The Guardian wakes up after 8 days of lethargy...
...following a massive Russian missile attack on Kiev this morning, while ignoring story on Italian passport promised to a Russian pilot in exchange for a Russian strategic bomber.
A massive missile attack on Kiev took place this morning (8th July 2024), as reported by The Guardian, which, after 8 days of silence (see image below), resuscitated its “live blog” on the “Ukraine war”, as they call it. Of course, for them nothing happened in the last 8 days relative to the Russo-Ukrainian war, but, if you are following my substack, you know that quite a lot has actually happened (so much that I am currently neglecting the Middle East crisis, which instead is covered almost daily by The Guardian et al.).
The Russian army conducted attacks on Ukrainian anti-aircraft batteries at Zhulyany airport, on targets related to the energy infrastructure, and against the “Artem” military factory, located in the heart of the city, opposite the Lukianovskaya metro station (see map below). This is a plant where missiles are manufactured and other commissions for the Ukrainian Defence are made.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal reported that “the anti-aircraft intercepted most of the missiles”. This was widely witnessed by numerous videos posted on Ukrainian telegram channels (see video below). The intercepted missiles crashed without reaching their intended target, falling on the city, on buildings and a children's hospital. Unfortunately, there were several civilian casualties in the capital, at the hospital no children were reported killed.
There was no lack of speculation on the part of Zelensky and his assistant Andrey Yermak, who claimed that the hospital was the target of this Russian attack. The attention of the local and Western mainstream media (MSM), with The Guardian leading the way, was focused solely on this facility, which is located about one kilometre away from the “Artem” factory, with numerous pictures published on the net confirm that several missiles hit the military target (see photos below).
Also, notice the hypocrisy and double standards of the Western MSM: when the beach in Sevastopol was targeted by American ATACMS launched from Ukraine a couple of weeks ago, they attributed the casualties to debris falling on the beach as a result of Russian anti-aircraft fire and not to the cluster bomblets, despite the evidence; now, without any proper investigation, they immediately blame a Russian missile hitting the children hospital on purpose. Not to mention the fact that, according to hypocritical Western MSM, missiles hitting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine are always Russian, those hitting civilian infrastructure in Gaza are never Israeli or American… they just fall from the sky, like rain!
Moreover, it is quite interesting that this accident happens just the day before the NATO meeting in Washington, starting tomorrow, 9th July 2024. Could it be a false-flag accident, like the missile hit in a busy market in Kostyantynivka on 6th September 2023?
In any case, Italy was quick to accuse Russia of war crime, as reported by The Guardian. However, nobody in the Western MSM, especially in Italy, reported that an Italian passport was promised to a Russian pilot in exchange for a Russian strategic bomber, the Tu-22M3: as revealed by the Russian Federal Security Service (see also embedded video below), the Ukrainian secret services succeeded in contacting a Russian Air Force pilot trying to persuade him, also by means of threats and retaliation against his relatives, to provide information about the planes at his base, to sabotage the equipment there, and to steal a Tu-22M3 long-range strategic bomber and land it in Ukraine. In return, the pilot was promised $3 million and an Italian passport, as well as an escape plan to Poland for his relatives. The pilot, however, immediately informed his commanders. The FSB claims that secret services of NATO countries were also involved in directing this operation.
Finally, NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg indirectly recognised the US and NATO as parties to the conflict in Ukraine, when he said “President Xi and President Putin want NATO and the US to fail in Ukraine” in an interview with CBS - see video below. The NATO secretary-general no longer even tries to hide the direct involvement of the alliance and the US in Ukraine. It is an open secret: the White House and NATO have never taken responsibility for their own actions in Ukraine against Russia, as an officialization of their actions would be tantamount to a declaration of war.
1st UPDATE (09/07/2024): Just a minor update to provide a few extra links to blog posts/articles covering the stories reported here:
Andrei Martyanov’s short blog post on the failure of US air-defense in Kiev yesterday (8th July 2024) and Ukraine’s plot to steal a Tu-22M3. He also mentions that Russia “blew up the airstrip where this TU-22M3 was supposed to land”;
another Andrei Martyanov’s short blog post on the Russian strikes in Kiev yesterday, plus other military-related tit-bits;
Larry C. Johnson’s blog post on the Russian strikes in Ukraine yesterday (yes, I actually I forgot to mention that Russia hit several other military targets across Ukraine yesterday, not just in Kiev!), Western hypocrisy and the “report on the number of Palestinians who have died or will die because of Israel’s murderous campaign” published on British medical journal The Lancet.
2nd UPDATE (09/07/2024): Just a minor update to provide a couple of extra readings (both relatively short):
Gilbert Doctorow’s post on the upcoming NATO meeting in Washington, dealing with the missile strike in Kiev yesterday near the end of the article;
Caitlin Johnston’s article on the sheer hypocrisy of Western MSM and government officials, comparing their reactions to Israel’s relentless assault on Palestinian hospitals and to the missile attack in Kiev yesterday.
3rd UPDATE (14/07/2024): Another minor update to provide further extra readings on this topic:
an article by John Helmer on his web-site, “Dances with Bears”, with his analysis based on what we know so far;
Mike Mihajlovic’s fact-based analysis on “Black Mountain Analysis” substack.
