For many decades, every American public institution – from the spook-infested studios of Hollywood to the dinosaur legacy media – presented a tired and repugnant image of the Russian people to its audiences. Now, with Moscow forced to contend with a neo-Nazi element smack on its border, the by-product of that sinister propaganda campaign is targeting Russians in the form of pure racism.

If the Western world’s contempt for Russia could somehow be converted into reusable fuel, the Western world would have enough oil and gas reserves to last the next 1,000 years and probably much longer. But alas, the world of science and technology has not yet found a way of tapping into human irrationality for any strictly practical purposes, thus we’re just left with crude displays of xenophobia in some of the most unexpected places.

This week, for example, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra fired famed Russian conductor, Valery Gergiev for not denouncing Moscow’s special operation in Ukraine. Gergiev, 68, a vocal supporter of Vladimir Putin, had previously expressed his approval of Crimea becoming part of the Russian Federation. And while Germany’s cultural elite are free to hire and fire whoever they like, and for whatever political views they deem inappropriate, it would be good to see some consistency on such matters. When U.S.-led NATO forces unleashed hell on Iraq in 2003 and in Libya in 2011, for example, were any American or European composers sacked because of their views and place of birth? In fact, cheering on Western forces during their long run of illicit warmongering, in hardscrabble places like Iraq, Syria and Libya, would have done nothing to hurt a person’s career and more than likely advance it.

On the other end of the cultural spectrum, in the realm of sport, Russian and Belarusian athletes were banned from competing in the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games due to the military conflict in Ukraine. Again, where is the precedent for this noxious form of discrimination, where competitors are outright banned solely for the ‘crime’ of being born in a particular country? And let’s not forget, as much as the mainstream media would like us to, that Russia was not the only nation that found itself engaged in a military operation at this period in time.

On February 24, the very same day that Russia began its special operation in Ukraine, Israel conducted yet another air strike near the Syrian capital Damascus. The unprovoked attack left three Syrian soldiers dead, according to Syria’s state media. How many people are aware that it was the fourth reported time this month that Israel has launched strikes inside of Syria? If the International Olympic Committee was aware of it, why did that unsettling information not stop Israeli athletes from competing?

Former Russian Olympic champion Alina Kabaeva said the sanctions unfairly targeting Russian athletes represent the “most disgraceful page in the history of world sports.”

“The leadership of many international sports organizations has long been engaged in completely unsportsmanlike affairs under various pretexts,” continued Kabaeva, who went on to become a State Duma Deputy following her retirement from sport. “Now it is no longer hidden.”

And finally there has been a refusal on the part of journalists to hear the perspective of Russian citizens.

On March 3, the Australian talk program Q&A took questions from the audience as part of its extremely biased discussion on the events in Ukraine. During the program, a viewer in the audience, one Sasha Gillies-Lekakis, introduced himself as part of the Russian community in Australia before saying, “I’ve been pretty outraged by the narrative created by our media depicting the Ukraine as the ‘good guy’ and Russia as the ‘bad guy’.” He went on to explain, correctly, that since 2014, “the Ukrainian Government together with Nazi-groups like the Azov Battalion have besieged the Russian populations in the Donbas, killing an estimated 13,000 people according to the United Nations. My question is where was your outpouring of grief and concern for those thousands of mostly Russians?”

It seems to be a reasonable question that deserves a fair answer, but Q&A host Stan Grant was having none of it: “Sasha, people here have been talking about family who are suffering and people are dying, and I understand you wanted to ask your question is there some reasoning for this. But you supported what’s happening [in Ukraine] hearing that people are dying and can I just say I’m not comfortable with you being here. Could you please leave?”

And that pretty much sums up the Western media’s mindless approach to the conflict if you happen to be Russian or pro-Russian – “Could you please leave” – that is, if you were fortunate to have been invited in the first place. This month, RT and Sputnik were blanked across the EU, while Strategic Culture Foundation has suffered heavy censorship since at least 2020 for ‘the crime’ of being a Russia-based analytical platform that presents an alternative voice to the West’s obsessively controlled narrative. Such attacks on free speech, which carry unmistakable racist overtones, have been coming so thick and heavy that an entire Telegram channel, called ‘Russophobia Watch,’ has been created just to track them.

It is no secret that the media has been priming the public mind for a long time about the “aggressive Russians” with numerous debunked stories, like Russiagate, where somehow a handful of Russian social media posts, as the fairy tale goes, managed to sway the 2016 presidential election for Donald Trump. Once again, it seems that the real culprits of such political shenanigans – liberal-driven Silicon Valley behemoths, like Google, who really does have the infinite power to sway elections – were merely projecting and protecting their own misdeeds behind their favorite fall guy, Russia.

Speaking of aggression, let us not forget, since the mainstream media certainly has, that for many years humanity has been held captive audience as U.S.-led NATO launched a number of unprovoked wars in places like Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

Where was the virtue-signaling pearl clutching then from the sanctimonious liberal capitals, especially when none of those brazen military escapades were remotely justified? Meanwhile, Russia has been warning on NATO expansion very publicly – at least since Vladimir Putin’s now-famous presentation at the 2007 Munich Conference on Security Policy – to absolutely no avail. Yet now the West, in all of its dripping hypocrisy and double standards, wants to lecture Russia on the merits of peace, yet that is exactly what Moscow was attempting to achieve for many years.

The current situation in Ukraine has once again invigorated the lying Western media and sent them into an anti-Russian frenzy. For the last two years the media has been enthusiastically pushing the genocidal Covid narrative on behalf of the Globalist faction. Whatever doubtful credibility they had prior to Covid they have destroyed with their relentless lies. With an astonishing lack of self-awareness they are now pushing the anti-Russian narrative like the unprincipled mindless hacks that they are. Ignoring both facts and context they are relentlessly promoting war propaganda to justify this hostility to their own beleaguered populations.

The unfortunate reality is that despite unprecedented distrust in the media that propaganda works. Anti-Russian sentiment is rising throughout the West. We have witnessed the same phenomena with the rabid anti-China narrative emanating from Western governments and their client stenographers in the media. The message is clear, unless you are a pliant puppet of the Anglo-American empire, then obviously you are evil and must be destroyed.

The truth of course is deeper, the real war the Globalists are fighting is against the citizenry of every country on earth. As the Covid atrocity is being rapidly exposed the repression of the people is the only option open to the New World Order Davos cabal. As has always been the case, a war abroad is the best excuse to impose tyranny at home. The Western Neo-liberal governments of America, Canada, Australia and most of Europe cannot afford to be removed from power. The full anger of the people will be unleashed full power against those who imposed the Genocidal Covid lie upon them. Trudeau, Macron et al will be held to account (one way or another) for their pivotal roles in this atrocity. They cannot allow that to happen, they have too much to lose.

The tragic and unnecessary conflict in the Ukraine can be viewed as the “Great Reset War”. Although targeted towards Russia for media purposes, its real objective is the further subjugation of the peoples of their own countries. The Western Neo-liberal agenda is failing on every front, economically, socially and morally. The Cabal has destroyed the once prosperous and free societies that they governed. The dystopian future that they have planned for the world is now plain for all to see. It has been on display in Canada and Australia, New Zealand and throughout Europe. It is a prospect that should alarm everybody.

“The Great Reset” is the Cabal’s way of ensuring that the same Globalists who plunged the world into chaos are still in charge after the coming inevitable collapse. The Green agenda and the 4th industrial revolution are about de-industrialising the world and destroying successful industrial competitors such as Russia and China. Not surprisingly, neither Russia or China, along with India and Iran are going along with this insidious plan. They are not alone, many countries from Africa, South America and Asia are also gravitating more towards the Russian/Chinese orbit. All have good reasons to be distrustful and angry at the Empire. The Cabal is weak and failing, it has created powerful enemies who are formidable obstacles to the New World Order and the Great reset. Expect this to embolden other countries to resist the Empire’s plans.

The Empire doesn’t care about the Ukrainians anymore than they care about the people in their own countries. It is about maintaining control over humanity. President Putin is not in essence fighting the Ukraine, he is fighting the N.W.O. And that is everyone’s fight. The battle being waged by the West is for the minds of the Western people so they can justify the imposition of further tyranny. Until recently, President Putin has demonstrated incredible restraint, despite the incessant lies and aggression he has pursued peace and diplomacy. This has not been reciprocated, it has been meet with more lies and provocations. It has been faced with only two options, capitulate or resist, he has resisted. Russia’s fight is the fight of all peoples who value freedom and resist tyranny.

We are all Russians now.

Anti-Russian feeling has a long history and it is easy to foment Russophobia, whereby all Russian actions are prejudged as evil and any pretence to a balanced approach to a crisis in which they are involved is abandoned.

The very word “jingoism” comes from an anti-Russian song sung in British music halls during the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78:

We don’t want to fight but by Jingo if we do
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too
We’ve fought the Bear before, and while we’re Britons true
The Russians shall not have Constantinople!

After weeks of alarmist claims that Russia is going to invade Ukraine, now the U.S. and Western media are speculating that Russian President Vladimir Putin will “hold off on a military invasion” in order to not spoil the Winter Olympic Games underway in China.

One could hardly make up such a farce, yet the U.S. and Western news media are peddling it with a straight face. Since November, the American and European media have dutifully disseminated the narrative pushed by the Biden administration that Russia is about to march troops into its eastern neighbor. Moscow has repeatedly dismissed those claims as hysterical and baseless.

Even the Russophobic, NATO-backed regime in Kiev has recently taken a divergent position, decrying what it calls “alarmist” warnings from Washington. Ukrainian state security officials have declared publicly that there is no sign of an imminent Russian invasion. Not so much out of truthful principle, the Kiev regime seems to be more concerned by the damage and instability that such warmongering hysterics are doing to the Ukrainian economy. So embarrassing is this split in the narrative that the White House announced this week it is no longer going to refer to alleged Russian military plans as an “imminent invasion”. In other words, after two months of fruitlessly crying wolf, Washington has decided to stop crying.

How then to rationalize the otherwise fatuous fallacy of predicting invasion? Well, perhaps – it is now desperately conjectured – the purportedly scheming Russian leader is postponing the alleged plan for taking over Ukraine out of deference to China’s President Xi Jinping.

The Washington Post, CNN and others are speculating that Putin is trying to win Xi’s favor by not spoiling China’s “Olympic moment”. The Winter games opened in Beijing this week and will run until February 20 with the eyes of the world gazing at the colorful spectacle. If Russian troops and tanks were to file into Ukraine then the games in China will be marred by the ensuing conflict and international outcry, so the fevered speculation goes.

Earlier, Bloomberg News published a dubious report in which it claimed that President Xi had asked Putin to hold off military intervention in Ukraine. Beijing swiftly rubbished that report as “sheer fiction”. But it seems the fantasy has taken hold in other U.S. outlets. The reason is because it is a necessary way to save face for the same media outlets who have shamelessly spouted about Russia invading Ukraine, which has wantonly wound up geopolitical tensions and the risk of sparking an all-out war in Europe.

In other words, the credibility of the Biden administration, its Western allies and the media is at stake from their empty predictions about Russia invading Ukraine. This misinformation amounts to barefaced lies. What can be seen therefore is the orchestration of a huge propaganda effort to incite tensions and conflict with Russia. That in itself is a form of criminal aggression. In order to cover up this reprehensible racking up of conflict, the U.S. media are now speculating about a Russian pact with China to postpone invasion. Thus, the farce is taken to a higher level.

This cynical gaming with the Olympics has taken other forms in recent months. The United States, Britain, Canada and Australia, as well as European Union states, have declared a diplomatic boycott of the event. At the opening ceremony this week, Western officials were absent in Beijing. However, the boycott does not extend to athletes participating which seems rather incongruous. If there were any principles in Western allegations of human rights violations by China then why are their athletes attending?

The Western media have toed the line ordained by Washington and its Western allies to smear China. This is all part of the bigger geopolitical game of trying to undermine Beijing and Moscow. The Western media’s dutiful amplification of human rights allegations against China has played into the policy of boycotting the Beijing Winter Olympics.

This is nothing short of contemptible manipulation of international sports by politics and ideology. The Olympics in China are being portrayed as an event for “non-democracies” because the Western governments have decided to avoid attending.

What’s really animating the hostility is the evident closeness and comity between Russia and China. Russian leader Vladimir Putin was given pride of place among international attendees when he was personally received in Beijing by his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Both leaders spoke confidently about the emerging multipolar world that is gradually supplanting the failing unipolar Western order under U.S. hegemony. Putin and Xi spoke of how the world is embracing new leadership of nations based on peaceful coexistence and respect for international law and the United Nations.

“There is a growing demand from the world community for leadership in the interests of peaceful and sustainable development,” a joint statement  declared, adding: “Some forces representing a minority on the world stage continue to advocate for unilateral approaches to solving international problems and resort to the politics of force, engage in interference in the internal affairs of other states, cause damage to their legitimate rights and interests, provoke contradictions, disagreements and confrontation, and hinder the development and progress of mankind, creating opposition from the international community.”

Western media have for too long carried water for warmongering and conflict, for destructive Cold War machinations and Orwellian thought-control. The latest episode is the non-event of Russian aggression against Ukraine which in reality is an inversion of reality. Added to this is the Western media spinning against China’s Olympics as some kind of “event for autocrats”.

What’s damningly demonstrated is this: if U.S. and Western media can’t explain reality then they resort to conjuring fantasy.

The world is changing for potential progress and peace in a way that exposes the bankruptcy of the already old U.S.-dominated imperial order.

Congratulations to China for hosting the XXIV Winter Olympics whose motto aptly is “Together for a Shared Future”. Congratulations, too, to the many nations that can celebrate common humanity and rise above the duplicity and hostility of geopolitical gaming.

After years of sanctions and threats from the EU Russia remains a reliable energy partner to the hostile Europe. Watch the video and read more in the Editorial article.

Russophobia and geopolitical cynicism know no bounds among certain Western politicians and media commentators. Thankfully, however, such a negative mindset is increasingly exposed for its ridiculous irrationality.

This week as Europe’s energy crisis broke new records in terms of soaring consumer prices, Russian President Vladimir Putin stepped in with a promise to increase exports of natural gas. The news had an immediate calming effect on Europe’s energy markets which saw prices whipsawing to lower levels.

Rather than simply greeting the development as a positive move, there were predictably sinister comments from some quarters. Russia was accused in Western media of “holding Europe hostage” over the continent’s energy crisis and using its vast supply of natural gas as a “geopolitical weapon”.

Jake Sullivan, the United States national security advisor to President Biden, told the BBC that Moscow was “exploiting” Europe’s energy crunch.

This is an overwrought, convoluted way of interpreting what is normal economic interplay of supply and demand. But the irrationality betrays an obdurate mindset of Russophobia that is untenable. If politicians and experts are so possessed of such foolish bigotry then their assessments on the subject and much else besides are hopelessly unreliable.

Europe’s current energy crisis and market turmoil have nothing to do with Russia as a primary factor. The pent-up demand after a year of economic quiescence due to the coronavirus pandemic, the low storage of natural gas by European countries due to government policies, the switch to renewable energy sources not being able to meet demand, and the approach of winter – have all compounded the overall supply of gas. This has, in turn, caused benchmark prices for the fuel and other forms of energy to skyrocket. Gas prices are up more than five-fold. What has that got to do with Russia? Nothing, at least in causality.

Russia is historically Europe’s biggest supplier of natural gas. It accounts for about 40 percent of the continent’s consumption. As President Putin pointed out this week, Russia’s state-owned Gazprom has met all its contractual deliveries of natural gas to Europe.

The allegation from some quarters that Russia is withholding gas supplies to Europe in order to exert political pressure on Europe is a baseless lie that stems from anti-Russia prejudice and propaganda.

The fact is Europe is faced with an energy crisis – partly of its own making – and Russia is able to alleviate it by increasing its already substantial supply of natural gas. What is there to complicate about a straightforward economic relation?

This week saw a technical step being completed for the opening of the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany and the rest of Europe. The new pipeline will greatly expand the existing flow of Russia gas to the European Union. German regulatory authorities are reviewing the new supply route and it may take a few months for delivery to become operational. The ball is in the EU’s court. If Europe wants more Russian gas that is its prerogative. How is that supposed to be Russia holding someone hostage? The slander is not only insulting, it is moronic.

Russia has proven to be a reliable supplier of energy to the rest of Europe over several decades, including during the former Cold War period when Western ideologues demonised the Soviet Union as an “evil empire”. Russia presently is ready to meet increased demand with a new supply route under the Baltic Sea while also honouring existing contracts for overland transit. The notion that Ukraine will lose out on transit fees is groundless as Moscow has repeatedly stated it will honour existing contracts with Ukraine up to 2024. Russia is not obligated to keep paying transit fees indefinitely if logistically more efficient supply routes are innovated. That is a reasonable exercise of Russia’s or any nation’s sovereign right.

The main obstacle to improving efficiency in energy trade between Russia and Europe is the negative political attitude of certain European politicians and successive American governments. Washington and its European surrogates have been playing anachronistic Cold War politics with a matter of vital interest for the whole of Europe. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline should have been completed over a year ago but was not only because of U.S. sanctions and the negative attitude of eastern European states. The irony is that the detrimental impact of Europe’s energy crisis on households and industries is attributable to the irrational objection by Washington and certain anti-Russian European states towards Russia as a natural strategic partner with Europe. Yet these culprits persist in their perversely pejorative mindset towards Russia, accusing the latter of wielding energy trade like a geopolitical weapon.

It is the United States that is cynically using Europe’s energy market as a geopolitical weapon with a view to selling its own expensive and environmentally dirty liquified natural gas. There is also a bigger ideological aspect to all this skulduggery. If Russia and Europe were permitted to develop their naturally mutual partnership in energy trade the consequence would undermine the contrived propaganda construct of Russia as a “threat” to European security. That construct is vital to maintain for the purpose of promoting the U.S.-led NATO military alliance and lucrative American weapons sales to Europe. It is also vital for Washington’s hegemonic influence over European allies by polarising relations with Russia.

Europe’s energy crisis and Russia’s readiness to alleviate vividly demonstrates a fundamental win-win partnership. That reality has become so obvious that objections to the relationship look increasingly irrational and ridiculous from their congenital Russophobia.

It seems that ever since Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election of 2016 the western media and numerous politicians have been working especially hard to convince the world that the Russian government is little better than a modern version of Josef Stalin’s USSR. Part of the effort can be attributed to the Democratic Party’s desire to blame someone other than the unattractive candidate Hillary for the defeat, but there is also something more primitive operating behind the scenes, something like a desire to return to a bipolar world in which one knew one’s enemies and one’s friends.

The anti-Russian bias has manifested itself in a number of ways, to include the fabricated libel referred to as Russiagate, but it also featured personal denigration of the Russian leadership as a rogue regime inclined to employ assassination by poisoning against its critics and political opponents.

The first widely publicized assassination of a Russian dissident took place in London in 2006. Alexander Litvinenko, a former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer and critic of the government who had sought asylum in England, died after met two Russian acquaintances in a hotel bar and was reportedly poisoned by a dose of radioactive polonium inserted into his cup of tea. The Russians whom he had met with were named by the British police but the Russian government refused extradition requests. Without any evidence, the British media claimed that Litvinenko had been killed under orders from Putin personally.

More recently, the poisoning of former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia on March 4^th, 2018 made headlines around the world. Sergei was living near Salisbury England and his daughter was visiting from Moscow when they were found unconscious on a park bench. A policeman later investigating the incident also suffered from the effects of what appeared to be a nerve agent, which investigative sources claimed had been sprayed on to the front door handle of the Skripal residence. Both Sergei and Yulia survived the incident.

There was quite a bit that was odd about the Skripal case, which came at a time when there was considerable tension between Russia and the NATO allies over issues like Syria and Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin was regularly demonized, seen in the western media as a malevolent presence stalking the world stage.

Observers noted that the British investigation of the poisoning relied from the start “…on circumstantial evidence and secret intelligence.” And there was inevitably a rush to judgment. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson blamed Russia before any chemical analysis of the alleged poisoning could have taken place. British Prime Minister Theresa May told Parliament shortly thereafter to blame the Kremlin and demand a Russian official response to the event in 36 hours, declaring that the apparent poisoning was “very likely” caused by a made-in-Russia nerve agent referred to by its generic name novichok. The British media was soon on board, spreading the government line that such a highly sensitive operation would require the approval of President Putin himself. Repeated requests by Russia to obtain a sample of the alleged nerve agent for testing were rejected by the British government in spite of the fact that a military grade nerve agent would have surely killed both the Skripals as well as anyone else within 100 yards.

The expulsion of scores of Russian diplomats and imposition of sanctions soon followed with the United States and other countries following suit. The report of the new sanctions was particularly surprising as Yulia Skripal had subsequently announced that she intends to return to her home in Russia, leading to the conclusion that even one of the alleged victims did not believe the narrative being promoted by the British and American governments.

The response within the United States was also immediate and threatening. A New York Times editorial on March 12^th entitled Vladimir Putin’s Toxic Reach thundered: “The attack on the former spy, Sergei Skripal, who worked for British intelligence, and his daughter Yulia, in which a police officer who responded was also poisoned, was no simple hit job. Like the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko, another British informant, who was poisoned with radioactive polonium 210, the attack on Mr. Skripal was intended to be as horrific, frightening and public as possible. It clearly had the blessing of President Vladimir Putin, who had faced little pushback from Britain in the Litvinenko case. The blame has been made clearer this time and this attack on a NATO ally needs a powerful response both from that organization and, perhaps more important, by the United States.”

But the story of the poisoning of the Skripals begun to come apart very quickly. Former UK Ambassador Craig Murray detailed how the narrative was cooked by “liars” in the government to make it look as if the poisoning had a uniquely Russian fingerprint. Meanwhile prize winning U.S. investigative reporter Gareth Porter summed up the actual evidence or lack thereof, for Russian involvement, suggesting that the entire affair was “based on politically-motivated speculation rather than actual intelligence.”

The head of Britain’s own top secret chemical weapons facility Porton Down even contradicted claims made by May and Johnson, saying that he did not know if the nerve agent was actually produced in Russia as the chemical formula was revealed to the public in a scientific paper in 1992 and there were an estimated twenty countries capable of producing it. Some speculated that a false flag operation by the British themselves, the CIA or Mossad, was not unthinkable. Development of novichok type poisons is known to have taken place at both Porton Down and at the U.S. chemical weapon facility Fort Dietrich Maryland.

But the most damning evidence opposing a Russian role in the alleged poisonings was that Moscow had no motive to kill a former British double agent who had been released from a Kremlin prison in a spy swap after ten years in prison and who was no longer capable of doing any damage. If Moscow had wanted him dead, they could have killed him while he was still in Russian custody. Putin had an election coming up and Russia was to be the host of the World Cup in the summer, an event that would be an absolute top priority to have go smoothly without any complications from a major spy case.

There is now new evidence that the claims of Russian involvement in the alleged assassination attempt was fraudulent, engineered by the British government, possibly in collusion with American intelligence, to smear Vladimir Putin in particular. Bulgarian investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva has written an article entitled “UK Defense Ministry Document Reveals Skripals’ Blood Samples Could have been Manipulated.”

Relying on a series of British-version Freedom of Information Act queries, Gaytandzhieva determined that there was a considerable gap between the time when it was claimed the Skirpals’ blood was drawn and the time when it was actually tested for possible poisons at Porton Down. The gap is inexplicable and means in legal terms that the chain of custody was broken. It further suggests that the samples could have been deliberately diverted and tampered with.

Gaytandzhieva, who provides copies of the relevant government documents in her article, sums up her case as “New evidence has emerged of gross violations during the UK investigation into the alleged poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury on 4^th March 2018.” The Ministry of Defense, which is in charge of the British military laboratory DSTL Porton Down which analyzed the Skripals blood samples responded to a request that “Our searches have failed to locate any information that provides the exact time that the samples were collected.” The samples “were collected at some point between 16:15 on 4 March 2018 and 18:45 on 5 March 2018. Even the time of arrival at Porton Down is indicated as “approximate.”

She also cites some expert testimony, “A British toxicologist [commented] that ‘It is inconceivable that with such a visibility case, and the obvious significance of any and all biological samples, normal and expected sample logging and documentation did not take place. The person drawing the sample, in any clinical or forensic setting knows that the date and time must be recorded, and the donor positively identified. In a criminal case, evidence gleaned from these samples would be thrown out as inadmissible… This lack of protocol is either very sloppy or clandestine.”

If the Skripals case sounds very similar to the recent alleged poisoning of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny it should, as the same rush to judgement by many of the same players took place. Navalny became ill while on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow on August 20^th, 2020 and was taken to a hospital in Omsk after an emergency landing. The Russian hospital could not find any poison in his blood and attributed his condition to metabolic disorder. Two days later, the Russian government allowed Navalny to be transported to a hospital in Germany which then announced that the Putin government had poisoned Navalny with novichok, which became the story that was read and televised worldwide. Interestingly, there is now evidence that the air medevac team was standing by and ready even before anyone knew Navalny was ill, suggesting that it was planned in advance. Once in Germany, as in the case of the Skripal poisoning, the evidence of the crime mysteriously disappeared for a while. Blood samples and water bottles allegedly containing the novichok were sent to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons offices for verification. They took five days to arrive.

The doubts regarding both the Skripals and Navalny poisonings might suggest that the Cold War never really ended, at least from the Anglo-American perspective. Whatever Vladimir Putin has been doing for the past three years hardly touches on genuine U.S. or British interests, unless one considers the governance of places like Ukraine and Syria to be potentially threatening. That someone, somewhere, somehow seems to be making an effort to isolate and delegitimize President Putin by making him an international poisoner is tragedy elevated by its absurdity to the level of farce. It serves no purpose and, in the end, can only lead to mistrust on all sides that can in turn become very, very ugly.

One year ago this week, Sputnik V became the world’s first officially registered vaccine against the Covid-19 disease. It was a remarkable achievement by the world-renowned Gamaleya institute of epidemiology and microbiology in Moscow.

The development and registration of the Russian-made vaccine took place within eight months of the first officially reported outbreak of the disease in China and within five months of the World Health Organization declaring a global pandemic from the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus and its potentially lethal Covid-19 respiratory symptoms.

Sputnik V’s name is a nod of gratitude to an earlier breakthrough achievement when the Soviet Union became the first nation to launch a satellite into space orbit in 1957.

The rapid pace of developing Sputnik V reflected the international alarm about the threat to human health from the new coronavirus. A year and half on from the declared pandemic, some 4.4 million people around the world have died from infection, and millions of others have been stricken infirm. The global impact on societies and economies has been devastating. It is doubly concerning that the pandemic shows no sign of being brought under control. Infections and deaths across the globe are on the rise again mainly as a result of new and more transmissible variants of the virus mutating.

There are at least 13 other vaccines against Covid-19 being administered around the world. The WHO has approved the use of five: Pfizer/BioNtech, Astrazeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Sinopharm. The latter is a Chinese-made vaccine, the rest are developed by the U.S. or Europe.

In the European Union, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has approved four vaccines: Astrazeneca, Moderna, Pfizer/BioNtech and J&J.

The question is: why has the Russian vaccine not yet been approved by these leading organizations? Approval would amplify the global uptake of the Russian vaccine which has already met with widespread appreciation by many nations in spite of the tardy response by certain authorities. The WHO states that authorization of Sputnik V is on the way. While the European regulator says it still has the Russian jab under review – seven months after the Russian authorities formally applied for registration with the EMA.

The delay in officially recommending the Russian vaccine becomes all the more conspicuous when its excellent medical performance is evaluated. Sputnik V has the efficacy of providing 91-97 percent protection against symptomatic Covid-19 cases. This is comparable if not superior to the best performance of Western pharmaceutical counterparts.

In addition, the Russian treatment is entirely safe with no reported harmful side effects on patients’ health. It is also relatively economical to produce, store and transport. That makes the Russian jab a feasible treatment for many poorer nations.

Furthermore, Sputnik V is shown to offer immunization against new variants of the coronavirus.

While the Russian-made inoculation has not yet been approved by the WHO, the European Union, or the Food and Drug Administration in the United States, nevertheless it has been embraced by many nations as providing effective protection against the disease.

To date, some 69 nations or territories have given approval for administering Sputnik V. Russia has also negotiated bilateral agreements for the local production of the vaccine in dozens of countries.

Most tellingly, several European countries (EU and non-EU) are administering Sputnik V regardless of the bloc’s regulatory authority’s lack of endorsement.

There can be only one conclusion from this anomalous situation. That is, the international fight against the pandemic has been hampered by the politicization of vaccines by Western nations.

The ideological antagonism of the United States and its NATO allies against Russia and China – an odious Cold War mindset – is a barrier to cooperation at a global level to defeat the pandemic. How damnable is that mentality whereby political objectives are put above human health and indeed the lives of millions of people?

Respected U.S. epidemiologist Larry Brilliant, who helped UN efforts to eradicate smallpox several years ago, this week said that the only solution for the Covid-19 pandemic is global vaccination. That means all immunological tools must be deployed in a cooperative, international effort. In theory, there is the existing United Nations’ COVAX facility, but the global reach remains abjectly low – only about 16 percent of the world’s population is protected so far. In many low-income countries, only about 1.2 percent of the population has received immunization.

In this situation, no nation is safe from the pandemic even for those nations with high rates of administered vaccine, such as the United States and Britain. With the Covid-19 virus rampant in most of the world’s population, the danger of new variants evolving will be a continual threat. What happens if existing vaccines become ineffective?

A major factor in impeding a global program of vaccination is the Russophobia (and Sinophobia) of Western governments. This ideological prejudice is reprehensible, if not criminal. The fate of millions of lives is hanging in the balance because of offensive political prejudice.

Deplorably, the political establishments of some Western states have not moved on from the depths of the Cold War. When the Sputnik satellite was launched successfully 64 years ago that undoubted scientific achievement was smeared by Western propaganda and twisted into a sinister anti-Soviet narrative. Not much has changed judging by the irrational, begrudging reaction to the Sputnik V vaccine even when humanity’s survival is at stake. That’s a political virus that poses an existential danger to the world.

The European Union of 27 member states shares a continent with the largest country of Europe, Russia, and yet, tragically, relations between these neighbors are appallingly bad. What’s more, there is little optimism for improvement because of endemic politics in the EU that are incorrigibly hostile towards Russia.

Incredibly, the last time there was a high-level summit between the leaders of the EU and Russia was in January 2014, more than seven years ago. Since then, relations have gone from bad to worse.

The only way out of the “negative spiral”, as the EU puts it, is for dialogue and restoration of proper diplomatic channels. The problem is that the European bloc accuses Russia of misconduct and makes imperious demands that Moscow shows a change in behavior before a summit of leaders can be granted.

Russia is thus held in an impossible and irrational situation. It is expected to disprove dubious allegations to the satisfaction of the EU. With that kind of contemptible rationale, the conditions for dialogue will never be met. The “negative spiral” in relations is doomed to continue.

There appear to be more enlightened members of the EU who recognize the futility of the bloc’s position regarding Russia. This week at a leaders’ summit hosted in Brussels by the European Council, it was proposed by Germany and France that the EU should hold a top-level meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The proposal from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron was reportedly shot down by other members. Opposition to the idea for a summit with Putin came mainly – but not exclusively – from Poland and the three Baltic states, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda expressed the oppositional view, telling reporters in Brussels: “Without any positive changes in Russia’s behavior, if we start to engage, it’ll send a very bad signal to our partners.”

There we go again. “Changes in Russia’s behavior.” What changes, what behavior? Changes based on false allegations? Such as threatening Europe, annexing Crimea, invading Ukraine, and cyber espionage (which the Americans are actually doing with the collusion of Denmark and Britain, not Russia.)

By “partners”, Nauseda was referring to Ukraine and Georgia, both of which are dominated by anti-Russia politics. But they are not even members of the EU, at least not yet. How perverse is that? EU policy is contingent on non-members’ prejudices.

Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kubela was in Brussels lobbying EU leaders. He wasn’t attending the summit’s proceedings. Of course, that contradiction would have been too bizarre. But he was given a prominent platform after the meeting along with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

The Ukrainian minister said: “Initiatives to resume EU summits with Russia without seeing any progress from the Russian side will be a dangerous deviation from EU sanctions policy.”

A final EU declaration called for “selective engagement” with Russia on narrow areas of self-interest to the bloc and for the imposition of more sanctions against Moscow over alleged misconduct. In other words, a continuation of the same old futile policy of antagonism that is a dead-end.

Thus a fleeting opportunity for normalization of relations proposed by the two biggest members of the EU was scuppered by a minor group of states whose politicians are notoriously anti-Russian. Indeed, politicians who are feverish in their Russophobia.

Arguably, the reactionary mania that dominates in Poland and the Baltic states is a twisted manifestation of the collective guilt they harbor over their past collaboration in Nazi war crimes. The Soviet Red Army liberated those countries from fascist tyranny, and it seems that Russia has never been forgiven for such a historic victory.

The upshot is that the EU’s policy towards Russia is being held hostage by Russophobia.

By contrast, Russia has consistently urged for a full, high-level dialogue with the European Union. “Such a dialogue is truly needed both for Brussels and Moscow,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov this week.

Marking the 80th anniversary of the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany this week, President Putin wrote a conciliatory article for German newspaper Die Zeit in which he called for openness despite the horrors of the past.

“I reiterate that Russia is in favor of restoring a comprehensive partnership with Europe. We have many topics of mutual interest. These include security and strategic stability, healthcare and education, digitalization, energy, culture, science and technology, and the resolution of climate and environmental issues”, wrote Putin.

In such a momentous week, it is almost incredible that the Russian military was involved in a live-fire stand-off with a British warship that provocatively breached Russia’s territorial waters near the Crimea Peninsula. Britain is no longer a member of the EU. Nevertheless, the armed confrontation underscores the imperative need for dialogue to improve stability and security in Europe. The EU’s position towards Russia is criminally complacent.

The lack of independence by the European Union is astounding. The bloc follows the United States’ hostility towards Russia by implementing self-damaging sanctions and undermining security on the continent.

Then when Washington decides to engage with Moscow by President Biden holding a summit with President Putin in Geneva last week, the Europeans are left flat-footed in their obduracy to improve relations with Russia. And a big part of that obduracy is due to the reactionary politics of member states whose history is haunted by Russophobia.

The European Union boasts of being the world’s largest democratic bloc. The truth is more prosaic. It is crippled as a non-entity because of anti-democratic bigotry within its ranks and a derisory lack of leadership. Tragically, an entire continent is being denied productive and peaceful relations with Russia.

Realistically, Russia is wasting its time and diplomatic resources in trying to engage with the European Union’s prevailing politics.

As Putin wrote in the above article: “The whole system of European security has now degraded significantly. Tensions are rising and the risks of a new arms race are becoming real. We are missing out on the tremendous opportunities that cooperation offers.”

The fault for this abject condition lies entirely with the European Union and its inherent failures as a supposedly democratic structure.