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Ukraine Prepares Chemical Weapons Provocation, Russia Warns

The Ukrainians have acquired triethanolamine, a substance covered by the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

On Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that Ukraine could carry out a dangerous provocation with chemical weapons to foment anti-Russian sentiments internationally.

“Another anti-Russian false flag attack with the use of Western-made toxic substances is possible,” she said, warning that such an event would serve to discredit Russia.

Zakharova recalled that last year an accusation was organized against Russia regarding alleged events in Bucha, where Russian soldiers allegedly murdered civilians. So far, however, Ukrainian authorities have not presented a list of the alleged victims.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and a Ukrainian company are engaged in the import of chemical reagents and actively involved in the preparation of this provocation, she said.

Between October and November, the Ukrainian company purchased chemicals produced by the U.S. company Honeywell Research Chemicals. Among these substances are sodium compounds that contain nitrogen and have destructive effects similar to cyanide. The Ukrainians also acquired triethanolamine, which is included in the chemical annex of the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

"According to Russian experts, these chemicals can be used by the SBU to produce a combat chemical substance in order to carry out limited provocative action in the territory controlled by the Kiev regime," said Zakharova who highlighted that President Vladimir Zelensky "continues to jealously carry out the instructions of his Western masters."

"Just as they did not care at all about the consequences that could arise after the use of depleted uranium projectiles... Zelensky and his gang do not care about the consequences that its own population will face if this provocation is carried out," she concluded.

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@professionalduster@hexbear.net

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https://twitter.com/kataeb_abuali

It's only in Arabic though

Argetina's Caputo's failure: The IMF warned him to forget about the 10 billion dollars he wanted in January (spanish only)

Minister Toto Caputo rushed a meeting with journalists to "announce" that there will be no extra disbursements from the IMF. It was his way of anticipating the news of the new failure of his international negotiations.

After hitting Wall Street's wall before taking office, when he had promised Milei that he would get 30 billion dollars from investment funds to disarm the famous "bomb" of leliqs, he now faced the IMF's rejection, which in the last hours warned him to forget about the 10 billion extra funds he was asking for. As LPO revealed, it needs that amount not to disarm the leliqs -it seems that it can live with that "bomb"- but to pay external creditors.

Sources familiar with the talks confirmed to LPO the IMF's refusal to advance fresh funds. "They will transfer the 2,300 million that were pending from the last part of Massa's administration and, at most, they will anticipate interest on SDRs for the first quarter for 3,900 million, but only to make up reserves", explained to LPO the source consulted.

That is why, in the talk with a small group of handpicked journalists, the minister acknowledged on Thursday that the funds coming from the IMF "will only be used to reinforce reserves". That is to say, he will not be able to cancel maturities, for example, with private parties.

"Caputo is very compulsive with the financial game", repeats the IMF Western Hemisphere director, the Chilean Rodrigo Valdés, to explain why he refuses to give Milei's minister freely available funds.

"The relationship with the organization is good, we are doing more than what they imagined, that is why the same agreement continues and we are going to meet the goals", Caputo justified himself this Thursday.

However, beyond the declarations of the occasion, the truth is that the maturity schedule that the country will have to face in the next months opens huge questions about the soundness of Caputo's plan, which so far only managed to add 2 billion dollars of reserves at the cost of a 120% devaluation and the closing of imports.

According to the calculations made by the Treasury Palace, the "minimum" financial need until having the dollars from the liquidation of the coarse harvest that enters in April/May, amounts to more than 20 billion dollars.

In order to obtain them, the Minister of Economy had a series of failures: he fought with Diana Mondino to activate the swap with China, he negotiated with Qatar and Saudi Arabia without results and his tour to Wall Street in search of investors was unsuccessful.

And if we consider the horrible relations Milei has with Lula, we can predict that Argentina is going to leave Mercosur, they already have Bolivia and Venezuela to occupy Argenina's place.

Between January and April the national Treasury will have to face payments in foreign currency for 17,240 million dollars according to data from the National Budget Office, although more than half of them, some 9,421 million, are intra public sector payments which are expected to be renewed automatically.

Anyway, the Minister insists that all the commitments will be fulfilled. Again without a spokesperson, Caputo exchanged messages with Twitter users who asked him some questions about the next steps to be taken by the portfolio. When asked about the upcoming maturity on January 9 of some US$ 1,955 million in interest on the Bonar 2030 (AL30), one of the government securities issued by Martin Guzman when he restructured the debt with private parties , Caputo confirmed that it will be paid. "Sure!", he answered.