Yuriy Baranchyk (Юрий Баранчик) | Is Poland preparing to enter Western Ukraine or Western Belarus? | The Polish Army sends out summons for training: Our reader "Michal" received a summons to report to the assembly point in Sieradz. The reason is the recently adopted Law "On Defending the Fatherland". He was told at the assembly point that he is obliged to participate in a military exercise, which will begin on March 27, 2023 and will end in 33 days. The Polish Ministry of Defence does not explain what exactly these manoeuvres will be. All participants of the maneuvers will take an oath for some reason. The Polish authorities promise to conscript about 200,000 people. (Translated with www.DeepL.com/)(free version)

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba insists all 31 parcels containing “animal tissue” were sent from Germany | A Tesla dealership in Baden-Wurttemberg was used as the return address on the suspicious packages sent to dozens of Ukrainian diplomatic outposts across Europe over the past week, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday. ● While the diplomat did not clarify the exact contents of the grizzly packages, earlier media reports described them as foul-smelling blood-soaked packets containing animal eyes and other entrails. Kuleba called it a 💬 “well-planned campaign of terror and intimidation.” ● The perpetrators were careful enough not to leave any DNA traces or other forensic evidence, Kuleba claimed, suggesting a 💬 “professional level of implementation.” Additionally, he observed, most of the post offices used to mail the parcels were not equipped with video surveillance technology. [The RT comments are interesting...]

The former German chancellor acknowledged that the Minsk accord was meant to ‘give time’ for Ukraine to strengthen its military | Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has confirmed her government’s duplicity regarding the conflict in Ukraine by confirming that the 2014 ceasefire agreement was meant to give Kiev time to build up its military, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. ● In an interview with Zeit magazine published on Wednesday, Merkel said that the Minsk protocol brokered by Germany and France was 💬 “an attempt to give Ukraine time,” which it used to “become stronger” as evidenced on the battlefield now. She was referring to the first of the two documents known collectively as the “Minsk agreements” that were designed to help Kiev reconcile with rebels in the east, who had rejected the outcome of an armed coup in the capital in 2014.

■ Merkel: Minsk agreements were meant to 'give Ukraine time' (almayadeen.net)
■ Merkel confirms Ukraine peace deal was a ploy (RT.com)

gazeta.ru | About Merkel | Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel's words that the Minsk agreements were signed to allow Ukraine to "buy precious time and become stronger" call into question possible trust between Russia and the West, Putin says. [President Vladimir Putin:] 💬 "It is disappointing. I, frankly, did not expect to hear this from the former federal chancellor. Because I have always assumed that the FRG leadership is being sincere with us. Now of course there is a question of trust. And anyway the trust is of course close to zero, but of course after such statements a question arises: how to come to an agreement? And is it possible to negotiate with someone? And where are the guarantees? Of course, this is the question", said the President of Russia. ● He expressed confidence that the Western countries would have to come to an agreement with Moscow anyway. And Russia is ready for such agreements, it is open to them, Putin added. (Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator)

The United Kingdom's government has approved the construction of a new coal mine in the northwestern county of Cumbria, despite the promise to relinquish coal at the COP26 climate conference which it hosted last year, UK media reported. | The idea of opening the Whitehaven coal mine to extract coking coal, which is used in steel production, was first discussed on April 24. Michael Gove, UK Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, supported the plan to open the first coal mine in the country in decades to reduce dependence on energy imports from Russia. Before the crisis in Ukraine, London imported 40% of its coking coal from Russia. ● British media cited West Cumbria Mining, the mine's developer, as saying that it would be the world's first zero-emissions coal mine. The press reported that the mine would not produce coal for power, adding that at least 80% of output would be exported.

Some two million years ago, now barren and inhospitable Greenland lived up to its name, with elephant-like mastodons roaming its green forests. | The world’s oldest known fragments of DNA have been found in the permafrost of Cape Copenhagen at the northern edge of Greenland, offering an extraordinary glimpse at the extraordinary ancient ecosystem of the world’s largest island. The analyzed genetic material dates back at least two million years, which is nearly twice as old as the mammoth DNA from Siberia which was the previous record holder. ● The samples, gathered from more than 130 species ranging from giant mastodons to ants and plants, and identified after several years of painstaking research, showed that Greenland, today one of the world’s most desolate landscapes of ice glaciers and snow-covered mountains, was once covered by a forest of poplar and birch trees inhabited by wildlife such as reindeer, rodents and geese, and washed by warm coastal waters which provided a home to marine species such as horseshoe crabs and green algae. The reconstructed ecosystem has no modern analogue, the researchers said, describing it as a 💬 “mix between species that you don't see living together anywhere in the world.” ● Extracting DNA from sediment allows researchers to track the ecology and evolution of prehistoric biological communities. It was pioneered by Danish researchers from the Lundbeck Foundation Geogenetics Center at the University of Copenhagen and relies on the binding of ancient DNA to mineral surfaces. In the early 2000s this method was tested on a chunk of Siberian permafrost and facilitated the extraction of DNA from plants such as willows and daisies which lived 400,000 years ago. ● It can be estimated that the temperature in Greenland back then was between 11 and 19 degrees warmer than today, and therefore the two million-year-old ecosystem in North Greenland also provides a detailed insight into how nature reacted to climate change. (Image: © Wikipedia / Mauricio Antón)

Vanguard, the world's second-largest mutual and exchange-traded fund manager, is pulling out of a major financial-sector alliance intended to help tackle climate change, the firm announced Wednesday. | Vanguard, in a statement, said it will track its progress independent of the alliance, as an effort to provide "clarity" to its investors. Some environmental groups... argued that such a move is kowtowing to "anti-woke" sentiment that claims investments focused on the impending clean-energy transition and other pro-climate actions only come at the expense of investment returns. The alliance, called the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM), was launched in late 2020 to encourage asset managers to hit a net-zero emission target by 2050 and help keep a rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius. ● Along with BlackRock BLK, -0.16% and State Street STT, +8.19%, Vanguard, with roughly $8.1 trillion under management, is considered one of the Big Three index fund managers that dominate much of American retail investing and retirement planning.

[Some extracts & The bottom line:] So what you see now is the continuation of the war on Russia that the West is fighting “until the last Ukrainian”. This leaves us no other option but to keep moving towards achieving the goals of the special operation by military means. Thereby the Ukrainian people suffer the most, because the West and the felonious regime in Kiev are using them as “cannon fodder”. [...] Western states promise that arms deliveries to Ukraine will continue for “as long as needed”, saying that they allegedly do it for the sake of peace. For example, the European Union even finances these arms supplies via its European Peace Facility, apparently in order to mislead the taxpayers. Kiev, however, has its own answer to why they need so many weapons. Lately, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine O.Danilov frankly stated that his country needs weapons because Russians “must be destroyed so that they cease to exist as a country”. In his opinion, negotiating with Moscow is something “unworthy of the Ukrainian people”. [...] It goes without saying that we cannot leave this sort of hate speech without a reaction. We will respond to Kiev’s hostile actions, i.a. by hitting the infrastructure that is used for military provision, logistics, and liaison of Ukrainian formations. In other words, we will keep impairing the military potential of Zelensky’s regime. [...] If [our] goals are not attained by peaceful means and by turning Ukraine into a normal state and a good neighbor that poses no threat to Russia, then [our] goals will be achieved militarily. Due to the thoughtless actions of Ukrainian rulers who are subordinate to the West, the population of peaceful Ukrainian towns and cities is suffering. Responsibility for that fully rests with Zelensky’s regime and its Western sponsors, who resolved to defeat Russia on the battleground. This is their choice, not ours. Until they realize it, we will defend our interests by all methods that we have at our disposal.