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SHOCK POLL: 36% of Americans Believe They Experienced a Covid Shot Side Effect

By Jefferey Jaxen | November 22, 2025

The latest Rasmussen poll speaks volumes. A major flashing warning light for public health officials and political leadership. Are they paying attention? And more importantly, will they act?

Rasmussen polls are pulse checks – real-time snapshots of public sentiment and mood on key topics.

The recent Rasmussen report reveals:

  • 26% say they had minor side effects from the Covid shot
  • 10% reported major side effects from the vaccine
  • 46% believe it is likely that side effects of COVID-19 vaccines have caused a significant number of unexplained deaths

Under Kennedy’s leadership at HHS, once authoritarian Covid shot mandates have been backed off to ‘individual-based decision-making’ but is that enough. It’s clear the current public health apparatus wants out of all aspects of the Biden administration’s Covid train wreck.

Given the mounting data and science pointing to harms, many believe the government should be doing more – namely removing the Covid shot from the market.

At the same time, The Telegraph is reporting the following:

The story was created thanks to the legal action of the independent, non-profit, non-affiliated group UsForThemUK, along with diagnostic pathologist Dr. Clare Craig, who engaged in a 2-year battle to get public transparency of the general Covid vaccine and mortality data… data that was freely shared with pharmaceutical companies but withheld from the public.

The group lost its legal fight but a key admission was revealed to the public as the Telegraph writes:

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) argued that releasing the data would lead to the “distress or anger” of bereaved relatives if a link were to be discovered.

Public health officials also argued that publishing the data risked damaging the well-being and mental health of the families and friends of people who died.

The Telegraph then describes a behind-the-veil moment writing:

UsForThem, a campaign group, requested that UKHSA release the data under freedom of information laws. But the agency refused, making a number of different arguments including that publishing the data “could lead to misinformation” that would “have an adverse impact on vaccine uptake” in the public.

In America, the CDC has just updated its “Vaccine Safety’ page creating massive public buzz showing an evolution in both science and a willingness to be truthful towards the public.

Among the new admissions the CDC website now states:

Scientific studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines contribute to the development of autism. However, this statement has historically been disseminated by the CDC and other federal health agencies within HHS to prevent vaccine hesitancy.

Together, both the UKHSA and CDC’s new statements show there has been, and still is, a lockstep coordination to purposely censor information from the public when it comes to injectable pharmaceutical product lines.

Governments are desperate to avoid the Covid vaccine injury conversation eager to avoid full-blown public health revolt on unknown consequences (already happening in large sections of the population)

The American Covid vaccine space is still a dismal public relations nightmare. The PREP Act, keeping the pandemic’s unnecessary actions in effect, blocks any hope of proper compensation for the critical mass of Americans who have experienced injuries from the mandated, failed shot.

Meanwhile, the ‘science is not political’ crowd spawned an East and West Coast Alliance coalition of all blue Democrat-run states representing the high water mark of hypocrisy and groupthink. Banding together for the purpose of ignoring the facts and evidence to push the Covid shot on infants and healthy people sans pandemic emergency.

The bizarre and self-defeatist move refusing to acknowledge any new science since 2020 on the mounting dangers of the Covid shot – the alliances are not only a danger to public health but to the credibility of the very institutional trust they claim to be standing for – perfect inversion.

The harms of the Covid shot are still a real concern of the American public. Ignoring these concerns or attempting to soft-sell solutions bypassing real help for the injured will not make this flashing red light any dimmer.

November 22, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Emirati, Israeli disinformation campaign frames Sudan conflict as Christian persecution: Report

Press TV – November 21, 2025

Far-right Emirati and Israeli social media influencers have engaged in a coordinated digital campaign to falsely claim that Christians were being killed by “Islamists” in Sudan, a new report has revealed.

Sudanese investigative platform Beam Reports said that after the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group seized control of el-Fasher in Darfur nearly a month ago, misleading content about the nature of events began to surface online in a “synchronised manner.”

Beam found that several accounts took to social media to re-use images of RSF abuses against civilians in el-Fasher and frame them as “Islamist violence against Christians.”

The outlet accused Amjad Taha, an Emirati analyst, of being the architect of the campaign. He reportedly posted several claims about alleged Islamists in Sudan, which were then amplified by other accounts.

For several months, the Emirati figure has led the charge on social media to link Sudan’s armed forces with the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic resistance movement Hamas in Gaza.

Amjad Taha claimed that Sudan’s army had “killed 2 million Christians, displaced 8 million, and raped 15,000 women, while leftists stay busy attacking the UAE… a nation where church bells ring freely.”

However, none of the numbers cited were supported by credible sources or verified reports, according to the investigation.

The Emirati influencer also said that a Sudanese army officer had “eaten a man’s heart after killing him and his children.” Again, no evidence was provided, but such claims were amplified by Emirati, Israeli, and far-right accounts.

According to the report published by Beam, the objectives of the coordinated campaign included shifting blame of atrocities away from the RSF, recasting Sudan’s war as a religious conflict to “evoke foreign sympathy,” and flooding the online space with fabricated content to confuse media coverage.

One such example was American influencer Nima Yamini, who shared images from el-Fasher and claimed they showed “Christians slaughtered in Sudan – and no one talks about it,” adding that massacres against Christians were so severe that you can “see blood from space.”

In reality, blood splatters seen from space were from areas of el-Fasher where the RSF were reported to have shot residents.

In a different post, far-right Polish politician Dominik Tarczynski shared a purported image of a mother and child in el-Fasher with the false caption: “Sudan: genocide of Christians by the Islamists.”

In 2023, a conflict broke out between the Sudanese army and the RSF, far from religious lines, which has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands, displaced over 12 million people, and led the International Rescue Committee to characterize it as “the largest humanitarian crisis ever documented.”

Sudanese authorities have repeatedly said the RSF enjoys unconditional support from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with Khartoum taking legal action against the country at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in April.

A report by British daily newspaper The Guardian late last month revealed that British-made weapons and military equipment are being supplied by the UAE to militants from the RSF.

Furthermore, Khartoum-based writer and strategic affairs analyst Makkawi Elmalik also said in October that what is happening in Sudan “is not a regular military battle, but a systematic extermination committed by the RSF, supported by the UAE and Israel.”

He further stated that both the UAE and the Israeli regime have participated in planning the militia’s attacks on civilians in the Sudanese city and provided them with weapons and intelligence.

November 21, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia, China upbraid anti-Iran IAEA resolution, urge West to drop threats

Press TV – November 21, 2025

Russia and China have, in the strongest terms, rebuked a recent anti-Iran resolution passed by the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), calling for the settlement of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear issue through dialogue and cooperation.

Drafted by France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States and approved 19–3 with 12 abstentions on Thursday, the resolution sought to pressure Tehran by demanding it “without delay” account for its enriched uranium stocks and facilities damaged in the June attacks by the United States and Israel.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova announced at a press conference in Moscow that Russia continues to firmly emphasize finding political and diplomatic solutions to the issue of Iran’s nuclear program.

Asked about a recent telephone conversation between the Russian and Iranian foreign ministers, during which the issue of Iran’s nuclear program and related talks were discussed, Zakharova was cited by TASS as saying that Moscow is consistently committed to actively seeking political and diplomatic solutions to the Iranian nuclear issue.

The spokeswoman added that Moscow has repeatedly warned about the dangers of “military actions” that threaten the stability and security of West Asia, underlining that any military attack on nuclear facilities, especially those under the monitoring of the IAEA, is “unacceptable.”

Zakharova also said the US aggression against Iran’s nuclear sites undermined the principles the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — a treaty to which Iran has always been fully committed and which the IAEA has confirmed.

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman went on to say that despite the efforts on the part of some foreign actors to create chaos and trouble in Iranian society, Tehran still prefers the path of dialogue over war and believes that national interests can be secured based on equal dialogue and by taking into account mutual concerns.

She stressed that in order to resume the talks, Iran needs “serious guarantees” that its nuclear facilities will not be targeted by missile or air attacks again.

Zakharova further underlined that the West must put aside threats of sanctions and military threats and return to diplomacy with Iran.

IAEA urged to create ‘favorable conditions for cooperation’

Li Song, China’s permanent representative to the IAEA, told the Board of Governors on Thursday that pushing through a counterproductive resolution against Iran will “only make things worse,” stressing that the US, Israel, and key European states are fueling the ongoing crisis surrounding Tehran’s nuclear file.

“Countries that have recklessly resorted to the use of force and obsessively pursued confrontation and pressure are responsible for the current situation of the Iranian nuclear issue,” Li said.

The Chinese envoy stressed that Israel and the United States attacked Iranian nuclear facilities safeguarded by the IAEA in June, which led to a “fundamental change in the situation of the Iranian nuclear issue.”

“Such an act should be strongly condemned by the international community and the IAEA,” he said.

On the Cairo agreement reached between Iran and the IAEA in September, Li emphasized that the pact was “a positive development” and “an important opportunity” to fully revive safeguards cooperation.

He said the activation of the snapback mechanism by the UK, France, and Germany had “seriously undermined the good momentum of cooperation” between Tehran and the Agency.

Li added that the Iranian nuclear issue “can only be properly resolved” by respecting Iran’s legitimate NPT rights and ensuring the peaceful nature of its program through political, diplomatic, and safeguards mechanisms.

The envoy called on the BoG to “create favorable conditions for cooperation and dialogue” and to avoid “provoking confrontation.”

November 21, 2025 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran moves to terminate Cairo agreement with IAEA

The Cradle | November 20, 2025

Iran notified the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on 20 November that it is terminating the cooperation agreement signed in Cairo in retaliation for the UN nuclear watchdog adopting a new resolution demanding expanded access and information on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iran’s envoy to the agency, Reza Najafi, said the resolution “will not add anything to the current situation” and described it as “counterproductive” shortly after the Board of Governors approved the text.

He warned that it would have “a negative impact on the cooperation that has already started between Iran and the agency.”

According to diplomats who attended the closed session, the 35-member board passed the resolution with 19 votes in favor, three against, and 12 abstentions.

The text requires Iran to report “without delay” on the status of its enriched uranium stock and on its nuclear sites that were bombed by Israel and the US during the 12-day war on Iran in June.

It also urges Iran to “comply fully and without delay” with its obligations under UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions and to provide all information and access requested by the agency.

Western members of the board stated that “Iran must resolve its safeguards issues without delay” and called for “practical cooperation through access, answers, restoration of monitoring.”

Iran maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful and had earlier cautioned that the resolution would “adversely affect” ongoing cooperation. Najafi noted that Iran had already granted access to “all undamaged facilities,” while inspectors have not been to sites such as Fordow and Natanz since they were hit in the June war.

The agency says verification of Iran’s uranium stock is “long overdue,” and that it cannot inspect the bombed facilities until Tehran submits updated reports.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the IAEA resolution was “unlawful and politically motivated,” initiated by the US and the European troika, and pushed through despite the 15 members voting against or abstaining.

He said the move ignored Iran’s goodwill, undermined the agency’s credibility and independence, and would disrupt cooperation.

The Foreign Minister had previously said that the Cairo agreement with the IAEA was defunct after Europe triggered snapback sanctions, but added that a negotiated solution remains possible if the opposing side acts in good faith.

Araghchi confirmed that he informed IAEA chief Rafael Grossi in a formal letter that the agreement is now considered terminated.

When Israeli attacks began in June, the IAEA estimated Iran held 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 60 percent.

Iran and several allied states argued that issuing another resolution would jeopardize efforts to advance dialogue.

Tehran has declared that the September inspection agreement with the IAEA is void, and Najafi said the new resolution “will have its own consequences,” adding that Iran would announce them later.

November 20, 2025 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

BBC Editors Blocked Story on Latest Fluoride Science Over ‘Scaremongering’ Concerns, Former Reporter Says

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 19, 2025

A former BBC health correspondent said editors repeatedly prevented him from reporting on emerging scientific debates over the safety of water fluoridation, dismissing the story as “scaremongering.”

Michele Paduano spent three decades reporting for the BBC from the West Midlands, the first region in the U.K. to fluoridate its water supply, in 1964.

At a Fluoride Action Network (FAN) press conference on Tuesday, Paduano said he became interested in water fluoridation after reviewing the landmark 2024 decision by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The court found that the U.S. fluoridation level of 0.7 milligrams per liter (mg/L) posed an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health. The West Midlands fluoridates its water at 1 mg/L, about 30% higher than the recommended U.S. level.

Paduano said professor Vyvyan Howard, a pathologist specializing in toxicology and a long-time collaborator, alerted him to several major cohort studies in top academic journals linking water fluoridation to lower IQ in children.

Paduano said mainstream media rebuttals were “so strong and absolute” that he knew publishing a story on the findings would be difficult.

He said he pursued the story only after reading the September 2024 court decision, which cited new evidence pointing to potential neurodevelopmental risks at lower fluoride concentrations.

“At that point, it felt like my public duty to tell people in the West Midlands that there was potentially a problem,” he said.

BBC editors rejected story as ‘scaremongering’

Paduano said he pitched the fluoride story through the BBC’s planning process and arranged an interview with West Midlands anti-fluoridation campaigner Joy Warren. Senior online and television editors abruptly cancelled the interview.

“They told me the story was scaremongering,” he said. Internal BBC scientists and public-health staff insisted there was no credible new evidence. Paduano said he challenged the decision and urged editors to read the U.S. court judgment, but they instead accused him of bias.

“As a BBC journalist, impartiality is fundamental. But impartiality also means reporting new evidence when it emerges,” he said.

Paduano continued investigating the issue and spoke with professor John Fawell, a leading U.K. pro-fluoridation expert and adviser to the World Health Organization (WHO).

As a result of their conversation, Paduano said Fawell acknowledged that recent research should prompt the U.K. to consider lowering fluoridation levels to match U.S. and Canadian guidance. Fawell, who co-authored a book on fluoridation’s oral health benefits, urged U.K. officials to reexamine the country’s dosage and consider aligning it with the U.S.

“If somebody who is a leading pro-fluoride proponent adjusts their position, that is a story,” Paduano said. But he said BBC editors still refused to let him cover it.

Paduano said he then emailed CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs Deborah Turness and BBC Director-General Tim Davie, but the response was “radio silence.” He then took his concerns to Nicholas Serota, a BBC board member responsible for editorial standards.

In the meantime, Paduano said he learned of planned BBC coverage in the North East about proposed fluoridation expansion, and he told Serota that failing to mention the U.S. court decision would constitute “significant censorship.”

Paduano said the article on the North East fluoridation expansion that eventually appeared briefly mentioned the U.S. judgment. He continued arguing that the West Midlands — which has fluoridated its water for decades — should also have reported on the new developments.

The editorial board refused to cover the story. “Concern was that we would be scaremongering, we would frighten people and that the science wasn’t there,” Paduano said.

Paduano said frustrations over fluoride reporting, along with broader concerns about the broadcaster’s impartiality and its close relationship with government, ultimately pushed him to leave the BBC.

Soon after, the BBC published an article about a recommendation by Worcestershire public health officials to expand fluoridation countywide. In what Paduano described as “the ultimate bias,” the article didn’t refer to the U.S. judgment or related research.

After leaving the BBC, Paduano contacted The Independent, which published his story on Fawell’s changing position on water fluoridation.

Paduano said he again approached the BBC, arguing that national coverage proved the issue’s newsworthiness, but editors held their ground and directed him to the complaints process — which he says has resulted in little progress.

‘We should avoid worrying our audiences unduly,’ BBC says

The BBC has not responded publicly to Paduano’s allegations, and it did not respond to The Defender’s request for comment.

The organization did reply to complaint letters from Howard and FAN’s science adviser Paul Connett, Ph.D., author of “The Case Against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep It There.” The letters urged the BBC to show “objectivity and professionalism on the latest research into the risks of water fluoridation” and to investigate Paduano’s claims.

In its initial response, the BBC complaints team said it had “provided a fair and appropriate view” of the water fluoridation issue.

In a follow-up response to Connett and Howard, the BBC defended its decision not to mention recent science linking fluoride exposure to neurodevelopmental issues in children.

The BBC said its reporting reflects “the majority view — from the World Health Organisation, US Centre for Disease Control, the American Dental Society [sic] and others,” and argued that it maintains a “higher bar for publishing stories around health risk.”

The BBC cited its editorial guidelines:

“The reporting of risk can have an impact on the public’s perception of that risk, particularly with health or crime stories. We should avoid worrying our audiences unduly and contextualise our reports to be clear about the likelihood of the risk occurring. This is particularly true in reporting health stories that may cause individuals to alter their behaviour in ways that could be harmful.”

Kevin Silverton, who signed the letter, said the complaints team could not continue corresponding and that further concerns should be taken to the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit.

BBC reporting on fluoride ‘can’t be trusted’

Connett told The Defender he was “shocked” when the BBC justified its position by citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Dental Association (ADA) and the WHO as representing the majority expert view. He said:

“As you well know, the CDC oral health division’s mission was to promote fluoridation, and the ADA has avidly promoted it for years — so much so that any study that found any harm was immediately dismissed as being bad science, and the WHO has not looked at fluoride’s neurotoxicity for many years, if ever. It is incredible to me that this very large government-funded body should rely on such one-sided, essentially partisan.”

Connett said the public and local officials rely on the BBC for accurate information, but on fluoride, “it can’t be trusted.” He said:

“When a major media entity gets involved, you would hope that they would do their homework and review the science when it is available for them. In this case the issue should have been easy because it did not entail slogging through all the studies themselves. They had a major review by a government entity, the National Toxicology Program, and they also had the judgment of a judge in a seven-year lawsuit.

“In short, the BBC is abusing the public’s trust on this important health issue, and that is shocking. Scientists like myself have an obligation to speak out. In our case, we were lucky to have a journalist to give us an inside view of the censorship that went on. We are often not that lucky.”

Related articles in The Defender

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.

November 20, 2025 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Elbit Systems reports record profits on the back of Gaza genocide

The Cradle | November 18, 2025

Israel’s leading defense technology company, Elbit Systems, reported a sharp rise in quarterly profit on 18 November after months of fueling the genocide in Gaza by supplying weapons, munitions, and surveillance systems, while simultaneously securing a wave of new European contracts.

The company posted $3.35 per diluted share excluding one-time items, up from $2.21 a year earlier, and reported $1.92 billion in revenue compared to $1.72 billion last year.

Its order backlog reached $25.2 billion, with the company saying 69 percent comes from outside Israel.

Elbit CEO Bezhalel Machlis said the performance reflected “the significant contracts the company has secured across Europe and from customers worldwide,” driven by expanding defense budgets.

Israel accounted for over 33 percent of revenue, with Elbit supplying munitions, drones, guided rockets, and reconnaissance systems during the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Sales to Europe, the world’s second-largest buyer of Israeli weapons, rose from $430 million to $536 million, comprising 28 percent of total revenue.

The company said 69 percent of its backlog comes from outside Israel and declared a quarterly dividend of $0.75 per share.

Separately, Elbit announced the largest contract in its history, a $2.3-billion deal with an undisclosed international buyer for weapons systems to be delivered over eight years.

The company did not reveal the customer or the type of systems being supplied, citing confidentiality.

Elbit Systems has also expanded its footprint across Europe, the Balkans, and the UK through a series of new agreements disclosed in recent months.

In Albania, the company is leading a government-to-government deal that includes ATMOS howitzers, SPEAR mortars, and Magni-X and Thor drones, and will assist the state-owned KAYO firm in establishing production lines and a new weapons plant.

Elbit deepened its presence in the country earlier this year through a flight-school agreement and is expected to support Albania’s goal of developing local drone manufacturing by 2027.

The firm has simultaneously continued to sign additional contracts worldwide, including Hermes 900 sales to Singapore and Brazil.

In the UK, Elbit is competing with Raytheon for a $2.7-billion Ministry of Defense contract that would make the company a “strategic partner” responsible for training 60,000 British troops annually.

The prospective agreement follows a separate $1.64-billion Elbit deal with Serbia and builds on the company’s existing role managing the Ministry of Defense’s Project Vulcan, a $75-million simulation-training program for tank crews.

Elbit subsidiaries in Britain have come under sustained protest, and Elbit’s central role in Israel’s war on Gaza has prompted renewed scrutiny, with the UN special rapporteur for Palestine noting that “for Israeli companies such as Elbit Systems … the ongoing genocide has been a profitable venture.”

November 18, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Western countries insist on failed strategy to defeat Russia – Mearsheimer

The US and its allies want to subordinate Moscow to their interests

By Lucas Leiroz | November 18, 2025

Western countries continue to insist on an irrational strategy of weakening Russia through military encirclement and economic pressure. This type of strategy has proven unsuccessful over the past few years, as Russia has managed to circumvent sanctions and embargoes, and is winning the conflict in Ukraine. Nevertheless, Western countries refuse to change their plans.

According to John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, the goal of defeating Russia is so important to the West that the US and its allies are even risking losing their own status as a global hegemon in this attempt. Moreover, Mearsheimer made it clear that Ukraine is not important to the West, being merely “cannon fodder” in this policy of hostilities against Russia.

He emphasized that Western countries even want to “defeat Ukraine” along with Russia – in other words, they want to neutralize the political and economic potential of a future integration between Ukraine and Russia. In this sense, the Kiev regime works as a junta in service of foreign powers that want the worst for the Ukrainian people – which explains the draconian policies of forced mobilization, which decimate thousands of Ukrainians without any effective military or strategic gain.

Mearsheimer stated that the West wants to “bring the Russians to their knees.” He acknowledges that so far no clear opportunity has arisen to do this, but makes it clear that the US and its allies would immediately take any opportunity to quickly defeat Russia. According to Mearsheimer’s assessment, the intention behind the conflict in Ukraine and the constant economic sanctions is simply to use military and economic pressure to progressively weaken Russia – but, unlike Western propagandists, he admits that these measures have not been sufficient to “finish Russia off as a great power.”

Mearsheimer also acknowledged the legitimacy of the Russian diplomatic position. He states that Russian President Vladimir Putin has sufficient reasons to distrust the intentions of the Collective West during the diplomatic dialogue. He praised Putin’s political abilities, describing him as a smart leader who understands the real international political situation and who acts considering the possibility of a worst-case scenario. Mearsheimer seems to believe that these virtues, which should be typical of any political leader, are currently rare in the West – which insists on strategies that have already proven useless.

“[The goal is] to defeat Russia and Ukraine, wreck the Russian economy with sanctions, and bring the Russians to their knees (…) We’ve been unable to do that, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to do it, of course, we want to do it (…) If the opportunity to do it popped up tomorrow, we would leap at it in a second, we would love to finish Russia off as a great power (…) [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, the last time I checked, has a triple-digit IQ, and that means he’s figured this out, he understands what he’s dealing with (…) [Putin] is assuming worst case in good realist fashion,” he said.

It is important to remember that Mearsheimer is one of the most renowned authors in the field of International Relations in the West. Until a few years ago, he was widely recognized for his work as an academic, but now he has been frequently rejected and criticized in many Western universities for continuing to conduct realistic analyses and refusing to be a mere NATO propagandist. He does not speak as someone “pro-Russia” or “pro-West,” but as an international analyst trying to understand how states deal with global problems. And that is why he speaks publicly about the West’s real intentions regarding the conflict in Ukraine.

It seems increasingly clear that Ukraine has been used by the West since the beginning of the crisis, with no real intention ever to “militarily defeat Russia.” The Western objective is a long-term strategy focused on extinguishing Russian capabilities as a great power. In this game, Ukraine functions as a proxy whose objective is to “wear down” Russian defenses, but it has always been clear to the West that the Ukrainians would be defeated in this move.

On the “economic front,” the sanctions were similarly an attempt to isolate Russia from its traditional European partners – which failed to have an economic impact on Russia, since it is a self-sufficient country, with all the resources it needs, and a strong presence in the emerging Asian market.

Insisting on failed strategies is a serious mistake that could have an existential cost for the West. The path of pressure, isolation, and escalation can only lead to total war – which, in the case of Russia and NATO, would threaten the entire world. The best course of action, from a realistic point of view, is to negotiate while there is still time and establish mutually favorable terms of coexistence in a multipolar world.

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

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

November 18, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

CRAZY New BLOOD PRESSURE Guidelines Could HURT MILLIONS

Dr. Suneel Dhand | November 4, 2025

This really needs to be discussed. Recommendations are way different from other advanced countries.

New Hypertension Guidelines: https://www.heart.org/en/health-topic…

Doctors of Ojais Channel:    / @doctorsofojais  

Dr. Dhand’s Website: https://www.drsuneeldhand.com

November 17, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

UK Government Caught Hiding COVID Shot–Death Data “To Prevent Distress or Anger”

By Nicolas Hulscher, MPH | FOCAL POINTS | November 15, 2025

Today, The Telegraph revealed that the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has refused to publish anonymized data that would likely show strong evidence of a link between COVID-19 “vaccines” and mass deaths.

According to the report, UKHSA justified the secrecy by claiming that releasing the figures could cause “distress or anger” among bereaved families if a connection were discovered.

Even more concerning: The same dataset — mapping vaccination dates to dates of death — was provided to pharmaceutical companies but NOT released to the public. UKHSA also claimed that publishing the numbers could “lead to misinformation” or impact vaccine uptake.

For two years, the campaign group UsForThem fought to obtain the anonymised dataset through FOI requests. UKHSA refused every time. Ultimately, the Information Commissioner sided with the agency, allowing the data to remain hidden indefinitely.

MPs and peers had already sounded the alarm last year, urging the government to release the data “immediately,” noting that it had been quietly shared with vaccine manufacturers.

Intentionally withholding critical vaccine-safety data carries serious legal consequences, including but not limited to Misconduct in Public Office, Corporate Manslaughter or Gross Negligence Manslaughter, breaches of statutory duties under public-health and disclosure laws, and potential Fraud by omission or abuse of position.


Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation

Support our mission: mcculloughfnd.org

Read More:

UK Government Wins 2-Year Battle to Withhold Data Linking COVID Vaccines to Excess Deaths

November 17, 2025 Posted by | Deception | , | Leave a comment

The intel scandal behind Prince Andrew’s twisted Epstein exploits

By Kit Klarenberg · The Grayzone · November 16, 2025

In an interview with The Grayzone, author Andrew Lownie details shocking findings of his research into Prince Andrew’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Describing Andrew as his “Super Bowl trophy,” Epstein used the prince for intel, which he passed to foreign spy agencies.  Lownie says further revelations threaten to “bury” the Royal Family.

Prince Andrew’s decades-long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was “earlier, longer, and far more intimate than anyone has previously admitted,” historian Andrew Lownie told The Grayzone. Their friendship was so depraved that even Epstein, the self-proclaimed “king of kink,” was shocked by the Prince’s sexual appetites, according to Lownie’s new book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York.

Based on years of research in BBC archives, interviews, and leaked emails, Lownie’s investigation provides a chilling portrait of a man shielded by royal privilege, addicted to sex from childhood, and ultimately undone by his alliance with the world’s most notorious pedophile. The historian reveals that Epstein not only supplied Andrew with a steady stream of underage girls, but also gathered intelligence from the prince, and dutifully passed it along to Mossad and other spy agencies.

“The Prince was a useful idiot who gave Epstein respectability and access to political leaders and business opportunities,” Lownie explained to The Grayzone. “Meanwhile, Epstein offered Andrew an opportunity to join the super rich and enjoy a lifestyle to which he had long aspired, an endless supply of women, a chance to make lots of money, and someone who would bankroll his lavish lifestyle as well as settle Sarah Ferguson’s debts.”

Lownie revealed that Epstein was able to gather a steady flow of sensitive intelligence from Andrew, including potential blackmail material which he could hawk to foreign governments. Epstein’s one-time ‘mentor,’ the serial fraudster Steven Hoffenberg echoed this account, claiming Epstein referred to Andrew as his “Super Bowl trophy.” While the British royal unwittingly spied on Epstein’s behalf, he simultaneously compromised himself, making him into a perfect tool.

For much of his life, Andrew enjoyed an astonishing level of protection and indulgence from his mother, Queen Elizabeth. A former worker interviewed by an Australian outlet divulged that royal staffers were terrified by the prince’s impunity, and largely avoided standing up to his compulsive bullying because “Her Majesty almost always backed him and he fully exploited that.”

Lownie told The Grayzone Andrew’s explosive tantrums at Buckingham Palace, which reduced some targets to tears, were a “virtually daily” occurrence.

A source close to Andrew revealed to Lownie that the prince began exhibiting unusual sexual tendencies when he was only eight years old. The problem only worsened when Andrew lost his virginity at age 11 after a friend’s father hired two escorts for the boys. Andrew reportedly informed the source that by the time he was 13, he had already slept with over half a dozen girls, leading the source to conclude that the prince had been “a victim of sexual abuse at a very young age.”

Thanks to Andrew and Epstein, the cycle of abuse allegedly continued with a number of young girls — most notably, Virginia Giuffre. When her allegations against the Prince became public in 2015, a BBC team secretly travelled across the US, reviewing police files, while interviewing the pair’s victims at length. Along the way, they unearthed emails between Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell discussing Giuffre.

The emails offer no indication either were unaware of Giuffre, or any sense her allegations were bogus. Lownie says the BBC team’s lead investigator told him, “instead Andrew and Maxwell worked together to build a dossier about Virginia [Giuffre] to leak to the media.” In other words, the pair colluded to smear one of their victims in the court of public opinion, before legal action could be initiated. When a suit was finally initiated on her behalf, Andrew paid out handsomely rather than face scrutiny.

Lownie believes full disclosure of Andrew’s involvement with Epstein could permanently sink the House of Windsor. A former Buckingham Palace staffer told him, “they’d never be able to bounce back from it,” as the resultant scandal “would bury them for good.” Lownie’s source cautioned, “if the unconditional truth is ever released, the British public would try to impeach the Royal Family — after all, many of Andrew’s wrongdoings were done on the British taxpayer’s tab.”

Andrew’s sexual depravity shocks even Epstein

Canadian journalist Ian Halperin was the only reporter to interview Epstein at length before the financier’s death. He provided Lownie with exclusive access to his records. They show Epstein was surprisingly candid about his predilection for underage girls, to the extent of openly arguing pedophilia should be decriminalized. Along the way, the pedophile offered a number of explosive revelations about Andrew, who he described as his “closest friend in the world.”

In one email, Epstein insisted he and Andrew were “very similar,” as they were “both serial sex addicts” who’d even “shared the same women.” Andrew was “the only person I have met who is more obsessed with pussy than me,” he attested. Based on “reports” Epstein received from their mutual sexual conquests, Andrew was “the most perverted animal in the bedroom,” he wrote. Epstein expressed awe at the degeneracy of Andrew, who he said possessed “the dirtiest mind I’ve ever seen,” concluding: “He likes to engage in stuff that’s even kinky to me – and I’m the king of kink!”

Lownie also provides evidence that the depraved duo crossed paths far earlier than is claimed by Andrew. According to a statement by the prince after Epstein’s death, he insisted they met in 1999 and subsequently saw each other “probably no more than only once or twice a year.” In reality, Andrew’s private secretary places the start of their friendship in “the early 1990s,” Lownie explained. Flight logs from Epstein’s private jet, nicknamed the Lolita Express, reveal that Andrew’s occasional partner, Sarah Ferguson, travelled on the aircraft with her children as early as April 1998.

By 2000, the royal had become a fixture at elite Stateside social events hosted by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, the publishing heiress who met Andrew during the 1980s at Oxford University. As their friendship developed, Andrew and Ferguson often stayed at Epstein’s palatial New York and Florida homes.

These trips have largely been concealed from the public, which is perhaps understandable given the purpose of his visits.

“Whenever Andrew was in town, I’d be picking up young girls who were essentially prostitutes,” Epstein’s personal driver, Ivan Novikov, recalled to Lownie. “One time I drove him and two young girls around 18 to the Gansevoort Hotel in the Meatpacking District. Both girls were doing lines of cocaine. Prince Andrew was making out with one of them.”

All the while, Epstein and Maxwell were insinuating themselves into the top echelons of the British aristocracy. According to one now-deleted British media report, Andrew invited Epstein and Maxwell to attend events at Windsor Castle and Sandringham in 2001, including Queen Elizabeth II’s 74th birthday that August. The article, which has since been scrubbed from London’s Evening Standard website, quoted a friend of Ferguson’s as saying Andrew’s lewdness was so undisguised that he “travels abroad with his own massage mattress.” According to the Evening Standard, the “very manipulative” Maxwell introduced Andrew to a “sex aid entrepreneur” at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.

The same piece described Andrew traveling around Phuket, Thailand with Maxwell, frequenting “sex bars in the area’s red light district”, and visiting Los Angeles with his friend and “self-confessed drug dealer” Brett Livingstone-Strong. During this time, Andrew was apparently so infatuated with Epstein and his clique that he opted to stay at the pedophile’s Miami beach mansion rather than attend his daughter Eugenie’s 12th birthday party at Disneyland Paris, Lownie reveals.

Andrew’s fall from grace 

In May 2007, Epstein began negotiating an unusually lenient plea deal with Florida authorities after local police uncovered a trove of evidence implicating the financier in a national sex trafficking conspiracy. Finally, English-language media began scrutinizing the potentially pedophilic implications of the financier’s bond with Prince Andrew for the first time. Another since-deleted Evening Standard report on their friendship noted Epstein’s Florida mansion was filled with pictures of nude girls, with two cameras found hidden in clocks.

The net significantly tightened in December 2014, when lawyers filed court papers in Florida alleging Andrew was one of several prominent figures who’d raped Virginia Giuffre at Epstein’s arrangement. The pair purportedly had sex in London, New York, and on Epstein’s private island, Little Saint James. In the latter case, Giuffre claimed to have been involved in a “disgusting” orgy with Andrew, Epstein, and multiple girls who “all seemed and appeared to be under the age of 18.”

The filings also alleged Andrew had lobbied on Epstein’s behalf after his arrest, working to ensure he received a light sentence. Epstein repaid the favor by clearing Sarah Ferguson’s substantial debts. British media reacted with shock: “Prince Andrew may have been secretly filmed with underage girl he is alleged to have abused,” blared one mainstream headline. That day, a seemingly frantic Andrew emailed Maxwell: “Let me know when we can talk. Got some specific questions to ask you about Virginia Roberts.”

Buckingham Palace issued a firm denial, stating “any suggestion of impropriety” by Andrew “with underage minors is categorically untrue,” and that he “emphatically denied the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts.” Until Epstein’s death, the British media seemingly accepted the royal line. But Andrew’s now-notorious November 2019 Newsnight interview revived public suspicions, and ignited a new wave of scrutiny.

Over the course of an hour-long grilling, the Prince offered a series of preposterous excuses for his friendship with Epstein, while failing to credibly explain his time with Giuffre. For example, he claimed her account of him sweating profusely while they danced together at a London night club couldn’t be true, as he was unable to sweat at all because he suffered a scientifically implausible “adrenaline overdose” during the Falklands war.

Next, Andrew attempted to justify a four-day December 2010 visit to Epstein in New York, during which paparazzi documented a young woman leaving his town house, and a friendly walk he enjoyed with the prince through Central Park. (The tweet below incorrectly dates the footage from 2011; it was filmed on December 6, 2010).

In his Newsnight interview, Andrew claimed he initiated the meeting to break off ties with the financier following his conviction for sex trafficking offenses. He insisted that he felt the need to end their connection in person, due to his “tendency to be too honourable,” but struggled to explain why this necessitated a four-night-long stay, replete with a dinner party in his personal honor.

The prince claimed he opted to stay at Epstein’s mansion as “it was… convenient”  — apparently overlooking the British consulate and numerous upmarket hotels which could have provided an alternative to staying with a convicted sex offender.

Furor over Andrew’s performance erupted as soon as the interview was broadcast, with one royal observer dubbing it, “nuclear explosion level bad.” Yet the Prince was initially satisfied with his public self-immolation. The Guardian reported at the time that Andrew “was so pleased with how things had gone that he gave the Newsnight team a tour of the palace afterwards.”

Andrew’s British state protection crumbles

Days after the disastrous interview, Andrew’s ex-girlfriend disputed his account of the 2010 visit with Epstein, stating that the prince’s main purpose was to determine whether the financier had “any dirt on him.” The pair reportedly also discussed securing $200 million funding for mysterious energy company Aria Petroleum, prompting Epstein to inform close contacts at JP Morgan that the prince sought to represent the interests of a Chinese commercial entity.

From this point on, Andrew withdrew from public life. Under pressure from British Army apparatchiks, he was stripped of his military awards and decorations. Charities distanced themselves from the royal, while polls indicated a majority of Britons believed he should be extradited to the US to face questioning. In May 2020, Andrew permanently resigned all his public roles over his Epstein connections. In the meantime, pressure began building in the US for the Prince to speak to Giuffre’s lawyers and federal investigators.

In his Newsnight interview and subsequent official statements, Andrew claimed he was happy to assist with any investigation into Epstein’s abuse. But the American prosecutor who led investigations into the financier and his associates in New York, Geoffrey Berman, reported he was repeatedly stonewalled by Buckingham Palace. Contacting royal lawyers was difficult enough in the first place, he said, and he described their communications as having quickly devolved into an never-ending series of questions.

“What kind of an interview will it be? Are there any protections? Is there this? Is there that? And where do you want it to take place?” Berman recalled. “It was an endless email exchange, and it was clear we were getting the run-around. He was not going to sit down for an interview with us.” Finally, Berman asked the State Department to dispatch a mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) request to British police, demanding an interview with the prince.

US prosecutors “almost always got what we asked when we put in an MLAT request,” Berman recalled. “But that was not what happened with Prince Andrew. We got absolutely nowhere. Were they protecting him? I assume someone was.”

Andrew’s state-level protections began to dissolve, however, after a December 2020 investigation by the Daily Mail into Giuffre’s claim that Andrew had sex with her when she was just 17. His alibis for the dates in question had been incinerated.

In August 2021, Giuffre’s lawyers filed suit against Andrew in a US court for “sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.” The action raised the prospect of Andrew giving sworn testimony proving his inability to sweat on the witness stand. Members of the Royal Family, including Ferguson and their daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, also faced the threat of grilling under oath. Rather than go to court, the House of Windsor settled for as much as $16.3 million.

Andrew Prince no more as scandals proliferate

For the first time, Buckingham Palace began to firmly distance itself from Andrew. As Lownie recorded, the media was informed that the Queen would no longer bankroll his legal fees. After a lifetime of protecting her son from the consequences of his excesses, fear of further damaging admissions may have motivated the monarch’s decision.

Those fears were well-founded, as Lownie revealed that Andrew emailed Epstein in February 2011, months after claiming to have cut off all contact with the financier following their four day 2010 ‘farewell’ summit in New York.

In that email, Andrew promised to “keep in close touch,” stating, “we are in this together and will have to rise above it,” and promising, “we’ll play some more soon!!!” That same year, Sarah Ferguson expressed her affinity and gratitude to Epstein in a separate covert email exchange. Sources suggested to Lownie that Epstein had supplied her with hundreds of thousands of dollars, far in excess of the £15,000 she claims to have received from the serial sex abuser.

In a 2011 interview, Ferguson said “having anything to do” with Epstein had been a “gigantic error of judgment” on her part. She added, “I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children… what he did was wrong and… he was rightly jailed.” Shortly after though, she contacted Epstein claiming she “did not, absolutely not, say the ‘P word’ about you.” Ferguson apologised for letting him down, stating “you have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.”

This October 30, as furor over Epstein’s activities engulfed the Trump administration, Buckingham Palace issued a shock declaration. Prince Andrew will be stripped of his titles, honors, and stately home, and now simply be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor – in effect excommunicated from the British Royal Family for life. While no formal explanation for the unprecedented move was provided, it was clear they were determined to cleanse Epstein’s stain from their house.

“These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,” the royal statement read. “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”

But Andrew’s erasure from the spotlight, termination of his assorted patronages and curtailment of public duties may have come too late. After years of alternating between silence over his sexual abuse or flatly denying the allegations, Buckingham Palace faces the threat of further disclosures. As Lownie makes clear in his newly released book, Entitled, new details of the prince’s perversions could discredit the royal family for good.

November 17, 2025 Posted by | Book Review, Corruption, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Red ribbons in London: A silent uprising bringing Palestinian hostages back into view

By Adnan Hmidan | MEMO | November 16, 2025 

Walking through Westminster, in the quiet rush of central London, flashes of red caught my attention — ribbons tied to lampposts, railings, and street fixtures. They were not adverts or campaign posters, but dense, symbolic gestures: spontaneous in form, unmistakable in meaning. They returned to public sight faces that have long been hidden behind prison walls — Palestinian hostages abducted by the occupation from homes and hospitals, held without trial under a system that resembles nothing but the law of the jungle.

These ribbons seemed like individual efforts, small and uncoordinated, yet unified in what they were trying to say: that the Palestinian hostage file remains locked in darkness, despite being one of the most devastating human crises. Thousands have been torn from their lives with no charges, no legal process, no daylight.

Of the nearly 9,100 Palestinians currently detained, it is estimated that almost a third are effectively treated as hostages; abducted and denied even the bare minimum of legal rights or guarantees.

A language that must reclaim its meaning

For years, the word “prisoner” has been used broadly. But what the occupation practises is not detention — it is abduction. People are taken from their beds or hospital rooms and disappear for indefinite periods, without charges, court hearings, or the most basic procedural rights.

The figures alone reveal the scale of the crisis:

3,544 held under administrative detention without trial

400 children

53 women

16 doctors

117 Palestinian hostages killed in the past two years alone during the genocide in Gaza

These individuals cannot honestly be called “prisoners.” They are hostages in every legal and moral sense — seized outside any legitimate framework by a state whose own foundations rest on dispossession and violation.

Red… a colour that bears witness, not beauty

The choice of red is self-explanatory. It is the colour of spilled blood, of injustice endured, of wounds that never fully heal.

These ribbons may hang quietly across London, but the question they raise is anything but quiet:

How can thousands of people be abducted in this way, while the world remains unable — or unwilling — to see them?

No one is asked to lead a campaign or become an activist. What is needed is recognition, a wider awakening to a file packed with human lives, daily suffering, families searching, and children growing up in absence.

Stories hanging from lampposts… so memory does not fade

Seeing the ribbons brought back the painful stories that fill this file:

The child pulled from his bed because soldiers deemed him a “threat,”

The woman taken from her home in front of her children,

The doctor who vanished from an operating room and never returned,

Those subjected to torture and enforced disappearance,

And the testimonies of rape and sexual abuse recently documented by international organisations.

These stories need no embellishment; their truth is weight enough. They also echo Steve Biko’s famous line:

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”

These red ribbons feel like a modest attempt to unsettle that weapon.

Catherine Connolly’s victory: Europe’s moral rebellion against the Israeli occupation

When execution becomes a celebration

It is difficult to grasp that the occupation’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, celebrated inside the Knesset after passing a law permitting the execution of Palestinian detainees.

More troubling still is how easily such a moment can pass as a routine political step — as though it were merely another debate rather than a descent into deeper, institutionalised brutality.

When a state legalises killing those it has abducted without trial, imprisonment ceases to resemble detention. It becomes just one point on a chain that runs from abduction to torture to death.

The rising number of Palestinians dying inside Israeli prisons is not an exaggeration — it is an expanding reality.

Preserving memory before preserving the body

Red ribbons do not claim to liberate anyone, nor do they replace political or legal work. But they accomplish something essential: they return faces to public view and stop stories from being buried in darkness.

The Palestinian hostage file needs wider adoption and genuine engagement. It is a file overflowing with pain and heavy with violations, yet among the least addressed internationally.

Ribbons cannot break iron bars.

But they can remind the world that behind every statistic is a human being waiting to be rescued from disappearance.

Justice begins when we choose to see.

And sometimes, the first step toward that justice is nothing more than a small red thread tied to a lamppost in a distant city.

November 16, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine’s ‘Busification’ — forced conscription — is tip of the iceberg

Western media is largely ignoring that Kyiv has to rip young men off the streets amid recruitment shortages and desertions

By Ian Proud | Responsible Statecraft | November 4, 2025

Busification” is a well-understood term in Ukraine and refers to the process in which young men are detained against their will, often involving a violent struggle, and bundled into a vehicle — often a minibus — for onward transit to an army recruitment center.

Until recently, Ukraine’s army recruiters picked easy targets. Yet, on October 26, the British Sun newspaper’s defense editor, Jerome Starkey, wrote a harrowing report about a recent trip to the front line in Ukraine, during which he claimed his Ukrainian colleague was “forcibly press-ganged into his country’s armed services.”

This case was striking for two reasons; first, that the forced mobilization of troops is rarely reported by Western mainstream media outlets. And second, that unlike most forced conscriptions, this event took place following the alleged commandeering of the Western journalists’ vehicle by three armed men, who insisted they drive to a recruitment center.

There, Starkey reported, “I saw at least [a] dozen glum men — mostly in their 40s and 50s — clutching sheafs of papers. They were called in and out of side rooms for rubber-stamp medicals to prove they were fit to fight.”

The process has drawn criticism after high-profile incidents where men have died even before they donned military uniforms. On October 23, Ukrainian Roman Sopin died from heavy blunt trauma to the head after he had been forcibly recruited. Ukrainian authorities claim that he fell, but his family is taking legal action. In August, a conscripted man, 36, died suddenly at a recruitment center in Rivne, although the authorities claim he died of natural causes. In June, 45-year-old Ukrainian-Hungarian Jozsef Sebestyen died after he was beaten with iron bars following his forced conscription; the Ukrainian military denies this version of events. In August, a conscript died from injuries sustained after he jumped out of a moving vehicle that was transporting him to the recruitment center.

Look online and you’ll find a trove of thousands of incidents, with most of them filmed this year alone. You can find videos of a recruitment officer chasing a man and shooting at him, a man being choked to death on the street with a recruiter’s knee on his neck. Many include family members or friends fighting desperately to prevent their loved one being taken against his will.

If videos of this nature, on this systemic scale, were shared in the United States or the United Kingdom, I believe that members of the public would express serious concerns. Yet the Western media remains largely silent, and I find it difficult to understand why.

In November 2024, Ukraine’s defense minister Rustem Umerov claimed that he would put an end to busification. It is true that Ukraine has been taking steps to modernize its army recruitment and make enlistment more appealing to men under the age of 25. Yet, there is little evidence that those efforts are having the desired effect. And after a year, busification only appears to be getting worse, yet remains widely ignored by the Western press.

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War often reports on Russian force mobilization efforts but not on the dark and desperate aspects that lead to busification. You won’t find reports on this in the New York Times, as it conflicts with the narrative that with support from the West, Ukraine can turn the war around. It leans in instead on stories like Ukraine’s points for drone-kills game or the designer who cut the all-black suit that Zelensky now wears. Meanwhile, the Washington Post is softly banging the drum to recruit 18-year-old Ukrainians, despite this being a toxic political issue in Ukraine.

This is because busification is the tip of the iceberg. If the Ukrainians are finding it difficult to encourage young men to join the army voluntarily, then it is proving even harder to make them stay without deserting.

In January 2025, it was reported that around 1,700 troops of the Anna of Kyiv 155th mechanized brigade, trained in France and equipped with French self-propelled howitzers, had gone AWOL — 50 of them while still in France. In June 2024, a Ukrainian deserter was shot dead by a border guard while trying to cross into Moldova.

In the first half of 2025, over 110,000 desertion cases were reported in Ukraine. In 2024, Ukrainian prosecutors initiated over 89,000 proceedings related to desertion and unauthorized abandonment of units, a figure three-and-a-half times greater than in 2023. More than 20% of Ukraine’s one million-strong army have jumped the fence in the past four years, and the numbers are rising all the time.

Desertions appear in part driven by ever-greater shortages of infantry troops at the front line, which means soldiers rarely get rest and recuperation breaks. A lack of sufficient equipment is often blamed. And of course, the widespread and rising desertion rates from Ukraine’s armed forces only seem to provoke more violent recruitment practices and then civilian protests. On October 30 in Odessa, a group of demonstrators against a man’s forced detention overturned the recruitment minibus.

The growth of busification and rising desertions also track with a growth in support among ordinary Ukrainians for the war to end. Support for a negotiated end to the war has risen from 27% in 2023 to 69% in 2025. Likewise, support for Ukraine to “keep fighting until it wins the war” — a wholly deluded proposition — has dropped from 63% to 24% over the same period, according to Gallup poll results.

President Zelensky often claims that Ukraine’s military predicament is linked to a lack of guns, not a lack of people. Hoping to secure Western support to fight on for another 2-3 years, he’s quiet on whether he will have the troops or the political support to do so. For now, the message seems to be, “Don’t mention the press-gangs, in-detention killings, deserters and waning public support: just give me more money.”

November 13, 2025 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment