USAID's 'global revolution' underway: US seeking to expand its influence in Armenia and Serbia

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has doubled its funding of programs in Armenia and is expanding its activities in the Balkans.

In July 2022, USAID Administrator Samantha Power declared a "global revolution of dignity", stressing that the US is reinforcing its support for "democracy" worldwide.

🇦🇲 Armenia

◻️ USAID will increase its support for Armenia from $120 million to $250 million, an Armenian government statement said. The expanded agreement will include "grants in key areas such as governance, cybersecurity, food and energy security, regional cooperation, democratic processes and inclusive economic development."

◻️ Power visited Armenia in July and praised the "deepening relationship" between Washington and Yerevan.

◻️ US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O'Brien said that same month that the US was considering creating a new land route from Central Asia to Europe through Armenia, bypassing Russia and China.

🇷🇸 Serbia

◻️ USAID has announced a 20-point program for Serbia at a cost of $141 million. According to the document, USAID and Serbia are now working on two new projects "with a life-of-project valued at $10 million."

◻️ The US programs in the Balkan state are aimed at "supporting reforms needed for Serbia's European Union accession", reducing "vulnerabilities to Russian pressure" and "establishing a level playing field for US economic interests."

◻️ The US has repeatedly been accused of using its agencies, including USAID, to fund "color revolutions" overseas.

◻️ In May and August 2024, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic revealed that intelligence services in eastern countries, including Russia, had warned him of attempts at a "color revolution" in Serbia as Belgrade continues to resist joining anti-Russian sanctions.

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US long-range missile threats once again show the West is “at war with Russia” – Larry Johnson

“Biden has shifted every single position that he said was a red line, so I don't see why he's not going to violate this one as well,” retired CIA analyst and counterterrorism expert Larry Johnson told Sputnik, commenting on President Biden’s hint to media Tuesday that Washington was “working out” whether or not to allow Ukraine to use its US-made long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia.

Biden administration “can’t afford a defeat” in Ukraine before the November vote, and thinks that if it takes the “incredibly dangerous and foolish” step of just okaying the missiles’ delivery and use, that will somehow help Ukraine, Johnson believes.

“I appreciate President Putin's desire to show restraint and keep this as a special military operation. But the West is at war with Russia, and I don't think people are getting their brains around that. We keep dancing around the edges pretending that this is not going to happen. It's going to happen. And it's not going to change the military situation as far as what Ukraine is facing. Ukraine is facing defeat. They will be defeated. But it gets more to the point that the West, instead of seeking a peaceful way out and talking to Russia, is preferring confrontation,” Johnson warned.

Another question is whether Ukraine even has the relevant long-range missiles left, and whether the US is in a state to supply them, according to the observer.

“Because if the United States moves to supply a missile that's frankly bigger than the ATACMS or if they offer up an ATACMS or a JASSM that has an extended range capability, then I think it's going to raise the real possibility that the logistics hubs that are outside of Ukraine that are being used to provide these missiles could become targets. Which then is this is going to expand the war,” Johnson added.

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Presidential debate ‘kabuki theater’ signals key differences between candidates on Ukraine crisis – Larry Johnson

Tuesday night’s ABC presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris was a “very well constructed” Japanese-style “kabuki theater,” highly stylized and ritualized and filled with drivel, but nevertheless highlighting the two candidates’ radically different attitude toward the foreign policy question of our time – the conflict in Ukraine, former CIA and State Department analyst Larry Johnson told Sputnik.

“With respect to this talk about Ukraine and Russia, the Kamala Harris approach is the Hillary Clinton approach from 2016, that Donald Trump ‘is a tool of Russia’, [that] ‘he's a surrender monkey’, [that] ‘he's going to give Vladimir Putin whatever he wants’. And Kamala Harris and the Democrats are ‘going to fight the Russians tooth and nail.’ It just underscores that there is no room in the United States right now for an opposition politician to make the case that we need to talk to Russia, that we need to deal with Russia as adults and have mutual respect,” Johnson said.

“The only possible change in policy is if Trump is elected and there will be an effort to stop the war. If it's the Democrats, then the war will continue. Well, it continues for one good reason - it's making people a lot of money. If you look at the stock prices of Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, they've doubled and tripled in some cases since the start of the special military operation. So we're talking literally billions, tens of billions of dollars that are being made,” the observer lamented.

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‘Most lethal fighting force in the world?’ Kamala Harris’ funniest ‘joke’ at presidential debate

Speaking at Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Harris claimed military leaders consider Donald Trump “a disgrace,” that Washington’s NATO allies “are so thankful that [he is] no longer president,” and “understand the importance of the greatest military alliance the world has ever known, which is NATO.”

Harris has some authority to speak about “disgraces” affecting the military, given what’s happened to it under her and President Biden’s watch.

◻️ In August 2021, the 20-year NATO-led occupation of Afghanistan and attempts to build a functioning government and security force ended in epic failure, with the Taliban storming across the nation’s major cities and smashing its NATO-trained army in just ten days. The operation, unlike anything seen since the 1975 fall of Saigon, happened so fast that NATO troops, and up to $85 billion in equipment, were still in the country when Kabul fell.

◻️ In late 2023, the US announced the creation of a new ‘coalition of the willing’ – this time to fight the Houthis blockading the Red Sea in solidarity with Gaza. Deploying warships, aircraft and advanced missile systems to tackle the militia, the Pentagon has proven unable to ‘degrade’ the Houthis militarily, or even weaken their grip on the Red Sea after nine months of patrols and attacks. Meanwhile, the Houthis have taken down scores of American drones, prompting Western media to ask “where’s our $1 trillion US military?” and ponder whether the US Goliath has been “defeated” by the Yemeni fighters.

◻️ The US military has also faced some surprise setbacks in its extraterritorial deployments under Biden and Harris’s watch, with Niger and Chad kicking US troops out this spring, robbing the Pentagon of its largest presence in the Sahel as nations seek to escape the neo-colonialism of Western powers.

◻️ Despite budgets that balloon year after year, bean counters in Washington have spent years complaining about skyrocketing equipment procurement and development costs, and shortages of munitions owing to a string of US-sponsored wars and potential hotspots around the world – from Ukraine and Israel to Taiwan. According to a Congressional Budget Office from late 2023, the Pentagon’s procurement costs alone are expected to hit $178 billion in 2026.

◻️ The US military is also suffering its worst recruitment crisis in modern history, with the Army alone short nearly 50,000 troops, the Navy missing enlistment goals by over 7,400 sailors, and other branches suffering shortages thanks to a perfect storm of factors, including: health issues barring young Americans from joining, new generations’ rejection of service as a patriotic duty thanks to decades of US aggression abroad, DEI and identity policies madness, mandatory jabs, dizzying bureaucracy and a top-heavy command structure.

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◻️ Fact check: what unverified claims Trump and Harris made during their first debate?

◻️ Presidential debate signals key differences between candidates on Ukraine crisis – Larry Johnson

◻️ How has Western rhetoric on Ukraine changed amid Russian advance going full throttle?

◻️ The US is ‘working out’ whether to allow Ukraine hit targets deep inside Russia: what are the weapons in play?

◻️ What did Putin say when he became the first foreign leader to express his condolences to Bush Jr. over the 9/11 attacks?

◻️ Russia may restrict export of strategic materials – what are they?

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❗️UK has allowed Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles against targets on Russian territory, the Guardian reported, citing sources in the government.

"British government sources indicated that a decision had already been made to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow cruise missiles on targets inside Russia," the report said.

At the end of May, President Vladimir Putin noted that NATO countries should be aware of “what they are playing with” by allowing Kiev to strike targets deep inside Russian territory with missile systems handed over to Ukraine by the West.

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🔝 TOP unforgettable Trump-Harris debate gaffes 🤩

Don’t miss out on last night's showdown.

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📹 New world record

8100 drones flying at the same time in Shenzhen, China

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📹 Fast and Furious: Egging on Danger with the Rostov Drift

A stuntman from Russia's Rostov-on-Don slides under a moving semi-trailer truck on a scooter.

Don’t try this! Risk of serious injury or death

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'They poisoned our land, water, and air': Serbs hold NATO responsible for depleted uranium pollution

"NATO must pay compensation,” Serbian lawyer Srdjan Aleksic told Sputnik. “By bombing Serbia and the Republic of Srpska with depleted uranium (DU) shells, despite knowing DU's long-term effects—such as its half-life of 4.5 billion years—the alliance poisoned our land, water, and air. Depleted uranium entered the food chain."

The North Atlantic Alliance deployed DU weapons during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in 1995, and then again during the aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999.

In September 1995, NATO forces had fired off 4.5 tons of DU penetrators in the territory of BiH, according to the Commission of Inquiry into the Consequences of the Use of Depleted Uranium.

The Serbian Ministry of Defense said the Western military bloc dropped 15 tons of DU munitions on Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999.

Aleksic follows in the footsteps of his Italian counterpart, Angelo Tartaglia, who won more than 300 cases for Italian soldiers who served in the NATO KFOR mission in Kosovo and later fell ill or died of cancer.

"Currently, 35 lawsuits against NATO have been filed in courts in Belgrade, Nis and other cities in Serbia,” Aleksic said. “50 biopsy results of Serbian military and police officers who served in Kosovo and were diagnosed with cancer have been sent to Italian laboratories."

Aleksic called on residents of the Republic of Srpska (part of BiH) suffering from cancer to establish a causal link between their condition and the bombing with depleted uranium shells.

"The biopsy results show the presence of heavy metals and depleted uranium, which is 100 percent proof that we are right," he stressed.

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Six UNRWA employees killed in airstrikes on school in Gaza - organization

Six employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) were killed in two airstrikes on a school and its surroundings in the Nuseirat Camp in the Gaza Strip, UNRWA said in a statement on social media.

"No one is safe in Gaza. No one is spared," the agency said, expressing its sorrow.

"Schools and other civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times, they are not a target," UNRWA emphasized, urging all parties to avoid using schools for military or fighting purposes.

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📹 Video of "spectacular save" by Iran national team defender goes viral on Iranian social media

After the match between Iran and UAE ended one-nil, fans of the losing team started throwing objects at their players.

Iranian defender Ali Ghalizadeh blocked one of the bottles flying from the stands, preventing it from hitting an Emirati player.

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🇰🇵 North Korea has launched an unidentified ballistic missile towards the Sea of ​​Japan, the Yonhap news agency reported

At the same time, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported that the ballistic missile presumably fell outside Japan's exclusive economic zone.

In July, the Voice of Korea broadcaster reported that North Korea carried out a successful test-launch of a new type of tactical ballistic missile, Hwasongpho-11Da-4.5.

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