Day: September 20, 2023

WASHINGTON

There is no way ex-US President Donald Trump avoids conviction on federal election charges as he prepares to head to trial, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, leader of the far-right militant group Proud Boys, told Anadolu just days after he was sentenced to over two decades in prison.

Tarrio, the ex-national chairman of the group, was found guilty by a 12-person jury in the US capital of seditious conspiracy and other charges earlier this month for his actions related to the Jan. 6, 2021 US Capitol riots.

He was sentenced to 22 years behind bars and three years of supervised release. The sentence is the longest handed down to date related to the assault.

Speaking to Anadolu from prison, Tarrio was certain Trump would be convicted on charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in his favor.

“They’re gonna convict Donald Trump here in (Washington) DC. I am 100% sure of that with a DC jury, there’s no way he’s going to be discharged,” he said in a phone call.

Part of that certainty lies in efforts from federal investigators during the course of Tarrio’s trial asking him for information tying the ex-president to the events of Jan. 6, the far-right leader said.

Tarrio said he was asked about a message he sent in November 2020 that suggested he had been in contact with Trump’s campaign ahead of the Capitol riots.

“The campaign asked us to not wear colors to these events, keep identifying colors to a minimum,” Tarrio wrote, referring to the hallmark black and yellow Fred Perry clothing donned by the Proud Boys during public events.

According to Tarrio, he was visited by “the supervising prosecutor, the prosecutor in the case, and the lead FBI agent, and the second lead FBI agent.”

During that meeting, Tarrio said prosecutors told him they believed he had communication with Trump through intermediaries.

He claimed they offered him less prison time if he could provide information that would lead to the ex-president’s conviction.

Tarrio said he did not and could not hand over any information that would have implicated Trump in the failed attempt to keep the ex-president in power.

“I’m not blaming Donald Trump for something that the Department of Justice has done, in this case,” he said, referring to his own sentencing.

“I’m not gonna blame the wrong bad guy, per se. This whole thing, like these charges shouldn’t have been brought up to begin with. So I have no reason to, to deflect and say, ‘Oh, you know what, it’s Donald Trump’s fault.’ It’s not Donald Trump’s fault. It’s the Department of Justice’s fault. It’s the Biden administration’s fault.’

‘I’m not responsible’

Trump is now slated to head to trial on March 4 next year to face charges of conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. He has pleaded not guilty.

Despite making a public apology and asking US District Judge Timothy Kelly to “please show me mercy” as he prepared to be sentenced, Tarrio insists he is not guilty.

“I’m sorry for what those people went through, but I’m not responsible,” he told Anadolu from a Washington jail before being transferred to a federal penitentiary.

Tarrio and three other co-defendants were found guilty on May 4 of seditious conspiracy and other charges.

He was not present in the capital on Jan. 6 after he was arrested and ordered to leave Washington the day prior on charges related to an earlier burning of a Black Lives Matter banner and a gun charge.

However, the federal jury found Tarrio guilty of orchestrating the attack on the Capitol from afar, including through his efforts to form a Proud Boys cell known as the Ministry of Self-Defense that would work to coordinate the assault as it unfolded.

Tarrio and other leaders then recruited others who would follow their orders on Jan. 6, including engaging in violence if necessary, according to court documents.

Evidence produced at trial indicated that Tarrio told Proud Boys leaders, “Make no mistake … we did this,” as the riot, which aimed to ensure lawmakers could not carry out constitutionally-mandated responsibilities ahead of President Joe Biden’s inauguration, unfolded.

The House of Representatives and Senate would certify electoral college votes that cemented Biden’s win early the next morning.

Kelly, the judge who oversaw Tarrio’s sentencing, decided that his actions were serious enough to warrant a terrorism enhancement that significantly increased his jail time.

Tarrio said that although he remains unrepentant about his actions, he would not have chosen to join the Proud Boys if given a second chance.

“I don’t regret anything. It doesn’t change my views. But for a better life, yeah, I definitely would have not joined, but that doesn’t change the person who I am or what my beliefs are,” he said.

Anadolu Agency website contains only a portion of the news stories offered to subscribers in the AA News Broadcasting System (HAS), and in summarized form. Please contact us for subscription options.

Pope Francis speaks at his general audience on Sept. 20, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Sep 20, 2023 / 05:50 am (CNA).

One day after Azerbaijan launched a new military operation against Nagorno-Karabakh, Pope Francis made a public appeal for both sides to “silence the weapons.”

Speaking to more than 15,000 people in St. Peter’s Square on Sept. 20, the pope said that he was troubled by the news he received Tuesday from Nagorno Karabakh, where “the already critical humanitarian situation is now aggravated by further armed clashes.”

“I make my heartfelt appeal to all the parties involved and to the international community to silence the weapons and make every effort to find peaceful solutions for the good of the people and respect for human dignity,” Pope Francis said at the end of his Wednesday general audience.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a disputed region in Azerbaijan that is home to about 120,000 Armenian Christians. Ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh deny Azeri control of the region and claim self-sovereignty under the auspices of the “Republic of Artsakh.”

The South Caucasus region has been a flashpoint since Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence from Azerbaijan after the fall of the Soviet Union, sparking a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the territory that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people in the 1990s.

In 2020, with the backing of Turkey, Azerbaijan reignited the long-simmering conflict by invading Nagorno-Karabakh. The six-week conflict ended in Azerbaijan seizing control of Nagorno-Karabakh.

A critical humanitarian situation developed in Nagorno-Karabakh this year after Azerbaijan began to restrict access to the Lachin Corridor, the sole road connecting the breakaway region to Armenia, in December 2022, cutting off access to food and medical aid.

The Azeri government on Tuesday called the strikes “anti-terror measures” against “illegal Armenian military formations.” Azerbaijan said the attacks will not stop until the ethnic Armenians completely surrender.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s “Artsakh Defense Forces” reported 23 civilian injuries and two deaths on Tuesday after the Azeri military unleashed artillery and mortar strikes on both military and civilian positions.

The military escalation marks the first indication of a large-scale outright military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh since 2020.

Ruben Vardenyan, an Armenian politician who served as the state minister of the unrecognized state of Artsakh, has appealed to the international community to demand action in defense of the Armenian Christians in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The Christian world needs to realize this is unacceptable,” Vardenyan said in a video message to EWTN News. “I believe that only together we can stop this war.”

YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Nagorno-Karabakh agreed to disband its armed forces and discuss its “reintegration” into Azerbaijan as part of a Russian-brokered ceasefire announced on Wednesday, September 20, 24 hours after Baku launched a large-scale military offensive in the Armenian-populated region.

Karabakh’s leadership said early in the afternoon that it has no choice but to agree to the deal proposed by Russian peacekeeping forces because of severe military and humanitarian consequences of the offensive.

The office of Samvel Shahramanyan, the Karabakh president, said Azerbaijani forces managed to seize a number of strategic heights and road junctures during attacks accompanied by heavy shelling of Karabakh Armenian positions and civilian targets. It said that Karabakh’s Defense Army is greatly outnumbered and outgunned by the Azerbaijani side despite putting up fierce resistance and inflicting heavy losses on the enemy. It also pointed to the international community’s “insufficient” reaction to Baku’s actions.

A separate statement issued by Stepanakert shortly afterwards clarified that the ceasefire, which was due to take effect at 1 pm local time, commits the Karabakh Armenians to disarming and disbanding their armed forces and removing their heavy weaponry from Karabakh.

Nagorno-Karabakh – Children are in a shelter during shelling in Stepanakert, September 20, 2023.

The statement also announced that Karabakh representatives and Azerbaijani officials will start talks on Thursday on the region’s possible “reintegration” into Azerbaijan and the Karabakh Armenians’ rights and security “within the framework of the Azerbaijani constitution.” Their first meeting will take place in the Azerbaijani town of Yevlakh.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the agreement, saying that it will be implemented “in coordination with the commanders of the Russian peacekeeping contingent.”

The Kremlin’s need to justify the war grew to embrace the most radical voices, including those peddling Nazi creed, as its ideologues became hell-bent on normalising the aggression, Aleksandar Đokić writes.

The Kremlin and its agents have many explanations and justifications for the invasion of Ukraine. 

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Those depend on the target audience: when they address the far-left, they swear by anti-colonialism. When they talk to the far-right, they speak about “wokeism” and traditional values. 

When they turn to Europeans, they claim the US is exploiting the continent and that Washington provoked the war. When they move to the Middle East, they speak about the invasion of Iraq and the “Western Crusades”. 

When they look at Africa, they pretend that Russia did not colonise swaths of the Asian continent.

The list goes on. 

The fact of the matter is the Kremlin is not driven by any official ideology. It adheres to no principles whatsoever, and it is more akin to a highwayman changing his garb at will if it means getting to the loot more easily.

Delusions of grandeur while slaughtering victims

Thus, the big question is: is it all for show? Are there absolutely no beliefs in the Kremlin’s decision-making circles, and are they then motivated exclusively by self-interest? 

Or rather, did Russia’s Vladimir Putin start the invasion because he is a neocolonialist rebuilding the empire or because he is a corrupt autocrat who wants to prolong his stay in power either by a quick military victory or a never-ending war? 

One of the answers certainly can be, “why not both?”

Corruption and imperialism can co-exist in the same person’s set of beliefs. After all, the said road bandit can also delusionally picture himself as a knight in shining armour while robbing and slaughtering his victims. 

Putin can build his own castles in the sand and still promote the theory of the “degradation of the West” that’s been around for at least seventy years or so. 

But, more important than its beliefs is how the Kremlin is using ideology in a fractured postmodern world to its advantage. And worryingly, Putin has increasingly allowed Nazism to seep in and take hold.

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How close are Russian far-right figures to true Nazism?

The Kremlin’s favourite argument for the Western audience, besides blaming the US for Russia’s invasion, revolves around the alleged “Ukrainian Nazis” that are pulling all the strings in Kyiv. 

It’s not that Ukraine doesn’t have its share of far-right supporters. It’s the fact that the far right has a negligible influence on Ukraine’s political scene.

Russia, on the other hand, has nurtured imperialist far-right ideas for decades. Growingly, these feature all the textbook signs of Nazism — the disdain for liberal democracy, the outright hatred of others, scientific racism, and calls for the eradication of entire groups in particular.

In some, far-right ideas in Russia are a mixture of Nazism and Stalinism, as witnessed in former Duma member Zakhar Prilepin’s National-Bolsheviks. 

Others only thinly veil their extremism in traditional Orthodox Russian imperialism, exemplified by the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) leadership and former paramilitary commander Igor Strelkov aka Girkin.

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The now-infamous Konstantin Malofeev and Yegor Kholmogorov from the far-right Tsargrad TV also belong in this niche.

The version of Eurasianism pushed by self-proclaimed political philosopher and strategist Aleksandr Dugin represents a mix and rehashing of concepts from proto-fascist Russian thinkers from the turn of the 20th century. 

Besides them, there are the ultra-patriots, the official far-right, centred in the LDPR party, once led by notorious extremist political provocateur Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and the Just Russia party, headed by Sergey Milonov, both of which are in the Duma. 

Finally, there are actual neo-pagan ethnonationalists believing in the “pure Slavic race” who are, in essence, neo-Nazis (like the Rusich battalion waging war for Russia in Ukraine).

Fringe became mainstream, all thanks to Putin

What’s drastically changed since the invasion is that the far-right is rapidly becoming mainstream in Russia.

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Once a poster boy for a would-be liberal Russia and the country’s toothless president, Dmitry Medvedev now writes mammoth social media posts about “unterukraine” and “Big Great Russia”, using Nazi vocabulary. 

On the federal Russian Orthodox TV channel Spas, or “Salvation”, Yevgeny Nikiforov, the editor-in-chief of yet another Russian Orthodox outlet, Radio Radonezh, often parrots lines such as that “the disease, which has taken hold in Ukraine, should be cleansed by fire”.

Igor Fomin, a highly ranked cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church — bearer of three ROC medals with a parish on the grounds of Moscow’s MGIMO university, which is mostly attended by the progeny of Russia’s new elites — compares the war Russia is waging in Ukraine with the Old Testament and presents the hierarchy he believes in as “Nation, President, God”. 

The Almighty, apparently, has to settle for the bronze medal. 

He then goes on to say that Putin is doing God’s work in Ukraine like Joshua — the Biblical character famously tasked with wiping the “wicked nations” from the face of the Earth — did with the Canaanites. 

Many such statements are now regularly broadcast on Russian federal media, be it state or “private” (although there can’t be any private media in Putin’s wannabe-totalitarian system).

Anything goes, just to justify the war

Before the invasion, the Russian far-right was mostly marginalised on the fringes of society. They had ties with the Kremlin or the security circles — especially in the FSB and the army — but they did not reach large audiences.

The ultra-patriot group was always in plain sight, but they were not there to represent the policies of the government. Rather, their task was always to sound more radical, reckless and dangerous than Putin in his “spin dictator” phase, as economist Sergei Guriev neatly summarised it. 

Even when the Kremlin launched its unsuccessful “Novorossiya” project in 2014, the Russian extremists from the Donbas, posing as military correspondents or journalists, were not a part of everyday Russian society. 

They were officially treated by the regime as an allied neighbouring force fending off the “evil West and Banderites” and kept at a distance, a perk of plausible deniability.

With the February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin’s need to justify the war grew to embrace everyone, including the most psychotic among the commentariat, as the entire narrative was organised around normalising the aggression.

In turn, now even the most radical nutjobs have become a part of the norm. 

Russia is at a stage where it will need to undergo denazification

All of these far-right theories, some of which portray Russia as a force handpicked by God to postpone the Apocalypse — one of the non-standard Russian Orthodox teachings rehashed by Dugin, known as the Katekhon — or Russia as the righteous empire in a struggle against the “fallen” Western democracies, were in circulation, but they were not presented by the state as the norm on a daily basis like they are today. 

The Russian people can turn off their TV sets, as the research shows they are doing, but these narratives aren’t going away. 

They have entrenched themselves in the Russian political and social discourse. 

And now, we have come to the point where we can justifiably claim that the damage done by Putin’s mafia regime has led to a glaring Nazification of Russia.

Therefore, in the near future, Russian society will have to undergo a painful process of denazifying itself — that is, if it ever wants to be trusted as a progressive part of the continent and a good neighbour to the countries it tried to oppress.

Aleksandar Đokić is a Serbian political scientist and analyst with bylines in Novaya Gazeta. He was formerly a lecturer at RUDN University in Moscow.

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Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reiterates that the Republic of Armenia has not had any army in Nagorno Karabakh since August 2021.

The Prime Minister said Yerevan did not take part in drafting the ceasefire agreement, but takes not of the statement and its acceptance by the authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Referring to the issue of security of Nagorno Karabakh Armenians, PM Pashinyan said “logically, it is assumed that if the peacekeepers have made such a proposal, this means that they have accepted without reservations the full obligation to ensure the security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, provide all conditions to preserve the right of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to live in their homes, on their land, to live with dignity and safely.”

“And my perception is that with this statement they fully assumes that responsibility. Although we have always been of the opinion that this responsibility was essentially placed on the peacekeeping mission of the Russian Federation by the tripartite statement of November 9, 2020, but we hope that by taking such a step the peacekeeping contingent of the Russian Federation will fully fulfill its duties,” which in the previous period, you know we had some reservations as well,” Pashinyan added.

He noted that the mention of the Republic of Armenia in a document it has nothing to do with

Also, my reaction is that mentioning the name of the Republic of Armenia in a text that has nothing to do with comes to prove that one of the goals of the attack against Nagorno Karabakh was to involve the Republic of Armenia in military operations and added that the independence and sovereignty would be at stake had Azerbaijan succeeded in dragging Armenia into military actions.

“The latest information that I managed to get from Nagorno-Karabakh is that the intensity of military operations has decreased sharply, I cannot say that it has decreased to zero, but it has decreased sharply. And we hope that the military escalation will not continue because, especially in these circumstances, stability and cessation of hostilities is very important,” PM Pashinyan stated.

“Now the most important issue is that the right of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians to live in their homes be fully ensured by the Russian Federation. And from a practical point of view, we will follow the events and, of course, we will also have some exchange of ideas with our international partners regarding this situation and additional assessments, If we have something to say, we will definitely share it with you,” the Prime Minister concluded.

19 сентября Министерством обороны был представлен брифинг для представителей СМИ. Выступивший на брифинге начальник пресс-службы полковник Анар Эйвазов, заявил: «Антитеррористические мероприятия локального характера, проводимые Вооруженными Силами Азербайджанской Республики в Карабахском регионе Азербайджана, успешно продолжаются.В ходе проведенных мероприятий Вооруженными Силами Азербайджана были взяты под контроль более 60 боевых позиций формирований вооруженных сил Армении. В то же время были нейтрализованы более 20 автомобилей военного назначения, более 40 артиллерийских установок, более 30 минометов, 2 зенитно-ракетные установки, более 6 станций радиоэлектронной борьбы Мартира и другие средства военного назначения, принадлежащие формированиям вооруженных сил Армении.Опубликованная на некоторых армянских ресурсах в социальных медиа информация о том, что наши подразделения якобы подвергают обстрелу гражданские объекты, носит провокационный и дезинформационный характер. Цель – подорвать имидж нашей Армии и сформировать у международной общественности неправильное представление о локальных антитеррористических мерах. Из видеороликов, размещенных на официальном сайте Министерства обороны и в аккаунтах ведомства в социальных медиа, совершенно очевидно, что наши подразделения наносят удары только по законным военным целям.В ходе антитеррористических мер локального характера в Карабахском регионе Азербайджана неоднократно наблюдалось, что формирования вооруженных сил Армении размещают в населенных пунктах бронетанковую боевую технику и огневые средства различного назначения, а также привлекают гражданских лиц на объекты военного назначения для того, чтобы не попасть под прицел подразделений Вооруженных Сил Азербайджанской Республики.Как известно, в арсенале Азербайджанской Армии имеется высокоточное оружие и боевая техника, отвечающая самым современным требованиям. Во многих случаях задачи по уничтожению военных объектов, взятых под прицел нашими профессиональными военнослужащими, с применением этих оружий, были приостановлены после обнаружения гражданских лиц на военном объекте.Еще раз заявляем, что в результате высокоточного огня выводятся из строя и обезвреживаются только долговременные огневые точки, боевая техника и военная инфраструктура, используемая в военных целях, несмотря на то, что формирования вооруженных сил Армении размещают боевую технику в населенных пунктах или в их окрестностях. Общественности регулярно представлялись видеоматериалы, связанные с упомянутыми мною фактами, подобные материалы будут представляться и впредь. Призываем членов формирований вооруженных сил Армении, находящихся в Карабахском экономическом районе Азербайджана, сложить оружие и сдаться. Рекомендуем гражданским лицам, находящимся в этом районе, ни в коем случае не приближаться к ним и не оказывать им никакой помощи. Уведомления рекомендательного характера доносятся с помощью громкоговорителя и других технических средств».

В ходе брифинга представителям СМИ были представлены видеоматериалы.