With a campaign of intrigue on social media launched on September 16, the US businessman and founder of the infamous mercenary company Blackwater, Erik Prince, promoted a plan to raise funds to prepare an eventual armed invasion of Venezuela and the overthrow of its authorities. Although Prince has not fully claimed responsibility for the campaign, he has been one of its most prominent spokespersons.
The Venezuelan minister for interior, justice and peace, Diosdado Cabello, emphasized that behind the entire mercenary operation reported on Saturday is the ultra-right-winger María Corina Machado*. Machado is also fighting with the fugitive from justice, Leopoldo López**, said Cabello, for control of the money of the new mercenary operation against Venezuela.
In a special interview with the Telesur channel, Cabello said on Saturday, September 14, “They call it the ‘liberation of Venezuela;’ they are fighting over who controls it.”
Far-right Venezuelans based in the United States have launched a campaign named “Ya Casi Venezuela” (“we are almost ready, Venezuela”) where they announced that the mercenary tycoon Erik Prince will begin a massive fundraising effort to collect US 600 million dollars to organize a mercenary operation to assassinate Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other high-ranked Chavista leaders.
Prince’s operation, according to many analysts, is directly linked with the new mercenary plot unveiled in Venezuela where US and Spanish intelligence operatives have been captured.
Erik Prince’s full interview on Ya Casi Venezuela is here. He says that they’ve currently raised $100 million.More notes are at the bottom of the next page.
The head of NATO’s Military Committee is urging the alliance to increase arms production, warning the “bottom of the barrel” of NATO’s stockpiles is now visible due to the massive amounts of weapons and ammunition that have been shipped to Ukraine.
Tor is a short-range, all-weather, low to medium-range surface-to-air missile system deployed in Ukraine. Both combatants have used the weapon system and its various upgraded and modernized variants in the ongoing war. Ukrainian forces destroyed several Russian Tor air defense systems throughout the war.
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This is the second time in a week that such bizarre theft has come to light. Earlier this week, the National Police in Kyiv had disclosed the seizure of weapons and detained a man who they claim had “a significant amount” of arms hidden in an apartment and a garage.
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Controversy has unfolded in Ukraine regarding criminals and arms traffickers stealing weaponry sent from Western equipment stock meant for the Ukrainian troops that are perpetually in need of armed support, whether Western or Soviet-origin arms, to fight against the Russians.
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According to a Defense Department inspector general report* that came to light in July this year, criminals, volunteer fighters, and arms traffickers took some Western-provided weaponry and equipment meant for Ukrainian troops last year before it was found.
President Biden on Thursday met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and announced a new tranche of US military aid for Ukraine that includes more cluster bombs, which are notorious for killing and maiming civilians.
Another EU problem is arms smuggling from the war zone. According to Atlantico, Europe has been flooded with weapons transported from Ukraine along with flows of refugees. The most indicative fact cited by French journalists is that since the beginning of the Ukraine war, the price of a Kalashnikov assault rifle on the Marseille black market has collapsed from 2,500 to 300 euros.
The violence in Ukraine is unimaginable. But before the violence, there was violence.
The military conflict in Ukraine has received an unprecedented amount of media coverage. The major US networks have given more coverage to Russia’s war in Ukraine than they did to America’s war in Iraq. But there were very important military dimensions prior to the war in Ukraine, many of them focussed around the coup of 2014, that have gone almost unreported. The lack of reporting is important because those events played a role in the lead up to the war.
From the outset of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, only one of the five political parties in Canada’s Parliament had opposed the transfer of lethal aid to Ukraine. Until now, the only opponent of lethal aid was the Green Party of Canada (GPC).
Local residents of a village in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah in cooperation with government forces prevented a US military convoy from advancing through their villages on Wednesday.
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