WW3? Ukraine/US vs. Donbass/Russia

[Ravenlocke]

https://thecradle.co/Article/news/13660


Ukrainians offer no evidence’ says Lebanese customs official over allegedly looted Syrian ship cargo

A Syrian ship currently docked in the Lebanese port of Tripoli, and reported to be carrying Russian-origin flour, has been accused by Ukrainian officials of containing goods “plundered by Russia from Ukrainian stores.”

The shipping data website MarineTraffic shows that the Laodicea, a ship reportedly under US sanctions, docked in Tripoli on 27 July.

According to Reuters, a Ukrainian Embassy official in Beirut claims that “the ship has traveled from a Crimean port that is closed to international shipping, carrying 5,000 tons of barley and 5,000 tons of flour that we suspect was taken from Ukrainian stores.”

A Lebanese customs field agent who boarded the vessel told The Cradle there was no barley among the cargo, “only flour.”

In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula after a public referendum voted in favor, and established two federal entities there, the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol. Ukraine does not recognize Crimea as Russian territory.

A senior Lebanese customs official, speaking off the record, tells The Cradle that a “huge ruckus” has broken out over the ship and its contents.

“The prime minister [Najib Mikati] contacted the customs leadership and demanded we hold the ship for investigation, while the office of the president of the republic asked us to let the ship depart to its destination to avoid trouble with the Syrians and the Russians,” he says. “This is a complete conflict in decision making, we don’t know how to act right now.”

“Now the Ukrainians have asked us to sample-test the grains, but that is not going to tell us anything. Ukraine has offered no proof that these food products are stolen, as they allege. And by law they are not allowed to make this request of us. They must bring us evidence first, and if it is compelling, only then can we undertake an investigation.”

The Laodicea is one of three ships owned by the Syrian Ports Authority that Kiev claims are transporting “looted wheat.”

“According to the ship’s agent who spoke directly to Tripoli customs agents, the destination of the cargo is Syria,” a Lebanese shipping source reveals. “It may be that the vessel diverted to Lebanon to avoid US sanctions – or for other reasons unknown at this time.”

The Laodicea made a stop in Izmir, Turkey, en route to Tripoli. Says a Lebanese private shipping contractor who provided data on the vessel’s route: “If there was any evidence or suggestion of illegality, the Turkish authorities would not have let the ship continue its onward journey.”

The content of the ships has not been unloaded, and the vessel remains docked in Tripoli.

On Thursday, Ukrainian Ambassador Ipor Ostash met with Lebanese caretaker President Michel Aoun to demand “clarification” over the arrival of the Syrian ship.

“A request was made to take measures to clarify the circumstances of its stay in Lebanese territorial waters. It was also emphasized that this fact could harm bilateral relations,” a statement posted on the embassy’s Facebook page reads.

A Lebanese official confirmed that Aoun discussed the issue with Ostash, while Economy Minister Amin Salam said authorities were following up on the matter.

Earlier in the day, Salam announced that severe bread shortages would ease this week, thanks to the arrival of new wheat imports.

The Syrian ship arrived as Lebanon faces the dire consequences of a three-year economic meltdown.

This week, distraught citizens in several Lebanese cities stormed bakeries and pastry shops when tensions boiled over due to the long queues for bread.

The Levantine nation used to import as much as 80 percent of its wheat from Ukraine, but since the start of the Russian war, it now faces a major food crisis.

Another factor that limits Lebanon’s wheat supply is the destruction of the country’s grain silos during the Beirut Port blast of 2020 – a blast often described as the largest non-nuclear explosion in history.

[pyrangello]

Look at what they did in Afghanistan, how many left behind? Private funds to get Americans out loaded on planes to leave and the Biden State Department made them wait on the planes for days for landing approval. It was the most insane thing I've ever seen. Plus they left all the Americans behind and betrayed the Afghans who helped us. And you expect what from this administration? This is like having a crew driving the titantic playing ping pong at the same time. Most fearful thing I have ever seen in my life when it comes to responsible governing .

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/ReadovkaWorld/st...79815476695040

https://twitter.com/ReadovkaWorld/st...18932038348802

https://twitter.com/ReadovkaWorld/st...30297264029696

[Ravenlocke]

https://sputniknews.com/20220729/bul...097943858.html

Bulgarian PM's 'Russian Meddling' Claims Sign of Government in Death Throes, Zakharova Tells Sputnik

This week, outgoing Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, whose government lost a no confidence vote last month over what the opposition characterized as the... 29.07.2022, Sputnik International

Moscow “sympathizes” with the soon-to-be ex-Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov’s evidence-free allegations about Russian “meddling” in Bulgaria’s affairs, and considers the claims a sure sign of a politician singing his swan song, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

In an interview with The Times on Tuesday, Petkov, whose six-month old coalition government collapsed in late June, claimed that his ouster was the result of Russian interference.
“We have curbed corruption locally, but we have discovered that we have a bigger enemy: Russian infiltration. We failed to understand that corruption and Russian influence are the same thing. Corruption is Moscow’s best foreign policy tool in the Balkans,” Petkov, who is now tasked with running a caretaker government until snap elections in the fall, said.

“We sincerely sympathize with [Mr. Petkov’s] concerns about the ‘long arm’ of the Kremlin," Zakharova told Sputnik.

"When it comes to logic and truth, we see no reason to comment separately on each and every deliberately false statement about Russian interference in Bulgaria’s affairs, about corruption as our ‘main foreign policy tool’ in the Balkans, or the ‘indoctrination’ of local politicians through the organization of ‘field trips’ to Greece,” the spokeswoman added.

Russian embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria - Sputnik International, 1920, 28.06.2022
Bulgaria Expels 70 Russian Diplomats
Zakharova stressed that Russia has never interfered in the internal affairs of other countries, “just as it will never allow any country to try to impose its opinion on us.”

“Speculation around the ‘Russian threat’ for domestic political or other selfish purposes is a sure sign of political death-throes,” she said.

Zakharova expressed confidence that the spuriousness of Petkov’s claims is “just as obvious to the Bulgarian people, to whom we sincerely wish prosperity and a pragmatic government capable of acting on the basis of national interests, and not a desire to curry favor with transatlantic ‘partners.’”

Petkov, 42, resigned as prime minister on June 27 after losing a no-confidence vote after just six months in office. During the escalation of the security crisis in Ukraine this spring, Bulgaria joined EU sanctions against Russia, and refused to pay for Russian gas in rubles, prompting Gazprom to cut off deliveries and leading his ITN Party coalition partners to withdraw from his "We Continue the Change" electoral alliance-led government.

The Petkov-led coalition is one of four European governments to be swept away by the inflation and energy crisis facing Western countries amid escalating tensions with Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine. Last week, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban compared the West’s strategy of sanctions against Moscow to “a car with flat tires on all four wheels,” and said that the restrictions, instead of destabilizing Russia, only put Europe into a severe political and economic crisis.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/spriteer_774400/...80575484911617

[shaberon]

One moment to adjust our "western sculpture" a little more:



US President Joe Biden’s decision to release much of the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve into the market by selling it to oil companies was blasted for being a gift to petrol giants, who then sold it in Europe for record-high prices.


There went our tax funded stuff. And it helped bring to you these after-death movements of Standard Oil:


ExxonMobil, the world’s largest petroleum corporation not owned by a state entity, said on Friday it had made $17.85 billion in Q2 of 2022 - four times last year’s figure and twice what it made in Q1 of 2022. Chevron boasted an $11.62 billion profit in Q2, a 74% increase from Q1 and a 247% increase from Q2 of 2021.



That may not surprise anyone. Check out this, if you will pardon the expression, and if you won't, this is what it is, a financier's wet dream from some figurings by EPI:

Since the trough of the COVID-19 recession in the second quarter of 2020, overall prices in the NFC sector have risen at an annualized rate of 6.1%—a pronounced acceleration over the 1.8% price growth that characterized the pre-pandemic business cycle of 2007–2019. Strikingly, over half of this increase (53.9%) can be attributed to fatter profit margins, with labor costs contributing less than 8% of this increase. This is not normal. From 1979 to 2019, profits only contributed about 11% to price growth and labor costs over 60%.


Right. Labor costs are the major pain in the rump of Fascists. And now, there is almost no such thing.


Well, this is very much as, from a long article last week, what used to be understood as a Good King in religions and societies from Europe to China. Such a monarch would first abolish personal debt, and then their job was more or less to protect the peasantry from the rent and tax predators of their time. Around the eighth century, in the early times of "modernizing" finance, oligarchy became powerful enough to break that rule and start introducing new forms of government and erasing the memory. That is what is being called "the west" now, as a side, or seat of nazism, to which Gandhi was asked what he thought of western civilization?


"I think it would be a good idea".


This week--you have to pick through this guy, because he does have good information, but it is sort of mushy, like pulling punches. Here are a few ideas about "not the same capitalism" from Michael Hudson:


Most Asian labor can afford to work for lower wages because it has much lower housing costs and does not have to pay education debt. Health care is a public right, not a financialized market transaction, and pensions are not paid for in advance by wage-earners and employers but are public. The aim in China in particular is to prevent the rentier Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector from becoming a burdensome overhead whose economic interests differ from those of a socialist government.

China treats money and banking as a public utility, to be created, spent and lent for purposes that help increase productivity and living standards (and increasingly to preserve the environment). It rejects the U.S.-sponsored neoliberal model imposed by the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization.


And then to get gritty there is a really long German against German article. It is framed to look like it is about the Japanese. The two countries have an even trade balance of mostly redundant products. German cars for Japanese ones, thanks to America. There is a small German community in Japan. However he calls German women ugly at least three times and describes the American lobotomy along with miscegenation and so on. From the sounds of things, we could call it the Green Nazi country.

I understand it. He does not "hate his people", he is disappointed and disgusted by the majority of things that actually take place.

What is missing is that he does not explain how Japan, per se, is not like that at all. All of their primary research is in Japanese, and most of them know additional languages on top of that. Japan actually still has real Japanese people and Japanese stuff. They don't usually learn English or German to clean the guilt off their psyches and forget their own culture.


Here, where oligarchy just trammeled the peasantry on a historically unprecedented scale, it is considered monopolar. The "other side" perhaps is just "outside", since there are different ideas like Chinese and Japanese about not having anything to do with anything like this.

Now we have a case. The "case of the not missing HIMARS fragments". Are your fingerprints on it?

From the looks of the heat of the thing, it might be one of the better ways to go. I think you would be dead before your reflexes can feel it. Vive la guillotine! And Russia is supposed to be the state sponsor of terrorism?

[Goba]

News for those caught in their echo chamber (I know it hurts but that only the ego, get over it!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB3LThyFe1U

[JackMcThorn]

Part of the data from your YouTube video is from the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute Researchers and the London School of Economics among other questionable sources.

I choose the alt media and the search for truth. This video is a collective-west and Ivy League inspired waste of time.

Posted by Goba (here)
News for those caught in their echo chamber (I know it hurts but that only the ego, get over it!)

[Billy]

Posted by Goba (here)
News for those caught in their echo chamber (I know it hurts but that only the ego, get over it!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB3LThyFe1U

Your video is absolute BS.

Goba, Obviously you have allowed yourself to be indoctrinated with false news spewing out from Ukraine and Western Media, you are not looking at the hard evidence of the atrocities carried out by the Ukrainian Military for the last 8 years. The murder of innocence Ukrainian children and civilians by the Ukrainian Military, the evidence is documented if you take your head out the sand then open your eyes.
Maybe your own ego does not allow you to accept the evidence.
My personal opinion is you are on the wrong side of history, as they say each to their own.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=vn0F9f34vx4

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=DYaFqlyU5QM

[Ravenlocke]

Video shows the journalist Eva Kareene Bartlett

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1553379893530034176

https://www.rt.com/russia/559831-ukr...issile-strike/


Russia claims Ukraine had a reason to kill its own POWs
At least 53 people died in a strike on a detention center in Donbass

Kiev’s forces shelled a detention center holding Ukrainian POWs early Friday morning to “threaten” their own troops who may want to surrender, the Russian Defense Ministry has claimed.

“A large number of Ukrainian servicemen are voluntarily laying down their arms, and know about the humane treatment of prisoners by the Russian side,” the ministry said, calling the attack “outrageous.”

Authorities in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said that the death toll in the missile strike has grown to 53, while 75 were wounded.

DPR Deputy Information Minister Daniil Bezsonov posted a graphic video on his Telegram channel, which shows multiple mutilated and charred bodies inside the destroyed building.

According to Russia’s Defense Ministry and local authorities, Ukrainian troops used US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers to strike the detention center near the village of Yelenovka.

READ MORE: Ukraine shells prison holding POWs – DPR
The ministry said the facility held members of Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, whose fighters surrendered to Russian and Donbass forces during the siege of the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol. The battalion is notorious because it includes fighters with nationalist and neo-Nazi views.

Speaking to Russia’s TV Channel One, DPR head Denis Pushilin claimed that the Ukrainians “deliberately” targeted the detention center in order to kill Azov members who had been providing testimonies about possible war crimes by their commanders.

The Ukrainian military released a statement on Friday, accusing Russian troops of shelling Yelenovka. Moscow destroyed the prison in order to pin the blame on Kiev, as well as to “hide the torture of prisoners and executions," the statement alleged.




https://www.rt.com/russia/559817-ukr...-holding-pows/

Ukraine shells prison holding POWs – DPR
Ukrainian troops shelled a prison housing prisoners of war in the suburban settlement of Yelenovka early Friday morning, according to the Donetsk People’s Republic’s deputy information minister, Daniil Bezsonov.

“There was a direct hit at a building with prisoners,” Bezsonov wrote on Telegram. “The results as of now: 40 killed, 130 wounded.”

The minister added that he believes Kiev used US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers for the attack.

The facility reportedly housed Ukrainian fighters captured by Russian and allied forces during the siege of the Azovstal steel mill in the city of Mariupol.

The reported shelling took place as Russian and DPR troops attempt to push Ukrainian soldiers out of the republic’s western areas.

READ MORE: Ukraine bombards Donetsk with landmines – mayor
The DPR has repeatedly accused Ukraine of using HIMARS to shell Donetsk and other areas. On Sunday, the authorities said Ukrainian troops struck an oil refinery in Donetsk.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

[ExomatrixTV]

• Nato’s Arsonist-in-chief Jens Stoltenberg Wants The Western Public To Pay For A Ukrainian Fire He Helped To Ignite

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/stat...77634947682304

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/stat...77673010888704

https://twitter.com/ReadovkaWorld/st...58496728436737

https://twitter.com/ReadovkaWorld/st...84417455849472

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/EvaKBartlett/sta...85336033271809

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/coope125/status/1553286411851284485

https://twitter.com/coope125/status/1553391493481627650

https://twitter.com/coope125/status/1553383831343964164

[Ravenlocke]

The Duran

The BIG Ukraine counteroffensive that everyone knows about

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=kjyYdt3iNdA

Discussion, speculations and forecasts, prospects for Ukraine winning is very dire.
-despite reports that Ukraine has amassed a formidable force, Russian offensive continues and they are closing in on Slavyansk and Kramatorsk.

According to DPR the battle of Donbass will be over by end of August
Strikes on bridges have been abated for now, these are the bridges that deliver supplies to Russian troops
Ukraine has 5 weeks left in which to win or war is lost if they lose Donbass and currently Ukraine troops are being moved towards Kherson

Current factors

Boris Johnson wiil be visiting Zelensky
Russians are turning up the heat in regards to gas supply, turbines
Weapons deliveries to Ukraine have decreased, peak was March April
Rhetoric regards China

Is a collapse coming?

[Vicus]

UKRAINE STRIKES RUSSIA TERRITORY (WITH HIMARS?)


A massive explosion has taken place inside Russia proper, after an ammunition dump in Bryansk, Kilmovo Region of Russia was apparently hit by Ukraine.

The map below shows the location of the attack, inside Russia itself.


This particular attack comes just AFTER Ukraine used HIMARS (supplied by the USA) to strike a Russian POW camp to kill-off Ukrainian AZOV Battalion prisoners in the Yelenovka Penal Colony (Story HERE).

Both that penal colony and the explosion inside Russia, are within the same general area. If HIMARS was used to hit the penal colony, it is highly likely that HIMARS was also used to hit the ammo dump inside Russia.

Russia has publicly and repeatedly warned that if U.S. supplied HIMARS were used against Russian territory, Russia would declare the US to be a combatant in Ukraine, and launch military attacks against US/NATO targets.

We await analysis and confirmation that the attacks against the Penal colony - and against the ammo dump were, in fact, HIMARS. That has not yet been factually determined through forensic analysis.


https://halturnerradioshow.com/index...ry-with-himars

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/jaccocharite/sta...89163901149184

https://twitter.com/spriteer_774400/...43253573853186

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/statu...61254303502336

https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/statu...66794442199046

https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/statu...77152015896576

https://twitter.com/TobiAyodele/stat...73417126486017

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/politblogme/stat...47274724491264

https://twitter.com/politblogme/stat...48626683551744

https://twitter.com/spriteer_774400/...94553688248321

[Ravenlocke]

https://www.rt.com/russia/559920-rus...cross-ukraine/

Russia invites UN and Red Cross experts to investigate POW camp bombing

The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Sunday that it had officially invited independent experts from the UN and the Red Cross to investigate the shelling of a detention center in Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). The Friday bombing killed 50 prisoners, with dozens more wounded.

“In the interest of conducting an objective investigation of the strike on the detention center in Yelenovka, which led to the deaths of many Ukrainian prisoners of war, the Russian Federation has officially invited experts from the UN and the International Red Cross Committee,” the ministry said.

According to the Russian military’s earlier statement, the strike was conducted using US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launchers.

“All political, criminal and moral responsibility for the bloodbath against Ukrainians is borne personally by Zelensky, his criminal regime and Washington, which supports them,” Moscow said.

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://www.rt.com/news/559887-blink...t-designation/


State Department resists calling Russia ‘sponsor of terrorism’ – NYT

Officially designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism would limit the ability of the US government to “exempt some transactions with Russia from Western penalties,” the New York Times reported on Friday.

The paper said these exemptions could include ensuring that food exports from Russia are not disrupted by sanctions.

The State Department currently lists Iran, Syria, Cuba, and North Korea as state sponsors of terrorism.

According to the Times, designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism could completely sever the already constrained diplomatic ties between Moscow and Washington. State Department officials were said to view the designation as the “nuclear option.”

Responding to a request by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, the US Senate unanimously passed a non-binding resolution on Thursday calling for Secretary of State Antony Blinken to do just that. Zelensky repeatedly accused Russia of purposefully killing civilians in Ukraine, while Moscow insists that its troops only strike military targets.

Russia makes prisoner counter-proposal to US – CNN
Russia makes prisoner counter-proposal to US – CNN
Blinken said, however, that the US has already hit Moscow with unprecedented sanctions.

“The costs that have been imposed on Russia by us and by other countries are absolutely in line with the consequences that would follow from designation as a state sponsor of terrorism,” Blinken told reporters on Wednesday. “So the practical effects of what we’re doing are the same.”

On Friday, Blinken spoke with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov over the phone, which was their first conversation since Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine in late February.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this month that labeling Russia a state sponsor on terrorism would have “negative consequences” for the already fractured bilateral ties.