Our Friday News Analysis | What the World Reads Now!

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The Thundering Sounds of Silence (no narration)

The Russian army dealt a significant blow to Ukraine's counter-offensive in the last 24 hours as the Ukraine army recorded a maximum number of casualties. The Russian defense ministry claims that over 925 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the past day. Meanwhile, Russian units fired canons at the Ukrainian stronghold in the Krasny Liman direction. Over 100 Ukrainian soldiers were reportedly killed during the attack. Watch for more updates from the Russia-Ukraine conflict zone.

What is the Side of the Story that is Not Yet Decisive? Edited by Abraham A. van Kempen.

The war was over before it started, with so many lives lost for nothing.
400,000 Ukrainian troops have lost their lives.
Twenty thousand innocent Ukrainian civilians are killed.
60,000 Ukrainians are missing.
Thousands on both sides are wounded.
Thank goodness for those who are still alive though imprisoned.
30,000 Russian troops are dead, many more wounded, and some imprisoned.
The War is Over.

DEBATE: POINT VERSUS COUNTERPOINT | DID NATO PROVOKE RUSSIA?

Host Steve Parkin
The Agenda
TVO Today
9 March 2022

Click here to watch the video (37 minutes, 45 seconds)

While many blame Russia's invasion of Ukraine squarely at the feet of Vladimir Putin, some international affairs realists say NATO and Western powers are also responsible. They insist the West provoked the former Soviet superpower by encroaching eastward into its sphere of influence and could have done more to avert the conflict. The Agenda discusses this [debatable] possibility.

CNN ANDERSON COOPER 360 | RETIRED LT. GEN. SAYS THIS MAY BE WHY UKRAINIAN COUNTER-OFFENSIVE HAS SLOWED

Host: Anderson Cooper
CNN
9 August 2023

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CNN military analyst Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling (Ret.) tells CNN’s Anderson Cooper why he thinks the Ukrainian counter-offensive against Russia has slowed down and created new concerns for Western allies.

GRAVITAS: UKRAINE HITS RUSSIA'S OIL EXPORT INFRASTRUCTURE IN NOVOROSISSYSK

WION Video Team
Host: Molly Gambhir
5 August 2023

Click here to watch the video (5 minutes, 52 seconds)

On Friday, Ukraine struck Russia's oil export infrastructure. A Ukrainian drone allegedly damaged a Russian naval ship. What impact will this attack have on the war?

GRAVITAS: WHY UKRAINE’S COUNTER-OFFENSIVE IS FAILING | LIVE DISCUSSION WITH DR. GILBERT DOCTOROW, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST, BRUSSELS

WION Video Team
9 August 2023

Click here to watch the video (9 minutes, 56 seconds)

Weeks into Ukraine’s highly anticipated counter-offensive, Western officials have given rather “sobering” assessments about Ukrainian forces’ ability to retake significant territory. Ukrainian troops have faced continued difficulty breaking through Russia’s multi-layered defensive lines in the eastern and southern parts of the country. Is this a touch phase for Ukraine, or should one already deem the counter-offensive a failure? Is Russia’s multi-layered defensive lines impossible to break? WION's Shivan Chanana speaks with International Affairs Analyst Dr. Gilbert Doctorow.

COL. MACGREGOR: UKRAINE'S WORST NIGHTMARE HAS BEEN EXPOSED

Host: Stephen Gardner
9 August 2023

Click here to watch the video (33 minutes, 33 seconds)

Colonel Douglas Macgregor tells Stephen Gardner how Ukraine's worst nightmare has been exposed. Hundreds of thousands of freshly dug graves are showing up on satellite images, proving to the West that Putin and Russia are wiping out Ukraine. This is now a humanitarian crisis that needs to be stopped. Ukraine will run out of bullets and bodies to throw at Putin. Meanwhile, Putin has over 300,000 men and women in training just waiting to be released on the battlefield. Scott Ritter agrees with Macgregor that nearly 400,000 have been killed, and over 50,000 have lost a limb.

WATCH IN SILENCE – NO NARRATION | RUSSIAN ARMY ADAPTS TO U.S.-SENT CLUSTER MUNITIONS; KYIV'S WORST NIGHTMARE COMES TRUE | REPORT

Hindustan Times
9 August 2023

Click here to watch the video (6 minutes, 37 seconds)

The Ukrainian soldiers face a fresh problem concerning using the U.S.-sent cluster munitions. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Russian soldiers have learned how to dodge the damage from these bombs. Several Ukrainian soldiers from the frontline to the WSJ and, in some cases, the Russians have dug 7-feet deep trenches to avoid the damage. Watch this video for more details.

US CLUSTER MUNITIONS WILL BRING MORE PAIN AND DEATH TO DONBAS CIVILIANS, AND WASHINGTON DOESN'T CARE

Kyiv will use its newly received weapons to target residential areas, just as it has for the past nine years

By Eva Bartlett
RT HomeRussia & FSU
1 August 2023

FILE PHOTO: US-made 155mm cluster munitions © Handout / DVIDS / AFP

The recent US decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine is immoral, unethical, and criminal. We’ve already seen the horrific results of using such weapons – civilians mutilated and murdered (often decades later) in Iraq, Southeast Asia, and Lebanon.

In addition to the ethical reasons not to send these weapons to Ukraine, there are pragmatic reasons why, from a military perspective. They are pointless for Ukraine, despite Western promises that they will “do more damage across a larger area than standard unitary artillery shells by releasing bomblets, or submunitions.”

While covering a wider area than a conventional high explosive munition, the cluster bomblets do not inflict more powerful damage against Russian fortified positions. They mainly target troops in the open and lightly armored vehicles. Not a game-changer for Kyiv.

According to former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter, “These are the worst weapon in the world for trench warfare. With trench warfare, you need a high explosive round that collapses bunkers and trenches.”

If the US knows that cluster munitions won’t change facts on the ground for Ukraine, why is it sending them? Because, as President Joe Biden said, Ukraine is “running out of ammunition, and we’re low on it.” So, the US might as well offload its old stock of cluster munitions. They will not, as Biden claimed, “stop those tanks from rolling.” Nor will they – as the Biden administration claims – “save civilian lives.” They will almost certainly be used to kill, maim, and terrorize more Donbas civilians immediately and for years to come.

US Colonel Douglas Macgregor has emphasized that cluster munitions have a high dud rate. According to Ritter, close to 40% of them fail to explode. Macgregor also highlighted how children are “attracted to these bright shiny objects that look like baseballs,” so insidious is their design.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan assures us that Kyiv will not misuse the clusters. He claims that “Ukraine is committed to post-conflict de-mining efforts to mitigate any potential harm to civilians” and that “Ukraine has provided written assurances that it is going to use these in a prudent way that is aimed at minimizing any risk to civilians.”

The US never signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions – which prohibits all use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions – but didn’t mind virtue signaling its hatred of them when it lobbed accusations against Russia (also not a signatory of the convention) on February 28, 2022, with Biden’s then press secretary, Jen Psaki, calling the use of cluster munitions a potential “war crime.”

It’s a heinous war crime when a US enemy supposedly does it, but not when an ally – or the US itself – does. As for Ukraine’s feeble promises to not use cluster munitions against civilians, it has already been doing so since 2014.

Ukraine’s history of cluster-bombing civilians

By way of a personally witnessed example, in late March 2022, I visited the site of a Ukrainian missile attack that earlier that month had killed 22 civilians and injured 33 more. Because the Ukrainian-fired Tochka-U missile was intercepted, not all of its 50 cassettes of cluster munitions inside exploded in the city streets. Otherwise, the bloodbath would have been much worse. Then, in April 2022, Ukrainian forces targeted a railway station in Kramatorsk, firing a Tochka-U with a cluster munition, killing a reported 50 people. Western media predictably accused Russia of the war crime, although investigations showed the missile emanated from Ukrainian-held territory to the southwest.

But like most of Kyiv's war crimes against Donbas civilians, its use of cluster munitions didn’t start in 2022. In 2014, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Ukrainian government forces’ use of cluster munitions in populated areas in Donetsk city. An October 2 attack on the center of Donetsk that included cluster munition rockets killed an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) employee.

The New York Times likewise reported that on several occasions in October 2014, “the Ukrainian Army appears to have fired cluster munitions into the heart of Donetsk, unleashing a weapon banned in much of the world into a rebel-held city with a peacetime population of more than one million.” Citing physical evidence and interviews with witnesses and victims, the newspaper wrote there were “clear signs that cluster munitions had been fired from the direction of army-held territory.”

But these aren’t the only clusters Ukraine has fired on Donbas civilians. Last year, I documented the aftermath of Ukraine firing rockets containing cassettes of internationally-banned PFM-1 “petal” mines, over 300 of the mines per rocket.

Due to their design, they generally glide to the ground without exploding until someone or something steps on or otherwise disturbs them.

According to authorities in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Ukraine began firing these tiny, indiscriminate mines on March 6, 2022, during the battles for Mariupol, and then from May 18, 2022, into DPR and Kharkiv Region settlements.

Since first documenting the aftermath of Ukraine’s use of the mines in central Donetsk in late July 2022, I’ve interviewed victims and reported on the painstaking work of Russian sappers to locate and destroy the mines. As of July 25 this year, 124 civilians have been injured by the mines, including ten children. Three civilians died as a result of their injuries.

Western weapons used to kill Donbas civilians

It should be mentioned that throughout its nine-year war against Donbas, Ukraine has been using conventional NATO munitions to slaughter and maim civilians. The high explosive shells Ukraine fires throughout Donbas cities and towns, but also countless times in the heart of Donetsk, tear people apart, leaving mangled bodies and remains on streets, sidewalks, and marketplaces.

On July 22, Ukrainian forces allegedly shelled Russian journalists in Zaporizhzhia Region with cluster munitions, killing one and injuring three others.

These deliberate attacks on the media, civilians’ homes, hospitals, infrastructure, and civilians themselves should be condemned as loudly as Ukraine’s firing of petal mines and cluster munitions in general. But the US announcement that it would send cluster munitions to Ukraine resulted in some mild tutting from other Western nations but no firm condemnation. Canada is one of the nations voicing at least some objection to sending cluster bombs, the leadership in Ottawa probably feeling it ought to protest mildly, given Canada’s convention.

The Canadian government recently stated that it is entirely against cluster munitions and is “committed to putting an end to the effects cluster munitions have on civilians – particularly children.” Yet aside from polite grumblings regarding the US clusters, I’ve seen no Canadian condemnation of Ukraine’s repeated use of cluster munitions on the civilians of Donbas.

But the real criminals here are the US government, which knows sending its cluster munitions won’t help Ukraine fight the Russian military in any tangible way, but that, likely, Ukraine will instead use them against Donbas civilians. That’s just fine with the crocodile-tear-crying US hypocrites.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years). The writer is a recipient of the 2017 International Journalism Award for International Reporting, granted by the Mexican Journalists’ Press Club (founded in 1951), was the first recipient of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism, and was short-listed in 2017 for the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism.

See her extended bio on her blog, In Gaza. She tweets from @EvaKBartlett.

ANALYSIS | HERE’S WHY BUILDING A NEW WORLD ORDER TO BREAK WESTERN HEGEMONY WON’T BE AN EASY TASK

Even if Russia succeeds in Ukraine, it would be somewhat naive to expect our adversaries to change their view of the world

By Timofey Bordachev, Valdai Club Programme Director
HomeRussia & FSU
1 Aug, 2023 13:48

© Getty Images/Bob Krist

The axiom of Western foreign policy logic is the fundamental impossibility of a just international order. Our adversaries did not draw this conclusion out of thin air or simply out of a desire to provide an ideological basis for a world order that serves only their interests. It has emerged in the course of the historical process based on the vast experience of the history of inter-state relations in Europe – perhaps the richest if we are talking about such a geographically localized part of humanity. Several millennia of tumultuous social interaction and inter-state clashes have formed the basis of the political culture of the powers with which Russia has historically been in a state of confrontation.

The reason for this entrenched injustice, as all Western science and civilization assure us, is that the balance of power between states is linked to objective factors of a geopolitical nature and will, therefore, always remain the cause of its inequality. It is impossible to solve this problem; at best, we can discuss reducing its negative impact on global security. This logic seems quite reasonable. Especially since the middle of the last century, it has been reinforced by the factor of nuclear weapons, the possession of vast arsenals which puts some powers in an inherently superior position. Now international politics is entering a new development phase, but the nuclear factor remains central to the survival of the great powers.

Moreover, the last 500 years of world political history have been marked by the total power dominance of the West. This has allowed its leading powers to shape the basis of international law and the rules of the game, which since the mid-19th century have been imposed on the world. Henry Kissinger, who recently celebrated his 100th birthday, noted: “The genius of the Westphalian system and the reason it spread across the world was that its provisions were procedural, not substantive.”

So, the modern international order is based on a procedure created by the countries of the West, and the central idea underlying this procedure is the inherent injustice of international politics.

The creation of numerous international institutions in the last century has not changed anything in this respect. As is well known, they were also created based on the balance of power between states and, in this sense, did not affect the continuation of the policy of arbitrariness pursued in past centuries by the strong against the weak. Nor does the UN, which we love because of the exclusive formal rights granted to Russia, represent a revolutionary solution that would remove injustice from world politics. In its present form, it is the product of Western intellectual endeavor, which has allowed it to maintain its dominance even as Russia emerged from the Second World War and after the re-emergence of China. As for all other relatively large international organizations, they are tools for those with the most severe power capabilities.

Under these conditions, the rest of the international community is faced with a difficult choice, which in part even dictates its behavior. Since the injustice of the world order is axiomatic from the West’s point of view, the struggle of the rest to extend their rights becomes a challenge to the natural order of things. In other words, if Russia, China, or anyone else in the world does not accept the monopoly of the strongest, then for the West and thinkers worldwide who think in this frame of reference, it is a confrontation with the very nature of international relations. And those who have the dominant power for the time being naturally seek to protect the world order, which is natural in its injustice. Therefore, creating an alternative arrangement is not just a technical but a philosophical task, which is much more challenging than defeating the West in another tactical clash. Even if Russia succeeds in Ukraine, it would be somewhat naive to expect our adversaries to change their worldview, as this would be tantamount to demanding a change in their philosophy of life.

Russia has traditionally had a complex relationship with the Western power-based international order. Since the first contact between the Russian state and other European countries in the late 15th century, our neighbors have reasonably come to the conclusion formulated by Sigismund Herberstein, the ambassador to the Holy Roman Emperor: Russia is huge and very different from [the rest of] Europe. Since then, in Dominic Lieven’s elegant definition, we have continued to “fight for our unique niche in world affairs.” And the main, and indeed the only, opponent in this struggle is the West. However, its power is well organized.

Russia’s participation in institutions, both formal and informal, has always had the character of a hard-won and constantly contested prize. Today’s example is the Western revision of the entire concept of victory in the Second World War, which underlies Russia’s formal status.

However, Russia has seldom tried to act as a source and conductor of a philosophy of international politics different from the West and embodies our unique experience and worldview. We know of only two exceptions: the initiatives of Alexander I during the Congress of Vienna and the new political thinking of Mikhail Gorbachev. The Russian contribution to the development of the international order can also be attributed to initiatives in the field of global security and arms control in the early 20th century. In all these cases, however, the country lacked the strength to make its views part of the world’s philosophy of foreign policy and international relations. As a result, all three episodes were among the amusing curiosities that were purely opportunistic.

China is now trying to put forward its vision of an international order in which justice has a place and is central. We do not know enough about the philosophical component of the concepts put forward by the Chinese leadership. But experts on the country and its culture are confident that the traditional Confucian approach is, at its heart, an alternative to Western views on the nature and content of social interaction. And there is some hope that China’s growing capabilities and the general weakening of the West will help Beijing’s stated principles find a place in the prevailing system of thinking about international politics. Of course, this will not solve the main problem – the inability of the West, like any political civilization, to change its foreign policy culture.

The ability to offer its vision of a world in which injustice would not be decisive is also extremely important for Russia first because injustice is the main dividing line between our view of the world and those with whom Russia will have to cooperate to avoid universal annihilation. By rejecting the core of the West’s international politics at the level of its foreign policy culture, Russia will inevitably face the threat of solving this fundamental problem once and for all. However, this contradicts our desire to survive and avoid a nuclear catastrophe. Therefore, even if we are not ready for it because of our traditions or state of mind, Russia must discuss what future vision we can offer to the international community.

WATCH IN SILENCE – NO NARRATION | GERMAN MP SLAMS ZELENSKY & WEST, SAYS “RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT CAN’T BE SOLVED MILITARILY” | DETAILS

German MP Sahra Wagenknecht said the Russia-Ukraine war could not be solved militarily.

Hindustan Times
10 August 2023

Click here to watch the video (3 minutes, 58 seconds)

In her Facebook post, Wagenknecht said that although the West supplied more than 73 billion euros worth of weapons, Ukraine's counter-offensive brought destruction. She also noted, "How many more people will have to die until those in charge in the United States and Europe finally realize that this conflict cannot be solved militarily?" Watch this video to know more.

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EDITORIAL | Vladimir and Volodymyr … Rulers of Peace?

March 17, 2022
Source: The Times of Israel
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/vladimir-and-volodymyr-rulers-of-peace/

By: Abraham A. van Kempen
Published March 18, 2022 

Ohrid, Macedonia, 17 March 2022 | Earlier today, while gorging on Pizza (and the Pizza here tastes even better than in New York), my friend says, "Abraham, do you know that the name Vladimir in Russian is the same as Volodymyr in Ukrainian? And you know what 'Vladimir' means? “

"Tell me!"

"Ruler of Peace." (Google' meaning of Vladimir.')

My friend continues: "I honestly believe both Vladimirs or Volodymyrs should get a crack at working toward peace. Forget NATO. They'll add fuel to the fire."

And boy, if they're genuinely rulers of peace, they have their work cut out for them.

Vladimir or Volodymyr Putin is President of the Russian Federation, the largest country on earth, covering 6.6 million square miles spanning 6,000 miles in length with 11 time zones, and is populated by roughly 141.7 million, with over 100 ethnic groups. Volodymyr, or Vladimir Zelenski, is the President of Ukraine, a sovereign nation-state with less than 44 million inhabitants. Approximately 7.5 million identify themselves as Russian, its largest ethnic group. Though slightly more than half are born in Ukraine, most still speak and write Russian and feel equally at home in both cultures.

Every Macedonian I spoke to is pro-Ukrainian. They feel for every person in Ukraine, including the Russian Ukrainians. The Balkan region is unique. Here, East meets West. Last night at a friend's house, I saw the news from Russia (RT), the US (Fox, CNN, MSNBC), and Eurovision. It's also the first time in years that I've watched the news on any TV. The Free World has blocked RT throughout the West. We're to believe Russia's position on the war is propaganda, as though there is none elsewhere.

Western media depicts the war almost like an Olympian soccer match, with play-by-play accounts of something like the Cowboys (the good guys) on one team and the Indians (the bad guys) on the other. News is often so perfectly choreographed, with commercials strategically in between. Much that comes through the tube is more prepackaged noise than news.

The talk on the street here in Ohrid, Macedonia, reveals profound disappointment and disillusionment. I've been told that 70 percent of Macedonians reject their government's official position. Skopje has ingratiated itself with NATO to seemingly earn brownie points to become part of the European Union (EU). The people of Macedonia, historically and hysterically, despise NATO. Nonetheless, the EU has dragged Skopje into the party line of the Free World. "Treacherous," most say.

               "Now, we can't sell our apples and cherries – the world's tastiest – to Russia."

               "They stopped the non-stop flight to Moscow," blockading tourism, the primary income stream in Ohrid.

In exchange for anonymity, I got some juicy responses (in italics) to my questions here in Ohrid, Macedonia.

               "Isn't there one leader in the EU or the US who can outsmart Putin to prevent what is happening now, atrocities and crimes against humanity … caused by both sides," they ask.

               "How can the leaders of the Free World believe that supplying weapons of mass destruction to a tiny country with a pocket-sized military will save lives and win the war against a country with firepower that rivals that of the United States?

               "Why is the Free World so obsessed with Ukraine? Why does NATO need another satellite right at the doorstep of Russia? Haven't they done a cost-benefit and risk analysis? If Putin were to drop a ‘Nagasaki’ or a ‘Hiroshima,’ even in a rural area in Ukraine, the Free World would drop Selenski like a hot potato."

Who entrapped whom? Has Putin or the Free World set the trap?

My friends in Ohrid unanimously speculate that NATO has dug a grave for Putin but fell into it themselves. Most people on this side of complexity are pro-Ukraine and anti-NATO. In their 4,000-year history and as recent as 2002, they've been off-and-on on the same boat the Ukrainians are now navigating through the storm.

               "It's only a question of time before Biden and the EU leadership will have to broker peace with their tails in between their legs."

No one, not even the most powerful economies on earth, can beat an enemy with one nuclear bomb, let alone thousands.

And aren't we in a nuclear confrontation that might precipitate a nuclear war?

               "For Putin, NATO is too close for comfort. He doesn't want NATO's nuclear arsenal located a stone's throw away from the Russian border. He wants Ukraine to serve as a buffer nation."

               "Didn't Kennedy respond similarly to Khrushchev before he transplanted Russian Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) near the shores of Florida in Cuba?"

               "Would the United States allow Mexico or Canada, two neighboring countries, to sign a NATO-like pact with China, Russia, or both?"

               "Have the Free World and Russia ever asked the Ukrainians if they want to serve as cannon fodder and human shields for either the Free World or Russia?"


So, I asked: "Who on earth wants to be a sitting duck in a nuclear war between East and West? I mean, where is this war leading us? Doesn't proxy directly embroil us? Will it escalate from a localized nuclear confrontation to global annihilation?

               "A proxy war between East and West, using the Ukrainians as either human shields or cannon fodder, defeats itself."

               "This strategy is ruthlessly brutal, cold-blooded, vicious, and inhumane.

               "Who will win? Who will lose? What is the outcome?"

For many here in Ohrid, Macedonia, the answer is almost obvious. "NO ONE!"

So why war?

               "As soon as the world realizes that we're all in this together, we're all potentially cannon fodder in a nuclear holocaust; the Free World will drop Ukraine like a hot potato."

               "Is it again about money and might – oil and gas – masqueraded as 'democracy'?"

               "Putin is invincible compared to the former Shah of Iran, Sadam, or Gaddafi."

The Corona Pandemic is now being upstaged with a war between the Free World against Mother Russia, the former Soviet Empire. And Ukraine is smack at center stage.

               "If all truly care about the Ukrainians – everyone says now they're our brothers and sisters – declare a cease-fire! The Free World and Russia must stop the bloodshed, carnage, and human suffering. Come to a solution!"

So what's the anticipated outcome discussed here in the many street cafes — there are two cafes on every street corner in the center of town.

               "All sides will gain some and lose some at the expense of the 'collateral damage.' Ukrainians are now dying for nothing."

My local barber said it in three words when I asked him to compare Biden to Putin: "I want peace." He had no further comment on the subject.

When we met three years ago, a young man working in the Presidential Affairs Office on Red Square said, "President Putin has everything. He's been in power for 17 years. His only wish is that East and West meet and become one."

Are we witnessing a clash or a crash (misunderstanding) of civilizations? We are no longer in Stalin's Russia or Roosevelt's America. In relative terms, under Putin, Russia has become more democratic; the Free World, less. Will either ever become perfectly free? The world has changed whether we like it or want it.

An Appeal to Both Vladimirs

Rulers of Peace navigate us toward peace. It's in your hands. In war, it takes many to tango; in peace, less.

               "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13).".

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Related Articles Recently Posted on www.buildingthebridgefoundation.com:

Our Friday News Analysis | 'What the World Reads Now!,' 4 August 2023.

Our Wednesday News Analysis | 'Open Letter to António Guterres: Will the UN Protect Our Rights and End Our Suffering?,' 9 August 2023.

The Evangelical Pope| 'Hearing God's Voice in Universal Harmony,' 7 August 2023.

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The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of the Building the Bridge Foundation, The Hague.