Category Archives: Militarization

Feverishly Racing Toward Our Own Destruction…

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By Michael Snyder

Source: End of the American Dream

We are careening directly into an abyss of war, pain and misery, and our leaders are thunderously applauding as it happens.  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to Washington this week because he wanted more money, and our politicians in Washington definitely did not disappoint him.  Even though we had already given Ukraine far more money than the rest of the world combined, our politicians agreed to give him another colossal mountain of cash.  On some level, we all have to respect Zelenskyy’s skills as a con man.  Even though he has banned the main opposition party in Ukraine, and even though he has banned all television stations that were critical of him, and even though he just banned an entire ancient Christian denomination, our politicians continue to worship him like some sort of a pop music star.  Zelenskyy has become an extremely oppressive dictator that has set himself up to rule Ukraine for as long as he wants, but members of Congress from both parties continue to hail him as a “champion of democracy” that deserves our unquestioning support.

What makes this so dangerous is that Zelenskyy has been trying very hard to pull the United States into his war with Russia.

Throughout 2022 the U.S. has been getting increasingly involved in the conflict, and at this point we are “providing most of the funding, most of the equipment, most of the ammunition, most of the high level intelligence and much of the training” for the international army that is fighting the Russians in Ukraine.

In other words, we are essentially a direct participant in the war.

For years I have been warning my readers that there would be a war with Russia, and now it is here.

If we had rational leaders in Washington, they would be trying to end this conflict before the nukes start flying.

But instead, they are pledging to give Zelenskyy whatever he needs for as long as it takes to defeat the Russians.

When Zelenskyy visited Washington this week, the White House literally rolled out the red carpet for him.

To see such an honor bestowed upon a cruel foreign dictator that is ruthlessly oppressing anyone that opposes him should nauseate all of us.

And when Zelenskyy arrived to deliver his speech to a joint session of Congress, he was greeted with a standing ovation.

It isn’t just the Democrats that have fallen for Zelenskyy’s act.

At this point, Mitch McConnell says that showering Ukraine with money should be our “number one priority”…

“Providing assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now according to most Republicans. That’s how we see the challenges confronting the country at the moment.”

Thankfully, there are still at least a few voices of reason that can see exactly what Zelenskyy is trying to do.

One of them is Tucker Carlson.

According to Carlson, it is absurd to give a foreign tyrant so much money when we have so many pressing needs here at home.

But no matter how hard Zelenskyy oppresses his own people, our politicians are going to continue to shower him with more money, and that is because Zelenskyy has done an amazing job of positioning his war as the most important “current thing”.  I really like how John Nolte made this point in one of his most recent articles…

Zelensky has brilliantly — brilliantly! — positioned himself to be The Thing Through Which The Establishment Proves Its Purity.

That means the only questions anyone dares ask about Zelensky and Ukraine are…

Who can give Ukraine the most money?

Who can give Ukraine the most weapons?

Who can give Ukraine the most praise?

Who can lick Zelensky’s boots the cleanest?

Zelensky is getting everything he wants and more, including America flirting with nuclear war. Why? Because he was savvy enough to crack the code of the shallow, insecure, conformist idiots we elect and reelect as our leaders.

Nolte is quite right.

And once a con man has identified a “golden goose”, he is just going to keep coming back again and again.

So even though we have already given Ukraine more money than everyone else combined, it will never be enough to satisfy Zelenskyy.

In addition to cold, hard cash, the U.S. also continues to give the Ukrainians some of our best military equipment.

The Biden administration just agreed to send Patriot missile systems to Ukraine, and that represents another huge escalation.

The Biden administration will send to Ukraine the most advanced air defense weapon in its arsenal, the Patriot missile system, officials said Wednesday, marking the most significant addition to American military support for the government in Kyiv in months.

Meanwhile, the Russians continue to escalate the conflict as well.

In fact, it appears that the Russians have been very busy moving tanks into position for another major offensive campaign from the north.

If both sides just keep escalating matters, we will eventually reach a point where somebody crosses a line that will never be able to be uncrossed.

We have been pushed to the brink of nuclear war, and the Russians are getting ready to officially deploy their new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles in January…

Putin said on Wednesday during a meeting with military chiefs that he aimed to deploy his terrifying RS-28 Sarmat missile – nicknamed Satan-2 – in January.

The world-ending missile can blast targets at almost 16,000mph – meaning it has the potential to obliterate the UK 1,600 miles away in just six minutes.

Sadly, the quote that you just read is not an exaggeration.

Each Sarmat can reportedly carry up to 15 independently-targetable nuclear warheads.

That means that one missile goes up, and 15 warheads come down.

And each one of those warheads can instantly wipe out an entire major city.

The Sarmat is the most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile in the entire world by a wide margin, and we have no way to defend against them.

So maybe we should think twice before getting into a nuclear war with Russia.

Unfortunately, our leaders seem to have gone completely mad at this point, and of course our leaders in Washington are simply a reflection of what has happened to the rest of our society.

https://twitter.com/ClownWorld_/status/1605770134269804545

When Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as the “Evil Empire” in the 1980s, he was quite correct.

But since that time just about every form of evil that you can possibly imagine has absolutely exploded in our own nation.

So are we “the baddies” now?

Sadly, most Americans will not even entertain that question.

And our leaders are just going to continue to push us toward a nuclear conflict that could ultimately mean the end of our society once and for all.

Yes, Jesus Would Have Been Branded a Domestic Extremist Today

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By John & Nisha Whitehead

Source: The Rutherford Institute

“When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart.”—Howard Thurman, theologian and civil rights activist

The Christmas story of a baby born in a manger is a familiar one.

The Roman Empire, a police state in its own right, had ordered that a census be conducted. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary traveled to the little town of Bethlehem so that they could be counted. There being no room for the couple at any of the inns, they stayed in a stable (a barn), where Mary gave birth to a baby boy, Jesus. Warned that the government planned to kill the baby, Jesus’ family fled with him to Egypt until it was safe to return to their native land.

Yet what if Jesus had been born 2,000 years later.

What if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, Jesus had been born at this moment in time? What kind of reception would Jesus and his family be given? Would we recognize the Christ child’s humanity, let alone his divinity? Would we treat him any differently than he was treated by the Roman Empire? If his family were forced to flee violence in their native country and sought refuge and asylum within our borders, what sanctuary would we offer them?A singular number of churches across the country have asked those very questions in recent years, and their conclusions were depicted with unnerving accuracy by nativity scenes in which Jesus and his family are separated, segregated and caged in individual chain-link pens, topped by barbed wire fencing.

Those nativity scenes were a pointed attempt to remind the modern world that the narrative about the birth of Jesus is one that speaks on multiple fronts to a world that has allowed the life, teachings and crucifixion of Jesus to be drowned out by partisan politics, secularism, materialism and war, all driven by a manipulative shadow government called the Deep State.

The modern-day church has largely shied away from applying Jesus’ teachings to modern problems such as war, poverty, immigration, etc., but thankfully there have been individuals throughout history who ask themselves and the world: what would Jesus do.

What would Jesus—the baby born in Bethlehem who grew into an itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist, who not only died challenging the police state of his day (namely, the Roman Empire) but spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, and pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire—do about the injustices of our  modern age.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked himself what Jesus would have done about the horrors perpetrated by Hitler and his assassins. The answer: Bonhoeffer was executed by Hitler for attempting to undermine the tyranny at the heart of Nazi Germany.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked himself what Jesus would have done about the soul-destroying gulags and labor camps of the Soviet Union. The answer: Solzhenitsyn found his voice and used it to speak out about government oppression and brutality.

Martin Luther King Jr. asked himself what Jesus would have done about America’s warmongering. The answer: declaring “my conscience leaves me no other choice,” King risked widespread condemnation as well as his life when he publicly opposed the Vietnam War on moral and economic grounds.

Even now, despite the popularity of the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD) in Christian circles, there remains a disconnect in the modern church between the teachings of Christ and the suffering of what Jesus in Matthew 25 refers to as the “least of these.

Yet this is not a theological gray area: Jesus was unequivocal about his views on many things, not the least of which was charity, compassion, war, tyranny and love.

After all, Jesus—the revered preacher, teacher, radical and prophet—was born into a police state not unlike the growing menace of the American police state. When he grew up, he had powerful, profound things to say, things that would change how we view people, alter government policies and change the world. “Blessed are the merciful,” “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and “Love your enemies” are just a few examples of his most profound and revolutionary teachings.

When confronted by those in authority, Jesus did not shy away from speaking truth to power. Indeed, his teachings undermined the political and religious establishment of his day. It cost him his life. He was eventually crucified as a warning to others not to challenge the powers-that-be.

Can you imagine what Jesus’ life would have been like if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, he had been born and raised in the American police state.

Consider the following if you will.

Had Jesus been born in the era of the America police state, rather than traveling to Bethlehem for a census, Jesus’ parents would have been mailed a 28-page American Community Survey, a mandatory government questionnaire documenting their habits, household inhabitants, work schedule, how many toilets are in your home, etc. The penalty for not responding to this invasive survey can go as high as $5,000.

Instead of being born in a manger, Jesus might have been born at home. Rather than wise men and shepherds bringing gifts, however, the baby’s parents might have been forced to ward off visits from state social workers intent on prosecuting them for the home birth. One couple in Washington had all three of their children removed after social services objected to the two youngest being birthed in an unassisted home delivery.

Had Jesus been born in a hospital, his blood and DNA would have been taken without his parents’ knowledge or consent and entered into a government biobank. While most states require newborn screening, a growing number are holding onto that genetic material long-term for research, analysis and purposes yet to be disclosed.

Then again, had Jesus’ parents been undocumented immigrants, they and the newborn baby might have been shuffled to a profit-driven, private prison for illegals where they first would have been separated from each other, the children detained in make-shift cages, and the parents eventually turned into cheap, forced laborers for corporations such as Starbucks, Microsoft, Walmart, and Victoria’s Secret. There’s quite a lot of money to be made from imprisoning immigrants, especially when taxpayers are footing the bill.

From the time he was old enough to attend school, Jesus would have been drilled in lessons of compliance and obedience to government authorities, while learning little about his own rights. Had he been daring enough to speak out against injustice while still in school, he might have found himself tasered or beaten by a school resource officer, or at the very least suspended under a school zero tolerance policy that punishes minor infractions as harshly as more serious offenses.

Had Jesus disappeared for a few hours let alone days as a 12-year-old, his parents would have been handcuffed, arrested and jailed for parental negligence. Parents across the country have been arrested for far less “offenses” such as allowing their children to walk to the park unaccompanied and play in their front yard alone.

Rather than disappearing from the history books from his early teenaged years to adulthood, Jesus’ movements and personal data—including his biometrics—would have been documented, tracked, monitored and filed by governmental agencies and corporations such as Google and Microsoft. Incredibly, 95 percent of school districts share their student records with outside companies that are contracted to manage data, which they then use to market products to us.

From the moment Jesus made contact with an “extremist” such as John the Baptist, he would have been flagged for surveillance because of his association with a prominent activist, peaceful or otherwise. Since 9/11, the FBI has actively carried out surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations on a broad range of activist groups, from animal rights groups to poverty relief, anti-war groups and other such “extremist” organizations.

Jesus’ anti-government views would certainly have resulted in him being labeled a domestic extremist. Law enforcement agencies are being trained to recognize signs of anti-government extremism during interactions with potential extremists who share a “belief in the approaching collapse of government and the economy.

While traveling from community to community, Jesus might have been reported to government officials as “suspicious” under the Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” programs. Many states, including New York, are providing individuals with phone apps that allow them to take photos of suspicious activity and report them to their state Intelligence Center, where they are reviewed and forwarded to law-enforcement agencies.

Rather than being permitted to live as an itinerant preacher, Jesus might have found himself threatened with arrest for daring to live off the grid or sleeping outside. In fact, the number of cities that have resorted to criminalizing homelessness by enacting bans on camping, sleeping in vehicles, loitering and begging in public has doubled.

Viewed by the government as a dissident and a potential threat to its power, Jesus might have had government spies planted among his followers to monitor his activities, report on his movements, and entrap him into breaking the law. Such Judases today—called informants—often receive hefty paychecks from the government for their treachery.

Had Jesus used the internet to spread his radical message of peace and love, he might have found his blog posts infiltrated by government spies attempting to undermine his integrity, discredit him or plant incriminating information online about him. At the very least, he would have had his website hacked and his email monitored.

Had Jesus attempted to feed large crowds of people, he would have been threatened with arrest for violating various ordinances prohibiting the distribution of food without a permit. Florida officials arrested a 90-year-old man for feeding the homeless on a public beach.

Had Jesus spoken publicly about his 40 days in the desert and his conversations with the devil, he might have been labeled mentally ill and detained in a psych ward against his will for a mandatory involuntary psychiatric hold with no access to family or friends. One Virginia man was arrested, strip searched, handcuffed to a table, diagnosed as having “mental health issues,” and locked up for five days in a mental health facility against his will apparently because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait.

Without a doubt, had Jesus attempted to overturn tables in a Jewish temple and rage against the materialism of religious institutions, he would have been charged with a hate crime. More than 45 states and the federal government have hate crime laws on the books.

Had anyone reported Jesus to the police as being potentially dangerous, he might have found himself confronted—and killed—by police officers for whom any perceived act of non-compliance (a twitch, a question, a frown) can result in them shooting first and asking questions later.

Rather than having armed guards capture Jesus in a public place, government officials would have ordered that a SWAT team carry out a raid on Jesus and his followers, complete with flash-bang grenades and military equipment. There are upwards of 80,000 such SWAT team raids carried out every year, many on unsuspecting Americans who have no defense against such government invaders, even when such raids are done in error.

Instead of being detained by Roman guards, Jesus might have been made to “disappear” into a secret government detention center where he would have been interrogated, tortured and subjected to all manner of abuses. Chicago police have “disappeared” more than 7,000 people into a secret, off-the-books interrogation warehouse at Homan Square.

Charged with treason and labeled a domestic terrorist, Jesus might have been sentenced to a life-term in a private prison where he would have been forced to provide slave labor for corporations or put to death by way of the electric chair or a lethal mixture of drugs.

Indeed, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, given the nature of government then and now, it is painfully evident that whether Jesus had been born in our modern age or his own, he still would have died at the hands of a police state.

Thus, as we draw near to Christmas with its celebration of miracles and promise of salvation, we would do well to remember that what happened in that manger on that starry night in Bethlehem is only the beginning of the story. That baby born in a police state grew up to be a man who did not turn away from the evils of his age but rather spoke out against it.

We must do no less.

Beware of Long Wars: Ukrainian Attacks on Russia Are Dangerously EscalatoryBeware of Long Wars:

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By W.J. Astore

Source: Bracing Views

Reports that Ukraine is launching modified drones to strike airbases deep in Russia highlight the unpredictability and escalatory nature of wars. Ukraine is no longer content at defending itself against Russian aggression; Russia itself must be made a target, which will likely provoke harsher Russian counterattacks. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress continues to authorize billions in military aid to Ukraine, which is pitched as defending democracy and freedom.

War is many things but it is rarely democratic. Indeed, as James Madison warned, war is inherently anti-democratic. It strengthens authoritarian forces and contributes to abuses of power and corruption. As the Russia-Ukraine War goes on, with no clear resolution in sight, Ukraine suffers more even as the chances of escalation rise.

James Madison warned that no nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare

What’s needed now is resolute diplomacy — a committed effort to end the war by all parties involved, obviously Russia and Ukraine but also the U.S. and NATO. The longer this disastrous war lasts, the more unpredictable it will become, the more atrocious it will prove, and the more likely ordinary Ukrainians and Russians will suffer and die, whether at various battlefronts or on the homefront.

Negotiation is not weakness nor is it appeasement. Negotiation is sensible, rational, and life-affirming. But there’s little reason for Ukraine to negotiate when it’s enjoying a blank check of support from the U.S. and NATO.

Meanwhile, as Ukraine continues striking deep into Russia, one wonders to what extent the U.S. military and intelligence agencies are involved. Did the U.S. provide technology?  Targeting information?  Intelligence? Or is Ukraine doing this entirely on its own, a scenario that is less than comforting?

I sure hope the U.S. and Russia are talking.  In the confusion and chaos of war, how is Russia to know for sure that an attack on one of their strategic air bases is coming from Ukraine and not from NATO territory?  Even if it’s clearly coming from Ukraine, if these attacks are enabled or approved by the U.S./NATO, will the Russians see them as an act of war? Will they respond militarily, creating even more escalatory pressure?

Bizarrely, Ukraine’s defensive war against Russia has been sold as America’s “good” war, a chance to weaken Russia and Putin in the cause of defending Ukrainian “democracy.” But as Ukraine’s tactics turn more offensive, and as the Ukrainian government likely becomes more authoritarian due to the pressures of war, how wise is it for the United States to continue to send massive amounts of military aid there while discouraging diplomacy?

Policies that end in prolonging the Russia-Ukraine War in the name of teaching Putin a lesson and eroding his power may teach us all a lesson in how war is not just anti-democratic. War runs to extremes, and only fools believe they can control it in a way that is conducive to liberty and freedom and justice.

America’s 2022 Allocations to Ukraine Total $112 Billion

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By Eric Zuesse

Source: The Duran

During this year, the U.S. Government has allocated $112 billion to Ukraine, in order to defeat Russia in the battlefields of Ukraine. Russia allocates normally $60 billion per year for its entire military, but this year has increased that 40% to $84 billion, because of its invasion of Ukraine. Russia invaded Ukraine because, on 17 December 2021, Russia had demanded that the U.S. Government and its NATO anti-Russian military alliance stop trying to place its missiles on and near Russia’s borders (especially in Ukraine, which is the nearest of all bordering nations to Moscow); and, on 7 January 2022 America and NATO said no. Russia then invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, in order to prevent Ukraine from becoming a launch-pad for U.S. missiles. That’s what the war in Ukraine is — and always has been — about, from the Russian viewpoint: not being faced with U.S. missiles that are only a five-minute missile-flight-time away from Russia’s central command in Moscow.

The war in Ukraine started in February 2014, by America’s coup there that overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected neutralist Government and replaced it by a rabidly anti-Russian and pro-American one on Russia’s border, in order ultimately to become able to place just 317 miles away from the Kremlin U.S. missiles which would be only a five-minute flight-time away from nuking Russia’s central command — far too little time in order for Russia’s central command to be able to verify that launch and then to launch its own retaliatory missiles. It would be nuclear checkmate of Russia, by the U.S. (with the assistance of its NATO allies, which then would include Ukraine).

Whereas Russia’s objective is to not become nuclearly checkmated by America placing its missiles that close to Moscow, America’s objective is to nuclearly checkmate Russia in order to capture the world’s largest and most resource-rich country — to force Russia to capitulate and become another U.S. ‘ally’ (that is, vassal-nation).

President Biden had requested Congress to add $38 billion more this year for Ukraine than the $67 billion that was funded earlier in the year, but Congress decided to increase his requested amount by $7 billion (almost a 20% increase in his suggested increase), so that there will be a total of $45 billion added to the $67 billion previously allocated, for a total U.S. allocation to Ukraine this year of $112 billion. That amount is $28 billion more than Russia will have spent this year for all of its military — the vast majority of which Russian military expenditure isn’t being allocated to the war in Ukraine, but instead to other aspects of Russia’s defense against the threat to its national security from America and its allies. America alone has been spending annually  on its military around 20 times what Russia has been spending on its; and, in order to make America’s expenditure appear not to be so gargantuan as it actually is, large portions of it are being paid out from other federal Departments than the Defense (or Aggression) Department, but the total annual U.S. military expenditures have, for over a decade, been over a trillion dollars per year.

On November 16th, I headlined “U.S. Will Have Spent $100B on Ukraine This Year”, and now it’s clear that my prediction was on the conservative side, by $12 billion.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

The Conflict In Ukraine Has Evolved Into A War Between The United States And Russia

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By Michael Snyder

Source: End of the American Dream

Let’s be honest about what is really going on in Ukraine.  The United States is providing most of the funding, most of the equipment, most of the ammunition, most of the high level intelligence and much of the training.  That makes the United States a direct participant in the conflict.  Yes, many other NATO countries are also contributing in various ways, and that makes them direct participants as well.  But the mainstream media here in the western world continues to insist that this is Ukraine’s war and that we are just helping them out.  Without a doubt, Ukraine has lost an enormous number of soldiers over the course of 2022, but at this point the Ukrainians are really a junior partner in the war.  If the U.S. and NATO had not intervened on an epic scale, the war would already be over and Russia would have won.  Unfortunately, now that we are so deeply invested in the conflict there is no easy way out, and that has very serious implications for all of us.

So much of the death and destruction that we have already witnessed could have been avoided so easily, and we should be constantly pushing our politicians to find a peaceful way out of this mess before nuclear weapons are used.  Back in 2020, I published a book in which I specifically warned that war with Russia would be coming, and a lot of people thought that I was nuts to say such a thing.  But sure enough we now have a war with Russia.

And the Russians are very clear about who they are really fighting.  Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov boldly declared that the U.S. and NATO are “directly participating” in the conflict in Ukraine…

“You shouldn’t say that the US and NATO aren’t taking part in this war, you are directly participating in it,” Lavrov said in a video call with reporters. “And not just by providing weapons but also by training personnel. You are training their military on your territory, on the territories of Britain, Germany, Italy, and other countries.”

I wish that this wasn’t true.

Sadly, in this particular case Lavrov is quite correct.

Most Americans don’t realize this, but Ukrainian soldiers are being flown into the United States all the time.  The following comes from a BBC article about one location in Kansas where Ukrainian officers have been receiving “strategic training”…

Senior-level Ukrainian officers have been studying in the US state of Kansas, thousands of miles from Russia’s invasion and the battlefields of Donbas.

Outside the Fort Leavenworth army base, wheat fields are starting to turn. Wide, open prairie land, with softly rolling hills, stretches for miles, and the sky is huge.

This quintessentially Kansas landscape has become the backdrop for generations of international soldiers, who head to the US base to receive strategic training.

Of course Ukrainians are also being trained in the UK and in other NATO countries as well.

Unless we actually want to be considered direct participants in the war, we should not be doing this.

All of us should also be deeply alarmed by how much money we are giving to Ukraine.

According to the Kiel Institute, as of October 3rd the U.S. had already given 54.43 billion dollars worth of military and non-military aid to the Ukrainians…

Eventually I tracked down a database operated by the Kiel Institute, a German think tank. They have been tracking total military and non-military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict. Their numbers include all aid from Jan. 24, 2022 to Oct. 3, 2022 (the data is scheduled for an update on Dec. 6).

According to Kiel, the U.S. has transferred military and non-military aid worth $54.43 billion to the government of Ukraine. The database Kiel has maintained is by far the most granular and detailed accounting of what the U.S. government has provided to Ukraine, including descriptions of the individual batches of military equipment. If you’re interested, you can check it out here.

Needless to say, more aid has been authorized for the Ukrainians since October 3rd.

So the grand total is even higher now.

At this point we have actually spent far, far more money on the war than the Ukrainians have.

The Ukraine military is now outfitted with cutting edge equipment and ammunition, but all of that money is being spent in other ways as well.

Vast hordes of international mercenaries have been hired to fight, and your tax dollars are paying for them.

You see, the truth is that the Ukrainian army that existed at the beginning of the war has mostly been destroyed.  To replace them, Ukraine conscripted a whole bunch of new soldiers, and they also hired large numbers of mercenaries from other nations in Europe.

Yes, there are some western Europeans and Americans among the mercenaries, but the vast majority of them appear to be from the poorer countries of eastern Europe.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t seem to care that these poor mercenaries are being fed into an endless meatgrinder that is unlike anything that we have seen since the worst days of World War I…

As Russia moved fresh formations to the area in recent weeks, including reinforcements previously in the Kherson region, the fighting in the Bakhmut sector has descended into trench warfare reminiscent of the first world war.

Over the weekend, images emerged of Ukrainian soldiers in flooded, muddy trenches and battlefields dotted with the stumps of trees cut down by withering artillery barrages.

For a moment, I would like for you to consider what it is like to be a soldier on the front lines in eastern Ukraine.

Imagine standing in a muddy trench that is filled up with water up to your waist.  Your teeth are chattering like crazy because of the bitter cold, but you don’t dare crawl out of the trench because you are likely to be killed.  Your socks are soaked, your underwear is soaked and everything else you are wearing is soaked.  Both sides are endlessly shelling one another, and so it is almost impossible for you to sleep.  There are dead bodies all around you for as far as the eye can see, and you just hope that you will be able to make it through another day somehow.

At military hospitals all across eastern Ukraine, there is an endless parade of the dead and the wounded.  The following comes from the New York Times…

For almost an hour, the stream of Ukrainian casualties in the eastern city of Bakhmut seemed unending: Ambulances, an armored personnel carrier and private vehicles all screamed to a halt, one after another, and disgorged the wounded in front of the city’s only military hospital.

A soldier propped up by his comrades, his face a mass of mangled flesh, walked in the main gate. The dark green stretcher that awaited him was one of several still covered in blood.

Sadly, there is no end to the war in sight.

In fact, both sides just continue to escalate matters.  The Ukrainians are now regularly shelling targets inside Russian territory, and the Russians are now systematically going after power and water systems all over Ukraine.

This is going to be an extremely bitter winter for both the Ukrainians and the Russians.

And as this war intensifies, there is a growing risk that someone could eventually use weapons of mass destruction.

Once that happens, there will be no going back.

Make Way for the Killer Robots: The Government Is Expanding Its Power to Kill

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By John & Nisha Whitehead

Source: The Rutherford Institute

“Crush! Kill! Destroy!”—The Robot, Lost in Space

The purpose of a good government is to protect the lives and liberties of its people.

Unfortunately, we have gone so far in the opposite direction from the ideals of a good government that it’s hard to see how this trainwreck can be redeemed.

It gets worse by the day.

For instance, despite an outcry by civil liberties groups and concerned citizens alike, in an 8-3 vote on Nov. 29, 2022, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a proposal to allow police to arm robots with deadly weapons for use in emergency situations.

This is how the slippery slope begins.

According to the San Francisco Police Department’s draft policy, “Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD.”

Yet as investigative journalist Sam Biddle points out, this is “what nearly every security agency says when it asks the public to trust it with an alarming new power: We’ll only use it in emergencies—but we get to decide what’s an emergency.”

A last-minute amendment to the SFPD policy limits the decision-making authority for deploying robots as a deadly force option to high-ranking officers, and only after using alternative force or de-escalation tactics, or concluding they would not be able to subdue the suspect through those alternative means.

In other words, police now have the power to kill with immunity using remote-controlled robots.

These robots, often acquired by local police departments through federal grants and military surplus programs, signal a tipping point in the final shift from a Mayberry style of community policing to a technologically-driven version of law enforcement dominated by artificial intelligence, surveillance, and militarization.

It’s only a matter of time before these killer robots intended for use as a last resort become as common as SWAT teams.

Frequently justified as vital tools necessary to combat terrorism and deal with rare but extremely dangerous criminal situations, such as those involving hostages, SWAT teams—which first appeared on the scene in California in the 1960s—have now become intrinsic parts of local law enforcement operations, thanks in large part to substantial federal assistance and the Pentagon’s military surplus recycling program, which allows the transfer of military equipment, weapons and training to local police for free or at sharp discounts.

Consider this: In 1980, there were roughly 3,000 SWAT team-style raids in the U.S. By 2014, that number had grown to more than 80,000 SWAT team raids per year.

Given the widespread use of these SWAT teams and the eagerness with which police agencies have embraced them, it’s likely those raids number upwards of 120,000 by now.

There are few communities without a SWAT team today.

No longer reserved exclusively for deadly situations, SWAT teams are now increasingly deployed for relatively routine police matters, with some SWAT teams being sent out as much as five times a day. In the state of Maryland alone, 92 percent of 8200 SWAT missions were used to execute search or arrest warrants.

For example, police in both Baltimore and Dallas have used SWAT teams to bust up poker games. A Connecticut SWAT team swarmed a bar suspected of serving alcohol to underage individuals. In Arizona, a SWAT team was used to break up an alleged cockfighting ring. An Atlanta SWAT team raided a music studio, allegedly out of a concern that it might have been involved in illegal music piracy.

A Minnesota SWAT team raided the wrong house in the middle of the night, handcuffed the three young children, held the mother on the floor at gunpoint, shot the family dog, and then “forced the handcuffed children to sit next to the carcass of their dead pet and bloody pet for more than an hour” while they searched the home.

A California SWAT team drove an armored Lenco Bearcat into Roger Serrato’s yard, surrounded his home with paramilitary troops wearing face masks, threw a fire-starting flashbang grenade into the house, then when Serrato appeared at a window, unarmed and wearing only his shorts, held him at bay with rifles. Serrato died of asphyxiation from being trapped in the flame-filled house. Incredibly, the father of four had done nothing wrong. The SWAT team had misidentified him as someone involved in a shooting.

These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg.

Nationwide, SWAT teams have been employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of nonviolent criminal activity or mere community nuisances: angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession, to give a brief sampling.

If these raids are becoming increasingly common and widespread, you can chalk it up to the “make-work” philosophy, by which police justify the acquisition of sophisticated military equipment and weapons and then rationalize their frequent use.

Mind you, SWAT teams originated as specialized units that were supposed to be dedicated to defusing extremely sensitive, dangerous situations (that language is almost identical to the language being used to rationalize adding armed robots to local police agencies). They were never meant to be used for routine police work such as serving a warrant.

As the role of paramilitary forces has expanded, however, to include involvement in nondescript police work targeting nonviolent suspects, the mere presence of SWAT units has actually injected a level of danger and violence into police-citizen interactions that was not present as long as these interactions were handled by traditional civilian officers. 

Indeed, a study by Princeton University concludes that militarizing police and SWAT teams “provide no detectable benefits in terms of officer safety or violent crime reduction.” The study, the first systematic analysis on the use and consequences of militarized force, reveals that “police militarization neither reduces rates of violent crime nor changes the number of officers assaulted or killed.”

In other words, warrior cops aren’t making us or themselves any safer.

Americans are now eight times more likely to die in a police confrontation than they are to be killed by a terrorist.

The problem, as one reporter rightly concluded, is “not that life has gotten that much more dangerous, it’s that authorities have chosen to respond to even innocent situations as if they were in a warzone.”

Now add killer robots into that scenario.

How long before these armed, militarized robots, authorized to use lethal force against American citizens, become as commonplace as SWAT teams and just as deadly?

Likewise, how long before mistakes are made, technology gets hacked or goes haywire, robots are deployed based on false or erroneous information, and innocent individuals get killed in the line of fire?

And who will shoulder the blame and the liability for rogue killer robots? Given the government’s track record when it comes to sidestepping accountability for official misconduct through the use of qualified immunity, it’s completely feasible that they’d get a free pass here, too.

In the absence of any federal regulations or guidelines to protect Americans against what could eventually become autonomous robotic SWAT teams equipped with artificial intelligence, surveillance and lethal weapons, “we the people” are left defenseless.

We’re gaining ground fast on the kind of autonomous, robotic assassins that Terminator envisioned would be deployed by 2029.

If these killer robots follow the same trajectory as militarized weapons, which, having been deployed to local police agencies as part of the Pentagon’s 1033 recycling program, are turning America into a battlefield, it’s just a matter of time before they become the first line of defense in interactions between police and members of the public.

Some within the robotics industry have warned against weaponizing general-purpose robots, which could be used “to invade civil rights or to threaten, harm, or intimidate others.”

Yet it may already be too late for that.

As Sam Biddle writes for The Intercept, “As with any high-tech toy, the temptation to use advanced technology may surpass whatever institutional guardrails the police have in place.”

There are thousands of police robots across the country, and those numbers are growing exponentially. It won’t take much in the way of weaponry and programming to convert these robots to killer robots, and it’s coming.

The first time police used a robot as a lethal weapon was in 2016, when it was deployed with an explosive device to kill a sniper who had shot and killed five police officers.

This scenario has been repeatedly trotted out by police forces eager to add killer robots to their arsenal of deadly weapons. Yet as Paul Scharre, author of Army Of None: Autonomous Weapons And The Future Of War, recognizes, presenting a scenario in which the only two options are to use a robot for deadly force or put law enforcement officers at risk sets up a false choice that rules out any consideration of non-lethal options.

As Biddle concludes:

“Once a technology is feasible and permitted, it tends to linger. Just as drones, mine-proof trucks, and Stingray devices drifted from Middle Eastern battlefields to American towns, critics of … police’s claims that lethal robots would only be used in one-in-a-million public emergencies isn’t borne out by history. The recent past is littered with instances of technologies originally intended for warfare mustered instead against, say, constitutionally protected speech, as happened frequently during the George Floyd protests.”

This gradual dismantling of cultural, legal and political resistance to what was once considered unthinkable is what Liz O’Sullivan, a member of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, refers to as “a well-executed playbook to normalize militarization.”

It’s the boiling frog analogy all over again, and yet there’s more at play than just militarization or suppressing dissent.

There’s a philosophical underpinning to this debate over killer robots that we can’t afford to overlook, and that is the government’s expansion of its power to kill the citizenry.

Although the government was established to protect the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of the American people, the Deep State has been working hard to strip us of any claims to life and liberty, while trying to persuade us that happiness can be found in vapid pursuits, entertainment spectacles and political circuses.

Having claimed the power to kill through the use of militarized police who shoot first and ask questions later, SWAT team raids, no-knock raids, capital punishment, targeted drone attacks, grisly secret experiments on prisoners and unsuspecting communities, weapons of mass destruction, endless wars, etc., the government has come to view “we the people” as collateral damage in its pursuit of absolute power.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are at a dangerous crossroads.

Not only are our lives in danger. Our very humanity is at stake.

US ‘success’ is Ukraine’s disaster

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In adopting “Success is confrontation” as a credo toward Russia, NATO states have invited catastrophe and undermined Ukrainian voices for peace.

( Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images)

By Aaron Maté

Source: Aaron Maté Substack

In recent weeks, the New York Times reports, “Moscow has opened what amounts to a separate war: missile and drone strikes aimed at destroying Ukraine’s infrastructure, degrading the quality of life for millions of civilians in an effort to demoralize them.” Russia’s attacks, the Washington Post adds, have “battered Ukraine to the brink of a humanitarian disaster,” cutting off electricity, heat and running water. Ukrainian officials estimate that Russia has damaged or destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. “This winter will be life-threatening for millions of Ukrainians,” a senior World Health Organization official warns.

Russia claims that it only targets infrastructure that serves a military purpose. No matter what legal rationale Moscow can construe, the attacks are a clear act of collective punishment against Ukrainian civilians.

Without ignoring Russia’s criminal liability, another reality can be acknowledged: The fact that Russia “opened” a “separate war” on civilian infrastructure eight months into the invasion, and not beforehand, also results from decisions taken by Ukraine’s far-right and their allies in Washington.

The intensified Russian strikes were predicted by NATO states, whose leaders chose to prolong the proxy war by shunning diplomacy and — most likely — blowing up possible off-ramps, namely the now-forgotten Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The New York Times reported in September that Western officials were “baffled” that Russia, at that point, had “avoided escalating the war” and “made only limited attempts to destroy critical infrastructure”, leading them to fear that “the most dangerous moments are yet to come.” Rather than seeking a diplomatic solution, the US-led NATO alliance chose to help push Ukraine into the predicted danger. After all, the US “strategy for the war,” the Washington Post noted that same month, has entailed “fueling a war with global consequences, while attempting to remain agnostic about when and how Kyiv might strike a deal to end it.”

One does not need to justify Russia’s actions to acknowledge that the Kremlin, by contrast, has adopted positions that offered the chance of a preferable – or at minimum, pursuable – negotiated settlement.

The Minsk II Accords, the framework for ending the post-2014 Donbas war between Kiev and Russia-backed Ukrainian rebels, were officially supported by both Ukraine and the U.S., yet both refused to implement them. Ukraine’s far-right nationalists intimidated President Volodymyr Zelensky into abandoning his peace mandate with direct threats of a coup and even murder. The Biden administration, by refusing to even discuss NATO expansion prior to the invasion; sitting idle as Zelensky refused to negotiate with the Donbas rebels; and apparently sabotaging a Ukraine-Russia peace deal in April, has effectively taken the nationalists’ side.

Even Ukrainian officials and establishment US media outlets concede that Russia’s current war aim is to compel diplomacy.  The strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, the New York Times notes, “are meant to force Kyiv to the negotiating table.”

“It is clear they want to impose certain conditions, they want to make us negotiate,” Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Col. Yuriy Ihnat said. But Ukrainian officials, the Times adds, “are in no mood to negotiate.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has issued the same message, describing the strikes as “the consequences” of Ukraine’s unwillingness to “enter into negotiation.”

Ukrainians have every right to reject negotiations with their invader. Yet there can also be no denying that a significant percentage of the population – including people around Zelensky — has, for years, favored positions that could have avoided the war, and end it today.

BYE, BYE KIEV, HELLO COTE D’AZUR: AS WESTERNERS SEND AID, HERE’S HOW UKRAINE’S CORRUPT ELITES ARE PROFITING FROM THE CONFLICT

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Ukraine’s newly elected President Volodymyr Zelensky (C) walks to his Presidential office after a ceremony of his oath in the Ukrainian Parliament, in Kiev, Ukraine. © STR / NurPhoto via Getty Images

By Olga Sukharevskaya

Source: New Cold War

For years, and particularly since the beginning of Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine, the United States, the European Union – and their allies – have provided Kiev with $126 billion worth of aid, a number almost equal to the country’s entire GDP but Olga Sukharevskaya reports that officials and oligarchs have diverted much of the financial support sent to Kiev
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Since the beginning of Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine, the United States, the European Union – and their allies – have provided Kiev with $126 billion worth of aid, a number almost equal to the country’s entire GDP. Moreover, millions of Ukrainians have found refuge in the EU where they were given housing, food, work permits, and emotional support. The scope is huge, even by western standards. Considering that the bloc has been funding Kiev while coping with an economic and energy crisis of its own, the assistance is perhaps especially notable.

Kiev bases its endless funding requests on the collapse of its economy, due to the war, and its need to “resist Russian aggression.” But is the aid reaching its intended destination?

The Monaco Battalion

While Ukraine has undergone a general mobilization affecting all men under the age of 60, many former and current high-ranking officials, politicians, businessmen, and oligarchs have moved to safety abroad – mainly to the EU.

The mass flight of Ukrainian elites started even prior to the armed conflict. On February 14, 2022, 37 deputies from the Ukrainian president’s parliamentary faction “Servant of the People” suddenly went “missing.” Had MPs not been banned from leaving the country the very next day, others would’ve definitely joined them. Meanwhile, former officials and oligarchs enjoyed more freedom to move around. According to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, 20 business jets took off from Kiev’s Boryspol airport on the 14th as well.

Tycoons were at the front of the line. Entrepreneur and MP Vadim Novinsky, businessmen Vasily Khmelnitsky and Vadim Stolar, Vadim Nesterenko, and Andrey Stavnitzer all left the country on charter flights. Millionaire politician Igor Abramovich booked a private flight to Austria for 50 people – taking relatives, business partners, and fellow party members aboard. Oligarchs flew from Kiev to Nice, Munich, Vienna,  Cyprus, and other EU destinations. Another group of businessmen took off from Odessa on private planes. The owner of Vostok Bank departed for Israel, while the head of the Transship group flew to Limassol. An ex-governor of the Odessa region, Stalkanat’s Vladimir Nemirovsky, also left the country.

In the summer and early fall of 2022, ‘Ukrainska Pravda’ prepared several investigative documentaries about fit-for-service Ukrainian billionaires and officials spotted vacationing on the Côte d’Azur during the war. A movie with the ironic title “The Monaco Battalion” shows Ukrainian oligarchs resting at their villas, mansions, and on yachts. In the first part, we see businessman Konstantin Zhevago, who is included on Interpol’s wanted list, relaxing on his private yacht worth $70 million. The yacht graces the shoreline of the Côte d’Azur as Zhevago’s family disembarks. Kharkov entrepreneur Alexander Yaroslavsky, who promised to sell his yacht and transfer the funds towards the restoration of Kharkov, can be seen sailing alongside.

‘Ukrainska Pravda’ journalists also got a glimpse of the Surkis brothers in France, who’re currently renting apartments worth €2 million per year. Meanwhile, a $300,000 Bentley belonging to Ukrainian businessman Vadim Ermolaev was spotted near the casino in Monaco, and Eduard Kohan, the co-founder of Euroenergotrade, was seen at one of Monte Carlo’s chic hotels.

A whole colony of Ukrainian oligarchs has apparently taken up residence in the elite French commune of Cap-Ferrat. Land developer Vadim Solar, oligarchs Dmitry Firtash, Vitaly Khomutynnik, and Sergey Lovochkin are among those enjoying high life in the middle of the war. The Cap-Ferrat villa once belonging to King Leopold II of Belgium was bought by the richest Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. His neighbors are Alexander Davtyan, President of the Investment Group DAD LLC, and Vladislav Gelzin, a former deputy of the Donetsk Regional Council.

As the creators of the film repeatedly emphasize, deputies and businessmen of “pro-Russian” parliamentary factions left the country during the war. Yet many active supporters of the current government also prefer to defend their homeland from abroad.

‘Ukrainska Pravda’ managed to interview Andrei Kholodov, an MP from Vladimir Zelensky’s faction “Servant of the People”, from his current residence in Vienna. The Austrian capital was also chosen by nationalist Nikita Poturaev and Sergei Melnichuk, a former head of the Aidar battalion known for war crimes reported by Amnesty International. The former head of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, 59-year-old Alexander Tupitsky, and the 45-year-old ex-prosecutor general of Ukraine Ruslan Ryaboshapka also preferred foreign “trenches.”

Members of the Ukrainian parliament are in no hurry to adopt vitally important laws for the country during wartime. According to the Telegram channel “Volyn News,” as of March 11, 2022, more than 20 MPs had moved abroad for unspecified reasons. The geography is extensive: Great Britain, Poland, Qatar, Spain, France, Austria, Romania, Hungary, UAE, Moldova, Israel, etc. In March, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine launched an investigation into the actions of six parliamentarians who have remained abroad.

Apparently, neither war nor punishment can put Ukrainian legislators to work. Only 99 deputies out of 450 attended the session of the Parliament on July 20. Presumably distracted by summer, the Côte d’Azur, the Maldives, and yachts… As for defending Ukraine itself – just leave it to the foreign volunteers, they say.

Where’s all the military and humanitarian aid going?

Some western benefactors have recently noticed that most of the military and humanitarian aid never reaches Ukraine’s army or ordinary citizens.

In an original documentary, CBS reported that about 70% of military aid failed to find its way to the intended beneficiaries and donor countries are often unable to control its intended use. According to the creators of the report, some of the weapons are sold on the black market. As US Marine Corps veteran Andy Milburn said, “I can tell you unarguably that on the frontline units these things are not getting there. Drones, Switchblades, IFAKs. They’re not, alright. Body armor, helmets, you name it.”

The Grayzone writes that weapons and humanitarian aid provided by the West to the Ukrainian military is being stolen along the way and never reaches the soldiers. At the same time, Ukrainian MPs recently gave themselves a 70% pay raise. The author of the piece argues that billions of dollars from the USA and the EU have been diverted.

A Ukrainian soldier named Ivan told journalists about western funds never reaching the front: “Imagine telling an American soldier that we are using our personal cars in the war, and we’re also responsible for paying for repairs and fuel. We’re buying our own body armor and helmets. We don’t have observation tools or cameras, so soldiers have to pop their heads out to see what’s coming, which means at any moment, a rocket or tank can tear their heads off.”

Samantha Morris, a medical doctor from the US, drew attention to the theft of medical supplies and the overall corruption: “The lead doctor at the military base in Sumy has ordered medical supplies from and for the military at different points in time, and he has had 15 trucks of supplies completely disappear,” she said. The doctors couldn’t even set up courses for medical assistants until a friend of the Sumy region governor interceded.

CNN talked to a retired US colonel who said that Ukrainian troops are short on supplies. Small arms, medical equipment, field hospitals and a lot more are under the control of private organizations – more concerned about stealing money than saving the lives of their compatriots.

As Stephen Myers, a former member of the US Department of State Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy, insisted, “There is little to prevent a field commander from diverting some of the equipment to buyers, aka the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians or whomever, while claiming the equipment and weapons were destroyed…”

Thousands of tons of humanitarian aid is being stolen. In September, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) proved that the head of the Office of the President, Andrei Yermak, his deputy Kirill Tymoshenko, the head of “The Servant of the People” faction David Arakhamiya and his friend Vemir Davityan were behind the large-scale theft of humanitarian aid in the Zaporozhye region. Zaporozhye officials Starukh, Nekrasova, Sherbina, and Kurtev only superficially carried out the task of distributing aid. In six months, they organized the theft of 22 sea containers, 389 railway cars, and 220 trucks. Humanitarian aid was sold in ATB and Selpo – supermarkets owned by Gennady Butkevich and Vladimir Kostelman, respectively. Of course, Tymoshenko, Nekrasova and Davityan all became “refugees” and found asylum in Vienna.

Admittedly, not everyone is on the run. Andrei Yarmolsky, the scandalous former deputy head of the Volyn regional administration – accused of stealing humanitarian aid, supplying defective bulletproof vests, and illegally moving men out of the country – was promoted. He now works for the National Security and Defense Council.

Medical supplies are also being stolen. The Telegraph reportsthat “some of the donated supplies later made their way onto the hospitals’ pharmacy shelves: priced, and listed for sale”. Health workers appropriate medicine, bandages, and medical equipment, and resell them to patients for whom they were intended to be free, the article says.

A similar story was told by the aforementioned doctor Dr Morris: “I got a call from a nurse at a military hospital in Dnipro. She said the president of the hospital had stolen all the pain medications to resell them, and that the wounded soldiers being treated there had no pain relief. She begged us to hand-deliver pain medications to her. She said she would hide them from the hospital president so that they’d reach the soldiers. But who can you trust? Was the hospital president really stealing the medications, or was she trying to con us into giving her pain medications for her to sell or use? Who knows. Everyone is lying.”

War for some, Gucci for others

Enormous cash flows from Western countries are continuously used by corrupt Ukrainian officials for personal enrichment and to acquire luxury goods.

In a recently busted corruption scheme, Odessa customs smuggled shirts, backpacks, sports shoes, belts, and other luxury items by Givenchy, Gucci, Polo, Dolce & Gabbana, Michael Kors, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Armani under the guise of army equipment. The documents, declaring the cargo as “for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” were signed by the acting head of the Odessa customs Vitaly Zakolodyazhny. According to MP Alexander Dubinsky, this is a common theft scheme. “The work of the customs is unsatisfactory because while some are fighting at the front, others are making money under the guise of their customs uniforms,” the parliamentarian said.

To take another example, in May 2022, Western countries abolished customs duties for Ukraine. Within a week, over 14,000 passenger cars were imported into the country. As the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Mustafa Nayem commented, “Considering we’re a country at war, our partners in Poland, Slovakia, and Romania were quite surprised by this fast-paced upgrade to our vehicle fleet.”

As they go about acquiring luxurious clothes and cars, the thieves are also taking care to withdraw capital from Ukraine.

According to the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine, Ukraine’s budget is missing UAH 4.5 billion worth of taxes from agrotraders: “In August-September 2022, almost 12 million tons of grain crops and oil estimated at UAH 137 billion were exported through the customs territory of Ukraine. Of these, almost 4 million tons were exported by fake companies existing only on paper.” Moreover, “most of the non-resident companies to which grain is exported are high-risk and involved in criminal investigations.” Is this the “grain deal” that the global community is actively cheering? It looks like Ukrainian fraudsters are corrupting not just their own country, but foreign states as well. And this is just one example out of many.

When the Surkis brothers left Ukraine, they took $17 million with them. But that’s just a trifle compared to the “heroes of the Euromaidan.” According to former People’s Deputy of Ukraine Oleg Tsarev, after the outbreak of hostilities leading Ukrainian politicians sent both their capital and their families abroad.

He mentions that the parents and relatives of President Vladimir Zelensky and his wife all left the country. Zelensky’s predecessor, former president Petr Poroshenko, moved not just his children but also about a billion US dollars in cash to the UK.

The same applies to other major Ukrainian officials: former Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov, the head of the Office of the President Andriy Yermak, the second President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma, the former Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk and many others all took their families and fortunes, estimated at around a billion dollars, out of the country. And that’s not to mention the numerous politically-affiliated oligarchs.

Scammers of smaller stature can “individually join the EU” as well. A system of bribery allows military-age males to leave the country. According to Izvestia, the fee is currently between $8,000 and $10,000. The Ukrainian media also actively reports on people paying to cross the border.

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The sympathy of Westerners towards a country at war is understandable. But while some countries are doing their upmost to aid Ukraine – even while facing an economic crisis themselves – corrupt Ukrainian officials are using the funding to amass personal fortunes and live the high life at fancy resorts. And all at the expense of taxpayers in the West.

In 2015, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, upon leaving the post of the Prime Minister of Ukraine, openly declared that he had become a billionaire. It is yet to be seen how many new Ukrainian super rich tycoons – nurtured by foreign military aid – will appear in the West by the end of the conflict.

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Olga Sukharevskaya is a former Ukrainian diplomat