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Russia Dispatch #005 – Western Collapse & Eastern Ascent

Zdrástvuyte, dia diaobh, hello. I’m Howard Crane with EV Radio and this is the Russia Dispatch, a regular podcast from behind enemy lines with the aim of correcting NATO and Western media bias. This is dispatch #005, April 3rd2022.

Before I get into the meat of this broadcast I should mention the incident in Bucha up front. I can never say with absolute certainty one way or another, but from what I’ve seen, I’m leaning heavily toward this being a staged event or an atrocity committed by somebody to frame the Russians. A critical examination of the videos and photos will result in the same conclusion. Add to this, the Russian military has been withdrawing from areas of Ukraine and haven’t been in Bucha since March 30th.

I come to you amid the death pangs of the West and possibly the eve of Klaus Schwabb’s Great Reset. Those of you more well-versed on the current situation already know that Europe and America have rejected oil and gas flow from Russia and her allies, instantly resulting in fuel prices not seen in over a decade. Due to the fact the West simply hasn’t the infrastructure to escalate oil extraction and processing to meet its needs, America had turned to oil-rich nations which it called tyrannical and oppressive until recently, only to be told no. They’re now going to dip into their national emergency reserves to delay the inevitable. Our mis-leaders know that this is just the beginning of the consequences of their actions. It’s the view of more balanced commentators, such as the folks at The Duran, that these people have made a foolish commitment and now they are trapped either by their own hubris or conceit. They cannot find it within themselves to admit they’ve fucked up and ask for Russia’s forgiveness so the taps once more flow with the black gold that keeps civilization on its feet. As a result of this hubris or conceit, matters will only get worse as 2 minutes of thought would reveal to the dimmest amoung us that it’s not only private cars that require fuel, but airliners, tanks, jet fighters, battleships, and most frightening of all – trucks and cargo ships responsible for delivering the majority or all of the food we eat, as well as equipment to make that food and other commodities. What most don’t seem to think about is the fact that modern agricultural practices are not sustainable and rapidly deplete the topsoil necessary to grow nutritious vegetables and feed livestock. As a result, we need fertilizers derived from oil to trick the soil into yielding vegetation. Coming into the first growing season of the year, most the West has low reserves of this.
I imagine the assumption of most people is that this is easily fixed by replacing our cars, trucks, and cargo ships with electric ones, if they give our situation any thought at all. It’s disputable whether this is even possible, but it’s certainly not possible within the timeframe between now and the economic devastation ahead of us. Engines and vehicle bodies don’t appear out of thin air. Even if they did appear out of thin air, how would we power them? Despite thousands of beautiful landscapes around Europe being destroyed to erect wind turbines, these and other renewable resources only account for a tiny portion of our energy requirements today – never mind adding trucks and cargo ships to that load, which will increase demand manifold. Even with electric cars being a rarity in my native Ireland, the government had to delay the closure of two coal-burning power plants which was part of it’s Green roadmap, and even with these plants open we were officially warned of blackouts and power rationing – BEFORE the Ukraine crisis. Add to this, there’s only so much coal in America and Europe, which is why coal makes up only a portion of the power grids of most countries, with another being natural gas, which, comes from the same place oil does. But let’s say we really put the peddle to the metal and littered our countries with wind turbines and solar farms – which, by the way, NOBODY wants built beside them – we still need rare earth materials and other resources that are virtually monopolised by Russia and countries sympathetic to Russia. The West have backed itself into a checkmate, responded by shooting itself in the foot, and will likely respond again by shooting itself in the other foot, unless the people rise up against their mis-leaders and signal to the East that it’s time to repair relations. This, sadly, isn’t likely to happen as the people of the West are fundamentally a broken people. Our democracies are broken – riddled with crony capitalists and the managerial class.

Last week, Russia released a list of unfriendly nations. Amoung which is my own, previously neutral, Ireland – we’re neutral by Constitution, but it seems that’s just a piece of paper now. The fact that my country, which buys virtually nothing from sells virtually nothing to Russia, and cannot pose any military threat whatsoever, is added to this list is indicative of why that list was created. It’s not merely a question of economics or military power, but diplomacy. It’s primarily a list of countries hostile to Russia culturally. Days into the conflict, a Catholic priest attacked the embassy by throwing red paint on the Russian eagle emblem outside the gates and just a week later, a man reversed his truck through the gates of the embassy. A man who, by strange coincidence, sells Catholic church paraphernalia. We also have word going around of people going into East European stores and interrogating the staff on whether or not they’re Russian. Before you think this is just the ignorant potato pickers being ignorant potato pickers, there have been instances around the Western world of Russian stores and public buildings being vandalised, Russian heritage people being accosted and assaulted, and just a general aire of hostility. Quite reminiscent of the early days of COVID. There was at least one incident in Ireland, where a Chinese woman was being verbally assaulted by another woman in a supermarket in Northern Ireland. Heartbreaking and disgusting behaviour. We should be equally disgusted by the behaviour of many in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

On March 29th, Ireland escalated things further when our foreign minister expelled four Russian diplomats, effectively shutting down the embassy. Similar actions have been taken around the West.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has put out a statement entitled:

Commentary by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson M.V. Zakharova on US orchestrated expulsions of Russian diplomats

The press release issued by State Department spokesman Price, in which he openly gloats over the expulsion of Russian diplomats from several European countries, is indicative of the real nature of US relations with its satellites.

Some of them may be embarrassed to take part in this American orchestrated spectacle, while others, on the contrary, are eager to earn praise. They will be held personally responsible for their actions, while their bilateral relations with Russia will be sacrificed and their embassies in Moscow subject to our inevitable retaliation.

None of this, of course, is new. Washington is not ceremonious with its allies, nor with those who, for one reason or another, find themselves in the orbit of American influence, demanding submission and renunciation of claims to autonomy and sovereignty. This is the essence of the notorious “Western solidarity”, in which the leader easily sacrifices the wingnuts in his own interest, using them as expendable material in a geopolitical game.

On March the 31st Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had equally strong words for the international community speaking to Russian media:

A new reality is taking shape: the unipolar world is irretrievably receding into the past and a multipolar world is being born. This is an objective process that cannot be stopped. There won’t be one single ruler of this new reality. All key states with a decisive influence on the world economy and politics will have to come to terms. Being aware of their special status, they will ensure the observance of the fundamental principals of the UN charter, including the main one – the sovereign equality of states. Nobody on Earth will be considered a second-rate player. All nations are equal and sovereign.

While once North America and Europe seemed to hold the strongest cards, their sanctioning Russia has activated a long-planned set of agreements with her allies, which is also drawing in multiple more countries which have been ignored or deemed unworthy by the Western hegemonic sphere. From the words and actions of Russia and her partners, such as China and India, a new world order is taking shape which will leave the West in the dust as long as it keeps fighting against it. We are at a fork in the road with one option being to take a seat at the table of equals and the other option being to fight against that change in an attempt to restore the status quo of 2 months ago when we held a position of “more equal than others.” The mis-leaders of the West are showing no indication of sitting at this table and are choosing to fight. There’s only one possible outcome of this stance – escalation.

There are three areas of concern for me here. The first being, why would Russia or the Russians trust us ever again? Given that they produce most of our oil, gas, and grain, it’s at the very least a practical concern that we learn to live with them.
The second being, this is a definite biphercation of the people of the world. The Irish artist, author, and magician, Thomas Sheridan, rightly called this a global kristallnacht against the Russians. To save some listeners a Google search, kristallnacht is translated as “night of broken glass” and is also known as the November Pogrom. It was a day of Nazi and civilian violence against Jews in 1938, 5 years after the election of Hitler. Call it hyperbole if you dare, but such violence is often the prelude to genocide and it will be remembered by the Russian people for generations to come. It just might not mean much to you since you’re not on the receiving end, but imagine hearing of your brethren around the world being attacked because of a leader you probably didn’t vote for. Imagine someone defamed your national symbol – like Ireland’s harp or the American flag etc because of a foreign policy you had no control over.
The third concern this raises is how much control the media has. We have to ask ourselves who the shadowy hand is which is pushing American and European leaders to cut off their noses to spite their faces. Is it the black committee at the very top of NATO? Is it the illuminati that secretly controls the world? Could it be both? Could it be both, and, the strange self-feeding loop of media and public demand? The people of America and Europe have been fed a steady stream of horror via the media of heroic non-existent Ukrainian fighter pilots and bombed childrens’ hospitals. This has angered the people, probably prodding our leaders to take drastic actions. In turn, the media has seen how well this crisis sells and has continued to put out whatever unverified crap they find, and in turn the people have gotten angrier and, now, our mis-leaders are unable to back out of their harsh stances lest they face millions of people protesting the perceived betrayal. This is a self-feeding loop which will only intensify unless something intervenes on the media, public, or political level. No such intervention seems likely.

This is what we know:

Until a few days ago Russia has been making slow advances, avoiding conflicts as much as possible, encircling key strategic cities in order to siege them, and using surgical missile strikes to take out military targets. The colour of this conflict has changed significantly as, for the first time, Russian troops have entered into a Ukrainian city – Mariupol – in order to purge the city door-to-door of Ukrainian military and neo nazi battalion members. As a side note, I’ve been reluctant to use the N word until recently as I, being a Westerner, was extremely critical of Russian statements which claimed they were fighting battalions of armed thugs. After enough research and hearing Ukrainians themselves speak in those terms, I’m satisfied that such paramilitary groups have been absorbed into the Ukrainian military and possibly have a lot of political influence.
The following is a live clip which was removed from the rebroadcast of the Brett Braier broadcast on Fox News.
With that in mind, it’s not a huge leap of logic to see how forces hostile to Russian troops would be hiding in civilians structures, necessitating ground troop sweeps of areas, missile strikes, and artillery bombardments. To get a sense the suffering of the people in Mariupol I suggest Patrick Lancaster’s YouTube channel. Patrick Lancaster is an ex US soldier who has visited Ukraine and the Dobass on multiple occasions before the current hostilities and is currently publishing videos from within Mariupol. The common answer from civilians to his question: “Who is doing the shooting or bombing?” is “How am I supposed to know?” but on occasion a civilian will report Ukrainian forces using their shelter as protection. In other words, they were being used as human shields.

As of this writing, Ukrainian authorities are showing no signs that they wish to come to terms with Russia, however analysts better informed than myself predict this military operation will be over within 2 weeks. The illusion that Ukraine stands a chance against Russia, which is created by Ukrainian and Western propaganda, cannot last forever.

On the subject of propaganda, Ukrainian forces made a successful strike within Russian territory this week by helicopter. A fuel depot in Belgorod, close to the Ukrainian border, was attacked, setting it on fire. This is the first instance of any hostilities within Russia so far. Commentators on The Duran presume the helicopters escaped detection by flying low – an impressive feat. The fuel depot presumably has a strategic value to the Russians as it may have been critical to fuelling their tanks and other vehicles, but it was a particularly costly mission for something so minor. Considering how the Ukrainians rely so much “wag the dog” tactics to win this war, it may have been a desperate attempt at internal propaganda to increase the morale of the few Ukrainian fighters left.

If you look at the work of Gonzalo Lira on others on social media you will notice that Ukrainian propaganda didn’t stop at The Ghost of Kiev. Multiple videos from multiple sources are being produced on social media to give the impression that the Russians are taking more losses than they actually are. These commentators point to fighters with freshly washed clothes and unworn makeup after they were supposedly in a battlefield for days, as well as buildings and other landmarks that reappear in videos allegedly shot on different days and in different locations. As disgustingly hateful and corrupt as the Ukrainian establishment and their fighters are, I have to commend them on an impressive propaganda campaign which may yet win them this war. They really make the 1997 movie “Wag the Dog” seem prophetic.

I wrote the script I’m reading over the course of the past week and given the events of today I should interject the following: I was going to warn of a false flag attack impending that would bring NATO into the fight. I echoed the concerns that many have that this false flag would involve biochemcial weapons. I still believe this is likely, but it seems we already have our false flag in the form of the Bucha incident. I won’t show the videos here for YouTube reasons, but it looks like the infamous footage of Jonestown or the Heaven’s Gate compound after the mass suicide. A completely empty town with bodies randomly laying down on the footpaths and the roads – no damaged buildings, no blood, no gore. It just looked like the individuals dropped dead as they were walking around. One individual can be seen lying sideways with a bicycle between his legs as if he had just stopped peddling and fell sideways. It’s a strange scene that you might mistake for something out of the Twilight Zone. There are 1,000 questions about that footage – including, as Gonzalo Lira aptly said, the extremely high quality camera involved in capturing it – but there are zero answers. And yet, warhawks in the West are using this as an excuse to enter the war as NATO.
In the event we find out that the Russians definitely did commit this massacre, I’m sorry to say that they wouldn’t be the first to commit horrific violations of international war conventions and violate laws of human decency. The Ukrainians have already beaten Russia to the punch there. Furthermore, the angelic NATO partners have also committed similar atrocities in their own wars of aggression. We must seek justice as an international community, but we must not lose sight of the fact that this is war, and horrible things happen in wars.

Now back to our regular programming.

I think I’ve adequately demonstrated how the media narrative in this war is important. For the public in the West and Ukraine to become aware that this war is already won by Russia would be catastrophic to morale and public faith in the current leadership. With Russian troops finally closing in on their key positions for the next battle phase, we must be on guard for a false flag which will blot out all signs of Russian successes and necessitate the involvement of NATO countries. This false flag will most definitely involve a biochemical attack, likely on civilians, and will be blamed on Russia. The narrative will be that Putin and his generals are, as another YouTube commentator jokes, demons from the 9th Circle of Hell with absolutely no understandable motives, and will strike out in a childish fit in the face of defeat by poisoning thousands of civilians. We know the biochemical weapons exist because the Americans have officially acknowledged them and we know they’ll be used in a false flag attack because this same source speaking to the US Congress said the Russians will use them. After I initially wrote this script, Joe Biden has also come out to say the Russians intend on using chemical weapons. Perhaps senility grants one psychic powers or something. I will repeat what several others are saying – why would a winning army needlessly use a weapon that would pose an equal amount of risk to their own troops and severely damage their international reputation even further? Nobody would. Nobody in their right minds. But the people under NATO rule will believe this, as they’ve been conditioned to believe the Russians don’t have human comparable minds. We’ve been convinced they’re unthinking brutes who simply enjoy inflicting pain on others. There’s no reasoning with this intense degree of racism.

It’s also noteworthy that 30,000 troops are currently in Norway for the NATO military games, Trident Juncture, planned at least as far back as 2020. Russia has been invited to spectate, but they thanked NATO for the opportunity and declined. This will carry on for the next few weeks and could possibly be a hotspot for a false flag.

Carrying on from the general news roundup I’d like to preach to the choir a little. I’m deeply disturbed by how entrenched this mass hysteria and racism against Russians is. Even minds I’ve come to think of as intelligent and critical have devolved into emotional and hate-filled parodies of Human Beings. The actions of Russia have been stripped of all possible reason and motive. Many people think the military operation in Ukraine happened simply and only because Putin is a psychopath. We’re only capable of seeing things through a Western centric lens and we refuse to humanise the other. Please, please, try to speak to your fellow Westerners and urge them to see the other side of the story. This might be a futile endeavour, but the ugly truth is that when you dehumanise another person it is always a prelude to violence against that person. When you can no longer see that someone else might be motivated by their own sense of self-preservation and they’ve been downgraded to the station of a beast, you are justified in your own mind to commit any manner of atrocities against them.

Russia Dispatch #004 – Strategy Analysis & Sanctions Bonanza 05/03/2022

Zdrátvuyte, dia diaobh, hello. I’m Howard Crane with EV Radio and this is the Russia Dispatch. A daily or quasi-daily summary of news and intel to correct the Western media bias. The date is March 5th 2022.

In summary, Russia’s military operation on day 10 appears to be going well.

Russia is fighting two wars – the information war and the physical war. So far, and to devastating effect for Russia, they have lost the information war given the extensive media blitz by NATO media which has convinced millions of citizens around the world to – as they see it – rush to Ukraine’s aid and, in reality, partake in the proxy war. They’ve also managed to keep Ukrainian morale high, which will have real-world costs to the Russian operation as time drags on and Ukrainian military and partisans are supplied and organised. Russia themselves are keeping all their cards close to their chest in terms of communicating with their citizens and the world their intentions, strategy, wins, and losses. It’s no secret that the current Russian establishment is run more like a monarchy than a democracy, occasionally using an iron fist and keeping the citizens on a need-to-know basis, but for them to join the battle of censoring foreign media while also neglecting to broadcast their own positive propaganda – which NATO is doing to impressive effect – they may well lose this war at home and abroad.

On the physical war, Russia is fighting on multiple fronts: the Ukrainian theatre, the global economic theatre, and the larger geopolitical chess game.
On the Ukrainian front, slow and steady progress is being made every day with few casualties and some minor retreats. The strategy appears to be to move into the territory from the North, South, and East, subdue key cities such as Mariupol and Chernihiv, and surround Kiev to perform more of a siege than an outright subjugation by bombing. Mariupol particularly is seeing large amounts of bombing as well as being starved of resources. As a coastal city, a military strategy novice like myself could only guess that this location has strategic importance as later on it could be used as a route for military supplies later in the operation or even months after Russian forces withdraw from the country. Mariupol straddles the Azov sea, which neighbours the Black Sea, which in turn gives access to NATO allies Bulgaria and Romania. Bulgaria, by chance, has been reinforced by NATO troops in January of this year. Odessa, which also sits on the Black Sea will soon meet the same fate, but a few days later in the operation as the Russians must skirt around the city of Mykolaiv to avoid obvious injuries and destruction involved in marching through a dense urban area.
One thing is clear in this operation is that Russia respects the resistance from both Ukrainian military and citizens and is rightly opting to travel through smaller towns, cities, and the countryside, instead of steamrolling through cities. They’re taking their time to do things correctly. However, as awful as the death and destruction has been so far, the next 48 hours are about to change things. We don’t know how brutal this war is about to get and the West may yet eat their words about Russia losing, as her military formations move into place, and start sieging Kyiv.

Focusing a little more on the wider political game, declassified documents have been reported on by US media describing $350 million dollars worth of long and short range offensive weaponry as well as safety equipment being shipped to Ukraine since last year. Only 200 out of the $350 million worth of supplies were successfully delivered due to the disruption of the Russian invasion. For my listeners who still think this is a war of primarily or exclusively Russian aggression, you best look at this damning report by The Washington Post and ask yourself again if Putin really started this war because he’s the devil, or Hitler, or Ghengis Khan, or all three rolled into one. Those who have jumped on the “Putin is literally Hitler” bandwagon either have vested interests or are completely unaware of what NATO is – the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation – which, as the name suggests, a military alliance between North America and Europe. A pact or trade organisation founded specifically to protect the West against Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. A necessary organisation, given Russia’s size and regional power. The problem is that NATO has been slowly inching further and further East, recruiting more and more nations since the late 1990s. Recently it has courted Bulgaria, which borders Ukraine to the East and has access to the aforementioned Black Sea, prompting Russia to demand a legally-binding agreement that NATO would retreat back to its 1997 borders. It reminds me of the old meme, “Russia wants war! Look how close they put their country to our military bases.”

In dispatch #003 on March 3rd I introduced the geopolitical force of the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – a bloc of developing economies that have an alliance of necessity. I predicted that after China openly stating they will continue to buy gas from Russia and keep trade open, that we will see the battlelines continue to be drawn by more BRICS nations coming out in support of Russia. Today, The Economic Times in India has reported that Indian authorities will circumvent the dollar in order to continue trades with Russia. This is hardly surprising as, in 2014, the two nations had to establish their own currency exchange agreement after India was hit with sanctions in response to their defense agreement with Russia. I hope my listener is getting a clearer picture now of how NATO has made he bed it currently lies in by not only attempting to surround Russia but by also isolating it. I further predict that this will increase the momentum of a chain reaction, activating economic partnerships with other BRICS and adjacent nations. This is what a world war looks like.

I’m not going to say Russia has won the geopolitical front of their war, but what is certain is that they’re not alone. If NATO were to escalate this conflict any further, it will end up in a repeat of WWII, except where everyone has nukes at the beginning.

In other news, several Western brands have ceased sales and services of Russia – including gaming giants like Blizzard and EA… which, if you ask me, could only improve Russia’s quality of life… Paypal has ceased serving Russian residents, Twitch is no longer paying their Russian content creators, a bunch of boutique companies with fancy French names have withdrawn, and Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite Internet service has… uhm… said they’ll stop serving Russia at gunpoint. Well done, Elon Musk, I suppose. Punitive and person sanctions continue, as Nikita Mazepin of the American Formula 1 team has been sacked for the ghastly crime of being Russian. This is all TODAY or in the past few days. One would think there’s a shadowy cabal that pulls the strings of powerful corporations somewhere out there.

There’s so much to cover, but this has gone on long enough and at some point it would be redundant. So let’s leave it there. Remember to check the link in the description for the podcast version of this show or find The Russia Dispatch on your favourite podcast service. If you value the information in these episodes, it’s important that you subscribe to us this way as we are self-hosted and in a location way outside the reach of both NATO and Moscow, so we can keep bringing you the facts even if the hammer of censorship comes crashing down.

I’ve been Howard Crane with EV Radio. Da widzenia, slán leat, goodbye.

Russia Dispatch #003 3-3-2022 – Escalating to World War

We are on the 4th day into the peace negotiation process and both sides have confirmed that a second meeting at a random day and location in Belarus near the border has been agreed. Still no details have been shared with the public, but Ukrainian authorities made it clear they will not respond to any ultimatums from Russia.

Battle lines continue to be drawn and escalation into full-blown global warfare is even more certain as it was just days ago. While the West has continued to rally more nations and corporations to impose sanctions and ship offensive weapons to Ukraine, China has made its position clear that it will continue to trade with Russia despite what they call illegal sanctions. Russia has a number of other potential allies in the BRICS union – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Alliances are scarcely based on ideology or lofty ideas as humanitarianism, and almost always based on economic relationships. Even though the US and Europe are in the ascendancy, they’re economically a paper tiger with Ponzi Scheme currencies and a critical dependence on the import of fossil fuels, rare earth minerals, and electronic components from BRICS nations. I’m not an economist, but a deciding factor for many countries may come down to whether they want to trade with Russia and China or NATO-allied nations. Many countries have pre-existing relationships with either party, which is the sole reason this conflict has escalated so swiftly and dramatically already.

A number of Ukrainian and NATO media hoaxes have already been dispelled, such as The Ghost of Kyiv, multiple videos of Russian aggression that turned out to be clips from movies or completely different countries, and the 14 brave Ukrainian soldiers that told a Russian warship to fuck off. Yet NATO propaganda continues, with claims as wild as Russia bombing childrens’ hospitals. These uninvestigated claims could easily lead to Putin and his commanders convicted of war crimes. This is a worrying development as the fog of war is so thick that, if this were a case brought against a single man for the murder of a single man, it would be thrown out of court based on the fact that there has been too many misrepresentations of facts on the situation leading up to the murder. Putin and his men will not have the privilege of the assumption of innocence until proven otherwise beyond reasonable doubt.

Censorship of Russian media continues. On Tuesday, the European Council wielded its draconian powers to ban Russia Today and Sputnik from broadcasting within its member states – deciding extra-democratically what we can and cannot see. The statement announcing the decision claimed the media outlets are responsible for a “systematic, international campaign of disinformation, information manipulation, and distortion of facts.” Although I personally found Russia Today’s constant depiction of Europe and the US as the sole sources of Fascism and 20th Century human misery offensive, this is no good reason to limit the media and is no more disinformation than NATO media.

Censorship comes in an indirect form by way of Anonymous, the alleged grassroots hacker movement. A movement with a shady past full of FBI and CIA connections. It was born out of the image boards 4chan and 8chan, known for the trading of child abuse material and the launching of harassment campaigns against innocent people online. Last week they hacked and launched DDoS attacks against Russian government websites and media, leaving them inaccessible. Russia Today was once again attacked at approximately 8:40am GMT, which triggered their DDoS guard, and quickly resulted in the website becoming inaccessible until about 11am.

It has long been speculated that WWIII will not be fought with guns, tanks, rockets, boats, and planes – conventional warfare – but will be hybridised warfare, heavily involving cyber attacks. Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, gave a stern warning on Tuesday after it came to light that cyber attacks were launched on Russian satellites. Rogozin said that further attacks could be seen as a casus belli – a justification for war. There’s no reason to think NATO powers won’t continue their cyber attacks, which could further escalate the situation.

Given Russia’s latest assurance that they’re not pulling nukes off the table, we are truly in worrying times.

On the Ukrainian front itself, Russia is doing well. The country is surrounded by thousands of troops to the North, South, and East. Kyiv itself is slowly being surrounded from the West, North, and East. Their intentions are clear – they wish to take Kyiv and the Kremlin spokesman has told us that they intend to stay the distance – however long it will take, this is what they’re doing.

Railway and roads out of Kyiv are still open and the Russians are urging citizens to leave.

My concern lies with the fate of Ukraine now. NATO has fully engaged in a proxy war, using the country and her people as their whipping boy. If offensive weaponry were withheld from the country, the Russian operation would be over within the next week and we would see whether or not they would be true to their word and withdraw forces. But we don’t live in that alternate reality – we live in a world where more and more weapons will be imported and more and more volunteers from NATO countries will wield those weapons to fight a never-ending war against Russian occupation. Every day there is fighting in a country, less of the infrastructure and historical landmarks remain. It is truly an awful vision to behold. This may be Russia’s Afghanistan. Well, their second Afghanistan.

Censorship of opinions contrary to those of the state are the first to be censored and persecuted in the event of war. Please see the description below for the podcast version of The Russia Dispatch so you can always stay up to date.

I’ve been Howard Crane with EV Radio. Da widzenia, slán, goodbye.

The Russia Dispatch #002 – 1-3-2022 — He said, she said and more punitive sanctions

Zdrástvuyte, dia diaobh, hello from Ireland. I’m Howard Crane with EV Radio and this the Russia Dispatch No. 2 on March 1st 2022. For context, listen to the first broadcast wherever you listening now. In short, I’ll be summarising the Russia-NATO conflict with a view to balancing the biased flow of information in the West.

The information war is heating up just as much as the war is. Russia Today on YouTube has been blocked in Europe and North America disallowing Westerners to watch their extensive coverage of hostilities in Ukraine. RT and other outlets are still using DDoS protection on their websites after last weeks cyber attacks. Yesterday I was unable to reach Russia Today as the DDoS protection reported suspicious activity from my network, meaning a botnet army including hacked computers from my IP range were “activated” to take part in the attack. Personal computer security is always important, but we should all take care to check if malicious software has been planted on our machines to be used in such illegal activities.

Will the Western authorities go as far as to block all Russian and allied websites? Will our governments stoop so low as to deprive the West of Eastern media and the East of Western media? This is an assault against the values of democracy and the freedom of information.

On the 6th day of hostilities, Ukraine claims to have killed 5,700 Russian troops and taken 200 Prisoners of War. Russia disputes these numbers and has not given any alternative numbers. Neither does Russia wish to tell us their plans or the progress their making in the capture of Ukraine, but they assure us they are definitely making progress. We are definitely into “He said, she said” territory. The fog of war is thick.

On the other-hand, US media is claiming an intelligence source close to Putin reports that he has gone mad. Frustrated by the progress of the assault, he is exploding in rage at people in his inner-circle. This is clearly evoking imagery of Hitler in his last days as he realises the jig is up. This same source says that his state of mind means he may double-down in violence. Claims have even been made that he – personally, and not the Russian military – but Putin himself, has used an “illegal bomb” in Ukraine. To the trained eye, this is clearly disinformation laying the groundwork for extreme punitive measures against Putin and/or Russia itself.

Western media reports Belarus has joined the war effort, sending in a column of 33 units into Chernihiv region, in the North of Ukraine. President Lukashenko has denied giving any such order. The lack of video evidence even purporting to be Belarusian troops in Chernihiv leaves me skeptical. Speaking with Belarusian media, President Lukashenko said:

“The Belarusian army has never taken any part and isn’t taking any part in the hostilities. We can prove it to anyone. Moreover, Russian authorities have never raised this matter with us – about our participation in the military conflict. We have no plans to engage in this special operation in Ukraine. There is no such necessity”

He also commented on a concentration of troops at the border, saying that they were simply there to reinforce the border.

This morning, Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov, categorically denied the accusation of war crimes such as the use of cluster bombs and thermobaric weapons (aka, exploding aerosol). The International Criminal Court is launching a probe into the accusations made by Ukrainian authorities. Before any evidence has even been produced, everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, including the President of Ireland – who is a mere functionary of a Republic which is supposed to be neutral.

On the subject of neutrality, Switzerland has pledged aid in the form of weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies. It has also disallowed Russian aircraft, military or civilian, to enter its airspace. We can now say for sure that we live in a new era when even the smallest countries who have nothing to contribute to a war and have historically been neutral, now have to partake somehow.

Ukraine and the West continues to accuse Russia of attacking civilians, while Russia and citizens claim Ukraine is shelling residential areas in the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Russia further claims that Ukrainian forces are moving into populated areas and using their own people as human shields. Again, the fog of war is thick and we have no way of truly knowing who is telling the truth or if both are telling the truth, but it seems with a Western-controlled Hague we may see Putin and his high command up for war crimes regardless.

Western sanctions continue – Nord Stream Pipeline is not being shut down, because Germany isn’t insane. I wish the rest of Europe and America would be so wise. Mearsk, one of the world’s largest shipping companies, is refusing to deliver to Russia with exception to foodstuffs, medical supplies, and other humanitarian supplies. SWIFT, the main payment processor in the West will soon disconnect Russian banks and money services, and the UK are poised to kick out Russia’s biggest bank – Sberbank.

The French economic minister, Bruno Le Maire, has had to walk back comments he made today, which included such lovely sentiments as, “wage a total economic and financial war on Russia,” “target the heart of the Russian system”, “Russian people will also pay the consequences.” The current French government is no stranger to outbursts of bloodthirsty Fascism as, earlier this year, President Macron announced in parliament that he will make life “a living hell” for the unvaccinated, amoung other disgusting language.

Peace talks have been occurring since yesterday and are in their second day. No details are being surrendered by either side. I’m not confident anything will come of these talks as this isn’t just two countries at war – it’s a puppet state and NATO against the largest country in the world and its allies. This war is not about Ukraine. There’s a bigger picture.

The stage is being set for a convenient story arch – the mad dictator, or Hitler under a different alias, striking out like a petulant child against the forces of all that’s good in the world. The problem is that the West may get what its wants, as you can’t corner an animal and starve it out, then expect it to not take extreme measures to assure its own survival. It’s incumbent on us all to remain skeptical of everything we see and always ask ourselves what NATO and Russia want us to think about a particular piece of information.

It’s clear that Europe and America are not above censoring the Internet like they condemn other countries for, and it may come to pass that we can no longer access alternative media sources in terms of this war and, furthermore, this channel may be taken down. So please visit the link below to follow the podcast version the Russia Dispatch or find us on your favourite podcast service.

The Russia Dispatch #001 28-02-2022

I’m creating this series of dispatches in response to the campaign of propaganda launched against Russia in response to their military actions in the Ukraine. A propaganda campaign is one thing and wouldn’t normally provoke me to dedicate a series to the issue, but the degree of the lies and misrepresentations paired with the DDoS attacks and regional blocking of Russian websites has pushed me to do my part in presenting the alternative view.

As of this date, a number of cyber attacks have taken place against Russian government websites as well as news sites – including Russia Today and Pravda. Much like Russia itself is accused of doing and possibly do, the likelihood of these alleged independent hackers being NATO funded cannot be ignored. The sheer scale of these attacks and their multiple targets aren’t likely to come from the stereotypical rogue hacker groups.

Last week, Russia initiated a military operation to seize the Ukraine. The Russian side of the story is that the people of the Russian-majority region of Donbas have been persecuted since the 2019 Presidential elections, which inserted Volodymyr Zelensky – a former actor and comedian. Russia alleges this anti-Russian President was installed by election tampering by NATO powers. The military action by Russia came hours after Vladimir Putin recognised the two regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent nations. If we take for granted that the people on Donbas have been genuinely persecuted by a NATO-friendly government, are the actions of Russia justified? This is a question we’re not allowed to ask in the West, while most of us are completely blind to the possibility that Russia’s actions could have a justification.

In light of the recent attacks on Russian websites, I will read a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

Foreign Ministry statement regarding the rhetoric about Russia’s recognition of the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics

Following the criticism by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and several Western politicians of the decisions made by President of Russia Vladimir Putin to recognise the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics as independent states, we would like to state the following.

We believe that any deliberations about the alleged infringement on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and about the importance of implementing the Minsk Package of Measures, which has been approved by UN Security Council Resolution 2202, have nothing to do with reality.

This begs the question where all these people have been for the past eight years, when the Kiev regime, which came to power through a state coup, waged a punitive military operation against its own citizens, an operation that has claimed 14,000 civilian lives. Acting in gross violation of the Minsk Package of Measures, they imposed a tight transport and economic blockade against Donbass, stopped the payment of pensions and social benefits to its residents, whom Vladimir Zelensky has described as “species” and suggested that they get out of Ukraine. These actions have all the markings of genocide.

All these years, the UN Secretary-General should have demanded that Kiev implement the Minsk Agreements, primarily by developing a direct dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk, which is clearly set out in the Minsk Package of Measures and UN Security Council Resolution 2202.

As for the statement made by an official representative to the effect that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres considers Russia’s decision to recognise the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics to be “a violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine,” we would like to remind everyone that the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the UN Charter, which was approved in Resolution 2625 adopted by consensus at the UN General Assembly in 1970, says on the matter of the principle of sovereign and territorial integrity that it must strictly apply to “states conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples (…) and thus possessed of a government representing the whole people belonging to the territory without distinction as to race, creed or colour.” The government of Ukraine obviously does not meet this description.

We strongly urge the UN Secretary-General and his personnel to strictly comply with the principles that have been unanimously approved by the UN General Assembly.

Link

The days that followed the release of this statement, Russia had seized control of several areas in the Ukraine as well as the capital Kyiv. Western media is reporting thousands of casualties and Russian sources are reporting very few casualties – it’s clear that there are three versions of reality here: the NATO version, Russia’s version, and the actual reality. None of us are omnipresent and both sides of this conflict are definitely biased to influence public perception of events, so the truth must lie somewhere in between.

Another aspect of the propaganda efforts by the West is the appearance of several videos and images alleging to show attacks of Russian ground and air on the Ukraine. Many of these are taken from movies or conflicts in other parts of the world from years past. One fake image in particular was shown on Fox News with the title beginning to say “Ukrainian Civilians Take Up…” presumably the rest of the ticker would say something like “arms against Russia”. What’s peculiar about this footage is that it depicts two men holding cardboard cut-outs of assault rifles.

On the day of this dispatch, Western media is inciting its citizens to hysteria by claiming Putin has activated some kind of nuclear deterrent or other, but later in the day these headlines and articles have been altered to remove all mention of anything nuclear.

Given the alarming degree of censorship of people by Western social media in response to the events of the past week, this series and possibly this YouTube Channel will not be here forever. Please check the description for our specialised podcast feed to stay up to date.

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