The US is grooming Asia for a war with China, peace activist and political analyst KJ Noh told Radio Sputnik

Discussing reports that the US will have nearly half of its aircraft carriers deployed in the Pacific, Noh noted that it is the largest gathering of US naval forces in the Pacific since World War Two.

“Remember, it's not just five aircraft carriers. It's at least five to ten attack submarines, plus 30 service combatants, including Aegis destroyers and three to 500 planes, [including] F-18s and F-35s. So it's an extraordinary projection of firepower, and it has a very, threatening message,” he summarized.

“This also serves to normalize aggressive shows of force. It’s like grooming Asia for war and, of course, there’s the ratchet effect from that normalization … It just signals that the escalation is coming.”

The neocons “know their time is running out on Taiwan, their advantages are ticking down and so I think they want to pivot rapidly,” Noh argued. “China is a war that both parties can get behind as opposed to Ukraine, which they consider to be a tough slog because so many Republicans are opposed [to it].”

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🇷🇺 Kherson Governor Vladimir Saldo posted a video of a Russian flag being raised in the village of Krynki, which recently came under Russian control.

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Euromaidan was part of West's proxy war against Russia - CIA veteran

"They were looking for a long-term strategy to isolate Russia," Larry Johnson, a retired CIA intelligence officer, told Sputnik.

"And the key to this was to get Ukraine into the western camp, to bring Ukraine into NATO, to bring Ukraine into the EU, and therefore to completely isolate, at least they thought they could isolate Russia."

The CIA veteran noted that after 2014, even though Ukraine was not a formal member of NATO, it was regularly included in the alliance's joint annual exercises. This meant that Ukraine then became a proxy for a Cold War, according to Johnson.

The West had a plethora of opportunities to avoid hostilities in Ukraine, but it appears that it did not want to do so, according to the CIA veteran. The West gave a nod to the bloody regime change in Kiev in 2014, even though President Viktor Yanukovych met the opposition's demands.

The West allowed the Kiev regime to shred the Minsk agreements. It encouraged Ukraine's NATO bid, knowing it was a "red line" for Moscow. Eventually, the US and NATO snubbed Russia's draft security agreements of December 2021 and scuttled Russia-Ukraine preliminary peace agreements of March 2022.

"[Ukraine] became a proxy for the West to fight against Russia," Johnson said. "Western governments don't want anything good to happen to Russia. (...) What's going on in Ukraine is almost demonic. It's satanic."

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Key statements by Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin from his interview with Sputnik:

▪️ Neither Ukraine nor the West show any desire for a peaceful settlement of the crisis, seeing a way out only through the prism of hostilities;

▪️ Russia has not heard of any new peace initiatives regarding Ukraine recently;

▪️ Europe, against the background of Ukraine's statements on the future of the contract on the transit of Russian gas, is in no hurry to put an end to this issue. Russia intends to develop cooperation in the energy sector with those countries that are interested;

▪️ Russia will take mirror retaliatory measures if Ukraine confiscates its assets, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Galuzin told Sputnik, commenting on the Ukrainian Parliament's decision to seize Russian property and the Ukrainian Justice Ministry's plans to confiscate two An-148-100E aircraft.

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🇷🇺🇻🇪 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro

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Key statements by Ukrainian opposition politician Viktor Medvedchuk from his interview with Sputnik:

▪️ An economic union of Ukraine with the European Union is impossible, it is a meaningless abstraction.

▪️ Ukraine's economy can be restored only in cooperation with Russia.

▪️ Viktor Yanukovych is the last legitimate president of Ukraine, his removal from power in 2014 was illegal.

▪️ The actions of the Kiev regime in recent years have led to the virtual disappearance of the Ukrainian state: "In general, I think, and I have enough arguments to argue that Ukraine has lost its statehood."

▪️ Ukraine is now the poorest country in Europe because of the West's "rule" there, and the free trade agreement with the European Union has destroyed it's economy.

▪️ The opposition Ukrainian politician, chairman of the council of the "Other Ukraine" movement, said that he wants to return to Kiev when there will be no Nazism in the country.

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1. Watch Russian flag being raised in the village of Krynki, which recently came under Russian control

2. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has arrived in Brazil to attend G20 meeting

3. UK Royal Navy faces second in a row failure of Trident firing exercise

4. Boris Johnson demanded $1mln for interview with Tucker Carlson

Check out Sputnik analysis:

5. How did Russia liberated Avdeyevka and what might happen next

6. Euromaidan was part of West's proxy war against Russia - CIA veteran told Sputnik

7. The US is grooming Asia for a war with China, Sputnik expert comments on US aircrafts in the Pacific

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❗️The British government organization "British Council" is involved in espionage in the Kherson region through controlled organizations, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said.

The Council's officially stated goals are to develop cooperation in education and culture, but in fact all this is just a cover for the work of special services, the FSB said.

Thus, the "British Council" used Ukrainian refugees living in the UK to obtain "information of a military and political nature" through their connections in the Kherson region.

Russian citizen Sergey Chebukin came under the influence of the organization, who eventually realized that he was being dragged into criminal schemes and turned to law enforcement. The activities of the "British Council" are now being monitored by security forces.

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Tucker Carlson comments on Boris Johnson's interview requests, whether the extra $60 package will help Ukraine, and Russia's involvement in Navalny's death.

"$60 billion is not going to allow Ukraine to prevail over Russia. No honest person thinks that's going to work. This is a money laundering operation. A lot of the people involved in are making money from it....including Boris Johnson," he said.

Regarding Navalny's death, Carlson said that he had no information, adding, "No one in the United States has any idea, only buffoons like Chuck Schumer or our sitting president, jumping up and down on Russia."

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Why are Polish farmers blockading Ukraine border?

There are several major "blocks of issues" behind the Polish farmers' decision to stage mass protests near their country's border with Ukraine, where tractors flying Polish flags blocked motorways and major intersections in a number of locations on Tuesday, Konrad Rekas, a Polish politician and independent commentator, told Sputnik.

First and foremost, the protesters are unhappy with "the preferential treatment of agricultural products imported from Ukraine on the Polish market and, as a result, on the EU market," Rekas said.

He also noted that Poles are well aware that Ukrainian agri-food production has been taken over by international corporations "or is still in the hands of cosmopolitan oligarchs, just as the so-called Ukrainian transport companies have owners in Germany or the Netherlands".

"However, this does not change the fact that contaminated food (the infamous "technical flour") often reaches Europe in uncontrolled quantities from Ukraine (often via Lithuania)," the Polish expert pointed out.

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Israel attacked the Kafr Sousa area in the southwestern part of Damascus with rockets.

Sputnik's correspondent reported that an apartment building was hit, there are dead.

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Vladimir Putin attended the award ceremony at the Chkalovsky airfield in the Moscow region.

In his speech, Putin noted the courage, bravery and skill of military pilots.

"The Russian Army was able to make a breakthrough in the most difficult sectors of the front, also thanks to the heroism of the fighters of the Russian Aerospace Forces," Putin declared.

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📹 Footage of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu arriving at the Chkalovsky airfield in the Moscow region.

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A terrorist attack against a law enforcement officer was prevented in Lobnya near Moscow, a Russian citizen was detained, the regional department of the FSB reported.

A resident of the Russian city of Yaroslavl was supposed to blow up a car on the orders of the Ukrainian special services, the man was detained, the bomb was defused, the FSB said. A case has been opened for a terrorist attack and treason.

It happened two days ago, when the evacuation of nearby houses in the city was announced.

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President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko arrived in Kazan, Russia, for the opening of the "Games of the Future". The president was received at the ramp by the head of the Republic of Tatarstan.

Games of the Future - is a high-tech international tournament that will be held in Kazan from February 23 to March 2, 2024. The official opening ceremony of the Games is scheduled for today, which is expected to be attended by President Vladimir Putin.

The presidents of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are also expected to attend the opening ceremony.

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The West is responsible for what has happened in Ukraine over the last ten years, Larry Johnson, retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official, revealed the role of the US in the Maidan "popular uprising".

"This was provoked. They wanted to create this relationship with the West because there were so many Westerners, particularly in the United States, ranging from Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Mitt Romney, families that had financial interests in Ukraine. So this is, you know, really all about money," he said.

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Arriving in Kazan, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Kazan Aviation Plant and proposed to name the new Tu-160M after the first President of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev.

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Avdeyevka liberation: ‘Beginning of end of Ukrainian combat cohesion along entire front line’ – Scott Ritter

Ukraine lost the battle for Avdeyevka for a number of reasons, but the most important is that they simply don't have the fire power necessary to stabilize the battlefield, as they've done in the past, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter told Sputnik.

“They [Ukrainian forces] have no more artillery rounds that enable them to flood the battlefield, break up Russian attacks, and support counterattacks. They don't have air defenses to stop Russian air power from coming in and dominating the battlefield. They have insufficient drones to replace artillery fire support. Simply put, the Ukrainians are unable to hold their own on the battlefield,” Ritter pointed out, describing the situation as “the Avdeyevka end game.”

He suggested that the liberation of Avdeyevka could be “the beginning of the end of Ukrainian combat cohesion along their entire front line.”

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If Assange is extradited to the US no journalist in the world would be safe – ex-UN expert.

"Essentially it would mean that any journalist who publishes information that the US government does not like would be subject to persecution and prosecution," Alfred de Zayas, professor of international law in Geneva, former UN independent expert on international order (2012-18), and a retired senior lawyer with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told Sputnik.

"His extradition would set a very toxic precedent that the core principle of refugee law and asylum law no longer protects persons who have a well-documented fear of persecution, as codified in article 1 of the Geneva Refugee Convention," the ex-UN expert continued.

According to de Zayas, Assange's extradition would be "the culmination of 14 years of vicious lawfare, of the destruction of the rule of law in the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Ecuador, all complicit in this scandal and all too public."

He bemoaned the fact that the US and its allies totally ignored calls by UN official organs and rapporteurs who qualified Assange's detention in the UK's prison as "torture" and called for his immediate release.

Assange, who made classified data provided to him by Chelsea (born Bradley) Manning in 2010 public, shedding light on the US' alleged war crimes during its invasions and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, could receive a prison term of up to 175 years in the US.

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