Turkiye restricts Black Sea traffic as drone attacks on commercial vessels spike
The Cradle | August 8, 2026
Turkiye has begun restricting commercial ship traffic into the Black Sea amid a surge in Russian and Ukrainian attacks on civilian vessels, Bloomberg reported on 8 August.
Turkiye’s Directorate General of Coastal Safety has informed several ships heading to Novorossiysk, an important Russian oil and grain export port, that it is not issuing transit permits at this time and requires more time to review passage applications through the Dardanelles.
The sources told Bloomberg that Turkish authorities had provided no explanation for the move. Some vessels have also reportedly been told that the restriction applies to ships heading to Ukraine.
The report comes after a series of drone attacks targeting Turkish commercial vessels operating in the Black Sea and near Russian ports in recent months.
On Friday, a Turkish-flagged vessel, the MV Gulluk, was struck by a drone off the Russian port of Novorossiysk. Although the drone hit the ship’s living quarters, no crew members were reported injured or killed.
On 3 August, the Ro-Ro cargo vessel Nadezhda was struck by a drone about 20 nautical miles off Novorossiysk while en route from the Russian port to Samsun. Three members of the ship’s crew were injured and in serious condition after the attack.
The same day, two civilian vessels, the Yasar and the Nadezhda, were attacked after leaving Novorossiysk.
In response, Turkiye’s Foreign Minister issued a statement saying it was “deeply concerned about the escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine in the Black Sea, which is affecting civilian shipping despite our numerous warnings.”
“Unless preventive measures are taken, the escalation in the Black Sea will have multifaceted negative repercussions, including for food security,” the statement added.
Ukraine’s targeting of ships in the Black Sea, as well as Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian port infrastructure and vessels, have threatened grain exports from both countries, pushing wheat prices to a two-year high in July.
“Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter, and Ukraine is known as Europe’s breadbasket, while mutual attacks between the two countries are putting pressure on maritime transport in the region during the harvest season,” Anadolu Agency reported.
Global food prices already spiked as a result of soaring energy prices following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf earlier this year.
Iran closed the strait in response to the US-Israel war of aggression, disrupting oil and natural gas exports from the Gulf countries partnering with the US and Israel in the war.
Global fuel prices have also risen in response to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries.
On Saturday, a Ukrainian drone targeted the Ilsky oil refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, causing it to catch fire.
Ukraine’s general staff said the Ukrainian military also hit the Syzran oil refinery in the Samara region of Russia overnight, causing a fire there as well.
The Ilsky refinery can process over 6 million metric tons of oil per year, while the Syzran refinery has a processing capacity of 8.5 million tons annually.
In May, Reuters estimated that disruptions associated with the wars between the US and Iran and between Russia and Ukraine together had knocked out nearly 9 percent of global refining capacity.
Musk blocks Ukraine from using Starlink for deep strikes in Russia – Atlantic
RT | August 8, 2026
Elon Musk has refused to allow Ukraine to use his Starlink satellite internet service to guide drone strikes deep inside Russian territory, The Atlantic reported on Friday, citing two close allies of former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov.
According to the publication, Fedorov, a tech-savvy promoter of drone warfare who was sacked from his position last month, has since been working through back channels to appeal to Musk, but the billionaire has so far refused to relent.
“As of this moment, there is no positive decision,” a Fedorov ally was quoted as saying. “Elon keeps saying it’s time to make a deal,” the source added.
The Atlantic previously reported that during his visit to the US last month, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky asked President Donald Trump to help influence his close ally Musk on the matter, but Trump remained noncommittal.
Musk began donating tens of thousands of Starlink terminals to Ukraine shortly after its conflict with Russia broke out in February 2022. However, he soon began clashing with Ukrainian officials as he urged them to focus on reaching a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev and repeatedly warned that the conflict could lead to “World War III.”
In 2023, the entrepreneur confirmed reports that he had rejected Ukraine’s request to use Starlink for attacks on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and naval bases in Crimea. “If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” he said at the time.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last month that Musk should shut down Starlink in Ukraine altogether if he truly wanted “people to stop dying.”
Musk’s reported position represents a second major blow to Ukraine’s diplomatic efforts after Trump walked back an earlier promise to grant Kiev a license to produce Patriot air defense missiles and rebuffed a plea to deliver more interceptors. Zelensky and the Ukrainian military said this week that the country was struggling to fend off Russian strikes on Kiev and other cities.
Zelensky’s abrupt decision to sack Fedorov sparked street protests across Ukraine, with crowds and several prominent activists demanding his reinstatement. Zelensky responded to the public outrage by firing the country’s top commander, General Aleksandr Syrsky, with whom Fedorov had reportedly clashed over priorities and tactics.
Col Doug Macgregor: All Out War w/Iran Getting Unavoidable
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – August 7, 2026
Prof John Mearsheimer: Drones Can’t Deliver Ukraine Victory
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – August 6, 2026
‘We want them too’: Trump rebuffs Zelensky’s request for missiles
RT | August 7, 2026
President Donald Trump has dismissed Ukraine’s plea for more Patriot anti-air missiles following widespread reports that US interceptor stockpiles have been significantly depleted by the war with Iran.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has warned that his country is running out of Western-supplied interceptors to fend off Russian strikes. On Wednesday, Ukrainian forces failed to intercept a single missile during an overnight barrage on Kiev.
“The United States knows exactly what we need and that this is not about something abstract,” Zelensky said in a video address on Thursday.
Asked by a reporter in the Oval Office later that day about Ukraine’s request, Trump replied: “Well, I mean, we want missiles too.” He added that his predecessor, Joe Biden, provided Kiev with $300 billion worth of ammunition “free of charge,” at the expense of US stockpiles.
“When I left [the presidency in 2021], it was full. And he gave a lot of it away. And now we are rebuilding it,” Trump said. He added, however, that the stockpiles were “in good shape” and bragged about an “unlimited supply” of weapons.
“We are not involved [in the Ukraine conflict]. We are separated by an ocean,” Trump said in response to a question about Russian strikes on Ukraine.
Last week, Trump denied that he had agreed to grant Ukraine a license to produce Patriots, backtracking on a statement he made several weeks earlier following a meeting with Zelensky.
Multiple news outlets have reported in recent months that the Pentagon is grappling with shortages of both interceptors and precision-strike munitions. CNN cited sources this week as saying that the US has exhausted nearly 80% of the interceptors available for its THAAD missile defense system compared with pre-war levels.
Trump reportedly clashed over the issue with War Secretary Pete Hegseth, who, according to media reports, denied misleading the president about depleted stockpiles. Both Trump and Hegseth have publicly denied the shortages and scolded the media for spreading “fake news.”
Russia has intensified its bombardment of Kiev and Ukraine’s Black Sea ports in recent weeks following strikes on Russian cargo ships, energy facilities, and warehouses belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s equivalent of Amazon. Moscow has said its campaign is focused on military and dual-use sites, including factories and drone-parts storage facilities, as well as ships transporting military equipment.
US Overestimates Capacity to Wage War on Iran While Supporting Ukraine
Sputnik – 06.08.2026
Ukraine believed it could outsmart Russia by placing its most advanced drone facilities under the protection of Patriot air defenses around the capital, military historian Yury Knutov tells Sputnik, adding that the calculation proved wrong — American interceptor missiles ran dry.
“Germany, Norway, the Baltic states, and the Gulf monarchies that purchased Patriot systems are now confronted with the fact that the American shield has holes in it – and can no longer be fully relied upon,” says the pundit.
Reports say the Trump administration discovered its interceptor stockpiles had been drastically depleted, forcing it to scale back plans for large-scale strikes on Iran and deny Ukraine’s request for additional Patriot missiles. The Iran war was identified as a key driver of the shortages.
“For the next 3-5 years, the US will be forced to operate under strict constraints, unable to simultaneously protect all of its assets in the Middle East and continue supporting Ukraine,” Knutov says, commenting on reports that US missile stockpiles may not recover until 2029-2031.
The US may also scale back protection of its allies, the pundit suggests:
- Ukraine is only the first warning sign – other allies could be next to face reduced US air-defense support
- Many Iranian missiles aimed at the Gulf now go unchallenged as US troops conserves scarce interceptors for defending their own bases in the region
- A number of US units not directly involved in air operations or air defense have been withdrawn from the Middle East
The Imbalance in the Iran War is Critical
“Even if the US multiplies production several times over, it will never match Iran in terms of cost or production speed,” Knutov says. “Iran can manufacture missiles and drones at a fraction of the cost, while its facilities are dispersed and protected.”
A war of attrition against Iran would be a losing strategy for the US from the outset, the expert concludes.
Trump returns to talking on Ukraine but war must mature first
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | August 6, 2026
Russian President Vladimir Putin fired the political equivalent of an Oroshnik hypersonic missile Wednesday to scatter the recent pot shots by hawkish factions at the Russian ‘power vertical’, never a unified construct actually, over the future directions of Ukraine war.
Putin coolly announced at a Kremlin meeting Wednesday with the Defense Ministry leadership a major reshuffle of Russian commanders in the special military operation zone asserting that he has his own mind about tactic and strategy and intends to continue with the special military operation to its logical conclusion, while retaining the structural patterns.
Simply put, Russia’s Bismarck does not want to be remembered in posterity as someone who wantonly sacrificed the lives of his country’s youth to conquer foreign lands for self-glorification.
It is a noble decision — pragmatic and tactical but also strategic. This will mean Russia’s attritional war will continue but a paradigm shift to put maximum pressure on the leadership of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is to be expected. Indeed, the massive missile strikes at Kyiv in recent days are no longer meeting with missile interceptors, as Americans do not have surplus stocks to spare.
Put differently, there has been a paradigm shift as Russian forces gain ground all across the frontline while there are growing signs of demoralisation within the Ukrainian army whose command and control system has become shaky following the recent dismissal of Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and the replacement of Defence Minister Mykhailo Federov.
Putin has reposed confidence in the military commanders who worked as a team in advancing the special military operation. From the political perspective too, Putin is pleased with the return of the US administration — and President Donald Trump personally — to the Ukraine settlement process.
The big picture also needs to be factored in, as Washington’s high-level contacts with Beijing are intensifying and Moscow cannot afford to lag behind. Russia’s sherpa to the APEC summit at Shenzhen Ambassador-at-Large Marat Berdyev told Izvestia recently, “It’s premature to discuss specific meetings. However, in my opinion, such a trilateral contact [US-Russia-China] would be very useful. In practical terms, it’s entirely feasible, as three leaders of the leading powers are expected at the designated venue.”
Certainly, the first in-person meeting in Manila on May 25 between foreign ministers Sergey Lavrov and Marco Rubio since September of last year was a defining moment. Ukraine was largely the focus of the meeting. Rubio told the media there was a need to seek “new proposals and new ideas,” adding that Washington was prepared to present “some of them in the appropriate context and format.”
This marked a departure from the Anchorage agreements of last August. But Moscow decided not to make an issue of it and instead signalled appreciation that after a lengthy pause, the US was renewing efforts to restart the Ukraine negotiation process.
In a subsequent interview with Fox News on August 1, Rubio announced that Washington was once again ready to work with Moscow and Kyiv to achieve peace, despite the two countries’ existing “strict red lines.” Rubio stated that Moscow and Kyiv have “some pretty strong red lines. Until we can bring these red lines closer together, we won’t achieve our goal. But we are ready to act.”
Rubio also touched on how Washington envisioned the main goal of its diplomacy in the new phase: “The dynamics of the conflict have changed somewhat in recent months, with the Ukrainian side now capable of striking deep into Russian territory and making the Russians feel the effects of this war. Therefore, we want to explore whether this new dynamic can lead to some kind of negotiated settlement.”
But to be sure, Rubio would also have been aware that the emergent reality included sustained and massive Russian missile strikes on Kyiv, and that a major drone production facility belonging to the American company Terminal Autonomy was destroyed last week. According to the Guardian, this company manufactured high-precision drones for “deep strikes” in Ukraine, with guidance systems resistant to Russian electronic countermeasures. Of course, Russians were making a point.
On the other hand, Trump retracted from an earlier offer during the NATO summit in Ankara on July 8 to allow Ukraine to manufacture Patriot missile; and he also failed to respond to a request from Zelenskyy for an “emergency winter package of 300 Patriot missiles” without waiting for licensed production to begin.
The White House and SpaceX are also non-committal apropos of Zelenskyy’s proposal to Trump on July 28 to lift Starlink’s geographic restrictions over Russian territory that would enable Ukraine to use Starlink’s real-time connection to steer long-range drones against mobile Russian ballistic missile launchers positioned deep inside Russia.
Furthermore, it transpires that the new scheme by the US’ European allies for American arms supplies to Ukraine under the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) programme is stalling. Despite $4.5 billion flowing into the US Treasury under PURL as of March, no contracts have been signed so far.
Finally, the ‘Graham bill’ imposing oil sanctions on Russia may not after all pass before the legislative recess which begins on August 10, as it has become part of a bargaining chip between the Democratic and Republican parties. If consideration of the bill drags on and if the Congress comes under Democratic Party control, the ‘bipartisan consensus’ over the bill may well wither away even as Lindsey Graham becomes a distant memory. The White House is in no hurry to pass the bill.
However, such ‘feel good’ signalling notwithstanding, fundamental disagreements over key terms of a peace settlement continue to prevent Moscow and Kyiv from resuming full-fledged dialogue. Due to the escalating conflict over Iran, Washington is currently unable to exert the necessary pressure on Kyiv. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to visit Kyiv in the second half of August.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s attacks on civilian infrastructure within Russia are only intensifying, against the backdrop of Russia’s Duma elections. Russia’s retaliatory missile strikes have reached a massive scale.
The bottom line is that the chances of Moscow agreeing to Kyiv and Washington’s new terms are low. So, the nascent negotiation process would inevitably return to square one, which in turn will trigger another round of escalation. Perhaps, Russia anticipates such an eventuality.
One positive factor is that Trump himself would seek to achieve at least interim results in the negotiations before the mid-term congressional elections. But then, a powerful lobby representing the US military-industrial complex advocates a continuation of the conflict.
The Kremlin meeting on Wednesday and the reshuffle of army commanders steering the special military operation in Ukraine messages that negotiations can only become feasible when the parties are willing to make mutual concessions, and for that to happen, two pre-requisites of the situation are needed, namely, Russia’s battlefield victory and regime change in Kyiv.
The West is Winning the Information War While Russia Prevails on the Battlefield
By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR21 | August 5, 2026
I stumbled across something pretty bizarre today when I queried one of the AI-search engines about Russia’s capture of territory in Ukraine in 2026. Here is what the Chinese KIMI claimed:
The evidence from multiple sources — including Ukrainian official claims, Western think tanks, and Ukrainian independent trackers — suggests that Ukraine recaptured substantially more territory than Russia captured during the first half of 2026, driven by the southern counteroffensive. However, the pace of Ukrainian gains has slowed since spring, and Russia has made small net gains in recent months (June–July). The overall net for the full year so far appears to still favor Ukraine, but the margin and the exact numbers depend heavily on whose methodology you use.
There you have it… Ukraine is winning the war on the ground according to AI. Let me emphasize that you will find this same propaganda on GROK or Claude. The Western propaganda effort is paying dividends on the information operation side of the house. Even the Chinese-coders who created KIMI are pushing Western propaganda.
So let me give you the actual rundown for 2026. Russia started 2026 with Gerasimov’s report to Putin announcing the liberation of Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk) — the Donetsk logistics hub under siege for nearly two years — and of Vovchansk in Kharkiv. Through November of 2025 the MoD had reported a steady run of captures, including Petrovskoye in the DPR and Tikhoye and Otradnoye in Dnepropetrovsk.
Moving into the spring of 2026, TASS reported that Russian forces liberated 63 settlements from March through May 2026 — 20 in March, 16 in April, and 27 in May, the strongest month. The regional breakdown was 21 in Kharkiv Region, 19 in the DPR, 14 in Sumy, six in Zaporozhye, and three in Dnepropetrovsk. The Sumy and Kharkiv gains are framed by Moscow as building a “security zone” along the Russian border.
By early summer (June), Gerasimov reported that Russian forces were continuing the liberation of “Donbass and Novorossiya,” advancing on all fronts. The 3rd Army was advancing toward Slavyansk and Kramatorsk — liberating Piskunovka, reaching the outskirts of Nikolayevka, and reported to be less than 5 km from the eastern edge of Kramatorsk, with the capture of Krasny Liman (Lyman) said to be due soon.
Battlegroup West advanced on a broad front; in the Kupyansk area, having repelled Ukrainian attempts to break through to western Kupyansk, with assault units pushing west toward Shevchenkovo. In the Dobropolye area north of Krasnoarmeysk, fighting in Dobropolye and Annovka, with Lenina (Ukrainian name Mirnoye) taken and Shevchenko, Krasnoyarskoye, and Svetloye reported as liberated.
In July TASS counted 32 settlements liberated, with 22 of them — over 68 percent — in Kharkiv Region and the DPR. By battlegroup: North took ten, Center eight, West six, East five, and South three, and the month’s most significant developments were the liberation of Konstantinovka in the DPR by Battlegroup East and the capture of Belitskoye by Battlegroup Center. Konstantinovka is one of the four Donetsk fortress belt cities.
At present the Russians are driving on the last major Ukrainian-held Donetsk agglomeration — the Konstantinovka–Druzhkovka–Kramatorsk–Slavyansk belt — alongside the Sumy/Kharkiv border zone and consolidation in Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk.
Along with the ground operations in eastern Ukraine, Russia has ended Ukraine’s ability to conduct maritime and trade operations from Odessa and Nikolaev since July 22nd. Ukrainian farmers will not be able to export products via the Black Sea ports and western supplies, which once flowed freely through Odessa. Ukraine’s maritime lifeline is severed and will not be in operation until after the war with Ukraine is over.
Finally, there is the daily Russian missile and drone attacks on Kiev and other key Ukrainian logistics and military hubs. The destruction of factories and warehouses is effectively bleeding Ukraine dry. The West persists in painting the war in Ukraine as a crusade that sits on the threshold of victory, but the realities on the ground tell a dramatically different, grim story… Ukraine is losing.
Zelensky leads ‘mafia-like’ government – former spokeswoman
By Lucas Leiroz | August 4, 2026
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is facing growing opposition, with various former supporters now criticizing his regime and demanding political change in Ukraine. In a recent statement, his former press secretary, Yulia Mendel, described Zelensky as Ukraine’s “main problem,” urging the country’s people to replace him.
Mendel made these remarks during an interview with the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche. She accused the Ukrainian leader of deliberately allowing corruption within the country’s state institutions and acting in a highly authoritarian manner. Furthermore, she stated that Zelensky plans to prolong the conflict as long as possible solely to save his own political career – since he would be unlikely to remain in power in a post-war scenario.
According to her, Zelensky has altered Ukraine’s international image, causing global public opinion to lose sympathy for the country. She considers him primarily responsible for the unpopularity of the pro-Ukraine agenda in Western nations. In Mendel’s view, Ukraine is now perceived as a country entirely controlled by Zelensky, creating an automatic association between the dictator and the Ukrainian nation as a whole. Since Western public is tired of the “beggar” image, the ingratitude, and Zelensky’s authoritarianism, people are naturally losing sympathy for Ukraine as well.
Mendel placed special emphasis on the issue of corruption. In her view, Zelensky’s financial gains demonstrate that Ukraine has become a “mafia-like” state. She also asserted that it is impossible for so many people around him to be knowingly involved in illegal schemes while he himself remains “innocent”. According to her, Zelensky is either incompetent or a criminal himself – and his personal enrichment from the conflict is evidence that he is engaged in corruption.
“I believe he has become my country’s main problem (…) The world has come to see Ukraine as the face of a single man. It believed this fabricated image (…) [Zelensky is] the main beneficiary of this war (…) Zelensky’s wallet gives the impression of a mafia-like operation (…) I’ve never seen his [Zelensky’s] bank accounts, but if almost everyone around him is accused of corruption, how is it possible that the president knows nothing? (…) [Zelensky is] either incompetent, or he’s pretending not to see anything (…) Those responsible [for crimes in Ukraine] are almost never punished (…) Zelensky betrayed the people’s trust in the state,” she said.
She also sharply criticized irresponsible narratives regarding a possible “Ukrainian victory” in the conflict. According to her, even if Russia were eventually losing the war, that would not mean Ukraine was “winning” – given the country’s heavy losses and the crisis caused by the war. Nevertheless, she emphasized that Moscow is not losing, as it holds the absolute military advantage in the conflict.
“Even if Russia is losing, it doesn’t mean Ukraine is winning. And Russia is not losing,” she added.
It is important to remember that Mendel is a former spokesperson for the Ukrainian leader and certainly has inside information about Zelensky. She served from 2019 to 2021, participating in critical periods of pre-war Ukrainian history – such as the pandemic and the tensions with Russia that led to the inevitable launch of the special military operation by Moscow in 2022.
Mendel is yet another example of a former Zelensky ally who eventually became a political adversary. The Ukrainian leader is known for targeting his former associates, attempting to intimidate them to prevent them from sharing sensitive information with the media or the opposition. Currently, many of Zelensky’s key political rivals are individuals who were once linked to him in some way. By doing so, Zelensky seeks to eliminate potential challengers to his power, aiming to remain in the presidency for as long as possible.
Mendel was recently even added to the kill list of the neo-Nazi regime, the infamous website “Myrotvorets”. The reason she is now considered an “enemy of the Ukrainian state” is that she shared information regarding the Ukrainian president’s drug abuse during an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson. Mendel claims that Zelensky is addicted to cocaine and that this influences his decision-making. Furthermore, she stated that she witnessed him “change from peacemaker to propagator of war.” Now, due to these statements, her life is under threat from Ukrainian security services.
In fact, as long as Zelensky and his junta continue to govern Ukraine, peace remains unlikely, given that the dictator insists on prolonging hostilities. Cases like Mendel’s reveal the reality of present-day Ukraine to the world. It remains to be seen when Zelensky’s Western backers will finally decide to pressure him to step down.
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.
The EU Has No Plan If Peace Breaks Out in Ukraine
By Glenn Diesen | August 4, 2026
Over the past years, NATO has held “peace summits” to which Russia was not even invited, where European leaders such as President Duda spoke about peace in terms of breaking up Russia into smaller states. Now that NATO is clearly losing its proxy war, the EU demands an “unconditional ceasefire”. This is not a peace proposal but an effort to further extend the war. An “unconditional ceasefire” is a conditionality for starting negotiations, which is intended to freeze a conflict that NATO is losing, giving it time to rearm, regroup, and even send in NATO troops as “peacekeepers”.
Why has the EU boycotted diplomacy for 4.5 years and continues to do so? And why will NATO not even take NATO expansion off the table in return for a ceasefire? Would it not be wise to discuss with the other side how we failed to establish a mutually acceptable pan-European security architecture after the Cold War, which has led us into this horrific war? The EU uses smears and censorship to prevent its own public from even discussing this matter, and it will certainly not be discussed with Russia.
The EU cannot allow this war to end, as there is no plan for peace. Fighting with Ukrainians keeps the U.S. in Europe, temporarily preserves European unity, protects an unpopular political elite from the rising opposition that seeks course correction, offers military Keynesianism as an economic model for a de-industrialising Europe, weakens Russia as a strategic rival, and buys the European leaders time to prepare for a direct war with Russia. A peace agreement would require European leaders to repay the funds they have seized and partly stolen from Russia, which they also used as collateral for loans to Ukraine. Victory would give the Europeans a strong U.S. behind them and a battle-hardened Ukraine in front of them, while defeat would leave Europe without a clear role or relevance in a multipolar world. There is no plan for what to do when peace breaks out.
When the Trump administration broke with the NATO consensus of boycotting diplomacy to negotiate an end to the Ukraine War, the main objective of the European leaders was to shut down the talks. The European leaders rushed to Washington to insist that peace entails an “unconditional ceasefire” without even discussing a political settlement, and intensified deep strikes into Russia to sell the idea that Russia can be defeated. The European leaders were successful as the Trump administration began adopting the false narrative that Ukraine had “turned the tide”. While the Trump administration had initially aimed to either end the Ukraine War or outsource it to the Europeans, the proxy war in Ukraine is now Trump’s war.
If the goal was to “help Ukraine”, then NATO would not have toppled the Ukrainian government in 2014 in the effort to pull Ukraine into the NATO orbit that only a small minority of Ukrainians wanted; NATO would not have sabotaged the Minsk Agreement between 2015 and 2022; NATO would not have pressured Zelensky to reverse his peace platform that won him the election in 2019; NATO would not have torpedoed the Istanbul agreement in 2022; or at least NATO would have ended the war in November of 2022 on the recommendation of General Mark Milley when Ukraine was at its strongest. Instead, “standing with Ukraine” now entails deporting Ukrainian refugees and financing military recruiters to hunt Ukrainian men on the streets to send them to die in a war that Ukraine cannot possibly win. Proxy wars are ruthless as they use the proxy as cannon fodder, yet proxy wars are always sold to the public as being motivated by empathy and support for the proxy that is unnecessarily sacrificed.
Israel protects Mexican official wanted for mass kidnap-murder, along with accused sex criminals and fraudsters
Israel is home to droves of international criminals
By Nate Bear – ¡DoNotPanic! – July 31, 2026
Israel has become a haven for international criminals. Many are dual-nationals who have taken advantage of their ability to move seamlessly between Israel and their second country of citizenship to commit crimes and, in some cases, evade justice.
The scale of the criminality, and the volume of cases (relative to the population of Israel), is astonishing.
Among the most notorious accused criminals being protected from justice by Israel is Timur Mindich, the ultimate financial beneficiary of the Ukrainian drone maker Fire Point. Mindich fled to Israel last year, just days before being charged as the mastermind behind a $100 million embezzlement scheme involving Ukraine’s state nuclear power company. Mindich also happens to be the co-owner of Kvartal 95 Studio, the production company founded by Volodymyr Zelensky.
Mindich, like many in this article, has taken advantage of Israel’s controversial Law of Return which allows any Jew in the world to claim Israeli citizenship without having to renounce their home country passport.
Some of those accused and charged have made minor or international headlines, some haven’t, but the scale of the issue was such that I thought it would be useful to document my research here.
In some cases, Israel has refused to extradite the wanted person despite requests from the country in which the crimes were committed.
Staying on Ukraine and refused extradition requests, we have Oleksandr Dubilet, the former Chairman of the Board of Ukraine’s PrivatBank. Dubilet is currently a fugitive in Israel and the subject of multiple criminal investigations and extradition requests for his role in embezzling at least $100 million dollars following the 2016 privatisation of PrivatBank. To date, Israel has refused to extradite him.
Israel as a bolthole for financial fraudsters is a common theme. One of the most significant SEC fraud cases in recent years involved over 150 Israelis (some with dual US-Israeli nationality, others not), wanted for their role in conducting binary options fraud worth upwards of $100 billion.
Binary options are a type of financial bet where the outcome is essentially all-or-nothing. Instead of buying a stock or currency, you bet on whether the price of a stock or currency will be above or below a certain level at a specific time. While not illegal, the Israeli companies were accused of rigging and manipulating prices and expiry times and using fake identities.
For a decade until 2017, Israel was the global centre for the online binary-options industry. The Israeli police failed to investigate, so hundreds of cases were filed in Israeli courts by people from dozens of countries who had been defrauded.
One of the most notorious fraudsters was Lee Elbaz, the CEO of Yukom Communications, a dual US-Israeli national. She was arrested in 2017 when on holiday in New York and eventually convicted of wire fraud and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Other prime Israeli movers in the binary options fraud business were Yossi Herzog and Yakov Cohen, both connected with Yukom and other binary options front companies. They were charged with $140 million fraud in 2019 but despite being under a DOJ criminal investigation the US choose not to pursue their extradition, while other Israeli co-conspirators in the Yukom case have joined Elbaz in serving jail sentences.
Other Israeli kingpins in the binary options sector include Ran Amiran and Malhaz Patarkazishvili, also known as Pini Peter. They were charged with $100 million fraud by the SEC for their role managing the fraudulent options trader Spot Option. Because it was a civil case and the DOJ wasn’t involved they weren’t eligible for extradition from Israel and continue to reside in Israel. It was reported in 2021 that Amiran had reached a financial settlement for the damages with the SEC, likely so that he could once again travel to the US. Peter, a friend of Netanyahu’s, remains unrepentant, despite being ordered to pay the US government $87 million, a judgment he has appealed.
Benjamin Netanyahu with financial fraudster Pini Peter
There are hundreds of other Israel-linked individuals charged with binary options fraud identified on the SEC website, including joint German-Israel nationals Gil and Raz Beserglik who ran binary options call centres out of Germany to scam people.
Another hotbed of Israeli fraud is the moving industry, where companies pose as legitimate household goods movers only to steal belongings or withhold items unless additional payment is made. One of the largest “hostage load” prosecutions was of Advanced Moving Systems, an Israeli-run company which lured customers with artificially low moving estimates and then extorted them by holding their household goods hostage until they paid fraudulently inflated prices. Many of the dozens of people behind the scam remain wanted, with their current location unknown. Dozens of other Israelis connected with fraudulent moving companies also remain on the run, and have likely fled to Israel. (Incidentally, the Israelis arrested by the FBI on September 11th and quickly released were working for a Mossad counterintelligence operation using a moving company as cover. But that’s another story).
Penny stock fraud is another rich seam for Israeli crooks. This type of fraud takes place when the stocks of small companies trading under $5 a share are marketed to often older and uniformed people using high pressure sales marketing tactics, with the caller promising guaranteed returns, often claiming to have inside information. One of the largest instances in recent years saw dual US-Israeli citizen Sharone “Barry” Perlstein and numerous Israeli co-conspirators charged with creating at least 15 fraudulent public shell companies to sell millions of dollars worth of penny stocks using fraudulent tactics. Previous penny stock fraud cases had also involved Israeli nationals.
The diamond industry has also attracted a fair share of Israeli swindlers. One of the most well-known is Mordechai “Moti” Ferder, a California-based luxury jeweller at the centre of one of the largest fraud scandals in the American jewellery industry. Ferder was accused of juicing his company’s accounts to boost the valuation before selling to an investment company, while in reality he was racking up liabilities worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In 2025, with an FBI investigation underway, Ferder fled California for Tel Aviv.
Then there is Gery Shalon, the Georgia-born Israeli responsible for hacking JP Morgan and carrying out the largest theft of customer data from an American financial institution in history.
Outside the fraud cases, Israel also attracts politicians attempting to shield themselves from justice in their home countries. One of the most notorious and ongoing cases is that of Tomás Zerón, the former director of the Criminal Investigation Agency of Mexico. Zerón, who received training in Israel before assuming control of Mexico’s version of the FBI, is accused by Mexican authorities of having direct involvement in the kidnap, torture, and likely murder of dozens of university students.
The Ayotzinapa kidnapping is considered one of Mexico’s most heinous human rights abuse cases. It took place in 2014, when forty-three leftist students were kidnapped and disappeared on their way to Mexico City to commemorate the anniversary of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre. Zerón is said to have known or ordered the students to be handed over to a cartel group to be murdered and disposed of. The former Mexican top cop promptly fled to Israel after being officially accused of participating in the crime.
Despite an extradition order, an Interpol red notice and numerous requests from Mexico to hand him over, Israel has refused, reportedly as punishment for Mexico’s criticism of Israel at the UN.
Another Mexican diplomat who fled to Israel is Andrés Roemer. Formerly Mexico’s Ambassador to UNESCO based in Paris, and Consul General of Mexico in San Francisco, Roemer fled to Israel in 2021 after being accused by 61 women of rape and sexual assault. While a Jerusalem court has authorized the former diplomat’s extradition to Mexico, he remains in Israel under house arrest.
Roemer is not alone among Jewish sex criminals fleeing from justice in the home countries to Israel. The phenomenon is so prevalent that even CBS News has covered it. Probably the most famous accused sex criminals to have fled to Israel are the Hollywood directors Brett Ratner and Bryan Singer. Rush Hour director Ratner, a good friend of Netanyahu’s, fled to Israel in 2023 after being accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct and assault on set.
Singer, the director of two X-Men films and the 1990’s hit, The Usual Suspects, fled to Israel around 2020 after being accused of sexual abuse, including of children.
Brett Ratner with Benjamin and Sarah Netanyahu, and ultra-Zionist attorney Alan Dershowitz
Israel is a magnet for criminals of all flavors, making this brief compendium just the tip of the iceberg. The Law of Return, known to be policed very lightly, is a gateway allowing Jews to use their dual nationality to commit crimes and then swerve justice under an ethno-supremacist legal regime set up to protect them. Some succeed in avoiding justice, while others are not so lucky.
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Book Review
What Is Peanut Allergy?
An Essay on the Injection That Created the Epidemic
Lies are Unbekoming | August 8, 2026
… In 1988, Japanese pediatricians began seeing something new. Children who had received the recently reformulated DTaP vaccine at three months of age were arriving at emergency rooms with anaphylaxis after eating yogurt or Jell-O. Others were reacting at their MMR shot months later. The reactions had not existed at that scale before. The pediatricians investigated. They identified the cause.
The aluminum adjuvant in the new acellular DTaP had sensitized the children to the trace gelatin proteins in the vaccine. Weeks or months later, the MMR (which also contained gelatin) delivered the second dose. The second injection provoked anaphylaxis in a subset of children. Some then reacted to gelatin in food.
The Japanese doctors wrote it down. They published. They removed gelatin from DTaP. New cases of gelatin allergy in Japanese children dropped.
The paper is on file. The cause is named. The solution worked. No Western regulator has applied the same investigation to peanut allergy, though peanut anaphylaxis emerged in Western children during the same window, at the same ages, following the same category of injection schedule change.
The Mayo Clinic’s public description of peanut allergy states that it occurs when the immune system “mistakenly identifies peanut proteins as something harmful.” FARE, the establishment’s own advocacy organization, documents that peanut allergy in US children more than tripled between 1997 and 2008. Neither statement explains why the mistake began, at scale, in a specific decade, in a specific set of countries.
The mistake framing is the tell. A mechanism that “mistakes” a food protein for a threat cannot explain why the mistake was rare in 1980 and epidemic by 1995. The body’s design did not change in fifteen years. What changed was what was injected into infants: what compounds, at what ages, in what combinations.
The Japanese case is the counterfactual. The cause was found and the epidemic was ended. What separates the Japanese gelatin admission from the Western peanut silence is not the science. The science has been in the record since 1913. What separates them is the willingness to name what was done. … Read full essay
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