If one is to make sense of the last 30-40 years of world events, from the “execution” of Ceaușescu to the Ukrainian war or the targeting of Venezuela – it is simply to understand that the Masters of the Universe are behind the elimination any idea of national sovereignty. No such nationalism is allowed.
Is that now how they will deal with Netanyahu and Orban?
See it clearly spelled out by someone who knows from the inside.
By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
In a conversation lasting one hour and forty minutes according to the Chinese stopwatch– “a long meeting” on President Donald Trump’s clock — President Xi Jinping first knocked the stuffing out of Trump’s warmaking threats, then forced him to beat a retreat behind a 12-month ceasefire with the man the Pentagon has designated its principal enemy but whom Trump praised effusively as “a great leader, great leader of a very powerful, very strong country…a tremendous leader of a very powerful country and I give great respect to him.”
“Uh,” Trump told reporters on board his aircraft as it rocked in crosswinds flying eastward, “a lot of things we discussed in great detail. A lot of things we brought to finalization. A lot of finalization.” This was false.
Worse for the Trump warfighting strategy, the Chinese have retained escalation dominance by making Trump’s concessions their pre-condition for China’s temporary suspension of their sanctions on rare earths exports and imports of US computer chips. For this, Xi offered to buy US soybeans slowly for $34.2 billion over four years – roughly half in tonnage, half in price over twice the interval that China had agreed to in the past.
In General Sun Tzu’s ancient manual for warfighting, “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”. The old man also confessed his limitation: “there is an intelligent way to eat a live frog – I just don’t know what it is.” Xi just demonstrated the way to do it. Trump went down smiling.
Xi has not yet telephoned President Vladimir Putin to brief him on what happened. After Putin’s meeting with Trump in Alaska on August 6, Putin telephoned Xi on August 8. “So far,” said Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, ”there is no such conversation in the schedule, but it can be quickly agreed upon if necessary,”
The Russian state media have interpreted the outcome of the talks to be a “temporary ceasefire” achieved by not discussing the key economic and territorial war issues at all. “There have been no joint statements yet,” Tass noted, “and some of the most important issues of bilateral relations, such as Nvidia chips and advanced products, have remained unresolved.” Nothing was achieved, the official Moscow commentators think, in the US attempt to split Xi from Putin, and secure Chinese pressure on Russia to end the Ukraine war on US and NATO terms. “Ukraine came up, uh, very strongly,” Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington. “We talked about it for a long time and we’re both gonna work together to see if we can get something done. Uh, we agreed the, the sides there, you know, locked in, fighting, and sometimes you have to let him fight, I guess. Crazy. But he’s gonna help us and we’re gonna work together on Ukraine.”
The Russian state media have yet to notice that Trump is abandoning his attempt, through the Rosneft and LUKOil oil trade sanctions of October 25, to stop China buying Russian oil. “There’s not a lot more we can do,” Trump replied to a reporter who asked if he and Xi had discussed his threat to sanction Chinese companies for buying Russian crude oil and petroleum products. “Uh, you know, he’s been buying oil from Russia for a long time. It takes care of a, a big part of China. And, you know, I, I can say India’s been very good, good on that, uh, front. Uh, but, uh, we, we didn’t really discuss the oil. We discussed working together to see if we could get that war finished. You know, it doesn’t affect China.”
A review of the Xi-Trump summit by Russian sources has identified Xi’s ten noes as a discreet way of contrasting Putin’s approach with Trump at the Anchorage meeting, their subsequent telephone call, and the exchange of remarks about each other in the press:
Tsargrad, the television and internet medium of Russian nationalism, has been the least reticent of the Moscow media in its summing up. “After a triumphant – in words – visit to Japan, which refused to stop buying Russian oil, and the ‘bummer’ (облома) in South Korea, which will not invest $ 350 billion in the US economy if they themselves do not give this amount to Seoul, Trump met with Xi Jinping in Busan. And he lost a big one. Negotiations at the South Korean Air Force base lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes, after which, shaking hands, the leaders went off on their own business. As a result, ‘the fantastic relationships for a long time’ (Trump’s words) turned out to be a dream.”
The lesson for the Kremlin, Tsargrad hinted, was that “when Trump flew away from Busan, it was clear that he was lost, because the US could not intimidate China like other countries…Equally obvious, the victory of one of the two contenders for the title of the leading power of the world will depend on the position of Russia. The global geopolitical triangle has not gone away – only the weight and degree of influence of its member countries changes. Half a century ago, Beijing had the ‘golden [controlling] share’, but now Moscow has it — and it also has the ‘silver bullet’ ”.
Quite interesting to see how Putin’s people admit that they completely misread the European grand front against Russia. It is also bizarre to constantly read about the “militarization” of Europe, when it was and it is Russia and its president who have been constantly boasting about Russia’s military might, Russia’s ability to wipe out any European city in the blink of an eye. So, who is the warmonger here?
Furthermore, Zionist Putin’s bet on his friends Netanyahu, Trump and Orban seems to be misplaced as US power is crumbling so is support for Netanyahu, while Orban is on his last last legs. The “peace” in Gaza arranged by Trump at the last minute shows the panic at the White House. They have bigger worries coming up the international pipelines and China is just wagging its finger at the misbehaving Trump.
Now is Ushakov’s turn to show panic. See below from RT:
European nations appear to be united in a collective anti-Russian frenzy, which precludes even the possibility of dialogue with Moscow, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov has said.
Speaking to Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday, the official admitted that he was “surprised… by the extent of lies, brazen lies” about Russia being peddled by European politicians.
”And I am of course surprised that against a backdrop of these lies, against a backdrop of hatred [of Russia], Europeans could become so consolidated,” Ushakov stated. The Russian presidential aide added that he could not have imagined that “Europe would speak with one voice vis-à-vis Russia – an extremely belligerent, extremely negative [voice].”
According to the official, this approach leaves no room for even an attempt to engage Moscow diplomatically on the part of much of Europe.
The US does not seem to exert much influence over its European allies, as the “extent of… united hatred of the Europeans toward Russia is such that it is hard to ‘bore’ through this hatred even with an American drill,” Ushakov insisted.
Germany’s leaders share Hitler’s goals – LavrovREAD MORE: Germany’s leaders share Hitler’s goals – Lavrov
Speaking of the prospects for the Ukraine peace process, he accused the authorities in Kiev of being unwilling to end hostilities.
According to the Russian presidential aide, the understanding reached between Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, in Alaska in August is the “guiding star” in terms of resolving the Ukraine conflict.
Speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi last Thursday, President Putin accused Western Europe of continuing to “whip up hysteria that war with the Russians is supposedly on the doorstep” and condemned rampant militarization on the continent.
He dismissed such concerns as a “nonsense mantra,” suggesting that European leaders shift their focus to domestic issues.
At a summit in The Hague in June, NATO member states committed to increasing defense spending from the previous threshold of 2% to 5% of GDP by 2035. The European Union, in turn, similarly approved several programs aimed at boosting military spending this year, including the €800 billion ($930 billion) ReArm Europe initiative.
So, who won the public opinion against Netanyahu and Trump? And who organized the Sumud Flotilla? And who imposed a total military embargo against Israel? And who is running protests day after day on the streets of Europe? —
Europe! The same Europe that the pro-Russia Orban describes as losing the war in Ukraine? The same Europe that the Russians laugh off as impotent, lacking military strength, disunited, and on the verge of collapse?
In fact it is Europe, more precisely Western Europe, who called the shots in Israel and it is the same Europe that’s now turning its attention to the warmonger Putin. It looks like the same campaign of public opinion is being prepared against Russia. The more Russia bombards the infrastructure in Ukraine, the more public opinion will be mobilized against Russia.
And Russia sees the writing on the wall. It is for this reason that Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s personal valet, called Anna Paulina Luna in a hurry to ask for a meeting on short notice. The reason is that the Russians, seeing the defeat of Trump and Netanyahu, are in a real panic. They are asking for help, for some face-saving exit from Ukraine.
But will Trump oblige? And will he be able to save Putin?
This is not about peace but about the defeat of Israel and the defeat of Trump. We’ll see what follows next.
Hamas says ceasefire ‘crowns resistance achievements since October 7’
‘What the occupation failed to achieve through genocide & starvation over 2 full years, it could not attain through negotiation’ — Hamas founding member Izzat al-Rishq cited by Quds News Network
The defeat of Moscow-friendly parties in the Moldovan election is just the latest of many setbacks.
By Adrian Karatnycky, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the founder of Myrmidon Group, and Alexander J. Motyl, a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark.
On Sept. 28, Moldovan voters overwhelmingly rejected pro-Russian parties and gave President Maia Sandu’s pro-European party a decisive parliamentary majority. The victory, which came despite a massive Russia-financed influence operation to sway the election, was only the latest in a series of geopolitical setbacks for Moscow.
Contrary to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chest-thumping bravado, he has done enormous damage to Russia’s regional and global interests since launching his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Indeed, Putin’s policies make no sense in terms of realist theory of state behavior. They can only be explained by various assumptions regarding what motivates specific leaders to act the way they do.
The roster of Russian setbacks is long. The most dramatic, of course, has occurred in Ukraine, where Moscow could once count on a large Russia-friendly segment of the population. However, Putin’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, his instigation of violent separatist movements, and his brutal occupation policies in the Moscow-controlled regions turned public opinion in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east and south against Russia. Today, the shift has become deeply rooted, especially given the war crimes and massive loss of life perpetrated by Russia in three and a half years of war.
When the war ends, Russia will face a heavily armed Ukraine whose population will be welded together for generations by the wounds of Russia’s aggression. A powerful Ukrainian military made up of skilled and seasoned fighters and enhanced by innovative weapons and tactics will work in concert with Europe to deter the Russian threat and limit Russian influence in Europe.
By any standard, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also significantly reduced Russia’s ability to project power in what is sees as its traditional sphere of influence. Not only has the war sapped Russia’s military hardware and created deep-seated problems for its economy, its military occupation and annexation of Ukrainian territory have also eroded most of Moscow’s influence among the states that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet empire.
The Commonwealth of Independent States—once Russia’s main instrument for the peaceful reintegration of the post-Soviet states—is in shambles. The Eurasian Economic Union, which Russia created a little over a decade ago as an alternative to the European Union, has been reduced to a minor trading bloc with a stable membership of only four states: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Though Armenia is still a formal member, the country’s parliament officially endorsed accession to the European Union in February, prompting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk to warn of serious economic consequences for Yerevan.
Armenia’s bitter break with Russia this year has been driven both by anxiety about Moscow’s disregard for the sovereignty of its neighbors and its withdrawal of protection for Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. Given the acrimony, relations are unlikely to be repaired anytime soon—a remarkable development in light of Armenia’s traditional reliance on Russia.
Russia’s relations with Azerbaijan have sharply worsened as well. After a Russian police operation against Azerbaijani migrants led to several deaths, Azerbaijan rooted out Russian influence operations in the country by suspending all Russian cultural activities; raiding the offices of Russia’s propaganda arm, Sputnik News; arresting several Sputnik employees; and sharpening anti-Russian rhetoric.
Emblematic of the overall erosion of Russian influence, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a U.S.-brokered peace declaration at the White House in the presence of U.S. President Donald Trump in August.
The war with Ukraine is also reducing Russia’s power projection in Central Asia, where wary former Soviet republics are increasing their engagement with China, benefiting from trade and engagement with the oil-rich Gulf states, deepening cooperation with their ethnic brethren in Turkey, and finding ways to circumvent Russia with their energy and other exports.
If this were not enough to diminish Moscow’s power in the region, the war with Ukraine has eliminated Russia as a naval factor in the Black Sea.
Farther west, Russia’s war has deepened European support for Ukraine and led to a sea change in Europe’s defense posture to meet the Russian threat. Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states have steeply increased military spending already, while most other NATO members have pledged to increase defense expenditures to at least 5 percent of GDP over the next decade. Russia’s war on Ukraine has also led to the expansion of the alliance to Sweden and Finland, the latter extending Russia’s border with the alliance by some 800 miles.
Needless to say, Russia’s war has also weakened its influence in Europe. Deep reductions in energy imports have diminished Russian economic influence, while British and EU sanctions have sapped trade and investment. Restrictions on the ability of Russians to travel and an EU-wide ban of Kremlin propaganda outlets have also limited attempts to manipulate cultural influence and engage in disinformation operations.
Almost everywhere in Europe, anti-Russian sentiments predominate among voters on the left, right, and center. The war in Ukraine, together with continual violations by Russian drones and aircraft of European airspace, has significantly eroded if not eliminated Russian soft power on the continent. Polls show that Putin and Russia are perceived negatively among virtually all European publics—including among parties of the populist right, many of whose leaders once had warm relations with Moscow.
In Italy, widespread public disapproval of Russia and Putin likely contributed to increased support for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her pro-Ukrainian Brothers of Italy party and a sharp decline of support for the far-right party of Matteo Salvini, who has replaced his pro-Putin rhetoric with support for Trump’s peacemaking efforts.
In France, populist icon Marine Le Pen even criticized the U.S. decision in March to pause intelligence sharing with Ukraine. Her successor as leader of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, has gone further, strongly criticizing the Russian invasion and going out of his way to assure NATO allies that he supports military and economic aid to Ukraine. (That said, he has also expressed misgivings about providing Ukraine with French long-range missiles capable of attacking Russia.)
Even Austria, long committed to its postwar neutrality and often suspiciously friendly to the Kremlin, has begun to cooperate closely with NATO and the EU. This has prompted former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to issue warnings of Russian military retaliation if Vienna joins NATO. In Hungary, which remains Putin’s most reliable ally, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party is running nearly 10 points behind the EU- and NATO-aligned opposition in elections slated for April 2026.
In the United States, meanwhile, Trump’s efforts to strike a peacemaking friendship with Putin do not align with his own supporters. Polls consistently show that his core electorate sees Putin as a malign force and supports arming Ukraine—as long as Europe pays for most of it. Trump’s recent reversal—his endorsement of a Ukrainian military victory and statement that Russia is only a “paper tiger”—may signify a deeper shift away from Moscow and toward Kyiv. If it is sustained, such a shift would be a game-changer. And Putin only has himself to blame.
There are exceptions, of course. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has gained support but still faces a long shot to take power, whereas the Merz government’s unequivocal anti-Russian stance has made up for the AfD’s Russophilia. In Georgia, a Russia-aligned party has drifted closer to Moscow’s orbit. But these small beachheads are dwarfed by the wide array of enemies Russia has made.
The rest of the world has also witnessed a diminution of Russian power. The uprising against the Assad regime in Syria created a debacle for Russia. While Moscow has held on to two in-country military bases, it has lost an important ally with the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad. The failure of Russia as a useful ally has also been exposed in Iran, where Russia sat on the sidelines and watched as Israel and the United States bombed and degraded Tehran’s nuclear program.
In Africa, the Wall Street Journal reports that the governments of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso are having buyer’s remorse about their relations with Russia and its mercenaries. As the Journal reports, Russia was “a rising military force in Africa” but is now “struggling to maintain its footprint on the continent” as its military, political, and financial ventures unravel.
North Korea’s support of Russia may be as unshakable as leader Kim Jong Un insists, but Russian-Chinese relations could be more malleable. Although China still resists pushing the Kremlin to settle the war in Ukraine and has emerged as Russia’s main trading partner, the logic of Beijing’s tacit support for Moscow’s war has disappeared. The United States is no longer a major contributor to Ukraine’s war effort, so China’s proxy war in Ukraine is no longer directed against its chief rival.
In short, Putin’s quagmire in Ukraine has dramatically diminished Russia as a Eurasian power. That eroded power is further threatened by the immense cost in lives, the misspent resources, and the mass emigration of programmers, technicians, and other skilled young people. All these factors undermine Russia’s future and stifle the prospect of long-term economic growth. And while Putin may have initially believed in a quick victory that would change the balance of power in Europe, three and a half years later—given Ukrainians’ courage and Western support for Kyiv—this aim is unattainable.
Why, then, does Putin persist in the folly of pursuing a deadly, deadlocked war?
Realist international relations scholars generally assume that states act rationally to advance their national interest. This perspective often works, if only as a convenient starting point for analyzing or predicting states’ behavior. Just as often, however, it doesn’t work, especially in explaining why some states act against their own geopolitical interests not just once, but consistently over time. If Putin’s actions keep contradicting the realist conception of a Russian national interest, then clearly he is not a realist. Something else must be at work in Putin’s mind.
First, there is Putin’s twisted view of history, his belief in Russia’s eternal mission to eradicate Ukraine and force its people to become Russians. As with the folly of tsarist Russia’s aim to make Russians out of Poles in the 19th century, this aim is doomed to failure amid Ukraine’s remarkable national awakening and consolidation since Putin’s first attack in 2014.
The second motive for Putin is the war’s role in consolidating Russian society around the myth of national greatness. The war also gives Putin the pretext to institute the most repressive regime since the Stalin-era Soviet Union.
Finally, Putin’s project is not about Russia’s future, nor is it about transforming Russia into a world-class economic, military, and geopolitical force. At bottom, it is about an aging despot’s desire for absolute power and a place in Russian history books as another conqueror in a long line of bloody conquerors—the long-term consequences for Russia, its people, and its future global role be damned.
Putin’s motivations for the war in Ukraine are tied to ideology, politics, and his own personality. The West should realize that Putin has no interest in—or comprehension of—peace. The only way to overcome ideology, politics, and personality is by force and deterrence. In other words, by supporting a Ukrainian victory, building European military capacity, and demonstrating to ordinary Russians and the ruling elite that Putin’s war has taken their country into a dead end.
Moldovan security forces on Monday arrested 74 people after carrying out more than 250 searches, actions as a result of which, according to an adviser to President Maia Sandu, a sabotage network trained in Serbia by the Russian military intelligence service GRU for destabilizing operations with the September 28 parliamentary elections, while former President Igor Dodon accuses an action of intimidation of the opposition, AFP and EFE agencies report.
‘Since July, the prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and special causes (PCCOCS), together with other agencies, has been investigating the preparation of massive unrest. Following searches 74 people were arrested on Monday, said the agency’s chief prosecutor, Victor Furtuna.
For his part, President Maia Sandu’s national security adviser Stanislav Secrieru said that a network supported by the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service, was ‘destroyed, a network within which’ over 100 Moldovans were trained in Serbia by Russian instructors in violent tactics against police and the use of firearms’. ‘Their mission: organizing pre – and post-election violence.
74 individuals have been arrested and are cooperating with the authorities, ‘ the presidential adviser added in a message on social network X.
According to the Chisinau prosecutor’s Office, the majority of those arrested are between 19 and 45 years old and each would have received an amount of 400 euros. ‘They were found to be affiliated with political parties or groups police chief Viorel Cernauteanu said.
Moldovan security forces announced earlier Monday that they had carried out more than 250 searches in a criminal case for ‘preparing massive unrest and destabilizing actions coordinated from the Russian Federation by criminal elements’ in the legislative elections to be held on Sunday. ‘The Kremlin is throwing hundreds of millions of euros to buy hundreds of thousands of votes on both banks of the Dniester River and abroad. People are intoxicated daily with dozens of lies. Hundreds of people are being paid to cause disorder, violence and scare the world,’ Maia Sandu said in a speech on Monday.
In the last week before the elections, the president of the Republic Of Moldova, Maia Sandu, launched a direct appeal to the citizens, warning that Russia wants to seize Moldova.
“If Russia gets to control Moldova, the consequences will be direct and dangerous for our country and for the entire region. All Moldovans will suffer, regardless of who they voted for. Europe will end at the border with Moldova. European funds will stop at the Prut. Freedom of movement could end.
Our land could become an infiltration ramp to the Odessa region. The Transnistrian region would be destabilized. These are their plans and they tell them openly.
We must keep Moldova peaceful, out of war and Russia’s attempts to attack or destabilize other states.
Russia does not act alone. The Kremlin has accomplices in Moldova. People who have shown many times in the past that for money they sell their country. They have no land, they have only Masters! They don’t believe in Russia or Europe. They only believe in money. They want a weak Moldova, a corrupt justice that will not hold them accountable for either corruption or betrayal of their homeland. We and you have already lived in times when those who buy votes today were at the helm of the country. Let us remember how much harm they did to Moldova and how hard it was to drove them from power.
After so many efforts, after so many generations sacrificed, we have no right to hand the country over to the corrupt and the traitors. The Kremlin thinks we’re all for sale. That we are too small to resist. That we are not a country, but a territory. But Moldova is our home. And our house is not for sale. Our house holds on to our worthy people — you are the wall on which peace and the future of our children are held. Our ancestors sometimes paid with their lives to defend Moldova”.
by David Salvo & Nathaniel Myers , Washington via https://euobserver.com/eu-and-the-world/ar5ca4cf82
In the coming weeks, both Moldova and the Czech Republic will hold elections. In Moldova, authorities estimate the Kremlin will spend €100m — €31 per registered voter — to influence the outcome.
In the Czech Republic, Kremlin-linked outlets are pumping out more content each day than the country’s major news outlets combined.
This is no longer unusual: Moscow interfered in elections earlier this year in Poland, Germany, France, and Romania.
Indeed, it would be more newsworthy if there was a vote Moscow didn’t attempt to manipulate.
And its influence operations have inflicted damage far beyond the ballot box, fueling civic unrest, harming national economic interests, damaging public health, undercutting core foreign policy priorities, and straining European unity (around Ukraine, above all).
It is continually testing new tactics and increasingly leverages offline actions like paid protests, vandalism, bomb threats against polling stations, and even vote buying.
Given Moscow’s ever-more brazen attempts to foster instability in Europe; it’s no wonder that its leaders increasingly see themselves, as German chancellor Friedrich Merz said at the end of August, “already in conflict with Russia”.
Europe needs to act now on this growing sense of alarm about the urgency of the threat Russia’s interference poses to European security and democracy.
While there are models of good practice for pushing back on Russia’s destabilising operations, far from every European nation has a strategy to address these threats.
Four fightback measures
Each country will need to develop a national information defence strategy, tailored to its own specific circumstances and constraints, but focused on the same four goals: build public resilience; detect and expose; close policy loopholes and vulnerabilities that facilitate Russian operations; and push back.
In each area, they will benefit by learning from one another’s experience.
To build resilience, European nations might look first to the Baltic and Scandinavian states, which have long integrated media literacy, critical thinking, and other relevant skills into their public education programs.
Estonia, for example, has a longstanding kindergarten-through-high-school curriculum which tailors its modules to the age of students; high schoolers, for instance, are required to take a 35-hour “media and influence” course.
Sweden’s Psychological Defence Agency is mandated with working not just in the school system but in broader society to educate citizens.
The Dutch Media Literacy Network offers another approach, leaning on more than a thousand organizations to advance media literacy among priority groups across society.
Detecting and exposing interference operations is essential for raising awareness among the public, as well as to minimise the impact of a particular operation.
Analytical and investigative capabilities should be developed inside a government, as France did when it established Viginum: a government agency which tracks, identifies, and exposes foreign nation-states’ malign influence operations targeting France and its interests.