The bloc is seeking to put the Baltic and the Arctic under a “barrack-like” regime, the Russian ambassador to Norway has said | NATO countries are plotting an illegal maritime blockade of Russia, particularly in the Baltic and the Arctic regions, Moscow’s ambassador to Norway, Nikolay Korchunov, has said. In an interview with RIA Novosti published on Saturday, Korchunov accused the bloc’s members, including Norway, of “putting the Baltic-Arctic region on a barrack-like footing” by holding a series of exercises. This, he added, is aimed at “restricting freedom of navigation and violates international law norms.” According to the envoy, NATO is also developing plans for “a partial or complete naval blockade” of Russia. [...] In recent months, Western countries have detained several Russia-linked cargo vessels under various pretenses. Moscow has consistently condemned the seizures as “piracy” and a blatant violation of international maritime law.

Simplicius | The elites are in panic over how to convince their populaces to fan the flames of war ever higher. | The Munich Security Conference has kicked off, and not surprisingly the Brussels nomenklatura and its attendant apparatchiks and media flacks are pushing war hysteria. The purpose of this is to make the Ukrainian conflict feel existential to Europeans to jawbone them into parting with their dwindling eurobucks for the sake of bleeding Russia as much as possible.

■ Munich conference ignoring Kiev’s ‘hellish terrorism’ – Moscow (RT)

✅ Munich Security Conference and the U.S. elephant in the room (Strategis Culture Foundation) | Cosmetic cover-up of Western elite corruption and crimes is no longer possible. The annual Munich Security Conference opens this weekend with the theme: “Under Destruction… The world has entered a period of wrecking-ball politics.” The use of euphemism and blandishment is out in force this year as the Western elite gather in Bavaria. However, absurdly, the conference, as usual, shies away from calling out the main source of global threat… the United States of America. [...] A survey of barbarism under Trump over the past year includes:

Needless to say, these are all criminal violations of the United Nations’ Charter and international law. And yet Trump thinks he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. The disconnect speaks of insanity. How perverse that this could all be a deliberate distraction from the association with child rapist and Mossad asset Epstein.

John McEvoy and Alex Morris | Exclusive: Declassified obtained data on the number of UK nationals in the IDF. We are publishing it for the first time | More than 2,000 Britons served in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) during the Gaza genocide, it can be revealed. The information was obtained by Declassified via a Freedom of Information request issued to the IDF by lawyer Elad Man from the NGO Hatzlacha. The data outlines the number of people with dual and multiple nationalities who were IDF service members as of March 2025. It shows how 1,686 British-Israelis and a further 383 people with British, Israeli, and another nationality served in the IDF amid the annihilation of Gaza. They were among over 50,000 IDF soldiers with Israeli and at least one other nationality. The largest cohorts come from the US, Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany. Prior to this, data was only available on the number of Britons without Israeli citizenship serving in the IDF, so-called lone soldiers, a figure that was as low as 54.

Military preparations by Norway, Sweden and other NATO countries pose a direct threat to Russia's national security and compel Moscow to take military and technical measures in response, Russian Ambassador to Oslo Nikolai Korchunov said in an interview with Sputnik. | TXT

Korchunov said these and other military preparations by NATO countries on the northern flank, openly aimed against Russia, increase tensions and pose a direct threat to Russia's national security, compelling Moscow to adopt military and technical countermeasures.