West's duplicitous double standards: Russia War

[outof thebox]

How Mariupol will become a key hub of Eurasian integration by Pepe Escobar

Mariupol, the strategic Sea of Azov port, remains in the eye of the storm in Ukraine.

The NATO narrative is that Azovstal – one of Europe’s biggest iron and steel works – was nearly destroyed by the Russian Army and its allied Donetsk forces who “lay siege” to Mariupol.

The true story is that the neo-Nazi Azov batallion took scores of Mariupol civilians as human shields since the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, and retreated to Azovstal as a last stand. After an ultimatum delivered last week, they are now being completely exterminated by the Russian and Donetsk forces and Chechen Spetsnaz.

Azovstal, part of the Metinvest group controlled by Ukraine’s wealthiest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov, is indeed one of the biggest metallurgic plants in Europe, self-described as a “high-performance integrated metallurgical enterprise that produces coke and sinter, steel as well as high-quality rolled products, bars and shapes.”

Amidst a flurry of testimonials detailing the horrors inflicted by the Azov neo-Nazis on Mariupol’s civilian population, a way more auspicious, invisible story bodes well for the immediate future.

Russia is the world’s fifth largest steel producer, apart from holding huge iron and coal deposits. Mariupol – a steel Mecca – used to source coal from Donbass, but under de facto neo-Nazi rule since the 2014 Maidan events, was turned into an importer. Iron, for instance, started to be supplied from Krivbas in Ukraine, over 200 kilometers away.

After Donetsk solidifies itself as an independent republic or, via referendum, chooses to become part of the Russian Federation, this situation is bound to change.

Azovstal is invested in a broad product line of very useful stuff: structural steel, rail for railroads, hardened steel for chains, mining equipment, rolled steel used in factory apparatus, trucks and railroad cars. Parts of the factory complex are quite modern while some, decades old, are badly in need of upgrading, which Russian industry can certainly provide.

Strategically, this is a huge complex, right at the Sea of Azov, which is now, for all practical purposes, incorporated into the Donetsk People’s Republic, and close to the Black Sea. That implies a short trip to the Eastern Mediterranean, including many potential customers in West Asia. And crossing Suez and reaching the Indian Ocean, are customers all across South and Southeast Asia.

So the Donetsk People’s Republic, possibly part of the future Novorossiya, and even part of Russia, will be in control of a lot of steel-making capacity for southern Europe, West Asia, and beyond.

https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/8480

[Yodean]

https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/8480

Good article. Pepe's always a quality read.

[Yodean]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_VqX6J93k

Yeh, this is an absolute classic, required watching and contemplating for those who consider themselves serious investors. Particularly the second half. As timely today as ever, perhaps more so.

[SOL]

https://rumble.com/vz61l5-putin-sets-ru ... dline.html

[SOL]

https://rumble.com/vy1fr1-pascal-praud- ... -azov.html

[nicolas]

https://rumble.com/vy1fr1-pascal-praud- ... -azov.html

To summarize and translate in English, the video basically goes like:
Host: this is footage from Mariupol of Ukrainians tied to lamposts and publicly humiliated by Azov because they refused to fight Russians.
Man #1: Azov are Nazis. They glorify Stepan Bandera. There's a Stepan Bandera Avenue in Kyiv.
Man #2: We have to be careful when we say that. This is used as propaganda to justify Putin's actions.
Woman to Man #2: You'd prefer to ignore this. You don't want people to say this because this is what Putin is saying.

Reminds me of: "We're no longer publishing hospitalization data regarding covid because it could be used by anti-vaxxers."

[Budge]

https://rumble.com/vy1fr1-pascal-praud- ... -azov.html

To summarize and translate in English, the video basically goes like:
Host: this is footage from Mariupol of Ukrainians tied to lamposts and publicly humiliated by Azov because they refused to fight Russians.
Man #1: Azov are Nazis. They glorify Stepan Bandera. There's a Stepan Bandera Avenue in Kyiv.
Man #2: We have to be careful when we say that. This is used as propaganda to justify Putin's actions.
Woman to Man #2: You'd prefer to ignore this. You don't want people to say this because this is what Putin is saying.

Reminds me of: "We're no longer publishing hospitalization data regarding covid because it could be used by anti-vaxxers."

Could it be the torture is for speaking Russian or Ukranian with a Russian accent?

[SOL]

Very significant development

Question: A question regarding potential talks between Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky. Do you know which country they might be held in? The talks started in Belarus and were continued in Turkey. Israel offered mediation as well. When might a peace treaty be initialised between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministries?

Sergey Lavrov: There are no approved plans for this. The talks must continue. Our negotiators commented on the latest round of talks in Istanbul where the Ukrainian representatives “put on paper,” for the first time, their vision of the agreement that must be reached. This needs to take shape first. We are preparing a response. There is some progress there. Above all, they recognised that Ukraine cannot be a bloc country, that it cannot “find happiness” by joining the North Atlantic Alliance. Nuclear-free, bloc-free, neutral status is already recognised as an absolute must. Likewise, we saw much more understanding of one more reality. I am referring to the situation with Crimea and Donbass. We are still working on the next potential meetings. We will announce updates on this.

Contrary to what western media is stating that Russia is backing down it is not. Once the Russian bear is woken it will not bend or give in

[SOL]

https://rumble.com/vy1fr1-pascal-praud- ... -azov.html

To summarize and translate in English, the video basically goes like:
Host: this is footage from Mariupol of Ukrainians tied to lamposts and publicly humiliated by Azov because they refused to fight Russians.
Man #1: Azov are Nazis. They glorify Stepan Bandera. There's a Stepan Bandera Avenue in Kyiv.
Man #2: We have to be careful when we say that. This is used as propaganda to justify Putin's actions.
Woman to Man #2: You'd prefer to ignore this. You don't want people to say this because this is what Putin is saying.

Reminds me of: "We're no longer publishing hospitalization data regarding covid because it could be used by anti-vaxxers."

Could it be the torture is for speaking Russian or Ukranian with a Russian accent?

Our contacts in the LPR state that most of the Ukrainians now see themselves as separate from the Western Ukrainians. The brotherly bond is broken now its a fight to the end

[SOL]

In all this mess lets not forget the huge talent Ukrainians have, this kid can really yodel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHspo7fphCI

[Yodean]

https://youtu.be/C4EA8VSZdZ8

*****

Pretty good look inside Russian city during the initial phase of the Western sanctions. The summary at the end is also pretty cool.

[SOL]

https://youtu.be/C4EA8VSZdZ8

*****

Pretty good look inside Russian city during the initial phase of the Western sanctions. The summary at the end is also pretty cool.

Big deal on FB, Instagram, Ticktock and other rubbish being banned. I don't use them and would not miss them for a second. Given a choice over Ticktock and FB, Instagram or Twitter, I would vote for Ticktock. The end is nice, but the adversary is what makes us strong, and there are very individuals like the Russians; they are used to dealing with tough conditions, and they generally overcome them. In that sense taking a 9 to 15-year look into the future, it is hard not to envision Russia being a far stronger nation than it is today. The rouble has recovered a lot faster than we projected, it is almost back to pre-sanction levels. If the rouble to USD rate closes at or below 81 on a monthly basis, then 60 will be in the works

[outof thebox]

After European nations imported the most gas from Russian sources yesterday in months, scrambling to stock up on supplies as Russian President Vladimir Putin's deadline to either pay for gas in rubles (or be cut off) came and went, Russian gas giant Gazprom has officially halted all deliveries to Europe via the Yamal-Europe pipeline, a critical artery for European energy supplies.

Instead of flowing toward Germany and the EU, gas supplies on Friday and Saturday started flowing in the opposite direction, according to Gascade, the network operator.

In recent months, the EU has already boosted imports of LNG from the US...

...and despite President Biden's promise to bolster to exports to the EU (although he stipulated that not all of this additional capacity would come from the US), researchers at Goldman Sachs have already shown that US exports of LNG are already at capacity.

Another problem for pipeline-dependent Europe: the continent presently doesn't have the infrastructure to allow it to rapidly ramp up imports of LNG, which must be carefully processed and "regassified" before it can be distributed to utilities and other distributors of energy.

A map below illustrates the level of dependence that various European economies have on Russia.

But it's not just the Germans who must now make due without Russian gas supplies. British energy major Shell is being cut off from Russian supplies in response to the UK's economic sanctions on Russia, said Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"London wants to be the leader of everything anti-Russian. It even wants to be ahead of Washington! That’s the cost!" Peskov outlined.

So far, the UK is the only country to have imposed sanctions on Russia's Gazprombank, through which payments for Russian natural gas are made. The measure effectively denies Britain the ability to pay for the commodity, and has forced Gazprom to walk away from the sales and trading arm. In accordance with Putin's decree that Russian gas be paid for in rubles, Gazprom has set up foreign-currency accounts for customers where their currencies can be converted into rubles on the Moscow exchange.

Now that Putin is turning up the pressure, the European nations have a difficult choice ahead: either they can play ball and demonstrate to the world that their efforts to wean themselves off of their dependence on Russian energy have been mostly in vain. Or they can face a "catastrophic" economic crisis as energy prices soar, leading to rationing, blackouts and other measures that will make the 1970s oil crisis in the US look like child's play.
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/gazpro ... l-pipeline

[nicolas]

Bucha. Ukraine accuses Russia of genocide. Russia denies.

I’ve seen what the Western media makes of it. I’ve read the Russian counterarguments to that. I’ve heard several commentators express their doubts about the veracity of the claims and expose a few holes in the story.

But I was curious to see how a large foreign media, who had so far tried to take an unbiased stance, would handle this live grenade. I’m talking about the Indian channel Republic World and its host Arnab Goswami. So, I watched the video of yesterday’s show (linked below.)

Arnab introduced the topic with an unambiguous statement “There has been a mass massacre of civilians by Russian forces” before concluding a one-sided speech by “Let’s debate.”

Which turned out to mean: "let’s all agree that Putin is a war criminal, or I’ll shout louder than you so nobody can hear what you have to say…"

Instead, how about pausing for a moment to reflect on what you know and what you don’t know? What you’ve considered and what you haven’t?

So, you say that you sent a team of independent reporters to Bucha, who were not invited there by Ukrainian forces. They witnessed many dead bodies in the street, some with their hands tied behind their back, and mass graves. Horrific sights. I can’t imagine not being taken by emotions. But then, to you, this is enough to prove, without the shadow of a doubt, that Russian troops committed genocide in Bucha?

Now, if someone said, “This is all fake. There are no dead bodies in Bucha. The Ukrainians staged it all using only props and extras”, then yes, you can confidently call them on their bullshit.

But if you automatically jump from seeing dead bodies in a war zone to the conclusion that the Russians and only the Russians are responsible, then you’re taking the Ukrainian PR team’s word at face value, you’re not showing critical thinking, you’re not asking the obvious questions, you’re no longer unbiased, and you’re not doing the job of a journalist. You engage in propaganda.

I know that Colonel Mustard did it because I saw a dead body in the library, and Mr. Green, who is Col. Mustard’s sworn enemy, told me that’s what happened.

Does that sound like serious unbiased reporting?

Did you witness the killings? No. You have no tangible evidence of who killed whom and how.
You arrived four days after the Russian troops left, three days after the Ukrainian special forces arrived on the scene.
Do you have a time of death for all the victims? Especially the ones who appear to have been executed. No. Because there was no independent forensics done that would establish this as a fact. Did you ask yourself why?
For the same reason, you don’t know if the bodies shown lying in the street on the video have been moved or not.

On March 31st, the town's mayor gave a televised speech celebrating the departure of Russian troops. Did he mention that Russians killed civilians with their hands tied in their back? No. Why? Maybe he wasn’t aware of this. Maybe he was instructed to wait for dramatic effect. Aren’t you at least curious about this inconsistency in the timeline?

There’s a video portraying two Ukrainian soldiers discussing killing anyone not wearing a blue armband. Maybe that video is fake, but maybe it’s original.
Would you go as far as to deny that Ukrainian soldiers have never, during this conflict, executed a Ukrainian civilian for being perceived as a traitor or a Russian collaborator? No, because you can’t possibly deny that and keep an ounce of credibility.

There are investigators from the ICC in Ukraine who are there to investigate alleged war crimes. Why weren’t they given access to the scene before the journalists did?

Western media reports around 300 bodies were found. Bucha is a town of 37,000 people. In modern urban warfare, what’s the expected ratio of casualties among civilians in an active war zone? How does this compare to here? If you tell me that it’s expected to be more than 1%, I’ll certainly believe you. What did you expect to find in a town shelled for weeks by both parties besides dead bodies?

You say that you talked with Ukrainians coming back to the town to gather their belongings. They told you that the Russians mistreated them, raped, and killed civilians. Maybe that's true. But imagine for a moment that you’re interviewing a Ukrainian citizen, and instead, they tell you that the Russians gave them food, and then later Ukrainians killed Russian sympathizers. What do you reckon would happen to that poor fellow and his family? They have nowhere to run, and the Russian-hating fanatics are back in control. So, the testimonies you’re getting cannot be considered as freely given and thus are not very reliable. And if you compare it with the testimonials of the Ukrainians who now managed to escape Mariupol, you hear a very different story.

So personally, what do I make of this, based on my limited access to unverified information and my connecting the dots?

Probably most of the victims died in combat, taken in the crossfire, or by shelling, killed by both Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, in a proportion that is anyway impossible to establish. Can I believe that Russians threatened civilians to reign in order? Yes. Can I believe that they purposefully executed tied civilians for the sole purpose of killing as many people as possible (as is claimed by the Ukrainian leadership)? No, it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t fit into the whole purpose of this intervention or the methods employed so far. Could it be the act of rogue soldiers who went nuts? It could be, but I am yet to see any compelling evidence of that. Then, we know that Russian troops left on March 30th. And it seems that they left Ukrainian civilians on their own, even those who weren’t hostile to Russians, to face the swift judgment of Ukrainian authorities. Ukrainian special forces likely punished some civilians they considered traitors. Then they saw the opportunity to turn this into a false flag, to make the scandal of the torture of Russian POWs go away and ramp up the anti-Russia propaganda in the West, to get more weapons and more sanctions against Russia. Then the propaganda machine did its job, and it scored an uncontested international success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH898Ha5txI

[SOL]

@nicolas
I may not have phrased myself properly or adequately when i listed this source as a potentially better source.
What i should have added was that, it was only a better source in comparison to the western media which ranks so low that it's not hard to beat them. However, Arnab like any journalist wants to make a name for himself and if there is a very hard position to take he is going to opt for the softer stance.

Our sources in Ukraine in Mauripol, Kyiv, Kharhov and many parts of the LPR generally don't paint a favourable picture of the Ukrainian army, especially in the AZOV battalion. The Chechen soldiers are painted as rapists and killers I know two individuals in the town of Lugansk that have verified that the Chenchen soldiers patrolling the streets there are very polite and treat the locals with respect.

This is a brutal war, and the worst part is that Covid taught the big players that manipulating the media to create a narrative is the way to go. They used this data to now create the Russian Xenophobia narrative. Let's assume Putin is all evil; there is absolutely no reason to create the narrative that all Russians are bad. However, that is what the media has done. The next narrative will be to weaponize democrats against republicans, then independent thinkers against non-critical thinkers, and so on

A subscriber posted a good video but it looks like the guy who uploaded it, Gonzalo Lira deleted it, for whatever reason. He lives in Kharhov now and by the way, he is an American. It went into extreme detail to point out some big issues with the busha footage but it's gone

New note: A few minutes after posting that the video was gone, another subscriber emailed this link from Rumble, looks it's been uploaded there maybe the publisher feels safer on Rumble I don't know

https://rumble.com/vzl3o4-gonzalo-lira- ... -test.html

Draw your own conclusions

Focussing on trends, one thing stands out; the big players are going to use this newfound weapon to turn the tables on any group of individuals they want. Its a deadly weapon and as the money supply increases they are going to abuse it to the Max especially in the West.