Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

All that Tusk has to do is threaten to stop having Poland serve as the transit state for 90% of Ukraine’s military-technical imports from NATO, which would either be sufficient for Ukraine to comply before they’re cut off or it would likely do so shortly thereafter, but he refuses to do so, lacking the political will.

The denazification of Ukraine is one of Russia’s explicitly stated goals in the special operation, yet it’s remained elusive ever since the UK and Poland sabotaged spring 2022’s peace deal due to their joint desire to inflict a strategic defeat on their historical (millennium-long in Poland’s case) Russian rival.

Lavrov vaguely elaborated on Russia’s understanding of this objective in spring 2025 by suggesting that his country now envisages denazification to mean restoring the rights of Ukraine’s Russian minority. This can only be achieved through domestic legal mechanisms, which is why spring 2022’s draft peace deal contained relevant clauses to this effect.

Russia never planned to occupy all of Ukraine, impose full denazification, and then uphold it through an indefinite law enforcement operation across the country. Military force is seen by Russia only as a means to coerce Ukraine into doing what’s demanded of it in this regard. Russia’s aforementioned difficulty in denazifying Ukraine is nowadays relevant for Poland.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The Senior Ukrainian Sergeant wasn’t reprimanded by the armed forces or the government for this.

Chief Sergeant of the Unmanned Systems Battalion of the 5th Separate Assault Kyiv Brigade, Yury Syrotyuk, unprecedentedly threatened Poland during an extended interview “On Poland and Ukraine, explosions in Moscow, and the enemy’s flight from Crimea” in late June. The relevant part is from 36:00-36:50, where he accused Poland of waging an historical war that risks becoming a physical one, in which case Ukraine will fly drones into its cities and kill its people. He thus advised Poland not to cross that line.

Syrotyuk’s scandalous interview came several days after he shared a clip of himself on Facebook from another program where he described himself as the grandson and nephew of UPA veterans “who defended their homes from all the occupiers in Volhynia” in a reference to genociding local Poles there. He accused Poland in his video of seeking regional hegemony and plotting to partner with Russia to partition Ukraine. The sentiment expressed in his two videos isn’t uncommon among Ukrainians nowadays.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Tulsi’s US-Funded Ukrainian Biolabs Disclosure Is Incredibly Important To The National Debate

Outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s disclosure that the US funded some Ukrainian biolabs exactly as Russia claimed sent social media into a frenzy. While some MAGAs led by Laura Loomer claimed that this supposedly proves that she and other people who can be broadly described as “MAGA dissidents” are part of a “Russian influence operation” (RIO), which was discussed here, others are proud of what she did since they remember being told by the government that this wasn’t true.

This video here shows former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki playing fast and loose with the truth. The viever can also read her eventual successor Karine Jean-Pierre’s tweets here, where she did the same. Both denied that Ukraine’s US-funded biolabs were connected to biological warfare programs, but Tulsi just proved otherwise. The Biden Administration, therefore, lied to Americans, and many were consequently defamed as “Russian propagandists” for believing what Russia accurately claimed.

Anyone can still have whatever opinion they’d like about whether or not Russia’s special operation is justified in light of Tulsi’s disclosure that it was telling the truth about US-funded biolabs in Ukraine, but the domestic importance of Tulsi’s disclosure is that those who were defamed are now vindicated. Moreover, the resultant intra-MAGA divide over this issue shows that a significant share of the movement led by Laura is now tacitly defending the Biden Administration on this issue, which is ironic.

Marina Akhmedova
Marina Akhmedova (Telegram)

Somehow, in 2020, I missed the scandal involving Pashinyan's grandfather, but he casts his meeting with Zelenskyy, where he announced a terrorist attack at the Victory Parade, in a completely different light. It would seem that both are the grandsons of soldiers who fought fascism during the Great Patriotic War. Zelenskyy's grandfather, Semyon Ivanovich, was awarded two Orders of the Red Star. But things turn out to be different.

On May 9, 2020, Pashinyan posted a photo of his grandfather: "Nikol Pashinyan, 1913-1943. Served in the 554th Regiment of the 138th Rifle Division. Eternal memory to those who died for the Motherland." He added that his grandfather was from the village of Yenokavan in the Ijevan District.

Dmitry Medvedev, 3rd President of Russia,
Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council
Russia Today.com (63–80 minutes)

On the eve of Victory Day

Threats by Donald Trump to withdraw the United States from NATO, expressed on March 27, 2026, at an investment forum in Miami, statements by J.D. Vance about Europe’s loss of its identity during an interview with Fox News on March 15, 2026, along with the refusal of European countries to directly join the aggression against Iran and participate in the adventure of the ‘military unlocking’ (and then – blocking) of the Strait of Hormuz are dividing Europe and America more than ever in the last 100 years. These developments demonstrate that European ‘strategic autonomy’, so desired by the liberals, is much closer than it seems. The main question is who will dictate the future agenda in the current toothless and frigid Europe. There are enough applicants: disgusting Brussels eurocracy, chatty and smug Gaulish sodomites and, finally, the German leadership that has grown increasingly vocal about its claims to hegemony in the Old World, while emasculating the responsibility of its ancestors for the crimes of Nazism in the public perception. Let us focus on the latter in more detail.

There is nothing new in the actions of the German leadership (first of all, the descendant of the Nazis Merz & Co). The endeavor to revise the disappointing outcomes of World War II was undertaken by the defeated state almost immediately after the end of the war. The purpose of Nazi followers was to compensate for the political, territorial, ideological and economic costs incurred as a result of the complete military defeat and collapse of German statehood. Along the way, they tried to neatly filter out the atmosphere impregnated by the spirit of Prussian militarism and the stench of National Socialist ideology. The German elites remaining in the western zones of occupation formally and quickly abandoned the legacy of Hitler, who had led his thousand-year Reich to collapse. But they had no desire to truly reject the very ideology of Nazism. Why?

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

The US-Israeli war on Iran rages on. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed. Iran has been hammering US military bases in the region with missiles and drones, and oil prices are already beginning to rise as the IRGC cuts off the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the attacks.

US soldiers have already begun to die. US Central Command reports that three American service members were killed in combat, with five seriously wounded — and it should here be noted that “seriously wounded” can mean permanently brain damaged, comatose, or otherwise rendered severely handicapped for the rest of their lives.

Trump said during an interview with The Daily Mail that he now expects this war to last “four weeks or so”, and that he expects US casualties to continue. I have said it before and I will say it again: every single American soldier who dies in this war was killed by Trump and Netanyahu. The US and Israeli governments bear sole responsibility for their deaths.

Dmitry Gubin
VZGLYAD.RU

The hysteria surrounding the “abducted children” will not stop. After all, nothing human should remain in the enemy.

To provoke targeted discontent among the masses that turns into long-term hatred, you need to throw in something that makes the object appear to be a complete maniac in the public eye. The topic of violence against children and pets is best suited for this purpose.

One of the favorite topics of Russophobes around the world is the fate of Ukrainian children allegedly kidnapped by Russia. It is used not only by Zelensky and his entourage, grant-funded public organizations, but also by international courts.

It would seem that everything or almost everything is clear in this case, but the topic does not disappear from the speeches of politicians or the pages of the press. And since it does not go away, we will have to figure out what is wrong with it, why, and how. There are several components to this topic: psychological, factual, and legal. Let's look at them in order.

Martin Jay
Strategic Culture Foundation

Britain, a country which practically invented the tenets of free speech, is now the most repressive, backward country of the West.

Britain, a country which practically invented the tenets of free speech, is now the most repressive, backward country of the West which is ridiculed on a daily basis by the very same countries that it regaled for its human rights record. There are just too many cases to rattle off which have at least made the news – social media, at least – but the mother who had police officers come into her house while she was in the bath to arrest her for calling an ex-boyfriend a ‘faggot’ has shocked many, given that the boyfriend in question beat her up and the message was not even sent to him. Elizabeth Kinney escaped jail but received a sentence involving community service and a considerable fine. Kinney was just one of around 12,000 people each year in the UK who are arrested and charged for giving their views about a given subject which the state deems could hurt someone, or in the case of politics, if it simply challenges a narrative. This farce would appear to have gotten out of hand when the long arm of the law even arrested and questioned right-wing hack Katie Holmes, who, during a stand-up comedy routine called herself a “spazza” and was subsequently detained for hours by UK police for the “offence”.

Yet while Britain sinks to an all-time low with the state strangling its citizens right to express thoughts, or even think in the case of an anti-abortion activist who was arrested for having a quiet prayer in her head what is remarkable is the lack of hue and cry by the masses who are very well versed on history and what they believe their ancestors were fighting for in two world wars. Often older people, who are very lucid in their ideas about why the British don’t carry identity cards, unlike Europeans, will not really have a strong reaction to the wave of absurd and worrying arrests for those who wish to practice free speech, around 30 a day.

Perhaps what is more remarkable though is how the world is watching this every day and commenting on how Britain is literally crumbling. A recent interview by Tucker Carlson on Piers Morgan involved the American polemicist goading the British commentator to say a rude word during the interview, claiming that Morgan would probably be arrested at a later point for merely uttering the vulgar word.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Indians are among the most Russian-friendly people in the world as proven by credible surveys, and unlike Central Asian Muslims, they harbor no historical grievances (whether objectively existing or subjectively perceived) that could be manipulated by foreign forces to weaponize them against Russia.

Putin will visit India late next week to meet with Modi for their annual summit, the first time that the Russian leader will travel to India since the special operation began, his last one being in December 2021. Aleksei Zakharov, a Fellow at India’s esteemed Observer Research Foundation, published a detailed article about how “Key Policy Outcomes Expected at the India-Russia Summit”. It’s an excellent read, but it omits mention of their large-scale labor migration talks, which might lead to a deal next week.

Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retired), the former Director-General of the Center for Air Power Studies in New Delhi, published an intriguing piece about this at RT in early November. He noted how both countries representatives “discussed potential collaboration on social and labor issues”, contextualizing their conversation by adding that Russia “plans to recruit up to 1 million foreign workers – including from India. The Russian Labor Ministry estimates the shortfall could expand to 3.1 million workers by 2030.”

He makes a lot of compelling arguments about how India could help resolve this dimension of “Russia’s demography problem”, but what’s left out is how its labor migrants pose less of a security risk than Russia’s traditional ones from Central Asia. Conor Gallagher touched upon this in early November in his extensively detailed analysis about the US’ evolving strategy towards that region. From this point here near the end for the next several paragraphs, he describes Russia’s new approach towards migration.

Not only is Russia “getting rid of 700,000-plus migrants, mostly Central Asians, a process which was jumpstarted by the terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall in outer Moscow in March 2024”, but “the Concept of State Migration Policy for 2026-2030…focuses not on increasing the population through Central Asian citizens, but on strengthening control, digitalization, and the task of attracting only those migrants who share the ‘traditional spiritual and moral values’ of Russian society.”

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
President of Russia (en.kremlin.ru)

Vladimir Putin took part in the plenary session of the 22nd annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

Research Director of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai International Discussion Club Fyodor Lukyanov: Ladies and gentlemen, guests of the Valdai Club!

We are beginning the plenary session of the 22nd annual forum of the Valdai International Discussion Club. It is a great honour for me to invite President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin to this stage.

Mr President, thank you very much for once again finding time to join us. The Valdai Club enjoys this great privilege of meeting with you for 23 consecutive years to discuss the most topical issues. I believe that no one else is that lucky.

The 22nd meeting of the Valdai Club, which took place over the past three days, was titled “The Polycentric World: Instructions for Use.” We are attempting to move from merely understanding and describing this new world to practical matters: that is, comprehending how to live in it, since it is not yet entirely clear.

We may consider ourselves advanced users, but we are still only users of this world. You, however, are at least a mechanic and perhaps even an engineer of this very polycentric world order, so we eagerly await some guidelines for use from you.