Possible motives for a provocation against Russia

A lot of commentators have pointed out that the West really does not want a full scale war with Russia because this would, at best, be a suicidal proposition. True.

But there are some specific interests in the West which very much want to raise tensions as high as possible. Today I will list just a few: (partial list)

The US energy sector

The energy sector is deeply concerned about Biden’s “green” rhetoric, combined with the fact that OPEC+ countries are not obeying US demands about prices. Also, US shale gas is expensive. Should a war happen between Russia and the Ukraine, it would also certainly completely derail Russian energy exports to the EU which, in turn, would create a very high demand for US energy in Europe (and worldwide). This is an old US goal in Europe, to force the EU to purchase US energy even though Russian can provide it for a much better price

NATO

That one is simple: NATO has no raison d’être, but now NATO leaders can claim to be the only thing standing between the good, freedom loving EU countries and Putin’s hordes.

“Biden” option one

Biden’s ratings are almost as bad as Zelenskii’s. If an anti-Russian provocation is executed and Russia has to openly intervene in the Ukraine, Biden can become a “wartime President” and he can wave the flag which will hopefully distract from his immense internal problems and make him look more “presidential” (which in US parlance means “more willing to use force”).

“Biden” option two

Say no provocation takes place and with time, all this hysteria eventually fizzles out. Then Biden can claim that “he showed the Russkies who is boss” and “America’s” resolve “deterred and contained the Putin”, etc. That would be like a mouse claiming that it deterred a sleeping bear from attacking it. The proof? Well, the evil bear did not attack, did it? So what more proof do you need?

“Biden” option three

As I have mentioned in the past, there are signs that the US has farmed out the Ukraine to the Europeans, which in turn means that should a shooting war happen, and its outcome is not in doubt, “Biden” can say “we tried to help the Ukraine as much as we could, more than anybody else, but they cannot expect us to go to war with Russia to support them”. In other words, letting “Ze” lose a war against Russia is a very elegant way to get rid of “Ze” and to blame the current full-spectrum chaos in the Ukraine on him, while deflecting any criticisms of the USA.

UK+EU politicians

UK and EU politicians have been faithfully parroting all the anti-Russian propaganda and now they are stuck in their own ideological corner: they hate Russia, but they need Russian energy. This dilemma could be “solved” by a short but nasty war which would powerfully re-polarize the EU against Russia and, therefore, fully and totally place the EU in the iron grip of the USA.

US MIC

That one is obvious: the bigger and scarier the Russian boogeyman is, the more the peace-loving USA can be spend on “defense”. And remember that the goal of US “Congresspersons” (love that newspeak!) is not to contribute to a sane US foreign policy, but to get re-elected. That, in turns, means that keeping the US MIC up and running, a real financial bonanza for a country otherwise is terrible economic shape, is one of the best way to get reelected while projecting the image of a “patriotic” elected official. Ted Cruz anybody?

The US deep state

The US deep state has always hated Russia and has always fanned the flames of hysterical russophobia. The Neocons play a major role here, but they are far from being the only ones, it is quite clear that, besides the White House, the deep state also runs the Department of State, the CIA and the Pentagon.

The 3B+PU

It is now clear that the 3B+PU attempted to overthrow Lukashenko, and that they failed. How to better conceal the magnitude of this failure from the general public than to have a short and ugly war against Russia, especially since the 3B+PU fully understand that Russia will never attack them first. Here I have to make a special mention of Poland which currently feels like a giant, standing as they do, on the shoulders of the USA. For them, it is a win-win situation: if Russia is defeated, they get to proclaim themselves the best soldiers in the history of the universe, if Russia wins, then they can declare themselves the most victimized nation on earth. Either way, both option are a salvific manna from the heavens for Polish nationalists (who otherwise are in trouble with the EU).

‘Ze’

Zelenskii’s ratings are even worse than Biden’s. Most of his former allies have turned against him and unless something very dramatic happens, his political future is pretty much zero, he will be lucky if he manages to escape the Ukraine on time, that is before somebody decides to take direct action against him (lots of different interests in the Ukraine are now openly and deeply hostile to ‘Ze’).

The British military/security establishment

The Brits have imperial phantom pains and they feel relatively safe, being far away from the Russian-Ukrainian line of contact. They also feel that it is quite unthinkable to imagine that Russia would dare to actually strike at a British ship/aircraft or, even less so, at a location in the UK. That latter belief is quite mistaken, by the way, because the Russians also realize that should they, say, sink a UK ship, or even hit a military facility in the UK, the latter would have two basic options: 1) do nothing by themselves and ask Uncle Shmuel for protection 2) counter-strike against Russia themselves, which would only expose themselves to more Russian counter-strikes. If this sounds like a losing strategy to you, it is because it is. But for the country of Litvenenko, Skripal, Bellingcat, and “highly likely” reality is never an impediment to action. Besides, it really appears that the UK is run by a mentally deranged Prime Minister surrounded by petty bureaucrats and a senile Queen.

The folks nostalgic for the good old days of the white, western, empire

That’s folks like Josep Borrell and all those who wanted a unipolar world, run by the West, of course, where no country could dare defy the rule of the Single World Hegemon (don’t matter which country, as long as it is a western one). These folks are the ones who need to get whacked, hard, by the Russian military every century or so.

In truth, there are many more groups in the West who want some kind of war, some want it quick and small, others want it bigger, while others want to stop the escalation just short of actual war.

As always, what happens next will be the result of of the sums of the many vectors influencing that outcome: each party will pull towards its interests as much as possible, and the sum vector of all of these unofficial foreign policies will result in what many of us will call “US foreign policy”, in spite of the fact that as such, no such policy exists (other than a sum of these different vectors).

Lastly, is the Putin-Biden being canceled?

Yesterday Psaki said that she was not aware of any preparations made for a summit between Biden and Putin. Also, a quick look at the calendar makes me wonder: between the upcoming Summit for Democracy, Dec 9th-10th, and the period between the western holiday season (Dec 24th – 1 Jan) the time available to organize such a summit is shrinking quickly. Following the initial announcement, the rhetoric in both Russia and the USA about such a summit has become much more vague as if both sides now appear to have second thoughts about this.

And if that summit is planned for sometime in January, then this just leaves more time for the Ukronazis to come up with any provocation they like. If that happens, then any summit would the scrapped sine die anyway.

We can still hope that this summit will take place, and that would be an effective way for “Biden” to show to “himself” and his enemies (the other factions of the US power structure) that he, “Biden”, is still in control. A bad peace is always preferable to a good war. But with so many western interests vested into such a war, I am not very optimistic.

Andrei

Anonymous on November 27, 2021 · at 9:05 pm EST/EDT

Corruption Cases in Spain, you will get fed up!

Some think that the time of the picaresque, the time of Don Quixote, Lazarillo de Tormes, did not end, they were transformed and inscribed in the Spanish psyche.

https://casa-aislados.com/tramas.php

Here you will find them by Autonomies and localities, provinces and political parties.
Urban corruption, apart from corruption, even murders.

https://www.abc.es/espana/comunidad-valenciana/alicante/abci-caso-polop-urbanizaciones-asesinato-200911290300-1132226580716_noticia.html

Nobody defends Cano
Two Czech hitmen (apparently amateurs), sordid meetings in the booth of a hostess club to plan the crime, and a mayor (then town planning councilor) admitted to prison without bail as an alleged inducer of the plan to assassinate his predecessor. They are the ingredients of the criminal plot of Polop de la Marina, a small town of 4,000 inhabitants a few kilometers from Benidorm, shaken these days by the possibility that its mayor could have ordered the murder of its predecessor. Polop has become, much to his regret, the (presumed) example of how far one can go by controlling the sweet tooth – certainly less and less – Urban Planning portfolio in a City Council.

For two years, since two hitmen shot Alejandro Ponsoda on the night of October 19, 2007, the town has remained silent.

The only one who broke it, from time to time, was precisely the last detainee: Ponsoda’s successor in the Mayor’s Office, Juan Cano. A man who got tired of asking the Civil Guard to “pull the thread”, until that thread led them to his house at dawn last Tuesday. He is considered the mastermind of the death – in charge of hitmen – of his predecessor, a party partner and, in another era, the main supporter.

Chalets on rustic land

Cano entered active politics at the hands of Ponsoda in 1995. It was the first time that the PP had won the elections in Polop, and the mayor entrusted him with the Urban Planning area. In those years, the town grew based on residential tourism. Although for this you would have to build on undeveloped land. “You built the chalet, paid a symbolic fine and it was legalized.” The accusation is against one of the members of the Platform of Affected Persons formed after the proliferation of houses in the middle of the mountain.

The urban excesses, however, were not the cause of Cano’s fall from grace

The urban excesses, however, were not the cause of Cano’s fall from grace within his party, although they were largely to blame. Even the family of the renowned writer Gabriel Miró went to the PP to criticize the territorial policy of the then mayor, according to a high-ranking official of the PP in Alicante. In the end, the PP forced Ponsoda to get rid of Cano in 2003 after receiving a complaint of alleged extortion of local businessmen. “We hear rumors, but rumors are one thing and facts are another,” replies the acting mayor María Dolores Zaragoza.

Four years later, however, the murdered mayor had no choice but to win him back as “number two.” Cano was by then the president of the local council of the PP, and controlled the elaboration of the list. Ponsoda, however, did not seem happy to rehabilitate the man for whom he stood up to his party in his day. Neighbors agree that, after winning the last election, Ponsoda accentuated his introvert character.

“Constant” discussions

The discussions between one and the other, according to those who knew them well, “were constant.” Especially in the meetings of the Polop governing board, which almost always ended in a quarrel. “A few days before he was shot, Cano threatened Ponsoda not to renew his daughter’s contract at City Hall,” recalls a party colleague to whom the murdered mayor related the deep disagreements he had with the councilor.

The main differences between the two, precisely, arose on account of the urban management of the municipality. Apparently, Cano intended to implement a partial plan that contemplated building several thousand houses, in the area next to the mountain where years before the construction of dozens of chalets had been allowed. Some point out that the idea was to raise about 5,000 homes, which would have tripled the municipality’s census. The truth, in any case, is that today there is no similar initiative underway in the town.

Eagerness for power, eagerness to freely control municipal urban planning or personal animosity, investigations by the Civil Guard’s Central Operative Unit (UCO) suggest that the situation exploded in the least expected way for the quiet Mediterranean town. On November 2, 2007, Juan Cano became mayor of Polop after the death of Ponsoda, eight days after receiving two shots at the doors of his home, in the Polopina district of Xirles.

“My father was honest”

“He has never supported us,” say the daughters of the deceased mayor, Fatima and María. Despite the fact that one of them works in the Consistory, and that in a town like Polop “everyone knows each other”, the young women lament the emptiness that Cano made them feel “from the first moment” after taking over the staff. command. Regarding the discrepancies between his father and the alleged mastermind of his murder on account of urban planning, they enigmatically warn that Ponsoda “was an honest person, he did not like corruption.”

the neighbors have finally broken their silence to begin to admit that Cano “was not like Alejandro”

After his arrest – the seventh related to the case – the neighbors have finally broken their silence to begin to admit that Cano “was not like Alejandro.” Despite working as director of a Caja Mediterráneo (CAM) branch, “he did not have a close relationship.” The gates of the City Hall were rarely open to the villagers.

Of course, there are those who do not quite believe that the mayor could have gone to the extreme of paying (it is speculated with about 50,000 euros, whose origin is unknown) to get rid of Ponsoda. “It does not fit in my head; This man does not need politics, he lived very well as director of the branch, ”explains one of the most veteran, a friend of Cano’s father.

However, others now confess – after the arrest – that “it was seen coming”, and they abound in the supposed “dark profile” of the detainee. Typical of the hostess clubs in the area (especially in the stage in which he left the City Hall, between 2003 and 2007), according to the testimonies of several employees of this type of premises compiled by the researchers, his difficult nature had not won him precisely the affection of his administered – contrary to what happened with his predecessor. The alleged extortion, never reported, crowns the portrait.

Meetings in a club

Cano is, however, only the first link in the chain. The judicial investigation places six other people in the plot to end Ponsoda’s life. The first of them, an alleged drug trafficker based in the neighboring town of Finestrat when the crime was perpetrated. Raúl Montero, with a history of illegal possession of weapons and drug trafficking – for those who are awaiting trial – allegedly the person in charge of obtaining the two small-caliber pistols used by the hitmen.

Raúl had been in preventive prison after being caught with an arsenal, but he was released while waiting for the trial weeks before the crime was perpetrated. He even went to court to sign two weeks after Ponsoda passed away. Then he disappeared.

At least until November 5, when he became the first detainee. The first tangible evidence that the Ponsoda murder investigation, two years later, was beginning to bear fruit.

Later, Salvador Ros fell, a shoemaker businessman who came to Polop more than a decade ago to open a store in the well-known Plaza de los Chorros. The Civil Guard suspects that he also participated in the sordid meetings at the “Mesalina” club, despite the fact that he has not transcended his degree of involvement.

The aforementioned club seems to be the real “operations center” of the plot: practically all the detainees are related in one way or another to it: its manager, a Uruguayan named Ariel – the third detainee -, its co-owner, Pedro, and the two Czech citizens to whom the Civil Guard attributes the material responsibility of the crime. All were at the meeting to concoct the crime, according to investigators, and some were even working or working at the whorehouse.

The “thread” finally led to Cano. Days before being arrested, he was already targeted as the ultimate target of the UCO agents. In the plot there was “a public position,” according to Ariel’s defense attorney. Some dared to name him, although in Polop he still spoke in whispers. The target of all eyes, now detained, he defended himself with threats of lawsuits against those who implicated him “in this savagery.” Two days before the Civil Guard knocked on his door, Cano defended himself in an interview published by ABC: «I do not know these men, and I have never been with them in a club. By God, the question offends.

Many unknowns

With the distance, it is also appreciated how unfortunate the rhetorical question that he launched in one of his last public appearances is now, when he was already in the spotlight: «Do you see me with fear? Am I in custody? »He snapped at reporters. The arrest took place a few days later, at dawn – to avoid the cameras – and at his own home. After searching the luxurious chalet in which he lived on the outskirts of the town (he used to do it in “a normal flat”, according to the neighbors), he was taken to the Town Hall, from where he left without handcuffs and with a laptop.

While the journalists were “taking over” the town, the detainee’s wife was returning on a flight from Miami, where she had come to visit her daughter. It is also said that the mayor of Polop planned to make the trip with his wife, but that the investigation thwarted his plans. By his own will, according to some versions, and because he had already withdrawn his passport, according to others.

The only thing that Polop’s neighbors (both those who believe in his innocence and the most suspicious) are clear is that the story of Ponsoda’s murder – which has placed them on the map despite him – is not close to end up. On the contrary, there are many mysteries to unravel, including the possible involvement of another councilor in the conspiracy, the ultimate motive for the murder, and above all the answer to the most disturbing question: can a councilor really order that they kill? your mayor?

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caso_Malaya

The face to face between Jesús Gil and Julián Muñoz

The History of Spain was written in ‘Salsa Rosa’. And it is not a euphemism, it is reality: the germ of Operation Malaya, the largest case of municipal urban corruption of Democracy, began on the set of the program. On the night of August 3, 2003 Julián Muñoz –from the restaurant ‘Cantora’, where he was going to celebrate Isabel Pantoja’s birthday- and Jesús Gil –from his home-uncovered the box of thunder in a direct confrontation with split screen.

Gil accused Muñoz of having turned Marbella into a “house of robberies”, and demanded that he explain “where he had gotten the money from him.” According to the former president of Atlético de Madrid, Muñoz had kept the donations that the party received for the electoral campaign. Jesús Gil also accused Muñoz of trying to buy PSOE councilors to vote against the motion. “You are a liar … of the agreements that you signed and took it away,” replied the mayor. Such was the magnitude of the matter that the newspaper El Mundo took it to its front page on Monday, August 4.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xb5lfy

There is nothing worse than a spiteful woman, it turns out that Julián Muñoz, Maite Zaldíbar, his wife, was unfaithful to a famous singer, Isabel Pantoja. When she found out about her adventure, she went on television to tell about it all over Spain, she uncovered everything and many went to jail, including her.

Here in Spain, you cry and laugh at the same time. Not even the Latin American soap operas are as entertaining as the Spanish reality.

114 Comments

Joshua Tartakovsky on November 25, 2021 · at 4:54 pm EST/EDT

The new German government is likely to be far more combative about Ukraine and Belarus than Merkel was. This is another factor that could tilt the situation in favor of war.
- B.F. on November 26, 2021 · at 10:42 pm EST/EDT
  
  Joshua Tartakovsky
  
  That is correct. However, the reason for this will be the newly created coalition of three political parties. The worst are certainly the Greens, who have no reason to exist at all. They were ostensibly created to protect the environment, yet their foreign policy initiatives are right wing and aggressive, with a negative attitude shown towards Russia. I always held them with suspicion. They are almost certainly somebodies Trojan Horse.
  - FkDahl on December 02, 2021 · at 7:00 pm EST/EDT
    
    I wonder if Der Grune are a CIA psyops …
Ruben Bauer Naveira on November 25, 2021 · at 4:54 pm EST/EDT

Saker, I would like to ask you a question:

Obviously, the West wants Russia to fight a war against Ukraine.

Though, for Russia, would it be better to fight a war against Ukraine solely (therefore playing the game of the West, and remaining being bullied by the West), or to grab the chance of fighting a war against the West (therefore risking a nuclear war)?

In other words: In your opinion, would it be better for Russia to compromise as regards the existential threat upon her (war against Ukraine solely) or to seek to resolve such existential threat (war against the West)?

Thanks
- The Saker on November 25, 2021 · at 5:05 pm EST/EDT
  
  Okay, Russia and the Empire have been at war since at least 7 years. This is an existential war in which one party will win while the other will comprehensively collapse. So the strategic goal of Russia is, with the help of China, Iran and others, to create a multi-polar world with no single hegemonic power.
  But the IMMEDIATE goal for Russia is to avoid an open conflict for as long as possible, simply because the costs and risks of any such conflict could be staggering.
  Now, a strategic goal can be combined with an immediate goal. For example, Russia might decide to teach NATO a lesson it would not forget for a long white. Ideally, Russia would want to de-fang both the Ukies and NATO the way she de-fanged Georgia in 08.08.08, but the risk here is obviously: an uncontrolled escalation leading a a massive US-Russian war, probably a nuclear one.
  So there are risk and opportunities here.
  I would always council for caution and de-escalation if that is at all possible.
  So far, the Russian bear just baring his fangs has been enough to keep the West sober and more or less sane.
  But there is only so long any animal, no matter how formidable, can just bare its fangs and growl, sooner or later the delivery of a real bite is needed.
  How big that bite will be I don’t know.
  Putin did say that it would threaten the survival of the Ukraine as a state.
  Putin also said that the next time around, a torpedo would meet a trespassing ship.
  Finally, Putin did say that he did not believe that NATO would do anything EVEN IF the Russian sunk a British ship.
  These are a lot of warnings and, as with any warnings, they begin to erode in effectiveness when they are not acted upon.
  I don’t see how Russia can avoid “biting” someone, so all I can hope for is that this bite remains fully contained in the eastern Ukraine.
  Whatever may be the case, we are in an EXTREMELY dangerous situation.
  - Ruben Bauer Naveira on November 25, 2021 · at 5:13 pm EST/EDT
    
    Thank you so much
  - Laurent on November 25, 2021 · at 6:36 pm EST/EDT
    
    I think we are in an extremely dangerous situation. Even canada is now considering sending a warship in the black sea and fighter jets and many more soldiers in ukraine to “deter” Russia.
    
    This is a quote from the article I read
    
    “Any reinforcement would be intended as a message to Mr. Putin, who has raised alarm for the second time this year by amassing troops and equipment near his country’s borders with Ukraine. Videos posted online show thousands of battlefield weapons – including tanks, armoured personnel carriers and multiple-launch rocket systems – being moved toward Ukraine from their regular bases in other parts of Russia”.
    
    They talk about videos which do not exist and about russian troops which are not deployed close to ukraine and even more important which are IN Russia like Russian troops in Russia are a threat. It’s ridiculous.
    
    Nato countries have launched a coordinated propaganda campaign specially designed to transform Russia in an aggressor. They talk about sending nato s troops fighter jets and warships in ukraine and in the black sea. I don’t think they are doing that for nothing. Now even Canada wants to play its part. It’s a coordinated move which looks like what nato did in Syria and Lybia. So I think the situation is serious.
    - JackJC on November 25, 2021 · at 7:31 pm EST/EDT
      
      Canada has a large and vocal Ukrainian population that unfortunately blames Russia for the Holodomor and forgets that Russia stopped the brutal Turkish raids.
      
      Fear not though, it’s hard to see a Canadian “ship-of-the-line” actually able to navigate to the Black Sea without three tugs full of spare parts.
      - Victor on November 25, 2021 · at 10:24 pm EST/EDT
        
        A Canadian navy ship can get there and back no problem, but it is not heavily armed even when compared to a much smaller Russian corvette. However, like a good vassal Canada will do what it’s told by the US.
        
        mark hadath on November 26, 2021 · at 12:38 am EST/EDT
        
        I am Canadian and live in Vancouver, where sometimes Canadian warships dock within actual walking distance to my home. They are small. They have little in the way of obvious weaponry. A few years back the Varyag, a Russian cruiser I believe, docked here. It was enormous. It had guns, guns and more guns. A Canadian warship is a fly on the back of an elephant. It would be incinerated by any Russian stand off weapon. Everyone on that ship would die quickly.
        
        Patrick Armstrong on November 26, 2021 · at 7:56 pm EST/EDT
        
        Russian/Soviet ships tend to display their weapons, Western one hide theirs. The Canadian frigates have a lot more weapons than you notice. Didi you see the Harpoons? The torpedo tubes? The AA missiles? I doubt it.
        Which is not to say that the Black Sea Fleet would be much frightened if all of them showed up at once.
        
        B.F. on November 27, 2021 · at 12:26 am EST/EDT
        
        Patrick Armstrong
        
        The Black Sea is a Russian lake. The Black Sea Fleet has the latest high tech, and it has huge backup from Russian radar and missile systems stationed in the Crimea. NATO ships are just pulling PR stunts. In a combat situation they would all be sunk.
        
        Man With No Name on November 27, 2021 · at 1:05 am EST/EDT
        
        @Patrick Armstrong
        
        You’re overestimating the Western military power. The only capable surface military vessel that the NATO has is Arleigh Burke class.
        
        Of course Western ships also have missile and torpedoes. Otherwise they wouldn’t be warships, right? However, they don’t have hypersonic missiles which Russia has.
        
        Also, in a conflict scenario in the Black Sea, Russia has the option of attacking from the Crimea fortress aside from their ships, subs and fighter jets. The US/NATO don’t have a possibility of prevailing in such a situation.
        
        Disappointed Canadian on November 29, 2021 · at 2:25 pm EST/EDT
        
        Canada, the biggest puppet country in the world.
        Simply it is big and completely an American puppet, with such a colonial mentality that I am ashamed of.
        Canadian military/navy looks like a stronger firefighting division, unless they bomb an innocent country like Serbia with the puppet muster and the other scoundrels (18 of those), then they have been so brave and strong from 30K feet…
      - The Internationale on November 25, 2021 · at 11:22 pm EST/EDT
        
        Just to clarify, the “Holodomor” is an anti-Communist myth and propaganda that has been thoroughly debunked as a widespread famine took place not only in the Ukraine but other Oblasts in the USSR.
        
        Sadly many peasants died, but it was not a planned ethnicide, unlike the Nazi pogroms etc.
        
        Humml on November 26, 2021 · at 4:18 am EST/EDT
        
        Exactly! That should always be emphasized:
        
        There we have something – funnily enough by an American historian – unfortunately only in Russian. But experts will of course find the original in English…:
        
        https://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/99596/mark-tauger-o-golode-genocide-i-svobode-mysli-na-ukraine.html
        
        (There’s quite a bit more.)
        
        And here is a Russian summary of the story about the creation of the fairy tale of the “Holdomor”:
        
        https://www.fondsk.ru/news/2018/08/11/vojny-stalina-protiv-ukrainy-ne-bylo-46596.html
        
        [Translated from Russian into English with deepL.com/Translator]
        
        “Stalin’s war against Ukraine did not happen
        
        The authorities condemn the population of Ukraine to an informational “holodomor”
        
        …
        One such opponent was West Virginia University professor of history Mark Tauger, who debunked Mace’s lies about the “deliberate” and “artificial” nature of the famine.
        
        …When the famine of 1932-1933 covered not only the Ukraine, when Kazakhstan, North Caucasus, Siberia, Povolzhye, Arkhangelsk, and Vologda starved, Stalin attached paramount, decisive importance to the situation in the Ukraine. On July 24, 1934, he wrote to Kaganovich and Molotov: “Our setting for the unconditional execution of the plan of grain procurements across the USSR is absolutely correct. But keep in mind that we will have to make an exception for the particularly affected regions of Ukraine [emphasis added by us – V.G.]… The most important thing now is Ukraine… If we do not take up the correction of the situation in Ukraine, Ukraine can be lost. Keep in mind that Pilsudsky is not sleeping, and his agents in Ukraine many times stronger than they think… Set a goal to turn Ukraine in the shortest time in a real fortress USSR, in a truly exemplary republic. Do not spare money for this” [Cited from: S. Rybas. Stalin. Moscow, 2015, pp. 332-334].
        
        The reasons for the famine were drought, crop failure, flawed methods of accounting, and false statistics, but there was another reason. The West presented the Soviet government with a choice: either, under threat of severe sanctions, to continue fulfilling its foreign trade obligations to supply grain abroad, or to help starving people. Moscow was particularly hard-pressed by London. At the end of 1931, the trade advisor of the British Embassy to the USSR warned that a failure by the Soviet side to fulfill its obligations would have “disastrous consequences: “…not only will further loans be refused, but all future exports, all Soviet ship calls in foreign ports, all Soviet property already abroad – all this may be subject to confiscation to cover debts.” The choice was the hardest, and Moscow made it.
        …”
        
        There is also a four-part detailed “Storry” on this, but we will leave it at that.
        
        Igor Mozajko on November 29, 2021 · at 9:57 am EST/EDT
        
        You can read the book here
        https://books.google.com/books/about/Fraud_Famine_and_Fascism.html?id=5wkJi1jvL3UC
    - Jimmy Flies By on November 25, 2021 · at 11:49 pm EST/EDT
      
      They’re sending in the EH? Team?
    - J-P DeCouvreur on November 29, 2021 · at 11:06 am EST/EDT
      
      Cher Laurent,
      
      You say “Now even Canada wants to play its part.”
      
      Canada always plays it’s part. Even the “exception” of Canada’s declared (Jean Chretien) non-involvent in the second Gulf war saw Canada involved in supporting/refueling/patroling in the area of conflict/East-Med. For more details on Canada’s apparent (and well crafted) “neutrality” since its much vaunted Nobel Peace Prize see Linda Mcquaig’s “Holding the Bully’s Coat” (2007). While not going nearly far enough historically, (for ex; Indonesia in the ’60s, Haiti twice etc) and focussing mostly on said second Gulf War, it will explain some of Canada’ s tied-at-the hip policies and “taking part” with its Southern masters.
      
      Cheers,
      J-P
    - From Aztlan... on November 30, 2021 · at 5:50 pm EST/EDT
      
      Canadians have been playing a big part in the subversion of the Ukrainian population, even since soviet times. The Canadian ukies gifted the native ukies with the “true history ” of their magical kingdom, the great mythology of their accomplishments and the great role they have played in human history, including being the birth place of the Virgen Mary. Well, they were so used to being at the bottom of the totem pole in the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, and the Austro Hungarian empire, that those fairy tales confirmed their superiority over the mongol hordes from Moscovia. Canadian Ukies have it as a rite of passage into adulthood to spend the holidays hunting Moskals in Donbass, they are great supporters of the Kiev regime with ideology, laws, weapons, and tourists on safari. Those are Canadian citizens, subjects of the British Crown. Their bloody hands are all over this War.
  - dave on November 26, 2021 · at 3:00 pm EST/EDT
    
    Instead of going to war with Ukraine, Russia should damage a few Nato ships, just a small damage enough to prove to US/Nato that she means business, Nato will flee from the Black Sea, Ukraine will back down.
  - B.F. on November 26, 2021 · at 10:35 pm EST/EDT
    
    The Saker
    
    Yes, we are in an extremely dangerous situation. However, in your article you left out the Rothschild’s. You stated:
    
    ” Besides, it really appears that the UK is run by a mentally deranged Prime Minister surrounded by petty bureaucrats and a senile Queen”. The point is that they are all bureaucrats, the Queen included. They all depend on the Rothschild’s and the City of London.
    
    For those of you who don’t know it, the City of London is outside the jurisdiction of the British Parliament. whose MP’s are prohibited from asking any questions about the functioning of the City, which is ruled by the Rothschild’s. It is an independent country, whose Prime Minister is the Mayor of London. People have the right to go through the City, the Queen included. However, if the Queen wants to hold negotiations inside the City, she needs to ask the permission of the Mayor of London, who in turns consults the Rothschild’s.
    
    As I have written on numerous occasions, the 1776 “revolution” in the American colonies was a Rothschild’s subversive operation, who created their own private colony both for profit and aggression. The US has been at war for 93 % of it’s existence. Who benefited ? The bankers perhaps ? Who financed Napoleon in 1812 ? The Rothschild’s. Who financed Hitler between 1931 and 1945 ? The Rothschild’s and Wall Street bankers, who in 1931 opened the Bank of International Settlements in Basel, right next to the German border. It was this Bank which directly financed Hitler, with a helping hand from Bank of America. As for Wall Street industrialists, they started investing in German industry a few years after the end of World War One. The aim was to build up Germany for a war against the Soviet Union, ie. Russia, so it could be broken up and plundered. In fact Anglo-Americans financed Germany in both world wars. They failed in breaking up Russia. After Germany’s defeat in 1945, NATO took over in 1948. Neither London nor Washington can forget Halford Mackinder’s warning from 1904 about the political and economic importance of Euro-Asia, namely an alliance between Germany, Russia and China.
    
    As we all know empires cost huge sums of money and create a heap of enemies. The Rothschild’s US colony is now discovering what the price of empire is. It has a huge foreign debt, with US university professors not being entirely sure what the domestic debt is, it being gigantic. Not only is the US facing huge debts, but it’s printing the dollar backed by nothing (as is the EU with the euro), it has seen plenty of it’s industry moved abroad, and it’s also looking into secessionist movements and racial friction.
    
    So, what do you do in a situation lie this ? You provoke a ‘victorious’ war in order to boost the economy and create a patriotic atmosphere, an old bankers trick. However, analysts have for years been warning that this old trick cannot work any more due to the gigantic US debts, the printing of money backed by nothing and the shipment of industry abroad. Will this deter the bankers and the Western elites from waging a potential war against Russia, using Ukraine as a proxy ? Highly unlikely. If they discarded war, what options would they have in maintaining their imperial attitude ?
    - Anonymous on November 27, 2021 · at 9:02 am EST/EDT
      
      The city of London is like no other place, redolent with ancient buildings, the Thames river, business classiness, a student hostel, lost souls, and stuffed inbetween it all, ultra modern buildings dripping in wealth and their utterly superior, self absorbed dealers in money and crime, worth a visit to get the sense of the reality behind the scenes.
  - hola on November 27, 2021 · at 10:48 am EST/EDT
    
    “Okay, Russia and the Empire have been at war since at least 7 years.”
    Exactly, before that they were allies and the Russians are collecting their rewards as we speak.
Nameless on November 25, 2021 · at 4:59 pm EST/EDT

Only a thing about Borrell. Spain has become a toxic country for the West after showing its true colors in Catalonia, apart the rampant corruption all over its state structures including, above all, the monarchy, with more than accidental links with far-extreme right (openly Francoists). Not a single Spanish politician has been promoted for anything in the Western tombola, with resounding failures in many organisations, I can’t understand how the Russians when they are accused of politized law or bribed judges, they don’t reply with the Spanish case, the judiciary is absolutely corrupt not only against Catalans, but even making more and more gross interventions in the political branches (legislative and executive), and so on. The case of Arnaldo speaks by itself.

As I say, not a single Spanish politician has been recently promoted for anything, with only one exception: Borrell. This guy, years ago, proposed himself for leading the PSOE and even he was elected, he resigned within hours among a corrution storm about his personal earnings. As minister, when he was, he made everybody cringe about his endless idiocy. When the Catalonian referedum, he sided with openly Francoist elements and proclaimed a quasi-fascist stance (his name is in Catalan, it is, rarely you hear him in his language), in the Catalan TV parody shows he is depicted with a can gas, such pyromaniac he is, and when he worked as European I don’t remember what charge, he was being paid from THREE public each other incompatible public institutions. All of this was exposed by Catalan euro-MPs in midst of general indiference, with Borrell saying he was there by accident.

When he was promoted to his current work, nobody in Spain could believe it. Neither friends nor foes. How corrupt the guy has to be.
- O.B. on November 25, 2021 · at 5:08 pm EST/EDT
  
  I thought that corruption was a pre-requisite for the job. One of us is seriously wrong.
  - Nameless on November 25, 2021 · at 7:03 pm EST/EDT
    
    None of us are wrong. The problem is not the corruption, either. There were thousands of people maybe even more corrupt than him for the job, but they did a good work hiding it, and, it is not also how clumsy he is, it is he is proud of it. He was interviewed in Deutsche Welle, I think, and when he was asked with not very hard to manage questions, he threatened to leave the interview and almost insulted the journalist (well, not almost, he did). Since he knows the questions in advance, either he didn’t bother to read them and/or tell the channel he didn’t want them. Anyway, he don’t give a shit. He never solved a problem, he worserned every one of them he could, not to say the lot he created totally gratis. By the way, he is a tax office servant, a very high one, and he was involved in almost all tax corruption scandals in Catalonia before went to unpaid leave.
    
    When Lavrov ridiculized him, then suddenly the guy was not fitted for the job.
    
    It’s not only the West is not agreement capable, it is a psychiatric ward.
- nietzsche1510 on November 25, 2021 · at 6:22 pm EST/EDT
  
  Borrell is there for being a “hidden” hardcore Zionist, and as a legitimate Marrano, a servile executioner of the Tribe´s ukases in Brussels.
- Basque David on November 28, 2021 · at 4:33 am EST/EDT
  
  Basque David
  
  Nameless, you don’t have a clue!!!! What true colours are you talking about.? The Spanish government stopped peacefully a unilateral and ilegal secessionist attempt only suported by half of the catalans. If a French area attempted something like that , I cant not even imagine the levels of violence and reppression from the Gvt.that would have happened!!!
  The Catalan independentistas are the facists ones here not the Spanish state. You are buying all the independentistas propaganda and their false claims of the Spanish state being the baddies francoists ( how boring and untrue) Líes líes and more Líes. It s people like you, spanish radical leftists , spanish socialists and independentists that throw that baseless unfounded argument time and time again for lack of any other argument (but it always effective particularly abroad, where international media are more interested in dividing and dishonestly supporting the nacionalsts narrative, that all it is a narrative!).
  I am basque by the way and I can assure you I have witnessed the levels of corrupción , fanatism quasifascism of indepentists in the basque country and catalonia.. . It is exactly the other way around (remember Putin and his comment about the sin you see in somebody is what you are yourself…) Nobody has given a fuck bout Franco or francoism for a long long time. Turn the page mate! Estamos en el siglo XXI !!!
  
  As for the corrupción, Spain is no more corrupted than UK USA France Italia Germany etc etc. Probably less as a matter of fact.
war is coming on November 25, 2021 · at 5:04 pm EST/EDT

If the US wants to lower the energy price, easier(but difficult in term of credibility lost): just stop sanctionning Iran and Venezuela for a starter.VEN only has oil, but Iran both.
Of course the Z entity occupying Palestine, will never allow the Iran one.

The US selling gas to the EU?Ok but which gas? Shale is almost over in 2025, there are not enough infrastructures to accept and treat LNG in the EU(need for a good two years at least to build them, whith which money?)

Qatar is at full capacity(also serving Asia), SA is mainly producing oil if I’m not wrong?Norway, NL, UK,DK are almost at the end of their reserves.

Algeria is almost at some kind of war with Marroco.
Lybia is a mess.
O.B. on November 25, 2021 · at 5:06 pm EST/EDT

If the offensive becomes inevitable, and if I was a strategic decider, I would ask Donetsk and Lugansk to held an emergency referendum to join the RF – or make an official request, if one has already been done – to which RF would thoughtfully and wearily accept, and send some dancing Cossacks and dancers, plenty of music, make a nice winter parade for everyone to enjoy, with pretty girls, and without the while polite green man, who would be quietly taking positions over the border. There is plenty of time for them to get acquainted later.

The rest will be taken care in good time, according to people’s will. To choose between chaos and poverty, or joining a nearby state with which you identify yourself whole heartily, is that a challenge to you?

Now that parade would be a real Xmas gift !
- The Saker on November 25, 2021 · at 5:09 pm EST/EDT
  
  I would ask Donetsk and Lugansk to held an emergency referendum to join the RF
  
  They already have. But Russia has, so far, refused to recognize this vote or to incorporate the LDNR into Russia.
  However, a LOT of Russian politicians seems to think that if the Ukies attack, Russia will recognize the LDNR, like what Russia did with South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
  - Rachotilko on December 04, 2021 · at 2:59 pm EST/EDT
    
    I doubt that. The combined LNR+DNR population is twelve times that of Abchazia+Ossetia. Further more, Caucasus has great strategic value for control of pipelines.
    
    The only value of Donbass is its black coal. One hundred years ago countries craved territories rich in black coal, but not now.
    
    I don’t see any value the Donbass population would bring to Russia’s ruling elite.
cdvision on November 25, 2021 · at 5:21 pm EST/EDT

Re energy. Realistically, Europe’s only option for the foreseeable future is Russian gas. The US is importing more Russian oil and gas. Biden has been on his knees begging for OPEC+ to increase supply, and other countries to release reserves – without success – the price of oil has risen. Inflation in the US and the collective West is getting out of control.

A war with Russia would cease Russian exports to the collective West overnight. Energy wouldn’t just become incredibly expensive, but likely unobtainable. Inflation would go through the roof. The Western economies would be destroyed in short order – imagine the riots in the US!

Energy is the key, other issues are secondary, except for the suicidal or insane.

No mention in the analysis of China. Apart from any help they might offer Russia, they would immediately take Taiwan, and the US is in no position to fight even 1 peer adversary, nevermind 2.
Davidthegalician (Spain) on November 25, 2021 · at 5:28 pm EST/EDT

Borrell, that guy, as we say here in Spain, was minister in all the governments of Felipe Gónzalez, from 1982-1996.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupci%C3%B3n_en_Espa%C3%B1a#Gobierno_de_Felipe_Gonz%C3%A1lez_M%C3%A1rquez_(1982-1996)

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caso_Flick

The Flick Case:

The so-called Flick case was a large corruption plot orchestrated by the German businessman Friedrich Karl Flick, who bribed politicians from all political parties represented in the Bundestag (then the Christian Democratic Union of Germany or CDU, the Christian Social Union of Bavaria or CSU, the Social Democratic Party of Germany or SPD and the Free Democratic Party or FDP), and in return received substantial tax benefits. The case was extended to Spain, since the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, close to the SPD, allocated Flick donations worth 1 000 000 deutschmarks to finance the PSOE.

The German case

In 1981 it was discovered that the Flick consortium, owned by the richest man in Germany, had been exempted from paying hundreds of millions of marks of tax on the sale of its package of Daimler-Benz shares to Kuwait. These exemptions would have been granted thanks to the donations that the consortium distributed between 1969 and 1980 to all the parties of the Bundestag of the German Federal Republic (Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and Liberals). Corruption plagued then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl, whose name was on the list of payments, and to whom Flick would have opened a political path by bribing the resignation of Christian Democrat leader Rainer Barzel. Kohl, forced to appear before a parliamentary commission, said he did not remember anything.

After a lengthy investigation, the case was closed in the courts, which in February 1987 only convicted two former Liberal Economy Ministers – Count Otto Graf Lambsdorff and Hans Friderichs – of tax fraud, and a senior manager of the consortium, Eberhard von Brauchitsch.

The Spanish plot
The German magazine Der Spiegel assured in 1990 that the first deliveries to Spain did not come from Flick, but from the reserved funds of the German secret services created during the Government of Helmut Schmidt (1974-1982), with the consent of all parliamentary parties .

During the transition, for the covert delivery of bribes, the German secret services used four different political foundations, notably Friedrich Ebert. To erase the traces of the origin of the money, they also falsified the documentation. Donations to Spain and Portugal amounted between 1978 and 1981 to about 3.3 million euros, according to Der Spiegel.

What were the secret services and the Social Democracy trying to cover up? The explanation appeared when Eberhard von Brauchitsch, the representative of Flick, appeared in the commission of inquiry in the Congress of Deputies. Santiago Carrillo asked him:

“I understand that Mr. Flick was convicted by the Nuremberg Tribunal as a Nazi war criminal. And I think you are the son of the general who was Hitler’s chief of staff … So, how do you explain that you finance the PSOE? ”
Question from Santiago Carrillo to Eberhard von Brauchitsch
Von Brauchitsch did not hesitate in reply:

“We tried to close the way to communism and the best placed party to do so was the PSOE”
Answer from Eberhard von Brauchitsch3
Cornered, Felipe González, then president of the PSOE government, pronounced that famous phrase: “I have not received a penny, not a peseta, neither from Flick nor from Flock.” However, in the parliamentary commission of inquiry, those involved they agreed to admit that the Friedrich Ebert Foundation had allocated a million marks to Spain, but they found a hole to escape through: they had perceived it a year before the Spanish parties were prohibited from receiving foreign donations. ] The Congress of Deputies acquitted Felipe González with 263 votes in favor, approving the conclusions drawn by the commission regarding the lack of evidence and the falsity of the statements.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grupos_Antiterroristas_de_Liberaci%C3%B3n

GAL: Antiterrorist Liberation Groups

That the Borrell to shut up, who has many skeletons in the closet and is nobody to give moral lessons or anything.
- Analyst on November 26, 2021 · at 10:01 pm EST/EDT
  
  I very much appreciate your explanation about the activities of Flick and it reminded me of a conversation i had with a Spaniard, who picked me up when i was hitch-hiking south in the late 1960s along a German Autobahn and he was on his way back to Spain. I was curious about the history of the investment by Flick in the Vittoria factory of Auto Union in the mid 1950s. It seemed to me to be an obvious vehicle for funds to be channeled to German ‘exiles’ (such as through ODESSA). Naturally this investment was dressed up as bringing much needed jobs to a poorer (Basque) area of Spain. The Spaniard stated that he himself was a Communist and he just about exploded in anger when describing the financial improprieties that were involved. For him, this was not a ‘means to bring jobs to a poorer region’ but an outright Fascist infiltration of funds to bribe local politicians into accepting the deal, with very little of these funds trickling down to the workforce…
  Similar types of funds were channeled at the time also to Argentina and Brazil by both Mercedes Benz and Auto Union, who then employed many German exiles to run the facilities…and NSU were also quite active.
- Man With No Name on November 27, 2021 · at 12:56 am EST/EDT
  
  @Davidthegalician (Spain)
  
  Thank you very much for this information. If you wouldn’t mind, can you please provide more links related to these corruption cases?
  - Anonymous on November 27, 2021 · at 9:05 pm EST/EDT
    
    Corruption Cases in Spain, you will get fed up!
    
    Some think that the time of the picaresque, the time of Don Quixote, Lazarillo de Tormes, did not end, they were transformed and inscribed in the Spanish psyche.
    
    https://casa-aislados.com/tramas.php
    
    Here you will find them by Autonomies and localities, provinces and political parties.
    Urban corruption, apart from corruption, even murders.
    
    https://www.abc.es/espana/comunidad-valenciana/alicante/abci-caso-polop-urbanizaciones-asesinato-200911290300-1132226580716_noticia.html
    
    Nobody defends Cano
    Two Czech hitmen (apparently amateurs), sordid meetings in the booth of a hostess club to plan the crime, and a mayor (then town planning councilor) admitted to prison without bail as an alleged inducer of the plan to assassinate his predecessor. They are the ingredients of the criminal plot of Polop de la Marina, a small town of 4,000 inhabitants a few kilometers from Benidorm, shaken these days by the possibility that its mayor could have ordered the murder of its predecessor. Polop has become, much to his regret, the (presumed) example of how far one can go by controlling the sweet tooth – certainly less and less – Urban Planning portfolio in a City Council.
    
    For two years, since two hitmen shot Alejandro Ponsoda on the night of October 19, 2007, the town has remained silent.
    
    The only one who broke it, from time to time, was precisely the last detainee: Ponsoda’s successor in the Mayor’s Office, Juan Cano. A man who got tired of asking the Civil Guard to “pull the thread”, until that thread led them to his house at dawn last Tuesday. He is considered the mastermind of the death – in charge of hitmen – of his predecessor, a party partner and, in another era, the main supporter.
    
    Chalets on rustic land
    
    Cano entered active politics at the hands of Ponsoda in 1995. It was the first time that the PP had won the elections in Polop, and the mayor entrusted him with the Urban Planning area. In those years, the town grew based on residential tourism. Although for this you would have to build on undeveloped land. “You built the chalet, paid a symbolic fine and it was legalized.” The accusation is against one of the members of the Platform of Affected Persons formed after the proliferation of houses in the middle of the mountain.
    
    The urban excesses, however, were not the cause of Cano’s fall from grace
    
    The urban excesses, however, were not the cause of Cano’s fall from grace within his party, although they were largely to blame. Even the family of the renowned writer Gabriel Miró went to the PP to criticize the territorial policy of the then mayor, according to a high-ranking official of the PP in Alicante. In the end, the PP forced Ponsoda to get rid of Cano in 2003 after receiving a complaint of alleged extortion of local businessmen. “We hear rumors, but rumors are one thing and facts are another,” replies the acting mayor María Dolores Zaragoza.
    
    Four years later, however, the murdered mayor had no choice but to win him back as “number two.” Cano was by then the president of the local council of the PP, and controlled the elaboration of the list. Ponsoda, however, did not seem happy to rehabilitate the man for whom he stood up to his party in his day. Neighbors agree that, after winning the last election, Ponsoda accentuated his introvert character.
    
    “Constant” discussions
    
    The discussions between one and the other, according to those who knew them well, “were constant.” Especially in the meetings of the Polop governing board, which almost always ended in a quarrel. “A few days before he was shot, Cano threatened Ponsoda not to renew his daughter’s contract at City Hall,” recalls a party colleague to whom the murdered mayor related the deep disagreements he had with the councilor.
    
    The main differences between the two, precisely, arose on account of the urban management of the municipality. Apparently, Cano intended to implement a partial plan that contemplated building several thousand houses, in the area next to the mountain where years before the construction of dozens of chalets had been allowed. Some point out that the idea was to raise about 5,000 homes, which would have tripled the municipality’s census. The truth, in any case, is that today there is no similar initiative underway in the town.
    
    Eagerness for power, eagerness to freely control municipal urban planning or personal animosity, investigations by the Civil Guard’s Central Operative Unit (UCO) suggest that the situation exploded in the least expected way for the quiet Mediterranean town. On November 2, 2007, Juan Cano became mayor of Polop after the death of Ponsoda, eight days after receiving two shots at the doors of his home, in the Polopina district of Xirles.
    
    “My father was honest”
    
    “He has never supported us,” say the daughters of the deceased mayor, Fatima and María. Despite the fact that one of them works in the Consistory, and that in a town like Polop “everyone knows each other”, the young women lament the emptiness that Cano made them feel “from the first moment” after taking over the staff. command. Regarding the discrepancies between his father and the alleged mastermind of his murder on account of urban planning, they enigmatically warn that Ponsoda “was an honest person, he did not like corruption.”
    
    the neighbors have finally broken their silence to begin to admit that Cano “was not like Alejandro”
    
    After his arrest – the seventh related to the case – the neighbors have finally broken their silence to begin to admit that Cano “was not like Alejandro.” Despite working as director of a Caja Mediterráneo (CAM) branch, “he did not have a close relationship.” The gates of the City Hall were rarely open to the villagers.
    
    Of course, there are those who do not quite believe that the mayor could have gone to the extreme of paying (it is speculated with about 50,000 euros, whose origin is unknown) to get rid of Ponsoda. “It does not fit in my head; This man does not need politics, he lived very well as director of the branch, ”explains one of the most veteran, a friend of Cano’s father.
    
    However, others now confess – after the arrest – that “it was seen coming”, and they abound in the supposed “dark profile” of the detainee. Typical of the hostess clubs in the area (especially in the stage in which he left the City Hall, between 2003 and 2007), according to the testimonies of several employees of this type of premises compiled by the researchers, his difficult nature had not won him precisely the affection of his administered – contrary to what happened with his predecessor. The alleged extortion, never reported, crowns the portrait.
    
    Meetings in a club
    
    Cano is, however, only the first link in the chain. The judicial investigation places six other people in the plot to end Ponsoda’s life. The first of them, an alleged drug trafficker based in the neighboring town of Finestrat when the crime was perpetrated. Raúl Montero, with a history of illegal possession of weapons and drug trafficking – for those who are awaiting trial – allegedly the person in charge of obtaining the two small-caliber pistols used by the hitmen.
    
    Raúl had been in preventive prison after being caught with an arsenal, but he was released while waiting for the trial weeks before the crime was perpetrated. He even went to court to sign two weeks after Ponsoda passed away. Then he disappeared.
    
    At least until November 5, when he became the first detainee. The first tangible evidence that the Ponsoda murder investigation, two years later, was beginning to bear fruit.
    
    Later, Salvador Ros fell, a shoemaker businessman who came to Polop more than a decade ago to open a store in the well-known Plaza de los Chorros. The Civil Guard suspects that he also participated in the sordid meetings at the “Mesalina” club, despite the fact that he has not transcended his degree of involvement.
    
    The aforementioned club seems to be the real “operations center” of the plot: practically all the detainees are related in one way or another to it: its manager, a Uruguayan named Ariel – the third detainee -, its co-owner, Pedro, and the two Czech citizens to whom the Civil Guard attributes the material responsibility of the crime. All were at the meeting to concoct the crime, according to investigators, and some were even working or working at the whorehouse.
    
    The “thread” finally led to Cano. Days before being arrested, he was already targeted as the ultimate target of the UCO agents. In the plot there was “a public position,” according to Ariel’s defense attorney. Some dared to name him, although in Polop he still spoke in whispers. The target of all eyes, now detained, he defended himself with threats of lawsuits against those who implicated him “in this savagery.” Two days before the Civil Guard knocked on his door, Cano defended himself in an interview published by ABC: «I do not know these men, and I have never been with them in a club. By God, the question offends.
    
    Many unknowns
    
    With the distance, it is also appreciated how unfortunate the rhetorical question that he launched in one of his last public appearances is now, when he was already in the spotlight: «Do you see me with fear? Am I in custody? »He snapped at reporters. The arrest took place a few days later, at dawn – to avoid the cameras – and at his own home. After searching the luxurious chalet in which he lived on the outskirts of the town (he used to do it in “a normal flat”, according to the neighbors), he was taken to the Town Hall, from where he left without handcuffs and with a laptop.
    
    While the journalists were “taking over” the town, the detainee’s wife was returning on a flight from Miami, where she had come to visit her daughter. It is also said that the mayor of Polop planned to make the trip with his wife, but that the investigation thwarted his plans. By his own will, according to some versions, and because he had already withdrawn his passport, according to others.
    
    The only thing that Polop’s neighbors (both those who believe in his innocence and the most suspicious) are clear is that the story of Ponsoda’s murder – which has placed them on the map despite him – is not close to end up. On the contrary, there are many mysteries to unravel, including the possible involvement of another councilor in the conspiracy, the ultimate motive for the murder, and above all the answer to the most disturbing question: can a councilor really order that they kill? your mayor?
    
    https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caso_Malaya
    
    The face to face between Jesús Gil and Julián Muñoz
    
    The History of Spain was written in ‘Salsa Rosa’. And it is not a euphemism, it is reality: the germ of Operation Malaya, the largest case of municipal urban corruption of Democracy, began on the set of the program. On the night of August 3, 2003 Julián Muñoz –from the restaurant ‘Cantora’, where he was going to celebrate Isabel Pantoja’s birthday- and Jesús Gil –from his home-uncovered the box of thunder in a direct confrontation with split screen.
    
    Gil accused Muñoz of having turned Marbella into a “house of robberies”, and demanded that he explain “where he had gotten the money from him.” According to the former president of Atlético de Madrid, Muñoz had kept the donations that the party received for the electoral campaign. Jesús Gil also accused Muñoz of trying to buy PSOE councilors to vote against the motion. “You are a liar … of the agreements that you signed and took it away,” replied the mayor. Such was the magnitude of the matter that the newspaper El Mundo took it to its front page on Monday, August 4.
    
    https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xb5lfy
    
    There is nothing worse than a spiteful woman, it turns out that Julián Muñoz, Maite Zaldíbar, his wife, was unfaithful to a famous singer, Isabel Pantoja. When she found out about her adventure, she went on television to tell about it all over Spain, she uncovered everything and many went to jail, including her.
    
    Here in Spain, you cry and laugh at the same time. Not even the Latin American soap operas are as entertaining as the Spanish reality.
Hal on November 25, 2021 · at 5:42 pm EST/EDT

The world’s two flashpoints remain – Taiwan and Ukraine.
On Taiwan I think it is only a matter of time before China fully incorporates that off-shore Chinese island into China properly. The very few visiting U.S. soldiers will be sent home, and the visiting U.S. politicians will be advised to apply for a visa from Beijing in the future.
On Ukraine, relentless pressure will cause Russia to either incorporate the Donbass into Russia as with Crimea, or recognise Donetsk and Lugansk as separate and sovereign states in their own right. The big question is how far will Russia go? Mariupol? Odessa?
As for uniting the EU against Russia and cementing it as an American outpost, isn’t it that already? Maybe best to let it happen, and then let it fulfil its destiny and fall apart.
A. Dane on November 25, 2021 · at 5:43 pm EST/EDT

Andrei wrote: “Do some interests in the West want to raise tensions as high as possible”.

The US energy sector?
NO. The US Shale products are expensive already, without subsidies, and in a war situation they will be way too expensive and dangerous to freight to Europe

NATO?
Check

Biden option one?
NO. I think the west has moved past that old trick. They know Americans are weary of wars.

Biden option two?
Check

Biden option three?
NO. Ze is too small a fish to blame. Ukraine has got to be blamed on Putin.

UK+EU politicians?
Check

US MIC?
Check

The US deep state?
Check

The 3B+PU?
Maybe. But I think they will quit before their provocations gets them into war.

Ze?
NO. Ze is not starting war with Russia. It will be the NAZIs, because they have been paid to do it.

The British military/security establishment?
Check

The folks nostalgic for a Global Fascist Empire?
Check

Is the Putin-Biden meeting being canceled?
Check. The Biden Administration have read the Saker Blog lately.
- dh-mtl on November 25, 2021 · at 6:38 pm EST/EDT
  
  The folks nostalgic for a Global Fascist Empire?
  Check
  
  I would say rather the folks ‘running’ the Global Fascist Empire (i.e. the Davos Crowd, the trans-national elites based in London).
  
  The biggest obstacles to consolidating their Global ‘stateless’ Empire under Global Institutions are Russia, China and Nationalists in the U.S. And time is running out. The Climate Crisis, Pandemic, Refugee Crisis, etc. are failing to deliver the needed support for their project. Russia and China are getting ever stronger, and the Nationalists in the U.S. will take over come next November. Sucking the U.S. into a war with Russia and/or China would, they dream, be a win-win-win scenario.
  
  NATO, UK/EU politicians, US Deep State, 3B+PU are all just lackeys of the Global Fascists.
  - Mr P on November 25, 2021 · at 7:43 pm EST/EDT
    
    Recently a very thoughtful guy asked: ” What-Who are the special interests behind the War against Russia?”
    
    And an even more thoughtful guy answered : “All the western ruling elites, as a class in the Marxist sense of the word.”
    
    This answer, it seemed to me, was and is elegant and classical.
  - A. Dane on November 25, 2021 · at 8:18 pm EST/EDT
    
    Thumbs UP.
Laurent on November 25, 2021 · at 6:03 pm EST/EDT

The US sent another destroyer in the Taiwan strait the uss milius and another destroyer in the black sea the uss arleigh burke. So FONOPs continue and contrary to what the US did back in April when tensions between ukraine and Russia were rising it keeps sending warships in the black sea.

Poland wants more nato troops close to Russia to “show all potential aggressors that NATO is ready.” This is a quote directly from poland s president andrzej duda when he spoke to jens stoltenberg earlier today.

Finnaly there is an interesting article published by RT about the mood in US population.

According to the last surveys half of Americans would now reportedly favor going to war against Russia in defense of Ukraine, and a majority would now favor going to war with China in defense of Taiwan.

Then the article goes on saying this “These drastic spikes in opinion are not an accident; the consent has been forcefully manufactured by an aggressive propaganda campaign against those two nations. They are not manufacturing that consent for fun; they are doing it for a reason.”

And another quote I found in the article on RT: “A majority of Americans support going to war with Russia over Ukraine, and to war with China over Taiwan. Church attendance may be down sharply, but millenarian dreams are stronger than ever here. And who can blame us? Shit jobs, shit lives—who wants to go on living like this?”
- Sideshow Bob on November 25, 2021 · at 10:53 pm EST/EDT
  
  I seriously doubt most Americans have any interest in wars. People are exhausted with Covid follies and inflation.
  - corvo on November 26, 2021 · at 10:26 am EST/EDT
    
    If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times — and been correct every last time: Americans love wars as long as they think they’re easy wins.
- Tom Welsh on November 26, 2021 · at 5:30 am EST/EDT
  
  “Shit jobs, shit lives—who wants to go on living like this?”
  
  Interesting you should ask! “Shit” jobs and lives compared to what? Most people in the world are far worse off than average Americans, yet they seem to manage to face each new day with some optimism and happiness.
  
  I suspect that many Westerners have been seduced by the siren songs of Mammon, Wall Street, and Hollywood. If you have ever watched “Friends”, did you notice how opulent the young people’s lives are? Hardly ever does one of them experience any want or misery – and then it’s usually their own fault. How often have you seen a cockroach in “Friends”, or even heard one mentioned? never, I think – but New York is crawling with them. The apartments that the friends live in are spacious and comfortably furnished, although we are given to understand that they are in Manhattan, close to Central Park. The effect of such propaganda, incessantly renewed, is that naive Westerners come to expect a far higher standard of living than most of them will ever be able to afford.
  
  So they become chronically discontented, feeling that the wealth and luxury to which they are entitled has somehow been denied to them.
  
  Any of the world’s great religions would disabuse them of those delusions. Christ told his followers to get rid of all their property, and even leave their families. “Take no heed for the morrow… Consider the lilies of the field…” Buddha went through most of his life possessing only a saffron robe and a begging bowl; Gandhi followed his example. Muslims are told to give a large fraction of their income to the poor, regardless of whether they think such charity deserved. It is the giving itself that is meritorious.
- Chris Cosmos on November 26, 2021 · at 12:32 pm EST/EDT
  
  A majority of Americans will always be in favor of any war no matter how ridiculous because most of us are comically ignorant of the real world and, rather, prefer the world of fantasy. We also believe that the US can easily crush any combination of military powers in any type of war including nuclear. The only people who oppose war are the realists within the Deep State and, of course, only want stability since everything is going their way. If there is a war it will be short and limited.
  - Ted on November 26, 2021 · at 10:31 pm EST/EDT
    
    I as an American fervently pray there is no war.AndI think a lot of us see it that way. But the problem is how to dig through all the massive propaganda that clouds everything and keeps average folks from learning what’s really going on. I, for one, dig hard to find the truth. It’s not easy here.
nietzsche1510 on November 25, 2021 · at 6:10 pm EST/EDT

Borrell, the Catalan Marrano, the figurehead of Socialist Catalunya is a hard-core pro-Israel hidden advocate. He is the emblematic character, from the Left, vehemently opposed to Russia. Because the “Tribal” ukase is: “whoever tries to deviate from Jewish central banking superstructure should be confronted by all means”.
Laurent on November 25, 2021 · at 6:16 pm EST/EDT

More escalation from another nato country. This time it’s canada. An extract from the article:

Canada is considering bolstering its military mission to Ukraine, amid a debate over whether additional NATO forces would deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from further aggression against his country’s neighbour.

Defence Minister Anita Anand is considering deploying hundreds of additional troops to support the Canadian soldiers already in Ukraine on a training mission. Other options being looked at include moving a warship into the Black Sea, or redeploying some of the CF-18 fighter jets based in Romania.

Any reinforcement would be intended as a message to Mr. Putin, who has raised alarm for the second time this year by amassing troops and equipment near his country’s borders with Ukraine.

The narrative is clear. Putin is bad we need to protect the nice ukrainians and teach the evil Putin a lesson.
- cdvision on November 25, 2021 · at 6:44 pm EST/EDT
  
  I read also in the London Telegraph today that the UK is to purchase some more tanks (likely a handful) over the next 10 years to deter Russia. These idiots need to get real. I had a couple of persistent flies follow me when I played golf the other day. Why do they bother wasting so much energy for no achievable purpose?
  - Laurent on November 25, 2021 · at 7:45 pm EST/EDT
    
    What worries me is that this time it’s not only the US it’s the whole nato which is talking big and doing aggressive PR. We are talking about the baltic states and poland the UK france canada Italy Germany. The US is even talking about deploying previously banned land based cruise missiles in germany and nato is talking about moving nuclear warheads closer to Russia.
    
    It looks like a coordinated anti Russia move with propaganda sanctions movements of troops and warships. The goal seems to be to create more tensions not only in ukraine but on all Russia s western border. I don’t think such a coordinated move from many nato country is being implemented for nothing.
    
    Shoigu said that the growing NATO activity near the Russian borders dictates the need to maintain the combat readiness of nuclear forces, increase the potential of non-nuclear deterrent forces, including equipping with precision weapons and effective means of destruction. The probability of a clash is increasing.
  - Anonymous on November 26, 2021 · at 12:53 am EST/EDT
    
    “… a couple of persistent flies follow me when I played golf the other day. Why do they bother wasting so much energy for no achievable purpose?”
    
    Likely the same “sporting” reason you play golf.
- dh-mtl on November 25, 2021 · at 7:52 pm EST/EDT
  
  Anand works for Christia. Christia works for Soros. Soros is a Globalist apparatchik. So what can you expect.
  
  Trudeau’s suit is as empty as Biden’s.
- A. Dane on November 25, 2021 · at 8:07 pm EST/EDT
  
  @ Laurent
  
  The US warships are only allowed into the black sea to visit Romania for a short period of time. Then they must leave the Black sea, according to the treaty of the Black sea. So they are on rotation only.
  
  European NATO warships are now hunting Pirates in the Bay of Guinea, South West of Nigeria.
  
  The Polish President Duda and NATO secretary Stoltenberg need the TV spotlight to look less than irrelevant.
  
  Western polling surveys are on the payroll of the Globalist Elite. They are paid to produce falls surveys as propaganda against the western population. It is more lies as “excuses” for war.
  Sadly RT has become eager to parrot western media exaggerations, instead of using their brain.
  If anybody thinks the American population is yearning for war with both Russia and China on the same time, then I’m considering what to do when I win the European lotto next week. And I haven’t even bought a ticket.
  
  The “Quoter” on RT should look in America to find who is responsible for the shitty Church, jobs, and lives he/she is living in, and do something about it in America, instead of in Ukraine or in Taiwan.
- Anonymous on November 25, 2021 · at 11:23 pm EST/EDT
  
  Canada is where they sent the Russian-hating nationalist Bandera Ukrainians after the war, so Canada has a large Ukrainian diaspora.
  - mark hadath on November 26, 2021 · at 12:48 am EST/EDT
    
    This is absolutely correct. This coming from a Canadian with Ukrainian origins on my mothers side. I find them insufferable.
Bruce Maclean on November 25, 2021 · at 7:10 pm EST/EDT

Thank you so much Andrei
Please forgive me for straying slightly off topic. Yes, there are numerous possible motives for provoking Russia into war in the Ukraine. A person could pick any one, or several, “out of a hat.” The result would be the same: war in eastern Ukraine. (The very thought of that makes me resentful and nauseous, but sentiments aside let us continue.)
So I ask myself what would happen if the Ukraine military attacks the people in Donetsk and Luhansk. My initial answer is “What happened before?” What happened before is the people in Donetsk and Luhansk sent the Ukraine military home “with a bloody nose.” Twice. And that was without any official intervention from the Russian state. Could they do it again?
I’ve got $1000 that says these “farmers and coal-miners” could do it again, and will do it again if it comes to that. They have done it before and experience is a good teacher. The experience of the Ukraine military is failure. The defence forces in Donetsk and Luhansk have had several years to plan, fortify, and stockpile. Expats in Russia are sending money and materials home to these regions. Any sustenance earmarked for the Ukraine military gets stolen before it can reach the men and equipment. A young fella fighting with the defence forces of Donetsk and Luhansk knows he is fighting for the preservation of his family and home; whereas, a young fella fighting for the Ukraine military is fighting for a bit of money (He would be better of home chopping wood for the winter.)
For all these and other reasons, and whatever the motives, I’ll put my money on the farmers and coal-miners, without the need for intervention from the Russian state.
Regards, Bruce
TheBAG on November 25, 2021 · at 8:25 pm EST/EDT

Andrei: I would like to suggest that the Deep State has not always hated Russia. They were quite friendly when they were feasting on the carcass of the USSR! The Deep State hates Putin. Their dream is to inflict so much economic pain as to force the Russian people to ditch Putin and to elect another Boris Yeltsin.
Tavrik on November 25, 2021 · at 8:47 pm EST/EDT

Almost nobody realizes what almost happened in Ukraine last March and April. Over the past several years there has not really been a continuous line of combat in Ukraine. there are gray zones , limited action zones and intermittent hot zones. But there are no continuous well manned defensive zones adequately manned by the Donbas rebels. It seems that most of their equipment is in rear areas to be brought up when needed. This seems particularly true in the city of Donets which appears to be essentially undefended against any major attack. It appears that last March Ukraine tried to bring up special forces and launch a sneak attack which probably been very successful. But Russia-Donbass learned of the scheme and took action to block it,

Ukraine then switched to plan B Most of the border between Ukraine and Russia are essentially undefended except for a few border patrol troops . Any surprise Ukrainian attack would result in the capture of considerable areas of Russian civilian land. Even if this land could not held it might result in many civilian and military casualties. The launcher of any such attack must be destroyed. Therefore all of the current Ukraine Government and Military must disappear.

The issue is not whether Russia wants Ukraine or knows what to do with ii. First, the four nuclear power plants must secured by an immediate airborne attacks; and also the Dnieper bridges and dams, Also important airports and other vital areas should immediately be seized . Russia cannot afford to fight a small war against Ukraine as it would last for ever. The 40,000 or so NAZI types will have to be killed, captured of chased out of the country.. Anything else would mean the war would never end. IT is my opinion that once the war ended China would be glad to take charge as Ukraine has much of the best farmland in the world which could be managed much better than it has been,
- djole on November 26, 2021 · at 8:44 am EST/EDT
  
  Completely agree. I have a proposal for Russians, mobilize Serbs and send them there to fix a nazis with people from Donbas (our relitives), if this is heartbroken for Russians :)), and Russians can come to Balcan and take Serb positions surrounded with NATO states . We would also need a name and surname of the Zenit and Spartak hardcore fans to pick them up on the way there. And also “party einladung” for Chechen fighters to join the march on Kiev. We do understand that Russians become a world citizens with world manners. However, it would be good not to let the journalists film for few days after the task is done.
- djole on November 26, 2021 · at 8:59 am EST/EDT
  
  I forgot the prisoners from Russian prisons :)). As in the last wars in the Balkans ……. they will be the first guard brigade. The Russian army simply has nothing to do but give up its weapons and turn its head. Is this a better proposal than for the internationalists to accuse them of fighting for the national cause?
Chrétien on November 25, 2021 · at 9:37 pm EST/EDT

Speaking about England the following statement made by a Nostradamus circa 1558.
Le sang du juste à Londres fera faute
Brule par foudre de vingt trois les six
L’antique dame cherra de place haute
De même secte plusieurs seront occis
This quatrain just means that V. Putin is not going to hesitate to destroy London if he has to do it.
Que ceux qui ont des oreilles entendent.

Google translation,MOD:
The blood of the righteous in London will fail
Burns by lightning twenty three six
The ancient lady will look for a high place
In the same sect, several will be slain

This quatrain just means that V. Putin is not going to hesitate to destroy London if he has to do it.
Let those who have ears hear.
- Lyosha on November 28, 2021 · at 9:48 am EST/EDT
  
  What’s wrong with you my friend? Where would Putin’s oligarchs and ministers send their kids to schools and where would they keep their ill gained money away from the eyes of destitute Russian workers and peasants?
Larchmonter445 on November 25, 2021 · at 10:25 pm EST/EDT

They are terrified to put Biden into another summit with Putin.

He got nothing positive from 3.5 hours with XI.

He could be obliterated in a meeting with VVP.

Putin used a meeting with MFA for a powerful presentation. He’s on a crusade. He would come loaded to put the US in its place.

This is a forewarning of what surprises he is capable. The administration needs a triumph not a draw or a defeat.

Biden is more a gimp each day. His recent physical even mentioned his worrying stiff walking gait. Clearly his brain functions are calcifying.

Putin destroys people in face-to-face. Have we ever seen any reporter, official or opponent even mark him once?

I think the only topic Biden would be safe talking about with him is carbon and green energy.

Why such a summit when the talk of the day is war, long or short, narrow or wide.
Shyaku on November 25, 2021 · at 10:39 pm EST/EDT

In the west, all money is created as debt.

If the rate of interest on that debt is, say, 5% this means western economies must expand at 5% per annum for that money to be repayable.

Some of the debt is erased through bankruptcies. To cover the remainder of the 5%, $$ or resources must enter the economy from outside for this debt to be repayable.

The word for success in this process is ‘conquest’, referred to also as ‘empire’.

The word for failure = “crash”.

The whole process is referred to as ‘financial capitalism’.

Where are most of the remaining resources? You just have to look at a map.

When did western economies grow the most since WW2? The 1990s.

Since the beginning of time, people have always wanted Russia’s ‘stuff’. Actually this includes Russia’s human capital too, since education is traditionally socialized in the east, but externalized in the west.

Nothing ever changes.

Best regards, Shyaku
- war is coming on November 25, 2021 · at 11:42 pm EST/EDT
  
  Interest rates in the EU are at zero or even negative and this for a few years already.With the inflation going up at 6%(Germany-forecast for 2022),the bund is at – 0.75, it means financial repression.This is the reason why the stocks value is so high, in bubble mode, same for the housing market which is disconnected from reality.
  A new class war is about to start(yellow vest anyone?), as if things don’t change the middle class will evaporate.
  This can not continue for a very long time.
  
  Tendency of the rate of profit to fall – K Marx
  
  https://youtu.be/sf-yiZMJsb0
Sarcophilus on November 25, 2021 · at 11:58 pm EST/EDT

There is an animated film from 1986, “Where the wind blows”, that imagines a nuclear strike on the UK by the then Soviet Union. It is both beautifully uplifting, because of the gentle love and humanity of the rural English couple who have to deal with the aftermath of the strike, and desperately sad because, on their own, we know they are doomed.

Roger Waters did the poignant soundtrack and there is a theme song from David Bowie.
- darkmoon on November 26, 2021 · at 5:57 am EST/EDT
  
  “Threads” is the more realistic movie. There is nothing uplifting about it, as it should be.
  - Sarcophilus on November 26, 2021 · at 8:14 am EST/EDT
    
    I am talking about the innocents who are, invariably, the first casualties of war. What, exactly, are you talking about? Love and simple humanity are sometimes the last things left standing in the face of extreme brutality. I will always honour that as being uplifting.
Straight-Bat on November 26, 2021 · at 3:13 am EST/EDT

Frankly speaking, a Putin-Biden virtual summit will certainly kick the can down the road, but the confrontation won’t stop. Confrontation between Russia (and China) and West will stop only when Russian (and Chinese) state is dismantled and multiple regions become “free” “democratic” “nation” owned & controlled by global Zionist-Capitalist oligarchs (mostly Jewish and Anglo-Saxon) through local “democratic liberal” capitalists. This has been the TRUE agenda since past few centuries… Such insane plan has centuries of shelf-life even if Russian (and Chinese) civilization-states have been resoundingly resisting disintegration.

Interests of MIC owners and Energy owners are two of the most probable motives, as Saker detailed here. Assuming that the Hegemon could do whatever they wanted, how much benefit PU+3B ruling elites would have drawn from that? Marginal! Those psychopaths would however, enjoy such (imaginary) defeat of Russia, and of course they would enjoy power for a long duration of time.

Can there be any permanent solution to the Zionist-Capitalist designs about Russia and China? Yes, indeed.
(1) Go for creating a federation of Russia-Belarus-Novorossia (in case of China, it would be Mainland-HongKong-Taiwan)
(2) Build a society in based on equiality and justice and ecology where ownership of (large capital) assets and properties lie with community instead of oligarchs,
(3) simultaneously push back the liberal capitalist culture and power politics.

The above project can take 7 – 10 years, but Russian (and Chinese) leaders need to wake up to the reality – any liberal capitalist society will have to finally surrender to a much larger force of ‘capital’ unless there is a course correction through people’s movement… The danger for the entire humanity can’t be overstated.
- Sarcophilus on November 26, 2021 · at 8:33 am EST/EDT
  
  China is socialist, politically, economically and socially. It is possible to have free market elements within a socialist economic system. Go to the preamble to their constitution and count the number of times the word “socialist” appears. Russia is not socialist. It is liberal, politically and economically, and conservative socially. My money is on China.
  - Straight-Bat on November 26, 2021 · at 10:56 am EST/EDT
    
    It is true that China is ruled by a communist party and a constitution that has socialism as the core concept. But, since 1981 CE when Deng initiated ‘capitalist’ economy along with existing socialist economy, Chinese capitalism has been redrawing the contours of Chinese economy and society in a profound way!
    
    IMO, the current illiberal capitalist economy and society of China needs course correction. Without any exaggeration it can be said that, if current trajectory (of capitalist economy and growth) is maintained in China, there is high probability of Chinese capitalists launching a bid to capture power by 10 -15 years – that will be nothing but the triumph of the global zionist-capitalist clique. Xi era has been a silver-lining that provides support to your optimism (that i share :)) )
    
    Russia, has anyway a liberal capitalist economy and society (run by conservative patriots) that has been regularly injected with controlled dose of nationalism – to topple that with globalist zionist-capitalist agenda will be much easier for the clique (after Putin and his team departs) because the ruling party has similar ideology that is adopted by the other so-called ‘democratic’ countries.
    - Sarcophilus on November 26, 2021 · at 7:43 pm EST/EDT
      
      What you say makes a lot of sense to me. But I’m not so sure that the Chinese capitalists would have an easy time capturing power. There is the small matter of the 95 million (and rising) members of the Communist Party of China that would have to be dealt with. Best wishes.
      - Man With No Name on November 27, 2021 · at 5:37 am EST/EDT
        
        @Straight-Bat
        
        President Xi is taking effective measures to curb the power of corporate oligarchs in China. Also, inequal education trends are also being removed with govt. intervention. This would definitely reduce the ability of liberal elements in China to poison people.
        
        Russia’s situation is precarious because Putin apparently doesn’t have a successor who can continue the momentum he has created. The biggest threat is the pro-western elements that are currently holding top govt. positions. They appear to be patriotic for the time being but would definitely change sides once Putin is gone.
        
        Straight-Bat on November 27, 2021 · at 12:19 pm EST/EDT
        
        @ Man With No Name,
        Fully agree with your views on China and CPC. However, my skepticism is due to the past example set by CPSU – hence, I fear in-house liberal capitaliats (like Zhao Ziyang) more than capitalist businessmen …. But Xi has the required stamina and inner strength to call a spade a spade …. Hence, I concur with sarcophilus and your optimism on China.
        
        About Russia, I have a different observation – for whatever reason unknown to me, when I read news articles about current affairs in Russia, I notice the ruling party ideology and actions exactly similar to liberal democratic (capitalist) parties in Asia and South America who thrive on corruption and nepotism. Putin and his team appears to be content with conservative social policy + liberal capitalist economic policy — this may result in complete submission to Zionist-Capitalist global clique by the same ruling party as soon as conservative patriots like Putin retires …. On this aspect of ‘final result’, I agree with you.
Nicola on November 26, 2021 · at 3:19 am EST/EDT

Dear Andrei, I would like to ask you if you think it possible that Poland has plans to exploit the fall of Ukraine to occupy its western part (obviously with the excuse of guaranteeing the security of the eastern side of NATO) and thus regain possession of the territories it had before of the second world war.
Thanks
Darras on November 26, 2021 · at 3:26 am EST/EDT

For doing a false flag provocation, you dont need numerous people. But to engage à full war opération against Donbass that need a direct action of Russia, you need a lot of very trained and motivated troops.
I dont think that Ukrain has enough soldiers to go dying juste to please the interests you say .
I think that soldiers, junior officiers and NCO will not go to sacrifice with flowers on gun.
If there is a no fly zone in Donbass, I think that groung troops will not succeed to beat Donbass forces.
Do you think that a no fly zone will be enough to trigger the communication war to isolate Russia?
Question 2: If Donbass forces il this way defeat Ukrain alone, west will anyway shout about Russian “agression”?
Lucas on November 26, 2021 · at 4:36 am EST/EDT

Question:
Let’s say Ukraine attacks Donbass which will go along with lots of dead civilians.
Now, what about Moscow not intervening in Donbass but instead – after a *short* media campaign with pictures of dead children – *extensively* bombing well chosen objects in Kiew like government buildings and properties of oligarchs together with the ultimatum that they will only stop once Kiew stops the killings?
So in short a mix of R2P and kinda implementing of the Minsk agreements.
Anonymous on November 26, 2021 · at 5:18 am EST/EDT

Stumbled on this short post. Not sure it is new news or not. Dated 25th Nov 21. Says 21 hours old at time of viewing.

“The Ukrainian army has launched an offensive in several areas of Donbass, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on 25 November.

Zakharova said that the situation in Donbass is very alarming, and the situation is escalating. The Ukrainian authorities are in favor of a forceful solution to the internal Ukrainian crisis, probably due to a sense of complete impunity.”

http://eu.eot.su/2021/11/25/russian-foreign-ministry-ukrainian-army-launches-offensive-in-several-areas-in-the-dpr/
djole on November 26, 2021 · at 5:53 am EST/EDT

“Biden” option three……is what Russia must use in its interest.
Also ….. why Russia does not provoke the 3B + PU (fully understand that Russia will never attack them first, ….. unthinkable to imagine that Russia would dare to actually strike at a British ship / aircraft). To take advantage of the situation that the British prepared. This will give it a reason to enter the Baltic and take control of the west wing. I don’t understand why Russia has become (besides so many advertised best soldiers / best weapons in the world) a toothless bear on a gy…psy leash? Due to short term interests of anglozio 5th column in Russia? Why the army and GRU are allowing themselves to be a victim of incompetant leadership? There will be no war with NATO because as soon as it starts, half of the countries on the Baltic line will take a fog. There will be no NATO nuclear response from EU other than the usual barking in the media. Is it important for Russia or China what do the western media think?
It seems that Russia and China, at all costs, do not allow the disintegration of the existing UN system, which has so far been used by the Anglo-Americans and the EU for their own interests. And now they have decided to build a special “democratic” one of half the members. They are the ones destroying the UN, why not use it and punish the disobedient under the banner of the Rockefeller building. Europe (France-Germany) will eventually move to the UN camp, they will not want any war with Russia, but rather be part of the Silk Road.
Tegularius on November 26, 2021 · at 6:18 am EST/EDT

The “Ze” option is on??
https://www.rt.com/russia/541413-ukrainian-president-warms-imminent-coup/
John O'Flynn on November 26, 2021 · at 6:52 am EST/EDT

Just reflecting back on a summit held by Obama and Putin several years ago, where they agreed something like a month’s ‘confidence building’ moritoriam on action by both Assad/Russia and US/proxies (details are a bit hazy!); whereupon the Pentagon bombed and killed seventy Syrian soldiers in eastern Syria withing a week, one has to wonder what use is a Putin-Biden summit? (Since JFK no US president is fully in charge). A successful Putin-Biden summit would only represent a short-term palliative….In my opinion the West will keep pushing Russia/China until some serious shooting or at least a Cuban-missile-style stand-off crisis ‘lances the boil’ and resets the paradigm – for a while. The US has managed to come out on top during most international crises in its short history – many of which it had a part in making: why not put the world through another rather than face the very hard – if nit impossible – task of fundamental reform of itself at home?
- observer on November 26, 2021 · at 4:45 pm EST/EDT
  
  I always refer to the 1962 standoff as the “Turkish-Cuban Missile crisis” since the USSR offered to send some missiles to Cuba AFTER the US put some in Turkey (I think Incirlik still has 60 Nuclear-armed missiles), so they should be named first.
  - Analyst on November 26, 2021 · at 10:35 pm EST/EDT
    
    Spot-On and it took 70 years for one of the top American Diplomats who was involved in the negotiations with the Kremlin, to confess that Russia had been in the right all along…. that Kruschevs position was conciliatory (proven by the release of the actual letter that Kruschev wrote to Kennedy)….and that the Kennedy brothers were devious and unfair in placing all the blame on Russia, and presenting the incident as a ‘need to allow Russia not to lose face’
    The US does indeed still have nuclear weapons in Incirlik (this was exposed after the abortive US putsch against Erdogan)…but apparently they are of an older type which cannot be carried on any modern US bomber…
War for Blair Mountain on November 26, 2021 · at 9:43 am EST/EDT

If the Ukranonazis slaughter Donbass school children….I would think the only option is to exterminate as quickly as possibly the whole of the Ukranonazi Military.

I believe White Trump Voters and White Independents will be very impressed with Vladimir Putin as a Man if this is done…I mean they already are. Watch War Hawk Chicken Hawk Sean Hannity soil his pants on Fox News.I almost got into fist-fight with War Hawk Chicken Hawk Bill O’Rielly one night…It took great restraint on my part(only because I was taking care of a quadraplegic brother at the time)

I have no doubt Vladimir Putin is allowing the internal spiritual rot of America to take down global homo America….but as a man, Vladimir must have a red-line in the Donbass. Yes, I know Vladimir feels a great moral responsibility as a devout Christian not to instigate nuclear WW3.

My family members in the US Army are very depressed about about what’s going on in the US Army.

What would JFK do? Answer……JFK:”Slaughter more young pregnant Russian Orthodox Women in the Donbass…get the job done my precious Green Berets….”
Dragan on November 26, 2021 · at 10:57 am EST/EDT

The summit was scuttled by the brand new sanctions on Nord Stream 2. The Russians should definitely not agree to a summit while the US keeps pushing these illegal sanctions. To agree to a summit under such circumstances would be humiliating.
As for the German idiots who are now letting Poland dictate their foreign policy (this is quite hilarious and humiliating for them I’m sure), let them pay through the nose for gas, let their manufacturing industries pay through the nose for their high power demands, making them much less competitive on the world market.
Gazprom will still make a killing at these crazy high prices. Sure, they will sell less volume, but they will get double the money for the volume they do supply.
War for Blair Mountain on November 26, 2021 · at 11:56 am EST/EDT

The genetic distance between a Slavic Russian and a Northern European can’t be all that great…Cultural distance…..very great….
augusto on November 26, 2021 · at 2:07 pm EST/EDT

Everybody with an eye to the situation and so on the double standards. The map of similitudes and glaring differences hits the eye.
The USA does not recognize Taiwan as an independent state.
The US of A does assist them with weapons, business, hell a noisy
media and diplomatic support.
The Kremlin does not recognize D&L , the Donbass as an independent state [pushing to a dreamy Minsk agreement instead]
So its perfectly fair that Putin extend a hand on weapons, covert military assistance and diplomatic support to the Donbass – against an Ukro assault.
With one striking difference: the imminent Ukro assault is real – the Chinese invasion on Taiwan is neither that real nor imminent. For starters, reason is that
peking is much bigger, more attractive and can wait for when time gets ripe- which Kiev definitely cannot.
Patriot on November 26, 2021 · at 2:34 pm EST/EDT

…and the other day Sweden got her first 12 pcs Patriot missiles, delivered from the U.S. with price tag, about 12 billion SEK = +1 billion €.

Seems Sweden by that got some assurances, or will prevent any kind of missile attack,
before a war of Ukraine. The defense minister declared even that Swedish forces will
take part into training of the Ukrainian army, but as a matter of fact, Sweden hasn’t today even an accepted primeminister, because of political turmoil in the parliament, but probably a Labour government will soon govern the country to next general election, September 2022.
Dick Lenning on November 26, 2021 · at 2:44 pm EST/EDT

Saker,

I believe there are a couple of other motives that were forgotten/left out :
*Projection. Westerners have become notorious for projecting their views and fears onto others, and planning accordingly. Uncle Scam in particular has projected “apocalyptic religion” onto Saddam Hussein and Iran’s leadership, yet it was George Bush that said “God told me to attack Iraq,” and it is Christian Zionists that believe unconditional support for Israel is the key to Jesus Christ being reborn.

*Thucidides Trap Another Western projection against Russia and China. Combined with Josep Borrell’s white supremacism and NATO’s lack of purpose, Westerners believe China and Russia wish to impose their own empire, thus the “yellow peril + Mongol horde” alliance must be stopped.

*Eugenics Bill Gates, a part-owner of the deep state, is on record saying the Earth’s population must be reduced. World War 3 is a “great” way to reduce the world’s population. Prince William has recently accused Africa, China, and India of “genociding biodiversity.” The white supremacists Gates and British Royal family would love to simultaneously decimate the 3 billion+ non-white population, and plunder Russia’s natural resources.

If war arrives, will President Putin order Kinzhal attacks on Buckingham Palace, the Rothschilds, George Soros, Lolita island, and other houses of evil?
- eagle eye on November 26, 2021 · at 7:16 pm EST/EDT
  
  Close, but no cigar. Revisit the Deagal population projections and they align with the use of certain recently well promoted medical treatments. It is the white West that will be thinned out.
little bunny on November 26, 2021 · at 4:19 pm EST/EDT

There are some news about this issue.
Apparently, Zelensky is claiming that evil Russians are preparing a coup in Kiev, through Rinat Akhmetov, on December the 1st/2nd.
Some US news claiming Biden said all options are on the table, considering Ukraine?!
Collective West looks more and more like a mad house.
whodat on November 26, 2021 · at 4:57 pm EST/EDT

If the Russians could convert an icebreaker with massive steel hull into a warm water ship, and cruse alongside the light tin cans of the NATO countries, and maybe bump them if they did not retreat fast enough, it would make the point, reducing the offending vessel to a collection of floating junk without massive casualties, and maintain the fiction of an aggressive shoving match rather than a deadly gun fight type confrontation-but I hope the “nato breaker” would be fast enough to do the job. Maybe increase the engine performance too.
- Anonymous on November 27, 2021 · at 1:53 am EST/EDT
  
  Icebreakers are not designed for speed. Nice idea otherwise.
Anonymous on November 26, 2021 · at 5:37 pm EST/EDT

I wonder if Russian leadership made the final decision of overt military intervention should Kiev launch an attack on Donbass. Not sure what the Russian media is saying (apart from RT/Sputnik, real
Outlaw Historian on November 26, 2021 · at 6:08 pm EST/EDT

A motive that continues to hide in the tall grass growing along the Volga is the defeat of Russia’s doctrine of People-Centered Development, which is similar to but somewhat different from China’s–both of which are vastly superior to that within all Neoliberally enslaved nations that are currently seeing all their vitals getting hollowed out. The main feature being the political subordination of the central bank to the interests of the nation and its people, not those of Wall Street wannabes and their ilk. This ongoing battle between banking and finance being organized and used as a Public Utility versus being 100% under private control has existed for 4,000+ years, but few are aware of it because of the great success this battle has had in being obscured for most of those years. Privately owned financial capital wants to get its monopolistic hands onto the last vestiges of natural liquidity remaining on the planet which is what’s genuinely at the root of the gross animosity toward Russia, China, Iran, and those independent nations in Latin America and Africa now that Central Asia’s lost. Hope is still retained that India can again be exploited for the British didn’t get anywhere near all the wealth in South Asia. Those readers who are students of Dr. Michael Hudson will know what I’m getting at and the sources for the scenario I’m forwarding.
Anonymous on November 26, 2021 · at 6:16 pm EST/EDT

I once read an article arguing that in case of direct military clash between Russia and US led Nato, the timeframe from conventional exchange to nuclear exchange would be no more than 30 minutes. I guess that would explain why they moved the doomsday clock closer to midnight.
Optimistic? on November 27, 2021 · at 12:38 am EST/EDT

A snake cannot walk straight even if you put it in a bamboo. Chinese proverb. There will be a war. The west without a war can’t thrive. The biological part and conventional have been grinding for sometime. The west is building their nerves to use the nuclear part against countries who possess nuclear and will fight back. The only concern for the sociopaths is that if they lose and be prosecuted by the winners or by their own people. Since the outbreak of Covid 19 life hasn’t been the same and is not worth living. A lot of people started to lose hope and say let them start the war and be finished with it. This is not a life worth living. The life outside the USA is much worse, especially in vassal states. Whenever the population starts to complain and orgonize to protest corona numbers rise sharply. That was in over 36c deg Celsius in the summer and zero degree Celsius winter and between. The economy is being destroyed deliberately. And I don’t see the sheeple ever going to understand and do anything about it. In Europe maybe but not enough. They will get their war and nothing will ever change. I appreciate what you try to enlighten us with your writings. But I’m afraid only those of us who already know will agree but do nothing and can do nothing. In voting system countries, the voting brought us GW, Trump, Biden, Cam’ron, Clown Boring Johnson and the rest. Dictatorships! In the Quaan, when Adam and Eve were kicked out from heaven to earth, God said we made you enemies and you will fight each other for some time. Godly some time could be eternal. We were created in a way that the strong use and eats the weak like animals in the jungle. For those who are not religious and don’t in holy books. That is fine, consider them fiction books, read them and compare it with how life on earth.
See some of you in another planet and in another solar system
Cheers
jiri on November 27, 2021 · at 2:12 am EST/EDT

Can the US afford not to have a war with Russia or China?

The US policy is still Full Spectrum Dominance. And the only way to achieve it is to defeat Russia and China decisively. Russia and China have started to openly defy the US and this cannot be allowed to stand. If such defiance goes unchallenged for long it will be detrimental to the US’s credibility and will result in eroded political, economic and military power.
dpy on November 27, 2021 · at 11:01 am EST/EDT

I’ve always thought that the underlying motivation of the Atlanticists has been a dream of aging ownership of Russian resources after orchestrating a collapse of that nation. It seems that is becoming less likely, year-by-year. Could it be that the Atlanticists have forgotten WHY they want to be enemies of Russia, but are permanently so?
- peppercorn on November 28, 2021 · at 9:23 am EST/EDT
  
  The Atlanticists may have had delusions of a certain Tsarist grandeur and wealth and of ownership and pursuit of resources, that was all but enough to provoke greed, envy and ambition, behind it was always the manipulation and purpose of evil, the beast, the anti-Christ, however one wants to call the forces engaged in destroying Russia and they are more intent upon doing this than ever.
  The reasons are not properly addressed, their significance and meaning cause fear I believe, and hence discussion reached a dead end sometime ago,. when it could have taken off and been of huge benefit for the world, now it is too late.. we have to wait. and I fear the worst in many ways.
zina on November 27, 2021 · at 11:18 am EST/EDT

Provocations, hatred, and constant efforts to harm Russia have never stopped since Operation Unimaginable Code of Manhattan to attack Russia with atomic weapons in at least 100 cities, to this day and this moment of considering provocations. Nothing new, and nothing unusual, with the fact that Russia is more and more powerful, and all in vain. But there is another side, everything that they prepared for Russia has returned home, and the house is getting more and more dilapidated before its collapse. It has always been the fairest justice, hence evil can never establish its rule in the world.
zina on November 27, 2021 · at 11:54 am EST/EDT

And a little decent reason cannot imagine this summit of Democracy in the United States. in addition to these truly indecent at least crazy provocations by Russia and China, that democracy has destroyed 39 states and peoples since Hitler left or after the end of WW2, and killed tens of millions of civilians mostly children and women and older men.
PokeTheTruth on November 27, 2021 · at 12:05 pm EST/EDT

Here we go again, another “All options are on the table” threat from the crazy Biden State Department.

See: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-11-26/u-s-state-dept-says-all-options-on-the-table-over-russian-troop-build-up-near-ukraine .
- JJ on November 27, 2021 · at 1:59 pm EST/EDT
  
  https://www.rt.com/russia/541498-valdai-timofeev-ukraine-war-costs/
  
  “The costs of a war between Russia and Ukraine far outweigh the benefits. It brings significant risks to the economy, political stability and Russian foreign policy, fails to solve key security problems, but creates many new ones.
  That’s according to Valdai Club Programme Director Ivan Timofeev. The top Moscow think tank is closely connected with President Vladimir Putin. Timofeev, one of Russia’s leading foreign experts, is skeptical about the possibility of a conflict, but he has outlined how such an operation could be conducted.”
  
  UK warns Russia not to invade Ukraine….meanwhile Putin orders full scale production of Zircon hypersonic missiles
  
  c’est la vie….
zina on November 27, 2021 · at 12:13 pm EST/EDT

No one can come up with a convincing explanation of how a question can be asked with any decent reason, whether Russia will attack Ukraine. But there is half of the Americans who are supposedly for the war with Russia in defense of Ukraine, and more than half is that war with China for the defense of Taiwan. Indecent reason provokes a nuclear war over two really unimportant countries.
rick on November 27, 2021 · at 2:28 pm EST/EDT

A steady drumbeat of repressive measures has been rolled out in the UK by the extreme neoconservative Johnson administration on behalf of the UK National Security State and a nervous ruling class who in tandem with their US counterparts are ratcheting up the artifices of the propaganda media to sublimate the insecurity and distress in society caused by their insatiable neoliberal governance of their domestic populations. The synchronised timing and display of military brass aka HMS Defender and UK troop dispatch to Polish/Belarusian border and Ukraine is replete with salutary warnings of retiring/retired generals signalling that “Russia was the most acute threat to our country” with the latest and most insidious activity defined as “grey-zone activity which if not a psychological projection of UK dirty tricks or hybrid warfare ensconced in the Skripal and Navalny attacks must refer to the latent fears that the ruling class harbour in perceiving the vulnerability of their distraught propagandised subjects to alternative news and viewpoints.
As the Western financialised rentier economy slowly degrades the pressure increases on the ruling class to subvert the reality of systemic crisis by outright fear and distraction including the employment of provocations and hybrid warfare to redirect domestic discontents against imaginary or perceived enemies.
Jose Garcia on November 28, 2021 · at 10:11 pm EST/EDT

Boy! These guys inside the Beltway LOVE war, just as long as someone else does the dying for them. Here are my thoughts. If they want such a war, let them armor up and go to the front lines and fight with everyone else, instead of being back home in the comforts of their million dollar homes somewhere in Chevy Chase, or in some grand hotel drinking the best champagne and eating the best foods, all brought to them courtesy of the American taxpayer. Let them get a taste of the hell they want all of us to indulge in. They all sicken me…..
Andalusian Plilosopher on November 29, 2021 · at 12:26 pm EST/EDT

Nothing will change, unless and until ordinary people in US, Canada, Western Europe will March in the streets by the millions. Sustained protests and acts of civil disobedience. Day in and day out, crippling and grinding a machine to complete halt. Also one needs to create conditions, where significant part of internal ruling class apparatus defects. Once footsoldiers of AZ elites refuse orders, Empire is finished.

Ukraine crisis and regime change is a project by US and EU. They got nothing to complain about. A culmination of 500 years of plundering and genocide of the world. Chickens came home to roost. People, a lot of people underestimate the evil of AZ elites. This is the problem. And demoralization.
Anonymous on November 29, 2021 · at 5:12 pm EST/EDT

Zelinski is asking parliament to allow stationing foreign troops in Ukraine, which is against Minsk agreement and a possible red line for Russia.
Anonymous on November 30, 2021 · at 8:17 am EST/EDT

There are no limits on how evil and crazy the Ukrainian government is:
Vladimir Ogryzko claims that the strike on Russian infrastructure was prepared due to the inability of Ukrainian missiles to reach Moscow.

Lacking the ability to launch missile strikes on Moscow, Ukraine is ready to hit Russian cities and nuclear power plants that are within range of its missiles. This was stated by former Foreign Minister Vladimir Ogryzko on the air of Channel 5, the video of which was published on YouTube.

“War is like war – if we are threatened with strikes on infrastructure, we can do the same. If today we do not have the ability to reach Moscow with missile weapons, then we have the ability and readiness to reach other cities that are within the reach of the Ukrainian missile forces, and which can cover very serious infrastructure facilities of the Russian Federation, including nuclear power plants,” Ogryzko said.
Mylesman on November 30, 2021 · at 8:51 pm EST/EDT

Trying to escalate a conflict with Russia appears to be instigated by one side only. That side being neocons and democrats in the United States. These are the same neurotics who insisted we had to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

I characterize it as driven by greed, power, and media collaboration. Danger Will Robinson we have a problem. And guess what our guys, our military, our phony patriots are the Danger.