Heading towards World War III?

French ex-soldier Adrien Bocquet spent three weeks in Ukraine and what he saw there will be etched on his mind forever, he said. Once back home he was dismayed to learn that the media keep inviting "experts" who have not been to Ukraine and have no idea what is going on there.

Speaking to French radio station Sud Radio, Adrien Bocquet said he had witnessed “a lot of war crimes“. All those war crimes were committed by Ukrainian soldiers and not by Russian soldiers, he pointed out. Bocquet is therefore enormously alarmed that Europe is sending weapons to Ukrainian neo-Nazis. They wear all kinds of Nazi symbols on their uniforms. They do not hide these symbols. What is more, they boast about them, he said.

“I worked with them and gave them medicine. Do you know what they said? That they would skin Jews or blacks if they had the chance.” This certainly does not align with the mainstream narrative of saving “democracy” and “our values” in Ukraine.

“People can say whatever they want. I was there. I saw what happened there,” emphasised Bocquet, who says he has made many dozens of videos of war crimes. He saw in a barn Russian prisoners of war who had been beaten and tied up. “Fighters from the Azov battalion asked them who the officers were. Each Russian soldier was shot in the knees with a Kalashnikov. I have videos that prove it, otherwise I would not dare to say such a thing.”

Officers were immediately shot in the head. “That’s how it goes, at least in the Azov battalion,” the French ex-marine said.

He went on to say that he had seen an American cameraman blatantly staging footage and the Ukrainian army hiding ammunition in homes at night without informing civilians.

freewestmedia.com/2022/05/14/french-former-marine-returns-from-ukraine-shocked

Western media has looked the other way, however, as Zelensky and top officials in his administration have sanctioned a campaign of kidnapping, torture, and assassination of local Ukrainian lawmakers accused of collaborating with Russia. Several mayors and other Ukrainian officials have been killed since the outbreak of war, many reportedly by Ukrainian state agents after engaging in de-escalation talks with Russia.

“There is one less traitor in Ukraine,” Internal Affairs Ministry advisor Anton Geraschenko stated in endorsement of the murder of a Ukrainian mayor accused of collaborating with Russia.

Zelensky has further exploited the atmosphere of war to outlaw an array of opposition parties and order the arrest of his leading rivals. His authoritarian decrees have triggered the disappearance, torture and even murder of an array of human rights activists, communist and leftist organizers, journalists and government officials accused of “pro-Russian” sympathies.

The Ukrainian SBU security services has served as the enforcement arm of the officially authorized campaign of repression. With training from the CIA and close coordination with Ukraine’s state-backed neo-Nazi paramilitaries, the SBU has spent the past weeks filling its vast archipelago of torture dungeons with political dissidents.

On the battlefield, meanwhile, the Ukrainian military has engaged in a series of atrocities against captured Russian troops and proudly exhibited its sadistic acts on social media. Here too, the perpetrators of human rights abuses appear to have received approval from the upper echelons of Ukrainian leadership.

While Zelensky spouts bromides about the defense of democracy before worshipful Western audiences, he is using the war as a theater for enacting a blood-drenched purge of political rivals, dissidents and critics.

“The war is being used to kidnap, imprison and even kill opposition members who express themselves critical of the government,” a left-wing activist beaten and persecuted by Ukraine’s security services commented this April.

mronline.org/2022/04/19/one-less-traitor

Fox News host voices his concerns about lawmakers prioritizing solving Ukraine's problems over America's

Protests sweeping Iran over surging food prices have left five people dead, according to media reports. Officials in Tehran have provided no confirmation of potential casualties.

The unrest follows the government’s decision to cut food import subsidies, as part of an austerity package unveiled by President Ebrahim Raisi earlier this week. The measures are aimed at rescuing an economy battered by sanctions, and also soaring inflation, which has been aggravated by the Ukraine conflict.

The scrapping of subsidies has resulted in dramatic – up to 300% – increases in prices of everyday goods, such as cooking oil, chicken, eggs and milk.

Iran’s government has pledged to protect low-income citizens from the inflationary shock with monthly cash hand-outs, but the situation has left consumers struggling to buy basic items, with long lines appearing in front of food stores across the country.

www.rt.com/news/555522-five-reportedly-killed-protests

European Union member states have failed to agree on proposals to ban Russian oil imports, after more than 10 days of talks, with Hungary leading a group of countries resisting the measure, according to the EU foreign policy chief.

Josep Borrell said: “we will do our best in order to deblock the situation. I cannot ensure that it is going to happen because positions are quite strong.”

The proposed embargo on Russian crude is part of a sixth package of sanctions, proposed on May 4, over the Ukraine conflict.

Borrell acknowledged that some member states “face more difficulties because they are more dependent, because they are landlocked,” and that “they only have oil through pipelines, and coming from Russia.”

www.rt.com/business/555531-eu-fail-oil-embargo-russia

Russian and allied troops blocking the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol will allow injured Ukrainian soldiers to leave the stronghold and go to hospital in Novoazovsk, the Russian defense ministry said on Monday. The evacuation is planned for later on Monday after an agreement was reached, the military said.

According to the Russian ministry, it has suspended hostilities at Azovstal to allow the humanitarian evacuation later in the day.

Novoazovsk is a small city about 40km east of Mariupol, which is controlled by the militia force of the Donetsk People’s Republic. The evacuated troops will apparently remain in the custody of the breakaway republic, which Russia recognized as an independent state before launching its attack against Ukraine in late February.

Azovstal serves as the last bastion of Ukrainian troops in Mariupol, a major port city that saw some of the most intense fighting during Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. The vast facility has an extensive network of underground tunnels and shelters, where Ukrainian fighters are holed up.

Russia decided not to storm the site, saying it would take too many lives of its soldiers, and opted for a prolonged siege instead. Ukrainian troops stationed there, many of whom belong to the controversial nationalist Azov battalion, have been complaining about a shortage of food, medical supplies and ammunition for weeks.

www.rt.com/russia/555560-injured-troops-evacuation-azovstal