RT | June 5, 2026
America’s position on the Ukraine conflict has become almost indistinguishable from that of the EU, making US President Donald Trump’s stated ambition to mediate an end to the fighting hollow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has told RT.
Trump repeatedly blamed the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on his predecessor, Joe Biden, and claimed that he could bring it to a swift conclusion while campaigning in 2024.
However, recent statements by members of his administration suggest a different course, Lavrov said on Thursday in an interview on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
“Biden’s war has become Trump’s war,” the Russian foreign minister said.
Speaking to Congress this week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said efforts to facilitate Russia-Ukraine talks were complicated “because, frankly, we’re not an impartial mediator.” He cited the continuation of the sanctions on Russia and sales of US weapons to Ukraine.
“After we agreed to the United States proposal in Anchorage [in August 2025], Washington began to shift its position. Instead of advancing those same proposals in its dealings with Ukrainians, it is now pretending that the parties should sort things out themselves. This is not a very consistent position,” Lavrov said.
“It is the West that cannot be trusted to keep its agreements. Its approach is: ‘I’ll promise something now, then stall for time.’ If the US had truly advanced its own initiative, I think… the fighting would already have stopped.”
According to Lavrov, the only major difference between Trump’s policy and that of Biden and the EU is that his administration resumed direct talks with Russia. Dialogue is important, he said, but it must be matched by action on commitments already made. … Full video interview
Sputnik – 02.06.2026
Russia’s FSB has uncovered a foreign spy operation using malware implanted on the smartphones of high-ranking Russian officials. The goal? To extract data, eavesdrop on conversations, and covertly monitor the situation.
But here’s what the headlines won’t tell you.
How the US is weaponizing the global digital backbone — a threat to the entire world
Think of Fastly and Cloudflare. These aren’t basement startups. They are the largest CDN (content delivery network) providers and “security perimeter” operators on the planet. They serve half of the Fortune 500, EU and Asian government websites — including, for example, the official site of the British government, major EU institutions, and critical financial infrastructure spanning the world’s democratic nations.
In plain terms: they are the infrastructural spine of the internet. When you access a government service, a bank, or a news outlet in most of the Western world, your data almost certainly passes through their networks.
This brings up an uncomfortable question: if these companies permit US intelligence agencies to embed spyware code within their services, can anyone still trust American cloud technology?
Because this is not a hypothetical. The FSB’s revelation about malware on Russian officials’ smartphones is just one thread. The larger fabric is this: the US has spent years building legal frameworks — from the Patriot Act to the Cloud Act — that compel American tech companies to cooperate with intelligence agencies, often in secret. FISA warrants, National Security Letters, and classified directives turn cloud infrastructure into a surveillance platform.
Fastly and Cloudflare are not rogue actors. They are deeply integrated into the US national security apparatus. And if the backbone is compromised, every node connected to it becomes a potential target — whether in Moscow, Berlin, or New Delhi.
Is this merely one hack? Hardly. This is systemic betrayal — plain and simple.
The same digital spine that guards the West also feeds allies, neutral nations, and every global power. Break that trust — and the internet shatters. So, get ready for national clouds. Localized walls. Sovereign webs. Welcome to the fragmentation that the open internet promised would never happen.
So when Washington lectures the world about “rules-based order” in cyberspace, the rest of the world is now asking: whose rules? And who is watching the watchers?
Here’s the real takeaway: American tech’s reputation just took a devastating hit. The same internet giants that run global communications stand accused of spying — not on enemies, but on their own allies.
And when the internet’s backbone is no longer solid or trustworthy, the entire digital world turns into a battleground.
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 2, 2026
The murder of 21 Russian students at a college dormitory on May 22 has yet to be fully understood in terms of the exact involvement of NATO states.
The university building in Starobelsk, Lugansk, was attacked in the early hours of the morning with 16 drones in three consecutive waves of assault. The targeting of the dormitory was deliberate. There were no Russian military installations in the vicinity.
NATO’s involvement in this act of terrorism is on multiple levels. Ukraine’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles has ramped up in recent months, in line with the massive financial support provided by the European Union in the form of a €90 billion loan, most of which is dedicated to boosting Ukraine’s drone arsenal, with European manufacturing companies working in partnership.
At another level, the Western corporate news media have largely ignored the Starobelsk atrocity and NATO’s involvement. The Western media have distorted the de facto war crime by highlighting implausible denials from the Ukrainian regime. In short, covering up.
At yet another level is the new and remarkable efficiency of Ukrainian-launched drones to evade Russian air defenses. Since the conflict in Ukraine escalated in 2022, NATO intelligence from satellite surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft has been supplying the Kiev regime with targeting data to attack Russian units.
But in recent months, NATO information flow and data analysis have taken a quantum leap regarding targeting range and lethality. Thus, the close partnership between Ukrainian and NATO drone manufacturing is amplified by the involvement of U.S.-based Palantir Technologies in operating systems.
Palantir was cofounded in 2003 by German-U.S. billionaire Peter Thiel. It has grown to become the “brains” behind operating weapon systems for the Pentagon, as well as the Israelis in their genocide in Gaza and Lebanon, and aggression towards Iran.
Palantir’s CEO Alex Karp visited Kiev on May 12, where he met with the regime leadership to firm up military partnerships for using Artificial Intelligence in attack drones. Karp was ecstatic about the global business opportunities accruing to Palantir by using the Ukraine war as a laboratory for developing technology.
He boasted that his company’s software was the “operating system” for Ukraine’s military deploying against Russia. Significantly, the Palantir boss remarked that the real-time learning and development of his company’s systems were giving Palantir a huge commercial advantage that could not be achieved in peacetime laboratories. In other words, the killing fields of Ukraine are plugging into Palantir’s profitability and global status as a company.
“It’s our software primitives or infrastructure and your people building things that are completely different from what we would have ever built on top of this,” Karp said in an interview with Ukrainian media.
“You’re doing it on the battlefield with a very small number of people and then showing the world how these things work.”
This strategic collaboration between the Kiev regime and Silicon Valley’s hottest company was also revealed in an exclusive report this week by CNN. The CNN report did not mention Palantir by name, but screenshots reposted clearly showed that the Ukrainian drone operators were using the company’s PRISMA software. As reported, the software allows the processing of vast amounts of aviation and radar data in seconds, which is then used to deploy drones that evade Russian air defense systems and hit deep inside Russia.
The success of Ukrainian-NATO drones to strike deep inside pre-war Russian territory has improved dramatically. The air strikes have reportedly damaged 24 out of a total of 33 of Russia’s top oil refineries. Last month alone, it was reported that six refineries were hit, as well as major fuel depots. The installations, such as at Saratov and Volgograd, are hundreds of kilometers inside Russia. The disruption in fuel supplies has necessitated the Kremlin’s imposition of rationing on public purchases.
Palantir’s data processing and AI are such that interception of Ukrainian drones by Russian air defenses is incorporated into the targeting programs, which permits subsequent drone waves to circumnavigate anti-aircraft systems. This feedback loop brings new challenges for defense systems.
The increase in EU and NATO drone funding and technology would account for the quantitative surge in attacks on Russian territory. The complicity of NATO states, primarily the Baltic states, in lending their territories as launch sites is also a factor. The NATO propaganda machine, too, plays a role in minimizing the civilian deaths and thereby blindsiding European and American public opposition to a dangerous provocation and escalation of war with Russia.
But the involvement of Palantir in increasing the kill machine is another crucial qualitative dimension in the escalation, whereby Ukrainian-NATO drones are evading Russian defenses and increasing their capability at hitting its deep interior and vital infrastructure.
The massacre at the Starobelsk college in Lugansk points to the systematic involvement of Palantir in executing such a deadly attack.
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov (2010-14) expressed his astonishment at how 16 drones were able to penetrate Russian air defenses and hit the college in three waves. Azarov told Tass, the Russian news agency: “I think [NATO countries] are involved. Because, first, the drones that were sent flew right past all Russian air-defense systems, which means that someone guided them through. And you can only guide them if you have space reconnaissance data – it was a whole wave of 16 drones, and they passed by air-defense systems. It means they were guided through, solely thanks to the intervention of Western intelligence agencies. I think that, strictly speaking, they [NATO states] were behind this provocation,” he said.
Azarov did not mention Palantir per se. But the complex navigation ability of the NATO drones to thread through layers of Russian defense is the very kind of qualitative edge that the American software company is giving to the Ukrainian operators.
The other grave implication is that the extensive mapping of Russian targets, from oil refinery installations to fuel depots, suggests that the information supplied by the NATO “brains” has a detailed picture of what is being targeted. There is no way that the air strikes on a college dormitory could be confused with military installations that are not even present in the area.
That means Palantir and its multi-billionaire bosses like Alex Karp and Peter Thiel have blood on their hands, no matter how much they scrub their hands at their company’s newly opened office in Kiev.
In a perverse sidenote, Thiel, who was a friend of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, has a personal interest in the topic of the Anti-Christ, traveling the globe delivering exclusive lectures to wealthy audiences about Armageddon and the end of times. It’s not clear what his exact views are on manifestations of the Anti-Christ. But the murder of teenage student girls sleeping in their beds should surely be relevant to his lectures.
Sputnik – 02.06.2026
The US is weighing whether to expand NATO’s nuclear-sharing framework by inviting more alliance members to host American dual-capable aircraft—warplanes configured to deliver nukes, reports the Financial Times.
At present, the arrangement includes Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkiye and the UK.
Under its terms, the US retains full custody of the nuclear warheads, which are stored at select European bases, while allied air forces train for nuclear deterrence missions using aircraft such as the F-35, F-15, and Tornado.
The discussions are reportedly driven in part by a need to reassure European allies of Washington’s enduring commitment to NATO’s nuclear deterrent—even as the US scales back some conventional troop deployments on the continent and pushes allies to shoulder more defense responsibility.
The talks remain at an early, highly confidential stage, with no imminent decisions anticipated.
Nevertheless, nations on NATO’s eastern flank—notably Poland and several of Russia’s neighbors—have already signaled interest in a possible expansion of the nuclear-sharing deal.
Russia has repeatedly cautioned that any deployment of nuclear-capable assets close to its borders would be seen as a destabilizing factor, and a direct threat to its national security.
Sputnik – 02.06.2026
MOSCOW – Russia is concerned about Ukraine’s mounting terrorist activity in the Black Sea, which is raising risks for civilian shipping, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Tuesday.
“We are concerned about the noticeable escalation of terrorist activity in the Black Sea by Ukraine, which leads to a deterioration of conditions and an increase in risks to civilian shipping,” Zakharova said in a statement.
On May 29, the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced that a drone had attacked a Turkish-owned vessel in the Black Sea, injuring two people. Ankara said it had conveyed its concern to all parties about a possible escalation in the region.
Ukraine’s military stages bandit raids on Black Sea ships with drones and unmanned boats — then pins the attacks on Russia, the spokeswoman said.
“These attacks on civilian commercial vessels have once again shown that the Kiev junta has complete disregard for the principles and norms of international law — preferring instead to deny any involvement in the incidents,” Zakharova said.
The spokeswoman branded Ukraine’s Black Sea provocations outright banditry — and warned that organizers and perpetrators alike will have to answer for these criminal acts.
“We believe such provocations — which are nothing but terrorist acts — must be the subject of a thorough, impartial investigation, receive a clear public response, and face condemnation from all coastal states that bear special responsibility for navigation safety in the Black Sea,” Zakharova stressed.
Neutralizing Black Sea security threats is crucial to any full crisis settlement, the diplomat noted.
“We confirm our readiness for close cooperation with Ankara in the interests of finding optimal ways to stabilize the Black Sea’s maritime space and exert effective influence on Kiev,” Zakharova added.
RT | June 1, 2026
Moscow accused France and the UK of engaging in an act of “piracy” after French and British naval forces intercepted and diverted a cargo ship sailing from Russia’s Murmansk to Cameroon in international waters.
The vessel, Tagor, was stopped on Sunday, more than 400 nautical miles off the coast of Brittany, according to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. French authorities claim the ship was operating under a “false” flag.
In a statement on Tueday, Zakharova said the Russian Embassy in Paris has demanded full information concerning the circumstances of the detention, warning that the operation violated international maritime law. She also stated that Moscow is taking measures to protect Russian crew members aboard the vessel.
The spokeswoman rejected France’s justification for the operation, which cited Article 110 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The provision allows warships to board and inspect vessels on the high seas under limited circumstances, including when a ship is suspected of having no nationality.
However, international maritime law does not permit a warship to compel a vessel to alter course and escort it from international waters to a national port, according to Moscow.
Zakharova also dismissed French President Emmanuel Macron’s insinuation that the ship was violating “international sanctions,” arguing that only restrictions approved by the UN Security Council qualify as international sanctions. Unilateral measures imposed by European states cannot be considered international under law, she said.
The spokeswoman accused European governments of selectively interpreting legal norms to suit their interests, while cautioning that attempts to enforce sanctions in areas governed by freedom of navigation could have broader consequences for global shipping.
She added that many vessels operating in the interests of European countries sail under so-called flags of convenience, cautioning that extending such enforcement practices to the high seas could prove costly for international maritime trade.
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – May 30, 2026
Prof. Glenn Diesen on Neutrality Studies – May 30, 2026
NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine is morphing into a direct EU-Russia war. And the war hawks in Brussels are further escalating by attacking civilians in the Donbas and Russia proper. The doves in the Kremlin are running out of options to keep their own hawks under wraps. As things stand now, an all-out EU-Russia war is not only a possible, but by now a likely scenario. But to what end?
RT | May 30, 2026
Croatian President Zoran Milanovic broke ranks with other NATO members as he slammed Lithuania’s foreign minister for his “irresponsible” call to attack the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
Milanovic’s comments came after Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys called NATO the “strongest organization ever created” last week, arguing for a more assertive posture toward Russia and saying European NATO members must turn “fear of the threat into a sense of empowerment.”
“We have to show the Russians that we’re capable of penetrating the small fortress they’ve built in Kaliningrad,” he said. “NATO has the capability, if necessary, to raze Russian air defenses and missile bases there to the ground.”
Speaking on Thursday at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the creation of the Croatian Army, Milanovic called out the remarks.
“Equally irresponsible, turning now to our own camp, are the calls and appeals I hear week after week from high-ranking officials of certain Baltic states to attack Kaliningrad Region… Such things should not be said,” he said.
He went on to warn that NATO’s principle of solidarity should not be unconditional: “Readiness to come to someone’s vital assistance on the one hand also presupposes responsibility on the other.”
Following the backlash, Budrys walked back the tone but not the substance, claiming that his remarks were not aimed at Russia but at audiences “less familiar with military matters,” and were intended to counter what he called Moscow’s narrative of Kaliningrad as an impenetrable fortress.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda called the interview “not the most successful statement.” Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene urged restraint in public comments.
Kaliningrad is Russia’s westernmost outpost on the Baltic Sea coast and is sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland, with no land connection to the mainland part of the country. Formerly known as Koenigsberg and the capital of the German province of East Prussia, it was ceded to the Soviet Union after the end of World War II.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and NATO’s expansion, Kaliningrad became surrounded by the bloc from all sides.
Budrys comments triggered a sharp rebuke in Moscow, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling the remarks “borderline crazy” and a sign of “maniacal” hostility toward Russia.
Asked on Thursday whether NATO could attack Kaliningrad, President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia “has all the means to raze to the ground anyone who tries to do so.”
Al Mayadeen | May 29, 2026
Russia and several of its regional allies called on Armenia to hold a referendum “as soon as possible” on potential membership in the European Union, as tensions continue to grow over Yerevan’s expanding ties with Brussels.
Speaking during a summit in Astana on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Armenia would ultimately have to choose between deeper integration with the EU or remaining within the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).
“Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan himself said that he considers it right to hold a referendum on this issue,” Putin said. “We would like this to be done as soon as possible.”
Russia warns against dual alignment
In a joint statement issued alongside the leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, Moscow warned that Armenia’s pursuit of EU membership could pose “significant risks” to the economies of EAEU member states.
The statement emphasized that Armenia should clarify whether it intends to remain within the Eurasian bloc or pursue integration with European institutions.
Putin argued that participation in both systems simultaneously would be difficult to sustain, saying it was “impossible to reconcile the two.”
Armenia deepens Western ties
The pressure from Moscow comes as Armenia continues gradually distancing itself from Russia following years of tensions over regional security issues and the conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan.
In 2024, Armenia froze participation in aspects of its Russia-led security alliance, accusing Moscow of failing to adequately support Yerevan during confrontations with Azerbaijan.
The Armenian government later passed legislation declaring its intention to seek eventual EU membership, further straining relations with the Kremlin.
Under Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia has pursued what officials describe as a policy of “diversification,” aimed at balancing ties between Russia and Western powers.
Despite growing cooperation with the EU, Armenia remains formally part of the Eurasian Economic Union, the Moscow-led economic bloc that includes several former Soviet republics.
Regional competition intensifies
The dispute reflects broader geopolitical competition in the South Caucasus, where Russia’s traditional influence has increasingly faced challenges from Western political and economic engagement.
While Moscow has warned against Armenia drifting toward Western institutions, Armenian officials have argued that expanding relations with Europe does not necessarily require severing ties with Russia.
Putin nonetheless stated that any decision taken by Armenia would not undermine humanitarian or political relations between Moscow and Yerevan.
RT | May 29, 2026
Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for an “objective investigation” into a drone incident in Romania in which two people were injured. Moscow is ready to share its assessment if it is provided with either the debris of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or the data about it, he told journalists on Friday.
A drone crashed into an apartment block in the eastern Romanian city of Galati near the Ukrainian border early on Friday. The Romanian Defense Ministry claimed the UAV had originated from Russia.
Putin noted that drones have previously crashed in various EU nations, including Finland, Poland, and the Baltic States.
“A short time later, it would emerge that these incidents had nothing to do with Russian aircraft at all. Rather, they involved drones of Ukrainian origin that had gone off course due to electronic warfare… or technical shortcomings,” the president said during his visit to Kazakhstan.
Putin called on the Romanian authorities to share “objective evidence” with Russia, adding that Moscow did the same when the Ukrainian military targeted a Russian presidential residence in a drone strike. “Let them [Romanians] do the same and provide the evidence to us,” he added.
Romanian President Nicusor Dan, who visited the drone crash site on Friday, told journalists that the incident could have been caused by Ukrainian air defenses. According to him, the drone was a part of a group of Russian UAVs deployed against targets in Ukraine.
“Some of them were shot down over Ukrainian territory, and one of them was probably hit above the city of Reni. Its trajectory changed and it came toward Galati,” he said, adding that the Romanian authorities have data on the drone’s movement. According to Dan, the incident was not considered a deliberate attack by Russia but rather the consequence of military operations not far from the Romanian border.
Russia has previously been blamed for drone and missile incidents in EU nations. One of the most high-profile incidents involved an S-300 air defense missile killing two people in Poland not far from the Ukrainian border in 2022.
Kiev was quick to frame the incident as a Russian attack “on the collective security” of NATO while Warsaw eventually determined that the projectile had been fired by Ukraine in a bid to repel a Russian strike on targets inside Ukraine.
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
200 Years of US Interventionism
By MANUEL R. GÓMEZ | CounterPunch | February 27, 2015
… As far back as 1809, Jefferson tried to purchase Cuba. In 1820 he went further; he told Secretary of War J.C. Calhoun that the U.S. “ought, at the first possible opportunity, to take Cuba.” As President, John Quincy Adams predicted that Cuba would fall “like a ripening plum into the lap of the union.” These are but two of many prominent examples of a widespread ambition to annex Cuba, or at least to control its destiny, from very early in U.S. history. After “the West,” Cuba figured as a prominent second place in U.S. expansionist aims from the beginning of the Republic. … Read full article
Aletho News If Americans Knew No Tricks Zone
Aletho News 