USAID staff rush to shred and burn documents
RT | March 12, 2025
The acting executive secretary of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Erica Carr, has directed remaining staff to destroy sensitive documents stored at the agency’s former headquarters in Washington, D.C., according to an internal email.
President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who leads the recently established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), have repeatedly accused USAID – the primary US agency for funding political projects abroad – of misusing taxpayer money and fostering corruption. As part of broader efforts to cut government spending, USAID was forced to lay off 2,000 employees and place most of the remaining staff on leave.
In an email first obtained by ProPublica, Carr instructed the remaining staff to convene on Tuesday for an “all-day” effort to clear out classified safes and personnel documents at the Ronald Reagan Building. She advised employees to prioritize shredding documents and to use burn bags sparingly.
“Shred as many documents as possible first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” the email read. “The only labeling required on the burn bags is the phrase ‘SECRET’ and ‘USAID/(B/IO)’ in dark Sharpie if possible. If you need additional burn bags or Sharpie markers, please let me or the SEC InfoSec team know.”
The email did not specify a reason for the document destruction. However, the building is being vacated following mass layoffs, as US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently rented 390,000 square feet of office space in the facility.
The directive has raised concerns among former USAID staff and legal experts, who argue that it could violate federal record-keeping laws and potentially hinder ongoing lawsuits challenging the agency’s restructuring.
“Destruction of evidence is a crime,” Musk wrote on X in response to reports of the latest document purge. The billionaire previously called USAID a “criminal organization,” while Trump has claimed it was mismanaged by “radical lunatics.”
The handling of documents at USAID has already been under scrutiny. Last month, two of the agency’s security officials were placed on administrative leave after allegedly refusing to grant a team of DOGE auditors access to classified materials.
The Trump administration plans to eliminate 90% of USAID contracts, amounting to $54 billion, AP reported last month, citing an internal White House memo and court filings. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has also had its government funding frozen. Although officially a US State Department-funded nonprofit that distributes grants to pro-democracy initiatives abroad, the NED has long faced allegations of acting as a CIA front for regime change operations.
Romanian nationalist MPs begin parliamentary strike over Georgescu’s election expulsion
By Thomas Brooke | Remix News | March 12, 2025
Nationalist MPs in Romania have launched a parliamentary strike in protest against the disqualification of frontrunner Călin Georgescu from the upcoming May presidential elections.
The move, led by the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), comes amid growing political unrest and public outcry over what critics are calling an attack on democracy.
George Simion, President of AUR, announced the strike on social media, declaring that all AUR MPs would cease attending parliamentary meetings.
“Starting today, all AUR MPs will go on parliamentary strike. They will no longer attend plenary or committee meetings. State institutions have committed an unimaginable abuse against Călin Georgescu. We stand by his side!” Simion wrote.
The Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) rejected Georgescu’s candidacy on Sunday evening with a 10-4 vote. The decision, met with immediate backlash, triggered widespread protests and sharp international criticism.
Following the announcement, demonstrators gathered outside BEC headquarters in Bucharest, waving national flags and chanting for a “revolution.” Some protesters clashed with police, leading to the use of tear gas as authorities attempted to disperse the crowd.
Georgescu appealed the BEC ruling to the Romanian Constitutional Court (CCR), but the court upheld the decision on Tuesday, barring him from running in the election. The ruling is final and binding, eliminating the frontrunner from the race.
Simion, who also serves as vice president of the European Conservatives and Reformist group in the European Parliament, denounced the decision as politically motivated.
“It was rejected without any reason. All the papers were in good order. We live in a dictatorship. Please help us. Please be on our side to restore democracy in Romania,” Simion pleaded.
“The Deep State wants to ban real opposition, rig the elections, and stay in power at any cost. But we are not afraid! We will fight until our country is free from corruption, censorship and political persecution,” he added on Tuesday.
Following the court ruling, Georgescu lamented the demise of democracy in his country.
“Today, the masters have decided: no equality, no liberty, no fraternity for Romanians,” Georgescu wrote on X. “Long live France and Brussels, long live their colony named Romania.
“While America is becoming great again, Europe and Romania have become petty, corrupt and under dictatorship,” he added.
Nationalists are now understood to be preparing a replacement candidate for the presidential elections and have until March 19 to file papers.
The first round re-run is scheduled for May 4, with a run-off set for May 18.
Kiev does kill civilians, contrary to the claims of EU’s top diplomat – Moscow
RT | March 12, 2025
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas’ claim that Russian civilians “are not dying” in the Ukraine conflict is erroneous, Russia’s envoy to the UN Vassily Nebenzia has said.
During a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday, Nebenzia denounced Kallas’s remarks from February as “immoral assertions” from an official peddling “fantasies.” He said that in 2024 alone, Ukrainian military action resulted in the death of 809 Russian civilians, including 51 children.
Those killings constituted “real crimes” and not a “theatrical performance like Bucha that was staged by the Ukrainian authorities” to garner Western support, Nebenzia stated. Kiev has cited claims that Russian forces had committed a “massacre” in the town in 2022 to justify its decision to abandon peace talks, while Russia contends that the evidence was fabricated.
Speaking at a panel discussion during the Munich Security Conference, Kallas claimed that the two nations take radically different positions: “The difference is that Russian civilians are not dying. I mean Russian children and women are not dying, it’s soldiers on the ground” who do, she stated.
In response, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova labeled Kallas’s comments as evidence of the “degradation” of senior EU officials, asserting that the senior diplomat has reached a new low in “cynicism and immorality.”
“How can one seriously negotiate with people who have declared lies as their official position?” Zakharova questioned.
Kallas, known for her hawkish stance towards Russia, became the EU’s foreign policy and security chief last December after stepping down as Estonia’s prime minister under public pressure.
If Germany’s €1 trillion debt deal falls through, expect tough times ahead for the incoming government
Remix News | March 12, 2025
Shortly after the election, the Christian Democrats (CDU) gleefully announced their plan for a debt bonanza, along with their new Social Democrat (SPD) partners. A total of €1 trillion would be spent on weapons and infrastructure, all Germany needed to do was suspend its “debt brake” to make it happen.
Now, the whole plan is coming under threat. The Greens have signaled they won’t back the black-red trillion-euro debt plan, at least not without some serious investment in climate infrastructure and funds for foreign nations. The CDU has signaled they want to accommodate the Greens’ requests, but even if that happens, there are other serious roadblocks ahead, including a vote in the Bundesrat, which is made up of the 16 state governments in Germany.
In addition, the March 23 deadline is rapidly approaching. After that date, the new Bundestag forms, the German parliament, and due to the new composition of parties, the votes will no longer be in place to overcome the required two-thirds majority to rewrite the German constitution.
The Greens are going to drive a hard bargain, as they hold all the cards. The liberal Free Democrats (FDP) have already signaled they will not vote for lifting the debt brake, and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and The Left Party have also ruled out such a move. That means the CDU and SPD only have the Greens or they have nothing.
In many ways, the Greens have little incentive to go along with the package. The CDU blocked lifting the debt brake while they were in power, which contributed to the collapse of the previous government. There is also no offer for the Greens to join the new government ruling coalition either.
In addition, the sister party of the CDU, the CSU, bashed the Greens relentlessly during the election. Now, the Greens are supposed to hand the CDU and SPD a nearly blank check to spend hundreds of billions on projects not especially close to the Greens’ policy goals.
Negotiations are ongoing, and it appears the Greens may accept a compromise, as long as the CDU throws them enough money. However, there will be voices in the party who remain resistant to such a deal, as it will give the CDU and SPD an enormous advantage politically.
The Bundesrat could also spell doom for the debt plans. In the east, the FDP, the Left Party, and the BSW have all shot down the plan, along with the Greens. Even in Bavaria, the CSU’s Markus Söder has not been able to convince his smaller coalition partner, the Free Voters, to back the plan.
If a state government cannot agree in the Bundesrat, then it is required by law to abstain from voting, which is counted as a “no” vote. So far, the CDU and the SPD have only secured the votes from four states, Hesse, Saarland, Saxony, and Berlin, where they also happen to govern. They also need a two-thirds majority in the Bundesrat to ensure their plan goes through.
Green Party officials in the states are also skeptical.
“Without taking important corrections into account, we do not consider the law to be acceptable. Due to the urgency of the situation, negotiations need to be held quickly, taking into account the concerns and worries of the states,” read a joint statement by NRW Deputy Prime Minister Mona Neubaur, Baden-Württemberg Finance Minister Danyal Bayaz, and Björn Feckers, the Mayor and Senator for Finance in Bremen.
If the debt deal falls through, the CDU and SPD will be facing a potentially precarious situation. If they want to spend, they will have to cut. Then, things will get messy. Migration alone is costing between €50 billion and up to €75 billion a year depending on how it’s calculated, however, both parties have few solutions on how to bring down those costs. NGOs are raking in billions, but the SPD will fight tooth and nail to ensure the funds keep flowing. These battles could play out in all sorts of ways and eventually doom the new ruling government. That trillion in debt is supposed to be there to soothe over the differences, and without all the sugar rush a trillion euros brings, the honeymoon for the CDU and SPD may be over faster than anyone expects.
Ukraine admits attacking key oil pipeline to EU
RT | March 11, 2025
The Ukrainian General Staff has confirmed that one of the targets of Tuesday’s mass drone attacks was Russia’s Druzhba oil pipeline system, a key delivery route to EU countries, according to a statement on its official Telegram channel.
Druzhba is one of the world’s longest networks, transporting crude some 4,000km from Russia to refineries in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia.
“Ukraine’s security services carried out the operation, reporting explosions near the linear production dispatching station ‘Stalnoi Kon’ (Steel Horse) in Russia’s Oryol region, which manages the pipeline’s operations,” the statement read.
Hungary, which relies on oil shipments through the system, has called the attack “unacceptable” and accused Ukraine of threatening its sovereignty. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto announced that crude shipments via the pipeline had been temporarily halted, but later resumed. Szijjarto criticized the European Commission, arguing that assurances it had offered regarding the safety of Hungary’s energy infrastructure had been repeatedly violated.
According to media reports, three Ukrainian fixed-wing drones struck the Druzhba terminal in Russia’s Bryansk Region. The attack was part of a wider assault involving more than 340 UAVs hitting civilian targets across Russian territory, killing at least 3 people and injuring over 20 and causing a fire at a Rosneft oil depot in Bryansk.
Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russian energy infrastructure throughout the conflict, despite resulting supply disruptions for Kiev’s European allies.
In January, Ukrainian forces attempted to attack a compressor station of the TurkStream pipeline, which supplies natural gas to Turkish customers and several European countries, including Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece.
In March 2024, Ukrainian drones struck an oil refinery in the Krasnodar region, causing a fire and temporary shutdown. Similarly, in January of that year, a drone attack hit a fuel depot in St. Petersburg, reportedly damaging storage tanks.
The most notable attack on Russian energy infrastructure during the conflict was the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022. The explosions, which severely damaged Nord Stream 1 and 2—key conduits for Russian gas exports to EU—sparked international speculation about the perpetrators. While various theories have emerged, no definitive culprit has been identified.
Moscow has condemned attacks on its civilian energy infrastructure, labeling them acts of terrorism.
Ukraine’s Drone Attack on Russia: Desperate Move or Calculated Provocation?

Sputnik – 11.03.2025
“This terrorist state [Ukraine] used its favorite terrorist policy to declare that it is not dead yet and can still do something,” Anatoliy Matviychuk, retired colonel of the Russian Armed Forces, states.
Here’s a closer look at what drove Kiev’s massive drone attack:
- Ukraine expects Russia to retaliate in order for Kiev to play the victim and to make it look like Moscow responded with aggression to Donald Trump’s peace initiatives, Matviychuk believes.
- The timing of the attack is directly tied to Ukraine’s recent battlefield defeats and the ongoing negotiations in Saudi Arabia, Mikael Valtersson, former officer of the Swedish Armed Forces, says.
- Kiev hopes it will strengthen its bargaining position and distract from Ukraine’s collapse in the Kursk salient, the analyst adds.
Earlier today, Ukraine launched a massive drone attack involving over 300 UAVs against Moscow – an attack that was ultimately thwarted by Russian air defenses.
Maine Lawmaker Censored: The Facebook Post That Sparked a Free Speech Showdown
By Regina Morrison | Reclaim The Net | March 11, 2025
You’re an elected official. You show up at the state house, ready to do what politicians do: discuss budgets and debate policy. But instead, you find yourself in the middle of a firestorm over a Facebook post. Not because it contains state secrets or classified intel, but because it features photos from a high school track meet.
This is exactly what happened to Maine Representative Laurel Libby, who now finds herself at the center of a storm that is less about sports and more about who gets to decide what speech is acceptable in a democracy.
A Championship, A Facebook Post, and a Political Crisis
It all started with a pole vaulting competition. Libby, a mother of five and a fierce advocate for women’s sports, posted photos from Maine’s Class B state championship in girls’ pole vaulting. The athlete who won had previously competed in the boys’ division, where they finished in fifth place. Now competing in the girls’ category, the athlete cleared 10 feet 6 inches, winning by a wide margin.

Libby’s post ignited a national conversation — the media ran with it, the White House took notice, and suddenly, a Maine high school sports event became ground zero for the larger battle over transgender athletes in women’s sports.
The Censure Vote and the Ultimatum
Democratic leaders in the Maine legislature quickly stepped in. They demanded she take the post down. Libby refused. The response was a censure vote, which passed 75-70 along party lines.
But that wasn’t enough. The House speaker then took things a step further: Libby would not be allowed to speak or vote on legislation until she deleted the post. In other words, her constituents would now go unheard in state government, all because their representative refused to edit her social media. Normally, removing a legislator would require a two-thirds vote or a recall election, but those formalities were apparently unnecessary when a majority party had other tools at its disposal.
Libby’s critics argue that she could have made her point without sharing the athlete’s photo. “Sharing images of kids online without their consent is a clear violation of the bond of trust and respect between citizens and their legislators,” said Majority Leader Ryan Fecteau. He accused Libby of using a minor to score political points and insisted that serious policy debates should not be waged through viral social media posts.
Libby, however, sees it differently. “Words don’t have the same impact. People need to see what’s happening to understand why it’s unfair,” she explained. Her stance is simple: if an athlete competes in a public championship, they should expect public attention. “If you don’t want attention, don’t put yourself in a public position to receive it.”
Libby’s post, whether you agree with it or not, falls squarely under the First Amendment. She wasn’t revealing state secrets or inciting a riot — she was commenting on a policy set by the Maine High School Principals Association, which allows student-athletes to compete in the gender category with which they identify.
In other words, she was doing exactly what elected officials are supposed to do: debate policies that affect the people they represent. The fact that her speech was met not with counter arguments but with an outright ban from legislative participation raises an uncomfortable question; if lawmakers can be silenced for discussing controversial policies, what does that mean for the rest of us?
US interested in direct talks with Hamas
Al Mayadeen | March 11, 2025
A leader in the Palestinian Resistance has divulged to Al Mayadeen that the United States is “interested in direct communication with Hamas, but within specific expectations,” as Americans do not want to allow the Palestinian Resistance to benefit from this direct communication with the current administration.
The Palestinian leader pointed out that the American envoys confirmed the ability of US President, Donald Trump, to “force Israel to stop the war and reach an agreement with Hamas.” They believe that Hamas’s release of the Israeli-American captive could change Trump’s convictions.
Hamas had previously announced its full commitment to the ceasefire agreement, implementing what was agreed upon, and its readiness to immediately begin negotiations for the second phase.
The movement rejected pressuring attempts, while the Israeli occupation is left without accountability despite evading its obligations.
“Blackmail and threats of war will not be of any use, and there is no way but negotiations and commitment to the agreement,” the leader told Al Mayadeen, emphasizing that any other option would be tampering with the fate of the remaining captives.
Adam Boehler, the US envoy who engaged in direct talks with Hamas, described the meeting as “very helpful” and expressed confidence that a deal to release Israeli captives held in Gaza could be reached “within weeks”.
In an interview for CNN, Boehler acknowledged the unusual nature of the talks, considering that Hamas has been designated a “terrorist” organization by the US since 1997. However, he did not rule out future meetings with the Palestinian group.
Boehler recognized “Israel’s” concerns over the US meeting with Hamas but emphasized his intent to revive “fragile” negotiations.
“In the end, I think it was a very helpful meeting,” he said, adding, “I think something could come together within weeks… I think there is a deal where they can get all of the prisoners out, not just the Americans.”
He hinted at the possibility of further talks, stating, “You never know. You know, sometimes, you’re in the area and you drop by.”
The first phase of a ceasefire concerning the release of some Israeli captives ended earlier this month, but the Palestinian Resistance and “Israel” are now in disagreement over when to transition into the second phase, which aims for a complete end to the war on the Gaza Strip.
While “Israel” wants to extend the first phase until mid-April, Hamas has insisted on moving to the second phase, which is aimed at achieving a permanent end to the war.
During this phase, the Resistance released 25 living captives and the bodies of eight others in exchange for approximately 1,800 Palestinian detainees and prisoners held in Israeli occupation prisons.
Of the 251 individuals taken captive on October 7, 2023, 58 remain in Gaza, including 34 whom the Israeli military has confirmed as dead.
Last week, US President Donald Trump issued a “last warning” to Hamas, threatening additional destruction in Gaza if all remaining captives were not released.
Boehler acknowledged the “consternation” “Israel” felt over the US’ engagement with Hamas, saying, “We’re the United States. We’re not an agent of Israel.”
A Muslims Zionism and the massacre of Syria’s minorities
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | March 11, 2025
The horrifying civilian massacres carried out across the Syrian coast are stupefyingly awful, on a scale reminiscent of the height of the ISIS insurgency in Iraq. Yet, there are still countless people identifying as Muslims who are trying to defend these actions. Their predominant ideology is not that of “Sunni Islam”, but rather of a nationalist identity rooted in a theological justification, in other words, a Muslims Zionism.
The Division of Syria
It has long been the agenda of the Zionist Entity to divide Syria into a number of weakened and defenseless Statelets, many of which it seeks to establish ties with and also of which justify its existence as a self-described “Jewish State”.
While the Zionist regime’s alliance with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has long been known, the Israelis doubled down on throwing their weight behind the group that controls Syria’s north-east on December 8, 2024. Simultaneously, the Zionists occupied the entirety of the Golan Heights and carried out their largest ever air campaign to destroy Syria’s military capabilities.
For years, the Zionist regime provided material and financial support, in addition to medical aid, to at least a dozen Syrian opposition groups, including Al-Nusra Front (Al-Qaeda in Syria). Al-Nusra would of course later become Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which now rules over Damascus with an iron fist. Its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who now prefers to go by Ahmed al-Sharaa, was originally an MI6 (British intelligence) project and was a former commander of ISIS.
The Zionists understood that the groups they were backing, including what would later become “HTS”, were led by foreign intelligence operatives, but that their rank and file were fanatical militants. This worked well for the Israelis in two ways: while the leadership of the group can be manipulated, the fanatical takfiris who actually believe in their group’s ideology are left to commit atrocities against civilians that will drive them towards federalization.
Although this history is largely forgotten, significant portions of Syria’s minority groups were in support of the movement to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, yet what changed their minds and made them rally around the former Syrian leader was the behavior of the sectarian death squads who ended up leading the Syrian opposition.
However, after 2018, as the Syrian economy went into steep decline and the civil war became a frozen conflict, the vision that many Syrians had adopted for their future had faded. The US and EU sanctions strangled the country and plunged the people of Syria into poverty.
By the time al-Jolani came to launch his assault on Aleppo, the entire State ended up crumbling and this occurred without any major fighting. On top of this, it appeared briefly as if the HTS militants were not going to carry out the kinds of massacres many had long feared they would.
Yet, after two months, the sectarian field executions did not stop, the Israelis were essentially at the gates of Damascus and the new government was still incapable of getting its affairs in order. The real question here is whether Jolani is part of a conspiracy to commit civilian massacres with the aim of dividing Syria, or if he is just a useful idiot that is behaving as a murderous dictator.
When the rebellion occurred on the Syrian coast, the instant response was the mass deployment of paramilitary forces and security services, while sectarian demonstrators chanted for the blood of the Alawites. The official justification for the massacres that followed – including civilians who had even been opponents of Bashar al-Assad’s rule – was that “remnants of the regime” were to be hunted down.
What followed was the largest gift to the Israelis that could ever have been given, sectarian gangsters burst into civilian homes and murdered men, women, and children. Even babies were not spared from the brutality of the new regime. Elderly men were tossed around, humiliated and shot in the streets, teenagers taken into the open and executed. When their Sunni neighbours tried to intervene to stop the massacres, they were murdered too.
It is clear that these actions were carried out with genocidal intent, and no reasonable person can deny the mass slaughter of innocent civilians. On a personal note, it is so bad that Sunni Syrian contacts of mine in Hama and Homs have told me that they are too scared to share their opinions on social media for fear of being targeted.
While it is certainly the malicious agenda of the Zionists to divide Syria, the blame cannot now be placed upon the reactions of the minority communities who seek to preserve their own livelihoods, but instead on the new administration in Damascus that has committed the atrocities. If the country continues on its current trajectory, there won’t be a country called Syria any more and this is the fault of the sectarian death squads who worked to divide the country.
The Israelis are now grinning, waiting for the opportunity to seize more territory and use collaborators to carve out a series of regimes that will work in their favour. Meanwhile, not a single bullet from Jolani’s men has been directed at the occupying entity.
Russian defenses down 337 Ukrainian drones – MOD
RT | March 11, 2025
Russian air defenses have intercepted 337 Ukrainian drones overnight, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Tuesday morning. One [now updated to three] civilian is reported to have been killed by the attack.
The drone wave launched from Ukrainian territory was primarily aimed at Moscow, information provided by the military suggests. The largest number of interceptions occurred in the heavily fortified border Kursk Region, where 126 drones were destroyed. An additional 91 UAVs were taken down in Moscow Region, surrounding the capital.
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin provided multiple updates throughout the night, with his latest message stating that 74 drones had been downed on their approach to the city, in what he called the largest such Ukrainian attack to date.
Moscow Region Governor Andrey Vorobyov reported casualties across three municipalities, including a fatality in Domodedovo. A 38-year-old night guard was killed and two more people died in hospital later after a drone crashed into the parking lot of a food plant, damaging approximately 20 vehicles. In total, more than a dozen people have been injured in the region, including a four-year-old child, according to the governor.
The raid was one of the largest conducted by Ukraine to date, although its scale is not without precedent.
Kiev claims that low-cost long-range kamikaze drones are effective at striking deep within Russian territory. Moscow has accused the Ukrainian government of resorting to terrorist tactics due to setbacks on the battlefield. The Russian Investigative Committee is treating the latest attack as terrorism, it said on Tuesday.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky recently proposed a limited air truce, suggesting a halt to long-range drone attacks in exchange for Russia ceasing its strike on Ukrainian energy infrastructure – operations that Moscow argues are crippling Kiev’s arms production and military logistics. Russia insists on a comprehensive truce, arguing that Ukraine would use any pause to regroup its forces and continue hostilities.
Zelensky is facing pressure from US President Donald Trump, who is seeking a swift resolution to the Ukraine conflict and has criticized Kiev for undermining his efforts.
Europe faces a MAGA ‘vibe-shift’ as Trump moves to his primordial objective – The Global Reset
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 11, 2025
President Trump wants Ukraine settled, full stop. This is so that he can move ahead quickly – to normalise with Russia, and begin the ‘big picture’ project of setting a new World Order, one that will end wars and facilitate business ties.
The point here – which Europe feigns to not understand – is that the end to the Ukraine conflict simply is Trump’s ‘gateway’ to the entire rationale and platform on which he stood: The Great Reset of the Geo-Political landscape. Ukraine, simply said, is the obstacle to Trump’s pursuit of his primordial objective: The Global Reset.
Starmer, Macron and the eastern wing of the Euro-élites are blind to the sheer scale of the global vibe-shift towards traditionalist U.S. politics and ethics. They miss too, the barely concealed fury in the Trump world that exists behind this nascent revolution. “The Maga Right has none of the inhibitions of its predecessors. It is planning to leverage the power of a recaptured state to annihilate its enemies”, Allister Heath writes.
The European Ruling Class is in desperate trouble and increasingly isolated, in a world shifting ‘Rightward’ at breakneck speed. “The U.S. is now the enemy of the West”, the FT proclaims. European leaders wantonly won’t understand.
The reality is that the U.S. is engaged now in rolling up Europe’s foreign policy. And, is about to start exporting U.S. traditional Republican values to roll up the European wokeist belief-system. The European Ruling strata – far removed from its base – has failed to grasp the threat to its own interests (a scenario outlined here).
The Trump administration is trying to rebuild the ailing Republic, and Americans in this new era do not care for the European obsession with ancient feuds and their entailing wars.
Trump reportedly views with utter disdain the UK and European boast that should the U.S. not do it, then Europe will. The Brussels class claims to be able still – after three years of losing in Ukraine – to be able to inflict a humiliating defeat on President Putin.
More profoundly, however, Team Trump – committed to the task of taking down the American Deep State as the ‘inexorable enemy’ – perceives (rightly) the British security state to be co-joined at the hip with their American counterparts, as a part of its global meta-structure. And its oldest and deepest component has always been the destruction of Russia, and its dismemberment.
So when Macron, in an address to the nation this week, rejected a ceasefire in Ukraine and declared that “peace in Europe is only possible with a weakened Russia”, calling the country a direct threat to France and the continent, many in ‘Trump world’ will interpret this defiant declaration (that ‘Ukraine defeating Russia is preferable to ‘peace’’) is nothing more than Macron and Starmer ventriloquising the aims of the Meta Deep State.
This notion is lent substance by the sudden plethora of articles appearing in the European-(managed) MSM to the effect that Russia’s economy is much weaker than it appears and might collapse in the next year. Of course it is nonsense. This is about managing the European public to believe that keeping the war going in Ukraine is a ‘good idea’.
The absurdity of the European position was perhaps best captured, as Wolfgang Münchau notes, in its full hubris last year by the historian and writer Anne Applebaum when she won a prestigious German peace prize. During her acceptance speech, she maintained that victory was more important than peace, asserting that the West’s ultimate goal should be regime change in Russia: “We must help Ukrainians achieve victory, and not only for the sake of Ukraine,” she said.
Zelensky and his European fans want ‘to negotiate’ – though later, rather than sooner (perhaps in a year, as one European Foreign Minister reportedly told Marco Rubio privately).
“This”, Münchau writes, “is what the very public disagreement in the Oval Office [last week] was all about. Peace through untrammelled victory — essentially the Second World War model — as the lens through which virtually all European leaders, and most commentators view the Russia-Ukraine conflict”.
America sees things differently: It views almost certainly the European Deep State to be putting a spoke into Trump’s ‘normalisation with Russia’ wheel – a normalisation to which they are viscerally opposed. Or, at the very least, as the Europeans chasing a “mirage that no longer exists, stubbornly hiking ‘tax and spend’, whilst doubling down on mass immigration and overpriced energy, oblivious to the flashing red lights in the [financial markets] as government debt yields rocket to their highest levels since 1998”, as Allister Heath outlines.
In other words, the suggestion is that Friedrich Merz, Macron and Starmer are talking about how they are going to turn around their countries – via a massive infusion of debt – into defence superstates. Yet, at some level of consciousness, they must realise that it is not doable, so they settle instead for presenting themselves as ‘world leaders on the international stage’.
The European élites are deeply unstable ‘leaders’ who are risking the prosperity and stability of the continent. It is clear these countries do not have the military capacity to intervene in any concerted manner. More than anything, it is the European economy circling the drain that is the reality at the gates.
Zelensky is accomplice to the European insistence that defeating Russia takes priority over achieving peace in Ukraine, in spite of lacking any strategic rationale as to how it may be achieved after three years of a worsening military situation. Both plans – crushing the Russian economy with sanctions and attrition of the Russian military to the point of collapse – have failed. Why then does Zelensky resist Trump’s peace proposals? On the surface, it makes no sense.
The explanation likely goes back to the post-Maidan era when the western ‘Meta Security State’ (principally, the British and the Americans) entrenched hardline Banderites (then a tiny minority) into the Ukrainian Police, Intelligence and Security State. They are still today the controlling force. Even were this faction to acknowledge that their war cannot be won, they understand what happens if they lose:
Russia will not deal with them. They view them as extremists (if not war criminals) who are in no way ‘agreement capable’ and must be replaced by a leadership who is actually capable of compromise. Russia would likely pursue and bring these men to trial. Zelensky has to be frightened at what the Banderites might do to him (despite his British team of bodyguards).
Well, Trump is not entertaining these European ‘games’: He is administering a slap-down to Zelensky and European leaders, perhaps bringing Zelensky into line; or perhaps not … Team Trump, Politico reports, has now entered into direct talks with the Ukrainian opposition on holding early elections to unseat Zelensky – who is on his way to being removed, members of Team Trump say.
Zelensky may be finished, but interestingly Zaluzhniy wasn’t discussed either. He is being groomed by the British as a replacement – it looks like the Americans are going to make this decision independently of the British, too.
President Trump has ordered intelligence sharing with Ukraine stopped. What he technically did was to stop allowing Ukraine to use exclusive U.S. targeting systems controlled by U.S. Intelligence, the CIA, the National Reconnaissance Office and the U.S. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. What has been suspended is the exchange of so-called ‘lethal’ data, including information for HIMARS targeting. However, the defensive information needed for protection is still being provided to Ukraine.
“The extent of the intelligence-sharing freeze, which appears to have been imposed alongside the halt in military aid Mr Trump announced on Monday, initially appeared to be somewhat limited … But by Wednesday afternoon it became clear that the Trump administration, ignoring overtures from Mr Zelensky the previous evening, had gone much further. A military intelligence officer in Kyiv told The Telegraph that the freeze amounted to “more or less a total blackout””.
Put bluntly, the earlier munitions freeze will undoubtedly affect Ukraine’s military abilities over time, however the impact might not be felt for some weeks. The loss of vital intelligence, however, will make its mark immediately. It will – simply put – blind Ukraine. In Ukrainian command posts, the battle tracking and satellite online feeds on tablets and TV screens have indeed been disconnected.
What Trump’s slap-down has done is to puncture the fiction that Ukraine is able to defend itself with a little substitute of European support. That has always been nonsensical bravado. NATO, the CIA and the global Intelligence Community have been in control of the war fighting from the outset. And that, for now, has been switched off.
So, Europe wants to shoulder the U.S. burden? Bloomberg reports that European bond markets are in meltdown. If Europe pretends to replace the U.S., it is going to be extremely expensive, very politically costly, and it will fail.
