The Daily Chronicles are snippets of the most important news across the world for this and each day as it rolls in. Kindly also use it as an open thread.

Life goes on with the regular US type provocation.  Arms control is slowly slipping out of the reach of the world and Russia/China is in almost continual joint war exercises.  They are clearly integrating their militaries to be able to act as one.

We may be sliding down a chute of incomprehensible and unwanted consequences.

The expectations still are that Russia is going to attack hard when the ground is frozen over.  I don’t know, we will see.  In the meantime, they are making progress in the Ukraine, little bit by little bit but it does feel like Sitzkrieg.

While Russia shows strength and says NO, so does China.  One may think there is some cooperative work being done there.

“The US is displaying classic examples of coercive diplomacy, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Friday, accusing Washington of creating chaos around the world and using threats, political, economic and technological isolation to achieve its own goals.

“It is the United States that creates chaos throughout the world through the indiscriminate use of force… US warplanes and ships constantly appear in all parts of the world to saber-rattling.

“Who ultimately undermines international and regional security and stability? The truth is obvious at first sight,” he concluded.

Zhao also called on Washington to stop attacking Beijing and pave the right way for the coexistence of China and the US as major powers.”

How about this.  Ukraine is going to be forced to do something …

From TASS:  Lavrov says OSCE falling apart and UN may restart key ammonia pipeline

The export of Russian ammonia through Ukraine via the Tolyatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline will be resumed within one to two weeks, according to Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths. According to the UN official, negotiations on the resumption of exports are going very well and may be completed soon. The West may force Ukraine to agree to this decision, Vedomosti writes.

https://tass.com/pressreview/1544707

Russia is showing strength again.  There is a clear difference now .. whereas before, Russia took most approaches by the US seriously, and gave serious answers, now they just say no/nyet.  It has happened now with the talks on the START treaty where they told the US to go and pound sand, and now with Biden’s comments it is another issue of Go Pound Sand.

Biden’s terms for peace talks unacceptable – Kremlin

Russia will not withdraw troops from Ukraine before starting negotiations, Dmitry Peskov has said.  Russia prefers the diplomatic path towards resolving the crisis in Ukraine, but will not concede to US preconditions for negotiations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

So we’ve reached December. What a year! For me personally as well as for the world. We started this year without a Ukraine conflict. But this is not what I wanted to say. On a personal note, I feel no urge or wish to celebrate the holidays.  We usually go off-culture and would prepare sometimes some Sushi and sometimes something else that we do not usually take the time to prepare but is a favorite memory. My neighbors have their decorations up and the lights pulse all night long, so, our front curtains have to remain closed.  I am going to have to put up some token so that we do not shame the neighbors.

Celebrations?  While Lavrov says:

NATO has returned to COLD WAR priorities, they want to keep Russians out of Europe –

🗣 NATO has deliberately expanded to the East, and Americans have enslaved the whole of Europe – Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov

And guess who is calling in coordinates on Ukie strikes?  Yes, that good organization calling itself the OSCE who says that they work for stability, peace and democracy for more than a billion people.

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) provides Kiev regime with intelligence to correct strikes on Lugansk and Donetsk Republics, West Russia – Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov

🗣 OSCE (security-oriented intergovernmental organization) has taken side of Kiev regime after its interactions with Western intelligence services were uncovered – Lavrov.

🗣 Moscow has not asked for negotiations with Ukraine, but is ready to listen to the other side – Lavrov.

US and NATO are directly involved in Ukraine conflict – Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov

Russia strikes Ukrainian infrastructure that helps kill Russians, and accusations that Moscow asks for negotiations in order to buy time to gather additional forces is frankly a LIE – Lavrov.

🗣 Risk of non-nuclear clash of world powers ESCALATING into nuclear war is huge – Lavrov.

I’m catching this here live, but it won’t be available for long, in video form, until it is on the Russian MFA site.   https://player.ruptly.tv/?streamurl=https://cdn1enc6.ruptly.tv/Enc6_Ch3/index-1669880222-10974.m3u8

The apartheid regime is on a killing spree. These 5 Palestinian men were murdered by Israeli regime occupation troops within the past 24 hours.Western journalists don’t care, the EU parliament doesn’t care & western regimes don’t care.

They’re too busy defending human rights. pic.twitter.com/UtgRrUI1E2

— Seyed Mohammad Marandi (@s_m_marandi) November 30, 2022

If they cannot get to Russia through Ukrainian and other proxies, if they cannot get to China through Taiwan as proxy, they’re going to try Iran again because Iran outfoxed them on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as they wanted to use that as a control mechanism.  It just never ends.

Biden ready to resort to military means “as a last resort” to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons – State Department

Jiang Zemin, one of China’s statemen, passed away at the age of 96, and all of the Chinese major media has turned black and greyscale.   He led the CPC from 1989 to 2002 and was the first national leader that was not personally part of Mao’s generation of revolutionaries.

He oversaw the nation’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001 and the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202211/1280800.shtml

Russia stood on her feet again and simply postponed or whatever .. they don’t seem to care too much .. new discussions on the New Start Treaty.   Arms Race, here we come! Shoigu has announced an increase Russia’s weapons spending by 50% next year.

From the Russian MFA.

⚡️ Maria Zakharova: President Putin’s Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov directs anyone who is interested in the reasons behind postponing the meeting of the Russia-US bilateral consultative commission on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) to the Foreign Ministry for clarification.

Let me clarify the matter.

(https://is.gd/ze1dpU)☝️ Russia’s decision to postpone this session of the bilateral consultative commission (BCC), scheduled for November 29 – December 6 in Cairo, was taken at the political level with account for the extremely negative situation in Russian-US relations that was created by Washington and that continues to worsen.

We note the high levels of toxicity and hostility across all areas from Washington. As part of an all-out hybrid war unleashed against us, almost every step the United States takes in relation to Russia is subjected to a pathological desire to harm our country wherever possible.

This situation could not help but affect the sphere of arms control, which cannot be regarded as something independent or isolated from geopolitical realities. You have to follow a very strange logic to tell Russia about restraint, transparency and predictability in military matters while at the same time helping the Kiev regime kill our military and civilians in Russian regions, to provide it with increasingly destructive means of warfare and to send US instructors, advisers and mercenaries to Ukraine.

With regard to the START Treaty itself, we also note that the United States is constantly attempting to “adjust,” in its favour, the balance it has established. This can be seen, in particular, in the completely illegitimate withdrawal by the American side of a significant portion of its strategic offensive arms under the treaty, which Washington has declared retrofitted, or which they have renamed to avoid subjecting them to the treaty’s definitions. We have worked with the Americans on this issue for a long time and even made some progress, but the issue remains unresolved.

It was also clear from the remarks made by US officials that the US delegation was going to Cairo in order to push through the resumption of inspections, rather than to discuss “Russia’s concerns.” At the same time, they kept quiet about the fact that the crisis in the functioning of the START inspection mechanism broke down through the fault of the American side. Through its restrictive measures against Russia, Washington has created a situation where we no longer have the opportunity to exercise our inspection rights under the treaty. At the same time, the United States dismissed our well-founded objections straight away and demanded the immediate resumption of inspection activities on Russian territory.

Russia continues to regard the START Treaty as an important tool for ensuring predictability and preventing an arms race. It continues to serve the interests of both parties. In particular, the uninterrupted functional arrangement for exchanging notifications on the status of strategic offensive arms between the parties plays a significant stabilising role.

❗️ We expect the United States to make an honest effort to create proper conditions for holding a BCC session in 2023 and returning to the full implementation of all START Treaty provisions.

Russian Aerospace Forces and Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force conduct another joint air patrol in the Asian-Pacific region

◽️The Russian Tu-95MS strategic missile-carrying air group of the Russian Air Force and the Hong-6k strategic bombers of the PLA carried out an aerial patrol in the waters of the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea.

◽️The flight time of the Russian strategic missile carriers was about 8 hours. Russian Air Force Su-30cm and Su-35c aircraft provided fighter escort for the air group.

◽️ For the first time, Russian aircraft landed on an airfield in the People’s Republic of China and Chinese aircraft on an airfield in the Russian Federation during joint air patrols. Foreign fighters accompanied the strategic missile carriers at some stages of the route.

The exercise was carried out within the framework of the provisions of the 2022 Military Cooperation Plan and is not directed against third countries.