Col. Jacques Baud: Russia Pursues Military Solution as Diplomacy Fails
Glenn Diesen | May 29, 2025
Colonel Jacques Baud is a former military intelligence analyst in the Swiss Army and the author of many books. Colonel Baud argues that American indecisiveness and European irrationality have undermined negotiations, and Russia is now convinced it must pursue a military solution.
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U.S. Cancels Contracts Worth $766 Million for Moderna Bird Flu Vaccine After ‘Rigorous Review’
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | May 29, 2025
The Trump administration cancelled two contracts totaling $766 million with Moderna for the development of its mRNA-1018 vaccine for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, citing safety and efficacy concerns identified during its clinical trials, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has confirmed.
“After a rigorous review, we concluded that continued investment in Moderna’s H5N1 mRNA vaccine was not scientifically or ethically justifiable,” HHS Communications Director Andrew Nixon told The Defender.
“This is not simply about efficacy — it’s about safety, integrity and trust. The reality is that mRNA technology remains under-tested, and we are not going to spend taxpayer dollars repeating the mistakes of the last administration, which concealed legitimate safety concerns from the public,” Nixon said.
Moderna first revealed the cancellation of the two awards in a statement published Wednesday. Moderna also announced “positive interim data” from its Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials for mRNA-1018.
“While the termination of funding from HHS adds uncertainty, we are pleased by the robust immune response and safety profile observed in this interim analysis,” Moderna said in its statement.
Last year, HHS awarded Moderna $176 million for the late-stage development of the mRNA-1018 vaccine. In the final days of the Biden administration in January, HHS granted Moderna $590 million to accelerate the development of its bird flu vaccine and expand clinical studies for vaccines targeting five other flu virus subtypes.
‘A major policy shift away from dangerous mRNA injection programs’
Some scientists criticized the cancellation of the awards. Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and the Biden administration’s COVID-19 response coordinator, told CNN, “The attack on mRNA vaccines is beyond absurd” and that “we will come to regret this” if bird flu starts spreading between humans.
However, epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher called the news “a very positive development” that “marks a major policy shift away from dangerous mRNA injection programs.”
Vermont-based lawyer and farmer John Klar called it a “sensible decision,” noting the seasonal nature of the virus and its waning virulence.
Dr. Clayton Baker, an internal medicine physician, called the contract cancellation “absolutely the right decision.”
“The mRNA gene therapy platform, as demonstrated by the multiple toxicities of the COVID-19 shots, is fundamentally unsafe and should be removed from use altogether,” Baker said.
Baker suggested that the timing of the January 2025 grant, just days before the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, was likely intended to “promote the bird flu panic that was perpetrated by the outgoing administration, in order to derail the new administration.”
HHS told Reuters earlier this year that it would review agreements the Biden administration made for vaccine production. In March, HHS denied rumors that it was considering cancelling funding for mRNA vaccine research.
In February, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a $1 billion plan to combat the spread of bird flu among chickens. The plan included a strategy to develop vaccines for chickens, but not for humans.
According to Reuters, Moderna “has been banking on revenue from newer mRNA shots, including its bird flu vaccine and experimental COVID-flu combination vaccine, to make up for waning post-pandemic demand for its COVID vaccine.” The company “plans to explore alternatives for late-stage development and manufacturing” of its bird flu vaccine.
News of the canceled contracts came just days after Moderna withdrew its application for U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of its mRNA-1083 combination flu and COVID-19 vaccine.
Last week, Reuters reported that Moderna’s decision to withdraw its application came amid “increased regulatory scrutiny of the vaccine approval process since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the top U.S. health job earlier this year.”
Markets did not immediately react to news of the grants’ cancellation. Moderna shares remained flat during after-hours trading Wednesday, but were up by over 2.6% by press time Thursday.
No human bird flu cases reported in three months
According to Reuters, bird flu has infected 70 people in the past year, mostly farm workers, but “has spread aggressively among cattle herds and poultry flocks.”
In January, a Louisiana man who was hospitalized with the first severe case of bird flu in the U.S. died — the first bird flu-related death in the U.S. and all of North America. However, the man, who was older than 65, had underlying medical conditions, and it remains unclear whether bird flu directly caused his death.
There have been no new human bird flu cases in three months, The Associated Press (AP) reported May 19.
Dr. Meryl Nass, an expert on biological warfare and founder of Door to Freedom, said, “H5N1 was a dangerous virus if you caught it from a chicken years ago.” But it has never spread person-to-person, and has “mutated to cause extremely mild disease in almost all humans that have caught it over the past five to 10 years.”
Nass said this makes a new bird flu vaccine for humans unnecessary. “There is absolutely no reason why the United States needs another bird flu vaccine, and there is even less reason to develop an mRNA vaccine because the platform itself is dangerous.”
Bird flu scare a ‘propaganda campaign’
Mainstream media outlets and many scientists continue to suggest that bird flu poses an imminent threat to humans, in what Dr. Richard Bartlett, an emergency room director, former Texas Department of Health and Human Services advisory council member, and expert on bird flu, called a “propaganda campaign.”
“The messaging has been that bird flu spread from penguins to sea lions, to a western Minnesota goat, to Texas dairy cattle and finally to a dairy farmer with red eyes. It’s been a two-year marketing campaign,” Bartlett said.
Bartlett said the messaging is intended to “manufacture the perception of a need for new mRNA products — despite the absence of long-term safety data.”
Last year, former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf warned that a potential bird flu pandemic could have a 25% mortality rate. Jeremy Farrar, Ph.D., then the World Health Organization’s chief scientist, warned that bird flu has an “extremely high” mortality rate for humans and could mutate to pass between humans.
In December 2024, Dr. Leana Wen, the former commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department and a professor of public health at George Washington University, said the outgoing Biden administration had not done enough to address bird flu and criticized the lack of availability of a bird flu vaccine.
After the start of Trump’s second term and the implementation of funding cuts to government health agencies, mainstream media reports suggested the cuts were placing the public at risk of a worsening bird flu outbreak.
In February, Reuters reported the cuts “disrupted the U.S. response to bird flu as the outbreak worsens,” resulting in “anxiety among federal health staff that critical information about bird flu will not be disseminated in a timely manner or at all.”
In April, USA Today reported that cuts affecting the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine “will hamper the FDA’s ability to respond to animal disease outbreaks, including bird flu, and protect public health.”
Also that month, virologists from 40 countries published a report in The Lancet urging the Trump administration to prepare for a bird flu pandemic, according to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
The report was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which in 1999 established Gavi. The Gates Foundation holds one of the four permanent seats on Gavi’s board and continues to heavily fund the organization.
According to the AP, “experts are puzzling over why reports of new human cases have stopped” in the last three months. The report suggests that infections potentially aren’t being detected, that immigrant farm workers may be afraid to be tested, and that efforts to find bird flu cases were “weakened by government cuts.”
Baker said such scenarios are unlikely to account for the lack of recent bird flu cases. “What does this say about the severity of the illness in humans? It says that the illness is either mild or entirely asymptomatic and that there’s no need for a vaccine for an asymptomatic condition.”
U.S. ‘poured a king’s ransom’ into bird flu vaccine development
Nass said that the FDA has already licensed three vaccines for H5N1 and that “there have been dozens of experimental bird flu vaccines that were never taken to licensure. The U.S. government “has already poured a king’s ransom” into funding these vaccines, even though bird flu has never spread between humans.
Baker said that instead of funding new bird flu vaccines, the U.S. government should “stop the gain-of-function style manipulation of bird flu into a bioweapon, which takes place at the Kawaoka lab at the University of Wisconsin and the Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Georgia, as well as at other labs.”
Gain-of-function research increases the transmissibility or virulence of viruses and is often used in vaccine development. Earlier this month, Trump issued an executive order pausing gain-of-function research in the U.S. for 120 days while a new regulatory framework is developed. The order also ended U.S. funding for such research in some countries.
“Gain-of-function research produces human pathogens, the process is driven by fear in the media, and then proprietary vaccines are presented as the solution,” Baker said. “It needs to end.”
Recently, there have been growing calls among scientists for a moratorium or ban on mRNA vaccines, including a petition pending before the FDA.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
UK to step up cyberattacks on Russia and China – minister

British Defense Secretary John Healey © Getty Images / Antonio Masiello
RT | May 29, 2025
London will significantly step up offensive cyber operations against Russia and China, UK Defense Secretary John Healey announced on Thursday following the inauguration of the country’s new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command.
In a statement quoted by The Times, Healey claimed that “the keyboard is now a weapon of war” and said the UK’s new cyber command would coordinate both defensive and offensive operations, including hacking into enemy systems to disrupt attacks and spread of propaganda.
Asked whether this would include Russia and China, Healey responded: “Yes.”
Healey’s statement marks the first time a British minister has explicitly confirmed cyberattacks on other states. While UK ministers had previously confirmed cyber operations against non-state actors like Islamic State, they have not until now acknowledged attacks against other countries.
Healey’s comments come ahead of the publication of a strategic defense review on Monday. According to The Times, the review will stress that cyberattacks on Britain, allegedly being carried out by Russia and China, are “threatening the foundations of the economy and daily life.”
Both Moscow and Beijing have consistently denied accusations of carrying out cyberattacks against Western nations, characterizing the claims as baseless and politically motivated.
Additionally, Russian officials have in recent months repeatedly raised concerns over what they describe as Western Europe’s continued militarization and aggressive anti-Russian rhetoric, said to be in response to the alleged threat posed by Moscow.
The Kremlin has vehemently denied having any hostile intent towards any western country, and has accused European politicians of “irresponsibly stoking fears” to justify increased military expenditures, which Moscow had labeled an “incitement of war on the European continent.”
Report: Biden May Not Have Even Known About Detrimental Climate Policies of his Own Administration

Power The Future | May 28, 2025
While the Biden administration was quick to tout and implement its aggressive climate agenda, a closer look raises a more troubling question: did President Joe Biden ever even know about some of the sweeping actions taken in his name?
We reviewed eight major executive actions that fundamentally reshaped American energy policy, from banning offshore drilling to invoking emergency powers to boost solar manufacturing, and found no evidence that President Biden ever personally spoke about any of them. Not in a press conference. Not in a speech. Not even a video statement.
These aren’t minor procedural documents, memos, or messaging documents. They include:
- Clean AI Data Centers EO (Jan. 14, 2025): Gave the Departments of Defense and Energy the green light to lease public land for AI data centers, provided they’re powered by “clean energy,” of course.
- Offshore Drilling Ban (Jan. 6 2025): Pulled over 625 million acres of the Outer Continental Shelf out of future oil and gas leasing. Biden never mentioned it on camera.
- EO 14143 (Jan. 16 2025): A last-days-of-the-administration decree making AmeriCorps alumni eligible for preferential federal hiring, potentially reshaping the makeup of the federal workforce without public debate and allowing eco-left to insert themselves in the administration.
- Arctic Drilling Ban (March 13, 2023): Prohibited oil and gas leasing in sensitive areas of the Arctic. Notably timed just after approval of the Willow Project, this was a political fig leaf, not a presidential priority.
- Defense Production Act Invocation (June 6, 2022): Used Cold War-era emergency powers to push solar panels and heat pumps without a peep from Biden himself.
- EO 14027 (May 7, 2021): Created a “Climate Change Support Office” buried in bureaucracy, giving climate staffers yet another taxpayer-funded silo of influence.
- EO 14030 (May 20, 2021): Ordered all federal agencies to assess “climate-related financial risk,” laying the groundwork for ESG-style investing mandates across the government.
- EO 14057 (Dec. 8, 2021): Committed the entire federal government to net-zero emissions by 2050 and required 100% carbon-free electricity by 2030—one of the most expansive decarbonization orders in history.
After uncovering this slew of major executive actions reshaping America’s energy landscape that were never publicly addressed by President Biden, Power The Future Executive Director stated: “Americans deserve to know which unelected staffers or radical unnamed activists implemented sweeping change through an autopen. The Biden energy agenda destroyed livelihoods of energy workers and fueled the record-high inflation that broke the budgets of millions of Americans. The question is simple, and deserves an immediate answer: what did Joe Biden know, and when did he know it?”
Despite their massive consequences for American energy producers, workers, and consumers, President Biden made no public comment, on camera or to press, about any of these actions.
This lack of public acknowledgment begs the question of whether these orders were auto-penned by eco-left policy by ghostwriters?
Americans deserve to know whether their president is making energy policy or whether it’s being run by anonymous staffers in federal agencies and activist NGOs behind closed doors.
When executive power is used to shut down energy production, rewire the economy, and restructure the federal workforce, the American people should at least expect their elected leader to own it.
Instead, we’re left with a pile of signed orders and zero accountability. Power The Future will continue investigating the true origins of these impactful policies.
Why Merz’ comments show he is two steps down the escalation ladder from Putin
By Ian Proud | Strategic Culture Foundation | May 29, 2025
Russia has established escalation dominance in Ukraine in November 2024 by raising the bar on the military capabilities that it is willing to use. Merz’s comments on western cruise missile use haven’t changed that calculus and, instead, have illustrated German weakness in Russia’s eyes.
For some time now, western media outlets have pushed the argument hard that Zelensky should be free to use longer-range weapons deep inside Russia. In his bid to offer a tougher line on Ukraine’s war effort during his honeymoon period in office and ahead of Zelensky’s visit to Berlin today, Friedrich Merz announced a lifting of restrictions on the use of western missiles within the territory of Russia. In doing so, he showed a fundamental misunderstanding of Russian strategy.
I have seen at critical points over the past decade that Russia seeks escalation dominance, a Cold War concept holding that a state can best contain conflicts and avoid escalation if it is dominant at each successive rung up the “ladder of escalation,” all the way to the nuclear rung.
Since the onset of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Russia has sought to dominate each step up the escalation ladder. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 were major escalations that NATO didn’t meet head-on. This strategy is also seen in the diplomatic sphere, for example, Russia escalated a dispute with the U.S. in 2017 when it kicked 755 American diplomatic staff out of Russia. When Moscow over-escalates, it makes a gamble that its adversary will not be willing to step another rung higher on the escalation ladder.
There is a hard-wired view in Moscow that Russia will always overmatch a divided and morally weak Western alliance when push comes to shove. Russia has something that the West does not have — the sovereign power and the political will to act unilaterally. Putin had been subject to criticism from hardliners in Russia that he hasn’t responded to the slow ratcheting up of military support to Ukraine from the West.
What was surprising about Merz’s comments were their blindness to recent events. On Nov. 21, 2024, Vladimir Putin presented a huge escalation challenge to the West: are you ready for Russia to strike NATO facilities anywhere in Europe with hypersonic munitions that you don’t possess?
At that time, much as now in Berlin, bombastic British ex-military saber rattlers had been at the forefront of calls that such weapon systems as Scalp, Storm Shadow, U.S. ATACMS missiles could make on the battlefield in Ukraine.
On Nov. 19, the first salvo of ATACMS was lobbed at a military facility in Bryansk — outside the area in which Ukrainian forces were battling in Kursk. The following day, British Storm Shadow missiles were fired into Kursk, with the jubilant approval of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, no less. These strikes elicited widespread attaboy jingoism from the Western media, with hardly a word of caution.
On Nov. 21, Russia over-escalated. Specifically, they deployed a more powerful and destructive hypersonic Oreshnik missile at a well-fortified Ukrainian weapons facility in Dnipropetrovsk. This is the first time an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile has been used in combat. The claimed range of Oreshnik is 16 times greater than ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles. Its deployment put any NATO targets within Europe in the scope of a conventional strike.
This represented a major escalation in destructive capabilities. Russia had been trying unsuccessfully to destroy the Yuzhmash weapons facility since 2022 using the battlefield weapons at its disposal. Built during the Soviet era, Yuzhmash has workshops buried deep underground to protect them from attack. Among other purposes, the facility is thought to be where Rheinmetall had set up a plant to repair German Leopard tanks. It was also used in missile and long-range drone production. The Oreshnik strike levelled it.
The destruction of valuable Western repair facilities at Yuzhmash will have satisfied Kremlin hawks that Oreshnik has taken Russia two steps up the escalation ladder. Putin also sent a clear message to military planners from the U.S. and UK who supported the deployment of the ATACMS, that a more specifically NATO target may be next.
Carefully described by Putin at the time as a “test” the Oreshnik is now a deployed capability far beyond those that Western powers have allowed Ukraine to use, namely ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles. And also beyond the capabilities that Zelensky had requested — namely Tomahawk cruise missiles — that the U.S. has so far refused to sanction. Putin has left the door open for further “tests” of the Oreshnik.
Following Merz’s surprise announcement, speculation quickly mounted that Germany would finally relent on allowing Ukraine to use German Taurus cruise missiles. Even if supplied, Taurus offers nothing Ukraine doesn’t already have, as its range is slightly lower than the British Storm Shadow and its payload only slightly higher. The U.S. ATACMS has more destructive capability.
So, all that Merz did by grand-standing was to put Germany and Ukraine in a position where a more devastating weapon i.e. Oreshnik – may be used against strategic or battlefield targets that would overmatch the theoretical use of Taurus missiles. Taurus is therefore a battle-losing capability. To make matters worse, the new German Chancellor has already backtracked on supplying Taurus, following blowback from members of his coalition government.
Following the first deployment of ATACMS and Storm Shadow at targets in Bryansk and Kursk, western powers deescalated and placed greater restrictions on their tactical use. This made both Joe Biden and Keir Starmer look weak in President Putin’s eyes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pro-ATACMS advocates largely fell silent, at least for a little while. Ukraine has gone on to lose further territory in the Donbass since that time.
So, the question for Merz when he meets Zelensky today is, what escalation card is he empowered to play next to overmatch a future Oreshnik strike at a target in Germany? If he hasn’t thought that through, and I suspect that he has not, Merz should reconsider his rhetoric, or risk looking weak and feckless, as Biden and Starmer did in November of last year.
Following the Oreshnik deployment, Prime Minister Starmer conceded in his December Manion House speech that Britain needed to help Ukraine get into the strongest position to secure a negotiated settlement to the war. That sill hasn’t happened. Perhaps Merz might consider a negotiated end to the conflict, rather than more empty sabre-rattling that he cannot deliver upon.
Alleged threats to chief Russian negotiator’s family ‘outrageous’ – Kremlin
RT | May 29, 2025
Alleged threats being made against Russia’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky and his family are “outrageous,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday, noting that authorities are already working to determine their source.
His remarks come after TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov recently stated that Medinsky – who led Russia’s delegation at the peace talks with Ukraine in Istanbul earlier this month – was receiving death threats from the Ukrainian side. His family was also allegedly targeted.
Peskov called the situation “unprecedented” and said that if investigators find that threats are coming from Ukraine, it would be “utterly outrageous,” particularly as Moscow has offered to hold another round of negotiations next Monday.
According to Solovyov, the threats are coming from Ukrainian nationalists, who have even targeted Medinsky’s children. He claimed that the negotiator’s family has received messages such as “we know where your children are and we have a lot of explosive-packed scooters.”
Several terrorist attacks involving electric scooters have taken place in the past, including the December 2024 murder of Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces.
Solovyov also recalled that “there were cases when negotiators were threatened, and there were tragic cases, and they are well known.” One such case could involve Ukrainian banker Denys Kireyev, who was killed in March 2022 shortly after participating in early peace talks with Russia.
Solovyov said that Medinsky had personally discussed the issue with Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who was the head of Kiev’s delegation in Istanbul. He reportedly insisted to Medinsky that the alleged threats were not coming from Ukrainian authorities.
Following Solovyov’s claims, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin ordered the opening of a criminal case to identify the persons involved in threatening Medinsky’s family.
Moscow and Kiev have been working on their own draft memorandums outlining a path towards a peaceful settlement. Earlier this month, the two sides met for the first time since peace negotiations collapsed in 2022.
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov proposed holding the next round of talks on Monday, June 2, in Istanbul. Umerov has responded by stating that Kiev first expects to receive Moscow’s draft memorandum so that the meeting is not “empty.”
Babiš attacks EU elites and calls for ‘renaissance of principle’ in fiery CPAC speech
Czech opposition leader Andrej Babiš branded Brussels a “technocracy without a soul” and warned that Europe is being dismantled from within
Remix News | May 29, 2025
Former Czech prime minister and current opposition leader Andrej Babiš delivered a blistering speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Hungary on Thursday, accusing the European Union’s ruling class of betraying its founding values and urging European nations to reclaim sovereignty and common sense from what he called a failing liberal global order.
Speaking just months before a general election in which he is widely expected to return to power, Babiš portrayed the EU as a decaying institution ruled by unelected bureaucrats, ideologues, and activist networks who have imposed censorship, economic sabotage, and uncontrolled migration on member states. He warned that the Brussels establishment has replaced cooperation among sovereign nations with a coercive, centralized system that punishes dissent and erodes national identity.
“We are standing at the historic crossroads in a time marked by deep divisions and mounting tensions,” Babiš declared. “The elites who built and profited from this system now look on in disbelief, confusion, and anger as it falls apart. But they have only themselves to blame. They betrayed the citizens who trusted them.”
In a wide-ranging speech, Babiš accused EU leaders of undermining the very foundations of European civilization. He denounced Brussels for replacing love of country with “hollow globalism,” burying common sense under “endless layers of bureaucracy,” and attempting to substitute the natural population growth with “mass migration.”
He reserved specific criticism for three key EU initiatives: the Digital Services Act, the Green Deal, and the new Migration Pact. He accused the first of ushering in online censorship, the second of sabotaging Europe’s economy under the guise of environmentalism, and the third of forcing nations to accept migrant quotas in violation of their sovereignty.
“Under this law, dissent can become a punishable offense,” Babiš said of the Digital Services Act. “This isn’t about safety. It’s about silencing.”
On the Green Deal, he argued that while China is expanding coal and nuclear power, Europe is deliberately impoverishing itself for symbolic environmental virtue. “This is not sustainability,” he said. “It’s economic self-sabotage dressed up as an environmental virtue.”
Turning to migration, he described the EU’s new asylum system as “coercion,” not solidarity, and said it “undermines cohesion, public safety, and national identity.”
Babiš framed these developments as part of a broader ideological drift in Brussels, where he said freedom is being replaced with surveillance, culture with identity politics, and values with apology. “They no longer defend our heritage, they apologize for it,” he said. “Instead of protecting Europe, they deconstruct it.”
Calling for a “renaissance, not just of policy, but of principle,” Babiš urged the EU to return to its original form: a voluntary community of nations rooted in mutual respect, diversity, and national self-determination.
“Europe is not Brussels. It is Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, Rome, Paris, Madrid,” he declared. “It is the voices of citizens who want to be heard. It is the right of nations to govern themselves.”
“The age of patriots has begun,” Babiš concluded. “Not because we want to divide Europe, but because we want to save it.”
His appearance at CPAC Hungary — an event known for bringing together conservative leaders from across Europe and the United States — further cemented his alignment with other nationalist voices in the region, including Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Germany’s Alice Weidel, and Austrian Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl.
