Arina Korshunova
Oriental Review

Economic consequences of sanctions policy | The EU sanctions against Russia, which began in 2022 and reached the 18th package by June 2025, have led to significant economic difficulties for Europe itself. As von der Leyen notes, sanctions have reduced Russia’s oil and gas revenues by almost 80% compared to pre-war levels, and inflation in Russia exceeds 10%. However, Russia has adapted by redirecting its trade toward China, with bilateral trade reaching $240 billion in 2024, and other BRICS partners, such as India, which increased its imports of Russian oil from 2% to 20% since 2022.

At the same time, the sanctions have boomeranged on Europe. The energy crisis caused by the refusal of Russian supplies (previously accounting for 45% of the EU’s gas and 50% of coal) has led to a 40% increase in energy prices since 2022. This has undermined the competitiveness of European industry, especially in Germany, where jobs have been lost. Inflation in the EU in 2025 reached 5%, increasing pressure on households and businesses. According to the World Bank, EU GDP growth remains sluggish (1-2% per year), while Russia’s economy, despite sanctions, is growing at 3.2%.

Harold Turner
Hal Turner Show

The current United States Director of National Intelligence (DNI) has publicly accused former President Barack Obama and several of his top Cabinet officials of "Treasonous Conspiracy" against Donald Trump.

On Friday, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard revealed overwhelming evidence that demonstrates how, after President Trump won the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, President Obama and his national security cabinet members manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.

Dmitry Trenin
RT.com

Many now speak of humanity’s drift towards World War III, imagining events similar to those of the 20th century. But war evolves. It will not begin with a June 1941 Barbarossa-style invasion or a Cuban Missile Crisis-style nuclear standoff. In fact, the new world war is already underway – it’s just that not everyone has recognized it yet.

For Russia, the pre-war period ended in 2014. For China, it was 2017. For Iran, 2023. Since then, war – in its modern, diffuse form – has intensified. This is not a new Cold War. Since 2022, the West’s campaign against Russia has grown more decisive. The risk of direct nuclear confrontation with NATO over the Ukraine conflict is rising. Donald Trump’s return to the White House created a temporary window in which such a clash could be avoided, but by mid-2025, hawks in the US and Western Europe had pushed us dangerously close again.

This war involves the world’s leading powers: the United States and its allies on one side, China and Russia on the other. It is global, not because of its scale, but because of the stakes: the future balance of power. The West sees the rise of China and the resurgence of Russia as existential threats. Its counteroffensive, economic and ideological, is meant to put a halt to that shift.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

This might backfire if the Global South perceives him to be a Western proxy and Russia intensifies its asymmetrical responses, however, so it’s best for him to relent before it’s too late.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev was hitherto known as a pragmatic leader who was actively multi-aligning between competing power centers.

As part of that policy, Azerbaijan and Russia became strategic allies, yet he suddenly jeopardized their mutually beneficial relations by stirring up highly publicized trouble with Russia over the past week, which readers can learn more about here and here. It was completely out of character for him to do this, thus raising questions about his motives.

In short, Azerbaijan appears to be taking advantage of reports that Armenia might open the “Zangezur Corridor” but without allowing it to come under Russian control like agreed. That would streamline Turkiye’s military logistics to Central Asia and thus turbocharge its rise as a Eurasian Great Power at the expense of Russian influence there. Even if that unfolds, Aliyev could still maintain his country’s strategic ties with Russia, so he might arguably have image-related motives for unexpectedly jeopardizing them.

To explain, his decision to stir up trouble with Russia might be partially meant to cement his standing among the Central Asian members of the Turkic bloc that Ankara seeks to assemble on the basis of the “Organization of Turkic States” (OTS).

By spinning his moves as “standing up to Russia”, he could be trying to inspire them to follow his lead in future disputes with it. If successful, then the influence that he obtains over them could help prevent Azerbaijan from becoming Turkiye’s junior partner in the OTS.

Strategic Culture Foundation (Editorial)
Strategic Culture Foundation

The real danger from Britain’s unhinged war propaganda is that relentless British provocations in Ukraine are tempting a nuclear winter.

An apology to our readers. With so much grave tension over potential war escalation in the Middle East and the never-ending horror of genocide in Gaza, our choice of editorial topic this week may seem inappropriately frivolous.

Please bear with us. The relevance is the way Western news media are increasingly used by hostile powers to recklessly promote conflict and war, or to whitewash the crimes of Western states. This incitement is nothing short of criminal, and it speaks of an unbridled militarism akin to fascist totalitarianism.

Western media has degenerated into a criminal war propaganda system. One might say that such conduct has always been the case. However, there was a time when Western news media could project a semblance of genuine reporting and journalism. Not anymore. It’s full-on disinformation, cued by those who push a war agenda.

So, this week, British newspapers ran absurd articles claiming Russia was planning to use secret climate-change technology to darken skies over Albion. And you thought the sun never sets on the British Empire!

This is like a broken record, played over and over with theatrical variations, from Russia interfering in elections to cyberattacks to cutting power cables under the sea. Meanwhile, in the real world, Britain and its NATO allies blew up Russian gas pipes under the Baltic Sea.

Editing Team
Quds News Network

Doctors under Attack, which was finally broadcast on Channel 4 on Wednesday night, recounts how hospitals in the territory have been overwhelmed, bombed and raided by Israeli forces during the genocide.

Medics recount being detained and tortured. It had originally been due to run on the BBC.

Ben de Pear, the programme’s executive producer and a former Channel 4 News editor, accused the BBC of attempting to stop him talking about its “painful journey” to the screen with the use of legal gagging clauses.

Constantin von Hoffmeister
Russia Today

Words like “net zero,” “decarbonization,” and “climate justice” sound pure and benevolent, yet behind them stands an apparatus of control

Western Europe’s new green regime reorders the continent through policies of territorial cleansing and restriction, replacing the lifeways of rooted peoples with a managed wilderness shaped by remote technocrats and mandated compliance. What arrives with the language of environmental deliverance advances as a mechanism of control, engineered to dissolve ancestral bonds.

In the soft light of the northern dawn, when the fog rests over fields once furrowed by hands and prayers, a quiet force spreads, cloaked in green, speaking in the language of “sustainability,” offered with the glow of planetary care. Across Europe, policymakers, consultants, and unelected “visionaries” enforce a grand design of regulation and restraint. The new dogma wears the trappings of salvation.

It promises healing, stability, and ecological redemption. Yet beneath the surface lies a different pattern: one of compression, centralization, and engineered transformation. This green wave comes through offices aglow with LED light and carbon dashboards, distant from the oak groves and shepherd chants that once shaped Europe through destiny and devotion. Traditional Europe lived through the pulse of the land, its customs drawn from meadows, its laws mirrored in trees, its faith carried by the wind over tilled soil and cathedral towers.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

It remains to be seen whether Serbia will keep its word and no longer indirectly arm Ukraine.

Serbia surprised some observers after its President and Prime Minister assured Russia that it’ll no longer indirectly arm Ukraine, which came after Russia’s Foreign Spy Service (SVR) said that Serbia hasn’t discontinued this trade that it first raised awareness about in late May. Serbia’s latest smooth-talking towards Russia is politically self-serving, however, since it preceded last weekend’s attempt to revive the protest movement which Moscow consistently assessed to be a Western-backed Color Revolution.

It was explained last summer that “The Serbian Government Is Inadvertently Responsible For The Latest Color Revolution Intrigue”, yet Russia still maintained its aforementioned position, with Lavrov implicitly reaffirming it after last weekend’s unrest in Belgrade. Even so, SVR’s two announcements about Serbia’s indirect arming of Ukraine in just as many months might have made the government speculate that Russia might play a role in the then-upcoming protests or at least promote them in its media ecosystem.

Therefore, the decision might have been made to preempt that by assuring Russia that it’ll discontinue this trade, ergo the timing of these declarations by its President and Prime Minister. The Prime Minister also pledged not to join the West’s anti-Russian sanctions nor sign any anti-Russian declarations. Going back on the first would harm the Serbian economy, however, while doing the same with the second wouldn’t likely entail any harm since none followed it voting against Russia on Ukraine at the UNGA.

Member of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs Natalia Nikonorova is skeptical:

The Dissident
The Dissident (Substack)

Background | For years, the UK government has attempted to crack down on the activist group “Palestine Action”, due to their disruption of the Israeli arms manufacturing plant Elbit Systems, which manufactures weapons used to slaughter civilians in Gaza.

The UK government has consistently coordinated with officials from Elbit Systems to assure them that it will crack down on pro-Palestine protests.

As the Guardian has reported , because many court cases have led to “Palestine Action” activists being “acquitted for in the past with human rights defenses” UK government officials met with representatives of Elbit Systems to “reassure” them that they would crack down harder on the protests.

As the independent outlet Declassified UK reported, in 2022, “then home secretary Priti Patel met privately with Martin Fausset, the CEO of Elbit Systems UK, to ‘discuss protests and security’, Home Office documents revealed that the purpose of the meeting was to ‘reassure… Fausset that the criminal protest acts against Elbit Systems UK are taken seriously by the Government'”.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov shared some insight into his country’s thinking the future of strategic arms control in an interview with TASS in early June. He began by clarifying that Ukraine’s strategic drone strikes in early June didn’t destroy any planes, it only damaged them, and they’ll all be restored.

He then revealed that the Americans were asked “why do you allow yourself to provide the criminals with the relevant data, without which nothing like this could have happened”?

Rybakov didn’t share the answer that they gave his side, but he soon thereafter claimed that “Brussels ‘strategists’ are not giving up their attempts to convince US President Donald Trump to return to the policy pursued by his predecessor.

And that policy implied unconditional support for Ukraine and further escalation.” This suggests Russian suspicion that the Trump Administration might be partially influenced by their pressure campaign, and that could account for why it gave Ukraine the data for those attacks.

Strategic Culture Foundation (Editorial)
Strategic Culture Foundation

The losers in all this unseemly business are the European public. They are being screwed by U.S.-led militarism and European elites who are pimping their civilian economies.

Mark Rutte, the civilian figurehead chief of the NATO alliance, sparked viral headlines and memes this week after he referred to U.S. President Donald Trump as “daddy”.

Even Western news media were taken aback. Reporters questioned whether the former Dutch prime minister was going too far in his obsequiousness and demeaning himself. Without any shame, Rutte doubled down, ladling more compliments on Trump, and praising him for achieving what no other U.S. president has done – forcing European states to ramp up military spending.

The NATO secretary-general’s weird choice of words was not merely abject sycophancy. It was a Freudian slip revealing the sinister and abusive relationship that the United States has with its so-called allies.

At one point, the American president joked that if Rutte doesn’t like him sufficiently, he would sort him out: 💬 "He likes me, I think he likes me. If he doesn't, I'll let you know. I'll come back, and I'll hit him hard, OK? He did it very affectionately...'daddy, you're my daddy.'"

Elena Panina (Елена Панина)
Елена Панина/Telegram

The final declaration of the Hague Summit of NATO countries:

Despite the disagreements of individual countries, the alliance remained faithful to its "original" task - war with Russia. No other country, in terms of threats, is mentioned in the declaration. Thus, all talk about NATO "shifting its focus" to other regions of the world is essentially disingenous.

■ 5% of military expenditures of NATO members will be distributed as follows: 3.5% directly for military expenditures, and 1.5% for critical infrastructure protection, networks, innovation, and strengthening of the military-industrial complex. How can we not recall here the revelations of the U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO Matthew Whitaker:

Strategic Culture Foundation Editorial
Strategic Culture Foundation

Western media silence and distortion are not merely disgraceful false propaganda. It is complicity in war crimes by giving cover and license for more.

Western news media have given up the pretense of being independent and impartial sources of information. American and European mainstream outlets are nothing but propaganda services for the NATO proxy war against Russia.

That observation is hardly new. Since the NATO-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, the Western media have systematically and relentlessly whitewashed the NeoNazi regime and its strategic purpose as a cat’s paw to embroil Russia in conflict. Russia’s inevitable military response to the decade-long proxy war has been distorted as “unprovoked aggression” against “democratic” Ukraine.

The Western “news media” have now outed themselves for the propaganda functionaries that they are. The veil is shredded.

Last weekend, the NATO-backed Kiev regime deliberately attacked a civilian passenger train in Russia’s Bryansk region. Seven people were killed and over 100 were injured after a bridge was blown up, crashing down on a train passing underneath. The death toll could have been much higher, given the hundreds on board.

Within hours of that heinous act, a second train was derailed when a bridge it was traveling over in Kursk was blown up. Mercifully, there were no deaths in the second attack despite several injuries.

Soheila Zarfam
Tehran Times

How did Israel's aggression unite Iranians more than ever?

Several funerals were being held there. There were young, old, male, and female bodies wrapped in the white fabrics Muslims use to bury the dead. The atmosphere was eerie. There were many people crying and weeping, but there were also some who looked firm despite the grief showing on their faces.

I spoke to one of the mourners, a woman who was burying her brother. She was wearing a black Iranian chador. Next to her were people who looked nothing like her in attire; they wore loose-fitting clothes and hijabs. "I lost my brother during an Israeli attack. He was a soldier completing his military service," the woman explained. Zahra, as she named herself, said she comes from a family that has sacrificed many of its members for the country. "Two of my uncles were martyred during the Iran-Iraq war. My dad was also a soldier during that war. We were used to hearing and talking about martyrs, but we never thought we would be speaking about my 23-year-old brother in the same manner."

English Outsider
Moon of Alabama

The outcome of the war with Iran is still unknown. That of the war in Ukraine is set in stone and always has been.

There's nothing funny here, though it's true that the Western military and political establishments are now pure farce. Nothing funny because the farce has had lethal consequences. The unrestrained carnage in Gaza will be a reproach to the West for ever.

As for Ukraine, "b" summed up, must be two years ago now, what we are putting our proxies in Ukraine through. A "crime", he stated. So it is. Has been since 2014. Worse now, after a million and more deaths and economic and societal ruin for Ukraine to match.

As for the military reality Putin, in the video embedded in the Simplicius article above, sums up the military reality that has been clear to us Europeans since February 2022. NATO, the US and all, is a paper tiger. Even with the substantial manpower of the original Ukrainian armed forces NATO has neither the troops nor the equipment for a ground war on Russia’s doorstep and never has had. All we do have is the nuclear threat and neither Biden, nor, now, Trump, will risk Chicago frying for Vilnius. Nor for Berlin. Nor for London. That accepted, the only puzzle lies in working out what the European politicians hope to gain from prolonging a war long since lost.

Alexander Neukropny
Reporter / en.topcor.ru

Analyzing in minute detail the events and possible prospects of the armed conflict that has now flared up in the Middle East, the absolute majority of experts, concentrating on particulars, bypass the most global aspects of this confrontation. So to speak, “they can’t see the forest for the trees.” But today we are talking not only about possible political и economic upheavals in states already involved in the war and theoretically capable of entering it, but about much larger-scale threats that could affect the entire world.

In this case, we are not talking about the theoretical possibility of using nuclear weapons (which, we would like to believe, no one would dare to do), but something completely different. The defeat of Tehran or its capitulation on the terms imposed by the US and Israel would mean revenge for the neoconservative trend in the foreign policy of Washington and the entire collective West. This, without a doubt, represents a huge danger for many countries and peoples. For Russia – first and foremost.

Gerry Nolan
Pravda EN

The eagle’s midnight theatrics over Iranian skies promised a shock-and-awe spectacle, “obliteration” of nuclear facilities that would, we were assured, defang Tehran forever. But the dust settled differently. Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s ferocious geopolitical surgeon, calmly delivered the autopsy:

💬 “Critical infrastructure remains intact. Enrichment will continue. And now, a number of countries stand ready to hand Iran their own nuclear warheads.”

Read between Medvedev’s carefully chosen lines and you see not just a warning, but a multipolar declaration of independence, one that reduces America’s unilateral antics to mere tantrums on a shrinking stage.

America’s B-2 bomber pageant, billed as decisive, was merely performative PR, a muscular mirage designed to placate Israeli anxieties and assuage neoconservative egos. Iran shrugged off the attack, dusting itself off with ease and signaling that its nuclear trajectory remains unaltered. Indeed, the Empire’s strike was nothing more than an act of desperation.

Foad Izadi
english.khamenei.ir

In this interview, Foad Izadi, Associate Professor of American Studies at Tehran university, explains how a direct US military involvement against Iran could lead to devastating troop losses, economic turmoil, and legal crises, while exposing Israel’s true goal: Fragmenting Iran. Yet instead of weakening the country, the aggression has only fueled unprecedented national unity against foreign threats.

According to American sources themselves, the US has over 50,000 troops stationed across ten bases in the region, many of which are located very close to Iran’s borders. Some are situated along the Persian Gulf, while others are slightly farther away — yet still significantly closer than the Zionist regime. Given this proximity, Iran’s various ballistic missiles can easily reach these bases, and the short distance makes intercepting these missiles extremely difficult. An Iranian missile can strike these bases within just 3 to 5 minutes.

Even in the occupied territories (Israel), where a multi-layered missile defense system has been developed over years, a significant number of Iranian missiles would still penetrate. How, then, could US bases — which lack such defensive systems — possibly withstand such attacks?

As a result, 50,000 American soldiers are within range of Iran’s highly advanced ballistic missiles. This number — 50,000 — matches the total casualties the US suffered over 12 years in the Vietnam War. In this region, however, thousands of American troops could be killed within just a few days. This would be an unbearable cost for the US. One of the key reasons Washington has avoided direct military engagement so far is precisely this fear of massive troop losses in the region.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Benjamin Netanyahu, other members of the Israeli government, and anti-Iranian hawks within Trump’s own convinced him that a window of opportunity has opened up to knock Iran out of the geopolitical game for good.

Trump’s decision to bomb several nuclear sites in Iran is the due to him letting Israel shape the conflict’s military-strategic dynamics in ways that made this scenario too tempting for him not to pursue. [cf. trump chabad -Ed.] Observers should remember that he was aware of Israel’s plans to bomb Iran, and though he might have pressured them into delaying it till after his 60-day deadline for another nuclear deal had passed, he fully supported them afterwards. That made the US’ direct involvement in the conflict inevitable in hindsight.

Israel significantly degraded Iran’s military capabilities since the start of its ongoing US-supported bombing campaign but then began to claim that it can’t finish the job without American bunker busters. Influential MAGA thought leader Steve Bannon considered this to be a betrayal of their countries’ special relationship since Israel shouldn’t have started a war that it couldn’t win on its own. Many members of Trump’s movement agree with this assessment and that’s why his base is deeply divided over this issue.

For his part, Trump either doesn’t care what they think, is convinced that most of them will come around to supporting him, or expects them to hold their nose and still vote for the candidates that he endorses (including whoever his envisaged successor might be), so he bombed Iran in spite of this. He did that even though there’s a real risk of Iran targeting regional US bases and/or blockading the Strait of Hormuz, which Trump sought to deter by threatening it with unprecedented fire and fury in that event.

The Dissident
The Dissident (Substack)

Iran does not have nuclear weapons, but Israel does and is willing to use them if they believe they are about to lose.

Recently, the genocidal IDF tweeted out a propaganda video showcasing the effect of a Nuclear launch.

“The world is facing one of its biggest nuclear threats in decades,” the announcer of the video said.

The video ends by claiming that “the biggest terrorist army in the world was about to have (a nuclear weapon) in their hands,” referring to Iran.

But Israel's claim - that Iran was about to obtain a Nuclear weapon- was completely fabricated.

Former CIA head William Burns, current DNI head Tulsi Gabbard, and even the U.S. intelligence community’s annual threat assessment report, put out in March, all acknowledge that there was no intention on the part of Iran to build a nuclear bomb.

This propaganda video was not intended to scare people about the non-existent Iranian nuclear threat, but was put out as a veiled threat of what Israel may do if it feels they are losing the war with Iran.

Israel, unlike Iran, does have a massive Nuclear arsenal, and a doctrine -dubbed the Samson Option- where they call to use it if they feel they will lose a war.

After a long investigation, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh revealed all of this in his 1991 book, “The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy”.

In this article, I will review the history of Israel obtaining the bomb and its continued threat to use it, including as a threat of blackmail to influence U.S. foreign policy.