Talks in Turkey Fail

Talks between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov & his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in Turkey failed.  No agreement was reached on a ceasefire or anything else. The talks, which only lasted about 90 minutes, were described as “difficult.” Lavrov said that a future meeting between Putin and Zelensky was possible but must be substantive.

Russia Requests Emergency Meeting at UN Security Council

It was reported today that Russia has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council for tomorrow regarding “biological programmes.”  According to CBS News:

The Friday meeting was announced by Russia’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky in a tweet linking to the Russian Ministry of Defense, claiming analysis of documents about U.S. “military biological activities” in Ukraine, with a half-dozen documents attached with graphs and charts.

The U.S. is ridiculing the move, referring to it as a “false flag” action:

In a comment sent to CBS News, Olivia Dalton, spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said, “We’re not going to let Russia gaslight the world or use the UN Security Council as a venue for promoting their disinformation.”

…. “This is exactly the kind of false flag effort we have warned Russia might initiate to justify a biological or chemical weapons attack,” she said.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki referred to the accusations implicit in Russia’s request as “preposterous” and Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said they were “absurd.”

Russia Says it Will Nationalize Assets of Western Businesses That Left Russia, Domestic Substitution for McDonalds

RT reported that Russia is considering nationalizing the assets of 59 western businesses who’ve pulled out of the country.  The list includes Toyota, VW, Shell, IKEA, Apple, and Microsoft.  The list will likely grow according to Oleg Pavlov of the Public Consumer Initiative (OPI):

The list isn’t final, Oleg Pavlov, the group’s head, told the outlet, adding that the police, the Trade Ministry and consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor will also be involved in work to expand it.

“As soon as companies emerge that announce their withdrawal [from the Russian market] without providing guarantees to the Russian consumers, they’re being added on to it. This means that administrative, criminal and court proceedings will be used against them,” the OPI chief said.

The blacklisted foreign firms could be subject to seizure of accounts and assets, may be placed under external management, or face nationalization, Pavlov pointed out. Nationalization refers to the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public ones under the control of a government.

OPI has also warned the administrations of the listed firms about possible criminal liability over intentional bankruptcy and large-scale fraud.

Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin, head of Norilsk Nickel, expressed his disapproval of the policy according to Interfax News:

A cautious approach needs to be taken towards confiscating the enterprises of companies that have said they are pulling out of Russia, Vladimir Potanin, the head of Norilsk Nickel, said in comments distributed by the mining giant’s press office.

“This would throw us back a hundred years, to 1917, and we would feel the consequences of such a move – global mistrust of Russia on the part of investors – for many decades to come,” he said.

The mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, has declared that domestic restaurant chains could replace around 250 closed McDonald’s restaurants in Moscow within a year, utilizing domestic supply chains and seeking to employ most of the Russians who previously worked at the American burger chain.

Meanwhile, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell admitted today in an interview with a French outlet that economic sanctions that the EU could impose on Russia had been exhausted:  “Of course, one can always go further, but we have already reached the limits of what we can do. We have done everything we could.”

Interfax News reported that Putin commented on sanctions the same day:

The sanctions against Russia were inevitable, & the country will cope with them & rise to the challenge, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday. “I have no doubt that these sanctions would have been imposed one way or another anyway, just as they have been over many past years.”

Xenophobia Toward Russia Still Hasn’t Hit Bottom Yet

Reuters is reporting that Facebook/Meta has changed its policy on hate speech to allow calls for violence against Russian soldiers and other Russians in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as to call for the assassination of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko:

Meta Platforms (FB.O) will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters on Thursday, in a temporary change to its hate speech policy.

The social media company is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, according to internal emails to its content moderators.

“As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders.’ We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

The calls for the leaders’ deaths will be allowed unless they contain other targets or have two indicators of credibility, such as the location or method, one email said, in a recent change to the company’s rules on violence and incitement.

In other censorship news, Twitter suspended the popular account ASBMilitary, which had around 200,000 followers and reported information on the Ukraine war, including claims by Russian government sources. They are still posting on Telegram and have reportedly said they are appealing the suspension which was done with a “vague” explanation.

A Ray of Hope on Clamor for No-Fly Zone

78 people have signed on to an open letter opposing a no-fly zone in Ukraine, according to an article published at Politico.  This is three times as many signatories as the letter I mentioned days ago asking the Biden administration to employ a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Signatories include Andrew Bacevich, Jack Matlock, Thomas Pickering, and Anatol Lieven.

Robby Soave denounces Russophobia after the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra cancelled a concert featuring the music of 19th century composer, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

From MintPress News YouTube Channel

State Department official Victoria Nuland admitted on Tuesday that the US government is funding biological laboratories in Ukraine. But what happens behind closed doors? Correspondent Dan Cohen interviews journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, who has investigated these facilities in Eastern Europe. Read Dilyana Gaytandzhieva’s reporting on Pentagon-funded biological laboratories here:

http://dilyana.bg/documents-expose-us…

http://dilyana.bg/us-diplomats-involv…

https://youtu.be/_8hQi2Zv1L0

@Behind The Headlines with Dan Cohen

As the article below states, these documents released by the Russian government have not yet been independently verified, but it’s important for us to know about them. Also, it’s useful to know that, as Clint Ehrlich said last night (he’s been following Russian domestic media): “It’s impossible to overstate how much press this story is currently getting in Russia. I’m hearing massive chatter from my contacts there about how Ukraine was planning a giant offensive to retake the Donbas – and how the DNR & LNR would have been crushed.” – Natylie

By RT, 3/9/22

Secret Ukrainian documents captured by the Russian military allegedly prove that Kiev was planning a major offensive against its breakaway eastern regions in March, which Moscow preempted with its own attack. Russia’s Ministry of Defense published the purported evidence on Wednesday.

The release includes images of six pages, which are claimed to have been captured in Ukraine. Written in Ukrainian and bearing the traits of official paperwork, they appear to be classified communications of the Ukrainian National Guard. RT is unable to independently verify the documents.

According to the papers, in late January, National Guard Commander Colonel General Mykola Balan ordered at least some units under his command to boost their capabilities for warfighting against the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

Various parts of the preparation had to be completed throughout February, with a final deadline of February 28, according to the documents. The measures were ordered based on an instruction purportedly issued by President Volodymyr Zelensky on January 18. The presidential website does not list a document that the papers released by Moscow refer to.

The Russian military claimed the documents provide clear indication that Kiev was planning to launch a major offensive against the rebels sometime in March. It pointed out that the commander apparently stressed the need to screen soldiers based on their mental state, including the capacity to take risks when carrying out orders.

“We remember well the statements by the Kiev regime, which the Western media disseminated in February, claiming there were no plans for a military takeover of [the breakaway republics], their determination to resolve all issues through diplomacy,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said during a briefing on Wednesday.

“But the originals of the secret combat documents of the National Guard of Ukraine conclusively prove that those statements were false,” he stated.

The official said the Russian military operation preempted a major Ukrainian attack against Donetsk and Lugansk, which the ministry believes would have started in March.

He added the only question that remains to be answered is to what degree, if any, Western nations participated in the planning. NATO nations have been training and arming the Ukrainian National Guard for years, Konashenkov said.

Russia attacked Ukraine in late February, days after recognizing the two breakaway regions as sovereign nations and pledging to defend them with force. Among other things, Moscow claimed the invasion was necessary to stop hostilities between government and rebel forces, which have continued since 2014, and the deaths of civilians amid the fighting.

Kiev and its foreign backers called the Russian attack unprovoked. The US and its allies imposed crippling economic sanctions against Russia, stating that the damage that their own economies would suffer as a result was a price worth paying to defend Ukraine.

Note: I have no opinion on whether what the Russian military spokesman said in his recent remarks, discussed by Doctorow below, are true or untrue. But I think it’s important that we know what he said. – Natylie

By Gilbert Doctorow, 3/7/22

In recent days, in what is surely a coordinated action by NATO and European authorities acting hand in glove, Russian news broadcasters have been taken off servers in Europe and effectively made inaccessible to the entire European public. This modern day “jamming” concerns not just RT or Sputnik, the best known state owned voices of Russia because they broadcast in English and other languages that we all know, but virtually every news outlet based in Russia, public and privately owned, and broadcasting in the Russian language.

In this regard, EU Member States are waging an Information War of greatest significance that is absolutely not mentioned, let alone discussed in Western media, whether mainstream or otherwise. The victim is the European public, which, if bad turns to worse, will not know what hit them and why when cruise or hypersonic missiles descend on NATO bases or infrastructure. This enforced silence prevents Western civil society from taking any steps to save its own neck in what have become wartime conditions on the Continent.

The blockage is not uniformly enforced at all times, so that some Russian print and video producers can be accessed at one moment or another before going black.

In particular, one vitally important 3.30 minute video of Russian military spokesman Igor Konoshenkov yesterday and this morning remains accessible on youtube. I will detail below what he was saying, because the messenger and the message concern whether you and I will live to see another day.

Konoshenkov’s points in this video were the following:

1) Russia has now destroyed the entire Ukrainian air force that remained within the confines of Ukraine

2) There are also Ukrainian fighter jets that left the country and are now parked in Romania and other neighboring countries. If these planes are allowed by local authorities to take off from Romania, etc. and enter Ukrainian air space, Russia will consider the country from which they took off as a co-belligerent and will take appropriate action against them. The subtext is that Russia is ready to make missile strikes against NATO airfields that transgress the rules of war.

3) Russia is now about to destroy all military industrial complex factories in Ukraine and has formally warned all employees of these factories to leave the premises and stay away

4) Russia has received documentation from Ukrainian health authorities on the production of biological weapons (anthrax, Siberian plague and much more) by Ukrainian labs in Kharkiv and elsewhere in cooperation with the United States. Stocks of such weapons were being stored in direct violation of international conventions. On 24 February, in advance of the start of Russia’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, the Ukrainian health authorities destroyed these illicit biological weapons. However, Russia has obtained the official documentation certifying this destruction of what should never have been there. Moscow is now studying this documentation, which indicates United States participation in the development of the biological weapons and will publish the incriminating documents, starting from yesterday.

(Note: Victoria Nuland of the State Department testified about this yesterday before congress, acknowledging that biolabs did/do exist in Ukraine)

U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland says Washington is working with Ukraine to prevent biological research facilities from falling into Russian hands. She just confirmed every conspiracy theory about the existence of those labs. pic.twitter.com/ynkd7hW6iK

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 8, 2022

5) Russia has also obtained documentation proving that Ukraine, in cooperation with the United States, was since the presidency of Petro Petrushenko, actively developing nuclear weapons, including “dirty” nuclear devices using readily available fuel from its reactors. Such activity was going on in the Zaporozhye nuclear plants, and it is very likely that the fire reported at a ‘training unit’ adjacent to an active reactor two days ago related to destruction of incriminating papers, if it was not otherwise a ‘false flag’ operation to allege a Russian attack on the power station, in violation of international law.

From this list, the most threatening to European peace in the immediate days ahead is point 2, regarding Ukrainian aircraft based outside of Ukraine and being assigned missions to fly back into Ukrainian air space to thwart Russia’s ongoing military offensive. This bears directly on the patently insane plans of Secretary of State Blinken to allow the Poles to transfer to Kiev, its stock of Soviet era MIGs for missions into Ukraine.

As regards American involvement in the illicit production of biological weapons and of dirty or other types of nuclear arms, we may expect very heated discussions in the United Nations and other forums in coming days.

In the context of the Russian recovery of incriminating documentation that exposes foreign aiders and abetters of Ukraine’s hoped for but not yet achieved production of weapons of mass destruction, it is entirely possible that this explains the sudden and unanticipated flight to Moscow of Israel’s President Bennett two days ago for urgent consultations with President Putin. So far accusations of foreign participation are directed solely against the United States.

The link to Konoshenkov’s briefing yesterday afternoon (only in Russian language):