The FBI aided a Ukrainian intelligence effort to ban Twitter users and collect their data, new leaks show. Twitter declined to censor journalists targeted by Ukraine, including The Grayzone’s Aaron Maté.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits the Western Wall, in Jerusalem’s Old City on January 23, 2020 (Shlomi Cohen/Flash90)
The United States and some of its NATO allies plan to increase weapons-sharing and provide additional security guarantees to Ukraine. Polish President Andrzej Duda told the Wall Street Journal that Western leaders were supportive of developing ties with Kiev similar to the relationship Washington keeps with Tel Aviv.
Israel isn’t a member of NATO, and the U.S. isn’t treaty-bound to come to the country’s aid. But for decades Israel has enjoyed a special relationship with the U.S. as Washington’s most stalwart partner in the Middle East, and it is also the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II.
U.S. assistance to Israel is currently outlined in 10-year agreements, and the most recent one commits Washington to providing $38 billion in military aid between 2019 and 2028.
Zelensky did say that he wanted Ukraine to be a “big Israel”. /sarcasm
France-based press watchdog Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières, or RSF) recently released its scores and rankings for international press freedom. In 2022, RSF gave Ukraine a score of 55.76 out of 100, placing it 106th out of 180 countries surveyed. In the most recent report, issued after over a year of war, Ukraine shot to 79th out of 180, with a new score of 61.19. This despite wartime measures that banned opposition parties, consolidated media under state control, and saw journalists’ speech chilled by unprecedented intimidation.
The Washington Post deleted a portion of an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, where he accused the paper of helping Russia by posing a question about information contained in leaked classified documents.
Lambert here: As before, Lira hold dual Chilean-American citizenship. So Yves remarks:
I suggest Lira followers call their Chilean Embassy or Consulate to demand that Lira either be allowed his freedom or transported safely out of Ukraine.
Worth noting that Lira seems to be part of a more general enforcement of “Their Democracy”:
Ukraine security forces are rounding up and arresting what they call "internet agitators" whose heinous crimes allegedly include posting political opinions online, using certain social media sites, and criticizing the Ukraine military. Freedom and democracy on full display pic.twitter.com/NaemEuKBRh
This article was submitted to the WSWS by Maxim Goldarb, the head of the Union of Left Forces (For a New Socialism) party, which has been banned by the Zelensky government. The World Socialist Web Site unequivocally opposes and denounces the persecution of left-wing and oppositional tendencies in Ukraine by the NATO-backed Zelensky regime. We call on our readers to distribute the information about the state-backed repression of anti-war opposition in Ukraine as widely as possible.
Members of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party have introduced a bill to criminalize the spread of “false information” on the internet and through social media that violates Ukraine’s “national security.”
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