just some footages, RT and Sputnik. And the regular English transcript (translated by the Kremlin) of the opinions and statements of Putin, Lavrov...

destructive... Is USA hoisted as his own trap?

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 12 2021 18:33 utc | 13

Bernard F.

This is how it is said in English

"
Hoist with his own petard -

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Hoist_with_his_own_p...
"Hoist with his own petard" is a phrase from a speech in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet that has become proverbial. The phrase's meaning is literally that a bomb-maker is blown up ("hoist" off the ground) by his own bomb (a "petard" is a small explosive device), and indicates an ironic reversal, or poetic justice."

Posted by: arby | Apr 12 2021 18:41 utc | 14

oldhippie @11,

I should have figured.

Very sad state of affairs.

Posted by: Mike from Jersey | Apr 12 2021 18:44 utc | 15

thanks b... that killer putin just never knows when to stop!! i wish he would cut it out with ''military grade'' stuff - novichok and etc... next thing you know someone might die from the stuff.. or not.... better find another navalny or skripal soon... this propaganda vaccine is wearing off faster then the mrna! cnn to the rescue!!

let me quote from friday april 9th usa dept press briefing...

"MS PORTER: Thank you, Rosiland. ...
To your second question, I wouldn’t categorize – specifically categorize what you said the administration is doing, but I’ll just continue to underscore that the United States is concerned by the actions the Russian is – the Russians are taking that are escalating the tensions in Ukraine. And we also continue to monitor the situation closely in coordination with Ukrainian officials as well as our allies and partners in the region. But when it comes to Russia specifically, we have made clear that our engagement with Moscow – that it needs to refrain from any escalatory actions. And we’ll continue to hold them accountable."

Department Press Briefing – April 9, 2021

cnn to the rescue!!! where would americans be without cnn, or fox or nyt and etc. etc.? nowhere... well maybe they are nowhere anyway... i'd rather read 'alice in wonderland' then this crap they regularly dish out.. back to my h.g. wells book 'tono bungay' for the moment...

Posted by: james | Apr 12 2021 18:58 utc | 16

In his article several days ago about the build-up, Escobar made this crucial observation:

"The problem is Merkel and Macron don’t control NATO. Yet Merkel and Macron at least are fully aware that if the US/NATO combo attacks Russian forces or Russian passport holders who live in Donbass, the devastating response will target the command centers that coordinated the attacks." [My Emphasis]

So the nations that backed the 2014 coup would be on the receiving end of any Ukronazi attack, that would then launch a NATO-Russia War in which NATO certainly would cease to exist. Yes, Russia holds all the cards when it comes to escalation dominance. Pepe also noted the real reason for this provocation, which I noted in an earlier comment on the previous Ukrain thread:

"What’s implied is that Washington/Brussels don’t have a clear tactical, much less strategic game plan: only total narrative control." [My Emphasis]

The CNN garbage is part of that attempt at narrative control.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 12 2021 19:00 utc | 17

oldhippie | Apr 12 2021 18:14 utc | 11

Going along to get along. That behavior is all up and down the US pecking order, and in every corner of our lives. In civil engineering and surveying, the firm I worked for (when I retired) got in on the ground floor here of the fracking boom. Though I was instrumental in developing SOP's that allowed us to outperform and out-earn our competitors but because I didn't drink the industry's kool aid and constantly contradicted the latest greatest hubris and misinformation I was eventually forced out. I understand that; what really irked me was all my co-workers treated me like I had the plague. To be clear: I was no hair-on-fire "the sky is falling" rabble rouser; I merely and calmly refuted constant erroneous claims and programs. I also was better at and did better work than anyone else in the field, and was always loyal to the viability and profitability of my employer. But I was not "ideologically on board" and so was shown the door. Oh well, the cognitive dissonance has subsided at least.

21st Century Schizoid Man.

Posted by: vinnieoh | Apr 12 2021 19:03 utc | 18

karlof1 | Apr 12 2021 19:00 utc | 17

I hope you're right, but isn't it kinda like juggling with lit sticks of dynamite?

Posted by: vinnieoh | Apr 12 2021 19:10 utc | 19

Canadian Cents @ 1
I agree with you in principle, but can I just point out that it looks like your third quote is not a real quote?
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-fact-check-fabricated-goebbels-quote-idUSKBN28P21X
I wouldn't normally rely on Reuters for much, but that page at least seems to be well-attested.
Of course, I'm happy to be corrected by anyone with a primary source.

Posted by: Deltaeus | Apr 12 2021 19:23 utc | 20

Great catch. Yes the Mighty Wurlitzer is blaring at CNN. If MSNBC belongs to the Democrats and FOX belongs to the Republicans, CNN clearly belongs to the CIA.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/12/europe/ukraine-zelensky-front-lines/index.html

Posted by: gottlieb | Apr 12 2021 19:38 utc | 21

What might be happening is that the "fiddlers on the roof" (elite) want fear to be uppermost in the minds of millions of their minions. The "fear" of Covid is dying down, the 18 - 34 year olds (young adults) are the most scared of Covid and the end of seclusion. (poll) They are the group that normally would be the most disrespectful and revolutionary. Active and ready to "change the world".

So along comes a new "fear" to allow continued control by the media and oligarchs. If Russia and China didn't exist they would have to invent them, as it is they are inventing the threat of a minimal aggression. It might turn out to be real the way things are going, but this was not part of "plan A".

People I meet locally, my age group, no longer care much about what is going on. Most think the "rest" have lost their marbles. The wheezers to the rescue of the world. Bit late though.

As b's post shows - the whole thing is for Cinema. Where have we seen people running around in any direction to give a sense of urgency like that before? I know - the "white helmets". Or is Zelensky trying to do a mini Boris Johnson? (Needs a wig though)

Posted by: Stonebird | Apr 12 2021 19:41 utc | 22

Paco @8--

Did you see this Nikolai Patrushev interview with Kommersant a few days ago? In his most recent, Escobar describes it as "stunning." Here are Pepe's exceprts on NATO and Europe:

"On NATO: 'The question arises: who is holding back whom? Are Washington and Brussels holding back Russia, or is it their task to hold back the development of Germany, France, Italy and other European states? On the whole, NATO can hardly be called a military-political bloc. Remember how in the days of feudalism the vassals were obliged to appear to the master with their armies at his first request? Only today they still have to buy weapons from the patron, regardless of their financial situation; otherwise questions about their loyalty will arise.'

"On Europe: 'Engaging with Europe is important. But being together with Europe at any cost is not a fix for Russian geopolitics. Nevertheless we keep the doors open, because we understand perfectly well that there is a momentary situation that Western politicians are guided by, and at the same time there are historical ties that have been developing between Russians and Europeans for centuries.'"

Here are two excerpts that caught my eye, although there were more:

"Bush Sr. also announced that America would never apologize to anyone. It is easier for the American elite to fail in any mistake to sum up a sophisticated theory explaining why it was necessary to do so. I would call it Hiroshima syndrome."

And:

"We are witnessing a rewrite of history. Unsurprisingly, Japanese children have little idea of the country that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some people even think that [was] the USSR."

As I said, I omitted much that I thought important, and I hope many barflies will take the time to read the interview.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 12 2021 19:51 utc | 23

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 12 2021 19:51 utc | 23

The heading of Patrushev's interview in Kommersant says it all: "We hope that common sense will prevail in Washington"

So glad you're on the road, enjoy it, we're still locked up here, and it has been a long long time.

Martyanov today has Gagarin's picture on Time Magazine, no major western paper has made any reference to the 60th aniversary. Sad.

Posted by: Paco | Apr 12 2021 20:19 utc | 24

Did someone set fire to the historic Nevskaya Manufactory building in St. Petersburg?

Could this be the kind of provocation The Saker was expecting?

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Apr 12 2021 20:28 utc | 25

About the News,

we should remember, as someone once pointed out:

"The first function of propaganda (and censorship) is not to convince the sceptical, but to facilitate the avoidance of having to make difficult ethical and moral decisions in everyday ​life."

Maybe we could go on to say:

Today, the function of propaganda is to create the illusion that the population are not already brainwashed ...
and that is the reason for its blatantly obvious contemptuous depictions of reality.

Posted by: Hemiola | Apr 12 2021 20:29 utc | 26

its all going to end up as twisted garbage in the end. The West is way past the point where you can negotiate or make arrangements with, they will only understand one thing, humiliation on the battlefield. The Russians have given them the benefit of the doubt for about 10 years too long. The US see sacrificing Ukrainian lives (maybe even the Poles as well) as a price worth paying to stop Nordstream 2. Do they think losing American troops, operatives and Navy ships are too? Hopefully Moscow will have some spetsnaz near enough to get the CIA stooges before they run for the airfield, and some British troops too, parade them on live TV, get the clown Zelenskii for a performance and rid Kiev of the Nazis whilst they're in that neck of the woods. Ultimately this is what has got to happen at some point, sacrificing NS2 has to be worth something for the Russians, getting rid of the festering sore that western Ukraine has become can only make sense.

Posted by: Gerald | Apr 12 2021 20:38 utc | 27

Martyanov's latest:

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2021/04/some-issues-of-numbers.html?m=1

His point about Russia's conventional escalation dominance (on a global scale, not just in Europe), and the US' nuclear bias, is important.

Posted by: Prof | Apr 12 2021 20:44 utc | 28

Lavrov was interviewed by INRA prior to his trip to Iran. I offer the following:

"Question: The new US government seems to continue pursuing Donald Trump's policy but in a new form. What do you think of it? What can our countries do to counter the use of unilateral approaches by the Biden administration?

"Sergey Lavrov: The main problem, as we see it, is Washington's persistent unwillingness to abandon its flawed course towards upholding the US's global dominance, which was adopted in the early 1990's following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Today, it is obvious to everyone that such a policy is entirely counterproductive, particularly given that the objective process of shaping a fairer, more democratic and therefore more sustainable multipolar world order is gaining momentum right before our eyes.

"Despite this, the United States, supported by its European allies, has been taking aggressive steps aimed at destroying the UN-centered international legal architecture and substituting it with the so-called 'rule-based order.' It is not that we oppose the idea of everyone following the rules, yet these rules should be developed not within a narrow circle comprising Washington and its satellites and bypassing the United Nations but within universal formats involving all key global players based on the existing universally recognized norms of international law.

"In this context, I would like to highlight the phenomenon of an unprecedented extensive pressure put by the West on States that are implementing an independent domestic and foreign policy guided by their national interests. This involves all sorts of tools ranging from financial sanctions and visa restrictions to disinformation campaigns and direct forceful interventions. We are, in fact, faced with the relapse into neo-colonial thinking in foreign policy, which implies, among other things, dividing the world into the 'chosen' countries and all the rest. While the former are offered an a priori pardon for any actions, the latter must presumably act in line with instructions issued by Washington. This is, of course, unacceptable for both Russia and Iran, as well as most countries of the world.

"As for the second part of the question, it is important that we strengthen our foreign policy interaction, including within the United Nations and other multilateral platforms. Especially given that, as I have already mentioned, we have a lot of supporters – most of the members of the world community share the view that inter-State communication should be developed based on international law and principles of mutual respect, taking account of each other's interests. Like us, they consider zero-sum geopolitical games, sanctions and blackmail to be unacceptable, and advocate for consistent improvement of the situation in the world."

The second question dealt with the North–South Transport Corridor and provides an update on its status. Lavrov has again been busy, but not all the English language transcripts are complete. He's been conducting what was once called shuttle diplomacy between the Persian Gulf nations and other MENA actors, Egypt being the most recent. IMO, something big's afoot that is aimed at facilitating the overall trade and development scheme that's BRI. And IMO, Ukrainian provocations are part of the Outlaw US Empire's attempt to thwart it.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 12 2021 20:46 utc | 29

Ground fire from the UKRAINIAN ARMY is a significant risk, they shot down Siberian Airlines Flight 1812 and MH17.

Posted by: Symen | Apr 12 2021 21:24 utc | 30

"near the Ukrainian border" means closer to Ukraine than to Alaska.

Posted by: Keith McClary | Apr 12 2021 21:40 utc | 31

"The Ukraina operates on the Kiev to Moscow route every other day. The train is managed by Ukrainian Railways. It covers 872 km in 12 hours."

https://www.expresstorussia.com/train/ukraina.html

Posted by: Keith McClary | Apr 12 2021 21:57 utc | 32

CNN...
What did you expect? A honest professional reporting? Real journalism, objectivity, thoughtful analysis? C'mon.

I am surprised by your surprise, because it would seem that over the past years there has already been enough material to make an unambiguous conclusion regarding both CNN and a number of other Western "news" sites (Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, NYT, Washington Post, The Guardian, BBC and other such trash). CNN is in many ways the standard of rabid propaganda. A fact established long ago and hardly subject to doubt.

If you read the CNN "news" about Syria, Venezuela, Iran, especially about China and Russia, then 98% that what is described in the "news" directly contradicts the real state of affairs.

"Russian aggression against Ukraine" is a narrative that has been diligently cultivated by Western propaganda since 2014. For these purposes, direct lies and slander are used, ignoring and concealment of "wrong" facts, censorship of inconvenient information, and so on. This is an uncompromising and in many ways unprecedented information campaign (which has been going on for 7 years already) to call white black and literally create an alternative reality.

I have said many times that the Ukrainian situation is unique in many ways. I am not that strong in history, but I cannot remember a single case when a country waging a civil war on its territory would pretend it is a war with some other state. The Reds in Russia after 1917 did not try to portray a civil war against whites as, for example, a "war against German aggression". It did not occur to the republicans in Spain in the 1930s to present the war against the Francoists as, for example, a "war against Italy". The northerners in the civil war in the United States did not try to present a war against the southerners as, for example, "England's aggression". It did not occur to South Korea in the 1950s to portray battles against North Korea as, for example, "Chinese aggression".
So on and so on...

Banderastan (still called Ukraine) is really unique. You need to be sick to your heart to try in all seriousness to portray the aggression against a part of your own territory as a "war with Russia". But you need to be no less crazy to agree and support these bizarre fantasies - exactly what CNN and other similar structures have been doing for 7 years now.

CNN will not tell you about the Nazi flags on the positions of the Ukrainian army (shown by MoA in a recent post, reported earlier), about Ukrainian snipers deliberately killing civilians (here is just one case - the murder of an old man who was feeding chickens at his site), about the killings by Ukrainian punishers of children (a recent case that the Ukrainian regime continues to deny and lie about what happened), about the gun of the Nazi criminal Goering, which the current head of the Ukrainian delegation to the tripartite contact group on Dobnass Kravchuk is proud of. Also CNN is unlikely to tell about the stubborn unwillingness of the Kiev regime to make the negotiations in the Minsk contact group public and transparent.

Instead, the "news" about "Russian aggression" will be artificially constructed - the movement of Russian troops on Russian territory within the framework of pre-planned exercises will be presented as "preparation for aggression", and an array of events indicating that Ukraine is preparing a new stage of aggression against Donbass (open build-up of heavy military equipment by Ukraine near the borders of the LDPR, a number of special legislative measures (the law on mobilization, the law on internees, etc.), the arrival of delegations of military instructors and advisers from NATO, repeated airlifting of unknown cargo by American military transport aircraft to Ukraine, Ukraine's exercises to deliver missile strikes on Crimea) will be hushed up or presented as "repelling Russian aggression". In the best traditions of Orwell.

Looking to get a job at CNN? Just learn to call white black, even better if you truly believe it.

Posted by: alaff | Apr 12 2021 23:48 utc | 33

War in Ukraine hasn't started as that lovely rich deep farmland hasn't dried and firmed up for warfare. Expect the beginning of May. Russia should have it wrapped up in time to parade NATO SOF's through Red Square on May 9th, a redux of July 1944. Second choice is June 22. I read that Hitler liked to start hostilities on a Sunday and Zelensky may like to emulate his hero. Don't know how factual this is.

Once an army is moved into position to attack the chances are that moving that army back to the barracks is slim. See Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Korea, Barbarossa.

The lies are still coming. One recently was a statement by a previous US head of European theatre (fresh from Mike Pompeo's refresher course on lying cheating etc.) that no Russians died in WW2, only Ukrainians (and I'm assuming Belarussians once they join freedom loving nations)

Only by force it seems that army will march back to whence it came.

Train schedules seem to be intricate part of this conflict as well.

Chekhov's gun's Axiom

"Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."

Zelensky, a trained actor know this. He has put the gun above the mantle. The gun will explode towards the Donetsk or be turned on himself. Putin has also read Chekhov.

https://yandex.com/images/search?text=ww2%20eastern%20front%20mud%20pictures&stype=image&lr=21113&source=wiz

But if there's one thing in my life
That these years have taught
It's that you can always see it coming
But you can never stop it

Posted by: Tom | Apr 13 2021 0:03 utc | 34

Yeah, this seems grim.

Biden will be going Russia first, me think.

Posted by: Smith | Apr 13 2021 0:24 utc | 35

Deltaeus @20, didn't know, thanks for pointing that out. I think I had come across that quote some two-three years ago, while the Reuters article is from just four months ago, but clearly it's better not to use that quote if there any doubts about it ...

Posted by: Canadian Cents | Apr 13 2021 0:48 utc | 36

Media ownership in the West is no laughing matter.
In May, 2018, Elon Musk published a tweet posing the question:

"Who do you think owns the press - Hello?!!"

In the tweet was a chart with 4 columns of 3 boxes. Each box contains a list of the owner and 2 top execs in a well-known Media Outlet. Guess how many were not Jews and/or Loonie Zionists?"

Top Row: CBS, abc, NBC, CNN
Middle Row: NYT, WaPo, HuffPo, Guardian
Bottom Row: Economist, BBC, Vox, Buzzfeed

I just Googled: "Elon Musk - who do you thinks owns the press" and up popped the tweet and the chart.

So when I hear someone disparaging Elon Musk I know it's more about Vested Interests than it is about Musk's Delightfully Vague short-comings...

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 13 2021 1:14 utc | 37

Who writes the paychecks at CNN?
By which I mean, of course, who actually owns whatever corporate apparatus that handles their 'human resources' and payroll?
These are the 'firey but mostly peaceful protests' guys after all, right?

Posted by: Josh | Apr 13 2021 1:53 utc | 38

Thanks B, for a clear report of muck. Stonebird @ 22 summary "the whole thing is for Cinema."
Some story telling back at farm USA: officials are holding "in the barnyard" a "trial of the century" => regards a COP whose knee to a handcuffed man's neck killed the prisoner in broad daylight" and another COP in the same city "accidentally pulls the wrong gun leaving the target victim dead" and a school in Tennessee gunized by yet another frenzied killer.. so many events happening so fast, with such broad televised splendor; I wonder if the admin has decided fear propaganda is necessary to take the guns from the Cops?

Worldwide privately endowed and maintained Oligarchs are conceiving and choreographing fear coupled to "narrative deceptive controlled propaganda"? Control news out/in; shuts truth, objective thought out of, all means of interactive group communication.. Covid 19 fear-based-invented reality, novochok in UK, Assad Gas in Syria, Nukes in Iran, aggressive Ukraine borders' shutdown and close out of spoken language communications with all branches of USA (everywhere Americans must, line up to be cajoled into being jabbed, before they use a spy enabled browser to talk to even the lowest levels the USA).

what I see, is a real war would interfere with the pseudo reality. but why is this the case? What's it all about? Preventing Americans from engaged in non choreographed communications developing un_approved narratives, or interactively conversing with each other, all suggest the goal is to isolate each person in a information controlled hole, where they will reside in a tailored to each individual information environment.
Even if the person break away from the hole they have been assigned, and speak with a similar hole breaker from another hole, the two cannot match their stories, or see reality because neither has been feed a shred of truth, and each have been bathed in a different information environment.

I suspicion that somehow controlled pseudo reality is designed to gain barnyard support for all out global world war. One of you guys with a Psychoooo_ology degree tell us where is all this leading?

Posted by: snake | Apr 13 2021 2:16 utc | 39

I don't see how their "newscasters" can look themselves in a mirror.

I mean, is this what they went to journalism school for?

What they see in the mirror is not as important as what is on their pay stub.

Posted by: Ian2 | Apr 13 2021 2:25 utc | 40

@23 karlof1

Welcome back. Yes, the Patrushev interview I personally found stunning. Escobar as you say thought it important enough to write an article around it - the Asia Times link is paywalled, here it is at the Saker:

Russia ‘would really not want’ Cold War 2.0 - Pepe Escobar

It's hard to select anything that Escobar cites from the interview that is more compelling than any other part - Patrushev is most definitely the voice of the clear-eyed Russian security state - but here are two, to go along with yours:

On contacts with Washington: “They continue. At the end of March, I had a telephone conversation with the assistant to the president of the United States for national security, Mr Sullivan .… By the way, it was held in a calm, business-like atmosphere, and we communicated quite thoroughly and constructively.”

I take that to mean that Russia has had no problem communicating to Washington exactly how many kilos of shit will hit the fan if Ukraine steps across the line. We've theorized that the neocons have been feeling frisky and pushing their usual suicidal brinkmanship, and that the military have reined them in. Ukraine, of course, has acted in step with this whole ploy in hopes of getting more money to steal - which has only ever been their reason to war against the Donbass.

The quote that most struck me, and that I picked for the open thread, I believe, where bio-warfare was not off-topic, was this one:

On US bio-labs: “I suggest that you pay attention to the fact that numbers of biological laboratories under US control are growing by leaps and bounds across the world. And – by a strange coincidence – mainly at the Russian and Chinese borders … Of course, we and our Chinese partners have questions. We are told that there are peaceful sanitary and epidemiological stations near our borders, but for some reason they are more reminiscent of Fort Detrick in Maryland, where Americans have been working in the field of military biology for decades. By the way, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that outbreaks of diseases uncharacteristic of these regions are recorded in the adjacent areas.”

That Patrushev is a straight talker.

Posted by: Grieved | Apr 13 2021 2:43 utc | 41

You're worried about the grubby Ukraine? OT!!! Take a look at the USSA!

Posted by: blues | Apr 13 2021 2:52 utc | 42

Hopefully the Ukraine situation is not off-topic here. I think it's worth re-posting Norwegian's find in the last thread that the commenter Auslander at the Saker, who lives in Crimea, reports that a "radio strike" by Russia has shut down the Ukraine army's radar, GPS and drone guidance, among other things.

Rereading Auslander's comment I see that he says he's also confirmed this by phone. People take Auslander as a reliable source of information (not necessarily analysis), and so do I. So I guess we wait to find out more about this. Auslander says that Russia can enforce this blackout indefinitely:

The Armed Forces of Ukraine in Donbass were left without satellite communications, GPS and SEC equipment due to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (Sevastopol News Portal)

Now the Ukrainian army does not have the opportunity to use its UAVs, radars, radar reconnaissance systems and other instruments for confrontation. This information was shared by the Chinese edition of Sohu. According to the newspaper, the OSCE reported a surge in activity to suppress signals.
comment by Auslander at Saker open thread

While some see this as indicating the approach of the main clash, others see it as a measure telling Ukraine to return to the Minsk agreements (which is my personal view too). I note that Lavrov in the last day or two somewhere has said that Germany and France is committed to Minsk and see no alternative for Ukraine.

If all this turns out to be real, then it's an elegantly Russian thin slice of escalation that I suppose might just preempt the entire ploy.

Posted by: Grieved | Apr 13 2021 3:04 utc | 43

Ian2 @ 40 said;"What they see in the mirror is not as important as what is on their pay stub."

Yes, and this statement doesn't just apply to 99% of the media, it applies to most of Americans. Willful ignorance of reality

is an epidemic in the U$ today. Millions of "boats" with no rudders.....

Posted by: vetinLA | Apr 13 2021 3:14 utc | 44

@ arby

Hoist with his own petard -

Thanks! :-))

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 13 2021 3:15 utc | 45

Speaking of Pepe Escobar, he now seems to be permanently banned from Facebook. A journalist, with 13 years on FB, and the platform says the ban is permanent with no further appeal.

This does seem pertinent to this thread. He's on VK:
https://vk.com/id578617852

21SilkRd just got permanently banned also, one of the very best pages on China news - they're on VK also:
https://vk.com/club190964553

Actually I notice that they're currently back up on Facebook, having announced their relocation in Chinese media - but the schizophrenia of that platform is getting ridiculous. This must all backfire one day, and hopefully Facebook will find itself, uhm, hoist with its own petard.

Posted by: Grieved | Apr 13 2021 3:33 utc | 46

"Ukrainian trains which, since early March, have been moving heavy weapon towards the frontline each and every day."

And if they're still moving, it doesn't look like Zelensky gave up and sued for peace, does it?

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Apr 13 2021 3:47 utc | 47

@Tom (34) Given that Zelensky is a Jew, I doubt that Hitler is his hero.

Posted by: Rob | Apr 13 2021 4:15 utc | 48

There is a lot of additional footage of 'military hardware being transported by rail towards the border' that CNN could have used.
slitherio

Posted by: Matteo | Apr 13 2021 4:39 utc | 49

Happy Cosmonautics Day @all!

It's not particularly likely, but if things do kick off in Ukraine it would be wonderful if Dnipropetrovsk ends up under the control of Novorossia. Dnipro is home to what remains of Yuzhnoye, one of the 3 main centres of the Soviet Rocket-Space sector. Yuzhnoye really did used to churn out ICBMs 'like sausages'! It was responsible for the R-16, the Soviet Union's first 2nd generation silo-based ICBM, able to remain on hair-trigger alert for weeks or months thanks to its storable fuels. The heavy R-36 and especially its advanced derivative the R-36M loomed large in US war planners minds, earning the NATO designation SS-18 'Satan'.

Yuzhnoye was also a centre of Satellite development, developing the original 'Cosmos' scientific satellites that later lent their name to the Soviet Union's classified military satellites, including the Yuzhnoye-produced 'Tselina' ELINT satellites that helped detect US Navy ships by their electronic emissions and provided targeting data to the Soviet navy's deadly anti-ship cruise missiles.

In the late 1970s Yuzhnoye began to enter the human spaceflight arena, developing the advanced medium-lift Zenit rocket that launched low/medium orbit military satellites like the Tselina. The Zenit was also designed to replace the Soyuz rocket in the Soviet human spaceflight program, lifting a new 7-cosmonaut spacecraft to Mir and later space stations. A modified Zenit would also serve as the boosters of the Energia-Buran, a Saturn V class super heavy-lift system capable of launching the Buran Space Shuttle or very large space station modules to low orbit, or with the addition of an upper stage crewed missions to the Moon or Mars.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union destroyed all of these ambitious plans, with Energia-Buran being scrapped by the Yelstin clique after 2 successful test flights. Yuzhnoye was now stranded in a decaying Ukraine, whose corrupt officials used Yuzhnoye's advanced technology to blackmail Russia for a bigger cut. The Zenit continued to fly, dominating the communication satellite launch industry in the 2000's with a Russian-built upper stage as part of the 'Sea Launch' converted oil rig launch system.

The 2014 coup put an end to Sea Launch, ceding control of the communication satellite launch market to SpaceX, while Russia is now building its own advanced version of the Zenit (Soyuz 5) which will launch a derivative of the 1980s 7-crew spacecraft to the ISS or future space stations. A resurrected Energia is also in development (without its Buran Shuttle) with the new Soyuz 5 as a booster.

The Russian space sector has now recovered to where it was in the early 1980s, and the return of Yuzhnoye's technology and production facilities (if any have survived the looting) can only help return Russia's space program to where it was in April 1961 and where it belongs today, at the forefront of space exploration.

Posted by: S.P. Korolev | Apr 13 2021 5:15 utc | 50

Posted by: Rob | Apr 13 2021 4:15 utc | 48

He wouldn't be the first human to sell out others for his future acting career.

Posted by: Tom | Apr 13 2021 5:30 utc | 51

Grieved | Apr 13 2021 3:04 utc | 43

See: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/04/the-moa-week-in-review-ot-2021-027.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef0263e99da0c1200b#comment-6a00d8341c640e53ef0263e99da0c1200b

Posted by: pogohere | Apr 13 2021 6:48 utc | 52

the Comedy News Network

farther into decline

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/cable-news-ratings-cnn-has-lowest-rated-week-of-2021-for-total-day-and-primetime/ar-BB1eTqY4

Posted by: robert | Apr 13 2021 7:14 utc | 53

Grieved | Apr 13 2021 2:43 utc | 41

The US is supposed to have up to 13 bio-sites IN Ukraine alone (no confirmation)

@43
It would be interesting to see if this "blackout" also affected the performance of the Global Hawk FORTE11 which is currently spying over Donbas/Crimea and as far as South Ossetia. I won't hold my breath for the US to tell us. (The US also sent 12 Special forces into Uke as well - probably to try out new weapons in a real situation? Surprise, surprise - they could have found a "real" situation that they may not have expected)

****

S.P. Korolev | Apr 13 2021 5:15 utc | 50

Thanks for the very interesting update.

Yuzhnoye was now stranded in a decaying Ukraine, whose corrupt officials used Yuzhnoye's advanced technology to blackmail Russia for a bigger cut. Now they are cut out of even that, but could they have found a new "market" or are they simply "spent"?

Posted by: Stonebird | Apr 13 2021 8:19 utc | 54

snake | Apr 13 2021 2:16 utc | 39

"What I see, is a real war would interfere with the pseudo reality. but why is this the case? What's it all about? .....
I suspicion that somehow controlled pseudo reality is designed to gain barnyard support for all out global world war. One of you guys with a Psychoooo_ology degree tell us where is all this leading?
Taken in parallel with Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 13 2021 1:14 utc | 37, (Musk and control of Media) I think you are underestimating the overall control now obtained over all common facets of life.
ie. Members of Governments and their AIPAC style lobbies, Infiltration into NATO, Corporate and Financial power, Law and enforcement (partial). These are aimed squarely at totalitarianism over ALL of what used used to be laughingly called the "Free world". No need for a "Global" war just yet.

****

Psychoooo_ology degree: ain't got one of those but you used to be able to buy them at karachi station. Maybe when I can catch a passing plane again.....

Posted by: Stonebird | Apr 13 2021 8:37 utc | 55

@ karlof1 | Apr 12 2021 20:46 utc | 29

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2021/04/13/649363/Russia-EU-Iran-sanctions

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif holds talks with his visiting counterpart from Russia, Sergei Lavrov, in Tehran on April 13, 2021.

The EU said in its official journal on Monday that it had imposed sanctions on eight Iranian commanders, including Chief Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Hossein Salami, and three prisons over so-called human rights violations.

The sanctions some at a sensitive time as Brussels is mediating the diplomatic efforts in Vienna to make the US lift its anti-Iran sanctions and rejoin the deal so that Tehran would reverse the retaliatory measures it has been taking under Article 36 of the JCPOA.

The talks involving Iran and the five remaining signatories’ — France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China — will resume on Wednesday.

“If there is any kind of coordination lacking in the EU and the right hand is not aware of what the left hand is doing, that’s simply unfortunate,” Lavrov said. “But if this decision has been deliberately taken amid the talks continuing in Vienna to rescue the JCPOA then it is not just unfortunate — this is a mistake that is worse than a crime.”

“I hope our European colleagues understand that such actions are unacceptable and will take measures not to allow the talks to be derailed,” the top diplomat added.

According to Zarif: the EU “has no status [of its own] in the world, and that it is not only a follower of American policies, but also a follower of the most extremist groups in the United States and the Zionist regime.”

Zarif advised the Europeans to “think about their dignity. Europe should know that it is not in a superior moral position. Europe cannot preach to the world. A Europe, where xenophobia and anti-Islamism have created terrible conditions for Muslims, has neither the reputation nor the position to sanction the Iranian authorities.”

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 13 2021 10:07 utc | 56

Mike from Jersey @ 5:

Take it from an ex reporter: you don't need four year at an "elite" university to learn how to do reporting, you can aquire the skills necessary in a year of evening classes -- it really isn't that hard.

So yes, what the are doing at CNN is what they went to journalism school for. It's just not reporting.

Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Apr 13 2021 10:24 utc | 57

Bernard F. @ 10:

Look at the transcript again. Todd has Blinken more or less saying outright that they will go nowhere near Taiwan in case of war, and refraing from stating that Ukraine will have military back up.

Cunning bastard! Thats's a true reporter for you!

Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Apr 13 2021 10:32 utc | 58

Rob @ 48

They are all Jews. Arsen Avakov, by all accounts the most total Nazi in Ukraine, is a Jew. Petro Poroshenko was born Peter Rosenberg. The oligarchs are all Jewish. Ukrainian leadership is entirely Jewish. Every explanation seen for why this is the case is so bad I prefer to have no explanation. But there it is.

Posted by: oldhippie | Apr 13 2021 10:33 utc | 59

Russian soldiers occupying Ukrainian territory is by definition Russian Aggression. You Putinverstehers can go on all you want about "Ukrainazis" but those were international borders that Russia unilaterally ignored.

Posted by: Malchik Ralf | Apr 13 2021 10:52 utc | 60

In the news today we learn from goverment controlled media that the GRU hacked the Swedish Sports Confederation in 2018. The procecuter knows who did it, but cannot press charges because of, you know, the GRU thing. LOL!

Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Apr 13 2021 12:02 utc | 61

Being a bit hard on CNN being a purveyor of fake news, after all they have been 100% factual about covid...right?

Posted by: Rancid | Apr 13 2021 12:35 utc | 62

The remnants of Ukraine's high teck Soviet era industry are no more. In 2018, Cuba, one of the few flagship operators of the Antonov An-148 (CIA-pedia), grounded its entire fleet for safety reasons.

In May 2018, Cubana de Aviación grounded its An-158 fleet after it received an order from the Cuban National Aviation Authority. The official reason given by the Cuban National Aviation Authority was "multiple and repeating failures have been found in complex systems, built by mechanical, hydraulic and electrical components, as well as computer performance algorithms", in addition to "evidence of design and manufacturing flaws, serious issues in flight control system, cracks in the structure and engine temperature increase above normal parameters"

The Antonov An-148 is the only aircraft that the famous Antonov Design Bureau can make anymore and there are no more orders for it due to severe quality issues. Antonov is, for all intents and purposes, a zombie company that is now little more than a mailing address and some warehouses of old NOS spare parts for any of its former products that are still flying. What remains of its production facilities only make rather cheap and shabby trolleys these days.

As an example of the Ukraine's decline from its heights in the Soviet Union note that in 1991 100% of the households in the Ukraine had what the World Health Organization calls "improved water", which is safe and clean potable water piped directly into the home. At the time of the Maidan coup (2013... last reliable numbers) that had dropped to 87%. The Ukraine cannot even maintain infrastructure so basic and essential to modern life as running water! Talk about a nation of total phuque-ups!

Everything that the Ukraine had - everything! - was thanks to the Soviet Union. The Ukraine's very existence as a state was a gift. Outside of the republics there is nothing left in the Ukraine; certainly nothing worth saving. There will never be a Ukrainian space program.

I can understand the desire to see Dnipropetrovsk revitalized into a tech powerhouse again, but that would cost more than just starting from scratch somewhere else. The real assets were the scientists and engineers, and they have all either retired or have moved away. Putin's claim that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the 20th century's greatest catastrophe is true in so many different ways and also for every country on Earth and not just Russia. This is particularly evident in places like Yugoslavia and the Ukraine, which will eventually follow Yugoslavia's fate.

Posted by: William Gruff | Apr 13 2021 12:52 utc | 63

I would like to make a simple point about the conflict in Eastern Ukraine.

If this conflict does flare up and result in a significant kinetic activity, Russia-backed forces must MAKE Ukraine "Pay a Price" for this conflict.

What do I mean?

I mean if the kinetic activity does escalate into a significant conflict the Russian-backed forces of Donbass must advance and move their borders Westward - perhaps encompassing the entire areas of Luhansk & Donetsk for instance.

The Ukrainians need to be sent a message that any time they stir up a conflict they lose progressively more territory.

Posted by: Julian | Apr 13 2021 13:00 utc | 64

@ Grieved 41

"On US bio-labs: “I suggest that you pay attention to the fact that numbers of biological laboratories under US control are growing by leaps and bounds across the world. And – by a strange coincidence – mainly at the Russian and Chinese borders "

As I ponder things that Russia is probably including on their list of demands they will present when Kiev pleads for peace after Russia takes half their country, I'm thinking these bio-labs have to be high on their list, and would be quite a coup for Russia to take intact and find out exactly what the Yanks have been up to there. Alternatively, a nice, cleansing barometric bomb per lab might be a close second choice. Either way, I don't think I'd want to be working in one of those places if this little war goes hot.

Posted by: J Swift | Apr 13 2021 13:28 utc | 65

@Julian:

…Russian-backed forces of Donbass must advance and move their borders Westward - perhaps encompassing the entire areas of Luhansk & Donetsk for instance.

Or at least a sufficiently large buffer area around Donetsk and Gorlovka so that they are no longer subjected to West-occupied Ukraine’s shelling and sniping.

Posted by: S | Apr 13 2021 13:31 utc | 66

gazeta.ru reports that CNN removed the fake 'Russian tanks' photo from their website.
No correction notice, I presume.

Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Apr 13 2021 13:47 utc | 67

Re: Posted by: Mike from Jersey | Apr 12 2021 17:51 utc | 5

I mean, is this what they went to journalism school for?

Well, of course not! You will find most (almost 100%) of people you see on TV at least went to journalism school so they could be FAMOUS!! And get their mug on TV in some way or another.

Why?

Because they obviously realised it would be much easier than going to Hollywood and becoming a movie star - which is what they'd really like to do.

Posted by: Julian | Apr 13 2021 13:48 utc | 68

Ukraine shouldn't even exist. It's an artificial state created by Lenin on German pressures at the end of the first war, when Lenin believed in the German victory of the conflict ..

Posted by: Nick | Apr 13 2021 13:54 utc | 69

J Swift @65

If you think that the empire's black site bio-labs are bad, just know that there are even darker and more sinister surprises for the Russians to find tucked away in the Ukrainian countryside should they unexpectedly overrun them. As a failed/destroyed state like Libya, the Ukraine makes an ideal haven for facilities hosting some of the CIA's most nightmarish horrors. The first troops on the scene to investigate some of those places will never sleep well again.

Posted by: William Gruff | Apr 13 2021 14:15 utc | 70

@ Posted by: Nick | Apr 13 2021 13:54 utc | 69

It was a little bit more dire than you describe.

Germany literally occupied the Ukraine at the end of WWI. The territory was denied to the RSFSR in its entirety. The Germans used this time to build up bourgeois resolve and identity in the Ukraine, which made the absorption of the Ukrainian peasantry harder. When Lenin claimed the Ukrainians were their own people, he was throwing a very desperate hail mary.

And, to top it off, Polish imperialism came right after Germany's defeat in WWI, reclaiming, among others, Ukrainian territory. The entire territorial restoration would come only at the end of 1920.

So, between mid-1918 and the end of 1920, the RSFSR was essentially reduced to the old Duchy of Moscow territory (it had also lost Siberia and Vladivostok to the Japanese). The avalanche of Soviet decrees that came out during this era were largely symbolic and had more value as political manifestos than any kind of imperium.

In fact, the opposite of separatism happened: the Civil War actually strengthened the direct association the Russian (Empire) peasantry made between being Bolshevik and being Russian. The selling out of the SRs and the anarchists to the French and German revolted the the peasantry - including the Ukrainian one. It was at this time - against all Bolshevik predictions - that their party became almost synonymous to Russia. As Lenin himself would admit later, during the crisis that would give birth to NEP: the peasants are not Bolshevik but not Communist.

Posted by: vk | Apr 13 2021 14:32 utc | 71

Malchik Ralf | Apr 13 2021 10:52 utc | 60

Russians presence in Ukraine evidence of invasion??? "Russian soldiers occupying Ukrainian territory is by definition Russian Aggression."
Malchik Ralf

Not so...

In 2014, the time of the dissolution of the otherwise widely recognized sovereignty of Ukraine - yet without definitive internationally settled borders - that sovereignty being something which ended with a violent coup funded, managed and midwifed by the US State Department and US NGOs; Ukraine had a signed and ratified long term lease given to Russia for use of Sevastopol, in Crimea. The legal government of Ukraine before the Putsch was well compensated for the lease, not the least of which was greatly discounted prices for Russian gas via NorthStream 1.

When the lawfully and world recognized government of Ukraine was violently taken over, the newly empowered NAZI organizations like the Azov militias and others began a practice of genocide against Russian speaking natives of the former Ukraine.

The residents of Sevastopol and the already recognized as independent region of Crimea, more than 80% Russian lineage, organized an entirely legal referendum on whether they wished to become a fully recognized part of The Russian Federation; something they had voted on and for previously several times but their wishes had been ignored by the then government of Ukraine before the putsch.

The referendum was supported by the vast majority of actual Crimean citizens and the petition to the Russian Federation Parliament was accepted.

The Russian Federation did NOT invade Ukraine. They actually PAID to be there way before the violent putsch.

The previous areas of Ukraine known generally as the Donbas, also predominately of Russian heritage, were also being attacked by the NAZI gangs which were unrestrained by the putsch regime. They organized locally, trying to protect themselves from the genocide they were being subjected to by the Nazi nationalist gangs, and declared their own independence from the putsch government in Kiev.

Quite reasonably so unless you are a "tool"!!! (She said: "I 'tooled' him for a ride on his motorcycle.")

The Kievian putsch government began militarily attacking the self declared independent residents... The independent volunteer forces beat the pants off of the putsch government forces who literally sued for peace; something brokered by the governments of France, Germany, and Russia between the putsch government and the Independent countries of LDR and DNR. That was a set of agreements: The Minsk Agreements. The Putsch government in Kiev has failed to fulfill ANY of the agreements (obligations) which it signed on to.

"those were international borders that Russia unilaterally ignored."

Wildly inaccurate, totally false even, assertion by Malchik Ralf.

The borders were anything BUT a settled matter locally nor internationally!

Does-it-really-matter?

Posted by: Doesitreallymatter? | Apr 13 2021 14:41 utc | 72

@ Jörgen
Russia, Russia, Russia...
French Cned (national on line learning) was shutdown for one week.
Schools are lockdowned, millions of Kids trying to learn on line.
French gouvernement on full cover-up mode:
"France was hacked by russian and Chinese"

https://www.lepoint.fr/education/le-cned-aurait-bien-subi-des-cyberattaques-venues-de-russie-et-de-chine-12-04-2021-2421835_3584.php

"aurait" : highly likely

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 13 2021 14:53 utc | 73

For today's brain teaser, here's a variation on the Infinite Monkey Theorem:

A). A monkey randomly hitting keys on a typewriter.

B). A reporter writing a "news" article on his/her laptop.

Which one will produce the most incisive and illuminating journalism?

My money is on the monkey.

Posted by: ak74 | Apr 13 2021 14:58 utc | 74

Posted by: oldhippie | Apr 13 2021 10:33 utc | 59

..."Arsen Avakov, by all accounts the most total Nazi in Ukraine, is a Jew. Petro Poroshenko was born Peter Rosenberg. The oligarchs are all Jewish. Ukrainian leadership is entirely Jewish. Every explanation seen for why this is the case is so bad I prefer to have no explanation. But there it is."

IMO...The madness of power often is instilled in infancy by any number of methods or syndromes. A simplistic yet helpful explanation is "Born on third base and thinks he hit a triple". Another is metaphysical "religious" murmurings and commands and symbols and rituals that are are not understood at all by infants, yet later are subconsciously effective in producing misunderstandings without limit... Like travelling 10,000 miles away to make war on total strangers.

Posted by: chu teh | Apr 13 2021 15:00 utc | 75

CNN lies; sure, what else is new. But can somebody tell me what's going down between Ze and Kolomoisky? Here's how far I kept up (I think): *Kolomoisky pockets $2.5bn in IMF money via Privatbank *The Dark Throne covers it up for him, presumably because they know he's funneling it into Azov Battalion etc--and of course we can't be antisemitic now can we? *K. pushes his court jester Ze into the limelight. *Washington starts squeezing Big Ihor, over the corruption which Washington itself aided and abetted. I assumed at the time that this was an indirect way to make sure Ze sticks to the script.

And then? I guess in Ukraine, everyone loses the plot eventually. Did Ze and K. have a falling out? Or is this new Ze the Great Warlord the president which K. always wanted to own? Or have the Nazi dogs finally slipped off their kosher leash, and now they are the ultimate arbiter of what happens in Kiev?

Posted by: Ma Laoshi | Apr 13 2021 15:00 utc | 76

I'm starting to get the impression that Russia isn't interested in deescalation. Ukrainian mouths wrote a check that no one is willing to cash, even if the brains (or lack thereof) behind that decision are up for debate, and the supposed guarantors of Ukrainian independence noticeably flinched. Now Moscow seems to be looking for concessions before the deck gets reshuffled, while leaving the loaded gun on the table as incentive.

I caught an official statement on Russian television that contextualized the situation for me:

The United States and other NATO countries are deliberately turning Ukraine into a powder keg.

If there is any aggravation, we of course will do everything to ensure our security and the safety of our citizens, wherever they are.

But Kiev and its allies in the West will be entirely responsible for the consequences of a hypothetical exacerbation.

Although the sentiment isn't exactly original and could reasonably be applied to the very start of the conflict, and to some extent was applied, the changing times are putting the words in a different context. Whereas then advisors mulled over potentially insurmountable costs of direct involvement, I get the impression that today they're counting all the potential benefits, especially if they hope to pawn the initiation of hostilities onto the US and still intend to keep them from getting involved directly.

If they, as I do, expect the response from the rules based order to be strictly symbolic, it could be framed as another decisive battle for the multi-polar world.

Posted by: Skiffer | Apr 13 2021 15:10 utc | 77

@ Jörgen Hassler | Apr 13 2021 10:32 utc | 58
about Blinken on NBC

I just wanted to say that the narrative is much more pushed by NBC/CNN or even Fox.
Is Biden's regime really on the move to war? Perhaps in Minneapolis...
Blinken and Lloyd J. Austin III Are coming this week in order to push EU and NATO on Uki front
Will see

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 13 2021 15:22 utc | 78

@vk "The Germans used this time to build up bourgeois resolve and identity in the Ukraine..."

Actually, the Germans used that (relatively short) time to install a puppet government and task it with collecting trainloads of food, to ship to Germany.

It was actually the Bolshevik government that promoted 'кorenizatsiya' (nativization) in the 1920s and 30s. Created Ukrainian ethnicity (from the Maloross sub-ethnic group of Russian ethnicity), and official Ukrainian language.

Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Apr 13 2021 15:32 utc | 79

Glenn Diesen lesson in Energy Security regarding gas transit via Ukraine is quite educational. Here's his thesis:

"Western powers have for a long time implied that Ukraine has an inherent right to have Russian gas transit through its territory, using old Soviet-built pipelines. But they seem to be overestimating Moscow’s reliance on the EU.

"The reality is that attempts to make it conditional that Russian gas exports to the rest of Europe must move through Ukrainian pipelines is increasingly disarmed by Moscow’s growing strategic partnership with China."

This is immediately followed by defining the term Energy Security and then shows how that functions within the mechanisms of geoeconomics:

"The International Energy Agency (IEA) defines energy security as 'the uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price.' [Emphasis Original] Based on this definition of energy security, it would be reasonable to expect that the European Union eagerly supports Nord Stream 2 as it ensures uninterrupted supply of the cheapest available gas. Instead, the hostility towards the pipeline reveals that the rhetoric about energy security is dishonest.

"Energy is also an instrument of geoeconomics. States attempt asymmetrical interdependence to obtain political power. Brussels is more equipped to dictate the terms of relations if Russia’s dependence on the EU increases and the EU’s reliance on Russia decreases. Asymmetrical interdependence is imperative for the Western-centric organisation of the pan-European space, to ensure that Russia follows the decision-making of institutions where it does not have a seat at the table." [My Emphasis]

Diesen then reviews events since 2004's Orange Revolution through the 2014 coup and shows how the dynamic has changed, which is quite important as that allows him to conclude thusly:

"The EU thus finds itself on the edge of a political precipice. Reduced influence over Russia makes its members more reliant on sanctions, yet economic coercion only intensifies Russia’s geoeconomic decoupling from the rest of Europe. The new dilemma is EU energy dependence on Russia versus the bloc becoming increasingly irrelevant for Russia.

"Without excessive reliance on the rest of Europe, Russia only has incentives to end dependence on transit through Ukraine. First, ending transit through Ukraine will enhance the textbook definition of energy security. Second, Russia will no longer be reliant on the infrastructure of hostile powers. Indeed, reducing Ukraine’s pipelines into scrap metal follows the same logic as Russia’s successful decoupling from the ports of the Baltic States.

"Lastly, it will be beneficial to stabilise the region. When 80% of Russian gas transited through Ukraine, both the US and EU had great incentives to impose their influence over Kiev. Decoupling Ukraine from Russia’s energy infrastructure will remove Ukraine from the centre of geostrategic rivalry." [My Emphasis]

Diesen explains the rather simple reason Russia has no reason to attack/invade Ukraine thanks to the policy shift from Greater Europe to Greater Eurasia and the Europeans have nobody to blame but themselves as they steadily erode due to their reliance on Neoliberalism and the Outlaw US Empire's hegemony via NATO. Historians will eventually write that foolish and arrogant policy driven by the great mistake of presumed Anglo superiority lost the most important phase of the Cold War--its aftermath--for what the Friends of the UN Charter Group are now building will become many times more formidable and temporally extensive than the failed USSR.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 13 2021 15:32 utc | 80

@ ak74 | Apr 13 2021 14:58 utc | 74

That's why MSM is now hiring well educated monkeys.

3. Do anchors write their own stories?
Answer: All of our anchors have journalism and broadcasting backgrounds and have the ability to write their own stories

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 13 2021 15:34 utc | 81

The CNN footage of the train does not match your still photo. The blue behind the train looks like a fence, not a civilian train, and the station pillars in your photo are not in the video.

Posted by: Susan | Apr 13 2021 15:36 utc | 82

Correction Doesitreallymatter? | Apr 13 2021 14:41 utc | 72

"Discounted gas" was via old Soviet era infrastructure thru Ukraine territory not NorthStream....

Posted by: Doesitreallymatter? | Apr 13 2021 15:48 utc | 83

@ Posted by: Mike from Jersey | Apr 12 2021 17:51 utc | 5

While it has been portrayed that there have been courageous and principled reporters working for the major news outlets, who created and maintains that impression after all.

It's just like any brand.

There are brave and concientious reporters, but they are their own brand.

Because brave and contientious is very valuable to consumers of news but not so much to creators of news - except for purpose of manufacturing a brand.

I think it is same/similar in most profit making operations.

Relates to what value is placed on truth. And as the "free" market does to any small business - destroy them by overwhelming the market with cheap crap.

But at least we can dispense with the legend that the media are honest or concientious.

And move on.

Posted by: jared | Apr 13 2021 15:53 utc | 84

@ Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Apr 13 2021 15:32 utc | 79

It was a bourgeois government. The problem was the Ukraine had a very small and incipient bourgeoisie (as opposed to the cases of Latvia and Finland), and the government was very artificial and fraught from the very beginning. The Soviet very easily installed parallel Soviet "governments" in the Ukraine concomitantly.

The Ukrainians already saw themselves as a different people during the Tsarist times. The difference was that they still saw themselves as a subdivision of the Great Russian people (as was the case of the White Russians, present-day Belorussians), and not an entirely different one, as was the case of the Turkestan and Transcaucasian peoples.

Posted by: vk | Apr 13 2021 16:10 utc | 85

Susan @82

Here is video footage from before the CIA News Network urinated on the corner of it with their logo. Our host is absolutely correct and CNN deliberately lied to the suckers who try to defend the nonexistent honor of Mockingbird mass media. Please do not be a member of that latter demographic as it is shameful and a deep failure of character to defend those who openly lie to you.

Posted by: William Gruff | Apr 13 2021 16:14 utc | 86

@ grieved... thanks for your posts! and @ S.P. Korolev | Apr 13 2021 5:15 utc | 50 and @ 53 william gruff response to you - thanks for those posts as well..

Posted by: james | Apr 13 2021 16:36 utc | 87

@ 86 wg... thanks for that too.. it get tiring seeing when apparently intelligent people are so easily duped.. i guess this is why we still have so much propaganda..

Posted by: james | Apr 13 2021 16:40 utc | 88

Here is a view in Google StreetView from another platform in the same station. The columns, passenger trains, platform masonry, platform roofing, everything is the same. The CNN video was shot in Dnepropetrovsk and shows Ukrainian tanks being moved to the Donbass region and CNN deliberately and knowingly lied to you saying it was in Russia.

Posted by: William Gruff | Apr 13 2021 16:42 utc | 89

@ various posters

If we must indulge in chatter about history of Ukraine let us start at beginning. Excepting Kievan Rus and Crimea(Tatar) and possibly a few other settlements at the edges of what is now Ukraine, the place was largely uninhabited until late eighteenth century. It was a place runaway serfs went. After escaping their lord the runaways were then in line to be captured in the summertime by Tatar slaving raids. The Ottomans were always buying if the slave was blond. Read about Peter’s campaigns, or rather transits, through Ukraine at end seventeenth and beginning eighteenth. The hunting was good enough to keep the army alive, the settlements were tiny, the land was empty. There were no people until Catherine began the process of making the place Russian and restraining the Tatars.

This is not old Europe. This was a frontier. The population was small. Excepting Kiev and Crimea we are looking at two centuries only. It is purely a Russian creation.

Then of course part of the place was Polish and Lithuanian. That was done almost entirely with absentee landlords. The estate managers, rent collectors, tax farmers were Jews from Warsaw. Simplest explanation for anti-Semitism in Ukraine. No one likes the guy who collects the rent. Worse yet they collected the tax on home distilled vodka. Nobody would like that guy. The population was there in first place because they wanted to get away from metropolitan control. Then someone wants to tax vodka.

Posted by: oldhippie | Apr 13 2021 16:43 utc | 90

i stand corrected! @ susan is correct william gruff... look at the link b shared at the top - which is a video... watch from 2 minutes on - 2:23 and you will see what susan is talking about... i am curious for others to take a closer look... the photo that b shares is not the same background as shown in the cnn video... take a closer look.. i was wrong..

Posted by: james | Apr 13 2021 16:44 utc | 91

The CNN video is rather funny. Everytime the CNN reporter is in the picture, he totally dominated
the frame making Zelinsky look small and rather pathetic. The scene of them running is embarrassing
like a bunch of out of shape pretend soldiers going in a random direction. The Russians should make a counter video of Putin riding a bear without a shirt inspecting the troops.

Posted by: Erelis | Apr 13 2021 16:54 utc | 92

james @91

Get ready to stand corrected again! :-)

Check the very end of that video (5:39).

The CIA News Network edited the video and is now covering their... activity.

Posted by: William Gruff | Apr 13 2021 16:58 utc | 93

@vk "It was a bourgeois government"

The 'Hetmanate' that Germans installed was (I believe) modeled on the Russian Empire, and represented large landowners. Because all Germans wanted from it was grain, meet, milk, eggs -- the usual.

And the 'Directorate', before and after the 'Hetmanate', was (I believe) representing mostly the peasantry.

Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Apr 13 2021 17:00 utc | 94

@ 93 william gruff... thanks.. you know what has happened? they have corrected the video and say @ 5:31 of the present video "A previous version of this video included several seconds of footage of military hardware that didn't specify that it was from Ukraine."

apparently they were motivated to fix their 'error'... was it intentional?? i tend to think it was.... either way, they have now fixed it... the message i quote runs from @ 5:31 to the end of the video... the footage from 2:23 of the video is obviously not the same and they have kept that in..

i certainly don't mind being wrong either and i appreciate others diligence on the details here... thanks william!

Posted by: james | Apr 13 2021 17:06 utc | 95

of course CNN is unwilling or unable to admit they were wrong... the wording they give is total avoidance... ''didn't specify that it was from ukraine.'' how about - was footage from ukraine when we were saying it was from russia?? cnn is unable or unwilling to acknowledge what they are doing here..

Posted by: james | Apr 13 2021 17:07 utc | 96

Bernard F.@ 78:

I havn't been following Ukraine closely, but I did follow Syria for many years.

In Syria you could see the same dynamic played out time and time again: Langley pushing for war, including with Russia, Pentagon saying 'thanks for the extra funding, but hell no, we wont go'.

My feeling is that we are seeing the same CIA vs military game here. After all, war is easy for the spy crowd, they don't have to do the fighting. Or dying.

Who will win in the end? My bet is on the military, they kept the CIA down under Obama. But you never know. And the situation is dangerous: something small goes wrong and the situation might rapidly spiral out of controll.

As for Germany going to Ukraine to fight under the swastica AGAIN? Worst public relations disaster since Auschwitz. Wont happen. And I don't really think the French are interested either. But maybe you know more about that.

Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Apr 13 2021 17:20 utc | 97

The diplomatic front isn't silent either. See this article:
https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/ukraine-mobilises-natos-diplomatic-and-political-means-over-russia-troops-build-up/

Some quotes:
Ukraine was able to mobilise its Western allies at political level, with several high-level meetings planned this week.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy earlier had called an extraordinary meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission (NUC), using its mechanism for convening to discuss Russia’s aggravation of the security situation.
The meeting was supposed to take place in a few weeks time but was brought forward, NATO diplomats told EURACTIV.
The decision-making body is responsible for developing the NATO-Ukraine relationship and for directing cooperative activities.
“I would like to reassure you that Ukraine does not want war, we do not plan any offensive or escalation. Ukraine is devoted to diplomatic and political means of settling the conflict,” Ukraine’s foreign minister said in Brussels.

NATO and the West must act quickly to prevent an escalation of violence between Ukraine and Russia, Kuleba said, adding that further sanctions against Moscow and more military help to Kyiv could help.
“Russia is working hard to undermine our defence capabilities,” Kuleba stressed.
“At the operational level, we need measures which will deter Russia and which will contain its aggressive intentions. This could be (…) a new round of sanctions which would raise the price of Russian aggression,” Kuleba said.
“This could be direct support aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s defence capabilities because we do know that Russia spares no effort to prevent third countries from cooperating with Ukraine in the defence sector,” he added.
NATO diplomats confirmed to EURACTIV that Stoltenberg would also chair an emergency video conference with allied defence and foreign ministers on Wednesday, “mostly on Afghanistan, but with Ukraine sprinkled into the agenda”.

Posted by: Wim Roffel | Apr 13 2021 17:23 utc | 98

William Gruff @ 93

To your point: "A previous version of this video included several seconds of footage of military hardware that didn't specify that it was from Ukraine."

Posted by: daffyDuct | Apr 13 2021 18:01 utc | 99

@ Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Apr 13 2021 17:00 utc | 94

Yes. Germany's primary concern was with the natural resources the rich black earth from the Ukraine it could get. It was essentially a wannabe bourgeois puppet government, though (and yes, large landowning peasants are bourgeois). Didn't last long.

Posted by: vk | Apr 13 2021 18:20 utc | 100