The build-up to war on Russia

[drstrangelove]

"The US has already positioned saboteurs in Ukraine to blame on 'Russians pretending to be Ukrainian' - but who are actually Ukrainian and US special forces - to carry out a fake 'false flag' operation as a pretext for any American 'defence' of Ukraine"

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

What does Russia gain by invading the Ukraine?

[BenDhyan]

^ A sense of security! NATO has been incrementally gaining a foothold in territory right up to Russia's borders. Russia has put it to NATO that they will not invade Ukraine so long as they agree that Ukraine won't join NATO. I understand NATO will not give them that guarantee. Russia remembers well that it was from Ukraine that the WWII NAZIes launched their military invasion of Russia.

It is unclear yet if the Russians will just annex the Russian speaking SE Ukraine or invade the whole country. Still not certain to many that they will invade at all, although they appear to have the all the military in position to do it if Putin decides to do so..

[conniption]

MoA

A 'Parthogenetic' Conflict - There Is No Russian Invasion Threat To Ukraine

Posted by b
January 25, 2022

With regards to the completely made up story of the 'imminent Russian invasion' of the Ukraine a commentator remarked to me:

What we are seeing is a 'parthogenetic' conflict/war/crisis. A first - to my recollection.

Indeed - the virgin birth of a conflict in which there is no enemy.

There is no threat of a Russian invasion of the Ukraine now or in the foreseeable future. Despite that today's New York Times has put no less than four 'invasion' stories at the top of its homepage.



Here is more evidence that there is absolutely no indication of any Russian invasion of the Ukraine:

Mujtaba (Mij) Rahman @Mij_Europe - 14:36 UTC · Jan 24, 2022

Senior Elysée source tells me: “There is a kind of alarmism in Washington and London which we cannot understand. We see no immediate likelihood of Russian military action. We simply want our interpretation to be taken into account before a common western approach is agreed.”

---

Richard Hadley @FranceVotes - 15:50 UTC · Jan 24, 2022

Replying to @Mij_Europe

Elysée briefed 'same' to @PhilippRicard (21 Jan @lemondefr): ‘France, like Germany, remain puzzled by USA & UK alarmism'. A source is quoted: 'We see same number of lorries, tanks and people. We observed same manoeuvres, but can't conclude offensive is imminent from all that.'

Yesterday the BBC interviewed the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov:

Some of our partners contribute to panic. This is beneficial to Russia - Danilov (machine translation)

Whether BBC News Ukraine asked the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov whether there is a reason for panic or whether the Russian invasion is so real today and what the Ukrainian authorities are doing.
...

BBC: What is happening near the Ukrainian borders? Is the number of troops increasing, are they maneuvering?

Alexei Danilov: The number of Russian troops is not increasing in the form in which many people paint today. Do they have maneuvers there - yes, but they were in them all the time. This is their territory, they have the right to move left and right there. Is it unpleasant for us? Yes, it's unpleasant, but it's not news to us. If this is news to someone in the West, I apologize.

Likewise Ukraine's Defense Minister via TASS:

Ukrainian defense minister sees no threat of Russian invasion in near future
Alexey Reznikov said that a scenario of a Russian attack in the near future was also unlikely

KIEV, January 25. /TASS/. Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov said early on Tuesday he had received no information so far indicating the possibility of Russia’s invasion of his country in the near future.

"As of today, the armed forces of Russia created no strike groups, indicating they were ready to launch an offensive tomorrow," he told Ukraine’s ICTV television channel, adding that a scenario of a Russian attack in the near future was also unlikely.

When asked about the likelihood of Russia attacking Ukraine on February 20, the final day of the Olympic Games in Beijing, the minister said the probability was "low."

And this military analysis via the Kiev Independent:

Center for Defense Strategies: How likely is large-scale war in Ukraine? (analysis)
Editor’s note: This is an analysis by the Center of Defense Strategies’ experts Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Alina Frolova, Oleksiy Pavliuchyk. It was originally published in Ukrainian by Ukrainska Pravda. The Kyiv Independent has translated it and is republishing it with permission.

How realistic is the scenario of a full-scale offensive into all or most of Ukraine in the near future?

At the moment, there are not enough Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders and no fully formed military groups needed to conduct a strategic offensive against Ukraine.

According to our estimates, supported by many of the indicators below, a large-scale general military operation can’t take place for at least the next two or three weeks.

As of Jan. 23, we do not observe the required formation of several hundred thousand troops, not only on the border with Ukraine, but also on Russian territory behind the front line.

Besides, we do not see the creation of strategic reserve units, nor the mobilization of the necessary connections and units on the basis of the centers for mobilization deployment.

Russian troops move mainly as battalion tactical groups (mechanized, tank and airborne troops) and tactical groups (artillery, multiple launch missile systems).

Russia hasn’t completed the formation of groups of troops in operational areas. It also hasn’t established and tested its wartime administration system.

If Russia was conducting preparations for a large-scale invasion, it would have been much more noticeable.

Therefore, what we currently have is the military threat posed by about 127,000 Russian servicemen along Ukraine’s borders, in the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine, and in Crimea. This number has not increased since April, and is not enough for a full-scale offensive.
...

How likely is an invasion in 2022?

In general, a large-scale Russian offensive operation against Ukraine in 2022 seems unlikely according to many indicators, even judging by purely military requirements.

...

The story of Russian preparations for an invasion of the Ukraine is made up from whole cloth.

It was peddled in early November with cropped satellite images which pretended that equipment parked next to regular long term Russian barracks was newly moved there in preparation of a war.

Based on such pictures Politico, for example, headlined on November 1:

Satellite images show new Russian military buildup near Ukraine
The deployments come as tension is rising between Moscow and the West.

New commercial satellite photos taken on Monday confirm recent reports that Russia is once again massing troops and military equipment on the border with Ukraine after a major buildup this spring.

The new images taken by Maxar Technologies and shared with POLITICO show a buildup of armored units, tanks and self-propelled artillery along with ground troops massing near the Russian town of Yelnya close to the border of Belarus. The units, which began moving in late September from other areas of Russia where they are normally based, include the elite 1st Guards Tank Army.

Yelnya is 250 kilometers (150 mi) north of the nearest Ukrainian border, not 'close' to it.

The piece included this picture:



The picture shows parts of the regular storage area of the 144th Mechanized Division near Yelnya, Smolensk Oblast. The divisions was established in 2016-2017 on the basis of the former 28th Mechanized Brigade (Yekaterinburg).

This is a large formation with hundreds of vehicles. The division's forces include i.a. two mechanized regiments, one tank regiment, one recon battalion, one self-propelled artillery regiment, one anti-tank artillery battalion as well as supplementary forces.

Here is an uncropped picture of the whole area. It shows large size barracks at the top right and parking grounds for each of its subunits. The barracks roads and facilities were not built over night. The above picture was cropped to only show the lower middle part of the picture below.



Another picture that was circulated widely to demonstrate that Russia is 'bolstering forces along Ukraine border' is this one:



It shows parts of the 237th Tank Regiment near Soloti, Belgorod Oblast, Russia. The picture is cropped so that it does not show the troop quarters which prove that the tanks are parked next to the unit's barracks where they belong during peacetime. Here is an uncropped image from Google maps:



Again - those barracks were not built over night. They are long-term facilities. The 237th Tank Regiment is stationed in Valuyki and Soloti. It has 90+ tanks, 40+ infantry fighting vehicles, 18 howitzers, 8 mortars. It consists of three tank battalions, one mechanized battalion, one sniper company, one recon company, one self-propelled howitzer battalion and one air defence battalion.

All such units also have lots of trucks to carry the ammunition, fuel and other supplies they need. All together those vehicles are clearly sufficient to fill that large parking lot.

The pictures that were supposed to show a 'new Russian military buildup' only showed units in their regular barracks were they have been stationed for years.

None of the units seen in them is deployed in a build-up-to-war like manner.
_______

Posted by b on January 25, 2022

comments

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/01/a ... raine.html

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

^ A sense of security! NATO has been incrementally gaining a foothold in territory right up to Russia's borders. Russia has put it to NATO that they will not invade Ukraine so long as they agree that Ukraine won't join NATO. I understand NATO will not give them that guarantee. Russia remembers well that it was from Ukraine that the WWII NAZIes launched their military invasion of Russia.

It is unclear yet if the Russians will just annex the Russian speaking SE Ukraine or invade the whole country. Still not certain to many that they will invade at all, although they appear to have the all the military in position to do it if Putin decides to do so..

Cool, thanks.
That's what I get when I just watch CNN.

[BenDhyan]

Heated exchange between State Dept. and AP journalist on evidence Russia is fabricating attacks by Ukraine using crisis actors...hilarious.

[conniption]

The Saker
(embedded links)

The Year of the Tiger Starts with a Sino-Russian Bang

By Pepe Escobar
February 03, 2022

The Year of the Black Water Tiger will start, for all practical purposes, with a Beijing bang this Friday, as Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, after a live meeting before the initial ceremony of the Winter Olympics, will issue a joint statement on international relations.

That will represent a crucial move in the Eurasia vs. NATOstan chessboard, as the Anglo-American axis is increasingly bogged down in Desperation Row: after all, “Russian aggression” stubbornly refuses to materialize.

After an interminable wait arguably due to the lack of functionaries properly equipped to write an intelligible letter, the US/NATO combo finally concocted a predictable, jargon-drenched bureaucratese non-response “response” to the Russian demands of security guarantees.

The contents were leaked to a Spanish newspaper, a full member of NATOstan media. The leaker, according to Brussels sources, may be in Kiev by now. The Pentagon, in damage control mode, rushed to assert, “We didn’t do it”. The State Dept. said, “it’s authentic.”

Even before the leak of the non-response “response”, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was forced to send messages to all NATO foreign ministers, including US Secretary Blinken, asking how they understand the principle of indivisibility of security – if they actually do.

Lavrov was extremely specific: “I am referring to our demands that everyone faithfully implement the agreements on the indivisibility of security that were reached within the OSCE in 1999 in Istanbul and in 2010 in Astana. These agreements provide not only for the freedom to choose alliances, but also make this freedom conditional on the need to avoid any steps that will strengthen the security of any state at the expense of infringing on the security of others.”

Lavrov hit the heart of the matter when he stressed, “our Western colleagues are not simply trying to ignore this key principle of international law agreed in the Euro-Atlantic space, but to completely forget it.”

Lavrov also made it very clear “we will not allow this topic to be ‘wrapped up’. We will insist on an honest conversation and an explanation of why the West does not want to fulfill its obligations at all or exclusively, selectively, and in its favor.”

Crucially, China fully supports Russian demands for security guarantees in Europe, and fully agrees that the security of one state cannot be ensured by inflicting damage on another state.

This is as serious as it gets: the US/NATO combo are bent on smashing two crucial treaties that directly concern European security, and they think they can get away with it because there is less than zero discussion about the content and its implications across NATOstan media.

Western public opinion remains absolutely clueless. The only narrative, hammered 24/7, is “Russian aggression” – by the way duly emphasized in NATO’s non-response “response”.

Wanna check our military-technical gear?

For the umpteenth time Moscow made it very clear it’s not going to make any concessions on the security demands just because the Empire of Chaos keeps threatening – what else – extra harsh sanctions, the sole imperial “policy” short of outright bombing.

The new sanctions package, anyway, is ready to go for quite a while now, arguably capable of cutting Moscow off from the Western financial system and/or casino, and targeting, among others, Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank and Alfa-Bank.

And that brings us to what’s Moscow going to do next – considering the predictable “extremely negative attitude” (Lavrov) from NATOstan. Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko had already hinted NATO knows perfectly well what’s coming, even before the non-response “response”:

“NATO knows perfectly well what kind of military-technical measures may follow from Russia. We make no secret of our possibilities and are acting very transparently.”

Still the American “partners” are not listening. The Russians remain unfazed. Grushko framed it in realpolitik terms: concrete measures will depend on the “military potentials” that could be used against Russia. That’s code for what sort of nuclear weapons will be deployed in Eastern Europe, and what sort of lethal equipment will keep being unloaded in Ukraine.

In fact Ukraine – or country 404, per Andrei Martyanov’s indelible definition – is just a lowly pawn in their (imperial) game. Adding to Kiev’s misery on all fronts, the head of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Alexei Danilov, all but gave away the (regional) game.

In an interview to AP, Danilov said that “the Minsk Agreements can create chaos”; he admitted that Kiev totally lost the war in 2014/15 and then signed the Minsk Agreements “under threat of Russian arms” (false: Kiev was soundly defeated by the Donbass militias); but most of all he admitted Kiev never had any intention of fulfilling the Minsk Agreements.

So Kiev, essentially, is breaking international law: the Minsk Agreements are guaranteed by the UN Security Council resolution 2022 (2015), adopted unanimously. Even the US, UK and France voted “Yes”. So breaking the law is not hard to do, as long as you’re enabled by “big powers”.

And on that invisible “Russian aggression”, well, even Danilov can’t see “the readiness of Russian forces near the border for an invasion, which will take three to seven days.”

Bring on the Dancing Horses

None of the above alters the fundamental fact that the USUK combo – plus the proverbial NATO chihuahuas Poland and the Baltics – are spinning around like mad trying to provoke a war. And the only way to do it is to Release the False Flags. It may be sometime in February, it may be during the Beijing Olympics, it may be before the onset of Spring. But they will come. And the Russians are ready.

The preamble has been staged straight from Monty Python Flying Circus – complete with Crash Test Dummy, a.k.a. POTUS yelling to comedian Zelensky that, in a trashy Mongol revival, “Kiev will be sacked” (to the sound of Bring On the Dancing Horses?); an outraged Zelensky telling POTUS to, c’mon man, back off; and the White House swearing that the US has gamed 18 scenarios for the “Russian invasion” (Lavrov: 17 were written by the intel alphabet soup, the 18th by the State Dept.)

Cue to non-stop, frantic weaponizing of country 404 – everything from Javelins to MANPADs to overpriced Blackwater/Academi-tinged waves of “advisers”.

Switching away from farce, not to mention misguided scenarios starting from the faulty premise of an “invasion”, the only rational move Moscow may be contemplating is to de facto recognize the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, and send in a contingent of peacekeepers.

That, of course, would enrage the neo-con infested War Inc. matrix to intergalactic paroxysm, as it would nullify all those elaborate psyops geared to instill the Fear of God on the unsuspecting victims of the Remixed Khanate of the Golden Horde, burning and looting all the way to…the Hungarian plains?

Then there’s the tricky question of how to de-Nazify Western Ukraine: that will be a strictly Ukrainian matter, with zero Russian involvement.

The ghost of Mackinder is in total freak out mode contemplating in impotence the imperial brilliance of deciding to fight a two-front war against the Russia-China strategic partnership. At least there’s Monty Python to the rescue: the Ministry of Silly Walks has been gloriously revived as the Ministry of Silly Strategies.

Pride of place goes to the phone call placed by Little Blinkie to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi – which contains all the elements of a brilliant comic sketch. It stars with the combo behind that cipher, “Biden”, thinking that the Beijing leadership could influence Putin to not exercise “Russian aggression” against 404. On the sidelines, perhaps there could be some discussion about the “Indo-Pacific” racket.

The plot went downhill when once again Wang Yi – remember Alaska? – made shark fin’s soup out of Blinkie. The key take aways: China totally supports Russia; it’s the US that is destabilizing Europe; and were more sanctions to come, Europe will pay a terrible price, not Russia, which of course can count on a serious helping hand from China.

Now compare it with the phone call between Putin and Macron. It was, to start with, cordial. They discussed “brain-dead” (copyright Macron) NATO. They discussed the proverbial Anglo-Saxon shenanigans. They even discussed the possibility of forming a pan-European group – a sort of anti-AUKUS – with Russia included, curbing the influence of the Five Eyes and bent on avoiding by all means a war in European soil. For the moment, it’s all talk. But the game-changing seeds are all there.

Misguided scenarios insist that Putin skillfully exploited the imperial obsession with the rise and rise of China to re-establish Russia’s sphere of influence. Nonsense. The sphere was always there – and won’t move. The difference is Moscow finally got fed up with the heavy symbolism permeating the unresolved 404 mess: the intermingling of raw Russophobia in Washington and containment/encirclement NATO knocking at the door.

Metaphorically, this may turn out to be the Year of two – sanctioned – Black Water Tigers, one Chinese, one Siberian. They will be harassed non-stop by the headless eagle, blind to its own irreversible decay and always resorting to the serial Hail Mary passes of the only “policy” it knows.

The ultimate danger – especially for the European minions – is that the headless eagle will never let go of its former “indispensable” status without provoking another devastating war. In European soil. Still the tigers persist: in Beijing, before the Games commence, they will be taking yet another step to irreversibly bury the “rules-based international order”.
_______

comments

https://thesaker.is/the-year-of-the-tig ... sian-bang/

[Belligerent Savant]

Heated exchange between State Dept. and AP journalist on evidence Russia is fabricating attacks by Ukraine using crisis actors...hilarious.

Using ZeroHedge here as it seems to offer a play by play of unfolding events. This is all several steps beyond standard Wag The Dog theatrics (those quaint years, pre-911, when blatant gaslighting, propaganda, and manufactured reality was far more covert and less blatant are long gone).

Of course, now that the US Govt publicly called out this devious plan, Russian intel will need to draw up a new dastardly scheme. /sarcasm.

Politics as a cartoon.

Russia has responded to the United States' elaborate and bizarre accusations that it will produce a propaganda false flag video to use a pretext to invade Ukraine, calling the US narrative "delusional" and "nonsense". "The delusional nature of such fabrications — and there are more and more of them every day — is obvious to any more or less experienced political scientist," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in televised remarks Friday.

"It’s not my call to guess why our Western colleagues can be surprised now," Lavrov added. "They are surprised with or without reason, mostly for no reason, or at some reasons that they make up themselves."

Referring to a US State Department explanation on Thursday, which was met with considerable pushback even from US mainstream reporters, Lavrov described, "I saw on the Internet some statements by the Department of State that Russia was plotting to film some fake videos of an alleged Ukrainian attack on the Donbass. The craziness of such ideas... is obvious to any more or less experienced political scientist," the Russian top diplomat said.

When pressed for evidence by AP journalist Matt Lee, the State Department's Ned Price tried to shut down the line of inquiry by suggesting Lee and other skeptics "find solace in information that the Russians are putting out" - to which Lee audibly laughed, given he was the most veteran American journalist in the room.

Earlier on Thursday the Biden administration and US intelligence came out with some explosive and outlandish claims, saying Russia is planning to release a video depicting graphic scenes of a "staged false explosion with corpses, actors depicting mourners, and images of destroyed locations and military equipment," as CNN described it. The story was featured initially in The Washington Post and New York Times - and as usual was anonymously sourced to "officials say...".

Separately on Friday, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, "I’d recommend not to take anyone’s word for it, especially the State Department, when it comes to these issues."

@mtracey

Please watch this video in which journalist Matt Lee accuses State Dept. spokesman Ned Price of veering into "Alex Jones territory" by making the claim that Russia plans to stage a "false flag" attack with "crisis actors" -- Price then sneeringly calls Lee a Russian propagandist

[Video at link]

5:49 PM · Feb 3, 2022

Matt Lee himself during Thursday's testy exchange at the US briefing pointed out when Price refused to cite any level of sourcing or evidence, "That's not evidence, Ned, that's you saying it." Lee pointed out the recent history of lies and half-truths coming from US officials...

"I would like to see some proof that you can show that shows what the Russians are doing. I’ve been doing this a long time…I remember Iraq and that Kabul’s not going to fall."

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... delusional

[BenDhyan]

So now the Big Game get's interesting as Russia and China with their support for each other are making their play..

Putin and Xi declare China-Russia ties ‘superior’ to NATO's

China and Russia have forged a relationship “superior” to the ties that bind NATO, according to their leaders, who called for “a new kind of relationships between world powers” in a challenge to the United States and its Western allies.

That boast followed a call for NATO to stop admitting any new countries into the alliance, which the pair accused of maintaining “ideologized Cold War approaches." Xi made an overt show of support for Putin’s position in the ongoing Ukraine crisis, while the Kremlin chief offered a corollary endorsement of the Chinese Communist Party's desire to control Taiwan — exemplifying their broad-based challenge to the ideas about international affairs that have characterized Western foreign policy debates since the end of the Cold War.

“The Chinese side is sympathetic to and supports the proposals put forward by the Russian Federation to create long-term legally binding security guarantees in Europe,” the statement reads.

Putin, for his part, endorsed Beijing’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan — the island democracy that Chinese Communist officials have never ruled but regard as a breakaway province that must eventually be brought under mainland Chinese governance.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/putin-and-xi-declare-china-russia-ties-superior-to-natos

[BenDhyan]

Looks like this could be for real,, Putin and Bidon to have telephone call 12 Feb and also Macron and Putin, let's hope they can turn it around...

US ramps up Ukraine warning, says Russia may invade in days

By MATTHEW LEE, AAMER MADHANI and VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Friday escalated its dire warnings about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying it could take place within days, even as emergency diplomatic efforts continued. Adding to the sense of crisis, officials said Biden ordered another 3,000 U.S. troops to Poland.

The White House said it still didn’t know if Russian President Vladimir Putin had made a decision to invade, but it said Putin has assembled all the elements to do so quickly and told Americans in Ukraine to leave within the next 48 hours.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-boris-johnson-joe-biden-europe-moscow-4d1e75eb68e1396bef885425c65039fb?utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP

[BenDhyan]

Breaking..

[BenDhyan]

US to evacuate Ukraine embassy amid Russian invasion fears

By Patrick Reilly February 11, 2022

The US is preparing to evacuate its embassy in Kyiv amid fears of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine.

An announcement for all staff at the embassy to leave the country is expected early Saturday from the State Department, US officials told The Associated Press.

The families of US staffers at the embassy had been ordered to leave last month, but non-essential employees were left to decide on their own if they wanted to go or stay.

Some diplomats will be relocated to the far western portion of Ukraine, near the border with NATO ally Poland, so the US retains a diplomatic presence in the country, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are also scheduled to speak by phone Saturday.

https://nypost.com/2022/02/11/us-to-evacuate-ukraine-embassy-amid-russian-invasion-fears/

[drstrangelove]

Russia pulls diplomats from Ukraine

- https://www.rt.com/russia/549156-russia ... c-ukraine/

hopefully Ukraine caves and replaces its Western puppet government with a Russian one. It isn't a sovereign nation, it's a buffer fringe nation within the Russian sphere of influence. Because of this Ukraine cannot achieve political stability while under western influence so long as NATO nations continue to view Russia as a threat.

If I was Henry Kissinger type I'd cut a deal with Russia over the specifics of the sanctions to ensure the timing can distract from what is currently happening in western economies. After that I'd then kill myself though. Suicide bomb at WEF meeting or something.

[conniption]

therussophile

The Crisis in Ukraine Is Not About Ukraine. It’s About Germany

Mike Whitney
February 11, 2022


This post was originally published on this site

“The primordial interest of the United States, over which for centuries we have fought wars– the First, the Second and Cold Wars– has been the relationship between Germany and Russia, because united there, they’re the only force that could threaten us. And to make sure that that doesn’t happen.” George Friedman, STRATFOR CEO at The Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs

The Ukrainian crisis has nothing to do with Ukraine. It’s about Germany and, in particular, a pipeline that connects Germany to Russia called Nord Stream 2. Washington sees the pipeline as a threat to its primacy in Europe and has tried to sabotage the project at every turn. Even so, Nord Stream has pushed ahead and is now fully-operational and ready-to-go. Once German regulators provide the final certification, the gas deliveries will begin. German homeowners and businesses will have a reliable source of clean and inexpensive energy while Russia will see a significant boost to their gas revenues. It’s a win-win situation for both parties.

The US Foreign Policy establishment is not happy about these developments. They don’t want Germany to become more dependent on Russian gas because commerce builds trust and trust leads to the expansion of trade. As relations grow warmer, more trade barriers are lifted, regulations are eased, travel and tourism increase, and a new security architecture evolves. In a world where Germany and Russia are friends and trading partners, there is no need for US military bases, no need for expensive US-made weapons and missile systems, and no need for NATO. There’s also no need to transact energy deals in US Dollars or to stockpile US Treasuries to balance accounts. Transactions between business partners can be conducted in their own currencies which is bound to precipitate a sharp decline in the value of the dollar and a dramatic shift in economic power. This is why the Biden administration opposes Nord Stream. It’s not just a pipeline, it’s a window into the future; a future in which Europe and Asia are drawn closer together into a massive free trade zone that increases their mutual power and prosperity while leaving the US on the outside looking in. Warmer relations between Germany and Russia signal an end to the “unipolar” world order the US has overseen for the last 75 years. A German-Russo alliance threatens to hasten the decline of the Superpower that is presently inching closer to the abyss. This is why Washington is determined to do everything it can to sabotage Nord Stream and keep Germany within its orbit. It’s a matter of survival.

That’s where Ukraine comes into the picture. Ukraine is Washington’s ‘weapon of choice’ for torpedoing Nord Stream and putting a wedge between Germany and Russia. The strategy is taken from page one of the US Foreign Policy Handbook under the rubric: Divide and Rule. Washington needs to create the perception that Russia poses a security threat to Europe. That’s the goal. They need to show that Putin is a bloodthirsty aggressor with a hair-trigger temper who cannot be trusted. To that end, the media has been given the assignment of reiterating over and over again, “Russia is planning to invade Ukraine.” What’s left unsaid is that Russia has not invaded any country since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and that the US has invaded or toppled regimes in more than 50 countries in the same period of time, and that the US maintains over 800 military bases in countries around the world. None of this is reported by the media, instead the focus is on “evil Putin” who has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border threatening to plunge all of Europe into another bloody war.

All of the hysterical war propaganda is created with the intention of manufacturing a crisis that can be used to isolate, demonize and, ultimately, splinter Russia into smaller units. The real target, however, is not Russia, but Germany. Check out this excerpt from an article by Michael Hudson at The Unz Review:

“The only way left for U.S. diplomats to block European purchases is to goad Russia into a military response and then claim that avenging this response outweighs any purely national economic interest. As hawkish Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, explained in a State Department press briefing on January 27: “If Russia invades Ukraine one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.” (“America’s Real Adversaries Are Its European and Other Allies”, The Unz Review)

There it is in black and white. The Biden team wants to “goad Russia into a military response” in order to sabotage NordStream. That implies there will be some kind of provocation designed to induce Putin to send his troops across the border to defend the ethnic Russians in the eastern part of the country. If Putin takes the bait, the response would be swift and harsh. The media will excoriate the action as a threat to all of Europe while leaders around the world will denounce Putin as the “new Hitler”. This is Washington’s strategy in a nutshell, and the whole production is being orchestrated with one goal in mind; to make it politically impossible for the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to wave NordStream through the final approval process.

Given what we know about Washington’s opposition to Nord Stream, readers may wonder why earlier in the year the Biden administration lobbied Congress NOT to impose more sanctions on the project. The answer to that question is simple: Domestic politics. Germany is currently decommissioning its nuclear power plants and needs natural gas to make up for the energy shortfall. Also, the threat of economic sanctions is a “turn-off” for Germans who see them as a sign of foreign meddling. “Why is the United States interfering in our energy decisions,” asks the average German. “Washington should mind its own business and stay out of ours.” This is precisely the response one would expect from any reasonable person.

Then, there’s this from Al Jazeera:

“Germans in the majority support the project, it is only parts of the elite and media who are against the pipeline…
“The more the US talks about sanctioning or criticizes the project, the more it becomes popular in German society,” said Stefan Meister, a Russia and eastern Europe expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations.” (“Nord Stream 2: Why Russia’s pipeline to Europe divides the West”, AlJazeera)

So, public opinion is solidly behind Nord Stream which helps to explain why Washington settled on a new approach. Sanctions are not going to work, so Uncle Sam has flipped to Plan B: Create a big enough external threat that Germany will be forced to block the opening of the pipeline. Frankly, the strategy smacks of desperation, but you have to be impressed by Washington’s perseverance. They might be down by 5 runs in the bottom of the 9th, but they haven’t thrown in the towel just yet. They’re going to give it one last shot and see if they can make some headway.

On Monday, President Biden held his first joint-press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the White House. The ballyhoo surrounding the event was simply unprecedented. Everything was orchestrated to manufacture a “crisis atmosphere” that Biden used to pressure the chancellor in the direction of US policy. Earlier in the week, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki repeatedly said that a “Russian invasion was imminent.” Her comments were followed by State Department flak Nick Price opining that the Intel agencies had provided him with details of an alleged Russian-backed “false flag” operation they expected to take place in the near future in east Ukraine. Price’s warning was followed on Sunday morning by national security advisor Jake Sullivan claiming that a Russian invasion could happen at any time maybe “even tomorrow.” This was just days after Bloomberg News agency had published its sensational and utterly-false headline that “Russia Invades Ukraine”.

Can you see the pattern here? Can you see how these baseless claims were all used to apply pressure to the unsuspecting German chancellor who seemed oblivious to the campaign that was aimed at him?

As one might expect, the final blow was delivered by the American president himself. During the press conference Biden stated emphatically that,

“If Russia invades … there will no longer [be] a Nord Stream 2.. We will bring an end to it.”

So, now Washington sets policy for Germany???

What insufferable arrogance!

The German chancellor was taken aback by Biden’s comments which clearly were not part of the original script. Even so, Scholz never agreed to cancel Nord Stream and refused to even mention the pipeline by name. If Biden thought he could sandbag the leader of the world’s third biggest economy by cornering him in a public forum, he guessed wrong. Germany remains committed to launching Nord Stream regardless of potential flare-ups in far-flung Ukraine. But that could change at any time. After all, who knows what incitements Washington might be planning in the near future? Who knows how many lives they are prepared to sacrifice in order to put a wedge between Germany and Russia? Who knows what risks Biden is willing to take to slow America’s decline and prevent a new “polycentric” world order from emerging? Anything could happen in the weeks ahead. Anything.

For now, Germany is in the catbird seat. It’s up to Scholz to decide how the matter will be settled. Will he implement the policy that best serves the interests of the German people or will he cave in to Biden’s relentless arm twisting? Will he chart a new course that strengthens new alliances in the bustling Eurasian corridor or will he throw his support behind Washington’s crazed geopolitical ambitions? Will he accept Germany’s pivotal role in a new world order— in which many emerging centers of power share equally in global governance and where the leadership remains unflinchingly committed to multilateralism, peaceful development and security for all– or will he try to prop up the tattered post-War system that has clearly outlived its shelf-life?

One thing is certain; whatever Germany decides is bound to affect us all.
_______

https://therussophile.org/the-crisis-in ... tney.html/

[Harvey]

The high camp tone of the article belies the scale of horror about to unfold. We're not being dominated by rational adults, we've inherited the decision making capability of inhuman scale systems pretending to have a human face (the better to impose 'their' will) combined with ancient cults (aristocracy) with the horror of the profit imperative as the exclamation mark. It's quite a heady apocalyptic brew. Those of you who are not Branch Covidian, please read the above article with your sense of the current opposed power blocks in mind, and then every other article you can find on the same subject. I'm seeing kilometres of rock raining down upon us at orbital velocity. Is anyone else seeing something different?

Please...