It was a darkly comic, made-for-media case: a Chinese hot air balloon flying about 20 kilometres over American soil, shot down by a US fighter jet over the weekend. It ignited a fairly confused diplomatic crisis, with China now saying it reserves the right to a response, and has laid bare the fragile state of relations between the world’s two most powerful nations.
The mere existence of the balloon — China claims it was a civilian weather-monitoring device, but the US is convinced it was spying, possibly on nuclear facilities — saw US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancel his planned visit to meet his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi.
Rt.com 8 Feb 23, More than 10 million volumes have been pulled from the shelves, a senior Rada MP has said.
Ukraine has removed millions of copies of Russian-language books from its public libraries, Yevgeniya Kravchuk, a senior member of the country’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, said on Monday.
She stated that the Culture Ministry had provided recommendations on what titles should be taken off the shelves.
This move was provoked by an initiative declared by the Ukrainian government to “overcome the consequences of Russification,” which in practice means purging schools of certain literature, renaming streets, and dismantling monuments to Russian historical figures……………….
Ukraine has a sizable Russian-speaking minority, and many Ukrainian speakers are fluent in Russian.
In June, the Ukrainian Education Ministry proposed removing more than 40 books by Russian and Soviet authors from the curriculum. The list included the works of such renowned classical writers as Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Alexander Pushkin, as well as Boris Pasternak and Mikhail Sholokhov, both of whom won the Nobel Prize for literature. Ukrainian Culture Minister Aleksander Tkachenko urged the world in December to “boycott” Russian culture, arguing that Moscow has been using it for propaganda………………….. https://www.rt.com/russia/571099-ukraine-purges-russian-books/
Defense News, By David Gompert and Hans Binnendijk 8 Feb 23
The row over China’s surveillance balloon could, once the dust settles, present a chance to begin lessening the risk of nuclear war between the two superpowers.
While the United States is right to charge China with violating its airspace in an apparent attempt to spy on America’s strategic missile systems in Montana, this episode reminds us that the two nations have no mechanism to exchange views and clear up misconceptions on the purpose of their respective nuclear arsenal.
Consequently, suspicions abound.
It is understandable that this infamous spy balloon has riled up the American body politic. Yet, it is important to keep the strategic situation in mind. The United States and China are in a stable state of mutual deterrence, meaning that neither power could launch a nuclear first strike on the other without inviting devastating retaliation. That said, the greater the mutual suspicions about intent, the greater the danger that this stability could fail.
The absence of a way to build mutual confidence between the United States and China regarding nuclear weapons and nuclear war is potentially dangerous. The United States is unsure what to make of China’s build-up of its nuclear arsenal, and China is fearful that the United States seeks the capability to deny China a credible deterrent. What makes this situation increasingly perilous are the rising tensions in Sino-U.S. relations in the Pacific and the growing risks of escalating crises and even war there.
In an article in the journal Survival to be published soon, we spell out the case and agenda for a process whereby the superpowers could clarify why they have nuclear weapons and the doctrines governing their use.
Specifically, we recommend direct and candid bilateral strategic stability talks on nuclear doctrines, forces, intentions, and worries. This would be coupled with confidence-building measures such as providing prior notifications of missile testing, clarifying the purpose of new weapons, and managing disconcerting intelligence.
This could reduce suspicions, such as Chinese fears that the United States aspires to have a first-strike capability and American fears that China will relentlessly expand its capability to target U.S. deterrent forces. Each nation would of course continue independent intelligence-gathering. But “worst-case” interpretation of intelligence could be mitigated by dialogue.
Michael West Media, by Rex Patrick | Feb 6, 2023 |
For many Australians watching the events over the past week, where the United States Air Force tracked a Chinese balloon overflying US territory and then shot it down, might seem to be of indirect significance to our security. Former senator and submariner, Rex Patrick suggests that it is of direct significance to Australia, increasing the risk we might be drawn into war in South East Asia.
Over the weekend the US Air Force shot down a Chinese balloon. The United States have said that the balloon was carrying out intelligence gathering. The Chinese Government has said it wasn’t. They claim it was just a wandering weather balloon. That’s important for reasons I’ll come back to, but I first need to provide some background – not about balloons, but about another surveillance platform.
What submarines do
Submarines can perform a whole range of different tasks in time of war……………………….
In preparing for war they train, they engage in tactical development and they conduct intelligence gathering. It is the latter which is their most important and challenging tasks………………….
Balloons and ballast tanks
…. Imagine a South Korean, Japanese or Australian submarine operating very close to (or perhaps inside) China’s territorial waters conducting intelligence gathering. China might now be inclined to treat that submarine the same way the United States treated a balloon purported to be conducting intelligence collection.
If detected, even if just outside of their territorial waters, the Chinese will just say they were inside their waters when, or in the minutes before, they were engaged. We’ll say, just as the US has for the balloon, that we weren’t spying and they’ll say we were.
And getting detected in our newest Australian submarine, the 20 year old HMAS Rankin, is far more likely than is the case for South Korea’s newest submarine, the 1 year old ROKS Dosan Ahn Changho, or Japan’s newest submarine, the 1 year old Tōryū.
The stakes are greater for us because Australian governments of various political flavours have left us with ageing Collins Class submarines to carry out this most serious and complex of peace time tasks.
One option would be to eventually withdraw our ageing Collins class submarines from surveillance operations anywhere close to Chinese waters, but that’s unlikely. Our Navy and our government will be anxious to continue to do all they can to assist the United States Navy in the Northern Pacific, in the Sea of Japan and the South China Sea.
Alliances are not just pieces of paper, they are dynamic relationships in which there’s a strong obligation to contribute and share risk.
The China risk
The risks are likely to increase in the years ahead, as China continues to ramp up military tensions in an effort to coerce Taiwan into some form of political subordination to Beijing.
The possibility that China will choose a vessel of a US ally to make an example of cannot be dismissed.
And that risk will be disproportionately carried by our Navy as it operates a submarine force with decreasing relative capability across the next two decades or longer. Thanks to government spending $170bn pursuing a distant nuclear-powered capability, our submariners will be at greater risk in less capable vessels than our so-called ‘great and powerful’ friend.
For a long time, we’ve been able to see Defence procurement failures and kick ourselves on account of cost to the taxpayer. Now, as the balloon goes up in the South China Sea, the lack of capability may well cost us many lives.
Former US President George W. Bush Snr may have famously said that ‘the human being and fish can coexist peacefully’, but the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities believe that EDF Energy’s plan to scrap the commitment to install acoustic fish deterrents at its new Hinkley Point C plant will end that peaceful co-existence with billions of fish being endangered.
Responding to a public consultation launched recently by the Environment Agency seeking views on a proposal by French nuclear power developer EDF Energy to scrap the deterrent mechanism at Hinkley, Councillor David Blackburn, Chair of the NFLA English Forum called it an ‘enormous tragedy’.
A plant like Hinkley Point C ‘hoovers up’ millions of gallons of water daily to cool its reactors, discharging the heated water back out to sea. Unfortunately, with the intake of the water will come the fish, and although EDF is proposing to install some mechanisms to prevent the ingress of fish and marine life into the plant, it has consistently made plain its opposition to the installation of acoustic fish deterrents.
Councillor Blackburn is, like local campaigners, concerned that without Acoustic Fish Deterrents, alongside other measures for marine life preservation, millions of fish will be killed every day, and the group Stop Hinkley, which is opposed to the construction of the plant, has estimated that up to 11 billion fish could die through operations there over the course of its expected 60-year lifespan.
Christina’s note: The mad monk rides again. Madder than ever. As he’s an enthusiastic promoter of the nuclear industry, it is puzzling that Abbott is still a climate denialist.
Nowdays, the nuclear industry pushes their lie that nuclear beats global heating. So a good nuclear zealot should believe in climate change.
Abbott says ‘we need more genuine science and less groupthink’ in announcing position at Global Warming Policy Foundation
The former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has joined the board of a UK-based thinktank that has been highly critical of climate science and action on global heating.
Since its launch in 2009, the Global Warming Policy Foundation has become known for its consistent attacks on climate science, the risks of global heating and – more recently – policies to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Abbott said he was pleased to join the foundation “because it’s consistently injected a note of realism into the climate debate”………………
Dr Jerome Booth, the foundation’s chairman, said Abbott brings “a global perspective and policy insight at the very highest level” and he would help the group “to foster a culture of debate, respect and scrutiny in policy areas that are currently dominated by intolerance, high emotions, moral reasoning and confusion”.
Abbott is currently an adviser to the UK government’s Board of Trade. His name was raised last month as a possible replacement for the late senator Jim Molan in the upper house.
During his prime ministership between 2013 and 2015, Abbott drove to dismantle much of the country’s public policy architecture on climate change, successfully repealing a legislated price on carbon, defunding the independent Climate Commission but failing to dismantle the Climate Change Authority and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
In 2017, he flew to London to deliver the GWPF’s annual lecture, where he suggested natural factors could be to blame for global warming, that CO2 was a trace gas and hinted at a global conspiracy to tamper with temperature data to make global heating seem worse.
The foundation is seen as influential among some conservatives. Conservative MP Steve Baker resigned as a GWPF trustee when he became minister for Northern Ireland.
A group of Conservative MPs and peers – several with links to the foundation – have formed the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, which has used the GWPF’s work as part of its advocacy.
The GWPF’s non-charitable arm – the Global Warming Policy Forum – runs a project called Net Zero Watch, which claims to scrutinise climate and decarbonisation policies.
Four Australian climate sceptics sit on the GWPF academic advisory board, including mining industry figure Prof Ian Plimer and controversial marine scientist Dr Peter Ridd of the Institute of Public Affairs, an Australian thinktank known to promote climate science denial.
Last year three MPs – one each from Labor, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats – joined with a not-for-profit campaign group to complain to the UK’s Charity Commission.
The former Australian PM says he has joined the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a UK think tank founded by a ‘climate denier-in-chief’.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott, who once compared taking action on climate change with killing goats “to appease volcano gods”, has joined the board of a UK climate-sceptic think tank founded by a politician dubbed “the climate denier-in-chief”.
Abbott said he was pleased to join the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), which “consistently injected a note of realism into the climate debate”, despite the charity spearheading the backlash against the UK government’s net-zero goal.
“All of us want to save the only planet we have, but this should not be by means which impoverish poorer people in richer countries and hold poorer countries back,” Abbott said of his appointment.
“Right now, in countries like Australia, the impact of climate policy is to make electricity less affordable and less reliable rather than perceptibly to cool the planet.
“We need more genuine science and less groupthink in this debate. That’s where the GWPF has been a commendably consistent if lonely voice.”
The GWPF was founded in 2009 by Thatcher-era chancellor Nigel Lawson, who reportedly resigned from the House of Lords last month. Described by UK Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay as the “climate denier-in-chief”, Lawson claimed that “global warming is not a problem” in a 2021 article written for TheSpectator during the COP26 in Glasgow.
The foundation’s director, Benny Peiser, also made headlines for spurious statements, including that he found it “extraordinary that anyone should think there is a climate crisis” and that climate “alarmism” was driven by “scientists’ computer modelling rather than observational evidence”.
Despite Lawson’s apparent departure from politics, his foundation continues to cause a headache for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. There has been outrage after a UK register of interests disclosure revealed Conservative MP Steve Baker accepted a £10,000 (A$17,464) donation from the chair of GWPF’s Net Zero Watch.
The campaign arm has urged the UK government to recommit to fossil fuels, commission a fleet of coal-fired power plants, and wind down wind and solar completely, while its alleged breaches of charity law were the subject of a complaint from three British MPs in October.
This isn’t Abbott’s first brush with the foundation. In 2017 he delivered an eyebrow-raising annual lecture that suggested climate change was “probably doing good; or at least, more good than harm”.
Abbott also claimed that photos from his electorate showed the sea level hadn’t risen. (The Bureau of Meteorology found last year that the rates of sea level rise to the north and south-east of Australia have been “significantly higher” than the global average for the past 30 years.)
“Contrary to the breathless assertions that climate change is behind every weather event, in Australia the floods are not bigger, the bushfires are not worse, the droughts are not deeper or longer, and the cyclones are not more severe than they were in the 1800s,” Abbott said at the time.
In an echo of Lawson’s claim that rising temperatures are “no bad thing: many more people die each year from cold-related illnesses than from heat-related ones”, Abbott suggested in 2017 that sweltering heatwaves are good, actually.
“There’s the evidence that higher concentrations of carbon dioxide (which is a plant food after all) are actually greening the planet and helping to lift agricultural yields,” he said. “In most countries, far more people die in cold snaps than in heatwaves, so a gradual lift in global temperatures, especially if it’s accompanied by more prosperity and more capacity to adapt to change, might even be beneficial.”
Heat is the biggest natural killer in Australia (and in the US) and has been for the past 200 years, with fatalities outstripping all other natural killers including bushfires, cyclones and floods. Research has found there were 36,000 deaths associated with heat in Australia between 2006 and 2017.
In Interview Released Today Famed Peace Activist, Dr. Helen Caldicott, says the World is Closer to Nuclear Annihilation than Ever Before
Caldicott believes the Doomsday Clock should be at 20 seconds to midnight.
Dr. Helen Caldicott is concerned that we are the closest we have ever been to nuclear annihilation and that citizens are no longer informed as to the incomprehensible destruction and suffering that it would bring.
Caldicott told Breaking Green, “I think we are in an extremely invidious position where nuclear war could occur tonight, by accident or design. “She added that “it is the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, that the two huge nuclear behemoths are facing each other militarily.”
Dr. Caldicott described to Breaking Green the nightmarish effects of a nuclear war, as she had described to worldwide audiences during the Cold War. As cofounder of Physicians for Social Responsibility in the USA, her talks awakened a generation.
Caldicott believes that many people are engaging in “psychic numbing” or blocking out the reality of the threat as the Doomsday Clock is now set at 90 seconds to midnight.
Myanmar signs new nuclear energy agreement with Russia. The Intergovernmental Agreement on cooperation in the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes will see the two countries working together on the use of nuclear technology in a number of areas, including training of a workforce for building and running a small modular reactor.
“Based on the information available as of December 31, 2022, the United States cannot certify the Russian Federation to be in compliance with the terms of the New START Treaty.”
This finding was not unexpected. In August 2022, in response to a US treaty notification expressing an intent to conduct an inspection, Russia invoked an infrequently used treaty clause “temporarily exempting” all of its facilities from inspection. At the time, Russia attempted to justify its actions by citing “incomplete” work regarding Covid-19 inspection protocols and perceived “unilateral advantages” created by US sanctions; however, the State Department’s report assesses that this is “false:”
Contrary to Russia’s claim that Russian inspectors cannot travel to the United States to conduct inspections, Russian inspectors can in fact travel to the United States via commercial flights or authorized inspection airplanes. There are no impediments arising from U.S. sanctions that would prevent Russia’s full exercise of its inspection rights under the Treaty. The United States has been extremely clear with the Russian Federation on this point.”
Instead, the report suggests that the primary reason for suspending inspections “centered on Russian grievances regarding U.S. and other countries’ measures imposed on Russia in response to its unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”
Echoing the findings of the report, on February 1st, Cara Abercrombie, deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for defense policy and arms control for the White House National Security Council, stated in a briefing at the Arms Control Association that the United States had done everything in its power to remove pandemic- and sanctions-related limitations for Russian inspectors, and that “[t]here are absolutely no barriers, as far as we’re concerned, to facilitating Russian inspections.”
Nonetheless, Russia has still not rescinded its exemption and also indefinitely postponed a scheduled meeting of the Bilateral Consultative Commission in November. In a similar vein, this is believed to be tied to US support for Ukraine, as indicated by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov who said that arms control “has been held hostage by the U.S. line of inflicting strategic defeat on Russia,” and that Russia was “ready for such a scenario” if New START expired without a replacement.
These two actions, according to the United States, constitute a state of “noncompliance” with specific clauses of New START. It is crucial to note, however, the distinction between findings of “noncompliance” (serious, yet informal assessments, often with a clear path to reestablishing compliance), “violation” (requiring a formal determination), and “material breach” (where a violation rises to the level of contravening the object or purpose of the treaty).
It is also important to note that the United States’ findings of Russian noncompliance are not related to the actual number of deployed Russian warheads and launchers. While the report notes that the lack of inspections means that “the United States has less confidence in the accuracy of Russia’s declarations,” the report is careful to note that “While this is a serious concern, it is not a determination of noncompliance.” The report also assesses that “Russia was likely under the New START warhead limit at the end of 2022” and that Russia’s noncompliance does not threaten the national security interests of the United States.
The high stakes of failure: worst-case force projections after New START’s expiry
Both the US and Russia have meticulously planned their respective nuclear modernization programs based on the assumption that neither country will exceed the force levels currently dictated by New START. Without a deal after 2026, that assumption immediately disappears; both sides would likely default to mutual distrust amid fewer verifiable data points, and our discourse would be dominated by worst case thinking about how both countries’ arsenals would grow in the future……………………………………………………….
Cameco Corp. said it agreed to terms with SE NNEGC Energoatom, the Ukrainian state-owned nuclear energy utility, to provide natural uranium hexafluoride, or UF(6), through 2035.
“Key commercial terms, such as pricing mechanism, volume and tenor, have been agreed to, but the contract is subject to finalization, which is anticipated in the first quarter of 2023,” Cameco said.
The deal, which runs from 2024 to 2035, will see all deliveries in the form of UF(6). “The contract will contain a required degree of flexibility, given present circumstances in Ukraine,” Cameco said.
The agreement will see Cameco supply 100% of Energoatom’s UF(6) requirements for the nine nuclear reactors at the Rivne, Khmelnytskyy and South Ukraine nuclear power plants. The deal also has an option for Cameco to supply six reactors at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is currently under Russian control, should it return to Energoatom’s operation, the companies said.
On February 16, 2022, a full week before Putin sent combat troops into Ukraine, the Ukrainian Army began the heavy bombardment of the area (in east Ukraine) occupied by mainly ethnic Russians. Officials from the Observer Mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) were located in the vicinity at the time and kept a record of the shelling as it took place. What the OSCE discovered was that the bombardment dramatically intensified as the week went on until it reached a peak on February 19, when a total of 2,026 artillery strikes were recorded. Keep in mind, the Ukrainian Army was, in fact, shelling civilian areas along the Line of Contact that were occupied by other Ukrainians.
We want to emphasize that the officials from the OSCE were operating in their professional capacity gathering first-hand evidence of shelling in the area. What their data shows is that Ukrainian Forces were bombing and killing their own people.This has all been documented and has not been challenged.
So, the question we must all ask ourselves is this: Is the bombardment and slaughter of one’s own people an ‘act of war’?
We think it is.And if we are right, then we must logically assume that the war began before the Russian invasion (which was launched a full week later) We must also assume that Russia’s alleged “unprovoked aggression” was not unprovoked at all but was the appropriate humanitarian response to the deliberate killing of civilians. In order to argue that the Russian invasion was ‘not provoked’, we would have to say that firing over 4,000 artillery shells into towns and neighborhoods where women and children live, is not a provocation? Who will defend that point of view?
No one, because it’s absurd. The killing of civilians in the Donbas was a clear provocation, a provocation that was aimed at goading Russia into a war. And –as we said earlier– the OSCE had monitors on the ground who provided full documentation of the shelling as it took place, which is as close to ironclad, eyewitness testimony as you’re going to get.
This, of course, is a major break with the “official narrative” which identifies Russia as the perpetrator of hostilities. But, as we’ve shown, that simply isn’t the case. The official narrative is wrong. Even so, it might not surprise you to know that most of the mainstream media completely omitted any coverage of the OSCE’s fact-finding activities in east Ukraine. The one exception to was Reuters that published a deliberately opaque account published on February 18 titled “Russia voices alarm over sharp increase of Donbass shelling”. Here’s an excerpt:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov voiced alarm on Friday over a sharp increase in shelling in eastern Ukraine and accused the OSCE special monitoring mission of glossing over what he said were Ukrainian violations of the peace process….
Washington and its allies have raised fears that the upsurge in violence in the Donbass could form part of a Russian pretext to invade Ukraine. Tensions are already high over a Russian military buildup to the north, east and south of Ukraine.
“We are very concerned by the reports of recent days – yesterday and the day before there was a sharp increase in shelling using weapons that are prohibited under the Minsk agreements,” Lavrov said, referring to peace accords aimed at ending the conflict. “So far we are seeing the special monitoring mission is doing its best to smooth over all questions that point to the blame of Ukraine’s armed forces,” he told a news conference.
Ukraine’s military on Friday denied violating the Minsk peace process and accused Moscow of waging an information war to say that Kyiv was shelling civilians, allegations it said were lies and designed to provoke it.” (Russia voices alarm over sharp increase of Donbass shelling, Reuters)
Notice the clever way that Reuters frames its coverage so that the claims of the Ukrainian military are given as much credibility as the claims of the Russian Foreign Minister. What Reuters fails to point out is that the OSCE’s report verifies Lavrov’s version of events while disproving the claims of the Ukrainians. It is the job of a journalist to make the distinction between fact and fiction but, once again, we see how agenda-driven news is not meant to inform but to mislead.
The point we are trying to make is simple: The war in Ukraine was not launched by a tyrannical Russian leader (Putin) bent on rebuilding the Soviet Empire. That narrative is a fraud that was cobbled together by neocon spin-meisters trying to build public support for a war with Russia. The facts I am presenting here can be identified on a map where the actual explosions took place and were then recorded by officials whose job was to fulfill that very task. Can you see the difference between the two? In one case, the storyline rests on speculation, conjecture and psychobabble; while in the other, the storyline is linked to actual events that took place on the ground and were catalogued by trained professionals in the field. In which version of events do you have more confidence?
Bottom line: Russia did not start the war in Ukraine. That is a fake narrative. The responsibility lies with the Ukrainian Army and their leaders in Kiev.
And here’s something else that is typically excluded in the media’s selective coverage. Before Putin sent his tanks across the border into Ukraine, he invoked United Nations Article 51 which provides a legal justification for military intervention. Of course, the United States has done this numerous times to provide a fig leaf of legitimacy to its numerous military interventions. But, in this case, you can see where the so-called Responsibility To Protect (R2P) could actually be justified, after all, by most estimates, the Ukrainian army has killed over 14,000 ethnic Russians since the US-backed coup 8 years ago. If ever there was a situation in which a defensive military operation could be justified, this was it. But that still doesn’t fully explain why Putin invoked UN Article 51. For that, we turn to former weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who explained it like this:
“Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing Article 51 as his authority, ordered what he called a “special military operation”…. under Article 51, there can be no doubt as to the legitimacy of Russia’s contention that the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass had been subjected to a brutal eight-year-long bombardment that had killed thousands of people.… Moreover, Russia claims to have documentary proof that the Ukrainian Army was preparing for a massive military incursion into the Donbass which was pre-empted by the Russian-led “special military operation.” [OSCE figures show an increase of government shelling of the area in the days before Russia moved in.]
..The bottom line is that Russia has set forth a cognizable claim under the doctrine of anticipatory collective self-defense, devised originally by the U.S. and NATO, as it applies to Article 51 which is predicated on fact, not fiction.
While it might be in vogue for people, organizations, and governments in the West to embrace the knee-jerk conclusion that Russia’s military intervention constitutes a wanton violation of the United Nations Charter and, as such, constitutes an illegal war of aggression, the uncomfortable truth is that, of all the claims made regarding the legality of pre-emption under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine is on solid legal ground.” (“Russia, Ukraine & the Law of War: Crime of Aggression”, Consortium News)
Here’s a bit more background from an article by foreign policy analyst Danial Kovalik:
“One must begin this discussion by accepting the fact that there was already a war happening in Ukraine for the eight years preceding the Russian military incursion in February 2022. And, this war by the government in Kiev… claimed the lives of around 14,000 people, many of them children, and displaced around 1.5 million more … The government in Kiev, and especially its neo-Nazi battalions, carried out attacks against these peoples … precisely because of their ethnicity. ..
While the UN Charter prohibits unilateral acts of war, it also provides, in Article 51, that “nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense… ” And this right of self-defense has been interpreted to permit countries to respond, not only to actual armed attacks, but also to the threat of imminent attack.
In light of the above, it is my assessment.. that Russia had a right to act in its own self-defense by intervening in Ukraine, which had become a proxy of the US and NATO for an assault – not only on Russian ethnics within Ukraine – but also upon Russia itself.” (“Why Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is legal under international law”, RT)
So, has anyone in the western media reported on the fact that Putin invoked UN Article 51 before he launched the Special Military Operation?
No, they haven’t, because to do so, would be an admission that Putin’s military operation complies with international law. Instead, the media continues to spread the fiction that ‘Hitler-Putin is trying to rebuild the Soviet empire’, a claim for which there is not a scintilla of evidence. Keep in mind, Putin’s operation does not involve the toppling of a foreign government to install a Moscow-backed stooge, or the arming and training a foreign military that will be used as proxies to fight a geopolitical rival, or the stuffing a country with state-of-the-art weaponry to achieve his own narrow strategic objectives, or perpetrating terrorist acts of industrial sabotage (Nord-Stream 2) to prevent the economic integration of Asia and Europe. No, Putin hasn’t engaged in any of these things. But Washington certainly has, because Washington isn’t constrained by international law. In Washington’s eyes, international law is merely an inconvenience that is dismissively shrugged off whenever unilateral action is required. But Putin is not nearly as cavalier about such matters, in fact, he has a long history of playing by the rules because he believes the rules help to strengthen everyone’s security. And, he’s right; they do.
And that’s why he invoked Article 51 before he sent the troops to help the people in the Donbas. He felt he had a moral obligation to lend them his assistance but wanted his actions to comply with international law. We think he achieved both.
Here’s something else you will never see in the western media. You’ll never see the actual text of Putin’s security demands that were made a full 2 months before the war broke out. And, the reason you won’t see them, is because his demands were legitimate, reasonable and necessary. All Putin wanted was basic assurances that NATO was not planning to put its bases, armies and missile sites on Russia’s border. In other words, he was doing the same thing that all responsible leaders do to defend the safety and security of their own people.
Here are a few critical excerpts from the text of Putin’s proposal to the US and NATO: [on original]………………………….
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Putin was worried about. He was worried about NATO expansion and, in particular, the emergence of a hostile military alliance backed by Washington-groomed Nazis occupying territory on his western flank. Was that unreasonable of him? Should he have embraced these US-backed Russophobes and allowed them to place their missiles on his border? Would that have been the prudent thing to do?
So, what can we deduce from Putin’s list of demands?
First, we can deduce that he is not trying to reconstruct the Soviet empire as the MSM relentlessly insists. The list focuses exclusively on security-related demands, nothing else.
Second, it proves that the war could have easily been avoided had Zelensky simply maintained the status quo and formally announced that Ukraine would remain neutral. In fact, Zelensky actually agreed to neutrality in negotiations with Moscow in March, but Washington prevented the Ukrainian president from going through with the deal which means that the Biden administration is largely responsible for the ongoing conflict. (RT published an article today stating clearly that an agreement had been reached between Russia and Ukraine in March but the deal was intentionally scuttled by the US and UK. Washington wanted a war.)
Third, it shows that Putin is a reasonable leader whose demands should have been eagerly accepted. Was it unreasonable of Putin to ask that “The Parties shall refrain from deploying their armed forces and… military alliances.. in the areas where such deployment could be perceived by the other Party as a threat to its national security”? Was it unreasonable for him the ask that “The Parties shall eliminate all existing infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons outside their national territories”?
Where exactly are the “unreasonable demands” that Putin supposedly made?
There aren’t any. Putin made no demands that the US wouldn’t have made if ‘the shoe was on the other foot.’
Forth, it proves that the war is not a struggle for Ukrainian liberation or democracy. That’s hogwash. It is a war that is aimed at “weakening” Russia and eventually removing Putin from power. Those are the overriding goals. What that means is that Ukrainian soldiers are not dying for their country, they are dying for an elitist dream to expand NATO, crush Russia, encircle China, and extend US hegemony for another century. Ukraine is merely the battlefield on which the Great Power struggle is being fought.
There are number points we are trying to make in this article:
Who started the war? Answer– Ukraine started the war
Was the Russian invasion a violation of international law? Answer– No, the Russian invasion should be approved under United Nations Article 51
Could the war have been avoided if Ukraine declared neutrality and met Putin’s reasonable demands? Answer– Yes, the war could have been avoided
The last point deals with the Minsk Treaty and how the dishonesty of western leaders is going to effect the final settlement in Ukraine. I am convinced that neither Washington nor the NATO allies have any idea of how severely international relations have been decimated by the Minsk betrayal. In a world where legally binding agreements can be breezily discarded in the name of political expediency, the only way to settle disputes is through brute force. Did anyone in Germany, France or Washington think about this before they acted? (But, first, some background on Minsk.)
The aim of the Minsk agreement was to end the fighting between the Ukrainian army and ethnic Russians in the Donbas region of Ukraine. It was the responsibility of the four participants in the treaty– Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine– to ensure that both sides followed the terms of the deal. But in December, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview with a German magazine, that there was never any intention of implementing the deal, instead, the plan was to use the time to make Ukraine stronger in order to prepare for a war with Russia. So, clearly, from the very beginning, the United States intended to provoke a war with Russia.
On September 5, 2014, Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia all signed Minsk, but the treaty failed and the fighting resumed. On February 12, 2015, Minsk 2 was signed, but that failed, as well. Please, watch this short segment on You Tube by Amit Sengupta who gives a brief rundown of Minsk and its implications: (I transcribed the piece myself and any mistakes are mine.) …………………. [Transcription on original]
There’s no way to overstate the importance of the Minsk betrayal or the impact it’s going to have on the final settlement in Ukraine. When trust is lost, nations can only ensure their security through brute force. What that means is that Russia must expand its perimeter as far as is necessary to ensure that it will remain beyond the enemy’s range of fire. (Putin, Lavrov and Medvedev have already indicated that they plan to do just that.) Second, the new perimeter must be permanently fortified with combat troops and lethal weaponry that are kept on hairtrigger alert. When treaties become vehicles for political opportunism, then nations must accept a permanent state of war. This is the world that Merkel, Hollande, Poroshenko and the US created by opting to use ‘the cornerstone of international relations’ (Treaties) to advance their own narrow warmongering objectives.
We just wonder if anyone in Washington realizes whet the fu** they’ve done?
Russia Loses World’s Largest Nuclear Submarine, NewsWeek, BY BRENDAN COLE ON 2/6/23
The Russian Navy has confirmed it has decommissioned its nuclear-powered strategic submarine Dmitry Donskoy, which formed part of Moscow’s formidable Cold War weapon system.
There had been speculation for months about the fate of the submarine, which had been launched in 1980 and whose NATO reporting name was Typhoon.
In 2021, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported that the vessel would stay in service until 2026.
It was the first of six Akula-class Northern Fleet submarines laid down at the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk on the White Sea which were commissioned in the 1980s.
At 574 feet long, Dmitry Donskoy‘s status as the world’s largest submarine was overtaken by the 608-feet-long Belgorod nuclear submarine, which was commissioned in July 2022. Dmitry Donskoy had a displacement of around 53,000 tons and was modernized and re-equipped in 2002 with the “Bulava” missile.
While it was reported in July 2022 that the vessel had been terminated, no official confirmation was expected until the end of the year. The vessel’s last reported activity was in the sea trials of SSN Krasnoyarsk in September 2022.
On Monday, Vladimir Maltsev, head of the Russian Movement for Navy Support, told TASS that the vessel had been “decommissioned” and would “await utilization at a naval base in Severodvinsk together with two other units of this project.”
The class was the backbone of the Soviet Union’s second-strike nuclear deterrent, with 20 massive R-39 “Rif” SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missile) having up to 200 warheads in total. The Drive described it as the “most deadly single weapon system” Russia had designed in the Cold War. Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.
ELISE WU Paris, 06 Feb 2023 20:26, (Montel) French energy minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher has confirmed plans to extend the lifetimes of existing nuclear plants beyond 60 years where possible.
