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Poland’s New Prez Nawrocki: Not Your Typical Pro-Ukraine Hero

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 02.06.2025

Opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki has been elected as the president of Poland, according to data published on the official website of the election commission. Nawrocki received 50.9% of the votes, just ahead of Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski (49.1%), Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s ally.

Poland’s stance on the Ukrainian crisis may change after the presidential election, as the country’s politicians and ordinary people alike seem increasingly reluctant to support Zelensky’s regime.

Here is a closer look at where Karol Nawrocki stands on Ukraine and other major issues.

No Free Pass for Ukraine

Nawrocki does not see it in either the European Union or NATO until bilateral issues like the 1943 Volyn massacre committed by Ukrainian nationalists during WWII are addressed.

  • While promising support, he blasted Volodymyr Zelensky for “ingratitude”.
  • Accused “European elites” (plus their “butler” Tusk) of fueling the war.
  • Unequivocally will not deploy Polish troops to Ukraine.
  • Accused Ukrainian refugees of taking advantage of Polish generosity, vowed to shield Polish farmers and truckers from unfair Ukrainian competition.
  • Opposes any Ukraine-EU trade liberalization.

On Russia

Karol Nawrocki swerved from telling Radio ZET that maintaining diplomatic ties with Russia was “not good for Poland,” to claiming he was ready to sit down at the negotiating table with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As former head of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), he oversaw demolition of Soviet war monuments—earning himself a spot on the Russian Interior Ministry’s “wanted” list of Polish nationals in 2024.

Skepticism Towards EU

  • Karol Nawrocki called the EU weak and chaotic, citing its exclusion from Ukraine peace talks.
  • He pledged to not allow the liberalization of trade between the EU and Ukraine.
  • Nawrocki vowed to keep Poland on the zloty, not the euro.

June 2, 2025 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Brussels hijacked our future’ – Orban

RT | June 1, 2025

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has unveiled a proposal to increase the power of EU members and limit the authority of its bureaucracy. Calling it a “patriotic plan” for the bloc, he said in a series of weekend social media posts that it will revive the “European dream.”

The EU elites in Brussels have exploited every crisis to amass more power, Orban claimed in a post on X. This course has so far only translated into less sovereignty for member states and “failed policies,” according to the prime minister. “Brussels hijacked our future” by disrupting public safety through migration and eroding prosperity with “green dogmas,” he stated in another post.

“Europe can’t afford this any longer, it’s time to take back control,” he said.

The PM’s plan is based on what he calls four pillars: a path toward peace on the continent and defusing tensions with Russia, removing Brussels’ “centralized control” over finances, “bringing back free speech” and strengthening Europe’s Christian identity, and tightening control over immigration.

“We want peace, we don’t need a new Eastern front,” Orban said, commenting on his plan and stating that the bloc should not accept Ukraine as a member. “We don’t want our money poured into someone else’s war,” he added.

A military buildup and defense increase actively promoted by some EU nations could easily lock the bloc in an “arms race” with Russia, Orban warned. Such a development would “devour… taxpayers’ money,” he said. Instead of pouring more resources into the military, the bloc needs to contribute to the peace process between Moscow and Kiev, the prime minister maintained, praising US President Donald Trump’s efforts in this regard.

The EU needs to start “arms limitation talks with the Russians as soon as possible. Otherwise, all our money will be swallowed by the arms industry instead of being spent on peaceful… goals,” Orban argued.

European nations once united to create the “safest and the most advanced continent” in the world but this dream was “stolen,” the prime minister charged, calling on EU nations not to allow Brussels to use the Ukraine conflict “as an excuse to take more of our money.”

June 1, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Europe punching above weight for nothing

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – June 1, 2025

Recent European (UK plus EU) sanctions on Russia amid ongoing US-backed efforts to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine aim to assert Europe’s perceived ability to “correct” the course of events.

However, the continued reliance on sanctions also underscores the limits of what Europe can—and cannot—achieve in ultimately shaping geopolitical outcomes.
Sanctions amid Talks

In geopolitics, timing is often more telling than the event itself. Such is the case with the European Union’s and the UK’s recent decision to impose fresh sanctions on Russia—announced just a day after former President Donald Trump held a two-hour “serious” conversation with Vladimir Putin. This is not the first time European states have sanctioned Russia, nor will it be the last. But this round is different, not in content but in context. The timing sends a clear message: Europe is uneasy, not just about Russia’s actions in Ukraine, but also about the growing strategic vacuum left by an increasingly disengaged United States.

Despite the recent round of dialogue between Ukrainian and Russian officials—and other rounds expected to follow—European leaders remain skeptical of where this path may lead. Their fear? That a negotiated settlement—particularly one brokered without robust Western unity—could leave Russia in a stronger position than before the conflict began.

That anxiety is compounded by waning American commitment to NATO under the Trump administration. In the absence of a coherent transatlantic front, European powers are trying to assert their own leverage. This latest sanctions package, targeting Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of oil tankers and the financial networks enabling sanctions evasion, is as much a political statement as it is an economic measure.

According to German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, the sanctions are a response to Russia’s refusal to agree to an “immediate ceasefire without preconditions.” But here’s the strategic problem: Europe acted alone. Washington, notably silent, announced no corresponding measures. In fact, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that threatening sanctions now could derail ongoing talks rather than advance them. “The president … believes that right now, you start threatening sanctions, the Russians will stop talking,” Rubio told lawmakers in the US.

This divergence reveals a deeper strategic disconnect between Europe and the US. Despite intense lobbying from European capitals, the Trump administration remains hesitant to jeopardize fragile diplomatic progress. In the eyes of many analysts, this marks a foreign policy failure for Europe, unable to rally its closest ally at a critical juncture. Still, the broader implication is troubling: these sanctions are unlikely to shift Moscow’s calculus or alter the trajectory of ceasefire negotiations. Instead, they may highlight Europe’s limited influence in the absence of American backing—and underscore a growing realization that, in the new era of great power politics, Europe may have to fend more for itself. If the goal is to contain Russian power and shape the post-war regional order, sanctions without transatlantic unity are unlikely to suffice. Without Washington on board, Europe’s message is loud—but not necessarily strong.

Anatomy of Sanctions

As the conflict in Ukraine drags into its fourth year, Europe finds itself in a strategic bind. While its leaders continue to voice solidarity with Kyiv, the reality beneath the rhetoric is unmistakable: Europe’s message is not strong enough. But the more pressing question is—why is this message so weak?

The answer lies not in a lack of compassion or political will, but in the cold calculus of power, capability, and consequence. After years of bloodshed, destruction, and stalemate, European leaders increasingly grasp the sobering truth: hard military power has its limits. In this war, force has not produced victory and may never do so. But sanctions, Europe’s go-to instrument in lieu of military engagement, have proven even weaker. Despite wave after wave of economic penalties imposed on Russia—freezing assets, targeting oligarchs, cutting trade—Moscow has adapted.

Faced with this double bind—military impotence on one hand, economic ineffectiveness on the other—some European policymakers have flirted with the idea of escalating their involvement. The suggestion of deploying troops or enforcing a no-fly zone in Ukraine has crept into public discourse. Yet such options bring their own dangers, dangers that many in Europe are not prepared to face. The reality is stark: without the United States, neither NATO nor any coalition of European powers has the muscle to militarily confront Russia directly.

Moreover, sending European troops into Ukraine or deploying aircraft over Ukrainian skies risks a direct confrontation with a nuclear-armed state. It is a step that would almost certainly invite retaliation on European soil. The conflict, in other words, would no longer be something happening “over there”—it would be an immediate, domestic reality. And this, more than anything else, is the psychological wall European leaders are reluctant to breach.

This is the heart of Europe’s dilemma: a conflict it cannot win, a peace it cannot broker, and a strategic imperative it cannot fulfill without paying a heavy cost. Until Europe reconciles its ambitions with its capabilities, its message will remain what it is today—resolute in tone, but tragically weak in substance.

Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.

June 1, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Kerry’s MH17 Misinformation

By Eric van de Beek – Propaganda In Focus – March 14, 2025 

The downing of flight MH17 in Eastern Ukraine, on July 17, 2014, led to a tectonic shift in relations between the EU and Russia. The American Secretary of State, John Kerry, paved the way by spreading misinformation and agitprop.

On July 17, 2014, a Malaysian passenger plane that had departed from Amsterdam and was en route to Kuala Lumpur crashed in Donbass, eastern Ukraine, where at that time a battle was raging between Ukrainian government troops and pro-Russian insurgents. All 298 occupants of flight MH17, most of them Dutch, were killed. The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) investigated the technical cause of the crash. In 2015 it concluded that the plane was downed by a Buk missile. The criminal investigation was led by a team of Dutch, Belgian, Australian, Ukrainian and Malaysian police officers and prosecutors – the Joint Investigation Team (JIT). In 2019, it announced that the Dutch Public Prosecution Service would prosecute one Ukrainian, Leonid Kharchenko, and three Russians, Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov. They were tried in The Netherlands, by the Hague District Court. In 2022, Pulatov was acquitted. The court sentenced the other defendees to life imprisonment for complicity in murder and the downing of an aircraft. The concrete involvement of the three convicts is alleged to have included: expressing the need for and requesting an air defense system with crew; indicating a suitable firing location for that system; transporting, escorting, guarding and concealing it. Those who were directly involved in the downing of the plane are still at large. The JIT assumes they are hiding in circles of the 53rd anti-aircraft brigade in Kursk, Russia. A Buk Telar air defense system from that brigade allegedly crossed the border into Ukraine with crew and all on July 17, 2014, where it fired the fatal missile the same day. However, the JIT has no idea who pushed the button, who gave the order to shoot, and for what reason. In 2023, the JIT anounced that it had halted the investigation.

The impact of the MH17 crash on relations between Russia and Europe cannot be overestimated. Although American and European sanctions were already in force against Russia before July 17, 2014, due to the seizure of Crimea, relations between Russia and most countries of the European Union were still friendly. The European economy benefitted from trade relations with Russia and the import of cheap natural gas. The Obama Administration tried to change this. It urged Brussels to impose additional, tougher sanctions on Russia, The Washington Post reported on June 25. At that time, there were divisions within the E.U. Some countries feared sanctions would hurt their relations with Russia. This changed overnight on July 17. “We hope it is a wake-up call for some countries in Europe that have been reluctant to move,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said in a televised interview three days after the MH17 crash. “We think frankly that the sanctions may need to be tougher. It may well be that the Dutch and others help lead that effort.” Kerry referred to the sanctions package that the US had already imposed on July 16. It was an example for Europe to follow. That package included sanctions against numerous Russian companies in the energy sector, banking and arms industries. Americans were prohibited by law from doing business with individuals who had interests in these companies.

On July 21, the day after Kerry’s TV address, American UN Ambassador Samantha Power and Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Frans Timmermans gave emotional speeches at the UN Security Council in New York. They accused the separatists of denying investigators access to the crash site, suppressing evidence, engaging in looting, disrespecting the victims’ bodies and hindering their recovery. “To my dying day I will not understand that it took so much time for the rescue workers to be allowed to do their difficult job, and that human remains should be used in a political game,” Timmermans stated, before flying to Brussels to give a reprise of his speech. Several EU ministers reportedly had tears in their eyes when Timmermans said he had known personally some of the 194 Dutch passengers among the 298 people who died on the plane. Reuters characterized the meeting in Brussels as “a turning point in Europe’s approach towards Russia”. Countries that were previously on the brakes, such as Germany and Italy, now suddenly agreed to the measures desired by the US. “Within days of Timmermans’ address, senior EU diplomats had agreed the broad outlines of potential sanctions on Russian access to EU capital markets, defence and energy technology,” Reuters wrote. “Timmermans’ impassioned speech, several diplomats said, made it difficult for others to hold a firm line against sanctions at Tuesday’s meeting. […] But like a supportive family, EU partners rallied around the bereaved Dutch, putting national economic interests aside and for the first time going beyond asset freezes and visa bans on individuals to envisage curbs on entire sectors of the Russian economy that could turn the screw on President Vladimir Putin.” On July 31, the significantly stricter EU sanctions against Russia became a reality.

The MH17 disaster not only led to economic damage for Russia. The country’s reputation also suffered a serious blow. Various Western media and politicians immediately pointed the finger at the Kremlin. President Vladimir Putin had a 298-fold murder on his conscience. While Russia could previously count on some understanding among many in the West for sending “green men” to Crimea, it was now a rogue state in the eyes of the masses. The separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk also experienced nothing but misery from the disaster.

The repercussions for Russia and the separatists stand in stark contrast to the outcome for the anti-Russian coup government in Kiev. It has benefited greatly from the MH17 crash. Until July 17, fear of a large-scale Russian invasion prevailed and there was concern about the poorly run ‘anti-terrorist operation’ along the border with Russia in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The MH17 disaster changed this overnight. On July 21, 2014, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appeared on CNN. He qualified the MH17 as a terrorist attack. “I don’t see any difference between the tragedy of 9/11 and the tragedy in Grabovo in Ukraine,” he said. “So now we have to demonstrate the same reaction. This is a danger to the whole world, to global security.” It sounded like a call for the West to take military action, as had happened in response to the alleged terrorist attacks in the U.S. on September 11, 2001. The Americans then successively invaded Afghanistan and Iraq.

Poroshenko almost got his way. An advanced plan by The Netherlands and Australia to take the crash area by force of arms from the insurgents was called off at the last minute. Nevertheless, the MH17 disaster brought the Kiev government much of what it wanted from the US and Europe: political and military support for Ukraine and tough punitive measures against Russia. On December 18, 2014, US President Barack Obama signed the so-called Ukraine Freedom Support Act, which paved the way for $350 million in military aid to Kiev. According to statements from the US Department of Defense, Washington donated one and a half billion dollars worth of military goods and training to Kiev from 2014 to 2019. NATO ‘intensified’ – in its own words – its cooperation with Ukraine. The tougher attitude of Brussels towards Moscow, so fervently desired by Kiev, also took shape.

Was MH17 really downed by a Russian Buk-crew? According to the The Hague District Court, the Dutch Prosecution Service, the JIT and the western legacy media the answer is in the affirmative. According to the author of this article, who attended all 69 court sessions of the criminal trial, no convincing — let alone conclusive evidence — was presented for the Russian Buk scenario. There are reasons to believe that something completely different may have happened. (I will discuss this in extenso in a book that I will publish this year.)

The fact is that in the public mind, Russia was convicted even before the official criminal investigation had started. Secretary of State John Kerry played a major role in this campaign by spreading misinformation and agitation propaganda that was subsequently echoed by others among whom were President Barack Obama, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, and Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Frans Timmermans. Let’s take a look at the five tv interviews Kerry gave on Sunday, July 20, 2014. On this day he appeared on CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS.

Claim 1: “We know for certain that in the last month there’s been a major flow of arms and weapons. There was a convoy about several weeks ago, about 150 vehicles with armed personnel carrier, multiple rocket launchers, tanks, artillery, all of which crossed over from Russia into the eastern part of Ukraine and was turned over to the separatists.”

This may be true. I did not study this subject. I concentrated on the Buk allegations. I’ve seen imagery of a military transport in rebel territory, filmed on July 15, 2014. The vehicles in the transport were either provided by Russia or captured by the separatists from the Ukrainian army. In any case, U.S. intelligence has not detected a Buk Telar crossing the Russian-Ukrainian border. No western intelligence agency has identified any Russian Buk system in Ukraine; only Ukrainian Buk systems. This has been acknowledged by the Dutch Public Prosecution Service during the MH17 criminal trial in the Netherlands. In court it showed a map of all known positions of Ukrainian Buk systems in eastern Ukraine in June and July 2014, based on a memo of the Dutch Military Intelligence Service MIVD.

Claim 2: “We know for certain that the separatists have a proficiency that they’ve gained by training from Russians as to how to use these sophisticated SA-11 systems.” (SA-11 is the American designation for the Buk system.)

The Americans have never substantiated this claim. It cannot be true either. A Ukrainian Buk expert who was consulted by the JIT has said that a Buk system is more complex to operate than the most advanced fighter jet. At the time MH17 was shot down, the conflict in eastern Ukraine had been going on for only three months. In such a short period it is impossible to learn how to operate a Buk system. According to Ukrainian ex-Buk commander Tarankov, who was interviewed by the JIT, this takes years. The commander of a Buk Telar has undergone five years of training; his subordinates spend a year or more before they are allowed to deploy, Pulatov’s lawyers revealed in court. According to the ex-commander of a Finnish Buk battalion, Esa Kelloniemi, who was consulted by the author of this article, it is out of the question for an untrained crew to receive permission from higher-ups to go out with a Buk. Moreover, without specialist knowledge, it would be impossible to fire a Buk missile. That would require much more than turning the ignition key and pressing the launch button. “The firing mechanism blocks the launch of a missile if a target has not first been detected, locked-on to and tracked, and if this target is still outside the calculated firing range,” Kelloniemi says.

Kerry’s suggestion that MH17 was brought down by separatists runs counter to the view of the JIT and the Dutch Public Prosecution Service. They propagated the hasty suggestion that MH17 was downed by a Russian crew.

Claim 3. “We know that they had this system to a certainty on Monday the 14th beforehand because the social media was reporting it and tracking it.”

According to the JIT and the prosecution the Buk that downed MH17 entered Ukrainian territory on July 17. This therefore cannot be the Buk that Kerry talked about.

On July 14 a Ukrainian military transport plane, an An-26, was downed. According to Kiev, this had happened at a high altitude and with a system more powerful than anything the insurgents had fired with up to that time. It probably came from Russia, they said. On social media there was talk that it was downed by a Buk missile, but this wasn’t substantiated in any way.

It seems the seperatists were in posession of Buk Telars. In Donetsk and Luhansk they captured air bases where Buk systems were deployed. The Ukrainians had already withdrawn from there, taking their equipment with them, but they may have left some behind. According to the prosecution the separatists found at least one Buk-Telar in an air base near Donetsk. It showed photos of this Telar in court. It looked non-functional. The electronics section was clearly damaged. In Luhansk the Ukrainians also seem to have left at least one Telar behind. On 20 July 2014 a video appeared of Valery Bolotov, the political leader of the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR). In it Bolotov expressed his condolences to the relatives and reported in the same breath that he had a non-functional Telar. He did not say how he got it. He invited the JIT to come and inspect the Telar and called on technical experts to repair it so that it could be used for the air defense of the LPR. The investigators of JIT never accepted Bolotov’s invitation. They never set a foot in Luhansk.

Claim 4. “On Thursday of the event, we know that within hours of this event, this particular system passed through two towns right in the vicinity of the shoot down. We know because we observed it by imagery.”

“We know they had an SA-11 right in the vicinity, hours before this shoot. The social media has documented this.”

“We know that they had an SA-11 system in the vicinity literally hours before the shootdown took place. There are social media records of that. The social media showed them with this system moving through the very area where we believe the shoot down took place hours before it took place.”

There are six videos and three photos of the transport of a Buk Telar across territory that was controlled by the separatists. Eight of them were posted on social media after the crash. Only one video, filmed in the city of Torez, and one photo, made in Donetsk, came into the hands of JIT before they were presented to the public. The identity of most photographers and filmmakers is unknown. Only two were identified. Of these two, only one was interviewed by the JIT. With his dash cam, he had filmed the transport of a Buk Telar in Makeevka. The metadata of his video indicated that it was shot in 2012. He said he didn’t remember the day of his encounter with the transport. One video was made by “a secret surveillance unit” of the Ukrainians in Luhansk. It was put on a YouTube channel of Ukraine’s secret service SBU the day after the crash. (See claim 9).

According to the Americans, the JIT and the prosecution the fatal missile was launched south of the city of Snizhne, from an agricultural field near the village of Pervomaiskyi. There’s one photo of a Buk driving under its own power in Snizhne and one video of a Buk leaving Snizhne, driving south. It is unknown who produced this imagery and the JIT wasn’t able to obtain the original files. The photo and video are of deplorable quality. Not a single detail can be seen on them. Zooming in creates a pixel salade.

Claim 5: “At the moment of the shoot down, we detected a launch from that area and our trajectory shows that it went to the aircraft.”

“We know to a certainty that we saw the launch from this area of what we deem to be an SA-11 because of the altitude, 33,000 feet, and because of the trajectory. We have the trajectory recorded. We know that it occurred at the very moment that this aircraft disappeared from the radar screen.”

“We picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar.”

The Hague District Court has not received any satellite data from the Americans, despite repeated requests by the prosecution service and the Dutch next of kin. Some, among whom former CIA officer Ray McGovern, say this indicates that no missile had been launched from rebels’ held territory at all.

A memorandum the prosecution received from the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) states: “At the time that flight MH17 dropped out of contact, the U.S. intelligence community detected an SA-11 surface-to-air missile launch from approximately six kilometers south of the town of Snizhne in eastern Ukraine.” The DNI did not comment on the exact time of the launch, but Pulatov’s lawyers concluded from the memorandum that the observed launch could not possibly have been from the missile that brought down MH17. After all, a missile cannot be launched and simultaneously knock a target off the radar. A missile takes some time to reach a specified target. According to the investigators of the Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory NLR the Buk missile that hit MH17 must have travelled for about 32 seconds, if the missile was launched from the agricultural field south of Snizhne. So the launch the Americans allegedly observed must have been from a different missile than the one that hit MH17. (More about this in my upcoming book The MH17 trial.)

Both the Russians and the Ukrainians provided the JIT with primary radar data. On these, no missile or any other object can be seen near MH17. According to experts who were consulted by the JIT this can be explained by technical factors like the high speed of the missile (mach 3).

Claim 6: “We also know to a certainty that the social media immediately afterwards saw reports of separatists bragging about knocking down a plane. And then the so-called defense minister, self-appointed of the People’s Republic of Donetsk, Igor Strelkov, posted a social media report bragging about the shoot down of a transport plane, at which point when it became clear it was civilian, they pulled down that particular report.”

“We know that the so-called defense minister of the People’s Republic of Donetsk, Mr. Igor Strelkov, actually posted a bragging social media posting of having shot down a military transport. And then when it became apparent that it was civilian, they pulled it down from the social media.”

“The defense minister, so-called self-appointed of the People’s Republic of Donetsk, Mr. Igor Strelkov, actually posted a bragging statement on the social media about having shot down a transport. And then when it became apparent it was civilian, they quickly removed that particular posting.”

Kerry suggested that MH17 was shot down by mistake by referring in particular to two messages that appeared on July 17 at 16:37 and 16:50 on the news account “strelkov_info” of the social media site VKontakte. According to these reports, an Antonov transport plane of the Ukrainian Air Force, an Antonov An-26, had been downed. Kerry attributed it to Girkin, whose battle name was “Strelkov”, and who at the time was commander-in-chief of the Donetsk People’s Army. In posting the message, he allegedly “bragged” about shooting it down and then deleted it when he noticed that a passenger plane had crashed. But none of that was true. The account strelkov_info was a fan account, by and for admirers of Girkin. Statements by Girkin were sometimes published on strelkov_info, but they were always accompanied by a banner saying, “Girkin reports”. That banner was not with the first and also not with the second message about the downed An-26. The prosecution acknowledged that the two social media posts did not come from Girkin or subordinates of his. It therefore did not put forward the posts as evidence in its closing speech.

The person who first reported that an An-26 had been downed was, nota bene, the pro-Kiev Twitter account @ua_ridna_vilna. The unknown person behind the account sent out a tweet with this announcement at 4:30 p.m., only to delete the tweet and replace it at 4:32 p.m. with a tweet saying it was “probably” an An-26. The prosecution completely ignored the utterances on this account.

A plane came down. It makes sense that those who had heard about it or watched it from a distance assumed that a military aircraft had been hit. After all, that had happened sixteen times before. In four cases, it involved a military transport aircraft, including an An-26 on July 14. It was to be expected. Social media went wild. Thus the rumor got out that the crashed plane was an An-26.

Claim 7: “We know from intercepts, voices, which have been correlated to intercepts that we have, that those are, in fact, the voices of separatists talking about the shoot down of the plane.”

“We have voices that we have overheard of separatists in Russia bragging about the shoot down.”

“We have intercepted voices that have been documented by our people through intelligence as being separatists who are talking to each other about the shoot down.”

“Social media, which is an extraordinary tool, obviously, in all of this, has posted recordings of separatists bragging about the shoot down of a plane at the time right after it took place.”

Within a few hours after the crash the SBU posted on its YouTube channel an intercept of a phone conversation of a commander of the separatists, Igor Bezler. In it, he reports that a plane had been downed. A week after the crash the SBU posted another intercept, this time with someone reporting to Bezler that a ‘birdie” was coming his way. The JIT interviewed Bezler. At the start of the trial the prosecution stated that none of Bezler’s phone conversations were related to the downing of MH17. According to Bezler the conversations were about the downing of a Ukrainian Sukhoi jet a day before the MH17 crash. Indeed, on July 16, two Sukhois had been downed. It later turned out that the SBU had omitted part of Bezler’s conversation about shooting down a plane. In the omitted part, Bezler says it was a ‘Sushka’, meaning a Sukhoi jet. This was revealed by a Ukrainian blogger, Anatoly Shariy, who got his hands on the original wiretap.

Claim 8: “They have shot down some twelve planes, aircraft in the last months or so, two of which were major transport planes.”

In fact sixteen Ukrainian military aircraft were downed before the MH17 crash, among which four were military transport planes.

Claim 9: “And now we have a video showing a launcher moving back through a particular area there, out into Russia with at least one missing missile on it. So we have enormous sort of input about this, which points fingers.”

“We know that we have a video now of a transporter removing an SA-11 system back into Russia and it shows a missing missile or so.”

On the day after the crash, the Ukrainian secret service SBU posted a video on their YouTube channel of the transport of Buk Telar carrying three missiles in stead of four, which it normally carries if a Buk is being deployed. According to the Ukrainians, the transport was filmed in the early morning of July 18. The prosecution confirmed this and concluded that the video was shot on the outskirts of the city of Luhansk where at that time a battle was going on between the separatists and the Ukrainian army. So, the video was not shot in the border region as Kerry said. According to the prosecution, investigators of the JIT studied the original video file. The metadata indicated the video was shot in the early morning of July 18. The lawyers, however, revealed that the Luhansk video was missing from the SD card on which “a secret surveillance unit” allegedly recorded the event. A Dutch police officer who received the camera and the card from the hands of the SBU determined that the video file had been erased. The lawyers, therefore, said they didn’t understand how the investigators had managed to examine the original file.

It is possible that the Luhansk video is from before July 18. Indeed, at a press conference that was held in the afternoon of July 17, a spokesman for the Ukrainian government, Andrey Lysenko, reported that a video had been shot of a Buk Telar in Luhansk. Lysenko did not present this video, nor was it ever presented thereafter. Why not? Was this perhaps to conceal that the Ukrainians used the video to falsely claim it was made on July 18? Could it be that the Buk on the Luhansk video, that had one missile missing, had been involved with the downing of the Antonov An-26, on July 14?

Claim 10: “We know with confidence that the Ukrainians did not have such a system anywhere near the vicinity at that point in time. So it obviously points a very clear finger at the separatists.”

Dutch military intelligence service MIVD reported that there were several Ukrainian Buk systems present in Eastern Ukraine at the time of the crash. Western intelligence had not detected a single Russian Buk system in Ukraine. According to the prosecution the Buk that shot down MH17 was brought in on July 17 and hastily removed on the night of July 17-18. This would therefore be the reason Western intelligence services overlooked the Buk. The services would only have spotted Buks that had been in the same place for an extended period of time.

There is no evidence of an Ukrainian Buk that was within firing range of MH17. But, as MH17 police investigation chief Wilbert Paulissen correctly noted during the September 2016 press conference of the JIT: “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Just because there is no evidence of such a Buk does not mean it was not there and did not fire. A Ukrainian Buk Telar may have been put in position without anyone noticing.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry provided the JIT with a list of all the locations in the east of the country where it had Buk systems. Missing from that was a Buk system on a military base in Dovhenke in the Kharkiv Oblast, just on the border of the rebel-held Donetsk Oblast. The MIVD determined that a Buk system had been located there. Why had Kiev concealed its presence?

Claim 11: “Pro-Russian separatists have reportedly removed almost 200 bodies from the crash site and are continuing to refuse to allow investigators full access to the site.”

“We want the facts and the fact that the separatists are controlling this in a way that is preventing people from getting there, even as the site is tampered with, makes its own statement about culpability and responsibility.”

“There are reports of drunken separatist soldiers unceremoniously piling bodies into trucks.”

“They are interfering with the evidence in the location. They have removed, we understand, some airplane parts.”

The authorities of the Donbass Peoples Republic (DPR) have not refused any investigators access to the crash site. A team of Dutch air-crash investigators was kept in Kiev by the Ukrainian and Dutch authorities, as has been extensively documented in the book MH17: Onderzoek, feiten en verhalen, commissioned by the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and in a report by the University of Twente, Evaluatie nationale crisisbeheersingsorganisatie vlucht MH17. In a July 20 press conference, DPR Prime Minister Alexander Borodai complained that the investigators were nowhere to be seen. “It will soon be the 4th day after the event. Where are the experts? We are not in the middle of nowhere, the North Pole or Antartica, in a place where you can cannot travel easily. If you look at the map, you see we are in the middle of Europe. The road from Kiev to here takes four of five hours.” The DSB air crash investigators never went to Donetsk. In August they went back home.

However, three Dutch forensic investigators of the LTFO, specialized in victim identification, managed to reach the site. They were welcomed by Borodai, on July 21, the day after Kerry had accused the DPR authorities of refusing investigators access. To their surprise, they found themselves surrounded by journalists from all over the world. “There was press from Australia to the US, there must have been fifty camera teams,” one of them, Peter van Vliet, recalled. “I don’t know how they got there. But it took us three days, without sleeping and with all the dangers that entailed.” On July 21, also a Malaysian delegation arrived. To them Bordodai handed over the black boxes of the plane just after midnight. According to the Malaysians, they had secretly left Kiev. The Ukrainian government had tried to keep them there.

Contrary to what Kerry claimed, no separatist soldiers were involved in the recovery of the victims. The recovery was performed by a specialized team. The local Ukrainian State Emergency Service (SES) recovered human remains between 17 July and 21 July 2014. The SES is a federal organisation which has local teams that, among other things, are responsible for the protection of the population in case of disasters. When a disaster occurs, the SES is given authority over other services. In the case of flight MH17, the SES was assisted in the recovery by local fire brigades, police, farmers and miners.

On July 21, the Dutch forensic investigators of LTFO, observed that there were no more human remains visible at the locations accessible to them. In a statement to the international press, Van Vliet praised the SES: “They did a hell of a job in a hell of a place.” On July 22, a train, carrying the human remains that were recovered by the SES, left Donetsk heading for territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities in Kiev. In a letter sent in August 2014 the Dutch embassy in Kiev conveyed its gratitude to the SES. “The experts in The Netherlands, who currently work on the identification of the human remains, have been deeply impressed by the professional handling of the bodies by the emergency services in Donetsk.”

Kerry and other American officials never substantiated their claim that the separatists covered up evidence by removing airplane parts. It later turned out that an Australian-Ukrainian journalist, who was covertly working for the Ukrainian government, had collected pieces of evidence from the crash site for “safekeeping and out of reach of the forces of the Russian Federation” and had handed them over to the Ukrainian authorities.

Also, Dutch air crash investigators didn’t seem to be in a hurry to recover the wreckage. The Dutch started a recovery mission only four months after the crash. The lawyers revealed that only 30 percent of the wreckage was transported to The Netherlands. The plane was partly reconstructed. The lawyers found that parts that were not used for the reconstruction had ended up in eighteen containers. The prosecution did not grant them access to these containers. The court did not overrule this decision.

Eric van de Beek is an investigative journalist. He studied journalism at Windesheim University and philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. For years he worked as a journalist for Dutch leading weekly Elsevier. In recent years he contributed to Diplomat Magazine, Novini, Sputnik, and Uitpers. He currently writes for Dutch weekly De Andere Krant. In 2024 a book of Van de Beek’s was published about the MH17 plane crash in Ukraine. On Substack you can read his English language blog about the subject. In 2024 he was awarded the Dutch Julian Assange Prize ‘for public service’.

June 1, 2025 Posted by | Book Review, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Fyodor Lukyanov: Behind Closed Doors – The US-Russia Diplomatic Games

Glenn Diesen | May 31, 2025

Fyodor Lukyanov is Chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, a Research Professor at the Higher School of Economics, Editor in Chief of the Russia in Global Affairs Journal, and the Research Director at the Valdai Discussion Club. Prof. Lukyanov outlines how the US and Russian frameworks for ending the war are coming together. Ukraine is incrementally dragged into the format, and the Europeans are ignored as they are seen to be unrealistic and unreliable.

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May 31, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

EC launches European fact-checking funding network to advance “Democracy Shield” and expand censorship

A €5 million fact-checking project becomes the velvet glove on the iron fist of EU content governance

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | May 30, 2025

The European Commission has launched a €5 million initiative presented as a fact-checking support program; but beneath the surface, it reads as yet another calculated step toward institutionalizing censorship across the European Union.

This call for proposals is marketed as a tool to “protect democracy” and combat “disinformation,” but the structure, goals, and affiliations of the program point clearly to the opposite: a top-down, publicly funded apparatus for narrative enforcement.

Slated to run until September 2, 2025, the project is open not only to EU Member States but also to candidate countries like Ukraine and Moldova; jurisdictions framed as highly vulnerable to “foreign interference,” especially pro-Kremlin disinformation.

This strategic framing serves a dual purpose: justifying increased surveillance of content and securing narrative dominance in geopolitically sensitive areas.

The program’s core deliverables; protecting fact-checkers from so-called “harassment,” creating a centralized repository of “fact-checks,” and building emergency “response capacity;” sound benign to some. But stripped of the euphemism, this is a blueprint for constructing a continent-wide content control grid.

The “protection scheme” offers legal and cyber assistance to fact-checkers, but more crucially it reinforces the narrative that opposition to these groups constitutes abuse rather than legitimate disagreement.

The “fact-check repository” enables centralized curation of what counts as “truth,” and the “emergency response” function gives the Commission a pretext to fast-track suppression efforts in politically sensitive moments.

Most telling is the program’s requirement that participating organizations be certified by either the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) or the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN).

Many of their members, such as AFP and Full Fact, already work directly with major social media platforms like Meta under third-party moderation schemes. This effectively means the EC is reinforcing an exclusive gatekeeper class, already aligned with corporate censorship programs, now endowed with taxpayer funds and the backing of the European bureaucracy.

At least 60% of the funding will go to third parties, who must co-finance their participation.

The Commission claims this initiative supports the “European Democracy Shield,” a term that in practice functions as rhetorical armor for suppressing free expression.

Every policy facet of this initiative is tied to managing or mitigating “disinformation,” yet no clear or objective criteria for what constitutes disinformation are provided.

This vagueness enables the flexible application of suppression to a broad range of unwelcome speech.

May 31, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Trump bracing for a longer Ukraine war

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | May 30, 2025

One of the mysteries of the Ukraine endgame is that President Donald Trump did not issue an executive order on January 20 withdrawing all support for Ukraine. That would have been the easiest way to end the war. 

The conditions were propitious — Candidate Trump didn’t mince words that it was a hopeless war that cost the US dearly in treasure; he thought poorly of President Volodymyr Zelensky as a shameless free rider; he saw the war as impeding his foreign-policy priority of the US’ transition to a multipolar world order; and, he felt no compulsion to inherit ‘Biden’s war’. 

But instead, Trump plunged himself with gusto into the Ukraine question, although Washington lacked the means to leverage Russia to compromise on its core interests in what Russian people regarded as an existential war. 

Quite possibly, some of Trump’s advisors prevailed upon him to undertake the theatrical diplomatic effort on the basis of a flawed reading of the state of play in the war. Trump believed that western sanctions lethally weakened the Russian economy; that Russia’s casualty figures ran into hundreds of thousands and such a high level of attrition was unsustainable; that Zelensky would sign up on the dotted line; that an improvement in Russian-American relationship would be a ‘win-win’ with massive economic benefits accruing to both sides and so on. 

But all these premises turned out to be wrong notions. Putin has steered the economy to a state of permanent western sanctions (which was the Soviet experience, too). Russian entrepreneurs have successfully replaced the fleeing western businesses in the wake of sanctions and will now resist any re-entry by the latter.

Russia’s casualty figures are much lower than the self-serving western estimates put it, as the high level of recruitment to the army suggests. Zelensky is bent on prolonging the war with support from European powers per Biden’s script to ‘Trump-proof’ the war. Europeans not only have a Plan B but have collaborators within the US some of whom may even be in Trump’s team. 

Suffice to say, Trump has been on a learning curve, as he began sensing that the Kremlin is determined to realise the objectives it had set for itself (as outlined in Putin’s historic speech last June at the foreign ministry). According to a Reuters report two days ago, “Putin wants a ‘written’ pledge by major Western powers not to enlarge the US-led NATO alliance eastwards — shorthand for formally ruling out membership to not only Ukraine and Georgia and Moldova and other former Soviet republics as well.”

“Russia also wants Ukraine to be neutral, some Western sanctions lifted, a resolution of the issue of frozen Russian sovereign assets in the West, and protection for Russian speakers in Ukraine” — per Reuters. 

Europeans will scoff at such demands. Therefore, as things stand, a breakthrough at the Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul on June 2 seems unlikely. Unsurprisingly, Russia is pressing ahead with an offensive campaign in all directions, throwing in all its forces with a culmination planned for summer or early autumn. 

The least bad option

Trump has three options under the circumstances. One is to simply refuse to own responsibility for the war and walk away for good. But then, can Trump deny his own part in it in his first term? While the Trump administration identified its approach to foreign policy as ‘principled realism’, late Joseph Nye’s characterisation of Trump as an “idiosyncratic realist” was perhaps closer to the truth. 

The official administration policy on Ukraine during Trump’s first term was a continuation of the policy pursued by the Obama administration. It recognised Crimea as part of Ukraine, condemned Russia’s occupation and eventual annexation annexation of the peninsula; it underscored Russia’s primary responsibility for the instigation, continuation and conduct of the conflict in eastern Ukraine; it even identified the Russian interference in Ukraine as part of a wider pattern of aggression towards other states and as proof of Moscow’s challenge to the fundamental principles of international order. 

For these reasons, the Trump administration maintained that the US should help Ukraine to defend itself and should penalise Russia both through sanctions and diplomatic isolation (eg., membership of the G7). Curiously, shades of this thought process resurface even today occasionally in Trump’s Truth Social outbursts. Trump seems unaware he’s carrying a can of worms as his Ukraine legacy. 

So, the second option today is to convey Trump’s dissatisfaction over Russia’s perceived intransigence in dictating terms for settlement and its alleged lack of interest in peace talks. Trump even hinted at Russia’s hidden agenda to conquer Ukraine. Trump is hinting at punishing Russia both through sanctions and supplying weapons to Ukraine. German chancellor Friedrich Merz’s provocative announcement of giving long-range weapons to Zelensky was probably green lighted by some people in Trump’s team. After all, Merz is no stranger to Wall Street.  

However, this is a recipe for an extremely dangerous NATO – Russia confrontation. If long range German missiles hit Russia, Russia will retaliate in a way that could potentially cripple NATO’s operational readiness in a hypothetical war. Belarus State Secretary of Security Council Alexander Volfovich has said that the Oreshnik missile system is “planned to be stationed in Belarus by the end of the year. The locations for its deployment have already been determined. Work is under way.” The spectre of World War III may seem a bit of a stretch, but Trump will have to consider the dangers of climbing the escalation ladder, which could destroy his MAGA presidency. 

Washington has no means to intimidate the Kremlin. The bottom line is, Trump is actually left with only a third option, the least bad option — viz., walking away from the Ukraine conflict at this point and return when the war has been lost and won, possibly by the end of the year. This will not damage Trump’s reputation.

Trump may already be displaying his credentials as ‘peacemaker president’ if the US-Iran talks, which seem to be making progress, results in a nuclear deal. Besides, US-Russia normalisation needs more time to gain traction. Senator Lindsey Graham’s hard-hitting sanctions bill against Russia with 81 co-sponsors in the senate signals that Russia is a very toxic subject in the US domestic politics.

Also, Russia-Ukraine talks is only one track. The Russians have sensitised Trump’s team that while Moscow engages with Kiev, the root cause of the war — absence of a European security architecture — still remains to be addressed, which is something that only Russia and the US can work out jointly. The US shouldn’t shirk its responsibility, being both the original instigator of NATO expansion and sponsor of the Ukraine war. 

The reaction by the US special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg has been positive when he told ABC News in an interview that the US understands that it is a matter of national security for Russia that NATO may stop accepting new Eastern European countries into its ranks — ie., not only Ukraine but Moldova and Georgia as well.

Kellogg said he considered the Russian side’s concerns to be justified. He did not rule out the possibility of reaching an agreement during negotiations between the US and Russia. This is a big step forward.  

May 30, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Veto ban would spell the end of EU – Fico

RT | May 30, 2025

The EU’s reported plan to scrap member states’ veto power would spell the end of the bloc and could become “the precursor of a huge military conflict,” Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has warned.

Slovakia and its Central European neighbour Hungary have long opposed the EU’s approach to the Ukraine conflict, criticizing military aid to Kiev and sanctions on Russia. Both governments have repeatedly threatened to use their veto powers to block EU actions they view as harmful to national interests.

To bypass the dissent, Brussels is reportedly weighing a shift from unanimous voting, a founding principle of EU foreign policy, to qualified majority voting (QMV), arguing that it would streamline decision-making and prevent individual states from paralyzing joint actions.

Fico, however, condemned the proposal on Thursday during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Hungary.

“The imposition of a mandatory political opinion, the abolition of the veto, the punishment of the sovereign and the brave, the new Iron Curtain, the preference for war over peace. This is the end of the common European project. This is a departure from democracy. This is the precursor of a huge military conflict,” he said.

EU sanctions on Russia currently require unanimous renewal every six months, with the current term set to expire at the end of July. Brussels is also preparing an 18th package of sanctions aimed at tightening restrictions on Russia’s energy sector and financial institutions.

Earlier this month, during a visit to Moscow for Victory Day commemorations, Fico assured Russian President Vladimir Putin that Slovakia would veto any EU-wide attempt to ban imports of Russian oil or gas.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has taken a similar stance. While Hungary has not formally blocked a sanctions package, it has delayed several rounds to extract concessions.

Orban has also warned that removing the veto would strip smaller nations of their sovereignty.

“We want Brussels to show us, as all other member countries, the same respect, not only symbolically, but also by taking our interests into account,” he said last month.

Both Slovakia and Hungary have resisted increased military support to Kiev, with Budapest blocking several key decisions citing concerns over national interests and the potential for escalation. Fico has emphasized the need for peace negotiations over continued military engagement.

May 30, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Babiš attacks EU elites and calls for ‘renaissance of principle’ in fiery CPAC speech

Czech opposition leader Andrej Babiš branded Brussels a “technocracy without a soul” and warned that Europe is being dismantled from within

Remix News | May 29, 2025

Former Czech prime minister and current opposition leader Andrej Babiš delivered a blistering speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Hungary on Thursday, accusing the European Union’s ruling class of betraying its founding values and urging European nations to reclaim sovereignty and common sense from what he called a failing liberal global order.

Speaking just months before a general election in which he is widely expected to return to power, Babiš portrayed the EU as a decaying institution ruled by unelected bureaucrats, ideologues, and activist networks who have imposed censorship, economic sabotage, and uncontrolled migration on member states. He warned that the Brussels establishment has replaced cooperation among sovereign nations with a coercive, centralized system that punishes dissent and erodes national identity.

“We are standing at the historic crossroads in a time marked by deep divisions and mounting tensions,” Babiš declared. “The elites who built and profited from this system now look on in disbelief, confusion, and anger as it falls apart. But they have only themselves to blame. They betrayed the citizens who trusted them.”

In a wide-ranging speech, Babiš accused EU leaders of undermining the very foundations of European civilization. He denounced Brussels for replacing love of country with “hollow globalism,” burying common sense under “endless layers of bureaucracy,” and attempting to substitute the natural population growth with “mass migration.”

He reserved specific criticism for three key EU initiatives: the Digital Services Act, the Green Deal, and the new Migration Pact. He accused the first of ushering in online censorship, the second of sabotaging Europe’s economy under the guise of environmentalism, and the third of forcing nations to accept migrant quotas in violation of their sovereignty.

“Under this law, dissent can become a punishable offense,” Babiš said of the Digital Services Act. “This isn’t about safety. It’s about silencing.”

On the Green Deal, he argued that while China is expanding coal and nuclear power, Europe is deliberately impoverishing itself for symbolic environmental virtue. “This is not sustainability,” he said. “It’s economic self-sabotage dressed up as an environmental virtue.”

Turning to migration, he described the EU’s new asylum system as “coercion,” not solidarity, and said it “undermines cohesion, public safety, and national identity.”

Babiš framed these developments as part of a broader ideological drift in Brussels, where he said freedom is being replaced with surveillance, culture with identity politics, and values with apology. “They no longer defend our heritage, they apologize for it,” he said. “Instead of protecting Europe, they deconstruct it.”

Calling for a “renaissance, not just of policy, but of principle,” Babiš urged the EU to return to its original form: a voluntary community of nations rooted in mutual respect, diversity, and national self-determination.

“Europe is not Brussels. It is Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, Rome, Paris, Madrid,” he declared. “It is the voices of citizens who want to be heard. It is the right of nations to govern themselves.”

“The age of patriots has begun,” Babiš concluded. “Not because we want to divide Europe, but because we want to save it.”

His appearance at CPAC Hungary — an event known for bringing together conservative leaders from across Europe and the United States — further cemented his alignment with other nationalist voices in the region, including Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Germany’s Alice Weidel, and Austrian Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl.

May 29, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Sanctions as Self-Harm: The West’s Strategic Blind Spot in Confronting Russia

By Ricardo Martins – New Eastern Outlook – May 28, 2025

This article critically analyzes the latest EU sanctions on Russia, arguing they are strategically flawed and economically self-destructive. Drawing from past failures, it shows how the West’s punitive measures are backfiring, hurting Europe and the U.S. more than isolating Russia.

What is the New Sanctions Package About?

The EU has unveiled a new sanction package targeting Russia, predominantly focusing on the energy sector, specifically oil and diesel exports. This builds upon earlier restrictions intended to cripple Russia’s economic capacity to sustain its military operations in Ukraine. The new sanctions include tighter enforcement mechanisms on the oil price cap, restrictions on ship-to-ship transfers in international waters, and efforts to curtail Russia’s access to Western insurance and logistics networks. But like the previous measures, they raise a fundamental question: Will they work?

The Status of Past Sanctions: Buying While Punishing

Historically, sanctions against Russia have been inconsistent and riddled with loopholes. Despite strong rhetoric, Europe has continued purchasing Russian commodities under various exemptions. The EU still imports significant quantities of Russian diesel, liquefied natural gas (LNG), coal, uranium, and even agricultural products like grain and fertilizer. The result is a paradox: while aiming to isolate Russia, the West remains economically entangled with it. This undermines the moral and strategic coherence of sanctions and allows Russia to adapt and thrive despite Western pressure.

Sanctions Hit Europe More Than Russia

While sanctions are theoretically aimed at weakening Russia’s economy, the practical consequences have disproportionately hit European industries and households. Russian exports are fungible: oil, coal, and fertilizers find alternate markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Meanwhile, Europe has struggled with soaring energy prices, industrial shutdowns, and declining competitiveness. Diesel shortages, energy rationing, and inflation have become the new norm, particularly in Germany, which once depended heavily on Russian inputs for its industrial base.

Russia, by contrast, has localized production, developed new markets, and implemented mercantilist strategies to reduce dependence on Western technology and finance. As one Russian analyst put it, sanctions have become “psychological warfare,” increasingly irrelevant to daily life in Russia.

Oil and Diesel: The Inflation Time Bomb

The crux of the new sanctions is oil and diesel. But can the U.S. and EU afford to forgo Russian, Venezuelan, and Iranian crude without catastrophic inflation? The answer appears to be no.

Russia exports about 7.5 million barrels of oil per day, or nearly 10% of global supply. Taking that offline—especially in conjunction with sanctioned Venezuelan and Iranian oil—would create a massive global shortfall. Western refineries, particularly in the U.S. Gulf Coast, are calibrated to process heavy sour crude like Russia’s Urals blend. Without it, refineries operate suboptimally, and gasoline prices spike.

In the U.S., diesel drives nearly all logistics trucks, trains, and ships. Removing a major global supplier like Russia tightens global supply, causing diesel prices to surge and supply chains to buckle. Already, diesel refills for trucks cost over $2,000, with potential spikes threatening food prices and consumer goods. Inflation will soar again, just as it had started to cool.

Baltic Sea Escalation: Tankers and Arrests

The geopolitical tension is intensifying. Russian oil tankers, often flagged under third countries, are now escorted by Russian naval vessels in the Baltic Sea. An incident involving an Estonian ship attempting to halt a tanker, which ended up detained in Russian waters, demonstrates the volatility of the situation. This marks a dangerous escalation, with the potential for military clashes over enforcement of maritime sanctions—an area traditionally governed by international law, not unilateral action.

Western Industrial Decline: No Shipyards, No Leverage

Sanctions enforcement is further complicated by Western logistical decline. The U.S., Britain, and France have largely lost their shipbuilding industries. Insurance and shipping markets have globalized, and London no longer dominates maritime underwriting. Russian entities are increasingly self-insuring their fleet, rendering sanctions on Western insurers irrelevant.

Furthermore, without a domestic merchant marine, the U.S. relies on foreign ships even for military logistics—a vulnerability in any prolonged conflict. Meanwhile, China and Russia continue expanding their shipping capabilities and influence over global supply routes.

The Legal Quandary: Sanctions and Sovereignty

From a legal standpoint, unilateral sanctions that attempt to compel third-party countries to comply (so-called secondary sanctions) strain the legitimacy of the “rules-based international order.” It is lawful for the West to impose its own sanctions, but not to mandate their enforcement by sovereign nations like India or Brazil. Such overreach risks global backlash and accelerates moves toward de-dollarization and alternative trade systems, such as the BRICS currency initiative.

Is the EU Addicted to Sanctions?

The EU appears increasingly reliant on sanctions as a primary foreign policy tool. Yet, their efficacy is questionable. Past sanctions have not altered Russian behavior, destabilized its economy, or improved Western leverage. Instead, they’ve fostered economic nationalism in Russia, weakened EU industries, and exposed the strategic shallowness of Brussels and Washington’s policies.

Sanctions are not a strategy; they are a tactic. And overuse risks turning them from a deterrent into a diplomatic crutch—one that Europe may not survive intact if economic pain continues to mount.

Conclusion: A Strategy of Self-Harm

Sanctions as Self-Harm: The West’s Strategic Blind Spot in Confronting Russia

In sum, the latest sanctions package is more of the same: punitive in intent, performative in practice, and counterproductive in outcome. The West, particularly Europe, will likely bear the brunt of energy shortages, inflation, and industrial decline. Meanwhile, Russia’s diversified exports, strategic alliances with China and India, and robust internal adaptation mechanisms render sanctions increasingly futile.

History has shown that attempts to isolate Russia through economic pressure are not only ineffective—they risk reinforcing the very state structures they aim to dismantle. Unless sanctions are part of a broader diplomatic and economic strategy, they will continue to hurt the sanctioning powers more than their target.

Ricardo Martins PhD in Sociology, specializing in policies, European and world politics and geopolitics

May 28, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

EU has isolated itself, not Russia – Luxembourg MEP

RT | May 28, 2025

Luxembourg MEP Fernand Kartheiser has argued that the EU’s confrontational approach to Russia during the Ukraine conflict has led to its own isolation.

The lawmaker made the remarks in an interview with RT released on Tuesday while on a trip to Russia that he was forced to fund personally due to the European Parliament’s restrictions.

“Some people in the European Parliament… have an attitude toward Russia that identifies it as a big threat,” Kartheiser said. “They think that if we put pressure on Russia and isolate it diplomatically, that might help to find solutions in the context of the conflict in Ukraine… it is not the discussion that we should have.”

Kartheiser noted that the entire EU approach toward the Ukraine conflict and Russia has been counterproductive.

“What we have now internationally is that basically everybody talks to Russia. We even have the US coming back and having high-level contacts… the anti-Russia stance is diminishing,” he stated. “So this policy of isolation of Russia basically has failed. The only ones who are isolated in a way are the EU itself.”

The lawmaker’s visit to Moscow at the invitation of the Russian State Duma aimed to discuss bilateral relations and the situation in Ukraine. The visit, however, drew criticism from hawkish EU lawmakers. The European Conservatives and Reformists group threatened to expel Kartheiser, claiming he had “crossed a red line.” The MEP called the threat “a regrettable part of the picture” and lamented that some EU lawmakers remain opposed to re-engaging with Moscow.

“The discussion that we should have is what kind of relationship do we want with Russia in the future? We have to open the dialogue again. That is most important,” he said, adding that there are politicians whose opinions towards Russia are shifting, while many ordinary Europeans would also like to see ties restored.

The MEP emphasized that if the EU “wants to be taken seriously as an actor in international relations,” it must abandon the anti-Russia policy and “have some kind of relationship” with the country again.

“If we, Western Europeans, are expected to take a larger responsibility for our own security, one way to assure this is by negotiating an agreement with Russia, ensuring at the same time our security as Western Europeans and guaranteeing the security of Russia’s western border. So, negotiation and diplomacy before rearmament and arms race,” he concluded.

May 28, 2025 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine in the EU? 5 reasons why it would crush Hungary (and Europe)

Remix News | May 28, 2025

The political elite in Brussels is increasingly trying to achieve that Ukraine’s planned EU accession takes place as soon as possible, preferably before 2030. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, stated in early May that the accession process must be accelerated.

Von der Leyen previously stated in Kyiv that if the process continues at this pace and quality, accession could occur even earlier than 2030.

The EU often does what it wants now and simply bypasses all the old treaty rules. The EU migration pact, which basically amounts to migrant quotas, was supposed to be the type of law that passes with the unanimous consent of the member states. In other words, countries like Hungary and Poland should have had a veto. Instead, Brussels snuck it through the backdoor and passed this “pact” with a qualified majority of the EU’s interior ministers.

Something similar is bound to happen with Ukraine. They will bypass Hungary’s veto in violation of all treaty rules because they have the power — at least for the foreseeable future.

However, it is worth noting that this will not only harm Hungarians, but all of Europe. Mandiner news outlet compiled five reasons it will hit Hungary hard, but many of these reasons apply to a broad swathe of Europe’s population.

1. The wages of Hungarian workers would decrease

With Ukraine’s accession, at least 30 million Ukrainians would have the opportunity to work in any country in the European Union. This would expand the European labor market by about 7 percent. In Hungary, the average net salary is currently about three times that of Ukraine. It is clear that many people would decide that it is worth moving to neighboring Hungary, as well as other EU nations.

Ukrainian workers arriving with lower wage demands would create a competitive situation in Hungarian sectors already struggling with labor shortages (construction, hospitality, agriculture), and this could result in a real wage decrease of up to 10-20 percent.

It is the classic example of cheap labor flooding the market, which while good for owners of capital and big business, can decimate labor markets and undercut labor power.

This would be most prevalent among lower-skilled workers, but jobs requiring secondary education would not necessarily be secure either. The proportion of Ukrainian guest workers in Hungary reached 5 percent in the agricultural and construction sectors by early 2025. Now, 30-40 percent of commuters [itinerants] working in this sector are Ukrainian citizens. After accession, this number would increase dramatically, turning into permanent commuting and settlement in Hungary and other EU nations, which would further drive down basic wages and long-term unemployment in rural regions, further increasing social tensions.

Hungary is spending a fortune on families and social programs for its population. Suddenly, financing family benefits, child-rearing benefits and the 13th month pension would also face serious difficulties, and the cost of the system would increase by 200–300 billion forints annually with Ukraine’s EU accession. This amount can only be raised in the government budget at the expense of public services, healthcare and education. According to analysts, if wages were to fall by 5-10 percent, consumption would also fall by 3-4 percent, and this could mean an additional loss of 0.5-1 percent of Hungarian GDP growth on an annual basis, the compilation highlights.

2. The rapid accession of Ukrainians could cause a new migration crisis

With Ukraine’s accession to the EU, the immigration crisis that has plagued the European Union since 2015 would reach a new level, and this would put Hungary in a very difficult situation. In its study previously published on Mandiner, the Hungarian Institute of Foreign Affairs cites data from the 2023 research of the Ukrainian Future Institute, according to which 6.5 million people have left Ukraine, which had a population of 41-44 million before the war, in recent years, and there are also 3.5 million internal refugees.

With Ukraine’s accession, at least 30 million Ukrainians would have the opportunity to work in any country in the European Union, and a good number of them would understandably leave the collapsed country in the hope of a better life.

This internal, legal migration would significantly burden the EU – and since Hungary is a neighboring country, this would also affect the Hungarian healthcare system.

In addition, illegal migration could also gain momentum. It is currently unknown where Ukraine’s borders will be after the settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian war, but a new, currently unknown and unsettled border section of several hundred – perhaps a thousand – kilometers long will certainly be created.

If the Ukrainians are admitted, this line will separate the European Union and Russia. Controlling it is a task that neither the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX) nor the Ukrainian authorities would be able to cope with.

New migration routes could open up from Asia, and the EU would have to deal with new waves of migration coming from the east through Ukrainian soil. More people would try to enter the EU from Central Asia and Afghanistan through the new external borders. Some of the incoming migrants would try to reach the territory of the Western member states via Hungary. If Ukraine were also allowed to join the Schengen area, migrants would be able to travel across Europe at will, easily avoiding controls.

3. It would ruin Hungarian farmers

Ukraine’s accession to the EU would significantly increase the size of the EU’s 157 million hectares of agriculture by 41 million hectares.

Ukraine would become the largest beneficiary of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), pocketing about a third of the total budget, thereby undercutting farmers who comply with strict EU regulations, including Hungarian producers.

A large part of the budget’s agricultural subsidies are currently distributed on a regional basis, and due to money given to Ukraine, farmers in other member states would receive less of this amount. This reallocation of agricultural subsidies would mean Hungarian farmers would also receive orders of magnitude less EU funding than before, according to calculations by the Hungarian Institute of Foreign Affairs.

With Ukraine’s accession, the Hungarian agricultural sector is expected to suffer an annual loss of 672 billion forints (€1.68 billion) due to the loss of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funds.

A loss of resources of this magnitude, in addition to the aforementioned competitive disadvantage, would likely destroy the entire sector and could certainly bankrupt small and medium-sized family farms, Mandiner emphasizes.

Ukraine is one of the world’s largest grain producers and exporters, with vast acreage and excellent resources, but our eastern neighbor has much looser regulations than the European Union, and labor is much cheaper, which is why their production costs are much lower. If they were to enter the EU market, farmers from other European member states would be at a huge competitive disadvantage.

If Ukraine joins the EU, it would account for 15 percent of European wheat production, 49 percent of corn production, and 20 percent of overall grain production. This dumping would result in depressed prices, and Hungarian farmers would be unable to compete with cheap, often inferior-quality Ukrainian products.

4. The European Union would also import war by admitting Ukraine

According to a study by the Hungarian Institute of Foreign Affairs, Ukraine’s accession to the EU would necessitate the introduction of new coordination mechanisms, but it is clear that the European Union is currently unable to guarantee Ukraine’s security. Realistically, Ukraine’s accession to NATO has practically zero chance, so the security guarantees of the Ukrainian state could only be resolved through bilateral agreements.

The European Union’s mutual assistance clause is very similar to NATO’s famous Article 5. If a country is attacked, it can activate it independently, i.e., without the consensus of the European Council, and in this case the other member states must come to its aid.

This means that if Ukraine were an EU member, it could activate the article, which would – at least legally – automatically make all EU member states belligerents.

This is probably what Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán meant when he said, “If the European Union admits Ukraine, it will also be admitting war.” The aforementioned article has no implementing regulations, so it would cause an unprecedented debate on its interpretation, which would lead to divisions among the member states. On the other hand, the adversary could automatically consider the European Union a belligerent party, and if this were to happen, NATO would also have to deal with the issue.

It is unprecedented in the history of the European Union for a country at war to join the community, but even if peace were to be concluded, the aftermath of a legally closed conflict would pose dangers that the Union would be unable to deal with. The Russian-Ukrainian war will almost certainly end with a peace treaty that would change Ukraine’s current internationally recognized borders.

If the European Union were to include Ukraine as a member, it would be adding a conflict zone with a constant threat of war, with the associated tasks and costs. This step would eliminate the buffer zone between the European Union and Russia, which Ukraine has so far represented, with the two directly bordering each other. This would also drastically change the security situation of the European community.

5. We would allow the Ukrainian mafia into the EU

Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, where organized crime was very strong even before the war, but the situation is even worse now. A lot of weapons from the arms shipments that have flowed into the country have ended up on the black market and then in the hands of criminal groups. The Ukrainian mafia will not have HR problems either.

The rehabilitation of demobilized soldiers is currently unresolved, and many of them are likely to be unemployed and traumatized, but there is one area in which they have gained serious expertise in recent years, and this is very useful knowledge if someone wants to join organized crime.

If Ukraine were to join the EU at an accelerated pace, as the European Commission envisions, this problem would also affect Hungarians. With the possibility of free movement in the European Union and the avoidance of border controls, Ukrainian organized crime groups would be able to conduct their business much more easily in the territory of other member states, and due to our geographical proximity, this would definitely be felt in Hungary.

The domestic drug situation is already very serious, and it seems to be getting worse with the spread of synthetic drugs, and the Ukrainians’ “entry into the market” would not help this, just as Hungarian society does not want clashes between expanding criminal gangs back in their everyday lives.

Of course, the state of public security would not be improved by the fact that Ukraine’s accession to the EU would certainly lead to an increase in the intensity of migration and the number of migrants residing in Hungary. This in itself carries a serious public security threat. The examples of England, Germany, Sweden and France all show that integration attempts, which are impossible in the short term anyway, almost always fail, and the number of crimes increases in direct proportion to the increase in the number of immigrants, and in many cases new organized criminal networks are created in migrant communities.

Hungary’s opposition pushes for Ukraine’s EU membership

Charles Michel, the former president of the European Council, and Manfred Weber, the president of the European People’s Party (EPP), which has the largest faction in the European Parliament, both support the EU’s push for Ukrainian membership. The party of Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar has also joined the EPP.

It is no coincidence that the German politician, Weber, made it clear to Magyar before the Tisza Party could join his faction that he only works with those who are pro-Ukraine, pro-Europe, and pro-rule of law, and he expects the same from Péter Magyar’s party.

The Tisza Party is apparently trying to comply with this, as in April, in line with the People’s Party line, they voted for a proposal that urges Ukraine to become an EU member, and would even provide a large amount of support (approximately €35 billion) to the war-torn country to facilitate this.

Apparently, the majority of their supporters expect this from Péter Magyar’s party: in the Voice of the Nation poll, the majority of Tisza respondents support Ukraine’s accession to the EU (58.18 percent yes, 41.82 percent no).

Manfred Weber stated in relation to Ukraine’s EU accession that Ukrainians have the same right to belong to the European Union as we Hungarians.

The Hungarian government, on the other hand, takes the position that accelerating Ukraine’s EU accession would have a catastrophic impact on Hungary and the surrounding countries, as in addition to the fact that there is currently a war in the country and the process itself would cost an incredible amount of money, this step would bring serious long-term negative changes in many areas of life, affecting the lives of European people.

May 28, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics | , , | Leave a comment