Orban’s Insight Into The Global Systemic Transition & Hungarian Grand Strategy Is Worth Reading
By Andrew Korybko | August 2, 2024
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban elaborated on the global systemic transition and his country’s grand strategy within it during a lengthy speech at the Balvanyos Free Summer University and Student Camp over the weekend. The over 11,000-word English transcript was published on Monday, which the present piece will summarize for the reader’s convenience. It began with him reaffirming that it’s his Christian duty to promote peace and mocking the EU for its Orwellian “war is peace” mantra.
He then said that the Ukrainian Conflict was a “red pill” for him and proceeded to elaborate on the ten ways in which it opened his eyes to reality. First, there have been enormous casualties on both sides, but each will continue fighting unless external stakeholders diplomatically intervene since they’re convinced that they’ll win. Second, the US went from containing China to waging a proxy war on Russia, which pushed those two together and prompted questions about why the US would do this.
Third, Ukraine’s resilience in spite of its objective economic and demographic weaknesses can be explained by its sense of mission that fills it with a higher purpose, which is to become the West’s eastern military frontier. Fourth, Russia has also proven itself to be impressively resilient, and it’s nowhere near collapsing like Western leaders hubristically predicted. Fifth, the EU has undergone fundamental changes since the latest phase of the Ukrainian Conflict began two and half years ago.
It now follows the US Democrats’ lead instead of retaining its strategic autonomy, and the traditional Franco-German axis is now challenged like never before by Poland, which has allied with the UK, Ukraine, the Baltic States, and Scandinavia to create a new center of power in Europe. This is actually an old Polish plan (Pilsudski’s “Intermarium” from the interwar period) adapted to contemporary conditions brought about by the Ukrainian Conflict and fully assisted by the US.
Sixth, the West’s standards are no longer universal and it’s experiencing “spiritual solitude” after the entire non-West refused to follow its lead in isolating Russia. Seventh, the biggest problem in the world is the weakness and disintegration of the West caused by its lack of leadership and seemingly irrational policies, which is accelerating China’s rise as its global systemic challenger. Eighth, Western Europe’s worldview is now post-national while Central Europe still believes in the sanctity of the nation-state.
This dichotomy explains the West’s seemingly irrational policies since each half of Europe is operating according to a completely different philosophy. The US is also experiencing a similar division between those like Trump who want it to remain a nation-state and his opponents who want it to become a post-national state. According to Orban, this division owes its origins to the sexual revolution and student rebellions from over half a century ago, which sought to free people from any form of collective identity.
Ninth, the West’s post-national trends are convulsing democracy and leading to friction between the elite/elitism and the people/populism. And finally, the tenth red pill is that Western soft power/values aren’t universal but are actually counterproductive since Russia’s strongest international attraction nowadays is its resistance to LGBTQ. Orban then said that these trends are leading to the rise of the non-West, which he believes first began with China’s admission to the WTO in 2001 and might be irreversible.
Trump’s priority is to rebuild and strengthen North America, to which end he’ll squeeze the US’ European and Asian allies while negotiating better deals with China. His end game is to make the US self-sufficient in energy and raw materials so that it can stand a better chance at retaining its declining position in global affairs. The EU has two options: it can either become an “open-air museum” (passive international actor) absorbed by the US or pursue strategic autonomy in order improve its standing in the world.
What’s needed is more connectivity, a European military alliance with its own defense industry (albeit without federalization), energy self-sufficiency, reconciliation with Russia, and admitting that Ukraine won’t join the EU or NATO. It’ll return to its prior role as a buffer zone and will be lucky if it gets security guarantees in a US-Russian agreement. Poland’s power play will fail because it lacks the resources to replace Germany so Orban expects that his “Polish brothers and sisters” will return to Central Europe.
He also considers all of these changes to be an opportunity. Developments in the US favor Hungary, but it must be careful about any deals it might offer due to the Polish precedent. Warsaw bet everything on Washington and received support for its strategic goals, but now it’s “subject to the imposition of a policy of democracy export, LGBTQ, migration and internal social transformation.” Orban ominously notes that this combination risks of the loss of Polish national identity if these trends continue unabated.
Hungary will remain in the EU, but the bloc’s East-West divisions between those that correspondingly respect the nation-state and those that are moving beyond it will widen. The EU must also accept that it’s the loser in the Ukrainian Conflict, the US will abandon this proxy war, and the EU can’t realistically pick up the tab. All the while, Hungary will rely on China for modernizing its economy and boosting its exports, which will lead to mutually beneficial outcomes.
A Hungarian grand strategy is required in order to maximally take advantage of the opportunities brought about by the ten previously described red pills and their abovementioned consequences. What’s already been decided upon since his government began work on this after the 2022 elections isn’t yet digestible and widely comprehensible by the public, and he said that it’ll take around six months for everything to become clearer for them, but he still shared the gist of what this grand strategy entails.
The first part is what he describes as connectivity, which he explained as being plugged in to both the Eastern and Western halves of the global economy. The second is sovereignty, with a focus on the economic dimension by promoting national companies on the world market, reducing debt, becoming a regional creditor, and boosting domestic production. The final part is bolstering his society’s resilience by halting demographic decline, preserving villages, and maintaining Hungary’s distinct culture.
Orban ended by explaining that all Hungarians across the world must help advance this grand strategy. The global systemic transition is expected to last another 20-25 years so the next generation will be tasked with completing its implementation. Their liberal opponents will try to offset this, but such efforts can be counteracted by recruiting young nationalists to the cause. The impression that one gets after reading through his speech in full is that Orban is this generation’s most visionary European leader.
EU rebuffs members’ complaints over Ukraine blocking Russian crude transit
RT | August 1, 2024
The European Commission (EC) has rejected complaints by Hungary and Slovakia over Ukraine’s suspension of Russian energy supply through pipelines on its territory, advising the two EU member states to look for alternative suppliers.
The Hungarian and Slovak governments had earlier asked the EC to intervene in their dispute with Kiev, after the latter placed sanctions on Russian energy company Lukoil, depriving the two landlocked countries of crude supplies via a pipeline through Ukraine. Last month, Budapest and Bratislava sent a letter to the EU executive, urging it to open emergency consultations with Ukraine over the move, which they insist violates Kiev’s 2014 trade agreement with Brussels.
On Thursday, EC spokesperson Balazs Ujvari stated, as quoted by Politico, that urgent consultations “do not appear to be guaranteed.” He argued that in the commission’s preliminary assessment, the sanctions didn’t pose “an immediate risk to [both countries’] security of supply.”
In a letter to Budapest and Bratislava seen by the Financial Times, EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said that they could use an existing pipeline bringing shipborne crude from Croatia, adding that “diversification away from Russian fossil fuels should be actively pursued.”
In June, Ukraine blocked the pipeline transit of Russian crude sold by Lukoil to Central Europe. Kiev imposed sanctions on Lukoil in 2018, having banned the company from divesting its business in the country, as well as prohibiting trade operations and participation in the privatization or leasing of state property. Lukoil still sent crude via the southern arm of the Druzhba pipeline as the EU sanctions did not target these flows.
Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic had sanctions exemptions set up by Brussels to give countries reliant on Russian oil extra time to find alternative supplies.
On Tuesday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto claimed that the EC may be behind the suspension of the Russian oil supplies through Ukraine. The move could be directly targeted at Budapest and Bratislava, he suggested.
Slovakia and Hungary are the only EU members that have refused to back the bloc’s policy of supplying Kiev with military aid amid the conflict with Russia. Both have repeatedly called for a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov accused Ukraine of making a “political decision” and claimed the situation is “critical” for those still buying Russian oil.
Hungary Rejects Croatian Oil Route Over High Fees and EU Call to Stop Russian Oil
Sputnik – 02.08.2024
Croatia is not a reliable partner for oil transit, since it has raised the duty fivefold since 2022, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Friday, commenting on Brussels’ proposal to replace the Russian oil supplies stopped by Kiev with transit through Croatia.
Earlier in the day, the Financial Times reported, citing a letter from EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, that the European Commission had advised Hungary and Slovakia to abandon Russian oil and seek alternative sources in response to a complaint that Ukraine has blocked the transit of oil from Russia.
“Croatia is simply not a reliable transit country,” Szijjarto wrote on social media, adding that since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, Croatia has increased the price of oil transit fivefold compared to the average market price.
Last month, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that Ukraine had stopped the transit of Lukoil’s oil. The Slovak Economy Ministry confirmed that the country was no longer receiving oil from the Russian oil giant, which was sanctioned by Ukraine. On July 22, Szijjarto said that Hungary and Slovakia had launched consultations of the European Commission with Ukraine due to a stop in the transit of oil from Russia through the Druzhba pipeline. On Thursday, EU Commission spokesman Balazs Ujvari said that Kiev’s decision shows no energy supply risks for Hungary or Slovakia, so the Commission will not hold urgent consultations on the issue.
Dombrovskis said in the letter to Budapest and Bratislava that “diversification away from Russian fossil fuels should be actively pursued,” the report read on Thursday.
He reportedly added that at a meeting of representatives of all EU member states last week, “a significant number … questioned why Hungary and Slovakia had apparently not yet explored alternatives so far”.
Shooting down Russian missiles is ‘act of war’ – Ritter
RT | July 31, 2024
Vladimir Zelensky’s idea to have Poland shoot down Russian missiles would get NATO directly involved in the conflict with Moscow, former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has said.
Ukraine’s leader has been asking his Western partners for a “defense shield” for months. He claimed to have finally received a commitment from Warsaw in early July, as part of a security pact. Poland has said it would not target Russian missiles without NATO approval, which the US-led bloc has yet to give.
“Zelensky is operating on the assumption that NATO can have Patriot missiles in Poland that can shoot down Russian missiles that are headed towards militarily sensitive targets in the vicinity of Lviv,” Ritter told YouTube host Danny Haiphong in an interview posted on Tuesday.
“He doesn’t understand: that’s an act of war,” Ritter added. “That’s Russian military equipment, on a Russian military mission, in support of a Russian national security objective.”
Shooting down those missiles, even locking on to them with radar, would make NATO “literally a party to the conflict,” Ritter explained.
The US-led bloc has been trying to maintain a pretense that it’s not directly involved in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, despite donating billions of dollars worth of weapons, equipment and ammunition to Kiev’s armed forces and in some cases literally paying the salary of Ukrainian government employees.
Kiev is trying to have NATO set up a de facto “no fly zone” over western Ukraine, Ritter argued, which he described as “something Russia simply won’t tolerate.”
“Zelensky is just desperate right now, so he’s trying to invent rules of engagement,” Ritter concluded.
Ukrainian forces have been suffering steady setbacks along the front for weeks, with no prospect of replenishing their losses in either men or materiel.
The first handful of F-16 fighters reportedly arrived on Wednesday and will most likely be armed with modern US missiles. Zelensky has already complained that he would need more than 100 jets to actually make a difference, however.
Ritter is a former US Marine Corps major who served as a UN weapons inspector. He famously disagreed with the foreign policy establishment in Washington in the early 2000s, insisting that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction – a pretext the US later used to invade the country. He has been a RT contributor and saw his passport seized by the US government when he tried to attend the St. Petersburg International Security Forum in June.
EU member suspects Brussels of ‘energy blackmail’
RT | July 31, 2024
The European Commission (EC) may be behind the suspension of some Russian oil supplies into the EU through Ukraine, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto claimed on Tuesday. The move could be directly targeted at Hungary and Slovakia, he suggested.
Kiev halted the transit of crude oil supplied by Russian energy giant Lukoil via the Druzhba pipeline earlier this month, citing sanctions on the company. The measure has directly hit landlocked Hungary and Slovakia, depriving them of crude previously exported by Lukoil.
“Brussels remains silent despite the threat to the energy security of two EU member states and clear violation of EU-Ukraine association agreement,” Szijjarto wrote in a post on Facebook. The diplomat was referring to a deal signed in 2014, after the Western-backed Maidan coup overthrew the then-Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovich.
Szijjarto suggested that either the EC is too “weak” to protect the fundamental interests of Slovakia and Hungary, or “it was Brussels, not Kiev,” that orchestrated the move to “blackmail the two states that support peace and refuse to send weapons [to Ukraine].”
Shortly after the halt of oil supplies, Budapest and Bratislava jointly initiated consultations with the bloc and asked EU officials to help resolve the dispute. Brussels has claimed it needs time to “gather evidence and assess the legal situation.”
“The EC, and its President Ursula von der Leyen personally, must come clean immediately: did Brussels ask Kiev to ban oil supplies?” Szijjarto asked. “And if not, why has the EC taken no steps in more than a week?”
Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic – each of which is reliant on Russian energy supplies – were exempted from a bloc-wide ban on Russian oil deliveries in 2022. Slovakia and Hungary are the only EU members that have refused to back the bloc’s policy of supplying Kiev with military aid amid the conflict with Russia. Both have repeatedly called for a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
Kiev imposed sanctions on Lukoil in 2018, having banned the company from divesting its business in the country, as well as prohibiting trade operations and participation in the privatization or leasing of state property. Lukoil still sent crude via the southern arm of the Druzhba pipeline as the sanctions did not target these flows.
Earlier this week, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico warned that Bratislava would stop diesel exports to Ukraine if Kiev does not restart the transit of Russian oil through, stressing that Slovak shipments account for one-tenth of Ukraine’s consumption of the fuel.
On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow is unsurprised that the EU has failed to resolve the issue surrounding Russian oil supplies to its members, claiming that Brussels is using energy resources to blackmail Bratislava and Budapest.
Details emerge on Ukrainian plot to assassinate RT boss – media
RT | July 29, 2024
The Russian Investigative Committee has completed an investigation into an assassination plot targeting RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, the Kommersant daily reported on Sunday.
Last July, Russian law enforcement said they had thwarted a Ukrainian plan to kill the journalist, involving a group of Russian neo-Nazis who were offered $16,600 as payment.
“Deepest gratitude to our law enforcement officers for their work from me and my family,” Simonyan wrote, reacting to the Kommersant report on her Telegram channel.
The SBU (Ukrainian security service) reportedly recruited individuals for the job from the Paragraph 88 neo-nazi group, after seeing videos of their beatings of foreign nationals from Central Asia, which they recorded and posted online.
The attackers did not know that their negotiations were monitored by Russian law enforcement, the report says. When several young people arrived at a meeting place to receive an advance payment and an assault rifle, they were detained by special forces.
More than ten people are involved in the criminal case, some of whom have confessed to separate attacks, but deny plotting an attempt on the life of Simonyan, Kommersant reported.
The defendants claimed they had wanted to get paid for the hit in advance, but did not receive any money when they went to retrieve an assault rifle from a cache prepared by the organizers.
The newspaper has named Mikhail Balashov and Yegor Savelyev as suspected organizers of the group. The two men have been charged with an assassination attempt for political reasons, illegal arms trafficking, incitement of hatred, as well as terrorism and extremism.
Back in April, the SBU – Kiev’s successor to the Soviet KGB – announced new criminal charges against Simonyan, accusing her of being a “propagandist” who is furthering “Russian narratives” and endangering Ukrainian sovereignty.
The agency also claims that Simonyan called for “mass killings of Ukrainian children” in December 2023. However, it failed to provide evidence of any such remark.
In an earlier post on social media, she said the Ukrainians would have a hard time justifying the murder of a journalist and a mother of several children – but that falsely accusing her of inciting violence would make an assassination “appear more palatable.”
INTERVIEW: Basil Valentine & Prof. Glenn Diesen – EU Childishly Boycotts Budapest
21Wire | July 26, 2024
TNT Radio guest host Basil Valentine speaks with Professor and political scientist Glenn Diesen, to discuss the EU’s unprecedented efforts to punish Hungary, one of its members, for entertaining diplomatic talks with the Russian Federation. They talk about Western diplomacy and how it is no longer about appeasement but about schooling peers and near-peer enemies on compliance. They touch upon the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban’s strong relationship with former U.S. President Trump who if elected, will favour negotiation with the Russians to bring an end to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict to avoid WWIII and a possible nuclear holocaust.
Only ‘Brute Force’ Can Force Draft-Age Ukrainians in Europe to Go Home to Face Near-Certain Death
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 26.07.2024
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has urged Warsaw’s European allies to create the right conditions to “encourage” Ukrainians who fled their country after 2022 to return home to fight Russia. There’s nothing short of violence that will force these people to comply, says veteran international affairs observer Dr. Gilbert Doctorow.
“We, as European countries, also need to help” Ukraine as the country faces weapons shortages, war fatigue and dwindling troop numbers, Sikorski said in an interview with Polish radio on Thursday.
“There are hundreds of thousands of potential recruits obliged to defend their motherland living in EU countries, and Poland is in the vanguard of helping Ukraine prepare these people for military service,” the foreign minister said. It’s possible to “impose such conditions” on Ukrainian nationals living in Europe that “will encourage them to fulfill their obligation to defend their homeland,” Sikorski stressed.
“The only ‘encouragement’ that could induce military age Ukrainians to return to their country to fight would be brute force,” Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, a veteran Russia and Eastern European politics expert, told Sputnik, when asked to comment on Sikorski’s remarks.
“These potential conscripts are not vacationing in our resorts. They are here precisely because they fled conscription, which means nearly certain death on the battlefield, given the way that day after day the Russians are killing or gravely injuring more than 2,000 Ukrainian troops, including… some of the country’s best trained and equipped military units,” Doctorow emphasized.
Sikorski’s proposal is illustrative of a modern Polish political class “as delusional as their forefathers” in its fanatical hatred of Russia, according to the observer.
Fortunately, other European countries will hopefully “have some residual commitment to due process, not to mention a certain pacifist leaning,” which should prevent them from following “the despicable recommendations of Mr. Sikorski,” Doctorow believes.
Europe’s political institutions in general are staffed by “followers, not leaders,” Doctorow stressed. Accordingly, their main weathervane on what policy to pursue comes from across the Atlantic, not the EU’s Eastern flank.
“They look to Washington and what they see today is the possibility of a Trump victory which will mean that the USA throws Ukraine under the bus, as it is fashionable to say today. With their nose to the wind, they will not expose themselves to ridicule and protest by following the Polish example,” the observer said.
Poland is currently home to about one million of the estimated 4.25 million Ukrainians who fled Ukraine for European Union countries following the escalation of the Donbass crisis into a full-blown Russia-NATO proxy war. Another 5.5 million have gone to Russia.
The present conflict has thrust Ukraine into an acute, unprecedented and perhaps terminal demographic crisis, with the state’s efforts to forcibly mobilize men aged 18-60 (with those age 25 and above eligible to be sent to the front) threatening to wipe out the country’s working and fighting-age male population. The crisis has become so serious in recent months that Kiev has resorted to recruiting women.
Media, even in the West, have increasingly reported on instances of recruiters drafting the mentally and physically handicapped, grabbing draft-age men off the streets and authorities handing out lengthy prison sentences to conscientious objectors. This heavy-handed approach, a general sense of war weariness and the constant scandals surrounding Volodymyr Zelensky and his allies have given rise to a fledgling resistance movement, including a wave of arson attacks across Ukraine targeting recruitment centers and vehicles.
War of Attrition & the Dishonest War Propaganda
Ukrainian FM Tells Beijing Kiev is Ready for Peace Talks, As Russian Troops Advance
By Glenn Diesen | July 26, 2024
In a war of attrition, the army of the adversary is destroyed before seizing territory. Storming well-fortified positions creates high levels of casualties, which undermines the main objective of favourable attrition rates vis-a-vis the adversary.
The narrative-driven media have called the conflict “stagnant” as the frontlines have moved very slowly, and pretended that Ukrainian casualties have been very low. This deception has been deliberate to sell the illusion that Ukraine can win as a requirement for maintaining public support in the West for keeping the war going.
Much like in Afghanistan, the obedient media committed themselves to the narrative. The unreported reality was that the Ukrainian army was being destroyed, while Russia built a powerful army. Now that Ukraine’s army is at breaking point, Russia has begun taking territory with much less resistance.
How can we end the war? There is overwhelming evidence that Russia considers NATO’s incursion into Ukraine to be an existential threat. As NATO refuses to negotiate about restoring Ukraine’s neutrality, which was lost in February 2014, territorial conquest is perceived by Moscow to be the only solution.
Yet, the media shames anyone who recognises this reality by denouncing them as carrying water for Putin as they are “legitimising” or “supporting” Russia’s invasion. Those calling for peace negotiations are smeared as traitors, while the war propagandists can claim to “stand with Ukraine” as their Ukrainian proxies fight and die in a war that cannot be won.
Calls for negotiations are dismissed as it is unacceptable to surrender Ukrainian territory, which would embolden Russia to pursue similar conquests. In reality, this only became a conflict about territory after negotiations about restoring Ukraine’s neutrality were rejected. NATO refused to accept a neutral Ukraine between 1991 and 2014 when approximately only 20% of Ukrainians wanted NATO membership, and they knew it was a red line for Russia. NATO undermined the Minsk agreement for 7 years despite announcing it was the only peaceful path to resolve the conflict. Negotiations with Russia were then rejected in 2021 even as the US and NATO acknowledged Russia would invade if NATO did not end its bid to expand. In the Istanbul peace agreement in April 2022, Russia agreed to withdraw all its troops from Donbas if Ukraine restored its neutrality, although the US and UK sabotaged the agreement. Yet, the political-media elites insist that the territorial dispute is the source rather than the consequence of the NATO-Russia conflict.
The result? Ukraine loses territory and a horrific amount of men every single day. The war is also entering a new stage as casualties increase dramatically when frontlines collapse and an army must pull back. Russia is now breaking through all the frontlines and Ukraine is about to be hit by a powerful Russian fist. Yet, the political-media elites who purportedly “support Ukraine” have criminalised diplomacy and negotiations. Hungary, who holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, is even punished by the EU for simply engaging in diplomacy with Ukraine, Russia, and China to end the war.
In every war, the call for peace is denounced as support for the adversary while in-group loyalty and patriotism must be expressed as war enthusiasm. After every war, we also acknowledge that the war narrative was full of falsehood and we believe that we have learned an important lesson for the next war.
Pompeo offers Trump an escalatory ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine
RT | July 26, 2024
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed that Donald Trump would be open to dramatically ramping up US support for Ukraine if elected president. Pompeo’s plan, however, contradicts almost everything Trump has said about the conflict to date.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on Thursday, Pompeo and co-author Mark Urban, a neoconservative strategist, argued there is “much evidence” that Trump would give Ukraine enough aid to dictate peace terms to Russia.
The two policy hawks claimed that Trump’s supply of Javelin missiles to Ukraine in 2017 and his decision not to lobby against the passage of a $61 billion military aid package for Kiev this spring prove that he would be willing to embrace a hawkish plan to tilt the balance of power in Kiev’s favor.
Such a plan would involve ramping up sanctions on Moscow, expanding US energy production to drive down Russia’s oil and gas revenues, forcing NATO members to spend more on defense, and offering Ukraine a $500 billion “lend-lease” fund to purchase arms.
Ukraine would also be given permission to use any kind of weapons to strike targets anywhere in Russia, Pompeo and Urban wrote, claiming that this gloves-off approach would force Moscow to the negotiating table, where it would accept Ukraine joining NATO and the EU, and agree to the “demilitarization” of Crimea, where Russia’s Black Sea fleet is based.
Pompeo’s plan has not been endorsed by Trump, and the former president has repeatedly promised to deliver a more peaceful end to the conflict. Speaking to Fox News after naming Ukraine critic J.D. Vance as his running mate last week, Trump described Russia as “a war machine” that cannot be defeated by the Ukrainian military.
After a phone call with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky last Friday, Trump announced that “both sides will be able to come together and negotiate a deal that ends the violence and paves a path forward to prosperity.”
Trump has never revealed how he would force both sides to the table, telling NBC News last year that “if I tell you exactly, I lose all my bargaining chips.” According to a Bloomberg report earlier this year, Trump would consider cutting off military aid to Kiev unless Zelensky accepted the loss of some of Ukraine’s pre-conflict territory and made peace with Moscow.
However, Trump has expressed support for lending Ukraine money at a preferential rate, and for pressing NATO’s European member states to up their defense spending.
Pompeo, who served as Trump’s CIA director and then secretary of state, is one of numerous Republican figures attempting to shape the policies of a potential second Trump presidency. Last month, a group of Trump’s key advisers handed the former president a dramatically different proposal for Ukraine, which stipulated that Kiev would only get more American weapons if it agreed to a ceasefire based on current battle lines and peace talks with Moscow.
Slanders against China over Ukraine crisis fall apart on their own
Global Times | July 26, 2024
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Wednesday. The Ukraine crisis has entered its third year, with the conflict ongoing and risks of escalation and spillover still present. As the highest-ranking Ukrainian official to visit China since the outbreak of the conflict, the discussions and the signals sent during the talks, as well as whether there are signs of peace in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, have garnered international attention. Particularly in light of China’s successful mediation efforts in re-establishing diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and promoting internal reconciliation of Palestine, there are heightened expectations for China’s constructive role in promoting peace talks in the Russia-Ukraine issue.
As part of China’s recent diplomatic efforts to mediate international and regional hotspots, China’s proactive invitation to Kuleba to visit has garnered international attention. According to Reuters, citing Ukrainian accompanying officials, the talk lasted over three hours, longer than planned, and was “very deep and concentrated.” The word “deep” is rarely used in diplomatic settings. In a statement after the meeting, the Ukrainian side stated, “China’s role as a global force for peace is important.” This reaffirms China’s role as a peacemaker and highlights the effectiveness of the meeting.
As a direct party to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Ukraine has shown greater interest in China’s positions than before. This has led international public opinion to cautious optimism about the direction of the Russia-Ukraine issue and to pay more attention to China’s role in major regional conflicts. Even Western media, which often distorted and smeared China’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine issue, is now speculating whether China intends to preempt the US in playing the role of peacemaker. These discussions in various directions all confirm that China’s efforts to promote peace are increasingly prominent and have become an acknowledged reality in the international community.
The distortions and slanders against China by the West have largely fallen apart on their own. The fairness of China’s position has been once again validated, and China’s proposals have withstood the test of time. Western efforts to stoke the fire have only prolonged the conflict. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated in a recent interview, “We have to finish the war as soon as possible.” More and more signs point to the fact that the resolution of all conflicts will ultimately return to the negotiating table; all disputes will eventually be resolved through political means. This is precisely what China has consistently advocated.
From the handshake between Saudi Arabia and Iran, to the historic reconciliation within Palestine, to the complex and challenging Ukraine crisis, why does China’s position repeatedly manage to gather the broadest consensus in the international community? First, it is because China maintains an objective and fair stance and is committed to mediation and promoting dialogue. Second, China adheres to the concept of common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security, working tirelessly to maintain world peace, stability, and development. In the face of crises, China does not stoke the flames or take advantage of the situation for its own gain. This stance is visible to the international community and the parties involved in the conflict.
There is an Arabic proverb: “Seek knowledge, even if you have to go as far as China.” Now, the saying “Seek peace in China” is also becoming popular. On the complex international stage, China’s role as a responsible major power maintaining world peace is increasingly recognized. As China called for in the Global Security Initiative Concept Paper in 2023, “countries need to work in solidarity to foster a community of shared security for mankind and build a world that is free from fear and enjoys universal security.” China’s stance is clear and consistent: between peace and war, it chooses peace; between dialogue and sanctions, it chooses dialogue; between cooling down and fueling the fire, it chooses cooling down. On the Ukraine crisis, China remains straightforward and sincere, without political self-interest or geopolitical manipulation. China is truly dedicated to mediation and promoting dialogue to achieve a cease-fire and an end to the conflict.
Of course, the Ukraine crisis did not form overnight, and resolving the issue will not be accomplished in a single step. It requires the joint efforts of the international community. Recently, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken once again claimed at the Aspen Security Forum that “China can’t have it both ways.” Many in the West remain stuck in the mindset of “supporting one side,” which only complicates and intensifies the conflict. Influential major countries, in particular, should align with China to create conditions and provide support for direct dialogue and negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Only when major powers contribute positive energy rather than negative energy can there be an early glimpse of a cease-fire in this conflict.
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Book Review
The Zeolite Book — First Edition, 2026, Paperback
The volcanic mineral medicine will not patent — for the toxic burden medicine will not name
Lies are Unbekoming – October 30, 2026
Zeolite is old. It is in Roman concrete that has held for two thousand years. It’s in the water filters of ancient cisterns. It’s in the stomachs of Pacific livestock whose keepers knew, somehow, that this grey crumbling rock made the animals healthier. It’s in Soviet clinical protocols from the 1960s. It’s in the standard emergency response to the Chernobyl explosion.
In 1986, after the Chernobyl reactor failure, the Soviet Union manufactured and distributed natural zeolite at industrial scale — for soil remediation, for livestock feed, for human consumption, for the cleanup itself. Karl Hecht, who had been director of the Institute for Experimental and Clinical Pathophysiology at the Charité of Humboldt University Berlin, spent the six decades after that building the clinical research base — on silicon’s role in human health, on zeolite’s clinical safety, on its applications in ageing. In 2018, Pavelić and colleagues published a comprehensive clinical safety review of natural clinoptilolite in Frontiers in Pharmacology. In 2019, Mastinu analysed its binding affinities. In the Western medical literature, these works sit largely uncited.
What has not been treated at book length, until now, is how a volcanic mineral with six decades of Soviet clinical work behind it, two major peer-reviewed Western reviews, and ongoing clinical use across the former Eastern Bloc, remains almost entirely absent from Western medical practice — and what the toxic burden it’s meant to address actually is.
The Zeolite Book gathers the Soviet clinical record, the Western peer-reviewed studies, three contemporary practitioner voices, and three serious counterviews into one honest treatment. That’s why the book runs to seven appendices. 288 pages, four parts, three practitioner voices, three counterviews, seven appendices. The honest treatment is the argument.
Blog Roll
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- They Compared the Spice to the Drug. The Spice Won — Again. (Part 2)
- Thomas Fazi: NATO’s Hybrid Warfare – Deception & Permanent War
- Wrong, AP and NPR: Europe’s 50,000 Heat Deaths Are a Computer-Model Estimate, Not a Real Body Count
- Questioning Your Doctor Is Now Considered A Psychological Problem (Seriously)
- London tourism expo promotes Israeli agency linked to theft of Palestinian land
- Dockworkers launch global strike against Israeli and US military shipments
- Europe facing gas price shock – Gazprom chief
- Ukraine continues recruiting people with disabilities
- Weaponized Journalism: 2021 Sayer Ji Interview with NPR
- If Americans Knew
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- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Green Energy Transition Becoming Increasingly Expensive…Another 6 Trillion Euros!
- Sudden Stratospheric Warming, Powerful El Niño Combination May Lead To Extreme Europe Cold, Energy Crisis!
- Two New Studies Find Thwaites Glacier Melt Cannot Be Driven By Human Activity Or A Warming Ocean
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
