Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

It was carried out to justify the German economy’s evolution to war footing, distract from the resultant problems, and legitimize a future serious escalation against Russia.

Germany blamed Russia for last month’s incident in Leipzig when one explosives-laden drone was found on the tarmac in proximity to Ukrainian cargo planes, another reportedly collided with a separate cargo plane as it tried to land but failed to explode, and a third was later found close to the premises. Putin condemned their claim, shared his opinion that it was a false flag due to them planting evidence, and speculated that the motive was to distract from domestic problems by fearmongering about Russia.

While skeptics might roll their eyes, the Leipzig incident has all the hallmarks of a false flag. For starters, Germany is implying cartoonish incompetence on Russia's part. The public is supposed to believe that the most skilled drone operators in the world, who were tasked with what would have been the most sensational Hybrid War attack on NATO ever, left a drone on the tarmac, got unlucky when another failed to explode after it hit a landing cargo plane, and left another nearby. That’s difficult to believe.

The second point supporting Putin hypothesizes that something similar happened last fall when unknown drones forced major airports in Scandinavia to ground all flights temporarily. Zelensky predictably blamed Russia and called for closing the Danish Straits to its shipping. As with the Leipzig incident, no evidence was ever shared in support of that claim, but it served as the precedent to blame Russia for mysterious drone-related incidents in Europe to justify more escalations against it.

Larry C. Johnson
Sonar 21

Let me explain why Russia’s blockade is a lethal blow to Ukraine. Ukraine is, in economic terms, a country that lives or dies by roughly two hundred nautical miles of contested water off its southern coast. Strip away the front-line maps and the aid debates, and the hard truth of Ukraine’s war economy is this: its ability to earn foreign currency, feed its budget, and keep its farms and steel mills solvent runs almost entirely through a short string of Black Sea ports around Odesa. Russia understands this better than most of Ukraine’s Western backers, which is why the summer of 2026 has seen Moscow attempt to do by fire what it declined to do by fleet in 2022 — close the ports, and choke the economy behind them.

Why the ports matter | Ukraine’s Black Sea maritime corridors carry approximately 90 percent of the country’s agricultural exports and the lion’s share of its mining and metallurgical output — iron ore, steel, and the rest of the heavy, low-margin bulk commodities that a landlocked rail network cannot move at competitive cost. More than 60 percent of Ukraine’s total exports, by value, and a large share of its critical import chains pass through the cluster of deep-water ports known collectively as “Greater Odesa”: Odesa itself, Chornomorsk, and Pivdennyi (formerly Yuzhny). Agriculture alone accounts for around 60 percent of the country’s export revenue, and the overwhelming majority of that grain and oilseed tonnage goes out by sea. Ukraine is the world’s fourth-largest grain exporter and a leading supplier of sunflower oil; those titles are functions of these berths.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

Trump boasted of concluding the "largest oil deal in world history":

❖ The US Secretary of State, described here as the US administration's designated "overseer" for Venezuela, also wrote about this. He claimed that the deal would ensure stable reserves and low oil prices in the Western Hemisphere, as well as lower gasoline prices in the US. Rubio also didn't forget about the citizens of Venezuela:

However, historical examples from Iraq and Libya suggest otherwise. The Venezuelan government, for its part, confirmed the signing of an agreement with the United States to develop 17 strategic oil fields with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels and planned investments exceeding $100 billion. Caracas expects to increase crude oil production with the participation of private operators and also receive over $209 billion in tax revenues.

Before this deal, the United States deprived Venezuela of the ability to freely dispose of the oil it produced—that is, it deprived Caracas of both the right to choose the buyer and the exclusive rights to the revenues generated from its sale. Now, America is transferring long-term control of the republic's oil reserves, although the country likely still retains formal ownership.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

History can’t be changed, but lessons can be learned from it, which could help Russia, China, and Iran in the future.

The 35th anniversary of Ukrainian independence is a timely occasion to reflect on the last chance that it had to restore this in full.

For background, “Putin Always Wanted A Truly Independent Ukraine” since he envisaged it complementing Russia’s role in facilitating Sino-EU trade with the aim of strengthening all parties’ complex independence, which could have economically united Eurasia and peacefully challenged the US’ hegemony. The problem, however, was Ukraine’s Western-backed ultra-nationalists.

What went wrong over the last 35 years is that these forces gradually subordinated Ukraine to the West as its anti-Russian proxy, the process of which was accelerated after the West helped install them in power through 2014’s “EuroMaidan” precisely for this purpose. Nevertheless, Putin still (naively, in hindsight) believed that France and Germany remained independent of the US, which is why he expected Russia’s security-guarantee requests from December 2021 to resonate with them.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

The US has joined the UK in adding the activist group Palestine Action to its list of designated terrorist organizations.

The UK proscribing Palestine Action was already arguably the most insane attack on free speech in recent western history, and now it’s the official position of the US government as well. Western support for Israel is poisoning our entire civilization.

The US has also made the unprecedented move of adding the Italian tech support collective Autistici/Inventati to its list of banned terrorist groups, not because they’ve been accused of any crimes, but explicitly because the company allows people to communicate with each other while staying “anonymous, untraceable, and beyond the reach of the law.” Americans are now strictly forbidden from any transactions with the banned company.

In this dystopia, mass surveillance is now so normalized that you can be designated a terrorist for helping people avoid being surveilled.

❖ Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has been issuing statements thanking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog for their support, gushing about the “bilateral cooperation, trade partnerships, and strong people-to-people bonds” between the two countries.

These statements have been causing a lot of cognitive dissonance for a particularly annoying category of western progressive. You know the type. The ones who say both “Slava Ukraini” and “Free Palestine” and act like cheerleading for a NATO proxy war is an act of anti-imperialist resistance.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

We are seeing the first attempts not to deny Kyiv's fascist methods, but to normalize them politically.

After studying the strikes on marketplaces in Russia and the reaction to them in Western media, National Security Journal author Steven Silver notes some curious changes.

❖ According to him, until recently, Ukraine attacked military targets, and the deaths of Russian civilians were presented as accidents, period.

Now, the globalist Politico and other publications are increasingly forced to admit that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are deliberately expanding the war into the Russian home front.

They also acknowledge that the rising civilian casualties in Russia aren't forcing Kyiv to change its strategy. Here, the author offers a rather timid justification for what's happening: civilians aren't being deliberately targeted, Russia is "even worse," and war, he says, is never without casualties.

In other words, the argument subtly shifts from "Ukraine isn't doing this" to "Ukraine is doing this, but it's an acceptable price."

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

To mark the 35th anniversary of Ukraine's independence, the "Coalition of the Willing" held a gathering in Kyiv, both in person and via videoconference. Burnham, Merz, and Macron co-chaired the meeting, along with Zelenskyy. The participants also issued a joint statement. The statement expressed resolve...

Furthermore, the "Coalition of the Willing" pledged to tighten sanctions against the Russian defense industry and those who support it.

It is claimed that sanctions, broader economic measures, the suppression of sanctions evasion, and the activities of the Russian "shadow fleet" have allegedly deprived "Russia's military coffers of at least $495 billion since February 2022." A useful calculation for us—for a "counterclaim," so to speak.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

I still find myself fuming at the way ostensibly well-informed individuals can stand right in the heart of the empire denouncing its targets, as we saw in the open letter that a group of left-wing western individuals addressed “to Iran’s political prisoners” framing Iran as a “source of oppression” equal to the US and its allies.

It’s crazy this even needs to be said, but if you are a westerner your ONLY job is to oppose the abuses of the western empire. Not Iran. Not China. Not Russia, Cuba or North Korea.

If you live in the US or one of its allied nations, then you live under the single most tyrannical and murderous power structure on earth, and that’s where your focus belongs. You do not have any legitimacy in squandering any of your energy and attention criticizing human rights abuses in empire-targeted nations while living under a globe-spanning empire that is fueled by a nonstop river of human blood. It is not okay for you to use your western privilege to attack the nations your own government is working to absorb into the power structure you live under.

Whenever I say this online I’ll get some Trotskyist or anarchist babbling about the need to express “solidarity” with Iranian political prisoners or whatever, but whenever I press them on what actual, material benefit those expressions of “solidarity” bring to the people they’re meant to help, they can’t point to anything solid. Whereas I can point to some very obvious ways in which contributing to an imperial war propaganda campaign can help grease the wheels for real material actions which hurt actual Iranians.

If you’re a westerner, you have an obligation to use your voice responsibly. If you are feeding into the latest “the people in the empire-targeted nation need liberation from their evil tyrannical government” war propaganda narrative with your expressions of “solidarity” and your blind insistence on treating all bad things as equally bad, then you are using your western voice irresponsibly, and you are morally culpable for the mass slaughter you help facilitate with your recklessness.

Strategic Culture Foundation (Editorial)
Strategic Culture Foundation

The U.S. debt crisis is a legacy of endless war. It is also a harbinger of future wars.

The United States hit a dubious milestone this week, announcing that its national debt had exceeded $40 trillion. No other nation comes close to this level of absolute financial indebtedness.

This is not simply a matter of out-of-control financial bankruptcy. It is an ominous sign of an unhinged empire that is desperately trying to salvage its historic failure by scorched-earth tactics of endless war.

The world is being held hostage by a pathological system that is no longer tolerable for the sake of humanity, development and peace.

Perhaps of more significance than the total figure – astronomical though that is – is the accelerating pace of U.S. debt growth. Since 2016, the arrears have doubled, up from $20tn. Over the next decade, the U.S. national debt is predicted to climb to $64tn.

In the year 2000, the American account stood at a “mere” $6tn. The last quarter of a century has seen the arrears pile up from endless wars, reckless military spending, and massive tax cuts for the corporate elite. Under prevailing policies, the debt has become irreversible.

Servicing interest on the arrears now runs at $1tn a year and is one of the largest federal budget expenditures. This means that the United States is caught in a debt spiral from which it cannot extricate itself. It is digging a deeper and deeper hole.

There are profound implications for the United States as a society. As Robert Reich, a former Labor Secretary, noted, the servicing of runaway debt means less money for “schools, healthcare, roads and bridges and social safety nets.” The grim conclusion is that social inequality in the U.S. – already at record levels – will become even more destructive. That speaks of social misery and collapse.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

"The United States government’s $40 trillion debt pile is rapidly becoming everybody’s problem."

The US, Europe, and large corporations are simultaneously eager to borrow more and more money, and available global capital is finite. Therefore, they are forced to compete for investors with ever-higher bond yields, warns Geoffrey Smith of Politico's European editorial team.

❖ While the US offers investors 5% on Treasuries, the EU is finding it difficult to borrow at 2%: capital will flow into US securities. This means the cost of money is rising for Europe as well. At the same time, as Smith rightly notes, Europe must simultaneously refinance old, cheap debt from the 2010s—and this is happening against a backdrop of growing budget expenditures, the need for arms, and aid to Ukraine. Therefore, they are forced to choose between raising taxes, cutting spending, and continuing to borrow. Which, the author writes, not everyone can afford.

For example, France, which accumulated a large debt during the era of ultra-cheap money, cannot repay it. Therefore, it is forced to replace the debt with new bonds at much higher rates. Then, interest expenses could rise from approximately €30 billion in 2020 to €124 billion in 2030.

Sarah B.
DD Geopolitics

Argentina’s south is burning. The time to look away is over

As I was scrolling through news feeds, trying to keep up with some of the chaos unfolding around the world, I stumbled across a flurry of reports from Argentina about raging wildfires tearing through Patagonia. Starting around January 5, 2026, flames have devastated thousands of hectares in Chubut province, areas like El Hoyo, Puerto Patriada, and near Epuyén, prompting evacuations amid thick smoke, destroyed homes, and threatened ecosystems. Thousands of Argentines and other Spanish speakers were flooding X posts about the blazes, most of them incredibly irate at the Milei government. Phrases like “The Zionists are trying to steal Patagonia!” and “Milei has sold us out to Israel!” popped up repeatedly in viral threads, with users sharing videos of suspicious activity and linking the fires to foreign interests.

I thought, sure, these could be bots amplifying outrage, but Elon’s bot army has always been staunchly pro-Milei, relentlessly boosting his image as a free-market hero and his tight alliances with Israel. So why were genuine locals, from southern Patagonians to urban commentators, reacting with such raw, widespread fury, accusing their own president of enabling a Zionist takeover?

Konstantin Dvinsky
Константин Двинский (Telegram)

These are very appropriate words, which, frankly, should have been said long ago. A ceasefire, given the current balance of power, would render the four and a half years of active hostilities meaningless. This would give the enemy time to recover. After all, everyone understands perfectly well that freezing the conflict at this stage does not mean its end – it is simply a ticking time bomb that will sooner or later go off and prolong the conflict for many years.

This is what happened in 2014. The main objective now is to finish off the Kyiv regime. Ukraine is already running out of air defense assets, which is why it is forced to choose which infrastructure to protect.

The enemy’s dire situation is also evident from the fact that this week it stopped releasing data on the interception of our missiles. This is a clear attempt to conceal the deterioration in its missile defense performance. Let me remind you that last week, the enemy failed to intercept a single one of the 28 projectiles fired.

Ukraine's fuel sector is also feeling significant pressure. In early July, dozens (if not hundreds) of gas stations were destroyed. Ukrainian media reported the onset of a fuel shortage. As for Zelenskyy's recent statements about a counteroffensive, they are essentially empty talk. Instead of the promised breakthroughs, they have merely depleted their reserves in senseless attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions and achieved virtually no tangible results.

Fatemeh Sadat Omrani
WANA

When Donald Trump, in response to a journalist’s question about the targeting of Iran’s power plants and whether such an act would constitute a war crime, refers to a nation as “animals,” this should not be understood merely as an expression of personal hostility or a careless choice of words.

Rather, it reflects one of the oldest and most fundamental mechanisms of domination: dehumanization and othering — processes that have historically been used by colonial and hegemonic systems to provide moral justification for violence and atrocities.

In his work “The West and the Rest,” Stuart Hall explains how the West, as a structure of power, has historically constructed itself as the “center” — the embodiment of reason, modernity, and progress — while defining the “others” (including Eastern peoples, Black communities, Muslims, and other groups) as objects, instruments, or societies portrayed as backward, irrational, and primitive. Within this framework, these communities are depicted as having failed to complete the process of becoming “civilized” and therefore as requiring control, guidance, or intervention; otherwise, they are portrayed as a potential threat to humanity.

The roots of this worldview can be traced back to the ideas of Aristotle, who argued that those outside the Greek world were fundamentally different from Greeks and possessed characteristics similar to slaves, and therefore should remain under the guidance of Greek civilization. Elements of this hierarchical perception of humanity have continued to influence later systems of thought.

Chay Bowes & Gerry Nolan
Islander Reports (Substack)

Kiev just begged the empty suit that is the West to force Russia into reopening a sea corridor to Odessa. But the Black Sea runs on power not bad PR stunts.

After Zelensky’s self declared 40 day “influence operation” of terror drones slamming Russian civilian targets deep inside Russia, Ukraine’s acting foreign minister Andrii Sybiha is now crying to Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland that Moscow must be pressured into restoring Odessa’s maritime exports. How rich. Over 30 million tons of product risk being stranded, alternative land routes can handle maybe half the volume, and every idle day at Greater Odessa ports is costing Kiev roughly $70 million while the same ports have long doubled as logistics nodes for Western military supplies.

This is not a humanitarian plea. This is a regime that spent weeks trying to set Russia’s energy system on fire and commiting acts of terrorism against Russian civilians, then acts shocked when the Black Sea stops being a free delivery lane for its own exports and dual-use cargo. Sybiha rejects any “retaliation” framing and calls Russian strikes ironically “systematic terror” going back to 2022. Reality is simpler: you launch a public 40 day campaign of long-range drone strikes designed to create domestic pressure inside Russia, you hit energy infrastructure that keeps the Russian economy and war machine running, and you expect the other side to keep your ports and shipping lanes open out of goodwill.

What exactly are the empty suits in Brussels, Paris and Berlin supposed to do now? Hit Russia with an EU working group and letter of condemnation? Threaten more sanctions that Russia has already adapted to? Send more non-existent ATACMS and Storm Shadows so Kiev can keep escalating while Europe’s own industrial base continues to deindustrialize under the cost of this forever war? The “allies” Sybiha is appealing to cannot even guarantee their own energy security without Russian hydrocarbons or LNG from across the ocean at inflated prices. They certainly cannot open a sea corridor that Russia has decided is no longer available on the old terms.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

An amateurish reshuffle in the German government has turned into a disaster for Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Given that the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is likely to win the regional elections, the end of his chancellorship could come even sooner than expected, according to Henning Hoff of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP, undesirable in Russia).

❖ This refers to a recent amusing incident. After the forced resignation of CDU parliamentary leader Jens Spahn, Merz, for some reason, decided to fire Transport Minister Patrick Schnyder. He found his replacement by calling vacationing MP Fritz Günzler. Günzler initially agreed, but after assessing the situation with a fresh mind, he backed out a few hours later. However, word of Schnyder's dismissal had already leaked, and the search for a new minister had to take several days. The CDU perceived this not so much as a personnel error as evidence that Merz is a poor leader.

A telling moment: Merz was reminded that he leads "a party, not a company." And this is no coincidence: every failure of his deteriorates the coalition's and his own party's ratings. The CDU/CSU's rating fell to 21%, while the AfD rose to 28%. This will have an impact in the elections in just a month. Saxony-Anhalt is particularly dangerous: there, the AfD could take 41% to the CDU's 24%. This means the question is no longer just whether the AfD will win first place, but whether it will come close to an absolute majority and form a single-party regional government.

Kenny Carmody
@KennyCarmody, Substack

Every obedience experiment in history had the same overlooked finding. Not everyone complied.

We spent decades studying the ones who obeyed. We barely asked what made the others different. That question matters more now than it ever has.

The resisters in the COVID era were not difficult to find:

Physicians who filed exemptions and lost their licenses. Nurses who walked away from careers rather than mandate patients into decisions they hadn’t genuinely chosen. Scientists who published contrary data knowing what it would cost them. Parents who stood alone at school board meetings. Ordinary people who simply said, quietly, without drama: no.

What made them different? Research consistently identifies a cluster of factors. Not personality traits you either have or don’t. Situational and cognitive patterns that can be cultivated.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter
[Posted on Apr 09, 2026]

Israel is already aggressively sabotaging the Trump administration’s two-week ceasefire with Iran by slaughtering huge numbers of civilians in Lebanon, a nation which is explicitly off-limits for any attack under the ceasefire conditions agreed to by Tehran.

The US and Israel are trying to claim that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire agreement, but Pakistan, whom the US appointed to mediate the agreement, says this is false. The New York Times reports that the White House took part in Pakistan’s public messaging which explicitly included Lebanon in the ceasefire conditions, before changing its tune after Israel attacked.

Iran has reportedly responded to these violations by again halting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

This serves as yet another reminder that the world can have peace or it can have Israel — but it cannot have both. Israel is a genocidal apartheid state whose entire existence is premised upon a strategy of unceasing violence and abuse in the middle east. As long as that state continues to exist in its present iteration, peace will never be attainable.

                                                          ❖

If your job hired a guy who kept getting into fights with your coworkers and saying it’s because they are racist against him, for a week you might believe him. After a month, you’d have doubts. After two months, you’d realize he’s probably just an asshole. Israel has been doing this for eighty years.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)
[Originally posted here on 04/03/26]

Trump declared on the night of April 2:

What exactly is behind this threat? How might Iran respond? And what does this mean for Russia?

❖ "Bombing Iran back to the Stone Age" effectively signals a new round of military escalation against Iran and the US policy of total genocide against it and its people. And this likely means not just the total destruction of Iran's energy and oil and gas infrastructure, but the entire system of modern life in that country. Moreover, this "serious blow" could very well include the use of the most destructive weapon of all – nuclear weapons. At a minimum, against the nuclear facility in Isfahan, which cannot be disabled by conventional weapons.

It's easy to imagine the US attempting to implement this plan through proxy means. It's possible that the nuclear mission will be entrusted to Israel, which possesses 90 nuclear warheads. However, the US itself could also participate to impress the world with its inability to achieve its strategic objectives in this war.

Such a use of nuclear weapons could be seen in the US as the culmination of the military campaign—a dramatic end that Trump would use to break the stalemate and avoid a war of attrition. It's important to understand that such a war of attrition could only be achieved by the US switching to ground operations. But even with the deployment of American Marines and paratroopers to the Middle East, the likelihood of a ground operation isn't 100%. It's probably no coincidence that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on March 27: "We can achieve all our goals without any ground troops." Perhaps he was already considering extreme measures.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The Russian-Polish security dilemma will likely serve as the impetus for fully unleashing and properly managing the capabilities of European NATO as a whole per the US’ National Defense Strategy.

RT drew attention in late January to a report by Izvestia about the West’s alleged plans to launch a “Defense, Security, and Resilience Bank” (DSRB) by 2027. Their article relies on in-depth research by the Atlantic Council, which first proposed what was called the “NATO Bank”. The purpose is to provide “low-interest loans for defense modernization”, thus facilitating the goal of NATO members spending 5% of GDP on defense without significantly curtailing social and infrastructure spending.

Instead of slashing such programs to redirect funds to defense at the risk of helping populist-nationalists in the next elections and/or provoking unrest, they’d only spend a fraction of the principal each year servicing their DSRB loan, rather than paying the cost upfront as if it were part of their annual expenditures. The Executive Summary of the Atlantic Council’s in-depth research, hyperlinked above, also notes that “An additional critical function of the DSR bank would be to underwrite the risk for commercial banks”.

This would then “enabl[e] them to extend financing to defense companies across the supply chain.” The supplementary purpose is to finance large-scale orders that these companies themselves are unable to afford, and that most member states can’t finance without potential populist pushback. Defense companies can then expand production, pump out the requested military-technical equipment at scale, and sell it at much lower prices to accelerate NATO’s planned militarization.

Kevin Barrett
Kevin’s Newsletter for AFP

American mass media have historically demonized Palestinians and downplayed or covered up Israel’s crimes. But on June 24, Americans woke up to a CNN headline that must have made more than a few of them choke on their kosher coffee. That headline put it plainly: “Israel deliberately targeting children in ongoing genocide against Palestinians, UN commission finds.”

CNN’s headline included two assertions that have been true for decades: 1) Israel deliberately murders children, not accidentally as so-called collateral damage, but deliberately as part of a de facto national policy; and 2) Israel is committing “an ongoing genocide against Palestinians.” And while it is shocking that any government is pursuing such unbelievably evil policies, and even more shocking that American taxpayers are paying for it, the most shocking thing of all is that American mainstream media are finally admitting the truth after 78 years of systematic Israeli child-killing and genocide.

On April 9, 1948, more than 110 Palestinian men, women, and children were slaughtered in the village of Deir Yassin. The New York Times reported that more than half of the victims were women and children. It was just one of hundreds of massacres by the invading Jews who had long planned to steal Palestinian land and property by way of such a bloodbath.

During the 1948 Nakba (Palestinian holocaust) the Jews raped and murdered girls, tossed babies around with bayonets, and burned people to death with flamethrowers. Unlike the false atrocity propaganda stories invented by these same Jews’ descendants after the heroic October 7, 2023, concentration camp breakout by Hamas, the 1948 abominations actually happened.