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Venezuela under siege: Why US escalation could destabilize an entire region

By Leila Nezirevic | Al Mayadeen | December 28, 2025

Washington’s confrontation with Venezuela has entered a dangerous new phase. What began years ago as sanctions aimed at pressuring President Nicolás Maduro’s government has now escalated into naval interdictions, oil tanker seizures, and open discussion of military action — a shift that risks destabilizing not only Venezuela but much of Latin America.

In recent weeks, the United States has intensified its campaign by intercepting Venezuelan oil shipments at sea, effectively enforcing what officials describe as a “blockade” of sanctioned vessels. Caracas has denounced the move as piracy and a violation of international law, while Washington frames it as a legitimate enforcement of sanctions and a counter-narcotics operation.

Yet behind the legal arguments and political messaging lies a deeper strategic shift, one that signals a return to a more coercive US posture in Latin America, with potentially profound consequences.

To understand the implications of this escalation, alngside current regional developments and historical precedents, this article draws on an in-depth interview with veteran journalist and leading Latin America expert Richard Lapper.

A sharp escalation at sea

The most visible sign of Washington’s new approach has been its actions in international waters. US naval forces have seized and disabled Venezuelan oil tankers accused of violating sanctions, while additional vessels remain under surveillance. These measures go beyond financial penalties and diplomatic pressure, marking one of the most forceful uses of maritime power against Venezuela in decades.

Caracas has condemned the seizures as an illegal blockade and accused Washington of weaponizing sanctions to strangle its economy. Venezuelan officials argue that the actions violate international maritime law and set a dangerous precedent for global trade.

Legal experts remain divided. While the US claims it is acting within the scope of sanctions enforcement, critics argue that interdicting vessels in international waters — especially without multilateral backing — risks undermining established norms of freedom of navigation.

Richard Lapper, also an author of several books, including Lula!: The Man, The Myth and a Dream of Latin America, is blunt in his assessment. “This is a breach of international law,” he says. “But I don’t think that really matters for the Trump administration. This is about exerting power.”

The return of the Monroe Doctrine

According to Lapper, Washington’s Venezuela policy reflects a broader reassertion of hemispheric dominance reminiscent of the Monroe Doctrine — the 19th-century principle that Latin America falls within the United States’ exclusive sphere of influence.

For decades, US policy toward the region oscillated between overt intervention and softer approaches centred on democracy promotion and economic reform. That balance now appears to be tilting decisively toward coercion.

“This is a fairly clear restatement of a traditional US approach,” Lapper explains. “It says: this is our region, and we are going to exert our power.”

He points to recent US involvement in Honduras as emblematic of this shift. Washington strongly backed political actors aligned with its interests, even when they carried significant legal and ethical baggage. In doing so, the US signalled that strategic loyalty now outweighs democratic credentials.

From sanctions to military pressure

For years, sanctions were Washington’s primary tool against Venezuela. Initially justified as a way to pressure the Maduro government toward democratic reforms, the measures expanded to target the country’s oil industry — the backbone of its economy.

While sanctions inflicted economic pain, they failed to dislodge Maduro. Instead, Venezuela’s political system hardened, opposition forces fragmented, and millions of citizens left the country.

Now, sanctions are being reinforced by overt military pressure.

Trump has publicly refused to rule out armed conflict with Venezuela. While a full-scale invasion remains unlikely, Lapper, warns that limited military escalation is a real possibility.

“I don’t think war in the sense of large ground troop deployments is likely,” he says. “But significant military escalation — including drone strikes or targeted attacks on government assets — could happen.”

Such an approach would mirror recent conflicts elsewhere, where technologically advanced militaries sought to degrade adversaries without committing troops on the ground.

Yet Venezuela is not a small or easily controlled state. It is geographically vast, with difficult terrain and powerful non-state actors operating in rural areas.

“Venezuela is a big country,” Lapper cautions. “It would be very difficult for any external power to secure control of the entire territory.”

Drugs, terror labels, and political framing

Washington has justified some of its actions by framing Venezuela as a major hub for drug trafficking, alleging links between senior officials and organized crime networks such as the so-called “Cartel of the Suns.”

There is little dispute that narcotics pass through Venezuela en route to North America. The question is whether this justifies the current escalation — or whether it serves as political cover.

“You have to take the drug stuff with a pinch of salt,” Lapper says. “A lot of drugs do go through Venezuela, but to what extent Maduro himself is at the centre of this is highly contested.”

He notes the inconsistency of US drug policy, pointing to cases where Washington has quietly abandoned its tough stance when political interests demanded it.

“It’s a convenient wrapper for the policy,” Lapper argues. “But the real objective is regional domination.”

A changing political landscape in Latin America

The escalation against Venezuela is unfolding amid a broader political realignment across Latin America. After the so-called “pink tide” of left-wing governments in the early 2000s, the region has swung sharply to the right.

Conservative and far-right leaders now dominate in countries such as Argentina, El Salvador, and Chile, while left-wing governments face mounting pressure elsewhere.

“These are the leaders setting the regional mood,” Lapper says, pointing to figures like Argentina’s Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. “Not the Lulas and Chavezes of the past.”

This shift has two implications. First, it reduces regional resistance to US pressure on Venezuela. Second, it creates an environment in which hardline security approaches are politically fashionable.

Ironically, however, overt US intervention can still backfire. In Brazil, for instance, perceived external interference has boosted nationalist sentiment and temporarily strengthened President Lula’s standing.

Venezuela’s economic collapse: Sanctions 

One of the central debates surrounding Venezuela concerns responsibility for its economic collapse. Washington argues that sanctions are a response to authoritarianism and corruption. Caracas insists that sanctions themselves are the root cause of suffering.

“Sanctions make things worse, Venezuela was producing three million barrels a day in the late 1990s,” Lapper notes. “Now it produces around a million. It used to be a major force in OPEC. It isn’t anymore.”

However, he also pointed out that even without sanctions, Venezuela would face deep structural challenges. With sanctions, those challenges have become existential.

Humanitarian fallout and migration pressures

The human cost of Venezuela’s crisis is staggering. Roughly one-fifth of the population has left the country, creating one of the largest displacement crises in modern history.

Escalating sanctions and blockades are likely to worsen this trend.

Within Venezuela, reduced oil revenues mean fewer imports, higher inflation, and deeper reliance on informal and illicit economic activities. Outside the country, neighbouring states struggle to absorb waves of migrants.

Brazil, which shares a long land border with Venezuela, has a direct interest in preventing further destabilisation. It has attempted to mediate politically, but with little success.

“Brazil wants stability,” Lapper says. “But its soft diplomacy hasn’t been effective.”

As conditions deteriorate, migration pressures are likely to intensify — not only toward neighbouring countries, but eventually toward the United States itself.

International allies and a shrinking safety net

Venezuela is not entirely isolated. Cuba remains its most important security ally, receiving subsidized oil in exchange for intelligence and political support.

Russia and China provide diplomatic backing, but neither appears eager to dramatically escalate its involvement.

“I don’t see Russia or China rushing to Venezuela’s aid,” Lapper says.

If US pressure cuts off oil supplies to Cuba, the effects could be destabilizing across the Caribbean. Cuba is already facing severe economic strain, with blackouts and protests becoming more frequent.

The risk, analysts warn, is a cascading crisis affecting multiple states simultaneously.

Lessons from past US interventions

History offers sobering lessons. US military interventions in Latin America have had mixed results at best. While short operations in Panama and Grenada succeeded tactically, longer engagements — such as Haiti — produced prolonged instability.

Elsewhere, particularly in the Middle East, US interventions over the past three decades have often exacerbated conflict rather than resolving it.

“The US does not have the staying power,” Lapper says. “There isn’t domestic support for long, messy interventions.”

That reality limits Washington’s options.

Sanctions alone have failed. Full-scale invasion is politically untenable. High-tech, limited strikes remain a temptation — but one fraught with risk.

What lies ahead for Venezuela?

Looking toward 2026, Lapper sees no easy resolution.

“I don’t see the end of the Maduro regime at the moment,” he says. “Escalation would have to be quite significant for that to happen.”

The most likely scenario, he argues, is continued stalemate: a current government clinging to power, an economy under siege, and a population increasingly forced to flee.

“There’s a lot of explosive material piled up in Venezuela,” Lapper observes. “But right now, there’s nothing to blow it up.”

Whether Washington’s escalating pressure will eventually trigger change — or simply deepen chaos — remains an open and deeply consequential question.

December 28, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Europe’s Panic Economy: Frozen Assets, Empty Arsenals, and the Quiet Admission of Defeat

By Gerry Nolan | Ron Paul Institute | December 24, 2025

When a prime minister tells her own staff to rest because next year will be much worse, it is not gallows humor. It is not exhaustion speaking. It is a slip of the mask, the kind of remark leaders make only when the internal forecasts no longer align with the public script.

Giorgia Meloni was not addressing voters. She was addressing the state itself — the bureaucratic core tasked with executing decisions whose consequences can no longer be disguised. Her words were not about a mundane increased workload. They were about constraint. About limits. About a Europe that has crossed from crisis management into managed decline, and knows that 2026 is when the accumulated costs finally collide.

What Meloni let slip is what Europe’s elites already understand: the Western project in Ukraine has run head-first into material reality. Not Russian propaganda. Not disinformation. Not populism. Steel, munitions, energy, labor, and time. And once material reality asserts itself, legitimacy begins to drain.

The War Europe Cannot Supply

Europe can posture for war. It cannot produce for war.

Four years into a high-intensity war of attrition, the United States and Europe are confronting a truth they spent decades unlearning: you do not sustain this kind of conflict with theatrical speeches, sanctions, or abandoning diplomacy. You sustain it with shells, missiles, trained crews, repair cycles, and production rates that exceed losses — month after month, without interruption.

By 2025, the gap is no longer theoretical.

Russia is now producing artillery ammunition at a scale that Western officials themselves concede outpaces the combined output of NATO. Russian industry has shifted to continuous near-wartime production (without even being fully mobilized), with centralized procurement, simplified supply chains, and state-directed throughput. Estimates place annual Russian artillery production at several million rounds — production already flowing, not promised.

Europe, by contrast, has spent 2025 celebrating targets it cannot ever materially meet. The European Union’s flagship pledge remains two million shells per year — a goal dependent on new facilities, new contracts, and new labor that will not fully materialize within the decisive window of the war, if ever. Even the dreamed target if reached, would not put it at parity with Russian output. The United States, after emergency expansion, is projecting roughly one million shells annually once and a big if, full ramp-up is achieved. Even combined on paper, Western production struggles to match Russian output already delivered. Talk about paper tiger.

This is not a gap. It is a major tempo mismatch. Russia is producing at scale now. Europe is dreaming of rebuilding the ability to produce at scale later.

And time is the one variable that cannot be sanctioned.

Nor can the United States simply compensate for Europe’s hollowed-out capacity. Washington faces its own industrial choke points. Production of Patriot air-defense interceptors runs in the low hundreds per year while demand now spans Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and US stockpile replenishment simultaneously — a mismatch senior Pentagon officials have acknowledged cannot be resolved quickly, if ever. US naval shipbuilding tells the same story: submarine and surface-combatant programs are years behind schedule, constrained by labor shortages, aging yards, and cost overruns that push meaningful expansion into the 2030s. The assumption that America can industrially backstop Europe no longer matches reality. This is not a European problem alone; it is a Western one.

War Footing Without Factories

European leaders speak of “war footing” as if it were a political posture. In reality, it is an industrial condition and Europe does not meet it.

New artillery production lines require years to reach stable throughput. Air-defense interceptor manufacturing runs in long cycles measured in batches, not surges. Even basic inputs such as explosives remain bottlenecks, with facilities shuttered decades ago only now being reopened, some not expected to reach capacity until the late 2020s.

That date alone is an admission.

Russia, meanwhile, is already operating inside wartime tempo. Its defense sector has delivered thousands of armored vehicles, hundreds of aircraft and helicopters, and vast quantities of drones annually.

Europe’s problem is not conceptual; it is institutional. Germany’s much-vaunted Zeitenwende exposed this brutally. Tens of billions were authorized, but procurement bottlenecks, fragmented contracting, and an atrophied supplier base meant delivery lagged years behind rhetoric. France, often cited as Europe’s most capable arms producer, can manufacture more sophisticated systems — but only in boutique quantities, measured in dozens where attritional war demands thousands. Even the EU’s own ammunition acceleration initiatives expanded capacity on paper while the front consumed shells in weeks. These are not ideological failures. They are administrative and industrial ones and they compound under pressure.

The difference is structural. Western industry was optimized for shareholder efficiency and peacetime margins. Russia’s has been reorganized for endurance under pressure. NATO announces packages. Russia counts deliveries.

The €210 Billion Fantasy

This industrial reality explains why the frozen-assets saga mattered so much, and why it failed.

Europe’s leadership did not pursue the seizure of Russian sovereign assets out of legal creativity or moral clarity. It pursued it because it needed time. Time to avoid admitting that the war could not be sustained on Western industrial terms. Time to substitute finance for production.

When the attempt to seize roughly €210 billion in Russian assets collapsed on December 20th, blocked by legal risk, market consequences, and resistance led by Belgium, with Italy, Malta, Slovakia and Hungary, aligned against outright confiscation, Europe settled for a degraded substitute: a €90 billion loan to Ukraine for 2026–27, serviced by 3B in annual interest, further mortgaging Europe’s future. This was not strategy. It was triage, and further divided, an already weakened Union.

Outright confiscation would have detonated Europe’s credibility as a financial custodian. Permanent immobilization avoids the blast — but creates a slow bleed. The assets remain frozen indefinitely, a standing act of economic warfare that signals to the world that reserves held in Europe are conditional and not worth the risk. Europe chose reputational erosion over legal rupture. That choice reveals fear, not strength.

Ukraine as a Balance-Sheet War

The deeper truth is that Ukraine is no longer primarily a battlefield problem. It is a solvency problem. Washington understands this. The United States can absorb embarrassment. It cannot absorb open-ended liabilities indefinitely. An offramp is being sought — quietly, unevenly, and with rhetorical cover.

Europe cannot admit it needs one. Europe framed the war as existential, civilizational, moral. It declared compromise appeasement and negotiation surrender. In doing so, it erased its own exit ramps.

Now the costs land where no narrative can deflect them: on European budgets, European energy bills, European industry, and European political cohesion. The €90 billion loan is not solidarity. It is securitization of decline — rolling obligations forward while the productive base required to justify them continues to erode.

Meloni knows this. That is why her tone was not defiant, but weary.

Censorship as Panic Management

As material limits harden, narrative control tightens. The aggressive enforcement of the EU’s Digital Services Act is not about safety. It is about containment, in its most Orwellian form — constructing an information perimeter around an elite consensus that can no longer withstand open accounting. When citizens begin asking calmly, and then not calmly, relentlessly, what was this for?, the illusion of legitimacy collapses quickly.

This is why regulatory pressure now reaches beyond Europe’s borders, provoking transatlantic friction over jurisdiction and speech. Confident systems do not fear conversation. Fragile ones do. Censorship here is not ideology. It is insurance.

Deindustrialization: The Unspoken Betrayal

Europe did not merely sanction Russia. It sanctioned its own industrial model.

By 2025, European industry continues to pay energy costs far above those of competitors in the United States or Russia. Germany, the engine, has seen sustained contraction in energy-intensive manufacturing. Chemical, steel, fertilizer, and glass production have either shut down or relocated. Small and medium enterprises across Italy and Central Europe are failing quietly, without headlines.

This is why Europe cannot scale ammunition the way it needs to. This is why rearmament remains a promise rather than a condition. Cheap energy was not a luxury. It was the foundation. Remove it via self-sabotage (Nordstream et. al), and the structure hollows out.

China, watching all of this, holds the other half of Europe’s nightmare. It commands the deepest manufacturing base on earth without having entered wartime footing. Russia does not need China’s breadth, only its strategic depth behind it in reserve. Europe has neither.

What Meloni Actually Fears

Not hard work. Not busy schedules. She fears a 2026 in which Europe’s elites lose control of three things at once.

Money — as Ukraine’s funding becomes an EU balance-sheet problem, replacing the fantasy that “Russia will pay.”

Narrative — as censorship tightens and still fails to suppress the question echoing across the continent: what was this all for?

Alliance discipline — as Washington maneuvers for exit while Europe absorbs the cost, the risk, and the humiliation.

That is the panic. Not losing the war overnight, but losing legitimacy slowly, as reality leaks out through energy bills, shuttered factories, empty arsenals, and mortgaged futures.

Humanity at the Abyss

This is not just Europe’s crisis. It is civilizational. A system that cannot produce, cannot replenish, cannot tell the truth, and cannot retreat without collapsing credibility has reached its limits. When leaders begin preparing their own institutions for worse years ahead, they are not forecasting inconvenience. They are conceding structure.

Meloni’s remark mattered because it pierced the performance. Empires announce triumph loudly. Systems in decline lower expectations quietly, or loudly in Meloni’s case.

Europe’s leadership is lowering expectations now because it knows what the warehouses contain, what the factories cannot yet deliver, what the debt curves look like — and what the public has already begun to understand.

For most Europeans, this reckoning will not arrive as an abstract debate about strategy or supply chains. It will arrive as a far simpler realization: this was never a war they consented to. It was not fought to defend their homes, their prosperity, or their future. It was fought for greed for Empire, and paid for with their living standards, their industry, and their children’s future.

They were told it was existential. They were told there was no alternative. They were told sacrifice was virtue.

Yet what Europeans want is not endless mobilization or permanent austerity. They want peace. They want stability. They want the quiet dignity of prosperity — affordable energy, functioning industry, and a future that is not mortgaged to conflicts they did not consent to.

And when that truth settles, when the fear recedes and the spell breaks, the question Europeans will ask will not be technical, ideological, or rhetorical.

It will be human. Why were we forced to sacrifice everything for a war we never agreed to and told there was no peace worth pursuing? And this is what keeps Meloni up at night.

Gerry Nolan is a political analyst, writer, and strategist focused on geopolitics, security affairs, and the structural dynamics of global power. He is the founder and editor of The Islander, an independent media platform examining war, diplomacy, economic statecraft, and the accelerating shift toward a multipolar world.

December 25, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism | , , , , | 1 Comment

US Navy effectively becomes a tool of modern piracy

By Drago Bosnic | December 24, 2025 

The political West has been conducting an unprovoked aggression against the entire world for at least half a millennium at this point. Whether through direct attacks and occupation or various forms of colonialism (that lasts to this day), the world’s most aggressive power pole has been a threat to every other country on this unfortunate planet. Although certainly not the only one, the primary tool of Western power projection have been navies, which is hardly surprising given the political West’s thalassocratic nature. Through naval supremacy, Western (primarily Anglo) powers have spread their colonial empires to virtually every corner of the world, exterminating the native populations along the way and settling in their lands.

Entire continents (such as North America and Australia) were secured through brutal genocide of the locals who now live in small, scattered communities (so-called “reservations/reserves”). The genocidal campaign continued throughout the Atlantic and Pacific, where numerous islands and maritime trade routes remain in Western hands to this very day. Controlling these areas is key to maintaining its stranglehold over global trade, as seen during the latest US attacks on inbound and outbound Venezuelan shipping. However, the Pentagon seems to be expanding this aggression to other countries trading with Caracas, including China, which is a major importer of Venezuelan commodities (particularly crude oil).

Namely, the US Navy and Coast Guard hijacked the “Centuries”, an oil tanker carrying up to two million barrels of Venezuelan crude to China. According to military sources, American forces, operating MH-60T helicopters and reportedly including a Maritime Security Response Team, led the raid. The oil belongs to the Chinese Satau Tijana Oil Trading company. In December alone, this is the third such incident where US naval assets effectively engaged in piracy, as these civilian ships were hijacked in international waters. The Chinese Foreign Ministry condemned the illegal raid, slamming it as a “serious violation of international maritime law and an illegal interference in legitimate global trade”.

This is an attempt to continue the policy of economic strangulation of Venezuela after the sanctions failed to produce the desired result (a color revolution that would bring a pro-American puppet regime to power). It comes less than a week after US President Donald Trump formally ordered the “total and complete blockade” of Venezuela, claiming that its government is now designated as a “foreign terrorist organization” (FTO). In his signature manner of communicating through the unchecked use of superlatives, Trump also bragged that the US Navy “completely surrounded” Venezuela with “the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America”. Considering Caracas’ already difficult position, this is effectively a declaration of war.

Namely, Venezuela has a highly complex geographical and geopolitical position that makes lands routes largely unusable. Its coastline is the main lifeline that enables trade with the rest of the world, so Washington DC’s decision to engage in piracy against Caracas is a clear indicator that it doesn’t want to allow any sovereign nations to exist in the Western Hemisphere (especially now that the new US National Security Strategy and the restructuring of the Pentagon’s commands is putting an emphasis on the resurgent Monroe Doctrine). Venezuela is probably the most fiercely independent Latin American country, making it the No. 1 target for warmongers and war criminals in the monstrous American oligarchy.

What’s more, considering the fact that these pirates, thugs and goons in suits are terrified of China and its unprecedented development, they wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to hurt Beijing’s interests. The Chinese economy, the world’s largest and most powerful since 2014, needs a constant supply of critical resources (particularly natural gas and oil). The US is unable to prevent Russia and other multipolar powers from trading with China, so it’s focused on disrupting this with other, more vulnerable countries, such as Venezuela. This is precisely why Beijing perceives the US, its vassals and satellite states as the primary threat to Chinese shipping and maritime trade (and naval security interests in general).

Obviously, the most glaring example of this is China’s breakaway island province of Taiwan, where a US puppet government is escalating tensions and jeopardizing Beijing’s basic national security interests. However, the Asian giant certainly understands that this is only one segment of the Western so-called “China containment” strategy that seeks to limit its ability to conduct unimpeded trade with the world. This is why China keeps building an ever stronger navy that can respond to such challenges. Namely, the US-led political West will undoubtedly continue to conduct its unprovoked aggression against the entire world unless prevented through the use of the only language it understands – force and violence.

It should be noted that this isn’t some spontaneous reaction to Beijing’s growth. And it’s certainly not limited only to the Trump administration. Namely, starting in the early 2010s, Barack Obama launched the so-called “Pivot to Asia” initiative to build up US/NATO presence in the Asia-Pacific. This continued during Trump’s first term, as well as the troubled Biden administration. In practice, this means that the warmongering American oligarchy pulls the strings regardless of who’s president. The Pentagon has increasingly stressed the need to launch “distant blockade operations”, the strategic goal of which is to cut off Chinese trade. This would give the US-led political West significant leverage over Beijing.

The same goes for Russia, whose shipping has been under attack for years, particularly when the Neo-Nazi junta is not doing so great on the battlefield in NATO-occupied Ukraine. Although the political West is attributing these attacks to the Kiev regime, it’s difficult to imagine the latter could conduct such operations thousands of kilometers away without ample Western support (if not direct orders and participation). This form of piracy gives the US, its vassals and satellite states perfect “plausible deniability”, meaning they can disrupt Moscow’s and Beijing’s economic interests without the need to engage Russian and Chinese militaries directly. This is precisely how piracy was used geopolitically until the early 18th century.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

December 24, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

EU Morphing Into Its Own Worst Enemy – Viktor Orban

Sputnik – 24.12.2025

The decline of the European Union, rather than the Ukrainian conflict, is what really threatens to plunge Europe into war, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban told the Magyar Nemzet newspaper.

The real reason of the existing risk of escalation, Orban argued, is the political, economic and social decline of Western Europe, whereas the Ukrainian conflict is more of a symptom of the current situation rather than its cause.

According to him, the process that led to this state of affairs started during the 2000s and was exacerbated by Europe’s inadequate reaction to the ensuing financial crisis.

Orban also noted that a war in Europe may break out soon, and that 2025 might have been the last peaceful year for the region.

He pointed out that the decisions that were made at the EU summit in Brussels last week were aimed at prolonging the Ukrainian conflict and continuing Europe’s confrontation with Russia.

Though there are powers in Europe that seek peace – like Hungary, for example – Orban warns that those European elites who seek war seem to be gaining an upper hand.

December 24, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia, African Countries Agree to Strengthen Security Cooperation – Lavrov

Sputnik – 20.12.2025

CAIRO – Russia and African countries have agreed to strengthen cooperation in the spheres of politics and security following the Second Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday.

“The joint statement also contains our shared decision to strengthen cooperation in the political and security spheres, including with the aim of recommending the establishment of working relations between the African Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization,” Lavrov said at a joint press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.

The minister added that Russia and Africa do not see the need to dwell on Western sanctions.

“We prefer to focus on coordinating workable, efficient mechanisms that will safeguard our trade and economic ties, making them independent from the illegal actions of those who, in violation of all principles of international law, resort to methods of blackmail and pressure,” Lavrov noted.

Additionally, the Foreign Minister discussed increasing trade turnover and energy cooperation with African partners, as well as the creation of joint financial and logistical structures to protect the trade and economic investment partnerships of the countries from illegal unilateral sanctions.

“Unlike those who try to continue colonial and neocolonial policies, dictating their will to others, we, together with our African friends, have a solid international legal foundation in our positions,” he emphasized.

In turn, Abdelatty said that during the ministerial conference in Cairo, African countries and Russia had reached a mutual understanding regarding further cooperation.

Lavrov participated today in the second ministerial conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum in Egypt. The conference was attended by foreign ministers, heads of state, and leaders of executive bodies from integration associations across the continent. They discussed cooperation in various areas. The minister also held a series of bilateral meetings.

The forum was established in 2019. Two summits were held within its framework—in Sochi in 2019 and in St. Petersburg in 2023, as well as the first ministerial conference in November of last year.

December 20, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Medicinal plants hold key to Iran’s drought-resistant revenue

Press TV – December 16, 2025

Iran’s agriculture faces water scarcity, restricted market access, and declining returns from traditional crops, pushing farmers and policymakers toward low-water, high-value, and sanction-resilient export products.

Medicinal plants are among the few agricultural sectors meeting all three criteria, increasingly seen over the past decade as an expandable income source aligned with environmental limits and export needs.

Iran has one of the richest plant ecosystems in the world. More than 8,000 plant species have been identified across the country, of which around 2,300 have medicinal, aromatic, cosmetic, or industrial uses.

About 1,700 of these species are endemic, meaning they grow naturally only in Iran. This biodiversity is supported by wide climatic variation, from arid plains to high mountain ranges, with elevations from 900 to more than 4,000 meters above sea level.

These conditions allow different plants to grow with little or no irrigation. The scale and diversity of this natural resource provide Iran with a broad production base that few countries can replicate, enabling year-round cultivation and harvesting across different regions.

Most medicinal plants cultivated or harvested in Iran are naturally adapted to dry and semi-dry environments. Many grow under rain-fed conditions or require less than 3,000 cubic meters of water per hectare.

By comparison, crops such as wheat, rice, and corn often need between 10,000 and 15,000 cubic meters per hectare. As groundwater reserves shrink and rainfall becomes more erratic, this difference has direct economic value.

Lower water use reduces production costs while preserving agricultural land for sustained use over time. This makes medicinal plants particularly suitable for long-term planning in regions facing declining water availability.

According to official figures, Iran receives about 400 billion cubic meters of rainfall annually, but more than half is lost to evaporation. Crops that can grow using direct rainfall reduce pressure on dams, rivers, and aquifers.

Medicinal plants make effective use of this rainfall because they are already rooted in the soil when seasonal precipitation occurs, allowing moisture to be absorbed rather than lost. This characteristic strengthens their role in maintaining agricultural output without increasing water extraction.

Medicinal plants are produced both on farmland and in rangelands. In many provinces, farmers grow them under permits on national lands, relying on rainfall rather than irrigation. Because these plants are mostly perennial and slow-growing, high irrigation costs are not economically justified.

Harvesting, drying, and basic processing often take place close to production sites, creating seasonal employment in rural areas. Each hectare of medicinal plants generates between two and three direct jobs, according to agricultural authorities.

In addition to farming, jobs are created in collection, sorting, drying, distillation, and packaging, forming local value chains that support village-level incomes.

Export revenue from medicinal plants currently stands at about $600 million a year, accounting for roughly 9 to 10 percent of Iran’s total agricultural exports. Projections suggest exports could reach $700 million if production and processing improve.

Saffron dominates the sector. Iran produces more than 90 percent of the world’s saffron and accounts for around 40 percent of the total export value of medicinal plants.

Other major exports include rose products from damask rose, such as rose water and extracts, liquorice extract, mint, thyme, and natural gums like asafoetida locally called anguzeh.

These products are sold not only as raw materials but also as inputs for pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetic industries.

Demand for medicinal plants continues to grow in international markets, including Central Asia, Eurasia, and China. These markets are accessible through regional trade routes and do not always require direct financial links with Western banking systems.

Products such as saffron, rose water, and herbal extracts have relatively high value-to-weight ratios, which lowers transport costs and makes them more suitable for indirect export channels. Their long shelf life further supports trade across longer distances and reduces losses during storage and transport.

Barijeh, scientifically known as ferula gummosa, is a plant native to Iran.

The internal economics of medicinal plant cultivation are also favorable. In several provinces, income from medicinal plants is many times higher than from grains.

For example, harvesting wild or cultivated plants such as musir can generate net income far above that of wheat or barley on the same land.

This income difference has encouraged farmers to shift land away from water-intensive crops, especially in drought-affected regions. Higher returns per hectare allow smaller landholdings to remain economically viable, supporting family-based farming systems.

Four provinces illustrate this potential clearly. Khorasan remains the center of saffron production. Kashan and surrounding areas specialize in rose cultivation and distillation.

Yazd produces lemon verbena, while Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province has emerged as a major center for wild and cultivated medicinal plants.

This province is largely mountainous, with 87 percent of its area classified as highland. More than 1,350 plant species have been identified there, including 270 with medicinal or industrial uses and 27 species found nowhere else in the world. Cool nights, diverse soils, and varied elevations contribute to high-quality yields and strong concentrations of active ingredients.

In Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, medicinal plants are grown on about 3,500 hectares, split between national rangelands and agricultural land. Since the early 2010s, the cultivated area has expanded sharply, supported by a national strategy to promote medicinal plants.

From a fiscal perspective, medicinal plants offer a rare combination for Iran under sanctions. They reduce water use, generate foreign currency, and support employment without heavy reliance on imported inputs.

Unlike major industrial exports, they do not require large-scale capital equipment or advanced foreign technology. Their production is decentralized, which spreads income across rural and underdeveloped regions. This decentralization strengthens local economies and reduces dependence on a limited number of export hubs.

Iran already holds dominant positions in several global markets, particularly saffron. Medicinal plants do not eliminate the economic impact of sanctions, but they provide a measurable source of revenue that fits Iran’s environmental constraints.

December 19, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Environmentalism | , , | Leave a comment

Kuwait set to sign multibillion-dollar port deal with China

The Cradle | December 19, 2025

Kuwait will sign a contract next week with China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) to complete the Mubarak al-Kabeer Port project, Kuwaiti Public Works Minister Noura al-Mashaan announced on 18 December.

The contract is valued at about $3.97 billion, according to a government document seen by Reuters.

The Central Agency for Public Tenders approved on 1 December a contract between the Public Works Ministry and CCCC for engineering, procurement, and construction of the first phase of the port, according to the official gazette.

Mashaan said Kuwait’s prime minister will attend the signing ceremony with the Chinese side.

Mubarak al-Kabeer Port, located on Bubiyan Island in northern Kuwait, is described as a strategic project aimed at creating a secure regional corridor and commercial hub, one that China has sought to include within its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Kuwait hopes the project will support economic diversification, boost GDP, and help restore its regional commercial and financial role in West Asia, with the government saying around 50 percent of the first phase of the Mubarak al-Kabeer Port project has been completed so far.

The Mubarak al-Kabeer Port project is part of a broader set of large-scale initiatives Kuwait is pursuing with Chinese support, spanning infrastructure, energy, environmental services, and urban development.

Kuwait and China have expanded cooperation in recent years, including the signing of multiple memorandums of understanding (MoU) during a 2023 visit to Beijing by then-crown prince Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, who later became emir.

Officials on both sides have framed these projects as part of a wider effort to deepen long-term economic ties, with a growing emphasis on infrastructure development, diversification, and connectivity.

Chinese firms are involved in several major projects across Kuwait, reflecting a shift toward broader strategic and economic engagement between the two countries beyond traditional trade relations.

China’s expanding economic footprint in West Asia has also extended to Saudi Arabia, where Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently said that Beijing is ready to be Riyadh’s “most trustworthy and dependable partner” following high-level talks in the kingdom.

The meetings reaffirmed Saudi support for the one-China principle and emphasized deeper cooperation in energy, infrastructure, and emerging industries, aligning with Beijing’s broader BRI-linked engagement across the region.

December 19, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

EU blocks protesting farmers in Brussels using barbed wire, tear gas and water cannons

Remix News | December 18, 2025

As the EU moves to crush protesting farmers demonstrating in Brussels, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán offered full backing to the farmers and their efforts to stop the EU’s Mercosur free trade deal, which threatens to destroy food security in Europe.

“Farmers are 100 percent right,” said Orbán, who is currently in Brussels attending the EU Summit.

He added that the farmers have obvious issues with the Mercosur package, a free trade agreement with Latin American countries, because it “kills the farmers.”

“Hungary is one of the countries that does not support the Mercosur agreement. There were serious professional debates about this in Hungary, and the Hungarian position was that we do not support this,” said the prime minister.

Viktor Orbán reminded that the agreement would require a qualified majority, and according to his expectations, there is not enough support.

“Mercosur opponents make it impossible for this agreement to be signed. The plan is that the President of the European Commission wants to sign this later this week. I think this needs to be stopped here now, and we can prevent it,” he said.

He also said that another problem for farmers is the Green Deal, which leads to expensive overregulation in agricultural work in such a way that it represents a serious cost and competitive disadvantage for European food producers.

“So I have to say that with the Mercosur agreement, they are shooting European farmers in the foot, but before that, they tie their legs together so that they have no chance in the global competition,” he stated.

“That is why the farmers are absolutely right, the Hungarian government is 100 percent with the farmers,” said the Hungarian leader.

Farmers met with force

The use of force against farmers in Brussels is drawing criticism from Hungarian journalists, including Dániel Deák, the senior analyst of the Század Institute. He published a video report showing the European Commission building, or Ursula von der Leyen’s workplace, surrounded by barbed wire.

According to him, with these measures, they are trying to prevent farmer protesters from getting close to the president of the European Commission.

In the report, he also drew attention to the fact that if they tried to limit a demonstration in Hungary in a similar way, by placing barbed wire, it would provoke significant protests from the left, and the European Union would also talk about the use of “dictatorial means.”

In his opinion, all this once again points to the hypocrisy that is often used against Hungary. He also emphasized that demonstrations in Hungary can be held and that no attempt is made to make them impossible with barbed wire.

December 19, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

The UAE’s reverse trajectory: From riches to rags

By Dr Zakir Hussain | MEMO | December 18, 2025

One of the most enduring and widely quoted dialogues in Indian cinema is: “Do not throw stones at others’ houses when your own house is made of glass.” Unfortunately, this wisdom appears to be lost on the United Arab Emirates. Instead of exercising restraint and responsibility, the UAE has increasingly been accused of conspiring with, financing, and backing a wide range of actors and armed groups that have contributed to chaos, instability, and even genocidal violence in several countries.

Over the years, the UAE has steadily expanded the scope of its controversial activities—from Libya and Sudan in North Africa to other mineral-rich Muslim-majority African countries, and further eastward to Afghanistan and Yemen. Its involvement in the Palestinian context also raises serious concerns, as there appears to be no clear moral or political limit to its actions. These interventions have not promoted peace or stability; rather, they have intensified conflicts, deepened humanitarian crises, and prolonged wars.

What makes this approach particularly perplexing is that the UAE itself lacks a credible and robust defensive shield to protect its own territory. It does not possess the capability to fully defend its iconic skyscrapers and critical infrastructure even against relatively unsophisticated, low-cost drones. A coordinated volley of such drone strikes would be sufficient to cause panic among the millionaires and billionaires who have invested heavily in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Capital, after all, is highly sensitive to risk, and fear alone can trigger massive capital flight.

Against this backdrop, it is difficult to comprehend why Mohammed bin Zayed has chosen to indulge in a strategy of regional destabilisation and proxy warfare. History clearly demonstrates that mercenaries neither win wars nor sustain long, decisive military campaigns. They fight only as long as their financial incentives are met, avoid heavy casualties, and withdraw the moment the cost-benefit equation turns unfavourable.

The UAE has already experienced the consequences of such adventurism in Yemen, where its involvement against the Houthis proved costly and ultimately unproductive. The episode exposed the limits of Emirati military power and underscored its lack of preparedness for prolonged, brutal conflicts. The Emiratis have shown remarkable efficiency in event management, diplomacy branding, and global image-building, but they are ill-suited for sustained warfare or managing the complex realities of civil wars and insurgencies.

Despite these lessons, the UAE continues to deploy mercenaries, supply arms, and push destabilising agendas that risk mass civilian suffering. Such actions not only tarnish its international standing but also make the future of the UAE increasingly uncertain. More importantly, they significantly raise the vulnerability of those who have invested billions and billions of dollars in the country—particularly in real estate and financial assets that depend heavily on perceptions of safety and stability. The UAE has attracted the largest number of high net worth people since the Ukraine war started.

According to one estimate, in 2025 alone, approximately 9,800 high-net-worth individuals moved to the UAE. In 2024, the total number of millionaires who moved to the UAE from Russia, Africa, and the UK is around 130,000, thus fuelling its status as a premier global wealth hub. The reasons are zero tax, stability, and safety, lifestyle.

However, the overindulgence of MBZ and misuse of the sovereign wealth fund is likely to negate all the toil and troubles endured by the forefathers of the Emirates since 1972.

As an Indian, my concern is both professional and moral. A large number of Indians have invested substantial sums in the UAE, especially in real estate. It is therefore necessary to issue a timely warning and provide a realistic assessment of emerging risks, so that Indian interests can be protected before irreversible damage occurs.

I remain open to offering constructive suggestions and responsible assessments, with the sole objective of safeguarding long-term stability and protecting the legitimate interests of investors and the expatriate community.

December 18, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Majority of Belgians oppose theft of Russian assets – poll

RT | December 17, 2025

Around 67% of Belgians oppose the EU scheme to use frozen Russian central bank assets to back a ‘reparations loan’ to prop up Ukraine, according to a recent poll conducted by Ipsos and Belgian news outlets published on Monday.

The bulk of sovereign Russian assets frozen in the West are held in the Belgian clearinghouse Euroclear. Prime Minister Bart De Wever has steadfastly opposed EU moves to “steal” the funds, citing disproportionate legal risks to Belgium, despite mounting pressure from the European Commission.

EU leaders were set to vote on using the assets to back a controversial €90 billion ($106 billion) ‘reparations loan’ to help cover Ukraine’s floundering budget, which faces an estimated $160 billion shortfall over the next two years.

However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the EU leadership “backed down” and that “Russian assets will not be on the table” at Thursday’s European Council meeting. The council “pushes joint loans, but we will not let our families foot the bill for Ukraine’s war,” he wrote on X on Wednesday.

Last week, the EU tightened its grip on the frozen Russian assets by invoking Article 122, an economic emergency treaty clause, to bypass the need for a unanimous decision amid opposition from a number of member nations.

By using the mechanism, the bloc stripped “Hungary of its rights,” Orban said at the time.

Belgium, Slovakia, Italy, Bulgaria, Malta, and the Czech Republic joined Hungary to oppose raiding the Russian assets to finance Ukraine.

Last week, the Russian central bank sued Euroclear in a Moscow court, accusing it of the “inability to manage monetary assets and securities” entrusted to it. The firm estimates that it holds nearly $19 billion in client assets in Russia, which could become targets for legal retaliatory measures.

December 18, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

AfD: “The German government is trying to create the conditions for war without the consent of the people”

AfD Co-chair Tino Chrupalla says the EU’s sanctions, militarism, and support for Israeli crimes are eroding Europe’s democracy and sovereignty.

By Tunc Akkoc | The Cradle | December 16, 2025

With western double standards laid bare by Israel’s war on Gaza, Germany’s political order is facing an unprecedented rupture. The ruling Social Democrats (SPD) and Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU), both staunch backers of Ukraine and Israel, have pushed Berlin into economic turmoil with self-destructive sanctions on Russia and unconditional support for Tel Aviv. Now, with the country in recession and the public burdened by soaring energy costs, Germany’s once-stable centrism is crumbling.

Trends in German politics point to a change unseen since World War II. The INSA poll conducted between 8 and 12 December shows the CDU/CSU has fallen to 24 percent, while the SPD has dropped to 14 percent. The rising force is the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. In the INSA poll, its vote share reaches 26 percent. These figures are consistent with the Ipsos results from 7 to 9 November.

The AfD was founded in 2013, following the 2008 financial crisis. It is now the main opposition party and even a contender for power – that is, if they are allowed to participate in the elections. The party criticizes “mass migration, crime, high taxes, silenced opposition, and poverty.” It is labeled “far-right” by the ‘centrist’ neoliberal bloc. So what views do they defend to be considered “far-right”? What exactly are they saying about current issues in Europe, Germany, and the world?

Tino Chrupalla has co-chaired the AfD party with Alice Weidel since 2019. A Bundestag member since 2017, Chrupalla hails from East Germany and started his political journey in the youth wing of the Christian Democrats. He joined the AfD in 2015 and was the party’s representative at US President Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration in January 2025.

In this exclusive interview with The Cradle, Chrupalla speaks out on the failures of the Ukraine and Gaza wars, the militarization of Europe, and why he believes Germany must break from Atlanticist subservience to pursue a future of peace, trade, and sovereignty.

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity)

The Cradle : How do you assess the geopolitical and geoeconomic situation in Europe? Is it possible to reverse the effects of the Ukraine crisis?

Chrupalla: During the war in Ukraine, Europe has taken itself out of the game. Those who are strong are those who have multiple options. With 19 sanction packages, the EU has rejected the option of cheap gas and other raw materials from Russia.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent put it aptly: if you have to do something 19 times, you have apparently made a mistake. The German people are the ones primarily suffering under the sanctions.

This policy has failed. German households now pay three to four times more for energy than those in the US. Our energy-intensive industries are relocating. Unemployment is rising. Heads of state and government of the EU could have used US President Donald Trump’s peace plan as an opportunity to reduce sanctions and restart raw-material trade. Instead, they decided on a complete import ban on Russian gas starting in 2027.

These politicians can delay the conclusion of peace. They can let their citizens suffer in order to punish Russia. But they cannot change the geography of the European continent. My goal is peace and free trade across the entire continent.

The Cradle : Germany and the EU are undergoing rapid militarization. Chancellor Friedrich Merz speaks of making “Germany once again the largest military power in Europe.” Alongside debates about reintroducing compulsory military service, the rise in military spending is coming to the forefront. What are the implications?

Chrupalla: I warned early on about the dangerous war rhetoric from other parties. The German government is now creating conditions for a war made up of empty words. Defense budgets have exploded. In 2022, the Bundeswehr received a special fund of €100 billion ($117.5 billion). Now it has ballooned to €1 trillion ($1.175 trillion).

Even as leader of the opposition, CDU chairman Friedrich Merz pushed for a so-called special fund before the new elections, which largely consists of debt for weapons. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius of the SPD wants to make Germany “fit for war” against Russia by 2029. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt of the CSU wants war instruction in schools. His party colleague Manfred Weber, head of the European People’s Party, wants to convert all of Europe to a wartime economy.

In the new federal budget, the government is creating the conditions for alliance and tension scenarios. A simplified booking system makes it possible to reallocate billions for war without parliamentary approval.

The opposition is sidelined. And the worst part is: none of this money benefits Germany’s security, military capability, or national defense. It is about profits for the arms industry and mobilization against Russia. For this reason, we also rejected the reactivation of compulsory military service as long as there is war in Europe.

The Cradle : The Gaza war has further exposed western double standards. How do you view Germany’s position?

Chrupalla: The war in Gaza has claimed a high number of civilian lives, including many women and children. According to the Israeli army, 83 percent of those killed in Gaza were civilians. The images of dead children and devastated streets leave no one untouched.

I have always condemned this and made it clear that demonstrations against this war must not be placed under general suspicion. Our program is clear: no arms deliveries to war zones. I have repeatedly insisted on this demand.

Chancellor Merz shifted to this position in August. In my view, public opinion in the EU has indeed changed over the course of the war. There is far more nuance on Gaza than there ever was on Ukraine.

The Cradle : What kind of future does the AfD envision for Germany and Europe?

Chrupalla: We want a sovereign Europe in a multipolar world. That starts with strengthening nation-states. Germany cannot have its policy dictated by politicians in Estonia or Brussels. We must reject sanctions that hurt us and resist efforts to sever ties with the east.

We are against economic wars fought for foreign interests. Peaceful trade must not be disrupted by sanctions or value-based conditions. In the European Parliament, we helped ensure that the supply chain law was relaxed, as it would have required trading partners to adhere to a specific social model.

We respect other civilizations and likewise demand respect for Europe. We oppose value-driven foreign policy with a policy of mutual respect. For Germany, we strive for a future of peace and prosperity.

The Nord Stream attack was an act of economic sabotage. It cut off our industrial lifeline and pushed us deeper into recession. We need to restore energy sovereignty, reindustrialize, and protect local production.

Corporate insolvencies are increasing. Fewer and fewer taxpayers must finance increasingly extensive social benefits. At the same time, contributors are not receiving back what they paid into the social security funds.

Federal governments have relied solely on renewable energies. We, however, want a broad energy mix, including fossil energy. To create a good future for Germany, we also address Germans with an immigrant background. Sovereignty and peace, freedom and prosperity are in all our interests.

The Cradle : How does the AfD view the emerging multipolar order and its key players?

Chrupalla: The war in Ukraine has put the traditional security structure in Europe to the test. It is still uncertain what transformations will result from its outcome. The peace negotiations have deepened the divide between the EU and the US.

Washington is at least attempting to reach an understanding. Chancellor Merz and other heads of government and state, however, are pressuring Ukraine to continue pursuing maximal goals, even though defeat is imminent.

In fact, it should be the other way around. Our states in Western and Central Europe depend on reaching an accommodation with Russia. We need raw materials and would be the first to be affected by a major war.

For us, Russia is part of Europe. We seek a peace order and security architecture that includes Russia. The People’s Republic of China is Germany’s top trading partner. Commonalities are more important than differences. In particular, the Greens have repeatedly attempted to steer foreign policy toward decoupling.

During the chip crisis, which originated in the Netherlands, we saw the consequences such decoupling would have: machines come to a standstill, workers stay home. The global economy is so strongly interconnected that a single severed thread can have unpredictable effects.

We want free and peaceful trade with the whole world. The Global South has a legitimate interest in prosperity and autonomy. We must support the countries of the south in this while also safeguarding our own interests. Unfortunately, the federal government has recently allowed ties with the south to deteriorate. Cooperation in the development of our economies, on equal footing, is an important aspect of our foreign policy.

The Cradle : What is your foreign policy approach to the Islamic world?

Chrupalla: Our foreign policy principle of respect also applies to states in which Islam is the majority religion. Islam is not a monolithic bloc. Despite unity in faith, these states pursue different interests. This becomes clear when looking at conditions in West Asia.

Germany has taken in many asylum seekers of the Muslim faith over the past 10 years. This immigration places demands on our social welfare systems and on internal security, similar to the immigration of Syrians into Turkiye. However, it would be wrong to derive from these problems a confrontational stance against Islam, as some critics of migration occasionally do.

We need peaceful cooperation. We need currency diversification in trade. We don’t want foreign troops on our soil. Religion must not divide us. Mutual understanding should be the foundation.

The Cradle : How should Germany approach relations with Turkiye?

Chrupalla: Turkiye is a strategic partner. We are both NATO members. We face shared challenges. Turkiye connects Europe and Asia. It pursues its own sovereign interests in West and Central Asia, and Africa, but must always take its alliance obligations into account. It resists adopting a strategy imposed from the outside.

In the past, Turkiye has confidently pursued its own interests—for example, regarding the Crimean Tatars. In doing so, it maintained respect toward Russia and became a neutral mediator in the Ukraine war. Germany should have done the same.

Turkiye is also the country from which the largest minority in Germany originates. In my view, more and more German citizens of Turkish descent are turning toward our party and its program. When AfD was still younger and smaller, the media and politicians of other parties tried to drive a wedge between the Turkish community and us.

They portrayed us as xenophobic. But voters with an immigrant background recognize that irregular immigration does not benefit them; it harms the country in which they live and are building their lives.

We all want security and prosperity. Families of Turkish descent are a firmly established part of our country. I invite them to join us in working for Germany.

December 17, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Islamophobia, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

The biggest bank robbery in history

By Ian Proud | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 16, 2025

For over two years, there have been loud and repeated calls for Russia’s immobilised assets in Europe – valued at around $245 billion – to be permanently seized. However, those assets had hitherto been immobilised under EU sanctions which required unanimous agreement every six months.

Not any more. Given Belgium’s sturdy resistance to using $165 billion in immobilised assets held in Euroclear, the European Commission has triggered an emergency clause in the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union to bypass the principle of unanimity on sanctions policy.

On Thursday of last week European Council Ambassadors agreed by majority to freeze indefinitely immobilised Russian assets in European banks. This proposal is separate from specific lending to Ukraine to cover its financial needs, which was subject to a separate proposal.

But, in fact, the two are connected. Because the separate proposal for a so-called reparations loan makes clear that Ukraine will only have to repay the loan if its receives reparations from Russia, whereupon Russia’s frozen assets will be returned.

However, Russia will self-evidently never make reparations payments to Ukraine precisely because its immobilised assets which might be used for reparations in Ukraine have already been expropriated and are unlikely to be returned.

The measure proposed by the EU uses as its legal basis the need to cover the economic risks to the EU from the ongoing war. However, the Economist has pointed this out as an example of ‘dodgy’ legal logic. But it’s worse than that; it’s in fact untrue. The money is not intended to support Europan economies, as it only represented 1% of European GDP. It will be used to back a reparations loan that is not intended for reparations, but rather to pay for Ukraine’s bloated budget.

This includes $106 billion to cover Ukraine’s budget deficit over the next two years and $50 billion to write off the EU contribution to the G7 Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration loan agreed in June 2024. The remainder will be pumped into Ukraine’s defence industry.

So, all of Russia’s money will effectively be given to Ukraine, albeit in the form of a loan underwritten by those European banks that hold Russian assets. In this fantasy, Russia’s assets still exist, it’s simply that EU banks have lent their equivalent value to Ukraine.

The problem Ursula von der Leyen is trying to avoid, as I have pointed out before, is the return of Russia’s assets after any peace deal that leads to sanctions against Russia being lifted. In short, peace would raise the risk of the loan collateral being handed back to Russia, meaning that Europe would need to pay for it, on the basis that Ukraine won’t have the means to repay the loan itself.

Let’s be clear, the earlier G7 Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration loan to Ukraine agreed in 2024 had a maturity of up to 45 years. Does Europe really intend to keep Russia’s assets immobilised for that period of time?

President Trump’s initial 28 point peace plan suggested that Russia’s immobilised assets be split three ways, between $100 billion invested in Ukraine by U.S. firms, $100 billion overseen by Europe and the remainder co-invested by the U.S. and Russia in its country. On that basis, and assuming Russia was agreeable, all of Russia’s immobilised funds would be used for genuine reconstruction efforts, both inside of Ukraine and those parts which Russia has occupied. President Zelensky has spoken this week about the possible setting up of a special economic zone in the contested parts of Donetsk oblast that would be demilitarised.

As I pointed out a year ago, Russia might be willing to give up its assets for some form of de facto recognition of territory, which the Trump administration has essentially proposed. The value of its unfrozen sovereign reserves – at $425 billion – now far exceed the sum still frozen in Europe and other jurisdictions including the U.S.. So Russia might be willing to give up some assets as part of a quid pro quo on territory. And it’s clear that Europe has absolutely no intention of giving the money back anyway, so why not cut a deal that works best for Russia?

But what the Europeans want to do is to have two cakes and eat them both. Get Russia to pay for Ukraine’s day to day fiscal expenditures associated with war fighting and building up its defence industrial complex, even after the war ends. And get Russia to pay for Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction. That is clearly delusional.

Because, and as I have already pointed out, Ukraine will still have an enormous fiscal hole to fill anyway when the fighting stops. So, if the actual plan is that Russia’s immobilised assets be used as collateral for day-to-day costs, then where is the capital to fund reparations? In short, it will cease to be available.

No, don’t worry about that, European Commission officials assure us, Russia will get its assets back after it pays reparations to Ukraine. But who decides how much Russia should pay? At the end of 2024, the UN estimated that Ukraine’s total recovery and reconstruction needs amounted to $524 billion.

Russia will simply not agree to pay that sum, not least as if it did, it would find that its immobilised assets were no longer available, having been spent on Ukraine’s budget. And, in any case, why would Russia agree to pay a sum of reparations that Europe adjudicates on from afar, all while the Americans have a more credible plan to use the immobilised assets?

President Trump is nudging president Ukrainian and European leaders, kicking and screaming, closer toward a peace deal that they don’t want to sign up to. In the case of Zelensky, he has resisted agreement because it might bring his time in power to a juddering halt. In the case of Von der Leyen, it would mean she had to tell Member States how much they needed to stump up to pay for Ukraine. As well as being logically confused and ill-thought-through, the asset seizure idea also brings the added risk of preventing any ceasefire.

Despite this, Trump appears to have the bit between his teeth to force a peace deal through and, with Zelensky now appearing to give up on NATO membership, we appear mercifully to be nudging in tiny steps towards the end of this needless war.

Someone will still need to pay for Ukraine’s budget when that happens. Russia will rightly point out that Europe has expropriated its money in the biggest bank robbery in history. And likely bury Brussels in a blizzard of litigation which makes investors in the developing world think long and hard about whether to keep their money in Europe.

December 16, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

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