RT News - January 29th 2023 Late

Four civilians are killed and five injured after Ukraine uses US-supplied HIMARS rockets to hit a bridge in the Zaporozhye region (Melitopol) - that coming-in from local authorities. It's just one of several deadly strikes this week, targeting civilian only areas and they are war crimes under the Geneva Convention and United Nations war crime definitions. See below. Report from Roman Kosarev.
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Russian advance, Donbass, recap.
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Multiple explosions are reported in Iran overnight with the country's defence ministry stating it managed to thwart a drone attack on an ammunition depot. Seyed Mohammad Marandi analyses.
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Finland accuses Russia of dashing Sweden's hopes to join NATO because of it's involvement in the burning of the Koran during a protest and the "hanging" of an image of Pres. Erdogan off a tree in another protest. RT spoke to Rasmus Paludan, the MP who burned the Koran. See (*) below
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NATO: Chair of the NATO Military Committee Rob Bauer said that the bloc is ready for a direct confrontation with Russia in an interview with Portugal’s RTP TV channel. He also talked about the need to introduce "a war-time economy but in peace time" and Bauer admitted that this process would be "difficult." Martin Dolzer reports.
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Israel/Palestine (Turmus Ayya): Israeli settlers have set fire to and destroyed the property of Arabs in the occupied West Bank
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Peru: Anti-government Protests continue in Lima in favour of ousted President Castillo.
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Pakistan: (Kohat) A boat has capsized and 10 children have been killed and some more are missing.
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Africa: Russia's foreign minister condemns Western countries for what he calls attempts to re-colonize Africa amid pressure to sever relations with Moscow.
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Africa: Janet Yellen, United States Secretary of the Treasury, was on a trip to Africa too, after several years of U.S. absence and interest. Karabo Letlhatlha gives an analysis of her visit. Yusef Doda also gives remarks on "The Game of Loans"
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(*) (QS: For some reason Puladan took money (320 Krona about £25) from a man called Chang Frick (to pay for the demo) who had spoken on RT claiming he had links to the Kremlin. This was in 2019 https://twitter.com/DontDenyThe/status/1619395017247952897
https://twitter.com/DontDenyThe/status/1619398517591797761
It's my opinion this was in fact an anti-Russia press stunt which was fed to all press outlets around the world and posted the same day, eg https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/27/burning-of-quran-in-stockholm-funded-by-journalist-with-kremlin-ties-sweden-nato-russia)
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via RT website
A) Moscow accuses Kiev of ‘war crime’ in Donbass
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1) --- 14 dead, 24 injured in Ukrainian strike on civilian hospital – Russian MOD
2) --- NATO state ‘modelling cyber strikes’ on Russian infrastructure – Moscow
3) --- Pfizer admits it ‘engineered’ new Covid mutations
4) --- Tory chairman fired over tax affairs
5) --- As the Pentagon's favorite think tank calls for a swift end to the Ukraine conflict, is the mood shifting in Washington? Feature
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29 Jan, 2023 13:28

A) Moscow accuses Kiev of ‘war crime’ in Donbass

Fourteen people were killed and over 20 injured after Ukrainian forces struck a hospital using a US-made HIMARS system

Kiev and its Western backers bear responsibility for the deadly destruction of a civilian hospital in Donbass, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday. The perpetrators of the “war crime” will not escape punishment, it added.

On Saturday morning, Ukrainian troops fired rockets from a US-made HIMARS system which hit a hospital in the city of Novoaydar, killing 14 people and injuring 24, the Russian Defense Minitry said. According to the military, the facility was treating local residents, as well as Russian soldiers.

The Foreign Ministry claimed that Ukraine used Western intelligence and satellites operated by NATO members to target the hospital.

“The deliberate shelling of functioning civilian medical facilities and the purposeful killing of civilians are grave war crimes committed by the Kiev regime and its Western handlers,” the ministry said in a statement.

The lack of reaction from the US and other NATO countries … once again serves as proof of their direct involvement in the conflict and the culpability for the crimes.

The ministry added that it has been thoroughly documenting attacks on civilians. “The criminal acts … will not be left unpunished,” it said.

According to the 1949 Geneva Convention, warring parties cannot attack civilian hospitals under any circumstances.

Novoaydar is dozens of kilometers away from the frontline in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR). Local officials posted a video of the hospital building shortly after the attack.

Moscow has repeatedly accused Kiev of hitting civilian targets with Western-supplied rockets and artillery. This month alone, officials said that HIMARS launchers were used to strike two hospitals in Zaporozhye Region. The region, along with the LPR and two other former Ukrainian territories, joined Russia following referendums in September of last year.
https://www.rt.com/russia/570654-russia-ukraine-hospital-strike/
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28 Jan, 2023 19:14

1) --- 14 dead, 24 injured in Ukrainian strike on civilian hospital – Russian MOD

The attack by Kiev’s forces on a medical facility in the Lugansk People’s Republic was “deliberate,” Moscow claims

At least 14 people have been killed and 24 injured after Ukrainian missiles struck a hospital in the city of Novoaydar in the early hours of Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The medical facility in the city, which is located dozens of kilometers away from the frontlines in the central part of the Lugansk People’s Republic, treated both local residents and soldiers, the ministry noted. It added that both patients and medical personnel were among the victims.

“A deliberate missile strike on a known civilian healthcare facility is an absolutely grave war crime of the Kiev regime,” the MOD stated in a Telegram post, vowing to bring all those involved in planning and executing the attack to justice.

According to the statement, a US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launcher was used in the strike. Following the attack, Moscow’s first deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, accused Washington of being directly involved in the incident.

Polyansky called the strike “yet another heinous crime,” highlighting that 14 civilians were killed in the hospital with missiles provided by the US. He also pointed out that Washington provided the Ukrainian military with intelligence data. “This makes the US directly complicit,” he said, adding that “the US taxpayers should know how their money is spent.”

Moscow has repeatedly accused Ukrainian forces of targeting civilian infrastructure, including with weapons supplied by the West. In early January, six people were killed and 37 injured in a strike on the city of Vasilyevka in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region. Prior to that, a hospital was destroyed in the city of Tokmak in the same region. In both cases, US-made HIMARS systems were used, the local authorities said at the time.
https://www.rt.com/russia/570626-ukraine-mssile-strike-hospital-crime/
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28 Jan, 2023 12:10

2) --- NATO state ‘modeling cyber strikes’ on Russian infrastructure – Moscow

The UK has been training to hack Russia’s energy facilities, a senior Russian diplomat has said

Britain has been modeling cyberattacks on Russia’s critical infrastructure, the country’s deputy foreign minister, Oleg Syromolotov, said on Saturday. He added that the simulated hacks included energy facilities and were conducted under NATO guidance.

The deputy minister stated that attempts to hack Russian government entities by foreign actors have “increased by two to three times” over the course of last year.

Syromolotov was reacting to a story published by The Times last month, in which Lt. Gen. Tom Copinger-Symes, the deputy commander of the UK’s strategic command, was quoted as saying the National Cyber Force was seeking to recruit people with Russian degrees.

“The British are systematically using their offensive capabilities to target Russia’s information [sector],” Syromolotov told the TASS news agency. He added that London regularly conducts exercises, including joint NATO drills, simulating attacks on “Russian critical infrastructure.”

“They include the modeling of strikes on government entities in the Kaliningrad Region and Moscow’s energy system,” the diplomat said. The Kaliningrad Region is a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea that borders Poland and Lithuania.

Syromolotov said that last year Russia was hit by “unprecedented cyberattacks from abroad,” with the majority of intrusions coming from the US and other NATO members, as well as Ukraine.

We have become a target of coordinated aggression involving intelligence services, transnational IT corporations and hacktivists from the collective West and its puppets.

According to Syromolotov, government services have been targeted the most. The Foreign Ministry has been repeatedly attacked, he said. “Overall, around 50,000 hacker attacks were repulsed last year.”

On April 11, 2022, on the eve of Russia’s Cosmonautics Day celebrations, hackers targeted the website of the country’s space agency, Roscosmos, according to its press service. Also last year, intruders gained access to the database of one of the contractors of the Russian national postal service, leaking some internal documents.

On Wednesday, cyber attackers briefly hijacked a TV signal in Russia’s Belgorod Region and Crimea and broadcast an excerpt from a speech by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Crimean officials blamed Kiev’s intelligence services for the intrusion.
https://www.rt.com/russia/570605-uk-training-hack-russia/
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29 Jan, 2023 13:37

3) --- Pfizer admits it ‘engineered’ new Covid mutations

An executive with the drug firm previously said that the company was creating more potent strains of the virus in a laboratory

US drugmaker Pfizer admitted on Friday that it “engineered” treatment-resistant variants of Covid-19 in order to test its antiviral medicine. The admission partially backs up earlier claims by an executive with the company who told an undercover reporter that Pfizer was deliberately “mutating” the virus to “preemptively develop new vaccines.”

In a statement posted on its website, Pfizer said that it “has not conducted gain of function or directed evolution research,” referring to the practice of amplifying a virus’ ability to infect humans and the process of selecting ‘desirable’ traits of a virus to reproduce, respectively.

However, the pharma giant said that it combined the spike proteins of new coronavirus variants with the original strain in order to test its vaccines, and that it created mutations of the virus to test Paxlovid, its antiviral drug.

“In a limited number of cases…such virus may be engineered to enable the assessment of antiviral activity in cells,” the company said, adding that this work was carried out in a secure laboratory. The work also sought to create “resistant strains of the virus,” it added, describing a process commonly understood as being ‘gain of function’ research.

https://twitter.com/Project_Veritas/status/1618405890612420609

Pfizer’s statement came two days after Jordon Trishton Walker, an executive involved in the firm’s mRNA division, told an undercover reporter that the company was “exploring” ways to “mutate [Covid] ourselves so we could create, preemptively develop, new vaccines.” Walker said that scientists were considering infecting monkeys with the virus, who would then “keep infecting each other.”

“From what I’ve heard, they [Pfizer scientists] are optimizing it, but they’re going slow because everyone is very cautious,” he explained. “Obviously they don’t want to accelerate it too much. I think they are also just trying to do it as an exploratory thing because you obviously don’t want to advertise that you are figuring out future mutations.”

Pfizer’s statement makes no mention of the supposed plan to infect monkeys, instead explaining that any work on live viruses is carried out in vitro, meaning inside test tubes or other lab equipment.

Walker was told on camera that he was speaking to a journalist with Project Veritas, a conservative outlet known for its hidden-camera sting operations. After hearing this, Walker insisted that he was lying to impress his date, before attempting to steal an iPad from Project Veritas CEO James O’Keefe.

Recall post on re: India being bullied by Pfizer 21st January, Late video + an article https://rumble.com/v26kksi-rt-news-january-21st-2023-late.html?mref=6zof&mrefc=6
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29 Jan, 2023 11:20

4) --- Tory chairman fired over tax affairs

Nadhim Zahawi found himself in hot water after paying a huge settlement over alleged tax avoidance

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has sacked Nadhim Zahawi as Chairman of the Conservative Party over a tax affairs controversy.

Zahawi had faced calls to resign after it came to light that he settled a multimillion-pound tax dispute with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) department while he was serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The matter revolved around Zahawi’s apparent failure to properly declare profits earned from the sale of his stake in YouGov, the polling company he had co-founded.

In a letter on Sunday, Sunak said that after the revelations about the MP’s “personal financial arrangements and declarations” came to light, he ordered an investigation into the matter. He said that Zahawi “undertook to cooperate fully with the inquiry.”

The findings showed that “there has been a serious breach of the Ministerial Code…As a result, I have informed you of my decision to remove you from your position in His Majesty’s Government,” Sunak told Zahawi in the letter.

Zahawi himself admitted his tax error, arguing it was “careless and not deliberate.” He claimed that when he created the company, he asked his father to help, who in the process, “took founder shares in the business in exchange for some capital.” When HMRC “disagreed about the exact allocation,” Zahawi settled the matter and paid “what they said was due,” he said.

The ex-chairman did not disclose the size of the settlement, but it was reported to be £4.8 million ($5.9 million), including a 30% penalty.

Zahawi was fired shortly after Sir Laurie Magnus, Sunak’s ethics adviser, concluded in a letter that the MP “has shown insufficient regard for the general principles of the Ministerial Code” and has not fulfilled the requirements of being an "honest, open and an exemplary leader.” The conduct of the ex-chairman had also “fallen below the high standards” expected from cabinet ministers, Magnus said.

Zahawi was appointed as the Conservative Party’s chairman on October 25. Prior to that, the Iraqi–born politician had held several junior ministerial positions and briefly served as chancellor in the government of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
https://www.rt.com/news/570647-tory-chairman-fired-tax-controversy/
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29 Jan, 2023 15:52

5) --- As the Pentagon's favorite think tank calls for a swift end to the Ukraine conflict, is the mood shifting in Washington? Feature

The RAND Corporation believes the fighting must end sooner rather than later

The RAND Corporation, a highly influential elite national security think tank funded directly by the Pentagon, has published a landmark report stating that prolonging the proxy war is actively harming the US and its allies and warning Washington that it should avoid “a protracted conflict” in Ukraine.

The report has an unequivocal title, “Avoiding a long war: US policy and the trajectory of the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” which provides a strong indication as to its contents.

It starts by stating that the fighting represents “the most significant interstate conflict in decades, and its evolution will have major consequences” for Washington, which includes US “interests” being actively harmed. The report makes it very clear that while Ukrainians have been doing the fighting, and their cities have been “flattened” and “economy decimated,” these “interests” are “not synonymous” with Kiev’s.

The US ending its financial, humanitarian and particularly military support promptly would cause Ukraine to completely collapse, and RAND cites several reasons why doing so would be sensible, not least because a Ukrainian victory is regarded as both “improbable” and “unlikely,” due to Russian “resolve,” and its military mobilization having “rectified the manpower deficit that enabled Ukraine’s success in the Kharkiv counteroffensive.”
https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA2510-1.html

What are the U.S. interests in Ukraine?

From the perspective of US “interests,” RAND warns that while the Kremlin has not threatened to use nuclear weapons, there are “several issues that make Russian use of nuclear weapons both a plausible contingency Washington needs to account for and a hugely important factor in determining the future trajectory of the conflict.”

And what are the risks for the US

The think tank believes the Biden administration “has ample reason to make the prevention of Russian use of nuclear weapons a paramount priority." In particular, it should seek to avoid a “direct nuclear exchange” with Moscow, a “direct conflict with Russia”, or wider “NATO-Russia war.”

On the latter point, RAND worries that US general Mark Milley’s demand that the conflict stay “inside the geographical boundaries of Ukraine” is on the verge of being disrespected, as “the extent of NATO allies’ indirect involvement in the war is breathtaking in scope,” including “tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and other aid” and “tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support,” along with “billions of dollars monthly in direct budgetary support to Kiev.”

Such largesse could, RAND forecasts, prompt Moscow to “punish NATO members…with the objective of ending allied support for Ukraine; strike NATO preemptively if Russia perceives that NATO intervention in Ukraine is imminent; interdict the transfer of arms to Ukraine; retaliate against NATO for perceived support for internal unrest in Russia,” if the Kremlin concludes the country’s national security is “severely imperiled.”

These outcomes are “by no means inevitable,” but still represent an “elevated” risk, particularly in light of incidents such as a Ukrainian air defense missile striking Polish territory in November 2022 – a situation exacerbated by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky falsely claiming it was a deliberate Russian strike. While this event “did not spiral out of control, it did demonstrate that fighting can unintentionally spill over to the territory of neighboring US allies.”

Another incident like that could mean “the US military would immediately be involved in a hot war with a country that has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.” This, as well as a conventional conflict between NATO and Russia, is a prospect Washington should avoid at all costs, RAND argues.

A clear implication is the US could lose such a conflict, one key reason being, as pointed out by RAND, “the intensity of the military assistance” being given to Ukraine by its Western backers is already approaching an “unsustainable” level, with US and European weapons stocks “running low.” This consequently means a longer war equals more Ukrainian territory reunified with Russia.

Is there a solution?
On the subject of territorial losses, RAND is unmoved by arguments Ukraine should attempt to recapture all that it has lost since 2014, as “greater territorial control is not directly correlated with greater economic prosperity” or “greater security.” Land having been retaken by Kiev since September means “Russia has imposed far greater economic costs on the country as a whole.”

RAND also considers the worth of arguments that “greater Ukrainian territorial control” should be assured “to reinforce international norms, and to foster Ukraine’s future economic growth” to be “debatable,” as even in the “unlikely” event Kiev pushes “beyond the pre-February 2022 line of control and manages to retake areas that Russia has occupied since 2014,” the risks of escalation from Moscow, including “nuclear use or an attack on NATO” will “spike.”

The Kremlin would likely treat the potential loss of Crimea as a much more significant threat both to national security and regime stability,” the report warns.

All these factors make “avoiding a long war…the highest priority after minimizing escalation risks,” so RAND recommends the US “take steps that make an end to the conflict over the medium term more likely,” including “issuing assurances regarding the country’s neutrality,” something that Moscow had requested before the conflict began, to deaf ears, as well as “sanctions relief for Russia.”

However, the report warns against a “dramatic, overnight shift in US policy,” as this would be “politically impossible – both domestically and with allies,” instead recommending the development of “instruments” to bring the war to a “negotiated end,” and “socializing them with Ukraine and with US allies” in advance to lessen the blow. This process should be started quickly though, as “the alternative is a long war that poses major challenges for the US, Ukraine, and the rest of the world.”

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What this proposal ignores is that Western leaders have consistently proven they cannot be trusted to respect or adhere to treaties they have signed and brokered with Russia, such as the Minsk Accords, which former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has admitted were never intended to be implemented, but rather to buy time for Kiev.

It may be the case then that Moscow won’t be interested in RAND’s solution at all, and choose instead to finish the war on its own terms.

By Felix Livshitz

https://www.rt.com/news/570618-rand-came-up-with-solution/
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