By Ahmed Adel | December 26, 2024
The contract for the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine is just days away from expiring, but several European countries, including Hungary, Austria and Slovakia, seek to extend critical supplies. This agreement is necessary for Central Europe since there are few replacement options.
Major Central European gas companies have signed a statement calling for the continuation of transit. These include Slovakia’s SPP, its gas network operator Eustream, Hungary’s MOL Hungarian Oil and Gas Plc and MVM Group, as well as trade associations and major industrial customers from Hungary, Austria, Italy and Slovakia, Bloomberg reports.
“We will present the declaration to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, so that she has first-hand information about the threat to energy and economic security in our region,” SPP Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Vojtech Ferencz said.
Russia’s share of Hungary’s gas imports is 47%, while Slovakia’s is almost 90%. Austria also received 97% of its gas imports from Gazprom in January 2024. Economists attribute this high dependence to infrastructure and long-term contracts. Nord Stream, Yamal and transit pipelines through Ukraine provide uninterrupted direct supplies, and long-term agreements ensure the predictability of gas supplies.
Geography is also a tangible factor in this situation. Hungary, Austria, and Slovakia are landlocked, so access to liquefied natural gas (LNG) is difficult. Any other means of supply would raise tariffs and result in discontent among the population. This means alternative supplies can only be obtained through intermediaries, which is much more expensive. For example, the price of LNG is several times higher this way for these countries.
The countries mentioned, Gazprom’s main customers in Europe, have built their energy policies around reliable supplies from Russia for many years.
Many observers believe that Austria, Hungary and Slovakia have little to rely on. Traditional gas sources for Europe—Norway, Algeria, and Azerbaijan—are unable to cover the volume of imports needed. Together, they are ready to supply up to 45 billion cubic meters a year, which would create a deficit of about 15 billion cubic meters in the markets of individual EU countries. Experts predict that these European countries could turn to the Balkan Stream pipeline. However, its capacity fully occupies the Balkan countries.
In this context, Brussels is categorical and unwilling to budge from its stubborn position. Reuters quoted a representative of the European Commission as saying that the regulator has taken an unequivocal position.
“The Commission does not support any discussions on the contract extension nor other solutions to maintain transit flows and has not been involved in any kind of negotiations on this,” the spokesperson said.
It is recalled that the current agreement on the transit of Russian gas to Europe via Ukraine expires on December 31, 2024. The Kiev regime has repeatedly said they do not plan to extend the agreement. On December 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed during a press conference that there would be no new contract for the transit of gas through that European country.
Europe faces a new energy crisis due to the decrease in gas reserves, the arrival of cold weather and sanctions imposed by the United States against the Russian bank Gazprombank, which handled payment transactions for importers of Russian fuel. Fuel prices have already risen by 45% during 2024.
At the same time, stocks are rapidly declining due to the cold, resulting in increased demand. According to Bloomberg, in the second quarter of 2025, during the warm season when gas typically becomes cheap enough to fill tanks, prices could be higher than in the third quarter.
Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that Russia exported “around 50 billion cubic meters of gas in the first 11 months – despite all the statements and pressure from sanctions – because it is a very ecological product, it is in demand, and Russian gas is the most advantageous in terms of supply logistics and price.”
He said that Russia’s LNG exports will amount to 33 million tons by the end of 2024, adding that gas reserves in European storage facilities are currently 3-5% lower than in the past five years.
The EU has damaged its economy by refusing to cooperate with Moscow, as evidenced by the decline in production, bankruptcies and recession in the bloc countries. Russia has not denied any country the supply of its energy resources even when the European Union expected the country to collapse without energy revenue.
However, Brussels insists on a complete break with the Russian energy sector and the definitive rejection of energy from Russia in favor of more expensive alternative supplies, especially from the United States, and this will only hurt many European countries, particularly those in landlocked Central Europe.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
December 26, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics | Austria, European Union, Hungary, Slovakia, Ukraine |
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Experts lambasted as Kremlin mouthpieces turned out to be right
As the war between Russia and Ukraine is framed by the ruling politicians and commentators in Europe and America as part of a purported global struggle between democracies and autocracies, the quality of democracy in the West itself has taken a hit.
The dominant voices advocating for Ukraine’s victory and Russia’s defeat, both defined in maximalist and increasingly unattainable terms, are intent on snuffing out more thoughtful and nuanced perspectives, thus depriving the public of a democratic debate on the existential questions of war and peace.
In a familiar pattern throughout the West, respected academics who correctly predicted the quagmire Ukraine and the West now find themselves in have been smeared and delegitimized as Kremlin mouthpieces, subjected to harassment, marginalization and ostracism.
The situation is particularly alarming in Europe. While the Ukraine debate in the U.S. is, to a worrying extent, shaped by pro-militarist think tanks, such as the Atlantic Council, hawkish politicians and neoconservative pundits, a countervailing movement consisting of pro-restraint voices has been growing. They include Defense Priorities, the CATO Institute, publications like The Nation on the left, and The American Conservative on the right, and academics like Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer, and Jeffrey Sachs, among others. There is more space for alternative voices in American discourse.
In Europe, by contrast, foreign policy debates tend to simply echo the most hawkish voices inside Washington’s Beltway.
Sweden is a particularly telling illustration of that trend. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Swedish government and political class swiftly moved to join NATO. Yet, as one of the leading Swedish international relations scholars Frida Stranne told me in an interview, “No proper debate was held on the key questions, like whether Russia’s aggression against Ukraine indeed was such an immediate security threat for Sweden that it had to ditch the neutral status it enjoyed even during the Cold War?” (I can testify myself, from my work as a senior foreign policy adviser in the European Parliament in early 2022, that even some members of the then-ruling Swedish social-democratic party were aghast at the government running roughshod over alternative views on NATO).
Further, in a conversation with me, Stranne, while acknowledging that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “an egregious breach of international law,” pointed to U.S. policies since 2001, such as the invasion of Iraq, noting that they “have helped to undermine international legal principles and set the precedent for other countries acting ‘preemptively’ against perceived threats.”
In the same interview, she also warned that “a refusal to countenance a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine is leading the world perilously close to the brink of a major military conflict between NATO and Russia.”
While such points are routinely made by fairly mainstream scholars in the U.S., in Sweden they triggered a vicious campaign against Stranne and made her nearly untouchable by the media and in foreign policy circles. Leading media outlets vilified her as a U.S. hater and a “Putinist.”
Germany is another example of how enforced groupthink led to a marginalization of dissenting perspectives in political debates. What is particularly noteworthy is the speed and radicalism with which the hawks in think tanks, media, and political parties managed to redefine the debate in a country previously known for its now-defunct Ostpolitik, a policy of pragmatic engagement with the Soviet Union and later Russia.
One of Germany’s most prominent foreign policy experts, Johannes Varwick of the University Halle-Wittenberg, has long defied the trend and advocated for diplomacy. In December 2021, together with a number of high-ranking former military officers, diplomats and academics, he warned that a massive deterioration in relations with Russia could lead to war — due, in part, to the West’s refusal to take seriously Russia’s security concerns, chiefly related to the prospects of NATO’s eastward expansion.
Yet such views earned Varwick accusations of “serving Russian interests.” As a result, as he told me in an interview, his “ties with the political parties and ministries responsible for conducting Germany’s foreign and security policy were severed.”
Experts in neutral countries were not spared marginalization as well. Austrian Prof. Gerhard Mangott, one of the most eminent experts on Russia in the German-speaking world, pointed to a “shared responsibility” of Russia, Ukraine, and Western countries for the failure to resolve the post-2014 Ukrainian conflict peacefully. Such analysis, as Mangott told me, led to his “prompt excommunication by the German-speaking scientific community which turned quickly to political activism and became party to the war.”
The tragic irony, of course, is that these ostracized voices have proved to be correct in most respects about this war.
When, despite his warnings, the Russian invasion of Ukraine did occur, Varwick, who condemned it as illegal and unacceptable, called for further efforts to find a realistic negotiated solution to the conflict. As he told me, this should “firstly include a neutral status for Ukraine with strong security guarantees for the country. Secondly, there would be territorial changes in Ukraine that would not be recognized under international law but must be accepted as a temporary modus vivendi, and thirdly, the prospect of suspension of some sanctions in the event of a change in Russia’s behavior must be on offer.”
In March 2022, both Ukraine and Russia were close to a deal broadly along these same parameters. It did not work, because, among other reasons, the West encouraged Ukraine to believe that a military “victory” was possible. The role of then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in undermining the talks is now generally acknowledged. What is, however, particularly striking is that Johnson recently himself admitted that he saw the war in Ukraine as a proxy war against Russia — a claim made by Stranne and the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi in their 2023 book, in Swedish, “The Illusion of American Peace,” for which they were lambasted for purportedly pushing Russian narratives.
Fast forward to late 2024, and, faced with growing difficulties on the battlefield, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is now signaling that he could go along with some of the elements outlined by Varwick; namely, accepting some de facto territorial losses to prevent even bigger ones should the war continue.
Today, Ukraine is farther away from achieving anything remotely resembling a military victory than at any point since February 2022. Contrary to the expectations in the U.S. and EU, sanctions neither tanked Russia’s economy nor changed its policies in the ways the West sought.
In the West itself, political forces that urge negotiations to end the war are ascendant, as evidenced by the election of Donald Trump as president in the United States and the rise of anti-war parties in Germany, France and other EU countries. Public opinion surveys consistently show a preference of the majority of Europeans for a negotiated end to the war.
The reality is, irrespective of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, a modus vivendi between the West and Russia will have to be reestablished to ensure, in Varwick’s words, “their coexistence in a Cold War 2.0 without a permanent escalation.” Restoring an open democratic debate about this vital issue is long overdue.
Listening to the experts who have a proven track record of correct analysis would be a necessary first step.
Eldar Mamedov is a Brussels-based foreign policy expert.
December 26, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, Russophobia | European Union, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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On December 5, various Western media reported that Didier Reynders, a former Belgian EU Justice Commissioner, had been buying lottery tickets with dubious funds in the Belgian National Lottery for approximately ten years in order to launder the winnings into his account. Didier Reynders, who served as European Commissioner for Justice under the current Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, until December 1, 2024, is currently under investigation by Belgian authorities.
This raises questions about Ursula von der Leyen’s awareness of her closest colleague’s money laundering activities. Moreover, this is not the first time such a scandal has surfaced, raising questions about the integrity of EU-MEPs.
We start with Didier Reynders, as the so-called “laundering of lottery money” is just the tip of the iceberg for this extremely corrupt individual. Another investigation into Didier Reynders, former EU Justice Commissioner and a pillar of the Belgian establishment, has linked him to a wider probe into money laundering through state-owned institutions. This has sparked fresh interest in allegations of Belgium’s political interference in Congo and Libya and associated arms deals.
In 2019, Nicolas Ullens, a former undercover Belgian agent, accused Reynders of corruption and money laundering in connection with several projects, including the construction of the Belgian embassy in the Democratic Republic of Congo and arms trafficking.
Nicolas Ullens de Schooten is the full name of this former Belgian undercover agent and criminal, who apparently enjoyed high regard in noble circles. This royal criminal and former member of State Security shot his stepmother, Myriam Lechien, dead on March 29, when she and her husband, Baron Guy Ullens, left the driveway of their villa in Ohain, Walloon Brabant. He was acquitted at the request of Didier Reynders, according to the Belgian media. The reason for the shooting was that he did not receive enough inheritance from his stepmother according to her will, which sounds like an old-fashioned crime plot from a real-life crime series.
“The Congo Free State” was a privately governed state by King Leopold II of Belgium through the so-called Association Internationale Africaine, supposedly for humanitarian purposes. However, it was actually a form of colonialism, and to this day, the traces of this brutal Belgian rule can be seen in Congo.
Under the rule of King Leopold II, the so-called Congo Free State became the site of one of the most infamous international scandals of the early 20th century. Colonists brutally exploited the local population in order to produce rubber, which was in high demand due to the growing international market for automobiles and rubber tires. The crimes committed were brutal, and there are no words to describe the suffering endured by the people.
But that’s not all. After the fall and assassination (by Western-sponsored terrorists) of Muammar Gaddafi, the late president of Libya, in 2011, pressure was increased on the then Belgian government over payments of hundreds of millions of euros to unknown recipients. We now know that Didier Reynders received parts of these euros, but how much is not exactly clear. The money came from frozen accounts in Brussels that once belonged to Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi.
These payments from Libyan accounts in Brussels were also used for arms deliveries, according to opposition Belgian politicians. Mr. Reynders also has to explain the disappearance of valuable African artworks (from Libya and the Congo) that came into his possession.
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders has been accused of involvement in the loss of Libyan funds from Belgian banks. — The Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Didier Reynders, was directly cited by an ex-undercover agent of Belgium, Nicolas Ullens. He accused Reynders of being involved in the disappearance of Libyan funds in Belgium. The media reported that the UN had placed these funds in several banks, including $14 billion in Belgium, where they were frozen.
Despite the ban imposed on banks to lift the freeze on these assets years ago, Belgium ordered the transfer of $1.4 billion, representing 10% of the interest generated by half of the funds placed in Belgian banks. In other words, the Libyan money was stolen and used for weapons deals and private goals, as Didier Reynders allegedly did.
But the story of this individual goes back even further. In 2012, he served as the Belgian Foreign Minister and paid a private visit to Saudi Arabia, where he met with Prince Najef bin-Fawaz al-Salan. In 2007, a French court sentenced the prince to ten years in prison for smuggling two tons of cocaine into France during a diplomatic flight. Despite this, the prince remained loyal to Saudi Arabia, as leaked documents from the United Nations show.
Now, we can draw a parallel with the current situation, where frozen assets (money) from Russia were used to purchase weapons for Ukraine and for the so-called “reconstruction” of Ukraine. Additionally, we see the case of Ursula von der Leyen, who is proud of stealing Russian funds with which more weapons are being purchased, just as they were back in Libya. It is likely that there are still millions of euros remaining for corrupt European Union members like Ursula von der Leyen.
The revelations about Didier Reynders supposedly sent shockwaves through Brussels, coinciding with the start of Ursula von der Leyen’s second term as President of the European Commission. She has made it clear that one of her priorities is to strengthen the rule of law in order to protect fundamental rights and ensure the integrity of the EU budget.
But is this really the case? It seems unlikely that she was unaware of Reynders’ criminal activities. After all, she herself has been implicated in criminal activity and money laundering scandals, such as the Pfizergate affair.
Pfizergate is the scandal involving Ursula von der Leyen, the current President of the European Commission, and the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer regarding the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines. The controversy revolves around the lack of transparency in communication and negotiation processes regarding the purchase of a significant number of vaccine doses during the pandemic. Von der Leyen allegedly purchased too many vaccines, and it is alleged that she did not know if they were reliable, safe, or tested for use on humans. However, as it turns out, these vaccines are not safe or reliable, and they are actually biological weapons designed to reduce the population, as demonstrated by the murdered Russian Lieutenant General Kirillov, as several articles have reported.
Even if prosecutors believe they have sufficient evidence to bring a case to trial, Reynders’ political background may protect him. As a former minister in Belgium and European commissioner, he would still need to have his immunity lifted if the authorities wanted to arrest him. In Belgium, money laundering carries a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment. Of course, Reynders has done much more than simply laundering money. He has stolen money from Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan president and his people, and more recently, from the Russian government. Freezing funds is illegal, as well as using them for weapons in Libya.
But Reyners and von der Leyen are not the only ones in the EU engaged in money laundering or deleting emails containing suspicious texts and evidence of their criminal activities. In 2015, the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, and German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, reached a new low with accusations about Greece and its bailout, with compromising texts. Former Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, (now head of NATO), waited outside closed doors with other European leaders and sent a text message to the European Council President, Donald Tusk, proposing a compromise that would appeal to all parties involved. Within an hour, a deal was reached and the euro was saved. However, according to undisclosed documents, the Greek prime minister was blackmailed by Merkel, Rutte, and most other EU leaders.
In May 2022, a Dutch newspaper reported that Prime Minister Mark Rutte had developed a habit of regularly deleting his text messages. He only forwarded the messages he considered important to his staff, and called this process “real-time archiving”. However, it could more accurately be described as “real-time deletion”. The prime minister is known by the nickname “Pinocchio” in the Netherlands, as he often lies and continues to do so.
We can safely assume that Ursula von der Leyen, as head of the EU, was aware of the criminal activities of Didier Reynders, as she is also involved in Pfizergate, and both of them can be blackmailed. Her husband, Heiko von der Leyen, is also involved in Pfizergate through his role in a biotech company. He is a director of Orogenesis, an American biotech firm, and has benefited from EU funds on two separate occasions. Together, they buy each other’s silence and blackmail one another with money from public funds or simply steal money from state budgets. They have stolen money from Libya, the Congo, and now Russia.
December 24, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Corruption | Belgium, Congo, European Union, Libya |
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Elon Musk’s endorsement of Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has sparked significant controversy, particularly among European political figures concerned about the potential for what they call “foreign interference” in Germany’s upcoming elections.
Musk, the CEO of X, voiced his support for some of AfD’s policies following a deadly terror attack in Germany. His comments have raised alarm among EU officials, prompting calls for increased scrutiny of the X app and its compliance with the EU’s stringent censorship laws.
Thierry Breton, the European Union’s former Commissioner, took to X to express his outrage over Musk’s support for AfD. In a tweet posted on December 21, Breton accused Musk of being involved in “foreign interference” in Germany’s electoral process, especially given the timing of his comments around the tragic attack in Magdeburg.
Breton, who has been an advocate for strict censorship of social media platforms, and even threatened Elon Musk over his interview with President Donald Trump, also called for the immediate application of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) to combat what he described as “double standards” when it comes to regulating speech online.
Breton’s tweet read: “A few weeks ahead of the next elections in Germany, and at the time of the heinous attack in Magdeburg, @elonmusk — the world’s top influencer on X and a potential member of the future U.S. administration — openly supports the far-right AfD party. Isn’t this the very definition of foreign interference? We must end the ‘double standards’ and apply the #DSA in Europe 🇪🇺”
This rhetoric reflects the growing unease among pro-censorship EU officials, who have long sought to use legislation like the DSA to control what is shared on social media platforms.
Musk’s support for AfD, a party criticized by some for its skepticism of some immigration policies and labeled as “far-right,” has spurred discussions about free speech and government intervention online.
Karl Lauterbach, the German Health Minister, also weighed in, echoing concerns about Musk’s political influence. He accused Musk of election interference and advocated for keeping a “close eye on the goings-on on X.”
Lauterbach, a well-known advocate of restricting speech on social media, has called for greater scrutiny of platforms that he believes allow for the unchecked spread of “extreme” views.
This growing tension between free speech advocates and pro-censorship officials comes at a time when Musk’s platform, X, has become a battleground for political discourse, especially with the European Union’s push to enforce stricter speech regulations.
December 23, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | European Union, Germany |
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Qatar will stop gas shipments to the EU if member states enforce new legislation on carbon emissions, the Gulf nation’s energy minister Saad al-Kaabi has told the Financial Times (FT). Qatar has become an important supplier to the bloc after Brussels resolved to wean itself off Russian gas following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.
If any EU country imposes penalties on Qatar under the bloc’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, Doha would stop exporting its liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the bloc, al-Kaabi told the outlet on Sunday.
QatarEnergy, the state-owned energy company, has long-term LNG contracts with several EU countries, including Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands.
The EU’s corporate due diligence rules, adopted in May 2023, are part of the bloc’s strategy to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The legislation states that non-compliance is punishable with fines of up to 5% of the company’s annual global revenue. Al-Kaabi argued that such fines would significantly impact QatarEnergy’s revenue, which directly supports the state of Qatar and its citizens.
”If the case is that I lose 5% of my generated revenue by going to Europe, I will not go to Europe… I’m not bluffing,” Kaabi said. “I cannot lose that kind of money – and nobody would accept losing that kind of money,” he pointed out.
It would be impossible for an energy producer like QatarEnergy to align with the EU’s net-zero target as stipulated by the directive because of the amount of hydrocarbons it produces, the minister explained.
If slapped with hefty penalties, QatarEnergy would not break its LNG contracts but would try and find legal avenues.
”I will not accept that we get penalized,” he said. “I will stop sending gas to Europe.”
Following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the EU started replacing Russian pipeline gas with more expensive LNG from the Middle East and the US. The bloc still gets pipeline gas from Russia via Ukraine’s transit network but the agreement between Moscow and Kiev is set to expire on December 31. The authorities in Kiev have repeatedly stressed that the deal will not be renewed.
December 22, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | European Union, Qatar |
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Allegations that Russia was behind a Romanian social media campaign that helped independent presidential candidate Calin Georgescu win a first round vote, and which contributed to the country’s constitutional court canceling the entire election, are false, an investigation has found.
Georgescu’s campaign was not funded by Russia but in fact by the pro-Western National Liberal Party (PNL), the media outlet Snoop has reported, citing the probe’s findings.
A critic of NATO and the EU and a staunch opponent of sending aid to Ukraine, Georgescu topped the first-round vote in Romania with 22.94%, beating other liberal leftist and democrat candidates.
Romania’s Constitutional Court promptly annulled the election ahead of the second-round vote, citing intelligence documents alleging ‘irregularities’ in Georgescu’s performance.
The documents claimed Georgescu’s candidacy was improperly promoted online, including on TikTok, by paid influencers and extremist right-wing groups, and that his campaign may have benefited from Russian interference – an allegation that Moscow has denied as “absolutely groundless.”
According to Snoop, Romania’s tax authorities analyzed financial flows and discovered that the campaign that promoted Georgescu on TikTok was in fact paid for by the PNL and run by Kensington Communication, a company which provides political marketing services, as well as online campaigns.
The briefs delivered to influencers were aimed at promoting “a responsible attitude and a mature choice” among Romanians that would help the country continue its “democratic path,” wrote Snoop.
Influencers were reportedly given a script to describe the qualities of a future president without giving a name. Some of them however left comments below the videos, providing Georgescu’s name.
“It is a shock to everyone that the public money that taxpayers had provided to the PNL was used to promote another candidate,” one expert involved in the investigation told the publication.
Kensington Communication has issued a statement alleging that its campaign had been “hijacked” or “cloned” and said it would file a criminal complaint.
The leak came on Friday, a day before the expiration of Romanian President Klaus Iohannis’ term, and just days before the supreme court is scheduled to hear the case initiated by Georgescu. Iohannis himself had earlier refused to leave office, citing the country’s legislation.
Georgescu, who was labelled “pro-Russian” by his critics, filed a lawsuit with the supreme court to challenge the annulment of the election results. The candidate’s lawyer described the situation as “a flagrant violation of the constitution” and “a coup d’état.” The first hearing is scheduled for December 23.
December 22, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | European Union, NATO, Romania |
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Russia has repeatedly warned that the US and its Western sponsors’ assistance to the Kiev regime will only prolong the Ukraine conflict.
Western financing of Ukraine reached a whopping $238.5 billion from February 2022 to the beginning of December 2024, which approximately corresponds to 87% of the country’s budget expenses, Sputnik’s research based on information from the Ukrainian Finance Ministry, the University of Kiel, and open data has shown.
The expenses of the Ukrainian budget in 2022-2023 amounted to $193.3 billion, while in 2024 the figure is expected to stand at $81.3 billion. It means that over the past three years, the expenses have increased to $274.6 billion, according to the analyzed data.
Aid Breakdown
The volume of financial aid sent by Western countries to Ukraine amounted to $106 billion, whereas the West’s military assistance reached $132.5 billion within the aforementioned period. At the same time, the total volume of Western aid is 43% less than the $416 billion the West promised to Kiev, per the analysis.
The US remains Ukraine’s largest donor, having sent $95.2 billion to the Kiev regime in the past three years. Two-thirds of the sum was military aid, while one-third went towards budget financing.
EU member states transferred financial and military aid to Ukraine worth $94.2 billion, with Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands being the bloc’s largest donors with $11.9 billion, $7.5 billion, and $6.3 billion, respectively. The UK sent $13.4 billion, Canada $7.8 billion, and Japan $6.7 billion.
During the December 19 Direct Line and year-end press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed that Ukraine can fight and exist only with the support of its Western donors.
The statement came after Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Washington’s financial aid to Kiev will not change the situation on the battlefield and will lead to “new victims among Ukrainians.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for his part, recalled earlier that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasizes that continued aid to Ukraine is a guarantee of creating new jobs in the United States.
“As if he is not speaking about financing a war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in Ukraine, but a lucrative business project,” Lavrov stressed.
This followed Peskov warning that the EU’s hefty sums to Ukraine are “allocated to the detriment of EU economies which are already going through difficult times.” For example, Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is facing a second year of zero growth, in what comes as more Germans oppose Berlin’s excessive financial assistance to the Kiev regime, according to a recent opinion poll conducted by the ARD news channel.
December 22, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics | European Union, UK, Ukraine, United States |
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Vladimir Zelensky has “gone too far” in its dispute with Slovakia over natural gas, let alone turning Ukraine into a “zombie state” that’s entirely dependent on the West, Slovakian MEP Milan Uhrik has told RT.
Bratislava and Kiev have ended up in a bitter row over supplies of Russian natural gas across Ukraine. The country has refused to extend its gas-transit deal with Russia, on which Slovakia depends for energy supply, and which is set to expire at the end of the year.
While the country, which borders western Ukraine, has enough gas in storage to make it through the winter, the impending end of transit likely spells trouble for Bratislava in the near future, Uhrik is suggesting.
“We have a valid contract with Gazprom which we want to fulfill but Zelensky is preventing us from doing so simply because he wants to harm our economy and simply because he wants more, I don’t know, finance or more weapons from our country, and this is what we do not agree with,” the MEP said.
With a recession “coming to the European Union,” it would be “very unwise to completely cut off from Russian cheap energy sources,” Uhrik also warned.
People are getting angry [at] Zelensky because this has gone too far. He is simply testing our patience, because we did nothing wrong and yet he decides to destroy or continue with destruction, not only of Ukraine but also of our country.
The Slovakian lawmaker questioned the legitimacy of Zelensky’s “very sensitive and serious” decisions, pointing at the cancellation of presidential elections in the country, and to dwindling “support among Ukrainian people.”
Ukraine has long turned into a “zombie state” that is fully dependent on the collective West as a whole and the EU in particular, Uhrik pointed out. While the EU has helped Kiev “with more than €130 billion” (over $135 billion), in return it has been getting “even more and more demands” and “more and more insults,” with the latest row able to “easily raise a bigger conflict between Slovakia and Ukraine,” the MEP added.
December 22, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics | European Union, Slovakia, Ukraine |
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It’s been a bad few months for democracy. Election results offensive to the European Union were annulled in Romania; an attempted coup occurred in Georgia over elections that didn’t go the way the west wanted; the French government, widely hated, teetered over the abyss as president Emmanual Macron tried to ignore the last election; on December 16, Washington’s pet German government fell; lots of funny-business happened in the Moldovan referendum and election, amid widespread disenfranchisement of Moldovan voters living in Russia; elections were long ago cancelled in dictatorial Ukraine; and South Korea hosted an attempted coup. In short, western democracies’ storied enchantment with elections is over. As western populations grow sick and tired of their political class and vote against it, what are elites to do? Annul, cancel, overturn and ignore the elections, that’s what. The problem, for the west, is the voters.
What will happen if far-right Alternative for Deutschland sweeps the early German elections in February, or if far-left France Insoumise does the same in France? Will the U.S. through its NATO and EU tentacles annul those votes? Don’t think it won’t try. And Washington doesn’t even have to give the order, because its European puppets know exactly what’s expected of them. Granted, the Romanian front-runner, so feared by NATO, Calin Georgescu, was far right. But so what? Besides, I doubt that’s what led to the constitutional court vacating the vote. More likely it was his opposition to the Ukraine War – hence the court citing “foreign influence” (translation: Russian) via TikTok as its flimsy basis for negating the election. Incidentally, reports are coming in that the heat and internet to Georgescu’s house have been cut off, and, surprise! he can’t get anyone on the phone to help with this.
But you can’t blame European honchos for ditching elections. They’re just following Washington’s lead. After all, the post-2016 phony Russiagate hysteria may not have succeeded in ousting Trump, as was intended, but it did provide the template for American vassals. The four years of lawfare against Trump (and then another four after he left office) blazed the trail for Europe, so that now, if a candidate not favored by political bigwigs wins, all they have to do is scream “Russian influence!” to dump the election. In other words, democracy is dying in the west. It’s kicking the bucket in Europe – and if Trump ends the Ukraine War (provided Biden doesn’t utterly sabotage his peace efforts before he takes office) or gets us out of the NATO sinkhole, you can bet your paycheck the 2028 establishment campaign will dust off the 2016 playbook and get right to work.
In western media, Georgescu has been portrayed as an unknown. This is false. He is well-known in Romania and had a diplomatic career. But he is also a religious nationalist, and that’s verboten in the EU; worse yet, the U.S., aka NATO, built its biggest military airbase in Europe – where? You got it, Romania. So Washington can’t have just anybody running that country. It must be someone who will keep everything copacetic with the U.S. A nationalist opposed to Washington’s pet proxy war in Ukraine is not that someone.
As for Georgia, there the electorate proved itself most unreliable to the Exceptional Empire. It voted in a government that actually dares to require foreign NGOs to register as such – you know, the way we do, here in the United States. But here, those NGOs don’t aim to overthrow the government, like they do in Georgia, in order for Tbilisi to open a second front against Moscow. Indeed, the vast majority of rioters against the Georgian government, who were arrested, were – I’m shocked! Shocked! – foreign, i.e. European. The icing on the cake is that the French president of Georgia refused to leave office when her term expired – a president with French and Georgian passports, who boasts Nazis in her family tree.
The EU finagled things more successfully in Moldova. That nation’s October 20 referendum on joining the EU won – kinda. In country, the Moldovan government only snagged 50 percent of the vote, but Moldovan expats in Europe gave it a boost, while the 400,000 Moldovans living in Russia found, to their dismay, only two polling stations open for them, by their government, in Moscow. That meant as few as 10,000 of them got to vote. And as East European expert and political scientist Ivan Katchanovski tweeted October 21, many pro-Russian citizens in Transdniestria could not vote. So all in all, the Moldovan referendum was a sorry excuse for a democratic exercise. Then there was also Moldova’s presidential election, equally compromised. But hey, Washington’s EU vassal got to lure a country out of Russia’s orbit, and that’s all that counts, not mere democracy, right? After all, Washington doesn’t stand for democracy. It stands for and has long stood for something quite different – power. Just look at it backing a terrorist takeover of Syria, among them a ruler on whose head Washington has a $10,000,000 bounty. Let that sink in. One American hand posts a huge reward for a terrorist, while the other hand paves his way to power. The obvious conclusion (also obvious to any student of American-backed coups and regime changes abroad going back at least 70 years) is that U.S. doesn’t stand for anything besides power (certainly not anything as antiquated and nettlesome as international law). That’s the definition of a gangster state.
If you doubt that, just peek at South Korea, where the CIA’s man, president Yoon Suk Yeol, faced a grim electoral future. The voters were unlikely to support him in the next election, given that they mostly back the opposition. And that opposition, per Col. Douglas Macgregor, wants a Korean four-star general, not an American one, to head the roughly 500,000 Korean armed forces and also wants to boot the 30,000 U.S. troops off the peninsula. This, of course, goes over in Washington with all the joy of a root canal.
So what to do? Yoon took the bull by the horns December 3 with martial law. During the few hours when it looked like our man in Seoul had pulled off a coup, the Biden gang was coyly silent. But there is nothing enduring in this world, as Gogol noted, and even the most brazen attempts at subverting democracy occasionally fail. The opposition gathered and voted against Yoon. His defense minister was deposed, jailed and attempted suicide, and Yoon’s own tenure came now, ahem, under a cloud, to say the least, as insurrection charges loomed, and he was impeached and suspended from office.
And don’t forget France, where Macron, affronted by an EU parliament vote last summer that installed many anti-Ukraine War representatives, totally lost it and, quite idiotically and hubristically, called snap elections. He promptly lost those to the left, but then snubbed the voters by breaking with tradition and refusing to appoint a left-wing prime minister. Surprising no one, the center-rightist he chose received a vote of no confidence, and Macron’s government looked likely to fall. That was temporarily forestalled by the appointment, December 13, of a centrist prime minister. But if his government does ultimately crash, expect Macron to do something really stupid, like suspend the legislature, call a national emergency or, a la Yoon, declare martial law.
Lastly of course we have Ukraine, that shining example of democracy, where its president rules illegally, having cancelled elections, banned the opposition, throttled the press, exiled the church, jailed anyone he doesn’t like and press-ganged thousands of vehemently objecting Ukrainian men into the military. All this while ferociously lining his pockets with western, mainly American, funds. This is the tyranny upon which Biden bestows hundreds of billions of our hard-earned tax dollars. It’s not even supported by Ukrainians, most of whom, according to recent polls, want the war over. But Joe “War Is My Legacy” Biden, in his crazed enthusiasm for Ukrainian combat, just won’t stop. On December 11, Ukraine fired six ATACAMS into Russia. We can all thank God they did little damage, since the Russians shot two down and diverted four with electronic warfare. Had they inflicted real harm, we in the west might very well have had worse troubles than the death of democracy, namely death itself. Biden appears oblivious to this reality. For us, what’s at stake is life itself, and the whole, wondrous human and natural world. For him, it appears to be just another step on the path of endless war, another day, another dollar.
Eve Ottenberg is a novelist and journalist. Her latest novel is Booby Prize. She can be reached at her website.
December 21, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | European Union, France, Georgia, Korea, Moldova, Romania, United States |
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The European Parliament has taken another step in its ongoing efforts to control the flow of information online, approving the creation of a new committee tasked with combating what it describes as foreign interference and disinformation.
Dubbed the European Democracy Shield, the initiative is framed as a safeguard for democratic processes but raises significant concerns about censorship and overreach. The committee’s establishment aligns with the European Commission’s policy agenda for 2024-2029 and is expected to begin operations next year.
At a plenary session in Strasbourg, the decision received strong support, with 441 members voting in favor, 178 opposing, and 34 abstaining.
While presented as a measure to protect democracy, critics have long questioned whether such sweeping powers risk stifling dissenting views under the guise of fighting disinformation.
The committee’s mandate extends to scrutinizing online platforms, AI-generated content, and so-called “hybrid” threats—broad categories that could potentially encompass legitimate political speech or alternative narratives.
Comprising 33 members, the Ad Hoc Committee on the European Democracy Shield will serve a 12-month term. Its composition, to be determined by political groups, will be announced in late January. The scope of its responsibilities includes reviewing existing laws for potential weaknesses that could be exploited and recommending reforms. However, skeptics may argue that this approach could lead to increased regulatory burdens on digital platforms, raising questions about freedom of expression and transparency in decision-making.
December 20, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | European Union, Human rights |
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The US and the EU have provided over $300 billion in financial aid and military assistance to Kiev since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.
Such a huge amount of money “could have done wonders” had it been spent to improve the lives of people within the EU, he said in an interview with Kossuth radio on Friday.
Orban highlighted the evolving military situation, noting that “the balance of power on the frontlines is shifting day by day” in Russia’s favor. He also pointed out the political changes expected in the US following Donald Trump’s return to the White House next month.
These developments call for leaders in EU capitals to embrace a more pragmatic approach to ensuring stability and economic resilience within the bloc, Orban believes. However, the prime minister argued that Brussels remains out of touch with global realities, pointing to a recent European Parliament decision to continue sending substantial funds to Kiev – a move he described as a clear example of misplaced priorities.
“During the negotiation with the Americans, I received the figure that Europe and America together have spent €310 billion so far. Those are huge numbers!” the Hungarian prime minister stressed.
He argued that the hundreds of billions of euros already spent to fund the conflict could have been used to bolster European infrastructure, to develop countries in Western Balkans to the level of the EU, or beef up military capabilities. This “enormous” amount of money could have been given to Europeans to make people’s lives much better, the Hungarian leader concluded.
Russia has repeatedly warned that no amount of Western aid will stop its troops from achieving the goals of the military operation or change the ultimate outcome of the conflict. By backing Kiev, they only prolong the conflict, Moscow has argued.
Earlier this month, Orban proposed a Christmas ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, describing it as a last-ditch attempt to mediate a diplomatic resolution of the conflict. He floated the idea to Kiev and Moscow, as well as to Trump, who he personally met at his residence in Florida.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow “fully supports Orban’s efforts aimed at finding a peaceful settlement and resolving humanitarian issues related to the exchange of prisoners.”
However, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky rejected Budapest’s offer.
December 20, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism | European Union, United States |
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Slovakia is considering retaliation against Ukraine over its refusal to continue transit of Russian gas to the EU nation, according to Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Kiev is determined not to renew a multi-year transit contract with Russia, which allowed the fuel to flow across its territory despite the armed conflict between the two nations. Slovakia is one of the recipients of the gas, which Ukraine intends to halt next year.
A “serious conflict” is possible if Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky “doesn’t release our gas,” Fico wrote on Facebook on Friday. He included excerpts from his press conference in Brussels on Thursday, after he and Zelensky discussed the issue at a meeting held behind closed doors in the Belgian capital.
Bratislava is sympathetic towards Kiev’s situation and Zelensky’s predicament, the prime minister said, but Slovakia is “not at any war” either with Russia or Ukraine, and the Slovaks are not servants doing the bidding of Zelensky. Kiev is “losing decisively,” while Zelensky “absolutely rejects any ceasefire,” he said.
Fico said the proposals regarding the gas situation, which Zelensky outlined to him at a European Council meeting, seemed “absurd.” One idea was to allow the flow to continue on condition that Russia would not receive any payment until the end of the Ukraine conflict.
“What fool will give us gas for free?” Fico asked journalists.
Slovakia is helping Ukraine by providing non-military assistance, including by transferring electricity to its capacity-starved power grid, the prime minister said. Relations between the two nations cannot be a one-way street, Fico asserted, adding: “I cannot completely rule out reciprocal measures.” His government will consider its options over the next week, he said.
Kiev previously floated the idea of letting gas that is not Russian in origin to be pumped through the Soviet-built pipelines on Ukrainian territory. Azerbaijan could be the source of such supplies, according to officials.
On Tuesday, European buyers of Russian pipeline gas, including Slovakia’s SPP, warned the European Commission that the looming termination of Ukrainian transit posed significant risks to members of the EU, and urged Brussels to act.
The escalating row has been caused by Kiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, during his annual Q&A marathon. Russian gas giant Gazprom “can live” without the transit, he insisted.
December 20, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism | European Union, Slovakia, Ukraine |
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