Beneath the Floor Boards

Nov. 20—Kit Klarenberg, an investigative journalist regularly writing for the Grayzone, published an article on Nov. 16, “Leaks Expose Secret British Military Cell Plotting To ‘Keep Ukraine Fighting,’|” exposing a secret British intelligence/military operation to keep the war in Ukraine going, and to escalate towards a full-scale war with Russia. The operation, codenamed Project Alchemy, was launched under the direction of Royal Marines Lt. Gen. Charlie Stickland, immediately after the February 2022 invasion by Russian military forces into Ukraine. Gen. Stickland is charged with “planning, executing and integrating U.K.-led joint and multinational overseas military operations” as the head of Britain’s Permanent Joint Headquarters. Klarenberg adds: “It appears the British Premier Keir Starmer fell under the influence of the Project Alchemy cabal soon after his election in July, when he eagerly embraced the role of ‘wartime prime minister.’|” Klarenberg writes: “The secret cell even put forward a plan to ‘aggressively pursue’ and ‘dismantle’ independent media outlets—including The Grayzone—through an aggressive campaign of legal harassment and online censorship, so they ‘would be forced to close.’” The plans have been partially implemented, including the attack on the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland, and “the construction of a secret, Gladio-style army of Ukrainian partisan fighters to carry out assassination, sabotage, and terror missions behind enemy lines.” The Alchemy Project paper that Klarenberg leaked “consisted of a series of proposals for the British government to ‘defeat Putin in Ukraine and set the conditions for the reshaping of an open international order of the future.’ Throughout the document, the need to ‘keep Ukraine fighting’ was described as London’s ‘main effort’ in the conflict.” Information operations of Operation Alchemy "were to be headed by a still-to-be determined member of Britain’s 77th Psychological Operations Brigade. Also listed as a participant in information operations was longtime British psychological warfare operative Amil Khan, founder of the ‘counter-disinformation’ analysis firm Valent Projects. “In 2021, The Grayzone revealed how the then-Prince of Wales, King Charles, enlisted Khan’s Valent Projects create a pseudo-socialist YouTube influencer to attack skeptics of the government’s ham-fisted response to Covid. Previously, Khan participated in the U.K. Foreign Office’s program to foment regime change in Syria.” Khan also was central to the effort to shut down the Grayzone and other anti-war platforms. Klarenberg writes that “Project Alchemy members openly fantasized about absorbing Russia into the Western-dominated financial order afterwards under the guise of a ‘Post Putin Marshall Plan.’ Of particular interest was London’s ‘re-engagement’ with Moscow ‘in global energy and commodity markets,’ a seeming reference to the West’s desire for cheap Russian gas and wheat.” Most interesting is Klarenberg’s note to the effect that: "To accomplish the balkanization of Russia, Project Alchemy’s plotters took inspiration from Operation Gladio, a CIA and NATO-orchestrated covert operation that saw fascist paramilitaries carry out false flag terrorist attacks across Western Europe after World War II in a bid to prevent communism from taking root. Gladio was epxosed decades ago by EIR. Not, stated is that there has been a long-standing effort by British intelligence to connect with what constitutes a faction inside Russia that subscribes to the idea that Moscow is the "Third Rome<" and center of a new Roman Empire. The idea, which was actively pursued by Lord Bertrand Russell, among others in the last century to make sure that Russia sees itself no as an Asian or Eurasian, but as a European power. This faction, which includes many within the Anglo-American intelligence community, thinks it ultimately possible to split Russia from its current alliance partner, China. “A section detailing potential ‘discreet operations’ in Alchemy’s strategy paper, which stressed the ‘need to intervene in every way except “official,”’ explicitly recommended ‘Stay-behind Gladio handbooks/ Partisan Pamphlets’ which would be ‘updated for Information Age.’” That included “a PowerPoint presentation entitled, ‘Training a Ukrainian Commando Force To Restore Maritime Sovereignty—Elders,’ outlining plans to construct a 1,000-strong Ukrainian commando force ‘trained in Britain by military veterans equipped with British equipment’ to ‘degrade the Russian Navy and open another flank in the fight for Kherson and the south of Ukraine.’” 

Nov. 20—The Kremlin announced yesterday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree approving the Foundations of State Policy in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence. “Today, a very important presidential decree was signed, which approves the Foundations of Russia’s State Policy in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Nov. 19, reported TASS, adding that the document had been published. “This is a very important document. Clearly, it requires in-depth analysis both in our country and, perhaps, abroad, too,” he stressed. The fundamental principle of the doctrine is that the use of nuclear weapons is a measure of last resort to protect the country’s sovereignty. The emergence of new military threats and risks prompted Russia to clarify the conditions for the use of nuclear weapons, TASS reported separately. In particular, the amended doctrine expands the range of countries and military alliances subject to nuclear deterrence, as well as the list of military threats that such deterrence is designed to counter. In addition, the document states that Russia will now view any attack by a non-nuclear country, supported by a nuclear power, as a joint attack. Moscow also reserves the right to consider a nuclear response to a conventional weapons attack threatening its sovereignty, a large-scale launch of enemy aircraft, missiles, and drones targeting Russian territory, their crossing of the Russian border, and an attack on its ally Belarus. The document was signed, as the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that NATO, using its Ukrainian puppets as a cover, had launched missiles fired from the American provided and targeted ATACMS system at a military target 119 miles inside Russia.