by Dmitry Trenin:
In the West’s eyes, Russia must be destroyed. That leaves us no choice.

Dmitry Trenin is a research professor at the Higher School of Economics and a lead research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. He is also a member of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).

RIAC

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

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

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

It is a war of survival for the West, not just geopolitically but ideologically. Western globalism – whether economic, political, or cultural – cannot tolerate alternative civilizational models. Post-national elites in the US and Western Europe are committed to preserving their dominance. A diversity of worldviews, civilizational autonomy, and national sovereignty are seen not as options, but as threats.

This explains the severity of the West’s response. When Joe Biden told Brazil’s President Lula that he wanted to “destroy” Russia, he revealed the truth behind euphemisms like “strategic defeat.” Western-backed Israel has shown how total this doctrine is – first in Gaza, then Lebanon, and finally Iran. In early June, a similar strategy was used in attacks on Russian airfields. Reports suggest US and British involvement in both cases. To Western planners, Russia, Iran, China and North Korea are part of a single axis. That belief shapes military planning.

Read more Dmitry Trenin: Why the next world order will be armed with nukes
Compromise is no longer part of the game. What we’re seeing are not temporary crises but rolling conflicts. Eastern Europe and the Middle East are the two current flashpoints. A third has long been identified: East Asia, particularly Taiwan. Russia is directly engaged in Ukraine, holds stakes in the Middle East, and may become involved in the Pacific.

The war is no longer about occupation, but destabilization. The new strategy focuses on sowing internal disorder: economic sabotage, social unrest, and psychological attrition. The West’s plan for Russia is not defeat on the battlefield, but gradual internal collapse.

Its tactics are all-encompassing. Drone strikes target infrastructure and nuclear facilities. Political assassinations are no longer off-limits. Journalists, negotiators, scientists, and even their families are being hunted. Residential neighborhoods, schools, and hospitals are not collateral damage – they are targets. This is total war.

This is underpinned by dehumanization. Russians are portrayed not just as enemies but as subhuman. Western societies are manipulated to accept this. Information control, censorship, and historical revisionism are used to justify the war. Those who question the dominant narrative are labelled traitors.

Meanwhile, the West exploits the more open systems of its adversaries. After refusing to interfere in foreign politics for decades, Russia now finds itself on the defensive. But those days must end. As our enemies coordinate their attacks, we must disrupt their unity. The European Union is not a monolith. Hungary, Slovakia, and much of southern Europe are not eager for escalation. These internal fractures must be widened.

Western strength lies in unity among its elites and their ideological control over their populations. But this unity is not invulnerable. The Trump administration presents tactical opportunities. His return has already reduced US involvement in Ukraine. Yet Trumpism should not be romanticized. The American elite remains largely hostile to Russia. There will be no new détente.

Read more Fyodor Lukyanov: The West mocked BRICS for years but now it’s paying attention
The war in Ukraine is becoming a war between Western Europe and Russia. British and French missiles already strike Russian targets. NATO intelligence is embedded in Ukrainian operations. EU countries are training Ukrainian forces and planning attacks together. Ukraine is just a tool. Brussels is preparing for a wider war.

What we must ask is: Is Western Europe preparing to defend or attack? Many of its leaders have lost their strategic judgment. But the hostility is real. The goal is no longer containment, but to “solve the Russian question” once and for all. Any illusion that business as usual will return must be discarded.

We are in for a long war. It will not end like in 1945, nor settle into Cold War coexistence. The decades ahead will be turbulent. Russia must fight for its rightful place in a new world order.

So, what must we do?

First of all, we must strengthen our home front. We need mobilization, but not the rigid models of the Soviet past. We need smart, adaptive mobilization across all sectors – economic, technological, and demographic. Russia’s political leadership is a strategic asset. It must remain steady and visionary.

We must promote internal unity, social justice, and patriotism. Every citizen must feel the stakes. We must align our fiscal, industrial, and technological policy with the realities of a long-term war. Fertility policy and migration control must reverse our demographic decline.

Secondly, we must consolidate our external alliances. Belarus is a strong ally in the west. North Korea has shown reliability in the east. But we lack a similar partner in the south. This gap must be addressed.

Read more Dmitry Trenin: The West’s war on Russia will go beyond Ukraine
The Israel-Iran war offers important lessons. Our adversaries coordinate tightly. We must do the same. Not by copying NATO, but by forging our own model of strategic cooperation.

We should also pursue tactical engagement with the Trump administration. If it allows us to weaken the US war effort in Europe, we should exploit it. But we must not confuse tactics with strategy. American foreign policy remains fundamentally adversarial.

Fellow European powers like Britain, France, and Germany must be made to understand they are vulnerable. Their capitals are not immune. The same message should reach Finland, Poland, and the Baltics. Provocations must be met swiftly and decisively.

If escalation is inevitable, we must consider pre-emptive action – firstly with conventional arms. And if necessary, we must be ready to use ‘special means’, including nuclear weapons, with full awareness of the consequences. Deterrence must be both passive and active.

Our mistake in Ukraine was waiting too long. Delay created the illusion of weakness. That must not be repeated. Victory means breaking the enemy’s plans, not occupying territory.

Finally, we must penetrate the West’s information shield. The battlefield now includes narratives, alliances, and public opinion. Russia must once again learn to engage in others’ domestic politics, not as an aggressor, but as a defender of truth.

The time for illusions is over. We are in a world war. The only path forward is through bold, strategic action.

This article was first published by the magazine Profile and was translated and edited by the RT team.

The main sensation of this news, which is now flying around all the world media, is the retelling in the Financial Times of the alleged conversation between Trump and Zelensky, in which Trump allegedly asked Zelensky if he could strike Moscow with American missiles? And St. Petersburg?

Zelensky allegedly answered: if you give us missiles, then we will strike Moscow and St. Petersburg with missiles.

Trump also allegedly said in another interview that a strategy is needed to “hurt the Russians” and then Putin will agree to Western peace terms.
If Trump said all this, this is a sharp escalation.

And this is a question for Trump: does he really want Zelensky to strike Moscow and St. Petersburg with American missiles using American military satellites? That is, Trump is really going to war between the United States and Russia?

Or is the Financial Times lying?

This news shocked everyone.
Sergey Markov

US President Donald Trump has threatened to “take away” talk show host, actress, and comedian Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship after she criticized his administration’s handling of the deadly floods in Texas.

The authorities have come under mounting scrutiny over their response to the July 4 disaster, which has left at least 129 people dead, including children, with 166 still missing. Officials have faced questions over the timing of ‘code red’ alerts and whether they acted swiftly enough to warn residents. Trump has defended the federal response, insisting that his agencies “did an incredible job under the circumstances.”

In a TikTok video posted last Sunday, O’Donnell, who was born in the state of New York, blamed the rising death toll on what she called Trump’s “horrible decisions,” alleging that his administration has weakened the government’s ability to protect the public.

“What a horror story in Texas,” O’Donnell said. “And you know, when the president guts all the early warning systems and the weather forecasting abilities of the government, these are the results that we’re gonna start to see on a daily basis.”

Trump responded on Saturday with a post on Truth Social, suggesting that O’Donnell should stay in Ireland, where she moved earlier this year after the start of his second term.

“Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship,” he wrote. “She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

The US Supreme Court has ruled that citizenship granted by birth cannot be revoked by presidential decree.

Trump’s feud with O’Donnell dates back to the mid-2000s, when the comedian mocked him during TV appearances and labeled him a “snake oil salesman.” Trump retaliated with personal insults, calling her “a very unattractive person” and “a mentally sick woman.”

Over the years, the two have continued to trade barbs in media interviews and online. More recently, O’Donnell has criticized Trump’s tax policies and described his government as “a horror show.”

Trump has made similar threats in the past, including against South African-born tech billionaire Elon Musk, suggesting that his residency status could be revoked.

by Dmitry Trenin
Dmitry Trenin, a research professor at the Higher School of Economics and a lead research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. He is also a member of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).

For Moscow, the real war is global, and it’s just begun

Russian President Vladimir Putin. © Sputnik/Alexander Kazakov
The trademark style of the current US president, Donald Trump, is verbal spectacle. His statements – brash, contradictory, sometimes theatrical – should be monitored, but not overestimated. They are not inherently favorable or hostile to Russia. And we must remember: Trump is not the ‘king’ of America. The ‘Trump revolution’ that many anticipated at the beginning of the year appears to have given way to Trump’s own evolution – a drift toward accommodation with the American establishment.

In that light, it’s time to assess the interim results of our ‘special diplomatic operation’. There have now been six presidential phone calls, several rounds of talks between foreign ministers and national security aides, and sustained contact at other levels.

The most obvious positive outcome is the restoration of dialogue between Russia and the United States – a process that had been severed under the Biden administration. Crucially, this revived dialogue extends beyond Ukraine. A range of potential areas for cooperation have been mapped out, from geopolitical stability to transportation and sport. These may not carry immediate strategic weight, but they lay the groundwork for future engagement. Under Trump, the dialogue is unlikely to break off again – though its tone and pace may shift.

One visible result of this diplomacy was the resumption of talks with the Ukrainian side in Istanbul. While these negotiations currently hold little political substance – and the recent prisoner exchanges occurred independently of them – they nonetheless reaffirm a core tenet of Russian diplomacy: we are ready for a political resolution to the conflict.

Still, these are technical and tactical achievements. The strategic reality remains unchanged.

It was never realistic to expect Trump to offer Russia a deal on Ukraine that met our security requirements. Nor for that matter would Russia accept one that compromised its long-term security interests. Likewise, any notion that Trump would ‘deliver’ Ukraine to the Kremlin, join Moscow in undermining the EU, or push for a new Yalta agreement with Russia and China was always fantasy.

So the page has turned. What comes next?

Trump will almost certainly sign the new US sanctions bill into law – but he’ll try to preserve discretion in how those measures are applied. The sanctions will add friction to global trade, but they will not derail Russian policy.

On the military front, Trump will deliver the remaining aid packages approved under Biden, and perhaps supplement them with modest contributions of his own. But going forward, it will be Western Europe – especially Germany – that supplies Ukraine, often by buying US-made systems and re-exporting them.

Meanwhile, the United States will continue to furnish Kiev with battlefield intelligence – particularly for deep strikes inside Russian territory.

None of this suggests the conflict will end in 2025. Nor will it end when hostilities in Ukraine eventually wind down.

That’s because the fight is not fundamentally about Ukraine.

What we are witnessing is an indirect war between the West and Russia – part of a much broader global confrontation. The West is fighting to preserve its dominance. And Russia, in defending itself, is asserting its sovereign right to exist on its own terms.

This war will be long. And the United States – with Trump or without him – will remain our adversary. The outcome will shape not just the fate of Ukraine, but the future of Russia itself.

This article was first published in Kommersant (https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/7872458), and was translated and edited by the RT team.

By Caroline de Gruyter via https://euobserver.com/eu-and-the-world/ar0ec480cc

On 27 May, an official document calling for regime change in European countries was published in Washington DC.

Politicians all over Europe would do well to read this document carefully before they and their spin doctors start concocting strategies for their upcoming election campaigns.

This time, what is at stake is not simply who will govern European countries. It goes much further: this American administration increasingly sees Europe as a political battleground.

It considers elections in Europe — recently in Romania and Poland, and soon in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and, as some speculate, France too — as an opportunity to get European countries governed by far-right leaders with Trumpian agendas.

With those leaders, it wants to forge a ‘civilizational alliance’, one “forged in common culture, faith, family ties, mutual assistance in times of strife, and above all, a shared Western civilizational heritage”.

Other European political parties should be opposed, as those are waging “an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself”, which – yes – “increasingly affects American security’.

The document, The Need for Civilizational Allies in Europe, was written by Samuel Samson, senior adviser for the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the US State Department.

It builds on vice-president JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference last February. Vance then professed that Europe’s “retreat from some of its most fundamental values” forms the biggest threat to Western values and democracy.

‘Christian nations like Hungary’

The State Department document, however, goes a step further. It states that “Europe’s democratic backsliding” harms American security, economic interests and freedom of speech. Because of this, it implies it is time for the US to act: far-right forces in Europe must transform their political systems so that Washington can form an alliance of civilization with “Christian nations like Hungary”.

According to Samson, it is not America that undermines democracy by ignoring court rulings; demolishing public institutions; blocking visas of people who criticise president Trump; or picking migrants off the streets and dumping them in El Salvador or Libya.

No, the paper states that it is Europe that is anti-democratic: Europe is “a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom, and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance”.

Today, Europe is largely governed by conservative parties that are decidedly more rightwing than 10 years ago, with some even governing with far right parties.

Nevertheless, the State Department document describes Europe as a hotbed of ultra-leftwing zealots, a Europe “that replaces its spiritual and cultural roots, that treats traditional values as dangerous relics, and that centralises power in unaccountable institutions”.

The text refers to Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, medieval Christianity and British common law, but makes no mention of the Enlightenment — the foundation of both European and US constitutional systems with its separation of church and state, individual liberty, representative government, the rule of law and a strong emphasis on rationalism and science.

This document is in line with president Trump’s views on Europe.

In a clear break with Washington’s Europe policy during the past 80 years, Trump does not see Europe as the centrepiece of US foreign policy anymore.

What keeps him awake at night, is the rise of China, America’s main rival. Keen on avoiding a military clash with China, he intends to build a strong bloc against it instead.

US vassals

For this, he wants to line up all America’s allies — on American terms, meaning he plans to turn Europe and allies like Canada and Mexico into US vassals.

Since they are resisting, they get far harsher American treatment than autocracies like Russia, Turkey or even China itself. By being ‘nice’ and accommodative with India or Russia, he tries to lure them into his camp and prevent them from allying themselves with China.

Trump’s Western bloc is not centered around values or democracy. The focus is entirely different: to prevent China from growing too powerful.

This is why Washington is forcing its allies, especially in Europe, into submission.

Those who resist are punished. Trump’s tariff wars, his attempts to torpedo the EU’s digital rulebook and his demand that Europe shoulders the financial and operational burden of NATO are just the beginning.

Trump conquered America by starting an extreme culture war. Now he is exporting this war to Europe in order to flip governments.

In every European election, he aggressively supports far-right candidates – PiS presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki in Poland, AfD leader Alice Weidel in Germany, far-right activist George Simion in Romania.

Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders, who portrays migrants as criminals and calls Trump a “brother in arms”, also enjoys full White House backing.

To Trump’s delight, Wilders supports Israel’s attacks on Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, and likes the controversial Gaza ‘Riviera plan’ which involves mass deportation of the Palestinian population. With elections scheduled in October, Wilders is aggressively pulling a Trump.

Recent polls suggest most Europeans (especially in the west and south) are falling out of love with Trump’s America.

They have understood that the transatlantic alliance, which underpinned eight decades of peace and prosperity in Europe, is no more.

Now, they need to realize that America is not withdrawing from Europe, but is actually trying to subjugate it. Europeans need to take Trump’s interference in Europe’s democracies much more seriously, and fight back. Europe’s real threat is not wokeism (whatever that means anyway), but America trying to walk all over them.

Fighting back, however, is only possible if political leaders see the broader, global picture and understand what is at stake. This broader picture should guide election campaigns, since this is what the ‘Trumpites’ are also doing.

Instead of letting their agendas be determined by polarising, artificial identity debates imported from America, cheaply pitting citizens against one another, politicians should show responsibility and calmly show their electorates how to prevent Europe from turning into a copy or a colony of the United States.

by EUvsDisinfo

In recent days, the Kremlin-backed Matryoshka disinformation network has launched a new blitz aimed squarely at Moldova’s President Maia Sandu, just ahead of the upcoming EU-Moldova Summit in Chișinău on 4 July, 2025. What is a high-profile diplomatic event without a dose of Russian Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI)?

According to an investigation by The Insider (read their full report here), the latest Russian FIMI campaign is being pushed through a series of fake videos disseminated on social media. One is a fake clip falsely claiming that HRVP Kaja Kallas has suddenly refused to attend the summit, allegedly due to some deep, mysterious rift with Sandu. The video is branded as a report from The Insider itself, in an effort to make it look official.

Conspiracy of a fabricated feud

The Matryoshka bots also float the absurd claim that Sandu is trying to replace Kallas as head of the EU’s diplomatic service, claiming they uncovered ‘proof’ of Sandu’s supposed scheming. Spoiler alert: this evidence does not exist. The fictional rivalry between Sandu and Kallas has been spread by the Matryoshka network since late May, with a peak in coordinated activity on 19 June, just in time for the EU-Moldova Summit. This goes hand in hand with other Kremlin disinformation narratives on the upcoming high-level event, such as falsely spreading the claim that the EU-Moldova Summit is an attempt by Brussels to interfere in the Moldovan elections.

False narratives to undermine trust

Other false stories in the Matryoshka campaign include a video, disguised as a Euronews report, that claims Romanian intelligence warned of a ‘terrorist threat’ at the summit, while another clip, pretending to be from the French news site Le Point, alleges that EU officials are ready to remove Sandu from office for failing to steer Moldova on a European path.

The bots have also accused Sandu’s government of corruption, wasting money on the EU summit, and creating ‘ghost voters’ by extending the country’s legal period for registering a death.

What is the Matryoshka network?

Matryoshka is an ongoing disinformation campaign that began in September 2023. It operates in two coordinated phases. First, a small group of social media accounts post fake content, primarily false news reports or fabricated images. Then, another group (‘quoters’) amplifies this content by replying to posts from public figures, media outlets, and fact-checkers, often tagging them or asking them to verify the material.

The content typically impersonates trusted Western media and institutions, using their visual styles to appear credible. In the past, it has primarily spread anti-Ukrainian messages, discredited public figures, and promoted pro-Russian narratives. Much of this material originates from Russian-language Telegram channels and is believed to be created or distributed through coordinated efforts, possibly involving paid actors. The goal of the campaign is to manipulate online discourse and undermine trust in legitimate information sources.

FIMI strikes ahead of elections

In short, the Matryoshka network has once again proven its intention to mislead and confuse the public, spreading disinformation, and undermining Moldova’s efforts to align more closely with the EU. With each fabricated video and false claim, the aim is to create confusion, erode confidence in Moldova’s democracy, and destabilise the country’s position within Europe. All while undermining the upcoming elections. As the vote draws nearer, it is evident that Russia’s information warfare apparatus is prepared to craft any narrative that can weaken trust in Moldova’s democratic institutions and its European aspirations.

The BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, what is the main thing? 1. The attention to this summit is low, because the leaders of Russia and China are not participating.
2. It is dangerous for Putin to fly across the ocean, since the probability of a terrorist attack is high.
3. Xi does not want to be in the shadow of the head of India Modi. And Modi will be in first place, because after the summit his visit to Brazil will begin.
4. BRICS is divided more and more clearly into anti-Western Russia and China and pro-Western India and Brazil.
5. BRICS has not become a real organization. It has neither a charter nor a secretariat.
6. The idea of a common BRICS currency has been stopped.
7. BRICS decided to stop its expansion, so that the US and Europe would not have the opportunity to block everything through new members. Therefore, a new status of “partner country” was introduced. This is actually a member of BRICS, but without voting rights. 8. The main idea of BRICS is to help a friend in the lag of its sovereignty. And since the sovereignty of each country is threatened by Western countries, BRICS is inevitably forced to be anti-Western.
9. Russia wants BRICS to develop into a real organization.
10. But China, India – do not want. They have enough.
11. But of course BRICS is a great community of countries of civilizations, the hope of modern humanity.

by S. Markov

Editor’s Note: Below is Igor Strelkov’s latest text. I share his assessment – with one big caveat. That is, that his idea that the compromise of an “axis of resistance” is a one-sided action. What I see is a two-sided action. Not only are Syria, Lebanon, and Iran imploding in a rather mysterious way, but this also applies to Israel. One can see the war in Ukraine is also fake in many ways (see my post The Fake War), and there is an atmosphere of unreality surrounding all the events going back to the dismantling of the USSR.

It is quite conceivable that a global dismantling of national armies and nation-based interest is being pursued on a long-term basis. And this notion of creating a multipolar world is indeed the agenda of the Masters of the Universe, but with a twist. The new multipolarity is not based on national boundaries and national sovereignty but on the model of multinational corporations. That is, entities that cut across multiple nations, a melting pot of sorts, around the world. That means that the warrior class is being eliminated not only from the “axis” but from Israel, too, which has been profoundly damaged since the war with Hamas. We are witnessing the erosion of one party, then a reversal – the erosion of the other party – so that no side can claim victory, only embarrassment after embarrassment.

If this model of development is correct, then we will witness the dismantling of Russia as well, as a multinational empire, among other things. The US is already a multiracial territory and so is Europe. China is still resilient but for how long?

In the very end, some decades from now, a multiracial elite of the world will be formed against a multiracial class of the hoi polloi.

****************

IGOR STRELKOV: MOSCOW’S POSITIONS WILL BE VERY VULNERABLE IN FRONT OF THE USA AND THE EU

[…]

By the way, you are absolutely “on point” suggested that “the situation could change radically over the weekend” (in the area of the “Middle East” (now – “12-day”) war). – I am even somewhat “shocked” by the (even “intermediate”) result with which all this disgrace ended. I have strong suspicions that a state coup in Iran – “for the sake of the war” the leadership of the IRGC and the “allied” military-political structures associated with it were eliminated/destroyed, after which (since this coup was agreed upon in advance with the USA and Israel) the war was stopped, as having achieved all its goals. A fairly logical chain is being built: the “sudden accidental death” of the Iranian president – the subsequent withdrawal of Iranian forces from Syria – the defeat of Hezbollah by Israel (with a “very restrained reaction from Iran”) – the defeat of the Houthi military structure in Yemen (with a very restrained reaction from Iran) – the rapid fall of the Assad regime, which has lost external support – and, finally, a massive strike by the Israeli Air Force, supported from within by a large-scale sabotage campaign that disabled the Iranian air defense forces (which was completely “blown away” by Iranian counterintelligence and security services), – the destruction of the leadership of the IRGC and the Air Force, the General Staff, with complete disregard for the “spiritual leaders” (at the same time – as Lev Vershinin noted – there was a wave of murders of people associated with the IRGC in the state apparatus, etc.). – Then a powerful strike by the United States only on nuclear facilities and … and that’s it. “The war is over – everyone won!” (Israel, and Iran, and the USA). – “Thank you all, everyone is free!” To this we can add the inexplicably passive reaction of China (as if the Chinese were warned in advance about the short-term nature of this “farce”). If this hypothesis is true, then very soon Iran will “warm up” greatly to the USA and Israel (if not in words, then in deeds) and the USA will also “suddenly” begin to gradually lift sanctions from “obedient Tehran”. Let’s see… This process is not simple and can be disrupted at any moment by any of the parties (for example, in Iran for domestic political reasons, where they will now “divide the legacy of the IRGC”).

For Russia, in any case, the situation has only worsened: firstly, we were rather rudely “shown our place in the gallery” in response to our offer to “mediate”; secondly, if Iran is “brought to heel” (i.e., the US and Co. begin to regain control over this country) – we can’t expect anything good from this; and thirdly: having won in Iran, Trump will return “to the field of Ukrainian settlement” as a “triumphant” (with the slogan “peace through strength”) – and will return with an order of magnitude tougher (in relation to Russia) position. His impudence (backed up by the rapid success he has just achieved) will increase many times over, and Moscow’s position (which will suddenly find itself again facing the “united front” of the US and the EU) will be very vulnerable. And won’t it turn out that the recent “bravura-victorious” statements at the SPIEF (not backed up by anything – no real military successes) will possibly be replaced by completely different ones? – Also “we’ll see”. As for our own war (i.e., the SVO), the June successes are not particularly impressive: the enemy front is still not broken through and is very, very slowly “crawling away” to distances that in military science cannot even claim to be called “operational success”. And this is very sad.

With respect, I.V. Girkin

06/25/2025

/ excerpt from a letter to comrade Frol Vladimirov/