Idea of strategically defeating Russia an ‘illusion’ – Lavrov
RT | February 5, 2026
European leaders have “changed their tune” toward Russia, moving from calls to inflict a strategic defeat on Moscow to cautious reassessment, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has told RT.
Speaking with RT’s Rick Sanchez ahead of Diplomats’ Day on Wednesday, Lavrov noted how many European politicians had initially “spoken in unison, demanding firmness, insisting on unwavering support for Ukraine, continued arms shipments, sustained financing – all to ensure Russia’s defeat, a strategic defeat on the battlefield.”
Over time, European leaders “realized it was all an illusion,” he said in a wide-ranging interview. Western military strategists, who orchestrated the Ukraine conflict and “prepared Ukrainians to fight and die advancing European interests against Russia,” are finally recognizing that their plans had collapsed, the top diplomat stated.
Lavrov added that Western governments had learned nothing from history, citing Adolf Hitler and Napoleon’s failed attempts to defeat Russia. He said Europe had once again rallied nearly the entire continent under the same ideological banners, “only this time, unlike Napoleon and Hitler, not yet as soldiers on the battlefield, but as donors, sponsors, arms suppliers.” He said this attempt had produced outcomes similar to the failures of Napoleon and Hitler, adding that the West, particularly Germany, “learns history poorly.”
Lavrov noted that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz had “lifted constitutional restrictions on military spending, then declared this was necessary for Germany to once again – I emphasize that word, once again – become Europe’s dominant military power.” The minister said the stance “speaks volumes” about Merz’s mindset, arguing that in practice it amounts to preparation for war.
Lavrov also noted Russia’s status as the largest country in the world, but highlighted its place in Eurasia, saying “every attempt so far to establish security in this space has focused exclusively on the western part of Eurasia – so-called Europe.” He criticized NATO as a US-led structure, asserting that Americans never intended to leave Europeans to act independently while maintaining oversight of their allies.
European countries portray Russia as militarily and economically exhausted, he said, yet immediately assume they must prepare for an attack from the same Russia, calling this approach “pathetic diplomacy.”
According to Lavrov, Europe has “walked into their own trap by adopting this uncompromising stance” toward Russia, and “all they’re doing now is trying to sabotage” peace negotiations on Ukraine that “finally began taking shape between Russia and the United States, and now are joined by Ukrainian representatives.”
Douglas Macgregor: Russia, China & Iran Seek to Contain U.S. Military
Glenn Diesen | February 4, 2026
Douglas Macgregor is a retired Colonel, combat veteran and former senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Col. Macgregor explains how the military adventures of the U.S. are incentivising greater military cooperation between Russia, China and Iran.
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British journalism hits rock bottom with latest shocking revelations
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 2, 2026
From the truth about who really killed Diana to the depraved world of government officials sexually abusing children and the subsequent cover-up, it is now clear that nearly all major stories are either blocked from publication or rewritten by Soviet-style propaganda agents working for the British deep state.
Virtually nothing you read in British newspapers about security, defense, and wars is honest journalism. Instead, it is propaganda crafted by a new secret UK military department tasked with rewriting journalists’ copy or, in some cases, simply ensuring their articles never see the light of day.
That is the shocking conclusion of a new investigation by The Grayzone, which obtained secret documents exchanged between the UK and Australian governments over Canberra’s plans to adopt Britain’s “off-the-shelf” operation and incorporate it into its own government practice for handling journalists.
The impressive reporting by Kit Klarenberg and William Evans reveals, in short, that the UK military has created its own censorship department. It either blocks journalists from exposing major stories of public interest or, more commonly, redrafts the thrust of journalists’ pieces to present a different version to the gullible public.
A trove of secret communications reveals how the secretive Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee censors the output of British journalists while categorizing independent media as “extremist” for publishing “embarrassing” stories. What sounds like an account of secret police operations in Eastern Europe during the Soviet era, the documents show that this army intelligence department regularly blocks journalists from continuing to investigate a subject through a formal system called “D Notices” – which, remarkably, journalists almost always respect.
“The DSMA imposes what are known as D-Notices, gag-orders systematically suppressing information available to the public,” The Grayzone report states.
The files provide the clearest view to date of this underground committee’s inner workings, exposing which news items the state has sought to shape or keep from public view over the years. These include “the 2010 death of a GCHQ codebreaker, MI6 and British special forces activity in the Middle East and Africa, the sexual abuse of children by government officials, and the death of Princess Diana,” the report reveals.
British media, it seems, is in a crisis it never anticipated. Its journalists are, in reality, no longer working as journalists but as propaganda agents of the state. Under this system, which nearly all journalists sign up to, when a reporter wants to pursue a story, they must consult this department, which then effectively controls both the journalist and the story from that point forward. The absurd practice of ‘copy approval’ – where journalists send their final draft before submitting for publication – is routinely enforced.
This practice, a milestone in the death of British journalism, comes as no surprise to me. For decades, I have sent questions to the UK’s Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence, only to become a victim of the comical, if not pathetic, game that follows. A spokesperson asks for your deadline and then, mysteriously, 30 minutes before that time, you receive a “response” meant to serve as a quote from a senior official. It not only looks computer-generated but is often irrelevant to the subject. This is Britain – a country once seen by the whole world as a beacon of freedom and democracy, now operating like a cheap West African dictatorship, pumping out lies and manufacturing consent on an industrial scale.
That such a secret censorship department exists and flourishes should shock no one. In 2023, my own investigation discovered that UK and US weapons were being resold on the dark web. It wasn’t exactly a great scoop, but the hard work lay in substantiating the story with expert opinions and forensic analysis of photos and website postings. I was amazed as weeks passed while I badgered the Daily Mail’s absurdly young Defense Editor to run the story. He played every trick in the book to avoid it until finally he and others agreed to publish – but watered it down so much, removing all the top quotes from hardcore military and political experts that supported the story’s thrust. Clearly, he and others were under the control of these DSMA censor agents, who could not allow a piece alleging that shoulder-mounted rocket systems used by both the US and UK armies were being openly sold on the black market.
A second, much more detailed investigation – which supported the belief that barely a third of all UK military kit was actually reaching frontline Ukrainian soldiers – I didn’t bother sending to the Daily Mail but published on Patreon. One of its chief findings was that a senior Conservative MP admitted to me in a WhatsApp exchange that the UK had, in fact, installed tracking devices in some of the more expensive equipment, like Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs), but at a certain point these devices were simply switched off and disappeared from the screens. It also revealed the bombastic stupidity of the then–UK Defence Minister, Ben Wallace, who conveniently chose to ignore a UN report identifying the influx of cheap Western-made assault rifles into the Libyan arms bazaar as a main reason for the spike in terrorism in the Sahel region – while insulting the Nigerian president who had made the claims, saying he “probably watches RT television.” When I suggested to Mr. Wallace that a simple way to verify these claims would be to send agents to Libya to conduct their own surveillance, his reply was, “Why don’t you do that?” before blocking me.
Wallace’s extraordinary rudeness shocked me at the time. But it was clear he was used to a much more servile, sycophantic manner from UK journalists who didn’t ask difficult questions – and that I was obviously breaking from tradition. Clearly, the DSMA department controls all those Westminster-based hacks, their stories, and even their story ideas, so it’s understandable that his rage boiled over.
The Grayzone’s findings make for depressing reading for anyone old enough to remember when British journalism was the finest in the world. But they also raise other questions, chiefly: Who is actually behind British titles? Or more specifically, who is funding them? Most UK newspapers don’t make any money, so it’s understandable that a new relationship with the deep state might help them remain relevant – especially now that the news is being baked for them, ready to be served. This has changed the role of the British journalist: no longer the baker, but relegated to the delivery boy on the moped.
Yet where the big titles get their revenue to stay in business remains a mystery. Is part of the same deal on censorship and copy control that the state funds them through surreptitious, murky channels – perhaps via companies with close links to the heart of power? Follow the money.
American Zionists are using Trump’s Republican Party to create a multicultural supremacist elite

By Matt Wolfson | Al Mayadeen | February 2, 2026
On January 13, 2025, seven days before Donald Trump’s second inauguration as president, The Free Press, the online magazine created by the Zionist operator Bari Weiss who has powerful connections to the Trump Administration, ran a profile which may say more about the ultimate causes of America’s current policies, and where those policies will likely lead, than any other public document.
The profile was of Amy Chua, famously the author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a mostly well-received cri de Coeur for what Chua sees as rigorous Chinese parenting; and less famously the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School. The profile, drawing explicitly on Chua’s most publicly recognizable achievement, was titled “The Tiger Mother Roars Back,” and its subtitle reinforced its approach, an ardent rave: “Yale tried to run Amy Chua out. Now her former students, J.D. Vance and Vivek Ramaswamy, are headed to Washington. So is she.”
For people who follow the politics of America and so of America’s empire, the forwardness of this profile raises questions. Construed as a gesture of support for two politicians, Vance and Ramaswamy, who are attempting to woo the public on populist credentials, it seems misthought. There is nothing populist about Chua—and her lacks are tells about the lacks of her mentees. Indeed, it was under Chua’s mentorship that Vance wrote a bestselling book with the encouragement of another Chua mentee, Vance’s future wife Usha, blaming the failures of his lower-income Appalachian upbringing on the “cultural” deficiencies of the community which raised him. This is a view that, since entering politics with the aim of appealing to precisely that community, he has quickly disavowed. Ramaswamy, for his part, has fallen deeply and predictably afoul of populist Americans precisely by making that case in public.
So why would Weiss, who if nothing else is a strategic operator, run a piece on Chua connecting her to Vance and Ramaswamy as well as broadcasting Chua’s views, which are anathema to the people from whom Vance and Ramaswamy want support?
The answer is that, though Weiss is an ideologue focused on advancing “Israel’s” immediate interests, there is a “positive,” longer-term Zionist play in the works among her and her allies. I have reported in miniature on this play last year, in a September investigation of the philanthropic education donations of Bill Ackman, the Zionist financier: to seed a new ruling elite based on technological and management skills. But the project goes deeper. It amounts to the legitimation of a new ruling class in America centered on a narrow cadre of elites of three groups— Zionists, Hindutvas (Hindu supremacists), and, discernably but least specifically definably, East and Southeast Asian supremacists often with connections to countries where Buddhism has exercised significant influence.
These elites use their present success in America’s military corporate complex to make claims to group superiority. They then use those claims to justify special treatment for their groups and nations that allow them to solidify their power, and to solidify the hold of American empire, which they see as the rightful disseminator of “merit.” Their accelerating project will likely realize itself through the Republican Party, via Chua’s mentees, the Vances and Ramaswamy, among others, and it may ally itself with other right-wing influences as seemingly dissimilar but actually imitative as the white supremacy of Nicholas J. Fuentes. It is only now taking recognizable shape, and understanding its origins and spread is crucial to understanding the havoc it is already beginning to wreak in America and abroad.
That understanding begins with examining the arguments which influenced Vance and Ramaswamy; arguments made by Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld, her husband, a Yale Law professor and Jewish Zionist who writes for The Free Press. These arguments are noteworthy in that they look for “warps” in cultures to explain problems which other scholars have put down to military corporate power and its brute effects (outsourcing, conglomeration, the Wars on Crime and Drugs, unauthorized and some kinds of authorized immigration) on American life.
Indeed, the most straightforward reason why Vance’s Appalachian Americans as well as Black and Latino Americans have notably struggled is American imperial policy that has started at the top: labor outsourcing and urban mis-development, misthought immigration policies, and military corporate buildup. These policies have accrued for 60 years, and academics and writers have made the case against them for almost 50.
This book of Chua and Rubenfeld’s, where they lay out their view (The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America) does not emphasize these structural, practical explanations. Instead, Chua and Rubenfeld put “winners’” success in America over the last sixty years down to three group traits: specifically, “a superiority complex,” “insecurity,” and “impulse control.” According to The Triple Package, “a superiority complex” means “a deeply internalized belief in your group’s specialness, exceptionality, or superiority” flowing from religion, civilization, or social traits. “Insecurity” means “a sense of being looked down on, a perception of peril, feelings of inadequacy, and a fear of losing what one has.” And “impulse control” means “the ability to resist… the temptation to give up in the face of hardship or quit.”
But the paradox of Chua’s and Rubenfeld’s explanation, which they don’t appear to realize, is that, taken logically on its face, it supports the structural, practical explanations they apparently ignore. Political theory and history show that groups in the grip of triple package holders’ emotional Cartesianism (possessing an a priori thesis, superiority, in the face of insecurity, and so willing to do anything to prove the thesis right) are reliable tools of arbitrary imperial power. Indeed, empires moving aspirant, insecure, determined groups into their own managerial elite is a defining feature of the Roman Empire; the British Empire in the American colonies and India; the German Empire; and the United Arab Emirates. In America’s empire, these co-opted groups have most prominently been the three which Chua and Rubenfeld write about most often and with whom they and their family most identify: Jewish Americans, Indian Americans, and East and Southeast Asian Americans.
All three of these groups experienced marginalization and persecution at the hands of various empires (the Russian and German; the British; the American) before 1950. Their members have attendantly experienced heightened levels of insecurity; and elite cadres of two of the three groups have adopted what most scholars consider to be clearly definable supremacist ideologies: Zionism, which was founded in 1897 and Hindutva ideology, which was founded in 1925. The third type of supremacy, East and Southeast Asian supremacy, is more diffuse but clearly discernable.
Unlike Zionism, which is linked to “Israel”, and Hindutva ideology which is linked to India, there are multiple countries at play and multiple labels under which claims of East and Southeast Asian supremacy are raised. Also, the way these claims are raised often surfaces less as outright supremacy and more as “cultural essentialism”—that there’s something in this group’s cultural “essence” that makes members more “successful.” Finally, research into outright supremacist manifestations from groups associated with them is more recent, usually under the headings of Buddhist or East Asian supremacy. Nonetheless, taking these distinctions into account, East and Southeast Asian success in America’s imperial complex and corresponding claims like Chua’s to superiority are recognizable trends: some of them embraced by supremacists who praise thinkers like Chua for what critics call their cultural supremacy.
I have reported at some length about how the process of these groups claiming power in American empire played out, beginning with Jewish Zionist elites in the 1960s. I examined these Zionist elites’ acceptance into the American military corporate complex by WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). I also pointed out that Zionists’ overall success accessing this complex came from their pursuit of narrow applied skills valued by the WASPs: economics, management theory, administrative law, engineering, finance, and technological proficiencies; a model the WASPs took quite consciously from European Empires. Zionists, in their own description, were easy marks for this kind of invitation to power that ultimately deracinates the culture of the people who accept it.
Theodor Herzl, the founder of the movement who embodies the terms of its successes and failures, was a marquee possessor of Chua’s and Rubenfeld’s triple package. He had grown up a secular Jew with little connection to his religion but a strong sense of his own superiority, and only embraced Zionist Judaism with a manic intensity when the Dreyfus Affair made him decide that he could never realize his ambitions without identifying as Jewish.
An instructive echo of Herzl’s mentality comes in the memoir of Martin Peretz, one of the early entrants into America’s corporate complex in the 1960s. Peretz, who taught at Harvard, owned The New Republic, the most influential Zionist magazine in the country, and played a prominent connective role in and near Wall Street, is in many senses a later-day Herzl. He is a high-status secular Jew with an admitted sense of insecurity who is also a fervid Zionist, and he writes in his memoir about himself and his friends who “made it” that
We were… from a strong culture that was an outsider culture, in the first generation when that culture could assert itself in American institutions. We weren’t constrained by old obligations because we were coming into a world that didn’t want us anyway. We had each other’s backs because we knew the kind of resentment arrivistes, and Jewish arrivistes, unleashed… We were the first ethnicity to break through into the ruling class institutions following the wane of Protestant influence, and we saw those institutions as the key to our flourishing.
Peretz’s Harvard mentee, Bill Ackman, the Zionist financier, is a good example of how younger Zionists operating in Herzl’s and Peretz’s tradition have swallowed this model whole. Ackman’s view of Harvard, where he is also a donor, falls along just these lines of imperial functionality:
As one of the oldest and perhaps the most notable of this country’s academic institutions, Harvard represents the gateway to elite status and to ‘making it’ in modern day American society. One need only look at the disproportionate numbers of Presidents, Nobel Laureates, and chairmen of Fortune 500 companies who have graduated from Harvard to understand the power of the Harvard degree. As a result, admission to Harvard has become the target of groups seeking upward mobility.
What goes unacknowledged here is that “elite status,” “upward mobility” and the skills that create them have only been an aspiration for most Americans since 1945, when the Cold War allowed WASPs to expand their institutions and use them to try to mold the country in their image. Before this point, most Americans understood their country as being predicated on towns and cities and states; and on a high degree of associational thickness, communal coherency, and decentralized government which allowed individuals a say in the terms of their lives. But Zionists were never open to an argument like this. Their strategy, like Herzl’s, was to enter empire and use it to rise, and it is not a coincidence that, almost immediately on accessing America’s military corporate complex, they opened America’s doors to Hindu and East and Southeast Asian operators who approached the matter of institutions and power on their terms.
The Zionists’ tool was the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which was sponsored by staunch Jewish Zionist Congressman Emmanuel Celler. The Act opened America’s elite universities to “high-skilled,” often upper-middle class arrivals from undemocratic or less democratic countries like India and China: people not particularly versed in constitutionalism but extremely well-versed in applied technical proficiencies valued by empire.
The most obvious beneficiaries were Hindu Americans. It was the 1965 legislation and its 1990 expansion by George H.W. Bush, the penultimate WASP president, which brought into this country the parents of Usha Vance; Vivek and Apoorva Ramaswamy; the pro-Zionist Republican operative and current Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon; and the U.S. Representatives Ro Khanna, Raja Krishnamoorthi, and Suhas Subramanyam. More decisively, as I reported in December, it has brought into the defense-tech mecca of Silicon Valley aggressive Hindu financial operators who have deep political sway. Much as, in the telling of anti-Zionist Jews like Norman Finkelstein, the converging success of Israelis and American Zionists off the largesse of America’s imperial complex hardened these players’ Zionistic belief in their Jewish supremacy, so a similar trend appears to have taken place with American Hindus who adopt some version of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindutva ideology. Their influence, as outlined by Andrew Cockburn in a groundbreaking article in Harpers, reaches deep and wide, in part through their connections to Zionists.
Somewhat more subtle than the Hindutva assumption of influence in America, but equally noteworthy has been the East and Southeast Asian, especially Chinese, accrual of influence here. WASPs had used their educational and financial influence to foster relationships with China going back to the 1870s. Later, Zionists took up that task: bringing Chinese elites into philanthropy and finance, aided by the 1965 legislation, which led to a sharp increase in high-skilled East and Southeast Asian immigration to America. Arguably the clearest window onto this process is the Committee of 100: a group with connections to Amy Chua founded in the late 1980s by influential Chinese Americans at the urging of Peretz ally and “Israel” defender Henry Kissinger, and with the aid of Peretz’s friend Yo-Yo Ma. As I traced in my report last year on the Committee’s growth, the Committee and some of its members have assiduously inserted themselves at crucial educational and philanthropic junctures. As I reported about their propaganda last April:
The obvious part of their message is that… America is a colorblind nation where, minus prejudice, anyone can succeed. In this schema, anyone questioning the loyalties or actions of those who have succeeded, like [members of the Committee] and their allies, are acting off of lower motives, and are anti-merit.
What is also instructive is that, despite vocal pushback to Chua’s ideas by regular readers, prominent East and Southeast Asian Americans and East Asian American organizations, including but not limited to the Committee of 100, have embraced Chua since she gained fame with her ideas and given her a public platform. Allies of Chua’s echo her arguments in a gentler way, among them the Chinese-American writer Sherryl WuDunn, a connection of Chua’s via other East Asian American organizations, whose husband Nicholas Kristof made a less constrictive, “essentialist” version of Chua’s cultural supremacist arguments in The New York Times. And cultural, ethnic, and even racial supremacists like the neoconservative Charles Murray have embraced Chua’s claims.
Jewish Zionists have been forging alliances with Hindu and East and Southeast Asian American arrivals at an accelerating rate for nearly 40 years. They have used these groups’ shared success to argue that any opposition to those groups with an outsized place in America’s military corporate complex comes from resentment and envy among people who don’t measure up.
In 1988, only 23 years after the Immigration and Nationality Act was signed, two years before the inception of the Committee of 100, and eight years before the Silicon Valley boom began, Bill Ackman, on the advice of his Harvard mentor Peretz, wrote an honors thesis entitled “Scaling the Ivy Wall: The Jewish and Asian Experience in College Admissions.” In the thesis, Ackman “draws parallels between the experience of Jews trying to gain admission to Harvard in the 1920s with the experience of applicants from Asia during the 1980s.” In 2024, gearing up for his crusade against anti-Zionism in universities, Ackman began making the rounds of newspapers, magazines, and online interviews, armed with his undergraduate thesis, arguing that the groups he wrote about in the 1980s (Jews and Asians) are technical achievers being discriminated against by opponents of merit.
That same year, Ackman’s ideological ally Bret Stephens featured in his Zionist magazine Sapir a piece quoting Ackman’s 1988 thesis by an ardent backer of Ackman’s ardent ally Vivek Ramaswamy: Rajiv Malhotra, arguably the most prominent Hindutva operating outside of India. Malhotra began this essay, an argument for “A Hindu Jewish Partnership”, by arguing that, like Asian Americans and Jews, Hindu Americans are “‘model minorities’ who have made much of the American dream” and must come together “to safeguard the world from the regressive movement against merit.” This notion that any resentment against those groups which seem to be steering American Empire flows from jealousy or resentment is shared by Amy Chua, who said, in a recent interview, that
There is tremendous resentment, fear, and insecurity about Asian-Americans because of college admissions… And then you’ve got China, a whole different source of insecurity.… Now on campus, I noticed that this anti-Chinese resentment slash fear is coming from both the Left and the Right, which is very unusual.
Tellingly, none of these arguments about “safeguarding merit” define merit as anything other than technical skills fit for empire, and this is not a bug but a feature of supremacist argument. Jewish, Hindu, and East and Southeast Asian supremacists justify their traditions based on their ability to impart skills that help empires claim power. Examples of this pattern range from Hindutvas who boast that “ancient Indians were proficient in stem cell technology and built aircrafts” in “an imagined Hindu golden age of scientific progress,” to equally remote Zionist narratives claiming that consumer innovations of all kinds originated with “Israel” to Amy Chua’s “conceptually loose” and factually dubious appropriation of her “meretricious” heritage for raising “successful” children. None of these arguments address the arguments of dissenters from within their traditions who think that, by attaching their traditions to a project of empire based on technical skills, supremacists have distorted the moral, intellectual, and cultural essences that made these traditions worth having. The most accurate description of the supremacists may in fact be “ethnopreneurs”: players who use their groups’ access to empire to show a public they assume is aspirant how to be like them, gaining recognition or profit by doing so.
The supremacists also have imitators, sometimes in the most seemingly unlikely of places. It was Nicholas J. Fuentes, nominally on the other side of the new Republican coalition from Ramaswamy and Chua and Rubenfeld and Weiss, who recently told Piers Morgan that “In Israel, they have my politics. If they had their way, it would only be Jewish people.” In fact, in “Israel”, it’s not Jewish people who are welcome; it’s only Jews openly committed to Jewishness as an imperial supremacist project, much as Fuentes is openly committed to an imperial supremacist project around white male Americans whom he says are victimized based on the superiority of their race.
Chua’s mentee J.D. Vance appears to be working to stabilize the Republican coalition in ways that may function, whatever his intent, to unite the supremacists. Even as Vance speaks implicitly in favor of including Nick Fuentes in the Republican Party and Vance’s ally Tucker Carlson gives Fuentes a platform, Vance’s most prominent ally, Erika Kirk, who is publicly committed to his 2028 presidential bid, is appearing in interviews with Zionists like Bari Weiss and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Vance only recently helped ink the deal that put Zionists, including Jared Kushner and the Ellisons, in control of TikTok; and in 2025 both Vance’s wife Usha and his mentor Chua gave rare, exclusive interviews to Weiss’s Free Press, which the Ellisons now own.
This year, Vance is scheduled to appear on CBS’s new Town Hall series, where he will be interviewed by Weiss. This looks like the rudiments of a new coalition of elites with nominally different heritages united by a shared conviction of supremacy. And policy is following suit to privilege these elites—not so much shrinking the “deep state” as Trump promised during his reelection campaign but redirecting it in ways that serve their interests:
“Israel”, with American support, is “modernizing” and “improving” Latin America and the Middle East using its technical prowess, compromising the sovereignty of nations and regions. Hindutva ideologists are coming to Silicon Valley, where Zionists arbitrate power. East and Southeast Asians are entering the Ivy League in record numbers with the aid of lawsuits from Zionist operatives, even as the Trump Administration has made no effort to shrink these universities’ power as the “gateway” to political influence.
The Muslim world, arguably Zionists’ and Hindutvas’ and Buddhist East Asians’ greatest enemy, has become our enemy. American Zionist operatives are using artificial intelligence to track anti-Zionist opinions online in conjunction with imperial outgrowths like Harvard in ways that sound quite similar to the Hindutva ideologue Rajiv Malhotra’s proposal in the Zionist magazine Sapir for an “Intellectual Iron Dome” in imitation of Israel’s defense system the Iron Dome. (This is a project seemingly imitative of Philip K. Dick’s dystopian novella The Minority Report: “to harness the powers of AI… to monitor and examine trends in antisemitism and Hinduphobia online and predict problems before they manifest.”) And, thanks to the Zionist Stephen Miller, the Trump Administration is deporting migrants of color while deracinating their “sh**hole” countries of oil in the name of serving the people for whom Fuentes claims to speak. Namely, a mostly white American population now “freed” from “third world” “leeches, killers, and entitlement junkies” but indentured in the same servitude to the military corporate elite.
In the face of unrelenting infiltration by these colonial supremacists of all sorts in pursuit of their own global Raj flowing from America, anti-imperial resistance at home and abroad, using law and popular politics, is the only sensible path.
From Iraq war crimes to Gaza’s ‘board of peace’: Why Tony Blair belongs in The Hague
By David Miller | Press TV | February 1, 2026
In the grotesque circus of international power plays, few performers rival Tony Blair for sheer audacity. The former British Prime Minister (1997-2007), once celebrated for his “Cool Britannia” sheen and Third Way politics, is now indelibly stained by the Iraq War debacle, a war built on deception that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and shattered the region.
Yet in January 2026, Donald Trump appointed him to the Board of Peace, a White House-created entity chaired indefinitely by Trump himself to oversee Gaza’s “reconstruction” under a controversial 20-point plan.
The board’s founding executive includes heavyweights like Marco Rubio, Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, Marc Rowan, Ajay Banga, and Robert Gabriel—figures tied to Trumpworld and Zionist interests, with no Palestinian representation.
Blair’s role is lending “statesmanlike” cover to what is seen as a colonial oversight mechanism that could facilitate displacement and control in Gaza. This isn’t redemption; it’s impunity on steroids.
Blair belongs in The Hague facing charges for aggression and complicity in atrocities—not jet-setting as a “peace” architect. This article lays bare his record, his Zionist alliances, his profit-driven institute, his billionaire backer, and why his latest gig risks making him complicit in Gaza’s ongoing nightmare.
Blair’s war crimes: Lies, invasion, and bloodshed
Blair’s gravest sin remains the 2003 Iraq invasion, sold on bogus claims of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and Saddam Hussein’s imminent threat.
The Chilcot Inquiry (2016), an exhaustive British investigation, demolished his case: “We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.”
It highlighted “flawed intelligence” that went “unchallenged” and Blair’s overestimation of his influence on George W. Bush. The infamous “dodgy dossier” asserted Iraq could deploy WMDs in 45 minutes—a claim later exposed as hyped and unreliable.
Under the Rome Statute, Blair could face ICC charges for:
- Crime of aggression: Planning and executing an illegal war without UN Security Council approval, violating the UN Charter.
- War crimes: Complicity in detainee abuses, including British forces’ role in cases like the death of Baha Mousa in custody.
- Crimes against humanity: Contribution to systematic civilian harm via indiscriminate tactics, with excess Iraqi deaths estimated in the hundreds of thousands. For example, studies estimated over 650,000 by 2006, as reported by The Guardian, citing a study in The Lancet medical journal. Later estimates put the toll at over a million.
What has been Blair’s response? “I did not mislead this country, I made a decision in good faith,” as he stated post-Chilcot. Prosecutors have tried—private attempts failed due to political barriers, as reported by the BBC on the High Court’s rejection of a 2017 bid by an Iraqi general—but the evidence mounts: the war was unnecessary, illegal, and devastating.
Blair’s Zionist ties: PM to quartet envoy, always ‘Israel First’
Blair’s pro-Israel stance is longstanding and blatant. As the British PM, he cultivated ties with Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) and accepted funding from Zionist-linked donors. He defended Israel’s actions during the Second Intifada, prioritising “security” while downplaying occupation and settlements.
Blair’s inner circle was riddled with pro-Israel influencers. Take Lord Michael Levy, a former record producer, dubbed “Lord Cashpoint” for his fundraising prowess: Introduced to Blair in 1994, Levy raised millions for New Labour, including from pro-Israel sources, and became Blair’s Middle East envoy post-2007.
Levy praised Blair’s “solid and committed support of the State of Israel,” as reported by Mishpacha Magazine. Another key figure was Sir Trevor Chinn, a major donor to Blair’s campaigns and LFI, who also funded Conservative Friends of Israel—showing cross-party Zionist commitment.
Chinn donated six-figure sums to keep Blair in power, as Lobster Magazine detailed. Then there’s Peter Mandelson, Blair’s spin master and a self-proclaimed pro-Israel advocate with family ties to the Jewish Chronicle—his father was the paper’s advertising manager as the Chronicle itself reported.
Mandelson revealed in his memoirs his “pro-Israel sentiments”, and close alliance with Levy in shaping Blair’s foreign policy. Most recently, in September 2025, Mandelson was sacked as British Ambassador to the US by Prime Minister Keir Starmer because of the disclosure of new information on his closeness to paedophile financier and Zionist intel asset Jeffrey Epstein.

The Genocide Alliance: Chinn, Mark Regev, Jacob Rothschild, Blair and Isaac Herzog (2018)
This network fuelled scandals, like the 2006-2007 cash-for-honours affair, where Levy was arrested (though not charged) over allegations of selling peerages for donations, many from pro-Israel businessmen. The probe destabilised Blair, exposing how Zionist money influenced Labour.
Enter Lord Jon Mendelsohn: As Labour’s chief fundraiser in 2007, Mendelsohn was embroiled in a donations row involving illegal third-party contributions from property developer David Abrahams, who funnelled funds through proxies.
Mendelsohn admitted knowing about the scheme but claimed ignorance of its illegality, according to The Guardian. Fast-forward: Mendelsohn now directs Abraham Accords (UK) and co-chairs the APPG for the Abraham Accords.
Both promote normalisation between the Zionist colony and Arab states—essentially “Zionising” West Asia by embedding Zionist influence in economies and politics.
In a 2023 House of Lords speech, Mendelsohn hailed the Accords as a “historic opportunity,” ignoring Palestinian erasure. This evolution from Blair-era lobby scandals to regional normalisation underscores how Zionist networks persist, repackaging occupation as “peace.”
Blair’s fingerprints are all over the Abraham Accords, the sham “peace” deal normalising Israel’s apartheid with some regional countries while burying Palestinian rights.
In 2015, Blair brokered the first secret meetings between Benjamin Netanyahu and UAE officials in London, planting the seeds for the 2020 agreements. He attended the White House signing ceremony, gushing in a statement: “This is a momentous day… a new pathway is opening up for the Middle East.” Netanyahu later credited him with the Accords’ success, per reports from 2025.
As Quartet Envoy, Blair’s “economic peace” mantra—focusing on the occupied West Bank development while sidelining Gaza and sovereignty—paved the way for these deals, which critics slam as economic bribes to Arab states to ignore Israel’s horrendous war crimes.
Blair’s involvement wasn’t altruistic; it burnished his “peacemaker” image while entrenching Zionist hegemony, bypassing UN resolutions and Palestinian self-determination. His denial of Palestine, as Le Monde put it, is complete—treating the occupied as economic pawns in a Zionist game.
As Quartet Envoy (2007–2015), tasked with advancing the peace process, Blair faced repeated accusations of bias. Palestinian officials called him an “Israeli diplomat” in all but name; he focused on Palestinian “reform” while rarely challenging Israeli policies like Gaza’s blockade or settlement expansion.
The Guardian reported in 2011: Palestinian critics attacked him for favouring Israeli “security” needs over Palestinian rights. During Israel’s 2008-2009 Gaza offensive (1,400+ Palestinian killings), Blair echoed Israeli narratives blaming the Hamas resistance movement without addressing root causes.
A Source News analysis labelled him a “complete failure” for perceived one-sidedness. He resigned in 2015 amid conflicts of interest, but his record shows transactional Zionism—aligning with power to maintain influence.
Tony Blair Institute: Policy peddler with a dark side
The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), launched in 2016, poses as a nonprofit promoting “good governance” and tech-driven reform. Before Larry Ellison’s funding in 2021, TBI had about 267 staff in 2020, per its annual accounts.
Post-Ellison, it ballooned to over 800 by 2023, nearing 1,000 in 45+ countries by 2025, with plans for 1,000+ by end-2026, as Ellison’s $375M+ pledges fuelled explosive growth, per POLITICO. Turnover jumped from $81M in 2021 to $121M in 2022, then over $150M, enabling global ops.
Beyond AI and digital IDs, TBI advises on climate policy, net-zero transitions, and governance—often to countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, drawing fire for whitewashing abuses.
It pushes “tech for good” like surveillance systems and economic reforms, but critics see neocolonialism. In Africa and the Global South, TBI embeds in governments, promoting privatisation and AI integration that favours Western tech giants.
Controversies pile up: TBI has consulted for many governments while raking in fees – including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain. Most damningly, reports linked TBI discussions to Gaza “reconstruction” plans condemned as ethnic cleansing blueprints, including ideas of “paying Palestinians to leave” or redeveloping Gaza as a “Riviera.”
Middle East Eye revealed TBI’s involvement in talks evolving into proposals critics slam as displacement schemes. The Guardian noted staff participation in such calls.
TBI pushes surveillance tech and net-zero policies, often funded by questionable sources, turning “global change” into elite profit. A 2024 Consultancy.uk critique ridiculed its AI studies as overhyped, while UnHerd questioned its opacity—meaning a lack of transparency in operations and funding that raises concerns over accountability and potential conflicts of interest.
Blair and Larry Ellison: Cash for influence, Zionism, and security risks
Oracle founder Larry Ellison, a staunch Zionist lobbyist and one of the world’s richest men, has poured at least £257 million ($375M+) into TBI since 2021 via his foundation.
Lighthouse Reports exposed how this cash transformed TBI into an Oracle sales and lobbying arm—pushing cloud tech, AI, and government contracts (for example, UK NHS data deals). Ellison gets policy access and favourable regs; Blair gets funding to sustain his empire and personal brand.

Larry Ellison and Blair
Ellison’s Zionism runs deep: He’s donated over $26M to Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF), including a record $16.6M in 2017—the largest single gift ever—and $10M in 2014.
At a 2017 gala, he declared: “Since Israel’s founding, we’ve called on the brave men and women of the IDF to defend our home,” as reported by The Times of Israel.
In videos and speeches, Ellison emphasised: “For two thousand years, we were stateless. Now we have our own country, defended by the brave men and women of the IDF,” as shared on Instagram. Oracle execs echo: CEO Safra Catz once told staff to “love Israel or maybe this isn’t the job for you”.
Ellison reportedly vetted Marco Rubio for Israel loyalty as revealed in leaked emails, and Oracle built a massive underground data center in Israel amid Gaza ops.
Oracle’s ties to the Israeli military are insidious and extensive, embedding the company as a pillar of Israel’s military machine. Since 2006, Oracle has held multi-year contracts with the Israeli military affairs ministry, supplying databases, Fusion middleware, and cloud services integral to its operations.
Oracle’s complicity in occupation and genocide includes training Israeli military personnel and providing tech that bolsters military logistics and intelligence.
Post-October 7, 2023, Oracle declared “We stand with Israel,” donating $1M to Magen David Adom, sending supplies to Israeli soldiers, and inscribing “Oracle Stands with Israel” on company premises at Catz’s demand.
Oracle’s ERP systems, databases, and IT infrastructure fuel the Israeli military’s genocidal campaigns. Oracle “married the IDF,” with employees embedded in military training and cloud services enabling real-time warfare.
Palantir’s role
This rot extends to Palantir, another Zionist tech behemoth that Blair’s orbit intersects via shared pro-Israel ecosystems. Palantir, co-founded by Peter Thiel ( who “defers to Israel” on AI ethics), signed a strategic partnership with the Israeli regime in 2024 for battle tech, meeting with military officials to deploy AI platforms.
Palantir provides militarized AI to Israeli intelligence, including Unit 8200’s Data Science and AI Center, enabling automated targeting in Gaza—essentially AI-generated kill lists amid genocide.
Palantir— fueled by Jeffrey Epstein funds and Thiel’s backing—has treated Gaza as a testing ground for surveillance tech that spies globally. The tech company, alongside Google and Amazon, arms Israel’s genocidal atrocities, with AI systems predicting and facilitating mass killings.
Blair’s TBI, Oracle-infused, echoes this by designing “data-driven” Gaza plans that could integrate such tech, turning “reconstruction” into perpetual occupation.
Infiltrating British intelligence cloud services
This alliance raises alarms: Oracle holds UK national security contracts. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) signed a 2026 cloud deal for AI and legacy migration. The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) uses Oracle Fusion for HR and finance. The Home Office inked a £54M ($72M) cloud pact in 2025.
These departments house most of the British intelligence community, like MI6 and GCHQ (FCDO), MI5 and the Homeland Security Group (Home Office), and Defence Intelligence and the Intelligence Corps (MoD). In 2021, the Cabinet Office terminated a specific procurement plan to migrate its own on-premises Oracle ERP system, so it is the only department housing British intelligence groups (including the Joint Intelligence Organisation, National Security Secretariat, National Security Council and Joint Intelligence Committee) that is not supplied by Oracle.
With Ellison’s Israeli military ties and Oracle’s Israel operations (potentially involving Unit 8200 cyber spies), backdoors pose risks—data leaks to Israeli intel could compromise UK security.
In the real world, such back doors are known to exist in the products of Israeli/Zionist firms like NSO Group with Pegasus spyware, exploited by intelligence to hack phones worldwide, as reported by The Guardian, and Cellebrite, whose tools unlock devices for surveillance as detailed by The New York Times.
Critics speculate Ellison wants Blair’s clout to secure more contracts, while Blair eyes Ellison’s billions for global sway.
Their shared obsession with digital IDs amplifies the menace, forging an Orwellian nightmare where surveillance becomes the new chains of empire.
In a World Government Summit discussion, Ellison told Blair: “The first thing a country needs to do is to unify all of their data so it can be consumed and used by the AI model,” advocating biometric IDs to replace passwords for total, inescapable control. Blair’s TBI relentlessly pushes digital IDs as “essential for modern governance,” per a September 2025 report, estimating UK implementation at £1.4 billion—but this is sinister code for dystopian tracking.
This convergence isn’t benign; it’s a blueprint for genocidal domination. In Gaza and the Levant, digital IDs could entrench Israel’s ethnic cleansing by enabling granular, AI-fuelled surveillance of Palestinians, restricting movement like digital cattle brands, and feeding into Oracle and Palantir’s targeting systems that have already slaughtered thousands.
Byline Times reported Blair’s institute designed Gaza recovery plans on “data-driven lines echoing Oracle-Palantir war systems,” potentially turning bombed-out ruins into a panopticon of apartheid, where every breath is monitored to crush resistance.
For pacification, these IDs would “identify” survivors in “humanitarian zones,” as in Blair’s Gaza International Transitional Authority proposal, which includes “digital government services and identity systems” for civil registry and permits—euphemisms for logging dissenters, enforcing starvation sieges, and facilitating forced expulsions under the veneer of “peace.”
Oracle’s Lebanon deal risks similar exposure, with data vulnerabilities amid Israel’s invasions, turning the Levant into a testing lab for Zionist tech tyranny. Blair and Ellison’s digital dystopia isn’t progress; it’s a genocidal wet dream, pacifying Gaza through algorithmic oppression while they rake in blood-soaked billions from the rubble.
It is difficult to imagine this techno-dystopia will not be enforced everywhere else the Zionists want, if they can get away with it, as they push forward with their so-called “Greater Israel” and “Pax Judaica” hews into view.
“Board of Peace”: Colonial control, potential complicity
Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace,” formalised in January 2026, vests sweeping authority in Trump (no term limit, veto power) to implement Gaza’s “humanitarian zones,” stabilisation force, and reconstruction—excluding Hamas and NGOs with “ties.”
Blair, credited with shaping elements, joins a roster heavy on Trump allies and pro-Israel figures. Al Jazeera critiqued it as putting “rights abusers in charge.”

Kushner’s vision for Gaza

The Executive Board of the Board of Peace
Key members of the board
- Jared Kushner: As an Orthodox Jew, mega donor to the genocidal ultra-Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch cult and architect of the Abraham Accords, Kushner has described Gaza as “valuable waterfront” property, suggesting redevelopment that critics argue implies ethnic cleansing. His role on the board aligns with his history of prioritising Israeli interests, having facilitated normalisation deals that sidelined Palestinian rights, as detailed by CNBC. Kushner’s Affinity Partners firm has ties to Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, raising concerns over conflicts of interest in Gaza’s reconstruction, as noted by the European Council on Foreign Relations.
- Steve Witkoff: This Jewish real estate mogul and mega Trump donor is a staunch pro-Israel advocate, serving as US Special Envoy to the Middle East (West Asia), where he has emphasised close US-Israel partnership on Gaza as reported byThe Times of Israel. Witkoff, described as having a “warm Zionist Jewish heart,” has been instrumental in delivering messages to Netanyahu and advancing Trump’s Gaza plan, as highlighted by OnePath Network. His background in property development fuels speculation that he views Gaza’s rebuilding as a business opportunity, aligning with pro-Israel policies that prioritise security over Palestinian sovereignty.
- Marc Rowan: The Jewish CEO of Apollo Global Management is a major AIPAC donor and led donor revolts against universities over perceived antisemitism, including boycotting the University of Pennsylvania for hosting a Palestinian literary festival, as reported byThe New York Times. Rowan’s anti-Palestine activism includes calling for the resignation of university leaders amid pro-Palestinian protests, as detailed byThe American Prospect. On the board, his financial expertise is poised to oversee investment in Gaza’s reconstruction, but critics argue his pro-Israel stance will entrench Zionist control, as noted by the BBC.
- Martin Edelman: This Jewish lawyer with pro-Israel ties specialises in international real estate transactions and has shaped US-UAE relations, facilitating deals that align with Zionist interests as reported by Watan. Edelman’s involvement in West Asia diplomacy includes roles that support normalisation efforts, bypassing Palestinian rights as highlighted by JNS.org. His position on the board likely focuses on legal frameworks for Gaza’s redevelopment, raising concerns over favouring Israeli interests as discussed by the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs.
- Benjamin Netanyahu: As Israel’s Prime Minister and the chief architect of the Gaza genocide, Netanyahu embodies ideological Zionism, adhering to the “Iron Wall” doctrine of military dominance over Palestinians as explained byThe Conversation. His unwavering expansionism has led to policies even the New York Times calls apartheid. On the Board, Netanyahu’s inclusion ensures Israeli veto power, despite fuming at the presence of Turkish and Qatari officials, as reported by CNN.
- Tony Blair: As detailed throughout this article, Blair’s transactional Zionism and history of enabling Israeli policies make him a fitting but hypocritical addition to the board.
- Marco Rubio: This evangelical Christian is a fervent pro-Israel advocate, viewing support for Israel as biblically mandated as stated in his 2015 speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition. Rubio has pushed sanctions against Hezbollah and legislation to move the US embassy to occupied al-Quds, as reported by Liberty University. His role on the board aligns with Trump’s hardline stance, emphasising US-Israel alliances as critiqued by Sojourners.
- Susie Wiles: Wiles is reportedly an Episcopalian, but is not clearly a Christian Zionist. This is despite being aligned with Mike Huckabee through Florida politics and Trump’s circle, as noted by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. She consulted for Likud in 2020, as detailed by The Washington Post. Despite her role on the BOARD, she has been described as a stabilising force who reportedly looked “alarmed” or shot “daggers” at Trump during press conferences where he proposed the genocidal mass relocation of Gaza’s inhabitants, as reported byThe Daily Beast.
- Ajay Banga: This Indian-American Sikh has not publicly taken a position on BDS or Zionism; however, Mastercard and Citigroup under his leadership opposed BDS and reportedly maintained operations in the occupied Palestinian territories. Banga described his board role as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to rebuild Gaza. Typically, he tried to ‘both-sides’ the genocide by condemning “unbelievable loss of life” on both sides as “unconscionable,” but critics like Ghada Karmi argue his participation aligns with a pro-Western, Zionist-adjacent framework, sidelining Palestinian self-determination.
- Robert Gabriel: As Deputy National Security Advisor since May 2025, Gabriel has served in Trump’s administration with a focus on policy, having worked as a special assistant to Stephen Miller, as reported by Wikipedia. His consulting firm, Gabriel Strategies, and closeness to Miller and Susie Wiles underscore his role in advancing hardline pro-Israel policies as detailed by LegiStorm. Gabriel’s background in Trump’s campaign positions him as a key enforcer of Zionist-aligned security measures in Gaza, as noted by the Brookings Institution.
Gaza’s death toll is in excess of 70,000 since 2023, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which even the Zionist military accepts. Academic studies suggest around 400,000 deaths or disappearances. With the ongoing crippling blockade, the board risks enabling further atrocities—restricted access, forced compliance, displacement under “redevelopment.”
Blair’s involvement lends false legitimacy, potentially making him an accessory to crimes if the plan entrenches occupation or ethnic cleansing. As the BBC reports, no Palestinians are on the board, though some Arab/Muslim leaders have joined, such as Bahrain’s Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, Morocco’s Nasser Bourita, Jordan’s Ayman Al Safadi, UAE’s Reem Al Hashimy, Egypt’s Hassan Rashad, Qatar’s Ali al-Thawadi, and Turkey’s Hakan Fidan, as listed by CNBC.
Despite optimism from some quarters and claims that Netanyahu was not fully informed, as CNN reported, these figures are Zionist collaborators, with Turkey as a NATO member and most notably the UAE facilitating normalisation that sidelines Palestinian rights.
Does Trump see himself as “King of the World”? Chairing for life with vetoes, the Board positions him as a global arbiter. We might ask who, upon his death, would inherit the crown? Kushner, his Zionist son-in-law, is an obvious suspect, reinforcing Zionist control over Palestine’s fate.
Arrest Blair: End the impunity

Message from London: Off to the Hague
As human rights advocates argue, Blair should face The Hague for his role in the invasion of Iraq and the war crimes there (based on the Chilcot report and the legal consensus) and his pattern of enabling power abuses—from Zionist bias to Gaza-linked schemes.
Public outrage persists: X users echo this, with posts declaring “Tony Blair should be in prison for war crimes” and calls like “Tony Blair should be heading to The Hague, not to Gaza.”
Strip his honours, prosecute under universal jurisdiction. Anything less mocks justice, say human rights campaigners worldwide as well as social media users.
Blair’s role on Trump’s board is seen widely as an ultimate insult—a war criminal overseeing “peace” in a land ravaged by over two years of genocide that his country facilitated.
Epstein email reveals plan to pursue frozen Libyan assets with help from former MI6, Mossad figures
MEMO | January 31, 2026
Newly released documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein show the convicted sex offender and an associate discussed plans to pursue access to Libya’s frozen state assets, including potential support from former British and Israeli intelligence officials, according to an email included in the files, Anadolu reports.
The correspondence surfaced after the US Justice Department released an additional batch of documents Friday related to the Epstein investigation.
The newly highlighted material includes a July 2011 email sent to Epstein that outlines what the sender described as financial and legal opportunities linked to political and economic uncertainty in Libya at the time.
According to the email, about $80 billion in Libyan funds were believed to be frozen internationally, including roughly $32.4 billion in the US. The sender described “stolen and misappropriated” Libyan assets as potentially worth three to four times that amount.
The correspondence argued that identifying and recovering even a small portion of such funds could generate “billions of dollars” in gains.
It also referenced expectations that Libya would need to spend at least $100 billion in the future on reconstruction and economic recovery, describing the situation as a broader opportunity.
The email characterized Libya as a country with significant energy reserves and strong literacy rates, factors it said could be advantageous for financial and legal initiatives.
It also stated that discussions had been held with some international law firms about working on a contingency-fee basis.
The message said certain former members of Britain’s foreign intelligence service, MI6 and Israel’s external intelligence agency, Mossad, had expressed a willingness to assist in efforts to identify and recover assets described in the email as “stolen.”
The email emphasized that early involvement in such a process could represent a “significant opportunity.”
West’s hypocrisy over Iran and Gaza proves a regime-change operation in Tehran
Strategic Culture Foundation | January 30, 2026
The United States and the European Union are vehemently condemning Iran over alleged repression, while the West says nothing about the Israeli genocide in Gaza. The contradiction, of course, exposes the West’s rank hypocrisy. It also confirms that Iran is the target of a Western regime-change operation.
U.S. President Donald Trump this week repeated his threat to launch a blitzkrieg on Iran, bragging that an armada led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier was in place to strike. “Don’t make me do it,” warned Trump with thug-like menace.
Meanwhile, the European Union declared Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps a “foreign terrorist” organization. Given that the IRGC is a central component of Iran’s national security forces, the EU’s blacklisting is effectively designating the Iranian state as a terrorist entity. The EU’s provocation is paving the way for American aggression and all-out war, which will have devastating consequences, not least of all for Europe.
Washington and Europe are ostensibly basing their hostility towards Tehran on dubious claims that the Iranian authorities have committed systematic atrocities in repressing peaceful protesters in Iran demanding political change.
Trump has urged Iranians to keep protesting and vowed that “help is on the way.”
The European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, hailed the blacklisting of the IRGC, saying: “Repression cannot go unanswered… clear atrocities mean there must be a clear response from Europe.”
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot asserted: “We cannot have any impunity for the [alleged] crimes that have been committed.”
The Dutch top diplomat, David van Weel, added: “I think it’s important that we send the signal that the bloodshed that we’ve seen, the bestiality that has been used against protesters, cannot be tolerated.”
This all sounds noble and chivalrous of Western governments. But it is a contemptuous charade, belying disingenuousness and duplicity.
For more than two years, the Israeli regime has waged a blatant genocide in Gaza. The death toll is estimated at over 71,000, with most of the victims being civilians, women, and children. The real death toll is probably well over 100,000 from bodies buried under rubble from Israeli bombardment that are not accounted for.
Far from expressing any condemnation against the Israeli regime, the United States and the European Union (with minor exceptions) have maintained an odious silence that has afforded political cover for the genocide. The Western states are complicit as a result of their shameful silence. More damning, however, is that the United States and European states, including France, Germany, and Britain, have supplied warplanes, missiles, drones, electronics, and other weaponry to fuel the slaughter.
Trump boasts about his so-called Board of Peace for Gaza and a supposed ceasefire that was claimed to have started in October. Over 500 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military since the ceasefire travesty. Thousands of Palestinians are starving or freezing to death in windswept and flooded tents still deprived of humanitarian aid. The genocide continues under the grotesque guise of “peace”.
Trump is an “Israel First” U.S. president more than any of his predecessors, who all consistently gave the Zionist regime a license to kill and occupy. Trump’s complicity is remarkable and suggests his late pedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein furnished Israeli intelligence with lots of blackmail material on the 47th president. So, his silence over genocide is explicable.
What about the Europeans, though? Maybe there is blackmail going on, too, to buy their complicity. Nevertheless, the hypocrisy is astounding.
Why aren’t Kallas, Barrot, and the other EU foreign ministers denouncing impunity and repression by the Israeli regime? They selectively apply their morals and faux humanitarian concerns to Iran.
The two scenarios are, in any case, incomparable. One is genocide, the other is civil unrest, which the evidence shows involves foreign orchestration.
Protests began in Tehran on December 28, sparked by legitimate economic grievances. The country of over 90 million has been strangled for decades by illegal Western economic sanctions. Tellingly, the relatively small demonstrations in Tehran’s bazaars at the end of December were rapidly escalated into full-blown violent attacks in several cities. The disturbances appear to have subsided, and there have been huge counter-demonstrations involving millions of people taking to the streets to denounce the violence of what seems to be almost certainly Western-orchestrated gangs.
The Iranian authorities claim that the total deaths after four weeks of violence are about 3,100. Western media reports and governments have cited much larger figures of 6,000 and up to 17,000 deaths. The Western figures are supplied by U.S. or European-based groups, such as the Iranian Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI). These groups are funded by the CIA’s cut-out organization, the National Endowment for Democracy.
Israeli news media have even admitted in reports that the street violence was being directed by foreign agencies. Former CIA chief Mike Pompeo also let it slip that Mossad operatives were behind the disturbances.
The methodical type of violence and damage sustained also indicates a coup attempt. Hundreds of mosques, schools, buses, government buildings, banks, and medical facilities were attacked and destroyed by gun-wielding gangs and arsonists.
Many of the casualties were inflicted on security forces and civilian bystanders in an orgy of violence that indicates a trained cadre of agitators and terrorists. Victims were beheaded and mutilated.
The Western media have conspicuously conflated the deaths and injuries as all attributed to the Iranian security forces, who allegedly used “lethal force to repress peaceful protesters.”
This is the standard operating procedure of Western regime change: to escalate deadly civil strife to destabilize the targeted state. The Western media then reliably row in with a massive propaganda assault to valorize the orchestrated violence and to demonize the authorities.
As Iranian Professor Mohammad Marandi points out, the West’s modus operandi is to demonize foreign countries to justify regime change, and if needs be, to justify all-out military aggression.
In 1953, the same method was used by the Americans and British to overthrow the elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh’s “crime” was that he nationalized the oil industry, depriving Britain of its leech-like control over Iranian natural wealth, which saw most of the population living in poverty and squalor, as vast Persian oil profits flowed into London. For the coup to succeed, millions of dollars were funneled by the CIA into Iran to whip up street gangs, and the Western media on both sides of the Atlantic dutifully painted Mossadegh as illegitimate. He was overthrown, and the Western puppet, the Shah, was installed, presiding over a brutal CIA and MI6-backed regime for 26 years until the Islamic Revolution kicked him out in 1979. Amazingly, from the point of view of chutzpah consistency, more than seven decades later, the Shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, living in pampered exile in the U.S., is being advocated by the West to take over if the Islamic Republic collapses. Plus ca change!
The same regime-change formula has been repeated over and over in as many as 100 other countries since the Americans and British launched their post-Second World War debut covert operation in Iran in 1953, as Finian Cunningham’s new book Killing Democracy surveys. Crucially, the Western news media play an absolutely vital role in assisting this systematic criminality, as they are doing currently in Iran, and before that in Venezuela.
Only four weeks ago, Washington’s military aggression against Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, Nicolás Maduro, by U.S. commandos was preceded by a full-court media campaign of demonization, absurdly labelling him a narcoterrorist.
Trump’s aggression towards Venezuela and now Iran is an outrageous violation of the UN Charter and international law. It marks a return to predatory imperialism. And the servile European states kowtow to this all-out predatory criminality with bogus concern about human rights.
We know their concerns are a complete sham and morally bankrupt because if there were any genuine principles, then they would not be so abject in their silence over the Israeli regime’s genocide in Gaza.
This is why Trump has been so emboldened to treat the Europeans with contempt over Greenland and other issues. If you act like a doormat, then expect to be walked on.
UK Health Officials Covered Up Reports of Heart Damage Linked to AstraZeneca Vaccine
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | January 29, 2026
Newly released U.K. public health data show that in 2021 and 2022, thousands of people filed cardiac-related adverse event reports after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
The data confirm the findings of a study by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) researchers. The study was published on Preprints.org.
GB News last week reported on the data, obtained from the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The data showed that in 2021 alone, the MHRA received 48,472 reports of cardiac-related adverse events linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Of these, 23,914 cardiovascular events had already been reported by late March 2021 — which means the reports were filed within the first three months after the COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out to the public.
A total of 6,175 reports of blood-clotting events were reported during the same period, according to MHRA data.
The adverse event reports were being filed even as U.K. public health authorities told the public that the AstraZeneca vaccine — a non-mRNA vaccine developed in conjunction with Oxford University and licensed under the name Vaxzevria — was safe and effective.
Oxford researchers, Drs. Tom Jefferson and Carl Heneghan obtained the data through a freedom of information request submitted to the MHRA in October 2025. The request sought information on cardiovascular and thromboembolic (blood-clotting) events connected to the AstraZeneca shot between February 2021 and January 2024.
MHRA responded to the request a month later, providing the researchers with data, which Jefferson and Heneghan analyzed and published in a series of Substack posts.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time anyone (outside the powerful) has seen the reports submitted to the MHRA regarding serious potential harms during the first period of the rollout,” the researchers wrote in a Substack post.
CHD Senior Research Scientist Karl Jablonowski said the MHRA “used non-public data from one of the best medical record systems in the world” to craft “a narrative opposite to what the data reflect.”
“Instead of showing the cardiovascular catastrophe that unfolded in those injected with the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, health officials instead wrote that the results of their analysis offer ‘reassurance regarding the cardiovascular safety of COVID-19 vaccines.’ … The word ‘fraud’ may actually be too kind,” Jablonowski said.
Informed consent ‘compromised’
The MHRA contained discrepancies. According to GB News, MHRA dismissed its own figures after the researchers published them on Substack. Instead, they said the number of heart conditions linked to the AstraZeneca shot during the period in question was 13,010 — nearly four times lower than the original figure.
An MHRA spokesperson told GB News that the agency is “currently reviewing previously released figures in more detail to identify any potential discrepancies.”
In its analysis of the MHRA data, TrialSite News suggested that such significant data discrepancies call the MHRA’s credibility into question.
“While adverse-event reporting systems are designed to detect signals rather than prove causation, large unexplained gaps weaken confidence in risk communication,” TrialSite News wrote.
The researchers also asked the MHRA to provide data on the number of AstraZeneca shots administered in the U.K. The UK Health Security Agency initially refused, explaining that the information was “commercially sensitive” and that releasing it “would not be in the public interest.”
The agency later released the data after the researchers appealed. According to the researchers, the data showed a strong correlation between doses administered and adverse events reported. However, even after the AstraZeneca vaccine was withdrawn, adverse event reports were still being filed, suggesting “a long-term dose effect.”
TrialSite News founder and CEO Daniel O’Connor told The Defender that “the MHRA disclosures highlight a core failure of pandemic-era regulation: safety signals were managed rather than transparently communicated.”
“The issue is not only the adverse events themselves, but why their full scale emerged only through freedom of information requests,” O’Connor said. “When critical risk information reaches the public years late, informed consent is compromised and trust in the regulatory system is inevitably eroded.”
CHD study found evidence linking AstraZeneca shot to heart conditions
The data in the MHRA documents support the findings of a preprint study published by CHD and Brownstone Institute scientists last year.
The researchers reanalyzed data used in earlier studies that concluded the COVID-19 vaccines were safe. By comparing relative risks from different vaccines — which the original studies failed to do — the new research revealed evidence linking the Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines to significant health dangers.
The study also found that the risks for cardiovascular disease and death from the AstraZeneca vaccine were significantly higher than those of the Pfizer vaccine.
The preprint, which is undergoing review, also suggested that some earlier COVID-19 vaccine safety studies were “biased by design.”
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., CHD chief scientific officer, drew parallels with similar findings that he and Jablonowski discovered about safety signals connected to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and a subsequent cover-up of those signals by U.S. public health agencies.
Hooker said:
“The Pfizer vaccine was released on Dec. 11, 2020, and by January 2021, there were 23 reports of military service personnel with diagnoses of myocarditis following receiving the shot. At this point, less than 5% of U.S. adults had received the jab.
“The evidence regarding the Pfizer shot and myocarditis very quickly unfolded in front of these agencies, but no warning was given until May 27, 2021, when the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] trotted out a website that indicated there might be an issue with myocarditis and pericarditis due to VAERS reports. At that point, over 50% of those eligible in the U.S. had received the jab.
“The point was clear: lie and hide until we can get lots of shots in arms.”
UK continued to recommend AstraZeneca shot despite safety signals
According to GB News, at the same time that the MHRA data were showing evidence of cardiac conditions and blood clots linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine, “internal discussions were taking place” about how to manage public messaging about the shot’s safety.
GB News cited minutes from a U.K. government task force on COVID-19 vaccine risks. The minutes, published in 2024, showed that concerns about the link between the AstraZeneca shot and blood clots were discussed as early as April 2021, and that safety issues were known by March 2021.
Throughout 2021, stories about people who died of blood clots after getting the AstraZeneca shot began appearing in the media.
Yet, the task force minutes recorded discussions of “concerns that public alarm over the vaccine could make it harder to vaccinate the population by increasing ‘vaccine hesitancy,’” GB News reported.
During this period, the mainstream press in the U.K. continued to promote the AstraZeneca shot as safe and effective. A March 2021 report by The Guardian claimed, “There’s no proof the Oxford vaccine causes blood clots.”
In April 2021, the U.K.’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advised that adults under 30 should be offered an alternative COVID-19 vaccine. The European Medicines Agency issued similar guidance that month.
Yet, by March 2021, several European countries had withdrawn the AstraZeneca shot, citing the risk of blood clots. Research published that month also found a link between the shot and blood clots.
The AstraZeneca shot was never authorized or licensed in the U.S., but clinical trials for the vaccine were conducted in the U.S. with American participants. TrialSite News cited the case of Brianne Dressen, “who developed severe, long-term neurological symptoms after participating in the U.S. trial.”
AstraZeneca contractually agreed to provide medical care to trial participants for research-related injuries. However, in an ongoing federal lawsuit, Dressen alleges that the company reneged on that promise. AstraZeneca argued it is immune from legal prosecution.
In 2021, Dressen founded React19, an advocacy group for the vaccine-injured.
“These events underscore that even vaccines halted before approval can produce lasting human consequences — and unresolved accountability questions,” TrialSite News wrote.
‘A move to quiet the public, to pacify would-be critics’
AstraZeneca withdrew its COVID-19 vaccine from the market in 2024, citing “commercial reasons.” However, the company admitted in 2024 U.K. court documents that its shot could, in “very rare cases,” cause blood clots.
“This admission is now central to a growing class action lawsuit brought by individuals who say they suffered life-changing injuries,” GB News reported.
“The timing of events is interesting. AstraZeneca requested the withdrawal of the vaccine from EU markets in March 2024. It was effective May 2024. The study decrying its ‘cardiovascular safety’ was published in July 2024,” Jablonowski said.
According to Jablonowski, this suggests that these actions were “not for the betterment of public health nor vaccine uptake, since the vaccine was no longer available,” but were instead “a move to quiet the public, to pacify would-be critics.”
GB News reported that a U.K. parliamentary inquiry into the MHRA’s handling of vaccine safety issues is “very likely” to occur.
“These agencies, both in the U.S. and the U.K., need to be held to account for their felonious lies and those individuals who were harmed need to be compensated,” Hooker said.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
The UK Covid Inquiry: Propaganda to protect the ‘pandemic’ narrative
By Gary L. Sidley | Propaganda In Focus | January 9, 2026
On the 20th of November, 2025, the UK Covid Inquiry published a report on Module 2 of its ongoing review titled, ‘Core decision-making and political governance’. Despite, to date, spending around £192 million of taxpayers’ money on an in-depth investigation into the management of the 2020 ‘pandemic’, this 800-page tome indicates that the overarching conclusion of the Inquiry will most likely be that the unprecedented and net harmful government responses (lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccine coercion) were all necessary, and the only problems related to the timings of the interventions and process failures. As such, this Module 2 report can be reasonably construed as a propaganda exercise primarily intent on preserving the core elements of the dominant, fundamentally flawed, covid narrative.
In the words of the oft-quoted Edward Bernays, propaganda involves ‘the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses’. It is clear that this Module 2 report, and the UK Covid Inquiry as a whole, strive to do just that. With the primary goal of protecting the ‘pandemic’ story – that in early 2020, a uniquely lethal pathogen spread carnage across the world, and unprecedented and draconian restrictions on our day-to-day lives were essential to prevent Armageddon – the inquiry has incorporated a range of manipulation techniques designed to promulgate this state-sanctioned ideology. The two most prominent opinion-shaping strategies deployed by the Inquiry have been the suppression of dissenting perspectives, and a narrowing of the Overton window.
Suppression of dissenting perspectives
In her initial selection of ‘core participants’ for the Inquiry, Chairperson Baroness Hallett signalled her intention to marginalise voices that were likely to be critical of the official covid narrative. Those granted core status benefitted from the opportunity to make opening and closing statements, and to suggest lines of questioning to the witnesses, whereas those groups excluded were limited to submitting written evidence in the hope that it would be considered by the Inquiry team. Organisations who had been openly opposed to the mainstream public health responses during the covid event – for example, Us For Them (who repeatedly highlighted the devastating impact of the restrictions on our nation’s children) and the Health Advisory & Recovery Team (a group of scientists and clinicians concerned about ‘pandemic’ policy and guidance recommendations) – were unsuccessful in their applications.
Consideration of those groups who were permitted to be core participants for Module 2 clearly shows a preponderance of stakeholders who were highly likely to be on board with the central tenets of the official covid narrative. In addition to the expected establishment figures (representatives from various government departments, the Office of the Chief Medical Officer, the UK Health Security Agency) and four ‘Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice’ groups, it is difficult not to conclude that other core participants were selected on account of their fervour for more and earlier restrictions. For instance, despite ‘long covid’ being a highly contested concept, three groups representing the victims of this assumed malady were awarded core status. Similarly, the British Medical Association (who energetically campaigned for longer lockdowns and stricter mask mandates) also managed to secure a place in Baroness Hallett’s inner circle.
Despite this crude censorship, a significant amount of critical commentary did reach the Inquiry, in the form of both live testimony and written statements. Crucially, however, these counter narratives were de-emphasised by the Inquiry team and – subsequently – were not reflected in its conclusions. One blatant example of a dissenting voice being prematurely curtailed was the interview with Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine and longstanding critic of the dominant covid narrative. When Heneghan asserted that expert interpretation of published research constitutes valid evidence for the Inquiry, Hallett retorted, ‘Not in my world it doesn’t … if there is anything further, please submit it in writing’. This abruptness contrasts sharply with the deferent, sometimes sycophantic, way establishment witnesses were managed by the Inquiry team.
Narrowing the Overton window
It was apparent from the start of the UK Covid Inquiry that Baroness Hallett and her legal team had decided which public health decisions made during the covid event were open to critical scrutiny and which were not. This contraction of the Overton window ensured that crucial elements of the official narrative were shielded from critical analysis.
To illustrate, three pre-determined assumptions – foundational to the official covid story – seemed to fall into this protected category:
1. Lockdowns were necessary
The headline-grabbing conclusion in the Module 2 report was that locking down a week earlier would have saved 23,000 lives. This absurd deduction was not based on robust science or real-world studies, but drawn from the fantasy realm of mathematical modelling. An in-depth analysis of covid-era decision making (which is what the Inquiry was supposed to be) would have given prominence to a detailed cost-benefits evaluation of lockdowns, a process that would have revealed the substantial harms of this unparalleled pandemic restriction. The key reason for the omission of this vital analysis was the Inquiry’s premature assumption that lockdowns were an effective public health tool, essential for the containment of a – purportedly – novel virus.
More specifically, Baroness Hallett and her team adopted a classic propaganda strategy, commonly referred to as ‘unanimity’. With the presumption that all right-thinking people recognise that lockdowns save lives, the Overton window was squeezed to become merely a question of timing; any testimony straying outside of this range of acceptability was ignored – or, at best, reduced to background noise – while, in contrast, speculations about the life-saving benefits of an earlier societal shutdown were amplified.
2. The mass vaccination programme was a great success
Despite increasing recognition that the covid vaccines were less efficacious, and more harmful, than initially claimed, the Inquiry appears to have adopted the foundational assumption that these novel products were safe and effective, and anyone who believed otherwise must constitute a deviant minority at odds with the unanimous opinion of right-thinking people. Indications for the constant presence of this guiding notion are brazen. Thus, Hugo Keith KC (the lead counsel to the Inquiry) has, at various points during his interactions with witnesses, described the vaccines as ‘entirely effective… undoubted successes… with lifesaving benefits that vastly outweighed the very rare risk of serious side effects’. Similarly, Baroness Hallett – at the press conference announcing the findings of Module 2 – hailed the vaccine programme as a ‘remarkable achievement’.
3. Community masking was not associated with any appreciable negative consequences
It was evident at an early stage in the Inquiry that another untouchable premise was that the masking of healthy people in community settings was a sensible precaution that could only have net benefits. Thus, when Professor Peter Horby, the chair of NERVTAG (a high-profile SAGE advisory group), gave evidence in October 2023 he reiterated his group’s 2020 conclusion that the evidence for mask effectiveness in reducing viral transmission was ‘weak’; Lady Hallett interjected, saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m not following … if there’s a possible benefit, what’s the downside? Horby responded to this challenge by suggesting that respect for institutional science was at stake – in keeping with the majority of the establishment scientists, he failed to highlight the considerable harms associated with routine masking.
The Inquiry’s pre-formed assumption that compelling people to wear face coverings was a public health intervention free of negative consequences was confirmed by the Module 2 report with its emphatic conclusions that:
‘The experience of the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that wearing a face covering has minimal disadvantage for the majority of the population.’
‘In any future pandemic where airborne transmission is a risk, the UK government and devolved administrations should give real consideration to mandating face coverings for the public in closed settings.’ (p. 288)
In conclusion, the overarching take-home message from the Inquiry to date is that public health strategy adopted by the government in response to the emergence of a novel virus in 2020 was essentially the correct one, and any criticism of the official covid narrative should be confined to process issues, such as the timing of restrictions. Devoid of any forensic analysis of their costs and benefits, Lady Hallett and her team have concluded that lockdowns, mRNA vaccines, and mask mandates all achieved positive outcomes and should therefore be repeated when we encounter the next ‘pandemic’. By amplifying voices supportive of the official covid narrative, while marginalising critical viewpoints, the Inquiry has succeeded in strengthening its – apparently pre-determined – perspective that, irrespective of any harms caused, the restrict-and-jab approach was, ultimately, for the greater good.
Most commentators who have been sceptical of the official covid narrative will not be surprised by the Inquiry’s conclusions. Given that the political elites, along with prominent public health mandarins, enthusiastically endorsed the calamitous restrictions and vaccine rollout (and continue to do so) the damage to the establishment of drawing different, more condemnatory, inferences would have been immense. From the perspective of our global leaders, the Inquiry to date is – no doubt – serving its primary purpose of concealing the true ramifications of the covid response from the general population.
Gary Sidley, PhD, is a former NHS consultant clinical psychologist with over 30-years’ experience of clinical, professional and managerial practice in adult mental health. In 2000, he obtained his PhD for a thesis exploring the psychological predictors of suicidal behaviour and has multiple mental health publications to his name, including academic papers, book chapters, and his own book, ‘Tales from the Madhouse: An insider critique of psychiatric services). Since the start of the covid event, he has written many articles critiquing the government’s nudge-infused messaging and mask mandates, including pieces for the Spectator, the Critic and Self & Society. More of his articles can be found on his ‘Manipulation of the Masses’ Substack.
Britain’s return to piracy to stop Russian ships – desperate attempt to demonstrate power
Ahmed Adel | January 28, 2026
British media claims that London is preparing to deal with tankers from Russian ports in the same way that the United States deals with tankers from Venezuela – by seizing them. However, Russia has the strength and means to protect its interests at sea and respond to all provocations, including possible pirate actions by Great Britain.
The United Kingdom is one of the few countries with experience in conducting naval operations after World War II, and despite major issues with the fleet, the traditions of the Royal Navy remain alive. The tradition of corsairs (state-sanctioned pirates) and piracy is closely linked to Britain, which even invited the best pirates to serve the Majesty. These are well-known facts from the age of the sailing fleet, and in essence, they show that these traditions are remembered and not forgotten.
The Russian ambassador to London, Andrey Kelin, also called the British government’s plans piracy.
“What politicians in London are talking about is essentially a return to the era of the pirate Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard,” Kelin said. “What they forget is that Britain has long ceased to be the ‘ruler of the seas,’ and its actions will not go unpunished.”
The US and Britain are two different countries, both in terms of power and other factors. This is demonstrated by the fact that the Trump administration has, for now, halted British plans to transfer the Chagos Islands, where an American military base is located, to Mauritius. In the wake of this humiliation, the British are now trying to demonstrate, especially to Europe, that they are not weak.
The reality is that the days when the British had major influence are gone. They can still carry out sabotage and terrorist attacks in Ukraine and the Black Sea. However, directly seizing Russian ships would trigger a devastating response that the British are simply not prepared for.
Recently, the US has seized seven tankers linked to Venezuela. The US does not have the legal right to take such actions, but the country is acting from a position of strength and has deliberately not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which upholds the principle of freedom of navigation.
Washington’s example clearly inspired London, which suddenly remembered that it could also sanction Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet,” just as the US sanctioned Venezuela. A law passed before the start of the Special Military Operation—the Sanctions and Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2018—includes a provision that allows merchant ships suspected of evading sanctions or sailing under a false flag to be searched and seized by the British military.
The British are not only considering the option of seizing oil tankers, but also financing Ukraine with oil stolen in this way.
This is all an attempt by Britain to demonstrate that it is a force to be reckoned with. In reality, their situation is quite dire. The events related to Greenland also revealed this.
Russia’s fleet can reliably and easily escort tankers through the Baltic, English Channel, and Mediterranean Sea, from Turkish waters and beyond, via the Suez Canal into the Red Sea. Anything outside these routes would require more force, effort, and involvement, but Russia can easily handle it.
The British, on the other hand, have bases in both Gibraltar and the Indian Ocean. Because of this, the possibility of provocations cannot be ruled out, especially in the Baltic Sea. There is real paranoia in the Baltics – fortifications are being built along the border, swamps are being drained, and all sorts of measures are being taken. For example, Denmark is practically being superseded by the US in Greenland, but the Danes are criticizing Russia even more. It is as if Russia is taking Greenland, not the US.
London is also behaving this way, not wanting to be weaker than their former colonies, primarily the US.
Nonetheless, despite all the British bravado, on January 23, the Russian oil tanker MT General Skobelev traveled through the English Channel, escorted by the missile corvette Boykiy from the Russian Baltic Fleet, while two British Navy ships, HMS Mersey and HMS Severn, could only watch without attempting to intercept the Russian merchant vessel.
Britain’s political elite and its allies are considering various measures to put pressure on Russia. Ideas about the blockade of Kaliningrad are also emerging, while Britain is still one of the main sponsors of the Kiev regime and the main culprit for prolonging the war in Ukraine. Given this situation, which the Kremlin has not instigated, the most important thing is that the Russian Navy has the strength, capabilities, resources, and everything it needs to protect merchant vessels and tankers from British pirate raids.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
France and EU clash over UK missiles for Ukraine – Telegraph
RT | January 27, 2026
France has clashed with several EU nations over a proposal that would allow Ukraine to use an EU-backed loan to buy British Storm Shadow missiles, The Telegraph reported on Monday, citing diplomatic sources. Paris has consistently pushed for preferential treatment for the EU’s military industry on procurements destined for Kiev.
In December, EU leaders approved a €90 billion ($107 billion) loan to cover Kiev’s military needs and budgetary gap, with spending rules that prioritize EU-made weapons before allowing purchases from outside the bloc. According to The Telegraph, a coalition of 11 capitals has now proposed loosening the rule so Ukraine can more easily buy weapons such as Britain’s long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which are in short supply.
France, however, has emerged as an “obvious opponent” to the plan, a diplomatic source told the newspaper. The outlet noted that Paris is the center of the EU’s drive for “strategic autonomy” amid concerns about overreliance on US defense after a rift with Washington over its controversial push to acquire Greenland.
Under the current design of the €90 billion loan, spending on weapons would follow a four-layer procurement cascade that prioritizes Ukrainian producers first, then EU defense firms, followed by partner countries such as the UK, with suppliers outside Europe – including the US – treated as a last resort, according to the article. Ukrainian officials have reportedly estimated that around €24 billion of equipment this year will have to come from suppliers outside the EU.
A diplomatic source told The Telegraph that the aim of Britain and its partners was to keep the system “open enough for the UK” to ensure that reaching the third layer of the cascade “is not so hard.”
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte earlier warned that the EU loan should not be constrained by “buy European” rules, while acknowledging the bloc “cannot fully supply everything Ukraine needs to defend itself today and deter tomorrow.”
Moscow has condemned Western arms supplies as prolonging the conflict, while Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has suggested that the €30 billion portion of the EU loan earmarked for Ukraine’s budget support would be embezzled by local officials.




