BRICS
Learn #MMT
Warren Mosler
(http://www.collectedworksofwarrenmosler.com/)
Randall Wray
Randall Wray: Dirua hasiberrientzat
Randall Wray: Egin al dezakegu diruak guretzat lan egin dezan?
Randall Wray:
Jadanik aipatuak:
Randall Wray: dirua hasiberrientzat (elkarrizketa)
“Whaever is doable is financially affordable”, alegia, “Egingarria den edozer eskuragarria da finantzen aldetik.”
Randall Wray: nola MTM-k mundua salba dezakeen (elkarrizketa)
“Whar matters is resoursez, not money”, alegia, “Axola duena baliabideak dira, ez dirua.”
Hona hemen informazio pixka bat gehiago:
a) Randall Wray: Nola MTM-k mundua salbatu dezakeen
b) Randall Wray: MTM hasiberrientzat. Politikari baten gida
Segida MTMz:
Warren Mosler, 1996
Comments on the Current U.S. Budget Debate
(https://www.epicoalition.org/docs/comm.html)
The assumptions underlying the current budget debate are erroneous….
It is only after the deficit begins to expand again that the economy recovers. The historical correlation is 100%….
Contrary to general perception, fiat money is driven by the fact that taxpayers need the government’s money to pay their taxes. … so it can obtain the real goods and services it desires via the spending of its currency.
…. Treasury spending is a reserve add. Selling securities, by the Fed or Treasury, is simply a reserve drain, a monetary operation. This underlies the empirical evidence that nations can run any debt ratios they want, in their own fiat currencies, and still “fund the debt.”
How large a deficit is prudent? …., the government could offer a job to anyone who wanted one, at some minimum rate of pay deemed appropriate, and let the deficit float. This would end unemployment and unemployment compensation, eliminate the need for minimum wage laws, and promote price stability,…
The Federal debt is all the money spent but not taxed. …
The current budget debate is based on erroneous assumptions. Washington does not understand fiat money. Until it does, efforts to reduce the deficit will continue, and the economy will continue to underperform.
Segida:
Former Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who has a good chance of winning the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for September 30, speaks openly about Nazism, Banderites and fascists in Ukraine.
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This is how the war in Ukraine started. 11 May 2014,residents of Mariupol opposed the anti-Russian rhetoric of the CIA installed coup government in Kiev.
This is something the western mainstream media should be telling you. But they won’t….
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1698089615708807185
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Make Peace Now; alternative news@AlternatNews
Why did the NATO tactics fail in Ukraine? Because NATO instructors only knew how to fight inferior forces with overwhelming American superiority.
A tank – including the Abram – performs its functions when there are friendly helicopters in the sky, when there is aviation in the sky.
Bradleys travel under tank cover. None of this happened in Ukraine. They instructed Ukrainian commanders at assembly points, that they should fight, as if they had some kind of superiority.
In other words, the tactics they proposed to Ukraine led to unjustifiable losses, to the dispersion of forces and means along the flanks, and along the front.
NATO failed utterly to create any of the prerequisites for a successful offensive – other than words. Words, spoken loud and clear. Especially loud.
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Ending NATO is one of the main reasons millions of people are voting for Cornel West. NATO should’ve ended when the Soviet Union collapsed. Instead – it expanded eastward.
And guess what that caused? This stupid US proxy war in Ukraine. And what could that lead to? WW3.
Aipamena
Matthew Chapman@fawfulfan
ira. 2
Cornel West wants to end NATO. That is comfortably enough reason to not take him seriously as a presidential candidate. twitter.com/r8dr4lfe75/sta …
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Thomas Hon Wing Polin@thonwingp
Russia will learn Chinese — systematically and for the long term.
Putin makes the pledge… not long after secondary schools in MBS’s Saudi Arabia began Chinese-language courses.
The multipolar world takes another leap into the future. “Russia should expand studying Chinese and other Asian languages, given the continent’s growth in importance to world affairs, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday. “
‘Given the pace of development of Asian countries, the center of economic and political life will gradually shift to these regions’,” Putin told a group of 30 high-achieving students at an event in Moscow marking the start of a new academic year, calling it ‘an absolutely objective, inevitable process’.”
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Black in the Empire@blackintheempir
The US invading a country on the other side of the world claiming WMDs that didn’t exist was ok
Russia going into Ukraine, a country on their border being armed by the US with real weapons, after NATO already has them almost totally surrounded is them being totally unprovoked
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How Africa is struggling to smash the shackles of neocolonialism. And, concisely, how France set up its exploitation system.
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Oleg Tsarev, a former deputy of the Ukrainian Rada: “I communicate with my fellow countrymen from Ukraine. Ordinary people. They watch TV. They say on TV that if you capture Crimea, the war will end. Here they sit and wait for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to capture Crimea. They They hope. Strength there is no more waiting, but they are waiting.
Recently, they said on TV that Russia would surrender, even if Ukraine only blockaded Crimea. And, if you think about it, why did they get the idea that Russia would surrender? Even if you imagine something that cannot be in life: that Ukraine will seize Crimea. Even if Ukraine captures the Rostov, Kursk and Belgorod regions. What makes them think that Russia will surrender?
Maybe then and only then in Russia they will start shooting corrupt officials, and the children of the chiefs will go to war. Maybe then stupid leaders will be removed from their posts, and smart ones will be appointed.
Even if the enemy came near Moscow, why did they get the idea that the Russians would surrender? Vaughn Bonaparte took Moscow – and what? Won?
Poor people. They don’t have a winning scenario. Fight for what? Fight how much?
“Russia cannot be defeated on the battlefield” – this is a quote from V.V. Putin from the Message of the Federal Assembly.
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Just after the #CIA orchestrated illegal Maidan Coup in 2014, @politico had a very clear position on what was happening in #Ukraine. They knew it then and know it now, but now they choose to hide it.
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China literally made your day longer 
To understand this, think about an ice skater rotating: they’ll rotate slower with their arms extended than with their arms alongside their body. Same concept here: the Three Gorges dam shifted a lot of mass to the exterior of the Earth, increasing the Earth’s moment of inertia and therefore slowing the velocity of her spin so that we now have (very slightly) longer days.
Aipamena
Jack Richardson@jackrdsn
ira. 2
Just discovered the Three Gorges Dam in China has created a reservoir as long as Great Britain, and by shifting so much water it has changed the shape of the planet, extending the day by 0.06 microseconds 
A long tweet, take a minute and bear with me.
As the Western Client media embark on an utterly baseless and desperate “breakthrough” narrative, it’s time for yet another dose of reality about the #counteroffensive
It’s taken #Ukraine 13 weeks and vast losses in men and materiel to reach the first line of Russian defences in Eastern Ukraine. Currently, Russia is reinforcing the next 4 lines of defence, which Ukraine have not even come close to. The Mainstream fantasists won’t be mentioning this, or the fact that Russia is further increasing its advantage in tanks and infantry fighting vehicles due to a burgeoning military industrial complex in Russia.
The counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been going on for 13 weeks, during this time, attacking in the south and east, they were able to slightly advance in the DPR and the Zaporozhye region, occupying several small villages. The loss of personnel and both Ukrainian and NATO equipment is huge and utterly unsustainable with #Ukraine losing hundreds of units of military equipment this month alone including at least 4 #Stryker armoured personnel carriers, 20 #Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, up to 15 #Leopard tanks, and more than an astounding 100 MRAP armoured vehicles
Russia, on the other hand, in recent months has seen new equipment delivered to the front as an accelerating Russian military industry produces dozens of modern T-72B3 and T-90M tanks per month. Also, Russia has begun a large-scale modernization of old tanks: first of all, the T-72 – about 7,000 of these tanks remain in Russia from Soviet times. Thus, this year alone, the Russian army can count on another 700 new tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.
NATO on the other hand has not delivered a single modern battle tank to Ukraine in recent months, less than 100 of the 300 promised infantry fighting vehicles have been handed over to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. These are the facts, but when did the facts mean anything to the delusion spreading western mainstream media?
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Russian Embassy, UK@RussianEmbassy
MFA spox Zakharova: The US and its allies must finally understand that the special military operation’s goal is not to seize #Ukraine‘s territory, but to denazify and demilitarise it and ensure its non-bloc status. Only then can we talk about eliminating threats to our security.
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14 h
More cannon fodder for the Ukrainian army of the US and NATO. Western media will unanimously write tomorrow about Zelensky’s next tour to Europe.
This time, Zelensky asks the allied countries to “expel all men suitable for mobilization from the country.”
With the consent of the European partners, all Ukrainian refugees suitable for Ukraine’s request for mobilization will be detained and sent to fight in Ukraine.
According to Ukrainian border guards, up to 1 million men aged 25 to 55 can be mobilized in this way.
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The People of #Donbas are talking directly to those of you in the #EU and #US that deny the brutal decade long assault by the #Ukrainian army on their lives as some kind of #Russian “Fake” This is what your taxes pay for.
This is what #NATO stands for. Time to wake up.
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1698126025161367847
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Latvia has dismantled over 70 monuments of those who liberated #Latvia from the Nazi’s – despite appeals from #UN to refrain – And many old people are being persecuted + driven from their homes because Latvian is not their first language – Are these ‘European Values’ in action..?
Aipamena
Sophia@les_politiques
ira. 1
Tomorrow, Latvia will “expel 5,000 – 6,000 residence card holders who also hold passports of the Russian Federation and who have not passed exams proving their mastery of the Latvian language. As a secondary condition to be spared deportation, the targeted group (mostly seniors) is obliged to submit in writing their condemnation of the policies of the Russian Federation with respect to the war in Ukraine.”
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2023/08/31/new
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Black in the Empire@blackintheempir
If you didn’t care about the 14,000 people that were killed in Donbass when Ukraine was bombing them before Feb 2022, I don’t believe you really care now Our Gov’t just told you to and you’re following instructions to feel like you’re a good person
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Today on September 3, we mark the Day of Solidarity in the Fight against Terrorism.
On this day kids and students from Donbass made an address in verse to the wider global public, showing and telling about the terroristic shelling of the Kiev regime
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1698298041927708697
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This 
might seem like anodyne news but it’s a very important signal that we’re entering a radically new era, where Western tech dominance – which has fueled Western hegemony for 300 years – has come to an end.
BMW Gets Help From China for First Electric Mini Cooper Platform
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A man honoured as a “hero” by NATO/EU member Lithuania for leading an attempted counterrevolution against the USSR was a fascist who helped Nazi Germany massacre Jews in the Holocaust. One of many fascist genocidaires rebranded as anti-Soviet “dissidents”
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Before this war, the prospect of Russia attacking and forcibly dismantling NATO in Eastern Europe was a fantasy. Now it’s a realistic prospect after they finish with Ukraine. We’re attriting Russia back into superpower status.
Aipamena
Caitlin Johnstone@caitoz
ira. 3
US Officials Keep Boasting About How Much The Ukraine War Serves US Interests
One of the most glaring plot holes in the official mainstream narrative on Ukraine is the way US officials keep openly boasting that this supposedly unprovoked war which the US is only backing out of the goodness of its heart just so happens to serve US interests tremendously.
In a recent article for the Connecticut Post, Senator Richard Blumenthal assured Americans that “we’re getting our money’s worth on our Ukraine investment.”
“For less than 3 percent of our nation’s military budget, we’ve enabled Ukraine to degrade Russia’s military strength by half,” writes Blumenthal. “We’ve united NATO and caused the Chinese to rethink their invasion plans for Taiwan. We’ve helped restore faith and confidence in American leadership — moral and military. All without a single American service woman or man injured or lost, and without any diversion or misappropriation of American aid.”
As Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp recently observed, this type of “investment” talk about Ukraine has been getting more common. Last weekend Senator Mitt Romney called the war “the best national defense spending I think we’ve ever done.” “We’re losing no lives in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians are fighting heroically against Russia,” Romney said.
“We’re diminishing and devastating the Russian military for a very small amount of money … a weakened Russia is a good thing.”
Last month Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell argued that Americans should support the US government’s proxy warfare in Ukraine because “we haven’t lost a single American in this war,” adding that the spending is helping to employ Americans in the military-industrial complex.
“Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons,”
McConnell said. “So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.” McConnell has been talking about how much this war benefits the US since last year. During a speech back in December the ailing swamp monster argued that “the most basic reasons for continuing to help Ukraine degrade and defeat the Russian invaders are cold, hard, practical American interests.”
“Helping equip our friends in Eastern Europe to win this war is also a direct investment in reducing Vladimir Putin’s future capabilities to menace America, threaten our allies and contest our core interests,” McConnell said.
As we’ve discussed previously, US empire managers have been talking about how much this war serves US interests ever since it began.
In May of last year Congressman Dan Crenshaw said on Twitter that “investing in the destruction of our adversary’s military, without losing a single American troop, strikes me as a good idea.”
“It is in America’s national security interests for Putin’s Russia to be defeated in Ukraine,” tweeted the perpetually war-horny senator Lindsey Graham.
Last November the imperial war machine-funded think tank Center for European Policy Analysis published an article titled “It’s Costing Peanuts for the US to Defeat Russia,” subtitled “The cost-benefit analysis of US support for Ukraine is incontrovertible. It’s producing wins at almost every level.”
“US spending of 5.6% of its defense budget to destroy nearly half of Russia’s conventional military capability seems like an absolutely incredible investment,” gushed the article’s author Timothy Ash. “If we divide out the US defense budget to the threats it faces, Russia would perhaps be of the order of $100bn-150bn in spend-to-threat. So spending just $40bn a year, erodes a threat value of $100–150bn, a two-to-three time return. Actually the return is likely to be multiples of this given that defense spending, and threat are annual recurring events.”
And of course the mass media have been all aboard the same messaging. A few weeks ago The Washington Post’s David Ignatius wrote an article explaining why westerners shouldn’t “feel gloomy” about how things are going in Ukraine, writing the following about how much this war is doing to benefit US interests overseas:
“Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance.”
I suspect I’ll be periodically reminding my readers of that paragraph — and Ignatius’ parenthetical “other than for the Ukrainians” aside — for the remainder of my writing career.
So on one hand the western political/media class have been hammering us in the face with the message that the invasion of Ukraine was “unprovoked” and that the US and its allies played no antagonistic role in paving the road to this conflict whatsoever, and on the other hand you’ve got all these empire managers enthusing about how much this war benefits US interests.
Those two narratives seem a wee bit contradictory, do they not?
A critical thinker can reconcile this contradiction in one of two ways. First, they can believe that the world’s most powerful and destructive government is just a passive, innocent witness to the violence in Ukraine, and is only benefitting immensely from the war as a complete coincidence. Second, they can believe the US intentionally provoked this war with the understanding that it would benefit from it.
From where I’m sitting, it’s not difficult to determine which of these is more likely.
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Mary Kostakidis@MaryKostakidis
Unless Africans remain colonised, Russia is broken up and China brought to its knees, the US is happy to risk nuclear Armageddon. It increasingly looks like there is only one way to bring about ‘peace’ – we all remain willing slaves to the hegemon or be blown up. Btw only some… Gehiago erakutsi
Aipamena
J. C. Okechukwu@jcokechukwu
ira. 2
FOR YOUR INFORMATION, Russia has now put its most powerful and dreadful Sarmat Intercontinental Ballistic missiles on standby, ready for combat.
SARMAT Intercontinental ballistic missile popularly known and referred to as “Satan 2” in the west, is capable of carrying at least at least 10 nuclear warheads. This is the much talked about missile that can reach virtually any state in the U.S. and is said to have the capacity to almost sink all of New York City or Texas in minutes. It is currently the most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile in the world. This is verifiable. And now, Russia has been provoked enough to actually activate and put these destroyers on standby. So what happened?
The truth is, they’re losing big in AFRICA, they don’t see any serious respite in the nearest future and they know Russia is largely to blame for their losses on the continent, especially in the Sahel region…and to make matters worse, the much talked about Ukrainian counteroffensive isn’t going as planned. Even Ukrainians themselves have admitted this fact. That’s why Ukrainians are starting to almost solely rely on Drone attacks on sensitive Russian locations inside Russia/Moscow.
In the last few days alone, drone attacks in Russia have become so daring that if care is not taken, more sensitive, unbearable red lines could be crossed. In fact, in one of the recent drone attacks, Russians even believe the drone attacks may have originated from Estonia, a former soviet country now a NATO member state. And as it stands, if a NATO member state is confirmed to have allowed drone strikes on Russia from its territory, that’s a declaration of war on Russia by all of NATO and the U.S. and Russia has made it clear that it’s response to a NATO/western attack on its territory will be nuclear. Period! They know this, but they keep crossing the so called Russian “red lines.” Don’t forget the F-16 jets that Russia forbade them to send to Ukraine. Today, F-16s are heading to Ukraine. So, whatever makes Russia mad and brings it into a direct conflict with NATO/the west is welcomed. This is the plan.
At least, if ECOWAS isn’t acting in AFRICA, if their military is caged and can’t do anything at the moment on the continent, the delays and inactivity will wear them out and eventually weaken their resolve, implying their loss on the continent is cast on the stone. So, the best thing is to start something on the Russian axis so a nuclear war is activated, which ripple effect eventually trickles down to AFRICA and pretty much everywhere on earth – and then they can easily seize the opportunity to descend on AFRICA and attempt a military recolonization exercise. Sadly, they can’t read the handwriting on the wall – whether a nuclear war breaks out or not, Africa’s freedom in this season is not negotiable. The people are more ready than the colonial west is willing to admit. For mother AFRICA, it’s truly “Freedom-O-Clock!” And I don’t see anything or anyone changing this.
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erabiltzaileari erantzuten
The MMT conference line-up for Saturday, September 9th
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MMT Podcast (Christian Reilly)@MMTpodcast
erabiltzaileari erantzuten
The MMT conference line-up for Sunday, September 10th
Lana Dell #MMT #DumpTheCorruption@organicfanatic5
The Federal Government does not “FIND” money. They spend it into existence, by law. 4 minute video about Social Security. Applies to all Federal spending. https://youtu.be/QA7DF17fquE?si
PUTIN: “My grandfather wrote about how my grandmother died in his arms: there were battles, and the villagers were hiding in the trenches. A German bullet hit her in the stomach, and she died in his arms.
And then there were the words that struck me. He wrote to his son at the front about my grandmother’s last words. She was fully aware that she was dying, and she told her husband: “Stop crying, do not upset me.” Just imagine the depth of their relationship. She was dying but she was more worried about him because he was upset (that is what she literally said) and crying. Can you imagine how deep these ordinary people’s relationships and love were? How can we not follow their example?
When we mention our traditional values, we also mean this particular inner love that is the basis of relationships in our society. And then, in a simple family letter, my grandfather gives an order to his son at the front: ‘Beat the scum!’.
These are our values; how can we not protect them? They are the foundation of our existence and our life.”
This makes me want to support Cornel West more. Ending NATO would do more for humanity than any U.S. president has done in the last three generations, easily.
Aipamena
Matthew Chapman@fawfulfan
ira. 2
Cornel West wants to end NATO. That is comfortably enough reason to not take him seriously as a presidential candidate. twitter.com/r8dr4lfe75/sta …
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Washington knows Ukraine is close to collapse..
The Russians have become much better than they were a year and a half ago.
They’re probably the best army in the world.
Make peace you fools!
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1698170679571480912
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The failed war in Ukraine, America’s weakening economy, rising nationwide criminality, & the open borders crisis beg for decisive action.
Now is a good time to negotiate.. it is Washington, not Moscow, that needs an off-ramp from multiple disasters.
Make peace you fools!
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The last people who are consulted, the last people who benefit from anything in Washington are Americans!
Billions of dollars are sent to this black hole we call Ukraine.
Sending money to Ukraine is and exercise of fraud, deceit and criminality
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1698370381608820985
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Niger increases the price of uranium from now Niger can quietly enjoy its uranium and undertake major projects for the country. France imposes its price on Niger before 1 kg of uranium is 4000 Fr (€0.80cent)now 1 kg of uranium at Niger is 137,000 Fr (€200 )the same price of of Cannada 
That is the reason why France want to commit genocide and suicide in Niger 
. Vive #Niger vive #Afrique
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“Western media openly state that there are fascists within the ranks of the Ukrainian army. Let’s talk about the Azov brigade. This is clearly a fascist brigade. They serve in the army and engage in reprehensible actions. It shocks me that red carpets are rolled out in front of them abroad. We must resist fascism and Nazism in all their forms. I urge the highest constitutional officials to denounce the use of fascist signs and symbols. And they just keep quiet. They are silent because they are afraid of being punished for it in Brussels or Washington.” — Former PM of Slovakia Robert Fico
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1698392813371858950
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BASED HUNGARY DOES IT AGAIN! 
Due to Hungary’s opposition, the EU was unable to unblock the next tranche of military assistance to Ukraine from the European Peace Fund at the EU Council meeting in Toledo – Josep Borrell.
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Jonathan Kadmon@JonathanKadmon
The core of what everyone needs to understand about BRICS in under 3 minutes. It’s not about the $, it’s about the payment system and the concentration of power over it. Courtesy of
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1698149498675961991
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Russian Embassy, UK@RussianEmbassy
MFA spox #Zakharova: Unlike relations with most European countries, Moscow-Vatican ties stand out by their respectful approach to building bilateral dialogue. Russia highly values the Vatican’s balanced stance on Ukrainian conflict and the efforts in seeking a settlement. 1/2
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Russian Embassy, UK@RussianEmbassy
MFA spox #Zakharova: Collapse of #US international political manipulations has led to #Ukraine crisis. Instead of acknowledging their criminal mistakes, such as intervening in Ukraine’s internal affairs and orchestrating coups the US continue to dictate their will to the region.
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ICYMI: Multiple reports that the revolutionary anti-
UK-
US-EU government of #Niger increases price of uranium from French dictated price of €0.80/kg to…€200/kg. #nuclearweapons #nuclearenergy
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1698396815614247206
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Africa Facts Zone@AfricaFactsZone
Africa’s longest road project, 56,683km long Trans-African Highway will pass through Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Senegal, Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan, Botswana, Angola, Zambia, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Tanzania, CAR and DRC.
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Remember, the US is filling Ukraine with depleted uranium and undetonated cluster munitions that will deform and dismember children for generations and perpetuating a war that has turned Ukraine into the largest minefield on the planet in order to save Ukraine from the bad guys.
Aipamena
Antiwar.com@Antiwarcom
12 h
US to Arm Ukraine With Toxic Depleted Uranium Ammunition The munitions will be used with US-made Abrams tanks by Dave DeCamp @DecampDave #Ukraine #depleteduranium #uranium #Russia #NATO #tanks https://news.antiwar.com/2023/09/03/us-
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erabiltzaileari erantzuten
At the beginning of the SMO @georgegallowaypredicted that this war would be the end of , more and more he looks spot on.
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Scott Ritter: A comprehensive Ukrainian defeat is the only possible outcome of its conflict with Russia
(https://www.rt.com/russia/582259-ukraine-unconditional-surrender-nato/9
Kiev was offered a peace deal long ago, but chose war instead, egged on by its Western backers. Now its fate is sealed
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.
Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky attends a ceremony marking Ukraine’s Independence Day in Kiev UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE / AFP
September 2 marked the 78th anniversary of the World War Two surrender ceremony onboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. This moment formalized Japan’s unconditional capitulation to the United States, and its allies, and marked the end of the conflict. From the Japanese perspective, it had been ongoing since the Marco Polo bridge incident of July 7, 1937, which started the Sino-Japanese War.
There was no negotiation, only a simple surrender ceremony in which Japanese officials signed documents, without conditions.
Because that is what defeat looks like.
History is meant to be studied in a manner that seeks to draw out lessons from the past that might have relevance in the present. As George Santayana, the American philosopher, noted, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The Ukrainian government in Kiev would do well to reflect on both the historical precedent set by Japan’s unconditional surrender, and Santayana’s advice, when considering its current conflict with Russia.
First and foremost, Ukraine must reflect honestly about the causes of this conflict, and which side bears the burden of responsibility for the fighting. ‘Denazification’ is a term that the Russian government has used in describing one of its stated goals and objectives. President Vladimir Putin has made numerous references to the odious legacy of Stepan Bandera, the notorious mass murderer and associate of Nazi Germany who is feted by modern-day Ukrainian nationalists as a hero and all but a founding father of their nation.
That present-day Ukraine would see fit to elevate a man such as Bandera to such a level speaks volumes about the rotten foundation of Kiev’s cause, and the dearth of moral fiber in the nation today. The role played by the modern-day adherents of the Nazi collaborator’s hateful nationalist ideology in promulgating the key events that led to the initiation of the military operation by Russia can neither be ignored nor minimized. It was the Banderists, with their long relationship with the CIA and other foreign intelligence services hostile to Moscow, who used violence to oust the former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, from office in February 2014.
From the act of illicit politicized violence came the mainstreaming of the forces of ethnic and cultural genocide, manifested in the form of the present-day Banderists, who initiated acts of violence and oppression in eastern Ukraine. This, in turn, triggered the Russian response in Crimea and the actions of the citizens of Donbass, who organized to resist the rampage of the Bandera-affiliated Ukrainian nationalists. The Minsk Accords, and the subsequent betrayal by Kiev and its Western partners of the potential path for peace that these represented, followed.
Ukraine cannot disassociate itself from the role played by the modern-day Banderists in shaping the present reality. In this, Kiev mirrors the militarists of Imperial Japan, whose blind allegiance to the precepts of Bushido, the traditional ‘way of the warrior’ dating back to the Samurai of 17th century Japan, helped push the country into global conflict. Part of Japan’s obligations upon surrender was to purge its society of the influence of the militarists, and to enact a constitution that deplatformed them by making wars of aggression – and the military forces needed to wage them – unconstitutional.
Banderism, in all its manifestations, must be eradicated from Ukrainian society in the same manner that Bushido-inspired militarism was removed from Japan, to include the creation of a new constitution that enshrines this purge as law. Any failure to do so only allows the cancer of Banderism to survive, festering inside the defeated body of post-conflict Ukraine until some future time when it can metastasize once again to bring harm.
This is precisely the message that was being sent by Putin when, during the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum this past July, he showed a video where the crimes of the Banderists during the Second World War were put on public display. “How can you not fight it?” Putin said. “And if this is not neo-Nazism in its current manifestation, then what is it?” he asked. “We have every right,” the Russian president declared, “to believe that the task of the denazification of Ukraine set by us is one of the key ones.”
As the Western establishment media begins to come to grips with the scope and scale of Ukraine’s eventual military defeat (and, by extension, the reality of a decisive Russian military victory), their political overseers in the US, NATO, and the European Union struggle to define what the endgame will be. Having articulated the Russian-Ukrainian conflict as an existential struggle where the very survival of NATO is on the line, these Western politicians now have the task of shaping public perception in a manner that mitigates any meaningful, sustained political blowback from constituents who have been deceived into tolerating the transfer of billions of dollars from their respective national treasuries, and billions more dollars’ worth of weapons from their respective arsenals, into a lost and disgraced cause.
Timofey Bordachev: Ukraine in the EU will only exacerbate the bloc’s growing irrelevance
A key aspect of this perception management is the notion of a negotiated settlement, a process which implies that Ukraine has a voice as to the timing and nature of conflict termination. The fact is, however, that Kiev lost this voice when it walked away from a peace deal brokered between its negotiators and their Russian counterparts last spring, at the behest of its NATO masters as communicated through then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The decision to prolong the conflict was predicated on the provision to Kiev of tens of billions of dollars in military equipment and assistance. The authorities duly staged a mass mobilization, meaning that Ukrainian troops vastly outnumbered their Russian counterparts.
Kiev’s new NATO-trained and equipped force achieved impressive territorial gains during a fall offensive. The Russian reaction was to stabilize the front and carry out a partial mobilization of its reserves to accumulate enough manpower to accomplish the mission assigned from the outset of the operation – denazification and demilitarization. Denazification is a political problem. Demilitarization is not. In the case of Ukraine, it means to effectively destroy Ukraine’s ability to wage armed conflict on a meaningful scale against Russia. This objective also presumably entails the need to remove all NATO military infrastructure, inclusive of equipment and material, from Ukraine.
Russia has been undertaking the successful demilitarization of Ukraine’s armed forces since the initiation of partial mobilization. The equipment Ukraine is provided by the West is similarly being destroyed by Russia at a rate that makes replacement unsustainable. Meanwhile, Russia’s own defense industry has kicked into full gear, supplying a range of modern weapons and ammunition that is more than sufficient.
The harsh reality is that neither Ukraine nor its Western allies can sustain the operational losses in manpower and equipment that the conflict with Russia is inflicting. Russia, on the other hand, is not only able to absorb its losses, but increase its strength over time, given the large number of volunteers that are being recruited into the military and the high rate of armament production. At some point in the not-so-distant future, the balance of power between Russia and Ukraine in the theater of operations will reach a point in which Kiev is unable to maintain adequate coverage along the line of contact, allowing gaps to open up in the defensive line which Russia, able to employ fresh reserves, will exploit. This will lead to the collapse of cohesion among Ukrainian troops, more than likely resulting in a precipitous withdrawal to more defensive positions that could be established west of the Dnieper River.
Ukraine, through its actions in 2014, lost Crimea. Ukraine, and through its choices in 2022, lost the Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson. And if Kiev persists in extending this conflict until it is physically unable to defend itself, it runs the risk of losing even more territory, including Odessa and Kharkov.
Russia did not enter the conflict with the intent of seizing Ukrainian territory. But in March 2022, Kiev rejected a draft peace agreement (which it had preliminarily approved at first), and this decision to eschew peace in favor of war led to Russia absorbing Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson.
As one of its conditions to even begin negotiating for peace with Moscow, Kiev demanded the return of all former Ukrainian territories currently under Russian control – including Crimea. To achieve such an outcome, however, Ukraine would have to be able to compel compliance by defeating Russia militarily and/or politically. As things stand, this is an impossibility.
What Ukraine and its Western partners do not yet seem to have come to grips with is the fact that Russia’s leadership is in no mood for negotiations for negotiations’ sake. Putin has listed its goals and objectives when it comes to the conflict – denazification, demilitarization, and no NATO membership for Ukraine.
This is the reality of the present situation. Russia is working to achieve its stated goals and objectives. As things stand, there is little Ukraine or its partners in the US, NATO, and the EU (the so-called ‘collective West’) can do to prevent it from accomplishing these aims. The timeline is not calendar-driven, but rather determined by results. The longer Kiev – and its Western partners – drag out this conflict, the greater the harm that will accrue for Ukraine.
It is time for Ukraine and its Western partners to move to the path of peace and reconstruction. But this can only happen when Ukraine surrenders and accepts reality.
