RT News - December 24th 2022

Shelling of Donetsk city has continued. Casualty numbers not yet known. Three have died in a Lugansk village after multiple shelling with US himars; $100,000 each. The Lugansk villages have been under constant attack for the past three weeks or so. Report.

At least 20 people die in a fire at a nursing home in Central Russia, while two others are hospitalized in critical condition.

Russian air-defence has shot down drones destined for Crimea.

Clashes break out in Paris after a shooting leaves at least three people dead with members of the local Kurdish community gathering near the scene.

UAE and India set up a new trading partnership, using their own currencies.

Who is welcome is Germany as a refugee?

Israel's designated Prime Minister is forming one of the most far-right governments in the country's history, gaining support by hinting at the annexation the occupied West Bank.

Paying to play: How USA considers Ukraine's $billions "a good investment" - Hillary Clinton. Report.

The EU has put into place new legislation regarding free speech (QS and how to curb it) however the Twitter space is far too free for them and seeks to put sanctions on the platform. Report from Rachel Marsden.

From space: Cosmonauts wish the world a merry Christmas and happy 2023, from the International Space Station.

From the netisphere: QueenStreet wishes peace, health and prosperity to all in 2023 and a very merry, peaceful and blessed Christmas (and all other holidays which are seasonally celebrated)

#GiveUsPeace

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24 Dec, 2022 01:04

1) --- Snowden says ‘I told you so’

The whistleblower pointed at an AP investigation on how the Covid-19 pandemic has “normalized” spying on citizens

Former CIA and National Security Agency officer-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden has claimed vindication after a media report brought to light how surveillance tools used to help fight the spread of Covid-19 are now being abused by law enforcement and other authorities – just as he predicted more than two years ago.

“I talked about this back in early 2020 and was dismissed as paranoid, as is our tradition when someone points to the predictable outcome of a dangerous but popular new trend,” Snowden said in a Twitter post on Friday. The former US intelligence contractor cited this week’s Associated Press article on how Covid-19 had “accelerated and normalized” use of state surveillance and tracking tools against ordinary citizens and activists.

Snowden linked to an April 2020 interview with Vice founder Shane Smith in which he predicted that emergency measures used to deal with the Covid-19 crisis would become permanent and be used to infringe civil liberties. At the time, pandemic fears were at their height, and many governments across the globe were being lauded for using cutting-edge surveillance applications to track infections and quarantine people who had possibly been exposed to the virus. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1606417983731290112

https://youtu.be/yMMoEJfhEiU

“When any of us looks at where this is heading, we need to think about where we’ve been,” Snowden told Smith. “And sadly, these kinds of emergency powers that are born out of crises have a perfect history of abuse. I mean, down the board, whenever you look at these things, the funniest part about it, in a dark way, is that the emergency never ends and becomes normalized.”

The AP article offered such examples as mobile-phone tracking and other technology being used to accuse people of crimes, block citizens from traveling, harass “marginalized communities” and link personal health data to surveillance and law enforcement systems. https://twitter.com/Saikmedi/status/1606409181505863680

Snowden came to fame by exposing the US governement's global and domestic surveillance tactics that sprung from an earlier crisis, the September 11 terrorist attacks. He lamented that with pandemic-related technology already being abused, “stopping this will be harder, now.”

In the 2020 interview, Snowden argued that because everyone was so fearful about the present, they neglected to think about how the decisions that were being made would affect the future. “No matter how it’s being used, what is being built is the architecture of oppression.” He added, “As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we also sacrifice our capability to arrest this slide into a less liberal, less free world.”
https://www.rt.com/news/568848-snowden-covid-spying-normalized/

8 Nov, 2022 13:28

Snowden highlights ‘most important video of the year’

The whistleblower shared an old clip of former CIA officer Frank Snepp detailing how the agency planted stories in the media
https://youtu.be/UwerBZG83YM
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23 Dec, 2022 10:24

2) --- Russia outlines conditions for launching talks on security guarantees

Certain criteria need to be met by the US to provide ground for such negotiations, a top foreign ministry official says

The US needs to stop arming Kiev and recognize reality on the ground in Ukraine for any talks on security guarantees between Moscow and Washington to begin, Alexander Darchiyev, who heads the North America department in the Russian Foreign Ministry, has said.

“Until the pumping of Zelensky’s regime with weapons and money is stopped, the US and NATO troops/mercenaries/trainers are withdrawn [from Ukraine], and the realities defined by us [Russia] on the ground are recognized, it’s premature to start any meaningful negotiations on security guarantees in connection to Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic region,” Darchiyev pointed out, in an interview with news agency TASS.

“The ball is now in the American court,” he insisted. Washington has been Ukraine’s main backer during the conflict with Russia, providing Kiev with billions in military and financial aid, as well as with intelligence. Russia has been saying that a “proxy war” is actually being waged against it in the neighboring country by the US and NATO.

During Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s recent visit to the US, his American counterpart Joe Biden assured him that “we will stay with you for as long as it takes.” According to Biden, it was especially crucial for Washington and Kiev to “stand together through 2023.”

Darchiyev reminded his interviewer that, in late 2021 shortly before the outbreak of the Ukrainian conflict, Moscow has made “an honest attempt to negotiate, putting forward two draft, legally binding documents” on security guarantees with the US and NATO. But all it heard in response from the West was “a resounding and arrogant No,” he said.

Last December, Russia presented a list of security demands to Washington and NATO, asking the West to impose a ban on Ukraine becoming a member of the US-led military bloc, while insisting that NATO should retreat to its borders of 1997, before it began to expand eastward.

Earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron said that West would have to address Moscow’s “fear that NATO comes right up to its doors and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia.” The US and allies also must decide on “how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table,” he also pointed out.

The comment was met with harsh criticism, not only from Kiev but also from fellow EU and NATO members, including Poland, Slovakia, and the Baltic states. However, Macron doubled down on the idea this week, saying that the crisis in Ukraine will inevitably be resolved at the negotiating table, and that the West and NATO, in particular, will have to come up with security guarantees not only for Kiev, but for Moscow as well.
https://www.rt.com/russia/568790-ukraine-security-guarantees-nato/
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23 Dec, 2022 10:00

3) --- Kiev is mulling peace plan, WSJ reports

US newspaper, citing NATO and Ukrainian officials, claims Zelensky wants to first secure some military victories against Moscow

Ukraine may present its vision of peace around the last week in February, near the first anniversary of Russia’s offensive against the country, the Wall Street Journal has reported. The US newspaper, citing European and Ukrainian diplomats, claimed President Vladimir Zelensky and his team are currently working on such a formula.

In its article on Thursday, the media outlet alleged that the Ukrainian leadership wants to strengthen its position at the negotiating table by making gains on the battlefield against Russia before unveiling any peace proposals.

The topic of peace and how Ukraine sees it was high on the agenda of US President Joe Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart Zelensky during the latter’s visit to Washington on Wednesday.

However, according to the Washington Post, citing an anonymous senior US official, the discussion was largely “academic,” as the US and Ukraine believe Russia is not interested in any such negotiations at this point.

Addressing G20 leaders in Indonesia last month, President Zelensky laid out a ten-point peace plan, which called for, among other things, the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and an “all for all” prisoner swap.

The Kremlin, in turn, insisted that Kiev must recognize the “reality on the ground” as a prerequisite for any peace negotiations. In Moscow’s eyes, this reality includes the new status of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions as parts of Russia.

Unnamed Western officials cited by the Wall Street Journal had suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing to launch a renewed offensive in the coming months and is not interested in any peace talks before he sees how those efforts pan out.

Meanwhile, speaking to journalists on Thursday, the Russian head of state said that Moscow’s “goal is not to ramp up this military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war, that is what we are striving for and will strive for.”

Putin noted that the sooner hostilities in Ukraine come to an end, the better, as the “intensification of fighting leads to unnecessary losses.”

The Russian president went on to insist that the Kremlin has never refused to engage in peace talks with Ukraine. He claimed that it is the leadership in Kiev that “has forbidden itself from” going down this road.

This is an apparent reference to a decree signed by Zelensky in early October, according to which Ukraine will not negotiate with Moscow as long as Putin remains in power there. The decision came in response to Moscow officially signing agreements with the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples’ Republics as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, which joined Russia after holding referendums.

“One way or another, all armed conflicts end with some negotiations on the diplomatic track,” Putin argued on Thursday.

He also expressed hope that those “who are opposing us” realize this as soon as possible.
https://www.rt.com/russia/568786-report-zelensky-peace-plan-february/
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23 Dec, 2022 07:38

4) --- Soyuz coolant leak may force rescue mission to ISS

Roscosmos and NASA continue to investigate a tiny hole in the Russian spacecraft

A coolant leak at the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft could lead to Russia sending an empty capsule to the International Space Station (ISS) to bring the stranded Russian and US crewmembers back to Earth, Roscosmos space agency has said.

Sergey Krikalev, the head of human spaceflight programs at Roscosmos, said during a video-conference on Thursday that no final decision on the matter has been made.

Experts from the Russian and the US space agencies have “worked together as they always have” to investigate the leak, which occurred on the Soyuz last week, Joel Montalbano, NASA ISS program manager, said. “The teams are going back and forth. We’re constantly exchanging data.”

It was planned that the spacecraft would be used by Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev, as well as NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, to return from orbit. The trio have been at the station since September.

The hole, a few millimeters across, affected a coolant pipe in the Soyuz MS-22, according to a probe by Roscosmos and NASA. The liquid released as a result of the leak has not contaminated the exterior surfaces of the ISS, such as solar panels or windows.

Thermal analysis is underway to determine whether the Soyuz MS-22 is fit to bring the crew home or “or if we need to send a rescue vehicle to the station in the future,” Krikalev said.

In the latter case, a Soyuz MS-23 would have to fly to the ISS without a crew to pick up Petelin, Prokopyev and Rubio, with the Soyuz MS-22 returning to Earth empty, he explained.

A Soyuz MS-23 is scheduled for launch in March 2023, but its departure could be moved forward to February if the situation demands, the Roscosmos representative assured. If this happens, future crew rotation missions to the ISS would have to be “readjusted,” Krikalev added.

The exact reason for the spacecraft leak has not so far been established, but both sides have ruled out any suggestion of it being caused by the Geminid meteor shower, which occurs annually.

“Both the trajectory team in Houston and the trajectory team in Moscow confirmed it was not from the meteor showers,” Montalbano said.

It is yet to be confirmed if the hole in the Soyuz MS-22 was caused by naturally occurring micrometeoroids, man-made debris in orbit or “some other type of failure,” he added.
https://www.rt.com/russia/568782-soyuz-coolant-leak-iss/
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24 Dec, 2022 02:54

5) --- Shooting forces Mall of America into another lockdown

Police responded to reports of shots fired inside the iconic shopping center in Minnesota

At least one person has reportedly been shot inside the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota on Friday evening. Shoppers were ordered to seek shelter inside, as multiple police descended on the building, which went into a lockdown for the third time in less than a year.

“Bloomington Police and EMS are on scene of a reported shooting at the Mall Of America. MOA is on lockdown. Please stay out of the area,” police announced in a tweet shortly after 8pm local time.

The mall itself urged the visitors to “please remain in the closest secure location until the lockdown has been lifted,” in a separate tweet. About an hour later, the venue announced that the lockdown was over and that “guests should now exit the property.”

At least one person was shot and killed, according to Fox Minneapolis, but the number of victims has yet to be officially confirmed. Authorities only said that the “shooting scene has been secured” and that police was working with the mall's security and the “Hennepin County Crime Lab to process the area.”

Footage from the scene showed at least half a dozen police, EMS and fire department vehicles near the entrance to the building. Another video captured an announcement via loudspeakers urging those “who are not currently in a secure location” to “seek shelter immediately.”

The lockdown happened during a busy shopping season just two days before Christmas, and marked the third such incident over the past year. Two people were injured in a shooting at the largest US mall last New Year’s Eve, while a shooting in August caused no injuries, but also triggered panic and a brief lockdown

tweets: https://twitter.com/dguttenfelder/status/1606493023881551872
https://twitter.com/nighjonah/status/1606478417515405314
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https://www.rt.com/news/568849-mall-of-america-shooting/
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23 Dec, 2022 21:15

6) NATO fighting ‘fear and meltdowns’ among Kiev's troops – Daily Beast

Ukraine can’t afford for soldiers to “fall apart” on the battlefield, the outlet reported

The Ukrainian government has rolled out a NATO-backed mental health program, aiming to make its soldiers more effective in battle and less prone to post-traumatic stress, the US outlet Daily Beast reported on Friday.

“Following Russia’s invasion and at the request of Ukraine, NATO has put in place assistance to enhance the psychological resilience of military service personnel and develop a mental health system for Ukrainian combatants and veterans,” bloc spokesperson Oana Lungescu told the Beast.

The program is supposed to counter the “fear, agitation, and meltdowns” troubling the Ukrainian soldiers, so they can keep fighting. Ukraine “can’t afford to have soldiers falling apart on the battlefield,” the outlet noted.

“People have had no understanding of the mental state they could get into during combat,” military psychologist Rodion Grigoryan, who runs the program, told the Beast in an exclusive interview. His program is training soldiers to spot signs of combat stress in their colleagues and intervene in mental health crises.

READ MORE: Russian defense minister visits frontline
The UK military has a similar program, called Trauma Risk Management (TRiM). Neil Greenberg, a professor at King’s College London who helped implement it in the UK and also trained Ukrainian fighters, told the Beast that unaddressed mental health problems can “degrade your capacity to keep on fighting.”

From what Greenberg has heard from the battlefield, “things are horrible out there.”

Artillery and drones and unpredictable, non-defensible attacks are much more psychologically difficult, because you could be the best soldier in the world, but if an artillery shell lands somewhere near you, there's nothing you can do about that.

Psychological trauma is a major preoccupation in Western armies, whose expeditionary wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have caused four times as many casualties from suicide than from combat, according to a 2021 Brown University study.

The biggest challenge Greenberg sees for Ukrainian troops is that they are “not flying into a war zone during the battle and then coming home to normality,” as rear areas are affected by the conflict as well.

Ukraine’s defense ministry hopes to rotate forces on the front lines as the fighting slows down with the onset of winter weather, according to the Beast. Aditi Nerurkar, identified only as “a doctor with expertise in stress and resilience,” told the outlet that this will be sorely needed, in order to release some of the pressure of constant warfare.

“It’s been ten months. There is no respite. We need that respite,” Nerurkar said.
https://www.rt.com/russia/568833-ukraine-nato-combat-trauma/
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