Putin Recognizes Donbass Republics, Sends Russian Military to 'Denazify' Ukraine

Many wonder how Washington allowed a pro-Turkish protege, a native of the Turkcell corporate system, to become the head of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
The version about Umerov's involvement in the Gulen school, which our gop propaganda is actively pumping, is untenable and based on a fake, possibly deliberately planted by Umerov's Crimean tribesmen in 2022, when he was part of the Istanbul negotiating group.
Everything is simpler and tougher.
Rustem Umerov was recruited by the CIA in Istanbul in 2018. I

Planted or not, it doesn't matter, I think. Umerov is a US/CIA guy. Gulen org is a CIA product. So for Erdogan, with whom Umerov is supposedly in great relation, it amounts to an US/CIA man, Gulen or not. Erdogan is a smart and practical man. When he needs something, he may turn to Umerov or give Umerov a favour while still keeping his cards close to the chest. And I don't think (may be wrongly) that Erdogan would do something for Ukraine per Umerov's request that can hurt Russia.

BTW, in the meantime...

4 September
Head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine Umerov resigns from his position, submitted his resignation to the Rada

5 Sept
A criminal case has been opened against the management of the State Property Fund of Ukraine
MOSCOW, 5 September. /TASS/. The Ukrainian police have opened a criminal case against the management of the State Property Fund. This is stated in a letter from the National Police of Ukraine, a copy of which is at the disposal of the Ukrainian News. As of 4 September, the head of the fund is Rustem Umerov, who will soon be appointed as Ukraine's new defence minister.

The document says that "the National Police of Ukraine, on the instructions of Prime Minister Denys Shmygal, has conducted an investigation into the illegality of the dismissal of independent members of the supervisory board of the Centrenergo company (one of the largest energy generating companies in Ukraine - TASS note) and registered criminal proceedings on the fact of a gross violation of labour legislation". The matter concerns the violation of the law by the fund's officials when dismissing independent members of the supervisory board of Centrenerho.

The publication notes that in such a case, a person under investigation may become the head of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry. The mass media also recalls that the Kiev Commercial Court earlier ruled that the foundation's decision to dismiss the members of the supervisory board was illegal. Additionally, the Security Service of Ukraine earlier opened a criminal case against officials of Centrenerho and the State Property Fund for failing to prepare for the autumn-winter season.
The chaos producing machine seems to be getting infected itself and soon no one will have any control over anything in Ukraine.

Umerov is in very close contact with many representatives of the Russian business elite tied to Turkey.
He knows people from the Kazan organized criminal group, there are indirect exits to the authorities.
This is questionable IMO. Umerov has ties with Crimea and Tatars. As far as I know, the Kazan OCG never operated there, not to mention its history/ timeline and general profile. Those two don't go together for me, but I may not know enough. If anything, I'd rather suspect his connections with Salem or Bashmaki OCG (vide: Sergei Aksyonov), and only if the connections are relatively old. Nowadays, it's more complicated.

Excerpt from the book The Vory by Mark Galeotti (2018)

The first criminal war: taking Crimea

Is Crimea the first conquest in history conducted by gangsters working for a state?
- A question I was asked at a NATO workshop, 2015

The answer to the above question, as is so often the case when academics are asked seemingly simple questions, is complex. It is hardly novel for gangsters to be used in times of war, but, unusually in this case, the criminals were combatants, not just collaborators, and they were not merely unleashed against an enemy like eighteenth-century privateers – pirates given sanction so long as they attacked the other side – but integrated into the invader’s forces. When Russia invaded Ukraine, it did so not only with its infamous ‘little green men’ – special forces without any insignia – but also with criminals. To the gangsters, this was not about geopolitics, less yet about redressing what Putin called the ‘outrageous historical injustice’ that occurred when the Crimean peninsula was transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954, it was about business opportunities.

From the first, Moscow’s campaign to wrest Crimea from Kiev depended on an alliance with local underworld interests. Sergei Aksyonov, the premier of the new Crimean region, is alleged to have had a vor past, having gone by the nickname of ‘Goblin’ back when he was a member of the Salem organised crime group in the 1990s. Aksyonov rejects all claims of such links as being part of a slander campaign initiated by political opponents, but the one time he brought a defamation action against someone who made these allegations, the Appeals Court dismissed the case as groundless.

Nonetheless, the respective trajectories of both Aksyonov and the Salem tell us something about Crimea’s own development, and the role the vory could play in Russia’s near-bloodless seizure of the peninsula. ... Even before the collapse of the USSR at the end of 1991, Crimea had become a haven for smuggling, black marketeering and a lucrative array of embezzlement schemes centring on the region’s health spas and holiday resorts. As independent Ukraine struggled in the early 1990s both with economic crisis and the near-collapse of its law enforcement structures, organised crime assumed an increasingly visible and violent form. Simferopol was fought over by two rival gangs, the Bashmaki (‘Shoes’) and the Salem. They were at once entrepreneurs and predators, forcing local businesses to pay tribute and sell their goods on pain of arson, beatings and worse. [...]

This was an inherently unstable situation: not only was there pressure from political and business elites for the police to reassert their authority, but the gang war was beginning to prevent either side from actually turning a profit. The conflict escalated until a paroxysm of murder and violence in 1996 left both gangs on their knees. It also opened a window of opportunity for Gennady Moskal, the Crimean police chief between 1997 and 2000, to launch a crackdown on overt gangsterism. Crimea became a more peaceful place, but claims that the gangs were finally broken were a convenient fiction.‘Alfrid’, a grizzled Tatar veteran of the 1990s turf wars, claimed that ‘the punks just grew up, they realised wars were bad for business and there was a lot more money to be made in business. Moskal just helped them make the jump.’ The more senior and less blatantly thuggish leaders – including one brigadir, known as ‘Goblin’ – instead took their money and their connections and went (semi-)legitimate, in business and politics. Indeed, usually they were involved in both, leveraging their continued, although less overt, criminal alliances to further their political and economic ends. In this respect, Crimea’s vory followed much the same pattern as in Russia.

By the 2000s, these gangster-businessmen were increasingly dominant within Crimea. Kiev appeared to have little interest in bringing good governance and economic prosperity to this peninsula of ethnic Russians, and this gave the local elites both free rein and also a perverse legitimacy.

Crimea regarded itself as neglected by, and separate from, the political mainstream. In this political, economic and social vacuum, the new mafia–business–political empires could thrive. As one US embassy cable in 2006 put it, these ‘Crimean criminals were fundamentally different than in the 1990s: then, they were sportsuit-wearing, pistol-wielding “bandits” who gave Crimea a reputation as the “Ukrainian Sicily” and ended up in jail, shot, or going to ground; now they had moved into mainly above-board businesses, as well as local government.’ It added that ‘dozens of figures with known criminal backgrounds were elected to local office in the March 26 elections’. Viktor Shemchuk, former chief prosecutor of the region, recalled that ‘every government level of Crimea was criminalised. It was far from unusual that a parliamentary session in Crimea would start with a minute of silence honouring one of their murdered “brothers”.’

The key commodities were control of businesses and, increasingly, land. Some of the former leaders of the Bashmaki, for example, were accused of trying to take over SC Tavriya Simferopol, Crimea’s main football club, largely for the properties it owned. More generally, as prices rose – especially as Tatars, displaced from their Crimean homelands under the Soviets, began to return home – the gangster-businessmen and their allies within the corrupt local bureaucracy sought to snap up real estate and construction projects to take advantage of this market.

Although Crimea was part of Ukraine, many of the most lucrative criminal businesses, such as trafficking narcotics and counterfeit or untaxed cigarettes, depended on relationships with the Russian criminal networks. It helped that Russia’s Black Sea Fleet still had its base at Sevastopol in Crimea under a treaty with Kiev, and that so many navy veterans had retired locally: there was common civilian and military traffic back and forth. When the Ukrainian state began to totter as President Yanukovych struggled with the Maidan protesters, Moscow was able to begin to reach out to potential allies in Crimea through underworld channels. According to a conversation with a Russian police officer, representatives from Solntsevo had visited Crimea for talks with local vory even before 4 February 2014, when Crimea’s presidium, or governing council, considered a referendum on its status. The Muscovites came not just to feel out the scope for further criminal business, but also to gauge the mood of the local underworld.

Aksyonov, head of the Russian Unity party, seemed an ideal choice as a Kremlin figurehead. Even though he had been elected to the regional parliament in 2010 with just 4 per cent of the vote, he was ambitious, ruthless and alleged to be closely connected with both political and criminal power-brokers on the peninsula.

When Moscow moved to seize Crimea on the morning of 27 February, it deployed the ‘little green men’, some local police who solidly supported the coup, and also thugs in mismatched fatigues and red armbands, nonetheless often clutching brand new assault rifles.

These ‘self-defence forces’ spent as much time occupying businesses – including a car dealership owned by a partner of Ukraine’s next president, Petro Poroshenko – and throwing their weight around on street corners as they did actually securing strategic locations. While some were veterans and volunteers, many were the footsoldiers of the peninsula’s crime gangs [including Bashmaki and the descendants of Salem], who had temporarily put their rivalries aside to pull Crimea out of Ukraine.

The new elite is thus a triumvirate of Moscow appointees, local politicians and gangsters made good. And they did indeed make good, quickly moving to skim funds from the sums Moscow provided to start developing the peninsula, and simply expropriating properties owned by the Ukrainian government and its allies. In theory, these properties were sold at auction to raise more development funds, but often in practice the ‘auctions’ were clearly rigged sweetheart deals. ‘Alfrid’, for example, made no bones about the fact that he was taking many of his liquid assets, and using the cash to snap up properties. ‘This is like privatisation in the 1990s,’ he said, ‘one of those chances in life when you can make a fortune if you move fast and know what you’re doing.’ For ‘Alfrid’, in his sixties, this was his ‘pension plan’.

Meanwhile, Sevastopol could begin to challenge the Ukrainian port of Odessa as a smuggling hub. Historically, Odessa had handled the lion’s share of not just Ukrainian but also Russian smuggling across (and very occasionally beneath) the Black Sea. Whether or not Sevastopol ever could emerge as a credible rival, especially in light of Western sanctions, is in a way irrelevant: the very possibility that it might do so forced Odessa’s godfathers to lower the ‘tax’ they levy on criminal traffic through the port, an example of black-market economics at its most basic.


The Center for the Study of Corruption and Organized Crime (OCCRP) has released a new investigation into the withdrawal of about $21 billion from Russia.
Sorry, I'm allergic to OCCRP. Supported by NED, USAiD, Soros, ....
 
These limitless people are not shy about anything. Whatever they do, in the West they are the light of democracy, human rights, "values" and other husks that Blinken likes to talk about.

"We reluctantly came to the conclusion that we need to eliminate people,"

Funny, The Economist quickly noticed that it doesn't sound good and replaced "people" with "terrorists" getting in effect another questionable sentence:

We reluctantly came to the conclusion that we need to eliminate terrorists.

The article is behind a paywall, but can be read here (archived).

A quote:
The operation was a month in the making. Yevhen Yunakov, the mayor of Velykyi Burluk, in the Kharkiv region, had been identified as a collaborator with the Russians. “Caucasus”, a special-forces commander, and a group of local officers were given the job. His men watched their target meticulously for days: when he shopped; when and where he moved; the extent of his security. Once they detonated their bomb, from a distance, they disappeared to safe-houses inside occupied territory. The group would return to Ukrainian-controlled territory only weeks later, after the town had been liberated. Yunakov’s body has never been found.

Over 18 months of war, dozens of people like Yunakov have been targeted in clinical operations across occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself. They have been shot, blown up, hanged and even, on occasion, poisoned with doctored brandy. Ukraine is tight-lipped about its involvement in assassinations. But few doubt the increasingly competent signature of its security services. The agencies themselves drop heavy hints. “Any person who betrays Ukraine, shoots at Ukrainians or fires missiles on Ukrainians should understand that they are being watched and will be brought to justice,” says Andriy Cherniak, an officer of HUR, Ukraine’s military-intelligence agency. In an interview in July his boss, General Kyrylo Budanov, went further: “If you are asking about [creating a version of] Mossad…We don’t need to. It already exists.” ...

In modern Ukraine, assassinations date back to at least 2015, when its domestic security service (SBU) created a new body after Russia had seized Crimea and the eastern Donbas region. The elite fifth counter-intelligence directorate started life as a saboteur force in response to the invasion. It later came to focus on what is euphemistically called “wet work”.

Valentin Nalivaychenko, who headed the SBU at the time, says the switch came about when Ukraine’s then leaders decided that a policy of imprisoning collaborators was not enough. Prisons were overflowing, but few were deterred. “We reluctantly came to the conclusion that we needed to eliminate terrorists,” he says. A former officer of the directorate describes it in similar terms. “We needed to bring war to them.” In 2015 and 2016 the directorate was linked to the assassinations of key Russian-backed commanders in the Donbas; Mikhail Tolstykh, aka “Givi”, killed in a rocket attack; Arsen Pavlov, aka “Motorola”, blown up in a lift; Alexander Zakharchenko, blown up in a restaurant (pictured). ...
 
The 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak in Uganda, Kenya, Guinea, Liberia prompted a major expansion of the presence of U.S. Army Institute of Infectious Diseases personnel in these African countries to obtain live virus samples of the deadly disease.

So it could be that the bioterrorism is a deployed by a similar formula to the one used with jihadis. Create chaos, then move in to 'solve' it. I'm guessing the US had a direct hand in certain outbreaks, but it's just a guess.

Was the sharing of this kind of intel on the biological terrorization of Africa one component of Russia gaining solid influence there? Unless certain circles in African states knew already, and then reached out to Russia for security reasons after seeing how well the Russia was standing up to the West. As if Africa needed another reason beyond the decades of pillaging...
 
If true, and I would give it more than the random 50% chance, it can mean several things, my first though was along the lines of preparing the ground for yet another drug/bioweapon testing on Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. But who knows what those psychos are plotting.
That's an interesting possibility, they're about to escalate the conflict with bioweapons and they're preparing the minds of the public with a return of covid so that when it happens... it can simply be blamed on the new wave. Speculating without any evidence, IF... IF Prigozhin were to have been involved in such a bio offensive, it would explain the harsh response, assuming it was indeed Russia whodunnit.

you get to lock everyone down again, more control at home, and commit war crimes abroad... It's evil, and I have a feeling it would backfire, because of BRICS mostly, as things are.. I am not sure if BRICS would play along as they did before, at which point only the economies in the west would suffer horrendously, while BRICS remains afloat.
 
The sending of depleted uranium shells to Kiev by the US. It can only be described as evil and not everyone thinks it is a good idea.

⚠️ 🇺🇸🎯 'Bad Decision All Around': US Depleted Uranium Move in Ukraine Gets Scorched by Ex-Pentagon Brass☢️

❗️Fasten your seatbelts: the U.S. has cranked up its recklessness by shipping depleted uranium rounds to Ukraine. Astonishingly, it's not just the Kremlin sounding the alarm—retired U.S. military officials are appalled.

➡️Retired Lt. Colonel Earl Rasmussen, with two decades of U.S. Army experience, minces no words: "This is a sign of desperation." What does this desperation mean in tangible terms? Depleted uranium rounds do more than shred armoured vehicles; they inject radioactive material into the very soil. The result? A radioactive wasteland that's a ticking time bomb for cancer rates.

➡️Former senior Pentagon adviser Karen Kwiatkowski doubles down on this sentiment. She calls it an "ugly, dangerous thing" with implications stretching beyond immediate warfare. It's a financial landmine for anyone even considering investment in a post-war Ukraine. And let's not forget, there's zero accountability in how these toxic rounds will be used.

➡️Contrast this with Russia’s approach. While the U.S. is betting on chaos, Russia remains a beacon of sanity and prudence. Operating on a well-calculated strategy, Moscow demonstrates yet again that responsibility and tactical wisdom are not mutually exclusive.

❗️There it is. While the U.S. spirals into reckless gambits, Russia stands as a beacon of rational decision-making. Your thoughts? 🎙🌍

🔴 @DDGeopolitics
Perhaps the top hedgefonds like Vanguard and Blackrock who owns 17 million hectares of Ukrainian farmland is realising that they will not be able to cash in on this and thus are happy to destroy it so that no one else will benefit from it. It would fit the psychopathic mindset of destroying what they can't have themselves.

The Russian Foreign Ministry is strong in its condemnation of it and rightly so (here from TG channel):
#Opinion by Maria Zakharova:

According to the media, the White House claims that depleted uranium munitions to be sent to Kiev do not present a radioactive threat.

Is this a lie or ineptitude?

I wrote many times about the toxicity of depleted uranium, the special danger of radioactive dust for human health and soil contamination with radionuclides, I would like to remind everyone that the number of cancer cases spiked in the areas where depleted uranium munitions have been used. NATO military personnel can testify to that (Russian MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova's article for Komsomolskaya Pravda (August 25, 2023)), especially Italian servicemen, who did not know about this during the bloc’s aggression against Yugoslavia. Years later, the Italian parliament published a 252-page report citing the results of such research.

Out of the 7,500 people subjected to the effects of toxic agents and radiation, 372 have died (that is a 5 percent mortality rate, or every 20th person). Moreover, they died of painful cancer complications such as renal dysfunction, lung cancer, bone cancer, oesophagus cancer, degenerative skin disorder, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and leukaemia.

Serbs, the direct victims of NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia, were also affected by depleted uranium munitions. According to the Serbian Health Ministry (Грујичић за РТС: Нуклеарни и хемијски рат вођен 1999. године, научно доказати последице по здравље људи), the rate of various diseases increased considerably in the regions bombed by NATO, including cancer, male infertility, a broad range of autoimmune diseases, pathological pregnancies, and children’s mental disorders.
 
So it could be that the bioterrorism is a deployed by a similar formula to the one used with jihadis. Create chaos, then move in to 'solve' it. I'm guessing the US had a direct hand in certain outbreaks, but it's just a guess.

Was the sharing of this kind of intel on the biological terrorization of Africa one component of Russia gaining solid influence there? Unless certain circles in African states knew already, and then reached out to Russia for security reasons after seeing how well the Russia was standing up to the West. As if Africa needed another reason beyond the decades of pillaging...
One can perhaps add the suspected mycotoxin of the Rwandan genocide, and in general the known fact of the testing of any and all types of medicine or vaccines on African populations . I remember at the time of the cvd vaccine discussions even a health minister, I think Croatian, said publicly that yes, vaccines were experimental. that until now experimental vaccines had only been used on Africans. and that now it was our turn so shut up. Another interesting point is that africa in general, especially poorer africa, has a significantly lower cvd vaccination rate than the first world. So they are ahead of us at this round. Probable that they are much more aware in this respect both because of past experience and because of a significantly higher neuronal "pure" connection speed than ours and greater breadth of vision (they are also extremely young populations). All of which perhaps allows them to jump at the chance to escape the yoke that this unfortunate 3d sts occasionally presents. with what result we will see :-)
 
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Its smaller than Abrams, so its not a tank. Well, T72, T80 and T90 are smaller than Abrams, and they are tanks. Seems that the US adopted the russian tank thinking.

I don't think that they adopted Russian thinking. I think that they think more like businessmen than like regular army. I think that they just needed a tank for countries that don't want to buy Abrams for some reason. And now they have a product for them. They say it's not a tank because it cannot fight against other tanks, unlike T72, T80 and T90, which are small but can still fight.
 
Planted or not, it doesn't matter, I think. Umerov is a US/CIA guy. Gulen org is a CIA product. So for Erdogan, with whom Umerov is supposedly in great relation, it amounts to an US/CIA man, Gulen or not. Erdogan is a smart and practical man. When he needs something, he may turn to Umerov or give Umerov a favour while still keeping his cards close to the chest. And I don't think (may be wrongly) that Erdogan would do something for Ukraine per Umerov's request that can hurt Russia.

BTW, in the meantime...

4 September
Head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine Umerov resigns from his position, submitted his resignation to the Rada

5 Sept
A criminal case has been opened against the management of the State Property Fund of Ukraine

The chaos producing machine seems to be getting infected itself and soon no one will have any control over anything in Ukraine.


This is questionable IMO. Umerov has ties with Crimea and Tatars. As far as I know, the Kazan OCG never operated there, not to mention its history/ timeline and general profile. Those two don't go together for me, but I may not know enough. If anything, I'd rather suspect his connections with Salem or Bashmaki OCG (vide: Sergei Aksyonov), and only if the connections are relatively old. Nowadays, it's more complicated.





Sorry, I'm allergic to OCCRP. Supported by NED, USAiD, Soros, ....
PoB,

Concerning investigation, unfortunately, it turned out true all the way. The whole amount of transactions was around 160 billion bucks. (It is only that scheme).

Here are some excerpts:

Moldovan President Igor Dodon was also forced to respond to the Reuters report: "I think it's not worth making such statements. Now there is a very detailed investigation of the whole scheme. We know that $22 billion of Russian money went to the West through Moldovan banks. We have opened several criminal cases in Moldova on this issue. The competent authorities are engaged. We hope that our Russian colleagues from law enforcement agencies will do everything possible to clarify this situation. But I think it's premature to say that some state structures, law enforcement or others," he told the RNS news agency.

The statements of the Moldovan authorities that the FSB is behind the withdrawal of $ 22 billion from Russia can be considered an emotional reaction to the unwillingness of the Russian special services to help in the investigation. And although some officers of the central office of the FSB did behave strangely in this case, and one even served as a seconded employee in a bank that actively participated in the illegal withdrawal of funds, nevertheless, the "Moldovan scheme" of laundering was revealed in Russia precisely thanks to the efforts of individual FSB units. And first of all from the FSB directorate for Moscow and the Moscow region.

But when it came to the initiation of criminal cases, in Russia, unlike Moldova and other countries, the investigation began to slow down.

These cases were investigated in the district investigative departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Moscow, they were repeatedly transferred from one investigator to another, years passed, and the organizers of the illegal withdrawal from Russia of almost 700 billion rubles could not be found.

According to the "Moldavian scheme", not only Sergey Magin's banks worked, but almost all major Russian cashiers.

In total, almost 20 Russian banks were noticed transferring money to Moldindconbank with the help of fictitious court decisions (most of them had their licenses revoked for questionable banking operations). The TOP 5 Russian credit institutions that sent the largest amount of money to Moldova included two banks of Alexander Grigoriev - Russian Land Bank (RZB) and Bank Zapadny. Only through them, according to the "Moldovan scheme", $10.6 billion, or about 350 billion rubles, was withdrawn from Russia. [...]

Today, Alexander Grigoriev is in custody in a case unrelated to the "Landromat". Grigoriev and his partners are accused of embezzling assets from the Rostov bank "Doninvest". As far as Novaya Gazeta knows, there are no cases against Grigoriev in connection with the withdrawal of hundreds of billions of rubles from Russia.

Grigoriev, while he was at large and while his banks were working according to the "Moldovan scheme", had influential partners. The board of directors of RZB included Igor Putin, the cousin of the President of Russia. Prior to RZB, Igor Putin already had experience in the banking sector — for example, he was on the board of directors of Master Bank, which also had its license revoked for laundering criminal proceeds.

Putin and Grigoriev seemed to have a long-standing partnership. Putin was on the boards of directors of the construction company SU-888, as well as Podolsk Promsberbank — Grigoriev was a shareholder in both structures. However, the partners subsequently parted ways, and Igor Putin even published a special letter in which he stressed the need for a radical improvement of the banking system.

In the situation with the RZB, as Putin wrote, "competent sources warned me in advance about the real state of affairs, confirming my fears. Realizing that I could not change the financial policy, I decided to leave the board of directors of the bank."

Grigoriev had another influential partner at Zapadny Bank, Yuri Ansimov, FSB general. In the quarterly report of Zapadny, his place of work was indicated directly — the apparatus of seconded FSB employees (APS). The FSB APS includes officers whom the director of the service appoints to different companies in order to look after them.

At that time, while the FSB officers were looking after the Zapadny Bank, almost $930 million was withdrawn from Russia according to the "Moldavian scheme".
No money and ‘criminal’ were found.



Similar type of schemes were revealed when ‘Panamagate’ happened.
Among the owners of offshore companies are the king of Saudi Arabia, the prime ministers of Iceland (he immediately resigns), Pakistan (he will be removed from power by the court), the president of Ukraine, relatives of the leaders of Azerbaijan, China, the Prime Minister of Great Britain. There are more than a hundred politicians and officials in total.

Concerning russian angle:

All over the world, the defendants in the Panama dossier will pay more than $ 1.2 billion in fines. For rich Russians, offshore companies are also a way to protect and conceal property. And Russian business is usually connected with the state – senior officials do not live on a salary.

The Kremlin warns about upcoming publications a week in advance. The spearhead of this attack is directed primarily against our country and against President Putin personally. As a friend of Putin, the St. Petersburg violoncellist Sergei Roldugin appears in the Panama dossier. Companies with a turnover of up to $ 2 billion are associated with the name of this People's Artist of Russia.

Novaya Gazeta, a participant in the international investigation, writes about dubious transactions with shares of state-owned companies conducted by Roldugin firms, about their purchases of strategic assets and leisure projects related to relatives and friends of the president. They say that many others from Putin's entourage have lost his trust due to insatiability, and the president still trusts Roldugin without a doubt, as a guardian.

In addition to Roldugin, the Panama dossier contains the names of the press secretary of President Peskov, Vice Mayor of Moscow Liksutov, Minister Ulyukayev, Governor of the Pskov region Turchak, deputies, senators, Russian dollar billionaires.

In total, the Federal Financial Monitoring Service will find 4197 offshore companies controlled by Russian citizens in the Panama dossier. No case will be initiated in this regard.


No wonder. basically it is usual way of running ‘business’ by elites in capitalist reality...💁‍♂️
 
Was the sharing of this kind of intel on the biological terrorization of Africa one component of Russia gaining solid influence there? Unless certain circles in African states knew already, and then reached out to Russia for security reasons after seeing how well the Russia was standing up to the West. As if Africa needed another reason beyond the decades of pillaging...
It could be a bit of both, that is sharing and people learning on their own. A number of Africans, especially from countries with traditional links to Russia, have received education in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, to become doctors, engineers, agronomists, etc.

Russia also has embassies and consulates in Africa, without assuming that they talk about it, as their tasks may vary according to circumstances.
1694076080601.png
Russia has shared a lot, and some people in Africa will know.

On March 7, 2022, there was on the MoD Russia TG channel:
🇷🇺 🇺🇦 ☣ Statement by the Chief of the Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection troops of the Russian Federation Armed Forces Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov (March 7, 2022)

▪ The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation has repeatedly drawn attention to the biological programmes implemented by the Pentagon in the post-Soviet area.

Including the territory of Ukraine that has united a chain of more than 30 biological laboratories divided into those for scientific research and for sanitary-epidemiological investigations.

▪Those works have been ordered by the Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). A firm affiliated to the defence department (Black and Veatch above all others) are involved in the implementation of the projects.
The works refer to three main branches. In the first place, it refers to the biological situation observation in the areas of possible deployment of the NATO military contingents, according to the Pentagon. In the second place, it is dedicated to collecting and transporting the strains of dangerous microorganisms. The third branch of activity refers to scientific investigations on potential biological weapons agents that are specific for that region, possessing natural focuses and able to be transmitted to humans.

For example, since 2021, the Pentagon has been carrying out the project called 'Diagnosis, observation and prevention of zoonotic diseases in the Armed Forces of Ukraine' funded with 11.8 million dollars.

In 2020-2021, the German Ministry of Defence examined the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, leptospirosis, meningitis, hantaviruses
causative agents within the Ukrainian-German initiative for biological security on the external borders of the European Union.

Under the pretext of testing agents for the treatment and prevention of the coronavirus infection, a few thousand of serum samples taken from the infected individuals that refer to the Slavic ethnicity have been transported from Ukraine to Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

▪At the same time, the activity of the biological laboratories that, according to our data, has been intensified since 2014 and the so-called Ukrainian healthcare system 'reforming' programme implemented by the United States have led to an unmanageable increase of hazardous and economically important infections morbidity.

Thus there has been noted an increase of rubella, diphtheria and tuberculosis cases in Ukraine. The incidence of measles has increased more than 100 times. The World Health Organization has declared Ukraine a country with a high risk of the poliomyelitis outbreak.

▪We are considered that in the year of 2007 a strain of African swine fever with high contagiousness was constructed in the Georgian biological laboratory which is subordinate to Pentagon. It`s spread caused significant economic damage to a number of states including Ukraine and Poland and excluded them from a number of pork exporters.

▪The Department of the Chief of the Russian troops NBC protection constantly analyzes the biological situation on the territory of Ukraine.

According to our data an emergency phasing out of the biological programmes takes place. The analysed documents confirm that Ukrainian Health Ministry has set a task to completely destroy the bio-agents in the laboratories since 24th of February.

At the same time the analysis of the instructions given to the laboratory officials indicates that liquidation procedure is aimed at the irrevocable destruction of the collections. Apparently, everything necessary for continuation of the implementation of the military biological program has already been taken out of Ukraine.
And there were images. The first one has been shown before, but the quality was less. It gives the locations where research had been carried out.
photo_2022-03-07_17-09-25.jpg
The next slide shows examples of the cooperation between the US and Ukraine regarding military biological research.
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Next are some maps. To the left the spread of measles and tuberculosis, in the middle the spread of "АЧС" that is "Африка́нская чума́ свине́й- (лат. pestis africana suum; сокр. АЧС)", or African Swine Fever Virus.

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Next some analysis of documents relating to military biological activity
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On March 9, there was in this thread:
This was all in Russian: Briefing by Russian MFA Spokesperson Maria Zakharova
[Брифинг официального представителя МИД России М.В.Захаровой]
Maria Zakharova mentioned among other things the issue of US military bio research in Ukraine.
She is saying at around minute 24-25, that Russia already has brought to the attention of the world the problematic research carried out by the US, but nobody wanted to listen, nobody wanted to know.
I would imagine that some people in Africa had and have heard and read about the problems.

On March 10, 2022, there were slides from the Russian MoD TG post MoD Russia
The first slide is about the study of migratory birds to spread infectious diseases:
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The next is about emerging infections from insect eating bats. A project that involves more than 60 scientists in the US, Ukraine and Georgia:
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The next has details about the execution of military biological research, US-Ukraine and Germany-Ukraine.
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Next is a slide about the transfer of biological material to foreign countries, Ukraine-Germany and Ukraine-Australia.
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There was a comment in one post from March 14, 2022:
Fake:
The United States has no laboratories for the creation of chemical and biological weapons on the territory of Ukraine. The corresponding statement was posted on Twitter by the US authorities.

Truth:
During a hearing in the Senate, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland confirmed the existence in Ukraine of “facilities where research in the field of biosafety was carried out.”

At the same time, we published materials (Яндекс) on the military biological programs (MoD Russia) of the United States and NATO in Ukraine. They mention the UP-4 project (the spread of infections through migrating birds), the P-781 project (the study of viral pathogens that can be transmitted from bats to humans), the UP-8 project (the Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever virus and hantaviruses in Ukraine) and others. Documentation, databases, biomaterials and equipment have already been removed from the laboratories of Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa.
If you go to the above Yandex Disk share, one can at the time of posting still find documents. For instance, there are Ukrainian originals of orders from February 24, 2022 to destroy samples of pathogens. The following was part of a Russian translation from a document regarding samples stored in L'vov in Western Ukraine:
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Some Africans probably also listened to what the Chinese said about the US bio-research. On March 17, 2022 in this thread:
Chinese state media shared this infographic about US biolabs (apologies for the size). Xi and his friends are NOT going to let this issue disappear into the ether, never to be spoke of again.
And on March 18 responding to the above:
I could not find the link for the image, but went looking. Below are some illustrations and headlines from the last few days. On the pages they have Twitter, FB, We Chat and Weibo links.

So it could be that the bioterrorism is a deployed by a similar formula to the one used with jihadis. Create chaos, then move in to 'solve' it.
Not necessarily move in to solve it. Why try to solve, when the effect created, left to itself, is doing what it was intended to do?
I'm guessing the US had a direct hand in certain outbreaks, but it's just a guess.
A guess, and given that there has been a spread of some diseases, like African Swine Fever, from the very area where these diseases are studied, there is a strong case.
We briefed the audience on illegal samples gathering and illegal transportation of the material by the company’s employees during Ebola Fever outbreak in 2014 in West Africa. In 2022, the U.S. President’s administration officially ceased the Metabiota company’s activity in Africa as its illegal methods raised too much concern of the aforementioned states’ governments. A Cameroon’s non-profit organisation assumed the company’s functions and made a statement about Metabiota’s office purchase as a subsidiary company.

In company’s press release dated 14 October 2022. it is stated, that ‘the HEADA non-profit organisation assumes Metabiota programs in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone. The US Department of Defense, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Agency for International Development sponsor the company’s activity…’.

According to Nathan Wolfe, the Metabiota founder, ‘the company assumes functions as the American government sees local capacity localisation and strengthening efforts’.
Apart from causing disease and chaos, there is a potential for control. In this post:
Since the above briefing at the end of February, there have been a few others:
A TG post from March 10, 2023 has this link,
There was:
The establishment of global biological control is the primary goal of U.S. bioprogrammes, as we have frequently brought to your attention. A move to U.S. standards for the transmission and collection of biological information, the deterioration of national health systems, and the imposition of medical equipment and medicine suppliers are frequently the outcomes of ‘selective assistance’ to participating governments in the programmes.
Along with this, military research facilities are being built near the borders of geopolitical rivals. In addition, harmful microorganism strains unique to particular regions are being gathered, and dangerous medications are being tested on humans.
According to its functionality and level of biosafety, established laboratories can be divided into three categories. The purpose of the first-level laboratory is to gather microorganism strains and their vectors from endemic areas and to prepare biomaterials for subsequent transmission.
Second-level labs prepare state collections of microbial strains for export overseas in addition to conducting research on the pathogens of extremely serious infectious diseases.
Third-level labs are outfitted with maximum biological containment facilities and are entrusted with gathering data on the biological situation in certain states whose territories the Pentagon intends to employ for the deployment of its military contingents.
The BWC and other international law norms are replaced by U.S. efforts to establish global biological control with their own regulations, which are developed in the U.S.’s interests, supported by the West as a whole, and imposed for execution on third parties. As a result, the United States is allowed to carry out biological research wherever in the world. The states taking part in this study also lose their national sovereignty in terms of biosafety and become totally reliant on the US.
For people interested to find out what is already posted in this thread about what the Russians have said about the biological research done with US assistance, try Kirillov Search results for query: Kirillov Kirillov has been the main person to speak about the findings Russia has made. If you are on TG, then MoD, and searches like Kirillov, (though it does not cover all cases), or biological, which is more comprehensive, although Kirillov has also spoken about radiation.
 
Not necessarily move in to solve it. Why try to solve, when the effect created, left to itself, is doing what it was intended to do?

I put 'solve' in quotes because that's the official story, democracy and freedom, helping the oppressed overseas, etc. - or in terms of the covid tyranny, 'health' and solidarity, etc. So yeah, there's no attempt to actually solve anything, as they're in the business of soul murder and general mayhem.
 
Concerning investigation, unfortunately, it turned out true all the way. The whole amount of transactions was around 160 billion bucks. (It is only that scheme).
I didn't say it was not true. Sometimes it is. The problem is that their "fight against corruption and organised crime" is selective and politically motivated, and used to get rid of those officials who are inconvenient to globalisation or war mongering agenda. When I see occrp investigating people like H. Biden or the Clintons for corruption, or organisations like NATO or CIA for organised crime (there is huge pool to pick from), I may adjust my view accordingly.

There is a lot of suspicious statements involving 'anonymous sources' and their 'claims' that often suggest deliberate directing an investigation toward specific targets. I'm not going to try to dissect everything, but one example of false presentation that to some extent reveals their agenda (or one of them) is clearly disclosed in this para:

Journalists of the Polish Newsweek drew attention to the fact that one of the recipients of payments under Landromat was the Polish analytical organization European Center for Geopolitical Analysis (ECAG). In May 2013, it received € 21 thousand from a Cypriot dummy company for "consulting services". ECAG is headed by far-right politician Mateusz Piskorski. Earlier RBC wrote that he is one of many European radicals who openly take a pro-Russian position. Piskorsky repeatedly visited Crimea, worked as an observer at the Crimean referendum in March 2014, and appeared as an expert on RT. In May 2016, he was arrested by Polish counterintelligence as a “Russian spy” and is still being detained.

Here, I can tell you that apart from a period in his youth, Piskorski was not far-right, in fact he tried to register a left-wing party and was a leader of a labour union. Never a 'radical' nor particularly pro-Russian: just supporting anti-globalism and political realism thus not supporting Russophobia, opting for a dialogue and cooperation. As a professor of political science, he was sometimes interviewed, by RT included, he still does talk to several Russian media outlets, often confronting their fierce anti-Polish propaganda and correcting some their claims for Russian audience.

Being an independent foreign observer is not a crime, the problem is with the outcome: if the referendum result is in line with known powers' preferences and you confirm it was all legal, you're a good and valid observer. If the result is not to their liking and you confirm no fraud, you find yourself black-listed and the deed itself considered a crime. As for the arrest: Piskorski was arrested with no charges revealed to him or his lawyer for a long time, has been kept in pre-trial solitary arrest for three years, and the court hearings that took place during that time, were all but an example of justice, seriously, it was surrealistic. In 2018, even the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions considered his protracted detention in pre-trial arrest a violation of a number of articles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and has asked the Polish authorities to release him, sadly to no avail.

What you see there, is the usual patchwork of pieces from a person's bio, some catchy phrases, authoritatively chosen descriptive adjectives and made up claims, all stitched together in such a way that you think you know everything about that person that needs to be known to "form" a strong opinion "of your own" and stick to it.
 
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It's still going off-topic, but just one more thing, Antony. On one of OCCRP pages related to the Laundromat scheme, they have this sentence:

Trasta Komercbanka was one of six Latvian banks used in the Sergey Magnitsky case.

Under the above link, the first two paragraphs read:

As Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky slowly died in a Russian prison from abuse and neglect, US$230 million (5.4 billion Russian Rubles) in taxes stolen from his client disappeared into a maze of phantom companies, crooked banks and offshore accounts. Magnitsky, accused of the largest tax scam in Russian state history despite being the whistleblower who reported it, knew who pulled off the theft but not who the powerful people behind them were.

He died rather than admit to a crime he didn’t do. Magnitsky was the loser. But the winners until now have not been identified. Reporters from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), Barron’s and Novaya Gazeta, spent months tracking banking records and offshores companies to identify two beneficiaries of the deal: businesses of a Russian state transportation official’s son and the ex-husband of a tax official who granted the refunds.

Can you count lies they managed to pack in those seven lines?
 
Just something that caught my eye, there's been an increasing contact between US - Russia media personalities, specifically with the interviews between Solovyov and Scott Ritter, and now Solovyov with Alex Jones. While previously it was reported that Tucker Carlson was looking for an interview with Putin. Maybe the mediatic "information wall" between the two countries is cracking a bit?
 
Secretary of State Blinken met with Danish Prime Minister Frederiksen ahead of both men traveling on to Kiev for a two day stay and meetings with Ukrainian leadership.

The Duran digs into the meaning behind this, seeing a strong likelihood that the public excuse of it being so that he could pass on in person a further $1billion in aide is merely a cover story, with the real intent being to inform the Ukrainian's that US policy is shifting in light of the failure of the offensive. As Mercouris puts it:

I don't believe that Blinken would have just gone to Kiev for two days, had a series of meetings like that, have the Danish Prime Minister with him in tow, if he was really there just to announce an arms package (which could have been announced in Washington) and to have a snack at McDonald's!

Their reading is that with another European hardliner present to make sure Ukraine understands this is a united front message, Blinken's message was likely:

1. You have failed to follow through on your promises of military success...
2. You have refused to follow the battlefield strategy we have pushed for...
3. We have no more left to give you in the locker ...
4. So now it's time for negotiations to be prioritized so as to find a possible off ramp - but negotiations on US terms and without Ukrainian involvement...

As the Duran say, if this was the message its likely to have a long way to go before any sign of this goes public - and that part of Blinken's purpose may have been to insist on more American/NATO oversight of the whole war effort and a further reorganization of Ukraine leadership in line with a tightening of policy.

Of course, if this is what happened, the gulf between what the US is willing and able to negotiate on and what the Russians will even consider is likely massive - probably insurmountable. But that's for Blinken and co to find out...

So the US is caught between a rock and a hard place - carry on the war as is and lose on the battleground; enter into negotiations on terms that Russia would consider and the US loses politically, even if the war ends. With an election fast approaching, which loss is more damaging...? For now, the US likely still believes it can wangle something out of the Russians that will allow them to claim 'peace with honour'... as they possibly pursue this course from here on in, they are likely to learn yet again that wishful thinking will get you nowhere...

 

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