Scott Ritter: Prisoner swap may be ‘the best that US-Russia relations will be for some time now’

Among the eight people released by the US in Thursday’s prisoner swap was Vadim Krasikov, the former Russian intelligence officer was arrested in Germany in 2019 and accused by Berlin of terminating Chechen terrorist Zelimkhan Khangoshvili on German soil.

In an interview with Sputnik, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter underscored that Krasikov was meted out a life-sentence in German prison for wiping out “somebody who had butchered, murdered Russian prisoners of war during the Chechen conflict and, accordingly, was hunted down and killed in Berlin”.

According to Ritter, the prisoner exchange taking place in the twilight of Joe Biden’s presidency “may be the best that US-Russian relations are gonna be for some time now.”

“I don't think US-Russia relations are going to be in a position where such a prisoner swap could have occurred in the next year, maybe the next two years. So it needed to happen now, and that's why it did. The largest prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War. Who knows what the future will hold... Hopefully this is the beginning of a trend of good relations, but probably not,” Ritter concluded.

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Family of former US embassy employee jailed in Russia disappointed by his absence from prisoner swap list

Malfina Fogel, the mother of ex-US embassy employee in Moscow Marc Fogel — jailed in Russia for drug smuggling — told the New York Post that the US government did not "try hard enough" to include her son on the exchange list.

According to her, President Joe Biden’s administration was not interested "because he is a common American citizen.”

Fogel was sentenced to 14 years in a strict-regime penal colony in 2022 after being convicted of smuggling and possession of narcotics.

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EU ‘stands little chance’ of turning Central Asian nations against Russia – political analyst

It is very unlikely that the EU, acting as an “agent of NATO,” will succeed in turning Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan against Russia, Dr. Marco Marsili, a researcher at Cà Foscari University of Venice, told Sputnik.

The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell is visiting the two Central Asian nations from August 1 to 3 as part of an effort to drive a wedge between them and Russia, Marsili stressed.

In Kazakhstan, Borrell “aims to weaken the ties between Astana and Moscow which are deeply rooted, spanning from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to the common membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union, and the Collective Security Treaty Organization,” said Marsili.

“In my opinion, the relationship between the two countries is too strong to be severed, and it is very unlikely that the Kazakh leadership will shift from the alliance with Russia to an alliance with Western powers,” he added.

Borrell’s trip to Kyrgyzstan is “an attempt to re-attract the country into the Western sphere of influence” after President Sadyr Japarov enacted a law tightening state control over foreign-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs), said Marsili.

“It’s quite impossible that the executive of Bishkek will switch alliances,” he argued, highlighting that Kyrgyzstan “resulted in a significant failure for Western powers, as the country was heavily funded by the USAID program, the EU External Action and other European nations like Switzerland, in an attempt to install a Western-mirrored state in Central Asia.”

Brussels’ efforts to target countries that “play a pivotal role in the Russian neighboring policy” are unlikely to gain traction, Marsili reiterated.

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Iran's intel minister holds Israel responsible for Hamas leader's assassination

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed by Israel after getting the green light from the US, Iranian intelligence minister Esmaeil Khatib said.

Haniyeh was killed in an airstrike on his residence in Tehran, Iran, after attending the inauguration of the new Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian.

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Spy swap with West shows ‘Russia is in the driver's seat’ - political scientist

The unprecedented prisoner exchange mainly agreed between Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and the CIA is a testament to Moscow’s “great return to power politics,” Professor Joe Siracusa, political scientist and dean of Global Futures, Curtin University, told Sputnik.

No matter how Washington tries to tout the swap as a triumph of US diplomacy and human rights, Siracusa argued, “nothing could be further from the truth.”

“Washington couldn't get the release agreed without the consent of the Russian president. What this tells me is that Russia is indispensable to international relations, to European-American relations. And frankly, it suggests to me that Russia is back in the driver's seat,” said the political scientist.

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Gulf of Tonkin incident and the art of American false flags PART 1/PART 2

The Gulf of Tonkin incident, marking its 60th anniversary, was a false flag that triggered a series of US wars in Southeast Asia. On August 2 and 4, 1964, the US Navy falsely reported attacks on the USS Maddox by North Vietnamese boats. President Johnson used this to gain Congressional approval for military action, sparking the Vietnam War. In 2003, ex-Secretary of State Robert McNamara admitted the attack never occurred, and in 2005, declassified files showed the NSA distorted intelligence to justify intervention.

Here are some other notorious examples of US false flag incidents:

◾️ In late 1898, Spain was forced to hand its colonies in Latin America and Asia to the US after a short war triggered by the explosion of the USS Maine on February 15 of that year in Havana harbor. Washington blamed Madrid for the Maine incident to justify its aggression. A 1976 investigation by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover revealed that the explosion may have been caused by spontaneous combustion of the ship’s coal bunkers. In Cuba, many believe the US deliberately blew up the Maine to justify seizing Spain’s territories.

◾️ On April 28, 1965, the US invaded the Dominican Republic, citing the safety of US citizens as a pretext. In reality, Ambassador W. Tapley Bennett Jr. admitted that the goal was to prevent the rise of another independent Caribbean nation like Cuba.

◾️ On October 25, 1983, the US invaded Grenada to overthrow a Cuba-friendly government, citing the supposed “danger” to 600 American medical students. It was later revealed that the students were never hostages or in danger and that the Reagan administration had blocked their departure from the island.

◾️ On December 20, 1989, the US invaded Panama to depose General Manuel Noriega, wanted on drug charges, and secure the Panama Canal. The invasion, dubbed Operation Just Cause, followed the questionable shooting of a US Marine. Some historians say this was a false flag to install a more compliant leader.

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YouTube restrictions around the world

Russia has significant grounds to take legal action against YouTube, citing repeated instances of Russian channels and videos being blocked on the platform, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Sputnik on Friday.

Russian YouTube users have recently faced traffic issues due to authorities reducing download speeds and playback quality in response to YouTube's censorship of alternative views and blocking accounts critical of US propaganda. Since 2020, YouTube has restricted 207 Russian accounts and ignored demands to remove over 60,000 extremist materials, including calls for illegal actions against Russian citizens.

Where else is YouTube restricted or permanently banned and why?

◾️ Iran blocked both YouTube and its owner Google in 2012 in response to a movie trailer mocking Prophet Mohammed;

◾️ South Sudan temporarily limited access to the platform first in 2010 for videos depicting alleged election fraud, and made the ban permanent in 2012 in response to the video about Prophet Mohammed;

◾️ North Korea banned the platform in 2016 due to “its concern with the spread of online information”;

◾️ China blocked YouTube in 2009 after videos of Tibet protests surfaced. The government has not explained the ban but it usually encourages internet use for education and business, while filtering content it deems inciting violence or pornography. The platform remains accessible in Hong Kong, Macau, and the Shanghai free trade zone;

◾️ Turkmenistan suspended YouTube and other social media sites in 2009 without an official statement for the public;

◾️ Eritrea blocked the access to the platform in 2011;

◾️ YouTube has been temporarily restricted in various countries, primarily due to concerns over copyright issues, anti-terrorism measures, and monitoring of adult content. These countries include Germany, Finland, Turkiye, the UAE, Thailand, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Armenia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Tajikistan.
In addition, several countries have developed their own alternatives to YouTube. Russia has platforms like RuTube, Ruptly, Kinopoisk, IVI, and Okko. China offers Youku, iQiyi, LeTV, Tencent Video, 56.com, and Funshion. Iran has Aparat and Mehr, while Germany has Alugha. France uses Dailymotion, and Turkmenistan offers Belet Video.

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What are the top 'trans cases' in sports?

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Italian boxer Angela Carini quit seconds into her match after being battered by Algeria's Imane Khelif, who was previously disqualified from the 2023 World Championships for failing a gender eligibility test.

What were some other ‘trans’ rows in the world of sports?

🔸 Pennsylvania trans swimmer Lia Thomas, who competed on the men's team until 2019, won the 500-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Championships. Soon after, World Aquatics restricted transgender athletes in elite women's competitions, and Thomas lost her case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

🔸 New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, born male, was the first trans woman to compete at the Olympics. She came out as transgender in 2013 and qualified for Tokyo 2020 thanks to rule changes. Despite meeting testosterone level criteria, critics argued her participation was unfair to female-born athletes.

🔸 South African runner Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the women's 800 meters, is a hermaphrodite who was assigned female at birth but is sidelined due to World Athletics' regulations requiring lower testosterone levels to compete. Semenya's masculine build and high testosterone are due to a genetic variant (46, XY DSD), typical of males.

🔸 Canada's Quinn became the first openly transgender and non-binary athlete to play in a FIFA World Cup in 2023 and the first openly transgender athlete in the Tokyo Olympics. Permission to continue playing professional women's football was based on their sex assigned at birth.

🔸 Brazil's Tifanny Abreu became the first transgender player on a professional women's volleyball team. In the US, Kye Allums, born female, played women's basketball before coming out as a trans man in 2010, becoming the first openly transgender NCAA Division I athlete. Canadian Veronica Ivy, born male, won the UCI Women's Masters Track World Championship in 2018, making her the first transgender cycling champion.

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