By launching information warfare and sanctions against undesirable countries and politicians, the United States clearly did not consider that these same weapons could very well punish the US, its American “stability”, as well as knock many politicians of this “empire of lies” off pedestal.

So, once Moscow, in response to the White House’s insinuations, blacklisted 13 US politicians on March 15, including President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki, and Hillary Clinton, approval of the move and strident criticism of the current US political establishment swept the US public.

From Breitbart and its readers, Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State who is now trying to reserve her place as the future mistress of the White House, got what they call “what she deserved.” After all, it was she who indirectly benefited when her husband, former President Bill Clinton, received a corrupt fee of $500,000 from a Russian investment bank for a lecture he gave in Moscow in 2010, which even the New York Times wrote about at the time. Moreover, Hillary was also recalled for paying her campaign staff to prepare a fake “dossier” of compromising material concerning the then-candidate, Donald Trump. It is therefore not surprising to see very harsh comments on this article from American readers, in particular IdriveAPontiac: “The same list of wanted persons is posted in the offices of sheriffs all over the country. Lol,” or cylde: “Putin is doing the job for our DOJ.”

The satirical website The Babylon Bee also took a swipe at Hillary, describing Putin’s alleged frustration at “her refusal to cooperate” and the Clinton family’s intention to acquire all disinformation and fake news from domestic sources like The Washington Post.

As for the “first person of the US”, it has completely lost its face and its mind after being blacklisted by Moscow. In particular, he has publicly demonstrated this by speaking at a White House event recently where he called Vice-President Kamala Harris’s husband “the first person of state.”

And a week earlier Joe Biden confused Russia and Ukraine altogether, commenting on the Russian military special operation, and said: “How do we get to the place where, you know, Putin decided he is gonna just invade Russia? Nothing like this has happened since World War II.”

So the stormy reaction to this by users of the Internet and the general shame of Americans for such a “leader” is understandable to all…

Already after the inauguration, having become a laughing stock in the US and beyond, Joe Biden became a “talking head” who too often started to talk a lot of gibberish and voice (probably without proper awareness!) the words of “political prompters”. This is clearly illustrated by the events of March 16, when, during a brief meeting with journalists from the White House pool, Biden, when asked by Fox News to describe Putin, first left the room, and then, apparently having been “prompted” on the sidelines, returned and called the Russian president a “war criminal”.

It is notable that exactly one year ago – on March 16, 2021 – Biden made a high-profile statement in an interview with ABC News when he called Putin a “murderer”. Even then, the Chairman of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, called Joe Biden’s behavior “impotent hysteria” and Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov was invited to Moscow “for consultations” to review Russian-American relations.

And following the referendum on Crimean independence eight years ago (again in March), Hillary Clinton called Russian President Putin “the new Hitler”.

There is no doubt that such labels, which US leading politicians are trying to place in official statements, are unacceptable. Not only for reasons of diplomatic etiquette, but also morality, as it is American politicians themselves who are up to their elbows in blood.  The same applies to Hillary Clinton, who reacted with undisguised enthusiasm to the White House-organized assassination of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. And to Joseph Biden, who personally came up with the idea of bombing peaceful Belgrade in 1999 and sent American pilots to destroy all the bridges on the Danube. “Biden, US senators and congressmen were the initiators and perpetrators of the current events in Ukraine. They are the ones who committed crimes against humanity and should be brought to justice,” the Chairman of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin said. “US President Joe Biden is beginning to understand that he will have to answer for what is happening in Ukraine, which is causing hysteria in Washington.”

US President Joe Biden’s rating has fallen to 37%, the lowest mark from voters in his career – but even that figure is almost certainly inflated as the country is “going to hell” because of his decisions, Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump told Fox News in a phone interview.

The Daily Wire polled Joe Biden’s supporters on the UCLA campus. In particular, when students were asked what achievements the US president had made over the past year, no one could recall a single specific White House head’s success.

Four dozen people from the US House of Representatives, including the former White House chief doctor, called in February for Joe Biden to undergo a medical test of his mental capacity. They suspect that the head of state is being consumed by “senile dementia”. Their appeal, citing the Alzheimer’s Association, stresses that Biden’s behavior is on a list of ten signs of diminished mental capacity.

Inflation at a 40-year high is dragging both Biden’s and the Democratic Party’s approval ratings down, threatening to have them lose the mid-term election to the Congress next autumn and result in the formation of a parliament opposed to the White House. And there are also sanctions imposed by Moscow on him and his closest “prompters”! Yes, the “talking head” of the White House can’t take this kind of “overheating”, so he “went berserk”.

However, public accusations (not for the first time, either!) against the leader of a world power may result in more than just impeachment!

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Launched on February 2, 2012, it has become the permanent regulatory body of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). The main purpose of the Eurasian Economic Commission is to ensure the conditions for the functioning and development of the EAEU and to draw up proposals for the further development of integration. “Despite external pressure, the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union are strengthening and developing cooperation,” Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said at the EAEU intergovernmental council on February 25.

It is well known that the US and the EU are trying to obstruct the development and strengthening of Eurasian integration by subversively suggesting to the states that have not yet become full members of the Union (in particular Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) that joining the EAEU would allegedly have a negative impact on their trade and economic ties with Western countries. Washington is particularly active in preventing Uzbekistan from moving closer to the EAEU, primarily because it is one of the most attractive states in Central Asia in terms of resources and development potential. Back in the mid-1990s, the US placed its bets on a number of post-Soviet republics to increase its geopolitical influence: Georgia in the South Caucasus, Ukraine in the European part of the CIS, and Uzbekistan in Central Asia. Washington’s policy shows that this trend is still valid today. However, unlike Ukraine, which has been put under a tough choice – either the West or the EAEU, Washington has so far failed to impose such conditions of choice and bloc confrontation on Uzbekistan, as there are no serious contradictions between WTO membership and the development of Eurasian integration. Prior to the Andijan events in 2005, the desire to choose the best format of cooperation led Tashkent to swing its foreign policy course like a “seesaw,” first to Russia, then to the United States. However, the attempted coup convinced Uzbekistan to take a more balanced course towards military and political cooperation with the US.

In recent years, the EAEU has become a powerful regional association with prospects for integration into the global economy through a network of FTAs. For example, existing and pending agreements provide opportunities to enter markets in Southeast Asia (via Vietnam and Singapore), the Middle East (via Iran), Africa (via Egypt) and, in the future, Latin America as well. In some cases, the terms of trade for EAEU exporters under the FTA are much more favorable than under WTO conditions (certain groups of goods are subject to a complete abolition of import duties).

In the context of global geopolitical and economic turbulence, the development of integration in the Eurasian space is of particular importance. And along the way, Russia has had considerable success in strategizing integration processes in the Eurasian space and bringing its closest neighbors together within the EAEU. An updated concept of Eurasian integration in relation to the new geopolitical and geo-economic context has been elaborated and its gradual implementation with the most prepared partners from the CIS countries has been initiated. At the same time, the negative experience in the EAEU space, the existing problems in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia are also taken into account. Russia is also going through a difficult geopolitical and economic period, under the burden of international sanctions, which are negatively affecting its own economy.

Nevertheless, as a result of the calibrated policy of Eurasian integration, in 2021 the volume of mutual trade of the EAEU countries in value terms set a record, reaching $72.6 billion and increasing by 31.9% compared to the previous year. The growth rate of mutual trade was only slightly behind that of external trade (35.1%), which is much more dependent on energy exports and tends to grow much faster in a well-priced hydrocarbon market. Kyrgyzstan (44.9%) tops the list in terms of trade growth with the EAEU countries in 2021, managing to significantly increase its supplies of metals and textiles to the Union. Kazakhstan (34.9%) and Russia (34.3%) rank second with almost identical results, showing high increases in shipments of food, metals and metal products as well as wood and pulp and paper products. Armenia (25.2%) and Belarus (24.7%) are the next fastest growing intra-union trade, with the former most active in food, agricultural raw materials and textiles, and the latter in food and metals.

The high growth rate of mutual trade between the EAEU countries is evidence of the economic sustainability of the association, which has significant prospects for further development. And in the face of sanctions pressure on Russia and Belarus, the role of the intra-union market may become even more important.

It is therefore not surprising that Tashkent is slowly but surely moving closer to the EAEU. It is well known that Uzbekistan obtained observer status in the Eurasian Economic Union in December 2020 and since then the republic has been systematically studying the rules of the EAEU in an effort to deepen economic cooperation. On February 25, Prime Minister of Uzbekistan Abdulla Aripov addressed a meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council, where he announced accession to certain EAEU projects. A little earlier, on January 31 this year, President of the Republic Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a development strategy for Uzbekistan for 2022-2026, under which the EAEU treaty will be analyzed and proposals for the country’s further integration with this international organization will be drawn up; there will be a smooth synchronization of economic policies to bring together the regulations, to which businesses must prepare in time. This work should be completed by the end of 2022. The main interest for Uzbekistan is the very large EAEU market, which is already the main destination for Uzbek fruit and vegetable products and textile goods. Moreover, Uzbekistan is interested in the joint development of the transport and transit potential of all EAEU countries.

Iran continues its efforts to join the Eurasian Economic Union as a full-fledged member of the organization. Since March 21, 2021, Iran’s trade turnover with the Eurasian Economic Union has reached $5.034 billion, a 48% increase over the same period last year. At the same time, Iran’s non-oil exports to the EAEU amounted to over $1 billion, a 15% increase over the same period last year, and Iran’s non-oil imports from the Union amounted to $3.949 billion, a 95% increase over the same period last year. The full membership in the EAEU by Iran, a hundred million nation, would make the organization potentially more powerful than the European Union, and the territory of the Eurasian Economic Union would spread from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian Ocean.

It has been reported that, against the background of the positive results of the integration processes in the EAEU, Abkhazia and South Ossetia may ask for observer status in the Union. Although formal discussion of Abkhazia and South Ossetia joining the Eurasian Economic Union is premature for the time being, increased economic integration with the Union could allow the republics to qualify for observer status in the EAEU.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Documentary evidence of Washington’s aggressive plans for developing and manufacturing biological weapons in secret US biological laboratories in Ukraine, banned by international conventions, has been uncovered during the Russian special operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine, and it is frankly horrifying! Although suspicions of such US activities have already been repeatedly published by many media outlets and their verification and official confirmation of such criminal anti-human plans by Washington was one of the goals of Moscow’s special operation to demilitarize Ukraine.

In this regard, the former weak position in bringing clarity to the exposure and suppression of such forthcoming US crimes is highly surprising. First of all, it should have been long ago that the international community and international institutions should have initiated an independent inspection of some 400 such secret Pentagon biological laboratories scattered around the world, whose location in specific countries is clearly linked to the theatres of future US military action against “adversaries”.

The unconditional involvement of Britain, which has long collaborated with the US in the development of chemical and biological weapons, has also surprisingly been ignored in relation to such criminal plans.

Thus, the US Federal Contractor Registry shows that the Pentagon has spent more than $70 billion in recent years alone on experiments with deadly viruses and nerve agents at the Porton Down military biological laboratory, which is located near Salisbury in Great Britain. The US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), led by the US Department of Defense, has funded a number of defense projects at this so-called “Defense Science and Technology Laboratory” (DSTL) at Porton Down. These include experimental infection of primates with anthrax, Ebola, Marburg, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, western and eastern equine encephalitis viruses, and poisoning of animals with mustard gas and phosgene. It is well known that experiments with LSD have been “incapacitating” British troops during exercises. The testing of chemicals on humans, however, was not out of the ordinary for Porton Down. According to El Pais, in 1963 Porton Down staff decided to test the vulnerability of public infrastructure to chemical and biological attacks by spreading a bacterium on the London Underground, which was initially thought to be harmless but turned out to be quite capable of causing septicemia.

The DTRA has full access to all scientific and technical developments at the Porton Down “laboratory”. Such experiments involving animals are considered secret in Great Britain and it is a criminal offence under Chapter 24 of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act to reveal information about such experiments.

According to information received by the media, military experiments with chemical and biological weapons have increased at Porton Down in recent years. Thus, between 2005 and 2016, 122,000 animals were infected with deadly viruses or poisoned with chemicals. The “laboratory” uses mice, guinea pigs, rats, piglets, ferrets, sheep and monkeys in its research.

It is also known that British military “scientists” received funding from the DTRA to develop a chemical testing system from 2012 to 2017, with experiments on the effects of VX and VM poisoning agents being conducted at Porton Down in 2015.

In 2013, scientists from Porton Down sprayed gas on the London Underground, which the British government tried to keep quiet about and not tell its citizens. At the time, thousands of persons were gassed without their knowledge, and no one asked for their consent to take part in such barbaric “research” against their own people. Nevertheless, data about this is recorded in a British Home Office document, telling also about other programs conducted jointly by the United States and Britain.

Information about the UK’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) testing of the chemical poison VX on guinea pigs was posted on the US National Center for Biotechnology Information website on August 9, 2018. And on September 1, 2018, a report emerged on behalf of 10 more researchers at the DSTL about testing Bioscavenger, which is an effective delayed therapeutic intervention for VX chemical weapons poisoning. The DSTL itself officially admitted in mid-2016 that they were producing the poisonous substance and testing it on animals. The DTRA is a major foreign client of the UK’s DSTL.  Between 2012 and 2017, British military scientists received $39.7 million for the Pentagon’s chemical system testing program, and judging by the US Federal Procurement System, the DSTL and DTRA collaboration continues.

The Porton Down secret laboratory has repeatedly been at the center of scandals involving human experimentation. Up to 20,000 people participated in litigation with the DSTL from 1949 to 1989. And in 2008, the UK Ministry of Defense paid 360 veterans £3 million without admitting responsibility.

According to The Guardian, in the late 2000s, the US and Britain experimented with biological weapons in Afghanistan, using a specially bred fungus called fusarium oxysporum and pleospora papaveracae to kill poppy crops. In 2000, the international NGO Sunshine Project published a report on the danger of this fungus infecting and killing not only coca, poppy and cannabis, but also other plants in environmentally sensitive areas of Asia and the New World. An indication of the dangers of such fungi is the fact that their use is banned in the US. According to the Sunshine Project report, genetically modified strains of the fungus have been bred in the US, which means that the deliverables can be classified as biological weapon.

Given this information alone, the extent of Britain’s involvement in the possible development with the US of biological weapons already needs to be investigated in detail.

Vladimir Platov, Middle East expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

More recently, the topic of Turkey and its use of fighters with Syrian war experience in a number of armed conflict zones has been discussed at length in the pages of NEO. However, the topic of foreign fighters in the current events in Ukraine, as well as the involvement of a number of NATO countries in sending them there, compels us to revisit this topic.

First, regarding foreign fighters “with Syrian experience”, the deputy head of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Opposing Sides (CROS) in Syria, Rear Admiral Oleg Zhuravlev, said on March 5 that fighters of Albanian and Caucasian origin were heading to Europe from the US-controlled Syrian province of Idlib. They plan to further “take part in combat operations on the territory of Ukraine”.

On March 1, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Bashar Jaafari said that the USA might transfer terrorists of DAESH (a terrorist group banned in Russia) or members of other radical groups to Ukraine. According to the politician, this is being organized by the US special services. He also stressed that the use of mercenaries is a common practice in the US. “They moved terrorists from El-Hol camp (in northeastern Syria) to Al-Tanf area (territory seized by the US army) and from there sent them to Afghanistan and Burkina Faso,” Jaafari stressed.

In this connection, attention was also drawn to information that appeared in a number of media outlets that officers of the Ukrainian Security Service, together with officers of Turkey’s national intelligence organization, had recently visited northern Syria (including the settlements of Afrin and Azaz). In particular, a military diplomatic source told RIA Novosti that they visited the base of armed groups banned in Russia, in particular “Harakat Saurin” (part of the “Syrian National Army”), where they met with commanders of several pro-Turkish formations (“Firkyat Sultan Murad”, “Liwa Al-Muattasim”) as well as camps of the illegal armed groups. There, the possibility of recruiting fighters for Ukraine’s territorial defense was discussed with pro-Turkish formations and an agreement was reached to organize a series of secret meetings with “interested parties”.

Detection of a Turkish flag in one of the workshops for manufacturing homemade drone shells near Mariupol in the village of Sopino by the DPR military on 5 March is definite confirmation of the involvement of pro-Turkish militants in the current events in Ukraine on the side of Kiev-controlled military formations. Troops found large quantities of explosive devices and electronic components for drones there.

Moreover, according to Kosovo media reports, veterans of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), recognized as a terrorist organization in Russia and Serbia, intend to fight on the Ukrainian side. As the Balkanist portal notes, the Croatian nationalists who expelled the Serbs living there in 1995 from Croatia had previously volunteered to participate in Kiev’s military operations.

Internationalization of the Ukrainian war by Kiev has been acknowledged by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on the US TV channel CNN, who said, among other things, that more than 20,000 mercenaries from 16 countries were being sent to Ukraine. On February 27, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the creation of a combat unit, into which he has invited citizens of foreign countries to join, and which has already been dubbed Kiev’s “foreign legion”. The Norwegian conflictologist Thomas Hegghammer has already pointed out in an interview with Der Spiegel that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a blatant political mistake in urging foreigners to fight in his country against Russia. Volunteers are also more difficult to control, he says, since they are less pragmatic and less willing to compromise than the local population. They are of little military use, but are often the ones who commit atrocities and violate ceasefires.

Nevertheless, militants from various countries have already started making their way into Ukraine in response to Kiev’s call. A large number of military personnel are now reportedly on Polish territory and are involved in smuggling weapons and fighters into Ukraine.

A number of Western countries have previously officially allowed their citizens to go to Ukraine and join the “foreign legion”. In particular, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Croatia, Poland and Latvia have endorsed the sending of mercenaries at national level. Meanwhile it is already known that the backbone of this “army of mercenaries” will be nationalists and far-rightists of all stripes from Europe and America.

A certain proportion of these mercenaries are Western private military companies, which were present in Ukraine even before the special operation by Russian troops began. They are led by the US, and consist mainly of Eastern European nations, with Poles in particular tending to be the majority. These PMCs were used by Washington in Afghanistan and Iraq, in overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi. PMC services are very expensive, so they will certainly be paid for by “Western sponsors”, as “Zelenskyy’s state” is now bankrupt. It is therefore naive to suggest that Zelenskyy’s call for a “foreign legion” was made by himself. This is clearly Washington’s tactical line to escalate the Ukrainian conflict. The “US leadership” in deepening the armed conflict in Ukraine is also evidenced by a report in the possession of The Washington Post showing that the Pentagon had significantly increased its military aid deliveries to Kiev long before the Russian special operation began. Moreover, according to the declassified document, the US Department of Defense “was equipping Ukrainian fighters with arms and equipment useful for fighting in urban areas.”

Another category of “foreign helpers of Kiev” will be outright Nazis who hate Russia and Orthodoxy fiercely. The most prominent of these are the Croats, about 200 of whose representatives are now based in besieged Mariupol and holding tens of thousands of people hostage. Representatives of such groups are very aggressive and they are not part of the European right-conservative political community, which is largely sympathetic to Russia because of its strong defense of traditional values.

It is frankly surprising that there are Israelis in the ranks of such ultranationalists and Nazis. It would seem that they cannot stand idly by as monuments are being erected in Ukraine to those who were exterminating Jews by the tens of thousands, burning, stabbing, shooting and burying them alive in mass graves. The names of these executioners, whose hands are up to their elbows in Jewish blood, are called streets and schools in the cities. Because of the policies pursued by the Kiev authorities, these murderers are now heroes for Ukraine.  But nevertheless, Israeli mercenaries chose to betray the memory of the Jewish people who suffered under fascism, at the behest of the White House to stand up for the Nazi authorities in Kiev.

The Israeli media reported that Israelis, in particular former fighters of the Golani brigade, are already fighting in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Territorial Defense Forces. This was reported on the telegraph channel Israeli Working Life, which even published a video showing one of these fighters being interviewed in Hebrew. The Ukrainian newspaper Donpress also reported that the first Israeli special forces veterans had already arrived in Ukraine, quoting Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko. Moreover, several Ukrainian media outlets quoted the Israeli portal Ynet as saying that trainees from the Israeli army’s elite units are taking part in the war with Russia on Ukraine’s side.  All this raises a lot of questions for the official current authorities in Israel!

On March 2, Japanese newspapers reported that Tokyo was ready to send 70 Japanese “volunteers” to the Ukrainian front. The Japanese Mainichi Shimbun reported that about 50 of them were former members of the Japan Self-Defense Forces.

Groups of young Danish citizens have already left for Ukraine, Danish news agency Nyheder.TV2 reported on March 1, specifying that the young Danes have only three months of military service as their only military experience. So the likelihood of any of them returning from the Ukrainian battlefield alive is small…

The US publication Vice published on March 2 an interview with a former British military officer who is already in Ukraine. Britain’s retired Royal Marines have already arrived in Ukraine to fight the Russians, said Fox News journalist Lucas Tomlinson. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss gave permission for Britons to fight on the side of Kiev’s neo-Nazis, but on March 6 she was opposed by the head of the Royal Armed Forces’ General Staff, Admiral Tony Radakin, who said that it was “illegal and useless” for Britons to fight against Russia in Ukraine.

A short while ago, the Senegalese Foreign Ministry summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to protest over the recruitment of its nationals to take part in military operations. The communiqué said it was about a Facebook post by the Ukrainian embassy in Dakar that called for Senegalese volunteers to take part in the armed conflict in Ukraine.

About 60 mercenaries are known to have left Georgia for Ukraine. According to unofficial data, 15 of them have already died…

The mercenaries sent by Western countries to help Kiev will not be entitled to POW status, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov has said. Their fate is therefore unenviable.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The dismissive attitude of the US political and military establishment towards its foreign “helpers” is well known.

This attitude became even more apparent after Joe Biden’s recent appearance before the House of Representatives and Senate with his annual State of the Union Address, in which he described the people of Ukraine as Iranians. One could hardly attribute this remark to Biden’s mental ageing. It is yet another indication of the indifference of the White House as to whom to shell: Iranians, Ukrainians, Iraqis, Afghans, Vietnamese, who are all seen there as second class people.

As recently as last August, US combat veteran Sgt Larry Suer was convinced that the story of how the Americans abandoned the Vietnamese in Saigon in 1975 would be repeated in Kabul, which, by the way, happened!

The death of Afghan interpreter Sohail Pardis and the dramatic plight of thousands of Afghans working for the US is a vivid example of the entire highly chaotic attempt to evacuate Americans from Afghanistan, but also a testament to Washington’s disregard towards its helpers abroad. According to a report by the Association of Wartime Allies, the Afghanistan International television revealed that the United States evacuated about 3% of its Afghan allies who had applied for special immigration visas, leaving behind some 78,000 people willing to flee. According to interviews with 4,000 applicants for special immigration visas, those remaining in Afghanistan face harassment and hardship under the Taliban (organization banned in the Russian Federation). Almost 30% of these applicants said they spent some time in detention during the six months after the withdrawal of US troops, and 52% said they were interrogated, 88% of these people faced unemployement, and 94% reported economic difficulties and hunger. Meanwhile, Kim Stafiri, one of the founders of the Association of Wartime Allies, says other Western governments, unlike the US, have managed to pull their Afghan partners out of Afghanistan with fewer casualties.

Hundreds of Iraqi interpreters working for the US army have made similar claims against the US authorities, as they have been abandoned to their fate, according to Switzerland’s SRF portal. Citing the testimony of one of them, Ali, an Iraqi resident, SRF says he worked as an interpreter for the US army for nearly two years, carrying out communications between the US and Iraqi military. For the sake of their work, such Iraqi interpreters risked everything – including the safety of their families. After almost two years in the US army, he received order to leave the US military base, then he was escorted on foot to a fortified Iraqi army post, and five days later received a letter telling him that his job with the US army was over. He then learned that the US military had given the full identities of all Iraqi interpreters to the Iraqi government, which Ali said had been infiltrated by militant groups. After this, a list of several hundred interpreters’ names appeared on the Internet and members of militant groups started sending death threats to the interpreters.

According to a former interpreter who worked with the US army occupation forces, the US military was ambivalent towards Iraqis during the occupation. He divided the US military into three groups according to their attitude towards Iraqis: the first supported the occupation of Iraq and held a grudge against the local population; the second doubted the rightness of the US leadership; the third detached themselves from politics and joined the service just to be able to get a higher education.

More than once, the US has demonstrated its complete indifference to the fate of the Kurds by exploiting them for its own momentary interests during the wars in Iraq and Syria. The US has shown the Kurds its support towards the Kurdish vision of creating a separate state, supported by the Iraqi and Syrian Kurds. To this end, Washington has nurtured this dream to meet its own needs of establishing US bases in those areas of Iraq and Syria where Iran has had a lot of influence. However, the Kurdish plan, like the US support for it, has failed to come to fruition. In particular, it is well known that after the start of the Turkish military operation Peace Spring, Washington abandoned the Kurds to their fate, forcing them to fight with Ankara.

In this context and against the backdrop of a deteriorating situation in Ukraine after Russia launched a special operation to denazify and demilitarize it, many Ukrainians began to express their concerns about the possible consequences of cooperation with the US embassy. In particular, local employees of the US embassy in Kiev have sent a letter to the US Department of State asking for help, feeling, as the US media report, abandoned to their fate. In particular, on February 26, The Financial Times, quoting the text of their letter, which was made available to its editors, pointed out that the embassy staff requested help with evacuating from the war zone, obtaining US visas, as well as a stable line of communication with the Department of State amid the ongoing hostilities. However, even these requests for help were ignored by Washington, which showed its true attitude towards those “helpers”.

Under these circumstances, even the Polish Polityka points out the fear of many countries today that the US will abandon them, demonstrating its usual “defection” to them and NATO.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

In view of the unrest that US intelligence services have been actively initiating lately, whether in Central Asia, Transcaucasia or other areas bordering Russia and China, the risk of a biological disaster from multiple secret military biological laboratories deployed by the US in potentially politically and socially unstable regions is objectively increasing. In this regard, the issue of the US preparing a biological time bomb in Kazakhstan has been raised many times before. The growing risk of the Pentagon initiating biological warfare using over 400 US biological laboratories located overseas around the world and the need for a clear response to the risk of worldwide biological disaster from such secret US overseas facilities has been repeatedly pointed out.  After all, these biological laboratories employ some 13,000 “employees” who are busy creating strains of killer pathogens (microbes and viruses) that are resistant to vaccines.

It is no secret nowadays that the US has set up such biological laboratories in 25 countries around the world: in the Middle East, Africa, South-East Asia. Only within the former Soviet Union there are US military biological laboratories in Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Uzbekistan.

The Americans try to deny the military nature of the studies conducted in such laboratories. However, the secrecy that surrounds them is only comparable to that of the most important military facilities. There is no accountability to the local and global public about the “work” being done there. Moreover, no scientific “achievements” have been publicly demonstrated by American biologists over the many years of the existence of such foreign secret laboratories, and the results of their research are not published anywhere in the public domain.  Meanwhile, laboratories are actively collecting information on the gene pool of the populations of countries where such laboratories operate. All this indicates that the Pentagon is undoubtedly preparing to wage a biological war using biological weapons, which the US is building in such biological laboratories. It is well known that the US has already spent over $100bn in recent years developing biological warfare weapons. The US is the only country that still blocks the establishment of a verification mechanism under the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction.

However, like Russia’s demands to the West for a clear agreement on universal security measures and on the non-proliferation of NATO to the east, warnings about US readiness to unleash a global biological war have never been heeded in Washington and Western capitals.

With this in mind, one can hardly deny that Russia, like any other country, does not wish to have such weapons near its borders, thus jeopardizing the security of all.

Therefore, in Moscow’s military operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine in recent days, getting rid of the numerous US military biological laboratories on the territory of that country is an important point.

On February 24, the British conservative publication THE EXPOSÉ published an article entitled “Is there more to the Ukraine/Russia conflict than meets the eye?” It recognizes that Russia should have conducted the current military operation on the basis of its security interests and confirms that there has long been a very serious threat to the lives and health of the Russian Federation population from the territory of Ukraine. It refers to at least 16 US military biological laboratories located in Odessa, Vinnitsa, Uzhgorod, Lviv (three), Kharkiv, Kiev (also three), Kherson, Ternopil, Dnepropetrovsk, as well as near Luhansk and the border with Crimea. Such “cooperation” between the Pentagon and the Ukrainian Ministry of Health dates back to 2005. Opposition parties managed to push through the Verkhovna Rada in 2013 to end this “cooperation”, but the US-led coup d’état in Kiev in February 2014 prevented the implementation of this decision, resulting in this “cooperation” not only continuing but also actively developing at the initiative of Washington.

Many of the Pentagon’s and White House’s official secrets about US clandestine biological laboratories overseas have been revealed by Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois at Champaign (USA) and author of the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 (BWATA). As this American scientist points out, “We now have an Offensive Biological Weapons industry in this country that violates the Biological Weapons Convention and my Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989”. According to Boyle, “American universities have a long history of willingly permitting their research agenda …. to be co-opted, corrupted, and perverted by the the Pentagon and the C.I.A. into death science”. He cites as an example the group of Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin, which managed to increase the toxicity of the flu virus by a factor of 200. According to Boyle, the Pentagon and the CIA are “ready, willing and able to launch biowarfare when it suits their interests… They have a stockpile of that super-weapons-grade anthrax that they already used against us in October 2001”.

The threat to people living even at a distance from such laboratories is evidenced by an investigation conducted by USA Today newspaper, which showed that from 2006 to 2013 alone, more than 1,500 accidents and safety violations occurred in 200 military biological laboratories on the territory of the US. So what about possible similar incidents in biological laboratories in Ukraine or other former Soviet republics?

In the summer of 2019, “America’s main biological warfare lab has been ordered to stop all research into the deadliest viruses and pathogens over fears contaminated waste could leak out of the facility,” reported Britain’s The Independent. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the public health authority in the US, has revoked the military bioresearch center at Fort Detrick’s license to handle Ebola, smallpox and anthrax after CDC inspectors found “problems with the procedures used to decontaminate wastewater” at Fort Detrick. In this regard, it is notable that the possibility of “deadly viruses and pathogens” leaking into Fort Detrick’s wastewater was detected shortly before the COVID-19 outbreak, which the Americans were quick to blame on China. It is also noteworthy that the Pentagon has significantly stepped up the activities of its overseas biological laboratories since 2019, clearly shifting the “work” on particularly dangerous strains and biological weapons development there.

In these circumstances, the task of terminating the activities of the US secret biological laboratories as part of the demilitarization of that country is justified in the program of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.

Against this background, it is noteworthy that the US embassy in Ukraine removed all documents about the biological laboratories in Kiev and Odessa from its official website after Moscow launched its military operation. This further confirms that in addition to the nuclear threat from Zelensky, Russia was also being prepared for bio-extinction behind the ocean. Under these circumstances, the announcement by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) on the US government procurement website last October of an addendum on “combating highly dangerous pathogens” is understandable. This document concerned the $3.6mln finishing work to launch two biological laboratories in Ukraine – in Kiev and Odessa, where machinery, equipment and personnel were already being prepared for the United States to unleash a biological war under the cover of Ukraine.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Turkey has recently been receiving a considerable amount of attention in the publications of various media outlets. However, much of the reporting revolves around the attitude of Ankara and the Turkish president himself towards various armed conflicts, where Turkey still plays a major role.

One example of this is the Turkish leader’s offer to mediate in the Ukrainian crisis, which has been widely reported in the media from different (and not always flattering for Ankara) perspectives. However, Erdogan would continue to pump his combat drones into Ukraine and deepen his military cooperation with Kiev, under which circumstances any reasonable reader is bound to ask: what is the nature of the “mediating role” that Ankara plays here? It looks more like an attempt at fomenting a military crisis with Erdogan aligning himself with Kiev, thus siding with NATO, of which Turkey is a member, as well as with Washington, which has long exercised external control over Ukraine, both directly and through various intermediaries.

Ankara’s continued activity in sending its fighters from Syria to a number of conflict zones has also not been off the newswire. In particular in Libya, where the international community and the members of the 5+5 Joint Military Committee had previously decided that foreign troops stationed on the territory of the North African state should return home. To this notion, Turkey has responded by officially declaring its readiness to withdraw some 150 fighters from Libya. However, Al-Hadath reported on February 17 that at least 150 new Syrian fighters have arrived in Libya to take part in military operations there. Most are members of the illegal Muhammad al-Fateh Brigade (banned in Russia), which is linked to groups loyal to Turkey. According to journalists, the mercenaries were recruited with the participation of the Turkish military, which organizes their delivery from Idlib province in Syria to Tripoli. Moreover, according to journalists, the Turkish Defense Ministry allegedly pays for the services of Syrian mercenaries in Libya, in particular paying up to $200-250 to field commanders. The supply or exchange of pro-Turkish mercenaries in Libya has been a regular occurrence in recent months. Along with armed gangs, militants represent one of the main challenges to the peace process in that country.

The director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Rami Abd al-Rahman, also confirmed the information about Turkey’s ongoing deployment of Syrian mercenaries in western Libya on the Libyan television channel Al Masar on February 22. According to him, Erdogan continues to import groups into Libya under the guise of the agreement made with the former Tripolitan Government of National Accord (GNA). The militants are recruited by Turkish intelligence in Syria and then given legal cover in an African state through a security company. However, Al-Rahman stressed that a number of Arab media outlets were unwilling to cover the issue and expressed his suspicions about the existence of agreements between Erdoğan and some countries in the region in the context of the media war.

The media, however, continues to uncover Turkey’s involvement not only in sending fighters to other countries, but also in producing forged papers for them and former members of terrorist groups, including DAESH (banned in Russia). They allow militants to travel freely not only to Libya, but also all over Europe, as well as the United States.

The Guardian, for example, has managed to track down those who make and sell fake documents for dozens of radicals linked to DAESH, who then quietly cross the border into Syria, presenting such documents, and travel around the world. Such documents cost $5,000 to $15,000, and the holder of a fake passport receives an almost one hundred per cent guarantee that he will cross the border into Turkey without incident. British journalists have been able to track down one of the clandestine document forgery firms run by an Uzbek national living in Turkey. His business is going so well that he has set up a special Telegram channel with the serious name Istanbul Global Consulting. Answering the journalists’ question about whether terrorists or dangerous extremists might use his products to evade justice, the businessman said he did not ask his customers what group or movement they belonged to.

It begs the question: why aren’t the Turkish authorities and law enforcement agencies themselves interested in this “business” and covering it up?

Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the activities of such “businessmen” from Turkey and his colleagues in other states have been expanding recently, as such firms take advantage of the residents of refugee camps in Syria, such as Al-Hol camp, which hosts some 60,000 women and children associated with DAESH militants. In addition, according to The Guardian, since the Taliban (banned in Russia) seized power in Afghanistan, there have been many Afghan refugee “clients” in Turkey who use fake passports to board a plane to a Western country in Turkey and then apply for asylum upon arrival.

The products of such clandestine firms also allow individuals to disappear without a trace – simply order a fake death certificate for just $500 and send it to the consulate of the client’s country, as no one will go to the morgue to check who is really lying there.

In addition, it was recently reported in the media that Turkey has become the largest source of military equipment for radical Islamists. The Turkish Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) has also confirmed this information, publishing a new report that reveals the involvement of three construction companies from the port city of Mersin in the arms trade with DAESH militants. Weapons and components for the UAVs were purchased for the most part in China and then transported by sea through Ankara-controlled territory to the militants. The harbor, where local firms were based, occupied a central part in the supply chain. MASAK officials report that Altun İnci Construction supplied several million dollars worth of already well-known Turkish UAVs and weapons to DAESH in 2015-2016. In its report, MASAK notes that the Turkish Intelligence Service (MİT), among others, monitored the firm and its leader. However, it is not entirely clear why the criminal DAESH arms supply network was not exposed and dismantled earlier?

And this is a fairly incomplete list of information circulating in various media about Turkey and its links to militant and extremist groups, including in Ukraine. Let’s keep an eye on it together!

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Against the backdrop of its failing policies in Africa in recent years and barely clutching the presidency of the European Union on rotation basis, France is attempting to “reset” its relations with Africa by strengthening EU ties with the African Union. To this end, in December 2021, while presenting his EU presidency program, France’s president called relations with Africa a priority, as he announced his intention to rebuild “an economic and financial New Deal with Africa.” At the same time, the French leader called the ties between the continents “somewhat tired.”

In its efforts, Paris makes little secret out of the fact that it counts on Brussels’ support. In early January, Valdis Dombrovskis, the Vice-President of the European Commission affirmed this by pointing out that it is necessary to “strive for closer economic integration, while driving the green and digital transitions of our economies and societies.”

France’s Emmanuel Macron is obviously afraid that African leaders that relied on him in the past would join a new anti-France liberation movement on the continent following suit of CAR, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and would refuse to lobby the predatory interests of their former metropolis. A further testament to this was the meeting of the President of the Fifth Republic with the representatives of G5 Sahel states on February 16, attended only by politicians from Niger, Chad and Mauritania. Two out of five countries of the region never received the invitation from the Elysee Palace, with the leaders of Mali and Burkina Faso being left out. It seems that the French president, therefore, invited only loyal policymakers so that he could avoid embarrassing questions and statements considering that Macron has nothing to win from the pushback against his policies in the run-up to the presidential elections in France. In these circumstances, the political effect of this event was somewhat dialed down with a lot of African media choosing to turn a deaf ear to the meeting.

Nonetheless, Macron called on his European partners on Twitter to engage in equal partnership with African countries: “Now let’s involve our European partners in an equal partnership with Africa, not at times of crises, but also in order to achieve new and innovative things. We in Brussels will be moving in this direction together.”

In other words, having failed miserably at resetting the relations with G5 Sahel states, Macron arranged the two-day 6th European Union – African Union summit that took place on February 17. The event kicked off four years and three months after the previous similar meeting with its initial date being pushed back from November 2020 due to coronavirus. Moreover, as some pundits argue, such pandemic-related move proved to be handy amidst a gaping rift between Europe and Africa. The situation was further aggravated by the pandemic itself which made healthcare and vaccine production issues look quite prominent on the summit’s agenda.

This was reinforced by the speeches of a number of African leaders at the summit who expressed indignation at the way vaccines were distributed at the height of the pandemic. Indeed, back in December, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa accused Europe of hoarding vaccines and securing more doses for itself than the European population actually needed, which demonstrated undisguised greed that disappointed Africa amidst European claims about “the EU being a partner to the African Union.” Ahead of the summit, nearly 100 humanitarian and advocacy groups including Human Rights Watch and Oxfam accused the EU of having “betrayed Africa.” Those accusations are corroborated by the WHO data according to which only 11% of the African population has been vaccinated. Pharmaceutical companies, in particular, refused to waive their intellectual property rights to allow crucial COVID-19 vaccine production to be deployed in more countries. According to Reuters, only slightly more than 5% of medicines and 1% of vaccines consumed by the African population (total population of 1.2 billion people) are produced locally.

Under these conditions, the only thing the EU could do was to commit to “changing the situation” and announce the allocation of about 145 million vaccine doses in order to reach the target of at least 450 million jabs by the summer. The European Investment Bank, for its part, pledged to make available €500 million in cheap credits for African countries to shore up its healthcare systems as the EU Commission announced that the EU and the Gates Foundation would invest over €100 million over the next five years to boost the continent’s drugs and vaccine production.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission said that “as Africa sets sail for the future, the European Union wants to be Africa’s partner of choice.” She added that Africa is rich in renewable power sources such as hydropower, solar power and wind power, and therefore “the world needs Africa.”

Though it is not clear why the president of the European Commission thinks that Africa is rich in “hydropower”, when due to lack of water Horn of Africa is facing famine caused by the most severe drought since 1981 as 13 million people in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia can stumble into calamitous disasters. Meanwhile, a serious regional conflict may break out at any moment over Ethiopia’s construction of a new hydroelectric power station on the Nile…

At the same time, the EU announced plans to invest €150 billion in African countries’ projects over the next seven years within Europe-backed Global Gateway initiative that should counter-weight the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. The investment is expected to be funneled into the development of the Internet, education and renewable sources of energy. Specific projects and conditions for allocating funds are yet to be agreed upon, however, while it is not clear if such offer will satisfy the African leaders considering that they have options to choose from. For now, Africa is hesitant to believe the European, and, especially, French promises since Europeans often make political demands in exchange for help. Such a stance was clearly confirmed by the Elysee Palace’s statement ahead of summit regarding the withdrawal of European and Canadian troops from Mali. Without providing any proof, the former accused the local authorities of condoning violence and lambasted them for building business cooperation with Russia, including in the regional security matters.

“The EU is a relevant partner but it’s no longer the main or the most important partner, while at the same time Europe’s attachment to Africa is significant,” Lidet Tadesse, an official of the European Centre for Development Policy Management, said at a briefing on February 15. For now, France and the EU are compelled to acknowledge that not Europe, but China, Turkey and Russia have been the most successful actors in Africa in the last decade. China invests heavily in this continent, but its loans, of course, are not without a selfish motive. China is Europe’s main competitor, and Beijing already met with African leaders in 2021, although the African Union has also held summits with the US, Japan and Turkey with the second Russia—Africa summit scheduled for late 2022. Russia has a head-start in the sense that Russian interests align with those of Africa: Moscow takes a vivid interest in solidifying African sovereignty, consolidating state institutions, and market growth which would entail a boon for Russian exports that could replace some of European goods. Last century, Moscow’s standpoint was repeatedly in demand in Africa and it has recently gained an additional momentum.

All these strides foster envy and fears in Paris and Brussels, which is why Europe has been actively assisting France in restoring its positions in Africa. However, due to France’s failing policies in Africa such moves do not gain traction in African countries themselves.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The events that took place in Kazakhstan’s in early January still loom large. Kazakhstan is still tracing the instigators and participants of the January unrest, as law enforcement officers find arms caches in the cities and countryside almost every day. Deputy Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Marat Syzdykov has recently confirmed that the country’s authorities are leading a full-scale investigation into the January events.

The investigation itself is classified; for that reason, all charges against the individuals that had been apprehended and suspected in the “sponsoring” of those events are yet to be brought up. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly clear that the January unrest in Kazakhstan was pre-arranged and pre-meditated. This is evidenced by the well-documented facts and tell-tale signs of masterminds pulling the strings: centralized control from the outside as weapons were seized from the shops in a centralized manner — cars were driving up and taking the cargo.

As time goes on, it is becoming increasingly clear that chaos in the republic could have reached colossal magnitude sweeping across not only Kazakhstan but also neighboring countries. With this in mind, the on-going hysteria driven by the US and their Western allies about “the imminent Russian invasion into Ukraine” is understandable since it hinges on the grudge that the West has been holding against the first successful CSTO operation in Kazakhstan carried out under real-life conditions.

Although the investigation into the January unrest in Kazakhstan is not over yet, the fingerprints of the US, UK and a range of other Washington’s allies are all over the place. It does not really come as a surprise considering that the bosses of the current US administration have a long-standing relationship with former senior Kazakh officials. First of all, now-detained former head of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee Karim Massimov had been “in bed” with Hunter Biden, the US president’s son involved in a range of drug and sex-related controversies as well as a scandal regarding Burisma company in Ukraine. Even before Ukraine, Hunter Biden tried to establish “Bidens’ family rule” over former Soviet republics, including Kazakhstan in 2012–2014. A testament to this effort is a remarkable group picture featuring Joe Biden standing by Karim Massimov while Hunter is beside an “enigmatic” Kenes Rakishev, a fabulously rich Kazakh businessman. He was the one “watching over” Hunter Biden in Kazakhstan, precisely after which his “successful business-era” began.

The US-led Western information warfare also played a huge role in those events. The allied CSTO assistance to Kazakhstan exposed many resources and personalities. Those include, first of all, Western-backed “activists”: Facebook saw a lot of posts calling for demonstrations to prevent the participation of other CSTO members in this mission. In this way, Western resources attempted to exert pressure on MPs who were to approve the decision to dispatch peace-keeping forces to Kazakhstan.

Another testament to this are the results of information warfare instigated in Kyrgyzstan where protests were organized via Facebook by a certain Perizat Saitburkhanova, closely tied with Next TV, a media resource pertaining to Ravshan Jeenbekov, an opposition and pro-Western political figure.

The Voice of America editorial team, a body that is recognized by the Russian Ministry of Justice as a foreign agent, spearheaded the US-driven information warfare. On January 7, Voice of America published a slanderous propaganda report dubbed “Russia and CSTO allies entered Kazakhstan.” Moreover, the headline of this American resource on Twitter was much more aggressive and biased — “Russia and CSTO allies OCCUPY Kazakhstan.”

At an apparent instigation by the US, a country that has been exerting external control over Ukraine, in the wake of the January unrest, Ukrainian authorities published a guide with the advice on how to smear both CSTO and the Kazakh President Tokayev who invited peacekeepers. The Ukrainian media also got “The Patriot’s glossary” developed by the so-called Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security under the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine that dictates in what expressions the Ukrainian media should or should not describe the events in Kazakhstan.

By the way, the crisis in the relations between Belarus and Ukraine was developing along the same lines: it started off with information attacks, training of nationalist militants and arms shipments from Ukraine to Belarus. Then Ukraine turned into a haven for Belarusian extremists that were not welcomed by Europe. Not long after, Kyiv switched to direct hostile actions at the official level.

On January 18, Segodnya.kz Telegram channel reported that the UK intelligence agencies took part in the information warfare against Kazakhstan, but failed in their efforts and switched to a “Plan B.” The channel, in particular, highlighted a report by The Guardian citing, as is customary for the British, “some unknown sources in the Kazakh capital.” The Guardian contended that Nursultan Nazarbayev and Kassym-Jomart Tokayev were allegedly negotiating redistribution of assets in the republic. In other words, the article by the Guardian was directly aimed at fostering negative attitude towards Tokayev, a Kazakh leader outside of the British calculation. Meanwhile, the Kazakh people, for most part, have a pretty positive opinion of him.

According to Segodnya.kz, the presence of a nation-wide spy ring of the UK and US intelligence agencies is evident: consider just the NGOs — the Soros Foundation (banned in Russia), USAID (banned in Russia), the British Council (also banned in Russia). There is hardly any doubt that the interests of Kazakhstan itself are simply non-existent for Western powers.

The Western involvement in the events in Kazakhstan is also evidenced by its very response to them. As a matter of fact, on January 20, members of the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the January events in Kazakhstan. During the deliberations, MEPs put Tokayev’s actions in the spotlight as a number of deputies called for sanctions to be snapped on top Kazakh officials. For that reason, if anyone had thought that the conflict in Kazakhstan had an internal origin, the European Parliament’s resolution clearly showed who was the final mastermind and would-be beneficiary of the coup d’état. As the now-routine tradition demands, the so-called “civilized world” rushed to defend “peaceful protesters,” engaged in not-so-peaceful seizing of administrative buildings, weapons, bank and shop robberies, shooting police officers and bystanders.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

On February 9, Israel launched yet another series of strikes on targets near Damascus, which resulted in one Syrian killed and five injured, which has aggravated the threat of war between Syria and Israel.

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), on February 9, four Israeli F-16s, without crossing the state border of Syria, launched another guided missile attack on facilities near Al-Kiswah, a village south of Damascus. One of the anti-aircraft missiles of the Syrian army exploded over the occupied Golan Heights, after which the IDF fired from the area occupied by Israeli troops in the Syrian Golan Heights ten surface-to-surface missiles at the positions of the Syrian air defense forces. Some missiles were brought down by Syrian air defenses. Nevertheless, the attack still caused significant damage to some buildings in the city of Qudsaya, destroying dozens of houses and cars. To repel the attack, Syrian troops utilized Russian-made air defense systems, which shot down eight missiles.

According to an IDF statement, in response to an intercepted missile fired from Syria into northern Israel, Israel attacked targets in Syria, including the “Syrian radar and anti-aircraft batteries that launched missiles at Israeli Air Force aircraft.” However, it is obvious that the missile chosen by the IDF as the reason for retaliation was the anti-aircraft missile that exploded in the air and was launched by Syrian air defenses as a measure of protection against earlier Israeli missile attacks launched from Lebanon.

In the message the Syrian Foreign Ministry sent to the UN Security Council regarding the aforementioned act of aggression by Tel Aviv, the Syrian government denounces the dangerous consequences the Israeli attacks on the SAR territory may have for stability in the Middle East and the entire world. “Syria reserves the right to use all legal means to respond to the treacherous strikes carried out by Israel on the outskirts of Damascus from Lebanese airspace and from the occupied Golan Heights,” the document says. The Syrian Foreign Ministry drew attention to the fact that “the United States, which patronizes Israel, encourages it to continue attacks and paralyzes possible measures by the UN Security Council to deter the aggressor, which undermines the prestige of the international community.”

Initially, Israel planned to launch two strikes simultaneously on February 9 – one on the outskirts of Damascus, and the other on Latakia. However, after encountering two Su-35s scrambled in response, the IAF fighters flew back without attacking the Syrian port. At the same time, almost all of the missiles allegedly aimed at Iranian facilities in the Rif Dimashq Governorate were shot down by Russian-made Syrian air defense systems. The attack was carried out from Lebanese airspace, which is another gross violation of international law.

Israeli Air Force regularly strikes targets in Syria without entering the airspace of the Arab Republic, and mainly operates from the airspace of Lebanon – in violation of international norms, or from the Mediterranean Sea. Since 2013, the IDF has been carrying out hundreds of airstrikes on the territory of a neighboring country primarily targeting pro-Iranian forces in the SAR. This year, there have already been two such attacks by Israel. The first one was took place on January 31 at targets near Damascus, namely Hezbollah facilities and warehouses in the vicinity of Al-Qutayfah. In 2021, there were 55 attacks:

- 3 missile strikes in December (on December 7, 16 and 28, mainly in the area of the port of Latakia, one Syrian soldier was killed, and significant damage was caused). It is noteworthy that on December 28, not for the first time, two F-16s of the Israeli Air Force launched four guided missiles at facilities on the territory of the port of Latakia without crossing the Syrian border (from the Mediterranean Sea). The Syrian air defense forces did not engage in a battle to repel the IAF raid on the port of Latakia, since a landing Russian Air Force transport plane could be in the affected area;

- 4 missile strikes in November (on November 3, 8, 17 and 28, mainly on targets near the city of Homs, which resulted in four people killed, including two civilians, several people wounded and significant material damage);

- 4 missile strikes in October (on October 8, 13, 25 and 30, strikes were carried out on the outskirts of Damascus, the outskirts of al-Ba’ath and the village of Al-Krum in the Quneitra Governorate in southern Syria, and the city of Abu Kamal, as a result of which more than ten Hezbollah militants and a Syrian soldier were killed, and significant damage was caused);

- 3 missile strikes in September (on September 3, 14 and 27, South from the village of Mayadin in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate in Eastern Syria, near the Iraqi border, with many people being wounded);

- 2 missile strikes in August (on August 17 and 19); 3 missile attacks from May to July (on May 5, June 8 and July 19); 9 missile strikes from January to April, with dozens of people dead and wounded;

- 39 missile attacks and air raids were carried out in 2020.

Israel explains its attacks with the desire to prevent modern weapons from falling into the hands of it enemies. Enemy No. 1 in this regard is the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which is fighting on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and is controlled by Tehran. After the first Israeli airstrikes, Moscow invited all interested parties to meet and talk about disentangling their interests in order to avoid armed conflicts and civilian casualties. However, these calls of Russia have not been heeded.

Israel, despite repeated statements by official Syrian authorities to the UN, continues regular airstrikes on Syrian civilian targets, using, among other things, provocative air attacks by its fighters “under the cover” of civilian aircraft. Thus, in addition to the attack of December 28, on the night of October 13, 2021, four IAF F-16s once again entered the Syrian airspace in the area of the US-occupied Al-Tanf zone in the Homs Governorate and, under the cover of civilian aircraft flying at the same time, carried out an airstrike on a phosphate ore processing plant in the Palmyra area. It is noteworthy that this is not the first time such air attacks have been carried out from the area of the US-occupied zone in the Homs Governorate, which clearly indicates the coordinated actions of the IAF with the US military.

Such provocative tactics of the Israeli Air Force can lead to a serious aggravation of the situation, and it will by the IAF’s fault if the Syrian air defenses in their anti-missile actions shoot down a civilian aircraft of any country, under whose cover Tel Aviv carries out its airstrikes. And such an incident has already occurred in 2018 when Israeli planes bombed Syria from the air zone where the Russian reconnaissance plane was located, and the Syrian air defense shot down this plane by mistake. Russian service members were killed and a big scandal broke out, which was extinguished, and an armed conflict with Israel prevented, only thanks to complex diplomatic efforts.

The Syrian leadership has repeatedly demanded that the UN Security Council put pressure on Israel to stop attacks on the territory of the republic, since such actions violate its sovereignty and lead to increasing tensions in the region. The Syrian Foreign Ministry has previously repeatedly stated that the republic can use “all legal means” to respond to Israeli airstrikes on the Syrian territory. Therefore, by continuing such provocative attacks, Israel is openly tempting its fate, which could turn into a serious armed conflict at any time.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.