Sept. 20 (EIRNS)—In the blink of an eye, the citizens of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, along with two southern regions of Ukraine—Kherson and Zaporozhye—set up referenda for Sept. 23-27, voting on whether to formally join the Russian Federation. All parties assume that in one week, the overwhelmingly Russian-speaking populations of these areas will have spoken their minds; and Russian leaders have indicated that they will take on this responsibility. At that point, Russia’s “special military operation” is over, as is the West’s “proxy” war. Those new areas of Russia are not to be toyed with.
Putin has been quite direct and open—Russia’s “special military operation” has been a small part of what they are capable of. For six months, they have avoided the destruction of civilian infrastructure, where it would have saved the lives of Russian soldiers to have done otherwise. Russia had no beef with most of Ukraine’s population, and no interest in making their life worse than it already was. Putin’s issue was with NATO’s armaments at Russia’s door, and with a neo-Nazi element holding Ukraine hostage, never allowing the agreed-upon Minsk Accords over the breakaway republics to be followed. Was he kidding when he said Russia’s security concerns had to be dealt with? Is he kidding now about the dangers of a West arming Ukraine to the teeth; about what it means to directly fight British, Polish, and American operatives in the field; and about Russia’s policy of nuclear weapons is and is not?
Oh-so-clever Western geopoliticians have sanctioned themselves into a corner, where the realities of heating and eating are not so easy to dance around. (The United Kingdom just began to experience a series of critical strikes at its ports and railroads, scheduled over the next ten days.) A host of direct, person-to-person dialogues are slated for this week, with all the side meetings around the UN General Assembly. Russia’s Lavrov, India’s Jaishankar and China’s Wang Yi—coming off the Sept. 15-16 Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand—have a full dance card and are, as it were, loaded for bear. Fully aware of the ugliness of the geopolitical rantings they will face, they are fully armed to forge ahead. It turns out that the personal ability to reason, face-to-face, one-on-one with other leaders, on actual solutions that mutually benefit countries and regions, make such individuals a clear and present danger to the geopoliticians.
Will wild charges of “mass gravesites,” Russian “torture” of innocent civilians, etc., chase countries back into their cubby holes, incapable of rational deliberation? It worked with the Hitlerian big lies around the “Bucha massacre” in early April, locking the world into a permanent war mode. (In a sense, it has paralyzed the thought processes of the Western world since no later than 9/11/2001—a casualty of not listening to Lyndon LaRouche’s clear warnings.) Will hysterical, contrary-to-reality screaming over “Bucha 2.0—the Izyum Horror Show” again freeze the cognitive abilities of countries?
How did LaRouche know in 1984 about the dissolution of the Soviet empire? How did he know about a terror attack on Washington, D.C. in January 2001?
Sergey Glazyev, in the middle of operations to put the physical economy ahead of financial instruments, made it pretty simple: Those countries that are showing success are the ones that have benefitted from the scientific approach of LaRouche, and his worked-out “physical economic” solutions. There is plenty there in that scientific approach to keep the cognitive abilities moving forward, and not continually falling prey to desperate hoaxes. Sure, as former Mexican President José López Portillo put it in 1998, “listen to the wise words of Lyndon LaRouche”—but digging in and mastering his method is key, now, for finishing off the existential danger of the “permanent war” geopolitical gang.
• Watch Harley’s Updates with Harley Schlanger on Wednesday September 21, 2022: Every weekday morning on The LaRouche Organization, Schlanger will give you the strategic briefing you need to start your day.
MAJOR SHIFTS
Stampede in Donbass To Join Russian Federation: Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporozhye Begin Voting on Sept. 23
Sept. 20 (EIRNS)—In a fast-moving situation over the last 24 hours, referenda have been scheduled, beginning Friday, Sept. 23, for the populations of the Lugansk People’s Republic (L.P.R.), the Donetsk People’s Republic (D.P.R.), the Kherson Oblast, and the Zaporozhye Oblast to vote on joining Russia. The leader of the L.P.R., Leonid Pasechnik, signed a law for their referendum, and it was announced by the chair of the L.P.R.’s People’s Council, Denis Miroshnichenko. The People’s Council had demanded of the L.P.R. authorities that a referendum be held immediately. The official question is: “Are you in favor of the L.P.R. joining the Russian Federation as a constituent entity of the Russian Federation?” Voting will extend over five days.
Following within hours, the Donetsk Civic Chamber called upon the D.P.R. authorities for their referendum. The Chamber’s head, Aleksander Kofman, stated: “All of us feel and know for a long time that Donbass is Russia, we have been fighting for this for eight long years. For this, we daily suffer strikes on our homes, streets, hospitals, schools and kindergartens. We want the border of the Russian Federation to lie between us and Ukraine!” D.P.R. leader Denis Pushilin scheduled their referendum to coincide with that in the L.P.R.
The Kherson region, controlled by Russian forces with a military-civilian administration headed by Kirill Stremousov, responded quickly to pressure for a referendum, telling RIA Novosti that the region’s residents “want guarantees that we will become a part of the Russian Federation ... and want to hold a referendum as soon as possible.” They want Russia not to leave their area. Today a petition from the Kherson Civic Chamber was presented to the region’s administrators, and the referendum was approved. The Chamber’s chairman Vladimir Ovcharenko said: “We are certain that the initiative would be fully supported by the people of Kherson Region, and its addition to Russia would not only restore historic justice, but also open a new path towards the revival and reconstruction of our land and the return to genuine peaceful life.”
The Zaporozhye Oblast today became the fourth to establish a referendum. Vladimir Rogov, a leader of the military-civilian administration, explained that the National Congress of Citizens of the Zaporozhye Region gathered in Melitopol and addressed the military-civilian administration: “The congress delegates demanded an immediate referendum on the reunification of the region with Russia, noting that this would forever restore peace in the Zaporozhye region and give impetus to the development of their native land, as well as stop the aggression of the Ukrainian regime against civilians and the destruction of infrastructure by militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” Small portions of the Oblast, including Zaporozhye city, are under Kiev’s control, and those authorities have threatened prison sentences of up to 13 years for any Ukrainian participating in such a referendum. So, the vote there will reflect large portions of the Oblast, but not all of it.
D.P.R. leader Pushilin made public his call to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to respond quickly and positively: “Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich—In the event of a positive decision following the referendum, which we have no doubts about, I ask you to consider the issue of the Donetsk People’s Republic joining the Russian Federation as soon as possible. The long-suffering people of Donbass deserved to be part of the great country, which they always considered their Motherland.”
One indication that Russia, which in no way needs more land, still would respond positively came from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov today, in his interview on the “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin” TV broadcast today: “All through the special military operation, and in the period preceding it, we were insisting that the people living in the respective regions should be able to decide their future. The current situation fully confirms that they want to be masters of their destiny.”
In one week, the ball will likely be in Moscow’s court, and it is unlikely they would include the four regions being members of the Russian Federation without taking account of the expanded military obligations that it would involve.
EIR: ‘Our Planning for a New World Economic System Relies on LaRouche’s Work’
Sept. 20 (EIRNS)—EIR Vol. 49, No. 37, dated Sept. 23, will go out to subscribers Sept. 22.
This issue features three recent developments: The dangerous shift by NATO toward risking a nuclear world war, the fight against the Ukrainian (Global NATO) hit lists, and the launch of the digital LaRouche Library.
The issue leads with a signed editorial, “London Ventriloquists Have Their Ukrainian Generals Call for a Preemptive Nuclear Strike on Russia,” by Dennis Small.
Section I, “A Dangerous Phase Shift,” leads with a report sounding the alarm that a NATO strategy of pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Russia came from a Sept. 8 meeting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and a Sept. 7 statement by the Commander in Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces. This is followed by “Exposure of Ukraine’s Nazi Kill List Is Breaking Through the Fog of War,” by an EIR investigative team.
Section II is “LaRouche: Peace Through Development.” It leads with an extraordinary personal message by the Russian economist and Academician Sergei Glazyev on the occasion of the 100th birthday of Lyndon LaRouche: Our planning for a new world economic system relies on LaRouche’s work, Glazyev says.
Marcia Merry Baker and Bill Jones report on the just-concluded Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Heads of State Council summit; and this is followed by International Briefs.
Section III, “New LaRouche Library,” is the full program of the Schiller Institute’s Sept. 10-11 conference, and the presentations and discussion of Panel 3, “Presenting the ‘LaRouche Library’—LaRouche in Dialogue with the Nations of the World.” Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s keynote was “The Opening of the ‘LaRouche Library’—A Revolutionary Intervention.” It introduced an 82-minute video of Lyndon LaRouche discussing development prospects and strategic situations with leaders and activists of many nations over 40 years.
John Sigerson’s “Tour of the Digital LaRouche Library” and Gretchen Small’s announcement of Vol. II of the Collected Works of Lyndon LaRouche led to a lively discussion, are also included in the EIR issue.
WORLD DIPLOMACY
Putin Tells Foreign Ambassadors, ‘Radical Transformation of Entire Architecture of International Relations’ Accelerating
Sept. 20 (EIRNS)—In a ceremony at the Kremlin today accepting credentials from 24 new foreign ambassadors, the majority of whom were from the nations of the Global South, President Vladimir Putin elaborated on the message delivered at the just-concluded heads of state summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. That is, that there is a new paradigm with new centers of power and new alliances emerging, not centered in the West, and that the nations of the Global South will not be bludgeoned into submission.
He told the new ambassadors that they are working at a time when “radical transformation of the entire architecture of international relations has accelerated, when the development of a multipolar and more democratic and fair world order has entered its active phase,” and that the SCO summit reaffirmed the “fact that the movement toward a multipolar world is the main strategic development line in global politics.” The nations that belong to the SCO, he said, are those that “firmly believe that the modern world must be polycentric and based on the generally recognized norms of international law and the principles of equal and indivisible security with the central coordinating role of the UN.”
Putin explained in his remarks that the resistance to the move toward a multipolar world comes from those nations that are “trying to preserve their dominant role in international affairs and to control everything”—in Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. The policies of these “global leaders” may have worked for a while, “but this cannot continue forever; it is impossible.”
They tried to strengthen their position by imposing illegitimate sanctions and exerting pressure “in all areas, including, of course on Russia”—but even they can now see the negative consequences of these actions for their own countries. Worse, they have caused “innocent states,” poor and developing nations, to suffer. In this context, Putin reiterated his offer made last week to ship to poor nations, free of charge, 300,000 tons of Russian fertilizer, currently locked up in European ports. But, he said, European nations have remained silent on his offer.
Nonetheless, Putin said, as a member of the UN Security Council, Russia will not deviate from its “sovereign course. We intend to further promote the unifying interstate agenda, contribute to the search for effective responses to the numerous challenges and threats of our time and help settle acute regional conflicts.”
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made a related point today in addressing ambassadors in Moscow who are accredited to the Kremlin. The international situation “is not becoming less complicated,” he said, as there is an “accumulation of crises”—in economic policy, in ensuring energy supplies for mankind “and processes directly linked with undermining the foundations on which the entire system of globalization is hinged.” That is, international law and the principles on which the UN Charter is based.
At this week’s UN General Assembly debate, he pointed out, there is no escaping the fact that there will be “tough assessments of certain actions by various states”—a reference to Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. But, he warned, the United Nations Organization “was not established for polemical exercises alone. It was also established to fulfill the requirements of the UN Charter, which urges the parties to search for collective ways to resolve international problems by respecting the sovereign equality of states.”
UN General Assembly Opens with ‘High-Level Debate’ and Intense Schedule of Side Meetings
Sept. 20 (EIRNS)—“High-Level General Debate” began at the UN General Assembly today, with individual speeches by heads of state or government or by foreign ministers, and will go on through Sept. 27. There are also a very large number of side meetings taking place among attending diplomats, which are considered to be of great importance. The Foreign Ministers of Russia, China, and India have numerous side meetings planned—India’s Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has at least 50 during an 11-day stay, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has at least 20 requests for one-on-one meetings.
Between yesterday and today, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has held meetings with his counterparts from Nicaragua, Cuba, Pakistan, France and Ethiopia, and has many more planned. In addition, today he hosted a meeting of the “Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative,” which now has 60 members, since its launching in January this year. China’s President Xi Jinping first promoted the Global Development Initiative at the UNGA General Debate on Sept. 21, 2021. Wang will also attend the now traditional meeting of BRICS nations foreign ministers, along with Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, India’s Dr. S. Jaishankar, South Africa’s Naledi Pandor of South Africa, and Brazil’s Carlos Franco Franca. As the BRICS rotating chair for 2023, South Africa will host the meeting.
Wang’s meetings include the dialogue of the foreign ministers of the leadership quartet of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and a group meeting with foreign ministers of the Troika of the Gulf Cooperation Council and GCC Secretary General Dr. Nayef Al Hajraf.
Dr. Jaishankar’s schedule during his ten-day visit is described as “jam packed,” including multilateral groups, such as the BRICS, India-CELAC, India-CARICOM; he will also have bilateral meetings with Foreign Ministers of the G20 and UNSC member states, among others reported India’s External Affairs Ministry. He is scheduled to address the General Assembly debate on Sept. 24. Jaishankar will go to Washington on Sept. 25-28 for bilateral meetings with administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told a BBC interviewer today that she has no intention of meeting with Sergey Lavrov, but promised that at a Sept. 22 meeting of the UN Security Council, Lavrov will be condemned, and “hear from all of us” that Russia should withdraw its troops from Ukraine. And of course, the U.S. will continue to do what it has been doing, she said, condemning and “isolating” Russia—that hasn’t worked out too well—while continuing the weapons flow to Ukraine.
CRAZY HAPPENS
NATO and Washington in Outrage over Voting in Ukraine’s South and East
Sept. 20 (EIRNS)—There was more than a little outrage among the Western defenders of “democratic values,” over the decision of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and two of the neighboring Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine—Kherson and Zaporozhye—to over joining the Russian Federation. It has been no secret for the last eight years, since the February 2014 Anglo-American coup in Kiev eliminated the elected government, that the peoples of South and Eastern Ukraine, have been shelled by Kiev regime, as their political parties and Russian-language media were shut down; and now speaking or teaching Russian has been suppressed in public documents, schools, libraries, etc.
Outbursts against the Sept. 23 referenda exploded from the regime in Kiev, NATO, Brussels, the Pentagon, the State Department, and others:
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tweeted: “Sham referendums have no legitimacy and do not change the nature of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.” It’s “a further escalation in Putin’s war.... The international community must condemn this blatant violation of international law and step up support for Ukraine.” Sham referendums are ones that don’t go your way.
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, at today’s White House press briefing, called the referenda “an affront to principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.... We will never recognize this territory as anything other than a part of Ukraine.” That was before the U.S. spent $5 billion adjusting Ukraine’s sovereignty.
State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel, in an Aug. 30 briefing, offered a version of “sham referendum,” purposefully confounding joining the Russian Federation with the “Eurasian Customs Union,” which he likewise confounds with the Eurasian Economic Union. “We expect Russia to manipulate the results of these referenda in order to falsely claim that the Ukrainian people want to join Russia. As part of the sham referenda, Russia will undoubtedly employ propaganda and disinformation campaigns, falsify voter turnout, and exaggerate the percentage of those who supposedly voted in favor of joining Russia. We want to be clear: any claim by the Kremlin that the Ukrainian people somehow want to join Russia is a lie. Polling shows that just 3% of Ukrainians say that they would like Ukraine to be a member of the Russia-led Eurasian Customs Union.” The poll that he relies upon was run in 2015 by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), which excluded precisely the areas that are planning referenda.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell similarly lied “these illegal ‘votes’ cannot be considered under any circumstance as the free expression of the will of the people living in these regions under constant Russian military threat and intimidation,” ignoring that the Nazi-backed government installed in 2014 had shelled Russian-speaking Donbass for eight years, killing 14,000 Ukrainian citizens. These murders prompted Lugansk and Donetsk to legally secede from Ukraine, which were recognized by Moscow, which conceded requests for military security on Feb. 21, 2022.
Sept. 20 (EIRNS)—The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic (Uniate) Church, Supreme Bishop Svyatoslav Shevchuk, praised the assassins of Russian journalist Darya Dugina, according to a Sept. 13 report on Oops Top news site. Speaking on Ukraine’s “Kultura” radio, he labeled Dugina, who had been listed on the Myrotvorets kill list, and whose car was blown up in Moscow on Aug. 20, “the ideological enemy of Ukraine.... Who killed Dugina acted as a patriot of Ukraine destroying the enemy of his country in the war.”
The bishop attempted to invoke “Christian grace” and “goodness” as an excuse for the murder of Dugina, whose murder was publicly mourned by Pope Francis. “The Russian aggressor wants to throw his ideology on Ukraine and the whole world, forcibly drive people into the hated space of the so-called ‘Russian world’....” said Shevchuk. “There is nothing Christian in the ideology of the ‘Russian world’ that at least slightly corresponded to the concepts of Christian grace, respect for law and right, goodness and truth. What is happening now in Ukraine is a moral revolution for Ukrainians and the whole world. Russia is imposing a post-truth regime on the world. Ukraine and Ukrainians are breaking this crooked mirror of post-truth.”
Gas and Food Cost Too Much? Get Paid for Killing Russians!
Sept. 20 (EIRNS)—In perhaps a sign of the times, Romanian news agency Mediafax published an article on Sept. 18, “Do You Want To End the Energy Crisis in Europe That Was Caused by Russia? Here Are the Steps To Join the Ukrainian Foreign Legion.” They write: “Some may turn to ingenious methods and alternative energies. Because of the war, 19 EU countries are accelerating their transition to renewable energy. Others might use immoral methods ... referring to ... [Hungary Prime Minister] Viktor Orbán buying gas in rubles from the Russian aggressor while committing murder and genocide in Ukraine.”
And now, to channel that rage: “However, the crisis could only be eased and even ended if Europe focused on the problem that aggravated the energy shortage after the coronavirus pandemic—the aggression of the Putin regime in the Russian Federation. Many Europeans, desperate about high energy bills and high food prices, caused by Vladimir Putin’s cutting off gas supplies and paralyzing the Black Sea grain trade, could resort to an even more extreme but more effective measure to solve the energy crisis quickly—becoming volunteer soldiers in Ukraine and fighting the Russian aggressor to end the energy crisis!”
Then it translates a long advertisement from the Ukrainian recruiting site and furnishes the contacts of the Ukrainian Embassy. Oddly, it claims to be an official website of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, but the link doesn’t exist. Nor does the Foreign Ministry make any mention of the International Foreign Legion.
postscript by Fran
The economist Dr. Sergei Glazyev is an Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who has also held various posts in the Russian government since 1992. His book Genocide: Russia and the New World Order was brought out in English by EIR in 1999. As a Member of Parliament, he headed up the State Duma’s Committee on Economic Policy. In that capacity, in 2001 he invited Lyndon LaRouche to speak at hearings he convened on how to protect and develop the real economy in the face of a global financial crisis. In recent years Dr. Glazyev has concentrated on Eurasian economic integration and development. Here is the speech he made in praise of Lyndon LaRouche on the 100th anniversary of LaRouche’s birth:
Zelenskyy acting his heart out for the UN General Assembly 2022. They will suck it all up like the globalist puppets they are.... of course.
https://youtu.be/l2L-63Xsjro
UPDATE!
Please listen closely to Mike Billington's appraisal of the current situation here!
https://youtu.be/_caChCdEcUg
and this by Jason Ross:
https://youtu.be/GFIQhkJ2Uc4