nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Patrick Lawrence: Neo-Nazis in Ukraine? No, Yes, No–Yes

Stepan Bandera torchlight parade in Kiev, Jan. 1, 2020. (A1/Wikimedia Commons)

As is well-known and documented, the neo–Nazis who infest the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the AFU — among many other national institutions — have made idols of such figures as Stepan Bandera, the freakishly murderous nationalist who allied with the Nazi regime during the war.

A New York Times’ reporter’s job this week is to persuade us that all those Ukrainian soldiers wearing Nazi insignia and marching through Kiev in Klan-like torch parades are not what you think.

June 7, 2023, By Patrick Lawrence, Original to ScheerPost

I tell you, serving as a New York Times correspondent these days cannot be easy.

You have to convey utter nonsense to your readers while maintaining a straight face and a serious demeanor.

You have to suggest the Russians may have exploded a drone over the Kremlin, that they may have blown up their own gas pipeline, that their president is an out-of-touch psychotic, that their soldiers in Ukraine are drunkards using faulty equipment, that they attack with “human hordes” (Orientalism, anyone?) and on and on — all the while affecting the gravitas once associated with the traditional “Timesman.” You try it sometime.

………………….. now we have the case of Thomas Gibbons–Neff, a square-jawed former Marine covering the Ukraine war for the Times — strictly to the extent the Kyiv regime permits him to do so, as he explains with admirable honesty. This guy is serious times 10, he and his newspaper want us to know.  

Tom’s job this week is to persuade us that all those Ukrainian soldiers wearing Nazi insignia, idolizing Jew-murdering, Russophobic collaborators with the Third Reich, gathering ritually in Nazi-inspired cabals, marching through Kyiv in Klan-like torch parades are not what you think.

Nah, our Tom tells us. They look like neo–Nazis, they act like neo–Nazis, they dress like neo–Nazis, they profess Fascist and neo–Nazi ideologies, they wage this war with the Wehrmacht’s visceral hatred of Russians — O.K., but whyever would you think they are neo–Nazis? 

They are just regular guys. They wear the Wolfsangel, the Schwarze sonne, the black sun, the Totenkopf, or Death’s Head — all Nazi symbols — because they are proud of themselves, and these are the kinds of things proud people wear. I was just wearing mine the other day. 

The slipping and sliding starts early in “Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History,” the piece Gibbons–Neff published in Monday’s editions.

He begins with three photographs of neo–Nazi Ukrainian soldiers, SS insignia plainly visible, that the Kyiv regime has posted on social media, “then quietly deleted,” since the Russian intervention began last year.

“The photographs, and their deletions,” Gibbons–Neff writes, “highlight the Ukrainian military’s complicated relationship with Nazi imagery, a relationship forged under both Soviet and German occupation during World War II.”

Complicated relationship with Nazi imagery? Stop right there, Mr. Semper fi.  Ukraine’s neo–Nazi problem is not about a few indiscreetly displayed images. Sorry. The Ukrainian army’s “complicated relationship” is with a century of ultra-right ideology drawn from Mussolini’s Fascism and then the German Reich.

As is well-known and documented, the neo–Nazis who infest the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the AFU — among many other national institutions — have made idols of such figures as Stepan Bandera, the freakishly murderous nationalist who allied with the Nazi regime during the war.

This history is a matter of record, as briefly outlined here, but Gibbons–Neff alludes to none of it. It’s merely a matter of poor image-making, you see. In support of this offensive whitewash, Gibbons–Neff has the nerve to quote a source from none other than Bellingcat, which was long, long back exposed as a C.I.A. and MI6 cutout and which is now supported by the Atlantic Council, the NATO–funded, spook-infested think tank based in Washington. 

“What worries me, in the Ukrainian context, is that people in Ukraine who are in leadership positions, either they don’t or they’re not willing to acknowledge and understand how these symbols are viewed outside of Ukraine,” a Bellingcat “researcher” named Michael Colborne tells Gibbons–Neff. “I think Ukrainians need to increasingly realize that these images undermine support for the country.”

[Related: Ukraine Parliament Cheers Nazi Collaborator]

Think about that. The presence of Nazi elements in the AFU is not a worry. The worry is merely whether clear signs of Nazi sympathies might cause some members of the Western alliance to decide they no longer want to support Nazi elements in the AFU.

I am reminded of that Public Broadcasting news segment last year, wherein a provincial governor is featured with a portrait of Bandera behind him. PBS simply blurred the photograph and ran the interview with another of the courageous, admirable Ukrainians to which we are regularly treated.

I hardly need remind paying-attention readers that the neo–Nazis-who-are-not-neo–Nazis were for years well-reported as simply neo–Nazis in the years after the U.S.–cultivated coup in 2014.

[Related: Caitlin Johnstone: What MSM Can No Longer Say]

The Times, The Washington Post, PBS, CNN — the whole sorry lot — ran pieces on neo–Nazi elements in the AFU and elsewhere. In March 2018, Reuters published a commentary by Jeff Cohen under the headline “Ukraine’s Neo–Nazi Problem.”

Three months later The Atlantic Council, for heaven’s sake, published a paper, also written by Cohen, titled, “Ukraine’s Got a Real Problem with Far–Right Violence (And no, RT Didn’t Write This Headline).”

I recall, because it was so surprising coming from the council. The original head on that paper was “Ukraine’s Got a Neo–Nazi Problem,” but that version now seems lost to the blur of stealth editing. 

Then came the Russian intervention, and Poof! There are no more neo–Nazis in Ukraine.

There are only these errant images that are of no special account.

And to assert there are neo–Nazis in Ukraine — to have some semblance of memory and a capacity to judge what is before one’s eyes — “plays into Russian propaganda,” Gibbons–Neff warns us.

It is to “give fuel to his”— Vladimir Putin’s — “false claims that Ukraine must be de–Nazified.” For good measure Gibbons–Neff gets out the old Volodymyr-Zelensky-is-Jewish chestnut, as if this is proof of… of something or other.

My mind goes to that lovely Donovan lyric from the Scottish singer’s Zen enlightenment phase. Remember “There Is a Mountain?” The famous lines went, “First there is a mountain/ Then there is no mountain/ Then there is.” There were neo–Nazis in Ukraine, then there were no neo–Nazis, and now there are neo–Nazis but they aren’t neo–Nazis after all. 

………………………………….. Gibbons–Neff resolutely avoids dilating his lens such that the larger phenomenon comes into view. It all comes down to those three unfortunate insignia in those three deleted photographs.

The parades, the corridors of neo–Nazi flags, the ever-present swastikas, the reenactments of all-night SS rituals, the glorification of Nazis and Nazi collaborators, the Russophobic blood lust: Sure, it can all be explained, except that our Timesman does not go anywhere near any of this.

Gibbons–Neff resolutely avoids dilating his lens such that the larger phenomenon comes into view. It all comes down to those three unfortunate insignia in those three deleted photographs.

The parades, the corridors of neo–Nazi flags, the ever-present swastikas, the reenactments of all-night SS rituals, the glorification of Nazis and Nazi collaborators, the Russophobic blood lust: Sure, it can all be explained, except that our Timesman does not go anywhere near any of this.

“It is, of course, true that, for instance, the Azov Battalion was originally founded by neo–Nazi and far-right groups (as well as many soccer ultra-fans), which brought along with it the typical aesthetics — not only neo–Nazi insignia but also things like Pagan rituals or names like ‘The Black Corps,’ the official newspaper of Nazi Germany’s major paramilitary organization Schutzstaffel (SS).”

But worry not, readers. It is merely an aesthetic, part of a harmless, misunderstood “subculture”: 

Torchlight procession in honor of the 106 anniversary of the birthday of Stepan Bandera, Kiev, Jan. 1, 2015. (All-Ukrainian Union CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

…………………………………………….It is always interesting to ask why a piece such as this appears when it does. Dead silence for months on the neo–Nazi question, and then suddenly a long explainer that does its best to avoid explaining anything. Always interesting to ask, never easy to answer. 

It could be that a lot of stuff on these awful people is sifting out from under the carpet. Or maybe something big is on the way and this piece is preemptive. Or maybe either Gibbons–Neff or his editors saw the Ponomarenko piece as an opportunity to dispose of one of the Kyiv regime’s most embarrassing features. 

Or maybe the larger context counts here. As mentioned in this space last week, the Times’ Steve Erlanger recently suggested from Brussels that NATO might do a postwar Germany job with Ukraine: Welcome the West of the country to the alliance and let the eastern provinces go for an indefinite period, unification the long-term objective.

Late last week Foreign Affairs ran a fantastical piece by Andriy Zagorodnyuk, formerly a Ukrainian defense minister and now, yes indeedy, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council. It appeared under the headline, “To Protect Europe, Let Ukraine Join NATO—Right Now.” ……………………………………….more https://consortiumnews.com/2023/06/07/patrick-lawrence-neo-nazis-in-ukraine-no-yes-no-yes/?fbclid=IwAR2qutGUc886hz22JN9TvBgmNTXCb-dJwB1TvxPfsnvxCTT6d9yuEoeJOH8

June 10, 2023 Posted by | spinbuster, Ukraine | Leave a comment

France fully nationalises debt-laden nuclear power group EDF, after its record loss last year

 EDF quits Paris stock exchange after full nationalisation. French nuclear
power group EDF (EDF.PA) returns to full state ownership on Thursday with
its de-listing from the Paris stock exchange after it suffered a record
loss last year and saw nuclear output fall to a 34-year low.

The government launched a buyout for the 16% stake it did not already own in EDF in late
2022, stumping up around 10 billion euros ($10.9 billion) to take full
control of the debt-laden operator of Europe’s largest fleet of nuclear
power plants.

 Reuters 8th June 2023

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/french-utility-giant-edfs-history-2022-07-08

June 10, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

German TV Shows Nazi Symbols on Helmets of Ukraine Soldiers

In a ZDF report on the fragile cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, images were shown of soldiers wearing combat helmets with SS insignia and swastikas.

Sept. 10, 2014, https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/german-tv-shows-nazi-symbols-helmets-ukraine-soldiers-n198961

Germans were confronted with images of their country’s dark past on Monday night, when German public broadcaster ZDF showed video of Ukrainian soldiers with Nazi symbols on their helmets in its evening newscast. In a report on the fragile cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, Moscow correspondent Bernhard Lichte used pictures of a soldier wearing a combat helmet with the “SS runes” of Hitler’s infamous black-uniformed elite corps. A second soldier was seen with a swastika on his gear. “Volunteer battalions from nearly every political spectrum are reinforcing the government side,” the ZDF correspondent said in his report.

The video was shot last week in Ukraine by a camera team from Norwegian broadcaster TV2. “We were filming a report about Ukraine’s AZOV battalion in the eastern city of Urzuf, when we came across these soldiers,” Oysten Bogen, a correspondent for the private television station, told NBC News. Minutes before the images were taped, Bogen said he had asked a spokesperson whether the battalion had fascist tendencies. “The reply was: absolutely not, we are just Ukrainian nationalists,” Bogen said.

June 10, 2023 Posted by | politics, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Ukraine: Nuclear threat shows danger of small modular reactors

The National, By James Walker@James_L_Walker, Multimedia Journalist, 9 June 23

THE Kakhovka dam destruction – and the “immense” nuclear threat seen in Ukraine – could undermine the case for small modular reactors as a green energy solution, the SNP Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) convenor has warned.

On Tuesday, Ukraine accused Russian forces of blowing up the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power station, which Moscow has controlled for more than a year.

There are concerns that the damage to the dam could have broad consequences including depleted water levels upstream that help cool Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – Europe’s largest.

Bill Ramsay…….argued that the threat posed by Zaporizhzhia shows how the potential proliferation of small modular reactors could have important national security implications in the future. 

It comes as Chancellor Jeremy Hunt confirmed plans in March to set up Great British Nuclear, a new body to oversee the revival of atomic energy and smooth the development of a new pipeline of power stations in the UK……………

“New nuclear power is expensive and will take years, if not decades, to become operational and has significant environmental concerns.”

Ramsay said that small modular reactors could also constitute a “longer-term danger”.

He said: “Reporting on the implications of the presence of a nuclear power plant in a dangerous war zone has been somewhat muted so far. But the threat is immense.

“From time to time, particularly as the war drags on, some stories around the Russian occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant have popped up, but then have disappeared again.

“In my view, this lack of focus on Zaporizhzhia has been deliberate, because it throws up a potentially much longer-term danger, the implications of the proliferation of Small Modular Reactors as a so-called solution to global warming.

“However, the statement by President Zelensky’s security chief makes it increasingly difficult to avoid speaking about the nuclear dimension not only in the current conflict but, potentially, of future conflicts caused by climate change.”  https://www.thenational.scot/news/23580288.ukraine-nuclear-threat-shows-danger-small-modular-reactors/

June 10, 2023 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Wind and solar overtake fossil fuel generation in the European Union

 New data from energy think tank Ember shows that wind and solar produced
more EU electricity than fossil fuels in May, for the first full month on
record. Almost a third of the EU’s electricity in May was generated from
wind and solar (31%, 59 TWh), while fossil fuels generated a record low of
27% (53 TWh). “Europe’s electricity transition has hit hyperdrive,”
said Ember’s Europe lead Sarah Brown. “Clean power keeps smashing
record after record.”

 Ember 8th June 2023

https://ember-climate.org/press-releases/wind-and-solar-overtake-fossil-generation-in-the-eu/

 Business Green 8th June 2023

https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4117505/europes-electricity-transition-hit-hyperdrive-wind-solar-overtake-fossil-generation-eu

June 10, 2023 Posted by | EUROPE, renewable | Leave a comment

Rosatom says nuclear cleanup in Arctic done – Far from the case, says Bellona.

The nuclear cleanup in the Arctic is not done, there is still radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel that needs securing.

Those items remaining to be cleaned up and secured include at least 11,000 spent nuclear fuel assemblies at Andreyeva Bay, a former Soviet submarine base. They also include two sunken nuclear submarines, over a dozen nuclear reactors and barrels of radioactive waste scuttled by the Soviet Navy in the Kara and Barents Seas. Issues of securing spent fuel and radioactive waste stored on nuclear icebreaker service ships likewise remain unresolved.  

Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom said last week that more than two decades worth of efforts to rid the Arctic of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel from decommissioned submarines will now come to an end. Bellona fears Rosatom is leaving undone a raft of crucial projects initiated with international support.

June 7, 2023 by Bellona

Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom said last week that more than two decades worth of efforts to rid the Arctic of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel from decommissioned submarines will now come to an end. Bellona fears Rosatom is leaving undone a raft of crucial projects initiated with international support. 

” [This work]began back in the early 2000s with the analysis of large deposits of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear submarine reactors,” said Rosatom CEO Aleksei Likhachev in remarks reported by official Russian newswire Tass “In total, thousands of tons of radioactive materials have been handled, and today we are at the finish line of this work, returning these territories to public use under strict administrative, public, and international control.” 

Since the 1990s, the Bellona Foundation has been involved in discovering and documenting nuclear hazards and radiation threats in Arctic Russia and based on that experience, the organization asserts that Likhachev’s announcement is untrue — Russia is nowhere near the “finish line” in these efforts

Furthermore, Likhachev’s remarks contradict earlier statements from Rosatom that many of these cleanup operations would be ongoing until late in this decade. 

“Russian authorities are backtracking on earlier statements from May last year, and confirming Bellona’s fears that these projects will not be continued or completed, says Frederic Hauge, president of the Bellona Foundation. 

“The nuclear cleanup in the Arctic is not done, there is still radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel that needs securing – both in the former marine base at Andreeva Bay and at the bottom of the Arctic seas”, says underlines Hauge. 

Since the early 2000s, cleanup projects to rid the Arctic of the nuclear legacy of the Soviet Northern fleet have been ongoing in North-West Russia. These efforts were orchestrated through international cooperation between Russia and other countries and aided by large funding pledges from international donors.  

These multinational efforts continued until February of 2022, when Moscow invaded Ukraine. Since then, international assistance to Moscow has been put on ice. But even then, key figures at Rosatom pledged that cleanup work would continue, nonetheless.  

But Likhachev’s statement seems to put an end to that and declares victory well before the battle is finished  

Those items remaining to be cleaned up and secured include at least 11,000 spent nuclear fuel assemblies at Andreyeva Bay, a former Soviet submarine base. They also include two sunken nuclear submarines, over a dozen nuclear reactors and barrels of radioactive waste scuttled by the Soviet Navy in the Kara and Barents Seas. Issues of securing spent fuel and radioactive waste stored on nuclear icebreaker service ships likewise remain unresolved. 

In 2022, after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities sought to assure their international counterparts that each of these projects would nonetheless continue, despite the withdrawal of international assistance.   

Bellona had since that time been concerned that Russia, in its state of war, would fail to prioritize these critical projects, and in November the organization warned that the efforts to lift sunken Soviet submarines would at best be indefinitely postponed  …………………………………

The issue of the sunken objects left by the Soviet Union will not be solved by itself. Ninety percent of that radiation from the sunken objects in the Kara and Barents seas is emitted by six objects that Rosatom has deemed urgent and targeted for lifting: two nuclear submarines; the reactor compartments from three nuclear submarines; and the reactor from the legendary icebreaker Lenin. …………….

“Why do they choose to say that the cleanup is done now – when that clearly is not the case? Rosatom has time and again underlined the importance of finishing the cleanup projects and lifting the sunken objects from the bottom of the sea, says Hauge. 

 “If we were to speculate, it might be that they are trying to force a renewed dialogue on financing of these projects, despite the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Perhaps they are fishing for reactions from Norwegian authorities and other western governments – perhaps particularly when it comes to the sunken objects,” continues Hauge 

“They know that the more delayed a decision to raise these subs is, the higher the risk of a lifting operation failing. Thus, such a statement can put pressure on former cooperation partners to reevaluate their decision to discontinue cooperation with Russia and financial support on these topics because of the invasion of Ukraine. If that is the correct interpretation, then it is a form of blackmail – nuclear blackmail,” Hauge concludes.  https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2023-06-rosatom-says-nuclear-cleanup-in-arctic-done-far-from-the-case-says-bellona

 

June 9, 2023 Posted by | ARCTIC, oceans, Russia, wastes | 1 Comment

Ukrainian dam collapse ‘no immediate risk’ to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

But IAEA says damage to Nova Kakhovka dam raises long-term concerns for power station’s future

Julian Borger in Kyiv, 6 June 23  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/nova-kakhovka-ukraine-dam-collapse-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-iaea

The collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam and the draining of the reservoir behind it does not pose an immediate safety threat to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant further upstream, but will have long-term implications for its future, according to Ukrainian and UN experts.

The Ukrainian nuclear energy corporation, Energoatom, put out a statement on the Telegram social media platform saying the situation at the plant, the biggest nuclear power station in Europe, was “under control”.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, said in a statement: “our current assessment is that there is no immediate risk to the safety of the plant.”

But there are long-term concerns, both over safety and the possibility of the plant becoming operational again in the coming years. Oleksiy, a former reactor operator and shift supervisor at the plant, pointed out that all six reactors had been shut down since the plant found itself on the frontline after the Russian invasion.

Five of the reactors are in “cold shutdown”, turned off completely and being cooled, and one is in “hot shutdown”, kept at 200-250C so it would be easier to restart if conditions allowed, and to supply winter heating to the neighbouring town of Energodar.

Oleksiy, who left after Russian forces occupied the plant in March last year and is now elsewhere in Ukraine, said the last reactor should be shut down and that the plant had sufficient resources to keep all reactor cores cool.

“I think that the damage of the dam doesn’t impact the plant immediately, because they are being cooled by the safety systems located at the plant, which are spray systems,” he said. “The plant has a cooling lake, about two or three kilometres in diameter.”

The Energoatom statement said the cooling lake was filled and was at 16.6 metres (54.5ft), “which is sufficient for the power plant’s needs”

Mariana Budjeryn, a Ukrainian nuclear scientist, said: “The fact that there’s an artificial pond next to the ZNPP [Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant] where water can be maintained above the reservoir level, and the fact that the reactors are in cold shutdown, offers some reassurance and increased time to respond if ZNPP starts getting affected.”

But Budjeryn, who is a senior research associate on the project on managing the atom at Harvard University, added: “The bigger problem – who is going to do it? ZNPP is already down-staffed to bare bones.”

Oleksiy said that over time water would evaporate from the cooling lake and if it could not be filled from the vast reservoir created upstream of the Nova Kakhovka dam, the turbines and the power plant could not be operated.

In his statement, Grossi said that the cooling pond should last “for some months” but it was imperative it was not damaged in fighting. The water is used to cool not just the reactor cores, but also the spent fuel and the diesel generators used for safety systems.

more https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/nova-kakhovka-ukraine-dam-collapse-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-iaea

June 9, 2023 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | 1 Comment

Tucker Carlson steamrolls Ukraine propaganda in new show

US corporate media outlets treat curiosity as the “gravest crime,” the former TV pundit has said

7 June 23  https://www.rt.com/news/577602-tucker-carlson-twitter-show/

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has released the first episode of his new series on Twitter, taking Western news agencies to task for one-sided reporting on the conflict in Ukraine and open hostility toward anybody voicing dissenting views.

Dubbed ‘Tucker on Twitter’, the show’s first ten-minute segment was shared on the social media platform on Tuesday night. The clip opened with a monologue on the alleged Ukrainian attack on a major dam in Russia’s Kherson Region this week, which Carlson dubbed “an act of terrorism.”

“Blowing up the dam may be bad for Ukraine, but it hurts Russia more, and for precisely that reason the Ukrainian government has considered destroying it,” he said. Carlson went on to observe that a Ukrainian general had admitted to planning attacks on the Kakhovka dam facility in comments to the Washington Post last December.

While Carlson said he had little doubt that Kiev was behind the incident, he noted that several American media outlets had already suggested that Moscow may have arranged the attack, claiming they view Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky as simply “too decent for terrorism.”

“Of all the people in the world, our shifty, dead-eyed Ukrainian friend in the tracksuit is uniquely incapable of blowing up a dam. He’s literally a living saint, a man in whom there is no sin,” he went on, describing the general attitude within the mainstream press.

The pundit drew comparisons to last year’s attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, which were built to carry natural gas from Russia into Germany. Though Carlson argued it was “obvious” that Ukraine had carried out the sabotage, he said US media outlets had little interest in investigating, helping to make Americans among “the least informed people in the world.”

“Not only are the media not interested in any of this, they are actively hostile to anybody who is. In journalism, curiosity is the gravest crime,” he continued, adding that while media outlets lie, “mostly they just ignore the stories that matter.”

Carlson parted ways with Fox in April, a major shake-up for the media giant, given the prominence of his prime-time program, ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’. He later announced that would move his content to Twitter, where he has released other stand-alone segments similar to his former show. In his signoff for Tuesday’s episode, the host voiced hopes that Twitter would be a venue with “no gatekeepers,” but vowed to leave the site should that turn out to be false.

June 9, 2023 Posted by | spinbuster, Ukraine | 4 Comments

Russia says U.S.-built F-16s could ‘accommodate’ nuclear weapons if sent to Ukraine

Reuters June 7, 20234

– Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that U.S.-built F-16 fighter jets can “accommodate” nuclear weapons and warned that supplying Kyiv with them will escalate the conflict further.

“We must keep in mind that one of the modifications of the F-16 can ‘accommodate’ nuclear weapons,” Lavrov said in a speech at a military base in Dushanbe in Tajikistan, according to a transcript on the ministry’s website…………………………………….

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has long appealed for the F-16 jets, saying their appearance with Ukrainian pilots would be a sure signal from the world that Russia’s invasion would end in defeat

Biden told G7 leaders last month that Washington supported joint allied training programmes for Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighters.

U.S. National Security adviser Jake Sullivan, however, said there was no final decision on Washington sending aircraft.

Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Michael Perry and Marguerita Choy  https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-says-us-built-f-16s-could-accommodate-nuclear-weapons-if-sent-ukraine-2023-06-06/

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Journalists Are Asking Ukrainian Soldiers To Hide Their Nazi Patches, New York Times Admits

AZOV soldier, UKraine

BY TYLER DURDEN

The New York Times has been forced to very, very belatedly deal with something which had long been obvious and known to many independent analysts and media outlets, but which has been carefully shielded from the mainstream masses in the West for obvious reasons. 

The surprising Monday Times headline said that “Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History.” This acknowledgement comes after literally years of primarily indy journalists and geopolitical commentators pointing out that yes indeed… Ukraine’s military and paramilitary groups, especially those operating in the east since at least 2014, have a serious Nazi ideology problem. This has been exhaustively documented, again, going back years. 

But the report, which merely tries to downplay it as a “thorny issue” of Ukraine’s “unique” “History” – suggests that the real problem for Western PR is fundamentally that it’s being displayed so openly. Ukrainian troops are being asked to cover those Nazi symbols please!–as Matt Taibbi sarcastically quipped in commenting on the report.

The authors of the NYT report begin by expressing frustration over the optics of Nazi symbols being displayed so proudly on many Ukrainian soldiers’ uniforms. Suggesting that many journalistic photographs which have in some cases been featured in newspapers and media outlets worldwide (typically coupled with generally positive articles on Ukraine’s military) are merely ‘unfortunate’ or misleading, the NYT report says, “In each photograph, Ukrainians in uniform wore patches featuring symbols that were made notorious by Nazi Germany and have since become part of the iconography of far-right hate groups.”

NATO itself has in the recent past been forced to delete images on its official social media accounts due to Nazi imagery being present among Ukrainian troops during photo shoots.

The following line from the report says everything you need to know about the so-called “paper of record” and its one-sided and ultra-simplistic coverage of what many are finally waking up to realize is a war with a deeply complex reality (to say the least), and far from the MSM’s goodies vs. baddies Hollywoodesque narrative of Putler vs. the free world which is typical of networks from CNN to Fox to NBC…

From the NY Times: 

“In November, during a meeting with Times reporters near the front line, a Ukrainian press officer wore a Totenkopf variation made by a company called R3ICH (pronounced “Reich”). He said he did not believe the patch was affiliated with the Nazis. A second press officer present said other journalists had asked soldiers to remove the patch before taking photographs.”

Oops!

…………..The iconography of these groups, including a skull-and-crossbones patch worn by concentration camp guards and a symbol known as the Black Sun, now appears with some regularity on the uniforms of soldiers fighting on the front line, including soldiers who say the imagery symbolizes Ukrainian sovereignty and pride, not Nazism.

Some are writing more appropriate and apt headlines for the NYT story…

Only very recently Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and even President Zelensky’s office was caught in the act: 

In April, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry posted a photograph on its Twitter account of a soldier wearing a patch featuring a skull and crossbones known as the Totenkopf, or Death’s Head. The specific symbol in the picture was made notorious by a Nazi unit that committed war crimes and guarded concentration camps during World War II.

The patch in the photograph sets the Totenkopf atop a Ukrainian flag with a small No. 6 below. That patch is the official merchandise of Death in June, a British neo-folk band that the Southern Poverty Law Center has said produces “hate speech” that “exploits themes and images of fascism and Nazism.”

To be expected, the Times still tries to run cover while desperately seeking to ‘reassure’ its audience by writing that “In the short term, that threatens to reinforce Putin’s propaganda and giving fuel to his false claims that Ukraine must be ‘de-Nazified’ — a position that ignores the fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish.”

New levels of cope indeed…

But then still, the NYT concedes awkwardly, “More broadly, Ukraine’s ambivalence about these symbols, and sometimes even its acceptance of them, risks giving new, mainstream life to icons that the West has spent more than a half-century trying to eliminate.”  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/journalists-are-asking-ukrainian-soldiers-hide-their-nazi-patches-nyt-admits

June 8, 2023 Posted by | media, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Washington Post reported Ukraine conducted a test strike with HIMARS on the Kahovka dam last year

the Washington Post reported in December 2022 that Ukraine had previously carried out a test strike using American HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) on a dam located on the Russian-held side of Ukraine along the Dnieper River in Kahovka. They cited Ukrainian Major-General Andriy Kovalchuk.

Human Events Media Group 06/06/2023

A dam on the Dnieper River was destroyed on Tuesday, flooding a substantial amount of the area where Ukrainian and Russian troops are engaged in fighting, after Ukraine launched their much-anticipated counter-offensive. The dam was in Russian control, and has been since shortly after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

Ukraine claimed Russia blew up the Nova Kakhovka dam and said it was a war crime, while Russia has said that it was Ukraine who “sabotaged the dam, to distract attention from the launch of a major counteroffensive Moscow says is faltering,” Reuters reports.


Ukraine’s counter offensive has been in the works for some time, specifically targeting the Russian-held city of Kherson, and was just recently launched. 


“Russian terrorists,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram. “The destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam only confirms for the whole world that they must be expelled from every corner of Ukrainian land.”

However, the Washington Post reported in December 2022 that Ukraine had previously carried out a test strike using American HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) on a dam located on the Russian-held side of Ukraine along the Dnieper River in Kahovka. They cited Ukrainian Major-General Andriy Kovalchuk.

“Kovalchuk considered flooding the river,” the Washington Post reported. “The Ukrainians, he said, even conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the Dnieper’s water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages. The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but the step remained a last resort.”………………..  https://humanevents.com/2023/06/06/wapo-reported-ukraine-conducted-a-test-strike-with-himars-on-the-kahovka-dam-last-year

June 8, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Ukrainian “counter-offensive”: A new stage in the US-NATO war against Russia

Every aspect of the war, including the “counter-offensive,” is being directed by the Biden administration, the Pentagon and NATO. It is being led by forces trained by NATO and armed with NATO weapons, including depleted uranium shells supplied by the UK. Operationally, it is organized from Washington and the Pentagon. The masses of Ukrainians are being exploited as cannon fodder. Among the first divisions thrown into the battle, many are raw draftees with little or no training.

WSWS Joseph Kishore, David North, 5 June 2023

The US-NATO war against Russia over Ukraine is entering a new stage this week, with reports of a significant increase in fighting along a broad front Monday and enormous casualties.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported on its official Telegram channel that Russian forces countered a Ukrainian offensive on the Vremevka outpost in South Donetsk, which is currently controlled by Russia. It stated that over 1,500 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and that Russia seized 28 tanks, including eight German-made Leopard tanks.

Russia also reported an offensive of Ukrainian troops toward the south, against the territory along the coast of the Sea of Azov that connects Crimea and the Donbas, both held by Russia or pro-Russian forces since 2014. A Russian-appointed official in the city of Zaporizhzhia said that the fighting in the south involved extensive shelling and strikes by Ukraine using British-French Storm Shadow missiles.

It is apparent that Monday’s operations mark the beginning of the long anticipated “summer counter-offensive.” While there is, at present, limited information, one thing can be said with certainty: The fighting will result in a vast increase in the number of deaths, both Ukrainian and Russian.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that “a large number of soldiers are going to die,” but “we are going to do it.” Reliable estimates place the death toll of Ukrainians in the war so far at 300,000.

Every aspect of the war, including the “counter-offensive,” is being directed by the Biden administration, the Pentagon and NATO. It is being led by forces trained by NATO and armed with NATO weapons, including depleted uranium shells supplied by the UK. Operationally, it is organized from Washington and the Pentagon. The masses of Ukrainians are being exploited as cannon fodder. Among the first divisions thrown into the battle, many are raw draftees with little or no training.

The US and the NATO powers are determined to inflict a Russian defeat, with dreams of a military parade of NATO troops in the streets of Moscow. The Financial Times wrote on Monday that “there has been a notable change of tone among senior western officials, who have appeared increasingly skeptical about Russian military capabilities. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, last week made a clear case for an outright Ukrainian victory based on ‘territorial integrity’ [that is, retaking all territory presently controlled by Russia] in a speech that also disparaged Russia’s military ‘as the second-strongest in Ukraine.’”

The FT also cited comments by Ben Wallace, the UK defense secretary, that Ukraine could take back Crimea as part of the offensive. “What we’ve seen on the battlefield is that, if you punch Russian forces in the wrong place, they’ll actually collapse,” he said.

Such statements combine propaganda with self-delusion. The Ukrainian military has been bled white over the past 15 months. It is entirely reliant on the US and NATO, not only to provide training and weaponry, but increasingly the manpower necessary for escalating the war.

The operations in Ukraine are only one part of a barely disguised, undeclared war between NATO and Russia, which is expanding in intensity and geographical scope.

Developments on the ground in Ukraine have been timed to coincide with a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Oslo, Norway late last week. This meeting itself was to prepare a full NATO war summit next month in Vilnius, Lithuania, only a short drive from the Russian border. Behind closed doors, the leaders of the NATO powers are discussing and implementing the next stage in the escalation.

Already, Ukraine, operating under the direction of the US, has launched drone strikes targeting Moscow, begun shelling Russian cities, and organized incursions into Russian territory, using vehicles and equipment provided by the US and its NATO allies. Poland has become directly involved in the conflict, with members of the so-called “Polish Volunteer Corps” of Polish citizens participating in cross-border raids from Ukraine into Russia.

An article in the Washington Post (“Defend ‘every inch’ of NATO territory? New strategy is a work in progress”), published Monday, opens with a description of French paratroopers being dropped into Estonia, which borders Russia and is only 150 km from St. Petersburg. The Post notes that the French war exercises in Estonia are “part of a stepped-up rehearsal of what it would take to reinforce a [NATO] battle group” in the country.

Speaking of what can only be described as a massive military mobilization, the newspaper writes, “NATO has bolstered its eastern flank in part by establishing battle groups in four additional countries: Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia,” with 10,000 troops across eight battle groups. Dozens of ships and hundreds of planes, along with ground-based air defense, have been sent to countries on Russia’s border, particularly the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

War games are taking place currently throughout Europe, including the massive “Defender Europe 2023” exercise, which began on April 22 and involves 26,000 troops from the US and its allies. The final component of the operations, “Saber Guardian 23,” began last week and is centered on the Black Sea, to the south of Ukraine. It involves soldiers and sailors from Albania, Bulgaria, Belgium, France, Greece, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovenia and the United States.

Given the statements of leading US and NATO officials that they are committed to the military defeat of Russia, the Putin government will be compelled to interpret all these actions as possible preparations for NATO incursions into Russian territory. The purpose of all these operations is to support the Ukrainian offensive by distracting Russian military commanders from exclusive focus on the Ukrainian front and compelling them to divert forces to other border regions.

In the capitals of the NATO powers, a mood of reckless hysteria prevails. Over the weekend, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, confronted by protesters at a gathering of his Social Democratic Party outside of Berlin, unleashed a Hitlerian rant against Russia and denounced Putin as a “murderer” and a “warmonger.”

The White House has rejected calls for a ceasefire or negotiated settlement to the conflict that does not include full capitulation by Russia. Encouraged by Russia’s failure to respond to each escalation, the Biden administration has concluded that there is no “red line” that it cannot cross.

In an article published under the headline “Biden Administration Shrugs Off Ukraine’s Attacks in Russia,” the New York Times wrote on Monday that the White House has discarded the pretense of discouraging direct attacks in Russia by Ukraine, using US-supplied weaponry. “Behind closed doors,” the Times wrote, “senior administration officials have seemed even less fazed. ‘Look, it’s a war,’ one senior Pentagon official said last Thursday. ‘This is what happens in a war.’”…………………  https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/06/06/pers-j06.htm

June 8, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Leaks reveal FBI helps Ukraine censor Twitter users and obtain their info

AARON MATÉ·JUNE 7, 2023, The Grayzone,

The FBI aided a Ukrainian intelligence effort to ban Twitter users and collect their data, new leaks show. Twitter declined to censor journalists targeted by Ukraine, including The Grayzone’s Aaron Maté.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has aided a Ukrainian intelligence effort to censor social media users and obtain their personal information, leaked emails reveal.

In March 2022, an FBI Special Agent sent Twitter a list of accounts on behalf of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ukraine’s main intelligence agency. The accounts, the FBI wrote, “are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation.” In an attached memo, the SBU asked Twitter to remove the accounts and hand over their user data.

The Ukrainian government’s FBI-enabled targets extend to members of the media. The SBU list that the FBI provided to Twitter included my name and Twitter profile. In its response to the FBI, Twitter agreed to review the accounts for “inauthenticity” but raised concerns about the inclusion of me and other “American and Canadian journalists.”

The FBI’s attempt to ban Twitter accounts at the request of Ukrainian intelligence is among the most overt requests for censorship revealed to date in the Twitter Files, a cache of leaked communications from the social media giant.

The FBI’s censorship request was relayed in a March 27th, 2022 email from FBI Special Agent Aleksandr Kobzanets, the Assistant Legal Attaché at the US Embassy in Kyiv, to two Twitter executives. Four FBI colleagues were copied on the exchange…………………….

If granted, the users on the list would not only have been banned from Twitter but had their phone number, date of birth, and email address disclosed to both the FBI and SBU.

Read the full list of accounts targeted by the FBI and SBU here:

Twitter-Dissinf_20220327 SBU list

In response, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s then-Head of Trust and Safety, informed Special Agent Kobzanets and his FBI colleagues that Twitter would “review the reported accounts under our Rules.” But he warned that the list included “a few accounts of American and Canadian journalists (e.g. Aaron Mate).” Therefore, Roth said, Twitter’s review would “focus first and foremost on identifying any potential inauthenticity.”

Roth then suggested that he would be open to suspending authentic accounts if it could be proven that they have a hidden tie to a foreign government. Journalists “who cover the conflict with a pro-Russian stance are unlikely to be found in violation of our rules absent other context that might establish some kind of covert/deceptive association between them and a government,” Roth wrote. “Any additional information or context in those areas is of course welcome and appreciated.”……………………………………………

The Ukrainian nationals targeted by the SBU’s suppression request include Anatoly Shariy, a video blogger and politician who fled Ukraine in 2012 and subsequently received European Union asylum; and Andriy Portnov, a Ukrainian lawyer and politician who served as a senior official under Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych until the latter’s ouster in the February 2014 Maidan coup. (Both Shariy and Portnov’s Twitter accounts remain active).

The disclosure of a collaboration on censorship between the FBI and SBU is the latest documented instance of Ukrainian state-tied attempts to target foreign voices. A Ukrainian website known as Myrotvorets maintains a list of what it calls “enemies of Ukraine.” I was recently added to that list along with The Grayzone’s Anya Parampil, as well as the comedian and YouTube host Jimmy Dore. The Myrotvorets database was co-founded by Anton Gerashchenko, former deputy minister at the Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, where he now serves as an advisor.

Last year, the global tech/media conference Web Summit withdrew a speaking invitation to The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal and me after Olena Zelenska, the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, demanded our cancellation. (Another Grayzone colleague, Kit Klarenberg, was recently detained and interrogated about his journalism by British authorities).

News of the FBI’s work with Ukrainian intelligence to censor Twitter users also follows reporting from journalist Lee Fang that the FBI has pressured Facebook to remove accounts and posts deemed by the SBU to be Russian “disinformation.” According to Fang, a senior Ukrainian official in regular contact with the FBI defined “disinformation” in such broad terms that it could mean viewpoints that “simply contradict the Ukrainian government’s narrative.”  https://thegrayzone.com/2023/06/07/fbi-ukraine-twitter-users-including-journalists/—

June 8, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Britain’s taxpayers, slugged with uneconomic Hinkley nuclear plant ‘s costs, now to be slugged again with Sizewell.

 In response to EDF announcing further delays and cost increases at Hinkley
C, Dr Doug Parr, Policy Director at Greenpeace UK, said – “Despite the
enax-payerstirely predictable and widely predicted overshoot of Hinkley C’s costs
and construction, we are still on course to make the same mistake again at
Sizewell, and this time with the taxpayer on the hook.

Why has a government
of free marketeers chosen to pay the French state to build reactors with
public money from the British state? Because the market has read Hinkley
C’s balance sheet and wants nothing to do with this over-priced,
overly-complicated, obsolete technology. The government, on taxpayers
behalf, will spend their money to cover up the failure. When the government
tells you it’s a good deal, remember that no one is willing to put their
own money into it.”

 Greenpeace 6th June 2023
 https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/press-centre/

Press centre

June 8, 2023 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Europe’s Nuclear Power Puzzle

By Felicity Bradstock – Jun 07, 2023,

  • EU member states hold divergent views on the inclusion of nuclear power in the green energy transition, hindering consensus.
  • Nuclear power is seen as a potential solution for energy security and clean energy production, but concerns about nuclear waste persist.
  • While some countries are closing nuclear plants, others are investing in new facilities, causing further division within the bloc.

Since the European Commission stated the need for an accelerated green transition that includes nuclear power and natural gas, it seems member states are having a hard time agreeing on nuclear development. While some countries, such as Germany, are closing their nuclear plants, others, including Finland and Hungary, are developing new facilities. So, after years of nuclear power fearmongering and avoidance, where will Europe land on new nuclear development? 

In 2022, the European Commission defined both nuclear power and natural gas as climate-friendly energy sources, adding both to the EU “taxonomy” rulebook from 2023 to spur ‘green’ investment in both sectors. This is a decision that was approved by the European Parliament after much deliberation from member states about how these types of energy should be defined. The EU financial services chief Mairead McGuinness explained: “The Complementary Delegated Act is a pragmatic proposal to ensure that private investments in gas and nuclear, needed for our energy transition, meet strict criteria.” 

……….. Meanwhile, nuclear energy, although not a renewable source of power, is viewed as clean, as operations do not emit greenhouse gases. However, many argue that the nuclear waste it produces could be detrimental to the environment, particularly as there is no cohesive international agreement on how to appropriately dispose of this waste………..

Despite the inclusion of nuclear power in the EU rulebook under the green taxonomy, many countries continue to disagree on the use of nuclear energy and the development of new projects. And a divide means delays. ………….

While several EU states support the development and use of nuclear power as a clean energy source, others, such as Germany and Belgium, refused to classify nuclear energy as clean. Weeks later, the debate is still ongoing, with France hoping to reopen negotiations over the Green Deal law, but Germany hopes to pass the law in its current state. 

………………………………………….. After over a year of debate, various EU member states can still not agree on the use of nuclear power in the region. While many view it as vital to providing energy security and producing vast amounts of clean energy, others say it is detracting from renewable energy projects, and there is still a big question about how to dispose of the potentially harmful nuclear waste. Until this issue can be agreed upon, the Green Deal law will likely remain in a state of limbo. https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Europes-Nuclear-Power-Puzzle.html
—

June 8, 2023 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE | 1 Comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »