NATO ‘in hot water’ over German military’s Crimean Bridge strike talk

High-ranking German officers discussed launching strikes on “Russian civilian infrastructure either with the official tacit consent of Berlin or behind its back; both variants are the matter of serious concern,” former Brazilian Navy officer and military expert Robinson Farinazzo told Sputnik.

“If German authorities were in the know, it can be likened to a declaration of war,” he said, urging Moscow and Berlin to use diplomatic channels to defuse tensions over this information "about aggressive intentions."

"It's hard to imagine what measures Moscow might take if it considers actions by the German officers a serious provocation," Farinazzo added.

He was echoed by international relations expert Tito Livio Barcellos Pereira from the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo, who warns that the situation might lead to “an even greater escalation of tensions between Russia and NATO.”

"The German military's recorded conversation once again confirms that the [NATO] alliance continues to be involved in a [proxy] war with Russia,” Barcellos said. "NATO countries, which previously claimed not to be directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict, are currently in hot water,” he added.

During the February 19 conversation released by Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT and Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik's parent media group, Bundeswehr's top brass discussed a potential attack on the Crimean Bridge with one of the officers claiming that more than 10 or even 20 Taurus missiles may be needed to destroy it.

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(Part 1)

NATO’s direct involvement in the Ukrainian conflict is an open secret

The recently leaked recording of German military officers discussing plans for a potential attack on Russian territory using German weapons essentially confirms one simple truth: NATO countries are perfectly fine with attacking Russia for as long as they can claim plausible deniability.

But while NATO powers are trying to make it look like they are not directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict, it does not seem like their antics are fooling anyone.

The fact that foreign mercenaries fighting on the side of the Kiev regime include members of NATO states’ militaries did not elude many, including Sputnik Donbass correspondent Russell Bentley

“On the one hand, you have the Tik Tok Tourists, here only for the photo ops and bargain brothels, the low budget assassins from the narco-cartels in Central and South America, here to make gun, drug, and human trafficking connections, cheap and expendable, ideal candidates for suicide missions, who don't have to even be buried, much less paid,” he noted. “On the other hand, you have field grade NATO officers, highly trained weapons technicians and special forces 'operators' from the elite units of the NATO militaries.”

Former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter voiced similar thoughts while commenting on the losses sustained by French mercenaries in Ukraine.

“At least some of these French-speaking individuals weren't mercenaries, but actually French serving military personnel, that is military personnel who worked for the French government, who were in Ukraine at the behest of their government. And now they're dead,” he said.

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(Part 2)

Retired US Air Force Lt. Col. and former Pentagon official Karen Kwiatkowski noted that the US military leadership did admit in 2022 the presence of a “small number” of US troops in Ukraine, with said troops allegedly inspecting the Western arms shipments to Kiev.

“We know they’re there,” Kwiatkowski said. “Are any of these Americans associated with the Patriot batteries? I would think so. These are extremely expensive systems. They’re extremely complex, and like everything that’s complex, they’re vulnerable. Vulnerable to both operator error and malfunction.”

Earl Rasmussen, retired lieutenant colonel of the US Army and an international consultant, said that many of the foreign mercenaries working for Kiev are “most likely undercover, unofficially active military that are there in presence providing or retired or whatever former providing expertise and targeting and intelligence information.”

He further argued that the previous drone attacks and sabotages perpetrated by Ukrainian forces against the Crimea Bridge probably “had Western involvement as far as the planning and support also.”

Former CIA officer Larry Johnson also observed that the spy agency he used to work for had connections with Ukrainian anti-Soviet and anti-Russian elements going back as far as 1955.

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Vladimir Putin declared the World Youth Festival open in an address to the participants. The main message of his speech:

▪️ "I am sure that the festival participants will return home with love for Russia";

▪️ "Multinational unity for the Russian Federation is the greatest goal";

▪️ "The brotherhood of peoples has always remained and remains the main support, advantage and strength of Russia";

▪️ "There are no borders or dividing lines for young people, this has been shown by hundreds of thousands of applications for participation";

▪️ "You know what a safe world should be like, it’s up to you to create it";

▪️ "We are always open for dialogue".

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Inflection Point? Argentine President urges provincial governors to support economic reforms

Argentina’s President Javier Milei has urged the country’s provincial governors and other top political leaders to sign a 10-point "social pact" by May 25 to support his agenda of radical economic liberalization.

In his first state-of-the-union-style address to lawmakers, Milei said that the agreement includes a “non-negotiable fiscal balance” and public spending cuts, as well as labor reform and free trade.

The Argentine president also pledged to continue the implementation of his economic reforms with or without the approval of parliament.
"We won't back down, we're going to keep pushing forward, whether that's by law, presidential decree or by modifying regulations," he pointed out.

Earlier, Milei announced that he had signed a decree for more than 300 reforms to liberalize the country's economy, which he said would be debated in parliament.

The unveiling of the decree was followed by mass protests which saw activists clashing with police outside the parliament’s building in the capital Buenos Aires.

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📹 Russian drone operators of the Dnepr Battlegroup destroyed a Slovak-made Zuzana self-propelled howitzer.

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German military likely preparing for Berlin to send Taurus missiles to Kiev

Military officers who were discussing the possible shipments of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine and the use of these weapons against targets in Russia, such as the Crimean Bridge, were likely not pursuing some objectives of their own, says Eugen Schmidt, member of the German parliament from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

“They act on political directives coming from above. That is, they follow orders, just like any military does,” Schmidt tells Sputnik. “They do not act on their own initiative. So if a political decision on shipping the missiles is made, they would have to follow through.”

According to the lawmaker, the issue with the Taurus missile shipments appears similar to the situation with the Leopard tanks – a weapon Germany was initially reluctant to provide to Ukraine but ended up supplying to Kiev anyway after Berlin caved in under the pressure from the opposition and from the “so-called allies from across the ocean.”

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BRICS nations tackle dollar weaponization and financial system flaws

Bruno Martarello De Conti of the University of Campinas highlights the importance of BRICS amid the dysfunctionality of the current international monetary and financial system, particularly the dominance of the US dollar and its use as a geopolitical weapon.

“It's really necessary for the BRICS to construct alternatives for the use of the dollar So it can be done through the usage of local currencies for bilateral trade as Russia is doing with China for instance. But also this idea of developing a BRICS currency is a good idea,” De Conti told Sputnik on the sidelines of the World Youth Festival in Russia’s Sirius.

De Conti also advocates for the creation of a new international payment system to reduce the reliance on platforms like SWIFT, which can be weaponized. This transition, although complex, is crucial to ensure financial stability and sovereignty for the Global South and BRICS nations.

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▪️NATO’s direct involvement in the Ukrainian conflict is an open secret

▪️Vladimir Putin declared the World Youth Festival open in an address to the participants

▪️BRICS nations tackle dollar weaponization and financial system flaws

▪️NATO ‘in hot water’ over German military’s Crimean Bridge strike talk

▪️The "NATO: History of Deception, History of Evil"

▪️The trannoscript of a conversation between German officers planning an attack on the Crimean Bridge is currently the number one news in German media

▪️Inflection Point? Argentine President urges provincial governors to support economic reforms

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Florian Philippot, leader of the French party "The Patriots", said the intercepted conversation of the German military is embarrassing for Germany and NATO because it proves the alliance's mendacity.

In his opinion, the current German "disturbance" is explained by the fact that Scholz knows that he has been caught red-handed.

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An intercepted conversation between the German military could create tensions between Berlin and NATO, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

The newspaper notes that the conversation mentions military personnel from Britain, France and the US who are already in Ukraine to help maintain combat systems, but the countries themselves deny this fact.

The leaked information... has sparked fury in Germany and could lead to strained relations with its NATO allies, newspaper states.

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Iranian, Iraqi oil ministers discuss joint field development

Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji and his Iraqi counterpart Hayan Abdel-Ghani discussed expanding cooperation, including the development of joint fields, on the margins of the 7th Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) summit in Algeria, the Iranian government said.

"The Iranian and Iraqi oil ministers discussed during the meeting the expansion of cooperation in the field of complex development of shared fields, trade in gas and petroleum products, payment mechanisms and development of infrastructure for trade in products [of oil and gas refining]," the government said on Telegram.

The parties agreed to select one or two fields with small reserves for joint development at first, then move to larger fields, the government said.

The ministers also discussed oil drilling and the creation of infrastructure such as gas pipelines by Iranian companies in Iraq, Iranian authorities added.

The 7th GECF summit was held in Algeria's capital from March 1-2. The GECF is an intergovernmental organization that brings together the world's leading gas producers and exporters and provides a framework for the exchange of views, experiences, data, cooperation and collaboration among its member states on gas-related issues.

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