Tag: State Duma

To Be Updated: USAID is sponsoring YouTube channels

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

How Democracy Can Win: The Right Way to Counter Autocracy

The most important step the United States can take to counter foreign influence campaigns and disinformation is to help our partners promote media and digital literacy, communicate credibly with their publics, and engage in “pre-bunking”—that is, seeking to inoculate their societies against disinformation before it can spread. In Indonesia, for example, USAID has worked with local partners to develop sophisticated online courses and games that help new social media users identify disinformation and reduce the likelihood that they will share misleading posts and articles.

The United States has also helped Ukraine in its fight against the Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation. For decades, USAID has worked to enhance the media environment in the country, encouraging reforms that allow greater access to public information and supporting the emergence of strong local media organizations, including the public broadcaster Suspilne. After Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, our work expanded to help the country’s local journalists produce Russian-language programming that could reach into Kremlin-occupied territories, such as Dialogues With Donbas, a YouTube channel that featured honest conversations with Ukrainians about life behind Russian lines. We also helped support the production of the online comedy show Newspalm, which regularly racks up tens of thousands of views as it skewers Putin’s lies. And even before Moscow’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, we worked with the government of Ukraine to stand up the Center for Strategic Communications, which uses memes [memetic warfare], well-produced digital videos, and social media and Telegram posts to poke holes in Kremlin propaganda.

I still need to look into Newspalm. I’ll update if I find anything. As I don’t know Ukrainian, or Russian, I’m using Google translate for the following information. Note, this is all speculation!

Speculation:

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The Coming Existential Threat: Do We Act in Common or Is It Going To Be Every Man for Himself?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

The Coming Existential Threat: Do We Act in Common or Is It Going To Be Every Man for Himself?

One of the regular panelists on “Sixty Minutes” then faced the cameras directly and said that Russia’s nuclear doctrine is under revision in light of these aggressive plans being aired in the United States, so that Russia is headed towards a policy of ‘preventive’ tactical nuclear strikes, similar to what the United States has. Moreover, if Ukraine targets Crimea and heartland Russia, then Russia will respond according to plans now being laid down. These plans foresee counter strikes against US military installations in Europe and in the Continental United States using hypersonic missiles. The panelist calls for this threat of counter strikes in Europe and the US to be made public and explicit, so that no one is in doubt about what to expect from the Kremlin.

So here we are. The Russians are stripping away the fiction of a proxy war and revealing the co-belligerent status of the US and its NATO allies in preparation for a kinetic war with NATO. As our illustrious former President, a man of few words, would say: “Not good!”

Allow me also to share with my readership the bitter medicine that I just shared with our daughter: look for an escape hatch!

Either, as I fervently hope, there will be an antiwar movement in the USA, in Europe arising from the shock therapy news now developing with respect to the coming kinetic war between NATO and Russia, OR failing that, it will be every man for himself.

Meanwhile, certain people are trying to discredit the closest thing to an antiwar movement we have!

Feet on the Ground in St. Petersburg: The Public Mood

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

by Gilbert Doctorow

One of the first questions put to me by a reader via the Comments function with respect to Monday’s report of my initial impressions after arriving in St Petersburg was: and what is the general mood of people? I begged off answering, saying that I would have to speak to a lot more people before I could confidently answer that question.

Feet on the Ground in St. Petersburg: The Public Mood

Sanctions don’t seem to be effecting the wealthy or the middle class, in Russia, much.

Russian Enemies of Kremlin Meet to Plot Violent ‘Elimination’ of Putin

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Anti-Russia activists and former Russian lawmakers opposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin have been gathering in Poland in recent days to discuss what removing Putin from power would look like nearly nine months into his war in Ukraine.

Russian Enemies of Kremlin Meet to Plot Violent ‘Elimination’ of Putin

H/T: “YOUR JOB IS TO KILL PUTIN.” FROM THE MEETING IN JABLONNA (POLAND) ON 4-7TH OF NOVEMBER.

Good luck with that, Ilya! /s

U.S. Blew Up Russian Gas Pipelines Nord Stream 1 & 2, Says Former Polish Defense Minister

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

U.S. Blew Up Russian Gas Pipelines Nord Stream 1 & 2, Says Former Polish Defense Minister (archived)

But President Joe Biden promised on February 7 to prevent Nord Stream 2 from becoming operational if Russia invaded Ukraine. “If Russia invades,” said Biden, “then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

…

And [Radek] Sikorski is no Putin apologist. In a May debate with Univeristy of Chicago political scientist, John Mearsheimer, Sikorski accused Russia of being in violation of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons. Following the debate, the Chairman of the Russian State, Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, said “Sikorski is causing a nuclear conflict in the center of Europe. He does not think about the future of Ukraine or that of Poland. If his suggestions are fulfilled, these countries will cease to exist, as will Europe.” Sikorski is also married to Anne Applebaum, a journalist known for her hawkish views toward Russia.

Source: archived (original Tweet deleted).

H/T: Der Friedensstifter

Related:

Germany warned by CIA of possible attack on Nord Stream gas pipeline weeks in advance: report

The extent of the damage means the Nord Stream pipelines are unlikely to be able to carry any gas to Europe this winter even if there was political will to bring them online, analysts at the Eurasia Group said. Russia has halted flows on the 760-mile Nord Stream 1 pipeline during the war, while Germany prevented them from ever starting in the parallel Nord Stream 2.

Warning or covering their a$$es?! I suspect the latter, considering the warning was from “unnamed sources”.

On the night of September 26, a sharp drop in pressure was recorded in line A of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline due to a hole in the pipe. In the evening of the same day, the Nord Stream control center recorded a pressure drop in both lines of the gas pipeline, the press service of the Nord Stream operator company reported.

US Ships Suspected Of Sabotage Attack On Nord Stream Pipelines

Why Ukraine referendum is a big deal

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The referendum on September 23-27 in the Donbass and southern Kherson and Zaporozhye regions of Ukraine on their accession to Russian Federation is, prima facie, an exercise of the right of self-determination by the native population who reject the western-backed regime change in Kiev in 2014 and the ascendancy of extreme nationalist forces with neo-Nazi leanings in the power structure.

Why Ukraine referendum is a big deal