PUTIN: A TRAITOR?

Russian president promised not to kill Zelensky – former Israeli PM

As a result of protracted war, hundreds of thousands have been killed or maimed

UPDATE FEB 9, 2023: Check out this stunning piece of investigative reporting by Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize winner. Biden had told the world BEFORE the Russian invasion that he would destroy the Russian pipelines. Six months later the US did it. And what did Putin do? Nothing. So much for that great “Russian patriot.” [for more, see the update at the end of this article]

This is unbelievable (see the excerpt from an RT article which follows). And it confirms what we have been suspecting all along – that Putin is a traitor to his country. How many tens of thousands of Russian lives could he have saved had he killed this snake and taken Kiev in the first month of the offensive as was the military plan? (not to mention tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives).

“The best way to kill a snake is to cut off its head,” goes and old saw.

Had Russia taken Kiev and eliminated Zelensky and his neo-Nazi government, the war would have been over by the end of March of last year.

Instead, this is what happened. Vast swaths of Ukrainian territory which Russia had won initially were surrendered to the enemy.

The Russian military allowed the enemy to regroup and get supplies and training from the West.

And it allowed Zelensky to occupy the center stage of the global media, and spew out hate against Russia for a full year now, as I said in my recent editorial (https://truthinmedia.net/2023/02/01/eu-uk-nazis-justice/). Zelensky has even traveled to the US to address the Congress and has met with a parade of world leaders in Kiev during the past year.

Meanwhile, while Putin allowed this former actor to dominate the world stage for 11 months, tens of thousands of young Russians have needlessly lost their lives in a protracted war.

Staggering Casualties

According to the EU military chief, 60,000 Russian troops have been killed, and 180,000–190,000 wounded in the war so far. The US military estimates, put that figure at closer to 200,000, both killed and wounded. And that’s on top of 30,000 to 40,000 civilian casualties (see Wikipedia).

Admittedly, the western sources tend to inflate the Russian losses and minimize the Ukrainian ones. But just to put the above staggering casualties in perspective, the US had 2,401 military deaths during the 21-year war in Afghanistan. Also, 20,752 American soldiers were also wounded in action in that war.

Which means that the Russian losses in just 11 months in Ukraine may be about TEN TIMES GREATER! And what’s worse – they’ve lost territory to a militarily inferior enemy. That’s adding insult to injury.

So whose side is Putin on? Obviously not on Russia’s side.

In the meantime, Ukraine has gotten stronger and bolder. Instead of attacking the supply routes from the West right from the start, Putin and his military have been fighting a WW I-type trench war against the Ukrainians. The result is pathetic for a military which has had such a technological advantage over the enemy all along.

Worse, strategically Russia is now worse off than before the war. Even if Putin manages to retain the four new regions he has annexed to Russia, the remaining part of Ukraine will continue to be a huge national security threat for Russia. With the US and NATO allies behind it, the longer the conflict goes on, the stronger Ukraine will get.

Sadly, the situation reminds this writer of the war he had covered in the early 1990s. The Serbs had a decided military superiority in the beginning of the war in Bosnia. By the summer of 1993, they could have taken Sarajevo, the capital and the Muslim stronghold. Instead, their leaders chose to “negotiate” with the West. Two years later, NATO bombed them into surrender.

Of course, Russia is not Republika Srpska. But if Putin is forced to use nuclear weapons, which this writer doubts will ever happen, then Russia will have lost the Ukrainian war anyway. And with it its global reputation as a strong military force.

Check out the article which follows.

——-

Putin promised not to kill Zelensky – former Israeli PM

The Ukrainian leader sought assurance before posting a video declaring he wasn’t “afraid of anyone,” Naftali Bennett claims

On Saturday, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stated in an interview that during his meeting with Putin last March, the Russian leader repeatedly reassured him and gave his word that Zelensky would not be “killed” or “eliminated.”

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has revealed to Israeli media that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him that he would not have Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky assassinated. Bennett flew to Moscow Zelensky’s request, who declared that he was “not afraid of anyone,” only after Putin assured his safety.

Bennet traveled to Moscow as Israeli PM last March, in a failed bid to broker an early ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, he told Israel’s Channel 12 on Saturday.

With Russian forces surrounding Kiev, Zelensky was reportedly hiding in an undisclosed location at the time of the meeting. Bennett told the channel that the Ukrainian leader had tasked him with securing an assurance from Putin that he would not be targeted for assassination.

“Are you going to kill Zelensky?” Bennett asked Putin. The Russian president said that he would not, to which Bennett again asked for his word that he wouldn’t have the Ukrainian president killed. Putin gave his word, Bennett said.

Bennett said that he called Zelensky immediately after leaving the Kremlin, telling him “he’s not going to kill you.” Zelensky asked for confirmation, and Bennett told him that he was “one hundred percent” sure that Putin would not have him eliminated.

Two hours later, Zelensky posted a video from his office in Kiev, explaining that he was “not hiding,” and “not afraid of anyone.” The video address was described as “defiant” by Western media outlets, but it was unknown until now that Zelensky essentially asked Putin permission – via Bennett – to reveal his location before making his statement.

RT, Feb 4, 2023

It was the first installment of the new Zelensky Show which has been playing on most western channels for the last 11 months.

For more, check out… RT

---

UPDATE FEB 9, 2023: Check out this stunning piece of investigative reporting by Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize winner. Biden told the world BEFORE the Russian invasion that he would destroy the Russian pipelines. Six months later the US did it. And what did Putin do? Nothing. So much for that great “Russian patriot.”

EXCERPTS FROM SEYMOUR HERSH ARTICLE ABOUT US BLOWING UP NORDSTREAM PIPELINES

How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline

The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now

In December of 2021, two months before the first Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Jake Sullivan convened a meeting of a newly formed task force—men and women from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, and the State and Treasury Departments—and asked for recommendations about how to respond to Putin’s impending invasion.

It would be the first of a series of top-secret meetings, in a secure room on a top floor of the Old Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House, that was also the home of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). There was the usual back and forth chatter that eventually led to a crucial preliminary question: Would the recommendation forwarded by the group to the President be reversible—such as another layer of sanctions and currency restrictions—or irreversible—that is, kinetic actions, which could not be undone?

What became clear to participants, according to the source with direct knowledge of the process, is that Sullivan intended for the group to come up with a plan for the destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines—and that he was delivering on the desires of the President.
[…]

“AN ACT OF WAR”

The CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert. Everyone involved understood the stakes. “This is not kiddie stuff,” the source said. If the attack were traceable to the United States, “It’s an act of war.”
[…]
Throughout “all of this scheming,” the source said, “some working guys in the CIA and the State Department were saying, ‘Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.’”

Nevertheless, in early 2022, the CIA working group reported back to Sullivan’s interagency group: “We have a way to blow up the pipelines.”

What came next was stunning. On February 7, less than three weeks before the seemingly inevitable Russian invasion of Ukraine, Biden met in his White House office with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who, after some wobbling, was now firmly on the American team. At the press briefing that followed, Biden defiantly said, “If Russia invades . . . there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

Twenty days earlier, Undersecretary Nuland had delivered essentially the same message at a State Department briefing, with little press coverage. “I want to be very clear to you today,” she said in response to a question. “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”

Several of those involved in planning the pipeline mission were dismayed by what they viewed as indirect references to the attack.

“It was like putting an atomic bomb on the ground in Tokyo and telling the Japanese that we are going to detonate it,” the source said. “The plan was for the options to be executed post invasion and not advertised publicly. Biden simply didn’t get it or ignored it.”

Biden’s and Nuland’s indiscretion, if that is what it was, might have frustrated some of the planners. But it also created an opportunity. According to the source, some of the senior officials of the CIA determined that blowing up the pipeline “no longer could be considered a covert option because the President just announced that we knew how to do it.”

For more, check out the full article at:

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream

PLANNING

In December of 2021, two months before the first Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Jake Sullivan convened a meeting of a newly formed task force—men and women from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, and the State and Treasury Departments—and asked for recommendations about how to respond to Putin’s impending invasion.

It would be the first of a series of top-secret meetings, in a secure room on a top floor of the Old Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House, that was also the home of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). There was the usual back and forth chatter that eventually led to a crucial preliminary question: Would the recommendation forwarded by the group to the President be reversible—such as another layer of sanctions and currency restrictions—or irreversible—that is, kinetic actions, which could not be undone?

What became clear to participants, according to the source with direct knowledge of the process, is that Sullivan intended for the group to come up with a plan for the destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines—and that he was delivering on the desires of the President.

[…]

The CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert. Everyone involved understood the stakes. “This is not kiddie stuff,” the source said. If the attack were traceable to the United States, “It’s an act of war.”

[…]

Throughout “all of this scheming,” the source said, “some working guys in the CIA and the State Department were saying, ‘Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.’”

Nevertheless, in early 2022, the CIA working group reported back to Sullivan’s interagency group: “We have a way to blow up the pipelines.”

What came next was stunning. On February 7, less than three weeks before the seemingly inevitable Russian invasion of Ukraine, Biden met in his White House office with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who, after some wobbling, was now firmly on the American team. At the press briefing that followed, Biden defiantly said, “If Russia invades . . . there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

Twenty days earlier, Undersecretary Nuland had delivered essentially the same message at a State Department briefing, with little press coverage. “I want to be very clear to you today,” she said in response to a question. “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”

Several of those involved in planning the pipeline mission were dismayed by what they viewed as indirect references to the attack.

“It was like putting an atomic bomb on the ground in Tokyo and telling the Japanese that we are going to detonate it,” the source said. “The plan was for the options to be executed post invasion and not advertised publicly. Biden simply didn’t get it or ignored it.”

Biden’s and Nuland’s indiscretion, if that is what it was, might have frustrated some of the planners. But it also created an opportunity. According to the source, some of the senior officials of the CIA determined that blowing up the pipeline “no longer could be considered a covert option because the President just announced that we knew how to do it.”

For more, check out the full article at:

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream