Russia in the News

Russia News

The War in Ukraine Is a Colonial War  4/28/2022 New Yorker: "When Vladimir Putin denies the reality of the Ukrainian state, he is speaking the familiar language of empire. For five hundred years, European conquerors called the societies that they encountered “tribes,” treating them as incapable of governing themselves. As we see in the ruins of Ukrainian cities, and in the Russian practice of mass killing, rape, and deportation, the claim that a nation does not exist is the rhetorical preparation for destroying it."

How the war could lead to the break up of Russia  4/11/2022 The Post: "Sergej Sumlenny is a Russian-born journalist and political scientist who predicts that, within 3-5 years, Russia will break up into a group of independent states. He argues that Russia’s many ethnic states are perfectly poised for secession, some with long histories of agitation and others with a newfound resentment of Moscow in light of the war."

What should Russia do with Ukraine? [Translation of a propaganda article by a Russian publication]  4/4/2022 Novosti: "A just punishment for this part of the population can only be possible through bearing the inevitable hardships of a just war against the Nazi system, waged as carefully and sparingly as possible relates civilians. The further denazification of this bulk of the population will take the form of re-education through ideological repressions (suppression) of Nazi paradigms and a harsh censorship not only in the political sphere but also in the spheres of culture and education. It was through culture and education that the pervasive large-scale Nazification of the population was conducted, ensured by the guarantees of dividends from the Nazi regime victory over Russia, by the Nazi propaganda, internal violence and terror, and the 8-year-long war against the people of Donbas, who have rebelled against the Ukrainian Nazism."

»A fascist regime looms in Russia«  4/1/2022 analyse & kritik: "One important thing to do now is to target the money of the super-rich. This brutal aggression has made it clear that capital goes insane when it is not subject to control. Putin’s success in corrupting political and economic elites around the world is due to his knowledge that greed and self-interest are the cornerstones of capitalism. He firmly believes that money can buy it all. He knows that liberal democracy is a sham."

The Strange Rebirth Of Imperial Russia  3/25/2022 Weekly Dish: "Dugin has the same post-modern worldview as the woke left and alt right in the US: nothing is true; everything is power; and power must be exercised. For Dugin, “all ideology is mere language games or camouflaged power relations; all politics is simulacrum and spectacle; all ‘discourses’ are equal, as is all truth,” Clover writes. So of course it doesn’t matter if history is invented, lies repeated, myths invoked as facts. For the Russian reactionaries, just as for the critical race theorists, history is a tool to be manipulated and wielded to gain power, not a truth to be discovered and debated."

Russian mercenaries in Ukraine linked to far-right extremists  3/20/2022 Guardian: "Adam Hadley, the executive director of Tech Against Terrorism, a London-based initiative supported by the UN counter-terrorism executive directorate, said their analysis indicated that Russian-backed forces in Ukraine, including the Wagner Group, are “almost certainly connected with extreme far-right organisations”."

Male State: The Russian Online Hate Group Backing Putin’s War  3/11/2022 Bellingcat: "Although the movement is not explicitly neo-Nazi, posts previously made on Male State channels and chats identified by Bellingcat include references to terms used by neo-Nazis. These include the “1488” numerical code and the term ‘untermensch,’ (‘subhuman’), a word used by the Nazis to describe those they deemed inferior — and also by some in Male State chats to describe Ukrainians.” One Male State channel even posted a video with a clip of a fighter from Task Force Rusich, a neo-Nazi Russian military unit, giving a Nazi salute."

The Weakness of the Despot  3/11/2022 New Yorker: "Think about all those Ukrainians who would continue to resist. The Nazis came into Kyiv, in 1940. They grabbed all the luxury hotels, but days later those hotels started to blow up. They were booby-trapped. If you’re an administrator or a military officer in occupied Ukraine and you order a cup of tea, are you going to drink that cup of tea? Do you want to turn the ignition on in your car? Are you going to turn the light switch on in your office? All it takes is a handful of assassinations to unsettle the whole occupation."

This Is Why Putin Can’t Back Down  3/10/2022 NYT: "The end of the Soviet Union could have been seen as a liberation, a chance to build a new and greater Russia. But Putin chose to see it as a catastrophic loss, one creating a feeling of helplessness and a shattered identity. Who are we now? Do we matter anymore? Like identity politicians everywhere, Putin turned this identity crisis into a humiliation story. He covered over any incipient feelings of shame and inferiority by declaring: We are the innocent victims. They — America, the Westerners, the cool kids at Davos — did this to us. Like other identity politicians around the world, he promoted status resentment to soothe the wounds of trauma, the fears of inferiority."

The west v Russia: why the global south isn’t taking sides  3/10/2022 Guardian: "The map of global participation in the sanctions against Russia suggests a new non-aligned movement might be on the rise."

Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine  3/1/2022 The New Yorker: "When you said that no one’s talking about this as imperialism, in Putin’s speeches he specifically refers to the “territory of the former Russian Empire,” which he laments losing. So it seems like he’s talking about it. I think that’s wrong, because I think you’re quoting the first half of the sentence, as most people in the West do. He said, “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart.” And then he said, “Whoever wants it back has no brain.”"

Laundered Money Could Be Putin’s Achilles’ Heel  2/24/2022 NYT: "First, a number of influential people, both in business and in politics, are deeply financially enmeshed with Russian kleptocrats. This is especially true in Britain. Second, it will be hard to go after laundered Russian money without making life harder for all money launderers, wherever they come from — and while Russian plutocrats may be the world champions in that sport, they’re hardly unique: Ultrawealthy people all over the world have money hidden in offshore accounts. What this means is that taking effective action against Putin’s greatest vulnerability will require facing up to and overcoming the West’s own corruption."

MARLENE LARUELLE: RUSSIAN SOCIETY IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM ITS REGIME  2/21/2022 RevDem: "Marlene Laruelle is a Director and Research Professor at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES), Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University. Dr. Laruelle is also Director of the Illiberalism Studies Program. Dr. Laruelle received her Ph.D. in history at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Cultures (INALCO) and her habilitation in political science at Sciences-Po in Paris."

US threatening 6-figure fines for contributing to ‘banned’ sites, journalist tells RT  12/12/2021 RT: "American journalists are being threatened with large fines by the US Treasury for writing for the ‘wrong’ websites, writer Daniel Lazare told RT, concerned his country’s reputation as a defender of press freedom might be over. Lazare and other US journalists who’ve written for the Strategic Culture Foundation, a website that describes itself as a “research platform on Eurasian global affairs,” recently received threatening letters from the Treasury Department warning they could be on the hook for at least $300,000 in sanctions penalties, he told RT on Sunday."

US backed fascist azov battalion in ukraine is training and radicalizing white supremacists  9/24/2021 Workers Today: "Last month, an unsealed FBI indictment of four American white supremacists from the Rise Above Movement (RAM) declared that the defendants had trained with Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi militia officially incorporated into the country’s national guard. The training took place after the white supremacist gang participated in violent riots in Huntington Beach and Berkeley, California and Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. The indictment stated that the Azov Battalion “is believed to have participated in training and radicalizing United States-based white supremacy organizations.”"

Meet the Male State: Russia’s Nastiest Online Hate Group  2/20/2021 Bellingcat: "After a few minutes’ deliberation, Belova ruled that Male State was to be designated as an extremist organisation in Russia, banning the movement’s activities in the country. Male State reportedly plans to appeal. The verdict comes after a particularly busy year for Male State. In just the past several months, they’ve harassed and threatened retailers who use Black models in their advertisements, posted the private contact details of a member of feminist protest group Pussy Riot — who soon found herself the target of abuse — and reportedly sent threats to Russian women in relationships with non-Russian men."

Russians Are Using African Troll Factories—and Encrypted Messaging—to Attack the U.S.  5/5/2020 Daily Beast: "But Coby soon discovered that posts by many of the platform's participants had very little to do with the real problems facing Africa. Instead they were filled with conspiracy theories about the novel coronavirus, many of them claiming the Democratic Party and various philanthropists in the United States—especially Bill and Melinda Gates—were behind its spread. “In virtually every post,” says Coby, who asked that his last name not be published, “either someone in the U.S. is blamed for the coronavirus or an American is accused of trying to exploit the situation.""

Trump administration designates Russian white supremacist group a terrorist organization  4/6/2020 Fox News: "The Trump administration announced Monday they are taking the “unprecedented” step of designating a white supremacist group as a terrorist organization, targeting a Russian group that they say trains neo-Nazis and tries to rally Americans and Europeans to push a white supremacist agenda. Ambassador Nathan Sales, the State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, said at a State Department briefing that the Russian Imperial Movement – also known as RIM –and three of its leaders are now Specially Designated Global Terrorists.'

Election 2016 manipulation involved same players as 9/11  6/10/2019 Wayne Madsen Report: "A growing collection of evidence indicates that three nations directly involved in coordinating the planning and carrying out of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, were also jointly involved in "hacking" the 2016 U.S. presidential election to bring about Donald Trump's victory. The January 11, 2017 meeting in Seychelles involving Blackwater founder Erik Prince, the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and top officials of UAE, Saudi, and Israeli intelligence represented a de facto after-action overview of the 2016 election interference that covered successes of the operation. Some of the election manipulation actions blamed on the Russian government were, in reality, carried out by Israeli and Russian Jewish-owned high-tech firms, many of the latter operating from eastern Europe."

Malcolm Nance: Mueller gave Trump a pass for "the greatest scandal in American history"  5/22/2019 Salon: Interview with Malcolm Nance, ex NSA - "Twenty-five years from now, if Trump remains in office the American experiment will fundamentally break. That makes me sad. That hurts. These people, Trump and his allies, see another America. They see an America which is tribally white and where that white tribe dominates over all other tribes. That means 40% of this country will dominate the other 60%. Americaa will become an apartheid country. It's disgusting, it's despicable and it is wholly un-American."

Last nail in petrodollar coffin? Gazprom could help Russia shift away from greenback  2/26/2019 RT: "Energy giant Gazprom could become the first Russian company to exclude the US dollar from its foreign trade operations. It aims to switch to Russian rubles and other national currencies in payments for energy supplies. Gazprom’s Deputy Chairman Andrey Kruglov told reporters that one of the world’s largest gas companies is already settling contracts in national currencies, namely in rubles and yuan, when supplies are exported to China. Gazprom is ready to launch large-scale gas supplies to the Chinese market via the ‘Eastern Route’ (the Power of Siberia pipeline) as early as December 1, 2019. The Russian energy giant has a 30-year contract for the supply of an annual 1.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas via the pipeline."

Putin to U.S. - I'm ready for another Cuban Missile-style crisis if you want one  2/21/2019 Reuters: "Putin’s comments, made to Russian media late on Wednesday, follow his warning that Moscow will match any U.S. move to deploy new missiles closer to Russia by stationing its own missiles closer to the United States or by deploying faster missiles or both."

New Studies Show Pundits Are Wrong About Russian Social-Media Involvement in US Politics  12/28/2018 The Nation: "Also hurting the case that the Russians reached a large number of Americans is that they spent such a microscopic amount of money to do it. Oxford puts the IRA’s Facebook spending between 2015 and 2017 at just $73,711. As was previously known, about $46,000 was spent on Russian-linked Facebook ads before the 2016 election. That amounts to about 0.05 percent of the $81 million spent on Facebook ads by the Clinton and Trump campaigns combined."

Russian 2016 Influence Operation Targeted African-Americans on Social Media  12/17/2018 NYT: "The Internet Research Agency also created a dozen websites disguised as African-American in origin, with names like blackmattersus.com, blacktivist.info, blacktolive.org and blacksoul.us. On YouTube, the largest share of Russian material covered the Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality, with channels called “Don’t Shoot” and “BlackToLive.”"

Violent Ukrainian Neo-Nazi Speaks at US Govt Org, Helps Kiev Police ‘Purge’ Roma  10/30/2018 Gray Zone: "A prominent activist from the violent Ukrainian neo-Nazi gang C14 spoke at an event at a US government organization in Ukraine‘s capital Kiev. This young fascist leader has also boasted of working with Kiev police to “purge” Roma citizens from a train station, according to a Ukrainian human rights organization."

WATCH: UKRAINE ON FIRE  8/21/2018 Wrong Kind of Green: "Ukraine on Fire by Igor Lopatonok provides a historical perspective for the deep divisions in the region which lead to the 2004 Orange Revolution, 2014 uprisings, and the violent overthrow of democratically elected Yanukovych. Covered by Western media as a people’s revolution, it was in fact a coup d’état scripted and staged by nationalist groups and the U.S. State Department. Investigative journalist Robert Parry reveals how U.S.-funded political NGOs and media companies have emerged since the 80s replacing the CIA in promoting America’s geopolitical agenda abroad."

Documentary Filmmaker Details the Connection Between Trump and Russia's 'Money Laundering Kingpin'  8/6/2018 Alternet: "When asked by CNN’s John Berman what new information his movie brings to the debate about Trump and Russia, Bryan said that it would shed more light on Trump’s connections with a man named Semion Mogilevich, an alleged Russian organized crime boss whom Bryan describes as a “money laundering kingpin.” Bryan said the first indication that Trump got involved with Russian mobsters came in 1984, when he sold five Trump Tower condos to a Russian mobster named David Bogatin, who was later found to be part of a larger scheme that revolved around buying up properties as a way to launder money."

US Fake World War 2 History Underlies Permanent  8/2/2018 Black Agenda: "There’s a famous photo of US Marines raising a flag at the end of the horrific battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific. But there are no pics of

Former Intelligence Officer Malcolm Nance: We’re 'on the Cusp' of 'Losing the American Constitutional Republic Forever'  7/9/2018 Salon: "You will not recognize the United States. The country will vote itself into an autocracy. Trump and the Republican Party will suspend parts of America's representative democracy. They will amend the Constitution. And America will see 65 percent of its people living under subjugation. Now, I don’t say that lightly. That’s an intelligence analysis based on the empirical data. I say that with experience honed with humility. Donald Trump makes no secret of his desires in that regard. His biggest problem has been democracy. I disagree with you, however, on one point. I do believe there will be a "blue wave." The problem with the progressives and liberals right now is that they are still treating this situation like we are in a state of normalcy."

Congress welcomes an actual fascist as Nazi violence rages in Ukraine  7/2/2018 Gray Zone: "While racist violence raged through Ukraine, punctuated by a wave of attacks on Roma encampments by the state-funded C14 neo-Nazi militia, Congress played host to an actual Ukrainian fascist. He was Andriy Parubiy, and besides being the proud founder of two Nazi-like parties — the Social-National Party and the Patriot of Ukraine — he was the speaker of Ukraine’s parliament."

In search of Putin’s philosopher: Why Ivan Ilyin is not Putin’s Ideological Guru  4/19/2018 Riddle: "The person most often identified as Putin’s guru has been so far Alexander Dugin, the Eurasianist and fascist geopolitician. Western experts have mistakenly overstated Dugin’s influence because of his role in popularizing the Eurasianist terminology and neo-imperial projects. However, there is no direct link between Dugin’s neo-Eurasianism and Putin’s Eurasian Union project. Dugin’s ideological repertoire is drawn from the German Conservative Revolution and the French and Italian New Right far more than from the Eurasianist founding fathers of the interwar period. High-ranking Russian officials in charge of the Eurasian Economic Union institutions take their inspiration from Jean Monet and other advocates of a united Europe or from Beijing’s rhetoric of Chinese-style harmonious development, but not from classical Eurasianism."

Questioning the Conventional Wisdom of Russian Spy’s Poisoning  3/30/2018 Consortium News: "Ambassador Murray, who in the following interview raises compelling questions about who may be responsible for the attacks, other than the Russians, has been the butt of a full-scale cyber attack on his website over many days."

How Russian networks worked to boost the far right in Italy  3/1/2018 El Pais: " The Russian meddling machine has been focusing on Italy in recent months, conducting a disinformation campaign on the migration situation in order to drum up support for radical parties ahead of the general elections scheduled for Sunday. According to an analysis of 1,055,774 posts from 98,191 social media profiles to which EL PAÍS has had access, a network of anti-immigration and anti-NGO activists has been sharing links of stories published mostly by Sputnik, a media organization owned by the Russian government and operating in Italian among other languages, in order to propagate a false image of Italy. In this scenario, the country has been invaded by refugees who are to blame for unemployment and inflation, in the midst of a crisis made only worse by the passive attitude of pro-European politicians; ultimately, the European Union itself is held up as a culprit."

Trailer: Oliver Stone’s ‘Ukraine on Fire: The Real Story’  1/19/2018 Silent Crow: "Ukraine's 2014 Maidan Massacre helped oust President Yanukovych with Russia painted as the perpetrator. Oliver Stone interviews Russian President Vladimir Putin, Yanukovych and others exposing the role the U.S. played in destabilizing the region." [Brought to you by USAID and Open Societies]

The death of the Russian far right  12/16/2017 Al Jazeera: "How the Kremlin destroyed the far right in Russia, while backing it in the West.How the Kremlin destroyed the far right in Russia, while backing it in the West."

The Odd Chabad Connection Between Putin and Trump  11/27/2017 Washington Monthly: "Starting in 1999, [Vladimir] Putin enlisted two of his closest confidants, the oligarchs Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich, who would go on to become Chabad’s biggest patrons worldwide, to create the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as “Putin’s rabbi.”"

U.S. Government Planned False Flag Attacks to Start War With Soviet Union, JFK Documents Show  11/20/2017 Newsweek: "In a three-page memo, members of the National Security Council wrote, "There is a possibility that such aircraft could be used in a deception operation designed to confuse enemy planes in the air, to launch a surprise attack against enemy installations or in a provocation operation in which Soviet aircraft would appear to attack US or friendly installations to provide an excuse for U.S. intervention.""

The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That Connects Trump and Putin  4/9/2017 Politico: "This third way may explain the affinity Trump has found with a number of Chabad enthusiasts—Jews who shun liberal reform Judaism in favor of traditionalism but are not strictly devout. “It’s not a surprise that Trump-minded people are involved with Chabad,” said Torossian. “Chabad is a place that tough, strong Jews feel comfortable. Chabad is a nonjudgmental place where people that are not traditional and not by-the-book feel comfortable.”"

Russian mafia figure Felix Sater now appears to be blackmailing Donald Trump on Putin’s behalf  2/19/2017 Palmer Report: "In a bizarre new twist to the deepening Trump-Russia scandal, it appears Vladimir Putin is now using a Russian mafia figure – who once stabbed a man in the face – to blackmail Donald Trump into ousting the president of the Ukraine so his replacement can surrender Crimea to Russia. That’s the upshot of a new revelation which also involves Trump’s previously Russia-implicated implicated attorney Michael Cohen, and naturally, the recently exposed Russian operative Michael Flynn."

Leaked Memo: Is Soros Planning 'Series of Color Revolutions' in Southeast Asia?  10/28/2016 Sputnik News: ""To the agitprop entrepreneur, the returns on revolutionary investments are immense," he underscored. "A wealthy hedge fund manager can short a targeted market before executing a pre-planned 'revolution.' The resultant stock market and currency meltdown would provide self-evidentiary 'proof' to an anxious public, exerting more pressure on the government of the day to either capitulate or concede to 'popular demands' that are actually drafted abroad, likely by the IMF!"

How We Know Russia Shot Down MH17  7/17/2016 Daily Beast: "The vast majority of the evidence adds credibility to the theory that an anti-aircraft Buk missile launcher, controlled by either Russian soldiers or Russian-backed fighters and fired from a field south of the town of Snezhnoye, destroyed the commercial airliner. "

NYT Conceals U.S. Control Over Anti-Russian "Pro-Democracy Nonprofit"  3/12/2016 Moon of Alabama: "But the NYT writer hides from the readers the fact that the NDI is a U.S. government financed organization. It is a "nonprofit organization" in the same sense that the U.S. Armed Forces are a "nonprofit organization". The NDI has been involved throughout the years in dozens of right-wing "regime change" coups. Its direct parent organization is the U.S. National Endowment of Democracy:"

How foreign NGOs destroy Russia  1/7/2016 Pravda: "Let's take a look at well-known political NGOs. Many of them do not work in Russia officially anymore. However, there are organizations that still work on the territory of the Russian Federation, such as The Council for International Research and Exchanges, or IREX. The organization was created in 1968 to oversee exchange issues between the United States, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union within the scope of educational, scientific and socio-political programs. IREX really can hardly be called a "non-profit organization. Officially, the organization is registered as an independent foundation. In fact, the lion's share of its annual financial turnover - about $60 million - consists of funding from the USAID and the Office for Culture and Education of the US State Department."

America’s Dark History of Supporting Ukrainian Fascists and War Criminals  8/10/2015 SLAVYANGRAD: "The American support of contemporary Ukrainian fascism albeit shocking is in fact not a new political phenomenon. Documents declassified by the CIA under a FOIA request entitled The NAZI War Crimes Declassification Act show that not only was the CIA monitoring Ukrainian fascist groups during and after WWII, it was also actively aiding them and protecting them from prosecution. These and other documents can be found in the CIA’s Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room. The following documents are but a few of the many that pertain to America’s protection of war criminals the world over."

Russia Challenges America’s Orwellian NED  7/31/2015 Counterpunch: "The National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED) duplicitous mission statement indicates a “dedicat(ion) to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world.” Its practices are polar opposite – a State Department-funded agency created to undermine democracy wherever it exists."

Vladimir Putin anuncia nueva Universidad BRICS  7/9/2015 teleSUR: "El presidente de Rusia, Vladímir Putin, informó este jueves que dentro de los acuerdos que se firmaron en la VII cumbre de los países integrantes del BRICS (Brasil, Rusia, India, China y Sudáfrica) destaca la creación de una nueva universidad que permita fortalecer el sistema educativo en las naciones involucradas."

Alfred McCoy, Washington's Great Game and Why It's Failing  6/7/2015 Tom Dispatch: "For even the greatest of empires, geography is often destiny. You wouldn’t know it in Washington, though. America’s political, national security, and foreign policy elites continue to ignore the basics of geopolitics that have shaped the fate of world empires for the past 500 years. Consequently, they have missed the significance of the rapid global changes in Eurasia that are in the process of undermining the grand strategy for world dominion that Washington has pursued these past seven decades."

Hacked Emails Expose George Soros As Ukraine Puppet-Master  6/2/2015 ZeroHedge: "Just days after George Soros warned that World War 3 was imminent unless Washington backed down to China on IMF currency basket inclusion, the hacker collective CyberBerkut has exposed the billionaire as the real puppet-master behind the scenes in Ukraine. In 3 stunning documents, allegedly hacked from email correspondence between the hedge fund manager and Ukraine President Poroshenko, Soros lays out "A short and medium term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine," expresses his confidence that the US should provide Ukraine with lethal military assistance, “with same level of sophistication in defense weapons to match the level of opposing force," and finally explained Poroshenko's "first priority must be to regain control of financial markets," which he assures the President could be helped by The Fed adding "I am ready to call Jack Lew of the US Treasury to sound him out about the swap agreement.""

Putin warns Israel: Selling arms to Ukraine would provoke Russian S-300 sales to Syria too  4/19/2015 Debka File: "Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning to Israel against selling arms to Kiev - in retaliation for the S-300 air-defense missiles Russia has released for Iran – adds a European dimension to the dispute by planting Israel squarely in the middle of Moscow’s Ukraine dispute with the United States. The Russian leader’s implied threat to hit back by sending the same missile system to Syria as well as Iran, touches on another dispute between Russia on the one side and the US and Israel on the other, namely the Syria conflict."

Yemen war: Saudis prevented Russian evacuations by air, bombed Moscow’s spy center in Aden  4/7/2015 Debka File: "The Saudiis warned Russia that they would not be responsible for the safety of any flights landing at a Yemeni airport or the passengers assembled there for evacuation, while their air force conducted strikes against the rebels. Having achieved control of Yemen’s skies in the early stages of their intervention, the Saudis declared its air space a no-fly zone. This warning gained substance when, on April 1, Saudi F-15 warplanes bombed the Russian consulate in the second largest Yemeni city, Aden. A Russian witness said that not a single window was left in the building and all Russian citizens would have to leave the town."

How ‘Free Markets’ Defame ‘Democracy’  3/12/2015 Consortium News: "Currently, one of the big U.S. complaints against Russia is that it requires foreign-funded NGOs that seek to influence policy decisions to register as “foreign agents.” The New York Times and other Western publications have cited this 2012 law as proof that Russia has become a dictatorship, while ignoring the fact that the Russians modeled their legislation after a U.S. law known as the “Foreign Agent Registration Act.” So, it’s okay for the U.S. to label people who are paid by foreign entities to influence U.S. policies as “foreign agents” – and to imprison people who fail to register – but not for Russia to do the same. A number of these NGOs in Russia and elsewhere also are not “independent” entities but instead are financed by the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Development."

The “Exceptional” U.S. Suffers Crushing Defeat in Debaltsevo  2/20/2015 CounterPunch: "Last week, Washington suffered its greatest military defeat in more than a decade when Ukraine’s US-backed army was soundly routed in the major railway hub of Debaltsevo. Roughly, 8,000 Ukrainian regulars along with untold numbers of tanks and armored units were surrounded in what-came-to-be-known-as “the cauldron.” The army of the Donetsk Peoples Republic led by DPR commander Alexander Zakharchenko, encircled the invading army and gradually tightened the cordon, eventually killing or capturing most of the troops within the pocket. The Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered major casualties ranging between 3,000 to 3,500 while a vast amount of lethal military hardware was left behind. According to Zakharchenko, “The amount of equipment Ukrainian units have lost here is beyond description.” Additionally, the US-backed proxy-army saw many of its crack troops and top-notch units destroyed in the fighting leaving Kiev unable to continue the war without assistance from allies in the US or Europe."

The US' Suicidal Strategy On Ukraine  2/13/2015 Zero Hedge: "Russia, quite predictably and understandably, became alarmed at the rise of fascism and Nazi-sympathetic powers on its border. Remember the repeated statements by Kiev officials recommending extermination of the Russian speakers who make up the majority living in Eastern Ukraine. Were a parallel situation happening in Canada, for example, I would fully expect the US to be similarly and seriously interested and involved in the outcome. The only people seemingly surprised by this predictable Russian reaction towards protecting its people and border interests are the neocons at the US State Department who instigated the conflict in the first place. In my experience, these are dangerous people principally because they seem to lack perspective and humility."

The Untold Story Of A Ukrainian Sniper Who Took Part In The Maidan Massacre  2/13/2015 Zero Hedge: "One of the biggest mysteries surrounding the February 2014 US-staged coup in Ukraine and the violent overthrow of then president Yanukovich, is "who started shooting first" by which we, of course, refer to the lethal shooting escalation between the government's police force and random snipers who conducted target practice with various citizens and officials of the law during the crackdown at the Euro Maidan square protests, which eventually escalated into all out violence whose culmination was the overthrow of the president."

The untold story of the Maidan massacre  2/11/2015 BBC: "A day of bloodshed on Kiev's main square, nearly a year ago, marked the end of a winter of protest against the government of president Viktor Yanukovych, who soon afterwards fled the country. More than 50 protesters and three policemen died. But how did the shooting begin? Protest organisers have always denied any involvement - but one man told the BBC a different story."