How the New York Times article is being reported in Russia
A week ago, the New York Times published a long article admitting that the United States is a belligerent against Russia in Ukraine. The article was read attentively in Russia.
by Anti-Spiegel
April 7, 2025 , 6:00 a.m.
https://anti--spiegel-ru.translate.goog/2025/wie-in-russland-ueber-den-artikel-der-new-york-times-berichtet-wird/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
On March 29, the New York Times published a very long article detailing how the US military is attacking Russian targets, thus turning the US into a warring party against Russia. I translated the very long article into five articles last week, and in the current episode of Anti-Spiegel TV, I spoke with Dirk Pohlmann about the article. Here, I show how Russian television reported on the article in its weekly news roundup on Sunday and have translated the report about it.
Start of translation:
Putin's words about external administration in Ukraine have confused the West
Russian President Vladimir Putin's statement about the possible introduction of an external administration for Ukraine under the auspices of the UN evoked a wide range of emotions in the West, including embarrassment. It was so unexpected that it took some time for them to understand what was at stake.
In America, for example, everyone was repeating the idea of ��a quick ceasefire, but a ceasefire is not peace after all. Peace requires conditions and, if you will, even technologies. Putin recently suggested just such a technology as a possible option when he said: "Within the framework of the United Nations' peacekeeping activities, there has already been a so-called external administration, an interim administration, several times. And in principle, of course, it would be possible, under the auspices of the UN, to discuss the possibility of an interim administration in Ukraine with the United States, even with European countries, and, of course, with our partners and friends. And what for? To hold democratic elections and bring to power a capable government that enjoys the people's trust, and then start negotiations with it on a peace treaty and sign legitimate documents that are recognized throughout the world and are reliable and stable."
What's unexpected about that? When Putin talks about a temporary external administration of Ukraine, he's simply calling for fixing what already exists. Now, from a military perspective, Ukraine is already under external US control. Without Washington, Kyiv wouldn't last even a week.
The New York Times published evidence of this last Sunday in a long article spanning dozens of A4 pages. It covered the work of the American Intelligence Center, based in Wiesbaden, Germany. There were many interesting details, but they only confirm what Putin has said more than once: American weapons in Ukraine are controlled by the Americans themselves.
Putin explained this a year ago, on March 24, 2024: "The final selection of targets and the so-called flight mission can only be entered by highly qualified specialists based on this technical knowledge. For some attack systems, such as Storm Shadow, these missions can be entered automatically and without the presence of Ukrainian soldiers. Who does this? It is done by those who manufacture these attack systems and supposedly hand them over to Ukraine. In general, this can be done without the participation of Ukrainian soldiers—and it actually happens without the participation of Ukrainian soldiers. Other systems, such as ATACMS, are also prepared based on satellite reconnaissance and automatically passed on to the relevant units, who may not even understand what they are entering. The unit, possibly a Ukrainian unit, enters the corresponding flight mission. But this mission is not prepared by Ukrainian soldiers, but by representatives of NATO countries."
This system of external military control of Ukraine was introduced by the previous American administration. The current one merely recognizes that the United States is waging a war against Russia—a proxy war, that is, a war waged at the hands of others, namely the hands of the Ukrainians.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for example, said: "President Trump views this as a protracted conflict in a stalemate. Frankly, this is a proxy war between nuclear powers: the US, which is helping Ukraine, and Russia. And this war must end. And no one has any ideas or plans for how that's going to happen."
As for ideas and plans, Russia has them. They just need to be discussed in more detail, understood, and adopted. Until then, military operations in Ukraine will continue as before, following the leadership model established under former US President Joe Biden. The American center in Wiesbaden collects American intelligence and programs targets for Ukrainian attacks.
The word "targets" initially frightened American officers, but then they found a euphemism, a substitute, as the New York Times wrote: "The debate was settled by Major General Timothy Brown, the intelligence chief of the U.S. European Command: Russian troop locations should be designated 'points of interest.' Information about air threats also became 'points of interest.' 'If they ever ask you, 'Did you communicate the targets to the Ukrainians,' you're not lying if you say, 'No, I didn't,' one U.S. official explained."
This means that the American military is also aware that it is at war with Russia. Its fear of backlash is justified and, one might say, professionally motivated. After all, the Americans often don't even tell their Ukrainian counterparts which targets they intend to hit. Here are the coordinates, everything is loaded – fire!
In Wiesbaden, General Christopher Donahue was the key US coordinator, as the New York Times writes: "All the Ukrainians saw in the secure cloud were chains of coordinates divided into categories: 'Priority 1,' 'Priority 2,' and so on. As General Sabrodsky recalls, when the Ukrainians asked them why they should trust the intelligence, Donahue replied: 'Don't worry about how we knew. Just trust that when you shoot, you'll hit the target and that you'll like the result. And if you miss, tell us, and we'll do better.'"
Isn't this external control? If not, what is external control anyway?
The New York Times also writes: "General Donahue and his staff reviewed target lists and advised Ukrainian commanders on the placement of launch pads and the precise timing of attacks. The Ukrainians were allowed to use only the coordinates provided by the Americans. To fire a warhead, HIMARS operators needed a special electronic key card, which the Americans could deactivate at any time."
It was the Americans who coordinated and targeted not only the HIMARS salvos, but also the ATACMS missiles. They were the ones who helped Kyiv develop, manufacture, and deploy a fleet of naval drones to attack Russian ships in the Sevastopol area. The coordinates of the cruiser Moskva also came from the US. The ATACMS attacks on the Crimean Bridge were also the work of American hands. The British were also involved.
The New York Times reports: "Of the roughly 100 targets in Crimea, the bridge over the Kerch Strait, which connects the peninsula to the Russian mainland, was the most coveted. The White House authorized the military and the CIA to secretly work with the Ukrainians and the British on an attack plan to bring down the bridge: ATACMS would weaken vulnerable points on the surface and sea-borne drones would explode near its supports. In mid-August, the Ukrainians fired a volley of ATACMS at the bridge."
In fact, this is exactly how Ukraine's external military leadership functioned under Biden. Has anything changed since then? Hard to say. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, on March 28, the Kyiv regime launched an attack on the Sudzha gas measuring station, using, according to preliminary information, HIMARS missiles. A major fire broke out, and the energy facility was virtually destroyed.
So much for external military control over Ukraine. Now the US is proposing to manage the Ukrainian economy externally.
It all began with a proposal to Kyiv to transfer rare earth deposits to America. Due to the scandal Zelensky caused in the White House, this deal was not signed. Trump then expanded his demands: Ukraine must hand over all its natural resources, as well as nuclear power plants and ports, grant priority rights to all new projects, including those in the private sector, and prohibit the sale of natural resources to strategic competitors of the United States. All this to pay off the debts incurred taking into account the military and other aid that America provided to Ukraine.
Zelensky mutters that he doesn't acknowledge any debts, but what voting rights does the head of the Kyiv regime have in external administration? America is now behaving toward Ukraine according to the colonial model that the Anglo-Saxons have long since developed, taking inspiration from India.
The British subjugated India by military force from the mid-18th century onwards, imposing restrictive treaties on its rulers. The instrument of British colonisation then became the East India Company. It was private, with a board of directors in London, its own private army and its own army of administrators who were deployed locally as civil servants. As a result, the East India Company achieved a monopoly on trade with India and Indian goods. The profits were enormous, as was the scale of its activities. Today the British claim that the colonial period was beneficial for India, as it gave the country a railway network, for example. But the railways were built by the Indians to export the country's wealth to England, i.e. to plunder, and the Indians themselves were forbidden from using the railways.
The East India Company was eventually replaced by the British government. Everything fell into place: The Viceroyalty of India remained under London's external control until the mid-20th century.
What did this mean for India?
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar recently gave the answer: "India was humiliated by the West for two centuries following the invasion in the 18th century. In 2018, a comprehensive economic study was published that calculated how much the British had taken from India. It put the figure at $45 trillion at today's prices. The history of relations between India and the West is a history of the slave trade, famines, and the opium trade. These are the dark years of history."
It remains to be added that at the time of the British arrival, India's share of the global economy was 23 percent. After the British withdrawal, this figure had fallen to four percent. This is because India was squeezed dry by Britain. Now, in its good old colonial tradition, the US is driving Ukraine into the juicer. Is this external management? One hundred percent. But perhaps the process can be somehow corrected? If we consult and weigh everything up...
Why rush? We want peace. But so far, we have had to achieve it by land and through fighting.