Heading towards World War III?

The retired Swiss Colonel Jacques Baud has written a lengthy article in which he paints a completely different picture of the war in Ukraine than portrayed in the Western media. The former NATO analyst helped Ukraine build its army for years.

Baud noted that the so-called Russian-backed separatists in Donbass were never supported in any way by Russia for the past eight years. After the Maidan coup in 2014, the Russian-speaking part of the population – civilians – were attacked by Ukrainian soldiers. In cities like Odessa, Mariupol, Luhansk and Donetsk massacres were carried out by them. Since then, a civil war has raged in the country.

Baud was working as an army analyst for NATO in 2014, when his team discovered that the rebels’ weapons were not supplied by Russia, but by Russian-speaking defectors from the Ukrainian armed forces.

How did he know this?

There was a massive exodus, after which Baud had to help to rebuild the image of the Ukrainian army. This turned out to be a long and arduous process. In the process, extremist paramilitary militias, including the Azov Battalion, sprung up.

In 2020, 40 percent of the Ukrainian army consisted of these militias, Baud said. He describes the members as cruel fanatics. They were funded, trained and armed by the United States, Great Britain, Canada and France.

Baud further pointed out that President Zelensky announced last year that he intended to take Crimea and he sent his troops south to complete the task. In February, the Ukrainian army began bombing Donbass on a large scale.

The former colonel added that US President Biden announced on February 17 that Russia would attack Ukraine within days. How did he know this? Since February 16, the civilian population of Donbass has been massively bombed by the Ukrainian army. The European Union, media, NATO and Western governments nonetheless kept mum as this was happening.

Three reasons

It seems the European Union and Western countries deliberately did not say anything about the massacre in Donbass because they knew it would provoke a Russian response, the ex-NATO analyst said.

He also pointed out that in January saboteurs with Western equipment were caught in Donbass who spoke Polish. They had wanted to cause incidents with chemical substances in Gorlovka. Baud said Joe Biden knew the mass bombing and acts of sabotage would lead to a Russian invasion.

According to him, there are three reasons for this war: the expansion of NATO, refusal of the West to implement the Minsk agreements and the large-scale attacks on the civilian population of Donbass over the past eight years.

Western weapons for Ukraine find their way back to the EU

Large amounts of weapons are currently being shipped into Ukraine by the West, but these may find their way back to their countries of origin.

A huge amount of small arms and small ammunition, anti-tank weapons and handheld anti-air systems now constitute a serious, long term danger to the EU and the world at large since these fit into a car trunk and can easily be smuggled across borders.

Gangs in Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany also probably already know this much.

freewestmedia.com/2022/04/22/ex-nato-analyst-paints-a-completely-different-picture-of-ukraine-war

As the House opens impeachment hearings for President Trump, Professor Stephen F. Cohen warns that the US military assistance at the heart of Ukrainegate escalates the US-Russia Cold War.

Guest: Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton University, contributing editor at The Nation, and author of "War with Russia: From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate."

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is “tempting evil” with his statements about the training of Ukrainian troops abroad amid the conflict with Russia, Polish General Waldemar Skrzypczak, who advises the defense minister, said on Friday.

During a visit to India earlier this week, Johnson told journalists that “we are currently training Ukrainians in Poland in the use of anti-aircraft defense, and actually in the UK in the use of armored vehicles.”

Skrzypczak, who headed one of the multinational divisions in Iraq in the mid-2000s, told Polish newspaper Fakt that “when we were on missions abroad it was hard to imagine that one of the politicians would talk about our plans or training on television.”

By making the comments, Johnson “reveals military secrets” to Russia, the general said. “Training is a military matter and must be kept under wraps. The man should… think before saying such things.”

www.rt.com/news/554388-johnson-ukraine-poland-secrets

Daniel Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and is author of the recently-released No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using “Humanitarian” Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests.

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In short, there is no doubt that Russia has been threatened, and in a quite profound way, with concrete destabilizing efforts by the US, NATO and their extremist surrogates in Ukraine. Russia has been so threatened for a full eight years. And Russia has witnessed what such destabilizing efforts have meant for other countries, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria to Libya – that is, nearly a total annihilation of the country as a functioning nation-state.

It is hard to conceive of a more pressing case for the need to act in defense of the nation. While the UN Charter prohibits unilateral acts of war, it also provides, in Article 51, that “[n]othing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense... ” And this right of self-defense has been interpreted to permit countries to respond, not only to actual armed attacks, but also to the threat of imminent attack.

In light of the above, it is my assessment that this right has been triggered in the instant case, and that Russia had a right to act in its own self-defense by intervening in Ukraine, which had become a proxy of the US and NATO for an assault – not only on Russian ethnics within Ukraine – but also upon Russia itself. A contrary conclusion would simply ignore the dire realities facing Russia.

www.rt.com/russia/554166-international-law-military-operation-ukraine

Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Saturday that it will look into media reports that sabotage experts from the British Army’s special forces have been deployed in western Ukraine.

“This data is going to be checked thoroughly,” especially considering the fact that Special Air Service (SAS) forces have established themselves as “experts in organizing mass protests, assassinations of political figures as well as preparing terrorist attacks,” the agency said in a statement.

This comes after a security source told RIA Novosti earlier in the day that at least two groups of British servicemen had arrived at a Ukrainian Air Force base in the town of Brody in the Lviv region. They traveled all the way from “the city of Hereford in the UK, where SAS headquarters is located,” the source said.

Each group allegedly consists of between 8 to 10 officers, specializing in sabotage, guerrilla warfare, and the recruitment of agents to work in hostile territory. SAS experts are considered to be among the best in the world in these areas, according to the source.

www.rt.com/news/554380-ukraine-uk-sas-sabotage

Russia has accused the US of planning to use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Ukraine in order to frame Moscow. The US is preparing “a provocation aimed at accusing the Russian armed forces of using chemical, biological, or tactical nuclear weapons,” Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Force, said on Saturday.

According to Kirillov, the supposed plans include “three scenarios.” The most probable scenario, he said, is a false-flag attack on civilians, or “an act of sabotage on Ukrainians sites, which were involved in the development of the components of weapons of mass destruction.”

- - -The general said that last month, Russian intelligence services found three spray drones in Ukraine’s southern Kherson Region. He argued that the UAVs could be used to spray “biological agents and toxic chemicals.” Kirillov claimed that vials with an unknown substance were airdropped on Thursday on Russian troops. The vials are being studied by the Defense Ministry, he said.Kirillov noted that Russia disposed of all of its chemical weapons in 2017, while the Soviet Union scrapped its biological weapons program in 1972.Moscow previously claimed that Ukraine had maintained US-funded biological weapons research programs, citing what it said were documents from the country’s several laboratories. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky strongly denied these allegations, saying the labs were only conducting “ordinary scientific research.”www.rt.com/russia/554387-russia-us-nuke-claims

As we've been reporting, Ukraine’s President Zelensky says he's expecting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary for Defence Lloyd Austin to visit Kyiv today.

The White House has not commented on the plans, but US Department of State spokesperson Ned Price has been speaking to the BBC about the war in Ukraine.

He told Sophie Raworth on the Sunday Morning programme he was confident Zelensky would prevail in the war.

"This is going to be a victory for Ukraine; it is going to be a strategic defeat for Russia," he said.

Asked whether the US and its allies were providing enough heavy weaponry, Price said: "What we have done is send precisely what our Ukrainian partners need to fend off this Russian aggression."

www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-61185469

President Zelensky is today expecting to welcome to Kyiv the most senior US officials to journey to Ukraine since the war started.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary for Defence Lloyd Austin are due in Kyiv. But there's still a lot we don't know about the American plans, as Washington has not commented.

Something we do know, though, is that Zelensky plans to keep up his demands to be sent heavy weapons to help combat the Russian military.

He's also hopeful that today's meeting could pave the way for an eventual visit by President Biden.

Other leaders have been to see Zelensky since the war started. The Spanish and Danish Prime Ministers visited on Thursday, following in the footsteps of the UK's Boris Johnson, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and others.

www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-61185469

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he presented a plan to impose more sanctions on Russia and discussed extra military aid with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Kiev on Sunday.

Zelensky outlined that the talks lasted for more than three hours and described them as “reassuring and, what’s also important, efficient.”

The president said the sides agreed on “further steps to strengthen the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” and discussed sanctions on Russia.

“We must block all of Russia’s capabilities to bypass sanctions. We provided our partners with a plan to increase sanctions against the Russian Federation,” Zelensky said. He added that the proposal was devised by a group led by Andrey Yermak, the head of Zelensky’s office, and former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.

Zelensky also said that international security guarantees for Ukraine were discussed. “I’m confident that the US can become the leader among the states that will be future guarantors of Ukraine's security,” he said.

www.rt.com/russia/554479-zelensky-blinken-austin-visit

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has said he hopes Russian losses in Ukraine will deter its leadership from repeating its actions elsewhere.

Ukraine can still win the war if given the right support, he added.

He also announced the US would allocate an extra $713m (£559m) of military aid to Ukraine and other European nations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of attempting to "split Russian society and destroy Russia from within".

Mr Austin, a retired four-star general, was speaking after meeting Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. Also involving Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the visit marked the highest-level trip to Ukraine by US officials since the invasion began over two months ago.

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61214176

The US will move “heaven and earth” to supply Ukraine with what it says it needs to fight Russia, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. The announcement came on Tuesday at a 40-country meeting aimed at getting Washington’s allies on board the mission to prop up Kiev’s defenses.

www.rt.com/news/554567-austin-promises-heaven-earth-ukraine