Natylie Baldwin's Blog, page 136

Lev Golinkin: The Western Media Is Whitewashing the Azov Battalion

By Lev Golinkin, The Nation, 6/12/23

Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has already resulted in millions of losers—chief among them the civilians who’ve been tortured, murdered, forced to become refugees, or forced to spend their days worrying about loved ones fighting Russia.

But there are also winners: the neofascists whom Putin’s war has turned into heroes.

For seven years, Western institutions have warned about Ukraine’s Azov Movement, which began as a neo-Nazi paramilitary group in 2014 and became notorious for its worldwide recruitment of extremists.

Then came Russia’s invasion. Within months, Azov fighters were being feted in Congress and at Stanford University. MSNBC swooned over a Ukrainian soldier whose Twitter account overflowed with neo-Nazi images. Facebook made the stunning decision to allow posts praising the Azov Battalion, even though the company admitted that it was a hate group.

This overnight normalization of white supremacy was possible because Western institutions, driven by a zeal to ignore anything negative about our Ukrainian allies, decided that a neo-Nazi military formation in a war-torn nation had suddenly and miraculously stopped being neo-Nazi.

But the truth is that this is an easily debunked fantasy spun out by a handful of propagandists. Yet Western media has repeated their falsehoods with a neglect for the basic tenets of journalism that stretches beyond the fog of war into the realm of intentional blindness.

Our whitewashing of Azov takes place amid a deadly surge of white supremacy that stretches from New Zealand to Buffalo, N.Y. That makes this a story about more than Ukraine. It’s about the deepest, nothing-matters cynicism that screams about 300 neo-Nazis in polo shirts yet embraces a brigade of battle-hardened extremists. It’s about warning that white supremacy—especially after being mainstreamed by Donald Trump and Fox News—is an existential threat to our society, while making it clear that some exclusions apply.

It’s about “good people on both sides.”

Azov was born shortly after the 2014 uprising that ousted Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Those events triggered a counter-revolt by Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s eastern regions who supported Yanukovych.

It quickly became apparent that the Ukrainian Army had been severely degraded by decades of corruption, leaving the new government struggling to combat the rebels. Into that void stepped far-right groups that formed volunteer battalions to fight for Kyiv. One of these groups, created out of the Patriot of Ukraine neo-Nazi gang, gained fame by helping restore Ukrainian government control over the city of Mariupol, a port on the Sea of Azov. It became known as the Azov Battalion.

Azov’s tactics and ideology were exactly what you’d expect from a paramilitary element formed by neo-Nazis. Its insignia features popular neo-Nazi symbols: the Wolfsangel (a runic double hook) and the Sonnenrad (sun wheel). Since then, the unit has become infamous for torture and for its aggressive recruitment of white supremacists from around the globe.

In November 2014, Kyiv sought to gain control of the Azov Battalion by absorbing it into the government. Azov became a regiment in Ukraine’s National Guard, which made it a potential direct recipient of American aid. The prospect of organized white fanatics being aided by the US quickly came to the attention of Congress, where lawmakers attempted to ban the Pentagon from working with Azov, though they were ultimately unsuccessful. Later, in 2018, a ban on providing US military aid to the Azov Regiment did pass.

The media also ramped up scrutiny. “Volunteer Ukrainian Unit Includes Nazis,” USA Today reported in March 2015. The Daily Beast followed with a piece titled “How Many Neo-Nazis Is the U.S. Backing in Ukraine?”

Patriot of Ukraine—the gang whose members formed the original core of the Azov Battalion—always had geopolitical ambitions. Its leader, Andriy Biletsky, who was Azov’s first commander, capitalized on its notoriety to develop political and street-muscle wings for the Azov brand. The regiment soon became just one part of a far larger entity: the Azov Movement.

In 2016, Biletsky, who by then had left the regiment, established the far-right National Corps Party, headed by Azov veterans. Ukraine, despite Putin’s lies, is not teeming with fascists, which is why the National Corps has performed abysmally in elections. Where it did find success was in global networking with extremists.

Azov began sponsoring neo-Nazi concerts and sporting tournaments that attracted radicals: In 2018, the FBI arrested California white supremacists who had met with a member of the Azov Movement.

By 2021, the Azov Movement’s position as a premier hub of transnational white supremacy was firmly established. It was tracked by researchers; its fighters were banned from receiving military aid by Congress; and it was kicked off Facebook. The State Department declared its political wing a “nationalist hate group.” Journalists exposed its enlistment of fighters from Sweden to Australia.

Then came Russia’s invasion. Within months, many of these same institutions had plunged into an Orwellian stampede to persuade the West that Ukraine’s neo-Nazi regiment was suddenly not a problem.

It wasn’t pretty. In 2018, The Guardian had published an article titled “Neo-Nazi Groups Recruit Britons to Fight in Ukraine,” in which the Azov Regiment was called “a notorious Ukrainian fascist militia.” Indeed, as late as November 2020, The Guardian was calling Azov a “neo-Nazi extremist movement.”

But by February 2023, The Guardian was assuring readers that Azov’s fighters “are now leading the defence of Mariupol, insisting they have shed their previous dubious politics and rapidly becoming Ukrainian heroes.” The campaign believed to have recruited British far-right activists was now a thing of the past.

The BBC had been among the first to warn of Azov, criticizing Kyiv in 2014 for ignoring a group that “sports three Nazi symbols on its insignia.” A 2018 report noted Azov’s “well-established links to the far right.”

Shortly after Putin’s invasion, though, the BBC began to assert that although “to Russia, they are neo-Nazis and their origins lie in a neo-Nazi group,” the Azov Regiment was being “falsely portrayed as Nazi” by Moscow.

Meanwhile, Germany’s state-owned Deutsche Welle required only three months after the invasion to pivot from calling Azov “a neo-Nazi volunteer regiment” to saying it was “accused of having [a] neo-Nazi past” by Russia. By this logic, the BBC’s and Deutsche Welle’s previous Azov coverage had been lies concocted by the Kremlin.

There is a kernel of truth in the allegations that Azov is just a Russian bogeyman. The Kremlin and Ukraine’s neo-Nazis have a symbiotic relationship that reaches to the very heart of this war: Putin needed a pretext to justify his illegal invasion; for that, he turned to Azov. Moscow seized on Azov’s existence to paint all of Ukraine as a cesspool of fascism in need of “denazification.” Azov is the linchpin in Putin’s narrative—without it, his excuse for the war is gone.

In turn, Azov’s defenders have capitalized on Russia’s obsession by implying that anyone who criticizes the group is a Putin apologist. Moscow and Azov use each other to defend the indefensible: For Russia, it’s acceptable to invade a sovereign country to fight neo-Nazis; for the West, it’s appropriate to lionize neo-Nazis because they’re fighting Russia.

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE OLD

The problem with insisting that Azov’s neo-Nazism is just a Russian lie is the abundance of evidence to the contrary. Seven years’ worth of Western articles chronicling the group’s nature was too much to ignore. This left Azov’s whitewashers with the unenviable task of cobbling together a come-to-Jesus story in which Azov began as a neo-Nazi paramilitary group but somehow saw the error of its ways before 2022.

The narrative that emerged goes like this: (a) Azov’s deradicalization started after it joined Ukraine’s National Guard—over time, Biletsky and other veterans of the 2014 battalion were filtered out, implying that the new leadership is neo-Nazi free; (b) yes, there are a few leftover neo-Nazis in the National Corps, Azov’s political party; but (c) that doesn’t matter, because the Azov Regiment—later a brigade—has long since separated from the National Corps, which is little more than a fringe political sideshow.

These talking points were propagated by Kyiv, Azov, and a handful of experts furnishing quotes from one journalist to the next; the press, in turn, dashed out articles reporting these claims as fact. In reading these pieces, one quickly notes the absence of evidence. The “Azov has been denazified” story is presented as verified truth, often using quotes from the same few experts who also state it without offering proof.

There’s a reason for that: The whole thing is composed of easily disprovable falsehoods.

Take the notion that Azov was deradicalized after joining the National Guard in November 2014. This ignores the fact that Western outlets routinely documented Azov’s neo-Nazism over the next seven years, through 2021.

Whatever reformative influence Kyiv had to offer clearly didn’t work: Azov continued to recruit white supremacists, and in 2016, it was accused by human rights groups of committing war crimes—the only difference being that after 2014, it did so as part of a NATO-trained force.

Next is the lie that Azov denazified itself by jettisoning veterans of the original 2014 neo-Nazi battalion—a claim echoed by Reuters, The Financial Times, the AP, The Jerusalem Post, and others around the spring of 2022, when the regiment was commanded by Denys Prokopenko and his deputy, Svyatoslav Palamar.

The problem is that both Prokopenko and Palamar were Azov members going back to 2014. Supposedly led by new blood, the unit was actually commanded by veterans of its far-right beginning.

Palamar’s neo-Nazi roots reach back even further—he belonged to the Patriot of Ukraine gang that formed Azov. Yet the AP and Haaretz both cited Palamar downplaying Azov’s extremism while reporting nothing about his past with Patriot of Ukraine.

Prokopenko, for his part, came out of the White Boys Club, superfans of the Dynamo Kyiv soccer team (far-right groups organized around soccer teams are common across Europe), who celebrated him when he was given an award in October 2022. The group’s Facebook posts have typically included phrases like “100% White” and “88” (code for “Heil Hitler”), praise for Holocaust perpetrators, and Waffen-SS insignia.

During his time in Azov, Prokopenko’s platoon was unofficially called the Borodach Division. Its insignia was the Totenkopf, the skull-and-crossbones design used by the SS, which has become a popular neo-Nazi symbol. (Azov’s version added some fascist whimsy by giving the skull a beard and hipster mustache.)

Azov’s current acting commander—who took over in June 2022, after Prokopenko surrendered to Russian forces—is also an original Azov veteran.

But that’s just the first Azov Brigade. Over the past year, the movement has spawned new formations led by extremists.

MORE HEADS FOR THE HYDRA

In February 2022, as Russian tanks tore across the land, Ukraine began activating territorial defense forces (TDFs), militia units based in cities. Prominent ones included Azov offshoots in Kyiv, Dnipro, and Sumy, which were eventually merged. Today, the Azov Movement counts two brigades: the initial one in the National Guard and the recently created one in the army.

Maksym Zhorin, an Azov TDF commander in Kyiv who’s a veteran of the 2014 battalion and a leader in the National Corps (Azov’s far-right party, which the Western media assures us has been severed from the military units) worked closely with Biletsky.

Rodion Kudryashev, the deputy commander of Azov’s army brigade, is also a 2014 veteran and a National Corps leader; he says Biletsky is the first person he turns to for guidance. An Azov SSO Regiment commander, Denys Sokur, previously headed the National Corps’ Sumy branch.

Dmytro Kukharchuk, one of the main commanders of Azov’s army brigade (he commands the unit’s Second Battalion), is another 2014 veteran who worships Biletsky and has been photographed with a T-shirt of the Reconquista Club, a thinly veiled reference to the white supremacist movement to “reconquer” Europe.

Azov runs its own military school, an example of the enormous autonomy that Kyiv grants the movement. Its commander, Kyrylo Berkal, is another 2014 veteran whose social media featured Nazi symbols.

These are only some examples of Azov military units commanded by veterans of the original neo-Nazi battalion and/or leaders of the National Corps. So much for denazification.

NEO-NAZI BRIGADE CHECKS ITS WHITE PRIVILEGE

A few years ago, the ex–Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke embarked on a rebranding campaign by telling journalists that he was not a white supremacist but a “human rights activist.” His claim was covered by Esquire, ABC, Politico, and The New York Times.

Whether Duke sincerely meant what he said depends on one’s definition of “human.” Yet none of the outlets that reported on his rebranding were naive enough—or, given the recent rise of white terrorism, oblivious enough—to start referring to the former Grand Wizard of the KKK as “human rights activist David Duke.”

In their rush to lionize Azov, however, Western institutions have been far more reckless. The Times of London celebrated Azov’s supposed conversion by referring to it as “an elite battalion challenging its far-right reputation.” The purported evidence for this included a Ukrainian soldier’s claim that “We are patriots but we are not Nazis,” and a statement by “an expert on the European right” that “Azov has evolved so far from its origins as to make its far-right roots meaningless.”

The photos The Times ran with the article show an Azov soldier wearing a T-shirt for M8L8TH, a vicious neo-Nazi band with songs praising Hitler and featuring unabashed anti-Semitism. M8L8TH is linked to Azov; the California neo-Nazis arrested by the FBI had met with its lead singer in Kyiv. It’s hard to find a more fitting illustration of the media blithely whitewashing neo-Nazis.

Forbes similarly cheered Azov’s alleged denazification by running the demonstrably false claim that it had stopped using the Wolfsangel symbol. The Wolfsangel is one of the first things you see on Azov’s website, just as it was on the day the Forbes story ran; in fact, it’s the profile photo for all Azov’s social media accounts.

The whitewashing of neo-Nazi history extends even to Biletsky, who had been so toxic that even Azov’s defenders refused to normalize him. That didn’t stop the Financial Times from running Biletsky’s quotes about Azov being “patriotic” and “nationalist.” The FT then quoted him praising Stepan Bandera, a Nazi collaborator whose men massacred Jews, as a hero.

A far more dangerous platforming came from Facebook, which had banned Azov in 2019. In February 2022, Facebook loosened the ban in surreal, Dril-esque fashion: The company acknowledged that Azov remained a hate group but decided to allow posts praising it, as long as the praise was about defending Ukraine. It was a “both-sides-ing” of white supremacy, a chilling message that, sometimes, neo-Nazis are heroes.

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, later simplified matters by removing the Azov Regiment from its list of dangerous organizations.

Others, too, said the quiet part out loud. “Finally, it is worth noting that the ‘neo-Nazi Azov regiment’ has never been implicated in any actual extremist acts—with the sole exception of credible reports of human rights violations, including torture of detainees, by Azov fighters in the Donbas in 2015–2016,” wrote The Bulwark.

They may have tortured people, but nobody’s perfect.

By September 2022, as the campaign to transform Azov into paladins of democracy purred along, America rolled out the red carpet.

Azov’s US tour was initially reported by researcher Moss Robeson. The group made stops in Washington, D.C., and in New Jersey, where its soldiers—including a founder of the original battalion—met with Senators Rick Scott and Todd Young and Representatives Pete Sessions, Dan Crenshaw, Adam Schiff, and Michael Waltz, among others.

Then came Stanford University, which welcomed Azov even though seven months earlier its own program for tracking extremism had published an exhaustive study detailing Azov’s Nazi ties. The event was attended by Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia and an adherent of the “Azov has been denazified” myth, who stood in front of a projection of its Wolfsangel insignia.

It sometimes seems that we’re witnessing an experiment in America’s willingness to ignore what’s in front of our own eyes. In February, an employee of the federal government’s US Helsinki Commission giddily tweeted out photos of himself posing with the Azov Wolfsangel and wearing a patch with a picture of a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator; the employee continued defending the tweets, even as he eventually deleted them. It’s hard to imagine this being tolerated with other Holocaust perpetrators (see the media storms surrounding similar collaborators).

Or take Azov’s press officer, Dmytro Kozatsky, who was paraded around Congress, MSNBC, Vogue, and a Manhattan film festival. As Robeson reported, Kozatsky’s Twitter account was a Whitman’s Sampler of white supremacy, including the “1488” neo-Nazi code, Waffen-SS insignia, a swastika, and myriad “likes” for images such as a Totenkopf, Adolf Hitler, Nazi murderer Amon Goeth, the KKK, and graffiti reading “Death to Kikes.”

THE CHOICE

As Azov’s defenders in Washington love to point out, the brigade and its offshoots are merely a tiny fraction of Ukraine’s armed forces. Why focus on them? they intone. That’s what Putin does!

The saddest thing about this logic—aside from stating that a battle-hardened neo-Nazi formation in an unstable, war-torn country isn’t a big deal—is that it’s true.

Azov is a small fraction of those fighting to save Ukraine. For every feat attributed to Azov units, there were many more accomplished by others. Even the legendary siege of Mariupol last year that made Azov famous involved Ukrainian marines who suffered and held out just as bravely. We could have honored them. Instead, we went out of our way to glorify Azov.

Nobody forced us to. It’s been a choice, and considering that Googling Azov’s name yields hit after hit about white supremacy, it’s a conscious, informed one.

Putin isn’t the only one obsessed with Azov. We can’t get enough of them. They’re our neo-Nazis.

Belarusian President Brokers Deal to End Wagner “Insurrection”

RT, 6/24/23

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced on Saturday that he had arranged a deal whereby Wagner Group leader Evgeny Prigozhin will abandon his mutiny in exchange for “security guarantees” for his fighters.

“Evgeny Prigozhin accepted the proposal of President Alexander Lukashenko to stop the movement of armed men of Wagner in Russia and take further steps to de-escalate tension,” read a statement from Lukashenko’s office.

According to the statement, Lukashenko and Prigozhin held talks for the “whole day,” and “came to an agreement on the inadmissibility of unleashing a bloodbath on the territory of Russia.”

Lukashenko’s office said that the talks were held in coordination with Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that Prigozhin was offered “an advantageous and acceptable option of resolving the situation, with security guarantees for the Wagner PMC fighters.”

The news came as a Wagner convoy drew closer to Moscow, several hours after members of the private military outfit passed through the southern city of Rostov-on-Don. In a series of video statements released since Friday, Prigozhin declared that he was advancing on Moscow to confront Russian military officials he deemed corrupt.

Prigozhin garnered no support from the Russian establishment. Instead, Putin accused the Wagner chief of “backstabbing our country and our people,” while Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) opened a criminal investigation into Prigozhin for “calling for an armed rebellion.”

Senior Russian political and military figures denounced Prigozhin’s mutiny, and called on Wagner fighters to lay down their arms.

Shortly after Lukashenko’s announcement, Prigozhin confirmed that his troops were abandoning their push to Moscow and returning to their field camps.

Putin Gave Public Statement on Wagner Mutiny

There have been reports on social media that Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner private military group, had taken control of the military quarters in Rostov-on-Don and at least some of his forces have advanced on to Vorozneh. He has reportedly said that he will blockade Rostov until Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov (both of whom he has accused of mismanagement of the SMO) are removed or he will advance to Moscow for them. I can’t verify that all of the above details are true at this time.

(A good analysis of the crisis and what led up to it by Moscow-based analyst Andrew Korybko can be read here.)

Around 10:00 am Moscow time Russian President Vladmir Putin gave a public televised address.

He called Prigozhin’s actions mutiny and a “criminal act.” He also used the term “treason” and referred to Prigozhin’s acts as “a stab in the back” being used by Russia’s enemies.

He said Russia would not allow a repeat of 1917 by “opportunists”. Putin said that measures will be taken that are very hard and those responsible will be brought to justice. The armed forces and other agencies have been given orders. Furthermore, restrictions have been taken in Moscow. He said that the situation in Rostov is “complicated.” He stated that those participating in the mutiny have betrayed Russia and he urged Russians to cease any participation in it.

Here is the full transcript from Slavyangrad Telegram channel:

I appeal to the citizens of Russia, to the personnel of the Armed Forces, law enforcement agencies and special services, to the soldiers and commanders who are now fighting at their battle positions, repelling the enemy’s attacks and doing so heroically—I know, I spoke again tonight with the commanders of all directions. I am also addressing those who have been lured into this criminal enterprise and pushed onto the path of the gravest crime—armed mutiny—through deceit or threats.

Russia today is fighting an uphill battle for its future, repelling the aggression of the neo-Nazis and their masters. Virtually the entire military, economic and information machine of the West is directed against us. We are fighting for the lives and security of our people, for our sovereignty and independence. For the right to be and remain Russia—a state with a thousand-year history.

This battle, when the fate of our people is being decided, requires the unity of all forces, unity, consolidation, and responsibility. When everything that weakens us, any kind of discord, which our external enemies can and do use to undermine us from inside, must be put aside.

And so the actions that split our unity are, in essence, an apostasy from our people, from our comrades-in-arms who are now fighting on the frontlines. It is a stab in the back of our country and our people.

This is exactly the blow that was dealt to Russia in 1917, when the country fought the First World War. But the victory was stolen from her. Intrigues, squabbles, politicking behind the backs of the army and the people resulted in the greatest shock, the destruction of the army and the disintegration of the state, the loss of vast territories. The result was the tragedy of the civil war.

The Russians killed the Russians, the brothers killed their brothers, and the lucrative interests were reaped by all kinds of political adventurers and foreign forces who divided the country and tore it apart.

We will not allow this to happen again. We will protect both our people and our statehood against all threats. Including internal treachery.

And what we have faced is precisely betrayal. Excessive ambitions and vested interests have led to treason. Betrayal of their country, their people, and the cause for which the fighters and commanders of Wagner fought and died alongside our other units. The heroes who liberated Soledar and Artemovsk, towns and villages of Donbass, fought and gave their lives for Novorossiya, for the unity of the Russian world. Their name and glory have also been betrayed by those who are trying to organise rebellion, pushing the country towards anarchy and fratricide. To defeat, ultimately, and capitulation.

I repeat, any internal turmoil is a mortal threat to our statehood, to us as a nation. It is a blow to Russia, to our people. And our actions to defend the Fatherland against such a threat will be tough. Everyone who deliberately chose the path of betrayal, who prepared an armed insurrection, who chose the path of blackmail and terrorist methods, will suffer an inevitable punishment, they will be held accountable both before the law and before our people.

The Armed Forces and other government agencies have received the necessary orders, and additional anti-terrorist measures are being introduced in Moscow, the Moscow region, and a number of other regions. Decisive action will also be taken to stabilise the situation in Rostov-on-Don. It remains complex, with the work of the civilian and military authorities effectively blocked.

As the President of Russia and Commander-in-Chief, as a citizen of Russia, I will do my utmost to defend the country, to protect the constitutional order, the lives, security, and freedom of its citizens.

Those who organized and prepared the military uprising, who raised arms against their comrades-in-arms, have betrayed Russia. And they will be held accountable for it. And I urge those who are being dragged into this crime not to make the fatal and tragic, an irreversible mistake, and to make the only right choice – to stop participating in criminal actions.

I believe that we will preserve and defend what is dear and sacred to us, and together with our Motherland we will overcome any trials, we will become even stronger.

RT: Wagner PMC ‘armed coup’ attempt in Russia

There are a lot of unverified claims on social media right now and it’s hard to know for sure what’s really going on. I will do my best to keep readers updated as soon as I get meaningful and credible information. The timeline from RT below is from earliest events to most recent – Natylie

RT, 6/23/23

There is some turmoil in Russia after Evgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner Group private military company, was accused by the government of staging an armed insurrection.

The charges were brought late Friday night [Moscow time] after Prigozhin accused Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov, the chair of the Russian general staff, of serious crimes.

Prigozhin claimed to have ordered troops loyal to him to move towards Rostov-on-Don, a major city in southern Russia. Security measures were also reportedly beefed up in Moscow.

On Friday, Evgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian private military company Wagner Group, claimed that senior Russian commanders were traitors and demanded the prosecution of Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov, the chair of the general staff.Later in the day Prigozhin claimed that the Russian military had attacked Wagner reserve positions. Prigozhin announced that forces loyal to him were moving towards the city of Rostov-on-Don.The Defense Ministry denied the claim. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) accused Prigozhin of staging an armed coup and called on Wagner fighters to apprehend him.Moscow’s police have increased their presence in the city, taking additional measures to protect the Russian capital’s ‘most important buildings, public authorities and transport infrastructure’, the news agency TASS has reported. Several pictures and videos of military hardware moving through the city’s streets have appeared on the web.Putin is being informed on all the latest developments regarding the ‘armed coup attempt’ by Wagner PMC and its boss Evgeniy Prigozhin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stated, according to TASS news agency. Peskov said Russia’s Ministry of Defense, FSB and National Guard are feeding information after ‘receiving orders from the president’.Senior Russian military commanders, including Deputy commander of the Russian Joint Forces, Army General Sergey Surovikin and Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev have recorded public video addresses to Wagner troops. They denounced Prigozhin’s actions and called on the fighters to stand down.“This is a stab in the back to the nation and the president,” Alekseev said, warning that there was a risk of a civil war in Russia. Surovikin urged the soldiers to return to their positions and seek a peaceful resolution of the situation.The White House has said it is “monitoring the situation” in Russia. President Joe Biden has been informed about the developments, National Security Council spokesperson Adam Hodge told the media. US officials indicated that they consider the situation ‘serious’ and beyond Prigozhin’s previous statements launched against the Russian military leadership in the past, according to CNN.Despite claims by Evgeny Prigozhin, there appears to be no video or photo evidence of any PMC forces moving through Russia. There are also no reports of any battles or skirmishes.The situation in Rostov-on-Don appears to be relatively calm, according to media reports from the city. Troops are deployed at the headquarters of the Russian Southern military district, but there are no signs that they are preparing to fight off an attack, according to Kommersant daily.TASS has reported increased security on the highway connecting Rostov-on-Don with central Russia, including Moscow. Police presence has been increased, and inbound traffic is kettled and subject to inspections. Vehicles are not allowed to travel from the city towards the capital at all, according to the news agency.The Russian Defense Ministry has warned on its Telegram channel that Ukrainian forces were preparing to use “Prigozhin’s provocation” to launch an assault in the vicinity of Artyomovsk. The Donbass city, which Ukraine calls Bakhmut, was the focal point of an intensive months-long battle, in which PMC Wagner played a significant role. The city was taken by Russian forces last month.Traffic camera video feed from Rostov-on-Don, which could have shown the alleged columns of Wagner military hardware moving through the streets, is presently unavailable. When trying to access the feed, users are greeted with a message saying ‘Access to the broadcast is temporarily limited’.No unusual activity has been noted near the Wagner PMC headquarters in St. Petersburg, according to a TASS correspondent at the location. The news agency added that security guards have also denied reports that a search was underway in the building.Rostov Region Governor Vasily Golubev has urged residents via his Telegram channel to “keep calm and not leave home without need.” He added that law enforcement was doing everything necessary to ensure the safety of civilians.A video purportedly showing an armed confrontation between Wagner PMC forces and the Russian Army has been making the rounds on social media. However it has not been independently verified. (Go to RT link above to view the video – NB)The Russian social network VK has blocked one of the statements released by Prigozhin’s press service on the platform. The post now states that the message is not available in Russia, based on a decision by the Prosecutor General’s office.There are also claims that some news about Prigozhin’s latest steps are being blocked by Yandex, the Russian tech giant that runs an eponymous web search engine.The Rostov Region branch of the Emergencies Ministry has warned about a fake post issued in its name on social media. The message falsely claims that a curfew has been imposed in the region, adding that those spreading the message are apparently seeking to cause panic.Igor Artamonov, the governor of Lipetsk Region, has announced increased security measures, with particular focus on protecting critical infrastructure. He called on residents to avoid traveling to southern parts of Russia, including the neighboring Voronezh Region.“The latest events have disturbed all of us. But I ask you all to keep calm,” he said on his Telegram account.Lipetsk is located some 370 km south of Moscow and 590 km north of Rostov-on-Don.The road connecting the city of Rostov-on-Don with the Azov Sea port of Taganrog, some 60 km to the west, has been fully shut down for traffic, a TASS correspondent has reported. Similar restrictions have also been reported relating to north-bound traffic on the M4 highway, which leads to Moscow. Other exits from Rostov-on-Don remain available, according to the report.A video purportedly filmed in Rostov-on-Don shows a tank and an armored personnel carrier (APC) driving past a group of police officers who are guarding a fuel station. More military hardware, including another tank, another APC, two armored cars and a truck, follow shortly afterwards.The footage circulating online could not be immediately verified.A military column is on the move on the M-4 highway connecting Voronezh and Rostov-on-Don, local authorities have announced on Telegram, asking local residents to temporarily refrain from using the road. The statement adds that law enforcement agencies in the region are “taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety.”

Biden Must Heed JFK’s Lessons on Rolling Back Nuclear Dangers

By Matthew Bunn, The National Interest, 6/10/23

Sixty years ago, in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy gave probably the greatest speech on nuclear arms ever given by an American President. Speaking only months after the crisis, Kennedy could have lashed out at the Soviet Union’s reckless behavior in putting missiles in Cuba. Or he could have taken a triumphal tone, highlighting his success in forcing the Soviets to pull the missiles out (with the public then in the dark on his secret promise to pull similar U.S. missiles out of Turkey).

Instead, in a June 10 commencement address at American University, Kennedy made the case that the horrors of a potential nuclear holocaust made it urgent to find a path to peace and that doing so required both sides of the Cold War to change. He announced that the United States would unilaterally stop testing its nuclear weapons until a treaty banning such tests could be reached. “Some say that it is useless to speak of peace,” Kennedy noted, “until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it.”

World response was immediate. The NATO allies hailed the speech. The Manchester Guardian ranked it “among the great state papers of American history.” The Soviets turned off their giant radio jammers so that Soviet citizens could hear the speech on Voice of America, and they printed the full text in both Pravda and Izvestia. (The Soviets had some warning: Kennedy’s team had consulted with them informally before he gave his speech.)

Although the Soviets made no formal announcement of a testing halt, they, too, paused nuclear testing. Less than ten days after Kennedy’s speech, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to the creation of a “hotline” between the two governments. In a month and a half, the Limited Test Ban Treaty had been completed, putting an end to the constant explosions that were spewing radiation across the world, contaminating even mothers’ milk. Kennedy called the treaty “a victory for mankind,” and said that even if the journey to peace was a thousand miles, “let history record that we, in this land, at this time, took the first step.” Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev hailed the treaty in similar terms.

In the months that followed, the two sides each announced unilateral cutbacks in the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons; reductions in their military spending; and modest pullbacks of troops from the front lines in Central Europe. None of these initiatives were negotiated in detail ahead of time, or verified, though there were informal consultations on each one before they were announced. Khrushchev called it “a policy of reciprocal example in the matter of reducing the armaments race.”

At the UN, the sides also managed to reach an agreement on the Outer Space Treaty, banning nuclear weapons in orbit. The atmosphere of heated Cold War confrontation changed markedly, paving the way for the start of negotiations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and then strategic arms talks.

Kennedy’s initiative—sometimes called “the Kennedy Experiment”—drew on the ideas of psychologist Charles E. Osgood, who had published a paper on a strategy he called “Graduated Reciprocation in Tension-Reduction,” or GRIT. The concept was that with two sides in a high state of tension, one side could unilaterally take a tension-reducing step—large enough to be noticed, but small enough not to endanger its security—and challenge the other side to take a step of its own. Osgood argued that the challenge should not be a specific demand, because, in such a state of high tension, the other side would likely see a specific demand as asking too much. Osgood proposed that the first step be accompanied by an unambiguous statement of a new, peaceful policy—exactly what Kennedy did in his American University address.

Osgood went further and argued that even if the other side did not reciprocate—perhaps not fully accepting that its adversary was genuinely trying to reduce the temperature—the side trying to reduce tension should continue with additional small steps, to make the changed approach impossible to deny. It is that idea of continuing even without any positive response that most justifies the GRIT acronym. If the other side did reciprocate, then the initiating side could take a somewhat larger step and see if that was also reciprocated. Osgood hoped to “run the arms race in reverse.”

Osgood suggested that if the opponent makes a warlike move, there should be a “measured response”: enough to show the opponent that the new strategy did not indicate weakness, but not so much as to close the door to further progress.

Decades after Kennedy’s initiative, this approach worked again. In 1991, as the Soviet Union hurtled toward collapse, President George H.W. Bush announced a dramatic set of unilateral initiatives, pulling back U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from around the world (except for a small force that remained in Europe) and destroying most of them; eliminating nuclear weapons from surface ships; and taking strategic bombers off alert. The Soviet Union, and then Russia, reciprocated with similarly sweeping (though not identical) reductions. These “Presidential Nuclear Initiatives” resulted in the fastest nuclear arms reductions that have ever taken place.

Today, tensions between Washington and Moscow are higher than they have been since Kennedy spoke, after Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and repeated nuclear threats. Hostility between the United States and China is growing—and North Korea’s dictator keeps up a relentless pace of missile testing and reckless nuclear rhetoric. These tensions between nuclear-armed states matter: the more hostile two states are, the more likely it is that a crisis will occur, that the crisis will escalate to conflict, and that conflict will escalate to the use of nuclear weapons. Hence, in each of these cases, it is time for new action to bring down the temperature.

President Joe Biden has taken a few small initial steps. The Biden team announced that the United States would unilaterally pledge not to conduct direct-ascent antisatellite (ASAT) weapon tests that would create showers of space debris, endangering other satellites. And they put forward a set of political commitments on “responsible” military use of artificial intelligence—including a commitment that the decision to use nuclear weapons would always be made by a human, not a machine. Scores of other countries have signed on to the ASAT initiative—though not, so far, Russia or China.

Unfortunately, Biden faces obstacles to doing more that President Kennedy did not. In particular, Kennedy spoke when the Cuban Missile Crisis was over: the Soviets had withdrawn their missiles. Today, Russia’s war on Ukraine continues, with new violations of the laws of war almost every day.

Nevertheless, the need for reducing tensions is urgent, and there is more Biden could do. He could announce that a portion of U.S. nuclear missiles would be taken off alert: surely not all of them need to be ready for immediate launch. He could commit that the United States would never use nuclear weapons first unless the very survival of our country or one of our treaty allies was at stake. He could commit that the United States would never deploy its missiles where they could reach Moscow or Beijing in just a few minutes. He could offer to let Chinese or Russian experts monitor U.S. weapons-maintenance experiments to confirm American compliance with the nuclear test ban. He could commit that all U.S. nuclear enrichment and plutonium reprocessing activities would be available for international inspection to confirm they were not being used to make new material for nuclear weapons.

None of those steps would endanger U.S. security. If reciprocated, each of them would improve security significantly. They might be a first step toward new arms restraints that could take the place of New START—the last remaining treaty limiting U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear force numbers—when it expires in early 2026.

The world today is very different from the world of six decades ago. But the need to manage hostility among nuclear-armed states is no less. Biden should draw on Kennedy’s example and pursue new steps to reduce nuclear dangers.

Matthew Bunn is the James R. Schlesinger Professor of the Practice of Energy, National Security, and Foreign Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and Co-Principal Investigator for the Project on Managing the Atom at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Image: Courtesy of the JFK Library.

RFK Jr.’s Speech on Foreign Policy, the Ukraine War and US-Russia Relations – Delivered on 6/20/23 in New Hampshire

Link here.

Speech by RFK Jr. starts at around the 11-minute mark.

Greg Link: The war in Ukraine and the fight over raw materials

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

By Greg Link, World Socialist Website, 6/10/23

“The war in Ukraine is also a battle for raw materials. The country has large deposits of iron, titanium and lithium, some of which are now controlled by Russia.” That’s what the federally owned German foreign trade agency Germany Trade and Invest (GTAI) reported on its website on January 16 under the title “Ukraine’s raw materials wealth at risk.”

There are trillions at stake. According to the GTAI, “raw material deposits worth $12.4 trillion” remain beyond the control of the Ukrainian army, “including 41 coal mines, 27 gas deposits, 9 oil fields and 6 iron ore deposits.” Ukraine has not only coal, gas, oil and wheat but also rare earths and metals—especially lithium, which has been called the “white gold” of the transition to new energy and transportation technologies. The country accounts for around one-third of Europe’s explored lithium deposits.

Only the ignorant could believe that this is irrelevant to NATO’s war aims. It would be the first major war in over 100 years that is not about mineral resources, markets and geostrategic interests. The World Socialist Web Site has pointed out in previous articles that deposits of critical raw materials in Russia and China, which are essential to the transition to electric mobility and renewable energy, are an important factor in the war calculus of NATO states.

Yet they go unmentioned in the media’s round-the-clock war propaganda. The media wish the public to believe that NATO is waging this war to defend “freedom” and “democracy”—and that after bombing Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria back into the Middle Ages under similar pretexts.

Relevant trade journals, industry magazines and think tanks, on the other hand, rave about Ukraine’s mineral wealth and discuss how best to capture it. It was to this end that German Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Green Party) even traveled to Ukraine at the beginning of April with a high-ranking business delegation.

According to the industry magazine Mining World, Ukraine has a total of around 20,000 raw material deposits, of which only 7,800 have been explored. Numerous other articles and strategy papers openly state that this is what the war is about.

On February 24, 2022, the day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the largest German business magazine, Capital, published an article stating that “Europe’s supply of raw materials” was “threatened” by the Russian occupation of eastern Ukraine. Ukraine was not only “the leading grain exporter” but also the largest EU supplier of iron ore pellets and “a linchpin for Europe’s energy security.” Among investors, the magazine said, there is “concern that the war will cut off exports of key raw materials.”

The GTAI article cited earlier reports that European steel mills were sourcing nearly one-fifth of their iron ore pellets from Ukraine in 2021. GTAI goes on to write that Ukraine is among the top ten producers of iron ore, manganese, zirconium, and graphite, and is “among the world leaders in titanium and kaolin.” In addition to “untapped oil and gas fields,” Ukraine’s lithium and titanium deposits, in particular, hold “enormous potential” for the European economy. In 2020, production volumes amounted to 1,681,000 tons of kaolin, 537,000 tons of titanium, 699,000 tons of manganese and 49,274,000 tons of iron ore.

Lithium for electromobility and energy storage

The price of lithium has increased more than eightfold in the last decade and is the subject of intense speculation. The metal is of strategic importance to the major imperialist powers because it is used in lithium-ion batteries installed in electric vehicles and off-grid renewable energy sources, and is also needed for lightweight aluminum alloys in the aerospace industry.

The largest lithium deposit in Europe is located in the Donetsk Oblast in the middle of the embattled Donbas region, only kilometers from the front lines. An article in the Tagesspiegel, published two months after the Russian invasion, points to untapped lithium reserves of 500,000 tons in Shevchenko near Potrovsk and at least two other Ukrainian deposits.

Western companies and Ukrainian oligarchs were already fighting bitterly for control of this “white gold” before the war. As the Tagesspiegel reports, “Ukrainian businessmen” (who stood close to the Ukrainian government of the time under the oligarch Petro Poroshenko) with connections to Western mining companies obtained mining licenses, without a tender process, for the lithium deposit in Shevchenko as early as 2018.

The company in question, Petro Consulting—which was renamed “European Lithium Ukraine” shortly before the war began—is expected to be bought out by the Australian-European mining company European Lithium once its access to Ukraine’s lithium reserves is secured.

In 2018, when the Ukrainian Geological Survey refused to issue a “special permit” for Ukraine’s second largest lithium deposit at Dobra, likewise bypassing the tender process, Petro Consulting went so far as to sue the agency. After the Ukrainian Procurator General’s Office eventually launched an investigation into the allegedly illegal special permits, Petro-Consulting had its Shevchenko mining license revoked by the courts in April 2020 until further notice.

However, a spokesman for European Lithium told Der Tagesspiegel that the company bears “no risk in connection with the Ukrainian deposits.” He expressed confidence that the projects would be “made production-ready” after the end of the war.

Titanium for the Western arms industry

In a September 2022 article titled “Ukraine’s Titanium Can Armor the West,” the transatlantic think tank Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) wrote: “Support for Ukraine has been driven by strategic concerns and moral-political values. But long-term Western help should also be based on solid material interests.”

“Ukraine’s substantial titanium deposits” are “a key resource critical to the West” because the metal is “integral to many defense systems,” such as aircraft components and missiles. Currently, the raw material for Airbus, Boeing and Co. is extracted “in an expensive and time-consuming six-step process” from titanium ore, which until then had been sourced to a considerable extent from Russia. This “dependence” on “strategic competitors and adversaries” is unacceptable from the West’s point of view and can be ended with the help of Ukrainian resources:

For example, Dnipro-based Velta, the largest private exporter of raw titanium in Europe, has developed a new production system that bypasses the intensive process of producing titanium sponge and could supply the US and European defense and aerospace industries with finished metal. Given there are only five countries in the world actively producing titanium sponge —China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Japan and Ukraine — Velta’s technology could be a game changer for the supply chain by cutting reliance on Russia and China.

CEPA is funded by US and European defense contractors and lists as members of its “scientific advisory board” Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor General H. R. McMaster, former German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt and publicists Anne Applebaum, Francis Fukuyama, and Timothy Garton Ash among others.

The CEPA article continues, “Reorienting titanium contracts to Ukraine would stimulate the country’s economy, even during wartime, not to mention during postwar reconstruction, and simultaneously strike another blow at Russia’s war machine.” The goal, it states, should be “cementing Ukraine’s integration into Europe.”

A January 28, 2023 report in Newsweek reports, “there is a nascent effort underway in the U.S. and allied nations to identify, develop, and utilize Ukraine’s vast resources of a key metal crucial for the development of the West’s most advanced military technology which will form the backbone of future deterrence against Russia and China.” The report adds, “If Ukraine wins, the U.S. and its allies will be in sole position to cultivate a new conduit of titanium.”

“Strategic raw materials partnership” between EU and Ukraine

The US and EU efforts to plunder Ukraine’s lithium and titanium deposits are part of the broader goal of tying Ukraine to the West as a strategic raw materials supplier. In particular, the EU is seeking to free itself from dependence on China—currently its most important raw materials supplier—against which the imperialist powers, especially the United States, are preparing to wage war.

On July 13, 2021, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Maroš Šefčovič, Vice President of the European Commission, signed a “Strategic Partnership on Raw Materials and Batteries” in Kiev to “integrate critical raw materials and battery value chains.” Ukraine’s inclusion in the European Raw Materials Alliance (ERMA) and the European Battery Alliance (EBA) serves to “bolster Europe’s resilience and open strategic autonomy in key technologies,” the EU Commission said.

Referring to the list of critical raw materials in the EU’s associated “action plan,” Šefčovič told the press, “21 of these critical raw materials are in Ukraine, which is also extracting 117 out of 120 globally used minerals.” He added: “We’re talking about lithium, cobalt, manganese, rare earths—all of them are in Ukraine.”

Following the signing, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, who is also responsible for the defense and space industries of EU countries, praised the “high potential of the critical raw material reserves in Ukraine” that could help in “addressing some of the strategic dependencies [of the EU].”

Speaking at Raw Materials Week in Brussels in November 2022, Prime Minister Shmyhal stressed that Ukraine is “among the top ten producers of titanium, iron ore, kaolin, manganese, zirconium and graphite” and renewed his pledge to make the country an “integral part of industrial supply chains in the EU.”

The EU’s “strategic dependencies” are by no means limited to Russia or China and certainly not to Ukraine. A global race for strategic sources of raw materials has long since begun, in the course of which the US and the leading EU powers are attempting to divide among themselves the mineral resources and other resources of the “weaker” states. Although they are jointly waging war against Russia in Ukraine, this inevitably exacerbates conflicts between themselves as well.

The escalation of the war in Ukraine shows that the ruling elites are willing to go to extremes to enforce their profit interests. Only the working class can put an end to permanent war and the prospect of devastating nuclear war by bringing the resources of the entire planet under its democratic control on the basis of a socialist program and holding war profiteers to account.

Intellinews: After one year of operations, Russia’s McDonald’s replacement already more successful than original, owner reveals

Intellinews, 6/9/23

Vkusno I Tochka, the fast food chain established following the exit of McDonald’s from the Russian market, is already outperforming the American chain after just a year of operations, the company has revealed.

McDonald’s made the decision to exit Russia in March 2022 due to significant pressure exerted on the company following President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. By June 2022, all of the company’s restaurants had been sold to local licensee Alexander Govor, who renamed the chain “Vkusno I Tochka” (Tasty, period). One year later, Vkusno I Tochka has successfully rebranded over 860 outlets throughout the country and has served more than 400mn burgers and 200mn servings of fries to its customers. The company claims to have approximately 1.8mn people come through its doors daily.

Speaking at a press conference commemorating the anniversary, Govor explained that Vkusno I Tochka had received over 500mn visits in the past year. He further revealed plans not only to reopen and rebrand all former McDonald’s restaurants, but also expand into new, remote cities that had previously been out of reach of the iconic American fast food brand.

“At the end of May 2023, our share among the three major fast-food players was 58%,” Govor said. “This exceeds the best performance of our predecessor [McDonald’s] and the combined share of our two main competitors. These results have been achieved thanks to the rapid refurbishment of the menu and key services.”

The best performance of McDonald’s in Russia, in terms of both sales and operating income, occurred in 2021. In 2023, Vkusno I Tochka’s sales have consistently surpassed the sales of the corresponding months in 2021.

In an interview with the Russian state-run media RIA Novosti, Oleg Paroev, the CEO of Vkusno I Tochka, disclosed that the company achieved its break-even point in autumn 2022, despite incurring various expenses, including rent and salaries, during the three-month period following McDonald’s departure and the subsequent rebranding and reopening of the outlets.

“When we started operating as Vkusno I Tochka on 12 June last year, the businesses opened gradually, and the entire chain was fully operational only by the end of September,” Paroev explained. “At that time we were working with a limited menu and set of services. But for all that, from autumn onwards, we reached the break-even point, and as far as plans for this year are concerned, we plan to run it at a profit.”

According to Paroev, the company’s biggest difficulties have been replacing popular menu items from McDonald’s, such as the Big Mac and Happy Meal, and managing increased costs while striving to maintain a low-cost business model and generate profits.

“The ruble exchange rate has risen, we are no longer part of a large corporation so we no longer receive the substantial discounts for volumes, and logistics are now becoming a very significant factor in production costs,” he explained. “The average increase in the cost of our products for the whole year has not exceeded 4%. It is very important for us to remain affordable.”

Despite experiencing initial growing pains when the chain first opened, Vkusno I Tochka’s popularity has continued to rise. Concerns about a potential decline in quality control and the standard of produce, in comparison to McDonald’s renowned consistency across different locations worldwide, have proved unfounded. Furthermore, after months of struggling to develop the sauce, Vkusno I Tochka has successfully introduced its own copy of the iconic Big Mac, named the Big Hit. The restaurant now even offers seasonal promotional items, such as the current Spanish-themed ‘Barcelona Burger’ that includes beef, bacon and Emmental cheese.

However, despite a nationwide advertising campaign, constant TV commercials and collaborations with high-profile actors Yulia Peresild and Miloš Biković, most Russians still continue to refer to Vkusno I Tochka by its old name.

“It tastes the same, it looks the same and all the menu items I like are still on sale,” one student in Vkusno I Tochka in Moscow’s Bauman Region told bne IntelliNews. “So I still call it MakDak.”

bne IntelliNews’ correspondent in Moscow also had the opportunity to try the Big Hit and verified that it tastes identical to McDonald’s classic Big Mac.

Vkusno I Tochka is not the only Western fast-food brand to have undergone a rebranding and name change in the past year. In April, former KFC restaurants in Russia began reopening under the new name Rostic’s. This change took place after Yum! Brands, the US owner, completed its exit from Russia and transferred the rights to a local company named Smart Service. Despite the rebranding, Smart Service has chosen to retain its employees, suppliers and the KFC menu, with only a few dishes receiving new names. The distinct red-white colour scheme and the iconic KFC buckets, which have become synonymous with the brand, will also remain unchanged. Over the next 18 months, the company plans to convert all KFC locations in the country to Rostic’s.

Other changes include Stars Coffee (Starbucks) and Pizza N (Pizza Hut).

Gilbert Doctorow: High point of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum: Putin on stage

Link to watch video here.

Link to written transcript here.

Note: Emphasis in bolding is mine as the bolded paragraphs pertain to Putin addressing issues of recent controversy. – Natylie

By Gilbert Doctorow, Website, 6/16/23

The St Petersburg International Economic Forum got underway on the 14th and today was the culmination point for the broad public in Russia and worldwide: the time on stage of Vladimir Putin in the traditional format of questions presented to him and to a featured visiting head of state by a moderator.

The visiting head of state was President of Algeria Tebboune. His presence at the Forum was all by itself newsworthy, and surely must have shocked France and other Europeans. But then again they might be beside themselves that another top foreign dignitary with whom Putin met privately on the sidelines of the Forum was the President of the United Arab Emirates.

The moderator was for the first time in many years not some pretty woman from MSNBC prepped to ask aggressive and unfriendly questions again and again or some smart Alec from another Western television channel but Russia’s “own” Dmitry Simes. This was the first time in many years that the moderator was not just reading questions but had written them himself.

This is Simes, the former Russian-Jewish emigrant to the United States, former adviser and traveling companion of Richard Nixon on his visits to Russia after leaving the presidency, former decades-long head of the Nixon Center, later renamed the Center for the National Interest.

I have recently written about Simes, describing this born-again Russian patriot. He left Washington to resettle in Moscow and has returned to Russian state television as host of The Great Game and interviewer of some of the country’s leading politicians with whom he clearly has very good personal relations. From his exchanges with the Boss on stage this afternoon, it is also obvious that he is ‘close to Putin,’ as our Western experts so often say without justification about others.

What I propose to offer here is some of the questions and answers that I heard on the fly. I will set them out by relative importance, not necessarily by their sequence in the on stage discussion.

Among the most memorable was the following, which answers directly the panic and confusion in the heads of our Western foreign policy community following the publication a few days ago in the bilingual Russian-English magazine Russia in Global Affairs of an article entitled “A Difficult but Necessary Decision” by Sergei Karaganov, professor and honorary chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Russia.

I had planned to publish today an essay critiquing Karaganov’s piece and dealing with commentary by several prominent personalities in the West, including Seymour Hersh and Rose Gottemoeller. I will now defer completion and publication of that essay till tomorrow, because the answer to all the controversy was given this afternoon by Vladimir Putin in response to a question pitched to him by Simes: “Some people are talking about Russia perhaps using tactical nuclear weapons now to re-instill in the minds of people in the West what nuclear deterrence is all about. Will Russia use these weapons?”

Putin : “The answer is No. We do not plan to use nuclear weapons in this conflict. As I have said, their use is theoretically possible only when the existence of our statehood is threatened. As for tactical weapons, I do not want to lower the threshold for use of any nuclear arms. For purposes of deterrence, there is no need to remind the West that we have a significantly bigger stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons than they do. This is, so to speak, our competitive advantage. We have made our statement by positioning nuclear weapons in Belarus. That is a clear message. We have no need to frighten the whole world.”

Probably the single most important question and answer in the entire session was the following, for which Putin and his assistants were very well prepared:

Question: Russia has spoken about the Ukraine as controlled by neo-Nazis. This is a position which confuses many in the West. How can this be so when the country’s elected president, Zelensky, is himself a Jew?

Answer: And what kind of a Jew is Zelensky? He has made the most vicious leader of the pro-Hitler Ukrainian collaborationists, Bandera, and his military units into the great heroes of the Ukrainian nation. They killed 1.5 million Jews in Ukraine during the war, as well as Russians, Poles and other civilians.

[at this point Putin calls for the screening of a 10-minute documentary showing the mass murders committed by these units, showing their declaring allegiance to Hitler in the annihilation of Jews and purification of the Ukrainian nation

To this, Simes makes his own contribution, saying that in the Soviet Union the head of the domestic security services Kaganovich was also a Jew, and he carried out a program of systematic anti-Semitic repressions. The origins of a given state authority tell us little about the policies he will enforce.]

Question: According to Purchasing Power Equivalence calculations, the Russian economy is now the 6th biggest in the world, coming just after Germany. In present conditions do you think Russia will continue to hold this position?

Answer: “Developing countries are moving ahead very quickly, as for example, Indonesia. At the same time a country like Germany is slipping into recession. Perhaps in a year we will take their place as 5th largest economy in the world.”

Question: As regards the need for skilled workers in Russia, we note that many people, especially in the IT field left Russia after the start of the Special Military Operation. Are they returning?

Answer: “People can live wherever they wish. There are many Russians who left for the United Arab Emirates, for neighboring Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and so forth. However, it is not easy to leave behind Moscow, which is one of the top cities in the world. It is not easy to leave behind your language and your family and friends. The latest information is that 50% have already returned. And those who do stay abroad provide Russia with liaison for our developing relations with these countries.”

Question: Some in the West say that Russia is promoting de-dollarization. What is the future of this movement?

Answer: “De-dollarization is part of the changing economic relations and was accelerated by the United States itself when it abused its privileged position and weaponized the dollar for political objectives. Now we see many countries starting to trade in their national currencies. Some sale of oil to China is now being conducted in yuan. If oil exchanges are set up quoting barrels in yuan or in currencies of the Middle East, then the beginning of the end of the dollar will arrive. And we have nothing to do with that.”

Question: Do you consider NATO to be a party in the war in Ukraine? Is there still room for diplomacy if that is so?

Answer: “NATO is getting drawn into the war with Ukraine. They have supplied a lot of heavy equipment. Now there is talk of providing F-16s. As you see in the past week during the Ukrainian counter-offensive, we have destroyed many tanks, including the German Leopards, and also NATO-supplied armored personnel carriers. If F-16s are sent, they will also be destroyed.”

Question: We think back in the past of Western leaders and some outstanding people come to mind, like Gerhard Schroder, Jacques Chirac, Silvio Berlusconi. What can you say about the quality of the present-day European leadership?

Answer: “I never express my thoughts about the merits of leaders today. What I will say is that Jacques Chirac was a man of encyclopedic knowledge. I remember asking him why the Americans were doing something unpleasant and he said, in Russian: ‘because they are uncultured’ [потому, что они некультурные] Today many people in power have had poor educations. As for Silvio Berlusconi, he was a world class leader who tried very hard to bring Russia into rapprochement with the countries of the European Union. He died this past week, and I ask you all to honor his memory in a minute of silence.” [the audience rises as one]

Question: How will Russia respond to the terror attacks from Ukraine, as for example the incursions in Belgorod,, the murder of Dugina and other provocations?

Answer: “They would like for us also to attack civilians, but we will not do so. However, by our missile attack which destroyed the American Patriot air defense system in Kiev we demonstrated that we have the ability to destroy any building in Kiev at our choosing. We have not done this yet, though we reserve the possibility. We have not done so, because we have no need to do so. We have used air and sea launched missiles to destroy Ukrainian military targets very effectively.”

Question: There are those in the West who say that the sanctions have forced Russia to become very dependent on Chinese markets, Are you afraid of falling under Chinese influence?

Answer: “And those same countries in the West who say this have themselves become very dependent on China. And are they any the worse for that?”

Question to Tebboune: Algeria is surely under very strong pressure from the West to join the sanctions against Russia. So far you have resisted that. What do you tell them?

Answer: “I say that we Algerians were born free and will remain free!”

Question: What final words do you have for the world?

Answer: (Putin) – “Be healthy and wealthy”

               (Tebboune) “Live in peace, prosperity, security”

Final question to Putin: If this gathering took place in the United States, one would necessarily ask Biden as the closing question what message he wanted to give to President Putin. And so I ask, what is your message to Joe Biden?

Answer: “Mr. Biden has long experience in government and I would not propose to offer him any advice. I would only say to him that all actions you may take have consequences.”

                                                      *****

In past years, I reported on the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in broader terms of the business being done there, the big names from international corporations who were on panels, and so forth. This year I received an official invitation to attend and gave it some thought…until I read through the list of 150 or more panels and understood that a lot has changed in the nature of the event. The panels themselves were mainly directed at issues of great importance to Russia as it reorganizes to face the new challenges of reindustrialization and reorientation of its export-import channels away from Europe and towards Asia, Africa and Latin America. I saw virtually no Western firms mentioned in the program. And even the contingents of Chinese and Indian firms and government officials which were very large in the past were not reflected in the composition of panelists. One obvious reason is that in the past couple of months there have been very big visits of Russian business delegations to both countries and little was left for discussion in the Petersburg Forum.

And yet, the presence of large delegations from Algeria and the United Arab Emirates was noteworthy and points to where Russia’s future is developing. It also underlines the West’s loss of the Global South and self-marginalization.

This very reorientation of Russia and its growing popularity in what used to be called the developing countries brings to mind a comment from the leading Russian film director Karen Shakhnazarov on last night’s Vladimir Solovyov talk show. Shakhnazarov said that Russia is now reassuming the role of global champion of a new world order that the Soviet Union assumed at the start of the 1920s. In this context, the enmity of the Collective West today is an expression of its frustration that it has “lost” Russia, which it would rather have kept on its side.

That comment was allowed to stand unchallenged, although Solovyov himself is a believer that the West is out to destroy and break up Russia, rather than to bring it back under its control.

Majority of Europeans View Russia as a Rival But Think Their Country Should Enter Partnership with Russia After War Ends

Russia Matters, 6/9/23

More than two-thirds of the residents of 11 EU countries polled by ECFR view Russia as an adversary or rival, but also an average of more than two-thirds of the April poll’s respondents think their country should enter into a partnership with Russia if its war with Ukraine ends in a negotiated peace. The poll, which was conducted in Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden, also revealed 26% of respondents viewed Russia and China as equal partners, while 13% viewed them as unequal partners and 9% did not see Moscow and Beijing as partners at all. (This week alone has seen Russian and Chinese militaries conduct joint strategic air patrols and announce the participation of Russian troops in the PLA’s North. Interaction-2023 exercises.)