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Putin’s Billionaire Confidante, Wagner Mercenary Chief, Brands West ‘Pathetic Endangered Perverts’

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Yevgeny Prigozhin, thought to finance the private military company Wagner Group, declared the West a “pathetic endangered bunch of perverts” in a blistering rant. Mr Prigozhin, a billionaire with close relations to the Russian president, told The Guardian: “You are a dying-out western civilisation that considers Russians, Malians, Central Africans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and many other peoples and countries to be third world scum.

“Remember, this is not true …. You are a pathetic endangered bunch of perverts, and there are many of us, billions of us. And victory will be ours.”

Mr Prigozhin has been called ‘Putin’s chef’ due to his history of catering for the Russian dictator.

The businessman has built up a food empire within Russia, having been awarded contracts by the state to supply dinners to schools and also to Russian soldiers.

However, the billionaire is also alleged to own the private militia Wagner Group, which came to global prominence during the war in Donbas in Ukraine in 2014. (Read more from “Putin’s Billionaire Confidante, Wagner Mercenary Chief, Brands West ‘Pathetic Endangered Perverts’” HERE)

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Graphic Image Appears to Show Bodies of Russian Soldiers in ‘Z’ Shape After Ukraine Recaptures Village

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A grisly image has emerged purportedly showing bodies of Russian soldiers arranged in the letter “Z” after Ukraine’s military recaptured a village in the country’s east.

The photo was taken Monday outside the city of Kharkiv and shows four corpses lined up to form the letter that has become a sign of support for Russia’s military and its invasion of Ukraine.

[Warning: graphic content.]

The Associated Press described the area where its photographer took the image as having “the feel of an open-air morgue, where the dead lie unclaimed and unexplained, sometimes for weeks on end, as Ukrainian and Russian forces fight for control of slivers of land.” (Read more from “Graphic Image Appears to Show Bodies of Russian Soldiers in ‘Z’ Shape After Ukraine Recaptures Village” HERE)

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Pope Francis Says NATO Started War in Ukraine by ‘Barking at Putin’s Door’

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Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Pope Francis has floated the idea that he wants to take a trip to Kyiv to try to broker a ceasefire. But now he says he would prefer to go to Moscow to try to talk some sense into Vladimir Putin, who he has not outwardly condemned in the now nearly three-month-old war and only did so lightly in a lengthy interview with an Italian newspaper.

“I feel that before going to Kyiv, I must go to Moscow,” he told Corriere Della Sera in an interview that ran Tuesday. But the meeting would not exactly be to condemn Putin, based on what he told the paper. He said that the real “scandal” of Putin’s war is “NATO barking at Russia’s door,” which he said caused the Kremlin to “react badly and unleash the conflict.” . . .

“I don’t know how to answer—I’m too far away—the question of whether it is right to supply the Ukrainians,” he told the paper. “The clear thing is that weapons are being tested there. The Russians now know that tanks are of little use and are thinking of other things. This is why wars are waged: to test the weapons we have produced. Few people are fighting this trade, but more should be done.” . . .

Francis veered toward conspiracy theory as he blamed the international community for instigating the war. “You cannot think that a free state can make war on another free state,” he said. “In Ukraine, it seems that it was others who created the conflict. I am pessimistic but we must do everything possible to stop the war.” The pope then said that in a state visit to Rome by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, he was told “the Russians have a plan, that everything will end on May 9” without giving any further explanation. May 9 is the day Russia celebrates its liberation and the end of World War II. (Read more from “Pope Francis Says NATO Started War in Ukraine by ‘Barking at Putin’s Door’” HERE)

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Pentagon Officials Haven’t Contacted Russian Counterparts in ‘Several Weeks’

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Top U.S. military leaders have not attempted to reach their Russian counterparts in “several weeks” after their previous efforts were rebuffed.

The United States had repeatedly tried to arrange conversations between Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and his Russian counterpart, Chief of Russian General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov, as well as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his counterpart, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, but they have not spoken since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.

Milley’s spokesperson confirmed to the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that the Joint Chiefs haven’t reached out to set up a call between Milley and Gerasimov in “several weeks.”

“It’s been quite some time — certainly, many weeks — since we’ve attempted another communication with Minister Shoigu,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday. “And there has not been much interest shown by the Russians in having that conversation.”

Milley’s last conversation with Gerasimov took place Feb. 11, and Joint Staff spokesman Col. Dave Butler said at the time, “The military leaders discussed several security-related issues of concern. In accordance with past practice, both have agreed to keep the specific details of their conversation private.” (Read more from “Pentagon Officials Haven’t Contacted Russian Counterparts in ‘Several Weeks'” HERE)

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Big Tech Censoring of Ukraine War Goes Into Hyperdrive

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Google has sent a warning shot across the world, ominously informing media outlets, bloggers, and content creators that it will no longer tolerate certain opinions when it comes to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

[In April], Google AdSense sent a message to a myriad of publishers, including [this article’s original publisher,] MintPress News, informing us that, “Due to the war in Ukraine, we will pause monetization of content that exploits, dismisses, or condones the war.” This content, it went on to say, “includes, but is not limited to, claims that imply victims are responsible for their own tragedy or similar instances of victim-blaming, such as claims that Ukraine is committing genocide or deliberately attacking its own citizens.”

This builds on a similar message Google’s subsidiary YouTube released [in March], stating, “Our Community Guidelines prohibit content denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events. We are now removing content about Russia’s invasion in Ukraine that violates this policy.” YouTube went on to say that it had already permanently banned more than a thousand channels and 15,000 videos on these grounds. . .

Journalist and filmmaker Abby Martin was deeply troubled by the news. “It is really disturbing that this is the trend that we are on” . . .

[And journalist Chris Hedges wrote,] “Censorship is the last resort of desperate and unpopular regimes. It magically appears to make a crisis go away. It comforts the powerful with the narrative they want to hear, one fed back to them by courtiers in the media, government agencies, think tanks, and academia.” (Read more from “Big Tech Censoring of Ukraine War Goes Into Hyperdrive” HERE)

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Ukraine Accuses Russia of Blackmail With Plan to Halt Gas to Poland

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Kyiv accused Russia of blackmailing Europe by cutting off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria as the crisis in Ukraine deepened, with tensions surging in nearby Moldova and Moscow warning the West to back off.

NATO member and staunch Kremlin opponent Poland is among the European countries seeking the toughest possible sanctions against Russia for its invasion. Fellow alliance member Bulgaria is almost completely reliant on Russian gas imports.

Poland’s state-owned PGNiG (PGN.WA) said supplies from energy giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM) via Ukraine and Belarus will be cut at 0800CET (0600GMT) on Wednesday, but Warsaw said it did not need to draw on reserves and its gas storage was 76% full.

“The gas system in Poland is balanced and customers can feel safe,” Minister in Charge of Energy Security Piotr Naimski said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on “unfriendly” countries to pay for gas imports in roubles, a move only a few buyers have implemented so far. (Read more from “Ukraine Accuses Russia of Blackmail With Plan to Halt Gas to Poland” HERE)

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Newly Obtained Emails Raise Questions About Department of Defense Involvement in Spygate

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After spending weeks dismissing concerns about its work with Russia hoax-connected researchers, a newly discovered email from The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to a Georgia Tech researcher with the subject line “Mueller case” casts doubt on DARPA’s denials.

Last month, The Federalist first reported that an email exchange obtained from Georgia Tech pursuant to a Right-to-Know request indicated that Special Counsel John Durham’s office was investigating the Democrat National Committee hack. Manos Antonakakis, the Georgia Tech researcher branded “Researcher-1” in the special counsel’s indictment of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, penned the email shortly after being questioned by one of Durham’s top prosecutors.

The special counsel’s office charged Sussmann last fall with lying to the FBI’s general counsel, James Baker, when Sussmann provided Baker with data and white papers supposedly showing the existence of a secret communications network between the Donald Trump campaign and the Russian-based Alfa Bank. The Sussmann indictment also revealed that the Georgia Tech researchers, since identified as Antonakakis and David Dagon, “were receiving and analyzing Internet data in connection with a pending federal government cybersecurity research contract.”

The then-unidentified government contract originated with DARPA, with DARPA eventually awarding Georgia Tech more than $17 million for the project dubbed “Rhamnousia,” after the mythical Greek goddess of divine retribution, Rhamnous. (Read more from “Newly Obtained Emails Raise Questions About Department of Defense Involvement in Spygate” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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US a ‘Co-Belligerent’ in Ukraine War, Legal Expert Says

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Conversations over the past week with current and former US officials about whether, to their knowledge, there is any real debate inside President Joe Biden’s administration over the approach it is taking in Ukraine has produced only slight variations of the same answer: “Not really.”

As of now, what the Biden policy amounts to is a replay along the lines of president Franklin D Roosevelt’s policy toward the war in Europe from 1939 to December 1941, during which the US was a co-belligerent all but in name.

In their public statements, Biden and his Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin seem intent on obfuscating the true extent of American involvement. A story in the defense-industry-sponsored Politico quoted unnamed US officials as saying “military options in Ukraine aren’t on the table – echoing Biden’s repeated position of not wanting to spark World War III.” . . .

But US involvement goes deeper than arms sales and intelligence sharing. A Pentagon official who requested anonymity told me it is “likely we have a limited footprint on the ground in Ukraine, but under Title 50, not Title 10,” meaning US intelligence operatives and paramilitaries – but not regular military.

Bruce Fein, a constitutional expert and former associate attorney general in the Ronald Reagan administration, told me this week that in his view, “the United States and several NATO members have become co-belligerents with Ukraine against Russia by systematic and massive assistance to its military forces to defeat Russia.” (Read more from “Us a ‘Co-Belligerent’ in Ukraine War, Legal Expert Says” HERE)

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‘Food for Thought’: Putin’s Chilling Message as Russia Conducts Test of New Nuclear Weapon

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Russia’s Defense Ministry announced Wednesday that it has conducted the first test launch of its new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile – a nuclear weapon that President Vladimir Putin says will “provide food for thought for those who… try to threaten our country.”

The ministry said the missile was launched Wednesday from the Plesetsk launch facility in northern Russia and its practice warheads hit designated targets at the Kura firing range on the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula.

“This truly unique weapon will strengthen the combat potential of our armed forces, reliably ensure Russia’s security from external threats and provide food for thought for those who, in the heat of frenzied aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country,” Putin said, according to Reuters. . .

Putin and his officials said it’s capable of penetrating any prospective missile defense.

“It has no analogues in the world and won’t have for a long time to come,” Reuters quoted him as saying. (Read more from “‘Food for Thought’: Putin’s Chilling Message as Russia Conducts Test of New Nuclear Weapon” HERE)

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Ukraine Used Cluster Munitions — Which Many Countries Have Banned — To Force Russian Troops Out of a Village, Report Says

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Ukraine fired cluster munition rockets, which have been banned in more than 100 countries under an international treaty, to drive Russian troops out of a village last month, The New York Times reported.

Ukrainian forces retook the villager of Husarivka, a rural hamlet located 60 miles south of the city of Kharkiv, on March 26, shortly after it was seized by invading Russian forces.

The Times said its reporters identified a 220-millimeter Uragan artillery rocket that had been fired at Russian troops by Ukrainian forces on either March 6 or March 7.

The Uragan is a cluster munition. Cluster bombs were banned by more than 100 countries as part of the 2010 Convention on Cluster Munitions. However, Russia, Ukraine, and the US were among the countries that didn’t sign the agreement.

Cluster bombs are a type of rocket that break apart into smaller bombs after it has been fired to cover as wide an impact area as possible. Arms campaigners and rights groups say that because of its indiscriminate design, the rockets place civilians in danger. (Read more from “Ukraine Used Cluster Munitions — Which Many Countries Have Banned — To Force Russian Troops Out of a Village, Report Says” HERE)

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