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Independent researcher/writer based in Hong Kong since 1997. Reformed academic. My long-form, analytical articles are collected here https://laura-ruggeri.medium.com/ email: lauraru852@yandex.ru
Following talks between U.S. president Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the U.S. State Department announced that the US is not ready to lift restrictions on strikes by the Ukrainian Armed Forces with Western long-range weapons deep into Russia. ▪️Meanwhile the press bureau of the SVR of the Russian Federation http://www.svr.gov.ru/smi/2024/09/kiev-gotovit-novuyu-rezonansnuyu-provokatsiyu.htm warned that the special services and the military command of the Kiev regime, with the help of curators from US/UK, are working on another false flag to replicate the "Bucha effect". They intend to strike a hospital or kindergarten causing a large number of victims and then blame Russia for the missile attack.
Wide coverage of the incident in the world media is supposed to justify the lifting of restrictions on the use of long-range missiles to attack Russia and attract the support of countries of the Global South. @LauraRuHK
GEORGIA - What happens when you stop a colour revolution and don't let the US overthrow your government? You are accused of human rights abuses. ▪️Washington has announced new financial restrictions and travel bans on senior figures in the Georgian government. The U.S. Treasury Department designated two senior law enforcement officers, Chief of the Special Task Department Zviad Kharazishvili and his deputy, Mileri Lagazauri, as complicit in “serious human rights abuse.” Also facing sanctions are two prominent figures associated with Georgian media outlet Alt-Info. At the same time, the U.S. State Department confirmed it will impose visa restrictions on more than 60 Georgians and their families due to their complicity in “undermining democracy in Georgia.” In this neo-Orwellian language, a democratically-elected government thwarting a violent, US-funded attempt at regime change is undermining democracy. @LauraRuHK
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While the US launched a new wave of sanctions against Russian media outlets and the West is silencing inconvenient truths, the global majority is creating a healthier media ecosystem. The 7th BRICS media summit, hosted by Russia's TASS News Agency in collaboration with China's Xinhua News Agency, concluded in Moscow today, after three days of discussions aimed at strengthening media cooperation among BRICS nations.
The event brought together leaders and representatives from over 45 major media outlets across BRICS countries and nations seeking membership in the bloc. Vladimir Putin in his message to the media summit underlined the importance of freedom of speech, the freedom to disseminate objective information in the era of developing multipolarity. The media should play a significant role in building a just world order by giving people “an objective and unadulterated picture of the world”. The summit participants resolutely condemned Western pressure on media outlets in member countries and around the world. President of Xinhua News Agency Fu Hua met with TASS Director General Andrey Kondrashov and congratulated TASS on its 120th founding anniversary.
Longstanding friendly ties between TASS and Xinhua will be strengthened and cooperation mechanisms expanded to achieve greater results. @LauraRuHK /channel/presstv/109759
❗️Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba tenders resignation letter to Rada speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova summed up Kuleba's resignation to TASS, saying, "As autumn leaves fall, branches are exposed.”
#Ukraine - Boost
Yesterday Kimdotcom, influencer with 1.6 mil followers on X/Twitter, wrote that 60 million people died during the Bolshevik Revolution. /channel/LauraRuHK/9146 He didn't name a single source. He stated this figure as if it were an established fact. Well, it isn't, and after a century there is still no consensus among historians who spent their lives studying the Russian civil war (1917-1922). They can only make rough estimates that differ wildly due to the methods they use and their ideological bias. The lack of statistical records on the many armies and formations that participated in the war, and the controversial criteria for calculating non-military losses (whether to include those who died of hunger and epidemics, those who emigrated from the country, etc.) is regarded as a major obstacle to any serious investigation. B. C. Urlanis in 1960 estimated the total losses of the opposing factions in the Civil War at around 800 thousand people (of whom about 300 thousand were killed in battle) Yu. A. Polyakov in 1986 put the total combat losses of the warring parties in 1918-1922 at about 2.5 million people. Today the Civil War in Russia remains one of the most controversial and debated historical periods, invariably attracting the attention of the whole society. So next time someone pulls a figure out of thin air, ask him to break it down, ask him how many soldiers of the Red or White Army died, how many civilians died and of which causes, and who kept the record. He wouldn't know the answer - you can't find reliable information on excess deaths in those years for the simple reason that no census was carried out by the Soviet authorities until 1926. @LauraRuHK
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Chinese Vice President to attend 9th Eastern Economic Forum in Russia, visit Mongolia
Chinese Vice President Han Zheng will attend the 9th Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia and visit Mongolia from Sept. 4 to 8 at the invitation of the government of the Russian Federation and the government of Mongolia, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning announced on Tuesday. Interestingly, Han Zheng is visiting Mongolia immediately after Vladimir Putin left. @LauraRuHK
#Volkswagen shuts down its factories in Germany for the first time in its 87-year history. All according to US plans. Who sabotaged Nord Stream2 long before they blew it up? Check out the date, December 2021, three months before Russia started its military operation in Ukraine. @LauraRuHK
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The de-industrialization of Germany is going according to US plans - Volkswagen warned on Monday that it would consider closing factories in Germany for the first time in its 87-year history and end a decades-old guarantee of job security for workers, as it faces profitability problems. ▪️What do you expect when your country is ruled by lackeys and traitors doing Washington's bidding? Who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline and forced you to give up affordable sources of energy? Let me know if you still enjoy your politically-correct slogan, Alles für die Ukraine! Good luck, my dear friends. @LauraRuHK
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Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi is very upset that Vladimir Putin is warmly received in Ulaanbaatar instead of being arrested, and threatens Mongolia: "there will be consequences". Methinks he needs a reality check... and a map of Asia. 😏 Unlike Ukraine, Mongolia values good relations with its neighbours. @LauraRuHK /channel/news_kremlin/4233
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Vladimir Putin has arrived in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Red carpet and guard of honour. No handcuffs in sight, in case you were wondering. /channel/smotri_media/92516
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The genocidal entity just got some more help from Elon Musk.
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The "traffic light" coalition lies in ruins - None of the parties that form the ruling coalition – the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens – were able to make it to the top three in either Saxony or Thuringia. ▪️AfD secured 32.8% in Thuringia, leading the race, followed by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with 23.6%, according to exit polls. ▪️ In Saxony, the Eurosceptic party garnered 30.6%, losing to the CDU by a narrow margin.
The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) claimed third place in both races, with 15.8% in Thuringia and 11.8% in Saxony. ▪️Though Alternative for Germany (AfD) is unlikely to be able to form a regional government in any of the states, as their political opponents refused to work with it, the election results clearly show how disconnected the ruling elite is from the people. ▪️More and more Germans, on both sides of the political spectrum, are backing parties that call for stronger controls on immigration and an end to Berlin’s support for Ukraine. @LauraRuHK
Visitors from Leipzig at the Sputnik International Camp in Crimea (USSR, 1974) Have a nice weekend everyone!
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Look, i spend hours sifting through mind-numbing papers published by Atlanticist think tanks and occasionally share the fruits of my research on Telegram and X/Twitter (where i am shadow banned.) If you avail yourself of my work, credit it. Is it too much to ask? BTW, well-informed readers always alert me about free riders...it's a small world, after all. @LauraRuHK
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Those who applauded the end of banking secrecy in Switzerland as a victory of the common people against evil elites should be aware that those elites haven't magically turned into model citizens who pay their taxes till the last cent. They simply moved their wealth to other tax havens. @LauraRuHK
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GEORGIA - Cosa succede quando si ferma una rivoluzione colorata e non si permette agli Stati Uniti di rovesciare il proprio governo? Si viene accusati di violare i diritti umani. ▪️Washington ha annunciato nuove sanzioni e negazione di visti nei confronti di alti esponenti del governo georgiano. Il Dipartimento del Tesoro degli Stati Uniti ha designato due alti funzionari delle forze dell'ordine, il capo del Dipartimento per le operazioni speciali Zviad Kharazishvili e il suo vice, Mileri Lagazauri, come complici di “gravi abusi dei diritti umani”. Le sanzioni riguardano anche due figure di spicco associate al canale d'informazione georgiano Alt-Info. Allo stesso tempo, il Dipartimento di Stato americano ha confermato che imporrà restrizioni sui visti a più di 60 georgiani e alle loro famiglie per aver “minato la democrazia in Georgia”. In questo linguaggio neo-orwelliano, un governo democraticamente eletto che sventa un violento tentativo di cambio di regime finanziato dagli Stati Uniti starebbe minando la democrazia. @LauraRuHK
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Ryan Routh, attempted assassin of Trump, appeared in neo-Nazi Azov video in May 2022 and was also recruiting people for the Taiwan Foreign Legion https://taiwanforeignlegion.com/ Deranged and well connected to the usual suspects.
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Announcement - Starting from today and for the next two weeks i will be travelling and reducing my online activity to a bare minimum. I may still be able to check my email but not very often.
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In the Western mediasphere the Poltava Military Communications Institute that was struck yesterday is referred to as a "school and a hospital". Well, it was a "school" only in the general sense,i.e. any institution at which instruction is given in a particular discipline. In this case instruction was provided to soldiers, therefore the institute was a legitimate military target. There are no hospitals in the area that was targeted, while the presence of NATO military instructors is undeniable. @LauraRuHK
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Welcome to the Brave New ‘post-fact’, 'post-truth' World. Who needs historians when you have "influencers" tossing around figures without any concrete data to back them up? Legions of "experts" who pontificate about topics they know nothing about. @LauraRuHK
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The 179th training center of the Ukrainian troops in Poltava was struck by a powerful blow. According to TASS, more than 300 Ukrainian soldiers, including foreign instructors, were killed or wounded in the missile strike. @LauraRuHK
/channel/EurasianChoice/41850
Turkish security sources reported that Liridon Rexhepi, a Kosovan national and manager of Mossad's financial network in Turkiye, was arrested by Istanbul police.
Rexhepi was allegedly transferring funds to Mossad agents who used drones to film targets, conducted psychological operations against Palestinian politicians, and gathered intelligence on Syria.
The Turkish National Intelligence Organization identified Rexhepi after detecting irregularities in his financial accounts, which revealed numerous deposits to Mossad operatives in Turkiye via Western Union. He was placed under surveillance upon his entry into Turkiye on August 25, 2024, and was detained in Istanbul on August 30 in a joint operation with the Istanbul police.
He was formally arrested on Tuesday.
Sources indicated that Rexhepi confessed during interrogation to conducting the money transfers.
M.V. Zakharova, Russian MFA spokesperson, to a question from the media in connection with the statements of the head of the Taiwanese administration, Lai Qingde (September 3, 2024)
Question: The head of the Taiwanese administration, Lai Qingde, said that China should reclaim "historical" lands in the Far East from Russia, thereby restoring, according to him, the territorial integrity of the PRC. What do the Russian Foreign Ministry think about such statements?
💬 M.V.Zakharova: As for Russia, the mutual renunciation of any territorial claims between the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China is fixed in the Treaty on Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation dated July 16, 2001, (http://www.kremlin.ru/supplement/3418 ) and the last point in the border settlement was set by Moscow and Beijing on October 14, 2004 (https://docs.cntd.ru/document/901945334 ) This position is confirmed in a number of other joint documents adopted by China and Russia at high and top levels.
Russia consistently adheres to the one-China principle, and the Chinese government is the only legitimate government of China. Therefore, the head of the Taiwanese administration is not authorized to make any statements on behalf of Beijing. Taipei should not overestimate its role.
The opinions of certain marginal politicians, beset by revanchist syndromes, may be of interest to someone, but not to us. Separatists incited by Washington can "bark" as much as they want. It won't do them or the people of Taiwan any good.
We recommend that the head of the Taiwanese administration, Lai Qingde, take a closer look at the economic problems of the island and constructively consider the proposals of the Chinese leadership on peaceful unification with mainland China.
We are sure that our friends in Beijing take the same position.
/channel/MID_Russia/44788
Last Thursday as many as 16 British balaclava-clad counter-terrorism officers descended on journalist Sarah Wilkinson’s home at 7.30 in the morning, shoved Sarah’s son against a wall and led Sarah to a police van as they ransacked her house, smashing a urn containing her mother's ashes, seized all her electronic devices and arrested her for “content that she posted online." She was even denied meds for her serious health condition.
If Sarah lived in China, Russia or Iran, news of her arrest would be hysterically reported by all mainstream Western media. Instead she lives in the UK and details of her arrest can only be found on social media and a handful of fringe outlets (see picture). The arrests of Sarah Wilkinson and Richard Barnard, the co-founder of Palestine Action, follow the apprehension of independent Syrian-British journalist Richard Medhurst. @LauraRuHK
🇨🇳The Communist Party’s top theoretical journal Qiushi has highlighted the threat from subversive foreign forces trying to influence China’s youth, by releasing excerpts of a speech Chinese President Xi Jinping made six years ago. “For a long time, various hostile forces have never stopped implementing strategies to Westernise and divide our country.” In the speech, Xi quoted late leader Mao Zedong who said that the activities of the imperialists would have no effect on the first and second generations after the founding of People’s Republic of China in 1949, but they might hope to influence the third and fourth generations.
“Currently, our college students are the third and fourth generations,” Xi said in his speech. “In the future, there will be dozens of generations. The fight over the youth is long-term and difficult, we cannot lose, and cannot afford to lose.”
"When education is prosperous, the country is prosperous, and when education is strong, the country is strong." The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China emphasized that "education, science and technology, and talents are the basic and strategic support for Chinese-style modernization", and made systematic arrangements for deepening the comprehensive reform of education. @LauraRuHK http://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/qs/2024-08/31/c_1130197119.htm
Bloomberg reports that Turkey has formally asked to join the BRICS as it seeks to bolster its global influence and forge new ties beyond its traditional Western allies.
"The view of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration is that the geopolitical center of gravity is shifting away from developed economies". @LauraRuHK
⚡️Google claims, without any proof, that state-backed Russian hackers have installed spyware on Mongolian government websites - Ukraine and the media circus that supports its regime are hysterically calling on Mongolia, a member of the ICC, to arrest Vladimir Putin when he visits the country next week. Since the information offensive is well-coordinated, i am not surprised that Google has been instructed to join the campaign. Right on cue, on August 29 the tech giant claimed that it found hidden exploit code embedded on Mongolian government websites and warned that anyone who visited these sites using an iPhone or Android device could have had their phone hacked and data stolen, including passwords. Despite having no proof, Google insists that state-backed Russian hackers are to be blamed for this "watering hole" attack and notified Mongolian authorities. Of course, this is yet another attempt to smear Russia but the target of this psyop is Mongolia. The timing of Google notification, just days before president Putin's state visit, is extremely suspicious. 🔺 Attribution: @LauraRuHK🔺 https://blog.google/threat-analysis-group/state-backed-attackers-and-commercial-surveillance-vendors-repeatedly-use-the-same-exploits/
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Vladimir Putin is expected to travel to Mongolia on Tuesday. This will be the first time the Russian president sets foot in a member nation of the International Criminal Court since the court ordered his arrest in March 2023. The Kremlin is not worried: "we maintain a wonderful dialogue with our friends in Mongolia".▪️The nation is sandwiched between China and Russia, and though US and EU organizations/intelligence agencies/lobbies have been meddling in the country for the last twenty years, Mongolian authorities understand that the security, prosperity and development of their country depend on friendly relations, trade and cooperation with its neighbours. In 2019, during Vladimir Putin’s state visit to Mongolia, the two countries signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement, bringing Moscow and Ulaanbaatar even closer. ▪️The construction of Power of Siberia 2, a Russian-Chinese natural gas pipeline transiting through Mongolia, will begin in 2024 and is going to be one of the main topics on the agenda for this visit. @LauraRuHK
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Switzerland is losing its dubious neutral status - In a bombshell report released on Thursday, a group of Swiss experts mutants recommend to the government that the country, which has been neutral since 1515, work on a "common defense capability" with the EU and NATO. This is tantamount to renouncing neutrality, though Switzerland has been leaning towards NATO for a few years already and has embraced the EU anti-Russian stance. https://www.admin.ch/gov/fr/accueil/documentation/communiques.msg-id-102256.html Opposition parties accused the Swiss president Viola Amherd of appointing mainly NATO and EU enthusiasts to the experts committee. ▪️But why has Switzerland given up its neutral status? One of the most plausible explanations is that the country lost its leverage when it opened up its financial records to outsiders. For example, under pressure from the United States and after the Swiss Parliament in Bern rejected it twice, the alpine nation signed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in 2013, which requires Swiss banks to provide information about US clients.
In 2017, Switzerland adopted the Convention on the Automatic Exchange of Banking Information (AEOI), which forces the country to provide basic information about the clients of its banks. The country has also signed tax data-sharing agreements with a number of nations like Germany. Switzerland was protected by a veil of secrecy - more effective than any weapon in its arsenal - and as a safe haven for wealth and repository of secrets, it was untouchable. Once it dropped that veil, it became vulnerable to external (NATO/EU) pressure. @LauraRuHK