The ‘No!’ to the Global NATO War Drive Intensifies

by EIR Staff

[Print version of this article]

March 26—The heads of state of NATO, the Group of Seven, and the European Union gathered in Brussels in the last week of March to turn their sights on China, and any country which refuses to join their declared campaign to crush the Russian nation or the general rearmament strategy of this bloc. Notorious State Department hatchet man Victoria Nuland delivered similar orders to the Indian subcontinent, in her March 19-23 visit to Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. “Democracies must stand against autocracies like Russia and China,” she pronounced in an exclusive interview with India’s NDTV:

[Ukraine is a key inflection point in the global battle] between autocracies and democracies … all democracies now need to stand together, and I am confident that we will stand together in speaking the truth about this [conflict].

In the face of this open drive for world war, the opposition of non-aligned nations has not wavered, but is digging in, as evidenced in the documentation below.

This is also seen in the UN General Assembly vote on March 24 on a second resolution condemning Russia, despite the “narrative” that the world is “standing together” with the NATO bloc. Thirty-eight nations abstained this time, as compared to 35 on March 2, including both India and China. Five nations voted against the resolution, and ten were not present to vote. Diplomatic representatives of several governments protested its bias, even as they voted for the resolution.

Egypt’s delegate warned that humanitarian action or resolutions must not be politicized, and “rejected economic sanctions outside the multilateral system due to their effects on civilians and the world economy, which are still recovering from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” a UN press release reported. Likewise, Brazil’s representative protested that the resolution “fails to address the pressing concern of the humanitarian consequences of indiscriminate economic sanctions that will affect all countries, particularly developing nations.”

South Africa had proffered a counter-resolution which, while urging a step-up in humanitarian aid, did not target Russia. Had that resolution, supported by 50 nations, been brought to the floor for a vote, the final tally on the war party’s resolution might well have been far different. In voting for the resolution targeting Russia, Iraq’s representative said that because Iraqis “know full well” what it is like to be in dire need of aid in times of war, his government voted in favor in order to get aid to the Ukrainian people, but had the South African resolution been available, Iraq would have voted for it instead.

Cracks in the ballyhooed “united front” in the Trans-Atlantic are also growing. Notable in this week’s report, is the growing number of voices from Europe warning that a new direction must be adopted.

As this international ferment against war and economic disaster intensifies, doors are being opened for Schiller Institute representatives to present its proposal for a Westphalian approach, for a new security and development architecture, to ever larger audiences. Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and two other Schiller representatives, for example, had opportunities in the past week to speak on Pakistan’s public television channel, PTV. So, too, three VIP signers from Italy of the Schiller Institute petition for a new security architecture, Alessia Ruggeri and journalists Luca La Bella and Gianmarco Landi, were able this week to present the Schiller Institute’s approach on DataBase Italia TV’s “The End of Globalization” program. Such openings to speak out also continue to grow on large “alternative media” in the U.S.

ASIA

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan Urges OIC to Join Non-Partisan Nations to Mediate Conflict in Ukraine

Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Imran Khan, opened the annual Foreign Ministers’ Council of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Islamabad March 22, which he hosted, with a warning that the world is heading in the wrong direction, back into a Cold War. It is becoming a world divided into blocs in which the 1.5 billion people in the Islamic countries will have no place.

He urged the foreign ministers of the OIC’s 57 member states to think about how it could help mediate to bring about a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, and announced that he would be meeting shortly with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who also attended the conference, to discuss how the OIC and China can help to stop this conflict, which is creating such great consequences for all nations as the increasing prices of oil, gas, and wheat. All non-partisan countries are in a special position to do something, and we must do so, he told the ministers.

Khan also addressed the need for the OIC to help stabilize Afghanistan. That nation is finally free of conflict after 40 years, but it faces economic sanctions and non-recognition. The only way to stop international terrorism is to stabilize Afghanistan, Khan emphasized.

String of Foreign Visitors Fails to Line Up India with NATO Policy

India appears to have had enough of foreign officials coming to New Delhi to order the Modi government that it “must” join the campaign to crush its long-time ally, Russia. After suffering the visits of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (in person), Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (by video) on March 19, and U.S. State Department #3 Victoria Nuland on March 22, a high-ranking delegation of ten UK Parliamentarians, led by House of Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle, was informed by the Indian authorities on the eve of its planned visit that their invitation had been withdrawn, London’s The Guardian reported March 24.

The unstated but clear cause of the snub to the UK politicians is that they had made known that they intended to lecture India on why it had to join in the denunciation of Russia and join in the sanctions warfare. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had delivered that message already in his March 22 phone call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Japan’s Kishida and Australia’s Morrison likewise failed to get their fellow Quad member to toe the line. The joint communiqué issued by Kishida and Modi did not mention Russia, let alone promise that India would impose sanctions, but did call for an immediate cessation of violence, and stated that there was no other choice but the path of dialogue and diplomacy for resolution of conflict.

Indonesia Rejects Pressure to Kick Russia Out of G20

Indonesia, which presides over the Group of 20 this year, reiterated yesterday that it has invited all members of the G20 to this year’s G20 summit—including Russia. Dian Triansyah Djani, special staff member to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, made the announcement in a press briefing March 24, Jakarta Globe reported March 25. “It is the obligation of the G20 Presidency to invite all members,” Dian stated.

Under its presidency, Indonesia seeks to keep the focus of the G20 on efforts to secure global economic recovery, which is a priority for the world’s population, because “the world has not come out of the crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Developing countries are still hard to find in their economies. And we are pushing for a global recovery,” Dian specified.

The G20 foreign ministers meet in June, with the G20 heads of state and government summit scheduled for October, but the question circulating at the March 24 NATO, G7, and EU meetings in Brussels was whether Russia would be kicked out of the G20. Poland has proposed that it replace Russia in the G20, according to Reuters, while President Biden at his March 24 press conference, raised the option that if Indonesia and others insist Russia remain in the G20, “Ukraine be able to attend the meetings as well.”

Malaysia and Vietnam Opposed to Anti-Russia Campaign

Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, upon his return March 22 from an official visit to Hanoi, reported to Bernama news agency that he and his Vietnamese counterpart, Pham Minh Chinh, had discussed the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and—

agreed that Malaysia and Vietnam will remain neutral on this issue. [The two countries] do not support such aggression against a sovereign state, but our stance is that we will not interfere. We want the crisis in Ukraine to be solved diplomatically.

As for sanctions against Russia, we do not support them…. We recognize restrictions … imposed only by the UN Security Council.

Adviser to Turkish President: There Must Be a New Security Architecture Between Russia and the West

The views of Ibrahim Kalin, a top adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, were presented at some length in a March 19 New Yorker interview, from the standpoint of Kalin having been present for Erdoğan’s March 17 calls to Presidents Putin and Zelenskyy. Kalin stressed the importance of thinking how to manage relations with Russia, once the warfare stops:

Even though we fully reject the Russian war on Ukraine, the Russian case must be heard, because after this war, there will have to be a new security architecture established between Russia and the Western bloc. We cannot afford another Cold War—it will be bad for everyone and costly for the entire international political and financial system. Every decision we make, every step we take now with regards to Russia militarily, politically, economically and otherwise, will have an impact on that new security architecture.

Israelis Call Out Zelenskyy’s Falsehoods on Ukrainian Nazi History to the Knesset

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s video address to the Israeli Knesset March 20 drew ire from lawmakers and newspapers in Israel who objected to his comparison of Ukraine’s situation today to that of the Holocaust, especially because Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, who participated in carrying out that Holocaust, has been reborn as a national hero under Zelenskyy’s government.

Israeli Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel pointed out that Nazi Germany’s genocide of Jews—

was also carried out on Ukrainian land, [and that while] the war is terrible, the comparison to the horrors of the Holocaust and the Final Solution is outrageous.

Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of a far-right opposition party, said:

Zelenskyy was acting to rewrite history and erase the involvement of the Ukrainian people in the extermination of Jews.

Israeli Daily Ha’aretz ‘Fact-Check’ of the Ukrainian President’s Speech

To Zelenskyy’s claims that Russia is attempting a “Final Solution” in Ukraine, Ha’aretz offered this rebuttal:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has never publicly spoken of a “Final Solution” to the Ukrainian people, as Zelenskyy claimed. Although there is debate over what actually motivated Putin to invade Ukraine, many people think he is trying to realize his territorial ambitions in the region, not to carry out a genocide against the Ukrainian people.

Zelenskyy had said:

You saw Russian missiles hit Kyiv, Babyn Yar. You know what kind of land it is. More than 100,000 Holocaust victims are buried there.

Ha’aretz responded that although Ukrainians claimed that Russia had bombed the site “where tens of thousands of Jews were killed by the Nazis and their local collaborators over 48 hours in 1941, the memorial site told Ha’aretz that the monument there was not damaged by the attacks.” There was some damage to a building under construction, but “it is believed that the likely target for the strikes was not Babi Yar, but the nearby television tower.”

Additionally, said Ha’aretz,

Zelenskyy made no mention of the fact that Ukrainians played a major role in the mass murder at Babi Yar. They may not have pulled the trigger, but they brought the Jews to the site and guarded the area. After the war, a senior Nazi officer even testified that so many Ukrainian informants had revealed Jews’ hiding places to the Germans that the Nazis could not manage to kill them all.

EUROPE

Pope Francis Denounces Increasing Military Expenditures as ‘Folly’

Pope Francis opposed the rearmament campaign, and sanctions against Russia, and urged another approach be adopted, when speaking to a group of Catholic women March 24:

I think that for those of you who belong to my generation, it is unbearable to see what has happened and is happening in Ukraine. But unfortunately this is the result of the old logic of power that still dominates the so-called geopolitics. The history of the last 70 years proves it: regional wars have never lacked; that’s why I said we were in the third world war in bits and pieces, a bit everywhere; up to this one, which has a bigger dimension and threatens the whole world. But the basic problem is the same: the world continues to be governed as a “chessboard,” where the powerful study the moves to extend their dominance to the detriment of others.

So the real answer is not more weapons, more sanctions. I was ashamed when I read that, I don’t know, a group of states have committed to spend 2% of their GDP on the purchase of weapons, as a response to what is happening now. The insanity! The real answer, as I said, is not more weapons, more sanctions, more political-military alliances, but a different approach, a different way of governing the now-globalized world—not by showing teeth, as now—a different way of setting up international relations. The model of the cure is already in place, thank God, but unfortunately it is still subjugated to that of economic-technocratic-military power.

The following day, Annunciation Day, the Pope devoted his prayers not only to Ukraine and Russia, but also to the Virgin Mary. In explaining the meaning of such an action, Moscow Catholic Archbishop Msgr. Paolo Pezzi said it is a way to “indicate an exit point, a practicable way.” He compared it, among others, to the conclusion in one of Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov’s novels:

The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain, and there will be the stars even when the shadows of even our bodies and works have disappeared from the Earth. There is no man who does not know this. But why then do we not want to turn our gaze to the stars?

Similarly, raising one’s eyes to Mary, whom Dante Alighieri describes as a “lively fountain of hope,” means not ceasing to hope that Man will give up having enemies, Pezzi wrote in an article for IlSussidiario.net.

Serbia Does Not Forget NATO Bombed It in 1999, and Will Not Join NATO Now

On March 21, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić told an election rally:

I believe that Serbia must not join NATO. Serbia is a free country and a militarily neutral country. Serbia will be defending its land and its sky on its own.

Speaking of NATO’s 78-day bombing campaign in 1999, in which children, including ones he named, were killed, he said:

But let me tell you something: Our duty is to forgive and our duty is not to forget. We have no right to forget this. We will get far stronger than we were in those days, when the irresponsible, the arrogant and the presumptuous were bombing us and waging a war of aggression against us and our country.

Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin assured Russia’s Ambassador Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko the following day:

Serbia will never be a part of the anti-Russian hysteria, when property of Russian citizens and the Russian Federation itself is being confiscated, and it will not ban Russian media, expel Russian students from schools, and remove Russian writers and scientists from textbooks. A civilization that cancels Russian writers, scientists, freedom fighters, a civilization that rejects everything that the Russian people gave the world, would be a very poor civilization....

Call for Sweden Not To Join NATO, In Order To Help Reach Ukraine Peace

In a March 22 Svenska Dagbladet op-ed, former top Swedish diplomat Mathias Mossberg and former senior defense journalist Sune Olofson wrote:

The best thing Sweden could do for Ukraine is now not to apply for membership of NATO. [The news that Zelenskyy is] now putting forward that Ukraine is not planning to apply for membership of NATO is a watershed in the current conflict.

If Ukraine now—though in great agony—looks to orient itself toward some form of non-aligned or neutral security status, is it then the right occasion for other nations in Europe to dismiss the same non-alignment or neutrality? The same status Ukraine might be looking for to save its life?

What would it mean for Ukraine and the position of Zelenskyy to continue to have positive examples to point out in the form of nations that successfully have lived for long times with neutrality and nonalignment?

The two authors point to previous warnings against NATO expansion by George Kennan and other American ambassadors, British ambassadors, and important historians. They also point to their own warning in an op-ed in Svenska Dagbladet signed by a large group of diplomats and scholars in 1997, that “NATO expansionism could lead to a new revanchism in Russia.” It said, further,

Now we are there. No matter the outcome of the ongoing war, Russia is situated where it is and continues to be one of the world’s two biggest nuclear powers. Some kind of coexistence with this power must be shaped…. We cannot afford once again to build a fragile security architecture.

French Scientists: ‘Preserve Scientific Relations with Russia’

A group of French academics has posted a statement written by French economist and foreign member of the Russian Academy of Scientists Jacques Sapir on the Front Populaire website, titled, “Appeal to Maintain Scientific Relations Between France and Russia.” It declares,

Scientific cooperation with Russia has suffered greatly from the cooling of diplomatic relations, [which they regret]. Beyond the tragedy of the war, the rise in “peaceful” societies of mentalities incapable of dialogue and of listening to divergent opinions poses a real problem. Hysteria seems to have taken hold of minds in France and in Europe, leading today to measures that would have been unimaginable even during the Cold War….

A form of blockade against Russia is being put in place. Such a situation is harmful and dangerous. It should not be extended to scientific activities. We believe that the freedom of peoples and democracy would have nothing to gain from such a blockade of Russia.

Maintaining cultural and scientific relations seems to us to be of particular importance. Even in the darkest hours of the Cold War, they were preserved. Scientific relations, in particular, have historically been important in maintaining spaces for dialogue between the civil societies concerned. These relationships have allowed the creation of bonds of mutual trust, bonds that have played an important role in the future.

The current war will come to an end and the maintenance of these relationships and of joint work in the various disciplines will contribute to the return of peace. Scientific researchers work for the common good. They have their opinions, which must be respected. No one should be prevented or sanctioned in his scientific work simply because of his opinions or because of the behavior of his country.

We urge the French and Russian governments not to seek to politicize or politically manipulate these scientific relations and to recreate a framework that allows scientific and academic exchanges to take place normally. International cooperation is the engine of science, the engine of research. It must therefore be absolutely preserved. It is one of the guarantees for the reconstruction of a lasting peace.

Five Romanian Elected Officials Demand Neutrality for Romania, and ‘Peace of Bucharest’

Five Romanian independent elected officials signed a common declaration and sent it to the Romanian Government and the embassies March 10, demanding Romania’s neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the organization of the “Peace of Bucharest” on neutral ground. These officials are very polemical; most of them non-affiliated deputies and senators who do not represent the positions of the big parties.

On March 11, the day U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris visited Romania, a Zoom public debate was organized by Senator Diana Iovanovici Șoșoacă, one of the signers, on Romanian neutrality and the proposal for the “Peace of Bucharest.” Senator Șoșoacă invited French-Romanian activist Alexandra Bellea to intervene in the debate. It received 113,000 views on Facebook and accrued 5,500 likes. It was not relayed by the media. Most of the interventions were on neutrality and the dangers of involving Romanians in this conflict as canon fodder for the big powers.

Bellea spoke about the Schiller Institute petition drive, and said that any peace initiative that could succeed will have to engage not only the belligerents, but also China, the U.S., and India, and create a completely new security architecture based on two pillars: the principles of the Westphalian Peace and a system of peace through development. She pointed out that Romania and the Ukraine are on a “tectonic fault” between the old trans-Atlantic system, which is destroying itself through green deindustrialization policies, and the BRICS system, which is financing real physical development.

German Economist: ‘We All Lose’ from Ukraine War, Sanctions on Russia

Folker Hellmeyer, chief analyst at Germany’s Bremer Landesbank for almost 16 years and one of the country’s most distinguished economists, said a solution to the Ukraine conflict is possible only when “we recognize that we all lose,” in a March 15 YouTube video interview with Mission Money.

Although condemning Russia’s military intervention “from a humanistic standpoint” against all war, Hellmeyer said the West should be self-critical and recognize that the West first broke international law, when it broke its word that NATO would not expand eastward, and again when it violated the Budapest Memorandum. That should be kept in mind when condemning Russia for violating the sovereignty of Ukraine. And by implementing extraterritorial U.S. law with sanctions, another breach of sovereignty is accomplished, he added. Thus, Germany should ask how sovereign is Germany, before insisting on Ukraine’s sovereignty.

As for the economic disruption created by sanctions, Hellmeyer said that we have “a separation of world spheres similar to the Cold War, which, however, is hitting us more severely than during the Cold War.” In fact, we have today a global supply-chain system which “is totally unprepared” for the shock. The current price inflation “is a mild foretaste” of what lies ahead.

In the short term, sanctions will hurt Russia, but in the long term, European countries have acted irresponsibly. If you look at a world map to see which countries are not going along with sanctions, you have most of Asia, most of Latin America, Middle East countries—and these are countries producing raw materials and energy commodities that Europe needs. Who will they consider as reliable partners in the future, us—with a background of regime-change policies—or China and India?

600 Sign Appeal Against German Arms Build-Up

An appeal to the German government has been issued by 600 Germans from politics, science, and culture, titled, “No to War!” It denounces the war in Ukraine, declaring,

A massive armament of the Bundeswehr will not help the people in Ukraine. The new weapons to be acquired will not support the Ukrainians in their struggle and right to self-defense.

The “defense expenditures” of all 30 NATO countries already exceed the Russian ones by almost twenty times. Acquiring conventional weapons such as fighter jets and weaponized drones as a deterrent under nuclear military blocs is pointless.

The appeal was initiated by, among others, SPD politicians Andrea Ypsilanti and Jan Dieren; Left Party politician Julia Schramm; former Green Party member of parliament Hans-Christian Ströbele; Green Party youth spokeswoman Sarah-Lee Heinrich; Lutheran theologian Margot Käßmann; metal workers’ union executive Hans-Jürgen Urban; and the actresses Katja Riemann and Corinna Harfouch.

The appeal gives specifics on how the new military spending will exceed all key categories of important government functions—health, education, research, energy, and so on, and points out that, “security and social justice, not armaments, are the mandate of the constitution. The appeal concludes:

We have to deal with a situation in which our health care systems are on edge, with a public infrastructure that has been neglected for decades and is now costing us dearly, with a cultural scene that is running on fumes, and with a climate catastrophe.

De-Nazification? Le Figaro Presents Evidence Supporting De-Nazifying the British Monarchy

While Putin’s campaign to “de-Nazify” Ukraine has stirred comments of astonishment in the Western press, on March 21 Le Figaro reported the latest revelations of British research into the British monarchy’s synergy with Nazi Germany. Under the title “When Edward VIII helped the Nazis To Invade France,” senior journalist Arnaud de La Grange writes that King Edward VIII, so far only suspected of “benevolence—even frank sympathy” for the Hitler regime, put some nasty deeds to his convictions by indicating the weak points of France’s defense. De La Grange wrote:

According to documents unearthed by British historians, he [Edward VIII] provided the Germans with elements that facilitated the plans to invade France.

A documentary will be broadcast on UK Channel 4 the week of March 28, with material put together by historian Andew Lownie from the British Royal Archives. The documents—including a letter from the Duke of Windsor, the later Edward VIII, thanking Hitler for welcoming him and his wife to his mountain retreat—show a man with strong Nazi sympathies.

Schröder Places Blame on Failure To Build New Security Architecture

Speaking at a conference in Kocaeli, Turkey, March 24, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said that many mistakes had been made in recent years by both Russia and Western countries, which “political failure” is one of the causes of the Ukraine war.

Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of bipolarity between the Soviet Union and the United States, “we have not created a security architecture that reflects this changed situation,” Schröder stressed. Russia’s security interests, however, did not justify the use of military means, Schröder said. Everyone should do everything in their power to end this terrible war, he said.

AFRICA

South Africa Counters the UN Resolution that Puts Geopolitics before Humanitarian Concerns

South Africa this week proffered a counter-resolution to the Ukrainian humanitarian resolution championed by the U.S.-UK-EU bloc in the UN General Assembly that ultimately passed. Both resolutions included similar calls for urgent humanitarian aid and actions for and in Ukraine, and an immediate cease-fire, but South Africa’s resolution did not hold Russia responsible for the conflict.

As reported in a UN press release, South African Ambassador Mathu Joyini argued for her government’s text on the grounds that the humanitarian situation must be the immediate priority:

Unfortunately, instead of placing the humanitarian crisis and our response at the center of our deliberations, the political divisions in the Assembly suggest that perhaps, in the minds of some delegations, the humanitarian response is secondary to geopolitical objectives. While neither the context that gave rise to the crisis nor international law should be ignored, they should not divert our focus from what we should be doing, namely, “working as a global community to end the war.”

She added that Africa has experienced its fair share of proxy wars and their destructive outcomes, and said, “We empathize with the people of Ukraine caught up in a conflict not of their making.”

Fifty countries voted in favor of bringing the South African draft before the General Assembly for a vote, and 36 abstained, but with 67 votes opposed, it was not brought before the body.

UNITED STATES

Doctorow: NATO Should Stop Using Ukraine as a Battering Ram Against Russia

In an article on his blogsite posted March 19 titled, “The Coming Partition of Ukraine,” Gilbert Doctorow, the American analyst of Russian affairs based in Brussels, stressed that the Russian motivation in Ukraine is not to expand an Empire, nor to even absorb Ukraine, which would be “an interminable drag on the Russian economy and political focus.”

The Russian motivation is to rid Ukraine of NATO formations presently embedded, of NATO membership still projected by the Alliance, and of the neo-Nazi radicals who since 2014 have been the force behind the throne in the Kiev regime.

Doctorow raised the possibility of a partition of Ukraine as one of many possibilities, all of which depend on the ability and willingness of Ukraine’s authorities to negotiate. But further, the outcome also depends on the U.S. and NATO. They need a political transformation to stop using the Ukrainian people and infrastructure as a battering ram against Russia. Otherwise, Doctorow stressed that one potential outcome of a Ukrainian attempt to fight to the end, would be that, the war will end with the civil and military infrastructure of Ukraine totally shattered, with the permanent mass emigration of millions, including the most able-bodied segments of the population, and with a decade or more of destitution for those unfortunate enough to remain.

Experts Refute NATO Narrative on Status of Battle in Ukraine: Are Pentagon and State Department at Odds?

Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of Consortium News and no sucker for the military-industrial complex, called attention this week to signs of opposition to the wild war drive coming from within the Pentagon. He cites two anomalies to bolster this thesis in his March 23 article, titled, “Pentagon Drops Truth Bombs to Stave Off War with Russia.”

The first is an article published by Newsweek March 22 written by William Arkin, a former Army intelligence officer who has gained a reputation over the past two decades for exposing secrets that military and intelligence agencies would rather be kept secret.

In his article, titled, “Putin’s Bombers Could Devastate Ukraine But He’s Holding Back. Here’s Why,” Arkin cites U.S. intelligence and military analysts, speaking on condition of anonymity, who strongly disagree with the official narrative that Putin is intentionally bombing cities and wantonly killing civilians in Ukraine. His sources are not pro-Russian—one analyst quoted by Arkin says he’s “no com symp” and another insists that Putin does need to be punished—but they say that Russian forces are causing a lot less damage in Ukraine than they could, and are only going after military targets. Some argue that a little honesty in evaluating the Russian military campaign in Ukraine would provide insight into how to end the war.

The second anomaly is the statement by a “senior defense official,” also on March 22, contradicting President Biden’s assertion on March 21 that Putin was preparing a chemical weapons provocation on Ukraine. The official said that the U.S. has not yet seen any evidence that Russian use of chemical weapons in Ukraine is “imminent,” but that the U.S. is watching for such signs very closely. Even though he was speaking during an on-the-record background briefing, and the transcript was posted on the DoD website, Reuters was the only major news service to report the official’s statement.