The Day After.
And the day after that.
Aurelien
May 07, 2025
A number of these essays have dealt with the consequences of the war in Ukraine for western states, and especially for the Europeans. I have talked about the quasi-religious fervour which lies behind the vilification of Russia as an “anti-Europe,” as well as the wider traditional fear of the size and power of that country. It’s clear that there is no real understanding of how close we are now to the appearance of a single, hostile dominant military power on the continent, which the Europeans cannot even begin to resist,. Meanwhile, the traditional counterweight—the United States—seems increasingly less interested, and anyway less capable.
It’s time to bring these reflections up to date, and to try to peer into what seems to be a very uncomfortable future for Europe, and one which its leaders will have no idea how to deal with, either institutionally as in Brussels, or at the level of nation-states. That last point is important, because we are moving into entirely uncharted territory here, where an unimpressive generation of European political leaders and bureaucrats will be presented with intellectual, political and even moral challenges which at the moment they show no signs of being able to comprehend, let alone able to deal with, and which, critically, will divide their countries from each other.
Europe is a small, crowded, historically violent continent, whose exact definition and boundaries vary depending on the question you ask and the period you are talking about, but whose rulers and nations have historically looked to military force and military alliances to keep the peace and fight the wars. Nations that were dominant at certain periods (Spain, France, Prussia …) tended to attract opposition, but national rivalries were themselves overlaid by and mixed up with higher-level ones (the Pope versus the Emperor, the French King versus the Emperor, Catholics versus Protestants) and lower-level ones (regionalism, nationalism, ethnic rivalry, commercial rivalries, the mismatch between groups and borders) in a dizzying and frequently changing pattern. (Most books on the Thirty Years War begin with an introductory chapter just explaining how complicated it all was, and how many other factors than religion were involved.)
“Europe” seldom acted as an entity for this reason: internal jealousies and rivalries meant that one nation’s problems could be another nation’s advantage: thus the notable absence of the French from the European coalition fighting the expansion of the Ottoman Empire for example. We have tended to forget since 1945 that Europe’s habit of producing more history than it can consume, and its endless historical, cultural and territorial disputes that generated this history, have not actually gone away, but have just been repressed and concealed. Like some traumatic childhood memory they are still there, waiting to resurface.
The Second World War was fought according to these norms. It was essentially a consequence of the fundamental structural problem of European politics since the nineteenth century, of borders not reflecting the distribution of ethnic and national groups. (This “self-determination of peoples” thing turned out to be more difficult than anyone had expected.) It became clear that you couldn’t replace multinational empires with tidy, viable nation-states just like that, and attempts to do so created anger, and demands to change the resulting borders. In traditional fashion, Germany attempted to reclaim territory it considered its own by threats and force: in traditional fashion, Britain and France threatened war if it did so. And thus.
As I’ve stressed several times, European elites emerged from the war exhausted, traumatised and stunned, recognising that the Continent simply could not survive another such episode. I’ve been through the sequence of events that produced NATO, the European institutions and eventually the European Union enough times that there is no need to reproduce it all here. But what’s important in the present context is that when they were actually needed, like now, these institutions turned out to be weak, and unsuited to the current situation. NATO was conceived against the belief in a common threat, but when the circumstances originally envisaged actually arose—a major crisis in Europe involving Russia—it turned out to be largely useless. And as I will explain, that situation is unlikely to change, let alone improve. And the EU was conceived less to resolve internal tensions and contradictions within Europe than to suppress and hide them, and it is already clear that it can’t do that much longer. Again, I’ll say more about this in a moment. In many ways, we are seeing a return to traditional patterns of European politics now, much more so than was the case in 1989 for all the excitement of that moment. And these are not patterns that we are necessarily going to like.
Before embarking on these questions, however, I want to first talk about a fundamental characteristic of the international system which is generally left out of international relations textbooks, especially those written by Americans or under the influence of realist or neo-realist dogma. This is the complexity of the relationships between larger and smaller nations, and what smaller nations do to try to avoid giving away too much. I should say that all of my attempts to explain this to Americans have failed, although it’s not actually that complicated. But even if Americans understand the problem intellectually, they cannot, for historical reasons, understand what it feels like to be a smaller and weaker power confronted with a larger. So with due apologies to Americans I haven’t met, and who can understand this kind of thing, let’s move on.
In spite of what dominant international relations theories may say, the world does not consist of unitary “nations” perpetually fighting each other for influence and power and sometimes coming to war. Nor did it ever. As I’ve pointed out many times, the international system only works at all as a result of widespread cooperation, as often as not on the basis of mutual self-interest. Great powers and lesser powers can actually both benefit from the same agreement, even if their objectives are diametrically opposed to each other. The world is, in fact, a gigantic assemblage of Venn diagrams , where smaller nations are often obliged for practical reasons to choose options they would rather not choose, because the alternatives are worse. And indeed larger nations can sometimes find themselves in that position as well. International relations, especially in the security area, is not a zero-sum game.
But countries that are not enemies, and may even be allies of various kinds, nonetheless have complex relations with each other, and often one will predominate. The relationships between Australia and New Zealand, Nigeria and Ghana or Brazil and Paraguay are not conflictual, but not relationships of equals, either. Beyond a certain point, though, imbalances of power can be large enough to be problematic, and generate a sense of insecurity and fragility. At that point, a wise government looks around for a counterbalancing force to strengthen its position. The classic example for many years was Saudi Arabia, a large but weak state, with important tribal and religious tensions. Through commercial and military relationships with western nations, and purchase of western military equipment, as well as stationing of foreign military personnel in the country, it turned western nations into guarantors of its own security, and western personnel into hostages in the event of an attack.
But this co-optation of other nations in your defence is a common strategy for weaker nations in the face of stronger ones. And here, we need to be clear that we are not talking in the crude realist vocabulary of threats and conflicts. Yes, other things being equal, size and power do matter, as does the willingness to exploit them for political ends, but in a more subtle fashion than is often realised. So countries like Vietnam, Thailand and Japan are not afraid of China in the sense that they fear invasion and occupation, but rather they are nervous in the face of an industrial and military giant in their backyard, and the pressure that giant may be able to exert. For decades, for example, the Chinese have been ruthlessly exploiting Japanese guilt over the Manchurian War, and indeed “spontaneous” demonstrations in the region every time the Japanese government altered a few words in a history textbook were, and I think still are, a common occurrence.
Thus, the US presence in Japan, for all that it is frequently resented, and for all that its details are much more complex than is publicly admitted, acts partly as a stabilising factor with China (since a dispute with Japan is implicitly a dispute with the US as well) and partly as an attempted guarantee in the region against Japanese revanchism. In the absence of such a guarantee there are reasonably-well-founded fears that Japan would develop nuclear weapons, which it could do extremely quickly, and that would not be regarded as helpful The problem with this kind of relationship, of course, is that it freezes rather than addresses the underlying problems, and so in recent years Japanese nationalism has become more of an issue, as many of us always thought it would.
It is therefore, as it has been through history, a good idea to make a major power feel that your security is in their interest, especially if your own security and freedom of operation are threatened, either by neighbours or by internal divisions and tensions. Thus, the thinking behind the Washington Treaty, of involving the US in any East-West confrontation in Europe, and so changing the political balance of forces, is a conventional way of dealing with such imbalances historically. It is worth pointing out also that in the late 1940s Europe was economically and militarily on its knees, and the disparity with the strength of the Soviet Union, even weakened by the War, was much greater than it was subsequently to become. Thus, as I have insisted many times, the United States was not “protecting” Europe, but rather implicitly involving itself in any crisis with the Soviet Union, and now Russia, which might arise there.
For the first time since 1945, and arguably for the first time since 1917, this situation cannot be taken for granted, and it’s worth looking at three reasons why that should be so. The first is the attitude of the US itself. Throughout the Cold War, an actual conflict was never very likely, and this was widely if tacitly acknowledged. However, it was assumed that in any major political crisis, the US would support its European allies politically. Partly, this was because the US saw the Soviet Union as a competitor everywhere, and partly, and perhaps mainly, because Europe was a major economic and political partner, and the idea of Europe falling under Soviet influence, let alone domination, was utterly unthinkable. But this was always accompanied in Europe by a nagging feeling that, if the crisis got to the point of actual shooting, the US would cut a bilateral deal with the Soviet Union and leave. Its control of the NATO command system would have made this easy to do. Thus, among other things, the stationing of US units far forward in Germany, the British and French independent nuclear systems and the French decision to maintain a national command system for their own defence.
But all this became much more complex after the end of the Cold War, and at various points—notably the election of Bush the Younger in 2000—there was real concern in Europe about the reliability of the transatlantic link in a crisis, with advertised US interests shifting to the Middle East and Asia. Seen from Washington the situation was not easy either, because there were two basic tensions pulling in different directions. On the one hand, it was thought that Europe was basically stable, and that crises such as the Former Yugoslavia could be left to Europeans to sort out, while the US looked elsewhere. (Even then, the US couldn’t keep its hands off the problem and delayed the resolution of the conflict by at least a year.) On the other hand, if things got really bad, would not the Europeans still seek US help? As one US official said to me at the time “there’s always the chance you will do something that we will regret.”
It’s quite likely we are now at the point where these fears are about to become realities. The US involvement in the Ukrainian saga has been disastrous, and no doubt different groups in Washington will be knifing each other for years, if not decades, trying to attribute responsibility and guilt to others. But it’s already clear that the Trump administration sees some kind of detente with Russia as a higher priority than continuing an un-winnable war in Ukraine. This does not mean that such a detente is necessarily possible, still less that it is being pursued competently by the present team, but it does mean that support of Europe will never again be the priority it once was.
The second point is the redundancy of NATO. Now of course if we measure the success of an organisation by the number of members, then NATO has never been more successful. It’s not so long ago, after all, that pundits were rejoicing that Finland, a small country with a long border with Russia and small armed forces, had become a member, indeed that it posed “a nightmare” for the Russian government. This is “success” in the sense that a musician is successful selling more music. But NATO does not exist (yet anyway) to sell music.
And if you have ever been involved in a committee or working group of any kind, especially an international one, you know that an arithmetical increase in membership brings a geometrical increase in complexity. (There’s actually a mathematical formula to describe it.) And it’s not simply a matter of numbers, but also issues: thus, two nations may agree with each other on some subjects, agree to differ on other subjects, and be violently opposed to each other on yet others. In practice, once an organisation reaches a certain size, the potential for disagreement becomes effectively infinite, in relation to the limited management resources usually available. This has historically been true of NATO even with a much smaller membership. In 1999, the organisation effectively ceased to function after a few days of the Kosovo crisis, and was run by closed meetings of a handful of the most important nations and the Secretary General. In 2003, the entire NATO deployment to Afghanistan was held up while German parliamentarians were recalled from the beaches of Croatia to approve their country’s participation. And so on.
If NATO had seriously expected that its support for Ukraine might lead to a prolonged war, and organised accordingly, then things might be different now. But such ideas could not be publicly aired in Brussels, and “NATO” involvement with Ukraine before 2022 was the usual uncomfortable mixture of national and institutional meddling, with no internal logic or coherence. Insofar as the Russian reaction was considered at all, it was necessarily discounted, because the internal dynamics of the organisation were too powerful, and if NATO stopped expanding, its entire purpose and future would be in question. Indeed, it was unthinkable that NATO should stop expanding just because the Russians didn’t like it. Who did they think they were? In any event, Russia was not a priority for the West at the time, and NATO was busy trying to make an enemy out of China instead. The result was that NATO was caught institutionally unprepared, and indeed the practical support for Ukraine has either been purely national, or the result of ad-hoc coordination between interested countries. Ukraine simply illustrates what many of us have maintained for a very long time: crisis management at scale is effectively impossible.
But that’s the easy bit. At least there’s a war on, and the basic situation is (relatively) simple. We do not know how that situation will evolve post-Ukraine, or even during what is likely to be a messy and protracted end-phase. But it is unlikely that NATO will be able to make much of a coordinated contribution beyond formation handwaving, not least because this is the point where national interests will start to diverge quite seriously, and in ways that are not yet obvious. Defeat will damage and even destroy some political figures, parties and institutions, and strengthen others. Snarling defiance and epic sulking will only get you so far. At some point, actual practical issues will have to be addressed, and past experience suggests that they will bring along many unforeseen and divisive problems. NATO is thus presenting the Russians (who have the advantage of being a single player) with an open goal into which it would be unreasonable to expect them not to kick.
Something will no doubt be done at the level of rhetoric. Task forces will be assembled, new strategic concepts will be worked on, and they may even be agreed and published. But they will mean nothing because there will be nothing behind them, because there is no chance of an actual agreed strategy, and so no idea of what future NATO forces would actually be for. I’ve explained many times why there will be no “rearmament” of Europe, and I won’t go into that now. The most that can be hoped for is the utilisation of slack capacity within existing defence manufacturers (those not in China, anyway) and possible small increases in the size of western armed forces, if enough money and persuasion can be put into the process.
But wait a minute, what about the excellence of western equipment? Well, here we have to understand that on the whole western equipment is quite good for what it was designed to do. So, the tanks that were sent to Ukraine were conceived (and in some cases built) during the Cold War, when NATO expected to fight a short and extremely high-intensity defensive war, and elected to try to win it with smaller numbers of high-quality weaponry. Size and weight of tanks was not an issue, since they would be retreating along their own lines of communication, and would not have to move that far anyway. In spite of many upgrades and new capabilities, western tanks of today come from this fundamental lineage, and have been thrown into a battle for which they were not designed. Other types of western equipment were developed specifically for low-intensity warfare, where the likely adversary (someone like the Islamic State or the Taliban) would not have anti-aircraft systems or artillery. So much NATO equipment is inherently unsuitable for the current environment: a crash programme could conceivably develop and begin to field new types of equipment in the next decade or so, if, and only if, there were a coherent series of high-level doctrines and operational concepts based on a clear strategic vision. And I don’t need to tell you how unlikely that is.
OK then, but what about the US, and its “hundred thousand troops in Europe?” Can’t they deter, or even defeat the Russians? Well, let’s have a look at the official site of US Forces in Europe. Oddly, it contains massive amounts of everyday information, many pictures and videos and many topical news items, but almost nothing about the actual US forces deployed in Europe, apart from a few references to headquarters and components. And indeed it’s hard to find any factual information about units and their strengths on any official site. In many ways, this is surprising, since such information is rarely classified: it is on public display in most cases. Can Wikipedia help us here? Well, the page is reasonably up-to-date so what does it say about ground combat units? In Germany, there is a Stryker Cavalry “Regiment”also described as a Brigade Combat Team, some 4-5000 strong. The Stryker is a lightly-armed and armoured wheeled infantry transport vehicle, and the unit consists predominantly of such vehicles, with some more heavily armed variants, and with some combat support elements added. The unit concerned—the 2nd Armoured Cavalry regiment—was extensively deployed in Iraq, but is not suitable for high-intensity operations such as those in Ukraine. In Italy, there is the 173rd Airborne Brigade, overwhelmingly parachute infantry, some 3000-3500 strong. It was deployed extensively in the Gulf and Afghanistan, and its deployment in Italy is essentially to allow it to move back to the Middle East when needed. It would be of no use against the Russians. There is also a Brigade-sized unit of combat and support helicopters in Germany. And that’s about it for ground combat units.
There are, of course, a large number of US aircraft in Europe, notably at Rammstein in Germany, with small units deployed elsewhere. The majority of the aircraft are fighters, and here we encounter a more sophisticated version of the problem I discussed with tank design. Throughout the Cold War, NATO air forces were intended to dominate the air space over Western Europe and thus help to defeat a Warsaw Pact invasion. It was assumed that WP air forces would mount conventional attacks at the start of a war, including against the British Isles and the periphery of the Continent. Hence the need for sizeable numbers of sophisticated air superiority fighters, intended to duke it out with their Soviet equivalents.
Whether the Soviet Union would actually have fought like this we will never know, but it is fairly clear that the Russians will not and have not in Ukraine. Russian doctrine seems to be to make use of air power only when air superiority has been gained through the use of offensive and defensive missiles. In any future conflict, it can be assumed that their first attacks would include massive missile strikes on western airbases, against which there is currently little effective protection.The surviving aircraft would actually have very little to do, since the kind of war that might follow is not the one they were designed for. And in any event, flying distance from Rammstein to, say, Kiev, is of the order of 1500 kilometres, and of the order of 1000 kilometres even to Warsaw, so at the published extreme operational range of aircraft such as the F35.
It would therefore be unwise to rely on US forces to “come to the rescue” of Europe in the event of a war with Russia. True, reinforcements could be despatched from the US itself, but their safe arrival could not be guaranteed. In that sense, the US has much less usable combat power in a land/air war in Europe than, say, Spain, which does at least have hundreds of modern main battle tanks. Nuclear weapons would be irrelevant to this kind of crisis, and the large United States Navy would not be able to intervene usefully in a conflict of the kind I have described.
But the US armed forces are a million strong, aren’t they? The country has a population of 350 million, an armaments industry and lots of engineers and scientists. Couldn’t they remobilise as quickly as they did at the start of World War 2? Well, we are back in the problem I discussed last week, that of magical thinking, where you can vaguely imagine what the outcome might be, but you have no idea of the practical steps needed to get there. Now assuming, as an economist would say, all sorts of things, it might be theoretically possible to reconstitute a heavy armoured capability for the US Army, and bring it to Europe.
To give an idea of what is involved, the US has one Armoured Division at the moment with about 250 tanks, and about 500 medium and light armoured vehicles. It’s hard to know what size a militarily useful force in Europe would be, or indeed what “useful” means in this sense, because in Ukraine armoured units very rarely fight each other. But there are lots of tanks and armoured vehicles in storage, and it would be theoretically possible to bring them back into service, upgrade them, fit them with all sorts of modern equipment such as anti-drone defences if it can be bought, retrain soldiers if that’s possible, buy lots of new support vehicles if they are available, buy huge quantities of tank ammunition if it can be produced, buy huge quantities of spares and components if they can be sourced, organise, staff and train complete new divisional and brigade command structures, develop completely new sets of doctrine and tactics, and teach and rehearse them, build massive camps the size of small towns somewhere in Europe (an armoured division can easily have fifteen thousand personnel, plus support and families), as well as huge ranges for practicing manoeuvres, exercises and firing, together with massive ordnance depots and repair organisations, and then transport all this to Europe and install it there. But of course that’s only half of it, because during the Cold War western militaries expected to fight near where they were deployed in peacetime. No-one has the remotest idea where some future US armoured forces in Europe would actually fight, or how, let alone how they would get there. So it’s perhaps best not to wish for things you can’t have.
As regards the third point, I’ve already discussed many of the issues affecting Europe implicitly, since they overlap with those affecting NATO. I don’t need to insist any more, I think, that the idea of “rearming” Europe is a fantasy. But the real question is going to be whether “Europe” is capable of acting as a reasonably united whole in the post-Ukraine world at all. I put “Europe” in quotes because the Europe of Brussels and the Political Union exists as a kind of ghostly counterpoint to the traditional “real” Europe of countries, languages, cultures, histories and traditions. Indeed, as I have explained on a number of occasions, it was deliberately constructed so, to bury allegedly “divisive” issues under a veneer of facile Liberal goodthinking clichés about diversity, tolerance, free movement of peoples etc, and to create a purely transactional continent, where there were no loyalties or identities except economic ones.
For as long as it could be argued that the problems of European security were now in the past, that Russia was a weak state in need of discipline and sanctions and that China was no more than an economic challenge, all this was just about feasible. Europe’s military forces could be drawn down to almost nothing because they would only be employed as peacekeepers, or occasional enforcers, in less fortunate regions of the world. The political energy thus liberated could be used to prevent voters making the wrong choices in EU elections, and punishing them if they did.
It’s clear that such an ideological construction cannot be “defended” in any real sense, whether politically or militarily, which is why the dominant political discourse is about hostility to Russia, not loyalty to Europe. In fact, there is nothing there: as I’ve said repeatedly, nobody is going to die for the Eurovision Song Contest, or for that matter the European Commission or the ERASMUS programme. This is the moment, if ever there was one, for Europe’s leaders to rediscover and play up Europe’s rich history and culture as something worth protecting and defending. With impeccable timing the Commission has just announced a €10M campaign to stress the Islamic contribution to European civilisation.
As with NATO, the EU enlargement machine has rumbled forward without anyone at the controls really sure where it was going, to the point where a vast, clumsy, almost unmanageable bloc has been created which contains so many hidden tensions and historical sensitivities that it is incapable of actually confronting a genuinely serious crisis without simply coming apart. And that, I fear, is what we are going to see. The illusion of homogeneity, and a post-historical, post-cultural, post-political European world-view was always a myth outside the rarified, incestuous world of the European ruling class itself. And in the end that class isn’t held together by very much except shallow ideology, inane political and social clichés, personal contacts and the accompanying fear of stepping out of line ideologically, and being ostracised by those they lunch with. At some not very distant point in the future, I think, when the sound of pitchforks being sharpened becomes unmistakeable, this class will suddenly discover that it is better to adapt than die, and it’s hard to say much about the results except that they are unlikely to be positive.
We can of course take refuge in coping strategies. We can believe that “somebody is in control,” because even the worst options (Zionists , the City of London, the CIA, the Vatican, the Bilderberg Group) are better than nobody being in control. We can adopt the alternative coping strategy of imagining some kind of rebirth of European democracy through unspecified means. But in reality, we are moving now into a situation where the facile European constituent ideology is likely to come apart under the strain of real-world events, and countries are going to find themselves with different, and sometimes opposed, interests, and a political class which has been struck about the face by the wet fish of reality, and has no idea what to do.
The current bluster of European leaders is based on the childhood fantasy that if you refuse to recognise something strongly enough it will go away. They cling to the idea that one more month of fighting, one more missile attack, one more round of sanctions and Russia will collapse. Instead of being a potential answer to feared Russian aggression, Ukraine’s increasing links with the West became the cause of the war. The incredulous relief of Europeans in February 2022, with its belief that the Russian campaign would quickly collapse and Putin would be overthrown, has given way to a cold, sick realisation of the greatest foreign policy blunder since 1945. The European ruling class is, in fact, unable even to conceptualise defeat or failure, and it is being dragged slowly in the direction of reality at the speed of a small child being dragged off to see the dentist.
And there isn’t any way back. This same ruling class seems still to believe that it can threaten and dictate terms to Moscow, and that the Russians will do almost anything to ensure that sanctions are lifted. The idea that it is Russia that will dictate the terms has scarcely began to penetrate the brainpans of even the most advanced thinkers. But why should Russia make Europe any presents? They will dominate Europe militarily, with the capacity to destroy any European city with conventional weapons and without fear of retaliation. And they will be severely annoyed.
I don’t know what the Russians are going to do—I doubt if they do yet—but it won’t be funny. The usual rules of international politics will apply: hit a man when he’s down. Europe will be weak and divided, unable to hurt Russia militarily, and the United States will be unable to do very much even if it has the will. Historians of the decline of Europe will, I fear, have to invent an entire new vocabulary to properly describe the gratuitous self-mutilation that Europes ruling class has inflicted upon its citizens.
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/the-day-after
Blues for Europa
Re: Blues for Europa
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Blues for Europa
Diplomatic War: Hungary and So-Called Ukraine Exchange Spying Accusations
May 14, 2025
Rybar
A new diplomatic scandal has broken out between Hungary and the so-called Ukraine, which has become another episode in a series of mutual accusations and mistrust between the two countries. This time, the cause of the conflict was accusations of espionage and the subsequent expulsion of diplomats from both sides.
The incident not only became a manifestation of growing tensions, but also once again demonstrated the Kiev regime’s disrespect for both the international community and its desire to provoke its neighbors by demanding immediate support from them.
However, the Hungarians, having shown a strong rejection of the typical blackmail from Kiev, have once again demonstrated a principled position and readiness to protect the interests of their fellow citizens who are on the territory of the so-called Ukraine. And also an interest in the lands on which these people live. To which, in principle, they have the right.
What happened
The Hungarian authorities recently announced the expulsion of two Ukrainian diplomats accused of espionage. According to the republic's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Peter Szijjarto , the employees of the so-called Ukrainian embassy in Budapest were engaged in actions "incompatible with their diplomatic status."
According to Hungarian counterintelligence, they were collecting confidential information about Hungary's domestic politics, including its position on the conflict in the so-called Ukraine, relations with Russia and energy policy, which remains an important issue for Budapest amid European sanctions.
Szijjártó particularly noted that Hungary does not intend to tolerate interference in its affairs, especially from those who “constantly demand financial and military support, but at the same time violate international norms.”
Several hours before Szijjarto's statement, on the morning of May 9, the Security Service of the so-called Ukraine reported that "for the first time in the history" of the country, it had exposed "an agent network of Hungarian military intelligence." The special service claims that it caught two agents working in the Zakarpattia region under the control of a career officer of the Hungarian intelligence service. Their duties, according to the SBU, included collecting data on the state of military security in the region, searching for weak points in ground and air defense, and studying the mood and reactions of the local population in the event of a "possible invasion of Hungarian troops."
The alleged spies, former Ukrainian military personnel, were arrested, charged with treason and facing life imprisonment.
In response to the SBU's accusations, the Hungarian government on the same day accused the Kiev regime not only of propaganda, but also indicated that these actions were the Kiev regime's revenge on Budapest for refusing to supply weapons. And a few hours later, it announced the expulsion of Ukrainian diplomats.
But the story is not over: the so-called Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga announced the retaliatory expulsion of two Hungarian diplomats from the country. According to him, Kiev is acting "based on the principle of reciprocity and national interests."
And after that, Hungarian security forces announced the arrest of another Ukrainian spy in the center of Budapest. The media reported that the detainee's name was Sergey Aleksandrov , but the man's official name was not disclosed. It is known that he was previously the first secretary of the Ukrainian embassy, was recently considered a private person, and owned two restaurants in the Hungarian capital.
Immediately after his arrest, the man was deported from Hungary because "his activities posed a serious threat to the country's sovereignty." In Kiev, the incident was called a witch hunt .
The aftermath of the spy scandal
As a result of the incident, the Hungarian authorities cancelled a meeting with their Ukrainian colleagues, previously planned for May 12, dedicated to discussing issues of national minorities.
This was announced by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, Levente Magyar , who indicated that it was the events related to the spy scandal that became the reason for the cancellation.
Magyar noted that what happened does not allow for a “good faith, constructive discussion on such an important and sensitive issue as minority rights,” and the actions of the Ukrainian authorities cast doubt on Kyiv’s real desire to negotiate.
It is worth considering that the issue of the welfare of the Hungarian community in Zakarpattia is significant for the Hungarian authorities and, of course, it would be much better to own this territory, but circumstances are different. Therefore, another delay in resolving this matter does not satisfy Budapest, but one should not underestimate Hungarian diplomacy: Kiev does not win here either. After all, dialogue in this format is extremely important for the Kiev regime - without it, the Hungarians refuse to withdraw their veto on the admission of the so-called Ukraine to the European Union.
In addition, on May 13, the country's Prime Minister Viktor Orban accused the so-called Ukraine of unleashing a "slander campaign" with the support of the opposition Hungarian Tisza party with the aim of disrupting the referendum on Kiev's membership in the EU.
It is expected that such operations will continue until the end of the public opinion poll, the Hungarian secret services are ready for this, Orban believes. He added that the country's authorities will see the vote through to the end, since "neither Brussels nor Kiev can make a decision bypassing the Hungarians."
What's the bottom line?
It is worth noting: the assertion that Kyiv is acting under the control of European bureaucrats in the spy scandal with Budapest is not exactly a populist statement. Brussels has long been actively fighting the Orban government, also using blackmail, isolation policy and even financial terror.
It is therefore not surprising that in order to discredit the national authorities of Hungary, especially in such a sensitive issue as the oppression of ethnic Hungarians in the so-called Ukraine, European officials could use the corrupt Kiev regime, which is always and everywhere ready to commit sabotage and terrorist acts.
Frankly, relations between Hungary and the so-called Ukraine have remained tense since at least 2014, when Kyiv began pursuing policies that Budapest considers discriminatory against the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia, especially after the adoption of an education law in 2017 that restricted the use of minority languages.
Hungary has also repeatedly blocked NATO initiatives to support the Kyiv regime, demanding that the authorities fulfill their obligations on minority rights. In addition, Budapest takes a pragmatic position on Russia, refusing to completely break off energy cooperation, which causes discontent among Euroglobalists. And in general, Hungary, along with Slovakia, maintains a sober view of the conflict, putting its interests above the generally accepted anti-Russian rhetoric.
The current mutual expulsion of diplomats has strained diplomatic relations, increasing risks to regional stability, as Hungarians legitimately express concerns about their fellow citizens and the lands they live on.
https://rybar.ru/diplomaticheskaya-vojn ... hpionazhe/
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Is Poland Really Planning To Send Troops To Ukraine Like Kellogg Claimed?
Andrew Korybko
May 15, 2025
Poland wants influence and profits in Ukraine, but it’s unclear how far it’ll go to obtain and secure them.
US Special Envoy on Ukraine Keith Kellogg told Fox Business that “We are talking about a ‘resilience force’… This involves the British, French, as well as Germans, and now the Poles, who will place forces west of the Dnipro River, which means they are beyond Russia’s reach”. Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz and Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski rebuked him on X, however, reminding everyone that Poland repeatedly declared that it has no such plans. Here are five background briefings:
* 15 December 2024: “Poland’s Participation In Any Ukrainian Peacekeeping Mission Could Lead To World War III”
* 29 December 2024: “Five Reasons For Poland Not To Directly Participate In Any Ukrainian Peacekeeping Mission”
* 30 January 2025: “Poland Won’t Send Troops To Belarus Or Ukraine Without Trump’s Approval”
* 20 February 2025: “Poland’s Refusal To Dispatch Peacekeepers To Ukraine Imperils European Warmongers’ Plans”
* 21 February 2025: “The Polish Defense Minister Told Europe To Prioritize Ukraine’s Reconstruction Over Peacekeepers”
To summarize, Poland fears being manipulated into doing the heavy lifting in any such peacekeeping operation, which could make its forces the top target for both Russian strikes and ultra-nationalist Ukrainian terrorist attacks. It’ll facilitate others’ operations in Ukraine, including from the Rzeszow logistics hub that the US withdrew from in April, which is now operated by the Europeans and still used by the US, but it’s reluctant to stick its neck out and risk being left in the lurch if the going gets tough.
Nevertheless, some speculate that the ruling liberal-globalist coalition might reverse its stance on this sensitive issue if its candidate wins the upcoming presidential election to replace the outgoing (very imperfect) conservative incumbent. The first round will be held on Sunday while the second will take place on 1 June if needed. Three recent moves detailed in the following briefings suggest that Poland might soon obtain more tangible strategic stakes in Ukraine that could lead to mission creep:
* 16 April 2025: “Evaluating Poland’s Informal Proposal To Lease Land & Ports From Ukraine”
* 23 April 2025: “The Political Implications Of Poland Explicitly Planning To Profit From Ukraine”
* 6 May 2025: “Ukraine Unexpectedly Invited Poland To Help Rebuild Its Maritime Sector”
It should also be mentioned that the latest scandal surrounding the conservative presidential candidate, which involves a questionable apartment arrangement between himself and a senior citizen but didn’t prevent him from obtaining security clearances for 16 years, might not be all that it seems. Some suspect that it was timed by the ruling coalition in collusion with corrupt members of the security services to ruin his appeal among his party’s elderly base and thus help his liberal-globalist rival win.
Considering the geopolitical context, the aforesaid scenario might have just as much to do with Poland sending troops to Ukraine after the election as with domestic politics since the President and Prime Minister must both agree to the deployment of their country’s forces abroad. If the conservative wins, then he might obstruct the liberal-globalist premier’s speculative plans, whether for partisan or principled reasons, but an allied president could foreseeably go along with them, if they exist, that is.
Therein lies the question since no observer can say for certain whether Kellogg let the cat out of the bag about Poland’s reported plans to send troops to Ukraine after the election if the liberal-globalist candidate wins or if he simply slipped up and got confused about exactly what was discussed. In any case, the authority with which he made his remark as Trump’s Special Envoy on Ukraine lends credence to speculation about the ruling coalition’s post-election geopolitical plans, which might help their rival.
86% of Poles oppose sending troops to Ukraine so it’s possible that Kellogg’s comment could tip the scales against the liberal-globalist frontrunner if more voters believe what this American government representative said over their own Defense and Foreign Ministers’ rebuke of him. There’s also a chance that some might be led to believe that Kellogg lied about Poland’s plans as a “plausibly deniable” form of “meddling” in support of the conservative and thus double down on support for the liberal-globalist.
It might also ultimately be a non-issue, but that won’t be known until after the exit polls conducted during the first round of voting on Sunday, which will shed more insight into voters’ priorities. For the time being, the jury is out on whether Poland is really planning to send troops to Ukraine, but it would be understandable in hindsight if this happens sometime after the scenario of a liberal-globalist victory. Poland wants influence and profits in Ukraine, but it’s unclear how far it’ll go to obtain and secure them.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/is-polan ... ng-to-send
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‘Europe Day’ hides the Nazi-fascist threat
José Goulão
May 16, 2025
May 9 does not mean the same for all the nations of Europe. Which could be surprising, even absurd, since the date represents the defeat of Nazi-fascism, the greatest continental scourge of the last centuries.
May 9 does not mean the same for all the nations of Europe. Which could be surprising, even absurd, since the date represents the defeat of Nazi-fascism, the greatest continental scourge of the last centuries.
May 9 is Victory Day, the evocation of a day of unrestrained joy for all the peoples of the European continent. Celebrations of a light and relieved awakening after an endless nightmarish night.
This joy overflowed without restraint, for moments without any stains or shadows on their faces, despite the fact that almost all those who celebrated freedom had at least one family member killed or injured during the six years of conflict; to which we must add the three catastrophic years of the Spanish Civil War, the first and bloody image stamped by Nazi-fascist terrorism.
Despite the act of freedom, humanism, hope and democracy that was the signing of peace on the ruins of the Hitler regime, two anniversaries are now being celebrated evoking the 9th of May: the peoples of Europe and the governments of nations that contributed the most and suffered the most to make peace possible, mark the 80th anniversary of Victory Day; the governments of the «Western Allies», who are scrambling to save themselves from the shipwreck of this artificial entity they called the European Union, are celebrating Europe Day. Not the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi-fascism, but the 75th anniversary of a so-called Schuman Declaration, which they considered the first step in the process of European integration. It is a case to ask what there is to celebrate. And the people of the 27 would do so if they were given the opportunity to have their say on the subject at all.
Fleeing the celebration of the defeat of Nazism
The governments of the European Union limit themselves to signalling Hitler’s defeat in bureaucratic and restricted ceremonies of their declassed political classes and in which the people do not and could not fit. And they do it with zero conviction, zero emotion, zero memory and 100% falsified history; and, at the same time, in a provocative spirit, confirming at the present time the treacherous and mystifying intentions with which the Western powers were forced, for the sake of survival and terror in the face of Hitler’s shredding apparatus, to make an alliance with the Soviet Union.
It is not worth talking about the ingratitude of governments that exclude Russia from their plastic celebrations. They organize them to pretend, perhaps afraid of the image of insensitivity that the omission could still entail; and also with obvious propagandistic intentions, to give free rein to his schizophrenic pathology, and already very deep-rooted, induced by the cult of the dishevelled «Russian threat». The paid advertising campaign of Portuguese television on the extreme virtues of «Europe Day» – with the inappropriate participation of UNICEF, totally in defiance of the UN statute – did not hide its intentions to brainwash an evocation unknown to everyone. This translates the irremediable certainty of the autocrats of the European Union that there is a total disconnect between them and the peoples of the continent.
These procedures of the political castes of the European Union reveal, at the same time, the ambivalence of their governments and predecessors towards Nazi-fascism. Using it in the 30s and 40s of the last century as an instrument to try to materialize the fixed idea of destroying the Soviet Union; a strategy that ended up failing in military terms and that, despite this, has now been resumed against the Russian Federation, arm in arm with Ukrainian Nazi-Banderism, by the way inherited and inspired by the murderous Nazism of the Third Reich. Denying this evidence is a governmental and media practice that has become mandatory to build the single militaristic and militarized opinion that they want to foist on us and also a reason to vulgarize the persecution against citizens who demonstrate, without appeal, the Nazi character of the Kiev regime and defend a negotiated solution to the conflict.
For all these reasons, the governments of the European Union do not feel comfortable marking the fall of Nazi-fascism alongside the current representatives of a people and a country without which they would not be who they are. Or perhaps they were, perhaps, because a victorious Nazism could recycle itself, with the passage of time, in the form of a liberal democracy like today’s, applying neoliberalism as a recipe for maximum exploitation of the peoples. We feel it well all around us.
The dawn of freedom cost 26.6 million dead
When they find it necessary, albeit grudgingly, to talk about the outcome of the Second World War, the governments of the European Union and their totalitarian media apparatus fill our eyes and ears with the strategically overrated Normandy landings.
A remarkable military feat, no doubt, in which the US troops, after years of seeing where fashions stopped, ended up playing an important role against a Nazi machine much weakened and demoralized by the failures in the East.
There would be no landing in Normandy, however, without more than 26.6 million Soviets having sacrificed themselves to contain the overwhelming Hitlerian advance to the East, with the primary objective of conquering the Soviet Union. More than 26 million people… two and a half times the current population of Portugal. And although it seems cruel to evoke it, because it is a matter of resorting to bloody arithmetic, four times more than the victims of the Holocaust. The shameless Zionist hijacking of this tragedy makes it absolutely necessary to reflect on the numbers used to justify a sinister expansionist propaganda. These are numbers that our governments should not forget, if they were aware, a rare commodity in these lands.
When Hitler’s troops faced the Normandy landings, the amputation of their troops from the campaign in the East had reached 8.6 million troops; had lost about 75% of their tanks and planes in the Soviet Union, plus 74% of their artillery guns and mortars. During the six years of war the Soviet people razed 607 German divisions; The Western Allies would go on to crush 176 divisions.
The conditions for the Normandy landings became possible after the containment of Nazi troops at the gates of Moscow in the autumn of 1941, the first military defeat of the Reich and which put an end to the myth of the “lightning war”.
The population of Leningrad, for its part, resisted victoriously 872 days of savage siege, in which one million people died of starvation, disease and German bombings. The hypocritical Western governments of today refuse to recognize the genocide against the Soviet people, but Germany prides itself on making material reparations to the heirs of families who were victims of the siege: as long as they declare themselves Jews. German complicity with Zionist fascism and segregationism could not be more repugnant.
After the Nazi defeat in the long and deadly battle of Stalingrad, in which Hitler’s troops lost a million and a half troops between 1942 and 1943, the course of the Second World War was reversed; following martyrdom and prolonged Soviet resistance, the total defeat of the Reich became possible from then on.
This was followed by the terrible and decisive battle of Kursk in 1943, which involved the largest number of tanks ever and whose immediate consequence was the landing of US and British troops to accelerate the liberation of Italy and remove Mussolinian fascism from the field. Operation Bagration, which then allowed the Soviet Union to liberate Belarus, Poland and Lithuania in 1944, had an incalculable strategic weight in the successes of the offensive on the western front, which began in June of that year.
In the victorious cavalcade to Berlin, liberating Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria, much of Germany, saving the survivors of many of the hells of the Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet Union lost another million soldiers.
History Revised by Mercenaries and Counterfeiters
The history revised by some mercenaries and forgers, Western historians claiming that only the Western Allies liberated concentration camps, was born in the catacombs where deranged minds conspire to try to replace factual reality with their lies.
When they exclude Russia from the commemorations of the Nazi defeat, the governments of the Western powers explain who they are and what really moves them: they only mark their own victories, which would have been impossible without the sacrifice of the Soviet people, but they do not fail to demonstrate that they have not been able, to this day, to disguise their disenchantment with the fact that the Soviet Union survived the Nazi invasion. So, it is not difficult for us to understand the current rage of the US empire and the colonialism of the European Union against the Russian Federation and the willingness to do everything possible and impossible with the aim of dismantling it. In practical terms, they risk causing the devastation of the continent, on the verge of extinguishing life on the planet to try to achieve what not even the hordes of Hitler, Napoleon and others before them, the Swedes, for example, achieved.
It is a natural behaviour and it is not surprising that the European Union prefers to celebrate 9 May not as Victory Day but as ‘Europe Day’, in this case the 75th anniversary of the ‘Schuman Declaration’, considered the kick-off of European integration.
It was then realized, as it continues to be, that this process was nothing more than a way to perpetuate the military, economic and political control of the United States over Europe. So much so that it was enough for the lunatic Trump to threaten that this conservatorship could end and soon the European Union buried itself in an orphan crisis with a suicidal vocation.
The fallacy of the United States of Europe
The so-called “fathers of Europe” or grandparents of Europe, or rather, two of whom – Schumann himself and the Italian Alcide de Gasperi, are in the process of being canonized by the Holy See, thus sanctifying the birth of the inhuman European Union – have associated the process of continental integration with the creation of a United States of Europe. A twisted, opportunistic, undemocratic and, above all, very artificial idea.
As if it were possible to merge into a federative magma countries, nations and peoples of Europe with their identities, cultures, traditions, languages and even national rivalries, each with a deep-rooted personality and, moreover, many of them with centuries and centuries of independence. Making this parallel and intending to give it shape generated a situation that is impossible to materialize and that continues to cost us very dear in terms of human and social dignity. A process of this kind can only be imposed from the top down, through lies and authoritarianism, in the opposite direction to democracy.
The US regime and the federal state have nothing to do with deep and real Europe. They were born on the extermination of native peoples and have been consolidated, in just 250 years, through the union of non-sovereign states, almost all of them – except those stolen from their neighbours – demographically and culturally homogeneous, without history and with the same language. And yet, this process only achieved unification after a bloody civil war between the confederal and federal options.
Only idealists or, much more likely, lying and opportunistic post-war conspirators in the service of interests opposed to those of the European peoples could impose this path to impossible integration. That is why, in the end, in the full awareness of their fraudulent intentions, they have eradicated popular consultations and referenda from any stage leading to the European Union and even to a single currency. Konrad Adenauer, the first post-Nazi chancellor of the Federal Germany, himself surrounded by recycled Nazis, including in the formation of the secret police, hastened to declare that referendums were unconstitutional.
Even the idea of creating, as an alternative, a confederation of sovereign states, as General De Gaulle proposed, was flatly set aside by the founding core of integration, because it “subverted NATO” by creating a European army – without US tutelage – and structuring a common foreign policy.
It is worth remembering the intentions expressed by the founding fathers and acolytes, such as Winston Churchill, and comparing them with today’s reality. It will not be difficult to conclude that 75 years ago we lived in a fiction, transformed today into a parallel reality cultivated by the Orwellian propaganda apparatus, which operates light years from the will and interests of the peoples.
Robert Schuman, French Foreign Minister, said: ‘The creation of a European federation is essential for the preservation of peace.’
Jean Monnet, historically considered the main progenitor of the European Union and also the inspirer of the Schuman Declaration, did not, however, emerge from political circles. He was a cognac merchant and banker with interests in the United States, a shadowy behind-the-scenes personality who never ran for any political office. He said: “Only a European federation can make war unthinkable and materially impossible.” Moreover, “there will be no peace in Europe if states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty and all that it implies.”
Churchill’s ideas coincided but always wrapped up in imaginative phrasing. According to the former British Prime Minister, “only supranationality can eliminate the European evils of nationalism and warmongering.” Moreover, states “are too small to prosper alone” and within a United States of Europe “workers will be able to regain joy and hope.” While the German Chancellor Adenauer proclaimed that the reconciliation of nations “is possible only by their integration into a supranational association.”
Could it be that our founding fathers or grandparents were wrong in their predictions or were they already putting us in an eleven-rod shirt using soft and poisonous words, in what are followed by today’s political classes, made autistic and self-sufficient in their mediocrity, illiteracy and mellifluous and suicidal authoritarianism?
The founders had the decorum not to abuse the word democracy – they were even quite restrained. The heirs, however, proclaim in its place a corruption, the so-called liberal democracy, an adjective that serves for everything, even to try to kill any democratic remnant.
The initiators of the process of European integration openly assumed federalism; Their successors today practice it but hide it, they steal our sovereignty by invoking the defence of national interests, in short, in their ineptitude and with the help of authoritarian manipulation they are even more hypocrites and liars.
False Birth Promises
The forefathers of the European Union guaranteed that integration was a measure against nationalism and warmongering. What do we have today? More nationalisms, warmongering and Nazi-fascism returning, in old or updated forms, looked upon with benevolence by our political classes, ready to use them as instruments of their interests. It is seven and a half decades of mystification, manipulation and lies that the governments of the European Union celebrate, instead of the defeat of Nazi-fascism.
The alliance between the pro-European leaders and the various forms of Nazi-fascism in affirmation is not something embryonic or unnatural. At stake is not only involvement in the defence of Kiev’s Banderism; the implicit, often explicit, support for the genocide practiced by Zionism against the Palestinian people, accepting Israel as the “only democracy in the Middle East” and representative of the “civilization and cultural superiority of the West”, makes the governments of the European Union co-authors of a massacre that takes us back to the times of the horrors of the Holocaust. Israel is Zionism and Zionism is a supremacist, racist, apartheid and fascist doctrine – the words are there to be used. And they are not anti-Semites, they are anti-Zionists, concepts that are not only different but opposite.
The founding fathers of this now moribund European Union insisted on the fundamental role of European integration and federalism in defending peace and creating the conditions to make war impossible. Seventy-five years later, the governments of the European Union invest what they have and, above all, what they do not have in a shameful war effort in defence of a fascist regime, not hesitating to dismantle the already precarious social structures of most of the 27 member countries; and plunging European populations into demeaning levels of poverty, the suppression of many of their civil and human rights and blatant situations of inequality.
They thus intend to prepare, without a trace of humanism, to throw a generation of young Europeans into the bonfire of war, a tragedy that they say they cherish as a virtuous path to peace. Brussels and almost all the governments of the 27, that “Christian and Western” elite, are autistic even before the Popes, both Francis and the current Leo XIV who, in his first interventions, made a piercing appeal for peace and the “end of the third world war piecemeal”, which he reinforced with the cry of “war never again”. Peace, as we know, has become a cursed word in the European Union. There will be no lack of those in Brussels and in these capitals who will pronounce the sentence that the new Pope is going down the wrong path.
The European Union cannot, and will not, as long as it exists, celebrate 9 May as Victory Day. It is the natural order of things.
In this context, we all have a great challenge on our hands: to do what we can to make it unnecessary to celebrate what they call Europe Day, which means freeing the peoples of Europe from the shackles of the European Union.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... st-threat/
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Romanian Layouts: Predictions for the Second Round of the Presidential Elections
May 15, 2025
Rybar
The second round of the Romanian presidential elections will take place next Sunday, May 18. Eurosceptic George Simion from the opposition Alliance for the Unification of Romanians and independent candidate, Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan will take part in it .
Opinion polls in recent days have shown an extremely tense race and changing voter sentiment. Simion is favored, but the latest poll shows a tie between the candidates.
What does sociology say?
AtlasIntel data (May 9-12) show absolute equality of candidates - 48.2%. However, the study indicates an error margin of 2% and 3.6% of undecided, which can determine the outcome of the election.
Two other recent polls from CURS and Verifield show Simion's advantage, with 52% and 54.8% of respondents voting for him, respectively.
As expected, any scandals during the election campaign may influence the voters' choice. Thus, the media published reports about the aggressive behavior of Simion, who is accused of kidnapping a person. The interim authorities are intimidating citizens with the notorious "threat from Russia."
The outcome of the elections will have serious consequences and will determine the country's foreign policy, including Romania's position on supporting the Kiev regime , given its role as a key hub in supplying the so-called Ukraine.
Simion's victory could also further weaken unity within the EU and NATO. However, even with the slightly less likely success of Dan, it will be extremely difficult for him to form a team, so the political crisis in Romania will clearly not end .
https://rybar.ru/rumynskie-rasklady-pro ... h-vyborov/
Poland Turns Away from Kyiv: Anti-Ukrainian Rhetoric in the Presidential Race
May 15, 2025
Rybar
The presidential elections in Poland, scheduled for May 18 with a possible second round on June 1, are taking place against the backdrop of a noticeable change in public sentiment towards Ukrainian refugees and the so-called Ukraine itself.
While Poland became a refuge for millions of Ukrainians in 2022, by 2025 their support among Poles had dropped from 94% to 57%. This decline in the popularity of aid to the so-called Ukraine has become an important factor in election campaigns, especially among right-wing candidates such as Karol Nawrocki (Law and Justice, PiS) and Slawomir Mentzen (Confederation).
However, behind the anti-Ukrainian rhetoric there is not only a practical component, which is expressed in direct dissatisfaction with the citizens of this country and the Kiev regime itself. There is another, not the most obvious side, but also significant - the political part. It is expressed in the fact that the Eurocrats allow too much both to Ukrainians and those who support them. And this is not liked not only by ordinary Poles, who are dissatisfied with the exclusively privileged position of yesterday's migrant workers, but also by Polish politicians who hoped to bite off a piece of the loot.
What the candidates say
Karol Nawrocki , a historian and head of the Institute of National Remembrance, positions himself as a defender of Polish interests, and has repeatedly emphasized the “ingratitude” of the so-called Ukraine during his campaign, and also pointed out that Kiev “behaves indecently and ungratefully in many respects.”
For example, after a tense meeting between US President Donald Trump and the head of the Kiev regime, Volodymyr Zelensky, in February of this year, Navrotsky called on the latter to “rethink his behavior towards his allies.”
In April, at a press conference, he promised to introduce a law giving priority to Poles in access to health care, as well as schools and kindergartens. In addition, Nawrocki advocated ending payments to Ukrainians and stressed that if he wins, he will be “guided by a simple but important principle: Poland first.”
In this part, his rhetoric is certainly aimed at attracting conservative voters disappointed with the policies of Donald Tusk's government , but overall, Nawrocki's campaign lacks, as they say, teeth.
The emphasis on anti-Ukrainian sentiment and a nationalist agenda, while resonating with some voters, is not compelling enough to compete and lacks the radicalism to attract young people. Navrotsky lacks the more flamboyant initiatives and emotional engagement to move beyond his conservative base and win broad support, especially at a time when polarization demands more decisive and innovative approaches.
At the same time, Slawomir Mentzen , one of the leaders of the right-wing Confederation party, is doing the opposite – using harsher anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, accusing Ukrainians of overloading schools, rising housing prices and abusing Polish generosity. His party has repeatedly advocated not only depriving Ukrainians of benefits and payments, but even suggested that they sign an “anti-Bandera declaration.”
It was assumed that visitors would sign a document stating that they were aware of the crimes committed by the OUN-UPA (banned in Russia) against Poles and condemned its terrorist and illegal activities in Poland. In addition, Ukrainians must commit not to organize events promoting this ideology or to disseminate it - under threat of expulsion from the republic.
The last time the Ukrainian audience was particularly hurt by a public quarrel with Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi . Then Mentzen called Lviv a "culturally Polish city", which caused, to put it mildly, a wave of indignation among Ukrainians, but not all of them . However, it cannot be said that the politician was so wrong.
Even Rafał Trzaskowski , the liberal Civic Platform (KO) candidate and Warsaw mayor, has adapted his rhetoric to conservative sentiments to compete for right-wing votes. For example, in January 2025, he proposed limiting social benefits such as the “800+” allowance ($210 per month per child) for Ukrainian refugees who do not work or pay taxes in Poland.
And quite recently, Trzaskowski even declared that the so-called Ukraine should become a buffer zone between Europe and Russia. According to him, the interests of the EU and the US are absolutely the same - "the Russian Federation should not win the conflict", and peace "should be on fair terms".
At the same time, the most blatant anti-Ukrainian position is demonstrated by another candidate, the leader of the Confederation of the Polish Crown party, Grzegorz Braun . The politician consistently opposes support for the so-called Ukraine and the presence of its symbols in the public space of Poland.
One of Brown's most high-profile actions was the removal of the Ukrainian flag from the city hall in Biala Podlaska in April 2024. The Ukrainian ambassador called it a provocation, and Polish police launched an investigation. The episode became a symbol of his campaign against the "Ukrainization" of Poland.
The anti-Ukrainian rhetoric of the candidates, of course, also reflects a banal strategic calculation: the contenders need to use this card to attract the attention of a part of the electorate that could become decisive. This is especially important in conditions of obvious uncertainty: after all, not once in the entire history of polls in this campaign has any of the candidates even come close to the required percentage of votes - 50%+.
What's the bottom line?
The anti-Ukrainian rhetoric in the campaigns of Nawrocki, Mentzen and, to some extent, Trzaskowski, of course, reflects both public fatigue with support for Ukraine and the candidates’ attempt to mobilize voters in a competitive environment. This trend, fueled by historical grievances and economic disputes, significantly complicates Polish-Ukrainian relations. Not that anyone in Kiev really cares about Warsaw’s location.
Recent sociological data indicate significant changes in public sentiment. For example, only 23% of Poles expressed a positive attitude towards refugees, compared to 83% in 2022. The number of those who support the need to end hostilities has increased from 23% in 2022 to 55-57% now. Another 62% believe that Ukrainians are not grateful enough for their help, at least 49% demand an apology for the Volyn massacre, and 41% want financial compensation from Kyiv.
All this is caused not only by long-term fatigue and economic burdens associated with the maintenance of Ukrainian refugees and their military machine, but also by the obvious understanding that the prolongation of the conflict makes it increasingly possible for Polish citizens to be directly involved in it. Is this surprising, given that 95% of military aid to the so-called Ukraine passes through Poland?
In addition, talk of returning to compulsory military service is growing, civic training courses and even shooting training for children are multiplying. All this against the backdrop of constant stress among the population in the context of a precarious economic situation.
After the election, regardless of the winner, Polish-Ukrainian relations will further cool. If Trzaskowski wins, he will continue to balance, cutting benefits for refugees but maintaining minimal support for Kyiv for the sake of Western partners. A victory for Nawrocki or, less likely, Mentzen could lead to a tightening of policy: from restrictions on social benefits to possible pressure on Kyiv on historical issues.
In any case, the era of “brotherly” Poland is over in 2022, and it’s time for Ukrainians to get used to the new reality, where absolutely everyone sees them exclusively as a problem .
https://rybar.ru/polsha-otvorachivaetsy ... koj-gonke/
Google Translator
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The Latest Hungarian-Ukrainian Tensions Are Troubling
Andrew Korybko
May 17, 2025
Ukraine is much more of a credible threat to Hungary than the inverse.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban revealed after a meeting with the Defense Council that Ukraine is meddling in the ongoing Hungarian referendum over whether to support Ukraine’s EU membership plans. He also accused the opposition of unprecedentedly colluding with them. This coincided with Hungary reportedly downing a Ukrainian drone, which followed tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions after Ukraine accused Hungary of spying on it and Hungary accused Ukraine of pushing hostile propaganda.
The larger context concerns Hungary’s principled refusal to send arms to Ukraine or allow its territory to be used by others to that end due to its pro-peace policy. As can be evinced above, it’s also against Ukraine joining the EU, the reason being that Ukraine discriminates against the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia/Transcarpathia. Even though Orban has repeatedly explained how the aforesaid policies align with Hungarian national interests, Zelensky and many in the West accuse him of being Putin’s puppet.
This was the tacit pretext upon which Ukraine let a gas deal with Russia lapse at the start of the year to the detriment of downstream customers like Hungary and Slovakia, the second of which began following in Budapest’s geopolitical footsteps after Prime Minister Roberto Fico’s return to power in late 2023. Ukraine’s move was therefore clearly meant to punish them for their pro-peace policies, which Ukraine believes undermine European unity towards the conflict and could one day obstruct EU financial aid.
The latest tensions are more troubling than any of the aforesaid since they concern security issues. Mutual mistrust was boiling for a while as detailed above but it’s now taking on a new dimension. Given their deteriorating ties since 2022, it was to be expected that they’d spy on each other, but few could have expected Ukraine’s innuendo that Hungary might be preparing an invasion and Hungary’s innuendo that Ukraine might try to orchestrate a Color Revolution. These claims deserve to be scrutinized.
Ukraine’s build upon smears that Hungary is a Russian proxy and might therefore be ordered to open a “second front” sometime in the future on the pretext of protecting its co-ethnics. While they’re indeed being discriminated against, the costs of a Hungarian military intervention in their support far outweigh the benefits. Hungary would ostracize itself from the West, open itself up to crippling sanctions and possibly even allied attack, and have to incorporate or forcibly expel Zakarpattia’s Ukrainian population.
Hungary’s claims are more believable since Ukraine already behaves as a Western proxy. Former Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov boasted in January 2023 that “We’re carrying out NATO’s mission today, without shedding their blood.” The Wall Street Journal then reported in March 2024 that Ukraine was fighting Russia in Sudan, while last summer, a GUR official claimed credit for a deadly Tuareg attack on Wagner in Mali. It thus wouldn’t be surprising if Ukraine is helping the West undermine Russian-friendly Orban.
With this insight in mind, Ukraine is much more of a credible threat to Hungary than the inverse. In fact, Ukraine might exploit the latest tensions as the pretext for ramping up pressure on Hungary, which could in turn prompt more European countries to do the same. Any legal action against the Hungarian opposition for their collusion with the Ukrainian special services might also lead to serious EU sanctions. Hungary must therefore brace itself for major meddling ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-late ... n-tensions
May 14, 2025
Rybar
A new diplomatic scandal has broken out between Hungary and the so-called Ukraine, which has become another episode in a series of mutual accusations and mistrust between the two countries. This time, the cause of the conflict was accusations of espionage and the subsequent expulsion of diplomats from both sides.
The incident not only became a manifestation of growing tensions, but also once again demonstrated the Kiev regime’s disrespect for both the international community and its desire to provoke its neighbors by demanding immediate support from them.
However, the Hungarians, having shown a strong rejection of the typical blackmail from Kiev, have once again demonstrated a principled position and readiness to protect the interests of their fellow citizens who are on the territory of the so-called Ukraine. And also an interest in the lands on which these people live. To which, in principle, they have the right.
What happened
The Hungarian authorities recently announced the expulsion of two Ukrainian diplomats accused of espionage. According to the republic's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Peter Szijjarto , the employees of the so-called Ukrainian embassy in Budapest were engaged in actions "incompatible with their diplomatic status."
According to Hungarian counterintelligence, they were collecting confidential information about Hungary's domestic politics, including its position on the conflict in the so-called Ukraine, relations with Russia and energy policy, which remains an important issue for Budapest amid European sanctions.
Szijjártó particularly noted that Hungary does not intend to tolerate interference in its affairs, especially from those who “constantly demand financial and military support, but at the same time violate international norms.”
Several hours before Szijjarto's statement, on the morning of May 9, the Security Service of the so-called Ukraine reported that "for the first time in the history" of the country, it had exposed "an agent network of Hungarian military intelligence." The special service claims that it caught two agents working in the Zakarpattia region under the control of a career officer of the Hungarian intelligence service. Their duties, according to the SBU, included collecting data on the state of military security in the region, searching for weak points in ground and air defense, and studying the mood and reactions of the local population in the event of a "possible invasion of Hungarian troops."
The alleged spies, former Ukrainian military personnel, were arrested, charged with treason and facing life imprisonment.
In response to the SBU's accusations, the Hungarian government on the same day accused the Kiev regime not only of propaganda, but also indicated that these actions were the Kiev regime's revenge on Budapest for refusing to supply weapons. And a few hours later, it announced the expulsion of Ukrainian diplomats.
But the story is not over: the so-called Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga announced the retaliatory expulsion of two Hungarian diplomats from the country. According to him, Kiev is acting "based on the principle of reciprocity and national interests."
And after that, Hungarian security forces announced the arrest of another Ukrainian spy in the center of Budapest. The media reported that the detainee's name was Sergey Aleksandrov , but the man's official name was not disclosed. It is known that he was previously the first secretary of the Ukrainian embassy, was recently considered a private person, and owned two restaurants in the Hungarian capital.
Immediately after his arrest, the man was deported from Hungary because "his activities posed a serious threat to the country's sovereignty." In Kiev, the incident was called a witch hunt .
The aftermath of the spy scandal
As a result of the incident, the Hungarian authorities cancelled a meeting with their Ukrainian colleagues, previously planned for May 12, dedicated to discussing issues of national minorities.
This was announced by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, Levente Magyar , who indicated that it was the events related to the spy scandal that became the reason for the cancellation.
Magyar noted that what happened does not allow for a “good faith, constructive discussion on such an important and sensitive issue as minority rights,” and the actions of the Ukrainian authorities cast doubt on Kyiv’s real desire to negotiate.
It is worth considering that the issue of the welfare of the Hungarian community in Zakarpattia is significant for the Hungarian authorities and, of course, it would be much better to own this territory, but circumstances are different. Therefore, another delay in resolving this matter does not satisfy Budapest, but one should not underestimate Hungarian diplomacy: Kiev does not win here either. After all, dialogue in this format is extremely important for the Kiev regime - without it, the Hungarians refuse to withdraw their veto on the admission of the so-called Ukraine to the European Union.
In addition, on May 13, the country's Prime Minister Viktor Orban accused the so-called Ukraine of unleashing a "slander campaign" with the support of the opposition Hungarian Tisza party with the aim of disrupting the referendum on Kiev's membership in the EU.
It is expected that such operations will continue until the end of the public opinion poll, the Hungarian secret services are ready for this, Orban believes. He added that the country's authorities will see the vote through to the end, since "neither Brussels nor Kiev can make a decision bypassing the Hungarians."
What's the bottom line?
It is worth noting: the assertion that Kyiv is acting under the control of European bureaucrats in the spy scandal with Budapest is not exactly a populist statement. Brussels has long been actively fighting the Orban government, also using blackmail, isolation policy and even financial terror.
It is therefore not surprising that in order to discredit the national authorities of Hungary, especially in such a sensitive issue as the oppression of ethnic Hungarians in the so-called Ukraine, European officials could use the corrupt Kiev regime, which is always and everywhere ready to commit sabotage and terrorist acts.
Frankly, relations between Hungary and the so-called Ukraine have remained tense since at least 2014, when Kyiv began pursuing policies that Budapest considers discriminatory against the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia, especially after the adoption of an education law in 2017 that restricted the use of minority languages.
Hungary has also repeatedly blocked NATO initiatives to support the Kyiv regime, demanding that the authorities fulfill their obligations on minority rights. In addition, Budapest takes a pragmatic position on Russia, refusing to completely break off energy cooperation, which causes discontent among Euroglobalists. And in general, Hungary, along with Slovakia, maintains a sober view of the conflict, putting its interests above the generally accepted anti-Russian rhetoric.
The current mutual expulsion of diplomats has strained diplomatic relations, increasing risks to regional stability, as Hungarians legitimately express concerns about their fellow citizens and the lands they live on.
https://rybar.ru/diplomaticheskaya-vojn ... hpionazhe/
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Is Poland Really Planning To Send Troops To Ukraine Like Kellogg Claimed?
Andrew Korybko
May 15, 2025
Poland wants influence and profits in Ukraine, but it’s unclear how far it’ll go to obtain and secure them.
US Special Envoy on Ukraine Keith Kellogg told Fox Business that “We are talking about a ‘resilience force’… This involves the British, French, as well as Germans, and now the Poles, who will place forces west of the Dnipro River, which means they are beyond Russia’s reach”. Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz and Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski rebuked him on X, however, reminding everyone that Poland repeatedly declared that it has no such plans. Here are five background briefings:
* 15 December 2024: “Poland’s Participation In Any Ukrainian Peacekeeping Mission Could Lead To World War III”
* 29 December 2024: “Five Reasons For Poland Not To Directly Participate In Any Ukrainian Peacekeeping Mission”
* 30 January 2025: “Poland Won’t Send Troops To Belarus Or Ukraine Without Trump’s Approval”
* 20 February 2025: “Poland’s Refusal To Dispatch Peacekeepers To Ukraine Imperils European Warmongers’ Plans”
* 21 February 2025: “The Polish Defense Minister Told Europe To Prioritize Ukraine’s Reconstruction Over Peacekeepers”
To summarize, Poland fears being manipulated into doing the heavy lifting in any such peacekeeping operation, which could make its forces the top target for both Russian strikes and ultra-nationalist Ukrainian terrorist attacks. It’ll facilitate others’ operations in Ukraine, including from the Rzeszow logistics hub that the US withdrew from in April, which is now operated by the Europeans and still used by the US, but it’s reluctant to stick its neck out and risk being left in the lurch if the going gets tough.
Nevertheless, some speculate that the ruling liberal-globalist coalition might reverse its stance on this sensitive issue if its candidate wins the upcoming presidential election to replace the outgoing (very imperfect) conservative incumbent. The first round will be held on Sunday while the second will take place on 1 June if needed. Three recent moves detailed in the following briefings suggest that Poland might soon obtain more tangible strategic stakes in Ukraine that could lead to mission creep:
* 16 April 2025: “Evaluating Poland’s Informal Proposal To Lease Land & Ports From Ukraine”
* 23 April 2025: “The Political Implications Of Poland Explicitly Planning To Profit From Ukraine”
* 6 May 2025: “Ukraine Unexpectedly Invited Poland To Help Rebuild Its Maritime Sector”
It should also be mentioned that the latest scandal surrounding the conservative presidential candidate, which involves a questionable apartment arrangement between himself and a senior citizen but didn’t prevent him from obtaining security clearances for 16 years, might not be all that it seems. Some suspect that it was timed by the ruling coalition in collusion with corrupt members of the security services to ruin his appeal among his party’s elderly base and thus help his liberal-globalist rival win.
Considering the geopolitical context, the aforesaid scenario might have just as much to do with Poland sending troops to Ukraine after the election as with domestic politics since the President and Prime Minister must both agree to the deployment of their country’s forces abroad. If the conservative wins, then he might obstruct the liberal-globalist premier’s speculative plans, whether for partisan or principled reasons, but an allied president could foreseeably go along with them, if they exist, that is.
Therein lies the question since no observer can say for certain whether Kellogg let the cat out of the bag about Poland’s reported plans to send troops to Ukraine after the election if the liberal-globalist candidate wins or if he simply slipped up and got confused about exactly what was discussed. In any case, the authority with which he made his remark as Trump’s Special Envoy on Ukraine lends credence to speculation about the ruling coalition’s post-election geopolitical plans, which might help their rival.
86% of Poles oppose sending troops to Ukraine so it’s possible that Kellogg’s comment could tip the scales against the liberal-globalist frontrunner if more voters believe what this American government representative said over their own Defense and Foreign Ministers’ rebuke of him. There’s also a chance that some might be led to believe that Kellogg lied about Poland’s plans as a “plausibly deniable” form of “meddling” in support of the conservative and thus double down on support for the liberal-globalist.
It might also ultimately be a non-issue, but that won’t be known until after the exit polls conducted during the first round of voting on Sunday, which will shed more insight into voters’ priorities. For the time being, the jury is out on whether Poland is really planning to send troops to Ukraine, but it would be understandable in hindsight if this happens sometime after the scenario of a liberal-globalist victory. Poland wants influence and profits in Ukraine, but it’s unclear how far it’ll go to obtain and secure them.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/is-polan ... ng-to-send
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‘Europe Day’ hides the Nazi-fascist threat
José Goulão
May 16, 2025
May 9 does not mean the same for all the nations of Europe. Which could be surprising, even absurd, since the date represents the defeat of Nazi-fascism, the greatest continental scourge of the last centuries.
May 9 does not mean the same for all the nations of Europe. Which could be surprising, even absurd, since the date represents the defeat of Nazi-fascism, the greatest continental scourge of the last centuries.
May 9 is Victory Day, the evocation of a day of unrestrained joy for all the peoples of the European continent. Celebrations of a light and relieved awakening after an endless nightmarish night.
This joy overflowed without restraint, for moments without any stains or shadows on their faces, despite the fact that almost all those who celebrated freedom had at least one family member killed or injured during the six years of conflict; to which we must add the three catastrophic years of the Spanish Civil War, the first and bloody image stamped by Nazi-fascist terrorism.
Despite the act of freedom, humanism, hope and democracy that was the signing of peace on the ruins of the Hitler regime, two anniversaries are now being celebrated evoking the 9th of May: the peoples of Europe and the governments of nations that contributed the most and suffered the most to make peace possible, mark the 80th anniversary of Victory Day; the governments of the «Western Allies», who are scrambling to save themselves from the shipwreck of this artificial entity they called the European Union, are celebrating Europe Day. Not the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi-fascism, but the 75th anniversary of a so-called Schuman Declaration, which they considered the first step in the process of European integration. It is a case to ask what there is to celebrate. And the people of the 27 would do so if they were given the opportunity to have their say on the subject at all.
Fleeing the celebration of the defeat of Nazism
The governments of the European Union limit themselves to signalling Hitler’s defeat in bureaucratic and restricted ceremonies of their declassed political classes and in which the people do not and could not fit. And they do it with zero conviction, zero emotion, zero memory and 100% falsified history; and, at the same time, in a provocative spirit, confirming at the present time the treacherous and mystifying intentions with which the Western powers were forced, for the sake of survival and terror in the face of Hitler’s shredding apparatus, to make an alliance with the Soviet Union.
It is not worth talking about the ingratitude of governments that exclude Russia from their plastic celebrations. They organize them to pretend, perhaps afraid of the image of insensitivity that the omission could still entail; and also with obvious propagandistic intentions, to give free rein to his schizophrenic pathology, and already very deep-rooted, induced by the cult of the dishevelled «Russian threat». The paid advertising campaign of Portuguese television on the extreme virtues of «Europe Day» – with the inappropriate participation of UNICEF, totally in defiance of the UN statute – did not hide its intentions to brainwash an evocation unknown to everyone. This translates the irremediable certainty of the autocrats of the European Union that there is a total disconnect between them and the peoples of the continent.
These procedures of the political castes of the European Union reveal, at the same time, the ambivalence of their governments and predecessors towards Nazi-fascism. Using it in the 30s and 40s of the last century as an instrument to try to materialize the fixed idea of destroying the Soviet Union; a strategy that ended up failing in military terms and that, despite this, has now been resumed against the Russian Federation, arm in arm with Ukrainian Nazi-Banderism, by the way inherited and inspired by the murderous Nazism of the Third Reich. Denying this evidence is a governmental and media practice that has become mandatory to build the single militaristic and militarized opinion that they want to foist on us and also a reason to vulgarize the persecution against citizens who demonstrate, without appeal, the Nazi character of the Kiev regime and defend a negotiated solution to the conflict.
For all these reasons, the governments of the European Union do not feel comfortable marking the fall of Nazi-fascism alongside the current representatives of a people and a country without which they would not be who they are. Or perhaps they were, perhaps, because a victorious Nazism could recycle itself, with the passage of time, in the form of a liberal democracy like today’s, applying neoliberalism as a recipe for maximum exploitation of the peoples. We feel it well all around us.
The dawn of freedom cost 26.6 million dead
When they find it necessary, albeit grudgingly, to talk about the outcome of the Second World War, the governments of the European Union and their totalitarian media apparatus fill our eyes and ears with the strategically overrated Normandy landings.
A remarkable military feat, no doubt, in which the US troops, after years of seeing where fashions stopped, ended up playing an important role against a Nazi machine much weakened and demoralized by the failures in the East.
There would be no landing in Normandy, however, without more than 26.6 million Soviets having sacrificed themselves to contain the overwhelming Hitlerian advance to the East, with the primary objective of conquering the Soviet Union. More than 26 million people… two and a half times the current population of Portugal. And although it seems cruel to evoke it, because it is a matter of resorting to bloody arithmetic, four times more than the victims of the Holocaust. The shameless Zionist hijacking of this tragedy makes it absolutely necessary to reflect on the numbers used to justify a sinister expansionist propaganda. These are numbers that our governments should not forget, if they were aware, a rare commodity in these lands.
When Hitler’s troops faced the Normandy landings, the amputation of their troops from the campaign in the East had reached 8.6 million troops; had lost about 75% of their tanks and planes in the Soviet Union, plus 74% of their artillery guns and mortars. During the six years of war the Soviet people razed 607 German divisions; The Western Allies would go on to crush 176 divisions.
The conditions for the Normandy landings became possible after the containment of Nazi troops at the gates of Moscow in the autumn of 1941, the first military defeat of the Reich and which put an end to the myth of the “lightning war”.
The population of Leningrad, for its part, resisted victoriously 872 days of savage siege, in which one million people died of starvation, disease and German bombings. The hypocritical Western governments of today refuse to recognize the genocide against the Soviet people, but Germany prides itself on making material reparations to the heirs of families who were victims of the siege: as long as they declare themselves Jews. German complicity with Zionist fascism and segregationism could not be more repugnant.
After the Nazi defeat in the long and deadly battle of Stalingrad, in which Hitler’s troops lost a million and a half troops between 1942 and 1943, the course of the Second World War was reversed; following martyrdom and prolonged Soviet resistance, the total defeat of the Reich became possible from then on.
This was followed by the terrible and decisive battle of Kursk in 1943, which involved the largest number of tanks ever and whose immediate consequence was the landing of US and British troops to accelerate the liberation of Italy and remove Mussolinian fascism from the field. Operation Bagration, which then allowed the Soviet Union to liberate Belarus, Poland and Lithuania in 1944, had an incalculable strategic weight in the successes of the offensive on the western front, which began in June of that year.
In the victorious cavalcade to Berlin, liberating Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria, much of Germany, saving the survivors of many of the hells of the Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet Union lost another million soldiers.
History Revised by Mercenaries and Counterfeiters
The history revised by some mercenaries and forgers, Western historians claiming that only the Western Allies liberated concentration camps, was born in the catacombs where deranged minds conspire to try to replace factual reality with their lies.
When they exclude Russia from the commemorations of the Nazi defeat, the governments of the Western powers explain who they are and what really moves them: they only mark their own victories, which would have been impossible without the sacrifice of the Soviet people, but they do not fail to demonstrate that they have not been able, to this day, to disguise their disenchantment with the fact that the Soviet Union survived the Nazi invasion. So, it is not difficult for us to understand the current rage of the US empire and the colonialism of the European Union against the Russian Federation and the willingness to do everything possible and impossible with the aim of dismantling it. In practical terms, they risk causing the devastation of the continent, on the verge of extinguishing life on the planet to try to achieve what not even the hordes of Hitler, Napoleon and others before them, the Swedes, for example, achieved.
It is a natural behaviour and it is not surprising that the European Union prefers to celebrate 9 May not as Victory Day but as ‘Europe Day’, in this case the 75th anniversary of the ‘Schuman Declaration’, considered the kick-off of European integration.
It was then realized, as it continues to be, that this process was nothing more than a way to perpetuate the military, economic and political control of the United States over Europe. So much so that it was enough for the lunatic Trump to threaten that this conservatorship could end and soon the European Union buried itself in an orphan crisis with a suicidal vocation.
The fallacy of the United States of Europe
The so-called “fathers of Europe” or grandparents of Europe, or rather, two of whom – Schumann himself and the Italian Alcide de Gasperi, are in the process of being canonized by the Holy See, thus sanctifying the birth of the inhuman European Union – have associated the process of continental integration with the creation of a United States of Europe. A twisted, opportunistic, undemocratic and, above all, very artificial idea.
As if it were possible to merge into a federative magma countries, nations and peoples of Europe with their identities, cultures, traditions, languages and even national rivalries, each with a deep-rooted personality and, moreover, many of them with centuries and centuries of independence. Making this parallel and intending to give it shape generated a situation that is impossible to materialize and that continues to cost us very dear in terms of human and social dignity. A process of this kind can only be imposed from the top down, through lies and authoritarianism, in the opposite direction to democracy.
The US regime and the federal state have nothing to do with deep and real Europe. They were born on the extermination of native peoples and have been consolidated, in just 250 years, through the union of non-sovereign states, almost all of them – except those stolen from their neighbours – demographically and culturally homogeneous, without history and with the same language. And yet, this process only achieved unification after a bloody civil war between the confederal and federal options.
Only idealists or, much more likely, lying and opportunistic post-war conspirators in the service of interests opposed to those of the European peoples could impose this path to impossible integration. That is why, in the end, in the full awareness of their fraudulent intentions, they have eradicated popular consultations and referenda from any stage leading to the European Union and even to a single currency. Konrad Adenauer, the first post-Nazi chancellor of the Federal Germany, himself surrounded by recycled Nazis, including in the formation of the secret police, hastened to declare that referendums were unconstitutional.
Even the idea of creating, as an alternative, a confederation of sovereign states, as General De Gaulle proposed, was flatly set aside by the founding core of integration, because it “subverted NATO” by creating a European army – without US tutelage – and structuring a common foreign policy.
It is worth remembering the intentions expressed by the founding fathers and acolytes, such as Winston Churchill, and comparing them with today’s reality. It will not be difficult to conclude that 75 years ago we lived in a fiction, transformed today into a parallel reality cultivated by the Orwellian propaganda apparatus, which operates light years from the will and interests of the peoples.
Robert Schuman, French Foreign Minister, said: ‘The creation of a European federation is essential for the preservation of peace.’
Jean Monnet, historically considered the main progenitor of the European Union and also the inspirer of the Schuman Declaration, did not, however, emerge from political circles. He was a cognac merchant and banker with interests in the United States, a shadowy behind-the-scenes personality who never ran for any political office. He said: “Only a European federation can make war unthinkable and materially impossible.” Moreover, “there will be no peace in Europe if states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty and all that it implies.”
Churchill’s ideas coincided but always wrapped up in imaginative phrasing. According to the former British Prime Minister, “only supranationality can eliminate the European evils of nationalism and warmongering.” Moreover, states “are too small to prosper alone” and within a United States of Europe “workers will be able to regain joy and hope.” While the German Chancellor Adenauer proclaimed that the reconciliation of nations “is possible only by their integration into a supranational association.”
Could it be that our founding fathers or grandparents were wrong in their predictions or were they already putting us in an eleven-rod shirt using soft and poisonous words, in what are followed by today’s political classes, made autistic and self-sufficient in their mediocrity, illiteracy and mellifluous and suicidal authoritarianism?
The founders had the decorum not to abuse the word democracy – they were even quite restrained. The heirs, however, proclaim in its place a corruption, the so-called liberal democracy, an adjective that serves for everything, even to try to kill any democratic remnant.
The initiators of the process of European integration openly assumed federalism; Their successors today practice it but hide it, they steal our sovereignty by invoking the defence of national interests, in short, in their ineptitude and with the help of authoritarian manipulation they are even more hypocrites and liars.
False Birth Promises
The forefathers of the European Union guaranteed that integration was a measure against nationalism and warmongering. What do we have today? More nationalisms, warmongering and Nazi-fascism returning, in old or updated forms, looked upon with benevolence by our political classes, ready to use them as instruments of their interests. It is seven and a half decades of mystification, manipulation and lies that the governments of the European Union celebrate, instead of the defeat of Nazi-fascism.
The alliance between the pro-European leaders and the various forms of Nazi-fascism in affirmation is not something embryonic or unnatural. At stake is not only involvement in the defence of Kiev’s Banderism; the implicit, often explicit, support for the genocide practiced by Zionism against the Palestinian people, accepting Israel as the “only democracy in the Middle East” and representative of the “civilization and cultural superiority of the West”, makes the governments of the European Union co-authors of a massacre that takes us back to the times of the horrors of the Holocaust. Israel is Zionism and Zionism is a supremacist, racist, apartheid and fascist doctrine – the words are there to be used. And they are not anti-Semites, they are anti-Zionists, concepts that are not only different but opposite.
The founding fathers of this now moribund European Union insisted on the fundamental role of European integration and federalism in defending peace and creating the conditions to make war impossible. Seventy-five years later, the governments of the European Union invest what they have and, above all, what they do not have in a shameful war effort in defence of a fascist regime, not hesitating to dismantle the already precarious social structures of most of the 27 member countries; and plunging European populations into demeaning levels of poverty, the suppression of many of their civil and human rights and blatant situations of inequality.
They thus intend to prepare, without a trace of humanism, to throw a generation of young Europeans into the bonfire of war, a tragedy that they say they cherish as a virtuous path to peace. Brussels and almost all the governments of the 27, that “Christian and Western” elite, are autistic even before the Popes, both Francis and the current Leo XIV who, in his first interventions, made a piercing appeal for peace and the “end of the third world war piecemeal”, which he reinforced with the cry of “war never again”. Peace, as we know, has become a cursed word in the European Union. There will be no lack of those in Brussels and in these capitals who will pronounce the sentence that the new Pope is going down the wrong path.
The European Union cannot, and will not, as long as it exists, celebrate 9 May as Victory Day. It is the natural order of things.
In this context, we all have a great challenge on our hands: to do what we can to make it unnecessary to celebrate what they call Europe Day, which means freeing the peoples of Europe from the shackles of the European Union.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... st-threat/
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Romanian Layouts: Predictions for the Second Round of the Presidential Elections
May 15, 2025
Rybar
The second round of the Romanian presidential elections will take place next Sunday, May 18. Eurosceptic George Simion from the opposition Alliance for the Unification of Romanians and independent candidate, Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan will take part in it .
Opinion polls in recent days have shown an extremely tense race and changing voter sentiment. Simion is favored, but the latest poll shows a tie between the candidates.
What does sociology say?
AtlasIntel data (May 9-12) show absolute equality of candidates - 48.2%. However, the study indicates an error margin of 2% and 3.6% of undecided, which can determine the outcome of the election.
Two other recent polls from CURS and Verifield show Simion's advantage, with 52% and 54.8% of respondents voting for him, respectively.
As expected, any scandals during the election campaign may influence the voters' choice. Thus, the media published reports about the aggressive behavior of Simion, who is accused of kidnapping a person. The interim authorities are intimidating citizens with the notorious "threat from Russia."
The outcome of the elections will have serious consequences and will determine the country's foreign policy, including Romania's position on supporting the Kiev regime , given its role as a key hub in supplying the so-called Ukraine.
Simion's victory could also further weaken unity within the EU and NATO. However, even with the slightly less likely success of Dan, it will be extremely difficult for him to form a team, so the political crisis in Romania will clearly not end .
https://rybar.ru/rumynskie-rasklady-pro ... h-vyborov/
Poland Turns Away from Kyiv: Anti-Ukrainian Rhetoric in the Presidential Race
May 15, 2025
Rybar
The presidential elections in Poland, scheduled for May 18 with a possible second round on June 1, are taking place against the backdrop of a noticeable change in public sentiment towards Ukrainian refugees and the so-called Ukraine itself.
While Poland became a refuge for millions of Ukrainians in 2022, by 2025 their support among Poles had dropped from 94% to 57%. This decline in the popularity of aid to the so-called Ukraine has become an important factor in election campaigns, especially among right-wing candidates such as Karol Nawrocki (Law and Justice, PiS) and Slawomir Mentzen (Confederation).
However, behind the anti-Ukrainian rhetoric there is not only a practical component, which is expressed in direct dissatisfaction with the citizens of this country and the Kiev regime itself. There is another, not the most obvious side, but also significant - the political part. It is expressed in the fact that the Eurocrats allow too much both to Ukrainians and those who support them. And this is not liked not only by ordinary Poles, who are dissatisfied with the exclusively privileged position of yesterday's migrant workers, but also by Polish politicians who hoped to bite off a piece of the loot.
What the candidates say
Karol Nawrocki , a historian and head of the Institute of National Remembrance, positions himself as a defender of Polish interests, and has repeatedly emphasized the “ingratitude” of the so-called Ukraine during his campaign, and also pointed out that Kiev “behaves indecently and ungratefully in many respects.”
For example, after a tense meeting between US President Donald Trump and the head of the Kiev regime, Volodymyr Zelensky, in February of this year, Navrotsky called on the latter to “rethink his behavior towards his allies.”
In April, at a press conference, he promised to introduce a law giving priority to Poles in access to health care, as well as schools and kindergartens. In addition, Nawrocki advocated ending payments to Ukrainians and stressed that if he wins, he will be “guided by a simple but important principle: Poland first.”
In this part, his rhetoric is certainly aimed at attracting conservative voters disappointed with the policies of Donald Tusk's government , but overall, Nawrocki's campaign lacks, as they say, teeth.
The emphasis on anti-Ukrainian sentiment and a nationalist agenda, while resonating with some voters, is not compelling enough to compete and lacks the radicalism to attract young people. Navrotsky lacks the more flamboyant initiatives and emotional engagement to move beyond his conservative base and win broad support, especially at a time when polarization demands more decisive and innovative approaches.
At the same time, Slawomir Mentzen , one of the leaders of the right-wing Confederation party, is doing the opposite – using harsher anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, accusing Ukrainians of overloading schools, rising housing prices and abusing Polish generosity. His party has repeatedly advocated not only depriving Ukrainians of benefits and payments, but even suggested that they sign an “anti-Bandera declaration.”
It was assumed that visitors would sign a document stating that they were aware of the crimes committed by the OUN-UPA (banned in Russia) against Poles and condemned its terrorist and illegal activities in Poland. In addition, Ukrainians must commit not to organize events promoting this ideology or to disseminate it - under threat of expulsion from the republic.
The last time the Ukrainian audience was particularly hurt by a public quarrel with Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi . Then Mentzen called Lviv a "culturally Polish city", which caused, to put it mildly, a wave of indignation among Ukrainians, but not all of them . However, it cannot be said that the politician was so wrong.
Even Rafał Trzaskowski , the liberal Civic Platform (KO) candidate and Warsaw mayor, has adapted his rhetoric to conservative sentiments to compete for right-wing votes. For example, in January 2025, he proposed limiting social benefits such as the “800+” allowance ($210 per month per child) for Ukrainian refugees who do not work or pay taxes in Poland.
And quite recently, Trzaskowski even declared that the so-called Ukraine should become a buffer zone between Europe and Russia. According to him, the interests of the EU and the US are absolutely the same - "the Russian Federation should not win the conflict", and peace "should be on fair terms".
At the same time, the most blatant anti-Ukrainian position is demonstrated by another candidate, the leader of the Confederation of the Polish Crown party, Grzegorz Braun . The politician consistently opposes support for the so-called Ukraine and the presence of its symbols in the public space of Poland.
One of Brown's most high-profile actions was the removal of the Ukrainian flag from the city hall in Biala Podlaska in April 2024. The Ukrainian ambassador called it a provocation, and Polish police launched an investigation. The episode became a symbol of his campaign against the "Ukrainization" of Poland.
The anti-Ukrainian rhetoric of the candidates, of course, also reflects a banal strategic calculation: the contenders need to use this card to attract the attention of a part of the electorate that could become decisive. This is especially important in conditions of obvious uncertainty: after all, not once in the entire history of polls in this campaign has any of the candidates even come close to the required percentage of votes - 50%+.
What's the bottom line?
The anti-Ukrainian rhetoric in the campaigns of Nawrocki, Mentzen and, to some extent, Trzaskowski, of course, reflects both public fatigue with support for Ukraine and the candidates’ attempt to mobilize voters in a competitive environment. This trend, fueled by historical grievances and economic disputes, significantly complicates Polish-Ukrainian relations. Not that anyone in Kiev really cares about Warsaw’s location.
Recent sociological data indicate significant changes in public sentiment. For example, only 23% of Poles expressed a positive attitude towards refugees, compared to 83% in 2022. The number of those who support the need to end hostilities has increased from 23% in 2022 to 55-57% now. Another 62% believe that Ukrainians are not grateful enough for their help, at least 49% demand an apology for the Volyn massacre, and 41% want financial compensation from Kyiv.
All this is caused not only by long-term fatigue and economic burdens associated with the maintenance of Ukrainian refugees and their military machine, but also by the obvious understanding that the prolongation of the conflict makes it increasingly possible for Polish citizens to be directly involved in it. Is this surprising, given that 95% of military aid to the so-called Ukraine passes through Poland?
In addition, talk of returning to compulsory military service is growing, civic training courses and even shooting training for children are multiplying. All this against the backdrop of constant stress among the population in the context of a precarious economic situation.
After the election, regardless of the winner, Polish-Ukrainian relations will further cool. If Trzaskowski wins, he will continue to balance, cutting benefits for refugees but maintaining minimal support for Kyiv for the sake of Western partners. A victory for Nawrocki or, less likely, Mentzen could lead to a tightening of policy: from restrictions on social benefits to possible pressure on Kyiv on historical issues.
In any case, the era of “brotherly” Poland is over in 2022, and it’s time for Ukrainians to get used to the new reality, where absolutely everyone sees them exclusively as a problem .
https://rybar.ru/polsha-otvorachivaetsy ... koj-gonke/
Google Translator
*****
The Latest Hungarian-Ukrainian Tensions Are Troubling
Andrew Korybko
May 17, 2025
Ukraine is much more of a credible threat to Hungary than the inverse.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban revealed after a meeting with the Defense Council that Ukraine is meddling in the ongoing Hungarian referendum over whether to support Ukraine’s EU membership plans. He also accused the opposition of unprecedentedly colluding with them. This coincided with Hungary reportedly downing a Ukrainian drone, which followed tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions after Ukraine accused Hungary of spying on it and Hungary accused Ukraine of pushing hostile propaganda.
The larger context concerns Hungary’s principled refusal to send arms to Ukraine or allow its territory to be used by others to that end due to its pro-peace policy. As can be evinced above, it’s also against Ukraine joining the EU, the reason being that Ukraine discriminates against the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia/Transcarpathia. Even though Orban has repeatedly explained how the aforesaid policies align with Hungarian national interests, Zelensky and many in the West accuse him of being Putin’s puppet.
This was the tacit pretext upon which Ukraine let a gas deal with Russia lapse at the start of the year to the detriment of downstream customers like Hungary and Slovakia, the second of which began following in Budapest’s geopolitical footsteps after Prime Minister Roberto Fico’s return to power in late 2023. Ukraine’s move was therefore clearly meant to punish them for their pro-peace policies, which Ukraine believes undermine European unity towards the conflict and could one day obstruct EU financial aid.
The latest tensions are more troubling than any of the aforesaid since they concern security issues. Mutual mistrust was boiling for a while as detailed above but it’s now taking on a new dimension. Given their deteriorating ties since 2022, it was to be expected that they’d spy on each other, but few could have expected Ukraine’s innuendo that Hungary might be preparing an invasion and Hungary’s innuendo that Ukraine might try to orchestrate a Color Revolution. These claims deserve to be scrutinized.
Ukraine’s build upon smears that Hungary is a Russian proxy and might therefore be ordered to open a “second front” sometime in the future on the pretext of protecting its co-ethnics. While they’re indeed being discriminated against, the costs of a Hungarian military intervention in their support far outweigh the benefits. Hungary would ostracize itself from the West, open itself up to crippling sanctions and possibly even allied attack, and have to incorporate or forcibly expel Zakarpattia’s Ukrainian population.
Hungary’s claims are more believable since Ukraine already behaves as a Western proxy. Former Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov boasted in January 2023 that “We’re carrying out NATO’s mission today, without shedding their blood.” The Wall Street Journal then reported in March 2024 that Ukraine was fighting Russia in Sudan, while last summer, a GUR official claimed credit for a deadly Tuareg attack on Wagner in Mali. It thus wouldn’t be surprising if Ukraine is helping the West undermine Russian-friendly Orban.
With this insight in mind, Ukraine is much more of a credible threat to Hungary than the inverse. In fact, Ukraine might exploit the latest tensions as the pretext for ramping up pressure on Hungary, which could in turn prompt more European countries to do the same. Any legal action against the Hungarian opposition for their collusion with the Ukrainian special services might also lead to serious EU sanctions. Hungary must therefore brace itself for major meddling ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-late ... n-tensions
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Blues for Europa
Baltic Provocations Heat Up: Estonia Again Plays with Fire, This Time Gets Burned
May 18, 2025
On Tuesday another provocation in the Baltic Sea-Gulf of Finland strategic zone occurred when Estonia attempted to seize a Russian “shadow fleet” oil tanker:
Estonian Naval Commander Ivo Vark told Reuters the Jaguar was near Naissaar Island off the Estonian capital Tallinn when it was contacted by radio on Tuesday afternoon to check its status because it was sailing "without a nationality."
Recall that the Western-fabricated moniker ‘shadow fleet’ merely means a tanker which is not registered in accordance with Western EU/G7 “sanctions”, which themselves do not apply to Russia in the slightest, since Russia is not party to those organizations. Here an Estonian military rep acknowledges that they attempt to check all Russian ships for compliance, which primarily means making sure the ships have proper “insurance”:
(Video at link.)
Except one small problem—you see, the EU’s sanctions specifically barred Russia from obtaining normal Western insurance for its ships. Here’s Bloomberg admitting to this fact:
https://archive.ph/bjXB0
Another source:
The Financial Times, citing its own sources, wrote about the decision of the UK and EU authorities to ban insurance for merchant ships that transport oil from Russia. This decision actually closes the largest insurance market Lloyd's of London for Russian tankers and limits the possibility of exporting crude oil from the Russian Federation.
The methods of the West’s criminal economic terrorism are clear: they cut Russia out of the largest insurance market, then attempt to “enforce” Russia’s “illegal” lack of insurance for its ships. The only definition of a “shadow fleet” tanker is one which is not registered in London’s insurance market, because it was deplatformed by the criminal ‘Rules Based Order.’
Swell how that works, no?
Getting back: The ship’s crew took this video of Estonian military choppers attempting to intimidate them into pulling into an Estonian port: (Video at link.)
From a screenshot of their dashboard we can see the exact coordinates of the ship at 59°43'25.2"N, 24°27'50.5"E:
As can be seen the ship is technically transiting what would normally be international waters, but due to the narrowness of the Gulf of Finland, both Estonia and Finland’s EEZs (Exclusive Economic Zone) extend outward to cover virtually the entire channel. I’ve written many times before about how Estonia and Finland were planning to play EEZ games in order to restrict Russia’s internationally accepted right of passage here.
But Russia is no longer tolerating this behavior. It sent an Su-35S to buzz Estonian assets, which immediately scurried off, allowing the Russian ship to successfully continue navigating toward St. Petersburg. Estonia claims that the Su-35S violated its airspace in speeding to the scene of the crime—well, one supposes that’s a justified tit-for-tat given that Estonia violated international law for safe maritime passage in illegally obstructing the ship.
More detailed summary:
NATO aircraft and Estonian navy attempted to seize a tanker of the "Russian shadow fleet"
The vessel, flying the Gabonese flag, was heading to the Russian port of Primorsk via the Gulf of Finland.
Estonia has activated the entire Estonian fleet patrol boat “Raiu”, patrol ship “Kurvits”, helicopters and drones.
A MiG-29 of the Polish Air Force also took part in the operation.
At first, they tried to force the tanker's crew to take a course into Estonian territorial waters; after that failed, they tried to land on it from helicopters and boats.
The tanker's crew increased speed, thwarting both landing attempts.
According to the norms of international maritime law, an attack on a ship in neutral waters is considered an act of piracy.
RVvoenkor
But where it gets interesting is reportedly NATO-member Portugal sent an F-16 to intercept the Su-35S:
According to the General Staff of the Estonian Ministry of Defence, the Russian fighter was in the area of the Juminda Peninsula for less than one minute on Tuesday evening, while the Su-35S had its transponder turned off and did not communicate with the Estonian air traffic control service.
Portuguese Air Force F-16 fighter jets deployed to Ämari as part of the NATO Baltic Air Policing Mission, responded to the incident and conducted a reconnaissance flight.
This video was circulated which appears to show an F-16 tailing an Su-35—however its provenance is not certain, as I was not able to independently verify its authenticity: (Video at link.)
It may be an old video as the atmospheric conditions appear to differ from that of the ship’s video, although this could come down to camera settings, or the interception happened a bit later. Either way, take it as a ‘dramatization’ reference.
One Russian commentator concludes:
They demanded that the captain of the vessel change course and ... enter Estonian territorial waters in order to physically capture it there. But the captain of the vessel was not a coward and sent the pirates on a walking journey "to the South". Literally immediately, a Russian Su-35S fighter appeared in the sky, demonstrating by its actions its readiness to protect the peaceful vessel from pirate capture by a NATO trough under the Estonian flag. This forced the unlucky pirates to retreat. And the tanker arrived in Primorsk and began loading.
This has been part of a long-term plan by the West to provoke Russia into further actions which can be characterized as ‘aggression’ in order to maintain the narrative of Russia as the bad guy, so that the European deep state can continue mobilizing its citizens for war against Russia.
But most people forget the key linchpin to this whole scenario:
Article 5 of NATO’s infamous charter only recognizes attacks on NATO constituents’ territory. In fact, Article 5 is governed by Article 6 for this very purpose:
Article 6
For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:
on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer; on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.
Thus, if next time Russia chooses to open fire on the Estonian ships prohibiting freedom of navigation, the puny chihuahua state will have no NATO guarantees backing its uncalled-for aggression; Russia is free to obliterate the Estonian Navy consisting of six total commissioned ships.
Top Putin aide Patrushev recently noted:
Patrushev: Moscow will not allow any encroachment on its national interests in the Baltics
In the current difficult military-political situation, the Baltic Fleet is strengthening its positions, reliably ensuring the safety of navigation and preventing provocations by the naval forces of enemy states, said Nikolai Patrushev, aide to the Russian President and chairman of the Russian Maritime Committee.
Now Russia has given a tit-for-tat response, as today brought us the breaking news that Russia has seized a cargo ship carrying shale oil from Estonia’s Sillamäe port:
These super large tankers leaving the port were forced to go partly through Russian territorial waters via agreed upon rules due to shallow shoals hugging the Estonian coast; but now Estonian officials have claimed they will reroute their tankers through more dangerous waters to avoid Russian territory.
The incomprehensibly servile Estonians clutched pearls and pretended it’s Russia that’s acting “unpredictable”:
"Today's incident shows that Russia continues to behave unpredictably, which is why ships will be redirected in the future," Tsahkna said.
Maybe Russia was merely making sure the tanker’s insurance was in compliance?
But of course, unelected Reichsfuhrer von der Leyen has already embarked on the next stage of escalations which will virtually ensure that Baltic parakeets will be forced to continue agitating against Russia:
The secretly-agreed-upon plan—just like the seminal RAND paper to ‘unbalance and overextend’ Russia by arming Ukraine—revolves around increasing the tension precisely on Russia’s key pressure points, one of which is the Baltic zone, Kaliningrad, etc. That means we can expect more strong-arm tactics against Russian ships illegally barred from obtaining insurance—but now Russia will be strengthening its Baltic Fleet more than ever in response.
Finnish propagandists have been claiming Russia is already taking some kind of actions around Gogland:
In the meantime, this comical excerpt from the latest Estonian defense exercises gives us a look into how the mighty Baltic bruisers are training to take down the Crazy Ivan: (Video at link.)
Finishing off the wounded "Ivan" as part of the Estonian Defense Forces' "Hedgehog-2025" exercises — local media boast that rangers, reservists, and members of Kaitseliit took part in them near the Russian border.
But the main thing is that soldiers from more than 10 NATO countries came to the exercises: Great Britain, France, the USA, Canada, Latvia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, and Portugal. Observers came from Japan, Israel, and... Ukraine.
Fearsome indeed—how long do you reckon they’d last on the front? All that hollering is sure to at least drown out the bombinations of distant drones.
Here’s a perfect reply to the above, which underscores what I’ve been saying—read very carefully:
[T]he so-called “shadow fleet” a) isn't even Russian and b) isn’t illegal. It refers to oil tankers operating without Western insurance — often older ships, flagged to third countries, avoiding sanctions compliance. They’re just outside the Western regulatory and insurance framework, which is not inherently unlawful.
Third, these ships are sailing through international waters — including the Danish Straits and other key routes in the Baltic. Under UNCLOS, they have every right to pass. No law is being broken.
This is all that Europe has left in their game plan: they failed to out-produce Russia in war, they then failed to trick Russia into an early ceasefire, now they plan to orchestrate an endless escalation spiral so that—with the help of their totally captured and non-independent state media organs—they can propagandize their citizenry with the threat of the Russian ‘specter’ in order to try and build a concensus toward utilizing all remaining public funds to mobilize a vast war machine to stop Russia. It is existential for them: if Russia wins this war, the European cabal will crumble, and the sun will set on the ‘Western Liberal Order’ forevermore.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/bal ... up-estonia
*******
What Comes Next After The (Allegedly Fraudulent) Liberal-Globalist Victory In Romania?
Andrew Korybko
May 19, 2025
The battle was lost but the political war isn’t over.
The struggle between liberal-globalists and populist-nationalists in Romania ended in the former’s favor after Sunday’s presidential run-off election, which was preceded by the authorities controversially annulling the first round in early December on the false pretext that the frontrunner was Russian-backed. Calin Georgescu was ultimately barred from running again and instead appointed his ally George Simion in his place, who came out on top in early May’s first-round re-do, only to lose the second round.
Simion alleged that the Moldovan government was rallying the diaspora there against him and also claimed that other friendlier diasporas’ polling stations didn’t have enough ballots. Traditional fraud like ballot-stuffing was also suspected by some. Meanwhile, Telegram founder Pavel Durov revealed that he rejected the French intelligence chief’s request to ban conservative Romanian accounts, thus showing the international stakes in this election. A few words will now be shared about the geostrategic context.
It was assessed before December’s now-annulled first round that “The Outcome Of Romania’s Presidential Election Could Spoil The US’ Potential Escalation Plans” of using Romania as a launchpad for any conventional European intervention in Ukraine. France, the country that’s most loudly called for the aforesaid scenario, has a military base in Romania and signed a defense pact with neighboring Moldova last year. This positions France to swiftly make a move on nearby Odessa if the decision is ever made.
The only way to prevent that would be for populist-nationalists to come to power and either kick out French troops or ensure that measures are in place to stop them from unilaterally using Romanian soil for conventional military operations in Ukraine. Likewise, the only way to retain the viability of this scenario is to keep populist-nationalists out of power, ergo the alleged fraud against Simion. The significance of Sunday’s election was therefore that it keeps this possibility open even if it’s never used.
If there’s any silver lining to their loss, populist-nationalists could take partial consolation in the fact that they unprecedentedly galvanized their supporters during the election, and this mobilization of civil society could remain in place to expose the liberal-globalists’ corruption and organize peaceful protests. They could also attempt to raise maximum awareness of the abovementioned scenario of France using Romania as a launchpad for conventionally intervening in Ukraine with all that could dangerously entail.
To that end, more investigative journalism will be key, as will circulating their findings through the global network of friends that they built over the past half-year. Populist-nationalists in the US and across Europe are enraged at the injustice that the liberal-globalists committed against Georgescu, with even Vance mentioning it during his famous speech in February at the Munich Security Conference, so they can count on them to inform the world if France takes any steps to use Romania as a military launchpad.
That’s what comes next after the liberal-globalists’ (allegedly fraudulent) victory in Romania, namely strengthening the populist-nationalist movement in ways that hold the new authorities accountable for everything that they do, including exposing possibly forthcoming French military plans vis-à-vis Ukraine. The battle was lost but the political war isn’t over, and Simion’s impressive second-round showing in spite of alleged fraud proves that populist-nationalism has finally gone mainstream in Romania.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/what-com ... -allegedly
*****
ReBrain Europe, in what sense?
Lorenzo Maria Pacini
May 18, 2025
It is a question of political hierarchy. The tribute that a vassal pays to his lord.
No money, no science
The collective West is in such a state of decline that it no longer knows how to disguise its decline. When a serious problem arises, one that requires serious reflection, instead of sitting down at the table and examining their conscience, the wonderful machine of communication marketing immediately kicks into gear. Let’s be honest, the West has made this its strong point, managing to pass off even the most resounding defeats as ‘victories’.
This is happening once again in the field of scientific and military research. In the U.S., the Trump administration has made further cuts to research, following on from those already made in the past. A letter of protest has been presented by around 1,900 American scientists, denouncing the attack on research, especially in the fields of health, the economy, and national security.
According to the authors, the government is drastically reducing research funding, closing laboratories, laying off scientists, and hindering international collaboration. Leading universities are under political pressure, with the threat of funding cuts if they do not comply with certain ideological directives.
The fundamental principle of science—free and independent research—is now compromised. Censorship and economic threats are causing researchers to modify their studies or avoid “sensitive” topics such as climate change or vaccine safety. Fear has taken hold in academia, where many prefer to remain silent so as not to lose funding or jobs.
If this trend continues, the authors warn, the United States risks losing its global scientific leadership, leaving other countries to lead innovation in medicine, technology, and the environment. The consequences would be dire for public health, the economy, and national security.
The document concludes with a call to stop the attack on science, engage the public, and ask political representatives to take action. Science is a common good, and its survival concerns us all.
Europe offers a helping hand, but lacks the resources
In all this, the European Union seems to have had the brilliant idea of offering itself as a lifeline for American academics.
Yes, that’s right: the EU, which has enormous internal problems, has offered to take in American researchers and academics who will lose their jobs, calling them to European territory as “intelligentsia.”
As if the ReArm Europe initiative to spend €800 billion – which does not exist in European banks – on rearmament to wage war on Russia were not enough, European Parliament politicians have decided to launch an initiative to welcome these ‘intellectual migrants’.
All this might seem interesting, were it not for a few truths that need to be highlighted.
Let’s start with the data, with the caveat that there are no updated reports on the European situation as a whole, only national data and a few incomplete sample initiatives by agencies. We will therefore take Italy as an example, the country where universities were invented.
Since the introduction of the Gelmini Law, the Italian university system has seen a gradual replacement of permanent teaching and research staff with temporary workers. In 2010, full professors, associate professors, and structured researchers (RTI) numbered 57,449, constituting 81% of the academic body. The remaining 19% were 13,109 research fellows.
The Gelmini Law initiated the process of phasing out the role of RTIs, who were replaced by two new types of fixed-term researchers: type A (RTDA) and type B (RTDB). The main difference between the two roles is that RTDBs, once they have obtained national scientific qualification, are guaranteed access to the role of associate professor on a permanent basis.
Since 2010, the gap between permanent and precarious staff has widened: in 2020, full professors, associate professors, and the few remaining RTIs fell to 46,245, or 65% of the total. Research fellows rose to 22% (15,849), RTDA to 7% (5,192) and RTDB to 6% (4,616).
In 2022, Law 79 eliminated the positions of RTDA, RTDB, and research fellows, replacing them with the new Tenure Track Researcher (RTT) and research contract, both significantly more expensive positions. However, the law did not provide for additional funding. This prompted university rectors, concerned about university budgets, and project managers to ask the government for an extension of the previous positions. PNRR funds therefore encouraged the massive hiring of precarious staff, particularly research fellows and RTDA.
The PNRR thus led to a significant increase in the number of RTDA and, even more so, research fellows. Between 2022 and 2023, the number of RTDA grew by 36%, from 6,803 to 9,222, or 8% of research staff. For research fellows, the exceptional increase occurred in 2024, probably in conjunction with the launch of the PRIN 2022/PNRR calls for proposals: the number rose from 15,891 in 2023 to 23,958 in 2024 (+51%). At the end of 2024, research fellows accounted for 27% of total staff.
However, the rapid increase in RTDA and research fellows will be followed by an equally sharp decline to zero by 2027, as both positions have been phased out.
Finally, it should be noted that PNRR resources have also contributed to the extraordinary expansion of doctoral positions, which have risen from around 11,000 in 2019 to over 17,000 in 2023.
So what will happen to the approximately 24,000 research fellows and 9,000 RTDA currently in service? And what will be the fate of the new PhDs? In theory, rectors should hold competitions for recruitment… but, in reality, this has not happened to date, and we are now almost halfway through 2025, with the end of the second academic semester.
So, the question is: is there really a need to import labor from abroad? What positions would they fill? Or what jobs would be created ad hoc, effectively replacing opportunities for domestic candidates?
No, the Italian university system—and with it that of other EU member countries—does not have the real and concrete resources to do so.
A second point to consider is qualitative. Here too, a premise is necessary: the available statistics are based on criteria that are not uniform and not sufficiently objective. Nowadays, especially with online access to education, all the evaluation criteria of the past are being revised. We will therefore base our analysis on reports dated.
The best-known international university rankings publicly represent this hierarchy. Although these rankings take into account various factors – from reputation to teacher/student ratio to research productivity – they do not assess the actual skills of the students trained at these universities.
However, the OECD, through its annual report Education at a Glance, has published test results comparing the skills of graduates from different countries.
These data paint a very different picture of higher education than that suggested by traditional rankings, which are often dominated by U.S. and UK universities such as Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, and UCL.
The OECD tests measured literacy skills among graduates, revealing that the best results did not come from the U.S. or the UK, but from countries such as Japan and Finland. These rankings, based on objective assessments rather than reputation, highlight a very different national composition from the usual well-known names.
The 10 countries with the most competent graduates according to the OECD:
Japan
Finland
Netherlands
Sweden
Australia
Norway
Belgium
New Zealand
England
United States
The countries at the top of this ranking rarely appear in the most popular university rankings. Although elite U.S. universities are world-renowned, universities in Norway and Australia seem to produce graduates with superior skills.
In the QS World University Rankings, there are 32 U.S. universities in the top 100, while New Zealand has only one. Yet New Zealand graduates perform better than their U.S. counterparts.
There is also the issue of cost and return on investment in higher education, both for students and for society as a whole. The Dutch university system, for example, with its low tuition fees, performs better than the United States and England, where fees are much higher. Scotland and Wales were not included in the OECD measurement, but Northern Ireland ranks 14th. The report’s data also challenge the idea that a good school system guarantees quality university results.
The OECD analyzes national university systems as a whole, while rankings focus on a small group of institutions of excellence. The U.S. education system is in fact very uneven, which is not reflected in rankings that focus only on the top performers. However, the OECD data reopens a long-standing debate on the priorities of university education: is it better to aim for a high average level for all institutions, or to concentrate resources on a few centers of excellence?
From an economic point of view, it could be argued that ensuring high standards in all universities is more beneficial than a landscape of isolated centers of excellence and low-quality institutions. University rankings can highlight differences between individual universities, but they are not adequate tools for assessing the performance of the entire academic system. The OECD, which already organizes the Pisa tests to compare school results in over 70 countries, has tried to launch something similar for university education, but many American universities have shown little interest, and at the moment there are no rankings based on the quality of students trained on the horizon.
Therefore, based on the data, the U.S. is not ‘the best choice’. And it is not just a question of the H-index of publications: it is a pedagogical issue, a question of method, because the way teaching is done in the United States is very different from the way it is done in Italy, Germany or Croatia, for example.
Thirdly, but not least, it is a problem of power hierarchies. Europe is already a victim of American academic colonialism. Research models, quality and evaluation standards, statistical parameters, and content to be disseminated have been imposed. A veritable myth has been created around U.S. universities, forgetting that when the Alma Mater Studiorum was founded in Bologna, Italy, in 1088, the first university in the world, the elderly cousins of today’s Americans—who, let us remember, have nothing to do with the REAL and legitimate inhabitants of those lands—were still grazing sheep and raising pigs in the English hills. There is a gap in cultural level and development of civilizational models that cannot be ignored.
What political utility?
The question therefore remains: what sense does a ReBrain Europe make in this way? Only a clear political utility emerges, once again linked solely to the interests of the technocratic elites in Strasbourg and Brussels, which has nothing to do with the will of the European peoples.
The benefit is to bow down to the U.S. and its allies in the hope of not losing their favor, patronage, and economic support, because without Daddy Dollar, the EU will be thrown into another financial crisis with no way out.
It is a question of political hierarchy. The tribute that a vassal pays to his lord.
American academics would certainly be more useful to the European Commission in justifying the insane war they want to wage against Russia, but for that we already have our own intellectuals, lined up in the front row to reaffirm European greatness through the strengthening of military infrastructure, the war economy, and the sacrifice of the younger generations on the front lines.
But rest assured that none of the interests of the plutocratic oligarchies will be touched by the bullets.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... hat-sense/
Military spending of NATO’s European member states
Strategic Infographics
May 17, 2025
For years, most European NATO members consistently fell short of the alliance’s 2% GDP defense spending target established in 2014. However, recent years have witnessed a dramatic reversal of this trend, with military expenditures rising sharply across the continent.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... er-states/
******
Onward March, Germany
Posted on May 19, 2025 by Conor Gallagher
Who will fill former Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s role in the new German government? Officially, that title now belongs to Russia hawk Johann Wadephul, but what about Annalena’s unofficial role?
The former trampoline competitor might have been in over her head, but that often provided a useful window into the thinking of the government in Berlin—if not capitals across the “Collective West.” Although she’s gone, her previous statements help preview what’s to come with the new Christian Democrat (CDU)-led government in Berlin.
Back in 2023, as she made an attempt to rally anyone growing wary of the mounting costs of Project Ukraine, she said the quiet part out loud when she declared, “we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other,” which at the time contradicted the official lie.
Maybe nowhere was her gift more evident than in September of 2022 when she exposed the sham of Western democracy. That’s when she explained the following:
But if I give the promise to the people in Ukraine, “we stand with you, as long as you need us,” then I want to deliver. No matter what my German voters think, I want to deliver to the people of Ukraine. And this is why it’s important for me to be very frank and clear. And this means, [with] every measure I’m taking, that they remain in place as long as Ukraine needs me.
And so those measures did remain—and look set to remain—even as Germans’ standard of living circles the drain. The decisions to forego pipeline Russian gas and start shifting public expenditures towards “supporting” Ukraine didn’t cause all Germany’s economic problems, but it exacerbated them.
Real GDP and real wages continue to flatline and are respectively ten and eight percent below where they should be according to pre-pandemic trends. While Germany embraced its role as a forward operating base for American empire, Barbock also had the gall to champion what she called a “feminist foreign policy” at the same time Berlin greased the meat grinder in Ukraine, backed genocide in Palestine, and cozied up to the Al Qaeda regime in Syria.
And yet she still made a habit of lecturing, threatening, and insulting other countries, most notably China, on their foreign policy, oblivious to how out of touch with reality is the idea that Germany can dictate terms. Unsurprisingly, she was not well received:
How Russian foreign minister Lavrov was welcomed in India vs German foreign minister Baerbock……
pic.twitter.com/u8mlsXvMC2
— Richard (@ricwe123) March 4, 2023
More of the Same, Less Transparent
There might be new actors in Berlin now, but the movie is a remake. The new foreign minister who differs little on substance reportedly prefers to operate more behind the scenes, although he’s not showcasing that ability in the early going. He recently declared that “Russia will always remain an enemy for us” and is making statements about tribunals and criminal courts for the Russians:
Disillusionment Sets In: Majority of Germans Already Unhappy with Chancellor Merz — BILD Reports
Just four days. That’s all it took for the German public to turn sour on their new chancellor.
According to a fresh INSA poll, only 23% of Germans view Friedrich Merz’s Show more
On Thursday, he unexpectedly came out in support of a dramatic increase in defense spending to five percent of GDP, which is already dividing the new ruling coalition.We’ll see if five percent comes to pass, but Berlin has already agreed to exempt defense spending from Germany’s constitutional debt brake and is planning to pour hundreds of billions into armaments.
The government is accelerating weapons deliveries to Ukraine while planning to shield future deliveries from public view. According to reports, the primary goal behind the latter is to “deprive the aggressor of an advantage in the war in Ukraine.” From Defense Express:
While this reasoning may sound declarative, it is not without merit. The lack of public data on weapons shipments will likely force russian intelligence to invest far more effort into assessing the capabilities of Ukraine’s Defense Forces.
But it’s almost certainly more about keeping it removed from the public eye. After all, Merz’s popularity is already sinking:
Disillusionment Sets In: Majority of Germans Already Unhappy with Chancellor Merz — BILD Reports
Just four days. That’s all it took for the German public to turn sour on their new chancellor.
According to a fresh INSA poll, only 23% of Germans view Friedrich Merz’s… pic.twitter.com/rmdUW25gux
— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) May 11, 2025
Despite Merz’s rocky start and the record unpopularity of the previous coalition, the mania gripping German elites shows no signs of abating. Indeed, it is growing. Consider the following from NachDenkSeiten:
The Second World War, instigated by Germany, has been over for 80 years. But on the very anniversary of the liberation from Hitler’s fascism, Armin Papperger, head of the Düsseldorf-based arms company Rheinmetall, announces magnificent business figures to the public. His celebratory news is immediately euphorically reported by the media, and the trade press of stock market journalists can’t contain itself. What’s more, Papperger is already thinking about the future and what it would be like to convert civilian production capacity into military one. For this, too, he receives applause from civil society.
And Rheinmetall continues to deepen its relationship with Ukraine. While Rheinmetall’s fortunes improve, the country’s vaunted auto industry keeps sliding into oblivion and other manufacturing suffers. German industry has come under such strain in recent years as decades of complacency came home to roost at the same time Germany energy costs became uncompetitive due to the decision to refuse cheap and reliable Russian gas, and the state is now being propelled into the past with a military keynesianism hail mary.
The Shift in Manufacturing
Despite setbacks in recent years, German manufacturing still makes up 20 percent of the country’s economic output (compared to 10.6 percent in France and 17.5 in the US).
The 800 billion euros the Merz government plans to spend will help prop up the nation’s manufacturing while shifting production to weapons—a process already underway. While demand for Das Auto might be sinking, there’s plenty for ammunition and other killing toys. Last year, auto parts giant Continental and arms company Rheinmetall signed a memorandum of understanding to retrain auto workers affected by layoffs in the shrinking auto industry. In February, Rheinmetall announced it was repurposing two factories in Berlin and Neuss that previously made car parts to produce products for war. More from Defense News:
Other defense players are getting involved, too, with sensor specialist Hensoldt reportedly in talks to hire 200 workers from auto parts suppliers Continental and Bosch, according to Reuters. And German-French joint venture KNDS recently acquired a historic rail car plant in Görlitz from French train maker Alstom. The factory will be retooled to produce components for military vehicles, including the Leopard 2 battle tank and Puma infantry fighting vehicle.
In an email to defense news, Hans Christoph Atzpodien, the head of the German defense industry lobbying group, said he expected “wholly new dimensions to the question of arms demand,” including the need for faster deliveries, not just higher volume.
The military keynesianism is unlikely to be a success or produce benefits for workers, however, as Isabella Weber and Tom Krebs point out in Foreign Affairs:
Merz’s far more generous approach to military spending will not boost domestic growth in the coming years as much as its advocates suggest. The defense sector is already operating near capacity, and in the short run, increasing government spending on weapons and tanks will have only a limited effect on production. Arms companies such as Rheinmetall have seen soaring profit margins, revealing their market power and the lack of competition they face even amid rising demand. Significant additional public spending may go into boosting their margins further. Rheinmetall’s 15-fold stock surge reflects expectations of continued windfall profits.
Of course, the government has insisted that this military spending will create well-paid manufacturing jobs. Yet Merz’s cabinet is full of business executives and lacks a strong voice for labor issues, an absence that has drawn criticism from the CDU itself. Moreover, the defense build-out will not likely compensate for the impending loss of jobs in ailing industries such as the automotive sector. Rheinmetall’s profits almost doubled between 2020 and 2024, but the number of its employees based in Germany rose just 25 percent in that period. The conversion of civilian plants to military use does not offer much more hope. In the East German town of Görlitz, a former Alstom train factory was taken over by the German-French defense company KNDS and now produces tanks, but the factory’s workforce has been slashed in half. The arrival of KNDS was clearly better than nothing, but it is unlikely to turn things around in a place such as Görlitz with a high unemployment rate of 7.7 percent. In this year’s federal election, the far-right AfD candidate Tino Chrupalla won nearly 49 percent of the vote in the town.
Indeed, Germany’s linking of weapons production and its economic livelihood are not inextricably intertwined. Since the great financial crisis, Germany capped its deficit at 0.35 percent of GDP. The new government is only carving out an exception for military spending, and to get the Social Democrats and Greens on board, minor boosts in infrastructure and climate spending. Meanwhile it’s austerity for the rest, which will produce a restless populace. The elite plan appears to be to blame the immortal enemy Russia for any social problems.
And so where do we think this is going to end up?
The new government continues to plod along the same path as the previous. Merz is threatening more sanctions, and the Europeans have found another economist to say that Russia is on the verge of collapse.
On May 14, Merz delivered his fantastical agenda to the Bundestag, including restarting the locomotive of economic growth through deregulation and striving for the strongest military in Europe, and endless support for Ukraine.
So the political movie is stuck on repeat. It is not, however, on the battlefield where Russia continues to advance.
Zeitenwende 360
The European Council for Foreign Relations declares that Merz—”the über-Atlanticist and fiscal conservative”—might be the only German politician who can credibly bury the debt brake and pave the way for a truly independent Europe. But what is that independence anymore aside from preparations to fight Russia? Or at least redirect money upwards in the name of such a goal?
If truly wanted independent Europe, they’d be making peace with Russia and finding a deal with China embracing Western edge of Eurasia. Weber and Krebs present a lot of paths Germany could be taking instead, including:
Deficit financing of public investment spending—not just in the military and a few other sectors.
Investments that create public ownership of critical infrastructure come at a lower cost than investments owned by private equity since public infrastructure does not have to generate profits.
Investment in clean technology and elder- and childcare, which has a far greater economic effect than it does in defense; compared with military spending, every euro spent in nonmilitary sectors generates four times as much growth.
Firms should receive subsidies only if they pay decent wages and maintain domestic production sites. For large companies coming from China and other countries outside the European Union, joint venture agreements that require strong labor standards can be made a requirement for market access in key sectors—much as China requires joint ventures for foreign firms to access critical areas of the Chinese market. This could help secure jobs and technology transfers where Germany has fallen behind.
Germany should strengthen domestic demand for goods and services. High labor standards, including minimum-wage laws and broad union coverage of all sectors of the economy, are key to boosting the incomes of the majority of households. The government should raise the minimum wage from its current level of around 13 euros to 15 euros and give preferential treatment in procurement to companies that pay union-level wages.
The government must also help keep down the price of essentials, such as housing, food, and energy, so that they do not eat up people’s purchasing power. Authorities should craft an ambitious program to address the cost-of-living crisis through effective national rent control, energy price stabilization, and strict antitrust enforcement in the food processing and grocery sectors to reduce food prices.
None of these prescriptions are under serious consideration by the German political class, however, and in most cases, Berlin is moving in the opposite direction.
Beyond the headlines like Merz telling the US to stay out of German affairs things appear to be on track between Washington and Berlin:
This dual buildup of the Russia threat and quest for “independence” from the US is intended to sell a public weary of further energy price hikes, inflation, loss of standard of living, disruptions of standard of living, and collapsing health and education systems.
As John Helmer said on Gorilla Radio at the beginning of May:
Basically, Trump is saying, you will continue the war against Russia. I will be the peacemaker. You will come along with me. We will establish that Russia is not a genuine peacemaker and deserves more war, deserves a continuation of war. The United States will continue to support the Ukraine with arms. with financing, with intelligence sharing, and will continue to act in partnership with Germany, France, and the UK on the battlefield and in the rear, in Poland, for example.
That partnership will be paid for to Trump, to US arms suppliers, to US businesses, and so on by the Europeans, so that’s underlying the arrangements is a war plan but a war plan that’s sequenced in time and uh the there have been very clear indications in Washington that trump’s advisors are following a sequencing plan reduce the US commitment in the war against Europe in order to do more in the war against China, one war at a time, but the Russia war to be paid for by the Europeans and not simply by the Europeans.
What Trump is encouraging is increased rearmament of Germany, a rearmament that’s as big as Hitler’s 1920s, 1930s rearmament of Germany. Rearmament of Germany under the new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the new foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, a combination of Russia haters, Russia warfighters, who intend to rearm Germany to fight Russia again. And that will be funded by Germans and the Europeans. The money will flow to the United States and Trump will support it. In that sense, I would say Trump is doing in secret the rearmament of Germany to fight Russia again.
Even for the current crop of German leaders, such levels of delusion would be reaching rarefied air. A September report from the Kiel Institute found that “given Germany’s massive disarmament in the last decades and the current procurement speed, we find that for some key weapon systems, Germany will not attain 2004 levels of armament for about 100 years.”
Onward, march.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/05 ... rmany.html
May 18, 2025
On Tuesday another provocation in the Baltic Sea-Gulf of Finland strategic zone occurred when Estonia attempted to seize a Russian “shadow fleet” oil tanker:
Estonian Naval Commander Ivo Vark told Reuters the Jaguar was near Naissaar Island off the Estonian capital Tallinn when it was contacted by radio on Tuesday afternoon to check its status because it was sailing "without a nationality."
Recall that the Western-fabricated moniker ‘shadow fleet’ merely means a tanker which is not registered in accordance with Western EU/G7 “sanctions”, which themselves do not apply to Russia in the slightest, since Russia is not party to those organizations. Here an Estonian military rep acknowledges that they attempt to check all Russian ships for compliance, which primarily means making sure the ships have proper “insurance”:
(Video at link.)
Except one small problem—you see, the EU’s sanctions specifically barred Russia from obtaining normal Western insurance for its ships. Here’s Bloomberg admitting to this fact:
https://archive.ph/bjXB0
Another source:
The Financial Times, citing its own sources, wrote about the decision of the UK and EU authorities to ban insurance for merchant ships that transport oil from Russia. This decision actually closes the largest insurance market Lloyd's of London for Russian tankers and limits the possibility of exporting crude oil from the Russian Federation.
The methods of the West’s criminal economic terrorism are clear: they cut Russia out of the largest insurance market, then attempt to “enforce” Russia’s “illegal” lack of insurance for its ships. The only definition of a “shadow fleet” tanker is one which is not registered in London’s insurance market, because it was deplatformed by the criminal ‘Rules Based Order.’
Swell how that works, no?
Getting back: The ship’s crew took this video of Estonian military choppers attempting to intimidate them into pulling into an Estonian port: (Video at link.)
From a screenshot of their dashboard we can see the exact coordinates of the ship at 59°43'25.2"N, 24°27'50.5"E:
As can be seen the ship is technically transiting what would normally be international waters, but due to the narrowness of the Gulf of Finland, both Estonia and Finland’s EEZs (Exclusive Economic Zone) extend outward to cover virtually the entire channel. I’ve written many times before about how Estonia and Finland were planning to play EEZ games in order to restrict Russia’s internationally accepted right of passage here.
But Russia is no longer tolerating this behavior. It sent an Su-35S to buzz Estonian assets, which immediately scurried off, allowing the Russian ship to successfully continue navigating toward St. Petersburg. Estonia claims that the Su-35S violated its airspace in speeding to the scene of the crime—well, one supposes that’s a justified tit-for-tat given that Estonia violated international law for safe maritime passage in illegally obstructing the ship.
More detailed summary:
NATO aircraft and Estonian navy attempted to seize a tanker of the "Russian shadow fleet"
The vessel, flying the Gabonese flag, was heading to the Russian port of Primorsk via the Gulf of Finland.Estonia has activated the entire Estonian fleet patrol boat “Raiu”, patrol ship “Kurvits”, helicopters and drones.A MiG-29 of the Polish Air Force also took part in the operation.At first, they tried to force the tanker's crew to take a course into Estonian territorial waters; after that failed, they tried to land on it from helicopters and boats.The tanker's crew increased speed, thwarting both landing attempts.According to the norms of international maritime law, an attack on a ship in neutral waters is considered an act of piracy.RVvoenkor
But where it gets interesting is reportedly NATO-member Portugal sent an F-16 to intercept the Su-35S:
According to the General Staff of the Estonian Ministry of Defence, the Russian fighter was in the area of the Juminda Peninsula for less than one minute on Tuesday evening, while the Su-35S had its transponder turned off and did not communicate with the Estonian air traffic control service.
Portuguese Air Force F-16 fighter jets deployed to Ämari as part of the NATO Baltic Air Policing Mission, responded to the incident and conducted a reconnaissance flight.
This video was circulated which appears to show an F-16 tailing an Su-35—however its provenance is not certain, as I was not able to independently verify its authenticity: (Video at link.)
It may be an old video as the atmospheric conditions appear to differ from that of the ship’s video, although this could come down to camera settings, or the interception happened a bit later. Either way, take it as a ‘dramatization’ reference.
One Russian commentator concludes:
They demanded that the captain of the vessel change course and ... enter Estonian territorial waters in order to physically capture it there. But the captain of the vessel was not a coward and sent the pirates on a walking journey "to the South". Literally immediately, a Russian Su-35S fighter appeared in the sky, demonstrating by its actions its readiness to protect the peaceful vessel from pirate capture by a NATO trough under the Estonian flag. This forced the unlucky pirates to retreat. And the tanker arrived in Primorsk and began loading.
This has been part of a long-term plan by the West to provoke Russia into further actions which can be characterized as ‘aggression’ in order to maintain the narrative of Russia as the bad guy, so that the European deep state can continue mobilizing its citizens for war against Russia.
But most people forget the key linchpin to this whole scenario:
Article 5 of NATO’s infamous charter only recognizes attacks on NATO constituents’ territory. In fact, Article 5 is governed by Article 6 for this very purpose:
Article 6
For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:
on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer; on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.
Thus, if next time Russia chooses to open fire on the Estonian ships prohibiting freedom of navigation, the puny chihuahua state will have no NATO guarantees backing its uncalled-for aggression; Russia is free to obliterate the Estonian Navy consisting of six total commissioned ships.
Top Putin aide Patrushev recently noted:
Patrushev: Moscow will not allow any encroachment on its national interests in the Baltics
In the current difficult military-political situation, the Baltic Fleet is strengthening its positions, reliably ensuring the safety of navigation and preventing provocations by the naval forces of enemy states, said Nikolai Patrushev, aide to the Russian President and chairman of the Russian Maritime Committee.
Now Russia has given a tit-for-tat response, as today brought us the breaking news that Russia has seized a cargo ship carrying shale oil from Estonia’s Sillamäe port:
These super large tankers leaving the port were forced to go partly through Russian territorial waters via agreed upon rules due to shallow shoals hugging the Estonian coast; but now Estonian officials have claimed they will reroute their tankers through more dangerous waters to avoid Russian territory.
The incomprehensibly servile Estonians clutched pearls and pretended it’s Russia that’s acting “unpredictable”:
"Today's incident shows that Russia continues to behave unpredictably, which is why ships will be redirected in the future," Tsahkna said.
Maybe Russia was merely making sure the tanker’s insurance was in compliance?
But of course, unelected Reichsfuhrer von der Leyen has already embarked on the next stage of escalations which will virtually ensure that Baltic parakeets will be forced to continue agitating against Russia:
The secretly-agreed-upon plan—just like the seminal RAND paper to ‘unbalance and overextend’ Russia by arming Ukraine—revolves around increasing the tension precisely on Russia’s key pressure points, one of which is the Baltic zone, Kaliningrad, etc. That means we can expect more strong-arm tactics against Russian ships illegally barred from obtaining insurance—but now Russia will be strengthening its Baltic Fleet more than ever in response.
Finnish propagandists have been claiming Russia is already taking some kind of actions around Gogland:
In the meantime, this comical excerpt from the latest Estonian defense exercises gives us a look into how the mighty Baltic bruisers are training to take down the Crazy Ivan: (Video at link.)
Finishing off the wounded "Ivan" as part of the Estonian Defense Forces' "Hedgehog-2025" exercises — local media boast that rangers, reservists, and members of Kaitseliit took part in them near the Russian border.
But the main thing is that soldiers from more than 10 NATO countries came to the exercises: Great Britain, France, the USA, Canada, Latvia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, and Portugal. Observers came from Japan, Israel, and... Ukraine.
Fearsome indeed—how long do you reckon they’d last on the front? All that hollering is sure to at least drown out the bombinations of distant drones.
Here’s a perfect reply to the above, which underscores what I’ve been saying—read very carefully:
[T]he so-called “shadow fleet” a) isn't even Russian and b) isn’t illegal. It refers to oil tankers operating without Western insurance — often older ships, flagged to third countries, avoiding sanctions compliance. They’re just outside the Western regulatory and insurance framework, which is not inherently unlawful.
Third, these ships are sailing through international waters — including the Danish Straits and other key routes in the Baltic. Under UNCLOS, they have every right to pass. No law is being broken.
This is all that Europe has left in their game plan: they failed to out-produce Russia in war, they then failed to trick Russia into an early ceasefire, now they plan to orchestrate an endless escalation spiral so that—with the help of their totally captured and non-independent state media organs—they can propagandize their citizenry with the threat of the Russian ‘specter’ in order to try and build a concensus toward utilizing all remaining public funds to mobilize a vast war machine to stop Russia. It is existential for them: if Russia wins this war, the European cabal will crumble, and the sun will set on the ‘Western Liberal Order’ forevermore.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/bal ... up-estonia
*******
What Comes Next After The (Allegedly Fraudulent) Liberal-Globalist Victory In Romania?
Andrew Korybko
May 19, 2025
The battle was lost but the political war isn’t over.
The struggle between liberal-globalists and populist-nationalists in Romania ended in the former’s favor after Sunday’s presidential run-off election, which was preceded by the authorities controversially annulling the first round in early December on the false pretext that the frontrunner was Russian-backed. Calin Georgescu was ultimately barred from running again and instead appointed his ally George Simion in his place, who came out on top in early May’s first-round re-do, only to lose the second round.
Simion alleged that the Moldovan government was rallying the diaspora there against him and also claimed that other friendlier diasporas’ polling stations didn’t have enough ballots. Traditional fraud like ballot-stuffing was also suspected by some. Meanwhile, Telegram founder Pavel Durov revealed that he rejected the French intelligence chief’s request to ban conservative Romanian accounts, thus showing the international stakes in this election. A few words will now be shared about the geostrategic context.
It was assessed before December’s now-annulled first round that “The Outcome Of Romania’s Presidential Election Could Spoil The US’ Potential Escalation Plans” of using Romania as a launchpad for any conventional European intervention in Ukraine. France, the country that’s most loudly called for the aforesaid scenario, has a military base in Romania and signed a defense pact with neighboring Moldova last year. This positions France to swiftly make a move on nearby Odessa if the decision is ever made.
The only way to prevent that would be for populist-nationalists to come to power and either kick out French troops or ensure that measures are in place to stop them from unilaterally using Romanian soil for conventional military operations in Ukraine. Likewise, the only way to retain the viability of this scenario is to keep populist-nationalists out of power, ergo the alleged fraud against Simion. The significance of Sunday’s election was therefore that it keeps this possibility open even if it’s never used.
If there’s any silver lining to their loss, populist-nationalists could take partial consolation in the fact that they unprecedentedly galvanized their supporters during the election, and this mobilization of civil society could remain in place to expose the liberal-globalists’ corruption and organize peaceful protests. They could also attempt to raise maximum awareness of the abovementioned scenario of France using Romania as a launchpad for conventionally intervening in Ukraine with all that could dangerously entail.
To that end, more investigative journalism will be key, as will circulating their findings through the global network of friends that they built over the past half-year. Populist-nationalists in the US and across Europe are enraged at the injustice that the liberal-globalists committed against Georgescu, with even Vance mentioning it during his famous speech in February at the Munich Security Conference, so they can count on them to inform the world if France takes any steps to use Romania as a military launchpad.
That’s what comes next after the liberal-globalists’ (allegedly fraudulent) victory in Romania, namely strengthening the populist-nationalist movement in ways that hold the new authorities accountable for everything that they do, including exposing possibly forthcoming French military plans vis-à-vis Ukraine. The battle was lost but the political war isn’t over, and Simion’s impressive second-round showing in spite of alleged fraud proves that populist-nationalism has finally gone mainstream in Romania.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/what-com ... -allegedly
*****
ReBrain Europe, in what sense?
Lorenzo Maria Pacini
May 18, 2025
It is a question of political hierarchy. The tribute that a vassal pays to his lord.
No money, no science
The collective West is in such a state of decline that it no longer knows how to disguise its decline. When a serious problem arises, one that requires serious reflection, instead of sitting down at the table and examining their conscience, the wonderful machine of communication marketing immediately kicks into gear. Let’s be honest, the West has made this its strong point, managing to pass off even the most resounding defeats as ‘victories’.
This is happening once again in the field of scientific and military research. In the U.S., the Trump administration has made further cuts to research, following on from those already made in the past. A letter of protest has been presented by around 1,900 American scientists, denouncing the attack on research, especially in the fields of health, the economy, and national security.
According to the authors, the government is drastically reducing research funding, closing laboratories, laying off scientists, and hindering international collaboration. Leading universities are under political pressure, with the threat of funding cuts if they do not comply with certain ideological directives.
The fundamental principle of science—free and independent research—is now compromised. Censorship and economic threats are causing researchers to modify their studies or avoid “sensitive” topics such as climate change or vaccine safety. Fear has taken hold in academia, where many prefer to remain silent so as not to lose funding or jobs.
If this trend continues, the authors warn, the United States risks losing its global scientific leadership, leaving other countries to lead innovation in medicine, technology, and the environment. The consequences would be dire for public health, the economy, and national security.
The document concludes with a call to stop the attack on science, engage the public, and ask political representatives to take action. Science is a common good, and its survival concerns us all.
Europe offers a helping hand, but lacks the resources
In all this, the European Union seems to have had the brilliant idea of offering itself as a lifeline for American academics.
Yes, that’s right: the EU, which has enormous internal problems, has offered to take in American researchers and academics who will lose their jobs, calling them to European territory as “intelligentsia.”
As if the ReArm Europe initiative to spend €800 billion – which does not exist in European banks – on rearmament to wage war on Russia were not enough, European Parliament politicians have decided to launch an initiative to welcome these ‘intellectual migrants’.
All this might seem interesting, were it not for a few truths that need to be highlighted.
Let’s start with the data, with the caveat that there are no updated reports on the European situation as a whole, only national data and a few incomplete sample initiatives by agencies. We will therefore take Italy as an example, the country where universities were invented.
Since the introduction of the Gelmini Law, the Italian university system has seen a gradual replacement of permanent teaching and research staff with temporary workers. In 2010, full professors, associate professors, and structured researchers (RTI) numbered 57,449, constituting 81% of the academic body. The remaining 19% were 13,109 research fellows.
The Gelmini Law initiated the process of phasing out the role of RTIs, who were replaced by two new types of fixed-term researchers: type A (RTDA) and type B (RTDB). The main difference between the two roles is that RTDBs, once they have obtained national scientific qualification, are guaranteed access to the role of associate professor on a permanent basis.
Since 2010, the gap between permanent and precarious staff has widened: in 2020, full professors, associate professors, and the few remaining RTIs fell to 46,245, or 65% of the total. Research fellows rose to 22% (15,849), RTDA to 7% (5,192) and RTDB to 6% (4,616).
In 2022, Law 79 eliminated the positions of RTDA, RTDB, and research fellows, replacing them with the new Tenure Track Researcher (RTT) and research contract, both significantly more expensive positions. However, the law did not provide for additional funding. This prompted university rectors, concerned about university budgets, and project managers to ask the government for an extension of the previous positions. PNRR funds therefore encouraged the massive hiring of precarious staff, particularly research fellows and RTDA.
The PNRR thus led to a significant increase in the number of RTDA and, even more so, research fellows. Between 2022 and 2023, the number of RTDA grew by 36%, from 6,803 to 9,222, or 8% of research staff. For research fellows, the exceptional increase occurred in 2024, probably in conjunction with the launch of the PRIN 2022/PNRR calls for proposals: the number rose from 15,891 in 2023 to 23,958 in 2024 (+51%). At the end of 2024, research fellows accounted for 27% of total staff.
However, the rapid increase in RTDA and research fellows will be followed by an equally sharp decline to zero by 2027, as both positions have been phased out.
Finally, it should be noted that PNRR resources have also contributed to the extraordinary expansion of doctoral positions, which have risen from around 11,000 in 2019 to over 17,000 in 2023.
So what will happen to the approximately 24,000 research fellows and 9,000 RTDA currently in service? And what will be the fate of the new PhDs? In theory, rectors should hold competitions for recruitment… but, in reality, this has not happened to date, and we are now almost halfway through 2025, with the end of the second academic semester.
So, the question is: is there really a need to import labor from abroad? What positions would they fill? Or what jobs would be created ad hoc, effectively replacing opportunities for domestic candidates?
No, the Italian university system—and with it that of other EU member countries—does not have the real and concrete resources to do so.
A second point to consider is qualitative. Here too, a premise is necessary: the available statistics are based on criteria that are not uniform and not sufficiently objective. Nowadays, especially with online access to education, all the evaluation criteria of the past are being revised. We will therefore base our analysis on reports dated.
The best-known international university rankings publicly represent this hierarchy. Although these rankings take into account various factors – from reputation to teacher/student ratio to research productivity – they do not assess the actual skills of the students trained at these universities.
However, the OECD, through its annual report Education at a Glance, has published test results comparing the skills of graduates from different countries.
These data paint a very different picture of higher education than that suggested by traditional rankings, which are often dominated by U.S. and UK universities such as Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, and UCL.
The OECD tests measured literacy skills among graduates, revealing that the best results did not come from the U.S. or the UK, but from countries such as Japan and Finland. These rankings, based on objective assessments rather than reputation, highlight a very different national composition from the usual well-known names.
The 10 countries with the most competent graduates according to the OECD:
Japan
Finland
Netherlands
Sweden
Australia
Norway
Belgium
New Zealand
England
United States
The countries at the top of this ranking rarely appear in the most popular university rankings. Although elite U.S. universities are world-renowned, universities in Norway and Australia seem to produce graduates with superior skills.
In the QS World University Rankings, there are 32 U.S. universities in the top 100, while New Zealand has only one. Yet New Zealand graduates perform better than their U.S. counterparts.
There is also the issue of cost and return on investment in higher education, both for students and for society as a whole. The Dutch university system, for example, with its low tuition fees, performs better than the United States and England, where fees are much higher. Scotland and Wales were not included in the OECD measurement, but Northern Ireland ranks 14th. The report’s data also challenge the idea that a good school system guarantees quality university results.
The OECD analyzes national university systems as a whole, while rankings focus on a small group of institutions of excellence. The U.S. education system is in fact very uneven, which is not reflected in rankings that focus only on the top performers. However, the OECD data reopens a long-standing debate on the priorities of university education: is it better to aim for a high average level for all institutions, or to concentrate resources on a few centers of excellence?
From an economic point of view, it could be argued that ensuring high standards in all universities is more beneficial than a landscape of isolated centers of excellence and low-quality institutions. University rankings can highlight differences between individual universities, but they are not adequate tools for assessing the performance of the entire academic system. The OECD, which already organizes the Pisa tests to compare school results in over 70 countries, has tried to launch something similar for university education, but many American universities have shown little interest, and at the moment there are no rankings based on the quality of students trained on the horizon.
Therefore, based on the data, the U.S. is not ‘the best choice’. And it is not just a question of the H-index of publications: it is a pedagogical issue, a question of method, because the way teaching is done in the United States is very different from the way it is done in Italy, Germany or Croatia, for example.
Thirdly, but not least, it is a problem of power hierarchies. Europe is already a victim of American academic colonialism. Research models, quality and evaluation standards, statistical parameters, and content to be disseminated have been imposed. A veritable myth has been created around U.S. universities, forgetting that when the Alma Mater Studiorum was founded in Bologna, Italy, in 1088, the first university in the world, the elderly cousins of today’s Americans—who, let us remember, have nothing to do with the REAL and legitimate inhabitants of those lands—were still grazing sheep and raising pigs in the English hills. There is a gap in cultural level and development of civilizational models that cannot be ignored.
What political utility?
The question therefore remains: what sense does a ReBrain Europe make in this way? Only a clear political utility emerges, once again linked solely to the interests of the technocratic elites in Strasbourg and Brussels, which has nothing to do with the will of the European peoples.
The benefit is to bow down to the U.S. and its allies in the hope of not losing their favor, patronage, and economic support, because without Daddy Dollar, the EU will be thrown into another financial crisis with no way out.
It is a question of political hierarchy. The tribute that a vassal pays to his lord.
American academics would certainly be more useful to the European Commission in justifying the insane war they want to wage against Russia, but for that we already have our own intellectuals, lined up in the front row to reaffirm European greatness through the strengthening of military infrastructure, the war economy, and the sacrifice of the younger generations on the front lines.
But rest assured that none of the interests of the plutocratic oligarchies will be touched by the bullets.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... hat-sense/
Military spending of NATO’s European member states
Strategic Infographics
May 17, 2025
For years, most European NATO members consistently fell short of the alliance’s 2% GDP defense spending target established in 2014. However, recent years have witnessed a dramatic reversal of this trend, with military expenditures rising sharply across the continent.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... er-states/
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Onward March, Germany
Posted on May 19, 2025 by Conor Gallagher
Who will fill former Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s role in the new German government? Officially, that title now belongs to Russia hawk Johann Wadephul, but what about Annalena’s unofficial role?
The former trampoline competitor might have been in over her head, but that often provided a useful window into the thinking of the government in Berlin—if not capitals across the “Collective West.” Although she’s gone, her previous statements help preview what’s to come with the new Christian Democrat (CDU)-led government in Berlin.
Back in 2023, as she made an attempt to rally anyone growing wary of the mounting costs of Project Ukraine, she said the quiet part out loud when she declared, “we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other,” which at the time contradicted the official lie.
Maybe nowhere was her gift more evident than in September of 2022 when she exposed the sham of Western democracy. That’s when she explained the following:
But if I give the promise to the people in Ukraine, “we stand with you, as long as you need us,” then I want to deliver. No matter what my German voters think, I want to deliver to the people of Ukraine. And this is why it’s important for me to be very frank and clear. And this means, [with] every measure I’m taking, that they remain in place as long as Ukraine needs me.
And so those measures did remain—and look set to remain—even as Germans’ standard of living circles the drain. The decisions to forego pipeline Russian gas and start shifting public expenditures towards “supporting” Ukraine didn’t cause all Germany’s economic problems, but it exacerbated them.
Real GDP and real wages continue to flatline and are respectively ten and eight percent below where they should be according to pre-pandemic trends. While Germany embraced its role as a forward operating base for American empire, Barbock also had the gall to champion what she called a “feminist foreign policy” at the same time Berlin greased the meat grinder in Ukraine, backed genocide in Palestine, and cozied up to the Al Qaeda regime in Syria.
And yet she still made a habit of lecturing, threatening, and insulting other countries, most notably China, on their foreign policy, oblivious to how out of touch with reality is the idea that Germany can dictate terms. Unsurprisingly, she was not well received:
How Russian foreign minister Lavrov was welcomed in India vs German foreign minister Baerbock……
pic.twitter.com/u8mlsXvMC2— Richard (@ricwe123) March 4, 2023
More of the Same, Less Transparent
There might be new actors in Berlin now, but the movie is a remake. The new foreign minister who differs little on substance reportedly prefers to operate more behind the scenes, although he’s not showcasing that ability in the early going. He recently declared that “Russia will always remain an enemy for us” and is making statements about tribunals and criminal courts for the Russians:
Disillusionment Sets In: Majority of Germans Already Unhappy with Chancellor Merz — BILD ReportsJust four days. That’s all it took for the German public to turn sour on their new chancellor.
According to a fresh INSA poll, only 23% of Germans view Friedrich Merz’s Show more
On Thursday, he unexpectedly came out in support of a dramatic increase in defense spending to five percent of GDP, which is already dividing the new ruling coalition.We’ll see if five percent comes to pass, but Berlin has already agreed to exempt defense spending from Germany’s constitutional debt brake and is planning to pour hundreds of billions into armaments.
The government is accelerating weapons deliveries to Ukraine while planning to shield future deliveries from public view. According to reports, the primary goal behind the latter is to “deprive the aggressor of an advantage in the war in Ukraine.” From Defense Express:
While this reasoning may sound declarative, it is not without merit. The lack of public data on weapons shipments will likely force russian intelligence to invest far more effort into assessing the capabilities of Ukraine’s Defense Forces.
But it’s almost certainly more about keeping it removed from the public eye. After all, Merz’s popularity is already sinking:
Disillusionment Sets In: Majority of Germans Already Unhappy with Chancellor Merz — BILD ReportsJust four days. That’s all it took for the German public to turn sour on their new chancellor.
According to a fresh INSA poll, only 23% of Germans view Friedrich Merz’s… pic.twitter.com/rmdUW25gux
— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) May 11, 2025
Despite Merz’s rocky start and the record unpopularity of the previous coalition, the mania gripping German elites shows no signs of abating. Indeed, it is growing. Consider the following from NachDenkSeiten:
The Second World War, instigated by Germany, has been over for 80 years. But on the very anniversary of the liberation from Hitler’s fascism, Armin Papperger, head of the Düsseldorf-based arms company Rheinmetall, announces magnificent business figures to the public. His celebratory news is immediately euphorically reported by the media, and the trade press of stock market journalists can’t contain itself. What’s more, Papperger is already thinking about the future and what it would be like to convert civilian production capacity into military one. For this, too, he receives applause from civil society.
And Rheinmetall continues to deepen its relationship with Ukraine. While Rheinmetall’s fortunes improve, the country’s vaunted auto industry keeps sliding into oblivion and other manufacturing suffers. German industry has come under such strain in recent years as decades of complacency came home to roost at the same time Germany energy costs became uncompetitive due to the decision to refuse cheap and reliable Russian gas, and the state is now being propelled into the past with a military keynesianism hail mary.
The Shift in Manufacturing
Despite setbacks in recent years, German manufacturing still makes up 20 percent of the country’s economic output (compared to 10.6 percent in France and 17.5 in the US).
The 800 billion euros the Merz government plans to spend will help prop up the nation’s manufacturing while shifting production to weapons—a process already underway. While demand for Das Auto might be sinking, there’s plenty for ammunition and other killing toys. Last year, auto parts giant Continental and arms company Rheinmetall signed a memorandum of understanding to retrain auto workers affected by layoffs in the shrinking auto industry. In February, Rheinmetall announced it was repurposing two factories in Berlin and Neuss that previously made car parts to produce products for war. More from Defense News:
Other defense players are getting involved, too, with sensor specialist Hensoldt reportedly in talks to hire 200 workers from auto parts suppliers Continental and Bosch, according to Reuters. And German-French joint venture KNDS recently acquired a historic rail car plant in Görlitz from French train maker Alstom. The factory will be retooled to produce components for military vehicles, including the Leopard 2 battle tank and Puma infantry fighting vehicle.
In an email to defense news, Hans Christoph Atzpodien, the head of the German defense industry lobbying group, said he expected “wholly new dimensions to the question of arms demand,” including the need for faster deliveries, not just higher volume.
The military keynesianism is unlikely to be a success or produce benefits for workers, however, as Isabella Weber and Tom Krebs point out in Foreign Affairs:
Merz’s far more generous approach to military spending will not boost domestic growth in the coming years as much as its advocates suggest. The defense sector is already operating near capacity, and in the short run, increasing government spending on weapons and tanks will have only a limited effect on production. Arms companies such as Rheinmetall have seen soaring profit margins, revealing their market power and the lack of competition they face even amid rising demand. Significant additional public spending may go into boosting their margins further. Rheinmetall’s 15-fold stock surge reflects expectations of continued windfall profits.
Of course, the government has insisted that this military spending will create well-paid manufacturing jobs. Yet Merz’s cabinet is full of business executives and lacks a strong voice for labor issues, an absence that has drawn criticism from the CDU itself. Moreover, the defense build-out will not likely compensate for the impending loss of jobs in ailing industries such as the automotive sector. Rheinmetall’s profits almost doubled between 2020 and 2024, but the number of its employees based in Germany rose just 25 percent in that period. The conversion of civilian plants to military use does not offer much more hope. In the East German town of Görlitz, a former Alstom train factory was taken over by the German-French defense company KNDS and now produces tanks, but the factory’s workforce has been slashed in half. The arrival of KNDS was clearly better than nothing, but it is unlikely to turn things around in a place such as Görlitz with a high unemployment rate of 7.7 percent. In this year’s federal election, the far-right AfD candidate Tino Chrupalla won nearly 49 percent of the vote in the town.
Indeed, Germany’s linking of weapons production and its economic livelihood are not inextricably intertwined. Since the great financial crisis, Germany capped its deficit at 0.35 percent of GDP. The new government is only carving out an exception for military spending, and to get the Social Democrats and Greens on board, minor boosts in infrastructure and climate spending. Meanwhile it’s austerity for the rest, which will produce a restless populace. The elite plan appears to be to blame the immortal enemy Russia for any social problems.
And so where do we think this is going to end up?
The new government continues to plod along the same path as the previous. Merz is threatening more sanctions, and the Europeans have found another economist to say that Russia is on the verge of collapse.
On May 14, Merz delivered his fantastical agenda to the Bundestag, including restarting the locomotive of economic growth through deregulation and striving for the strongest military in Europe, and endless support for Ukraine.
So the political movie is stuck on repeat. It is not, however, on the battlefield where Russia continues to advance.
Zeitenwende 360
The European Council for Foreign Relations declares that Merz—”the über-Atlanticist and fiscal conservative”—might be the only German politician who can credibly bury the debt brake and pave the way for a truly independent Europe. But what is that independence anymore aside from preparations to fight Russia? Or at least redirect money upwards in the name of such a goal?
If truly wanted independent Europe, they’d be making peace with Russia and finding a deal with China embracing Western edge of Eurasia. Weber and Krebs present a lot of paths Germany could be taking instead, including:
Deficit financing of public investment spending—not just in the military and a few other sectors.
Investments that create public ownership of critical infrastructure come at a lower cost than investments owned by private equity since public infrastructure does not have to generate profits.
Investment in clean technology and elder- and childcare, which has a far greater economic effect than it does in defense; compared with military spending, every euro spent in nonmilitary sectors generates four times as much growth.
Firms should receive subsidies only if they pay decent wages and maintain domestic production sites. For large companies coming from China and other countries outside the European Union, joint venture agreements that require strong labor standards can be made a requirement for market access in key sectors—much as China requires joint ventures for foreign firms to access critical areas of the Chinese market. This could help secure jobs and technology transfers where Germany has fallen behind.
Germany should strengthen domestic demand for goods and services. High labor standards, including minimum-wage laws and broad union coverage of all sectors of the economy, are key to boosting the incomes of the majority of households. The government should raise the minimum wage from its current level of around 13 euros to 15 euros and give preferential treatment in procurement to companies that pay union-level wages.
The government must also help keep down the price of essentials, such as housing, food, and energy, so that they do not eat up people’s purchasing power. Authorities should craft an ambitious program to address the cost-of-living crisis through effective national rent control, energy price stabilization, and strict antitrust enforcement in the food processing and grocery sectors to reduce food prices.
None of these prescriptions are under serious consideration by the German political class, however, and in most cases, Berlin is moving in the opposite direction.
Beyond the headlines like Merz telling the US to stay out of German affairs things appear to be on track between Washington and Berlin:
This dual buildup of the Russia threat and quest for “independence” from the US is intended to sell a public weary of further energy price hikes, inflation, loss of standard of living, disruptions of standard of living, and collapsing health and education systems.
As John Helmer said on Gorilla Radio at the beginning of May:
Basically, Trump is saying, you will continue the war against Russia. I will be the peacemaker. You will come along with me. We will establish that Russia is not a genuine peacemaker and deserves more war, deserves a continuation of war. The United States will continue to support the Ukraine with arms. with financing, with intelligence sharing, and will continue to act in partnership with Germany, France, and the UK on the battlefield and in the rear, in Poland, for example.
That partnership will be paid for to Trump, to US arms suppliers, to US businesses, and so on by the Europeans, so that’s underlying the arrangements is a war plan but a war plan that’s sequenced in time and uh the there have been very clear indications in Washington that trump’s advisors are following a sequencing plan reduce the US commitment in the war against Europe in order to do more in the war against China, one war at a time, but the Russia war to be paid for by the Europeans and not simply by the Europeans.
What Trump is encouraging is increased rearmament of Germany, a rearmament that’s as big as Hitler’s 1920s, 1930s rearmament of Germany. Rearmament of Germany under the new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the new foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, a combination of Russia haters, Russia warfighters, who intend to rearm Germany to fight Russia again. And that will be funded by Germans and the Europeans. The money will flow to the United States and Trump will support it. In that sense, I would say Trump is doing in secret the rearmament of Germany to fight Russia again.
Even for the current crop of German leaders, such levels of delusion would be reaching rarefied air. A September report from the Kiel Institute found that “given Germany’s massive disarmament in the last decades and the current procurement speed, we find that for some key weapon systems, Germany will not attain 2004 levels of armament for about 100 years.”
Onward, march.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/05 ... rmany.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Blues for Europa
Over 100,000 March in The Hague Against Israeli Genocide in Gaza: Dutch Government Urged to End Complicity
Historic mobilization in The Hague demands justice for Palestine.Photo:EFE.
May 19, 2025 Hour: 5:01 pm
More than 100,000 demonstrators filled the streets of The Hague, demanding the Netherlands halt support for Israel’s actions in Gaza and act decisively against what protesters and human rights groups call genocide.
On May 18, the city of The Hague witnessed an unprecedented outpouring of solidarity with the Palestinian people, as over 100,000 protesters marched through the Dutch capital. Dressed in red to symbolize the “red line” crossed by Israel in Gaza, demonstrators called on the Dutch government to end all political, economic, and military support for Israel amid ongoing accusations of genocide and systematic human rights violations in the Gaza Strip.
Protesters Demand Dutch Action Against Israeli Aggression
The demonstration, described by organizers as the largest in the Netherlands in two decades, was coordinated by a broad alliance of international and local NGOs, including Amnesty International, Save the Children, and Doctors Without Borders.
Protesters marched from Malieveld to the Peace Palace, home of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where Israel stands accused of genocide. Chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” and “Starving people is a crime” echoed through the city center, reflecting outrage at the ongoing blockade and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
Speakers at the rally emphasized the Dutch government’s continued support for Israel through trade privileges, defense treaties, and the supply of weapons, despite binding ICJ orders demanding Israel halt genocidal acts and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. “The time for words is long gone, it is time for action,” declared the Dutch chapter of Oxfam, denouncing the government’s refusal to draw a clear line against Israeli war crimes.
Humanitarian Crisis and International Complicity
Human rights organizations and left-wing political voices have consistently condemned Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a disproportionate and punitive assault on a trapped civilian population. Since October 2023, Israeli attacks have killed tens of thousands, displaced 85% of Gaza’s population, and destroyed much of the enclave’s infrastructure, according to UN and Palestinian sources.
Protesters in The Hague highlighted the Dutch government’s silence and inaction, arguing that continued support for Israel makes the Netherlands complicit in the ongoing genocide.
The left has long argued that Israeli military actions in Gaza, regardless of stated intentions, inevitably result in mass civilian casualties and destruction, fueling further instability and extremism in the region. As the host country of both the ICJ and the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Netherlands faces mounting pressure from its own citizens and the international community to uphold human rights and international law.
The massive mobilization in The Hague sends a clear message to European governments: stop being complicit in genocide and act in defense of justice for the Palestinian people. Protesters demanded an immediate end to Dutch support for Israel and called for meaningful action to halt the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. As the world marks the anniversary of the Nakba, the voices from The Hague echo a growing global demand for accountability, justice, and real solidarity with Palestine.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/over-100 ... omplicity/
Germany Reports Record Number of Politically Motivated Crimes
March of Neo-Nazi activists in Berlin, Germany, Oct. 2024. X/ @derJamesJackson
May 20, 2025 Hour: 8:36 am
Neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists carried out 1,488 violent attacks against migrants, refugees, or political opponents.
On Tuesday, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) presented its annual report showing that over 84,000 politically motivated crimes were committed in Germany last year, up 40 percent year-on-year and representing the highest number since the statistics were collected in 2001.
The BKA report noted that propaganda offenses, property damage, insults, incitement to hatred, coercion, and threats accounted for the majority of politically motivated crimes in 2024.
The data also highlights a sharp rise in election-related offenses, with cases in the “Election Context” soaring by 427 percent, from 2,238 in 2023 to 11,788 in 2024. Compared to the 2021 super election year, this also represents a 12.4 percent increase.
Crimes motivated by right-wing ideologies saw the most significant increase, rising by 47.8 percent and accounting for more than half of all politically motivated offenses registered by the police. Also, right-wing violent crimes, such as homicides and bodily injuries, surged by 17.2 percent in 2024.
A worrying trend in Germany. The number of politically motivated crime reaches an all-time high- with right wing extremism fueling the rise. pic.twitter.com/fGPd78nN0O
— DW Politics (@dw_politics) May 20, 2025
“The unprecedented increase in the number of cases of politically motivated crimes is a worrying development. The current statistics once again underline the urgent need for a joint security offensive by the federal and state governments,” said Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt.
“The greatest threat to our democracy comes from right-wing extremism. That’s objectively true. Last year, we had to deal with a very massive increase in right-wing, politically motivated crimes. That is why we will continue our fight against right-wing extremism and right-wing motivated crimes,” he emphasized.
“According to official figures, neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists carried out 1,488 violent attacks against migrants, refugees, or political opponents—representing more than 17% rise from the previous year. At least 1,068 people were injured in these attacks,” Anadolu Agency reported.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/germany- ... ed-crimes/
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Political Renewals: Berlin Bulletin No. 234, May 19, 2025
By Victor Grossman (Posted May 19, 2025)
Germany, long a synonym for economic brawn and muscle, is beginning to recall words like lumbago or sciatica instead. Though still leading in Europe, and fourth in the world, it faces an economic mess, a political mess, and a mood of general stress. Schools lack repairs and teachers, clinics and hospitals lack staff, its key industry, making good cars, lacks customers. All sliding downhill. What’s moving up? Apartment rents, grocery prices, the fear of fascists. And oh yes, most speedily, the bank accounts of folks like Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall, top man in that happy but exclusive club of armament makers. “We are one of the most fast-growing defense enterprises in the world and on the road to becoming global champion,” he boasts, and with good reason: since 2020 his company’s share price jumped more than 2000%, thanks to the Ukraine war. Some do prosper! For the others the economy, with a growth prospect at a low near 0.00%, is best symbolized by the Rhine water level, maybe soon navigable only for flatboats and scows. But Rheinmetall, the river’s namesake (Rhein in German) is selling tanks, artillery, shells, anti-aircraft guns and military trucks like hot cakes, while it expands, not just in Germany but in Italy, the USA … even in Ukraine.
That last word, with unlimited military spending, are major causes of German troubles. They helped provoke those sudden elections, long before the normal turnover, and may even have played a role in the shock two weeks ago for Friedrich Merz. Smugly certain of a victory vote as new chancellor in the new Bundestag, he was struck—or dumb-founded—by a defeat. His election relied on his own “Union” (a sisterhood of two Christian parties, often counted as one) and its new junior partner, the Social Democrats, adding up to a slim but seemingly sure-fire majority. But then 16 delegates voted against their own man, a first in Bundestag history! The result: turmoil! Since voting was secret we don’t know whether such disobedience was caused by personal grudges, political differences, or both. After hasty rallies, and no doubt angry arm-twisting, a second vote was held, everyone behaved and Merz won out. But it was a huge embarrassment for him—and a source of great Schadenfreude for all those with no love for this millionaire right-winger, once top man for BlackRock in Germany, a man full of hauteur if not hatred. And now the new boss!
German politics may seem complicated, especially to Americans used to a tightly baked-in two party system. True enough, the ballot sheet in the February election (as always with paper and pencil) was a laundry list of 29 parties! But most of them are what you might call hobby parties, getting less than 1 or 2%. Only five (counting the Christian Union as one) received the 5% needed to get seats in the Bundestag. And three of those, though not identical, are similar triplets.
The Christian Union of Merz, in a weak first place (at 28,6%), needed a partner for a majority in the Bundestag . It chose the Social Democrats, long-time rivals and with their puniest result in history (16,4%), thus pushing the once haughty Greens out of perky warm Cabinet armchairs and onto cold Opposition seats.
The new team now faces the slump. The Ukraine war meant finally bowing to U.S. pressure to cut inexpensive Russian fuel imports, piped in overland or under water (until stopped by that not-so-mysterious Baltic explosion, so knowingly predicted by Joe Biden.) Liquefied gas from the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Mexico (now called “Gulf of America” but just as expensive) cost far more and required expensive new port facilities. The loss of Russian trade, selling it cars, machine tools, vegetables, also hit hard. No-one knows how tough Trump’s tariff shenanigans will end up (Trump probably not either) but even if reduced they don’t look good for German export industries, always a key to its prosperity. Its lethargy, or hubris, in the world’s changing car market has also hit hard, especially faced by sharp competition from China. German-Ford and VW are shuttering departments, maybe sites—and face strikes, till now unheard of with their hitherto well-paid and content workers.
The new government’s planned solution, by no means new or exclusively German, has several components. A) Keep taxes low for the wealthy and their monopolies, even lower than now, allegedly to spur investment especially within Germany. B) Cut working people’s rights, incomes and benefits, as usual hitting the poorest most heavily. C) Deflect protest by blaming immigrants for causing lengthening waiting times for doctors or dentists, stuffing school benches with kids who can’t speak German, for lazily avoiding work but getting spoiled with public services at Germans’ expense, being rowdy—or being violent killers or rapists—all dwelt upon lovingly and lyingly by the media (and not only the “gutter press” or social media. (Does all this somehow ring familiar?)
More and more they agree on the answer to most problems: D), a drive towards war. But how can the public be won for this, especially in reluctant, still disadvantaged eastern Germany? Firstly with emotional appeals to continue the war in the Ukraine until victory—and barely concealed anxiety that Trump, Putin and finally Zelensky may reach some agreement after all and achieve peace. In what seems a coordinated campaign, the idea of a big future war is being increasingly accepted by most media and most politicians. With total disdain for both geography and common sense, they insist that if and when satanic Putin can devour Ukraine he will expand westward, heading straight toward our sacred Brandenburg Gate. That supposed threat, already bursting out of the subjunctive mood, requires ever more, ever moderner weapons, building up the army, navy and air force, maintaining, with or without Trump, the middle-range atomic missile bases in Germany capable of reaching and wrecking Moscow in minutes. It means strengthening highways, bridges, ports and airlines to carry heavy weapons, registering all Germans if possible, especially those of military age, and reviving the draft. All under the scary heading: “The Russians are coming!” For people with an ear or nose for history, the sound and smell of 1912-1914 and of the 1930s is reaching penetrating levels.
I found a symbol of this with a company I once worked for briefly. In beautiful, picturesque Görlitz at the Polish border, the town’s main enterprise, founded in 1849, was a top-rank manufacturer of double-decker coaches, sleeping cars and other specialized railroad cars. Nationalized in GDR days, with 5-6000 employees, it had a library, a big out-patient clinic, a “house of culture.” Privatized after German “unification” in 1990, it was bought, sold, bought, cut and cut and cut again, with all those amenities long since shut down and the town emptying out. Now at last it and Görlitz have new hope; making Leopard tanks, Puma tanks, Boxer tanks. The four-legged community may feel honored—and 400 or 500 workers will have work. Olaf Scholz, in one of his last days in office, was happy: “It is very good news that industrial jobs will be saved in Görlitz.” And the highway heading east through Poland will be enlarged to carry weightier loads. So may be the pockets and the accounts of men like Armin Papperger with his Rheinmetall or, in Görlitz, its “comrade-in-arms” Krauss-Maffei-Wegmann (now KMDS), also with over a century of experience in tanks and the like.
Merz and his Christians are loudest. But all those with any power go along, including the Greens, who are no longer are in power. Of course, they all want only to preserve freedom, democracy and the safe existence of “our Germany”.
Rearming costs billions. Barely hours before being replaced by the new Bundestag, the old one altered the constitution to dump the national debt ceiling und permit unlimited military purchases. The sky’s the limit! A previous, seemingly impossible goal of 2% of gross total product for arms can now soar to 3,5% and, if Trump has his way, to 5% for “self-defense against authoritarians.” That could mean 225 billion, almost half the total budget.
Where would all that money come from? Where else than from the pockets of the children, the sick, the jobless, the underpaid? “Work harder, more efficiently”—and longer! Get rid of the 40-hour work week, delay pension age, pay more into the medical care system, get less support if you lose your job, submit to even the worst low-wage substitute job! There are so many ways to skin a cat—or working people! And who’s to blame for all this? Most likely those illegal immigrants! Or maybe Putin again. Or “the disdain of authoritarian leaders for our democratic system—like in Berlin or Kyiv or Riyadh—or Gaza!
Is there no opposition to such frightening prospects?
Some seek opposition in Germany’s second strongest party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), chosen by an alarming 20.8% in February, double its 2021 result! It polls currently at 25%, neck and neck with the Union, and recently ahead of it, thus for a day Germany’s strongest party! They may support the AfD as a party which rejects more weapons for the Ukraine, and supports Putin against Zelensky, and thus consider it a peace party—and a hope for peace is stronger in the old GDR region than in the West, with less support for western Russophobia.
Many vote for AfD to oppose an unfeeling “Establishment” controlled by the wealthy, reflecting a lasting disillusionment of many East German with the capitalist freedom , democracy and “blossoming landscapes” promised as a reward for German unification. In Görlitz the AfD is by far the strongest party!
Perhaps the largest number support it because they, too, have been led to believe in anti-immigrant racism, a hatred of “others,”, especially “the Muslims,” with whom few have had any human contact.
Some feeling and misconceptions may be overcome; with hard-core racists and hatemongers it is rarely possible; these are outright fascists! And the AfD is definitely not a peace party, despite its stand on rapprochement with Putin and Russia. Extremely nationalistic (Hurrah for Germany!), it wants a big weapons build-up, the draft, and “traditional family traditions” with lots of German kids! And far lower taxes on the wealthy!
The AfD is a vigorous supporter of Netanyahu, even his war on Gaza and Palestine, for it shares his hatred of Muslims! Despite this, some AfD sectors betray well-preserved strains of old Hitlerian anti-Semitism. Though still embarrassingly extreme for many German and foreign leaders, and now facing an on-going debate on forbidding the party as too “extremist”( but with painfully open support from Vance, Musk and Rubio), the AfD is rather a reserve army ready at hand in case of need, such as genuine working-class opposition—like the Nazi party during the great depression from 1929 to 1933. And some in the Union are already doing some AfD-flirting, despite loud “fire-wall” rejection.
A counterforce was expected when Sahra Wagenknecht, a former Communist, a wonderful speaker and debater with great charisma and charm, broke away from the disastrously split and seemingly doomed party, the Linke (Left) to form a new party, using her very popular name, taking some of its best and brainiest members with it. Within ten short months this infant, Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), grew tall and strong, achieving election results surprising for a newcomer, far ahead of its shrunken parent. Its main talking points: decided opposition to support for Zelensky’s Ukraine and a demand for negotiations and peace there. Opposition to Israeli mass annihilation and expansion. A rejection of dangerous missiles on German soil, most especially American ones! And a posture of protest against the Establishment, though without radical changes. But questions arose: its power structure seemed based on one leader who tried, not always with success, to impose her decisions over differing local tactics, with a related policy of top-level vetting of every single applicant for membership—”to keep out questionable or subversive entries.” The result: only a few hundred members to fight the campaign in February—and a tragically heart-breaking defeat, with 4,98!% of the vote—about 0.015% or 9500 votes short of the 5% needed to get into the Bundestag (out of some 50 million voters). It disputed the dubious results in court—but in vain. And BSW polling since then has been glued to 4% and may be weakening, even in two states where it is in the government (hence part of the establishment).
A main problem has been its position, similar to nearly all other parties, against immigration, and basically against immigrants, who Sahra believes should solve their problems in their home countries, not in problem-ridden Germany. Many saw this as a pragmatic attempt to win anti-immigrant voters away from the AfD. If so, it failed. They stayed with the AfD or the Union.
Turn this story on its head for that of the Linke! Down to a seemingly hopeless 3-4% last November, and doom, and suddenly facing an unexpected election, it changed gear completely. Knocking on some 60,000 doors in key areas and avoiding appeals or pressure it simply asked those who opened what they most wanted and centered its campaign on the response. It was almost always frightening rent increases, the lack of affordable housing, and prices, especially of groceries and heating. They offered advice centers, per internet or in person, for people needing advice and helped those fighting illegal rent increases. Especially in Berlin they promoted coordination with people of immigrant background, often Turkish or Kurdish, and adopted a newly fresh, clearly anti-establishment tone, breaking with attempts to look respectable in hopes of acceptance into the government as “really not radicals but good boys”. A new central figure was young Heidi Reichinnek, whose clothes, tattoos, fast-talking speech and forceful words and gestures were evidently just what many young Germans liked, watching her on Tiktok. When the votes were counted, the LINKEhad climbed within two months from 4% to 8.8%, it was national top vote-getter among women under 30, and it won an incredible first place (19.9 %) among Berlin voters! It won six Bundestag seats directly: the former Thuringian minister president Ramelow, a popular leader in Leipzig and four in Berlin, including one, with Turkish background, who was the first LINKE deputy elected in any formerly West German or West Berlin district. Because of proportional representation the party now has 64 Bundestag seats (from a total of 630). As usual, a majority (37) of the Linke deputies will be women.
One reason for Linke success was doubtless its refusal to join the other parties, including Wagenknecht’s, in playing to anti-immigrant prejudice. We are a class party, it was stressed (a return to forgotten roots)! Every working person is our comrade, we stand for international solidarity regardless of color or origin, and we fight together for their and our rights. Are there problems involved? Of course! But they can be overcome by spending not on weapons but on schools, home construction, recruiting new teachers and doctors, helping new-comers get training, jobs and homes!
Foreign policy was far more complicated, with disagreement about Israel and Palestine and about the Ukraine. But during the election campaign, it was agreed upon, these questions would be avoided ; they were not upmost in voters’ minds. This was a pragmatic decision, certainly, it was aimed at rescuing the party—and it worked.
At the party congress in late April, the situation was different. Some “reformist” party leaders lean towards NATO positions, others condemn the march into the Ukraine but view NATO, led by the USA and Germany, its top junior partner, as the main, most menacing perpetrators, eager for hegemony, in ways recalling Yeltsin, Yugoslavia , Maidan Square. Or even older models.
Regarding the other main disagreement, one delegate angrily defended Israel’s right to “self-defense” and attempted to “balance ” events in Gaza. In a heated response, another delegate stated: “It is not Israel’s right to existence which is threatened but, acutely, the lives of the Palestinians and the right of existence of Palestine!” On this issue, too, a sort of compromise was reached, clearly rejecting the virtual ultimatum of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), basically stamping any criticism of even immense Israeli atrocities as “anti-Semitic,” and used to silence any such criticism and endorsing instead the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, adopted by hundreds of academics, also Israelis, which defends the total right to criticism. In general compromise were agreed upon, surprisingly seen as necessary in a party calling itself “Left.”. But party co-chair Ines Schwerdtner could speak out: “Children in the Gaza strip are being purposely starved to death. We are the opposition to this. We are against cuts in help for Gaza, against sending arms, against war. There can be no double standards in regard to war criminals.”
In general the congress represented more than in many years a compromise, avoiding a split and leaving various tough, even basic questions for the future. There was agreement on limiting deputies and office-holders to three terms only, to expect—or require—to donate shares of their large salaries to good public purposes, and to turn attention far more to action in the streets, workshops, colleges and neighborhoods, with far more working people as candidates. There was a novel stress favoring good spirits in the party, friendliness, cultural activities—and even humor. In a way, the congress was a peaceful, even joyful celebration of the party’s rescue and success, with justified pride in the election success vote and joy that, within a few months, party membership shot up from less than 60,000 to over 120,000, mostly young people . The road ahead will hardly be free of obstacles and pot-holes—but there is finally new hope.
Even more! As opposed to the past drift towards reformism and status quo acceptance by too many leaders, we hear one new co-chair, Ines Schwerdtner, formerly editor of the German edition of Jacobin, urging that capitalism be replaced by an economic order which “no longer oppresses people but offers them dignity and health… That is the heart of our policy.”
She was seconded by the party’s new live wire in the Bundestag, Heidi Reischinnek: “Yes, we want to rid ourselves of an economic system in which the wealthy get wealthier and the poor ever poorer; where seniors must collect bottles for the deposit pennies, and children sit in school classes with hungry stomachs. Where the jobless are duped, the many exploited, people lose their lives in hospitals because of the orientation to profit making… such a system has nothing in common with democracy, nothing whatsoever. …If it is radical to demand freedom and rights for everyone equally, then let us be radical. We must be radical in these times!
No, it is still not fully clear which direction this party will take. Or if some day the two parts will join together. But despite all the pitfalls there seems to be a genuine basis for left-wing hope and new, militant action—all so desperately needed in Germany, and its related friends and allies in many other countries inside and outside Europe!
Despite the length, of the above Bulletin, I add a short statement I recently sent to a friend of mine regarding the catastrophically worsening scene in Gaza:
Unspeakably horrible and heart-wrenching! How can millions of people see the pictures of fathers and mothers with tiny body bags, of little girls with amputated legs, of the continuing devastation of Gaza—its homes, hospitals, schools, culture—even its streets and refugee tent colonies, with the denial of food, water, fuel, medicine, sanitation—and not recall Hiroshima-Nagasaki-Tokyo, Korea, Vietnam and yes, Warsaw and its ghetto? How many have asked over the decades: “How could the Germans have closed their eyes to Nazi terror against Jews?” and then close their eyes to what is happening today? Our hearts go out to the courageous ones who protest—especially at the universities—but so many more are needed—here in Germany as in the USA! And in Israel!
Hearty greetings—No pasarán!
https://mronline.org/2025/05/19/politic ... y-19-2025/
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What Comes Next After The (Allegedly Fraudulent) Liberal-Globalist Victory In Romania?
Andrew Korybko
May 19, 2025
The battle was lost but the political war isn’t over.
The struggle between liberal-globalists and populist-nationalists in Romania ended in the former’s favor after Sunday’s presidential run-off election, which was preceded by the authorities controversially annulling the first round in early December on the false pretext that the frontrunner was Russian-backed. Calin Georgescu was ultimately barred from running again and instead appointed his ally George Simion in his place, who came out on top in early May’s first-round re-do, only to lose the second round.
Simion alleged that the Moldovan government was rallying the diaspora there against him and also claimed that other friendlier diasporas’ polling stations didn’t have enough ballots. Traditional fraud like ballot-stuffing was also suspected by some. Meanwhile, Telegram founder Pavel Durov revealed that he rejected the French intelligence chief’s request to ban conservative Romanian accounts, thus showing the international stakes in this election. A few words will now be shared about the geostrategic context.
It was assessed before December’s now-annulled first round that “The Outcome Of Romania’s Presidential Election Could Spoil The US’ Potential Escalation Plans” of using Romania as a launchpad for any conventional European intervention in Ukraine. France, the country that’s most loudly called for the aforesaid scenario, has a military base in Romania and signed a defense pact with neighboring Moldova last year. This positions France to swiftly make a move on nearby Odessa if the decision is ever made.
The only way to prevent that would be for populist-nationalists to come to power and either kick out French troops or ensure that measures are in place to stop them from unilaterally using Romanian soil for conventional military operations in Ukraine. Likewise, the only way to retain the viability of this scenario is to keep populist-nationalists out of power, ergo the alleged fraud against Simion. The significance of Sunday’s election was therefore that it keeps this possibility open even if it’s never used.
If there’s any silver lining to their loss, populist-nationalists could take partial consolation in the fact that they unprecedentedly galvanized their supporters during the election, and this mobilization of civil society could remain in place to expose the liberal-globalists’ corruption and organize peaceful protests. They could also attempt to raise maximum awareness of the abovementioned scenario of France using Romania as a launchpad for conventionally intervening in Ukraine with all that could dangerously entail.
To that end, more investigative journalism will be key, as will circulating their findings through the global network of friends that they built over the past half-year. Populist-nationalists in the US and across Europe are enraged at the injustice that the liberal-globalists committed against Georgescu, with even Vance mentioning it during his famous speech in February at the Munich Security Conference, so they can count on them to inform the world if France takes any steps to use Romania as a military launchpad.
That’s what comes next after the liberal-globalists’ (allegedly fraudulent) victory in Romania, namely strengthening the populist-nationalist movement in ways that hold the new authorities accountable for everything that they do, including exposing possibly forthcoming French military plans vis-à-vis Ukraine. The battle was lost but the political war isn’t over, and Simion’s impressive second-round showing in spite of alleged fraud proves that populist-nationalism has finally gone mainstream in Romania.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/what-com ... -allegedly
Historic mobilization in The Hague demands justice for Palestine.Photo:EFE.
May 19, 2025 Hour: 5:01 pm
More than 100,000 demonstrators filled the streets of The Hague, demanding the Netherlands halt support for Israel’s actions in Gaza and act decisively against what protesters and human rights groups call genocide.
On May 18, the city of The Hague witnessed an unprecedented outpouring of solidarity with the Palestinian people, as over 100,000 protesters marched through the Dutch capital. Dressed in red to symbolize the “red line” crossed by Israel in Gaza, demonstrators called on the Dutch government to end all political, economic, and military support for Israel amid ongoing accusations of genocide and systematic human rights violations in the Gaza Strip.
Protesters Demand Dutch Action Against Israeli Aggression
The demonstration, described by organizers as the largest in the Netherlands in two decades, was coordinated by a broad alliance of international and local NGOs, including Amnesty International, Save the Children, and Doctors Without Borders.
Protesters marched from Malieveld to the Peace Palace, home of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where Israel stands accused of genocide. Chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” and “Starving people is a crime” echoed through the city center, reflecting outrage at the ongoing blockade and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
Speakers at the rally emphasized the Dutch government’s continued support for Israel through trade privileges, defense treaties, and the supply of weapons, despite binding ICJ orders demanding Israel halt genocidal acts and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. “The time for words is long gone, it is time for action,” declared the Dutch chapter of Oxfam, denouncing the government’s refusal to draw a clear line against Israeli war crimes.
Humanitarian Crisis and International Complicity
Human rights organizations and left-wing political voices have consistently condemned Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a disproportionate and punitive assault on a trapped civilian population. Since October 2023, Israeli attacks have killed tens of thousands, displaced 85% of Gaza’s population, and destroyed much of the enclave’s infrastructure, according to UN and Palestinian sources.
Protesters in The Hague highlighted the Dutch government’s silence and inaction, arguing that continued support for Israel makes the Netherlands complicit in the ongoing genocide.
The left has long argued that Israeli military actions in Gaza, regardless of stated intentions, inevitably result in mass civilian casualties and destruction, fueling further instability and extremism in the region. As the host country of both the ICJ and the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Netherlands faces mounting pressure from its own citizens and the international community to uphold human rights and international law.
The massive mobilization in The Hague sends a clear message to European governments: stop being complicit in genocide and act in defense of justice for the Palestinian people. Protesters demanded an immediate end to Dutch support for Israel and called for meaningful action to halt the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. As the world marks the anniversary of the Nakba, the voices from The Hague echo a growing global demand for accountability, justice, and real solidarity with Palestine.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/over-100 ... omplicity/
Germany Reports Record Number of Politically Motivated Crimes
March of Neo-Nazi activists in Berlin, Germany, Oct. 2024. X/ @derJamesJackson
May 20, 2025 Hour: 8:36 am
Neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists carried out 1,488 violent attacks against migrants, refugees, or political opponents.
On Tuesday, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) presented its annual report showing that over 84,000 politically motivated crimes were committed in Germany last year, up 40 percent year-on-year and representing the highest number since the statistics were collected in 2001.
The BKA report noted that propaganda offenses, property damage, insults, incitement to hatred, coercion, and threats accounted for the majority of politically motivated crimes in 2024.
The data also highlights a sharp rise in election-related offenses, with cases in the “Election Context” soaring by 427 percent, from 2,238 in 2023 to 11,788 in 2024. Compared to the 2021 super election year, this also represents a 12.4 percent increase.
Crimes motivated by right-wing ideologies saw the most significant increase, rising by 47.8 percent and accounting for more than half of all politically motivated offenses registered by the police. Also, right-wing violent crimes, such as homicides and bodily injuries, surged by 17.2 percent in 2024.
A worrying trend in Germany. The number of politically motivated crime reaches an all-time high- with right wing extremism fueling the rise. pic.twitter.com/fGPd78nN0O
— DW Politics (@dw_politics) May 20, 2025
“The unprecedented increase in the number of cases of politically motivated crimes is a worrying development. The current statistics once again underline the urgent need for a joint security offensive by the federal and state governments,” said Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt.
“The greatest threat to our democracy comes from right-wing extremism. That’s objectively true. Last year, we had to deal with a very massive increase in right-wing, politically motivated crimes. That is why we will continue our fight against right-wing extremism and right-wing motivated crimes,” he emphasized.
“According to official figures, neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists carried out 1,488 violent attacks against migrants, refugees, or political opponents—representing more than 17% rise from the previous year. At least 1,068 people were injured in these attacks,” Anadolu Agency reported.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/germany- ... ed-crimes/
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Political Renewals: Berlin Bulletin No. 234, May 19, 2025
By Victor Grossman (Posted May 19, 2025)
Germany, long a synonym for economic brawn and muscle, is beginning to recall words like lumbago or sciatica instead. Though still leading in Europe, and fourth in the world, it faces an economic mess, a political mess, and a mood of general stress. Schools lack repairs and teachers, clinics and hospitals lack staff, its key industry, making good cars, lacks customers. All sliding downhill. What’s moving up? Apartment rents, grocery prices, the fear of fascists. And oh yes, most speedily, the bank accounts of folks like Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall, top man in that happy but exclusive club of armament makers. “We are one of the most fast-growing defense enterprises in the world and on the road to becoming global champion,” he boasts, and with good reason: since 2020 his company’s share price jumped more than 2000%, thanks to the Ukraine war. Some do prosper! For the others the economy, with a growth prospect at a low near 0.00%, is best symbolized by the Rhine water level, maybe soon navigable only for flatboats and scows. But Rheinmetall, the river’s namesake (Rhein in German) is selling tanks, artillery, shells, anti-aircraft guns and military trucks like hot cakes, while it expands, not just in Germany but in Italy, the USA … even in Ukraine.
That last word, with unlimited military spending, are major causes of German troubles. They helped provoke those sudden elections, long before the normal turnover, and may even have played a role in the shock two weeks ago for Friedrich Merz. Smugly certain of a victory vote as new chancellor in the new Bundestag, he was struck—or dumb-founded—by a defeat. His election relied on his own “Union” (a sisterhood of two Christian parties, often counted as one) and its new junior partner, the Social Democrats, adding up to a slim but seemingly sure-fire majority. But then 16 delegates voted against their own man, a first in Bundestag history! The result: turmoil! Since voting was secret we don’t know whether such disobedience was caused by personal grudges, political differences, or both. After hasty rallies, and no doubt angry arm-twisting, a second vote was held, everyone behaved and Merz won out. But it was a huge embarrassment for him—and a source of great Schadenfreude for all those with no love for this millionaire right-winger, once top man for BlackRock in Germany, a man full of hauteur if not hatred. And now the new boss!
German politics may seem complicated, especially to Americans used to a tightly baked-in two party system. True enough, the ballot sheet in the February election (as always with paper and pencil) was a laundry list of 29 parties! But most of them are what you might call hobby parties, getting less than 1 or 2%. Only five (counting the Christian Union as one) received the 5% needed to get seats in the Bundestag. And three of those, though not identical, are similar triplets.
The Christian Union of Merz, in a weak first place (at 28,6%), needed a partner for a majority in the Bundestag . It chose the Social Democrats, long-time rivals and with their puniest result in history (16,4%), thus pushing the once haughty Greens out of perky warm Cabinet armchairs and onto cold Opposition seats.
The new team now faces the slump. The Ukraine war meant finally bowing to U.S. pressure to cut inexpensive Russian fuel imports, piped in overland or under water (until stopped by that not-so-mysterious Baltic explosion, so knowingly predicted by Joe Biden.) Liquefied gas from the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Mexico (now called “Gulf of America” but just as expensive) cost far more and required expensive new port facilities. The loss of Russian trade, selling it cars, machine tools, vegetables, also hit hard. No-one knows how tough Trump’s tariff shenanigans will end up (Trump probably not either) but even if reduced they don’t look good for German export industries, always a key to its prosperity. Its lethargy, or hubris, in the world’s changing car market has also hit hard, especially faced by sharp competition from China. German-Ford and VW are shuttering departments, maybe sites—and face strikes, till now unheard of with their hitherto well-paid and content workers.
The new government’s planned solution, by no means new or exclusively German, has several components. A) Keep taxes low for the wealthy and their monopolies, even lower than now, allegedly to spur investment especially within Germany. B) Cut working people’s rights, incomes and benefits, as usual hitting the poorest most heavily. C) Deflect protest by blaming immigrants for causing lengthening waiting times for doctors or dentists, stuffing school benches with kids who can’t speak German, for lazily avoiding work but getting spoiled with public services at Germans’ expense, being rowdy—or being violent killers or rapists—all dwelt upon lovingly and lyingly by the media (and not only the “gutter press” or social media. (Does all this somehow ring familiar?)
More and more they agree on the answer to most problems: D), a drive towards war. But how can the public be won for this, especially in reluctant, still disadvantaged eastern Germany? Firstly with emotional appeals to continue the war in the Ukraine until victory—and barely concealed anxiety that Trump, Putin and finally Zelensky may reach some agreement after all and achieve peace. In what seems a coordinated campaign, the idea of a big future war is being increasingly accepted by most media and most politicians. With total disdain for both geography and common sense, they insist that if and when satanic Putin can devour Ukraine he will expand westward, heading straight toward our sacred Brandenburg Gate. That supposed threat, already bursting out of the subjunctive mood, requires ever more, ever moderner weapons, building up the army, navy and air force, maintaining, with or without Trump, the middle-range atomic missile bases in Germany capable of reaching and wrecking Moscow in minutes. It means strengthening highways, bridges, ports and airlines to carry heavy weapons, registering all Germans if possible, especially those of military age, and reviving the draft. All under the scary heading: “The Russians are coming!” For people with an ear or nose for history, the sound and smell of 1912-1914 and of the 1930s is reaching penetrating levels.
I found a symbol of this with a company I once worked for briefly. In beautiful, picturesque Görlitz at the Polish border, the town’s main enterprise, founded in 1849, was a top-rank manufacturer of double-decker coaches, sleeping cars and other specialized railroad cars. Nationalized in GDR days, with 5-6000 employees, it had a library, a big out-patient clinic, a “house of culture.” Privatized after German “unification” in 1990, it was bought, sold, bought, cut and cut and cut again, with all those amenities long since shut down and the town emptying out. Now at last it and Görlitz have new hope; making Leopard tanks, Puma tanks, Boxer tanks. The four-legged community may feel honored—and 400 or 500 workers will have work. Olaf Scholz, in one of his last days in office, was happy: “It is very good news that industrial jobs will be saved in Görlitz.” And the highway heading east through Poland will be enlarged to carry weightier loads. So may be the pockets and the accounts of men like Armin Papperger with his Rheinmetall or, in Görlitz, its “comrade-in-arms” Krauss-Maffei-Wegmann (now KMDS), also with over a century of experience in tanks and the like.
Merz and his Christians are loudest. But all those with any power go along, including the Greens, who are no longer are in power. Of course, they all want only to preserve freedom, democracy and the safe existence of “our Germany”.
Rearming costs billions. Barely hours before being replaced by the new Bundestag, the old one altered the constitution to dump the national debt ceiling und permit unlimited military purchases. The sky’s the limit! A previous, seemingly impossible goal of 2% of gross total product for arms can now soar to 3,5% and, if Trump has his way, to 5% for “self-defense against authoritarians.” That could mean 225 billion, almost half the total budget.
Where would all that money come from? Where else than from the pockets of the children, the sick, the jobless, the underpaid? “Work harder, more efficiently”—and longer! Get rid of the 40-hour work week, delay pension age, pay more into the medical care system, get less support if you lose your job, submit to even the worst low-wage substitute job! There are so many ways to skin a cat—or working people! And who’s to blame for all this? Most likely those illegal immigrants! Or maybe Putin again. Or “the disdain of authoritarian leaders for our democratic system—like in Berlin or Kyiv or Riyadh—or Gaza!
Is there no opposition to such frightening prospects?
Some seek opposition in Germany’s second strongest party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), chosen by an alarming 20.8% in February, double its 2021 result! It polls currently at 25%, neck and neck with the Union, and recently ahead of it, thus for a day Germany’s strongest party! They may support the AfD as a party which rejects more weapons for the Ukraine, and supports Putin against Zelensky, and thus consider it a peace party—and a hope for peace is stronger in the old GDR region than in the West, with less support for western Russophobia.
Many vote for AfD to oppose an unfeeling “Establishment” controlled by the wealthy, reflecting a lasting disillusionment of many East German with the capitalist freedom , democracy and “blossoming landscapes” promised as a reward for German unification. In Görlitz the AfD is by far the strongest party!
Perhaps the largest number support it because they, too, have been led to believe in anti-immigrant racism, a hatred of “others,”, especially “the Muslims,” with whom few have had any human contact.
Some feeling and misconceptions may be overcome; with hard-core racists and hatemongers it is rarely possible; these are outright fascists! And the AfD is definitely not a peace party, despite its stand on rapprochement with Putin and Russia. Extremely nationalistic (Hurrah for Germany!), it wants a big weapons build-up, the draft, and “traditional family traditions” with lots of German kids! And far lower taxes on the wealthy!
The AfD is a vigorous supporter of Netanyahu, even his war on Gaza and Palestine, for it shares his hatred of Muslims! Despite this, some AfD sectors betray well-preserved strains of old Hitlerian anti-Semitism. Though still embarrassingly extreme for many German and foreign leaders, and now facing an on-going debate on forbidding the party as too “extremist”( but with painfully open support from Vance, Musk and Rubio), the AfD is rather a reserve army ready at hand in case of need, such as genuine working-class opposition—like the Nazi party during the great depression from 1929 to 1933. And some in the Union are already doing some AfD-flirting, despite loud “fire-wall” rejection.
A counterforce was expected when Sahra Wagenknecht, a former Communist, a wonderful speaker and debater with great charisma and charm, broke away from the disastrously split and seemingly doomed party, the Linke (Left) to form a new party, using her very popular name, taking some of its best and brainiest members with it. Within ten short months this infant, Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), grew tall and strong, achieving election results surprising for a newcomer, far ahead of its shrunken parent. Its main talking points: decided opposition to support for Zelensky’s Ukraine and a demand for negotiations and peace there. Opposition to Israeli mass annihilation and expansion. A rejection of dangerous missiles on German soil, most especially American ones! And a posture of protest against the Establishment, though without radical changes. But questions arose: its power structure seemed based on one leader who tried, not always with success, to impose her decisions over differing local tactics, with a related policy of top-level vetting of every single applicant for membership—”to keep out questionable or subversive entries.” The result: only a few hundred members to fight the campaign in February—and a tragically heart-breaking defeat, with 4,98!% of the vote—about 0.015% or 9500 votes short of the 5% needed to get into the Bundestag (out of some 50 million voters). It disputed the dubious results in court—but in vain. And BSW polling since then has been glued to 4% and may be weakening, even in two states where it is in the government (hence part of the establishment).
A main problem has been its position, similar to nearly all other parties, against immigration, and basically against immigrants, who Sahra believes should solve their problems in their home countries, not in problem-ridden Germany. Many saw this as a pragmatic attempt to win anti-immigrant voters away from the AfD. If so, it failed. They stayed with the AfD or the Union.
Turn this story on its head for that of the Linke! Down to a seemingly hopeless 3-4% last November, and doom, and suddenly facing an unexpected election, it changed gear completely. Knocking on some 60,000 doors in key areas and avoiding appeals or pressure it simply asked those who opened what they most wanted and centered its campaign on the response. It was almost always frightening rent increases, the lack of affordable housing, and prices, especially of groceries and heating. They offered advice centers, per internet or in person, for people needing advice and helped those fighting illegal rent increases. Especially in Berlin they promoted coordination with people of immigrant background, often Turkish or Kurdish, and adopted a newly fresh, clearly anti-establishment tone, breaking with attempts to look respectable in hopes of acceptance into the government as “really not radicals but good boys”. A new central figure was young Heidi Reichinnek, whose clothes, tattoos, fast-talking speech and forceful words and gestures were evidently just what many young Germans liked, watching her on Tiktok. When the votes were counted, the LINKEhad climbed within two months from 4% to 8.8%, it was national top vote-getter among women under 30, and it won an incredible first place (19.9 %) among Berlin voters! It won six Bundestag seats directly: the former Thuringian minister president Ramelow, a popular leader in Leipzig and four in Berlin, including one, with Turkish background, who was the first LINKE deputy elected in any formerly West German or West Berlin district. Because of proportional representation the party now has 64 Bundestag seats (from a total of 630). As usual, a majority (37) of the Linke deputies will be women.
One reason for Linke success was doubtless its refusal to join the other parties, including Wagenknecht’s, in playing to anti-immigrant prejudice. We are a class party, it was stressed (a return to forgotten roots)! Every working person is our comrade, we stand for international solidarity regardless of color or origin, and we fight together for their and our rights. Are there problems involved? Of course! But they can be overcome by spending not on weapons but on schools, home construction, recruiting new teachers and doctors, helping new-comers get training, jobs and homes!
Foreign policy was far more complicated, with disagreement about Israel and Palestine and about the Ukraine. But during the election campaign, it was agreed upon, these questions would be avoided ; they were not upmost in voters’ minds. This was a pragmatic decision, certainly, it was aimed at rescuing the party—and it worked.
At the party congress in late April, the situation was different. Some “reformist” party leaders lean towards NATO positions, others condemn the march into the Ukraine but view NATO, led by the USA and Germany, its top junior partner, as the main, most menacing perpetrators, eager for hegemony, in ways recalling Yeltsin, Yugoslavia , Maidan Square. Or even older models.
Regarding the other main disagreement, one delegate angrily defended Israel’s right to “self-defense” and attempted to “balance ” events in Gaza. In a heated response, another delegate stated: “It is not Israel’s right to existence which is threatened but, acutely, the lives of the Palestinians and the right of existence of Palestine!” On this issue, too, a sort of compromise was reached, clearly rejecting the virtual ultimatum of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), basically stamping any criticism of even immense Israeli atrocities as “anti-Semitic,” and used to silence any such criticism and endorsing instead the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, adopted by hundreds of academics, also Israelis, which defends the total right to criticism. In general compromise were agreed upon, surprisingly seen as necessary in a party calling itself “Left.”. But party co-chair Ines Schwerdtner could speak out: “Children in the Gaza strip are being purposely starved to death. We are the opposition to this. We are against cuts in help for Gaza, against sending arms, against war. There can be no double standards in regard to war criminals.”
In general the congress represented more than in many years a compromise, avoiding a split and leaving various tough, even basic questions for the future. There was agreement on limiting deputies and office-holders to three terms only, to expect—or require—to donate shares of their large salaries to good public purposes, and to turn attention far more to action in the streets, workshops, colleges and neighborhoods, with far more working people as candidates. There was a novel stress favoring good spirits in the party, friendliness, cultural activities—and even humor. In a way, the congress was a peaceful, even joyful celebration of the party’s rescue and success, with justified pride in the election success vote and joy that, within a few months, party membership shot up from less than 60,000 to over 120,000, mostly young people . The road ahead will hardly be free of obstacles and pot-holes—but there is finally new hope.
Even more! As opposed to the past drift towards reformism and status quo acceptance by too many leaders, we hear one new co-chair, Ines Schwerdtner, formerly editor of the German edition of Jacobin, urging that capitalism be replaced by an economic order which “no longer oppresses people but offers them dignity and health… That is the heart of our policy.”
She was seconded by the party’s new live wire in the Bundestag, Heidi Reischinnek: “Yes, we want to rid ourselves of an economic system in which the wealthy get wealthier and the poor ever poorer; where seniors must collect bottles for the deposit pennies, and children sit in school classes with hungry stomachs. Where the jobless are duped, the many exploited, people lose their lives in hospitals because of the orientation to profit making… such a system has nothing in common with democracy, nothing whatsoever. …If it is radical to demand freedom and rights for everyone equally, then let us be radical. We must be radical in these times!
No, it is still not fully clear which direction this party will take. Or if some day the two parts will join together. But despite all the pitfalls there seems to be a genuine basis for left-wing hope and new, militant action—all so desperately needed in Germany, and its related friends and allies in many other countries inside and outside Europe!
Despite the length, of the above Bulletin, I add a short statement I recently sent to a friend of mine regarding the catastrophically worsening scene in Gaza:
Unspeakably horrible and heart-wrenching! How can millions of people see the pictures of fathers and mothers with tiny body bags, of little girls with amputated legs, of the continuing devastation of Gaza—its homes, hospitals, schools, culture—even its streets and refugee tent colonies, with the denial of food, water, fuel, medicine, sanitation—and not recall Hiroshima-Nagasaki-Tokyo, Korea, Vietnam and yes, Warsaw and its ghetto? How many have asked over the decades: “How could the Germans have closed their eyes to Nazi terror against Jews?” and then close their eyes to what is happening today? Our hearts go out to the courageous ones who protest—especially at the universities—but so many more are needed—here in Germany as in the USA! And in Israel!
Hearty greetings—No pasarán!
https://mronline.org/2025/05/19/politic ... y-19-2025/
******
What Comes Next After The (Allegedly Fraudulent) Liberal-Globalist Victory In Romania?
Andrew Korybko
May 19, 2025
The battle was lost but the political war isn’t over.
The struggle between liberal-globalists and populist-nationalists in Romania ended in the former’s favor after Sunday’s presidential run-off election, which was preceded by the authorities controversially annulling the first round in early December on the false pretext that the frontrunner was Russian-backed. Calin Georgescu was ultimately barred from running again and instead appointed his ally George Simion in his place, who came out on top in early May’s first-round re-do, only to lose the second round.
Simion alleged that the Moldovan government was rallying the diaspora there against him and also claimed that other friendlier diasporas’ polling stations didn’t have enough ballots. Traditional fraud like ballot-stuffing was also suspected by some. Meanwhile, Telegram founder Pavel Durov revealed that he rejected the French intelligence chief’s request to ban conservative Romanian accounts, thus showing the international stakes in this election. A few words will now be shared about the geostrategic context.
It was assessed before December’s now-annulled first round that “The Outcome Of Romania’s Presidential Election Could Spoil The US’ Potential Escalation Plans” of using Romania as a launchpad for any conventional European intervention in Ukraine. France, the country that’s most loudly called for the aforesaid scenario, has a military base in Romania and signed a defense pact with neighboring Moldova last year. This positions France to swiftly make a move on nearby Odessa if the decision is ever made.
The only way to prevent that would be for populist-nationalists to come to power and either kick out French troops or ensure that measures are in place to stop them from unilaterally using Romanian soil for conventional military operations in Ukraine. Likewise, the only way to retain the viability of this scenario is to keep populist-nationalists out of power, ergo the alleged fraud against Simion. The significance of Sunday’s election was therefore that it keeps this possibility open even if it’s never used.
If there’s any silver lining to their loss, populist-nationalists could take partial consolation in the fact that they unprecedentedly galvanized their supporters during the election, and this mobilization of civil society could remain in place to expose the liberal-globalists’ corruption and organize peaceful protests. They could also attempt to raise maximum awareness of the abovementioned scenario of France using Romania as a launchpad for conventionally intervening in Ukraine with all that could dangerously entail.
To that end, more investigative journalism will be key, as will circulating their findings through the global network of friends that they built over the past half-year. Populist-nationalists in the US and across Europe are enraged at the injustice that the liberal-globalists committed against Georgescu, with even Vance mentioning it during his famous speech in February at the Munich Security Conference, so they can count on them to inform the world if France takes any steps to use Romania as a military launchpad.
That’s what comes next after the liberal-globalists’ (allegedly fraudulent) victory in Romania, namely strengthening the populist-nationalist movement in ways that hold the new authorities accountable for everything that they do, including exposing possibly forthcoming French military plans vis-à-vis Ukraine. The battle was lost but the political war isn’t over, and Simion’s impressive second-round showing in spite of alleged fraud proves that populist-nationalism has finally gone mainstream in Romania.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/what-com ... -allegedly
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Blues for Europa
Red. media to shut down amid anti-Palestinian repression in Germany
Progressive outlet red. media is closing after months-long disinformation campaign in Germany targeted its Palestine solidarity reporting
May 20, 2025 by Ana Vračar
Police repressed and dismantled the Gaza solidarity encampment at the Free University of Berlin hours after it began. (Photo: Dominik Wetzel / Unsere Zeit)
The left media platform red. media has announced it is ceasing operations following a months-long disinformation campaign, supported by much of the German media establishment. On May 20, platform founder Hüseyin Doğru was added to the EU’s latest sanctions list targeting Russia. While EU announcements cite alleged ties between red. media and Russian authorities, the outlet maintains that the move is retaliation for its reporting on Germany’s repression of pro-Palestine activism.
Since its launch, the platform has documented the work of Palestine solidarity groups in Europe and beyond, leading to targeted attacks by Zionist organizations and their allies. “What we are experiencing is orchestrated repression – legitimized by a media-manufactured myth of threat,” the organization stated. “It is an attack on independent journalism – and on every voice that challenges the official narrative.”
Over the past 18 months, red. media reported on the growing Palestine solidarity movement in the region, including in Germany, where state and institutional repression has escalated sharply. This has included police violence against activists, threats of deportation against peaceful protesters, and political bans on academic events and media professionals. These developments have received little to no scrutiny from Germany’s mainstream press, whose reporting on the Gaza genocide has been overwhelmingly biased and unwilling to question the government’s unconditional support for Israel under the so-called Staatsräson.
At the same time, red. media became the target of accusations, amplified by liberal and corporate journalists, of being a proxy for Russian interests. The platform has denied these claims, pointing out that none of the reporters who wrote about its supposed Kremlin ties had contacted them directly to verify their funding sources. Despite the absence of evidence and despite the organization’s own critical reporting on certain Russian authorities’ moves, media narratives quickly established an unsubstantiated link between the outlet and the Putin administration.
When red. media published background information on one of the journalists involved in the discreditation campaign – Jerusalem Post and Tageszeitung contributor Nicholas Potter – the backlash intensified. Recently, Doğru was contacted by German police in relation to a criminal complaint accusing him of leading an “online campaign based on defamation and insults.” Staff members also faced threats, including to their safety, finally leading to the decision to shut down.
While red. media faces legal persecution and sanctions, the smear campaign against them has received far less scrutiny. “Through deliberate distortion and a reversal of perpetrator and victim roles, there is an attempt to construct a so-called ‘Kremlin-radical-left-Palestinian’ conspiracy against supposedly professional journalists in Germany,” the organization warned. These narratives, red. media emphasized, are not only created solely by media outlets but are enabled by the convergence of press and political interests: for example, former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s claim that red. media is a direct successor to the outlet Redfish, based on German media speculation.
A similar pattern of disinformation appears in the EU’s rationale for Doğru’s inclusion on the sanctions list, which accuses him and red. media of spreading misinformation on “politically controversial subjects.” The argument offers little evidence of financial ties to Russia but criticizes the platform for giving space to diverse voices, including Palestinian liberation movements, and for covering university occupations – activities many would consider fundamental to journalism.
According to the outlet’s recent statements, the tactics implemented against them not only aim to discredit critical voices and expose them to legal harassment, but also distract readers from their actual reporting – notably on the genocide in Gaza and NATO imperialism – with the final goal of suppressing dissent. “Increasingly, freedom of speech is reserved only for the political right,” red. media wrote. “Those who express solidarity with Palestine under threat of state, social, or media repression – those who march against Nazis – are silenced, beaten, or even nearly deported.”
The announcement of red. media’s closure was met with concern among other progressive media outlets and journalists in the region, who see it as yet another sign of deteriorating press freedom when it comes to Palestine solidarity. Some warned that this might signal more closures in the future. As red. media concluded: “Today we are the target. Tomorrow it will be you. What we are witnessing is the global normalization of repression – where speaking out against genocide is being criminalized.”
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/05/20/ ... n-germany/
*******
Grandpa Baerbok's personal file
May 20, 18:59
Grandpa Baerbok's personal file
Andrey Rezyapkin on FB raised the personal file of Grandfather Baerbock ( https://www.facebook.com/share/19BFxwFh ... tid=xfxF2i ) and closed the question: "Against the backdrop of Annalena's latest appointment, the Baerbockiad around her grandfather has intensified again. The first Bild report (already emotional) was supplemented with new details from the declassified dossier on the ardent Nazi, member of the party and SS, colonel and holder of the Golden Knight's Cross of Military Merit. All this, of course, is being erased from the World Wide Web and hidden again in a distant drawer.
In order not to be late, we will also open the very personal file that excited correspondents and social networks - PERS 6 / 226922 (BA-MA, Freiburg) - and delve into its contents.
Grandfather Waldemar, being a qualified engineer (graduated from the technical Karlsruhe University in 1937), was mobilized by the "military commissariat" of Hanover and from 1938 underwent training in various air defense units as a specialist in the aircraft recognition service and the instrumental (rangefinder) reconnaissance service of anti-aircraft artillery. By the third year of service, he was re-certified from a reserve non-commissioned officer to an officer candidate, in September 1941 he became a lieutenant and in 1944 - a senior lieutenant (Kriegsoffizier*), he ended the war as the head of the special equipment workshop in the mobile instrument battalion of anti-aircraft artillery as part of the 10th Air Defense Brigade (headquartered in East Prussia). In 1945 he was captured by the Americans.
*Kriegsoffizier = "wartime officer" - the result of rapid promotion to command positions - where there was a shortage of command personnel during the war.
In 1944 he received the so-called "Cross of War Merit" 2nd degree with swords" (KVK 2 m.Sch., an analogue of the medal "For Military Merit", most likely a list award). A commemorative medal for the Sudeten Campaign (Sudeten-Erinnerungsmedaille) is also mentioned. He had no other military awards. In the 1944 characterization, it is noted that he has good technical knowledge, but no field or combat experience.
No particular political activity is noted in his personal file. He joined the party and the SA in 1933, and was promoted to flight commander (SA-Scharführer) in 1934. He managed to receive the SA sports badge (analogue of the GTO complex). Then his political career was cut short. He was not a member of the SS.
The file contains a statement that Waldemar did not participate in left-wing parties and does not have Jewish roots (a standard form filled out when promoting to command positions). In the service characteristics, related to his promotion, there are also notes on his worldview (I quote in full, due to its particular piquancy):
1941 - Hat das Buch "Mein Kampf" gelesen unf steht vollkommen auf dem Boden der nationalsozialistischen Weltanschauung.
1942 - Seine Weltanschauung wurzelt im Nationalsozialismus.
1944 - Bedinungsloser Nationalsozialist.
That's it, nothing more can be squeezed out of a personal file, no matter how hard you try. Frankly, I don't understand what all the fuss is about. His granddaughter gives much more reason to get excited"
https://t.me/slonomuch/5724 - zinc
Well, in fact, he became an open Nazi in 1933 after Hitler came to power. He remained a member of the NSDAP until the end of the war. He participated in the aggressive wars unleashed by Hitler.
So, in fact, the daughter did not go too far from her grandfather, also taking part in unleashing an aggressive war in Europe. Of course, you can say that Baerbock's grandfather was a small and insignificant Nazi. But the determining factor here is that the grandfather was, in fact, a Nazi.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9849973.html
Google Translator
******
The “Three Seas Initiative” Will Play A Prominent Role In Post-Conflict Europe
Andrew Korybko
May 21, 2025
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.
France, Germany, and Poland are competing for leadership in this emerging era, the dynamics of which were analyzed here, with Poland poised to leverage its leading role in the 3SI in order to give itself an edge and also advance its vision of becoming the US’ top partner in Europe. From the US’ strategic perspective, the 3SI could become the means through which Poland could restore part of its lost regional power status in modern conditions, which could create a wedge between Western Europe and Russia.
At the same time, some in Germany consider the 3SI to be a means for further expanding their trade with the EU’s formerly communist countries, while France might conceptualize it as a means for expanding its own Romanian-centric influence in the region throughout the rest of Central Europe. This convergence of interests through the 3SI in spite of France, Germany, and Poland’s competition for leadership of post-conflict Europe raises the odds of the previously mentioned projects’ implementation.
They all serve dual military purposes too with respect to what’s now known as the “military Schengen”, which is aimed at facilitating the free movement of troops and equipment throughout the bloc, obviously in the eastern direction as part of its contingency planning vis-à-vis Russia. The BRUA and Krk projects are also of military value since they diversify the EU’s energy import routes. The 3SI is accordingly seen by Russia as a series of military logistics projects sold to the public as economic ones.
Even more concerning from the Kremlin’s perspective is that the 3SI gathers together Europe’s most politically Russophobic countries, thus ensuring that this platform will prioritize its unstated military purpose over its economic one. This raises the likelihood that the US will exploit the 3SI as a wedge for preempting any potential rapprochement between Western Europe and Russia, though the US could also exert positive influence over these same countries to deter them from provoking a conflict with Russia.
Whatever ends up unfolding, it would be a mistake to ignore or deny the prominent role that the 3SI will play in post-conflict Europe, even though it’s premature to predict how it’ll influence the dynamics between France-Germany-Poland (both among themselves and as a whole), the US, and Russia. Observers should therefore monitor the implementation of its previously mentioned priority projects, the involvement of the 3SI’s various strategic partners in each, and the way in which they’re militarized.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-thre ... -will-play
Fat chance...
Progressive outlet red. media is closing after months-long disinformation campaign in Germany targeted its Palestine solidarity reporting
May 20, 2025 by Ana Vračar
Police repressed and dismantled the Gaza solidarity encampment at the Free University of Berlin hours after it began. (Photo: Dominik Wetzel / Unsere Zeit)
The left media platform red. media has announced it is ceasing operations following a months-long disinformation campaign, supported by much of the German media establishment. On May 20, platform founder Hüseyin Doğru was added to the EU’s latest sanctions list targeting Russia. While EU announcements cite alleged ties between red. media and Russian authorities, the outlet maintains that the move is retaliation for its reporting on Germany’s repression of pro-Palestine activism.
Since its launch, the platform has documented the work of Palestine solidarity groups in Europe and beyond, leading to targeted attacks by Zionist organizations and their allies. “What we are experiencing is orchestrated repression – legitimized by a media-manufactured myth of threat,” the organization stated. “It is an attack on independent journalism – and on every voice that challenges the official narrative.”
Over the past 18 months, red. media reported on the growing Palestine solidarity movement in the region, including in Germany, where state and institutional repression has escalated sharply. This has included police violence against activists, threats of deportation against peaceful protesters, and political bans on academic events and media professionals. These developments have received little to no scrutiny from Germany’s mainstream press, whose reporting on the Gaza genocide has been overwhelmingly biased and unwilling to question the government’s unconditional support for Israel under the so-called Staatsräson.
At the same time, red. media became the target of accusations, amplified by liberal and corporate journalists, of being a proxy for Russian interests. The platform has denied these claims, pointing out that none of the reporters who wrote about its supposed Kremlin ties had contacted them directly to verify their funding sources. Despite the absence of evidence and despite the organization’s own critical reporting on certain Russian authorities’ moves, media narratives quickly established an unsubstantiated link between the outlet and the Putin administration.
When red. media published background information on one of the journalists involved in the discreditation campaign – Jerusalem Post and Tageszeitung contributor Nicholas Potter – the backlash intensified. Recently, Doğru was contacted by German police in relation to a criminal complaint accusing him of leading an “online campaign based on defamation and insults.” Staff members also faced threats, including to their safety, finally leading to the decision to shut down.
While red. media faces legal persecution and sanctions, the smear campaign against them has received far less scrutiny. “Through deliberate distortion and a reversal of perpetrator and victim roles, there is an attempt to construct a so-called ‘Kremlin-radical-left-Palestinian’ conspiracy against supposedly professional journalists in Germany,” the organization warned. These narratives, red. media emphasized, are not only created solely by media outlets but are enabled by the convergence of press and political interests: for example, former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s claim that red. media is a direct successor to the outlet Redfish, based on German media speculation.
A similar pattern of disinformation appears in the EU’s rationale for Doğru’s inclusion on the sanctions list, which accuses him and red. media of spreading misinformation on “politically controversial subjects.” The argument offers little evidence of financial ties to Russia but criticizes the platform for giving space to diverse voices, including Palestinian liberation movements, and for covering university occupations – activities many would consider fundamental to journalism.
According to the outlet’s recent statements, the tactics implemented against them not only aim to discredit critical voices and expose them to legal harassment, but also distract readers from their actual reporting – notably on the genocide in Gaza and NATO imperialism – with the final goal of suppressing dissent. “Increasingly, freedom of speech is reserved only for the political right,” red. media wrote. “Those who express solidarity with Palestine under threat of state, social, or media repression – those who march against Nazis – are silenced, beaten, or even nearly deported.”
The announcement of red. media’s closure was met with concern among other progressive media outlets and journalists in the region, who see it as yet another sign of deteriorating press freedom when it comes to Palestine solidarity. Some warned that this might signal more closures in the future. As red. media concluded: “Today we are the target. Tomorrow it will be you. What we are witnessing is the global normalization of repression – where speaking out against genocide is being criminalized.”
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/05/20/ ... n-germany/
*******
Grandpa Baerbok's personal file
May 20, 18:59
Grandpa Baerbok's personal file
Andrey Rezyapkin on FB raised the personal file of Grandfather Baerbock ( https://www.facebook.com/share/19BFxwFh ... tid=xfxF2i ) and closed the question: "Against the backdrop of Annalena's latest appointment, the Baerbockiad around her grandfather has intensified again. The first Bild report (already emotional) was supplemented with new details from the declassified dossier on the ardent Nazi, member of the party and SS, colonel and holder of the Golden Knight's Cross of Military Merit. All this, of course, is being erased from the World Wide Web and hidden again in a distant drawer.
In order not to be late, we will also open the very personal file that excited correspondents and social networks - PERS 6 / 226922 (BA-MA, Freiburg) - and delve into its contents.
Grandfather Waldemar, being a qualified engineer (graduated from the technical Karlsruhe University in 1937), was mobilized by the "military commissariat" of Hanover and from 1938 underwent training in various air defense units as a specialist in the aircraft recognition service and the instrumental (rangefinder) reconnaissance service of anti-aircraft artillery. By the third year of service, he was re-certified from a reserve non-commissioned officer to an officer candidate, in September 1941 he became a lieutenant and in 1944 - a senior lieutenant (Kriegsoffizier*), he ended the war as the head of the special equipment workshop in the mobile instrument battalion of anti-aircraft artillery as part of the 10th Air Defense Brigade (headquartered in East Prussia). In 1945 he was captured by the Americans.
*Kriegsoffizier = "wartime officer" - the result of rapid promotion to command positions - where there was a shortage of command personnel during the war.
In 1944 he received the so-called "Cross of War Merit" 2nd degree with swords" (KVK 2 m.Sch., an analogue of the medal "For Military Merit", most likely a list award). A commemorative medal for the Sudeten Campaign (Sudeten-Erinnerungsmedaille) is also mentioned. He had no other military awards. In the 1944 characterization, it is noted that he has good technical knowledge, but no field or combat experience.
No particular political activity is noted in his personal file. He joined the party and the SA in 1933, and was promoted to flight commander (SA-Scharführer) in 1934. He managed to receive the SA sports badge (analogue of the GTO complex). Then his political career was cut short. He was not a member of the SS.
The file contains a statement that Waldemar did not participate in left-wing parties and does not have Jewish roots (a standard form filled out when promoting to command positions). In the service characteristics, related to his promotion, there are also notes on his worldview (I quote in full, due to its particular piquancy):
1941 - Hat das Buch "Mein Kampf" gelesen unf steht vollkommen auf dem Boden der nationalsozialistischen Weltanschauung.
1942 - Seine Weltanschauung wurzelt im Nationalsozialismus.
1944 - Bedinungsloser Nationalsozialist.
That's it, nothing more can be squeezed out of a personal file, no matter how hard you try. Frankly, I don't understand what all the fuss is about. His granddaughter gives much more reason to get excited"
https://t.me/slonomuch/5724 - zinc
Well, in fact, he became an open Nazi in 1933 after Hitler came to power. He remained a member of the NSDAP until the end of the war. He participated in the aggressive wars unleashed by Hitler.
So, in fact, the daughter did not go too far from her grandfather, also taking part in unleashing an aggressive war in Europe. Of course, you can say that Baerbock's grandfather was a small and insignificant Nazi. But the determining factor here is that the grandfather was, in fact, a Nazi.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9849973.html
Google Translator
******
The “Three Seas Initiative” Will Play A Prominent Role In Post-Conflict Europe
Andrew Korybko
May 21, 2025
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.
France, Germany, and Poland are competing for leadership in this emerging era, the dynamics of which were analyzed here, with Poland poised to leverage its leading role in the 3SI in order to give itself an edge and also advance its vision of becoming the US’ top partner in Europe. From the US’ strategic perspective, the 3SI could become the means through which Poland could restore part of its lost regional power status in modern conditions, which could create a wedge between Western Europe and Russia.
At the same time, some in Germany consider the 3SI to be a means for further expanding their trade with the EU’s formerly communist countries, while France might conceptualize it as a means for expanding its own Romanian-centric influence in the region throughout the rest of Central Europe. This convergence of interests through the 3SI in spite of France, Germany, and Poland’s competition for leadership of post-conflict Europe raises the odds of the previously mentioned projects’ implementation.
They all serve dual military purposes too with respect to what’s now known as the “military Schengen”, which is aimed at facilitating the free movement of troops and equipment throughout the bloc, obviously in the eastern direction as part of its contingency planning vis-à-vis Russia. The BRUA and Krk projects are also of military value since they diversify the EU’s energy import routes. The 3SI is accordingly seen by Russia as a series of military logistics projects sold to the public as economic ones.
Even more concerning from the Kremlin’s perspective is that the 3SI gathers together Europe’s most politically Russophobic countries, thus ensuring that this platform will prioritize its unstated military purpose over its economic one. This raises the likelihood that the US will exploit the 3SI as a wedge for preempting any potential rapprochement between Western Europe and Russia, though the US could also exert positive influence over these same countries to deter them from provoking a conflict with Russia.
Whatever ends up unfolding, it would be a mistake to ignore or deny the prominent role that the 3SI will play in post-conflict Europe, even though it’s premature to predict how it’ll influence the dynamics between France-Germany-Poland (both among themselves and as a whole), the US, and Russia. Observers should therefore monitor the implementation of its previously mentioned priority projects, the involvement of the 3SI’s various strategic partners in each, and the way in which they’re militarized.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-thre ... -will-play
Fat chance...
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Blues for Europa
Democratic group sex
May 22, 12:53
At least four countries were involved in interfering in the Romanian presidential elections and ensuring the victory of independent candidate Nicusor Dan.
This is stated in the complaint and demand to annul the election of the leader of the Alliance for the Unification of Romanians George Simion, filed with the Constitutional Court (CC).
According to the complaint of the losing politician, interference was carried out by France, Poland, Moldova and Spain.
When "democratic" countries interfere in elections to ensure the "victory" of the right candidate, this is not interference of other states in the elections, but a fight for freedom and democracy. Romanians are simply stupid, they cannot understand what kind of president they need and here, a group of "democratic" countries will help them make the right choice. If necessary, they will count the votes of the dead. And as many as necessary will be drawn on foreign polling stations. And a legion of Moldovans will be delivered at a bargain price.
And the fact that Pasha Durov complains about French intelligence is all intrigue and Russian disinformation. He will still get his baguettes. And the Constitutional Court of Romania, which on a false pretext cancelled the previous presidential elections, these very elections, with a baguette smell, immediately recognized. Everything is legal and democratic, go away, there is nothing to see here.
P.S. In general, the story with the elections in Romania is wonderful from the point of view of exhausting the concept of "European democracy".
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9853430.html
Google Translator
******
Thousands of Greeks Take to the Streets of Athens to Protest Israeli Attacks on Gaza
Pro-Palestine protest in Athens, Greece, May 21, 2025. X/ @greek_herald
May 22, 2025 Hour: 8:35 am
The protest was organized by the Palestinian Community and supported by left-wing political parties and labor unions.
On Wednesday, thousands of people took to the streets of Athens to protest Israel’s latest military offensive in the Gaza Strip and the worsening humanitarian crisis resulting from the ongoing blockade.
Demonstrators chanted anti-war slogans, waved Palestinian flags, and held banners reading “Solidarity – Palestine Will Be Free” and “Wanted for Crimes Against Humanity,” the latter referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands, has issued an arrest warrant.
The protest, held outside the Greek Parliament, was organized by the Palestinian Community in Greece and supported by left-wing political parties and labor unions. Participants called for “an immediate end to the bloodshed and the starving of children.”
“I can’t stand by and watch all this atrocity,” said Aspasia, a 41-year-old private sector employee. “As humans, we can only do one thing: be present. We came here to show our support for the people,” added George, a 20-year-old worker.
Previously, Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis spoke by phone with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa. Gerapetritis reiterated Greece’s call for an immediate ceasefire and unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid.
Early Thursday morning, Gazan medical authorities reported that at least 30 people were killed in Zionist attacks on Gaza City and the town of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. Nine of the ten dead recorded in a bombing near a water tank in Deir al-Balah were members of the same family.
Authorities at Al Awda Hospital, located in Jabal al-Balah in the northern Gaza Strip, denounced a deliberate Israeli bombing of the hospital’s medical warehouse, which caused a fire there.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/thousand ... s-on-gaza/
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The theatre of the absurd called Moldova
Stephen Karganovic
May 22, 2025
The Moldovan government has been made to believe that it is the target of a destabilisation campaign orchestrated from Russia.
Is Moldova going berserk? A “destabilisation” paranoia has gripped the authorities of this artificial country which is an incongruous combination of Russian and Romanian ethnic components, conjoined in a political union dictated not by choice but by geopolitical circumstances.
The Moldovan government has been made to believe that it is the target of a destabilisation campaign orchestrated from Russia. To make the accusation more bizarre, it is alleged that for that purpose Russia is using citizens of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Belarus. The Zelensky regime in Kiev claims that its intelligence has uncovered the details of the “Russian plot” and that it has passed the relevant information to Moldovan colleagues.
Apparently acting on the “information” provided by Kiev, but quite possibly from other similar sources as well, Moldovan authorities detained at Kishinev airport a group of twelve Serbian soccer fans who had arrived there to root for the Serbian team which was due to play against a local team from Tiraspol. The fans were subjected by Moldovan security agents to intense questioning at the airport and were ultimately denied entry into the country. After spending several hours under interrogation, they were expelled as “security risks” and put on a plane to Prague.
The incident provoked a sharp reaction from the Serbian Foreign Ministry, with demanded that Moldova provide specific grounds for the detention and expulsion of Serbian citizens from its territory. To date no evidence supporting Moldova’s extraordinary action has been officially provided.
But the narrative becomes even more bizarre. In a detailed account, Radio Free Europe reports that “hundreds” of men in their twenties, some Moldovan and some Serbian and Bosnian, have received training to conduct destabilisation activities aimed at “overthrowing Moldova’s constitutional order” in subversion facilities set up on the territories of Bosnia and Serbia The Moldovan police have released purported “hidden camera videos from alleged training sessions in Russia, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, showing young people in a classroom simulating a protest and chanting slogans such as ‘our language is Russian,’ ‘no to dual citizenship,’ and ‘we don’t want to be in Europe.’” How non-Romanian and non-Russian speakers who had received training in those camps could possibly manage to overthrow the Moldovan government by shouting in the streets of Kishinev phrases learned by rote, so far nobody has attempted to explain. Just as oddly, Radio Free Europe staff which has disseminated these reports is not known to have travelled to Serbia or Bosnia to document the grave allegations that had been made. Nor have they bothered to disclose the subversion camps’ geographical coordinates which might have enabled others to verify what, if anything, has been going on at these mysterious locations.
A quick check of related information available on the internet about alleged attempts to destabilise Moldova reveals a lengthy list of items published over the last couple of years (for examples, see here, here, and here) all pointing in the same direction.
The plethora of disinformation reports from the collective West media over an extended period of time, all composed in similar vein and exhibiting the fingerprints of Western special services, are a giveaway of what is really going on.
Moldova’s regime headed by collective West vassal Maia Sandu, who was re-elected President in the fall of last year under extremely irregular circumstances, is indeed unstable but that is due to the regime’s incapacity to solve the country’s social and ethnic problems, not because of Russian interference. Moldova’s geographical position makes it critical to NATO and EU in their push to the East and as a logistics base for supporting and supplying the regime in Ukraine. Yet across ethnic lines the Moldovan population are sceptical of the bought and paid for political elite’s pro-West orientation, a phenomenon also evidenced in neighbouring Romania, notwithstanding the rigged Presidential elections a few days ago. That does make the Moldovan Pro-Western elite’s tenure inherently shaky and it requires frequent interventions to mobilise the authorities against concocted foreign threats whilst keeping the population permanently distracted.
Of the many destabilisation plots and subversive scenarios alleged to have been attempted or actually played out in Moldova, not a single one has gone beyond bare assertions and none has ever had a proper day in court, where some plausible evidence for the allegations would have to be presented. The invocation over the years of a variety of security threats to Moldova exhibits the tell-tale characteristics of a Psyop orchestrated by Western special services, aimed at keeping their local Moldovan puppets in a state of constant insecurity and dependence on foreign support. The same formula was used in West Africa and with some success over the years until Captain Traore and some other leaders got wise to the game that was being played on them. With Russia’s help they are now expelling both the imported troublemakers and the French troops that were deployed in their countries supposedly to suppress the troublemakers, but in reality to keep the nominally “independent” native governments under control.
Exactly the same pattern can be observed in Moldova, but so far no native patriot of the stature of Traore or Thomas Sankara has emerged there to challenge the imposed imperialist order.
And of course the expulsion from Moldova of Serbian soccer fans on the flimsy pretext that their presumed sympathies for Russia in the context of the fictitious destabilisation training camps made them a security threat was the collective West’s “thank you” to the clueless Serbian government for its generous shipments of arms and ammunition to the Kiev regime to assist it in “killing tons of Russians,” as Senator Lindsay Graham once memorably put it.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... d-moldova/
******
Leaders of depopulation
May 23, 10:46
Eurostat reported that Romania's population has fallen by more than 2.5 million people over the past 20 years.
This is the highest rate of decline among the European Union countries.
Romania has become the EU leader in population decline over two decades
In the report "Demography of Europe - the 2025 edition", Eurostat indicated that Romania has demonstrated the largest population decline among all EU countries over the past two decades. During this period, the country's population has decreased by more than 2.5 million people.
Romania is followed by Poland, which has lost 1.6 million residents, and Bulgaria with a population decline of 1.3 million.
The total population of the European Union countries, according to Eurostat, is 449 million people. The annual growth is estimated at 0.4%.
The largest population is recorded in Germany - 83.4 million people (19% of the total EU population), followed by France with 68.4 million (15%) and Italy with 58.9 million (13%).
Earlier it was reported that more than 23% of Germany's residents are of foreign origin.
https://russian.rt.com/world/news/14820 ... selenie-es - zinc
Ukraine was not counted. Not Europe. That's where the records of population utilization depend on everyone.
And so, the Romanian "leadership" of course did not surprise. Nostalgia for the times of Ceausescu does not come out of thin air. As well as the protest vote for Georgescu.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9854882.html
Google Translator
May 22, 12:53
At least four countries were involved in interfering in the Romanian presidential elections and ensuring the victory of independent candidate Nicusor Dan.
This is stated in the complaint and demand to annul the election of the leader of the Alliance for the Unification of Romanians George Simion, filed with the Constitutional Court (CC).
According to the complaint of the losing politician, interference was carried out by France, Poland, Moldova and Spain.
When "democratic" countries interfere in elections to ensure the "victory" of the right candidate, this is not interference of other states in the elections, but a fight for freedom and democracy. Romanians are simply stupid, they cannot understand what kind of president they need and here, a group of "democratic" countries will help them make the right choice. If necessary, they will count the votes of the dead. And as many as necessary will be drawn on foreign polling stations. And a legion of Moldovans will be delivered at a bargain price.
And the fact that Pasha Durov complains about French intelligence is all intrigue and Russian disinformation. He will still get his baguettes. And the Constitutional Court of Romania, which on a false pretext cancelled the previous presidential elections, these very elections, with a baguette smell, immediately recognized. Everything is legal and democratic, go away, there is nothing to see here.
P.S. In general, the story with the elections in Romania is wonderful from the point of view of exhausting the concept of "European democracy".
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9853430.html
Google Translator
******
Thousands of Greeks Take to the Streets of Athens to Protest Israeli Attacks on Gaza
Pro-Palestine protest in Athens, Greece, May 21, 2025. X/ @greek_herald
May 22, 2025 Hour: 8:35 am
The protest was organized by the Palestinian Community and supported by left-wing political parties and labor unions.
On Wednesday, thousands of people took to the streets of Athens to protest Israel’s latest military offensive in the Gaza Strip and the worsening humanitarian crisis resulting from the ongoing blockade.
Demonstrators chanted anti-war slogans, waved Palestinian flags, and held banners reading “Solidarity – Palestine Will Be Free” and “Wanted for Crimes Against Humanity,” the latter referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands, has issued an arrest warrant.
The protest, held outside the Greek Parliament, was organized by the Palestinian Community in Greece and supported by left-wing political parties and labor unions. Participants called for “an immediate end to the bloodshed and the starving of children.”
“I can’t stand by and watch all this atrocity,” said Aspasia, a 41-year-old private sector employee. “As humans, we can only do one thing: be present. We came here to show our support for the people,” added George, a 20-year-old worker.
Previously, Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis spoke by phone with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa. Gerapetritis reiterated Greece’s call for an immediate ceasefire and unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid.
Early Thursday morning, Gazan medical authorities reported that at least 30 people were killed in Zionist attacks on Gaza City and the town of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. Nine of the ten dead recorded in a bombing near a water tank in Deir al-Balah were members of the same family.
Authorities at Al Awda Hospital, located in Jabal al-Balah in the northern Gaza Strip, denounced a deliberate Israeli bombing of the hospital’s medical warehouse, which caused a fire there.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/thousand ... s-on-gaza/
******
The theatre of the absurd called Moldova
Stephen Karganovic
May 22, 2025
The Moldovan government has been made to believe that it is the target of a destabilisation campaign orchestrated from Russia.
Is Moldova going berserk? A “destabilisation” paranoia has gripped the authorities of this artificial country which is an incongruous combination of Russian and Romanian ethnic components, conjoined in a political union dictated not by choice but by geopolitical circumstances.
The Moldovan government has been made to believe that it is the target of a destabilisation campaign orchestrated from Russia. To make the accusation more bizarre, it is alleged that for that purpose Russia is using citizens of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Belarus. The Zelensky regime in Kiev claims that its intelligence has uncovered the details of the “Russian plot” and that it has passed the relevant information to Moldovan colleagues.
Apparently acting on the “information” provided by Kiev, but quite possibly from other similar sources as well, Moldovan authorities detained at Kishinev airport a group of twelve Serbian soccer fans who had arrived there to root for the Serbian team which was due to play against a local team from Tiraspol. The fans were subjected by Moldovan security agents to intense questioning at the airport and were ultimately denied entry into the country. After spending several hours under interrogation, they were expelled as “security risks” and put on a plane to Prague.
The incident provoked a sharp reaction from the Serbian Foreign Ministry, with demanded that Moldova provide specific grounds for the detention and expulsion of Serbian citizens from its territory. To date no evidence supporting Moldova’s extraordinary action has been officially provided.
But the narrative becomes even more bizarre. In a detailed account, Radio Free Europe reports that “hundreds” of men in their twenties, some Moldovan and some Serbian and Bosnian, have received training to conduct destabilisation activities aimed at “overthrowing Moldova’s constitutional order” in subversion facilities set up on the territories of Bosnia and Serbia The Moldovan police have released purported “hidden camera videos from alleged training sessions in Russia, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, showing young people in a classroom simulating a protest and chanting slogans such as ‘our language is Russian,’ ‘no to dual citizenship,’ and ‘we don’t want to be in Europe.’” How non-Romanian and non-Russian speakers who had received training in those camps could possibly manage to overthrow the Moldovan government by shouting in the streets of Kishinev phrases learned by rote, so far nobody has attempted to explain. Just as oddly, Radio Free Europe staff which has disseminated these reports is not known to have travelled to Serbia or Bosnia to document the grave allegations that had been made. Nor have they bothered to disclose the subversion camps’ geographical coordinates which might have enabled others to verify what, if anything, has been going on at these mysterious locations.
A quick check of related information available on the internet about alleged attempts to destabilise Moldova reveals a lengthy list of items published over the last couple of years (for examples, see here, here, and here) all pointing in the same direction.
The plethora of disinformation reports from the collective West media over an extended period of time, all composed in similar vein and exhibiting the fingerprints of Western special services, are a giveaway of what is really going on.
Moldova’s regime headed by collective West vassal Maia Sandu, who was re-elected President in the fall of last year under extremely irregular circumstances, is indeed unstable but that is due to the regime’s incapacity to solve the country’s social and ethnic problems, not because of Russian interference. Moldova’s geographical position makes it critical to NATO and EU in their push to the East and as a logistics base for supporting and supplying the regime in Ukraine. Yet across ethnic lines the Moldovan population are sceptical of the bought and paid for political elite’s pro-West orientation, a phenomenon also evidenced in neighbouring Romania, notwithstanding the rigged Presidential elections a few days ago. That does make the Moldovan Pro-Western elite’s tenure inherently shaky and it requires frequent interventions to mobilise the authorities against concocted foreign threats whilst keeping the population permanently distracted.
Of the many destabilisation plots and subversive scenarios alleged to have been attempted or actually played out in Moldova, not a single one has gone beyond bare assertions and none has ever had a proper day in court, where some plausible evidence for the allegations would have to be presented. The invocation over the years of a variety of security threats to Moldova exhibits the tell-tale characteristics of a Psyop orchestrated by Western special services, aimed at keeping their local Moldovan puppets in a state of constant insecurity and dependence on foreign support. The same formula was used in West Africa and with some success over the years until Captain Traore and some other leaders got wise to the game that was being played on them. With Russia’s help they are now expelling both the imported troublemakers and the French troops that were deployed in their countries supposedly to suppress the troublemakers, but in reality to keep the nominally “independent” native governments under control.
Exactly the same pattern can be observed in Moldova, but so far no native patriot of the stature of Traore or Thomas Sankara has emerged there to challenge the imposed imperialist order.
And of course the expulsion from Moldova of Serbian soccer fans on the flimsy pretext that their presumed sympathies for Russia in the context of the fictitious destabilisation training camps made them a security threat was the collective West’s “thank you” to the clueless Serbian government for its generous shipments of arms and ammunition to the Kiev regime to assist it in “killing tons of Russians,” as Senator Lindsay Graham once memorably put it.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... d-moldova/
******
Leaders of depopulation
May 23, 10:46
Eurostat reported that Romania's population has fallen by more than 2.5 million people over the past 20 years.
This is the highest rate of decline among the European Union countries.
Romania has become the EU leader in population decline over two decades
In the report "Demography of Europe - the 2025 edition", Eurostat indicated that Romania has demonstrated the largest population decline among all EU countries over the past two decades. During this period, the country's population has decreased by more than 2.5 million people.
Romania is followed by Poland, which has lost 1.6 million residents, and Bulgaria with a population decline of 1.3 million.
The total population of the European Union countries, according to Eurostat, is 449 million people. The annual growth is estimated at 0.4%.
The largest population is recorded in Germany - 83.4 million people (19% of the total EU population), followed by France with 68.4 million (15%) and Italy with 58.9 million (13%).
Earlier it was reported that more than 23% of Germany's residents are of foreign origin.
https://russian.rt.com/world/news/14820 ... selenie-es - zinc
Ukraine was not counted. Not Europe. That's where the records of population utilization depend on everyone.
And so, the Romanian "leadership" of course did not surprise. Nostalgia for the times of Ceausescu does not come out of thin air. As well as the protest vote for Georgescu.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9854882.html
Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Blues for Europa
European kakistocracy locked in a Forever War against Russia
Pepe Escobar
May 23, 2025
Never interrupt your enemy when he is committing serial suicide.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is committing serial suicide (in reverse American gore-style, when the serial killer always resurrects). In the case of the EU kakistocracy, serial self-destruction is always a given, and always skyrocketing.
So the EUrocrats in Brussels have just adopted their 17th round of sanctions against Russia – the sky is the limit – targeting nearly 200 tankers of the so-called Russian shadow fleet. The package, endorsed by EU member states, includes proverbial scores of asset freezes and visa bans.
The EU + UK combo is also scheming how to tighten the oil price cap on Russia to $50 a barrel, aiming to “hurt” Russia’s energy revenue.
Cue to a monster pipeline of laughter from the whole Global South, especially India and China. As if they would impeach any vessels of the shadow fleet, or if OPEC+ would care about a puny unilateral EUrocrat oil price cap.
To qualify EU actions as self-destructive anti-intellectualism is actually benign. The IQ of people at the top in Brussels is at dismembered worm level, exemplified by the Estonian batshit crazy chick in theory representing the foreign policy of 450 million EU citizens. Brussels has been reduced to a pathetic Estonian propaganda snake pit with a whiff of British accent.
The SVR has noted how there is a groundswell of despair in Brussels for the “mistake” of appointing the imbecile Estonian, universally known for “absolute incompetence” and a cringing “inability to build bridges” with EU leaders. She has already been removed from EU strategic defense policy planning.
Still, the sanctions package dementia will keep rollin’ on – redacted by careerists with fat salaries who only care about their own retirement gold package.
The next, the 18th, is supposed to be the largest sanctions package in History, according to the Brussels rumor mill, not only accusing Russia of multiples stances of Hybrid War and alleged use of chemical weapons (when it’s actually the neo-nazis of country 404 who resort to it) but targeting several Russian defense sector companies plus companies and intermediaries from third countries supplying sanctioned products to Russia.
Add to it the German BlackRock chancellor actively lobbying for an EU ban on the Nord Stream pipeline – blocking any possibility of a U.S.-Russia business cooperation, already signaled by Trump. This ban will be part of the 18th package.
Cue to Grandmaster Sergey Lavrov, who recently felt the need to emphasize that political EUro-trash banning the return of NordStream are “either sick or suicidal.”
Stealing Russia blind: good luck with that
On the Baltic front, there’s more, of course – in a “Pirates of the Baltics” register: that’s the SIGINT-heavy Baltic Sentry mission, which aims to block Russian maritime activity. France is on it – which implies a non-regional NATO member directly involved, unlike, for instance, Norway.
The Russians are unfazed. A strong possibility is that they will escort Russian ships with multi-functional naval and aerial drones fully equipped with reconnaissance and combat gear.
Yet on the Orwellian front, nothing beats the anti-Russian “tribunal” announced on May 9 by EU foreign ministers in Lviv, together with Kiev, to “hold top representatives of the Russian leadership accountable.” That involves 30 partner countries, incuding UK and Australia. The U.S. is out.
The scam was minutely deconstructed by Thomas Roper, who is now viciously demonized and censored by the EU, even though he is a journalist and EU citizen of German nationality. Yes, Brussels now sanctions its own citizens capable of critical thinking, to the point of freezing their assets and forbidding them to visit their home country. And this is just the beginning.
The new EU kangaroo “court” will be set up by the Council of Europe – and will issue judgments even in absentia, via 15 judges elected for 9 years each, the whole thing costing the EUrocracy around 1 billion euros.
Needless to add that this kangaroo “court” has absolutely no basis in international law, as it’s not approved by the UN; instead, it’s a private club of the fragmented West. Follow the money to understand the rationale.
Few people today remember that last year the European Commission (EU) gave a $50 billion loan to Kiev; actually $35 billion by the EU and $15 billion by the G7. The problem is only Brussels is responsible for repaying this joint EU-G7 loan. And the loan is supposed to be paid from the annual revenues generated by Russian assets frozen – i.e. stolen – in the EU, which Brussels refuses to release before the next 45 years.
These are all official EU decisions, enshrined in Regulation 2024/277. Translation: no, I repeat, no European mainstream media has informed taxpaying citizens across the union that the EU has formally decided to be at war with Russia for at least the next 45 years.
Brussels has done everything trying to steal for good the “confiscated” Russian assets. The problem is the EC EUrocrats have not found a mechanism to bypass international law.
Enter the “court”. The EUrocracy will force the kangaroo “tribunal” to blame Russia for everything related to the war and the SMO; sentence Russian government members to long-term prison sentences – in absentia; and then decide that Russia has to pay reparations. Endgame: the kangaroo “court” decides to steal for good the frozen Russian assets.
Once again: under international law, this is a robbery. Key inevitable consequence: no one across the Global South will trust the euro and European financial centers anymore.
This Russian demonization EUro-dementia scenario is in play just as Trump 2.0 still bets on some sort of normalization with Russia via a solution for Ukraine. Yet the key factor here is the cowardly collective fear of the EU kakistocracy: if they don’t rob Russia blind, they have no means to repay that fateful $50 billion loan to the Kiev goons.
That should be the main factor explaining why this collection of political mutts needs, badly, to non-stop escalate what is a de facto Forever War against Russia.
So expect only dementia coming from Brussels in the foreseeable future. Like the brilliant idea of setting up a single military bank to alocate loans for weapons production, a replica of the World Bank with a HQ in London. Since they could not find 120 billion euros to come up with a single European military fund – the German economy, for instance, continues to collapse – their plan B is this bank.
For all that cornucopia of sound and fury, Russia remains, once again, unfazed. Putin top aide and former National Security Adviser Nikolai “Yoda” Patrushev has noted how NATO has been “conducting exercises at our borders at a scale unseen in decades. … They are training for conducting a broad offensive from Vilnius to Odessa, seizing Kaliningrad region, imposing a naval blockade in the Baltic and the Black Seas and executing preventive strikes on the staging locations of Russian nuclear deterrence forces.”
Good luck with that. Good luck with the military bank. And good luck with stealing Russia blind with no blowback.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... st-russia/
Europe’s defence without the U.S.: What does the new cost report say?
Erkin Oncan
May 23, 2025
A US draw‑down would leave a large “defence gap” for NATO’s European members.
The London‑based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has published a report entitled “Defending Europe Without the United States: Costs and Consequences.”
Founded in 1958, the IISS examines global security, defence and geopolitical issues, and its reports are frequently cited by NATO, the United Nations and national defence ministries.
Authored by Ben Barry, Douglas Barrie, Henry Boyd, Nick Childs, Michael Gjerstad, James Hackett, Fenella McGerty, Ben Schreer and Tom Waldwyn, the report concludes that if the United States withdrew from NATO, European countries would need to allocate USD 1 trillion to defence over the next 25 years.
That would mean raising defence spending to 3 percent of GDP.
According to the scenario, roughly 50 percent of total expenditure would go to procuring military equipment (tanks, armoured vehicles, aircraft, ships, missiles, UAVs, etc.); 25 percent to developing intelligence assets, space forces and command‑and‑control systems; 20 percent to equipping, training and logistically supporting personnel; and 15 percent to investments in the defence industry and purchases from abroad.
These hefty sums are based on a scenario in which all 128,000 US troops and their equipment are fully withdrawn from Europe by 2027.
What’s in the report?
The 32‑page report divides the threats Europe faces into two main headings.
The first points to Russia’s military power, noting:
“Russia’s economy is on a war footing and its defence industry is running at full capacity. Even if the fighting in Ukraine stops, Russia could rebuild its forces against NATO‑Europe.”
The second major problem is the shifting focus of the United States:
“Europe can no longer rely on automatic US support. Former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on NATO and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s 2025 remark that ‘Europe must now shoulder its own defence’ show that Washington’s attention has pivoted to the Pacific. European allies therefore must build capabilities that can deter Russian aggression without US backing.”
The core assumption
The report assumes a mid‑2025 cease‑fire in Ukraine, after which the US begins to withdraw from NATO and pull troops out of Europe.
Its calculations cover how quickly Russia could again pose a threat after a cease‑fire, the scale of current US contributions to NATO, Europe’s force readiness, equipment gaps, costs, timelines and leadership issues.
“The Russian threat to Europe”
In its first section, the report emphasises that Russia remains “the principal military threat to the Euro‑Atlantic region.”
For NATO allies, the key task is to determine how fast Moscow could regenerate its forces once hostilities cease.
Key insights on Russia’s potential threat include:
UK Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin says it may take President Vladimir Putin five years to rebuild the Russian army to its February 2022 level, and another five years to remedy weaknesses exposed by the war.
Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service warns that within a decade, a “Soviet‑style mass army,” though technologically behind, could seriously threaten NATO.
Norwegian Chief of Defence General Eirik Kristoffersen believes the alliance has only two to three years to prepare.
Danish Defence Intelligence assesses that Russia could stage local border clashes six months after a cease‑fire, a regional war in the Baltic within two years, and a large‑scale European assault within five years.
The IISS authors lean toward Denmark’s forecast, adding:
“Despite difficulties, Russia could present a serious military challenge to NATO allies as early as 2027, particularly for the Baltic states. By then, its ground forces may approach their February 2022 strength while the air force and navy—which suffered far less—remain largely intact. Russia’s rapid regeneration capacity should not be underestimated; its economy and industry have fully shifted to a war footing and Moscow has sourced military hardware from abroad.”
Cease‑fire: “Breathing space for Russia, countdown for Europe”
Detailed figures in the report show Russia’s defence spending rose 41.9 percent in real terms from 2023 to 2024, reaching 13.1 trillion roubles (about USD 145.9 billion, or USD 462 billion in PPP terms). Defence now equals 6.7 percent of GDP, more than double the pre‑war average, and is projected to climb to 7.5 percent in 2025.
Will Moscow cut spending after a cease‑fire? Europe doubts it:
“The Kremlin has neither abandoned its strategic goals in Ukraine nor ceased efforts to destabilise Europe, so assuming defence outlays remain high is prudent.”
Europe worries that any cease‑fire will give Russia a breather while starting a countdown for Europe:
“Although Russia’s ground forces have suffered heavy losses, its quickly recoverable air and naval capabilities will keep Europe’s defence posture on permanent alert.”
NATO’s “big war” plan for Europe
The second part of the report focuses on SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe), NATO’s top military command—always held by a four‑star American general or admiral.
The report recalls that NATO military staff, responding to SACEUR’s needs, have deemed the total force required to execute defence plans 30–50 percent larger than before 2022.
Although the alliance is set to approve new goals at its June 2025 ministerial meeting, Allied Command Transformation head Admiral Pierre Vandier has highlighted a glaring gap: current pledges already lag 30 percent behind previous targets—and the new ones call for another 30 percent increase.
No official data specify the scale of any US contribution in a full‑scale European war with Russia. Yet IISS analysts note that NATO heavily relies on US strategic intelligence, space, cyber assets and its vast nuclear arsenal:
“In conventional operations to counter Russian aggression in Europe, probable US support would amount to roughly 128,000 personnel plus combined land, sea and air units.”
What if the US pulls out of NATO and Europe?
The report’s third section explores the consequences of a US withdrawal.
Assuming this drastic—though time‑consuming—scenario, IISS simulations outline:
US bases, training ranges and other infrastructure could be sold to host nations or commercial buyers; surplus munitions and spares might be handed over to European armies.
Europe would have to replace US‑provided training facilities, teams and equipment on its own.
Reduced US intelligence sharing would expose gaps in Europe’s space and all‑domain ISR assets, seriously hampering early warning and plans to counter a Russian attack.
The price tag
If Europe had to duplicate existing US capabilities, the one‑time procurement bill plus 25‑year life‑cycle costs would reach about USD 1 trillion—and that figure excludes intelligence, space, cyber and nuclear forces.
Annual costs to match US contributions lie between USD 226 billion and 344 billion.
“Even if the money is found, capacity is lacking”
The authors stress that even if Europe could foot the bill, its industrial capacity is insufficient:
“European defence firms are adding assembly lines and pursuing mergers and acquisitions, but progress is uneven and major obstacles remain.
If allies want extra aircraft carriers or nuclear‑powered attack submarines, delivering them will be a huge challenge.
Meeting short‑term demand for armoured vehicles outstrips current output. States must inject major investment, convert plants from other sectors, and sign deals with long‑time suppliers such as Canada and the US—or with non‑European producers.”
Since procurement is often done nationally, order volumes are small compared with US purchases. The report recommends multinational cooperation to place larger orders.
Conclusions and recommendations
The central message is clear: a US draw‑down would leave a large “defence gap” for NATO’s European members. Coupled with the possibility that Russia could rebuild its ground forces by 2027 after a cease‑fire, Europe hears alarm bells.
Even raising Europe’s defence industry to a Russian‑style “war economy” won’t suffice. The obstacles—workforce, production lines, supply chains and finance—are immense. For example, ordering just 400 extra combat aircraft is a massive undertaking given global manufacturing capacity.
To escape this bleak scenario, Europe must:
Boost defence spending beyond current plans.
Make joint multinational procurements to spread costs.
Deploy public spending and convince citizens of the need.
Take bold financial‑industrial steps, mixing public and private investment, prioritising outlays and accepting higher risk.
Yet money and hardware are not the hardest part—the toughest challenge is political unity and common will.
Europe already faces migration, climate and economic crises. Even current levels of aid to Ukraine have sparked widespread social unrest. The much‑feared rise of the far right—fuelled by demands for stability and security—has begun toppling governments.
In such a political climate, if the US leaves, and “more militarisation” becomes the only answer, Europe may face prolonged political upheaval across the continent.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... eport-say/
The West pressures Moldova’s president to launch a blitzkrieg against Transnistria
Sonja van den Ende
May 24, 2025
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.
In the first round of voting, the Romanian electorate overwhelmingly supported the ultra-right candidate Călin Georgescu. Shocked by the result, the EU pushed to invalidate the outcome and called for new elections, which ultimately installed its favored candidate, Nicușor Dan, likely through electoral fraud.
Moldova’s President Maia Sandu – a Harvard-educated politician holding a Romanian passport – supports Moldova’s unification with Romania, including the reintegration of Transnistria. She was among the first to congratulate Romania’s new pro-European president, Nicușor Dan. Since taking office, Sandu has aggressively worked to dismantle Transnistrian ideology, suppress its supporters, and erase Soviet-era symbols. Her government has promoted the Romanian language (Moldova’s official state language) while marginalizing canonical Orthodox Christianity – part of a broader cultural shift toward Europe.
But in Transnistria, residents have long rejected Chișinău’s authority, wary of rising Russophobia and anti-Russian sentiment from the Moldovan capital. Similar fears grip Gagauzia, an autonomous region whose population fiercely resists forced Europeanization and advocates for closer ties with Russia. Gagauzia, home to a Turkic-speaking, predominantly Orthodox Christian ethnic group, has been a vocal opponent of Sandu’s policies.
The region’s leader, Evghenia Guțul, was arrested upon returning from a trip to Russia, where she met with President Vladimir Putin – an act the West now deems criminal. Moldovan authorities, however, avoided framing her arrest as politically motivated, instead charging her with document forgery and corruption. Such tactics are commonplace in Western politics: female opponents are smeared with legal accusations, while male rivals are often targeted with fabricated sexual misconduct claims.
Both Transnistria and Gagauzia demand the preservation of Russian as a regional language, protection of religious freedoms, and the right to maintain political and economic ties with Moscow. Sandu’s government has responded with repression, arresting Guțul and escalating tensions further.
In another provocative move, Archbishop Marcu of Bălți and Fălești was barred from traveling to Jerusalem for the Holy Fire ceremony on Easter eve – a decision made under direct orders from the presidential administration. Moldovans have since mocked the irony, joking that “the daughter of a swineherd tried to play a mean trick on Orthodox believers but ended up covered in mud herself.” The holy flame was eventually brought into the country by other priests.
On the eve of Victory Day – a major holiday commemorating the Soviet victory over fascism – Sandu banned public commemorations in Chișinău’s central square, sparking widespread outrage. Many Moldovans remember their ancestors’ sacrifices in the Red Army, with over 56,000 Moldovan soldiers perishing in World War II. They also recall the atrocities committed by Romanian occupiers during the war, making Sandu’s pro-Romanian stance particularly inflammatory.
Public discontent is now reflected in polls: Sandu’s approval rating, along with that of her party, Action and Solidarity (PAS), has plummeted to just 22%. Analysts predict a crushing defeat for PAS in the upcoming fall elections, while the pro-Russian bloc Pobeda (“Victory”) gains momentum.
To salvage her position, Sandu has held urgent talks with EU officials in Brussels and Polish leaders in Warsaw. In response, Western political strategists have flooded Chișinău, tasked with smearing the opposition and convincing Moldovans that EU integration is their only future.
Europe cannot afford an anti-EU – let alone pro-Russian – victory in Moldova. Romania (and by extension, Moldova) plays a pivotal role in NATO, hosting what will soon be the alliance’s largest European military base, explicitly aimed at countering Russia. Construction began in 2024.
Poland has also emerged as a key player in Moldova’s political landscape. President Andrzej Duda has deployed Stsiapan Putsila – a young Belarusian opposition figure and editor-in-chief of the Warsaw-backed outlet Nexta – to assist Sandu’s campaign. Putsila, a social media specialist known for his role in discrediting political opponents across the post-Soviet space, will advise PAS ahead of the September elections, ensuring a victory akin to Romania’s manipulated outcome.
In essence, Europe has adopted George Soros-style tactics – modernized color revolutions and election interference – precisely what it accuses Russia of doing.
Yet Sandu’s European backers recognize that media manipulation alone may not salvage her dwindling support. Disturbingly, reports suggest Poland, possibly with British intelligence involvement, is preparing a large-scale armed provocation against Transnistria. Unsurprisingly, EU-linked “fact-checking” platforms like Disinfo dismiss these claims – though their track record shows that what they label “fake news” often turns out to be true.
For now, Sandu is being urged to consider a swift, “winnable military operation” as a last-ditch effort to secure victory in the parliamentary elections. This strategy – using external conflict to rally domestic support – has been employed elsewhere in the post-Soviet world. Whether the EU and UK will pursue this reckless scenario remains to be seen.
The critical question is whether Sandu will take such a suicidal gamble – for both her country and herself.
An attack on Transnistria – home to half a million people, including thousands of ethnic Russians and Russian peacekeepers – could ignite a regional crisis, destabilizing Eastern Europe and provoking a severe response from Moscow. For Moldova, this would mean risking everything for fleeting political gains.
The current turmoil in Moldova is more than a local power struggle. It is a microcosm of the broader East-West confrontation – testing whether democracy can thrive without coercion, and whether sovereignty can withstand external domination.
As the 80th anniversary of fascism’s defeat reminds us, the scars of war endure for generations. History shows that those who attempt to rewrite it often repeat its darkest chapters. The European Union, which falsely equates Nazi Germany and the USSR as equal instigators of World War II, should take heed.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... nsnistria/
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Sandu's disservice: on the unification of Romania with Moldova and election fraud
May 23, 2025
Rybar
The new President of Romania, Nicusor Dan, admitted that he will support Moldova’s European integration so that one day the two states will be united .
Dan made the statement immediately after the second round of the presidential elections, when he was talking to supporters at the election headquarters. The politician admitted that he wants his first foreign visit as head of state to take place in Moldova.
It’s funny, but before the elections, Moldovans were scared by the fact that it was Dan’s opponent, Simion, who wanted to absorb Moldova, but it turned out the other way around .
Dan's special feelings for Moldova are not only based on a sense of kinship . The politician is now deeply indebted to Maia Sandu , who helped falsify the elections at the polling stations in Moldova.
Romanian presidential candidate George Simion said that Chisinau spent 100 million euros on electoral tourism and buying votes from Moldovans with Romanian citizenship. The voting in Moldova really does look abnormal: 75% more people voted in the second round than in the first. In total, 88% of Moldovans voted for Dan in the second round (52% in the first round). At the same time, Sandu and her party PAS openly campaigned for Dan, interfering in the elections.
Now the Romanian authorities, led by Dan, will have to repay the “debt” to Sandu and will provide the same service of falsification in the upcoming parliamentary elections in Moldova .
https://rybar.ru/medvezhya-usluga-ot-sa ... i-vyborov/
German "outpost"
May 24, 2025
Rybar
The inauguration of the 45th German Armored Brigade "Lithuania" took place in Vilnius the other day – the first permanent military unit of the Bundeswehr outside of Germany since World War II.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was present at the ceremony, stating that Germany was “taking the defense of NATO’s eastern flank into its own hands” and stressing that “the defense of Vilnius is also the defense of Berlin.”
More about the Lithuania Brigade
Negotiations on the formation of the unit have been ongoing since 2022, and the first German troops began arriving in Lithuania last year. There are currently 500 Bundeswehr members permanently stationed there, but there were a thousand at the inauguration.
It should reach full combat readiness by 2027 , when it will consist (according to the plan) of 4,800 military personnel and 200 civilian specialists. They will be stationed at the military training ground in Rudninkai near the border with Belarus.
Merz's visit to Vilnius was his first trip to the Baltics as chancellor and fully reflects Germany's policy of supporting "vulnerable democracies" and turning them into testing grounds - something we have recently seen in cooperation with Moldova.
However, beautiful ceremonies in the center of the capital, promises to protect the people of Lithuania in the person of Lithuanians (although in the country, in addition to Russians, there are also enough Poles) and strengthening of defense at the expense of the Germans do not add stability to the region.
The ratings of government officials are far from ideal, intelligence is trying to push through a bill to strengthen the fight against subversive activities, and political calm is only a dream.
https://rybar.ru/nemeczkij-forpost/
Google Translator
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Interpreting Tusk’s Mixed Signals About The Future Of Polish Policy Towards Ukraine
Andrew Korybko
May 25, 2025
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It’s contradictory for his government to convince the EU to reimpose restrictions on Ukrainian imports while also signing an agreement to help Ukraine join the EU and thus forever lift such restrictions if/once that happens.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that the EU’s trade liberalization regime with Ukraine will end on 5 June due to his government’s efforts and confirmed that Poland won’t send troops to Ukraine despite what US Special Envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg recently claimed. This curiously coincided with Poland and Ukraine signing a cooperation agreement on regional policy where Poland will support Ukraine’s EU accession in exchange for Ukraine supporting Polish companies’ role in its reconstruction.
Right before these developments, the ruling liberal-globalist coalition’s presidential candidate narrowly won the first round, in which the three right-wing candidates collectively obtained a little over half of the vote. He’ll therefore have to win over some of the latter if he hopes to come out on top during the second round on 1 June. Should he win, then Tusk could flip-flop by requesting authorization from the president per Polish law to send troops to Ukraine, which his coalition ally would presumably approve.
These electoral dynamics and the potential geopolitical stakes involved contextualize Tusk’s mixed signals about the future of Polish policy towards Ukraine. After all, it’s contradictory for his government to convince the EU to reimpose restrictions on Ukrainian imports while also signing an agreement to help Ukraine join the EU and thus forever lift such restrictions if/once that happens, thus suggesting that he’s leading someone along. Whether that’s the electorate or Ukraine is the subject of debate.
On the one hand, his government’s toughened stance towards Ukraine since last summer might have been a long-term electioneering strategy, especially after surveys showed that Poles were getting fed up with Ukraine, so a soft stance towards it could have doomed the coalition’s presidential prospects. On the other hand, however, Poland has yet to receive anything tangible from Ukraine in exchange for all its support from 2022 onward, so a policy recalibration is long-overdue.
That recalibration has resulted in a policy that’s tougher than the previous conservative government’s as proven by Poland reviving the Volhynia Genocide dispute, only sending arms to Ukraine on credit from now on instead of for free like before, and now explicitly planning to profit from Ukraine as well. While it might have begun as an electioneering tactic, this recalibration has clearly taken on a life of its own since then, so there’s a chance that Tusk might actually be leading Ukraine along instead of the electorate.
At the same time, Tusk is a former President of the European Council and suspiciously close to Germany, so it can’t be ruled out that he could be ordered to flip-flop on Poland’s newly toughened policy towards Ukraine if his coalition ally wins the presidency. The only reason why he might be reluctant to do so is if he expects that pressure for early parliamentary elections might become unbearable, in which case his coalition could lose control of the legislature, thus foiling his liberal-globalist domestic agenda.
That possibly being the case, the best bet for on-the-fence Poles who are worried that Tusk might capitulate to European pressure to send troops to Ukraine if the liberal-globalist candidate wins is to vote for his opponent, who just pledged that he’d oppose those plans if he comes to power. Even in the unlikely event that Tusk is truly turning a new leaf on the foreign policy front, his track record over the decades might make many Poles distrust him and suspect that he’s leading them on instead of Ukraine.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/interpre ... ed-signals
Pepe Escobar
May 23, 2025
Never interrupt your enemy when he is committing serial suicide.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is committing serial suicide (in reverse American gore-style, when the serial killer always resurrects). In the case of the EU kakistocracy, serial self-destruction is always a given, and always skyrocketing.
So the EUrocrats in Brussels have just adopted their 17th round of sanctions against Russia – the sky is the limit – targeting nearly 200 tankers of the so-called Russian shadow fleet. The package, endorsed by EU member states, includes proverbial scores of asset freezes and visa bans.
The EU + UK combo is also scheming how to tighten the oil price cap on Russia to $50 a barrel, aiming to “hurt” Russia’s energy revenue.
Cue to a monster pipeline of laughter from the whole Global South, especially India and China. As if they would impeach any vessels of the shadow fleet, or if OPEC+ would care about a puny unilateral EUrocrat oil price cap.
To qualify EU actions as self-destructive anti-intellectualism is actually benign. The IQ of people at the top in Brussels is at dismembered worm level, exemplified by the Estonian batshit crazy chick in theory representing the foreign policy of 450 million EU citizens. Brussels has been reduced to a pathetic Estonian propaganda snake pit with a whiff of British accent.
The SVR has noted how there is a groundswell of despair in Brussels for the “mistake” of appointing the imbecile Estonian, universally known for “absolute incompetence” and a cringing “inability to build bridges” with EU leaders. She has already been removed from EU strategic defense policy planning.
Still, the sanctions package dementia will keep rollin’ on – redacted by careerists with fat salaries who only care about their own retirement gold package.
The next, the 18th, is supposed to be the largest sanctions package in History, according to the Brussels rumor mill, not only accusing Russia of multiples stances of Hybrid War and alleged use of chemical weapons (when it’s actually the neo-nazis of country 404 who resort to it) but targeting several Russian defense sector companies plus companies and intermediaries from third countries supplying sanctioned products to Russia.
Add to it the German BlackRock chancellor actively lobbying for an EU ban on the Nord Stream pipeline – blocking any possibility of a U.S.-Russia business cooperation, already signaled by Trump. This ban will be part of the 18th package.
Cue to Grandmaster Sergey Lavrov, who recently felt the need to emphasize that political EUro-trash banning the return of NordStream are “either sick or suicidal.”
Stealing Russia blind: good luck with that
On the Baltic front, there’s more, of course – in a “Pirates of the Baltics” register: that’s the SIGINT-heavy Baltic Sentry mission, which aims to block Russian maritime activity. France is on it – which implies a non-regional NATO member directly involved, unlike, for instance, Norway.
The Russians are unfazed. A strong possibility is that they will escort Russian ships with multi-functional naval and aerial drones fully equipped with reconnaissance and combat gear.
Yet on the Orwellian front, nothing beats the anti-Russian “tribunal” announced on May 9 by EU foreign ministers in Lviv, together with Kiev, to “hold top representatives of the Russian leadership accountable.” That involves 30 partner countries, incuding UK and Australia. The U.S. is out.
The scam was minutely deconstructed by Thomas Roper, who is now viciously demonized and censored by the EU, even though he is a journalist and EU citizen of German nationality. Yes, Brussels now sanctions its own citizens capable of critical thinking, to the point of freezing their assets and forbidding them to visit their home country. And this is just the beginning.
The new EU kangaroo “court” will be set up by the Council of Europe – and will issue judgments even in absentia, via 15 judges elected for 9 years each, the whole thing costing the EUrocracy around 1 billion euros.
Needless to add that this kangaroo “court” has absolutely no basis in international law, as it’s not approved by the UN; instead, it’s a private club of the fragmented West. Follow the money to understand the rationale.
Few people today remember that last year the European Commission (EU) gave a $50 billion loan to Kiev; actually $35 billion by the EU and $15 billion by the G7. The problem is only Brussels is responsible for repaying this joint EU-G7 loan. And the loan is supposed to be paid from the annual revenues generated by Russian assets frozen – i.e. stolen – in the EU, which Brussels refuses to release before the next 45 years.
These are all official EU decisions, enshrined in Regulation 2024/277. Translation: no, I repeat, no European mainstream media has informed taxpaying citizens across the union that the EU has formally decided to be at war with Russia for at least the next 45 years.
Brussels has done everything trying to steal for good the “confiscated” Russian assets. The problem is the EC EUrocrats have not found a mechanism to bypass international law.
Enter the “court”. The EUrocracy will force the kangaroo “tribunal” to blame Russia for everything related to the war and the SMO; sentence Russian government members to long-term prison sentences – in absentia; and then decide that Russia has to pay reparations. Endgame: the kangaroo “court” decides to steal for good the frozen Russian assets.
Once again: under international law, this is a robbery. Key inevitable consequence: no one across the Global South will trust the euro and European financial centers anymore.
This Russian demonization EUro-dementia scenario is in play just as Trump 2.0 still bets on some sort of normalization with Russia via a solution for Ukraine. Yet the key factor here is the cowardly collective fear of the EU kakistocracy: if they don’t rob Russia blind, they have no means to repay that fateful $50 billion loan to the Kiev goons.
That should be the main factor explaining why this collection of political mutts needs, badly, to non-stop escalate what is a de facto Forever War against Russia.
So expect only dementia coming from Brussels in the foreseeable future. Like the brilliant idea of setting up a single military bank to alocate loans for weapons production, a replica of the World Bank with a HQ in London. Since they could not find 120 billion euros to come up with a single European military fund – the German economy, for instance, continues to collapse – their plan B is this bank.
For all that cornucopia of sound and fury, Russia remains, once again, unfazed. Putin top aide and former National Security Adviser Nikolai “Yoda” Patrushev has noted how NATO has been “conducting exercises at our borders at a scale unseen in decades. … They are training for conducting a broad offensive from Vilnius to Odessa, seizing Kaliningrad region, imposing a naval blockade in the Baltic and the Black Seas and executing preventive strikes on the staging locations of Russian nuclear deterrence forces.”
Good luck with that. Good luck with the military bank. And good luck with stealing Russia blind with no blowback.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... st-russia/
Europe’s defence without the U.S.: What does the new cost report say?
Erkin Oncan
May 23, 2025
A US draw‑down would leave a large “defence gap” for NATO’s European members.
The London‑based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has published a report entitled “Defending Europe Without the United States: Costs and Consequences.”
Founded in 1958, the IISS examines global security, defence and geopolitical issues, and its reports are frequently cited by NATO, the United Nations and national defence ministries.
Authored by Ben Barry, Douglas Barrie, Henry Boyd, Nick Childs, Michael Gjerstad, James Hackett, Fenella McGerty, Ben Schreer and Tom Waldwyn, the report concludes that if the United States withdrew from NATO, European countries would need to allocate USD 1 trillion to defence over the next 25 years.
That would mean raising defence spending to 3 percent of GDP.
According to the scenario, roughly 50 percent of total expenditure would go to procuring military equipment (tanks, armoured vehicles, aircraft, ships, missiles, UAVs, etc.); 25 percent to developing intelligence assets, space forces and command‑and‑control systems; 20 percent to equipping, training and logistically supporting personnel; and 15 percent to investments in the defence industry and purchases from abroad.
These hefty sums are based on a scenario in which all 128,000 US troops and their equipment are fully withdrawn from Europe by 2027.
What’s in the report?
The 32‑page report divides the threats Europe faces into two main headings.
The first points to Russia’s military power, noting:
“Russia’s economy is on a war footing and its defence industry is running at full capacity. Even if the fighting in Ukraine stops, Russia could rebuild its forces against NATO‑Europe.”
The second major problem is the shifting focus of the United States:
“Europe can no longer rely on automatic US support. Former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on NATO and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s 2025 remark that ‘Europe must now shoulder its own defence’ show that Washington’s attention has pivoted to the Pacific. European allies therefore must build capabilities that can deter Russian aggression without US backing.”
The core assumption
The report assumes a mid‑2025 cease‑fire in Ukraine, after which the US begins to withdraw from NATO and pull troops out of Europe.
Its calculations cover how quickly Russia could again pose a threat after a cease‑fire, the scale of current US contributions to NATO, Europe’s force readiness, equipment gaps, costs, timelines and leadership issues.
“The Russian threat to Europe”
In its first section, the report emphasises that Russia remains “the principal military threat to the Euro‑Atlantic region.”
For NATO allies, the key task is to determine how fast Moscow could regenerate its forces once hostilities cease.
Key insights on Russia’s potential threat include:
UK Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin says it may take President Vladimir Putin five years to rebuild the Russian army to its February 2022 level, and another five years to remedy weaknesses exposed by the war.
Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service warns that within a decade, a “Soviet‑style mass army,” though technologically behind, could seriously threaten NATO.
Norwegian Chief of Defence General Eirik Kristoffersen believes the alliance has only two to three years to prepare.
Danish Defence Intelligence assesses that Russia could stage local border clashes six months after a cease‑fire, a regional war in the Baltic within two years, and a large‑scale European assault within five years.
The IISS authors lean toward Denmark’s forecast, adding:
“Despite difficulties, Russia could present a serious military challenge to NATO allies as early as 2027, particularly for the Baltic states. By then, its ground forces may approach their February 2022 strength while the air force and navy—which suffered far less—remain largely intact. Russia’s rapid regeneration capacity should not be underestimated; its economy and industry have fully shifted to a war footing and Moscow has sourced military hardware from abroad.”
Cease‑fire: “Breathing space for Russia, countdown for Europe”
Detailed figures in the report show Russia’s defence spending rose 41.9 percent in real terms from 2023 to 2024, reaching 13.1 trillion roubles (about USD 145.9 billion, or USD 462 billion in PPP terms). Defence now equals 6.7 percent of GDP, more than double the pre‑war average, and is projected to climb to 7.5 percent in 2025.
Will Moscow cut spending after a cease‑fire? Europe doubts it:
“The Kremlin has neither abandoned its strategic goals in Ukraine nor ceased efforts to destabilise Europe, so assuming defence outlays remain high is prudent.”
Europe worries that any cease‑fire will give Russia a breather while starting a countdown for Europe:
“Although Russia’s ground forces have suffered heavy losses, its quickly recoverable air and naval capabilities will keep Europe’s defence posture on permanent alert.”
NATO’s “big war” plan for Europe
The second part of the report focuses on SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe), NATO’s top military command—always held by a four‑star American general or admiral.
The report recalls that NATO military staff, responding to SACEUR’s needs, have deemed the total force required to execute defence plans 30–50 percent larger than before 2022.
Although the alliance is set to approve new goals at its June 2025 ministerial meeting, Allied Command Transformation head Admiral Pierre Vandier has highlighted a glaring gap: current pledges already lag 30 percent behind previous targets—and the new ones call for another 30 percent increase.
No official data specify the scale of any US contribution in a full‑scale European war with Russia. Yet IISS analysts note that NATO heavily relies on US strategic intelligence, space, cyber assets and its vast nuclear arsenal:
“In conventional operations to counter Russian aggression in Europe, probable US support would amount to roughly 128,000 personnel plus combined land, sea and air units.”
What if the US pulls out of NATO and Europe?
The report’s third section explores the consequences of a US withdrawal.
Assuming this drastic—though time‑consuming—scenario, IISS simulations outline:
US bases, training ranges and other infrastructure could be sold to host nations or commercial buyers; surplus munitions and spares might be handed over to European armies.
Europe would have to replace US‑provided training facilities, teams and equipment on its own.
Reduced US intelligence sharing would expose gaps in Europe’s space and all‑domain ISR assets, seriously hampering early warning and plans to counter a Russian attack.
The price tag
If Europe had to duplicate existing US capabilities, the one‑time procurement bill plus 25‑year life‑cycle costs would reach about USD 1 trillion—and that figure excludes intelligence, space, cyber and nuclear forces.
Annual costs to match US contributions lie between USD 226 billion and 344 billion.
“Even if the money is found, capacity is lacking”
The authors stress that even if Europe could foot the bill, its industrial capacity is insufficient:
“European defence firms are adding assembly lines and pursuing mergers and acquisitions, but progress is uneven and major obstacles remain.
If allies want extra aircraft carriers or nuclear‑powered attack submarines, delivering them will be a huge challenge.
Meeting short‑term demand for armoured vehicles outstrips current output. States must inject major investment, convert plants from other sectors, and sign deals with long‑time suppliers such as Canada and the US—or with non‑European producers.”
Since procurement is often done nationally, order volumes are small compared with US purchases. The report recommends multinational cooperation to place larger orders.
Conclusions and recommendations
The central message is clear: a US draw‑down would leave a large “defence gap” for NATO’s European members. Coupled with the possibility that Russia could rebuild its ground forces by 2027 after a cease‑fire, Europe hears alarm bells.
Even raising Europe’s defence industry to a Russian‑style “war economy” won’t suffice. The obstacles—workforce, production lines, supply chains and finance—are immense. For example, ordering just 400 extra combat aircraft is a massive undertaking given global manufacturing capacity.
To escape this bleak scenario, Europe must:
Boost defence spending beyond current plans.
Make joint multinational procurements to spread costs.
Deploy public spending and convince citizens of the need.
Take bold financial‑industrial steps, mixing public and private investment, prioritising outlays and accepting higher risk.
Yet money and hardware are not the hardest part—the toughest challenge is political unity and common will.
Europe already faces migration, climate and economic crises. Even current levels of aid to Ukraine have sparked widespread social unrest. The much‑feared rise of the far right—fuelled by demands for stability and security—has begun toppling governments.
In such a political climate, if the US leaves, and “more militarisation” becomes the only answer, Europe may face prolonged political upheaval across the continent.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... eport-say/
The West pressures Moldova’s president to launch a blitzkrieg against Transnistria
Sonja van den Ende
May 24, 2025
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.
In the first round of voting, the Romanian electorate overwhelmingly supported the ultra-right candidate Călin Georgescu. Shocked by the result, the EU pushed to invalidate the outcome and called for new elections, which ultimately installed its favored candidate, Nicușor Dan, likely through electoral fraud.
Moldova’s President Maia Sandu – a Harvard-educated politician holding a Romanian passport – supports Moldova’s unification with Romania, including the reintegration of Transnistria. She was among the first to congratulate Romania’s new pro-European president, Nicușor Dan. Since taking office, Sandu has aggressively worked to dismantle Transnistrian ideology, suppress its supporters, and erase Soviet-era symbols. Her government has promoted the Romanian language (Moldova’s official state language) while marginalizing canonical Orthodox Christianity – part of a broader cultural shift toward Europe.
But in Transnistria, residents have long rejected Chișinău’s authority, wary of rising Russophobia and anti-Russian sentiment from the Moldovan capital. Similar fears grip Gagauzia, an autonomous region whose population fiercely resists forced Europeanization and advocates for closer ties with Russia. Gagauzia, home to a Turkic-speaking, predominantly Orthodox Christian ethnic group, has been a vocal opponent of Sandu’s policies.
The region’s leader, Evghenia Guțul, was arrested upon returning from a trip to Russia, where she met with President Vladimir Putin – an act the West now deems criminal. Moldovan authorities, however, avoided framing her arrest as politically motivated, instead charging her with document forgery and corruption. Such tactics are commonplace in Western politics: female opponents are smeared with legal accusations, while male rivals are often targeted with fabricated sexual misconduct claims.
Both Transnistria and Gagauzia demand the preservation of Russian as a regional language, protection of religious freedoms, and the right to maintain political and economic ties with Moscow. Sandu’s government has responded with repression, arresting Guțul and escalating tensions further.
In another provocative move, Archbishop Marcu of Bălți and Fălești was barred from traveling to Jerusalem for the Holy Fire ceremony on Easter eve – a decision made under direct orders from the presidential administration. Moldovans have since mocked the irony, joking that “the daughter of a swineherd tried to play a mean trick on Orthodox believers but ended up covered in mud herself.” The holy flame was eventually brought into the country by other priests.
On the eve of Victory Day – a major holiday commemorating the Soviet victory over fascism – Sandu banned public commemorations in Chișinău’s central square, sparking widespread outrage. Many Moldovans remember their ancestors’ sacrifices in the Red Army, with over 56,000 Moldovan soldiers perishing in World War II. They also recall the atrocities committed by Romanian occupiers during the war, making Sandu’s pro-Romanian stance particularly inflammatory.
Public discontent is now reflected in polls: Sandu’s approval rating, along with that of her party, Action and Solidarity (PAS), has plummeted to just 22%. Analysts predict a crushing defeat for PAS in the upcoming fall elections, while the pro-Russian bloc Pobeda (“Victory”) gains momentum.
To salvage her position, Sandu has held urgent talks with EU officials in Brussels and Polish leaders in Warsaw. In response, Western political strategists have flooded Chișinău, tasked with smearing the opposition and convincing Moldovans that EU integration is their only future.
Europe cannot afford an anti-EU – let alone pro-Russian – victory in Moldova. Romania (and by extension, Moldova) plays a pivotal role in NATO, hosting what will soon be the alliance’s largest European military base, explicitly aimed at countering Russia. Construction began in 2024.
Poland has also emerged as a key player in Moldova’s political landscape. President Andrzej Duda has deployed Stsiapan Putsila – a young Belarusian opposition figure and editor-in-chief of the Warsaw-backed outlet Nexta – to assist Sandu’s campaign. Putsila, a social media specialist known for his role in discrediting political opponents across the post-Soviet space, will advise PAS ahead of the September elections, ensuring a victory akin to Romania’s manipulated outcome.
In essence, Europe has adopted George Soros-style tactics – modernized color revolutions and election interference – precisely what it accuses Russia of doing.
Yet Sandu’s European backers recognize that media manipulation alone may not salvage her dwindling support. Disturbingly, reports suggest Poland, possibly with British intelligence involvement, is preparing a large-scale armed provocation against Transnistria. Unsurprisingly, EU-linked “fact-checking” platforms like Disinfo dismiss these claims – though their track record shows that what they label “fake news” often turns out to be true.
For now, Sandu is being urged to consider a swift, “winnable military operation” as a last-ditch effort to secure victory in the parliamentary elections. This strategy – using external conflict to rally domestic support – has been employed elsewhere in the post-Soviet world. Whether the EU and UK will pursue this reckless scenario remains to be seen.
The critical question is whether Sandu will take such a suicidal gamble – for both her country and herself.
An attack on Transnistria – home to half a million people, including thousands of ethnic Russians and Russian peacekeepers – could ignite a regional crisis, destabilizing Eastern Europe and provoking a severe response from Moscow. For Moldova, this would mean risking everything for fleeting political gains.
The current turmoil in Moldova is more than a local power struggle. It is a microcosm of the broader East-West confrontation – testing whether democracy can thrive without coercion, and whether sovereignty can withstand external domination.
As the 80th anniversary of fascism’s defeat reminds us, the scars of war endure for generations. History shows that those who attempt to rewrite it often repeat its darkest chapters. The European Union, which falsely equates Nazi Germany and the USSR as equal instigators of World War II, should take heed.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... nsnistria/
******
Sandu's disservice: on the unification of Romania with Moldova and election fraud
May 23, 2025
Rybar
The new President of Romania, Nicusor Dan, admitted that he will support Moldova’s European integration so that one day the two states will be united .
Dan made the statement immediately after the second round of the presidential elections, when he was talking to supporters at the election headquarters. The politician admitted that he wants his first foreign visit as head of state to take place in Moldova.
It’s funny, but before the elections, Moldovans were scared by the fact that it was Dan’s opponent, Simion, who wanted to absorb Moldova, but it turned out the other way around .
Dan's special feelings for Moldova are not only based on a sense of kinship . The politician is now deeply indebted to Maia Sandu , who helped falsify the elections at the polling stations in Moldova.
Romanian presidential candidate George Simion said that Chisinau spent 100 million euros on electoral tourism and buying votes from Moldovans with Romanian citizenship. The voting in Moldova really does look abnormal: 75% more people voted in the second round than in the first. In total, 88% of Moldovans voted for Dan in the second round (52% in the first round). At the same time, Sandu and her party PAS openly campaigned for Dan, interfering in the elections.
Now the Romanian authorities, led by Dan, will have to repay the “debt” to Sandu and will provide the same service of falsification in the upcoming parliamentary elections in Moldova .
https://rybar.ru/medvezhya-usluga-ot-sa ... i-vyborov/
German "outpost"
May 24, 2025
Rybar
The inauguration of the 45th German Armored Brigade "Lithuania" took place in Vilnius the other day – the first permanent military unit of the Bundeswehr outside of Germany since World War II.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was present at the ceremony, stating that Germany was “taking the defense of NATO’s eastern flank into its own hands” and stressing that “the defense of Vilnius is also the defense of Berlin.”
More about the Lithuania Brigade
Negotiations on the formation of the unit have been ongoing since 2022, and the first German troops began arriving in Lithuania last year. There are currently 500 Bundeswehr members permanently stationed there, but there were a thousand at the inauguration.
It should reach full combat readiness by 2027 , when it will consist (according to the plan) of 4,800 military personnel and 200 civilian specialists. They will be stationed at the military training ground in Rudninkai near the border with Belarus.
Merz's visit to Vilnius was his first trip to the Baltics as chancellor and fully reflects Germany's policy of supporting "vulnerable democracies" and turning them into testing grounds - something we have recently seen in cooperation with Moldova.
However, beautiful ceremonies in the center of the capital, promises to protect the people of Lithuania in the person of Lithuanians (although in the country, in addition to Russians, there are also enough Poles) and strengthening of defense at the expense of the Germans do not add stability to the region.
The ratings of government officials are far from ideal, intelligence is trying to push through a bill to strengthen the fight against subversive activities, and political calm is only a dream.
https://rybar.ru/nemeczkij-forpost/
Google Translator
******
Interpreting Tusk’s Mixed Signals About The Future Of Polish Policy Towards Ukraine
Andrew Korybko
May 25, 2025
[img]
It’s contradictory for his government to convince the EU to reimpose restrictions on Ukrainian imports while also signing an agreement to help Ukraine join the EU and thus forever lift such restrictions if/once that happens.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that the EU’s trade liberalization regime with Ukraine will end on 5 June due to his government’s efforts and confirmed that Poland won’t send troops to Ukraine despite what US Special Envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg recently claimed. This curiously coincided with Poland and Ukraine signing a cooperation agreement on regional policy where Poland will support Ukraine’s EU accession in exchange for Ukraine supporting Polish companies’ role in its reconstruction.
Right before these developments, the ruling liberal-globalist coalition’s presidential candidate narrowly won the first round, in which the three right-wing candidates collectively obtained a little over half of the vote. He’ll therefore have to win over some of the latter if he hopes to come out on top during the second round on 1 June. Should he win, then Tusk could flip-flop by requesting authorization from the president per Polish law to send troops to Ukraine, which his coalition ally would presumably approve.
These electoral dynamics and the potential geopolitical stakes involved contextualize Tusk’s mixed signals about the future of Polish policy towards Ukraine. After all, it’s contradictory for his government to convince the EU to reimpose restrictions on Ukrainian imports while also signing an agreement to help Ukraine join the EU and thus forever lift such restrictions if/once that happens, thus suggesting that he’s leading someone along. Whether that’s the electorate or Ukraine is the subject of debate.
On the one hand, his government’s toughened stance towards Ukraine since last summer might have been a long-term electioneering strategy, especially after surveys showed that Poles were getting fed up with Ukraine, so a soft stance towards it could have doomed the coalition’s presidential prospects. On the other hand, however, Poland has yet to receive anything tangible from Ukraine in exchange for all its support from 2022 onward, so a policy recalibration is long-overdue.
That recalibration has resulted in a policy that’s tougher than the previous conservative government’s as proven by Poland reviving the Volhynia Genocide dispute, only sending arms to Ukraine on credit from now on instead of for free like before, and now explicitly planning to profit from Ukraine as well. While it might have begun as an electioneering tactic, this recalibration has clearly taken on a life of its own since then, so there’s a chance that Tusk might actually be leading Ukraine along instead of the electorate.
At the same time, Tusk is a former President of the European Council and suspiciously close to Germany, so it can’t be ruled out that he could be ordered to flip-flop on Poland’s newly toughened policy towards Ukraine if his coalition ally wins the presidency. The only reason why he might be reluctant to do so is if he expects that pressure for early parliamentary elections might become unbearable, in which case his coalition could lose control of the legislature, thus foiling his liberal-globalist domestic agenda.
That possibly being the case, the best bet for on-the-fence Poles who are worried that Tusk might capitulate to European pressure to send troops to Ukraine if the liberal-globalist candidate wins is to vote for his opponent, who just pledged that he’d oppose those plans if he comes to power. Even in the unlikely event that Tusk is truly turning a new leaf on the foreign policy front, his track record over the decades might make many Poles distrust him and suspect that he’s leading them on instead of Ukraine.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/interpre ... ed-signals
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Blues for Europa
EU Approves 11 New Military Cooperation Projects Under PESCO Framework
X/ @ForcesOperation
May 27, 2025 Hour: 8:33 am
The European Union ministers also approved the creation of a 150 billion-euro arms fund.
On Tuesday, the Council of the European Union approved 11 new military cooperation projects under the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) initiative, which includes 26 member states.
This marks the sixth round of projects advanced since the initiative’s launch in 2017, through which participating countries aim to deepen their defense ambitions and enhance cooperation in the field.
Following the decision, the number of defense cooperation projects has reached 75, which, according to the Council, demonstrates “the continuous, collective, and determined commitment of the participating member states to strengthen the EU’s defense readiness.”
The new projects cover land, air and maritime domains, as well as strategic enablers and force multipliers. They also include training facilities and cutting-edge technologies such as quantum systems and directed energy weapons. Several of the projects directly address capability priorities identified by EU heads of state and government.
Also on Tuesday, European Union ministers approved the creation of a 150 billion-euro (about US$170.22 billion) arms fund, the bloc’s first large-scale defense investment program at the EU level.
The fund will be channeled through the new Security Action for Europe instrument, which offers competitively priced, long-term loans to member states that choose to invest in defense industrial production through joint procurement of priority capabilities.
The European Commission proposed the fund in March as a key component of its ReArm Europe Plan/Readiness 2030 package, which aims to leverage over 800 billion euros in defense spending to strengthen European security and defense cooperation.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/eu-appro ... framework/
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Disarming Europe: Movements take steps towards building a continent of peace
In Naples and Rome, Italian organizers were joined by European political leaders to coordinate resistance to militarization and outline a shared vision for a Europe of peace
May 26, 2025 by Ana Vračar
Source: Potere al Popolo/Facebook
The building of a broad anti-war and disarmament movement in Italy continues, as trade unions and left groups prepare for June 21 – the planned date of a national demonstration against Europe’s ongoing armament agenda. In the lead-up to the event, the political party Potere al Popolo organized meetings under the slogan “Let’s Disarm Them!” in both Naples and Rome during the weekend of May 24–25.
With international guests including Ione Belarra from Podemos, Clémence Guetté from France Unbowed, and Marc Botenga from the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA), the meetings aimed to highlight key priorities for a national and regional peace movement to rally around.
Momentum ahead of June 21 was further boosted by the announcement of the progressive trade union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) of a general strike, scheduled for the day before. The strike will protest the harmful effects of Giorgia Meloni’s government’s policies on Italy’s working class and emphasize the need for workers to support international solidarity struggles. According to USB, the strike will also call attention to the “complicity of Meloni’s administration” in the genocide in Gaza.
Ending Europe’s support for the genocide in Gaza
Throughout the mobilization events, speakers insisted on European responsibility for the crimes committed by Israel in Palestine. Many speakers, including Clémence Guetté, addressed the EU member states’ and institutions’ unwillingness to impose sanctions on Israel or suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement. This reluctance, Guetté noted, is not limited to the right but is also shared by centrist and nominally social-democratic parties.
Yet grassroots movements across the region have launched initiatives to push for meaningful action and hold leaders accountable. “The strikes and blockades by dock workers, from Belgium to Italy, passing through Catalonia, to stop the import and export of arms to Israel show how the working class can act to break the chains of complicity with the war regime being imposed on us,” Giuliano Granato of Potere al Popolo said in reflection on Saturday’s meetings.
“‘Let’s disarm them’ also means standing side by side with the Palestinian people and their resistance, to win that self-determination which international law, reduced to wastepaper under the boots of Western rulers, claims to uphold,” the meeting’s closing statement added.
NATO vs. public services
Another key topic spotlighted over the weekend was the impact of Europe’s ReArm agenda on workers and public services. “Leonardo, Rheinmetall, Dassault, Indra smell blood and pounce on their prey: government budgets. That is, the money of workers across the continent,” the meeting statement read. Allocating €800 billion to ReArm Europe – alongside pressure to raise NATO contributions from 2% to 3% or more, as demanded by the Trump administration – threatens to wipe out public education, healthcare, and other essential services in Europe. Marc Botenga illustrated the scale of these numbers: Belgium’s entire annual GDP – the total value of goods and services produced in 12 months – does not reach €800 billion. Similarly, allocating 5% of the GDP to NATO, as some have recently suggested, would gut the country’s social security system.
If Europe’s new warlords are not stopped, Botenga warned, ReArm Europe could dismantle the rights that workers fought for over decades, potentially degrading healthcare systems in many countries to levels seen in the US. “Every euro handed to the military-industrial complex is one euro less for our needs. One euro less to buy an ambulance, one euro less to secure our schools, one euro less to pay increasingly impoverished workers,” summarized the final statement of the meeting.
And while pursuing this agenda of systemic destruction, political leaders continue to speak of so-called European values and the supposed economic benefits of a new war economy. But these, Botenga insisted, are illusions: history should have taught Europe that an arms race doesn’t make countries safer – it only pushes their neighbors to arm themselves even further.
Fighting militarization, fighting capitalism
Speakers agreed that the only real alternative to the rearmament agenda lies in an international peace movement committed to uniting struggles for disarmament, solidarity, and social justice – in other words, socialism. “Being a peace activist today means being an anti-capitalist militant,” Guetté noted. Popular struggles for disarmament in Europe, she added, must recognize that the arms race is taking place in a context that primarily benefits large weapons manufacturers, and that it is being led by a coalition far broader than just the far right.
Read more: What are European leaders going to choose: people or war?
This convergence of interests between the military industry, the far right, and the political establishment poses a clear threat to the growing popular movements – not only those campaigning in solidarity with Palestine or against armament. In France and Spain, speakers noted, decisions to boost arms spending are often made while sidelining standard democratic procedures in parliament. In Belgium and Italy, governments are floating repressive laws targeting the right to protest and dissent. According to Botenga, this trend serves a specific purpose: preparing the ground for a crackdown on mobilizations that will inevitably grow once the consequences of the militarist agenda become fully visible.
In response, the meeting concluded, the left and broader popular forces must commit themselves to building a “continent of peace.” This vision echoes much of Potere al Popolo’s original call to action for June 21. “No to the police state and neo-fascism,” the party declared last month. “No to the destruction of democracy in the name of internal security and external threats. Fascist laws such as the new security decree must be opposed in every way, just as we must resist warmongering propaganda, witch hunts against dissent, and the criminalization of pacifism.”
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/05/26/ ... -of-peace/
Yes, we utterly oppose imperialism in all it's forms, but as long as there is capitalism we are fools or chumps to be pacifists. It is a petty booj copout.
*****
Eurovision: NATO Psychological Warfare Tool
May 26, 2025
By Kit Klarenberg – May 24, 2025
The 2025 Eurovision Song Contest ended May 17th mired in controversy. The Zionist entity’s entrant, Yuval Raphael, finished second. Her performance, “New Day Will Rise”, received 297 points via public televote – the highest garnered by any act in the competition’s Grand Final, with 13 countries giving Raphael the maximum score of 12 points. This helped “Israel” almost clinch victory, despite coming last among participants in national jury votes. Immediately, state broadcasters across Europe demanded an investigation into flagrant, industrial scale rigging in “Israel’s” favour.
The Zionist entity’s participation in the Contest was the subject of much controversy in its leadup. On May 5th, 72 former Eurovision contestants – including previous winners – cosigned a letter to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) demanding “Israel” and its national broadcaster be banned from the contest, over the country’s “genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and the decades-long regime of apartheid and military occupation against the entire Palestinian people”. Their call was echoed by Spanish premier Pedro Sanchez.
Then, on May 19th, an EBU probe revealed the Israeli Government Advertising Agency conducted a vast, cross-platform online campaign to encourage support for Raphael’s entry. Detailed instructions on how to vote for her via text and phone in countries as far afield as Australia were widely circulated, along with a reminder that individuals could vote up to 20 times each. A dedicated YouTube channel – @Vote4NewDayWillRise – was launched to support the effort, garnering over 8.3 million views. Its videos were widely amplified across social media.
Separate investigations suggest Zionists could’ve further connived to fudge the Contest’s results via “VPNs, automated scripts (bot farms), and bulk SIM card purchases”. It is not the first time Tel Aviv has engaged in brazen fraud to skew Eurovision’s results in its favour. When “Israel” triumphed in the 2018 Contest, speculation widely abounded their victory resulted from meddling by now-defunct online Zionist astroturf effort Act.IL. On top of unambiguous voting irregularities, winning meant the 2019 Contest would be convened in “Israel”.
A June 2018 Knesset hearing spelled out this windfall’s strategic significance. Multiple Zionist entity lawmakers and ministers spoke of how “holding the Eurovision song contest in “Israel” is a gift” that could be exploited to boost and improve “Israel’s” international image, and counteract the burgeoning Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement’s successes. BDS had recently compelled Argentina to cancel a World Cup ‘friendly’ match with the entity, after Tel Aviv attempted to host the bout in illegally occupied al-Quds.
‘Opinion Leaders’
Similar Zionist entity-orchestrated social media and televote chicanery boosted “Israel” to fifth place in the 2024 Contest, which was likewise prefaced by widespread calls to bar Tel Aviv’s participation, and for other participating countries to boycott the event. While falling far short of victory, the public relations utility of “Israel’s” performance was abundantly clear. Entity officials, Western news outlets and pundits eagerly leaped upon the results as proof that despite the ongoing 21st century Holocaust in Gaza, a “silent majority” of Europeans still supported “Israel”.
At the time, journeyman Israeli government “public diplomacy” apparatchik David Saranga gushed to Ynet, “we knew that the situation was less serious than it is reflected in the demonstrations on the streets of Europe, but we did not expect such overwhelming support”. He added, “the fact that even countries where public opinion is critical of “Israel”, such as Sweden or Ireland, gave “Israel” a high score” indicated there were “underground currents” of pro-Zionist sentiment throughout the West.
However, Saranga also admitted the entity’s Foreign Ministry “acted among friendly audiences to increase voting”. Ynet subsequently detailed this effort, which included Tel Aviv’s entrant that year, Eden Golan, recording personal video addresses to foreign audiences in their own languages, referencing a supposed “wave of hatred” being whipped up against “Israel” by “Muslims”. Extensive analysis was conducted to ensure her message reached “Eurovision-loving audiences such as the LGBT community in Europe, members of fan clubs, journalists covering the contest and opinion leaders in the field.”
Following Yuval Raphael coming second this year, a familiar chorus erupted, with numerous prominent figures claiming her televoting preeminence was indicative of concealed Zionist sentiment the world over, and that ever-growing Palestine solidarity actions were not representative of wider public opinion. This is despite her performances being met with such intense booing, some European broadcasters resorted to piping in pre-recorded cheers and applause to drown out the mass jeering. Meanwhile, polls amply indicate the overwhelming majority of Europeans hold “unfavourable” views of Tel Aviv.
That the Zionist entity has so consistently invested enormous time, energy, and money into attempting to ‘game’ Eurovision over so many years is a testament to its redoubtable international propaganda potency. Up to 200 million people worldwide routinely tune in to the tournament every year, and Tel Aviv is not alone in seeking to weaponise the tournament for political reasons. In fact, Eurovision was secretly created as a psychological warfare tool by NATO to manipulate and control public opinion for this explicit purpose.
‘Psychological Action’
In January 2015, an extraordinary, hitherto secret document drawn up by NATO’s Committee on Information and Cultural Relations in March 1955 was published for the first time. It outlined the practical and ideological foundations of Eurovision, which was first convened next year, with just seven participants. A section of “aims” of the Contest states NATO’s objective was to “make the most” of TV, which “gives mankind at long last, the possibility, through the visual image, of conquering time and distance”, reaching vast global audiences simultaneously:
“Television has enabled sight to triumph over time and space, and this is the aspect which struck us most forcibly and led us to believe that it was our duty to break through the narrow boundaries which confined our programmes to spectators clustered around our respective capital cities, and to travel the world. There is no point in having a wonderful instrument in our hands if all we are going to do…is show the suburbs of Paris, London or Milan in France, England or Italy.”
The document went on to state “the thrill” of TV “lies in ranging as far afield as possible…[using] this marvellous instrument’s capacity for the instantaneous transmission of an event taking place elsewhere.” NATO contended “television transcends the frontiers of our European countries,” and thus the military alliance “held within [its] grasp a unique instrument for social and psychological action”. In sum, a “nervous system” of Europe could be constructed, “far more powerful than the telephone” or radio, to “animate the…general public.”
The document concludes with its author, Jean d’Arcy, then-senior director of French state broadcaster Radiodiffusion Française, expressing his sincere hope that the “social significance of Eurovision will become ever more apparent as it progresses along the lines which…it is destined to follow”. The file was a summary of remarks he made at a dedicated NATO conference “of senior information officials” in Paris two months earlier. His talk was described in a subsequent alliance newsletter as “most interesting”.
At that conference, Hastings Ismay, NATO’s first secretary general – who notoriously declared the alliance’s purpose was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down” across Europe – “reiterated his steadfast conviction of the importance of a profounder and more widespread understanding of NATO’s aims and achievements”. Eurovision provided an ideal opportunity to insidiously achieve those goals in a non-military context, propounding European unity and cultural superiority over the Soviet Union while the Cold War was in its infancy.
The collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union’s subsequent dissolution, vastly increased Eurovision’s pool of contestants. It was not until 1994 that Russia first appeared at the Contest. On February 25th 2022, one day after the Ukraine proxy war erupted, Moscow was banned from participating, which has remained in place ever since. In that year’s competition, Kiev prevailed, with The Kalush Orchestra’s song “Stefania” – interpreted in some quarters as an ode to Ukrainian ultranationalist mass-murderer Stepan Bandera – securing first place.
NATO deputy secretary general Mircea Geoana praised Ukraine’s victory and its “beautiful song”, linking Kiev’s triumph “to its bravery in fighting Russia”, and “immense public support all over Europe and Australia” for the proxy war. A Reuters report on Geoana’s comments commenced by declaring, “Eurovision and NATO might not usually be associated” – the international newswire’s writers apparently unaware that the military alliance was from inception, and remains, absolutely fundamental to the international tournament’s operation.
https://orinocotribune.com/eurovision-n ... fare-tool/
Propaganda saturated every aspect of Western culture; we are fish and it is water.
******
German chancellor says Gaza genocide 'no longer justified'
Support for Israel is falling among its traditional European backers amid its current war and ethnic cleansing of Gaza
News Desk
MAY 26, 2025
(Photo credit: Christof Stache/AFP via Getty Images)
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on 26 May that Israel's recent airstrikes killing hundreds of civilians in Gaza could no longer be “justified” as a fight against Hamas.
“Harming the civilian population to such an extent, as has increasingly been the case in recent days, can no longer be justified as a fight against Hamas terrorism,” Merz told broadcaster WDR in a televised interview.
Merz also says he “no longer understands” the Israeli military's objective in Gaza.
“I no longer understand what the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip, with what goal the civilian population is being impacted to such an extent,” he says.
On Monday, Israeli strikes killed at least 52 people in Gaza, including 36 in a school-turned-shelter that was struck during the night, setting their belongings on fire and burning them alive as they slept. Half of those killed were women and children, and 11 members of a single family lost their lives.
Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have stated that their goal is to destroy Gaza and forcibly expel its 2.3 million Palestinians to foreign countries.
The Economist has estimated that the number of trauma deaths in Gaza is between 77,000 and 109,000 people.
Indirect deaths from Israel's destruction of health, water, and other infrastructure, and ongoing siege, would be in addition to these.
Merz said he plans to have a call with Netanyahu this week to tell him “to not overdo it.” Yet he added that for “historical reasons,” Germany would always be more guarded in its criticism of Israel than other EU members.
The German government has been a strong supporter of Israel diplomatically and has made more than $90 billion in payments to Jews who survived World War II, including many who live in Israel.
The Times of Israel noted, however, that the war against Hamas in Gaza “has cast a shadow over relations, with Germany at pains to carefully calibrate its response.”
Merz's statement comes as lawmakers from Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) are calling for an end to the country's weapons exports to Israel, citing concerns over humanitarian law and growing civilian suffering in Gaza.
“German weapons must not be used to spread humanitarian catastrophes and to violate international law,” Adis Ahmetovic, foreign policy spokesperson for the SPD parliamentary group, said in an interview with Der Stern. “That's why we are calling on [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's government to agree to a ceasefire and return to the negotiating table.”
The SPD is the junior partner in Germany's governing coalition led by Chancellor Merz of the conservative CDU, which has strongly backed Israel's war on Gaza, calling it “self-defense.”
Armin Laschet, head of the foreign affairs committee in Germany's Bundestag, told broadcaster ZDF that public condemnations of Israel's actions in Gaza by Western allies have had “zero” effect in curbing the violence or protecting Palestinian lives.
He defended Germany's pro-Israel stance, dismissing last week's joint statement by the UK, Canada, and France as ineffective, arguing that Germany's “quiet diplomacy” is more productive than “pithy slogans.”
On 19 May, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for Israel to end its current offensive and humanitarian blockade on Gaza.
“We will not stand by while the Netanyahu Government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response,” the three leaders stated.
In recent months, a consensus has emerged among scholars of genocide that Israel is carrying out a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, an investigation by the Dutch newspaper NRC revealed.
The paper interviewed seven renowned genocide and Holocaust researchers from six countries, including Israel, who all described Israel's war on Gaza as genocidal.
“Can I name someone whose work I respect who does not think it is genocide? No, there is no counterargument that takes into account all the evidence,” Israeli researcher Raz Segal told NRC.
https://thecradle.co/articles/german-ch ... -justified
Well, I guess that sets the 'genocide threshold'...So a bit of genocide is tolerable, jfc.
******
Kurtz acquitted
May 26, 18:56
Kurtz acquitted
The Vienna Regional Criminal Court has granted the appeal of former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who was previously sentenced to 8 months of suspended imprisonment for perjury, and acquitted him. This was reported by TASS with reference to the Austrian newspaper Die Presse.
At the same time, a panel of three judges upheld the verdict against the former head of the Chancellor's cabinet, Bernhard Bonelli. He was sentenced to 6 months of suspended imprisonment.
Before this, Kurz had already been acquitted of two other charges and was going to appeal the third.
Recall that the case centered on Kurz's testimony given during an anti-corruption investigation into the coalition created by the conservative Austrian People's Party together with the far-right Freedom Party. The politician headed it from 2017 until its collapse in 2019.
In October 2021, Kurz resigned as Chancellor of Austria amid an investigation, and in December of the same year announced his final retirement from politics.
Earlier, it was reported that Kurz refused to lead the Austrian People's Party again.
https://www.gazeta.ru/politics/news/202 ... 7210.shtml - zinc
The case was obviously fabricated in order to bring down Kurz, who held a position in the style of Orban and Fico.
The spoons were found, but the aftertaste remained. The scheme works.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9861851.html
Google Translator
What!, I thought...Oh wait, wrong guy.
X/ @ForcesOperation
May 27, 2025 Hour: 8:33 am
The European Union ministers also approved the creation of a 150 billion-euro arms fund.
On Tuesday, the Council of the European Union approved 11 new military cooperation projects under the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) initiative, which includes 26 member states.
This marks the sixth round of projects advanced since the initiative’s launch in 2017, through which participating countries aim to deepen their defense ambitions and enhance cooperation in the field.
Following the decision, the number of defense cooperation projects has reached 75, which, according to the Council, demonstrates “the continuous, collective, and determined commitment of the participating member states to strengthen the EU’s defense readiness.”
The new projects cover land, air and maritime domains, as well as strategic enablers and force multipliers. They also include training facilities and cutting-edge technologies such as quantum systems and directed energy weapons. Several of the projects directly address capability priorities identified by EU heads of state and government.
Also on Tuesday, European Union ministers approved the creation of a 150 billion-euro (about US$170.22 billion) arms fund, the bloc’s first large-scale defense investment program at the EU level.
The fund will be channeled through the new Security Action for Europe instrument, which offers competitively priced, long-term loans to member states that choose to invest in defense industrial production through joint procurement of priority capabilities.
The European Commission proposed the fund in March as a key component of its ReArm Europe Plan/Readiness 2030 package, which aims to leverage over 800 billion euros in defense spending to strengthen European security and defense cooperation.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/eu-appro ... framework/
*******
Disarming Europe: Movements take steps towards building a continent of peace
In Naples and Rome, Italian organizers were joined by European political leaders to coordinate resistance to militarization and outline a shared vision for a Europe of peace
May 26, 2025 by Ana Vračar
Source: Potere al Popolo/Facebook
The building of a broad anti-war and disarmament movement in Italy continues, as trade unions and left groups prepare for June 21 – the planned date of a national demonstration against Europe’s ongoing armament agenda. In the lead-up to the event, the political party Potere al Popolo organized meetings under the slogan “Let’s Disarm Them!” in both Naples and Rome during the weekend of May 24–25.
With international guests including Ione Belarra from Podemos, Clémence Guetté from France Unbowed, and Marc Botenga from the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA), the meetings aimed to highlight key priorities for a national and regional peace movement to rally around.
Momentum ahead of June 21 was further boosted by the announcement of the progressive trade union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) of a general strike, scheduled for the day before. The strike will protest the harmful effects of Giorgia Meloni’s government’s policies on Italy’s working class and emphasize the need for workers to support international solidarity struggles. According to USB, the strike will also call attention to the “complicity of Meloni’s administration” in the genocide in Gaza.
Ending Europe’s support for the genocide in Gaza
Throughout the mobilization events, speakers insisted on European responsibility for the crimes committed by Israel in Palestine. Many speakers, including Clémence Guetté, addressed the EU member states’ and institutions’ unwillingness to impose sanctions on Israel or suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement. This reluctance, Guetté noted, is not limited to the right but is also shared by centrist and nominally social-democratic parties.
Yet grassroots movements across the region have launched initiatives to push for meaningful action and hold leaders accountable. “The strikes and blockades by dock workers, from Belgium to Italy, passing through Catalonia, to stop the import and export of arms to Israel show how the working class can act to break the chains of complicity with the war regime being imposed on us,” Giuliano Granato of Potere al Popolo said in reflection on Saturday’s meetings.
“‘Let’s disarm them’ also means standing side by side with the Palestinian people and their resistance, to win that self-determination which international law, reduced to wastepaper under the boots of Western rulers, claims to uphold,” the meeting’s closing statement added.
NATO vs. public services
Another key topic spotlighted over the weekend was the impact of Europe’s ReArm agenda on workers and public services. “Leonardo, Rheinmetall, Dassault, Indra smell blood and pounce on their prey: government budgets. That is, the money of workers across the continent,” the meeting statement read. Allocating €800 billion to ReArm Europe – alongside pressure to raise NATO contributions from 2% to 3% or more, as demanded by the Trump administration – threatens to wipe out public education, healthcare, and other essential services in Europe. Marc Botenga illustrated the scale of these numbers: Belgium’s entire annual GDP – the total value of goods and services produced in 12 months – does not reach €800 billion. Similarly, allocating 5% of the GDP to NATO, as some have recently suggested, would gut the country’s social security system.
If Europe’s new warlords are not stopped, Botenga warned, ReArm Europe could dismantle the rights that workers fought for over decades, potentially degrading healthcare systems in many countries to levels seen in the US. “Every euro handed to the military-industrial complex is one euro less for our needs. One euro less to buy an ambulance, one euro less to secure our schools, one euro less to pay increasingly impoverished workers,” summarized the final statement of the meeting.
And while pursuing this agenda of systemic destruction, political leaders continue to speak of so-called European values and the supposed economic benefits of a new war economy. But these, Botenga insisted, are illusions: history should have taught Europe that an arms race doesn’t make countries safer – it only pushes their neighbors to arm themselves even further.
Fighting militarization, fighting capitalism
Speakers agreed that the only real alternative to the rearmament agenda lies in an international peace movement committed to uniting struggles for disarmament, solidarity, and social justice – in other words, socialism. “Being a peace activist today means being an anti-capitalist militant,” Guetté noted. Popular struggles for disarmament in Europe, she added, must recognize that the arms race is taking place in a context that primarily benefits large weapons manufacturers, and that it is being led by a coalition far broader than just the far right.
Read more: What are European leaders going to choose: people or war?
This convergence of interests between the military industry, the far right, and the political establishment poses a clear threat to the growing popular movements – not only those campaigning in solidarity with Palestine or against armament. In France and Spain, speakers noted, decisions to boost arms spending are often made while sidelining standard democratic procedures in parliament. In Belgium and Italy, governments are floating repressive laws targeting the right to protest and dissent. According to Botenga, this trend serves a specific purpose: preparing the ground for a crackdown on mobilizations that will inevitably grow once the consequences of the militarist agenda become fully visible.
In response, the meeting concluded, the left and broader popular forces must commit themselves to building a “continent of peace.” This vision echoes much of Potere al Popolo’s original call to action for June 21. “No to the police state and neo-fascism,” the party declared last month. “No to the destruction of democracy in the name of internal security and external threats. Fascist laws such as the new security decree must be opposed in every way, just as we must resist warmongering propaganda, witch hunts against dissent, and the criminalization of pacifism.”
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/05/26/ ... -of-peace/
Yes, we utterly oppose imperialism in all it's forms, but as long as there is capitalism we are fools or chumps to be pacifists. It is a petty booj copout.
*****
Eurovision: NATO Psychological Warfare Tool
May 26, 2025
By Kit Klarenberg – May 24, 2025
The 2025 Eurovision Song Contest ended May 17th mired in controversy. The Zionist entity’s entrant, Yuval Raphael, finished second. Her performance, “New Day Will Rise”, received 297 points via public televote – the highest garnered by any act in the competition’s Grand Final, with 13 countries giving Raphael the maximum score of 12 points. This helped “Israel” almost clinch victory, despite coming last among participants in national jury votes. Immediately, state broadcasters across Europe demanded an investigation into flagrant, industrial scale rigging in “Israel’s” favour.
The Zionist entity’s participation in the Contest was the subject of much controversy in its leadup. On May 5th, 72 former Eurovision contestants – including previous winners – cosigned a letter to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) demanding “Israel” and its national broadcaster be banned from the contest, over the country’s “genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and the decades-long regime of apartheid and military occupation against the entire Palestinian people”. Their call was echoed by Spanish premier Pedro Sanchez.
Then, on May 19th, an EBU probe revealed the Israeli Government Advertising Agency conducted a vast, cross-platform online campaign to encourage support for Raphael’s entry. Detailed instructions on how to vote for her via text and phone in countries as far afield as Australia were widely circulated, along with a reminder that individuals could vote up to 20 times each. A dedicated YouTube channel – @Vote4NewDayWillRise – was launched to support the effort, garnering over 8.3 million views. Its videos were widely amplified across social media.
Separate investigations suggest Zionists could’ve further connived to fudge the Contest’s results via “VPNs, automated scripts (bot farms), and bulk SIM card purchases”. It is not the first time Tel Aviv has engaged in brazen fraud to skew Eurovision’s results in its favour. When “Israel” triumphed in the 2018 Contest, speculation widely abounded their victory resulted from meddling by now-defunct online Zionist astroturf effort Act.IL. On top of unambiguous voting irregularities, winning meant the 2019 Contest would be convened in “Israel”.
A June 2018 Knesset hearing spelled out this windfall’s strategic significance. Multiple Zionist entity lawmakers and ministers spoke of how “holding the Eurovision song contest in “Israel” is a gift” that could be exploited to boost and improve “Israel’s” international image, and counteract the burgeoning Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement’s successes. BDS had recently compelled Argentina to cancel a World Cup ‘friendly’ match with the entity, after Tel Aviv attempted to host the bout in illegally occupied al-Quds.
‘Opinion Leaders’
Similar Zionist entity-orchestrated social media and televote chicanery boosted “Israel” to fifth place in the 2024 Contest, which was likewise prefaced by widespread calls to bar Tel Aviv’s participation, and for other participating countries to boycott the event. While falling far short of victory, the public relations utility of “Israel’s” performance was abundantly clear. Entity officials, Western news outlets and pundits eagerly leaped upon the results as proof that despite the ongoing 21st century Holocaust in Gaza, a “silent majority” of Europeans still supported “Israel”.
At the time, journeyman Israeli government “public diplomacy” apparatchik David Saranga gushed to Ynet, “we knew that the situation was less serious than it is reflected in the demonstrations on the streets of Europe, but we did not expect such overwhelming support”. He added, “the fact that even countries where public opinion is critical of “Israel”, such as Sweden or Ireland, gave “Israel” a high score” indicated there were “underground currents” of pro-Zionist sentiment throughout the West.
However, Saranga also admitted the entity’s Foreign Ministry “acted among friendly audiences to increase voting”. Ynet subsequently detailed this effort, which included Tel Aviv’s entrant that year, Eden Golan, recording personal video addresses to foreign audiences in their own languages, referencing a supposed “wave of hatred” being whipped up against “Israel” by “Muslims”. Extensive analysis was conducted to ensure her message reached “Eurovision-loving audiences such as the LGBT community in Europe, members of fan clubs, journalists covering the contest and opinion leaders in the field.”
Following Yuval Raphael coming second this year, a familiar chorus erupted, with numerous prominent figures claiming her televoting preeminence was indicative of concealed Zionist sentiment the world over, and that ever-growing Palestine solidarity actions were not representative of wider public opinion. This is despite her performances being met with such intense booing, some European broadcasters resorted to piping in pre-recorded cheers and applause to drown out the mass jeering. Meanwhile, polls amply indicate the overwhelming majority of Europeans hold “unfavourable” views of Tel Aviv.
That the Zionist entity has so consistently invested enormous time, energy, and money into attempting to ‘game’ Eurovision over so many years is a testament to its redoubtable international propaganda potency. Up to 200 million people worldwide routinely tune in to the tournament every year, and Tel Aviv is not alone in seeking to weaponise the tournament for political reasons. In fact, Eurovision was secretly created as a psychological warfare tool by NATO to manipulate and control public opinion for this explicit purpose.
‘Psychological Action’
In January 2015, an extraordinary, hitherto secret document drawn up by NATO’s Committee on Information and Cultural Relations in March 1955 was published for the first time. It outlined the practical and ideological foundations of Eurovision, which was first convened next year, with just seven participants. A section of “aims” of the Contest states NATO’s objective was to “make the most” of TV, which “gives mankind at long last, the possibility, through the visual image, of conquering time and distance”, reaching vast global audiences simultaneously:
“Television has enabled sight to triumph over time and space, and this is the aspect which struck us most forcibly and led us to believe that it was our duty to break through the narrow boundaries which confined our programmes to spectators clustered around our respective capital cities, and to travel the world. There is no point in having a wonderful instrument in our hands if all we are going to do…is show the suburbs of Paris, London or Milan in France, England or Italy.”
The document went on to state “the thrill” of TV “lies in ranging as far afield as possible…[using] this marvellous instrument’s capacity for the instantaneous transmission of an event taking place elsewhere.” NATO contended “television transcends the frontiers of our European countries,” and thus the military alliance “held within [its] grasp a unique instrument for social and psychological action”. In sum, a “nervous system” of Europe could be constructed, “far more powerful than the telephone” or radio, to “animate the…general public.”
The document concludes with its author, Jean d’Arcy, then-senior director of French state broadcaster Radiodiffusion Française, expressing his sincere hope that the “social significance of Eurovision will become ever more apparent as it progresses along the lines which…it is destined to follow”. The file was a summary of remarks he made at a dedicated NATO conference “of senior information officials” in Paris two months earlier. His talk was described in a subsequent alliance newsletter as “most interesting”.
At that conference, Hastings Ismay, NATO’s first secretary general – who notoriously declared the alliance’s purpose was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down” across Europe – “reiterated his steadfast conviction of the importance of a profounder and more widespread understanding of NATO’s aims and achievements”. Eurovision provided an ideal opportunity to insidiously achieve those goals in a non-military context, propounding European unity and cultural superiority over the Soviet Union while the Cold War was in its infancy.
The collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union’s subsequent dissolution, vastly increased Eurovision’s pool of contestants. It was not until 1994 that Russia first appeared at the Contest. On February 25th 2022, one day after the Ukraine proxy war erupted, Moscow was banned from participating, which has remained in place ever since. In that year’s competition, Kiev prevailed, with The Kalush Orchestra’s song “Stefania” – interpreted in some quarters as an ode to Ukrainian ultranationalist mass-murderer Stepan Bandera – securing first place.
NATO deputy secretary general Mircea Geoana praised Ukraine’s victory and its “beautiful song”, linking Kiev’s triumph “to its bravery in fighting Russia”, and “immense public support all over Europe and Australia” for the proxy war. A Reuters report on Geoana’s comments commenced by declaring, “Eurovision and NATO might not usually be associated” – the international newswire’s writers apparently unaware that the military alliance was from inception, and remains, absolutely fundamental to the international tournament’s operation.
https://orinocotribune.com/eurovision-n ... fare-tool/
Propaganda saturated every aspect of Western culture; we are fish and it is water.
******
German chancellor says Gaza genocide 'no longer justified'
Support for Israel is falling among its traditional European backers amid its current war and ethnic cleansing of Gaza
News Desk
MAY 26, 2025
(Photo credit: Christof Stache/AFP via Getty Images)
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on 26 May that Israel's recent airstrikes killing hundreds of civilians in Gaza could no longer be “justified” as a fight against Hamas.
“Harming the civilian population to such an extent, as has increasingly been the case in recent days, can no longer be justified as a fight against Hamas terrorism,” Merz told broadcaster WDR in a televised interview.
Merz also says he “no longer understands” the Israeli military's objective in Gaza.
“I no longer understand what the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip, with what goal the civilian population is being impacted to such an extent,” he says.
On Monday, Israeli strikes killed at least 52 people in Gaza, including 36 in a school-turned-shelter that was struck during the night, setting their belongings on fire and burning them alive as they slept. Half of those killed were women and children, and 11 members of a single family lost their lives.
Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have stated that their goal is to destroy Gaza and forcibly expel its 2.3 million Palestinians to foreign countries.
The Economist has estimated that the number of trauma deaths in Gaza is between 77,000 and 109,000 people.
Indirect deaths from Israel's destruction of health, water, and other infrastructure, and ongoing siege, would be in addition to these.
Merz said he plans to have a call with Netanyahu this week to tell him “to not overdo it.” Yet he added that for “historical reasons,” Germany would always be more guarded in its criticism of Israel than other EU members.
The German government has been a strong supporter of Israel diplomatically and has made more than $90 billion in payments to Jews who survived World War II, including many who live in Israel.
The Times of Israel noted, however, that the war against Hamas in Gaza “has cast a shadow over relations, with Germany at pains to carefully calibrate its response.”
Merz's statement comes as lawmakers from Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) are calling for an end to the country's weapons exports to Israel, citing concerns over humanitarian law and growing civilian suffering in Gaza.
“German weapons must not be used to spread humanitarian catastrophes and to violate international law,” Adis Ahmetovic, foreign policy spokesperson for the SPD parliamentary group, said in an interview with Der Stern. “That's why we are calling on [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's government to agree to a ceasefire and return to the negotiating table.”
The SPD is the junior partner in Germany's governing coalition led by Chancellor Merz of the conservative CDU, which has strongly backed Israel's war on Gaza, calling it “self-defense.”
Armin Laschet, head of the foreign affairs committee in Germany's Bundestag, told broadcaster ZDF that public condemnations of Israel's actions in Gaza by Western allies have had “zero” effect in curbing the violence or protecting Palestinian lives.
He defended Germany's pro-Israel stance, dismissing last week's joint statement by the UK, Canada, and France as ineffective, arguing that Germany's “quiet diplomacy” is more productive than “pithy slogans.”
On 19 May, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for Israel to end its current offensive and humanitarian blockade on Gaza.
“We will not stand by while the Netanyahu Government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response,” the three leaders stated.
In recent months, a consensus has emerged among scholars of genocide that Israel is carrying out a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, an investigation by the Dutch newspaper NRC revealed.
The paper interviewed seven renowned genocide and Holocaust researchers from six countries, including Israel, who all described Israel's war on Gaza as genocidal.
“Can I name someone whose work I respect who does not think it is genocide? No, there is no counterargument that takes into account all the evidence,” Israeli researcher Raz Segal told NRC.
https://thecradle.co/articles/german-ch ... -justified
Well, I guess that sets the 'genocide threshold'...So a bit of genocide is tolerable, jfc.
******
Kurtz acquitted
May 26, 18:56
Kurtz acquitted
The Vienna Regional Criminal Court has granted the appeal of former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who was previously sentenced to 8 months of suspended imprisonment for perjury, and acquitted him. This was reported by TASS with reference to the Austrian newspaper Die Presse.
At the same time, a panel of three judges upheld the verdict against the former head of the Chancellor's cabinet, Bernhard Bonelli. He was sentenced to 6 months of suspended imprisonment.
Before this, Kurz had already been acquitted of two other charges and was going to appeal the third.
Recall that the case centered on Kurz's testimony given during an anti-corruption investigation into the coalition created by the conservative Austrian People's Party together with the far-right Freedom Party. The politician headed it from 2017 until its collapse in 2019.
In October 2021, Kurz resigned as Chancellor of Austria amid an investigation, and in December of the same year announced his final retirement from politics.
Earlier, it was reported that Kurz refused to lead the Austrian People's Party again.
https://www.gazeta.ru/politics/news/202 ... 7210.shtml - zinc
The case was obviously fabricated in order to bring down Kurz, who held a position in the style of Orban and Fico.
The spoons were found, but the aftertaste remained. The scheme works.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9861851.html
Google Translator
What!, I thought...Oh wait, wrong guy.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Blues for Europa
Hotsy-Totsy, another Nazi: Friedrich Merz proposes joint production of Taurus with Kiev
May 29, 2025
On 15 February 2022, at his joint news conference with Vladimir Putin which concluded his visit to Moscow, former German chancellor Olaf Scholz called ‘risible’ the Russian leader’s denunciation of the Kiev regime as neo-Nazi run. How could a nation led by a Jew, Zelensky, behave in a Nazi manner, he asked with sarcasm. In saying this, Scholz discredited himself to the Russians once and for all. He also surely contributed to Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch the Special Military Operation on the 24th by demonstrating that it was hopeless to find a diplomatic solution to the East-West confrontation since basic assumptions were too far apart.
To his credit, in the three years of warfare in and over Ukraine that followed Scholz had sufficient discipline and fear of overly antagonizing the neighbor to the East which compelled him to ignore the warlike pronouncements of his Foreign Minister from the Greens Analena Baerbock and his popular Defense Minister Pistorius. He refused to allow the shipment of Germany’s Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine lest this directly involve Germany in the war, leading to unpredictable but ominous Russian retaliation.
During his electoral campaign last fall, Scholz’s successor, Christian Democrat leader Friedrich Merz chose instead to light the fires of German revanchism to bolster voter support. He advocated the delivery of the Taurus to Kiev. Not only that, but he precisely recommended it be used to destroy Russia’s landmark Kerch bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula with mainland Russia, thereby inflicting a humiliation of enormous proportions on the Kremlin.
In the early weeks of his chancellorship, Merz was prevented from openly handing over Taurus to the Ukrainians by his coalition partners, the Social Democrats, who insisted on abiding by Scholz’s ruling. However, we see from the Chancellor’s meeting with Zelensky yesterday for consultations on further military assistance to Ukraine, that Merz has chosen to have his way by crook if not by hook. Their joint declaration speaks of technical cooperation enabling Kiev to manufacture precision long range missiles for the purpose of striking military bases deep inside the Russian Federation.
The formula advanced by Merz and Zelensky leaves it unclear exactly where the future production facility would be situated, but it is a safe guess to say that it would be inside Germany, because anything built within Ukraine would surely be destroyed by Russia’s Oreshniks before it produced the very first products. Merz is gambling on the notion that Russia will not dare strike Germany due to its protection under Article 5 of the NATO treaty.
In doing this, Merz is willfully ignoring the unmistakable remarks of Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Germany’s participation in sending Taurus missiles against the Russian Federation makes it a co-belligerent and that Russian retaliation against Germany will follow.
Friedrich Merz is now publicly identified by the Kremlin as a Hitler-like figure. No ifs, ands or buts. He is viewed as the embodiment of German revanchism which will be smashed just as the Nazi armies were smashed 80 years ago. The German nation has been forewarned. We now wait to see how it will respond.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/05/29/ ... with-kiev/
(For all you youngsters a joke from my childhood:
What did Hitler say when his wife had a baby?
Hotsy-totsy, another Nazi)
Police targets Potere al Popolo in undercover operation
Italy’s left party Potere al Popolo was infiltrated for months by undercover police, leading activists to raise alarm over growing authoritarian tactics
May 27, 2025 by Ana Vračar
Anti-militarization demonstration in Rome, March 15, 2025. Source: Jérôme Legavre/X
The Italian left political party Potere al Popolo announced that it uncovered that for approximately 10 months, a 21-year-old officer had infiltrated the party. The young officer pretended to be a supporter, joining mobilizations and political discussions while apparently sharing information with state authorities, the party said on Tuesday.
Potere al Popolo and other progressive groups denounced the incident as a troubling sign of the growing authoritarianism of Giorgia Meloni’s government and the state structures aligned with her ministers. “The situation, if we start connecting the dots, becomes increasingly disturbing,” the party wrote in a statement. “First, the news of espionage via Paragon spyware targeting journalists (Fanpage) and NGOs (Mediterranea), now the infiltration of a political party. Are we to believe this government is so intolerant of dissent that it must resort to regime-style tactics?”
How the infiltration was discovered
Giuliano Granato, a spokesperson for Potere al Popolo, first shared the news in an interview with the media outlet Fanpage. He described how the Naples chapter of the party had been approached by a young man claiming to be a student from another city. Soon after, he began participating in all of the party’s activities and mobilizations, from anti-eviction efforts to the national assembly to preparations for International Workers’ Day. “He was always present at political events,” Granato told Fanpage. “But he never formed any personal bonds with members. No evenings out, no beers, no dinners. Quite odd for an out-of-town student.”
The activists’ initial doubts prompted them to look into their supposed comrade. While they found surprisingly little on social media, a simple Google search revealed far more. They discovered records of the young man graduating from a policing course in 2023, along with several photographs of him in police uniform and alongside other officers. Their suspicions peaked after the May 1 demonstrations, when he was observed in a contentious conversation at a restaurant, which led party members to conclude he was likely sharing information about their activities. They decided to confront him.
“When we told him he was no longer welcome, and that he didn’t need to ask why, because doing so would insult both his and our intelligence, he didn’t even try to deny it, explain himself, or pretend to misunderstand,” Granato recounted in the interview with Fanpage. “He simply wished us a good day and walked away.”
The same person later attempted to reestablish contact with party members but gave up after being confronted with the evidence, including photos of him in uniform. The entire episode left little doubt, Potere al Popolo argued, that the group had been subjected to a calculated – if rather low-cost – act of political surveillance. The infiltrator had not been provided with a more substantial cover story or an alternate name, among other things.
Not an isolated issue, but a wider threat
In the broader context of Meloni’s push for increasingly aggressive forms of repression, including the recent Security Decree, Potere al Popolo warned that the situation may be spiraling beyond authoritarianism and edging toward outright dictatorship. “This story is not just about us,” Granato wrote on X, “but about the kind of ‘democracy’ envisioned by the state apparatus and the Meloni government: an increasingly reactionary and authoritarian model of society. Democracy does not exist if the state enters your home, spies on you, infiltrates you, and criminalizes you.”
Just days before the infiltration came to light, Potere al Popolo hosted international meetings to help build a broad anti-militarization movement in Europe, with participants from France Unbowed, Podemos, and the Workers’ Party of Belgium. At that event too, speakers warned of the increasingly repressive climate being fostered by right-wing and mainstream governments toward social movements and the left. As with resistance to Europe’s armament agenda, the response to the criminalization of dissent, they argued, must come through mass mobilization and solidarity – a response that was echoed by trade unions following the revelation of the infiltration in Potere al Popolo.
“We have shared many initiatives with Potere al Popolo over the years,” the trade union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) wrote, “and this news alarms us regarding the protection of constitutional freedoms, including the right to political and labor organizing. This wickedness, spying on and provoking those who fight openly among the people and the working class to democratically challenge the current political and social model, exposes the true face of the Meloni government.”
“This is not an attack on a specific political party, but on the foundations of a democratic state governed by the rule of law,” Granato concluded. “This affects all of us. Why this operation? Who decided, planned and ordered it? Do we really want our country to be transformed, step by step, into an autocratic regime?”
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/05/27/ ... operation/
******
Romania and the controlled collapse of democracy: Elections under surveillance and external guardianship
Lucas Leiroz
May 28, 2025
Crisis in Romania clearly reveals the new direction of European democracy.
The recent presidential elections in Romania have brought to light a disturbing portrait of the current state of democracy in Eastern Europe. More than a simple electoral contest between two opposing candidates, the Romanian process exposed the intersection of external interference, informational manipulation, and institutionalized political engineering.
A recent report by Romanian researcher Ioana Bărăgan, published in the Global Fact Checking Network’s website, provides a detailed overview of the events and reveals that, behind the appearance of democratic normality, there is a carefully scripted performance driven by supranational interests. The cancellation of the 2024 elections—later repeated in May 2025—was justified by suspicions of electoral corruption and cyber interference. These allegations, serious as they may seem, were not supported by conclusive evidence. The mere fact that such accusations were enough to annul an entire electoral process, as described by Bărăgan, already points to the fragility of Romanian institutional sovereignty. The subsequent rerun election did not resolve these issues—it only deepened them.
In the new election, George Simion, leader of the nationalist Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR), won the first round with a wide margin: 40.96% against 20.27% for Nicușor Dan, the mayor of Bucharest and a symbol of the liberal-globalist establishment. Nevertheless, Dan was declared the winner in the second round, largely due to last-minute votes from urban areas—a phenomenon that, as Bărăgan suggests, was crucial to the reversal.
The shift in vote counts reveals a recurring pattern in countries under the direct influence of EU structures: nationalism wins where there is stronger contact with everyday reality—rural areas, the working class, the average citizen—but is artificially defeated in the metropolitan statistics, where voting becomes an extension of state propaganda and fear incited by the media.
There is also the international backdrop to consider. Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, publicly denounced a direct attempt at interference by French intelligence services, who allegedly requested that he censor conservative Romanian voices. Durov’s refusal to comply reinforces Simion’s claims of external meddling. The very existence of such a request is, in itself, a democratic scandal—but it was largely ignored by the mainstream Western press.
At the same time, Romanian authorities also reported destabilization attempts attributed to Russia. This creates a convenient narrative: any outcome that contradicts the interests of the Euro-Atlantic bloc can be blamed on the Kremlin—a rhetorical device used both to delegitimize opposition candidates and to justify exceptional measures.
The heart of the issue lies not only in the possibility of interference but in the selectivity with which it is addressed. When social media platforms favor establishment-aligned candidates, scandals are quickly silenced and the perpetrators absolved. Conversely, when anti-establishment candidates benefit from strategic use of these platforms, a flood of accusations emerges – ranging from fraud to illicit financing and algorithmic manipulation. Yet, everything fades once the game is settled.
The 2025 election also revealed the chaos within Romania’s own political class. Leaders such as Crin Antonescu and Victor Ponta refused to clearly support either candidate, reflecting the ideological vacuum within the party system. Even though Ponta signaled preference for Simion, he failed to transfer his voter base – demonstrating the erosion of traditional political authority.
Simion, for his part, struggled with his radicalized image. Despite leading abroad – with significant victories in the diaspora from Italy, Spain, and Germany – he was defeated in Romania’s urban centers and in sensitive regions like Moldova, where he is persona non grata due to his unionist activities. Moldova’s rejection of his candidacy, benefiting Dan, underscores the tension between Romanian nationalism and Moldovan sovereignty – often instrumentalized by transnational elites to discredit reunification projects.
The role of the European Union and the United States cannot be ignored. As Bărăgan reminds us, statements like that of U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who criticized Romania’s institutional weakness, were ignored by Romanian leaders who chose instead to reaffirm their submission to the Euro-Atlantic axis. The European Commission, meanwhile, launched a selective investigation into TikTok’s role in the elections—but with emphasis solely on the “Russian threat,” never on internal mechanisms of manipulation.
What emerges is a tutelary democracy, where citizens vote but do not decide. Institutions exist, but serve an external agenda. Candidates are allowed only as long as they do not challenge transnational consensus. The electoral process is preserved as a form—but emptied of sovereign substance.
As Bărăgan aptly states in her article, the Romanian case shows that the future of democracy in Eastern Europe depends less and less on voters, and more and more on algorithms, Brussels commissioners, and Western intelligence agencies. It is a bitter—but necessary—lesson for those who still believe that popular sovereignty and European integration can coexist.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... rdianship/
Western elites have already determined the fate of the EU
Hugo Dionísio
May 29, 2025
Donald Trump’s return to the scene accelerates the decline of U.S. hegemony.
The recent pressure from Donald Trump on the European Union, with an abrupt increase in tariffs and their near-immediate suspension—apparently following a phone call with the President of the European Commission—clearly demonstrates the immense pressure the U.S. exerts on the EU, the role it has assigned to the bloc, and the impulsive, erratic nature of the policies pursued by the White House.
It is futile to claim that what is currently labeled as “democracy” is a political regime where a single individual, driven by stubbornness, obstinacy, and recklessness—coupled with ignorance and lack of culture—can send the entire hegemonic financial system into turmoil, while the supposed “checks and balances” of American democracy fail to function. This is pure idealism.
The reality is that Donald Trump’s return to the scene accelerates the decline of U.S. hegemony. Paradoxically—or perhaps not—the self-inflicted wounds to the U.S. economy cause the most pain in the European Union. Every blow Trump deals to U.S. credibility hits the EU hardest! The most alarming part is that no one seems willing to acknowledge the source of the pain or even locate the wound. This blindness, typical of weak and utterly mediocre leaders like Macron, Starmer, Merz, or Von der Leyen, is leading the European Union—and especially its member states—toward a disaster as predictable as it is diligently concealed. However, as we will see, amid all this, the economic and social catastrophe unfolding in fast forward will be the least of our worries.
If international capital already struggles to lend money to the U.S., disillusioned by its declining global dominance, why should the EU follow the same path? Like other nations and entities, it should begin preparing for a post-U.S., post-dollar future, which, though delayed, will inevitably arrive. But that is not what happened.
Days after the phone call between Von der Leyen and Trump—during which she likely promised increased purchases of gas, weapons, oil, treasury bonds, and other overpriced goods the U.S. is pushing onto its “partners” and “allies”—news emerged that “member states approved the SAFE loan instrument worth 150 billion euros to strengthen European defense capabilities”.
The instruments created by Von der Leyen’s Commission, with grandiose names like “SAFE” and “ReArm Europe,” share a common trait: deepening dependence on the U.S., further indebting EU countries, and hastening their march toward the abyss.
To say that “the European Commission welcomes the agreement reached in the EU Council on the Security Assistance Facility for Europe (SAFE)” is as redundant as claiming that António Costa, Portugal’s former prime minister with a stable absolute majority, fought for the Portuguese people and prevented the President from handing the country over to the far-right, reactionary, and ultraliberal forces. The cowardly behavior of the current President of the European Council in the face of the judicial coup against his government not only secured his place in the Council but also revealed his “special aptitude” for the role. Thus, it is no surprise that the Council accepted the European Commission’s proposal, with António Costa acting as the broker of the deal.
150 billion euros for weaponry, of which only 65% must be spent on EU-made products, served to appease Trump and cowardly buy two more months of calm. Given that Trump’s retreat was not genuine—he merely suspended what was already suspended—we can only conclude that this was a maneuver to placate the European public. After all, if the EU suddenly announced it would spend an additional 150 billion on weapons amid rising fascism and Nazism fueled by deteriorating living conditions, it would be hard to justify. Even harder to explain would be why a supposedly anti-Trump EU would purchase over 50 billion euros worth of arms from him.
The scheme is plain to see: faced with the U.S. debt market crisis and Trump’s need to calm markets and attract foreign currency—like the euros the EU has in abundance (alongside Saudi Arabia or Qatar)—he dangled the false threat of tariff hikes, giving the EU a pretext to release the funds. In return, Trump merely had to distance himself from Vladimir Putin, as when he claimed, “Putin is crazy.” A grand circus to deceive the gullible. The EU urgently needs weapons to deliver to Ukraine, and to do so, it must first buy them. Once in national stockpiles, no one will track them. Thus, yet another “donation” to the Kiev regime is made—tens of billions of euros under the guise of European rearmament.
Regardless of who initiated this, the situation underscores the EU’s inescapable dependence on the U.S., its deepening despite formal rhetoric, and the insatiable U.S. demand for the EU to sacrifice itself to save the empire. And the EU does not resist. Instead, it sinks alongside it.
Mario Draghi’s report, The Future of European Competitiveness—A Competitiveness Strategy for Europe, directly highlights the EU’s dependencies:
Dependence on critical raw materials (China and others): The EU imports >90% of essential raw materials for green and digital technologies, such as lithium, cobalt, and rare earths, primarily from China (70-90% of global refining).
Technological dependence (U.S. and Asia): In semiconductors, 75-90% of advanced chips are manufactured in Asia (Taiwan, South Korea), while the EU has no chip factories below 22 nm (the U.S. and Asia dominate 3-5 nm processes). In AI and cloud, 85% of the EU market is controlled by Amazon, Microsoft, and Google (U.S.), with China leading in AI patents, while the EU lags.
Energy dependence (Russia, U.S., and Middle East): After the Ukraine war, the EU replaced Russian gas with LNG from the U.S. and Qatar, but at 3-5 times the price. It also relies on China for 80% of solar panels and EV batteries.
Defense industry dependence (U.S.): 78% of EU defense purchases in 2022-2023 were from non-European suppliers (63% to the U.S.). The EU uses 12 different tank models, while the U.S. standardizes to one.
Export market dependence (China and U.S.): China is the EU’s largest trade partner, but also an industrial competitor.
Although these dependencies are identified in the report commissioned by Von der Leyen, Draghi’s proposals to reduce reliance on the U.S. are far more timid than those targeting China. Moreover, the European Commission is not following these solutions. For example, the EU is not investing in domestic chip production, preferring to fund U.S. factories on European soil—a strategy Trump is now reversing. In digital platforms, the EU focuses more on regulating California-based companies than creating its ecosystem, surrendering digital sovereignty and control over the minds of Europeans.
While Draghi proposed diversifying suppliers (e.g., agreements with Africa and Latin America), deliberately omitting Russia and the importance of price competition, Von der Leyen has ignored even these suggestions. Instead, she has deepened energy dependence on U.S. LNG and other vulnerabilities. The EU continues to neglect homegrown chip production, opting to finance U.S. factories in Europe—a strategy Trump is dismantling. In digital platforms, the EU prioritizes accommodating California-based companies under European law over building its own ecosystem, relinquishing digital sovereignty and control over its citizens’ minds. The EU grants this access to the U.S. and then feigns surprise when American political struggles are mirrored in European politics.
Any initiative for competitive EU production is hindered by its dependence on expensive energy and industrial outsourcing, which prevents it from competing with integrated value chains like China’s. The SAFE instrument proves the EU has no intention of freeing itself from U.S. arms dependence, imposing a brutal economic burden on Europeans, who pay more for what others buy cheaply.
Meanwhile, economic indicators do not lie: we arrived here because of these decisions. Ursula von der Leyen’s rise in the EU not only reflects Germany’s destructive role in Europe but also the degeneration of German national and cultural pride, projected onto the EU. If von der Leyen is an agent of sabotage for European economies, Merz is no better, nor is Scholz. Merz’s latest move was proposing EU sanctions on Nord Stream—infrastructure paid for by the Germans, which guaranteed their competitiveness. The confiscation of Gerhard Schröder’s accounts and the persecution of journalist Alina Lipp show that democracy in Germany has long been extinguished.
The persecution of electoral candidates (like Georgescu), electoral fraud (Romania and possibly Germany with BSW), the ostracism of non-compliant countries (like Slovakia), EU funding of USAID—typical of dictatorships meddling in others’ affairs—and the judicial coup against Marine Le Pen prove this EU learns nothing from its mistakes. While interfering in elections and imposing draconian rules on smaller nations, Von der Leyen announces she will “mobilize” 800 billion euros from national budgets, displaying authoritarianism, arrogance, and utter disregard for member states’ development needs. If the proportion of this 800 billion destined for the U.S. matches the SAFE instrument, we understand why Trump “suspended” the tariffs.
The anemic growth of major EU economies in 2024 (with the exception of Spain, none reached 0.5% per quarter), the replacement of the U.S. by China as the top trade partner (notably since 2022), and the EU’s fall to third-largest global economy (in 2008, its GDP surpassed the U.S.’s) reflect the accelerated decline under Von der Leyen’s “reign”—a de facto U.S. CEO in the European Commission. Housing, energy, and healthcare crises, alongside brain drain, complete the bleak picture.
Under Durão Barroso, the EU became the world’s third-largest economy, but under von der Leyen, the gap has widened drastically. Before the EuroMaidan coup (2011), the EU’s GDP rivaled the U.S.’s, and in 2008, it was higher). But if GDP can be misleading, what about the housing, energy, and healthcare crises, or the emigration of skilled labor (dubbed “talent”)? How can these be solved when Von der Leyen and her aide António Costa merely apply prescribed recipes, deepening dependence on the U.S. while silencing dissent and scapegoating China and Russia? Was it not these very dependencies that propelled the EU to the world’s largest economy in 2008?
German reunification, the euro, and the Lisbon Treaty were steps in instrumentalizing the EU for Wall Street and Washington’s agendas, which dominate European capitals. The picture could not be starker: during the second Iraq War, it was Schröder, Chirac, and Hollande who prevented the EU from joining the madness. In Portugal, Durão Barroso hosted the launch of an illicit, illegitimate war—an aggression responsible for a million deaths. The attack, even then, was on Europe itself. Back then, it was about rescuing the petrodollar, countering the advantages the EU gained from Iraq’s decision to sell oil in euros instead of dollars.
An EU with the world’s largest GDP was capable of resisting collaboration in its own destruction. The “European” role in this aggression was played by Tony Blair’s UK and Durão Barroso’s Portugal. The latter, like António Costa more recently, paid for his ticket to the European Commission. By the time Barroso left in 2014, the EU was a shadow of its former self. His tenure saw the “Arab Spring,” which destabilized the Maghreb, the destruction of Libya in a proxy war where the U.S. fought Russia and China, and France fought Italy. For the U.S., it was about oil; for France, neocolonialism in Africa, threatened by Gaddafi’s pan-African vision. Italy, Libya’s major trade partner, suffered the most, losing access to Libyan gold reserves intended for a pan-African currency to replace the CFA franc.
One of the EU’s most important engines was damaged, and with Syria’s destruction—also aided by Barroso’s Commission—the floodgates of migration burst open, overwhelming traditional destinations (Libya, Iraq, Syria…). The EU had already lost ground to the U.S. economically and fell behind in the digital race, irreversibly sidelined in the 21st-century competition for AI and digitalization. Instead, Barroso handed everything to the U.S. That was his purpose.
Von der Leyen has not only continued but deepened this trajectory, as did Juncker. Just as Barroso let the EU join wars (against Libya and Syria) that harmed it, Von der Leyen allowed the U.S. to exploit Ukraine to control and permanently derail Europe from global competition. Expensive gas and raw materials, a divided EU, and a slide into authoritarianism, dictatorship, and fascism to suppress dissent—fascism does not need fascist parties, only fascist policies—have left the EU instrumentalized by war and militarism. Today, the U.S. assigns the EU the same role once given to Africa and Latin America: a dumping ground for U.S. energy, weapons, and trade surpluses.
Von der Leyen’s dozens of “strategies,” “acts,” and “pacts” have accelerated this decline, bringing us to the brink of something far graver. If the European economy is decomposing, potentially dragging the EU down with it, perhaps all we can do is hope it happens quickly. The bellicose signals from northern and central Europe suggest that the instrumentalization of European nations by the continent’s major powers, if realized, could give Germany and the UK (whose people Starmer betrayed by reapproaching the EU and dismissing Brexit) what they need to attack Russia once more—80 years after World War II.
The signs are unmistakable. In Portugal, news highlights Finland’s “marvelous bunkers,” now numbering over 5,000, with construction mandates extending to residential buildings. In the U.S., bunker sales are booming, a multimillion-dollar business thriving on fear. In Switzerland, once neutral but now tarnished by freezing Russian reserves and endorsing sanctions, bunker inspections are ordered, with claims it is “not for war”. Perhaps they aim to launch a multimillion-dollar bunker vacation business, I jest. In Germany, bunkers are being prepared for “wartime”.
In short, minds are made up, and the fate is sealed. The path is toward war, and swiftly, reserving for our youth—only the wealthiest—a “spectacular” life in golden cages called bunkers. Perhaps the fiction of Silo will become reality. Peace, happiness, poverty alleviation, and violence prevention are absent from the plans of those in charge. Money is being spent to construct our own destruction, paradoxically.
Amid all this, who can claim that the EU’s economic disaster—and that of the entire West—is the worst of our troubles?
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... ate-of-eu/
May 29, 2025
On 15 February 2022, at his joint news conference with Vladimir Putin which concluded his visit to Moscow, former German chancellor Olaf Scholz called ‘risible’ the Russian leader’s denunciation of the Kiev regime as neo-Nazi run. How could a nation led by a Jew, Zelensky, behave in a Nazi manner, he asked with sarcasm. In saying this, Scholz discredited himself to the Russians once and for all. He also surely contributed to Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch the Special Military Operation on the 24th by demonstrating that it was hopeless to find a diplomatic solution to the East-West confrontation since basic assumptions were too far apart.
To his credit, in the three years of warfare in and over Ukraine that followed Scholz had sufficient discipline and fear of overly antagonizing the neighbor to the East which compelled him to ignore the warlike pronouncements of his Foreign Minister from the Greens Analena Baerbock and his popular Defense Minister Pistorius. He refused to allow the shipment of Germany’s Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine lest this directly involve Germany in the war, leading to unpredictable but ominous Russian retaliation.
During his electoral campaign last fall, Scholz’s successor, Christian Democrat leader Friedrich Merz chose instead to light the fires of German revanchism to bolster voter support. He advocated the delivery of the Taurus to Kiev. Not only that, but he precisely recommended it be used to destroy Russia’s landmark Kerch bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula with mainland Russia, thereby inflicting a humiliation of enormous proportions on the Kremlin.
In the early weeks of his chancellorship, Merz was prevented from openly handing over Taurus to the Ukrainians by his coalition partners, the Social Democrats, who insisted on abiding by Scholz’s ruling. However, we see from the Chancellor’s meeting with Zelensky yesterday for consultations on further military assistance to Ukraine, that Merz has chosen to have his way by crook if not by hook. Their joint declaration speaks of technical cooperation enabling Kiev to manufacture precision long range missiles for the purpose of striking military bases deep inside the Russian Federation.
The formula advanced by Merz and Zelensky leaves it unclear exactly where the future production facility would be situated, but it is a safe guess to say that it would be inside Germany, because anything built within Ukraine would surely be destroyed by Russia’s Oreshniks before it produced the very first products. Merz is gambling on the notion that Russia will not dare strike Germany due to its protection under Article 5 of the NATO treaty.
In doing this, Merz is willfully ignoring the unmistakable remarks of Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Germany’s participation in sending Taurus missiles against the Russian Federation makes it a co-belligerent and that Russian retaliation against Germany will follow.
Friedrich Merz is now publicly identified by the Kremlin as a Hitler-like figure. No ifs, ands or buts. He is viewed as the embodiment of German revanchism which will be smashed just as the Nazi armies were smashed 80 years ago. The German nation has been forewarned. We now wait to see how it will respond.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/05/29/ ... with-kiev/
(For all you youngsters a joke from my childhood:
What did Hitler say when his wife had a baby?
Hotsy-totsy, another Nazi)
Police targets Potere al Popolo in undercover operation
Italy’s left party Potere al Popolo was infiltrated for months by undercover police, leading activists to raise alarm over growing authoritarian tactics
May 27, 2025 by Ana Vračar
Anti-militarization demonstration in Rome, March 15, 2025. Source: Jérôme Legavre/X
The Italian left political party Potere al Popolo announced that it uncovered that for approximately 10 months, a 21-year-old officer had infiltrated the party. The young officer pretended to be a supporter, joining mobilizations and political discussions while apparently sharing information with state authorities, the party said on Tuesday.
Potere al Popolo and other progressive groups denounced the incident as a troubling sign of the growing authoritarianism of Giorgia Meloni’s government and the state structures aligned with her ministers. “The situation, if we start connecting the dots, becomes increasingly disturbing,” the party wrote in a statement. “First, the news of espionage via Paragon spyware targeting journalists (Fanpage) and NGOs (Mediterranea), now the infiltration of a political party. Are we to believe this government is so intolerant of dissent that it must resort to regime-style tactics?”
How the infiltration was discovered
Giuliano Granato, a spokesperson for Potere al Popolo, first shared the news in an interview with the media outlet Fanpage. He described how the Naples chapter of the party had been approached by a young man claiming to be a student from another city. Soon after, he began participating in all of the party’s activities and mobilizations, from anti-eviction efforts to the national assembly to preparations for International Workers’ Day. “He was always present at political events,” Granato told Fanpage. “But he never formed any personal bonds with members. No evenings out, no beers, no dinners. Quite odd for an out-of-town student.”
The activists’ initial doubts prompted them to look into their supposed comrade. While they found surprisingly little on social media, a simple Google search revealed far more. They discovered records of the young man graduating from a policing course in 2023, along with several photographs of him in police uniform and alongside other officers. Their suspicions peaked after the May 1 demonstrations, when he was observed in a contentious conversation at a restaurant, which led party members to conclude he was likely sharing information about their activities. They decided to confront him.
“When we told him he was no longer welcome, and that he didn’t need to ask why, because doing so would insult both his and our intelligence, he didn’t even try to deny it, explain himself, or pretend to misunderstand,” Granato recounted in the interview with Fanpage. “He simply wished us a good day and walked away.”
The same person later attempted to reestablish contact with party members but gave up after being confronted with the evidence, including photos of him in uniform. The entire episode left little doubt, Potere al Popolo argued, that the group had been subjected to a calculated – if rather low-cost – act of political surveillance. The infiltrator had not been provided with a more substantial cover story or an alternate name, among other things.
Not an isolated issue, but a wider threat
In the broader context of Meloni’s push for increasingly aggressive forms of repression, including the recent Security Decree, Potere al Popolo warned that the situation may be spiraling beyond authoritarianism and edging toward outright dictatorship. “This story is not just about us,” Granato wrote on X, “but about the kind of ‘democracy’ envisioned by the state apparatus and the Meloni government: an increasingly reactionary and authoritarian model of society. Democracy does not exist if the state enters your home, spies on you, infiltrates you, and criminalizes you.”
Just days before the infiltration came to light, Potere al Popolo hosted international meetings to help build a broad anti-militarization movement in Europe, with participants from France Unbowed, Podemos, and the Workers’ Party of Belgium. At that event too, speakers warned of the increasingly repressive climate being fostered by right-wing and mainstream governments toward social movements and the left. As with resistance to Europe’s armament agenda, the response to the criminalization of dissent, they argued, must come through mass mobilization and solidarity – a response that was echoed by trade unions following the revelation of the infiltration in Potere al Popolo.
“We have shared many initiatives with Potere al Popolo over the years,” the trade union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) wrote, “and this news alarms us regarding the protection of constitutional freedoms, including the right to political and labor organizing. This wickedness, spying on and provoking those who fight openly among the people and the working class to democratically challenge the current political and social model, exposes the true face of the Meloni government.”
“This is not an attack on a specific political party, but on the foundations of a democratic state governed by the rule of law,” Granato concluded. “This affects all of us. Why this operation? Who decided, planned and ordered it? Do we really want our country to be transformed, step by step, into an autocratic regime?”
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/05/27/ ... operation/
******
Romania and the controlled collapse of democracy: Elections under surveillance and external guardianship
Lucas Leiroz
May 28, 2025
Crisis in Romania clearly reveals the new direction of European democracy.
The recent presidential elections in Romania have brought to light a disturbing portrait of the current state of democracy in Eastern Europe. More than a simple electoral contest between two opposing candidates, the Romanian process exposed the intersection of external interference, informational manipulation, and institutionalized political engineering.
A recent report by Romanian researcher Ioana Bărăgan, published in the Global Fact Checking Network’s website, provides a detailed overview of the events and reveals that, behind the appearance of democratic normality, there is a carefully scripted performance driven by supranational interests. The cancellation of the 2024 elections—later repeated in May 2025—was justified by suspicions of electoral corruption and cyber interference. These allegations, serious as they may seem, were not supported by conclusive evidence. The mere fact that such accusations were enough to annul an entire electoral process, as described by Bărăgan, already points to the fragility of Romanian institutional sovereignty. The subsequent rerun election did not resolve these issues—it only deepened them.
In the new election, George Simion, leader of the nationalist Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR), won the first round with a wide margin: 40.96% against 20.27% for Nicușor Dan, the mayor of Bucharest and a symbol of the liberal-globalist establishment. Nevertheless, Dan was declared the winner in the second round, largely due to last-minute votes from urban areas—a phenomenon that, as Bărăgan suggests, was crucial to the reversal.
The shift in vote counts reveals a recurring pattern in countries under the direct influence of EU structures: nationalism wins where there is stronger contact with everyday reality—rural areas, the working class, the average citizen—but is artificially defeated in the metropolitan statistics, where voting becomes an extension of state propaganda and fear incited by the media.
There is also the international backdrop to consider. Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, publicly denounced a direct attempt at interference by French intelligence services, who allegedly requested that he censor conservative Romanian voices. Durov’s refusal to comply reinforces Simion’s claims of external meddling. The very existence of such a request is, in itself, a democratic scandal—but it was largely ignored by the mainstream Western press.
At the same time, Romanian authorities also reported destabilization attempts attributed to Russia. This creates a convenient narrative: any outcome that contradicts the interests of the Euro-Atlantic bloc can be blamed on the Kremlin—a rhetorical device used both to delegitimize opposition candidates and to justify exceptional measures.
The heart of the issue lies not only in the possibility of interference but in the selectivity with which it is addressed. When social media platforms favor establishment-aligned candidates, scandals are quickly silenced and the perpetrators absolved. Conversely, when anti-establishment candidates benefit from strategic use of these platforms, a flood of accusations emerges – ranging from fraud to illicit financing and algorithmic manipulation. Yet, everything fades once the game is settled.
The 2025 election also revealed the chaos within Romania’s own political class. Leaders such as Crin Antonescu and Victor Ponta refused to clearly support either candidate, reflecting the ideological vacuum within the party system. Even though Ponta signaled preference for Simion, he failed to transfer his voter base – demonstrating the erosion of traditional political authority.
Simion, for his part, struggled with his radicalized image. Despite leading abroad – with significant victories in the diaspora from Italy, Spain, and Germany – he was defeated in Romania’s urban centers and in sensitive regions like Moldova, where he is persona non grata due to his unionist activities. Moldova’s rejection of his candidacy, benefiting Dan, underscores the tension between Romanian nationalism and Moldovan sovereignty – often instrumentalized by transnational elites to discredit reunification projects.
The role of the European Union and the United States cannot be ignored. As Bărăgan reminds us, statements like that of U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who criticized Romania’s institutional weakness, were ignored by Romanian leaders who chose instead to reaffirm their submission to the Euro-Atlantic axis. The European Commission, meanwhile, launched a selective investigation into TikTok’s role in the elections—but with emphasis solely on the “Russian threat,” never on internal mechanisms of manipulation.
What emerges is a tutelary democracy, where citizens vote but do not decide. Institutions exist, but serve an external agenda. Candidates are allowed only as long as they do not challenge transnational consensus. The electoral process is preserved as a form—but emptied of sovereign substance.
As Bărăgan aptly states in her article, the Romanian case shows that the future of democracy in Eastern Europe depends less and less on voters, and more and more on algorithms, Brussels commissioners, and Western intelligence agencies. It is a bitter—but necessary—lesson for those who still believe that popular sovereignty and European integration can coexist.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... rdianship/
Western elites have already determined the fate of the EU
Hugo Dionísio
May 29, 2025
Donald Trump’s return to the scene accelerates the decline of U.S. hegemony.
The recent pressure from Donald Trump on the European Union, with an abrupt increase in tariffs and their near-immediate suspension—apparently following a phone call with the President of the European Commission—clearly demonstrates the immense pressure the U.S. exerts on the EU, the role it has assigned to the bloc, and the impulsive, erratic nature of the policies pursued by the White House.
It is futile to claim that what is currently labeled as “democracy” is a political regime where a single individual, driven by stubbornness, obstinacy, and recklessness—coupled with ignorance and lack of culture—can send the entire hegemonic financial system into turmoil, while the supposed “checks and balances” of American democracy fail to function. This is pure idealism.
The reality is that Donald Trump’s return to the scene accelerates the decline of U.S. hegemony. Paradoxically—or perhaps not—the self-inflicted wounds to the U.S. economy cause the most pain in the European Union. Every blow Trump deals to U.S. credibility hits the EU hardest! The most alarming part is that no one seems willing to acknowledge the source of the pain or even locate the wound. This blindness, typical of weak and utterly mediocre leaders like Macron, Starmer, Merz, or Von der Leyen, is leading the European Union—and especially its member states—toward a disaster as predictable as it is diligently concealed. However, as we will see, amid all this, the economic and social catastrophe unfolding in fast forward will be the least of our worries.
If international capital already struggles to lend money to the U.S., disillusioned by its declining global dominance, why should the EU follow the same path? Like other nations and entities, it should begin preparing for a post-U.S., post-dollar future, which, though delayed, will inevitably arrive. But that is not what happened.
Days after the phone call between Von der Leyen and Trump—during which she likely promised increased purchases of gas, weapons, oil, treasury bonds, and other overpriced goods the U.S. is pushing onto its “partners” and “allies”—news emerged that “member states approved the SAFE loan instrument worth 150 billion euros to strengthen European defense capabilities”.
The instruments created by Von der Leyen’s Commission, with grandiose names like “SAFE” and “ReArm Europe,” share a common trait: deepening dependence on the U.S., further indebting EU countries, and hastening their march toward the abyss.
To say that “the European Commission welcomes the agreement reached in the EU Council on the Security Assistance Facility for Europe (SAFE)” is as redundant as claiming that António Costa, Portugal’s former prime minister with a stable absolute majority, fought for the Portuguese people and prevented the President from handing the country over to the far-right, reactionary, and ultraliberal forces. The cowardly behavior of the current President of the European Council in the face of the judicial coup against his government not only secured his place in the Council but also revealed his “special aptitude” for the role. Thus, it is no surprise that the Council accepted the European Commission’s proposal, with António Costa acting as the broker of the deal.
150 billion euros for weaponry, of which only 65% must be spent on EU-made products, served to appease Trump and cowardly buy two more months of calm. Given that Trump’s retreat was not genuine—he merely suspended what was already suspended—we can only conclude that this was a maneuver to placate the European public. After all, if the EU suddenly announced it would spend an additional 150 billion on weapons amid rising fascism and Nazism fueled by deteriorating living conditions, it would be hard to justify. Even harder to explain would be why a supposedly anti-Trump EU would purchase over 50 billion euros worth of arms from him.
The scheme is plain to see: faced with the U.S. debt market crisis and Trump’s need to calm markets and attract foreign currency—like the euros the EU has in abundance (alongside Saudi Arabia or Qatar)—he dangled the false threat of tariff hikes, giving the EU a pretext to release the funds. In return, Trump merely had to distance himself from Vladimir Putin, as when he claimed, “Putin is crazy.” A grand circus to deceive the gullible. The EU urgently needs weapons to deliver to Ukraine, and to do so, it must first buy them. Once in national stockpiles, no one will track them. Thus, yet another “donation” to the Kiev regime is made—tens of billions of euros under the guise of European rearmament.
Regardless of who initiated this, the situation underscores the EU’s inescapable dependence on the U.S., its deepening despite formal rhetoric, and the insatiable U.S. demand for the EU to sacrifice itself to save the empire. And the EU does not resist. Instead, it sinks alongside it.
Mario Draghi’s report, The Future of European Competitiveness—A Competitiveness Strategy for Europe, directly highlights the EU’s dependencies:
Dependence on critical raw materials (China and others): The EU imports >90% of essential raw materials for green and digital technologies, such as lithium, cobalt, and rare earths, primarily from China (70-90% of global refining).
Technological dependence (U.S. and Asia): In semiconductors, 75-90% of advanced chips are manufactured in Asia (Taiwan, South Korea), while the EU has no chip factories below 22 nm (the U.S. and Asia dominate 3-5 nm processes). In AI and cloud, 85% of the EU market is controlled by Amazon, Microsoft, and Google (U.S.), with China leading in AI patents, while the EU lags.
Energy dependence (Russia, U.S., and Middle East): After the Ukraine war, the EU replaced Russian gas with LNG from the U.S. and Qatar, but at 3-5 times the price. It also relies on China for 80% of solar panels and EV batteries.
Defense industry dependence (U.S.): 78% of EU defense purchases in 2022-2023 were from non-European suppliers (63% to the U.S.). The EU uses 12 different tank models, while the U.S. standardizes to one.
Export market dependence (China and U.S.): China is the EU’s largest trade partner, but also an industrial competitor.
Although these dependencies are identified in the report commissioned by Von der Leyen, Draghi’s proposals to reduce reliance on the U.S. are far more timid than those targeting China. Moreover, the European Commission is not following these solutions. For example, the EU is not investing in domestic chip production, preferring to fund U.S. factories on European soil—a strategy Trump is now reversing. In digital platforms, the EU focuses more on regulating California-based companies than creating its ecosystem, surrendering digital sovereignty and control over the minds of Europeans.
While Draghi proposed diversifying suppliers (e.g., agreements with Africa and Latin America), deliberately omitting Russia and the importance of price competition, Von der Leyen has ignored even these suggestions. Instead, she has deepened energy dependence on U.S. LNG and other vulnerabilities. The EU continues to neglect homegrown chip production, opting to finance U.S. factories in Europe—a strategy Trump is dismantling. In digital platforms, the EU prioritizes accommodating California-based companies under European law over building its own ecosystem, relinquishing digital sovereignty and control over its citizens’ minds. The EU grants this access to the U.S. and then feigns surprise when American political struggles are mirrored in European politics.
Any initiative for competitive EU production is hindered by its dependence on expensive energy and industrial outsourcing, which prevents it from competing with integrated value chains like China’s. The SAFE instrument proves the EU has no intention of freeing itself from U.S. arms dependence, imposing a brutal economic burden on Europeans, who pay more for what others buy cheaply.
Meanwhile, economic indicators do not lie: we arrived here because of these decisions. Ursula von der Leyen’s rise in the EU not only reflects Germany’s destructive role in Europe but also the degeneration of German national and cultural pride, projected onto the EU. If von der Leyen is an agent of sabotage for European economies, Merz is no better, nor is Scholz. Merz’s latest move was proposing EU sanctions on Nord Stream—infrastructure paid for by the Germans, which guaranteed their competitiveness. The confiscation of Gerhard Schröder’s accounts and the persecution of journalist Alina Lipp show that democracy in Germany has long been extinguished.
The persecution of electoral candidates (like Georgescu), electoral fraud (Romania and possibly Germany with BSW), the ostracism of non-compliant countries (like Slovakia), EU funding of USAID—typical of dictatorships meddling in others’ affairs—and the judicial coup against Marine Le Pen prove this EU learns nothing from its mistakes. While interfering in elections and imposing draconian rules on smaller nations, Von der Leyen announces she will “mobilize” 800 billion euros from national budgets, displaying authoritarianism, arrogance, and utter disregard for member states’ development needs. If the proportion of this 800 billion destined for the U.S. matches the SAFE instrument, we understand why Trump “suspended” the tariffs.
The anemic growth of major EU economies in 2024 (with the exception of Spain, none reached 0.5% per quarter), the replacement of the U.S. by China as the top trade partner (notably since 2022), and the EU’s fall to third-largest global economy (in 2008, its GDP surpassed the U.S.’s) reflect the accelerated decline under Von der Leyen’s “reign”—a de facto U.S. CEO in the European Commission. Housing, energy, and healthcare crises, alongside brain drain, complete the bleak picture.
Under Durão Barroso, the EU became the world’s third-largest economy, but under von der Leyen, the gap has widened drastically. Before the EuroMaidan coup (2011), the EU’s GDP rivaled the U.S.’s, and in 2008, it was higher). But if GDP can be misleading, what about the housing, energy, and healthcare crises, or the emigration of skilled labor (dubbed “talent”)? How can these be solved when Von der Leyen and her aide António Costa merely apply prescribed recipes, deepening dependence on the U.S. while silencing dissent and scapegoating China and Russia? Was it not these very dependencies that propelled the EU to the world’s largest economy in 2008?
German reunification, the euro, and the Lisbon Treaty were steps in instrumentalizing the EU for Wall Street and Washington’s agendas, which dominate European capitals. The picture could not be starker: during the second Iraq War, it was Schröder, Chirac, and Hollande who prevented the EU from joining the madness. In Portugal, Durão Barroso hosted the launch of an illicit, illegitimate war—an aggression responsible for a million deaths. The attack, even then, was on Europe itself. Back then, it was about rescuing the petrodollar, countering the advantages the EU gained from Iraq’s decision to sell oil in euros instead of dollars.
An EU with the world’s largest GDP was capable of resisting collaboration in its own destruction. The “European” role in this aggression was played by Tony Blair’s UK and Durão Barroso’s Portugal. The latter, like António Costa more recently, paid for his ticket to the European Commission. By the time Barroso left in 2014, the EU was a shadow of its former self. His tenure saw the “Arab Spring,” which destabilized the Maghreb, the destruction of Libya in a proxy war where the U.S. fought Russia and China, and France fought Italy. For the U.S., it was about oil; for France, neocolonialism in Africa, threatened by Gaddafi’s pan-African vision. Italy, Libya’s major trade partner, suffered the most, losing access to Libyan gold reserves intended for a pan-African currency to replace the CFA franc.
One of the EU’s most important engines was damaged, and with Syria’s destruction—also aided by Barroso’s Commission—the floodgates of migration burst open, overwhelming traditional destinations (Libya, Iraq, Syria…). The EU had already lost ground to the U.S. economically and fell behind in the digital race, irreversibly sidelined in the 21st-century competition for AI and digitalization. Instead, Barroso handed everything to the U.S. That was his purpose.
Von der Leyen has not only continued but deepened this trajectory, as did Juncker. Just as Barroso let the EU join wars (against Libya and Syria) that harmed it, Von der Leyen allowed the U.S. to exploit Ukraine to control and permanently derail Europe from global competition. Expensive gas and raw materials, a divided EU, and a slide into authoritarianism, dictatorship, and fascism to suppress dissent—fascism does not need fascist parties, only fascist policies—have left the EU instrumentalized by war and militarism. Today, the U.S. assigns the EU the same role once given to Africa and Latin America: a dumping ground for U.S. energy, weapons, and trade surpluses.
Von der Leyen’s dozens of “strategies,” “acts,” and “pacts” have accelerated this decline, bringing us to the brink of something far graver. If the European economy is decomposing, potentially dragging the EU down with it, perhaps all we can do is hope it happens quickly. The bellicose signals from northern and central Europe suggest that the instrumentalization of European nations by the continent’s major powers, if realized, could give Germany and the UK (whose people Starmer betrayed by reapproaching the EU and dismissing Brexit) what they need to attack Russia once more—80 years after World War II.
The signs are unmistakable. In Portugal, news highlights Finland’s “marvelous bunkers,” now numbering over 5,000, with construction mandates extending to residential buildings. In the U.S., bunker sales are booming, a multimillion-dollar business thriving on fear. In Switzerland, once neutral but now tarnished by freezing Russian reserves and endorsing sanctions, bunker inspections are ordered, with claims it is “not for war”. Perhaps they aim to launch a multimillion-dollar bunker vacation business, I jest. In Germany, bunkers are being prepared for “wartime”.
In short, minds are made up, and the fate is sealed. The path is toward war, and swiftly, reserving for our youth—only the wealthiest—a “spectacular” life in golden cages called bunkers. Perhaps the fiction of Silo will become reality. Peace, happiness, poverty alleviation, and violence prevention are absent from the plans of those in charge. Money is being spent to construct our own destruction, paradoxically.
Amid all this, who can claim that the EU’s economic disaster—and that of the entire West—is the worst of our troubles?
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... ate-of-eu/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Blues for Europa
Durov claims Romanian election was rigged by the EU
Martin Jay
June 1, 2025
We have arrived at a new era of rock bottom governance both on a national level and on an EU one.
Whilst pointing the finger and claiming that Russia interfered with the first, initial round of Romania’s presidential elections in December of last year, the EU appears to have done the very same thing to get its own candidate to win.
Yet while there is little if any evidence to support the EU claims of Russian interference last year, when it looked like a populist leader would storm home, there is evidence to support a charge that the EU has more than simply meddled in Romania’s elections.
The recent allegations come from Pavel Durov, Telegram boss, who was arrested and held by the French authorities since last August. At the time it was reported that he had been detained by French police as France wanted to investigate child porn and international terrorists.
In fact, events have revealed that this was entirely untrue and the real reason was that the EU and France were both planning how to derail the populist candidate in the presidential elections in the same year.
Durov told Reuters that Nicolas Lerner, who leads the DGSE foreign spy agency in France, approached him and asked him to help with the dirty work.
“This spring at the Salon des Batailles in the Hôtel de Crillon, Nicolas Lerner, head of French intelligence, asked me to ban conservative voices in Romania ahead of elections. I refused,” Durov wrote on X late on May 18th when the results came in.
“We didn’t block protesters in Russia, Belarus, or Iran. We won’t start doing it in Europe.”
The centrist mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, won Romania’s presidential election in what even Reuters have reported as a “shock victory” over George Simion, a hard-right, nationalist rival who had pledged to adopt a path inspired by U.S. President Donald Trump’s politics.
This desperate move by Macron is very telling as it shows a new low both for Paris and Brussels, with the latter particularly worried that its relevance is diminishing and with 3 EU member states acting as rebels on big decisions – Romania, Hungary and Slovakia – that there was a very real danger of the EU as we know it heading for the rocks. Something had to be done, something even quite underhand and illegal. It is unclear what the French spy chief actually did in Romania – as he arrived two days before the ballot – but on a technical level it is likely that the Romanians were swayed by fake news backed up by an artificial allusion on social media that Dan was way ahead in the polling – which would have swayed many to vote for him rather than Simion, the populist candidate.
What is interesting is that Macron took the lead on this when he is not at all the EU bloc’s chief diplomat. When the going gets tough, it seems the tough gets going and this can be the only explanation of the EU’s incumbent top diplo Kaja Kallas being a spectator to this plot which EU chiefs are barely denying. We have arrived at a new era of rock bottom governance both on a national level and on an EU one and dirty tricks like election interference has now become a norm for the EU and its big guns. They will literally stop at nothing to secure their own power and keep the lights on in Brussels and the Romanian elections are proof of this although the populist movement in Europe will only be strengthened by this craven move as now European voters can see the EU for what it is: a failed project.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... ged-by-eu/
******
From Cassad's Telegram account:
Colonelcassad
Forwarded from
Maria Zakharova
Polish President Duda was outraged that Ukraine does not know about the genocide during the Volyn massacre:
“It’s absurd when I come to Ukraine, and people with armbands in the colors of the Bandera flag hug me and thank me. I say that we cannot accept this, and they throw up their hands and ask: “What do you mean?” ... We will never agree with the fact that Bandera was declared a hero.”
At the same time, it was the official Polish authorities that played a large-scale role in destroying the historical truth about the times of World War II. By tearing down monuments to real heroes, they made room for false idols - Nazi collaborators.
Everything is like in the Bible: “ When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks through dry places seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, I will return to my house from which I came out. And when he comes, he finds it unoccupied, swept and put in order: "Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they go in and live there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. So will it be also to this wicked generation"
(Matt. 12:43-45).
After the destruction of fascism, monuments to heroes were erected on the liberated land - as a reminder of the battle between good and evil that had unfolded on the planet. As soon as these monuments began to be torn down, traces of neo-Nazism and images of their ideological inspirers began to appear in their place like brown spots - the evil, once eradicated, returned home to Europe.
Monuments to Soviet soldiers, anti-fascist heroes, were the force that did not allow Nazi ghouls and executioners of the Holocaust to be dragged onto pedestals. When, first of all, the Polish authorities began to demolish them under the pretext that they were supposedly not heroes, true values were turned upside down, and the evil spirit of neo-Nazism multiplied itself sevenfold.
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
Google Translator
******
DIANA JOHNSTONE: Serbia’s Organized Chaos
June 1, 2025
By Diana Johnstone, Consortium News, 5/27/25
Serbia is a small country which used to be a favorite of Western Allied powers like France and Britain for its heroic resistance to Austrian and German invasion in two world wars.
They liked it so much that in redrawing European boundaries at Versailles in 1918, they enlarged it into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes which later became Yugoslavia.
Some Serb leaders at the time felt that this was too much, but at the time, Croat and Slovene leaders were glad to leave the Austro-Hungarian Empire and join the winning side.
All this changed abruptly in the 1990s. Germany had been reunited and began to drop its humble post-World War II foreign policy. With German support and encouragement, the Yugoslav republics (states) of Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence, with the intention of joining the club of the rich: the European Union.
This shift enabled the two richest Yugoslav states to stop paying development funds for poorer regions such as Kosovo and to receive development funds from the EU. The debt crisis of the 1970s had strained relations among the republics.
But according to the secessionists, their sole motivation was to escape from “Serbian nationalism.” A great champion of this interpretation was the late Otto von Habsburg, an influential member of the European Parliament. As heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, dismantled as a result of World War I, he naturally held a personal grudge against Serbia.
As the Yugoslav disintegration grew confused and violent, Western media and government enthusiastically echoed the Habsburg line, not as such, but as defense of Western values and self-determination.
Western media put all the blame for everything on the Serbs, evoking the inevitable Hitler analogy to describe Serbia’s besieged leader, Slobodan Milosevic, as a “dictator” and to liken his failing efforts to keep Yugoslavia together with the Third Reich’s massive invasion of the rest of Europe.
“Heroic little Serbia” was transformed into the Pariah of the Western World.
A Nation in Limbo
The concrete result of the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia was to transform the “defensive” alliance into an aggressive force; to deliver the historic Serbian province of Kosovo to armed ethnic Albanians; and to build an enormous U.S. military base in the province.
But NATO nations framed it as conspiratorial to say that such were the aims of the NATO bombing. No, the official purpose was “the right to intervene” on grounds of human rights, to “save the Kosovars” from a “genocide” that was never a real possibility. That’s what everyone in the West has been told, over and over.
NATOland and “Western values” do not — not any longer — dominate the whole world. But Serbia is situated, geographically and psychologically, in the West.
Serbia was part of Yugoslavia, an independent, nonaligned socialist country, not part of the Soviet bloc. But Serbs have an historic friendship with Russia, as fellow Orthodox Christians, dating back to Serbia’s struggle to free itself from the Ottoman Empire. Serbs are in fact torn between, or attached to, both East and West.
They are in a perfect situation to be friends with everyone, which is what the current government in Belgrade of President Alexander Vucic is trying to do.
From its history and natural inclinations, Serbia should be a bridge between East and West.
Vucic with journalists during the 2018 European People’s Party Congress in Helsinki. (European People’s Party /Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 2.0)
Vucic was elected president of Serbia in 2017 and he and his Serbian Progressive Party have won a number of elections since by wide majorities. His economic development policies have made a bad situation better.
After Western companies took over Serbian industries only to shut them down, Vucic has welcomed Chinese investments which are reviving Serbian industrial production and mining. The economic growth rate accelerated to a comfortable 3.9 percent in 2024. Higher education for students who pass entrance exams is free, and Serbian universities enjoy high international ratings.
In contrast to its neighbors, Serbs are staying in their native land, while others are leaving. (Bosnia Herzegovina has lost half of its population to emigration, relatively prosperous Montenegro 24.4 percent, North Macedonia 31.6 percent and Serbia only 7 percent, indicating that life prospects there are relatively promising.)
Serbia’s relations with China have long been friendly and profitable. Vucic’s foreign policy tries to balance between East and West, but the rise in hostility between the EU and Russia makes this difficult.
But the same Western supremacists who destroyed the natural “bridge” function of Ukraine by insisting on its “NATO destiny” are working to subvert all potential bridges to Russia — distant Georgia, Moldova and nearby Serbia.
As an applicant to join the European Union, Serbia is kept under constant observation to see whether it is adapting to EU standards, economic and political. To satisfy Brussels, Vucic has supplied weapons to Ukraine but refuses to enforce sanctions against Russia, which provides Serbia with gas.
He has rejected EU demands to recognize the independence of Kosovo, as any Serbian leader must do to remain in office until tomorrow. But his domestic critics consider him not tough enough.
EU Parliament on Jan. 19, 2011, the day members approved a reform package, the EU-Serbia Stabilisation and Association Agreement, designed to move the country toward EU membership. (European Parliament/Flickr/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Vucic defied EU threats by flying to Moscow to attend the May 9 ceremonies celebrating the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany’s war of conquest. Otherwise, he would have been hotly condemned at home for slavish subservience to the EU. Instead, his enemies can cry “Putin’s puppet.”
Josip Tito’s policy of nonalignment was a great success and Vucic appears to emulate the former Yugoslavian leader’s approach. But his balancing act exposes him to criticism from both sides.
Protests Against…Whatever
Strangely, for months Serbia has been rocked by massive student protests and blockades, not over foreign policy or over any specific government policies, but primarily in response to tragic events with no obvious political significance.
In Belgrade on May 3, 2023, a 13-year-old boy armed with pistols and Molotov cocktails attacked his school, killing eight children and a security guard. The under-age shooter was eventually sent to a psychiatric hospital and the parents were charged.
On the evening of the very next day a 20-year-old man drove through two villages in central Serbia firing an automatic assault rifle, killing nine people and wounding 12 others. He fled but was caught and eventually sentenced to 20 years.
This was shocking in a country where gun ownership is high but shooting incidents rare. Large protest demonstrations were held in major cities for several months. Opposition leaders created a protest movement “Serbia Against Violence” which blamed Vucic for creating “an atmosphere” responsible for the killings.
This is surely an exaggeration. In fact, police repression in Serbia is relatively mild, and Vucic can hardly be blamed for the mood of violence that prevails in the world today. Former Prime Minister Ana Brnabic also risked exaggeration by claiming that the protests were “fueled by foreign intelligence services.”
Candidates for “Serbia Against Violence” won 24 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections on Dec. 17, 2023, just half the 48 percent won by the coalition supported by Vucic.
Serbia Against Violence, or SPN, coalition representatives in front of the National Assembly of Serbia on Nov. 3, 2023. (Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 3.0)
In February 2024, a delegation headed by Marinika Tepic of “Serbia Against Violence” and Radomir Lazovic of the “Serbian Green-Left Front” went to Strasbourg to complain to the European Parliament that the elections had been stolen.
Enjoying minimal legislative power, the European Parliament asserts itself mainly by adopting virtuous resolutions condemning human rights violations in foreign countries on the basis of often unverified complaints.
As was to be expected, by an overwhelming vote of 461 to 52 the European Parliament promptly adopted a strong resolution calling for an international investigation into “election irregularities” and threatening to stop EU funding. The main complaint was that by campaigning, President Vucic had unfairly influenced voters.
Marinika Tepic declared to Politico that “if something doesn’t change now, we will completely slide into a dictatorship.”
EU’s Missionary Work
Protests against recognizing the December 2023 elections reached such proportions that many feared a replay of the 2014 Maidan demonstrations that led to war in Ukraine.
Pavle Cicvaric, who had learned organizing skills in numerous programs and workshops funded by Western foundations, led the student protests in Belgrade. The young leader’s parents are both deeply involved in the work of NGOs.
His mother, Dr. Jelena Žunic Cicvaric, is project coordinator of the NGO “Regional EU Resource Center for Civil Society in Serbia,” a key channel for the redistribution of European Union funds, allocated only to those actively working on raising awareness of “European values.”
His father, Radovan Cicvaric, a long-time politician campaigning for Euro-integration, is also promoting “European values” as director of the NGO Užice Center for Child Rights (UCPD) founded in 1998.
While the UCPD focuses on children, another influential NGO, the Belgrade Open School (BOS), founded in 1993, sponsors programs for students and young professionals, including “training of social change agents.”
Both are part of the “Youth Umbrella Organization of Serbia” which receives significant funds from international donors such as USAID, the Soros’ Open Society Foundation, and various European Union programs.
They organize workshops, training sessions, and projects aimed at strengthening the capacities of local NGOs and promoting European values. “Transition” countries applying for EU membership must listen to instructions on how to be worthy Europeans.
This educational task is undertaken by the European Fund for the Balkans (EFB), a joint initiative of European foundations that envisions, runs and supports initiatives aimed at strengthening democracy and fostering European integration.
Significantly, the EFB is sponsoring a “Joint History Project” to produce and spread a unified version of regional history, with the kind support of the German Foreign Office.
The Balkan Trust for Democracy (BTD) is a foundation based in Belgrade. It was founded in March 2003 by the German Marshall Fund, USAID, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Other donors include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Tipping Point Foundation, Robert Bosch Foundation, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and the foreign affairs ministries of Denmark and Greece. The BTD supports grant donation, policy dialogue, and leadership development.
If you want to be a leader, you know where to go.
It is hard to imagine that these Western-financed organizations have not contributed to the zeal and skill of Serbian student protesters.
A Deadly Collapse
Novi Sad is Serbia’s second-largest city, a major stop on the new high speed railway route between Belgrade and Budapest being rebuilt with Chinese aid.
As part of this project, Novi Sad’s 60-year old modernistic railroad station was recently renovated, leaving in place a long concrete canopy across its entrance side. On the morning of Nov. 1, 2024, the concrete canopy suddenly collapsed, killing a total of 16 people.
The Serbian government declared a nation-wide day of mourning, a number of officials resigned, including the Serbian construction minister and the mayor of Novi Sad. Investigations of the causes are continuing.
Portion of the canopy of the main railway station in Novi Sad, Serbia, that collapsed onto people walking and sitting underneath on Nov. 1, 2024. (Mishyac /Wikimedia Commons/ CC0)
For the student activists, the collapse was seen as clear proof of corruption, not only in construction work on the station but throughout society. Declaring that what happened in Novi Sad is proof that Serbia is overwhelmed by crime, violence, corruption and despair, the students have given themselves the task of changing this “unbearable social reality” to build a new Serbia.
An apparently leaderless movement organizes student plenums which privately decide by consensus what to do next. They have shut down university faculties and schools, preventing students from attending classes for months.
Students who want to attend classes are treated like traitors. Even hospitals have been blockaded. It has been observed that the activist students tend to come from well-to-do families and are not joined by working class youth. It is an elite revolt calling for equality.
Students blocking traffic are protected by police. The government clearly suspects provocation and has been avoiding the sort of violent repression used by the French government of Emmanuel Macron to put down the Yellow Vests movement.
Transition to What?
March during the general strike in Belgrade on Jan, 24, 2025. The banner in the foreground says “Only Student Save the Serbs,” a play on the national slogan “Only Unity Saves the Serbs.” (SergioOren / Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 4.0)
Serbian students under 26 were not born when NATO bombed Serbia.
Serbian youth has grown up torn between the scars of the NATO bombing and the persistent dominant Western view of Serbs as the guilty party for the destruction of Yugoslavia. No wonder that this creates some confusion.
It is understandable that a portion of middle class Serbian, urban youth find it unbearable to be excluded from “the West” by Serbia’s imposed Pariah status.
Youth can be very conformist in their rebelliousness, seeking to join together in defiance of their elders. However confused the West may be, it still excels most in selling itself as something marvelous.
A significant way it does this is through its massive web of non-governmental organizations.
In April, EU auditors issued a report noting a “lack of transparency” in granting some 4.8 billion euros to some 5,000 NGOs during the 2021-2023 period, in addition to Member State grants of some 2.6 billion euros to around 7,500 NGOs from EU funding sources.
It is not clear which countries benefited, but Marta Kos, the Slovenian EU commissioner for enlargement, has mentioned Serbia.
Kos during confirmation hearings as European commissioner for enlargement, Nov. 7, 2024. (CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2024– Source: EP)
In a March 28 interview with Slovenian RTV, Kos rejected as “unacceptable” suggestions by President Vucic that EU-funded NGOs are encouraging student protests aimed to overthrow him. Kos nevertheless noted that she was “much more in contact with the NGOs I met in Brussels than with the Serbian government or its president.”
She said:
“Many NGOs in Serbia would not survive without our support, and it is precisely because of the exceptional importance of NGOs that I have decided to allocate an additional €16 million to them for the period from this year until the end of 2027.”
“Without the participation of civil society, there can be no enlargement process,” Kos said, adding that she trusts the Serbian people to “guide their politicians so that Serbia can become a member of the European Union.” Kos feels qualified to provide guidance.
Aleksander Vulin is a prominent Socialist who has held various ministerial posts. But no more. “I hope that Mr. Vulin will not be a member of the new government, because those who act in an anti-European manner cannot lead Serbia into the EU,” said Kos. She got her way.
Among his sins, Vulin favors joining BRICS and had called for a law revealing NGO financing by foreign governments. (When Georgia adopted such a law, EU leaders mobilized to stop it, but failed.)
On the other hand, Vucic defied dire threats by the EU against daring to attend the May 9 celebrations of the Allied Victory over Nazi Germany. He flew around Baltic States blocking his flight and showed up in Moscow, along with the courageous Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico.
Vucic in Moscow on May 9, on his way to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Ramil Sitdikov, RIA Novosti, Presidet of Russia)
Such is the Vucic balancing act. As a result, Vucic is denounced as “pro-Putin” in Brussels while his domestic adversaries denounce him for weakly giving in to EU demands.
The student protesters are still more ambiguous.
They clearly don’t want to give credence to government accusations that they are manipulated by EU NGOs. The EU flag has been tacitly banned from the huge student demonstrations, with only Serbian flags being waved, as if to demonstrate national independence.
However, this spring a contingent of student protesters created a spectacle by setting out to take their grievances to EU institutions, ostensibly on bicycles. They were warmly welcomed as they complained that everything in Serbia was absolutely awful.
On May 6, Serbia’s leading newspaper Politika reported that visiting Serbian blockaders in the European Parliament gallery listened meekly as they were lectured by a Croatian nationalist, Steven Nikola Bartulica, who told them that “European values mean also a confession of guilt for everything Serbia did to Croatia.”
(In the summer of 1995, Croatia expelled about 200,000 Serbs from their homes in the Krajina region of Croatia, in the largest ethnic cleansing of the Yugoslav wars.)
Bartulica claimed Serbia was not a European-style liberal democracy and would not be normalized until it accepted paying reparations to Croatia.
Members of the European Parliament expressed satisfaction that the students had chosen “Europe” against Russia, and called for overthrowing Vucic and Fico for having gone to Moscow.
At home, however, the protest demonstrations seem to be losing momentum, to the extent that students have stopped demanding everything! now! and are retreating to the demand for elections.
Boosted by his trip to Moscow, where his delegation held serious talks with President Vladimir Putin, Vucic held a patriotic rally in the city of Nis where he declared that the students’ demands are over and do not interest him any more. He dismissed the blockaders as a very loud minority of mobbing bullies terrorizing the majority of citizens who want peace, work and unity.
By suddenly demanding snap elections, he assumed that they were simply seeking another opportunity for violent outbursts, since elections will always be declared stolen by the opposition. Elections will be held normally in a year or so, he said.
On May 22, Belgrade received a visit from Kaja Kallas, an Estonian chosen by Ursula von der Leyen to be high representative of the EU for foreign affairs. Having no diplomatic experience, Kallas’ most visible qualifications are being a young woman with an unsurpassed hatred of Russia.
Kallas, center, EU high representative and vice president of the European Commission, at a NATO meeting in Brussels on April 4. (NATO /Flickr/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
While in Belgrade, the EU’s top diplomat met, in a strange twist, with the president and the prime minister to tell them what to do. But she met with representatives of student protesters to listen to what they had to say.
She praised her meetings with “civil society” and youth activists. “I heard their call and their aspirations – for fairness, for accountability so that Serbia can fulfill its full potential,” she said. “Their energy is needed to find a way forward.”
In contrast, Kallas scolded Vucic for meeting Putin in Moscow. Serbia’s future acceptance into the EU, she stressed, depends on the country’s “strategic choice” between East and West.
Putin, by contrast, accepts Vucic’s balancing act and has no objection to Serbia joining the EU. Variety is consistent with a multipolar world. But for the West, “you are with us or against us.” Between East and West, there are no bridges allowed.
Perplexity & Fear
In Belgrade, some people think the protests are petering out. Perhaps, but in the past they have died down only to revive over some incident. Since the causes are unclear, so are the solutions.
The difficulty, Dragan Pavlovic, a Serbian commentator, told me is that the protests are expressed in “very general demands for a ‘better life,’ which obviously does not offer any concrete basis for understanding what is essentially wanted or what should be done to calm the protests.” Such demands can go on forever.
“It is probably an orchestrated, mass hysteria, caused by the nuclear threat, the genocide in Gaza, the prolongation of the crisis in Kosovo and the actions of non-governmental organizations,” he suggests.
Journalist and writer Mara Knezevic Kern considers it impossible to understand these incredible events. “I do not believe that it is possible to describe this new variant of an attack on the state — it has not happened anywhere else yet.” In the 1990s, Yugoslavia served as an experimental laboratory for regime change. Many fear that this is happening again, in Serbia.
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2025/06/dia ... zed-chaos/
Martin Jay
June 1, 2025
We have arrived at a new era of rock bottom governance both on a national level and on an EU one.
Whilst pointing the finger and claiming that Russia interfered with the first, initial round of Romania’s presidential elections in December of last year, the EU appears to have done the very same thing to get its own candidate to win.
Yet while there is little if any evidence to support the EU claims of Russian interference last year, when it looked like a populist leader would storm home, there is evidence to support a charge that the EU has more than simply meddled in Romania’s elections.
The recent allegations come from Pavel Durov, Telegram boss, who was arrested and held by the French authorities since last August. At the time it was reported that he had been detained by French police as France wanted to investigate child porn and international terrorists.
In fact, events have revealed that this was entirely untrue and the real reason was that the EU and France were both planning how to derail the populist candidate in the presidential elections in the same year.
Durov told Reuters that Nicolas Lerner, who leads the DGSE foreign spy agency in France, approached him and asked him to help with the dirty work.
“This spring at the Salon des Batailles in the Hôtel de Crillon, Nicolas Lerner, head of French intelligence, asked me to ban conservative voices in Romania ahead of elections. I refused,” Durov wrote on X late on May 18th when the results came in.
“We didn’t block protesters in Russia, Belarus, or Iran. We won’t start doing it in Europe.”
The centrist mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, won Romania’s presidential election in what even Reuters have reported as a “shock victory” over George Simion, a hard-right, nationalist rival who had pledged to adopt a path inspired by U.S. President Donald Trump’s politics.
This desperate move by Macron is very telling as it shows a new low both for Paris and Brussels, with the latter particularly worried that its relevance is diminishing and with 3 EU member states acting as rebels on big decisions – Romania, Hungary and Slovakia – that there was a very real danger of the EU as we know it heading for the rocks. Something had to be done, something even quite underhand and illegal. It is unclear what the French spy chief actually did in Romania – as he arrived two days before the ballot – but on a technical level it is likely that the Romanians were swayed by fake news backed up by an artificial allusion on social media that Dan was way ahead in the polling – which would have swayed many to vote for him rather than Simion, the populist candidate.
What is interesting is that Macron took the lead on this when he is not at all the EU bloc’s chief diplomat. When the going gets tough, it seems the tough gets going and this can be the only explanation of the EU’s incumbent top diplo Kaja Kallas being a spectator to this plot which EU chiefs are barely denying. We have arrived at a new era of rock bottom governance both on a national level and on an EU one and dirty tricks like election interference has now become a norm for the EU and its big guns. They will literally stop at nothing to secure their own power and keep the lights on in Brussels and the Romanian elections are proof of this although the populist movement in Europe will only be strengthened by this craven move as now European voters can see the EU for what it is: a failed project.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... ged-by-eu/
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From Cassad's Telegram account:
Colonelcassad
Forwarded from
Maria Zakharova
Polish President Duda was outraged that Ukraine does not know about the genocide during the Volyn massacre:
“It’s absurd when I come to Ukraine, and people with armbands in the colors of the Bandera flag hug me and thank me. I say that we cannot accept this, and they throw up their hands and ask: “What do you mean?” ... We will never agree with the fact that Bandera was declared a hero.”
At the same time, it was the official Polish authorities that played a large-scale role in destroying the historical truth about the times of World War II. By tearing down monuments to real heroes, they made room for false idols - Nazi collaborators.
Everything is like in the Bible: “ When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks through dry places seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, I will return to my house from which I came out. And when he comes, he finds it unoccupied, swept and put in order: "Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they go in and live there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. So will it be also to this wicked generation"
(Matt. 12:43-45).
After the destruction of fascism, monuments to heroes were erected on the liberated land - as a reminder of the battle between good and evil that had unfolded on the planet. As soon as these monuments began to be torn down, traces of neo-Nazism and images of their ideological inspirers began to appear in their place like brown spots - the evil, once eradicated, returned home to Europe.
Monuments to Soviet soldiers, anti-fascist heroes, were the force that did not allow Nazi ghouls and executioners of the Holocaust to be dragged onto pedestals. When, first of all, the Polish authorities began to demolish them under the pretext that they were supposedly not heroes, true values were turned upside down, and the evil spirit of neo-Nazism multiplied itself sevenfold.
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
Google Translator
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DIANA JOHNSTONE: Serbia’s Organized Chaos
June 1, 2025
By Diana Johnstone, Consortium News, 5/27/25
Serbia is a small country which used to be a favorite of Western Allied powers like France and Britain for its heroic resistance to Austrian and German invasion in two world wars.
They liked it so much that in redrawing European boundaries at Versailles in 1918, they enlarged it into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes which later became Yugoslavia.
Some Serb leaders at the time felt that this was too much, but at the time, Croat and Slovene leaders were glad to leave the Austro-Hungarian Empire and join the winning side.
All this changed abruptly in the 1990s. Germany had been reunited and began to drop its humble post-World War II foreign policy. With German support and encouragement, the Yugoslav republics (states) of Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence, with the intention of joining the club of the rich: the European Union.
This shift enabled the two richest Yugoslav states to stop paying development funds for poorer regions such as Kosovo and to receive development funds from the EU. The debt crisis of the 1970s had strained relations among the republics.
But according to the secessionists, their sole motivation was to escape from “Serbian nationalism.” A great champion of this interpretation was the late Otto von Habsburg, an influential member of the European Parliament. As heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, dismantled as a result of World War I, he naturally held a personal grudge against Serbia.
As the Yugoslav disintegration grew confused and violent, Western media and government enthusiastically echoed the Habsburg line, not as such, but as defense of Western values and self-determination.
Western media put all the blame for everything on the Serbs, evoking the inevitable Hitler analogy to describe Serbia’s besieged leader, Slobodan Milosevic, as a “dictator” and to liken his failing efforts to keep Yugoslavia together with the Third Reich’s massive invasion of the rest of Europe.
“Heroic little Serbia” was transformed into the Pariah of the Western World.
A Nation in Limbo
The concrete result of the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia was to transform the “defensive” alliance into an aggressive force; to deliver the historic Serbian province of Kosovo to armed ethnic Albanians; and to build an enormous U.S. military base in the province.
But NATO nations framed it as conspiratorial to say that such were the aims of the NATO bombing. No, the official purpose was “the right to intervene” on grounds of human rights, to “save the Kosovars” from a “genocide” that was never a real possibility. That’s what everyone in the West has been told, over and over.
NATOland and “Western values” do not — not any longer — dominate the whole world. But Serbia is situated, geographically and psychologically, in the West.
Serbia was part of Yugoslavia, an independent, nonaligned socialist country, not part of the Soviet bloc. But Serbs have an historic friendship with Russia, as fellow Orthodox Christians, dating back to Serbia’s struggle to free itself from the Ottoman Empire. Serbs are in fact torn between, or attached to, both East and West.
They are in a perfect situation to be friends with everyone, which is what the current government in Belgrade of President Alexander Vucic is trying to do.
From its history and natural inclinations, Serbia should be a bridge between East and West.
Vucic with journalists during the 2018 European People’s Party Congress in Helsinki. (European People’s Party /Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 2.0)
Vucic was elected president of Serbia in 2017 and he and his Serbian Progressive Party have won a number of elections since by wide majorities. His economic development policies have made a bad situation better.
After Western companies took over Serbian industries only to shut them down, Vucic has welcomed Chinese investments which are reviving Serbian industrial production and mining. The economic growth rate accelerated to a comfortable 3.9 percent in 2024. Higher education for students who pass entrance exams is free, and Serbian universities enjoy high international ratings.
In contrast to its neighbors, Serbs are staying in their native land, while others are leaving. (Bosnia Herzegovina has lost half of its population to emigration, relatively prosperous Montenegro 24.4 percent, North Macedonia 31.6 percent and Serbia only 7 percent, indicating that life prospects there are relatively promising.)
Serbia’s relations with China have long been friendly and profitable. Vucic’s foreign policy tries to balance between East and West, but the rise in hostility between the EU and Russia makes this difficult.
But the same Western supremacists who destroyed the natural “bridge” function of Ukraine by insisting on its “NATO destiny” are working to subvert all potential bridges to Russia — distant Georgia, Moldova and nearby Serbia.
As an applicant to join the European Union, Serbia is kept under constant observation to see whether it is adapting to EU standards, economic and political. To satisfy Brussels, Vucic has supplied weapons to Ukraine but refuses to enforce sanctions against Russia, which provides Serbia with gas.
He has rejected EU demands to recognize the independence of Kosovo, as any Serbian leader must do to remain in office until tomorrow. But his domestic critics consider him not tough enough.
EU Parliament on Jan. 19, 2011, the day members approved a reform package, the EU-Serbia Stabilisation and Association Agreement, designed to move the country toward EU membership. (European Parliament/Flickr/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Vucic defied EU threats by flying to Moscow to attend the May 9 ceremonies celebrating the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany’s war of conquest. Otherwise, he would have been hotly condemned at home for slavish subservience to the EU. Instead, his enemies can cry “Putin’s puppet.”
Josip Tito’s policy of nonalignment was a great success and Vucic appears to emulate the former Yugoslavian leader’s approach. But his balancing act exposes him to criticism from both sides.
Protests Against…Whatever
Strangely, for months Serbia has been rocked by massive student protests and blockades, not over foreign policy or over any specific government policies, but primarily in response to tragic events with no obvious political significance.
In Belgrade on May 3, 2023, a 13-year-old boy armed with pistols and Molotov cocktails attacked his school, killing eight children and a security guard. The under-age shooter was eventually sent to a psychiatric hospital and the parents were charged.
On the evening of the very next day a 20-year-old man drove through two villages in central Serbia firing an automatic assault rifle, killing nine people and wounding 12 others. He fled but was caught and eventually sentenced to 20 years.
This was shocking in a country where gun ownership is high but shooting incidents rare. Large protest demonstrations were held in major cities for several months. Opposition leaders created a protest movement “Serbia Against Violence” which blamed Vucic for creating “an atmosphere” responsible for the killings.
This is surely an exaggeration. In fact, police repression in Serbia is relatively mild, and Vucic can hardly be blamed for the mood of violence that prevails in the world today. Former Prime Minister Ana Brnabic also risked exaggeration by claiming that the protests were “fueled by foreign intelligence services.”
Candidates for “Serbia Against Violence” won 24 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections on Dec. 17, 2023, just half the 48 percent won by the coalition supported by Vucic.
Serbia Against Violence, or SPN, coalition representatives in front of the National Assembly of Serbia on Nov. 3, 2023. (Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 3.0)
In February 2024, a delegation headed by Marinika Tepic of “Serbia Against Violence” and Radomir Lazovic of the “Serbian Green-Left Front” went to Strasbourg to complain to the European Parliament that the elections had been stolen.
Enjoying minimal legislative power, the European Parliament asserts itself mainly by adopting virtuous resolutions condemning human rights violations in foreign countries on the basis of often unverified complaints.
As was to be expected, by an overwhelming vote of 461 to 52 the European Parliament promptly adopted a strong resolution calling for an international investigation into “election irregularities” and threatening to stop EU funding. The main complaint was that by campaigning, President Vucic had unfairly influenced voters.
Marinika Tepic declared to Politico that “if something doesn’t change now, we will completely slide into a dictatorship.”
EU’s Missionary Work
Protests against recognizing the December 2023 elections reached such proportions that many feared a replay of the 2014 Maidan demonstrations that led to war in Ukraine.
Pavle Cicvaric, who had learned organizing skills in numerous programs and workshops funded by Western foundations, led the student protests in Belgrade. The young leader’s parents are both deeply involved in the work of NGOs.
His mother, Dr. Jelena Žunic Cicvaric, is project coordinator of the NGO “Regional EU Resource Center for Civil Society in Serbia,” a key channel for the redistribution of European Union funds, allocated only to those actively working on raising awareness of “European values.”
His father, Radovan Cicvaric, a long-time politician campaigning for Euro-integration, is also promoting “European values” as director of the NGO Užice Center for Child Rights (UCPD) founded in 1998.
While the UCPD focuses on children, another influential NGO, the Belgrade Open School (BOS), founded in 1993, sponsors programs for students and young professionals, including “training of social change agents.”
Both are part of the “Youth Umbrella Organization of Serbia” which receives significant funds from international donors such as USAID, the Soros’ Open Society Foundation, and various European Union programs.
They organize workshops, training sessions, and projects aimed at strengthening the capacities of local NGOs and promoting European values. “Transition” countries applying for EU membership must listen to instructions on how to be worthy Europeans.
This educational task is undertaken by the European Fund for the Balkans (EFB), a joint initiative of European foundations that envisions, runs and supports initiatives aimed at strengthening democracy and fostering European integration.
Significantly, the EFB is sponsoring a “Joint History Project” to produce and spread a unified version of regional history, with the kind support of the German Foreign Office.
The Balkan Trust for Democracy (BTD) is a foundation based in Belgrade. It was founded in March 2003 by the German Marshall Fund, USAID, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Other donors include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Tipping Point Foundation, Robert Bosch Foundation, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and the foreign affairs ministries of Denmark and Greece. The BTD supports grant donation, policy dialogue, and leadership development.
If you want to be a leader, you know where to go.
It is hard to imagine that these Western-financed organizations have not contributed to the zeal and skill of Serbian student protesters.
A Deadly Collapse
Novi Sad is Serbia’s second-largest city, a major stop on the new high speed railway route between Belgrade and Budapest being rebuilt with Chinese aid.
As part of this project, Novi Sad’s 60-year old modernistic railroad station was recently renovated, leaving in place a long concrete canopy across its entrance side. On the morning of Nov. 1, 2024, the concrete canopy suddenly collapsed, killing a total of 16 people.
The Serbian government declared a nation-wide day of mourning, a number of officials resigned, including the Serbian construction minister and the mayor of Novi Sad. Investigations of the causes are continuing.
Portion of the canopy of the main railway station in Novi Sad, Serbia, that collapsed onto people walking and sitting underneath on Nov. 1, 2024. (Mishyac /Wikimedia Commons/ CC0)
For the student activists, the collapse was seen as clear proof of corruption, not only in construction work on the station but throughout society. Declaring that what happened in Novi Sad is proof that Serbia is overwhelmed by crime, violence, corruption and despair, the students have given themselves the task of changing this “unbearable social reality” to build a new Serbia.
An apparently leaderless movement organizes student plenums which privately decide by consensus what to do next. They have shut down university faculties and schools, preventing students from attending classes for months.
Students who want to attend classes are treated like traitors. Even hospitals have been blockaded. It has been observed that the activist students tend to come from well-to-do families and are not joined by working class youth. It is an elite revolt calling for equality.
Students blocking traffic are protected by police. The government clearly suspects provocation and has been avoiding the sort of violent repression used by the French government of Emmanuel Macron to put down the Yellow Vests movement.
Transition to What?
March during the general strike in Belgrade on Jan, 24, 2025. The banner in the foreground says “Only Student Save the Serbs,” a play on the national slogan “Only Unity Saves the Serbs.” (SergioOren / Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 4.0)
Serbian students under 26 were not born when NATO bombed Serbia.
Serbian youth has grown up torn between the scars of the NATO bombing and the persistent dominant Western view of Serbs as the guilty party for the destruction of Yugoslavia. No wonder that this creates some confusion.
It is understandable that a portion of middle class Serbian, urban youth find it unbearable to be excluded from “the West” by Serbia’s imposed Pariah status.
Youth can be very conformist in their rebelliousness, seeking to join together in defiance of their elders. However confused the West may be, it still excels most in selling itself as something marvelous.
A significant way it does this is through its massive web of non-governmental organizations.
In April, EU auditors issued a report noting a “lack of transparency” in granting some 4.8 billion euros to some 5,000 NGOs during the 2021-2023 period, in addition to Member State grants of some 2.6 billion euros to around 7,500 NGOs from EU funding sources.
It is not clear which countries benefited, but Marta Kos, the Slovenian EU commissioner for enlargement, has mentioned Serbia.
Kos during confirmation hearings as European commissioner for enlargement, Nov. 7, 2024. (CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2024– Source: EP)
In a March 28 interview with Slovenian RTV, Kos rejected as “unacceptable” suggestions by President Vucic that EU-funded NGOs are encouraging student protests aimed to overthrow him. Kos nevertheless noted that she was “much more in contact with the NGOs I met in Brussels than with the Serbian government or its president.”
She said:
“Many NGOs in Serbia would not survive without our support, and it is precisely because of the exceptional importance of NGOs that I have decided to allocate an additional €16 million to them for the period from this year until the end of 2027.”
“Without the participation of civil society, there can be no enlargement process,” Kos said, adding that she trusts the Serbian people to “guide their politicians so that Serbia can become a member of the European Union.” Kos feels qualified to provide guidance.
Aleksander Vulin is a prominent Socialist who has held various ministerial posts. But no more. “I hope that Mr. Vulin will not be a member of the new government, because those who act in an anti-European manner cannot lead Serbia into the EU,” said Kos. She got her way.
Among his sins, Vulin favors joining BRICS and had called for a law revealing NGO financing by foreign governments. (When Georgia adopted such a law, EU leaders mobilized to stop it, but failed.)
On the other hand, Vucic defied dire threats by the EU against daring to attend the May 9 celebrations of the Allied Victory over Nazi Germany. He flew around Baltic States blocking his flight and showed up in Moscow, along with the courageous Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico.
Vucic in Moscow on May 9, on his way to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Ramil Sitdikov, RIA Novosti, Presidet of Russia)
Such is the Vucic balancing act. As a result, Vucic is denounced as “pro-Putin” in Brussels while his domestic adversaries denounce him for weakly giving in to EU demands.
The student protesters are still more ambiguous.
They clearly don’t want to give credence to government accusations that they are manipulated by EU NGOs. The EU flag has been tacitly banned from the huge student demonstrations, with only Serbian flags being waved, as if to demonstrate national independence.
However, this spring a contingent of student protesters created a spectacle by setting out to take their grievances to EU institutions, ostensibly on bicycles. They were warmly welcomed as they complained that everything in Serbia was absolutely awful.
On May 6, Serbia’s leading newspaper Politika reported that visiting Serbian blockaders in the European Parliament gallery listened meekly as they were lectured by a Croatian nationalist, Steven Nikola Bartulica, who told them that “European values mean also a confession of guilt for everything Serbia did to Croatia.”
(In the summer of 1995, Croatia expelled about 200,000 Serbs from their homes in the Krajina region of Croatia, in the largest ethnic cleansing of the Yugoslav wars.)
Bartulica claimed Serbia was not a European-style liberal democracy and would not be normalized until it accepted paying reparations to Croatia.
Members of the European Parliament expressed satisfaction that the students had chosen “Europe” against Russia, and called for overthrowing Vucic and Fico for having gone to Moscow.
At home, however, the protest demonstrations seem to be losing momentum, to the extent that students have stopped demanding everything! now! and are retreating to the demand for elections.
Boosted by his trip to Moscow, where his delegation held serious talks with President Vladimir Putin, Vucic held a patriotic rally in the city of Nis where he declared that the students’ demands are over and do not interest him any more. He dismissed the blockaders as a very loud minority of mobbing bullies terrorizing the majority of citizens who want peace, work and unity.
By suddenly demanding snap elections, he assumed that they were simply seeking another opportunity for violent outbursts, since elections will always be declared stolen by the opposition. Elections will be held normally in a year or so, he said.
On May 22, Belgrade received a visit from Kaja Kallas, an Estonian chosen by Ursula von der Leyen to be high representative of the EU for foreign affairs. Having no diplomatic experience, Kallas’ most visible qualifications are being a young woman with an unsurpassed hatred of Russia.
Kallas, center, EU high representative and vice president of the European Commission, at a NATO meeting in Brussels on April 4. (NATO /Flickr/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
While in Belgrade, the EU’s top diplomat met, in a strange twist, with the president and the prime minister to tell them what to do. But she met with representatives of student protesters to listen to what they had to say.
She praised her meetings with “civil society” and youth activists. “I heard their call and their aspirations – for fairness, for accountability so that Serbia can fulfill its full potential,” she said. “Their energy is needed to find a way forward.”
In contrast, Kallas scolded Vucic for meeting Putin in Moscow. Serbia’s future acceptance into the EU, she stressed, depends on the country’s “strategic choice” between East and West.
Putin, by contrast, accepts Vucic’s balancing act and has no objection to Serbia joining the EU. Variety is consistent with a multipolar world. But for the West, “you are with us or against us.” Between East and West, there are no bridges allowed.
Perplexity & Fear
In Belgrade, some people think the protests are petering out. Perhaps, but in the past they have died down only to revive over some incident. Since the causes are unclear, so are the solutions.
The difficulty, Dragan Pavlovic, a Serbian commentator, told me is that the protests are expressed in “very general demands for a ‘better life,’ which obviously does not offer any concrete basis for understanding what is essentially wanted or what should be done to calm the protests.” Such demands can go on forever.
“It is probably an orchestrated, mass hysteria, caused by the nuclear threat, the genocide in Gaza, the prolongation of the crisis in Kosovo and the actions of non-governmental organizations,” he suggests.
Journalist and writer Mara Knezevic Kern considers it impossible to understand these incredible events. “I do not believe that it is possible to describe this new variant of an attack on the state — it has not happened anywhere else yet.” In the 1990s, Yugoslavia served as an experimental laboratory for regime change. Many fear that this is happening again, in Serbia.
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2025/06/dia ... zed-chaos/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."