Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
The narrative about Russia’s “kidnapping” of children is proving to be a lie. Recently, several children who had previously been considered “captured” by the Russians were found in Europe, generating new discussions about the legitimacy of the accusations made against President Vladimir Putin, who was convicted in the International Criminal Court (ICC) due to an alleged involvement in the abduction of minors.
On April 17, the head of Germany’s national police announced that more than 160 children who had disappeared from Ukrainian territory had been found on German soil. Ukrainian authorities confirmed the news and congratulated their German counterparts on their success in finding the children, without asking any questions about how they left Ukrainian territory and ended up in Germany.
Until then, such children were considered “kidnapped” by Russian forces. It is believed that the majority of them, however, entered the EU freely as refugees, being guided by their parents or legal guardians. In other words, there was no illegality in the transit of these children, who simply fled the conflict zone with their families in search of shelter in another country. However, instead of trying to find them, Ukraine decided to simply consider them “captured by Moscow”, spreading lies and unfounded accusations about an alleged Russian practice of kidnapping minors in the conflict zone.
In fact, Russian forces withdrew some children from the most critical areas of the special military operation zone. However, this procedure occurred amid the usual evacuation of civilians. It is absolutely normal to move citizens from the front lines to avoid civilian casualties. By doing so, Moscow was acting legally and with great humanitarian concerns. Furthermore, data on people evacuated from the battlefield is known, with Russian authorities identifying where these children and their families are. There are no missing people among those rescued by the Russians.
In the Ukrainian case, however, the situation is different. Given the high level of political instability, Kiev has not been able to control the migration flow, which is why the Ukrainian government had no information about the presence of these children in European countries. Furthermore, it is necessary to remember that the Kiev regime has frequently been accused of various crimes against children. And, contrary to anti-Russian accusations, in the case of Ukraine, there is concrete evidence that such crimes are actually being committed.
There are several reports by investigative journalists and local witnesses about ethnic Russian children being captured in Ukrainian-controlled areas of Donbass and sold on the international black market – mainly into pedophile networks. More than that, there is evidence about a cooperation between Ukrainian and Western intelligence agencies for the circulation of minors on the black market. Recently leaked data reveals, for example, that many Ukrainian children were handed over by Kiev to pedophiles in the UK, with even senior British bureaucrats and politicians participating in these crimes.
“There is a criminal group operating in Ukraine that is involved in the export of children and their transfer to the UK, where they fall into the hands of pedophiles – [who are also] high-ranking representatives of the British establishment,” says Vasily Prozorov, a former employee of the Security Service of Ukraine who recently suffered an assassination attempt by Kiev’s assets in Russia.
Basically, there are two types of missing children in Ukraine: those who simply left the country escaping from the war and those captured by the regime itself. Kiev does not have information about refugee children because it is going through a period of political chaos that does not allow the country’s authorities to maintain adequate control over this type of situation. As for the children kidnapped by Ukrainian forces, the authorities obviously hide the truth because Kiev’s own state agents are involved in the crimes.
Both refugee and abducted children are considered “captured by the Russians.” Kiev and its Western sponsors have created a narrative to disguise the brutal and irresponsible nature of the neo-Nazi regime. The main problem is that this narrative was enough to convince even international organizations, such as the ICC, which condemned the Russian president for allegedly “kidnapping” Ukrainian children.
Putin’s judgment by the ICC is invalid, as Moscow is not party to the Court’s treaty. But, given the clear proof that the accusations are false and that these children are living normally in Europe, the right thing for the ICC judges to do is revoke the infamous anti-Russian decision. Unfortunately, considering the Western biases of this organization, this is unlikely to happen.
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Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
In the New Regions of Russia, Ukrainian terror continues to threaten the lives of innocent civilians, even in areas far from the front lines. On April 13, the Kiev regime launched a brutal attack against the capital of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), destroying civilian facilities. The incursion comes amid the current wave of Ukrainian terrorist attacks aimed at preventing civilian life from returning to normal at the borders.
The attack on the 13th was the first successful Ukrainian bombing on the capital of Lugansk since May 2023, when missiles hit a food factory in the city, injuring dozens of people. This time, the target of the attack was a machinery factory that was about to be opened. The new company was expected to employ dozens of workers, which would certainly contribute significantly to the advancement of economic recovery in the liberated regions. Clearly, the Kiev regime wants to prevent ordinary people’s lives from returning to normal.
Despite being in a conflict zone, the city of Lugansk has been spared from major bombings due to the distance between the LPR capital and the front lines. The regions around the capital are completely controlled by the Russians, which prevents the Ukrainians from being able to carry out short-range attacks. This has allowed a gradual process of economic recovery, with work and commercial activities quickly returning to normal. In December, I was in LPR as a correspondent on a journalistic expedition and reported on the situation on the ground, emphasizing how life has improved in the region after military liberation.
For Ukrainian attacks against the city of Lugansk to be successful, long-range weapons must be used, considering the great distance between the capital and Kiev’s artillery positions. In both the April 13 attack and the May 2023 bombing, neo-Nazi forces were able to hit targets in Lugansk because they used Western long-range weapons – the British Storm Shadow missiles.
Reaching 250km, the Storm Shadow missiles were a point of dangerous escalation in the conflict. The UK became the first country to supply long-range missiles to the neo-Nazi regime, which allowed Kiev to carry out operations against civilian areas on the borders, reaching liberated cities in the special military operation zone and even fully demilitarized regions in the undisputed territory of the Federation. Russian. In other words, under the excuse of increasing Ukraine’s defense capabilities, the UK gave Kiev what the regime needed to target civilians outside the battlefield.
The West is absolutely aware that its weapons are being used against civilian targets. Russian authorities regularly publish data proving that weapons supplied by NATO are behind terrorist incursions in border regions. In the attack on the 13th, debris from at least two Storm Shadow missiles was collected and exposed by Russian forces, leaving no doubt about the weapons used to carry out the attack. As expected, the UK remained silent, refusing to condemn the misuse of its military aid – which is enough to consider connivance and even co-participation on the part of London in Ukrainian crimes.
In recent months, Ukrainian troops have suffered heavy losses on the battlefield, which is why more and more military analysts point out that the collapse of the regime is imminent. In addition to the massive number of casualties, Ukraine has also suffered gradual territorial losses, with Russian troops managing to liberate several villages in Donbass. Without sufficient strength to react on the front lines, the regime uses terror as a distraction and propaganda tool. By hitting civilian areas in Russia, Kiev makes it appear to its sponsors that it is still capable of causing damage in Russia’s “deep territory”, thus justifying more weapons being sent by NATO.
Another Ukrainian objective with such incursions is to try to provoke a disproportionate Russian reaction. If Moscow attacks with extreme violence and hit Ukrainian civilian targets, Kiev will have arguments to request more Western aid and thus provoke a serious escalation in the conflict. Moscow, however, does not seem interested in this type of attitude. The Russians have already proven several times that their targets will continue to be military and critical infrastructure facilities, as allowed by the rules of international law.
Despite the terror in some civilian areas, the Russians still have the control of the military situation in the conflict. Moscow is pursuing a strategy that will inevitably lead to the enemy’s collapse in the near future, which is why no rush to retaliate for terrorist attacks is necessary. By destroying Ukrainian infrastructure, Russia will soon make it impossible for Kiev to continue carrying out terrorist incursions.
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The historical background of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes back to 1917 (the Balfour Declaration) and the establishment of the British protectorate over Palestine (the Palestine Mandate) after WWI with its provision for a national home for the Jews, although formally not to be at the expense of the local inhabitants – the Palestinians. Nevertheless, it became in practice the focal problem to keep an appropriate balance between these stipulations to be acceptable to both sides – the Jews and the Palestinians.
The people and the land
Since the time of the Enlightenment followed by Romanticism, in Western Europe emerged a new trend of group identification of the people as ethnic or ethnocultural nations different from the previous feudal trends from the Middle Ages based on religion, state borders, or social strata belonging.[i] Over time, a new trend of people’s identification as a product of the capitalistic system of production and social order became applied across the globe following the process of capitalistic globalization.[ii] As a direct consequence of such development of the group identities, the newly understood nations, especially in the areas under colonial foreign rule, started to demand their national rights but among them, the most important demand was the right to self-rule in a nation-state of their own. In other words, the ethnic or ethnic-confessional groups under foreign oppression demanded the rights of self-
21st Zionist Congress Geneva 1939
Since around 1900, both the Jews and the Arab-Palestinians became involved in the process of developing ethnonational consciousness and mobilizing their nations for the sake of achieving national-political goals. However, one of the focal differences between them regarding the creation of a nation-state of their own was that the Jews have been spread out across the world (a diaspora) since the fall of Jerusalem and Judea in the 1st century AD[iv] while, in contrast, the Palestinians were concentrated in one place – Palestine. From the very end of the 19th century, a newly formed Th. Herzl’s Zionist movement had a task to identify land where the Jewish people could immigrate and settle to create their own nation-state. For Th. Herzl (1860‒1904),[v] Palestine was historically logical as an optimal land for the Jewish immigrants as it was the land of the Jewish states in the Antique.[vi] It was, however, an old idea, and Th. Herzl in his book pamphlet which became the Bible of the Zionist movement was the first to analyze the conditions of the Jews in their assumed to be “native” land and call for the establishment of a nation-state of the Jews in order to solve the Jewish Question in Europe or better to say to beat traditional European anti-Semitism and modern tendency of the Jewish assimilation. But the focal problem was to somehow convince the Europeans that the Jews had the right to this land even after 2.000 years of emigration in the diaspora.
However, what was Th. Herzel’s Eretz Yisrael in reality? For all Zionists and the majority of Jews, it was the Promised Land of milk and honey but in reality, the Promised Land was a barren, rocky, and obscure Ottoman province since 1517 settled by the Muslim Arabs as a clear majority population. On this narrow strip of land of East Mediterranean, the Jews, and the Arab Palestinians lived side by side at the time of the First Zionist Congress some 400.000 Arabs and some 50.000 Jews.[vii] Most of those Palestinian Jews have been bigot Orthodox[viii] who entirely depended on their existence on charitable offerings of different Jewish societies in Europe which have been distributed to them by the communal organizations set up mainly exactly for that purpose.
Palestine
Palestine is a historic land in the Middle East on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the River of Jordan and the Mediterranean seacoast. Palestine is called Holy Land by the Jews, Christians, and Muslims because of its spiritual links with Judaism, Christianity as well as Islam.
The land experienced many changes and lordships in history followed by changes of frontiers and its political status. For each of the regional denominations, Palestine contains several sacred places. In the so-called biblical times, on the territory of Palestine, the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea existed until the Roman occupation in the 1st century AD. The final wave of Jewish expulsion to the diaspora from Palestine started after the abortive uprising of Bar Kochba in 132−135. Up to the emergence of Islam, Palestine historically was controlled by the Ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, the Roman Empire, and finally by the Byzantine Empire (the East Roman Empire) alongside the periods of the independence of the Jewish kingdoms.
The land became occupied by the Muslim Arabians in 634 AD. Since then, Palestine has been populated by a majority of Arabs, although it remained a central reference point to the Jewish people in the diaspora as their “Land of Israel” or Eretz Yisrael. Palestine remained under Muslim rule up to WWI, being part of the Ottoman Empire (1516−1917), when combined the Ottoman and German armies became defeated by the Brits at Megiddo, except for the time during the West European Crusades from 1098 to 1197.[ix] The term Palestine was used as the official political title for the land westward of the Jordan River mandated in the interwar and post-WWII period to the United Kingdom (from 1920 up to 1947).
However, after 1948, the term Palestine continues to be used, but now in order to identify rather a geographical than a political entity. It is used today, particularly in the context of the struggle over the land and political rights of Palestinian Arabs displaced since Israel became established.[x]
The Jewish migrations to Palestine in 1882−1914
As a consequence of renewed pogroms in East Europe in 1881, the first wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine started in 1882 followed by another wave before WWI from 1904 to 1914.[xi] The immigration of the Jewish settlers was encouraged by the 1917 Balfour Declaration, and very much intensified since May 1948 when the Zionist State of Israel was proclaimed and established.
There were historically two types of motives for the Jews to come to Eretz Yisrael (In Hebrew, the “Land of Israel”):
The traditional motive was prayer and study, followed by death and burial in the holy soil.
Later, since the mid-19th century, a new type of Jew being secular and in many cases idealistic began to arrive in Palestine but many of them have been driven from their native lands by anti-Semitic persecution.
In 1882 there was the first organized wave of European Jewish immigration to Palestine. Since the 1897 First World Zionist Congress in Basel, there was an inflow of European Jews into Palestine especially during the British Mandate time followed by the British-allowed policy of land-buying by the Jewish Agency which was, in fact, indirect preparation for the creation of the Jewish nation-state – Israel.[xii] In other words, such a policy was designed to alienate land from the Palestinians, stipulating that it could not be in the Arab hands.
Even before the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Th. Herzl tried to recruit prosperous and rich Jews (like the Rothschild family) to finance his plan of the Jewish emigration and colonization of Palestine but finally failed in his attempt. Th. Herzl decided to turn to the little men – hence his decision to convene the 1897 Basel Congress where according to his diary, he founded the Jewish state. After the congress, he did not waste time in turning his political program into reality. Still, at the same time, he strongly disagrees with the idea of peaceful settlement in Palestine, or according to his own words “gradual Jewish infiltration”, which, in fact, already started even before the meeting of the Zionists in Basel.
At that time, Palestine as an Ottoman province did not constitute a single political-administrative unit. The northern districts have been parts of the province of Beirut, and the district of Jerusalem was under the direct authority of the central Ottoman Government in Istanbul because of the international significance of the city of Jerusalem and the town of Bethlehem as religious centers equally important for Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.[xiii] A vast majority of the Arabs either Muslims or Christians have been living in several hundred villages in a rural environment. Concerning the town settlers of Arab origin, the two biggest of them were Jaffa and Nablus together with Jerusalem as economically the most prosperous urban settlements.[xiv]
Until WWI, the biggest number of Palestinian Jews was living in four urban settlements of the most important religious significance to them: Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias. They have been followers of traditional, Orthodox religious practices spending much time studying religious texts and depending on the charity of world Jewry for survival.[xv] It has to be noticed that their attachment to Eretz Yisrael was much more of religion than of national character and they were not either involved in or supportive of Th. Herzl’s Zionist movement emerged in Europe and was, in fact, brought to Palestine by the Jewish immigrants after 1897. However, most of the Jewish immigrants to Palestine after 1897 who emigrated from Europe have lived of secular type of life having commitments to the secular goals to create and maintain a modern Jewish nation based on the European standards of the time and to establish an independent Jewish state – modern Israel but not to re-establish a biblical one. During the first year of WWI, the total number of Jews in Palestine reached some 60.000 of whom some 36.000 were settlers since 1897. On the other hand, the total number of the Arab population in Palestine in 1914 was around 683.000.
The second wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine (1904−1914) had many intellectuals and middle-class Jews but the majority of those immigrants have been driven less by a vision of a new state than by the hope of having a new life, free of pogroms and persecutions.
Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic
Ex-University Professor
Research Fellow at Centre for Geostrategic Studies
Personal disclaimer: The author writes for this publication in a private capacity which is unrepresentative of anyone or any organization except for his own personal views. Nothing written by the author should ever be conflated with the editorial views or official positions of any other media outlet or institution.
References:
[i] About ethnicity, national identity, and nationalism see in [John Hutchinson, Anthony D. Smith (eds.), Nationalism, Oxford Readers, Oxford−New York: Oxford University Press, 1994; Montserrat Guibernau, John Rex (eds.), The Ethnicity Reader: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration, Malden, MA: Polity Press, 1997].
[ii] About globalization see in [Frank J. Lechner, John Boli (eds.), The Globalization Reader, Fifth Edition, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014].
[iii] In the science of politics, self-determination as an idea emerged out of the 18th-century concern for freedom and the primacy of the individual will. In principle, it can be applied to any kind of group of people for whom a collective will is to be considered. However, in the next century, the right to self-determination is understood exclusively to nations but not, for instance, to the national minorities of confessional groups as such. National self-determination was the principle applied by the US’s President Woodrow Wilson to break three empires after WWI. It is included in the 1945 Charter of OUN, in the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence of Colonial Countries and Peoples, and the 1970 Declaration of the Principles of International Law. However, self-determination, as taken to its most vicious extremes, leads in practice to phenomena such as, for instance, “ethnic cleansing” that was recently in the 1990s done, for example, against the Serbs in neo-Nazi-fascist Croatia of Dr. Franjo Tuđman or in NATO’s occupied Kosovo-Metochia after the 1998−1999 Kosovo War. In short, self-determination is the right of groups in political sciences to choose their own destiny and to govern themselves not necessarily in their own independent state [Richard W. Mansbach, Kirsten L. Taylor, Introduction to Global Politics, London−New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2012, 583].
Sovereignty is the claim to have the ultimate political authority or to be subject to no higher power concerning the making and executing of political decisions. In the system of international relations (the IR), sovereignty is the claim by the state to full self-government, and the mutual recognition of claims to sovereignty is the foundation of the international community. In short, sovereignty is a status of legal autonomy that is enjoyed by states and consequently, their Governments have exclusive authority within their borders and enjoy the rights of membership in the international political community [Jeffrey Haynes, Peter Hough, Shahin Malik, Lloyd Pettiford, World Politics, New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2011, 714].
[iv] About the fall of Jerusalem, see in [Josephus, The Fall of Jerusalem, London, England: Penguin Books, 1999]. Josephus Flavius (born as Joseph ben Matthias, c. 37−c. 100) was a Jewish historian, Pharisee, and General in the Roman army. He was a leader of the Jewish rebellion against the Roman Empire in 66 AD and was captured in 67. His life was spared when he prophesied that Vespasian would become an Emperor. Subsequently, Josephus received Roman citizenship and a pension. He is today well-known as a historian who wrote the Jewish War as an eyewitness account of the historical events leading up to the rebellion. Another of his historiographic works was Antiquities of the Jews – history since the Creation up to 66 AD.
There were two Jewish rebellions against the Roman power which inspired the Jewish diaspora from Palestine: in 66−73; and in 132−135 [Џон Бордман, Џаспер Грифин, Озвин Мари (приредили), Оксфордска историја Грчке и хеленистичког света, Београд: CLIO, 1999, 541−542].
[v] He was born on May 2nd, 1860 in Pest in the Austrian Empire at that time and was given the Hebrew name Binyamin Ze’ev, along with the Hungarian Magyar Tivadar and the German Theodor. In Pest, Th. Herzl attended the Jewish parochial school, where he became acquainted with some biblical Hebrew and religious studies. In 1878, he moved to Vienna where he studied law at the university and later worked for the Ministry of Justice. In 1897, Th. Herzl published his famous book Der Judenstaat, just a year before he convened the First Zionist Congress in Basle (Switzerland). In this book in the form of a political pamphlet, he wrote that: “The idea which I have developed in this pamphlet is a very old one: it is the restoration of the Jewish state” [Extracts from Theodor Herzl’s The Jewish State, Walter Laqueur, Barry Rubin (eds.), The Israel-Arab Reader, London, 1995, 6]. According to him, the borders of Israel as Judenstaat had to be between the River of Nile in Egypt and the River of the Euphrates in Iraq. These two rivers, as the borders of Greater Israel, have been symbolically presented on the state flag of Israel since 1948 with the two blue strips (one above and another below Dawid Star).
[vi] Present-day Israel (est. 1948) is the third independent state of the Jews in Palestine. The biblical Kanaan was a tiny strip of land some 130 km in length between the Jordan River, Mt. Tiber, East Mediterranean littoral, and the Gaza Strip [Giedrius Drukteinis (sudarytojas), Izraelis: Žydų valstybė, Vilnius: Sofoklis, 2017, 13].
[vii] Ahron Bregman, A History of Israel, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 7.
[viii] The Orthodox Judaism is teaching that the Torah (the five books of Moses) contains all the divine revelation that the Jews as a chosen people require. In the case of Orthodox Judaism, all religious practices are strictly observed. When it is required the interpretations of the Torah, references are made to the Talmud. The followers of Orthodox Judaism are practicing strict separation of women from men in the synagogues during the worshiping. In Israel, exists only an Orthodox rabbinate. While a majority of the Orthodox Jews support the Zionist movement, however, they deplore the secular origins of it and the fact that Israel is not a fully religious state. The Orthodox Jews recognize one as a Jew only in two possible cases: 1) if he/she mother is a Jew; or 2) the person undergoes an arduous process of conversion. For the Orthodox Jews, it is prohibited to cut the beard, which probably originated in a wish to be distinguished from unbelievers. About Jewish history and religion, see more in [Дејвид Џ. Голдберг, Џон Д. Рејнер, Јевреји: Историја и религија, Београд: CLIO, 2003]. The Israeli Law of Return that is governing Jewish emigration back to Israel accepts all those with a Jewish grandmother as potential citizens of Israel. Alongside with the Orthodox Judaism exist Liberal Judaism and Reform Judaism.
[ix] [Geoffrey Barraclough (ed.), The Times Atlas of World History, Revised Edition, Maplewood, New Jersey: Hammond, 1986].
[x] About the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by the Israeli authority, see in [Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oxford, England: Oneworld Publications, 2007]. About the general history of the Jews, see in [Дејвид Џ. Голдберг, Џон Д. Рејнер, Јевреји: Историја и религија, Београд: CLIO, 2003].
[xi] The term pogrom from a very general point of view is used to describe organized massacres of Jews in the 20th century but especially during WWII in the Nazi-run concentration camps during the Holocaust.
[xii] However, overwhelming of those Jewish emigrants came from Central and East Europe as well as from the Russian Empire. About the Jews in Central and East Europe, see in [Jurgita Šiaučiunaitė-Verbickienė, Larisa Lempertienė, Central and East European Jews at the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity, Vilnius: The Centre for Studies of the Culture and History of East European Jews, 2006]. About the Jews in Russia, see in [Т. Б. Гейликман, История Евреев в России, Москва, URSS, 2015].
[xiii] The 1878 Ottoman census claims some 463.000 inhabitants of Jerusalem.
[xiv] The Ottoman population in 1884 was composed of 17.143.859 of which some 73.4% were Muslims [Reinhard Schulze, A Modern History of the Islamic World, London‒New York: I.B.Tauris Publishers, 1995, 22].
[xv] From the mid-18th century till WWII, Vilnius was known as the “Jerusalem of the North” and was a center of Rabbinic Judaism and Jewish studies. Almost half of the city population have been Jews but according to Israeli Cohen, a journalist, and writer who visited Vilnius just before the beginning of WWII, around 75% of Vilnius’ Jews were dependent on the support of charitable and philanthropic organizations or private benefactors [Israeli Cohen, Vilna, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1943, 334]. In Jewish St. in the Old Town of Vilnius, it was established in 1892 the biggest Judaica library in the world – the Strashun Library (or the Jewish Library of Vilnius) by founder Mattityahu Strashun (1817−1885). The library was gone in 1944 as a consequence of the fight between the Germans and the Red Army. The Library collection reached 22.000 items by 1935 [Aelita Ambrulevičiūtė, Gintė Konstantinavičiūtė, Giedrė Polkaitė-Petkevičienė (compilers and authors), Houses that Talk: Everyday Life in Žydų Street in the 19th−20th, Century (up to 1940), Vilnius: Aukso žuvys, 2018, 97−100]. Vilnius up to WWII had and famous Great Synagogue. A well-known and respected Gaon of Vilnius – Elijah ben Salomon spent all of his life in Vilnius (1720−1797).
The importance of the Jewish Vilnius for the Zionist movement can be seen from the fact that the Zionist leader Th. Herzl visited Vilnius in 1903 when the Jewish representatives met him in the building of the Supreme Rabbi Board House of the Great Vilnius Synagogue [Tomas Venclova, Vilnius City Guide, Vilnius: R. Paknio leidykla, 2018, 122].
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
US aid to Ukraine with drones is proving insufficient on the battlefield. Recently, the Western media admitted that American unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Ukraine are ineffective in combating Russia. The case clearly shows the weaknesses of Western military technology, which has proven useless when tested on the battlefield.
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), small American drones sent to Ukraine are not capable of evading efficient Russian electronic warfare mechanisms. US-made UAVs are used massively for reconnaissance operations and grenade attacks, but their results are unsatisfactory and do not bring real benefits to Ukrainian troops on the front lines.
According to the newspaper, the reputation of the American military drone industry is seriously threatened by the poor performance of UAVs on the combat zone. Previously, this equipment was considered adequate by the Pentagon even for American soldiers, but the failure to deal with the Ukrainian military reality has shown that the technology of the US armed forces is outdated and urgently needs changes to face the new challenges of contemporary warfare.
“The general reputation for every class of U.S. drone in Ukraine is that they don’t work as well as other systems (…) [American drones are] not a very successful platform on the front lines,” an expert told the WSJ.
The article mentions a list of weapons with operational problems, including drones manufactured by Cyberlux and, mainly, by Skydio, a Silicon Valley company that has sent millions of military equipment to Ukraine. US defense startups, which until then were praised as great centers of innovation in the military industry, are now being tested and showing true incompetence in dealing with the realities of war.
“The Silicon Valley company Skydio sent hundreds of its best drones to Ukraine to help fight the Russians. Things didn’t go well. Skydio’s drones flew off course and were lost, victims of Russia’s electronic warfare. The company has since gone back to the drawing board to build a new fleet. Most small drones from U.S. startups have failed to perform in combat, dashing companies’ hopes that a badge of being battle-tested would bring the startups sales and attention. It is also bad news for the Pentagon, which needs a reliable supply of thousands of small, unmanned aircraft. In the first war to feature small drones prominently, American companies still have no meaningful presence. Made-in-America drones tend to be expensive, glitchy and hard to repair, said drone company executives, Ukrainians on the front lines, Ukrainian government officials and former U.S. defense officials,” the article reads.
In fact, this news should be understood as further evidence that the American military industry is severely affected by a process of “de-professionalization”. Startups from investors who do not have any military knowledge are undertaking projects that are often praised and incorporated by the Pentagon amid the search for “innovation” in the defense sector. The result is that the absence of military technical knowledge and combat experience makes it impossible for manufacturers to produce equipment strong enough to deal with the realities of an actual war. In this sense, American drones, which were considered as “innovative” products of high technological quality, are now being seen as expensive and easily neutralizable weapons.
The US spent decades investing in technological innovation projects in the military sector that, in the end, are proving to be useless. Most of these “innovations” focused on meeting the interests of investors in the technological sector, but did not take into account military technical expertise. The American State trusted in the entry of new technological startups within the apparatus of the military-industrial complex and now the result is proving to be catastrophic. Meanwhile, in Russia the defense sector remains extremely controlled by experienced military professionals, with all technological innovations being rigorously assessed by military experts and tested on the battlefield.
A point that also needs to be emphasized is the development of the Russian electronic warfare sector – also called “spectrum warfare”. This sector basically consists of the use of the electromagnetic field for military purposes. Today’s weapons, given their high technology, create a field of electromagnetic waves around the conflict zone. The side most skilled at using these electromagnetic data in intelligence, reconnaissance and sabotage operations becomes capable of neutralizing most enemy attacks.
Russian efficiency in electronic warfare is already recognized even by military analysts as the main reason for the failure of Ukraine’s drone efforts. Most of the Western drones launched by Kiev are diverted by electronic warfare mechanisms. The result is a scenario where Americans spend millions to produce useless UAVs that are easily sabotaged by cheap spectrum warfare tools.
In the end, the conflict in Ukraine is showing how the American military industry has become a true paper tiger, controlled by investors without specialized knowledge and heavily dependent on expensive investments for poor results.
This has not been confirmed and it would appear to be another escalation depending on who accepts the responsibility for it. Also in today’s report, Russia tells citizens to avoid travel to the middle east and other war rumors.
From Hal Turner UPDATE 4:19 EDT —
Serious doubts are being raised about the truthfulness and accuracy of the reports CLAIMING there was an attack on President Assad’s motorcade.
NO OTHER NEWS SOURCE, except the one shown below, is reporting this alleged incident.
#BREAKING REPORTS of an Assassination attempt on President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.
Armed attack on President Assad's convoy in Damascus near the Meridian Hotel.
Either way it goes things are heating up in the Middle East as the return of Jesus Christ gets closer. There will always be false rumors out there in times like these. I will always follow up to find the truth in these matters. Johnny
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Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
The US plans to use the NATO access of Nordic countries to increase its military presence in the Arctic. In a recent statement, an American official announced Washington’s plan to build a large weapons warehouse in the region, with Finnish and Swedish support. The measure will significantly increase the militarization of the Arctic and aims to help the US overcome Russian military superiority in the region.
The plan was announced by US Materiel Commander Christopher Mohan during an interview with the newspaper Breaking Defense. According to him, Finland and Sweden could help the US with the project, considering their strategic geography. He did not give any details about the possible location of the depot, but stated that NATO is jointly analyzing all possibilities. He also stated that the US and allies are discussing what would be the most appropriate equipment to deploy in the region.
“The addition of the NATO partners changes the security landscape and our responsibilities as part of NATO (…) [This project will] embrace and integrate Finland and Sweden into the NATO enterprise, and that’s going to drive some changes on the ground,” he said.
The measure is just one of several policies adopted by Washington and its allies in recent years to try to reverse Russian military superiority in the Arctic. For decades, the US has not had any special focus on the Arctic in its defense strategies. The main objective of American strategic plans has always been to “encircle” and “isolate” Russia. The US has focused for many years on achieving this goal through the militarization of Europe and the destabilization of Central Asia and the Middle East, but Americans have paid little attention to the Arctic – a region where the Russians have become very strong over the decades.
Now, however, the US is concerned about this weakness in the region. With the escalation of tensions with Russia, Washington is trying to improve its positions in the Arctic in order to reverse the current scenario of Russian advantage. In recent years, several escalatory policies have been promoted by the US – some of them even openly provocative and targeted at Russia.
For example, in 2022, Lawrence Melnicoff, commander of the European Special Operations Command, stated that the US should actually “provoke” Russia in the Arctic. According to him, Washington should seek joint strategies with Norway to increase its presence in the Arctic Circle and thus deter Russia in the region. He states that Russia has expansionist plans that will be prevented only through direct deterrence, which is why NATO should maintain strategic positions that allow it to neutralize Russian forces in the Arctic in a possible conflict scenario.
“We are intentionally trying to be provocative without being escalatory (…) We’re trying to deter Russian aggression, expansionist behavior, by showing enhanced capabilities of the allies (…) It complicates Russian decision-making because we know that they’re targeting very, very large specific aggregations of allied power, [such as] Ramstein Air Base, RAF Lakenheath, things like that (…) If worse comes to worst and somebody takes out these power hubs, we can forward-project precision artillery fire across the alliance with our partners”, he said at the time.
Obviously, this is a fallacious US narrative. The Arctic is a region traditionally occupied by the countries that have access to it. Russia has the Arctic as a vital point in its strategic environment and naturally seeks to maintain a strong military presence in the region to guarantee its national security. The US and NATO countries, however, do not use access to the Arctic to develop a defensive strategy. On the contrary, they are looking for the Arctic as a possible point of attack against Russia. The Western objective in the Arctic is simply to harm Russia, not to protect itself. If the West adopted a policy of diplomacy and peaceful dialogue with Moscow, there would be no military race in the Arctic, but clearly NATO’s intention is to hurt Russia as much as possible.
To achieve these provocative objectives, the US will use the strategic location of NATO’s new members as a tool of war. The Nordic countries will be induced to actively participate in the Arctic militarization process, co-leading with Washington an escalation of tensions with Russia. And this will be extremely harmful for them, because, if the crisis escalates into an open conflict in the future, these countries will be priority targets and will be in a much greater risk zone for Russian attacks than the US.
Once again, access to NATO appears to be a trap for Finland and Sweden, which are being used as mere war tools by the US.
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Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
Despite the deterioration of its defense industry, the West still appears willing to continue arming Ukraine. Without the ability to produce modern weapons in sufficient quantity and at an appropriate time to supply Kiev, the only alternative left to the regime’s sponsors is to resort to obsolete and disused arms – which, if they were not sent to Ukraine, would be discarded.
Recently, France, the country that currently leads anti-Russian efforts and is even considering direct intervention in Ukraine, announced that it will provide the neo-Nazi regime with a new military package. The equipment of the aid includes surface-to-air missiles and hundreds of armored vehicles. However, these are not new weapons in perfect working condition. These are very old equipment, taken from the Ministry of Defense’s warehouses – some of which are over 40 years old.
Despite the questionable quality of the weapons, Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu praised the importance of French aid and stated that Kiev “needs” this type of equipment to fight a protracted war. He also explained that he personally received a request from President Emmanuel Macron to come up with a “new aid package” as quickly as possible. Apparently, weapons manufactured four decades ago are all that Paris has left to send to Ukraine.
“To hold such a long frontline, the Ukrainian army needs, for example, our armored vehicles – this is absolutely key for troop mobility and is part of Ukraine’s requests,” the minister told journalists.
In addition to being old, some of the weapons supplied by the French are being “reused”. Several of the vehicles included in the package have been used by the French army previously, but are allegedly “still functional”. Not only that, the package is apparently also serving to accelerate the replacement of the French arsenal. The Ministry of Defense had previously shown interest in replacing thousands of VAB (Véhicule de l’Avant Blindé) armored personnel carriers with new and more efficient vehicles. Now, many of these armored vehicles, which began to be used by Paris 45 years ago, will be sent to Ukraine. It is expected to boost the declining local industry to produce new weapons to replenish the French arsenal.
As well known, France has been one of the main supporters of the war. Paris does not rule out the possibility of intervening directly in the conflict if Ukraine proves unable to continue fighting. Although Macron’s words on the topic are certainly a “PR stunt” to garner popular support amid the legitimacy crisis affecting France, the consequences of this type of attitude could be catastrophic, as other countries are also feeling encouraged by Paris to go to direct war with Russia. This is the case of Finland, for example, which recently announced that it is considering sending troops to Ukraine in the future.
However, rational analysis shows us that the French are absolutely incapable of taking any escalatory measures. Paris no longer even has the resources to finance the war indirectly, so it obviously does not have the means to intervene directly. The biggest proof of this incapacity is the fact that the new aid packages are made up of obsolete and reused weapons. The country has a very weakened defense industry, which is having difficulty in producing the appropriate quantity of weapons even in times of “peace”. It seems obvious that in a scenario of open war this industry would collapse in a short time, leading France to military failure.
It must also be emphasized that, for its part, Ukraine is not in a position to choose which weapons to receive. Kiev currently accepts any type of foreign “aid”, regardless of the quality of the equipment received. Recently, Ukrainian Vice Admiral Aleksey Neizhpapa showed interest in receiving two retired British ships, HMS Westminster and HMS Argyll. The frigates were recently selected for dismantlement in the UK. Such is the Ukrainian desperation that the country is eager to receive useless weapons in its arsenal – just to “have something” that allows it to continue fighting.
Obviously, old and outdated weapons will never be a “game changer” for the neo-Nazi regime. In practice, most of this equipment does not even last on the battlefield, being destroyed in a short time during high-precision attacks by Russian artillery. Kiev is aware of its military failure and the impossibility of reversing the conflict scenario, but, as it is not allowed by the West to surrender, it needs to continue begging for any type of weapon just to continue operating this proxy war.
Editors Note: All of that foreign aid that Ukraine has been receiving is being laundered by the “leadership” of Ukraine. Very little of the aid that the US and others have sent actually goes to the troops or the people of Ukraine, most of it gets laundered by big purchases like this one. Zelensky has accumulated quite the real estate portfolio since taking office. Still feel like putting that Ukrainian flag on your social media profile?
Royal Purchase – Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the New Owner of Highgrove House, Previously Owned by King Charles. Highgrove House, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire, served as the country residence of King Charles III even after he assumed his new role as Britain’s reigning monarch.
It was purchased in 1980 by the then Prince Charles from Maurice Macmillan, son of the former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. During his first marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales, the family would spend weekends in Gloucestershire with Princes William and Harry, before returning to Kensington Palace.
Highgrove House, Sold to Ukraine’s Zelensky for £20 Million
In 2024, King Charles III sold his residence, having owned it for 44 years. What is _at first glance surprising_ is that the new owner of the royal estate is Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of Ukraine.
Charles has been an outspoken supporter of Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion. In February 2023, The King held an audience with Volodymyr Zelensky at Buckingham Palace. Charles III issued a strongly-worded message of support for Ukraine, in a statement marking the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion in February 2024. The unusually direct message seems to be a rallying call to keep up international assistance for Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine has been close to the King’s heart. It may explain the nature of an unusual sale of the King’s property to Volodymyr Zelensky – whom Charles III probably sees as a defender of democracy.
Although there is no official statement from Buckingham Palace on the Highgrove house sale yet, there are many details that indicate the sale was completed in late February – early March of 2024.
Grant Harold, the King’s former butler
Grant Harrold, the King’s former butler, who worked for Charles III at Highgrove from 2004 to 2011, believes the final details of the deal were negotiated during Mrs Zelenska’s visit to the UK on 29th February. He mentioned, “Prince William could have gifted the house to his father. So, the King was within his rights to sell the property.” Prince William inherited Highgrove House after Charles assumed his new role as Britain’s reigning monarch.
According to Grant Harrold, another detail indicating Highgrove House now has a new owner is that at least 6 Highgrove staff members received redundancy notices on 21st March.
Olena Zelenska and Queen Consort Camilla
The royal family has always maintained a fine line between balancing private matters with disclosure to the public they serve. The lack of clarity surrounding the King’s health and him stepping back from public-facing duties during treatment, followed by a prolonged absence of information about Kate Middleton’s health – all this shows the royals’ shroud of secrecy is stronger than ever.
It is unclear how much Highgrove House was sold for to Volodymyr Zelensky. Its price in 1980 (£800,000) is the equivalent of about £4.7 million to £8 million today. But the actual price is supposed to be much higher – around £20 million.
It remains unclear why the President of Ukraine decided to purchase the royal residence and how he managed to persuade the King to sell it. Perhaps Olena Zelenska’s “affinity” with Queen Camilla helped to negotiate the deal. The source of funds for this purchase also remains unknown.
The UK has pledged almost £12 billion in overall support to Ukraine since February 2022. On 12th January 2024, the Government announced a further £2.5 billion of funding for 2024/2025.
You can support this ministry and keep us on the internet using the links below. Patreon is gone so now we havePayPal, Cash App and Buy me a Coffee as our online options. The new buy me a coffee link is below.
You can support this ministry and keep us on the internet using the links below. Patreon is gone so now we havePayPal, Cash App and Buy me a Coffee as our online options. The new buy me a coffee link is below.
