European powers escalate threats against Russia over Ukraine war

Alex Lantier & Johannes Stern

Seizing upon Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to implement long-standing military plans, the European Union (EU) powers are recklessly escalating the crisis. Beyond delivering arms to Ukraine to attack Russian troops, they are discussing a possible cut-off of energy trade and preparing for nuclear war.

A Ukrainian serviceman has "Mommy" written on his weapon strap as he stands guard at a checkpoint on a main road in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

This weekend, for the first time since the Cold War ended, France raised the number of its nuclear missile submarines on patrol to two. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, only one of France’s four ballistic missile-launching submarines based at L’Ile-Longue island off Brittany is on patrol at any given time. Now, however, Le Télégramme wrote, “Never has there been this much tension at the Breton base since France’s sea-based nuclear deterrent began in 1972.”

A French ballistic missile submarine holds 16 M51 missiles, each of which carries 6 independently-targeted warheads, each exploding with the force of 100,000 tons of TNT. This sub can thus launch 800 times the destructive force of the US bomb that obliterated the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Washington has 14 ballistic missile subs, each carrying 20 Trident II D5 missiles with 14 independent 100-kiloton warheads—around 2,300 times the power of the bomb that killed 140,000 people at Hiroshima.

There is an enormous danger of that nuclear war could erupt as NATO escalates its confrontation with Russia, intervening to arm Ukraine. This danger is now widely discussed, after Moscow placed its nuclear forces on high alert this weekend in response to NATO arms deliveries to Ukraine.

An opinion piece by former US State Department policy planning official Jeremy Shapiro in London’s Financial Times noted that Moscow might use nuclear weapons in “a scenario in which a superior conventional force such as NATO attacked Russia.” Russia, he added, is now “particularly vulnerable to a NATO conventional attack in Belarus and western Russia, as well as in Ukraine.”

The Russian military, Shapiro wrote, “may view NATO troop concentrations in states on Ukraine’s eastern flank as potential intervention forces and they may lack sufficient precision-guided weapons in their already very depleted inventory to attack them conventionally.” They may, he added, “even believe [a NATO attack] is already happening given European and American arms deliveries and NATO troop movements to eastern Europe.” The firing of smaller nuclear bombs could lead to “nuclear escalation to the strategic level (i.e. the end of the world).”

While these dangers are clearly on the mind of the military staffs of all the major powers, the EU is nonetheless recklessly arming the Ukrainians and threatening to strangle Russia’s economy.

On Monday, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht announced new arms deliveries to Ukraine. “Everything that is possible is under consideration and we are also talking about it in the cabinet,” she told ZDF. So far, Berlin has sent Kiev 2,700 “Strela” surface-to-air missiles, 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 “Stinger” surface-to-air missiles. Ukraine’s embassy in Berlin has now also asked for tanks, self-propelled howitzers, air defense systems, helicopters, reconnaissance and combat drones, transport aircraft and warships.

Berlin is also strengthening its presence in Eastern Europe. It is establishing a mission in Slovakia as in Lithuania, Inspector General Eberhard Zorn said last week. In Lithuania, Germany has led a 1,000-strong NATO battlegroup since 2017, which has been strengthened by another 350 soldiers and 100 vehicles and weapons systems. Germany’s air force sent six Eurofighter jets to Romania.

Other EU powers are also arming Ukraine. Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles told Antena3 that Madrid will send Ukraine 1,370 anti-tank grenade launchers, machine guns and 700,000 rounds. Italy is sending Stinger missiles and machine guns. The Netherlands is sending 200 Stinger missiles, Norway 2,000 M72 anti-tank weapons, Sweden 5,000 anti-tank weapons and Finland 1,500 rocket launchers and 2,500 assault rifles.

French Defense Minister Florence Parly confirmed last week that Paris is delivering lethal weapons and fuel to Ukraine, but refused to reveal the type and quantities supplied.

The NATO powers are also preparing a cut-off of Russian oil and gas exports to Europe that are at the heart of Russia’s economy. Oil prices soared to $140 per barrel yesterday after Washington announced it might embargo Russian energy supplies. Yesterday German Chancellor Olaf Scholz postponed the measure, however.

While provocatively stating that the EU intends to find alternatives to Russian oil and gas, Scholz said, “this won’t happen overnight.” To compensate for Russian gas imports, Germany alone would need to import the full capacity of the world’s 600 liquefied natural gas tankers. Calling Russian oil and gas “essential” to Europe’s economy, he concluded: “It’s therefore a conscious decision on our part to continue the activities of business enterprises in the area of energy supply with Russia.”

Moscow warned such a cut-off would devastate the world economy. “It is absolutely clear that a rejection of Russian oil would lead to catastrophic consequences for the global market,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said. “The surge in prices would be unpredictable. It would be $300 per barrel if not more. … European politicians need to honestly warn their citizens and consumers what to expect.”

The EU’s growing involvement in the war in Ukraine shows that, after the experience of two world wars, the European ruling class is again tobogganing towards a new catastrophe. It is using Putin’s reactionary invasion of Ukraine as an opportunity to put long-prepared military plans into action.

In an article published by Project Syndicate titled “Putin’s War Has Given Birth to Geopolitical Europe,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell boasted: “In the week since Russia’s invasion, we have also witnessed the belated birth of a geopolitical Europe. For years, Europeans have been debating how the EU can be made more robust and security-conscious … We have now arguably gone further down that path in the past week than we did in the previous decade.”

He called to develop the EU as a major military power, capable of waging wars with heavy losses in Ukraine and beyond. “First, we must prepare to support Ukraine and its people for the long haul,” he writes. “Second, we need to recognize what this war means for European security and resilience more broadly.” He added, “Third, in a world of power politics, we need the capacity to coerce and defend ourselves. … Yes, this includes military means and we need to develop them more.”

Borell is proposing a massive military build-up, subordinating social life to the army’s diktat. “The core task for ‘geopolitical Europe’ is straightforward,” he concludes. “We must use our newfound sense of purpose first to ensure a free Ukraine, and then to re-establish peace and security across our continent.”

Who is Borell trying to fool? The EU is not securing a “free Ukraine,” but escalating a NATO war drive against Russia that is spiraling out of control. Behind empty propaganda phrases about “peace” and “security,” the NATO powers are headed straight towards World War III.

The militaristic and essentially fascistic character of the European rearmament and war drive emerges most clearly in Germany. There, the ruling class has seized upon Putin’s invasion to launch a long-planned rearmament programme worth hundreds of billions. The defence budget is to increase by at least €24 billion to over €71 billion annually. After the unspeakable crimes of the Nazis, Germany seeks once again to become Europe’s dominant military power.

The German state tries to cover its tracks in latest far-right trial

Christopher Lehmann

The so-called NSU 2.0 trial began at the Frankfurt Regional Court on February 15. Between August 2018 and March 2021, hundreds of threatening letters were sent to artists, lawyers, and politicians under the acronym NSU 2.0, which is a reference to the neo-Nazi terrorist group National Socialist Underground (NSU) responsible for the murder of nine immigrants and a policewoman.

The recipients were insulted and threatened with murder, among other things. Of particular concern is that the letters contained protected personal data about residential addresses and family members of those affected, which were known only to the police.

Already, a familiar pattern is emerging. Only one alleged individual perpetrator stands accused, 54-year-old Alexander M. from Berlin. He is charged by the public prosecutor with issuing threats, coercion and insults. The question of the background to the case and any accomplices—especially from the ranks of the police—is being hushed up. As in the Munich trial of the NSU, which had murdered nine immigrants and a policewoman between 2000 and 2007, the numerous clues and evidence pointing to the state apparatus, the police and the secret service are being ignored.

Lawyer Seda Başay-Yıldız (right) with Abdulkerim Şimşek on the day of the verdict in the NSU trial (Image: Henning Schlottmann/CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons)

A look at the current facts clearly shows that (1) it could not have been a single perpetrator, and (2) at least one police officer must have helped suspect Alexander M. retrieve data from a police computer in Frankfurt. Despite this, the public prosecutor’s office is not bringing charges against any police officers and remains silent about the reasons for this. The indictment does not even attempt to explain who was responsible for querying the database in the Frankfurt police station. It is claimed the investigations had simply led to no result.

On the first day of the trial, the 124-page indictment was read out. The defendant Alexander M. is accused of having written and sent a total of 116 threatening letters. People such as lawyer Seda Başay-Yıldız, cabaret artist Idil Baydar and the then chairwoman of the Left Party parliamentary group in the Hesse state parliament, Janine Wissler, were written to via email, fax and SMS with the signoff “NSU-2.0.”

Others affected were satirists and comedians Jan Böhmermann, Christian Erich, Caroline Kebekus, politicians Martina Renner (Left Party), Jutta Dithfurt (Ökolinx), Sawsan Chebli (Social Democratic Party, SPD), Bundestag Vice President Claudia Roth (Green Party), Katja Kipping (Left Party), Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Green Party), Karamba Diaby (SPD), as well as taz columnist Hengameh Yaghoobifarah, journalists Deniz Yücel and Anja Reschke, and publicist Michel Friedman.

Alexander M. is alleged to have committed 85 criminal offences, including 67 extreme libels, public incitement to commit crimes, incitement of the people, possession of child and youth pornographic writings and a violation of the Weapons Act.

It all began on August 2, 2018, when Başay-Yıldız received an initial threatening letter, citing her correct address and the name of her young daughter: “In retaliation for 10,000 euros in fines, we’ll slaughter your daughter.” The lawyer had represented the family of the NSU’s first murder victim, Enver Şimşek, in the NSU trial from 2013 to 2018. All the letters are written in this vile tone.

The defendant faces five years in prison. He was arrested in his Berlin apartment on May 3, 2021, after the police had allegedly previously investigated him unsuccessfully for years. During the operation, he allegedly pulled out a blank pistol. Threatening letters were found on the computer of the unemployed computer scientist.

His background fits well with the crimes. In the past, he allegedly posed as a civil servant to get information from his former teacher. He was on right-wing extremist blogs, where he called himself “SS-Obersturmbannführer,” among other things. His demeanour in the courtroom was also very aggressive: he repeatedly interrupted the judge and the prosecutor and held up two fingers to the press cameras.

The first witnesses to testify were Başay-Yıldız and Mehmet Daimagüler, both lawyers for NSU victims. They reported how the threatening letters containing personal information and the possible involvement of police officers had put them under massive psychological pressure.

Over a dozen letters reached Başay-Yıldız. Her parents and their dates of birth were also mentioned in them, and her new address, which was classified as secret, was posted on the internet. Unknown people walked around her house and took photos. The identities of these people remain unclear to this day. Başay-Yıldız is clear that helpers at the police department were involved in at least the first letter.

Just 90 minutes before the first threatening communication was received on August 2, 2018, her data was queried on a police computer at the 1st Precinct in Frankfurt am Main. In total, 17 requests were made for data on the lawyer without official cause. Experienced investigators say that such extensive queries are very unusual. As a rule, they are made when the identity of the suspect is unknown after an arrest. Such a query, they say, takes about six minutes.

Of the six officers who had access to the police computer during that time, none supposedly remembered who had used it. Nor did anyone remember any supposed calls from outside. Everyone has remained silent ever since.

After a search on September 11, 2018, State Criminal Office (LKA) investigators confiscated a phone from the officer under whose account the query had been made. A right-wing extremist Whatsapp chat group was found on the phone. In it, six police officers and a private person exchanged pictures with Nazi images (including swastikas and Adolf Hitler) and vicious jokes about Jews, people with disabilities and refugees. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Frankfurt police did not inform the LKA about the chat group.

On October 25, 2018, a house search of Johannes S., one of the officers of the 1st Precinct, found a “museum-like” room filled with Nazi memorabilia. This officer was the focus of the investigation for a long time; he was suspected of having made the database query on August 2, 2018.

As it turned out, he had falsified his alibi, according to which he was on an operation at the time of the query. However, this took place 48 minutes later, which would also make him a possible sender of the first threatening communication to Başay-Yıldız. A phrase that Johannes S. used in the right-wing extremist chat (“I’ll rip your head off and shit down your neck”) is also frequently found in the threatening letters. Police officer S. is also familiar with anonymous surfing and the so-called Tor network, which is needed to access the darknet.

On the same evening that Başay-Yıldız received the first threatening letter, an anonymous call for violence against her was also posted on the de.indymedia.org platform, also giving her private address. A later letter even used her new address, which was classified as secret, suggesting that another database query must have occurred later. If there had been another telephone inquiry, the LKA would have been notified, but that never happened.

Martina Renner (Left Party), a member of the Thuringia state parliament active against right-wing extremism, also testified at the trial. She reported the psychological effects that the threats of violence had on her, “to the point that you dream about it.”

Although Renner received a total of 11 threatening NSU 2.0 letters, as well as numerous other right-wing extremist threats, the LKA in Berlin and Thuringia downplayed the letters and spoke of an “abstract threat.” Renner had to take private security measures. She said she had not wanted to turn to the Hesse LKA because of their involvement in far-right scandals: “They weren’t the first port of call when it came to confidence-building measures.”

Children’s nurseries were also put on alert and courts evacuated because the NSU 2.0 had sent bomb threats.

Başay-Yıldız and four other recipients of threatening letters protested on Twitter before the trial began: “For us, it’s a scandal that the investigation was conducted against an alleged lone perpetrator.”

Alexander M., who testified on the second day of the trial, denied the allegations against him. Regarding the prosecution theory that he had retrieved the data from the police computers using a false identity, he said, “That I obtained any amount of top-secret data from the police computers via phone calls would be a unique nonsense in German legal history.”

According to him, the threatening letters came from a far-right chat group on the Darknet, which he had participated in since 2019. “I was sure that police officers were also involved there because of the extensive insider knowledge and many official secrets, but I can’t prove it,” the defendant said. After he had contradicted the claim that there was a Jewish world conspiracy, he was expelled from the group in the summer of 2020, he said. Nevertheless, he said he has the identities of some chat participants, which he could provide to the court. In return, however, he wanted to be included in the witness protection program.

It would appear Alexander M. was involved in issuing the threatening letters, but that he wrote them alone, without any collaborators, is completely unlikely. The central question that the prosecution is avoiding in the trial is: How did the Berlin right-wing extremist (or other perpetrators) obtain protected data from the Frankfurt police? In addition, data was also retrieved from police stations in Wiesbaden, Berlin and Hamburg.

The answer of the police, claiming M. pretended to be an official in telephone calls, is absurd. The public prosecutor’s office mentions only briefly in passing that there were also investigations against police officers, but it was allegedly not possible to find out who had made the computer query on August 2, 2018.

After the indictment of Alexander M., Hesse Interior Minister Beuth had declared the police exonerated: “According to everything we know today, no Hesse police officer was ever responsible for the NSU 2.0 threats.” In response to an inquiry from the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, the state Interior Ministry reiterated: “Hesse police officers were at no time the senders of or participants in the NSU 2.0 series of threatening emails.”

India refuses to condemn Russia over Ukraine invasion at special Quad summit

Deepal Jayasekera

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi refused to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine at a leadership summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) last Thursday. The meeting of the US-led quasi-military alliance of India, Japan and Australia against China was hosted by US President Joe Biden. While Japan and Australia had already fully endorsed the US-NATO war drive against Russia, Biden hoped to pressure India into publicly condemning the Russian invasion.

Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi addresses a gathering ahead of Bihar state Assembly elections in Patna, India, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Aftab Alam Siddiqui)

The Modi government is attempting to balance between New Delhi’s strategic partnership with Washington and its historic defence ties with Moscow. India’s ruling elite regards its strategic partnership with the US that has developed over two decades under Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) and Congress governments, as the best means of advancing its regional and global ambitions. India’s defence ties with Russia, however, have been a crucial factor in its foreign policy.

In early February, Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar avoided making any comment on the looming Ukraine war at a Quad foreign ministers’ meeting by insisting that the Quad’s geographical area was the Indo-Pacific.

Last Thursday’s summit, however, was specifically called by Biden to discuss “the war against Ukraine and its implications for the Indo-Pacific.” Prior to the summit Biden insisted that there was “no room for excuses or equivocation” on the issue.

A joint statement issued after the summit declared that Quad leaders “discussed the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and assessed its broader implications” and agreed on “a new humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mechanism which will enable the Quad to meet future humanitarian challenges in the Indo-Pacific and provide a channel for communication as they each address and respond to the crisis in Ukraine.”

A separate press release issued by the India government, which is desperate to avoid taking sides in any direct military conflict between the US and Russia, said that the Quad discussed developments in Ukraine, including their “humanitarian implications,” but that Modi had “emphasised the need to return to a path of dialogue and diplomacy.” The statement added that the Quad “must remain focused on its core objective of promoting peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.”

New Delhi’s precarious balancing between the US and Russia, however, is becoming increasingly untenable with the rapid escalation of the conflict in the Ukraine.

Washington is not ready to accept anything short of full support for its the war drive against Russia. This was made clear in remarks last Wednesday to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Donald Lu, the US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia.

At that point India had repeatedly abstained on motions condemning Russia over the Ukraine invasion: twice in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC); once at a special emergency session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA); and in a procedural resolution at UNSC for convening the UNGA session.

“All of us have been working to urge India to take a clear position, a position opposed to Russia’s actions,” Lu told the Senate hearing, and warned that India needed “to further distance itself from Russia.”

In another significant move, the US State Department sent a cable to its diplomats advising them to raise the issue of Ukraine with their counterparts from India and the UAE. The cable reportedly said that the UAE’s and India’s “position of neutrality” on Ukraine put them “in Russia’s camp.” At the Wednesday meeting of the UNGA, the UAE voted in favour of the resolution condemning Russia, having previously abstained in two UNSC votes. India, however, continued to abstain.

Although the State Department withdrew the cable later on Wednesday, saying it had included “inaccurate language and was released in error,” the fact that Washington sent such a cable further highlights pressure being applied to India by the US.

Even as it continues to maintain its “neutral” position, India has inclined towards the US position.

A US State Department statement issued on Thursday night noted that India has said “all member states of the UN are not only obliged to follow the UN Charter but to respect international law and territorial integrity and sovereignty of states.” This phraseology echoes Washington’s pretext for preparing war against Russia that it was defending the “territorial integrity and sovereignty” of Ukraine.

The harsh economic sanctions now imposed by the US and EU against Russia have forced India to scale back its dependence on defence equipment and supplies from Russia which comprise significant portion of New Delhi’s military hardware.

As Lu told the Senate committee hearing, “It is going to be very hard for any country in the globe to buy major weapon systems from Russia because of the sweeping sanctions now placed on Russian banks.” Lu enthusiastically noted a 53 percent decrease in India’s purchase of Russian arms, but insisted that further reductions were required.

Sections of the Indian elite, although still a minority, are demanding the Modi government fully embrace the US war drive against Russia. On March 2, senior Congress party leader P. Chidambaram, tweeted: “The Government of India should stop its verbal balancing act and sternly demand that Russia stop immediately the bombing of key cities in Ukraine.”

Chidambaram’s position is not a surprise. The Congress-led government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, from 2004 to 2014, initiated significant ties with the US that developed into a strategic partnership. The current US–India partnership was further advanced by the Modi government, which has since 2014, transformed the country into a frontline state in Washington’s war drive against Beijing. The US is now demanding that this be extended to include Moscow.

On March 3, Foreign Policy published an article entitled “India must take a stand on Russia’s war in Ukraine” by Indiana University Political Science Professor Sumit Ganguly. He argued that “New Delhi’s fence-sitting no longer serves its diplomatic or security interests” and warned that “there may be limits to the tolerance of the United States and other partners…

“India’s failure to stand with the United States and other democracies on the Ukraine question could lead to some diplomatic isolation,” Ganguly said. He called on the Indian government “to muster the fortitude to make costly choices and take a stand.”

Notwithstanding Modi’s appeals for “dialogue and diplomacy” to avoid taking sides against Russia, the US war drive, driven by the deep economic, social and political crisis at home, will drag in the whole globe, including India and rest of South Asia, and threatens to trigger a nuclear catastrophe.

US sends more troops to Russia’s borders, weighs sending anti-aircraft systems

Andre Damon

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered the deployment of an additional 500 troops to Eastern Europe, amid mounting demands in the US media for a more direct military intervention by the United States against Russia.

The announcement, made public by the Pentagon on Monday, brings the total number of US troops deployed to NATO countries in Eastern Europe to 14,500, spread from Estonia and Latvia on Russia’s border, through Romania in Southern Europe.

A senior defense official said that the move was “supportive of our efforts to be able to defend NATO airspace if needed.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley greets a soldiers of the U.S. Army, at the Training Range in Pabrade, some 60km.(38 miles) north of the capital Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, March 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)

The Pentagon revealed that, Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, last week went to, in the words of CNN, an “undisclosed airfield near the Ukrainian border that has become a hub for shipping weapons,” to supervise firsthand the running of weapons into the country.

In addition, the United States “is considering supplying critical air defense systems to NATO allies in eastern Europe as anxiety mounts that the Russians could consider launching missiles or aircraft against the alliance’s eastern flank,” CNN reported Monday.

CNN wrote that “the idea centers around the concern that Russian missiles or aircraft might deliberately attack targets inside NATO territory at some point if Russian President Vladimir Putin decides those nations are a risk to his invasion because of their support for Ukraine.”

The report added, “The most likely systems that could be deployed by the US are likely to be the Patriot and the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system.”

The announcement that the Pentagon is “considering” stationing these anti-aircraft systems in NATO territories adjacent to Ukraine comes as demands grow from figures within both US parties and the military for the imposition of a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would be an effective declaration of war with Russia.

The figures calling for this action include Democrats Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Republican Congressmen Adam Kinzinger and Roger Wicker, and four-star US Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove.

Over the weekend, they were joined by West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, as well as Evelyn Farkas, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia and also a Democrat, who condemned to the Hill the Biden administration’s refusal to support a no-fly zone.

“I don’t want to telegraph to Putin ahead of time what we want to do, especially because we know he’s capable of practically anything and we are trying to deter him from further horrific action, from cutting off future options for Ukraine, assistance to Ukraine or our defense of NATO,” she said.

Despite these demands, the White House has for now resisted calls to directly engage Russian aircraft, preferring to funnel a torrent of weapons to Ukraine and wage scorched-earth economic warfare against Russia

Politico reported that “There is growing support on both sides of the aisle for a ban on oil imports from Moscow, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday indicated that the U.S. was working on the prospect with European allies.”

The US and NATO have up to this point sent Ukraine 17,000 anti-tank missiles and 2,000 stinger anti-aircraft missiles, CNN said it was told by a US official.

The staggering pace of US weapons transfers to Ukraine was spelled out in a report in the New York Times Monday morning, “when the president approved $350 million in military aid on Feb. 26… 70 percent of it was delivered in five days.”

The rapidity of the deployments makes clear that the gun-running operation was prepared well in advance of the Russian invasion.

As the Times wrote, “The military was able to push those shipments forward quickly by tapping into pre-positioned military stockpiles ready to roll onto Air Force C-17 transport planes and other cargo aircraft, and flying them to about half a dozen staging bases in neighboring countries, chiefly in Poland and Romania.”

The article expresses significant unease about the scale of the weapons transfers into Ukraine, warning, “So far, Russian forces have been so preoccupied in other parts of the country that they have not targeted the arms supply lines, but few think that can last.”

The Times notes that US has made an effort to avoid being seen as “a ‘co-combatant’ in the war,’ engaged in a ‘direct conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia.’

But the Times warns that “as the weapons flow in and if efforts to interfere in Russian communications and computer networks escalate, some US national security officials say they have a foreboding that such conflict is increasingly likely.”

The article concludes, ominously, “In the case of Ukraine, a senior American official said, the question resonating around the White House is more like: ‘Tell me how we don’t get sucked into a superpower conflict.’”

Meanwhile, the war is already being seized upon as the pretense for massively expanding US military spending, coupled with attacks on bedrock social programs.

“NATO Needs More Guns and Less Butter,” blared an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, demanding that Social Security and Medicare be gutted by means-testing them.

In accompanying editorial, the Journal demands, “Any conflict would require enormous amounts of munitions, and on current plans US forces could run out of some of the most lethal and important stuff in weeks. The Pentagon needs to ramp up planned purchases of long-range anti-ship and joint air-to-surface standoff missiles—now.”

COVID-19 infection rates and deaths on the rise in Germany

Tamino Dreisam

Although war propaganda has shouldered the pandemic out of the news, the coronavirus is still running rampant in Germany and worldwide. After a brief decline in the infection rate in Germany, the numbers have shot up again in recent days. From Wednesday to Thursday, the seven-day incidence per 100,000 residents rose to 1,174. Within one day, 210,673 infections were registered and 267 died. On Friday, as many as 217,593 people were confirmed to have caught the coronavirus and 291 died. The seven-day incidence rose to over 1,200.

Infection rates are extremely high across Germany. In 408 of 411 counties, the seven-day incidence is above 500 and in 290 counties it is above 1,000. A nationwide seven-day incidence of over 1,200 means that more than 1.2 percent of the population is infected with the virus every week. In 29 counties, the incidence even exceeds 2,000.

Medical workers in protective equipment, Station 43 of the Berlin Charité Hospital (Image: DOCDAYS Production)

The facts expose the official claim that the Omicron variant is “mild” as a lie. The number of severe cases remains stable and high. The adjusted hospitalization incidence is 12.5 per 100,00 residents, representing 10,000 new hospitalizations in Germany last week alone. Two-thousand coronavirus patients require intensive care. There has been a general increase in hospitalized cases, especially in the last four weeks.

The number of deaths is particularly alarming. Just since the beginning of the week, 1,118 people have died in Germany of the coronavirus, including many young people. On average, at least one child has died every week since the beginning of winter.

Fueling the number of severe cases and deaths is, among other things, the continued growth of outbreaks in medical facilities and nursing homes. In the past week, 208 active outbreaks in medical facilities were officially reported (compared to 187 the previous week) as well as 517 outbreaks in nursing homes and homes for the elderly (472 the previous week). In nursing homes and homes for the elderly, an average of 13 people were infected in each outbreak.

About nine percent of those infected in medical facilities outbreaks died from the infection. In nursing homes and homes for the elderly, the figure is as high as 13 percent. This week there were 149 more mortal cases than the week before.

Schools and kindergartens have been particularly inundated by mass infection. The 5-to-14-year-old and 15-to-34-year-old age groups have the highest incidences of infection, 2,467 and 1,644, respectively. In the last four weeks, 746 outbreaks were recorded at day care centres and 847 outbreaks in schools. These number are understatements, however, and are expected to rise retroactively as late reports trickle in.

The rapid spread of the even more infectious Omicron sub-variant BA.2 threatens to further aggravate the situation. Within just one week, its share of the infection incidence has increased from 25 to 38 percent. Even the Robert Koch Institute (RKI, the German federal agency responsible for disease control and prevention) warns that “due to the higher transmissibility of the BA.2 sub-lineage ... a significantly slower decrease or renewed increase in case numbers cannot be ruled out.”

Despite the persistent high case numbers and the threat of an even larger pandemic wave, the federal and state governments are ending the last remaining coronavirus protection measures. They are putting profits ahead of lives and declaring the pandemic politically over. In mid-February, a conference of federal and state governments decided on a corresponding three-step plan .

In the first step, all private contact restrictions for vaccinated and recovered persons were lifted on February 18, the so-called “2G” rule (vaccinated or recovered) was abolished in retail stores nationwide and the wearing of FFP2 masks was no longer generally required.

On Friday, the second step of the re-opening plan was implemented, which includes relaxation of safety requirements for hotels, restaurants and large events, as well as the reopening of clubs.

In hotels and restaurants, the “3G” rule (vaccinated, recovered or recently tested) will soon apply in place of the “2G” rule, regardless of infection rates. In addition, the ten-person limit at tables will be abolished. Clubs will be allowed to reopen under the “2G-plus” (vaccinated, recovered and recently tested) in the near future.

Particularly conducive to infection is the massive increase in the number of spectators permitted at large events. In indoor venues, where up to 4,000 visitors were previously allowed, up to 6,000 visitors will be permitted, assuming a 60 percent occupancy rate.

For large outdoor events, the permissible number of spectators will be more than doubled. Previously, up to 10,000 spectators were permitted in most German states. Soon, up to 25,000 spectators will be permitted for events with a capacity of up to 75 percent.

In two weeks, on March 19, the Infection Protection Act, which forms the legal basis for the current measures, will expire. As a final re-opening step, all remaining measures are to be discontinued on March 20. All that will remain is an undefined “basic protection” based on mask wearing and social distancing.

In addition to the relaxed policies of the federal and state governments, the RKI decided that as of Thursday, no country is considered a high-risk area. The RKI justified the decision by only classifying countries as high-risk areas where a “more dangerous” variant than Omicron is spreading. Soon, therefore, there will no longer be a quarantine requirement for entry into Germany, rather only the 3G rule.

COVID deaths hit 6 million worldwide as Omicron mutation devastates Hong Kong

Benjamin Mateus

Two years ago this week, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak threatening the globe a pandemic. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned at that time, “I’m deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.”

On that day there were fewer than 100,000 documented cases and the global death toll was just under 5,000, but the number of cases outside of China was increasing exponentially as new confirmed cases were reported in country after country.

Now the number of reported COVID cases has reached 445 million and the number of reported COVID deaths has passed the 6 million milestone. And the pandemic, after being suppressed for nearly two years in China through its successful Zero COVID policy, has now resurfaced in at least one part of that country, the autonomous trading center of Hong Kong.

Even the latest horrific figures on deaths and infections are official totals only, missing enormous numbers of pandemic victims, particularly in the poorer countries.

According to estimates of global COVID infections by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) the number of new cases in 2022 alone has already exceeded 2.5 billion, due to the extreme contagiousness of the Omicron variants. One widely cited estimate of the global excess death toll is 19.9 million (according to the Economist), or 3.3 times the official number.

Not all the excess deaths are directly caused by SARS-CoV-2, but they have taken place because of the impact of the pandemic, and as a consequence of the policies adopted by capitalist governments around the world that have chosen to force the world’s people to endure a continued assault by a deadly pathogen rather than carry out basic public health measures to eliminate it once and for all.

Edouard Mathieu, head of data for the Our World in Data portal, told the Associated Press , “Confirmed deaths represent a fraction of the true number of deaths due to COVID, mostly because of limited testing, and challenges in the attribution of the cause of death. In some, mostly rich, countries that fraction is high, and the official tally can be considered to be fairly accurate, but in others it is highly underestimated.”

Instead, the policies of “living with the virus” have culminated in shedding of masks, ending of all protective measures like quarantines and lockdowns, resumption of travel and reopening of businesses all across the globe. As indicated by cellphone data, population mobility is above the pre-pandemic level. Concerted efforts have gone, not into a public health offensive against the virus, but into a propaganda offensive claiming that the Omicron variant is “mild” and that the coronavirus should be accepted as “endemic,” one whose deadly consequences are to become part of everyday life for the foreseeable future.

Many of the countries and regions that had pursued an elimination strategy in the last few months have renounced such public health measures at significant detriment to their population. The situation now in Hong Kong is quite troubling and, as when Omicron was first reported in South Africa just a few months ago, may be a harbinger of the dangers awaiting many other countries.

Figure 1 Daily new confirmed cases COVID-19 per one million people United States vs Hong Kong. Source Our World in Data.

Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, has a population of over 7.5 million. It had persisted in its Zero COVID policy, but the local government’s efforts began to weaken in the face of the highly transmissible BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron, which broke through in January and began to spread quickly. While playgrounds, gyms and salons remained closed, thousands went to the Mong Kok flower market and temples before celebrating the Lunar New Year holidays.

In an opinion piece published in the South China Morning Post, Regina Ip wrote, “It’s hardly surprising that large-scale outbreaks occurred afterwards in densely populated public housing areas. Little was done to mitigate the scope for deadly outbreaks at congested homes for the elderly, long highlighted as potential disaster areas.”

The head of the COVID Response Expert Team of the National Health Commission, Dr. Liang Wannian, who arrived in Hong Kong on February 28, instructed health officials that “the goal of ‘dynamic clearing’ is not to blindly pursue zero infections, but to cut off the chain of transmission as soon as possible to minimize the occurrence of infection, severe illness, and death.”

New COVID cases remained nominal at around 700 per day until the first week in February, when they exploded, reaching over 50,000 per day. From around 12,650 cumulative cases at the start of the New Year, case numbers have now catapulted to 440,000. Ninety percent of all cases have occurred in just the last three weeks.

In that same three weeks, the death toll jumped from a low of 219 to 1,774, with deaths each day so far in March equal to the total cumulative deaths in the two years of the pandemic. One hundred percent of all sequenced SARS-CoV-2 viruses from Hong Kong harbor the I1221T mutation at the BA.2 sub-variant’s spike protein, suggesting that this mutation offers the virus an important advantage.

The death toll on a per capita basis is extremely high and worrisome, considering it is linked to a new mutation. As shown in Figure 2, the per capita rate being witnessed now in Hong Kong is higher than any seen in the United States throughout the pandemic, underscoring the deadliness of the Omicron variants.

It appears that in Hong Kong many among the elderly are least vaccinated. Mistrust of government vaccination campaigns and misinformation about the vaccines meant that this group remains extremely vulnerable, a factor in the high rates of deaths being seen. Reports are also surfacing of the impact on children.

Figure 2 Daily new confirmed deaths COVID-19 per one million people United States vs Hong Kong. Source Our World in Data.

There are reports that bodies are piling up at Hong Kong’s hospitals and mortuaries. Lau Ka-hin, a senior administrator at Hong Kong’s hospital authority, informed the media, “There has been a surge of COVID-related deaths. We can’t process the transferal of bodies; therefore, you will see some bodies [stored] in accident and emergency rooms. The bodies of [the] deceased patients need to be moved to public mortuaries for autopsy and investigation.”

According to the South China Morning Post, health authorities are planning to repurpose half of all hospital beds for COVID-19 patients this week to accommodate the exponential growth in cases. Hospital Authority chairman Fan Hung-ling told the Post, “The original idea was to convert 30 percent of beds in public hospitals, but with the escalating new cases, the expert group led by Dr. Liang has suggested increasing it to 50 percent. Two hospitals, Tin Shui Wai Hospital and North Lantau Hospital, are already complete, providing 500 beds and more are in the pipeline.”

Shortage of medicinal oxygen is placing tremendous stress on the care of COVID patients. Patients are unable to be admitted to intensive care units due to overcrowding. Doctors and nurses speaking on condition of anonymity have painted a bleak picture, reminiscent of the darkest hours in Italian and New York City hospitals.

Once nurse said, “There had been some patients who ran out of oxygen and had a cardiac arrest and required resuscitation. I think it is negligence, but now we are in the middle of a crisis, and we are left with limited options.”

The crisis in Hong Kong demonstrates the ongoing severe threat of the virus to humanity, despite the complacent propaganda in the corporate media that the pandemic is coming to an end. Particularly concerning is the nature of the latest mutations and the impact they will have as they transmit across the world in days. Who will be next?

US and NATO have Syria in their sights

Jean Shaoul

The media is awash with propaganda articles about how President Vladimir Putin is putting the lessons learned in Russia’s military intervention in Syria to good use in its war against Ukraine.

The ferocity of these diatribes indicates the degree to which the US Biden administration and its NATO allies see the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to dislodge Russia from Syria, where it played a key role in thwarting Washington’s plans to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and isolate Iran using Islamist militias as proxies in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring.

The US NPR article headlined “Russia showed its playbook in Syria. Here's what it may mean for civilians in Ukraine” lists Russian airstrikes against civilians in Aleppo and Idlib province as causing widespread loss of life, damage to civilian infrastructure and mass displacement of the population that constituted war crimes.

US and Russian armored vehicles in Syria. [Credit: Russian MoD]

NPR warns it readers that the same murderous tactics, aimed at breaking the morale of the Syrian opposition and dismembering the country, will be used in Ukraine. It cites Robert Ford, US ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014, as saying, “They don't hesitate to hit civilian targets. And then the second lesson is they lie about it constantly.”

He added, “Of course, Syria wasn't the first time they used this playbook. They used it in Grozny in that campaign in Chechnya. So, I would assume it's their standard playbook and there will be times they use it in Ukraine.”

In the UK, the Murdoch press’s The Sun goes further under the screaming headline: “SICKENING EVIL Putin is using the Syria playbook in his war with Ukraine world should expect chemical weapons and hospital bombings.” It alleges that President Vladimir Putin is following the same “battle plan the Russians used in the Middle East and his own territory of Chechnya, which reduced thriving cities to rubble”. This is followed by the claim that the Kremlin was behind a chemical attack by President Assad in Syria August 2013 and had “approved the idea of using banned chemical weapons and let the Syrians carry out those attacks on their own people.”

To make a contemporary connection between the two conflicts, the media have cited Arabi21, a Qatari-funded website, that Russia is preparing to recruit “mercenaries” from Syria to support its forces in Ukraine. A Syrian journalist told Arabi21 that hundreds of Syrian fighters had joined the Russian “Wagner Group” militia, which has fighting forces in Africa.

Media hacks wring their hands over suffering of the Syrian people in “opposition-held” Idlib, skirting around the fact that it is the last redoubt for al-Qaeda-and ISIS-linked Islamists that were the hate figures justifying previous imperialist warfare. Including the nominally liberal Guardian, they emit an endless stream of stories about the crimes and atrocities committed by Russia against civilians, helping to create the necessary political climate to further an agenda of war, censorship and domestic repression. In the process the world’s journalists conveniently forget US, Israeli or Saudi attacks in various parts of the Middle East—from Iraq to Syria to Yemen—and the US-led bombing of Mosul in 2017, let alone the imperialist powers’ infringement of national sovereignty, not least in Syria.

Moreover, their claims ignore, distort and flat out lie about what really took place in Syria as the US and NATO prepare for new wars of aggression in the Middle East to reassert their hegemony in the resource-rich region.

The now 11-year-long Syrian war was Made in America. It began as an effort by the US and its regional allies—the Gulf States, Turkey and Israel—to use protests in March 2011, amid the Arab Spring, to oust Assad, arming Al Qaeda-linked forces such as the Al Nusra Front and promoting a “moderate” coterie of CIA assets and regime dissidents. The media and pseudo-left groups praised these forces, which had little popular support, as “revolutionaries” fighting for democracy even as these Sunni Islamist gangs and militias went on a rampage of killings, wanton destruction, intimidation and theft.

The Syrian government turned to its allies for support. Iran mobilised its forces and fighters from the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah. Russia’s involvement was more limited: it supplied arms and gave Damascus political and diplomatic support to prevent being out-manoeuvred again by Washington, as in Libya. It sought to mediate between the “rebels” and the Assad government, while blocking any United Nations resolutions that could be used as a pretext for military interventions in Syria.

It was Russia that gave President Barack Obama a get out, following the previously cited chemical attack in Ghouta, near Damascus, in August 2013. The US blamed this on the Syrian government and planned to use it as the justification for a military assault and stepped-up drive for regime-change. With Obama facing opposition at home and abroad to his bombing campaign, Putin offered him a deal to rid Syria of chemical weapons in return for calling off the planned intervention.

Weeks later, the UN chemical weapons inspectorate pointed to multiple sarin gas attacks carried out by “rebel” forces, while Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh provided a detailed account in the London Review of Books of how the Obama administration had deliberately manipulated intelligence to falsely blame the Syrian government and military for the attack.

It was only in September 2015, more than a year after the US-backed Maidan coup involving far-right forces ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych and overthrew the Ukrainian government, and amid increasing restiveness among its own Muslim population and neighbours in Central Asia, that Russia entered the Syrian conflict, in September 2015. This intervention, at the official request of the Syrian government, came as Syrian forces in the northwest faced defeat with Islamist forces threatening the coastal areas, including Assad’s key areas of support and the port city of Tartous, Russia’s only naval base on the Mediterranean, established in 1971 at the height of the Cold War.

It was Russia’s first ever military intervention in the Arab world, while Washington’s most recent murderous campaigns include Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, in addition to its coups and behind the scenes machinations including backing for Colonel Gamal Abdul Nasser’s overthrow of the British-backed Egyptian monarchy in 1952, the coup against Iran’s nationalist government in 1953, Syria in 1957, Lebanon in 1958—the list goes on.

Russia’s air power was decisive in defeating the militias. With its 5,000-7,000 forces operating out of an expanded naval base at Tartous and its recently enlarged airbase at Khemeimim, it provided air cover for Iranian, Hezbollah Iraqi and Syrian-regime ground forces that have succeeded in largely confining the Islamists to Syria’s north-west province of Idlib, which is controlled by Turkey. Russia’s ground forces are there mainly to defend its bases.

Russia’s military operations, always intended to be limited in time, scope and tactics, largely focused on Assad’s armed opponents rather than ISIS-linked groups and depended on its tenuous coalition with Iran, Hezbollah and Iraq—the so-called Shia Axis. None of them wanted to see Assad fall at the hands of the local opposition, US or ISIS, a reactionary Jihadist outfit fostered by the US to spearhead a vicious sectarian war in Syria. ISIS only became public enemy number one when, in July 2014, it captured large swathes of Iraq, threatening Baghdad itself.

Moscow was able to secure the Syrian government’s control over the main population centres and stabilise Assad’s rule, test its weaponry, provide combat training for its servicemen, acquire long-term basing rights in Tartous and Khemeimim. It expanded sales of advanced weapons, trade and investment along with its influence throughout the region, including Turkey, Iran, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and Lebanon, making Syria Russia’s most important regional stronghold.

This was achieved at the relatively low cost of $4 million a day, 28 Russian lives, and the shooting down of a Russian Su-24 bomber by Turkey in 2015. The greatest loss of life suffered by Russia was when a passenger plane carrying 224 people was shot down over the Sinai Peninsula at the hands of an ISIS-linked cell in Egypt, on October 31 2015.

It is Russia’s return to the Middle East as a major geopolitical player at Washington’s expense that the US is determined to reverse, as part of its war for regime change now centred in Ukraine. The US and NATO are banking on Moscow having to redeploy some of its forces in Syria to Ukraine, thereby enabling their Islamist proxies in Idlib and eastern Syria to advance on government-controlled territory and the main population centres in Syria, with Turkey’s support, to unseat the Assad government.

They, along with Ukraine, have put pressure on Turkey to close the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus straits, which it controls, to Russian warships. Last week Ankara announced it had officially notified Russia of its decision to stop warships crossing the straits, after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared Turkey’s support for Ukraine’s sovereignty over its entire united territory. While this has been reported as a defensive move to support Ukraine, it is aimed at preventing Russia’s ships leaving the Mediterranean to restock back home.