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Iran has legal right to act in Hormuz, holds US responsible for disruptions: UN mission

Press TV – April 28, 2026

Iran, which is not a party to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, asserts its legal right to take “necessary and proportionate measures” in the Strait of Hormuz, and holds the United States responsible for any disruptions to maritime transport in the vital waterway, the country’s permanent mission to the United Nations said.

The mission said on Tuesday that US actions in the Strait of Hormuz have severely compromised international maritime safety. The mission made the remarks in two posts on X, a day after Iran addressed at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Maritime safety.

The mission pointed out that Iran is not a party to the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea and therefore does not regard its provisions as binding.

As the principal coastal state, Iran retains the legal authority to implement necessary measures within the Strait of Hormuz to address security threats and to prevent any military or hostile exploitation of this vital passage, it said.

Iran’s mission further noted that the Islamic Republic reserves the right to ensure safe passage in the Strait of Hormuz and to protect its national interests against hostile activities.

It further asserted that the US has engaged in unlawful actions that disrupt maritime transport, such as the imposition of a maritime blockade, the illegal seizure of Iranian vessels, and the detention of their crews.

Such actions not only violate international law and the UN Charter but also constitute acts of piracy.

As tensions escalate in the region, the Iranian government says that the US’s aggressive maritime policies pose a direct threat to international navigation and regional stability.

The Iranian mission further called for accountability regarding US transgressions.

Tensions have been running high over a so-called naval blockade the US has enforced on Iranian ports and ships, as well as American attempts to conduct mine-sweeping operations in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian officials have said the blockade is unlawful and a breach of a two-week ceasefire that took effect on April 8 and was again unilaterally extended by US President Donald Trump hours before it was set to expire on April 22.

April 28, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on Iran has legal right to act in Hormuz, holds US responsible for disruptions: UN mission

How Cognitive Science Explains Our Looming Nuclear Crisis

By Thomas Karat | The Libertarian Institute | April 28, 2026

Bombs have been falling on Iran for fifty-nine days. As of now a ceasefire is holding, just barely, brokered under pressure from Pakistan. But before it came, a girls’ primary school in the southern city of Minab was hit on the first day of the war, at least 170 dead, most of them girls aged seven to twelve, killed by a U.S. Tomahawk missile that President Donald Trump initially denied firing. Thirty universities struck since February 28, including Iran’s equivalent of MIT. Over 2,000 Iranians killed by American-Israeli strikes. Thirteen U.S. service members confirmed dead. An American F-15E shot down over Iran. The Strait of Hormuz—20% of the world’s oil and gas—effectively closed, with China and Russia vetoing the United Nations resolution to reopen it. Gas prices heading for $4.30 a gallon and rising. Trump promising to bomb Iran “back to the stone ages.”

And underneath all of it, the detail that should be dominating every front page but isn’t: on March 21, Iranian ballistic missiles landed fourteen kilometres from Dimona— Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons facility, the one running for six decades on the fiction that it doesn’t exist, estimated to hold 800 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium. The reactor at Bushehr has been struck three times since the war began. The Arms Control Association has warned explicitly of radiological contamination risk across the region.

This is where we are. Now ask the question nobody in mainstream media is asking: how did we get here? Not the geopolitical answer—you can get that anywhere. The deeper answer. What made this war politically possible? What narrative ran so deep in enough Americans that a conflict of this scale, this risk, this cost, could be launched mid-negotiation—Pakistan’s foreign minister confirmed publicly that the United States and Iran were close to a diplomatic settlement when Israel launched its February 28 strikes—without triggering mass domestic revolt?

The answer is a single talking point. You have heard it thousands of times, probably without noticing its structure: forty-seven years of Iranian aggression, forty-seven years of American patience, forty-seven years of failure by every president in both parties to solve the Iran problem. It dates the conflict from the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the 444-day hostage crisis that followed—Americans held in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, the nightly TV count, the humiliation. It frames the entire subsequent history as a story of American victimhood and Iranian intransigence. And it has been in my estimation the most effective piece of war propaganda in modern American history—not because it is true, but because of the specific cognitive architecture it exploits, which this article is going to name precisely, because naming it is the only thing that can stop it from working the next time.

The history starts not in 1979 but in 1953, when the CIA and British intelligence jointly overthrew Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iran’s elected prime minister, because he had nationalized his country’s oil. The CIA’s own declassified documents confirm the coup was “carried out under CIA direction.” Britain has still not released its files. For twenty-six years after that, the Shah’s government—sustained by American weapons and CIA training of his secret police, SAVAK—ran one of the region’s most efficient torture and imprisonment systems. The 1979 revolution was not irrational. It was direct blowback from a quarter-century of CIA-managed client state. And the hostage crisis that anchors the “forty-seven years” narrative was itself, per Gary Sick—the Iran expert on Jimmy Carter’s own National Security Council—possibly extended deliberately by Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager William Casey, who multiple witnesses say negotiated with Tehran to hold the hostages past election day in exchange for a promise of arms. The foundational American wound of this conflict may have been kept open, on purpose, for electoral advantage, by the political faction most loudly demanding Iranian accountability four decades later.

Then in 1988 the USS Vincennes, operating inside Iranian territorial waters, shot down Iran Air Flight 655—a commercial Airbus on a Dubai run—killing all 290 people aboard including 66 children. The Pentagon issued false statements about the aircraft’s flight profile. The captain was decorated. Nobody was prosecuted. This event does not appear in the “forty-seven years of Iranian aggression” narrative. It belongs to a parallel account—forty-seven years of American aggression—that the talking point is specifically engineered to prevent you from thinking about.

Here is where the cognitive science becomes urgent, because it explains not just how the talking point spreads but why correcting it with facts—including everything in the preceding three paragraphs—fails so consistently, even with audiences that are already skeptical of government. The political psychologist Jonathan Haidt established in his moral foundations research that human moral reasoning runs on several distinct evolutionary systems and critically, that libertarians score measurably lower on the Sanctity foundation, the disgust-and-contamination system that codes out-groups as morally polluted. You are, if you read this publication, statistically more resistant than the average American to the “Iran is evil, the mullahs are fanatics” framing. That part of the propaganda largely didn’t work on you. But the “forty-seven years” talking point doesn’t primarily run on disgust. It runs on three other systems that are universal and for which the libertarian movement has built almost no intellectual defense.

The first is loss aversion: Kahneman and Tversky’s finding that humans feel losses roughly twice as intensely as equivalent gains. “Forty-seven years of failure” is a pure loss narrative—not a promise of future benefit, but an open wound, a thing taken and not returned. It activates the loss-detection system before rational evaluation can engage. The second is the sunk cost mechanism: the longer the conflict, the more the accumulated investment—of attention, of sanctions, of covert operations, of proxy wars—makes the brain read escalation as rational rather than reckless. Half a century of failure becomes, neurologically, an argument for drastic action rather than against it. The third is dominance signalling: primates, including humans, carry a hard-wired system that reads unanswered challenges from rivals as weakness inviting further challenge. Forty-seven years of Iranian defiance of American authority, narrated as a sequence of inadequate responses, activates this system viscerally. Crucially, the libertarian principle of non-aggression reads inside this frame not as principled restraint but as submission. Your correct position sounds, to your neighbour’s dominance-monitoring system, like fear.

George Lakoff showed in Don’t Think of an Elephant that political frames operate below the threshold of conscious reasoning and that facts introduced into the wrong frame bounce off rather than dislodging it. The “forty-seven years” frame installs a strict father moral logic: the nation as a family whose authority must not be defied without punishment. Once that frame is active, every historical correction—the 1953 coup, the Vincennes, the October Surprise—arrives as information the brain is not structured to receive. The frame stays. The facts leave.

This is the machine that produced the war you are watching right now. The school in Minab. The missiles over Dimona. The Bushehr reactor taking strikes. The Strait of Hormuz closed while the LSE warns that bombing a country out of its desire for a nuclear deterrent is not possible and that every strike makes eventual acquisition of a weapon not less likely but more. The former director of the National Counterterrorism Center resigned and told Libertarian Institute Director Scott Horton that he had watched Israeli officials mislead Trump about the Iranian nuclear threat to manufacture the justification for this war. Pakistan’s foreign minister stated in parliament that diplomacy was actively progressing when Israel launched its surprise attack and derailed it. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found only one in four Americans supports the strikes.

The talking point has done its work. It ran for forty-seven years, activating loss detectors and dominance monitors and sunk cost accumulators and strict father frames in enough of the population to make a war with genuine nuclear escalation risk feel not just permissible but long overdue. Now fourteen kilometres separates us from a direct strike on a reactor that has been producing weapons-grade plutonium for sixty years under a policy of official denial—and the IAEA, which Iran has now suspended from cooperation, has no inspectors inside to tell us what is actually there.

The ICAN nuclear abolition campaign noted that striking nuclear installations is explicitly banned under international law. Both sides are now doing it. The International Atomic Energy Agency has called for maximum military restraint near nuclear sites. Both sides are ignoring it. The ceasefire this morning is the third since the war began, and both sides have violated the previous two.

The talking point got us here. Understanding how, at the neurological level, through the specific cognitive systems it exploited, is not an academic exercise while bombs are falling. It is the precondition for building an antiwar argument that can actually break through the frame, rather than bouncing off it for the forty-eighth year running.

The state built a machine over forty-seven years. You are watching it run. The machine works in the dark. This is the light.

April 28, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Comments Off on How Cognitive Science Explains Our Looming Nuclear Crisis

Have the US and Israel killed non-proliferation?

Ashes of Pompeii | April 28, 2026

The United Nations has elected Iran as one of the thirty-four vice presidents of the 2026 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, proceeding despite formal objections from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates. Rather than a mere procedural footnote, this appointment signals a pronounced structural realignment and underscores the increasing diplomatic isolation of Western capitals within multilateral governance.

For decades, nuclear restraint was widely regarded as a stabilizing imperative, a framework endorsed by practically all nations, including Iran, who consistently endorsed this through state doctrine and a longstanding religious fatwa explicitly prohibiting the pursuit of atomic armaments. The Iranian prohibition was the foundation of the JCPOA agreement allowing internation inspection of Iranian nuclear sites. It is important to note that it was the USA who withdrew from the JCPOA agreement and not Iran, and Iran seems to have respected the terms even after this withdrawal.

This is the context for the current situation. Iran has been attacked by the USA and Israel because of the perceived threat that Iran might, despite the inspections and the conclusions of the American intelligence agencies, cross the nuclear threshold. Please note the contrast: Iran was attacked because it might develop nuclear weapons, whereas North Korea enjoys relative security precisely because it has nuclear weapons. That is to say, non-proliferation treaty compliance would seem to correlate with heightened vulnerability.

Whatever one might think of Kim Jong Un, the caricatures propagated regarding North Korea’s leadership as erratic, epitomized by the “Rocketman” epithet, are increasingly untenable when subjected to rigorous strategic analysis. Evaluating outcomes rather than rhetoric, it becomes evident that Pyongyang’s leadership was methodically positioned ahead of other global policymakers. While other regimes face coercive diplomacy or military intervention, North Korea’s deterrent has insulated it from external operations. We can assume other countries have noticed this, that non-proliferation or strategic ambiguity offer far less protection than verified atomic capability.

And this realization is coming at a time when America itself is coming to be seen as more erratic, and potentially a less reliable partner than it was perceived to be in the past. Can America’s allies still feel secure under America’s nuclear umbrella? Is an “America First” America going to risk nuclear conflageration to defend its allies? Many will have calculated that it might not.

Washington and Jerusalem have long justified their confrontational posture toward Tehran by citing the purported threat of an Iranian breakout, even as Israel maintains an arsenal that, though officially unacknowledged, is universally understood by all. If the recent campaigns against Iranian military and energy infrastructure were to be assessed through a deterrence lens, it can be argued that the absence of an atomic shield rendered Tehran strategically exposed. Had Iran possessed a credible second-strike capability, those operations would likely have been deemed too escalatory to execute.

Consequently, the international community can probably anticipate a quiet reassessment of nuclear thresholds. Governments are not yet explicitly announcing an intention to seek atomic weapons, but it does seem evident that more will be seriously considering it, whether because they no longer trust America as ally or because they see that nuclear deterrance has been successful for North Korea. For now, it seems likely that these nuclear intentions will remain under wraps, but who can doubt that, at the very least, multiple feasability studies will have been undertaken across the world.

The strategic calculus advanced by the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government has effectively engineered an environment where non-proliferation is, at best, a diminishing paradigm, and at worst, an existential error for a sovereign state. Therefore, the eventual deployment of tactical or strategic nuclear assets across multiple countries becomes increasingly probable.

The profound irony, of course, is that given the stated justifications for the launch of the US/Israeli war on Iran, that Israel will be a highly plausible future target within the very security vacuum it helped to normalize.

April 28, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Comments Off on Have the US and Israel killed non-proliferation?

Putting Nukes in Finland Won’t Make Country Safer, Finnish Politician Cautions

Sputnik – 27.04.2026

Stationing nuclear weapons in Finland will not make the country safer, Armando Mema, a member of the Freedom Alliance party, told Sputnik on Monday in response to the government’s plans to allow the import and storage of such weapons on Finnish soil.

“Changing the law and allowing the import of NATO countries’ nuclear weapons will not make Finland safer,” Mema said.

The politician added that NATO, which had promised “not to expand an inch to the east,” is now beefing up its military presence in Finland and wants to place nuclear weapons there.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has described Finland’s plans to allow the import of nuclear weapons into the country as a “concentrated confrontation.”

On April 23, the Finnish government submitted to parliament a proposal to amend the Nuclear Energy Act and the Criminal Code, which would lift the current ban on the import, manufacture, storage and use of nuclear weapons within the country.

April 27, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , | Comments Off on Putting Nukes in Finland Won’t Make Country Safer, Finnish Politician Cautions

US pension fund invests hundreds of millions in weapons firms supplying Israel

The Cradle | April 27, 2026

The Virginia Retirement System (VRS), which manages pension benefits for the US state of Virginia’s public sector workers, holds a staggering $394 million in investments linked to weapons makers and shipping companies supporting Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and wars on Lebanon and Iran, according to a 23 April report released by a coalition of Palestinian advocacy groups.

The report was prepared by the VRS Divest from Weapons & War campaign, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), and the People’s Embargo for Palestine. It draws on publicly available financial data and records obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.

The report presents a detailed accounting of the VRS’s investments in many of the world’s largest weapons makers as part of its $122 billion portfolio.

Lockheed Martin is the VRS’s single largest holding at $94.8 million. The firm produces the F-35 fighter jet and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. Both have been used extensively by the Israeli military during its more than two-year Genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

The Virginia pension system is also invested in Boeing, which manufactures precision-guided munitions, known as JDAMs, that are used to kill and maim children in Gaza.

Other investments include General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Maersk, and Thyssenkrupp, all of which either manufacture or ship weapons for use by the Israeli military in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.

“These companies are critical in maintaining the weapons supply to Israel and the resulting massacres of thousands of people across the Middle East,” Bana Husseini, an organizer with the VRS Divest campaign and the Palestinian Youth Movement, told TRT World. 

Husseini and other activists are lobbying the VRS to divest from companies supporting Israel’s military and its genocide and wars. A petition calling for divestment has gathered nearly 4,500 signatures.

However, the pension system has continued to express its support for Israel.

“The VRS has responded by dismissing the campaign’s demands, arresting a firefighter for delivering the petition, inviting a notorious war criminal to their yearly retreat, and further collaborating with war profiteers,” Husseini explained.

Joelle Rudney, a retired teacher from Virginia, told TRT World she was upset to learn her pension was invested “in the bombings of hospitals, schools, and houses in Gaza in attacks that have killed nearly 70,000 people, mostly civilians.”

In response, she has helped lobby the VRS Board of Trustees to divest from the companies supporting Israel’s war crimes.

Casey Rosales, a county public servant who has worked in mental health services, was also angered to learn how her pension contributions are being invested.

“It’s difficult to reconcile the fact that while I dedicate my career to supporting and strengthening communities, the money I earn may be contributing to harm elsewhere,” Rosales stated.

A Virginia public utilities employee said she felt betrayed to learn the money she contributes to her retirement fund is supporting genocide.

“It is profoundly sad that while doing work to help men, women, and children with health care services and resources here in Virginia, my tax money goes to buying and owning shares in companies contributing to genocide,” the employee stated.

“I demand the VRS Board of Trustees divest from these companies and commit to never again invest our future into the manufacturing of death,” the employee told TRT World.

Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza has killed over 72,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands more will likely die due to the indirect effects of years of Israeli bombing that has destroyed the basic health, electricity, and water infrastructure in the strip and displaced nearly 90 percent of the population.

April 27, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Comments Off on US pension fund invests hundreds of millions in weapons firms supplying Israel

US bill to grant Americans serving in Israeli army same rights as US troops

MEMO | April 27, 2026

US lawmakers push to grant American soldiers serving in the Israeli army the same legal protections as US troops, in a move without precedent for any other foreign army. The bill would place some 20,000 dual citizens fighting for Israel on a legal par with Americans serving the US.

Details of the Israel first carve out was reported in Military.com. The legislation passing through Congress would, for the first time in American history, treat service in a foreign army as legally equivalent to service in the US armed forces — but only where that foreign army is Israeli occupation army.

House Resolution 8445, tabled by Republican Congressmen Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania and Max Miller of Ohio, would amend Title 38 of the US Code so that Americans who fight for Israel are treated “in the same manner as service in the uniformed services” of the US. Over 20,000 American citizens serving in the Israeli military are expected to benefit if the changes come into effect.

US veterans’ benefits and military protections are, under existing law, tied to service in the American armed forces. The Bill departs from that principle by extending two of the most consequential US protections to Americans fighting for a foreign state. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act caps interest rates on debt during active service and halts evictions and foreclosures. The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act compels American employers to hold open the jobs of those called to service.

Under H.R. 8445, an American returning from a tour with the IDF could demand their old job back from a US employer, halt a foreclosure on a US home, and benefit from interest-rate caps on US debt  on the basis of foreign military service.

Americans have served in foreign militaries for as long as the US has existed — in the French Foreign Legion, in the Australian and New Zealand armed forces, and, since 2022, in the International Legion for the Defence of Ukraine. No comparable legislation has ever been seriously advanced for any of those forces. The State Department’s standing position is that Americans who fight abroad do so at their own risk and should not expect support from the US government.

H.R. 8445 is therefore not part of a broader policy trend. It is exclusive to the IDF.

IDF personnel, meanwhile, are already compensated by Israel through stipends, housing assistance, post-service educational grants and access to the national healthcare system, all funded by the Knesset. The Bill nevertheless asks American employers, banks, and courts to treat Israeli military service as if it had been performed for the US.

The legislation is being pursued at a moment when American sentiment toward Israel has shifted decisively in the opposite direction. A Pew Research Center poll published last month found that 60 per cent of Americans now hold an unfavourable view of Israel, up nearly 20 percentage points since 2022. The proportion holding a “very unfavourable” view has tripled in that period.

Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, the figure has reached 80 per cent. Even within the Republican coalition championing the Bill, 57 per cent of Republicans aged 18 to 49 hold an unfavourable view of Israel.

Critics have pointed out that American veterans’ protections were built on a simple covenant: those who serve the United States have a claim on the US. Extending those protections to Americans serving a foreign government, and only one foreign government, establishes that the relevant criterion is no longer service to the country, but the identity of the country being served.

H.R. 8445 has been referred to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

April 27, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , | Comments Off on US bill to grant Americans serving in Israeli army same rights as US troops

‘An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership’: Merz

Al Mayadeen | April 27, 2026

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Monday that Iran’s leadership is effectively “humiliating” the United States amid the ongoing war.

Speaking publicly, Merz argued that Washington does not seem to have a coherent plan and raised doubts about how the US intends to bring its involvement to a close.

“The Iranians are clearly stronger than expected and the Americans clearly have no truly convincing strategy in the negotiations either,” Merz said during a school visit in Marsberg, located in his native Sauerland region.

He emphasized the difficulty of disengaging from such wars, noting, “The problem with conflicts like this is always: you don’t just have to get in, you have to get out again. We saw that very painfully in Afghanistan for 20 years. We saw it in Iraq.”

Merz continued, “At the moment, I do not see what strategic exit the Americans will choose, especially since the Iranians are clearly negotiating very skillfully — or very skillfully not negotiating.”

He further stated that “an entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership,” particularly by Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC).

Economic fallout for Germany

Addressing the domestic impact, Merz said tensions in West Asia are now weighing heavily on Germany’s economy.

“It is at the moment a pretty tangled situation,” he said. “And it is costing us a great deal of money. This conflict, this war against Iran, has a direct impact on our economic output.”

He claimed that Berlin continues to “offer support in securing global trade routes“, including the potential deployment of minesweepers to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key passage for international oil shipments.

However, Merz alleged that such a move would depend on a cessation of hostilities.

April 27, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on ‘An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership’: Merz

IRGC says to reverse engineer 15 undetonated US missiles uncovered in southern Iran

Press TV – April 26, 2026

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says it has discovered 15 undetonated US missiles in the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan and thousands of bomblets in the northern province of Zanjan, less than a month after a US-Israeli aggression on Iran halted with a ceasefire.

The IRGC’s Imam Sajjad Corps, based in the provincial capital of Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan, said in a Sunday statement that its bomb disposal teams had successfully neutralized more than 15 heavy American missiles in the province.

The statement said the missiles were mostly of the GBU and BLU types and other advanced models, adding that the weapons had been transferred to technical and research units of the IRGC for reverse engineering.

It said the Imam Sajjad Corps had neutralized or destroyed more than 60 missiles and drones, including bunker busters, cruise missiles, and advanced drones, since the beginning of the US-Israeli aggression in late February.

The force said that it had successfully concluded bomb disposal operations related to the recent war of aggression in all areas of Hormozgan province.

Meanwhile, IRGC’s Ansar al-Mahdi Corps, based in the provincial capital of Zanjan, also issued a statement on Sunday, saying that its bomb disposal teams had recovered more than 9,500 bomblets in various parts of the province.

The statement said that the small munitions had been dropped during the US-Israeli aggression through the use of cluster bombs as part of aerial mining operations, with the purpose of contaminating critical and sensitive locations across the province.

It said IRGC bomb disposal teams in Zanjan had also neutralized or destroyed some 55 rockets and missiles during the recent US-Israeli aggression, including a GBU-57 bunker buster, which was successfully defused and handed over to qualified authorities.

April 26, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , | Comments Off on IRGC says to reverse engineer 15 undetonated US missiles uncovered in southern Iran

Liberation From War

By Manlio Dinucci | Global Research | April 26, 2026

Italy is experiencing an economic slowdown: this is confirmed by the fact that in 2025 public debt stood at 37% of GDP and that the situation has worsened since then. The Italian Minister for the Economy and Finance, Giancarlo Giorgetti, attributes the crisis largely to the “energy shock” caused by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, blamed on Iran, which led to a rise in the price of oil and natural gas. Giorgetti seems to have forgotten that the “energy crisis” began before the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz due to the halt in Russian natural gas imports. These imports have fallen from 40% of Italy’s total gas imports in 2021 to 2% in 2026.

During this period, Italy’s imports of liquefied natural gas from the United States have risen from 13% to 33%, despite the much higher price. By waging war against Russia and Iran alongside NATO, Israel and other allies, the United States has succeeded in making Italy and Europe increasingly dependent on its energy supplies.

After triggering the war that has torn Europe apart with the coup in Ukraine in 2014, the United States has succeeded in making its European allies bear an ever-increasing share of the cost.

They have now approved the 20th “sanctions package” against Russia and granted Ukraine a further “loan” of 90 billion euros. At the same time, the United States has succeeded in driving up the military spending of its European allies sharply. Between 2015 and 2025, Italian military spending has more than doubled, rising in 2025 to €45.3 billion annually – equivalent to over 2% of GDP, or an average of €124 million a day. Italian military spending is set to continue rising, reaching 3.5% of GDP – equivalent to €198 million a day – and subsequently 5%, equivalent to over €280 million a day.

Following the war against Russia, Italy is becoming increasingly involved in the conflict against Iran.

US drones and aircraft are stationed at the Sigonella base in Sicily, from where they carry out missions in the Middle East to identify targets in Iran and guide US missile and bomber strikes. For the war against Iran, US forces are also using other bases in Italy, such as Aviano and Camp Darby. The Italian government has now decided to send two military ships to the Strait of Hormuz, even without a UN mandate, officially for mine clearance. As these ships would be in a war zone, including within Iranian territorial waters, should they be threatened with attack or attacked by Iranian forces, they would be flanked by Italian Navy strike units, officially “for protective purposes”.

Italy would thus effectively enter the war alongside the United States. The US is using its warships not only to block the Strait of Hormuz and cut off Iranian ports, but also to attack and seize ships in the Indian Ocean that are carrying (or are said to be carrying) Iranian oil to China and other Asian countries.

The US military blockade of shipping lanes is triggering an economic crisis that could soon spread from Asia across the globe. In Vietnam, rice mills have cut production due to soaring electricity costs and the difficulties faced by farmers following rises in fuel and fertiliser prices. In the Philippines, many farmers have decided not to harvest their crops, leaving them to rot, as they would have to sell them at a loss due to the rise in transport fuel costs. In Indonesia, nickel mines are closing because, due to the US blockade of Iran, they no longer have the gas and sulphur needed for extraction. In Bangladesh, clothing production is falling due to the disruption of import-export chains. All this – warns a UN report – could cost the Asia-Pacific region up to $300 billion, as the region relies on imported energy. Pressure is mounting on households, small businesses and public finances, with around 9 million people at risk of falling into extreme poverty.

This shows that war causes carnage not only through weapons such as bombs and missiles, but also through economic weapons such as the blockade of ports and shipping lanes, which can result in even greater loss of life. The dramatic images of war – that of an Israeli soldier destroying a statue of Christ on the cross in the Christian village of Debel in Lebanon, that of Israeli settlers in the West Bank preventing Palestinian children from going to school by blocking their path and attacking them with tear gas grenades – demonstrate the vital need to continue the struggle for liberation, freeing ourselves from war once and for all.

April 26, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Liberation From War

Major fire erupts at UK base used for US bombers

RT | April 26, 2026

A large fire broke out at a Royal Air Force (RAF) base in west England on Sunday morning. In recent months, it was used by the US to launch operations against Iran, and was recently the target of anti-war protests.

According to the Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service, crews were called to RAF Fairford shortly after midnight on Sunday.

“The fire involved a single-story industrial storage building. It was brought under control safely and there were no casualties,” the service said in a statement.

Videos circulating on social media show a large blaze above warehouse buildings visible from the street, with an enormous plume of smoke rising up into the night sky.

RAF Fairford houses USAF B52 and B1 bombers, and serves as a key European operations center for Washington. Hundreds of anti-war protesters rallied outside the base on Saturday, demanding that the UK shut down military facilities used in the war on Iran.

Authorities said preliminary data suggests the blaze was accidental.

However, last week, a deliberate attack on a US military plane took place in neighboring Ireland.

A man was arrested after he intruded into Shannon Airport and damaged a US Air Force C-130 Hercules with a hatchet. He was arrested and charged with criminal damage, according to local law enforcement. No motive has yet been announced.

April 26, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , | Comments Off on Major fire erupts at UK base used for US bombers

How Israel moved Hermes 900 drone production to Serbia to hide from Iranian missiles

By Ivan Kesic – Press TV – April 25, 2026

The Israeli regime has quietly embarked on an effort to relocate production of its most important long-range strike drone – the Hermes 900- outside the occupied territories.

In Serbia, it has found its latest and most controversial partner. The strategy is simple: protect Tel Aviv’s supply chain from Iranian ballistic missiles.

On March 7, 2026, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić made a cryptic announcement. Serbia, he said, would soon open a factory for “the most serious drones in the world” with a foreign partner from the Israeli regime.

By early April, reports had uncovered the full scope of the deal. Elbit Systems – the largest military company in the occupied territories and a firm repeatedly named by UN experts as profiting from the ongoing genocide in Gaza – had agreed to establish a joint drone production facility in Šimanovci, just thirty kilometers west of Belgrade.

The factory, which could begin operations as early as late April 2026, is designed to produce two types of unmanned aerial vehicles, including a long-range model capable of flying at altitudes exceeding six kilometers.

While most media attention has focused on the emerging arms race between Serbia and Croatia, a far more consequential story has gone largely unreported.

What makes this deal particularly significant is not merely the technology transfer or the financial terms, but the strategic logic driving it.

The Israeli regime, having suffered devastating losses of its Hermes 900 fleet during the recent US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran, is desperately seeking to diversify its production base – outside the reach of Iranian retaliation.

Serbian factory: Details of the 2026 agreement

The joint venture agreement between Elbit Systems and Serbia’s state-owned Yugoimport SDPR gives the notorious Israeli arms company a controlling 51 percent stake, while the Serbian partner holds the remaining 49 percent.

According to documents obtained by some journalists and confirmed by two independent sources close to the military industry, the factory will produce two distinct drone types.

The first is a short-range model with a high payload and rotary wings, designed for tactical reconnaissance and strike missions in confined operational environments.

The second is far more advanced: a long-range model, faster and capable of operating at altitudes exceeding six kilometers, making it suitable for deep-penetration surveillance missions well beyond Serbian borders.

A source familiar with the deal described the long-range drone as “more advanced” than the Pegasus, a combat reconnaissance drone that Serbia already produces domestically.

“It has a higher flight altitude and greater operational autonomy,” the source explained. “The essence of the whole story is the transfer of technology, because our engineers will also work on it. This drone is actually the crowning glory of the entire project.”

Experts from Utva, an aircraft factory owned by the SDPR, will also be involved in the production process, a clear indication of significant investment in local technical expertise.

The planned site of the factory has itself become a source of controversy: a facility owned by Pink Media Group, the media empire of Željko Mitrović, a businessman with close ties to Vučić’s ruling party.

Following the publication of investigative reports, Pink Media Group issued a denial, claiming that neither Mitrović nor any entity associated with him had participated in negotiations or leased any facility for the project.

However, the denial did not address the documentary evidence or the two independent sources that confirmed the arrangement. The question of the factory’s precise location remains unresolved.

Serbian-Israeli cooperation: Weapons, spyware, and political connections

The drone factory agreement is merely the latest chapter in a rapidly deepening relationship between Belgrade and Tel Aviv that encompasses weapons trade, intelligence technology, political consulting, and diplomatic alignment.

The value of ammunition and weapons exports from Serbia to the Israeli regime has increased by an astonishing 42 times since 2023, reaching 114 million euros by the end of 2025, according to available evidence.

The vast majority of these exports were conducted through Yugoimport SDPR, the same state-owned company now partnering with Elbit on the drone factory.

Beyond conventional weapons, the partnership extends into the shadowy realm of surveillance and espionage technology.

Serbian authorities have used forensic products purchased from the Israeli company Cellebrite to unlock and extract data from mobile devices belonging to journalists and social media activists.

A new spyware tool designated “NoviSpy” has been deployed to infect these devices, enabling the Serbian internal security service to monitor and suppress critical voices.

The methods employed bear the unmistakable signature of Israeli technology and training. The personal connections between the two regimes run deep.

Asaf Eisin, an Israeli consultant, has been described as the main architect of Vučić’s victorious election campaigns.

His role extends beyond mere political consulting; he is widely considered Vučić’s secretive strategist, providing the Serbian president with the kind of sophisticated campaign management techniques developed in the occupied territories.

The Serbian opposition has characterized Eisin as an “agency for winning elections,” and his track record across multiple political campaigns in the Balkans supports this assessment.

In September 2024, while the Israeli regime faced increasing international isolation over its genocidal actions in Gaza, the regime’s president, Isaac Herzog, paid an official visit to Belgrade, meeting with top Serbian officials.

The timing was significant: the Israeli regime was under diplomatic pressure worldwide, yet Vučić welcomed Herzog as a gesture of solidarity.

Foreign policy analysts noted that Serbia saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate its alignment with Washington’s closest West Asian ally, a calculated move to curry favor with the incoming Trump administration.

This alignment was formalized in September 2020 through the Washington Agreement, in which Serbia committed to opening a chamber of commerce office and a state office in Jerusalem al-Quds.

The move was hailed in Tel Aviv as “an important and courageous step,” while critics noted that it placed Serbia firmly on the side of the occupation and against Palestinian sovereignty.

The United Arab Emirates, which normalized relations with the Israeli regime in 2020, has emerged as a significant investor in Serbia, while also serving as a conduit for technology transfer and military cooperation.

The connection to the UAE, brokered through the same Washington Agreement, has created an axis that runs from Abu Dhabi through Tel Aviv to Belgrade.

This triangular relationship has allowed Serbia to access advanced defense technologies while providing the Israeli regime with a European production and logistics hub.

Elbit Systems: A company surrounded by global controversy

Elbit Systems, the Israeli military firm at the center of the Serbian drone factory deal, has accumulated a staggering record of international controversies spanning human rights violations, financial divestment campaigns, grassroots activism, and legal challenges.

The company generates approximately 90 percent of its revenue from military activities and is deeply integrated into the Israeli regime’s military apparatus, making it a focal point of criticism amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza or the occupied West Bank.

One of the longest-running controversies concerns Elbit’s involvement in infrastructure tied to the Israeli occupation, particularly the surveillance systems installed along the separation wall in the occupied West Bank.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion in 2004 declaring the wall contrary to international law, yet Elbit continued to supply technology for its operation.

This triggered early international backlash. In 2009, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund divested from Elbit, with the finance minister stating at the time: “We do not want to finance companies that contribute so directly to violations of international humanitarian law.”

Similar decisions followed from Danish and Swedish financial institutions.

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement has made Elbit a primary target, noting that the company’s technology contributes directly to horrendous human rights violations against Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied territories.

These campaigns have achieved tangible results. HSBC withdrew its investment from Elbit in 2018 after the company acquired IMI Systems, which manufactures cluster munitions.

In 2026, a major Canadian investment arm divested from Elbit following sustained protests over its role in supplying equipment used in the Gaza genocide.

A UN Special Rapporteur report published in June 2025 listed Elbit among companies profiting from the genocide in Gaza. The report specifically mentioned drones developed and supplied by Elbit, describing how they operate alongside warplanes during bombing campaigns, used to monitor Palestinians and gather intelligence on targets.

The report concluded that “drones, hexacopters and quadcopters have become ubiquitous killing machines in the skies over Gaza.”

Direct action activism has targeted Elbit facilities worldwide. In the United Kingdom, groups such as Palestine Action have broken into and occupied Elbit-linked sites. The 2024 Filton facility break-in caused significant damage and led to arrests and high-profile court cases.

In 2025, Elbit closed a UK facility after sustained protests, a symbolic victory for activists demonstrating that reputational and military costs can affect even large arms firms.

In Spain, a steel shipment linked to Elbit’s subsidiary IMI Systems was canceled following protests. In France, the government barred Israeli military firms, including Elbit, from displaying offensive weapons at the Paris Air Show in 2025, citing the genocide in Gaza.

In 2025, a NATO-affiliated procurement agency barred Elbit from contracts due to a corruption investigation, suggesting that the company’s liabilities extend beyond activist campaigns into formal military-sector governance.

Meanwhile, in North Macedonia, Elbit’s involvement in “Safe City” surveillance systems has raised concerns about mass surveillance, transparency, and potential misuse, extending the ethical debate beyond armed conflict into civil liberties and digital rights.

Hermes 900: Capabilities and role in the aggression against Iran

The Hermes 900 unmanned aerial vehicle, produced by Elbit Systems, has proven to be the most important drone in the Israeli regime’s inventory for long-range strikes, and its performance during the recent US-Israeli aggression against Iran demonstrated both its strategic value and its acute vulnerabilities.

As a medium-altitude, long-endurance platform, the Hermes 900 can remain airborne for over 30 to 40 hours, operating at high altitudes that allow it to monitor vast areas without requiring frequent refueling.

This endurance is enhanced by satellite communications, enabling beyond-line-of-sight control and real-time data transmission across distances that would be impossible for ground-controlled systems.

The drone’s long-range capability made it particularly suitable for surveillance missions far from Israeli-occupied territories, including monitoring Iranian military infrastructure and tracking the movements of the Axis of Resistance forces throughout the region.

The Hermes 900 is equipped with sophisticated intelligence-gathering systems, including electro-optical and infrared sensors, synthetic aperture radar, and signals intelligence tools.

These allow it to detect troop movements, missile systems, and communication signals, even at night or in poor weather conditions.

Crucially, the Hermes 900 can designate targets using laser systems and relay precise coordinates, enabling fighter jets or other platforms—including long-range cruise missiles—to conduct strikes based on the intelligence it gathers.

This targeting capability made the drone a critical component of the regime’s aggression against Iranian infrastructure during the war that began on February 28, 2026.

The cost to the Israeli regime was still catastrophic. The largest number of Israeli drones shot down during the recent aggression were of the Hermes 900 type—approximately 20 units, with several more downed in 2025.

No official figure exists for how many Hermes 900 units the Israeli regime originally possessed, but estimates place the number in the dozens, somewhere between 25 and 50.

Some military analysts estimate that the attrition rate for the Hermes 900 fleet may have exceeded 80 percent during the unprovoked war of aggression.

The blow was so severe that the Israeli Air Force reportedly avoided deploying its remaining units over Iran for extended periods, effectively ceding the skies to Iranian air defenses and forcing Tel Aviv to rely on less capable platforms.

This degradation of Israel’s most important long-range surveillance and targeting asset represented a strategic victory for Iran’s air defense network, which had demonstrated the ability to detect, track, and destroy even the most advanced unmanned platforms.

Strategic logic: Foreign production as a hedge against Iranian retaliation

The timing of Serbia’s drone factory agreement with Elbit Systems is not coincidental.

The contract was signed in August 2025, a month and a half after the first US-Israeli aggression against Iran, when it became clear to Tel Aviv that Iranian ballistic missiles could threaten domestic production facilities.

The Israeli regime has since been insisting on peripheral supply chains, offering its clients relatively outdated surveillance technologies while using the arrangement to secure aircraft platforms for new aggressions throughout the region.

This strategy is not new. According to military analysts, the Israeli regime agreed to cooperate with India on Hermes 900 production as early as 2018 through a joint venture between Adani Defence & Aerospace and Elbit Systems, with a dedicated UAV facility in Hyderabad becoming operational in December 2018 for producing components.

By approximately 2020, this facility had expanded to assembling and exporting Hermes 900 units, making India the first production site outside the occupied territories.

Military analysts estimate that India produced approximately 20 of the estimated 50 Hermes 900 drones in the Israeli fleet, meaning that nearly 40 percent of Tel Aviv’s long-range unmanned surveillance capability was manufactured outside the occupied territories, a significant hedge against the vulnerability of domestic production facilities to Iranian retaliation.

In 2024, India formally fielded its own version, the Drishti-10 Starliner, with the first indigenously assembled unit delivered to the Indian Navy in January 2024.

The Swiss experience with Hermes 900 production has been far less successful, offering a cautionary tale for Serbia. Switzerland acquired the drones in 2015 but required extensive modifications through the Swiss partner RUAG to enable safe operation in civilian airspace.

The integration of a detect-and-avoid system proved extremely difficult, leading to repeated delays that pushed full operational capability to around 2029.

Some delivered drones could not meet expected performance standards, and one notable incident involved structural issues that caused a drone to break apart during testing.

The Swiss government was forced to scale back its requirements, abandoning certain advanced features while costs continued to rise.

Parliamentary committees raised doubts about whether RUAG and Elbit could fix ongoing problems, with some officials discussing potential cancellation.

For a neutral country like Switzerland, the deal also sparked debate about whether such partnerships compromise neutrality or align the country too closely with foreign military-industrial interests.

Brazil’s experience offers a different set of challenges. While the Hermes 900 is assembled locally through AEL Sistemas, a Brazilian subsidiary of Elbit, the program has been plagued by technical reliability issues.

Multiple crashes have occurred, including one during the 2024 floods in Rio Grande do Sul when a drone used in rescue operations crashed due to a technical problem.

In March 2026, another Hermes 900 crashed during a military exercise in Mato Grosso do Sul, reportedly leaving the Brazilian Air Force with only one operational unit at the time.

These incidents have raised concerns about fleet fragility and whether Brazil is over-reliant on a complex foreign system that it does not fully control.

Even with local assembly, critical components, software, and maintenance expertise remain tied to Israeli suppliers, creating a structural dependency that critics argue limits Brazil’s technological sovereignty.

Serbian gamble: Risks and domestic opposition

Within Serbia, the drone factory agreement has generated significant controversy.

Military observers point out that Elbit will retain complete control over intellectual property, meaning that while Serbian workers may assemble drones, the country will not gain the ability to independently produce or replicate the systems.

Petar Vojinović, an aviation analyst, explained that the most likely arrangement gives Elbit control over sales and intellectual property, with Yugoimport merely participating in production and collecting revenue percentages from sales.

“It is expected that Elbit will retain complete control over the intellectual property,” he noted.

“Thus, Elbit’s intellectual property will be protected, and Serbia will most likely not be able to produce or replicate the drones that will be manufactured.”

Other analysts emphasized that the key issue is knowledge transfer, arguing that If part of the development and production occurs in Serbia, it means training personnel, access to technology, and the possibility of further development without complete dependence on partners.

The political dimension of the deal has also drawn sharp criticism. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, during a visit to Serbia in March 2026, described Serbia as “one of Israel’s strongest and most determined allies, without any shame.”

Serbian civil society organizations have raised concerns that by hosting an Elbit production facility, Serbia could become a legitimate military target in any future conflict involving the Israeli regime.

Unlike Croatia, which has secured its position through NATO and EU membership, Serbia remains outside both alliances, lacking the protective umbrella that would deter potential retaliation.

The Serbian people are widely critical of their authorities, with many claiming that officials are reaping lucrative commissions from such controversial agreements.

The fact that the factory may be located on property associated with a media mogul closely tied to the ruling party has only intensified suspicions about corruption and self-dealing.

While Vučić has portrayed the deal as a triumph of Serbian diplomacy and technological advancement, critics see it as a risky alignment with a pariah regime that could expose Serbia to diplomatic isolation or worse.

April 25, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Israel moved Hermes 900 drone production to Serbia to hide from Iranian missiles

EU economic sanctions ramp up NATO war plan on Russia

Strategic Culture Foundation | April 24, 2026

The European Union announced its 20th round of economic sanctions against Russia this week. The bloc of 27 nations began imposing sanctions on Moscow when the conflict in Ukraine erupted in February 2022. Every six months, the EU has been extending these economic measures, which Brussels claims is support for Ukraine to “deter Russian aggression.”

The 20th round of sanctions unveiled this week attempts to go much further in inflicting damage on the Russian economy. It was flagged as the biggeset package yet and a “multi-layered targeting of key sectors” of the Russian economy, primarily its energy industry.

It is tempting to dismiss the EU sanctions policy as feeble and a form of insanity. The bloc keeps repeating an action expecting a different result each time, when the record shows that the action of sanctions is having little detrimental impact on Russia. If anything, it is the EU that has suffered an economic downturn as it unilaterally cut itself off from Russian oil and gas, the traditional source of affordable energy feedstock for European industries. Russia’s economy has not crashed as was anticipated when the sanctions were first imposed more than four years ago. In fact, the Russian Federation has maintained a robust economic performance as it finds alternative markets in Asia for its oil and gas products. The soaring price for a barrel of crude due to the reckless U.S.-Israeli aggression on Iran has given Russia a further boost.

However, it would be a mistake to simply brush off the EU sanctions as futile and self-defeating.

There is a more blatant and sinister aspect to the new round of sanctions. Brussels is nakedly showing its war agenda. The new measures aim to restrict all sectors of Russian energy production, including “exploration, extraction, refining and transportation.” The EU is endeavoring to tighten restrictions on “third countries” to prevent Russia from circumventing existing embargoes on shipping, port access and trade. Whether these new measures achieve their objective of “crippling the Russian economy” is debatable. But it is the belligerent intention – stated now with more determination – that is significant. The EU is brazenly laying out a plan to strangle Russia in conjunction with upping the military threat.

It is the accompanying developments that are ominous and which give full meaning to the economic measures.

This week the EU hailed that its €90 billion ($105 bn) loan to Ukraine had finally been approved. That financial aid was blocked by Hungary since December. But with the recent election loss for Viktor Orbán’s government, Budapest’s veto has been lifted under the new prime minister, Péter Magyar. EU leaders were ecstatic that the financial transfer to Ukraine can now go ahead.

Two-thirds of the EU loan – some €60 bn – is reportedly allocated for military aid. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said that the first tranche worth €45 bn will be transferred to Ukraine within weeks and that it would be used to increase the production of aerial combat drones. “Drones from Ukraine for Ukraine,” she said by way of trying to give the impression that the EU is not a party to the war.

An EU leaders’ two-day summit held in Cyprus on April 24-25 was reported with a celebratory mood. Von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa, along with the EU’s Foreign Affairs Commissioner, Kaja Kallas, were cock-a-hoop at the “breakthrough” of releasing the largest single financial package to Ukraine so far in combination with the new economic sanctions aimed at drilling down on Russia’s economic core. Attending the summit in Cyprus was Ukraine’s nominal president, Vladimir Zelensky, who reportedly joined the EU leaders for dinner to discuss new developments.

It gets even more sinister. The Kiev regime has been stepping up deep air strikes on Russian energy and other industrial infrastructure. There is no doubt the regime is being assisted with NATO expertise in finding such wide-ranging targets in Russia’s vast territory. This week, for example, a drone strike hit an industrial facility in Novokuybyshevsk in the central Samara region, nearly 900 kilometers southeast of Moscow and nearly 2,000 kms from the warzone in Donbass.

Clearly, the EU’s economic strikes are designed to reinforce the damage that NATO is trying to inflict with drones and missiles on Russia’s industrial base. These are not separate initiatives but an integral war strategy.

In announcing the latest round of sanctions Kaja Kallas could hardly contain her Russophobic glee. “Today we have broken the deadlock. On top of the €90-billion loan for Ukraine, we have adopted the 20th sanctions package,” she said.

Deceptively, the sanctions were billed as “increasing pressure on Russia to stop its brutal war of aggression and engage in meaningful negotiations towards a just and last peace.”

That’s a cynical con – a con that is betrayed by the EU’s own stated objective of “crippling” the Russian economy. How can one have a “just and lasting peace” by crippling a country?

The real purpose of the funds that EU citizens will have to pay through decades of indebtedness is to escalate NATO’s war in Ukraine against Russia. The economic sanctions are war measures aimed at maximising the impact of military attacks.

Other developments this week raise the stakes to even more sinister levels.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk discussed joint nuclear weapons “scenarios” in a bilateral summit in Gdansk. The French leader wants to share his country’s nuclear weapons capabilities with other European countries. It is reported that French and Polish warplanes will begin joint exercises on flying nuclear weapons in the Baltic region. This is evidently meant as a threat to Russia. It amounts to Paris and Warsaw carrying out training exerises for nuclear strikes on Russia.

In yet another provocative development, it is reported that Britain is leading a NATO Joint Expeditionary Force to formulate a naval plan to blockade the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad located between Poland and Lithuania. Kaliningrad provides Russia with vital port access to the Baltic Sea.

The European NATO leaders are concerned that U.S. President Donald Trump has lost interest in the “Ukraine project” against Russia owing to his reckless war with Iran. That is why they are ramping up the war effort against Russia while telling barefaced lies about wanting to achieve “lasting peace.”

So far, the EU’s economic sanctions against Russia have been an abject failure. But the failure of economic measures is no longer the point. It is what they reveal about an intensifying NATO war plan against Russia.

Moscow has repeatedly called for a negotiated end to the conflict while the EU and NATO accuse Russian leader Vladimir Putin of “not wanting peace.”

People can make their own minds up about who the aggressors are. NATO is at war with Russia and is not interested in negotiations. Criminally, the NATO aggressors are creating a boiling frog situation for Russia. The European russophobic leaders seem to want war at any cost.

April 25, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , , | Comments Off on EU economic sanctions ramp up NATO war plan on Russia

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