‘Biden’s war’ has become Trump’s – Lavrov
RT | June 5, 2026
America’s position on the Ukraine conflict has become almost indistinguishable from that of the EU, making US President Donald Trump’s stated ambition to mediate an end to the fighting hollow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has told RT.
Trump repeatedly blamed the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on his predecessor, Joe Biden, and claimed that he could bring it to a swift conclusion while campaigning in 2024.
However, recent statements by members of his administration suggest a different course, Lavrov said on Thursday in an interview on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
“Biden’s war has become Trump’s war,” the Russian foreign minister said.
Speaking to Congress this week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said efforts to facilitate Russia-Ukraine talks were complicated “because, frankly, we’re not an impartial mediator.” He cited the continuation of the sanctions on Russia and sales of US weapons to Ukraine.
“After we agreed to the United States proposal in Anchorage [in August 2025], Washington began to shift its position. Instead of advancing those same proposals in its dealings with Ukrainians, it is now pretending that the parties should sort things out themselves. This is not a very consistent position,” Lavrov said.
“It is the West that cannot be trusted to keep its agreements. Its approach is: ‘I’ll promise something now, then stall for time.’ If the US had truly advanced its own initiative, I think… the fighting would already have stopped.”
According to Lavrov, the only major difference between Trump’s policy and that of Biden and the EU is that his administration resumed direct talks with Russia. Dialogue is important, he said, but it must be matched by action on commitments already made. … Full video interview
Suspected Ukrainian drone explodes in Romanian port
RT | June 5, 2026
A suspected Ukrainian maritime drone exploded in the Romanian port of Constanta on Friday morning, prompting a major emergency response and the evacuation of the area, local media and officials said.
The unmanned boat was discovered in the port several hundred meters from the oil terminal, local media said. It was reportedly carrying explosives and became stuck in an anti-pollution barrier before detonating. The location is also close to the headquarters of the Romanian Agency for Saving Human Life at Sea.
Romania’s Defense Ministry said the object self-detonated at around 10:30 AM without causing casualties. The area had already been secured and isolated by the Romanian authorities while the drone was being assessed.
The ministry has also stated that the drone did not belong to the Romanian military and had not been involved in recent exercises in the Black Sea, describing it as being “of the type used in the war in Ukraine.”
Local media later reported that three more drones had exploded. Another one near the Port of Constanta, and two more in Ukrainian waters. Constanta County Prefect Adrian Picoiu told the News.ro outlet that the drones were of Ukrainian origin.
Commander Sandu Mateiu also told local news outlet Digi24 that the vessel resembled a Ukrainian MAGURA V5 maritime drone used by Kiev’s military intelligence, which can carry hundreds of kilograms of explosives, travel long distances, and often operate in swarms.
The authorities in Constanta have issued a Code Red warning due to the danger of further explosions along the coast, ordering people to keep at least 1 km away from the shoreline until the threat is eliminated.
The Russian Embassy in Romania responded to the incident by stressing that the drones in question are “Ukrainian unmanned maritime vehicles, used by the Kiev regime to commit terrorist acts against civilian ships and to create threats to the safety of navigation in the Black Sea.”
The diplomatic mission emphasized that “any attempts to directly or indirectly associate these drones with Russia and to attribute responsibility for the incident are without any basis.”
In recent months, Ukrainian drones have repeatedly veered into the airspace of nearby countries, including the Baltic states and Finland, triggering warnings and airport shutdowns, crashing into buildings, and damaging infrastructure.
Moscow has accused Western states of consistently ignoring or downplaying the incidents, particularly after it is confirmed that a Ukrainian aircraft was responsible, or trying to pin the blame on Russia.
Russian officials have also repeatedly raised concerns that Kiev could intentionally be staging drone provocations outside its borders in an effort to trigger a direct confrontation between NATO and Moscow.
House Votes to Terminate Iran War, While Preparing to Vote to Ramp Up the Ukraine War
By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | June 4, 2026
On May 25, I wrote about how the Republican leadership of the United States House of Representatives had put off until the House would return from recess in June a vote on ending the Iran War. It had appeared that the war termination resolution would win a majority vote on the House floor
Here is an update. On Wednesday, with the House having come back into session this first week of June, the vote on the Iran War resolution took place. The resolution passed by a vote of 215 to 208. Breaking down the vote in a Reuters article, Patricia Zengerle wrote:
The four House Republicans who voted for the war powers resolution were Representatives Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
No Democrats voted against it. Seven House members did not vote.
House members were able to use the War Powers Resolution to force consideration of the Iran War termination resolution contrary to the wishes of House leadership.
But, before supporters of a noninterventionist US foreign policy celebrate too much, they should read on in Zengerle’s article to where she reports that also on Wednesday House members moved toward escalating US involvement in the Ukraine War, using another procedural mechanism to bypass leadership. She wrote:
Separately on Wednesday, the House approved a procedural motion that clears the way for a vote on the Ukraine Support Act, which would provide security aid to Ukraine as it fights a Russian invasion. The act reached the floor only after a petition reached a 218-signature threshold last month to move ahead.
Six Republicans and one independent who normally votes with Republicans voted in favor of the Ukraine measure.
With House Democrats appearing uniformly against one war and for another, it is hard not to see their views on the respective wars as political — vote against the Iran War because it is “President Trump’s war” and for the Ukraine War because it is “President Biden’s war.” (In truth, well over a year into Trump’s presidency, the Ukraine War that he had promised to end quickly has become clearly Trump’s war as well.) The same reasoning would seem to apply in reverse to the Republican leadership’s efforts to prevent votes on both matters. The “People’s House” is a disgrace.
Is Hungary about to give Ukraine the EU green light?
RT | June 3, 2026
Hungary is on the cusp of lifting its veto on Ukraine beginning formal accession talks with the EU, according to hints from Prime Minister Peter Magyar and strategic leaks from Brussels. But why now? And will he compromise on Hungarian rights?
Speaking alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin on Tuesday, Magyar said that he is “very optimistic” that a deal can be done to guarantee the rights of Ukraine’s Hungarian minority, in exchange for his government lifting the veto.
“The negotiations are progressing encouragingly,” he said, adding “I am ready to meet with Ukraine’s president at the beginning of next week, if we manage to agree on these fundamental human rights.”
Within an hour of Magyar’s statement, Politico published an article claiming that Budapest had privately “signaled it will drop its long-standing opposition to Ukraine’s bid for EU membership,” citing four unnamed diplomats.
What did Politico say?
Politico, the Axel Springer-owned Brussels insider, reported that Magyar’s government had “privately signaled openness to lifting its veto following a meeting on Monday between Ukrainian and Hungarian experts.” The Ukrainian side, the outlet claimed, provided verbal assurances that they would resolve most of Hungary’s concerns – including the Hungarian minority’s right to use their native language in schools – and formal accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova will be opened at an EU leaders’ summit on June 15.
Why was Politico’s article important?
That this story first appeared on Politico was likely no coincidence. Politico’s neoliberal, Atlantacist worldview is literally written into the constitution of its owner, Axel Springer, and its journalists’ proximity to power in Brussels has made it the outlet of choice for all kinds of strategic communications from within the EU machine – from telegraphed policy moves like Tuesday’s report, to outsourced smear campaigns.
For example, when Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever shot down the European Commission’s plan to use €185 billion ($218 billion) in frozen Russian assets to finance a massive aid package for Ukraine in December 2025, Politico responded with a hit piece portraying his country as “Russia’s most valuable asset” in Europe.
Further hit pieces – all of them citing EU diplomats and officials – followed, claiming that “Europe is failing Ukraine,” de Wever “fears retaliation from [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” and “Europe still doesn’t want to pay to save Ukraine.”
Magyar’s predecessor, Viktor Orban, derided Politico as “the Brusselian elite’s official publication” after it named him 2025’s “disruptor of the year.”
How are Hungarians treated in Ukraine?
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, around 156,000 ethnic Hungarians found themselves trapped within Ukraine’s borders, after Kiev refused to recognize a successful self-rule referendum in the region of Transcarpathia. Relations between Budapest and Kiev rapidly declined from 2017 onwards, when Ukraine passed a series of laws mandating the sole use of the Ukrainian language in schools and local government.
Tensions were further inflamed after 2022, when the Ukrainian military targeted Transcarpathians in what the Hungarian Foreign Ministry called a “brutal” military draft.
Ukraine’s language laws have been criticized by the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission for failing to safeguard minorities’ linguistic rights, and condemned by human rights organizations.
Why lift the veto now?
Orban maintained that Ukraine joining the EU would drag the bloc into open war with Russia, undercut Hungary’s agricultural sector, and effectively give a free pass to the corruption and criminality of the Ukrainian government. However, the Transcarpathia issue was the brightest of red lines for Orban, with the then-prime minister declaring in 2023 that Hungary “will not support Ukraine in any issue in international life until the previous laws that guaranteed the rights of Transcarpathian Hungarians are returned.”
Anita Orban, Magyar’s foreign minister (and no relation of Viktor), has maintained this policy, telling an interviewer last month that “until the situation of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine is resolved, we cannot make progress in any other area.”
Hungary’s concerns are laid out in an 11-point plan. Anita Orban has refused to say whether her government would compromise on these demands, but Politico noted that Ukraine would address “most” – but not all – of the points, and added that this would be done without “passing new legislation in Ukraine.”
All of this suggests that the language laws will not be repealed or replaced, and that Magyar will abandon some of the document’s points, which have not been made public. It is unclear, but likely, that Magyar and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen addressed Ukraine’s EU membership when they met to discuss frozen EU funding for Hungary last week.
Although Magyar said afterwards that the funding issue is “not connected in any way with the issue of Ukraine,” EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said beforehand that she expects Hungary to lift the veto ahead of the June summit. With accession a pet project of von der Leyen, and with Vladimir Zelensky set to attend the summit, it is highly likely that Magyar has come under some pressure to resolve the dispute in the coming week.
Could anyone else block Ukraine’s path to the EU?
With Viktor Orban out of office, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is now considered the EU’s most Ukraine-skeptic head of state. However, while Fico maintains cordial relations with Russia and opposes all military aid to Ukraine, Zelensky claimed that the Slovak prime minister would support Ukraine’s EU membership bid after the two met in Armenia last month.
Has Zelensky’s veneration of Nazi collaborators harmed Ukraine’s EU bid?
Polish President Karol Nawrocki said last week that Ukraine “is not ready to be part of the European family,” after Zelensky granted the title ‘Heroes of the UPA’ to a Ukrainian commando unit. The UPA, or Ukrainian Insurgent Army, was the armed wing of Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), and collaborated with Nazi forces to murder around 100,000 Polish civilians in what is now western Ukraine between 1943 and 1945.
However, Nawrocki added that supporting Ukraine in its conflict with Russia remains Poland’s “strategic goal.”
Even if Nawrocki wanted to block Ukrainian accession, the decision would not be his to make. Poland’s government is run by Nawrocki’s pro-Brussels rivals, and Nawrocki would be unable to veto any accession treaty without finding a majority of MPs or senators to support him.
What if nothing happens?
Despite all the signs pointing to a deal between Budapest and Kiev, nothing is set in stone at the moment, and it’s possible that some last-minute obstacle could emerge between now and June 15. The passage of the summit with no deal would represent a setback for von der Leyen and her maximalist plans for Ukraine, but even if Zelensky secures formal accession talks, all of the old issues between Kiev and its European counterparts will return to the forefront: corruption, agricultural market disruption, and the prospect of a permanent welfare recipient joining the European bloc.
These long-term issues could be far more challenging for Zelensky and his officials to solve than the Transcarpathia impasse ever was.
Do Palantir’s bosses have blood on their hands over the Starobelsk massacre?
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 2, 2026
The murder of 21 Russian students at a college dormitory on May 22 has yet to be fully understood in terms of the exact involvement of NATO states.
The university building in Starobelsk, Lugansk, was attacked in the early hours of the morning with 16 drones in three consecutive waves of assault. The targeting of the dormitory was deliberate. There were no Russian military installations in the vicinity.
NATO’s involvement in this act of terrorism is on multiple levels. Ukraine’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles has ramped up in recent months, in line with the massive financial support provided by the European Union in the form of a €90 billion loan, most of which is dedicated to boosting Ukraine’s drone arsenal, with European manufacturing companies working in partnership.
At another level, the Western corporate news media have largely ignored the Starobelsk atrocity and NATO’s involvement. The Western media have distorted the de facto war crime by highlighting implausible denials from the Ukrainian regime. In short, covering up.
At yet another level is the new and remarkable efficiency of Ukrainian-launched drones to evade Russian air defenses. Since the conflict in Ukraine escalated in 2022, NATO intelligence from satellite surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft has been supplying the Kiev regime with targeting data to attack Russian units.
But in recent months, NATO information flow and data analysis have taken a quantum leap regarding targeting range and lethality. Thus, the close partnership between Ukrainian and NATO drone manufacturing is amplified by the involvement of U.S.-based Palantir Technologies in operating systems.
Palantir was cofounded in 2003 by German-U.S. billionaire Peter Thiel. It has grown to become the “brains” behind operating weapon systems for the Pentagon, as well as the Israelis in their genocide in Gaza and Lebanon, and aggression towards Iran.
Palantir’s CEO Alex Karp visited Kiev on May 12, where he met with the regime leadership to firm up military partnerships for using Artificial Intelligence in attack drones. Karp was ecstatic about the global business opportunities accruing to Palantir by using the Ukraine war as a laboratory for developing technology.
He boasted that his company’s software was the “operating system” for Ukraine’s military deploying against Russia. Significantly, the Palantir boss remarked that the real-time learning and development of his company’s systems were giving Palantir a huge commercial advantage that could not be achieved in peacetime laboratories. In other words, the killing fields of Ukraine are plugging into Palantir’s profitability and global status as a company.
“It’s our software primitives or infrastructure and your people building things that are completely different from what we would have ever built on top of this,” Karp said in an interview with Ukrainian media.
“You’re doing it on the battlefield with a very small number of people and then showing the world how these things work.”
This strategic collaboration between the Kiev regime and Silicon Valley’s hottest company was also revealed in an exclusive report this week by CNN. The CNN report did not mention Palantir by name, but screenshots reposted clearly showed that the Ukrainian drone operators were using the company’s PRISMA software. As reported, the software allows the processing of vast amounts of aviation and radar data in seconds, which is then used to deploy drones that evade Russian air defense systems and hit deep inside Russia.
The success of Ukrainian-NATO drones to strike deep inside pre-war Russian territory has improved dramatically. The air strikes have reportedly damaged 24 out of a total of 33 of Russia’s top oil refineries. Last month alone, it was reported that six refineries were hit, as well as major fuel depots. The installations, such as at Saratov and Volgograd, are hundreds of kilometers inside Russia. The disruption in fuel supplies has necessitated the Kremlin’s imposition of rationing on public purchases.
Palantir’s data processing and AI are such that interception of Ukrainian drones by Russian air defenses is incorporated into the targeting programs, which permits subsequent drone waves to circumnavigate anti-aircraft systems. This feedback loop brings new challenges for defense systems.
The increase in EU and NATO drone funding and technology would account for the quantitative surge in attacks on Russian territory. The complicity of NATO states, primarily the Baltic states, in lending their territories as launch sites is also a factor. The NATO propaganda machine, too, plays a role in minimizing the civilian deaths and thereby blindsiding European and American public opposition to a dangerous provocation and escalation of war with Russia.
But the involvement of Palantir in increasing the kill machine is another crucial qualitative dimension in the escalation, whereby Ukrainian-NATO drones are evading Russian defenses and increasing their capability at hitting its deep interior and vital infrastructure.
The massacre at the Starobelsk college in Lugansk points to the systematic involvement of Palantir in executing such a deadly attack.
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov (2010-14) expressed his astonishment at how 16 drones were able to penetrate Russian air defenses and hit the college in three waves. Azarov told Tass, the Russian news agency: “I think [NATO countries] are involved. Because, first, the drones that were sent flew right past all Russian air-defense systems, which means that someone guided them through. And you can only guide them if you have space reconnaissance data – it was a whole wave of 16 drones, and they passed by air-defense systems. It means they were guided through, solely thanks to the intervention of Western intelligence agencies. I think that, strictly speaking, they [NATO states] were behind this provocation,” he said.
Azarov did not mention Palantir per se. But the complex navigation ability of the NATO drones to thread through layers of Russian defense is the very kind of qualitative edge that the American software company is giving to the Ukrainian operators.
The other grave implication is that the extensive mapping of Russian targets, from oil refinery installations to fuel depots, suggests that the information supplied by the NATO “brains” has a detailed picture of what is being targeted. There is no way that the air strikes on a college dormitory could be confused with military installations that are not even present in the area.
That means Palantir and its multi-billionaire bosses like Alex Karp and Peter Thiel have blood on their hands, no matter how much they scrub their hands at their company’s newly opened office in Kiev.
In a perverse sidenote, Thiel, who was a friend of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, has a personal interest in the topic of the Anti-Christ, traveling the globe delivering exclusive lectures to wealthy audiences about Armageddon and the end of times. It’s not clear what his exact views are on manifestations of the Anti-Christ. But the murder of teenage student girls sleeping in their beds should surely be relevant to his lectures.
Kiev admitted it launched drones at NATO member – media
RT | June 2, 2026
Ukraine launched explosive-laden drones towards Finland, triggering an alert that affected 1.8 million people, Helsingin Sanomat reported on Monday, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The incident took place on May 15 and set off a major security alert in the southern Finnish region of Uusimaa, which includes the country’s capital, Helsinki. The warning halted air traffic at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport and triggered a lockdown order by the authorities.
Finnish officials did not initially disclose details of the alert, stating only that the drones could be approaching from Russia, creating the impression that the threat was linked to Moscow.
According to HS, however, the emergency measures were prompted by a warning from Ukraine, which said it had accidentally sent drones carrying explosives toward Finland.
The Finnish Defense Forces later said no violation of Finnish airspace had been detected. HS reported that it remains unclear why the drones never entered the country, noting that Russian air defenses may have shot them down en route.
The report has prompted criticism from Finnish lawmakers. Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee said they were not told that the warning came from Ukraine, which was essential information that should have been shared immediately.
The case adds to a growing list of incidents in which Ukrainian drones have entered or approached foreign airspace while apparently en route to targets in Russia. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland have all reported similar episodes in recent months.
Last month, Estonia shot down an alleged Ukrainian drone over its territory for the first time, while Latvia saw Ukrainian drones hit oil storage facilities near the Russian border, which ultimately led to the collapse of Prime Minister Evika Silina’s government.
Moscow has repeatedly accused NATO countries of quietly allowing Ukraine to use their airspace for attacks on targets in northwestern Russia, particularly energy infrastructure in Leningrad Region. Russian officials have also warned that Kiev could stage provocations involving drones to draw NATO deeper into the conflict.
Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo previously said he had told Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky that Helsinki considers Ukrainian aircraft entering its airspace “unacceptable.” Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur has likewise urged Kiev to keep its drones away from Estonian territory and to “control their activities better.”
Russia Raises Alarm Over Ukraine’s Surging Black Sea Terrorist Activity
Sputnik – 02.06.2026
MOSCOW – Russia is concerned about Ukraine’s mounting terrorist activity in the Black Sea, which is raising risks for civilian shipping, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Tuesday.
“We are concerned about the noticeable escalation of terrorist activity in the Black Sea by Ukraine, which leads to a deterioration of conditions and an increase in risks to civilian shipping,” Zakharova said in a statement.
On May 29, the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced that a drone had attacked a Turkish-owned vessel in the Black Sea, injuring two people. Ankara said it had conveyed its concern to all parties about a possible escalation in the region.
Ukraine’s military stages bandit raids on Black Sea ships with drones and unmanned boats — then pins the attacks on Russia, the spokeswoman said.
“These attacks on civilian commercial vessels have once again shown that the Kiev junta has complete disregard for the principles and norms of international law — preferring instead to deny any involvement in the incidents,” Zakharova said.
The spokeswoman branded Ukraine’s Black Sea provocations outright banditry — and warned that organizers and perpetrators alike will have to answer for these criminal acts.
“We believe such provocations — which are nothing but terrorist acts — must be the subject of a thorough, impartial investigation, receive a clear public response, and face condemnation from all coastal states that bear special responsibility for navigation safety in the Black Sea,” Zakharova stressed.
Neutralizing Black Sea security threats is crucial to any full crisis settlement, the diplomat noted.
“We confirm our readiness for close cooperation with Ankara in the interests of finding optimal ways to stabilize the Black Sea’s maritime space and exert effective influence on Kiev,” Zakharova added.
A second corruption storm in Ukraine, and satanism in its government
By Dmitri Kovalevich | Al Mayadeen | May 30, 2026
This year, May 20 marked seven years since Volodymyr Zelensky came to power in 2019. He and his associates have seized control of the Ukrainian state and canceled further elections required by the Ukrainian constitution.
Seven years ago, Zelensky’s arrival in power followed a corruption scandal that ensnared his predecessor Petro Poroshenko and his inner circle. At the time, Zelensky promised to step down voluntarily if something similar ever happened to him and his inner circle. Poroshenko was elected a mere three months following the violent, paramilitary coup in Kiev. That election featured threats and the banning of candidates and media outlets opposing or even questioning the coup.
Since 2019, corruption scandals have only grown, but Zelensky is showing no intention of ceding to rising calls that he and his regime step down and convene a new, national election. Instead, his regime continues to consolidate its power amid rising opposition to its policies. Above all, they are still waging a proxy war against the Russian Federation, backed by the Western powers.
Western politicians are continuing to turn a blind eye to the regime and its sinking support among the Ukrainian population. They are ignoring the corruption scandals enveloping the regime, including the theft of Western aid (as graciously paid for by Western taxpayers). So long as Zelensky and his regime are at war with Russia, the West will remain content. Zelensky himself understands perfectly well that the war course with Russia is a fight for his political life. If the war ends, he will lose his ‘presidential’ immunity. Zelensky’s electoral mandate expired in April 2024, more than two years ago.
“Why are Europeans silent about the corruption surrounding Andriy Yermak?” asks former legislator of Zelensky’s part/machine Alexander Dubinsky on Telegram on May 17, writing about Zelensky’s former chief of staff. Yermak resigned from his position as the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine after his home was raided by anti-corruption agents on November 28, 2025. In May 2026, Yermak was formally named a suspect in a corruption investigation. He was arrested on May 14 and stayed four days in prison before being released on bail.
“Why the silence over the fact that none of the widespread corruption that Yermak fostered would exist without Zelensky’s usurpation of power? It’s because the regime’s goal is to weaken the Russian Federation, and Zelensky happens to remain the best manager for that.” According to Dubinsky, this also explains why there has been no reaction by European governments to the systemic human rights violations which characterize Zelensky’s regime.
Dubinsky emphasizes that, in contrast, even those Ukrainians who do not wish to fight and are evading military conscription are treated by the European powers as ‘problems’ if not enemies.
In May, a new round of the corruption scandal surrounding Zelensky began. Last year, recordings were published of his associates discussing corruption schemes in the energy generation and transmission industry and also in the procurement of body armor (as this author has previously reported). The main figures involved managed to flee to “Israel” at the time. Yermak formally resigned six months ago but has continued to informally oversee appointments and state policy even while under investigation.
During the now long war with Russia, the presidential office in Kiev has become the primary or sole decision-making center, stripping national legislators, local authorities, and the Ukrainian judiciary of their powers.
Zelensky said that he had come to power with Yermak and would leave with him (another lie). Last year, the Financial Times reported that Zelensky and Yermak had been living together in a bunker since the outbreak of war with Russia in 2022, sleeping in side-by-side beds.
In May, a new batch of audio recordings has been made public in multiple, small releases. In these, Yermak continues to be mentioned. One case concerns the building of personal mansions in an exclusive community near Kiev for Zelensky, Yermak, and two other individuals in their inner circle. The land was illegally acquired from the state.
Anti-corruption authorities are also accusing Yermak of laundering nearly half a billion hryvnia US$11.3 million for his personal gain.
Following these latest revelations, Yermak was placed in pretrial detention for the duration of the investigation, with the right to be released on bail. But just two days later, 140 million hryvnia in bail was made, and Yermak was released. The Ukrainian online publication Strana reported that Zelensky made considerable efforts to organize a fundraiser for his ally’s release, without which they might still be searching for the money to bail the man out.
The corruption case against Yermak is indirectly a case against Zelensky, although as long as the latter remains in office as president, he enjoys immunity from any and all criminal prosecution.
As reported on Telegram on May 15 by Artem Dmitruk, a former legislator of Zelensky who fled to London where he continues to reside, Zelensky responded to a question by Bloomberg News on July 4, 2024 about whether Andriy Yermak had excessive influence. Zelensky replied, “Yermak is a powerful manager, one of the most powerful managers on my team. I respect him for the results. He does what I tell him to do. And he gets the job done.”
Today, Andriy Yermak is officially a suspect in a criminal case involving particularly serious charges. According to the criminal investigation, the case involves the laundering of hundreds of millions of hryvnias, as well as other incidents that have already become the subject of a public inquiry. Thus, Zelensky himself has acknowledged that Yermak has acted on Zelensky’s direct instructions, writes Dmitruk.
In other words, all of Yermak’s decisions, actions, and results are not his personal initiative alone, but rather the fulfillment of tasks set by the “president” and his entourage. In light of these scandals, people in Ukraine are asking: who are the ‘instigators’ and who is really behind the anti-corruption activists who have decided to rein in Zelensky’s inner circle?
Strana reports at some length on May 7 that a release of wiretaps concerning businessman Timur Mindich, a close friend and associate of President Volodymyr Zelensky, has predictably sparked renewed pressure on the government. It says the anti-corruption investigation (a key part of what the publication calls an emerging “anti-Zelensky coalition”) is focused on three individuals: National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov, another close friend of Zelensky named Serhiy Shefir, and Andriy Yermak. The report notes that anti-corruption bodies in Ukraine are linked to and funded by the government of former US President Joseph Biden and by current politicians in Europe.
The report provides more detail on what it terms the ‘anti-Zelensky coalition’. The anti-corruption scenarios are dangerous for the governing elite in Ukraine, risking a loss of funds the West provides for the war and a loss of the levers of power allowing the continued plundering of the Ukrainian population.
Ukrainian political analyst Kost Bondarenko is convinced that any prosecution of Yermak will drag on for a very long time and then fall apart. Yermak will ultimately walk away scot-free, writes Bondarenko, while any court rulings will be temporary in nature, intended merely to calm public outcry while demonstrating that post-2014 Ukraine still has a fair judicial system. “First and foremost, this is a show for the West,” he writes, emphasizing that behind any ‘anti-corruption’ investigations lie other corrupt officials clearing their own paths to power and their own financial flows.
Zelensky’s former press secretary Yulia Mendel speaks out
The filing of criminal charges against the ‘second most powerful person’ (Yermak) in the Ukrainian state coincides with the release of an interview on May 11 with Zelensky’s former press secretary, Yulia Mendel. She was interviewed by right-wing blogger Tucker Carlson. In it, she hints several times that Zelensky uses drugs and is directly involved in corruption schemes. Furthermore, according to her, Zelensky and Yermak are extremely narcissistic individuals.
“Yermak knows he is a narcissist and knows that Zelensky is a narcissist too. They are two malicious, paranoid narcissists. Both are on the defensive. It really is two kinds of sick minds,” says Zelensky’s former secretary, who has fled to the US.
According to Mendel, one minister was invited into an office where Zelensky, Yermak, and one other person were present. There was a bag of dollars on the table. Zelensky suggested that the man receive money informally in cash, in addition to his official salary.
Mendel argues that Zelensky has never intended to step down from the presidency. “We’re here to stay,” Zelensky has said, according to Mendel. She says he has placed particular emphasis on propaganda, demanding an aggressive propaganda campaign and going so far as to cite ‘goebbels’ as a model, referring to Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
Ukrainian economist Daniil Monin notes that the arrest and detention of Yermak on May 14 followed Mendel’s interview on May 11. He believes this was not a coincidence. “A systematic process of discrediting Zelensky has begun in Ukraine, and this is probably a good thing from the perspective of bringing the war to an end. But the problem is that the people initiating such actions are themselves ideologically vacuous and typically pursue personal interests rather than the interests of Ukraine,” he writes.
Black magic at work in Kiev
On May 12, more details emerged in the case of Yermak that corroborate long-standing reports that Ukrainian authorities base their decisions in part or in whole on certain ‘otherworldly’ considerations. Prosecutors from the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office stated at Yermak’s pretrial hearing that one of Yermak’s items of correspondence mentioned a fortune-teller named Veronika Fengshui, whom the man has reportedly consulted regarding important personnel decisions, including the appointment of prosecutors and ministers.
“While Ukrainian diplomats have been convincing the West of ‘European-quality governance’ prevailing in Ukraine, personnel decisions, conflicts within the government, and strategic issues have reportedly been discussed with an astrologer,” writes the Ukrainian publication Argument on May 17. It notes that Yermak even discussed issues related to gas and energy supplies with the fortune-teller, based on her esoteric beliefs.
In April, the Ukrainian publication Ukrainska Pravda, citing sources close to Zelensky, reported that anti-corruption agencies confirmed the use of numerologists and tarot readers in the president’s office in the making of decisions and key appointments.
Last year, during the NABU’s first investigation into Yermak, former legislator Ihor Mosiychuk reported that a search of Yermak’s belongings had uncovered “voodoo dolls, masks, and satanic stars,” as well as bracelets and tattoos bearing related symbols. “All of this indicates that Yermak belongs to one of the occult sects,” the former legislator claimed.
On January 31 of this year, Yulia Mendel stated that Yermak practiced magic and had even brought certain sorcerers to Kiev. All this mystical nonsense, straight out of a cheap horror movie, has literally entangled Ukrainian politics.
Ukrainian political analyst Kost Bondarenko wrote earlier this year that in times of deep political turmoil and crisis, there is typically a surge in demand for all kinds of charlatans. Think of the mystic Grigori Rasputin, who advised Czar Nicholas II during the dying years of the Russian monarchy. According to Bondarenko, only future historians will be able to understand how many events in Ukraine related to the war and Zelensky’s actions were not the result of external influence or political calculation but rather the consequence of numerological formulas and communication with spirits.
Ukrainian political strategist Andriy Zolotaryov says he feels very uneasy knowing that “a Voodoo-type cult has taken root in Koncha-Zaspa” (an elite village near Kiev where rich families of legislators and ministers live). Commenting on Yermak’s fascination with all sorts of occult practices, Zolotaryov notes that the man made state decisions, yet, “at one time he had fortune-tellers, then they brought in Kabbalists, followed by Colombian sorcerers.” In his view, this indicates a lack of knowledge and competence and explains the Ukraine regime’s overall slide into backward-looking, archaic thought.
A great irony of fate lies in the fact that the country named Ukraine once pioneered the building of rockets to explore space, whereas today it is led by obscurantist figures who believe in charlatans, spirits, and all manner of concocted, evil forces.
Ukraine ‘deliberately’ struck Europe’s largest nuclear plant – Rosatom
RT | May 30, 2026
The Ukrainian military attacked Russia’s Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), puncturing a hole in the machine hall of one of the facility’s units, Aleksey Likhachev, CEO of the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, has said.
The ZNPP – which has repeatedly been attacked by Kiev forces over the past years – came under a new attack on Saturday, with a fiber-optics-guided drone making it to the machine hall of the sixth power unit of the plant. Given that such munitions are guided by their operators until the impact, the strike was carried out deliberately, and any “theories of an accidental hit” can be ruled out, Likhachev stated.
“One could, if I may put it this way, ‘congratulate’ the entire international community – this is the first-ever deliberate attack on the nuclear power plant’s main equipment, with a penetrative explosion and damage to the machine hall,” he said.
“The Ukrainian armed forces repeatedly cross not just red lines, but the very boundaries of common sense. What to expect next? Strikes directly on the turbine? The reactor hall? The reactor and its safety systems?”
Russia has repeatedly drawn the attention of the international community to the “extremely dangerous behavior” on Kiev’s part, the nuclear chief added. Many appear not to take the continuing attacks on the ZNPP “seriously,” while a potential nuclear incident at the plant could spread well beyond Russia and Ukraine, affecting those believing themselves to be “completely safe,” Likhachev warned.
Radiation levels remain normal at the site, the ZNPP said in a statement. The attack caused no casualties or “critical damage” to the facility, it added. Emergency teams are currently accessing the damage sustained by the machine hall, with the situation remaining under “full control,” the ZNPP stressed.
In recent weeks, the Ukrainian military has ramped up attacks on the plant, repeatedly striking structures within its perimeter and targeting the facility’s employees. The ZNPP came under Moscow’s control early in the conflict and has been operated by Rosatom after the Zaporozhye Region voted to join Russia in a referendum in the fall of 2022.
The Collective West, U.S., EU, and NATO, has morphed into a terrorist network
Strategic Culture Foundation | May 29, 2026
The murder of 21 Russian teenage students at a teacher-training college last week was an abominable moment of truth with far-reaching, grievous implications.
A grim, consequential watershed in the West’s conflict with Russia has arrived.
The victims were mainly girls aged between 14 and 18 who were killed when their university dormitory in Starobelsk, Lugansk, was attacked overnight on May 22.
What is absolutely revealing is how the Collective West has shown no remorse or restraint about the crime, going as far as denying responsibility and adding insult to the memory of the dead. The perpetrators have an obscene sense of impunity and inhumane entitlement.
The attack involved 16 drones that targeted the college in a wave of three assaults. There can be no doubt that the air strike was a deliberate act. That makes it an act of cold-blooded mass murder; an act of terrorism.
Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, stated: “The blood of the children from Starobelsk is on the hands of the West whose nations are supplying the terrorist regime [in Ukraine] with money, intelligence, weapons, and ammunition for years, inspiring it to commit new crimes against the civilian population, and then covering it up by presenting the Kiev regime as a victim.”
The corrupt NeoNazi regime in Kiev under Vladimir Zelensky and his cronies is only a bit player in this crime. The regime, which, by the way, gave burial honors to a World War Two Nazi collaborator this week, is merely the scum atop the Western criminal organizations behind this and other atrocities, and indeed the entire conflict with Russia.
Several respected international authorities have repeatedly pointed out that the nearly five-year war in Ukraine that erupted in February 2022 is the culmination of a long-term policy to embattle Russia with NATO aggression. Professors John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs, Alfred de Zayas, among others, have cogently explained how this conflict in Europe – the biggest since WWII – has come about.
The Kiev regime has been armed to the teeth by the United States and its Western partners, bankrolled by Washington and the European Union, and directed by NATO military intelligence. The attacks on Russian civilian centers could not happen without the direct support of the “Collective West”.
More recently, the European Union, which has emerged as the de facto political and fundraising wing of NATO, has stepped up its funding and coordination of drone armaments for the Kiev regime. Britain has also become an important supplier of Ukrainian drone technology, while the Baltic states and Finland are acting as launch sites for deeper strikes into Russia.
A drone crash in Romania this week elicited much theatrical condemnation of Russia as the perpetrator. More likely, given the surge in drones operating from NATO states, the Romanian incident was an own goal or a Ukrainian false-flag provocation. Telling, too, was the paroxysm of Western media coverage blaming Russia for the “reckless” drone, compared with the negligible reporting by these same media on the massacre in Starobelsk only days before.
The European NATO states are in effect becoming the Luftwaffe of the Kiev regime. As Russia’s envoy, Dmitry Polyansk, to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, warned this week, the drums of war are beating louder across the continent. European politicians like German Chancellor Friedrich Merz are calling for more NATO forces to build up along Russia’s borders, while the EU’s so-called top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, disparages peace diplomacy with Russia as a “Kremlin trap.”
Alfred de Zayas, professor of international law at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and a former UN independent expert, gave the following assessment to Strategic Culture Foundation regarding the NATO alliance. He said that it is now urgent to recognize that “it is a criminal organization” within the meaning of the Nuremberg rulings delivered in 1946 against Nazi war criminals, when aggression was defined as the supreme war crime.
De Zayas notes that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded nearly eight decades ago, in 1949, supposedly to defend the West from the Soviet Union. Since the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991, along with its Warsaw Pact military bloc, NATO should have also disbanded at that time.
“NATO has morphed from being a defensive alliance into a war coalition that has committed heinous crimes since the 1990s in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere,” he said. “While NATO forces, since the 1990s, have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, what is important today is that world public opinion recognizes NATO as a threat to the peace and security of humankind.”
From the end of the Cold War, the United States-led military alliance has more than doubled its member states to the current 32, several of which border Russia. Under the UN Charter, regional security organizations are supposed to be subordinate to the UN Security Council. But the NATO bloc presumes to be above the law. It is a rogue force that attacks other nations at will, as we are seeing currently with Russia.
Says de Zayas: “It is not a legitimate regional organization under article 52 of the UN Charter, because it acts against the purposes and principles of the UN and has relentlessly committed the crimes of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.”
The mass murder of college students in Starobelsk and numerous other civilian casualties of NATO drone attacks on Russian territory are a testament to the terrorist nature of NATO.
De Zayas adds that it is also important to identify the sinister role of the Western corporate-controlled news media. The media have systematically distorted the conflict in Ukraine as “unprovoked Russian aggression” while whitewashing NATO and the NeoNazi regime for their litany of crimes, the latest being the atrocity at Starobelsk.
“Relentless propaganda and public relations have convinced the Western public that NATO is a good organization, legitimate, respectable, interested in peace and defense. This is total brainwashing,” said de Zayas.
“When the media indoctrination and propaganda about NATO is exposed as false, when the perception in Western countries moves from positive to negative, when people realize that NATO is a criminal institution, it will be possible to wind it down. Ultimately, NATO must be recognized not only as a criminal organization, a blustering vestige of a moribund Western imperialism, but as a mortal danger to the survival of civilization on Earth.”
All this confers on our editorial to draw several inescapable implications: the political leaders of the United States and the European Union, who make this NATO aggression happen through deliberate policies, must also face the same indictment. They are war criminals.
The Western media that propagandize for war and war crimes are also indictable as complicit in these crimes.
Furthermore, it is now clearer than ever that Russia is at war with an aggressive Collective West, and its manifestations, including the United States, the EU, NATO, and the Kiev regime. Therefore, Moscow has the legal and moral right to hit the decision-making centers that have Russian blood on their hands. All the more so because these Western decision-making centers presume impunity and the ghoulish right to drench their hands with even more Russian blood.
Putin calls for data on Romania drone incident to be shared
RT | May 29, 2026
Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for an “objective investigation” into a drone incident in Romania in which two people were injured. Moscow is ready to share its assessment if it is provided with either the debris of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or the data about it, he told journalists on Friday.
A drone crashed into an apartment block in the eastern Romanian city of Galati near the Ukrainian border early on Friday. The Romanian Defense Ministry claimed the UAV had originated from Russia.
Putin noted that drones have previously crashed in various EU nations, including Finland, Poland, and the Baltic States.
“A short time later, it would emerge that these incidents had nothing to do with Russian aircraft at all. Rather, they involved drones of Ukrainian origin that had gone off course due to electronic warfare… or technical shortcomings,” the president said during his visit to Kazakhstan.
Putin called on the Romanian authorities to share “objective evidence” with Russia, adding that Moscow did the same when the Ukrainian military targeted a Russian presidential residence in a drone strike. “Let them [Romanians] do the same and provide the evidence to us,” he added.
Romanian President Nicusor Dan, who visited the drone crash site on Friday, told journalists that the incident could have been caused by Ukrainian air defenses. According to him, the drone was a part of a group of Russian UAVs deployed against targets in Ukraine.
“Some of them were shot down over Ukrainian territory, and one of them was probably hit above the city of Reni. Its trajectory changed and it came toward Galati,” he said, adding that the Romanian authorities have data on the drone’s movement. According to Dan, the incident was not considered a deliberate attack by Russia but rather the consequence of military operations not far from the Romanian border.
Russia has previously been blamed for drone and missile incidents in EU nations. One of the most high-profile incidents involved an S-300 air defense missile killing two people in Poland not far from the Ukrainian border in 2022.
Kiev was quick to frame the incident as a Russian attack “on the collective security” of NATO while Warsaw eventually determined that the projectile had been fired by Ukraine in a bid to repel a Russian strike on targets inside Ukraine.
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From the Archives
Cuba: the Weight of a Long History
200 Years of US Interventionism
By MANUEL R. GÓMEZ | CounterPunch | February 27, 2015
… As far back as 1809, Jefferson tried to purchase Cuba. In 1820 he went further; he told Secretary of War J.C. Calhoun that the U.S. “ought, at the first possible opportunity, to take Cuba.” As President, John Quincy Adams predicted that Cuba would fall “like a ripening plum into the lap of the union.” These are but two of many prominent examples of a widespread ambition to annex Cuba, or at least to control its destiny, from very early in U.S. history. After “the West,” Cuba figured as a prominent second place in U.S. expansionist aims from the beginning of the Republic. … Read full article
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