Jailing of Euroskeptic Moldovan politician is ‘repression’ – EU lawmaker
RT | September 5, 2025
The seven-year prison term handed to Euroskeptic Moldovan politician Evgenia Gutsul is an attempt to “repress” the opposition in the country, French European Parliament member Thierry Mariani has said.
Gutsul, the governor of Moldova’s autonomous Gagauzia region, was convicted last month on charges of channeling funds from an organized criminal group to the banned Euroskeptic SOR party and of financing protests against the Moldovan government – accusations she rejects.
Mariani, a member of the French right-wing National Rally party, weighed in on the case in a post on X on Thursday, writing:
“After Romania, the Eurocratic judicial repression is falling on the opposition in Moldova. On the eve of her birthday, support for Evgenia Gutsul, governor of Gagauzia, unjustly sentenced to seven years in prison for having defended political pluralism in her country.”
Gutsul has consistently advocated closer ties with Russia, and has described the proceedings as a “political execution” carried out “on orders from above.” Her sentencing triggered protests outside the courthouse in Chisinau, where hundreds of supporters denounced what they said was political repression by Moldova’s pro-Western government.
Russia has also condemned the ruling. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the decision was “an example of blatant and unlawful pressure on political opponents” and accused Moldova of suppressing dissent ahead of elections.
Gutsul has served as the head of Gagauzia, an autonomous and predominantly Russian-speaking region in southern Moldova, since winning the 2023 election as the SOR candidate. The party was banned the same year over allegations of illicit financing from abroad. Gutsul campaigned on promises of closer ties with Russia, in contrast with the pro-Western stance of the government of President Maia Sandu.
Bulgaria debunks von der Leyen jet claims
RT | September 4, 2025
There is no evidence Russia interfered with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s airplane during her recent flight to Bulgaria, the country’s authorities have said. The European Commission earlier claimed Bulgarian authorities had confirmed the incident.
On Sunday, upon landing in Plovdiv, von der Leyen’s pilots allegedly reported issues with their navigation systems. Brussels later told the Financial Times that her flight was “forced to circle for an hour” and claimed that Moscow had “blatantly interfered” with the aircraft, supposedly trying to jam its GPS signal.
However, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov has outright contradicted Brussels’ claim, telling parliament on Thursday that no evidence of a Russian attack had been found and that von der Leyen’s plane did not suffer any serious issues, only short-term signal degradation which is common in densely populated areas.
Germany “in conflict” with Russia – Merz
By Lucas Leiroz | September 2, 2025
The Russophobic madness of European leaders is leading them to make increasingly controversial statements. Now, the German Prime Minister claims that his country is “in conflict” with Russia, making clear Berlin’s bellicosity and his government’s willingness to maintain an escalatory hostility stance against the Russian Federation. The consequences of such statements could be serious, as they legitimize practical actions that directly impact the war between NATO and Moscow in Ukraine.
According to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Germany is “already in conflict” with Russia. He said that Moscow is “destabilizing” Germany and Europe through tactical actions such as cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, which would be a form of hybrid warfare. Furthermore, Merz suggested that Russia plans to attack EU countries to regain former Soviet territories, again spreading the myth of an “imminent Russian invasion.”
During an interview with the French broadcaster LCI, Merz commented on French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent statement, calling Russian leader Vladimir Putin “an ogre who always wants to eat more.” Merz said he completely agrees with this assessment and sees Putin in precisely the same light as Macron. Merz links Putin’s alleged “hunger” to a supposed Russian ambition for more territory, describing Russia as an expansionist country that “destabilizes European democracies.”
“That’s how I see Putin. He destabilizes large parts of our country. He is interfering everywhere, particularly on social media (…) So we are already in a conflict with Russia,” he said.
As expected, Merz presented no evidence to support his arguments. It has become commonplace for European leaders to publicly accuse Russia and Putin of various crimes without presenting any evidence to support their allegations. Merz’s claims, though serious and provocative, ultimately come across as just another instance of weak rhetoric in the EU’s broader information campaign against Moscow.
However, by stating that Germany is already in conflict with Russia, Merz takes a dangerous step forward in the tense relations between the two countries. This is a serious statement, and, when made by a head of government, it has strong and direct consequences for real policy. Russia has simply been warned by the Germans that the authorities in Berlin consider themselves in conflict with it. If German decision-makers believe they are at war with Russia and implement policies with this in mind, then the Russians must be prepared for a possible escalation of hostility.
In fact, this isn’t the first time a German official has stated that Europe is embroiled in a conflict with Russia. In 2023, then-German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock openly and directly stated that Europeans are “fighting” against the Russians. She also stated that the correct way to fight this war is through the systematic sending of weapons to Ukraine, seeking a total “Ukrainian victory” against Russia. At the time, she was severely criticized by several leaders for this statement, but Baerbock never regretted her words, which were endorsed by the bloc’s Russophobic elites.
“We are fighting a war against Russia (…) Yes, we have to do more to defend Ukraine. Yes, we have to do more also on tanks. But the most important and the crucial part is that we do it together, and that we do not do the blame game in Europe, because we are fighting a war against Russia, and not against each other (…) Obviously, Ukraine needs more military support, but not only by one country like mine or the US, by all of us. We can fight this war only together”, she said at the time.
Both the former top German diplomat and the current chancellor agree that Ukraine must continue to be armed to keep the “war against Russia” away from European borders. Their narrative is that if Ukraine falls, Russia will “invade” the EU, making it vital that support for Kiev be increased to prevent the EU’s collapse. This narrative has been central to legitimizing the sending of billion-dollar military and financial aid packages to the neo-Nazi regime in the eyes of the European public, although fewer and fewer people are believing this fallacious rhetoric.
The “arm Ukraine until victory” plan, however, has already failed. The Ukrainian army is almost completely collapsed, and Russian troops are advancing deeply on the ground, making Moscow’s total victory a mere matter of time. When Russia wins the war in Ukraine and no “invasion” occurs in Europe, the narratives of leaders like Merz, Macron, and Baerbock will be refuted, and European authorities will lose all value among European citizens, triggering a major crisis of legitimacy throughout the bloc.
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.
Claim of Russian GPS blocking of von der Leyen’s plane false – Flightradar
RT | September 1, 2025
Flight-tracking website Flightradar24 has refuted allegations made by several media outlets and EU officials that the plane of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was subjected to GPS signal jamming.
The aircraft that carried the EU Commission chief to Bulgaria on Sunday showed good GPS signal quality along its entire route, the monitoring service wrote on X on Monday. The flight arrived only nine minutes later than scheduled, the service said, noting that some media reports erroneously claimed that “the aircraft was in a holding pattern for 1 hour.”
“The aircraft’s transponder reported good GPS signal quality from take-off to landing,” it added.
The alleged GPS issues were first reported by the Financial Times, which cited unnamed sources who claimed the pilots experienced signal blackouts so severe that they had to use “paper maps” for landing. The sources also suggested Russia was to blame for the alleged incident. Reached for comment by the FT, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the reported allegations were untrue.
The claims were made official on Monday. Both the EU and Bulgarian authorities pointed the finger at Moscow.
“We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming, but the plane landed safely in Bulgaria. We have received information from the Bulgarian authorities that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia,” EU Commission spokeswoman Arianna Podesta told a press conference in Brussels.
The Bulgarian government also appeared to corroborate the claims the pilots had to rely on alternate navigation tools while landing at Plovdiv International Airport.
“During the flight carrying European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to Plovdiv, the satellite signal transmitting information to the plane’s GPS navigation system was neutralized,” the government said in a statement. “To ensure the flight’s safety, air control services immediately offered an alternative landing method using terrestrial navigation tools,” it added.
Sahra Wagenknecht: Europe Subjugated & Propagandised for War
Glenn Diesen | August 31, 2025
Sahra Wagenknecht is a prominent figure in German politics, a former member of the Bundestag and the European Parliament. Wagenknecht discusses Europe’s suborindation to the US, the need for an external enemy, the demonisation of Russia, and war enthusiasm that is destroying Europe.
Intel chiefs behind Russiagate should be arrested – Trump

RT | August 31, 2025
US President Donald Trump has said he would not mind seeing ex-FBI Director James Comey and ex-CIA Director John Brennan handcuffed and arrested live on TV due to their alleged role in the Russiagate hoax.
Trump made the remarks in an interview with the Daily Caller published on Saturday, stating that it would “not bother [him] at all” if the two former intel chiefs end up in custody.
“What they did is a disgrace. They cheated, they lied, they did so many bad things, evil things that were so bad for the country, and because they did something to me that should have never been done, nobody thought they’d ever do that,” Trump stated.
“They should be [arrested] because they’re crooked and they got caught,” he added.
The situation with Brennan and Comey is different from what the US administration had on its hands with Hillary Clinton, Trump suggested, apparently referring to the email controversy dating back to her tenure as the US secretary of state.
“Hillary’s a good example. We had Hillary cold. I didn’t want to see that. I didn’t want the, you know, the wife of a president, to go to jail, but she was stone cold guilty of things,” Trump stated.
The Trump administration launched a probe into the Russiagate hoax shortly after the US president assumed the post for the second time early this year. The investigation has been spearheaded by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has repeatedly pledged to get to the bottom of what she described as a “treasonous conspiracy” to delegitimize Trump’s 2016 election victory and a “years-long coup.”
Since mid-July, Gabbard has released multiple documents that allegedly expose a coordinated effort by senior Obama-era officials, as well as structures linked to billionaire George Soros, to falsely accuse Trump of colluding with Russia.
Moscow has consistently denied any interference in the 2016 election, with Russian officials describing the allegations as a product of partisan infighting. The Russiagate scandal heavily damaged relations between Moscow and Washington, resulting in sanctions, asset seizures, and a further erosion of diplomatic engagement.
Ukraine takes new step towards banning its largest Christian church
RT | August 29, 2025
Kiev has taken another step toward banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) by officially declaring it linked to Russia. The ruling paves the way for a full ban on the country’s largest religious institution through the courts.
Vladimir Zelensky’s government has been increasingly taking aim at the UOC in recent years, a policy that has hardened in light of the conflict with Russia. Several of its churches have been seized, and criminal cases have been opened against clerics.
This week, Ukraine’s State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience posted a statement on its website saying that the UOC had been found to be associated with “a foreign religious organization whose activities are banned in Ukraine.”
A law enacted last year allows religious organizations affiliated with governments Kiev deems “aggressors” to be banned. Zelensky has defended the measures as necessary to protect the country’s “spiritual independence.”
The UOC has been de facto independent from the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) since the 1990s, but maintained the canonical connection.
The UOC, which says it is being persecuted by the government, rejects the decision, a church representative told local media, adding that it has appealed it in court.
UOC Metropolitan Onufry, whose Ukrainian citizenship was revoked last month by Zelensky, has refused to comply with the government’s order to “correct violations,” the state agency claimed.
The ROC has maintained that banning the UOC would be a violation of religious rights. The UN and international human rights organizations have also accused Kiev of overreach and interference with the freedom of religion.
The Ukrainian government officially supports the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was founded in 2018 but which the Russian Patriarchate considers schismatic.
The proposal Russia made to Ukraine this past June to settle the conflict included a clause calling for restrictions on the UOC to be lifted.
European economies and societies are broken
By Sonja van den Ende | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 28, 2025
In recent days, one alarming report after another has emerged about the European economies. The political elites and their mouthpieces, the mainstream media, can no longer ignore it. Things are not going well—and that is putting it mildly. The situation is bad and will get worse. This is something some of us had anticipated for quite some time, and alert economists have been saying and warning about.
Let’s start with one of the richest countries in Europe: the Netherlands. Although small in size, the wealth enjoyed by elites and, to some extent, citizens some twenty years ago was enormous. I would even venture to say that, in some respects, the Netherlands was richer than Switzerland.
But due to many factors—bad politics, and the emergence of countries like China and, to a certain extent, India and Russia, whose economies have become stronger and their citizens richer—the Netherlands is now on the verge of collapse, like almost all wealthy EU countries, or rather, Western countries.
Dutch politics has been unstable for years. There are simply too many parties, too many opinions, and too much division. While the older, established parties remain strong in terms of seat count, they cannot truly govern. Moreover, there is the “manufactured” housing crisis caused by the insane nitrogen policy, the refugee crisis that causes daily street violence and the murder of women and children, and then there are the agendas of the WEF and the UN that have to be pushed through due to the advancing artificial intelligence (AI) frenzy. It is a cocktail of unrest and division. Also, let us not forget the increasing criminality of the Moroccan mafia: the underworld has now penetrated into the upper world.
The new elections (the last one was in 2023) and the government, which did not take office until 2024, have been ineffective. The population is being misled and distracted by the supposed war Russia is planning to start. So, parties like the established Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) are devising new plans. This party, which is well in the lead, wants to introduce a “freedom tax” to increase the defense budget so they can wage “war” or defend themselves against the greatest threat: Russia.
Then we come to the worst, “sickest” kid in the class: Germany. The welfare state is “no longer financially viable,” said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, a BlackRock man, in recent interviews. Of course, it is no longer financially viable—one does not have to be an economic whiz kid to see that, with so many migrants contributing little to nothing but receiving money from the state.
The country has been slowly spiraling toward the abyss since 2015, a process that can no longer be stopped; politicians and elites do not want to stop it. They talk a lot but essentially do nothing. The famous German car industry is ruined, the chemical industry is ruined, and with it, many suppliers.
The most foolish thing Germany could do economically was to stop buying Russian gas. Now they have a major problem: like the rest of Europe, they have to buy expensive LNG from the U.S. The costs are skyrocketing, to put it mildly.
Recently, after all the government’s lies and manipulation, the truth about how Germany, or rather its citizens, should survive the winter came to light. Many gas storage facilities in Germany are currently significantly emptier than in previous years. The Greens, who want to gradually phase out gas, are warning in the Bundestag about the consequences of a cold winter. The Greens’ policies have effectively ruined Germany, with incompetent politicians like Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck. Both have resigned and emigrated abroad, leaving behind a political and economic disaster in Germany.
That other major country in Europe, France, with a president (Macron) who thinks that France is still a great power like it was in the time of the Sun King—Louis XIV or Napoleon—is doing just as badly. According to media reports there, the economy is also struggling. At the end of the first quarter of 2025, French public debt stood at €3,345.4 billion, or 113.9% of GDP.
That the French are arrogant (not all of them, of course) is a well-known fact in Europe and perhaps beyond. But Macron is taking it too far. In a recent interview, Macron called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “predator, a monster at our gates.”
This comes after the disgusting display in Paris at the Olympic Games (in 2024), where satanic rituals mixed with religion were on display, which many countries and citizens expressed their horror about. Now he has the arrogance to make these public statements. If you thought Zelensky was stupid with his statements, Macron is his equal in this.
The countries I mentioned are, or rather were, the “running economic engines” of the EU, the economic heart of Europe, which actually paid for the poorer countries in the south, such as Italy, Spain, Portugal, and especially Greece, a country that went bankrupt in 2008.
Europeans all witnessed the misery in Greece: pensioners eating from garbage bins, entire shopping streets closed, poverty everywhere. Now we see it happening in the heart of the EU economy. Germany has become almost unlivable, especially in the major cities.
The same street scene: retirees who should actually be enjoying a well-earned rest collect plastic bottles for the deposit money, and now, if the government has its way, they will have to do a year of compulsory military service. Imagine this—you just do not want to imagine it…
Europe has lost its prosperity; its culture is being swallowed up by the many migrants who bring their own, and instead of assimilation, these cultures foreign to Europe now predominate. In their foolish attitude and, above all, the indoctrination of many years, politicians now believe they live in a “multicultural” entity. But this is not the case; integration has failed, and European citizens are paying the price for their inaction and for allowing this situation to escalate.
Politicians across Europe, especially in the Western EU countries I mentioned, are seeking a way out—to save their own skins, not so much for their people (in fact, the majority do not care about the people)—but to escape the financial malaise and the people’s anger. They have now resorted to the war agenda that followed the COVID-19 agenda (partly a social behavioral project), the war agenda that was implemented immediately after the launch of the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO).
The Eastern EU countries—Poland, which is currently experiencing the same problems as the Western EU countries: refugees and increased drug use—are the worst when it comes to Russophobia. I am referring specifically to the Baltic States: small but powerful in hatred, and above all, the countries with the most Nazi and fascist supporters. Nazism has never been eradicated there, just like in Western Ukraine.
With this hatred of Russia, they have infected all of Europe, thus playing into the hands of the political elites of Western Europe, who eagerly participate in demonizing Russians—even though some countries and their populations actually have nothing against Russians and have only now been forced by their governments to think, and even worse, hate, about Russia.
The European elites must now also consider the role they will play, now that it is painfully clear that the era of colonization and imperialism is nearly over. Because of this painful geopolitical and economic truth, they are now oppressing their own people, partly succeeding with the “new migrants” who fear for their residency and visas.
But the true indigenous European population is slowly but surely realizing that freedom of speech and press no longer exists, that their democratic rights have been taken away, and that life has become very difficult. This is leading to major conflicts, especially in the once so “free” Netherlands, where people could essentially say anything, even if it was inappropriate. Very turbulent times are ahead, and unfortunately, we are already seeing Europe collapse… just like the Roman Empire when it collapsed; things can happen quickly.
EU using blackmail and slander to pressure Georgian politicians
By Lucas Leiroz | August 28, 2025
Apparently, the EU’s tactic of blackmailing its opponents is reaching even Euroskeptic leaders in countries outside the bloc. Recently, the mayor of Tbilisi publicly denounced the campaign of persecution waged by European authorities against his country’s officials, attempting to force them to comply with Brussels’ policies.
Kakha Kaladze, a former professional soccer player who now serves as mayor of Tbilisi, claimed that the EU launched a campaign of “lies, slander, and misinformation” against the legitimate government of Georgia, attempting to shift local policy toward an anti-Russian direction. Kaladze said that EU representatives used tactics such as blackmail and personal insults directed at members of the Georgian Prime Minister’s cabinet to try to coopt them into an anti-Russian initiative.
The mayor, a member of the ruling Georgian Dream party, explained that the EU creates narratives against its opponents both within and outside the bloc, producing biased assessments based on lies and false information. These narratives are then used to undermine political opponents—both through blackmail and by spreading lies.
“Direct threats, blackmail and insults were directed to the prime minister’s office to launch a second front (…) Promises were made: ‘we will help, you will be provided with everything, with appropriate equipment,’ etc. (…) As soon as a political narrative is introduced by some European bureaucrats, an unfair assessment immediately occurs. In general, their assessments are based on lies, slander, and misinformation,” he said.
In the case of Georgia, the European bureaucrats’ intention was to prevent the country from following a sovereign path and respecting the interests of its own people. For years, Georgia has been harassed by Western powers to maintain a policy of automatic alignment with the EU. Furthermore, Kaladze says that the EU openly advocates for a reopening of military hostilities between Georgia and Russia.
Georgia, like several other countries in the post-Soviet space, has experienced violent battles in recent decades, including an armed conflict with the Russian Federation in 2008. At the time, Moscow intervened militarily to prevent Georgian forces from forcibly assimilating the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia—areas where the people had sovereignly decided to follow a different political path from that of Tbilisi. The war ended quickly after Russian forces neutralized the Georgian army and secured the breakaway republics’ right to self-determination.
Since the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, the EU has been trying to use its candidate countries to wage war with Russia, thus seeking to open a new front against Moscow. Just as Georgia is being harassed to resume hostilities against Russia, Moldova, another country seeking accession to the European bloc, is being induced to attack the separatist region of Transnistria, which also has a substantial pro-Russian population. Kaladze revealed that, in private conversations with Georgian politicians, European bureaucrats implied support for a possible reviving of the war against Russia.
Furthermore, the mayor explains that the EU accuses Georgia of renouncing so-called “democratic reforms.” Indeed, the country is no longer concerned with following European demands, but this doesn’t mean that some kind of authoritarianism is growing in Georgia, but rather that EU standards no longer matter to the local authorities and people. Since the approval of the Foreign Agents Law, which requires foreign NGOs to register in a special way and report to the Georgian government, the EU has simply lost control over its puppet institutions in the country, which is causing fury among Brussels bureaucrats.
Indeed, it’s not surprising that the EU is using these tactics against its adversaries in Georgian politics. Coopting Tbilisi into the Western anti-Russian coalition has become an obsession of European leaders. Fortunately, however, most of the Georgian parliament appears committed to defending national interests, resisting both international pressure and domestic sabotage agents.
As the EU fails to protect its interests abroad, the truth about European practices is beginning to emerge. Despite the EU’s propaganda as an organization defending democracy, human rights, and liberal values, the bloc has in fact become an alliance of authoritarian regimes, marked by irrational and bellicose policies, whose only common foundation is hatred of Russia and its allies.
Georgia has for many years followed this directive of automatic opposition to Russia and sought integration into the EU, but now the country has finally decided to take a different path, asserting the values and interests of the local people.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Associations, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.
M.K Bhadrakumar: India Turns to China as U.S. Bullying Backfires
Glenn Diesen | August 27, 2025
M. K. Bhadrakumar was an Indian ambassador and diplomat for decades. Ambassador Bhadrakumar discusses Trump’s pressure and threats against India, and how this blunder has pushed India toward China and Russia.
The West seemingly preparing to remove Zelensky from power
By Ahmed Adel | August 26, 2025
The arrest of a Ukrainian citizen in Italy, suspected of sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, confirms that Kiev was an accomplice, but not the one who ordered the act. Nonetheless, the launch of the investigation serves a broader political goal – the removal of Volodymyr Zelensky from power. The plan could be to appoint a new leader, both for the West and for possible negotiations with Russia, given that Zelensky’s presidential mandate expired in May 2024 and he cannot be a signatory to a peace agreement with Moscow.
An investigation by American journalist Seymour Hersh found that American divers placed explosives under the Nord Stream gas pipeline during the NATO exercise Baltops in the summer of 2022, and that it was activated three months later by the Norwegians. According to Hersh, then-US President Joe Biden had a clear motive for sabotaging the Nord Stream pipeline — fear that Germany, facing serious economic difficulties due to the war in Ukraine, might lift sanctions on Russia and resume imports of Russian gas.
The journalist said this is what prompted Washington to organize the sabotage of the gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany. The West did not want to allow this, which ultimately plunged Germany into economic and political chaos.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also believes that the sabotage of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines was carried out by American intelligence services, specifically the CIA. According to him, in such cases, one should always look for who has a motive and who can carry it out. There may be many interested parties, but not everyone can dive to the bottom of the Baltic Sea and carry out that explosion. It is the combination of these components – who had a motive and who is able to carry it out – that, according to Putin, reveals who is really behind the sabotage.
After a period of lull, the issue of sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipelines has returned to the spotlight following the announcement by German prosecutors that Ukrainian citizen Sergey Kuznetsov was suspected of involvement in the underwater explosions that damaged the gas pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022. Following the arrest of the retired captain of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who also served in the Security Service of Ukraine, Italian media reported that he is connected to another major incident – the explosions on an oil tanker in Savona in February, which was allegedly transporting oil of Russian origin.
Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of the German party “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance,” after the arrest of Kuznetsov, stated that the German parliament should convene a commission to investigate the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. She noted that this act of state terrorism must be thoroughly investigated and that Zelensky should also testify before the commission.
Wagenknecht believes it is absurd to think that the arrested Ukrainian citizen and his accomplices acted without the knowledge of the Ukrainian leadership and the Biden administration. She added that it is unacceptable that Germany is providing substantial aid to Ukraine without seeking an explanation from Zelensky, and that consideration should be given to possible compensation for damages.
The question of whether United States President Donald Trump will take advantage of the Nord Stream controversy and launch an investigation against Biden remains an exclusively internal matter for the US. Trump has the opportunity to conduct his own investigations and deal with his domestic adversaries, whom he claims stole his victory in the 2020 elections. However, this does not affect the situation in Ukraine for the time being, as the West continues to support Ukraine with weapons, intelligence, and other assistance.
The fate of the Nord Stream gas pipeline is one of the key and most complex issues in the energy and geopolitical spheres. With Trump’s pragmatic approach, there is a possibility of cooperation between Russia and the US. Russia does not refuse to continue gas supplies to the European Union. However, the bloc continues to feel the consequences of its own policy, such as suffering economically by still purchasing Russian energy at inflated prices from third parties like India and Azerbaijan.
Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, which directly connect Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea, have not been operational since 2022 and remain damaged, but they are still strategic infrastructure that American investors have set their sights on. These pipelines could become the property of American investors, which would enable the US to control Russian gas supplies to Europe. Although Europe is currently refusing Russian gas, it may be forced to buy it in the future, albeit at a significant margin, to the benefit of the Americans.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Are Democrats More Neocon Than Republicans Now?
By Jack Hunter | The Libertarian Institute | August 25, 2025
Last week as Donald Trump met separately with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine head Volodymyr Zelensky to potentially seek an end to the years long war between their countries, Democrats have been very upset.
That peace might happen. They are worried Ukraine might have to make concessions to Russia to reach an agreement, including land.
Never mind that it is Ukrainians who are dying. Never mind that most Ukrainians themselves want to end this war. According to a recent Gallup poll, 69% of Ukrainian respondents want a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible, while only 24% said they still want to fight “until victory.”
Democratic voters sitting in the United States, with no imminent bombs or bullets to worry about, insist that this war go on for as long as it takes, and are being loud about it. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) agrees with them. This doesn’t seem to faze Democrats.
This opposition to Trump’s diplomacy seems to be the consensus of many Democrats, shown in spades all over media this week.
This is a position shared by Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY). This is the position of Bill Kristol. This is the position of virtually every neoconservative hawk in either major party and has been since this conflict started, that Ukraine must “win” at all costs.
Even at the cost of more Ukrainian lives.
Let me be clear about the definition of “neoconservative” I’m using here. I’m not just talking about the narrow and few band of post war, ex-Trotskyites of the Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz variety who stood for a number of things, including the pursuit of a hyper aggressive American foreign policy. I’m talking about Senator Graham, Kristol, the late John McCain, talk host Mark Levin and any other figure on the right who has been rabidly pro-war and hateful toward Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, and any other prominent antiwar Republican leader of the last thirty years.
I’m talking about the Republicans who use “isolationist” as a pejorative slur for non-interventionism.
I tend to “neoconservative” as carefully here as those people use “isolationist.”
There have always been neocons in both major parties. But this week it has seemed Democrats have outweighed Republicans on this front. There is no poll on this. There is no hard data. I’m just observing.
President Trump has said he wants the killing to end between Ukraine and Russia. Cheering him on in this effort is Congresswoman and MAGA booster Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and many other GOP members. Also, pundit Tucker Carlson and former Trump aide and talk host Steve Bannon, whose audiences are large and full of MAGA supporters who also endorse Trump’s pledge to end America’s “endless wars.”
There are still plenty of GOP neocon members of Congress and voters within the base, but Trump’s Republican party is a very different one than George W. Bush’s when it comes to hawkish foreign policy.
On the other side, there are progressives like Ro Khanna (D-CA) who have expressed in the past wanting to see Trump help achieve some kind of diplomatic peace.
This week, Khanna has been silent on this, and who could blame him? Because Democrats by and large seem upset that Trump could achieve some sort of deal. They even got mad when Trump shook Putin’s hand during the summit.
Embracing war by avoiding diplomacy is key to neoconservatism. It’s why hawks got so mad in the mid-1980s when President Ronald Reagan met with Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev. It’s why neocons were absolutely irate when Trump met with not only Putin but North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and even Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris campaigned with Liz Cheney, got her and her father Dick Cheney’s endorsement and slammed Trump for “bowing down” to dictators, sending a signal to her neocon friends that she would not be engaging in that kind of diplomacy.
Now the people who voted for Harris are reflecting the same sentiment. Trump’s diplomatic efforts have them fuming.
During the 2012 presidential election, Republican nominee Mitt Romney said that Russia was the United States “No. 1 political foe.” President Barack Obama mocked Romney at the time, saying in a debate, “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War’s been over for twenty years.”
Romney was clearly representing the neoconservative Bush-Cheney foreign policy legacy that still resonated with so many Republicans at the time, and Obama, the anti-Bush message that had delivered him the White House in 2008. Obama did not remotely live up to that promise, but this was roughly the dynamic in the 2012 election.
Politics change and history happens, but it is feasible today that there are more Republicans, in Congress and in the base, who think constant U.S. hyperventilating about Russia, even now, is overblown and Americans should be more concerned about their own country first.
It’s also feasible that there are more Democrats, in Congress and in the base, for whom Trump and Putin are considered one in the same and those folks are more laser focused on hating both men than any other concern, including the health and security of their own country or any other (Ukraine).
When Barack Obama was a rockstar in 2008, Democrats prided themselves on being the complete opposite of Bush-Cheney neoconservative Republicans. In 2025, it appears that more Democrats than not now staunchly side with Bush-Cheney neoconservatives regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
What changed? That might be a longer discussion. But it wasn’t neoconservatives.
