Did the Trump-Putin meeting change the acceptible narrative on Russia?

 

Putin-Trump summit ‘erased’ Western narratives

– EU state’s leader

Direct dialogue with Moscow is crucial, Slovak PM Robert Fico has said, urging Brussels to take its cue from Washington

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. ©  Marco Tacca/Getty Images

The summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, in Alaska has challenged the West’s entrenched confrontational narratives regarding relations with Moscow, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has claimed.

In defiance of the EU’s prevailing approach, Fico halted Bratislava’s military aide to Kiev in October 2023, and has been a vocal critic of the bloc’s sanctions against Moscow, as well as suggestions that Ukraine join NATO.

This is why EU's Deep Left is working to undermine Fico. See the previous post on this blog.

In a video posted on Facebook on Saturday, Fico stated that the sheer fact that Putin and Trump had met in person was the “most important thing” about the summit in Anchorage on Friday.

“Politicians need to meet and show mutual respect, to talk and try to understand each other,” the Slovak prime minister argued.

He further claimed that the high-profile meeting had “rejected the black-and-white view of the military conflict in Ukraine” and essentially “erased a single mandatory opinion on the war.”

“We must speak equally about security guarantees both for Ukraine and for the Russian Federation,” taking into account the “historical roots” of the conflict, Fico emphasized.

READ MORE: Ukraine will ‘pay dearly’ for Western proxy role – EU state’s leader

“The next few days will show whether the major players in the EU will support this process,” or continue to persist with their “failing” strategy aimed at weakening Russia.

In a post on X on Saturday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, similarly hailed the Putin-Trump meeting for having made the “world a safer place than it was yesterday.”

Speaking to Fox News following the summit, the US president described the talks with his Russian counterpart as “warm,” bringing the sides “pretty close to the end” of the Ukraine conflict, with “one or two pretty significant items” left to iron out.

Putin characterized the talks with Trump as “constructive” and “useful.”

Military Madness > NATO keeps pushing Russia and fairly faints when it pushes back, but the War Industry writes the narrative

 

Putin says Moscow 'has right' to hit states

whose weapons Ukraine uses to strike Russia

Europe

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised message Thursday that Moscow has the right to strike the military targets of countries who have supplied weapons to Ukraine to hit Russia. Putin's statements came after Russia launched a new intermediate-range missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in response to Kyiv's long-range missile attacks earlier this week.

Issued on: 21/11/2024 - 18:26Modified: 21/11/2024 - 21:53

4 min

By:

FRANCE 24Follow

FRANCE 24

Russian President Vladimir Putin records a televised address in Moscow, Russia on November 21, 2024. © Vyacheslav Prokofyev, AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Thursday that Moscow has tested a new intermediate-range missile in a strike on Ukraine, and he warned that it could use the weapon against countries that have allowed Kyiv to use their missiles to strike Russia.

The Russian strike on the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday came in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian soil this week that used longer-range US and British missiles, Putin said during a nationwide TV address.

Following Putin's nationwide address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for a strong response from world leaders to Russia's use of a new generation hypersonic missile, saying it was a major step up in the "scale and brutality" of the war.

"The world must react. Right now there is no strong reaction from the world," Zelensky said in a statement published on Telegram, adding: "This is an obvious and serious increase in the scale and brutality of this war."

Putin declared that Russia would issue advance warnings if it launches more strikes with such missile against Ukraine to allow civilians to evacuate to safety. And he warned that US air defense systems wouldn’t be capable of intercepting Russian missiles.

Putin said the attack on Dnipro struck a missile factory a new missile called "Oreshnik," a Russian word meaning "hazel."

"We believe that we have the right to use our weapons against military facilities of the countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities," he said. "And in case of escalation of aggressive actions, we will respond resolutely in a mirror way."

Putin's announcement came hours after Ukraine claimed that Russia launched an intercontinental ballistic missile overnight at the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro. But American officials said an initial US assessment indicated the strike was carried out with an intermediate-range ballistic missile.

Two people were wounded in the attack, and an industrial facility and a rehabilitation center for people with disabilities were damaged, according to local officials.

The attack comes during a week of escalating tensions, as the US eased restrictions on Ukraine's use of American-made longer-range missiles inside Russia and Putin lowered the threshold for launching nuclear weapons.

The Ukrainian air force said in a statement that the Dnipro attack was launched from Russia’s Astrakhan region, on the Caspian Sea.

"Today, our crazy neighbour once again showed what he really is," Zelensky said hours before Putin's address. "And how afraid he is."

Earlier this week, the Biden administration authorised Ukraine to use US-supplied, longer-range missiles to strike deeper inside Russia – a move that drew an angry response from Moscow. 

Did Zelenskyy think there should be no push-back from Russia after firing American missiles at it?  They escalated the war and then he blames Russia. I believe every escalation in the past 1000 days has come from NATO and Russia has been reactive not proactive. But that's not how the narrative has been written by the war industry. 

Days later, Ukraine fired several of the missiles into Russia, according to the Kremlin. The same day, Putin signed a new doctrine that allows for a potential nuclear response even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power.

The doctrine is formulated broadly to avoid a firm commitment to use nuclear weapons. In response, Western countries, including the US, said Russia has used irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and behavior throughout the war to intimidate Ukraine and other nations.

They have also expressed dismay at the deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to Russia to fight against Ukraine.

Also Thursday, Russia also struck Zelensky’s home city of Kryvyi Rih, wounding 26 people, said the head of regional administration, Serhii Lysak. The missile strike caused damage to an administrative building, at least five multistory residential buildings, and civilian vehicles.

The Russian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said in a statement that its air defense systems shot down two British-made Storm Shadow missiles, six HIMARS rockets, and 67 drones.

The statement didn’t say when or where the Storm Shadows were shot down or what they were targeting. Russia earlier reported downing some of the missiles over the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula.

More than 1,000 days into war, Russia has the upper hand, with its larger army advancing in Donetsk and Ukrainian civilians suffering from relentless drone and missile strikes.

Analysts and observers say that the loosening of restrictions on Ukraine's use of Western missiles is unlikely to change the the course of the war, but it puts the Russian army in a more vulnerable position and could complicate the logistics that are crucial in warfare. 

Putin has also warned that the move would mean that Russia and NATO are at war.

"It is an important move and it pulls against, undermines the narrative that Putin had been trying to establish that it was fine for Russia to rain down Iranian drones and North Korean missiles on Ukraine but a reckless escalation for Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons at legitimate targets in Russia," said Peter Ricketts, a former UK national security adviser who now sits in the House of Lords. 

And spews forth NATO bullshit!

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)

================================================================================================

Are Russia and Iran doing an end-around American and European sanctions?

This is from Facebook with nothing in the way of documentation, but it's an interesting possibility.

However, The Economist is carrying the story here; and The Moscow Times reports it here.

It's not surprising that western news sources are largely ignoring it, it doesn't fit the acceptable narrative.

Russia and Iran have announced a new rail and shipping route that will wipe out all American and EU sanctions.

Russia and Iran are building a new transcontinental railway trade route that stretches from the eastern edge of Europe to the Indian Ocean, a 3,000-kilometer passage beyond the reach of any foreign intervention.

The two countries are spending billions of dollars to expedite river freight and Caspian Sea-connected railways. Dozens of Russian and Iranian ships – including some subject to sanctions – are already en route.

It's an example of how competition between big powers is rapidly reshaping trade networks in a global economy bracing to collapse in rival blocs.

Don't worry folks, Americans will blow it up like Nord Stream II

The Media is the Message > How Society Really Works; GSFNC - Geo. Soros Fake News Co.; Tulsi Slams Admin Over Assange

..

Brilliant, unattributed analysis of why you should not trust

the mainstream intelligentsia, ever.

I'm not sure who wrote this, although I have my suspicions, but it is brilliant and one of the most accurate analyses of how society works in a fallen world.

Jeffrey writes:

The 1920s Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci was right about a lot of things. Hegemony is the idea that power structures persist because they control what people think about them. They don't persist because they are good, just, or beneficial. They persist because they control all the institutions which collectively create the narrative of society. Essentially the rich and powerful hire a High Priest Class, which consists of the best salesman and talkers that they can buy. The High Priests are given a cut, and the dissidents are harassed - to include prison, torture, or death if need be.

The upshot of this is that the intelligentsia of societies are rarely to be believed. People are led to believe that the intelligentsia have earned their positions on account of their wisdom and skills, and thus they are models spouting truth. In reality, they are bought off by the powerful. A Sports hero might rise because of his skills but his salary will be paid if he endorses a shoe or a beer or whatever. People know for their political thoughts, such as reporters and pundits, are paid almost entirely by the powerful to endorse the continuation of systems which have made them powerful. But whereas Nike won't try to destroy a player who won't endorse their shoes, the political game is much rougher. There is a great salary for going along and ostracization and far worse those that don't.

Therefore, in almost every society the elites are simply a caste of the best liars. Almost all societies have been tyrannies. And didn't every one of those tyrannies have an intelligentsia that supported it wholeheartedly?

You betcha.

All the smartest people in my society can't be wrong???  Think again.  

In every tyranny (i.e., almost all societies), the entire intelligentsia are whores who can't be believed. And they all have the degrees and titles and awards - bestowed not for truthfulness but for faithfully playing their role in upholding the powerful. Anyone who tells the truth about the nature of the tyranny has been ejected from the intelligentsia.

=============================================================================================

George Soros backs liberal media company with a mission

to counter fake news & promote ‘GOOD INFORMATION’

26 Oct, 2021 23:43 

©  goodinfo.us/screenshot

By Nebojsa Malic, senior writer at RT

The newest combatant in the US ‘disinformation’ wars is a media company bankrolled by Democrat mega-donors Reid Hoffman and George Soros, and run by an operative whose astroturfed local news outfit was actual misinformation.

Good Information, Inc. launched on Tuesday as “a civic incubator committed to investing in immediate solutions that counter disinformation and increase the flow of good information online.” According to Axios, it is bankrolled by LinkedIn co-founder Hoffman, Soros, as well as Silicon valley investors Ken and Jen Duda and Incite Ventures.

Tara McGowan, a former Democratic strategist who worked on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s 2012 and 2016 campaigns – and ran a progressive nonprofit called ACRONYM that spent a whopping $100 million on a digital ad campaign to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 – has been put in charge of the venture. 

I'm sure she will be truthful and unbiased!!!!

ACRONYM was a major investor in Shadow, the outfit that mangled the results of the Iowa Caucuses early on in the Democratic primary process, hurting the candidacy of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Another of its operations, Courier Newsroom, will be sold to Good Information for an undisclosed sum; McGowan reportedly recused herself from the deal. 

Ironically, Courier Newsroom was repeatedly called out as misinformation, including by NewsGuard – another major player in the “disinfo” wars – in the pages of the Washington Post no less.

“Courier Newsroom is a clandestine political operation,” wrote NewsGuard’s Gabby Deutch, who described it as “a different, more tech-savvy form of political misinformation.”

Courier and Acronym are “exploiting the widespread loss of local journalism to create and disseminate something we really don’t need: hyperlocal partisan propaganda,” Deutch added in a February 2020 article.

None of that prevented McGowan from gushing about her new venture as something that will fix the “broken, divisive information ecosystem in which we find ourselves today” that is “an all-hands-on-deck challenge for American democracy.”

“I still believe that winning elections is necessary to preserving our democracy,” she added. “But the information crisis is bigger than politics – and requires solutions beyond it.”

To prove that her new outfit won’t be a hyper-partisan Democrat operation, McGowan cited The Bulwark, “a center-right news site founded in opposition to Trumpism,” as an example of a conservative news outlet Good Information could support. Left unsaid is that the Bulwark are “conservatives” in name only, whose obsessive hatred of Trump has them endorsing just about every Democrat running for any office in the US. 

The new company’s advisory board tells a similar story, consisting of mainly Democrat activists advocating for censorship. One notable name that leaps out is Nandini Jammi, previously of the pressure group Sleeping Giants who then launched her own operation called Check My Ads. Jammi’s modus operandi is to contact advertisers and services used by people she disagrees with, and call them racist.

All of this, however, pales in comparison to the chief founder of the new venture. Namely, Hoffman publicly apologized in December 2018 for funding New Knowledge, a Democrat tech outfit advising the Senate Intelligence Committee on “Russian meddling” in US elections.

That’s because New Knowledge admitted to running a false-flag “Russian bot” campaign to get a Democrat elected in the special election for the Senate in Alabama the year prior. 

Again, the only actual meddling in US elections by ‘Russian bots’ turned out to be a false flag by a Democrat-run tech company. New Knowledge has since rebranded while its operatives moved up to bigger and better things – such as the Stanford Internet Observatory, another major “disinfo” player.

Soros, of course, is well known for lavishly funding Democrat candidates and causes, from backing California Governor Gavin Newsom against the recent recall initiative to dropping massive quantities of cash into local elections for district attorneys in major US cities and counties over the past several years.

More recently, he has pivoted to condemning “false and misleading information” allegedly proliferating online.

========================================================================================

‘Another nail in the coffin of democracy’: Tulsi Gabbard slams

Biden administration’s ‘crusade’ against Julian Assange

28 Oct, 2021 19:13

© Reuters / Henry Nicholls

Former Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has called out the “Biden-Garland administration” for its “vindictive retaliatory crusade against Julian Assange,” warning it was a slippery slope to the demise of American democracy.

“If they succeed in [extraditing Assange], this will be yet another nail in the coffin of democracy here in our country and around the world,” Gabbard warned in a video posted to social media on Thursday. 

The Democratic representative slammed what she referred to as the “increasingly authoritarian Biden-Garland administration,” dodging any mention of Vice President Kamala Harris in favor of Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Gabbard’s dislike of the VP is well known and her debate-stage takedown of Harris’ controversial record as attorney general of California is pointed to by some as the moment the senator's own presidential campaign went up in flames.

In its continued persecution of Assange, Gabbard declared, the Biden administration was “doubling down on its crusade against our constitutionally protected rights,” specifically those protected by the First Amendment: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press. 

The clip came just a day after prosecutors issued a series of “binding” assurances aimed at defusing concerns over the WikiLeaks publisher’s mental health were he to end up in a US prison. Assange’s attorneys have said they fear he might commit suicide if extradited to the US, where he faces a sentence of up to 175 years in jail on charges related to obtaining and publishing classified government and military documents. 

A group of civil-liberties campaigners co-signed a letter earlier this month urging Garland to drop the charges against Assange as the US’ efforts to extradite him continue. While UK judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled in January that the publisher could not be extradited due to concerns regarding his mental health, Washington on Wednesday put forth a number of conditions apparently aimed at assuaging such concerns. 

Assange would receive “any clinical and psychological treatment” recommended by prison doctors and would not be sent to the US “super-max” prison ADX Florence, nor would he be sentenced to a restrictive form of solitary confinement unless he committed a “further offense” – a nebulously defined qualification that has raised eyebrows among his supporters. Additionally, he could apply to serve his sentence in his native Australia rather than in the US. 

However, Assange’s lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald QC, dismissed the conditions as “caveated, vague, or simply ineffective,” including the offer to serve his sentence in Australia, which has not consented to housing him.

Amnesty International also blasted the so-called assurances as “not worth the paper they’re written on,” saying they were not, in fact, legally binding. 

The WikiLeaks co-founder has been locked up at Belmarsh Prison since April 2019, after he was dragged out of London’s Ecuadorian Embassy by police. He had been granted asylum by former president Rafael Correa in 2012, only for Correa’s successor Lenín Moreno to permit British law enforcement agents to enter the diplomatic mission to arrest Assange on arguably defunct charges of bail-jumping.

Gabbard’s condemnation of the Biden administration over its continuation of its predecessor’s pursuit of Assange was criticized by some, who recalled the Hawaii congresswoman’s endorsement of the Democrat for president during the 2020 election.

War Against Christians and Jews > Media Weeps for Palestinians; Ignores Genocide of Christians in Africa

 Media Weeps for Palestinians, Ignore Genocide of Christians in Africa

05/26/2021

by Raymond Ibrahim

Christian mourners bury their dead following an attack in 2018

If all human lives are equally valuable, as the so-called “mainstream media” pretend, why do they highlight some while completely ignoring others?

Take the recent Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  For two weeks, day after day, hour after hour, the media showed emotionally-charged videos, pictures, and provided regular updates of Palestinian lives lost, with 248 being the most recent figure.

If the average American was asked why the media so dwelled on this conflict, including by providing regular and updated statistics, their response would likely be that any human death is a terrible and therefore newsworthy matter—hence the media are only doing their job, objectively and fairly.

But if that was really the case, why do the media completely ignore so much other suffering and death—often exponentially worse than what the Palestinians experienced in both quality and quantity—around the world?

Consider the ongoing genocide of Christians in Nigeria, for example.  In that west African nation, 248 is about the number of Christians killed by Muslims every few weeks, going back for some two decades now.  According to the most recent report, between January and April of this year alone, 1,470 Christians were hacked to death.  On average this comes out to about 368 Christians killed every month for four months straight.

According to a more general report, “Not less than 32,000 Christians have been butchered to death by the country’s main Jihadists” between just 2009 and the first quarter of 2020; 13,000 churches were additionally destroyed by “Allahu Akbar” screaming Muslims since just 2016.

So, those numbers work out to almost 3000 Christians slaughtered per year in the previous decade, and about 2600 churches being destroyed in each of the past 4 or 5 years. I have never heard of the IDF levelling a single mosque in Gaza or the West Bank. They even protect Muslims worshipping at Al-Aqsa Mosque from Jews who want to worship at the site of Solomon's temple. Yet, Palestinians and most media let on that Israel's presence has some sinister objective.

It is only slightly better for Christians in other sub-Saharan nations: in Mozambique, the Central African Republic, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burkina Faso, Muslims are terrorizing and slaughtering Christians, and have been for many years now.

Yet one expects that only a tiny, miniscule percentage of those Americans who heard about the Palestinians ever heard about the slaughter of tens of thousands of Christians all throughout Africa, since the media seldom report on and certainly never dwell on the latter.

This is all the more irresponsible considering that the reason Christians are being brutally slaughtered—because they are Christians, because Muslims are taught to hate and subjugate the “other”—is certainly more newsworthy, than, say, why Palestinians get killed (terrorism crackdowns and other mundane factors).

Is the media racist, then?  Do black lives not matter?

In fact, no lives intrinsically matter for the media; only those that can help push a certain narrative have any value for and are therefore worth reporting by the media.  And, increasingly, wherever one looks, that narrative is about demonizing the innocent and/or law-abiding and exonerating the guilty and/or law-breaking.

Thus, every year in America, several thousand blacks, including children, are tragically killed by other blacks (324,000 between just 1979 and 2014).   The media could care less.  Yet, when one black man, George Floyd, was inadvertently killed during an arrest, the media went ballistic in an effort to further the narrative that all police are “racist.”

Of course, the media never cared about George Floyd; they only cared about using him to demonize the police, whose job it is to maintain law and order.

Similarly, the media do not care about the Palestinians; they only care about using them to demonize Israel, which is also trying to maintain law and order, including by defending itself against nonstop terrorist attacks from its Muslim neighbors.

From here, one also understands why it is that when the shoe is on the other foot—when the guilty butcher the innocent, as Muslims are doing to Christians, not because they are trying to maintain law and order, but because they hate “infidels”—the media is silent:  that status quo is apparently fine as is and requires no attention, certainly no amelioration.

Curious Change of Narrative from NATO regarding Russia; Why?

NATO changes tone: Chief of US-led bloc tells EU officials its members face ‘no imminent military threat’ from Russia or China

15 Mar, 2021 18:43

Russian and Chinese marines taking part in joint excercises in Russia's Far East. © Sputnik / Vitaliy Ankov

There is no imminent threat of a military attack from Russia – or China – against any NATO member states, but the bloc’s very existence is the main reason for this situation, its Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has told the EU.

Stoltenberg made the statement – somewhat unusual given NATO’s typically harsh anti-Russia rhetoric – during an address to the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs on Monday.

“I was asked about whether I see any threat against NATO allies from China or from Russia. I don't see any imminent threat of a military attack against any NATO ally,” he said.

“But one reason for that is that we have NATO” and its system of “all for one and one for all” collective defense, the Secretary General said – a reference to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which stipulates that an attack on one member state triggers a response from the whole alliance.

"That's one of the main reasons why we’ve been able to preserve peace in Europe for more than 70 years,” he insisted.

However, one shouldn’t expect a major shift in NATO’s relations with Moscow and Beijing, as Stoltenberg still lamented what he called “Russia’s destabilizing behavior” and “the rise of China” among the main security challenges for the bloc – along with terrorism, cyberattacks and climate change.

Last month, the NATO head insisted that the military alliance of 30 European states and the North American countries would be “glad” to cooperate with Russia, but was also “ready” for a confrontation if the need arises. He also called for more funds to be allocated to boost the bloc’s presence near Russia’s borders.

That's called 'Empire Building'! And it is the greatest threat to peace in Europe as NATO seeks to virtually surround Russia with NATO-friendly countries. This is completely against the spirit of the agreement between Russia and NATO when Gorbachev broke up the Soviet Union. 

Tensions between NATO and Moscow have been running high since 2014 when Crimea rejoined Russia following a referendum, which the West refuses to recognise, amid the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The bloc responded by deploying more troops and military hardware in Eastern Europe, while sharply intensifying aerial and naval patrols in the region.

Contrary to repeated claims from Poland, the Baltic States and others, Moscow has denied harboring aggressive intentions against any NATO members – and has labeled the alliance’s buildup and military games on its doorstep as a major security threat for the continent, arguing that it only increases the chances of real conflict.

This is a real, or, at least apparent turn-around from the relentless demonizing of Russia by NATO, UK, US, and several EU countries. How are they going to sell weapons systems to Russia's neighbours with a message like that?

Is this message showing concern about the growing relationship between Russia and China? Are they trying to slow that down? 

Or is he just trying to cool the rhetoric, like the article below?

Biden White House resorting to ‘siege of Russia’ by sending troops to NATO borders & ships to Black Sea – leading Moscow senator

15 Mar, 2021 10:59

FILE PHOTO: US servicemen participating in the Saber Strike exercises in Estonia. © Sputnik

With little prospect of scoring a decisive military victory over Russia, Washington is increasingly locked into a strategy of surrounding the world’s largest country with its forces, one of Moscow’s top politicians has claimed.

Aleksey Pushkov, a senator and former head of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, argued in comments on Telegram on Friday that the White House was struggling to demonstrate the tough stance it had promised against the Kremlin, because it had run out of viable options.

“The hesitation about Russia in Washington is evident,” he said, “not because there is a tactical pause, or as a negotiating tactic – [President Joe] Biden is in no mood to negotiate with Russia at all – but for another reason.”

While the new US leader has slammed his predecessor for supposedly making concessions to Moscow, Biden has since found that “the potential for hostility towards Moscow has been almost entirely mobilized by [former president Donald] Trump, both bilaterally and through NATO,” Pushkov wrote.

The senator believes that there are only three possible options for the White House if it seeks to make good on those election promises and strike an even tougher note against Russia.

“Sanctions from hell,” such as the still unapproved package proposed in 2018 by a group of senators including John McCain and Lindsey Graham, “would hit US and European investors, and bring US relations with Russia to a dangerous line, as with Iran,” he argued. “Only Russia is not Iran.”

The second option, Pushkov argues, would be to “push Ukraine into a new war in the Donbass, with US support.” However, the politician says, Kiev’s starting position in the region is unfavorable and it is hard to see how it could change its fortunes. So, he added, “it is not in the US plans to interfere in hostilities on the side of Ukraine.”

Finally, the only remaining option Biden has to punish Russia would be “building up the armed forces on the borders with Russia and in the Black Sea,” Pushkov claims. But, far from being a departure from his predecessor’s policies, “this is simply a continuation of the US’ previous approach under Trump.”

“For these reasons,” he said, “Biden’s toughness on Russia has so far been largely rhetorical. There will be anti-Russian actions, but their aim will be a prolonged siege of ‘Putin’s Russia’ rather than a set of abrupt and risky steps that could bring the situation to the brink of military conflict.”

Russia has already warned that increased activity by NATO members near its borders could lead to disaster, with the US-led bloc staging a series of exercises and flybys across the frontier. Russia’s Deputy Minister of Defense Alexander Fomin said that, throughout 2020, NATO air and naval presence “has increased significantly, and situations that can lead to serious incidents are increasingly emerging.”

Last week, the Kremlin expressed concern at reports in the New York Times which claimed that the White House was mulling “a series of clandestine actions” aimed at Moscow. The steps, it said, were intended as a response to the SolarWinds hack for which Washington holds Russia responsible. President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that “the fact that the newspaper doesn’t rule out that the American state could be involved in cybercrime is definitely of great concern to us.”

Who We Are, Why We're Digging: Team Probing Syrian War & Skripal Poisoning Case Reveal All

Chemical attack victim Yulia Skripal, who was poisoned in Salisbury with her father, ex-Russian spy Sergei. © facebook.com/julia.skripal / Global Look Press

Dismissed in the press, the academics behind the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media have found few outlets for their research. Despite this, they have extended their studies from the Syrian war to the Skripal case.

Made up of 15 academics, researchers, and PhD candidates across the UK, the group was established to "facilitate research into the areas of organised, persuasive communication (including propaganda and information operations)... with respect to the 2011-present conflict in Syria, including related topics."

So far, the group has been slammed by the media, including a hit piece in The Times that accused the group of "spreading pro-Assad disinformation and conspiracy theories." Others have praised their work for questioning mainstream narratives and providing pluralism.

Which, of course, is much worse than the anti-Assad disinformation and conspiracy theories spread by the Times and other MSM. Except that the group is actually interested in the truth and the MSM is not.

Sheffield University Professor of Politics, Society and Political Journalism Piers Robinson took aim at The Times' accusations on Twitter, retweeting a comment suggesting that the paper's actions were akin to a "McCarthyite witch hunt at the exact moment that the UK is illegally bombing," in reference to the UK's recent participation in the airstrikes on Syrian government facilities.

Robinson spoke following the release of the group's most recent investigative analysis, an "update on the Salisbury poisonings." Robinson said that the UK government's theory that the chemical smeared on the front door was what led to the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, was an unlikely scenario.

"Our briefing notes that it is implausible that exposure to a nerve agent on the front door could have caused both Skripals to collapse suddenly and simultaneously at least three hours later," he said, declining to enter into speculation about other possible scenarios. "Our concern is about what the evidence shows, not what we think," he said.

The paper did note, however, that there were obvious possible motives for actors other than the Russian state to assassinate Sergei Skripal in early 2018. "The UK's case that 'only Russia' had such a motive does not stand up to critical examination," it read.

Robinson did have his own questions for the UK government. "Why will they not reveal the identity of the compound, what is known of its toxicity and how to treat it, and what is known of how to deal with contamination? This information is needed in case any more attacks occur," he said.

See: questions-need-answering for more questions.

"What steps has the UK government taken to rebut the Russian suggestion that Yulia Skripal is being isolated against her will," Robinson questioned. "For instance, why not allow a neutral lawyer or diplomat to take a deposition from her that she has freely chosen to isolate herself from her family and from social media?"

Fellow member, Leicester University International Relations Lecturer Dr Tara McCormack slammed The Times' hit piece, labelling it "a hatchet job on me and other colleagues who are against [Syrian] intervention."

SPM member and Professor of Environmental Political Theory at Edinburgh University Tim Hayward echoed the sentiments laid out by his working group colleague. Referencing the questionable veracity of the Douma attack, Hayward said "such claims have been questioned by many people, including senior British military figures. The fact that people who aim to provide support to the questioning are attacked in a major news outlet is itself a matter of concern."

Professor Hayward told The Express in April that the group was not pro-Assad at all, having only released one paper at the time… on the Skirpal poisoning. "Members of the working group have so far published just one item, a research note on the poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury," Hayward said.

"Although still work in progress, the piece, [an] update to briefing note 'Doubts about Novichoks,' has been well received by academics and serious commentators. It has been singled out by Cornell University's Professor of Organic Chemistry David B. Collum as the most definitive work on the Novichok nerve agent scandal.

And, perhaps, the only definitive work... 

"According to The Times, the group is 'spreading pro-Assad disinformation.' In fact, the group is scrupulous in its analysis and presentation, which stands always open to correction, as any academic work in progress does. The group is not 'pro-Assad.'"

MSM are incredulous that people simply don't trust them anymore. Yet here is an example of how modern MSM has deteriorated. It is no longer interested in finding the truth, but reacts almost violently when someone questions the politically correct narrative. They attack the person rather than the evidence, because they cannot attack the evidence lest they reveal themselves for the fools they are. 

Is it a deterioration of MSM, or is it a complete betrayal of their responsibility to seek out the truth. When MSM chooses sides before they even investigate, they are traitors to the truth and to their readers.

I'm so glad that there are pockets of people who see through the lies and reveal the real conspiracies.