Tag: perpetual war

Russian Forces About To Conquer Key Donetsk Bastion of Pokrovsk After Campaign of Attrition and New Infiltration Tactics

Key Donetsk city of Pokrovsk is about to turn back to being called by its Russian name Krasnoarmeysk.

After a 21-month battle, Russian forces have spread rapidly through Pokrovsk, a Donetsk region bastion where Ukrainian soldiers have begun to surrender.

In many ways, Pokrovsk is the ‘new Bakhmut’ – the city that the world’s media focuses on, an important Volodymyr Zelensky’s PR city.

And we know that it’s about to be lost because sources in the MSM are already stating that ‘Pokrovsk has no strategic value’ – as it has been the case with every major Russian conquest in this war.

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Norway to Send $7 Billion to Ukraine – Everyone is Sending Funds Ahead of 2026

Norway is providing Ukraine with an additional $7 billion in 2026, or an astounding 1.23% of GDP. Norwegian Defense Minister Tore O. Sandvik invited Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal to participate for the first time in the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) meeting. The two sides signed a memorandum to establish joint defense manufacturing in Ukraine, and a subsequent memorandum to establish unified quality standards for such products.

Norway is building defense industry links with Ukraine and positioning itself as a major player in the European/NATO frameworks. Norway gave Ukraine the green light for free trade back in April 2025. The Norwegian government already poured $15 billion into Ukraine since the start of the war in 2022, but nothing among governments is charity.

All European leaders believe Ukraine has a chance of winning this war, with those at the top believing it will provide them with access to the riches of Russia. Governments are broken beyond repair. The belief in Brussels if that sovereign debt defaults could be avoided through raiding Russia and profiting on the ongoing war.

Norway’s long-term Nansen Support Programme framework envisages providing a total of 275 billion kroner (about $27 billion) in aid to Ukraine for the period 2023-2030. The nation believes it can rebuild Ukraine through green initiatives, collaborating with Nordic Environmental Finance Corporation (Nefco) to provide Ukraine 25.5 million euros in green infrastructure projects. Nefco had already been operating in Ukraine for 20 years, but managed to mobilize 400 million euros since 2022 for, or through, Ukraine.

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Venezuela’s Oil, US-Led Regime Change, and America’s Gangster Politics

The United States is dusting off its old regime-change playbook in Venezuela. Although the slogan has shifted from “restoring democracy” to “fighting narco-terrorists,” the objective remains the same, which is control of Venezuela’s oil. The methods followed by the US are familiar: sanctions that strangle the economy, threats of force, and a $50 million bounty on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as if this were the Wild West.

The US is addicted to war. With the renaming of the Department of War, a proposed Pentagon budget of $1.01 trillion, and more than 750 military bases across some 80 countries, this is not a nation pursuing peace. For the past two decades, Venezuela has been a persistent target of US regime change. The motive, which is clearly laid out by President Donald Trump, is the roughly 300 billion barrels of oil reserves beneath the Orinoco belt, the largest petroleum reserves on the planet.

In 2023, Trump openly stated: “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil… but now we’re buying oil from Venezuela, so we’re making a dictator very rich.” His words reveal the underlying logic of US foreign policy that has an utter disregard for sovereignty and instead favors the grabbing of other country’s resources. .

What’s underway today is a typical US-led regime-change operation dressed up in the language of anti-drug interdiction. The US has amassed thousands of troops, warships, and aircraft in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The president has boastfully authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela.

On October 26, 2025, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) went on national television to defend recent US military strikes on Venezuelan vessels and to say land strikes inside Venezuela and Colombia are a “real possibility.” Florida Sen. Rick Scott, in the same news cycle, mused that if he were Nicolás Maduro he’d “head to Russia or China right now.” These senators aim to normalize the idea that Washington decides who governs Venezuela and what happens to its oil. Remember that Graham similarly champions the US fighting Russia in Ukraine to secure the $10 trillion of mineral wealth that Graham fatuously claims are available for the US to grab.

Nor are Trump’s moves a new story vis-à-vis Venezuela. For more than 20 years, successive US administrations have tried to submit Venezuela’s internal politics to Washington’s will. In April 2002, a short-lived military coup briefly ousted then-President Hugo Chávez. The CIA knew the details of the coup in advance, and the US immediately recognized the new government. In the end, Chávez retook power. Yet the US did not end its support for regime change.

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State Department Says US Is Not Withdrawing from Iraq

A US State Department spokesperson told Shafaq News on Wednesday that the US is not withdrawing from Iraq but shifting its military role to a “bilateral relationship” under a deal that will end the mission of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition in the country.

The official made the comment in response to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani saying that Baghdad will only disarm the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a group of mostly Shia militias, including some that are aligned with Iran, once the US-led coalition leaves Iraq.

The Trump administration has been demanding that Iraq disarm the PMF, which was formed in 2014 to fight ISIS and is considered part of Iraq’s security forces. The State Department official speaking to Shafaq said Iraq must dismantle the “Iran-backed militias” and accused the groups of engaging in “violent and destabilizing activities in Iraq.”

“Their actions drain the country’s resources and act against its national interests,” the spokesperson said. Referring to the US plans for its military presence in Iraq, the spokesperson said, “This is not a withdrawal. It is a shift toward a more traditional bilateral relationship in the areas of security and diplomacy.”

Last year, the US and Iraq signed a deal that would end the mission of the US-led coalition in Iraq by September 2026, but at the time of the signing, the Biden administration said that the US was “not withdrawing from Iraq.”

The US has recently withdrawn some military personnel from the country, but the War Department has said fewer than 2,000 US troops will remain. The US is keeping troops at the Ain al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq, at the Erbil Air Base in Iraqi Kurdistan, and a small number of advisors will remain in Baghdad.

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VIPS MEMO: What Wider War in Venezuela Would Bring

ALERT MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY (VIPS)

SUBJECT: What Wider War in Venezuela Would Bring

Dear President Trump:

We are deeply concerned about where the United States seems to be headed in its Venezuela policy and urge you to demand that the Intelligence Community give you clear, unfiltered, “truth-to-power” analysis, as well as covert action options in Venezuela.

Flying blind into an unprovoked war against a Latin American government, even one weakened by years of U.S. “maximum-pressure” sanctions, risks a conflagration that could draw Russia into the conflict and offers zero probability of establishing a legitimate, pro-U.S. successor government.

We see a classic storm of politicization brewing in the Intelligence Community, to which we devoted our careers, as a result of blatant pressures that it give you the “right” answer – fabricating or exaggerating a pretext for direct military intervention in Venezuela.

The State Department’s cancelation of views that don’t coincide with its own, and the intelligence community leadership’s firing of senior analysts whose classified, honest analysis contradicted unfounded Administration allegations that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro controls the Tren de Aragua gang and is using it to attack the United States have chilled collectors’ and analysts’ willingness to provide you unbiased, neutral, accurate intelligence.

We have seen this before – during numerous intelligence and foreign policy debacles, including the fake allegations about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And we remember the disastrous consequences for the country and its leaders.

There is room for some debate on the rationale for some sanctions on Venezuela. Maduro’s management of elections has been correctly questioned, for example. But U.S. opposition to the changes ushered in by the late President Chávez’s election in 1999 has been, for most of these 26 years, implacable.

The U.S. government, under Presidents from both parties, has imposed sanctions to paralyze the country’s economy; identified, trained, and funded opponents, including some who have resorted to violence similar to that we accuse the government of; and – even more important – has supported several failed attempts to overthrow the Chávez and Maduro Governments (with varying levels of involvement), including a blatant attempt to assassinate Maduro in plain daylight.

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YouTube deletes hundreds of videos documenting Israeli war crimes

YouTube, owned by Google LLC, has deleted more than 700 videos documenting Israeli human rights violations, citing compliance with US sanctions imposed on Palestinian human rights groups cooperating with the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to an investigation by The Intercept published on 5 November.

The investigation revealed that the videos were removed after US President Donald Trump’s administration sanctioned three Palestinian organizations over their work with the ICC on war crimes cases against Israeli leaders.

The organizations sanctioned are Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

The deletions, carried out in early October, erased years of archives detailing Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including footage of home demolitions, civilian killings, and torture testimonies from Palestinians. 

Among the deleted material were investigations into the murder of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and documentaries such as ‘The Beach’, which recounts the killing of children by an Israeli airstrike as they played by the sea.

YouTube confirmed the removals were made in compliance with “trade and export laws” after Trump sanctioned the groups. 

Human rights advocates said the company’s decision effectively aided US efforts to suppress evidence of Israeli atrocities.

“It’s really hard to imagine any serious argument that sharing information from these Palestinian human rights organizations would somehow violate sanctions,” said Sarah Leah Whitson of Democracy for the Arab World Now.

The Center for Constitutional Rights condemned the decision as an attempt to erase war crimes evidence, while Al-Haq described the move as “an alarming setback for human rights and freedom of expression.” 

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said YouTube’s action “protects perpetrators from accountability,” accusing Google of complicity in silencing victims of Israeli aggression.

Al Mezan stated that its channel was removed without warning. The three organizations warned that US-based platforms hosting similar content could soon face the same censorship, potentially erasing further documentation of Israeli war crimes.

The Intercept investigation highlighted YouTube’s bias, noting that pro-Israel material remains largely untouched while Palestinian narratives are disproportionately targeted.

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Putin Orders Military to Submit Proposals for Testing Nuclear Weapons

At a meeting with the Russian Security Council, President Vladimir Putin instructed the defense ministry to submit a proposal for testing a nuclear weapon. Last week, President Donald Trump ordered the Department of War to prepare to test a nuclear weapon. 

“Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed the Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry, intelligence agencies, and civilian agencies to submit proposals on the possibility of preparing for nuclear weapons tests,” Russian state media, TASS, reported on Tuesday. “Russia warned that if other countries conduct nuclear tests, it would be forced to take retaliatory action, he stated during a meeting with the Russian Security Council.”

Defense Minister Andrey Belousov said that it was expedient to begin preparations for full-scale nuclear tests immediately.

Nuclear weapons testing was rampant during the Cold War, but has largely stopped because of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Both Moscow and Washington are signatories to the agreement, although the world’s two largest nuclear powers have not ratified it. 

Last week, just an hour before meeting with Chinese President Xi, Trump posted on Truth Social, “The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office.” 

He continued, “Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years. Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”

On Sunday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright clarified Trump’s statement, saying, “I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests. These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call non-critical explosions.”

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With Venezuela, Trump poised to make mistake of epic proportions

After another week of extra-judicial strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, the U.S. is now reportedly preparing to hit military targets in Venezuela.

International condemnation of the strikes has been widespread. For example, Jean-Noël Barrot, French Minister of Foreign Affairs and Europe, accused the U.S. of ignoring international and maritime law in an interview on Thursday.

But the neoconservative lobby inside the Trump administration is unmoved.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the lead proponent of regime change in Venezuela, has pushed for these actions — allegedly as part of an effort to get tough on drug cartels, framing the Latin American nation through a “narco-terrorism” lens.

Washington’s “narco-terrorism” frame has pedigree; the DOJ indicted Maduro on narco-terrorism charges in 2020, but today’s drug threat picture looks different from that narrative.

Strategically, the label misaligns ends and means: it invites military solutions to problems that the DEA and Coast Guard still characterize primarily as law-enforcement interdiction.

It also simplifies a complex geopolitical picture, all the while increasing the risk of entangling the U.S. in an open-ended conflict in the Western Hemisphere.

The DEA’s 2024–2025 threat assessments identify fentanyl as the top U.S. drug danger, synthesized mainly in Mexico with precursors from China. Meanwhile, UNODC data show record coca cultivation and cocaine output centered in Colombia, with Venezuela functioning primarily as a transit route.

Yet, Washington’s “counternarcotics” rhetoric has already translated into military escalation, and with it come significant diplomatic, economic, and political risks.

Escalation might threaten U.S. energy interests, particularly Chevron’s limited license to import Venezuelan crude, a lifeline for U.S. Gulf Coast refineries that remain reliant on the country’s uniquely heavy oil.

Escalation could also bolster Maduro rather than undermine him. For a leader whose “anti-imperialist rhetoric” enhances domestic legitimacy, U.S. aggression is politically beneficial.

Caracas has already surged troops and naval deployments along key coastal routes and encouraged auxiliary mobilization, explicitly linking the moves to U.S. buildups in the Caribbean.

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World War Gorka

News comes this weekend that the ‘Department of War’ now has Nigeria in its crosshairs. Taking to Truth Social on Saturday, Trump let loose on the Nigerian government, warning that,

…If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities, I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians.”

In this administration some Christians are more cherished than others; Trump and Co. have shown zero sympathy for the scores of Palestinian Christians murdered by the IDF and Benjamin Netanyahu, a frequent and honored guest at the White House and on Capitol Hill. That aside, the planned Nigeria operation is clearly the product of the capacious imagination of Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s chief counter-terrorism adviser.

Who is this Gorka?

Before coming to the White House he was a radio host (“America First with Sebastian Gorka”) and a pitchman for Relief Factor, a dietary supplement. America First? An odd name for a program hosted by someone with British, Hungarian and American citizenship – and with probable ties to foreign intelligence. Those ties cost him a job during Trump’s first term. After his ignominious exit from the White House in 2017, Gorka spent the Biden interregnum glued to Trump’s side, appearing alongside a gaggle of future Trump II officials during Trump’s trial in New York.

If he has any talent at all (itself a debatable proposition) it is for ass-kissing. Here he is on Facebook in late September posting about Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s eulogy for Charlie Kirk:

I was born a Catholic and have walked this Earth for 54 years. Before dedicating a quarter of a century to Counterterrorism, my first degree was in Philosophy and Theology.

But I will say for the record, I have never seen a human being encapsulate in 90 seconds the meaning of Jesus Christ like Acting National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Thank you Sir.

No. Thank you, Sebastian.

Gorka is not merely a fool. He is a religious fanatic (there being significant overlap between the two categories).

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Pokrovsk Falls, Another Cauldron In Myrnograd

Pokrovsk captured by RF yesterday. Another cauldron in Myrnograd. Azov batallion disobeyed the orders to enter Pokrovsk 2 days ago and withdrew behind Pokrovsk. HUR battalion sent to Pokrovsk and Myrnograd to try to kick out the Russian troops.

Our sources in the Presidential Administration reported that Syrsky reported to Zelenskyy today that Pokrovsk has been lost; the city can no longer be recaptured by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The General Staff will focus on lifting the siege of Myrnohrad, and reserves are continuing to be deployed to Dobropillia for this purpose.

Pokrovsk is a key logistic hub for Ukrainian forces to supply the Donbass war effort and the loss of the city is a serious blow to Kyiv.

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