L’Europa ha già conosciuto questa strada, nell’estate del 1914. Sarebbe imperdonabile percorrerla di nuovo, stavolta con le testate nucleari in fondo.

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Tutto è pronto a esplodere

A Copenaghen, davanti ai capi di stato maggiore dei trentadue Paesi dell’Alleanza atlantica, l’ammiraglio Giuseppe Cavo Dragone ha scelto le parole con cui presentarsi all’opinione pubblica europea. Presidente del Comitato militare della NATO dal gennaio 2025, ha annunciato che l’Alleanza dispone di «4.000 pagine di piani» per il fianco orientale, che quei piani coprono ogni scenario «da una crisi minima o un intervento sul nostro territorio all’attivazione dell’articolo 5 e alle successive azioni», e che «il personale militare, i sistemi e le armi sono pronti». Poi la chiusa: in caso di attacco, i russi «hanno molto più da perdere che da guadagnare. Questo è assolutamente certo. Ed è questo che costituisce la deterrenza».

Nelle intenzioni dell’ammiraglio doveva essere un messaggio rassicurante. Letto con attenzione, è una delle dichiarazioni più imprudenti pronunciate da un vertice militare europeo dalla fine della Guerra fredda. Vale la pena smontarla pezzo per pezzo.

Le parole di Copenaghen non cadono nel vuoto. Poche ore prima il premier polacco Donald Tusk aveva previsto che Mosca potrebbe lanciare droni o missili sul territorio di un Paese NATO «nei prossimi mesi», per dimostrare che l’articolo 5 è una promessa di carta; Parigi, intanto, preparava un piano contro gli attacchi con droni. In un’atmosfera del genere, il compito di un militare di rango sarebbe raffreddare, distinguere l’ipotesi dal fatto, ricordare ai governi che la guerra tra potenze nucleari non è uno scenario da pianificare ma da impedire. L’ammiraglio ha fatto l’opposto: ha aggiunto combustibile.

E non è la prima volta. Nel dicembre 2025, in un’intervista al Financial Times, lo stesso Cavo Dragone spiegava che l’Alleanza stava valutando di diventare «più aggressiva» contro la guerra ibrida russa, che un «attacco preventivo» poteva essere considerato un’«azione difensiva» e che essere più aggressivi della controparte «potrebbe essere un’opzione». Mosca, per bocca di Marija Zacharova, parlò di un passo irresponsabile verso l’escalation, arrivato mentre si negoziava sull’Ucraina. Dieci mesi dopo il registro non è cambiato. Si è solo fatto più esplicito: prima l’ipotesi dell’attacco preventivo, ora l’inventario delle armi pronte.

La deterrenza non si fa con i proclami

L’ammiraglio chiama tutto questo «deterrenza». Ma la teoria della deterrenza, quella seria, dice altro. Thomas Schelling ha spiegato che la deterrenza è un atto di comunicazione in cui la credibilità conta quanto la forza, e che la minaccia efficace lascia sempre all’avversario una via d’uscita. Nel dilemma della sicurezza, ciò che una parte vive come difesa venga letto dall’altra come preparazione all’offesa. Quattromila pagine che arrivano fino alle «azioni successive» all’articolo 5 sono, viste da Mosca, piani di guerra contro la Russia. Nessun analista del Cremlino le leggerà in altro modo, e nessuno dovrebbe stupirsene.

C’è poi una questione di ruolo. Il presidente del Comitato militare è il principale consigliere militare del Segretario generale e del Consiglio Nord Atlantico: non decide la politica dell’Alleanza, la serve. Quando un ufficiale di questo livello usa la tribuna pubblica per lanciare avvertimenti a una potenza straniera, invade uno spazio che appartiene ai governi e ai parlamenti, cioè a chi risponde ai cittadini. In una democrazia la decisione sulla guerra non spetta alle stellette. Oppure dobbiamo intendere che è la NATO, tramite Cavo Dragone, a provocare lo scoppio di una guerra, invocandola a più non posso?

E soprattutto c’è l’arma nucleare. Dal novembre 2024 la dottrina russa considera l’aggressione di uno Stato non nucleare, condotta con la partecipazione o il sostegno di una potenza nucleare, come un attacco congiunto, e abbassa la soglia per l’impiego dell’atomica. Si può giudicare quella dottrina come si vuole. Ignorarla è impossibile. Chi parla di «azioni successive» all’articolo 5 contro un Paese che ha scritto nero su bianco queste regole sta parlando, che lo voglia o no, di guerra nucleare.

Tutta la costruzione retorica di Copenaghen poggia su una premessa mai dimostrata: che la Russia si prepari ad attaccare l’Alleanza. Gli indizi citati sono violazioni dello spazio aereo, sabotaggi, rapporti d’intelligence che parlano di un attacco «nei prossimi anni». Il Cremlino ha smentito piani del genere, e la smentita da sola non prova nulla. Ma la logica strategica sì. Mosca è impegnata in Ucraina da oltre quattro anni e mezzo; un’aggressione diretta contro un membro NATO la porterebbe contro gli arsenali di Stati Uniti, Regno Unito e Francia, senza alcun guadagno proporzionato al rischio. Che una simile scelta sia altamente improbabile lo capisce chiunque ragioni in termini di costi e benefici, a Mosca come a Bruxelles.

Perché allora insistere sull’imminenza della minaccia? Una risposta, difficile da scartare, sta nei bilanci. Al vertice dell’Aia del giugno 2025 gli alleati si sono impegnati a portare la spesa per la difesa al 5% del PIL entro il 2035. Un obiettivo del genere si giustifica davanti agli elettori solo con un nemico alle porte. La paura è diventata una voce di bilancio.

Resta l’altra metà del problema, la più grave. Se un attacco russo alla NATO è improbabile, una guerra della NATO contro la Russia è impensabile. La Federazione Russa possiede, secondo le stime della Federation of American Scientists, il più ampio arsenale nucleare del pianeta. Non esiste una vittoria militare contro una potenza di questo tipo: esiste solo la distruzione reciproca, e la sua geografia è già scritta. Si combatterebbe qui.

Ammiraglio, ci dia qualche spiegazione

Ammiraglio, adesso si calmi, si pulisca la bava che le è uscita dalla bocca, e ci spieghi esattamente cosa abbiamo noi da perdere da un confronto con la Russia. Lei ha misurato con certezza assoluta le perdite altrui. Le nostre non le ha nominate.

Proviamo a farlo noi. L’Italia ospita basi che le fonti aperte indicano da anni come depositi di armi nucleari statunitensi, ad Aviano e a Ghedi; ospita Sigonella, il comando alleato di Napoli, porti e infrastrutture che in qualunque pianificazione avversaria sono bersagli di prima fila. La Polonia, i Baltici, la Germania sono il teatro stesso delle «4.000 pagine». Gli Stati Uniti hanno un oceano di mezzo. L’Europa ha le sue città, le sue fabbriche, i suoi figli. In una guerra con la Russia l’Europa non è un attore: è il campo di battaglia.

E allora la seconda domanda, quella che nessun comunicato di Copenaghen affronta. Cosa otterremmo da un confronto nucleare combattuto sul nostro territorio, per l’esattezza? Quale obiettivo politico, quale interesse nazionale italiano, quale principio europeo varrebbe Milano, Monaco, Varsavia? La risposta onesta è una sola: niente. Una guerra che non si può vincere non è una politica. È un suicidio con un piano operativo allegato.

In 77 anni di storia, che l’ammiraglio rivendica, l’Alleanza ha prodotto piani per ogni contingenza. Mancano altre pagine, quelle che l’Europa dovrebbe pretendere dai propri governi: un’architettura di sicurezza continentale che includa anche la Russia, misure di fiducia reciproca, canali militari di comunicazione permanenti, trattati sul controllo degli armamenti da ricostruire dopo che quasi tutti sono stati lasciati decadere. Nel 1975, con l’Atto finale di Helsinki, due blocchi armati fino ai denti seppero sedersi allo stesso tavolo. Non era debolezza. Era la consapevolezza che la sopravvivenza del continente valeva più di qualunque vantaggio tattico.

Oggi quella consapevolezza sembra scomparsa proprio da chi, per mestiere, dovrebbe conoscere meglio di tutti il prezzo della guerra. Quando i generali parlano come ultimatum e i governi tacciono, il rischio non è che la guerra venga dichiarata. È che arrivi da sola, per inerzia, trascinata da parole che nessuno ha avuto il coraggio di ritirare.

L’Europa ha già conosciuto questa strada, nell’estate del 1914. Sarebbe imperdonabile percorrerla di nuovo, stavolta con le testate nucleari in fondo.

By Kit KLARENBERG

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Private messages show show Hamish De Bretton-Gordon, a top British pundit on the Salisbury poisoning incident, was a close associate of the MI6 officer who handled the Russian intelligence defector at the center of the scandal — and reaped considerable benefits from his proximity to the case.

This September, a former British Army officer named Hamish De Bretton-Gordon filed a column with the UK Telegraph complaining that “Russian bots” had “tried to make out that I’m part of a security service conspiracy.” Having shot to prominence as a media commentator on chemical and biological weapons after the alleged poisoning of turncoat Russian spy Sergei Skripal, De Bretton-Gordon dismissed accusations that he collaborated with UK intelligence as the product of the “Kremlin’s malign tactics.”

Despite his fervent denials, leaked emails reviewed by The Grayzone indicate that De Bretton-Gordon has spent years privately coordinating his public statements with senior British military and intelligence figures. The correspondences show him training operatives in Turkey and instructing Israeli military figures on Syria’s still-elusive stockpile of chemical weapons, “and a bit of Novichok,” referring to the Russian toxin supposedly used to poison Skripal.

They also suggest he stood to profit personally from exaggerating the threat posed by Russia. In the emails, De Bretton-Gordon described his day job as “flogging gas masks” to British military and law enforcement. He seemingly grew his firm’s business with outlandish warnings of imminent Novichok hand grenade attacks by Russian agents. As his prominence grew, the BBC hired De Bretton-Gordon to serve as an advisor on a drama about the Skripal poisoning.

His principal contact listed in the emails is Pablo Miller, an MI6 officer and veteran of the Royal Tank Regiment. Miller is widely believed to have recruited and handled Skripal before the Russian GRU defector was allegedly poisoned in Salisbury, England in March 2018 under questionable circumstances.

After the Salisbury incident, the British government issued a D-notice to prevent mainstream reporters from investigating Miller’s relationship with Skripal. Despite being an obvious subject of interest, Miller went completely unmentioned during the rolling coverage that dominated British media for months as a result.

The emails show Miller was nonetheless following that coverage closely. In June 2018, he wrote to De Bretton-Gordon thanking him for his “sterling media work” during what he called the “dark days of March and April.” During that period De Bretton-Gordon appeared in British newspapers and television reports on the poisoning on a near-daily basis, consistently attributing blame to the Kremlin without evidence and emphasizing the chemical weapons threat he claimed Russia posed.

The next month, De Bretton-Gordon sent his MI6 pal a lengthy Telegraph article warning of potential all-out chemical and biological wars with “rogue” states. De Bretton-Gordon’s commentary featured extensively in the piece, which framed Britain as a sitting duck in the event that Moscow were to target the country with missiles equipped with nerve agents or other toxic weapons.

When not hyping up De Bretton-Gordon’s apocalyptic warnings of potential Russian chemical weapons attacks, the article functioned as a long-form infomercial for his then-employer, Avon Protection Systems. The firm, which manufactures protective equipment for military, law enforcement and fire personnel, stood to profit handsomely from inflated perceptions of what governments call Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) threats. De Bretton-Gordon’s email signature at the time identified him as the company’s Managing Director for CBRN.

De Bretton-Gordon’s big break

The Telegraph noted the company’s business was “booming,” with orders “flooding in” from government clients the world over, supposedly reflecting how “a new age of poison weapons is upon us.” Later in the piece, an Avon executive boasted that the Salisbury incident and other recent alleged CBRN usage had “been good for us.” Britain’s elite SAS were among the cited customers for the “sinister looking” gas masks sold by Avon Protection Systems, which were said to be “worthy of Darth Vader.”

At no point did the Telegraph article mention De Bretton-Gordon’s employment by Avon.

But thanks to his newfound media prominence, De Bretton-Gordon wouldn’t have to stay with the company much longer. In January 2020, he emailed Pablo Miller bragging that he had “been offered a fellowship” at Cambridge University. De Bretton-Gordon wrote that he’d decided to accept the role because, in his words, “it beats flogging gas masks!”

Four months later, De Bretton-Gordon founded a dedicated personal “CBRN and bio security” consulting firm, in an apparent attempt to derive profit from his talent for stoking public fears of looming chemical and biological catastrophe.

De Bretton-Gordon helps MI6 officer avoid media scrutiny

The leaked emails show De Bretton-Gordon quickly emerged as a preferred adviser for the BBC, and repeatedly served as a go-between for Miller and the British broadcaster, whose journalists had apparently become aware that Miller was an MI6 officer.

Correspondence from November 2018 shows De Bretton-Gordon was also rewarded for his relentless media appearances with a position as a “senior CBRN mentor” in Britain’s Ministry of Defence. Though the work was unpaid, he received an MOD ID card and Ministry railcard, saving him substantial sums on train travel. De Bretton-Gordon wrote Miller to inform him of his new title, noting that he was currently advising the BBC on what he derided as “CBRN ‘pisch’” for a forthcoming “drama on Salisbury.”

“I’ve been asked by the writer if you would be interested in contributing,” he mentioned to Miller, adding that he’d told the British broadcasters that the spy was unlikely to agree. The MI6 veteran responded, “you correctly guessed my answer to the BBC question… it would not be appropriate for me to comment in public on the issue.”

Miller lamented that the British state broadcaster’s cognizance of his clandestine involvement with Skripal indicated his “true professional provenance” had “long ceased to be much of a secret.” But he wished De Bretton-Gordon good luck, telling his colleague that he was sure the drama would succeed given his “expert guidance.”

The next January, De Bretton-Gordon explicitly described Skripal as Miller’s friend when forwarding him a Forces News article on the removal of the roof of the Russian defector’s former home, excitedly informing him, “I see your mate is in the news again!”

De Bretton-Gordon was quoted liberally in the report, explaining it was necessary to remove the roof as it had allegedly accumulated “enough Novichok to kill thousands of people.” The chemical warrior claimed British authorities were now “much better prepared to deal” with future CBRN attacks in the aftermath of the incident.

Weeks later, De Bretton-Gordon emailed Miller to warn him Salisbury “will be awash with journos” on the March 4 anniversary of Skripal’s poisoning. In response, Miller thanked his friend for the “heads-up,” and wrote that he’d likely be leaving the country to ensure he was far away from the city while it filled up with reporters.

The correspondence also reveals how close the two men had become, and how their relationship had begun to blur into commercial territory. In October 2019, Miller asked De Bretton-Gordon to help publicize a Kickstarter for his daughter’s theatre production — a personal favor suggesting a friendship rather than a purely professional engagement. But Miller refused to let media contacts anywhere near it, explaining that following the Salisbury incident his daughters were forced to close their social media accounts after being relentlessly hounded by the press.

During the same exchange, De Bretton-Gordon reminded Miller he’d been contracted for an upcoming BBC drama on Salisbury, and once again offered him a role. Miller declined, saying he was firmly opposed to playing “any part for any BBC show. Ever.” De Bretton-Gordon defended his participation in the project by revealing that the MOD had specifically requested he “help on the Salisbury piece… to make sure the military bit looks right.”

The production in question was a three-part BBC One series that aired in 2020 called “The Salisbury Poisonings.” The project’s IMDB page lists De Bretton-Gordon as a “military advisor.”

De Bretton-Gordon wants critics “prosecuted for treason”

As The Grayzone previously revealed, De Bretton-Gordon played a deeply malign, multifaceted role throughout the Syrian dirty war. On top of endless media appearances as a bogus “expert” on CBRN matters, he was part of a covert MI6 effort to smuggle soil samples out of opposition-controlled areas in an effort to prove the Syrian government used chemical weapons. A report on this initiative in the Mirror tabloid made clear the purpose of British intelligence was prodding the US into military intervention against Assad.

It seems plausible whatever samples De Bretton-Gordon gathered in Syria were concocted, perhaps by his own hand. He provided evidence to a number of official investigations into purported chemical attacks during the conflict. In at least one instance – an OPCW/UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) probe into an alleged April 2014 toxic gas strike in Talmenes – videos submitted by an opaque NGO De Bretton-Gordon founded called CBRN Taskforce were found to show clear signs of falsification.

De Bretton-Gordon’s communications with his spy buddy contain references to him visiting Turkey, “to do a bit of training.” The country was the central hub for MI6 and CIA operations during the dirty war on Syria. It is an open question whether his training sessions covered staging chemical weapons attacks, and if other states in the region were taught in this dark art.

 

The self-styled CBRN expert also bragged about sharing his purported expertise with the Israeli military. In an email sent in December of 2018 De Bretton-Gordon boasted to Miller that he’d just returned “from Israel,” where he said he’d been “briefing the IDF (and no doubt others!) on Syrian [chemical weapons] and a bit of Novichok.”

He was clearly impressed by the Israelis, crowing, “Those boys don’t mess about!”

De Bretton-Gordon’s work overseas was apparently taking a toll on his day job, however. In an email that month to Miller, he explained how he was “always on the edge of sacking with all my ‘extra’ activities.” These machinations also put him in conflict with Peter Ford, Britain’s ambassador to Syria from 2003 to 2006, who’d become an outspoken critic of the dirty war against Damascus.

After De Bretton-Gordon authored an op-ed for The Telegraph in May 2019 demanding the West intervene to prevent Syrian government forces from recapturing Syria’s Idlib, Ford issued a response nailing his failure to acknowledge that the province was at the time under the control of the MI6-supported Al Qaeda affiliate, Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham.

In response, De Bretton-Gordon emailed Miller a note deriding Ford as a “complete See You Next Tuesday” who parroted “Assad and Putin propaganda.” He called for Ford – and the members of a now-defunct collective of antiwar academics known as the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media – to be “prosecuted for treason.” De Bretton-Gordon seemed particularly piqued that the academic collective had poked holes in the narrative he’d spun about Syrian chemical attacks.

De Bretton-Gordon cheers as his enemies “exposed”

In August that year, De Bretton-Gordon contacted Miller to celebrate The Times publishing a hit piece on David Miller, a member of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media.

“Glad to see that some of Assad’s and Putin’s ‘useful idiots’ who try and give me a hard time are being exposed,” De Bretton-Gordon cheered, before suggesting “must get more of them out in the open.”

This prompted a wider discussion about the so-called “stooges” who publicly challenged established, MI6-approved media narratives on Syria and Russia.

For his part, Pablo Miller expressed disgust over a recent “fawning evaluation” of Putin’s 20 years in power by dissident journalist Mary Dejevsky. Miller derided Dejevsky as one of many media figures who foolishly believed “Putin was the answer to Russia’s woes,” and suggested without evidence that she was likely “taking Moscow gold.” Thankfully, he added, events “Crimea, Syria, and Salisbury” had managed to “wake the twits up.”

The slanted manner in which these events were framed in the media did indeed coincide with a perceptibly negative shift in public sentiment towards Russia throughout the West, helping make a world-threatening standoff with Moscow a fait accompli. At every step, De Bretton-Gordon and other intelligence-aligned commentators acted as military and intelligence propagandists, ensuring the media and popular culture was constantly deluged with paranoia over a multi-spectrum Russian “threat.” Those who question the narrative are denigrated as “useful idiots,” and much worse.

This August 6, De Bretton-Gordon based an entire op-ed for the Telegraph on a conversation he’d recently had with an unnamed “Western intelligence officer” of his acquaintance. Could that anonymous spy have been Pablo Miller?

The self-styled chemical warfare expert was clearly not keen to discuss his relationship with the MI6 man. De Bretton-Gordon immediately hung up the phone when I reached him and identified myself as a journalist.

Original article:  thegrayzone.com

CNN’s plague scare in Russia: “damn them if they do, damn them if they don’t.”

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

We are going to talk about various aspects of the supposed ‘plague outbreak’ in Russia but there is a greater tendency at hand when we look at the media interpretation of this event be it real, fake, or an enigma of sorts. If anyone is familiar with my work they would have heard me say something to the effect of “everything you know about Russia, written in English, is a lie” and I still believe this statement. When Western politicians declare that “Russia has the economic potential of Spain” or that “Russia is Nigeria with snow” or other such statements they are not lying in a direct and conscious way.

Based on all the data and information that they have ‘over there’ about Russia’s economy this view was logically ‘true’. If you crunch the numbers based on Western data then I guess Russia is just an enigmatic economy wrapped in mystery the size of a second-tier EU nation, but obviously this is not the case in reality. Russia is horribly draconian and repressive, because it is written all over the place that this is indeed the case. The calculations that Russia would immediately fold and that the ‘Ruble would be rubble’ after the Special Military Operation began were not fake, they were just based on false data. If you look at the West’s information about Russia, it would really seem that the nation’s economy stands only on oil prices, the population is waiting for a single spark to rise up against the tyrant, and that overall, the house of cards is just waiting to be blown over. But as the war years have proven, this has not been the case, but the initial calculations were ‘correct’ based on the data put into them.

Even the famous quote by Lenin that “a lie told often enough become true” ironically may not have ever been said by him, but this pseudo statement makes Russia look bad so the West keeps saying it. In Russia, because some people have been arrested for online activities since the start of the Special Military Operation, that would include organizing terrorism, this is “bad”, but the fact that there are 70 times more people behind bars in the UK for what they have said online doesn’t count, because that is different and has never once been considered by a British journalist. Arrests for statements and actions online only applies to those who are bad as proof that they are bad.

If Russia’s army is strong this is militarism, if Russia’s army is weak this is proof of corruption and ineptitude. If there are trials for corruption this is proof of the heavy-handed Putin regime taking out its enemies, and if there were not trails for corruption then it is proof of corruption and the totalitarian control of the regime. There is no possible win state for Russia in the Western press, even during the supposed media friendly treatment of Yeltsin in the good ole days, the entire establishment was an orgy of shadenfraude at the downfall of the USSR and humiliated state of 90s Russia.

To put things in very blunt terms: if something happens or is said to have happened related to Russia:

-If the Russian media goes along with it then that is proof that Russia is bad

-If the Russian media resists that is proof of a cover up for the evil deed that proves Russia is bad

– Ultimately, any action or inaction by Russia is bad and proof of its badness.

CNN’s take on this issue is stock Russophobia

And right on cue comes CNN to prop up this plague narrative that seems to be fake at its core. But we will talk about what is actually happening with this ‘outbreak’ a bit later, but for now let’s stick to the media side of things. Even in the title of the CNN article in question “Checklists, masks and mystery: What we know about the plague scare in Russia” you can already see the spin revving up.

“Russian authorities have sought to allay global worries over the death of a young woman who worked at a Siberian anti-plague laboratory. But moves to isolate her contacts and introduce new disease-control measures at local hospitals have raised concerns among people who fear they’re not being told the full story.”

In regards to the paragraph above, as you can see, the Russian side is bad because it has a different narrative and has the audacity to share it with the world. However, if the Russian media were to have been silent on this, it would also be bad as it would be proof of guilt via inaction. The fact that the Russian authorities are doing some actions to try to stop an outbreak is bad because these measures create fear or something, but at the very least this is good enough to use for condemnation. However, if the government took extreme measures this would be ‘draconian’ and if they took no measures this would be ‘horribly irresponsible’. So taking medium level measures is ‘fear inducing’ or something and of course this is bad and absolutely unacceptable.

“Ulyana Gavryunina, a 29-year-old blogger from Angarsk, a city in the Irkutsk region, told CNN she had to change maternity hospitals at 40 weeks pregnant after newly imposed quarantine restrictions meant her husband could no longer be with her during labor.”

So because the local government has limited facilities, sadly this woman had to give birth in less than ideal conditions. This is unfortunate for her and I am sure it was quite frustrating, but again CNN says the Russian authorities taking action is bad because it affected people negatively, yet if they did nothing it would also be just as bad. If the people had not been quarantined at that facility that would be ‘dangerous and irresponsible’ or something like that.

“Russia’s health watchdog said Wednesday said there is no epidemic risk following the woman’s death, and that it was winding down response. Rospotrebnadzor said medical monitoring has been completed for “over 90%” of contacts of the deceased lab worker, and no “dangerous” pathogens have been found. But unanswered questions remain.”

The expression “but unanswered questions remain” was used here to negate the opinion of the Russian government. If this paragraph were to have ended without these words, it would make the views of local authorities seem fully legitimate. When “questions remain” it hints at a conspiracy, that the official story does not match reality. Again, no matter what the Russian authorities would have publicly stated the response would have been bad because CNN sees them as the enemy. The enemy can do no right. And Russia’s actions are the actions of an enemy and thus they are universally negative to any proper journalist.

“According to its website, the Anti-Plague Institute employs around 95 researchers and is a major public health facility responsible for monitoring and preventing outbreaks of high-risk bacterial and viral infections across Siberia and Russia’s Far East.

The institute was established in 1934 to combat plague and continues to study the disease because Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes the plague, still circulates naturally in wildlife across parts of Siberia and neighboring regions.”

Shockingly, CNN did not label the research facility where Ms. Shipilova worked as a biolab or some other nefarious term. They actually ‘took their word for it’ and just relayed information from their website. This was both true and pleasant to read.

So what actually happened?

Now let’s discuss the actual situation with a potential plague and the mysterious death of the disease researcher who was working on fighting it. There is a video from an unnamed American woman living in Irkutsk (Channel name: American in the Motherland) about the entire situation that in less than 15 minutes breaks down the whole story with sources, facts, and video directly from the region. I will share the bullet points of her presented views for brevity. As you can see, just one citizen journalist yet again crushes the mainstream media point-by-point. The image below is from the video and shows the ‘brilliance’ of the international press and their hot takes on this issue.

The videos key points were:

• There are no mass lockdowns in Irkutsk or anywhere else in Russia, the only people who are quarantined had direct contact with the woman who died (Daria Shipilova) and their number is less than 200.
• Shipilova did not work at a military biolab, but a plague\disease research institute designed to fight diseases. It’s location and work was neither secret nor military.
• Shipilova was hospitalized outside of Irkutsk because at that location they had a facility designed to handle this type of disease outbreak from the Covid era, not as part of some conspiracy.
• There is no second other death from the same cause as Ms. Shipilova’s demise.
• Daria Shipilova’s cause of death was “pneumonia of an unknown origin”
• The ‘broken test tube’ narrative is a myth as it was thought up by some Russian blogger. When working with serious diseases they don’t just walk around an office-like environment with fragile test tubes. Russia does not operate by the same methodology as the Umbrella Corporation, flailing around with fragile vials of diseases willy-nilly.
• The Russian side found no evidence of an accident at the research facility.
• The researcher did not travel to Buryatia prior to her death. Thus, she did not get the disease from local marmots or other types of rodents.
• There have been no other cases of what killed Ms. Shipilova at the moment of writing this article or the creation of the video linked above.
• The plague is treatable as it is caused by bacteria that continues to exists around the world. A handful of people in the USA and other countries still contract it every year. Antibiotics are an effective countermeasure against it, thus this does not seem like cause for international panic.

Why did the plague pass on medieval Russia?

One thing that is important about to note about this issue, is that historically, although the Bubonic Plague did kill people outside of Western Europe, it only had devastating effects within it. Russians continue to be proud to this day of having a high level of cultural hygiene that dates back to medieval times. Dark Age Russians and others outside of the West seemed to ‘put two and two together’ about the necessity for regular bathing and washing one’s hands. This hygienic culture is believed to be the reason why Russia had such a massive population in the 1800s compared to others around them. Many in Russia believe that if it weren’t for massive mistakes like WWI, The Revolution, WWII, and the 90s they would have a current population halfway closer to something like China’s or India’s.

So from a Russian cultural standpoint this very much looks like another campaign of projection; a third of England died to the plague, only a handful in Russia did. Thus, the Black Death had really no cultural impact on Russia, and judging by writings from the 1800s, tuberculosis seems to have been a much more long-term nagging problem for this society that to this day still has relevance. There are anti-tuberculosis facilities all over Russia and one cannot immigrate to the country if they have signs of it. The whole ‘living with vermin’ thing was not a fact of life for medieval or modern Russians, that honor goes to the enlightened liberal West.

The Media is the disease.

We only looked at one particular written piece on this issue, but there are plenty of insane musings from the Western press that follow the “damn the Russians if they do, damn them if they don’t” formula. Headlines like this one from the Daily Mail are the perfect example:

“Trump offers Putin lifeline as Russia scrambles to contain deadly airborne plague after lab worker’s death”.

Again, if ‘Putin’ did nothing he would be bad, but he is doing something, thus he is ‘scrambling’ in a panicked way which is also bad. Trump offering him a ‘lifeline’ means that Putin has no choice to accept this help, whatever it may be or he is bad. But guess what? If he does accept the lifeline it surely means he is weak or something which means he is bad.

When you go back and really look at the historical representation of ‘Russian realities’ in English-language media you see this hysterical Nietzschian untermensch narrative manipulation in everything. Putin has been on the brink of being ousted since 2000 and the Russian economy has been on the verge of collapse since then too. Everything written about Russia in English in the West is a lie.

A proxy war against Russia is now spiralling into an all-out confrontation.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern discusses how the Western official news media have systematically promoted lies about the Bucha Massacre in Ukraine.

No Western official outlet has questioned the narrative purporting that Russia perpetrated a mass killing of civilians. Credible Russian information to the contrary is dismissed out of hand as Kremlin propaganda.

Ironically, it is Western media that are seen as the propagandists and the purveyors of Big Lies – if one cares to examine the record objectively.

The alleged Bucha atrocity involved the apparent execution of hundreds of civilians by Russian forces as they were withdrawing from Kiev and surrounding areas at the end of March 2022. European leaders ritualistically visit a memorial in Bucha and condemn Russian barbarity.

The political objective of those shocking Western media claims was to sabotage a potential peace deal with Moscow and to prolong the proxy war with the aim of NATO strategically defeating Russia. That culminated in nearly five years of war, millions of casualties, a failed NATO objective, and worse still, the danger of a general war in Europe going nuclear.

Ray McGovern points out that the timeline of the Bucha killings does not fit the Western media narrative. The corpses on the streets of Bucha appeared days after the Russian forces made their withdrawal to what was then the East of Ukraine.

Recently, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov presented new details at the United Nations that substantiate the claim that the Bucha killings were a false-flag propaganda stunt to smear Russia and to wreck any prospect of an early peace deal with Ukraine. A Russian-led investigation reveals that many of the alleged civilian victims whose names are inscribed on a memorial wall were identified as Ukrainian soldiers who had been killed in action and buried elsewhere.

The Russian report is entitled “Heirs of Goebbels: falsification of the events in Bucha and bloody staged performances of the Kiev regime.” (Western internet has suppressed links to the report, though it can be accessed from the Russian foreign ministry.)

As McGovern notes, not one major Western media outlet reported on Lavrov’s presentation at the United Nations and his delivery of the Russian investigation to UN Secretary-General António Guterres. McGovern believes the perpetrators were MI6, CIA, and the Kiev regime operatives.

This egregious example of Western media suppression of Russian information and perspective on the conflict in Ukraine is repeated over and over. Another example, as McGovern amply recounts, was the attempt by Moscow to engage the United States and European NATO partners in a security treaty in late 2021. Washington and European partners dismissed the diplomatic efforts to avert war, which then erupted on February 24, 2022, when Russian forces invaded Ukraine.

The Russian invasion was not unprovoked aggression, as Western media have dutifully asserted. It was a preemptive response to NATO covert aggression via the NeoNazi Kiev regime over seven years since the coup in 2014.

The Nord Stream gas pipeline sabotage is another case study of how Western media have systematically ignored the evidence implicating a NATO provocation and the background to the proxy war against Russia.

Official Western media are in the service of a political agenda and not the public interest. Their function is to prevent popular understanding of the real nature of the war in Ukraine, a proxy war against Russia that is now spiralling into an all-out confrontation.

We refer to the quote from Thomas Jefferson, the third U.S. president, who warned: “Our liberty [democracy] depends on freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

Ray McGovern laments that there has been a dreadful erosion of democracy and media independence over recent decades since the end of the Cold War and the rise of U.S. unilateralism.

However, on a positive note, he sees hopeful signs from the phenomenal growth in alternative media and independent information, generating more critical public awareness of government abuses of power. He believes that genuine democracy can survive and thrive – despite the official Western media whose power is waning as more people realize its insidious role in promoting criminal wars.

Ray McGovern worked as a CIA intelligence analyst for nearly 30 years under seven presidents, the first being John F Kennedy in 1963. On his retirement, he was awarded the Intelligence Commendation Medal. He handed back the medal in 2006 in protest over the CIA’s practice of systematic torture. He has repudiated the Agency as an enemy of democracy.

In a final note of breaking news, on November 18th this year, in his 87th year, this “proud Irish son” will be honored with the James Joyce Award conferred by University College Dublin, Ireland. The prize is bestowed by the students of UCD’s Historical and Literary Society for his independent thinking, intellectual courage, and distinguished contribution to public information and democratic society.

Stories on the color orange, the data center rush, a local hero, the AI labor takeover, and a boy dinner subreddit.

Fabio LUGANO

Segue nostro Telegram.

La chiusura dei mercati di Londra spinge 100 tonnellate di lingotti russi nei caveau di Hong Kong: Pechino accumula metallo prezioso, scarica i titoli di Stato USA e blinda lo yuan.

Un fiume di lingotti d’oro sta abbandonando le rotte tradizionali a velocità impressionante, dirigendosi verso i mercati delle materie prime orientali, come Hong Kong, invece che Londra e New York.

I numeri descrivono una vera e propria fuga strategica verso l’Asia. Solo nei primi sette mesi dell’anno in corso, la Russia ha scaricato a Hong Kong quasi 100 tonnellate di metallo giallo: un record assoluto, pari a quasi il triplo rispetto allo stesso periodo precedente.

Dal 2022 a oggi, gli operatori di Hong Kong hanno comprato oro russo per 276 miliardi di dollari locali, cioè circa 35 miliardi di dollari americani. È la prova tangibile che la guerra economica produce effetti opposti a quelli previsti nei palazzi occidentali.

Da dove arriva quest’oro e perché scappa a est

La Russia è il secondo produttore mondiale di oro dopo la Cina. Prima del conflitto in Ucraina, la quasi totalità dei suoi lingotti prendeva la strada di Londra, capitale indiscussa della custodia e della contrattazione aurea.

Con l’avvio delle ostilità nel 2022, Regno Unito e Stati Uniti hanno imposto il bando totale sui lingotti di Mosca. L’obiettivo dichiarato era soffocare le entrate del Cremlino. Il risultato pratico è stato un semplice cambio di indirizzo sulle bolle di spedizione.

Come ha fatto notare Debajit Saha, analista del London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), la reazione dei produttori russi è stata immediata. Trovando le porte sbarrate in Europa, hanno dirottato l’intera produzione verso Oriente, dove la fame di metallo fisico non è mai calata.

A facilitare questo travaso è intervenuta anche la crisi in Medio Oriente. Gli attriti logistici che hanno colpito Dubai hanno convinto i venditori a puntare dritti sull’estremo oriente cinese.

Il ruolo chiave di Hong Kong: perché proprio lì?

Ci si potrebbe chiedere per quale ragione i carichi non atterrino direttamente a Pechino o Shanghai. La risposta risiede nelle norme commerciali. La Cina continentale impone quote rigide all’ingresso di oro per controllare i movimenti valutari interni. Hong Kong, al contrario, gode di uno status di porto franco: nessuna restrizione doganale e nessun limite ai volumi. Quindi diventa una destinazione ottimale.

Inoltre, né Hong Kong né Pechino riconoscono le sanzioni decise dai paesi occidentali. La città funge quindi da perfetto filtro logistico e finanziario. Gli operatori cinesi acquistano i lingotti a Hong Kong, li stoccano nei moderni depositi locali e poi li trasferiscono con calma verso la terraferma. Vita Spivak, consulente della società britannica Gatehouse, ha riassunto il fenomeno senza mezzi termini: è il naturale accordo di convenienza tra Mosca, che offre risorse strategiche, e Pechino, che garantisce sostegno economico e liquidità.

Ecco il quadro numerico di questo passaggio storico:

Cosa cambia davvero per la Cina

A Pechino non si limitano a guardare il passaggio dei vagoni d’oro: stanno costruendo un’alternativa materiale al sistema basato sulla moneta americana. Le riserve ufficiali della Banca Popolare Cinese hanno superato le 2.360 tonnellate. IUn modo per cercare di stabilizzare il patrimonio della Banca Centrale senza dover dipendere dalle valute di altri paesi.

Questo cambio di rotta non è una coincidenza. Hippolyte Fofack, economista già ai vertici della Export-Import Bank of Africa e ricercatore alla Columbia University, ha chiarito che l’oro ha smesso di essere un mero strumento di investimento. È diventato un pilastro di sovranità monetaria.

Con un bilancio corazzato dal metallo fisico, la banca centrale cinese può sostenere accordi commerciali in yuan, lanciare obbligazioni denominate in valuta locale (i cosiddetti Panda e Dim Sum bond) e offrire un’alternativa a chi teme il blocco dei beni da parte di Washington.

Nel 2025 la Borsa dell’Oro di Shanghai ha persino inaugurato un maxi-caveau a Hong Kong. È il primo fuori dalla terraferma e serve a liquidare contratti con consegna materiale del metallo, bypassando del tutto il dollaro.

Il baricentro del mercato si sposta a Oriente

La supremazia storica dell’asse Londra-New York si sta sgretolando sotto la pressione dei fatti. L’analista Angelo Giuliano ha definito questa rete il “corridoio dell’oro” che salda i paesi emergenti e i membri dei BRICS. L’idea di fondo è semplice: nessun governo vuole più rischiare di vedere i propri averi congelati con un click oltreoceano.

Non a caso, anche banche centrali europee hanno iniziato a rimpatriare le proprie riserve custodite all’estero. In Asia, intanto, la richiesta non accenna a diminuire.

Sara Esshaimi, alla guida del team materie prime di Société Générale, ha rilevato come le autorità cinesi abbiano persino autorizzato i maggiori colossi assicurativi a investire fino all’1% dei loro patrimoni in oro fisico. Una decisione che garantisce una domanda interna solida e continua.

Come ha sintetizzato Jeremy Mark, ricercatore dell’Atlantic Council, Hong Kong sta completando la sua trasformazione in un centro finanziario “con caratteristiche cinesi”.

Chi pensava di piegare la Russia chiudendo le piazze di scambio europee ha ottenuto un risultato tragicomico: ha regalato alla Cina il monopolio del metallo prezioso più conteso al mondo, accelerando la nascita di un sistema finanziario su cui l’Occidente non ha più alcun potere di veto.

Articolo originale  scenarieconomici.it