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Majority of Belgians oppose theft of Russian assets – poll

RT | December 17, 2025

Around 67% of Belgians oppose the EU scheme to use frozen Russian central bank assets to back a ‘reparations loan’ to prop up Ukraine, according to a recent poll conducted by Ipsos and Belgian news outlets published on Monday.

The bulk of sovereign Russian assets frozen in the West are held in the Belgian clearinghouse Euroclear. Prime Minister Bart De Wever has steadfastly opposed EU moves to “steal” the funds, citing disproportionate legal risks to Belgium, despite mounting pressure from the European Commission.

EU leaders were set to vote on using the assets to back a controversial €90 billion ($106 billion) ‘reparations loan’ to help cover Ukraine’s floundering budget, which faces an estimated $160 billion shortfall over the next two years.

However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the EU leadership “backed down” and that “Russian assets will not be on the table” at Thursday’s European Council meeting. The council “pushes joint loans, but we will not let our families foot the bill for Ukraine’s war,” he wrote on X on Wednesday.

Last week, the EU tightened its grip on the frozen Russian assets by invoking Article 122, an economic emergency treaty clause, to bypass the need for a unanimous decision amid opposition from a number of member nations.

By using the mechanism, the bloc stripped “Hungary of its rights,” Orban said at the time.

Belgium, Slovakia, Italy, Bulgaria, Malta, and the Czech Republic joined Hungary to oppose raiding the Russian assets to finance Ukraine.

Last week, the Russian central bank sued Euroclear in a Moscow court, accusing it of the “inability to manage monetary assets and securities” entrusted to it. The firm estimates that it holds nearly $19 billion in client assets in Russia, which could become targets for legal retaliatory measures.

December 18, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Czech–Slovak alignment signals growing dissatisfaction with Brussels’ authoritarianism

By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 18, 2025

The recent visit of Czech parliamentary representatives to Slovakia marked an important step in the consolidation of a sovereignty-oriented axis in Central Europe. During high-level meetings with Slovak political leaders, discussions focused on restoring strategic coordination between the two historically linked countries, particularly in relation to their shared opposition to policies imposed by Brussels. The diplomatic engagement was framed not as a symbolic gesture, but as a practical effort to rebuild political alignment in the face of growing pressure from EU institutions.

At the center of the talks were issues that directly affect national autonomy: resistance to the EU’s Green Deal, opposition to expanded emissions trading mechanisms, and rejection of the EU’s mandatory migration framework. Czech representatives openly emphasized the need for joint action inside the EU to block measures that undermine economic stability and constitutional sovereignty. Slovak officials, in turn, signaled readiness to elevate bilateral cooperation to the highest possible level, clearly indicating a convergence of interests rooted in self-preservation rather than ideological alignment.

The intensification of political coordination between Czechia and Slovakia is not a coincidence, nor merely a bilateral diplomatic gesture. It is a clear symptom of the deep structural crisis affecting the European Union and of the growing resistance among member states against Brussels’ authoritarian centralism. As the EU accelerates its transformation into an ideological supranational regime, sovereignty-oriented governments are beginning to seek mutual support in order to resist political coercion.

Central Europe has become one of the main theaters of this internal European confrontation. Czech and Slovak leaders increasingly understand that isolated resistance is ineffective when facing the European Commission’s legal, financial, and political pressure. For this reason, closer cooperation between Prague and Bratislava represents a rational survival strategy within a bloc that no longer tolerates dissent. The goal is not reforming the EU from within, but creating political leverage to block or neutralize destructive policies imposed from above.

The issues around which this cooperation is forming are revealing. Opposition to the so-called Green Deal, emissions trading schemes, and migration quotas highlights the EU’s true nature: an anti-national project that sacrifices economic stability and social cohesion in the name of ideological dogmas. Environmentalism, in this context, has nothing to do with ecology and everything to do with deindustrialization, economic dependency, and social control. Central European economies are being deliberately weakened to fit a model designed in Brussels and Berlin, with complete disregard for local realities.

Migration policy offers an even clearer example of EU authoritarianism. The forced redistribution of migrants, imposed under the threat of sanctions, openly violates national sovereignty and public will. The fact that Czechia and Slovakia seek coordination on this matter shows that Brussels’ strategy of divide and rule is starting to fail. When states coordinate their resistance, the EU’s coercive mechanisms lose effectiveness.

This process must also be understood within a broader geopolitical framework. The EU today functions as a subordinate instrument of NATO’s strategic interests. Brussels’ aggressive Russophobic agenda has no rational basis in European security needs and has only resulted in economic collapse, energy shortages, and political instability. Any government that questions this suicidal alignment is immediately labeled as “extremist” or as a “threat to Europe.”

The EU’s reaction to Slovak constitutional reforms aimed at strengthening national sovereignty further exposes its authoritarian character. Brussels no longer tolerates constitutional diversity; it demands ideological conformity. Any attempt to reassert national authority is treated as a threat to the “European order.” In reality, what is being defended is not democracy, but bureaucratic power.

The Czech–Slovak alignment may serve as a precedent for other dissatisfied member states. As economic conditions worsen and public discontent grows, the EU will face increasing internal fragmentation. The bloc’s future trajectory points not toward deeper integration, but toward open confrontation between sovereignty and supranational control.

Ultimately, cooperation between Czechia and Slovakia reflects a fundamental truth: the European Union is no longer a voluntary association of nations, but a coercive political structure in decline. Resistance is no longer ideological – it is existential. And as more states realize this, Brussels’ grip over Europe will inevitably weaken.

December 18, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , , | 1 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

The Map Is Not the Territory: Ukraine, Manufactured Consent, and Europe’s War of Attrition

By Gerry Nolan | Ron Paul Institute | December 16, 2025

Western headlines are screaming that Ukraine has “encircled” Kupyansk city… a glorified town, selling it as a nightmare for Moscow. But this is not a battlefield report. It is narrative management, timed precisely to negotiations in Berlin. Kupyansk is not Stalingrad. It is not Kursk. It is not even a decisive urban fight. It is a ruined settlement on the Oskol, a former logistics node reduced to rubble, where control is measured not in flags but in fire control, drone dominance, and whether men can be rotated without being killed.

And when even Reuters couches claims as “unverified,” you know what that means. When it hedges, pauses, and inserts distance between claims and confirmation, it is signaling that fog is being weaponised. What exists on the ground is block-by-block ruin fighting, contested neighbourhoods like Yubileynyy, clashes near Mirovoye and Radkovka, infiltration attempts, temporary interdictions. Battalion-scale collisions between exhausted units in a place that barely functions as a glorified town.

The unit scale tells the truth the headlines obscure. Kupyansk has never hosted a force capable of deciding a front. Within the urban core, the Russian presence has been limited and exposed, with little time to dig in deeper, the town’s ruins making sustained fortification difficult, relying on fire control rather than secured occupation. With thousands tied down protecting the flanks and barely a battalion inside the city itself, Ukrainian assaults are not sweeping counteroffensives but concentrated pushes by swarms of worn formations, often built from forcibly mobilised men with minimal training, starving and thin on ammunition, cannibalized from fronts like Sumy, and thrown into an urban graveyard to manufacture leverage.

This is not manoeuvre warfare. It is attritional contact deliberately framed as momentum to serve a media and political narrative rather operational gain. What matters is that the map is not the territory. In this war, a coloured overlay often marks a brief window of drone interdiction, hours, not control. Fire control can deny movement, but without sustainment it cannot secure ground. Fire control without sustainment does not produce breakthroughs. It produces graveyards. Ukraine has been forced by its Western patrons into too many of them already.

Kupyansk does not change the war unless it becomes part of a broader operational rollback and it won’t. Otherwise, it is a bad PR bargaining chip, paid for in blood.

While cameras fixate on Kupyansk, the real pressure story runs elsewhere, across a widening arc Western coverage fragments to prevent pattern recognition. West of Russian liberated Seversk, claims and denials continue, but the geometry is clear: Ukrainian forces are stretched thin, defending ground without strategic depth. Around encircled Lyman, the contest is about lines of communication and Ukranian reserve erosion, not symbolism.

Central to the Donbass arc, Pokrovsk and Mirnograd matter not because of names, but because they anchor logistics. Russian control here forces a stark contrast in how the war is being fought. Ukraine is expending irreplaceable manpower to manufacture moments, brief tactical actions designed to win optics for a day. Russia, by contrast, is trading space, fire control, and logistics denial for outcomes that compound over time. One side is managing headlines. The other is managing the war.

To the south, the picture is more dangerous still. Around Gulyaypole, pressure is persistent and cumulative, not theatrical. And beyond it lies the real anxiety Europe refuses to discuss openly, the slow, grinding push toward Zaporozhye city. This is not a sprint. It is a methodical march Westward. If current trends hold, Zaporozhye can be operationally threatened, even encircled in less than six months. That outcome would dwarf any skirmish in the small town of Kupyansk.

This is where time asymmetry becomes decisive. Russia is fighting a time-positive war: industrial scaling and real capacity that dwarfs the fiat, paper-tiger illusory capacity of NATO; deep manpower reserves; and a level of internal cohesion sufficient to sustain a long campaign. Ukraine, by contrast, is fighting a time-negative war, with catastrophic demographic collapse, mass emigration, forced conscription, and shrinking public consent. Every Ukrainian media counteroffensive now borrows against a future that no longer exists to replenish it.

This is one of the real reasons behind Trump’s push. Less sentiment. Not ideology. Geometry. Timelines. Arithmetic. Washington understands that delay only makes the endgame worse, militarily and politically for project Ukraine. Europe understands this too. But Europe cannot admit it without confessing its humiliation.

So Europe clings to suicidal optics. It inflates Kupyansk. It sells illusory leverage. And it sacrifices Ukrainians to buy time, not for victory, but for narrative survival.

Here is the truth Europe works hardest to bury beneath headlines and choreographed resolve: this war no longer reflects the will of the Ukrainian people, and, in truth, it only ever did through manufactured consent that has now collapsed. Not marginally. Not ambiguously. Overwhelmingly. Even after years of saturation messaging, censorship, emergency laws, and relentless narrative conditioning, roughly four-fifths of Ukrainians now demand peace. It is devastating precisely because it persists despite one of the most intensive information campaigns the modern West has ever mounted.

Instead, men are dragged from streets and their homes, beaten, bundled into vans, forced into uniforms, and sent to the front. Videos of violent conscription squads no longer shock because they are the tragic norm.

This is not mobilisation. It is cowardly and punitive coercion, the final refuge of elites who lack legitimacy but demand sacrifice. It is the politics of cowardice, where those who made the decisions never bear the cost, and those who pay the price were never given a choice. These wars are always fought with other people’s sons, for objectives that dissolve under scrutiny, while the architects retreat behind speeches, security details, and moral posturing.

When a state must kidnap its own citizens to sustain a war, it has crossed the final moral line: it is no longer defending a nation, because it never was, but cannibalising one, deliberately sacrificing its people as a tip of the spear against a stronger Russia, to shield the reputations, fortunes, and careers of elites who will never bleed, never fight, and never answer for the ruin they leave behind.

Washington shattered Europe’s strategic autonomy years ago and quietly handed the bill to the continent. NATO expansion without strategy. Economic warfare without insulation. Energy sabotage without a contingency secured. The result was inevitable… Accelerated deindustrialisation, inflation, social fracture, political fragility. Europe emerged poorer, weaker, and strategically irrelevant, yet still clinging to the language of moral authority.

Rather than confront this collapse, Europe chose the refuge of absolutism. Negotiation became heresy. Compromise became betrayal. Peace became appeasement. Diplomacy itself was criminalised, because diplomacy invites the most dangerous question of all. What was this for?

And that question cannot be answered without consequences. Because peace does something war cannot. War suspends politics. Peace resurrects accountability.

Europe does not fear losing the war as much as it fears surviving it with memory intact.

That is why the war must continue. Not to save Ukraine, but to postpone reckoning, at the hands of Europeans.

Which brings us back to Kupyansk.

Kupyansk is not a battlefield turning point. It is a tombstone. Not only for the men buried beneath its rubble, but for Europe’s moral credibility itself.

What will damn this war in the historical record is not how it began, but how long it continued after its flimsy justification collapsed. When even manufactured consent evaporated, when diplomacy was deliberately buried, when Russian defeat quietly gave way to arithmetic, the war did not stop. It hardened. Not because it could still be won, but because ending it would have forced admissions no ruling class was prepared to make.

Kupyansk is not remembered because it mattered militarily. It matters because it exposes the moment when the war ceased to be about territory at all. It marks the point where Europe chose blood over truth, coercion over consent, and narrative survival over human life. Not out of strength, but out of fear.

History is unforgiving toward wars waged without consent and prolonged without purpose. It does not care about intentions, speeches, or moral language. It records only what was done, who benefited, and who paid. And when the record is written, it will show that Ukraine was not denied peace because peace was impossible, but because peace would have ended the lie.

That is the real defeat.

December 17, 2025 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , , | Leave a 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

NATO’s Red Pen on Ukraine: Jacques Baud and the Silencing of Dissent

By Freddie Ponton | 21st Century Wire | December 17, 2025 

On 15 December, the European Union took a step that few could have imagined: it sanctioned twelve individuals, including Swiss analyst and former intelligence officer Jacques Baud and French national Xavier Moreau, not for breaking the law, but for expressing views deemed politically inconvenient. Asset freezes, travel bans, and economic restrictions were imposed without any judicial process. While presented as an EU initiative, the fingerprints of NATO’s strategic communications and information-control apparatus are unmistakable, shaping both the targets and the justification. Europe is no longer simply countering disinformation; it is policing interpretation itself, turning independent analysis into a potential liability. The question now is not whether dissent will be punished, but how far these measures will go, and who will decide the boundaries of acceptable thought.

Baud, a Swiss national, is not a political activist, influencer, or anonymous online provocateur. He is a former Swiss intelligence officer and army colonel, trained in counter-terrorism, counter-guerrilla warfare, and chemical and nuclear weapons. Over the course of his career, he helped design the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) and its Mine Action Information Management System (IMSMA), served with the United Nations as Chief of Doctrine for Peacekeeping Operations in New York, worked extensively in Africa, and later held senior responsibilities at NATO, where he led efforts against the proliferation of small arms. He is also the author of multiple books on intelligence, asymmetric warfare, and terrorism,  texts widely read well before the Ukraine war.

Yet this résumé, once considered exemplary, has now been recast as suspicious. On 15 December, the EU placed Baud under sanctions, freezing assets and restricting travel, accusing him of acting as a “spokesperson of Russian propaganda” and of participating in “information manipulation and influence.” No criminal charges have been filed. No judicial process has taken place. No evidence has been publicly tested in court. The punishment is administrative, political, and immediate.

DOCUMENT: COUNCIL DECISION (CFSP) 2025/2572 of 15 December 2025 amending Decision (CFSP) 2024/2643 concerning restrictive measures in view of Russia’s destabilising activities (Source: EUR-Lex)

This is not an isolated case. Baud joins a growing list of European journalists, analysts, and commentators sanctioned or publicly stigmatised for expressing views that diverge from official EU and NATO positions. Germans living in Russia, independent journalists, and alternative media figures have already faced similar measures. What unites these cases is not proof of coordination with Moscow, but a shared refusal to reproduce the sanctioned narrative framework through which the war must be interpreted.

From Foreign Policy to Narrative Enforcement

Officially, these sanctions are justified as defensive measures against “foreign information manipulation and interference”, a phrase now deeply embedded in EU and NATO communications. The stated objective is to protect European democracies from destabilisation. In practice, however, the definition of “manipulation” has expanded so broadly that any analysis which echoes, overlaps with, or even partially aligns with Russian positions can be deemed suspect, regardless of sourcing, intent, or transparency.

The problem is not that governments counter disinformation. Every state does. The problem is how disinformation is defined, who defines it, and what instruments are used to combat it.

In Baud’s case, the EU does not allege clandestine activity, secret funding, or covert coordination with Russian authorities. Instead, he is held responsible for contributing to a narrative environment that, in Brussels’ view, undermines Ukraine and EU security. This is a crucial shift: The target is no longer falsehood, but interpretation.

Once interpretation itself becomes sanctionable, the boundary between security policy and censorship collapses.

France’s Role, and NATO’s Shadow

Several reports indicate that the initiative to sanction Baud and eleven others originated with France. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot publicly announced that Europe would impose sanctions on what he described as “pro-Russian agents,” including individuals accused of repeatedly influencing French and European public debate. Among those named was Xavier Moreau, a French analyst long critical of NATO policy.

Barrot’s declaration on X was unambiguous:

“At France’s initiative, Europe is today imposing sanctions against Kremlin propaganda outlets and those responsible for foreign digital interference. Zero impunity for the architects of chaos.”

The language is revealing. “Architects of chaos” is not a legal category; it is a political one. It frames speech as an act of aggression and analysts as hostile operators.

Behind this framing lies a figure little known to the public but central to the architecture of Europe’s contemporary information policy: Marie-Doha Besancenot, Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications in the French Foreign Ministry. Prior to assuming this role, Besancenot served from 2020 to 2023 as NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy.

In an interview published in English by the French Ministry of the Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs, in March 2025, Besancenot openly described founding a task force in late 2023 dedicated to detecting and analysing what she termed “hostile narratives,” with the capacity to alert authorities “in real time” and propose political responses. The task force’s mission, she explained, was to detect, track, and report information threats against NATO in the information domain. In this interview, Besancenot articulates how “France understood what was happening in the information domain was a matter of national security”, and speaks of Viginum, a French agency created in response to these perceived threats, and that is responsible for monitoring and protecting the state against foreign digital interference that, according to them, affects the digital public debate in France.

The continuity is striking. The doctrine developed inside NATO’s strategic communications apparatus appears to have migrated almost seamlessly into national and EU-level policy, without democratic debate, parliamentary oversight, or public consent.

Strategic Communications as Political Power

NATO insists that it does not police speech and that it respects freedom of expression. Formally, this is true. NATO does not arrest journalists or pass laws. Instead, it develops conceptual frameworks, “hybrid threats,” “information laundering,” and “foreign information manipulation”, which are then adopted by member states and EU institutions.

Once a narrative framework is institutionalised, it becomes self-enforcing. Media outlets internalise red lines. Publishers hesitate. Platforms over-moderate. Governments justify extraordinary measures as technical necessities or national security. The perfect storm in which sanctions replace debate.

One of the most insidious concepts to emerge from this ecosystem is that of “information laundering”, the idea that domestic journalists or analysts can unwittingly “clean” foreign propaganda simply by engaging with it critically. Under this logic, intent becomes irrelevant. What matters is effect, as defined by strategic communicators.

This doctrine eliminates the possibility of good-faith analysis. To examine Russian claims, even to refute them selectively or partially, is to risk being accused of amplifying them. The only safe position is total dismissal, which appears to be NATO and the EU’s endgame.

The Democratic Cost

The danger of this approach extends far beyond Jacques Baud.

Sanctions are no longer being used to punish illegal acts, but to discipline discourse. They operate without due process and create chilling effects far wider than their immediate targets. An analyst does not need to be sanctioned to be silenced; seeing a peer sanctioned is often enough.

Moreover, these measures are imposed by non-elected bodies, EU councils, commissions, and advisory structures, drawing heavily on NATO doctrine, an alliance that itself is not subject to democratic accountability. National parliaments are largely absent from the process. Courts intervene only after the damage is done.

The precedent is dangerous. If today the target is analysts accused of being “pro-Russian,” tomorrow it could be critics of EU defence spending, sceptics of military escalation, or scholars questioning intelligence claims. Once the machinery exists, its scope inevitably expands.

History offers ample warning. Democracies do not usually collapse through sudden repression, but through the gradual normalisation of exceptional measures, each justified by urgency, each framed as temporary, each defended as necessary.

Security Without Freedom Is Not Security

The EU and NATO argue that they are facing unprecedented hybrid threats and that extraordinary responses are required. That claim deserves serious consideration. But security achieved by narrowing the space of permissible thought is a brittle security, one that ultimately undermines the democratic resilience it claims to protect.

A society confident in its values does not need to freeze bank accounts to win arguments. It does not need to conflate analysis with subversion. It does not need to outsource intellectual authority to strategic communications units.

Jacques Baud may be wrong in some of his assessments. He may be right in others. That is beside the point. What matters is that his arguments exist in the open, supported by sources, available for rebuttal. The appropriate response to analysis is counter-analysis, and certainly not sanctions. By choosing punishment over debate, Europe is not defending democracy. It is redefining it, quietly, administratively, and without asking its citizens whether this is the kind of polity they wish to inhabit.

The sanctions against Baud are therefore not merely about Ukraine, Russia, or NATO. They are about who gets to speak, who decides what is permissible to think, and whether Europe still trusts its citizens to judge arguments for themselves.

That question, once raised, cannot be easily swept away.

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

The biggest bank robbery in history

By Ian Proud | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 16, 2025

For over two years, there have been loud and repeated calls for Russia’s immobilised assets in Europe – valued at around $245 billion – to be permanently seized. However, those assets had hitherto been immobilised under EU sanctions which required unanimous agreement every six months.

Not any more. Given Belgium’s sturdy resistance to using $165 billion in immobilised assets held in Euroclear, the European Commission has triggered an emergency clause in the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union to bypass the principle of unanimity on sanctions policy.

On Thursday of last week European Council Ambassadors agreed by majority to freeze indefinitely immobilised Russian assets in European banks. This proposal is separate from specific lending to Ukraine to cover its financial needs, which was subject to a separate proposal.

But, in fact, the two are connected. Because the separate proposal for a so-called reparations loan makes clear that Ukraine will only have to repay the loan if its receives reparations from Russia, whereupon Russia’s frozen assets will be returned.

However, Russia will self-evidently never make reparations payments to Ukraine precisely because its immobilised assets which might be used for reparations in Ukraine have already been expropriated and are unlikely to be returned.

The measure proposed by the EU uses as its legal basis the need to cover the economic risks to the EU from the ongoing war. However, the Economist has pointed this out as an example of ‘dodgy’ legal logic. But it’s worse than that; it’s in fact untrue. The money is not intended to support Europan economies, as it only represented 1% of European GDP. It will be used to back a reparations loan that is not intended for reparations, but rather to pay for Ukraine’s bloated budget.

This includes $106 billion to cover Ukraine’s budget deficit over the next two years and $50 billion to write off the EU contribution to the G7 Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration loan agreed in June 2024. The remainder will be pumped into Ukraine’s defence industry.

So, all of Russia’s money will effectively be given to Ukraine, albeit in the form of a loan underwritten by those European banks that hold Russian assets. In this fantasy, Russia’s assets still exist, it’s simply that EU banks have lent their equivalent value to Ukraine.

The problem Ursula von der Leyen is trying to avoid, as I have pointed out before, is the return of Russia’s assets after any peace deal that leads to sanctions against Russia being lifted. In short, peace would raise the risk of the loan collateral being handed back to Russia, meaning that Europe would need to pay for it, on the basis that Ukraine won’t have the means to repay the loan itself.

Let’s be clear, the earlier G7 Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration loan to Ukraine agreed in 2024 had a maturity of up to 45 years. Does Europe really intend to keep Russia’s assets immobilised for that period of time?

President Trump’s initial 28 point peace plan suggested that Russia’s immobilised assets be split three ways, between $100 billion invested in Ukraine by U.S. firms, $100 billion overseen by Europe and the remainder co-invested by the U.S. and Russia in its country. On that basis, and assuming Russia was agreeable, all of Russia’s immobilised funds would be used for genuine reconstruction efforts, both inside of Ukraine and those parts which Russia has occupied. President Zelensky has spoken this week about the possible setting up of a special economic zone in the contested parts of Donetsk oblast that would be demilitarised.

As I pointed out a year ago, Russia might be willing to give up its assets for some form of de facto recognition of territory, which the Trump administration has essentially proposed. The value of its unfrozen sovereign reserves – at $425 billion – now far exceed the sum still frozen in Europe and other jurisdictions including the U.S.. So Russia might be willing to give up some assets as part of a quid pro quo on territory. And it’s clear that Europe has absolutely no intention of giving the money back anyway, so why not cut a deal that works best for Russia?

But what the Europeans want to do is to have two cakes and eat them both. Get Russia to pay for Ukraine’s day to day fiscal expenditures associated with war fighting and building up its defence industrial complex, even after the war ends. And get Russia to pay for Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction. That is clearly delusional.

Because, and as I have already pointed out, Ukraine will still have an enormous fiscal hole to fill anyway when the fighting stops. So, if the actual plan is that Russia’s immobilised assets be used as collateral for day-to-day costs, then where is the capital to fund reparations? In short, it will cease to be available.

No, don’t worry about that, European Commission officials assure us, Russia will get its assets back after it pays reparations to Ukraine. But who decides how much Russia should pay? At the end of 2024, the UN estimated that Ukraine’s total recovery and reconstruction needs amounted to $524 billion.

Russia will simply not agree to pay that sum, not least as if it did, it would find that its immobilised assets were no longer available, having been spent on Ukraine’s budget. And, in any case, why would Russia agree to pay a sum of reparations that Europe adjudicates on from afar, all while the Americans have a more credible plan to use the immobilised assets?

President Trump is nudging president Ukrainian and European leaders, kicking and screaming, closer toward a peace deal that they don’t want to sign up to. In the case of Zelensky, he has resisted agreement because it might bring his time in power to a juddering halt. In the case of Von der Leyen, it would mean she had to tell Member States how much they needed to stump up to pay for Ukraine. As well as being logically confused and ill-thought-through, the asset seizure idea also brings the added risk of preventing any ceasefire.

Despite this, Trump appears to have the bit between his teeth to force a peace deal through and, with Zelensky now appearing to give up on NATO membership, we appear mercifully to be nudging in tiny steps towards the end of this needless war.

Someone will still need to pay for Ukraine’s budget when that happens. Russia will rightly point out that Europe has expropriated its money in the biggest bank robbery in history. And likely bury Brussels in a blizzard of litigation which makes investors in the developing world think long and hard about whether to keep their money in Europe.

December 16, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

EU Sanctions Swiss Analyst For Criticism Of The Ukraine Proxy War

The Dissident | December 15, 2025

The European Union has just released a new sanctions package intended to impose “restrictive measures in view of Russia’s destabilising activities”.

Among the people slapped with EU sanctions is Jacques Baud, a retired colonel in the Swiss army; former strategic analyst, intelligence and terrorism specialist, solely for his position and analysis of the war in Ukraine.

The EU accuses Baud of being “a regular guest on pro-Russian television and radio programmes” and being a “mouthpiece for pro-Russian propaganda” and claiming he “makes conspiracy theories, for example, accusing Ukraine of orchestrating its own invasion in order to join NATO.”

The EU accuses him of being “responsible for, implementing or supporting actions or policies attributable to the Government of the Russian Federation which undermine or threaten stability or security in a third country (Ukraine) by engaging in the use of information manipulation and interference” and imposed sanctions on him, solely because his position differs from NATO’s and the EU’s on the Ukraine war.

The outlet Switzerland24 noted that the sanctions on Baud, “provide for the freezing of the assets of sanctioned persons, a ban on entry into the EU and a ban on making funds available to them”.

Commenting on this, Alfred de Zayas, a former UN expert, noted, “We are witnessing a civilizational collapse with the EU sanctioning Jacques Baud, a retired Swiss colonel and intelligence officer, for publishing books and articles expressing views on the Ukraine war contrary to those of the NATO leadership.”

In reality, Jacques Baud’s position, as laid out in his article, “The Military Situation In The Ukraine” from April of 2022, is that, “the dramatic developments we are witnessing today (in Ukraine) have causes that we knew about but refused to see”, including

  1. The expansion of NATO

The fact that NATO expansion led to the Ukraine war has been acknowledged by multiple Western officials.

U.S. diplomat George Kennan, said as far as 1997 that NATO expansion towards Russia’s borders would be “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era” adding that it would, “be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking”.

In 1998, George Kennan said that NATO expansion was “the beginning of a new cold war” and said, “the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies”.

In 2008, when NATO first invited Ukraine and Georgia to join, then U.S. ambassador to Russia, William Burns, said, “Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does Russia perceive encirclement and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests” adding, “Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face”.

Most recently, Amanda Sloat, a top Biden administration official for European affairs admitted that, “We had some conversation even before the war started, about what if Ukraine comes out and just says to Russia, ‘fine, you know, we won’t go into NATO if that stops the war, if that stops the invasion,’ which at that point it may well have done” adding that promising no NATO membership for Ukraine “certainly would have prevented the destruction and the loss of life”.

David Arakhamia, one of the lead Ukrainian negotiators during the Istanbul talks of 2022 also said, “Russia’s goal was to put pressure on us so that we would take (NATO) neutrality. This was the main thing for them: they were ready to end the war if we accepted neutrality, as Finland once did”.

  1. The Western refusal to implement the Minsk Agreements

Similarly, the fact that the West blocked the Minsk accords in 2019, the peace agreement that would have ended the civil/proxy war in Eastern Ukraine that sparked after the U.S.-backed 2014 Maidan coup, is well documented.

As former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson admitted, “Zelensky is not an unreasonable guy, he got elected as a peacenik, in 2019 he tried to do a deal with Putin, as far as I can remember, his basic problem was that the Ukrainian nationalists couldn’t accept the compromise”.

What Johnson was referring to as the NGO Finnish Peace Defender documented was that,“While President Zelensky is trying to follow commitments given to his electorate and international obligations in implementation of the Minsk Agreements, he has to overcome obstacles placed by irregular armed groups who identify themselves as patriots of Ukraine” including “open threats and blackmail by far-right military circles in Ukraine, including the National Corps led by Andrii Biletski”.

Instead of backing Zelensky in implementing the Minsk Accords, Western-funded NGOs sided with the far-right nationalists in blocking them.

Ukranian-Canadian academic Ivan Katchanovski has documented, “The Western governments and foundations, such as Soros foundation, funded all but one of about two dozen Ukrainian NGOs, which initially issued in 2019 a collective statement that any talks with Donbas separatists were impermissible after the head of the Zelenskyy’s presidential administration supported creation of a consulting group with representatives of the separatist-controlled Donbas during the Minsk negotiations.”

  1. The continuous and repeated attacks on the civilian population of the Donbass over the past years, and the dramatic increase in late February 2022.

Indeed, while blocking the Minsk Accords, the Trump administration- trying to prove it was not controlled by the Russians as the media claimed based on the Russiagate hoax- approved sending lethal arms to the Ukrainian government in 2017 and 2019, which increased the civilian casualties on the pro-Russia side of the Donbas conflict.

Jacques Baud, in his article, cites a UN report which found that there were 381 civilians killed in the conflict between 2018 and 2021 and that 81.4% occurred “in territory control led by the self-proclaimed ‘republics’”, the pro-Russian separatist side.

Jacques Baud concluded that, “we can naturally deplore and condemn the Russian attack. But WE (that is: the United States, France and the European Union in the lead) have created the conditions for a conflict to break out”.

One is free to agree or disagree with Jacques Baud’s perspective, but the reality is, it is not a “conspiracy theory” or “information manipulation” but a fact-based analysis on the Western policies that led to the war in Ukraine, which is shared by well-respected foreign policy analysts, including John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs and Noam Chomsky.

The EU’s claim that Jacques Baud accuses “Ukraine of orchestrating its own invasion in order to join NATO”, appears to be a reference to the fact that Jacques Baud has cited a 2019 interview with the Ukrainian presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovych where he said the best case scenario for Ukraine was “a large scale war with Russia and joining NATO as a result of defeat of Russia”, saying that currently, “NATO would be reluctant in accepting us”, but defeating Russia would lead to Ukraine joining NATO.

Again, directly quoting a Ukrainian government official is hardly a “conspiracy theory”.

Furthermore, it is blatantly undemocratic and authoritarian for the EU to slap sanctions on someone solely because he has a critical perspective on Western and EU foreign policy.

While the EU pushes for the continuation of the Ukraine war based on the principles of “democracy” and “freedom”, they blatantly disregard democracy and freedom in order to crack down on critics of this policy.

December 15, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

EU spends €169 billion on Ukraine while ignoring internal problems

By Ahmed Adel | December 15, 2025

Since the start of the Russian special military operation in February 2022, the European Union has spent €168.9 billion on military and financial support for Ukraine, according to figures from the European Commission. This amount is even more striking when compared to other areas of spending.

With all that money, the 27-nation bloc could finance public spending on education for an entire fiscal year in France and still have €32 billion left over, cover Germany’s entire target defense budget for 2026 (€108.2 billion), and pay for almost half of the total budget allocated by the European Commission to respond to regional crises for the period 2028-2034 (€395 billion).

However, Brussels has preferred to look outwards and pursue a foreign policy with a Euro-Atlantic vision, which has led to internal fragmentation of interests, exploited by the European elites who lead the bloc.

A group of European countries —mainly Poland, the Baltics, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—though the latter is not a member of the EU—is interested in prolonging the conflict in Ukraine for as long as possible. For them, for the elites who govern them, losing Ukraine would mean confronting their own internal problems.

Maintaining the discourse in favor of the Kiev regime and against supposed external threats is a way of preserving some cohesion in the face of the economic and political failures the EU has experienced over several years.

The Ukrainian crisis is a heavy burden for Brussels without US support, a reality under President Donald Trump. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that, between September and October, the EU allocated only around €4.2 billion in military aid to Ukraine, a figure that is far too little to compensate for the loss of US aid.

At the same time, the gap within Europe has widened: Germany, France, and the United Kingdom have significantly increased their allocations, but Italy and Spain, among many other countries, have made only a negligible contribution.

Leaders such as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are among those who have most promoted a belligerent policy regarding Ukraine, to the point of continuing to support Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is embroiled in several corruption scandals. These are leaders who are deeply discredited, both regionally and locally, in their own countries.

Merz and Macron can no longer achieve internal consensus within the EU, and this is eroding their credibility because they are not enabling the bloc to speak with one voice. In Brussels, there is a patchwork of passionate agendas, but not a common geopolitical agenda.

It is the European elites who insist on the continuation of a conflict, not the average citizen, who prefers that their government budgets be allocated to social spending rather than to a European rearmament project like the one being outlined in Brussels. Many see support for Ukraine as an imposed sacrifice, and the expense of continuing to fuel the conflict is already taking its toll.

In fact, the €168.9 billion that the EU has allocated to Ukraine over almost four years would have completely covered all of Spain’s public spending on education in a single fiscal year and Italy’s entire health budget.

Amid this situation, some European leaders are insisting that the Russian assets frozen more than three years ago be confiscated to guarantee a €210 billion loan for Kiev, which could complicate the peace talks the US and Russia have been conducting for months over the Ukrainian conflict.

That money is Russian, and international law would have to protect Russian assets if the EU were to choose to confiscate these. If they do, it would be a major contradiction within the European narrative because these countries are supposed to be the ones that champion international law and guarantee what they have called ‘a rules-based world,’ but appropriating those assets is essentially theft, and this would violate international law.

Nonetheless, the EU announced on December 12 that an agreement had been reached to indefinitely freeze €210 billion of Russian Central Bank assets held in Europe, particularly in Belgian securities depository Euroclear. Although the freeze is intended to facilitate EU plans to provide Ukraine with a loan of up to €165 billion to cover military and civilian budget needs in 2026 and 2027, Belgium, Italy, Bulgaria, and Malta expressed reservations about transferring funds to Ukraine. A final decision will be made at an EU summit being held at the end of the week.

It is foolish that the EU has wasted so much money on the Ukrainian crisis, knowing that the bloc is economically suffering, with very low growth rates and a deindustrialized Germany that is not recovering. Yet, despite this, the EU seemingly wants to further tarnish its global reputation by aiming to steal Russia’s wealth.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

December 15, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

EU state jails anti-NATO politicians for ‘treason’

RT | December 13, 2025

An Estonian court has handed lengthy prison sentences to the leaders of an anti-NATO party convicted of working on behalf of Russia to undermine the Baltic state’s security.

On Thursday, the Harju District Court sentenced Aivo Peterson, co-founder of the small conservative Koos (Together) party, to 14 years in prison for treason. His associates Dmitri Rootsi and Andrei Andronov received sentences of 11 years and 11 years and six months, respectively. All three denied any wrongdoing and said they would appeal the verdict.

Prosecutors alleged that the defendants spread “narratives supporting Russia’s foreign and security policy” intended to undermine public trust in NATO and Estonia’s military aid to Ukraine.

“The defendants deliberately assisted Russia in activities directed against the Estonian state and society,” State Prosecutor Triinu Olev-Aas said.

Founded in 2022, Koos calls for Estonia to leave NATO, become a neutral state, remove foreign troops from its territory, and “refrain from participating directly or indirectly in military conflicts between other countries.”

In 2023, Peterson traveled to Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic, which Estonia considers occupied Ukrainian territory. He said at the time that he was gathering information about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. “There are two sides to every conflict, but the information we receive from Estonian media is one-sided. All of our journalists support Kiev, which often comes across as propaganda,” Peterson said.

The Koos party rejected the allegations against its members, arguing that prosecutors had failed to present “concrete proof that their actions had caused real damage to Estonia’s constitutional order or security.”

Estonia is one of Ukraine’s top supporters and has been pushing for further militarization of Europe. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova labeled Estonia “one of the most hostile countries” in June and accused Tallinn of “spreading myths and falsehoods about the supposed threat from the East.”

December 14, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

The Great European Asset Heist Will Fail

By Leanna Yavelskaya | Ron Paul Institute | December 12, 2025

Let’s stop pretending Brussels is engaged in noble statecraft. The EU’s rush to steal more than €180 billion in frozen Russian sovereign assets held at Euroclear is the most reckless gamble Europe has taken in decades. Moscow’s central bank is not wrong to call the move unlawful; its lawsuit against Euroclear merely underscores a simple truth: weaponizing sovereign reserves violates long-standing norms that have protected global capital flows for half a century. Brussels may dress this up as “solidarity with Ukraine,” but using immobilized reserves as collateral for massive loans crosses a line that Western institutions once treated as sacrosanct.

The political sales pitch — that these are merely Russia’s “war chest” — deliberately ignores an uncomfortable reality: sovereign reserves ultimately underpin a nation’s entire economy, including its citizens’ savings and pensions. Seizing or leveraging them sets a dangerous precedent: any country deemed objectionable by a majority of EU governments could one day see its wealth confiscated. That is not rule-of-law liberalism; it is discretionary power cloaked in humanitarian rhetoric.

Euroclear, one of Europe’s critical financial arteries, now finds itself caught between Brussels’ political ambitions and Moscow’s threats of counterclaims. Belgium knows the danger intimately — its own officials have repeatedly warned that breaching sovereign-immunity doctrines could expose the country to massive liabilities. When even EU member states start raising alarms, you know the legal ground is shaky.

What is truly astonishing is the European Commission’s refusal to confront the broader consequences. Financial systems run on trust, not idealistic speeches. Undermine the principle that sovereign reserves are untouchable, and investors everywhere — not just in Moscow — take note. China, which holds substantial euro-denominated assets, has already condemned the EU’s approach as destabilizing. Beijing may not dump its euro holdings tomorrow, but the EU is actively encouraging major powers to question Europe’s reliability as a financial partner. That alone should alarm anyone who cares about the euro’s long-term viability.

The internal politics are equally explosive. Hungary, Slovakia, and even Belgium itself have raised serious objections on both legal and risk grounds. If Brussels forces the plan through regardless, it will only strengthen the already potent narrative in several member states that the EU is willing to trample national interests and established law in pursuit of ideological crusades. This is the kind of overreach populists dream of — an elite-driven project that can be portrayed, not entirely unfairly, as prioritizing geopolitical theater over the economic security of European citizens.

Then there is the Ukraine question itself. For many Europeans, supporting Kiev is neither a moral nor a strategic imperative. Ukraine’s deep governance problems are real and have been acknowledged by its own officials and Western auditors alike. Pouring unprecedented sums into the country without ironclad safeguards invites legitimate criticism that Brussels is acting on emotion rather than sober judgment.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Washington has every incentive to watch Europe stumble. If investors lose confidence in the euro, the dollar benefits. If European financial institutions face turmoil, American ones expand their reach.

Europe could still choose a wiser path. Instead of prolonging an unsustainable conflict by stealing sovereign Russian assets — a move that virtually guarantees escalation and risks spilling the war into the Eurozone itself, with unimaginable and utterly destructive consequences — European leaders could support genuine peace efforts.

The EU cannot afford to make the wrong choice. Yet that is precisely what it is doing, and for nothing more than short-term political posturing.

December 12, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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