Donbas
Sunday 24 January 2021
-
"Achieving sustainable development goals could become one of the elements in the bilateral dialogue between Moscow and Washington, but it is not. Because this dialogue is generally far from being in the best state right now, and not because of Moscow."
The major break in U.S.-Russia relations came in 2014 with Russia’s Crimea annexation, followed by its war in Ukraine and U.S. election interference. -
“[It was Psaki] who was going to send the fleet to the shores of Belarus.”
Rossiya Segodnya chief seized on words real and imagined from President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for White House press secretary to preemptively tar his new administration. -
“Why should our people participate in the experiments of some foreign uncles, if there are those who have already conducted two phases of testing, have confirmed the possibility of using the vaccine and are ready to provide it?”
Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has not finished final testing, scant data about prior tests has been shared, and there are doubts about whether it works. -
“Moscow insisted that the probe ignored a large batch of data on the crash that Russia was eager to provide, instead relying largely on the evidence from Ukraine, and on ‘open-source’ information such as clips of purported evidence posted on social media.”
Russia provided radar data on the 2014 airliner tragedy, then said it was faulty. Other evidence confirms the plane was shot down. -
The article leaves out Yevgeny Prigozhin’s ties to the Kremlin, that he is sanctioned by the United States and key details of his business.
-
“I believe that the allocation of $300 million in the United States for military assistance to Ukraine, on the contrary, opens the door for us to help the people at whom they want to shoot with these weapons.”
Russia was first to supply arms to proxy forces in eastern Ukraine, despite official denials. The support has continued since the war began in 2014. -
“The appearance of this book testifies to the increasing desire of the Malaysians to form their own opinion about what happened. We believe that the latter is especially important, given how one-sided and engaged in the West this tragedy has been illuminated for years.”
The author of the book is a Malaysian conspiracy theorist. Based on the title, the work appears to blame the MH17 shootdown over Ukraine on the “Jewish antichrist Illuminati.” -
“[I]t is unfair to claim that the two-day visit to Moscow of Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbentrop was the main reason for the start of the Second World War. All the leading countries are to a certain extent responsible for its outbreak.”
Putin’s view is not shared by most historians. The subsequent Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between the USSR and Germany triggered the Nazi invasion of Poland, and it provided Soviet economic aid that made German conquests possible. -
The names may have changed since Russian tycoons rallied around Boris Yeltsin in the early post-Soviet era, but there are still Russian oligarchs aplenty, and they have clout.
-
“Bogdan Vechirko, who rammed a crowd of rebelling Americans in Minneapolis with a truck, served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and was an ardent fan of Donald Trump, writes Strana.ua.”
The truck driver and the Ukrainian soldier are two different people using the same name. There is no evidence the soldier ever visited the United States, and Ukraine’s military denounced any connection. -
“This (claim about persecution of Crimean Tatars) once again confirms that in Ukraine the name of the presidenthas changed, but the regime that came power in Ukraine after the coup has not changed. The actions are the same, the policy is the same, which is based on outright falsification, outright distortion of facts, outright labeling without any attempt to confirm them with any evidence.”
Repression targeting Crimean Tatars occurred even before Russia fully annexed the peninsula in 2014. It has been documented by human rights organizations and the United Nations. -
"As far as claims by the European External Action Service are concerned, the claims that our countries have been allegedly spreading disinformation about everything that is happening in relation to the coronavirus, it would be inappropriate even to make comments, because not a single fact that might back up such allegations has been presented to us."
In truth there is not ‘a single fact,’ but many facts, supporting the accusations that Russia has promoted disinformation regarding COVID-19.