Date: Sunday, 30 March 2025
https://ericzuesse.substack.com/p/the-guardian-lies-about-putins-statement
https://theduran.com/the-guardian-lies-about-putins-statement-on-trumps-greenland-demand/
The Guardian lies about Putin’s statement on Trump’s Greenland demand.
30 March 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
On March 28th, Britain’s Guardian newspaper headlined “Putin’s endorsement of Trump’s Greenland takeover reflects their vision of a new world order”, and reported,
As US pivots toward territorial ambitions in the west, the Kremlin’s support signals a deeper alignment in their challenge to global norms.
As JD Vance touched down in Greenland, the Trump administration received an unlikely endorsement for the US’s first potential territorial expansion since 1947: Vladimir Putin.
Speaking at an Arctic policy forum in the northern Russian city of Murmansk on Thursday, Putin presented a more comprehensive case than any US official yet for Donald Trump’s plan to annex Greenland, crafting a historical argument that sounded suspiciously convenient in terms of Russia’s own territorial designs on Ukraine.
The US’s plans to take control of Greenland “may surprise someone only at first glance, and it is a deep mistake to believe that this is some kind of extravagant talk by the new American administration,” Putin began. “Nothing of the sort.”
The US had plans to buy Greenland in the 1960s but Congress would not support the deal, Putin said. It “protected the territory from Nazi occupation” in the 1940s and made an offer to buy the island that was rebuffed. Even going back to 1910, the US had designs on Greenland, the Russian leader noted, calling the US plans “serious” with “longstanding historical roots”.
Then Putin moved on to Alaska, which was sold by the Russian empire to the US in 1867 in what has become a national case of seller’s remorse. “Let me remind you that by 1868, the purchase of Alaska was ridiculed in American newspapers,” Putin continued. Now, he said, the purchase under president Andrew Johnson had been vindicated.
In short, Putin concluded, get over it. Big countries have territorial ambitions. Deals for land and annexations are not just historical relics – they are a modern reality. And, rejecting generations of international norms not to take territory by force or through extortion, it is none of our business what they do over there.
“As for Greenland, this is an issue that concerns two specific states and has nothing to do with us,” Putin said, while adding that Russia would continue to defend its interests in the Arctic from “dangerous” powers such as Finland and Sweden.
It does not take a Kremlinologist to understand why Putin has come out in support of Trump’s annexation plan.
HERE IS THE ACTUAL STATEMENT BY PUTIN, which he made on March 27th at “The Arctic: Territory of Dialogue international forum”. As you can see, it says nothing in support of Trump’s repeated threats to invade Greenland if Greenland and Denmark refuse to sell it to the U.S. Government. Instead, Putin argues that the Arctic is recognized by all countries to possess importance not only for ecological reasons but also for economic ones. He said:
The role and importance of the Arctic for Russia and for the entire world are obviously growing. Regrettably, the geopolitical competition and fighting for positions in this region are also escalating.
Suffice it to say about the plans of the United States to annex Greenland, as everyone is aware. But you know, it can surprise someone only at first glance. It is a profound mistake to treat it as some preposterous talk by the new US administration. Nothing of the sort.
In fact, the United States had such plans as far back as 1860s. As early as that, the US administration was considering possible annexation of Greenland and Iceland. However, the idea did not enjoy support in the Congress then.
Let me remind you, by the way, that by 1868, the purchase of Alaska from Russia was ridiculed in the American press – it was called “madness,” “an ice box” and “President Andrew Johnson’s polar bear garden”. Therefore, the Greenland proposal failed.
But that acquisition, I mean the purchase of Alaska, is probably viewed very differently in the United States today, just as President Andrew Johnson’s actions are.
Thus what is happening today is not really surprising, particularly since this story only began back then, and it went on and on. In 1910, for example, a trilateral land swap deal was negotiated between the United States, Germany and Denmark. As a result, Greenland would have gone to the United States but the deal fell through then.
During World War II, the United States stationed military bases in Greenland to protect it from Nazi takeover. After the war, the United States suggested Denmark should sell the island. This was quite recently in terms of world history.
In short, the United States has serious plans regarding Greenland. These plans have long historical roots, as I have just mentioned, and it is obvious that the United States will continue to consistently advance its geo-strategic, military-political and economic interests in the Arctic.
As to Greenland, this is an issue that concerns two specific nations and has nothing to do with us. But at the same time, of course, we are concerned about the fact that NATO countries are increasingly often designating the Far North as a springboard for possible conflicts and are practicing the use of troops in these conditions, including by their “new recruits” – Finland and Sweden, with whom, incidentally, until recently we had no problems at all. They are creating problems with their own hands for some reason. Why? It is impossible to understand. But nevertheless, we will proceed from current realities and will respond to all this.
I must emphasise: Russia has never threatened anyone in the Arctic. However, we are closely monitoring developments in the region, formulating an appropriate response strategy, enhancing the combat capabilities of the Armed Forces, and modernising military infrastructure facilities.
We will not tolerate any encroachments on our country’s sovereignty and will steadfastly safeguard our national interests. By upholding peace and stability in the Arctic region, we will ensure its long-term socio-economic development, improve the quality of life for its residents, and preserve its unique natural environment. …
He went on to say that he hoped “to launch global international projects in the Arctic involving partner nations, friendly states, and perhaps even Western countries – provided, however, that they demonstrate a genuine interest in cooperative efforts. I am confident that the time for such projects will undoubtedly come.” His usage there of the phrase “cooperative efforts” and “involving partner nations, friendly states, and perhaps even Western countries,” was implicitly a repudiation of Trump’s stated position, which has instead been that if Greenland won’t be sold to the U.S. Government, then it will be taken by the U.S. Government:
TRUMP: On March 29th, USA Today headlined “Trump says U.S. will 'get Greenland,' military force may not be needed but not ruled out”, and reported that Trump said in an interview, “We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100%,” and, “Asked about the comments during the NBC interview, Trump recommitted to taking control of the island but said there's a ‘good possibility’ that the U.S. can do it without the assistance of the military. ‘No, I never take military force off the table. But I think there's a good possibility that we could do it without military force,’ Trump said. ‘We have an obligation to protect the world. This is world peace, this is international security. And I have that obligation while I'm president. No, I don't take anything off the table.’” V.P. Vance was also quoted: “‘Our message to Denmark is very simple. You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,’ he said. ‘That has to change. And because it hasn’t changed, this is why President Trump’s policy in Greenland is what it is.’”
Also that day, Mediaite noted that “Trump said he and [Finland’s President, and CIA asset, Alexander] Stubb discussed a US purchase of icebreaker ships a day after Vice President JD Vance went to Greenland – which Trump badly wants from Denmark.”
Here are some of Trump’s prior statements:
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7 January 2025
President-elect Donald Trump suggested Tuesday he would consider using military force to gain control of the Panama Canal and Greenland, and "economic force" to acquire Canada.
During a free-wheeling news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump was asked by a reporter if he could assure the public that he would not use military coercion against Panama or Greenland, a goal he has floated in recent weeks. “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two, but I can say this, we need them for economic security,” Trump said. He said later that he would not use military force against Canada, only "economic force."
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https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113698764270730405
Donald J. Trump [22 December 2024]
@realDonaldTrump
For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.
Dec 22, 2024, 5:11 PM
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https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113715171941661598
Truth Details
3197 replies
Donald J. Trump [25 December 2024]
@realDonaldTrump
To the people of Greenland, which is needed by the United States for National Security purposes and, who want the U.S. to be there, and we will!
13.2k
ReTruths
56.2k
Likes
Dec 25, 2024, 2:43 PM
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“REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP AND NATO SECRETARY GENERAL MARK RUTTE BEFORE BILATERAL MEETING”
13 March 2025
Q Thank you, Mr. President. Greenland. What is your vision for the potential annexation of Greenland and getting them, potentially, to —
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah.
Q — to statehood?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I think it’ll happen. And I’m just thinking — I didn’t give it much thought before, but I’m sitting with a man that could be very instrumental. You know, Mark, we need that for international security — not just security, international. We have a lot of our favorite players, you know, cruising around the coast, and we have to be careful. And we’ll be talking to you.
And it’s a very appropriate — really, a very appropriate question.
SECRETARY GENERAL RUTTE: It’s an —
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much.
SECRETARY GENERAL RUTTE: — an issue in the high north, so the Arctic. So, what you did —
So, when it comes to Greenland, yes or no, joining the U.S., I would leave that outside, for me, this discussion, because I don’t want to drag NATO in that. …
TRUMP: We’ve been dealing with Greenland. And we have to do it. We really need it for national security. I think that’s why NATO might have to get involved in a way, because we really need Greenland for national security. It’s very important.
You know, we have a couple of bases on Greenland already, and we have quite a few soldiers that — maybe you’ll see more and more soldiers go there.
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Trump is pressuring NATO’s Secretary General into supporting a U.S. invasion to take Greenland if it won’t be bought.
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There was NOTHING in Putin’s speech that was an “endorsement of Trump’s Greenland takeover.” And there was nothing in it that concerned any “new world order.”
If the U.S. Government takes Greenland, the Guardian’s lie that Russia’s Government had encouraged it to do so will still be a lie, but it will have been heaped onto the thousands of other lies that U.S.-and-allied billionaires’ ‘news’-media have very effectively spread against Putin and were calling him an ‘autocrat’ and a ‘dictator’, and, so, the public throughout the U.S. empire will still think that Putin is what he actually isn’t.
As regards the Guardian’s credibility, that has been gone ever since around 2013; and here is from the best news-report about that:
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“HOW THE UK SECURITY SERVICES NEUTRALISED THE COUNTRY’S LEADING LIBERAL NEWSPAPER”
The Guardian, Britain’s leading liberal newspaper with a global reputation for independent and critical journalism, has been successfully targeted by security agencies to neutralise its adversarial reporting of the ‘security state’, according to newly released documents and evidence from former and current Guardian journalists.
MATT KENNARD AND MARK CURTIS
10 SEPTEMBER 2019
The UK security services targeted The Guardian after the newspaper started publishing the contents of secret US government documents leaked by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in June 2013.
Snowden’s bombshell revelations continued for months and were the largest-ever leak of classified material covering the NSA and its UK equivalent, the Government Communications Headquarters. They revealed programmes of mass surveillance operated by both agencies.
According to minutes of meetings of the UK’s Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee, the revelations caused alarm in the British security services and Ministry of Defence.
“This event was very concerning because at the outset The Guardian avoided engaging with the [committee] before publishing the first tranche of information,” state minutes of a 7 November 2013 meeting at the MOD.
The DSMA Committee, more commonly known as the D-Notice Committee, is run by the MOD, where it meets every six months. A small number of journalists are also invited to sit on the committee. Its stated purpose is to “prevent inadvertent public disclosure of information that would compromise UK military and intelligence operations”. It can issue “notices” to the media to encourage them not to publish certain information. …
Yet committee minutes note the secretary saying: “The Guardian was obliged to seek … advice under the terms of the DA notice code.” The minutes add: “This failure to seek advice was a key source of concern and considerable efforts had been made to address it.”
‘Considerable efforts’
These “considerable efforts” included a D-Notice sent out by the committee on 7 June 2013 – the day after The Guardian published the first documents – to all major UK media editors, saying they should refrain from publishing information that would “jeopardise both national security and possibly UK personnel”. It was marked “private and confidential: not for publication, broadcast or use on social media”. …
Later in the year, Prime Minister David Cameron again used the D-Notice system as a threat to the media.
“I don’t want to have to use injunctions or D-Notices or the other tougher measures,” he said in a statement to MPs. “I think it’s much better to appeal to newspapers’ sense of social responsibility. But if they don’t demonstrate some social responsibility it would be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act.”
The threats worked. The Press Gazette reported at the time that “The FT [Financial Times] and The Times did not mention it [the initial Snowden revelations] … and the Telegraph published only a short”. It continued by noting that only The Independent “followed up the substantive allegations”. It added, “The BBC has also chosen to largely ignore the story.”
The Guardian, however, remained uncowed.
According to the committee minutes, the fact The Guardian would not stop publishing “undoubtedly raised questions in some minds about the system’s future usefulness”. If the D-Notice system could not prevent The Guardian publishing GCHQ’s most sensitive secrets, what was it good for?
It was time to rein in The Guardian and make sure this never happened again.
GCHQ and laptops
The security services ratcheted up their “considerable efforts” to deal with the exposures.
On 20 July 2013, GCHQ officials entered The Guardian’s offices at King’s Cross in London, six weeks after the first Snowden-related article had been published.
At the request of the government and security services, Guardian deputy editor Paul Johnson, along with two others, spent three hours destroying the laptops containing the Snowden documents.
The Guardian staffers, according to one of the newspaper’s reporters, brought “angle-grinders, dremels – drills with revolving bits – and masks”. The reporter added, “The spy agency provided one piece of hi-tech equipment, a ‘degausser’, which destroys magnetic fields and erases data.”
Johnson claims that the destruction of the computers was “purely a symbolic act”, adding that “the government and GCHQ knew, because we had told them, that the material had been taken to the US to be shared with the New York Times. The reporting would go on. The episode hadn’t changed anything.”
Yet the episode did change something. As the D-Notice Committee minutes for November 2013 outlined: “Towards the end of July [as the computers were being destroyed], The Guardian had begun to seek and accept D-Notice advice not to publish certain highly sensitive details and since then the dialogue [with the committee] had been reasonable and improving.”
The British security services had carried out more than a “symbolic act”. It was both a show of strength and a clear threat. The Guardian was then the only major newspaper that could be relied upon by whistleblowers in the US and British security bodies to receive and cover their exposures, a situation which posed a challenge to security agencies.
The increasingly aggressive overtures made to The Guardian worked. The committee chair noted that after GCHQ had overseen the smashing up of the newspaper’s laptops “engagement … with The Guardian had continued to strengthen”.
Moreover, he added, there were now “regular dialogues between the secretary and deputy secretaries and Guardian journalists”. Rusbridger later testified to the Home Affairs Committee that Air Vice-Marshal Vallance of the D-Notice committee and himself “collaborated” in the aftermath of the Snowden affair and that Vallance had even “been at The Guardian offices to talk to all our reporters”.
But the most important part of this charm and threat offensive was getting The Guardian to agree to take a seat on the D-Notice Committee itself. The committee minutes are explicit on this, noting that “the process had culminated by [sic] the appointment of Paul Johnson (deputy editor Guardian News and Media) as a DPBAC [i.e. D-Notice Committee] member”.
At some point in 2013 or early 2014, Johnson – the same deputy editor who had smashed up his newspaper’s computers under the watchful gaze of British intelligence agents – was approached to take up a seat on the committee. Johnson attended his first meeting in May 2014. …
A new editor
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger withstood intense pressure not to publish some of the Snowden revelations but agreed to Johnson taking a seat on the D-Notice Committee as a tactical sop to the security services. Throughout his tenure, The Guardian continued to publish some stories critical of the security services.
But in March 2015, the situation changed when the Guardian appointed a new editor, Katharine Viner. … Viner had started out on fashion and entertainment magazine Cosmopolitan and had no history in national security reporting. …
Getting Julian Assange
The Guardian also appears to have been engaged in a campaign against the WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who had been a collaborator during the early WikiLeaks revelations in 2010. …
It seems likely this was innuendo being fed to The Observer by an intelligence-linked individual to promote disinformation to undermine Assange.
In 2018, however, The Guardian’s attempted vilification of Assange was significantly stepped up. A new string of articles began on 18 May 2018 with one alleging Assange’s “long-standing relationship with RT”, the Russian state broadcaster. The series, which has been closely documented elsewhere, lasted for several months, consistently alleging with little or the most minimal circumstantial evidence that Assange had ties to Russia or the Kremlin.
One story, co-authored again by Luke Harding, claimed that “Russian diplomats held secret talks in London … with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, The Guardian has learned”. The former consul in the Ecuadorian embassy in London at this time, Fidel Narvaez, vigorously denies the existence of any such “escape plot” involving Russia and is involved in a complaint process with The Guardian for insinuating he coordinated such a plot.
This apparent mini-campaign ran until November 2018, culminating in a front-page splash, based on anonymous sources, claiming that Assange had three secret meetings at the Ecuadorian embassy with Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort.
This “scoop” failed all tests of journalistic credibility since it would have been impossible for anyone to have entered the highly secured Ecuadorian embassy three times with no proof. WikiLeaks and others have strongly argued that the story was manufactured and it is telling that The Guardian has since failed to refer to it in its subsequent articles on the Assange case. The Guardian, however, has still not retracted or apologised for the story which remains on its website.
The “exclusive” appeared just two weeks after Paul Johnson had been congratulated for “re-establishing links” between The Guardian and the security services. …
Acting for the establishment
Another major focus of The Guardian’s energies under Viner’s editorship has been to attack the leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.
The context is that Corbyn appears to have recently been a target of the security services. In 2015, soon after he was elected Labour leader, the Sunday Times reported a serving general warning that “there would be a direct challenge from the army and mass resignations if Corbyn became prime minister”. The source told the newspaper: “The Army just wouldn’t stand for it. The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardise the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul, to prevent that.”
On 20 May 2017, a little over two weeks before the 2017 General Election, the Daily Telegraph was fed the story that “MI5 opened a file on Jeremy Corbyn amid concerns over his links to the IRA”. It formed part of a Telegraph investigation claiming to reveal “Mr Corbyn’s full links to the IRA” and was sourced to an individual “close to” the MI5 investigation, who said “a file had been opened on him by the early nineties”.
The Metropolitan Police Special Branch was also said to be monitoring Corbyn in the same period.
Then, on the very eve of the General Election, the Telegraph gave space to an article from Sir Richard Dearlove, the former director of MI6, under a headline: “Jeremy Corbyn is a danger to this nation. At MI6, which I once led, he wouldn’t clear the security vetting.”
Further, in September 2018, two anonymous senior government sources told The Times that Corbyn had been “summoned” for a “‘facts of life’ talk on terror” by MI5 chief Andrew Parker.
Just two weeks after news of this private meeting was leaked by the government, the Daily Mail reported another leak, this time revealing that “Jeremy Corbyn’s most influential House of Commons adviser has been barred from entering Ukraine on the grounds that he is a national security threat because of his alleged links to Vladimir Putin’s ‘global propaganda network’.” …
Given its appeal to traditional Labour supporters, the paper has probably done more to undermine Corbyn than any other. In particular, its massive coverage of alleged widespread anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has helped to disparage Corbyn more than other smears carried in the media.
The Guardian and The Observer have published hundreds of articles on “Labour anti-Semitism” and, since the beginning of this year, carried over 50 such articles with headlines clearly negative to Corbyn. Typical headlines have included “The Observer view: Labour leadership is complicit in anti-Semitism”, “Jeremy Corbyn is either blind to anti-Semitism – or he just doesn’t care”, and “Labour‘s anti-Semitism problem is institutional. It needs investigation”.
The Guardian’s coverage of anti-Semitism in Labour has been suspiciously extensive, compared to the known extent of the problem in the party, and its focus on Corbyn personally suggests that the issue is being used politically.
While anti-Semitism does exist in the Labour Party, evidence suggests it is at relatively low levels. Since September 2015, when Corbyn became Labour leader, 0.06% of the Labour membership has been investigated for anti-Semitic comments or posts.
In 2016, an independent inquiry commissioned by Labour concluded that the party “is not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism. Further, it is the party that initiated every single United Kingdom race equality law.”
Analysis of two YouGov surveys, conducted in 2015 and 2017, shows that anti-Semitic views held by Labour voters declined substantially in the first two years of Corbyn’s tenure and that such views were significantly more common among Conservative voters.
Despite this, since January 2016, The Guardian has published 1,215 stories mentioning Labour and anti-Semitism. …
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In addition, several articles deal with the Guardian’s fraud about itself, that it does not depend upon billionaires for its backing. One is Jonathan Cook’s 3 March 2015 “HSBC and the sham of Guardian’s Scott Trust”, and another is the Guardian’s own 2 October 2018 “Philanthropic partnerships at the Guardian”. And yet another is the Guardian’s own pretense about itself, that, “We believe that our ownership structure — no billionaire owner, no shareholders, reader-funded — allows us to be fully independent regardless of who’s in power.” And, finally, is the Guardian’s own published list of the (liberal) billionaires’ ‘non-profits’ that actually FUND it. Those billionaires — mostly in U.S. and UK — are major members of the U.S./UK Deep State. You can more accurately think of the Guardian as being a front for the liberal people who control NATO and its armaments-manufacturers. They sell hate, but with hypocrisy. Their fronts are constantly seeking suckers to donate or subscribe to their lies. When you get right down to it, honesty is NOT profitable. Exploitation is.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
