Living in an Alternate Reality: Blinken Performs With Rock Band in Kiev Bar
© AP Photo / Stefani Reynolds
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Blinken played on stage at a speakeasy-style bar in central Kyiv called Barman Dictat, where he joined the Ukrainian band 19.99 for a rendition of Canadian-American singer-songwriter Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World”.
Following a number of high-level meetings in Kyiv, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken played a rendition of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” accompanied by a Ukrainian rock band, The Guardian reported. According to the outlet, the stunt divided opinion in Ukraine, with some viewing it as a gesture of support, and others acknowledging the bizarre optics of performing in a bar while Ukrainian soldiers lose their lives on the frontlines of the US proxy war with Russia.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken performs“Rocking to the Free World” in a bar in Kyiv. // video by @cspan pic.twitter.com/EgSrl3UKWh
— Ostap Yarysh (@OstapYarysh) May 14, 2024
Moscow-based international relations and security analyst Mark Sleboda joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Wednesday, and lambasted Blinken’s bizarre stunt.
“So it appears that Antony Blinken's emergency trip to Kiev was him delivering a secret new US weapons system to the Kiev regime,” said Sleboda ironically. “A system that we are told is even more powerful than the infamous HAARP system. This system is a sonic weapon. It consists of the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken attempting to perform Neil Young's 'Rockin' in the Free World.' And, evidently, this rendition was such an awful sonic onslaught that the Russian government is considering surrendering.”
“But, besides that, it's pretty much, just a quizzical look in a way,” the analyst continued. “It is rather bizarre and, as the Guardian notes, within the Kiev regime, it's not simply regarded as laughable, but there are critics, including from some Ukrainian soldiers who spoke to the Guardian that said it was inappropriate that he was singing in a bar when Ukrainian men are dying and having their limbs blown off in trenches.”
“And on the same trip, Antony Blinken is telling Ukrainian students, at a university in Kiev, that they need to embrace conscription and head into those trenches,” he added.
It was reported on Tuesday that Blinken said Ukraine will hold elections when all Ukrainians, including those who now live in Russia, decide to participate. A recent article from RT suggests that doing so essentially permits Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to postpone a vote unless Ukrainian territories are recaptured. Ukraine was scheduled to hold a presidential election on March 31, but Zelensky canceled the vote last year citing martial law and the ongoing conflict with Russia.
“Evidently Zelensky is president of the Kiev regime for life, at least until he is overthrown, or killed by his own people, or whatever. He said that they will have elections in Ukraine again when all of the millions of Ukrainians that have fled to Europe, or, to Russia, because there's some 5 million Ukrainians in Russia - not counting those that have since become Russian citizens,” said Sleboda.
It was also reported on Tuesday that UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said the UK would not support any solution to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that involves what it sees as concessions to Moscow. Earlier that day, the defense secretary said that the UK would also provide Kiev weapons to strike Russia’s Crimean Peninsula, because London considers the region to be an “integral part of Ukraine”. Shapps added that he does not think it “plausible at all for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to win this war.”
“I mean, has he paid any attention to the headlines? The state of the battle? Doesn't he receive intelligence briefings? I think he's as much of the Western leadership, they appear to be living in an alternate reality. They have become so accustomed to their supremacist, messianic belief in their own exceptionalism that they just simply can't come to grips with the fact that they are losing this proxy war against Russia, and they are losing it badly,” said Sleboda.
“And it is a tragedy because he is sending hundreds of millions of pounds of British taxpayers' money again and again and again to weapons, to this regime that is not changing the reality on the ground at all. These weapons are shoved into the hands of people that are press-ganged forcibly off the streets of little villages and Transcarpathia is not going to win this war against Russia for Grant Shapps.”
