Betting on Ukraine victory was ‘suicidal’ – Seymour Hersh

The West didn’t even want Kiev in NATO because of corruption concerns, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist says

The US and its allies should have attempted to reach an agreement with Moscow as their belief that Ukraine can win a conflict against Russia is “suicidal,” iconic American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has argued.

Speaking in a YouTube interview with the Consortium News outlet on Friday, Hersh accused the Biden administration of making “so many bad mistakes,” adding that “it’s impossible to believe just how dumb this leadership was.”

“It was suicidal to think you can win that war, that Ukraine can win the war [against Russia]. There’s just too much corruption. That was a very, very bad decision. We should have been pushing for peace, we should have made an agreement,” the former Pulitzer Prize winner insisted.
US President Joe Biden basically “blew off NATO in Europe” by telling allies that he is backing Ukraine with its “totally corrupt government,” Hersh added. The journalist also pointed out how Kiev glorifies Stepan Bandera, “the great pro-Nazi who killed Jews like crazy during World War II.” 

 Seymour Hersh dubs Nord Stream sabotage ‘dumbest’ US act in years
“It’s just silly not to right away assure the Russian government that we weren’t interested in making Ukraine a member of NATO,” Hersh stated, referring to long-standing concerns in Moscow. “NATO didn’t want Ukraine anyway because of the corruption.” 

Hersh recently published a bombshell report which accused the US of sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines last year. He cited an informed source as explaining that explosives were planted on the bottom of the Baltic Sea by US Navy divers under the guise of a NATO exercise back in June 2022. They were detonated in late September, rendering the pipelines, which were built to deliver Russian gas to Europe through Germany, inoperable.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, as well as Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, are all “very hawkish,” according to the journalist. The trio “pushed Biden very hard” to go ahead with the sabotage because “they have long-standing incredible hatred for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. It’s almost personal, I would guess,” Hersh claimed.  

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German Foreign Minister Annalena Burbock: "If Putin decides that tomorrow he changes his course by 360 degrees, the whole world will be happy."

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👆👆👆
Everyone has the right to be stupid, but she is abusing the privilege.

Anti-war rally announced in Washington
The protest will call for peace negotiations in Ukraine and the end of military aid

A large rally dubbed ‘Rage Against The War Machine’ has been announced for Washington DC on Sunday, with thousands set to march to the White House to demand peace in Ukraine and an end to US military funding for Kiev.  

The march, organized by the Libertarian and People’s Parties, promises to be the largest US anti-war rally since the protests against the Iraq War in 2003. It is set to feature speakers from across the political spectrum, including former US Senator Ron Paul, former presidential nominee Tulsi Gabbard, and comedian and political commentator Jimmy Dore.  

On their website, organizers have laid out the demands they intend to deliver to “warmonger-in-chief Joe Biden.” The points include “not one more penny for war in Ukraine,” the disbandment of NATO, slashing the Pentagon budget, abolishing the CIA, and freeing Julian Assange. 
Speaking to FOX News host Tucker Carlson, Tara Reade – one of the speakers due to appear at the rally – argued that Americans are fed up with seeing their government spend almost $100 billion in aid to Ukraine while problems at home are being ignored. “Our infrastructure is falling apart. America is becoming a failed state,” she explained. 

Reade also insisted that the US and NATO were responsible for the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which she said started back in 2014 during the Western-sponsored Maidan coup. 

“The speakers are all gathering to ask to abolish NATO, because it’s not a peacekeeping force, it’s an aggressive force that’s been pushing up against the borders of Russia, and now we’re getting closer to the brink of WWIII,” Reade added. 

According to the Rage Against War website, the rally is set to start at the Lincoln Memorial at 12:30pm on Sunday, marking almost one year since the start of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, as well as Presidents’ Day Weekend.

Published by : @www.rt.com
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The Moldovan president accused Russia of hybrid warfare.

Moldovan President Maia Sandu accused Russia of a hybrid war to overthrow the government in the country through mass protests.
According to her, the Ukrainian special services provided the Moldovan authorities with evidence, and she believed them. 
The SBU materials contained instructions on the rules of entry into Moldova for citizens of Russia, Belarus, Serbia, and Montenegro who were to participate in the protests. 

It seems that the Kiev regime gave the Moldovan president the U.S. methodology which was used to hold the Maidan protests and the coup in 2014. This is exactly the same technology as in all "color revolutions."

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Seymour Hersh Says He May Write More About Nord Stream's Destruction

In his bombshell expose earlier this month, Hersh claimed that the United States is directly responsible for sabotaging the Nord Stream pipeline.

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who recently made bombshell allegations about the United States being responsible for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, has suggested that he may reveal further details about the “mechanism” of this act of sabotage.

During an interview with one media outlet, Hersh claimed that the planning of the operation that resulted in Nord Stream’s destruction was “kept pretty separate” and that it was “very covert.”
“In other words, the president only learned [that] ‘we can do it’,” Hersh said. “I’ll probably write more about the mechanism.”
He noted that it was Norway who showed the United States where the undersea pipeline was running relatively close to the surface, so that US divers could get to it and do the deed.

The journalist also remarked that the US leadership’s actions essentially resulted in Russian people rallying behind Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, China's Central Foreign Affairs Office Director Wang Yi warned that the continuation of the crisis in Ukraine increases the likelihood of incidents such as the destruction of Nord Stream happening again.
"We understand the concern of European countries about the Ukrainian crisis. As the crisis drags on, Europe suffers more and more damage and incidents like Nord Stream explosions are prone to happen from time to time," Wang said while speaking to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Earlier this month, Hersh delivered an expose on the Nord Stream destruction, claiming that US navy divers, with assistance from Norway, planted explosive charges at the pipeline under the cover of a NATO military exercise in the Baltic during summer 2022.
The explosives were triggered about three months later, as US President Joe Biden - who reportedly authorized this scheme - wanted to avoid rousing suspicion, Hersh said citing anonymous sources familiar with the planning of this operation.

Published by : https://sputniknews.com/20230218/seymour-hersh-says-he-may-write-more-about-nord-streams-destruction-1107580071.html
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"It's hilarious that Europe is run by such ignorant people," Medvedev commented on the German foreign minister, who had earlier said that the world would be happy with Moscow's "360-degree turn."

"There is no doubt, connoisseur of geometry, that it will be so." "We are holding our ground," Medvedev said.

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🇬🇧British Defense minister reported that many countries discovered that they didn't have serviceable tanks for Ukraine.

UK Minister of Defense Ben Wallace said that this happened after the political decision was made to transfer tanks to Ukraine.

"The problems became obvious here. "There is a political decision, that's true, but many countries are finding that their armies don't have serviceable tanks that they can supply," Wallace said. - "Politicians sent their militaries to the depots and found out that their tanks were either faulty or not repaired for delivery to Ukraine."

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🇩🇪Germany's foreign trade surplus reaches its lowest level in 23 years.

The positive balance of Germany's foreign trade operations amounted to €79.7 billion in 2022, which is the lowest value since 2000. Last year, it was around €175.3 billion, the German Federal Statistical Office said in a statement.

The main reason for the negative dynamics of the balance was "dramatically increased energy prices."

The deindustrialization of Europe's economic locomotive is in full swing. Without cheap energy resources from Russia, Germany cannot survive 😎
 
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CSIS has released a new publication identifying what they believe are key factors influencing the course of the war in Ukraine.

1️⃣ The lack of Ukraine's own weapons and the constant need to arm. The authors of CSIS note that the Russian Federation is preventing this so far only through diplomatic and political means (alliance with Turkey, protests in European countries).

2️⃣ Readiness of Europe and the USA for a big war. It is noted that the warehouses and production capacities of the NATO member countries have been pretty depleted, and therefore a large-scale restructuring, reformation and an increase in output are being carried out.

3️⃣ Bet on a long conflict. According to the authors of CSIS, NATO does not yet count on a long-term conflict, unlike the Russian Federation, which began to make such a bet earlier. Related to this factor is also the question of the "morale" of the parties to the conflict. After all, the more you see how many people Ukraine is losing, the more likely it is to surrender.

4️⃣ Stability of political regimes. Here, the authors of CSIS again started talking about ethnic strife in the Russian Federation and clearly make it clear that they will bet on rocking the situation through ethnic minorities. Another factor is the demoralization of the troops due to their poor equipment.

5️⃣ The use of nuclear weapons. The wording is very vague: "we will not allow the use of nuclear weapons by the Russian Federation." How they plan to prevent it is not clear. However, for preventive purposes, we will refer to the old material about the US defense doctrine, where the Pendos seriously considered the possibility of delivering a preventive / disarming strike on the Russian Federation .

In general, CSIS concludes that it is necessary to escalate the conflict, increase supplies and other assistance. They say that only through the military victory of crests, it is possible to end this war.

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My father once told me that, “Americans play poker, we play Préférence.”

He never did learn how to play Poker, yet was highly critical of it. I tried to teach him how to play it properly outside of the rules alone, but the very nature of the game was anathema to him. As he said, “the nature of Poker is to bluff”, and this was simply something he could not comprehend nor execute in a game. It was alien to him, perhaps even incomprehensible.

Of course, he taught me to play Chess and we played often, but he would never allow me to win. I defeated him perhaps three times at most from what must have been several hundreds of games. As a fan of board games and family events, I tried to introduce many popular games over the years.
He would reject games like “Betrayal at House on the Hill” outright, yet took to “Settler’s of Catan” immediately.

The point of all this personal story-telling is that Russians, or perhaps more accurately Soviets, have an entirely different psychological profile than people in the West do. Western games, which children play, are rooted at core in the ability to deceive and charm. Eastern classics like Chess and Go are openly visible to both players and depend entirely on mental skill.
Perhaps “Connect Four” still remains popular as a children’s game in the US at best, when the young ones are not clutching to a Nintendo Gameboy or Switch.

And so we now see the results of this in real-time. American politicians operate on the principle of the “bluff”. It is not that they lie, but that they may be lying or they not be. Imagine how frustrating this must be to a negotiator who does not know how to lie when engaged in diplomacy.
Putin, Xi, Modi, and others communicate with their Western counterparts directly and mathematically, assuming that their opposition will do likewise. Yet the West in turn negotiates by bluffing, and assuming that their counterparts comprehend bluffing and will respond in kind. Perhaps what all parties say is true, perhaps not. It is always ambiguous, formless, and without meaning. Powell can hold up a bottle of white substance at the UN and the US invades Iraq. It was a “bet”, and a “bluff”. He and the US administration were likely very surprised when Russia demanded to actually access that vial.

As such, we are now caught in an exponential feedback loop in which neither party understand the other, and this very lack of understanding feeds the action/reaction chain. American statesman assume that Russian counterparts think the way they do, and vice versa Russian statesman assume that their American counterparts do the same.
Yet they are not only speaking different languages, but quite literally thinking in different psychological languages.

When one party (Russia) makes it’s intentions clear, the opposition must ask the question of “is this a bluff or not”, instead of treating it seriously. And here we are now….
-----------

P.S:

It is often said in some commentaries that, “Putin does not bluff”.
I feel the far more frightening and honest statement would be that, “Putin does not know what a bluff is, and the Americans do not know what a given word’s value is.”

~ГГ

 
Military correspondent @yurikotenk wrote
 
The situation in the Avdiivka direction is not easy..!
After losing the village of Opytne and most of the village of Vodyane, the enemy (AFU)managed to pull up reserves in the Avdiivka direction and is trying, at least here, to recapture the initiative and take back some of the previously lost positions. Yesterday, an AFU armored group attempted to advance but was discovered in time. An artillery strike was launched against the enemy. 
Nevertheless, AFU activity and a counteroffensive in this direction are not ruled out.
 
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British defense minister: tanks found not ready to be sent to Ukraine
Now that the political decision to transfer Western tanks to Ukraine has been made, many countries find that their armies do not have operational tanks that could be delivered to Kiev. British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said this in an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel.

"Politicians have sent their military to depots and found that their tanks are not ready or repaired for delivery to Ukraine." "Or that it would take some time to repair the guns or the power plant," he said.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the same thing; he noted that it would be difficult for Western allies to assemble two full battalions of Leopard 2 tanks to send them to Ukraine as promised.
According to Wallace, NATO countries are painfully aware that their armies have been significantly weakened over the past 30 years.
"There are numbers on how many tanks each country has." But there is a reality that tells us that very few of them are serviceable. "Even the 14 Challenger tanks for Ukraine we didn't take from the depots where they were stored; they were taken off combat duty."

The minister said that the political decision was made, but then came the reality check.

According to him, this applies not only to tanks but also to ammunition and other equipment. However, tanks will definitely be delivered to Ukraine; it will just take longer.

"We have to give other partners a little more time." We have to be honest about this. Tanks are not a miracle weapon to win the war immediately. Sure, they are clearly more effective than Russian tanks. "But beyond that, the green light for Challenger or Leopard was an extremely important signal for Ukraine," the minister said.
It is worth noting that the Americans also said they would not send Abrams any time soon.

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🇷🇺The Russian Federation has increased the production of the Kinzhal hypersonic missile system, said the head of Rostec, Sergey Chemezov.

"It got into production a long time ago; initially there was no need for such a quantity." "We are now increasing it," Chemezov said in an interview with the Military Acceptance Program. He stated that Rostec is currently producing colossal volumes of products for the RF Ministry of Defense. "Volumes have grown significantly, in some cases by 50 times," Chemezov said.

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