Refinery Fires Help EU Topple Pro-Peace Governments to Wage War on Russia
Sputnik – 23.10.2025
While it is too early to tell who exactly is responsible for the recent fires at the refineries in Hungary and Romania as investigations are still ongoing, figuring out who benefits from them is easier, Endre Simó, the president of the Hungarian Community for Peace, tells Sputnik.
According to Simo, it is “those who want to gain a market with their own products by displacing cheaper Russian products.”
“Given the history, namely the explosion of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and the series of Ukrainian attacks against the Druzhba oil pipeline, intentionality cannot be ruled out either in Hungary or Romania,” he points out.
He further notes that the main victim of these incidents is Serbia which, due to its only significant refinery being targeted by US sanctions, is forced to rely heavily on the now-damaged MOL’s refinery in Százhalombatta.
Thus, the refinery fires are also a boon to those seeking to overthrow the pro-peace government of Viktor Orban in Hungary and Alexandar Vucic in Serbia, and using “impermissible means” to meddle in Hungary and Serbia’s internal affairs “in order to bring opposition forces that serve the Brussels policy to power.”
Volkswagen faces chip crisis after Chinese factory seized by EU state – Bild
RT | October 23, 2025
Germany’s largest carmaker, Volkswagen, could stop production at a key plant due to a shortage of semiconductors caused by the seizure of a Chinese-owned chipmaker by the Netherlands, Bild has reported, citing anonymous sources.
The Dutch government took control of the Nexperia factory in Nijmegen late last month, citing intellectual property and security concerns. The New York Times reported last week after reviewing documents from an Amsterdam court that the move had been made following pressure from US officials. Nexperia’s parent company, Wingtech, was blacklisted by Washington in 2024 as part of an ongoing trade war with China.
Beijing responded in early October by banning Nexperia from exporting finished chips from China, which are widely used in the electronic control units of VW vehicles.
Bild reported on Wednesday that Volkswagen – which also owns the Skoda, Seat, Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, and Bentley brands – does not currently appear to have an alternative to Nexperia chips.
Sources in the company told the paper that due to the lack of semiconductors it plans to stop production at its plant in Wolfsburg from next Wednesday. Volkswagen Golf models will be affected first, followed by other vehicles, they said.
If the situation does not improve, work could also be halted at Volkswagen’s facilities in Emden, Hanover, Zwickau, and elsewhere, a person familiar with the matter said.
According to the report, the carmaker has started talks with the German authorities about a state-backed reduced working hours scheme for tens of thousands of its employees.
Bild warned that the chip crisis could also impact other carmakers in the country. Representatives for BMW and Mercedes told the paper that they were analyzing the situation. The German automobile industry has already been suffering due to high energy costs as a result of EU sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine conflict and increased US tariffs.
A spokesman for Volkswagen’s Zwickau plant told AFP that the report by Bild was “incorrect.” However, according to an internal letter seen by the media, the company acknowledged that “impact on production cannot be ruled out in the short term” due to a semiconductor shortage.
EU Split Over How Ukraine Should Spend €140 Billion From Frozen Russian Assets
Sputnik – 23.10.2025
A number of EU countries advocate that Ukraine use the potential 140 billion euros ($162 billion) loan from frozen Russian assets exclusively to purchase European weapons, while other member states support giving Kiev full freedom in spending the funds, including on arms from the United States, an American newspaper reported.
France, along with Germany and Italy, is pushing to channel the funds into the EU’s own defense industry rather than toward US arms suppliers, the report said. At the same time, countries such as the Netherlands and the Nordic and Baltic states argue that Ukraine should be free to decide how to spend the loan, even on US-made weapons.
Despite this, pressure from France and Germany has led summit drafts to emphasize strengthening Europe’s defense industry, while critics argue that this stance is hypocritical, the newspaper reported.
“If the aim is to keep Ukraine in the fight, you need to keep the criteria open,” an unnamed senior EU diplomat was quoted as saying.
On Thursday, EU leaders are expected to instruct the European Commission at their meeting in Brussels to present a legal proposal outlining the loan.
On September 25, the Financial Times newspaper reported that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz had proposed that the EU provide Ukraine with an interest-free loan of around 140 billion euros drawn from frozen Russian assets. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever criticized Merz’s proposal on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, saying that an attempt to seize state assets would set a dangerous precedent not only for Belgium but for the EU as a whole.
After the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine in 2022, the European Union and the G7 froze almost half of Russian foreign currency reserves, totaling some 300 billion euros. About 200 billion euros are held in European accounts, mainly by Belgium’s Euroclear, one of the world’s largest clearing houses.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly condemned the freezing of Russia’s central bank money in Europe as theft. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow could respond by withholding assets held in Russia by Western countries.
Ukraine conflict now belongs to Trump – ex-Russian president
RT | October 23, 2025
The Ukraine conflict has effectively become US President Donald Trump’s war now that he has positioned himself as an adversary of Moscow, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said.
Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, made the comment after Trump scrapped plans for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin and imposed new sanctions on Russian oil companies – measures the US leader described as a means to pressure Moscow into concessions.
Writing on social media on Thursday, Medvedev suggested that Trump’s next move would likely involve approving the delivery of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Kiev, claiming the US president is “now firmly on the warpath against Russia” and “completely aligned with mad Europe” in that regard.
He argued that Trump had likely been pressured by both domestic and international hawks into taking a hardline stance, rather than acting out of ideological conviction as was the case with his predecessor, Joe Biden. “But now it’s his conflict,” Medvedev concluded, adding that Russia must focus on achieving its objectives militarily rather than through negotiations.
Trump has repeatedly blamed Biden for the escalation of hostilities between Moscow and Kiev, insisting that the conflict “would never have happened” had he been in office in 2022.
The US president has a record of abrupt foreign policy reversals, including in his handling of the Ukraine crisis. Hungary, where Trump and Putin had agreed to meet for a new summit, has said that preparations for the meeting remain on track despite the recent tensions.
Ukraine adopts record war budget
RT | October 22, 2025
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has signed a bill boosting the country’s military spending by $7.8 billion, with most of the funds expected to be covered by revenues from frozen Russian assets. The increase comes as Kiev continues to face a record budget deficit and relies on Western funding to sustain operations.
The legislation was passed by the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday and marks the second time this year that lawmakers have expanded military spending. In July, the Rada increased defense allocations by about $9.9 billion. The latest amendment brings the total expenditures for 2025 to roughly $70.7 billion, up from $52.7 billion initially approved in the budget adopted earlier this year.
Ukrainian lawmakers have said that most of the latest increase is expected to be financed by proceeds linked to frozen Russian funds.
On Wednesday, the Rada also voted in favor of the country’s draft budget for 2026, which includes a deficit of over 40%, projecting it will spend about $114 billion while taking in just $68 billion. It notes that all of Kiev’s tax revenue will only be spent on the military, with all other state costs to be covered by financial aid from foreign backers.
Spanish newspaper El Pais has reported that Ukraine currently has enough funds to operate only until April 2026, prompting the EU to consider a €140 billion ($163 billion) “reparations loan” backed by Russian assets held abroad. About €200 billion of Moscow’s frozen reserves are currently held in Belgium.
However, a number of Western officials have opposed the EU-led initiative. Bloomberg has reported that Washington has refused to join the plan, citing market-stability risks, while European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde has warned that confiscating Russian state funds could violate international law and undermine trust in the euro.
Moscow has repeatedly denounced any use of its sovereign assets as “theft,” warning of retaliation. Russian officials have also maintained that continued Western military and financial assistance to Ukraine only prolongs the conflict, resulting in further casualties without changing the eventual outcome.
Hungary blasts ‘fake news’ about Putin-Trump meeting
RT | October 22, 2025
The Western media will continue to spread “fake news” aimed at derailing a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has warned.
Several outlets reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed White House officials, that plans for the meeting in the Hungarian capital had been put “on hold.”
Responding to the claims, Szijjarto took to X to warn that from the moment the meeting was announced following a phone call between Putin and Trump last week, “it was obvious that many would do everything possible to stop it from happening.”
“The pro-war political elite and their media always behave this way before events that could prove decisive between war and peace,” he added.
According to the foreign minister, it will be the same in the run-up to the talks in Budapest. “Until the summit actually takes place, expect a wave of leaks, fake news, and statements claiming that it will not happen,” Szijjarto said.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov had earlier called the claims “infodumps,” intended to disrupt diplomatic progress on settling the Ukraine conflict. “EU and NATO countries are seeking to torpedo everything,” he said.
EU officials have publicly claimed that they would welcome another Putin-Trump meeting. However, El Pais has reported that behind closed doors, Brussels – which continues to support Ukraine and urge increased pressure on Russia – views the summit as a “political nightmare.”
On Tuesday, the Financial Times cited an unnamed EU diplomat as saying “no one likes it,” and that “we are all grinning through our teeth whilst saying this is fine.”
In the same article, the FT claimed that the talks in the Hungarian capital have been “canceled,” and that a White House official has said there are no plans for a Putin-Trump summit “in the immediate future.”
Russian presidential aide Kirill Dmitriev rejected the report, accusing the FT of “twisting” the comments by its source. “Preparations continue” for the Budapest summit, he wrote on X.
Qatar warns EU sustainability law could end its LNG exports to Europe
The Cradle | October 17, 2025
Qatar’s Minister of Energy, Saad al-Kaabi, said on 16 October that Doha would be unable to continue supplying liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe if the EU fails to revise its corporate sustainability rules.
In an interview with Reuters, Kaabi warned that the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), adopted in 2024, poses a “significant risk” to state-owned QatarEnergy – one of the world’s largest LNG exporters.
The regulation requires major companies operating within the bloc to identify and address human rights and environmental violations in their supply chains or face fines.
Kaabi, who also serves as QatarEnergy’s chief executive, said his concern centers on potential penalties of up to five percent of a company’s total global revenue for failing to meet the EU’s climate-transition requirements under the Paris Agreement.
He said such exposure could make it impossible for QatarEnergy to justify doing business in Europe.
“QatarEnergy will not be able to justify doing business in the EU, be it in LNG or other products, due to the significant risk it would be exposed to due to the overreaching nature of the proposed regulations, which will ultimately harm the European end consumers,” Kaabi told Reuters.
Qatar currently supplies between 12 and 14 percent of Europe’s LNG needs under long-term contracts, including with Shell in the UK.
Kaabi said Doha has been attempting for nearly a year to “constructively engage with the key players at both the European Commission and every EU Member State” on the directive, but has received no reply.
Reuters confirmed that the European Commission did not immediately respond to its request for comment.
Earlier this week, the European Parliament’s legal committee supported efforts to soften the law following pushback from corporations, but Kaabi said the amendments “did not address key concerns.”
He urged Brussels to make further changes or risk discouraging investment and weakening the bloc’s competitiveness.
“Europe must decide if it wants to continue to attract investment into the bloc by further changing CSDDD, or risk undermining efforts to strengthen its competitiveness and prevent economic deterioration,” he said.
Europe’s Economic Winter Transfers the Workshop of the World to Asia’s New Furnaces
By Rebecca Chan – New Eastern Outlook – October 18, 2025
European capitals increasingly resemble branch offices of an American headquarters. Decisions on industrial policy have long turned into ritual acts of loyalty rather than independent steps.
In the workshops of the Ruhr, where the fire of blast furnaces was once considered Europe’s eternal companion, today reigns a cold more expensive than any raw material. An economic pause has descended in icy silence. A tombstone rests on the grave of industrial greatness, signed by Europe’s own leaders.
The continent is dismantling its own productive arteries, while Asia launches new lifelines. The center of gravity shifts to where clusters grow, not gas prices. Europe is losing not to chance, but to the results of its own “strategic” deafness—an error the East has turned into opportunity.
The Trap of Sanctions and Costly Energy
The European Union invented sanctions as a weapon of pressure, only to receive a boomerang blow to its own skulls. German and French factories are drowning in energy bills, shackled by chains forged by their own hands. Electricity and gas no longer feed the economy; they have become instruments of self-destruction.
Germany’s industrial activity index is sliding down like a thermometer in a frozen room. Machinery, chemicals, and metallurgy are losing markets, exports are crumbling, subsidies resemble aspirin after an amputation. Every new restriction, dictated in favor of the overseas ally, turns yet another factory hall into an abandoned museum. Brussels codifies these barriers, expanding its dual-use export control list to tighten the screws on high-tech trade.
European industry is being sacrificed to Washington, like a temple offering leaving only smoke behind. Factory pauses are transforming the industrial core into a ritual of obedience and loyalty. And against this backdrop, the East gathers strength. The International Energy Agency notes how these price shocks diverge across regions, with Asia absorbing them into growth while Europe suffocates under the weight.
Expansion of Capacity and “Importing Industry”
China launches new production lines as if assembling a puzzle from the fragments Europe has scattered. India strengthens petrochemicals and takes on raw material processing from which Western corporations are fleeing as if from a fire. Vietnam and Indonesia pick up orders for electronics and light industry, turning others’ losses into their own growth.
European prohibitions have opened a showcase of opportunities for the East. Every restriction meant to crush competitors has become a stimulus for Asian investments in infrastructure and new industries. Ports expand, corridors stretch, power grids come alive—all built on the ruins of European stubbornness.
The East is transforming foreign stagnation into the foundation of sovereignty. Every collapse of European production coincides with the rise of Asian capacity, as if the world market itself had decided to relocate the planet’s factory to where there are no imposed illusions of “strategic solidarity.”
The Loss of Control Tools
Washington and Brussels stubbornly tried to keep the world’s supply chains by the throat—erecting barriers, hammering out new rules, handing out sanctions left and right. Control crumbled like a rusty lock on an old warehouse. Production lines are leaving Europe and taking root in Asian soil, pulling with them not only jobs but also political influence.
European capitals increasingly resemble branch offices of an American headquarters. Decisions on industrial policy have long turned into ritual acts of loyalty rather than independent steps. Even a hint of an alternative sounds seditious and draws condemnation. Meanwhile, Asia is drafting its own continental blueprint: corridors instead of walls, ports and energy unions instead of sanctions. Trading platforms operate without Western notaries, and it is there that the new rules of the game are born.
The map of the global economy is turning into a chessboard where the West is allowed to play only pawns. Europe is bogging down in its own restrictions, while Asia calmly unfolds a field of maneuver, transforming it into a genuine center of growth. This shift changes not only container routes but also the very balance of power in world politics.
The Future Is Written Where New Furnaces Smoke
Europe is entering an era of prolonged economic permafrost. Any attempt to revive factories crashes against energy bills and acute political dependence. Empty workshops declare that the continent’s industrial age has come to an end. Berlin now concedes the burden, promising subsidies and lower energy tariffs for industry in its 2026 budget—a rare admission that the sacred “market” cannot carry this weight alone.
For Asia, this turns into a conveyor of opportunities. Every shuttered plant in Germany or France automatically sets new lines in motion in Shenzhen, Mumbai, or Jakarta. Every European loss settles into Asian infrastructure, cementing a new industrial order. India’s role inside BRICS+ shows how external pressure is repurposed into sovereignty, a reminder that decline for one bloc is ignition fuel for another.
Europe faces a harsh crossroads: either radically change its industrial model and rebuild its political logic, or lock itself permanently into the role of a marketplace without factories. Asia has already made its choice and consolidates its success step by step. The continent that was once the workshop of the world is becoming a museum of illusions, while the future is written where new furnaces smoke.
Rebecca Chan is an independent political analyst focusing on the intersection of Western foreign policy and Asian sovereignty.
Five years until war with Russia? The EU is already at war
Strategic Culture Foundation | October 17, 2025
The 27-nation European Union this week unveiled a five-year plan “to get ready for war” with Russia.
The so-called “Roadmap on European Defense Readiness 2030” sounds like a war manifesto and a self-fulfilling prophecy, putting the EU on a disastrous collision course with Russia.
It is incredible that such an ominous direction is being blatantly dictated by an unaccountable elite in Brussels. Eighty-five years ago, the Third Reich had a plan to rule over Europe by dominating the Soviet Union. The EU elite are carrying on the plan.
As for the “defense readiness” (that is, “war readiness”) roadmap, the future is already here, not in five years. The EU is presently on a disastrous collision course with Russia.
Like the United States, the European Union has been at war with Russia through its proxy regime in Ukraine since February 2022, and before that, going back to the 2014 coup in Kiev.
Over the past four years, the EU has supplied nearly €180 billion of taxpayer money to weaponize a NeoNazi regime in Kiev. As we noted in last week’s editorial, that vast allocation (and waste) of resources is far greater than the EU’s own member nations have received for developing their economies and societies. When has the European public had a chance to vote on that? Decisions are being made by an elite cabal.
Unlike the Trump administration, the European Union under the influence of arch-Russophobes like European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, has shown absolutely no will for finding a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Ukraine. With honorable exceptions, most of the European governments are pushing the war hysteria. So, too, are the European media, as are the American mainstream media. Russia is the evil aggressor, no diplomacy, no dialogue with Moscow, no surrender, and so on. It’s war-on-autopilot.
The European bloc, at least at the official level, is completely dominated by NATO and intelligence agencies’ propaganda portraying Russia as the enemy. The CIA and Britain’s MI6 are no doubt pulling the strings and Europe is dancing like a pathetic puppet.
President Donald Trump held a two-hour phone call with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Thursday during which the two leaders agreed to meet in Budapest in the next two weeks. The meeting is a follow-up to their summit in Anchorage on August 15, to try to end the hostilities in Ukraine.
The EU leadership is implacably opposed to any such diplomacy. They were disconcerted by the meeting in Alaska because Trump treated Putin with respectful diplomacy. The latest news about a summit in Budapest is also peeving EU leaders. They are clamoring for Trump to deliver Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, which they will pay for. This is aimed at ensuring that diplomacy gets blown up.
Since the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, the European Union has undergone a retrograde transformation to become a militarized bloc defined by obsessive hostility towards Russia. The EU is increasingly a clone of the NATO military alliance. Historically, the European Union stood for peace through neighborly trade and commerce. It was intended to have evolved from the ashes of the Second World War, ensuring that war would never happen again on the continent. In 2012, the bloc was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Not that that award means much, but it serves to illustrate the absurdity.
Over recent months, the EU has become fixated on a feverish war mentality. The economies of the 27 nations are increasingly marshaled by military production and spending. The whole purpose of the bloc is being defined as an existential confrontation with Russia. It seems significant that Von der Leyen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have Nazi skeletons in their family wardrobes. The Baltic states, too, which have emerged as belligerent influences on EU policy, have nefarious links to the Nazi past.
The war mentality reached fever pitch in Von der Leyen’s State of the Union address on September 10. She opened by declaring that “Europe is in a fight” with Russia. She said it was a fight for “freedom and independence,” and she united the cause of the EU with Ukraine against Russia.
“Europe must fight… because Ukraine’s freedom is Europe’s freedom,” she claimed.
Von der Leyen, the former German military minister, and the European Union’s most senior official, who is unelected, was declaring that the bloc was at war. Now, not in five years.
In recent months with intensifying emphasis, the EU’s intelligence agencies (CIA, MI6 clones) have been warning of war with Russia as imminent, and there has been a suspicious surge in drone incursions in Poland, Estonia, Romania and Denmark, which have been blamed on Russia without any evidence.
All the while, European leaders and NATO chief Mark Rutte (a former Dutch prime minister, and an abject clone if ever there was one) have been calling for massive increases in military spending to “counter the Russia threat”. In March, Von der Leyen floated the figure at €800 billion for the bloc to spend on “defense”.
In 2014, the combined EU military spend was less than €200 billion. It now stands at €340 billion. That is an increase by 70 percent over a decade.
The roadmap unveiled this week sure enough delivers on Von der Leyen’s earlier astronomical figure. It is planning a total EU spend on military of €800 billion – more than double the current level and four times the level the EU spent 10 years ago.
This is insane and unsustainable. If it doesn’t escalate into an all-out war in Europe, the least damaging effect of such wanton militarism will destroy European nations from economic and political collapse.
It is clear that major decisions have been made behind closed doors to take the EU in a direction towards increased militarism where the civilian economies are transformed into war economies. That’s great news for military corporations and politicians who are sponsored (bribed) by lobbyists. European citizens are the losers and they are not being consulted about their fate. Their societies are being drained of vital resources, which are being sucked up by militarism and corporate investors.
To pull off this grand theft and deception, the EU relies on unelected bureaucrats like Von der Leyen, Kallas and Rutte to whip up Russophobia and “war fears”. The mainstream media plays its part by peddling intelligence propaganda to manufacture public acquiescence.
However, there is pushback to the craziness. The rise of populist (that is, more representative and democratic) parties is demonstrating contempt for the undemocratic EU ruling class. The protests in France throwing the government into chaos are motivated by disgust at the economic cutbacks for public services and workers’ rights while Paris throws billions of euros propping up the proxy war in Ukraine.
To their credit, governments in Hungary and Slovakia are speaking out against the warmongering of the EU towards Russia. Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico have criticized the militarization of Europe and are consistently calling for diplomacy with Moscow.
It is significant that Trump chose to meet Putin in the Hungarian capital for their next meeting, chaired by Orbán who described the event as “great news for people who want peace”.
The European-NATO leadership is displeased by the Budapest venue because it suggests following a diplomatic option instead of a policy of war-on-autopilot.
The Russophobic Euro elites are trying to railroad the continent to war. They can see no other way of doing international relations. They have committed the EU to war and dictatorial war spending that is criminal. They, therefore, cannot allow peace and diplomacy to succeed because that would be an admission of their criminal warmongering.
But their way is leading to the abyss.
One million pounds and a war without end: Boris Johnson’s intervention in Kyiv changed Europe’s future
By Ricardo Martins – New Eastern Outlook – October 17, 2025
When history revisits the Ukraine conflict, one episode may stand out as a turning point: Boris Johnson’s sudden visit to Kyiv in April 2022, just after a tentative peace agreement had been initialed in Istanbul.
At that moment, a ceasefire was within reach. Yet Johnson, then British Prime Minister, reportedly urged President Volodymyr Zelensky not to sign, assuring him that the West would arm Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” That decision, now under renewed scrutiny following revelations by The Guardian, may have changed the course of the conflict—and Europe’s political destiny.
The Istanbul Agreement That Never Was
By early April 2022, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators had agreed in principle to a framework that could have ended hostilities. Ukraine would forgo NATO membership in exchange for security guarantees. But after Johnson’s unannounced visit to Kyiv, talks collapsed.
Following The Guardian investigation, David Arakhamia, a member of Zelenskyy’s own negotiating team in Istanbul, appeared to lend the idea credence. “When we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kyiv and said that we would not sign anything with them at all, and let’s just fight,” he said in a November 2023 interview.
According to leaked documents published by The Guardian, sourced from Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoS), a US-based transparency collective, Johnson had other motives for discouraging compromise.
The investigation traces a £1 million payment from businessman Christopher Harborne, a major shareholder in a British drone manufacturer supplying the Ukrainian military, to a private company created by Johnson shortly after leaving office. Harborne also accompanied Johnson to Kyiv, raising questions about direct lobbying and influence-peddling at the highest level of government.
Following the Money
Harborne’s donation, ostensibly legitimate under UK law, takes on a darker significance in this context. As Johnson lobbied Zelensky to prolong the war, Harborne’s company stood to benefit from expanded arms contracts. The Guardian’s exposé describes this payment as “a reward for services rendered,” a euphemism for bribery in geopolitical disguise.
Johnson dismissed the report as “a pathetic Russian hack job,” yet neither he nor Downing Street has provided a transparent accounting of the donation or its timing. The optics are damning: a former prime minister allegedly persuading a wartime ally to reject peace while personally profiting through associates linked to the arms trade.
The Price of Prolongation
Since that fateful spring, the toll has been catastrophic. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and civilians have perished. More than three trillion US dollars in Western aid and military spending have flowed into the conflict, much of it financed by debt and by diverting funds from social programmes.
European citizens are paying the price. Budgets once earmarked for welfare, healthcare, and pensions have been repurposed to sustain the war effort. Energy costs have soared, industrial competitivity has sunk, inflation has eroded savings, and social unrest has become regular across the continent.
The narrative of European solidarity has given way to anger and fatigue. Populist and far-right parties are sweeping across Europe. In this sense, Johnson’s intervention did not only prolong a war; it accelerated a social and political crisis within Europe itself.
From Peace Project to Proxy War
The European Union once prided itself on being a “peace project.” Yet its handling of the Ukraine conflict has projected a very different image: that of a continent complicit in militarisation and escalation. France and Germany, the supposed guardians of diplomatic balance, quietly aligned themselves with Washington’s maximalist stance.
No leader publicly questioned why the Istanbul Agreement was abandoned. No parliamentary inquiry has addressed whether Johnson’s visit influenced European policy and why European leaders did not censure Johnson.
In retrospect, Europe’s passivity reveals both dependency and cowardice. The EU’s foreign policy has become an echo of Washington’s strategic interests and those of arms manufacturers, such as Mr. Harborne, while dissenting voices were marginalised as “pro-Russian”. This reflex has stifled honest debate about the human and economic costs of the war and about who truly benefits from its continuation.
The Corruption Business
War has always been fertile ground for corruption, and Ukraine is no exception. From inflated procurement contracts to opaque aid transfers, vast sums have disappeared without audit. Johnson’s alleged bribe merely symbolises a broader pattern: the convergence of political ambition, corporate profit, and ideological fervour.
Bribery and influence-trading have evolved into sophisticated transnational systems cloaked in legality: foreign lobbying, consultancy fees, and donations to foundations. Such practices blur the line between governance and outright corruption. They ensure that conflicts endure not because peace is impossible, but because war remains profitable.
Europe’s Crisis of Leadership
The scandal surrounding Boris Johnson’s intervention in Ukraine exposes a deeper political and strategic crisis within Europe. The same continent that once championed diplomacy and human rights now finances a proxy war that has devastated a nation and destabilised an entire region.
European leaders invoke solidarity while diverting resources from welfare and pensions, tolerating rising inequality and industrial competitivity decline to sustain arms deliveries. The rhetoric of democracy has been replaced by the logic of deterrence.
Across the continent, disillusionment is fuelling the ascent of populist and far-right parties. Citizens who once viewed the EU as a guarantor of peace now perceive it as complicit in perpetual conflict. From Slovakia to the Netherlands, voters are turning against Brussels’ alignment with Washington, revealing a growing mistrust of supranational elites and foreign-driven policy agendas.
Johnson’s defenders claim his visit to Kyiv stemmed from moral conviction, not financial interest, but conviction cannot erase consequence. Had the Istanbul peace framework been pursued, thousands of lives and trillions in resources might have been spared. Instead, Johnson’s theatrics helped entrench a war whose primary beneficiaries are defence contractors and political opportunists.
That the European Union tolerated this manipulation without investigation or accountability reflects a failure of leadership, not merely a lapse of ethics. By outsourcing strategic direction to NATO and moral authority to Washington, Europe has strayed from its founding principles of peace and autonomy.
The result is a continent economically weakened, politically fragmented, and increasingly defined by the conflicts it once sought to prevent.
In sum, The Guardian investigation has done what official institutions would not: follow the money and expose the moral bankruptcy behind the rhetoric of freedom. Whether courts or parliaments act on these revelations remains uncertain. But the evidence is clear enough for history’s judgment.
Ricardo Martins, PhD in Sociology, specializing in International Relations and Geopolitics
Trump’s Strongman Persona Inevitably Results in Lies and War
By Prof. Glenn Diesen | October 17, 2025
Trump’s claim that Prime Minister Modi had promised to end the purchase of Russian oil was obviously false; in fact, there was apparently no phone call between the two leaders at all. Such fabrications, portraying world leaders as deferential to him and as praising his greatness, constitute a recurring pattern—one that parallels his militaristic approach to peace.
As the president of a declining hegemon, Trump is convinced that the weakness of his predecessors was the source of decline. Trump has therefore concluded that projecting strength can reverse the erosion of American power. In constructing himself as the ultimate strongman—allegedly respected by all—he positions himself as the sole saviour of the US. The image of a powerful, decisive and respected leader capable of restoring US dominance also functions domestically to consolidate political support and project stability during the country’s uneasy transition from a unipolar to a multipolar international order. The American public is seemingly prepared to look the other way or justify the dishonesty and moral disgressions as the price worth paying for a return to greatness.
The central problem with the strongman image is that it sustains unrealistic expectations of reviving US primacy rather than adapting to the realities of a multipolar world. The outcome is a pattern of deception and conflict that ultimately undermines, rather than strengthens, the United States.
When the strongman cannot coerce his counterparts into subservience, the only recourse is retreat into fantasy. In this imagined world, other leaders allegedly regret their decisions of not falling into line, tremble as Trump wags his finger, shower him with compliments, offer tribute to the United States, and in Trump’s own words, line up to “kiss my ass.” Within the Trumpian bubble of superpower cosplay, these scenes of deference are celebrated as signs of a return to greatness, yet in the real world, American credibility declines and decadence deepens. As the gap between fantasy and reality widens, Trump becomes increasingly reckless. Case in point, the threats against India to sever ties with Russia and India backfired spectacularly as Prime Minister Modi instead went to China to cement India’s relations with Russia, China and the SCO.
Great powers and independent states cannot simply fall in line, for doing so would predictably lead to their destruction or subjugation. The ultimate aim of an aspiring hegemon is not to reconcile differences in pursuit of peaceful coexistence, but to defeat rival powers and capture independent states. The objective of the economic confrontation with China is not to renegotiate trade agreements, but to undermine China’s technological capacity and contain it militarily to restore US primacy. The purpose of the proxy war against Russia is not peace in terms of finding a new peaceful status quo, rather it is to use Ukrainians and increasingly Europeans to bleed and weaken Russia until it can no longer sustain great-power status. Similarly, the goal of the confrontation with Iran is not to reach a new nuclear accord—Tehran has already accepted such terms in the past—but to achieve Iran’s capitulation and disarmament by linking the nuclear issue to restrictions on missiles and regional alliances. Any power that concedes even marginally to US pressure ultimately finds itself in a weaker and more vulnerable position—one that the aspiring hegemon will inevitably exploit. Any peace agreements are therefore temporary at best, as an opportunity to regroup.
India presents an intriguing case, as it is not an adversarial power. Its commitment to non-alignment makes strong relations with the United States desirable, yet the very same non-alignment necessitates strategic diversification to reduce excessive reliance on Washington. Should India be persuaded to sever ties with other major powers such as China and Russia, it risks becoming too dependent on the United States and absorbed into a bloc-based geopolitical system. Subordination to a declining empire would be perilous, as the United States would predictably use India as a frontline against China, and simultaneously demand economic tribute and cannibalise Indian industries in pursuit of renewed dominance. In essence, India must avoid becoming another Europe.
The strongman act is most effective with weaker and dependent states—such as those in Europe—that are willing to subordinate themselves entirely in order to preserve American commitment to the continent. European states lack the economic capacity, security autonomy, and political imagination to envision a multipolar world in which the United States wields less influence and holds other priorities than a close partnership with Europe. Consequently, European leaders appear willing to sacrifice core national interests to preserve the unity of the “Political West” for a little while longer. In private, they may express disdain for Trump; in public, they pay tribute to “daddy” and line up diligently in front of his desk to receive praise or ridicule. Yet this subservience is inherently temporary: leaders who disregard fundamental national interests are, in time, swept aside by the very forces they seek to suppress.
The strongman does not create any durable peace the underlying problems are never addressed. The mantra of “peace through strength” can be translated into peace through escalation, with the assumption that the opponent will come to the table and submit to US demands. However, rival great powers that have nowhere to retreat will respond to escalation with reciprocation. The delusions of the strongman in the declining hegemony will therefore inevitably trigger major wars.
Von der Leyen issues ultimatum to EU aspirant
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. © Getty Images / Amir Hamzagic; Anadolu
RT | October 15, 2025
Serbia will not be able to join the EU unless it aligns fully with the bloc’s foreign policy, including adopting all sanctions against Russia, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said.
Serbia, which applied to join the EU in 2009 and received candidate status in 2012, remains one of the few European states that has refused to impose any restrictions on Moscow. Belgrade has cited its historic ties with Russia and continues to rely on energy supplies from the country.
Speaking alongside Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic at a press conference in Belgrade on Wednesday, von der Leyen stated that Belgrade must “take concrete steps” toward membership and demonstrate “a greater level of alignment” with EU positions, including on sanctions.
She added that Serbia’s current level of alignment with EU foreign policy stands at 61%, but that “more is needed,” insisting Brussels wants to see Belgrade act as a “reliable partner.”
Vucic has repeatedly said that Serbia will not impose sanctions on Russia under any circumstances, calling his country’s stance “independent and sovereign.” However, Belgrade’s refusal to comply has drawn increasing pressure from both Brussels and Washington.
Last week, the US activated sanctions against the Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS), a major oil company partly owned by Russia’s Gazprom Neft, prompting Croatia to suspend crude deliveries. Vucic has warned that the measures could force Serbia’s only oil refinery to shut down by November, threatening the country’s gasoline and jet fuel supply.
At the same time, Serbia has been shaken by a wave of violent anti-government protests over the past year, which Belgrade claims are being fueled by Western influence in an effort to destabilize the government.
Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has alleged that the EU is attempting to orchestrate a “Serbian Maidan” and install a pro-Brussels administration.
Budapest has voiced similar concerns, claiming that Brussels seeks to “overthrow” the governments of Hungary, Slovakia, and Serbia for maintaining ties with Moscow and refusing to abandon Russian energy.
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From the Archives
Clash of Civilization, Iran Part II
By Jamal Kanj – Intifada-Palestine.com – January 14, 2011
Israel’s survival kit is: perpetuate conflict, insecurity to rationalize collective hate and finally playing victim.
Devoid of conflict, Israel implodes internally; without hate, Zionism loses its justification; and playing eternal victim to continue blackmailing the West. Absence of this holy trinity, Israel ceases to exist. … continue
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