Paul Robinson:
“For now, Russia for the most part still looks West. But the more the institutionalized West seeks to exclude Russia, and the more that the new Iron Curtain solidifies, the harder it will be to convince Russians that they have a European future.”
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2021/04/04/institutionalizing-the-west/
Peace for Ukraine is a reasonably impartial news agency for the Finnish Peace Committee (in English, and on Facebook). As far as we know, there are few who are so well-informed on the spot and down to the smallest detail. See https://www.facebook.com/Peace-For-Ukraine-2283917274991492
Examples of news so far in April:
4.4. News of a child killed in Aleksandrovskaya is probably not reliable since the photo was taken in 2016.
4.4. The news of the killed child has been sent to the OSCE for investigation.
3.4. A man has been arrested in Barnaul, Russia, on charges of planning to blow up a mosque on behalf of a nationalist organization with Ukrainian roots.
3.4. The article by Anatol Lieven, see yesterday’s post on Activists for Peace
3.4. Villages near Gorlovka are said to be under fire, two houses hit.
2.4. The United Nations Human Rights Office calls on Ukraine to invest in better protection of healthcare workers.
1.4. A house in Aleksandrovka belonging to a family helping the Peace Committee has been shelled.
1.4. Detailed article on 160 US military personnel in Ukraine taken from EU.Jsonline.com.
1.4. Aleksandrovka shelled again. The news passed on to the UN human rights organization.
Anatol Lieven writes on “a very dangerous pattern in U.S. and Western behaviour: to believe whatever “our” side in a given crisis tells us, automatically, and without checking facts”:
To repeat the vital point that I made in an article for Responsible Statecraft last month, if Ukraine goes to war with Russia, Ukraine will lose, and the United States and NATO will not fight to save her. The consequences for Washington will be deep humiliation, and Russia will be driven into the arms of China. So the duty of the Biden administration, the CIA, the State Department and the media is clear: find out what is really happening in the Donbas and then use that knowledge to help craft a strategy for preventing a new conflict, not inflaming one.
Anatol Lieven is a British author, Orwell Prize-winning journalist, and policy analyst, currently serving as a professor at Georgetown University, visiting professor at King’s College London, and fellow at the New America Foundation.
Credit to the Finnish facebook group Peace for Ukraine, https://www.facebook.com/Peace-For-Ukraine-2283917274991492, for finding the article.
Matt Taibbi, American journalist associated with Rolling Stone among others, has made a list of 25 accusations for “Russian interference” or “Russian disinformation” which, on closer inspection, turn out to be false. See https://taibbi.substack.com/p/master-list-of-official-russia-claims.
Among them are stories of close contacts between Trump and Russian agents, Hilary Clinton’s allegations of Russian cyberattacks, FBI allegations of other cyberattacks, etc etc, which have been widely reported in the media.
It is certainly possible, even probable, that Russia engages in such things, as all other states do. Says Taibbi. But surely it is telling that the false accusations are so abundant? If there were plenty of genuine ones, it would not be needed.
Activists for Peace 