War

[Montuno]

I am concerned right now, more than a nuclear escalation with what it could mean, the use of chemical weapons or/and that Russia will be smart enough to revive an old conventional conflict far from its borders, but with land border with the EU, and involving the main alternative source of gas and phosphates for the EU versus Russian, what a new "War of the Sands" would look like, right now?
This "reassuring" article of December 29, 2021, requires a new, and very disturbing, re-reading, in view of Putin's invasion of Ukraine:





Opinion
Peter Channels

Wed, 12/29/2021 - 06:00

Morocco and Algeria: will there be war in 2022?

The foreign chancelleries present in the two capitals of the central Maghreb, Rabat and Algiers , are insistently questioning the possibility of a war between Algeria and Morocco that according to some would break out in 2022.
The accumulation of crisis factors between the two countries, the arms race in which they are involved, and the contradictory and largely antagonistic interests of both, raises concern and fear of a possible large-scale armed conflict in North Africa.
However, the war hypothesis seems excluded, despite the alarms raised, fueled in large part by the powerful international lobbyists of the arms market.
To fully understand what is at stake, it is worth reflecting on several points :
- First of all, for there to be a war, there have to be two opposing camps, alone as countries or in coalition with other allies. In the case of the Maghreb, both parties have made it known through "sources close to power" - the Moroccan Royal Palace and the Algerian Armed Forces - that they do not want war, "but if it is inevitable, they say, they are prepared". However, the “sources” are anonymous, which leaves room for some uncertainty. No official source adopts a clear position on the military crusade, neither for nor against.
- Secondly, in order to reach a military confrontation, there are various phases that must be passed through. Only the last of them entails the unleashing of hostilities, because once the war machines are set in motion, going back becomes very difficult, if not impossible.
- Some of these steps prior to the armed conflict have already been completed: rupture of diplomatic relations; total cooling of economic and trade relations; annulment of contracts of joint ventures that operated in both countries;suspension of the bilateral contract for the common use of the Maghreb-Europe Gas Pipeline linking Algeria-Morocco-Spain and Portugal; ban on Moroccan civil and military flights over Algerian airspace; cancellation of international meetings of a multilateral nature in which both countries could be present (absence of the Moroccan and Algerian ministers at the meeting of the Union for the Mediterranean in Barcelona; suspension of the meeting in Marrakesh Russia-Arab World, in which the Algerian minister was invited; harsh dialectical clashes between the two diplomacies in various United Nations forums).



- In any case, and despite the fact that the bridges are being broken one by one in bilateral relations, the strategic interests of both countries do not collide at the moment. Each of them has their own plan that is working and is not hindered by the rival.
- In order for a bilateral military confrontation to occur, different guidelines must be reached :
o War is the last instrument for defending the country's strategic interests, which include national security and the projection of the country as an actor on an international scale. But before this last step, there are others through which Algeria or Morocco defend their vital interests. Morocco maintains its program of strategic alliances and its projection on the five continents intact. Algeria does the same, and the talks with its allies that mostly revolve around the question of Western Sahara, as well as the negotiations with the countries focused on the sale of hydrocarbons, gas and oil, are not affected at all. for the crisis with Morocco.
o The impossibility of international mediation succeeding. Different allied capitals of both countries are trying: Washington, Moscow, Paris, Beijing, Djeddah, Abu Dhabi. Until now no mediation has been successful, but both capitals do not close the doors to mediators. Although Rabat maintains a more open and dialoguing posture than its neighbor Algiers, the mediations are stalled.
o The accumulation of war material must reach a level where victory over the enemy is conceivable. In case of equilibrium, as is the case today, neither of them will dare to make the first move. Until now, and despite the magnitude of the annual arms acquisition, which ranges between 6.5% of GDP for Morocco, and no less than 10% of GDP for Algeria, these enormous arsenals are not solely intended to confront the other , but are part of the geo-political rivalry between the two countries in North Africa and the Western Mediterranean. The military Doctrine in both countries is based on the consideration that “to have weight on the international geopolitical scene , we must have modern and quality Armed Forces”.
o On the other hand, given the geographical, historical and socio-political considerations that prevail in each of the two countries, the invasion of the adversary's territory by ground troops is excluded. Neither Army is in a position to sustain a ground incursion into the other for long, barring small incursions into the border area . The military conflict, if it occurs, would be limited to the use of the navy, aviation or land defense, to attack the enemy's positions from a distance.
o Neither country has a fifth column inside the enemy. Despite the fact that important sectors of public opinion and political formations are against the unleashing of hostilities, in the event of a conflict it is foreseeable that "patriotic unity for the defense of the country" will take place.
o The media campaigns that are being carried out in both countries, loaded with accusations and insults, are due more to the need to divert public opinion's attention from the real internal problems that exist in each one of them , caused by the effects of the pandemic, the growing socio-economic difficulties or the mismanagement of the economy, one hundred percent dependent on oil in the Algerian case, and on tourism and agriculture, in the Moroccan.
o The legal limbo in terms of international legality, in which the Western Sahara conflict finds itself, is not the cause of the crisis between Morocco and Algeria, although it is an aggravating factor. In previous times, for example, during the so-called War of the Sands in 1963, the armed confrontations in 1976, and in the 1980s in the midst of an armed confrontation between the Moroccan Armed Forces and the Polisario Front guerrillas, which caused thousands of deaths, injuries and prisoners, diplomatic relations between Algeria and Morocco were maintained. For foreign chancelleries, there are no compelling reasons for the unilateral rupture of diplomatic relations decreed by Algiers on August 24.. None of Algeria's traditional allies, neither on the African continent, nor in the Arab world, nor on a global scale, such as Russia, China, Cuba, South Africa, Syria or Palestine among them, has given its support to this rupture. All leading international actors call on both countries to peacefully resolve the crisis, including in it the pragmatic and definitive political solution of the situation in Western Sahara based on the proposal for advanced autonomy of the region under international guarantees.



Related content
The incessant Morocco-Algeria crisis ends up splashing Spain in 2021
Morocco and Algeria are involved in an arms race in the face of rising tensions



https://atalayar.com/blog/marruecos-...guerra-en-2022

If several of the conditions that this excellent article has already fulfilled, and even others that have not been considered, such as the radical turn to the side of Morocco by the president of the current Spanish government changing the traditional alliance with the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic and Algeria (as opposed to the Morocco-Mauritania-France-Israel-USA pole), were necessary for an escalation of the war throughout the Maghreb, namely: withdrawal of ambassadors between Algeria and Morocco (it has even happened between Algeria and SADR with Spain), Algeria cutting off gas to Morocco (fact; right now Spain supplies all the gas to Morocco, otherwise Morocco would have a very serious problem), rearmament and military maneuvers on the border (fact, even whith Russians and USA troops), reactivation of a Russia/US conflict that will drag Morocco even more to the US side (fact; war Russia/Ukranie) and Algeria to Russia's side (the latter, reinforced by the Spanish "abandonment" and turn).

The deaths in border military incidents were missing...: these disturbing events are taking place right now:



A Moroccan bombardment against an Algerian convoy leaves several injured

The attack occurred around 5:00 local time (6:00 GMT) in the Ain Ben Tili region, in the extreme north of Mauritania, just a hundred meters from Saharawi territory and among the wounded there are Algerians and Saharawis.



NEWSUPDATED 04/10/2022 AT 19:29

• EFE

The attack occurred just a hundred meters from Saharawi territory.

pixabay​

A Moroccan bombardment against an Algerian truck convoy left several civilians injured this Sunday , in the second such attack in five months, a specialized Algerian security source confirmed to Efe.

The bombardment occurred around 5:00 local time (6:00 GMT) in the Ain Ben Tili region, in the extreme north of Mauritania, just a hundred meters from Saharawi territory and among the wounded there are Algerians and Saharawis, added Akram Jarief, director of the "Mena Defense" security observatory.

"The place of the bombardment is less than a kilometer from the military fort that bears the name of the village and that is a place of transit and supply for passing truckers," he explained about the incident that occurred when merchants had gathered to pray .

However, a Mauritanian security source, who confirmed the bombing, assured Efe in Nouakchott that the attack occurred south of the town of Bir Lehlou, located in Saharawi territory controlled by the pro-independence Polisario Front, near the border with Mauritania. .

According to the Mauritanian source, the attack destroyed one of the trucks .

The new armed incident occurs after three Algerian civilians lost their lives on November 1, while Algeria was commemorating the 67th anniversary of the start of the War of Independence from France, in a Moroccan bombardment against a commercial convoy on a highway in the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara.


This Sunday's attack raises the military tension between Algeria and Morocco and sharpens hostilities , which have as a backdrop the conflict over the sovereignty of the Saharawi territory.
The Polisario Front announced this morning the suspension of contacts with Spain , which recently showed its support for the Moroccan initiative to establish an autonomous regime in the former Spanish colony.
"The objective is the Polisario Front, they want to cut off the supply of merchandise since it is an area frequented by merchants ," Jarief said of the Moroccan attack.

According to the criteria of
https://thetrustproject.org/

https://www.heraldo.es/noticias/inte...s-1566432.html

 

[Montuno]

At least two dead in a Moroccan attack on the Western Saharan border with Mauritania

A drone hit a vehicle in Mauritanian territory that came from the Saharawi camps of Tindouf

EP, EFE


Why trust El Periódico
MadridApril 11, 2022. 10:36 3Comments


At least two people have died and several have been injured this morning in an attack with a Moroccan military drone in the town of Ain Bentili, which is on the border between Western Sahara and Mauritania.

The attack is part of a series of military operations carried out during the last day about a kilometer from a Mauritanian military base, according to information from the Ecsaharawi news portal.


SAHARA CRISISThe Polisario Front cuts communications with the Government of Spain


The fatalities in this latest drone attack are a woman and a young man, who has been identified as her son . Both have been hit by a missile when they were inside a vehicle.

In addition, there are several seriously injured in the area given that the attack took place in a transit area for civilians traveling to Mauritania.

For its part, the Mauritanian Army has confirmed the death of a woman and has pointed to several missing persons, including a minor . Search and rescue operations carried out by Mauritania continue in the area.


MEETING IN RABATSpain and Morocco begin a relationship without blackmail and with customs in Ceuta and Melilla

The Saharawi news agency SPS has accused the Moroccan forces of carrying out a "barbaric bombardment" against Saharawi and Algerian citizens and properties as part of a policy of escalation by an "occupation regime".

According to EFE, a security source in Zuerat, 600 kilometers north of the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott , specified that the attacked vehicle came from the Saharawi camps of Tindouf, in southwestern Algeria, and was heading to the Mauritanian town of Bir Um Grin, in the far north of the country.

Sources on the ground have confirmed that there have been at least eight bombings over the weekend, which have resulted in several victims, as well as damage to water tanks, camps and trucks.

The new armed incident occurs after three Algerian civilians lost their lives on November 1 in a similar bombardment against a commercial convoy in the same area and which Algeria attributed to Morocco.


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The situation is of high tension in this part of the Sahara since the Moroccan Army expelled at the end of 2020 Saharawi militants who had been blocking the only road between Mauritania and the Saharawi territory for several weeks and that Morocco used to connect with sub-Saharan Africa.

A day later, the Polisario Front announced that it considered the ceasefire signed in 1991 with the mediation of the UN to be broken and the beginning of harassment actions along the so-called defense wall, built by Morocco.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.elp...ahara-13504785

 

[Montuno]

© TITANIA COMPAÑÍA EDITORIAL, SL 2022. Spain. All rights reserved

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A WOMAN AND A YOUNG MAN
The attack of a Moroccan drone on the border between Mauritania and the Sahara leaves at least 2 dead

The victims of this latest drone attack are a woman and a young man, who has been identified as her son. Both have been hit by a missile when they were in a car

Entrance of the Moroccan border post, from where travelers and vehicles pass to Mauritania. (EFE/Mohamed Siali)

For Europe Press

04/11/2022 - 09:15 Updated: 04/11/2022 - 10:03


t least two people have died and several have been injured this morning in an attack with a Moroccan military drone in the town of Ain Bentili, which is on the border between Western Sahara and Mauritania.The attack is part of a series of military operations carried out during the last day about a kilometer from a Mauritanian military base , according to information from the Ecsaharawi news portal.

Sources on the ground have confirmed that during the weekend there have been at least eight bombings , which have resulted in several victims , as well as damage to water tanks, camps and trucks.


Frente POLISARIO
@Polisario_

Las fuerzas de ocupación marroquíes lanzan un ataque contra civiles en los territorios liberados de la República Saharaui y causan graves daños, esta no es la primera vez que las fuerzas del régimen marroquí atacan con tecnología avanzada a civiles saharauis.


10:18 p. m. · 10 abr. 2022



The fatalities in this latest drone attack are a woman and a young man , who has been identified as her son. Both have been hit by a missile when they were inside a vehicle .

"Sánchez sold his soul without getting Rabat to recognize the territorial integrity of Spain"Ignacio Cembrero

In addition, there are several seriously injured in the area, given that the attack took place in a transit area for civilians traveling to Mauritania.


For its part, the Mauritanian Army has confirmed the death of a woman and has identified several missing persons, including a minor. Search and rescue operations carried out by Mauritania continue in the area.

The Saharawi news agency SPS has accused the Moroccan forces of carrying out a "barbaric bombardment" against Saharawi and Algerian citizens and properties as part of a policy of escalation by an "occupation regime".


https://www.elconfidencial.com/mundo...ertos_3406802/

 

[Montuno]

0​

War and human rights. 80 years of the Bataan Death March (1942-2022)

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Bataan Death March, the Philippines, the Sancho de Beurko Association weaves together history, memory and historical re-enactment to recover the memory of this unfortunate episode of World War II.

April 8, 2022 | William Tabernilla | Sancho de Beurko Association

• 0

On January 23, 1942, the Japanese landed on the west coast of Bataan and were met by resistance from 2,000 sailors and airmen who had barely received basic ground fighting training. There they decisively confronted the enemy and held them off until the arrival of reinforcements. The survivors would have to suffer the ordeal of the Bataán Death March (Sancho de Beurko Association).​

Francisco Gracia Alonso, in his extraordinary book Severed heads and outraged corpsesin this case those of the victorious powers of the Second World War, which have also been implicated in human rights violations since the days of colonialism. But this does not mean that the mistreatment suffered by all those who were taken prisoner or remained under the control of Japanese troops in the occupied territories in the immense Asia-Pacific scenario, subjected to terrible and inhuman conditions, as we will see in this article, cannot be ignored. which we will also highlight some biographies that were unknown until the birth of our memory projectFighting Basques , which we always try to coincide with certain anniversaries that are not covered by the media and that we try to make visible with the tools of historical recreation. This time the 80th anniversary of the so-called “Death March” , which took place on the Philippine island of Luzon in April 1942 and involved both American and Filipino soldiers captured by the Japanese after a desperate three-month resistance on the Bataan Peninsula.
Before entering the story of what happened in Bataan, it is worth noting that Japan had not ratified the 1929 Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, but it did sign the convention to "improve the lot of the wounded and sick". of the armies in campaign” and previously, in 1907, had also signed the Hague Convention, which broke down a series of rights and obligations with which it was intended to guarantee the dignity of combatants who fell into enemy hands, although this did not have no effect in practice. During World War II, the difficulties faced by the delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to verify the lists of prisoners held by the Japanese military were enormous and two of them, Dr. Matthaeus Vischer and his wife of the, were executed (2). The war crimes in which the Japanese were implicated were tried after the 1945 capitulation in the so-called "Tokyo trials", but this did not affect mid-ranking or junior officers. There would be no greater interest in purging responsibilities on the part of the US occupation troops, who needed the cooperation of the vanquished in the context of the Cold War, nor would these crimes arouse interest among US public opinion (3) – with the exception of those who had suffered them in their flesh (4)–, much less among the Japanese themselves, who had suffered the devastation caused by two atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War. Gracia very rightly points out that currently a large part of Japanese society does not consider that those executed by the sentences of this court are criminals and that all these atrocities were silenced by "concepts of camaraderie and social courtesy" that were practiced "by the majority of the combat units” of his army (5), so these issues were a taboo that, fortunately, has been weakened over time. In fact, in recent years there has been some opposition in the academic field, although most of this work has had little diffusion among us, with the exception of the book by the journalist Honda Katsichi (6). The question here was because It has been weakening over time. In fact, in recent years there has been some opposition in the academic field, although most of this work has had little diffusion among us, with the exception of the book by the journalist Honda Katsichi (6). The question here was because It has been weakening over time. In fact, in recent years there has been some opposition in the academic field, although most of this work has had little diffusion among us, with the exception of the book by the journalist Honda Katsichi (6). The question here was becausethe surrendered enemy appeared to the Japanese soldier devoid of his humanity and dignity , the same lack of humanity with which this combatant – brutally mistreated, as we shall see, by his own officers – was portrayed by World War II propaganda American, which described him as an animal with all kinds of racist epithets, which would lead to the subsequent brutalization of a campaign, that of the Pacific, in which there would be no quarter until the end of hostilities in 1945 (7).

The Japanese beachhead at Longoskawayan Point stubbornly fended off further attacks and fighting dragged on until Philippine Scouts relieved sailors and airmen. The Japanese soldiers, fighting desperately and with ruthless harshness, murdered their own wounded (Sancho de Beurko Association).​

At the beginning of 1942, when American troops were facing the Japanese in the Philippines, public opinion was already aware of the atrocities committed by the Japanese in Nanjing just four years earlier. The mass murders, rapes and looting reached the media around the world thanks to the commitment of five American and British journalists who were there and witnessed the entire horror that was described by Archibald Trojan Steele of the Chicago Daily News as a "systematic extermination ”. Charles Yates McDaniel published in the Seattle Daily Timeshis last memory of Nanjing with a resounding “dead Chinese, dead Chinese, dead Chinese” (8) – the numbers of the barbarity of the Rising Sun troops in the emblematic Chinese city, still subject to debate, are between 100,000 and 300,000 dead, which includes Chinese soldiers and the civilian population – and taking this into account and the experiences accumulated in the Bataan contact zone, it is surprising that there were still US soldiers who kept in their possession some yen or souvenirs of origin Japanese to be taken prisoner, which would lead to the immediate execution of the unfortunate.

In Bataán, the aviation personnel constituted, for the first and only time in US history, an infantry regiment: the Provisional Air Corps Regiment (Sancho de Beurko Association).​

The Battle of Bataan

The Bataan Peninsula is situated on Manila Bay and served as a refuge for US and Filipino troops - including the well-trained Philippine Scouts, under the command of US Army commissioned officers, and other colonial forces that formed alongside the regular units the USAFFE [United States Army Forces in the Far East or armed forces of the United States in the far east] – after a dazzling campaign by the Japanese that had considerably reduced the air forces or FEAF (Far East Air Force) in just one week, from December 8 to 15, 1941, reducing from 33 to 17 the number of Boeing B-17 bombers, which would be evacuated to Australia (9). With a handful of fighters and no fleet to defend themselves with – the most important Navy units in the area [US Asiatic Fleet],Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma's 14th Imperial Army would have little trouble landing at various points on the island of Luzon, and when the capital, Manila, was besieged, the troops under General Douglas McArthur fell back to Bataan and he moved his command post to Corregidor, where Philippine President Manuel Luis Quezon had also gone. It was Christmas Day 1941.
Two weeks after the surprise attack on the naval air base at Pearl Harbor, which marked the entry of the United States into World War II, the situation had become untenable for the Americans in the Philippine archipelago, whose possession was of vital importance for Japanese plans to control the Pacific. But what they did not expect was a retreat to Bataan – which they considered “a simple peripheral position that would quickly fall” – and they had “no plan in the event that MacArthur decided to establish his positions elsewhere than Manila” , which was declared an open city and abandoned by the USAFFE, FEAF and the Asiatic Fleet (10). Months later, the prisoners of war would tragically pay for this lack of foresight by the Japanese Army. As the Philippines was attacked, so were other US, British, and Dutch possessions: Guam, Burma, British Borneo, Hong Kong,

One of these aviators was Corporal Paul Indart, a young man born in Reno to a family that ran one of the best-known hotels among the Basque community in Nevada (Sancho de Beurko Association).​

The Battle of BataanIt would take place in a lush, tropical setting with a coastline of marshes, beaches, swamps and mangroves crowned by Mounts Mariveles and Natib, two extinct volcanoes of 1,398 and 1,253 m respectively. In the midst of a dry season that had not yet reached the peak of temperatures, the men were soon ravaged by malaria – an estimated 24,000 American and Filipino soldiers were sick with malaria, seriously crippling US troops. MacArthur (11) – and the necessity caused combat units to be formed with the Navy and FEAF personnel who had remained on land, seeing sailors and airmen sharing a trench with the infantry. By January 8, 1942, the staggered withdrawal of some 80,000 USAFFE components was completed under constant pressure from the Japanese.
Explosives were planted in front of Bataan's main line of defense and the forces dug in behind barbed wire and well connected to the various command posts as they prepared to block the Japanese advance routes. The defense was divided into sectors that were left under the responsibility of two Philippine Corps, 1st and 2nd, under the command of Generals Jonathan M. Wainwright and George M. Parker respectively, and prepared to hold out awaiting reinforcements. , but the situation became more and more distressing, since there was no food to last much longer than a month and the rations had to be reduced by half. The planes that had been saved hid in the jungle so as not to be destroyed by Japanese aviation, which operated from Formosa.

The Molotov cocktail and the Enfield M1917, a rifle that had been relegated to the US arsenal, are our aviator's weapons, since the units that were isolated in Bataan had to use whatever was in the army warehouses in Philippines (Sancho de Beurko Association).​

The only all-American infantry regiment, the 31st, was brave in the Balantay River area, but most of the USAFFE troops were Filipino and they fought fiercely in the various battles at Bataan, which it would only accentuate the hatred of Homma's forces, as in the so-called battle of the pockets of resistance. The campaign seemed to have reached a stalemate, since the Japanese forces had been seriously depleted and even (false) rumors of their commanders' suicide spread among the defenders, but the Japanese would receive reinforcements. The die was cast: President Quezon and his family left Corregidor on February 20, 1942, and MacArthur would do so on March 11, following orders from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was accompanied by his wife Jean and their son Arthur. They did it in a torpedo boat piloted by Lieutenant John Bulkeley, whose story would be made into a film by John Ford inThey were not essential ( They were expendable , 1945). Wainwright, who would take command from Corregidor, would not be able to stop the final offensive. His forces were exhausted and, although they had ammunition for a month, they no longer had food or medicine, so General Edward P. King, disobeying Wainwright's orders, decided to surrender Bataan. It was April 9, 1942. Corregidor would still hold out until May 6 (13) and Mindanao would fall six days later. The Philippines were Japanese , and MacArthur would wage war from Australia.

After 90 days of fighting against a fanatical enemy, the men began to feel the lack of food and medicine, which was especially serious due to the malaria plague, which had caused many more casualties than the Japanese. MacArthur's departure was a blow to morale (Sancho de Beurko Association).​

The Bataan Death March in the testimonies of the survivors

With no plans to deal with another scenario other than the fight for Manila, the Japanese had not planned to take more than 40,000 prisoners in Bataán – other authors speak of forecasts of 25,000 – and yet they had captured more than 75 000, of whom 64,000 were Filipinos and 12,000 Americans, in addition to an unknown number of civilians. The result, as Christopher L. Kolakowski puts it, “was one of the worst atrocities of the Pacific War.” (14). This lack of foresight would cause the Japanese a huge logistical problem and, given the lack of vehicles, the prisoners were forced to make a 90-kilometre march on foot to San Fernando that many had to face sick and injured under a scorching sun and without any food in the first days. The crimes began very early and were not exempt from the xenophobia of Japanese militarism with respect to other Asian peoples, whom they believed to be inferior (15): 400 Filipino soldiers were summarily executed in the Pantingan River on April 12. But the victors would not make distinctions and the Americans would also discover to what extent this hate speech had penetrated among the generation of Japanese called to fight the Second World War (16). Flight Officer William E.

The surrender meant making contact with a cruel warrior of whom little was known. The prisoners were soon stripped of their belongings (Sancho de Beurko Association).​

To better understand what happened in the so-called "Death March" it is necessary to know the testimonies of those who suffered it, which are collected in reference works such as the book published by Charles River Editors The Bataan Death March: Life and Death in the Philippines During World War II (17). When they were captured and were being prepared to leave Bataan for captivity, some Japanese soldiers began to take away their personal effects, as Lieutenant Kermick recalled:

They stopped at a rice paddy and began to search us. We were about 100 and it took them a while to get to all of us. We had all turned our pockets inside out and had all our things in front […] they executed an officer and two soldiers because they said they had souvenirs and money of Japanese origin (18).​

The mistreatment of the Japanese towards their prisoners was nothing but the consequence of the brutality of their military system, also towards their own men, whom they had no problem attacking in front of the American prisoners. Sergeant Revenger recounts what happened when a Japanese soldier took his sunglasses and was brutally rebuked by an officer:

The (Japanese) lieutenant came and took off his glasses and gave them back to me, telling me to put them away. Then he went back to his soldier, pulled a small sword scabbard from his belt, and started hitting her in the face with it. The soldier never wavered until he fell completely unconscious. His face was absolutely as if he had been run over by a tractor. I went back to the line and put the glasses in my pocket (19).​

The men would soon discover that for the Japanese military anyone who surrendered was a traitor to their country and, therefore, deserving of the worst treatment (Sancho de Beurko Association).​

There were also cases where the prisoners were treated with courtesy, but this was something exceptional. Captain Loyd Mills recalled that he had a conversation in perfect English with a Japanese sergeant who told him that he was going to meet a lot of bad Japanese as well as good ones and that "please don't think that all Japanese people were, not even remotely, like the treatment that was going to be given to them”. He then opened a can of sardines and with some rice distributed it among those men who had not eaten in several days (20).
The groups that left Bataan first were fortunate in that they did not suffer the same level of brutality as those that did later. The terror was often psychological and hoaxes ran everywhere, from prisoner to prisoner. As Corporal Wayne Lewis relates:

It was rumored that the Japs were checking the numbers in the group, and if at the next checkpoint the numbers didn't match, they would kill people to even the count. We heard a rumor that for every man missing from the next checkpoint, ten more were shot (21).​

However, violent deaths occurred constantly . Having Japanese money among your belongings was reason enough to be executed in the most brutal way, including beheading, as Captain Dyess recounts in a stark story that has all the conditioning factors that we have referred to earlier, including an undisguised and understandable contempt for his captors, whom he shows devoid of any humanity:

The victim, an air force captain, was being searched by a private. He was standing next to a Japanese NCO, his hand on the hilt of his sword. These men watched like the toothy, bespectacled midgets whose photographs are familiar to most newspaper readers. They were cruel-faced, robust and tall. The private, a runt, was rummaging through the captain's pockets. He suddenly stopped and caught his breath with a hiss. He had found some Japanese yen. He held them, ducking his head and sucking in air to attract attention. The big Jap looked at the money. Without a word, he grabbed the captain by the shoulder and pushed him to his knees. He drew the sword from his sheath and raised it above his head holding it with both hands […] There was a hiss and a kind of thud (22).​

The enormous logistical problem that General Homma faced in Bataán was resolved by forcing the prisoners to travel on foot to San Fernando, it was the beginning of the Death March (Sancho de Beurko Association).​

One of the biggest problems was the lack of fluids, as the Japanese did not normally allow water to be taken on the march. A group of young American soldiers asked permission to drink in a buffalo swamp when a Japanese officer suddenly appeared and started shooting at them and they scattered and ran back to the formation, but he was not satisfied with that, since he went to Japanese soldiers who had been watching them and ordered them to remove any Americans who had water stains on their uniforms from the line, with gunshots subsequently being heard (23). Those who tried to drink freely could be bayoneted by their captors. Many of the men had no way of protecting themselves from the scorching sun, and soon began to fall ill as they moved inland.

I was determined to take a sip of the lukewarm water from my canteen. I had only unscrewed the cap when the Jap who had slipped in behind me poured the water into a horse's nose bag. He walked among the prisoners taking the water from them and pouring it into that bag and when he had enough he gave it to his horse (24).​

Cruel amusements with the prisoners were not lacking either:

They had tied a large stick to a tree so it could swing from side to side and were taking turns pushing it through the column of men. It was a big game for them to see how many of us they could take down with one hit from this pile driver [throwing them] across the road (25).​

Malaria, dysentery and malnutrition, together with physical exhaustion, soon began to ravage the men (Sancho de Beurko Association).​

In the five days that the march lasted, many began to fall behind. The corpses of the unlucky ones littered the road, most killed by Japanese cleaning squads. His victims, lying in the middle of the road, were easy prey. The only thing their companions could do was carry them on makeshift stretchers, but many were not so lucky. Others were run over by the trucks that circulated at all hours. Filipino civilians tried to help them without attracting the attention of the guards and there were those who managed to outwit them and flee, settling in the thick of the jungle. Those who managed to reach San Fernando after a 90-kilometer march were confined in pens and then shipped, crammed into wagons to Capas, from where they had to walk another 9 kilometers to reach the O'Donnell camp and once there they were interned in subhuman conditions. The death toll from that march is around 600 Americans and about 10,000 Filipinos.A drama began, that of captivity, of which many would not survive and that would only come to an end in 1945 when the American troops recovered the Philippines.

Our group of sailors and aviators face misfortune together, carrying their sick comrade. Others would not be so lucky (Sancho de Beurko Association).​

biographical notes for family history

Our memory project uses family history and microhistory to delve into the knowledge of the participation of minorities in the war effort of the United States and other countries during World War II, having dealt with the issue of the Philippines in two articles of our blog “Echoes of two wars” , of which the first is dedicated to the battles waged between 1941 and 1942. Thanks to these investigations we have been able to meet some protagonists of the Bataán struggle whose biographies allow us to identify Basques and Navarrese from two different niches: some from families settled in the Philippines with a long tradition since the Spanish colonial era and others from settled economic migrants in the western USA who had arrived on the islands as part of the US military contingent.

Those who couldn't resist any longer and fell to the ground were killed by Japanese cleaning squads. Something as necessary as drinking water could mean death at the hands of the guards (Sancho de Beurko Association).​

Among the first we will mention the young Román Arruza Asorena, of Biscayan parents who had been recruited by USAFFEin Manila while studying dentistry at university. Born in the city of Iloilo, on the Panay Island of the Western Visayas region in 1920, he was the son of a prominent sugar and tobacco farmer from Mungia. Having lived in Durango for a time, the family had had to flee the country due to the start of the Civil War, moving first to France and later back to the Philippines. Assigned to headquarters in Quezon and MacArthur, he attended the fighting from Corregidor Island and was evacuated with Vice President Osmeña to Iloilo, thanks to which he was able to escape "the terrible march of death towards the Japanese concentration camps and all the hardships, which lasted until the end of the conflict” (26).
Among the contingent from the US we have Lieutenant Mitchell Cobeaga Laca, also of Biscayan parents . Born in Lovelock (Nevada) in 1917, he had joined the 19th Bombardment Group as a pilot, with which he operated in the Philippines until the surviving B-17s were evacuated to Australia; he wouldn't have as much luck with his unit's ground crew, that he ended up joining the fight as infantry. Among them was Corporal Paul Indart Puyade, born in 1916 in Reno, Nevada., where his father ran the Indart Hotel, a famous Basque lodging in the area. Indart would fight in Bataan with the Provisional Air Corps Regiment (PACR) when his squadron, the 93rd, ran out of planes and he was taken prisoner by the Japanese after they capitulated, taking part in the Bataan Death March. He died on May 9, 1942 at Camp O'Donnell and is buried at the Manila American Cemetery (27). The ICRC was notified of his death from malaria. Five days later, 21-year-old Joe Arrizabalaga Arrillaga also died there. Born in Boise, Idahoof Biscayan parents, he had spent part of his childhood in the land of his elders, returning to the US at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. He arrived in the Philippines as part of the 808th Military Police Company, which ended up joining the infantry fighting in Bataan and after being taken prisoner, his death was reported due to malnutrition. He is buried in Manila. Lastly, we will quote Manuel Eneriz. Born in 1920 in Santa Clara (California)Born to a Navarrese father and an Andalusian mother, he was part of Company K of the 31st Infantry Regiment, perhaps the best combat unit in USAFFE, surviving the fighting at Bataan and the infamous Death March. Later he was sent to the Fukuoka-Kashii prison camp, on the Japanese island of Kyushu, where he did forced labor in a coal mine ten hours a day for three years and six months until he was released on October 15, 1945, suffering hardships. of all kinds, including episodes of malaria, dysentery, scurvy, beatings and stabbings, which earned him a Purple Heart. He was 30 miles from Nagasaki when the atomic bomb (28) exploded. He passed away in 2001 in Camarillo, California.

Our protagonists refuse to abandon the most unfortunate of the group and improvise a stretcher with a bamboo trunk to carry him (Sancho de Beurko Association).​

Historical recreation and memory of the Bataan Death March

This scenery that we show you here has allowed us to empathize with the suffering of those who suffered the hardships and mistreatment of the Japanese troops, but we wanted to go further by recreating the before and after of the surrender of Bataan by showing a trench in which Sailors and airmen can be seen fighting together to prevent infiltration by the invading Japanese forces. A scenario that is the result of desperation and that we believe has not been shown until now in historical recreation, and only very tangentially through American cinema, as in Bataan (Tay Garnett, 1943), in which a sailor appears (Robert Walker) between a motley mix of soldiers that also includes an aviator (George Murphy) and the aforementionedThey were not essential, which shows us a final sequence in which we can see the sailors armed with rifles marching along the beach while the last plane to leave Bataan takes their officers Bulkeley (Robert Montgomery) and "Rusty" Ryan (John Wayne). Our proposal is to memorialize Indart, whom we have shown with the hbt (1st Pattern) diver so common among aviators and infantry combat gear, including the Brodie helmet worn by US soldiers at the beginning of World War II and a Enfield M1917 rifle, which was common among Philippine colonial troops. He is accompanied by two sailors also equipped as combatants. The re-enactors' work is based on surviving original images of Bataan, including one of the 24th Pursuit Group,

One of the images that has survived to this day shows us a long line of stretchers carrying the sick and wounded who have not been able to resist the inhumane conditions to which prisoners of war have been subjected (Association Sancho de Beurko).​

But where the work of our re-enactors has been truly immersive is with regard to the Bataan Death March, which has required adding a Japanese soldier to the group, who first frisks them and then accompanies them, allowing the viewer to make their particular journey for memory, and also for hope, which is expressed through the companionship of our protagonists, who take care of the seriously ill comrade, who is finally transferred on a stretcher that they have improvised with a bamboo trunk. On this occasion, in addition to the photographs, we have been inspired by the three statues of the Bataán memorial located in Las Cruces, New Mexico, which constitutes the first federal monument dedicated to American and Filipino veterans who participated in those historical events that are now 80 years old. Since 1989, also in New Mexico, the Bataan Memorial Death March marathon has been held , with free registration, in which members of the armed forces traditionally participate and which was resumed last year after a brief break due to the COVID19 pandemic. In the Philippines there is a shrine dedicated to Bataan in Layers, where the government has planted 31,000 trees to honor the 25,000 Filipinos and 6,000 Americans who died in Japanese captivity. To commemorate this 80th anniversary, an exhibition and a series of events will be held this April in the museum space of the USS Hornet in Alameda, California , whose epicenter will take place on April 9, declared a national holiday in the Philippines, where It is known as "Valor Day".

Paul Indart and Joe Arrizabalaga were two members of the US Basque community who participated in the Bataan Death March. After surviving so many hardships, they could not resist the harsh conditions of captivity and died in the O'Donnell camp. Their remains rest in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.​

With this initiative we do nothing but join this event that we have linked to the memory of our people in order to keep it alive and endure over time. Thank Egoitz Ereño, Iñaki Peña, Eneko Tabernilla and Kenji Casado Yamashita for the composition of the characters, while a server was in charge of composing the scenery and coordinating all this recreative effort that we hope will be to his liking. The long history that binds us to the Philippines went far beyond the end of Spanish rule in the archipelago and extended even after the Japanese occupation, which was especially traumatic. It will be the materials of microhistory that provide us with a new perspective by linking historical events to the future of people.
Grades

(1) Francisco Grace Alonso. (2019). Severed heads and outraged corpses . Madrid: Awake Ferro Editions. Pp. XVII (introduction) and 5.
(2) See “The ICRC and the Second World War: ICRC action in the Far East” [https://www.icrc.org/es/doc/resources/documents/misc/5tdmxr.htm] and “Regulations on to the laws and customs of war on land (H.IV.R.)” [ https://www.icrc.org/es/doc/resources/documents/misc/treaty-1907-regulations-laws-customs-war -on-land-5tdm39.htm ].
(3) Edward Dree, Greg Bradsher, Robert Hanyok, James Lide, Michael Petersen and Daquing Yang: “Japanese war crimes. Introductory essays”, p. 1 at [ https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf ].
(4) Francis Grace. Opus cit. P. 277.
(5) Ibid. P.285.
(6) Honda Katsuichi. (1999). The Nanjing massacre. A japanese journalists confronts Japan´s national shame . New York: ME Sharpe. However, the authorities are still committed to this revisionism that in the texts dedicated to education omits references to the Nanjing massacre and presents the aggressions of its army as a war of liberation (Martí Pons Vázquez: “El camino a la barbarie: historia of the Empire of Japan and its relationship with the atrocities in the Pacific War". TFG Faculty of Humanities Pompeu Fabra University (2015). P. 55 [ https://repositori.upf.edu/bitstream/handle/10230/25266 /Pons_2015.pdf?sequence=1&isAll owed=y ]).
(7) Francis Grace. Opus Cit. Pp. 293-294. It should be noted here that the US government confined the population of Japanese origin living in the country in concentration camps, making no distinction between men, women and children, which constitutes a true embarrassment for the recent history of this country. 120,000 people were deprived of their rights and confined in remote areas, in many cases desert, where they were guarded by the army. Some of those men formed the 442nd Infantry Regiment, which fought bravely in Europe during World War II.
(8) Suping Lu: “The Najing Atrocities Reported in the US Newspapers, 1937-38” [ https://www.readex.com/readex-report/issues/volume-7-issue-2/nanjing-atrocities-reported -us-newspapers-1937-38 ].
(9) In just over a week the Japanese had absolute air superiority over Luzon.
(10) Christopher L. Kolakowski. (2016). Last stand of Bataan: The defense of the Philippines, December 1941, May 1942 . Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company Inc. Publishers. Kindle Document.
(11) Seth Paltzer: “The Other Foe: The US Army´s Fight against Malaria in the Pacific Theater, 1942-45” [ https://armyhistory.org/the-other-foe-the-us-armys-fight -against-malaria-in-the-pacific-theater-1942-45/ ].
(12) Christopher L. Kolakowski. Opus cit.
(13) Ibid.
(14) Ibid.
(15) Marti Pons Vazquez. Opus cit. P.19
(16) Ibid. P.34.
(17) Charles River Publishers (2017). The Bataan Death March: Life and Death in the Philippines During World War II . Scott Valley, CA: CreateSpace Publishing. Kindle Document.
(18) Donald Knox. (2002). Death March. The survivors of Bataan . Eugene, OR: Harvest Books. P. 116, cited in Charles River Editors. Opus cit.
(19) Ibid.
(20) Ibid. P.117.
(21) Charles Rivers Publishers. Opus cit.
(22) Ibid.
(23) Donald Knox. Opus cit. P. 128, cited in Charles River Editors. Opus cit.
(24) Charles Rivers Publishers. Opus cit.
(25) Ibid.
(26) Jose Miguel Romaña. (1988). World War II and the Basques . Bilbao: Messenger. pp. 271-277.
(27) Guillermo Tabernilla: “Basques of Nevada in WW2” in Saibigain nº 2 (2016). P. 94.
(28) Brenda Loree: “Echoes of war” in the Los Angeles Times of 8/9/1997.


https://www.despertaferro-ediciones...n-1942-japon-filipinas-segunda-guerra-mundia/​

 

[Montuno]

NEWS‘Who caused this unemployment — Nazis or our government?’ The Dagestani soldiers dying in Putin’s war

12:18 pm, April 11, 2022

Source: Meduza


In Russia’s Republic of Dagestan, a federal subject in the North Caucasus, many young men are eager to join the military. Not only is it considered the right — and manly — thing to do, it’s also one of the only available means of economic mobility. In the past, federal quotas have put a limit on the number of soldiers who can come from each Russian region, leading some Dagestani men to go as far as bribing the draft board to take them. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, however, the government has been actively recruiting Dagestani contract soldiers —and many have already returned home in coffins. According to one source from the Republic’s enlistment office, over 130 soldiers from Dagestan have died. Journalist Vladimir Sevrinovsky traveled to Dagestan to learn how residents view the war — and how they’re mourning their lost sons and grandsons.


‘We’re not free people’:

“I’ve been afraid to hear the word ‘Brother!’ since I was a kid,” says a teacher from a Dagestani village who asked to remain anonymous. “I always thought if someone came up to me and said, ‘Brother!’ it meant he wanted to scam me or rob me. And now, hearing the phrase ‘brother nation’ so much, I’ve realized it works exactly the same way.”

Recently, students in one of his classes wrote the letter Z on the board and defiantly stopped doing their schoolwork. When they received poor grades as a result, they went to the school principal and told her that their teacher had retaliated against them for showing “patriotiZm,” the teacher told Meduza. Fortunately, some students who “see and understand everything” visited him that evening and comforted him.


RUSSIA'S NEW WAR SYMBOL
‘Z’ How Russia transformed a letter of the Latin alphabet into the official (and ominous) symbol of its invasion of Ukraine
a month ago


The students who drew the Z told their teacher that Putin is powerful, Russia would soon win the war, and that he himself will be declared an "enemy of the people" and sent to jail for 15 years “like Navalny.” Initially, he wanted to resign, he told Meduza, but he changed his mind because of his other students.

The war in Ukraine has split Dagestani society. Like everywhere in Russia, many people support Russia in its “fight against fascism.” On Rasul Gamzatov Avenue in the center of Dagestani capital Makhachkala, a banner with the pro-Russian slogan “Za mir,” or “For peace,” hangs on the Russian theater; underneath it are advertisements for two ensembles: “Donbas” and the newly-renamed “LeZginka” (A Lezginka is a type of Caucasian folk dance). Many of the city’s mini-buses also sport the letter Z, though very few private cars do.

“A colleague asked me if we were going to use the letter Z in our printed materials,” one theater director told Meduza. “Naturally, I said no and asked her why. ‘Well, they recommended it, and we’re not free people,’ she told me.”

“Something needs to be done,” said the director. “All of these fairytales about how culture is separate from politics are just criminal. It’s impossible to be outside of politics when something like this is happening in your country. We need to try not to get busted under one of these terrible [censorship] laws and not to put anyone at risk, but we can’t be silent. Maybe we can’t discuss it directly, but we need to talk about what’s happening.”

Military service, along with sports, is one of the main means of social mobility in the subsidized republic. Since the number of Dagestanis who can enter the army is limited by quotas, many people pay bribes to join. In the spring 2021 draft, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that about 3 thousand people had been recruited from Dagestan (the total number of draftees in the whole country in 2020 was estimated to be around 60,000). In March 2022, Dagestani draft offices began actively recruiting contract soldiers to serve in the “special military operation” in Ukraine. The salaries offered range from 177 thousand rubles (around $2,000) a month for a regular soldier to 215 thousand rubles (about $2.3 thousand) for an officer. The average salary in the Republic was a little over 32 thousand rubles (about $377.00) in 2021, while the unemployment rate was above 15% (compared to an average of a little over 4% in Russia as a whole at the end of 2021).

There have been conflicting reports about the recruitment campaigns’ success. According to a RIA Dagestan article from March 18, Dagestan’s enlistment office had signed more than 300 short-term military contracts for military service in the preceding week.” Meanwhile, a draft office employee in the Republic’s Babayurt district told a reporter from the newspaper Chernovik that the recruitment period for the “special military operation” ended on March 10 and that there were no responders. An article from March 11 quotes a duty officer from the office as saying that recruitment is still ongoing, but not for the conflict in Ukraine.

Dagestani families have been holding funerals since the first days of the war. Two of Chernovik’s obituary pages alone, from March 11 and March 18, list a total of 35 soldiers. According to the outlet Kavkaz.Realii, at least 60 Dagestan residents had died in the war by March 23. Unofficial lists compiled from news reports and social media posts include more than 100 names of soldiers who allegedly died in Ukraine. If those numbers are correct, Dagestan has lost more soldiers in the war than any of Russia’s other republics, outranking Buryatia, which comes in second place, by a wide margin.

In late March, Chernovik also wrote about the parents of Dagestani soldiers who can’t find their sons. Meduza’s correspondent confirmed that information about hospitals overcrowded with Dagestani soldiers is spreading around social media. “One of my relatives has serious shrapnel wounds, and another one died,” Makhachkala resident Akhmed (name changed) wrote online. “Those are the results so far of this absolutely stupid massacre on foreign land.”


‘He went to protect his motherland’:

In Kani, a mountain village that once extended far beyond its current borders, there are currently about 30 families left; conditions are difficult, and most people have left for the lowlands. According to local residents, 20 men went to Ukraine to fight in the war. On April 1, the last day before Ramadan, cars full of people dressed in black pull up one after another. They’ve gathered to mourn 25-year-old paratrooper Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov, who died on February 24, early in the war. Before going to Ukraine, he fought with the Russian army in Syria. According to the government’s official story, Gadzhimagomedov, surrounded by Ukrainian troops, detonated a grenade, killing himself along with his opponents. “He took that step because he understood who he was dealing with: neo-Nazis, who abuse prisoners and brutally kill them,” Vladimir Putin said after his death. On March 3, Putin awarded Gadzhimagomedov the title Hero of Russia. Images of Gadzhimagomedov’s official military portrait have since appeared along roads across the Republic.

A sign in the village of Bacha with a portrait of paratrooper Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov, who was posthumously named a Hero of Russia
Vladimir Sevrinovsky
Women’s sobs can be heard far beyond the rural cemetery. Gadzhimagomedov’s female relatives cry beside his grave, which is covered in sweets, rice, and halva. The men stand a bit further back, waiting patiently; some of them quietly wipe tears from their eyes with handkerchiefs. It’s only when the women eventually fall silent and move away that the men approach the grave to pay their respects. Afterwards, everyone goes to the home of the deceased; the women go inside and the men stay outside and sit on improved benches made of wooden boards.

“He spent his childhood in this house. He was a true mountain man — may Allah bless him with Heaven. He was a cheerful, well-mannered, calm young man. He really loved the mountains. He would come here on vacation — every time he would conquer a new peak. He hadn’t even lived with his wife for a year,” said Malik, Gadzhimagomedov’s uncle. “On February 20, his daughter was born, and on the 24th, he passed away. He didn’t even get to hold his child in his arms. After the army, he planned on returning to Dagestan. He said he might even move to the mountains and raise livestock. He had a lot of plans for his life, but it was cut short.”

“I served in the Soviet army myself,” added another relative, an old man with a white beard. “I was a paratrooper in Fergana. When he was little, I told him about jumping.”

The man has never been to Ukraine, but he has no doubt about the righteousness of Russia’s war there. When asked about the purpose of the war, he says, “Stalin didn’t destroy these nationalists back in 1945. They’ve reared their heads again. If our troops hadn’t gone there, they would have encroached on our country. So Mr. Putin did the right thing.”

“He was courageous from the day he was born,” said Murad, another one of Gadzhimagomedov’s uncles. “He had the qualities of a man. His hobbies were sports and martial arts. Even back when he was a teenager, he knew he was going to serve. He would never have left a fellow soldier, a brother in arms, behind. That’s why he went. To protect his motherland.” When asked why Ukraine was the country where Gadzhimagomedov needed to protect his motherland, Murad says, “No comment.”

Murad is far from the only person to cut an interview short with these words. Outside of interviews, people can frequently be heard arguing vigorously with one another about the war — and many aren’t shy about calling it a war. “When they announce it’s time to mobilize, you’ll go!” one village resident says to another. “No, I won’t!” the man says back, “I’ll go to prison before I go to war. For who, for what? If they come here, to our motherland, I’ll be the first one fighting — you bet your ass I will. But nobody attacked Russia. It’s not the Nazis who are our enemies. They’ve confiscated [oligarchs’] yachts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars — meanwhile, there’s not a single MRI machine in all of Dagestan. Is that the Nazis’ fault? Why are there so many young people in the army? Because there’s no other work. Who left us without work, Nazis or the government?”

Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov’s male relatives pray together at his graveside
Vladimir Sevrinovsky
Many of the young men who went to war, though, didn’t do it for political or financial reasons. According to their relatives, a lot of people see it as unmanly to sit on the sidelines why others fight. A “decent guy” joins his friends when they go to war — otherwise he’ll look like a coward. One young man didn’t have anything against Ukrainians and didn’t even want to carry a weapon, but when a friend of his signed up to join the “special military operation,” he did, too — just to support his friend, one village resident told Meduza.


‘It was his duty’:

Not far from Kana, in the larger village of Kulla, residents are still mourning 21-year-old Makhmud Channanov, who died on February 28 and was posthumously awarded the Order of Courage. His relatives vye for a chance to talk about how he dreamed of becoming a football player, and how he would always check to see if there was work to be done before going on a walk.

The farm where Channanov grew up is active but it’s not large. Two cows and a calf stand in a clean pen. Next to them are walls of carefully arranged dung, which locals use to heat their stoves. Channanov’s father abandoned the family a long time ago, so Channanov was raised by the women from his mother’s side. Now, the three mountain women gather in the house in their mourning clothes: Shamsiyat, Channanov’s mother; Liza, his grandmother; and Khadizhat, his aunt. Nobody else is here. The spring sun shines from through the thick curtains from behind the house, and the women’s faces seem darkened by grief.

Makhmud Channanov’s relatives take care of a calf at their farm in Kulla
Vladimir Sevrinovsky
“He was the one who wanted to join the army. His mom and his grandmother agreed. It’s hard for a man to get a job without a military ID. We were pleased to bring him there,” says Khadizhat. She’s holding her young son behind her back, the way many women in Caucasian villages do to free their hands up for work.

“At first, he complained. But by the end, before his death, he told his mom and his grandmother that he was starting to like it. He started to like it, he matured, he became so handsome, and that’s when Almighty God took him. We didn’t see him like that, we only saw photos,” said Khadizhat. “Makhmud didn’t tell us he was going straight to Ukraine, to the hot zone. He just said, ‘We’ll be there as support.’ The last time he called his grandmother was the morning of the 23rd. He said they were collecting their telephones and he wouldn’t be able to contact us anymore.”

The women learned about the fighting from watching television. When the first reports of casualties appeared, they began to get scared. On the morning of February 28, Shamsiyat called her son’s commander herself, and he told her everything was fine. That calmed her down a bit, but she still made sure to always keep her phone with her. The next day, she decided to take a nap after working a night shift and gave her phone to Khadizhat, who soon received a message: “Makhmud is gone.”

“He was my only child,” says Shamsiyat, wiping her tears. “They didn’t use to send only children to war. Why did this happen? I’m not young. I still check to see if he’s messaged me on WhatsApp. He told his grandmother that the other mothers were crying a lot. Apparently they knew where their children were being sent.”

Makhmud Channanov’s aunt and mother
Vladimir Sevrinovsky

Mahmud’s certificate for being the village’s most valuable football player
Vladimir Sevrinovsky

Makhmud Channanov’s Order of Courage and military uniform
Vladimir Sevrinovsky
Especially upsetting for the women are comments on social media from Ukrainians who claim Channanov set out to kill children. “He would never hurt anyone,” Shamsiyat insists. “He served his motherland, he took an oath. It was his duty — it was a job.”

Now the women deeply regret supporting Channanov’s decision to join the army. “If we had known, we’d have gotten him out of there,” said Khadizhat. “She put so much work into her child, just for him to turn 21 and…” She trails off.

As the women tell their story, the door opens and shuts several times. Once they’re done talking, the whole house is full of silent men. An old man with a gray beard starts taking out certificates recognizing Channanov’s achievements: one for football, one for athletics, one for participating in a summer camp, etc. A pile of sports medals chime against one another in his palm. Finally, the men bring in the final artifacts from his life: his military uniform and his Order of Courage, a silver cross in a red box. Nobody knows what he did to earn it.


‘You Russians have nothing to worry about — it's Caucasians who will do everything’:

On April 4, Makhmud Channanov’s family, along with several other victims’ relatives, were invited to meet with Sergey Melikov, the head of Dagestan. He thanked the mother and fathers for raising warriors and announced that 50 million rubles from the Republic’s budget would be allocated to help deceased soldiers’ families.

“People who are born true warriors are endowed with a readiness for heroism. These sons of Dagestan, who were unwilling to accept others’ attempts to destroy our traditional values, to destroy the historical memory of the great acts of the fearless generation of the Great Patriotic War, were such people,” Malikov said at the meeting. “Today, our soldiers and officers, with full confidence in their own righteousness, are fighting for the peace that their grandfathers and great-grandfathers defended and saved.”

Malikov then quoted Caucasian poet Rasul Gamzatov: “Unfortunately, in the end, only war can demand and glorify people of honor and conscience.”

Not long before, one of the soldiers’ relatives had quoted a few lines by the same poet, albeit in a much less official setting. “Let bread on earth be cheaper, and let life be more precious,” he started, then read the final lines from the poem:

I like all peoples very much.

And cursed be the man

Who dares, who tries

To vilify any group

Left: A memorial to the victims of the Second World War in Kana.Right: A shiny black plaque with a portrait of Stalin and the message “Thank you for the victory!” (a recent addition)
Vladimir Sevrinovsky* * *


An old man sits among tourists on the shore of the Caspian Sea, talking to himself about the war. Upon hearing a passing visitor from Moscow say he opposes the war, the Dagestani man reassures him: “You Russians have nothing to worry about. It's Caucasians who will do everything. For the Motherland, for Stalin, for Putin!”


SEARCHING FOR THEIR SONS
‘The impulse to save lives is gone’ The Soldiers’ Mothers of St. Petersburg helps desperate parents find their children. They say morale is at an all-time low.

Meduza, working 24/7, always for our readers We need your help like never before


Story by Vladimir Sevrinovsky, reporting from Dagestan

Translation by Sam Breazeale
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/04...our-government

 

[St. Phatty]

Fortunately, there are still good bankers, bankers who live up to their motto "Humanity above all; money does not buy everything", to counteract the evil plans of Jewish Banking....

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Bankers with Hitler


Documentary: Bankers with Hitler
Producer: BBC Timewatch
Director: P. Elston
Year: 1998
Duration: 44 minutes
Synopsis: Swiss banks are accused of collaborating with the Nazis during World War II. This was suspected at the time by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States H. Morgenthau, who began to investigate this collaboration. He found that the Swiss were not alone. His files reveal that both British and American bankers continued to do business with Hitler. Key members of the Bank of England, along with their German counterparts, established the BIS, the Bank for International Settlements, which launders Europe's looted gold. On its board of directors were key Nazis such as W. Funk and S. Hjalamar. The president of the BIS was an American, T. McKittrick, who easily socialized with Nazi leaders. Not only the BIS, but other allied banks worked hand in hand with the Nazis. One of the largest American banks maintains a branch open in occupied Paris, and with the full knowledge of the managers in the United States, it froze the accounts of the French Jews. Deprived of money to escape France, many ended up in concentration camps. When Roosevelt died in 1945 Morganthau lost his protector and his crusade against the banks came to an end.


https://www.aehe.es/banqueros-con-hitler/

BOOK: Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin, "George Bush, The Un-authorized Biography".
note Chapter 2, "the Hitler Project".

Wall Street was caught loaning money to WW2 Germany in October 1942 - in the middle of the War.
Mr. Prescott Bush, father of one US president and grand-father of another, was managing the bank whose assets were seized.
Then, in the early 1950', Prescott Bush was elected to the US Senate for Connecticut.

How can a man who was caught loaning money to Mr. Hitler, during the middle of WW2, then get elected to the US Senate - especially if he contributed to the alleged Holocaust ?

This book is one of 3 that shatters the official story of WW2.

Chapter 2 – The Hitler Project « TARPLEY.net

tarpley.net

 

[Petrochemical]

Hidey ho

 

[Montuno]

Today, 14-April, commemorating the arrival of the 2nd Republic of Spain, in the midst of Putin's invasion of Ukraine :

GRANDSTAND

The unforgivable abandonment of the Spanish Republic​

"A small intervention would have been enough for the Madrid government to stifle the outbreak of rebellion," said French Education Minister Jean Zay, a supporter of Popular Front support. What happened was exactly the opposite
Gilbert Grellet 07/17/2016

From left to right, the heads of government of the three democratic powers at the start of the Spanish Civil War: Stanley Baldwin (United Kingdom), Léon Blum (France) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (USA).


In the days and weeks that followed the July 17 coup, the three great Western democracies -- France, Britain, and the United States -- refused to support the democratically elected government in Madrid to put down the military uprising. . It was an unforgivable mistake, which would cost the Spanish people dearly, who had to endure almost forty years of Franco's dictatorship. It was also a huge geopolitical mistake, heralding Munich and paving the way for World War II.

Eighty years after this fatal episode, one is astonished to see that the French Government of the Front Populaire, led by the socialist Léon Blum, abandoned the Spanish Popular Front to its fate, despite the request for help made on July 19 by the Giral government. After an initial favorable response, Blum quickly changed his mind due to the violent attacks of the right-wing French press and the reluctance of the radicals -his political allies- in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, above all, due to pressure from the Government of London.

As of July 25, the French Council of Ministers decided not to comply with the official order made by Madrid to supply planes and weapons. That same fateful day, in which everything changed, Hitler agreed to urgently send planes to help the rebel army in Africa cross the Strait of Gibraltar, after a meeting held in Bayreuth (Germany) with emissaries sent by Francisco Franco. Two days later, Benito Mussolini also sent planes to the coup plotters.

"A small intervention would have been enough for the Madrid government to stifle the outbreak of rebellion," said the French Minister of Education, Jean Zay, a supporter of the Popular Front's support at the time. What happened was exactly the opposite: the insurgent army took a decisive advantage thanks to the immediate and determined help of German and Italian planes.

The rest of the story of this betrayal of Spanish democracy is well known. After confirming the support given to the rebels by Berlin and Rome, Blum promised to deliver some planes to Madrid in early August, before completely cutting off the supply of arms on August 8 - a true embargo -, a decision encompassed within the framework of an unusual policy of "non-intervention".
Conceived by the Quai d'Orsay [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] in Paris, approved by London and signed by all European countries, including Germany and Italy, the "non-intervention" agreement prohibited any form of assistance to the contenders in Spain. It was an incredible diplomatic masquerade, mocked by Hitler and Mussolini, who continued to openly support the rebels, while the democratic countries denied any support to the Republican side.
Under the pretext of not interfering in an "internal" conflict, the "non-intervention" equated a legal republican government with traitor military coup plotters, and in fact constituted an "intervention" against the Popular Front, as the Spanish ambassador in Paris pointed out , Álvaro de Albornoz, and the head of Spanish diplomacy, Julio Álvarez del Vayo, in his famous speech before the League of Nations (SDN) in Geneva on September 25.
In this process, the moral and political responsibility of the Blum Government is undeniable, but that of the English Executive is no less overwhelming. Blinded by anticommunism, eager to avoid further conflict in Europe and to "appease" Hitler, the conservative government of Stanley Baldwin barely concealed its preference for the Spanish putschists. London practiced a "malicious neutrality" with respect to the Popular Front, after convincing France, very committed to its alliance with Great Britain, not to do anything.
Even Winston Churchill, from outside the government, intervened directly in the negotiations with Blum - with whom he had good relations - to convince him that it was better for the military to win than to see the "communists" make the revolution and massacre "people". The bourgeoisie"
For its part, the isolationist America of Franklin Roosevelt erroneously applied the strict principle of "neutrality" and let private companies supply fuel and transportation to the coup plotters. In addition, Roosevelt, in the midst of his re-election campaign in 1936, did not want to turn against the Catholic community in the United States, outraged by the news of religious massacres in Catalonia and Aragon.
However, the United States ambassador who was in Spain at that time, Claude Bowers, was a remarkable character who did not stop denouncing the "farce" of "non-intervention" and who decidedly supported the Republican government, unlike what made by his English counterpart, Henry Chilton, a fervent supporter of the coup plotters, who sent false reports to London about the situation in Spain.
Beyond this unforgivable political mistake -- not supporting a democratically elected government -- Paris, London and Washington made a major geostrategic mistake by not reacting to the aid provided by the German Nazis and the Italian fascists to the Spanish military rebels.
A fervent pacifist, Blum did not stop repeating that "non-intervention" was intended to avoid "a general conflagration" in Europe. In other words, let the conflict develop in Spain in order to avoid war on the continent. A wrong policy, approved by the English.
Even then, however, many politicians and supporters of helping Madrid pointed out the opposite: that failure to intervene in Spain would bring a new generalized war in Europe. "Now it's our turn, tomorrow it will be you who will have a war," said prophetic Dolores Ibarruri, the Pasionaria, at a large rally in Paris at the beginning of September 1936.
And, in fact, that is what happened as a result of the blindness and naivety of democracies in the face of totalitarian threats and lies. The scandalous abandonment of the Spanish Republic exposed the cowardice of these democracies, fueled the aggression of Hitler and Mussolini and allowed the formation and consolidation of the Rome-Berlin Axis… Munich and the 1939-45 War followed.
In that unforgivable summer of 1936, the destiny of the Spanish people was written, subsequently subjected to a ruthless dictatorship. But also that of a Europe that was dragged into war because it did not know how to defend democracy.
-------------------------------------------------- ----
Gilbert Grellet is a writer and journalist. Former director of the AFP office in Madrid (2005-2010), he has just published Un été impardonnable in France. 1936: la guerre d'Espagne et le scandale de la non-intervention . Albin Michel.

El imperdonable abandono de la República española

"Una pequeña intervención hubiera sido suficiente para que el Gobierno de Madrid ahogara el brote de rebelión", señaló el ministro francés de Educación, Jean Zay, partidario del apoyo del Frente Popular. Lo que ocurrió fue exactamente lo contrario

ctxt.es

 

[Montuno]

DEFENSE AND SECURITY NEWS LEADER

April 14, 2022 - Updated: 22:04

Balance of casualties after 47 days of war in Ukraine​

The defense ministries of the contenders and external sources offer different counts of losses since the beginning of the invasion

Russian main battle tank destroyed in Ukraine. Photo Armyinform

Gines Soriano | Thursday , April 14, 2022, 06:00

The dance of figures has been a constant since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on February 24. The defense ministries of both countries offer some data on the casualties they have inflicted on the enemy that must be taken with reservations. The usual tendency to inflate the numbers of enemy losses can be contrasted on this occasion, at least in part and referring exclusively to military material, with the data offered by the images taken in the theater of operations, and which are collected by independent analysts.
The Oryxpioenkop portal , managed by Dutch specialists, registers material casualties on both sides on a daily basis from images taken of destroyed, damaged, abandoned or captured material. According to its balance sheet, as of April 12, the Russian loss of 476 tanks, 256 armored fighting vehicles, 497 infantry fighting vehicles, 96 armored personnel carriers, 21 ambush-protected and mine-resistant vehicles ( MRAP), 91 infantry mobility vehicles, 53 towed artillery pieces, 96 self-propelled artillery systems, 49 multiple rocket launch systems, 14 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, 787 vehicles of various types (trucks, 4x4 and light vehicles), 20 aircraft, 32 helicopters , 28 unmanned aerial vehicles and three ships.
For its part, up to the same date (47 days since the invasion began), the Information Agency of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine assures that they have caused Moscow the loss of 732 battle tanks, 1,946 armored combat vehicles, 349 artillery systems, 111 multiple rocket launch systems, 63 anti-aircraft means, 157 aircraft, 140 helicopters, 1,406 trucks, seven ships, 76 tanker transports and 124 unmanned aerial vehicles, among others.
On the part of Russia , its Ministry of Defense offered on Tuesday a count of the equipment destroyed to the enemy, the Armed Forces of Ukraine , which includes a total of 130 aircraft and 99 helicopters; 244 S-300 , Buk-M1 and Osa AKM anti- aircraft missile systems ; 443 unmanned aerial vehicles, 2,139 armored, including battle tanks and other vehicles; 241 multiple launch rocket systems; 917 field artillery pieces and mortars, and 2,046 special military vehicle units.
Meanwhile, Oryxpioenkop so far shows Ukrainian material losses including 139 main battle tanks, 70 armored fighting vehicles, 82 infantry fighting vehicles, 32 armored personnel carriers, 51 infantry mobility vehicles, 9 engineers, 25 towed artillery pieces, 20 self-propelled artillery systems, 224 vehicles of various types (trucks, SUVs and light vehicles), 13 multiple rocket launchers, 15 aircraft, three helicopters, 12 unmanned aerial vehicles and 15 ships.
In this case, the portal managers themselves warn that the balance of Ukrainian losses is notably less than the Russian, largely because it is made from video and photographic evidence provided mainly by Ukrainian sources, more attentive by logic to show the losses that they cause than those they receive.
Combatant losses
Regarding the number of human casualties, the Russian authorities have not included data in the information provided on Tuesday, while the Ukrainian side puts the fatalities caused to Moscow troops at 19,600 up to that date and 1,300 their own deaths. Last week Russia pointed out that they had already caused the death of 14,000 Ukrainian troops plus 16,000 wounded. For its part, Moscow acknowledged days ago the death of 1,351 of its own soldiers and 3,825 wounded.
From NATO and the United States it is estimated that the number of Russian casualties (including dead, wounded and prisoners) is between 30,000 and 40,000 troops, among which they estimate a range of fallen that goes from 7,000 to 15,000.

Balance de bajas tras 47 días de guerra en Ucrania

Pérdidas de combatientes Sobre el número de bajas humanas, las autoridades rusas no han incluído datos en la información facilitada el martes, mientras que la parte ucraniana cifra en 19.600 ...

www.infodefensa.com

 

[Montuno]

An Iron Dome anti-rocket battery seen in the city of Haifa.
missiles News

Israel denied the sale of the Iron Dome to Ukraine for fear of a Russian reaction.​

February 18, 2022

kyiv approached US officials last year to buy the system, but Israel vetoed the idea.​

Israel has reportedly halted a US attempt to transfer several Iron Dome defense system batteries to Ukraine for fear it will harm its relations with Russia, the Ynet news site reported on Thursday.

According to the report, the capabilities of the defense system – especially during the 2021 Gaza war – aroused the interest of Ukrainian officials.

Israeli representatives began working intensively in Washington last year to persuade US lawmakers to initiate the transfer of the rocket and mortar defense system.

The Ukrainian government officially requested the Biden administration to transfer Patriot and Iron Dome missiles to Ukraine last spring.

US President Joe Biden meets with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office of the White House on September 1, 2021.
At the time, when there was then no concern about a possible Russian invasion, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers supported the transfer.

However, because the Iron Dome is a joint Israeli-American project, the sale to a third party cannot take place without the approval of both promoting countries.

According to the report, Israeli officials made it clear to the US administration in informal talks that they would not agree to the transfer of the Iron Dome batteries to kyiv, fearing it would harm their relations with Russia, especially in light of the influence of Israel. Moscow over Syria.

The Ukrainians, for their part, have in recent months made direct petitions to the Israeli government, requesting that officials approve the sale.

Convinced by Israel's arguments, the United States abandoned the transfer of the Iron Dome and Patriot missiles.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated last Wednesday that his country was seeking further cooperation with Israel on air defense technology amid fears of a Russian invasion. An Israeli television report specified that Ukraine has been in contact with Israel regarding the Iron Dome missile defense system, other missile warning technologies and cyber defense technology.

During a news conference, Kuleba said there was "very deep cooperation... under the current circumstances" between kyiv and Jerusalem, without elaborating.

“We are also interested in deepening defense technology cooperation, in particular related to air defense,” he told a reporter on the Kan public broadcaster.

He added that "we would welcome Israel's effort to play a diplomatic role between Ukraine and Russia," apparently due to the Jewish state's close ties with both nations.

Kan quoted a Ukrainian source as saying that Ukraine has discussed the Iron Dome system “several times” with Israel, as well as other missile defense and cyber defense systems and technologies.

The Times of Israel

 

[Montuno]

DEFENSE AND SECURITY NEWS LEADER

April 14, 2022 -

Israel to supply Morocco with Iron Dome anti-aircraft system​

The local press affirms that the Israeli Defense Minister will sign the sale of Rafael's famous weapon during an upcoming visit to the North African country

Iron Dome system test. Photo: Raytheon-Rafael

Gines Soriano | Friday , November 12, 2021, 06:00

Rabat will have one of the most powerful anti-aircraft defense systems in the world. Israel is preparing the sale to the North African country of its famous Iron Dome , with which in ten years it has intercepted several thousand rockets launched from the Gaza Strip. The Iron Dome , as the advanced weapon is known in English, is a product developed by the Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems .

The operation has been picked up by the Moroccan medium Rue 20 , which cites Israeli sources. According to these interlocutors, the outlet adds, the sale will be resolved during the next scheduled visit of the Israeli Defense Minister , Benny Gantz , to Morocco. The local media The Jerusalem Post announced at the beginning of last month that Gantz will travel to Morocco "in the coming months", within the framework of normalization of relations undertaken by both countries last December. On that visit, the source continues, cooperation agreements are expected to be signed that include plans to develop a military industry in Morocco to produce loitering munitions. Both countriesThey are already working today in the field of military drones .
What had not transpired until now is the aforementioned negotiation to supply Morocco with the Iron Dome system . According to the aforementioned Moroccan head, Rafael is coordinating the sale (through his Executive Vice President , Ariel Caro ) with the General Inspectorate of the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces .

Also used in the US
Since its arrival on the scene on April 7, 2011, “the Iron Dome has played a fundamental role in all conflicts, preventing thousands of rockets from hitting Israel, from small to large mortars and shells with different ranges and warheads” , as explained by Rafael on the completion of the first decade of operations of this weapon,. It is a development that is used as highly mobile dual mission systems, designed to shoot down targets at very short range ( VSHORAD ) and also rockets, artillery and mortars ( C-RAM ), planes, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles ( UAV ), precision guided munitions and cruise missiles.
This system, which has been updated throughout its ten years of existence, has also been supplied to the United States. The US Department of Defense agreed in August 2019 with the Israeli Defense Ministry to purchase two Iron Dome batteries for its army. And in May 2020 Rafael signed an agreement with the US company Raytheon Technologies to create a joint company (baptized as Raytheon Rafael Area Protection Systems) with the aim of producing Iron Dome interceptors and launchers in the United States.
The Iron Dome system was subjected last May to the greatest stress test in its history during the umpteenth unequal confrontation between Israeli and Palestinian forces, in which in just ten days it intercepted more rockets than during its previous ten years of existence. In total, according to the Israeli authorities, it neutralized 90% of the more than 3,000 rockets launched in just over a week by Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip.

Algeria and Western Sahara
Morocco is immersed in a remarkable process of rearmament, with its sights set partly on Algeria, with which it has severed relations in recent weeks, and also on the Polisario Front , due to the conflict around the former Spanish province of the Sahara West that Rabat occupies in two thirds de facto for more than four decades. Next year's Moroccan finance bill, presented two weeks ago, includes an increase of 505 million euros in the defense budget , which will thus reach 4.8 billion euros. This is 11.76% more than the figure set for this 2021. Last year Rabat already raised its military spending by 30% compared to the previous year.

Israel suministrará a Marruecos el sistema antiaéreo Cúpula de Hierro

El sistema Iron Dome fue sometido el pasado mayo a la mayor prueba de esfuerzo de su historia durante el enésimo desigual enfrentamiento entre fuerzas israelíes y palestinas, en la que en ap ...

www.infodefensa.com

 

[Montuno]

Destroyed by Ukraine

This was the Moskva, Russia's flagship in the Black Sea​

The ship was built in the Soviet era and played a key role in the Syrian war in 2015​

• War in Ukraine: last minute of the Russian invasion​

• MULTIMEDIA REPORT | 50 days of crimes​

REUTERS/YORK ISIK


Alexandra Costa

Why trust El Periódico
BarcelonaApril 14, 2022. 17:18

The Ukrainian army on Wednesday destroyed the flagship and command of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea , the missile cruiser ' Moskva'. " 'Neptune' missiles have caused severe damage to the Russian ship ," the governor of Odessa , Maksym Marchenko , reported Thursday on Telegram , an extreme that has been corroborated by Kiev .


Instead, the Russian Defense Ministry alleges that it was an accidental fire and the subsequent detonation of the ship's ammunition. The Kremlin also claims that the crew , made up of 510 people, was able to be evacuated, while Ukraine claims that it was unable to escape. This was 'Moskva', the Soviet jewel of the Russian troops.



2,000 KILOMETER RANGE

This is the Kinzhal hypersonic missile that Russia has launched in Ukraine for the first time​

The 'Moskva' was built in 1979 in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv , which was then part of the USSR . It was launched under the name ' Slava ', which means ' glory '. The ship returned to Mykolaiv in December 1990 for a refit that lasted until April 2000, coinciding with the coming to power of Vladimir Putin . Then, she was renamed 'Moskva', "Moscow" in English, and became the lead ship of the Black Sea Fleet.

The biggest, but not the deadliest​

It was the flagship because it was the largest of all those in the Black Sea. She had a length of 186 meters and moved at 59 kilometers per hour. Being the largest ship, she was the one in command. But not because of that she had a great weapon power .


SHIP 'MOSKVA'

Ukraine claims the destruction of Russia's flagship in the Black Sea​

Russia first launched a hypersonic missile , nicknamed ' Kinzhal ', on March 19. It was to destroy an underground Ukrainian arsenal at Deliatin , in the south-west of the country. That missile has a range of more than 2,000 kilometers and is going 10 times faster than the speed of sound . However, the 'Moskva' was equipped with ' Vulkan ' cruise missiles, one of the most mysterious missiles in Soviet service, but now outdated.
These missiles have a range of 550 kilometers and a payload of 1,000 kilos, which allows them to carry a 350 kiloton nuclear warhead or a 950 kilo semi-armor-piercing high-explosive warhead.

Related news

• Ukraine denounces violations of girls and adolescents in the occupied areas​

  Ukraine reopens humanitarian corridors after closure due to Russian attacks​

The ship also had quite a few anti-aircraft defenses, in the form of missiles and cannons, such as the 'Fort' missiles. She possessed powerful anti-ship artillery and could carry a helicopter on board.
He played a key role during Russia's military campaign in Syria , which began in 2015. A year later, his trajectory through the planet's seas and oceans was recognized by the Order of Nakhimov , one of the highest distinctions of the Russian Federation . .

 

[Montuno]

How Old Russian Warship Was Blown Up By Ukrainian 'Neptune' Missiles In Biggest Naval Disaster Since General Belgrano :​

Ukrainian forces used some of their newer missiles to blow up an old Soviet-era Russian warship in the largest naval loss ship Britain ever sank, the General Belgrano.

The Slava Moskova-class missile cruiser has been in service on and off for almost 40 years, and if it sinks it will be the largest naval asset lost since World War II.

Drones were reportedly used to harass the vessel and keep its air defenses distracted before the missiles were fired from a hidden battery near Odessa.

At least two of the missiles are then reported to have hit the ship, causing a massive explosion and inferno, as they are believed to have detonated one of the exposed missile tubes on Moskova's deck.

Russia claims the ship has been evacuated, remains afloat and the cause of the fire is under "investigation", without mentioning the attack.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has said the ship is believed to be sinking as damage and bad weather take their toll on the now-abandoned wreck.

Russia has claimed that the ship is being towed back to port, and no images showing the damage have been released so far.
And some Ukrainian reports claimed that the ship has already capsized and sunk.

The Neptune missiles were only introduced to military service in Ukraine last year, and each weapon carries a 330-pound warhead with a range of 170 miles.
The batteries, which are mounted on the backs of large trucks, can be armed with up to 72 of the missiles.
Targets are believed to be selected by drones.
And the missiles can reach speeds of over 650 mph as they hurtle towards the enemy ship.

Putin is reported to have been briefed on the disaster, the latest catastrophe to hit his bogged-down war in Ukraine.
Moskova is the largest ship of her type sunk in action since Britain destroyed General Belgrano during the Falklands War in 1983.

Belgrano, also a cruiser, was sunk by HMS Conqueror using two Tigerfish torpedoes in one of the most infamous battles.
She sank along with 323 sailors in the largest loss of life during the conflict.
And at least 300 dead are feared after the attack on Moskva.

And at least 300 dead are feared after the attack on Moskva

The Russian flagship had been operating in the Black Sea since the start of the war and is believed to have been involved in attacks off the Ukrainian coast.
And he was told to go to hell before he opened fire on the defenders holding out on Serpent Island.

The 12,490-ton vessel has had a long service history, first being laid down in 1976 and finally entering service seven years later in 1983.
It is believed that the ship was equipped with outdated anti-aircraft weapons that could not protect it from Ukrainian missiles.
It was originally called Slava, before being discontinued in 1990 amid the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The warship was returned to service in 2000 when it became the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet.

Moskva played a role in the 2008 invasion of Georgia, sailed the Mediterranean during Russia's bombardment of Syria in 2013 and 2014, and blockaded Ukraine during the annexation of Crimea.

The aging ship is one of many within Russia's creaky and antiquated navy, which, while large, still relies on a backbone of ships built in the last days of the Soviet Union.

Cómo el viejo buque de guerra ruso fue volado por misiles ucranianos 'Neptune' en el mayor desastre naval desde el General Belgrano - Inicio

Las fuerzas ucranianas utilizaron algunos de sus misiles más nuevos para hacer estallar un viejo buque de guerra ruso de la era soviética en el mayor

zonadeprensard.com

 

[mexcurandero420]

Soviet Union is back

New fireworks

 

[Montuno]

The rise of Russia in the Sahel and French-speaking Sub-Saharan Africa: The rise of Russia in the Sahel and French-speaking Sub-Saharan Africa:

France's unattainable counterterrorist mission in the Sahel​

Image: French and Chadian military take part in a flag handover ceremony to commemorate the launch of Operation Barkhane. Photo: US Army Africa / Chief Warrant Officer 3 Martin S. Bonner (CC BY 2.0)

Naomi Moreno-Cosgrove
//06 Apr 2022

On February 17, 2022, President Emmanuel Macron announced the withdrawal of French and European troops from Mali. The statement, which came after a quick break in relations with the Malian ruling junta, which came to power after a coup in May 2021, ended France's nine-year military commitment in the country. The Elysée statement came at a time when social reactions aggravated skepticism around Opération Barkhane . In the context of France's upcoming April elections, such a move seems to suggest that the French engagement in the Sahel has been careful not to be branded as "French Afghanistan."
Mali has been the focal point of the French counterinsurgency in the Sahel, a four million square kilometer belt of land that cuts across Africa's desert-savanna divide. The operation had its genesis in 2013 with Opération Serval . It was in response to Mali's request to expel the jihadists, who took advantage of existing minority grievances and used the Tuareg rebellion as a Trojan horse to conquer Mali's northern territories. As was the case during the early stages of the war in Afghanistan, Serval proved to be tactically successful. In 2014 the Operation Servalit spread throughout the region, deploying to Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad, in what became known as Opération Barkhane . Such a mission was projected to last a few weeks, but suffice it to say that things did not go according to plan. Instead of the situation being eased, Barkhane's development has been met with mounting casualties, an escalation of the insurgency, and declining support both on the ground and in France.

In recent years, French anti-terrorist involvement in the Sahel has seen growing local opposition with protests fueled by social media and anger against insecurity. On the one hand, local disenchantment has occurred as, contrary to expectations, Sahelians have long witnessed France fail to prevent local army casualties. Likewise, although Barkhane was promoted as an operation that took measures “for the ultimate benefit of the local populations”, the French army has also not been able to prevent the increase in civilian deaths and the general displacement of the population.
Barkhane's tactical successes - involving the neutralization of high-profile jihadists such as Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ESGS), and Abdelmalek Droukel, leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb ( AQIM ) – have not been translated into the mission's overall strategy and have been overshadowed by France's inability to de-escalate violence in the region. Expanding their reach to local parliaments has allowed jihadist groups – ESGS and the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (JNIM), the region's al-Qaeda offshoot – to solidify their influence , re-mobilize and gain resources. to reinforce their actions. Similarly, the intensified displacement and humanitarian crisis, with 1.4 million internally displaced persons since 2019, have shown that the situation is far from improving. Since 2015, more than 23,500 civilians have died in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, half of which have been reported in the last three years.
Adding to the mutual perceptions of dissonance that characterized French-Malian relations, in part aggravated by Mali's pro-Russian turn , growing popular anti-French sentiment helped fuel support for the August 2020 and May 2020 coups. 2021. The point of no return came in March 2021 when a UN investigation revealed that a French airstrikehit a wedding in central Mali earlier the same year, killing 19 civilians. In the wider region, anger against Barkhane peaked in November 2021 when protesters from northern Burkina Faso and western Niger blocked a French military supply convoy. In the Nigerien city of Tera, French soldiers fired on demonstrators to free the convoy, leaving three dead and 18 wounded. On the other hand, after the January 2022 military coup in Ouagadougou, the images of the thousands of Burkinabe who took to the streets, with many in the crowd waving Russian flags and holding anti-French banners, are no longer a surprise.
Such disillusionment has been compounded by the widespread perception that a “ security gridlock ” has turned the Sahel into an arena of international security actors with conflicting intervention mandates. As a consequence, instead of improving the situation, it has been exacerbated. The myriad of interventions – from the G5 Sahel and MINUSMA, to EU training missions and the latest initiative, the Takuba Task Force– has further contributed to anti-neocolonial jihadist rhetoric to prey on existing grievances between populations. While such actors persistently fail to stabilize the region, international intervention, and in particular the French intervention, continue to be viewed through the suspicious eyes of a fed up population.

The February announcement also came as Macron heads into the first round of presidential elections on April 10. As with the 2017 campaign, when he conveyed that French foreign operations should be reduced in scope and translated into greater international efforts, French public opinion appears to be playing a role in turning Barkhane's course. French military operations abroad continue to be seen by public opinion as a cover to cover up unexpressed interests, such as ensuring Areva's uranium supply in Niger, by collaborating with authoritarian regimes. Furthermore, in a context where the most pressing issues appear to occupy the geopolitical arena, Barkhane's resource and capability congruence has failed to meet mission criteria. The operation has deployed up to 5,100 soldiers, 780 military vehicles and some 40 warplanes, at a cost of around $1.2 billion each year. Thus, in January 2021, for the first time since the mission began in 2013, an Ifop survey showed that the majority of French people - 51% - declared themselves against the intervention in Mali, 19% of whom they positioned themselves as “strongly opposed”. This contrasts with 73% in 2013 and 58% in 2019 who supported the French military presence in Mali.
Less than a month before running for re-election, Macron blamed the Malian junta: "we cannot remain militarily committed to de facto authorities whose strategy and hidden objectives we do not share." In general, the French electorate and the negative attitude of local populations appear to have played a critical role in shaping the course of Opération Barkhane and the future of French counter-terrorism missions in the region. Despite monopolizing most of the attention, the coups in Mali and the consequent rise to power of Russophiles willing to negotiate with jihadists – the same ones responsible for the death of 54 French soldiers since 2013 and whose elimination is the raison d ' 'êtreof Barkhane – did not cause, but only underlined that France's days in Mali were numbered.

With Wagner, a public-private paramilitary company run within Putin's oligarchic circle, preparing to exploit the vacuum left by the French and the Takuba Task Force in the Sahel, Macron's announcement in February points to a dynamic whereby decisions governmental in France with respect to a region traditionally under influence have been conditioned by patterns of discontent between the French and Sahelian populations.

La inalcanzable misión antiterrorista de Francia en el Sahel - Real Instituto Elcano

Tras 9 años de lucha antiterrorista en Malí (Sahel), los éxitos tácticos de la operación Barkhane parecen haber hecho fracasar la estrategia de la misión.

www.realinstitutoelcano.org

 

[Montuno]

Why Spain is concerned about a possible Russian advance... in the African Sahel​

From the highest military circles it is considered that a withdrawal of the European Union from the region -of the highest priority for Spain- would give free rein to the entry of Russia and China

Members of the Spanish Army in Mali

GONZALO ARALUCE

PUBLISHED 02/20/2022 04:45

While the eyes of the world are fixed on Ukraine , Spain is looking askance -and with grave concern- at the future of events in Mali.
Not in vain, in the security spheres, the African Sahel is known as the "advanced frontier" of our country, since it is the scene where endless instabilities, starting with jihadist terrorism, threaten to expand until they are uncontrollable.
The withdrawal of the bulk of the French troops in Mali leaves a vacuum that is difficult to manage . The highest Spanish military spheres consider that a total withdrawal of the European Union would give Russia and China a free pass to become hegemonic references in the region.

MORE INFO

• 
  France and Europe announce the "coordinated" withdrawal of their missions against jihadism in Mali
• Russia expels the 'number two' from the US Embassy amid increased tension in Ukraine

“We cannot continue to be militarily committed to de facto authorities with whom we do not share a strategy. The fight against terrorism cannot justify everything”. With this announcement, Emmanuel Macron , the French president, announced a withdrawal of his troops which, not because it is foreseeable, is less uncertain. France represented the muscle in Mali: they supported the Barkhane operation and led the Takuba international mission, in charge of taking on some of the most outstanding missions in the fight against jihadist terrorism.

His interventions were direct confrontation and with relative frequency news of French military tragedies followed one another in one or another performance, with the collective moral wear and tear that this entails for a country. These efforts will now be redirected to other countries in the region.

Macron believes that France has paid too high a price in its fight against terrorism in Mali. In addition, recent events have undermined relations between Paris and the authorities of the African country -especially after the latest coup and the postponement of the announced democratic elections-. The coup de grâce in the fragile bilateral dialogue was signed last December, when France and its allies signed a letter accusing the Bamako government of having hired the services of Russian mercenaries from the Wagner company.


And what does Spain think about this supposed presence of Russian contractors? :
The name of Spain was among the list of signatories of the document , but sources from the Ministry of Defense affirm that they had not signed any letter: "The initiative was French and not from the European Union," they justified.
With those bridges between Paris and Bamako broken, Spain fears that the withdrawal of the European Union from Mali will be total and definitive . The ghost of Afghanistan hovers and the fear that the efforts in resources and troops have not obtained the desired results. The Spanish military authorities consider Mali as a containment barrier in the fight against criminal organizations, uncontrolled migratory flows and, mainly, against jihadist terrorism. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb -and its branches- are becoming strong in the northern region of the country, where state structures barely have a presence.

Without the Takuba and Barkane missions, there remains the EUTM-Mali mission , orchestrated from Brussels and made up of 1,100 troops; half of them Spanish. It is not a direct combat mission, but rather aims to provide local troops with the necessary capabilities in their fight against terrorism. Since 2016, Spain has constantly contributed half a thousand troops to this deployment. And, far from contemplating a possible withdrawal, in June 2021 it sent a helicopter unit from the Army to reinforce its capabilities.

"Free space to Russia and China"​

But uncertainty hangs over EUTM-Mali after France's military withdrawal . Does it make sense to maintain a training mission if it is not accompanied by a direct combat force against terrorists? Do the results obtained to date justify a deployment of such dimensions? Is the Malian government willing to continue embracing the European Union or is it beginning to turn towards Russia? All these questions resonate in the Old Continent and, at the moment, there is no clear answer.

France has its decision made . He will leave Mali and wants the rest of his partners to do the same. On the contrary, Spain advocates the continuity of the military mission, considering the African Sahel as one of its main regions of strategic interest due to its geographical proximity and the growing threat of terrorism. "The European Union is aware that any withdrawal in the Sahel is to leave free space for Russia and China," insist the same Spanish military sources. And giving up that ascendancy over an area of priority interest is considered a failure after so many years of military intervention.

There is still some room for manoeuvre. In an interview with the Financial Times , the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares , conveyed a request to NATO to shift its focus from Eastern Europe to the African Sahel: “The Mediterranean, the Maghreb, the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa are vital for NATO and for Europe […]. Jihadism is still there, as well as all kinds of illicit trafficking: weapons, humans, drugs”, he asserted, while urging the Atlantic Alliance to “think about its role”.

Por qué a España le preocupa un posible avance de Rusia... en el Sahel africano

Mientras los ojos del mundo se clavan en Ucrania, España mira de reojo -y con grave preocupación- el devenir de los acontecimientos de Mali. No en vano, en las esferas

www.vozpopuli.com

 

[Montuno]

Russia threatens Spanish troops in the Sahel with mercenaries and pressures Algeria, a "strategic partner":​

Spain is the EU country with the most soldiers in Mali, 550 of the 1,000 of the EUTM. The tensions in Rabat and Algiers "are fueled by Putin."

One of the regions that generates the most headaches for Spain today, according to diplomatic sources, is the Sahel. Spain has a presence in Mauritania, Mali and Senegal in that area, to which China and, above all, Russia, have cast their eyes in the last 10 years.

Since the summer of 2021, banners with new names and new colors have appeared at the demonstrations for the revolts in Mali: Russia, Russian flags, Putin and the mercenaries of the Wagner Group accompany the president of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, ...

Assimi Goita .
more:

Rusia amenaza a las tropas españolas en el Sahel con mercenarios y presiona a Argelia, "socio estratégico"

España es el país de la UE con más soldados en Mali, 550 de los 1.000 de la EUTM. Las tensiones de Rabat y Argel "están alimentadas por Putin".

www.google.com

 

[Montuno]

Massacre in Mali: 300 civilians killed by the Malian Army and alleged Russian fighters​

Andrea Chamorro
April 13, 2022

On April 5, 2022, Human Right Watch published a report denouncing the execution of 300 civilians accused of allegedly being linked to jihadist groups. The events had occurred in the town of Moura in the center of the country between March 23 and 31. The report pointed to the Malian army and "foreign fighters" as perpetrators of the massacre. Moura is a city of about 10,000 inhabitants located in the administrative area of Djenné, in central Mali, and which has been immersed in the war against jihadism in the country since 2015.
The Malian Ministry of Defense declared on April 1 that the Malian Army had killed 203 jihadists and arrested 51 more. The organization has stated that "The Malian government is responsible for this atrocity, the worst in Mali in a decade, whether carried out by Malian forces or associated foreign soldiers."

To expand: Human Right Watch Report

Jihadism in Mali is a well-known phenomenon that has recently been a point of tension between the Transitional Government and its international partners. A few months ago the presence of Russian mercenaries in the country belonging to the private security company Wagner was made public.
The same day this report was presented, the French Foreign Minister condemned what happened and demanded an independent national and international investigation.

To expand: The reorientation of Mali towards Russia Will Wagner land in the Sahelian country?



UKRAINE. THE ROAD TO WAR
RESERVE NOW ON AMAZON


France had been one of the most important actors in the fight against jihadism in Mali. The withdrawal of Operation Barkhane from the country led to an increase in tensions between the governments of Bamako and Paris. At this point, the Malian transitional government, led by the military, began looking for new international allies. Contacts with Russia intensified and the Wagner company ended up deploying despite condemnations and international pressure.
The United Nations Security Council addressed this issue on April 8, calling for the strengthening of the United Nations mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and for it to have full access to the Moura region to carry out an investigation. Subsequently, the Malian transitional government vetoed the passage to the region of the United Nations mission. For its part, Russia congratulated the Malian government for the operation.

International organizations have denounced the destruction and violations of human rights that the fight against jihadism often brings with it. The destruction of villages, executions, rapes and a long list of reprehensible acts have been reported in the Sahel region. In addition, people who are suspected of having some link with the jihadists are victims of forced disappearances. HUman Right Watch declared in its report “not everything is valid in the fight against jihadism”.

On April 11, the Malian Army gave details about that operation, for the moment they have not been allowed to enter the affected region. The involvement of Russian fighters alongside the Malian armed forces has been denied. At the same time, it is claimed that the bodies found are those of jihadists who were burned along with the weapons stores " hence the charred bodies that certain media outlets and NGOs make an effort to pass off as burned civilians ." The Malian government has described these accusations as unfounded and the minister of national reconciliation, who visited the area, declared "the population has not mentioned any murder by our Army"

The European Union is another of the actors present in the fight against jihadism in Mali with its own training mission. Until now, the European Union had not shown a strong position regarding the Russian presence in Mali. However, on April 12, the organization announced the suspension of part of its training mission. The European Union justified its decision on the grounds that there were no guarantees that Russian fighters would not interfere with its work.

The fight against jihadism in Mali has undergone major changes in recent years in which changing loyalties and priorities have led to an increase in international tension.

---

Deciphering the War

Masacre en Malí: 300 civiles asesinados por el Ejército maliense y supuestos combatientes rusos - Descifrando la Guerra

Suscríbete y accede a los nuevos Artículos Exclusivos desde 3,99€ Si escoges nuestro plan DLG Premium anual tendrás también acceso a todos los seminarios de Descifrando la Guerra, incluyendo directos y grabaciones. Suscribirme Apúntate a nuestra newsletter Te enviaremos cada semana una selección...

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[Montuno]

Only 2 months ago:​

France, Canada and Europe announce the "coordinated" withdrawal of their missions against jihadism in Mali​

European and Canadian forces were also involved in Operation 'Barkhane'.

French soldiers patrol in Diabaly, Mali.

EUROPE PRESS
PUBLISHED 02/17/2022 10:05
UPDATED 02/17/2022 10:18

The governments of France and the rest of the European countries and Canada that participate and collaborate with the 'Barkhane' operation and the Takuba Force have announced this Thursday the withdrawal of their forces from Mali, where they were deployed to help Bamako in the fight against jihadism, in the face of tensions with the military junta in the African country.
"Faced with the multiple obstructions of the Malian transitional authorities, Canada and the European countries that operate alongside operation 'Barkhane' and within the Takuba Force believe that the political, operational and legal conditions are not in place to carry effectively carry out its current deployment in the fight against terrorism in Mali," they said in a statement.

Thus, they have highlighted that "they have decided to initiate the coordinated withdrawal from Malian territory of their respective military means dedicated to these operations." "In close coordination with neighboring states, they have also expressed their desire to maintain their role in the region, while respecting the respective constitutional procedures," they added. In their joint statement ahead of the sixth summit in Brussels between European and African leaders, these countries underlined their "determination" in "supporting Mali and its people in their efforts to achieve lasting peace and stability, as well as combat terrorist threats in the Sahel".

Terrorists in the Sahel​

"We reaffirm our firm will to maintain our association and our interaction with the Malian people to face all the challenges posed by the activity of terrorist armed groups in the Sahel" , they said, before lamenting that the Malian transitional authorities "do not respected" their commitments to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in organizing elections after the August 2020 coup.
"We fully support the ongoing efforts of ECOWAS and the African Union (AU) to return Mali to constitutional order without further delay," they said, while asking the Malian authorities "to resume a constructive dialogue" with both organizations, "at the highest level", with the aim of "finding a solution in favor of the stability and development of Mali and the entire region".

The signatories have also underlined the "essential" contribution of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) to stabilize the situation in Mali and have highlighted the "substantial contribution" of the European Union (EU) and its peace and security in the Sahel.

"We reaffirm the crucial objective of reinforcing the means and capacities of the security forces of the countries of the region and thus increasing the security of local populations wherever the necessary conditions are met," they explained, before showing their willingness to " continue to address the root causes of insecurity" in Mali and "mobilize aid to respond to the immediate and long-term needs of the population". In this way, they have also stressed their "availability" when it comes to "continuing the dialogue with the Malian transition authorities."

Conversations at the political and military level​

On the other hand, these countries have emphasized that "at the request of their African partners and "on the basis of discussions on future modalities of joint action, it has been agreed to maintain joint action against terrorism in the Sahel region, especially in Niger and the Gulf of Guinea". To this end, talks have been held at the political and military level to determine "the parameters of this action" between this date and June 2022.

Regarding the expansion of the jihadist threat towards the Gulf of Guinea and West Africa, the signatories have shown their willingness to act "actively" to support the countries of these regions, "according to their demands". "These actions would support relevant regional organizations and initiatives, such as the AU, ECOWAS, the G5 Sahel and the Accra Initiative," they detailed.
Lastly, they called on the high representative of the coalition for the Sahel, Djimé Adoum, to "quickly" organize a ministerial meeting within the coalition "with the aim of establishing a balance of the 'roadmap' adopted in March 2021 and to take into account the new guidelines".

The statement was published after a working dinner on Wednesday at the Elysee in which delegations from more than twenty European and African countries participated, as well as international organizations such as the EU and the AU. Tensions have been on the rise in recent months due to the announcement by the military junta to extend the transition process to between four and five years and to postpone the elections scheduled for March, amid the exchange of accusations between Paris and Bamako about anti-terrorism efforts.

Likewise, the French authorities, like other Western countries, have also been very critical of the junta for the alleged deployment of Wagner Group mercenaries, something that has been denied by Bamako and Moscow, which speak of regular military cooperation.
The transitional government has admitted the presence of Russian military instructors in the country, under a mandate similar to that given to the European Union training mission, amid Western suspicions about the increase in Russian influence in Africa.

Francia y Europa anuncian la retirada "coordinada" de sus misiones contra el yihadismo en Malí

Los gobiernos de Francia y el resto de los países europeos y Canadá que participan y colaboran con la operación 'Barkhane' y la Fuerza Takuba han anunciado este jueves la

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[mexcurandero420]

On recommendation of Oliver Stone

Retired Swiss Military-Intelligence Officer: 'Is it Possible to Actually Know What Has Been And is Going on in Ukraine?' -- Sott.net

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