Zelensky Addresses Feud with Brazilian Socialist Lula: Failed G7 Meetup ‘Definitely’ Not My Fault

"Zelensky denied that he or his aides had prevented an in-person meeting between the two during their mutual attendance at the G7 summit in Japan last month, apparently blaming Lula for the snub that the Brazilian president declared himself “upset” by. The Ukrainian president also questioned Lula’s refusal to support an international tribunal for Russian war crimes, stating that, if meeting Lula in person, he would ask his Brazilian counterpart if he thinks “a murderer should be convicted and go to jail.” Breitbart

Ukrainian shelling of Russian region overnight

"Eight people sustained injuries in the early hours in Russia’s Belgorod Region as a result of
Ukrainian shelling." RT

Biden Administration Refuses To Assist American Locked Up In Ukraine For ‘Speech Violations’

"An American journalist living in Ukraine has been imprisoned for defending Russia’s

invasion of the nation, and the Biden administration is refusing to say whether it is working to secure his release.

On Monday, State Department spokesman Mathew Miller said during a press briefing that the administration is aware of the arrest of Gonzalo Lira, a writer and YouTube personality who is originally from California, but declined to say anything more.

At the briefing, a reporter described Lira’s arrest from several weeks ago and asked Miller, “Are you guys aware of this? How do we feel about our allies detaining US citizens for free speech abroad?”

“I will say in general that we’re aware of the report. We obviously support the exercise of freedom of speech anywhere in the world and I’ll leave it at that,” said Miller.

“So you guys aren’t working to get him released?” asked the reporter.

“I’m gonna leave my comments where I where I just left them,” Miller responded." TP

Chechen unit on the offensive in Donbass

"Russian forces are conducting offensive operations against Ukrainian troops in the area
outside Donetsk in Donbass..... assault detachments of the Russian 5th motorized rifle brigade and an Akhmat special forces unit are successfully attacking Ukrainian troops near the town of Maryinka.....The Akhmat unit is part of Russia’s National Guard and is based in the Chechen Republic." RT

Moscow Wakes up to Sound of Drone Strikes Against City, Buildings Damaged in Blasts

"Moscow’s war in Ukraine made itself felt at home again this morning as a wave of drones
attacked the Russian capital with air defences taking on what are described to be at least eight unmanned aerial vehicles. Moscow’s mayor said citizens woke up to the sound of explosions across the city." Breitbart

Former Biden Accuser Tara Reade Defects to Russia

"Tara Reade, the former Senate staffer to Joe Biden who accused him of sexual assault during the 2020 presidential election, has now defected to Russia. 

Tara Reade claimed that then-senator Joe Biden sexually assaulted her while she served as an aide in his Senate offices during the Clinton administration. Shortly thereafter, she detailed her account in multiple interviews and filed a criminal complaint against the former vice president with the Washington, D.C., police department." Breitbart

Russians launch 62 air strikes, open fire with MLRS 54 times

"In the past 24 hours, Russian troops have launched 62 air strikes and opened fire with
multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) 54 times. Casualties among civilians were reported, as well as the damage caused to residential buildings and other infrastructure. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Air Force has launched 15 strikes on Russian personnel and military equipment clusters. The Ukrainian military destroyed four reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles." Ukrin

Citibank, Biden Family & Ukraine War

"During the Obama Administration, when the Euromaidan coup was orchestrated (Feb.
2014), Joe Biden was in charge of the Ukraine portfolio and he was a "superhawk" in that role. Mearsheimer did not elaborate much on this point, but he did note that Ukraine’s president Zelensky turned much more aggressive toward Russia and Ukraine’s breakaway regions practically from the day Joe Biden entered the White House. Recall, Zelensky was elected in 2019 by a 70% majority of Ukrainian people in the west and in the east of the country because he promised to make making peace with Russia and to respect the rights of ethnic Russians.

Most observers will recall Biden’s performance at the Council of Foreign Relations where he boasted about forcing President Petro Poroshenko to fire Ukraine’s public prosecutor Viktor Shokin by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to his government. But Biden’s role was much more extensive than that. On the day of the Euromaidan Coup in February 2014, the same day when President Barack Obama was discussing with Vladimir Putin how to diffuse the crisis, Biden called President Viktor Yanukovich and pressured him to withdraw his security forces from Kiev and from all the government buildings. Yanukovich, who had just signed a deal with opposition, conceding to all of their demands, walked straight into Biden’s perfidious trap and within hours of ordering his security forces to withdraw, armed neo-Nazi groups stormed the government buildigns, presidential palace and Yanukovich’s private residence. Yanukovich had to flee the country to save his life.

Along with Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, Biden also played the key role in coercing the Kiev Junta to launch its brutal “anti-terorist operation” in April 2014 which resulted in massacres of hundreds of civilians in Odessa, Mariupol, Slaviansk, Kramatorsk and other towns across Ukraine’s southern and eastern districts. The regime was urged by its western handlers to consolidate control of these regions as they accounted for the bulk of Ukraine’s economic output.

Barely ten days after the massacre of the regime’s opponents – all unarmed civilians – Joe Biden’s son Hunter was nominated as a director of Burisma, Ukraine’s energy giant that was owned by one of the planners of the Odessa massacre, oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskiy who ordered his private Dniepr-1 Battalion to help carry it out. Indeed, the corruption moneys earned in Ukraine by the Biden family was literally drenched in the blood of innocents.

So, where’s Citigroup in all this?

The pressure to consolidate control over south and east of Ukraine originated from the banking circles. On Thursday, May 1, 2014, just one day before the massacres in Kharkov, Slavyansk and Odessa, CNBC ran the headline: “IMF warns Ukraine on bailout if it loses east.” The article reported that, “‘This is something of a leap of faith for the IMF and is politically driven by key IMF shareholders to support the [Junta prime minister Arseniy] Yatsenyuk ‘kamikaze’ administration in its reform efforts...’”

IMF’s shareholders consist of the American and European financial oligarchy, the same club that controls Citigroup and other global systematically important banks (GSIBs). However, Citigroup may have had the greatest appetite for a piece of Ukrainian action which began with the 2014 Euromaidan coup, planned and organized by a cabal of western officials including a group of Neocons within the Obama administration. There’s some evidence suggesting that Obama himself wasn’t in the loop, but was dragged along with the project by a group of conspirators consisting of individuals like John Kerry, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Victoria Nuland.

Collateral is the essential ingredient powering the creation of credit by western financial institutions, primarily the GSIB’s (Global Systemically Important Banks). They stand the most to gain if western powers prevail, and the most to lose if they’re defeated. Adverse developments in Ukraine could push the sector back into a bear market and the banks that are overexposed to Ukraine could exacerbate the financial crisis, force central banks to more bank bailouts with open-ended QE, and reignite another cycle of high inflation." ZH

Russia launched 'largest drone attack' on Ukrainian capital before Kyiv Day

"Ukraine's capital was subjected to the largest drone attack since the start of Russia's war, local
officials said, as Kyiv prepared to mark the anniversary of its founding on Sunday." Yahoo

Russia may authorize six-day week for workers without additional pay to meet war needs

"Russian state-backed media and business groups have petitioned the Economic Ministry to authorize a six-day week for workers in the face of the economic demands of the war, apparently without additional pay....Russian propagandist Margarita Simonyan mooted that citizens should work for two extra hours in munitions factories each day, after their regular jobs." Ukrin

Ukraine Loses Up to 340 Troops Near Donetsk

"Ukraine lost up to 340 military personnel in combat with Russian forces near the eastern city of Donetsk in the past day.....During the same period, Russian air defenses struck down three Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles, six HIMARS long-range guided missiles, and four Ukrainian combat drones in Donetsk, Kharkov and Zaporozhye regions." Sputnik

Drones damage Russia oil facility

"An explosion from two drone attacks in Russia’s Pskov region near Belarus damaged an oil pipeline facility with no casualties reported." AlJazeera

Why Are US Military Personnel Heading To Peru?

"The goal of the operation is to provide “support and assistance to the Special Operations of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces and National Police of Peru,” including in regions recently engulfed in violence. The plenary session of Peru’s Congress last Thursday (May 18) authorised the entry of US troops onto Peruvian soil with the purpose of carrying out “cooperation activities” with Peru’s armed forces and national police. Passed with 70 votes in favor, 33 against and four abstentions, resolution 4766 stipulates that the troops are welcome to stay any time between June 1 and December 31, 2023.

The protesters’ demands included:

. The protesters’ demands included:

• The release of Castillo
• New elections
• A national referendum on forming a Constitutional Assembly to replace Peru’s current constitution, which was imposed by former President Alberto Fujimori following his self-imposed coup of 199

Peru is currently under the control of an unelected government that is heavily supported by Washington but overwhelmingly rejected by the Peruvian people. The crackdown on protests in the south of the Peru by the country’s security forces — the same security forces that US military personnel will soon be joining — has led to dozens of deaths.

EU and US interest in Latin America is rising rapidly as the race for lithium, copper, cobalt and other elements essential for the so-called “clean” energy transition heats up. It is a race that China has been winning pretty handily up until now.

Peru is not only one of China’s biggest trade partners in Latin America; it is home to the only port in Latin America that is managed entirely by Chinese capital. And while Peru may not form part of the Lithium Triangle (Bolivia, Argentina and Chile), it does boast significant deposits of the white metal. By one estimate, it is home to the sixth largest deposits of hard-rock lithium in the world. It is also the world’s second largest producer of copper, zinc and silver, three metals that are also expected to play a major role in supporting renewable energy technologies. Ecuador, is undergoing a major political crisis that is likely to spell the end of the US-aligned Guillermo Lasso government and a handover of power to Rafael Correa’s party and its allies.

And the US government and military have made no secret of their interest in the mineral deposits that countries like Peru hold in their subsoil. In an address to the Washington-based Atlantic Council on Jan 19, Gen. Laura Richardson, head of the U.S. Southern Command, spoke gushingly of Latin America’s rich deposits of “rare earth elements,” “the lithium triangle — Argentina, Bolivia, Chile,” the “largest oil reserves [and] light, sweet crude discovered off Guyana,” Venezuela’s “oil, copper, gold” and the fact that Latin America is home to “31% of the world’s fresh water in this region.” ZH

Lukashenko Confirms Russian Tactical Nukes Already Being Transferred To Belarus

"Moscow is moving forward with plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring
Belarus. The two longtime allies which form what they call a 'union state' signed a deal Thursday to formalize deployment of Russian nukes on Belarusian soil. All of this comes dangerously as Ukraine's cross-border sabotage attacks on Russian territory have clearly escalated." ZeroHedge

Russian attack on Dnipro

"At least one person has been killed and 15 injured in a Russian missile attack on a medical
facility in Dnipro." Ukrin