RT News - January 12th 2023

China/Africa: China's foreign minister Qin Gang is on a five-nation tour of Africa; he says no world power should not force African countries to choose one side or another, as the continent needs more solidarity, not confrontation.
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India: "We fought foreign rule in the 20th century, today we shape the new world" Pres. Modi says developing countries will play a major role in the world's future. India's Prime Minister Modi begins a summit of nations of the Global South, with a powerful speech about the crucial role that emerging economies have in shaping the future of the world.
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An RT correspondent observes a demining operation in the once-embattled, Donbass city of Mariupol, as explosives left behind by Ukrainian troops still pose a threat to civilian lives. The work to clear the mines laid by Ukraine troops continues. It's a very dangerous and difficult job.
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Africa: Burkina Faso and the French. France still considers Burkina Faso is theirs, like a colony but France needs to come into reality. Local residents in Burkina Faso still don't buy France's claims of not meddling in the West African nation's internal affairs, following the expulsion of the French ambassador. RT talks to some locals to get their opinions.
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Iran: Protests continue against France's Charlie Hebdo publication of a caricature of Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei
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BRICS, South Africa's turn to lead the BRICS group will give S.A. the opportunity to advance Africa's interests. It will be an exciting year. BRICS countries currently account for 42% of the world's population and 25% of GDP (In real terms this could be a lot more as none of the countries are "debtor nations" like the G7 are) Please see previous posts on this channel for more info and background or visit the RT website if you can. Multipolar World.
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Soledar update: Wagner Group says Soledar is now cleared of Ukraine troops and is now under their control. Civilians were successfully evacuated. Ukraine troops who refused to be taken into custody were eliminated. Around 500 were killed.
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Below, via RT website 1) --- Wagner comments on Ukrainian casualties in Soledar
2) --- Uranium found at Heathrow airport
3) --- Ex-French soldier requests asylum in Russia – media
4) --- Share prices of NATO weapons makers surge
5) --- Police officer burned to death as Peru protests persist
6) --- EU requests compensation from Israel
7) --- Davos elite troubled by cost-of-living crisis
8) --- Poland to send western-made tanks to Ukraine – president
9) --- UK to send tanks to Ukraine
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11 Jan, 2023 19:29

1) --- Wagner comments on Ukrainian casualties in Soledar

Private military company founder says the Donbass town is fully under Russian control

Ukrainian soldiers surrounded in Soledar have either surrendered or been killed, Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Wednesday. Fighters with the private military company completely surrounded the Donbass town the day before and are now clearing the extensive tunnel network in the town's salt mines.

“I want to repeat that Soledar has been fully liberated and cleared of Ukrainian army units,” Prigozhin said in a statement on Wednesday evening. “The Ukrainian troops that refused to surrender have been destroyed.”

Prigozhin estimated that around 500 Ukrainian troops have been killed after Wagner forces closed the encirclement of Soledar.

“The entire town is littered with the bodies of Ukrainian servicemen,” he said.

Wagner fighters first circulated a video taken in downtown Soledar on Tuesday, as proof the town administration was under their control. Later in the day, Prigozhin was filmed touring the salt mine tunnels, which he said Wagner was starting to clear. The tunnel network is approximately 300 kilometers (186 miles) long and reaches hundreds of meters below the ground level.

Prigozhin also quashed rumors, circulating due to a meeting of Russian and Ukrainian officials in Türkiye on Wednesday, that some kind of evacuation was being arranged.

“There can be no word of any humanitarian corridor,” he said, noting that all civilians have already been evacuated from the town.

Soledar had around 10,000 residents before the conflict. The Ukrainian army turned it into a strongpoint after being pushed out of Popasnaya in mid-2022. Russian control of the town now threatens to unravel the entire Ukrainian front in Donbass.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had acknowledged on Sunday that the situation in Soledar was “very difficult” but vowed that Ukrainian troops would continue to hold “no matter what.”

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

Moscow demands that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.
https://www.rt.com/russia/569721-soledar-wagner-prigozhin-casualties/
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10 Jan, 2023 21:54

1a) --- Wagner group claims full control of Soledar

Ukrainian troops are reportedly trapped in the key Donbass town

Wagner Group units have taken control of the “entire territory” of Soledar, the head of the private military company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed on Tuesday evening. Fighting is continuing in the center of the town, where an unknown number of Ukrainian soldiers has been encircled.

“There is a cauldron in the center of town, where urban fighting is taking place,” Prigozhin said in a statement released to the media. “We’ll announce the number of prisoners tomorrow.”

He added that “no other units” apart from Wagner personnel had taken part in the storming of Soledar.

A video showing two Wagner fighters standing outside the town administration building was released on social media earlier in the day. Such recordings, usually accompanied with geospatial coordinates, have commonly been used during the conflict to announce territorial control.

Named after its salt mines, Soledar had around 10,000 residents before the conflict. The Ukrainian army turned it into a strongpoint after being pushed out of Popasnaya in mid-2022. Russian control over the town creates problems for Kiev’s forces in the embattled bastion of Artyomovsk, which Ukraine has renamed Bakhmut.

Prigozhin said last week that his objective was not necessarily to take the towns, but “the destruction of the Ukrainian army and the reduction of its combat potential.”

On Sunday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky acknowledged that the situation in Soledar was “very difficult” and called it “one of the bloodiest spots along the front line,” but vowed that Ukrainian troops would continue to hold “no matter what.”

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

Moscow demands that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.
https://www.rt.com/russia/569673-wagner-soledar-control-donbass/
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11 Jan, 2023 20:14

2) --- Uranium found at Heathrow airport

It is unclear whether the package was destined for a dirty bomb or the scrap heap

British counterterrorism police are investigating the arrival of a uranium-contaminated shipment at London’s Heathrow Airport. The incident sent a wave of alarm through local media.

News of the interception – which took place on December 29 – was first reported by The Sun tabloid. Painting the discovery as a foiled “nuke plot,” the newspaper claimed on Tuesday that the “deadly shipment” originated in Pakistan, and was sent via Oman to an Iranian national in the UK.

However, London’s Metropolitan Police told reporters that “a very small amount of contaminated material” was identified by Border Force officers during a routine screening, prompting a counterterrorism investigation.

Commander Richard Smith of the Met’s counterterrorism department said that the package “does not appear to be linked to any direct threat,” and “has been assessed by experts as posing no threat to the public.”

Citing anonymous sources, the BBC reported that the uranium was found in a shipment of scrap metal, and that it could have ended up there as a result of “poor handling.”

The Sun’s report set off a media frenzy in the UK. The tabloid quoted a former nuclear defense commander as saying that the material could have been “used in a dirty bomb,” and another “former army chief” as saying it could have been intended for use in an “assassination plot.” The Daily Mail claimed that investigators are following the “dirty bomb” angle, while the Daily Express described the incident as “a dry run” for an actual bomb plot, citing a supposed security expert.

There is no evidence for any of these claims, and Smith said that the incident proved that the screening process at Heathrow worked exactly as it should.
https://www.rt.com/news/569722-uranium-found-heathrow-airport/
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11 Jan, 2023 21:41

3) --- Ex-French soldier requests asylum in Russia – media

Adrien Bocquet previously claimed to have witnessed Ukrainian war crimes and to have survived an assassination attempt by Kiev in Istanbul

A former French military serviceman and volunteer, Adrien Bocquet, has allegedly requested asylum in Russia, the RIA news agency reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed “source familiar with the situation.” The Frenchman had previously repeatedly traveled to Ukraine and Donbass and claimed that he had witnessed war crimes committed by the Ukrainian forces.

“A former French serviceman, Adrien Bocquet, has approached the Russian authorities and asked them to grant him political asylum,” the source told RIA, adding that the asylum application was supposedly filed in mid-December. The Russian authorities have so far not commented on the development.

Bocquet first traveled to Ukraine as a volunteer delivering humanitarian aid last spring. At the time, he reportedly visited Lviv and Kiev as well as its suburbs, including Bucha. Kiev accused the Russian forces of committing mass killings of civilians in that town, which the Russian troops withdrew from in late March. Moscow has repeatedly denied all of the accusations.

After returning to France in May, Bocquet gave an interview to French Sud Radio, where he claimed to have witnessed the abuse of Russian POWs at the hands of Ukrainian soldiers. The Frenchman accused the Ukrainian soldiers of torturing and killing civilians and claimed the French media was concealing that. He also said that he himself was detained by the Ukrainian soldiers for ten hours.

Last summer, he started traveling to the Donbass regions controlled by the Russian forces and local militias while publishing reports on the situation on the ground on his Telegram channel. There, he wrote weapons like Caesar howitzers, which France supplies to Ukraine, end up injuring civilians in Donbass.

In October, Bocquet claimed he was attacked by “militants” linked to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) in Istanbul. The Frenchman also published a photo of himself lying in bed with some visible injuries to his face and one hand. The next day, France’s foreign ministry published a statement in which it said it had “no information” on the incident.

Bocquet himself has not commented on his reported asylum application so far.
https://www.rt.com/russia/569724-french-soldier-request-asylum-russia/
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11 Jan, 2023 17:40

4) --- Share prices of NATO weapons makers surge

Major Western arms manufacturers involved in military supplies to Ukraine earned $124 billion last year, a report finds

The largest military and defense corporations of NATO member states have seen a 21.5% boost in market value in 2022 amid the military operation in Ukraine and rearmament in Western Europe, Moscow daily Vedomosti reported on Wednesday.

The newspaper was citing data from Defense News and Tradingview analytics.

The corporations' combined market capitalization increased from $579 billion in December 2021 to $703 billion in December 2022, according to the estimates.

The ranking included 25 companies with a capitalization of over $1 billion which are traded on the stock market and have military products dominating in their revenues, and are also actively involved in arms supplies to Ukraine.

Authors of the report name German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall as the top gainer over the last 12 months, with a 122% surge in share price. French drone and missile producer Thales saw its market value rise 54%. American defense contractor Northrop Grumman was up 44%, while stock in HIMARS rocket launchers maker Lockheed Martin gained 42%.

Other notable mentions in the report include BAE Systems (+40%), Kongsberg Gruppen (+37%), General Dynamics (+24%), and Raytheon Technologies (+19%).

The report pointed out that the value of NATO’s military giants was soaring while the overall Western corporate sector sank by 16% last year, according to the S&P 1200 index, suggesting that arms manufacturers were likely the main beneficiaries of the political crisis in Europe.
https://www.rt.com/business/569715-nato-arms-producers-shares-surge/
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11 Jan, 2023 21:25

5) --- Police officer burned to death as Peru protests persist

An angry crowd torched a patrol car a day after 17 civilians died in a clash with authorities

The government in Lima confirmed on Wednesday the death of the first police officer since protests over the ouster of president Pedro Castillo began last month. Protesters in the southern city of Juliaca ambushed a patrol car after 17 local civilians were killed the day prior, in a confrontation with police.

Officer Jose Luis Soncco Quispe’s burned remains were found near the patrol car that was attacked on Tuesday morning, Peru’s interior ministry said. His partner, Ronald Villasante Toque, was injured and flown to a hospital in Lima. In a telephone report to headquarters, he said over 300 people had launched a “savage attack” on the police vehicle.

Initial reports also claimed that the attackers had seized the officers’ body armor and weapons, including two service pistols and an AKM assault rifle. However, the police later said the weapons were found inside the torched patrol car.

Juliaca is in southeastern Peru, near Lake Titicaca and the border with Bolivia. On Monday, at least 17 civilians were killed and 30 more injured in clashes with Peruvian National Police (PNP) near the local airport. At the funeral procession for the dead on Wednesday, protesters decorated their caskets with handwritten notes, declaring “Dina murdered me with bullets,” referring to acting President Dina Boluarte.

Interior Minister Victor Rojas said the deaths resulted from legal self-defense by the officers from some 9,000 people he claimed had tried to storm the airport and attacked the police with makeshift guns and explosives. It became “impossible to control the mob,” Rojas said, accusing the protesters of wanting to create “chaos upon chaos.”

Castillo was arrested and impeached on December 7, after he tried to dissolve Congress and call an early election. The lawmakers charged him with rebellion and promoted vice-president Boluarte in his stead. Castillo’s supporters consider this an illegitimate coup against democracy. Peru has had five presidents in the past five years, with Congress citing the “moral incapacity” provision of the constitution to remove from office those not to their liking.

Tweeting from jail on Tuesday, Castillo said history will remember Peruvians “murdered for defending the country from the coup dictatorship,” and that “terror is the last bullet of a regime cornered by the people.”

At least 47 people have died in connection with the protests, according to official government figures published on Tuesday. This includes the officer, 39 protesters, as well as seven civilians who perished in “traffic accidents linked to protest roadblocks.”

Police General Maximo Ramirez de la Cruz said last week that over 300 police officers had been injured in clashes with demonstrators, 19 of whom ended up in the hospital.
https://www.rt.com/news/569723-peru-protests-police-death/
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11 Jan, 2023 17:16

6) --- EU requests compensation from Israel

A group of MEPs has demanded that Israel pay for the demolition of EU-funded Palestinian structures

European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic said in reply to lawmakers over the weekend that Brussels has repeatedly asked Israel to pay for demolished houses in the West Bank that were built using financial aid from the EU or its member states.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Lenarcic's written statement followed a letter penned by 24 MEPs to the Crisis Management Commission, demanding that Israel compensate the European bloc for the loss of EU taxpayer money.

"In financial terms, Israel did not shoulder the consequences for the illegal demolitions and the violations of human rights," read the letter, according to Haaretz.

In his response, Lenarcic stated that the EU has consistently condemned “Israel’s settlement policy and illegal actions taken in this context,” adding that the bloc has on a number of occasions requested that Israel “return, or compensate for, EU-funded assets that have been demolished, dismantled or confiscated."

However, despite working to receive this compensation through diplomatic and political channels, the commissioner admitted that a "a list of possible options to secure compensation from Israel for EU funding lost in demolitions" has yet to come up for discussion in the Council of Europe.

“It is for the Council, acting by unanimity, to decide on the possible adoption of EU restrictive measures,” Lenarcic concluded.

According to the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in the first eight months of 2022, over 700 people were displaced after Israeli authorities demolished, seized, or forced others to demolish a total of 590 Palestinian-owned structures across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. In July and August alone, Israel tore down some 202 structures, 29 of which had been provided as donor-funded humanitarian aid.

The report noted that 2022 figures showed a decline compared to the year before, when the Israeli authorities had demolished a total of 911 structures and displaced 1,209 people.
https://www.rt.com/news/569714-eu-israel-reparations-demolitions/
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12 Jan, 2023 05:20

7) --- Davos elite troubled by cost-of-living crisis

Governments should cooperate in tackling a mix of risks to prevent a major crisis, World Economic Forum experts warn

The cost-of-living crisis, looming recession and mounting debt are the biggest short-term threats facing the global economy, the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual Global Risks Report has warned.

The world will hardly see any relief in the next two years as countries struggle with “energy, inflation, food and security crises,” the annual survey of 1,200 government, business and civil society professionals, published ahead of the Davos summit, said.

Two thirds of respondents suggested that multiple shocks stemming from the recent Covid-19 pandemic and an ongoing conflict in Ukraine will cause distress to the global economy in the near future, while a fifth of the experts are forecasting “catastrophic outcomes” within a decade.

“We’re looking at something that feels new, but at the same time eerily familiar,” risk management leader for Continental Europe at Marsh, Carolina Klint, told CNBC. “So we see a return of some older risks that we felt we had made good progress in terms of solving, but are now very much back on the risk map,” she added.

The cost-of-living crisis is seen as the most immediate risk which is “very difficult to accept” as it hits most vulnerable populations.

“Governments are now really working towards mitigating that impact, at the same time as they’re trying to protect from spiraling inflation and servicing historically high debt loads,” Klint concluded.

The authors of the report call for global cooperation and claim that if authorities fail to manage the current crisis, they “risk creating societal distress at an unprecedented level, as investments in health, education and economic development disappear, further eroding social cohesion.”

WEF managing director Saadia Zahidi, who believes that the world might be entering a “vicious cycle,” warns that “in this already toxic mix of known and rising global risks, a new shock event, from a new military conflict to a new virus, could become unmanageable.”

The world could face a challenge of “polycrisis” in the near future, with overlapping problems, the report said, highlighting “resource rivalry” as one of the biggest threats, as countries have entered into global competition for natural resources.
https://www.rt.com/business/569711-wef-report-inflation-poses-biggest-threat/
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11 Jan, 2023 14:43

8) --- Poland to send western-made tanks to Ukraine – president

In an unprecedented move, Andrzej Duda has announced the delivery of German-made Leopards

Warsaw intends to hand German-made tanks over to Ukraine, Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Wednesday during a visit to the country.

“A company of Leopard tanks will be transferred as part of coalition building. We want it to be an international company and we decided to put the first package in the form of tanks,” Duda told reporters in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.

He was meeting with his Lithuanian counterpart Gitanas Nauseda and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, to sign a joint declaration of the Lublin Triangle, a regional group forged by the trio in 2020 to evoke the 17th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Duda’s comments come just days after Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki said Warsaw was “considering” a handover of several Leopard 2 tanks to its southern neighbor. Morawiecki also said it would have to be a part of an effort by a “broader coalition of states” and that talks with Germany were “ongoing,” according to the outlet Rzeczpospolita.

While Czechia was the first NATO member to send tanks to Ukraine – turning over several T-72s in April 2022 – Poland has given Kiev the most armor. Duda said on Wednesday that 240 Polish T-72s had been delivered as part of “spectacular assistance” to Ukraine. Ukraine has repeatedly demanded western-made tanks, however.

Poland currently operates almost 250 Leopards of various models, mainly hand-me-downs from the Bundeswehr. Under existing agreements, Berlin must approve transfers of any German-made weapons to third parties. Germany had received no transfer request for Leopard 2 models as of January 9, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters in Berlin.

So far, Berlin has agreed to give Kiev 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles and a US-made Patriot air defense battery, already an escalation from its previous deliveries. However, Economy Minister Robert Habeck hinted on Monday at the possibility of Leopards as well, telling the broadcaster ARD1 that this was “not excluded” as “further decisions are being made” in coordination with other countries.

Ukraine has sought a symbolic delivery of Leopards to open the gates for the eventual delivery of US tanks, Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov told the US outlet Politico in October. Last week, Reznikov told Ukrainian TV that his country is “carrying out NATO’s mission” by shedding blood, so it is the West’s responsibility to provide the weapons.

The US and its allies provided almost $100 billion worth of weapons, equipment and ammunition to Ukraine in 2022, according to Russian Defense Ministry estimates. Moscow has repeatedly warned the West that its military aid to Kiev only prolongs the conflict and risks a direct confrontation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that the US and NATO are “definitely” taking part in the conflict, “although indirectly, by proxy.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/569709-poland-tanks-leopard-ukraine/
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11 Jan, 2023 17:10

8) --- US seeks to make the EU its vassal – Moscow

The EU-NATO declaration on security is promoting American, not European interests, Russian Foreign Ministry has said

The declaration on cooperation signed by the European Union and NATO is further proof that the EU is under the thumb of the US-led military bloc, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.

In a statement, Zakharova said that the document, signed a day earlier, “confirms that the European Union is completely subjugated to the tasks of the North Atlantic bloc, which serves as a tool to coercively enforce US interests.”

She went on to say that “under the guise of ‘strengthening the transatlantic bond’” the declaration promotes the provisions of NATO’s strategic concept, which was adopted in June 2022.

According to the diplomat, the declaration views transatlantic security “through the lens of opposing our country, ramping up arms and military hardware supplies to the Kiev regime, increasing military mobility in the European ‘theater of war,’ and further expansion of NATO.”

The document’s provisions basically formalize “the secondary nature” of the EU defense policies to those of NATO while “nullifying the EU’s claims to autonomy in this area,” she stated.

Zakharova also described the document as “another eulogy to the philosophy of Western superiority.” “It bluntly states that NATO and the EU will use all political, economic and military means ‘in the interests of our one billion citizens’,” she claimed.

Against this backdrop, Washington’s motives are obvious, the spokeswoman said. The US wants to drag the European Union into the “global rivalry” and, should it succeed, “the Europeans would face the unenviable fate of being an American vassal.” This would mean that the EU would be “losing positions in global politics and economics, with each step becoming increasingly dependent on Washington,” she added.

Zakharova wondered whether ordinary European citizens really want to see such an outcome, while “paying for this protracted confrontation out of their own pockets.”

The EU-NATO joint declaration was signed on Tuesday by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, President of the European Council Charles Michel, and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. They vowed to elevate their partnership “to the next level,” noting that the West is confronted “with the gravest threat to Euro-Atlantic security in decades” amid the Ukraine conflict.
https://www.rt.com/russia/569705-russia-eu-nato-cooperation/
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11 Jan, 2023 17:30

9) --- UK to send tanks to Ukraine

Once considered a step too far, the supply of heavy tanks to Kiev is now being publicly discussed by multiple Western states

Britain will provide Ukraine with main battle tanks, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters on Wednesday. The statement came after Poland said it would transfer German-made tanks to Kiev’s forces, with Berlin’s permission.

The spokesman said Sunak had asked Defense Secretary Ben Wallace to “work with partners” to go “further and faster with our support for Ukraine including the provision of tanks.”

A formal announcement will likely be made in conjunction with several of Britain’s NATO allies, as was the case last week when the US, France and Germany all announced together that they would send infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine.

US officials have already said that they would not send American-made M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, citing the vehicles’ burdensome maintenance requirements. However, Poland announced on Wednesday that it would supply Kiev with a number of German-made Leopard tanks, a decision that requires a green light from Berlin.

While the German government officially has no plans to donate any of its own Leopards, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Monday that he would not rule out such a step. Meanwhile, Kiev is confident that Germany’s apparent caution is illusory.

“Germany will do it anyway at a later date,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the Tagesschau news channel on Wednesday. “We have already seen this with the self-propelled howitzers, with the IRIS-T anti-aircraft system and most recently with the Marder and Patriot systems.”

Britain’s decision was telegraphed to the media in recent days too, with officials telling Sky News on Monday that Sunak’s government had been discussing the possibility for “a few weeks,” and that the UK “might offer around ten” tanks.

According to Sky, an official announcement may be made by multiple countries on January 20, when the US-led ‘Contact Group’ for arming Ukraine is scheduled to meet next.
https://www.rt.com/news/569717-uk-sending-tanks-ukraine/
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