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Andy Burn ’Em, Britain’s new PM, wants to end homelessness by fueling militarism and war

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 22, 2026

Andy Burnham took over as British prime minister this week, promising to bring “hope and change” to poverty-stricken Britain amid a political crisis in which public contempt for governing parties is at record levels.

In his first speech outside 10 Downing Street on Monday, Burnham said: “I will put the care of people at the heart of everything I do… Let us make this the moment when Britain starts to believe again, the moment we bring back hope.”

British media headlines were swooning over this supposed radical new beginning for Britain. At 56 years old, Burnham brings a fresh face to tired British politics.

Notably, he said his top priority was to end “rough sleeping” on the streets for thousands of homeless Britons. And he announced a budget of £340 million (€400 m, $450 m) over the next five years to fix the problem by building affordable homes.

This apparent commitment to improving social conditions may sound laudable. It buffs Burnham’s image as a caring politician on the side of working-class Britons. He likes to talk about his North of England credentials and empathy for popular concerns during his tenure as Mayor of Greater Manchester (2017-2026).

But let’s put his homeless budget in a realistic context. On his first day in Downing Street, Burnham also made Britain’s military support for Ukraine another of his priorities. He said there would be “one hundred per cent” continuation of the policy under his predecessor Keir Starmer that made Britain one of the most gung-ho backers of the Kiev regime in NATO’s proxy war against Russia.

Significantly, Burnham appointed former defense minister John Healey as the new Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister). Healey will be London’s man in control of all government budgets. As defense minister in the previous Starmer Cabinet, Healey was an ultra-hawkish figure when it came to supporting Ukraine and calling for greater military spending. It was Healey’s shock resignation on June 11 as defense secretary that was the last nail in Starmer’s premiership. Healey quit because he claimed that Starmer had not allocated enough money to enable Britain’s NATO commitments for reaching a military spending target of 3.5 per cent of GDP. He claimed that Starmer was undermining Britain’s national security and leaving it vulnerable to an alleged Russian threat. Healey and the military establishment wanted additional funds amounting to at least £15 bn more than what Starmer could muster in his Defence Investment Plan.

If Healey gets his way as the new finance minister, he will commit Britain to increasing its annual military spending from £63 bn to £90 bn. This will have to be paid for by massive cuts in public services and social welfare, austerity that has already driven British society into widespread poverty, where one-in-three children live in deprivation.

That Burnham has surprised many observers with the appointment of Healey to the second-most powerful position in Downing Street is a sure sign that he, as prime minister, is fully committed to Britain ramping up its militarism and support for Ukraine.

Burnham’s first phone call in office was to U.S. President Donald Trump. His second call was to Vladimir Zelensky, the puppet president of Ukraine, to assure him of Britain’s ongoing support.

Doesn’t it seem a bit incongruous that “caring, sharing Andy” should make support for Ukraine and assurances about NATO spending his first foreign policy priority while at the same time posing with concern about homelessness in Britain?

Under a bilateral defense pact between Britain and Ukraine signed last year by Starmer and which Burnham will uphold, London is committed to supplying £3 billion (€3.5 bn, $4 bn) in military aid to the Kiev regime every year over the next five years and “for as long as Ukraine needs support”. This is on top of Britain’s own national military spending.

Burnham’s budget to end homelessness in the UK works out at £68 million per year over five years. This is paltry, equivalent to only 2.3 per cent of the money that his government will be supplying every year to a NeoNazi regime to fight a futile war against Russia – paid for by British taxpayers.

What’s going on in Britain is not a supposed renaissance of people-centered democracy. The British media are hyping Burnham as a “people’s prime minister”. He is talking about decentralizing political power from London to create a “No 10 of the North”. All the sentimental aspiration about hope and change is reminiscent of when Barack Obama became U.S. president in 2008. It’s all hokum and empty rhetoric.

Lord Peter Ricketts, a former British national security advisor, let the cat out of the bag when he told CNN in an interview that Burnham’s task will be to use his populist communication skills to “sell” the agenda to the public of Britain continuing its support for Ukraine and intensifying the militarism of the British economy. This agenda depends on convincing the British public that Russia is a threat to Europe.

Already, Burnham has shown that he buys into that geopolitical project of making Britain ready for war against Russia. He is being an obedient politician to promote the interests of the British imperialist deep state and the military-industrial complex. As soon as he announced the appointment of Healey as chancellor, the stock prices of British weapons companies spiked.

Before he became prime minister, Burnham gave an interview to the London Times in which he pointedly said that he would not be “squeamish” about cutting social welfare funds to pay for increasing military spending. He was signalling to the British establishment that he would be a “safe pair of hands” in Downing Street.

During his first speech outside Downing Street this week, he said he would find a “sustainable way to bring the welfare bill down, to meet our fiscal rules, and honor our commitments on defense to our international partners.” For “international partners” read “NATO and Ukraine.”

If Burnham were genuinely seeking to overhaul Britain’s politics and economics to serve the pressing democratic needs of the British people, he would be challenging the irrational, undemocratic and reckless agenda of pushing NATO militarism and a proxy war in Ukraine. He would reject the relentless propaganda demonizing Russia that is driving Britain and Europe to the abyss of all-out war.

Andy Burnham is not going to save Britain from political and economic collapse. He’s just another manikin brought in to fob off the mass of angry people while the British imperial state siphons more money out of the economy for war. Under Andy Burn ’Em, Britain’s homelessness problem will take on a whole new meaning if he lets the country slide into a world war.

July 22, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , | Comments Off on Andy Burn ’Em, Britain’s new PM, wants to end homelessness by fueling militarism and war

Von der Leyen paints target signs on Europe with Ukraine drone pact

Strategic Culture Foundation | July 17, 2026

The European Union has officially joined the war effort against Russia. This week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed a “historic pact” with Ukraine to integrate the production of combat drones to strike Russia.

According to Euronews reporting, the pact also envisages the joint production of ballistic missiles.

This scaled-up war effort will be funded by the €90 billion loan that the EU is releasing to Ukraine. A bill that will be paid for by generations of European taxpayers.

Von der Leyen was greeted in Kiev by Ukraine’s unelected martial-law president, Vladimir Zelensky. That makes two people who do not have a democratic mandate making decisions that are driving Europe to all-out war with Russia. Von der Leyen is a political appointee. She is not elected by popular ballot. Formerly, she was Germany’s Minister of Defense, and not a particularly bright one either. Dogged by corruption scandals and abuse of power over procuring Covid-19 vaccines from Big Pharma, von der Leyen is an exemplar of “failing upwards.”

On her 11th visit to Kiev since the conflict escalated in February 2022, von der Leyen declared that the “tide is turning” in the NATO proxy war against Russia. She was referring to the increase in long-range air strikes on Russian territory and the release of €90 bn to fund the war.

In a public speech, she brazenly announced that the European Union was explicitly allied with Ukraine as a participant in the war.

“In Europe, we already have huge technological and industrial capacity that can be deployed. And we have safe and secure production sites that can help to scale up,” von der Leyen said.

She added: “But we do not have that battle-tested knowledge and expertise that Ukraine has forged. So the point I am making is that we need to combine our strengths. Together, we can work on joint production.”

The innovation, which von der Leyen and her NATO planners presumably think is ever-so smart, is that European countries will produce munitions that are “safe” from Russian retaliatory strikes. The drones and missiles will be transported to Ukraine, from where they can be launched to hit deep into Russian territory to target the capital, Moscow, and take out oil industrial facilities all over the country. In recent months, NATO-backed Ukrainian drones have killed hundreds of Russian civilians. Von der Leyen’s pact with Ukraine is giving a green light to intensify this terror campaign.

But it’s von der Leyen’s arrogant sense of impunity that is astounding and should be viewed as deeply disturbing. She apparently assumes that European countries can serve as an arsenal of weapons for Ukraine to attack Russia. Yet, in her view, Russia is not permitted to take retaliatory action against the EU (and NATO) as a participant in the war. This is insanely reckless and stupid.

Of course, the European Union, NATO, and the United States have been participants in the proxy war against Russia since their coup in Kiev in 2014 to install and weaponize a NeoNazi regime. That background of weaponization and ideological programming culminated in war erupting in 2022. The Collective West has supplied an estimated $400 billion to prop up the regime since 2022, has supplied NATO mercenaries and advisors, as well as providing targeting logistics and operational expertise for long-range missiles.

Ukraine has also signed bilateral military pacts with individual EU countries, such as Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway. Britain has signed a One Hundred Year Defense Pact. All of these arrangements provide weapons, warplanes, drones, and missiles.

However, the EU support that von der Leyen unveiled this week is a commitment from the entire 27-nation EU bloc to join the war on an industrial scale.

In April this year, the Russian Ministry of Defense published a list of European companies and their locations that it said were partners in Ukraine’s war effort. Russia said that these sites could henceforth be considered legitimate targets for retaliation. So far,  Russia has refrained from directly striking any EU or NATO state. But how long this Russian restraint will last is a pressing question in the light of increasing provocation by the EU and NATO.

Von der Leyen has taken to describing the Ukrainian regime as a “net provider of security for Europe.” This is to supposedly justify European citizens enduring economic hardship as public monies are funnelled to the corrupt regime.

This week, on cue for the drone deal and fusing of the EU and Ukrainian economies, Zelensky reshuffled his Cabinet for the second time in only a matter of months in an attempt to give the impression that he was cleaning up notorious corruption. Prime Minister Yulia Syrvydenko was sacked because she was close to Zelensky’s former Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak, who was forced to quit owing to a massive corruption scandal involving military procurement. In his latest clean-up act, Zelensky made the mistake of sacking Defense Minister Myhailo Federov, sparking public protests in Kiev and other cities. Federov, who had only been in the job for six months, was seen as an earnest reformer. His efforts riled military commanders, such as Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, who want the graft gravy train to continue running. No surprise that Zelensky backed the old guard to stay in place, especially as the €90 bn EU freight car is soon to arrive in Kiev.

Indeed, the tide is turning, but not in the way that delusional von der Leyen imagines. Russian forces on the ground are wearing down the last NATO-backed Ukrainian defenses while ramped-up Russian air strikes are destroying drone-making centers in Kiev and other cities.

That is why the EU and NATO are innovating a new tactic of removing drone production sites from Ukraine and seemingly out of Russia’s reach by stationing these sites in European nations. The implicit idea is that the EU can scale up the war effort safely without suffering any consequences.

The Russophobic EU leadership is driving Europe to war against Russia, as Professor Richard Sakwa commented this week in an interview with Glenn Diesen. The decisions are being made autocratically without any democratic mandate. Effectively, the EU has become a dictatorship for war. Another manifestation of this was seen at the Bastille Day parade in Paris on July 14, when NATO troops joined French and Ukrainian regiments in a unified show of belligerence towards Russia.

And brain-dead bureaucrats like Ursula von der Leyen on her €400,ooo a-year salary are happily painting target signs across European nations.

This is not sleepwalking into war. The European elites’ eyes are wide open and crazed.

July 18, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Comments Off on Von der Leyen paints target signs on Europe with Ukraine drone pact

Kremlin responds to US election meddling accusations

RT | July 17, 2026

Moscow has dismissed claims linking Russia to threats against US elections, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, calling the intelligence cited by Washington unsubstantiated.

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump delivered a prime-time address which focused on alleged vulnerabilities in the voting infrastructure. He said the current system “falls catastrophically short” and is exposed to hacking.

While Trump barely mentioned Russia in his speech and was more focused on alleged meddling efforts by China – which Beijing has denied – the White House released a trove of declassified documents, with one assessment stating: “We judge that US adversaries, including at a minimum Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea… have the capability to compromise US election infrastructure.”

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Peskov said the allegations are based on “certain anonymous and unsubstantiated information from the US intelligence services.”

He noted that “investigations and inquiries were conducted in the US” and they came to “the conclusion that Russia did not influence the elections in the US in any way.”

“Russia has never interfered in the internal affairs of other countries, and we expect that no one will try to interfere in our internal affairs,” he added.

Allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election and coordination between Trump’s campaign and Moscow – known as Russiagate – overshadowed much of Trump’s first term and led to an investigation overseen by special counsel Robert Mueller.

While Mueller claimed that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election “in sweeping and systematic fashion” – which Moscow firmly denied – he did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.

July 17, 2026 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Comments Off on Kremlin responds to US election meddling accusations

French Donbass Charity Founder’s Show Trial Designed to ‘Neutralize’ Dissent to Hostility to Russia

Sputnik – 15.07.2026

The criminal case against SOS Donbass organizer Anna Novikova is part of France and EU’s broader policy of “intimidating dissenters and neutralizing them to suppress domestic opposition to the official hostility to Russia,” independent French geopolitical analyst Come Carpentier de Gourdon told Sputnik.

“In fact any support of Russia, even by quoting or circulating news reports, opinions or comments from Russian (state) media is considered in France as connivence with the enemy and therefore potentially treasonous,” with Russia deemed “de facto an enemy country,” the observer pointed out.

But the prosecution may face problems, because the law “is far from clear” regarding humanitarian aid, “and any trial can become very controversial as the accused may object the French Government’s position: Ukraine is not an ally of France or a NATO member, France has not declared war on Russia.”

“Therefore objections can be raised to the claim that assistance to the Donbass and denunciation of Ukrainian actions there is tantamount to supporting Russia’s military campaign.”

Nevertheless, “other EU countries” should be “expected to adopt similar measures or laws,” the analyst fears.

Case Flunks Even EU’s Own Fake Rule of Law Standards

Novikova’s case does not even “adhere to the three Orwellian slogans of the EU – democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights,” political analyst Dr. Greg Simons told Sputnik.

The “purely political” crackdown “is a continuation of the larger attempt to shut out any alternative views,” and was preceded by things like bans on Russian foreign-facing media, sanctions and economic warfare against critics. It will inevitably expand over time, Simons expects.

“The Ukraine issue is going to become much more sensitive and toxic politically to Europe for supporting this cause,” and Novikova’s “lawfare” imprisonment and trial are a “test case” for tightening control over the narrative on Ukraine.

It’s also an “an act of pure intimidation so that people will stop breaking the narrative” amid the growing desperation and political vulnerability of the French government, Simons suggests, pointing to President Macron’s growing vulnerability and questions on his political future, and similar trends regarding the anti-Russia ideology of Euro-Atlanticism in general.

July 15, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Comments Off on French Donbass Charity Founder’s Show Trial Designed to ‘Neutralize’ Dissent to Hostility to Russia

Lindsey Graham Won’t be Missed

The full reckoning of a senatorial legacy built on imperial adventurism, serving Jewish interests, and promoting mass migration.

José Niño Unfiltered | July 13, 2026

Last weekend brought a brief respite to those of us jaded by the current political order. On July 11, 2026, two days after 71st birthday, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina reportedly died from a sudden and brief illness. For more than three decades, from the halls of the South Carolina statehouse to the upper echelons of the United States Senate, Graham was a defining figure of the Republican Party establishment.

More than just a politician, he was the Senate’s most durable neoconservative hawk—a man who embodied the “invade the world, invite the world” political order. His career was characterized by a relentless drive to project American military power abroad, an unyielding devotion to Zionist causes, and a long-standing willingness to champion mass migration, even as Republican voters began to gravitate toward populism.

Born in Central, South Carolina, Graham was the first in his family to attend college. His worldview was forged in the military, where he spent 33 years in the Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps and the reserve system. Serving as the Air Force’s chief prosecutor in Europe during the 1980s, Graham developed a rigid belief in the necessity of a hyper-interventionist American foreign policy. Though he never deployed to a combat zone during the Gulf War, his brief reserve stints in Iraq and Afghanistan later in life cemented his hawkish credentials.

Entering the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994, Graham quickly made a name for himself as one of 13 Republican House managers who prosecuted the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in January 1999. His conservative South Carolina constituents approved of the performance, and he earned recognition among his colleagues that would follow him to higher office. That early legalistic fervor translated into a broader, more belligerent approach to global affairs when he succeeded Strom Thurmond—who had held the seat since 1956—winning the 2002 Senate race against Democratic opponent Alex Sanders with President George W. Bush actively campaigning on his behalf.

Once in the Senate, Graham found his true calling on the global stage. Alongside John McCain and Joe Lieberman, he formed the “Three Amigos,” a nickname coined by General David Petraeus during one of the trio’s many visits to war zones. The group became a fixture of congressional delegations to Afghanistan, Iraq, and other conflict zones, pitching American intervention as a bipartisan cause at a time when much of the country was souring on it. Graham outlived both his comrades—McCain died of brain cancer in August 2018, Lieberman in 2024.

Graham was a steadfast supporter of the 2003 Iraq invasion and the 2007 surge, consistently opposing any drawdown that might let the country slide back into chaos. He opposed bringing troops home from Afghanistan at every turn, blasting Biden’s 2021 withdrawal announcement as “dumber than dirt and devilishly dangerous” and warning that it amounted to canceling “an insurance policy against another 9/11.” His philosophy on the use of force was stark and uncompromising. When discussing the prospect of war with North Korea in 2017, he told NBC’s Today show that “if there’s going to be a war to stop him, it will be over there. If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die here.” For Graham, the collateral damage of war was always worth it in the name of long-term stability and national security.

This belligerence extended across the globe. He was a leading advocate for the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya, calling on NATO to “cut the head of the snake off” by bombing Gaddafi’s inner circle, compounds, and military headquarters in Tripoli. In Syria, he repeatedly pushed for a U.S. no-fly zone and military intervention to arm anti-Assad rebels, blasting the Obama administration’s handling of the chemical weapons “red line” as profoundly mismanaged. He was equally hawkish on Venezuela, writing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed republished on his Senate website that the U.S. must be willing to intervene in Venezuela the way Reagan did in Grenada, arguing that an ultimatum to Cuba to withdraw its security forces from the country would mean “the beginning of the end of the [Nicolás] Maduro dictatorship.”

His hostility toward Russia and China was equally palpable. In March 2022, Graham publicly called for Putin’s assassination on Fox News and Twitter, asking “Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?” and declaring “the only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.” He stood by the remarks the following day, saying “I hope he’ll be taken out, one way or the other.”

He introduced the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 alongside Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, proposing a 500% tariff on goods imported from any country that continues buying Russian oil, gas, or uranium—a measure that by June 2025 had attracted 84 Senate co-sponsors. He similarly vowed to “draft pre-invasion sanctions from hell” against China over Taiwan, calling a report that Xi Jinping had told Biden he would “unify” Taiwan “beyond unnerving.” He also championed the COVID-19 Accountability Act in 2020, which would have authorized sanctions on Beijing if it failed to cooperate with an international investigation into the pandemic’s origins.

Nowhere was Graham’s hawkishness more pronounced than in his stance on Iran and his devotion to Israel. He vehemently opposed the 2015 JCPOA, warning that the deal would give Iran “a pathway to the bomb, missiles to deliver it, money to pay for it” and describing a nuclear-armed Iran as “an existential threat to our allies in Israel.”

During the 2026 Israel-Iran conflict, he urged the Senate to re-vote the Iran War Powers resolution and defeat it, arguing that passing it would embolden Iran during ceasefire negotiations. Graham backed the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, pushed for American recognition of the Golan Heights, and consistently voted for every annual appropriation of military aid to Israel. Throughout the recent Gaza war, Graham’s rhetoric reached new extremes; he called for giving Israel “the bombs they need to end the war,” shockingly comparing the situation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and threatened to sanction the International Criminal Court over potential arrest warrants for Israeli officials.

Graham’s unyielding pro-Israel stance was deeply intertwined with his political funding. He was completely in the pocket of Zionist, oligarchical, and defense interests. Advocacy trackers and campaign finance records show Graham received massive financial backing from pro-Israel PACs and donors. Campaign finance records tell much of the story behind that devotion. A Center for Public Integrity investigation found that the top donor to his 2014 super PAC was Larry Mizel—a Colorado developer, AIPAC board member, and Simon Wiesenthal Center chairman who gave $100,000. Sam Fox, a former chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition, gave $50,000. Boeing’s political action committee gave $25,000 to the same super PAC.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg also appeared among the donors. OpenSecrets documented that Sheldon Adelson co-hosted a 2015 fundraiser for Graham’s presidential exploratory committee, alongside Mizel and RJC executive director Matthew Brooks. Graham himself acknowledged the network publicly, telling the Wall Street Journal that he “may have the first all-Jewish cabinet in America because of the pro-Israel funding.”

While Graham was an avatar of invading the world, he was equally committed to inviting the world via mass migration. For years, he was one of the Republican Party’s foremost advocates for comprehensive immigration reform aka amnesty, earning him the moniker “Lindsey Grahamnesty.” He was a critical player in the 2006 and 2007 reform efforts, working closely with John McCain and Ted Kennedy to create pathways to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants.

In 2013, Graham was one of eight senators—four Democrats and four Republicans—who drafted and co-sponsored the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, known as the “Gang of Eight” bill, which proposed a 13-year conditional path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants. The bill passed the Senate 68-32 but stalled in the House. He also introduced the DREAM Act alongside Democratic Senator Dick Durbin in at least three consecutive sessions of Congress—2017, 2019, and 2021—legislation that would allow illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children to earn permanent residence and eventually citizenship.

There is no cause for mourning in the passing of Lindsey Graham. He served as a key instrument for a nefarious agenda that traded American blood and treasure for imperial adventurism while simultaneously eroding the nation’s demographic core through mass migration.

His entire political lifespan was a tireless campaign against the interests of his own constituents in favor of a Judeo-American order that has hollowed out our country from within. As we reckon with the geopolitical and domestic ruin he helped orchestrate, we must recognize his legacy for what it truly is: a betrayal of the American people. He belongs to the ages, but he deserves no peace; may Lindsey Graham exist in eternal torment for the devastation he brought upon this polity.

July 14, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Russophobia, Sinophobia, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Comments Off on Lindsey Graham Won’t be Missed

UK moves to ban Iran’s IRGC, cites unfounded national security threats

Al Mayadeen | July 13, 2026

The British government announced Monday that it will designate Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps under new national security powers, deepening already strained relations between London and Tehran, The Guardian reported.

Rather than formally proscribing the IRGC under the “Terrorism Act”, the government will classify the Iranian military body as an organization involved in “foreign power threat activity.” The new mechanism carries consequences comparable to “terrorist proscription” and would criminalize certain forms of support or assistance once approved by Parliament.

The designation marks a significant shift in Britain’s position after previous Conservative governments declined calls to formally ban the IRGC, partly because it is an official component of the Iranian state and armed forces.

Home Office cites alleged threats

Announcing the measure, the Home Office said the decision followed a review of alleged activities connected to the organizations targeted by the new designations.

“Having carefully considered all the evidence, the home secretary has concluded that there is sufficient basis to reasonably believe that each of these bodies is engaged in foreign power threat activity, and that each designation is necessary to protect the safety and interests of the United Kingdom.”

British authorities linked the decision to alleged plots and cyberoperations attributed to Iran.

London has also claimed more than 20 allegedly Iran-linked plots identified by British security agencies over the previous year.

The British government has not publicly presented evidence establishing direct IRGC involvement in every incident cited in support of the measure.

Iranian and Russian bodies targeted

Alongside the IRGC, the government said it would designate the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, or IMCR, which British authorities blame for several attacks against Jewish institutions and other targets in the country.

The incidents attributed to the group reportedly include arson and vandalism attacks targeting synagogues, emergency vehicles operated by the Jewish volunteer service Hatzola and the offices of an Iranian opposition media organisation.

Russia’s GRU Volunteer Corps, which Britain describes as an overseas operational body connected to Russian military intelligence, will also be listed under the same legal framework.

The measures are expected to make it easier for British authorities to prosecute individuals accused of acting for, assisting, or receiving benefits from designated foreign-linked bodies. The designations must first receive parliamentary approval before entering into force.

Diplomatic fallout expected

The decision is likely to further damage relations between Britain and Iran at a time of heightened regional tensions and ongoing conflict involving Tehran and Washington.

British officials had previously warned that action against the IRGC could prompt retaliatory diplomatic measures, including the possible removal of the UK ambassador from Tehran.

The IRGC was established following Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and operates as an official branch of the country’s armed forces. It plays a central role in Iran’s defense structure and reports to the country’s supreme leadership.

Britain’s decision follows a similar move by the European Union, which formally added the IRGC to its list of “terrorist organisations” in February 2026.

July 13, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , , , | Comments Off on UK moves to ban Iran’s IRGC, cites unfounded national security threats

Lindsey Graham was a monster, but not exceptional

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | July 12, 2026

Lindsey Graham is dead. And if we were to apply the old Spartan and then Roman adage “about the dead, nothing but the good,” then this is where this text would have to end.

Some readers may find this shocking or unkind. But it is a fact that there is no way to write about the intriguingly sudden end of the long-term US senator from South Carolina in a ‘balanced’ manner and stay honest.

Graham was an almost cartoonishly evil man and since he was also very powerful, his moral depravity made a big difference to the lives of all too many. Downplaying that fact out of misplaced piety would be perverse; it would mean to disrespect the many victims of perfidious and brutal US and, in fact, Israeli policies of vicious violence and outrageous injustice that Graham promoted with every fiber of his being for his whole political life.

During the Gaza genocide, when challenged specifically about the Israeli mass killings of civilians, including women and children, Graham launched into what can only be called a psychopathic rant comparing the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians with American warfare against Germany in Japan in World War II (an intriguing comparison in and of itself, but that is another matter) and drawing the conclusion that Gaza should be flattened, including with nuclear weapons. Gaza has been flattened, and to his dying day, Graham never showed an ounce of compassion for those slaughtered by his Israeli friends and did everything he could to support that slaughter.

That is, of course, also why internationally wanted war criminal – really genocidaire – Benjamin Netanyahu rushed to offer his public condolences.

Speaking of Graham’s obvious subservience to Israel, the senator was, unsurprisingly, also a great fan of going to war with Iran, tirelessly calling for attacking it as violently as possible. He spread the Orwellian lies that Iran was about to pose a nuclear threat to the US and that its ballistic missile arsenal was a tool of reckless aggression, all to produce domestic support for yet another criminal American war. Himself addicted to hiding his foul character behind a bigoted and utterly fake Christian piety, Graham compared Iran’s leaders to Hitler and called them “religious Nazis,” thereby not merely offending brave men towering above him in moral and intellectual terms, but also helping to drum up propaganda for murdering them.

It is an irony of history or, maybe, divine justice that he lived just long enough to see the US follow his insane and corrupt advice and suffer a geopolitically catastrophic defeat for it.

Yet Graham was a monster long before the Gaza Genocide and the US-Israeli war against Iran. He was obsessed with brutalizing as many other countries and societies as possible. He could not see an opportunity for a war and not do his worst to make it happen. Graham’s record of warmongering is so extensive that it is hard to reproduce it in its entirety. Just shortly before his end, he had been calling for more US violence in Cuba, Lebanon, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Yemen – apart, obviously, from his eternal compulsion to scream for, in effect, more dead Palestinians and Iranians.

In true American fashion, if being Graham’s target was terrible, being his ‘friend’ was no better. Ukraine has come to stand for that experience. Even while pretending to be its ardent supporter, Graham was always among those most brutally open about using Ukraine and its people for the geopolitical and commercial interests of the US. He praised opportunities to rob Ukraine of crucial raw materials and he clearly considered pumping money into its ultra-corrupt Zelensky regime a great deal as it produced dead Russians (and, he failed to mention, Ukrainians, too, of course).

There is no other way of putting it. Lindsey Graham was an infernally bad man. And he was a revolting man: his viciousness was glaringly obvious. Graham was not a complicated case, a conflicted character, a man of light and dark. He was among the closest to pure, unadulterated, and shamelessly brazen evil many of us will ever lay eyes on.

That is why it is telling – but not surprising – to see who is lining up to let us know how much they’ll miss him, that they were buddies with him, or what a wonderful person he was. Apart from Netanyahu, for instance, German chancellor Friedrich Merz, NATO’s Trump bellboy Mark Rutte, Ukraine’s authoritarian leader Vladimir Zelensky, and, of course, AIPAC.

What these often abject condolences show is not merely the moral failure – polite term – of those who offer them. There is a more general and, in its way, worse point: Horrible as Graham was, he was also representative of the elites of the US and the West. Normal people would be ashamed to be seen with Graham, dead or alive; Western elites are boasting of their intimacy with him.

Graham was explicit in displaying his genuine, sick joy in inflicting pain and misery on as much of the world as he could. Indeed, one way to describe him would be as an openly, enthusiastically sadistic imperialist. Graham was a depraved pervert of power who let it all hang out. But apart from his lack of filter, he was not an exception but typical.

Graham was the ugly and all too realistic face of much of the West and its leaders in Washington. He is gone, everyone and everything else is still in place.

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

July 12, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Islamophobia, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , | Comments Off on Lindsey Graham was a monster, but not exceptional

US Strategy and the shift to NATO 3.0

A shorter declaration masks deeper tensions, as Washington pushes to reshape NATO’s role from Europe to West Asia and Asia-Pacific.

By Mehmet Ali Guller | The Cradle | July 11, 2026

The six-point final declaration of the NATO Ankara Summit is among the shortest in recent years, similar to last year’s five-point declaration from The Hague. In contrast, the 2021 Brussels Summit declaration contained 79 points, Madrid in 2022 had 22, Vilnius in 2023 included 90, and Washington in 2024 featured 38.

The sharp reduction reflects ongoing tensions between the US and Europe. The declaration is brief because areas of agreement remain limited. The debate over NATO as a “paper tiger” has not been resolved, only set aside.

In the declaration, this issue is temporarily addressed through the slogan “a stronger Europe in a stronger NATO.”

Ankara Declaration targets Russia and Iran

The first article of the six-point Ankara declaration reaffirms commitment to Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, while the final article offers thanks to the host country.

The remaining four articles center on Russia, outline a $70 billion support package for Ukraine, expand defense spending, reference $50 billion in arms deals, and briefly touch on Iran.

The Donroe Doctrine and NATO 3.0

Washington is seeking to adapt NATO to what it frames as a new strategic phase, described here as NATO 3.0. The so-called Donroe Doctrine centers on consolidating dominance in the Western Hemisphere, shifting more responsibility onto allies in Europe and elsewhere, and encircling China in the Asia-Pacific through partnerships.

In practice, this takes three forms:

  1. Europe assumes primary responsibility for its own security, including taking the lead in supporting Ukraine against Russia.
  2. A new order is established in West Asia under Israeli hegemony, requiring normalization between NATO member Turkiye and Israel, as well as between Israel and Syria and the Gulf states, while weakening Iran as the principal obstacle.
  3. NATO deepens cooperation with its Asia-Pacific partners—the IP4 countries: Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand—integrating them into its arms supply chain and gradually extending NATO’s reach into Asia.

The political economy of NATO 3.0

Washington views militarization as the lever for the transformation of NATO 3.0. It has two key objectives: raising NATO members’ defense spending to 5 percent of GDP and building a new arms production chain. The first step was initiated in The Hague last year, and the second advanced in Ankara.

Pushing defense spending to 5 percent would generate a vast financial pool within a few years. Including NATO partners such as Japan would further expand the scale, creating a market that draws broad interest. The US aims to distribute this pool in a way that sustains the NATO 3.0 framework.

Alongside this sits the effort to construct a new arms supply chain. The approach is to retain control over core components while distributing subcomponent production across allies, linking them to one another and ultimately to Washington.

The $50 billion arms deals referenced in the declaration mark an initial step. The $10 billion NATO–South Korea agreement, which grants Seoul access to NATO’s joint defense procurement market, fits within this model.

A new military-industrial economy

For the Erdogan government, securing a share of expanding defense spending has become a priority. Ankara sees this as an opening for its defense sector, particularly through the state firm ASELSAN and the private company BAYKAR.

The Defense Industry Forum, long held as a side event at NATO summits, was included in the official program in Ankara for the first time, reflecting that shift.

Countries seeking a share of this expanding market and Washington’s effort to allocate that share in line with its strategy have converged.

The idea of a NATO Defense Bank is also on the agenda. Nine countries laid its groundwork during the Ankara summit. If realized, it would tie a military-industrial model more closely to financial capital.

Turkiye 3.0: NATO’s central frontline state

For Turkiye, NATO 3.0 also signals a new phase.

NATO 1.0 covers the period from the alliance’s founding to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In that time, Turkiye was integrated into US strategy, diluting its founding emphasis on independence and anti-imperialism, eroding aspects of its secular character through the Green Belt project, and absorbing its human capital within anti-communist programs.

NATO 2.0 spans the period from 1991 to 2026. In these years, NATO expanded toward Russia, dismantled Yugoslavia, and intervened across West Asia. Turkiye’s role was again shaped within US strategy, this time through “moderate Islamism.”

NATO 3.0 is defined by Europe taking on security responsibility against Russia, the pursuit of a West Asian order under Israeli dominance, and a strategic shift toward the Asia-Pacific.

Within this framework, Turkiye is positioned as a security enforcer for Europe, encouraged to normalize relations with Tel Aviv to secure a place in the regional order, and drawn into efforts aimed at countering Iran.

In effect, Turkiye is being placed at the center of NATO’s frontline. The naval command under construction in the Bosphorus is directed toward Russia, while the new NATO Corps headquarters in Adana is oriented toward West Asia and Iran.

Washington’s ‘Asian NATO’ objective

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte effectively represents US leadership within the alliance. His statements reflect Washington’s position rather than Europe’s.

His remarks before and during the summit pointed to a longer-term objective. Rutte argued that Russia was working closely with North Korea, China and Iran, adding that NATO “cannot be naive” and had to remain united.

At its core, NATO 3.0 reflects an effort to use the alliance first against Beijing’s partners—Russia and Iran—and, over time, against China itself. The push to reorient NATO toward Asia follows from this.

For the past four years, leaders of the IP4 countries have been invited to NATO summits. In Ankara, discussions with these states focused on expanding cooperation in defense industries and advanced technologies.

Washington is pressing these partners toward closer military alignment, at times resembling a sub-alliance—an “Asian NATO.” Proposals to open a NATO liaison office in Tokyo—though contested, notably by France—form part of this effort.

Washington, however, has continued to push for a broader NATO role in Asia. As Rutte put it, “The security of the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific are closely interconnected,” reinforcing efforts to extend the alliance’s focus beyond its original geographic remit.

Expectations from NATO 3.0

Following the Ankara Summit, NATO 3.0 is expected to serve different priorities:

  • For the US: aligning NATO with its Asia-Pacific strategy.
  • For Europe: maintaining US involvement in European security even as direct support shifts.
  • For Turkiye: expanding a military-industrial growth model.

For countries across the Global South, NATO is widely viewed as an outdated military alliance whose role has run its course.

 

July 11, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Sinophobia, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on US Strategy and the shift to NATO 3.0

RT producer speaks out after UK detention

James Scott said the authorities questioned him for 2.5 hours, seized his devices, and are still investigating him

RT | July 9, 2026

An RT employee was detained and interrogated after arriving in the UK from Russia several days ago under the country’s counterterrorism laws.

James Scott said he traveled to Manchester to visit friends and family and watch World Cup matches when he was stopped by the border authorities and questioned for two and a half hours.

Speaking publicly for the first time after leaving the UK, Scott said the authorities seized his electronic devices, returning them several days later, and that he remains under investigation, which he called “ridiculous” and “absurd.”

Scott is the second RT journalist to be detained by the British authorities. Last year, Steve Sweeney, the head of RT’s Lebanon bureau, was briefly detained by counterterrorism officers at London Heathrow Airport and extensively questioned about his work for the Russian broadcaster.

July 9, 2026 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia, Video | | Comments Off on RT producer speaks out after UK detention

EU’s Break With Russian Energy Cost €3 Trillion

Sputnik – 07.07.2026

Total economic losses for EU countries due to the refusal to buy Russian energy could amount to approximately 3 trillion euros ($3.4 trillion), the Russian Permanent Mission to the EU said.

“The total losses for European countries from the refusal to buy Russian energy, according to some estimates, amount to approximately 3 trillion euros,” the mission told a Russian newspaper.

European companies and ordinary citizens have fully felt the consequences of Brussels’ policy of severing ties with Russia, it said. This has manifested itself in the form of sharp price hikes, high energy prices, declining living standards, and the closure and relocation of industrial enterprises outside the EU.

Russia has repeatedly stressed that the country would cope with the sanctions pressure that the West had begun to exert on Russia several years ago and continued to escalate. Russian President Vladimir Putin previously said that the policy of containing and weakening Russia was a long-term Western strategy, and that sanctions had dealt a serious blow to the entire global economy.

July 7, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | | Comments Off on EU’s Break With Russian Energy Cost €3 Trillion

How Germany blew the EU’s chance for information freedom

By Rachel Marsden | RT | July 5, 2026

It’s not every day that an EU member state has the opportunity to push back in favor of freedom. At least not without elections. But a German court did have that chance – and promptly blew it on behalf of European citizens everywhere.

Back in 2022 when the Ukraine war was ramping up, the European Commission made an executive order banning Russian media broadcasting in the EU. Meaning that you couldn’t – and still can’t – access RT from within the EU, either on TV or on the web, without a VPN.

So some folks running a website in Saarbrucken, Germany, near the French border, started including some RT videos in their live feed. They reportedly did this exactly four times, back in 2023. Whoop-dee-do, right?

Wrong. This is the EUSSR we’re talking about, remember?

For this, the accused ended up facing criminal prosecution in Germany for promoting some EU-sanctioned RT Germany content. But it turns out that even the German court in Saarbrucken considering this case had doubts as to whether these guys and their website actually fit the definition of an “operator” under the EU sanction’s language that “prohibits any operator from broadcasting, enabling, facilitating or otherwise contributing to broadcast, any” Russian media content. So the German court referred the question to the European Court of Justice tasked with interpreting and clarifying EU regulations and laws.

Wrong question, guys. Why didn’t you start with asking the ECJ whether the regulation itself, made unilaterally by the EU’s unelected and unaccountable executive branch, is even valid at all under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and its Article 11 protecting freedom of expression? The fact that the question wasn’t put to the European court by the German one has spawned a judgment that’s stunning in its failure to interpret the application of any free speech restrictions narrowly enough to avoid the disproportionate limiting of free expression.

The German court missed the forest for the trees and got down into the weeds and all hung up on the comparatively minor issue of whether the website could be considered an “operator” without being a commercial entity. Which the European court then used as a prelude to launch a sweeping McCarthyist “reds under the bed”-style tirade.

“The term ‘disinformation’ is a translation of the Russian word ‘дезинформация’ (dezinformatsiya), coined in the early 1920s by the Soviet intelligence services. Joseph Stalin is credited as being the originator of that term, deliberately making it sound French in order to make it seem Western in origin and thereby enhance its credibility,” wrote the EU court, self-identifying as a history professor. How about if I take that as an open invitation to self-identify as a judge in my capacity as a final-year law student?

The ECJ ultimately ruled that commercialism is irrelevant when the website solicits donations, and had raised over €60,000 within a period of a year. It basically said, look, any commercial nature of the platform risks being a false dichotomy, because who’s to say that the sanctioned entities themselves wouldn’t be paying these independent outlets through donations to promote their banned content: ”Even though, for the purposes of classification as an ‘operator’, no economic activity or income generation is necessary, the context of an appeal for donations enabling such sums to be collected warrants some comment. The fact that some websites are financed by donations rather than by a registered commercial activity justifies increased vigilance as to their possible use as a tool for propaganda purposes, in particular in the case of State-sponsored disinformation campaigns,” the European court ruled. “That lack of clarity makes it more difficult to identify financial flows and, therefore, the actors likely to influence editorial policy or content. It thus creates an environment conducive to interference by external interests, including by third countries, which may intervene directly or indirectly in the production or broadcasting of content.”

Isn’t it the prosecution’s job to present actual evidence and proof of influence through the powerful state-backed legal instruments at its disposal? Shouldn’t the ECJ’s definition of “operator,” if it leans so heavily on the risk of foreign corruption, therefore hinge on whether actual collusion has first been established beyond any reasonable doubt? The ECJ sounds shockingly blasé here about the basic burden of proof for criminal conviction.

This court case had been stayed, or suspended, in Germany pending the ruling by this European Court of Justice. But now it’s free to convict these guys of promoting banned Russian content, under the pretext that just maybe they’re not-so-independent media that schemed on the down-low to distribute Russian media content – something that a lot of people have been doing all over social media of their own volition.

Ultimately, what the buzz around this case effectively does is put a chilling effect on that sharing, and it also risks making people self-censor out of fear of being dragged into court for a judicial proctology exam and having their lives potentially ruined in the press over accusations of Russian collusion. What if these guys (and others) just happen to agree with some of the views expressed on banned Russian media? Who’s going to protect their honestly-held views from establishment authoritarianism?

Hang on, here’s a volunteer for the task.

“Freedom of the press is one of the cornerstones of democracy. And the EU protects what matters, including the right to receive independent, reliable information. The European Media Freedom Act helps keep journalists and sources safe, strengthens editorial independence and protects media organizations from undue interference or legal intimidation. Today, on World Press Freedom Day, we reaffirm our duty to support and protect journalists so they can do their work free from pressure, intimidation, or harm,” says unelected European Commission President and de facto Queen Ursula von der Leyen.

Oh, great. So the same people who censor speech are also its self-appointed defenders. Like an arsonist who goes running around setting fires but also works as a firefighter as their day job.

What’s clear from all this is that EU regulation may look precise on paper, but enforcement isn’t so straightforward. When even member state courts require an official interpretation, then how is the average person supposed to avoid running afoul of the law? The result ends up being less about what’s actually banned and more about what merely feels safe to touch. Not exactly the kind of vibe that one tends to aim for in a democracy.

Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English.

July 5, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , | Comments Off on How Germany blew the EU’s chance for information freedom

EU court backs criminal prosecution for sharing RT videos

RT | July 2, 2026

The EU’s top court has ruled that private individuals can face criminal prosecution for posting RT videos on public websites, widening the bloc’s crackdown on Russian media.

The Court of Justice of the European Union issued the ruling on Thursday in a case from Germany, where three people are being prosecuted for publishing RT DE videos on a freely accessible website.

The site did not charge readers and was financed only through voluntary donations. The CJEU, however, said that made no difference and ruled that all persons who are “directly or indirectly” responsible for making banned content available to the public can be treated as “operators” under EU sanctions rules.

The judges argued it was irrelevant if the individuals were running a business, how long the content was available, or how widely it was spread.

Under the German law cited in the ruling, violations of EU sanctions-based media bans can carry up to five years in prison.

The ruling effectively pushes the EU ban on RT beyond broadcasters, platforms or media companies, allowing for the criminal prosecution of any individuals accused of making RT content publicly available online.

The EU banned RT and Sputnik, among other Russian media outlets, after the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022. Brussels said the sanctions would remain in place until the end of the Ukraine conflict and after Moscow ceases to conduct “disinformation and information manipulation actions against the EU.”

The measures were followed by platform blocks, app-store removals, banking restrictions, and personal sanctions against media figures and journalists accused of working with Russian outlets.

Germany had targeted RT even before the bloc-wide ban, with RT DE facing licensing pressure, platform bans, banking problems and regulatory action.

RT has vehemently condemned the restrictions and rejected the EU’s accusations, stressing that the bloc has consistently failed to point to a “a single example, a single grain of evidence” of false reporting.

Moscow has repeatedly condemned the restrictions as censorship and an information war against Russia, accusing EU governments of using the Ukraine conflict as a pretext to silence dissent, suppress Russian-language media, and intimidate journalists who challenge the mainstream Western narrative.

July 2, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , | Comments Off on EU court backs criminal prosecution for sharing RT videos

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