Traditionally one hopes to find some respite at the weekend, be it from work, be it from ‘news’. Therefore I’ll only take a quick look at what “we” need to know, according to our ‘betters’. The more posh broadsheets are still going on about Sunak and his wife, some report on the ‘Kramatorsk outrage’, and the Red Tops report that the Queen will pull out of the Maundy Thursday service (link).

Regarding Sunak and his wife: I’ll note for the record that the MSM as well as Tory Party officials clearly knew about this well before our intrepid hacks decided to feign horror and outrage by ‘going public’. ‘News’ isn’t just what happened on that day or the day before, suitably spun. ‘News’ is also something reporters or indeed ‘sources’ have sat on for months and even years, to be ‘released’ at an opportune moment, for the greatest political effect desired, probably with the connivance of political enemies.

There were other news as well, the missile attack on the railway station in Kramatorsk, for example. On that, see my comment post under yesterday’s ‘Ongoing Betrayal’ column. Our glorious MSM didn’t give it that much attention. It made the headlines only in the Guardian, the SUN and the FT. Still, for the record, here’s the report in Reuters, still claiming that they were ‘unable to verify’ what happened but faithfully reporting Mr ‘e’s spin:

“LVIV, Ukraine, April 9 (Reuters) – Ukraine called for more weapons and harsher sanctions after it blamed Russia for a missile attack that killed at least 52 people at a train station packed with women, children and the elderly fleeing the threat of a Russian offensive in the east. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the strike in Kramatorsk, in the eastern region of Donetsk, a deliberate attack on civilians. […] “We expect a firm global response to this war crime,” Zelenskiy said in a video posted late on Friday. “Any delay in providing … weapons to Ukraine, any refusals, can only mean the politicians in question want to help the Russian leadership more than us,” he said, calling for an energy embargo and all Russian banks to be cut off from the global system.” (link)

Reuters next managed to produce the most torturous attempt at being ‘really unbiased’ while maintaining they were ‘unable to verify’, supporting Mr ‘e and blaming Russia:

“The Russian defence ministry was quoted by RIA news agency as saying the missiles said to have struck the station were used only by Ukraine’s military and that Russia’s armed forces had no targets assigned in Kramatorsk on Friday.” (link)

Let me point out, in case any Reuters ‘journalist’ happens to read my column, that the site of the Russian Defence Ministry is accessible even to private persons like myself. It does load slowly but it isn’t blocked. It’s therefore ridiculous for Reuters to quote the Russian’s news agency’s quote of the Russian defence ministry’s statement. So, again for the record, here’s the part of yesterday’s statement by the Russian Ministry of Defence, addressing that missile attack (my emphasis):

“Today, the Ukrainian Armed Forces struck Kramatorsk railway station with Tochka-U tactical missile. Tochka-U tactical missile, the wreckage of which was found near Kramatorsk railway station, is only used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.  I would like to point out that the maximum range of Tochka-U missile is 120 km. The warhead weighs 482kg and contains 20 fragmentation warheads, each 7.5kg, forming around 16,000 fragments.  An analysis of the engagement radius of the warhead, as well as the characteristic position of Tochka-U missile’s tail section, clearly confirm that it was launched from a south-western direction away from Kramatorsk.  According to intelligence reports, one of the divisions of the 19th Missile Brigade armed with Tochka-U missile systems at the time of the strike on Kramatorsk was located near Dobropol’e in Donetsk Region, 45 km south-west of Kramatorsk.  This area is still under the full control of the Ukrainian military grouping troops in Donbass.  I would like to stress that the Ukrainian Armed Forces still possess a significant arsenal of Tochka-U missiles.” (link)

You might like to read the full briefing, describing the military situation in the Ukraine as it was yesterday. I’ll just add that many bloggers and comment posters on social media have said that the only military description worthwhile and trustworthy is that of the Russian Ministry of defence. The Reuters quote above demonstrates why, and remember: our MSM use Reuters as their news provider.

Also still accessible to ordinary people is TASS, my go-to site while other Russian news outlets are difficult if not impossible to access. Yesterday evening they published a summary from Dmitry Medvedev’s blog, regarding sanctions:

“MOSCOW, April 8. /TASS/. The current unprecedented sanctions against Russia will cause further collapse of all international institutions, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said. He wrote in his Telegram channel on Friday that unlawful sanctions always cause a degradation of the international law system. “The current unprecedented in breadth, scope and degree of cynicism measures of illegal influence will cause further collapse of all international institutions, including above all the UN, and a total disregard for the norms of international law,” the deputy chairman of the Security Council pointed out.” (link)

Before we say ‘Medvedev would say that, wouldn’t he’; before we say that TASS would surely spin Medvedev’s statement to best political  effect – after all, that’s what our lot does – let’s go to the horse’s mouth and look at his blog on his ‘telegram’ account which is accessible to all but needs a machine translator:

“1. Sanctions are coercive measures taken by the UN Security Council on the basis of Art. 41 of the UN Charter in respect of the offending State. I would like to emphasize: they cannot be accepted otherwise. Everything else is reprisals that are not internationally recognized, are not sanctions in the sense of international law. Consequently, everything that has been done almost a thousand times recently against Russia is a direct violation of the rights of the Russian Federation as a sovereign state by individual countries or their unions. Thus, Russia is now under illegal sanctions from a number of countries.” (link, inRussian, machine translation needed)

You might like to read the whole thing. I’ve looked at the UN web site and haven’t found any mention of the UN Security Council having sanctioned Russia. Meanwhile, the Finnish Foreign Ministry seems to relent and permit the Russian works of art they’d ‘sanctioned’ to be returned to Russia (link).

Worth reading in full is this article by the Aussie journalist Caitlin Johnstone. She is looking at the admission by US intelligence officers made to the US news outlet NBCNews a few days ago which reported that the intelligence services are basically lying to the MSM. Also – don’t forget that tomorrow, the French go to the polls in the first round of their presidential elections.

It was such a gorgeous dawn today when I stepped out into my tiny back garden. The sky was painted a pale green and the garden birds were in full voice. Now the sun has risen, giving colourful detail to the budding apple blossoms, giving a green hint of leaves to come to the bare trees.

There is so much beauty in this world, especially in small things like the sun illuminating little wild violets. Go and look for it – it’s the best antidote to the constant fear which our leaders and the MSM try to inflict on us.

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