November 2025

Nov 30, 2025

Featured • How Resilient is BRICS in the Storm of Geopolitics? – Part 2, Larry C. Johnson, SONAR21, Nov 30, 2025

It is fair to say that, from a purely military point of view, World War III is already in full swing. We already made this claim in February 2023 in our article “Sleepwalkers at work: World War III has probably already begun.” The situation regarding Western involvement has become even more pronounced since the article was published. Direct involvement—such as supplying the Ukrainian army with target information with the help of personnel on the ground—is no longer even seriously disputed. Thus, the question of whether World War III has already begun from a military point of view has been answered, even though the Russians are not stating this openly for reasons of de-escalation.

...The insane statements that tactical nuclear weapons could be used and Armageddon still prevented must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. It almost seems as if the unconditional fear of nuclear war, which has protected humanity from nuclear war since 1945, is wearing thin. Assuming that 80% of the world’s population would die immediately or as a result of a fully escalated nuclear war, one would not want to be among the remaining 20% who would languish in the inevitable apocalyptic nuclear winter that would follow. I advise anyone who considers the consequences of a nuclear war to be acceptable in any way to watch the 1983 disaster epic “The Day After.”

..The world is indeed experiencing turbulent times. These are certainly not favorable conditions for the BRICS community to develop in a positive way. One could argue that this is unfair to the Global South, citing the comparatively peaceful post-war decades during which the power structures of the Collective West were able to develop.

However, concepts of fairness should not be used as arguments in geopolitics, because despite fig leaves such as “human rights” and “international law,” it is ultimately the stronger side that prevails—that is all that matters. Nazi Germany did not lose World War II because fairness demanded it, but because it was defeated militarily. This time will be no different.

In this interim chapter, we have established that the geopolitical situation in the world could not be more confusing and that the word “storm” actually describes the situation well. But those “born of the storm” are inherently stronger.

The Ukrainian regime's terrorist attacks on Gambian-flagged tankers Kairos and Virat in the Black Sea, as well as on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) infrastructure, are directly connected to desire to obstruct international efforts to achieve a settlement in Ukraine, Russian MFA spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday.

On Friday, the tanker Kairos had caught fire 28 nautical miles off Turkey's coast due to external interference. Later, the Virat tanker was struck 35 nautical miles off the coast, with 20 crew members on board. On Saturday, the vessel was attacked again. In the early hours of Saturday, a terrorist attack using unmanned boats was also carried out against a CPC sea terminal, significantly damaging and disabling its outrigger mooring device.

"We see a direct connection with attempts to hinder ongoing international efforts to bring about a sustainable peace," Zakharova said in a comment on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website.

Ukraine's Western sponsors are using the attacks to distract the demoralized Ukrainian public amid the dire situation of the Ukrainian army, Zakharova added.

"Those are the same forces that once disrupted dialogue on a settlement. Now they are not only once again demonstrating the inability to negotiate and the puppet nature of the Ukrainian clique, which has lost touch with reality, but are also openly seeking armed escalation," Zakharova said.

Russia condemns the attacks and calls on all reasonable parties to denounce Ukraine's actions, which threaten freedom of navigation in the Black Sea, and to properly assess its destructive behavior, Zakharova added.

Nov 29, 2025

 • The EU’s Kaja Kallas is Bad at History, Larry C. Johnson, SONAR21, Nov 28, 2025
Who knew all this? Some of us knew some of it. Gathering all the statements from U.S. leaders and politicians that Russia should be fragmented, i.e. destroyed would be helpful. We have not done it but possibly others have. Good project. There have been a lot.

 • Collapse Risk Grows: Russian Troops Push Ukrainian Forces Toward Critical Line, South Front, Nov 28, 2025
Day by day, the situation for Ukraine on the battlefield grows more dire. Western eyes are used to rapid advances via maneuver warfare, enabled by full aerial dominance. Nobody has that in Ukraine and it may be that such aerial dominance is a thing of the past generally, given the spread and mobility of relatively inexpensive defense systems (compared to aircraft, that is). Russia has more and in general better weapons, more and better-trained and cared-for troops, and better command and coordination. The quick coordination of Russian soldiers on the ground with multi-layered drone teams and large glide bombs is devastating, as Ukrainian soldiers report.

Nov 28, 2025

Featured • Ukraine Rejects Trump’s Peace Plan – U.S. Reacts To Its Defiance, Moon of Alabama, Nov 28, 2025

While the 28-point plan included several points Russia could not agree to (like a 600,000 strong Ukrainian army), it also included significant concession Ukraine would have to make. It could have been the base for further discussions with Russia. But Rubio allowed the Ukrainians to shrink the plan down to 19 points by taking out any Ukrainian concessions while adding erroneous demands (a 800,000 strong Ukrainian army) which are unacceptable to Russia.

Trump is, as usual, behaving like a weathervane unable or unwilling to force his will on the opponents of his plan.

The Ukrainian army is collapsing. Pokrovsk had been enveloped and occupied a week ago. But Zelenski and others kept claimed that the Ukrainian was winning that battle. As the army breaks down and its soldiers flee from their positions (in Russian) other cities, like Huleipole and Siversk, will soon fall too.

There is no way for Ukraine to win the war. The longer the war takes the more will be lost for Ukraine.

...Ukraine has now officially rejected the core element – land for peace – of Trump’s plan. The U.S. immediately responded to this open defiance. Today, by using its control over the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and various ‘nationalist’ and fascist media in Ukraine, it hit back at Yermak:

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) are conducting searches at the office of Andrii Yermak, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, in the government district on the morning of 28 November.

...Zelenski and Yermak will certainly hit back at NABU. A few month ago they had already tried to neuter it but had to retreat under pressure from Washington and Europe. They can use security services under their control -Ukraine’s FBI equivalent SBU – to arrest and indict NABU official.

The race is on.

Who will be the first to be arrested: Andrei Yermak or the chief investigators of NABU?

Statements by Vladimir Putin regarding the proposed Ukraine peace plans:

— There was no “draft peace treaty,” only a set of questions they suggested discussing

— Overall, we agree that this could serve as a basis for future arrangements

— Every word of the peace plan on Ukraine needs to be sat down and discussed seriously

— At present, some points of the plan sound ridiculous

— Russia is ready to formally confirm that it has no intention of attacking Europe

— Russian and Ukrainian intelligence services have always maintained contact; the Abu Dhabi venue is actively used for POW matters

— The appearance of a U.S. representative at the Abu Dhabi talks was unexpected

— U.S. representatives will come to Russia next week

— Russia will cease hostilities only when the Ukrainian Armed Forces leave the occupied territories — or when we achieve our goals militarily

We can conclude that the initial read from the very beginning—that this entire ‘peace plan’ charade is nothing more than empty blather—was in fact correct. The Russian side views the various schemes as little else than extremely preliminary starting points for the serious discussions to take place long after.

Putin did again mention in his new presentation that Russia was open to stopping hostilities if Ukrainian forces left Donetsk and Lugansk; I’ve already described before the game-theoretic value of Putin’s gambit on this count, as Russia has virtually nothing to lose to offer this.

Apart from all this back and forth, the war continues as before—nothing has changed. In fact, my operative theory now is that the MSM makes a big deal of this empty spectacle for one purpose only: to use it as a smokescreen to cover the rapid advances and victories of the Russian Armed Forces. By clogging the news cycle with this vapid ‘settlement’ business that is clear to everyone will go no where, mainstream corporate press outlets get to bury the real lede of Russia’s mounting triumphs and the AFU’s consequent collapse.

While the American proposal could potentially lay the groundwork for a future agreement, multiple points need clarification, according to the Russian president.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reiterated Moscow’s position after what his press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, called an “information frenzy” over various possible frameworks for resolving the Ukraine conflict.

The Russian president touched on this and other issues during a press conference in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on Thursday as he wrapped up a state visit to the Central Asian country.

Russia views the US-drafted peace roadmap aimed at ending the hostilities positively on the whole, but a considerable amount of work would be required before it could be implemented in any form, Putin said.

He also pointed out that it is “legally impossible” to ink a peace accord with the current Ukrainian leadership, which, according to Moscow, is no longer legitimate.

Here are the key takeaways from Putin's remarks:

US peace proposal

Russia does not rule out the possibility of the US proposal potentially serving as the “basis of any future agreements,” Putin pointed out.

He noted, however, that so far, the Americans have merely proposed a set of issues that still need to be thoroughly discussed and formulated. Therefore, it is too early to speak of any draft peace deal as of now.

The Russian president added that the US leadership does take into account “our stance… in certain respects.”

...Russian military’s advances

According to Putin, Ukraine’s entire frontline in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region faces collapse as Russian forces “are effectively bypassing the entire Ukrainian fortified line.”

“Our ‘Dniepr’ grouping faces them on one side, while the ‘Vostok’ group is encircling them from the north,” he explained.

Putin added that the recent gains by Russian troops have not gone unnoticed by those in the West “who realize the potential consequences” of such developments. He stated that these voices are pushing for ending the conflict as soon as possible before the entire frontline “folds.”

The Russian president estimated that in October alone, Kiev lost 47,000 troops, but mobilized only around 16,500, with rampant desertion making the situation even more dire for the Ukrainian military.

Putin emphasized that Russia will cease hostilities once Ukrainian troops leave Russian territories they still occupy.

“And if they don’t, we will make them,” he concluded.

Nov 26, 2025

Featured • A Real Ukraine Peace Plan, Ron Paul, Antiwar.com, Nov 26, 2025

President Trump promised he would end the war 24 hours after he was elected. It was an unrealistic boast, but he actually could have ended it rather quickly. The antidote to intervention Is non-intervention. Biden drug us into the war, that is true. But Trump could have pulled us out by quite simply ending all US involvement. No weapons, no intelligence, no coordination. No need for sanctions or the threat of sanctions, no need for elaborate peace plans.

A real peace deal would realize that it was always idiotic to believe that Ukraine could stand up to Russia’s war machine – even with NATO’s backing. It is unimaginably cruel to demand that Ukraine keep fighting our proxy war down to the last Ukrainian.

No 28-point plans can fix this. The real fix is much simpler: walk away.

From the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in February 2022, Russia has been unequivocal in its objectives: demilitarize and denazify Ukraine. The US and its NATO allies, however, apparently do not believe that Russia is serious about this. If the reports about the Trump peace plan are accurate, then Trump’s plan will be rejected by Putin. There is no room for negotiation on these two points.

Western media report, citing senior officials following talks in Geneva, claim that Ukraine agrees to limit the number of its armed forces to 800,000 soldiers… That is a non-starter for Russia because it would require Russia to accept Ukraine having a larger military than it had at the start of the SMO.

On February 22, 2022—the day before Russia’s full-scale invasion—Ukraine’s military was undergoing reforms to modernize and expand its forces, but it remained smaller and less equipped than Russia’s. Data from authoritative sources like the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) The Military Balance 2022, and contemporary reports, estimated Ukraine’s core standing army, including ground, air, naval, and support units to be 196,000 in February 2022; Ukrainian Defense Minister later referenced 261,000 as the baseline at the start of the SMO. Ukraine also had 900,000 reservists, which included former conscripts and territorial defense volunteers.

...One of those key elements concerns the status of Crimea, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk. Under the Russian Constitution, as amended and updated following the 2022 annexation process, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson are formally recognized as federal subjects (constituents) of the Russian Federation. This status was established through a series of legal steps in September–October 2022, integrating these territories (referred to as the Donetsk People’s Republic, Luhansk People’s Republic, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and Kherson Oblast) into Russia’s constitutional framework. Residents are considered Russian citizens from September 30, 2022, onward. Vladimir Putin does not have the legal authority to unilaterally reverse that decision. President Putin make it clear to Donald Trump that those territories must be recognized as permanently part of the Russian Federation.

Then there is the issue of denazification. This means the removal of the “neo-Nazi regime” that seized power in Kyiv in 2014, that persecutes Russian-speakers, and that threatens Russia. The Kremlin points to far-right groups (Azov Battalion, Right Sector, Svoboda party), Holocaust-denial incidents, and the glorification of WWII collaborators (Stepan Bandera, Roman Shukhevych, UPA) as proof that Ukraine is ruled or heavily influenced by Nazis. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is reasonable to assume that the bird is a duck. The same logic applies to the term, Nazi. In other words, denazification means the removal of those who defend Nazi views and the prohibition of Nazi ideology on the territory of Ukraine. Zelensky and his crew will refuse to accept this condition, but Russia will not relent… The memory of the Great Patriotic War and the murder of 27 million Russians by Nazi forces has left a permanent scar of the Russian soul. As far as President Putin is concerned, this is not an idle political slogan.

Achieving this diplomatically means that Ukraine must hold new, internationally supervised elections, and the participants in those elections must have no affiliation with neo-Nazi groups or ideology. While the Russians would like to achieve this through diplomatic measures and negotiation, I believe that President Putin and the Russian General Staff understand that the only practical way to satisfy this objective will be through the use of military force and the total defeat of the Zelensky government.

In the meantime, Putin has continued to transmit the same stalwart messaging.

Putin says the US hasn’t shown Moscow the full text of the new plan because Washington ‘can’t secure Ukraine’s approval’

Kiev and the EU STILL cling to fantasies of a ‘strategic defeat for Russia’

Warns these delusions will lead to consequences they don’t even grasp

Putin’s much more direct statement was that Russia is already achieving all of its military goals, implying peace talks are not a necessity, though Russia remains open to them under the strict condition that detailed discussions on all major demands be carried out:

“Russian goals are already BEING ACHIEVED on the battlefield but we are ready for peace talks.

Resolving the conflict peacefully requires detailed discussions.”

Negotiations between the US, Ukraine and Europe over the 28-point proposed framework reportedly has produced agreement on 19-points, which will be presented at sometime in the near future to the Russians. However, despite a ton of positive spin coming out of Geneva (where the talks were held) the actual substance of the supposed agreement is a dumpster fire.

...Donald Trump is too weak politically to secure a deal that will be acceptable to Russia without igniting a firestorm among Republican and Democrat legislators, not to mention the strong opposition from the Europeans and Ukrainian officials. Here’s just a sample of the pushback:

...An overwhelming majority Washington politicians and European leaders are still in denial about the dire situation confronting Ukraine… They genuinely believe that Russia is under great pressure from a supposedly failing economy and staggering losses on the battlefield. Both are lies. Russia is wasting no time in continuing to attack and destroy Ukrainian fortifications and electrical infrastructure all along the line of contact. Putin, along with Kremlin spokesman Peskov and Ushakov, continue to feign interest in a diplomatic solution, but understand that Trump will fail to produce a proposed deal that Russia would find acceptable.

If Ukraine was winning on the battlefield and Russia was failing economically and militarily, we would not be seeing the panicked effort by the US and Europe to secure an agreement with Moscow that would end the fighting… Hell, the West, along with Zelensky, would be popping champagne corks and celebrating.

Once Rubia comes up with a proposal that satisfies Ukraine and placates Europe, it will be presented to Putin’s Foreign Ministry, who will make all of the appropriate diplomatic gestures, carefully read the document, and then politely reject it or call for a meeting between Trump and Putin. All of this will take time, and Russia is in no hurry to secure an agreement because of its accelerating success on the battlefield.

The Swedish military has claimed Moscow poses a direct threat.

Sweden needs long-range cruise missiles to strike deep inside countries it views as a threat, such as Russia, according to a Swedish Armed Forces report released on Monday. Moscow has rejected claims it has hostile intentions toward Western countries as baseless.

The document calls for investment in strike capabilities able to reach targets at a “strategic depth” of roughly 2,000 km. The straight-line distance between Moscow and Stockholm is just over 1,400 km.

This set of proposals is not likely to be accepted by the Europeans, Russia or even Zelensky. Their purpose is to dictate a completely new start-point to any negotiation. Any Russian concessions stipulated in the text will be ‘pocketed’ by the U.S., whilst the rug will be pulled on Russia’s ‘stated principles’. The pressures on Russia will escalate.

In fact, escalation has already begun. Coinciding with publication of the proposals, four long-range U.S.-supplied and targeted ATACMS were fired deep into Russian pre-2014 territory at Voronezh, which is where Russia’s over-the-horizon strategic radars are situated. All were shot down, and Russian Iksander missiles immediately destroyed the launch platforms and killed the 10 launch operators.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has threatened yet more sanctions for Russia, and Trump has indicated that he is ok with Senator Lindsay Graham’s 500% sanctions proposal for those trading with Russia – provided that he, Trump, has complete discretion over the new sanctions package.

The overall aim to these proposals clearly is to corner Putin, and push him off his fundamental principles – such as his insistence on eliminating the root causes to the conflict, and not just the symptoms. There is no hint in this paper of any recognition of root causes [expansion of NATO and missile emplacements] beyond the vague promise of a “dialogue [that] will be conducted between Russia and NATO, mediated by the United States, to resolve all security issues and create conditions for de-escalation, thereby ensuring global security and increasing opportunities for cooperation and future economic development”.

Blah, blah, blah.

It seems that escalation is ahead.

Given this uncertainty, it is better that we listen in full to what Vladmir Putin has said this past week about Trump’s plan...:

“Of course. There’s no secret here. We haven’t talked about it publicly except in the broadest terms, but there’s nothing to hide.

...Ukraine is against it. And it seems Kiev and its European supporters still live under the illusion that they can deliver Russia a strategic defeat on the battlefield. I suspect this isn’t just about their lack of competence, though I won’t get into that now, but more about the fact that they simply don’t have an objective picture of what’s happening at the front. And judging by everything we see, neither Ukraine nor [Western] Europe understands where this is all heading.

Let me give just one recent example, Kupyansk. On November 4, just two weeks ago, Kiev publicly claimed there were no more than 60 Russian soldiers left in the city, and that Ukrainian forces would fully unblock it within days. But I can tell you that as of November 4, the city was already almost entirely under Russian control. Our troops were just clearing a few remaining neighbourhoods. The fate of the city was already sealed.

What does this tell us? Either Ukraine’s leaders genuinely have no objective information about the front, or they have it but simply cannot interpret it realistically.

If Kiev refuses to discuss Trump’s proposal, fine, but Ukraine and its European warmongers need to understand that what happened in Kupyansk will happen again in other key sectors. Maybe not as fast as we’d like, but it will happen. And in general, that suits us: it means the goals of the “special military operation” will be achieved militarily.

Still, as I have said many times, we are ready for peaceful negotiations. But that requires a detailed, substantive discussion of the plan. We are ready for that.”

Putin and his government, despite Western beliefs to the contrary, are under no economic or political pressure, especially from the Russian people, to bring a quick end to the war. Russia is winning on the battlefield and there is nothing that the West can do to reverse the situation. Given the history of Minsk II, Putin and his national security team will not make the same mistake of agreeing to a peace deal that does not address Russia’s stated objectives: demilitarize and de-nazify Ukraine. They are willing to engage in serious negotiations to secure a diplomatic end to the war, but not at the expense of sacrificing their military gains or leaving the Russian-speaking inhabitants to the mercy of a bunch of Nazi fanatics.

The opponents of peace in Ukraine and the West and especially in NATO-EU Europe, the false “friends” from hell who cannot get enough of Ukrainians dying for broken Western promises and a daft attempt to cut down Russia that has already failed, are mobilizing to prevent peace. Déjà vu all over again, as a great American sage might have said.

But it is obvious that true friendship for Ukraine, the real Ukraine, with actual living human beings who should stay alive for a better future, means finally ending this catastrophe. Yes, on terms that will – to one extent or the other – reflect that Russia has the upper hand. That is the only way forward, and it is not the same as “capitulation.” It is a compromise based on reality, not on the silly dreams of vain US academics in Ukrainian embroidered shirts or German “military experts” whose link to reality seems to be about as robust as that of the German leadership huddling in a Berlin bunker in early 1945.

It’s time to stop sacrificing human beings to perverse fantasies. If – if! – Ukraine’s Zelensky has finally been compelled to accept this, then there is a chance for peace.

US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are heading to Geneva for Ukraine peace talks planned for Sunday, according to Reuters. US Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll has already arrived, according to a US official.

US, European, and Ukrainian officials will meet in the Swiss city on Sunday to discuss Washington’s proposed peace plan for Ukraine, officials told Reuters on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Johannesburg on Saturday.

US Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll had already landed in Geneva for the talks, and a Ukrainian delegation will arrive tonight, according to sources. US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are due to be there on Sunday.

Kiev has reportedly been given until Thursday to accept the plan, with the possibility of extending the deadline in order to finalize the terms.

The sudden submission of the initiative to a politically weakened Zelensky, along with the release of an alleged draft of the text, has triggered immediate turmoil. Kiev’s European backers are now scrambling, with Western media calling their reaction an “emergency” response. Tensions are rising further as concerns grow over Zelensky’s ongoing corruption scandal.

Sorry for the gap of several days in the news. We had a computer glitch while out of town.

Nov 21, 2025

Featured • High Noon In Kiev, Moon of Alabama, Nov 20, 2025
Meanwhile, the structure below the storm remains.

Featured • Leaked 'Peace Proposal' Carries Hidden Intrigues, as 'Camo-Putin' Signals Defiance, Simplicius, Nov 20, 2025

Featured • The Alleged 28-Point Ukrainian and Russian Peace Plan, Larry C. Johnson, SONAR21, Nov 20, 2025

 • Russian forces take full control of Kupyansk – Moscow, RT, Nov 21, 2025
More cities are falling or about to fall as we speak.

 • We Are Winning and Will Not Surrender Our Victory to Anyone' - Russian Military Analyst, Sputnik International, Nov 21, 2025

The city of Kupyansk recently liberated by the Russian forces is a strategic location that was critically important to the Ukrainian war effort, veteran Russian military expert Alexey Leonkov tells Sputnik.

Kupyansk, Leonkov explains, was part of a chain of ‘fortress cities’, urban centers that were meant to be held by Ukrainian forces at all costs.

Once these fortresses fall, nothing will stop the Russian army’s advance and the Ukrainian militants will find themselves unable to use civilians as human shields.

“We are winning and we will not surrender our victory to anyone,” says Leonkov.

The latest ‘peace’ initiatives highlight this fact, he suggests, as Western powers fear that the Ukrainian battle lines may collapse at any moment.

Thus, the West desperately seeks to avoid this scenario and preserve the Ukrainian Army, employing diplomatic maneuvers in a bid to halt or at least slow down Russia’s advance.

Their concern is understandable, Leonkov points out, as the upcoming winter campaign is going to be a total disaster for Ukraine.

With no foliage to hide in from recon drones, Ukrainian forces will be sitting ducks for the Russian aerospace forces who will keep hammering Ukrainian frontline positions and rear echelons without mercy.

“Now comes the time where any heat signature indicates the presence of either troops or military hardware. Thus, Ukrainian military casualties will increase at an exponential rate.”

Facing both a lack of explosives needed to lay new minefields and skilled drone operators, the Ukrainian military can no longer stall Russian forces, he adds.

Ukraine’s leaders have devolved into a “criminal gang” that does not care about their country while sitting on their “golden potties,” Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

The president made the remarks on Thursday while visiting a command point of troops fighting in the Ukraine conflict. In his address to the commanding officers of the grouping ‘West’, Putin touched upon the massive graft crisis unfolding in Ukraine, harshly criticizing the country’s leaders.

“This is not a political leadership of Ukraine. It’s a criminal gang that holds power for personal enrichment... It’s clear to everyone that these people, sitting on their golden potties, are hardly thinking about the fate of common people in Ukraine or the fate of ordinary soldiers,” Putin stated, referring to Timur Mindich, the ally of Vladimir Zelensky who fled the country hours before he was due to be arrested for extortion, who had a gilded toilet in his elite Kiev apartment.

Nov 20, 2025

Featured • Ukraine’s Fall: The Exhaustion of European Will and the Awakening of American Pragmatism, South Front, Nov 19, 2025

Featured • US peace plan proposes Ukraine ‘give up sovereignty’ – media, RT, Nov 19, 2025
We'll see, but events are now moving fast.

Featured • Ukraine SitRep – Power Play In Kiev And Chaos At The Front, Moon of Alabama, Nov 19, 2025

Featured • Emmanuel Todd: Defeat of the West - Collapse of Power & Values, Glenn Diesen, YouTube, Nov 17, 2025
A long listen but good. What Todd says will be obvious to some, entirely new and controversial to others.

 • Trump’s 28-Point Peace Plan for Ukraine is Dead On Arrival, Larry C. Johnson, SONAR21, Nov 20, 2025

Ok. The plan to end the war in Ukraine is not Trump’s… It reportedly was crafted by Trump’s man, Steve Witkoff. The key territorial provisions in Witkoff’s proposed Ukrainian peace plan primarily involve significant concessions by Ukraine to Russia. The plan reportedly includes Ukraine relinquishing control over the entire eastern Donbas region, which means including areas currently occupied by Russia as well as parts not under Russian occupation. However, the plan also calls for Russia to freeze its forces in place in Kherson and Zaporhyzhia and to withdraw Russian forces from Kharkiv and Sumy. That is a non-starter for Russia.

According to Oliver Carroll — a reporter for The Economist — the Ukrainians also are not thrilled with Witkoff’s plan:

The plan, they say, is a 28-point document aimed largely at curbing Ukraine’s military power once the war ends. It envisages a reduction in the number of Ukrainian troops to just 40% of the current level, with no corresponding cut on the Russian side. Ukraine would be required to cede yet more territory, beyond the large parts of its east and south already occupied by Russia. It would be barred from possessing several classes of weapons, including long-range systems capable of reaching Moscow and St Petersburg. No foreign troops would be allowed on Ukrainian soil. Planes used by foreign diplomats would be prohibited from flying to Ukraine, raising questions as to Russia’s intentions for Ukrainian airspace. Ukraine would also be required to designate Russian as a second state language, and the local branch of the Russian Orthodox Church, disbanded over Ukrainian charges that it is a tool of Kremlin propaganda and espionage, would be restored.

The demands are far-fetched. Ukrainians see most of them as non-starters. The country’s forces have been battered on the battlefield lately, but Russia has not achieved a serious operational breakthrough since 2022. Military analysts do not see Ukraine’s position as being so desperate that Mr Zelensky would need to agree to such punishing terms.

Zelensky will not have a choice… The Russian ground forces are advancing rapidly all along the 1000-mile line of contact. This is one other reason that makes it unlikely that Russia will agree to a Witkoff proposal that requires them to give up captured territory.

Nov 19, 2025

Featured • Polish 'Sabotage' False Flag Churns More Threats Against Russia Amid AFU's Shock Collapse in Seversk, Simplicius, Nov 18, 2025
Some of the EU propaganda produced here is incredible and disturbing. And the first-hand commentary from soldiers on both sides is always helpful in understanding this hell.

Nov 18, 2025

Featured • Ukraine Is Buying Fighter Jets With Money It Does Not Have?, Moon of Alabama, Nov 17, 2025
Cray-cray.


 • Ukrainians blew up Polish rail line – Tusk, RT, Nov 18, 2025

Two Ukrainians have been identified as the suspected perpetrators behind two acts of sabotage targeting a railway line between Warsaw and Lublin on Monday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told the parliament on Tuesday. According to him, the suspects sought to provoke a train crash.

A military-grade C4 explosive charge was used in a least one of the incidents, the prime minister said, adding that a 300-meter-long cable was used to detonate it. The National Prosecutor’s Office also confirmed that a cable “that was most likely used to set off the explosive” was discovered.

Another incident involved a steel clamp on a track to cause a derailment, Tusk said. The alleged perpetrators also left a smartphone with a power bank at the scene to record a potential incident, he added.

The prime minister called the two incidents “the most serious” security situation over the past years. “A certain line has been crossed,” he said. He also accused the suspects of working “with the Russian intelligence for a long time.” According to Tusk, both alleged perpetrators fled to Belarus after the incidents.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sent a letter to EU capitals on Monday urging a swift deal for covering Ukraine’s military and financial needs for the next two years. According to the letter, which was cited by the media, Kiev’s widening budget gap is around €135.7 billion (over $152 billion). She outlined three possible sources of funding – voluntary bilateral contributions by member states, joint borrowing at the EU level, and a reparations loan based on Russia’s immobilized assets.

Orban wrote on X that he had received the letter, which said Ukraine’s financing gap was “significant” and urged EU member states to send more money.

“It’s astonishing. At a time when it has become clear that a war mafia is siphoning off European taxpayers’ money, instead of demanding real oversight or suspending payments, the Commission President suggests we send even more,” he wrote, in an apparent reference to the massive corruption scandal recently uncovered in Ukraine.

Orban likened the approach to “trying to help an alcoholic by sending them another crate of vodka,” adding that “Hungary has not lost its common sense.”

Nov 17, 2025

Featured • SITREP 11/16/25: Overblown Energy Strikes on Russia Again Mask UA Frontline Collapse, Simplicius, Nov 16, 2025
Please read. A constant Western focus in this war is on narrative victory, which is to say, fantasy. Voices from Planet Earth are ignored until they can't be.

 • Ukraine conflict killing EU economy – Orban, RT, Nov 16, 2025

The EU must look for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict because the continued financing of Kiev is destroying the bloc’s economy, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.

It is “just crazy” to keep sending more money to Ukraine after the has EU already “burnt” €185 billion (around $215 billion) on supporting the government of Vladimir Zelensky since the confrontation between Moscow and Kiev escalated in February 2022, Orban told German journalist Mathias Dopfner on his MDMEETS podcast on Sunday.

“The point is that this war kills the EU economically… We finance a country [Ukraine] which has no chance to win the war, but at the same time there is a high level of corruption, and we do not have money for the EU to make a new boost for our economy, which is suffering a lot because of the lack of competitiveness,” he said.

The leaders of the bloc’s nations are “totally wrong” when they insist on the continuation of the conflict in the hopes that “the situation will improve on the front line and we will have better circumstances or preconditions for negotiation,” the prime minister insisted. “The situation and the time is better for the Russian than for us,” he added.

Orban, whose government was one of the few in the EU that refused to provide military assistance to Ukraine, again urged the bloc to engage in diplomacy with Russia.

Peace might be “very close” if Brussels joins the efforts of US President Donald Trump to stop the fighting between Moscow and Kiev, he suggested.

Nov 15, 2025

Featured • The scandal Zelensky can’t escape: Inside Ukraine’s biggest corruption story, RT, Nov 14, 2025
Mindich better hide carefully, or give himself up to the right people.

Featured • Chorus of 'Corruption' as Movement to Oust Zelensky Picks Up Steam, Simplicius, Nov 14, 2025

A fascinating Russian write-up on the Pokrovsk situation which describes the new style of modern ‘shadow warfare’ taking place there—from veteran Russian frontline reporter Alexander Kharchenko:

Battle of Shadows

Ukrainian analysts on the maps have almost completely painted Pokrovsk red. But yesterday Zelensky stated that there are only 314 Russians inside the city. Let’s try to understand this paradox.

No, the Russian army has not been ground down by the Ukrainian defense. Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers are operating near Pokrovsk. You can see this if you get on a van-cabriolet and drive northwest from Selidovo. There are many vehicles. But if you look at Pokrovsk through a drone camera, you will hardly notice any soldiers. The fighting for the city is ongoing, but it is not engulfed in flames, and machine gun bursts are heard very rarely.

Both sides keep their main forces 10 km from the city. Drones control all approaches, and only the most desperate daredevils can get through this barrier alive. So it turns out that inside Pokrovsk only the shadows of the two armies, which stand on its outskirts, are fighting. Zelensky clearly underestimates the Russian forces, but you will no longer see an assault in the spirit of Bakhmut. There are fewer soldiers in the city than civilians. Three people can storm one street, and the most interesting thing is that they will be fighting against three similar enemy soldiers. And all this happens in front of a dozen grandmothers and grandfathers who did not want to leave the city.

When you imagine this picture, you will stop tormenting yourself with meaningless questions. War has changed and it no longer resembles a Hollywood action movie. This battle of shadows still needs to be described in literature. Meanwhile, we need to accept reality and study the vectors of its development.

...This is how the President of Ukraine sees the situation; from his point of view, it is absolutely unacceptable to let the Russian Armed Forces capture Pokrovsk because it would be an argument for Trump to agree to Putin’s terms, and it could also delay sanctions.

...But now, staying in Mirnograd threatens the destruction of two strong brigades. We do not doubt that they can organize an orderly exit from the city and will have this opportunity for a long time, but by staying in the city, they suffer losses. Not only direct losses but also because there is no way to evacuate the wounded. Supplies can be delivered by drones, but they do not yet transport people. And the later the retreat, the greater the losses will be, unless the Ukrainian Armed Forces can unblock Mirnograd from the north. There is such a chance, but it is, to put it mildly, not one hundred percent.

Does Zelensky understand that he can now buy some time at the cost of extra losses and already scarce infantry, but in the longer term lose much more? Most likely, he does not. And Pokrovsk may become the place where Ukraine lost the war.

Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained that the Kremlin is still open to a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine. A Russian diplomatic source said that a second summit between President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump is necessary.

“Given the lack of an opportunity to continue negotiations, we will certainly proceed with the special military operation to achieve the objectives set by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the President [Vladimir Putin],” Peskov said on Thursday.

Nov 13, 2025

Featured • Ukraine corruption: Zelensky’s Western masters had better start looking for a new puppet, Tarik Cyril Amar, RT, Nov 13, 2025

Add the looming military catastrophes of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk (and they won’t be the last), Ukraine’s enormous desertion problem, growing rebelliousness against the brutality of forced mobilization (“busification”), and the prospect of a dark, cold winter, and Zelensky’s chances of political survival have clearly decreased. He may still be the West’s proverbial “son of a bitch,” but there’s no doubt that the search for replacements must be shifting into high gear. And there even is the possibility that his former “friends” in Washington have started pro-actively undermining him: the anti-corruption prosecutors now on his heels are well known to enjoy American protection.

Zelensky can try to talk tough now, give interviews to Bloomberg about his valiant struggle against and zero tolerance for corruption even among his “friends,” and call for investigations, consequences, and punishments all around. His credibility remains zero.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, silly Western propagandists likened him to Che Guevara, the famous South American guerrilla leader. Now “Che Guevara” is just another gangster nickname in the Energoatom mafia, apparently for a former Ukrainian prime minister. Zelensky has done enormous damage to his country. The irony is that doing damage to himself is perhaps the last service he can render Ukraine. He is a national liability, just like his “friends” who are now behind grates or on the run. Only, he is even worse.

Nov 12, 2025

 • NATO-Russia war becoming inevitable – Serbian president, RT, Nov 12, 2025

A direct military confrontation between Western nations and Russia is becoming unavoidable, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has warned, citing widespread rearmament efforts across Europe.

Speaking during a televised interview on Tuesday, Vucic said the possibility of such a war is no longer hypothetical, pointing to an acceleration of military spending. The European Union seeks rapid militarization over a perceived threat from Russia, which Moscow has dismissed as misleading political rhetoric aimed at distracting from internal economic troubles.

“My conclusion is that there is a growing certainty that a war between Europe and Russia will happen,” Vucic said. “They are preparing for war – or for defense, as they call it. Romania, Poland, Finland, smaller countries too. And the Russians as well.”

“Everyone is preparing,” the president continued. “What can come from that? Only conflict.” He added that Serbia itself is caught “between a rock and a hard place,” and therefore must also strengthen its military readiness.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that negotiations were not necessary for the US and Russia to extend the New START treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the two powers.

New START limits the number of nuclear warheads and delivery systems the US and Russia can deploy and is due to expire in February 2026. Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to extend the treaty for one year to make room for diplomacy to negotiate a replacement, a proposal President Trump has said was a “good idea,” but so far, there’s no sign the US has formally accepted the offer.

Lavrov said that all that’s needed to extend the treaty is the US’s consent. “We have repeatedly said that our proposal is a unilateral goodwill gesture. No consultations are necessary for the US to support our approach. They just need to say: ‘OK, we will not raise the quantitative levels of the New START within a year,'” the Russian foreign minister said, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

Nov 11, 2025

 • One Reason the Russian Military Advanced Slowly in 2023 and 2024, Larry C. Johnson, SONAR21, Nov 10, 2025

 • The battle the world is watching, but few understand: What’s really going on in Pokrovsk?, RT, Nov 10, 2025
Good summary.

 • Ukraine – Zelenski Friend Accused In Energy Sector Corruption Case, Moon of Alabama, Nov 10, 2025

Nov 10, 2025

Featured • How the West dismantled the last pillars of nuclear stability, Ilya Kramnik, RT, Nov 10, 2025

Diplomacy, like poetry, depends on the precision of language. The stakes are higher, though, because a poorly chosen phrase can accelerate a crisis rather than illuminate a path out of it. Yet here we are: a renewed nuclear arms race may be triggered because the president of the United States appears not to understand what the term “nuclear tests” actually means, and no one in his own administration is prepared to offer clarity to Russia, the only other country capable of ending the world in an afternoon.

Time, as ever, moves faster than our political instincts. The system of strategic stability agreements that shaped the late 20th century has been swept away like autumn leaves on a November sidewalk. Each individual collapse seemed manageable, almost technical. But look back to 2002, when Washington abandoned the 1972 ABM Treaty, and the trajectory becomes unmistakable. Since then, one agreement after another has either died or been deliberately dismantled: the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and most recently, New START. Now the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996 looks likely to follow.

The lone survivor is the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. But even the NPT’s foundations are loosening. Article VI obliges nuclear powers to pursue, in good faith, negotiations on ending the nuclear arms race. Once those negotiations end, and they effectively have already, non-nuclear states are entitled to conclude that the system no longer protects their interests.

...That no one actively desires a nuclear war is not a source of comfort. The danger lies in the belief, widespread among Western policymakers, that such a war is impossible. Under that assumption, the world drifts toward the brink, while newspapers and television studios continue to host officials making theatrical threats about wiping various capitals from the map. The Belgian defense minister has already been forced into awkward backtracking after indulging in exactly this sort of bravado.

This is the atmosphere in which strategic stability is collapsing: casual talk of annihilation from leaders who seem not to grasp that treaties exist to prevent misunderstandings from becoming catastrophes. Russia has not walked away from this architecture lightly. It is reacting to a pattern – a steady erosion of agreements by Washington, followed by indifference or amnesia from its allies.

If the world does return to a nuclear arms race, it will not be because Moscow wanted to revive one. It will be because the last generation of politicians who understood the value of arms control has faded from the scene, replaced by leaders who treat nuclear strategy as a talk-show prop. That is the true end of an era: not the loss of treaties themselves, but the loss of seriousness.

Sustained outages of electricity will likely compel a large number of the residents of Kiev to seek refuge in cities and towns west of Kiev.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian volunteers are lining up enthusiastically to join the war. Here is a short video of one new joyful recruit...

I think the technical term for this is cannon fodder. Men like this poor soul are being stuffed into uniforms and sent to the front without any substantive training… And for what? In 2025 alone, Ukraine is on pace to accumulate 500,000 casualties — most of those KIA — by years end. They have suffered similar losses in 2023 and 2024. So it is no exaggeration to report that Ukraine has incurred more than 1.5 million casualties in the last 35 months. Consider this… Ukraine needs to recruit at least 40,000 new soldiers per month just to replace those killed and wounded along the front. At some point, and I don’t know when that moment will come, the Ukrainian army will break. Western analysts who insist that this war will go on for years simply are not very good at math, nor do they understand what is required to produce a soldier capable of fighting effectively on the front.

Ukraine’s desperation has also led to an underreported crisis at home. Ukraine is losing troops, not only to Russian attacks on the battlefield, but to desertion. As part of the solution, Ukraine has turned to forced mobilization in which men are abducted, often aggressively, against their will and bussed off to recruitment centers. From there, they find themselves on the battlefield with very little training.

Once on the front, troops have deserted in the thousands. Though little reported in the mainstream media, in the first months of 2025 alone, more than 110,000 Ukrainian soldiers deserted. As many as 20% of Ukraine’s armed forces have deserted. Since the war began, the number of desertions may be as high as 200,000, and it is getting worse by the month.

The Western media seems to be complicit in harmonizing with Kiev’s misleading message in order to keep Western morale up and Western arms flowing. But, though the narrative may be strong enough to mislead a public that trusts its newspapers, it will not be strong enough to alter reality. Ukraine is turning to more desperate measures in an attempt to address a dire situation on the battlefield in which they no longer have the manpower to go on the offensive nor to defend themselves and in which troops are deserting as fast as they are being killed.

Nov 9, 2025

Featured • Countering the Myths of Western Analysts on Ukraine, Larry C. Johnson, SONAR21, Nov 7, 2025
Good concise history of the war.

Nov 8, 2025

Featured • EU to establish ‘Ministry of Truth’ – Guardian, RT, Nov 8, 2025

The European Union is planning to launch a centralized hub for monitoring and countering what it calls foreign “disinformation,” according to a leaked document seen by the Guardian. Critics have long warned that Brussels’ initiatives amount to the institutionalization of a censorship regime.

According to the European Commission proposal, set to be published on November 12, the so-called Centre for Democratic Resilience will function as part of a broader “democracy shield” strategy, pitched by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen ahead of the 2024 [?] European elections.

...Washington, once a partner in joint “disinformation” monitoring through the now-defunct Global Engagement Center, has since distanced itself from the EU’s regulatory push. The US State Department recently described the bloc’s initiatives as “Orwellian,” stating that “censorship is not freedom” and warning that such measures only serve to shield European leaders “from their own people.”

“If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you,” US Vice President J.D. Vance told the Munich Security Conference in February, referring to the Romanian election. “If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.”

The Ukrainian government had given order to hold Pokrovsk no matter what. The Commander in Chief General Syrsky had to push all units he could scrap together from elsewhere into the battle only to fail with his counterattack. The time for retreat from Pokrovsk and Myrnograd has past. Ukrainian troops who are still there will have to give up or die.

This has been a repeating pattern with multiple cities the Ukrainians have lost over time. For some political reason the order is given to hold on until it is too late to recover the forces. Thus many soldiers inevitably die for not good purpose.

...It is no wonder then that many decide to flee from the army before it is their turn to be sacrificed for zero gain (machine translation):

...The Ukrainian army is done with. It has no reserves. It lags weapons, munitions and soldiers. It has many ragtag units and only a few competent ones. Its retreat after Prokovsk will only accelerate.

Indeed, where is the better side of real-existing Zelensky-ism? Is it the humungous corruption? The Bakhmut-style military fiascos, the Kursk Kamikaze incursion, and now Pokrovsk? The fact that the media have been mercilessly streamlined? The raging nepotism that makes sure that the poor fight and the sons and daughters of Ukraine’s gangsterish “elite” go on holidays and party? The personality cult?

Or is it – and this brings us to the great irony – that Zelensky-Ukraine is allegedly in sync with “Western values”? And do you know what? It really is! But not the way that the propagandists of both Ukraine and the NATO-EU West want us to believe. What the Zelensky regime and its supporters in the EU really have in common is that neither care about either democracy or the rule of law.

Zelensky going after critics with individual financial sanctions to evade normal legal procedures and leave his victims not even a slim chance to defend themselves, for instance? That is exactly what Germany and the EU are now doing to the journalist Hüseyin Dogru, and not only to him. Zelensky using a perverted reading of the law to harass whoever does not submit or is a political danger to him? Bingo again. That as well is now EU practice, too. Ask, for instance, Marine Le Pen in France. Finally, widespread abuse of political office for self-enrichment and influence peddling? Bingo again: Less than a month ago, the Financial Times ran a detailed article on “scores” of EU parliament members who “earn income from second jobs in areas that overlap with their lawmaking,” raising “questions about disclosure of potential conflicts of interest.” How delicately put. And it sounds just like Ukraine’s Rada.

Here’s the real news: The “dark side” of Zelensky’s rule is all of Zelensky’s rule. And it is also what has become the new normal in an increasingly authoritarian and corrupt EU. Who has learned from whom? Kiev from NATO-EU Europe or vice versa? Either way, this is not a bug but a feature. And it must stop. Everywhere.

Nov 3, 2025

Featured • U.S. foreign policy in contention: Is Trump allowed to agree a deal with China (but not Russia or Iran)?, Alastair Crooke, Strategic Culture Foundation, Nov 3, 2025

Yet the big question remains unanswered: Who controls U.S. foreign policy anyway?

One obvious answer after the Budapest (no) summit débacle is that Trump has little or no agency in this corner of foreign policy. He is wholly co-opted. And was sent a blunt ‘reminder’ to this effect, from the ‘powers that be’ – ‘No normalisation with Moscow’.

Ceasefire, ‘yes’; because a frozen conflict, unencumbered by restrictions on Ukrainian re-armament, would give the NATO Establishment scope to redefine the conflict – from one of NATO’s strategic defeat to a ‘holding’ victory, through promulgating the narrative of a Russian economy progressively weakening.

This contrived formulation holds out — at least in the minds of Europeans – the promise of some final ceasefire at a later stage, by imposing continuing serial costs on Russia that finally compel that ceasefire.

The ‘fly in soup’ to this scam is that Moscow absolutely will not agree to a frozen conflict — and anyway sees the battlespace working towards Russian victory.

The reality is that the Ukraine final outcome will be whatever ‘it is’. The Europeans know it, but cannot say it because they cannot orient to a world in which their way of seeing it does not prevail. If this Luddism be counted as western ‘leverage’, then it is ephemeral and will fade as economic realities bite in Europe.

What then accounts for Trump’s Russian débacle? On the one hand, it was the veto of pro-Israel mega-donors, for whom a militarily hegemonic U.S. – supporting Israel – must be preserved at all costs. Israel cannot exist without it. Many, if not all Team Trump, have been imposed from the outside – by certain zealot donors and likeminded billionaires. (Trump was surprisingly candid about this reality during his address at the Knesset last month).

Some of these Trump donors are also part of the (separate) Wall Street faction who, besides being pro-Zionist, have wider financial concerns in mind. The U.S. financial system desperately requires reinforcing with collateral (i.e. assets having inherent value: such as oil, natural resources, etc.) as underpinning to an over-leveraged U.S. shadow banking system.

This Wall Street (Frankish) pro-Israel faction still harks after a reprise of ‘Russia in the nineties’ (however unlikely). But they share also, with the main pro-Israeli donor block, Israel’s determination to keep Russia out of the Middle East; and extended by the Ukraine conflict. On 7 October this year, Netanyahu begged Putin not to arm Iran, reportedly threatening retaliation in Ukraine.

Ukrainian sources claim the feckless operation was to disrupt enemy positions, clear strongpoints, and restore supply lines, but this is nonsensical. The first mission, which was launched the night of 28 October, dropped 11 GUR commandos in an open field northwest of Pokrovsk’s industrial zone. Video showed troops disembarking and fanning out rapidly. Insertion was at night/low visibility to minimize detection, but Russian reconnaissance drones spotted the low-flying helicopter and destroyed the 11 commandos.

The subsequent mission, which was launched on the night of 30 October using two Blackhawk helicopters, inserted two groups (total ~20–24 troops) in the same general area and they suffered the same fate as the first group.

To understand the purpose of these two failed missions you need to understand the relationship between the GUR and the CIA. Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR, or HUR in Ukrainian), the military intelligence agency under the Ministry of Defense, has developed one of the closest partnerships with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) among any foreign service. This relationship, forged in secrecy after the 2014 Maidan Revolution and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, reportedly transformed the GUR from a Soviet-era remnant infiltrated by Russian agents into a sophisticated operator renowned for audacious strikes against Moscow. The CIA invested tens of millions of dollars in rebuilding the GUR, providing training, equipment, and secure facilities, while sharing intelligence that proved critical during Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. Former U.S. officials describe it as a “historic opportunity” to counter Russia, with the GUR becoming “our little baby.”

While the Western media reports claim that this operation was supported by NATO, I think the more likely explanation is that this was a joint-CIA-GUR operation to extract CIA paramilitary officers who were operating with Ukrainian forces in and around Pokrovsk. I don’t think we are talking about junior CIA personnel… I think there are at least a couple, if not more, senior CIA paramilitary officers who are now trapped in Pokrovsk.

Nov 2, 2025

Featured • Russia’s Military Advantage Over NATO, Larry C. Johnson, SONAR21, Nov 1, 2025

Underestimating one’s opponent, whether it is a sporting event or a military confrontation is a recipe for disaster. If you watch the mainstream media in the West, you are subjected to a flood of claims by former military and intelligence officers about the weakness and incompetence of the Russians. If you take time to watch my interviews with Russian military correspondent Sladkov and retired Russian Colonel Basurin, they eschew making such characterizations of the West… The US military in particular. For them, war is serious business and requires that one respect the opponent.

The news that the Pentagon has approved shipping Tomahawk missiles to Russia is a potential disaster for the West. One thing I heard from most of the people I interviewed during my time in Russia is that the deployment of this weapon to Ukraine is a red line for Russia because that missile can carry a nuclear warhead. If President Trump decides to do this, and one or more of those missiles are launched into Russia, then the Russian response will be severe and is likely to extend beyond Ukraine. Because the Russians believe that a Tomahawk can only be launched with direct participation by US military personnel, I cannot rule out the possibility that Russia will retaliate by hitting the continental US if the Tomahawk hits a sensitive target in Moscow or St. Petersburg… Donald Trump is playing with nuclear fire.

The key point here, however, is that the concept of Ukrainian victory has been completely transformed. There is now no real discussion of how Ukraine can win on the ground. For the Ukrainian bloc, the war is no longer a contest against the Russian Army, but a more abstract contest against Russia’s willingness to incur strategic costs. Rather than preventing Russian capture of the Donbas, the west is testing how much Putin is willing to pay for it. If history is any guide, a game predicated on outlasting Russia’s strategic endurance and willingness to fight is a very bad game to play indeed.

Civilizations, long compressed under the liberal order, rise again as living entities with distinct souls, memories, and horizons. The Multipolar Age does not promise peace; it promises reality. It restores importance to words like sovereignty, destiny, and culture. In this shifting geopolitical landscape, diplomacy becomes the final instrument of sanity: the art of survival between nuclear titans and exhausted empires.

Diplomacy is the single instrument capable of responsible scale in a world armed with atomic power. Dialogue sustains order in a field prone to entropy. Communication surpasses silence. The barren hostility of earlier American leadership revealed the danger of disengagement. Conversation signifies neither defeat nor submission; it reveals that each civilization bears solid boundaries of fear, memory, and identity.

To grasp this moment, one must examine Washington and London, rather than Moscow. The decisive variables remain Western: electoral appetites, donor webs, ideological blindness, and the dread of forfeiting planetary control. “Russia expertise” distracts from the true paralysis within the Atlanticist citadel, which still imagines itself righteous and indispensable. The transoceanic fraternity of power – stretching from Anglo-America to Brussels – crowns its dominance with the halo of virtue.

Nov 1, 2025

Featured • The US Can’t Break Russia, Larry C. Johnson, SONAR21, Oct 30, 2025

During my recent sojourn in Russia, a common theme from the people I interviewed was the failure of the West to comprehend that Russia is NOT dependent on international trade… Russia is self-sufficient in all critical natural resources. It looks like the US intelligence community (IC) is slowly beginning to grasp this, although most of the IC continues to falsely assert that Russia is suffering massive casualties and facing an economic collapse.

...It is time for President Trump and his national security team to wake up and accept the fact that there is nothing the West can do to alter Russia’s stated intention to de-militarize and de-nazify Ukraine… NOTHING! The only deal that Russia will entertain is what Putin presented last year to the Russian Foreign Ministry. On June 14, 2024, President Vladimir Putin declared that Russia would end the war in Ukraine only if Kyiv ceded the entirety of four regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia—to Russian control and formally renounced any intention to join NATO. Putin demanded that Ukraine withdraw its military from these regions within their full administrative borders (including areas not currently occupied by Russian forces), formalize its neutrality, and accept demilitarization. He also insisted that Western countries lift sanctions against Russia as part of any settlement.

For some unknown reason, the CIA analysts are ignoring what Putin and the rest of his government have been saying for more than a year. But the deluded analysts are only part of the problem… Donald Trump and his national security team continue to labor under the illusion that the the United States has leverage over Russia and can force Putin to acquiesce to the West. Ain’t gonna happen!

Ukrainian parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk at the Bundeswehr artillery school, Idar-Oberstein, Germany, October 12, 2025.

Kiev's Western European backers must target Russia's assets held in the EU if they are to continue to fund Ukraine's conflict with Russia, British outlet The Economist has reported.

Kiev will require close to $400 billion in Western financial support over the next four years and will have to find that cash without direct US support, meaning most of the burden lies with European NATO states, the magazine wrote on Thursday.

The outlet warned that if funding is not secured, Ukraine will be “destroyed” and NATO’s cohesion could “break.”

November 2025

October 2025

September 2025

August 2025

July 2025

June 2025

May 2025

April 2025

March 2025

February 2025

January 2025

December 2024

November 2024

October 2024

September 2024

August 2024

July 2024

June 2024

May 2024

April 2024

March 2024

February 2024

January 2024

December 2023

November 2023

October 2023

September 2023

August 2023

July 2023

June 2023

May 2023

April 2023

March 2023

February 2023

January 2023

December 2022

November 2022

 • ‘The Real Purpose In Making The Bomb Was To Subdue The Soviets.’ Now It’s Happening Again, On A Vast Scale. Why? – July 22 At Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos Reporter, Jul 19, 2023

 • Bulletin 330: "'The real purpose in making the bomb was to subdue the Soviets.'* Now it's happening again, on a vast scale. WHY?" A conversation with acclaimed historian Peter Kuznick and Greg Mello in Los Alamos, July 22, Jul 7, 2023

 • Ukraine War Makes it Harder to be a Nuclear ‘Dove’ | Our Land, Laura Paskus, New Mexico in Focus, Jun 30, 2023

 • Bulletin 329: Russia rules out nuclear disarmament negotiations; second week of Ukrainian offenses fail; what will US and NATO do? Build 60 projects in LANL's Pajarito Corridor?, Jun 17, 2023

 • Ukraine; Biden's Manicheism; the U.S. cannot even conduct a nuclear arms race, let alone win one, LASG friends ltr, Mar 16, 2023

 • Ukraine protest and updates, pit production delays and cost increases in NNSA's new budget, LASG friends ltr, Mar 14, 2023

 • Antiwar rally 2 pm Saturday in Albuquerque; LANL pits delayed, endorse the "Call for Sanity"; Ukraine update; the Nordstream investigation (and likely impeachment) "imperative" LASG friends ltr, Mar 11, 2023
 • Ukraine losses mount toward critical point; ANSWER rally against the war is now 2 pm (not 1 pm), March 18, Albuquerque; nearly half U.S. citizens believe WWIII is near, LASG friends ltr, Mar 7, 2023

 • Ukraine news and views; antiwar rally March 18; pending guest editorial; pit production precis, LASG friends ltr, Mar 3, 2023

 • Bulletin 325: Understanding the Nordstream sabotage and punishing those responsible, Feb 18, 2023

 • Ukraine news with comments and excerpts; bookmark for future reference if desired,LASG friends ltr, Feb 8, 2023

 • Bulletin 324: Opposition to Ukraine war gains visibility in New Mexico and via our web site, more broadly, Feb 6, 2023

 • Anti-nuclear activist opposes helping Ukraine, encourages peace, Santa Fe New Mexican, Feb 5, 2023

 • Bulletin 323: "Nuclear Hotseat" interview / Ukraine war updates, Feb 4, 2023

 • Bulletin 322: Right and Left To Join in D.C. Protest: ‘Not One More Penny for War in Ukraine’ / Bulletin of Atomic Scientists resets clock, blames Russia, Jan 25, 2023

 • $10 Trillion for Nuclear War: Racing to the Nuclear Cliff, The Socialist Program with Brian Becker, Jan 10, 2023

 • Bulletin 321: Last day for 2022 donations! / A few quick updates, Dec 31, 2022

 • Bulletin 320: Neocon humiliation -- or nuclear exchange / The centrality of war resistance in moral politics / 3 days left for 1:1 donation match!, Dec 29, 2022

 • Bulletin 319: Ukraine; NDAA: omnibus appropriations bill; fundraising --thank you; some matching funds still available, Dec 21, 2022

 • Stop the war now, Jean Nichols, The Taos News, Dec 19, 2022

 • Bulletin 318: Speak out now against further U.S. escalation in Ukraine; daily updates for your use, Dec 14, 2022

 • Agenda for tonight's emergency Ukraine meeting in Albuquerque, and by Zoom, Nov 15, 2022

 • Bulletin 314: Reminder re next week's antiwar, disarmament, & nuclear safety events: come if you can or tune in, outreach needed; pit interview on KNME tonight 7 pm; fundraising drive continues; erratum, Nov 11, 2022

 • Bulletin 313: Important meeting about Ukraine next week; DNFSB hearing in Santa Fe; more, Nov 7, 2022

 • Biden Administration releases aggressive nuclear strategy envisioning "first use" of nuclear weapons in wars like Ukraine, press release, Oct 27, 2022

 • Bulletin 310: Speak up! We urge you to take up the call for peace in Ukraine, Sep 25, 2022

 • Pope Francis: "World War III has been declared." We agree. Stop LANL's pit factory; Stop the U.S. war against Russia, presentation, Jun 15, 2022

 • Bulletin 301: Oppose the war! Demand and create accountability for lawmakers who fund and promote more war in Ukraine, May 16, 2022

 • Grave dangers loom in Ukraine war votes and escalations; opportunities open for journalists and citizens; We urge news media to widen debate, pose questions, create accountability, press release, May 16, 2022

 • LASG friends ltr: Thursday evening public discussion in Albuquerque: Ukraine, propaganda, progressives supporting Nazis and war, May 10, 2022

 • Escalation in Ukraine: The Nuclear War Danger is Real, Brian Becker & Greg Mello discuss the U.S. policy of waging proxy war on Russia, BreakThrough News, May 4, 2022

 • Bulletin 299: Emergency call to action: stop Biden's proposed $33 billion war escalation, Apr 28, 2022

 • Bulletin 298: Talk on pits & renewed U.S. nuclear weapons production Tuesday evening 4/26/22; antiwar billboard; what you can do, Apr 25, 2022

 • The core debate, Searchlight New Mexico, Mar 23, 2022

 • Bulletin 294: Please consider forwarding this fine statement from UNAC re Ukraine, Mar 23, 2022

 • Nuclear expert speaks on the dangers of war between the US and Russia, World Socialist Website, Mar 15, 2022

 • A Proposed Solution to the Ukraine War, Consortium News, Greg Mello, Mar 7, 2022

 • Bulletin 293: Ukraine conflict: If you want a ceasefire (as we do), stop firing, Mar 5, 2022

 • Bulletin 292: Statement on the Ukraine conflict and war with Russia, Mar 1, 2022

 • "What can we in New Mexico do?," LASG letter, Feb 23, 2022

 • Bulletin 288: US nuclear weapons since 2020: continuity and change, Dec 7, 2021 (see discussion of US, NATO, and Russia)

 • Nuclear experts speak on the dangers of war between the US and Russia, World Socialist Web Site, Apr 15, 2017

 • US Leaders Reject “Nuclear Winter” Studies, Ignore Existential Danger of Nuclear War. Turn a Blind Eye towards Armageddon, Steven Starr, Global Research, Nov 1, 2016

 • The Ukraine Conflict: What's Behind It? Why Is It Important?, Sep 26, 2015

 • Bulletin 200: Warhead budget bloat; U.S.-caused Ukraine catastrophe at the brink; hello peak oil, Feb 8, 2015