Blues for Europa

[blindpig]

Is Peace Possible if Militarization of European Union Continues?
By Valeriy Krylko - June 4, 2025


Illustration: Michael Newton/Center for European Policy Analysis. Images: (Background) Photo: A Ukrainian national flag rises in front of the NATO emblem, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in central Kyiv, Ukraine July 11, 2023. Credit: REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko. (Soldier) Photo: Ukrainian civilian volunteers and reservists of the Kyiv Territorial Defense unit conduct weekly combat training in an abandoned asphalt factory on the outskirts of Kyiv, as Russian forces continue to mobilize en masse on the Ukrainian border. Kyiv, Ukraine, February 19, 2022. Credit: Justin Yau/Sipa USA.
[Source: cepa.org]

The events of recent months in Ukraine have in many ways marked a shift in priorities in international politics. Despite the horrific consequences of this conflict, many European leaders are eager for the continuation of the war and more bloodshed of Ukrainian soldiers.

According to various Ukrainian, European and American sources,[1] the number of wounded from the Ukrainian side is more than 350,000 people, and the number of dead is more than 14,000 people (according to a number of estimates, the figure is three times higher), of which more than 14,000[2] are so-called mercenaries from the United States, Britain, France, Poland, Colombia, Georgia and other countries.

Now it is ironic that U.S. President Donald Trump is talking about an end to the Ukraine conflict, and seems to be willing to strike some kind of deal with Russia that would recognize Russian naitonal security interests. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not budging as leaders of the European Union countries are enabling further escalation of the conflict and militarization of Europe.

On March 2, 2025, London also hosted a summit with the participation of 15 EU countries and Canada, where agreements were reached to increase the EU’s military spending on Ukraine.


Summit of Ukraine hawks in London. [Source: economist.com]

In the middle of the same month, European Commission Vice-President and EU diplomacy chief Kaja Kallas presented a new strategy for military support to Ukraine, focusing on increasing arms deliveries to Ukraine and developing the Ukrainian defense industry with the participation of EU countries. Kallas also insisted on doubling military aid to Ukraine this year, bringing it to 40 billion euros.[3]


[Source: multimedia.europarl.europa.eu]

In addition, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron in mid-March 2025 announced the formation of a peacekeeping corps to be sent to Ukraine. They further voiced support for NATO enlargement by accepting the Ukrainian state as a member after the end of hostilities, which was the original reason for the start of the conflict and a red line for Russia.[4]

The international policy of double standards promoted by NATO is characterized on the one hand by the desire to stop active military actions in Ukraine and, on the other hand, by an increase in military assistance to the Ukrainian side.

Thus, on April 16, 2025, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte visited Odessa, sight of a major massacre by right-wing forces in May 2014 where, together with Volodymyr Zelensky, he declared his unwavering support for Ukraine. Rutte said that the military alliance still strongly supports Kyiv and announced additional deliveries to Ukraine of weapons and missile systems in large quantities supplied by NATO countries to the territory of the Polish city of Rzeszów, bordering the western regions of Ukraine.[5]


[Source: theguardian.com]

Amid such rhetoric, in April 2025, EU countries announced an additional 21 billion euros in funding for the ongoing war in Ukraine, including another 11 billion euros from Germany and £4.5 billion from the UK, as Europeans seek to replace waning U.S. support.[6] As a reminder: The previously provided amount of military aid from the EU countries amounted to 77 billion euros.[7]

Significant supplies of arms and military equipment are made by the German company Rheinmetall, the French-German consortium KNDS, and the French company Thales, including through the European Peace Foundation.[8] Joint EU purchases of ammunition and missiles for Ukraine have increased several times over the past few years.[9]


Defense expenditures of EU Member States. [Source: consilium.europa.eu]
Military spending increased significantly in 2024, averaging 1.99% of their total GDP (GPD), and is expected to reach 2.04% in 2025.


NATO countries’ defense expenditures. [Source: statista.com]

Against this background, the militarization of the European Union is accelerating. Troops and equipment from most European countries are already in Eastern Europe, where they are part of NATO’s forward ground forces, participate in air patrols and other tasks, and can be deployed to support any deployment in Ukraine.

The past year has seen a large-scale movement of NATO forces and assets into Poland via the seaport of Gdansk and the Rzeszow airfield. The deployment of the 1st Armored Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, is part of the U.S. Army’s rotational presence in Europe. The operation is designed to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank and demonstrate commitment to the alliance amid ongoing challenges in the region.[10]


NATO equipment transfer. [Source: eadaily.com]

NATO in Romania is actively expanding the 57 Mihail Cogalniceanu Air Base, which is located less than 170 kilometers from Ukraine near the Black Sea coast and the city of Constanta. The base has officially become a permanent forward-operating post for NATO countries, with more than 4,500 troops now permanently stationed there.

More than $2 billion has already been allocated for further modernization of the military base in 2024-2025, which will allow it to receive heavy military transport aircraft and accommodate more than 10,000 troops.[11] It will be one of the largest NATO military installations in Europe (7,000 acres), and will be home to F-16 and F/A-18 fighter jets, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and B-52 strategic bombers of the U.S. Air Force.[12]


Romanian air base named after Mihail Kogalniceanu [Source: the-sun.com]

At the same time, a significant number of military facilities of NATO countries are already deployed in the Black Sea region in close proximity to Ukraine.


NATO in the Black Sea region. [Source: cepa.org]

The same trend is inherent in the entire EU, where a significant number of military bases and related infrastructure are currently deployed. In 2025, this process has only accelerated, which is a matter of concern for Russia.


Overseas bases in Europe. [Source: brilliantmaps.com]

With each passing year, the number of NATO military facilities in the EU increases. Long-range missiles, powerful and combat-ready nuclear forces, a robust nuclear command, control and communications system, and a fast-acting military infrastructure are being deployed in Eastern European countries.


[Source: cepa.org]

There are currently about 180 U.S. B61 nuclear bombs deployed in Europe, including up to 20 at Büchel Air Base in the Eifel region. Nuclear weapons are also stationed at military bases in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Turkey, while France and Britain have their own nuclear arsenals. France has 290 nuclear warheads, including submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles and air-to-surface missiles, stationed at three bases. And Britain’s arsenal consists only of ballistic missiles on submarines stationed at the Faslane base in Scotland.




[Source: statista.com]

In the territory of Central and Eastern Europe, the number of military exercises with the participation of NATO countries is increasing annually, where joint actions in the field of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance management are practiced, including intelligence gathering using reconnaissance satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles for further launching of ballistic missiles and strikes by strategic bombers.


[Source: iiss.org]

Most European countries have been actively purchasing arms and military equipment for their own needs over the past few years. For example, Poland has already purchased more than 200 K2 Black Panther tanks and K9A1 within the framework of the $16 billion agreement signed with South Korea.[13] In total, it is planning to purchase more than 1,000 units of this military equipment.[14]


[Source: president.pl]

Additionally, in April 2025, an agreement was signed between the Polish company WB Electronics and the South Korean firm Hanwha Aerospace for the production of missiles for the Homar-K multiple launch rocket system.[15] This is in addition to the $10 billion purchase of 32 F-35 aircraft and 250 U.S. Abrams tanks, for which the Polish side organized a modern 60,000-square-meter, humidity-controlled army warehouse in Powidz, which also allows for the maintenance of various armored vehicles.[16] In addition to Poland, the same trends are observed in the Baltic States, Romania, Germany, France, Moldova and other EU countries.

Against the background of these trends and the increasing military rhetoric of the European leadership, the common man, the resident of the European Union, faces logical and natural questions: “Why are our countries so actively militarized? Why do we continue to supply military equipment to Ukraine if we want peace? Why do we produce and buy so many weapons?”

Unfortunately, the answers to these questions lie on the surface. The leadership of the EU and NATO countries wants the war to continue. They want more Ukrainian blood. In their aspirations they adhere to the rule: “Money rules the world.” Sad to say, they need power and control over minerals and resources.

This is confirmed by the statement of the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, retired U.S. General Keith Kellogg, who, during a briefing on the situation in Ukraine, said that it could be divided into zones of control with British, French and Polish troops, like Berlin after World War II.


Keith Kellogg [Source: thetimes.com]

And it immediately becomes clear why the EU needs increased militarization. It is noteworthy that, in his speech, Kellogg was silent about the fate of Ukraine itself, which is likely to cease its independent existence in the foreseeable future.

It is possible that these trends and further pumping of Ukraine by European countries do not actually contribute to the advance of peace, but lead to the acceleration of further collapse of the country, strengthening of control by European and American companies over its minerals and resources and loss of parts in the interests of Poland, Romania, Hungary, the EU leadership and the U.S.



1.https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/30/euro ... index.html ↑

2.htpps://responsiblestatecraft.org/foreign-fighters-ukraine/ ↑

3.https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/0 ... -porcupine ↑

4.https://www.npr.org/2025/03/21/nx-s1-53 ... acekeeping ↑

5.https://www.economist.com/britain/2025/ ... or-ukraine ↑

6.https://www.euractiv.com/section/politi ... -of-delay/ ↑

7.https://cepa.org/comprehensive-reports/ ... n-ukraine/ ↑

8.https://www.economist.com/britain/2025/ ... or-ukraine ↑

9.https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/poli ... t-ukraine/ ↑

10.https://defence-industry.eu/u-s-army-de ... perations/ ↑

11.https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2 ... 90206.html ↑

12.https://www.romania-insider.com/usa-bas ... ruary-2025 ↑

13.https://www.president.pl/news/poland-re ... zers,62099 ↑



14.https://thedefensepost.com/2025/03/10/p ... k-panther/ ↑

15.https://breakingdefense.com/2025/04/sou ... in-poland/ [NOTE: I can’t get this one to line up correctly.] ↑

16.https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ ... use-213593

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2025/0 ... continues/

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Five Takeaways From Poland’s Presidential Election
Andrew Korybko
Jun 03, 2025



MAGA and European conservatives win, Ukraine and the EU lose, and there’s less risk of a war with Russia.

Polish conservative presidential candidate Dr. Karol Nawrocki narrowly beat his liberal rival Rafal Trzaskowski on Sunday during the second round of elections by 50.89% to 49.11% after losing the first one by 29.54% to 31.36% respectively. Liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk dramatically declared that the election would “decide the future of Poland” so many across the world became interested in the vote given its growing importance in European affairs. Here are five takeaways from what just happened:

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1. This Is The First Conservative Victory In Europe Since September 2023

Not since Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s return to office after his country’s parliamentary elections in September 2023 has there been a conservative victory in Europe till now. Liberals won in Moldova last November, Germany in February, and Romania last month. Having broken the trend, Poland proved that conservatism isn’t the lost cause that the liberals misrepresented it as being after those elections. In fact, as the region’s largest country, what just happened in Poland might influence others’ next elections too.

2. Populist-Nationalists Rallied Behind The Conservative As The Lesser Evil

The first round saw populist-nationalists Slawomir Mentzen and Grzegorz Braun score a total of 21.15% of the vote at 14.1% and 6.34% respectively. Most of their supporters then rallied around Nawrocki as the lesser evil, hoping that he’ll remain committed to the eight promises that he pledged to abide by in writing after his interview with Mentzen shortly before the second round. These include protecting Poland’s sovereignty vis-à-vis the EU and refusing to authorize the deployment of troops to Ukraine.

3. Poland’s Relations With Some Of Its Key Partners Might Soon Worsen

Building upon the last pledge, Ukraine is none too happy with Nawrocki’s victory even though they’re now trying to play it cool despite condemning him for opposing its NATO membership as one of his eight promises. Likewise, ties with the EU might once again become strained too, though nowhere near as much as they were when the conservatives also controlled the premiership. The same goes for Germany since conservative opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski believes that Tusk is a literal “German agent”.

4. Ties With Russia Will Likely Remain Tense For The Foreseeable Future…

Even though Nawrocki will likely end up at odds with Ukraine, the EU, and maybe even Germany, and despite him being friends with Trump, ties with Russia probably won’t improve. Like Trzaskowski, he supports the “East Shield” megaproject of building high-tech border fortifications along the Union State’s frontiers. The same goes for Poland’s self-assumed leadership of the “Three Seas Initiative”, which includes dual-use military-logistics megaprojects. Russia is against both on national security grounds.

5. …But The Risk Of A War Between Them By Miscalculation Has Plummeted

If there’s any silver lining to Nawrocki’s election from Russia’s perspective, it’s that his pledge not to deploy troops to Ukraine (which requires the President’s authorization after the Prime Minister’s request) will greatly reduce the risk of war between them by miscalculation. Poland will continue to arm Ukraine on credit, facilitate others’ arms flow to there, and continue building what’s now NATO’s third-largest military, but as long as its troops don’t deploy to Ukraine, Russia won’t have a reason to attack it.

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“Poland Is Once Again Poised To Become The US’ Top Partner In Europe” even more than it was earlier this year when preceding analysis was published. Conservatives across the continent also now have hope of replicating his success in their own countries’ next elections while there’s also a reduced risk of World War III. On the flip side, Poland will continue creating national security challenges for Russia, which fiercely despises the proudly Russophobic party that Nawrocki represents, so this isn’t a win for Putin.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/five-tak ... esidential

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Europe’s richest countries are not willing to join the EU

Strategic Infographics

June 3, 2025
© Photo: SCF
The European Union has reached a stage when all the candidate countries are Europe’s poorest states.



https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... g-join-eu/

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Warmongers Get A Win In Romania, A Small Loss in Poland, And A Big Loss In South Korea
Roger Boyd
Jun 05, 2025

In Europe the warmongering elites are having to work harder and harder to stem the tide of opposition to their increasingly risky and costly actions with respect to the Russo-Ukrainian proxy war and the building of the risible “peace through strength”. In Romania after much work they held the line, in Poland they suffered a small setback.

In Asia it is the US elites who are the warmongers, and they tried very hard to create a war between South and North Korea under the pretence of which the progressive and more independent population and their politicians could be cowed under a repeat of the post-WW2 brutal martial law regime. Thankfully they failed, but the evidence of the extreme risks of a regional conflagration that they would take to undermine China and Russia is instructive of their mindset. Taiwan beware!

Romania
The Romanian presidential elections of 2024-2025 provide all the material and more required for a political thriller novel. First, the political establishment operation to split the opposition by helping a fringe figure (Georgescu) backfires as he wins in the first round of the presidential election. Next, the establishment attempts to cover up its own machinations, and screams “Russian interference”, while having to work hard to get the second round cancelled as Georgescu looks certain to win. Then, an utterly unconstitutional multi-month delay while the establishment searches for dirt on the man, but he is just too bloody clean! And assassinations are a little out of fashion after the failed one on Fico, as a botched attempt would make Georgescu unstoppable. So with the new elections looming he has to be blatantly banned for political reasons together with another establishment-unfriendly politician.

But the establishment can’t ban every single opposition candidate, that would be undemocratic! So a Georgescu adjacent politician, George Simion, is allowed to run. But all the powers of the state, the media, and the EU establishment are lined up against Simion in a full court press to get the establishment candidate, Nicosur Dan, elected. And it works, but with only a 53.6% to 46.4% margin of victory and complaints of the many Romanian citizens voting in Moldova being the subject of election fraud; something that Moldova has shown a competitive advantage in.

By hook and by crook, the EU warmongering establishment got the Romanian president they wanted, but the lengths that were required to get that result show the increasingly weak state of EU oligarch hegemony in Europe. The BBC showed the establishment pleasure while repeating utterly debunked anti-Russian propaganda.



Poland
In 2023, the Polish parliamentary elections had thrown out the nationalistic conservatives of the PiS and brought back the EU-loving neoliberals of the Civic Union under the leadership of the ex-head of the European Council (2014-2019) Donald Tusk. The EU establishment could relax, assured that a true believer and oligarch tool was ruling Poland once again. The only fly in the ointment was the president, Andrej Duda, who was in opposition to the parliamentary ruling party, but that could be solved in the 2025 presidential election.

But to the horror of Tusk and the EU elites, the opposition figure of Karol Nawrocki squeezed past the neoliberal EU-loving candidate. Like the PiS, Nawrocki calls for significant government intervention in the economy, combined with cultural conservatism, while also opposing Ukraine’s entry into the EU and NATO. He also opposes Polish entry into the Euro (which will remove Poland’s monetary sovereignty), and any direct Polish intervention in Ukraine. He is still Russia-hating, but also stated that Ukraine should fully accept the crimes of Bandera and the Volyn massacre. Fundamentally aligning with the US, rather than the EU, and following Trump’s less aggressive position with respect to the Russo-Ukraine war. Definitely a loss for the European warmongers, but also a win for the US Empire. And very much a thorn in the side of Tusk, who does not have a big enough majority to overturn a presidential veto. One of the bigger losses will be any hope for climate change action, as Nawrocki is utterly against such things.



South Korea
The greatest geopolitical thriller for a decade or more completely memory-holed and obfuscated by the Western media! A colossal loss in a high stakes poker game played by the US. The US-puppet president of South Korea, Yook Suk Yeol, attempted to start a war with North Korea while carrying out a political coup by declaring marshal law; an attempt to turn South Korea into an unsinkable aircraft carrier in a war with China and quite possibly another Ukraine to create problems for both China and Russia. How dare those damn North Korean commies supply weapons and troops to Russia, the US will show them some consequences!

Using the classic tactic of a war to rally the population “around the flag” and as an excuse to purge the opposition, the president was looking to recreate the pre-democratic conditions of South Korea so that he could simply lock up the opposition and rule as a dictator.

A possible timeline of how Yoon’s coup plans interacted with escalations against North Korea has begun to emerge. Yoon’s tenure in office has been characterized by unbridled aggression against Pyongyang, and a cozy military relationship with Washington and Tokyo that sent tensions soaring throughout Northeast Asia. It is now known that Yoon’s coup plans began in July of 2023.

Upon coming into office in 2022, Yoon adopted a military policy towards North Korea known as the Kill Chain Doctrine, which advocates the use of preemptive strikes in the event of suspected attacks. Over the next two years, the rate and magnitude of joint military exercises with the US exploded; over 200 days of US-ROK war games were held in Korea in 2023, and in August of this year the two countries held their first joint nuclear tabletop exercise to rehearse plans for a nuclear strike on the peninsula. Consequently, inter-Korean relations have entered a historic nadir. In December 2023, North Korea took the unprecedented step of renouncing its policy of peaceful reunification.

In October, North Korea reported a number of drone incursions over its territory. There have also been a number of testimonies that South Korean special forces were to be used in a false flag operation, wearing North Korean uniforms, to assassinate leading South Korean politicians. Also perhaps even killing US soldiers (the US has an occupation force of 28,500 and in wartime the US commander takes control of the South Korean military) and to carry out a gas attack on South Korea (very reminiscent of the Syrian false flag gas attacks). Given that any war between North and South Korea could rapidly escalate into a full out regional conflict that could end up as a replay of the 1950s Korean War, or worse, the level of US risk-taking is astonishing.

But the operation failed, thankfully for us all. Firstly, North Korea remained calm and did not respond and therefore did not provide any cause celebre. In addition, South Korean lawmakers managed to make it into parliament and fight off the special forces long enough to pass a vote annulling marshal law. After that things unravelled rapidly for the coup plotters and a multi-month constitutional crisis replete with political chaos ensued. The end result being the recent presidential election where the opposition leader Lee Jae-myung won; a much more moderate leader who will work to reduce tensions with North Korea and follow a more friendly policy toward China.

The US high stakes gamble failed and the warmongers were foiled. The role of the US and the more damaging details of the coup will be covered up for public consumption, and Yoon and a few others prosecuted; the North Korean, Chinese and Russian intelligence services will know the truth. They will be very happy to deal with the new South Korean president. One that does not want to sacrifice his own people on the alter of US supremacy. While the US will use the tariff war in an attempt to keep the new president in line. The Guardian as per usual, summed up the Western warmongering unhappiness at their loss, labelling the new president as “divisive”; code for not being a US puppet.



For at least the next five years the president of South Korea will not allow his nation to be sacrificed by the US in an attempt to weaken China. This is good news for the Taiwanese population, as this greatly limits US options with respect to triggering a war over Taiwan. There is also little chance of Japan sacrificing itself in such as way, and the ASEAN nations, perhaps excluding the Philippines, will remain strongly neutral in such a conflict.

As I have noted previously, the current US puppet head of the Philippines may be amenable to sacrificing his nation for the right personal incentives. He is the son of the utterly disgraced and colossally corrupt ex-dictator Ferdinand Marcos who was deposed by a general revolt, and was educated in the UK and US partially at the expense of the Office of the US President. The next Philippine presidential election is in 2028, so the US may only have a window of three years for such an option. Sara Duterte, the daughter of the previous non-US puppet president that Marcos had kidnapped and illegally transferred to the Hague for the usual Western show trial, is already the front runner for that 2028 election.

https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/warmon ... -romania-a

[blindpig]

Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders collapses government coalition

Geert Wilders has pulled his Freedom Party out of the ruling coalition, triggering the collapse of the Dutch government

June 04, 2025 by Ana Vračar


Geert Wilders during CPAC Hungary. Source: Geert Wilders/X

Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders has collapsed the country’s short-lived coalition government, announcing that his Freedom Party (PVV) will exit the cabinet over disagreements on immigration policy. Wilders, known for his Islamophobic and xenophobic rhetoric, demanded even stricter measures against migrants and asylum seekers, despite the government already tightening policies in late 2024.

“No backing for our asylum plans,” Wilders wrote on X on June 3. “PVV leaves the coalition.”

The PVV emerged as the leading political option in the 2023 election. After months of negotiations, it formed a coalition government with the centrist People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), the right-wing New Social Contract, and the Farmer-Citizen Movement. Following Wilders’ announcement, Prime Minister Dick Schoof submitted his resignation, triggering the need for a snap election later this year. Until then, Schoof and ministers from the remaining coalition parties will continue in a caretaker role.

Former coalition partners criticized PVV’s move as irresponsible, while others described the collapse as further proof of the urgent need for a shift to address political instability and widespread discontent over declining living conditions. Years of neoliberal policies have left the Netherlands facing a housing crisis and rising living costs, challenges seen in countries across Europe. These problems have been weaponized by the far right, which has channeled popular discontent into anti-migrant sentiment and electoral gains.

Although Wilders has signaled he expects to become the next Prime Minister, current polls suggest a more complex picture. The PVV is running neck-and-neck with a joint platform of social-democrats and greens, while former coalition parties are trailing behind. It remains to be seen if Wilders can frame the upcoming election as a referendum on immigration, as some mainstream analysts predict, or whether more progressive groups can succeed in shifting the debate toward other priorities.

The collapse of the Dutch government adds to the broader pattern of far-right momentum across Europe. Just days earlier, Trump-backed Karol Nawrocki won the presidential election in Poland, and far-right parties continue to challenge centrist governments in countries such as Germany and France.

Beyond the implications for migration and internal policy, this trend also impacts Europe’s position on Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Wilders, a staunch supporter of Israel, openly criticized his coalition partners for even considering revisions to the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Meanwhile, the Dutch public continues to mobilize in large numbers in solidarity with Palestinians, including a demonstration of 100,000 people in The Hague in mid-May.

As the country prepares for new elections, the Netherlands is also set to host international protests and debates against militarization later this month, coinciding with a NATO summit in The Hague. With the government now operating in a caretaker capacity, it remains to be seen whether it will join the anticipated surge in so-called defense spending within the military alliance.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/06/04/ ... coalition/

EU labels Rio Tinto’s lithium mine in Serbia a strategic project

Despite strong local opposition and environmental concerns, the EU has designated Rio Tinto’s lithium mining project in Serbia as strategically important

June 05, 2025 by Ana Vračar


Mass protest against Rio Tinto in Serbia, August 2024. Source: SergioOren/Wikimedia Commons

Despite widespread opposition in Serbia, the European Commission has included a lithium and boron mining project by multinational corporation Rio Tinto on its list of strategic projects located outside the European Union. Alongside 12 other proposals in locations such as Ukraine, Greenland, Zambia, Brazil, and Madagascar, Rio Tinto’s Jadar project is supposed to help the EU become more self-sufficient in extracting and processing materials deemed essential for its so-called green transition.

The announcement has been met with outrage by residents of the Jadar Valley and activists across Serbia, who have spent years mobilizing to block the project. “The European Commission has backed this project despite the opposition of the people, who have been resisting it for five years, as its realization poses significant risks to water supplies, the environment, and the economy,” the campaign Pravo na vodu (Right to Water) wrote on social media.

Europe’s double standards
Environmental concerns are central to the resistance against Rio Tinto in Serbia. Studies examining the impact of the company’s exploration activities in the region have raised alarms, while its vague promises to uphold environmental and social standards have been met with deep skepticism. “Research drilling by the mining company has already produced environmental damage, with mine water containing high levels of boron leaking from exploratory wells and causing crops to dry out,” warned a 2024 study. “With the opening of the mine, problems will be multiplied by the tailings pond, mine wastewater, noise, air pollution, and light pollution, endangering the lives of numerous local communities and destroying their freshwater sources, agricultural land, livestock, and assets.”

While Rio Tinto has pitched the project’s inclusion on the EU’s strategic list as a guarantee of safety, few are convinced. Activists argue that this designation means the EU will assist the company in securing additional funds and support, without imposing monitoring of safety or environmental impact. This fear reflects a pattern seen in previous EU interventions. For example, Germany, whose former administration was deeply engaged in negotiations with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić on the matter, had pushed lithium extraction to support its own struggling automotive industry. Yet it admitted that “compliance with legal regulations is the responsibility of the Government of Serbia and competent institutions,” distancing itself from any responsibility – despite being presented earlier as a guarantor of high standards.

In fact, statements by German officials have been particularly controversial. Former State Secretary Franziska Brantner – from the Green Party, no less – said there would be no lithium mining in Germany until environmental safeguards evolve, while simultaneously endorsing extraction projects in other countries, including Serbia. Such blatant double standards have prompted members of the progressive party Die Linke to demand explanations from Olaf Scholz’s administration regarding its support for the Jadar project and Rio Tinto, a company long criticized for human rights abuses. When asked whether the German government was aware of Rio Tinto’s history of violations, the former cabinet replied: “Due to lack of time, the Federal Government is unable to verify whether there have been violations of human and environmental rights on projects outside Germany in the last 20 years by Rio Tinto.”

“There will be no mining,” activists say
That both the EU and Germany continue to support the project despite widespread concerns and opposition – from over 60% of the Serbian public, according to recent reports – is evidence to some, that Serbia is being treated as a potential colony. “It’s very hypocritical coming from a Europe that claims to promote the rule of law, democracy, freedom of speech, a healthy environment and clean air, water, and soil,” said activist Zlatko Kokanović of the local initiative Ne damo Jadar (We Won’t Give Up Jadar). “To the detriment of our health and our children’s, they want to take our lithium and turn us into a waste dump so they can live healthy.”

In response to the project’s inclusion on the EU’s list, grassroots groups and activists have reiterated their opposition, declaring that there will be no mining and vowing to continue resisting Rio Tinto’s operations by any means necessary.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/06/05/ ... c-project/

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Yanis Varoufakis: In the EU Nothing Succeeds Like Gross Failure: The Astonishing Case of Ursula von der Leyen
Posted on June 6, 2025 by Yves Smith

Yves here. During the runup to the crisis and for many years thereafter, we would do takedowns of particularly rancid, dishonest or just plain stoopid policy recommendations. One favorite is Why Larry Summers Should Not Be Permitted to Run Anything More Important than a Dog Pound. Another is Memo to Shaun Donovan: Your Nose is Getting So Long You Need to Get a Hacksaw.

But incompetence and corruption have become so pervasive that we have largely abandoned this exercise, but have welcomed Alex Christoforou’s Clown World for taking on these deserving targets. Ursula von der Leyen has been one of his regulars.

Some readers were questioning the value of elite education in a post we featured yesterday. As we indicated, it can take otherwise mediocre but at least adequately bright and hard-working kids and polish them to a level of social skills where superficially they appear more competent than they are. Anthony Blinken was a prime example. Von der Leyen comes from a family that had been elite bureaucrats for 500 years, and also had Angela Merkel’s sponsorship. Various Politco stories give the impression that von der Leyen has been a very effective empire builder at the European Commission. As we’ve said repeatedly, “smart” people often underestimate how far apparent mediocrities who are well-endowed with cunning can get.

By Yanis Varoufakis, economist and former Minister of Finance of Greece. Originally published at Der Frietag; cross posted from his website

Failure, corruption and warmongering: Ursula von der Leyen is awarded the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen for her contribution to the EU – because in Europe utter failure is not only tolerated, but celebrated!

It is one of life’s guilty pleasures when one’s cynical prejudices are confirmed. One such moment, when I allowed myself a long, hard laugh, came as the news arrived that Ursula von der Leyen had been awarded the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen for “her services to the unity of the Member States, in the containment of the pandemic, for the unity of the Union’s determination to defend itself against Russia — and for the impetus towards the Green Deal.” It was now official: In Brussels, nothing succeeds like gross failure and, even worse, nothing is rewarded more generously than corruption.

Let me begin with the above rationale for the Prize: Mrs von der Leyen’s “impetus towards the Green Deal”. Can they be serious? Future historians will zero in on the so-called Green Deal as an example of what is wrong with the European Union: smoke and mirrors masquerading as majestic policy initiatives. Indeed, when it was announced, and after studying it carefully, I rushed out an article in The Guardian to warn against the Green Deal on two grounds: first, the money it promised to invest in the green transition was simply not there and, secondly, the heralded deal was rather… brown – in that it aimed at greenwashing far more than at greening Europe. Four years later, the Green Deal was declared a gross failure and was unceremoniously ditched in favour of Ursula von der Leyen’s next white elephant: the folly of building up a European military-industrial complex under the codenames Re-Arm Europe or SAFE.

Why is it folly to think that von der Leyen’s Commission will spearhead a European military-industrial complex? For three reasons, as I have explained elsewhere. First, as in the case of the Green Deal, the money is not there and the EU cannot credibly commit to finding it given its steadfast refusal to form a proper fiscal union. Secondly, even if money were not a problem, the EU lacks the federal institutions to construct a top-down, paneuropean military-industrial complex, instead of the existing patchwork of nation-state based companies that compete with one another with the backing of their national governments. Thirdly, even if neither money nor a federal-like set of institutions were a problem, Europe would not be able (I hope!) to emulate the United States’ capacity to wage one war after the other to ensure a constant demand for weapons and munitions.

Two terms as President of the European Commission, two gross and rather costly failures. But these failures would not be enough to burnish Mrs von der Leyen’s credentials and seal her rise to the lofty heights that justified granting her the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen. No, for that splendid Prize to be awarded, she needed to add certified corruption to her gross failure. Thankfully, she did!
Showing a remarkable determination to break the law both in her own country, Germany, and in the European Union, Mrs von der Leyen succeeded in being sanctioned in both jurisdictions for treating the public with contempt in pursuit of her own interests. As Germany’s defence minister, she desperately tried to conceal her involvement in shady defence contracts by sabotaging the Bundestag’s investigation in the matter through the “illegal and deliberate” deletion of her phone contents. As European Commission President, the EU top court found her culpable of repeating the unlawful practice of deleting her phone records of illicit personal exchanges with heads of global corporations – on this occasion with the CEO of Pfizer with whom she negotiated, on Europe’s behalf, lucrative COVID-19 vaccine deals.

With these findings pointing to despicable behaviour under her belt, and her majestic policy failures (the Green Deal, Re-Arm and SAFE) on hand, Ursula von der Leyen was almost a shoo in for the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen. Almost but not quite! To push through the finishing line she needed to add another credential to her curriculum vitae: she needed to become the cheerleader of Israel’s army. Thankfully for our European Commission President, the opportunity arose after Hamas attacked Israel on 7th October 2023. Immediately, Mrs von der Leyen sprang to action.

Without any authority or authorisation – since neither foreign nor defence policy is in the purview of the Commission President – she landed in Tel Aviv, not as a campaigner for an immediate end to war crimes on all sides, nor as an ambassador of Peace & Reconciliation or as an advocate of International Law or as a believer in the simple idea that the Geneva convention is humanity’s last hope in the darkest of hours. No, she went there to pose in front of Israeli tanks poised to enter Gaza with the air of a proud cheerleader on Grand Final day. She went there as an enabler of the war crime of denying two million non-combatants water and food, as a cheerleader of an air force intentionally targeting people’s homes, as a facilitator of the war crime of transferring a million people to other parts of Gaza where they were also bombed.

Thus, Mrs von der Leyen’s exhausting work was done, her triple whammy of failure-corruption-warmongering completed. She was now the prime candidate for the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen, which she received gladly. Without a hint of irony, I believe that it was well deserved and fully consistent with that particular prize’s background and history. After all, whether deservedly or undeservedly, the long dead European Emperor whose name the Prize carries has, for many years now, been appropriated by the inanest of Europe’s leaders in a frantic search for self-aggrandisement. To make the point, let me take you back to a dull autumnal afternoon when two suited men exuding authority entered Aachen’s Cathedral.

The calendar read September 15th 1978 and the two men were there to pay their respects to the remains of Charlemagne, the 9th Century Frankish King who had briefly re-united the Roman Empire and whose spirit encapsulated, for traditionalist Central Europeans, Pan-Europa or Mittel-Europa – a borderless Christian European realm.

Standing above the Christian warrior’s grave, and next to his ancient throne, the two pilgrims sought to quell their considerable trepidation caused by what they had just done: commit their two countries, France and Germany, to bundle their money together with an agreement, they had signed earlier that day to create the so-called European Monetary System (EMS) – the euro’s precursor.
“Perhaps while we were discussing monetary affairs”, said one of the two to an Italian journalist, “the spirit of Charlemagne brooded over us.” His name? President Valéry Giscard d’ Estaing of France. The second pilgrim appealing to Charlemagne’s ghost for its approval of the monetary union with France was German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

Setting aside the awful Euro-kitsch aesthetic of two leaders visiting the tomb of a Christian warrior king to steady their nerves over creating perhaps history’s most pathetic monetary union, it is heartening to realise that the EU has a long tradition of soap opera-like celebrations of failure. After all, the exchange rate mechanism that the two men established back then failed spectacularly but Europe still celebrates them to this day. As for the euro, which was born as a result of the calamity that was the EMS, it also proved a calamity for Europe and Europeans. And yet, in 2002, the committee awarding the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen chose to award that year’s prize to… the euro!

In this European Union, where nothing succeeds like failure, especially when laced with corruption and most recently warmongering, Mrs von der Leyen is the most deserved recipient of the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/06 ... leyen.html

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Trump’s Tariff Hikes Deal Blow to EU Metals Industry


X/ @ftbrussels

June 6, 2025 Hour: 8:53 am

European producers have warned that high tariffs will exacerbate existing economic pressures.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to raise tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to 50 percent took effect on Wednesday, escalating a trade dispute that threatens to further weaken the EU’s metals sector and disrupt downstream manufacturing across the bloc.

European producers have warned that the steep new duties will inflict serious damage, compounding existing pressures and driving up costs for manufacturers dependent on competitively priced raw materials.

The latest levies, applied broadly to nearly all U.S.-imported steel and aluminum, follow a 25 percent tariff introduced in March. While that initial measure had limited overall impact on EU exports to the U.S., analysts say doubling the rate will effectively price many European producers out of the American market.

“Most of the 3.8 million tonnes of EU steel exports to the United States are now under a de facto import ban: at a 50 percent blanket tariff,” said Axel Eggert, director general of the European Steel Association (EUROFER). “Even Europe’s highest-quality, most competitive steel products will be priced out,” Eggert said following the implementation of the new tariffs.


Earlier in March, EUROFER had criticized Trump’s “America First” trade policy, warning it could become the “final nail in the coffin” for Europe’s steel industry. The association noted that the overall market situation for European steel is much worse than in 2018, as the new measures remove all product exemptions and tariff rate quotas that the EU had previously negotiated.

With EU steel exports to the United States already having fallen by 1 million tonnes, the bloc stands to lose at least another 1 million tonnes. Moreover, the March tariff now covers “derivative” steel products, potentially reducing export opportunities for a further 1 million tonnes, EUROFER said.

Germany, the EU’s largest steel producer, is already contending with surging energy costs and delays in transitioning to low-carbon “green steel” technologies. Industry giants such as Thyssenkrupp and Salzgitter have unveiled major restructuring and cost-cutting plans.

Thyssenkrupp plans to break up its business and cut around 11,000 jobs, while Salzgitter aims to reduce costs by 500 million euros (US$571.95 million) by 2028, having already saved about 130 million euros.

Gerhard Erdmann, managing director of the German Steel Employers’ Association, told Bild newspaper that it remained unclear whether Washington would fully enforce the higher tariffs. However, he warned that if implemented, they would “further aggravate the already precarious state of Germany’s steel industry.”

He emphasized that the real threat lies not only in the loss of direct sales to the United States, but also in broader ripple effects, as key German industries — such as automotive and machinery manufacturing — depend heavily on steel and maintain strong export ties with the United States.

“If German car and machinery makers see sales decline due to tariffs, the consequences will hit our steel mills with full force,” he said, warning of a painful and far-reaching industry restructuring.


European aluminum producers have voiced similar concerns. The industry association European Aluminium condemned the U.S. decision to double tariffs, warning that it would “further destabilize transatlantic trade relations and disrupt long-standing supply chains between two key economic partners.”

In a statement, the association expressed deep concern that the move would “indirectly fuel scrap outflows from Europe and add further distortion to an already fragile trade environment.”

Gavran Igor, an economic analyst from Bosnia and Herzegovina, said the tariff hikes reflect a protectionist mindset that violates international trade norms and undermines global economic stability.

He said that the measures would “inevitably trigger retaliatory tariffs from other countries and ultimately harm the U.S. economy most in the long run,” adding that such actions erode trust and treat global partners as subordinates rather than equals. Igor called on major economies — including China, the EU, Japan and India — to take the lead in building a fair, rules-based global trading system.

Ljubo Jurcic, the former Croatian Minister of Economy, echoed the concern, noting that history shows tariff wars hurt the world economy and fuel uncertainty. He pointed out that while the Trump administration claimed high tariffs would protect domestic industry and reshore supply chains, experience from his first term showed they failed to boost the U.S. economy — instead, they ended up hurting U.S. consumers.

European Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security Maros Sefcovic warned Wednesday that Washington’s decision to raise tariffs on steel and aluminum “clearly doesn’t help the ongoing negotiations” and risks undermining recent progress. He emphasized that the EU stands ready to defend its interests and will do its utmost to rebalance bilateral trade should negotiations collapse.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/trumps-t ... -industry/

NATO Launches Military Exercise BALTOPS 25 in Latvia


NATO soldiers. X/ @JaunsLV

June 6, 2025 Hour: 8:28 am

The drills involve 16 NATO member states, more than 40 ships, 25 aircraft, and approximately 9,000 military personnel.
The Latvian news agency LETA reported that NATO’s annual large-scale multinational military exercise, Baltic Operations 2025 (BALTOPS 25), officially began on Thursday.

The exercise aims to enhance cooperation and interoperability among allied forces, strengthen rapid-response capabilities across all military branches, and demonstrate NATO’s commitment to regional security and defense of the Baltic Sea region.

This year’s BALTOPS 25 focuses on a wide range of operational training, including unmanned systems, medical evacuation, air defense, maritime interdiction, anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures, airborne operations, and engineering support.

According to a press release from U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa / U.S. Sixth Fleet, the drills, which will run through June 20, involve 16 NATO member states, more than 40 ships, 25 aircraft, and approximately 9,000 military personnel.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/nato-lau ... in-latvia/

Six European Countries Plan Joint Procurement of CV90 Infantry Fighting Vehicles


A CV90 vehicle. X/ @Bonkavision5

June 6, 2025 Hour: 8:09 am

Produced by Sweden’s BAE Systems Hagglunds, this vehicle is known for its combat effectiveness.

On Friday, the Baltic News Service (BNS) reported that Finland, Sweden, Norway, Lithuania, Estonia, and the Netherlands are preparing a joint procurement of CV90 armored infantry fighting vehicles.

The initiative was first announced by Finland’s Defense Ministry and later confirmed by Lithuania’s Ministry of National Defense. Those six countries signed a statement of intent on Thursday to explore a collective acquisition of the CV90 platform.

“This agreement underscores our commitment to strengthening the capabilities of the Lithuanian Armed Forces and deepening cooperation with our Nordic partners,” said Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene, emphasizing the need for a swift and efficient procurement process, noting that Lithuania aims to have a fully operational military division by 2030, with the CV90s an integral part.

“The joint defense procurement program is a strategic decision that ensures not only more efficient weapons delivery but also highlights close international cooperation,” she added.

The CV90, produced by Sweden’s BAE Systems Hagglunds, is known for its superior protection, mobility, and combat effectiveness. Deliveries are expected to begin in 2028, although the total value of the deal has not been disclosed. In a related move, Lithuania plans to allocate at least 5 percent of its GDP to defense spending starting next year.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/six-euro ... -vehicles/

[blindpig]

Serbia’s neutrality in question: A growing strain on ties with Moscow

Stephen Karganovic

June 6, 2025

If Russia decides to respond with stern measures to the Serbian leaders’ duplicity it is the Serbian people who will have to pay the price for the malfeasance of their rulers.

Serbia’s relations with Russia took a dramatic downturn several days ago when the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a sharply worded rebuke to the Serbian regime for selling arms, ammunition, and other military equipment to Ukraine in the midst of the ongoing conflict with Russia.

The rebuke comes following the Serbian President’s sojourn in Moscow for the 9 May Victory Day festivities when, it is suspected, he was read the riot act concerning that very matter. It also marks a notable reversal of Russia’s previous positions that had been interpreted as supportive of the Serbian regime in the face of the severe internal political crisis that the latter is facing.

The fact that, notwithstanding public professions of neutrality, which is also mandated by Serbian law, and even friendship to Russia, the Serbian government has been supplying the Kiev regime with various kinds of military hardware has been a matter of public knowledge for some time. In a Pentagon document dating back to April 2023 it was stated that the Serbian regime had agreed to provide Ukraine with lethal assistance. In chart form the document lists the “assessed positions” of 38 European governments in response to Ukraine’s requests for military assistance and affirms that Serbia not only “had committed to sending lethal aid [to Ukraine] or had supplied it already” but that it also “had the political will and military ability to provide weapons to Ukraine in the future.”

By mid-2024, as reported by the Kyiv Independent, one of the principal media outlets of the Ukrainian regime, the volume of Serbian deliveries had amounted to $855 million in lethal military supplies. The nature and volume of these deliveries, which would appear to make Serbia a co-belligerent and not as it persistently claims a neutral in the current conflict, was independently confirmed the same year by the London Financial Times: “Serbia has been discreetly stepping up sales of ammunition to the west that ends up bolstering the defence of Ukraine — even though it is one of only two European countries not to join western sanctions against Russia.”

On 28 May 2025, under the ominous title “Serbian military industry tries to shoot Russia in the back,” Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service issued an official statement against the background of the foregoing facts, which for the most part were already publicly known. It lists activities that point not only to the Serbian regime’s disregard for its own neutrality laws but also contempt for its professed friendship toward Russia:

“The Press Bureau of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation reports that, according to information received by the SVR, Serbian defense enterprises, contrary to the ‘neutrality’ declared by official Belgrade, continue to supply ammunition to Kiev. The cover for anti-Russian actions is a simple scheme using fake end-user certificates and intermediary countries. Among the latter, NATO countries are most often mentioned, primarily the Czech Republic, Poland, and Bulgaria. Recently, exotic options involving African countries have also been used for this purpose.”

In continuation, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service minces no words concerning Russia’s perception of the nature of this clandestine arms business with Ukraine that the Serbian regime has been conducting with fake end-user certificates and under false pretenses:

“The contribution of Serbian defense workers to the war unleashed by the West, the outcome of which Europe would like to see as a ‘strategic defeat’ of Russia, amounts to hundreds of thousands of shells for MLRS and howitzers, as well as a million rounds of ammunition for small arms. It is unlikely that such supplies can be justified by ‘humanitarian considerations.’ They have one obvious purpose – to kill and maim Russian servicemen and the civilian population of Russia.”

The latter assertion is self-evident and hardly subject to dispute. Nor does any doubt remain concerning the accuracy of the synopsis of the historical relationship between Russia and Serbia, which should explain the depth and bitterness of Russia’s current disappointment:

“It seems that the desire of Serbian defense workers and their patrons to profit from the blood of fraternal Slavic peoples has made them completely forget who their true friends are and who their enemies are. Russia has come to the aid of the Serbs more than once at the most critical moments of their history. Let us recall, for example, the liberation of Serbia from the yoke of the Ottoman Empire, the prevention of a national catastrophe during the First World War, the fight against the fascist occupiers and their henchmen during the Second World War, the NATO bombing of Belgrade, the Kosovo tragedy. At all these historical stages, fraternal ties and common faith remained immutable for the Russians in their relations with the Serbs.”

The fundamental change in Russia’s public stance concerning Serbia’s duplicitous arms trafficking to Ukraine, which it must have been aware of for a long time whilst choosing to treat the matter with diplomatic discretion, comes against the background of two important developments. The first is the expiration of Russia’s gas treaty with Serbia. Under its terms Serbia was receiving energy from Russia on extremely favourable terms. The treaty was extended recently under an emergency provision for a period of six months to give the parties time to negotiate a new agreement. Unless Russia is still willing to demonstrate generosity, the current Serbian “back-stabbing” regime – if it survives until then – may face in the coming winter the unpleasant prospect of paying for Russian gas under market instead of subsidised conditions. That would undoubtedly exacerbate the social crisis which is already shaking it to its foundations.

The second important factor that shapes this picture is the expressed intention of the largely deindustrialised European Union countries to bring the relatively intact Serbian arms industry under their effective control as part of the ambitious, and some would argue delusional, rearmament programme for the contemplated future war against Russia. But for such a scheme to work an abundant and cheap energy supply is required. Russia obviously would be disinclined to furnish energy at advantageous rates to subsidise the arms industry of a country which produces weapons intended, to reiterate a key phrase from the already cited intelligence report, “to kill and maim Russian servicemen and the civilian population of Russia.”

If Russia decides to respond with stern measures to this duplicity it is the Serbian people, of course, who will have to pay the price for the malfeasance of their rulers.

The Serbian regime is now cornered in a conundrum of its own greedy making. What originally may have appeared (like the ill-fated reconstruction of the railways station in Novi Sad) as a convenient opportunity to make a quick profit and also line some private pockets has now morphed into a potentially colossal and politically dangerous crisis.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... th-moscow/

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Moldova's Gas Collapse
June 6, 2025
Rybar

The Moldovan government will take another loan of 400 million euros from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to refuse the services of the Russian-Moldovan gas distribution company Moldovagaz .

From August 1, gas supplies in the country will be carried out by the state-owned company Energocom . The loan should provide the company with working capital for the transition to a new operating model.

The controlling stake in Moldovagaz belongs to Gazprom, so the Maia Sandu regime is trying to free itself from the Russian factor in the country's energy sector, despite the dangerous costs .

How gas prices will rise (again?!):
Former Moldovan Prime Minister Vlad Filat noted that the fees and interest on the loan alone will amount to more than 14.46 million euros per year , which will increase gas prices for consumers.

Former President Igor Dodon stated that this is a “scheme for theft of public funds,” and that servicing the interest rate will lead to an increase in the price of one cubic meter of gas by at least 47-50 bani .

The leader of Our Party, Renato Usatii, stated that members of the Moldovan government on the Moldovagaz board blocked Gazprom's proposal to cancel their monthly $8.5 thousand, despite their solid salaries in the civil service.

Through this scheme, the Moldovan authorities want to get rid of Moldovagaz ’s historical debt to Gazprom in the amount of $709 million, but are now creating a new debt to the EBRD.

State-owned Energocom contributed to the energy crisis in the winter by signing secret gas contracts without disclosing prices. During the period of low gas prices in the summer of 2024, the authorities did not buy it, so the deals were concluded at the highest prices at the peak.

Overall, the transition to Energocom is extremely risky . In addition to the growth of tariffs due to the purchase of expensive gas in the EU, in the conditions of weak management of the company, the situation may finally get out of control. Not to mention the fact that another loan falls on the shoulders of the Moldovans .

https://rybar.ru/gazovyj-kollaps-moldavii/

Google Translator

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Ukraine’s Response To The Sejm’s Volhynia Genocide Remembrance Bill Infuriated Poles
Andrew Korybko
Jun 08, 2025



Downplaying this crime and suggesting that Poles are Russia’s useful idiots for remembering it can galvanize them in support of a much harder line towards Ukraine than anything that’s come before.

The Polish Sejm passed a bill in favor of making 11 July a “Day of Remembrance of Poles – victims of genocide committed by the OUN-UPA in the Eastern Borderlands of the Second Polish Republic”. It’ll now go to the Senate and then have to be signed by the President, but no problems are expected. This move aims to formalize the Sejm’s 2016 resolution to the same effect by making 11 July a state holiday. It predictably led to a furious response from Ukraine that was conveyed via a post by its Foreign Ministry.

They downplayed the torture and killing of over 120,000 Poles, most of whom were women and children, by calling it a “so-called” genocide while implying that the bill “could lead to increased tension in bilateral relations”. They also added that “Once again, we remind you that Poles should not look for enemies among Ukrainians, and Ukrainians should not look for enemies among Poles. We have a common enemy – Russia.” Suffice to say, Poles are infuriated, and they’re expressing it under the post.

This isn’t an insignificant scandal. First, the Volhynia Genocide issue is very emotive for Poles since Ukraine hasn’t apologized nor made amends, with it only just now beginning to exhume a handful of bodies in order to finally give them a proper burial. Second, liberals and conservatives united in the Sejm to push through this bill, thus proving that it’s a bipartisan issue. And third, Ukraine’s disgraceful response comes right after the Polish presidential election, whose outcome is bad news for Kiev.

That’s because conservative candidate Karol Nawrocki signed an eight-point pledge prior to his second-round victory where he promised not to support Ukraine’s membership in NATO nor to deploy troops there. He’s also the President of the Institute of National Remembrance, which has done more than any other entity in the world to raise the widest possible awareness of the Volhynia Genocide. Upon assuming office on 6 August, Nawrocki is therefore expected to pursue a hard line towards Ukraine.

Even though the President collaborates with the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in creating foreign policy, which could lead to problems since the first is from the opposition (both incumbent and successor), bipartisan unity on the Volhynia Genocide issue can help. After all, it was none other than liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk who first pursued a harder line towards Ukraine, which his conservative predecessor only flirted with right before fall 2023’s Sejm elections.

Back then, the grain dispute was the only issue souring bilateral ties, but Tusk’s government revived the Volhynia Genocide dispute, cut Ukraine off from free arms (they’ll now be sold on credit), and explicitly declared that he wants Poland to profit from Ukraine. To be sure, this might have also been a failed electioneering tactic just like his predecessor was accused of orchestrating at the time, but it’s arguably taken on a life of its own that Nawrocki’s election and the Sejm’s bill might soon take to the next level.

All in all, Ukraine refuses to recognize the Volhynia Genocide since doing so would discredit its modern-day post-Maidan “national heroes” from the World War II era even more than they already are, so it’s instead downplaying this crime and suggesting that Poles are Russia’s useful idiots for remembering it. This is incredibly disrespectful and Poles are rightfully infuriated, which could easily galvanize the population in support of a much harder line towards Ukraine than anything that’s come before.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/ukraines ... s-volhynia

[blindpig]

The People Want Peace and Progress, Not War and Waste: The Twenty-Fourth Newsletter (2025)

As NATO’s secretary general urges member nations to ‘shift to a wartime mindset’, now more than ever it is clear that this aggressive alliance poses a threat to peace on a global scale.

12 June 2025


Goyen Chen, Know Love, Know Peace. No Love, No Peace, 2022.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

On 24 and 25 June, the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) will strut around the streets of The Hague for their annual summit – the first since Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency and the first under new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. On 13 March, Rutte visited Trump in the Oval Office, where he praised the US president on a number of fronts, including the war in Ukraine. Rutte ended the meeting by telling Trump that he was looking forward to hosting him in The Hague, his ‘hometown’, and was eager to ‘work together to ensure that [the NATO summit] will be a splash, a real success projecting American power on the world stage’.

There are thirty-two full members of NATO, thirty from Europe and two from North America. The United States is only one among them, yet, as Rutte made clear in his statement, it is the one that defines NATO and is but a vehicle for the projection of US power. There should be no doubt about that fact. It is precisely for this reason that the idea of the US leaving NATO – as Trump threatened to do if the Europeans did not increase their military spending – is moot. NATO is the United States.


Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Untitled, 2025.

From Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the No Cold War collective, and our European partners at the Zetkin Forum for Social Research comes our June dossier, NATO: The Most Dangerous Organisation on Earth. The title is bold but not hyperbolic. It reflects the facts before us. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, NATO has conducted some of the most lethal wars on the planet and now threatens us with the unthinkable possibility of nuclear conflict. The dossier provides ample evidence of this. Here, we simply note two of the alliance’s more egregious acts over the past decades:

It was NATO that dismembered Yugoslavia in 1999.
It was NATO that destroyed the Libyan state in 2011.

It is erroneous to see NATO as an autonomous actor. NATO, as Rutte so eloquently stated, is an instrument of ‘projecting American power on the world stage’. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has used NATO to incorporate Eastern Europe into a pliable set of states subordinate to its interests. When the European Union expanded eastward and sought to build autonomous European institutions, NATO came along and ensured that the United States would be the engine of any European expansion. One might be forgiven for having forgotten the warning that came not from Russia’s current President Vladimir Putin but from his decidedly pro-US predecessor Boris Yeltsin, who warned during NATO’s 1995 bombing of the Bosnian Serbs, ‘this is the first sign of what could happen when NATO comes right up to the Russian Federation’s borders. … The game of war could burst out across the whole of Europe’. In 1990, the Soviet Union reluctantly agreed to the reunification of Germany and its entry into NATO under assurances that the alliance would not expand eastward (the US also used the move to ‘keep the Germans down’ by keeping them anchored within NATO structures). But there was no agreement that the US could use NATO as an instrument to project power right up to Russia’s borders. Nor was there any mandate for NATO to be used in far-off theatres like the South China Sea to confront the People’s Republic of China under the pretext of freedom of navigation and regional stability. NATO – against the self-interest of its European member states – has been drawn into confrontations against Russia and China that are entirely about the US wanting to shackle its ‘near-peer rivals’. These confrontations have nothing to do with European security: neither Russia nor China have threatened Europe, with Russia repeatedly reiterating that its war in Ukraine has everything to do with threats on its borders and China emphasising that it is a defensive power with no aggressive intentions regarding Europe.


Goyen Chen, War Only Brings Pain, 2022.

Before Donald Trump took office in December 2024, his transition team told European officials that the president-elect would ask NATO member states to increase their military spending to 5% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP), compared to the previous target of 2%. Most states would not be able to comply with this dramatic increase without deep cuts to their social expenditure (as of late 2024, Poland is the only member state that spends more than 4% of its GDP on its military – 4.12% to be exact – while the United States officially spends 3.38%). US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said that while this 5% demand would not come with a deadline, ‘the United States expects every ally to step up with concrete plans, budgets, timelines, [and] deliverables to meet the 5% target and close capability gaps’.

From NATO’s founding in 1949 – and even throughout the Cold War – there was no firm benchmark for military spending for member states (such as percentage of GDP). The 1952 Lisbon Agreement on NATO force levels, which set targets for the number of conventional and reserve forces, simply could not be met due to the privations in post-war Europe. In the 1970s, NATO members had to fill out a Defence Planning Questionnaire to assess national military spending efforts, but no targets could be set. During Ronald Reagan’s presidency (1981–1989) – when the US was spending around 6% of GDP on defence – questions were again raised about force level goals and defence spending, and there were calls for European members states to increase their share to as much as 4% of GDP. In the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington feared that NATO states would cut their military budgets. At the 2002 NATO Summit in Prague, alliance leaders adopted the Prague Capabilities Commitment, which once more called for the need to modernise forces in the context of the War on Terror, but no formal spending target was established.

It was not until the 2006 Riga Summit, when NATO officially endorsed the 2% target, that the first formal benchmark for military spending among member states emerged. Though pressure mounted at the 2014 Wales Summit to comply with this hitherto unmet goal, there was still no real enthusiasm for it. Trump pushed hard during his first term, suggesting that the US would leave NATO if the Europeans did not increase their military spending. Then, when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the 2% goal began to be seen – as then NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said – ‘not as a ceiling, but the minimum, a floor’. In anticipation of this year’s summit in The Hague, current NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that NATO members must ‘shift to a wartime mindset and turbo charge our defence production and defence spending’.


Othman Ghalmi, Where Can I Find Peace, 2022.

Various European institutes and movement platforms have already begun to release documents in anticipation of the upcoming NATO summit. One is the annual report from the German Institutes of Peace and Conflict Research (Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies, Institut für Friedensforschung und Sicherheitspolitik, Institut für Entwicklung und Frieden, and the Leibniz Institut für Friedens-und Konfliktforschung), which argues that Europe must prepare for a post-US NATO by increasing its own military spending and moving toward non-lethal forms of diplomacy such as arms control and peace-building measures. This is one approach to the NATO crisis, but it suffers from two key flaws: first, it misunderstands Europe’s role in NATO by treating it as an equal partner, when NATO is in fact an instrument for the subordination of Europe to US strategic aims, and second, even if member states in Europe increase their military spending to 5% of GDP, they simply do not have the capacity to do so.

The British government’s Strategic Defence Review 2025 is basically a recipe for bankruptcy. Britain simply does not have the resources to build a new ‘hybrid navy’ with ‘hybrid airwings’, provide housing for the working class, or refurbish its health care system. It is easy to write about a ‘whole-of-society’ approach but hard to find the money to build a society strained by so many afflictions. On the other hand, the National Union of Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament make a perfectly reasonable case for ‘human security and common security’, as they write it in their Alternative Defence Review. They argue this can be achieved by:

Prioritising diplomacy, global cooperation, and conflict prevention.
Investing in health, education, climate resilience, social care, and the creation of well-paid, secure, unionised, and socially useful jobs.
Significantly reducing military spending.
Immediately halting arms exports to countries involved in active conflict or human rights abuses (including Israel and the Gulf States).
Preparing and executing a just transition for defence-dependent workers and communities.
These are sensible, achievable goals in a world where most peoples want peace and progress, not war and waste.

Warmly,

Vijay

https://thetricontinental.org/newslette ... -spending/

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Finnish Military Exports Hit Record High in 2024


X/ @Galilhub

June 12, 2025 Hour: 8:17 am

The government granted 432 permanent commercial export licenses for defense equipment to 52 countries.

On Thursday, Finland’s Ministry of Defense published a report showing that the country’s military exports reached a record high of €1.4 billion in 2024, its first full year as a NATO member.
The Finnish government granted 432 permanent commercial export licenses for defense equipment to 52 countries, most of them members of the European Union and NATO.

The top customer was Sweden, which applied for NATO membership alongside Finland following the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. Export licenses to Sweden totaled €672 million, accounting for 47.6% of Finland’s total military exports. These licenses covered various categories of products, primarily armored land vehicles.

Saudi Arabia was the second-largest buyer, purchasing services and spare parts for a mortar system worth €150 million. The U.S. followed, acquiring mainly fire control and surveillance sensors for €115 million.

Finland is acquiring radar-seeking Northrop Grumman AGM-88G AARGM-ER missiles for its future F35 fighters.

With these new weapons, Finland's ability to destroy Russia's air defenses rises to an unprecedented level. pic.twitter.com/2ATv8OdUGJ

— Tomi (@TallbarFIN) January 2, 2025
The top 10 buyers of Finnish military equipment also included Japan, Latvia, Poland, Greece, Norway, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Export licenses to Spain amounted to €2.25 million and covered various explosive devices and firearms with a caliber of less than 20 millimeters.

The report includes only commercial exports and therefore excludes the defense material Finland supplied to Ukraine as part of international assistance in its war with Russia.

The Ministry of Defense clarified that the figures refer to export licenses granted in 2024, although delivery of the equipment may occur in later years.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/finnish- ... h-in-2024/

Greece Faces Media Blackout as Journalists Strike


X/ @PRINgr

June 12, 2025 Hour: 7:40 am

Journalists demand a starting gross salary of 1,250 euros and additional pay for work performed on holidays and weekends.
On Thursday, Greece is experiencing its second media blackout in a week due to the fifth 24-hour strike called by the Panhellenic Federation of Journalists’ Unions (POESY) in less than four months, as journalists demand wage increases and public policies to support the sector.

There will be no news broadcasts on television or radio throughout the day. Those time slots will be filled with documentaries and series. Additionally, there will be no print newspapers available on Friday.

The Union of Journalists of Digital Media is also participating in the strike, although some news websites have opted out and continue to publish content today. The walkout comes just a week after a similar 24-hour strike by media outlets last Thursday and marks the fifth journalists’ strike in less than four months.

“With the central demand being the signing of collective labor agreements, we are calling for an end to the stranglehold of individual labor contracts that have frozen wages,” POESY stated.


Journalists are demanding a starting gross salary of 1,250 euros across all media outlets and additional pay for work performed on holidays and weekends. Greece’s current minimum monthly wage stands at 880 euros.

The union emphasized that the private media sector in Greece has gone 17 years without signing collective labor agreements and is also calling for the inclusion of “institutional demands” in future agreements.

POESY is particularly advocating for the adoption of ethical principles in the media industry, the introduction of legislation to combat Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)—which are used to silence critical journalism—and the recognition of “fair compensation” for journalists’ copyright.

Media workers are also urging the government to support the print press to protect jobs and “put a stop” to excessive media concentration in the hands of a few business owners.

Finally, POESY is calling on employers to “come to the table for collective bargaining” to reach “mutually beneficial agreements for the health of the sector.”

The latest annual report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Greece last among European Union countries for press freedom for the fourth year in a row, placing it 89th out of 180 countries evaluated worldwide.

Greece’s poor ranking is attributed, among other factors, to a 2022 wiretapping scandal involving politicians and journalists by the national intelligence service, which operates under the direct control of the office of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a conservative.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/greece-f ... ts-strike/

[blindpig]

Ten times more bullshit

Ian Proud

June 14, 2025

No one will be scared by the UK Strategic Defence Review but British people should be

The UK Strategic Defence Review brings little new money to match its toweringly yet vague ambitions, and absolutely no more troops to fight a larger enemy.

One of the claims that Prime Minister Keir Starmer has repeated often, and that the Defence Secretary John Healey repeats in the foreword to the recently published Strategic Defence Review, is that ‘we have announced the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war’.

This is simply untrue. And unfortunately, it reflects the curious mix of hubris and vacuity that peppers the tortured141 pages of the review.

Firstly, it is absolutely clear that there is little new money to throw at defence.

As I have pointed out before, the increase in UK defence spending from 2.02% of GDP when the Ukraine war started, to 2.3% of GDP in 2024, had already happened before the UK general election that ushered Keir Starmer into No.10.

This increase in spending didn’t give us anything new. Rather, it moved items funded from the Treasury reserve – UK military support to Ukraine and the costs of UK military operations in the red sea against the Houthis – into the MoD main budget. It also provided for the big uplift in budget for the MoD’s massively overspent and delay ridden procurement programme, which saw costs shoot up by £65.7bn in 2024 alone.

The only new money Labour has brought to the table is an offer to boost spending by another 0.2% of GDP by 2027; that will be funded by its 0.2% of GDP cut in Overseas Aid spending.

This is less than the Tories delivered.

But, well done to Chancellor Rachel Reeves for prudently not loading Britain with more debt to fund defence spending increases. However, let us not pretend that the Labour Government is throwing large sums of new money at Britain’s tiny and ill-equipped armed forces. Indeed, 2.5% of GDP is half of what NATO is asking for, following Secretary General Mark Rutte’s recent call for 5% spending. There is a vague promise to increase defence spending in the next parliament i.e. after 2029.

The UK Strategic Defence review is not strategic but, instead, deeply underwhelming. It offers 141 pages loaded with breathless aspiration and sweeping statements of the blindingly obvious.

Nothing characterises the towering hubris more than the remarkable claim that we will create and army that is ‘10 x more lethal’. No real evidence is provided for how it will happen beyond a ‘Recce-Strike’ model for land fighting power, aiming to deliver a ten-fold increase in lethality.

This new fighting model, otherwise known as ‘The Land Operating Concept – A New Way of Winning’ was unveiled in September 2023 by the British Army. Let’s be clear, September 2023 was the moment when it became apparent that the Ukrainian botched counteroffensive – which the British army had helped plan in meticulous detail – had failed.

What’s also clear is that there won’t be ten times more troops.

In fact, there will be less troops.

At page 111 the review says they army ‘should have 73,000 regular soldiers’. That is 847 fewer soldiers than the Army had on 1 January 2025, and 2166 fewer soldiers than the Army had on 1 January 2024. But fear not, the report goes on to say that ‘a small uplift in regular personnel should be considered when funding allows.’

Let us not be distracted, however, by the small detail of army shrinkage and the fact that the Russian army is over one million strong and battle-hardened. The UK armed forces, we are assured, will be more ‘integrated’ than ever before, integration being an improvement on ‘joint’ which they are apparently today.

Yet integration is not defined.

Instead, in a masterpiece of drafting by the Circumlocution Office of Little Dorrit, we are reassured at p.16 that ‘under this new model, there is no fixed force design to be delivered by a specified date. The design and capabilities of the Integrated Force, and the way that wider Defence supports it, must continue to evolve as threats and technology do.’

In other words, we don’t know what Integrated means, or when we’ll have it.

Fear not, though, the Ministry of Defence will have to ‘submit an annual statement to the Secretary of State on force design that identifies what has changed’ a statement that might have been plugged out of a 1970s labour relations manual.

There are moments of great irony in the review.

‘We are acutely aware that words such as ‘transformation’ have been used before in defence reviews but the intention has seldom been delivered.’ (P.22) Or ‘this diagnosis is not new. But Defence has not yet made the organisational and cultural change necessary for success. (p.44). In other words, despite the rainforests chopped down to produce meaningless defence reviews in the past that led to no demonstrable change ‘trust us, guys’, this time it will be different.

Hmmm.

Of course, there are occasional and worrying glimpses of fundamental challenges of which my readers will be all too aware.

Stockpiles are inadequate, further reduced by the apparently ‘important and necessary’ transfer of materiel to Ukraine. ‘Procurement systems and Defence’s relationship with industry have not materially changed since the Cold War. Optimism about equipment cost and timelines for delivery means the Equipment Plan is consistently over-budget and outdated capabilities remain in the field for too long.’ (P.34)

And yet, by far the biggest focus of the Review is on buying fancy new kit and getting more comfortably into bed with defence contractors and private investors. Not content to spend billions on existing wasteful procurement programmes, the Review invites us to design the replacement for the already much delayed Dreadnought submarines, before they have even entered service.

In March 2024, the UK Public Accounts Committee reported that there was no credible government plan to deliver desired military capabilities. The Strategic Defence Review does not offer a credible plan.

Instead, it reminds us that ‘the measure of military effectiveness today is not solely the number of people, vehicles, planes, and ships fielded by the Armed Forces.’ Although an army with no troops is rather like the fully staffed hospital with no money for medical staff, made famous by the 1970s satire, ‘Yes Minister’. As the Russians like to say, ‘quantity has a quality all of its own’.

One of the few grains of truth in the review was the observation that ‘Russia’s war economy, if sustained, will enable it to rebuild its land capabilities more quickly in the event of a ceasefire in Ukraine.’ (P.28)

The UK economy, which shrunk by 0.3% in April, is not geared to building UK land capabilities in the same way. Which is why I was surprised that, as a strategic defence review, it gives no column inches to the discipline of diplomacy, that might help the UK to prevent wars, rather than incite, start or prolong them. This, despite observing that ‘regional settlements and solutions may be necessary as it becomes harder for states to achieve common goals at the global level.’ (p.27)

Step back from the vast and cumbersome document and you’ll see that the Strategic Defence Review offers only convoluted pile of bullshit bingo and big ambitions without the money to deliver upon them, the organisational skills to manage them, nor the troops ready to deploy to where the metal meets the meat. This should scare no one except, perhaps, the British people.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... -bullshit/

Europe’s latest sanctions show that it is heading for disaster

Ian Proud

June 12, 2025

Friedrich Merz won’t survive a single term in office and France will be the next country to exit the EU, triggering an implosion of the project.

Europe will either continue the war at huge cost to avoid a reckoning with its disastrous policy towards Russia, or end the war, and face the prospect of Ukrainian membership which will tear the EU apart. No wonder the Eurocrats are bang out of ideas and throwing out more pointless sanctions.

Few things characterise the emptiness of European energy policy that Ursula von Der Leyen’s announcement that the Nordstream 1 and 2 pipelines would be hitherto banned. In what has been described as a significant escalation, she announced on X that ‘Europe is putting Nordstream 1 & 2 behind for good.’ Both pipelines lay empty, and some were destroyed by a terrorist attack in September 2022. Nothing says escalation less than a sanction with zero economic cost.

And this latest move also signals increasing desperation in Europe about what to do about Russia, in circumstances where no one wants to fight Russia. The arrival of Friedrich Merz as German Chancellor has undoubtedly shifted the centre of gravity of EU policy towards Berlin, as he tries to position himself as the tough kid on the block.

But I want to be the first to predict that Merz won’t survive a full term in office.

The weight of domestic concern in Germany about self-defeating foreign policy is turbo-charging the growth of AfD which has become Germany’s most popular party since the February elections, according to polls.

As I, and many others, have said before, European industry has been crippled by high energy prices, and we are told, this is Russia’s fault. But it is manifestly driven by self-defeating energy policies in Brussels and Berlin. Rather cutting energy connections, the only answer is to boost global supply which would inevitably bring uncomfortable choices about Russian pipelines back to the table. Should this happen, von der Leyen’s credibility and Merz’s honeymoon in office, would suffer a cold shower.

Taking every step possible to delay or prevent a ceasefire in Ukraine simply kicks the sloshing bucket of iced water further down the slippery bathroom floor.

Yet citizens suffering under the weight of high prices will still remember that before the war started, gas prices in Europe were extremely low – comparable to U.S. gas prices today – because of hugely favourable global supply. LNG from the U.S., the Middle East and Africa together with piped gas from Norway and Russia, pushed the wholesale price of gas down to levels not seen since 2005.

European LNG imports had risen sharply after the onset of the Ukraine crisis in 2014 increasing from only 10% of to nearly 50% today, while Russian piped gas kept flowing. As part of this, imports from the U.S. tripled in volume between 2021 and 2023 and they now make up almost 50% of total European LNG imports.

Cutting Russian gas pipelines has had a devastating effect on the European supply equation.

Read the European press and you’ll hear often how U.S. LNG is too expensive, which contributes to the economic headwinds manufacturers in Germany and else are facing. Emmanuel Macron has in the past called out the U.S. as ‘unfriendly’ for selling expensive LNG. But this is deeply misleading.

Back in 2019, there was more gas than the world could possibly use, bearing down on prices. The fact of piped or shipped was immaterial to the glut in supply. The surge in U.S. supplies was doing to global gas prices what the glut of U.S. shale oil was doing in January 2016 when prices sunk to $26 per barrel.

The 2016 oil price collapse put immense pressure on Russia’s economy, which is heavily reliant on tax from oil and gas exports. Russia’s current account surplus in 2016 hit its lowest level since 1999, pinching tax income significantly. And that was at a time when Russia was pumping record amounts of oil and gas.

Because herein lies a truth; the global price of energy has a much bigger impact on Russia than the amount of energy that you buy from Russia.

When President Trump talks to OPEC about slashing the oil price, and, by extension, the gas price, he thinks that this will damage Russia’s economy more than cutting Russian supplies

However, Russian monetary policy today is very different to 2016. A low rouble is embraced which helps to offset energy price slumps and brings in bigger surpluses when prices soar.

That’s why the second strand of von der Leyen’s grand plan – getting the G7 to agree to reduce the oil price cap from $60 to $45 – may also not work. And, in any case, G7 agreement to this will only be possible if the United States agrees. While Trump has spoken often about reducing the oil price by boosting global supply, it is far from clear that he will sign up to imposing another exogenous sanction on Russia, at a time when his administration is looking to reset relations with the Kremlin.

Mothballing Russian pipelines as putative punishment for Putin’s war in Ukraine is having the opposite effect – restricting supply, pushing up prices and hurting Europe far more than it is hurting Russia.

And, of course, Europe finds itself caught in a perfect storm of bad economic options. Continue the war at a huge economic cost, to delay the inevitable reckoning with its self-defeating policy with Russia. End the war and face an even bigger political and economic cost of admitting Ukraine as a member.

I have said before, admitting Ukraine to the EU would shake the financial foundations of the bloc and cause such widespread resistance, that Ukraine could only join on second-class terms and conditions. Specifically, countries like France and Poland will block and delay to avoid handing their generous subsidies to Kyiv.

It should come as no surprise that the newly elected President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, has already said that Ukraine should not be admitted to the EU. He is not alone. Hungary’s Prime Minster Viktor Orban has long said that Ukraine’s accession to Europe would be an economic disaster.

It might be for some EU countries. The bigger problem, if you consider it a problem, is that it would cause a political disaster and an unravelling of the European project. What is happening political in Germany will, too, happen in France, and the lawfare against Le Pen will only accelerate that. It’s now a matter of when, not if, National Rally runs the government in Paris. When that happens, expect to see an increasingly nationalist France head for the exit triggering an implosion of the project.

Only radical reform, slashing the EU institutions and handing sovereignty back to member states can prevent this from happening. The chances of that, right now, appear very low.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... -disaster/

In Odessa, cornered Serbia again recklessly pokes the bear

Stephen Karganovic

June 12, 2025

One of the more fascinating puzzles is from whom the Serbian government are receiving their crackpot foreign policy advice.

One of the more fascinating puzzles is from whom the Serbian government are receiving their crackpot foreign policy advice. From crackpots, one supposes.

To the bewilderment even of those who had little faith in the capacity of Serbian decision-makers to act in their own rational self-interest (forget the country, to which they are as emotionally attached as the Zelensky gang is to Ukraine) Serbia was present at the “Ukraine – Southeast Europe” summit held in Odessa on 11 June. The event was orchestrated by the Ukraine neo-Nazi regime’s collective West sponsors to rally support for their Kiev proxies and attendance was a key litmus test of loyalty to the party line. Judged by the iniquitous standards of Western “partners” from whose patronage Serbia has no benefits to gain, Belgrade’s conspicuous attendance at the Odessa event was a praiseworthy gesture of abject servitude.

Clearly, Serbia’s official attendance both at the 9 May Victory Day Parade in Moscow, however reluctantly, and also at the Zelensky booster rally in Odessa a month later, is not – as regime propaganda tries to misrepresent it – a masterful balancing act but a desperation commitment to incompatible and schizophrenic foreign policy options. It reflects a complete incapacity of Serbia’s foreign policy brain trust, if such even exists, to realistically assess the complexity of an international situation where every frivolous act carries an enormous cost. It also reflects an amateurish failure to understand that those who consistently engage in such unprincipled conduct ultimately overplay their hand and end up shunned and punished by both sides.

It is particularly noteworthy, and indicative of the supremely bad judgment of Belgrade’s decision-makers, that in Odessa, as in Moscow, Serbia was represented by its President, thus treating very diverse events as if, from Serbia’s point of view, they held the same weight and significance. Even if, its offended protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, the Serbian regime lacked the courage to shrug off its Western “partners” and resist pressure to go to Odessa, it had the option of demonstrating a modicum of independence by sending to Ukraine a lower-level official, such as the Prime Minister or Minister of Foreign Affairs. That at least would have signalled its perception that the Odessa gathering of collective West satraps and neo-Nazi junta supporters was an event of lesser political magnitude than the recent celebration of victory over fascism in Moscow. But nothing of the sort was demonstrated by political dilettantes whose entire ineptly run enterprise is foundering under the stress of irrepressible civil disobedience at home and a succession of policy debacles abroad. They have proved to be a sorry bunch of nincompoops who evidently have lost the capacity to formulate sensible decisions, even in their own narrow self-interest.



Odessa, June 11, 2025

The Serbian conundrum, in all its nuanced complexity, was not lost on Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. In impeccably diplomatic but unmistakeably stern tones she stated that “countries that want to cultivate good relations with Russia but are going to Odessa should honestly face the question of what side they are on.” She also pointedly reminded the Odessa “summit” attendee from Serbia that Russia’s patience is not inexhaustible and that Russia is done being played for a fool:

“Those who claim that they want to develop relations with Russia, to engage in dialogue with it, should first of all ask themselves whether they are on the side of Truth or Neo-Nazism?”

Miss Zaharova stressed the serious nature of the Moscow event, to which Serbia seems to have been dragged kicking and screaming:

“That was not just a routine event, a get-together, but a declaration of rejection of the ideology of Nazism and fascism in the twenty-first century,” Miss Zakharova schooled Russia’s rogue Serbian guest of a month ago from her Foreign Ministry lectern.

“And what ideas will be shared by those who are preparing to gather [in Odessa]? With whom will they be associated? The Kiev regime has glorified Nazi criminals, Bandera, Shukhevich, and the rest of Ukraine’s collaborationist pseudo-heroes.”

All of which leads to the logical conclusion that pleas of invincible ignorance can no longer be sustained:

“If two and a half years ago someone still may have entertained a degree of uncertainty about the nature of the Kiev regime and could have attended so-called ‘Zelensky peace formula’ conferences and ‘summits to provide assistance to the Kiev regime,’ today it is no longer possible to overlook that regime’s terrorist character.’”

Eminently sensible as these reflections are, it seems that the bought and paid for Serbian political elite will continue to stick to their treacherous Agenda, not from ignorance of the consequences of their actions, much less conviction, but out of a sort of irreversible necessity, which is the price of the hubris which has cornered them in an exit-less political labyrinth of their own making. They already have made their choice, so to speak, and now little maneuvering space remains to change course. That invidious choice on every major point runs counter to the wishes and interests of the people they still rule. It consists of the relentless march into the clutches of the moribund European Union, ultimately membership or close association with NATO, and the relinquishment of Kosovo, whose Serbian identity it seems will in the end be safeguarded by Russia alone. The nefarious Agenda to which they are committed will be ruthlessly pursued whilst putting on a simulacrum of independence and avoiding a premature falling out with Moscow where they still have considerable economic and financial interests to look after.

For Serbs, the silver lining in all this is that whilst their rulers are demonstrably unable to distinguish between their own and their country’s national interest, much less to subordinate the former to the latter, distinctions of that nature come effortlessly to the Russian government, who do not conflate the moral turpitude of a transient regime with the nation that regime governs.

After all is said and done, Miss Zaharova continues, “no one will manage to undermine our strategic partnership with Belgrade and centuries-old friendship with the fraternal Serbian people.”

Point taken, touché, and well-spoken gentle lady.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... -the-bear/

[blindpig]

HISTORY IN NATOLAND

On June 4, 2025 By Patrick ArmstrongIn HISTORY, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE
In what was no doubt intended to strike his listeners dumb with awe, the current NATO GenSek said today:

NATO is the most powerful defense alliance in world history. Even more powerful than the Roman Empire. And more powerful than the Napoleon Empire. We are the most powerful defence alliance in world history…

First “defensive”. Do you think Hispania, Britannia, Gallia, Germania, Aegyptus would agree? But, more to the point, most of the times you hear the Roman Empire mentioned these days, it’s in a sentence like this “the Roman Empire fell because it was doing what (insert name of country, or alliance.) is doing now.”

Not, perhaps, the most felicitous comparison.

But the other is even worse. As to defensive, see above. But has he forgotten a certain decision Napoleon made in 1812 that led to the Russian Army entering Paris two years later and inventing the bistro? And this while he’s ginning up a fear of Russia? Who briefs these guys: Alfred E Newman? (NOTE: You’d think that a guy who had wasted his youth reading Mad magazine would know it was spelled Neuman, wouldn’t you? Thanks to a reader)

My advice to the GenSek is that in his pleading for more money at the end of the month, he add that a Directorate of Scary Historical Analogies will be established that is actually competent...

https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2025/06/04/ ... -natoland/

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Germany stoking Russophobia and fears of World War III

Jonathan Turley

June 16, 2025

Berlin continues to peddle lunacy, warning the state needs to be prepared for an attack from Russia within the next four years.

The Western European nation responsible for starting two world wars now has designs to enlarge and modernize its civil defense infrastructure as its European NATO allies fast-track militarization in preparation for a potential direct showdown with Russia, according to Ralph Tiesler, head of the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK).

Presently, Germany has around 600 operational shelters with room for half a million people, which is less than 1% of the population. In comparison, the BBK said that Finland has 50,000 protective shelters, amounting to space for 4.8 million people, or 85% of its population. In a series of recent interviews with national media, Tiesler said that to manage the shortage, the BBK plans to convert cellars, underground garages, and metro stations into a system of bomb shelters capable of accommodating up to one million people out of Germany’s population of 85 million. The hardened facilities would come complete with food, water, bathrooms and sleeping areas.

“For a long time, there was a widespread belief in Germany that war was not a scenario for which we needed to prepare. That has changed. We are concerned about the risk of a major war of aggression in Europe,” he told the Süddeutsche Zeitung news outlet.

“New bunkers with the highest protection standards cost a lot of money and take time. We need faster solutions,” Tiesler said, adding that his agency will present a comprehensive plan later this summer.

“Nearly every basement can become a safe place in the event of an attack,” he said in a separate interview with Zeit, encouraging his fellow Germans to reinforce windows, stock essentials, and prepare to shelter for extended periods.

President Vladimir Putin has consistently argued that Moscow has “no reason, no interest – no geopolitical interest, neither economic, nor political, nor military” to fight with the countries of the NATO bloc.

While downplaying the likelihood of a full-blown Russian invasion of Berlin reminiscent of the final days of World War II, Tiesler warned that as a major NATO logistical hub, Germany would become a target for “selective strikes” in the event of an eastern front conflict.

German hospitals are being considered for their ability to treat mass casualties, with Tiesler warning that the national health system could witness up to 1,000 additional patients daily in the event of a military confrontation. Other plans include doubling the number of warning sirens nationwide, upgrading emergency apps to include missile strike instructions, and possibly introducing a national civil service requirement, as reported by RT.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who gave Ukraine the greenlight to use long-range missiles against Russia, pledged to turn the Bundeswehr into the strongest conventional army in Europe by giving it all the financial resources it needs to become so. Merz also said he would introduce a new volunteer military service. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius reportedly hopes for a “drastic increase” to the country’s military budget, up to €90 billion ($102 billion) by 2028.

Tiesler has insisted that civil protection must not be neglected, estimating that at least €10bn (£8.4bn) would be needed over the next four years to cover civil defense needs, and at least €30bn over the next decade. All this must be accomplished by 2029, the year German officials have repeatedly cited as the deadline for Berlin to be “ready for war.”

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said that “the absurdity of such statements is clear to anyone who understands the slightest bit of history and the goals of the special military operation in Ukraine, which we announced openly and without hiding.”

Russian officials have repeatedly said that Moscow is seeking the “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine, as well as an arrangement guaranteeing that the country would not join NATO, and would instead recommit to neutrality.

Meanwhile, Moscow has also slammed Western Europe’s militarization drive, which is pushing smack up to the Russian border in the Baltic States and Finland. Rather than supporting U.S.-led peace initiatives for the Ukraine conflict, the EU and UK are instead gearing up for an apocalyptic confrontation with Russia.

Lavrov recently stated that Germany’s military buildup and arms deliveries to Kiev prove Berlin’s “direct involvement” in the conflict. He warned that the country is “sliding down the same slippery slope it already followed a couple of times in the last century – toward its own collapse.”

According to a survey by the Levada Center, a Western-funded organization which has been designated as a “foreign agent” in Russia, the United States is no longer the country tht Russians consider the most unfriendly. Germany is now in first place, with 56% of respondents describing it as an “unfriendly country” towards Russia, followed by the UK at 49% and Ukraine at 43%.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... d-war-iii/

The European Garden on the brink of ruin

Lucas Leiroz

June 18, 2025

By insisting on war, European leaders not only condemn Ukraine to disintegration, but also accelerate the structural decline of the continent itself.

The war in Ukraine is entering a critical stage—not only for Kiev, but also for a Europe that, deluded by meaningless slogans and unrealistic promises, finds itself standing at a geopolitical precipice. Ignoring the clear signs of Ukraine’s military and societal exhaustion, European leaders persist in a suicidal escalation of militarization that, far from preventing Ukraine’s collapse, is dragging the continent into an economic, political, and strategic spiral of decline.

The impasse worsened once the U.S. began to show signs of fatigue and a desire to end the conflict. Washington now pushes for a negotiated solution, while Brussels insists on keeping Zelensky afloat, offering not real solutions but false hope in the form of temporary ceasefires and new arms shipments. The goal is obvious: to buy time in hopes of rekindling Washington’s old appetite for war. It’s a dangerous—and fundamentally unrealistic—calculation.

The truth is that Ukraine has no strategic breath left. Since the failed counteroffensive of 2023, the country has plunged into a deep crisis of morale, cohesion, and combat capacity. The situation now resembles that of the Spanish Second Republic after its defeat at the Ebro in 1938: the end is in sight, and the continuation of war serves only to prolong suffering. Zelensky himself, now a deeply unpopular leader, would be politically defeated in any free election—consistently trailing behind military figures like Valeriy Zaluzhniy in every poll. An abrupt internal collapse, whether due to political rifts, military mutinies, or civil unrest, is a very plausible outcome.

Such a scenario would not only seal Ukraine’s defeat but also trigger a catastrophic shift in the European balance of power. Moscow could advance to Odessa, annex vast areas of Ukrainian territory, and reach the European Union’s borders. The consequences would be devastating: NATO demoralized, Brussels’ strategic credibility shattered, and the region permanently destabilized.

Even so, the European continent seems unable to acknowledge its military impotence. Leaders like Macron, Starmer, and Kallas continue proposing unworkable peace plans based on illusions of European power—ignoring the fact that France and the UK can barely maintain even minimal operational forces. While Russia mobilizes thousands of tanks, Britain has only a few dozens. Germany, mired in political crisis, can’t even produce enough ammunition at scale. European rhetoric speaks of rearmament, but national budgets tell another story: ballooning deficits, public debt over 100% of GDP, and increasingly hostile populations unwilling to accept social cuts in the name of a war with no future.

The militarization of Europe, sold as a solution, is in fact a symptom of collapse. Lacking an industrial base, political capital, or social support, any attempt to rebuild a significant military force will result either in prolonged recession or the dismantling of the welfare state—two paths that will lead the so-called “European garden” to ruin. In this context, the war in Ukraine is not only the grave of the Atlanticist project, but the tombstone of a Europe that traded its stability for fantasies of power.

Ukraine’s collapse, therefore, will not be an isolated event. It will mirror Europe’s strategic collapse. The refusal to face reality—that a negotiated solution with concessions to Russia is better than total destruction—not only threatens the existence of the Ukrainian state but also drags Europe into an existential crisis. The continent that once saw itself as guardian of the liberal international order is transforming, before our very eyes, into a graveyard of its own illusions.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... k-of-ruin/

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Is fascism back in Europe? A conversation with the Zetkin Forum

The Zetkin Forum’s conference “Fascism Back in Europe?” will provide analysis, political direction, and space to organize resistance

June 17, 2025 by Ana Vračar


Young French Fascists. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

“The air is thick with fascism in Europe,” says Max Rodermund of the Zetkin Forum for Social Research, ahead of the Fascism Back in Europe? conference, set to take place in Berlin from June 20 to 22. In addition to exploring the forms currently taken by fascist and far-right forces across the region, the conference will dive deep into the political context driving their rise. “The overall focal point is political orientation,” Rodermund explains.

This orientation comes at a critical moment, as European governments pursue aggressive rearmament, channeling hundreds of billions of euros into jets, submarines, and ammunition, while slashing healthcare and education budgets. The erosion of social support systems is widely seen as a major driver behind the surge of right-wing movements. “The strengthening of the right wing reflects different things,” Rodermund continues. “They play the role of channeling anger, fear, and disappointment among sections of the population. But at the same time, they are deliberately cultivated and supported by the ruling class.”

How capital fuels the rise of the far right in Europe
Such a dynamic forms the backdrop for understanding the political moment in Europe today. “We need to understand the political situation we are in much better: the connection between economic crisis and reactionary tendencies,” Rodermund adds. This includes the widespread betrayal of democratic processes by liberal parties, who, in their effort to preserve Western hegemony, have thrown even mainstream decision-making norms out of the window. “In Europe, in the West, we’ve seen in recent years that it was liberal forces who were the loudest in calling for war and who dismantled democracy at home.”

Sections of the conference will examine the intersections between fascism, imperialism, and capitalism, with speakers including Utsa Patnaik and Vijay Prashad. Sharpening the understanding of how the far right is embedded within the capitalist system is essential for building a meaningful alternative, many of the speakers pointed out ahead of the conference. “Benito Mussolini, the founding father of fascism, was one of the most diligent students of austerity policies – measures that characterize the routine management of the capitalist economy today,” said Clara Mattei of the Center for Heterodox Economics, one of the speakers at the conference. “Understanding fascism requires recognizing its ability to fulfill the fundamental demands of the capitalist order: high rates of exploitation and a docile labor force. This is precisely why uncomfortable alliances between liberalism and fascism have repeatedly surfaced throughout the history of our economic system.”

Mainstreaming fascism through historical revisionism
Such alliances are taking different forms depending on whether they appear in Europe’s core or on its periphery. “We see a rapid growth of far-right parties in almost all European countries, many with deep links to fascist actors,” Rodermund explains. “In Eastern Europe especially, this is paired with fierce anti-communism.”

Through bans on communist symbols and historical revisionism, especially regarding World War II, elites are helping to delegitimize the left and bolster the far right. “The professional elite of German imperialism deploy sophisticated strategies to lay the foundations for fascist politics: by reducing the taboo around Nazi ideology and culture; by concealing, denying or instrumentalizing the past; by relativization of their own guilt through the (retrospective) ‘Nazification’ of the Soviet Union and Russia,” said conference speaker Susann Witt-Stahl.

The dynamic in Eastern Europe complements what’s happening in the core EU. “We are currently dealing with the clash of two opposing fascist waves,” explained Florian Nowicki, who will speak on re-emerging fascist currents in Poland. “Political forces, originating from liberalism and social democracy are standing up against ‘classical’ fascism, combining liberal elements with extreme chauvinism and militarism.”

Anchoring resistance
Understanding these currents is essential to developing concrete resistance strategies. It is therefore no surprise that building on such insights is another key goal of the conference. “We don’t want to paint a generalized, abstract concept of fascism that floats above history and struggle. That won’t help us at all,” Rodermund insists. “We need to dig into the concrete circumstances.”

That is also why the event should be seen as a starting point rather than an endpoint. A major objective is to build a lasting network that can deepen this analysis and coordinate future efforts. “If we understand fascist actors as the reserve force for war, impoverishment, and repression, we must build mass movements targeting those very dynamics,” Rodermund says.

He emphasizes the importance of unions and international solidarity movements – like those mobilizing across Europe against the genocide in Gaza – as central in this effort to fight against fascism. “We must ensure we’re building an anti-imperialist, internationalist movement. Anti-imperialism and anti-fascism are deeply, deeply linked at this moment.”

For more information about the Fascism Back in Europe? conference, including the full program, registrations, and list of speakers, visit the official event page.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/06/17/ ... kin-forum/

[blindpig]

Russia as a constant threat to Europe… or to the EU?

Lorenzo Maria Pacini

June 19, 2025

The arms race is not a sign of strength, but evidence of the profound crisis of a political project that has lost its soul.

Someone must always be blamed

There is no limit to stupidity, said an ancient sage. There is no limit to those who want to make stupidity a way of life, as in the case of the European Union and its Commission President, Ursula Von der Leyen, who continues to attack Russia and praise Ukraine, invoking war as the only way for Europe to survive.

It seems like an oxymoron, but it is true: Von der Leyen has once again reiterated that war is the only way forward for the European Union, a solution that concerns the very existence of the EU, no ifs, no buts. She called it “logic of aid” to Ukraine, but what logic? That of military aid that ended up under bombs? That of sanctions that were supposed to cripple the Russian economy but instead brought the whole of Europe to its knees? That of anti-Russian propaganda to incite hatred, which instead has led to a growth in support for Putin’s Russia?

It is unclear how it is possible to help Ukraine, at least not more than has already been done. Or perhaps the only real help would be to remove Zelensky from power, giving the country the chance to hold elections and choose a new leader, but this peaceful and diplomatic option does not seem to be on the table. Something dangerous, destructive and, above all, extremely expensive is needed. As many euros as possible must be burned. The war machine is fuelled by the euros of millions of European citizens, and it is by no means a “green” engine.

You called it “the logic of defence industry integration”, but it is not clear who has an interest in integration, other than yourself. The difficulties that currently make massive European rearmament politically impractical and economically unsustainable are mainly financial and industrial in nature. Reorienting the European defence industry’s production apparatus towards large-scale production would require huge investments, years of work, the training and recruitment of tens of thousands of specialised technicians (currently unavailable), and above all stable and advantageous access to strategic raw materials, steel, explosives and, in particular, low-cost energy sources.

All these conditions are currently absent in Europe, where the renunciation of Russian gas at affordable prices — now in place for almost three years — has led to a contraction in industrial production, a growing trend towards deindustrialisation, a sharp increase in energy costs, logistical inefficiencies, increasingly expensive supply chains and growing difficulties in sourcing raw materials.

Compared to 2021, the price of almost all weapons systems has tripled. This means that even if European states were to triple their defence and military investment budgets today, those resources would barely be enough to purchase the same amount of weapons, ammunition and equipment that could be obtained four years ago.

What is certain is that the defence industry will benefit from this war. The 800 billion requested will be divided among a handful of arms manufacturers, an unprecedented windfall. Whether or not the war actually happens is irrelevant, because what really matters is that the money has been spent and someone has got rich.

Once again, the blame will not lie with the EU, but with Putin, Russia and the multipolar world. Someone always has to be blamed.

Europeans are not willing to sacrifice even one life for Ukraine, while Russians are even prepared for nuclear war.

The European Union will do everything possible to prevent peace in Ukraine. The West is struggling to admit that the confrontation with Russia has led to the disintegration of Ukraine, and any agreement between Moscow and Kiev would be seen in Europe as a defeat, as the author of the article observes.

Zelensky has acknowledged that, sooner or later, he will have to deal directly with Putin. This is a step forward, considering that for years he swore he would never do so. Ukraine fought to join NATO, but it will not be part of it. It tried to join the European Union, but that path also seems to be blocked. In essence, Ukraine has lost everything. Macron, for his part, cannot admit that the effort to defeat Russia has ended up destroying Ukraine itself.

Europe does not seem at all interested in real negotiations. It wants a truce only to gain time and resupply Kiev militarily. It does not want genuine peace, because peace between Russia and Ukraine would be interpreted as a bitter defeat for the entire European project.

The Council of the European Union has approved a resolution establishing a new operational tool to strengthen security on the continent: the Security Action in Europe (SAFE), which entered into force on 29 May.

This mechanism provides for the financing of urgent and large-scale investments in the European defence and technology industry (EDTIB). The aim is to boost the sector’s production capacity, ensure the timely availability of armaments and fill existing military gaps, with the ultimate goal of strengthening the Union’s military readiness.

Through SAFE, the EU will make up to €150 billion available to participating Member States, at their request and on the basis of national plans. The funds will be provided as long-term loans at favourable rates. From the outset, the Ukrainian defence industry has been included in the programme, thus enabling the EU to continue its military support to Kiev.

The strategic significance of the initiative is clear: a proxy war against Russia via Ukraine, accompanied by gradual preparations for a direct military confrontation. The implications for Europe are serious, including the risk of its own geopolitical disaster. Meanwhile, €150 billion is expected to be allocated to this operation.

It should be remembered that SAFE is only the first phase of ReArm Europe. Although initially met with a cool reception by several Member States, the approval of SAFE shows that the project is taking shape. For this reason, the threat posed by a new European imperial order, whose structured and hostile approach towards Russia is accompanied by great economic and industrial potential, should not be underestimated.

The Europe of cannons is bringing down the rule of law

The arms race clearly highlights a profound regression in contemporary political and legal thinking. This is not just a strategic shift, but a reversal of values: what was once considered an exception – the use of military force – is now becoming the organizing principle of international politics, marking a return to an archaic phase of international law. The European Union, born out of a radical choice against war as a normal means of conflict resolution, now seems to be renouncing its original mandate, adhering to a logic of power that empties it of its legal and constitutional nature and robs it of its philosophical depth.

The ReArm Europe project conceals a new security paradigm that redefines the political identity of the Union no longer as a legal union (already controversial in itself), but as a military entity. It is a sign of the decline of the civilisation of law, supplanted by a culture of power. In this context, the disturbing influence of a political realism degenerated into cynical decisionism emerges strongly, where strategic effectiveness supplants any consideration of substantive legitimacy.

The picture is worsened by the substantial irrelevance of national political forces which, at least on paper, should defend a more rights-based vision of Europe. In Italy, for example, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is unable to propose an incisive alternative at European level. Her dissent, limited to form and lacking legal and philosophical arguments, demonstrates the weakness of the Italian political class in contributing to the construction of a coherent and autonomous European vision. In other words, Italy suffers first and foremost from a lack of “auctoritas”, even more than “potestas”: it is incapable of proposing an alternative project because it has lost its political vision.

Even more worrying is the evolution of British politics. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has quickly taken on the characteristics of a conflict-oriented technocrat. His military build-up programme, which aims to prepare the UK by 2035 (with more optimism than the EU), represents an ontological transformation of the function of the state: from guarantor of the law to a decision-making centre based on threat. His openness to sending troops to Ukraine under the pretext of “peacekeeping” reveals an instrumental use of international law, reduced to mere rhetorical cover for decisions motivated by power politics. So-called democratic interventionism is thus transformed, as it was in the post-9/11 period, into disguised humanitarian imperialism.

The crux of the matter, however, is deeper: it is the very structure of modern legal thinking that is in crisis. The legitimacy of military expansion is based on a Hobbesian view of the state as a monopoly of force, reinforced by Schmitt’s concept of “friend-enemy”. In this perspective, the law retreats in the face of emergency and the legal system is reduced to a simple decision. The most serious problem is that this exception has become the norm: war is no longer the last resort of law, but its very origin.

Law, in its essence, is a rational order aimed at the common good, and cannot be pursued by means that, by their very nature, represent disorder, such as war and systematic rearmament. Today, however, these limits seem to be dissolving: war is being prepared as a matter of routine, investments are being made in defence without clear objectives, and the idea of armament as an end in itself is being accepted. It is the triumph of political irrationality.

The arms race is not a sign of strength, but evidence of the profound crisis of a political project that has lost its soul.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... ope-or-eu/

‘Yankee Go Home’ chants in Denmark: U.S. access to military bases sparks controversy

Erkin Oncan

June 19, 2025

For many in Denmark, the agreement represents a compromise of neutrality, national sovereignty, and the principles of rule of law.

Despite widespread public protests and strong legal objections from experts, the Danish Parliament (Folketing) has approved a law allowing the United States to establish permanent military bases on Danish soil. The vote passed with 95 MPs in favor, 11 against, and one abstention, effectively granting the U.S. military access to three key airbases.

Denmark has opened the Skrydstrup, Karup, and Aalborg airbases to U.S. forces. Skrydstrup Air Base serves as the main combat wing of the Royal Danish Air Force. Karup, spanning over 3,000 hectares, is Denmark’s largest airbase. Aalborg functions both as a civilian airport and military installation and houses aircraft such as the C‑130 and Challenger.

According to reports in the Danish media, not a single minister from the government bloc took the floor during the parliamentary debate to defend the agreement. Only representatives from the Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten), the Alternative party, and independent MP Theresa Scavenius spoke out, emphasizing the deal’s potential breaches of democratic norms and legal principles.

Trine Pertou Mach, defense spokesperson for the Red-Green Alliance, criticized the agreement stating, “Denmark is becoming part of the U.S. military empire.” She also pointed out that the agreement cannot be terminated for 10 years, raising concerns that Denmark’s sovereignty over its defense policy could be weakened.

One of the most contentious aspects of the agreement is its constitutionality. International law professor Frederik Harhoff from the Danish Institute for Human Rights told local media that the agreement may violate Article 20 of the Danish Constitution. This article stipulates that sovereignty can only be delegated to international organizations like NATO or the EU—not to the national authorities of a single foreign country like the U.S.

Peter Vedel Kessing from the Human Rights Institute commented, “If a foreign country’s military is given authority on Danish soil, this not only violates the constitution but also undermines the fundamental concept of statehood.”

One of the most disputed clauses of the agreement is Article 6, which grants the U.S. military the right to use “all necessary authorities,” without clarifying what these powers entail. It remains unclear whether U.S. military police will be allowed to exercise judicial or coercive authority over Danish citizens.

The agreement has ignited protests across Denmark, particularly in major cities like Copenhagen. Demonstrators marched under slogans such as “Yankee go home” and “USA-baser – nej tak” (U.S. bases – no thanks).

Carsten Andersen, spokesperson for the Aarhus-based anti-war group Aarhus mod Krig og Terror (Aarhus Against War and Terror), stated: “If Trump decides to threaten Russia from these bases, or if Denmark blocks key straits to Russian vessels, it won’t be the U.S. that gets bombed—it’ll be Denmark.”

Lotte Rørtoft-Madsen, leader of the Communist Party, offered a blunt critique:

“I just watched the parliamentary session where the base agreement was approved. The entire debate lasted only 38 minutes. And in 38 minutes, the Danish Parliament gave the green light for the U.S. military to establish itself on our soil. This means three regions are now effectively under U.S. jurisdiction. American soldiers will be allowed to carry weapons and use force. This is a clear violation of the Danish Constitution. Not a single government party representative spoke during the debate.”

She also highlighted that American troops will have access to their own postal services, banking systems, and tax exemptions under the agreement, effectively creating a “parallel society” within Denmark.

This development is part of Washington’s broader strategy to reinforce NATO’s northern flank, increase its military presence in Europe, and counter Russia’s influence. However, for many in Denmark, the agreement represents a compromise of neutrality, national sovereignty, and the principles of rule of law.

The controversy is further inflamed by recent tensions over sovereignty issues in Greenland and the growing U.S. military footprint in the Arctic region—issues that had already strained Denmark’s internal political climate.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... ntroversy/

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The Nazi Heritage of Germany’s Chancellor
Posted by Internationalist 360° on June 16, 2025
Thomas Klikauer



Germany’s new chancellor Friedrich Merz has a history, one that he does not like to highlight. His Opa or grandfather was a Nazi and it is this Nazi past that he is trying to keep extremely quiet about.

Yet, Friedrich Merz’s very own grandfather joined Hitler’s Nazi party – the NSDAP – himself and very willingly. Interestingly, his Opa became a Nazi member earlier than what was previously known.

Throughout Germany’s immediate post-Nazi years, ex-Nazis – and not so ex-Nazis (read: those who continued to believe in Nazi ideology well into the 1950s and 1960s) – tried everything to hide their Nazism, their Nazi party membership, their SS connection, and most of all, their Nazi crimes.

Today, we know that top-Nazi Josef Paul Sauvigny is the grandfather of chancellor Friedrich Merz. In the 1930s, Merz’s Nazi Opa made a “personal effort” to become a member of Hitler’s Nazi party.

As we know today, Merz’s Nazi Opa applied for membership in the Nazi Party earlier than formerly known. Despite all denials and sophisticated deceptions, eventually, the truth emerged.

Documents, that have been hidden in an archive but are available today, refute the earlier statement by Friedrich Merz to sell the fairy-tale that his grandfather had become a member of the Nazi party and as Merz rather improperly had claimed, “without his own intervention”.

Wrong, Herr Merz! Despite Merz’s best efforts, the reality is coming out, slowly and definitely too late.

There is the personal file of top-Nazi Josef Paul Sauvigny in Germany’s State Archive at North Rhine-Westphalia. The documents even hold the actual extract from Sauvigny’s NSDAP member file.

These files proved that top-Nazi Sauvigny became a member of the Nazi Party as early as May 1st, 1937. Merz’s Opa’s Nazi party number is: 425 82 18.


Sauvigny’s Nazi party membership card [source: https://taz.de/Friedrich-Merz-und-sein- ... 086702/%5D

The file also states that Merz’s grand-daddy “worked diligently“ as an SA storm-trooper (read: street thug, bullies and political killers). In short, he supported the Nazi party “as much as possible”.

Meanwhile, Josef Paul Sauvigny featured as mayor of the North Rhine-Westphalia town of Brilon from 1917 to 1937 – Hitler’s coup to power was in 1933.

In 2004 and long before becoming chancellor, Sauvigny’s grandson – Friedrich Merz – was the vice-president of Germany’s conservative party, the CDU.

In the year before that (in 2003), Merz did what his reactionary friends call, “the storming of the red town hall.” It was to eliminate a democratically elected progressive town hall – of Brilon.

With his anti-democratic battle cry of attacking the elected assembly in his local city, Merz had crossed the line. Ever since this anti-democratic incident, Merz has lost every single mayoral election in Brilon.

To his personal infuriation, Merz was never able to repeat what his Nazi Opa had done: become the mayor of Brilon.

Merz’s assault on the town hall was done by specifically alluding to the Nazi grandfather. Hitler’s SA or Sturmabteilung were not called storm troopers for no reason. In 2003, Merz and his troupe wanted to follow Hitler’s SA – implicitly or not.

The SA had stormed many German town halls in 1933 – the year of Hitler’s ascendency to power – to eliminate democracy.

Merz did all this by proudly referring to his Nazi grandfather in front of his party apparatchiks.

Before converting to Hitler’s Nazi ideology, Merz’s grand-dad was a member of the Catholic Centrist Party called Zentrum. Merz’s Nazi Opa was a member of the Zentrum until 1933 when he mutated into an out-and-out Nazi.

While a number of members of the Zentrum party joined the resistance against the Nazis – and many of them were persecuted by the Nazis – Merz’s Opa – Sauvigny – did the opposite: he actively joined the Nazi thugs.

Decades later and rather deceptively, Merz continued to claim that his grandfather had joined the Nazis “without any action of his own”. As we now know, this is not true.

Beyond that, there was automatism that converted catholic Zentrum members into brazen Nazis. Instead, it was said about Merz’s granddad that he supported the Nazi party “as much as possible”.

All of this contradicts Merz’s claims, ruses, and falsehoods. Next to all that, documents in Germany’s archives also show that on the issue of Nazi party membership, Merz’s grand-dad himself had “signed the application for admission”.

Sauvigny’s very own signature was a condition for admission to the Nazi party. He signed. Most likely, Merz’s grandfather also had to prove that he was of Aryan stock – with the infamous Ariernachweis.

Such an Ariernachweis was needed just to make sure that no Untermensch was able to sneak into the Nazi party – an ideologically zealous party obsessed with race.

It is reasonable to suggest that Merz knew about his family history all along. And this is precisely the reason as to why Merz has hardly ever spoken publicly about his grandfather’s Nazi past.

To hide this, Merz’s deceptions continued deep into a podcast of one of Germany’s most recognised weekly newspapers – Die Zeit.

This podcast appeared early in the year 2025, around the time of Germany’s national election campaign. In it, Merz even claimed that his grandfather had, “fallen into the abysses of Nazism”.

Obviously, Nazis just fall into Nazism! No action needed. Not even signing your membership application and not even providing an Aryan Certificate.

To the question of an interviewer that the grandfather’s Nazi story “must have been known in the family”, Merz simply replied, “yes, of course”.

This statement of Merz is remarkable. In the year 2004, Merz was still claiming that his grandfather was “not a Nazi”.

Today, this interview proves that Merz already knew what role his grandfather played in Hitler’s Nazi Reich. And lied about it. Yet, Merz continued to put his Nazi Opa in a positive light.

Unsurprisingly, Merz likes to avoid responding to journalists who inquire into his grandfather’s Nazi past.

Instead, Merz’s party – the CDU’s – press office claims, “from Mr Merz’s point of view, there have been no new findings about the Nazi involvement of his grandfather since 2004” – the year Merz was forced to admit the truth – that Merz’s Opa was a Nazi – for the first time.

Instead of admitting the inevitable truth, Merz goes on the attack. Merz had commented on the reporting of his Nazi Opa in 2004 that he was “disgusted” by journalists who shed light on his very own grandfather.

Merz was “disgusted” because the truth about his Nazi Opa started to emerge. Yet, he was not disgusted that his Opa was a faithful and diligent Nazi.

Around that time, Merz still insisted that his grandfather had “refused” to join Hitler’s Nazi party.

Merz’s wrongfully claimed that his Nazi Opa had refused to become a member of the Nazi Party. This is contradicted by the fact that a hand-signed Nazi party application form – signed by his Opa – does exist.

Meanwhile, Merz also claimed that his grandfather was simply “transferred” from Hitler’s street fighting thugs – the SA – to Hitler’s Nazi party “without any action”. As if, being an SA member wasn’t enough!

One is almost surprised not to find that Merz’s claims that his Nazi Opa suddenly realised, “Oh! I am a Nazi”, “I did not know that”, “The devil must have signed up for me!” and “I became a Nazi with no action required”.

It is striking that many of Merz’s statements about his Nazi-Opa were lifted from his grandfather’s very own statement which he had used to exonerate himself when forced to appear in front of the Denazification Commission, which was set up in the year 1946.

In other words, the conservative Merz followed the ideological lead of his SA-Opa when seeking to whitewash his Opa’s Nazism.

Meanwhile, it stands to reason that Merz has accepted the wrongful claims of a Nazi-grandfather for self-absolution.

What is important is that, as a loyal SA man, Nazi-Opa Sauvigny was rather “zealously engaged” in Hitler’s SA.

Worse, Nazi Sauvigny had been “fanatically active as an SA man from the very beginning” – at least that is what his own SA wrote about Merz’s Nazi Opa.

A document from February 1936 by the local Nazi Ortsgruppenleiter stated that Sauvigny’s application for Nazi party membership had been made after 1st May, 1933.

At the time when Merz’s Opa joined the Nazis, the Nazi party actually issued a stop to new admissions to the party.

It was done because millions of careerists wanted to join the party after the Nazis had taken over the government.

The ban was gradually lifted again in 1937. Yet, the local Nazi Ortsgruppenleiter noted about Sauvigny that “his relationship with the Nazi party is not bad and that he supports them whenever possible”. Merz’s Opa was a Nazi.

However, it is clear that Merz’s claim about his grandfather becoming a Nazi party member “without any help” cannot be sustained.

On 2nd July, 1937, a local newspaper – the Sauerländer Zeitung – wrote about Merz’s Nazi Opa, “his national [read: Nazi] attitude [allowed him to] always manage his office in the spirit of Nazism”.

Today, Friedrich Merz staunchly remains unwilling to publicly deal with his Nazi past.

Given Merz’s Nazi past, it is deeply worrying that, when journalists questioned Merz about his CDU party’s dealings with Germany’s neo-fascist AfD and about the lessons learned from Germany’s Nazi history, he was evasive.

Worse, when a journalist from the AP news agency asked Merz about his Nazi grandfather, Merz reacted with an insult saying, “I would be grateful if you would not use inappropriate comparisons from my family”.

On the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazism, the taz newspaper has once again confronted the newly elected chancellor, Friedrich Merz with new findings about his Nazi grandfather. A request by the newspaper to his party’s press office remained unanswered. Merz’s political party prefers to remain silent.

All in all, the story of Merz’s Nazi grandfather isn’t surprising. Merz’s Nazi grand-daddy was one of millions of profiteers who had willingly and consciously joined and enjoyed the Nazi system.

Today, we know that Merz’s Nazi grandfather – even as mayor of Brilon – was an ardent supporter of Adolf Hitler.

Despite this, Merz continues to claim that his Nazi grandfather was not a Nazi by simply saying, “from what I know from my family, my grandfather was an impressive personality and a successful mayor”. It’s a classic: another Nazi past vanishes into thin air.

Some claim that his Nazi grandfather was Merz’s “greatest role model”. Tellingly for Germany, during the recent election campaign, Merz’s Nazi Opa hardly made an appearance.

Once again, Merz’s-Nazi-Opa scandal shows that there is hardly any Learning from the Germans asSusan Neiman claimed recently.

Instead, Germans, particularly those with a Nazi Opa, continue to evade and hide the truth about Nazism.

Meanwhile, Merz’s story of denial continues. Only very recently, Merz talked about his Nazi grandfather. It was in mid-January 2025. Merz spun the following story,

“I also got to know this grandfather …

he died in 1967 …

when I was 13 …

[he] as a centre politician”.

During Merz’s Nazi Opa’s tenure as mayor, two streets in Brilon were renamed into “Adolf-Hitler-Straße” and “Hermann-Göring-Straße”. Merz’s Opa and Nazi mayor delivered.

Today, questions are still asked whether Merz – with his camouflaging non-explanations about his Nazi grandfather – is contributing to the current political climate in Germany that praises Nazism.

On 21st of May, 2025, the TV-channel “MDR” reported that right-wing and Neo-Nazi violence in Germany has increased by 48%. On the same day, another Neo-Nazi terror squadron is uncovered in Germany.

Note:

Image Source:

Friedrich Merz, soon to be German Chancellor, has a grandfather, Josef Paul Sauvigny, who was a fervid Nazi. Sauvigny joined the Sturmabteilung—Hitler’s brutal “brownshirts” who beat Jews and crushed dissent—and became a member of the Nazi Party in 1933. As mayor of Brilon, he… https://t.co/ApxURMFGAK

— Peter Roman (@TsarKastik) April 16, 2025

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/06/ ... hancellor/

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NATO’s Procurement Corruption Scandal Might Delay Its Rapid Militarization Plans
Andrew Korybko
Jun 18, 2025



Member states might eschew the NATO Support and Procurement Agency’s services, thus delaying their military purchases, which could delay the bloc’s rapid militarization plans if enough of them do this so as to avoid having to pay more if they’re unlucky enough to be serviced by corrupt employees.

NATO’s next summit will be held from 24-25 June at The Hague and almost certainly see the bloc expand upon its preexisting rapid militarization plans. Trump is demanding that all members spend 5% of GDP on defense as soon as possible, which Politico recently reminded everyone in their article about this is divided between 3.5% on “hard military spending” and 1.5% on defense-related issues like cybersecurity. Here are three background briefings on NATO’s rapid militarization plans to bring readers up to speed:

* 19 July 2024: “The EU’s Planned Transformation Into A Military Union Is A Federalist Power Play”

* 24 October 2024: “NATO’s Military Schengen”

* 7 March 2025: “The ‘ReArm Europe Plan’ Will Probably Fall Far Short Of The Bloc’s Lofty Expectations”

In short, the EU wants to exploit false fears of a future Russian invasion to further centralize the bloc under that pretext, with the “military Schengen” (for facilitating the free flow of troops and equipment between member states) and the €800 billion “ReArm Europe Plan” being its tangible manifestations. The first will create the desired military union while the second will then result in there being an urgent need for some mechanism to organize the division of defense investments between all members.

It’s here where the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) is expected to play a major role owing to the lack of any alternatives and the difficulty in getting members to agree on creating a new EU-wide one due to some states’ sovereignty concerns. Per the NSPA’s website, “[its] objective is to obtain the best service or equipment at the best price for the customer by consolidating requirements from multiple nations in a cost-efficient way through its turnkey multinational acquisition framework.”

The problem though is that the NSPA has been embroiled in a procurement scandal over the past month. To their credit, Deutsche Welle published a fair and detailed report about what happened, which can be summarized as employees passing along information to defense contractors in exchange for funds that were partly laundered to them through consultancy companies. The NSPA reportedly initiated the investigation itself, but that might not be sufficient for controlling the damage from this scandal.

While it’ll continue functioning, some member states might now be hesitant to rely more on its services than is absolutely necessary to avoid having to pay more for whatever it is that they’re looking to buy if more corrupt employees unluckily happen to service their request. Of course, the NSPA’s initiative to investigate itself – which led to three arrests thus far and has spread to several countries, including the US – might reassure some states, but few will likely take any more chances than they have to.

If enough NATO members practice this approach in understandable pursuit of their financial self-interest, especially if segments of the public pressure them to do so in order to not risk wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned funds, then this could collectively complicate NATO’s rapid militarization plans. It remains to be seen what effect it’ll ultimately have, but the NSPA’s procurement corruption scandal couldn’t have come at a worse time, and it’s important not to let the elite sweep it under the rug for convenience.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/natos-pr ... on-scandal

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Starmer’s failing militarism

As the drive to war ramps up, the contradictions of decaying imperialism are on full display.
Lalkar writers

Thursday 1 May 2025


Britain, being the oldest imperialist country, is by far the most degenerated. Its industrial base has been left to wither away to the point where the militarily necessary mass production of tanks, ships and aircraft is simply not possible.
As British imperialism slides further into crisis, its political leaders try to cover up this decline by making ever more grandiose pronouncements as to their ability to still “project power” into the world.

The declarations made by British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer regarding his willingness to send British forces to Ukraine should be seen in this light. Since it became clear that the Ukraine war was sliding towards an ignominious defeat for the Nato-backed forces of the Kiev regime, the USA under the administration of President Donald Trump has been trying to play a double game.

On the one hand, it has been engaging the Russians in negotiations and talking about ‘restoring relations’ On the other, it has been pushing the Europeans to (effectively) carry on with the ever-escalating aggressive actions against Russia. And amidst all of this, Sir Keir Starmer has called for a huge programme of expansion of the British military.

He is supported in this by the usual collection of social-chauvinist trade union leaders (such as Unite general secretary Sharon Graham), who welcome the creation of “good jobs” in the arms manufacturing industries. Starmer has also stated that he is determined to increase military spending.

There is a large gap, however, between the grandiose pronouncements of the leaders of British imperialism and the actual reality of what decaying, late-stage British imperialism can actually do.

Post cold war military doctrines
The British imperialists realised that large armies were too expensive to maintain as the colonial period of British imperialism came to a close. Being forced out of India, Malaya, Kenya and other colonies meant that military tactics needed to change. The British ruling class did away with conscription in 1960 and slowly cut back their forces on land in particular over the next 30 years.

Their policy was driven by the need to move from the direct colonialism of the old school to the neocolonialism of the modern era. Neocolonialism demands a shift from direct military occupation of a nation to rule via more hidden means. Many African nations gained their independence from British and French colonialism during this time, but were tied into economic relationships with their former coloniser, which was enabled to retain effective control over the economies of the nominally independent states.

This meant that the British were able to downgrade their military forces to specialise more on providing training and on directing operations rather than doing the bulk of the fighting using British troops. This was advantageous for the British ruling class as the fewer troops from the imperialist homeland killed in action, the less likely was the rise of a more powerful antiwar movement within Britain itself.

The only time the British were willing to risk a ground war was when there was little chance of widespread casualties – as was the case with Iraq in 1991 and 2003. In the first Gulf war, Iraq was facing such overwhelming odds that the fighting was over relatively quickly. And the 2003 invasion of Iraq took place after over a decade of siege sanctions had severely weakened the Iraqi state and military – to the point where the US and British imperialists were fairly confident they could get away with minimal casualties.

The domestic backlash to the Iraq war, the inability of the imperialists to subdue the Iraqi resistance forces, and the military cutbacks necessitated by the economic collapse of 2008, caused British war planners to change things again for the purpose of the wars in Libya and Syria.

In the case of the US, British and French war of aggression against Libya, the imperialists used their air forces, but for ground troops they relied upon armed gangs organised via Saudi Arabia and the Gulf state tyrannies. The role of the British in the Libyan and Syrian wars was to run psychological operations, deploy ‘special forces’ and organise the siege of Syria via a sanctions regime. The actual fighting was done by what are, essentially, outsourced mercenary armies that work for imperialism.

Ukraine was another case of the USA and Britain successfully turning an entire country into an outsourced military, with the British in the role of planners of the military campaign against Russia (as even the Times now admits) and the Ukrainians dying in gigantic numbers to enact the (often extremely foolish) plans of British military officers.

In 65 years, the British imperialists have gone from having large-scale land, sea and air forces to having much smaller forces that are essentially focused on managing other (largely non-British) forces.

The failure of the Ukraine war, however, has caused a panic within the corridors of the British Ministry of Defence. The British operation in Ukraine was supposed to revive British imperialism by causing either the total collapse of Russia or the restoration of comprador rule in Moscow. This aim having failed, the Starmer government is having to reconsider its options.

Added to the complications facing the British ruling class is the fact that there is a very public reconsideration of priorities going on (chaotically) inside the Trump administration. Trump has demanded that all Nato countries increase defence spending to 5 percent of GDP and that more weapons orders are placed with US companies by these same countries. In response, Starmer has announced an increase in spending to 2.5 percent of GDP, up to from 2.3 percent, with an “ambition” to reach 3 percent of GDP by 2029.

This is far away from Trump’s demands and highly unlikely to produce anything that will give either the Russians or the Chinese sleepless nights.

British military chiefs know very well that they are utterly incapable of challenging the Chinese or the Russians, either now or in five years. This is why the Times ran an article on 24 April announcing that Starmer’s much trumpeted threats to deploy British troops to Ukraine as “peacekeepers” has been an absolute non-starter, since the risks of them being attacked by the Russians were much too high. (UK could scrap plans to send thousands of troops to Ukraine by Larisa Brown)

Imperialism undermined by its own degeneracy
Starmer’s plans for an increase in production of war materiel are undermined by the parlous state of the British industrial base. Britain does not produce enough steel, for instance, to meet the demands of war production. The Labour government stepped in at the last minute only to prevent the Scunthorpe steel plant from closing because it supplies vital parts to Network Rail that would be difficult to source from elsewhere.

But renationalising one steel plant is hardly going to be enough if Starmer is to deliver on his rhetoric regarding plans to reinvigorate war production. Britain, being the oldest imperialist country, is by far the most degenerated. Its industrial base has been left to wither away to the point where the militarily necessary mass production of tanks, ships and aircraft is simply not possible.

The Ukraine war has left Britain’s reserve stocks of weaponry and vehicles almost exhausted, a casualty of the massive destruction that the Russian army has inflicted upon the Ukrainian/Nato forces.

This is where we see the contradictions of decaying imperialism on full display. The British ruling class has wiped out large-scale industrial facilities in Britain in pursuit of the greater profits it could bring in by exporting capital abroad. The only way the imperialists might be able to secure the necessary boost in production at this point would be to have the state take direct control over industry to build up industrial capacity in a way that private owners simply will not do.

The reality behind Starmer’s big statements is that the British ruling class would never accept the tax rises that would be needed to build back a home-grown industrial base. These would be far too large simply to be imposed on the working class and would therefore have to be financed largely by big business.

The dangers ahead
Faced with defeat and disaster in Ukraine, the British ruling class will not only increase its aggression against other nations, but the class war within Britain itself will intensify. As British imperialism weakens, it will become harder and harder for the bourgeoisie to maintain its necessary rate of profit, so the ruling class will be compelled to try to make good by squeezing the working class harder and harder – forcing the working class to resist.

We can expect the bourgeoisie to launch ever greater attacks upon the working class in the form of wage cuts, privatisations and price hikes. To weaken working-class resistance, it is necessary to keep them divided, so we can also expect to see an increase in attempts at stoking bourgeois nationalism, rabid anti-immigration and islamophobic sentiment being whipped up, and attempts to indoctrinate the younger generation of workers with militarism.

This must be resisted, and communists must explain clearly to workers who might be taken in by such campaigns that for all the tub-thumping and flag-waving of the British imperialists, their appeals to nationhood and ‘pride’ are, in reality, merely an attempt to disguise the rabid pursuit of profit by a ruling class whose time ran out over a century ago.

The British working class must come to understand that its greatest enemies sit in the City of London, and that we share these enemies with all those resisting imperialism.

Only by learning this lesson can British workers hope to free ourselves from the shackles placed on us by imperialism.

https://thecommunists.org/2025/05/01/ne ... ilitarism/

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Finland to Withdraw From Landmine Ban Treaty


A landmine. X/ @FinlandMentions

June 19, 2025 Hour: 9:28 am

Previously, this country announced its intention to exit the Ottawa Treaty, citing lessons from the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
On Thursday, Finland’s parliament voted 157-18 to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines, citing national security concerns amid regional tensions.

Under treaty rules, the withdrawal will take effect six months after Finland formally notifies the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General. The government has not yet announced when it will submit the notification.

Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen said the decision enhances Finland’s security posture and stressed that any use of anti-personnel mines would be “responsible” and limited to situations in which the country is under attack.

The parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, which supported the move, called landmines a defensive weapon, particularly relevant for deterring mass infantry assaults along Finland’s eastern border with Russia in the possbile event of conflict.


Finland joined the Ottawa Convention in 2012 and subsequently destroyed over one million stockpiled landmines. Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government announced its intention to exit the treaty in April, citing lessons from the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the need to strengthen border defenses.

While acknowledging Finland’s right to self-defense, critics argued that the decision was rushed and undermines international disarmament efforts. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said recent withdrawals from the treaty were “particularly troubling,” warning they threaten decades of humanitarian progress.

The parliament also passed a separate resolution affirming Finland’s continued support for global mine action, including clearance operations in conflict zones. Lawmakers pledged that any use of landmines in wartime would be thoroughly documented to ensure future removal.

The Ottawa Convention was signed in 1997 and came into force in 1999. In March, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, as well as Poland, have also announced plans to exit the treaty.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/finland- ... an-treaty/

[blindpig]

Putin’s stealing our sunshine… the dark side of British propaganda

June 20, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seriously, though, this week a clutch of newspapers, from broadsheets to tabloids, “informed” Britons they were in danger from a “doomsday technology” and “terrifying tactics” whereby Russia would interfere with the climate to darken the sun over Britain.

The articles (or rather the recycled article, because it is obvious that they all came from the same cut-and-paste source) claim that the Kremlin “might” be developing a new “sun-dimming” weapon that causes crops to fail and, generally, ruin British picnic trips to the seaside. Oh, how evil!

It was a blatant psychological operation to gaslight the British public to fear and despise Russia as a villain, à la James Bond movies.

As psy-ops go, this was a dull effort. The technical claims were ropey and full of half-backed conjecture and contradictions.

But why the timing?

Two weeks ago, the British government released a military spending review calling for a multi-billion-pound increase in its nuclear arsenal. The eye-watering budget was “justified” by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, labeling Russia an existential threat and telling Britons they must get ready for war.

Given that Britain’s lame economy cannot afford such military extravagance, the London government is under intense political pressure from an angry public. The out-of-control warmongering by the British state is so outrageous, the danger is that British rulers are brought into disrepute in the eyes of the public.

Meanwhile, the whole NATO arms racket is pushing London to spend even more on its military. Last week, we saw Mark Rutte lecturing Downing Street that if it doesn’t ratchet up spending above already untenable record levels, then Britons better start learning to speak Russian.

So the British deep state is in a quandary. It wants to squeeze the British economy to fund more militarism, but it is a politically fraught task. The state itself is risking dangerous social instability.

The remedy? Frighten the British public witless with lurid warnings about the “Russian menace”.

This explains why the British media are being manipulated more than ever to gaslight the public with fear and loathing of Russia. Stealing your sunshine may seem ridiculous, but the notion is to reinforce a steady stream of such Big Lies to foment prejudices and hostility towards Russia.

When we view how pathetically pliable the British media has become, it is redolent of fascist control. Reading the regular content of British news outlets is like reading a parody of Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984. On any given day, British “journalism” is a cocktail of crime stories, celebrity garbage, voyeurism, and hysterical warnings about Russia and China as existential threats. British culture has descended into a cesspit of lies and nihilism while the population is forced to endure economic misery and brain-dimming nonsense.

This is political degeneracy, like a time warp to the bygone Cold War years. It is so irrational and reprehensible, and the only way to make it credible is for the media propaganda system to kick in with intense gaslighting. The trouble is that the desperation tends to overplay the media to the point where it craters into open farce.

In reality, Russia is actually facing threats from British covert aggression. British military intelligence is working closely with the NeoNazi Kiev regime to carry out sinister provocations on Russian territory. Even the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Moore, admitted the agency’s covert involvement in Ukraine. “We cherish our heritage of covert action, which we keep alive today in helping Ukraine resist the Russian invasion,” he said publicly last year with typical British bombast.

The recent terror attacks on Russian passenger trains were likely the dirty handiwork of Britain’s MI6, orchestrating Ukrainian agents. In the worst incident, seven people were killed and hundreds injured when a bridge was blown up on a passing train in the Bryansk region.

Russia’s foreign intelligence services warned this week that Britain and the Kiev regime are planning false-flag operations to escalate the war in Ukraine and scupper any prospects of a diplomatic resolution. One such provocation could involve an attack on an American warship in the Black Sea and blaming it on Russian forces.

British news media, as with other Western states, have become an outright propaganda service for their ruling class and its deep state apparatus for militarism. Militarism is a desperate remedy for a bankrupt economy whose failure could bring the whole state crashing down. Western news media as a propaganda service has always been the case, but in recent years, the propaganda function has become even more blatant and gratuitous.

A disturbing example is how the Western media are “reporting” on the horrendous genocide in Gaza with minimalism and banality infused with lies and disinformation, such as repeating cynical Israeli denials of atrocities. There is no condemnation of the Israeli regime nor the complicity of Western governments in the genocide. In other words, the Western media functions to normalize outrageous war crimes and sanitize the mass murder of women and children with American and British weaponry. The Western media are themselves complicit and criminally so.

Meanwhile, as Israel, the United States, and NATO illegally demand regime change in Iran with threats of all-out war, the Western media outlets work overtime to justify the aggression by demonizing Iran with false claims about possible Iranian secret nuclear weapons. Again, criminal Western media complicity.

The real villain and threat to the Western public is their own undemocratic rulers, who are waging and inciting wars based on lies while driving their populations into economic collapse.

There is an awful irony in the British media’s latest brain-dimming propaganda. It is evidence that Perfidious Albion, which never stops bragging undue glory for defeating Nazi Germany, has ended up becoming a fascist dystopia that routinely uses the Big Lie technique of Nazi propagandists in the guise of daily public “news”.

The real danger from Britain’s unhinged war propaganda, such as the latest ridiculous claims about Russia turning British skies black, is that relentless British provocations in Ukraine are tempting a nuclear winter.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... ropaganda/

European Union: The inception of a maleficent chimera

Stephen Karganovic

June 22, 2025

The good news is that it appears to be past its apogee. The bad news is that the harm it has wrought will undoubtedly endure for yet a long time.

In April 1951 the European Coal and Steel Community was launched as a deceptively benign and unassuming precursor to the nightmare known today as the “European Union.” The Coal and Steel Community was presented to European nations (France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg) exhausted by the recently ended war as a significant step toward reconciliation, cooperation, and the enduring peace that they longed for.

The project, which ultimately morphed into the framework for a European superstrate which bears no resemblance the embryo that had been launched under false pretenses, received its initial impetus from a plan laid out in May 1950 by the French foreign minister Robert Schuman. As might be expected, the Schuman Plan was wisely reticent about the ultimate objectives, which are only now discernible, when analysed in the retrospect of many decades. It stressed non-controversial topics such as peaceful cooperation, which most Europeans naturally yearned for after experiencing two destructive wars. The fact that traditional European rivals and generators of many past conflicts, France and Germany, were co-opted to stand behind the scheme to pool French and West German coal and steel production under a single authority, with suggestions of better things to come, in order to foster economic growth and prevent future wars, instilled trust in the cooperative effort. It was a noble sounding undertaking which appeared to align former rivals and enemies economically, thus eliminating a major root cause of future conflicts. Tight political integration and thoroughgoing cultural reformatting, which was the real objective all along, were never elaborated in detail. Those subjects were discretely mentioned in esoteric pronouncements that few took seriously. No red flags were raised however because for a long time the true objectives of “European integration” were kept under wraps.

What we know today as the European Union, it now seems reasonable to say retrospectively, was fully envisioned from the start as one of the stages of European integration by the elitist nomenklatura which was guiding the post-war destiny of European nations. However, the particulars of their esoteric agenda were never openly publicised because they would have made the still unbrainwashed Europeans of that bygone era highly uncomfortable, probably arousing considerable resistance.

The European Union’s foundations, which go back to the innocuous Coal and Steel Community, were laid by way of deception to serve ultimate purposes understood only by the initiated, but unintelligible to the masses of the profane.

In its next incarnation, which was the European Community founded in 1957, the project was taken to the next level of integration, at that time still stressing primarily the economic dimension. The timeline is very important in order to understand the logic of these events. The founding of the European Community coincided with the intensification of the Cold War and rivalry between ideologically competing blocs. The decision was taken somewhere in the upper political echelons of what was then, as it is still today, the collective West to turn the European Community of “free enterprise” nations into a model. The prosperity and relative liberty that model showcased were meant to make the rival Eastern bloc system appear singularly unattractive by comparison, at least in purely materialistic terms.

As can be appreciated in retrospect, that strategy worked extraordinarily well to demoralise the Eastern bloc, in particular the populations of countries that came under Soviet influence after World War II, but also not excluding many inhabitants of the USSR. An attractive and undeniably prosperous welfare state system was erected which is perhaps best described as capitalism with a human face. Most of the barbarous features of worker exploitation were seemingly eliminated or ameliorated to the point where in the felicitous West such systemic flaws no longer bothered the working classes. A cohesive society built on democratic principles and social harmony, characterised by a large degree of personal freedom and a lasting promise of shared prosperity, seemed to be evolving rapidly. It was in sharp contrast to the material constraints and authoritarian governance that characterised the rival system that had been established in the East.

But once the “magnet” of the European Community had served its purpose and in combination with the successful co-optation of Eastern European political elites led to the collapse of the Eastern bloc, it quickly became evident that the features of prosperity, relative freedom, and social harmony that had become identified with the Western model were provisional in nature. No sooner did the leadership of the collective West conclude in the 1990s that its main rival had been disposed of and that its dominance was assured without any remaining challengers in sight, than the “human face” model that it had dangled as a lure began hurriedly and ruthlessly to be dismantled. It was triumphantly replaced with some of the most sordid features of predatory liberal capitalism. Again, looking retrospectively, it is now evident that the entire performance, which in its time had impressed the gullible masses, was no more than a cynical показуха (window dressing, dog and pony show), as the Russians, many of whom had also fallen for it, would say.

The stage was now set, in the early 1990s, to raise the European project to an even higher level, which was accomplished with the signing in 1992 of the Maastricht Treaty, followed by a series of additional agreements, establishing the European Union. Conspiratorial discretion about ultimate objectives, which had characterised the project’s evolution up to that point, now gave way to increasingly frank and public admissions.

The gist of those disclosures, fully corroborated by the practical measures that were being implemented, and in some instances imposed, by European Union institutions and officials, was two-fold. First, it was the cultural reconfiguration of the European continent, without consulting those it affected, by uprooting the code of moral values and indeed the world view that had shaped European nations over the last two millennia. The radical rupture that was envisioned by the Project’s directors was fully on display when the Vatican’s suggestion that Christian heritage be explicitly mentioned in founding documents as constituting a fundamental component of the European Idea was summarily rejected. Equally ominous was the practical commitment of central European institutions (resistance from a few member states notwithstanding) to take a benign view of the policy of population replacement. Since the first decade of this century that policy has resulted in the drastic recomposition of the ethnic and religious makeup of the European continent, to the utter and painful detriment of its traditional inhabitants.

In striking ways, the erection of European Union institutions and their stealthy consolidation to the point where the general thrust of the policies that are pursued is no longer subject to successful challenge regardless of how much some European nations or segments of European society might oppose them, recalls the capture of Gulliver by the Lilliputians, while asleep on the beach where he was stranded. In the beginning, Gulliver could have easily fended off his captors and broken asunder the strings with which they were tying him down. But once multiple layers of restraints were firmly in place Gulliver was no longer able to move any part of his body or resist his captors in an effective way.

The European Union system is based on self-perpetuating institutions which operate by issuing arbitrary decrees imposed from on high, formulated by a small cadre of unelected officials. The identical modus operandi, following the same vertical pattern of governance, was incarnated in the corresponding political structures of the Union, which were conceived in the same spirit. The EU Commission, the Union’s principal executive body, consists of unaccountable and unelected commissioners who designate their own successors. The only major institution of the European Union which technically could assert some affinity to democracy, the European Parliament, is in fact a rubber stamp of the executive organs which cannot initiate legislation and lacks authority to ensure the enforcement of the “laws” that it passes. The generally low voter turnout for European Parliament elections is indicative of public disillusionment and the low regard in which that body is held by the population it purports to represent.

The conflict in Ukraine has exposed once again the profoundly undemocratic and unrepresentative nature of the European Union. Without even the pretense of a public debate and acting solely through its unelected policy coordinating bodies, the Union took a peremptory collective stand in disregard of the national interest of the countries composing it and of the opinion of large segments of their population. Elected nation-state governments were mandated to follow those policy guidelines, no nuances being allowed, many against their own better judgement. The complete severance of relations with Russia at energy and all other levels has caused grave economic and other harm to member states. The issuance of such peremptory orders is a telling indication of who the European Union’s self-absorbed leadership clique considers itself accountable to and demonstrates its contempt for the wellbeing of the European nations that it purportedly serves. The acquiescence of most of the dependent nation-state political elites to this and other equally detrimental agendas is also very indicative – of the cesspool of corruption into which Europe has been plunged.

From unassuming beginnings as the European Coal and Steel Community to the present-day European Union, with its ambition of becoming a European super-state, perhaps inspired by the geopolitical fantasies of Coudenhove-Kalergi, the so-called European Project has emerged and taken shape in an atmosphere of double-talk and deception. European nations were never honestly informed by the Project’s ideologues whither exactly they were being led. That omission however can now largely be filled by looking at the Project’s dismal record and its many poisoned fruits.

The good news is that it appears to be irreversibly past its apogee. The bad news is that the harm it has wrought will undoubtedly endure for yet a long time.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... t-chimera/

Mass evacuation plans: War in the Baltic region and the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’

Erkin Oncan

June 22, 2025

The Baltic region has convinced itself that it will be the first target if a war breaks out on Europe’s eastern flank.

The claim that Russia will continue to “invade” European countries after Ukraine has become one of the main factors shaping European politics. Despite the rise of “anti-West/NATO/EU” forces across the continent and the back-and-forth peace-seeking rhetoric from Donald Trump in the United States, mainstream European politics is continuing its war preparations at full speed. In this context, the Baltic states have taken yet another significant step.

Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have decided to jointly implement mass evacuation plans “to ensure civilian safety against Russia’s increasing threats.” On June 13 in Vilnius, the interior ministers of the three countries signed a formal memorandum initiating a broad cooperation that envisions coordination during cross-border evacuations and acceleration of information sharing.

Lithuania’s Interior Minister, Vladislav Kondratovič, described the plan as follows: “Clear procedures and rapid information flow are vital. This way, we can prevent panic before and during crises and quickly put measures into action.” Kondratovič emphasized that this alliance will play a critical role, especially in “large-scale evacuations.”

What’s in the evacuation plan?

The three countries will share information about their evacuation capacities, potential evacuation routes, and the condition of border crossings. This data will be used to ensure the safe and swift transfer of civilians. It was also underlined that people with disabilities, the elderly, children, and other vulnerable groups will receive special priority in evacuation procedures.

The core objective of the memorandum was outlined in the official statement as follows:

“Our main aim with this memorandum is to strengthen regional cooperation on mass evacuations among Baltic countries, prepare joint evacuation plans, and solve common challenges through rapid information sharing.”

As of now, there is no publicly announced budget for the signed memorandum; official sources have not provided any expenditure figures. However, looking at the past, Lithuania alone allocated approximately 285 million euros in 2024 for mass evacuation infrastructure, which provides a sense of the scale involved.

This is neither the first nor the last of such steps taken by the Baltic countries. Previously, serious war-preparedness plans were made—from distributing brochures on wartime preparedness to calculating the capacity of cemeteries across the region.

Moreover, at the end of last month, the interior and civil defense ministers of Belgium, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland, and Sweden gathered in Brussels to call for strengthened European civil defense capacity. They emphasized the need to be prepared not only for military threats, but also for internal security, stability, and resilience against various crises.

Before Zapad 2025

The decision by the Baltic countries came ahead of the “Zapad 2025” joint military exercise, set to take place between Russia and Belarus this September. Every time such drills occur, the West tends to describe them as “rehearsals for a new attack.”

Meanwhile, Belarus announced that the scale of the exercises would be significantly reduced and relocated. Although this move was allegedly intended to prevent further escalation with NATO, it seems insufficient to ease the tension.

Health sector preparing for war too

While military build-ups and broad-based war-preparedness rhetoric grow louder, Europe’s healthcare systems are also making preparations “against an attack from Russia.”

Some hospitals in Lithuania have taken precautions against electricity and water outages and built helicopter landing pads. In Estonia, ambulance teams have been equipped with bulletproof vests and satellite phones. Estonia is also making further preparations to bolster its emergency response.

In this context, Politico recently published a striking article on Eastern Europe’s war preparations. The article, “Europe’s border states prepare their hospitals for war,” by Giedre Peseckyte, contains notable statements that reveal how politics and society alike are adjusting to a war footing:

Estonia’s Deputy Health Board Chief Ragnar Vaiknemets: “We have bad neighbors here — Russia and Belarus. This is no longer a matter of ‘if they attack’ but ‘when they attack.’”

Poland’s Deputy Health Minister Katarzyna Kacperczyk: “For front-line countries, preparation is no longer optional; it’s a necessity.”

Norway’s Health Directorate chief Bjørn Guldvog: “Wartime needs can be three to five times those of peacetime.”

Doctor Rūdolfs Vilde of the Pauls Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital in Riga: “Most doctors who are parents do not want to leave their children behind and go to work in a war.”

Latvia’s Health Ministry Undersecretary Agnese Vaļuliene: “We must prepare for the worst, but we hope it will never happen.”

Yet, the most vulnerable first responders will face these threats with limited capacity.

Estonia, for instance, has only half the per-capita number of health workers as Germany. And there is no certainty they would even stay if war breaks out. A survey in Lithuania showed that 25% of healthcare personnel would flee in wartime, while 33% were undecided.

While Europe averages 11.5 intensive-care beds per 100,000 people, this number is insufficient under wartime conditions. Even at 150% capacity, most hospitals would only be able to cope for 24 to 48 hours. However, Eastern European hospitals are making plans to turn their basements into operating rooms.

Civilian participation on the rise

Alongside war preparations and evacuation planning, Baltic countries plan to conduct a large number of exercises this year. What stands out most is their emphasis on “civil defense,” with key themes such as casualty evacuation and emergency response training.

The big picture that emerges is this: The Baltic states do not believe that military forces alone will suffice in a war with Russia. Hence, they are constructing a new model of civil-military mobilization where civilians—from doctors and nurses to firefighters and hospital staff—are directly involved.

And what would happen if Russia were to actually attack? Would there still be a meaningful distinction between civilian and military casualties? That remains an open question.

The Baltic region has convinced itself that it will be the first target if a war breaks out on Europe’s eastern flank. According to its leaders, preparing for a possible Russian attack is no longer only a soldier’s duty; it is a duty for the entire society—every doctor, nurse, firefighter, hospital, and citizen.

In this environment, the Baltic countries are operating on a hypothetical threat. The idea that Russia will attack them after Ukraine remains a prophecy at present. But the ever-growing NATO military presence in the region might just turn that prophecy into a self-fulfilling one.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... -prophecy/

[blindpig]

Dissatisfaction with the old elites is growing in Europe

Sonja van den Ende

June 24, 2025

Dissent is growing. Citizens are awakening to the totalitarian reality of an EU where they have no voice.

Lately, it has become increasingly evident that European citizens are growing weary of their political elites and the entrenched system of rotating figureheads who perpetuate the same policies year after year. The political establishment exhibits a rigid adherence to outdated approaches, and their arrogance – manifest in a belief that they operate above democratic accountability – is glaringly apparent in their mainstream media channels, which are themselves staffed by the same elite journalists who have dominated the airwaves for decades.

Whether it is their reckless plans to fund military escalations through EU citizens’ taxes – such as the proposed five percent increase in NATO spending, justified by the unfounded fear of a Russian invasion – or the diversion of public funds to arm Israel, a state commits genocide against the citizens of Gaza and which has now escalated to bombing nuclear facilities in Iran alongside its perpetual war partner, the United States, the disconnect between rulers and ruled has never been clearer.

Recently, widespread outrage erupted among citizens (and even some alternative politicians) over statements by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who declared that Israel and Ukraine were performing the Drecksarbeit (“dirty work”) for Germany and Europe. The remark was so brazen that even Germany’s state broadcaster, ZDF – part of the mainstream media apparatus – reacted with shock. Beyond confirming what many already suspected, this episode laid bare Germany’s geopolitical stance 80 years after the end of World War II.

“It would be good if this mullah regime came to an end,” Chancellor Merz asserted in an ARD interview, emphatically defending Israel’s military actions while insisting Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons. “Germany is also affected by the mullah regime.”

This rhetoric is emblematic of the German elite’s worldview. Merz is no outlier; his stance reflects the consensus within his party, the CDU – a so-called Altpartei with roots stretching back to the Nazi era. Many of its former members held high-ranking positions in the Third Reich, only to seamlessly reintegrate into postwar governance as if history had never happened. Merz’s own grandfather, the mayor of Brilon, was a card-carrying member of the NSDAP.

The Netherlands fares no better, currently mired in political chaos. Governments collapse with alarming frequency, yet power merely circulates among the same old parties, all aligned on fundamental policies – particularly in foreign affairs. Take the CDA, a party that dominated Dutch politics for decades. Its most famous figure, Joseph Luns, served as Foreign Minister across multiple cabinets from 1952 to 1971. Less known is his membership in the NSB – the Dutch Nazi party – in 1934. He was, like Mark Rutte, Secretary General of NATO, and incidentally the longest-serving Secretary General of NATO! But actually he was complicit in colonial crimes, including endorsing the 300-year exploitation of Indonesia, which only gained sovereignty in 1948.

Many Dutch citizens hoped for change when Geert Wilders’ far-right PVV ascended to power in 2024. Yet they were deceived once more: the PVV has proven to be little more than an extension of the neoliberal VVD, augmented by ultra-Zionist fanaticism and overt anti-Arab, anti-Islam vitriol. Historically, such a platform would have been labeled an apartheid party – akin to South Africa’s Dutch-derived Nasionale Party. The parallels are undeniable, though the targets have shifted: where Afrikaner nationalism oppressed Black South Africans, today’s Zionists, backed by Europe and the U.S., are exterminating Palestinians.

In their hatred of Islam, the PVV and its ilk fail to grasp that they are fueling the very refugee crises they claim to oppose. War breeds displacement, as Europe witnessed in 2015. Meanwhile, ostensibly left-wing parties like the Dutch PvdA-GL rely on Muslim migrants as a voting bloc, knowing they will never support the right. Thus, the cycle perpetuates itself – a self-reinforcing loop that must be broken.

The situation is equally dire elsewhere in Europe. In France, the ruling elite has resorted to banning opposition figures, even imprisoning them. Marine Le Pen, convicted of embezzling EU funds, received a four-year sentence (two suspended) and a five-year electoral ban. Though she avoids jail via ankle monitoring, the precedent is chillingly reminiscent of NSDAP tactics – a softer fascism, but fascism nonetheless.

Belgium mirrors this decay. After two years without a government, it banned the Flemish nationalist Vlaams Blok in 2004 for racism, only for the party to rebrand as Vlaams Belang. Now, its leader, Dries Van Langenhove, faces imprisonment. Meanwhile, the Baltics embrace open fascism: demolishing Soviet monuments, persecuting Russian speakers, and hosting marches glorifying locals who joined the Wehrmacht and SS.

These snapshots – from Western Europe to the Baltics – paint a disturbing portrait. The nations that founded NATO and the EU remain fascist at their core, cloaked in modernist rhetoric. What passes for left-wing politics in Europe today is, in reality, fascist leftism: a push for a genderless, LGBTQIA+-dominated society that paradoxically depends on Muslim immigration to marginalize the right. At its heart lies a new state atheism, with traditional Christianity supplanted by woke dogma and Russia cast as the arch-enemy precisely because it upholds the values Europe has abandoned.

The so-called right-wing and centrist parties, meanwhile, champion family and Judeo-Christian identity (never Islam), though many are merely Zionist proxies serving U.S.-Israeli interests. While they oppose the Ukraine war and advocate diplomacy with Russia, they misunderstand Moscow’s pluralism – its 25-million-strong Muslim community defies their binary worldview.

This is the vicious cycle dooming Europe: both political flanks, beholden to elites who rotate between corporate boardrooms and ministerial offices, are destroying the continent. Obsessed with maintaining a unipolar colonial order, they trail behind the U.S. into endless wars, oblivious that China, India, and Russia have already eclipsed them.

Europe, still occupied by U.S. bases, risks becoming another Ukraine – a vassal state. Its leaders, like Ursula von der Leyen, conflate democracy with fascism, having never fully reckoned with their Nazi past. But dissent is growing. Citizens are awakening to the totalitarian reality of an EU where they have no voice.

The time for change is overdue. Whether through a European Spring or a new Renaissance, the process has begun. Ironically, Russia’s Special Military Operation – however unintended – has accelerated this reckoning on both sides of the Atlantic.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... ng-europe/

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Finland Completes Second Section of Border Fence With Russia


Border fence in Finland. X/ @KainuunRaja

June 25, 2025 Hour: 7:27 am


The parliament approved the fence project in 2022, with plans to eventually cover 200 km of the 1,300-km border.
On Tuesday, the Finnish Border Guard stated that Finland has completed the second section of its border fence along the eastern frontier with Russia.

The newly constructed stretch is located in the north-central region of Kainuu and consists of eight segments spanning approximately 18 km. This follows the completion of the first 35-km section.

“The main purpose of the fence is to control a large mass of people if they are trying to enter from Russia to Finland,” said Antti Virta, Deputy Commander of the Southeast Finland Border Guard District.

“The border barrier is absolutely necessary to maintain border security. It improves our ability to perform border surveillance and to act if there’s a disruption or incident at the border,” Samuel Siljanen, Head of Operations at the Finnish Border Guard, stated.

Fearing war with Russia, Finland is hardening NATO’s northern frontier—building a hi-tech border fence, boosting troop training, and expanding surveillance.
Tensions rise as Russia ramps up nearby military activity. #Finland #NATO #Russia #Security #BreakingNews pic.twitter.com/VElhkDhF5Z

— CCN (@CCNNews360) June 24, 2025

Finland’s parliament approved the fence project in 2022, with plans to eventually cover around 200 km of the country’s 1,300-km border with Russia. Construction began in 2023, with each segment including a steel mesh barrier, a service road, a cleared buffer zone, and a technical surveillance system.

The Kainuu section features technological upgrades compared to the initial pilot segment built near the southeastern town of Imatra. These updates include an AI-powered surveillance system capable of distinguishing between humans and animals to reduce false alarms, and a loudspeaker system that enables remote communication with individuals near the fence.

Meanwhile, all land-based border crossings between Finland and Russia have been closed since December 2023, following a series of government decisions.

The ongoing closure has drawn domestic criticism, with critics warning it could violate international conventions. Some Finnish citizens with family ties in Russia have also expressed concern about the disruption to long-standing cross-border travel.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/finland- ... th-russia/

European Workers Warn Against Cutting Social Spending for Defense Increases


X/ @MyNews366

June 25, 2025 Hour: 10:05 am

Governments must ensure that the wealthiest pay their fair share of taxes, the ETUC pointed out.

On Wednesday, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) warned that social budgets should not be affected by European leaders’ plans to increase defense spending, which are under discussion at the NATO summit.

The ETUC said social spending must be protected, while also voicing support for “coordinated and enhanced security policies that ensure Europe contributes to securing peace, the rule of law, human rights, and social progress at the international level.”

“EU funds originally intended for cohesion and recovery programs have already been redirected toward the defense sector,” the European unions said.

The announcement came during this week’s NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, where European leaders are discussing ways to raise defense and security spending to 5% of member states’ GDP. Most currently allocate between 1% and 2%.


Governments “must avoid increasing the financial burden on workers” and “ensure that the wealthiest pay their fair share of taxes,” the European unions pointed out.

ETUC Secretary General Esther Lynch said the lack of investment in public services will leave Europe unprepared for the challenges it faces.

“The EU must stop draining already insufficient social funds, and governments must not make workers, retirees, or people with disabilities pay the price for unrealistic targets they have set,” she said, calling for safeguards to ensure that the rise in public defense spending does not “simply enrich shareholders and CEOs of weapons manufacturers.”

“Funding must be tied to social conditions that guarantee workers in the sector are covered by collective agreements ensuring fair wages, working conditions, and training,” Lynch concluded.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/european ... increases/

[blindpig]

President-Elect Nawrocki Outlined Poland’s Three Priorities In Central & Eastern Europe
Andrew Korybko
Jun 28, 2025



The common thread tying them together is the “Three Seas Initiative” since they’re all related to it in some way.

Polish President-Elect Karol Nawrocki gave an interview to Hungarian media in early June where he outlined his country’s three priorities in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE). This refers to the formerly communist countries of the Eastern Bloc, with Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine sometimes included in this framework, though Russia importantly never is. As revealed in his interview, Poland’s regional priorities will be the construction of major projects, the Visegrad Group, and rebalancing relations with Ukraine.

With regards to the first, Nawrocki declared that “Poland will become an ambitious country that will shape its future through major projects, such as the new central airport and transport hub.” In connection with that, he’ll likely also prioritize these five other megaprojects that were detailed here in 2021. They’re all linked to the “Three Seas Initiative” (3SI) vision of Polish-led regional integration among the CEE states, which has implications for Russia due to some of their dual military logistics purposes.

As for the second, Poland betrayed its centuries-old Hungarian ally by disparaging Prime Minister Viktor Orban over his pragmatic policy towards the Ukrainian Conflict under both its conservative and liberal governments, thus toxifying their regional cooperation platform that also includes Czechia and Slovakia. Nawrocki envisages reviving the Visegrad Group with a focus on military cooperation and turning it into the core of the Bucharest Nine, which refers to those four, the Baltic States, Romania, and Bulgaria.

And finally, Nawrocki reaffirmed that despite Polish support for Ukraine against Russia (which he condemned as “a post-imperial, neo-communist state”), he remains opposed to its membership in the EU, won’t agree to giving Ukraine any edge over Poland, and expects that it respects Polish interests. This policy pronouncement builds upon liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s recently hardened stance towards Ukraine and presages the possibility of their relations worsening if he rigorously insists on this.

The common thread tying these priorities together is the 3SI since they’re all related to it in some way: connectivity megaprojects are its raison d’etre; the Bucharest Nine and the Visegrad Group within it overlap with most of the 3SI states; and Ukraine is an associate member. Nawrocki’s premier foreign policy focus will therefore likely be on expanding, strengthening, and securitizing the 3Si, the last-mentioned via the dual military logistics projects that’ll optimize NATO’s “military Schengen”.

Just like Putin has prioritized what Russia calls the Greater Eurasian Partnership and Xi has done the same with what China calls the Belt & Road Initiative along with its variations like the Global Civilization, Development, and Security Initiatives, so too is Nawrocki expected to do the same with the 3SI. Unlike those two, which aren’t aimed against any third parties, the 3SI has very distinct anti-Russian contours as was earlier touched upon, hence why it enjoys the US’ support and Trump attended its summit in 2017.

Not only does US backing aim to turn the 3SI into a regional bulwark against Russia, but it also wants to assemble a collection of conservative-nationalist CEE states to serve as a counterweight to Western Europe’s liberal-globalists within the EU and to have these countries divide Western Europe and Russia. Seeing as how “Poland Is Once Again Poised To Become The US’ Top Partner In Europe” under Nawrocki, it’s therefore also expected that Trump 2.0 will enthusiastically support his 3SI-centric regional vision.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/presiden ... i-outlined

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Italian left party uncovers more cases of police infiltration in their ranks

Following the exposure of an undercover operation in its Naples chapter, Potere al Popolo has reported additional cases of police spying in other Italian cities.

June 27, 2025 by Ana Vračar


Italian mobilization against police infiltration

Potere al Popolo activists with banner reading: “Against spies and repression. Let’s stand up to the Meloni government". Photo: Potere al Popolo
After discovering that a young police officer had infiltrated Potere al Popolo (Power to the People) in Naples at the end of May, the party, together with media outlet Fanpage, uncovered four similar cases in Milan, Bologna, and Rome. The officers approached the organization primarily through one of its youth collectives, Cambiare Rotta (Changing Course), between October and November 2024, shortly after graduating from the same police course and just before being assigned to the Central Police Directorate for Crime Prevention, an agency dedicated to investigating terrorism.

Read more: Police targets Potere al Popolo in undercover operation
During this period, the officers actively participated in demonstrations against the cost of living crisis, in solidarity with Palestine, and in anti-militarization actions. They often presented themselves as out-of-town students with few connections at local universities. Their involvement went deep: some supported election campaigns for official student bodies. At the same time, other activists noticed inconsistencies – none of the identified officers engaged in activities beyond political work, for example, an unusual pattern in youth organizing.

While the infiltration operations in Naples, Milan, and Bologna lasted about eight months, the effort in Rome was short-lived. Activists there quickly grew suspicious of the officer’s background story and the way he tried to approach the organization.

Italian left party uncovers more cases of police infiltration in their ranks
Protestors take the streets to demonstrate against rearmament and NATO. Photo: Potere al Popolo
By late June, all those identified had ceased contact with Potere al Popolo, but one officer was present at a demonstration in Bologna when news of the Naples infiltration broke publicly last month. “The moment there was a public denunciation in that demonstration in Bologna, about the Naples episode, this person disappeared from one day to the next,” said Giuliano Granato of Potere al Popolo. “We haven’t heard from him since.”

A threat to democratic rights and structures
Back in May, the party had denounced the Naples case as a disturbing sign of the government’s authoritarian drift, undermining the democratic character of Italian society and constitutional values. That warning has since prompted several parliamentary parties to demand explanations from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government – none of which have been provided. With these new revelations, alongside confirmed instances of journalists being spied on, concerns are mounting over the administration’s trajectory.

“It shows us the path of repression this government is taking through, and I quote Giorgia Meloni’s own words, ‘regime methods’,” said Anita Palermo of Potere al Popolo Rome. “We appeal to social and democratic forces, associations, and citizens to mobilize so that political activity in this country can take place in a democratic way, without fear of police infiltration.”

During a press conference on June 27, Granato added that the infiltration and surveillance of political parties, humanitarian organizations working with migrants, and journalists were indicative of the government’s own fear. The fact that they are prepared to launch such operations shows that the government is terrified of dissent, he said.

“But dissent is the salt of democracy,” Granato added, insisting that the experience of Potere al Popolo has far broader relevance. “If the state can plant an undercover officer inside a political party, it can do the same to a union or a newsroom.”

Trade unions and social collectives have condemned the police operations as a clear attack on political and civil rights. Many interpret it as part of the Meloni government’s increasingly repressive stance toward political opposition. This comes at a moment when Potere al Popolo, alongside grassroots unions, is leading a national campaign against war, NATO, and the European Union’s rearmament agenda.

According to the Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), the attack on Potere al Popolo and its affiliated groups is emblematic of the broader political climate. “It’s a snapshot of the cultural and political values of a class that has openly aligned itself with war and rearmament,” the union said.

“And in a climate of war, the first targets are those who oppose it clearly and unequivocally, voices that must be preemptively silenced even when they act with full transparency,” the USB warned. “The ‘war system’ and all its economic and social ramifications … allows no dissent because it demands we all silently enlist in its cause. And that cause crushes democracy, packing away our freedoms in the attic.”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/06/27/ ... eir-ranks/

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Who’s your daddy? NATO elites pimp Europe’s economy for U.S. military racket

June 27, 2025

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

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

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

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

At one point, the American president joked that if Rutte doesn’t like him sufficiently, he would “hit him.”

The occasion was the annual summit of the NATO military bloc, which this year was held in The Hague, Netherlands. It wasn’t just Rutte who was scraping and bowing. Most of the leaders from the 32-nation alliance were bending over backwards to appease Trump.

Trump has been relentlessly browbeating the Europeans to spend more of their economies on the military. He has scoffed at them for being “freeloaders” on American security and demanded that they increase their annual military budgets up from 2 percent of national economic output to 5 percent.

This week, the NATO alliance declared a “historic transformation” by announcing a formal commitment to reach the 5 percent target by 2035. That translates into trillions of more euros allocated to militarism, inevitably to the detriment of the civilian economy and social development, as well as inflaming geopolitical conflict.

Most of this new military expenditure will be used to purchase U.S. weapons, such as the F-35 fighter jet and Patriot air defense system, both of which are overpriced and overrated in performance. A new study published this week by the Bruegel and Kiel Institutes found that European nations are heavily dependent on the United States for the manufacture and supply of military equipment. That means that the gargantuan increase in NATO budgets will primarily benefit America’s military industry.

Another Freudian slip came from Trump himself, who said of European political leaders at the NATO summit, “these people really love their countries… it’s not a rip-off and we’re [the US] here to help them protect their countries.”

How twisted. These European politicians are betraying the peaceful interests of the European public while serving the warmongering system of US-led military capitalism. Trump’s talk of “protection” is in reality a Mafia-style protection racket, a racket that NATO has facilitated since its founding in 1949 under the guise of “defending” the “free world” against the Soviet Union.

Rutte, who was appointed as NATO chief last year, taking over from Norwegian Yes Man Jens Stoltenberg, has proven himself to be an ideal choice for intensifying the racket. The Dutch former politician is renowned for building consensus, and he has gone out of his way to court Trump’s narcissism. Rutte has deftly lobbied European states on the “need” to spend more on military, by constantly talking up the alleged threat posed by Russia. The Western media dutifully amplifies the absurd propaganda.

On the eve of the NATO summit this week, Rutte messaged Trump with gushing praise. “Mr President, Dear Donald… Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win.”

Having extorted more money from European taxpayers, Trump left the NATO summit with a new, happy view of the organization. He ditched his previous griping about European “freeloaders,” and he reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the alliance’s joint defense clause. Trump even adopted the inane talk about Russia attacking other countries after Ukraine.

This is what the European lackeys and Russophobes on both sides of the Atlantic want above all else. Trump’s earlier warnings about pulling the U.S. out of the NATO alliance had unnerved the transatlantic imperialist axis. Those warnings from Trump were always empty. There is no way the U.S. would leave NATO because of its function as a multilateral cover for American imperialism. Nevertheless, Trump’s seeming contempt for the alliance had undermined its unity and the military racket.

By sucking up to Trump’s ego, the alliance appears to have regained purpose. Russophobic political leaders were praising Trump for “making NATO great again.”

For all his bullying talk and bravado, Trump seems to be a weak character who is malleable when his ego is massaged.

The European vassals groveled like never before. Apart from the promises to vastly increase spending on (U.S.) military weapons, the NATO summit was organized to hold brief meetings so as not to bore Trump, given his notorious short attention span.

He was given the indulgent privilege of staying in the Dutch royal palace as a special guest of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima. Everything about this summit was focused on pandering to Trump’s ego.

The European NATO sycophants even played down their usual soliciting of more military aid for Ukraine, knowing that this annoys Trump’s transactional obsession to cut losses over the failed proxy war against Russia. The Ukraine conflict was only a sideline issue. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was invited to attend, but he was told to put his begging bowl away. He even donned a smart civilian suit instead of his normal cosplay military garb, which again indicated that the NATO organizers had decided to prioritize toadying up to Trump.

The joint communique issued at the end of the conference designated Russia as the top threat to international security ahead of terrorism and other dangers, which contradicts Trump’s earlier calls for improving relations with Moscow.

From NATO’s point of view, it was a successful week. Uncle Sam is now a Daddy, and the alliance has found a restored unity because the American president won trillions of dollars worth of subsidies for the U.S. military-industrial complex. The European sycophants got what they wanted, too – a U.S. president who has returned to the fold of the anti-Russia alliance.

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

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... ry-racket/