With the likes of CNN regularly giving puff segment to Kiev regime officials and other anti-Russian leaning sources, there’s considerable room for Anglo-American mass media improvement in the analysis of Russian-Ukrainian issues. One of a limited exception of good analytical journalism on the subject, is the December 7 aired PBS segment, involving host Christiane Amanpour, interacting with Alexander Vershbow and Andrey Kortunov.

John Batchelor’s regular segments with the late Stephen Cohen, were a positive offset to the predominating anti-Russian biases in Western mass media. Cohen’s passing leaves a void, which Batchelor has yet to fill.

Batchelor is the kind of host who lets his guests express themselves with little challenge. A clear example of this interaction is evident in his December 5 divided online segment with a certain HJ Mackinder.

Batchelor creatively brings back to life Mackinder, the renown British academic of geopolitics and geostrategy, who died in 1947. A Google search of “HJ Mackinder” comes up with no one else listed in the lead results under that name. I’ll let others determine how well of a representative is Batchelor’s recreation.

Perhaps the Stephen Cohen that I’ve in mind can come back on Batchelor’s show. If not, there’re competent living individuals with like-minded views. Most of Batchelor’s guests haven’t entered the afterlife. Regarding deceased academic greats on Russia related matters, Nikolay Karamzin, Michael Karpovich and Vasily Klyuchevsky, are among those to study and reference.

In belittling opposition to Ukrainian membership in NATO, the reincarnated Mackinder confidently notes Russia’s considerable power and the numerous countries already added to NATO since the end of the Cold War. In addition, he says that Russia was only conquered once in its history. As stated and without follow-up, these observations are quite shortsighted.

This isn’t a paranoid observation. NATO’s top brass and its greatest enthusiasts show a clear disregard for Russian concerns, while downplaying the flaws of anti-Russian elements. The chance for war is greater when the legitimate interests of one or more sides is/are overlooked.

California Congressman Adam Schiff said that American involvement in Ukraine is to keep Russia away from the US. Along with some other US politicians, Schiff has received a good deal of funding from US defense contractors. A listing of the top countries in defense spending, contradicts the image of Russia seeking increased power over the US via military clout.

America has a military presence in the Black Sea and in several former Soviet republics. Where’s the Russian military in the US Atlantic and Pacific coastlines, as well as the Gulf of Mexico?

In his interaction with Batchelor, Mackinder erroneously perceives Russian President Valdimir Putin as someone looking to create a problem to take attention away from his (as viewed by Mackinder) failings. If anything, Zelensky and Biden have more reason than Putin to exaggerate certain things to divert attention away from other issues. In actuality, Putin remains (by world standards) a popular president in Russia, in stark contrast to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s low standing in Ukraine and US President Joe Biden’s approval rating.

There’s the possibility of Kiev regime controlled Ukraine launching an Operation Storm like attack on the rebel Donbass area. This is something which Russia will understandably not tolerate. Such an action will likely cause a noticeable refugee exodus to Russia, with pro-Russian proponents critically calling for a follow-up counter. In this circumstance, Ukraine in NATO increases the likelihood of a greater conflict.

NATO prefers prospective members to have peacefully agreed borders – something not evident with Kiev regime controlled Ukraine. Are the authorities in Kiev willing to give up its claims to Crimea and the rebel held Donbass territory in exchange for NATO membership? Would Russia be especially pleased with that scenario?

The answer to the second question is probably not. In Kiev regime controlled Ukraine, there’re some areas with a noticeable pro-Russian contingent – something that will not be so easy for Russia to formally see drift further away.

A clearly stated provision that Ukraine will not be in any military alliance will face obstacles as well.  Among pro-Russian advocates, there’s the belief that Russia and Ukraine could be allies again at some point in the future. There’s also the Biden-NATO view, which rejects a red line on NATO expansion.

Around the time of the Soviet breakup, Russia exhibited an interest in joining NATO. That sentiment diminished as a result of anti-Russian slants getting the upper hand.

Within Western establishment circles, there’s talk of Russia needing to change for there to be better relations between Washington and Moscow. On the flip side, there’s the view that the predominating biases against Russia need to be reversed for the purpose of accuracy, leading to an improved and mutually beneficial relationship.

There’re signs that there’s a potential for this to eventually happen. Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s December 7 show began with a lengthy rebuke of US policy towards Russia and Ukraine. On a final note, should the Strategic Culture Foundation’s prognostication on an impending Russian invasion of Ukraine prove true, the US government will look all the more foolish.

eurasiareview.com

The United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin this week performed impressive, albeit pathetic, mental gymnastics. In a press conference, the Pentagon chief called on Russia to be more transparent about troop movements “on the border with Ukraine”. In others words, on Russian soil.

Meanwhile, the absurd hypocrisy sees U.S. and NATO forces brazenly escalating their offensive presence on Russia’s borders, especially in the Black Sea region.

Here’s an Associated Press clip on the Pentagon press conference: “American officials are unsure why Russian President Vladimir Putin is building up military forces near the border with eastern Ukraine but view it as another example of troubling military moves that demand Moscow’s explanation, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday.”

The report quotes Austin as saying: “We’ll continue to call on Russia to act responsibly and be more transparent on the buildup of the forces around on the border of Ukraine… We’re not sure exactly what Mr Putin is up to.”

This dubious talent for mind-bending mental gymnastics and double-think is shared with other members of the Biden administration. Last week, America’s top diplomat Antony Blinken claimed that Russia was about to invade Ukraine yet at the same time the U.S. Secretary of State confessed similar ignorance about what “Putin is up to”.

How is it possible to engage in meaningful dialogue with such vacuous people who are supposed to be government leaders – and leaders too of the self-declared world’s most powerful, most brilliant nation? No undue offense intended, but it would probably be more productive to engage in a dialogue with the bewildering characters from Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play Waiting for Godot.

Russia has repeatedly dismissed all claims about it threatening Ukraine or any other country with invasion. Moscow also disputes “unreliable” information touted by the Biden administration and Western media of troop buildup near Ukraine on its western flank. Western media reports have relied on dodgy commercial satellite data purporting to show Russian military maneuvers. It is contemptible that senior U.S. government figures are basing grave allegations against Russia on such ropy sources. That in itself speaks volumes about the deterioration in Washington’s diplomatic professionalism and political intelligence.

Secondly, the salient fact being missed in all the hullabaloo is this: Russian troops and equipment are on Russia’s sovereign territory. It is the height of absurdity for U.S. officials to demand that Russia “explain” and be “more transparent” about its own national defenses. That speaks of a hyper-arrogance among American politicians that are deforming their ability to think reasonably.

There is an analogy here with the outcry this week over Russia’s successful missile test against a Soviet-era satellite in orbit. The Biden administration condemned Russia for creating “space junk” and weaponizing space while ignoring the fact that the U.S. previously carried out the same kind of missile strike and, arguably has been trying to weaponize space since the Reagan administration’s “star wars” program during the 1980s.

In any case, the U.S. charges of Russia’s military buildup on its own territory are made all the more ridiculous when we consider the actual increase in NATO forces in Ukraine and the Black Sea region – right on Russia’s western doorstep.

In a major speech this week delivered at the Russian foreign ministry, President Putin noted again how Western powers have continually failed to register Moscow’s national security concerns over the expansion of NATO forces along Russia’s borders. He described this inability for cognition of what should be an obvious grievance as “very peculiar”.

The Kremlin has suggested that the increasing NATO offensive presence near Russia’s borders is not due to stupidity, but rather is aimed at provoking a conflict. Russia is strenuously resisting the danger of an armed confrontation, and yet the provocations continue.

Nearly two weeks ago, William Burns, the head of the CIA made a high-profile visit to Moscow during which he held discussions with senior Kremlin figures, including President Putin. We can safely assume that Burns was told in no uncertain terms that the buildup of U.S. and NATO forces near Russia’s territory is a red line that will presage a response from Russia.

But these red lines continue to be skirted by Washington and its NATO allies.

More perplexing, too, are the moves by the U.S.-backed Kiev regime to escalate the conflict in Ukraine against the ethnic Russian population in the separatist Donbas region. The ultranationalist regime has been waging a low-intensity war against the Donbas since the U.S.-backed coup in Kiev in 2014. The Americans and other NATO powers are increasing weapon supplies and military trainers to the regime, emboldening it to repudiate any peaceful settlement of the eight-year conflict.

Only last month, Pentagon chief Austin was in Kiev where he recklessly endorsed the joining of the NATO bloc by Ukraine. That is in spite of numerous warnings from Moscow that such a move would be an unacceptable destabilization.

The stepped-up war drills by NATO in the Black Sea region are inevitably leading the Kiev regime to resile from legally binding commitments to the Minsk Peace accord of 2015 – brokered by Russia, Germany and France. The release this week of diplomatic communications by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov clearly demonstrates that Germany and France are complicit in turning a blind eye to the Kiev regime’s systematic violation of the Minsk deal.

In this context, Russia is justifiably deeply wary of a confrontation exploding out of the tinderbox conditions in Ukraine and the Black Sea. Given the Russian nation’s tragic history of suffering from past military invasions, it is entirely understandable and indeed vitally prudent that the country’s formidable defenses are on high alert.

It is not for Russia to explain its troops. It is for the United States and its NATO partners to account for their wanton aggression and to desist.

There is something of the theater of absurd in American and European posturing. But it’s far from funny. It’s menacingly deranged.

The U.S.-NATO military exercise Sea Breeze ended on July 19 after two weeks in which 30 ships from 14 NATO nations and their “Enhanced Opportunities Partners” (EOP), including Ukraine, conducted combat manoeuvres specifically directed against Russia, and NATO was open about the fact that “NATO has increased its presence in the Black Sea”. This example of aggressive confrontation was the most recent in a series of U.S.-NATO operations along Russia’s borders, which are described officially as “NATO’s Eastern Flank”.

NATO has established an “Enhanced Forward Presence” in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland while developing “a tailored forward presence in the Black Sea region” and the message of hostility could not be clearer. It is therefore not surprising that Russia has developed a new deterrent weapon. It was announced on July 19 that a Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic cruise missile was successfully tested from the navy frigate Admiral Gorshkov in the White Sea, and there was an immediate outburst of protest by NATO which issued a statement claiming that Russia had created “a greater risk of escalation and miscalculation” because its “new hypersonic missiles are highly destabilizing and pose significant risks to security and stability across the Euro-Atlantic area.” It escapes the notice of NATO and the Washington administration that if there had not been the remorseless — and expanding — build-up of U.S.-NATO-EOP troops, combat ships, electronic warfare systems and strike aircraft on the “Eastern Flank” there would have been no requirement for Russia to develop counter-measures requiring expertise and money that the Russian government would have preferred to devote to expanding trade and improving domestic conditions.

The U.S.-NATO military build-up has been complemented by a campaign of psychological warfare aimed at placing Russia under suspicion for any number of supposed violations of international practices, the latest of which was described in the UK’s Guardian newspaper on July 17, headlined “Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House”. The report was written by journalist Luke Harding who claims he based it on highly-classified Russian language documents which were examined by unidentified “independent experts” whose verdict was that they “appeared” to be “genuine.” The intriguing thing, however, is that the story was not picked up by any other of the mainstream media (Fox News mentioned it; see below), not even the Washington Post, which, although generally an excellent publication, is anti-Russian to the point that doubt can be cast on its longtime reputation for objectivity and even-handedness.

It cannot be said that the Guardian is intrinsically anti-Russian, and indeed it is balanced in its approach to international affairs, but its anti-Russian report was so full of qualifiers (“appears . . . suggests . . . apparent . . .seems”) that publication in such a reputable paper is disturbing. It brings to mind the Zinoviev Letter of a century ago, which the Financial Times describes as “an inflammatory document supposedly sent to the British Communist party in September 1924 by Grigory Zinoviev, head of the Comintern, the Soviet organ that promoted worldwide revolution by means of propaganda and subversion.” The FT notes that Trotsky’s comment at the time was “How a document so nonsensical, so politically meaningless, a document which cries aloud that it is a forgery, could become the focus of attention of the leading political parties of the oldest civilised country in the world, a country of centuries of world supremacy and of a parliamentary regime — that is what is truly incomprehensible.”

The Guardian itself ran a story on the Zinoviev Letter in 1999, reporting an official government investigation into the scandal. This recorded that the letter, sent to the Daily Mail newspaper to attempt to influence an impending general election, was forged and “almost certainly leaked by MI6 or MI5 officers.” The Mail’s headlines included “Civil War Plot by Socialists’ Masters: Moscow Orders To Our Reds; Great Plot Disclosed.”

The Guardian’s headlines, such as “Papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House”, are compelling — but when Fox News, of all media outlets, commented that the paper “stopped short of saying [the documents] were absolutely authentic”, then it is evident that the Guardian has a distinct credibility problem. Fox went on to say that the documents “seem written to match a liberal fantasy” and that “readers are left to wonder what is true, what is exaggerated and what is malarkey . . .”

The anti-Russia malarkey business has been thriving, and one of its most unsavoury manifestations has been the U.S. campaign to destroy the agreement between Germany and Russia on the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which is so important to Europe (and has at last been approved, thanks to Chancellor Merkel). This major project is over 95 per cent complete, but was stalled in its final stages by sanctions imposed by President Trump (which action totally contradicts the contention of the U.S. media and various agencies that Trump was pro-Russia).

Nord Stream is designed to “transport natural gas into the European Union to enhance security of supply, support climate goals and strengthen the internal energy market. The EU’s domestic gas production is in rapid decline. To meet demand, the EU needs reliable, affordable and sustainable new gas supplies.” It could not be clearer that the project was of great benefit — but not directly to the United States, which is why politicians in Washington were so determined to have it scuttled.

The BBC reported at the time of the Trump sanctions that “The almost $11 bn (£8.4 bn) Nord Stream 2 project has infuriated the U.S., with both Republican and Democratic lawmakers opposing it. The Trump administration fears the pipeline will tighten Russia’s grip over Europe’s energy supply and reduce its own share of the lucrative European market for American liquefied natural gas (emphasis added). President Trump has said the 1,225 km (760-mile) pipeline, owned by Gazprom, could turn Germany into a ‘hostage of Russia’.”

The real reason for U.S. hostility to Nord Stream lies outside Europe. Even the Washington Post had to admit that in spite of all the malarkey about a supposed Russian threat, “it’s also clear that the U.S. has been keen to increase its own sales to Europe of what it calls ‘freedom gas.’ The Washington authorities were committed for many years to stopping the gas link, or at least putting significant hurdles in its way.” It all comes down to lost profits for Washington. No objective analyst would imagine that Russia, after spending billions of dollars and standing to earn regular, guaranteed returns from its vast investment, would switch off supplies, but the intensity of anti-Russia feeling in the U.S. Congress is such that objectivity falls prey to ultra-nationalistic bombast — and the profit motive.

Russia’s recently-published National Security Strategy is described by the Carnegie Endowment for Peace as a valuable document, and the Endowment sums up the Western approach by writing that “Getting Russia right — assessing its capabilities and intentions, the long-term drivers of its policy and threat perceptions, as well as its accomplishments — is essential because the alternative of misreading them is a recipe for wasted resources, distorted national priorities, and increased risk of confrontation.”

Continuing to target Russia is a grave mistake on the part of the Washington-London Axis, and it’s about time there was objective assessment of where Russia intends to move on the world stage. There’s no point in continuing confrontation.

As the U.S.-NATO military alliance retreats from its failure to overcome a few thousand raggy-baggy militants in Afghanistan and regroups in the Persian Gulf with 5,000 troops in Iraq on a so-called training mission, it continues deployment of troops, surveillance systems, combat ships and strike aircraft along Russia’s borders in order to provoke reaction that it considers will justify its existence.

On June 28, while the evacuation of Afghanistan gathered pace, the U.S. carried out airstrikes in Syria and Iraq on what were claimed to be bases of “Iranian-backed militias”. Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi condemned the raids as a “blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and Iraqi national security” but he was wasting his time, because this sort of protest has no effect whatever on Washington which had not even informed the Iraqi government of its intentions.

It was possibly coincidental that on the same day that that the U.S. Air Force was rocketing and bombing targets in Iraq and Syria, a chain of U.S.-NATO military manoeuvres called “Sea Breeze” began some 1000 km to the north.

Reuters reported that “Ukraine and the United States will start a military exercise involving more than 30 countries in the Black Sea and southern Ukraine on Monday, despite Russian calls to cancel the drills” and Deutsche Welle detailed that “a total of 32 ships, 40 aircraft and helicopters and 5,000 soldiers from 24 countries are taking part in the exercises, which last through July 10. Participating countries include the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Turkey, Israel, Morocco, Japan, South Korea and Australia. Germany, which has been involved in the past, is not taking part this year. It’s the largest manoeuvres in decades, after last year’s drills were shortened due to the pandemic. Various exercises are planned at sea, on land and in the air with the goal of bringing Ukraine up to NATO standards.”

It is obvious that this sort of military roaring and splashing along Russia’s borders is infantile and deliberately confrontational, and the tone was set five days before Sea Breeze began when there was an incident involving the British destroyer HMS Defender which had been ordered to conduct manoeuvres in the Black Sea specifically in order to provoke Russian reaction.

Russian forces intercepted the British warship and the BBC’s correspondent “who had been invited on board the ship before the incident happened, saw more than 20 aircraft overhead and two Russian coastguard boats which at times were just 100 m (328 ft) away. This is at odds with statements from both the British prime minister’s office and defence ministry, which denied any confrontation.” Of course they denied confrontation, because the automatic response of the Johnson government in London is to tell lies when faced with an embarrassing or otherwise awkward situation. But it goes further than that, because classified documents relating to the Black Sea fandangos were found by a member of the public in England and made known to the media which promptly published details of what was really behind the British government’s attempts to provoke Russia to react.

The BBC lived up to its reputation for factual and objective reportage and blew the lid off the government’s attempts to mislead British citizens (and the world) which won’t do it any good and will have the effect of hardening the ruling Conservative Party’s determination to neutralise and if possible privatise it to become Britain’s equivalent of the United States’ pantomime Fox News channel.

It noted that the documents, many relating to power-point presentations given to government representatives, “show that a mission described by the Ministry of Defence as an ‘innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters’, with guns covered and the ship’s helicopter stowed in its hangar, was conducted in the expectation that Russia might respond aggressively” [emphasis added]. The documents indicated that there was no military requirement to send the warship so close to Crimea and that “an alternative route was considered, which would have kept HMS Defender well away from contested waters. This would have avoided confrontation, the presentation noted, but ran the risk of being portrayed by Russia as evidence of ‘the UK being scared/running away’, allowing Russia to claim that the UK had belatedly accepted Moscow’s claim to Crimean territorial waters.” And that’s where the emphasis lies.

The British government refuses to acknowledge that the people of Crimea prefer to be part of the Russian Federation rather than of Ukraine, as pointed out by a commentator in the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper, Peter Hitchens, who wrote that “in 1991 the people of Crimea voted overwhelmingly (93 per cent of an 80 per cent turnout) for Crimean autonomy — that is, separating the peninsula from the direct authority of Ukraine . . . In December 1991, Ukraine voted in a referendum to leave the Russian empire. Moscow rightly accepted this. The leaders of Ukraine were happy to win their own freedom by such a vote. But there was one rule for them and another for the Crimea . . . Ukraine could vote itself out of Russia, but Crimea was not allowed to vote itself out of Ukraine. Do you think that fair or right? I don’t.”

But the British government wants to ramp up the country’s international profile, and the fact that Britain has no commercial or strategic interests in or associated with Ukraine, Crimea or the Black Sea is irrelevant to what passes for analysis in London. National policy and military posture are focused on Prime Minister Johnson’s declaration that he seeks to “make the United Kingdom stronger, safer and more prosperous, while standing up for our values.” What he does not understand is that national leaders do not make their citizens safer by indulging in confrontational antics specifically designed to provoke another country to take military action.

The London Times newspaper reported that “the head of the armed forces has said that incidents such as this week’s Black Sea confrontation with Russia are giving him sleepless nights. General Sir Nick Carter said that the conflict between the British destroyer HMS Defender and Russian forces in contested waters off the Crimea coast was an example of where a miscalculation could come from ‘unwarranted escalation’.” But the sensible voice of the most senior officer of the British armed services was not heeded, and it is intriguing, even bizarre, that he was not consulted before the government decided to commit forces to engage in military action that could indeed lead to “unwarranted escalation.”

Prime Minister Johnson desperately wants to develop “Global Britain”, and is using compliant NATO to help him in his attempts to cavort on the world stage. He won’t achieve “Global Britain” by ordering military confrontation, but he may well achieve military escalation, which is not the route to safety and prosperity. He is playing with fire.

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Russian patrol vessels fired warning shots at an armed British warship after it breached Russian territorial waters this week. Then a SU-24 fighter jet dropped bombs in the path of the British destroyer apparently forcing it out of Russian waters.

It sounds almost incredible that a war situation was only a shot away in such a grim face-off between NATO member Britain and Russia.

But what’s also condemnable is that the incendiary incident was a deliberate provocation by Britain. Russia has warned Britain not to provoke it again in the Black Sea. And Moscow accused London of telling barefaced lies.

The British government and its Ministry of Defense were quick to play down the incident, claiming that there were no warning shots fired on the Royal Navy guided-missile destroyer. London accused Russia of “disinformation” and maintained that HMS Defender was engaged in “innocent passage” through international waters in the Black Sea.

However, the official British version is contradicted by a BBC correspondent who was on board HMS Defender.

Jonathan Beale reported: “I am on board the warship in the Black Sea.The crew were already at action stations as they approached the southern tip of Russian-occupied [sic] Crimea. Weapons systems on board the Royal Navy destroyer had already been loaded.

This would be a deliberate move to make a point to Russia. HMS Defender was going to sail within the 12 mile (19km) limit of Crimea’s territorial waters. The captain insisted he was only seeking safe passage through an internationally recognized shipping lane.”

Thus, according to the BBC’s account, a fully armed and cocked warship deliberately entered territorial waters claimed by Russia (since Crimea joined the Russian Federation by a referendum in 2014). The crew were at action stations on their approach “to make a point to Russia”.

Such conduct by the British is nothing less than a wanton provocation to Russia. The BBC version concurs with Russia’s account of the circumstances, including the sound of warning shots.

One question is: why did the British government and MoD seek to immediately play down the incident, purporting to say that nothing had happened? London claimed that the warship was merely in the vicinity of Russian “gunnery exercises” as if it was all coincidence and that Moscow was engaging in disinformation about warding off the Royal Navy vessel.

Another question is: why was the BBC correspondent invited to take part in the Black Sea voyage of HMS Defender from the Ukrainian port of Odessa to Georgia skirting the Crimea Peninsula? It seems like the British may have been expecting their “point to Russia” would have been met with a passive response. And so the British would have been able to spin that their plucky navy was able to stick it to the Russians. Turns out though that the BBC man unhelpfully contradicted the military planners in London.

Britain was obliged to deny the military encounter because it knows full well that it was a provocative show of aggression by its warship. If the shots had escalated it could have been an act of war that Britain had instigated. Aggression is the supreme war crime as defined by the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders.

Russia has condemned the British action, saying HMS Defender should be renamed HMS Aggressor or HMS Provocateur.

It is also reported that on Tuesday, the day before the skirmish, Ukrainian military chiefs were hosted onboard HMS Destroyer while docked in Odessa where they signed new military contracts with the British on naval cooperation. That the Brits then sailed the next day straight into Russian waters suggests that the maneuver was a calculated show of naval power in support of Ukraine’s claims of “fighting against Russian aggression”.

As far back as April, the British had given notice that they were intending to dispatch warships to the Black Sea “in support of Ukraine”. Russia responded angrily and warned Britain and other NATO members to stay away from its territory. Russia subsequently has deployed larger military forces in its Black Sea territory, including around the Crimea Peninsula.

That the British went ahead with their plans to send warships into disputed waters is further sign that London was deliberately goading Moscow.

What the Brits were not expecting, it seems, was the way Russia rapidly deployed firepower this week to underscore its warnings to back off.

This is the context for why international “stability talks” between the United States and Russia are an urgent matter. It remains to be seen if the American Biden administration genuinely responds to Moscow’s appeals for earnest negotiations to stabilize relations. NATO so far seems to be indifferent to Russian proposals for cooperating on forming new security mechanisms in Europe.

The deterioration in relations between Russia and the United States and other NATO members has reached a dangerous flashpoint. The arming by the U.S. and NATO of the anti-Russia regime in Kiev is fueling the potential for all-out conflict between nuclear powers. Western indulgence of Kiev’s reckless claims of “Russian aggression” is further insanity.

And amid the treacherous conditions, the British send a guided-missile destroyer into Russian waters in defiance of reasonable warnings. That’s just a shot away from disaster.

Incredibly, this is all happening on the 80th anniversary of Operation Barbarossa when Nazi Germany launched its war against the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.

Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a stern warning to countries trying to provoke military tensions, saying that his nation is drawing up red lines for defense.

Putin delivered the sharp remarks during his annual state-of-the-nation address to lawmakers from both chambers of the Russian parliament. The stark warning comes amid spiraling tensions over Ukraine between Western supporters of the Kiev regime and Russia.

Specifically, days before Putin’s set-piece speech, British media reported that Britain’s Royal Navy is planning to deploy two warships to the Black Sea: a Type-45 destroyer armed with anti-aircraft missiles; and a frigate for hunting submarines. A British ministry of defense spokesman is quoted as saying the move was a sign of “unwavering support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity” in the face of alleged Russian aggression.

The British deployment is planned to take place in the coming weeks. The two warships will transit Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait to enter the Black Sea. International shipping is permitted under the Montreux Convention. However, the British plan seems far from an innocent passage, and a rather more calculated provocation.

The two ships will be part of a bigger battle group, the newly launched HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier which will station in the East Mediterranean. The battle group will be able to supply F-35B Lightning fighter jets and Merlin helicopters with submarine-hunting missiles. All in all, it is a pretty audacious attempt by the British to raise tensions with Russia.

It is notable that the United States last week abruptly cancelled sending two of its guided-missile destroyers to the Black Sea after Russia mobilized its own fleet in the region and warned the Americans to “stay away”. Days later, the British seem to have stepped into the breach with their proposed Black Sea operation. Did the Biden administration ask London to step up to the plate and to show “solidarity”, or is the British maneuver a gambit to curry favor with Washington by flexing AngloSaxon muscles for Uncle Sam?

In any case, London’s move comes on the back of an already brazen buildup of British military forces in the Black Sea. Britain has previously sent naval personnel and equipment to train Ukrainian warships. The Royal Air Force has also dispatched a squadron of Typhoon fighter jets to patrol the Black Sea in support of the Kiev regime and its claim to take back control of the Crimean Peninsula. The Peninsula voted in a referendum in March 2014 to join the Russian Federation after a NATO-backed coup d’état in Kiev the previous month which ushered in an anti-Russian regime.

The Kiev regime has also been stepping up its violations of the ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine where ethnic Russian populations have declared breakaway republics in defiance of the 2014 NATO-backed coup. Civilian centers in Donetsk and Luhansk are being shelled on a daily basis. This is clearly a cynical attempt by the Kiev regime to escalate the civil war in such a way as to drag NATO further into the conflict. Russia has mobilized sizable army divisions on the border with Ukraine in what Moscow says is a matter of national self-defense. Yet, ironically, the United States, Britain, and other NATO powers are demanding Russia to “de-escalate” tensions.

NATO’s very public backing for the Kiev regime and the supply of American lethal weaponry is no doubt emboldening the regime to step up its offensive fire on Eastern Ukraine and making menacing moves towards Crimea.

The British are in particular giving the Kiev regime a dangerous sense of military license for its bravado towards Moscow.

The situation is an extremely dangerous powder-keg. One wrong move, even unintended, could spark off a wider war involving the NATO powers and Russia.

In this highly combustible context, Russia is right to close off areas in the Black Sea that encompass its territorial waters. Those areas include the coastal waters off the Crimean Peninsula.

NATO powers sending warships into the region is the height of criminal folly. If Britain and other members of the U.S.-led alliance contend that they are “defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity” then the logic of that position dictates that they will attempt to make an incursion into Crimean coastal water since they don’t recognize Russia’s sovereignty. In that event, a military confrontation is bound to happen.

President Putin’s declaration of red lines is not so much a rhetorical putting it up to the West. It is a responsible position to prevent a war from breaking out.

The British are being told that they cannot just sail their warships into the Black Sea and rattle their sabers in Russia’s face. Putin is telling the Brits and anyone else not to even think about getting that close.

The Black Sea was far outside NATO’s traditional theater of operations for most of the Alliance’s history. However, Brussels and Washington have been piling up their military assets and visibility in the region like bees at a honey pot – or like a rogue herd of elephants charging off the edge of a cliff.

Yet NATO’s “In Your Face” presence in the Black Sea protects no one. On the contrary, it puts America’s allies in the region at grave risk by escalating tensions and increasing the danger that full scale war could break out by deliberately manufactured incident (Just think the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964) and or through a random error or clash that escalates out of control.

The US/NATO forward presence in the Black Sea is strategic madness. And it replicates parallel incendiary US exercises in fake macho stupidity against Beijing in the South China Sea: A region from which the Chinese people suffered invasion and societal collapse on a genocidal scale following defeats by Britain and France in the First Opium War (1839-42) and by Imperial Japan in its terrible invasion of summer 1937.

Washington seems equally intent on opening up a third front against Iran with its parallel forward policy in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

Three simultaneous wars against three major nations, two of which are the largest, most populous in the world and formidably nuclear armed? US grand strategy –insofar as there is one – seems to have national suicide as its only goal.

This is especially bizarre in the Black Sea: Washington’s strongest and most important ally in the region, Turkey is now on the brink of being expelled from NATO because of the Turkish government’s determination to buy Russia’s excellent S-400 air defense system, the best of its kind in the world.

Expelling Ankara makes no rational sense whatsoever for the US and NATO. Turkey has proven vital to Washington’s demented 21^st “strategy” of stirring up trouble throughout the region, especially in Iraq and Syria. If Turkey is driven out of NATO, the US will lose its restraining leverage to prevent Ankara from cracking down hard on the quasi-independent Kurdish enclaves – a move that Iran, Iraq and Syria would all enthusiastically welcome.

Worse yet, if the United States pushes ahead with defying the 1936 Montreux Convention and packing the Black Sea with its warships, combat aircraft and other military assets, it risks having them cut off if an enraged Turkey closes the Bosporus Strait past Istanbul to them. There is no way the United States could maintain its own, and other NATO forces meant to “protect” Ukraine and Georgia in the Black Sea if Russia and Turkey, supported by a friendly China and Iran decided to cut them off or move against them.

The United States would then have the choice between surrendering, losing a catastrophic conventional war on a scale never before experienced or going nuclear.

President Donald Trump repeatedly proclaims his desire for peace and appears to be sincere at a conscious level. Yet he has appointed and allowed himself to be surrounded by wild extremists and adventurers. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton and Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) General Curtis Scaparotti have all talked tough about maintaining and expanding US military power in the Black Sea.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, a man so feckless and irresponsible he could not even protect the teenagers of his own political party in his native Norway from being massacred by a single, hate-crazed extremist, continues to eagerly pour gasoline on this incendiary region, drunk in his delusion that he a leader of courage and competence.

Probably 99 percent of Americans care less about the history and strategic importance of the Black Sea than about the Dark Side of the Moon. Yet no doubt, as usual they will let themselves be herded by the slick, superficial demagogues of their mass media into passively going along with these mad and delusional policies.

The bottom line is all too clear: The US ever-expanding presence in the Black Sea cannot be sustained. The US itself is driving Turkey out of NATO which will force Ankara to join or associate with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization for its own protection and survival. Then Washington will no longer be able to get away with breaking the 1936 Montreux Convention at will to flood the Black Sea with its warships.

The United States will then face the choice of either swallowing its pride, acknowledging its bluffs have failed and backing down and out of the region or facing the virtual certainty of national catastrophe.

It is all too obvious what the choice will be.

The Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Richardson, visited India 12-14 May as part of Washington’s prodding of China which in this case had the aim to “further strengthen the strategic partnership between the two navies by emphasizing the importance of information sharing and exchange.” This sounds innocuous enough, but India benefits greatly from US cooperation, including receiving information about Chinese submarine movements which are detected by US systems in and around the Malacca Strait. In turn, as the Diplomat reports, India recently decided “to join the United States, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines in sailing through and conducting a naval exercise in the South China Sea,” which also appears harmless but is one of Washington’s provocative “freedom of navigation” fandangos intended to goad China to act against warships that deliberately sail within 12 nautical miles of islands that China, with good reason, considers to be its territory.

From there we move west to the Persian Gulf, where US Central Command Headquarters is located in Qatar, at al-Udeid, the largest air force base in the world, and eighty miles from the HQ of the 5^th Fleet in Bahrain. Increasing the vast US military presence menacing Iran, the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group arrived on May 16, and its guided-missile destroyers USS Bainbridge, Mason and Nitze, along with the guided-missile cruiser USS Leyte Gulf were joined by a further two missile destroyers, the USS McFaul and Gonzales. Four B-52H nuclear bombers were deployed to the al-Udeid base on May 10.

Given the number of US combat ships deployed against China and Iran, it might be thought that there aren’t many more available to conduct similar operations intended to intimidate Russia in its home waters, and in this we find full agreement on the part of General Curtis Scaparrotti, the US-NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, who told the US Senate Armed Services Committee on March 5 that “I have asked for two more destroyers for EUCOM” because there is a “need for greater capacity particularly given the modernisation and growth of the Russian fleets in Europe.”

When Scaparrotti was asked how Russia might regard the US and NATO having naval forces stationed in the Black Sea region he replied that “Frankly speaking, they [Russia] do not like our presence in the Black Sea, but these are international waters, and our ships should go there, and our planes should fly.”

Why?

It appears that the Deep State in Washington considers it essential to deploy bombers and ships all over the world, thousands of miles from its shores, in regions that have nothing whatever to do with it, in order to establish or maintain US military domination. As put so well by the analyst Danny Sjursen in Antiwar, the US has been developing into “a rogue, hegemonic empire bent on power and destruction” and its recent martial antics have served only to create tension, encourage distrust, and stimulate profits of arms manufacturers.

It was ironic that the first meeting between major US war hawk, Secretary of State Pompeo, and President Putin took place in Sochi, on the Black Sea (where Russia hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics which were outstandingly successful, to the surprise and irritation of Washington and Westminster), because it is in that Sea that the US wants to ramp up confrontation with Moscow.

Pompeo was reported as saying that “There are places that our two countries can find where we can be cooperative, we can be productive, we can be accumulative, we can work together to make each of our two peoples more successful and frankly the world more successful, too. President Trump wants to do everything we can.”

Trump may want to be productive rather than provocative, but the Washington Establishment has no intention of allowing this to happen.

If Washington was sincere about cooperation, the first thing it would do would be to cease the offensive, in-your-face US Naval manoeuvres in the Black Sea, where, according to agreement by US-NATO in Washington on April 4, it is intended there be “a package of measures to improve NATO’s situational awareness in the Black Sea region and strengthen support for partners Georgia and Ukraine.”

In his speech at the Washington meeting, Pompeo declared that US-NATO “must adapt our alliance to confront emerging threats… whether that’s Russian aggression, uncontrolled migration, cyberattacks, threats to energy security, Chinese strategic competition, including technology and 5G, and many other issues.”

So much for being “cooperative” and “working together” with Russia. The man says one thing to the European military alliance that he and the Washington Establishment use to further US policy of world domination, and quite another thing to those it is designed to threaten.

NATO’s Secretary General Stoltenberg followed by informing the gathering that “Right now, one of NATO’s naval groups is on patrol in the Black Sea. And today, it is exercising with Ukrainian and Georgian ships. So we will maintain our focus and our presence in this vital region.”

What for? Do these people imagine for one moment that they can frighten Russia into handing over Russian-speaking, Russian-cultured, Crimea to Ukraine by sending warships to conduct manoeuvres with the Ukrainian navy? (Or, indeed, by any other means?) Can it be possible they believe, sincerely, that the people of Crimea want to be Ukrainian?

Operations by US-NATO forces in and around the Black Sea are apparently aimed at having Russia react in some fashion. As noted by Stars and Stripes, “NATO has also stepped up its presence in the Black Sea, a flash point with Russia. In 2018 NATO ships spent 120 days in the Black Sea, up from 80 in 2017.” A flash point? — the only reason there could possibly be a flash is because of the US-NATO warships trailing their coats around Russia’s shores in order to” demonstrate the collective resolve to Black Sea security.”

Russia’s response has been measured and rational, with Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko stating on April 19 that in the light of the US-NATO buildup, “we have been upgrading our forces in view of the fact that NATO’s infrastructures are approaching our shores… We will respond to all this in accordance with our ideas of what else is to be done to safeguard our defence and security interests. This will be done. No doubts about that.”

One international agreement that serves to limit the US-NATO build-up in the Black Sea is the Montreux Convention of 1936, which governs “the passage of vessels of war” through the Turkish Straits linking it with the Mediterranean. No aircraft carriers are permitted to transit the Straits, and, of great importance, “The maximum aggregate tonnage which non-riparian States may have in the Black Sea is 45.000 tons” while “Vessels of war belonging to non-riparian states cannot stay more than 21 days.”

The statement by the Supreme Commander Europe, General Scaparrotti, that Russia objects to US-NATO manoeuvres in the Black Sea, but “these are international waters, and our ships should go there, and our planes should fly” was intended to demonstrate NATO’s intention to escalate confrontation — but when the Montreux Convention is taken into account, it doesn’t add up to very much. US and other NATO destroyers can go into the Black Sea to sail up and down with the Mission to “maintain our focus and our presence in this vital region” but all that is being achieved is Russia’s displeasure.

Which is what it’s all about. How pathetic.

Britain’s Daily Express newspaper is a bizarre publication that specialises in sensationalist raving. Some of its reports are weird beyond imagination, and it went even further than usual into fogs of delusion on April 21 when one of its headlines announced “World War 3: UK CONFRONTS Russia by sending warship to Black Sea.”

The vessel despatched on a “freedom of navigation manoeuvre” by the UK’s Royal Navy is HMS Echo, which cannot be described as a warship. It is “designed to carry out a wide range of survey work, including support to submarine and amphibious operations” and it carries a few cannon and machine guns, but it is difficult to see how it could confront anything more deadly than a prawn-boat. It is, however, part of the grand plan of the US-NATO military alliance which on April 4 “agreed a package of measures to improve NATO’s situational awareness in the Black Sea region and strengthen support for partners Georgia and Ukraine.”

HQ NATO much regrets that its encirclement of Russia does not yet include Georgia or Ukraine. The Brussels sub-office of the Pentagon is trying hard to formally enlist both countries and announced on March 26 that “Georgia is one of the Alliance’s closest partners. It aspires to join the Alliance. The country actively contributes to NATO-led operations and cooperates with the Allies and other partner countries in many other areas. Over time, a broad range of practical cooperation has developed between NATO and Georgia, which supports Georgia’s reform efforts and its goal of Euro-Atlantic integration.”

The day before NATO’s declaration the globe-trotting head of the organisation, Jens Stoltenberg, was in Georgia to attend military exercises. At a meeting with Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze he declared it had been “clearly stated that Georgia will become a member of NATO” and “We will continue working together to prepare for Georgia’s NATO membership,” which was first mooted in 2008 but somehow has never come about.

Non-US NATO military spending totals $264 billion a year, four times that of Russia, and the US will splurge $750 billion next year, so Georgia’s 37,000 military personnel, ten Su-25 combat aircraft and military budget of $380 million are not going to make much of a contribution to NATO, but that’s not the point. What the US-NATO grouping wants is to deploy its armed forces even closer to Russia than at present. When Georgia joins, there will be an opportunity to base tanks, aircraft and missiles right up against the Russian border, as in the Baltic states.

The most interesting observation about Georgia by Radio Free Europe in its account of the Stoltenberg visit was that “The country of some 3.7 million people fought a brief war with Russia in August 2008, and Moscow’s continued military presence on the country’s territory adds to tensions in the region.”

It is never mentioned by the Pentagon, Brussels or the Western media that the “brief war” was entirely the fault of Georgia. Nor is it admitted that if Russia had wished to do so, it could have swept through and occupied the whole of Georgia in a few days without interference by NATO or anyone else.

The European Union decided to conduct an inquiry into the conflict, and in 2009 produced a report which, deep down in its 1,000 pages, states that Georgia initiated the war. This was not at all what the Western world wanted to be told, and the paper is full of observations intended to disguise or excuse Georgia’s military antics. The UK’s Independent online newspaper reported that “The first authoritative study of the war over South Ossetia has concluded that Georgia started the conflict with Russia with an attack that was in violation of international law,” but there are very few people in the Western Establishment who will admit that Georgia was to blame, and they steadfastly support Georgia’s foolhardy aggression.

The EU noted that “There were reportedly more than a hundred US military advisers in the Georgian armed forces when the conflict erupted in August 2008, and an even larger number of US specialists and advisors are thought to have been active in different branches of the Georgian power structures and administration. Considerable military support in terms of equipment and to some extent training was provided by a number of other countries led by Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Israel.” In other words, Georgia was considered a prime ally because it opposed Russia, and the US and its allies helped it prepare for its futile attack.

This is not surprising, given the speech by President George W Bush in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, in May 2005. The man who ordered the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 was eloquent about Georgia’s military contribution to these disastrous conflicts, and observed that “last year, when terrorist violence in Iraq was escalating, Georgia showed her courage. You increased your troop commitment in Iraq fivefold. The Iraqi people are grateful and so are your American and coalition allies.” Indeed Washington is so grateful to the Georgian government for contributing to its wars (which involved the needless deaths of 32 Georgian soldiers in Afghanistan and five in Iraq), it provides generous aid packages, both civil and military.

A US Congressional Research Service Report of April 2019 notes that in this financial year Congress approved $89 million in civil aid and that in 2018 military aid was $40 million. These amounts don’t seem much at first glance, especially when compared to the mega-billions doled out to Afghanistan, Israel and Iraq — but given that its population is only 3.7 million, Georgia is doing very nicely.

In June 2018, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs said US policy is to “check Russian aggression,” including by “building up the means of self-defence for those states most directly threatened by Russia militarily: Ukraine and Georgia,” which repay US financial patronage not only by sacrificing their soldiers in Washington’s wars (18 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in Iraq), but in more intriguing ways, including in UN forums.

For obvious reasons it has long been thought by most countries that there should be international agreement to ban weapons in space, and a Russian-Chinese draft treaty proposing such legislation was submitted to the UN in February 2008. Washington refused to consider it, and when an amended version was presented at the UN’s First Committee in 2015 it was voted against by the US — along with its well-paid puppets, Israel, Georgia and Ukraine.

The US-NATO alliance is determined to encircle Russia more tightly, and Georgia wants to help it do so. Such provocative cooperation in these endeavours heightens tension between Georgia and Russia, which in the eyes of the western media serves to justify yet more NATO expansion. It is reminiscent of the 1930 song whose last verse is “Whoa, Georgia, Georgia, No peace, no peace I find; Just this old sweet song, Keeps Georgia on my mind…”