The World Blog by humble servant.

US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) is undeterred by the backlash over his suggestion earlier this month that someone should assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin. In fact, he’s ramping up his violent political rhetoric amid the Ukraine crisis. “I hope he will be taken out, one way or the other,” Graham told reporters on Wednesday in Washington. “I don’t care how they take him out. I don’t care if we send him to The Hague and try him. I just want him to go.” Graham confirmed that he sees murdering Putin as a desirable option for removing the Russian president, just as he implied in a March 3 Twitter post in which he asked, “Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?” At the time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced the “hysterical stirring-up” of anti-Russian sentiment in the US, calling it a “Russophobic meltdown” of sorts. Kremlin reacts to US senator’s call to assassinate Putin The notoriously haw...

Russia has largely achieved its objective of neutralizing the Ukrainian military, but Western governments mistakenly believe the deliberate progress designed to avoid civilian casualties reflects weakness and are funneling weapons to prolong the fighting, a former top Pentagon adviser has said. Russian President Vladimir Putin has given strict orders from the outset to avoid civilian casualties and extensive property damage, retired US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor told the Grayzone in an extensive interview on Tuesday. This has slowed the Russians’ advance “to the point where it has given false hope both to the Ukrainians … but seized on by people in the West, to try and convince the world that a defeat is in progress, when in fact the opposite is the case,” Macgregor said. “The war, for all intents and purposes, has been decided,” the retired colonel said. “The entire operation from day one was focused on the destruction of Ukrainian forces. That’s largely complete.” The Ukrain...

A substantial share of Democrats and Republicans alike are willing to risk nuclear annihilation over Ukraine More than a third of Americans willing to risk nuclear war over Ukraine – poll A Pew research poll published on Tuesday found that while only around half of Americans consider the conflict in Ukraine a threat to US interests, more than a third would support American intervention, even if it risked full-on nuclear war with Russia. Democrats and Republicans were equally likely to consider the risk worthwhile. According to the poll, 62% of Americans said that they would oppose “taking military action even if it risks a nuclear conflict with Russia.” However, 35% said they’d still support military action. Results were almost equal on either side of the partisan divide, with 36% of Republicans and 35% of Democrats willing to risk atomic war with the nation with the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear warheads. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as US lawmakers from b...

US President Joe Biden has called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin “a war criminal” over the conflict in Ukraine, with the Kremlin responding that such remarks from the United States are “unacceptable and unforgivable.” During a White House event on Wednesday, Biden was asked by one of the reporters if he considered Russia’s president a war criminal. Initially, Biden answered “no,” but then he asked the journalist to clarify the question and said: “Oh I think he is a war criminal.” Commenting on the American leader’s remarks, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told TASS that Moscow considers “unacceptable and unforgivable such rhetoric from the head of state, whose bombs killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world.” While the US has consistently condemned Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Biden’s remarks on Wednesday apparently mark the first time the American leader used a term as strong as “war criminal” to describe Putin’s actions. Previously, the White House avoided ...

President orders measures to stabilize the country and support the population Sanctions hurt everyone, but Russia will prevail – Putin Western sanctions are a blow to Russia, but they also hurt the entire global economy, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a government meeting on Wednesday. “As their weapons, [Western states] choose economic, financial, trade and other sanctions against Russia. They are now backfiring on the Europeans and Americans through rising prices for gasoline, energy, food, and job losses associated with the Russian market,” said Putin. He noted that the current situation is a lesson for Russian entrepreneurs, who should learn to choose partners wisely and keep in mind that “there is nothing more reliable than investments at home.” “We see the position of those foreign companies that, despite the shameless pressure … continue to work in our country. In the future, they will certainly receive additional opportunities for development. We also know th...

West's global political and economic dominance ends – Putin The Russian President says that the “myth of the Western welfare state, of the so-called golden billion is crumbling.”Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, has opined that the latest raft of unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and its allies over the Kremlin’s military campaign in Ukraine, mark the end of an era. According to Putin, from now on the West will be losing its “global dominance” both politically and economically. Speaking on Wednesday, the Russian head of state proclaimed that the “myth of the Western welfare state, of the so-called golden billion is crumbling.” Moreover, it is the “whole planet that is having to pay the price for the West’s ambitions, and its attempts to retain its vanishing dominance at any cost.”

A Ukrainian state body for historic research has published nine arguments on Monday for why Ukrainians and Russians cannot be called brotherly nations, including one that stated that Ukrainians are pureblood Slavs, while Russians count people from Ugro-Finnish tribes among their ancestors. The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance released a series of info cards making the case for a profound historic difference between the Ukrainian and Russian peoples. The cards, with text in Ukrainian and in English, were posted on its social media accounts. Some of them were later deleted, but not before being  retained  by web archiving algorithms One of the cards explained how the two Slavic peoples actually have different ethnic origins. “Ukrainians originate from the Slavic tribes. The Russian nation was formed to a large extent through mixing also the Slavic nations with Ugro-Finnish tribes: Muroma, Mernia, Wes, Meshchera, Moksha, Perm, Narova, and others,”  it stated. The ...

TV presenter calls for killing children, quotes Nazi war criminal Ukrainian TV host uses Adolf Eichmann quote to advocate genocide of Russians and killing their children Quoting Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, Ukrainian TV presenter Fahruddin Sharafmal called for his countrymen to destroy the Russian nation by killing their children, and urged Ukrainians to “kill at least one Moskal” – a derogatory term for Russian – each. Video of Sharafmal’s appearance on a Channel 24 morning show went viral on Tuesday, though it was captioned “day 17 of Russo-Ukrainian war,” which would have dated it on on Sunday. Saying he was getting emotional because a good friend of his had been killed, Sharafmal launched into a call for genocide by quoting the notorious SS officer. “I allow myself to quote Adolf Eichmann, who said that in order to destroy a nation, you must destroy, first of all, its children. Because if you kill their parents, the children will grow up and take revenge. By killing children –...

Moscow’s top negotiator says Kiev has proposed the adoption of a neutral status similar to Austria or Sweden Outlines of potential Ukraine peace deal revealed by Russia Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s top negotiator at the peace talks with Ukraine, has said that Kiev is floating the idea of becoming a neutral nation. “Ukraine is proposing an Austrian or a Swedish model of a neutral demilitarized state, but with its own army and navy,” Medinsky told reporters on Wednesday, adding that “the size of Ukrainian Army” was among the issues discussed. Moscow wants Ukraine to officially become a neutral country that will never join NATO. Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, saying that it was seeking the “demilitarization” of the country, among other demands. Medinsky reiterated that Moscow wants Kiev to recognize Crimea as part of Russia, and the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), which broke away from Ukraine shortly after the 2014 coup in Kiev. Other key...

One of Italy’s largest trade unions has called for a protest outside the Pisa airport on Saturday, after receiving a tip from some employees that Ukraine relief flights were transporting weapons and ammunition, not food and medicine. Several workers at the Galileo Galilei airport refused to load one of the cargo flights advertised as carrying humanitarian aid to Ukraine. The crates did not contain food and medication but weapons, ammunition and explosives instead, the Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) said in a statement on Monday evening. “We strongly denounce this outright falsification, which cynically uses ‘humanitarian’ aid as cover to fuel the war in Ukraine,” the USB said.  The union said the workers refused to load the military supplies as that would lead to the deaths of their colleagues in Ukraine – namely, those working at the bases targeted by Russian missile strikes, where the weapons processed through US and NATO bases in Poland get delivered. Francesca Donato, an Italia...

The Ukrainian president asked Ottawa to push for a no-fly zone over his country Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers a video address in Kiev, Ukraine, March 16, 2022.   Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sharply criticized the West in the Canadian parliament on Tuesday for refusing to set up a no-fly over his country in order to shoot down Russian warplanes. Moscow launched a military campaign against its neighbor last month. Appearing before Canadian MPs via video link, Zelensky delivered a thinly veiled rebuke to the West’s refusal to set up a no-fly zone over Ukraine, or to supply the country with warplanes. “War always reveals everything that people are capable of. Who is strong, and who is weak. Who is wise, and who doesn’t see the obvious. Who is honest, and who is a hypocrite,” the president said in an emotional address. “Stop the bombing. How many more missiles must fall on our cities? And in response you hear that someone doesn’t want to do it... But th...

Restrictions cover shipments to post-Soviet states Russia temporarily halts grain exports Russia has temporarily banned grain exports to the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) to protect the domestic food market amid mounting pressure from Ukraine-related sanctions on the country’s economy. According to a decree signed late on Monday by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Russia will not export wheat, rye, barley and maize to neighboring EAEU states until June 30. These states include Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and share a free customs zone with Russia, with supplies to the union not subject to Russia's grain export quotas and taxes. However, according to Deputy Prime Minister Viktoria Abramchenko, the export of grain within the quota under individual licenses would not be banned. The decree also prohibits the export of white and raw sugar to third countries until August 31.  Russian wheat exports plunge The ban is a necessary measure “to protec...