Global Research

And so the latest propaganda ploy against Russia comes to an abrupt, anti-climatic end.

Sick and tired of Kiev’s stalling games and Western media war lies, the enormous Russian aid convoy has just returned to Russia after successfully delivering their cargo of food and medical supplies to the besieged population of Lugansk, victims of an ethnic cleansing program whose real nature has been shamelessly twisted by Ukrainian and Western leaders, and the MSM presstitutes acting as government stenographers, calling the convoy’s entry into Ukraine an “invasion”.

It’s unclear whether or not Kiev gave its final approval. I’d like to think the Russians just said, “Hell with this, let’s roll!”

© ANDREY KRONBERG/AFP/Getty
Russia’s 280-truck aid convoy parks in Russia.

I recommend reading the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs press release on their decision to just deliver the aid and be done with it. Predictably, the Western press has all but ignored this statement, preferring to parrot psychopathic fantasy and imply that it’s in any way factual.

First there’s this little gemfrom NATO sock puppet war lord-in-chief, Anders Fogh Rasmussen:

… [NATO] had observed an alarming build-up of Russian ground and air forces in the vicinity of Ukraine.

“We have also seen transfers of large quantities of advanced weapons, including tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery to separatist groups in eastern Ukraine,” Rasmussen said in a statement.

Rasmussen said Russia continued to escalate the crisis in eastern Ukraine and that this could lead to further isolation of Moscow.

If this is true, then please, for Fogh’s sake, show us some evidence!

The West – the U.S. in particular – has been making similar claims for months, none of them substantiated by anything remotely resembling proof. If such claims were true, the all seeing eye of U.S. intel would have the evidence and it would be easy to distribute. They could provide numerous high-quality satellite photos of the alleged military build-up, not to mention the “large quantities” of weapons entering Ukraine. But they haven’t, ergo, there is no evidence, because it never happened. In contrast, when Russia makes claims, they provide real evidence, with satellite data, accurate time stamps, and other verifiable information, as it did in the weeks after the downing of MH17. They even pointed out that the U.S. had one of its satellites positioned to be able to observe what really happened to the flight. Where is that data?

Russia’s response to Rasmussen was glorious:

“We’ve stopped paying attention to Mr. Rasmussen’s empty talk and his press secretary. There is no point commenting on them. There is no proof there except Twitter,” official representative of Russia’s Defense Ministry Igor Konashenkov stated.

Who needs facts when there’s “social media and common sense“?!

Rasmussen even had the chutzpah to say this, reported by the Washington Post:

The disregard of international humanitarian principles raises further questions about whether the true purpose of the aid convoy is to support civilians or to resupply armed separatists.

Say what?! Kiev makes it impossible for the humanitarian aid to enter Ukraine and Rasmussen has the gall to say that Russia disregards humanitarian principles? And actually delivering the aid, in spite of Kiev’s stonewalling, somehow implies that Russia’s true purpose is not humanitarianism? The world Rasmussen inhabits, where logic is perverted and facts twisted to serve whatever political ends are convenient in the moment, bears no resemblance to objective reality. By the way, the White House has issued a similar statement, saying the movement of the convoy raises the likelihood that the convoy serves as a pretext for invasion. I guess I can stop wondering who writes Rasmussen scripts…

Displaying a similar deficit in brain function, U.S. puppet Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on Ukrainian national TV:

It’s clear that Russia is not planning to conduct any humanitarian mission . We need to use all methods to stop Russian military aggression.

No comment needed there. Black is white, war is peace, and Yatsenyuk really is a seasoned politician who knows his arse from his elbow.

Then there’s ‘elected’ president Poroshenko, who called the border crossing a “flagrant violation of international law.” This from someone whose troops deliberately kill unarmed civilians! It’s little wonder, though: what genocidal maniac would welcome humanitarian aid to the people he’s hellbent on destroying?

The Post makes sure to point out that the International Committee of the Red Cross would not accompany the convoy, implying that they were probably aware of some nefarious Russian plans. What they don’t mention is that the reason the ICRC reneged on their agreement to supervise the convoy in Ukraine was that Kievwould not guarantee its safety. And their reason? The continued shelling of Lugansk, which Kiev is responsible for! As the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs put it:

On 21 August, the situation appeared to have been resolved when the Ukrainian authorities finally informed the ICRC of their readiness to start clearing humanitarian shipments for prompt delivery to Lugansk. The Ukrainian side officially confirmed its unconditional consent for the convoy to start moving during a phone conversation between the Foreign Affairs Ministers of Russia and Ukraine. On 20 August, customs clearance and border control procedures were launched at the Donetsk checkpoint. On 21 August, however, this process was stopped, with officials citing much more intensive bombardment of Lugansk. In other words, the Ukrainian authorities are bombing the destination and are using this as a pretext to stop the delivery of humanitarian relief aid.

German leader Angela Merkel may have had something to do with the convoy finally getting through. She’s currently in Kiev where she promised Poroshenko half a billion euros to rebuild the Donbass… which was destroyed by the same puppet regime she assented to violently taking power back in February. Go figure.

Throughout this hysterical aid convoy episode, Merkel has been on-song with Obama, calling Russia’s humanitarian gesture “a dangerous escalation”. (But then, as Chancellor of Germany, she has to be.) It’s an utterly absurd suggestion, and she damn well knows it. The only thing Russia is “escalating” is the growing chasm between the West’s heartless barbarity and very real disregard for humanitarian principles, and Russians’ commitment to international law, justice, and providing assistance to the oppressed.

Zack Beauchamp and Max Fisher of Vox parroted NATO’s unsubstantiated allegations, referring to the mission as an “aid convoy” (their quotation marks, implying it was not really an aid convoy). They also repeated last week’s equally unsubstantiated report alleging that Russia had inexplicably sent an armored column into Ukraine, the majority of which was “destroyed” by Kiev’s troops. Again, no evidence, no cigar, and as it turned out, the Kiev regime was forced to retract the claim. Can we call the liars now?

The way in which that particular lie spread was instructive: Roland Oliphant of the British Telegraph, together with Shaun Walker of the British Guardian tweeted a photograph of a Russian military truck somewhere on the Russian side of the border, along with their claim that they saw a convoy of military vehicles cross over into Eastern Ukraine; somebody back at The Guardian offices in London then reported as fact that “our reporters on the ground witnessed a convoy of Russian military vehicles cross into Ukraine”; Poroshenko’s office in Kiev then seized this ‘gift’ to claim it had “destroyed a convoy of Russian military vehicles that had illegally crossed into Ukraine.” Such is how wars start, if you want them to. It’s all “social media and common sense”, see?

So did Russia really “invade” Ukraine, as rags like the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, AP, and Reuters have been reporting? Under the heading “What we know”, Vox‘s Beauchamp and Fisher list the following: that NATO says Russian artillery has crossed into east Ukraine and is being used by rebel forces there; that the U.S. and NATO are “condemning” this but not yet calling it an “invasion”; that the “humanitarian convoy … seems pretty military”, called a “stealth invasion” by Kiev; that the rebels “appeared” to have shot down MH17; that the annexation of Crimea was a “stealth invasion”, after a “fraud-ridden referendum”; that rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko boasted of receiving “30 tanks and 1,200 troops from Russia”.

All of which is complete and utter bullshit. There’s no evidence for Russian artillery entering Ukraine except for Kiev’s and the U.S.’s unverified statements (anyone remember Iraq’s WMDs?). There’s nothing to suggest the aid convoy was anything but what it claimed to be; all claims that it was a pretext for military invasion are mere slanderous suggestion. Despite Russia fulfilling all their legalistic and bureaucratic obligations, and inspections from the Red Cross and OSCE, no violations were discovered. The trucks contained what the inventories said they contained. End of story.

There’s also no evidence the rebels had anything to do with downing MH17, but quite a bit of evidence pointing towards Kiev. As for the Crimean referendum being “fraud-ridden”, that’s a bald–faced lie. And regarding Zakharchenko’s statement, he never stated the tanks and troops were coming “from Russia”, but that they were being transported between the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics.

Rather than point out that these are mere allegations (or outright lies), Voxand the entire Western media operates on the presumption that they may be true. At least they include the following under “What we don’t know”:

– Whether Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine on August 14. If so, that would be a major escalation from the past practice of sending small numbers of unmarked troops, and a big step toward an overt war.

[Which suggests it’s nonsense. – HK]

– Whether Ukraine is actively firing back at Russian-flagged forces. Ukraine described firing back at the August 14th “incursion,” which Russia denies exists. Now that Russian forces appear to be in Ukraine more overtly, if Ukraine returns fire this may provide Moscow with an excuse to more fully invade.

[Ukraine has already violated Russia’s border, firing missiles at checkpoints in the Rostov region, and yet Russia has not retaliated. In other words, the above is BS. – HK]

– Whether the Russian aid convoy is part of a secret invasion force. That’s what Ukrainian officials say, and the fact that the trucks appear to be empty is highly suspect, but it’s still not clear whether or not the 280-truck convoy is part of some secret plot or just there deliver humanitarian supplies, as Moscow says.

[It’s not “highly suspect”. Some trucks are half empty in order to take on the load of any trucks that break down. – HK]

– What Russia does next. Again assuming the incident Ukraine described happened, it’s totally unclear how Russia would respond. Will they escalate to full warfare with Ukraine? That remains to be seen.

[Indeed, what will Russia do next? That’s the big question. But it’s unlikely they will ‘invade’. That’s exactly what NATO wants them to do. – HK]

– Could Russia try to annex eastern Ukraine? That’s what they did in Crimea, and Russia has been backing separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine for months. But that would be a big step, and even riskier than the Crimea annexation.

– How will the US and Europe respond? American and European leaders have ratcheted up economic sanctions on Russia to deter it from invading, but have been hesitant to directly arm or supply Ukraine, for fear of getting sucked into a war. It’s not clear how they’ll respond if open war breaks out between Russia and Ukraine.

The double standards in the official discourse re: Russia and the U.S./Ukraine are mind-numbing. The U.S. is allowed to wage brutal proxy wars in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and umpteen other countries, but Russia cannot support its own brothers and sisters fighting a war against genocidal Nazis without hysterical responses from the West. The U.S. can orchestrate an illegal coup d’etat and finance the illegitimate new regime, but material support to the resistance in Novorossiya is verboten. The U.S. can invade other countries with bombs and call it ‘humanitarianism’; Russia ‘invades’ Ukraine by providing real humanitarian aid. If only more countries followed suit! And people still think we don’t live in a unipolar world dominated by the American Empire.

In a sense, Russia is acting ‘aggressively’ and ‘invading’ Ukraine. They are standing up for what is right and saying ‘NO!’ to the genocidal terrorist operation being conducted by Kiev. In the end, what the people of Eastern Ukraine will remember is that Putin helped them. The people in Lugansk (and other Novorossiyan regions and cities) have no water, no electricity, and little food. Over 2,000 are already dead, and 750,000 have fled to Russia for safety. No, Russia has not forgotten their brothers and sisters in the east of Ukraine. While the current political climate may prevent them from aiding the rebels militarily, they can provide humanitarian aid to those in need. The heart-breaking thing is that it’s nowhere near enough. The people in the breakaway republics are facing a long, cold winter with insufficient supplies…

Putin is ‘invading’ all right: invading the borders of public opinion by making it clear Russia is the only country that gives a damn about the people being massacred by the Nazis running Kiev and their paymasters in Washington, London and Berlin. When Putin makes Kiev look bad, of course they’re going to flip out and complain about how ‘aggressive’ Russia is. If all ‘invasions’ were as peaceful and popularly supported by the ‘invaded’ population, it would provide a welcome respite from the type of invasions the world has been experiencing at the hands of pathocracies like the U.S. for decades.

Remember, all the BS to the contrary is brought to you by the same mainstream media that accused Russia of shooting down MH17 and ‘invading’ Crimea. Every accusation made by Western media has proven to be false. The propaganda is getting so bad, you literally cannot believe anything that comes from Western media. So I suggest you simply stop doing so.