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Lavrov demands international recognition of Russia’s new regions

RT | September 3, 2025

Ukraine must recognize its territorial losses, guarantee the rights of the Russian-speaking population, and agree to a security arrangement that poses no threat to Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

In an interview with the Indonesian newspaper Kompas released on Wednesday, Lavrov signaled that Russia is open to talks with Ukraine, but noted that a “durable peace” is only possible if Moscow’s territorial gains — including Crimea, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Kherson Region and Zaporozhye Region — are “recognized and formalized in an international legal manner.”

The regions overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in public referendums in 2014 and 2022.

Lavrov further asserted that peace hinges on “eradicating the underlying cause” of the conflict, which stems from NATO’s expansion and “attempts to drag Ukraine into this aggressive military bloc.”

“Ukraine’s neutral, non-aligned, and nuclear-free status must be ensured. These conditions were spelled out in Ukraine’s 1990 Declaration of Independence, and Russia and the international community used them to recognize Ukrainian statehood,” the foreign minister said.

Another cornerstone of a potential settlement is Kiev’s promise to ensure human rights. At present, Kiev “is exterminating everything connected with Russia, Russians, and Russian-speaking people, including the Russian language, culture, traditions, canonical Orthodoxy, and Russian-language media,” he said.

He added that Ukraine “is the only country where the use of the language spoken by a significant portion of the population has been outlawed.”

Since the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, Ukraine has taken steps to sever centuries-old cultural ties with its larger neighbor through legislation outlawing statues and symbolism associated with the country’s past and by phasing out the Russian language in all spheres of life.

Kiev is also cracking down on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the largest Christian denomination in the country, which it accuses of maintaining links to Moscow, despite the church declaring a break with Russia in 2022.

Ukraine has also rejected any territorial concessions to Russia and continues to pursue its aspiration of joining NATO.

September 3, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | Leave a comment

Zelensky threatens ‘new deep strikes’ into Russia

RT | August 31, 2025

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has threatened new strikes into Russia, days after claiming that Kiev possessed a brand-new long-range missile capable of reaching Moscow.

Zelensky wrote on Telegram that he had been briefed by Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Aleksandr Syrsky, on the current battlefield situation.

“We will continue our active actions exactly as needed to protect Ukraine. Forces and means are prepared. New deep strikes have also been planned,” he said on Sunday, without providing further details.

Earlier this month, Zelensky claimed Ukraine had developed the long-range Flamingo missile with a reported range of 3,000 kilometers – which would be enough to reach not only Moscow but also Russian cities beyond the Ural mountains. The Ukrainian leader, however, said that mass production is not expected for the next several months.

British media outlets cast doubts on whether the Flamingo was developed in Ukraine, noting similarities with the FP-5 cruise missile produced by the UK-based Milanion Group and unveiled at an arms expo in Abu Dhabi this year. The UK has also been supportive of Kiev’s long-range strikes, having provided it with Storm Shadow missiles in the past.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that there is “nothing surprising” in the similarities, adding that “Ukraine has long turned into a testing ground for Western weapons. There are more than enough examples.”

On Friday, the Kyiv Independent also reported that Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau has launched an investigation into Fire Point, the defense firm linked to the development of the Flamingo missile, after reports it misled the government on pricing and deliveries.

Earlier this month the Wall Street Journal reported that the US had blocked Ukraine from carrying out strikes deep inside Russian territory. Throughout the conflict, some of Kiev’s Western backers have been wary of authorizing unrestricted strikes into Russia using Western-supplied weapons, citing concerns over escalation with Moscow.

Ukraine has regularly carried out long-range attacks inside Russia, which Moscow says frequently hit civilian areas and critical infrastructure. Russia has retaliated with strikes on Ukrainian military-related facilities and defense enterprises but maintains that it never targets civilians.

August 31, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Benoît Paré: OSCE Observer Exposes Lies About the Ukraine War

Glenn Diesen | August 30, 2025

Benoît Paré, a French army reserve officer and former defense ministry analyst, brings his expertise and experience as an OSCE observer in Donbas.

August 31, 2025 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Militarism, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Blowing up Europe… Druzhba pipeline sabotage showcases EU self-destruction

Strategic Culture Foundation | August 29, 2025

The EU-backed Ukrainian regime’s blowing up of a major pipeline delivering vital oil supply to Europe is an astounding signal of self-destruction. It demonstrates how insane the European Union’s leadership has become in its obsession with defeating Russia, no matter the cost. The insanity means that the interests of EU member states and European citizens are willingly sacrificed. Russophobic Eurocrats who have shunned all diplomatic engagement with Moscow are in effect funding the destruction of Europe.

In another development, as Russian airstrikes on Kiev this week hit European Union and British government sites in the Ukrainian capital, EU and British politicians were outraged, condemning Russia for “barbaric attacks” on their delegations. Yet it is these same European and British politicians who are pushing conflict to the brink of no return as they insist on arming a NeoNazi regime to continue striking Russian civilian targets and refuse to listen to Russia’s historic grievances about how this conflict evolved.

The Ukrainian regime, bankrolled by EU taxpayers, launched multiple drone and missile attacks on the Druzhba pipeline, which supplies EU member states Hungary and Slovakia. The pipeline supplies those states with about 50 percent of their oil imports. The attacks knocked out pipeline infrastructure in Russian territory. Hungary and Slovakia were cut off from crude oil supplies for several days. Budapest and Bratislava angrily protested to the European Union leadership that the sabotage was an unacceptable assault on the sovereign, vital interests.

However, the European Commission in Brussels responded with remarkable indifference, noting that Hungary and Slovakia’s 90-day emergency stockpiles of oil were sufficient to carry the countries over the interruption in supply. The complacency of the EU leadership is extraordinary. So, a non-EU state cuts off the energy supply of EU members, and there is no reprimand for the sabotage. The insouciance is tantamount to giving the Ukrainian regime a green light to carry out more such attacks.

The background is even more sinister. Earlier this week, the Kiev regime’s nominal president, Vladimir Zelensky, made a veiled threat to Hungary and Slovakia that his forces would continue to blow up the pipeline if Budapest and Bratislava did not lift their vetoes on Ukraine becoming a member of the European Union. To their credit, Hungary and Slovakia have both consistently opposed Ukraine joining the bloc, warning that such a move will exacerbate the conflict with Russia and destabilize internal markets from cheap Ukrainian imports. They have also opposed doling out more EU taxpayer funds for military weapons and prolonging a slaughter.

In other words, Hungary and Slovakia have become an obstacle to the proxy war against Russia. That is not merely annoying to the Kyiv cabal and its war racket; it also, more importantly, frustrates the Eurocrat elites’ desire to expand the war, with the Russophobic obsession of defeating Russia.

The Kiev regime has for a long time been haranguing Hungary and Slovakia to terminate all oil imports from Russia, and get in line with the rest of the EU. Ukraine accuses Hungarian and Slovakian leaders of buying Russian oil with blood money and fueling the war. This is similar to the United States castigating India for continuing to purchase Russian oil, with Trump aide Peter Navarro this week absurdly calling the Ukraine conflict “Modi’s war” in a snide reference to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Hungary, Slovakia, India, and others retort that it is their national prerogative to buy oil from Russia. They say it is not up to the Kiev regime or the United States to determine from whom they obtain their vital energy supplies. The Kiev regime and Washington are acting like bandits and mafia. It was the United States under the Biden administration that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea in September 2022. That act of terrorism cut off Germany from Russia’s natural gas supply and led to the destruction of the German economy.

The Kiev regime shut down unilaterally the Brotherhood natural gas pipeline to the rest of Europe at the end of 2024 because it decided not to renew a decades-old transit contract with Russia. Later, the Kiev regime attacked the Turk Stream gas pipelines linking Russian gas to southern Europe. Now the regime is bombing that last oil pipeline into Europe from Russia. And all this banditry holding Europe hostage is countenanced by the Eurocrat leadership.

Where is European sovereignty here? Where is European leadership insisting that the basic rule of law must be respected and vital civilian infrastructure must not be interfered with, especially when that interference amounts to blatant acts of terrorism? Incredibly, the European Commission and the governments of Germany and Denmark, among others, continue to ignore the Nord Stream terror attacks by their American ally as if those crimes never happened. Every so often, the EU authorities find some ridiculous scapegoat to blame, like low-level Ukrainian saboteurs.

The fact is, the European elites do not care that the vital interests of European citizens are being destroyed by the Americans or the puppet regime in Kiev.

Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó correctly suggests that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other elites, like German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, no doubt knew and gave their approval to the Kiev regime to deliver on its threats to blow up the Hungarian and Slovakian oil supplies. For these elites, some of whom have Nazi Third Reich heritage in their veins, their obsession with defeating Russia is all that matters, Über alles!

Of course, they will support a fascist regime in Kiev before the democratic needs of European citizens. The same mentality has led Europe to self-destruction in two world wars. Here we go again, if they have their way.

August 30, 2025 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

After Alaska, Ukraine alliance envisions new war against Russia once current one ends

Zelensky’s Washington visit exposed Ukraine as a pawn, its elites preparing for endless wars while society collapses under loss, desertion, and bankruptcy.

By Dmitri Kovalevich | Al Mayadeen | August 30, 2025

In the second half of August, Ukrainian society and media were focused on the August 15 talks in Alaska between the US and Russian presidents, as well as the talks in Washington three days later between the leaders of the Ukraine war alliance.

In Washington that day, the entire flock of warmaking European leaders joined Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in their role as support groups. Western media closely covered both meetings, providing its worn spin on events. The following report focuses on reactions in Ukraine to all that was said and witnessed during these tumultuous days.

Against this backdrop, many Ukrainians hold hopes for peace. But the pro-Zelensky media and the legislators of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine legislature) are now working to ‘extinguish’ any expectations for peace. They have declared that the war may well continue for a long time yet. Zelensky’s appearance in Washington, they say, was necessary in order to ‘flatter’ Trump and maintain Washington’s financial support and arms supplies. During his five-minute meeting with Trump, Zelensky thanked him 11 times and sounded for all the world like a wind-up toy.

Ukrainian legislator Anna Skorokhod, who was elected in 2019 (the last election to have taken place in Ukraine) as part of Zelensky’s party machine and then expelled from it shortly after, acknowledges that Kiev is just a “pawn in someone else’s game”, Politinavigator reported on its Telegram channel on August 13. The publication said Skorokhod is comparing the current Ukrainian leadership to a dog on a leash in a kennel, barking loudly to attract the owner’s attention and be allowed into the master’s house.

She has called for an end to the war with Russia because, she says, Ukraine’s cemeteries have long been overflowing. She is urging Ukrainians to decide what is most important to them: saving lives or vainly struggling to hang onto territories already lost or deeply scarred by war. She considers Zelensky and his regime to be the main obstacle to ending the war, and says that the US and Russian governments are discussing the possibility of his overthrow by the Ukrainian military. “A military coup is being discussed quite a lot, including among the entourages of the two presidents who met in Alaska. A transfer of temporary power to the military who will sign any peace agreements they can eke out is in the air,” she says.

Skorokhod has recently claimed that some 400,000 members of the Ukraine armed forces have deserted since 2022, and that number continues to rise.

Political scientist and analyst Ruslan Bortnik believes that Ukraine’s strategy is to wait out a potential deal between the US and Russia, avoiding any direct clash with Washington while quietly sabotaging the implementation of any compromises that would favor Russia, including any ceding of territory already won by the Russian army and where votes to secede from Ukraine and join Russia have already been taken (Crimea in 2014 and the two Donbass republics plus the ‘new territories’ of Russia in Kherson and Zaporozhye, in 2022). According to one version being circulated, Ukraine would cede Donbass to Russia and acknowledge the reality of the 2014 vote in Crimea in exchange for a Russian withdrawal from the areas it controls in the eastern border oblasts (‘provinces’) of Sumy and Kharkiv.

The Ukrainian Institute of Politics (UIP), led by the aforementioned Ruslan Bortnik, believes that much of the talks that took place in Alaska will not be made public but can be ascertained and judged by indirect signs, reports Politnavigator on August 13. In particular, the online publication notes that Washington’s plans will best be signaled by the continuation or the reduction of its arms supplies to Kiev. He says plans will also be revealed by US sanctions policy towards Russia’s trading partners, primarily China and India.

Vague diplomatic statements about ‘peace’ are being issued by many Western leaders, but many political analysts in Ukraine actually expect an escalation of the military conflict. Washington’s attempt to reach a ‘peace’ agreement with Russia surrounding the meeting in Alaska is best understood as being motivated by an anticipated collapse of Kiev’s military frontlines, while the hope that these lines might serve as a future border between Russia and Ukraine, give or take a few kilometers, or few dozen.

“If the outcome of the summit turns out to be negative, further escalation of the conflict awaits us. Neither a tripartite meeting [Trump-Putin-Zelensky] nor an extended negotiating format [to include leaders of the three, leading warmakers of the EU—Britain, France and Germany] will be announced. Instead, we will hear vague diplomatic statements without concrete steps while the USA continues supplying weapons to Ukraine and it implements previously planned sanctions pressure on Russia’s trade allies.”

“Strategically, Trump is now seeking to accelerate the negotiation process due to the deteriorating situation for Ukraine on the front lines. The Ukrainian army is steadily retreating, and although the country is far from military defeat, Kyiv is suffering significant territorial losses,” writes the journal. “At the same time, sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation by the U.S. and Europe has failed.”

The former advisor to Zelensky’s presidential office, Alexei Arestovich, argues that the war will grimly continue until a major military, political, and social catastrophe for Ukraine occurs. “And then it will become clear: if the Ukrainian elite and the common people have the wisdom to seek a new form of existence for Ukraine, with a change in its national project, then the county will stand a chance to survive and create a new future. But if they don’t have enough sense, then others will set the future agenda here.”

The Ukrainian Telegram channel Legitimny believes that everyone in Zelensky’s entourage is now prepared to hand over Donbass to Russia, but they are all concerned about personal guarantees for themselves in such a case. “Simply put, Zelensky and Yermak (the top advisor in Zelensky’s office) want guarantees that they will be allowed to continue ruling Ukraine. This is a matter of personal self-interest, as they both fear losing power, leading to the complete destruction of Zelensky’s cult of personality and the dispossession of his entire elite of advisors.”

Journalist Oleg Yasinsky, born in Ukraine but now living in Chile, notes that among the results of the summit in Alaska is the fact that a precedent was set there for resolving the conflict without the participation of the Kiev authorities, on whom nothing ultimately depends. Yasinsky is a harsh critic of the Russian government, but he considers  Zelensky’s government illegitimate. He expects Zelensky to stage another bloody battlefield spectacle in the near future in order to once again “try and convince Trump that Putin is a monster with whom it is impossible to negotiate”.

Yasinsky believes that too much was expected from the meeting in Alaska. It is unlikely to change the course of human history, but it may influence many processes as concerns Ukraine. In his opinion, Russia is currently playing an interesting diplomatic game: taking advantage of Trump’s narcissism, it is driving Zelensky into a corner. “By meeting with the American president on his territory, Putin is putting Kiev in a position where any response on its part will be a failure.

“Trump is currently in a difficult and unstable domestic situation, while Russia is ready to help him create an image as a ‘peacemaker’,” Yasinsky writes. He says Kiev has been completely sidelined for the first time since 2022, and any public outrage it expresses over Washington’s future moves will be considered by Trump as an affront. “Russian diplomacy is becoming similar to the work of a trainer in a zoo who is well acquainted with the behavioral characteristics and dangers of the animals in his care.”

In this situation, the Zelensky administration’s interests lie in publicly voicing desires for peace while dragging out any such process for as long as possible, regardless of any new losses of territories. Zelensky can only agree to a ceasefire in order to gain a respite while continuing to draw Western countries into the conflict, effectively risking a World War III between Russia and Ukraine’s Western allies. Last year, Zelensky signed security agreements with a number of Western countries that contain clauses allowing for a possible participation of Western armies in the event of a renewed conflict. Thus, only one day may pass between the end of one (the current) war and the beginning of another.

Zelensky is already talking about a ‘third war’ if Ukraine is forced to withdraw from Donbass. In today’s Ukrainian mythology, the ‘first war’ is considered to be the war against the Donbass republics from April 2014 to early 2022. Then a ‘second war’ began in February 2022 with Russia’s Special Military Operation. Now Zelensky is talking to his backers in the European Union, who have previously signed military agreements with him, about a ‘third war’ in which European troops become involved in the event of “new aggression” by Russia.’ Zelensky can easily arrange for this “new aggression” by using false flag operations to provoke it.

“Let me remind you,” writes Ukrainian political scientist Mikhail Chaplyha on Telegram on August 12: “Any ‘security’ agreements will be signed by Kiev on condition that a third war will be commenced following an appropriate lapse of time.”

Ukraine’s new Defense Minister Denis Shmyhal (a former Prime Minister – ministers in Ukraine regularly swap places to demonstrate that ‘reforms’ are taking place) assures his audiences that even after theoretical peace agreements with Russia, Kiev does not intend to reduce its army. Its Western backers will be expected to continue to finance and arm Kiev and its army, since the bankrupt state has neither the funds nor future expected revenues to sustain a million-strong army.

“One hundred per cent of Ukraine’s GDP is now devoted to debt repayment. This has never happened before. All economic indicators show that we are bankrupt,” Ukrainian legislator Mikhail Tsymbalyuk admitted recently.

For Ukrainian society, maintaining the army will mean the continuation of ‘busification’ (forced conscription) and a dictatorship of field commanders, while Ukraine’s western and northern border crossings will continue to be closed to all Ukrainian men hoping the leave or escape from the country. Maintaining a large army for decades is too expensive, so much of it will need to be rebuilt anew.

The continuation of the present war or the sparking of a new, extraordinary war would be beneficial to the Ukrainian elite, allowing them to continue to pillage the sums pouring into the country from the West, sums they could not dream of acquiring in peacetime conditions.

Immediately after the meeting of Zelensky and European leaders with Trump in Washington on August 18, European leaders once again (probably for the tenth time in three years) began talking about sending their own countries’ troops to Ukraine.

The UK is saying it is ready to deploy 30,000 troops to Ukraine, but this is fantasy; this would represent more than 25 per cent of its current armed forces of 114,000. (No wonder the UK government is musing of re-introducing some form of compulsory military service; and good luck with that!). Germany claims flatly that it cannot afford to send troops to Ukraine. Lithuania and Estonia each say they are ready to provide about 100 soldiers each. Little wonder that these European leaders are counting on the Trump regime to ride to their rescue, hoping that the U.S. may take on the leading financial and military role for western imperialism as it did in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 (with results only too well known).

The European armies said to be ready to ride to Ukraine’s rescue are not even sufficient to operate in two or three Ukrainian oblasts (provinces), let alone the 20 or so other ones fully or partly controlled by Kiev. The two Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk voted in 2022 to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation (though all of Donetsk is not yet liberated), as have done the two ‘new territories’ of Russia (Kherson and Zaporozhye). Crimea was an autonomous republic of Ukraine until it voted in 2010 to secede and join (rejoin) Russia.

“Behind the propaganda rhetoric about protecting Europe from a Russian offensive, solidarity with Ukraine, and so on lies banal, self-interest. Playing at warfare war with someone else (the West) helping to do the dirty work has turned out to be a profitable and extremely exciting national business,” writes Pavel Kotov, a columnist for the news website Ukraina.ru.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb has stood out among European ‘hawks’ for demonstrating the racism of European political elites towards the peoples of the Russian Federation. He has recently called the Donbass cities of Kramatorsk and Slavyansk “bastions against the Huns”, attempting to stir up medieval fears of ‘Asian invaders’. ‘Huns’ is a pejorative, historical term for the tribal warrior groups that occupied the steppe regions of western, Tsarist Russia, including today’s eastern Ukraine. Stubb is likely ignorant of the fact that it was in Kramatorsk and Slavyansk in April 2014 that the Donbass population began its uprising against the 2014 coup in Kiev and the neo-Nazi paramilitaries that served as the shock troops of the coup.

Stubb also demonstrated a complete ignorance of his country’s own history. At a meeting with Trump on August 18, he said that Finland had found a “good solution” in 1944 to end its participation in World War Two, suggesting that a similar solution could be found to end the ‘aggressive Russian war’ of today. He is referring to the treaty that Finland was forced to accept with the Soviet Union in 1944 in which it managed to retain its independence despite its government’s support to Nazi Germany, including its participation in the genocide-like blockade of the city Leningrad from 1941 to 1944. The Finnish government of the day capitulated in 1944 and switched sides.

Under its 1944 surrender treaty with the Soviet Union, Finland ceded territory (including its access to the Arctic), paid reparations, changed its government and turned its weapons against its former Nazi German allies. It handed many Nazis over as war criminals to the judicial system of the Soviet Union. The treaty committed a new government in Finland to renounce participation in any future military blocs and renounce any future hostile moves in domestic and foreign policy directed against the USSR. (The Nazi-allied government of Finland called itself a ‘free ally’ of the Nazis, in contrast to the governments of Italy, Romania and Hungary which were directly allied by treaties.)

Russian commentators and politicians reacted, many mockingly, to Stubb’s ignorant statements. Apparently, without realizing it, using Finnish history as his example, Stubb advocated a surrender of Ukraine to be followed by a treaty as a good model for today’s conflict in Ukraine. Such is the intellectual capacity of a typical western European leader today besotted with the ‘dream’ of war against Russia.

August 30, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine takes new step towards banning its largest Christian church

RT | August 29, 2025

Kiev has taken another step toward banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) by officially declaring it linked to Russia. The ruling paves the way for a full ban on the country’s largest religious institution through the courts.

Vladimir Zelensky’s government has been increasingly taking aim at the UOC in recent years, a policy that has hardened in light of the conflict with Russia. Several of its churches have been seized, and criminal cases have been opened against clerics.

This week, Ukraine’s State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience posted a statement on its website saying that the UOC had been found to be associated with “a foreign religious organization whose activities are banned in Ukraine.”

A law enacted last year allows religious organizations affiliated with governments Kiev deems “aggressors” to be banned. Zelensky has defended the measures as necessary to protect the country’s “spiritual independence.”

The UOC has been de facto independent from the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) since the 1990s, but maintained the canonical connection.

The UOC, which says it is being persecuted by the government, rejects the decision, a church representative told local media, adding that it has appealed it in court.

UOC Metropolitan Onufry, whose Ukrainian citizenship was revoked last month by Zelensky, has refused to comply with the government’s order to “correct violations,” the state agency claimed.

The ROC has maintained that banning the UOC would be a violation of religious rights. The UN and international human rights organizations have also accused Kiev of overreach and interference with the freedom of religion.

The Ukrainian government officially supports the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was founded in 2018 but which the Russian Patriarchate considers schismatic.

The proposal Russia made to Ukraine this past June to settle the conflict included a clause calling for restrictions on the UOC to be lifted.

August 30, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

The Game of Risk in Ukraine – Part 30 of the Anglo-American War on Russia

Tales of the American Empire | August 28, 2025

Neocons have been trying to destroy Russia since 1917 and were delighted with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The empire took control of Russia via privatization that allowed the mass looting of state assets. Former American presidential National Security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, mapped out the neocon plan to fragment larger nations of Eastern Europe and Central Asia into weak vassal states in his 1997 book, “The Grand Chessboard.” Neocons advocate the destruction of Russia, not because it threatens anyone, but because it regained independence when Vladimir Putin came to power. Russia is a large, powerful nation that may block the expansion of the Anglo-American empire. Russians are tired of continual threats from warmongering neocons. They’ve sanctioned Russia for decades, funded terror attacks inside Russia, and even attacked Russia with NATO weaponry. These neocons will not agree to a peaceful settlement so Russia will be forced to take all of Ukraine.

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“The Grand Chessboard”; Zbigniew Brzezinski; 1997; https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottaba…

“Military Summary” channel; YouTube; daily war updates;    / @militarysummary  

Related Tales:

“The Anglo-American War on Russia”;    • The Anglo-American War on Russia  

August 29, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Hungary sues EU over frozen Russian assets sent to Ukraine

RT | August 28, 2025

Hungary has sued the EU over its decision to use frozen Russian assets to fund military aid for Ukraine, a move adopted despite Budapest’s opposition.

Western nations froze an estimated $300 billion in Russian assets after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 – some €200 billion of which is held by Brussels-based clearinghouse Euroclear. The funds have accrued billions in interest, and the West has explored ways to use the revenue to finance Ukraine.

The lawsuit challenges the European Council’s decision last year to channel military aid to Ukraine through the European Peace Facility (EPF), which reimburses countries that send weapons to Kiev.

Implemented in February, the measure directs 99.7% of interest generated from frozen Russian central bank assets to Ukraine, providing an estimated €3-5 billion ($3.5-5.8 billion) annually.

In a case first filed with the EU Court of Justice and later transferred to the General Court, Hungary is demanding to “annul the decision… on allocating funds to assistance measures for supplying military support to the Ukrainian Armed Forces” and to “order the defendants to cover the costs.”

Budapest contends that the EPF acted unlawfully by bypassing its veto, arguing that Hungary is not a “contributing member state.”

“As a result, the principle of equality between Member States and the principle of the democratic functioning of the European Union were infringed because a Member State was deprived, unjustifiably and without a legal basis, of its right to vote,” the filing says.

Hungary opposes the bloc’s unconditional support for Kiev and prefers peace talks to continued fighting. Budapest has repeatedly used its veto to block EU financial and military aid, including a disputed €50 billion package at the end of 2023. The standoff has pushed other EU members to seek ways to sidestep Budapest’s resistance.

Moscow has denounced the asset freeze as “robbery” and a breach of international law, warning it would backfire on the West. Senior Kremlin official Maksim Oreshkin said the freeze had already undermined trust in Western finance, while Russian President Vladimir Putin cautioned that seizing the assets would accelerate a global shift toward alternative payment systems.

August 28, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Cut welfare, give billions to Ukraine, suppress opposition: The German leader’s checklist to success

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | August 27, 2025

German chancellor Friedrich Merz has made a moderate media splash and ruffled some feathers in his own ruling coalition with the Centrist Social Democrats (SPD). Using the platform of a regional party congress of his CDU Conservatives in Niedersachsen, Merz has delivered a speech that immediately attracted national attention and will be remembered for one phrase.

“The social [welfare] state, as we have it today,” the chancellor declared with appropriately dour mien, “can no longer be financed by what we are achieving economically.” Put differently, severe budget cuts on social issues are coming. And since that is a policy operative since, at the latest, 2003, there really isn’t so much left to cut. Merz is promising his people more of a bad time.

His people. Not, however, the ultra-corrupt political anti-elite of Ukraine. Just before Merz’s claim that Germany cannot afford what it used to offer to Germans who pay for it, his government promised €9 billion ($10.4 bn) per year for Ukraine in 2025 and 2026, for now. That is on top of the €44 billion already sent that way. Germany is the “second-largest backer” of the Kiev regime in the world, as its obviously thoroughly detached finance minister Lars Klingbeil emphasizes with a perverse pride that must sound like a bad joke to many of his compatriots.

Speaking of Klingbeil, in his Niedersachsen speech Merz also announced that he would “deliberately not make it easy” for his government colleagues from the SPD, who include, of course, Klingbeil. The SPD, of course, is well-known for being against harsh reductions in what Germans can expect from, in essence, old-age pensions, public health care, and the basic form of unemployment insurance now known as “Bürgergeld” (literally, “citizens’ money”).

There is no reason to underestimate Merz’s genuine ideological commitment. It is true that, in general, he is unusually brutal about being dishonest even for a politician: Germany’s current leader has already proven that he is capable of breathtaking flipflops, staggering electoral bad faith, and underhanded maneuvering that violates the spirit of democracy if not the letter of the constitution.

In the spring, his U-turn on public debt, to finance Germany’s new militarism on – exuberant – credit, was not only a massive breach of trust regarding especially his own conservative voters. Shamelessly exploiting a legal loophole, Merz also executed this radical reversal – many in his own party called it betrayal – by relying on parliamentary majorities that had already been cancelled by an election.

Likewise, Merz’s coalition then proceeded to break promises regarding an energy tax relief as well as benefits for mothers. Germans are angry, but there is no sign that Merz and his government care. Consequently, according to a fresh poll by the reputable INSA institute, 62 percent of Germans are dissatisfied with their government.

And yet, there is a hard core of authentic Merz, shaped by his own wealth, a very privileged life without material worries, and his long career as an overpaid member of the supervisory-board network nobility, at BlackRock and elsewhere: if there is one thing Germany’s leader is sincere about, it is his iron will to make the less well-off bleed more and work even harder, while making sure that those as materially comfortable and safe as himself get even richer. Call it neoliberalism with an unsmiling German face.

Merz, of course, is also a very ordinary man, incapable of much self-reflection. He cannot honestly face any of the above. Instead he misunderstands himself as a savior of the fatherland, which he sees in need of much tough love and plenty of wholesome kicks up the backside to rediscover discipline, hard work, and competitiveness.

The upshot of Merz’s blatant upper-class bias is, as a perspicacious German observer has put it, a de facto escalation of the ongoing re-distribution of income, wealth, and life chances – from those below to those above. Even now, 80 percent of the country’s taxes stem from income and value-added taxation. In other words: you work, you eat and keep a family going – be proud, you are also doing by far the most to pay the country’s bills. But Friedrich Merz, a millionaire who falls under “silver-spoon” rather than “self-made,” thinks it’s not yet enough.

No wonder, then, that Merz’s recent speech in Niedersachsen has resonated. It was delivered in a sour as well as emphatic tone perhaps best described as schoolmasterly belligerence and featured much gratuitous no-compromise posing addressed probably more to his own doubting party and voters then his SPD coalition partners in Berlin. If Merz’s intention was to achieve a minor shock effect after Germany’s political summer break, he’s scored an ephemeral success.

But his speech has also been misunderstood. In reality, its key message was something else and even worse. Yet another “business-friendly” – and business has also been very friendly to him – instinctive Western austeritarian telling his people they are having it too good and must lower their expectations? Not really news, is it?

What was much more interesting was Merz’s reasoning. In his own words, the central political challenge is to prove that Germany “can be governed successfully from the center.” Or to be concrete, to keep down and out of power Germany’s two “populist” insurgent parties: from the right the very successful Alternative for Germany party (AfD), which tends to lead German opinion polls now, and, from the left, the currently marginalized – probably by foul play in the manner of, say, Romania or Moldova – but still threatening Bündnis Sarah Wagenknecht (BSW).

Merz’s threat to go after what is left of the social welfare state in Germany comes with a promise of “reforms,” indeed a whole “autumn of reforms.” The purpose of this planned political offensive is clear: to persuade voters that they need not rely on those terrible “populists” to finally break out of the German doom loop of economic decline, demographic crisis, and pervasive malaise.

Yet Merz’s strategy of what Germans call a “Befreiungsschlag” (a “deliverance strike”) smells of despair and is unlikely to succeed. Instead of an “autumn of reforms,” Germans are more likely to see their Winter of Discontent get even grimmer.

Consider some basic data: We have just learned that Germany’s recession in the last quarter has been even worse than predicted: -0.3 instead of -0.1 percent. German industry is shedding jobs by the hundreds of thousands. In general, Germany’s economy remains heavily dependent on exports. It has stagnated for half a decade already and been in serious trouble much longer. In the EU+Britain, it is the most brutally affected by Trump’s ongoing and still escalating tariff war against Washington’s vassals. Klingbeil admits that the budget will be €170 billion short by 2029 – despite dialing debt up to eleven.

And all of that when the German ruling coalition only has what the Financial Times rightly calls a “razor-thin” parliamentary majority. Add that two of the most damaging strikes against the German economy have been self-inflicted: Sky-high energy prices, the direct result of shutting Germany off from (direct) Russian supplies – with the alleged help of a few Ukrainian divers and their US friends, of course – and subservience to the US.

That subservience has only grown worse under both Merz and his equally hapless predecessor Olaf Scholz. Both have been bending over backward to please and appease America, just when its policies have become even more brutal: We are at a moment in “atlanticism” when a US treasury secretary openly announces that Washington sees its allies’ economies as its very own “sovereign wealth fund” at the disposal not of their governments or – perish the thought – citizens, but of the US president. And Merz and co. grin and nod and ask for more.

The irony of it all is that while slavishly compliant with the US, Merz cannot learn the single biggest, most obvious lesson of its very recent political history, although it quite literally stares him in the face every time he visits the Oval Office to grovel: Donald Trump has become president against enormous resistance not once but twice because he led a “populist” challenge against a rotten establishment that Americans saw as unpatriotic.

The future of Merz is not the success of Trump but the defeat and disgrace of Biden and everything he stood for. Germans, too, will demand a government that looks after German interests before it makes even more demands of them. Grotesquely, Merz thinks he is the savior of the old German establishment. He is its gravedigger. And in that sense, all power to his misguided arm!

Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory

August 27, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Turkish media disappointed with Zelensky after recent diplomatic talks

By Lucas Leiroz | August 27, 2025

Global antipathy toward illegitimate Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is growing. Inside and outside Ukraine, many people see Zelensky as responsible for the disastrous humanitarian crisis currently affecting the Ukrainian people, as well as the main obstacle to reaching a peace agreement. Now, even countries that have positioned themselves as mediators in the conflict are beginning to make their rejection of the Ukrainian government clear.

Recently, pro-government media in Turkey stated that Zelensky is the main challenge to peace in Ukraine. Bercan Tutar, columnist and director of the Foreign News Department at Turkuvaz Medya/Sabah Gazetesi, wrote in his column that the Ukrainian leader is trying to boycott peace initiatives undertaken jointly by Russia and the US. Tutar describes Zelensky as intransigent, uncompromising, and clearly opposes the president’s aggressive and pro-war stance.

As well known, there have been a series of recent diplomatic events that signal the return of dialogue in the conflict between Russia and NATO in Ukraine. Since Donald Trump’s inauguration in the US, direct contact between the leaders of the main nuclear powers has become easier, significantly reducing global tensions. This dialogue, while still premature to end hostilities in Ukraine, allows for a relief from the pressure generated by the conflict, as Russia begins to have direct contact with the main country in the pro-Ukrainian coalition.

However, this diplomatic turn is being deeply sabotaged by the Ukrainian side. Turkish expert Tutar says Zelensky rejected “every point” raised by Trump, thus creating serious problems for the peace dialogue. Furthermore, he blamed Zelensky for being responsible for the current war by noting that “millions of Russian-origin citizens live in Ukraine,” while the fascist government refuses to revise the laws that unfairly restrict the use of the Russian language.

Tutar asserts that the West has a misconception of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. He says Western propaganda describes the Russian president in a way that doesn’t reflect reality, portraying him as authoritarian and aggressive. Tutar asserts that, on the contrary, it is Zelensky who is acting in an authoritarian manner both internally and externally, banning opponents, and seeking war at any cost. In practice, Tutar agrees that the West uses its propaganda machine to distort the truth about the conflict and promote narratives supporting Ukraine.

It’s important to remember that this journalist and his partners are citizens of a NATO member state — one that is also actively involved in the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. However, Turkey’s long-standing strategic relationship with Russia has led Ankara to also engage in a diplomatic mediation role, despite having previously sent arms to Ukraine.

Considering that Tutar and the Sabah Gazetesi newspaper are part of the media apparatus supporting Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government, it’s safe to say that critical opinion against the Ukrainian government is growing in Turkey — not only among ordinary people or social movements, but also among the government’s own elites.

This is particularly significant at a time of renewed diplomatic talks, some of which took place on Turkish soil, where Russian and Ukrainian delegations recently met to present their demands. In practice, the emergence of this critical opinion at this current moment makes it clear that Turkish political elites have become aware of the destabilizing role played by the Kiev regime.

This doesn’t mean there’s a “pro-Russian” bias in Turkey. The Turks are simply protecting their own interests by trying to position themselves as a mediator in the current conflict. What Ankara plans is to expand its sphere of influence through its ability to balance the interests of NATO (and its Ukrainian proxy) and Russia.

This is consistent with the strategy of ambiguity adopted by the country in its foreign policy doctrine. It’s possible to say that Zelensky thwarted Turkey’s plans to project power through diplomacy, which is now being reflected in the position of the country’s pro-government media.

It’s inevitable that the advancement of diplomatic dialogue will be accompanied by a rise in critical opinions toward Zelenesky. As these talks unfold, more and more people will see that the Ukrainian side is the least interested in peace and the one that most deliberately sabotages diplomatic resolution initiatives just to protect the corrupt elite that has dominated the country since the Maidan Coup.

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

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

August 27, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine conflict marks end of Western dominance – former French ambassador

RT | August 26, 2025

The Ukraine conflict has highlighted a gradual shift in the global balance of power and has signaled the end of Western supremacy, former French Ambassador to the US Gerard Araud has claimed.

“We are experiencing the end of an era,” Araud wrote in the French magazine Le Point on Sunday, adding that the collapse of the order inherited from the end of WWII means the West no longer dominates international affairs.

He argued that the Ukraine conflict has shown that Western leaders are unable to accept this change, describing it as revealing “to the point of caricature the incomprehension and rejection of the world to come by European leaders.”

Araud suggested that one of the main reasons behind this shift is that the US, under President Donald Trump, no longer wishes to serve as the world’s “policeman,” leader, and “protector.” Trump has scaled down Washington’s involvement in Ukraine, urged European NATO members to take greater responsibility for their own defense, and prioritized domestic issues.

While lamenting the decline of Western power, Araud admitted that global affairs have always been defined by “power relations” in which “the strong imposed their law on the weak.”

Moscow has also repeatedly insisted that Western hegemony has ended and that a multipolar world is emerging, with interests increasingly represented by BRICS and the Global South. Russian officials have argued that the Ukraine conflict confirms this transition.

In May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a high-level security forum in Moscow that the “tectonic shift” in world politics reflects the redistribution of power toward Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America.

He also dismissed Western claims that multipolarity would lead to “chaos and anarchy,” stating instead that unipolar dominance, characterized by sanctions, interventions, and economic coercion, had triggered the major crises of recent decades.

Russia has consistently described the Ukraine conflict as a proxy war waged by the West and maintained that any settlement must address Moscow’s security concerns and the root causes of the crisis, including NATO’s continued eastward expansion.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Has Ukraine just declared war on Hungary?

By Nadezhda Romanenko | RT | August 26, 2025

In the swirl of the Ukraine war, headlines rarely fail to shock. Yet the latest spat between Kiev and Budapest raises a question that would have been unthinkable two years ago: has Ukraine effectively opened a second front – albeit hybrid, rhetorical, and economic – against an EU state?

The immediate spark was the Druzhba (“Friendship”) oil pipeline that still delivers crude from Russia to Central Europe. Several Ukrainian drone strikes targeted the pipeline in recent weeks, halting supplies to Hungary and Slovakia. A Ukrainian commander, known by the call sign Madyar, publicly admitted involvement.

For Hungary and Slovakia, this was more than an economic disruption. Both countries rely heavily on the pipeline, and in response, their leaders called on the European Commission to guarantee supply security. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, a frequent critic of EU policy on Ukraine, accused Brussels of serving Kiуv’s interests over those of member states. His frustration boiled over further when he described Vladimir Zelensky’s quips about “friendship” as thinly veiled threats.

Zelensky’s gambit

Zelensky’s remark – “We have always supported friendship between Ukraine and Hungary, and now the existence of this ‘Friendship’ depends on Hungary” – was apparently meant as a pun on the pipeline’s name, but to Hungary it sounded like a mafia-style threat. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s reaction was uncompromising: “Zelensky openly threatened Hungary. He admitted that they hit the Druzhba pipeline because we don’t support their EU membership. This proves again that Hungarians made the right decision.”

The timing is telling. Strikes on the pipeline coincided with Zelensky’s Washington visit alongside EU leaders. Either Brussels tacitly encouraged him to punish Orbán, an ally of Donald Trump, or the EU simply looked away as Zelensky acted on his own. Both explanations sound outrageous, but there hardly seems to be a third option. What is clear is that Kiev, facing immense pressure on its eastern front, is choosing a dangerous rhetorical battle with Budapest.

Hungary’s lonely stance

Hungary has made abundantly clear its discomfort with the EU’s unquestioning support for Ukraine. Since the Russian military operation began in 2022, Budapest has resisted sanctions on Russian energy, insisted on continuing imports through the Druzhba pipeline, and refused to send weapons to Kiev. Orbán has shown himself to be a pragmatic outlier: defending Hungarian interests, pursuing cheap Russian energy, and maintaining cordial ties with Moscow.

For this, Hungary has faced isolation within the EU. While Poland, the Baltics, and most of Western Europe rallied behind Ukraine with military and financial aid, Budapest has been resisting this consensus. Orbán’s government was derided as Putin’s Trojan horse in Europe. Yet for Hungarians, this positioning has had a rationale: keep the economy stable, avoid direct confrontation, and retain flexibility in a deeply uncertain geopolitical landscape.

The forgotten refugees

Lost in the heated rhetoric is the fact that Hungary has also quietly carried a humanitarian burden. In 2022 alone, over 1.3 million Ukrainians crossed into Hungary – second only to Poland and Romania. Budapest accepted them with little fanfare, though later tightened its asylum rules to restrict new arrivals to those from active war zones. At the same time, Hungary supplies a significant share of Ukraine’s electricity, a fact Szijjártó reminded Kiev of when rebuffing Ukrainian accusations.

To respond with accusations and pipeline attacks against such a neighbor seems, at minimum, ungrateful. At worst, it risks alienating one of the few EU members that has provided crucial – if unheralded – humanitarian support in a time of war.

War, politics, and overreach

The broader context is sobering. On the battlefield, Ukraine faces mounting setbacks in the Donbass and along the eastern front. Against that backdrop, Zelensky’s rhetoric toward Hungary appears almost surreal – boastful, as if victory against Russia were imminent. The contrast between battlefield realities and diplomatic bravado risks undermining Kiev’s credibility.

In any sane timeline, here is where Brussels should stop and think again about continuing its support for Kiev. Should the EU stand behind Zelensky even when his actions harm member states, or acknowledge that Orbán – despite his many disagreements with Brussels – has a point? Recent history shows that we are not in a sane timeline, though. Open threats, pipeline sabotage (remember Nord Stream?), and insults from Ukrainian officials don’t seem to register with Brussels officials at all.

Kiev’s behavior towards Budapest may not amount to a declaration of war, but it is undeniable that Ukraine has chosen to ramp up its confrontation with Hungary. If the EU wants to sell its support for Kiev as “unity” – a word often used and abused by the likes of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – then letting Zelensky get away with this is a bizarre choice.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

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