Tag: Russia

The Benefits of Imposed Protectionism

The Russians have learned there is nothing to fear from Western sanctions:

Vladimir Putin ‘doesn’t give a s**t’ about the risk of Western sanctions if it were to invade Ukraine, Russia’s ambassador to Sweden said as US staff began withdrawing from eastern Ukraine amid warnings of an ‘imminent’ invasion.

In an outspoken interview, Viktor Tatarintsev told the country’s Aftonbladet newspaper that ‘the more the West pushes Russia, the stronger the Russian response will be’.

He claimed Russia had become more ‘self-sufficient’ amid the threat of sanctions and accused the West of not understanding his country.

‘We are more self-sufficient and have been able to increase our exports. We have no Italian or Swiss cheeses, but we’ve learned to make just as good Russian cheeses using Italian and Swiss recipes’, he said.

There is nothing that a big, resource-rich country needs from trade. Indeed, every nation large enough to be self-sufficient will be much better off, over time, by refusing to trade with the rest of the world. The USA has been impoverished, and is now debt-ridden, due to its foolish embrace of free trade and the Ricardian lie.

It’s only a matter of time before China and Russia cut economic ties with the USA. And that will harm the USA, and the West, far more than it harms the rising world powers.

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Provocations

One can’t help but notice that it is the US Navy that is invading Russia’s territorial waters, and not the other way around:

A US Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine has been detected and chased away in Russian territorial waters off the Kuril Islands, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

The vessel was found submerged off the small uninhabited island of Urup while Russia’s Pacific Fleet was holding exercises in the area. Russian vessels contacted the submarine, warning it was in the country’s territorial waters and ordering it to surface immediately, the military said.

The submarine, however, did not respond to the messages, and destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov was deployed to chase it off. The Russian vessel used “appropriate means” against the US sub, the military noted without providing any further details.

Following the run-in with the destroyer, the Virginia-class submarine used an active radar decoy, sailing away from Russian waters at full speed.

Remember, any US military action is customarily preceded by a false flag of some kind. Don’t be fooled by the mainstream media narrative.

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Empire’s End

Empires tend to end in farce. The Empire on Which the Sun Never Sets is no exception:

The UK will remove all of its troops from Ukraine amid fears that Russia could invade its neighbor, Britain’s armed forces minister, James Heappey, said on Saturday. “All of them will be withdrawn,” Heappey told BBC Radio 4’s Today show. “There will be no British troops in Ukraine if there is to be a conflict there.”

One wonders what the victors of the Crimean War would have made of such an ignominious and farcical series of maneuvers on the part of the British Armed Forces. The heir to that fallen empire, the Imperial USA, shouldn’t laugh too hard, though, after its own debacle in Afghanistan. The end of the US empire is already in sight.

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That Which Doesn’t Kill Russia

Only makes it stronger. The Axis of Antichrist discovers Nietzschean economics:

Russia has done far more to build resilience to Western sanctions than the European Union has to improve its ability to survive disruptions in the gas supply chain, the EU high representative for foreign affairs said on Sunday.

Writing in his weekly blog, Josep Borrell accused Moscow of using energy supplies for “political purposes” and suggested any further measures against the Kremlin have serious blowback effects for the EU, including a reduction of gas available to the bloc. His comments came ahead of a meeting of the EU-US Energy Council, due to be held on Monday, in America.

“Energy prices have surged due to global supply and demand issues,” Borrell wrote. “With the severe crisis that we are currently going through with Russia, it has become not only a price issue but also a matter of security of supplies.”

According to the Eurocrat, over 40% of EU gas imports come from Russia, while the EU provides over 60% of Russia’s import revenues.

“However, in recent years, Russia has enhanced its resilience against economic sanctions, by increasing its foreign currency reserves, more than we have done to enhance our capacity to face potential gas supply cuts,” he explained, calling on the bloc to begin developing EU strategic gas reserves and boost investment in renewable sources of energy.

Russia faces the same challenge as every Western dissident, albeit on a much larger scale. China knows it will too, which is why both nations are not only building their own platforms, but assiduously refusing to use the platforms and products of their evil enemies in the West.

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No More Soros Games

Vladimir Putin warns the neocons to stop destabilizing nations:

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday he will not allow governments allied with Moscow to be toppled in so-called “color revolutions,” a reference to the series of popular uprisings that have shaken former Soviet republics.

“We will not allow the boat to be rocked,” Putin said.

During an online meeting with leaders of a Russian-led collective security alliance, Putin blamed last week’s violent unrest in Kazakhstan on “destructive internal and external forces.” He added, “Of course, we understand the events in Kazakhstan are not the first and far from the last attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of our states from the outside.”

It just became a lot more safe to ally with Russia and China than to remain unaligned. Especially since China is fully onboard with the anti-neocon approach.

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday afternoon, stressing the further deepening of “back-to-back” strategic coordination in upholding international fairness and justice and adhering to the four consensuses in supporting each other’s sovereignty, security and development interests to better tackle external interference and regional threats, as they exchanged views on a series of major issues regarding global strategic security and stability.

And, of course, there is nothing more dangerously unstable than to be an ally of the imperial USA.

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Russia Rejects Globohomo

It’s pretty obvious who is the Evil Empire now, and it obviously isn’t ruling over the Russians anymore:

Russia’s Ministry of Culture has published a draft order setting out “traditional values” that it says must be protected from encroachment by foreign ideas, terrorists, and extremists amid a “global crisis” for public morality.

The document was posted on the ministry’s website this week for consultation, ahead of being presented to President Vladimir Putin for his signature, and is designed to provide “the foundations of government policy for the protection and strengthening of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.” The ordinance lays out what the authors see as integral Russian values and puts forward strategies for defending them against alleged incursion by foreign perspectives.

The draft text defines “traditional values” as “moral guidelines that form Russian citizens’ worldview, transferring from generation to generation, guaranteeing civil unity, forming the base of Russian civilizational identity and the nation’s unified cultural space, and manifesting uniquely and distinctly in the spiritual, historical, and cultural development of the multiethnic people of Russia.”

According to the order, examples of these values include “life, dignity, human rights and freedom, patriotism, civic consciousness, service to the Fatherland and responsibility for its fate, high moral ideals, a strong family, creative work, prioritizing the spiritual over the material, humanism, charity, justice, collectivism, mutual support and respect, historical memory and continuity between generations, and the unity of the peoples of Russia.”

The report claims, however, that these values are under threat from outside forces including terrorist and extremist organizations, multinational corporations, NGOs, and the US and its allies.

Remember, the US Empire is even more aggresssively anti-American than it is anti-Russian or anti-Chinese.

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And Here… We… Go

NATO and the USA reject Russia’s perfectly reasonable demands:

NATO has said it “will not compromise” on potential expansion into Ukraine, Georgia, and other former Soviet republics, as this clashes with the “core principles” of the alliance, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Wednesday.

Moscow proposed eight points in the draft, and expected a detailed reply to each one.

The US was asked to stop any further NATO expansion to the east, halt military programs in non-member countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union – and pledge Ukraine and Georgia would “never” join the bloc – remove its nuclear weapons from Europe, and not deploy any offensive weapons capable of targeting Russia along its borders. Moscow demanded legally binding guarantees on all of those matters.

The alliance’s response, which Stoltenberg said all 30 members agreed upon, was delivered to Moscow earlier in the day by the US ambassador, alongside Washington’s separate written note.

The US has asked Russia to keep the contents of its response private.

The great accomplishment of the Trump administration was to avoid war with Russia, which was looking very likely in 2015 after Hillary Clinton made it clear that she intended to invite both Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.

The difference is that now Russia – and China – have had an additional seven years to prepare for war with the New Neo-Liberal Rules-Based World Order, and they have no shortage of additional motivation for it.

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Diversifying Ukraine

It’s really remarkable to see the globalist governments of the New Neo-Liberal Rules-Based World Order going crazy over the possibility of a few hundred thousand “New Ukrainians” going in search of a better life for themselves and their families in Ukraine. I mean, isn’t diversity Ukraine’s strength?

If they didn’t have any problem with 80 million foreigners colonizing the United States, why do they get so bent out of shape concerning much smaller waves of immigration into places like Ukraine or Taiwan Island.

If they want to truly defang the globalist rhetoric, all Putin and Xi have to do is announce that they are sponsoring emigration programs for young men who are going abroad in search of better economic prospects. These programs will be good for both the Ukrainian and Taiwanese economies, so how can anyone possibly object to them?

Putin isn’t “invading” or “subjecting” or “colonizing” Ukraine. He’s simply contemplating the possibility of diversifying and strengthening it.

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The Soviet Union Didn’t Collapse

Everything you know about the end of the Cold War is wrong, as a U.S. ambassador who was witness to the events explains:

Octavian Report: To what extent were Reagan and Gorbachev as people essential to ending the Cold War?

Ambassador Jack Matlock: I think only Reagan and Gorbachev would have been able to do what they did. You had to have the two of them in office at the same time. Now, the first George Bush finished it off. But essentially, the Cold War was over ideologically when Reagan left office. It was just up to Bush to continue the policies Reagan had set with Gorbachev in order to finish it peacefully. It was finished by negotiation so that both sides came out as winners. That’s why today, when we talk about winning the Cold War as if Russia was the loser, we’re not only distorting history, we’re making it much more difficult to build a peaceful world.

OR: In what way do you think Russia won?

Matlock: First of all, Russia was part of the Soviet Union. We ended the Cold War with the Soviet Union, not with Russia. We’ve got to stop talking about Russia as if it was the same entity, whether a Communist empire or whether the current Russian Federation. There are a few characteristics that they share, but these are entirely different political entities.

That’s one thing you have to understand. The Soviet Union won the Cold War — as did everybody else. Ending it saved them from the collapse that was going on internally. The arms race was killing them. Their ideology was killing them. Their foreign policy was not in their interest. Gorbachev saw that and Reagan saw that. We set terms to end the Cold War which were in the interest of the Soviet Union if they wanted to follow a peaceful policy towards the West, which they did.

Losing the Cold War would have been if it went hot. Everybody would have lost. We ended it without anyone losing anything. The Soviet Union lost nothing in ending the Cold War other than its control of Eastern Europe, which was not an advantage for it but a disadvantage. The idea that somehow controlling other countries that don’t want you to control them is an asset is absolutely wrong. Look at the problems we have in the Middle East today. It is a liability. It is not an asset. In giving up those liabilities, Gorbachev made it possible to try to reform the system.

He was unable to do so but the system broke up from the inside after the Cold War was over. Ending the Cold War, ending the arms race which literally was killing their economy, ending their attempt to project their power abroad which was creating liabilities, ending all of that was to the advantage of the Soviet Union. It gave the country the possibility of reforming and coming into the late 20th century. They couldn’t do so under the conditions of the Cold War.

The seeds of future wars are often planted in the ends of the previous one. The neocons who used to control the Soviet Union now control only Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, the United States. That’s why they are now so eager for war with Russia, since the Russians managed to free themselves from neocon rule and the so-called neo-liberal world order with the collapse of the Yeltsin regime.

The events of the present make a lot more sense once one has a more accurate account of those of the past.

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Drums in the Not-Very Deep

The war drums are getting steadily louder as both NATO and Ukraine increasingly engage in “defensive” actions.

Vladimir Putin will opt for the ‘nightmare scenario’ of a full invasion of Ukraine as tensions rise towards tipping point, UK defence chiefs fear.

The region has been on a knife-edge since the end of last year when Moscow moved as many as 100,000 troops, as well as tanks and missiles, close to the border.

The White House warned yesterday the situation was ‘extremely dangerous’ and that Moscow could launch an attack ‘at any point’.

It had been thought Mr Putin would choose the ‘simple option’ of sending troops into the Donbass region in south-eastern Ukraine and then negotiate for it to become an independent state, providing a buffer between pro-western Ukraine and Russia.

As the region is already occupied by pro-Russian separatists, and has been in a state of war since 2014, it was believed it would offer little resistance.

But the latest intelligence now has Ministry of Defence chiefs worried about a much larger incursion, raising fears of warfare engulfing cities and high civilian death tolls.

They believe Mr Putin’s troops are being positioned in line with his new objective, with armoured divisions set to head into neighbouring Belarus on exercise but now stationed within striking distance of Kiev.

Last night a senior defence source said: ‘We strongly believe [Putin’s] preference is for a full invasion rather than a limited offensive. In a sense he might as well go for as much of Ukraine as he can get hold of because the penalties are just the same.

No one puts Vladi in a corner. Because it’s almost as stupid to do so as invading Russia in winter. Unfortunately, the neocons are both stupid and evil, being intoxicated by their success in taking over US foreign policy. And since we know the Official Story is always wrong, it would be interesting to know the real reason underlying these two developments. First, the suspension of flights to the USA.

Prominent airlines from Japan, India, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have suspended flights to airports across the United States after expressing concern over the deployment of 5G.

Emirates, Air India, Japan Airlines, and All Nippon Airways canceled flights to New York, New Jersey, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Seattle, among other US cities.

Air India announced on Tuesday that it would no longer operate flights the next day to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, and New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport “due to deployment of the 5G communications in USA.”

On the same day, Emirates canceled flights to at least nine US cities, again “due to operational concerns associated with the planned deployment of 5G mobile network services in the U.S,” while Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways canceled at least 13 flights.

Second, the real reason for the Hunga-Tonga eruption that created a tidal wave and was big enough to be seen from space.

On January 14, a very large eruption of Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai, an uninhabited volcanic island of the Tongan archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, began. Hunga Tonga is 65 km north of Tongatapu, the country’s main island. The eruption caused tsunamis in Tonga, Fiji, American Samoa and along the rim of the Pacific Ocean. Tsunami warnings and advisories were issued in Fiji, Samoa, Wallis and Futuna, Vanuatu, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Russia, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Ecuador. Damaging tsunami waves were reported in New Zealand, the United States, Chile and Peru. Two people drowned in Peru when a 2 m wave struck the coast, and two fishermen in the United States suffered minor injuries. The event is likely the largest volcanic eruption of the 21st century to date.

Tsunamis are typically triggered by earthquakes, not volcanoes.

There are rumors that the “eruption” was actually the detonation of a massive Russian nuclear weapon. And the rumors are based on a modicum of actual evidence, or rather, the absence of evidence that should be available.

In yesterday’s report we noted that any nuclear weapon detonated in the Pacific Proving Grounds would throw into the atmosphere radiation signatures from the previous atomic tests conducted there still existing on the seafloor—and is critical to notice because in today’s transcript it notes that American radiation networks – updated in real time every minute – stopped updating on 16 January—and when checking the United States government RadNet system for real time atmospheric radiation levels, today it sees their hundreds of stations displaying the message: “RadNet Outage: EPA’s RadNet system is down for routine maintenance”.

Let’s see if the claim is credible. (checks RadNet). “RadNet Outage EPA’s RadNet system is down for routine maintenance.”

Okay. Perhaps that’s just a coincidence, though. When was the maintenance scheduled? “EPA’s RadNet system is down for routine maintenance from January 7-10, 2022.”

Isn’t it January 19, 2022?

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