Nicolai N. Petro is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island, and formerly the US State Department’s special assistant for policy on the Soviet Union. Prof. Petro discusses the pending end of the Ukraine War and why Europe will likely fragment as a consequence of its proxy war against Russia.
Liberal Italian outlet Corriere della Sera has refused to publish an exclusive interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The move comes a week after an Italian journalist was fired by his news agency for questioning EU double-standards on Russia and Israel respectively.
In the interview, Lavrov, Russia’s vastly experienced top diplomat, cited a “Russophobia frenzy” in EU media. Lavrov also commented on the aborted meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump in Budapest, suggesting that Trump had received “behind-the-scenes reports” that led him to cancel the talks.
Below is the full text of Lavrov’s interview, as published on the Russian MFA website:
Question: It has been reported that Vladimir Putin’s next meeting with Donald Trump in Budapest did not happen because even the US Administration realised that you are not ready for talks on Ukraine. What went wrong after the Anchorage summit that inspired hope for the launch of a genuine peace process? Why does Russia remain adherent to the demands that Vladimir Putin put forward in June 2024 and on what issues сould you make a compromise?
Sergey Lavrov: The understandings reached in Anchorage were an important milestone in the search for a long-term peace in Ukraine through overcoming the consequences of the violent anti-constitutional state coup in Kiev organised by the Obama administration in February 2014. The understandings are based on the existing reality and closely bound to the conditions of a just and lasting resolution of the Ukrainian crisis proposed by President Putin in June 2024. As far as we know, those conditions were heard and received, including publicly, by the Trump administration – mainly the condition that it is unacceptable to drag Ukraine into NATO to create strategic military threats to Russia directly on its borders. Washington also openly admitted that it will not be able to ignore the territorial issue following the referendums in Russia’s five historical regions whose residents unambiguously chose self-determination apart from the Kiev regime that labelled them as “sub-humans,”“creatures,” and “terrorists,” and chose reunification with Russia.
The American concept that, at the US President’s instruction, his Special Envoy Steve Witkoff brought to Moscow the week before the Alaska summit was also built around the issues of security and territorial reality. President Putin told Donald Trump in Anchorage that we agreed to use this concept as a basis while proposing a specific step that opens a way for its practical implementation.
The US leader said that he should consult with his allies; however, after the meeting with his allies that took place in Washington the next day, we did not receive a reaction to our positive response to the proposals that Steve Witkoff delivered to Moscow before Alaska. No reaction was communicated during my meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in September in New York when I reminded him that we were still expecting it. To help our American colleagues decide on their own concept, we set forth the Alaska understandings in a non-paper and delivered it to Washington. Several days later, at Trump’s request, he and Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation and reached a preliminary agreement to meet in Budapest after thorough preparations for this summit. There was no doubt that they would discuss the understandings in Anchorage. After a few days, I spoke with Marco Rubio over the phone. Washington described the conversation as constructive (it was indeed constructive and useful) and announced that, after that telephone conversation, an in-person meeting between the Secretary of State and the Russian Foreign Minister in preparation for the top-level meeting was unnecessary. Who and how submitted covert reports to the American leader after which he either postponed or cancelled the Budapest summit, I do not know. But I have described the general timeline strictly based on the facts for which I am responsible. I am not going to take responsibility for bluntly fake news about Russia’s lack of readiness for talks or sabotaging the outcomes of the Anchorage meeting. Please speak to The Financial Times that, as far as I know, planted this misleading version of what happened, distorting the sequence of events, to put the blame on Moscow and lead Donald Trump off the road he suggested – a road to a lasting steady peace rather than the immediate ceasefire where Zelensky’s European masters are pulling him, due to their own obsessive intention to get a repose and inject the Nazi regime with more weapons to continue the war against Russia. If even the BBC produced a fake video that featured Trump calling for assaulting the Capitol, The Financial Times is capable of something similar. In Russia, we say, “they would not scruple to tell a lie.” We are still ready to hold another Russia-US summit in Budapest if it is genuinely based on the well-elaborated outcomes of the Alaska summit. The date is not set yet. Russia-US contacts continue.
Question: Units of the Russian Armed Forces are currently controlling less territory than in 2022, several weeks into what you call a special military operation. If you are truly prevailing why can’t you deliver a decisive strike? Could you also explain why you are not publicising official losses?
Sergey Lavrov: The special military operation is not a war for territories but an operation to save lives of millions of people who have lived on those territories for centuries and whom the Kiev junta seeks to eradicate – legally, by prohibiting their history, language and culture, and physically, by using Western weapons. Another important goal of the special military operation is to ensure Russia’s security and to undermine the plans of NATO and the EU to create a hostile puppet state at our western borders that, by law and in reality, relies on Nazi ideology. It is not the first time we have stopped fascist and Nazi aggressors. That happened during World War II and it will happen again.
Unlike Westerners who have wiped out entire neighbourhoods, we are sparing people – both civilians and military personnel. Our armed forces are acting extremely responsibly and delivering high-precision strikes exclusively at military targets and associated transport and energy infrastructure.
It is not customary to publicise battlefield losses. I can only say that this year, Russia has transferred over 9,000 bodies of Ukrainian personnel in repatriation. We have received 143 bodies of our fighters from Ukraine. You can come to your own conclusions.
Question: Your appearance at the Anchorage summit in a sweatshirt saying “USSR” raised many questions. Some regarded it as a confirmation of your ambition to recreate, if possible, the former Soviet space (Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, the Baltic countries), if not to restore the USSR. Was that a coded message or just a joke?
Sergey Lavrov: I am proud of my country where I was born and raised, got a decent education, started and continued my diplomatic career. As is well known, Russia is the successor to the USSR, and in general, our country and civilisation dates back a thousand years. The Novgorod Veche emerged long before the West started playing democracy. By the way, I also have a T-shirt with the national coat of arms of the Russian Empire but it does not mean that we want to restore it. One of our greatest assets, of which we are rightly proud, is the continuity of developing and strengthening our state throughout its great history of uniting and consolidating Russian and all other peoples of the country. President Putin recently highlighted that in his remarks on National Unity Day. So, please do not look for any political signals in this. Maybe the feeling of patriotism and loyalty to one’s Motherland is fading away in the West but to us, it is part of our genetic code.
Question: If one of the goals of the special military operation was to return Ukraine under Russian influence, as, for example, it may seem based on your demand to be able to determine the number of its armaments, don’t you think that the current armed conflict, whatever the outcome, gives Kiev a very specific international role and identity that is increasingly distant from Moscow?
Sergey Lavrov: The goals of the special military operation were determined by President Putin in 2022 and remain relevant to this day. It is not about spheres of influence but about Ukraine’s return to a neutral, non-aligned and non-nuclear status, and strict observance of the human rights and all the rights of the Russian and other national minorities – this is how these obligations were stipulated by Ukraine’s Declaration of Independence of 1990 and in its Constitution, and it was precisely in view of these declared obligations that Russia recognised the independence of the Ukrainian state. We are seeking and we will achieve the return of Ukraine to the healthy and stable origins of its statehood, which implies that Ukraine will no longer subserviently offer its territory to NATO for military development (as well as to the European Union, which is quickly turning into a similarly aggressive military bloc), sweep out the Nazi ideology prohibited in Nuremberg, return of all their rights to the Russians, Hungarians and other national minorities. It is indicative that, while dragging the Kiev regime into the EU, the Brussels elites remain silent about the outrageous discrimination of “non-indigenous ethnicities” (as Kiev contemptuously calls Russians who have lived in Ukraine for centuries) and praise Zelensky’s junta for defending “European values.” This is just another proof that Nazism is re-surging in Europe. It is something to think about, especially after Germany and Italy together with Japan recently began to vote against the General Assembly’s annual resolution on the unacceptability of glorifying Nazism.
Western governments do not hide the fact that in reality, they are waging a proxy war against Russia through Ukraine and this war will not be finished even “after the current crisis.” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Brussels bureaucrats Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas, and US President’s Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg have spoken about it on many occasions. It is evident that Russia’s determination to protect itself from the threats created by the West using the regime under its control, is legitimate and reasonable.
Question: The US also supplies weapons to Ukraine, and there was a recent discussion on the possibility of delivering Tomahawk cruise missiles to Kiev. Why do you hold different views and assessments of the US’ and Europe’s policy?
Sergey Lavrov: Most of the European capitals currently make up the core of the so called “coalition of the willing” whose sole desire is to keep hostilities in Ukraine running for as long as possible. Apparently, they have no other way of distracting their voters from sharply deteriorating domestic socioeconomic problems. They sponsor the terrorist regime in Kiev using European taxpayers’ money and supply weapons which are used as part of a consistent effort to kill civilians in Russian regions and Ukrainians who are trying to flee the war and the Nazi henchmen. They undermine any peace efforts and refuse to have direct contacts with Moscow; they impose more and more sanctions that have a boomerang effect on their economies; they are openly preparing Europe for a new big war against Russia and are trying to talk Washington into rejecting an honest and fair settlement.
Their key objective is to compromise the position of the current US administration that has from the outset advocated dialogue, looked into Russia’s position and showed willingness to seek a lasting peace. Donald Trump repeatedly said in public that one of the reasons for Russia’s action was NATO’s expansion and the advancement of the alliance’s infrastructure to our country’s borders. That is what President Putin and Russia have been warning against for the past twenty years. We hope that common sense prevails in Washington, that it will hold onto its principled position, and will refrain from actions which can propel the conflict to the next level of escalation.
With all that in view, whether the weapons are coming from Europe or the US makes no difference for our military, and they immediately destroy all military targets.
Question: You were the one who pressed the “reset” button together with Hillary Clinton, even if the events then took a different turn. Can relations with Europe be reset? Can common security serve as a platform for improving the current relations?
Sergey Lavrov: The confrontation which has arisen from the European elites’ thoughtless and stillborn policy is not Russia’s choice. The present situation does not meet our people’s interests. We would like to see the awareness of such a disastrous policy sink in with European governments most of whom are pursuing a rabid anti-Russia agenda. Europe already waged wars [against us] under Napoleon’s flags, and last century also under the Hitler’s Nazi banners and colours. Some European leaders have a very short memory. When this Russophobic obsession – I am at a loss for a better phrase for that – fades away, we will be open for contacts, ready to hear if our former partners are going to do business with us further. And then we will decide if there are prospects for building fair and honest ties.
The West’s efforts have totally discredited and dismantled the Euro-Atlantic security system in its pre-2022 form. In that regard, President Putin came up with an initiative to set up a new architecture of equal and indivisible security in Eurasia. It is open for all the nations of the continent including its European part, but it requires polite behaviour devoid of neo-colonial arrogance, on the basis of equality, mutual respect and balance of interests.
Question: The armed conflict in Ukraine and the subsequent international isolation of Russia might have made it impossible for you to act more effectively in other crisis areas, such as the Middle East. Is that so?
Sergey Lavrov: If the “historical West” decided to fence itself off from someone, it is called self-isolation. However, the ranks there are not solid, anyway – this year, Vladimir Putin has had meetings with leaders of the United States, Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia. Clearly, today’s world cannot be reduced to the Western minority. That is an age gone by since multipolarity emerged. Our relations with the Global South and Global East nations – which make up 85 percent of the Earth’s population – keep progressing. In September, the Russian President paid a state visit to China. In the past few months alone, Vladimir Putin took part in the SCO, BRICS, CIS, and Russia-Central Asia summits, whereas our high-level government delegations attended the APEC and ASEAN summits and are now preparing for the G20 summit. Summits and ministerial meetings in the Russia – Africa and Russia – Gulf Cooperation Council formats are held regularly. The Global Majority countries are guided by their core national interests rather than instructions from their former colonial powers.
Our Arab friends appreciate Russia’s constructive participation in settling regional conflicts in the Middle East. Ongoing discussions at the UN on the Palestine problem confirm that capabilities of all influential external actors must be pooled together, otherwise nothing lasting will come out save for colourful ceremonies. We also share close or convergent positions with our Middle East friends which facilitates our interaction at the UN and within other multilateral platforms.
Question: Do you not think that in the new multipolar world order that you promote and support, Russia has become more dependent on China economically and militarily, which created an imbalance in your historical alliance with Beijing?
Sergey Lavrov: We do not “promote” a multipolar world order as its emergence results from an objective process. Instead of conquest, enslavement, subjugation or exploitation, which was how the colonial powers built their order and went on to bring about capitalism, this process implies cooperation, taking into account each other’s interests, and ensuring the smart division of labour based on the comparative competitive advantages of the participating countries and integration structures.
As for Russia-China relations, this is not an alliance in the traditional sense of the word, but rather an effective and advanced form of interaction. Our cooperation does not imply creating any blocs and does not target any third countries. It is quite common for Cold War-era alliances to consist of those who lead and those who are led, but these categories are irrelevant in our case. Therefore, speculating about any kind of imbalance would be inappropriate.
Moscow and Beijing have built their ties on an equal footing and made them self-sufficient. They did so based on their mutual trust and support, which are rooted in many centuries of neighbourly relations. Russia reaffirms its steadfast commitment to the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs.
Russia-China cooperation in trade, investment, and technology has benefited both countries and fosters steady and sustainable economic growth, while also improving the wellbeing of our people. As for the close military-to-military ties, they ensure that we complement each other, enabling our countries to assert their national interests in terms of global security and strategic stability while also effectively countering conventional and new challenges and threats.
Question: Italy carries the label of an unfriendly country, as you have said so many times, including in November 2024. You made a special point about it. However, in recent months the Italian government has been demonstrating its solidarity with the US administration, even on the Ukraine topic, while Vladimir Putin used the word partner to refer to the United States, even if he did not go as far as call it an ally. Considering the appointment of a new ambassador to Moscow, there are reasons to believe that Rome is seeking some kind of a rapprochement. How would you assess the level of our bilateral relations?
Sergey Lavrov: For Russia, there are no unfriendly nations or people, but there are countries with unfriendly governments. And since this is the case for Rome, the relations between Russia and Italy are going through the most serious crisis in post-war history. We were not the ones who got the ball rolling. The ease and swiftness with which Italy joined those who placed their bets on inflicting what they called a strategic defeat on Russia, and the fact that Italy’s actions run counter to its national interests, really surprised us. So far, we have not seen any meaningful moves to change this aggressive approach. Rome persists in providing its all-round support to the neo-Nazis in Kiev. Its resolute effort to sever all cultural ties and civil society contacts is equally perplexing. The Italian authorities have been cancelling performances by outstanding Russian orchestra conductors and opera singers, and have been refusing to authorise the Verona Dialogue on Eurasian cooperation for several years now, despite the fact that it was established in Italy. Italians have a reputation of art lovers who are open to promoting people-to-people ties, but these actions seem quite unnatural for them.
At the same time, there are quite a few people in Italy who are seeking to get to the bottom of what caused the Ukrainian tragedy. For example, Eliseo Bertolasi, a prominent Italian civil activist, presented documentary evidence of the way in which the authorities in Kiev have been violating international law in his book The Conflict in Ukraine Through the Eyes of an Italian Journalist. I would like to recommend you that you read this book. In fact, finding truth about Ukraine in Europe has been quite a daunting task these days.
The people of both Russia and Italy stand to benefit from equal and mutually beneficial cooperation between our two countries. If Rome is ready to move towards restoring dialogue based on mutual trust and taking into consideration each other’s interests, they must send us a signal since we are always ready to hear what you have to say, including your ambassador.
“Busification” is a well-understood term in Ukraine and refers to the process in which young men are detained against their will, often involving a violent struggle, and bundled into a vehicle — often a minibus — for onward transit to an army recruitment center.
Until recently, Ukraine’s army recruiters picked easy targets. Yet, on October 26, the British Sun newspaper’s defense editor, Jerome Starkey, wrote a harrowing report about a recent trip to the front line in Ukraine, during which he claimed his Ukrainian colleague was “forcibly press-ganged into his country’s armed services.”
This case was striking for two reasons; first, that the forced mobilization of troops is rarely reported by Western mainstream media outlets. And second, that unlike most forced conscriptions, this event took place following the alleged commandeering of the Western journalists’ vehicle by three armed men, who insisted they drive to a recruitment center.
There, Starkey reported, “I saw at least [a] dozen glum men — mostly in their 40s and 50s — clutching sheafs of papers. They were called in and out of side rooms for rubber-stamp medicals to prove they were fit to fight.”
The process has drawn criticism after high-profile incidents where men have died even before they donned military uniforms. On October 23, Ukrainian Roman Sopin died from heavy blunt trauma to the head after he had been forcibly recruited. Ukrainian authorities claim that he fell, but his family is taking legal action. In August, a conscripted man, 36, died suddenly at a recruitment center in Rivne, although the authorities claim he died of natural causes. In June, 45-year-old Ukrainian-Hungarian Jozsef Sebestyen died after he was beaten with iron bars following his forced conscription; the Ukrainian military denies this version of events. In August, a conscript died from injuries sustained after he jumped out of a moving vehicle that was transporting him to the recruitment center.
Look online and you’ll find a trove of thousands of incidents, with most of them filmed this year alone. You can find videos of a recruitment officer chasing a man and shooting at him, a man being choked to death on the street with a recruiter’s knee on his neck. Many include family members or friends fighting desperately to prevent their loved one being taken against his will.
If videos of this nature, on this systemic scale, were shared in the United States or the United Kingdom, I believe that members of the public would express serious concerns. Yet the Western media remains largely silent, and I find it difficult to understand why.
In November 2024, Ukraine’s defense minister Rustem Umerov claimed that he would put an end to busification. It is true that Ukraine has been taking steps to modernize its army recruitment and make enlistment more appealing to men under the age of 25. Yet, there is little evidence that those efforts are having the desired effect. And after a year, busification only appears to be getting worse, yet remains widely ignored by the Western press.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War often reports on Russian force mobilization efforts but not on the dark and desperate aspects that lead to busification. You won’t find reports on this in the New York Times, as it conflicts with the narrative that with support from the West, Ukraine can turn the war around. It leans in instead on stories like Ukraine’s points for drone-kills game or the designer who cut the all-black suit that Zelensky now wears. Meanwhile, the Washington Post is softly banging the drum to recruit 18-year-old Ukrainians, despite this being a toxic political issue in Ukraine.
This is because busification is the tip of the iceberg. If the Ukrainians are finding it difficult to encourage young men to join the army voluntarily, then it is proving even harder to make them stay without deserting.
In January 2025, it was reported that around 1,700 troops of the Anna of Kyiv 155th mechanized brigade, trained in France and equipped with French self-propelled howitzers, had gone AWOL — 50 of them while still in France. In June 2024, a Ukrainian deserter was shot dead by a border guard while trying to cross into Moldova.
In the first half of 2025, over 110,000 desertion cases were reported in Ukraine. In 2024, Ukrainian prosecutors initiated over 89,000 proceedings related to desertion and unauthorized abandonment of units, a figure three-and-a-half times greater than in 2023. More than 20% of Ukraine’s one million-strong army have jumped the fence in the past four years, and the numbers are rising all the time.
Desertions appear in part driven by ever-greater shortages of infantry troops at the front line, which means soldiers rarely get rest and recuperation breaks. A lack of sufficient equipment is often blamed. And of course, the widespread and rising desertion rates from Ukraine’s armed forces only seem to provoke more violent recruitment practices and then civilian protests. On October 30 in Odessa, a group of demonstrators against a man’s forced detention overturned the recruitment minibus.
The growth of busification and rising desertions also track with a growth in support among ordinary Ukrainians for the war to end. Support for a negotiated end to the war has risen from 27% in 2023 to 69% in 2025. Likewise, support for Ukraine to “keep fighting until it wins the war” — a wholly deluded proposition — has dropped from 63% to 24% over the same period, according to Gallup poll results.
President Zelensky often claims that Ukraine’s military predicament is linked to a lack of guns, not a lack of people. Hoping to secure Western support to fight on for another 2-3 years, he’s quiet on whether he will have the troops or the political support to do so. For now, the message seems to be, “Don’t mention the press-gangs, in-detention killings, deserters and waning public support: just give me more money.”
Data shows that Ukraine’s ability to shoot down incoming Russian drones has decreased in recent months.
Ukrainian Air Force data analyzed by ABC News shows that in October, it was only able to down 4,200 of the 5,300 drones fired by Russia. At the start of the year, Kiev was able to down 90% of the drones fired by Moscow’s troops. That number decreased to 85% in August and September, before falling to under 80% in October.
In addition to drones, Ukrainian forces are struggling to intercept Russian missiles. “Ukraine’s ballistic missile interception rate improved over the summer, reaching 37% in August, but it plummeted to 6% in September, despite fewer launches,” according to the Financial Times.
The gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses have led to widespread blackouts. “These days, in most regions, repair crews, power engineers, and utility services are virtually working around the clock,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday. “The Russians have increased their striking power.”
Aside from slumping interception rates, Kiev faces other challenges in maintaining its air defences. The Patriot air defense system is the most effective against Russian missiles, but faces supply chain issues.
The US can produce only 600 Patriot interceptors per year. In July, The Guardian reported that the US only had 25% of the interceptors it needed to execute its battle plans. Additionally, there is already a backlog of countries awaiting delivery of Patriot interceptors.
Kiev is also seeking more Patriot systems to fire the interceptors. Washington has already pushed its NATO allies to transfer its systems to Kiev, promising to move any country that sends Patriots to Ukraine to the top of the list for replacement.
Earlier this month, Germany transferred two Patriot systems to Ukraine. However, President Zelensky said that Kiev needed an additional 25 systems.
Cost is another factor that makes sustaining Ukraine’s air defenses increasingly difficult. The Western interceptors are far more expensive than the Russian munitions. Moscow can also produce offensive weapons faster than Kiev’s backers can build interceptors.
Mike Fredenburg argued at Responsible Statecraft that these factors could prove fatal for Kiev. “This distortion obscures the reality that Russia’s cost-effective missile production provides a big advantage in sustainability,” he wrote. “While high Western missile costs, combined with US difficulties in rapidly expanding missile production, is a huge disadvantage in any kind of sustained conflict, and could be a fatal disadvantage in going up against a peer competitor that can throw thousands of missiles at our ships and even attack U.S.-based military facilities.”
In yet another sign of the rampant corruption in Ukraine, Ukrainian security forces raided the apartment of Timur Mindich, a businessman associated with President Volodymyr Zelensky. However, the oligarch had already left the country just hours before, likely after being tipped off by an insider.
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) says that $100 million is believed to have been siphoned off due to a “money laundering operation,” and other associates were involved. The 15-month investigation featured 1,000 hours of wiretapping and resulted in 70 raids, according to NABU.
There are numerous reports speculating that Mindich, who has close connections to Israel and just celebrated his birthday there, fled to Israel, but so far, most media reports do not disclose his destination country.
In a statement, NABU indicated that several individuals had formed a criminal gang and built “a large-scale corruption scheme to influence strategic enterprises in the public sector, in particular Energoatom.”
The scheme involved forcing Energoatom’s counterparties to pay kickbacks of approximately 10 to 15 percent of contract values in order to avoid having payments for services or goods blocked, or possibly losing their status as suppliers, the bureau reported.
NABU indicated that the raids and arrests were a part of an operation code-named “Midas,” with the initial investigations already launched in 2024.
“Particular attention was paid to cryptocurrencies. Most operations, including cash withdrawals, took place outside Ukraine. For example, during foreign delegations of representatives of state bodies and the management of state-owned energy sector enterprises,” NABU notes.
Mindich, 46, is from the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine. He is a film producer and former business partner of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.
He reportedly has links to Israel. Mindich celebrated his birthday in Israel in September, returned to Ukraine in mid-October and then went to Israel again, according to Ukrainska Pravda’s sources.
Mindich is also a long-time friend of Zelensky, with whom he co-owned production company Kvartal 95 until Zelensky transferred his stake to partners after being elected president in 2019.
Mindich also co-owns Green Family Ltd, a Cypriot firm that co-founded film production companies in Russia, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).
Kolomoisky told Ukrainska Pravda in 2022 that Mindich had introduced him to Zelensky before he became president.
In 2019, Zelensky drove an armored car provided by Mindich, RFE/RL reported.
Notably, Zelensky ran into serious hot water with the entire European Union when he attempted to eliminate NABU’s independence, which sparked outrage in Brussels. At the time, it sparked the first large-scale protests in the city since the war broke out. Zelensky was forced to backtrack, but the investigation into his associate may have played a vital role in Zelensky’s efforts to neuter NABU.
As part of the investigation, NABU and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP) released excerpts from audio recordings featuring conversations between individuals using the pseudonyms “Rakieta,” “Tenor,” and “Karlson.” They discussed investments in the energy sector, the distribution of bribes, and potential personnel changes within the Ministry of Energy and Enerhoatom itself.
According to reports from the website “Ukrainska Pravda,” the suspects include Mindich as well as Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko, whose home was also searched. He previously served as energy minister.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the matter in his evening address, emphasizing the need to hold those responsible accountable.
“All effective measures against corruption are crucial. The certainty of punishment is essential. Enerhoatom currently provides the largest share of energy production in Ukraine. Cleanliness at this company is a priority,” Zelenskyy said.
Already, three in four Ukrainians believe Zelensky is at fault for corruption in the country. This latest case is sure to ramp up pressure on his regime, which refuses to hold elections.
According to a survey conducted by the Foundation for Democratic Initiatives and the Kyiv International Sociological Institute, with the support of the Prague Center for Civil Society, 77.6 percent of Ukrainian respondents blame the Ukrainian leader for endemic corruption.
Notably, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is coming under fire from the EU for refusing to move forward with Ukraine’s EU membership, despite the fact that it is rife with corruption, is currently engaged in a war with Russia, and has abandoned democracy long ago, including canceling opposition parties, refusing to hold elections, and shutting down numerous media outlets.
Russia recognizes how embarrassing the raids on Zelensky’s associate are and how potentially dangerous they are for his continued rule.
Vladimir Rogov, chairman of the Commission of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, stated that “Mindich is one of Zelensky’s main wallets, but not the only one. Now there is a surge of panic and fear in Zelensky’s entourage. And troubled times are coming for Zelensky himself.”
He described “panic” inside Zelensky’s regime, and he said that his entourage is now accusing NABU of working with Russia.
“It will look doubly ridiculous. NABU is a purely American tool for controlling funds and combating Zelensky’s exorbitant thievish appetites,” Rogov said.
Germany has pledged to provide Ukraine with an additional €40 million in an effort to prop up its power generation during the winter, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has said. The announcement comes as Ukraine’s energy industry finds itself mired in a corruption scandal allegedly linked to an ally of leader Vladimir Zelensky.
Speaking on Tuesday, Wadephul said Berlin was “helping Ukrainians survive another winter of war with an additional €40 million ($46 million).” The diplomat noted that this year alone Germany has already spent €9 billion on military aid for Kiev.
A day earlier, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) announced that it was investigating a “high-level criminal organization” which allegedly profited from contracts involving state-owned nuclear energy company Energoatom.
According to the authorities, the ring forced Energoatom officials and contractors to pay kickbacks for state contracts. Formal charges have so far been brought against seven unnamed individuals. The Ukrainian media has claimed that one of the suspects is Timur Mindich, a close associate and former business partner of Zelensky. The businessman allegedly fled Ukraine just hours before his home was raided by NABU agents.
Mindich’s personal and business ties to the Ukrainian leader are understood to date back to when Zelensky was actively involved in the entertainment industry.
An opinion poll conducted by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in September indicated that 71% of respondents believed that the level of corruption in Ukraine has increased since the escalation of the conflict with Russia in February 2022.
In recent years, Ukraine has been rocked by a string of corruption scandals.
In August, several high-ranking officials were detained over a scheme involving the purchase of electronic warfare systems. Earlier this year, a food supply fraud case worth nearly $18 million within the Defense Ministry came to light.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has claimed that Western aid has to a large extent been “stolen” in Ukraine due to widespread corruption.
Former US National Security Adviser Michael Waltz has similarly described Ukraine as “one of the most corrupt nations in the world.”
Matthew Hoh is a former U.S. Marine Officer and State Department Official. Hoh discusses the growing divisions within the US, which threaten the US empire.
A senior lawmaker from Germany’s largest opposition party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), has rejected the government’s claim that Russia poses a threat to the country.
Markus Frohnmaier, who leads the right-wing AfD in the Bundestag, also dismissed allegations that the party is working on Moscow’s behalf. The AfD has long criticized military aid to Ukraine and argued that Berlin should instead focus on diplomacy.
“I stand for German interests,” Frohnmaier said on Tuesday during a televised debate with Norbert Roettgen of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He went on to say that Germany should not “get involved in a foreign war” and had no obligation to defend Ukraine, which is not a NATO member. When asked if Russia posed a threat, he replied, “No.”
“We are not at war with Russia,” Frohnmaier said. “The AfD’s position is to remain in dialogue with all global, relevant actors,” he added, criticizing the government for what he called a “hyper-moralizing” foreign policy.
Roettgen, for his part, claimed that Moscow was waging a “hybrid war” against Germany and other European states, accusing his opponent of spreading Russian “propaganda.” In a speech last week, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier likewise listed Russia as one of the threats to Germany’s national security.
Germany recently announced plans to increase financial aid to Kiev by €3 billion ($3.5 billion) next year and, according to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, delivered additional US-made Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine last month.
A Forsa opinion poll in August found that 52% of respondents in Germany believed Ukraine should cede some territory to Russia to end the conflict. Zelensky, however, has ruled out any territorial concessions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that NATO members, including Germany, were already de facto “at war with Russia” because Ukrainian forces were actively using Western-supplied weapons. He has repeatedly said that Russia would not attack NATO states unless attacked first.
While western commentators ease their audience into a new reality – the eastern strategic town of Pokrovsk is about to fall into Russian hands – it’s interesting to see how they carefully backpedal and twist every morsel of information. It’s as though all of the information that was prepared and delivered to them is so out of touch with reality, that all is left now is to downplay the imminent Russian victory as hollow and meaningless.
It’s certainly true that a victory for Russian forces now in Pokrovsk is less strategic than it was a few months ago, but to write it off as insignificant is just one more lie that western media and commentators are guilty of delivering.
The analysis and reporting about Pokrovsk has to be deciphered, but when British journalists like Sam Kiley, who are there on the ground, talk about the victory cry from pro-Russian media as being “premature” it’s worth noting that nearly all such journalists have crossed the line of journalism for the preferred role of commentator. Kiley’s piece in the Independent is so peppered with the conditional tense that it has little or no credibility. And like all British hacks, he is cleverly removing the sweet taste of victory out of Putin’s mouth by going into the zone of spouting irrefutable so called “facts” which are naturally impossible to disprove. The main one, which gives you an indication that he also believes Pokrovsk is close to falling, is that he mentions that the gains the Russians made came through so many dead soldiers. This ol’ chestnut is repeated over and over again as British readers like to believe it’s true. Is it true? Has Russia lost a disproportionate number of soldiers on the battlefield? We will never know, so how in God’s name does Kiley?
Irrefutable claims, written as fact, are part and parcel of British reporting on the Ukraine war. Kiley might be comforted by the sensationally bad Times Radio which takes this dark art to a new level. Philip Ingram’s podcast with his friend former British Army Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is a shining example of what one ex-spook and one former colonel in the British army can do with MOD disinformation. Their podcast is so bad and bigoted, it leaves you wondering whether to laugh or cry as they both start off with the absurd argument that most of the reporting from Pokrovsk is Russian social media channels which exaggerate the scale of Russian gains and so, according to the hapless Bretton-Gordon, shouldn’t be taken seriously – before he blathers that if Russia were to take the town, it would take four years for them to do it.
He then goes on to conclude that not much is happening on the ground and that things are “opaque”. Ingram then chimes in to tone down the significance of the town, when it falls, but claims that the Ukrainians have had a success there, given what they both agree are causalities on the Russian side of a 1000 losses a day. Yet both of these numpties are reading from MOD/Mi6 data which only underlines the point that disinformation even for ex-soldiers having a go at podcasts is alive and well. While it is disturbing that Bretton-Gordon is so reliant on such data it is also off putting that he can’t even pronounce the name of the town itself correctly. Where does Times Radio find such amateurs?
For American media, even those who support Biden, the defeat of Pokrovsk is nigh and the narrative they offer contradicts the two podcasters outright. Perhaps if Times Radio Laurel and Hardy act were to actually do the legwork and interview people who are on the ground, even if it’s only the Ukrainians, their banta might have a slither of credibility about it and not leave the viewer cringing at how awful it is.
“The situation is difficult, with all types of fighting going on, firefights in urban areas, and shelling with all types of weapons,” one battalion commander told CNN, speaking on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“We are almost surrounded, but we are used to it,” he said. Another soldier, who also asked for his name to be withheld for safety reasons, told CNN the Russian military continues to press forward with large numbers of men.
“The intensity of their movements is so great that (Ukrainian) drone operators simply cannot keep up with the pace. The Russians often move in groups of three, counting on the fact that two will be destroyed, but one will still reach the city and gain a foothold there. About a hundred such groups can pass through in a day,” a soldier from the Ukrainian Peaky Blinders drone unit told CNN.
And so, the reporting on the British side lacks all credibility. And like all bad journalists, or pseudo journalists, the Times Radio also like to practice the deft art of omission. How did it simply pass these two that there are plenty of Ukrainian soldiers who will tell them that their MI6 taking points are BS and that it’s a shitstorm in Pokrovsk with Ukrainian losses also high? Would that not have scored them the propaganda points they crave?
In the UK, the reporting about Ukraine is so biased and manipulated by MI6/MOD disinfo that it is practically a Hollywood movie which the press is asking a gullible public to believe. Could this possibly be responsible for broad support for the war? Is a disinformation campaign actually driving the political dynamic, just as it did so many times before, not dissimilar to how many people in 2003 were happy that Tony Blair sent troops to Iraq, based on similar reports?
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has said it foiled an elaborate Ukrainian-British plot to steal a MiG-31 fighter jet armed with a Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missile.
According to the FSB, although Ukrainian agents unsuccessfully tried to persuade the pilots to defect, their actual goal was for the aircraft to be shot down in Romanian airspace, provoking an international incident with NATO. The agency said the operation was organized by Ukraine’s military intelligence service (HUR) in coordination with the UK’s MI6.
A MiG-31 pilot said he was contacted last year by a man introducing himself as Sergey Lugovsky, a researcher for the open-source investigative group Bellingcat, which has received funding from several Western governments. The pilot said Lugovsky initially sought consultations, later offering money for defection.
After the pilot declined, a Ukrainian agent using the name Aleksandr approached the aircraft’s navigator, offering $3 million and a foreign passport in exchange for directing the plane to fly over an air base near Constanta, Romania.
Kiev has previously offered money and assistance to defectors. In 2023, Russian Mi-8 pilot Maksim Kuzminov defected to Ukraine, landing his helicopter behind the front lines with the HUR’s help. Two of the other crew members, unaware of his plan, were killed upon landing. Kuzminov was assassinated a year later in Spain, where he was living under a new identity and with a Ukrainian passport.
In 2022, the FSB accused former Bellingcat investigator Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian-born journalist, of taking part in a failed Ukrainian attempt to recruit Russian military pilots. Grozev said he was embedded with Ukrainian intelligence officers as a documentary filmmaker and claimed that his text messages were forged.
Gordon Hahn discusses Europe’s ideological fundamentalism, detached leadership, Russophobia, subservience to the US, and other causes for the death of the old continent.
There is much of significance happening in Ukraine right now that is being reported either lightly or not at all by the mainstream Western media in an apparent attempt to harmonize their reporting with Kiev’s narrative in order to keep hopes high and economic and military support flowing.
Though the mainstream media has begun to report on the Russian encirclement of the Donetsk city of Pokrovsk, it is failing to report on how dire and how ominous the situation is. The reporting suggests that the battlefield situation is being stabilized, that the Russian losses are enormous, and that the loss of Pokrovsk would be strategically insignificant. None of those claims are true.
Russia’s chief of staff, General Valery Gerasimov, reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the Russian armed forces are “advancing along converging axes” and “have completed the encirclement of the enemy” in Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad.” His Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksandr Syrskii, said the report does “not correspond to reality.” Ukrainian officials “insist,” The New York Timesreports, “that special units are clearing Russians out of the city.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky boasted that “in Pokrovsk, we continue to destroy the occupier.”
Though the Ukrainian armed forces may have temporarily pushed the Russian forces partially back, the Russian forces have retaken a large part of Pokrovsk and now control about 80% of it. The pincers that are steadily closing around Pokrovsk are now just a kilometer apart, a gap that is difficult and dangerous for Ukraine’s best paratroopers to escape through. Though Ukraine continues to deny the encroaching encirclement, admitting only that the situation is “difficult,” the narrative won’t change the reality on the battlefield. Ukraine’s Euromaidan Presssays that Pokrovsk now “risks becoming a graveyard for Ukraine’s finest.” The Kyiv Independentassesses that “saving the city from falling in the short term looks to be a daunting, and likely impossible task.”
The Western media also reports that Russia’s gains are coming at a greater loss. The Times reports that “Russia’s incremental advances have come at an immense cost. While Ukraine wants to hold on to Pokrovsk, military commanders argue that the large losses it is inflicting on the Kremlin’s troops there will hurt the Russian war effort more broadly.”
But the Times exaggerates Russia’s losses in the war more broadly by at least three times and shrinks Ukraine’s losses by the same amount. As far as Pokrovsk goes, analysts have noted that the attrition of Ukraine’s forces in the war have led to a situation in Pokrovsk where Russia’s forces are taking the fortified city without huge losses in troops or equipment.
And, according to the Times, “the military significance of losing Pokrovsk may be relatively small for Ukraine.” But the loss of Pokrovsk means not only the loss of a critical strategic hub for supplying Ukrainian forces in the east, but also the possible loss of control of Ukraine’s defensive line of linked fortification in Donetsk.
Perhaps even more lacking in Western reporting of the battlefield is that a number of military analysts have pointed out that singular focus on Pokrovsk misses the larger picture that that the Russian armed forces have entered or partially encircled several cities in Donetsk, threatening a larger encirclement of the area, and that for the first year in the war, the Ukrainian armed forces have been unable to launch any kind of offensive in 2025. Those two battlefield realities combine to create a larger context that is more ominous still. It suggests that Russia’s war of attrition has depleted Ukrainian troops to the point that they are no longer able to attack Russia or to defend themselves.
Ukraine’s desperate situation on the battlefield has led to two more underreported events. The first was the simultaneous explosions at oil refineries in Hungary and Romania. The fact that both refineries process Russian crude oil and that Ukraine and Europe seem to have shifted their strategy from defeating Russia on the battlefield to cutting off Russia’s oil revenue to drive them to the negotiating table, have led to speculation that Ukraine was behind the two acts of sabotage.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said recently that the explosion at Hungary’s oil refinery could have been caused by an “external attack.” The external actor is unlikely to be Russia. They lack the motivation to sabotage their own customers at a time when U.S. sanctions are attempting to strangle its exports of oil. That seems to leave, as a consensus among analysts suggests, Ukraine or its partners. Ukraine has offered no comment on the explosions, and the silence of the Western media adds to the suspicion. It is alarming that the mainstream media has not a word to say about seemingly coordinated attacks on two European countries that could have enormous consequences in the post Ukraine war world.
Ukraine’s desperation has also led to an underreported crisis at home. Ukraine is losing troops, not only to Russian attacks on the battlefield, but to desertion. As part of the solution, Ukraine has turned to forced mobilization in which men are abducted, often aggressively, against their will and bussed off to recruitment centers. From there, they find themselves on the battlefield with very little training.
Once on the front, troops have deserted in the thousands. Though little reported in the mainstream media, in the first months of 2025 alone, more than 110,000 Ukrainian soldiers deserted. As many as 20% of Ukraine’s armed forces have deserted. Since the war began, the number of desertions may be as high as 200,000, and it is getting worse by the month.
The Western media seems to be complicit in harmonizing with Kiev’s misleading message in order to keep Western morale up and Western arms flowing. But, though the narrative may be strong enough to mislead a public that trusts its newspapers, it will not be strong enough to alter reality. Ukraine is turning to more desperate measures in an attempt to address a dire situation on the battlefield in which they no longer have the manpower to go on the offensive nor to defend themselves and in which troops are deserting as fast as they are being killed.
1. “There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies, not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy.” Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2001
2. “The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more”…. Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time – August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post, August 30, 2000
3. ” [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs.” Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the Beasts”. New Statesman, 25 June 1982.
4. “The Palestinians” would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.” Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
5. “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.
6. “How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.” Golda Maier, March 8, 1969.
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