Prof. Glenn Diesen
Glenn's Substack

The deeper the belief in the righteousness of the cause, the easier it becomes to love the war that serves it.

Norway identifies itself as a model of a liberal and tolerant peace-oriented nation. Yet, a collective mindset has developed with intense distrust and loathing of anyone who deviates from the government’s official truth and war narratives.

Here is a social experiment to test the claim above. I am a professor of political science, but I am also a politician running for Parliament. My recently established political party is primarily an anti-war party, and we started a poster campaign on public transportation in Oslo. The core message was that we are for negotiations and against weapons for the war in Ukraine. This seemed like a reasonable position as Norway previously had (until 2022) a policy of not sending weapons to countries at war (as it escalates and can make us a participant), and our country used to advocate for diplomacy and negotiations as the path to peace.

Norway has abandoned these policies and unified under the new mantra that “weapons are the path to peace”, and we have boycotted basic diplomacy with Russia for more than three years at a time when hundreds of thousands of young men died in the trenches. Was our peace-oriented nation ready to at least consider the argument that we should return to our former policies of negotiating instead of fueling the war with more weapons to fight the world’s largest nuclear power?

Oleg Makarenko
olegmakarenko.ru (LiveJournal)

The perfidious Europeans are behaving very aggressively. The other day, for example, Estonia attempted to seize a Russian tanker traveling under the flag of Gabon to the port of Primorsk (near St. Petersburg). Our pilots had to intervene - the appearance of a Su-35 airplane was enough for the Baltic pirates to retreat.

Krimsonalter and I have now discussed at the Green Pig Club (link) why the Europeans are unlikely to go beyond a certain limit, and what (besides nuclear bombing) we can do to respond to their provocations. Without recounting the video, I'll briefly note that we have weighty options, and that specifically northern dwarfs like Denmark and the three Baltic states are particularly vulnerable to asymmetric Russian actions.

Meanwhile, EU economies continue to deteriorate after the breakdown in relations with Russia. Here, for example, are a few news items from Finland.

1. A large furniture company Indor Group is making losses and laying off employees. The reason for the problems is that Finns have less money and buy less furniture (link). Also, sales are hampered by strikes causing supply disruptions. Worst of all, the sword of Damocles hangs over the loans, which have already had to be converted into short-term loans, and which have nothing to pay back. Another difficult date is August 31. If the bank demands repayment, the company will have a hard time (link).

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Step by step, Trump is turning “Sleepy Joe Biden’s War” into his own, exactly as Steve Bannon warned him not to do.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s revelation that the West removed all restrictions on the range of the weapons that they supplied to Ukraine brought about a feeling of déjà vu from late last year. Russia warned them against doing this at the time, the moment of truth finally arrived once they defied it, and then Putin climbed the escalation ladder by authoring the use of a hitherto top-secret hypersonic medium-range Oreshnik missile against Ukraine. History might therefore be about to repeat itself.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the West’s reported decision as “quite dangerous”, while Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov assessed that it was evidently “made quite some time ago and kept under wraps”, which aligns with what Merz himself later claimed when clarifying his comments. Nevertheless, this policy has yet to result in any strategically significant attacks, let alone reshape the conflict’s dynamics in Ukraine’s favor. If that changes, however, then Russia might drop more Oreshniks.

This could happen even in the absence of those two scenario triggers. Trump ominously posted on Tuesday that “What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!”. This follows his post about how “[Putin] has gone absolutely CRAZY!”, which was analyzed here as proof of him being maliciously misinformed by his trusted advisors and/or him creating the pretext for US escalation.

It’s therefore clear that Trump is preparing for the possibility that peace talks might soon collapse, in advance of which he’s trying to spin a self-serving narrative. By denigrating Putin as “crazy” and implying that “bad things..REALLY BAD” might soon happen to Russia, Trump is signaling tacit approval of forthcoming Ukrainian provocations. Other than the use of long-range American missiles against strategic targets, this could take the form of a nationwide assassination-terrorism campaign.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Trump is either being maliciously misinformed about the conflict by his trusted advisors (not counting Witkoff of course) or that he’s manipulatively creating the pretext for US escalation.

Trump’s latest angry post about Putin revealed a lot about how he perceives the Ukrainian Conflict. According to Trump, “[Putin] has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever. I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!”

What’s really happening is that Russia ramped up its bombing campaign against Ukraine in response to Ukraine ramping up its drone one first, during which time Putin’s helicopter was almost downed after it was caught in a drone swarm while he was visiting Kursk last week. Zelensky earlier demanded that the US condemn Russia for its latest attacks after it was silent all week long, which Trump just complied with despite remaining suspiciously silent after Zelensky implicitly threatened Moscow’s Victory Day parade.

As for Trump’s claim that Putin “wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it”, this is a gross misportrayal of his latest buffer zone plan that was announced in response to Ukraine’s aforementioned ramped-up drone campaign that provoked Russia’s reciprocal bombing one.

Lucas Leiroz
Strategic Culture Foundation

For Moscow, the only way to protect its people is by advancing on the battlefield.

The illusion of a fully diplomatic understanding between Moscow and Kiev does not withstand the harsh reality of the battlefield. Despite signals of renewed dialogue, the Russian government understands that any peace agreement with the Ukrainian regime, if not based on new territorial configuration, will amount, at best, to a temporary ceasefire. The reason is simple: Kiev does not act as a sovereign entity but as a military protectorate of the West. And as such, it will not seek a just peace, but rather a disguised rearmament. In light of this, Russia is already preparing the only effective response: the liberation of new regions and the expansion of the security zone as far as necessary.

President Vladimir Putin’s recent statements are clear. By affirming that a “security buffer zone” will be established along the border, Putin announced more than a tactical measure—he announced a new phase of the special military operation. This zone will not be the result of fragile negotiations, but of military conquest. And it will expand not only to protect oblasts like Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk, but to ensure, once and for all, that no threat can ever arise again at Russia’s borders.

Palestinian Journalists' Protection Center
Press TV

A light extinguished: The story of a Palestinian journalist killed with her dream

On May 15, Palestinian journalist Nour Qandeel wrote a Facebook post saying: "If I am martyred, I am not just a number, okay? Talk about me a lot, convey my voice, my ambition, and my dream after I’m gone."

Just three days later, nothing remained of Nour but a photograph, farewell words, and the rubble of a home flattened to the ground, covering her body, that of her husband, journalist Khaled Abu Shanab (31), and their daughter, Ayloul, who had not yet completed her first year.

The bombing was part of an escalating wave of the Israeli regime’s genocidal war, targeting journalists in Gaza, reopening discussions about international accountability amidst the silence of major organizations.

Nour, a graduate of Journalism and Media from Al-Aqsa University in 2020, had no stable employment opportunities in local media institutions but collaborated with several entities, most recently Al-Thuraya Media Foundation, where she served as the Events Coordinator for the Social Media Café.

Her colleagues described her as talented, flexible, and determined, always striving to overcome the economic blockade by developing her skills in handicrafts and marketing them via social media platforms.

She dreamed of traveling abroad to pursue a Master’s degree in Digital Media, but remained trapped by the siege imposed on Gaza for over two decades.

Sonja van den Ende
Strategic Culture Foundation

The West pressures Moldova’s president to launch a blitzkrieg against Transnistria. The critical question is whether Sandu will take such a suicidal gamble – for both her country and herself.

As Russia celebrated Victory Day on May 9 – honoring the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War – tensions in Europe, particularly in Moldova and Romania, have reached a boiling point.

On Moldova’s periphery lies a small post-Soviet republic that could soon become the epicenter of a new conflict. Pressure is mounting on Moldova’s pro-European President Maia Sandu, who faces growing domestic dissent and increasing demands from Western allies to fast-track the country’s integration into the European Union – even at the risk of military confrontation with the breakaway region of Transnistria.

Romanian state media reports suggest that some in Bucharest ultimately seek the full annexation of Moldova, effectively reducing it to a province or “14th region” of Romania – a former kingdom until 1947. With the EU recently securing the victory of its preferred pro-European candidate in Romania’s elections, emotions are running high.

Katherine Watt
Bailiwick News

Encouraging public contempt for, and civil disobedience to, pandemic and biodefense fear-mongering and law.

A reader asked for my views on solutions that could be proposed to public leaders in petitions for redress of wrongs committed under pandemic-preparedness and biodefense pretexts.

Having been at this for several years now, I no longer think about the prospects for earthly legal reform and justice for the perpetrators the same way I did when I started working with the information.

I think the most useful things that public leaders, such as legislators, prosecutors and other government officials (the people to whom petitions are submitted) can do is to openly, publicly urge people in their countries to understand the illegitimacy of the international conventions and treaties, and the illegitimacy of the national implementing laws, and the intentionality of the harms being committed; and to civilly disobey those treaties and laws and publicly express their contempt for those illegitimate treaties and laws.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The longer that Ukraine refuses to agree to peace on Russia’s terms, the more land that it stands to lose, which might ultimately be much more than anyone expects if the US soon abandons Ukraine in order to cut its losses.

Putin warned in March 2024 that Russia might set up a “security zone” inside Ukraine in response to cross-border strikes and raids, which it then began to do two months later that May after Russian troops made a fresh push into Kharkov Region at the time. Regrettably, the incursion didn’t penetrate too deeply, and later that summer Ukraine launched a sneak attack against Russia’s Kursk Region. It was only earlier this year that Russia finally expelled all Ukrainian troops from there with North Korean assistance.

Nevertheless, Putin just announced late last week that “a decision has been made to create a buffer security zone along the Russian border” with Belgorod, Kursk, and Bryansk Regions, thus meaning inside the corresponding Ukrainian regions of Kharkov (once again), Sumy, and Chernigov. Unlike last year’s attempt, this latest one might be more successful due to the very different context within which it’s being pursued, particularly as regards the conflict’s new diplomatic and military dynamics.

Reidar Kaarboe
Hva Mener Partiene

Examples from other wars | If you can point to the other person and give a good reason to say He started it!, you can get away with war, even if it's based on an outright lie. In international law, it is forbidden to start a war unless someone has attacked you first. To some however it is so imperative to start one, that they would create a false attack against themselves to legitimize it.

When we look at the USA's wars after the Second World War, this is a recurring pattern. All of the wars for which the US has been responsible were started because of false, self-created events, and all were probably illegal under international law.

Examples include the Vietnam War, the Iraq War in 1990, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq again in 2003, Libya in 2011, and Syria in 2011, to name but a few. As long as it looks credible, we buy it. And in hindsight, we forgive our friends, no matter how horrible what they did was. Love is blind, especially when a lot of money is involved.

The war between Israel and the Palestinians has the same problem, but that's for another article. For the war in Ukraine, there are two theories that dominate.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Russia considers it to be a series of military logistics projects sold to the public as economic ones.

The 10th Summit of the “Three Seas Initiative” (3SI), which refers to the jointly Polish- and Croatian-founded platform for fostering Central European integration, concluded in Warsaw in late April. Their joint statement, the Ukrainian-relevant paragraphs of which Hungary disassociated itself from, declared that Spain and Turkiye will join the European Commission, Germany, Japan, and the US as strategic partners while Albania and Montenegro will join Moldova and Ukraine as associated participating states.

Paragraph 13 reaffirmed the member states’ commitment to implementing six Three Seas Priority Projects: BRUA (Bulgaria-Romania-Hungary-Austria gas pipeline), expanding the capacity of Croatia’s LNG terminal on Krk island, Rail Baltica, Rail2Sea, Via Baltica, and Via Carpatia This link here from the 3SI’s official site lists all their other projects and helpfully displays them on a map too. Upon completion, these projects will strengthen economic and military integration, which will shape post-conflict Europe.

Harold Turner
Hal Turner Show

[Former] Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky just COMPLTELY destroyed any hope for Peace talks, or for a continued existence for Ukraine. Less than one hour after Presidents Putin and Trump spoke by phone, Zelensky said this:

● Kiev will not accept any sort of ultimatum by Russia
● Ukraine will not withdraw its troops from anywhere or give up any territory
● Ukrainian NATO aspirations are not up for debate, there will be no neutrality
● He expects new European sanctions against Russia soon
● He asks Trump not to make any decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine

There is no rational hope for putting together a plan for either a ceasefire or for peace, as long as Volodymyr Zelensky has anything to do with negotiations over the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Zelensky's term as President of Ukraine EXPIRED last May. The Ukraine Constitution only makes provisions for the Legislature, the Verkhovna Rada - to remain in office during Martial Law. It does NOT make any such provision for the President to remain in power.

For Zelensky to be able to scuttle legitimate peace efforts, and thereby cause the continuation of a war that is killing more than 5,000 troops a week, is obscene to me.

If we take Zelensky at his word, then it seems to me this conflict will not be resolved until all of Ukraine is destroyed by Russia and most Ukrainians are dead from that conflict.

Harold Turner
Hal Turner Show

US President Donald Trump will have a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin today at about 10:00 AM eastern US time, which is about 5:00 PM Moscow time.

The two leaders will discuss the ongoing Russia-Ukraine Conflict and international trade.

President Trump has been working very hard toward brining that conflict to a logical, peaceful, conclusion, but there are severe roadblocks along the way.

The reason the conflict began is primarily the expansion of NATO east of Germany back in the 1990's under then-President Bill Clinton.

This expansion violated a promise given by US Secretary of State James Baker, to then-Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, at a meeting in the Kremlin, on February 9, 1990. In that meeting, Baker promised that if the Soviet Union agreed to allow East and West Germany to re-unify, and removed 300,000 Soviet troops from East Germany, that NATO "will not move one inch eastward."

Pravda-EN/tsargrad.tv

In February 2025, the American defense research organization RAND* released a large document on scenarios of a possible war between the United States and China. Scenarios of direct war and confrontation in Africa were taken into account, but the most unusual is the war between two states on the territory of the Russian Federation. The Americans believe that both biological and nuclear weapons will be used.

The RAND organization was established in 1948 and collaborated with the American Air Force. Since the 1950s, despite its non-profit orientation, it has been working directly with the American government. All funding comes exclusively from the American government. By the way, most of the research is classified because of its focus, but the rest is in the public domain. A document on the war between China and the United States has been published, and everyone can view it. Here we will leave a link so that the reader can verify the truthfulness of all the information. The RAND* organization has been deemed undesirable in the Russian Federation, so we will leave the link solely to confirm the information.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The mixed signals that he sent on Friday suggest that he hasn’t made up his mind about what to do.

The first bilateral Russian-Ukrainian talks in over three years were held in Istanbul on Friday after Zelensky agreed, likely under pressure from Trump, to Putin’s proposal from the week prior. They didn’t result in the unconditional 30-day ceasefire that Ukraine demanded nor did Ukraine agree to withdraw from the entirety of the disputed regions like Russia demanded, but they did agree to a prisoner swap and to hold another round of talks sometime in the future. They therefore weren’t for nothing.

Most importantly, Russia and Ukraine were able to show Trump that they’re interested in peace after he signaled his increasing impatience with the US’ hitherto unsuccessful mediation between them, which could result in him either “escalating to de-escalate” or simply walking away from the conflict. Prior to making his fateful choice about the future of American involvement, Trump will likely hold talks with Putin, at the very least over the phone but ideally in person sometime in the coming weeks.

Humaira Ahad / PressTV

“Like the torment of the afterlife. They burned me with boiling water,” reads the heart-wrenching testimony of a Palestinian detainee held illegally in an Israeli prison.

Hot water and sewage | A recent report by the Palestinian Prisoners Society and the Palestinian Prison Club sheds light on the systematic torture and brutal treatment faced by Gaza detainees in the regime’s prisons.

“Since my arrest, I was subjected to severe beatings, causing fractures in my body, in an attempt to extract confessions from me. I remained in a camp in the Gaza Strip for 58 days, which was like the torment of the afterlife -- being shackled and beaten constantly, humiliated and insulted,” a 45-year-old Palestinian detainee was quoted as saying.

“Upon my transfer to Negev Prison, I was burned with hot water, doused with boiling liquid from an electric kettle. The scars from that torture remain etched on my body,” he added, revealing grim details.

Palestinian prisoner advocacy groups gathered this harrowing evidence between January 6 and January 8, interviewing 23 detainees across Negev Prison and Nafha Military Camp.

In a statement released on Monday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas strongly denounced the inhumane treatment of Palestinians in Israeli jails and demanded an end to "the terrible violations they are subjected to by the extremist Zionist junta.”

“They are ongoing war crimes, a violation of all international laws on prisoners. We also call on international human rights institutions to highlight the suffering of our families in prisons, raise their voices, and put pressure in all forums to release them,” the statement noted.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The lessons from Trump’s Yemeni debacle could inform his future decisions on Ukraine.

Five New York Times (NYT) journalists collaborated to produce a detailed report earlier this week about “Why Trump Suddenly Declared Victory Over the Houthi Militia”. It’s worth reading in full if time permits, but the present piece will summarize and analyze its findings. To begin with, CENTCOM chief General Michael Kurilla proposed an eight- to -10-month campaign for degrading the Houthis’ air defenses before carrying out Israeli-like targeted assassinations, but Trump decided on 30 days instead. That’s important.

The US’ top regional military official already knew how numerous the Houthis’ air defenses were and how long it would take to seriously damage them, which shows that the Pentagon already considered Houthi-controlled North Yemen to be a regional power, while Trump wanted to avoid a protracted war. It’s little wonder then that the US failed to establish air superiority during the first month, which is why it lost several MQ-9 Reaper drones by then and exposed one of its aircraft carriers to continued threats.

The $1 billion in munitions that were expended during that period widened preexisting divisions within the administration over whether this bombing campaign was worth the mounting costs.

James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler's Substack

"Fascism is when Dad says 'no'" —Aimee Terese on "X"

It’s vain and futile to suppose that the disordered minds of Western Civ’s entrenched Wokester Jacobins might ever be subject to polite persuasion about anything they believe. They believe only in the power of pushing their fellow citizens around, and so, alas, the only persuasion that might conceivably work to stop their infantile assaults on liberty, truth, and decency is to push back harder until they suffer and break.

This is something that most parents with young children instinctively understand. You don’t negotiate with two-year-olds. You tell them how things are and what sort of behavior is required of them, as plainly and simply as possible. Mr. Trump, having been the father of many two-year-olds over time, appears to get this. It has been apparent for years that Mr. Trump’s symbolic role as a father figure is the most deeply resented feature of his role in US politics.

It also appears that many men in this country likewise get this, perhaps because nature conditions them early on to understand that some day they might have to play the role of father, meaning they will have to push back hard against emotional disorder, hysteria, illogic, and untruth, and violence.

Video Rebel
Video Rebel's Blog

"America is Great because America is Good. If America ever ceases to be Good, America will cease to be Great."

The above quote did not originate with Alexis de Tocqueville who wrote Democracy in America. But I think it describes the choice Americans must make in their very near future. We cannot continue on this path, supporting a Genocide in Gaza that is far worse than the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943.

From a practical perspective, we have a $2 trillion deficit, because we allow Wall Street and the Federal Reserve Bank to rob taxpayers by the trillions.

Next year we will raise our military spending from $1.51 trillion to more than $1.6 trillion. The US hides $621 billion in 6 agencies other than the DOD. This is according to the CBO (Congressional Budget Office.) One example would be the Department of Energy which handles nuclear weapons. Other examples would be the CIA, the DIA and the State Department also Veterans Affairs, the Treasury Department and Social Security.

I do not regard Israel as an ally. Sam Cohen went to Israel and gave them the Neutron bomb which they sold to China. The US gave the Israelis our Patriot missile defense system. They did not like it, so they sold it to China. China crossed the US Patriot system with the Russian S-300 and created the HQ 9 which Pakistan is using to shoot down Indian jets. The US gave Israel our advanced avionics which they sold to China. The Chinese incorporated that American research into their J-10 fighter jet. Pakistan is using the Chinese J-10 against India. And we expect our military personnel to defend Taiwan against American weapons Israel sold to China.

There is so much corruption in the US government that our weapons are inferior to Iran’s. Iran has the S-400 and elements of the S-500. The US and Israel combined cannot bring down a solitary Yemeni missile. And we are expected to go to war against Iran for Israel while dodging S-500 missiles?

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Trump is about to be placed into a dilemma due to his unwillingness or inability to coerce Ukraine into Russia’s demanded concessions.

The US’ mediation between Russia and Ukraine captivated the world due to the hopes that many observers had of it leading to a breakthrough, but expectations have since been tempered, including on the American side as evidenced by the toughening of its negotiating stance towards Russia. The latest developments saw Ukraine and the West demand Russia’s compliance with an unconditional ceasefire, to which Putin reacted by offering the unconditional resumption of bilateral talks with Ukraine instead.

Zelensky’s response was to declare that he’ll visit Istanbul on Thursday, the place and day that Putin suggested for resuming bilateral talks, though it’s unclear whether the Russian leader will go. The spring 2022 peace process that Putin mentioned in his video address early Sunday morning only involved their delegations, not direct talks between their presidents, plus Putin considers Zelensky to be illegitimate now. He’s also unlikely to meet him unless Zelensky agrees to significant concessions ahead of time.

Therein lies the problem because Zelensky refuses to budge on Putin’s demands that Ukraine restore its constitutional neutrality, demilitarize, denazify, and cede the disputed territories, and Trump won’t coerce him into doing so either.

The only outcome from the US’ mediation efforts thus far has been talk of a strategic partnership with Russia, likely built upon energy and rare earth cooperation, that’s it. From Russia’s perspective, it looks like the US wants to buy it off, not resolve the core issues of this conflict.