German government ‘embezzling’ taxpayer money to fund Ukraine – veteran politician
RT | February 12, 2026
The German government is wasting taxpayers’ money by continuing to fund Ukraine, veteran politician Sahra Wagenknecht has said.
European nations have largely compensated for the sharp reduction of American support to Kiev under the administration of US President Donald Trump, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW). EU military and financial aid to Ukraine grew by 67% and 59% respectively in 2025, it said in a report this week.
Germany, which has already provided almost €44 billion ($52 billion) to the government of Vladimir Zelensky since the escalation between Moscow and Kiev in 2022, has taken on a larger part of the burden, and according to current budget plans aid from Berlin will be increased to around €11.5 billion ($13.7 billion) this year.
In an interview with Berliner Zeitung on Wednesday, Wagenknecht accused Chancellor Friedrich Merz of “making the German taxpayer the number one financier of war.”
Instead of substantively working on a peace plan and “demanding compromises” from Zelensky, the German government is “issuing a blank check after a blank check to Ukraine,” she said.
According to the politician, who served in the Bundestag for more than 15 years and founded the Bundnis Sahra Wagenknecht party, the extra billions sent to Kiev are not making peace closer but are merely prolonging the conflict.
Financing Zelensky’s government has become an “embezzlement of German taxpayer money” that only increases the suffering of the Ukrainian population, Wagenknecht stressed.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier this week that a settlement of the Ukraine conflict had been “entirely feasible” after the summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, in Anchorage last August, but Kiev and its European backers have since acted to sabotage the efforts to end the fighting.
Lavrov previously called the Europeans “the main obstacles to peace,” saying they have been “blinded” by their fruitless desire of “inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia.”
Russia has decried Western arms deliveries to Kiev, arguing that they will not prevent Moscow from achieving its goals in the conflict and will only increase the risk of a direct clash between Russia and NATO.
Russian Soldiers Tortured in Secret Ukrainian Prisons
Sputnik – 12.02.2026
MOSCOW – Russian soldiers are tortured in secret prisons of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, being kept in cages, beaten, and denied food and water, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large on the Ukrainian regime’s crimes Rodion Miroshnik told Sputnik.
“The greatest amount of abuse and torture occurs in secret prisons – dungeons, basements, concrete boxes, often in cages. And it’s there, when no one knows about them, when they are not included in prisoner-of-war lists, when international organizations know nothing about them, that the worst abuse begins,” Miroshnik said.
He said the Ukrainian Armed Forces are trying to extract military information from them in these torture chambers.
“This is a conveyor belt that involves beatings at the entrance, a marathon of torture for these people – electric chairs, psychological pressure, coercion, denial of food and water. Meanwhile, representatives of the security services arrive to try to break people. Representatives of the SBU [Security Service of Ukraine] and GUR [Main Directorate of Intelligence] come, including for staged videos where people are beaten and subjected to severe psychological pressure,” the ambassador said.
Russia has been conducting its special military operation since February 24, 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the operation aims to “protect people subjected to genocide by the Kiev regime.” According to the president, the ultimate goal of the operation is to completely liberate Donbas and create conditions that guarantee Russia’s security: Ukraine must undergo demilitarization and denazification.
Tensions between Hungary and Ukraine could lead to a new regional conflict
By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 12, 2026
Tensions between Hungary and Ukraine have reached a new level of severity, dangerously approaching the possibility of open confrontation. What was once limited to diplomatic disagreements and rhetorical disputes now takes on broader strategic dimensions, with potential for regional destabilization. The recent statement by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, labeling Ukraine as an “enemy,” should not be seen as mere rhetoric but as an indication of a structural rupture in bilateral relations — and possibly a prelude to more serious developments.
The immediate trigger of the crisis lies in Kiev’s insistence, with support from sectors in Brussels, that Budapest end its energy cooperation with Russia. For Hungary, a country highly dependent on external energy supplies, agreements with Moscow are not an ideological choice but a strategic necessity. Any attempt to interfere in this area is perceived by the Hungarian government as a direct violation of its sovereignty and national security.
However, the energy issue is only the surface of a deeper problem. For years, Budapest has denounced discriminatory Ukrainian policies against the Hungarian minority in the Transcarpathian region. Occurrences of forced recruitment, linguistic pressure, and cultural marginalization have fueled growing resentment within Hungary. All of this has contributed to the intensification of bilateral tensions.
It is precisely at this point that the risk of armed conflict begins to gain relevance. Although a direct war between two European countries seems unlikely in the short term, history shows that conflicts often emerge from poorly managed crises involving ethnic minorities and border disputes. Hungary, a member of NATO and the European Union, could not act militarily without triggering serious continental repercussions. Nevertheless, even a mere hardening of its posture — such as reinforcing military presence at the border, conducting strategic exercises, or creating mechanisms to protect the Hungarian diaspora — would already significantly raise regional tensions.
For the Kiev regime, which faces a prolonged conflict with Russia, opening an additional front with a NATO neighbor would be strategically disastrous. However, the logic of total war and permanent mobilization tends to reduce the margin for political concessions. If the Ukrainian government interprets Hungarian criticism as internal sabotage of its war effort, it may respond with even harsher measures — deepening the cycle of hostility.
The European Union thus faces a delicate dilemma. If it chooses to pressure Budapest to align unconditionally with the pro-Ukraine agenda, it risks deepening internal divisions and fueling sovereigntist movements within the bloc. On the other hand, if it recognizes the legitimacy of Hungary’s concerns, it may be accused of weakening political support for Kiev. In either case, European cohesion suffers.
The potential developments go beyond the immediate military dimension. A diplomatic escalation will result in Hungary more and more systematically vetoing European initiatives favorable to Ukraine, blocking financial packages, and paralyzing strategic decisions at the EU level. In a more extreme scenario, internal sanctions against Budapest or even mechanisms to suspend rights within the EU could arise — measures that would further aggravate the political environment.
On the military front, even if direct confrontation remains unlikely, border incidents, refugee crises, or disputes involving consular protection of dual citizens cannot be ruled out. In prolonged conflict contexts, small incidents can quickly escalate out of control.
The central fact is that formal rhetoric of enmity changes the nature of bilateral relations. When one state frames another as a direct threat, institutions begin preparing for scenarios of containment and potential confrontation. Europe, already marked by a large-scale conflict in the East, may be approaching a new focal point of instability.
Hungary has every right to use all necessary means to protect itself from Ukrainian provocations — including military means if diplomatic efforts fail. The only remaining question is whether, in such a scenario, NATO and the EU would side with one of their member states or continue to ignore Ukrainian crimes, as they have done in the current conflict with Russia.
Ukrainian agents illegally bugged investigator probing Zelensky ally – officials
RT | February 11, 2026
Ukrainian security service agents illegally bugged the home of a senior investigator with the Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), officials announced on Tuesday.
The targeted detective leads a team probing defense-sector graft and was involved in NABU’s investigation of businessman Timur Mindich, a longtime ally of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky who was charged with running a $100 million extortion scheme at a state-owned nuclear energy company.
NABU Director Semyon Krivonos commented on the case at a joint briefing with the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), saying the bug was installed during repairs at the female detective’s home without a court warrant. SAPO head Aleksandr Klimenko said the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had dedicated “significant resources to probing the detective’s supposedly undeclared property” in violation of its mandate and the law.
The SBU, Ukraine’s KGB successor, reports directly to the president. NABU and SAPO were created under Western pressure after the 2014 Maidan coup as largely independent bodies meant to keep senior-level corruption in check.
Last year, Zelensky tried to place them under the prosecutor general, a presidential appointee, but reversed the move after Western donors threatened to cut all aid in retaliation.
Mindich, a longtime Zelensky associate, fled to Israel hours before NABU filed charges against him and alleged accomplices. The scandal embroiled two then-serving ministers, resulting in a government reshuffle. Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, was also forced to resign amid suspicion of involvement.
Anchorage was the Receipt: Europe is Paying the Price… and Knows it
By Gerry Nolan | Ron Paul Institute | February 10, 2026
Sergey Lavrov didn’t hedge. He didn’t soften. He lit the match and let it burn.
“In Anchorage, we accepted the United States’ proposal.”
And now, he says, Washington is no longer prepared to implement what it itself put on the table — not on Ukraine, not on expanded cooperation, not even on the implied promise that a different phase of US–Russia relations was possible.
That line matters because it shatters the performance. The offer was real enough for headlines — but not real enough to survive contact with the sanctions machine.
And then he let the contradiction sit there in plain sight — because while Washington was talking about cooperation, its navy and enforcement arms were busy doing something else entirely: tracking, boarding, and seizing oil tankers across oceans.
This is no metaphor — it is literal. In the months following Anchorage, US forces pursued and boarded vessels — most recently the Aquila II, across thousands of miles of open water, part of a widening campaign of maritime interdictions tied to sanctions enforcement. Tankers were chased, boarded, seized, or forced to turn back. At least seven were taken outright. Others fled. This is what “expanded cooperation” looked like in practice.
Lavrov didn’t need to raise his voice. The steel already had.
There is zero confusion. It was by design. The apparatus that actually enforces US foreign policy — sanctions, enforcement, energy leverage, financial choke points, and now routine interdiction at sea — does not pivot once engaged.
Even under the illusion of an “America First” presidency, what started as policy under Biden, (sanctions enforcement) now hardens. It builds constituencies, legal inertia, and moral alibis that make reversal look like surrender. Washington can change its language. But the machine keeps moving.
And Europe does more than follow, it leads the public Russophobic hysteria show. Every time.
Europe’s Energy Boomerang
The sanctions regime was never a clean moral stand. It was a war-speed demolition and rebuild of Europe’s energy system, carried out with ideological fervor and no concern for predictable consequences.
Eurostat calls household electricity prices “stable,” which is a neat way of avoiding the obvious: they remain well above pre-2022 levels. The shock didn’t pass. It set. Brussels celebrates “diversification,” but its own numbers quietly confess the damage: Russian gas cut from roughly 45 percent of EU supply in 2021 to about 13 percent by 2025; oil from 27 percent to under 3 percent; coal erased entirely.
That’s anything but adjustment. It’s amputation.
Germany — the supposed industrial spine of Europe — now treats energy prices like a security threat. Manufacturing closed out 2025 in deeper contraction, output slipping again as demand thinned. Berlin’s response has been nakedly revealing: subsidize the very costs its own policy detonated. Industrial electricity price supports were set to begin in early January (2026). Even projected grid-fee reductions are sold not as success, but as relief — relief from some of the highest power costs on the continent, dependent on state life support.
Europe mistook moral theater for strategy — and now pays the energy bill for the applause. This is the sanctions boomerang: punishment abroad, triage at home. While Russia ascends as an economic powerhouse, all on the backs of Eurocrat arrogance.
Dependency was not Ended — It was Merely Reassigned
Lavrov’s broader charge goes beyond Ukraine. He’s describing a system: the grand delusion of global economic dominance enforced through tariffs, sanctions, prohibitions, and control of energy and financial arteries — now enforced not just with spreadsheets, but with illegal maritime interdictions.
Europe’s experience since 2022 makes that system impossible to ignore. What’s sold as diversification increasingly looks like a dependency transfer. Stable, long-term pipeline supply gave way to exposure to a volatile global LNG bidding war — structurally more expensive, strategically weaker, and permanently uncertain. Long-term contracts are now pursued not from strength, but compulsion. A Greek joint venture seeking a 20-year LNG deal for up to 15 bcm per year isn’t sovereignty. It’s necessity, courtesy of Washington’s protection racket, started under the Biden admin but continued by Trump 2.0. But Europe had a choice, it could have chosen survival and sovereignty.
Europe didn’t escape leverage, which was more manageable with cheap and reliable Russian energy. It changed landlords.
And once sanctions start being enforced kinetically — once ships are chased, boarded, seized — the fiction that this is just “economic pressure” collapses. It becomes what it always was: control of supply.
When the Bible of Atlanticism Blinks
Here’s the tell — the kind that only surfaces when denial has finally failed.
Foreign Policy, the house journal of trans-Atlantic orthodoxy — the catechism, the Bible, the place where acceptable thought is laundered into seriousness — recently ran a headline that would have been unprintable not long ago: “Europe Is Getting Ready to Pivot to Putin.”
That matters precisely because of where it appeared.
Foreign Policy does not freelance heresy from the imperial court. It records shifts after they’ve already occurred by the trans-Atlanticist high priests. When it acknowledges a turn in this case, it’s conceding. The article wasn’t sympathetic to Moscow and wasn’t meant to be. It was brutally pragmatic: Europe is discovering that being sidelined by Washington in negotiations that determine Europe’s own future has consequences.
France and Italy — not spoilers, not outliers — are signaling the need for direct engagement with Moscow. Channels once frozen are reopening, carefully, almost grudgingly. Advisers are traveling. Messages are moving. This isn’t ideology evolving. It’s cold arithmetic reasserting itself.
Publicly, the tone remains Russophobic — absolutist, moralized, often shrill. Privately, the conclusion has already landed. European leaders now understand something they can’t scrub away: Russia did not collapse, did not fold, and did not exit history. Quite the opposite in fact.
They don’t have to like that fact. It no longer asks permission.
Russia Hardens — And Reads the Board
Russia’s response to Western pressure was not panic. It was recalibration. Economic diversification. Alternative settlement rails. Deeper Eurasian integration. An energy sector that rerouted flows instead of begging for mercy — even as its ships were hunted across oceans under the banner of “rules.”
Moscow also understands the American calendar. It knows Washington wants a fast off-ramp before the midterms — a way to reduce exposure without saying the quiet part out loud. It also knows the sanctions machine can’t reverse quickly without political bloodshed inside the US system itself.
That asymmetry is decisive.
Russia sees that Trump, whatever his instincts, holds fewer cards than advertised. He cannot simply switch off enforcement — maritime or financial — without confronting the architecture Washington spent years entrenching. Moscow therefore has no incentive to hurry, no reason to concede early, and every reason to sit tight, keep establishing cold battlefield reality on the ground and let the US political calendar amp up the pressure.
This isn’t stubbornness. It’s leverage, earned the hard way.
What a European Pivot Really Means
A real European pivot toward Russia would not be reconciliation or repentance. It would be an acceptance of geopolitical and civilizational reality at a moment when denial has become suicidal. Europe cannot build a durable security order in permanent opposition to Russia without crippling itself economically, industrially, and politically. The post-2022 experiment proved the limit: Europe hollowed out its own productive base much faster than it superficially constrained Russia’s strategic depth.
Energy interdependence, even when restructured, remains central to Europe’s survival as an industrial civilization. That reality cannot be legislated away or drowned in slogans. Pipelines, grids, shipping lanes, and supply chains answer to geography and physics, not values statements. A pivot means admitting that stability comes from managed interdependence, not performative severance — and that Russia, whether welcomed or resented, remains structurally vital in Europe’s continental system.
Most of all, it forces Europe to confront the truth it spent years skirting: the Atlantic order it tied itself to is in late-stage imperial implosion. Policy volatility, sanctions excess, enforcement maximalism, and election-cycle geopolitics aren’t glitches. They’re symptoms. Europe can no longer assume that alignment with Washington guarantees coherence, protection, or prosperity. Adaptation is no longer optional. Europe must re-enter history as a civilizational actor with agency — not as a dependency clinging to an order that can no longer carry its weight.
The Realignment is No Longer Merely Theoretical
The verdict from Anchorage wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was a reveal.
Washington made an offer it could not politically afford to honor, then defaulted back to sanctions, interdictions, and enforcement — the only language its system still speaks fluently. Europe crippled by the cost. Russia absorbed the pressure. Somewhere in between, the old Atlantic script quietly stopped working.
What’s changed now isn’t Europe’s rhetoric, but its private recognition. Even the most Russophobic Eurocrats understand what cannot be unsaid: Russia is not returning to the Western order, and Europe cannot afford endless confrontation.
Europe is not pivoting toward Russia out of goodwill. Russia is not waiting for Europe out of nostalgia. And Washington is no longer the indispensable broker it pretends to be.
The realignment is already happening — not because anyone chose it, but because the old order ran out of force before it ran out of slogans.
Gerry Nolan is a political analyst, writer, and strategist focused on geopolitics, security affairs, and the structural dynamics of global power. He is the founder and editor of The Islander, an independent media platform examining war, diplomacy, economic statecraft, and the accelerating shift toward a multipolar world.
Japan to Sign Up For NATO’s Ukraine Arms Pipeline
Sputnik – February 10, 2026
Japan has allegedly pledged significant financial support for Ukraine, and committed to providing specialized equipment, with reports indicating long-term assistance.
Doubling down on its US-pushed militarization drive, Japan is moving closer to NATO by signing on to the alliance’s Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU) program, which facilitates the flow of military equipment to Ukraine, according to NHK.
Sources cited by the outlet claim Japan will soon officially announce its participation in the initiative, announced during the NATO Summit in July 2024 and headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany.
The equipment that Japan is expected to procure for Ukraine reportedly includes body armor, vehicles, and, potentially, radar systems.
The NSATU mechanism coordinates the donation of military equipment from Allied and partner nations to Ukraine’s armed forces, aligning their capabilities with NATO standards.
Russia has repeatedly argued that Western weapons shipments to Ukraine undermine any prospects for a negotiated settlement and amount to NATO’s direct involvement in the conflict. Russia has also warned that convoys delivering arms to Ukraine would be treated as legitimate military targets.
Orbán calls Ukraine an ‘enemy’ of Hungary
By Lucas Leiroz | February 9, 2026
Tensions between Hungary and Ukraine continue to escalate. The constant pressure against Hungarian-Russian energy cooperation and the policies of ethnic cleansing through military recruitment in Ukraine have caused fury in Hungary. Furthermore, the pragmatic and pro-peace stance of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is absolutely antagonistic to the neo-Nazi and warmongering ideology of the Ukrainian regime, making both countries irreconcilable rivals.
In a recent statement, Orbán said that Ukraine is Hungary’s “enemy.” The Hungarian leader’s words were extremely strong and signaled a radical shift in Hungary’s stance, moving from moderate opposition to Ukraine to open enmity – a logical and inevitable consequence of Ukraine’s constant provocations against the Hungarian people.
The trigger for the diplomatic crisis that prompted Orbán’s statement was Ukraine’s insistence on demanding that Hungary end its energy cooperation with Russia. The Kiev regime continues to provoke Hungary through its European partners, encouraging them to pressure Budapest to stop buying Russian oil and gas. For Orbán, these provocations are a red line, which is why Ukraine has ceased to be seen as a simple adversary in the international arena and has become a true enemy of Hungary.
Orbán sees the joint pressure from Ukraine and Europe as a direct threat to Hungarian sovereignty and energy security. Cooperation with Russia is seen by the prime minister as vital for national stability, and any attempt to boycott these ties is an attack on the country’s sovereignty.
Furthermore, Orbán emphasizes how serious it is that Ukraine, not being an EU member, is using Brussels bureaucrats to pressure Hungary, which is a member. This situation reflects the EU’s failure to defend the interests of its members and clearly exposes that Brussels is more interested in protecting Ukrainian interests than European ones.
“The Ukrainians must stop their constant demands in Brussels to disconnect Hungary from cheap Russian energy (…) As long as Ukraine demands that Hungary be cut off from cheap Russian energy, Ukraine is not simply our opponent, Ukraine is our enemy,” he said.
In response to this crisis, the Hungarian leader emphasized that his country will reiterate its opposition to Ukraine’s entry into the EU. Orbán considers it unacceptable for Europe to create any military or economic ties with the Kiev regime. Even though the European Commission continues to approve measures to support Ukraine, creating new military and economic assistance packages, Orbán makes it clear that Hungary will not yield to any kind of blackmail and will oppose any pro-Ukraine project.
Although the energy issue is the trigger for the current crisis, tensions between the two countries have been intensifying for a long time. One of the reasons, in addition to energy, is the Ukrainian persecution of ethnic Hungarians in the Transcarpathian region. The regime has been ethnically targeting its forced recruitment policies aimed at eliminating the Hungarian-speaking population of the region.
Several reports have emerged indicating that Ukrainian recruiters are kidnapping Hungarian citizens and sending them to the front lines without proper military training, resulting in mass deaths. The situation has become increasingly critical, drawing the attention of Hungarian authorities and human rights organizations. Obviously, the Orbán government is concerned about the safety of its citizens on Ukrainian soil, which is certainly one of the factors contributing to the Hungarian leader’s decision to consider Ukraine an “enemy country”.
All of this is extremely serious because it shows that tensions in Europe are rapidly escalating. With Hungary’s decision to treat Ukraine as an enemy, it is possible that in the near future there will be harsher measures on the part of Hungary in the political and diplomatic field to retaliate against Ukrainian provocations. When a country is officially considered an enemy, institutional actions are enabled to neutralize it and prevent the proliferation of threats. Hungary, in this sense, may be close to announcing tough measures against Kiev in the near future.
It remains to be seen how the EU will position itself in this scenario. The bloc will have to choose between respecting the sovereign and legitimate decision of one of its official members or attending to the interests of Ukraine – which is not a member, only a candidate country, among many others. The narrative of unconditional support for Ukraine as a “necessity” to prevent a “Russian invasion” and “defend European values” is no longer supported in local public opinion, making it pointless for the Commission to insist on this discourse.
If Brussels continues to position itself against Hungary, it will become clear to all European public opinion that Ukraine is more valuable to the EU than any member of the bloc.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.
Zelensky tried to kill the chance for Russia-Ukraine peace, again
The attempted assassination of a high-ranking Russian general is an attempt to sabotage talks and extend the Kiev regime’s stay in power
By Nadezhda Romanenko | RT | February 8, 2026
The assassination attempt on Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev, first deputy chief of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) is clearly the Zelensky regime’s latest desperate bid to sabotage the emerging Russia-Ukraine-US negotiations channel in Abu Dhabi and prolong the war.
When negotiations gain traction, spoilers surface. That’s Negotiations 101. And this week’s second round in Abu Dhabi was precisely the kind of movement that unnerves actors who fear ballots, reforms, and accountability more than inevitable defeat on the battlefield.
The target choice reinforces the point. Alekseyev is the second-in-command of GRU chief Igor Kostyukov – who sits on the Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi. Striking the No. 2 as the No. 1 shuttles between sessions is both a very deliberate message and an attempt to rattle Russia’s delegation, inject chaos into its decision loop, force security overdrive, and ultimately, provoke Moscow’s withdrawal from the talks.
Nor is this the first time kinetic theater has tracked with diplomatic motion. Recall the attempted drone strike on President Vladimir Putin’s Valdai residence in late 2025, which coincided with particularly intense US-Russia exchanges. You don’t have to be a cynic to see a pattern: whenever the diplomatic door cracks open, someone tries to slam it shut with explosives, drones, or bullets – then retreats behind a smokescreen of denials and proxies. Call it plausible deniability as policy.
Why would Kiev’s leadership gamble like this? Start with raw political incentives. Vladimir Zelensky extended his tenure beyond the intended March 2024 election under martial law. If hostilities wind down and emergency powers lift, the ballot box looms. His standing has eroded amid war fatigue, unmet expectations, and a massive corruption scandal swirling around the presidential administration that has infuriated many Ukrainians and dealt his image a blow. End the war without a narrative of total victory, and he risks owning a messy peace, grueling reconstruction, and a reckoning at the polls. Facing voters at a stadium famously worked well during Zelensky’s initial presidential campaign, but now endlessly moving the goalposts is his only hope of clinging to power.
Then there’s the strategic logic of spoilers. Negotiations compress time, clarify tradeoffs, and create deadlines – none of which benefit maximalists. If an agreement would force Kiev to accept hard limits or expose fissures with its more hawkish backers, creating a pretext to stall makes sense from a narrow survival lens. A brazen hit inside Moscow during talks does exactly that: it dares the Kremlin to harden its stance, fractures trust at the table, and lets Kiev posture as unbowed while keeping the war‑time rally frame at home. Even if direct authorship can be obfuscated (at least on paper – because nobody will buy claims Kiev had nothing to do with it at this point), the practical effect is what counts.
Predictably, defenders will object: Kiev has every incentive to keep US support flowing, so why risk alienating Washington with an operation that screams escalation? But ‘incentives’ aren’t monolithic. They’re filtered through domestic politics, factional competition within security services, and the temptations of a successful spectacle. And remember: spoilers don’t have to be centrally ordered to be useful. A wink, a nod, and a green light to ‘make pressure’ can travel a long way in wartime bureaucracies.
The most important thing for Russia and the US at this stage is to firewall the talks from such bloody theatrics. For the negotiation process to provide real results, it must be built to survive shocks – because the shocks will keep coming. That means insulating prisoner‑exchange and humanitarian working groups from headline provocations, revalidating military deconfliction channels, and demanding verifiable behavior changes rather than trading barbs about attribution in the press.
The larger point is simpler: if we let every well‑timed bullet dictate the pace of diplomacy, we are outsourcing strategy to those who most fear peace. The Alekseyev attack fits a familiar script – choose a symbolically loaded target, hijack the narrative, and hope negotiators flinch. The right response is the opposite: call the bluff, keep the calendar, and raise the cost of sabotage by refusing to let it reset the table.
Zelensky’s regime may calculate that its political survival depends on endlessly throwing up hurdles for peace and call it ‘resistance’. If so, the fastest way to test that proposition is to keep pressing at the negotiating table. Talks are not a favor to one side; they are a filter that separates leaders who can face an endgame from those who can only survive in the fog of “not yet.”
General Harald Kujat: NATO’s Attempt to Defeat Russia Destroys Ukraine
Glenn Diesen | February 6, 2026
General Harald Kujat is a former head of the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) and the former Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee. Having held the top military position in both Germany and NATO, General Kujat offers his expertise on how the West and Russia ended up fighting a proxy war in Ukraine. General Kujat warns that NATO’s obsession with defeating Russia will result in the destruction of Ukraine.
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NATO’s ‘Agent Rutte’ in blatant sabotage of Ukraine peace negotiations
Strategic Culture Foundation | February 7, 2026
NATO chief Mark Rutte declared in a high-profile address to the Ukrainian parliament this week that alliance troops would be deployed in Ukraine immediately on signing any peace deal with Russia.
He asserted that the NATO forces would be British and French, deployed “on the land, in the air, and at sea.” He added that the coalition would have the “crucial backstop” of a U.S. security guarantee if “Russia tried to subjugate Ukraine again.”
It seems more than a coincidence that three days after Rutte spoke in the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (parliament), there was an assassination attempt in Moscow on a top Russian general. Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev, the deputy commander of Russian military intelligence (GRU), was shot several times in the back by a gunman.
This was while delicate negotiations were being conducted in Abu Dhabi to find a peace settlement to the nearly four-year war in Ukraine. Russian delegates met with American and Ukrainian counterparts for a second round of talks this week.
Rutte’s speech in Kiev and the assassination attack in Moscow appear to be calculated moves to sabotage the negotiation efforts that the Trump administration has been pushing.
First, the NATO chief knows full well that Russia is adamant that any settlement in Ukraine will not involve the presence of NATO troops, whether they are called “peace monitors” or “coalition of the willing.” Moscow has repeatedly expressed in the clearest terms that such a contingency is out of the question and non-negotiable.
So, Rutte’s forcing the issue of deployment can only mean that the real aim is to make any agreement with Russia impossible. This is while the mealy-mouthed former Dutch prime minister was also saying that he backed efforts by Trump to end this “terrible conflict”.
“Some European Allies have announced that they will deploy troops to Ukraine after a deal is reached. Troops on the ground, jets in the air, ships on the Black Sea. The United States will be the backstop; others have vowed to support in other ways… The security guarantees are solid, and this is crucial – because we know that getting to an agreement to end this terrible war will require difficult choices,” said Rutte with double-think.
Moreover, in his latest pronouncements, Rutte dispensed with the deceptive terms of NATO forces supposedly acting as “peacekeepers”. His gung-ho rhetoric of troops “on the land, jets in the air, and ships at sea” sounded more like a stealthy plan for NATO military intervention to escalate the confrontation from a proxy one to a full-on war.
Significantly, too, Rutte declared that NATO was gearing up to increase military supplies to Ukraine. He said that an additional $15 billion was earmarked by the European members to buy weapons sourced from the U.S. He concluded his speech with the World War Two fascist slogan “Slava Ukraini!” (Glory to Ukraine!). It was a rallying call for the Kiev regime and its NeoNazi adherents to keep fighting.
As with the assassination plot on the GRU deputy commander, the objective seems to be to frustrate any negotiations to end the war. The head of the Russian security delegation in Abu Dhabi is reportedly GRU Director, Admiral Igor Kostyukov. That his deputy was shot several times in his Moscow home as talks were taking place outside the country would appear to be a calculated provocation.
The irony is that the European NATO members constantly accuse Russia of not wanting to make peace. They make the preposterous claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin is intent on conquering the rest of Europe when Ukraine is defeated. The fact is, Moscow has consistently called for a diplomatic process to resolve the root causes of the conflict (NATO’s historic expansion) and to formulate a new collective security treaty for Europe based on indivisible security for all. Russia also wants to keep the territories that are historically Russian.
It is the transatlantic axis of U.S. and European NATO hardliners who don’t want a diplomatic settlement. They want the proxy war against Russia to persist indefinitely. It was they who instigated the hostilities with the CIA-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, and, before that, with numerous color revolutions after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
It is not clear what Trump’s agenda is. Is he an inconsequential maverick, or is the deep state pulling his chain? He talks about making peace with Russia, yet his administration is sanctioning Russia’s vital oil exports, seizing cargo ships in international waters, coercing India and other nations to halt trade with Russia, and threatening its allies like Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba. Is his Ukraine diplomacy a guise for continuing aggression in another form? Or is it muddled thinking? Moscow appears to be giving Trump the benefit of the doubt and is engaging in talks to explore a peaceful settlement in Ukraine.
That said, however, a red line for Moscow is the proposals to deploy NATO troops in Ukraine. That’s not ending root causes. It is fertilizing them.
The transatlantic imperialist nexus (the U.S. and European ruling class, the CIA and its intelligence counterparts, and the military-industrial complex) is driven by hegemonic goals. Russia, China, and the non-Western multipolar world must be contained or rolled back, as during the Cold War.
The proxy war in Ukraine demonstrated that Russia could not be strategically defeated, as the Western hegemons desired. Their next best option is to keep Ukraine militarized and to keep Russia on guard to drain its resources. It still amounts to a war agenda.
Mark Rutte’s performance this week is that of a minion for the war agenda. His every word and deed speak of deliberately inciting aggression while he duplicitously talks about supporting peace. Eight decades ago, the Nuremberg Trials defined such aggression as the “supreme crime”.
Even some mainstream European politicians have taken note of Rutte’s sinister psychology. Charles Michel, the former European Council President, said in a media interview last week: “I want to be clear, Mark Rutte is disappointing and I’m losing confidence… I’m not expecting [him] to be an American agent.”
Agent Rutte should be in a modern-day dock. He and his masters want to push the world into catastrophe.
NATO member blasts bloc chief’s ‘pro-war’ remarks in Kiev
RT | February 6, 2026
Hungarian officials have accused NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte of overstepping his authority and making “pro-war” statements that put the bloc on course for a military clash with Russia.
Rutte visited Kiev this week in a show of support, saying member states would maintain military aid to Ukraine, possibly including troop deployments on Ukrainian soil. Moscow has repeatedly called such a scenario unacceptable.
“We call on the NATO secretary-general not to make pro-war statements,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Thursday, adding that NATO leaders have long agreed not to provoke direct conflict with Russia. Rutte’s comments contradict that policy, he asserted.
Rutte suggested troops deployments could be approved by Moscow as part of a US-backed peace deal. Budapest fears pro-Kiev nations – including France, Germany, and the UK – would push to send troops despite Russian objections. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban reiterated his concerns Friday, calling the potential move a threat to his country.
“If the Western plan is implemented, then the war will come closer to Hungary, we will be much more directly affected by this,” he said. “Then not only the economic effect, but also the physical destructive effect could reach Hungary.”
Orban’s government has opposed Brussels’ Ukraine policy, arguing that bankrolling Kiev and imposing sanctions on Russia have damaged the EU’s economy while pursuing an unwinnable cause.
That stance and Budapest’s resistance to the Ukrainian bid to join the EU has strained relations with Kiev. Ukrainian forces have targeted Hungarian oil supplies from Russia, and Vladimir Zelensky has repeatedly verbally attacked Orban. At last month’s World Economic Forum, Zelensky said the Hungarian leader should be “smacked” for purportedly “liv[ing] off European money while trying to sell out European interest.”
Budapest says Zelensky is interfering in Hungarian politics ahead of April’s parliamentary election, and that Kiev is hoping for a more compliant government to take power.
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Allies Don’t Need Lobbies
By Jay Knott | Dissident Voice | September 24, 2013
In a recent article on Counterpunch, Rob Urie defended the traditional Marxist analysis of US policy in the Middle East. He argues that support for Israel is driven primarily by economic interest, not the Jewish lobby.
He starts by paying tribute to the idea that Western societies are uniquely racist. He says that the “Western narrative” claims there is an “Arab character”, and that this is “antique racist blather”. He gives no definition of these terms. Further, he establishes his credentials as part of the dominant current in the American left by claiming that “over a million people in Iraq died so ‘we’ in the West can drive SUVs.”1
When he tries to criticize bourgeois economics, he makes it clear he doesn’t understand the developments it has made since Marx’s day, using the mathematical discipline known as “game theory”. He dismisses the basic abstraction of economic theory, the idea of the rational individual, on the grounds that it is “devoid of history, culture and political context”. But abstractions are always devoid of something.
He defends a more concrete economic theory, mostly Marxist, with some input from another theorist of capitalist crisis, Hyman Minsky. This concrete theory leads him to the view that US activity in the Middle East is primarily driven by rational capitalist motives, the need to secure a supply of oil.
“Taking the totality of circumstance — former oil company executives launching war on an oil rich nation on a pretext they publicly proclaimed they didn’t believe shortly before taking office — and that upon launching their war proved to be non-existent, requires a willingness to overlook the obvious — that the war on Iraq was for oil, that is difficult to support.”1
Perhaps I’ve misunderstood him, but based on what he says in the rest of the article, this convoluted sentence seems to argue that, because president Bush and vice-president Cheney attacked Iraq on false premises, and they also said it was all about oil, and they are former oil executives, and Iraq has a lot of oil, it’s difficult to deny US attacks on Iraq are all about oil.
In fact, it’s not hard at all. As Urie points out, at times Bush and co. said that attacking Iraq was “protecting the world’s supply of oil.”1 But, as he also points out, they are congenital liars. Why should we believe them when they say they are trying to “protect” the oil supply? Protect it against what? When politicians “admit” attacks on Middle Eastern countries are wars for oil, they are parroting the neo-con party line, feeding the public, both left and right, with a plausible-sounding pretext. For right-wingers, “it’s a war for oil” is a reason to support war, and for leftists, it’s a way to feel better by complaining impotently about corporate greed. Both approaches help the war drive. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Canada, the U.S., and NATO: the inescapable trap
- Villains of Judea: Leonid Radvinsky
- Alon Mizrahi: ‘Israel Must Be Dismantled’
- Former Head Of MI6 Admits That The U.S. And Israel Are Losing The Iran War
- Scattered Thoughts on War and Peace
- Iran Threatens to Close Red Sea to Shipping in Response to Invasion
- Iran in excellent position to prevail in war with US, Israel: John Mearsheimer
- Iran warns US: Do not call your retreat an agreement
- Neighbors first – Moscow signals shift in energy strategy
- Almost 400 Ukrainian drones downed over Russia in single night – MOD
- If Americans Knew
- In the West Bank, life is a constant battle – 3 articles
- Jacob Reses, one of the most powerful pro-Israel operatives in Trump’s Washington
- Israeli-US assaults kill or injure 87 children a day – Not a ceasefire Day 166
- ‘Forever live by the sword’: Understanding Israelis’ massive support for Iran war
- UN’s special rapporteur on human rights says Israel is systematically torturing Palestinians
- Trump White House plagiarized Iran war manifesto from Israel-aligned think tank
- Gaza says 6–10 patients die daily waiting for treatment abroad as Israel blocks medical evacuations
- ‘Substantial evidence’ of double-tap strike in killing of Gaza’s Hind Rajab
- ‘Do Not Want To Die For Israel’: Doubts About Trump’s Iran Strategy Spread Among Troops
- Instead of taking Joe Kent’s claims seriously, the media is disregarding him as an antisemite
- No Tricks Zone
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
- Energy Expert: Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Was A “500 Billion Euro Mistake”
- New Research: South Australia’s Mid-Holocene Sea Surface Temperatures Were 4°C Warmer Than Today
- Storing Green Energy To Last Germany 10 Days Would Require A 60-Million Tonne Battery
- New Studies: UK Sea Levels Were 4 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Destructive Green New Deal: German Energy And Metal Group Warns Of Drastic Crisis
- New Study Documents A 20-Year Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Decline – Driven By Internal Variability
- Wake-up Call: Survey Shows Majority Of Germans Now Favor Postponing Climate Targets!
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