I know, you are already tired from Joe Biden's gaffes. However, is it selfishness or selflessness of the American soldiers he is talking about? 😅💤

Another big Russian gun (many of them) working near Slaviansk. I like, how he starts it all "by the book".

Well, I know, "long-read" is nor a recommended for Telegram genre. However, that is a must-read!
About dramatizations as a method of Western policy
Article by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov
It is currently only in Russian, so working to bring it to you 🛠💤

It took some time, using automatic translator does not make it instantaneous, as many nuances could be lost, and some apparent mistakes may happen, so, eventually, have to get through it all "by hand", but it certainly worth it!
Here I will add the translation as .pdf documents.
Translated @TrFormer
https://t.me/TrFormer

About dramatizations as a method of Western policy
July 18, 2022, 00:01

Article by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov

Today, the Russian Armed Forces and the militias of the DPR and LPR are confidently solving tasks within the framework of a special military operation (SMO), seeking to end the blatant discrimination and genocide of Russians and eliminate the direct threats to the security of the Russian Federation created over the years by the United States and its satellites on the territory of Ukraine. Losing on the battlefield, the Ukrainian regime and its Western patrons do not disdain to stage bloody dramatizations to demonize our country in international public opinion. Already there were Bucha, Mariupol, Kramatorsk, Kremenchug. The Russian Ministry of Defence regularly warns about the preparation of new staged incidents with facts in hand.

Provocative dramatizations performed by the West and its minions have a recognizable style. And they did not begin in Ukraine, but much earlier.

1999, the Serbian region of Kosovo and Metohija, the village of Racak. A group of OSCE inspectors arrive at the site of the discovery of several dozen corpses dressed as civilians. The head of the mission immediately announces an act of genocide without any investigation, although it is not within the mandate of an international official to draw such conclusions. NATO immediately begins armed aggression against Yugoslavia, deliberately destroying the television centre, bridges, passenger trains and other civilian objects. Subsequently, it turns out for certain that the killed were not civilians, but militants of the gangs of the Kosovo Liberation Army, dressed in civilian clothes. However, the staging has already worked as a pretext for the first ever since the 1975 signing of the Helsinki Final Act on the illegal use of force against an OSCE participating State. It is significant that the head of the OSCE mission, whose statement served as a trigger for the start of the bombing, was P. Walker, a US citizen. The main result of the aggression is the forcible separation of Kosovo from Serbia and the creation there of the largest American military base in the Balkans, Bondsteel.

2003 - the infamous performance of Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN Security Council with a test tube of some white powder, which he announced to the whole world as anthrax spores, allegedly produced in Iraq. And again, the staging worked: the Anglo-Saxons and others like them bombed Iraq, which still cannot fully restore its statehood. The fake was quickly exposed: everyone admitted that there were no biological weapons or other WMD in Iraq. Subsequently, one of the masterminds of the aggression, British Prime Minister T. Blair admitted the forgery, saying something like: "Well, you made a mistake, who doesn't." K. Powell himself later justified himself by the fact that he was "set up by the special services." One way or another, another staged provocation served as a pretext for the implementation of plans for the destruction of a sovereign country.

2011, Libya. There was a specific dramaturgy here. Things did not come to direct lies, as in Kosovo and Iraq, but NATO grossly distorted the UN Security Council resolution. This resolution established a no-fly zone regime over Libya in order to "land" M. Gaddafi's combat aircraft. They didn't fly. However, NATO began to simply bomb the Libyan army units that fought against the terrorists. M. Gaddafi was brutally killed, there was nothing left of Libya - they are still trying to piece it together, and the process is again led by the US representative, appointed by the personal decision of the UN Secretary General without any consultations with the Security Council. As part of this process, inter-Libyan agreements on elections were staged by Western colleagues more than once, which ended in nothing. Libya remains a territory hosted by illegal armed groups. Most of them work closely with the West. ⬇️

2014, February, Ukraine. The West, represented by the Foreign Ministers of Germany, France and Poland, is actually forcing President V. Yanukovych to sign an agreement with the opposition to end the confrontation and peacefully resolve the intra-Ukrainian crisis by creating an interim government of national unity and holding early elections within a few months. However, this turned out to be a just false performance: the next morning, the opposition started a coup d'etat under Russophobic, racist slogans, the Western guarantors of the agreements did not even try to call for any reasoning. Moreover, they immediately began to encourage the junta in their anti-Russian, anti-Russian policy, unleashing a war against their own population, bombing the cities of Donbass only because they refused to recognize the anti-constitutional coup. For this, the Donbass were declared "terrorists", again with the encouragement of the West.

Here it should be noted that the murder of demonstrators on the Maidan, as was soon revealed, was staged, the blame for which the West laid either on the security forces loyal to V. Yanukovych, or on the Russian special services. In fact, the provocation was staged by radicals in the ranks of the opposition, who worked closely with Western intelligence services. The facts were soon revealed, but the scenario had already been played.

When the war in Donbass was stopped, as a result of the efforts of Russia, Germany and France, in February 2015, Minsk agreements were concluded between Kyiv, Donetsk and Lugansk, and Berlin and Paris were also active here, proudly proclaiming themselves their guarantors. However, over the next long seven years, they did not lift a finger to force Kyiv - as the Minsk agreements, approved unanimously by the UN Security Council, directly required - to enter into a direct dialogue with representatives of Donbass to agree on issues of its special status, amnesty, restoration of economic ties, holding elections. Western leaders were also silent when Kyiv, under both P. Poroshenko and V. Zelensky, took steps that directly contradicted the Minsk agreements. Moreover, the Germans and the French declared that a direct dialogue between Kyiv and the DPR and LPR was impossible, shifting all responsibility on Russia, although it was never mentioned in the Minsk documents, and all these years, in fact, alone insistently demanded their implementation. ⬇️

If anyone had doubts that “Minsk” was just another staging, they were dispelled by P. Poroshenko, who on June 17, 2022 said: “The Minsk agreements meant nothing to us, we were not going to fulfil them ... our task was to ward off the threat ... buy ourselves time to restore economic growth and build the power of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The task has been achieved. The Minsk agreements have fulfilled their task.” The price of this staging is still being paid by the Ukrainian people, whom for many years the West forced to come to terms with life under the yoke of the Russophobic neo-Nazi regime. And when now O. Scholz demands to force Russia to agree to an agreement on guarantees of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, he is trying in vain. There was already such an agreement - the Minsk agreements, which were killed by Berlin and Paris, shielding Kyiv, which openly refused to comply with them. So the play is over, finita la comedy.

By the way, V. Zelensky is a worthy heir to P. Poroshenko, in front of whom, at an election rally in early 2019, he was ready to kneel theatrically in order to end the war.

In December of the same year, he himself had a chance to fulfil the Minsk agreements: the “Normandy Summit” was held in Paris, where, in a statement adopted at the highest level, he undertook to resolve issues of the special status of Donbass. Of course, he did nothing, and Berlin and Paris again defended him. Another publicized document turned out to be nothing more than a Ukrainian-Western production - exactly according to the logic of P. Poroshenko - in order to buy time to pump up the Kyiv regime with weapons.

There was also Syria. Following the implementation of a landmark 2013 agreement on the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons, confirmed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), for which it received the Nobel Peace Prize, blatant provocations were staged in 2017 and 2018 by staging the use of chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhoun and the suburbs of Damascus - Duma. Videos have been circulated of some people calling themselves the White Helmets (who proclaimed themselves a humanitarian organization but never appeared in Syrian government-controlled territory) helping residents who were allegedly poisoned, and no one is wearing protective clothing or using any protective accessories. All attempts to force the OPCW Technical Secretariat to fulfil its responsibilities in good faith and to ensure, as required by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), a transparent process for investigating incidents, have not been successful. This is not surprising: the Technical Secretariat has long been "privatized" by Western countries, whose representatives there hold key positions. They had a hand in organizing the aforementioned show, using them as an excuse for the United States, Britain and France to launch missile and bomb attacks on Syria - and a day before, at our insistence, a group of OPCW inspectors was supposed to arrive there to investigate the incidents , the decision on the direction of which the West desperately resisted.

The ability of the West and the OPCW Technical Secretariat, which plays the role of an assistant, to arrange staging manifested itself in situations with the “poisoning” of the Skripals and A. Navalny. In both cases, numerous requests officially sent by the Russian side to The Hague, London, Berlin, Paris, Stockholm remain unanswered, although these requests are formulated in full accordance with the requirements of the CWC and they must be answered. ⬇️

In the same way, questions should be answered regarding the covert activities that the Pentagon (through its Threat Reduction Agency) has been engaged in in Ukraine. The "finds" discovered by the SVO forces in military biological laboratories in the liberated territories of Donbass and in adjacent areas clearly indicate direct violations of the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons (BTWC). We have presented the documents to Washington and the UN Security Council. The procedure for obtaining clarifications in accordance with the BTWC has begun. Contrary to the facts, the US administration is trying to justify itself by saying that all biological research in Ukraine was of an exclusively peaceful, civilian nature. Evidence - none.

In a broader sense, the military biological activities of the Pentagon around the world, especially in the post-Soviet space, require the closest attention in the light of growing evidence of criminal experiments with the most dangerous pathogens under the “peaceful” guise in order to create biological weapons.

The staged “crimes” of the Donbass militia and members of the Russian military have already been mentioned above. One simple fact speaks about the price of these accusations: having shown the “Buchi tragedy” to the whole world in early April 2022 (there are suspicions that the Anglo-Saxons had a hand in “designing the mise-en-scène of the scenery”), the West and Kyiv still do not answer to elementary questions about whether the names of the dead have been established and what are the results of post-mortem examinations. As in the cases described above with the Skripals and Navalny, the propaganda “premier” of the show production in the Western media took place, and now the ends are in the water, they have gone into denial, because there is nothing to say.

This is the whole point of the Western policy algorithm: to concoct an informational fake, inflate it to a universal catastrophe within a couple of days, blocking the public's access to alternative information and assessments, and when the facts nevertheless make their way, they are simply ignored, at best - mentioned on the latest news pages in small print. It is important to understand that these are not harmless toys in the media war, since such productions are directly used as a pretext for quite material actions: punishing “accused” countries with sanctions, carrying out barbaric aggressions against them with many hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, as was the case, in particular, in Iraq and Libya. Or, as in the case of Ukraine, to use it as a consumable in the West's war against Russia. Moreover, NATO instructors and gunners of the MLRS are already, apparently, directing the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the national battalions directly "on the ground." I hope that among the Europeans there are responsible politicians who are aware of the consequences this is fraught with. In this regard, it is noteworthy that no one in NATO and the EU reprimanded the German Air Force commander, a certain Gerharts, who announced the need to prepare for the use of nuclear weapons and added: “Putin, do not try to compete with us.” Europe's silence suggests that it is complacently forgetting Germany's role in its history.

If you look at today's events through a historical prism, then the entire Ukrainian crisis appears as a "big game" according to the scenario that was once promoted by Z. Brzezinski. Talk about good relations, about the readiness of the West to take into account the rights and interests of Russians who found themselves after the collapse of the USSR in independent Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries, turned out to be nothing more than a staging. Already in the early 2000s, Washington and the European Union began to openly demand that Kyiv decide with whom it is with the West or Russia? ⬇️

Since 2014, the West has been unconditionally directing the Russophobic regime that it brought to power through a coup. The conclusion of V. Zelensky to the forefront of any at least somewhat noticeable international forum is also part of the staging. He speaks, makes pathetic speeches, and when he suddenly offers something reasonable, they hit him on the hand, as was the case after the Istanbul round of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations: then, at the end of March, the light seemed to dawn in the dialogue, but Kyiv was forced to surrender back, using, among other things, a frankly staged episode in Bucha. In Washington, London, Brussels, they began to demand that Kyiv not start negotiations with Russia until Ukraine achieved full military advantage (the former British Prime Minister B. Johnson, and with him many other still acting, but already showing similar inadequacy Western politicians).

The statement by the head of the EU Foreign Service, J. Borrell, that the conflict should be ended by “Ukraine's victory on the battlefield”, suggests that such a tool as diplomacy, in the “stage performance” of the European Union, loses its meaning.

In a broader sense, it is interesting to observe how Europe, “built” by Washington on the anti-Russian front, suffers more from thoughtless sanctions, devastates its arsenals, supplying weapons to Kyiv (without requiring an account of who then controls it and where it ends up), freeing its market for subsequent purchases of products of the US military-industrial complex and expensive American LNG instead of available Russian gas. Such tendencies, coupled with the practical merging of the EU with NATO, make the so far sounding talk about the "strategic autonomy" of the EU nothing more than a spectacle. Everyone has already understood: the foreign policy of the collective West is a "one-man theatre". Moreover, it consistently leads to the search for ever new theatres of military operations. ⬇️

Part of the geopolitical gambit against Russia is granting Ukraine and Moldova (which, apparently, also have an unenviable fate) the status of a country - an eternal candidate for the EU. In the meantime, they are advertising the “European political community” initiated by the head of France, E. Macron, where there will be no special financial and economic benefits, but there will be demands for complete solidarity with the EU in its anti-Russian actions. Here the principle is not "either-or", but "who is not with us is against us." What kind of "community" is this, E. Macron himself explained: the EU will invite all European countries to enter it - "from Iceland to Ukraine", but not Russia. I will make a reservation right away that we don’t need to go there, but the statement itself is indicative, revealing the essence of this new deliberately confrontational, divisive undertaking.

Ukraine, Moldova, and other countries that the EU is courting today are destined to be extras in the games of the West. The United States, as the main producer of these shows, orders the music and the storyline, on the basis of which the anti-Russian script is written in Europe. The actors are ready, they have the skills acquired back in Kvartal 95, they will be able to voice pathos texts no worse than the already forgotten Greta Thunberg, and even play musical instruments, if necessary. The actors are good: remember how convincingly V. Zelensky played a democrat in Servant of the People, a fighter against corruption, against discrimination against Russians, and in general "for all that is good." Remember and compare with how he instantly reincarnated as president literally according to the Stanislavsky system: a ban on the Russian language, education, media, and culture. “If you feel like Russians, then go live in Russia for the sake of your children and grandchildren.” Good advice. He called the inhabitants of Donbass not people, but “individuals”. And about the Nazi battalion "Azov" said: "They are what they are. We have a lot of them." Even CNN hesitated to leave this phrase in an interview.

The question arises: what will be the outcome of all these storylines? Indeed, in fact, staging a show on the blood and pain of people is far from fun, but manifestations of a cynical policy of creating a new reality, in which all the principles of the UN Charter and, in general, the norms of international law are trying to replace their own order, based on their own rules, in an effort to perpetuate the elusive dominance in world affairs. ⬇️

The most devastating consequences for modern international relations were the games started by the West in the OSCE in connection with the end of the Cold War, in which he considered himself the winner. Quickly breaking their promises to the leadership of the USSR and Russia that NATO would not expand eastward, the United States and its allies nevertheless declared their commitment to building a common space of security and cooperation in the Euro-Atlantic area and, together with all OSCE members, solemnly signed at the highest level - in 1999 and then in 2010 - under a political obligation to ensure equal and indivisible security, when no one strengthens his security at the expense of others and no one organization claims a dominant role in Europe. It soon became clear that NATO did not keep its word, heading for the dominance of the North Atlantic Alliance. But even then we continued our diplomatic efforts, suggesting that they enshrine the same principle of equal and indivisible security, but in a legally binding treaty. Offered repeatedly, the last time - in December 2021. The answer is a categorical refusal. They said bluntly: there will be no legal guarantees outside of NATO. That is, the West's support for the political documents adopted at the OSCE summits turned out to be a cheap staging. And now NATO, under the leadership of the United States, has gone even further: it demands subjugation not only of the Euro-Atlantic region, but of the entire Asia-Pacific region. The NATO members do not hide the main addressee of their threats, and the Chinese leadership has already made a principled assessment of such neo-colonial ambitions. Beijing countered them with the aforementioned principle of the indivisibility of security, speaking out in favour of its application on a global scale, so that no one in the world would claim to be exclusive. This approach fully coincides with the position of Russia. We will consistently defend it together with allies, strategic partners and many other like-minded people.

The collective West from the world of illusions should return to earth. The dramatizations, no matter how long they continue, will not work. It's time to play honestly, not according to cheating rules, but on the basis of international law. The sooner everyone realizes that there is no alternative to the objective historical processes of the formation of a multipolar world based on respect for the principle of the sovereign equality of states, fundamental to the UN Charter and the entire world order, the better.

If the members of the Western alliance do not know how to live according to this principle, are not ready to build a truly universal architecture of equal security and cooperation, then let them leave everyone else alone, let them stop forcibly driving into their camp with threats and blackmail those who want to live by their own mind, let actually recognize the right of independent, self-respecting countries to freedom of choice. This is democracy - in fact, and not played out on a crookedly knocked together political stage.

Translated @TrFormer
https://t.me/TrFormer

"The USA is an empire of lies".

This is how Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian described Washington's actions in the international arena.

He recalled four cases when the lies of American politicians led to the deaths of hundreds and thousands of people — in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

And this is only in the last 30 years.

It makes a good illustration to the article by Lavrov above. It appears, that he has many views in common with his Chinese colleague. ⬆️

Four American natural gas facilities have been destroyed by explosions in the space of just a couple of weeks.
Several fires and explosions have hit the energy industry as the United States is battling a national energy crisis.
The news comes after a long string of incidents have impacted multiple key food production facilities in recent months.
On Saturday, an absolutely massive explosion at a very important natural gas facility in Medford, Oklahoma made headlines all over the nation.

Currently USA more and more reminds me of the last years of the USSR, when everything was falling apart, and nobody cared...🤔💤
#TransFormator

Russian servicemen delivered another humanitarian aid to liberated settlements in Kharkov Region during the special military operation.

◽️ Accompanied by military police of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, humanitarian aid totalling about 50 tonnes was delivered by trucks to civilians in the region.

#MoD #Russia #Ukraine
@mod_russia_en

The meeting comes amid warnings from the US last week that Iran is preparing to sell drones to Russia to use in Ukraine.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Tehran is planning to provide 'hundreds' of combat drones to Moscow, and Iranian soldiers will train their Russian counterparts in how to use the drones - with lessons beginning in just a few weeks.

I hope, that this time the American info on the drone deal is true. 💤
#TransFormator

MOSCOW, July 19 - RIA Novosti. The Tehran Currency Exchange has launched trading in the Iranian rial/ruble pair, Iranian central bank governor Ali Salehabadi said on Monday.
"The opening of trading in the ruble/Iranian rial pair currency is an important step in the development of economic relations between Iran and Russia," Salekhabadi said.
Earlier, the Russian Federation and Iran came to an agreement on the use of national currencies in interstate relations. One of them, according to Salekhabadi, was an agreement to sell the ruble at an agreed price on the foreign exchange market to applicants for this currency, in particular, Iranian students.
According to him, citizens of the Russian Federation staying in Iran can also use this rate of currency pairs to meet their needs in the Iranian currency. He explained that the ruble/Iranian rial pairing base would be competitive on the basis of supply and demand, like other market rates.
"Now there are 5,000 Iranian medical students in Russia who will be able to meet their needs by opening transactions in rubles and rials. In addition, the Central Asian countries that work with rubles will also be able to use this market," Salekhabadi added.

Life is hard at the Ukrainian Army position under the Russian shelling (that continues for hours and days...) 🪖

Russia - India - Iran cooperation and trade are growing

The St. Petersburg-Mumbai intermodal train was the first of its kind since it introduced Iran transport to the multimodal route via the Caspian Sea. It was the first intermodal shipment from Russia to India, strengthening Iran’s transport and transit role.

When welcoming the train, Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber mentioned that his country is looking forward to developing more such services and embracing the INSTC route, which can redefine its position on international transport maps. In a comment to Iranian media, he stressed that Iran is already taking crucial steps to facilitate such developments. “The transit capacity of the country has increased to 20 million tons, and by planning and taking appropriate measures, transiting 300 million tons of commodities per year can be reached,” he said.

#India #TransFormator