Russia Strips Citizenship Over ‘Disinformation About Army’ For First Time
A man convicted last summer of knowingly spreading disinformation about the Russia’s army has had his Russian citizenship rescinded, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday.
This marks the first time Russian nationality has been revoked for spreading statements considered to be false about the armed forces.
Moldova-born Aleksander Somryakov was sentenced to six years in prison in July 2023 for spreading disinformation about the Russian army’s actions in Ukraine after he published ”a message on his social network page that was unreliable and refuted by official sources of information.”
Since Russia began military action in Ukraine in February 2022, there have been numerous convictions for seeking to undermine the Russian armed forces by accusing them of actions in Ukraine for which there is no evidence.
In November the same year, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed canceling citizenship for spreading fake news about the Russian army.
Read more Russia to toughen law on anti-military ‘fakes’
In 2023, the law about the citizenship of the Russian Federation came into effect, allowing courts to withdraw naturalized citizenship from people found guilty of crimes that put personal or public safety at risk. People with Russian nationality at birth are not affected.
In court, Somryakov partially admitted his guilt when he professed he knew the information was false, but he wanted to ”expose it to public judgment,” in the hopes of gaining followers, likes and comments. He was deprived of his acquired Russian passport, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday, citing a source in the judicial system.
The law also says that knowingly spreading fake information about Russia’s use of its armed forces is punishable by a fine up to five million rubles ($54,000), or – if the act ”has led to severe consequences” – punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
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UK Troops Won’t ‘Fight Side by Side’ With Ukrainians – London
London has no plans to send troops to fight Russia alongside Ukrainian soldiers, a UK government spokesman told TASS news agency on Wednesday.
The comment came after French President Emmanuel Macron said he would not rule out an eventual presence of NATO troops on Ukrainian soil, as the conflict between Kiev and Moscow continues.
The French leader initially floated the idea in late February and later doubled down, describing Russia as an “adversary.” He denied that Paris was “waging a war”against Moscow, however.
Following Macron’s statements, Le Monde reported that France had been contemplating the idea of deploying troops since at least June 2023.
The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, said on Tuesday that Paris is preparing to send around 2,000 soldiers to Ukraine.
London has no such plans, a spokesman for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office told TASS. British soldiers will not “fight side by side” with Ukrainians, the official stated, adding that the government has ruled out a “full-blown military deployment.”
Read more West poses no threat to Russia – UK defense chief
The UK government told reporters last month that it would not send additional troops “beyond the small number of personnel we do have in the country supporting the armed forces of Ukraine.”
Commenting on a potential NATO deployment to Ukraine earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that this would be “one step shy of a full-scale World War III.”
NATO member states have also said they have no plans to send troops to Ukraine. The US-led bloc has maintained that it does not wish to become a party to the conflict, but will continue to support Kiev with arms and money for “as long as it takes.”
READ MORE: France considering Ukraine military deployment – Odessa MP
Russia has warned that the delivery of Western weapons already makes NATO countries de facto participants in the conflict and risks further escalation. Putin said last month that Moscow has no intention of attacking NATO members, unless it is attacked first.
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VIDEO: Ron Paul Warned Ukraine Could Trigger WWIII 10 Years Ago
On his Wednesday show, Alex Jones broke down how former Congressman Ron Paul has been warning that Western intervention in Ukraine could lead to world war for the last decade.
“We’ve already spent $5 billion over the last 10 years trying to pick and choose the leadership of Ukraine and then we participated in the overthrow of the Yanukovych government,” Paul said 10 years ago.
Recently, Paul appeared on the Tucker Carlson show to cover the current situation in Ukraine which has only gotten more dire.
“Folks it’s not hype to say we’re in the greatest danger of nuclear war we’ve ever been,” Jones said. “This has to stop now.”
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Macron Sending Troops to Ukraine ‘Like a Poodle Urinating on Odessa’
Russian Foreign Intelligence Chief Sergey Naryshkin said on Tuesday that thousands of French troops are being prepared for deployment in the Odessa region of Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to put around 2,000 troops in Odessa would only serve as a “human tripwire force” and would be “the equivalent of NATO, like a dog, urinating on Odessa, marking it as NATO’s territory,” Mark Sleboda, an international relations and security expert, told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Wednesday. He added that in this analogy, France is like “a poodle.”
On Tuesday, French ground army chief of staff General Pierre Schill said in an op-ed that his forces are ready to respond to “the toughest engagements” and said the country could engage a division of 20,000 troops within 30 days.
“He’s wrong. The French army is most certainly not ready for this,” Sleboda said, commenting on the general’s assertion. “If they were engaged in a high-intensity conflict such as the Kiev regime is engaged in, firing many less artillery shells than Russia, then France would have enough artillery shells for four days of conflict with Russia. Four days,” Sleboda explained.
By comparison, Russia has more than 600,000 troops deployed in the special operation zone, according to both Russian and Western analyses. “There is a likelihood that the French believe that Russia will not fire on these French troops, [because] they are under uniform, out of fear of striking a NATO member, even though of course, NATO’s Article Five would not apply,” Sleboda explained.
Sleboda added that he believes Macron thinks that if French troops are killed by Russia, then that will create more support for the conflict domestically and “help politically mobilize” other European countries to join the fight.
“I think if Macron sent his troops to Odessa, obviously not a force that could be able to engage Russia in a slugfest on the battlefield, but as kind of a human tripwire force. It would be the equivalent of NATO, like a dog, urinating on Odessa, marking it as NATO’s territory,” Sleboda said.
“Of course, with NATO troops officially in uniform dying in Ukraine, that would take us to a whole other level,” he warned.
Sleboda predicted that there will be a “very big information warfare game, the targets of which will be the French people,” and other NATO member states, noting that Finland, the Czech Republic, the Baltics and Canada “have all already suggested that they might” join the French.
Co-host Wilmer Leon asked if Macron could seriously believe a “behind whopping isn’t on the horizon,” Sleboda responded by describing NATO’s “salami-slicing tactics” of incrementalism.
“We now have NATO leaders openly admitting, ‘yeah, we’ve got troops all over Ukraine. They’ve been heavily involved in all operations of combat,’”he said, citing a Spanish newspaper. “Russia has still not taken any retaliatory actions against NATO outside of Ukraine, outside of the parameters of the proxy war. So, I think this is one more escalation they believe they can get through [using] incrementalism.”
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Putin Won’t Be Allowed to ‘Dictate Peace Terms’ in Ukraine – Germany
Germany will not let Russian President Vladimir Putin forcibly alter Ukraine’s borders or impose the terms of peace, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has vowed.
Speaking to lawmakers in Berlin on Wednesday, Scholz insisted Germany “will not accept a dictated peace at the expense of Ukraine.”
“Law is stronger than violence,” the chancellor said, claiming that Putin had sought to violate that principle with the launch of Russia’s military operation against Ukraine in February 2022. “We will not let him get away with this,” he added.
Scholz insisted that Germany’s backing of Ukraine will not decrease, and that expecting otherwise would be a “miscalculation.”
He reiterated his criticism of Putin’s reelection last weekend for a fifth term as president, saying it showed that “Russia is not strong.”
However, as EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell acknowledged in an interview on Wednesday, European allies will be hard-pressed to fill the funding gap if Kiev’s biggest backer, Washington, reduces its support. US President Joe Biden’s administration ran out of funding for Ukraine in January and has struggled to secure congressional approval for over $60 billion in additional military and financial aid.
Read more EU’s Borrell warns of Ukraine funding vacuum if US stops spending
Scholz made his comments ahead of an EU summit scheduled to begin on Thursday in Brussels. Major topics of discussion will include efforts to ramp up aid to Ukraine, as well as the bloc’s response to the Israel-Hamas war. Russian forces have made battlefield gains in recent weeks, and US defense chief Lloyd Austin warned on Tuesday that Ukraine’s very survival will be at risk if the West fails to provide more weapons to Kiev.
Even as he lobbies allies for more Ukraine aid, Scholz has resisted political pressure to provide Kiev with long-range Taurus missiles, saying that such an escalation could draw Germany into a direct conflict with Russia. Speaking at the Bundestag on Wednesday, he told lawmakers that debate within Germany over the Taurus issue is “nothing short of ridiculous.” He added that the controversy isn’t well understood outside of Germany, describing it as “embarrassing for us as a country.”
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