Iran has strongly rejected accusations by the US secretary of state that Tehran seeks to assassinate American officials, slamming Washington for attempting to portray itself as a victim while concealing own record of war crimes against the Iranian people.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei sharply rebuked allegations by Marco Rubio that Iran is allegedly plotting to assassinate American officials, denouncing the claims as another example of Washington’s efforts to distort reality and deflect attention from its own actions.
The Iranian official said the unfounded allegations reflected a mentality that projects its own conduct onto others.
“Everyone imagines others according to their own creed,” Baghaei wrote in a post on his X account on Wednesday, stressing, “Playing the victim cannot whitewash the savage war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity that you have committed against the Iranian nation.”
Baghaei responded to remarks that Rubio made during a congressional hearing, where the top US diplomat claimed that Iran was seeking to target American officials.
This came as a US-Israeli military coalition, during an unprovoked war of aggression against Iran that began on February 28, assassinated the Leader of the Islamic Revolution along with several senior officials and military commanders, while also killing thousands of people across the country.
Andi Olluri argues that the Gaza “peace process” serves as a propaganda framework that legitimizes Israeli occupation and Western policy objectives while presenting Palestinian surrender and disarmament as prerequisites for peace. Media and political elites, he contends, have systematically reframed ongoing violence, occupation, and collective punishment as diplomacy, while marginalizing Palestinian proposals for political settlement.
In Gaza, “Israel” has effectively been working toward the goal they have had since day one, namely “not fighting a terrorist organization but against the State of Gaza”, “not provide the other side with any capability that prolongs its life” and thus effectively fight against “not only Hamas fighters with weapons”, but “the entire Gaza population”, quoting Giora Eiland, former Israeli head of the National Security Council.
This has been the consistent goal ever since, stated over and over again by the top Israeli leadership. “We are deep inside Gaza and will never leave all of Gaza – that will not happen,” in the words of War Minister Israel Katz. In short, “full conquest of the Gaza Strip, to establish Israeli control over all the territory of the Strip”, as the government explained in April.
The stage for illegal “full conquest of the Gaza strip” was set last fall, when the international community approved of the US Board of Peace (BoP) – Orwell would have loved that one. This brilliant propaganda coup was achieved after we killed at least 200,000 Palestinians, according to Western intelligence estimates, and physically eradicated the country in a war with the specific purpose of ethnic cleansing, and with sadism that would have put Pol Pot to shame.
The background happens to be quite revealing, and is of course completely forgotten now – minimal reporting as there was to begin with. Western designs and plans to control Gaza were basically declared to be tantamount to lawless aggression. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the West is “under obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” and “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal” occupation and attack. The ICJ also ordered to immediately halt “financial, economic, military or technological aid to the State of Israel, and punish such violations” and that Western terror states must pay “full reparation” to the Palestinians.
Naturally, then, the West immediately sent tens of billions in military aid to “Israel” – and engaged directly in military operations and occupation administration, as Western intellectuals marched further with self-adulation of our service for international law and democracy. The story was, incidentally, similar to when the International Criminal Court (ICC) declared an arrest warrant for Western-supported Israeli terrorists and war criminals. In that case, the US, Britain, and the EU simply destroyed the court (once a darling, when it went after Russia) with crushing sanctions, outright threats, and carefully orchestrated smear campaigns.
Western leaders were refreshingly honest, and noted that their official stance here is that the court “is for Africa and thugs like Putin,” according to Senator Lindsey Graham. That is entirely correct: we must pretend to care about international law when condemning official enemies, and make sure to keep quiet when we conduct global gangsterism.
This entire episode was plainly too embarrassing to be remembered, and had to be censored into total historical oblivion – an easy task for the Western doctrinal system. On full display is the utter servility and cowardice of the media and intellectual classes, as they joined their state in its rampage against international law, and defenseless people withstanding Western aggression.
Well, after all of these triumphs, the BoP could be created. Its founding documents – as confirmed by the subsequent events, too – made clear that Gaza has no right to self-defense, and that Israeli-American occupation could continue and in fact expand. Thus, the very purpose of the BoP was to enable maintaining the situation created by “Israel’s” illegal attack, in defiance of the world court – and to the deafening praise and awe of the media.
Thus, Dennis Ross, senior US Middle East diplomat and apologist for Western atrocities, celebrated that the BoP “is reason for hope,” and that the “constellation of force” consisting of “a powerful United States” with its Israeli and Arab satellites “are also cause for optimism.” Not everything is so glitzy, however, and there is a problem: “Hamas … could try to violate the cease-fire’s various terms”. If “commitment from Hamas” can be ensured, then we will be able to enforce the “peace plan”, to quote the European Council on Foreign Relations, the leading European policy forum.
Slaughtering hundreds of thousands in an illegal war of extermination, starving the population, destroying the courts that came in our way is no issue of concern and merits not one phrase in the journals of opinion or the public debate. Only “hope” and admiration of our “force” is permissible after a successful genocide.
The fact that we can even talk of a “peace plan” organized by the attackers ethnically cleansing the victim is a logical impossibility in itself. It is comparable only to, say, the Nazi press being filled with “optimism” as the Führer implements his “peace plan” after he successfully conquered Norway. The plain absurdity of it all is too spectacular even to talk about, but cannot be perceived in a society as deeply indoctrinated as ours. Stating the simple truth is simply incomprehensible, comparable to speaking a foreign language or imagining a “round square”.
We read, without anyone raising even an eyebrow, that this is the “best chance .. in decades to create a Gaza controlled not by Hamas or Israel, but by its people” (a total lie, of course). “For the first time in a long while, there are some bright lights in Gaza”, and therefore “any sensible person should wish success for the Board of Peace”, as liberal Washington Post’s David Ignatiusput it. If this can be achieved through crushing the indigenous resistance, Hamas, then “that would be a historic feat indeed” – to use the words of Cambridge’s Chair of International Law professor Marc Weller, illustrating his contempt for court orders and international law.
The “best chance” for a free Gaza, then, is not to stop the attack, occupation and then colonization, followed by reparations for this crime of this century. Or perhaps to follow the orders of the world court, which would in fact mandate all of these things. Rather, it is to carry out this “war of extermination: the indiscriminate, unrestrained, cruel, and criminal killing of civilians” as the top Israeli political echelon itself describes it, and then impose a capitulation ultimatum on the population that has not yet been killed and starved to death. Only then can we celebrate the “bright lights in Gaza”.
We witness with clarity the utter irrelevance and disregard for concepts such as illegal aggression, mass slaughter, and international law among Western intellectuals. This is required for anybody wishing to be regarded as a respected intellectual, be granted a nice law professorship at an elite university or gain access to the media; otherwise you cannot be part of the “debate”.
Well, fast forward to today. The dear Leader declared that “peace” had been achieved and that we ought to look away, and naturally loyal media dutifully followed order. Careful studies showed that Western media coverage of Gaza then immediately dropped, while daily Israeli massacres in Gaza (around 1,000 murdered and more than 2,500 wounded as of writing) continue since November 2025, virtually without a whisper of criticism.
The only issue of concern is whether Hamas will “agree” to disarm or not. Translating that from Newspeak to English: will our victim agree to give up all resistance to our invasion and occupation plans, thus alone sticking to our fraudulent version of the accords, as we violate their terms every day? That is the meaning of the entire “debate” about Hamas’ disarmament when you put the euphemisms aside.
In short: the whole purpose of the fraudulent “ceasefire” designed to lower Hamas’ guard is thus to force the Palestinians to be “implementers of the decisions of others,” leaving them “once again not at all the masters of their own fate” (UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths), and thus “prevent a Palestinian state,” according to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
In a terrorist culture such as this, in which a leading doctrine is that no one has the right to defend themselves from Western attack, it is natural that we are furious and concerned at the slightest sign that the Palestinians should try to defend themselves instead of capitulating. On this issue, near 100% consensus reigns throughout the entire political spectrum.
For example, former Middle East correspondent for AP, Dan Perry, berated that “Hamas is making a mockery of … Trump’s plan” – not the US and “Israel”, of course. The Palestinians, then, “are still trapped under the boot of a jihadist mafia that destroyed their lives” – again, not the Western genocide and war of extermination – and therefore “Israel will never agree to a Palestinian state as long as Hamas remains an armed militia with any prospect of again seizing control.”
Since everybody has already internalized the understanding that no one has the right to self-defense against Western attack, it is pointless to ask why Hamas and the Palestinians must accept the existence of a Western-armed proxy state occupying it and launching constant wars of aggression against the civilian population, deemed illegal by the world court. Or, why Palestinians must accept the attacker’s murderous “plan” that they have no right to dictate. Or, why “Israel” and the West, the aggressors, should not be held to the same standard as the occupied and attacked, and be forced to disarm as they launch multiple wars of aggression in the region. These suggestions are not denied; rather they cannot be thought in the minds of Western elites – a considerable achievement in the history of brainwashing.
Consider Dennis Ross and David Makovsky – leading foreign policy “experts” and senior Obama Middle East advisors. “The success” of the “peace plan” will “depend on the disarmament of Hamas,” they said, warning that “if Hamas chooses not to disarm and Gaza does not reunify, the future looks bleak.” Similarly, New York Times’ columnist Thomas Friedman was worried: “Do I think it [disarming Hamas] would be easy? Of course not. Do I think the Palestinians have an aged, corrupt leadership that needs replacing, energizing and reforming — and have plenty to answer for themselves for their own plight? I sure do.” Therefore, “disarmament” must be forced – perhaps without Netanyahu – so that the West may “consolidate any strategic gains.”
Similarly, Elliot Abrams and his colleagues were worried that the Palestinian Resistance “has largely refused to give up its weapons … As a result, the IDF cannot pull out of Gaza.” Furthermore, “there is no easy way to keep Hamas down” since “Hamas, after all, is as unyielding and belligerent as terrorist groups come.”
Putting aside the factual falsifications, let’s consider this logic, which everyone regards as correct. By their own standard, then, Palestine – and a host of others being attacked by the West, such as Iran, Yemen, Lebanon – would have to invade “Israel”, kill (in proportion) 1 million Israelis, physically annihilate most of “Israel”, occupy it and demand that the population capitulates, as well as drop bombs on its financiers in Washington, Brussels, London and so on. “Israel, after all, is as unyielding and belligerent as terrorist” states “come”, and it has “largely refused to give up its weapons” and stop its aggression in accordance with the ICJ orders, so as a result, Hamas cannot pull out of Tel Aviv.
But none of this can be discussed – surely not in any publication that can reach a general audience – since the level of fanaticism, distortion and genocidal frenzy is much too high among Western political and cultural circles.
In other words, only tactical debate over how we best crush our victim and ensure that they will not be able to fight back is permitted to be printed. It is far beyond conceivable that there would be any tactical debate anywhere over how the Palestinians – the party being attacked and ethnically cleansed – could best defeat “Israel” and its Western masters, and that we should send them military aid to do so.
Consider, for example, the leading Middle East “specialist” Julie Norman. She explained that it “was always likely to be difficult to move from the initial ceasefire to the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan.” Reason? Primarily because “Hamas rejected a disarmament plan” by “the US-led ‘Board of Peace’.” Therefore, “there is no peace process on the horizon, nor is there a political pathway available to Hamas if the group lays down its arms.”
In short, “Gaza will also need to deradicalize” and have their weapons removed – only then can “sustainable peace” and the “peace process” be fulfilled (The Atlantic ).
The “peace process” is a funny word used in political discourse. It simply means whatever the West happens to be saying. If “Israel”, Washington, the EU have physically destroyed a country, killed a tenth of the population (almost all civilians), blocked the ICJ orders to stop the illegal occupation, vetoed all diplomatic resolutions at the UN Security Council (UNSC), and then demanded that those left alive in Gaza unconditionally surrender – then that is the “peace process” per definition.
Also, notice that everyone takes for granted as a matter of fact that Hamas has not been willing to accept a political resolution through diplomacy. That fairy tale – which is a total inversion of reality and nurtured in the media – is a remarkable propaganda coup when we look at the actual facts. Unfortunately, the actual historical record is almost uncorrectable thanks to the dishonesty of the Western media and intellectual classes, which have done an impressive job at distorting the plain facts, as they must.
In the real world, the US and “Israel”, with their enthusiastic European sponsors, have rejected all proposals from Hamas, the UNSC, the Arab League, and so on, all of them in fact absurdly accommodating to “Israel” and sometimes going beyond the maximalist and rejectionist claims made even by the Israelis. For the sake of brevity, I will restrict myself to the history spanning one year prior to today, but this has been constant throughout the entire war of extermination in Gaza.
During the spring of 2025, Hamas agreed to the massive reconstruction plan offered by the Arab League, which stipulated that Hamas leave power and be replaced by a technocratic “committee” – which was immediately rejected by the US and “Israel” since it obstructed “ethnic cleansing” of Gazan Palestinians “under any pretext or justification.”
Hamas offered a separate proposal to “end the war in Gaza” with a five-year truce, as well as to “free all hostages at once.”
In September, Hamas repeated its “readiness for a comprehensive deal” releasing “all” captives and ceding all power over Gaza “immediately”, thus “ending war”, in exchange for an end to the Israeli occupation.
In December, Hamas offered “a guarantee that no weapon will be fired from Gaza against Israel, and it will do that by burying the weapons”, and a total truce “for seven to ten years between Gaza and Israel, and Hamas will not use the weapons.”
This month, May, the Palestinian factions, including Hamas, “called for negotiations over the disarmament of Hamas and other groups to be tied to the granting of political rights for the Palestinian people ‘within the national framework,’ as well as to commitments that the people of Gaza would no longer be killed.”
All of these proposals were flatly rejected by the West and “Israel” (thus automatically banning it from history and mainstream reporting too), offering in return only maximalistic demands that we know the Palestinians cannot accept. That is, disarmament and defenselessness before they are given any guarantees in return. They must trust in Washington and Tel Aviv to engage in good behavior and abide by treaties and agreements. Western propagandists cannot comprehend why the Palestinians do not happily agree to this sign of our generosity and humanism, having swallowed their own lofty and embarrassing rhetoric about “peace offers.” But victims have no difficulty in seeing right through the reality which it tries to mask, having witnessed previous “cease-fires” broken by Israel in Gaza, “diplomacy” in Iran, Lebanon and so on.
In fact, Hamas’ compliant stance in diplomatic negotiations is not only infinitely more forthcoming than “Israel’s”, but perhaps unique in modern history. Faced with a lawless aggressor and the world’s superpower waging a war with the intent of – and in practice carrying out – physical eradication of its country, Hamas is willing to guarantee its security, agree to have no means of self-defense against future attack and so on. They do not even demand that “Israel” give back the lands it illegally occupies, nor that it pays reparations, which is the minimum required action as determined by the ICJ court ruling. Most shockingly, Hamas does not even demand that the US and “Israel”, the aggressors that constantly disregard agreements and treaties and attack multiple countries in the region, disarm themselves. That would be the bare minimum any sane person observing the situation would require.
The situation is clear: Hamas’ readiness to accommodate in diplomatic negotiations is – as far as I know – unique in modern political history, agreeing to concessions more far-reaching than, say, the Versailles Treaty. And they cannot demand, and so they do not demand, even the minimal rights they would have in any honest negotiation with the US and “Israel”, since the Western states would never tolerate even the thought of it.
But these trivially obvious truths, and the vast documentation to illustrate them, cannot be mentioned in a cultural climate as ours, where the commitment to terror and lawlessness flourishes and where the population must remain carefully protected from the dangerous realm of fact.
In short, “Israel has effectively been given a licence to torture Palestinians” and continue their war of extermination, “because most of your governments, your ministers, have allowed it”, as UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese put it (the US sanctioned her).
It is through such propaganda techniques and distortions discussed here, that the media and intellectuals have presented the government’s necessary propaganda version of the “peace process.” They have thereby “allowed” for our governments to divert attention away from the basic reality of what is happening, as they exterminate Gaza under the thin facade of “diplomacy.”
Russia’s FSB has uncovered a foreign spy operation using malware implanted on the smartphones of high-ranking Russian officials. The goal? To extract data, eavesdrop on conversations, and covertly monitor the situation.
But here’s what the headlines won’t tell you.
How the US is weaponizing the global digital backbone — a threat to the entire world
Think of Fastly and Cloudflare. These aren’t basement startups. They are the largest CDN (content delivery network) providers and “security perimeter” operators on the planet. They serve half of the Fortune 500, EU and Asian government websites — including, for example, the official site of the British government, major EU institutions, and critical financial infrastructure spanning the world’s democratic nations.
In plain terms: they are the infrastructural spine of the internet. When you access a government service, a bank, or a news outlet in most of the Western world, your data almost certainly passes through their networks.
This brings up an uncomfortable question: if these companies permit US intelligence agencies to embed spyware code within their services, can anyone still trust American cloud technology?
Because this is not a hypothetical. The FSB’s revelation about malware on Russian officials’ smartphones is just one thread. The larger fabric is this: the US has spent years building legal frameworks — from the Patriot Act to the Cloud Act — that compel American tech companies to cooperate with intelligence agencies, often in secret. FISA warrants, National Security Letters, and classified directives turn cloud infrastructure into a surveillance platform.
Fastly and Cloudflare are not rogue actors. They are deeply integrated into the US national security apparatus. And if the backbone is compromised, every node connected to it becomes a potential target — whether in Moscow, Berlin, or New Delhi.
Is this merely one hack? Hardly. This is systemic betrayal — plain and simple.
The same digital spine that guards the West also feeds allies, neutral nations, and every global power. Break that trust — and the internet shatters. So, get ready for national clouds. Localized walls. Sovereign webs. Welcome to the fragmentation that the open internet promised would never happen.
So when Washington lectures the world about “rules-based order” in cyberspace, the rest of the world is now asking: whose rules? And who is watching the watchers?
Here’s the real takeaway: American tech’s reputation just took a devastating hit. The same internet giants that run global communications stand accused of spying — not on enemies, but on their own allies.
And when the internet’s backbone is no longer solid or trustworthy, the entire digital world turns into a battleground.
The murder of 21 Russian students at a college dormitory on May 22 has yet to be fully understood in terms of the exact involvement of NATO states.
The university building in Starobelsk, Lugansk, was attacked in the early hours of the morning with 16 drones in three consecutive waves of assault. The targeting of the dormitory was deliberate. There were no Russian military installations in the vicinity.
NATO’s involvement in this act of terrorism is on multiple levels. Ukraine’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles has ramped up in recent months, in line with the massive financial support provided by the European Union in the form of a €90 billion loan, most of which is dedicated to boosting Ukraine’s drone arsenal, with European manufacturing companies working in partnership.
At another level, the Western corporate news media have largely ignored the Starobelsk atrocity and NATO’s involvement. The Western media have distorted the de facto war crime by highlighting implausible denials from the Ukrainian regime. In short, covering up.
At yet another level is the new and remarkable efficiency of Ukrainian-launched drones to evade Russian air defenses. Since the conflict in Ukraine escalated in 2022, NATO intelligence from satellite surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft has been supplying the Kiev regime with targeting data to attack Russian units.
But in recent months, NATO information flow and data analysis have taken a quantum leap regarding targeting range and lethality. Thus, the close partnership between Ukrainian and NATO drone manufacturing is amplified by the involvement of U.S.-based Palantir Technologies in operating systems.
Palantir was cofounded in 2003 by German-U.S. billionaire Peter Thiel. It has grown to become the “brains” behind operating weapon systems for the Pentagon, as well as the Israelis in their genocide in Gaza and Lebanon, and aggression towards Iran.
Palantir’s CEO Alex Karp visited Kiev on May 12, where he met with the regime leadership to firm up military partnerships for using Artificial Intelligence in attack drones. Karp was ecstatic about the global business opportunities accruing to Palantir by using the Ukraine war as a laboratory for developing technology.
He boasted that his company’s software was the “operating system” for Ukraine’s military deploying against Russia. Significantly, the Palantir boss remarked that the real-time learning and development of his company’s systems were giving Palantir a huge commercial advantage that could not be achieved in peacetime laboratories. In other words, the killing fields of Ukraine are plugging into Palantir’s profitability and global status as a company.
“It’s our software primitives or infrastructure and your people building things that are completely different from what we would have ever built on top of this,” Karp said in an interview with Ukrainian media.
“You’re doing it on the battlefield with a very small number of people and then showing the world how these things work.”
This strategic collaboration between the Kiev regime and Silicon Valley’s hottest company was also revealed in an exclusive report this week by CNN. The CNN report did not mention Palantir by name, but screenshots reposted clearly showed that the Ukrainian drone operators were using the company’s PRISMA software. As reported, the software allows the processing of vast amounts of aviation and radar data in seconds, which is then used to deploy drones that evade Russian air defense systems and hit deep inside Russia.
The success of Ukrainian-NATO drones to strike deep inside pre-war Russian territory has improved dramatically. The air strikes have reportedly damaged 24 out of a total of 33 of Russia’s top oil refineries. Last month alone, it was reported that six refineries were hit, as well as major fuel depots. The installations, such as at Saratov and Volgograd, are hundreds of kilometers inside Russia. The disruption in fuel supplies has necessitated the Kremlin’s imposition of rationing on public purchases.
Palantir’s data processing and AI are such that interception of Ukrainian drones by Russian air defenses is incorporated into the targeting programs, which permits subsequent drone waves to circumnavigate anti-aircraft systems. This feedback loop brings new challenges for defense systems.
The increase in EU and NATO drone funding and technology would account for the quantitative surge in attacks on Russian territory. The complicity of NATO states, primarily the Baltic states, in lending their territories as launch sites is also a factor. The NATO propaganda machine, too, plays a role in minimizing the civilian deaths and thereby blindsiding European and American public opposition to a dangerous provocation and escalation of war with Russia.
But the involvement of Palantir in increasing the kill machine is another crucial qualitative dimension in the escalation, whereby Ukrainian-NATO drones are evading Russian defenses and increasing their capability at hitting its deep interior and vital infrastructure.
The massacre at the Starobelsk college in Lugansk points to the systematic involvement of Palantir in executing such a deadly attack.
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov (2010-14) expressed his astonishment at how 16 drones were able to penetrate Russian air defenses and hit the college in three waves. Azarov toldTass, the Russian news agency: “I think [NATO countries] are involved. Because, first, the drones that were sent flew right past all Russian air-defense systems, which means that someone guided them through. And you can only guide them if you have space reconnaissance data – it was a whole wave of 16 drones, and they passed by air-defense systems. It means they were guided through, solely thanks to the intervention of Western intelligence agencies. I think that, strictly speaking, they [NATO states] were behind this provocation,” he said.
Azarov did not mention Palantir per se. But the complex navigation ability of the NATO drones to thread through layers of Russian defense is the very kind of qualitative edge that the American software company is giving to the Ukrainian operators.
The other grave implication is that the extensive mapping of Russian targets, from oil refinery installations to fuel depots, suggests that the information supplied by the NATO “brains” has a detailed picture of what is being targeted. There is no way that the air strikes on a college dormitory could be confused with military installations that are not even present in the area.
That means Palantir and its multi-billionaire bosses like Alex Karp and Peter Thiel have blood on their hands, no matter how much they scrub their hands at their company’s newly opened office in Kiev.
In a perverse sidenote, Thiel, who was a friend of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, has a personal interest in the topic of the Anti-Christ, traveling the globe delivering exclusive lectures to wealthy audiences about Armageddon and the end of times. It’s not clear what his exact views are on manifestations of the Anti-Christ. But the murder of teenage student girls sleeping in their beds should surely be relevant to his lectures.
The US is weighing whether to expand NATO’s nuclear-sharing framework by inviting more alliance members to host American dual-capable aircraft—warplanes configured to deliver nukes, reports the Financial Times.
At present, the arrangement includes Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkiye and the UK.
Under its terms, the US retains full custody of the nuclear warheads, which are stored at select European bases, while allied air forces train for nuclear deterrence missions using aircraft such as the F-35, F-15, and Tornado.
The discussions are reportedly driven in part by a need to reassure European allies of Washington’s enduring commitment to NATO’s nuclear deterrent—even as the US scales back some conventional troop deployments on the continent and pushes allies to shoulder more defense responsibility.
The talks remain at an early, highly confidential stage, with no imminent decisions anticipated.
Nevertheless, nations on NATO’s eastern flank—notably Poland and several of Russia’s neighbors—have already signaled interest in a possible expansion of the nuclear-sharing deal.
Russia has repeatedly cautioned that any deployment of nuclear-capable assets close to its borders would be seen as a destabilizing factor, and a direct threat to its national security.
In 2022, the U.S. provoked Moscow to invade Ukraine so Washington could attempt to destroy Russia’s economy with sanctions, orchestrate worldwide condemnation in an information war and lead a proxy ground operation to bleed Russia — all part of an attempt to bring down its government.
In case there’s any doubt that this is the goal, recall what President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government said right after Russia’s intervention.
On the day Russia invaded, Biden admitted that the sanctions weren’t meant to prevent an invasion. “No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening. … This is going to take time. And we have to show resolve so he [Putin] knows what’s coming and so the people of Russia know what he’s brought on them. That’s what this is all about.”
On March 1, [2022] Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said the sanctions on Russia “we are introducing, that large parts of the world are introducing, are to bring down the Putin regime.”
Biden said on March 26, 2022 at the Royal Castle in Warsaw: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
A month later Biden confirmed that the purpose of the draconian U.S. sanctions on Russia was never to prevent the invasion of Ukraine, which the U.S. needed to activate its plans, but to punish Russia, get its people to rise up against Putin and ultimately to restore a Yeltsin-like puppet to Moscow.
“Let’s get something straight,” Biden said. “I did not say that in fact the sanctions would deter him. Sanctions never deter. … The maintenance of sanctions, the increasing the pain … we will sustain what we’re doing not just next month, the following month, but for the remainder of this entire year. That’s what will stop him.” Of course it’s taken NATO more than a year but they haven’t given up.
The United States could have easily stopped Russia’s intervention in Ukraine’s civil war from happening by doing four things: forcing implementation of the 8-year old Minsk peace accords; dissolving extreme right Ukrainian militias; saying Ukraine would not join NATO and engaging Russia in serious negotiations over Moscow’s proposed December 2021 treaties about a new security architecture in Europe. Russia threatened a “technical/military” response if NATO and the U.S. did not take those two treaty proposals seriously.
So the U.S. knew Russia would invade if it rejected those proposals, which called for Ukraine not to join NATO, for missiles in Poland and Romania to be removed and NATO troops in Eastern Europe withdrawn. Instead, the U.S. refused to move the missiles and provocatively sent even more NATO forces to Eastern Europe, knowing full well it would lead to war. Washington was singularly uninterested in preventing Russia’s invasion.
Instead the U.S. essentially set a trap for Russia. Using the precedents of the Afghan trap set for the Soviets in 1979 and the Kuwait trap set for Saddam Hussein in 1990, the U.S. forced Russia’s hand by rejecting the treaty proposals while thousands of Ukrainian troops (Russia claimed as many as 122,00) amassed for an offensive against ethnic Russians in Donbass. Russia invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.
On March 16, 2022 — the same day it was revealed Russia and Ukraine had worked out a 15-point peace plan that later resulted in a tentative agreement to end the war — Biden announced another $800 million in military aid for Ukraine. As we now know, Emmanuel Macron tricked Putin into withdrawing his troops from outside Kiev to make that agreement work, only for Boris Johnson to intervene to stop the deal once the troops had been removed.
Having lost on the ground in Donbass over the subsequent four years, NATO has turned to an air war, hitting targets deep inside Russia with NATO-operated, long-range missiles and swarms of drones fired from Ukrainian territory. These attacks have damaged Russia’s oil exports and killed civilians. The most prominent provocation was last week in Donbass in which NATO and Ukraine slaughtered 21 Russian students in their sleep.
As our guest Scott Ritter pointed out, these attacks are designed to put internal political pressure on Putin. Either he acts more decisively, or risks his hold on power. Thus Russia has warned embassies in Kiev to evacuate their personnel as Moscow threatens to hit “decision-making centers” in the Ukrainian capital. There are also hardline demands on Putin to hit facilities in Germany and Britain that provided the munitions that murdered the students.
Until now Putin has studiously avoided direct war with NATO. But in the same way that NATO provoked Russia to invade in 2022, NATO now appears to be provoking Russia to strike a NATO country to start a direct war with the aim of strategically defeating Moscow.
Either way Europe thinks it may get what it wants. If Putin doesn’t act against Europe it could threaten his position at home. And if he does hit Europe it could be the casus belli Europe seeks for a direct NATO-Russia war. German and British generals tell their nations to be ready for conflict with Moscow by 2029.
Last week an errant drone — ostensibly Russian — hit a Romanian apartment building near the Ukrainian border. All hell broke loose with calls for an invocation of NATO’s Article 5. It could be a harbinger of what would come if Russia not only devastates Kiev, but conventionally attacks a NATO nation too.
Absent the provocative NATO attacks on Russia, Moscow has shown zero interet in threatening war on Europe.
The big questions are: How would Europe react if decision-making centers are wiped out in Kiev? How would the United States react if Russia hits a NATO country? Donald Trump is no fan of NATO, but would he succumb to pressure from Europe, Congress and his cabinet to directly attack Russia? Without the U.S., NATO could hardly act.
In provoking Moscow with increasingly effective strikes deep inside Russia, why are Britain and Germany — the NATO ringleaders — seemingly so confident that direct war with Russia would not turn nuclear?
More than 300 non-Iranian vessels, mostly oil tankers, have submitted their information to secure a safe passage permit from the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) since the entity began its operations in early May, the PGSA announced in a post on X on Tuesday.
The majority of these requests came from outbound ships, which accounted for 77 percent of the total applications. Inbound ships made up the remaining 23 percent.
The PGSA noted that the primary destinations for outbound vessels have been Asian countries, particularly China and India, while the main destination for inbound ships has been the United Arab Emirates.
Iran established the PGSA following the imposition of its sovereign regulatory framework for maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman.
According to the PGSA, the authority does not have the power to issue permits for ships from hostile countries.
The move comes as Washington has attempted to prevent Iran from exercising its sovereign rights in the strait.
On May 27, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the PGSA, accusing the body of funnelling revenue from a toll system to the IRGC.
The PGSA has dismissed the sanctions as an extension of Washington’s “failed” attempts to dominate the waterway, stating that it “considers being sanctioned by a country whose president boasts about piracy to be a sign of its positive performance”.
Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy has struck the giant cargo ship MSC Sariska, affiliated with the American‑Zionist enemy, with a cruise missile in a reciprocal operation after a US attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Sea of Oman.
The IRGC Navy’s public relations department announced on Tuesday that the strike was a direct response to the “aggressive and treacherous attack” by the US military on the Iranian bulk carrier Lian Star.
“In response to the aggressive attack by the terrorist and child‑killing US army on the Iranian vessel Lian Star in the Sea of Oman, the IRGC Navy conducted a reciprocal operation and struck the MSC Sariska with a cruise missile,” the statement said, as carried by Sepah News.
The MSC Sariska, a Panamanian‑flagged vessel, was targeted near Iraqi waters and sustained a major explosion.
The IRGC Navy warned that any further aggression by the US army in the region will be met with a decisive response.
On Friday, a US aircraft fired an AGM‑114 Hellfire missile at the engine room of the bulk carrier Lian Star, disabling the vessel.
The Lian Star is a commercial vessel that was operating in international waters when it was targeted.
Iran has accused the United States of an act of state‑sponsored maritime terrorism.
The exchange comes amid heightened tensions in the strategic waters of the Sea of Oman and the Persian Gulf.
The United States and Israel launched a war of aggression against Iran on February 28, assassinating the Leader of the Islamic Revolution and striking civilian and military infrastructure.
A Pakistan‑brokered ceasefire has been in place since early April, but Washington has continued to enforce a naval blockade of Iranian ports.
Iran has repeatedly stated that it will not tolerate any violation of its sovereignty and that any act of aggression will be met with a proportionate and forceful response.
The IRGC Navy has maintained full control over the Strait of Hormuz and has warned that any interference by foreign military forces will be met with immediate retaliation.
The pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC has adopted fundraising methods that obscure its role in directing campaign contributions to political candidates, as support for the Israeli regime declines among Democratic voters in the United States, according to a report.
AIPAC has traditionally highlighted its success in helping elect candidates committed to supporting the regime, including backing billions of dollars in annual US military aid.
Reporting on Sunday, however, Israeli paper Ha’aretz said growing criticism of the regime among Democratic voters has made public association with the lobbying group a potential political liability.
“But as the Israel-boosting organization’s brand becomes toxic in many Democratic primaries, [AIPAC] has adopted a new fundraising method that hides its involvement in steering funds to favored contenders,” it wrote.
According to the report, AIPAC has encouraged donors to contribute through online portals it controls that direct funds straight to candidates’ campaigns, thereby “erasing AIPAC’s fingerprints in public data.”
The tactic was reportedly used in Michigan, where Congresswoman Haley Stevens is running for an open Senate seat against Abdul el-Sayed. During the campaign, el-Sayed criticized Stevens for accepting AIPAC-linked funding, saying the money had “bought” her support for continued US military aid for Tel Aviv.
The Detroit News reported that AIPAC raised several million dollars for Stevens through a fundraising page hosted on its website. Ha’aretz also said the group previously emailed donors directing them to candidate-specific donation pages on the “Pro-Israel Network” website rather than to AIPAC itself.
The report added that these portals allow AIPAC to gather donor information and share it with candidates, while working on their behalf and “shielding” the process from public view. According to Ha’aretz, the strategy helps candidates avoid criticism for accepting AIPAC support at a time when only 13 percent of Democratic voters reportedly view the regime favorably.
In March, Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego said, “I wouldn’t take AIPAC money because you have to basically be endorsing what’s happening right now, and it’s not good.”
Ha’aretz also reported that AIPAC has increasingly operated through political action committees whose names do not reference either the organization or the regime.
The issue has also surfaced among Republicans. Earlier this month, AIPAC spent $16 million in efforts to defeat Representative Thomas Massie, a prominent critic of Tel Aviv, in a Republican primary. Following his defeat, Massie said, “It’s turned into a referendum on whether Israel gets to buy seats in Congress.”
Iran has halted negotiations with the US over the ongoing Israeli offensive in Lebanon, moving to block maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, Tasnim news agency has reported, citing sources.
Israel has intensified its bombing campaign in Lebanon in recent days, against what it describes as sites used by the Hezbollah militant group. The Israeli military has pushed deeper into the country’s south, seizing Beaufort Castle, a 900-year-old Crusader fortress and a key vantage point in the region.
While Iran made an end to the war in Lebanon a condition for its Pakistani-mediated negotiations with the US, the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah have continued despite a supposed ceasefire announced in mid-April.
In response to the escalation in Lebanon, Tehran is stopping the “negotiations and exchange of messages through a mediator,” according to Tasnim.
Iran has reportedly demanded an “immediate cessation of hostilities” in the country, as well as in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, making it a condition for continuing the contacts with the US.
Tehran and its regional allied groups have also expressed readiness to seal off the Strait of Hormuz, as well as to “activate other fronts,” including disrupting maritime traffic in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, according to the agency.
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says it has carried out a retaliatory strike against an air base used by the United States to launch a military attack on a telecommunications tower in southern Iran.
In a statement on Monday, the IRGC said its Aerospace Force struck and destroyed the air base from which the “aggressor US military” launched an attack on the telecom tower on Sirik Island in Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan.
“Following the aggression carried out hours ago by the aggressor US military against a communications tower on Sirik Island in Hormozgan Province, the fighters of the IRGC Aerospace Force targeted the air base from which the attack originated, and the predetermined targets were destroyed,” the statement added.
The IRGC Aerospace Force also issued a stern warning against further military action, emphasizing that any future attacks would prompt more severe responses.
“The IRGC Aerospace Force warns that if the aggression is repeated, the response will be completely different, and responsibility for its consequences will rest with the aggressor and child-killing US regime,” the statement said.
The developments came after the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said late Sunday that it conducted “self-defense strikes” over the weekend against Iranian radar and drone command-and-control facilities in the city of Goruk and on Qeshm Island.
“The measured and deliberate strikes occurred on Saturday and Sunday,” CENTCOM said in response to what it called “aggressive Iranian actions that included the shootdown of a US MQ-1 drone that was operating over international waters.”
The IRGC Public Relations Department announced in a statement on Sunday that the elite force’s air defense units detected and successfully shot down an intruding MQ-1 Predator drone belonging to the “aggressor US military”, shortly after it encroached upon Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf.
It added that the multi-mission and long-endurance remotely piloted aircraft was intercepted and destroyed as it entered the Iranian skies in the early hours of Sunday.
NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine is morphing into a direct EU-Russia war. And the war hawks in Brussels are further escalating by attacking civilians in the Donbas and Russia proper. The doves in the Kremlin are running out of options to keep their own hawks under wraps. As things stand now, an all-out EU-Russia war is not only a possible, but by now a likely scenario. But to what end?
… As devastating as it may be, at a certain moment in time, a horrible chapter was given an exceptionally meta-historical status. Its ‘factuality’ was sealed by draconian laws and its reasoning was secured by social and political settings. The Holocaust became the new Western religion. Unfortunately, it is the most sinister religion known to man. It is a license to kill, to flatten, no nuke, to wipe, to rape, to loot and to ethnically cleanse. … Read full article
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
Aletho News
Aletho News 