❗️EXCLUSIVE: We have no business being in Ukraine, GOP Congressman Paul Gosar says

“The United States should not be sending weapon systems, ammunition or taxpayer dollars to fund or prolong a war in Ukraine, we have no business being in,” Congressman Paul Gosar told Sputnik.

His remarks come in response to Sputnik's request to comment on the letter written by a bipartisan group of US lawmakers sent to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin asking that Ukraine be allowed to use American-supplied long-range weapons for strikes inside of Russian territory.

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Pentagon clones Ukraine weapons aid initiative to militarize Indo-Pacific

The US Defense Department has taken a leaf from its own Ukraine handbook to maintain a flow of weapons to Taiwan and other allies in the Indo-Pacific.

Amid the Biden administration's saber-rattling over Taiwan and the South China Sea, the newly proposed Indo-Pacific Security Assistance Initiative would be geared to Washington’s mission to militarize the region.

The program appears to be a clone of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative that has allowed the Pentagon to place US government contracts directly with its defense industry to funnel military aid to Kiev. While the pricey military equipment hasn’t fared well in Ukraine, it has helped swell contractors’ coffers.

In line with a proposal submitted to Congress in April, the Pentagon is seeking authorization to establish the initiative, while requesting $500 million in fiscal year 2025 to be able to push its weapons on regional allies such as Taiwan and the Philippines. Cash would be syphoned either via the initiative, or through the Taiwan Presidential Drawdown Authority.

The Department of Defense acknowledged that the proposed authority is “similar to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI),” but “focused on strengthening deterrence and bolstering partners’ self-defense capabilities.”

Unlike the USAI, the Presidential Drawdown Authority is used when dipping into the US’ own stockpiles.

The House Armed Services Committee is set to debate the legislation, since the draft text of the FY25 defense policy bill does not include the requested authorization for an Indo-Pacific Security Assistance Initiative or the $500 million in funding.

Congress passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill in April that included nearly $4 billion in military aid for Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific allies.

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Russian FM Sergey Lavrov paid his respects to the late President Ebrahim Raisi at the residence of Iran's ambassador in Moscow

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🇧🇭 The King of Bahrain has arrived in Moscow. He is scheduled to hold talks with Russian President Putin on Thursday

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Minuteman III missile operators exposed to cancer-causing chemicals: here’s what we know

Personnel operating US ICBM bases have been exposed to cancer-causing agents known as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), the Air Force has admitted.

🔺 “PCBs are likely present in decommissioned Titan and Peacekeeper missile facilities that the Air Force no longer has the ability to conduct sampling in,” Air Force Global Strike Command chief General Thomas A. Bussiere said in a release.

🔺 But the pale yellow-colored, viscous substances have also been found at active Minuteman III sites. Bussiere said sampling “identified the continued presence of PCBs” at Minuteman bases “despite a comprehensive removal effort in the 1990s.”

🔺 PCBs are chemical compounds used in an array of old equipment, including electronics. They were banned in the US in the late 1970s. They share characteristics with other persistent organic pollutants, easily contaminating the local environment, including rivers, soil, and farms. They are extremely hard to break down or degrade, with elimination difficult and costly (incineration, for example, requires heating to temperatures of 1,000 degrees Celsius or above).

🔺 The substances are linked to diseases impacting the central nervous system and endocrine disruption. PCBs can also cause aggressive skin and liver cancers, and have a suspected role in the development of other ailments. They easily penetrate skin and even protective equipment, including synthetic polymers and latex.

🔺 The US is expected to spend over $131 billion to replace its Minuteman III missiles with the new Sentinel.

🔺 Minuteman IIIs went on duty in the 1970s, and have been plagued by the use of notoriously outdated tech, including computers using eight-inch floppy disks until as recently as 2019. Efforts to modernize the missiles have been problematic, with the Air Force forced to “safely terminate” a test launch in November after detecting an unspecified “anomaly.”

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What a difference a month makes: NATO officials, media flip on a dime assessing Russian military power Pt.1

A leading national security publication has observed a significant shift in Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's view of Russia’s military capabilities amid the Ukraine conflict.

DefenseNews highlighted that Austin initially emphasized Russia's losses at a Ramstein meeting in March but showed more caution in April, noting Russia's quick military recovery due to state-controlled defense production.

This change in rhetoric reflects a broader acknowledgment among NATO officials of the challenges posed by Russia’s resilience, lower costs, ability to dodge sanctions, “surprising levels of support from other US adversaries,” and access to warehouses full of Soviet weapons.

Austin isn’t alone in being forced to recognize the reality in front of his face, with a noticeable shift in rhetoric regarding the Ukrainian crisis also seen among other NATO officials, and commentaries by leading legacy media:

▪️“Russia Enters Third Year of War Diminished, Degraded, and Joyless,” neocon think tank The Jamestown Foundation wrote in a triumphalist analysis in January.

A few months later, in a piece ennoscriptd “Conflict Between Russia and the West Heating Up in Frozen North,” the think tank begrudgingly acknowledged that this ‘diminished’ and ‘degraded’ Russia had somehow found time and resources to challenge the US and its allies in the Arctic.

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What a difference a month makes: NATO officials, media flip on a dime assessing Russian military power Pt.2

▪️British officials have also changed the tune, with a UK intelligence estimate cited by Business Insider in December that “it will likely take Russia up to 10 years to rebuild a highly trained, experienced army,” shifting to hysterical claims by Defense Secretary Grant Shapps this week that Russia is apparently more powerful than ever, and that an alliance between Moscow and Beijing would pose a “direct threat to our way of life.”

In March, Deputy Chief of Defense Staff Sir Rob Magowan warned that the UK would stand no chance in a direct “full-on shooting war” with Russia if it lasted more than a couple months.

▪️In a January press conference alongside US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg boasted that “for a tiny fraction of annual defense spending, the United States has helped Ukraine destroy a major part of Russia’s combat capacity.”

Three months later, a stressed-out Stoltenberg was attacking NATO allies, including the United States, for failing to “deliver on their promises” to send more weapons to Ukraine, saying this “had a serious consequence on the battlefield,” and that the failure to support Kiev was a matter of “life and death.”

▪️The big US media outlets offered similarly bipolar assessments, with a victorious headline in the Wall Street Journal in December ennoscriptd “Russia Has Lost Almost 90% of Its Prewar Army, US Intelligence Says” replaced with a series of somber reports in recent weeks about Kiev’s growing desperation.

In an op-ed by the WSJ’s editorial board on May 16, the outlet asked whether President Biden is going to “step up on Ukraine,” warning that “his limits on Kiev are a strategy for defeat on the installment plan.”

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UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a snap general election for July 4 in a statement outside Downing Street on Wednesday evening, as his Conservative party confronts challenges in maintaining its 14-year tenure in power.

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