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IAEA issues new Chernobyl safety warning

RT | December 7, 2025

The protective shelter over the reactor at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant can no longer guarantee radiation containment, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said. The agency added that urgent major repairs are now required.

The warning follows an inspection prompted by a drone strike in February, which marked the first major attack on the shelter. Moscow said the strike was a provocation orchestrated by Kiev, while the Ukrainian government blamed Russia.

The strike had pierced the outer shell of the massive steel arch known as the New Safe Confinement (NSC) and triggered a fire. While the initial damage did not cause a radiation leak, the new assessment shows the structural breach has degraded the shelter’s ability to contain nuclear material.

The IAEA confirmed on Friday that the NSC, a 36,000-tonne steel structure built over the destroyed Unit 4 reactor at Chernobyl, “had lost its primary safety functions, including the confinement capability.”

Completed in 2019 at a cost of around €1.5billion (about $1.6 billion), the NSC was designed to contain radioactive material and seal the original concrete “sarcophagus” installed after the 1986 disaster.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said that although the shelter’s loadbearing framework and monitoring systems remain intact, “limited temporary repairs have been carried out … comprehensive restoration is urgently required.” IAEA inspectors have now dispatched additional nuclear safety experts to the site to assess the full extent of the damage.

Russia has accused Ukraine of repeatedly targeting the Zaporozhye (ZNPP) and Kursk nuclear power plants, describing the attacks as acts of “nuclear terrorism.”

A Ukrainian drone struck an auxiliary building at the Kursk NPP in late September, during a visit to Moscow by IAEA chief Rafael Grossi.

Just days earlier, power lines supplying the ZNPP were reportedly damaged by Ukrainian artillery, forcing the plant to switch to backup generators. Russia took control of the ZNPP in March 2022, and the region later held a referendum to join the country. Kiev denies involvement in the Kursk incident and has accused Moscow of attacking the ZNPP.

Speaking in October, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine was “playing a dangerous game” by attacking nuclear sites.

December 7, 2025 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Nuclear Power | | 1 Comment

Ukrainians mob vehicle to free men captured by draft officers

RT | December 7, 2025

Ordinary Ukrainians came to rescue people from conscription officers trying to force young males into a minibus in the middle of the day, a video that began circulating on social media on Saturday shows.

Reportedly filmed in the city of Odessa, the footage shows a crowd surrounding a vehicle belonging to military conscription officers and throwing tires at it, smashing its windows with a metal bar. In the clip, passersby can be heard saying, “The people have had enough!” and appears to show young men being pulled out through the shattered windows.

In response to a conscription officer’s objections, people shouted back that he should go to the front himself.

The video is the latest in a series of clips that have emerged online showing Ukrainian males being violently snatched from the streets by draft officers as Kiev experiences military setbacks and manpower shortages at the front. The term ‘busification’ has become widespread in the country, in reference to the minibuses used to transport involuntary recruits.

There have also been reports of injuries, torture, and deaths among those subject to forced mobilization, fueling public outrage and sparking protests. In October, the Ukrainian authorities urged people not to film or share videos of press gangs forcibly detaining men.

The exodus from Kiev’s armed forces is mounting. More than 21,000 soldiers deserted without leave in September alone – the highest monthly total since the start of the Ukraine conflict. According to a report by BBC Ukraine in October, this marked the largest single-month spike, based on the most recent data from the Prosecutor General’s Office.

In July, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Michael O’Flaherty, sounded the alarm over “systematic and widespread” abuse by Ukrainian draft enforcers, urging the authorities in Kiev to properly investigate the incidents and prevent further human rights violations.

December 7, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

New NSS Signals US Ready to ‘Forget’ Ukraine, Snubs ‘Weak’ EU – Analyst

Sputnik – 07.12.2025

Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy (NSS) sketches a future in which the US is “ready to throw the current political leadership in Ukraine under the bus, much as several NATO countries and EU leadership expect,” believes retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski.

The US signals in the document, where Ukraine is downgraded to just four mentions, that it expects peace and some form of a “viable sovereign state” afterward, Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, tells Sputnik.

“This is a practical US acceptance that the cost of the US/NATO proxy war is not worth it,” stresses the analyst.

The NSS reflects a realization that “no NATO army or combination of armies can stop Russia’s advance or the achievement of its goals,” which include the end of the current neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine, she underscores.

NSS Puts Europe on Notice

Unprecedentedly, the NSS “directly alienates and demeans the current political leadership of the EU and many key NATO countries,” says the pundit.

The strategy depicts the EU as economically frail, politically fractured, and dependent on US support “for a price.”

The message to the EU hawks is: the US will not assist the European establishment in “holding off the new generation of nationalists and populists from taking power.”

According to Kwiatkowski, it is unlikely that the US deep state will “tactically and strategically aid European elites, through money, deals, and color revolutions, or even help with NATO expansion, as they have for the past 30 years.”

As for Europe’s policy toward Ukraine—if determined by the populist movements likely to prevail in coming European elections, it will “settle for a smaller, possibly landlocked Ukraine, and investment in Ukraine will not be charitable but geared primarily to recoup European economic losses.”

December 7, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Theft of Russian wealth is tying the entire EU bloc to a sinking ship, or worse, all-out war

Strategic Culture Foundation | December 5, 2025

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is pushing ahead with a reckless plan to confiscate over €200 billion in Russia’s sovereign wealth for the purpose of propping up the corrupt NeoNazi Kiev regime and prolonging a futile proxy war.

It is hard to imagine a more crass course of action. Yet the so-called European leadership around Von der Leyen is zealously steering towards disaster. At least the hapless captain of the Titanic tried to avert collision with an iceberg. The Euro captains are heading full steam ahead.

Von der Leyen’s proposed scheme is fancifully called a “reparations loan” and pretends, through legalistic rhetoric, not to be a confiscation of Russia’s assets. But it boils down to theft. Theft to continue the bloodiest war in Europe since the Second World War, which marked the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Von der Leyen, a former German defense minister, is supported by other obsessively Russophobic Euro elites. The EU’s foreign minister Kaja Kallas, a former Estonian prime minister, asserts that the seizure of Russian money and pumping it into the Kiev regime is aimed at forcing Moscow to negotiate a peaceful end to the nearly four-year conflict. Such twisted logic is an Orwellian distortion of reality.

Belgium and other European states are extremely wary of the unprecedented and audacious move. Belgium, which holds the majority of frozen Russian wealth – some €185 bn – in its Euroclear depository, is anxious that it will be financially ruined if Moscow holds the EU liable for illegal seizure of wealth. Other EU members, like Hungary and Slovakia, are concerned that the Russophobic leadership is undermining any diplomatic initiatives by the U.S. Trump administration and the Kremlin to negotiate a peace settlement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any confiscation of Russian assets by the EU leadership – regardless of financial rhetorical packaging – will be viewed by Moscow as theft of sovereign wealth. Russia has vowed it will respond robustly with legal challenges under existing treaties to exact compensation. This is what Belgium is fearful of and why it is resisting von der Leyen’s loan reparation scheme.

The European leaders are to hold a summit on December 18-19 to decide on the proposal. So desperate are the Russophobic elites that they have been assiduously piling political pressure on the Belgian government to relent in its opposition to go along with the scheme. In trying to get Belgium onboard, von der Leyen has written legal guarantees that all EU members will share any legal and financial repercussions. Thus, the unelected European Commission president is taking it upon herself to write a suicide note for the whole of Europe.

Essentially, the proposed loan reparation scheme is based on using Russian immobilized investments in EU banks as a guarantee to give €140 bn in an interest-free hand-out to Ukraine. The financial life-line is necessary because Ukraine is bankrupt after four years of fighting a proxy war on behalf of NATO against Russia.

Ukraine and its NATO sponsors have lost this conflict as Russian forces gather momentum with superior military force. But rather than meeting Russia’s terms for peace, the Euro elites want to keep on “fighting to the last Ukrainian”. To sue for peace would be an admission of complicity in a proxy war and would be politically disastrous for the European warmongers. In covering up their criminal enterprise and lies, they are compelled to keep the “defense of Ukraine” charade going.

Given the rampant graft and embezzlement at the core of the Kiev regime as indicated by the recent firing of top ministers and aides, it is certain that much of the next EU loan will end up in offshore bank accounts, foreign properties and being snorted up the noses of the corrupt regime.

Von der Leyen’s artful deception of theft claims that the Russian assets are not confiscated permanently but rather will be released when Moscow eventually pays “war damages” to Ukraine. In other words, the scheme is a blackmail operation, one that Russia will never comply with because it is premised on Russia as a guilty aggressor, rather than, as Moscow and many others see it, as acting in self-defense to years of NATO fueled hostility culminating in the CIA coup in Kiev in 2014 and weaponizing of a NeoNazi regime to provoke Russia. Therefore, under von der Leyen’s scheme, Russia’s frozen funds will, in effect, never be returned and, to add insult to injury, will have been routed through to the benefit of Kiev mafia.

Such a criminal move is highly provocative and dangerous. It could be interpreted by Moscow as an act of war given the huge scale of plunder of the Russian nation. At the very least, Russia will pursue compensation under international treaties and laws that could end up destroying Belgium and other EU states from financial liabilities. How absurd is that? Von der Leyen and her Russophobic ilk are setting up Europe for bankruptcy by stealing Russia’s wealth for propping up a corrupt NeoNazi regime that has already sacrificed millions of Ukrainian military casualties?

Alternatively, if the EU leadership does not get away with its madcap robbery scheme at the summit on December 18-19, the “Plan B” is for the EU 27 members to take out a joint debt from international markets to carry the Kiev regime through another two years of attritional war.

The insanity of the EU leaders is unfathomable. It is driven by ideological, futile obsession to “subjugate” Russia. Von der Leyen, as well as Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, are descendants of Nazi figures. For these people, there is an atavistic quest to defeat Russia and assert European “greatness”.

They lost their proxy war in Ukraine with much blood on their hands. But instead of desisting from their destructive obsession, they are desperately trying to find new ways to keep it going.

The criminal, irresponsible Euro elites like von der Leyen, Kallas, Merz, Macron, and NATO’s Rutte, are lashing the EU financially to a sinking ship. They are bringing the entire European bloc down with them, splintering as they go.

What these elites are doing is destroying the European Union as we know it, and they profess to uphold. Ironically, it is they, not Russia, that is the biggest enemy to democracy and peace in Europe.

December 7, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Trump files for divorce from NATO over Ukraine

By Larry Johnson | RT | December 6, 2025

It is one thing to produce a written national security strategy, but the real test is whether or not US President Donald Trump is serious about implementing it. The key takeaways are the rhetorical deescalation with China and putting the onus on Europe to keep Ukraine alive.

The 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) of the US, released by the White House on December 4, 2025, marks a potentially profound shift in US foreign policy under Trump’s second administration compared to his first term as president. This 33-page document explicitly embraces an ‘America First’ doctrine, rejecting global hegemony and ideological crusades in favor of pragmatic, transactional realism focused on protecting core national interests: Homeland security, economic prosperity, and regional dominance in the Western Hemisphere.

It critiques past US overreach as a failure that weakened America, positioning Trump’s approach as a “necessary correction” to usher in a “new golden age.” The strategy prioritizes reindustrialization (aiming to grow the US economy from $30 trillion to $40 trillion by the 2030s), border security, and dealmaking over multilateralism or democracy promotion. It accepts a multipolar world, downgrading China from a “pacing threat” to an “economic competitor,” and calling for selective engagement with adversaries. However, Trump’s actions during the first 11 months of his presidency have been inconsistent with, even contradictory of, the written strategy.

The document is unapologetically partisan, crediting Trump personally for brokering peace in eight conflicts (including the India-Pakistan ceasefire, the Gaza hostage return, the Rwanda-DRC agreement) and securing a verbal commitment at the 2025 Hague Summit for NATO members to boost their defense spending to 5% of GDP. It elevates immigration as a top security threat, advocating lethal force against cartels if needed, and dismisses climate change and ‘net zero’ policies as harmful to US interests.

The document organizes US strategy around three pillars: Homeland defense, the Western Hemisphere, and economic renewal. Secondary focuses include selective partnerships in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Here are the major rhetorical shifts in strategy compared to the previous strategies released during the respective presidencies of Trump (2017) and Biden (2022):

  • From global cop to regional hegemon: Unlike Biden’s 2022 NSS (which emphasized alliances and great-power competition) or Trump’s 2017 version (which named China and Russia as revisionists), this document ends America’s “forever burdens” abroad. It prioritizes the Americas over Eurasia, framing Europe and the Middle East as deprioritized theaters.
  • Ideological retreat: Democracy promotion is explicitly abandoned – “we seek peaceful commercial relations without imposing democratic change” (tell that to the Venezuelans). Authoritarians are not judged, and the EU is called “anti-democratic.”
  • Confrontational ally relations: Europe faces scathing criticism for migration, free speech curbs, and risks of “civilizational erasure” (e.g., demographic shifts making nations “unrecognizable in 20 years”). The US vows to support the “patriotic” European parties resisting this, drawing Kremlin-like rhetoric accusations from EU leaders.
  • China policy: Acknowledges failed engagement; seeks “mutually advantageous” ties but with deterrence (e.g., Taiwan as a priority). No full decoupling, but restrictions on tech/dependencies.
  • Multipolar acceptance: Invites regional powers to manage their spheres (e.g., Japan in East Asia, Arab-Israeli bloc in the Gulf), signaling US restraint to avoid direct confrontations.

The NSS represents a seismic shift in America’s approach to NATO, emphasizing “burden-shifting” over unconditional alliance leadership. It frames NATO not as a values-based community but as a transactional partnership in which US commitments – troops, funding, and nuclear guarantees – are tied to European allies meeting steep new demands. This America First recalibration prioritizes US resources for the Indo-Pacific and Western Hemisphere, de-escalating in Europe to avoid “forever burdens.” Key changes include halting NATO expansion, demanding 5% GDP defense spending by 2035, and restoring “strategic stability” with Russia via a Ukraine ceasefire. While the US reaffirms Article 5 and its nuclear umbrella, it signals potential partial withdrawals by 2027 if Europe fails to step up, risking alliance cohesion amid demographic and ideological critiques of Europe. When Russia completes the defeat of Ukraine, the continued existence of NATO will be a genuine concern.

The strategy credits Trump’s diplomacy for NATO’s 5% pledge at the 2025 Hague Summit but warns of “civilizational erasure” in Europe due to migration and low birth rates, speculating that some members could become “majority non-European” within decades, potentially eroding their alignment with US interests.

Trump’s NSS signals a dramatic change in US policy toward the Ukraine conflict by essentially dumping the responsibility for keeping Ukraine afloat on the Europeans. The portion of the NSS dealing with Ukraine is delusional with regard to the military capabilities of the European states:

We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation… This lack of self-confidence is most evident in Europe’s relationship with Russia. European allies enjoy a significant hard power advantage over Russia by almost every measure, save nuclear weapons.

As a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, European relations with Russia are now deeply attenuated, and many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat. Managing European relations with Russia will require significant US diplomatic engagement, both to reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.

It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia, as well as to enable the post-hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to enable its survival as a viable state.

The Ukraine War has had the perverse effect of increasing Europe’s, especially Germany’s, external dependencies. Today, German chemical companies are building some of the world’s largest processing plants in China, using Russian gas that they cannot obtain at home. The Trump Administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition. A large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments’ subversion of democratic processes. This is strategically important to the United States precisely because European states cannot reform themselves if they are trapped in political crisis.

Not surprisingly, this section of Trump’s NSS has sparked a panicked outcry in Europe. European leaders, including former Swedish PM Carl Bildt, called it “to the right of the extreme right,” warning of alliance erosion. Analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) praise its pragmatism, but flag short-sightedness, predicting a “lonelier, weaker” US. China views reassurances on sovereignty positively, but remains wary of economic pressures. In the US, Democrats, such as Rep. Jason Crow, deem it “catastrophic” for alliances, i.e. NATO.

Overall, the strategy signals a US pivot inward, forcing NATO allies to self-fund security while risking fractured partnerships with Europe. It positions America as a wealthy hemispheric power in a multipolar order, betting on dealmaking and industrial revival to sustain global influence without overextension.

Larry Johnson is a political analyst and commentator, former CIA analyst and member of the US State Department’s Office for Counterterrorism.

December 6, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , | 1 Comment

POLITICO’s Delusion Cracks: Belgium Isn’t Helping Russia — It’s Trying to Save Europe From Itself

By Gerry Nolan | The Islander | December 5, 2025

The great farce of late-imperial Europe is that every time Brussels stumbles into another historic blunder of its own making, it immediately searches for a foreign hand to blame. And so the EU’s court chronicler, Politico, delivers its latest fever dream: that Belgium, the most indecisive, over-medicated country in the bloc, has somehow transformed into “Russia’s most valuable asset.” In reality, the only asset Russia needed was the EU’s own arrogance.

Belgium merely did the unthinkable, it told the truth.

What Politico dresses up as geopolitical intrigue is actually a confession of EU derangement. The EU are trying to engineer the largest state-sanctioned theft of sovereign wealth in modern history, a direct raid on the Russian Central Bank’s reserves and expected applause, unity, and moral ecstasy. Instead, Belgium asked the only sane question left in Europe: “Are you all completely out of your minds?” For this, Politico paints De Wever as eccentric, impulsive, unstable, the same labels always deployed when someone refuses to bow to the imperial autopilot. But the deeper scandal is that Brussels expected him to sign off on detonating the post-war financial order for the sake of one more photo-op with Zelensky.

Politico can hide behind metaphors of summit dinners and langoustines, but the legal reality is brutal: raiding another nation’s central bank is not a policy disagreement. It is a declaration of financial war on the entire world. It would obliterate sovereign immunity, destroy the neutrality of reserve holdings, and instantly signal to the global South that their assets in EU banks are hostage to EU’s emotional spasms. One act, one reckless stroke of a pen, and the euro collapses as a safe currency, capital flees to Asia, and the West loses its last functional pillar of power. Belgium saw the cliff’s edge, Brussels mistook it for a (perverse) moral leap of faith.

Politico’s narrative stumbles further when it pretends the only danger lies in Moscow’s retaliation. It does not. Russia’s symmetric countermeasures are well-known, lawful, and devastating: nationalization of Western corporate assets, seizure of industrial infrastructure, liquidation of bond holdings, and the dismantling of Western financial footprints inside Russia. The value of Western assets exposed inside the Russian Federation rivals what sits in Euroclear. Brussels knows this. Euroclear knows this. Investors know this. Only the EU pretends the ledger is irrelevant. But the real threat is not Russia’s response , it is the irreversible collapse of trust in Western custodianship. Once the EU steals central bank reserves, no nation with self-respect will ever again store wealth in Europe. The theft of Russian reserves would be remembered not as an isolated act, but as the day the West proved it cannot be trusted with global money, let alone soverign assets.

This is the part Politico is terrified to articulate. Belgium wasn’t protecting Russia. Belgium is trying to protect the very system the EU purports to defend. Yet instead of portraying De Wever as the only adult in the room, Politico stages a melodrama about a Flemish nationalist gone rogue, supposedly spoiling the EU’s grandiose plan to hurl another €140 billion onto the Ukrainian funeral pyre. The reality is simpler, Belgium refused to mortgage its own future so Europe could continue its cosplay as a geopolitical superpower utterly detached from material reality. The EU elite wanted to play empire with someone else’s risk. Belgium refused to be the guarantor of their delusion.

What makes Politico’s narrative even more absurd is that it accidentally reveals the deeper rot, Europe’s elite caste are incapable of unity, incapable of strategic thought, incapable of honesty. Merz shoots from the hip. Von der Leyen improvises legal fantasies. Orbán holds a veto the size of a continental fault line. Trump instinctively knows he needs an offramp via peace talks and is happy to download project Ukraine’s corpse along with the humiliation onto Western Europe. Zelensky arrives in Brussels begging for cash while European governments fight over whether the money should be spent on their own weapons factories. This is not a union. This is a collective suicide pact.

And through all this chaos, Politico clings to the illusion that Russia must somehow be “laughing.” But Russia isn’t laughing. Russia is watching. Watching as Europe destroys its own energy security, its own industrial base, its own strategic autonomy, its own diplomatic credibility, its own financial reputation, and finally — with this proposed asset raid — the very legal foundations of the Western economic system. If Moscow appears calm, it is because it doesn’t need to act. Europe is demolishing itself at a pace Russia could never have engineered.

Belgium’s “no” was not an act of betrayal. It was the last flicker of European rationality. The EU’s hysteria and psychosis, not Russia, created the crisis. Europe is trying to violate international law, sabotage its own financial institutions, and torch what remains of the bygone postwar order to salvage the illusion of a war it has already lost. Belgium simply refused to join the ritual suicide.

So let us rewrite Politico’s headline as history will record it: “How the EU Became Russia’s Greatest Strategic Gift.” Not because Russia manipulated Europe, but because Europe manipulated itself, into hysteria, into decay, into legal nihilism, into economic ruin. Belgium didn’t hand Russia an asset. It denied the EU the final act of self-destruction… for now.

The tragic irony of the entire Politico piece is that its authors still cling to the fantasy that Europe can recover simply by shaming Belgium into compliance. But history will not be kind to this moment. When future scholars study the collapse of the Western financial empire, this attempted seizure of Russian assets and Belgium’s lonely refusal, will stand as the point where the veil fell, revealing a Europe that could no longer distinguish faux moral posturing from strategic insanity.

Belgium didn’t break with Europe, it broke with Europe’s delusions. The EU convinced itself that tearing down the last pillars of the post-war order was an act of courage. Belgium saw it for what it was, a death rite dressed as morality. And when this era ends, when capitals move eastward, when trust evaporates, when the euro cracks under the weight of its own blind arrogance, historians will look back on this moment. They will not ask why Belgium said no. They will ask why Europe said yes.

December 5, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

US puts normalizing relations with Russia among ‘core interests’

RT | December 5, 2025

The US has placed the restoration of normal ties with Russia and a rapid end to the Ukraine conflict at the center of its newly released National Security Strategy, presenting both aims as among America’s core interests.

The 33-page report outlining President Donald Trump’s foreign-policy vision was released by the White House on Friday.

”It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine,” the paper states, “in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”

It notes that the Ukraine conflict has left “European relations with Russia… deeply attenuated,” destabilizing the region.

The report criticizes European leaders for “unrealistic expectations” regarding the outcome of the conflict, arguing that “a large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy.”

America, it says, is ready for “significant diplomatic engagement” to “help Europe correct its current trajectory,” reestablish stability, and “mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.”

In contrast with the US national strategy during Trump’s first term, which emphasized competition with Russia and China, the new strategy shifts the focus to the Western Hemisphere and to protecting the homeland, the borders, and regional interests. It calls for resources to be redirected from distant theaters to challenges closer to home and urges NATO and European states to shoulder primary responsibility for their own defense.

The document also calls for an end to NATO expansion – a demand that Russia has repeatedly made, calling it a root cause of the Ukraine conflict, which Moscow views as a Western proxy war.

Overall, the new strategy signals a shift away from global interventionism toward a more transactional foreign policy, arguing that the US should act abroad only when its interests are directly at stake.

The strategy is the first of several major defense and foreign-policy documents the Trump administration is expected to release. These include an updated National Defense Strategy, the Missile Defense Review, and Nuclear Posture Review, which are expected to echo the strategy’s direction.

December 5, 2025 Posted by | Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

EU covering up Ukraine corruption – member state

RT | December 4, 2025

The EU is ignoring rampant corruption in Ukraine because drawing attention to it could expose the bloc’s own corruption, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told journalists on Monday.

According to Szijjarto, Ukraine’s latest major corruption scandal involving a close associate of Vladimir Zelensky, Timur Mindich, was not mentioned once at the latest EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting last month.

Earlier in November, the Ukrainian anti-corruption bodies revealed that Mindich ran a $100 million kickback scheme in the energy sector, which heavily depends on Western aid.

Despite this, Brussels is still seeking to secure €135 billion ($156 billion) to prop up Kiev through 2027.

“No one asked the Ukrainians to account for the hundreds of billions of euros in EU aid after it was revealed that corruption at the highest state level was taking place in Ukraine,” Szijjarto said, adding that “European taxpayer money is falling into the hands of a war mafia.”

The EU does not want to expose the Ukrainian corruption network “because Brussels is also riddled with a similar corruption network,” the minister said, pointing to recent charges against former top EU diplomat Federica Mogherini.

Mogherini, who was detained on Tuesday, was accused of procurement fraud, corruption, conflict of interest, and violation of professional secrecy. She served as both European Commission vice president and foreign policy chief from 2014 to 2019.

Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also said EU officials could be benefiting from corruption in Ukraine. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain the bloc’s determination to continue funding Kiev despite the repeated graft and embezzling scandals, he added.

December 4, 2025 Posted by | Corruption | , | Leave a comment

Zelensky’s ex-spokeswoman admits fearing for her life because of Yermak

RT | December 3, 2025

Vladimir Zelensky’s former spokeswoman-turned-critic, Yuliya Mendel, has said she fears for her life because of Andrey Yermak, the Ukrainian leader’s powerful long-time aide and right-hand man who was recently forced to resign amid a major corruption scandal.

Yermak, who served as head of the Office of the President from 2020, stepped down last week over alleged links to a recently uncovered $100 million money-laundering scheme. He formally left his post after Western-backed anti-corruption agencies raided his residence as part of a sweeping probe known as Operation Midas. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Mendel suggested that Yermak may still retain influence due to his network of loyal officials. He will “do absolutely everything” to keep shaping policy behind the scenes, or to return to power, she told Ukrainian media on Tuesday.

Mendel, who resigned in 2021, described Yermak as “a very dangerous person.” She stated that even criticizing the former chief of staff frightens her and that she prays daily and thanks God “for being alive.”

She claimed that Yermak used smear campaigns, political attacks and his influence over law enforcement to target people who oppose him, branding critics “pro-Russian” or “traitors.” “Сriminal cases are created out of thin air” against those he views as threats, she alleged.

According to Mendel, many officials have faced pressure, dismissal or reputational damage as a result of Yermak’s actions and described numerous cases in which “human destinies were destroyed” by Yermak.

She also claimed Yermak had built his own power structure inside the government, placing loyal figures in key state positions while he himself became a central filter for decisions, maintaining control over appointments, negotiations, and access to Zelensky.

Ukrainian media have reported that after being sacked, Yermak lashed out at Zelensky and accused him of betrayal.

Moscow has argued that the latest corruption scandal points to a deeper crisis in Kiev. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested it will have “extremely negative” repercussions for Ukraine’s political stability, while President Vladimir Putin has said the case proves that Kiev has devolved into a “criminal gang that holds power for personal enrichment.”

December 4, 2025 Posted by | Corruption | | Leave a comment

No security guarantees for Ukraine – Finnish PM

RT | December 3, 2025

Finland will not offer Ukraine NATO-style security guarantees, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has declared.

Kiev has been seeking formal security assurances from Western backers and insists they should come before any peace agreement with Moscow. Some media reports claimed that last month’s US peace roadmap included a NATO-style guarantee for Kiev modeled on Article 5, committing guarantor states to defend Ukraine in case of a potential attack, and listed Finland as one of the potential guarantors.

Asked about this at a joint press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Tuesday, Orpo said he had neither seen the plan nor been consulted on it.

“I don’t know why Finland was mentioned in the paper,” he told the media. “We have to understand that a security guarantee is something very, very serious. We’re not ready to give security guarantees, but we can help with security arrangements. The difference between them is huge.”

Orpo stressed that helping Kiev with security differs fundamentally from mutual defense obligations referenced in the leaked US plan. He suggested major powers such as the US or larger European states should commit to guarantees, while Finland’s role would be limited to logistical and organizational support.

Sweden, while not mentioned as a potential guarantor in the leaked draft, believes European support should focus on helping Ukraine maintain a capable military as Kiev’s “most important security guarantee”, according to Kristersson.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that security guarantees remain unresolved after the latest talks between Kiev and Washington in Florida. Moscow has said it does not oppose security guarantees for Ukraine in principle but insists they must not be one-sided or aimed at containing Russia, and should follow a peace deal rather than precede one. Russia confirmed receiving the “main parameters” of the US roadmap last week but has not commented on details or whether guarantees are included.

Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, visited Moscow on Tuesday for further talks on the peace plan. According to President Vladimir Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov, the discussions were constructive and Moscow agreed with some American proposals, but deemed others unacceptable, and “no compromises have been found as of yet.”

December 3, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Europe is driving the continent toward war: Putin

Al Mayadeen | December 2, 2025

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused European leaders of steering the continent toward confrontation, saying Moscow has repeatedly tried to avoid escalation while European governments continue to inflame the situation.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, Putin said that Russia is not the party seeking a clash. “We don’t intend to go to war with Europe, I’ve said this a hundred times, but if Europe suddenly wants to fight us and does, we are ready right now. There can be no doubt about that,” he said, placing responsibility for rising tensions squarely on the West.

Russia reports encirclement of Ukrainian forces as European states expand military involvement

Putin said Russian troops have locked a sizeable Ukrainian contingent in a difficult position near Kupyansk, describing the frontline situation as the result of relentless Western pressure on Kiev to continue a war it cannot win. “Let me remind you that, on the left bank of the river [in the town of Kupyansk], an enemy group numbering 15 battalions is trapped. And Russian troops have begun eliminating it,” he noted.

He said ongoing battles in Kupyansk-Uzlovoy are moving in Russia’s favor and predicted that the settlement will soon be fully brought under Moscow’s control. According to Putin, Russian units control both banks of the broader Kupyansk area and hold hundreds of buildings in the settlement.

These battlefield developments come as European governments accelerate weapons deliveries and publicly reject discussions of compromise. Russian officials argue that the political leadership in the EU, rather than Kiev, is pushing this phase of the war, ignoring humanitarian costs and attempting to prolong hostilities for geopolitical purposes.

Black Sea tensions rise as Moscow calls Ukrainian strikes ‘piracy’

Putin sharply criticized recent Ukrainian attacks on tankers  in the Black Sea, attacks that Russian officials say are carried out with Western backing. The president said these operations took place in another country’s exclusive economic zone, calling the strikes a criminal act. “I know that this happened. Attacks on tankers in neutral or even non-neutral waters. But in a special economic zone of another state, a third state, this is piracy. Nothing else,” he said.

He also signaled that Russia would respond not just to Ukraine, but potentially to vessels belonging to countries that enable Kiev’s maritime operations. “The most radical way is to cut off Ukraine from the sea. Then it will be genuinely impossible for it to engage in piracy,” he said, suggesting that Russia may take stronger measures to secure the region if European powers continue encouraging naval escalation.

Moscow to widen its target set as Ukraine intensifies attacks on ports

Putin said Russian forces will now strike a broader list of port infrastructure and shipping linked to Ukrainian operations. “We will expand the range of our strikes against port facilities and ships that enter Ukrainian ports,” he said, arguing that Kiev, supported by European governments, has repeatedly attempted attacks on Russian seaports and supply routes.

Russian officials say many of Ukraine’s naval strikes are coordinated with European advisers and intelligence services, and that Europe’s growing involvement has directly contributed to instability in the Black Sea.

Putin hopes that Russia’s response to piracy by the Ukrainian forces in the Black Sea will force Kiev to consider whether it is worth continuing such actions.

European leaders accused of sabotaging peace efforts while the US seeks dialogue

The president also pointed to Europe’s obstruction of diplomatic efforts, saying EU governments walked away from negotiations long before Moscow or Washington did. “They [the Europeans] are offended that they were allegedly excluded from the negotiations. But I want to point out that no one excluded them. They excluded themselves… They withdrew themselves from this process,” he said.

Putin argued that European governments cling to the idea of a “strategic defeat” for Russia, even as the facts on the ground shift. He said their behavior now threatens US attempts to revive dialogue under President Donald Trump. “Even when they try to make some changes to Trump’s proposals, these changes are aimed at only one thing: to block the entire peace process,” he warned.

According to Putin, Europe’s goal is to present Moscow as the obstacle to peace despite Europe being the one rejecting realistic terms. “Their goal is to then blame Russia for the curtailing of this peace process. We see this clearly,” he said.

Putin concluded that Europe could return to negotiations only when it abandons ideological hostility and starts recognizing the actual balance of forces on the battlefield.

December 3, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

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