7 July meeting of President Putin with State Duma and party leaders — transcript

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From the Kremlin

Meeting with State Duma leaders and party faction heads

At the Kremlin, in the St Catherine Hall, the President met with the leaders of the State Duma and the heads of party factions in the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.

The meeting was attended by State Duma deputy speakers Alexander Zhukov, Ivan Melnikov, Alexander Babakov, Alexei Gordeyev, Vladislav Davankov, Sholban Kara-ool, Anna Kuznetsova, Sergei Neverov, Pyotr Tolstoy, Boris Chernyshov and Irina Yarovaya; heads of political parties represented in the State Duma Vladimir Vasilyev (United Russia), Gennady Zyuganov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation), Sergei Mironov (A Just Russia – For Truth), Alexei Nechayev (New People), Leonid Slutsky (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia), as well as State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Anton Vaino and First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Kiriyenko.

* * *

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues, Mr Volodin.

The State Duma’s spring session ended yesterday, July 6, and all deputies – I want to emphasise this – all parties made a significant contribution to the overall results.

I believe the results of your work were dignified, important and significant for the people, the entire Russian state and for protecting our national interests and ensuring the sovereign, sustainable and effective development of the country.

This Duma session was rich in events and intense work and was very important given the scale and complexity of the tasks at hand. After February 24, when the special military operation began, all the country’s branches and levels of government needed to act decisively, as a team and quickly.

Today, I want to thank you for working like that: in a collected and competent manner and at a fast pace. I believe all parties have confirmed their political viability and maturity and acted in a consolidated and cohesive manner like true statesmen and patriots of Russia, for whom inter-party disagreements fade into the background in difficult conditions. We have many parties, but one Motherland, and there is nothing more important and loftier than the fate of the Fatherland.

You have passed many resolutions and laws that significantly strengthen our system of social support and provide additional protection for our people. This was not just about the advanced indexation of pensions, which is important, an increase in the subsistence level and the minimum wage – all this was done without bureaucratic red tape and delays, in a clear and professional manner; but it was also about new measures on support for families with children, the extension and expansion of the mechanism for subsidised mortgage loans and additional guarantees for our heroic military personnel. There were also many other important decisions – I will not list all of them now since you know them as well and probably better than I do, because you created them yourselves.

I would like to acknowledge and thank every parliamentary party for the organised humanitarian support of the people of Donbass. I am talking about all parliamentary parties because the media has covered this work in different ways, but I know from my reports that all of you have been taking an active part in this.

I know that many deputies have taken an official holiday and gone to the zone of hostilities in order to provide help personally, often at the real risk of their lives. They went to help organise the distribution of food, medications, and basic necessities and quickly set up humanitarian aid centres. Some of your colleagues are still there, working as volunteers. This proactive, selfless effort is truly vital and greatly needed.

I would like to mention separately that given the rapidly changing situation, the State Duma, in cooperation with the Government, continuously upgraded a series of measures to support the backbone sectors of the Russian economy and working teams of companies, including small and medium-sized businesses, the IT-industry and other vital areas.

As a result, we have managed to preserve macroeconomic stability, which is crucial for the economy, to support employment, the normal rhythm of retail trade and economic life in the regions in general, the main transport and logistics chains, to expand the freedom of entrepreneurship, and enhance protection of businesses from excessive administrative pressure and unjustified criminal prosecution. I know that much still needs to be done in this respect but overall, we have done a good job.

In a short time, as soon as in early March, several packages of anti-sanction measures were introduced in close contact with the Government. Thanks to these packages, the consequences of the Western countries’ unfriendly and clearly hostile actions were minimised. Indeed, we understand and know this, we see that these illegal measures against Russia are clearly creating difficulties for us, but not as great as the initiators of this economic blitzkrieg against Russia were counting on.

Clearly, they tried to do more than just hit the Russian economy hard. Their goal was to sow discord and confusion in our society and to demoralise people. But here too, they failed since nothing came of it, and I am sure nothing ever will.

In this regard, the example of the Russian parliament as the highest representative body is quite telling. The policy of the parliament is based on the will of the people of Russia, our firm position and conviction that we are on the right side of history, on the unwavering resolve of the vast majority of the country’s citizens to uphold Russia’s sovereignty and to help our people in Donbass. This is what underlies the policy of our state in general.

The so-called collective West led by the United States has been extremely aggressive towards Russia for decades. Our proposals to create a system of equal security in Europe have been rejected. Initiatives for cooperation on the issue of missile defence were rejected. Warnings about the unacceptability of NATO expansion, especially at the expense of the former republics of the Soviet Union, were ignored. Even the idea of Russia’s possible integration into this North Atlantic alliance at the stage of our, as it seemed then, cloudless relations with NATO, apparently, seemed absurd to its members.

Why? Just because they do not need a country like Russia, that is why. That is why they supported terrorism and separatism in Russia, and internal destructive forces and a ‘fifth column’ in our country. All of them are still receiving unconditional support from the collective West.

We are being told, we hear some people say that we started the war in Donbass, in Ukraine. No, the war was unleashed by the collective West, which organised and supported the unconstitutional armed coup in Ukraine in 2014, and then encouraged and justified genocide against the people of Donbass. The collective West is the direct instigator and the culprit of what is happening today.

If the West wanted to provoke a conflict in order to move on to a new stage in the fight against Russia and a new stage in containing our country, we can say that it has succeeded to a certain extent. A war was unleashed, and the sanctions were imposed. Under normal circumstances, it would probably be difficult to accomplish this.

But here is what I would you like to make clear. They should have realised that they would lose from the very beginning of our special military operation, because this operation also means the beginning of a radical breakdown of the US-style world order. This is the beginning of the transition from liberal-globalist American egocentrism to a truly multipolar world based not on self-serving rules made up by someone for their own needs, behind which there is nothing but striving for hegemony, not on hypocritical double standards, but on international law and the genuine sovereignty of nations and civilisations, on their will to live their historical destiny, with their own values and traditions, and to align cooperation on the basis of democracy, justice and equality.

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President Putin meeting with State Duma and party officials, excerpts

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From Strategic Stability

Report # 95. President Putin made some remarks on Ukraine

July 8, 2022

1. Putin made them during meeting with State Duma and party leaders

On July 7th. 2022 President Putin met with the leaders of the State Duma and the heads of party factions in the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.

President Putin thanked every parliamentary party for the organised humanitarian support of the people of Donbass by arranging the distribution of food, medications and basic necessities, and quickly setting up humanitarian aid centres.

He noted that the so-called collective West led by the United States has been extremely aggressive towards Russia for decades. In his words, “Our proposals to create a system of equal security in Europe have been rejected. Initiatives for cooperation on the issue of missile defence were rejected. Warnings about the unacceptability of NATO expansion, especially at the expense of the former republics of the Soviet Union, were ignored. Even the idea of Russia’s possible integration into this North Atlantic alliance at the stage of, as it seemed then, cloudless relations with NATO, apparently, seemed absurd to its members”.

President continued: “Why? Just because they do not need a country like Russia, that is why. That is why they supported terrorism and separatism in Russia, and internal destructive forces and a ‘fifth column’ in our country. All of them are still receiving unconditional support from the collective West.

We are being told, we hear some people say that we started the war in Donbass, in Ukraine. No, the war was unleashed by the collective West, which organised and supported the unconstitutional armed coup in Ukraine in 2014, and then encouraged and justified genocide against the people of Donbass. The collective West is the direct instigator and the culprit of what is happening today.

If the West wanted to provoke a conflict in order to move on to a new stage in the fight against Russia and a new stage in containing our country, we can say that it has succeeded to a certain extent. A war was unleashed, and the sanctions were imposed. Under normal circumstances, it would probably be difficult to accomplish this.

But here is what I would you like to make clear. They should have realised that they would lose from the very beginning of our special military operation, because this operation also means the beginning of a radical breakdown of the US-style world order. This is the beginning of the transition from liberal-globalist American egocentrism to a truly multipolar world based not on self-serving rules made up by someone for their own needs, behind which there is nothing but striving for hegemony, not on hypocritical double standards, but on international law and the genuine sovereignty of nations and civilisations, on their will to live their historical destiny, with their own values and traditions, and to align cooperation on the basis of democracy, justice and equality.

Everyone should understand that this process cannot be stopped. The course of history is inexorable, and the collective West’s attempts to impose its new world order on the rest of the world are doomed.

At the same time, I want to say and emphasise that we have many supporters, including in the United States and Europe, and even more so on other continents and in other countries. And there will be more, no doubt about that.

To reiterate, even in the countries that are still satellites of the United States, there is a growing understanding that their ruling elites’ blind obedience to their overlord, as a rule, does not necessarily coincide with their national interests, and most often simply and even radically contradicts them. Eventually, everyone will have to face this growing sentiment in society.

Today, these ruling elites are raising the degree to which they manipulate the public consciousness right before our eyes. The ruling classes of the Western countries, which are supranational and globalist in nature, realised that their policies are increasingly detached from reality, common sense and the truth, and they have started resorting to openly despotic methods.

The West, which once declared such principles of democracy as freedom of speech, pluralism and respect for dissenting opinions, has now degenerated into the opposite: totalitarianism. This includes censorship, media bans, and the arbitrary treatment of journalists and public figures.

These kinds of prohibitions have been extended not only to the information space, but also to politics, culture, education, and art – to all spheres of public life in the Western countries. And, they are imposing this on the world; they are trying to impose this model, a model of totalitarian liberalism, including the notorious cancel culture of widespread bans.

However, the truth and reality is that the people in most of these countries do not want this life or this future, and really do not want the formal semblance of sovereignty, they want substantive, real sovereignty and are simply tired of kneeling, of humiliating themselves before those who consider themselves exceptional, and of serving their interests even to their own detriment.

Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. Well, what can I say? Let them try. We have already heard a lot about the West wanting to fight us ”to the last Ukrainian.“ This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but that seems to be where it is going. But everyone should know that, by and large, we have not started anything in earnest yet.

At the same time, we are not rejecting peace talks, but those who are rejecting them should know that the longer it goes on, the harder it will be for them to negotiate with us”.

* * *

On July 8, Presidential Press-Secretary Dmitry Peskov gave a short explanation to the remark made by President Putin “But everyone should know that, by and large, we have not started anything in earnest yet”[in Ukraine].

Dmitry Peskov said that these words mean that during the Special Military Operation in Ukraine Russian Armed Forces have used not all their potentials. He added: «Putin thus simply reminded that the potentials are completely incommensurable. And Russia’s potential is so great in this regard that only a small part of it is now being used during a Special Military Operation.”

Reports: Kiev shelling DPR civilian areas and Russia; Russian forces clear mines, warns OPCW of possible chemical provocation by Kiev; and more

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From Strategic Stability

Report # 93. Lugansk People’s Republic is fully liberated by July 3rd

July 4, 2022

1. Russian Defense Minister reported to the President

On July 3rd Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu reported to President Vladimir Putin on the liberation of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), the Russian MoD announced.

The ministry added the Russian Armed Forces and the People’s Militia of the LPR have established full control over Lisichansk and a number of nearby settlements, the largest of which are Belogorovka, Novodruzhesk, Maloryazantsevo, and Belaya Gora.

On July 4th Sergey Shoigu reported to President Vladimir Putin some more details of this operation codenamed “Gorsky Cauldron” during their vis-à-vis meeting in the Kremlin.

During this operation that lasted two weeks Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) lost 5469 men, including 2218 KIA and 3251 WIA; 196 tanks and APC, 12 combat aircraft and one helicopter, 69 drones, 97 MRLS, 166 long-range field artillery and mortar systems. During a retreat from Lisichansk AFU have abandoned 39 capable tanks and APC, 11 artillery and mortar pieces, supplied by NATO nations to kill civilians in Donbass as well 48 ATW Javelin and NLAW, and 18 AAD Stinger.

AFU completely lost a chain of command and control system with three AFU Brigades and one Brigade of the Territorial Defense

In Donetsk People’s Republic 54th Mechanised Brigade of the AFU has lost over 60 percent of personnel and equipment near Maryinka during last several days. The rest of the personnel is demoralised and refuse to fulfil combat tasks.

President Zelensky gradually loosing popularity amongst Ukrainians publicly noted that the Russian artillery is capable of using tens of thousands of artillery shells in one section of the front, which the Ukrainian Armed Forces cannot afford.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has said that he doesn’t see how NATO might change its stance on Kiev’s accession to the bloc in the near future. “Ukraine still pursues Euro-Atlantic integration, but I do not see the potential in the near future for NATO to change its position in a way the European Union did, and to take concrete steps to ensure Ukraine’s accession to the Alliance,” he told local media.

Is this a symbol of frustration?

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Report on the anti-NATO protests in Madrid, June 2022

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From United National Anti-War Coalition

Report on the anti-NATO protests in Madrid
by Joe Lombardo
28 June 2022

​During the days before the June 28 – 30 NATO Summit in Madrid, thousands rallied in the streets and meeting halls of the city in opposition to the NATO summit.  Protesters include people from the United States including Ann Wright, Paki Weiland of Code Pink and others, as well as myself and other members of UNAC.  People also came from many other countries around the world. Two meetings were held in Madrid to counter the NATO summit, one called the Peace Summit and the other the Counter Summit.  Both recognized the aggressive character of the US led NATO alliance.  The Peace Summit’s final resolution can be found here, and rough translation of the Counter Summit’s final resolution can be found here.

UNAC people attended both conferences and I spoke at the Counter Summit, which had the perspective of organizing an anti-imperialist movement and was organized mostly by Spanish, anti-imperialist organizations.  My talk can be found here.  [see below] UNAC also distributed a statement on NATO and Ukraine at the two meetings in both Spanish and English that can be found here and a flyer from the Sanctions Kill coalition with a bar code to a very important report on sanctions authored by members of the coalition. Spanish and English version of the flyer were distributed and the English version can be found here.

Following the alternative summits, thousands marched together in a common demonstration to protest the NATO summit. The demonstration was major news in Madrid and was in all the news stations and newspapers.  One paper dedicated its entire front page to the demonstration.  

The NATO summit is happening at the same time that the US/NATO proxy war against Russia is waging in Ukraine.  Therefore, it is important that the peace movement has shown a strong opposition to NATO at this time.  NATO is set to revise its orientation and to become more of a world-wide tool for US imperialism.  It is proposing a new alignment that will see it spread its aggression to Asia and around the world.  According to information that can be found on the NATO web site, they will project Russia and China as their main enemies.  This means that we will see further aggression against major military and nuclear powers that will put the entire world at risk.

Only a few months after the US/NATO defeat in Afghanistan, they choose to conduct another war, this time with Russia, a major nuclear power. They hoped to fill the coffers of the military industrial complex by providing weapons to fight a major war in Europe.  The US also hoped to break the strong trade relationship between Europe and Russia and Europe and China to allow US companies to fill the gap.  They also hoped that the strong sanctions applied against Russia would cause the Russian economy to collapse, causing a crisis in the country that might lead to collapse of the governement, and allow for a more US/NATO compliant government in Russia. Possibly this would foreshadow a breakup of Russia and allow the US and its NATO allies to more easily dominate it.  With a defeated Russia they hoped to be able to further surround China – which is challenging US hegemony around the world – and be in a better position to eventually defeat China, economically and militarily. 

But their plan is failing as Russia is winning the war in Ukraine. Instead of having its economy fail, it is the Western economies that are in trouble with both recession and inflation, while the ruble is rising against the dollar, the Russian economy is growing, and the Russian people are showing strong support for their country’s fight against the US/NATO proxy war in Ukraine.

But despite this reality, the NATO summit is set to double down and move forward with its aggression towards Russia and China.  This will affect every person on the planet in a negative way and so we must continue to build our movement to bring about a world of peace not war and to oppose the US/NATO aggression around the world.

No to NATO expansion!
No to NATO!
No weapons to Ukraine!
No to war!
Hands off China!

Note:  After the protests, members of UNAC attended a meeting of the No to NATO group where plans were started for future work including webinars, more focus on the climate crisis and a commitment to organize for the next NATO summit, which appears to be planned for 2023 in Lithuania.

Joe Lombardo’s talk to the NATO counter-summit in Madrid 2022

The United States is the main imperialist power in the world.  NATO is its partner in crime.  The US has its military in around 170 countries. It has about 20 times the number of foreign military bases as all other countries combined, and it has a military budget close to that of the rest of the world combined. The United States dominates the world, politically, economically, and militarily.  Any country that does not go along with its demands becomes a target of its propaganda, its military, its sanctions and its many regime-change organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID and others.  It has created numerous coups, military actions, and wars to further its goals.

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Declaration of Madrid Counter-Summit, June 2022 — No to NATO, Bases Out!

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From the Northeast Peace and Justice Action Coalition

DECLARATION OF THE COUNTER-SUMMIT NO NATO, BASES OUT, MADRID 2022

The Coordination of No to NATO, Bases Out Platforms, constituted by the signatory organisations of the Call for Mobilisation Against the NATO Summit in Madrid, called on citizens to hold the No to NATO, Bases Out Counter-Summit, Madrid 2022 as a response to the NATO Summit of Heads of State and Government.

Gathered in the city of Madrid on 24 and 25 June 2022, those attending this Counter-Summit DECLARE:

This NATO Summit in Madrid must be considered as a historic event that will mark the beginning of a new world order and the beginning of a warmongering period that will involve most of the planet. It is a crucial event in the present conjuncture of imperialism, reflecting the present stage of the class struggle.

The system in which we live, capitalism, is in the throes of a crisis which has been defined by its own institutions as structural, systemic and long-term. NATO and the rest of the Western war structures, especially the US military bases, are key players in this reconfiguration of the world order.

At a time when there is an awareness of the decline of US world hegemony, the US is organising itself to dominate the world and will defend its privileges in every possible way, including all kinds of war and aggression.

There is no blueprint for the new phase towards which we are moving, but the major international economic institutions and NATO itself have already announced the lines of action to deal with the problems that have already been identified: financialization, debt, creative destruction, technological revolution, social control and warmongering expansion against everything that hinders this capitalist reorganisation. This process will take place outside and inside its own borders. It is the definitive launching of the World War, a global, arbitrary, unpunished war of aggression, by any means and on any scale, aimed at eliminating any expression of resistance to imperialist expansion.

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Ukraine Parliament Passes New Laws To Purge Russian Culture

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From Anti-War.com

June 19, 2022
by Kyle Anzalone

Ukraine’s Parliament passed two bills that will restrict Russian music and books. If President Volodymyr Zelensky signs the legislation, it will be a significant step forward in Kiev’s attempt to purge the Russian culture.

The first bill will place heavy restrictions on any author who held Russian citizenship after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The law will ban the printing of books by Russian citizens, forbid importing the commercial import of any book printed in Russia, Belarus, or “occupied Ukrainian territory,” and requires special permission to import any book in Russian.

In the future, books in Ukraine can only be published in Ukrainian and official European Union languages. Russian is not one of the EU’s official 24 languages. Books in other languages can only be printed in the original language or translated into one of the 25 allowable languages.

The law provides an exemption for Russian authors who renounce their Russian passports and obtain Ukrainian citizenship. The bills make up the latest steps in the process of “derussification.”

The second law bars the playing of any Russian music on media or on public transportation. The legislation also increases quotas for Ukrainian language music and speech on television and radio.

Indications are Zelensky will sign the bills into law. Ukraine’s Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko – a member of Zelensky’s Servent of the People party – welcomed the bills. “The laws are designed to help Ukrainian authors share quality content with the widest possible audience, which after the Russian invasion do not accept any Russian creative product on a physical level,” he said.

The bills are not Kiev’s first effort to stifle the Russian culture in Ukraine. After the 2014 coup in Ukraine, the US-backed government passed several restrictions on the Russian language. In 2018, a movie starring Zelensky – Love in the Big City 2 – was banned because it was produced in Russian.

As president, Zelensky has advanced the culture war. After the Russian invasion, Zelensky removed members of parliament from parties that were deemed “pro-Russian.” He also nationalized Ukraine’s media, giving him further control over the narrative in Ukraine.

Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.

Links in article at
https://news.antiwar.com/2022/06/19/ukraine-parliament-passes-new-laws-seeking-to-purge-russian-culture/

Ukraine — The War Within The War: The Fight Over Land and Genetically Engineered Agriculture

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From CovertAction Magazine

by Mitchel Cohen
May 31, 2022

Source https://orientalreview.org/2015/04/06/land-grab-in-ukraine-is-monsantos-backdoor-to-the-eu/
Soon we shall be covered by wheat.
Did you say, wheat?Wheat, wheat.– from Woody Allen’s “Love and Death”[1]

Ten months before Russian troops poured into Ukraine, that country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a bill into law authorizing the private sale of farmland, reversing a moratorium that had been in place since 2001.

An earlier administration in Ukraine had instituted the moratorium in order to halt further privatization of The Commons and small farms, which were being bought up by oligarchs and concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. As documented in a series of critical reports over ten years by the Oakland Institute based in California, the moratorium on land sales in Ukraine aimed to prevent the acquisition and consolidation of farmland in the hands of the domestic oligarch class and foreign corporations.

The marketization of farmland is part of a series of policy “reforms” that the International Monetary Fund stipulated as a precondition enabling Ukraine to receive $8 billion in loans from the IMF.[2]

Even amid the pandemic there has been “wide-ranging opposition from the Ukrainian public to reversing that ban, with over 64 percent of the people opposed to the creation of a land market, according to an April 2021 poll.”[3]

Additionally, the IMF loan conditions required that Ukraine must also reverse its ban on genetically engineered crops, and enable private corporations like Monsanto to plant its GMO seeds and spray the fields with Monsanto’s Roundup. In that way, Monsanto hopes to break the boycott by a number of countries in Europe of its genetically engineered corn and soy.

[Source: interecophil.wordpress.com]

It is the thesis of this essay that agricultural competition over land use between the U.S. and Russia—two gigantic capitalist countries with the most powerful nuclear arsenals in the world—is a neglected but important force driving the war in Ukraine.

The U.S. government has for the last decade wrestled with Russia over who controls the energy pipelines through Ukraine into Europe, and in what currency costs for that so-called “natural” gas and oil are to be paid. At the same time, the war’s disruption of Ukraine’s wheat harvest and the historic droughts hitting the U.S.’s “wheat belt” have driven the cost of bread around the world through the roof. United Nations officials are making dire predictions concerning the world’s supply of grain.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, world food commodity prices made a significant leap in March 2022 to reach their highest levels ever, rising 12.6% in that month alone as war in the Black Sea region shocked the markets dependent on staple grains and vegetable oils.[4] Global wheat prices rose by 19.7%, vegetable oil by 23.2%, and grains 20.4%. In Tunisia and in other countries, cooking oil, semolina, and rice have all but disappeared from grocery stores, and flour shortages have led to a run on bakeries.[5]

In the Middle East, millions who already spend more than a third of their income on food, are being hit hardest by the war’s impact on the global food supply. Yet UN agencies have begun to divert sacks of grain that had been earmarked for other war zones to the Ukraine, leaving the people of Yemen and refugees from many areas in desperation.[6]

In peaceful times Ukraine harvests 80 million metric tons (MMT) of grain—a category that includes wheat, corn, barley, rice and millet. Between them Russia and Ukraine supply more than 25% of the world’s wheat. Russia recently overtook the U.S. and Canada to become the leading wheat-exporting country in the world; Ukraine is the world’s 6th largest exporter of wheat.

But this year, Ukraine’s harvest will likely reach less than half the norm. “A single MMT of wheat…is enough to feed every person in Europe for about two days, or the entire population of Africa for about a day and a half.…A country like the UK could only make it up by having everyone stop eating for three years. That’s the thing about tonnes of grain: a million here and a million there and pretty soon you’ve got a real issue on your plate.”[7]

People in France or Italy were never expecting to have any Ukrainian wheat shipped to them at all; but they are now competing against Egyptians and Moroccans, who are now suddenly looking for new sources of bread.[8]

The grains are not only used for bread and flour, but also for alcohol, fuel, and for feeding animals.[9] With more than half the tonnage grown in Ukraine last year never intended to be used for direct human consumption, shortages will impact other parts of the economy too.[10]

The Communist Party of Greece points out that “the military conflict in Ukraine is the result of the sharpening of competition between the two warring camps, primarily focused on spheres of influence, market shares, raw materials, energy plans and transport routes; competition which can no longer be resolved by diplomatic-political means and fragile compromises.”[11]

How much of the predicted food system collapse is a result of the war’s disruption of grain harvests, and—a question few in the U.S. mainstream media are asking—how much are skyrocketing food prices caused by plain old capitalist rivalry between two of the main grain-exporting countries of the world?

Competing systems for growing crops

U.S. agriculture relies on two main inputs: migrant farm labor and the monocropping of genetically engineered corn, soy, and other crops designed to tolerate—and thus be saturated with—Monsanto’s cancer-causing herbicide Roundup. The government’s regulatory process is broken, if it ever worked properly at all: Corporations such as Monsanto, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Syngenta, Novartis, BASF and the other pesticide and pharmaceutical manufacturers are allowed to mask the truth about the dangers of their products.

They are facilitated in this by the complicity of federal (and global) regulatory agencies, allowing them to intentionally thwart the Precautionary Principle. Where the introduction of a new product or process whose ultimate effects are disputed or unknown, that product or process should be rejected. We need to support the development of international movements opposing the subservience of government agencies to the giant corporations.[12]

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New York Times repudiates drive for ‘decisive military victory’ in Ukraine, calls for peace negotiations

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From Anti-War.com

By John Walsh
May 23, 2022

Ukraine must negotiate based on a “realistic assessment” and “limits” to U.S./NATO commitment, says NYT

On May 11 The New York Times ran an article documenting that all was not going well for the U.S. in Ukraine, and a companion opinion piece hinting that a shift in direction might be in order.

Then on May 19, the editorial board, the full Magisterium of the Times, moved from hints to a clarion call for a change in direction, declaring that “total victory” over Russia is not possible and that Ukraine will have to negotiate a peace in a way that reflects a “realistic assessment” and the “limits” of U.S. commitment.  

The Times serves as one the main shapers of public opinion for the elite and so its pronouncements are not to be taken lightly.

US Limits

The editorial contains the following key passages:

“In March, this board argued that the message from the United States and its allies to Ukrainians and Russians alike must be: No matter how long it takes, Ukraine will be free. …”

“That goal cannot shift, but in the end, it is still not in America’s best interest to plunge into an all-out war with Russia, even if a negotiated peace may require Ukraine to make some hard decisions.” 

And, to ensure that there is no ambiguity, it went on: “A decisive military victory for Ukraine over Russia, in which Ukraine regains all the territory Russia has seized since 2014, is not a realistic goal. … Russia remains too strong…”

To make certain that President Joe Biden and the Ukrainians understand what they should do, it adds:

“… Mr. Biden should also make clear to President Volodymyr Zelensky and his people that there is a limit to how far the United States and NATO will go to confront Russia, and limits to the arms, money and political support they can muster. It is imperative that the Ukrainian government’s decisions be based on a realistic assessment of its means and how much more destruction Ukraine can sustain.”

As Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky read those words, he must surely have begun to sweat.  The voice of his masters was telling him that he and Ukraine will have to make some sacrifices for the U.S. to save face.  As he contemplates his options, his thoughts must surely run back to February 2014, and the U.S.-backed Maidan coup that culminated in the hasty exit of President Viktor Yanukovych from his office, his country and almost from this earth.

Too dangerous

In the eyes of the Times editorial writers, the war has become a U.S. proxy war against Russia using Ukrainians as cannon fodder – and it is careening out of control:  “The current moment is a messy one in this conflict, which may explain President Biden and his cabinet’s reluctance to put down clear goal posts. “The United States and NATO are already deeply involved, militarily and economically. Unrealistic expectations could draw them ever deeper into a costly, drawn-out war …

“Recent bellicose statements from Washington — President Biden’s assertion that Mr. Putin ‘cannot remain in power,’ Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s comment that Russia must be ‘weakened’ and the pledge by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, that the United States would support Ukraine ‘until victory is won’ — may be rousing proclamations of support, but they do not bring negotiations any closer.”

While the Times dismisses these “rousing proclamations,” it is all too clear that for the neocons in charge of U.S. foreign policy, the goal has always been a proxy war to bring down Russia. This has not become a proxy war; it has always been a proxy war.

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The Fantasy of Fanaticism, by Scott Ritter

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From Consortium News
by Scott Ritter
June 25, 2022

For a moment in time, it looked as if reality had managed to finally carve its way through the dense fog of propaganda-driven misinformation that had dominated Western media coverage of Russia’s “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine.

In a stunning admission, Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former senior adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and Intelligence Services, noted that the optimism that existed in Ukraine following Russia’s decision to terminate “Phase One” of the SMO (a major military feint toward Kiev), and begin “Phase Two” (the liberation of the Donbass), was no longer warranted. “The strategies and tactics of the Russians are completely different right now,” Danylyuk noted. “They are being much more successful. They have more resources than us and they are not in a rush.”

“There’s much less space for optimism right now,” Danylyuk concluded.

In short, Russia was winning.

Danylyuk’s conclusions were not derived from some esoteric analysis drawn from Sun Tzu or Clausewitz, but rather basic military math. In a war that had become increasingly dominated by the role of artillery, Russia simply was able to bring to bear on the battlefield more firepower than Ukraine.

Ukraine started the current conflict with an artillery inventory that included 540 122mm self-propelled artillery guns, 200 towed 122mm howitzers, 200 122mm multiple-rocket launch systems, 53 152mm self-propelled guns, 310 towed 152mm howitzers, and 96 203mm self-propelled guns, for approximately 1,200 artillery and 200 MLRS systems.

For the past 100-plus days, Russia has been relentlessly targeting both Ukraine’s artillery pieces and their associated ammunition storage facilities. By June 14, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that it had destroyed “521 installation of multiple launch rocket systems” and “1947 field artillery guns and mortars.”

Even if the Russian numbers are inflated (as is usually the case when it comes to wartime battle damage assessments), the bottom line is that Ukraine has suffered significant losses among the very weapons systems — artillery — which are needed most in countering the Russian invasion.

But even if Ukraine’s arsenal of Soviet-era 122mm and 152mm artillery pieces were still combat-worthy, the reality is that, according to Danylyuk, Ukraine has almost completely run out of ammunition for these systems and the stocks of ammunition sourced from the former Soviet-bloc Eastern European countries that used the same family of weapons have been depleted.

Ukraine is left doling out what is left of its former Soviet ammunition while trying to absorb modern Western 155mm artillery systems, such as the Caesar self-propelled gun from France and the U.S.-made M777 howitzer.

But the reduced capability means that Ukraine is only able to fire some 4,000-to-5,000 artillery rounds per day, while Russia responds with more than 50,000. This 10-fold disparity in firepower has proven to be one of the most decisive factors when it comes to the war in Ukraine, enabling Russia to destroy Ukrainian defensive positions with minimal risk to its own ground forces.

Casualties

This has led to a second level of military math imbalances, that being casualties.

Mykhaylo Podolyak, a senior aid to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, recently estimated that Ukraine was losing between 100 and 200 soldiers a day on the frontlines with Russia, and another 500 or so wounded. These are unsustainable losses, brought on by the ongoing disparity in combat capability between Russia and Ukraine symbolized, but not limited to, artillery.

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