Against the backdrop of events in Ukraine, Boris Johnson, who just days ago found himself under increased criticism from the British and on the verge of impeachment for his indifference towards the subjects of the kingdom, decided to “brush his feathers and his tufts.” Not surprisingly, in his attempt to stay relevant he turned to a tried and tested tool of Russophobia, and under this banner this descendant of the Circassian muhajirs decided to launch an all out attack on everything Russian.

Despite his previously demonstrated love for freedom and respect for human rights, so far Boris Johnson has not properly condemned, either as a private individual or as a – for the time being – head of government, the recent Russophobic actions of the British extremists. In particular, the recent pogrom at the Russian St Nicholas Church in Oxford, amid a fake news campaign launched in the country personally by the British Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister of the Kingdom.

Incidents of xenophobia towards Russians and manifestations of Russophobia have long occurred in Britain, intensifying dramatically whenever relations between the Russian and Western worlds reached the point of direct conflict. This was the case during the Crimean War in the 19th century, after the Great October Revolution and then throughout the Cold War under the banner of the “red menace.” Even before the military special operation in Ukraine, Russophobia had again become widespread in Britain, with images of “Russian spies Petrov and Boshirov” as well as the name of the poisoning agent “Novichok.” However, multiple sources in Britain itself are confidently leaning towards the involvement not of Russia in this provocative Skripals incident, but of British secret services and the Kingdom’s secret biological laboratory at Porton Down. When Moscow’s special operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine began on February 24, Boris Johnson was once again dragged anti-Russian sentiments out of a dusty cupboard and widely spread them in the Kingdom, resulting in ordinary Russian citizens and institutions becoming the target of attacks and insults.

At the same time, Johnson failed to condemn or, indeed, mention the recent mass execution, Saudi Arabia’s biggest in decades, in which 81 people were beheaded. Moreover, he has made an urgent visit to Riyadh, though again with the same anti-Russian overtones of replacing Russian energy supplies in the Persian Gulf. Although the sheikhs there have recently refused to participate in Biden’s anti-Russian energy campaign. However, Boris Johnson tried to maneuver his way around British politicians when organizing the trip, as MPs in the House of Commons expressed deep concerns about British-Arab relations. First of all, after 81 people were executed in Saudi Arabia on March 12, 2022, a week after the Crown Prince pledged to modernize his justice system. The House of Commons considers the events of March 12 to be a gross violation of human rights.

Before flying to Riyadh, Johnson met with leaders of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF). But he found here no success either, especially with the elimination of three British mercenaries in a strike on the Yavorivsky training ground near Lviv in western Ukraine, as already reported by the Daily Mirror. The United Kingdom-led Joint Expeditionary Force, established in 2014, is not a permanent force. Participating countries (aside from Britain, these include Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden) periodically conduct joint field training exercises. And now Johnson intends to use their “potential” in strengthening the confrontation with Russia in Ukraine.

Moreover, criticism of Johnson’s provocative sanctions policy against Russia, which is hurting the British population the most, has intensified considerably in the Kingdom in recent days. As The Daily Mail reported on March 12, Britain bought a record £2.6 billion worth of goods from Russia in the month before the situation in Ukraine escalated. According to the Office for National Statistics, January imports included fuel worth £911.5 million: coal, coke and briquettes worth £32 million, oil worth £590.4 million and gas worth £289.1 million. All of which Britain will now have to forfeit because of the anti-Russian sanctions initiated by Boris Johnson. The surge in oil prices as a result of sanctions against Russia could have dire economic consequences for the United Kingdom, surpassing even the effects of the 1973 oil crisis, according to The Daily Mail.

Given that gas prices have skyrocketed in recent days, increasing about fivefold, Britain is inevitably facing a growing energy crisis, warns The Daily Telegraph. In addition, the cessation of wood pellets supplies from Russia due to the new sanctions will lead to a sharp increase in heating costs for homeowners and organizations that use this fuel. As wood fuel pellets will no longer be imported and purchased from Russian producers, this will also have an impact on supplies globally, not just in Britain, given the huge volumes of previous exports from Russia. Since British and international sanctions and restrictions are now in place against Moscow, total European production could fall by 12-15%, experts warn. So a rise in prices in Britain because of the current situation is inevitable, as is mass bankruptcy in the Kingdom.

Barely recovered from the pandemic, the United Kingdom is once again in crisis: British consumers face “severe hardships” from rising inflation and higher everyday costs, reports The Independent.

It is therefore not surprising that, despite the tense situation around Ukraine, Britain has decided to revisit Johnson’s past sins. BBC journalist Laura Kuenssberg recalled that Johnson not so long ago was “trying to keep his political head above water” with his last bit of strength. As recently as late February, the media were overflowing with headlines about parties, cakes, cheese, wine, questionnaires from the Metropolitan Police and rules during lockdowns. Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said on March 6 that an investigation into coronavirus violations in Downing Street was still pending. In the comments, British readers pointed out that the “Johnson’s problem” needs to be addressed immediately, because when the events in Ukraine are over, he will say he saved everyone, and then there will be no way to get rid of him. “War is not enough reason to stop addressing Johnson and Tories. In fact, them taking Putin’s money and the break up of EU is a significant part of the “war” issue. Get Johnson and his government out now. He is only using the war as an opportunity to showboat,” says @paulio80410204.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Even in an era of moral decline of the autochthonous population, the rulers of the Roman Empire relied on mercenaries when military service turned from prestigious to onerous for their own citizens. The Persians also relied during the crisis of their empire on Greek mercenaries, who represented the most combat-ready troops of Darius III in his war with Alexander the Great. France actively used the Senegalese during World War I, Britain used the Gurkhas, and the latter were also part of the British occupation forces in Serbia. There are many similar examples of mercenary activities in world history.

A similar situation is happening today in the Western world, when the invasive policies of the current establishment of the Old and New World do not get a “surge of emotional support” from its own population, resulting in the fact that Washington and its NATO vassals have to turn to mercenary militias, that have long been transformed into the Western PMCs, “assisting units”. This tactic was used by the West in the war in Yugoslavia, because no one in the North Atlantic Alliance was willing to throw their soldiers into the Balkan meat grinder to enforce the geopolitical interests of Washington. Therefore, it is not surprising that the PMCs and Turkey were chosen by Brussels as the “main striking force” (or rather “the main cannon fodder”) in the Yugoslavia events, as it was not the precious blood of European masters to spill!

Therefore, the military and political strategy of today’s Anglo-Saxons began to actively use advanced weapons and PMCs, allowing them to destroy the enemy at a safe distance, while minimizing direct combat contact with them and their own losses. This was the case in Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen. There is nothing surprising here, because the PMCs usually employ former fighters, including those of special forces. Having combat experience, they take part in the most complex and dangerous operations. Accordingly, public opinion, both in the US and other Western European countries, is less sensitive to casualties among them. And their insurance and social security payments are considerably lower.

Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that former combatants living in the US or other Western countries, with their PTSDs and other mental traumas, become a significant burden not only on the social services of those countries. They deal considerable damage on the Western propaganda machine, periodically telling the media of their sorrows, hardships and the moral and physical damage inflicted on them by the authorities who sent them to war. The authorities of Western countries are therefore openly interested in getting rid of such persons on their territories by promoting calls to join mercenary forces in certain areas of armed conflict, which, incidentally, are unleashed and supported precisely by Washington.

This is what is happening in Ukraine today. In early March, the first 200 Croatian mercenaries arrived in Ukraine under the obvious influence of a Russophobic propaganda campaign unleashed by the United States, although the President of Croatia, Zoran Milanović, had earlier stated that no Croatian soldiers would take part in the escalation of the situation in Ukraine. However, it should not be forgotten that it is in Croatia that thousands of people still consider the Ustashas, who responded to the calls of their ideological friends, the Banderites, to be their heroes.

Multiple reports then appeared in various media that Syrian pro-Turkish fighters and former members of terrorist organizations were being sent to Ukraine. Allegedly, the US has purposely released prisoners in Syrian Kurdistan, and is moving them into the area of fighting.

Washington has “tasked” Ukrainian embassies with recruiting volunteers in many countries. Dmytro Kuleba had already announced in early March that “20,000 foreign fighters were ready to go to the front.” The cost of a professional mercenary is up to $2,000 a day.  Given that Ukraine has long been a bankrupt country, it is quite understandable that the “fees” of the mercenaries will be paid by the US and its NATO allies. Again, professional mercenaries with real military experience are recruited mainly through foreign PMCs, mostly American, such as Academi, Cubic and DenCorp.

Most of the mercenaries enter Ukraine via Poland, with its large logistics centers operated by NATO military specialists and CIA agents, in particular in Lublin and Wroclaw Strachowice. They form military convoys travelling to the area of combat operations. Up to 17 NATO military transport aircraft with “military aid” arrive in Poland every day.

In general, the US is following a well-trodden “path,” tested back during the two Chechen wars in the North Caucasus when it employed mercenaries from dozens of foreign countries and almost all regions of the world. At the time, mercenaries with Canadian, Georgian, German, British, Danish, French, Italian, Swedish, Swiss, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian and other passports left their trail of blood in Chechnya. According to media reports, more than 100 foreign firms (including banking groups) were involved in providing material, financial and other assistance to terrorists in the North Caucasus, most of which had offices in the United States and Europe.

According to Ukrainian Minister Kuleba, citizens of 16 countries have already arrived in Ukraine. As noted by representatives of the Russian military department, now not only employees of PMCs, but also fighters of special operations forces of NATO countries can be sent under the guise of “volunteers” to conduct combat operations against Russian troops. These are people who want to engage in terror, to kill and have total indulgence for it.

Last week, 200 mercenaries from Croatia arrived in the country via Poland and joined a national battalion in southeastern Ukraine, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said. In any case, all Western mercenaries arriving in Ukraine will have no rights to POW status, Konashenkov said, making their fate unenviable. All of them, as well as the military equipment and weapons coming to Ukraine from “external sponsors,” will be immediately destroyed.

This was confirmed, in particular, by the Russian army’s missile strike on March 13 on the centers of the Ukrainian armed forces in Starichi and the Yavorivsky military training ground, which resulted in the liquidation of up to 180 mercenary fighters and a large shipment of weapons from the West. This mercenary unit was planned to reach 2,500-3,000 men in the near future and throw it into the front line. Most of them had arrived in Ukraine hours before the Russian strike. There were also US fighters there, as evidenced, in particular, by US media reports. A few hours later, however, the few survivors made an emergency escape to Poland, telling their relatives on social media that they would no longer come to fight in Ukraine because it was not an easy walk.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Ukraine-related events in recent days have clearly exposed Washington’s criminal policy and its desire to solve its financial and geopolitical problems by unleashing armed conflicts on foreign territories. It is quite remarkable that the crisis around Ukraine itself, according to even US analysts, was engineered by the US and they are fully responsible for it.

The military action that has begun in Ukraine has been prepared by the White House for a long time and was intended to draw Russia and China into a destructive confrontation with the US and the UK. The only question was when and on what occasion the next heated battle would begin. Unfortunately for Ukraine, it was the country that, having succumbed to the “rotten carrot” of empty promises of EU and NATO membership, stepped on this rake itself, in order to please Washington, fueling its Russophobic fervor, strengthening the Nazi position in the country, and blackmailing the whole world with the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons. Again, it was the US that managed, by its refusal to discuss security guarantees for all, to provoke the Russian Federation into a forceful solution to the Ukrainian problem. And to do so now, otherwise it would be too late. In this situation, Washington has a chance to pull France, Germany, Israel and several other “permanent US satellites” into its camp by inclining them to openly support the Nazi authorities in Kiev. Meanwhile, Ukraine has become nothing more than a bargaining chip for the US.

In addition to pursuing a provocative policy against Russia, the US, against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis, has blatantly adopted similar tactics against China, speculating on the situation around Taiwan, openly provoking Beijing against Taiwan, demonstratively arguing about the “need” to cross the “red line” drawn by the PRC. In addition to arming Taiwan, Washington has also chosen another, no less hypocritical trick for China – the pseudo-diplomatic one: speculation about “recognition” of the island’s independence. And such policy is already becoming national, with support from the two major parties, Democrats and Republicans, as well as from antagonist presidents Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump.

As for Moscow’s confrontation with Kiev, one US delegation after another is being sent to Taiwan to discuss further deepening relations and new US arms supplies. By analogy with Ukraine, there is an opposition between the island and mainland Chinese populations, and there are active attempts by “democratic teachers from the US” to create a new Chinese gene pool that benefits the current US political establishment.

And this, in particular, is confirmed by the arrival on March 2 in Taiwan of two American delegations representing key US foreign policy agencies – the Army Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of State. Despite their representation by “retirees” Michael Mullen and Mike Pompeo, nevertheless their level and former status already speaks volumes. As, indeed, do the tactics of official Washington’s call, first by M. Pompeo on March 4 in Taiwan to recognize the island’s “independence”, under the pretext of the supposedly already existing “de facto sovereignty” of Taiwan and the “democratic choice of its 23 million inhabitants”. And then a March 5 proposal by Michele Sison, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations Affairs, to restore Taiwan’s rights at the UN, which it lost in 1971 along with the mandate given to the PRC to become a permanent member of the Security Council. And all this is happening against the blatant contradiction of the official US position recognizing the One-China principle!

Meanwhile, in the context of Pompeo’s ambition for the upcoming presidential election, he has even deployed active criticism of the “passivity of the current head of state Joseph Biden” in acting against Beijing, not ruling out the use of force to resolve the “Taiwan issue”. Meanwhile, the White House’s hands are tied by the US-PRC agreements of the 1970s, under which Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei, established them with Beijing and recognized the island as part of China. However, the law passed in the US allows them to help Taiwan with arms, but does not oblige them to send their soldiers to defend the island.

Beijing, naturally, could not fail to react to Pompeo’s trip. The newspaper Renmin Ribao, an organ of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, called Pompeo an extremely vulgar anti-Chinese politician. Taipei has also responded to Washington’s policy adjustment on China, with the Legislative Yuan (parliament) adopting a reinforced budget to mass-produce 18 types of weapons and military equipment by 2026. Moreover, ground-to-ground missiles, which are controlled by artificial intelligence, and ground-to-air missiles should be ready for delivery to troops between 2024 and 2025.

It is understood in Washington that reuniting China with Taiwan with force support would cost Beijing dearly. Moreover, they do not rule out that at a critical moment, the US 7th Fleet, which is based nearby, in Japan, could come to the rescue of Taiwan. Meanwhile, the US also expects the PRC to face swift and globally coordinated economic retaliation from the US and its allies. However, American experts believe that Beijing, realizing the difficulties faced by Russia, will still not give up the option of a military takeover of the island.

In Washington’s plans for China, the US also expects to use Moscow’s capabilities to its advantage, assuming that Russia will be “more compliant” and receptive to Washington’s interests as a result of the multiple sanctions already imposed on it. However, a similar policy to Washington’s use of China in countering Russia in recent months has not brought the US the result it had hoped for. Washington has failed to persuade Beijing to press Russia, despite holding unsuccessful secret talks with China over the past three months to persuade Xi Jinping to dissuade Russia from military action in Ukraine. This, in particular, was reported by the Daily Mail.

According to The New York Times, the Biden administration’s contacts with Beijing began in November, after the president held a video summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. A few days later the White House met with the Chinese ambassador. According to the newspaper, US officials told the Chinese diplomat that the United States was planning to impose strict sanctions against Russian companies and officials in the event of a Russian invasion – far more severe than in 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea. At the same time, officials reportedly said Beijing’s commercial ties with Russia could also “feel some consequences”. The New York Times pointed out that US officials had spoken to the Chinese ambassador at least three more times, but Ambassador Qin said Moscow had legitimate security concerns. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has also spoken to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on this issue several times, but he has failed to use China in the plan of interest to Washington either.

As for the new US strategy in the Indo-Pacific region, it poses, as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a conversation with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on February 22, an open challenge to China. “The attempt to incorporate “Taiwan in strategy to contain China” into US regional policy is a wrong signal,” the Chinese Foreign Minister said, noting that US calls for long-term competition with China could escalate into an “all-out confrontation”. Washington’s support for Taiwan’s independence aspirations threatens an armed conflict between the US and China, the Chinese ambassador to the US, Qin Gang, told US radio station NPR. “If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely (will) involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict,” he said. At the same time, the diplomat called Taiwan “the biggest powder keg” in relations between Beijing and Washington and stressed that China was seeking peaceful reunification with the island, but would not give up force, as it was a deterrent.

As for Washington’s advertised readiness to intensify confrontation simultaneously with Russia and China, including the use of military instruments such as NATO, the Chinese edition of the Global Times recently bluntly pointed out: Forget about two wars, US is reluctant to fight even one!

Professor Shen Yi of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University recalled in this regard: “Former president Richard Nixon had long ago done the math for the US – it could not afford to fight two wars at once.” As for current American power, its best days are long behind it: even Washington itself is not sure that it can win even a single regional war. Proof of this is the US decision not to send its armed forces to the front lines in Ukraine. Other examples come to mind: how they got bogged down in conflicts in Vietnam, Afghanistan and failed to win anywhere. Against this background, it is suicidal for the US to fight two wars at the same time. Plus, it must not be forgotten that the US economy is in a catastrophic state. Even when they got up the courage to impose so-called “nuclear-level sanctions” by disconnecting Russia from the Swift system, they had to carefully circumvent banks linked to the energy sector. Compared to World War II era, America’s sun is setting.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Against the background of the developments in Ukraine in recent days, the US, in the context of adjusting its policy in Central Asia (CA), urgently convened a C5+1 online meeting on February 28, with the participation of foreign ministers: Kazakhstan’s Mukhtar Tileuberdi, Kyrgyzstan’s Ruslan Kazakbaev, Tajikistan’s Sirojiddin Muhriddin, Turkmenistan’s Rasit Meredow, Uzbekistan’s Abdulaziz Kamilov, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

According to the foreign ministries of the CA states, “participants discussed pressing issues on the international and regional agenda, including the situation in Ukraine and its impact on the Central Asian region.”

The US initiative in convening this meeting and Secretary Blinken’s participation in it demonstrate the undeniable importance of Central Asia not only in their regional policy, but also in their actions towards Russia and its allies, primarily the CSTO and EAEU. Moreover, the White House’s interest in Central Asia and the C5+1 format itself has increased in recent days in terms of clarifying the region’s stance on the Ukrainian issue and bringing the Central Asian states over to unconditionally support Washington’s policy.

That is why the said online meeting was initiated by the White House on the eve of consideration of the openly anti-Russian US resolution on Ukraine at the UN, and Antony Blinken, under various pretexts, took steps to win the C5 foreign ministers’ support for the resolution. Secretary Blinken also confirmed on Twitter that the reason for this online meeting was to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

In the course of clarifying the position of the Central Asian states on Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, the United States was probing, with a view to coaxing the C5 states, the options of returning not only the USAID programs with its investments and grants to the region, but also of reopening US transit and even full-fledged military air bases in Central Asia. At the same time, the issues of strengthening practical cooperation in the economic, security and climate change fields as well as the situation in Afghanistan were touched upon, but this was already very superficial, as this was not the purpose of Blinken’s convening of this C5+1 meeting.

Nevertheless, the Central Asian states have shown that they are no longer “natives who can be bought with American beads,” and Washington’s subversive aims in the region are already clear to all, as was showcased by the US involvement in the January events in Kazakhstan, its attempts to destabilize Kyrgyzstan in recent years and the situation on the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border. It is not surprising, therefore, that during the March 3 vote at the UN on the US-proposed resolution on Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan abstained, while Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan did not vote.

However, there was a statement by Sadyr Japarov, President of Kyrgyzstan, supporting Russia’s special operation in Ukraine and Russia’s decisive actions to protect civilians in Donbass, while also pointing to Kiev’s responsibility for the failure of the Minsk agreements. “Kyrgyzstan notes with great disappointment that today, instead of unification, the world is more divided into those right and wrong. In this regard, the minister noted that today the UN Security Council has a special responsibility to maintain peace and security,” the Foreign Ministry of Kyrgyzstan said in a statement on the Ukrainian issue.

Kazakhstan has offered its peacekeeping services and a platform for talks between Moscow and Kiev, if they agree. On March 1, at an extraordinary congress of the Nur Otan party, renamed Amanat the day before, Kazakhstan’s President Tokayev stressed: “As the country that hosted the OSCE Summit in 2010, we insist on the principle of the indivisibility of Eurasian security. I stated this during a visit to Moscow on February 10. The principle of indivisibility and common security implies mutual understanding based on mutual trust. Unfortunately, this has not happened. The Minsk agreements remained on paper, leading to military action on Ukrainian territory.”

Certainly, this reaction of the Central Asian states to Washington’s attempts to “rally them against Russia” has frankly “disappointed” the Anglo-Saxons. And a manifestation of this was a proposal on March 1 by a British MP, Margaret Hodge, to consider sanctions against Kazakhstan “for supporting Putin.”

However, this is not the first time the words “sanctions” and “Kazakhstan” have been heard in the British parliament. After the January events, the same Margaret Hodge proposed sanctions against Kazakhstan’s “kleptocratic elite,” clearly showing London’s “disappointment” that its preorganized unrest and anti-government protests in that country were thwarted by the CSTO and Moscow.

Against this background, British Ambassador Kathy Leach was summoned to the Foreign Ministry of Kazakhstan on March 2 to seek clarification from Britain following statements by MP Hodge to “punish Kazakhstan.”

Overall, however, it should be noted that the US has recently stepped up its efforts to combat Russian influence in Central Asia, in particular through the use of non-governmental organizations and the so-called independent media.

In Kazakhstan alone, for example, the total number of NGOs has grown significantly over the past 15 years: from around 2,000 in 2009 to 22,000 now! According to a report at a recent Civil Society Forum in Astana, Minister of Social Development Darkhan Kaletaev pointed out that approximately 200 Kazakhstani NGOs receive foreign funding, 70% of which comes from the United States.

In addition, the main objective of most US-supported information projects in Kazakhstan is to mentally and psychologically separate the population of the republic from Russia and to undermine Russia’s position in Central Asia. The emphasis is on young people in the hope that, in time, people brought up on Western “democratic” values and not inclined to cooperate with Russia will come to power in the country. An important role in such subversive work by the US is played by the Internet resource Karavansaray, sponsored by the US Central Command of the Armed Forces (CENTCOM), which regularly posts publications aimed at discrediting the Russian military presence in Central Asia, spreading misinformation about the alleged threat to the Central Asian countries of a Russian military invasion.

Washington’s subversive plans in Central Asia are actively “facilitated” by Britain and its representatives in the region. On February 15, the Kyrgyzstan’s government newspaper, Kyrgyz Tuusu, published an article by Melis Sovet uulu, which touched on the subject of NGOs in that republic and the role played by British Ambassador Charles Garrett, a career MI6 intelligence officer. According to StanRadar.com, Ambassador Charles Garrett is instructing a “fifth column” in the country; in 2020, he and US State Department officials met with local journalists and bloggers in Kyrgyzstan, who were asked to look for any irregularities in the vote count in favor of pro-government parties for a fee. In order to improve “outreach,” the ambassador offered to donate new equipment to loyal media, and USAID and the Soros Foundation, known for their close ties to US intelligence services, provided a grant of some $2.5 million, which included funds promised to media representatives as a “royalty for carrying out embassy assignments.”

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The development of information systems has led to a dramatic turnaround in information wars, especially between East and West. These wars have long been a war of ideologies, a war for minds, including for political advantage. In this regard, disinformation has been used increasingly actively, especially by the United States and its allies, which is disseminated in accordance with the famous aphorism of the American writer Robert Sheckley: “The saddest fact is that, in an information war, the one who tells the truth always loses. He is limited by truth, while the liar can proclaim whatever he wishes.”

Information wars are widely used by Washington to take over the economies of states. A striking example of this is the recent US-inspired fight in Kazakhstan against 55 Chinese factories, the fight against nuclear power, against the background of which USAID – known worldwide for its actions on behalf of US intelligence agencies – suddenly began to intensively propose green energy programs, the sad results of which could be observed in the US.

The first US official documents on the use and conduct of information warfare are probably the US Department of Defense Directive O-3600.1 dated December 21, 1992, entitled “Information Operations.” In 1993, Committee of Chiefs of Staff Directive No. 30 had already outlined the basic principles of information warfare. Finally, in 1997 the following definition of information warfare was given: “Actions taken to achieve information superiority by affecting adversary information, information-based processes, information systems, and computer-based networks while defending one’s own information, information-based processes, information systems, and computer-based networks.”

At the end of 1998, the Chiefs of Staff of the US Army issued a document Joint Doctrine for Information Operations, which for the first time officially confirmed Washington’s preparations for offensive information operations, not only during war but also during peacetime. Taking this as one of the main areas of foreign warfare, since 1994, the US has held official “scientific” conferences on “information warfare” with prominent representatives of the US military and political leadership. For this purpose, the US has already established the Center for Strategic and International Studies to study the use of information technology in military conflicts in the 21st century, with billions of dollars from the US budget allocated to information warfare. In May 2005, the Pentagon formed a special group tasked with suppressing enemy activity on the Internet and other electronic networks. Millions of dollars are being spent on the program to equip this group with the latest equipment and software.

The existence of the military hacking group project was officially announced at a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting, representatives of the US Department of Defense’s Strategic Command said. This element of the Armed Forces is called the Joint Functional Component Command – Network Warfare (JFCC-NW) and is tasked with, among other things, hacking into enemy computer networks.

A very important stage in the conduct of the United States’ information wars was the 9/11 attack, which, according to many American experts, was an overtly planned provocation. The infamous speech of Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003 before the invasion of Iraq, which caused thousands of human casualties, chaos in the Middle East region, the Arab “spring”, the war in Syria, etc., is in the same line. Moreover, the western “allies” of Washington never officially rebuked or sanctioned the US in relation to all this White House-induced global damage, nor did the UN, thereby encouraging the US to continue such information wars in the future.

As a result, the US has become consistent and active in the information wars of the 21st century. Thus, in all armed conflicts in which the US has been involved (Desert Storm, the operation in Haiti, the bombing of Yugoslavia, etc.), various types of information weapons have been tested, and positions of officers dealing with information warfare techniques have been introduced in the US army, navy and air force.

After Washington singled out Russia as the main target of information wars, in addition to pushing the Russian Federation and the Russian civilization out of the world community, another important task is being accomplished: depriving the Russian people of a positive historical experience, weakening the connection with Russia and the Russians as much as possible, depriving the Russian population of a real historical foundation, making them uncompetitive and deprived of historical friends and allies by means of historical and social manipulation. Moreover, in such a war, the objective is not to mislead the enemy population, but to reformat the very essence of the people under attack, to change their civilization code and irreversibly transform their identity.

Many foundations and organizations, such as the American Foundation for Peace, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Freedom House, the Soros Foundation and the NED are among those that in their concrete actions have already demonstrated their focus in waging an information warfare against Russia and its allies. The West has also established several information centers to carry out its information attacks against Russia, most notably the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence in Riga (established in 2015), the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki (2017) and the Cyberspace Operations Centre in Mons, Belgium (2018).

The problem with fakes and disinformation spread by the United States in the media today is reaching such proportions that, for some audiences, the real picture is being replaced by false information. In particular, the most recent examples are the “war in Ukraine”, the “rebellious people in Kazakhstan” and the anti-Chinese and anti-Russian propaganda of the Western media. The presence of Western players in the media market is abnormally high, unlike that of alternative media. These mouthpieces of Western information warfare often give a distorted picture of events in the country and abroad, creating a positive image of the US, forming a pool of speakers from foreign-agent NGOs who provide comments convenient for the “customer.” It is on their conscience to foment conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and to blame the CSTO, even though Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have officially refused the Organization’s or Russia’s assistance in resolving the conflict.

Today, disinformation, lies and slander are becoming constant attributes of the foreign policy of Washington and many of its allies. Thus, for a number of years the US media have been spreading the fiction of alleged Russian meddling in the election overseas, but the investigation and recent US media coverage has clearly shown that the Democrats and Hillary Clinton are the real culprits behind Russia-gate.

Under these circumstances, it is the duty of every citizen, a matter of patriotism and a sense of responsibility for their country, to defend their homeland from aggression, including information aggression.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi told US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in a phone conversation that took place on February 22 about China’s concerns over the worsening of China-US relations that in his opinion was a direct result of Washington’s actions. According to the Chinese foreign minister, Beijing is ready to build relations with the US “based on three principles: mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation.” However, as you can see, Washington’s hegemonic ambitions result in the US taking a very different approach, in particular by naming China its principal rival in America’s new Indo-Pacific strategy and by taking all actions to contain China, up to those leading to the destruction of PRC’s state identity.

And in this regard, Washington’s use of the “Taiwan card” against Beijing is just one, albeit a quite striking example. Today the status of Taiwan is the key issue in the relations between the two countries. The PRC is known to consider the island its territory, but several countries have recognized it as an independent state. The US itself has not officially recognized Taiwan’s independence, but it maintains close ties with it, including in the defense sphere, increasing the amount of weapons sold to the island and promising Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen its aid in the event of an attack by Beijing.  Qin Gang, the Chinese ambassador to Washington, in an interview with US radio station NPR recently warned that the US support for Taiwan’s independence aspirations threatens an armed conflict between the US and China. The Chinese diplomat called Taiwan “the biggest gun-powder barrel” in the relations between the US and China, noting Beijing’s desire for peaceful reunification with the island, but stressed that it would not give up force as a deterrent.

“Washington is making the historic mistake of pushing China and Russia too far at the same time,” the Chinese newspaper Global Times points out. “It has overindulged the expansion of egocentrism, and fabricated lies that China and Russia have “broken international rules” and “challenged the international order.” It has created strong faith in these lies in the West, forcing itself to engage in dangerous confrontations with China and Russia… To contain China and Russia simultaneously is arrogant thinking. Although the US has an advantage in terms of strength, it cannot crush either China or Russia. Having a strategic collision with any of the two countries will bring unbearable costs to the US. It’s a nightmare for Washington when China and Russia join hands,” the Chinese newspaper warned Washington.

But separating Taiwan from China is not the only goal in Washington’s current policy, which seeks to fragment the PRC into smaller principalities to facilitate the task of completely defeating it. In doing so, the US is trying to exploit the sharp differences between China’s regions, which are most pronounced in the rivalry between Northern and Southern China. Despite belonging to the same country, Chinese regions have significant linguistic, cultural, historical, economic, and even geopolitical differences. Each region has its own development paradigm. Apart from South China, with its special language and mentality, the Shanghai region, Northwest China or “the Silk Belt”, North China, Central China and the Sichuan region stand out. Thus, people from Beijing and Guangzhou will not understand each other in a conversation, but they can engage in written correspondence without difficulty, because the characters are the same. The written language unites the multilingual population of China into a single community, enables them to communicate with each other, to feel a sense of belonging to a common civilization. Case in point – the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where 53 languages and many different religions coexist, unlike other regions of China.

Based on these and some other specific features of the PRC, the subversive strategies of the US and the UK, its main assistant in the struggle with Beijing, intend to stimulate the self-identification and isolation of various Chinese regions and to maximize socioeconomic diversification up to and including maximum federalization and transition to a confederal system. This has always been the classic Anglo-Saxon divide and conquer tactic. However, this successful implementation will require a Chinese leader, ready to make concessions to the West, primarily in opening the Chinese society to the Western “liberal values.”

It is not surprising therefore that the current “crusade” by Washington has focused on undermining Xi Jinping, whom American billionaire and financial adventurer George Soros called “the greatest threat that open societies face today” on Twitter. In his anti-Chinese rhetoric, George Soros went so far as to compare China’s leader to… Hitler. According to Soros, Xi Jinping is allegedly using the 2022 Olympics in the same way as the Führer of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler, did in 1936, i.e., “to win a propaganda victory for his system of strict control.” At a lecture at the Stanford University and at a lecture at the Hoover Institution on January 31, 2022, Soros expressed hope that the current Chinese leader would be removed from power by his intraparty rivals and replaced by “someone less repressive at home and more peaceful abroad.” The above assessments certainly reflect the position of not only Soros himself and his Open Society Foundations, deemed undesirable in Russia, which can be assumed to have very serious transnational backing, but also the political program of the current US political establishment.

However, the US does not seem to understand that the world has already changed irreversibly, and its threats, as well as its insidious plans, no longer scare anyone. Especially in the light of a strong rapprochement between China and Russia, as well as the political positions of leaders of those two countries, which may turn into a real “nightmare” for Washington itself.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Following Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow’s decision that he will hand over power to a “younger generation”, Turkmenistan’s transit has become a highly debated topic.  Experts note that outside powers such as Turkey, Pakistan and the US, which would like to draw Turkmenistan into their orbit of influence, to the Taliban (a movement banned in Russia), which has its traditional spring and summer offensive starting on March 1, may try to take advantage of the transit. Groups in northern Afghanistan also pose a threat, and there is almost no one to stand against them in Turkmenistan.

However, the possibility of the influence of Afghanistan’s internal instability zone from Herat to Badakhshan on Turkmenistan is low today, since the Taliban leadership has so far had a peaceful relationship with Ashgabat, but the jihadists could well play “the role of fuse”. The Taliban are unlikely to go beyond the borders of Afghanistan, as they are not interested in doing so today, and there is infighting between warlords within the country itself. The countries are also attempting to establish economic cooperation; Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov meets regularly with the Taliban; Ashgabat and Kabul hold talks on electricity supply, the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline project and railway expansion.

As for the “problem of the transit of power”, it has arisen in almost all the former CIS republics in recent years, especially in Central Asia – everywhere there is a change of elites, a new generation of 30-40-year-old politicians comes who are not related to the Soviet era. Thus, in addition to Turkmenistan, a similar father-son transfer scenario has already taken place in Azerbaijan, quite successfully due to the personal qualities of the successor: a strong leader, a strong son. A similar transit of power is expected in Tajikistan, where the country’s leader, Emomali Rahmon, has ruled the country since 1991 – longer than anyone in the former Soviet Union. Uzbekistan’s experience with the division of Islam Karimov’s legacy clearly does not suit Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow; in Kazakhstan, there has essentially been no transit, but a “civilized divorce”.

Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow cited reaching the Prophet’s age of 63 (according to the Koran, the Prophet Mohammed died at 63) as the reason for his decision.

According to the current legislation, only a citizen over 40 years of age, who has lived in the country for the last 15 years and has no criminal record can occupy the post of head of state. The two latter criteria immediately disqualify opposition candidates living abroad, such as Nurmukhamed Khanamov, leader of the opposition Republican Party of Turkmenistan, who lives in Austria.

The only son of the Turkmen leader, Serdar Berdimuhamedow, who just turned 40, the minimum age for the presidency, has long been tacitly appointed as successor. Exactly one year ago, his father appointed him as “deputy prime minister”, even though there is no prime minister in the Turkmen government; the head of government is the president himself. It is noteworthy that Berdimuhamedow senior himself was also deputy prime minister in 2006, when President Niyazov died.

That is, in fact, Serdar has already become the deputy of his father, who has put his son in control of Turkmenistan’s energy sector, the most important sector of the local economy.

Serdar, who has long been called “Prince” by Turkmens (incidentally, his name means “commander ” in Turkmen), has had a boost in his career since his father became president 15 years ago. Serdar began his active “working life” in the diplomatic service in 2008-11 when he worked as a minister-counsellor at the embassy in Moscow, where he also received a diplomatic degree, which he did not have at the time of his appointment. After graduating from the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy, he was sent to Geneva as a counsellor to the Permanent Mission of Turkmenistan to the United Nations, where Serdar came with his family, sending his children to one of the most elite schools in Switzerland. He then returned to work at the Turkmen Foreign Ministry, where he was responsible for foreign policy on the European track, having served as a member of parliament and as the republic’s minister of industry.  Since becoming deputy prime minister, Serdar has intensified his diplomatic activity: as chairman of an intergovernmental commission he has worked with Russia, supervised economic cooperation with Japan and made several visits to China and Uzbekistan, which was certainly a test of the willingness of Turkmenistan’s partners to accept Serdar as the future president.

Turkmenistan’s election race officially began on February 14, with polling day set for March 12. The candidates have not yet been announced, except it is known that the president’s son Serdar has submitted documents to the CEC. By the way, in the last elections, in 2017, nine candidates were registered.

Although it is not yet fully certain that Serdar will succeed in following in his father’s footsteps, it is nevertheless expected that neither foreign nor domestic policy is likely to change; the country will continue its policy of neutrality. Although Berdimuhamedow junior attended the EEU meeting in Kazan in May 2021 as deputy prime minister, Ashgabat is unlikely to join the EEU or the CSTO anytime soon. Berdimuhamedow senior will retain the post of speaker of the upper house of parliament, almost replicating the Kazakhstan’s model of having an “elder wise comrade” over the president. The current president is expected to continue to oversee all general policies, especially foreign policy, giving his son a full load primarily in economic affairs, economic management and social issues. In fact, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow will rule on behalf of his son until Serdar “gets the feel of it” and makes all other actors in domestic and foreign policy respect him. The transit of power will happen quite smoothly and quietly, there should be no internal problems with the tribal factor.

Among the big players, China, Russia and Turkey are the most interested in special relations with Turkmenistan. And, of course, the US, especially after losing its regional position with its hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. Therefore, Washington will no doubt actively seek to “gain trust” of the new future president of Turkmenistan, using for this purpose the entire range of already known tools – from the flooding of various NGOs, to “super-beneficial” offers on behalf of USAID, CIA.

With 10% of the world’s gas reserves, Turkmenistan is a very important country in providing gas to its neighbors, especially China and Iran. But Turkey and Western Europe also want Turkmen gas very much. However, Ashgabat cannot yet decide how best to get it there: to lay a pipe under the Caspian Sea (which now requires the consent of all the Caspian Sea countries and any of them may block this issue for their own various reasons), or to join the Soviet-era pipeline that goes to Europe via Russia?

As for Turkey, it certainly has its eye on Turkmenistan as an important link in Erdoğan’s revival of the Ottoman Empire, the Organization of Turkic States. However, it is unlikely that Erdoğan will succeed in this regard, since despite his common religion and Turkic origins, this country has a cult of a president who frankly does not need any “outside” competitors.

It should not also be forgotten that Turkmenistan is a very closed country, comparable in some respects to North Korea: information from the country is extremely scarce, almost exclusively official and only on the most important occasions. The fact that Turkmenistan has recently experienced difficult economic times is only evident from anecdotal evidence in the form of reports of huge bread queues that occasionally appear in various cities of the country.

The model of succession in Turkmenistan will now certainly be watched in many countries, especially in Central Asia. In the country itself, the situation is likely to remain frozen at the current level: Serdar will be gaining experience in running the state under his father’s guidance, and following his advice he is unlikely to make major changes in foreign policy. All the more so because the family of the head of the republic is satisfied with the current situation, including the country’s closure from the outside world. This situation is likely to continue, following the example of Saudi Arabia, until Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow dies, or until Serdar manages to lock all local clans into himself by starting to conduct “independent politics”.

So far, it is difficult to imagine that internal or external risks have had a significant impact on the continuation of Berdimuhamedow senior’s line.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Drug addicts are commonly seen as marginalized people with a tourniquet around their arm who get hooked on drugs because of social and economic dislocation, personal problems, and an inability to fulfil themselves. But today, America is also suffering from a massive opioid crisis, which has already been declared an “emergency situation” by the authorities.

As a result of the failed policies of the current US authorities, focused solely on spinning the profit flywheel of the country’s military and industrial circles and neglecting the social problems of people, the country is facing one of the worst drug crises in its history. And this is evidenced by the highest annual drug overdose death rate in the US, CNN reports, citing data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

According to the CDC, overdose deaths have increased by 28.5% over the previous year and have almost doubled in the past five years. In the last year alone, more than 100,000 US residents died from this cause. The biggest increase in overdose deaths, according to US media reports, has been in West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Opioids continue to be cited as the leading cause of drug-related deaths. The opioid crisis in the US, which can be considered one of the two most important health issues in the world along with health insurance reform, dates back to the 1990s, but there is no coherent strategy to address the situation. At the time, doctors in the US were faced with a growing number of patient complaints about chronic pain, which the pharmaceutical companies almost immediately took advantage of. They began to “promote” opioid-based drugs in any way they could, and to convince doctors that it was safe to prescribe this type of drug and that it was highly efficient. Health workers at the time were overwrought with the large number of patients with chronic pain of various origins, including fears due to social dislocation, so they heeded the call of corporations and began prescribing such medicines to patients in order to relieve people’s suffering more quickly and easily. Thus, prescription opioid medicines are widely available throughout the United States.

Meanwhile, STAT, a profile publication, estimates that if no action is taken over the next ten years, some 500,000 people could die of opioid overdoses in the United States. For comparison, about the same number have died in the country from HIV/AIDS since 1980 to date.

In recent years, people have increasingly turned to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) claims is “primarily responsible for fueling the ongoing opioid crisis.” Synthetic opioids, and especially fentanyl, have caused 64% of all overdose deaths in the past 12 months. Some law enforcement officials have called the drug “manufactured death” since it is cheaper and fifty times more efficient than heroin.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, more than 1,300 people die every week in the US from opioid-related overdoses, a number that has risen across the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis has reached such a scale that it is now a brake on the economy and a threat to national security. Opioid overdose deaths have risen more than sixfold since 1999, killing more than 60,000 people each year, seven times the number of US troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan (the CDC estimates that it has already increased to 69,710 deaths from opioid overdoses in 2020).

Opioid drugs, including oxycodone, hydrocodone and morphine, are commonly prescribed for the treatment of pain. In the last fifteen years, doctors have increasingly prescribed them for chronic conditions such as back or joint pain, despite risks regarding their safety and efficiency. According to New York’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan, the opioid epidemic did not start until there was a huge surplus of opioids in the form of pharmaceuticals.

Many health experts attribute the high number of deaths to what they say has been an over-prescription of these drugs by doctors. Doctors have started prescribing more opioids because pharmaceutical companies have become more aggressive in marketing the drugs, claiming they carry little risk. As a result, the pharmaceutical companies have hooked the whole country on powerful painkillers. US authorities estimate that the consequences of aggressive marketing by pharmaceutical companies leading to uncontrolled opioid use will cost the state $12.7-17.5bn.

In order to stem the tide of over-prescribing of opioids by doctors, such doctors are periodically jailed in America today. One recent case is the life sentence for Stephen Hanson in Kansas, who prescribed without medical justification. Doctors of Courage, an organization that defends the right of doctors to decide for themselves whether there is a reason to relieve people of pain, has tried unsuccessfully to stand up for him. The movement’s website lists 1,199 names of doctors who have already been sentenced to various terms.

While doctors are going to jail, opioid manufacturers (notably Purdue Pharma, which makes OxyContin) are getting away with paying out millions in lawsuits while taking billions in profits from the sale of such drugs. In July 2019, the US Drug Enforcement Administration released a database showing that 76 billion prescription painkillers have been sold in the US over six years. This is enough to provide pills for every adult and child in the country for 36 years to come. Across the country, multi-billion dollar lawsuits are being filed against pharmaceutical companies. US analysts compare the current lawsuit against the pharmaceutical companies to litigation in the tobacco industry in the 1990s (back then Philip Morris and other major players paid a whopping $206bn at the time for the consequences of tobacco smoking).

It is no surprise that the super-profit US pharmaceutical market does not want this history to reoccur, as there are already more than two thousand complaints worth tens of billions of dollars. Pharmaceutical companies want peace and several US drug distributors — Johnson & Johnson (J&J), McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health — are already negotiating an $18bn payout in exchange for withdrawal of the lawsuit, which, under US law, would allow the companies to effectively avoid being found guilty of the “opioid crisis”. Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva, the world’s largest generic drug maker, will pay $85mln to the state of Oklahoma for stopping prosecutions over allegations that together with other painkiller makers it was driving an opioid epidemic. Similar charges await Teva in Cleveland.

Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will pay settlements to the Native Americans over seven years, and about 15% of the total amount will go towards legal fees and other legal costs, but the bulk will go towardsdrug treatment and prevention programs.

Meanwhile, according to the US Senate, the pharmaceutical lobby continues to thrive as virtually one of the most powerful in the country. In 2018 alone, pharmaceutical lobbyists spent $277mln: more than the military.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

In recent years, Syria, unfortunately, has increasingly become an arena of confrontation between many countries, primarily through the fault of the US, Israel and Turkey.

As a result of Washington’s blatant neo-colonial approach to Syria, US military personnel, that has been illegally deployed to the country in violation of all international norms (as has been repeatedly stated by Syrian officials, including from the UN podium) and with the support of thousands of US PMCs, ensures that Washington secures its gains on the ground. This is particularly evident from the incessant plundering of the country, from the continious theft of its energy resources, with historic works of art and all sorts of goods being stolen from the people of Syria. In essence, US activities here are a smuggling business seized by Washington from ISIS (a terrorist group banned in Russia), which exacerbates the situation in the war-torn region. Meanwhile, the US military continues to be responsible for the deaths of Syrian civilians, most recently in a so-called “counter-terrorism operation” conducted by the Pentagon on February 2 near the town of Atme in Syria’s Idlib province, which killed six children and four women.

Israel too is pursuing an aggressive policy by killing innocent civilians in Syria and targeting pro-Iranian forces in the SAR. Israeli aircraft regularly strike targets inside Syria without entering the SAR’s airspace, mainly operating from Lebanon, which violates international norms, or from the Mediterranean Sea. In the last two years alone, the IDF has launched around a hundred missile attacks on Syrian territory and air strikes, killing dozens of people and causing significant damage to Syria. Such barbaric acts go on despite repeated statements to the UN by the official Syrian authorities, as well as proposals made by Moscow to all the countries concerned to hold meetings and discussions to prevent relations from escalating into armed conflicts and civilian deaths. However, these calls and appeals were never heeded in Tel Aviv.

Such provocative tactics by Tel Aviv could lead to a serious escalation of the situation at any time, as the Syrian Foreign Ministry and authorities have repeatedly stated before, stressing that the country could use “all legitimate means” to respond to Israeli strikes on its territory.

Turkey, which has effectively declared war on the Syrian Kurds, is acting in a similarly aggressive manner in Syria. This is how Mazloum Abdi, commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, said in his comments on the recent airstrikes by the Turkish air force on the Syrian Kurds in his Twiiter account on February 1: “Turkish bombardment of Ain Diwar and Derik has resulted in the martyrdom of civilians and fighters and also hit public infrastructure, including a water dam and power station. This attack amounts to a declaration of war, endangers civilians, and undermines our fight against ISIS [an organization banned in Russia] … With the rising threat of terrorism, our Coalition partners bear a large part of the responsibility to prevent such Turkish attacks.” Ankara considers the People’s Self-Defense Units (YPG), part of the Syrian Democratic Forces, an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, recognized as a terrorist organization in Turkey.

Days earlier, on February 3, Turkish army shelled Kurdish People’s Self-Defense Forces (PSDF) positions near the city of Manbij in northern Syria, firing 19 shells into the village of Sheikh al-Nasir, with another 19 shells exploding in al-Sayyada and al-Yalanli. And before that, in late January, the Turkish air force struck Kurdish militia lines in northern Aleppo and the neighboring provinces of Raqqa and Hassakeh. Four Kurds were killed in a massive attack on an area where a local power plant is located. The command of the Syrian Democratic Forces coalition, the core of which is the PSDF, has accused Turkey of deliberately fomenting new conflict in the Kurdish-controlled northern regions.

Meanwhile, the Turkish army and the Syrian opposition are regularly shelling population centers in the north of Hassakeh province. One such shelling occurred on January 13, which, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency SANA, hit the villages of Umm Al-Khair near Abu Rasein and Al-Abush close to the town of Tell Tamer. Because of the shelling, locals were forced to flee their homes at night as the shelling caused serious damage.

The uneasy situation manifests itself in southern Idlib, where there is a periodic surge of militants, including those actively supported by Turkish forces. In early January, for example, the militants launched an offensive across virtually all of southern Idlib. There were rocket and mortar attacks on Syrian positions near Kafr Nabl, Maaret al-Numan and Malaja. Also, mobile missiles fired by militants exploded behind the Syrian army lines in the area of Beit Ahmad Qaddour. The news of the major operation is confirmed by fighters from the so-called “Syrian opposition” themselves, including from the Ankara-backed “Free Syrian Army.”

On February 9, a Turkish drone fatally struck two civilian vehicles travelling on the Derbessia-Amuda highway near the village of Bahira. Missiles disrupted the electricity supply to 40 Kurdish settlements near the Syrian-Turkish border in Hassakeh province, one vehicle carrying adults and children was blown up and the other was thrown into a ditch. There were casualties, including one child, as well as wounded.

In this context, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s statements that Russia “systematically and resolutely opposes attempts to turn Syria into a scene of armed confrontation between third countries” sound more relevant than ever. Such actions on the territory of Syria by third countries and their attacks on Syrian civilian and military targets result in economic losses for the SAR, reduce the combat capabilities of the Arab Republic and have a negative impact on the effectiveness of the efforts of the Syrians and their allies to eliminate the presence of terrorists in the country. For these reasons, these actions by third countries in Syria must be stopped.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The White House’s policy of unfettered discretion and domination, of unceremonious interference in the internal affairs of other countries, has met an increasingly widespread anti-American backlash.

It was Washington that decided to “teach Serbia a lesson” by sponsoring, through the Rockefeller Foundation, anti-government protests in Serbia with the goal of changing the current government in the country, something Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has openly accused the United States of doing. In support of these charges, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić earlier reported that NGOs and foundations of the West have been increasingly active in the country over the past year and a half, financing numerous protests. Among the examples she named were Rockefeller Foundation, USAID, Open Society Foundations, and British and German organizations operating at the behest of Washington. At the same time, the Western opponents of Serbia were preparing an attempt to assassinate Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, as announced by Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin on January 21.

On February 8, former Moldovan President Igor Dodon stated on air of the TV channel “First in Moldova” that the current Moldovan leadership is under active pressure exerted in order to use it in the fight against Russia.

On February 8, Vice President Antônio Hamilton Mourao, in an interview with the newspaper Valor Economico, reported about blatant pressure by the United States on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to cancel his visit to Russia.

Washington’s desire to establish its own order in Ukraine and to use that country not only to oppose Russia, but even to instigate a new war on the European continent has long been an open secret. To this end, the US and its allies have recently been supplying it with various weapons and provoking the breakdown of the Minsk agreements. According to CNN’s Kylie Attwood, the Joe Biden administration secretly gave Ukraine $200 million in additional military aid late last year “to fight the war against Russia.” To increase its influence in Ukraine, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) announced plans to launch a new information program in Ukraine.

There have been many recent publications in various media about the disruptive the United States and some of its allies played in the January destabilization events in Kazakhstan and the attempted coup d’etat in that country, as well as in the aggravation of national conflicts in Central Asian countries and the border conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

The overt and cavalier US interference in international public positions on world events has been particularly evident as of late when US officials made their moves toward the Winter Olympics hosted by China.

At the end of the year, for example, Washington inspired an attempt to “diplomatically boycott” the Olympics, strenuously attracting the leaders of various countries to join in this provocative venture. Following instructions from the White House, the US media even launched an anti-Chinese information campaign, branding the Beijing Winter Games as the “Genocide Olympics.” However, the White House’s actions turned out to be a dramatic blow to the US public image in its standoff with China, as was assessed by many foreign media outlets.  And this defeat of the US was further exacerbated by Xi Jinping’s exceptional gesture toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, who, at the personal invitation of the PRC president, was present among many other foreign heads of state at the opening of the Games in Beijing.

Not to restrain her Sinophobic policy, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the UN, even insisted on February 2 that Secretary General António Guterres should refrain from traveling to Beijing for the Olympics, according to UN sources and Foreign Policy magazine. But even this did not produce the effect expected by Washington: UN Secretary General Guterres arrived in Beijing and took part in the opening of the Olympics.

Ever eager to earn her coin, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, in an interview with CNN, once again delivered a Sinophobic statement about China’s alleged genocide of the Uyghur minority as well as its crimes against humanity. In this context, she particularly criticized China’s choice of Uyghur skier Dinigeer Yilamujiang as the last Olympic torchbearer for the opening ceremony of the Winter Games.

Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations, responded to this outburst by pointing to the extermination of indigenous people in the United States, Washington’s war crimes and the massive number of COVID-related deaths in the United States. Rejecting yet another groundless accusation by the US Permanent Representative, Zhang Jun pointed out that “the repeated US lies about ‘genocide’ in Xinjiang have already been disproved by facts.” People of all nationalities live there “a peaceful, harmonious and happy life.”

In addition, in response to Washington’s recent provocative actions against Taiwan, the PRC ambassador emphasized in his statement that Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory, and the resolution of the Taiwan issue is an internal matter for Beijing and does not allow for interference by the United States or any other outside forces. “The future of Taiwan lies in national reunification, not some security guarantee from the US. The US should stop emboldening and supporting the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces, follow the true one-China policy, and match its actions with words. Otherwise, playing (with) fire on the Taiwan question will only end up getting burned.”

Zhang Jun emphasized that while the US talks about human rights, it holds the record for human rights violations:  “With a population of less than a quarter of China’s, the US has a staggering number of COVID-19 deaths, exceeding 900,000 – nearly 200 times that of China – and the number still grows. The US is plagued by gun violence issues, with 17,800 deaths in 2021 alone, leaving its citizens feeling unsafe.” “The systematic ethnic cleansing and mass murder of Native Americans throughout US history is a true genocide and a crime against humanity. The indiscriminate murders of civilians, including women and children, by the US military in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq are, in fact, also war crimes,” the Chinese diplomat added.

According to the Chinese Permanent Representative, the US faces grave political, economic, social, security and public health problems. Under such circumstances, Zhang Jun urged US politicians to solve their own problems “rather than dwell on the idea of America’s superiority” over everyone else and not to shift responsibility to others.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.