Waterford Whispers:

Russians helped Donald Trump win this years US election, assassinated John F. Kennedy in 1963 and hid Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) confirmed today.

President Barack Obama ordered intelligence agencies to review cyber attacks and foreign intervention into the 2016 US election and deliver a report before he left office, and was astounded at what the civilian foreign intelligence service of the United States federal government found.

“The Russians are to blame for everything wrong with America today,” Mr. Obama pointed out, reading from a ten page report into the CIA findings, “We didn’t know until now how much the Russian’s have influenced this whole planet over the last 50 years. Thankfully the CIA have accumulated all this evidence in just a matter of weeks, which is an incredible feat considering how long they took to find Osama Bin Laden, who we now believe was also backed by Russia”.

Furthermore, the intelligence agency also found that Russia was also responsible for several coups around the world, including Libya, Venezuela and may have orchestrated the 911 attacks on New York, the Pentagon and probably created the Zika virus while it was at it.

“Russia is really, really bad and they support Donald Trump,” a CIA spokesman confirmed in a brief statement, “Don’t ask us how we know all this because we can’t tell you as it’s very, very top secret; you will just have to trust us and take our word for it,” adding “We would never deliver fake news… not even once”.

Going viral today is news of Vladimir Putin’s latest comment, echoing the famous 19th century marching song of Teutonic aggression penned by Ernst Moritz Arndt.

The Independent:

Vladimir Putin has said Russia’s borders “do not end anywhere” during a live televised awards ceremony for students in Moscow.

On stage, the Russian president asked a nine-year-old boy: “Where does Russia’s border end?” The child answered “at the Bering Strait with the United States”.

Mr Putin then gave his own answer, adding “it was a joke” to applause and laughter from the audience.

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Des Deutschen Vaterland (1813)

Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?
Ist’s Preußenland? Ist’s Schwabenland?
Ist’s, wo am Rhein die Rebe blüht?
Ist’s, wo am Belt die Möwe zieht?
O nein, nein, nein!
Sein Vaterland muss größer sein!

What is the German’s fatherland?
Is it Prussia, is it Swabia?
Is it where the vines blossom on the Rhine?
Is it where the gull moves on the Belt?
Oh no! oh no! oh no! oh no!
His fatherland must be greater!

Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?
Ist’s Bayerland? Ist’s Steierland?
Ist’s, wo des Marsen Rind sich streckt?
Ist’s, wo der Märker Eisen reckt?
O nein, nein, nein!
Sein Vaterland muss größer sein!

What is the German’s fatherland?
Is it Bavaria, is it Styria?
Is it where the cattle of the Marsi roam?
Is it where the citizens of the Mark mold iron?
Oh no! oh no! oh no! oh no!
His fatherland must be greater!

Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?
Ist’s Pommerland? Westfalenland?
Ist’s, wo der Sand der Dünen weht?
Ist’s, wo die Donau brausend geht?
O nein, nein, nein!
Sein Vaterland muss größer sein!

What is the German’s fatherland?
Is it Pomerania, Westphalia?
Is it where the sand of dunes blows?
Is it where the Danube rushes along?
Oh no! oh no! oh no! oh no!
His fatherland must be greater!

Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?
So nenne mir das große Land!
Ist’s Land der Schweizer? Ist’s Tirol?
Das Land und Volk gefiel mir wohl.
Doch nein, nein, nein!
Sein Vaterland muss größer sein!

What is the German’s fatherland?
So name the great land to me!
Is it the land of the Swiss, is it Tyrol?
The land and people that please me well!
Oh no! oh no! oh no! oh no!
His fatherland must be greater!

Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?
So nenne mir das große Land!
Gewiss, es ist das Österreich,
An Ehren und an Siegen reich?
O nein, nein, nein!
Sein Vaterland muss größer sein!

What is the German’s fatherland?
So name the great land to me!
Certainly it must be Austria,
Rich in victories and in honors?
Oh no! oh no! oh no! oh no!
His fatherland must be greater!

Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?
So nenne endlich mir das Land!
So weit die deutsche Zunge klingt
Und Gott im Himmel Lieder singt:
Das soll es sein! Das soll es sein!
Das, wackrer Deutscher, nenne dein!

What is the German’s fatherland?
So name the great land to me, finally!
As far as the German tongue sounds
And sings songs to God in heaven!
That shall it be,
That, brave German, shall it be!

Das ist des Deutschen Vaterland,
Wo Eide schwört der Druck der Hand,
Wo Treue hell vom Auge blitzt
Und Liebe warm im Herzen sitzt.
Das soll es sein! Das soll es sein!
Das, wackrer Deutscher, nenne dein!

That is the German’s fatherland,
Where oaths are sworn with a handshake,
Where loyalty blazes brightly from the eye
And love sits warmly in the heart.
That shall it be,
That, brave German, shall it be!

Das ist des Deutschen Vaterland,
Wo Zorn vertilgt den welschen Tand,
Wo jeder Franzmann heißet Feind,
Wo jeder Deutsche heißet Freund.
Das soll es sein! das soll es sein!
Das ganze Deutschland soll es sein!

That is the German’s fatherland,
Where rage wipes out the foreign junk,
Where every Frenchman is called enemy,
Where every German is called friend.
That shall it be,
The whole Germany shall it be.

Das ganze Deutschland soll es sein!
O Gott vom Himmel, sieh darein
Und gib uns rechten deutschen Mut,
Dass wir es lieben treu und gut!
Das soll es sein! Das soll es sein!
Das ganze Deutschland soll es sein!

The whole Germany shall it be,
O God from heaven, see within
And give us real German courage,
That we may love it faithfully and well.
That shall it be,
The whole Germany shall it be.

Not only have US negotiations with Russia over Syria broken down and Russia has cancelled a major arms control agreement concerning plutonium, now we learn that Russia is taking serious steps to prepare its population to survive a nuclear war with the West.

The Independent:

The Russian government has launched a nationwide civil defence training exercise to ensure the country is properly prepared in the event of a nuclear, chemical and biological attack from the West.

Amid growing international tensions, particulary over Russia’s conduct in Syria, the Defence Ministry-run Zvezda TV network announced last week: “Schizophrenics from America are sharpening nuclear weapons for Moscow.”

Lasting three days, the exercise bing run by the Ministry for Civil Defence, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters (EMERCOM) will involve 200,000 emergency personnel and the co-operation of 40 million civilians. …

“The drill will rehearse radiation, chemical and biological protection of the personnel and population during emergencies at crucial and potentially dangerous facilities.

“Fire safety, civil defence and human protection at social institutions and public buildings are also planned to be checked.

“Response units will deploy radiation, chemical and biological monitoring centers and sanitation posts at the emergency areas, while laboratory control networks are going to be put on standby.”

Relations between Russia and the West continue to deteriorate with Vladimir Putin suspending an agreement with the US over the disposal of surplus weapons-grade plutonium, BBC reports.

Read the whole thing.

Apart from all the racial healing, you have got to admire the Obama Administration’s reset of relations with Russia and its great strides in the direction of world peace. Maybe Sweden will give Barry a second Nobel Peace Prize before he leaves office.

Human Rights in Ukraine reports on a remarkable ruling, denying obvious fact.

Russia’s Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of Perm blogger Vladimir Luzgin for reposting a text which states that both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland in 1939. The Supreme Court’s ruling came on September 1, 2016, the 77th anniversary of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, 17 days before the anniversary of the Soviet invasion from the east.

Henry Reznik, the well-known lawyer who was representing Luzgin, commented that the Supreme Court has discredited itself through this ruling and promised to appeal further. He added that an application to the European Court of Human Rights was simply demanded.

As reported here, 37-year-old Vladimir Luzgin was convicted in July this year by the Perm District Court and fined 200 thousand roubles. The charge was under Article 354.1 of Russia’s criminal code (‘rehabilitation of Nazism’) and concerned Luzgin’s repost of a text on his VKontakte social network page entitled ’15 facts about Bandera supporters, or what the Kremlin is silent about’.

It may be no accident that the ‘offending text’ should be Ukrainian, and fairly nationalist, however it was specifically over the following paragraph in the repost that the criminal proceedings against Luzgin were initiated:

“The communists and Germany jointly invaded Poland, sparking off the Second World War. That is, communism and Nazism closely collaborated, yet for some reason they blame Bandera who was in a German concentration camp for declaring Ukrainian independence”.

Russia’s Supreme Court has now agreed that this paragraph constitutes “the public denial of the Nuremberg Trials and circulation of false information about the activities of the USSR during the years of the Second World War”.

It is hard to know what is most shocking in all of this. A prime contender must be Alexander Vertinsky, dean of the History Faculty of the Perm Humanitarian-Pedagogical University. He proved willing to appear for the prosecution and claim that the paragraph really did contain “statements that do not correspond with the position accepted at international level”.

There are also two Russian courts willing to agree that since the Nuremberg Trials did not mention the Soviet invasion, the information was ‘knowingly false’. With the Soviet Union as one of the victors exerting considerable influence at Nuremberg, it was highly unlikely that Soviet collaboration with the Nazis and its invasion would get a mention.

The rulings are extraordinarily cynical. Whatever was said at Nuremberg, any genuine historian will confirm that the Soviet Union invaded what was then Poland on September 17, 1939.

To deny this is absurd when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols which carved up Poland between the Soviet Union and Germany have long been in the public domain, and can be read about in any history book.

Complete story.

BBC:

Alexander Laznenko of the Smolensk Region Border Agency tells Tass news agency that the smugglers used heavy earth-moving equipment at night to “widen and raise the gravel track, and put in more turning and passing points” — right under the noses of the local authorities.

Earlier this month, customs officers ambushed a convoy of nine lorries there laden with 175 tonnes of Greek and Polish fruit worth 13m roubles (£154,000; $200,000), but are none the wiser about who upgraded the road through the tiny Russian village of Klimenki.

Local administration chief Sergei Listopadov said villagers have come forward to say they saw crews working on the road earlier this year. He joked to RIA Novosti news agency that he’d like to write their mysterious benefactor a “letter of thanks” for improving a road that only a horse and cart could negotiate before.

But Mr Laznenko doesn’t see the funny side. He says customs officers have put the 4.5km (2.7 mile) track under constant surveillance but, as they do not have the authority to barricade or dig it up, they will have to rely on catching the smugglers out.

Russia announced a ban on food imports from the European Union last year, in retaliation for an EU trade embargo over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Since then, the number of lorries crossing legally from Belarus has increased dramatically in the last year to 73,000, all of which Russian customs have to inspect for banned foodstuffs, Mr Laznenko says.

Social media users tend to agree with Mr Listopadov, though. “At least someone is maintaining our roads,” one person writes, a sentiment echoed in many other comments on RIA Novosti’s site. Some even suggest the smugglers should form a party to stand in next month’s parliamentary elections on a “Let our lorry through, and we’ll fix your potholes” platform.

The Russian Olympic Team in the parade of nations.

Breitbart reports:

The Rio Olympics went off with a bang on the eve of the opening ceremonies.

A man initially described by Brazilian authorities as a Russian diplomat killed a would-be robber with the assailant’s own gun on Thursday near the city’s Olympic Park. The decedent smashed the man’s window in an alleged robbery attempt. The prey-turned-predator reportedly struggled with the man, used jiu-jitsu to pull the assailant into the car, and then secured the thief’s own gun, which he used to shoot his attacker.

Buckwheat groats and mushrooms

Jill Dougherty found alarming seasonal signs in Russia and in bordering regions.

Recently, I grabbed a taxi in Moscow. When the driver asked me where I was from, I told him the United States. “I went there once,” he said, “to Chicago. I really liked it.”

“But tell me something,” he added. “When are we going to war?”

The question, put so starkly, so honestly, shocked me. “Well, I hope never,” I replied. “No one wants war.”

At the office I ask a Russian employee about the mood in his working-class Moscow neighborhood. The old people are buying salt, matches and “gretchka,” (buckwheat) he tells me – the time-worn refuge for Russians stocking up on essentials in case of war.

In the past two months, I’ve traveled to the Baltic region, to Georgia, and to Russia. Talk of war is everywhere.

Hat tip to Vanderleun.

Michael Isikoff reports that there are clues to the hackers’ identity.

Just weeks after she started preparing opposition research files on Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort last spring, Democratic National Committee consultant Alexandra Chalupa got an alarming message when she logged into her personal Yahoo email account.

“Important action required,” read a pop-up box from a Yahoo security team that is informally known as “the Paranoids.” “We strongly suspect that your account has been the target of state-sponsored actors.”

Chalupa — who had been drafting memos and writing emails about Manafort’s connection to pro-Russian political leaders in Ukraine — quickly alerted top DNC officials. “Since I started digging into Manafort, these messages have been a daily oc­­­­currence on my Yahoo account despite changing my p­­a­ssword often,” she wrote in a May 3 email to Luis Miranda, the DNC’s communications director, which included an attached screengrab of the image of the Yahoo security warning.

“I was freaked out,” Chalupa, who serves as director of “ethnic engagement” for the DNC, told Yahoo News in an interview, noting that she had been in close touch with sources in Kiev, Ukraine, including a number of investigative journalists, who had been providing her with information about Manafort’s political and business dealings in that country and Russia.

“This is really scary,” she said.

Chalupa’s message is among nearly 20,000 hacked internal DNC emails that were posted over the weekend by WikiLeaks as the Democratic Party gathered for its national convention in Philadelphia. Those emails have already provoked a convulsion in Democratic Party ranks, leading to the resignation of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the wake of posted messages in which she and other top DNC officials privately derided Bernie Sanders and plotted to undercut his insurgent campaign against Hillary Clinton.

But Chalupa’s message, which had not been previously reported, stands out: It is the first indication that the reach of the hackers who penetrated the DNC has extended beyond the official email accounts of committee officials to include their private email and potentially the content on their smartphones. After Chalupa sent the email to Miranda (which mentions that she had invited this reporter to a meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Washington), it triggered high-level concerns within the DNC, given the sensitive nature of her work. “That’s when we knew it was the Russians,” said a Democratic Party source who has knowledge of the internal probe into the hacked emails. In order to stem the damage, the source said, “we told her to stop her research.” …

In mid-June, Democratic Party suspicions about the hackers seemed to be confirmed when CrowdStrike, an outside security firm retained by the DNC, reported that it traced the hackers to two separate units linked to Russia’s security services: the FSB, Russia’s equivalent of the FBI, and GRU, the country’s military intelligence agency. The company noted strong similarities between the attack on the DNC by the suspected GRU hackers and previous cyberintrusions of unclassified systems at the White House, the State Department and the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (After discovering the data breach, a DNC security source said its cyberexperts noted that the hackers’ exfiltration of files took place “9 to 5, Moscow time.”)

—————————–

Patrick Tucker, at the Atlantic, has more details.

Considerable evidence shows that the Wikileaks dump was an orchestrated act by the Russian government, working through proxies, to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“This has all the hallmarks of tradecraft. The only rationale to release such data from the Russian bulletproof host was to empower one candidate against another. The Cold War is alive and well,” Tom Kellermann, the CEO of Strategic Cyber Ventures said.

Here’s the timeline: On June 14, the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, under contract with the DNC, announced in a blog post that two separate Russian intelligence groups had gained access to the DNC network. One group, FANCY BEAR or APT 28, gained access in April. The other, COZY BEAR, (also called Cozy Duke and APT 29) first breached the network in the summer of 2015.

The cybersecurity company FireEye first discovered APT 29 in 2014 and was quick to point out a clear Kremlin connection. “We suspect the Russian government sponsors the group because of the organizations it targets and the data it steals. Additionally, APT29 appeared to cease operations on Russian holidays, and their work hours seem to align with the UTC +3 time zone, which contains cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg,” they wrote in their report on the group. Other U.S. officials have said that the group looks like it has sponsorship from the Russian government due in large part to the level of sophistication behind the group’s attacks.

Daily Mail:

Vladimir Putin has sacked every single commander in Russia’s Baltic fleet in what has been described as a ‘Stalin-style’ purge.

Up to 50 officers of the fleet were fired alongside Vice Admiral Viktor Kravchuk and his chief of staff Rear Admiral Sergei Popov after they reportedly refused to follow orders to confront Western ships.

Reports in Russia also suggested the purges followed an alleged cover-up of a submarine accident, flaws in recruitment and military construction projects.

It comes amid an undisclosed number of other senior officers of the fleets have been fired over serious flaws in combat training and their failure to take proper care of personnel.

The purges’ scope and publicity make them highly unusual for the Russian military, which usually removes senior officers in a more subtle way.

It is particularly unexpected as it follows Putin’s visit to the Baltic fleet last year in Kalingrad, during which he praised its performance.

However, there has been speculation the drastic measures were prompted after the US Navy ship the USS Donald Cook was ‘buzzed’ by Russian fighter bombers in April, which was meant to be part of a series of confrontations against Western ships in the Baltic.

But international affairs analyst Peter Coates told news.com.au: ‘But the Russian Baltic Fleet, however, refused to follow such dangerous orders – hence Putin’s retaliation against his own naval officers.

Meanwhile after news of the sackings were announced, the Moscow Times noted that ‘not since Stalin’s purges had so many officers been ousted at once.’

Late Spetznaz Operator Alexander Prokhorenko

You may remember the Russian Special Forces Operator in Syria, who recently when finding himself hopelessly surrounded by jihadis and running out of ammunition called in a bomb strike on his own position.

The transcript of his final radio transmission has been distributed by Russian media and translated by Western outlets:

(translated from the Russian)

Officer: command I am compromised, repeat I am compromised.

Command: please repeat and confirm

Officer: They have spotted me, there are shooting everywhere, i am pinned, request evacuation immediately

Command: evacuation request acknowledged

Officer: please hurry I am low on ammo, they seem to be everywhere, I can’t hold them for too long please hurry

Command: Confirmed, hold them off, continue return of fire, go to safe position, air support is monitoring, state coordinates

Officer: gives coordinates which are blurred in the translation

Command: command repeats coordinates which are blurred. Confirm

Officer: confirmed, please hurry I am low on ammo, they are surrounding me, bastards

Command: 12 minutes until evacuation, return to safe line, I repeat return to safe line

Officer: They are close, I am surrounded, this may be the end, tell my family I love them dearly

Command: return to green line, continue return of fire, help is on the way, followed by air support

Officer: negative, I am surrounded, they are so many of these bastards

Command: 10 minutes, return to green line

Officer: I can’t they have surrounded me and are closing in, please hurry

Command: move to green line, repeat move to green line

Officer: They are outside, conduct the airstrike now please hurry, this is the end, tell my family I love them and i died fighting for my motherland.

Command: Negative return to green line

Officer: I can’t command, I am surrounded, they are outside, I don’t want them to take me and parade me, conduct the airstrike, they will make a mockery of me and this uniform. I want to die with dignity and take all these bastards with me. please my last wish, conduct the airstrike, they will kill me either way.

Command: please confirm your request

Officer: They out outside, this is the end commander, thank you, tell my family and my country I love them. Tell them I was brave and I fought until I could no longer. Please take care of my family, avenge my death, good bye commander, tell my family I love them

Command: No response, orders the airstrike.

The British Express pays tribute to a Russian Spetznaz special operator in Syria, who, finding himself surrounded and hopelessly trapped by ISIS jihadis, called in a bomb strike on his own position.

A HERO special forces officer took out a group of murderous Islamic State (ISIS) jihadis who had pinned him down by calling in an airstrike on HIMSELF, it emerged today.

The brave commando gave bomber jets his own co-ordinates after being trapped by a gang of evil Islamists whilst carrying out covert operations to disrupt their supply line.

His extraordinary bravery meant vital operational information did not fall into the jihadis’ hands and also ensured that he took several of the group’s twisted militants down with him.

The bloodthirsty Islamists were moving in to capture the stranded soldier following a fierce gunfight when they were surprised by the bombing raid and blown to hell.

It is thought the commando may have belonged to Russia’s crack Spetsnaz elite combat unit, which was dispatched to Syria to hunt down and take out fleeing jihadis.