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Iran condemns ‘biased’ IAEA, announces enrichment countermeasures

Al Mayadeen | June 12, 2025

Iran has sharply rejected a resolution passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Board of Governors, accusing it of being “politically driven” and “biased”. In a joint statement released Thursday by the Foreign Ministry and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Iranian officials condemned the resolution and unveiled a series of countermeasures aimed at accelerating the country’s nuclear program.

This comes shortly after the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution against Iran on Thursday, claiming Iran was in breach of non-proliferation obligations. The vote passed with 19 countries voting in favor, 3 opposing, and 11 abstaining, according to diplomats cited by Reuters. Two countries were absent and thus did not vote.

The resolution, marking the first formal accusation in nearly two decades that Iran has violated its nuclear non-proliferation obligations, was passed during a closed-door session of the 35-member board. The move, described as “politically motivated” by Iranian officials, was initiated by the United States along with the E3, Britain, France, and Germany.

IAEA resolution lacks ‘neutrality’

The joint statement asserted that Iran remains committed to its obligations under the Safeguards Agreement, adding that no IAEA report to date has ever confirmed any deviation or non-compliance. Iranian authorities described the IAEA’s latest move as lacking “neutrality” and being manipulated by Western powers, particularly the United States, Britain, France, and Germany, to pursue geopolitical goals.

In a direct response, Iran announced the activation of a new uranium enrichment facility at a secure site and plans to upgrade the Fordow nuclear plant by replacing older centrifuges with sixth-generation advanced models.

Iran blasts Western double standards on nuclear disarmament

Iranian officials criticized the IAEA and its Western backers for what they described as selective enforcement of nuclear obligations. The joint statement accused the US and its European allies of reviving “25-year-old allegations” that had already been settled under the 2015 nuclear deal, while turning a blind eye to “Israel’s” undeclared nuclear arsenal and refusal to adhere to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

“The United States, Britain, and France have failed to comply with Article VI of the NPT regarding nuclear disarmament,” the statement read, adding that Germany remains in possession of “inhumane weapons of mass destruction.”

Iran further warned that continued political maneuvering within the IAEA would render any future engagement futile. “This political approach toward Iran, which has always honored its obligations and cooperated extensively with the Agency, forces us to conclude that the path of engagement and cooperation is futile,” the statement asserted.

Iran thanks allies opposing the resolution 

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, strongly condemned the resolution passed Thursday by the IAEA Board of Governors, calling it a politically motivated effort by Western powers to undermine the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.

Baghaei specifically denounced the role of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, accusing them of exploiting the IAEA to “cast doubt on the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.”

He firmly rejected the allegations outlined in the resolution, which he said were based on “baseless and unfounded claims” and stemmed from a political report by the IAEA Director General. The resolution, jointly submitted by the four Western states, was described as “an unjustified, groundless, and cruel move,” aimed at exerting “maximum pressure on Iran to deviate from the legitimate rights and interests of the Iranian people in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”

Baghaei warned that those behind the resolution will be held accountable for its repercussions. “The Islamic Republic of Iran will take proportionate measures in response to this move to secure and protect the interests and inalienable rights of the Iranian nation in benefiting from peaceful nuclear energy,” he said.

He also expressed deep concern over the conduct of the IAEA Director General, criticizing his public statements and what he described as provocative interviews on Iran’s nuclear activities. Baghaei accused the agency chief of undermining the organization’s neutrality, stating that he “must adhere to his missions and duties in accordance with the Agency’s statute.”

Furthermore, the Iranian diplomat extended gratitude to China, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Belarus for issuing a joint statement rejecting the resolution. He praised their “responsible and legal positions” and reaffirmed the Iranian nation’s determination to defend its rights and interests as outlined in the United Nations Charter and the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran’s IAEA representative Najafi slams politicized resolution 

Iran’s representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Reza Najafi, strongly criticized the agency’s recent resolution against Iran, denouncing it as politically motivated and based on unreliable sources. Speaking on Thursday, Najafi warned that such moves undermine the IAEA’s credibility and threaten the rights of member states under its founding charter.

Najafi emphasized that any draft resolution brought forward by the Board of Governors should rely strictly on unbiased, verifiable evidence, not intelligence supplied by specific states with vested interests. “Basing reports on questionable or politicized information undermines the agency’s objectivity,” he stated, in clear reference to data provided by Western governments and the Israeli occupation.

US current approach risks setting a dangerous precedent

He warned that the United States’ current approach risks setting a dangerous precedent, one that could erode trust and cooperation between the agency and its member states. Najafi asserted that such behavior contradicts the IAEA’s stated commitment to impartiality and transparency.

Reaffirming Iran’s position, Najafi made it clear that the Islamic Republic would not tolerate any attempt to erode its sovereignty through international pressure.

“Iran categorically rejects any pressure or mediation that seeks to undermine its sovereignty. We will defend our national interests, independence, and dignity,” he declared.

Politicized resolution in disguise

Najafi also expressed Iran’s outright rejection of what he described as a politicized resolution disguised as a technical safeguard concern, echoing Tehran’s longstanding understanding that the IAEA is being used as a tool for Western geopolitical agendas.

In a pointed warning to the E3, Britain, France, and Germany, as well as the United States, Najafi made it clear that Iran’s response would be firm. “These measures will not pass without consequences. They must take full responsibility for the repercussions and Iran’s strong reaction,” he said.

Kamalvandi: Political pressure will escalate Iran’s nuclear program

Behrouz Kamalvandi, Deputy Head of the Atomic Energy Organization, reinforced the government’s defiant tone, declaring that political pressure would only accelerate Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“It is a strategic mistake to think that political pressure will push Iran to abandon its legitimate positions,” Kamalvandi said, warning that the current approach would “backfire”.

He confirmed that Iran would soon launch a third uranium enrichment facility, in addition to boosting enrichment capacity at existing sites. “We will develop sixth-generation centrifuges and increase uranium enrichment significantly,” he stated.

More Western pressure, more Iranian countermeasures

Iran’s latest response underscores its growing rejection of Western pressure and marks a new phase in the country’s nuclear trajectory, one increasingly independent of multilateral negotiations and oversight mechanisms perceived by Tehran as compromised.

This development comes just days ahead of the sixth round of indirect nuclear talks between Iran and the United States, set to take place this Sunday in Muscat, Oman. The announcement was confirmed by Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who wrote in a post on X: “I am pleased to confirm the 6th round of Iran-US talks will be held in Muscat this Sunday, the 15th.”

Tehran and Washington have held five rounds of talks since April to carve a new nuclear deal to replace the 2015 accord that Trump unilaterally withdrew from during his first term in 2018.

June 12, 2025 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Secret British plans to ‘defeat entire Russian Black Fleet’ revealed in leaks

By Kit Klarenberg · The Grayzone · June 11, 2025

Leaked files reviewed by The Grayzone expose the covert war waged by British intelligence against Russia in the Black Sea, outlining Ukrainian “honey trap” plots along with blueprints for blowing up the Kerch Bridge.

Sensitive documents reviewed by The Grayzone indicate that the United Kingdom is the central architect behind Ukrainian military operations targeting Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Among other explosive findings, the files reveal high-ranking British military and intelligence figures drew up detailed plans to “maximize attrition of [Moscow’s] Black Sea Fleet,” plotted to blow up the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to mainland Russia with fertilizer bombs, and even devised blueprints for a series of submersibles which would allow Ukrainian divers to plant mines on Russian ships and infrastructure.

Further machinations include an explicit “honey trap” plan which called for establishing a brothel secretly run by British intelligence in Crimea. There, Russian-speaking female Ukrainian agents would ply “drunken sailors” from the Russian navy for information.

The schemes were assembled by Project Alchemy, a secret British military planning cell whose existence was first exposed by The Grayzone.

Alchemy’s intelligence-aligned director, Dominic Morris, once embedded with British special forces in Afghanistan while serving as a “political officer” for the UK embassy. The first of the relevant files was sent on April 14, 2022 — the same day Ukraine achieved its most spectacular naval success of the war when it sank Russia’s flagship in the region, the Moskva.

That feat was cheered by Western media, with the New York Times heralding the ship’s destruction as a “signal triumph – a display of Ukrainian skill and Russian ineptitude.” As the previously-unpublished files show, admirers of the operation also included Project Alchemy’s Dominic Morris, who saw an opportunity to “defeat the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet” and immediately began crafting plans to sink the rest of Moscow’s warships.

The destruction of the Moskva purportedly both surprised and panicked the Biden administration, as they apparently didn’t believe Ukraine possessed missiles capable of striking such a target and, according to one mainstream report, “hadn’t intended to enable the Ukrainians to attack such a potent symbol of Russian power.” But the attack apparently convinced the White House and Pentagon to double down on their military support for Kiev – and as the documents show, it had the same effect across the pond.

In response to an April 23, 2022 brief authored by a fellow cell member on the importance of Western powers supporting Ukrainian “land” operations, Morris declared “the sinking of Moskva” meant Kiev should focus predominantly on “maritime” operations instead. After complaining that “apart from a little bit of moving tanks and planes around a peaceful Europe,” NATO was “not doing any fighting,” Morris wrote that he saw a chance for the UK to eliminate every Russian vessel in the region without even going to war.

“You could defeat the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet” with “subthreshold options,” he wrote, referring to gray zone tactics which the British military has officially defined as “all activity up to, but not crossing, the legal definition of armed conflict.” Morris specifically proposed “commando raids” as “a fab subthreshold activity that will scare the shit out of” Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The attack on the Moskva appeared to serve as a catalyst for Alchemy’s “Black Sea Operations,” which were already being assembled within a few hours of the news breaking. In a document dated the same day as the ship sank, Morris boasted that the “current situation in Ukraine gives the West an ideal opportunity to degrade Russian military capability by destroying as much Russian equipment as possible,” and went on to outline a series of multi-pronged and phased operations targeting Russia across the Black Sea. “Inflicting a high casualty rate must continue,” because “lots of dead soldiers returning to the mainland will have a big impact on public opinion” in Russia, Alchemy’s Morris declared.

Project Alchemy also proposed a joint UK-Ukrainian intelligence operation in which “female agents” were surreptitiously inserted into Russian navy “admin posts.” In phase one of the operation, Morris proposed “setting up a bar and brothel” in Crimea to “gain intelligence from drunken sailors,” and serve as a “honey trap” for military and intelligence officers. “The agents must be Russian speakers and attractive, able to manipulate, playing to the weakness of the average Russian male,” he stressed.

In the second phase, Morris proposed an “unconventional option” for blowing up Kerch Bridge, in which “a hijacked Russian flagged bulk carrier loaded with fertiliser rigged with explosives” would be parked under the Bridge and detonated. Morris “assessed this will be a significant kinetic event that will be able to blast four – six pillars on the bridge, rendering it unusable for a long period of time.” Given Kerch Bridge “was Putin’s crowning glory after taking Crimea,” he suggested its total destruction had the potential to foment a palace coup in the Kremlin.

The Kerch Bridge’s collapse, and the infiltration of spies into Crimea, would lay foundations for the third phase: the “main offensive” of seizing the peninsula. Alchemy’s previously established “honey traps” could establish covert “safe houses and weapon stores” in advance of the mission, Morris suggested. Next, “a direct attack against Sevastopol using a tanker fully laden with fuel into Strilets Bay.” This would be “in essence a fire ship creating further panic” and “sending a strong signal to the Russian Navy [that] nowhere is safe in the region.”

Finally, Morris advocated that Ukraine pursue a strategy of “containment” by seeking to “disrupt” and “capture/reflag the [Black Sea Fleet.]” The idea, the Alchemy chief explained, was “to target the Black Sea Fleet with the aim of destroying as many ships as possible,” as Moscow’s warships were “trapped with little places to hide” there. He urged the “use of civilian vessels retrofitted” with British-supplied weaponry, and proposed “ambushes using hijacked Russian ships to lure in a warship to be attacked by portable anti-ship missiles.”

While no such operation ever materialized, Sevastopol has been a consistent target of Kiev’s drone and missile blitzes throughout the conflict. In fact, the “Black Sea Operations” memo identified the Nakhimov Naval Academy in the Crimean capital as an ideal target for such attacks. The institution has been repeatedly rocked by Ukrainian strikes during this period. An incendiary strike on Kerch Bridge did come to pass in October 2022 – and as The Grayzone revealed at the time, it was almost certainly the outcome of blueprints prepared by Project Alchemy.

In a secret memo one month later, Alchemy leader Dominic Morris stated approvingly that the “attack on Kerch” had “hurt” the Russians. Noting that a relatively high-ranking Russian politician was personally dispatched to oversee the Bridge’s reconstruction, Morris claimed this underlined the attack’s political significance to the Kremlin, and added: “It is not an easy repair, they need to replace road [sic] in each direction (ie the one that wasn’t hit) and bad weather is slowing them.”

On April 16, just two days after the Moskva went under, Alchemy’s plans had already morphed into a “CONOPS” – military jargon which the US Department of Defense defines as a “statement that clearly and concisely expresses what the joint force commander intends to accomplish and how it will be done using available resources.” The document, which is entitled “Building Ukraine [sic] Maritime Raiding Capability” and closely matches a secret British presentation previously exposed by The Grayzone, describes the Moskva’s sinking as “a significant blow to Russian naval capability” that left the rest of the Black Sea Fleet “vulnerable to missile attack.”

According to Alchemy, the sinking of more ships would “force the Russian navy farther away from the Ukraine coast or into port, opening the potential for the Ukrainian Navy to launch littoral, inshore, coastal and riverine raiding operations.” The cell noted “the exploitable sea area” was “relatively small” – “just 160 nautical miles from Odessa to Sevastopol as an example,” which was “well within the range of small assault crafts.”

Ukrainian marines and naval forces were to be equipped and trained by the British to allow for “ambushing… Russian engineer and Spetsnaz reconnaissance teams” and “harassing Russian forces in hit and run operations from the waterways.” These teams would also be charged with “[taking] out coastal radar stations,” and thus “blinding Russian forces.” As these stations were “likely to be well defended,” such attacks would “have to be well planned and hit at lightning speed to ensure success and escape,” Alchemy wrote, insisting that “agent[s] already inserted into Crimea” from mainland Russia would “provide intelligence for the naval commandos.”

The battle plans specifically called for Ukrainian commandos to “Hunt and destroy any Russian patrol craft operating in Dniprovska Gulf and conduct beach reconnaissance from Kilburn [sic] Spit to Yahorlyk Bay to identify good landing locations for a larger assault force for a future counter attack.”

The Kinburn spit, a narrow sandbar which comprises the far western end of the Crimean peninsula, has been a frequent target of Ukrainian raids since Russia’s seizure of the territory.

In the document, Alchemy suggested “specialist training for chosen men” who spoke Russian to carry out “covert undercover missions.” They would also receive training in the use of small arms, sabotage “to disrupt civil installations such as electrical substations, railways, cyber, hacking skills, locksmith training, advanced unarmed combat,” and how “to identify high ranking military officers for assignation while off duty in Crimea.”

Ukraine trained in planting limpet mines

A leaked Project Alchemy proposal from September 2022 outlined an elaborate scheme based on input from three unnamed British companies to target Russia’s Black Sea Fleet while harbored in Sevastopol, strike “civilian vessels” used by Russia to move troops and equipment in the Dnipro River, and carry out night-time raids on “other maritime environment [sic] being used” by Russian forces. The planned military campaign was known as “The Tauris Project.”

The document noted that Russia’s Navy “need to refuel and reprovision in-between deployments,” and Sevastopol “is the primary port” for this purpose. According to Alchemy, Sevastopol was the one place Moscow’s Kilo Class submarines were “vulnerable to attack,” because in other areas the crafts were “able to operate with impunity as Ukraine does not possess the subsurface capability to counter the threat.”

In Sevastopol, however, the Black Sea Fleet could “easily be destroyed by combat swimmers delivered covertly” via crewed submersibles that allow divers to deploy underwater covertly, which are known in military parlance as Swimmer Delivery Vehicles (SDVs). As Alchemy explained, “Once the combat swimmers are in the port they can attach limpet mines to [Russian] ships and submarines before slipping silently back to Chornomorsk.”

Alchemy and its unnamed confederates thus designed an SDV “specifically for operating in the coastal area of Ukraine,” with “a superior range to reach Sevastopol from Chornomorsk.” The file suggested these vehicles could also be deployed along riverbanks to “destroy shipping and hit targets out of range of conventional weapon systems” and “provide intelligence on enemy movements.” Dubbed the Tauris 1, it purportedly boasted “state of the art” technology, and was “capable of operating surfaced or submerged.”

The Tauris 1 would reportedly transport “one pilot and navigator plus four combat swimmers to remote locations on covert missions to include, surveillance, infiltration, mine clearance & mine laying,” with a system “designed to be fast when operating on the surface” – at up to 30 knots – and “ultra-quiet when submerged… with a very low radar signature when operating sub-surface at snorkeling depth.” Meanwhile, it could be parked on sea and riverbeds, or automatically surfaced via “a coded ping sequence.”

“We believe that the SDVs will give the Ukrainian Navy a huge advantage in disrupting, destroying key [Russian] assets and wider forces deployed in the south,” the document bragged. It foresaw 24 – 48 Ukrainian Marines and naval personnel being trained over “an eight-week course in a secret location in the UK,” overseen by a technical team and instructors comprising “former SDV pilots and navigators who served in the UK Special Forces community.” This would include “tactical training and limpet mine training.”

Britain exploits Ukraine for Black Sea control

The document predicted it would take a year to construct the Tauris 1 SDVs, at an eye-popping price of £6 – 8 million per vehicle. While there is no evidence that Kiev took Alchemy and its partners up on the proposition, there have been numerous examples of kamikaze Ukrainian commando raids on Russian-held territory, often using jet skis. In addition to the Kinburn Spit, the Tendra Spit, which sits 20 kilometers to its south, has also been a repeat target.

A typically ill-fated raid which took place on February 28, 2024 saw five Ukrainian assault boats immediately come under intensive Russian fire as they approached the Tendra Spit, leaving dozens dead and just one watercraft able to escape the scene.

Even doggedly anti-Russian news outlets in Britain were forced to acknowledge the debacle, with The Telegraph lambasting the operation as a “failure” and noting that it was “not clear what the Ukrainian forces were attempting to achieve.” The suicidal raids have drawn comparisons to Kiev’s calamitous attempt to capture Krynky, which as The Grayzone revealed, was planned and directed by Project Alchemy.

Elsewhere, British-backed attacks on Russia’s forces in the Black Sea have been more successful. In March 2024, following a series of well-publicized sinkings of Russian warships, the UK’s then-Defence Minister Grant Shapps boasted that drones and missiles supplied by London had helped Kiev “lay waste to nearly 30 per cent” of the Russian Navy stationed there. On top of weaponry, it’s likely the Ukrainian strikes relied heavily on targeting intelligence provided by Britain’s RC-135 spy planes, which ramped up surveillance of Russia assets in the Black Sea following the proxy war’s outbreak.

Today, London remains determined to neutralize Russia’s presence in the Black Sea. In January 2025, a defense contractor and British government-funded think tank known as the Council on Geostrategy floated the idea of deploying a British naval task force to the region, to “reshape” its “geopolitics.” The Ministry of Defence then invited “industry partners from NATO, Ukraine, and Five-Eyes countries” to submit designs and plans for “the development of a versatile, fast, and low-observable maritime system designed for operations in Ukraine and beyond.”

Before the month was over, a UK minister confirmed in parliament that in an attempt “to support Ukraine,” the Ministry of Defence had developed two “new uncrewed maritime [systems]” that were “undergoing final testing,” which it dubbed ‘Snapper’ and ‘Wasp.’ The uniquely British obsession with exploiting the proxy war to obliterate Russia’s Black Sea Fleet may seem peculiar, given its relative lack of impact on the battlefield.

However, the true motivation was clearly spelled out in a March 2022 Council on Geostrategy report, which declared that the hostilities in Ukraine meant London’s “stake in the Black Sea region has been elevated.” The paper detailed how control of the region was essential for Britain’s intended “tilt” to the Indo-Pacific, which was laid out in the official July 2021 “integrated review” of UK security and defense strategy. As the Council on Geostrategy explained, “any power controlling the Black Sea would be able to exert significant pressure on the key maritime communication lines from Europe to the Indo-Pacific.”

This February, a spate of explosions was reported on tankers in the Mediterranean which had recently stopped at Russian ports. Italian investigators suspect Kiev was responsible for carrying out at least one of these incidents using limpet mines — the same weapon they were trained to use by British intelligence.

Three years after the Moskva’s sinking, Russia still maintains several naval assets in the Black Sea. However, its fleet is unable to leave the confines of Moscow-controlled waters in the east. Just how much responsibility Britain bears for this feat remains unclear, but Project Alchemy’s files demonstrate a substantial role for the UK since the onset of the war.

Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.

June 12, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Pentagon Puts AUKUS on Ice, Leaving Allies Rattled

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 12.06.2025

The US Defense department is reviewing the 2021 AUKUS submarine deal with the UK and Australia, the Financial Times reported earlier. The review is being led by Elbridge Colby, a senior defense official known for his past skepticism of the pact.

The Pentagon is taking a hard look at its role in the AUKUS alliance to make sure it fits squarely within the Trump administration’s “America First” agenda, according to a Department of Defense spokesperson.

“We’re reassessing AUKUS to ensure this carryover from the last administration aligns with the president’s priorities,” the spokesperson said.

Australia has rushed to say it’s still on board with US defense cooperation, but according to The Australian, the Pentagon’s review is a “major blow” to Canberra.

The Financial Times earlier reported that Washington is weighing a full exit from the AUKUS pact with Australia and the UK.

Announced on September 15, 2021, the AUKUS trilateral partnership between the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia promised to bolster Australia’s fleet with nuclear-powered submarines and increase defense cooperation among countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The deal led to a diplomatic rift between Australia and France after Canberra reneged on a $66 billion contract with Paris to develop 12 advanced conventionally powered attack submarines.

Russia has criticized the trilateral security pact, which focuses on military cooperation and countering China in the Indo-Pacific, as undermining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by transferring nuclear submarine technology to Australia, a non-nuclear-weapon state.

June 12, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

A history of the Zionist lobby in England and the USA

By Bruna Frascolla | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 10, 2025

The voluminous book Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic, by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, was published in late 2024. He wrote a history of the lobby and traced its beginnings to 19th-century England; more specifically, to Anthony Ashley-Cooper (1801 – 1885), 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. The other side of the Atlantic alluded to in the title is, of course, the USA, and the history continues to the present.

Over the centuries, both the British crown and the US government have had tendencies both in favor of and against the lobby. The latter sought to place an Arab monarch as a preferred ally and to keep the Middle East at peace, without the immense disturbances caused by Zionists. During the Cold War, these internal tensions were quite dramatic, since making the “Free World” an unconditional supporter of Israel meant to push the Arabs, with all their oil, to the side of the Soviets.

Since the book is comprehensive, I have chosen a few points to highlight that are specifically from the history of the lobby.

The origins

Since the idea that the Jews should return to the Holy Land is easily found among Puritans (Pappé shows that even President John Adams believed in this), the choice of the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury is due to the fact that he had worked, within the British Empire, for the creation of “a British and Jewish state in the middle of the Ottoman Empire, Palestine” (p. 4). In the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was strong and steady. In a way, then, the Zionist lobby began as a British lobby against the integrity of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1838, under the pressure of Shaftesbury and already with such a purpose, the first British consulate was opened in Ottoman Palestine. For Shafstesbury, “the days of the Ottoman Empire were numbered, and the scramble for its spoils had already begun” (p. 6). Both the earl and the first consul had previously been involved in religious projects, which aimed to interpret the Bible and convert the Jews.

In addition to the religious and geopolitical issues, there was the issue of migration. In the 19th century, Western Europe did not know what to do with the multitude of Eastern Jews fleeing pogroms in the Russian Empire. Therefore, in addition to the eschatological and geopolitical purposes, the creation of a Jewish state would serve as a dumping ground to solve Europe’s migration problem. Furthermore, the 19th century was witnessing the rise of scientific racism, so this concern was motivated by anti-Semitism.

The United States also had an early lobby in the 19th century promoted by Puritans. The most notable result is that these Puritans formed Cyrus Scofield, the author of the Scofield Bible. The faithful who study his edition of the Bible will find many explanatory notes in the Old Testament, and will learn that the Bible is a kind of real estate deed, in which the area of ​​the ancient Kingdom of Israel is owned by the Jews per omnia saecula saeculorum, and that it is the duty of Christians to support the chosen people when they blow up the houses of the Gentiles who live there.

The poor Jews and the leftist phase

Normally, the history of Zionism begins with Herzl and the publication of Der Judenstaat in 1896. By then, much water had already flowed under the bridge among the Puritans. And when Herzl entered the scene, he failed to win over the Anglo-Jewish elites. They considered that the creation of a Jewish state would call into question their loyalty to England, and they saw this as a bad deal.

On the other hand, the poor Jews crowded into the outskirts of London saw Zionism as a chance to change their lives. At that time, socialism and communism were spreading among the urban poor in Europe. Zionism then abandoned the colonialist and capitalist vocabulary of Herzl (who wrote Der Judenstaat to convince a Jewish banker to invest in the new movement) and began to present itself as the socialism of the Jews. Thus, the Poale Zion movement, a labor movement, became a craze among poor Jews in England, and would grow greatly within the Labour Party in the 20th century. Since the English Left is of Puritan formation, combining Jewish socialism with Puritan Christian laborism was like combining fire with gasoline. Only in the second half of the 20th century did the greater visibility of Israel’s crimes bring Labour closer to the Palestinian cause. One of the most prominent figures in this movement was George Galloway, a Scotsman of Irish descent and, for that reason, a Catholic.

Furthermore, in both Europe and the Americas, the idea that Bolshevism was a Jewish conspiracy was widespread, so that every Jew was suspected of communism. It was a burden for a Jew to call himself a communist, so Zionism was the politically correct leftism.

The Israeli Lobby’s Takeover of the United States

One of the questions that most intrigues observers of the issue is: Is Israel an extension of American power in the Middle East, or is it a vampire state that uses American resources to maintain its own project? Pappé’s book points to the second answer, although it makes clear that the neocons (who consider Israel an outpost of their civilization) have their own agenda.

The lobby’s takeover of the United States should make political theorists reflect on the flaws of democracy. In the 1950s, there were the “three I”s of identity politics: Italians, Irish and Israel. The three communities originating from minority religions (Catholicism and Judaism) elected their representatives based on their Italian, Irish or Jewish identity. An exemplary case was that of parliamentarian Fiorello La Guardia, the son of an Italian father and a Hungarian Jew (which makes him Jewish according to halacha), fluent in Italian and Yiddish. Thus, by claiming two identities, he achieved electoral success by garnering the votes of the Italian and Jewish communities. American Jews were great enthusiasts of Israel; and, even if they had no intention of moving there, they demanded that their parliamentarians take measures favorable to the foreign state. Furthermore, the puritanical formation of the United States meant that there was widespread sympathy for the idea of ​​sending the Jews “back” to the Holy Land.

Since the majority of Jews were left-wing, it was common sense that the Democrats had to be pro-Israel, since they depended on the Jewish vote. (Although Kennedy frustrated these expectations.) The party most capable of confronting the lobby would, in principle, be the Republicans.

Nevertheless, opposition to the lobby had been concentrated, since the partition of Palestine, among State Department bureaucrats. They were the ones who wanted to make alliances with Arab monarchies, keep the region stable and prevent the Arab world from getting closer to the Soviet Union. However, stopping the pampering of Israel was difficult in American democracy for two reasons: the aforementioned puritanical affection for Israel and the lobby’s role in campaign financing.

The game began to change within the bureaucracy when Nixon hired the diabolical Henry Kissinger as an advisor. Under his influence, the Arabists in the State Department were replaced by pro-Israel people. Furthermore, also during the Nixon administration, Hans Morgenthau’s political philosophy, according to which states should not care about morality in international relations, became the institutional stance of the United States.

Henry Kissinger and Hans Morgenthau were two German Zionist Jews who went to the United States as refugees. Morgenthau was also an advisor to Ben Gurion during the ethnic cleansing of 1948. The realist Morgenthau made a school of thought and was succeeded by the neo-realist Kenneth Waltz. Regarding the latter, Pappé comments: “His work still constitutes the ideological infrastructure of most studies in international relations research centres in America. From these centres graduated the American diplomats who were selected to conduct the peace process in the Middle East, guided to overlook issues such as justice or morality in the process and to take as few risks as possible. This suited Israel very well and disadvantaged the Palestinians considerably.” (p. 325).

By combining the major pro-Israel actors in the United States, Pappé speaks of an unholy trinity: “Christian Zionism, neoconservatism and the American Jewish lobby” (p. 362). The neocons are a school of thought that is notoriously composed of many ex-Trotskyist Jews, but it is worth noting that this is not exclusive (neither Fukuyama nor Huntington are Jewish).

As for the lobby, AIPAC which takes up many, many pages in the book. This is the most famous lobbying organization in the US and its most notorious activity is financing campaigns for politicians at the beginning of their careers. AIPAC was founded in the 1950s from pre-existing organizations and intended to be bipartisan. It takes money from US donors, sends it to Israel, and Israel decides how to spend it. (I will not go into the details of AIPAC here, but I recommend the documentary The Lobby produced by Al-Jazeera, which is a source for Pappé in the book.) Of the unholy trinity, the only thing left to look at is the Christian Zionists.

Radicalization and televangelists

In the 1980s, after a long hegemony of the socialist and labor left, a right-wing, religious and nationalist coalition came to power in Israel. American Jews, who were mostly leftists, began to distance themselves from the Israeli government. Since AIPAC works in the interests of the Israeli government, and not of the American Jewish electorate, AIPAC ceased to be bipartisan and became right-wing. Thus, instead of focusing on the Jewish population to mobilize American public opinion in favor of Israel, the lobby preferred to focus increasingly on fundamentalist Zionist Christians. This strategy was launched by Menachem Begin and his Likud party in 1977, and the idea was conceived by the young Benjamin Netanyahu, who had just returned from the United States.

During the Reagan era, televangelists emerged, and at the same time foreign policy was thought of in Manichaean religious terms (the Christian West was fighting the great Satan in Moscow, etc.). In this context, televangelists took the lead in Zionist propaganda, saying that being against Israel was being against God. Between 1981 and 1989, writes Pappé, “Netanyahu integrated the Christian fundamentalists into Israeli Hasbara (propaganda)” (p. 311). Perhaps the greatest proof of this integration is the fact that, in occupied Lebanon (1982 – 2000), Israel authorized the opening of a Zionist Christian TV channel that broadcasted televangelists. They were probably targeting the Maronites…

Lobby doomed

In addition to telling the story of the lobby, Pappé points out a puzzle: why, decades after the international recognition of the state of Israel, does the Zionist lobby tirelessly repeat that the State of Israel is legitimate? Both in the preface and in the conclusion, he raises his conjectures. He assumes that propaganda is, in principle, a problem of conscience: Zionist Jews know that Israel is illegitimate, and that is why they lie non-stop. But there is a more serious problem: Israel does what it wants, and no longer cares about public opinion. What is the point of spending so much money to suppress student speech on American campuses, if the opinion of those students is irrelevant? For Pappé, the lobby has taken on a life of its own, and power is intoxicating. Why would a lobbyist give up the influence he has over politicians of left-wing and right-wing parties on both sides of the Atlantic?

Nevertheless, the lobby is doomed to failure because Israel has already decided that it does not care about Western opinion. Thus, in its death throes, the lobby will become increasingly ferocious, seeking to hide reality and maintain power.

June 12, 2025 Posted by | Book Review, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Britain Launches Cross-Border Censorship Hunt Against 4chan

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 11, 2025

The UK government has taken another aggressive step in its campaign to regulate online speech, launching formal investigations into the message board 4chan and seven file-sharing sites under its far-reaching Online Safety Act.

But this is more than a domestic crackdown; it is a clear attempt to assert British speech laws far beyond its borders, targeting platforms that have no meaningful presence in the UK.

The law, which came into full force in April, gives sweeping powers to Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, to demand that websites and apps proactively remove undefined categories of “illegal content.”

Failure to comply can trigger massive fines of up to £18 million ($24M) or 10 percent of global revenue, criminal penalties for company executives, and site-wide bans within the UK.

Now, Ofcom has set its sights on 4chan, a US-hosted imageboard owned by a Japanese national. The site operates under US law and has no physical infrastructure, employees, or legal registration in Britain. Nonetheless, UK regulators have declared it fair game.

“Wherever in the world a service is based if it has ‘links to the UK’, it now has duties to protect UK users,” Ofcom insists.

That phrase, “links to the UK,” is intentionally vague and extraordinarily expansive, allowing British authorities to demand compliance from virtually any website.

This kind of extraterritorial overreach marks a direct threat to the principle of national sovereignty in internet governance. The UK is attempting to dictate the rules of online speech to foreign companies, hosted on foreign servers, and serving users in other countries, all because someone in Britain might visit their site.

According to Ofcom, 4chan failed to respond to its “statutory information requests,” making it one of nine services now under formal investigation.

What this law actually does is push platforms, especially smaller or independent ones, out of the UK entirely.

Already, popular free speech platforms like Gab, BitChute, and Kiwi Farms have blocked UK access, citing the chilling effects of the Online Safety Act.

Rather than making the internet safer, the law is creating a digital iron curtain around the UK, where only government-approved content and services remain accessible.

4chan, long a lightning rod for unfiltered speech and internet culture, has no shortage of detractors. But the platform’s commitment to anonymity and free expression has also made it one of the last places online where users can post without algorithmic throttling or corporate moderation.

It is routinely blamed for hosting “offensive” memes, and conspiracies, yet in nearly every case, the speech in question would be protected under US First Amendment standards.

Rather than respecting these legal differences, the UK is attempting to export its more restrictive model of speech regulation to the rest of the world. The aim is clear: if a platform cannot or will not bend to Ofcom’s demands, it will be blacklisted from the UK internet.

June 11, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

India Spurns Carbon Tax Threat, Promotes Trade and Fossil Fuels

By Vijay Jayaraj | RealClear World | May 24, 2025

Like many developing economies, India faces coercion from the United Nations and Europe to conform to climate policies, especially through the imposition of carbon taxes on imports into their countries. But Delhi is not about to bend to such tactics.

“If they [EU and U.K.] put in a carbon tax, we’ll retaliate,” said India’s Union Minister Piyush Goya at the Columbia India Energy Dialogue in New York City. “I think it will be very silly, particularly to put a tax on friendly countries like India.”

That isn’t a bluff. It’s a moral, strategic, and scientific imperative grounded in realpolitik and economic logic.

India and the U.K. have inked a trade deal that promises to boost bilateral trade by more than $33 billion and increase U.K. gross domestic product and wages by many billions.

On paper, this deal is a triumph for both nations, removing duties on 99% of Indian goods entering the U.K. For India, this means greater market access for textiles, agriculture and manufactured goods – sectors that employ millions and drive economic growth.

Yet, the U.K.’s pending Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) remains in place with no exemptions for Indian steel, cement and aluminum, despite the trade agreement.

Starting January 2027, the U.K. is to impose a levy on these “carbon-intensive” imports, supposedly to compensate for the difference between the U.K.’s domestic carbon tax and India’s lower assessment at home. The tax on imports is to prevent “carbon leakage” — the idea that emissions are “outsourced” to countries with fewer regulations.

This hocus-pocus is nothing more than repugnant virtue signaling that penalizes manufacturers in developing countries for using the very fossil fuels that powered the West’s rise in the 19th and 20th centuries.

India’s export of these products to the EU and U.K. are a critical part of its economic engine. In 2022 alone, 27% of India’s iron, steel and aluminum exports went to the EU.

Yet, the EU’s CBAM, set to take effect in 2026 prior to the U.K. tax, would slap tariffs of 20-35% on these goods.

For Indian exporters, this translates to a steep cost increase. India’s predominantly coal-based blast furnaces have higher carbon intensity of around 2.5-2.6 metric tons of CO₂ emissions per metric ton of steel produced in comparison to the global average of 1.85 metric tons of CO2 . This means a higher CBAM assessment for India.

Profit margins for steel exports could shrink, while aluminum exporters might face a sudden surcharge once indirect emissions from coal power are factored in. Take the case of Tata Steel, which employs over 75,000 people and produces 30 million tons of steel annually. A 20-35% carbon tax under the EU’s CBAM would erode profit margins, forcing layoffs or price hikes that could cost it market share.

India’s dismissal of the climate war on fossil fuels is grounded in necessity and science. Economically, the nation aims to become a $5 trillion economy by 2027, a goal that demands rapid industrialization and infrastructure growth.

Steel, cement, and aluminum are the building blocks of this ambition, used in everything from bridges to skyscrapers, and an important source of export revenue. Fossil fuels, particularly coal, are the lifeblood of these industries, providing the energy needed to keep production costs low and globally competitive.

Coal generates more than 70% of India’s electricity. It powers the factories that make steel and cement. It keeps the lights on in rural hospitals and schools. And it fuels the economic engine that has lifted 415 million people out of poverty in the past two decades.

The modern crusade against fossil fuels is based on the false premise of a disintegrating global environment. But that is not the case. Carbon dioxide is not a toxin. It is a colorless, odorless gas essential to life on Earth.

Even the term “carbon emissions” is a sleight of hand. The emissions are carbon dioxide but calling them “carbon” conjures images of potentially harmful soot and smoke. Fear perpetrated by lies have made people less resistant to destructive policies like CBAM.

However, India won’t bow to carbon taxes, and it won’t join an unscientific climate war that sacrifices its future. The U.K. and EU would do well to listen, lest they find themselves on the losing end of an Asian-dominated trade battle over manufactured goods.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.

June 10, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | Leave a comment

UK Government Uses Immigration Failures to Justify Digital ID Rollout

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | June 4, 2025

The UK’s Labour government is facing mounting pressure over its failure to stem the rise in illegal immigration, as the number of people arriving via small boats continues to surge to record highs.

Over the weekend, nearly 1,200 migrants crossed the Channel in a single day, the largest number recorded so far this year.

Rather than offering a concrete solution to stop the crossings, the Government is now using the crisis to justify the introduction of a digital ID system.

Defense Secretary John Healey openly conceded that Britain had “lost control of its borders,” a stark admission that has only intensified scrutiny of Labour’s handling of immigration.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper addressed MPs with a proposal that would tie e-visas to a new digital ID for all individuals entering the UK. “We want to have a digital service linked to e-visas and linked to our border management process to be able to determine whether an individual is in or out of the UK, whether they have left at the point at which their visa expires or whether they are overstaying and immigration enforcement action is needed,” she said.

Labour’s growing reliance on digital ID to address immigration failures is unfolding alongside a broader and far more consequential transformation: the nationwide rollout of the Gov.uk Wallet, a centralized digital identity app set to launch this summer.

While pitched as an administrative upgrade, the shift arrives at a politically charged moment, with the government invoking border control failures as justification for embedding surveillance infrastructure more deeply into everyday life.

By presenting digital ID as the answer to immigration enforcement shortcomings, ministers risk normalizing a system that reaches far beyond its initial remit.

This convergence of border policy and digital identity expansion suggests a strategic reframing, where rising migrant arrivals are used not only to defend immigration crackdowns but also to accelerate public buy-in for a permanent digital identity regime.

Starting with digital Veteran cards and driving licenses, and eventually consolidating all state-issued credentials into a single app by 2027.

June 7, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

The Agenda: Their Vision – Your Future

Oracle Films | June 4, 2025

The Agenda: Their Vision | Your Future is a feature-length independent documentary produced by Mark Sharman; former UK broadcasting executive at ITV and Sky (formerly BSkyB).

In fiction and fact, there have always been people and organisations with ambitions to control the world. And now the oligarchs who pull the strings of finance and power finally have the tools to achieve their global objectives; omnipresent surveillance, artificial intelligence, digital currency and ultimately digital identities. The potential for social control of our lives and minds is alarmingly real.

The plan has been decades in the making and has seen infiltration of Governments, local councils, big business, civil society, the media and, crucially, education. A ceaseless push for a new reality, echoing Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, or George Orwell’s 1984.

The Agenda: Their Vision, Your Future examines the digital prison which awaits us if we do not push back right now. How your food, energy, money, travel and even your access to the internet could be limited and controlled; how financial power is strangling democracy and how global institutions like the World Health Organisation are commandeered to champion ideological and fiscal objectives.

The centrepiece is man-made climate change and with it, the race to Net Zero. Both are encapsulated in the United Nations and its Agenda 2030. A force for good? Or “a blank cheque for totalitarian global control”?

The Agenda presents expert views from the UK, the USA and Europe.

http://www.buymeacoffee.com/oraclefilms

June 6, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Video | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine’s most reckless attack: Was NATO behind it?

RT | June 6, 2025

While Western headlines celebrated Operation Spider’s Web as a daring feat of Ukrainian ingenuity, a closer look reveals something far more calculated – and far less Ukrainian. This wasn’t just a strike on Russian airfields. It was a test – one that blended high-tech sabotage, covert infiltration, and satellite-guided timing with the kind of precision that only the world’s most advanced intelligence networks can deliver. And it begs the question: who was really pulling the strings?

Let’s be honest. Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence didn’t act alone. It couldn’t have.

Even if no Western agency was directly involved in the operation itself, the broader picture is clear: Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, its military, and even its top political leadership rely heavily on Western intelligence feeds. Ukraine is deeply embedded within NATO’s intelligence-sharing architecture. The idea of a self-contained Ukrainian intel ecosystem is largely a thing of the past. These days, Kiev draws primarily on NATO-provided data, supplementing it with its own domestic sources where it can.

That’s the backdrop – a hybrid model that’s become standard over the past two years. Now, let’s look more closely at Operation Spider’s Web itself. We know the planning took roughly 18 months and involved moving drones covertly into Russian territory, hiding them, and then orchestrating coordinated attacks on key airfields. So how likely is it that Western intelligence agencies had a hand in such a complex operation?

Start with logistics. It’s been reported that 117 drones were prepped for launch inside Russia. Given that numerous private companies in Russia currently manufacture drones for the war effort, it wouldn’t have been difficult to assemble the necessary devices under that cover. That’s almost certainly what happened. Components were likely purchased domestically under the guise of supplying the “Special Military Operation.” Still, it’s hard to believe Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence could have pulled off this mass procurement and assembly alone. It’s highly likely Western intelligence agencies played a quiet but crucial role – especially in securing specialized components.

Then there’s the explosives. If the operation’s command center was located in the Ural region, as some suggest, it’s plausible that explosives or components were smuggled in via neighboring CIS countries. That kind of border-hopping precision doesn’t happen without outside help. In fact, it mirrors tactics long perfected by intelligence services in both the US and Western Europe.

Because make no mistake: this wasn’t just the CIA’s playground. European services – particularly those in the UK, France, and Germany – possess the same capabilities to execute and conceal such an operation. The NATO intelligence community may have different national flags, but it speaks with one voice in the field.

The real giveaway, however, lies in the timing of the strikes. These weren’t blind attacks on static targets. Russia’s strategic bombers frequently rotate bases. Commercial satellite imagery – updated every few days at best – simply can’t track aircraft on the move. And yet these drones struck with exquisite timing. That points to a steady flow of real-time surveillance, likely derived from signals intelligence, radar tracking, and live satellite feeds – all tools in the Western intelligence toolbox.

Could Ukraine, on its own, have mustered that kind of persistent, multidomain awareness? Not a chance. That level of situational intelligence is the domain of NATO’s most capable agencies – particularly those tasked with monitoring Russian military infrastructure as part of their day job.

For years now, Ukraine has been described in Western media as a plucky underdog using low-cost tactics to take on a larger foe. But beneath the David vs. Goliath narrative lies a more uncomfortable truth: Ukraine’s intelligence ecosystem is now deeply embedded within NATO’s operational architecture. Real-time feeds from US and European satellites, intercepts from British SIGINT stations, operational planning consultations with Western handlers – this is the new normal.

Ukraine still has its own sources, but it’s no longer running a self-contained intelligence operation. That era ended with the first HIMARS launch.

Western officials, of course, deny direct involvement. But Russian investigators are already analyzing mobile traffic around the impact sites. If it turns out that these drones weren’t connected to commercial mobile networks – if, instead, they were guided through encrypted, military-grade links – it will be damning. Not only would that confirm foreign operational input, it would expose the full extent of how Western assets operated inside Russia without detection.

At that point, no amount of plausible deniability will cover the truth. The question will no longer be whether NATO participated – but how deep that participation ran.

June 6, 2025 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , , , | Leave a comment

British Council Exposed: Soft Power and Spying Tool Disguised as Cultural Outreach

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 05.06.2025

The FSB has urged Russia’s foreign partners to investigate the subversive activities of the British Council in their countries. This is why.

Education and Culture Front Organization

Created in 1934 by the British government, the British Council’s public facing image is about the promotion of English language learning, recruitment for UK universities, educational support for teachers abroad, cultural and academic partnerships and exchanges.

In reality, as Russia’s FSB has revealed, Council activities include:

  • targeting youth leaders and elites to try and sway them to support Western and British interests
  • spying, from informal monitoring of the socio-economic situation inside Russia to military intel gathering in the conflict zone in Ukraine

NED’s Granddaddy

While Soros, USAID the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other US soft power alphabet agencies were only able to set up shop in Eastern Europe in the 1980s or after 1991, the British Council had been active in the region since WWII. Expelled from the USSR in 1946, it returned in 1959 (restricted to Moscow).

After the USSR’s demise in 1991, the Council set up offices in as many as 15 Russian cities, and scores more in Ukraine, the Baltics, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The Council terminated its activities in Russia in 2018, and was officially ruled an undesirable organization by the Russian Prosecutor’s Office on Thursday, but the FSB says it continued Russia operations long after its supposed exit, engaging in:

  • recruiting staff at top Russian universities in at least four regions to spread propaganda to young people
  • targeting Russians living abroad in influence ops, in the hopes that they will return home and influence policy once the Ukraine conflict ends
  • collecting socio-economic and military intelligence on Kherson region using UK-based refugees

Global Spider’s Web

With a $1.7B budget and offices in over 100 countries, the Council is active:

  • in Britain’s former colonial empire (especially India)
  • in the EU as a British soft power tool post-Brexit
  • among BRICS bloc nations
  • Belarus kicked them out in 2000. Iran did so in 2009

“We would like to address partners from countries friendly to Russia: by flirting with the British and creating favorable conditions for organizations like the British Council, allowing it to work with youth, future leaders and politicians, such countries risk losing control over very important socio-political processes. Therefore, we recommend that you carefully look into the work of the British Council in your countries and, notwithstanding pressures from London, mitigate the negative consequences of its work at an early stage,” the FSB said in Thursday’s statement.

British Council’s Cousin: An Oligarch’s Private Soft Power Tool

Along with the British Council, the FSB also reviewed the subversive work of Oxford Russia Fund, a charity group which entered Russia in 2006, ostensibly funding “humanitarian programs” in education, and scholarships to Russian students studying in the UK.

In reality, it was a front for former Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s push to create a new generation of pro-West “young leaders” in Russia. Khodorkovsky, notably, has long dreamed of a color revolution in Russia.

The Oxford Russia Fund was ruled undesirable in 2021.

June 6, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

Russian Foreign Intel Service Vet Blows the Lid Off Britain’s Secret Soft Power Recruitment Strategy

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 05.06.2025

Britain is a master in the use of public and non-profit organizations for intelligence, deploying them “for centuries,” and Russia a top target, SVR Lt. Gen. (ret.) Leonid Reshetnikov told Sputnik, commenting on the FSB’s warning to Russia’s foreign partners on Thursday about the British Council’s subversive activities.

“Russia has been the main focus of this work since the time of Ivan Grozny. I say this in all seriousness,” Reshetnikov said, adding that the British have had “many years, many centuries of experience” in indirect forms of intelligence collection.

How Are Agents Recruited? A Primer

“They actively use the scientific and teaching fields. When our educators go to the UK or other countries where the British are active, they should always keep in mind that they will be studied, that informal, friendly and trusting relationships will be formed with them,” the veteran ex-secret agent explained.

The task is “studying the mood in scientific, student and teaching circles, selecting people, not necessarily recruiting (i.e. you are an agent, we pay you and you act), but making offers, for example, to give lectures, publish a brochure or a book, visit London, give lectures there, etc.”

Actually recruiting agents is the most blunt approach, and often not necessary to extract the information, facts, assessments or intentions the British intel services are looking for.

“It’s enough to have a circle of agents of influence, a circle of people who are intellectually, ideologically, culturally attached to London, to the English way of life. It’s very easy to use them in a straightforward manner. That’s the job,” Reshetnikov said.

In this area, the veteran former spy emphasized that the British are even more capable than their transatlantic cousins in the CIA.

“It’s best to keep fewer British NGOs in your country. The fewer the better, especially British ones. This is one of the most challenging intelligence services in the world to face,” Reshetnikov emphasized.

June 6, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

How the US deep state feeds the Ukraine war

By John Laughland | RT | June 5, 2025

The picture of Lindsey Graham, US Senator for South Carolina, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, grinning into a camera in Brussels on June 2, is worth a thousand words.

Graham is one of the most extreme hardcore warmongers in Washington DC, and the competition is pretty stiff. Ever since he first became a member of the US Congress over 30 years ago – once in, American politicians are rarely voted out – he has devoted his career to arguing vehemently for war.

His remarks are often not just belligerent but also sadistic, such as when he recently posted that he hoped ‘Greta could swim’, meaning that he hoped her Gaza aid ship would be torpedoed. Joking about an attack on a civilian aid ship carrying a young female civilian activist is sick – and typical of Graham.

Like his old friend, the late Senator John McCain, Lindsey Graham is obsessed with the idea of war with Russia. He has been pushing for this since at least 2014. In 2016 he told Ukrainian soldiers, “Your fight is our fight.”

Graham’s presence in Brussels is therefore significant. Ever since von der Leyen’s appointment in 2019, she has pushed herself forward as the principal public face of the Brussels institutions. Six years ago, she said she wanted to make the European Commission into a ‘geopolitical’ body – even though it has no role in foreign or military policy.

Since then, she has done little else than parade on the international stage. She is among the most hawkish and anti-Russian European figures, absurdly claiming, like French Foreign Minister Bruno Lemaire, that EU sanctions have brought the Russian economy to its knees.

The Graham-von der Leyen alliance is therefore a natural one – against Donald Trump. European politicians are often quite explicit in their view that Trump is now the enemy.

The same goes for Lindsey Graham. In Kiev last week, Graham explicitly challenged Trump’s authority to decide US foreign policy. He lambasted the very notion of negotiations with Russia – just as Zelensky did to Vance in the Oval office in February – and said that the president of the US is not the boss. “In America, you have more than one person at the card table. We have three branches of government,” – meaning that the Senate would soon impose its own sanctions on Russia, whatever the executive does. Graham’s budget bill from February is intended to spend even more money on the US military – as if that were possible – which means that he is marshalling the US deep state to fight back after initially reeling from the re-election of Trump.

Meanwhile, the Europeans’ determination to continue the war is existential. Their Russophobia, which goes back at least to the 2012 Russian presidential election, when Putin came back into the Kremlin, is extreme because their “Europe” is defined by its hostility to Russia. Russia is “the other Europe” which the EU does not want to be and which it defines itself against.

Von der Leyen and others want to use the war against Russia to federalise Europe and create a single state. Meanwhile, Trump’s Russia policy is based on sidelining Europe. When he first announced talks with the Russians, EU leaders demanded a seat at the table. They failed. US-Russia talks took place outside Europe – in Riyadh – while the Russia-Ukraine talks the EU vehemently opposed are taking place without the EU, in Istanbul.

Let us not forget how furiously EU leaders opposed talking to Russia. When Viktor Orban travelled to Kiev and Moscow last July, Ursula von der Leyen denounced Orban’s “appeasement”. The EU’s then chief diplomat said in an official statement that the EU “excludes official contacts between the EU and President Putin.”

The French foreign minister said in February that if Sergey Lavrov telephoned him he would not answer the call. Now these very same people claim they want to “force” the Russians to come and talk!

EU policy on Russia is now in ruins. That is why, like Graham, they are determined to stop Trump.  Their attempts have been ever more desperate and ridiculous. On May 12, Kaja Kallas and other EU leaders said Russia “must agree” to a ceasefire before any talks. Three days later, those talks started anyway. Britain also tried to scupper them by saying it was “unacceptable” for Russia to demand recognition of the “annexed” regions, which is odd considering Britain is not a participant.

European credibility is therefore at zero. In March, the British prime minister had said that the plans to send British and French troops to Ukraine had entered “the operational phase.” They were ready, he claimed, to protect Ukraine’s security by directly entering the war zone. By April, these plans had been dropped.

On May 10, European leaders threatened Russia with “massive sanctions” if it did not agree to a ceasefire immediately. Russia did not agree to a ceasefire and yet there have been no more “massive sanctions.” A 17th package of sanctions was indeed announced on May 14, but it was so weak that Hungary and Slovakia, who oppose the EU’s overall policy, let it pass. In any case, the 17th package clearly had nothing to do with the ultimatum because such sanctions take a long time to prepare. Instead, that is what Lindsey Graham was in Brussels to discuss.

The EU and the UK have thus sidelined themselves with their meaningless braggadocio. They cannot operate without the Americans. But which Americans? The claim that the White House did not know about the recent Ukrainian drone attack on Russian airfields might well be true: the US deep state, embodied by people like Graham, is clearly trying to undermine the executive. Both Lindsey Graham and former CIA director Mike Pompeo were in Ukraine just days before the attack.

The political goal of the drone attack was obviously to scupper the talks scheduled for the following day in Istanbul, or to provoke Russia into a massive response and drag the US into the war. Even if the attack does not succeed in these goals, it clearly sets the tone for the future Ukrainian insurgency which, American and European officials hope, will turn that country into an ‘Afghanistan’ for Russia. The US deep state is in for the long game.

So are the Europeans. On May 9, ‘Europe Day’, European leaders confirmed their intention to set up a Special Tribunal for the crime of aggression, to prosecute Russia for invading in February 2022.

Western European states are already the primary financers of the International Criminal Court, whose prosecutor is British. The ICC indicted Russian leaders, including Putin, in 2023 and 2024, on various very surprising charges. (Ursula von der Leyen continued to lie about “20,000 abducted children,” the day after the Ukrainians gave the Russians a list of 339 missing children.) Now the Europeans intend to open a new front in their ‘lawfare’ against Russia.

Such a Special Tribunal, if it comes into existence, will tear the heart out of any peace agreement – just as Ukraine’s acceptance of the jurisdiction of the ICC in 2014 and 2015 rendered the Minsk agreement of February 2015 null and void. With one side of its mouth, Ukraine asked the ICC to prosecute Russian officials and Donbass “terrorists”; with the other side, it agreed at Minsk that the Donbass insurgency was an internal Ukrainian problem and ruled out any prosecution or punishment (Article 5 of the February 2015 Minsk agreement).

It is not possible to agree a peace agreement with a country and at the same time to set up a Special Tribunal whose sole purpose is to criminalize it. So the creation of this Tribunal, which will presumably remain in existence for over a decade like the ad hoc tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, is nothing but a Euro-American institutional time bomb designed to blow up in the future any agreement which the two sides might reach in the short term. The future of “Europe” depends on that.

John Laughland, who has a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oxford and who has taught at universities in Paris and Rome, is a historian and specialist in international affairs.

June 6, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

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