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Zelensky’s Ceasefire for Elections is Strategic Gambit, Not Democratic Move

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 17.02.2026

Volodymyr Zelensky’s reluctance to hold elections in Ukraine is multi-faced, according to Marco Marsili, geopolitical analyst at CESRAN International and former OSCE election observer.

The Ukrainian politician is on thin ice despite optimistic polling numbers: “The reported approval ratings reflect a carefully managed wartime narrative, not democratic reality,” Marsili tells Sputnik.

What’s the reality?

  • Demographic catastrophe: An entire generation of fighting-age men has been consumed by the front lines
  • Economic collapse: Beyond Western-subsidized survival, Ukraine’s economy is a shell
  • Neo-Nazi grip: Zelensky’s political survival depends on being perceived as a strong promoter of nationalism

To block elections and derail legitimate peace talks, Zelensky is demanding conditions that directly contradict Russia’s position.

“Zelensky’s proposal for a two-month ceasefire to enable elections is a multilayered strategic gambit, not a genuine democratic exercise,” says Marsili.
How would Zelensky use the ceasefire he demands?

Military respite: “It is a classic military pause dressed in political clothing,” the pundit explains. “Two months without active hostilities would allow Ukraine to reconstitute its shattered forces.”

Shifting blame: By proposing elections and blaming Russia for rejection, Zelensky positions himself as pro-democracy and paints Moscow as the obstacle.

Dragging West deeper into conflict: A positive Western response to Zelensky’s security demands during potential elections deepens their commitment; a negative one exposes the limits of their support.

“Russia’s insistence on addressing the root causes — NATO expansion, the status of Russian-speaking populations, Ukraine’s neutrality — reflects its view that procedural fixes like elections are meaningless without resolving the underlying security architecture,” Marsili underscores.

February 17, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Comments Off on Zelensky’s Ceasefire for Elections is Strategic Gambit, Not Democratic Move

US and Dutch pilots flying F-16s for Ukraine – Western media

RT | February 17, 2026

The Ukrainian military is secretly using a squadron of veteran NATO pilots to fly donated US-made F-16 fighter jets, the French outlet Intelligence Online reported on Monday.

Moscow has long warned that Western nations are moving closer to direct conflict with Russia. The report, which Kiev has denied, said the covert mission relies primarily on experienced US and Dutch air force veterans.

The foreign personnel are deployed far from the front lines and focus on intercepting Russian long-range weapons, the outlet said. They are no longer part of their original militaries and reportedly work for Kiev as civilian contractors, without military ranks and outside the Ukrainian chain of command.

A shortage of trained Ukrainian pilots was previously identified as the main obstacle to using F-16s donated to Kiev. Training courses were reportedly undermined by language barriers, a lack of qualified trainees, and other issues, and were simplified for speed.

Shortly after the first F-16s arrived in Ukraine in August 2024, Kiev began losing pilots in botched air defense missions, with four such incidents acknowledged.

The secret foreign squadron provides pilots with the experience needed to operate advanced F-16 equipment, Intelligence Online said.

Moscow views the Ukraine conflict as a NATO proxy war against Russia, in which key elements of Kiev’s military effort – including intelligence, planning, troop training, and maintenance of complex Western hardware – are handled by foreign personnel.

Western specialists were reportedly involved in Ukrainian strikes using Storm Shadow/SCALP air-launched cruise missiles on Russian territory. German officials opposed supplying Taurus missiles because Ukrainians cannot launch them independently.

Russia also says Western nations tacitly support Kiev’s recruitment of mercenaries from among their military veterans. Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik estimated that around 20,000 foreign fighters have taken part in the conflict on the Ukrainian side.

February 17, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , | Comments Off on US and Dutch pilots flying F-16s for Ukraine – Western media

West’s Claims of Non-Involvement in Ukraine Conflict ‘Epitome of Hypocrisy’ – Expert

Sputnik – 17.02.2026

NATO personnel operating Western military hardware in the Ukrainian conflict zone has long been an open secret, Russian military analyst Viktor Litovkin tells Sputnik.

Ukraine, Litovkin explains, ended up relying on foreign personnel because it:

  • Lacks the necessary number of skilled pilots and specialists to operate sophisticated weapon systems like F-16 jets or HIMARS rockets
  • Has a severe shortage of engineers who know English well enough to interpret tech manuals and maintenance charts for NATO military gear

How Does This Personnel Pipeline Work?

Western military specialists operating in Ukraine are not officially regarded as members of their respective home countries’ armed forces, masquerading instead as volunteers who chose on their own to “defend democracy.”

“It’s a tried and tested scenario: a career military man goes on a fake leave and heads off to a warzone, to be reinstated upon his return home,” says Litovkin.

Western powers’ claims of alleged non-involvement in the Ukrainian conflict are the epitome of hypocrisy, he notes.

Second-hand War Gear

NATO countries deliberately provide Ukraine with second-rate, older war gear due to concerns that any advanced military hardware supplied to the Ukrainian forces would be inevitably captured by Russian forces, Litovkin points out.

As a result, Western personnel end up operating outdated military hardware while facing much more advanced Russian combat aircraft and weapon systems that make short work of them.

February 17, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Comments Off on West’s Claims of Non-Involvement in Ukraine Conflict ‘Epitome of Hypocrisy’ – Expert

Ian Proud: Economic Reset with Russia to Save Europe

Glenn Diesen | Feb 15, 2026

Ian Proud discusses why an economic reset with Russia is required for a stable peace and to prevent Europe from becoming a weakened relic of a unipolar past. As a former British diplomat, Proud performed a number of roles, including the Economic Counsellor at the UK’s embassy in Moscow between 2014 and 2019.

The Peacemonger: https://www.youtube.com/@IanProud

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February 15, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Munich Security Conference and the U.S. elephant in the room

Strategic Culture Foundation | February 13, 2026

Cosmetic cover-up of Western elite corruption and crimes is no longer possible.

The annual Munich Security Conference opens this weekend with the theme: “Under Destruction… The world has entered a period of wrecking-ball politics.”

The use of euphemism and blandishment is out in force this year as the Western elite gather in Bavaria.

However, absurdly, the conference, as usual, shies away from calling out the main source of global threat… the United States of America.

This is absurd but not surprising. Because the MSC has always been about rationalizing Western imperialist violence with the euphemistic spin of couching it as “security challenges”.

The Munich gathering is the world’s largest corporate conference on global security. It has been described variously as “Davos with guns” and “the Oscars for security policy experts”. The forum began meeting in 1963 and is dominated by Western perspectives, closely aligned with Western governments, the NATO military alliance, and think tanks like the Washington-based Atlantic Council, the London-based Chatham House, the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Soros’ Open Society.

Sponsors of the MSC event include Western weapons manufacturers, such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Rheinmetall, as well as Wall Street and European banks, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Commerzbank, and Big Tech like Microsoft and Palantir.

It is thus a conclave of Western global elites who come together in Bavaria every year to work out policies and arrangements to expedite the domination of the planet by Western capital. One might well ask: “Security for whom?”

This year, the global elites are facing acute problems arising from two sources: the fallout from the Epstein transnational pedophile network that has implicated the entire Western ruling class in systematic corruption and sordid, horrific crimes of sex trafficking children for the heinous gratification of the elite.

As with much of the Western establishment’s response to the Epstein scandal, the order of the conference will be an attempt to cover it up, if it is even mentioned.

The second source of acute challenge is the descent into rampant imperialist violence by the United States. This is not merely a symptom of Donald Trump as the 47th president in the White House. The descent into barbarism has been underway for decades. It has only accelerated under Trump (a partying friend of Epstein) as the U.S. moves desperately to shore up its declining global hegemony. That desperation is motivated by the emergence of a more equitable multipolar world and the inherent failing of American-led Western capitalism. The existential struggle for preserving U.S. domination has resulted in an explosion of international violence and lawlessness, which also threatens the privileges of supposed American allies.

A survey of barbarism under Trump over the past year includes:

  • Bombing Iran and ongoing threats to annihilate the country
  • Attacking Venezuela and kidnapping its president, Nicolás Maduro
  • Seizing oil tankers from Russia and China in international waters
  • Blockading Cuba and shutting down vital public utilities
  • Continuous bombing of Somalia; at least 30 times in 2026 alone
  • Bombing Nigeria and dispatching U.S. troops there
  • Threatening aggression against Canada, Greenland, Colombia, Mexico, and Panama
  • Threatening illegal trade sanctions on numerous countries

Needless to say, these are all criminal violations of the United Nations’ Charter and international law. And yet Trump thinks he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. The disconnect speaks of insanity. How perverse that this could all be a deliberate distraction from the association with child rapist and Mossad asset Epstein.

But the truth is, the U.S. has always ordained itself the right to violate international law and use violence for regime change and wars of conquest. This has been going on for decades. The Western allies and media have pretended that this criminal imperialism did not exist and indulged in an illusion of “rules-based order”, as the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney candidly admitted last month at the Davos forum.

What is new is that the lawlessness of U.S. imperialism has now become transparent and not camouflaged with pretexts about “defending democracy and the free world” and other deceptions. What is new, too, is that Western allies are also being threatened in the American rush to shore up its failing global power.

Laughably, the Munich forum this year is all about trying to delicately approach the subject without spelling it out.

In the Foreword to the conference’s introductory report this year, the chairman, Wolfgang Ischinger, writes:

The Munich Security Conference 2026 is taking place at a moment of profound uncertainty… a result of the changing role of the United States in the international system. For generations, U.S. allies were not just able to rely on American power but on a broadly shared understanding of the principles underpinning the international order. Today, this appears far less certain, raising difficult questions about the future shape of transatlantic and international cooperation.

Given the significance of this recalibration of U.S. foreign policy, we decided that this year’s Munich Security Report should address the elephant in the room head-on… the United States’ evolving view of the international order.

Addressing the elephant in the room is exactly what the Munich conference is not doing by using euphemisms to cover up what is out-and-out U.S. imperialist violence.

In the Executive Summary of the report, the MSC authors continue:

The world has entered a period of wrecking-ball politics.

Sweeping destruction – rather than careful reforms and policy corrections – is the order of the day. The most prominent of those who promise to free their country from the existing order’s constraints and rebuild a stronger, more prosperous nation is the current U.S. administration. As a result, more than 80 years after construction began, the U.S.-led post-1945 international order is now under destruction.

Again, this is the sort of odious cover-up that one would expect from a forum that is sponsored by the Western capitalist elite.

The only time that the Munich conference got a taste of the truth was 19 years ago when Russian leader Vladimir Putin delivered a still-memorable speech in 2007. Putin caused uproar among the Western elite and media when he condemned the unilateral use of “hyper military force” by the United States and its lack of respect for international law, which he said was leading to chaos and destruction.

Putin said in his 2007 address:

We see growing disregard for international law’s basic principles. One state – the United States – has overstepped its national boundaries in every sphere.

And, of course, this is extremely dangerous. It results in the fact that no one feels safe. I want to emphasize this – no one feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them.

Nearly two decades later, Putin’s condemnation has only grown ever more relevant to describe today’s world of unbridled U.S. barbarism. “The vampire’s ball is over,” he added in a 2024 interview with Dmitry Kiselev.

A major part of the problem has been the impunity and vassalage that Western states have afforded the empire. As with the Epstein scandal and its evil, the West has indulged to the point where the system is out of control and is a threat to all.

The Munich conference, like Davos, the G7, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, and other gatherings of the Western elite, is all about suppressing the truth so that there is no accountability for the crimes and sins of Western capitalism and its imperialist violence.

But a day of reckoning is coming as the obscenities of Western power become increasingly exposed.

February 15, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Munich, 2007: The Day the West Was Told No

The Islander | February 13, 2026

They like to pretend it came out of nowhere.

They like the bedtime story: Europe was peacefully humming along in its post-history spa — open borders, cheap energy, NATO as a charity, Russia as a gas station with a flag… and then, one day, the barbarian kicked the door in for no reason at all.

That story is not just dishonest. It’s operational. It’s the propaganda you tell yourself so you can keep the addiction going without ever admitting how self-destructive it is.

Because the truth is uglier and far more incriminating:

In Munich, on February 10, 2007, Vladimir Putin stood on the most flattering stage the Atlantic system owns — the Security Conference where Western officials applaud themselves for maintaining “order” and he laid out, to their faces, the skeleton of the coming disaster. He didn’t whisper it in a back channel. He used the microphone to deliver some much needed medicine, however hard it would be for the Empire to swallow.

He even signaled he wasn’t going to play the usual polite theatre — the kind where everyone agrees in public and stabs each other in classified annexes. He said the format allowed him to avoid “pleasant, yet empty diplomatic platitudes.”

And then he did the unforgivable thing, (gasp!) he described the empire as an empire.

He named the unipolar intoxication — that post–Cold War hallucination that history had ended, that power had found its final owner, that NATO could expand forever without consequences, that international law was optional for the enforcer class and compulsory for everyone else.

Putin’s core argument was brutally simple: a unipolar model is not only unacceptable, it’s impossible.

Not “unfair.” Not rude. Impossible.

(Because in a world with) “one center of authority, one center of force, one center of decision-making” is a world where security becomes privatized — where the strong reserve the right to interpret rules (with exemptions for themselves), and the weak are told to accept it as morality. (And yes, he put it in exactly those terms — one center, one force, one decision — the architecture of domination.)

And when you build that kind of world, everyone else does the only rational thing left: they stop trusting the wall of law to protect them, and they start arming for survival.

Putin said it outright: when force becomes the default language, it “stimulates an arms race.”

This is where the Western client media — professionally disengious as ever, clipped one or two spicy lines and missed the larger point: Munich 2007 wasn’t “Putin raging.” It was Russia publishing its redlines in front of the class.

And then came the part that should have frozen the room. Putin named it – NATO expansion.

Putin didn’t argue it as nostalgia. He argued it as provocation — a deliberate reduction of trust. He asked the question no Western leader ever answers honestly:

“Against whom is this expansion intended?”

And then he drove the blade in: what happened to the assurances made after the Warsaw Pact dissolved? “No one even remembers them.”

That line matters because it goes well beyond grievance — it’s a window into how Russia saw the post–Cold War settlement: not as a partnership, but as a rolling deception. Expand NATO, move offensive infrastructure, then call it “defensive.” Build bases, run exercises, integrate weapons systems, and insist the other side is paranoid for noticing.

Putin’s formulation was clean: NATO expansion “represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.”

Now pause and look at the psychology of the West in that room. They didn’t hear a warning. They heard audacity. They didn’t hear “security dilemma.” They heard “how dare you speak like an equal.”

That’s the cultural glitch at the heart of the Atlantic project: it believes its own core lie and cannot process sovereignty in others without treating it as aggression.

So Munich 2007 became, in Western memory, not the moment Russia told the truth — but the moment Russia “showed its hand.” The implication: Russia’s “hand” was evil, and therefore any response to it was justified. Which is exactly how you sleepwalk into catastrophe.

The real prophecy: not mysticism — mechanics

What was prophetic about Putin’s speech isn’t that he had a crystal ball.

It’s that he understood the West’s incentive structure:

  • A security system that expands by definition (NATO) needs threats by definition.
  • A unipolar ideology needs disobedience to punish, otherwise the myth collapses.
  • A rules-based order that breaks its own rules must constantly produce narrative cover.
  • An economic model that offshore-outs its industry and imports “cheap stability” must secure energy routes, supply chains, and obedience — by finance, by sanctions, by force.

Putin was saying: you can’t build a global security architecture on humiliation and expect it to be stable. Russia had lived through the wreckage of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq and that this playbook would be used again and again, with Georgia, with Syria, Libya, Iran and Russia itself if Putin did nothing.

He was also saying and this is where the Russophobic mass hysteria accelerates — that Russia would not accept a subordinate role in its own neighborhood, on its own borders, under a wannabe hegemon’s military umbrella.

This is where the Western catechism kicks in: “neighborhood” is called “sphere of influence” when Russia says it, and “security guarantees” when Washington says it. And so the hysteria machine warmed up.

You saw it in the immediate reception: Western elites, including Merkel and McCain treating the speech as an insult rather than a negotiation offer. You saw it in the years that followed — the steady normalization of the idea that Russia’s security concerns were illegitimate, and therefore could be ignored with moralistic lectures, free of consequences.

Ignore, expand, accuse, repeat.

That loop is your road to 2022 and to today, in Munich 2026. Groundhog day without learning the vital lessons to end the loop of utter madness.

Munich, Feb 13 (2026): Merz admits the order is dead — and calls it “uncertainty”

Fast forward. Same city. Same conference. Same Western liturgy, just with more panic in the eyes and the nucleus of a terrifying realization.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz using his best perfomative courage, murmured that the world order we relied on is no longer there. Framing the post–Cold War “rules-based order” as effectively crumbled and almost begging for a reset in transatlantic relations.

He goes further: he talks up a stronger European defence posture, and pointed to discussions with France about a European nuclear deterrent concept, a “European nuclear shield.”

And then comes the line that should be carved into the marble of the Munich conference hall as Exhibit A: Merz argues that in this era, even the United States “will not be powerful enough to go alone.”

Read that again.

The BlackRock chancellor on NATO’s spiritual home turf is effectively saying: the empire is overstretched, the illusion of old certainties are gone, and Europe will be left hung out to dry. Talk about strategic vertigo!

And it is exactly what Putin was talking about in 2007: when one axis tries to act as the planet’s owner, the cost accumulates — wars, blowback, arms races, fractured trust, until the system starts to wobble under its own contradictions.

Merz also reported begged the U.S. and Europe to “repair and revive” transatlantic trust. Repair trust with what currency?

Because trust isn’t repaired by speeches. Trust is repaired by reversing the toxic and suicidal behaviors that destroyed it.

And those behaviors were precisely what Putin named in 2007:

  • expanding military blocs toward another power’s borders,
  • treating international law as a menu,
  • using economic coercion as a weapon,
  • and then pretending the consequences are “unprovoked.”

Europe is now gasping at the invoice for that policy set: industrial stress, energy insecurity, strategic dependency, and a political class that can’t admit how it got here without indicting itself.

So instead of confession, you get moral performance. Instead of strategy, you get hysteria and cartoon slogans.

Instead of peace architecture, you get escalation management — the art of walking toward the cliff while calling it deterrence.

Merz’s remarks underscore that Europe is being forced to contemplate a harsher security environment and greater responsibility, all of its own suicidal making — but it still frames the Russia question in the familiar moralizing register.

Which is the whole tragedy: they can feel the tectonic plates shifting beneath them, yet they keep reciting the same old prayers that summoned the earthquake.

Why we’re here: the Western addiction to expansion — and the manufactured Russophobia that lubricated it

Russophobia is more than just bloodthirsty prejudice. It’s the (failed) policy tool of choice of the last few empires against Russia.

It’s what you pump into the Mockingbird media bloodstream to make escalation feel like virtue and compromise feel like treason.

You don’t have to love everything Russia does to see the mechanism: a permanent narrative of Russian menace makes every NATO move sound defensive, every EU economic self-harm sound righteous, and every diplomatic off-ramp sound like appeasement.

It creates a psychological environment where:

  • NATO expansion becomes “freedom,”
  • coups become “democratic awakenings,”
  • sanctions become “values,”
  • censorship becomes “information integrity,”
  • and war becomes “support.”

And once you install that operating system, you can torch your own industry and still call it moral leadership.

That’s the dark comedy of Europe since 2014 — accelerating post 2022: self-sanctioning, deindustrializing pressure, energy price shocks, and strategic submission to Washington’s delusion of carving up Russia, sold as “defending democracy.”

Meanwhile, Moscow reads the West’s behavior the same way it read it in 2007: as a hostile architecture closing in, dressed up as virtue.

Putin’s Munich speech — again, not mysticism — warned that when the strong monopolize decision-making and normalize force, the world becomes less safe, not more.

So what did the West do?

It made the “rules-based order” a brand — while breaking rules (international law) whenever convenient. Exceptionalism at almost biblical levels, God’s chosen people.

It expanded NATO while insisting the expansion was harmless.

It treated Russian objections as evidence of Russian guilt — which is circular logic worthy of an inquisitor.

And it nurtured a media culture that could not imagine Russia as a rational actor responding to a pattern of ugly regime change behavior — only as a cartoon villain driven by pathology. Not analysis but theological warfare.

The punchline Munich won’t say out loud

Here’s the line Munich still cannot speak, even in 2026, even with Merz admitting the old order is gone:

The West didn’t misread Putin’s warning. It rejected it because accepting it would have meant limiting itself.

Munich 2007 was a chance — maybe the last clean one — to build a European security architecture that wasn’t just NATO with better PR. A chance to treat Russia as a Great Power with legitimate interests, not a defeated adversary to be regime changed and broken apart.

And now, in Munich 2026, they stand amid the wreckage and call it “uncertainty,” as if the storm blew in from nowhere. The BlackRock Chancellor calls for resets, for revived trust, for Europe to become stronger, for new deterrence ideas.

But the reset Munich needs is the one it refuses:

  • reset the premise that NATO will remain a viable alliance beyond the war in Ukraine,
  • reset the premise that Russia must absorb strategic humiliation and accept the inverse, the reality as it is – where it’s in fact Western Europe that is wearing the humiliation.
  • reset the premise that international law is a tool of the powerful,
  • reset the premise that Europe’s role is to be the forward operating base and European sovereignty sacrificed to buy the Empire time .

Until that happens, Munich will keep happening — every year, more anxious, more militarized, more rhetorical, more detached from the material reality its own disastrous policies created.

And Putin’s “prophecy” will keep looking prophetic — not because he conjured the future, but because he correctly described the machine.

February 14, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

At The Munich Security Conference, AOC Gets It Wrong On Foreign Policy

The Dissident | February 13, 2026

Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently appeared at the Munich Security Conference- supposedly to showcase her foreign policy knowledge- in what many believe may be the lead up to an eventual presidential run in 2028.

Unfortunately, what AOC showcased was that, while being critical of aspects of U.S. foreign policy, she gets it dead wrong on issues ranging from NATO to USAID to Iran to Ukraine.

Calling To Fund A CIA Cutout

While AOC called out some U.S. hypocrisy around the claim of a “rules-based international order”, she still gave credence to the idea that such a thing even exists, or that the U.S. is concerned with human rights and democracy around the world.

At one panel, she said , “That does not mean that the majority of Americans are ready to walk away from a rules-based order and that we’re ready to walk away from our commitment to democracy.”

This apparently includes support for so-called U.S. “democracy promotion” initiatives such as the CIA cutout USAID, which AOC called to support at two different conferences.

When asked at the aforementioned panel, “Are there any particular institutions that a democratic administration would want to save?”, AOC replied, “ first and foremost, I think we need to revisit our commitments to international aid not just USAID but the the dozens of global compacts that the current secretary of state and President Trump have withdrawn from” adding, “They are looking to withdraw the United States from the entire world so that we can turn into an age of authoritarianisms of authoritarians that can carve out the world where Donald Trump can command the Western Hemisphere and Latin America as his personal sandbox where Putin can saber rattle around Europe and and try to bully around our own allies there.”

At another panel, AOC complained that the Trump administration was playing “hokey pokey with USAD”.

In reality, USAID and other “aid organizations” such as the National Endowment for Democracy are used to meddle in the domestic affairs of countries that do not bow down to U.S. demands, including by attempting to undermine democratically elected governments.

Foreign Policy magazine wrote in 2014 , “Foreign governments have long accused the U.S. Agency for International Development of being a front for the CIA or other groups dedicated to their collapse. In the case of Cuba, they appear to have been right.”

The magazine added, “In an eye-opening display of incompetence, the United States covertly launched a social media platform in Cuba in 2010, hoping to create a Twitter-like service that would spark a ‘Cuban Spring’ and potentially help bring about the collapse of the island’s Communist government” adding, “It was a digital Bay of Pigs, but it was funded by USAID, an arm of the government dedicated to doing good work in bad places, not by the CIA.”

The outlet noted that this was far from the only time USAID has been used as a tool of U.S. regime change, writing:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez frequently and famously accused the United States of covertly trying to overthrow him, but only after his death did evidence emerge to support his seemingly paranoid claims. A WikiLeaks cable released in 2013 outlined the U.S. strategy for undermining Chavez’s government by “penetrating Chavez’s political base,” “dividing Chavismo,” and “isolating Chavez internationally.” The strategy was to be carried out by USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, the same office responsible for developing “Cuban Twitter,” and involved funding opposition organizations in Venezuela.

USAID has also played a role in funding the 2004 coup against Haiti’s elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the 2014 coup against Ukraine’s elected president Viktor Yanukovych, the 2018 coup attempt against Nicaragua’s president Daniel Ortega, and the 2024 judicial coup against Romanian presidential candidate Calin Georgescu.

Claiming NATO Stops Regime Change Wars

At one of the Munich Security panels, AOC claimed that the “Trans-Pacific Partnership”, later clarifying that she meant transatlantic partnership, i.e., alliances like NATO would somehow stop, “the installation of regional puppet governments”.

AOC claimed, “it actually is the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It is our global alliances that can be a hard stop against authoritarian consolidation of power, particularly in the installation of regional puppet governments.”

In reality, the “transatlantic partnership” through NATO, since the end of the Cold War, has done nothing but regime change wars to overthrow unfriendly governments and install puppets.

In 1999, NATO bombed Serbia and Kosovo in what was billed as a humanitarian intervention to save Albanians in Kosovo from the Serbian authorities, but in reality, it was an orchestrated regime change war against Slobodan Milosevic.

As James Bissett, the former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia, explained , “Media reports have revealed that as early as 1998, the central intelligence agency assisted by the British Special Armed Services were arming and training Kosovo Liberation Army members in Albania to foment armed rebellion in Kosovo. The KLA terrorists were sent back into Kosovo to assassinate Serbian mayors, ambush Serbian policemen and do everything possible to incite murder and chaos. The hope was that with Kosovo in flames NATO could intervene and in so doing, not only overthrow Slobodan Milosevic the Serbian strong man, but more importantly, provide the aging and increasingly irrelevant military organization with a reason for its continued existence.”

Following this, NATO intervened in Afghanistan and did exactly what AOC claimed it would prevent: it occupied the country and propped up a puppet government.

Journalist Seth Harp meticulously documented in his book “The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces” that the NATO propped up government led by CIA asset Hamid Karzai was “the world’s leading narco-state, with an economy almost entirely dependent on the drug trade”.

NATO then overthrew Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, one of the key planks in the greater Zionist/Neo-Con clean break plan for greater Israel.

While the intervention was billed as a humanitarian intervention to stop Muammar Gaddafi from slaughtering innocent civilians and to support moderate rebels, a 2015 UK parliament report later admitted that “the proposition that Muammar Gaddafi would have ordered the massacre of civilians in Benghazi was not supported by the available evidence” and “It is now clear that militant Islamist militias played a critical role in the rebellion from February 2011 onwards”.

The CIA then used Gaddafi’s weapons stockpile to further the next regime change war on the “clean break” hit list in Syria with journalist Seymour Hersh reporting that following the fall of Gaddafi, the CIA “authorised a rat line in early 2012” which was “used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition” noting that, “Many of those in Syria who ultimately received the weapons were jihadists, some of them affiliated with al-Qaida”.

Repeating CIA/Mossad Talking Points About Iran

While AOC did oppose bombing Iran at the behest of Israel, she repeated CIA and Mossad talking points without giving vital context before doing so.

When asked, “Would you support direct U.S. military strikes on Nuclear facilities if direct negotiations fail with Iran?” AOC responded, “I think that that is a dramatic escalation that no one in the world wants to see. Right now what the Iranian regime is doing particularly with respect to protesters is a horrific slaughter of some estimates have tens of thousands of people.”

The claims of “tens of thousands of people” killed by the Iranian government during protests comes from biased sources openly supporting war with Iran, such as Amir Parasta a German-Iranian eye surgeon who is a lobbyist for the Israeli opposition puppet Reza Pahlavi and the outlet Iran International, which Israeli journalist Barak Ravid said , “the Mossad is using… quite regularly for its information war”.

In other words, AOC opposing war with Iran but repeating the claim of “tens of thousands dead” is akin to saying in 2002, “I oppose war with Iraq, but Saddam definitely has WMDS”.

Furthermore, AOC missed an opportunity to give some vital context on the protests in Iran.

For one, she did not mention that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent twice boasted that the protests in Iran were caused by U.S. sanctions on the country’s economy, saying:

President Trump ordered treasury and our OFAC division, (Office of Foreign Asset Control) to put maximum pressure on Iran, and it’s worked because in December, their economy collapsed, we saw a major bank go under, the central bank has started to print money, there is a dollar shortage, they are not able to get imports and this is why the people took to the streets.

and

What we can do at treasury, and what we have done, is created a dollar shortage in the country, at a speech at the Economic club in New York in March I outlined the strategy, it came to a swift -and I would say grand- culmination in December when one of the largest banks in Iran went under, there was a run in the bank, the central bank had to print money, the Iranian currency went into free fall, inflation exploded and hence we have seen the Iranian people out on the street.

(Emphasis: Mine)

Furthermore, AOC missed an opportunity to list the mountains of evidence that the CIA and Mossad infiltrated the protests to turn them in a violent and pro-regime change direction.

This includes:

  • A Mossad-connected X account in Persian boasting, “Let’s all come out to the streets. The time has come. We are with you. Not just from afar and verbally. We are also with you in the field.”
  • Former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo wishing a “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them.”
  • Israel’s Channel 14 reporting that “foreign actors are arming the protesters in Iran with live firearms, which is the reason for the hundreds of regime personnel killed.”
  • Former head of the Military Intelligence Directorat in Israel, Tamir Hayma, saying, “There is currently a very significant influence operation by the US” in Iran.
  • The Financial Times reporting that, “Another witness in western Tehran told the FT he saw about a dozen fit men, ‘looking like commandos’, dressed in similar black clothing, running through the area and calling on people to leave their homes and join the protests. ‘They were definitely organised, but I don’t know who was behind them,’ he said.”
  • Mossad connected Israeli journalist Yonah Jeremy Bob cryptically writing , “Only after the air is clear will the full story of the Mossad’s involvement likely be cleared to be told. But when it comes to the Mossad and Iran, there is always far more than meets the eye”.
  • Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu boasting , “When we attacked in Iran during ‘Rising Lion’ we were on its soil and knew how to lay the groundwork for a strike. I can assure you that we have some of our people operating there right now”.

Supporting The Ukraine Proxy War

When asked about the proxy war in Ukraine, AOC said, “there’s no conversation about Ukraine that can happen without Ukraine, and so they of course lead in terms of setting their terms on this, but I think that overall as a principle, we shouldn’t reward imperialism. And I don’t think that we should allow Russia to continue or any nation to continue violating a nation’s sovereignty and to continue to be rewarded”.

This was a strong signal in support of continuing the proxy war in Ukraine.

At no point did AOC mention that in 1997, veteran diplomat George F. Kennan warned that NATO expansion eastward would “be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking” a view he said was “not only mine alone but is shared by a number of others with extensive and in most instances more recent experience in Russian matters.”

Nor did she mention that former U.S. ambassador to Russia, William Burns, warned in 2008 that, “Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face”.

AOC did not mention the Maidan coup in 2014, which, as Ukrainian political scientist Konstantin Bondarenko noted, was carried out because “The West, however, did not want a Ukrainian president who pursued a multi-vector foreign policy; the West needed Ukraine to be anti-Russia, with clear opposition between Kyiv and Moscow. Yanukovych was open to broad cooperation with the West, but he was not willing to confront Russia and China. The West could not accept this ambivalence. The West needed a Ukraine charged for confrontation and even war against Russia, a Ukraine it could use as a tool in the fight against Russia this was why Western politicians, diplomats, and civil society representatives actively supported the Euromaidan (coup against Yanukovych) as a mechanism for overthrowing Yanukovych, even going as far as providing financial support for the ‘revolutionary’ process”.

She similarly ignored the recent bombshell admission from Biden Administration official Amanda Sloat, who said :

We had some conversation even before the war started, about what if Ukraine comes out and just says to Russia, ‘fine, you know, we won’t go into NATO if that stops the war, if that stops the invasion,’ which at that point it may well have done.

I guess if you want to do an alternative version of history, one option would have just been for Ukraine to say in January of 2022, ‘fine, you know, we won’t go into NATO, we will stay neutral.’ Ukraine could have made a deal around March/April of 2022 around the Istanbul talks

There is certainly a question, almost three years on now, would that have been better to do before the war started, would that have been better to do in Istanbul talks, it certainly would have prevented the destruction and the loss of life.

Nor did AOC mention the fact that Russia and Ukraine agreed to end the war in April of 2022, but the deal was blocked by then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the behest of the collective West.

Through all of her answers, AOC showed she is not serious about being anti-war and will undoubtedly give in to the foreign policy establishment on many issues.

February 14, 2026 Posted by | Book Review, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Europe Decided to Go to War With Russia by 2030, Already Preparing – Orban

Sputnik – 14.02.2026

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday that Europe has decided to go to war with Russia by 2030 and that preparations are already underway in certain European countries.

“Europe has decided that it will go to war [with Russia] by 2030. Not that it wants to, might, or plans to – it has decided. It has made the decision,” Orban said.

Preparations for war are being carried out across Europe, except in Hungary and Slovakia, he added.

“Nine [European] countries already have compulsory military service. In some places, it also applies to women. The population is being sent instructions on what to do in the event of war. Military spending has risen sharply. Agreements have been signed to send troops to Ukraine,” he said.

In recent years, Russia has noted unprecedented NATO activity near its western borders. The alliance has expanded its initiatives, describing them as measures to deter alleged Russian aggression. Russian authorities have repeatedly expressed concern over the buildup of NATO forces in Europe. The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that Russia remains open to dialogue with NATO on an equal footing, provided that the West abandons its course toward militarizing the continent.

February 14, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

NATO plotting maritime blockade of Russia – Moscow

RT | February 14, 2026

NATO countries are plotting an illegal maritime blockade of Russia, particularly in the Baltic and the Arctic regions, Moscow’s ambassador to Norway, Nikolay Korchunov, has said.

In an interview with RIA Novosti published on Saturday, Korchunov accused the bloc’s members, including Norway, of “putting the Baltic-Arctic region on a barrack-like footing” by holding a series of exercises. This, he added, is aimed at “restricting freedom of navigation and violates international law norms.”

According to the envoy, NATO is also developing plans for “a partial or complete naval blockade” of Russia. In addition, such NATO members as Norway, Sweden, and Finland “are working together to increase military mobility through the development of transport and logistics corridors from west to east, as well as through cross-border use of bases and other military infrastructure.”

These preparations increase tensions and represent a direct threat to Russia’s national security and would force Moscow to take countermeasures, Korchunov warned.

His remarks come after Bloomberg reported on Friday that UK Defense Secretary John Healey had met with counterparts from Baltic and Nordic nations on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference to discuss seizing Russia-linked oil tankers.

In recent months, Western countries have detained several Russia-linked cargo vessels under various pretenses. Moscow has consistently condemned the seizures as “piracy” and a blatant violation of international maritime law.

Last year, Russian presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev warned that NATO is seeking to undermine Moscow’s economy by considering a blockade of the country, including by paralyzing Russian ports in the St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad regions. He also pointed out that the bloc is seeking to turn the Black and Baltic Seas into “internal waters of the alliance,” adding that Moscow is preparing countermeasures in response.

February 14, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia more adapted to contemporary military technology than NATO

By Lucas Leiroz | February 13, 2026

Apparently, NATO officials are beginning to admit that the organization is not in a position of military superiority over the Russian Federation. In a recent statement, a senior NATO official admitted that Russia has an advantage in adapting to new forms of warfare and military technology, warning of the Western alliance’s obsolescence.

The warning was issued by Admiral Pierre Vandier, who holds the position of NATO’s technological transformation commander. He commented on how world powers adapt to ever-changing military technologies and made it clear that Russia has greater adaptive capacity than NATO.

Vandier described NATO as “static and predictable.” According to him, the bloc fails to perceive in time the constant changes in the global military and geopolitical scenarios. He draws special attention to the issue of military technology, warning how the bloc is still bound to an outdated mentality about combat technology – which proves useless on the battlefield in contemporary conflicts. Meanwhile, Russia is perfectly adapted to the new reality of war, knowing how to use technology satisfactorily in the pursuit of its strategic objectives.

“Russia is very good at adapting and probably better than we are today (…) We have been very static, very predictable,” he said.

In fact, Vandier is merely admitting something that has already been commented on by many military analysts over the past four years: NATO’s inability to understand how to correctly use military technology in a combat context. What appears to be happening is a conflict of mentalities and ideologies. Russia prioritizes the military objective and how technology can help achieve it, while, on the other hand, NATO prioritizes profit and the impact on public opinion generated by technological development.

This logic is strongly aligned with the military, political, and economic principles that guide Russia and NATO. As a pragmatic state focused on achieving its strategic interests, Russia is concerned with developing military technology aimed at ensuring the rapid neutralization of the enemy and sparing as many Russian soldiers’ lives as possible. This is deeply aligned with the illiberal mentality of the Russian Federation at the political and economic levels.

On the other hand, the Collective West continues to guide its decision-making process with a mentality typical of the post-Cold War period, when neoliberal ideology became hegemonic. At that time, without worthy competitors, the West no longer prioritized clear strategic objectives, but rather technological development for financial and media purposes.

Since then, Western countries have developed extremely expensive military hardware, often designed by civilian specialists with no connection to the military sphere, with the sole objective of generating an impact on public opinion, inflating the price of the equipment and selling it to client states, creating relationships of economic dependence and indebtedness.

This has been a recurring issue in Ukraine in recent years. The fascist regime in Kiev has imported Western military technology described as “advanced,” when in fact it is merely overpriced hardware, fueled by Western financial economies. These technologies are designed to impress and sell, not to defeat the enemy in a real combat situation. The result is being seen in the special military operation: cheap Russian drones obliterating tanks, missile launch systems, and all types of “sophisticated” equipment imported from the West.

The warning issued by Vandier is important for Western countries if they truly want to adapt to the circumstances of an increasingly polycentric and multipolar world. The 1990s are over, the neoliberal era no longer exists, and the West now has worthy enemies. Russia, China, Iran, India, and other emerging countries maintain strong industrial economies capable of producing military technology on a massive scale – and they are not guided by liberal principles that prioritize profit and media impact.

However, despite the warning, it is unlikely that this situation will change. The West is not governed by politicians interested in what is best for their countries, but by transnational financial elites interested only in their own selfish gains and unconcerned with any strategic issues. For these elites, the more useless military technology is produced, overpriced, sold and discarded, the better – since this way they will continue to profit, regardless of the real military benefit to the West and its client states.

The best thing that can be done in the West is to dismantle NATO and decouple individual states from these transnational elites, creating sovereign governments focused on their real strategic interests.

Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.

You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.

February 13, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Germany puts caveat on more missiles for Ukraine

RT | February 13, 2026

Germany is willing to supply five interceptor missiles for US-made Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine, but only if other European countries agree to provide 30 more, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has said.

It usually takes two Patriot missiles, priced from to $3.5 to $5 million each, to intercept a single target. Russia deploys dozens of missiles and hundreds of drones in its airstrikes on Ukraine.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov asked for more munitions for the air defense systems during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, also known as the Ramstein group, in Brussels on Thursday.

Vladimir Zelensky previously blamed the lack of supplies by Kiev’s Western backers for Ukraine’s inability to repel Russian attacks on military and dual-use infrastructure, which led to rolling blackouts in major cities. “There will be no light because there are no missiles for defense,” he said.

Following the meeting in the Belgian capital, Pistorius told journalists that he made a “spontaneous proposal” to his European partners to provide 35 additional Patriot interceptors to Ukraine.

The European governments have not yet approved the 30+5 formula, the minister said, but added that he is “very optimistic” about it.

If it’s accepted, “it’s a matter of days and not a matter of weeks or months” before Kiev receives the missiles, he added.

UK Defense Minister John Healy said members of the group agreed a total of $35 billion in new military aid to Kiev. The UK will also allocate £500 million ($682 million) for urgent supplies of air defense systems, he added.

The Russian military said on Thursday that it conducted another attack on Ukraine, hitting 147 targets, including an airfield, military infrastructure facilities, bases, and foreign mercenary camps.

The strike was a response to Kiev’s “terrorist attacks” inside Russia, it stressed. It came a day after the Ukrainian military launched hundreds of drones as well as US-made HIMARS missiles and glide bombs targeting civilian infrastructure in several Russian regions.

Moscow has warned against Western weapons deliveries to Kiev, arguing that they will not prevent Russia from achieving its goals in the conflict, but will only prolong the fighting and increase the risk of a direct clash between Russia and NATO.

February 13, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Japan to Sign Up For NATO’s Ukraine Arms Pipeline

Sputnik – February 10, 2026

Japan has allegedly pledged significant financial support for Ukraine, and committed to providing specialized equipment, with reports indicating long-term assistance.

Doubling down on its US-pushed militarization drive, Japan is moving closer to NATO by signing on to the alliance’s Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU) program, which facilitates the flow of military equipment to Ukraine, according to NHK.

Sources cited by the outlet claim Japan will soon officially announce its participation in the initiative, announced during the NATO Summit in July 2024 and headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany.

The equipment that Japan is expected to procure for Ukraine reportedly includes body armor, vehicles, and, potentially, radar systems.

The NSATU mechanism coordinates the donation of military equipment from Allied and partner nations to Ukraine’s armed forces, aligning their capabilities with NATO standards.

Russia has repeatedly argued that Western weapons shipments to Ukraine undermine any prospects for a negotiated settlement and amount to NATO’s direct involvement in the conflict. Russia has also warned that convoys delivering arms to Ukraine would be treated as legitimate military targets.

February 10, 2026 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

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