Russia stops record number of Ukrainian drones overnight – MOD
RT | June 26, 2026
Russian air defenses stopped 660 Ukrainian kamikaze drones overnight, the military said on Friday. The figure was the largest ever reported for the metric, reflecting an escalation of Western-funded strikes inside Russia.
The Russian Defense Ministry normally reports the total number of drone interceptions conducted between 10 PM and 7 AM Moscow time every day. The previous record was 556 in mid-May, while earlier this month the Russian military downed 555 Ukrainian aircraft overnight. Other standout figures since 2025 were in the 300s.
Kiev is ramping up long-range strikes against energy infrastructure as Ukrainian frontline troops suffer setbacks caused by manpower shortages and Russian weapons superiority. Ukrainian officials claim the economic damage will force Moscow to agree to a ceasefire along the current front line, and have threatened to withdraw the offer unless it is accepted soon.
Both sides are developing more affordable ways to intercept long-range drones, such as cheap interceptor aircraft, and are trying to protect their weapons from countermeasures. Ukrainian operations are supported by Western funding, intelligence gathering, and an industrial base that supplies drone components.
Russia maintains that the pressure campaign will not make it abandon its key security goals in the conflict. However, officials have suggested that Ukrainian military logistics in NATO states could be targeted in some way in response to the escalation of the drone war.
How Darializa Avila Chevalier Is Different From Other Elected Progressives
By Justin K.P. | The Dissident | June 25, 2026
Among the Zohran Mamdani endorsed progressives to win primaries in New York, Darializa Avila Chevalier, who defeated 5-term Congressman Adriano Espaillat in NY congressional district 13, has faced the most backlash from mainstream media across the spectrum for old social media posts.
While I certainly don’t agree with her on every issue and disagree with some of the statements made in the tweets, they do show that on some important issues, she is different from other elected progressives within the Democratic Party.
In this article, I will showcase how on some important issues, Darializa Avila Chevalier seems more willing to take on the establishment than other elected democrats.
She Will Actually Withhold Her Vote For Establishment Democrats
One positive that came from Darializa Avila Chevalier’s old tweets is the fact that she- unlike other elected progressives- won’t sheepdog the left into voting for corporate democrats.
“Y’all really sitting here talking about how we HAVE to vote for one rapist over the other rapist,” Chevalier said about the 2020 election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
She similarly refused to vote for Biden in 2020 over his long history of supporting war crimes, writing, “I’ve voted in every election since I turned 18, but you’re out of your mind if you think I’m voting for a war criminal” in reference to Joe Biden.
She similarly wrote, “Y’all clearly don’t want my vote, so I guess y’all ain’t getting it” in reference to the establishment, pro-war Democratic Party in 2020.
If Darializa Avila Chevalier stays on this trend, it shows that she will not follow the “vote blue no matter who” mantra that other elected progressives have, and actually withhold support for corporate, pro-war, establishment democrats.
She’s Actually Anti-Zionist
Another positive about Darializa Avila Chevalier is that she’s an actual anti-Zionist, opposing the full occupation of Palestine and Zionism, instead of only opposing the Benjamin Netanyahu government, or sticking to two-state solution fantasies.
In response to a question about the Palestinian resistance, Chevalier correctly said, “The premise of that question, to me, ignores the 75 years of occupation that the Palestinian people have been subjected to and the conditions that folks were living under before this genocide began”.
She similarly has a long history of activism in support of Palestine and boycotting Israel. She “joined Students for Justice in Palestine in 2014 after a summer internship in the West Bank city of Nablus” and “co-founded Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a campaign aimed at coercing the Ivy League school to cut financial ties with Israel”.
She has said , “I’m an anti-Zionist full stop”.
She has also been willing to criticize the liberal zionism of other elected progressives like Bernie Sanders and AOC, saying “I’m no fan of Bernie’s liberal Zionism to be clear” and was critical of “Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for voting ‘present’ on Israeli military funding.”
She Opposed The Proxy War In Ukraine
Darializa Avila Chevalier also differentiates herself from other elected progressives by opposing the proxy war in Ukraine, correctly stating that it was provoked by the United States, and that the war was a racket for the military industrial complex.
In response to a question asking why the United States was involved in Ukraine, she correctly said, “Cause the Cold War ended, and we’ve been bullying Russia ever since. Also, war is lucrative for these sociopaths”.
More Interesting Than Your Average Democrat
Whether one agrees with Darializa Avila Chevalier’s politics or not, there is no doubt she seemingly is more bold than other elected progressives on important issues like opposing the corporate democratic party, opposing Zionism, and opposing all neocon policies, including things like the Ukraine proxy war.
Whether Darializa Avila Chevalier will stick to these positions or not is yet to be seen, but as of now, it seems she is a far more interesting and subversive politician than the average democrat or even average progressive democrat.
Starmer’s exit exposes dirty secret: UK can’t afford Ukraine War
By Ian Proud | Responsible Statecraft | June 24, 2026
Sir Keir Starmer bowed to the inevitable Monday and resigned from leadership of the Labour Party and, therefore, from his role as prime minister.
The resignation had been brewing for some time. While Starmer led the Labour Party to an astounding landslide election victory in July 2024, by September 2025, he was already being labeled the most unpopular prime minister since polling began; this followed a series of U-turns and poorly handled crises. After heavy losses of council seats in local elections in May, the Labour Party moved quickly to remove him.
Former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is expected to become prime minister after an internal Labour Party leadership contest. (Labour maintains a majority in parliament, so it maintains the right to form a government.) Burnham will quickly find that he doesn’t have the money to fix public services, double defense spending, and continue to fund an unwinnable war in Ukraine. He also faces an almighty struggle to convince his party that aligning with the Trump administration on peace in Europe is the right approach, both politically and fiscally.
Up until June 17, Burnham wasn’t a member of parliament. But after a sitting MP gave up their seat, he won the ensuing bi-election by a landslide. A cabinet minister under Tony Blair, he is by far the most popular Labour politician and the person viewed as most able to take on the surging right-wing Reform party. Having been out of frontline British politics for nine years in Manchester, Burnham has built up a reputation as someone who gets things done and is relatable, qualities Starmer appeared to lack.
To outfox Reform, Burnham will have to reinstall public confidence that the government is improving the lives of ordinary Britons in the face of an ongoing immigration surge, a cost of living crisis and a knife crime epidemic, typified by the at times violent street protests that followed the killing of Henry Nowak.
His biggest challenge? Finding the money to deliver real change with anemic growth and the national debt at 94% of GDP.
An obvious place to look would be the blank check approach Britain – under both Conservative and Labour governments – has taken to supporting the proxy war in Ukraine, which has so far cost $29 billion (£21.8 billion).
That might not sound like a huge proportion of government spending. But Starmer’s government faced stiff resistance and had to back away from making a much smaller cut of £5 billion to welfare spending. When your budget is so tight that you have to look at cutting winter fuel payments to the elderly, then it becomes harder to justify funnelling billions towards a distant war.
Aligning with the Trump administration to press for a peace settlement would be the rational and realist thing to do. But there’s a catch. The Labour Party and Burnham himself dislike Donald Trump. In 2025, for example, the putative prime minister accused Trump of “bringing instability to the world.”
Starmer had a troubled relationship with Trump throughout his mandate. The night before Starmer’s resignation, Trump had posted on Truth Social that Starmer was leaving after “failing badly on immigration and energy.” That was hopefully the last on a long list of snipes by the U.S. President. But Burnham will struggle to change the script in an anti-Trump Labour Party. Starmer’s cabinet was littered with ministers who had criticized Trump over the years, including one who called him an “odious, sad, little man.”
Further complicating relations was Starmer’s appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson as Britain’s Ambassador to Washington, which proved to be a catastrophic mistake after further revelations about the depths of his association with Jeffrey Epstein came to light.
To his credit, Starmer invested some effort into papering over the cracks. The visit of His Majesty the King to Washington in May offered a rare bright spot, focusing on the strong ties that bind the United States and the United Kingdom.
However, the flip-flopping of U.K. support for the U.S. war against Iran cast a shadow across the relationship. And it was on Ukraine policy where Starmer was most at odds with the U.S. President.
While Trump was and is able to surface some uncomfortable truths about the state of Ukraine — i.e. that it cannot win a war against Russia — Starmer remained a true believer in eventual victory.
Where Trump has met President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and spoken to him several times, Keir Starmer didn’t speak to the Russian President once during his two years in office.
Where Trump tried to orchestrate the skeleton of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, Starmer rejected its key aspect, on the complex issue of territorial concessions, out of hand.
The list is long and not distinguished. Starmer made himself one of the biggest obstacles to Trump’s aspirations to bring the war in Ukraine to a close, aligning himself with the Europeans who hold to the same view.
And yet Burnham will quickly find that something’s got to give. He can’t fix decrepit public services in Britain, double defense spending, and continue to support an unwinnable war in Ukraine. The math will never add up.
He should be aware that Reform Party leader Nigel Farage is close to Trump and spends most of his time talking about domestic policy challenges, which is clearly resonating with ordinary voters.
For much of my diplomatic career, my European counterparts regularly sniped about the depth of the United Kingdom’s relationship with the United States, and how this eroded European solidarity. Yet, right now, the British and the American position on the Ukraine war could not be further apart.
With Britain having left the European Union, Burnham will arrive in power with a brief window of opportunity to realign with America in the interests of European peace. The tides of British domestic politics suggest that this may help him to rebuild Labour popularity against an onrushing Farage while also delivering much needed savings. I doubt, however, that the Labour party will like this idea at all. Burnham’s honeymoon period may prove to be as truncated as his rise to power.
Ian Proud was a member of His Britannic Majesty’s Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023. He served as the Economic Counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow from July 2014 to February 2019. He recently published his memoir, “A Misfit in Moscow: How British diplomacy in Russia failed, 2014-2019,” and is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Quincy Institute.
Keir Starmer arson mysteries multiply
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | June 20, 2026
On June 15th, two young Ukrainian men were found guilty in London of conspiring to carry out arson attacks on two homes and a car intimately connected to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Little-reported, curious details of the trial, and a post-conviction propaganda blitz led by the BBC blaming Russian intelligence actors for inspiring and directing the pair’s incendiary crimes, raise a number of ominous questions about precisely what happened, why, and for whom the alleged perpetrators were truly working.
On May 8th 2025, a Toyota vehicle previously owned by Starmer was set ablaze in north London, not far from where he’d previously resided. Three days later, flats in Islington Starmer managed years previously were similarly put to the torch, then on May 12th, a home where he once resided, now leased to his sister-in-law was also set ablaze. That same day, 22-year-old Ukrainian national Roman Lavrynovych was arrested by British police for his purported role in the arson.
Despite the Prime Minister being personally targeted in a highly organised, repeated and potentially lethal manner, major news outlets within and without the country exhibited bizarrely muted interest. Starmer describing the incidents in parliament on May 14th that year as “an attack on all of us, on democracy and the values that we stand for” – condemnation from Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians echoed – elicited some headlines. However, basic facts about the case, and discussion of its obvious potential national security implications, remained unforthcoming.
This seeming omerta endured when, on May 17th, 26-year-old Ukrainian-born Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc was arrested at Luton airport for his role in the attacks, attempting to flee. Four days later, 34-year-old Ukrainian national Petro Pochynok was arrested, accused of conspiring with Carpiuc, Lavrynovych, “and others unknown to damage by fire property belonging to another.” The names and nationalities of two further individuals arrested in the case – a 48-year-old on June 2nd that year, and a 19-year-old in January 2026 – were never released.
Police investigations into these anonymous suspects were eventually dropped, without fanfare. Who they were, why they became subjects of interest, and the grounds for their elimination from enquiries, hasn’t been revealed and wasn’t discussed at trial. There were apparently no “others unknown” with whom Carpiuc and Lavrynovych colluded after all. Pochynok was acquitted, successfully arguing he was “deceived” by the pair and had no idea they intended to start fires with his help. Notably, all three were charged with mere arson, not national security offences.
This aspect is striking, given when the trial commenced on April 28th, prosecution lawyers immediately declared the trio’s arson assault was directed by a Russian-speaking Telegram user, for cash. The December 2023 National Security Act grants British authorities sweeping powers to severely punish people who break the law at the behest of “hostile states”. Repeatedly since the Starmer-linked attacks, British citizens have been jailed for national security offences after being recruited to commit crimes, including arson, via Telegram by supposed Russian actors.
All along, alarm has been sounded about Iranian intelligence using Telegram for similar purposes, in particular “[hiring] anyone who can harm Israeli interests or individuals” in Britain. Yet, a coordinated criminal conspiracy targeting the Prime Minister, which required access to sensitive private information on Starmer not readily available to average citizens, allegedly orchestrated by a malign foreign actor, mysteriously didn’t qualify as national security-related. Moreover, jurors and the public alike were strictly prohibited from learning anything about the group’s alleged recruiter.
‘Wholly Irrelevant’
On the trial’s first day, dropping the bombshell that Lavrynovych was “recruited, instructed and promised with payment for the fires that he was told to start” by a Russian-speaking source known as “EL Money”, the lead prosecutor promptly ordered jurors to leave the entire issue alone. “It is not part of your considerations to decide who ‘EL Money’ is and what reason he might have had to co-ordinate the actions of these defendants,” they said, before adding:
“It does not matter whether they knew that the property they were targeting was connected to the Prime Minister or whether that formed part of their motivation.”
As such, the trial centred solely around the extremely limited question of whether the accused committed arson. All other avenues of inquiry weren’t up for discussion or investigation in open court. While the financial motivation of the three accused was explored, the identity, connections and motives of the individual – or individuals – who commissioned and directed the attacks on Starmer was effectively inadmissible. This was despite Lavrynovych’s defence hinging on claiming to have felt intimidated by the unknown Telegram contact, and therefore acting under duress.
The BBC reports how during the trial in the jury’s absence, Lavrynovych’s lawyers applied for prosecutors to hand over wider information held by authorities on EL Money. This included whether he was associated with intelligence services or a state informant, and where he was based. They argued the actions of EL Money were “redolent of tradecraft” – in other words, cloak-and-dagger techniques employed by spies. But the judge flatly rejected the application, inexplicably ruling these burning queries to be “wholly irrelevant” to issues before the jury.
Nonetheless, it did emerge at the trial that EL Money sent messages to Lavrynovych on May 12th, following the final arson, notifying him “there is news, you’ll get crypto” and “you need to throw away the clothes.” Subsequently, EL Money warned him, “you attacked the home of a very high-ranking person in Britain,” and “you need to leave the city.” Lavrynovych was arrested hours later, indicating he was already in law enforcement’s crosshairs by this time. How he came to police attention isn’t clear.
Apparently, the central coordinating role of EL Money in the attacks on Starmer wasn’t ascertained until after Carpiuc and Lavrynovych were in custody, and legal proceedings well-underway. At a pretrial hearing in late May 2025, prosecution lawyers said the arrested Ukrainian pair’s conspiracy was “unexplained”. A contemporary Financial Times report noted counter-terror cops leading the probe were “keeping an open mind about motive.” Nameless government officials stressed “many different versions of the events” remained under investigation, “and nothing had been ruled out at this stage.”
‘No Evidence’
How prosecutors settled on the “version of events” they dramatically presented in court, before directing jurors to disregard considerations of EL Money entirely, is likewise unknown. Only a small number of messages the user exchanged with Lavrynovych – in which EL Money notably communicated in perfect Russian and Ukrainian – were presented in court. However, within just hours of the pair’s conviction, the BBC released a dedicated Panorama documentary, and 3,500-word long-read on the “Russian connection” behind the Starmer-linked arson.
Miraculously, “using open-source tools,” Britain’s state broadcaster was able to ‘crack the case’ to an extent police purportedly couldn’t. The BBC named EL Money as a “Russian diplomat, schooled in information warfare by spies and propagandists, who is close to the highest levels of power in Moscow.” Posing as EL Money, the 23-year-old supposedly sought to bribe numerous Ukrainians in Britain into perpetrating a variety of criminal activities, via dedicated local jobs groups, while also oddly deploying “deeply offensive Russian terms for Ukrainian people.”
“Messages from the [EL Money] account in various Telegram channels show him glorifying [Vladimir] Putin and Russia, attacking the Ukrainian people and promoting Russian narratives,” the BBC claimed. Its investigation acknowledged the trial of Carpiuc, Lavrynovych and Pochynok “was strange, mainly because the true author of the drama was never revealed,” with the conundrum of EL Money’s identity “deliberately avoided.” Suspicion can only abound as to why the British state broadcaster unravelled this crucial riddle, rather than courts and/or law enforcement.
Even more suspiciously, the BBC quoted a senior British counter-terror police chief as saying while the aim of the attacks on Starmer’s properties was “to intimidate and create fear for the Prime Minister and to attack the UK,” law enforcement had “not been able to prove the identity of [EL Money] or who he was working for.” They categorically declared, “we’ve got no evidence to suggest this was a state-backed threat.” But Britain’s state broadcaster is seemingly better informed than the police.
“Sources have told us that authorities in the UK and in Ukraine have privately concluded Russia was behind the arson attacks,” the BBC boasted. One might reasonably ask why Kiev has apparently taken it upon herself to solve a British criminal case, although Ukraine’s SBU is certainly an authority on recruiting chaos agents via Telegram, and other messaging apps. The heavily CIA and MI6-infiltrated agency has, over many years, exploited this technique to blackmail and bribe Russians into perpetrating serious crimes at home.
These scandalous activities have been universally ignored by the Western media. By contrast, numerous major news outlets have boldly seized on the BBC blaming Russia for the arson attacks. The Financial Times published a slick investigation the same day, replete with photos, videos, and graphics, documenting EL Money’s contacts with and payments to Lavrynovych. Shady investigative website The Insider went so far as to release extensive biographical information and photos of the 23-year-old Russian named by the BBC as EL Money.
Other outlets have produced quotes from Lavrynovych’s trial testimony, in which he states EL Money “wanted to see [the arson] on the news.” Of course, the attacks barely registered in the media contemporaneously, and what was said at the trial by defendants, their lawyers, prosecutors and the judge went unreported until now. In all the post-trial rush to convict Russia, not a single source has mentioned how British police themselves admit they possess “no evidence” indicating the arson attacks were sponsored by any state. Make of that what you will.
Zelensky threatens to attack Belarus
RT | June 19, 2026
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has issued an ultimatum to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, threatening him with military action if Minsk fails to meet Kiev’s demand, just days after a deadly drone strike on a bus carrying a children’s soccer team from Belarus.
Earlier this week, Lukashenko said that those seeking to drag his nation into the conflict “will have to pay dearly for that,” demanding answers from Kiev over the strike on the bus and other “provocations.” The attack in Russia’s Bryansk Region injured six minors and killed the wife of a Belarusian school soccer team coach who was accompanying the young athletes to a Russian seaside resort.
Kiev denied responsibility, while Zelensky claimed that it was Lukashenko who must “be honest” and prove Minsk’s peaceful intentions by removing air defenses and relay transmitters along the border with Ukraine.
“I think one week would be enough for him to accomplish this,” the Ukrainian leader stated at a press conference in Kiev on Friday. “If he does not do it, we will.”
Lukashenko has repeatedly said that Belarus has no intention of engaging in a war against any nation and “is not threatening anyone.” Zelensky, however, stated that there was “no need for unnecessary words,” and issued another veiled threat against the Belarusian oil refining industry.
“Just like his, for example, oil refining industry,” Zelensky said, claiming that Minsk is one of Russia’s “main” suppliers of petroleum products. “Can this be stopped? I am sure that it is within his power.”
A close Russian ally, Belarus has largely stayed out of the conflict since 2022, while calling on Moscow and Kiev to engage in dialogue and expressing its readiness to contribute to a diplomatic resolution. In September 2025, Lukashenko stated that he was ready to meet Zelensky personally to discuss possible compromises, but the Ukrainian leader rejected the offer. In November, Minsk released 31 Ukrainian citizens from detention in a “goodwill gesture” at the request of Kiev and US President Donald Trump, who was also seeking to mediate the conflict.
Over the past few weeks, Zelensky has been ramping up his rhetoric about an allegedly growing threat posed by Belarus. He accused Minsk of preparing to enter the Ukraine conflict on Russia’s side – and threatened it with a preemptive strike.
UK to send Ukraine 150,000 drones
RT | June 19, 2026
The UK will provide Ukraine with 150,000 UAVs by the end of the year, London announced on Thursday following one of Kiev’s largest drone attacks on Moscow since the start of the conflict.
The package, worth £752 million ($996 million), was announced by British Defense Secretary Dan Jarvis at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels. According to the British government, which has been among Kiev’s most active military supporters, the package will be funded through London’s £2.26 billion loan to Kiev, backed by proceeds from frozen Russian sovereign assets.
British officials presented the package, which includes drones, missiles and radars, as necessary military support for Kiev. Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledged that London would continue backing Ukraine and putting pressure on Moscow. Russia has long argued that continued Western arms deliveries only prolong the conflict and undermine peace efforts.
The announcement came after Moscow and the surrounding region were hit by one of the largest Ukrainian drone raids in recent years. Russian air defenses intercepted 194 drones approaching the capital overnight, according to officials, but the attack still caused damage.
Local authorities reported that one drone struck the Moscow Oil Refinery in the Kapotnya district, triggering a fire, while debris damaged residential buildings, vehicles, and commercial sites, including several shopping centers.
Residents in several districts also reported black rain and soot falling from the sky after the refinery blaze, with local authorities advising people to keep windows closed and limit time outdoors.
At least 17 civilians, including two children, were reported injured in the Moscow Region. The raid also disrupted air traffic, with temporary restrictions imposed at Moscow’s airports and numerous flights delayed or canceled.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov condemned the attacks and said Moscow would respond by changing its strategy and begin regularly carrying out large-scale strikes against targets that “directly affect the combat capability” of the Ukrainian military.
“I have long been convinced that words are not enough,” Lavrov told reporters.
Moscow has repeatedly accused Ukraine of using Western-supplied weapons, funding and intelligence to carry out “terrorist attacks” on Russian territory and civilian infrastructure.
Russian officials have argued that continued arms deliveries from the UK, EU and NATO members make Western governments direct participants in the conflict and reduce the chances of a peace deal.
Kiev turns to ‘systematic killing’ of Zaporozhye plant staff – Russia’s nuclear chief
RT | June 18, 2026
Kiev has resorted to the “deliberate and systematic killing” of people employed at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), Rosatom CEO Aleksey Likhachev has said, warning a potential catastrophe at the facility is bound to spread well beyond Ukraine and Russia.
An attack took place on Wednesday in Energodar, the city adjoining the ZNPP, when a Ukrainian drone strike wounded four civilians. Two of the victims were employees of the facility, one of whom later died from his injuries, Likachev said on Thursday.
“The Ukrainian armed forces have resorted to the deliberate and systematic killing of staff at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant,” the Russian nuclear chief stated.
“Hunting down nuclear power plant workers is an inhumane act by Ukrainian drone operators, who fail to realize the scale of the consequences of their actions. And the scale of those consequences could be such that they affect Ukraine, Russia, and a significant part of Europe,” he added.
The incident marked the second killing of the plant’s employees by Ukrainian forces this year, Likachev noted. In late April, a staffer at the plant’s transport department was killed in a Ukrainian strike on his workplace.
“From strikes on auxiliary facilities, the Ukrainian armed forces moved on to attacks on energy infrastructure, then to the strikes on the main equipment of the nuclear power plant, and now to a targeted hunt for our comrades,” he said.
In late May, a Ukrainian fiber-optic-guided drone struck the machine hall of the sixth power unit of the plant. The drone punctured a large hole in a metal technical access hatch, inflicting minor damage inside the building.
Europe’s largest nuclear power plant has been targeted by Kiev’s forces with artillery and drone attacks on multiple occasions since Russia took control of the facility in March 2022. The plant has been operated by Rosatom since the Zaporozhye Region voted to join Russia in a referendum in the fall of 2022. Kiev has also increasingly targeted local infrastructure linked to the plant, including kindergartens, schools, roads, transport enterprises, and vehicles carrying supplies for the community, according to Rosatom.
Censored Lavrov article Politico refused to publish (FULL TEXT)
RT | June 18, 2026
The pro-establishment, Brussels-based publication Politico Europe, owned by Germany’s Axel Springer SE, has refused to publish an exclusive article written by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Lavrov’s article was initially planned for publication in the Brussels-based Politico Europe, but due to a “last-minute decision by the outlet’s editorial team,” the publication was canceled, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
In the article, Russia’s highly experienced top diplomat outlined Moscow’s view of the Ukrainian conflict, Europe’s role in escalating the crisis, and the broader implications for global security. Lavrov accused European leaders of using diplomacy as a cover for NATO and EU expansion, while arguing that the West has sought to turn Ukraine into an anti-Russian foothold. He also warned that the EU’s growing militarization, including discussions about nuclear deterrence and “strategic autonomy,” could increase the risk of a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.
Below is the full text of Lavrov’s article, as published on the Russian Foreign Ministry website:
Some reflections on resolving the Ukrainian crisis, Europe and global security
At a meeting in London on 7 June 2026, the leaders of Britain, France, and Germany, as well as Vladimir Zelensky, laid out five preconditions for Russia to secure a “just and lasting peace” in Ukraine. United Europe now presents this list of demands as the basis for dialogue with Moscow.
Background
More than two decades of negotiations with Europe, as part of the collective West, lead to only one conclusion: engaging Russia in dialogue has served as a diplomatic smokescreen for the geopolitical expansion of Western institutions, above all NATO and the European Union, eastwards, right up to Russia’s borders.
Europe’s complicity in fueling the Ukrainian crisis is undeniable. Together with the United States, European countries orchestrated the Orange Revolution in Kiev in 2004. To create an anti-Russian bridgehead in Ukraine, they spent years buying off politicians and entire parties, rewriting history and educational curricula, cultivating and nurturing Ukrainian nationalism, and going to great lengths to pull Ukraine away from Russia.
In 2013, the European Union outright rejected our proposal for a compromise on the association agreement – a deal Brussels had long been pressing Viktor Yanukovich to sign. It is worth recalling that Ukraine was offered unilateral market opening without reciprocal commitments – terms that would have proved incompatible with Kiev’s continued membership in the CIS free-trade zone. When Viktor Yanukovich requested a deferral, the Europeans incited street riots that swiftly escalated into a coup d’état in Kiev in February 2014.
Germany, France, and Poland then proved themselves to be equally treacherous. Having guaranteed that the agreement reached between the opposition and Viktor Yanukovich would be honored, they washed their hands of it the moment that same opposition, their own handiwork, took power. “Democracy,” they shrugged, “takes unexpected turns.”
Europe thereafter lent its backing to the new authorities. In Odessa on 2 May 2014, the burning alive of dozens of innocent supporters of closer ties with Russia did not draw a single word of condemnation from European capitals.
As co-guarantors of the 2015 Minsk Agreements, France and Germany effectively encouraged the Ukrainian regime to sabotage its own commitments. As Angela Merkel and François Hollande later conceded – after the special military operation had already begun – Kiev’s implementation of the Minsk Agreements, unanimously approved by the UN Security Council, was never genuinely intended. The objective, they admitted, was merely to buy time: to shore up the Armed Forces of Ukraine and flood them with Western weaponry.
Russia, for its part, explored every diplomatic avenue to defuse Europe’s security crisis. However, in January 2022, the United States and NATO rejected Russia’s proposal for legally binding mutual security guarantees. European NATO members actively endorsed that rebuff.
Following the launch of the special military operation, United Europe threw its support behind the British prime minister’s efforts to sabotage the Istanbul negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Boris Johnson’s appeal to Kiev – “don’t sign anything, just fight” – slammed the door on genuine diplomacy for the foreseeable future.
Current situation
So what has prompted European leaders to suddenly shift their rhetoric and start talking about negotiations, and what are they aiming to achieve with these statements? For instance, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has stated that the purpose of any dialogue with Russia is to dictate Europe’s terms. These include paying “reparations” to Ukraine; withdrawing troops from Transnistria and the South Caucasus; abolishing the “foreign agents” law; and accepting strict limits on the size of the Russian Federation’s Armed Forces. In her framing, “there can be no just and lasting peace without accountability for Russia.” During the UN Security Council session on 19 May 2026, an EU representative made the point unequivocally: “Supporting Ukraine militarily does not contradict the pursuit of peace, but rather serves as a fundamental prerequisite for any credible, good-faith negotiations.”
Europe’s plan is to talk with Russia while simultaneously pressing ahead with a campaign of legal warfare orchestrated through the Council of Europe. Within this once-respected organization, an entire infrastructure is being assembled for the express purpose of “holding Russia accountable”: a Register of Damage, a Claims Commission, and a Special Tribunal.
The European Union has also given the green light to detaining merchant vessels on the high seas. Several incidents have already taken place in the Baltic and the Atlantic. At the same time, the West studiously averts its gaze from the terrorist acts of sabotage perpetrated by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Black and Mediterranean Seas.
The real objective of Europe’s leaders, then, is not to negotiate with Russia. It is to shore up the Zelensky regime and preserve it as a launchpad for continued confrontation against Russia. With this in mind, European leaders are scrambling to secure a ceasefire as quickly as possible and for one reason only: to prevent the collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the battlefield. The plan is to “freeze” the conflict without addressing its root causes, and then rapidly deploy military contingents from the Anglo-French “coalition of the willing” onto Ukrainian soil.
It is widely known that European elites have invested their “political capital” in the confrontation with Russia, pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into propping up the Kiev regime and ramping up the military budgets of EU member states and NATO. Europe now aims to achieve “defense readiness” against Russia by 2030. Until then, they mean to buy time by whatever means are available. In a strikingly candid remark this April, Belgium’s chief of staff put it bluntly: “We still have a few years. Thanks to the courage and blood of the Ukrainians, who are buying us that time.”
United Europe continues to dream of expansion. It intends to absorb Ukraine and Moldova while pulling Armenia into its sphere of influence. NATO has already expanded eastward, swallowing up Finland and Sweden. As for Ukraine, it is increasingly being eyed as the “striking fist” of a future European military force, independent of the United States and independent of NATO.
Risks to global security
This state of affairs poses serious threats to global security. A direct confrontation between NATO and Russia could rapidly escalate into an exchange of nuclear strikes, with catastrophic consequences.
Under the banner of “strategic autonomy,” Europe is witnessing a significant build-up of its military capabilities, including in the nuclear sphere. Paris’s intention to extend its “nuclear umbrella” to several EU and NATO member states is a source of deep concern. This will do nothing to strengthen the security of France itself or of the recipients of its so-called protection.
For all that, Europe’s political and military establishment continues to attribute aggressive plans to Russia – plans that, they claim, reach far beyond Ukraine. The Russian president has stated on numerous occasions that all of this is nonsense, provocation, and disinformation, aimed solely at extracting budget funds for the fight against Russia. That is scarcely the climate for substantive dialogue.
Russia’s position
As for negotiations, Vladimir Putin reiterated at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that Russia is not opposed to contacts with any party. We see Europe, however, as a party bent on Russia’s defeat – a stance the Europeans themselves openly avow. Dialogue with Europe, therefore, cannot be conducted as though it were an impartial third-party observer.
Russia would prefer to achieve the goals of the special military operation through diplomacy.
That requires reliably guaranteeing security along Russia’s western borders and ensuring respect and dignity for our citizens and compatriots, including the right to speak their native Russian language and practice the Orthodox Christian faith. Further military, political, and economic expansion by the West is unacceptable: it runs counter to the imperatives of a multipolar world.
European leaders should recognize that the model of regional security built in Europe over decades, ever since the adoption of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975, has been destroyed by their own hands. And it will never be restored. We must now move toward creating a continent-wide security architecture open to all Eurasian countries and reflective of today’s multipolar reality.
The principle of equal and indivisible security, trampled upon by the Euro-Atlanticists, can be embodied within a new Eurasian architecture. When the time is ripe, Europe too will be able to join this great effort.
The key point is that meaningful dialogue requires the restoration of trust, shattered by the anti-Russian actions of the West, and Europe as part of it, in the post-Cold War era. Trust can be recovered only through concrete steps that demonstrate a sincere commitment to moving away from using diplomacy as a cover for expansionist ambitions. Trust cannot be restored, nor can dialogue be resumed, through ultimatums such as the one issued to Russia in London on 7 June 2026.
P.S. It is noteworthy that the London ultimatum was unequivocally reaffirmed by the ambassadors of Britain, France, and Germany at the meeting at the Russian Foreign Ministry on 11 June 2026 – a meeting they had so insistently requested. That was the sole purpose of their visit to the ministry.
Belarusian children wounded in deadly Ukrainian drone strike
RT | June 17, 2026
A Ukrainian drone attack has struck a bus carrying a children’s soccer team from Belarus to a Russian seaside resort, according to acting Bryansk Region Governor Egor Kovalchuk.
The attack killed an adult woman who was accompanying the underage passengers to the resort town of Gelendzhik in Krasnodar Region and injured six others, including four children, the official said.
One young victim has been rushed to hospital in serious condition, while the injuries of the others are considered moderate, Deputy Health Minister Aleksey Kuznetsov told the media. He said seven people in total were injured. Meanwhile Belarusian Deputy Health Minister Aleksandr Khodzhaev said eight victims were being treated following the incident, including six minors.
The bus was carrying 44 passengers, including 28 young athletes from a school sports team based in the town of Rechytsa in Belarus, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee. The incident has been designated a terrorist attack, the agency added.
Source: Social media
Images published by Russian and Belarusian media showed the attacked vehicle – a single-deck passenger bus rather than a double-decker initially reported by the Investigative Committee – with holes apparently left by shrapnel and a deflated front-right tire.
The acting governor later shared photos of what appears to be the same bus, including of the interior, showing shattered windows and seats apparently smeared with blood.
© Telegram / Acting Bryansk Region Governor Egor Kovalchuk
The woman who was killed was the wife of the team coach, a source in Belarusian law enforcement told RT.
Kiev has intensified its long-range drone campaign against Russia in recent months, describing the strikes as “long-range sanctions” aimed at inflicting economic damage. Moscow has accused Ukraine of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and attempting to terrorize the population.
In May, Ukrainian drones struck a dormitory at a vocational college in Starobelsk in the Lugansk People’s Republic, killing 21 people. According to local authorities, many of the victims were teenage students who were spending the night on campus.
Officials in Russian regions bordering Ukraine also regularly report strikes on vehicles used by repair crews, medics, and other community services. Earlier on Wednesday, Kovalchuk reported an attack on an ambulance in Bryansk Region that was responding to an emergency, in which the driver, a nurse and a paramedic were injured. In a separate incident, a drone hit a civilian car, injuring the driver and a female passenger, he added.
Belarus is a close military and political ally of Russia, but has not directly joined the Ukraine conflict. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has repeatedly said he would only enter the fighting if attacked first.
Since mid-May, Zelensky has issued a series of warnings to Minsk, threatening a pre-emptive strike over what he claimed were preparations for a possible attack from Belarusian territory. However, Ukrainian officials themselves have said there was no evidence of such plans.
Lukashenko has dismissed the claims as empty grandstanding, saying the Ukrainian military lacks the manpower to launch an incursion into Belarus.
US, EU authorize production of ‘deep strike’ missiles inside Ukraine
Western allies are using the diplomatic progress from a possible Iran peace deal to intensify an economic blockade against Russia
The Cradle | June 17, 2026
On 17 June, G7 leaders announced that US and EU arms makers will start manufacturing advanced long-range weaponry “under license” in Ukraine, as western stockpiles dwindle, aiming to industrialize the frontline and sustain pressure on Russia.
A diplomatic source at the summit in Evian-les-Bains clarified that the push involves “not just air defense systems, but deep strike capabilities,” allowing Ukraine to threaten targets much deeper into Russian territory, Le Parisien reported.
The official noted that local production is essential as Ukrainian forces currently deploy approximately 20 Patriot missiles to counter every massive Russian offensive, straining global stocks.
The move effectively entrenches a permanent industrial infrastructure for offensive warfare capabilities within Ukrainian territory.
In a joint statement, G7 leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the US, and the EU expressed their “readiness to grant Ukraine licenses enabling it to increase its military production.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz explained that US firms will grant these licenses to European and Ukrainian manufacturers to address current industrial shortages.
Merz stated he was “grateful to [US] President [Donald] Trump for this great willingness to cooperate,” adding, “We are all currently producing too little, and this can be compensated for by granting licenses to companies that have these production capacities, including European and Ukrainian companies.”
This military support coincides with a G7 agreement to escalate economic pressure on Moscow by tightening sanctions on the Russian oil and gas sectors, with leaders citing the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz following the Iran–US memorandum of understanding (MoU) as the catalyst for these measures.
“We consider this the right moment to proceed with additional measures, as President Trump has delivered a deal that we support in reopening the Strait of Hormuz,” the leaders declared.
The move follows the US reinstatement on Tuesday of oil sanctions that had been temporarily suspended during the war on Iran, which now may end with the signing of the MoU on Friday in Switzerland.
The summit highlighted a shift in US foreign policy. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney described the new US stance as “harder toward Russia and more realistic, in our view, of the situation on the ground of the war.”
Trump, who told assembled leaders “I’m the boss,” pledged to “do everything” to help end the conflict.
While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the “important results” regarding the military contracts, he remained cautious following a February 2025 meeting with US Vice President JD Vance and a demand that Ukraine provide resources as “compensation” for aid.
French diplomatic sources added that G7 members now “acknowledge that there is momentum on the ground” in Ukraine’s favor.
The new western military push comes after the EU had approved an approximately $105 billion loan for Ukraine on 22 April to fund critical defense needs and financial assistance.
The funding was released following a months-long deadlock after Ukraine resumed Russian oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia.
Hungary had vetoed the loan, accusing Kiev of using “technical repairs” from a drone strike as a pretext to weaponize energy and exert political pressure.
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From the Archives
Bum Rap for the Rapa Nui
By Thomas Riggins | Dissident Voice | February 5, 2014
A new report in Science News Magazine (1-25-2014) by Bruce Bower details a reevaluation of the view that the Rapa Nuians, the native inhabitants of Easter Island (Rapa Nui), were responsible for the collapse of their population and society due to over exploitation of natural resources and the destruction of the rain forest on their island, a view recently popularized by Jared Diamond in his book Collapse (2005).
As Bower reports, the anthropologist Maria Mulrooney has published the results of her studies of the Rapa Nui culture (Journal of Archeological Science, December 2013) based on new radiocarbon dates from archeological sites on the island. She has concluded that after the clear cutting of the forest in the 1500s, to make room for agricultural production, the population of Rapa Nui remained sufficiently vibrant to carry on food production and continue their cultural development.
Exactly when the Rapa Nui arrived on Easter Island is unknown but it was on or before 1200 A.D. or so. Mulrooney maintains they had a thriving culture which was still going strong even after their “discovery” by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen on Easter Sunday 1722. This would indicate that they had not suffered “collapse” as a result of forest clearance. … continue
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