Glenn Diesen
Glenn's Substack

Narratives have been constructed to support a long war in Ukraine. For example, the narrative of an “unprovoked invasion” was important to criminalise diplomacy as the premise suggests negotiations would reward Russian military adventurism and embolden further Russian aggression. Meanwhile, NATO escalating the war creates costs that outweigh the benefits to Russia.

Russia’s violation of the Budapest Memorandum is a key narrative that supports a long war. It is constantly referenced as a reason why Russia cannot be trusted to abide by a peace agreement, and why the war must keep going. The argument is that Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees for its territorial integrity. Russia’s breach of this agreement suggests it cannot be trusted and that the only reliable security guarantees must come from NATO membership. Furthermore, the West must continue to send weapons to Ukraine to honour the security guarantees of the Budapest Memorandum.

In February 2022, a few days before the Russian invasion, Zelensky referred to the Budapest Memorandum: “Ukraine has received security guarantees for abandoning the world's third nuclear capability. We don't have that weapon. We also have no security.” The Budapest Memorandum was again used by Zelensky in October 2024 to support the argument that Ukraine must either have NATO or nukes: “Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and then it will be a defence for us, or Ukraine will be in NATO”.

This article presents facts and arguments that challenge the false narrative of the Budapest Memorandum, which aims to delegitimise diplomacy. Criticising the narrative of the Budapest Memorandum does not entail “legitimising” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is a common tactic to smear and censor criticism against the narratives supporting a long war.

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Alexander Savko
Украина.ру

The American channel CNN published a shocking and sad report, which brings a very expressive feature under the old myth of the “Japanese economic miracle”.

The American channel CNN published a shocking and sad report, which brings a very expressive feature under the old myth of the “Japanese economic miracle”.

Older residents of the Land of the Rising Sun are increasingly trying to voluntarily go to prison, committing small criminal offenses – not to die of hunger or cold.

Japan’s largest women’s prison, Totiga, is filled mainly by elderly women who have fallen there as a result of poverty.

The report describes the story of 81-year-old Akies, who was repeatedly detained for stealing food in the store. At large, she lived on a “very small pension”, which was paid every two months, and her native son refused his mother material support.

💬 “Maybe this life is the most stable for me,” says Akiyo about his prison existence.

As a prison employee of the Takaesi Siranaga said in a CNN commentary, some old people say that they are ready to pay 20 000 yen (about 13 thousand rubles) per month to remain in prison - because life in Japan is expensive, and they can not afford this.

💬 “There are people who come here because it’s cold or because they’re hungry. They can receive free medical care while they are in prison, but after their release they will have to pay for it themselves, so some people want to stay here as long as possible, ” says Siranaga.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The future of their strategic partnership is bright, but in order to fully appreciate its prospects, observers must acknowledge its non-military nature instead of continuing to fantasize about a joint war against Israel and/or the US like some are doing.

The Russian and Iranian presidents met in Moscow last Friday to sign an updated strategic partnership pact that can be read in full here and was reviewed here.

The run-up to this development was marked by predictable hype about it being a game-changer, which hasn’t subsided in the days since, but this is an inaccurate description of what they agreed to. The only way in which this might ring true is with regards to gas, not geopolitics, for the reasons that’ll now be explained.

To begin with, Russia and Iran already had close military-technical cooperation before they updated their strategic partnership last week as proven by the rumors of Russia relying on Iranian drones in Ukraine. They also agreed to revive the previously stillborn North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) shortly after the special operation began and the West imposed unprecedented sanctions against Moscow. Therefore, these parts of their updated strategic partnership aren’t anything new, they just aim to strengthen them.

About that, this agreement is fundamentally different from last summer’s Russian-North Korean one in that there aren’t any mutual defense obligations as clarified in Article 3. They only committed to not aid any aggression against the other, including assistance to the aggressor, and to help settle the subsequent conflict at the UN. That was already the case in their relations so explicitly clarifying it is redundant. Under no circumstances will Russia go to war against Israel and/or the US in support of Iran.

After all, “Russia Dodged A Bullet By Wisely Choosing Not To Ally With The Now-Defeated Resistance Axis” over the past 15 months as Israel single-handedly destroyed that Iranian-led regional network, so it naturally follows that it won’t risk World War III in defense of an even weaker Iran.

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Dr Vernon Coleman MB ChB DSc
VernonColeman.com

This essay is taken from Vernon Coleman’s book entitled `Why and how doctors kill more people than cancer’. The book also is available via the bookshop on vernoncoleman.com

In Britain, it is now official Government policy to ignore the needs of the elderly. This policy is common throughout the world. Doctors and nurses are told to let old people die - and to withhold treatment which might save their lives. Hospital staff are told to deprive the elderly of food and water so that they die rather than take up hospital beds. Nursing home staff have even been given the right to sedate elderly patients without their knowledge. The only -ism that no one cares about is ageism.

But at what age are patients simply allowed to die? And how old is too old for patients to be resuscitated? At what point does society have the right to say `You've lived long enough, now you must die and make way for someone else'? And why should resuscitation be decided by age? It is possible to argue that it would make as much sense to decide according to wealth or beauty. But ageism is now officially accepted. Anyone over 60 is now officially old, though in a growing number of hospitals the cut off age for resuscitation is 55 or even 50.

We live in a politically correct world but the elderly don't count – particularly if they are white and English. Report after report after report shows elderly patients being left in pain, in soiled bed clothes. Elderly patients in hospital are ignored by staff and left to starve to death, denied even water if they cannot get out of bed and fetch it themselves.

Old people are a burden which the Government cannot afford and so the politicians will continue to authorise whatever methods are necessary to ensure that the number of burdensome old people is kept to a minimum. The existence of an absurd branch of medicine called geriatrics is used as an excuse to shove old people into backwater wards and to provide them with second-rate medical treatment. In February 2011, an official report condemned the NHS for its `inhumane treatment of elderly patients' and stated that NHS hospitals were `failing to meet even the most basic standards of care' for the over-65s. It is no exaggeration to say that the NHS treats the elderly with contempt. (It used to be said that you can judge a civilisation by the way it treats its elderly.)

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Putin’s Senior Aide Patrushev Made Some Predictions About Trump, China, & Eastern Europe. The outcome of Trump’s continued struggle with the “deep state” will reverberate across the world.

Putin’s senior aide Nikolai Patrushev, who ran the FSB for nearly a decade (1999-2008) before chairing the Security Council for over 15 years till recently (2008-2024), made three predictions about international affairs in his latest interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda.

The first concerns the continued struggle between Trump and the “deep state”, the latter of which can be described as US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies, some members of whom are known to oppose him.

Patrushev expects Trump to implement domestic and foreign policies that are practically the opposite of Biden’s, which he characterizes as pragmatic and more aligned with the interests of the American people, but he’s unsure whether he’ll ultimately succeed due to internal resistance. The precedent from his first term bodes ill for his second, but the outcome of this latest struggle will reverberate for decades seeing as how the world is undergoing far-reaching systemic changes last seen since 1991.

On that topic, Patrushev assessed that one of Trump’s top foreign policy priorities is to ramp up pressure on China, including by artificially exacerbating bilateral tensions. He then reminded everyone that “For us, China has been and remains a most important partner, with whom we have relations of especially privileged strategic cooperation. These relations are not subject to the situation, they remain regardless of who occupies the Oval Office.” This can be interpreted as signaling that Russia won’t backstab China. In other words, Trump’s declared goal of “un-uniting” those two will fail, thus meaning that no worsening of their relations will occur.

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Robert Inlakesh
Al Mayadeen English

The official “Israelarabic” social media accounts belonging to the Zionist regime is openly publishing content that reflects its expansionist endeavors, one such post included a historical representation of “Judah and Israel” (Image: Ali Al-Hadi Shmeis)

The Israeli regime is expanding its territorial control into neighboring Arab nations, exploiting regional weaknesses, demonstrating that only sustained resistance can counter its expansionist ambitions.

Emboldened by a string of achievements, the Israeli regime is seeking to expand its territorial control into neighboring Arab Nations and is receiving little push back. While Jordan and Egypt aren’t currently facing an armed incursion, Israeli ministers and official social media pages are indicating that such takeovers could be in the books.

Upon the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, the power vacuum left behind and a lack of any army to protect the nation permitted an immediate Israeli invasion. The Zionist Entity swiftly launched their largest ever air campaign to obliterate the Syrian Arab Army’s military equipment, then followed this up with on-and-off airstrikes throughout the country.

The Israelis have occupied the Golan Heights entirely, seized the six most important water sources in southern Syria, expelled citizens from their homes in areas surrounding Quneitra and even pushed towards Dara’a. The Israeli tanks are now positioned as far as areas like Qatana, only 20 kilometers from Damascus, while airstrikes occasionally hit targets in the Syrian Capital.

This invasion of Syria has been ongoing for over a month now and not a single bullet has been fired by forces affiliated with the new Hayat Tahrir al-Sham led government. Instead, those installed in power in Damascus have hinted at normalization with the Zionist regime, with the newly selected Mayor of Damascus, Maher Marwan, openly making excuses for the Israeli invasion and suggesting normalizing ties.

The takeaway from this is not to just single out the new Syrian leadership and its positions, but to demonstrate that weakness and collaboration with the Zionists, no matter who it is, results in territorial losses to the detriment of the population of any Arab nation.

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Harold Turner
Hal Turner Show

California homes burned to the ground and people were killed, because some government idiot - likely in in Washington, DC wanted to "stick it" to Russia over Ukraine.

Let me tell you a story about how international politics made the Los Angeles Wildfires catastrophic. How over 12,000 homes, businesses and schools burned down in California, because of...Ukraine.

All of you recall that, in the year 2014, Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine, and to go back to Russia. Many of you might be surprised that I said "go back to Russia" because you may not be aware that, for at least 300 years prior, Crimea WAS part of Russia.

Throughout most of recorded history it was "the Russian Crimea." But on 19 February 1954, then Soviet Leader, Nikita Kruschev, GAVE Crimea to Ukraine. So Crimea was only part of Ukraine for sixty (60) years.

It was back in 2013-2014 under the Obama Administration that NATO wanted to expand into Ukraine. Their goal was to place American Missile Defenses on Ukraine soil. By having US Missiles on Ukraine soil, those missiles could strike Moscow in about five minutes, and Russia's Strategic Nuclear Missile silos in about ten minutes.

As you may know, Russia flatly refused to accept having such a threat on their borders. They told Ukraine "no." They told both Europe and America "no." But NATO was determined and they continued trying to lure Ukraine.

At the time, Ukraine's Democratically-elected President was Viktor Yanukovich. Both the US and EU approached Yanokovich and told him, among other things, that Ukraine should move away from the Russian sphere of influence and come into the West. It would be a boost for business, would improve the lives of all Ukrainians, and so on.

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Serge Marchand, Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network

World peace hangs on the finger of the United States, blackmailed by Ukrainian “integral nationalists” and Israeli “revisionist Zionists”.

Atomic war is possible. World peace hangs on the finger of the United States, blackmailed by Ukrainian “integral nationalists” and Israeli “revisionist Zionists”. If Washington doesn’t deliver weapons to massacre the Russians and Gazans, they won’t hesitate to launch Armageddon.

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza have led several leading politicians to compare the current period with the 1930s and to raise the possibility of a World War. Are these fears justified, or are they just fear-mongering?

To answer this question, we will summarize events that are unknown to everyone, though well known to specialists. We shall do so dispassionately, at the risk of appearing indifferent to these horrors.

First, let’s distinguish between the conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. They have only two things in common:

They represent no significant stakes in themselves, but a defeat for the West, which, after its defeat in Syria, would mark the end of its hegemony over the world.

They are fueled by a fascist ideology, that of Dmytro Dontsov’s Ukrainian “integral nationalists” and that of Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Israeli “revisionist Zionists”; two groups that have been allies since 1917, but went underground during the Cold War and are unknown to the general public today.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The exact opposite of what Kagan posited is true: Russia can’t militarily control Ukraine indefinitely; a Russian-American brinksmanship scenario is terrifyingly realistic; and Putin is indeed interested in compromising but only under certain conditions.

Hugely influential neoconservative thinker Robert Kagan recently published a lengthy diatribe at The Atlantic fearmongering about Russia’s total and indefinite control of Ukraine, which he takes for granted if Trump doesn’t redouble aid to Ukraine.

It’s premised on the presumptions that Russia can military control all of Ukraine indefinitely, there’s no realistic Russian-American brinksmanship scenario over that country, and Putin is unwilling to compromise. The following three arguments tear apart his claims:

1. Russia Lacks The Means To Militarily Control Ukraine Indefinitely

Ukraine is a geographically enormous country that would require tremendous military resources for anyone to control indefinitely. On top of that, a large segment of its population now has military experience or at least basic arms training, weapons are now proliferating throughout its society with wild abandon, and the entire western part is known to be ultra-nationalist to the point of fascist. It would accordingly require much greater means than Russia has to militarily control Ukraine indefinitely. Any attempt to do so, however, could expose Russia to an Afghan- and Iraqi-like insurgency that it’s ill-prepared to contain.

Its forces would stand out in the ultra-nationalist western part of the country and therefore make easy targets for unconventional warfare (terrorism). These networks are deeply rooted and have existed for decades, lying dormant during most of the Soviet era but still never having been completely dismantled. Their fighters can also be easily supplied by neighboring NATO nations.

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Leo Hohmann
LeoHohman.com

The war behind the war: What World War III is really being fought over

As usual, the official narrative, as put forth in the corporate media, about the West's beef with Putin bears no resemblance to the truth about why the West cannot accept a Putin-led Russia.

World War III, like all 21st century wars, is not being fought over ideologies. It’s being fought over energy and natural resources. Because he who controls the world’s resources will be free to impose whatever ideology he wants.

Washington and London, the epicenter of the Western liberal world order that thinks it’s admirable and virtuous to redefine God-created genders and appropriate to unleash deviant transvestites on innocent school children, is seeking to neutralize the massive resources of Russia as it ramps up its “net zero” sustainable development model of economic progress. This economic model is really just a scam designed to pilfer what remains of the middle class and further subjugate them under AI-powered government-corporate control. Hence the need for more massive data centers, which Donald Trump is being used to build across the United States with $8 billion in foreign investment from a billionaire in the United Arab Emirates.

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Strategic Culture Foundation Editorial
Strategic Culture Foundation

Trump’s trampling on Denmark’s sovereignty – and by extension, the European Union’s – is a brutal demonstration.

With friends like that, who needs enemies? Thus Denmark finds out how dispensable it is regarding the geopolitical ambitions of the United States, its supposed “strongest ally.”

President-elect Donald Trump is like a cat among pigeons. Neighboring countries, allies and NATO members are all in a flap over his recent remarks about the United States forcibly annexing their territories.

The former real estate tycoon who takes office in the White House for the second time on January 20 is setting out his presidential agenda like a property acquisition spree. He wants to absorb Canada as the 51st state, take back control of the Panama Canal, rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, and annex Greenland, which is part of Denmark.

It is easy to dismiss the incoming Republican president’s talk as bravado and outsized ego. He has a propensity for hyperbole especially when promoting his abilities. Trump has talked about bringing peace to Ukraine “within 24 hours”. He has also previously referred to himself as a “business genius”. During his first administration, he talked up brokering “the deal of the century” between Arabs and Israelis only for that initiative to end up in the disaster of genocide in Gaza and aggression towards Lebanon.

So, Trump’s rhetoric about acquiring new territories for the United States is probably best not taken too literally. It is whimsical and highly speculative. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev called it “cosmic stupidity” whose real intention is to serve as a distraction.

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Dr Vernon Coleman MB ChB DSc
VernonColeman.com

When I was young (many years ago, I admit) it was considered bad form to snitch on anyone. At school, a teacher might threaten to keep the whole class in detention if someone didn’t tell him who’d buried the exploding caps under the tobacco packed down neatly in his pipe bowl. But no one would snitch and we’d all share the punishment with pride. Today, sneaking and snitching are encouraged and are an essential part of `social credit’. The latest fashion for reporting any slight or mild offence or even imagined to the police is also part of `social credit’. And the authorities positively encourage the public to see offence in every word or gesture and make their complaints accordingly. Anyone accused of causing `distress’ to a complainant (usually described as a victim) may be questioned, harassed, arrested and tossed into a cell for 24 hours to decourager les autres. We live in discouraging times and things are, I fear, only going to get worse.The following paragraphs appear in my book `Social Credit: Nightmare on your street’.

Snitches and Sneaks—We already live in the age of the snitch and the sneak. Governments everywhere are constantly bringing in new laws to encourage people to ‘tell’ on their friends, neighbours and workmates. The aim, of course, is to ensure that none of us trusts anyone else.

And in this new world of course, it only takes one complaint to produce a result.

A hotel I enjoyed visiting because it had a huge open fireplace with crackling logs burning throughout the winter got rid of its open fire and replaced it with a log burner – with the doors always safely shut. The manager told me that the local council had received one complaint from a visitor who felt that it was dangerous to have an open fireplace. And so, on instructions from a man (or woman) in a cheap suit, the hotel had installed the log burner.

A church where bells have rung out for 500 years had to stop all bell ringing after the local council received a single complaint from someone who had bought a house within earshot of the bells.

A motor racing circuit which had held meetings for half a century, had to dramatically limit its events because of a newcomer to the area had complained to the council about the noise.

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Agit Papadakis
vk.com

The idea for this article came from RUSI writer Alex Vershinin's article last March that had everybody bloviating on why there were no “big arrow” offensives in Ukraine because it was really a “war of attrition.” I reacted back then on X (locked account) that it's not a war of attrition if only one side is getting attrited.

What the Ukraine war is is an advanced stage grinder, or what I call “Panzerfaust time,” referring to Hitler's last-ditch defense of Berlin against the approaching mass of Soviet armor, when he handed out Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons to old men, women, and children because all his soldiers were dead. What hit me now, however, was that this RUSI article, coming from the flower of Anglo/US NATO military thinking, was actually a perfect illustration of the NATO master race complex that got them defeated in Afghanistan and will prevent them from ever understanding why they are losing in Ukraine.

Vershinin claims that Russia is winning thanks to mass-produced cheap weapons made from washing machine parts, much like the proverbially janky T-34 with half the armor of a Tiger and a puny 76.2 mm gun vs the Tiger's mighty 88. He conveniently leaves out the part about the T-34's revolutionary sloped armor that could take dozens of AT gun hits despite its thinness, which reduced its weight to half the Tiger's, allowing it to run rings around the lumbering nazi tank while the Tiger's driver struggled with the horrible transmission that was always breaking down.

So “Russians produce cheap junk weapons” wasn't true in 1942 and it's even less true now. If you wanted cheap junk weapons in WW2, you'd have to go to the Brits with their planes made of balsawood and cloth and their stamped-metal Sten guns.

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Alireza Akbari
PressTV

Amid the raging genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the Israeli regime is intensifying its propaganda blitz, allocating unprecedented funds to shape global public opinion.

Israeli foreign ministry's annual budget for so-called "public diplomacy", also known as Hasbara, has surged to a staggering $150 million in 2025, marking a 20-fold increase from last year.

The move aims to whitewash the apartheid regime's appalling war crimes in Gaza and repair its battered international image, as global condemnation grows over its continued genocidal campaign.

The generous allocation of funds, aimed at amplifying pro-Zionist propaganda, comes as global public opinion has sharply turned against the Tel Aviv regime due to its war of extermination in Gaza.

Since the launch of the war on October 7, 2023, the Israeli regime has unleashed 88,000 tons of explosives on the tiny besieged territory, destroying houses, hospitals, schools and refugee camps.

The war has killed nearly 46,000 people and injured around 109,000 in the past 15 months. Among the martyrs are over 17,800 children and 12,300 women, according to Gaza's health ministry.

The ministry has documented more than 9,000 massacres against Palestinians during this period with tens of thousands displaced and rendered homeless, and many more grappling with hunger.

Under the new budget announced earlier this week, the Israeli regime's foreign ministry is expected to receive massive funds for its so-called "public diplomacy" efforts, in order to wash the stains.

Under this program, the ministry intends to hire social media influencers, public opinion leaders and celebrities to repair the tattered image of the child-murdering regime in Tel Aviv.

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Glenn Diesen
Glenn's Substack

The challenge of our time is that government and corporate interests go increasingly hand-in-hand

Organisations operating under the banner of “human rights non-governmental organisations” (NGOs) have become key actors in disseminating war propaganda, intimidating academics, and corrupting civil society. These NGOs act as gatekeepers determining which voices should be elevated and which should be censored and cancelled.

Civil society is imperative to balance the power of the state, yet the state is increasingly seeking to hijack the representation of civil society through NGOs. The NGOs can be problematic on their own as they can enable a loud minority to override a silent majority. Yet, the Reagan doctrine exacerbated the problem as these “human rights NGOs” were financed by the government and staffed by people with ties to intelligence agencies to ensure civil society does not deviate significantly from government policies.

The ability of academics to speak openly and honestly is restricted by these gatekeepers. Case in point, the NGOs limit dissent in academic debates about the great power rivalry in Ukraine. Well-documented and proven facts that are imperative to understanding the conflict are simply not reported in the media, and any efforts to address these facts are confronted with vague accusations of being “controversial” or “pro-Russian”, a transgression that must be punished with intimidation, censorship, and cancellation. I will outline here first my personal experiences with one of these NGOs, and second how the NGOs are hijacking civil society:

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Strategic Culture Foundation Editorial
Strategic Culture Foundation

The tragedy of Europe is not something mysterious or ill-fated. It is the direct result of elitist rulers who have assiduously conducted policies that harm European citizens.

One would think that having suffered two world wars only decades apart, European politicians might be more cautious about starting another one. Incredibly, however, the countries of Europe are being plunged into another conflagration.

Not much has changed over a century, it seems. War is still the result of imperialist intrigue and no accountability to the masses of citizens by arrogant politicians aided by relentless media propaganda lies.

European elitist rulers are a treasonous clique who are destroying Europe because of their abject servility to U.S.-led Western imperialism.

To put it crudely, Europe is being abused like a bondage plaything for the Washington and European elites. Shudder the thought of Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas in dominatrix garb or Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz as the gimps. But sometimes, the truth can be stranger than fiction.

Russian President Vladimir Putin nailed it this week when he slammed European political heads who are “dancing to the tune of the Americans.” In an address to the Collective Security Treaty Organization summit in Kazakhstan, Putin said the crisis over Ukraine showed that European so-called leaders have no independence or autonomy. They are non-entities as far as serving the democratic interests of their nations is concerned.

Instead of pushing for a diplomatic solution to the worst conflict on the European continent since World War Two, European political elites are slavishly going along with Washington’s criminal proxy war against Russia, which is in danger of spiraling into a nuclear Armageddon.

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Vadim Egorov
dzen.ru

Russian civilian ships around the world are under attack - the enemy is sinking our ships, and those that are tacitly helping us by transporting oil under other flags are being boarded. At the same time blaming us. Provoking a full-fledged war at sea, which may well happen.

Everything that was going on was quite reminiscent of an excerpt from some pirate movie: helicopters hovered over a civilian ship, lowered down on ropes armed to the teeth men, who afterwards, already on deck, unceremoniously told the crew to go where they said. Except that they didn't hit or kill anyone.

In reality, it was Finnish special forces that stormed the Eagle S, a Cook Islands-flagged vessel. In search of, as is now fashionable, a “Russian trace”. They say that these “kukans” damaged the EstLink 2 cable with a capacity of 350 MW. Intentionally - Finnish border guards assume that the tanker dragged an anchor along the bottom to make a break. And after the Finns were ordered to raise the anchor chain, they saw that it was supposedly without that anchor. And all this was done, of course, by direct order of the treacherous Russians. Because the Eagle S was transporting the very Russian oil to Egypt, bypassing sanctions. Although there were no Russians on the ship: only Indians and Georgians.

But, according to the British edition of Lloyd's List, spy equipment was found on it, which was used to track NATO ships and planes. And the Finnish agency Yle quotes Alexander Lott, an expert on the law of the sea, who said that the tanker could also damage “the Estlink 1 cable, the Balticconnector gas pipeline and other communications”. In general, everything that the Finns have failed under water. It's good that they didn't include Eagle S among the things that failed on land.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The possible end of the Ukrainian Conflict sometime later this year and the political agreement that’ll accompany it will play the greatest roles in determining the New Cold War’s strategic dynamics in the coming future.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gave a year-end interview with TASS where he touched upon the most important developments from the past year that’ll likely shape events in 2025.

From the get-go, he rejected Trump’s reported plans to freeze the conflict, delay Ukraine’s membership in NATO, and deploy Western peacekeepers there and reminded everyone of the terms that Putin declared for ending the special operation. Russia also requires legally binding agreements that address the root of the conflict.

Lavrov expressed skepticism that there’ll be any improvement in bilateral relations under Trump since he’ll have to “swim against the current” as he phrased it in the sense of having to overcome the bipartisan consensus on containing Russia via Ukraine. On that topic, he’s equally skeptical of Zelensky’s recent admission that Ukraine is unable to reconquer its lost territories, pointing to that goal’s continued inclusion in Kiev’s “Victory Plan” as evidence that his words haven’t translated into actions.

Moving along, Lavrov was also asked about the West’s policy of orchestrating Color Revolutions, particularly in Georgia. He responded by condemning the false dilemma that they’ve placed that country into whereby it’s either considered to be with the West or against it. He also reaffirmed that Russia is determined to normalize relations with Georgia to the extent that Tbilisi is ready. Observers should keep an eye on this diplomatic track since it could have far-reaching consequences if any progress is made.

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Taut Bataut
New Eastern Outlook

In a shocking mocking, the Hague-based Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant – former Israeli Defense Minister, and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, aka Deif – the military Wing Commander of Hamas on November 21st, sparking ambivalent reaction globally.

The ICC’s Decision and Its Global Impact—The ICC Prosecutor took almost 8 months to file the petitions against the people nominated in these arrest warrants. Moreover, the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber took 6 months to issue a decision on these arrest warrants. This sluggishness of the Pre-Trial chamber is beyond comprehension. The ICC decision stipulated that it had “reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare.”

Netanyahu and Gallant have been accused of intentionally using starvation as a tool of warfare to deprive the innocent civilians of Gaza of rudimentary supplies including medicine, water, and food. The ICC prosecutors have alleged in the decision that these actions were unnecessary, arguing that they violate international law. In addition, the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber has charged Muhammad Deif with hostage-taking, and orchestrating torture and mass murder. However, Israel claims that it killed Deif in an airstrike, while Hamas is silent over this claim.

These warrants are an outcome of a broader ICC investigation that investigated the alleged war crimes by both sides in the Israel-Hamas war. The inquiry was initiated after Israel’s alleged retaliation to the October 7 attacks by Hamas, which resulted in 250 kidnappings by the latter. More than 44000 Palestinians have been killed and 1.9 million displaced since October 7, 2023. Nonetheless, the international community is deeply divided over this ICC decision.

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Jonathan Cook
jonathancook.substack.com

Only in a world of political make-believe would the Wall Street Journal’s account of Biden’s years-long cognitive decline, and its concealment by his officials, count as a scoop.

Only in the world of political make-believe we inhabit in the West would the Wall Street Journal’s account of Biden’s years-long cognitive decline, and its concealment by his officials, count as a scoop.

And only in a world in which the billionaire-owned media alone constructs and polices what counts as reality would the WSJ be able to run this story without also being expected to consider what it signifies about America’s professed democracy.

The emperor, we are now told, was naked all along. How did it take more than four years for the fearless, tenacious billionaire-owned media to notice?

The WSJ reports that even back in 2021 Biden had what his officials described as “bad days” when his mind worked so poorly he had to be kept away from senior Congresspeople and his own cabinet colleagues.

So insulated was he that he rarely met even with key figures directing White House policy, such as the Secretaries of State, Defence and the Treasury. He was able to hold only two or three cabinet meetings a year during his four-year term – a total of nine, compared to 19 by Barack Obama and 25 by Donald Trump. His aides barely strayed from his side because they needed to whisper instructions for him to carry out the simplest of public tasks, such as where to enter and exit a room.

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