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Europeans oppose Brussels’ Russian energy ban, survey finds

By Thomas Brooke | Remix News | January 30, 2026

A proposed European Union ban on Russian oil and gas faces broad public opposition across the bloc and mounting legal resistance from member states, according to new survey data.

Research published by Hungary’s Századvég Foundation indicates that a relative majority of EU citizens oppose a full embargo on Russian energy imports. Across the European Union, 45 percent of respondents said they were against a complete ban, while support failed to reach a majority in most member states. In two-thirds of EU countries surveyed, at least a relative majority rejected the proposal. Only Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia recorded absolute majority support.

Opposition was strongest in Central and Southern Europe. In Slovenia, 68 percent of respondents opposed the embargo, followed by Greece at 65 percent. In Cyprus, Bulgaria, and Hungary, 62 percent of respondents rejected the measure, according to the survey.

Despite this, the European Commission has moved ahead with a regulation under its REPowerEU framework that would prohibit new contracts for Russian fossil fuels and impose a complete phase-out by 2027. The regulation was advanced using qualified majority voting, overcoming government opposition from Hungary and Slovakia.

Critics argue that the Commission’s approach raises serious legal and constitutional questions. While the policy would have the effect of a sanction, opponents say it has been presented as a trade measure, allowing it to bypass the requirement for unanimous approval by all member states.

Energy policy and decisions on national energy mixes fall under member state competence under EU treaties, a point repeatedly emphasized by Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, who announced on Monday that Budapest would seek to have the regulation annulled.

“Hungary will take legal action before the Court of Justice of the European Union as soon as the decision on REPowerEU is officially published. We will use every legal means to have it annulled,” he said.

“The REPowerEU plan is based on a legal trick, presenting a sanctions measure as a trade policy decision in order to avoid unanimity,” Szijjártó added. “This goes completely against the EU’s own rules. The Treaties are clear: decisions on the energy mix are a national competence.”

The Hungarian government has also warned of significant economic consequences if Russian supplies are cut off. Analysts cited by officials estimate that household utility costs could rise to three-and-a-half times current levels, while fuel prices could exceed 1,000 forints (€2.62) per liter.

Slovakia has announced it will join Hungary’s legal challenge. Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar said Bratislava could not accept solutions that fail to reflect the “real possibilities and specificities” of individual member states, according to comments cited by TASR.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico went further in his criticism, describing the Commission’s plan as “energy suicide” and predicting that “when the military conflict ends, everyone will be breaking their legs, rushing to go to Russia to do business.”

January 30, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Russian oil major agrees sale of foreign assets to US firm

RT | January 29, 2026

Russian oil major Lukoil has said it has agreed to sell most of its international assets to American private equity giant Carlyle Group. The US has targeted Russia’s second-biggest oil producer with sanctions, forcing it to divest its overseas holdings worth $22 billion.

Washington has imposed broad sanctions on the Russian oil sector since the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022. Along with oil majors, including Rosneft, Gazprom Neft, Surgutneftegas, and their subsidiaries, the US has banned American firms from deals with Russian oil companies, joined the G7 price cap on Russian energy, and imposed restrictions on more than 180 oil tankers and ships.

Moscow has argued that the sanctions show that the West is scrambling to maintain dominance and is resorting to anti-democratic and anti-market practices to eliminate competition.

Lukoil said on Thursday that the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals, including clearance from the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The company did not disclose the financial terms, but stressed it is continuing talks with other potential buyers. It noted that the deal doesn’t include its assets in Kazakhstan.

Last month, Reuters cited sources as saying that around ten global investors, including Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Carlyle, and Saudi Arabia’s Midad Energy, were interested in buying Lukoil’s assets.

A previous offer from Swiss-based trader Gunvor Group reportedly collapsed in November after the US Treasury accused the firm of having ties with Moscow. Gunvor, headquartered in Geneva, was co-founded in 2000 by Swedish businessman Torbjorn Tornqvist and Russian entrepreneur Gennady Timchenko. Timchenko sold his stake in 2014, when Washington targeted him with personal sanctions.

Founded in Washington in 1987, Carlyle Group currently manages around $474 billion in assets. The company has long-standing business ties to US President Donald Trump. In 2005, the firm took part in a $1.8 billion deal to acquire land and three buildings from Trump in Manhattan. In December, The Atlantic reported that Trump and Carlyle co-founder and billionaire David Rubenstein “regarded each other as friends.”

January 29, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

European Union Sanctions Russian Journalists and Artists

teleSUR | January 29, 2026

On Thursday, the European Union adopted sanctions against six Russian citizens working in journalism, acting or dance, arguing that they contributed to amplifying “Russian propaganda” about the special military operation in Ukraine.

The new restrictive measures for what the EU described as Russia’s “destabilizing activities” were approved at a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

Those sanctioned include Ekaterina Andreeva, a news anchor for Russian state television, and Dmitry Guberniev, a television host and adviser to the director of the Rossiya television channel and to the Russian Federation’s sports minister.

Also sanctioned were Maria Sittel, another Russian state television presenter, and Pavel Zarubin, who has what the EU described as “exclusive access” to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s agenda.

Finally, the list includes Roman Chumakov, a Russian actor and singer, and Sergey Polunin, a Russian ballet star born in Ukraine and former rector of the Sevastopol Academy of Choreography.

Individuals and entities targeted by the restrictive measures are subject to an asset freeze and will be barred from entering or transiting through European Union territory.

Separately, EU foreign ministers on Thursday continued preparations for a 20th package of sanctions against Moscow since the start of the Ukrainian war, with the aim of having it ready in February, when the war will enter its fourth year.

The 20th package — for which the European Commission still must present a proposal — will include additional measures aimed at hitting the Russian economy, including provisions targeting the so-called “Shadow Fleet” that helps Moscow circumvent restrictions on its oil exports, as well as other economic actors.

The debate over the shadow fleet is not limited to which additional vessels should be added to the blacklist, but also to how to address the phenomenon in a much broader way.

In particular, officials are examining how to use national rules and regulations on boarding ships and contacts with the countries under whose flags the vessels are registered.

January 29, 2026 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Austrian lawmakers propose to revoke citizenship of former foreign minister

By Lucas Leiroz | January 29, 2026

Anti-Russian persecution in Europe continues to grow significantly, affecting even public figures and state officials. Recently, Austrian politicians proposed in parliament that the country’s former foreign minister, Karin Kneissl, have her citizenship revoked due to alleged “ties” with Russia. This only shows how no one in Europe is truly immune to the current Russophobic wave.

The proposal was made by the Liberal Forum and New Austria (NEOS) parties. Both organizations accuse Kneissl of damaging her country’s international image due to her activities in the Russian media and academic community. Apparently, any kind of collaboration with Moscow is considered a crime in Europe and is sufficient argument to legitimize the revocation of a European citizenship.

In fact, the former minister’s “ties” to Russia are not at all obscure, but public and transparent. Kneissl is known worldwide for her critical stance towards the EU and for having chosen to live in Russia, having moved to the country in 2023. In Moscow, Kneissl participates in academic projects with local think tanks and frequently appears on Russian state television giving opinions as an expert – which is natural, considering her political experience and analytical capacity as an insider in the European institutional scenario.

For Austrian politicians, Kneissl’s attitude of simply living a normal life in Russia as a political analyst and TV commentator is unacceptable. The head of the NEOS parliamentary group, Yannick Shetty, accused Kneissl of spreading negative opinions about Austria abroad, portraying her own country as a “hell” supposedly at the direct behest of Russian President Vladimir Putin. As expected, no evidence of such allegations was presented.

“In [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s service… at the Russian Economic Institute or as a columnist on RT, a channel banned in Austria, Kneissl is symbolically spreading only one message: Austria is the antechamber to hell, Putin’s Russia is the Garden of Eden. Anyone who believes that these appearances are voluntary and done out of pure altruism also believes in Father Frost,” Shetty said.

Austrian citizenship law does allow citizens to lose their citizenship if they “significantly damage the interests or reputation of the Republic.” In theory, Kneissl should not be affected by this rule, considering that she does not attempt to attack the interests or reputation of her own state, but only criticizes the foreign policy of automatic alignment with the EU – which violates even Austria’s own classic principles of neutrality and peace. Unfortunately, many politicians are willing to use the law against the former minister, interpreting her actions as an anti-Austrian attitude instead of a constructive and respectable critique of the country’s administration.

What is being done against Kneissl is in fact a serious violation of European historical values. Freedom of expression and opinion no longer seem to be on the agenda of Austria or the EU. Considering the Austrian state’s historical commitment to neutrality and peace, the violation becomes even more particularly serious. This shows how there are no longer any limits to European Russophobia. In practice, any European citizen who wants to live and work in Russia is subject to the same threats that Kneissl is now suffering.

This type of authoritarian and oppressive practice has the sole objective of spreading fear and preventing other politicians and state officials from making the same decision as Kneissl to openly criticize the EU and its irrational foreign policy of sanctions against Russia. European bureaucrats and their liberal supporters know that EU measures are unpopular, and that criticism of the bloc tends to spread easily in public opinion. Therefore, fearing a crisis of legitimacy, European governments react simply by banning any form of dissenting opinion – severely punishing anyone who thinks independently, even respected public figures.

It is not yet certain that Kneissl will actually lose her citizenship. The legal process for loss of citizenship is long and complex. The accusing parties will have to present evidence that Kneissl is indeed plotting against the interests of the country. However, considering the high level of corruption, liberal ideological fanaticism, and Russophobia within the judicial system of European countries, it is possible that she will indeed lose her citizenship. As a result, she will have no alternative but to simply continue living in Russia, no longer by personal choice, but as a political asylee, since her own country is persecuting her.

This is the natural tendency for all Europeans who dare to think differently from the Russophobic madness of the EU: to emigrate and seek asylum in Russia or anywhere else where freedom of expression is still respected.

Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.

You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.

January 29, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

More Bombs, More Talks Zelensky Rejects Trump’s Plan

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive

Prof Glenn Diesen & Lt Col Daniel Davis

January 29, 2026 Posted by | Russophobia, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

AfD co-leader states the obvious: Pouring money into the Ukraine war is killing the German economy

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | January 28, 2026

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD (Alternative for Germany) party, has given a speech to which every observer of Germany should pay close attention. And not simply because of Weidel’s inherent political weight.

She is among the country’s most important politicians and with serious prospects for very high office: if her New-Right party breaks through to leading a Berlin government, Weidel is the most likely chancellor. Next to her co-chairman Tino Chrupalla, she is the only real opposition that matters inside the current German parliament.

What makes this particular Weidel speech, delivered in the city of Heilbronn while campaigning in state elections in the classically ‘West German’ Land of Baden-Württemberg, especially noteworthy is its unprecedently outspoken, bracingly combative, and, stirringly logical and honest take on one specific topic, namely Germany’s masochistic relationship to Ukraine.

Not that there were no other topics. Indeed, Weidel started what was a gleefully pugnacious ‘Rundumschlag’ (German for onslaught) where you would expect, the absolutely dismal state of Germany’s once proud and now relentlessly tanking national economy. She reminded her large audience that Germany’s industrial sector is bleeding jobs and companies; national insolvency statistics are a horror and won’t stop breaking abysmal records; and the traditional parties have nothing to offer but same-old-same-old.

And yet, as most right-wing politicians – whether traditional or insurgent – former business consultant Weidel is not at all original with her own suggestions either. She complains that producing things in Germany is so expensive that the country’s economy as a whole has been losing international competitiveness. True enough.

But things get more debatable when Weidel starts explaining the causes of the national malaise. Costs that are too high include, in her view, taxes in general, payroll taxes, and social security payments. This is a classical conservative position: if anything is wrong with capitalism, it’s that those at the bottom of the income and power pyramid still have it too good. Cut the state down and rely on the market’s miraculous powers – pretty much the essence of Weidel’s extremely tired recipe for the future.

In that respect, Weidel’s talk had nothing to offer that isn’t already generously supplied by the grindingly repetitive rhetoric of the current centrist Berlin government under mainstream conservative and sour-schoolmaster-in-chief Friedrich Merz. In essence, ‘shut up, work harder, ask for less. (At least if you aren’t rich like me and my chums).’

With so little of that sounding like a genuine alternative from the ‘Alternative for Germany,’ can the AfD really succeed in breaking the traditional parties’ stranglehold by winning another – at least – ten or so percent of the national electorate? In a country where even the government admits that 17.6 percent of its citizens must get by without “important goods and social activities due to poverty.” In a society where 2.2 million children are officially categorized as at risk of or in poverty? Where income inequality has been growing ever worse, with Germany’s five wealthiest families now boasting combined fortunes of €250 billion, which is more than the poorer half of Germans – over 40 million people –combined? Where, finally, working hard is not even a halfway reliable way to achieve success? More than half of private fortunes are now inherited or gifted (usually to circumvent inheritance taxes, low as they are) and that share rises to between 75-80% among the rich.

Weidel’s criticism of Berlin’s – and the EU’s – current economic suicide non-strategy is often refreshingly on point, but it’s also the very easy part. Yet cosplaying as yet another ‘iron lady,’ promising more blood, sweat, and tears for those who are already getting plenty of all that, may well get the AfD stuck where it is now at less than 30% in Germany as a whole, weaker in the West and doing better only in the East. Weidel and her solidly neoliberal wing in the AfD would do well not to be too sure of themselves yet.

For, if the party does get stuck electorally instead of continuing its surge, then the AfD will not be able to fracture the traditional parties’ undemocratic and, arguably, effectively unconstitutional ‘firewall’ policy of exclusion. Studiously supported by Germany’s propagandistic and conformist mainstream media, in reality the ‘firewall’ is a scandal, since it massively discriminates against more than a fifth of Germany’s voters (and more in the East) who are, in effect, partially disenfranchised. Yet ending that scandal will take electoral success beyond anything the AfD has yet achieved. That’s simply a cold hard fact. Weidel’s rigid capitalist dogmatism could be a dead-end, making the AfD, despite all its current surging, a might-have-been story. We’ll see.

Yet, to her credit, Weidel added a crucial point to her diagnosis of the German economy’s dramatic downfall. A point that almost no other German top politician – at least outside the New-Left BSW, which has been electorally kneecapped, most likely by foul means – has the guts to be honest about in public: The main cause of Germany’s ongoing crash, according to Weidel, are “exploding energy costs,” and that explosion is “homemade,” a result of catastrophically self-harming policies by the traditional parties.

While many of these policies of self-strangulation have been driven by an ideologically motivated exit from nuclear energy and misguided – as well as ineffective – attempts to mitigate global warming, one factor stands out because it is a matter of life and death in a straightforward manner, namely the Ukraine war. That is, in reality, the barely indirect war between Russia and the West (including Germany) via Ukraine.

It is a direct consequence not of the war but of the position toward it taken by at least two successive governments in Berlin (first under the hapless Olaf “the Grinner” Scholz, now under Friedrich “the Scolder” Merz) that Germany’s energy has become ever more backbreakingly expensive.

Even official German agencies and mainstream media have not been able to conceal this basic fact. According to the government statistics office, as of early 2023, the industry price for natural gas was 50.7% higher than before the escalation of February 2022; for electrical power – 27.3%, and for petroleum derivatives – 12.6%. In February 2025, German households were paying a whopping 31% more for energy than in 2021 (according to the mega-mainstream RND). One month later, the respectable Handelsblatt called the “price leap” since the pre-2022, “immense” and reported that gas prices for private households had increased by almost 80% in a little over one year. Let that sink in. And where private citizens’ budgets are squeezed like that, the whole economy badly suffers as well, of course.

And just now, the EU has confirmed it will cut itself off from even the last remnants of Russian gas supplies by 2027. Good luck!

Weidel addressed both the insanity of German policy toward this war and the single most emblematic symbol of that madness, the destruction of most of the Nord Stream pipelines and Berlin’s perfectly perverse response to it.

Weidel rightly noted that the AfD’s long-standing – and plausible – arguments in favor of pursuing peace with Russia in earnest have long been met with the usual witch-hunting smears. That is, the type of neo-McCarthyite suppression which all such displays of dispassionate reason in search of an end to the “nonsensical dying” (Weidel) have been receiving from the “politico-media complex” in war-besotted NATO-EU Europe. Weidel was merciless, too, in skewering the persistent sabotage of any peace prospects by (at least) two German governments and their co-bellicists in the EU and most of Europe. All pretty obvious? Yes. Among the reasonable. But not in the German mainstream media and elite.

And then there was the passage that really rocked the hall: “This government [in Berlin] doesn’t utter a squeak” when Ukrainians, helped by other special services (which Weidel cautiously refrained from naming), blow up German energy infrastructure “in our face.” Genuinely irate, Weidel asked how a German government could keep quiet in such a situation. For “the lost delivery of inexpensive gas,” she continued, “harms not only Germany but all of Europe, [and] Germany the most.”  Nice one. So much then for the domestic non-credibility of the Scholz and Merz governments, and for Merz’s aspirations to play a leading role in Europe.

And yes, the Nord Stream scandal marks not merely a political and economic catastrophe. It’s worse than that, because it also stands for a shameful display of submissiveness: “How can a government have so little self-respect,” Weidel asked, that it won’t even genuinely seek to solve such a blatant case of, in effect, massive economic sabotage? That indeed is the question. Even a German very far left of Weidel, such as me, can only agree here. It takes a fundamental lack of elementary patriotism and decency not to share her exasperation.

If the ultra-corruptioneers in Kiev were listening, things got even worse: Weidel was explicit that a country attacking Germany in this manner is not a friend. Obvious? Yes, but not in Germany. Not yet. And she declared her party’s intention to make Ukraine – and Zelensky personally – pay if the AfD gets into power in Berlin. Not only for the enormous damage done by Ukraine’s cowardly Nord Stream terror attack, but also for the dozens of billions preceding German governments have pumped into one of the most corrupt regimes in the world. All power to her arm on that one as well.

Intriguingly, that was a moment when the audience reacted with much applause, as usual, but also loud booing. Clearly, not everyone had caught up to reality when it comes to Germany and its perversely self-damaging relationship to Ukraine. But Weidel is right when she also declared that Germany should have stayed neutral instead of joining the Great Western Proxy Crusade against Russia with gusto. Berlin could have served as an ‘honest broker,’ to the benefit of everyone, not only Germans but also millions of ordinary Ukrainians.

Whatever you think about the specific mix of stale market-dogmatic Thatcherism, undue deference to Donald Trump, and refreshing no-bullshit honesty on foreign policy and national interest with regard to Ukraine and the Ukraine war that Weidel had to offer, there can be no doubt that this was a breakthrough moment. It was the first time a major German party with potentially very good electoral prospects has come out and clearly stated the obvious – Germany was attacked by Ukraine (and quite a few other ‘friends’ as well from Warsaw to London and Washington, even if Weidel skirted that part of the issue), not by Russia.

Therefore, for Germany and Germans, Ukraine is anything but a friendly state, and it is absurd – to put it very mildly – that German governments have ruined the relationship with Russia and the German economy as well, while pumping Kiev full of money and arms. This is an immense national scandal, as clearly as 2 plus 2 is 4. And like that simple fact, it’s always true, no matter who has the courage to say it.

Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.

January 28, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

EU member to sue bloc over ‘suicidal’ ban on Russian gas

RT | January 27, 2026

Slovakia will sue the EU over the bloc’s decision to entirely ban the import of Russian gas by late 2027, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Tuesday. He branded Brussels’ move “energy suicide.”

A day earlier, the member nations voted to give their final approval to the REPowerEU regulation, as part of an effort to gradually phase out imports of natural gas from Russia by November of next year.

“We will file a lawsuit against this regulation at the Court of Justice of the EU,” Fico said at a press conference, calling the looming ban the finalization of the bloc’s “energy suicide.”

“It is a solution that was adopted solely out of hatred towards the Russian Federation. I reject hatred as a trait that should determine international relations,” he added.

The EU vote was approved by a qualified majority to bypass the need for unanimous approval in a way that contravened the core treaties of the bloc. The commission knew that if unanimity was required, such nonsense could not pass.

Slovakia and Hungary will lodge separate lawsuits but coordinate their positions further, Fico said.

According to Budapest, the vote was specifically run in such a way as to bypass Hungary’s and Slovakia’s opposition on a matter that pertains to their national interests.

EU divided over phasing out Russian energy

“The REPowerEU plan is based on a legal trick, presenting a sanctions measure as a trade policy decision in order to avoid unanimity… The [EU] Treaties are clear: decisions on the energy mix are a national competence,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto wrote on X shortly after the vote.

EU moves to cut off Russian gas – who will pay the price?READ MORE: EU moves to cut off Russian gas – who will pay the price?
Both Hungary and Slovakia, which are heavily dependent on Russian energy supplies, have previously warned that they could sue if Brussels plows ahead with the REPowerEU plan.

Moscow has warned that the bloc is essentially giving up its freedom by banning all Russian gas imports.

“They did give up their freedom anyway,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Monday. “Time will tell” whether EU member nations will be “happy vassals or miserable slaves,” she said.

January 27, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Russophobia | , , | 1 Comment

Is China a threat to Greenland?

By Pei Si | Global Times | January 22, 2026

Since the beginning of 2026, the US has repeatedly claimed that it must take control of Greenland to prevent threats from China and Russia, alleging that there are Chinese and Russian vessels “all over the place” outside of Greenland. What is the reality? What is China’s actual presence in Greenland? And does China pose any threat to Greenland at all?

Based on information from various sources, China currently has no official institutions in Greenland, no investment projects, and no resident companies. There are only some 30 Chinese workers working at Greenlandic seafood companies. Cooperation between China and Greenland is largely confined to trade, particularly in aquatic products. In 2025, bilateral trade between China and Greenland reached $429 million, of which Greenland’s exports to China amounted to $420 million, mainly Arctic shrimp, halibut, cod, lobster and other seafood. Greenland’s imports from China totaled $9 million, consisting largely of daily consumer goods.

Nor are there many Chinese tourists visiting Greenland. Although the island boasts stunning natural scenery, it is not easy to reach it from China and remains a niche destination for Chinese travelers. In 2024, only about 3,500 Chinese tourists visited Greenland.

Claims that there are Chinese vessels all over the waters near Greenland, or that Greenland faces a so-called “China threat,” are even more groundless. On January 16, Soren Andersen, Major General of Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command in Greenland, dismissed such claims in an interview, stating clearly that “there were no Chinese or Russian ships near Greenland.” Vessel-tracking data from MarineTraffic and LSEG likewise show no Chinese ships’ presence near Greenland. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen has repeatedly clarified to the media that there is no “instant threat” from China. Rasmus Jarlov, the chair of Denmark’s parliamentary defense committee, put it even more bluntly: The claim of “a big threat from China and Russia against Greenland” is delusional.

Whether in terms of facts or policy, China does not pose a threat to Greenland. In fact, China has been subjected to unfair restrictions there. Rasmussen has openly acknowledged that the Danish government previously used administrative measures to veto the participation of Chinese companies in Greenland’s airport expansion and mining projects, and has already established an investment screening mechanism that will not allow Chinese investment in Greenland in the future. Whether such sacrifices of China can buy a US “hands-off” is highly doubtful – and hardly worthy of respect.

Anyone can see that the current tensions in the Arctic stem primarily from the actions of a certain country advancing claims that violate international law and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. By contrast, China made it explicit in its 2018 white paper China’s Arctic Policy that “all states should abide by international treaties such as the UN Charter and the UNCLOS, as well as general international law. They should respect the sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction enjoyed by the Arctic States in this region, respect the tradition and culture of the indigenous peoples.”

On January 12, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning further stressed at a regular press briefing: “The Arctic bears on the common interests of the international community. China’s activities in the Arctic are aimed at promoting the peace, stability and sustainable development of the region. They are in line with the international law. Countries’ right and freedom to carry out activities in the Arctic in accordance with the law needs to be fully respected. The US should not use other countries as a pretext for seeking selfish gains.”

From China’s perspective, the future of the Arctic should not be a battleground for geopolitical rivalry, but a low-tension region for international cooperation on climate change and sustainable development. Claims that “China threatens Greenland” are simply too absurd to be worth refuting.

January 24, 2026 Posted by | Russophobia, Sinophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Europe is ‘run by German war troika’ – Orban

RT | January 20, 2026

The “German war troika” at the top of the EU is shaping the bloc’s bellicose policy, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has alleged.

Speaking at a political rally in Budapest on Monday, he identified the three “pro-war Germans” as European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the leader of the EU Parliament’s largest party, EPP, Manfred Weber.

“The fact is that Europe is controlled by a German war troika… These three people are the ones who shape Europe’s war policy today,” Orban said.

He cited the latest EU €90 billion ($106 billion) loan package to Kiev, arguing that the bloc was effectively financing the Ukraine conflict for another two years with money Brussels did not have. As Kiev will never be able to pay the money back, “our children and grandchildren will pay,” he added.

Western leaders are already openly discussing eventual troop deployments to Ukraine as so-called peacekeeping contingents, he said.

“Prior experience shows that European peacekeepers always tend to become warkeepers. That is why I do not recommend that Hungary send troops outside its own borders within any European peacekeeping framework.”

NATO troops in Ukraine under any pretext have long been an absolute red line for Russia, and initiatives to deploy them have been viewed in Moscow as undermining the US-brokered diplomatic efforts.

Russia has also pointed to an increase in warlike rhetoric from von der Leyen, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and the leaders of the UK, France and Germany.

“They are seriously preparing for war against the Russian Federation, and, in fact, are not even hiding it,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Moscow has long been focused on eliminating the core causes of the Ukraine conflict, which the West has been fueling for years in an effort to turn Kiev into a “threat to Russia’s security,” the top diplomat said.

January 20, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

How did the EU get hooked on American gas?

Pressure from Washington and compliance from Brussels has left the bloc at the mercy of the US

RT | January 20, 2026

The EU fears its long-term dependence on American liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports. Promised “molecules of freedom” by Washington, Europe now finds itself in a prison largely of its own design.

The EU has embraced a “potentially high-risk new geopolitical dependency” on American LNG, a new report by the Ohio-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) warned last week.

With the US set to supply up to 80% of the bloc’s LNG imports by 2030, a European diplomat told Politico that some officials in Brussels now see themselves completely at the mercy of the US, which could shut off the supply if, for example, the Europeans opposed an American annexation of Greenland.

How did we get here?

The EU imported 45% of its gas from Russia before the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022, with Russia the bloc’s largest foreign supplier since the end of the Cold War.

However, a revolution began in the US in 1998 that would end in the EU severing its decades-long energy links with Russia. Mitchell Energy, a Texas-based company, carried out the first successful natural gas extraction via slick-water fracturing. This milestone kicked off the US’ fracking boom, which turned the country into a net energy exporter.

US shale gas output soared from negligible volumes around the turn of the millennium to roughly 30 trillion cubic feet a year by the mid-2020s. Washington began to look abroad for new markets.

‘Molecules of freedom’ and the politics of coercion

The Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations have all lobbied Europe to switch from Russian gas to American LNG, with Donald Trump’s Department of Energy describing the American product as “molecules of freedom” in 2019. For two decades the Europeans were unreceptive: Russian gas, piped directly through Ukraine or via the Nord Stream 1 lines, was 30-50% cheaper than US LNG, which had to be converted to liquid, stored on container ships, and then regasified in special port facilities after crossing the Atlantic.

Barack Obama offered more favorable prices if the Europeans would make the switch, while Trump slapped sanctions on Nord Stream.

When Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine in 2022, the Americans finally got their opportunity to capture the European market for good. Europe’s Atlantacist leaders – among them EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz – eagerly went along with Joe Biden’s sanctions on Russian energy, and gas imports from Russia fell to 11% in 2024.

What does Nord Stream have to do with it?

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas lines presented a dilemma for the Biden administration: as long as they remained intact, the EU could – however unlikely – choose to cut support for Ukraine and negotiate a return to cheaper Russian gas.

Biden promised in early 2022 to “bring an end” to Nord Stream. “I promise you,” he told reporters at a White House press conference, “we will be able to do it.” The Nord Stream 1 and 2 lines were sabotaged in a series of explosions that September, and while there is no concrete proof of US culpability, American journalist Seymour Hersh maintains that Biden ordered the CIA to carry out the sabotage operation.

According to Hersh, Biden ordered the operation specifically to deny Germany the chance to back out of the proxy war in Ukraine.

Is there any way back to cheap gas?

Russian gas still reaches the EU via the TurkStream pipeline, as well as by ships from the Yamal LNG facility in Siberia. However, EU leaders intend to fully cut off all Russian fossil fuel imports by 2027.

The EU is currently the world’s largest importer of LNG, and more than half of its LNG terminals have come online or entered the planning or construction phases since 2022. The US now supplies 57% of the bloc’s LNG imports and 37% of its total gas imports, up from 28% and 6%, respectively, in 2021.

Even if the political will to change this situation existed, the EU is legally bound to deepen its dependence on the US. Under a trade deal signed by von der Leyen and Trump last July, the EU is required to purchase $750 billion worth of US energy by 2028. Essentially, Brussels cannot refuse what Washington is offering.

Russia maintains that it is a reliable energy supplier, and that the EU chose “economic suicide” in abandoning Russian gas.

How will the US use this leverage against the EU?

European leaders were seemingly content to trade away their energy security during the Biden years and to further bind themselves to the US under the Trump-von der Leyen trade deal. The risks of this approach became apparent last weekend, when Trump announced 10% tariffs on eight European nations for opposing his planned acquisition of Greenland.

Trump has warned that the levy will rise to 25% by June 1 if Denmark refuses to cede the territory. While the EU has threatened retaliatory tariffs, it is completely defenseless if Trump decides to cut gas exports as a punitive measure.

“Hopefully we’ll not get there,” an EU diplomat told Politico. However, hope is the only tool the Europeans have at the moment.

January 20, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Europe Economic Panic

By Lorenzo Maria Pacini | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 18, 2026

When a prime minister advises his staff to rest because the coming year will be much more difficult, it is neither black humor nor fatigue. It is a moment of sincerity, the kind that only emerges when internal projections no longer support the public narrative.

Giorgia Meloni was not addressing the electorate. She was addressing the machinery of the state itself, the administrative core charged with implementing decisions whose effects can no longer be hidden. Her observation was not about a normal increase in workload. She was talking about constraints, about limits being reached, about a Europe that has moved from crisis response to a phase of controlled contraction, fully aware that 2026 is the year when deferred costs will eventually converge.

What has leaked out is what European ruling circles have already understood: the Western strategy in Ukraine has run up against material limits. Not with Russian messages, not with disinformation, not with populist dissent, but with steel, ammunition, energy, manpower, and time. Once these realities assert themselves, political legitimacy begins to erode.

The EU cannot sustain this war economically. Europe can strike poses of readiness. It cannot manufacture war.

After years of high-intensity conflict, both the US and Europe are rediscovering a long-forgotten truth: wars of this nature cannot be sustained with speeches, sanctions, or the abandonment of diplomacy. They require bullets, missiles, trained personnel, maintenance cycles, and industrial production that consistently exceeds battlefield losses. None of this exists, not in sufficient quantities, and it is not feasible in the timeframe preached in Brussels.

Russia is producing artillery ammunition in quantities that Western officials now openly admit exceed NATO’s total production. Its industrial base has shifted to near-continuous wartime production, with centralized procurement, streamlined logistics, and state-led manufacturing, without even total mobilization. Estimates place Russian production at several million artillery shells per year, already delivered, not just projected.

Europe, meanwhile, spent 2025 congratulating itself on targets it is structurally incapable of achieving. The EU’s stated commitment of two million shells per year depends on facilities, contracts, and labor that will not be available by the decisive period of the war, if ever. Even if achieved, the figure would still be less than Russian production. The US, despite emergency expansion, expects about one million shells per year once full ramp-up is complete, and only if that happens. Even on paper, combined Western production struggles to match what Russia is already producing in practice. The imbalance is clear.

This is not just a deficit, but a misalignment of timing. Russia is producing now. Europe is planning for the future. And time is the only factor immune to sanctions.

Washington, in fact, cannot indefinitely compensate for Europe’s eroded capacity because it faces its own industrial difficulties. Patriot interceptor production remains in the order of a few hundred per year, while demand simultaneously concerns Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and the replenishment of US stocks: an imbalance that, as Pentagon officials admit, cannot be resolved quickly. Shipbuilding tells a similar story: submarines and surface ships are years behind schedule due to labor shortages, aging infrastructure, and skyrocketing costs, pushing significant expansion toward 2030. The assumption that America can indefinitely support Europe is no longer in line with reality. This is a systemic Western problem.

Unfounded war rhetoric

European leaders talk about a “state of war” as if it were a rhetorical position, but in reality, it is an industrial condition that Europe does not meet.

New artillery lines take years to reach stable production. Air defense interceptors are produced in long, batch-based cycles, not in sudden spikes. Even basic components such as explosives remain a critical issue, with plants that closed decades ago only now reopening and some not expected to reach full capacity until the late 2020s. This timeline is in itself an admission.

Europe’s weakness is not intellectual, but institutional: huge sums have been authorized, but procurement inertia, fragmented contracts, and a depleted supplier base have meant that deliveries are years behind schedule. France, often described as Europe’s most capable arms manufacturer, is capable of building advanced systems, but only in limited quantities, counted in dozens, while a war of attrition requires thousands. EU ammunition initiatives have expanded capacity on paper, while the front has exhausted ammunition in a matter of weeks.

These are not ideological shortcomings, but administrative and industrial failures, which are exacerbated in stressful situations. It is yet another example of the failure of European Community policy, so much so that the structural contrast is stark. Western industry has been optimized for shareholder returns and peacetime efficiency, while Russian industry has been reoriented to withstand pressure. NATO announces aid packages. Russia counts deliveries. You can already guess what the outcome of this situation will be, right?

This industrial reality explains why the debate on asset freezing was so important and why it failed. Europe did not pursue the seizure of Russian sovereign assets out of legal ingenuity or moral determination, but because it needed time: time to avoid admitting that the war was unsustainable in Western industrial terms, time to replace production with financial maneuvers.

When the effort to confiscate some €210 billion in Russian assets failed on December 20, blocked by legal risks, market repercussions, and opposition led by Belgium, with Italy, Malta, Slovakia, and Hungary opposing total confiscation, the Brussels technocracy settled for a reduced alternative: a €90 billion loan to Ukraine for 2026-27, with interest payments of around €3 billion per year. This further mortgages Europe’s future. This is not a strategy, but emergency triage. A collapsing political hospital. Pure panic.

Narrative, crisis, disaster

The deeper reality is that Ukraine is no longer primarily a military dilemma, it is a question of solvency. Washington recognizes this, because it cannot absorb the reputational discomfort, but they cannot take on unlimited responsibility forever. A way out is being explored, discreetly, inconsistently, and shrouded in rhetorical cover.

Europe cannot admit the same necessity, because it has ultimately adopted ‘Putin’s version’, i.e. it has framed the war as existential, civilising, moral – but do you remember when European politicians enjoyed calling Putin crazy for talking about a clash of civilisations?

Compromise has become appeasement, negotiation surrender. In doing so, Europe has eliminated its own escape routes. Well done, ladies and gentlemen!

On the narrative front, greetings to all. The aggressive enforcement of the EU’s Digital Services Act has less to do with security than with containment: building an information perimeter around a consensus that cannot survive open scrutiny. Translated: censorship as a solution. The truth of the matter must not be made known, and those who try to do so must be suppressed in an exemplary manner. This also explains why regulatory pressure now extends beyond European borders, generating transatlantic friction over freedom of expression and jurisdiction. Confident systems welcome debate. Fragile ones suppress it. In this case, censorship is not ideology, but a form of insurance.

The information crisis, rest assured, will very soon become… a social crisis ready to detonate into domestic conflict.

And the crisis is also one of resources and energy. We are witnessing the securitization of decline, whereby obligations are postponed while the productive base needed to sustain them continues to shrink. It’s a cat chasing its tail. Here too, you know how it will end, don’t you?

Europe has not only sanctioned Russia. It has sanctioned itself. European industry will continue to pay energy prices well above those of its competitors in the United States or Russia throughout 2026. Take a trip around Europe, read the headlines in local newspapers, look at people’s faces: the fabric of small and medium-sized enterprises, the true beating heart of entire EU countries, is quietly disappearing. And this is logically reflected in large companies too. This is why Europe cannot increase its production of ammunition and why rearmament remains an aspiration rather than a concrete operation.

Energy, we said. Low-cost energy was not a convenience, it was essential. If it is eliminated through self-inflicted damage, the entire structure is emptied. Even the most ambitious plans preached for years, such as the IMEC corridor, are still a mirage. There is a stampede towards Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia to try to scrape together a few kilowatts. A ridiculous attempt to save what is now tragically unsalvageable.

China, observing all this, represents the other half of Europe’s strategic nightmare. It controls the world’s deepest manufacturing base without having entered into a position of war. Russia does not need China’s full capacity, only its strategic depth in reserve. Europe has neither.

A frightening 2026

2026 therefore looks set to be a terrible year, I’m sorry to say. The European elites find themselves losing control on three fronts at once. On finance, because the budget will be bitter and the money for the insane support to Kiev will no longer be the same. On narrative, because the question citizens will ask themselves will be ‘what was the point of all this?’. On the cohesion of the Alliance, both NATO and the EU, because Washington’s disengagement will force a review of the balance of power on the European continent to the point of no return and, perhaps, a break between the two sides divided by the ocean.

Panic, again. Not a sudden defeat, but the slow erosion of legitimacy as reality creeps in through gas that costs as much as gold, closed plants, empty stockpiles, obsolete rifles, and a future that is turning away.

This is not just a difficult situation for Europe, but a matter of civilization. A system incapable of producing, supplying, speaking honestly, or retreating without collapsing in credibility has reached its limit. When leaders begin to prepare their institutions for worse years, they are not anticipating inconveniences, but recognizing structural failure.

Empires proclaim victory loudly. Declining systems quietly lower expectations or, in this case, momentarily say the quiet part out loud. But the truth is that nothing is the same as before, and it is obvious.

For most Europeans, the reckoning will not come as an abstract debate about strategy or supply chains, but as a simple realization: this was never a war they consented to. It did not defend their homes, their prosperity, or their future. And so, again, how do you think it will end?

An ideological war has been fought in the name of imperial ambition and financed through declining living standards, industrial decline, and the prospects of their children. In the name of big pro-European capital, of the privileged few with robes, stars, and crowns.

For months, even years, it was said that “there was no alternative” and that this was the only course of action. And now?

Europeans are tired. They want peace, stability, and the quiet dignity of prosperity: affordable energy, a functioning industry, and a future unencumbered by conflicts they NEVER chose and, above all, they do not want the decline of millennia-old civilizations.

And when this awareness has taken hold, when the fear has faded and the spell has been broken, the question Europeans will ask themselves will not be technical or ideological. It will be existential. And all existential questions lead to radical choices, even terrible ones.

May this dramatic fear keep the mad leaders of this Europe awake at night.

January 18, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | | 1 Comment

Why are EU leaders suddenly being nice to Russia?

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | January 16, 2026

Sometimes a surprising statement made almost in passing on a minor occasion can pack a lot of political oomph. And sometimes, it’s just a slip and won’t tell you much about either the present or the future. But how do you know?

That is the challenge posed by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s recent – and very unusual – talk about a “compromise”  (“Ausgleich” in German) with Russia, which, he also stressed, is “a European country,” indeed “our greatest European neighbor.”

Outside the context of current Western and, in particular, German and EU politics, such a statement may seem almost commonplace. Obviously, it would make sense for Berlin – and Brussels, too – to work toward a peaceful, productive, mutually beneficial relationship with Moscow. Equally obviously, this is not merely an option but, in reality, a vital necessity (as Merz may have been hinting at when emphasizing that Russia is Germany’s greatest European neighbor: Greatest as in indispensable?).

Yet once you add the actual context of escalating German and EU policies toward Russia since 2014 at the very latest, Merz’s sudden insight into the obvious appears almost sensational. For over a decade, German and EU policy toward Moscow has been based on three simple – and self-damagingly insane – ideas: First, Russia is our enemy by default and “forever” (see the refreshingly frank admission by German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul). Second, using Ukraine (and a lot of Ukrainians), we can defeat that enemy with a combination of economic and diplomatic warfare and a very bloody proxy war on the ground. Finally, there is no alternative: it is VERBOTEN to even think about genuine give-and-take negotiations and any compromise that would also be good enough for Moscow.

Merz, moreover, has no record as a doubter of these moronic dogmas. On the contrary, he has been a consistent uber-hawk, combining the requisite constant Russophobic undertone with a long series of hardline initiatives and positions. Just a few months ago, for instance, Merz fought tooth and nail for confiscating Russian sovereign assets frozen in the EU. That he lost that fight was due to resistance from Belgium – which would have been exposed to absurdly irrational risks by permitting that robbery – and France and Italy, whose leaders tripped up their hapless German “ally” at the last minute.

In a similar combination of public belligerence and final futility, Merz had long been a proponent of delivering advanced German Taurus cruise missiles – particularly well-suited for destroying things such as Russia’s Kerch Bridge – to Ukraine, before abandoning that awful idea. Ultimately and wisely, he shied away from involving Germany even more deeply in the proxy fight against Russia, most likely under the impression of very firm warnings from Moscow.

Just this month, the German chancellor declared he is ready to send German soldiers to secure a “ceasefire” in Ukraine. Yes, that would be that ceasefire that Moscow has ruled out as a dishonest half-measure. It is true that Merz hedged this announcement with conditions that make it irrelevant. But, nonetheless, it was not a contribution to de-escalation with Russia.

Yet here we are. Speaking not in Berlin, but the provincial metropolis of Halle in Eastern Germany, Merz used the occasion of a fairly humdrum meeting under the auspices of a regional IHK (Industrie und Handelskammer) meeting to speak about Germany’s relationship with Russia.

The IHK is a chamber of industry and commerce, an economic association of some weight. But it is not the parliament in Berlin or, for instance, even a foreign-policy information war outfit/think tank. Most of Merz’s remarks, unsurprisingly, concerned the German economy, which, he had to admit, is not in a good state, but, he promised, will be better soon. He also gave his word to fight and reduce bureaucracy, not only in Germany but the EU as well. That sort of stuff, nothing special, political potboiler.

But then, in the middle of the absolutely predictable and rather boring meeting, the chancellor suddenly extended a hand to Moscow. Or did he? Merz himself knows that his having anything to say about Russia that comes without foam at the mouth is extraordinary: he took care to assure his listeners that it was not the location “in the East” (that is, the former East Germany) that made him strike such a new tone regarding Russia.

His audience may or may not have been convinced by that all-too-quick denial. Halle is not only a major city in Germany’s East, but also, more specifically, the second-largest conurbation in the Land of Saxony-Anhalt. That is where, polls suggest, the new-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party may well win a crucial election in September, particularly by outdistancing Merz’s own mainstream conservatives (CDU). A similar scenario is possible in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, also in Germany’s East.

In both places, even a relative (not absolute) AfD majority, which seems certain at this point, would expose the traditional parties and especially the CDU to one of their worst nightmares: the end of the so-called “firewall,” that is, the harebrained and undemocratic policy of simply freezing the AfD out of the building of ruling coalitions. Merz personally has been an iron proponent of the “firewall.” Razing it, even regionally, will cost him his political career or force him into a brutal, humiliating 180-degree turn.

One important reason voters in Germany’s East are unhappy with the traditional parties is their policy of relentless, self-damaging confrontation toward Russia and equally relentless, really masochistic support for Zelensky’s regime in Ukraine. Just now, one of Germany’s highest courts has finally, in essence, recognized the fact that Ukraine was deeply involved in the worst vital-infrastructure attack in postwar German history, the destruction of most of the Nord Stream pipelines. Many Germans have had enough, not only but especially in Germany’s East.

That is why Merz knows that any apparent concessions to Moscow will meet healthy skepticism there. He also has a solid and well-deserved reputation for breaking his promises. His listeners in Halle may well have dismissed the new Merz sound as nothing but cheap pre-electoral manipulation.

And perhaps that is all it was. But there are good reasons to keep an open mind. For one thing, Merz has not been the only EU leader striking a more conciliatory note recently. As the Russian government has noted, similar statements have been made in France and Italy. The leaders of both countries, Emmanuel Macron and Georgia Meloni, have been no less bold than Merz in stating the obvious, namely – to summarize – that not even talking to Moscow is a daft policy.

It is not hard to see why EU politicians may be prepared to pursue diplomacy again. Their imperial overlord in Washington has made it clear that the Ukraine war will be their problem and theirs alone, while also displaying a brutality towards the world, including the clients/vassals in Europe, that is unusually open even by American standards.

After the tariff wars, the new US National Security Strategy, Venezuela, and the threats against Denmark over Greenland, could it be that, at very long last, some in Europe are slowly waking up to the fact that the worst threat to the sorry remains of their sovereignty, their economies, and also their traditional political elites is Washington, not Moscow? It would be very rash to assume so. But we can hope.

Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.

January 16, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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