MONDAY 16 MAY 2022

CNN

• Finland applying to join NATO.  Russia threatening retaliation. 
• Russia may have lost 1/3 of their combat troops (death, desertion, disappearance)
• McDonald’s is selling out in Russia.

UKRAINE WORLD

• Russians shelled Severodonetsk again.  (On Donets River, near Lisichansk, east of Izium.
• Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) composed of Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.  A security bloc trying to position itself as a NATO rival.  Russia tried to draw these nations into its war against Ukraine.
• CSTO meeting held in Moscow May 16. 
• CSTO Statements: Putin cited a “peacekeeping” operation in Kazakhstan in January.  This contingent from the CSTO “prevented the seizure of power…by extremists, who were also controlled from abroad, and helped quickly stabilize the…political situation.”
• Putin: “…the Pentagon has created dozens of specialized biolaboratories in our shared region….Their main task is to collect biological materials and study the specifics of the spread of viruses…for their purposes….”  In Ukraine “…documentary evidence has been obtained…components of biological weapons were created in violation of the Convention…possible methods and mechanisms were worked out to destabilize the epidemiological situation…”
• Putin also noted: Ukrainian “neo-Nazism,” a “surge of frenzied Russophobia in the so-called civilized and politically correct countries…”
• Lukashenko (President of Belarus) noted: “NATO saber-rattling”…a “full-scale hybrid war unleashed against us, primarily against Russia and Belarus.”  NATO was described as: “drawing Finland and Sweden…into its nets.”  The CSTO was characterized as “defensive and peace-loving.”
• Lukashenko: “It is clear that Ukraine was incited and incited, stuffed with nationalism, Nazism – evidence of that is Odesa, where people were burned alive – and fascism, Russophobia and weapons.”
• The establishment of an independent Orthodox Church in Ukraine is again cited as a reason for the invasion. 
• May 12, Peskov: “NATO expansion threatens the world’s security.”
• Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Maria Zakharova.
• Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev: “After Sweden and Finland join the Alliance, the United States and Great Britain will immediately deploy nuclear weapons on their territory.”
• April 28, 2022, head of theRussian Foreign Intellience Service, Sergei Naryshkin: “Poland is planning to establish their control over part of the territory of Ukraine….Poland and the United States are working out a plan to establish Warsaw’s military-political control over its historical territories.”
• According to Russian officials and media personalities, Poland is going to seize Western Ukraine.

The Russian media is reporting that Poland is planning to attack Belarus