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EU Morphing Into Its Own Worst Enemy – Viktor Orban

Sputnik – 24.12.2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next year’s election is a choice between peace and war, warns Hungarian PM Orbán

By Thomas Brooke | Remix News | December 23, 2025

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said that recent anti-war rallies in Hungary serve to explain to the public what he described as decisions being taken behind closed doors as Europe prepares for war.

Speaking on TV2’s Tények program, he said European leaders at a summit over the weekend had effectively convened a “war council,” with speeches focused on defeating Russia, and argued that a growing divide has emerged between the United States and Europe since the inauguration of Donald Trump in January.

“Previously, it was unthinkable within NATO that the United States would say no to something and European states would still go ahead and do it,” the prime minister said.

Orbán warned Europe is much closer to war than most Hungarians realize, noting what he described as a German war plan to seize Russian currency reserves held in Western Europe, a move he claimed that would openly turn Europe into Russia’s enemy.

According to the prime minister, Hungary will now have a war-free Christmas, but the danger has not passed. He said the European Union wants to provide Ukraine with €90 billion over two years, despite having no funds of its own, and is therefore seeking loans from banks that he claimed would never be repaid. Orbán said Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary refused to provide guarantees for the borrowing. “This would have cost Hungarian families 400 billion forints. We will not pay that — full stop,” he said.

Orbán argued that Europe has more private-sector assets in Russia than the value of the funds it would have seized, adding that Hungary also holds significant corporate assets there. He expressed hope that U.S.-Russian negotiations would succeed despite what he called counter-campaigning by Europe’s political elite. He claimed that anti-war views now dominate Western public opinion as the economic costs of the conflict rise.

“From a Hungarian perspective, war is the most horrific thing that can happen,” he said. “We know how a war consumes a nation’s future and decades of hard work.”

The prime minister also argued that financial interests are pushing politicians toward conflict. He said bankers were driving Europe toward war, as they did before World War I, and claimed that within months the divide between Hungarian and European politics would become even clearer. Germany, he said, is pro-war, as is the European People’s Party, while his administration in Budapest represents what he called the party of peace.

“We will not allow ourselves to be dragged into war,” Orbán said, adding that Europe’s stated aim of being ready for war with Russia by 2030 turns Hungary’s upcoming elections into a choice between peace and war. “We — and I personally — will succeed in keeping Hungary out of the war,” he said.

Turning to domestic policy, Orbán spoke of what he described as a “tax revolution,” saying the government had launched fixed-rate home-ownership and business loan programs, restored the fourteenth-month pension, and introduced lifetime tax exemptions for mothers with two or three children. “By the end of the year, every program was launched. Only we are doing this in an era preparing for war,” he said.

On the opposition Tisza Party, Orbán said, “The Tisza Party’s program is Brussels’ program. But Hungary must not take the Brussels path — we must stay on the Hungarian path.” He added that Hungary’s low household energy prices could only be maintained through agreements with Russia, the United States, and Turkey, warning that EU plans to scrap the policy would amount to “brutal austerity” for families.

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

Failed Diplomacy & Collapse of Ukraine

Glenn Diesen | December 22, 2025

Larry Johnson is a former intelligence analyst at the CIA who also worked at the US State Department’s Office of Counterterrorism. Johnson outlines why the negotiations are failing and what the pending collapse of Ukraine will entail.

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December 23, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Video | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine: Does Europe Work for a Stalled Conflict?

Why negotiations are blocked and why a long, managed conflict is becoming the default outcome.

By Ricardo Martins – New Eastern Outlook – December 23, 2025

Negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine appear stalled not because of a lack of diplomatic encounters, but because there is no shared understanding of what the proxy war is about, nor of what a settlement should address. The Berlin meeting illustrated this structural deadlock.

Russia continues to restate a limited and stable set of core demands, above all, Ukrainian neutrality and the rollback of NATO’s military footprint, while Europeans and Ukrainians advance proposals that explicitly negate these demands. This is not a negotiation gap; it is a conceptual incompatibility.

The American role exacerbates this problem. The United States oscillates between mediator and belligerent, without committing to a coherent diplomatic line. Instead of deploying professional diplomatic teams with a clear mandate, Washington relies on ad hoc envoys and transactional approaches. Trump’s inclination towards deal-making, inspired by business logic rather than diplomatic craft, leads to contradictory signaling: reassurance to Moscow followed by alignment with European and Ukrainian maximalist positions. This reinforces Russian perceptions that talks are performative rather than substantive.

From a European perspective, the refusal to listen to Russia’s security concerns is justified through a normative framing of the conflict: Ukraine is the victim, Russia the aggressor, and therefore only Ukrainian security deserves guarantees. This position, articulated explicitly by EU figures such as Kaja Kallas, forecloses any bargaining space.

Russia is delegitimised as a security actor, and empathy, understood here not as moral approval but as analytical capacity to understand the other side’s threat perception, is absent. The result is a strategy that implicitly accepts the continuation of the conflict until Ukraine collapses militarily or Russia concedes its defeat, a scenario that seems unrealistic.

Meanwhile, Russia senses that time is on its side. Battlefield dynamics, industrial mobilisation, and political cohesion reinforce Moscow’s assessment that it can achieve its objectives through attrition. In this context, concessions would be irrational from a realist standpoint.

As negotiations fail, Europe and Ukraine increasingly rely on asymmetric strategies, such as sabotage, attacks on Russian assets, and irregular warfare, openly endorsed by Western intelligence discourse, including references by the head of MI6 to Second World War–style special operations. This marks a shift from conflict resolution to conflict management.

Financing Ukraine: strategic risk without political consent

Europe’s approach to financing Ukraine reveals a second layer of contradiction. The decision not to confiscate Russian frozen assets, but instead to fund Ukraine through EU borrowing (€90 billion for 2026–2027) acknowledges the legal, financial, and systemic risks involved. Belgium’s concerns over Euroclear, the threat of credit downgrades by rating agencies such as Fitch, and the exposure of European pension funds and financial institutions underline the fragility of this strategy.

Yet this choice was made without a social pact with European citizens. There has been no democratic debate proportionate to the scale of financial commitment. At a time when European societies face mounting pressures on housing, welfare, pensions, and infrastructure, war financing is normalised as a moral and face-saving necessity rather than a political choice. This fuels domestic resentment and strengthens nationalist and far-right parties across the continent.

Strategically, European financing does not resolve the conflict. Money cannot substitute for manpower nor reverse battlefield dynamics. Ukraine’s primary constraint is not just liquidity but, above all, soldiers. Moreover, persistent concerns about corruption and weak accountability mechanisms undermine public support for continued transfers. Rather than bringing peace closer, European funding functions as a holding mechanism: prolonging the conflict to weaken Russia, buying time to rearm European militaries, and delaying political reckoning of the defeat.

In this sense, Ukraine increasingly functions as a proxy, absorbing the human cost of a broader confrontation while Europe avoids direct military engagement. This is a morally uncomfortable but analytically coherent reading of current policy.

The fear of a Russian “victory” and the erosion of Europe’s political core

The prospect of Russia being perceived as the winner is existentially threatening for European elites. It would symbolise not only Ukrainian defeat but also NATO’s limits and Europe’s strategic weakness. More profoundly, it would undermine the EU’s self-image as a political peace project and a normative power.

To prevent this outcome, European leaders and media have invested heavily in a simplified narrative: Russia as sole aggressor, Ukraine as pure victim, and Europe as moral defender. Yet two facts disrupt this narrative. First, the EU has not presented a concrete peace proposal of its own.

Second, dissenting voices are increasingly marginalised or silenced, contradicting Europe’s professed commitment to pluralism and freedom of expression. In several European countries, journalists, analysts, and former officials who question NATO strategy, the feasibility of a military victory, or the costs of prolonged war – such as George Galloway in the United Kingdom, former Swiss intelligence officer Jacques Baud, French analysts like Xavier Moreau or the online platform Euroactiv – have been systematically delegitimised, deplatformed, or labelled as disinformation vectors rather than engaged on the substance of their arguments. The closure of debate, whether through media pressure or formal and informal censorship, erodes Europe’s intellectual resilience.

As nuance becomes suspect and contradiction is framed as betrayal, Europe loses its capacity to think strategically. Political realism, understood as the ability to engage with power politics without moral illusion, has largely disappeared from mainstream European discourse. NATO expansion is no longer discussed as a variable in Russian threat perception but as an unquestionable good. The assumption persists that Russia will eventually weaken, accept European terms, and even relinquish frozen assets. There is no empirical basis for this belief.

Is there a way out?

A negotiated settlement remains theoretically possible but politically unlikely. European leaders seek a face-saving exit that preserves moral superiority while avoiding military escalation. Yet they are unwilling to make the concessions such an exit would require.

Europe will not send troops to fight Russia, but it will also not accept defeat. The most probable outcome is therefore a long, tense cold peace, akin to the Korean model: frozen frontlines, unresolved status, and continuous low-level confrontation.

This outcome will shape European–Russian relations for decades. It will also accelerate Europe’s internal fragmentation, as member states increasingly diverge in their strategic orientations, weaken its social model, and normalise permanent rearmament. Europe pays the bill, calls it principle, and postpones the hardest decisions at the cost of Ukrainian lives and its own political coherence.

Ricardo Martins, PhD in Sociology, specializing in International Relations and Geopolitics

December 23, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

The Geopolitical Imperative Behind US Policy Toward Venezuela

By Leanna Yavelskaya | Ron Paul Institute | December 21, 2025

In the intensifying great-power competition of the 21st century, Venezuela has emerged as a pivotal battleground in the Western Hemisphere—a proxy arena where the United States confronts the encroaching ambitions of China and Russia to preserve its historic regional dominance.

Conventional explanations for Washington’s unrelenting pressure on Caracas, citing resource acquisition or counternarcotics imperatives, crumble under scrutiny amid America’s strategic primacy, energy independence, and the broader architecture of multipolar rivalry.

US policy toward Venezuela is fundamentally a defensive maneuver in the superpower contest, aimed at denying Beijing and Moscow a strategic foothold in America’s backyard. Venezuela’s vast oil reserves—the world’s largest—might superficially suggest energy motives, yet the United States, now the globe’s top petroleum producer and exporter, no longer depends on Venezuelan heavy crudes. Sanctions have deliberately slashed imports, while any genuine resource priority would favor diplomatic normalization over confrontation. Historical US behavior reinforces this: when energy security truly matters, Washington opts for pragmatic deals, not escalation. The current standoff, therefore, serves deeper geopolitical ends—blocking rival powers from entrenching influence proximate to US shores.

The counternarcotics rationale fares no better. Venezuela transits cocaine but plays minimal role in the fentanyl epidemic ravaging America. Washington’s dollar hegemony and financial levers could dismantle trafficking networks without military brinkmanship, yet global drug flows persist due to strategic tolerances. Venezuela’s marginal position in this trade renders anti-drug rhetoric an inadequate justification for the extraordinary measures deployed, including naval blockades and tanker seizures.

The core driver is Venezuela’s alignment with US adversaries, transforming it into a potential forward base for China and Russia in the Americas. Beijing has poured billions in loans-for-oil, infrastructure projects, and discounted crude purchases—securing long-term resource access while propping up the regime against Western isolation, even as recent US escalations test this lifeline. Moscow has supplied arms, intelligence, and diplomatic shielding, positioning Venezuela as a counterweight to US hegemony, much as it leverages proxies elsewhere. These partnerships challenge enduring American doctrines: the Monroe legacy rejecting extra-hemispheric powers in the Americas, and Cold War precedents like the Cuban Missile Crisis, where Soviet encroachment provoked crisis.

No US administration—Democratic or Republican—has tolerated a peer rival gaining decisive leverage in Latin America. The Trump administration’s 2025 campaign, with carrier groups, strikes on vessels, and a declared blockade of sanctioned tankers, underscores this zero-tolerance posture amid Maduro’s disputed reelection and pleas for Russian and Chinese aid. Venezuela embodies the frontline of eroding US unipolarity: proximity magnifies threats, just as China dominates the Indo-Pacific or Russia its near abroad.

This is no mere bilateral dispute over democracy or drugs—it is a superpower clash over spheres of influence in a fragmenting world order. Caracas’s geopolitical pivot toward Beijing and Moscow directly contests Washington’s hemispheric primacy. The United States will not permit rival superpowers to consolidate enduring control on its doorstep, a contest that will shape power balances in the Americas and beyond for decades. As great-power rivalry intensifies, Venezuela’s fate signals whether the US can stanch encroachment in its traditional domain or cede ground in the new multipolar era.

Leanna Yavelskaya is a freelance civilian journalist who focuses on geopolitical analysis, with particular emphasis on Eastern Europe.

December 22, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Sinophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Empire of Lies: How the BBC Strangles Free Speech Under the Mask of Objectivity and Why Trump is Right to Sue

By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – December 21, 2025

Against the backdrop of hysteria over “repressions in Russia,” Great Britain itself has long since transformed into a police state, where dissent is stigmatized and truth is replaced by propaganda. Putin’s response has exposed the double standards of Western media.

The Smokescreen of the “Free Press”

On December 19, 2025, Vladimir Putin gave comprehensive and calm answers in a live broadcast to provocative questions from BBC journalist Stephen Rosenberg. Instead of honestly analyzing his arguments about foreign agents, security, and sovereignty, Western media, and the BBC itself first and foremost, prepared another portion of distortions under headlines like “Putin Denies the Obvious.” This moment is the perfect prism through which to discern the essence of the phenomenon. While the missionaries from Northgold Street teach the whole world about “democracy” and “free journalism,” the British Isles themselves are rapidly sinking into the quagmire of ideological conformity and censorship. The BBC Corporation, once a symbol of respectability, has become the epitome of systemic bias and an industry for manufacturing narratives. It is no coincidence that Donald Trump, whom this media machine has vilified for years, has filed a lawsuit against it—this is a logical act of self-defense against organized lies.

Hypocrisy as Editorial Policy. “Repressions” There and Censorship Here

Putin’s answer on the issue of “foreign agents” was crystal clear: the law is a copy of the American FARA, requiring only transparency of foreign funding, not criminal prosecution for opinion. This thesis reveals a monstrous contrast with the realities of Great Britain itself, where freedom of speech has become a fiction, covered by bureaucratic and ideological terror.

Thought Police in Action: From Tweets to Kitchen Conversations. In Russia, it’s registration for NGOs; in Britain, it’s a criminal charge for an ordinary citizen. The Online Safety Bill is nothing other than an architecture of preemptive censorship. UK police regularly detain people for “offensive” or “alarming” posts on social media. There are known cases of a man being interrogated for a sarcastic tweet about transgender people, and a pensioner for a “racist” comment about migration on Facebook. These are not isolated excesses; this is the system. Where is the freedom of speech that the BBC so fiercely defends in its reports about Russia?

De Facto “Foreign Agents”: Stigmatization Instead of Discussion. The BBC has appropriated for itself the right to define the boundaries of permissible discourse. Any criticism that goes beyond these boundaries, be it doubts about the radical environmental agenda, questions about transhumanism, or analysis of the problems of mass migration, is instantly branded by the corporation as “marginal,” “extremist,” or “propagandistic.” Independent analysts, scientists, and journalists who disagree with the general line are systematically pushed out of the airwaves and public sphere under the convenient pretext of “fighting disinformation.” That is, the BBC itself creates “disinformation,” defines it, and fights it, eliminating competitors. This is a classic monopoly on truth.

Trump’s Lawsuit is an Anatomy of the BBC’s Lies. From the “Steele Dossier” to the Myths of “Russiagate”

Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the BBC is not the gesture of an offended politician, but a legal exposure of the festering wound of systemic malfeasance. Trump accuses the corporation of “deliberate and malicious defamation,” and history provides him with ample evidence.

The “Steele Dossier” — A Fake as a Journalistic Standard. In 2016-2017, the BBC, like many Western media outlets, zealously circulated sensational allegations from an unverified dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton’s political allies. Citing “high-ranking sources,” the BBC built a narrative for months about “Trump’s ties to Moscow,” presenting unconfirmed gossip as facts. Subsequent FBI and US Department of Justice investigations proved the dossier was fabricated, its key “evidence” unsubstantiated. No apologies or serious editorial conclusions ever came from the BBC. The corporation simply moved on to the next topic, leaving a poisoned residue of lies in the minds of millions of viewers.

Salisbury — Verdict Instead of Investigation. The story of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal became a textbook example of how the BBC replaces journalistic investigation with state propaganda. From the first minutes, the corporation abandoned the basic principle—presumption of innocence. The airwaves carried not questions of “who and why?” but assertions: “Russia committed an act of war on British soil.” Alternative versions, inconsistencies in the official story (for example, the complete absence of traces of the “Novichok” poison in the places the Skripals allegedly were), expert opinions questioning the British version—all of this was either hushed up or ridiculed in specially designated “disinformation” segments. The BBC brazenly turned an unverified accusation into an indisputable dogma, denying viewers the right to information.

The Myth of Trump’s “Russian Links,” Which Lasted for Years. Throughout Trump’s presidency, the BBC peremptorily supported the obsessive narrative of his “secret collusion” with the Kremlin. This “link” was the central theme of thousands of reports, analytical programs, and articles. The final report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller (2019) found no evidence of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. For an objective media outlet, this would have been a reason for a deep review of its own editorial policy. For the BBC—merely a reason to change rhetoric: if not “collusion,” then “interference” that Trump “didn’t condemn enough.” The goal was not to inform but to shape the desired, pre-set perception of Trump as illegitimate and hostile.

Censorship in the Name of Security: British Total Control vs. Russian Defense

Putin directly explained internet restrictions in frontline zones: it’s a matter of life and death, a way to prevent the targeting of high-precision weapons through open foreign services. This is a military necessity in conditions of real conflict.

Double Standard as a Principle. And what does peaceful, democratic Great Britain do? Under the same pretext of “national security,” one of the world’s most total surveillance mechanisms over its own citizens has been created here. The Investigatory Powers Act (or “Snoopers’ Charter”) allows intelligence agencies to mass-collect the browsing history, calls, and message metadata of every resident without any court warrant. In partnership with the government, major IT companies and social networks engage in preemptive content censorship, removing viewpoints inconvenient to the authorities under vague labels like “hate propaganda” or “disinformation.” The difference is fundamental: Russia is protecting its physical borders from real military threats in the context of the Special Military Operation. The British state, with the tacit approval and participation of the BBC, actively and undemocratically protects the ideological boundaries of the ruling establishment from dissent, passing it off as “concern for security” and “protection of democracy.”

The Collapse of the Monopoly on Truth and the Birth of a New Information Order

Putin’s answers to that very BBC correspondent became the very funhouse mirror in which this moldy media empire finally saw its true face: not of a noble arbiter, but of a pathetic sycophant and agitator for the globalist establishment, projecting onto others its own rotten core—total censorship, the stifling of dissent, and the fabrication of convenient agendas. Trump’s lawsuit is not the beginning, but a logical final act. It is a shameful verdict for an organization that, with hypocritical, sanctimonious zeal, searched for “tyranny” in far-off lands, blinded by its own arrogance, until it itself turned into the main strangler of free thought at home, on those very blessed islands ruled by arrogant mandarins from Whitehall, detached from reality, and their lackeys at the BBC.

Readers and viewers around the world have long been sick of this hypocritical sham. They are fleeing these dreary, pompous preachers of the “only correct” truth to vibrant alternatives, live streams, and independent voices, bypassing these filtered sewer channels of the old, thoroughly rotten guard.

The world no longer believes in the sacred cow of the “public broadcaster” BBC, whose editorial policy has long been groveling low and basely before the powers that be. All the world’s vileness is committed not by the powers that be, but by the most cowardly dregs, in this case, “the dregs of journalism.” They cannot win in an open fight, and therefore always act with rat-like methods, basely and brazenly distorting obvious facts. Cowards from journalism always rely on baseness and prefer to strike from behind, like rats. This word is the best characterization of the BBC’s current state.

The era when a bunch of pompous dandies from the Thames could arrogantly tell the world what to think has irrevocably sunk into oblivion. And in this lies the best slap in the face to their ossified arrogance and a real breath of freedom for the word in the 21st century.

Victor Mikhin, Writer, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Expert on Middle Eastern Countries

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December 21, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , | 1 Comment

Reuters spreads lies and propaganda to prolong Ukraine conflict – Tulsi Gabbard

©  Alex Wong / Getty Images
RT | December 21, 2025

US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has accused European NATO states of trying to pull Washington into a direct confrontation with Russia and slammed Reuters for “fomenting hysteria” in order to sell war.

Russia has consistently rejected claims that it plans to attack EU countries, describing them as warmongering tactics used by Western politicians to justify inflated military budgets. This week, President Vladimir Putin once again dismissed such claims as “lies and nonsense.”

Yet in a report published on Friday, Reuters claimed that “Putin intends to capture all of Ukraine and reclaim parts of Europe that belonged to the former Soviet empire,” citing anonymous sources allegedly “familiar with US intelligence.”

“No, this is a lie and propaganda Reuters is willingly pushing on behalf of warmongers who want to undermine President Trump’s tireless efforts to end this bloody war that has resulted in more than a million casualties on both sides,” Gabbard retorted in a post on X.

Dangerously, you are promoting this false narrative to block President Trump’s peace efforts and foment hysteria and fear among the people to get them to support the escalation of war, which is what NATO and the EU really want in order to pull the United States military directly into war with Russia.

According to Gabbard, US intelligence assessments instead indicate that Russia “seeks to avoid a larger war with NATO” and lacks the capacity to wage one even if it wanted to.

Moscow insists it is defending its citizens in the Ukraine conflict and has accused NATO of provoking hostilities and derailing US-backed peace initiatives. Putin, who has repeatedly dismissed any intention to restore the Soviet Union, has accused NATO countries of “preparing for a major war” by building up and modernizing offensive forces while “brainwashing” their populations with claims that a clash with Russia is inevitable.

Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who is currently engaged in Ukraine peace talks with US interlocutors in Miami, praised Gabbard as a rare voice of reason.

“Gabbard is great not only for documenting the Obama/Biden origins of the Russia hoax, but now for exposing the deep-state warmonger machinery trying to incite WW3 by fueling anti-Russian paranoia across the UK and EU,” Dmitriev wrote on X. “Voices of reason matter – restore sanity, peace, and security.”

December 21, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

EU loan to Ukraine pushing bloc ‘into war’ with Russia – Orban

RT | December 20, 2025

EU nations have a vested interest in continuing the Ukraine-Russia conflict and even escalating it, as repayment of their €90 billion loan to Kiev is essentially tied to a military victory, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.

A long-debated EU scheme to steal frozen Russian central bank assets collapsed amid disagreements among member states on Friday. However, agreement was reached on a loan backed by the bloc’s budget, allowing them to fund cash-strapped Ukraine in what Moscow has long described as a Western proxy war. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic secured exemptions from the loan.

“Whoever lends money wants it back. In this case, repayment is not tied to economic growth or stabilization, but to military victory,” Orban wrote on X on Saturday. “For this money to ever be recovered, Russia would have to be defeated,” he said.

A war loan inevitably makes its financiers interested in the continuation and escalation of the conflict, because defeat would also mean a financial loss.

Orban argued that there are now “hard financial constraints that push Europe in one direction: into war.”

Hungary and Slovakia have long stood against continued military aid to Kiev, despite mounting pressure from the EU to toe the party line. The Czech Republic joined the fold after the recent election of new Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who has refused to fund Ukraine at the expense of his taxpayers.

Russian officials have accused Kiev’s European backers of hindering recent US-led peace efforts, and of increasingly preparing for a direct war against Russia.

Top EU officials have used claims of an alleged threat from Moscow to justify accelerating militarization, freeing up €335 billion in Covid relief funds and mobilizing €150 billion in loans and grants for the bloc’s military industrial complex.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly dismissed the allegations as “nonsense” aimed at “creating an image of an enemy” to distract Western European taxpayers from domestic problems.

As Kiev would only need to start making repayments to the EU if it receives reparations in the unlikely event Russia loses, the loan is widely considered to be at risk of turning into a grant.

December 21, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

Western media peddle Russia’s ‘abduction’ of Ukrainian children to prolong the proxy war

It is not Moscow, but rather the Kiev regime and its backers who are using children as “pawns of war”

By Finian Cunningham | RT | December 18, 2025

It’s not clear if the Trump administration wants to genuinely resolve the proxy war with Russia, or if it is merely trying to extricate itself from the mess Washington helped instigate. But one thing is clear: the major Western European capitals are desperate to keep the war going.

Various pretexts are being used to frustrate a diplomatic process. NATO-like security guarantees to Ukraine pushed by Berlin, London, and Paris are likely to be a non-starter for Moscow. So too are moves by the Europeans to use Russia’s seized wealth as a “reparations loan.”

Another issue that Europeans are dredging up is the allegation that Russia has abducted Ukrainian children. This emotive issue has support in Washington among the hawkish anti-Russia factions in the US establishment opposed to Trump’s diplomacy with Moscow.

Earlier this month, the European states sponsored a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly calling on Russia to return all Ukrainian children that it is alleged to have forcibly relocated from Ukrainian territory during the past four years of conflict. The president of the UNGA is former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

An article published by the Washington DC-based Atlantic Council contended: “The issue of abducted Ukrainian children is especially relevant for Ukrainians as they debate painful political compromises, territorial concessions, and security guarantees premised on Western assurances. If world leaders cannot secure the return of the most vulnerable victims of Russia’s aggression, how could Ukrainians trust that those same leaders can prevent Russia from reigniting the war or committing new atrocities?”

In other words, the allegation of child abduction is being made into a condition for Russia to fulfill for the diplomatic resolution of the conflict.  The trouble is that the condition is impossible to fulfill because the allegation is so vague and unfounded. Russia has denounced the accusation that it forcibly relocated Ukrainian children as a “web of lies.”

In March 2023, the Hague-based International Criminal Court indicted Russian President Vladimir Putin, along with Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, of war crimes related to the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Moscow is not a member of the ICC and rejected the charges as null and void.

Still, however, the Kiev regime and its Western sponsors continue to level the accusations. The Western media, as usual, serve to amplify the narrative despite the lack of evidence.

At the recent UN General Assembly debate, British representative Archie Young stated: “Today is a moment to reflect on the plight of Ukrainian children who have become victims of Russia’s illegal invasion. We all have an obligation to protect children and must not allow Russia to use them as pawns of war. According to the government of Ukraine, corroborated by independent mechanisms, more than 19,500 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported to Russia or within the temporarily occupied territories.”

Note how the British official peddles a series of disputable claims that are transformed into normative facts by the Western media’s repetition.

It is not Russia, but rather the Kiev regime and its Western backers who are using children as “pawns of war.”

Moscow has openly stated that up to 730,000 children have been relocated to the Russian Federation since hostilities erupted in February 2022. Most of the children are accompanied by parents and come from the territories that seceded from Ukraine in legally held referenda.

Of the nearly eight million people who fled Ukraine, the largest share of them – an estimated 35% – have taken shelter in Russia. The second and third biggest host countries for Ukrainian refugees after Russia are Poland and Germany. But the European governments and media are not accusing Warsaw or Berlin of “child abductions.”

In a war zone affecting millions of people, it is absurd to make out that displaced families and their children are being kidnapped. The vast majority of people have willingly sought shelter within Russian territory to escape the violence on the frontlines – violence that has been fueled by NATO states pumping hundreds of millions of dollars’ and euros’ worth of weapons into Ukraine.

Moscow points out that the figure of 20,000 to 35,000 that the Western governments and media claim for children “abducted by Russia” is never substantiated with names or identifying details.

Russian authorities say that the Kiev regime has provided the names of just over 300 individuals. Moscow has endeavored to return individuals where it is mutually requested, although some of the identities provided by the Kiev regime have turned out to be adults or they are not present in Russian territory.

In the chaos of war, it is all too easy to throw around vague numbers and exploit the imprecision for propaganda. The European governments and media are doing that and embellishing the emotive issue with dark claims that Russia is sending masses of Ukrainian children to “re-education camps” for “indoctrination.”

One of the main sources for such claims is the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab. It has produced unverified reports that Russia has sent 35,000 Ukrainian children to hundreds of brainwashing centers all across Russia to erase their national identity.

A major supporter of the Yale research group is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This association strongly suggests that the group is a CIA-sponsored propaganda tool. But the US and European media regularly cite the research and amplify its claims as reliable facts.

The exploitation of children for war propaganda is a staple of Western intelligence agencies and the media.

A classic case was in Vietnam in the 1950s and 60s when the Western media were replete with horror stories of the Viet Cong torturing Vietnamese children, as recounted by James Bradley in his book, ‘Precious Freedom’. The supposed communist guerrillas reportedly stabbed Vietnamese children with chopsticks in their ears so that they could not hear the Bible being preached. Such alleged atrocities were widely published by the Western media to whip up public support for the US military deployment “to save Vietnam from evil communists.” But it was all CIA-orchestrated lies. More than three million Vietnamese were killed in a war based on American intelligence and media lies.

A re-run of the psychological operation today is the lurid claims that Putin’s evil Russia has kidnapped tens of thousands of children for brainwashing in detention camps. Some reports even claim Russia has sent the children to North Korea.

The Western media are doing their usual service of peddling war propaganda and ensuring diplomacy is rendered impossible because Russia is portrayed as monstrous.

Finian Cunningham is an award-winning journalist and co-author of Killing Democracy: Western Imperialism’s Legacy of Regime Change and Media Manipulation. For over 25 years, he worked as a sub-editor and writer for The Mirror, Irish Times, Irish Independent and Britain’s Independent, among others.

December 19, 2025 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Colonel Jacques Baud & Nathalie Yamb Sanctioned: EU Goes Soviet

Glenn Diesen | December 16, 2025

How did we reach a point where quoting Western sources gets you branded a foreign propagandist? Is the EU’s executive branch now completely out of its mind, punishing dissenters without trial under the guise of fighting “propaganda”?

December 17, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia, Video | , | 1 Comment

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

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

By Tunc Akkoc | The Cradle | December 16, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Cradle : How should Germany approach relations with Turkiye?

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

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

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

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

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

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

EU nation ‘disrupting normal religious life’ – UN experts

RT | December 17, 2025

Estonian authorities are undermining religious freedoms by fostering an “adversarial environment” for the country’s largest church community because of its spiritual ties to Russia, a panel of experts advising the UN Human Rights Council has warned.

In a statement issued on Monday, the experts criticized Tallinn’s approach toward the Estonian Orthodox Christian Church (EOCC), which maintains canonical links with the Russian Orthodox Church. They pointed to a series of administrative actions, a court decision that stripped the EOCC of state funding on security grounds, and a proposed legislative amendment that the panel said would “disproportionately affect a single religious community.”

“Canonical identity, ecclesiastical hierarchy and spiritual allegiance are integral components of the freedom of religion and are fully protected under international law,” the three-member panel emphasized.

The experts highlighted as particularly troubling a bill being advanced in the Estonian parliament despite objections from President Alar Karis. He has argued that the proposed ban on religious organizations accused of links to a foreign entity labeled a security threat by the government would violate the constitution.

The panel also condemned refusals to grant rent agreements and residency permits to clergy, stating: “Such actions disrupt normal religious life and may undermine the autonomy that should be granted under freedom of religion or belief.”

Moscow has long accused Estonia of pursuing discriminatory policies allegedly driven by entrenched Russophobia. The Estonian Orthodox Christian Church includes both ethnic Estonians and members of the country’s sizable Russian-speaking minority among its faithful.

December 17, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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