Pavel Kotov
Украина.ру

Donald Trump and his team launched a powerful attack on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), effectively paralyzing its work

USAID: the beginning — Shortly after taking office as President of the United States, Trump suspended USAID programs related to aid to other countries. The new administration announced that this organization is awaiting a serious audit in order to find out where the American taxpayers' money, which funds the agency, is going.

The role of the leading violin in the USAID pogrom was assumed by Elon Musk - the position obliges. The billionaire heads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a kind of oprichnina, which is designed to rid the state of excessive bureaucracy and noble idlers who spend government money on all sorts of stupidity.

The first to be sent to the chopping block was USAID, an odious organization that has entangled the world in a network of its funds, projects and programs, which have spent billions.

The Agency for International Development was established by decree of President John F. Kennedy in 1961. The formal purpose of this government agency is to provide external assistance to the countries of the world aimed at their long-term socio-economic development. More than half of all aid provided by the United States is accumulated through USAID.

USAID operates in a variety of areas, the main of which are grant support to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), "independent" media, healthcare programs, etc.

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Strategic Culture Foundation Editorial
Strategic Culture Foundation

Proposals are being reported. But any deal must be based on addressing the roots of conflict. President Trump says he wants to end the conflict. But does he understand what the conflict is really about? If a problem is not correctly defined, then a solution is elusive.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to open talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to end the war in Ukraine. Trump has spoken about the urgency of bringing the conflict to a peaceful conclusion. Fair enough.

For his part, President Putin has magnanimously reciprocated, saying he is ready to engage in talks with Trump.

So far, so good. At least the American side is no longer encumbered with the stupid intransigent, hostile mentality of the Biden administration, which refused to have any diplomatic contact with Russia.

Russia, for its part, has always been willing to negotiate a genuine way to not just end the conflict but to avoid future conflict. Before the war in Ukraine erupted three years ago in February 2022, Moscow put forward a comprehensive proposal for a security treaty in Europe in December 2021.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

This is a game-changer in the New Cold War since it’ll take the US’ rivalry with Russia and China to a qualitatively more dangerous level through the consequent hyper-militarization of space.

Trump signed an Executive Order to build an Iron Dome for America, which aims to defend the homeland “against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks.” It’ll also importantly include space-based monitoring and interception systems. Some of the latter will have “non-kinetic capabilities” too, likely referring to directed-energy weapons (DEWs), but it’s unclear whether they’ll be deployed on the ground and/or in space. Here are five takeaways from this monumental move:

1. Strategic Stability Will Never Look The Same

Bush Jr.’s unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 prompted Russia to develop hypersonic technology so as to prevent the US from feeling comfortable enough with its missile defense shield that it one day plots a first strike after thinking that it could intercept Russia’s second one. Trump’s Iron Dome plans mean that there’s no going back to the era of mutual restrictions on missile defense, which was already dubious after what Bush Jr. did, thus worsening the Russian-US security dilemma.

2. The US Just Sped Up The Second Space Race

The second Space Race has already been underway since Trump created the Space Force in 2019, but his latest Executive Order sped it up by compelling Russia and China to further prioritize their space-based defense plans, which will inevitably result in the hyper-militarization of space. There’s no way that those two won’t suit through the deployment of their own defensive systems there that could also disguise offensive weapons just like the US might secretly be plotting to do under this pretext.

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Leonid Savin
Oriental Review

Afghanistan, Central Asia, Eurasian Union, Iran, Pakistan, [and] Russia

Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan represent important and interconnected links of chain in the region

If to use the method of combining political geography and geopolitics, it is easy to reveal that the group of countries located north of the Arabian Sea has several common features. Part of modern Iran and Afghanistan represent historical Greater Khorasan, and the Pashtun belt stretches from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Pakistan and Iran are united by Balochistan (in both countries there are separatist Balochi (Baluchi) movements actively sponsored from the outside). All three countries are Islamic states – the first to gain independence from Britain was the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 1947, after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, this state also moved from the monarchical system to the Islamic Republic (with a specific institution Wilayat al-Faqih), and Afghanistan, in 2021, re–became an Islamic Emirate (previously it was under the Taliban from 1996 to 2001). And in ancient times they were all part of the Sasanian Empire.

Each country has many more interesting cultural, ethnic, and religious features. Although Afghanistan has no access to the sea, it is organically adjacent to the southern part of the Eurasian Rimland (coastal zone), which for a long time was controlled by the Anglo–Saxons – directly or indirectly.

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Video Rebel
Video Rebel's Blog

The US spends $1.51 trillion on its military every year. That would include not just the DOD but the money spent by 6 other agencies that cover the rest of our military spending. For example, the Dept of Energy does nuclear weapons.

Russia is raising its annual military budget to $125 billion due to the ongoing war in the Ukraine. The US has a large corruption factor making its weapons more expensive and less effective. Dr Mark Skidmore found that $17 trillion had gone missing from the HUD and DOD budgets from 1998 to 2015. So, let’s see what Russia has that we don’t.

1) Oreshnik IRBM. It has 6 MIRVs which in turn has 6 submunitions. 36 submunitions hit the ground at Mach 10. They dig deep into the earth releasing heat at 7,232 degrees F (4,000 C.) It melts steel and concrete. Russia used one of these on an industrial area in the Ukraine. There was nothing left but dust. Homes 2 blocks away were so shaken that they looked like they had been hit by a 9.0 earthquake.

2) Avangard is a Mach 27 ICBM with a 2,000 kilogram warhead. Mach 27 is about 20,000 MPH. (32,000 KMH.) That’s a lot of kinetic energy released on one target.

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Alexander Chalenko
Украина.ру

After Donald Trump's ascension to the White House and his promise to end the war between Russia and Ukraine in 100 days, the whole world is discussing whether this will happen or not. The author of the article cites a number of reasons why peace will be established only after Ukraine's defeat on the battlefield, and not because Trump wants peace so much.

The first reason is that it is simply impossible to negotiate an "eternal peace" with Ukraine and the West for Russia. This is self–evident if we study the history of the implementation, or rather, the rejection of the implementation of Minsk-1 and Minsk-2, as well as the Istanbul Agreements of 2022.

Recall that according to the agreements signed in 2014-2015 between Ukraine and the LDPR, the territories of the unrecognized republics, although they became autonomous, remained part of the Square, however, with the right to independent economic and financial activities.

The elections there were supposed to be held according to special laws, but separate from the rest of Ukraine, but adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in coordination with the LDPR. In fact, Ukraine was turning from a unitary state into a confederate one – something like Bosnia and Herzegovina - resulting in a confederation of Ukraine and Donbass.

But in reality, none of the Minsk agreements has been implemented by Kyiv. They did not even hide that they would not comply with them, but signed them because there was no other way to avoid the complete defeat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

If the West imposed sanctions at that time to force Russia, which was only a guarantor of compliance with Minsk-1 and Minsk-2, to comply with these agreements, then not against Ukraine, which refused to implement them into Ukrainian legislation. This alone indicates that the West did not want their implementation. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a participant in the negotiations at that time, said that the purpose of the Minsk agreements was to give Ukraine a break in 2022.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Trump is preparing for negotiations with Putin over Ukraine as well as with Xi over trade and likely also Taiwan, so he’d appear weak in their eyes if he let a middling leader like Petro publicly defy and even insult him without consequence.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro thought that he’d rebalance lopsided relations with his returning US counterpart by abruptly rejecting two previously agreed military flights for repatriating his country’s illegal immigrants but was ultimately taught an unforgettable lesson. Trump reacted with fury by threatening 25% tariffs that would double in a week’s time and sanctioning high-level officials on national security pretexts among other punitive measures, which quickly prompted Petro to capitulate.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt then confirmed her country’s victory in its brief dispute with Colombia, shortly after which Petro rage-tweeted a convoluted rant about imperialism and racism as a parting shot against Trump that was widely met with mockery online, especially from Americans. This short-lived scandal was significant since Trump proved how serious he is about leveraging tariffs and sanctions to coerce Ibero-American countries into accepting the return of their repatriated citizens.

He won the 2016 election in part because of his pledge to build a southern border wall for stopping illegal immigration, but after an estimated 8 million illegals flooded into the country during Biden’s term, he then promised to expel as many as possible if voters returned him to office like they ultimately did. It’ll be difficult to return all of them, however, which is why his administration wants to coerce them into voluntarily leaving on their own by creating extremely onerous conditions for those who remain.

To that end, repatriating some of them to their homelands on military flights – including in handcuffs like what just happened to some illegal immigrants from Brazil – is meant to intimidate them into returning back home on their own terms, ergo the importance of ensuring that these flights aren’t rejected. In parallel with this, the Trump Administration is exploring an agreement to deport asylum seekers to El Salvador, which is now globally known for its zero-tolerance of gang members.

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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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