Tag: perpetual war

Syria Set To Allow Russia To Keep Its Strategic Military Bases In Country

Since the fall of longtime Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in December of last year, which has since drastically changed Syria into a hardline Sunni state no longer aligned with Tehran or Moscow, Russia’s military began slowly moving its military assets from the region, essentially packing up its bases. 

Moscow has been seeking to negotiate with the new regime regime in Damascus to keep its two historic bases on the coast, especially the naval base at Tartus, which was for decades Russia’s only deep-water Mediterranean naval port.

Behind the scenes negotiations have seem stalled for months, with little news, however, on Monday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov weighed in after being silent on the issue. Khmeimim Air Base has lately played host to thousands of Alawite and Christian refugees being persecuted by Sunni radicals, including by government Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) troops.

Lavrov made clear that the Sharaa government is looking favorably on allowing Russia to keep its military presence on the coast, but under the guise of a more humanitarian and logistics purpose.

“Syria would like to maintain Russian military bases in the country, but may repurpose them for different tasks amid new realities, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a meeting with journalists from Arab countries,” according to TASS.

“The Syrian side is interested in maintaining our military bases there. As our president has repeatedly said, we will be guided by Syria’s interests in this matter,” he emphasized. “It is clear that under the new circumstances, these bases may play a different role, not just as military outposts,” Lavrov added.

“In particular, given the need to establish humanitarian flows to Africa, these may be sea and air bases serving as humanitarian hubs for sending humanitarian cargoes there, including to the Sahara-Sahel zone and other countries in need,” Lavrov specified.

Damascus and its new rulers may have come to the practical conclusion that it’s better for Russia to have a foothold in the region, at a moment Israel has continued to bomb Syrian cities and military sites with impunity. 

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Tomahawk Missiles Are A Problem For Both Trump And Putin

President Donald Trump warned Russia that he may send Ukraine long-range Tomahawk missiles if Moscow doesn’t settle its war there soon — suggesting that he could be ready to increase the pressure on Vladimir Putin’s government using a key weapons system.

“I might say, ’Look: if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew to Israel. “The Tomahawk is an incredible weapon, very offensive weapon. And honestly, Russia does not need that.”

Trump also said, “I might tell them that if the war is not settled — that we may very well.” He added, “We may not, but we may do it. I think it’s appropriate to bring up.”(1)

And former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday that supplying U.S. Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine could end badly for everyone, especially U.S. President Donald Trump.

Medvedev said it is impossible to distinguish between Tomahawk missiles carrying nuclear warheads and conventional ones after they are launched – a point that President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman has also made. “How should Russia respond? Exactly!” Medvedev said on Telegram, appearing to hint that Moscow’s response would be nuclear.(2)

However, Medvedev is known for his harsh statements that are not always in line with the Kremlin’s decisions. That is why the reaction to the mentioned topic from a serious Russian politician and geopolitical analyst, often present in the state media and close to the Kremlin – Senator Aleksey Pushkov is important as he reflected on the importance of this topic for Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the USA.

“Today, the decision to supply Kiev with Tomahawk missiles looks like a path towards an unlimited missile war against Russia, which will be even more difficult to avoid,” Pushkov said.

“The issue is being discussed in the US, Europe and, of course, Russia. However, in the West, the public debate is mainly focused on the political decision itself – whether to deliver or not – and not on the issues that should actually be discussed, nor on the consequences of such deliveries (if they occur). And that’s a shame, since there are very serious, I would say critical, questions about the Tomahawk.” — writes Pushkov on his Telegram channel.

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US Intelligence Has Been Enabling Ukraine’s Destruction Of Russian Energy Sites

Fresh reporting in the Financial Times offers more confirmation that the Trump administration has been escalating the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, in hopes of forcing Moscow to the negotiating table.

The Sunday report makes clear that “The US has for months been helping Ukraine mount long-range strikes on Russian energy facilities, in what officials say is a coordinated effort to weaken Vladimir Putin’s economy and force him to the negotiating table.”

“American intelligence shared with Kyiv has enabled strikes on important Russian energy assets including oil refineries far beyond the frontline, according to multiple Ukrainian and US officials familiar with the campaign,” it adds.

One source described Ukraine’s drone program as the tool the US is using to weaken Russia’s economy and pressure Putin into ending the war on terms more favorable to Kiev.

Washington has sunk billions of dollars in expanding Ukraine’s drone capabilities, with the CIA reportedly supporting the initiative. Attacks on Russian oil and energy sites have become almost a nightly occurrence. In many cases Russian anti-air defense fail to intercept the small drones – or else only destroy some among larger swarms.

FT provides a timeline of when this ramped-up intel sharing began. The program reportedly expanded based on a July phone call between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which Trump allegedly asked whether Ukraine could target Moscow if supplied with longer-range weapons.

The report relates this exchange as follows:

Trump signaled his backing for a strategy to “make them [Russians] feel the pain” and compel the Kremlin to negotiate, said the two people briefed on the call. The White House later said Trump was “merely asking a question, not encouraging further killing”.

After this, as if to demonstrate its existing capabilities to Washington, Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian energy sites sharply increased in August and September.

Interestingly, the FT notes that the Biden administration had avoided backing such strikes, but still authorized the supply of US Army ATACMS missiles, capable of reaching targets up to about 190 miles away, against Russian border areas.

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Israel Is the Excuse To Snatch Away Freedoms We Once Took for Granted

In interviews and a comment article over the weekend, the UK education secretary Bridget Phillipson made clear she plans to exploit the pause in the Gaza genocide to snuff out criticism of Israel’s criminal actions – and, of course, her own government’s collusion in that criminality.

Naturally, the British establishment media have been keen to amplify her message that there will be painful consequences both for individuals who continue protesting against Israeli atrocities and for institutions, such as universities, that mistakenly assume they have a duty to uphold centuries-old freedoms by tolerating such protests.

These protests, let us remember, are fully in line with a ruling last year from the International Court of Justice, the world’s highest court, which declared:

a) Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian territory and enforcing a system of apartheid rule over the Palestinian populations there – and has been doing so for decades.

b) Western governments are obligated to do what they can to bring that illegal occupation and Israel’s apartheid system to an end as quickly as possible.

Instead, those same governments are violating the ruling, and international law, both by continuing to support Israel’s criminality and by preventing their own citizens from putting pressure on them to end their support.

The government of Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has even categorized protest against genocide as “support for terrorism”. For the first time in British history, a direct-action group, Palestine Action, has been banned as a terrorist organization – in its case, for targeting weapons factories in Britain arming Israel’s genocide. It is now illegal to express any support for the group.

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Evaluating Trump’s Claim that Ukraine Can Win the War

“Ukraine,” U.S. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on September 23, “is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back.”

He came to this completely revised conclusion apparently having been briefed on battlefield and economic conditions by U.S. officials, including Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellog and Mike Waltz, who served very briefly as Trump’s National Security Advisor and is now the U.S. Ambassador to the UN. Coming out of those briefings, Trump was now convinced that Russia is “in BIG Economic trouble” and that “Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win.” His advisors stressed that Russia had not made significant territorial gains despite large-scale summer offensives.

After the revision in Trump’s assessment, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Trump now “clearly understands the situation and is well-informed about all aspects of this war.” But does he?

Trump now apparently thinks that Putin is vulnerable because Russia is in economic trouble, although it isn’t exactly clear what trouble Russia is in. The Russian government and central bank are certainly having to walk something of an economic tightrope, trying to lower inflation while not pushing the economy towards some sort of recession. Interest rates remain high, with the Russian Central Bank’s key rate at 17%, impacting consumer spending and investment. Inflation has, however, dropped to much more manageable levels than earlier in the war, and indeed than earlier this year.  Where inflation is now around 8%, it has been as high as just under 18% back in early 2022, still topping 10% earlier this year.

While Russian government plans to increase VAT to help fund the war may contribute to modest increases in inflation, the Russian Central Bank still expects inflation to be down to 6-7% by the end of the year. Lower inflation should allow for the cutting of interest rates. If all of this data was from a Western country it would be seen as positive, but there seems to be a determination on the part of some Western governments and observers to try to put a negative spin on any economic news out of Russia – regardless of what the news is.

Russia has weathered the harshest sanctions regime the West could muster. Russia has the fourth largest economy in the world when measured by purchasing-power parity, which is an assessment of the size of an economy adjusted for the cost of goods and services within it, and is a key measure used by the World Bank. Russia’s GDP growth continues to be more than respectable – currently still expected to be above 1% for 2025 even according to conservative figures. For the first time since the war began, the 2026 budget actually cuts military spending. Russia will officially spend 5.8% of GDP on defense spending. In comparison, Ukraine spends 34.48% of GDP on the military, the largest military burden in the world.

Russia may be facing some economic challenges, but Ukraine is undoubtedly in big trouble and is living hand to mouth. Ukraine has been, for some time, on the verge of economic collapse – and the IMF recently revealed that the situation is far worse than projected. Ukraine has received $145 billion in international aid since the war began, and they have a massive budget deficit they cannot pay. At this point the Ukrainian economy is essentially dependent on foreign assistance. While for the time being the EU currently seems content to carry on bailing Ukraine out, for how long that will last and whether it will be sufficient to keep Ukraine afloat remains to be seen.

The same negative trend for Ukraine is apparent not just for the money to fund the war, but for the troops to fight it. Even if Ukraine had all the money and weapons it needs to equip the war, it is running out of soldiers to fight it. By far the most serious shortage Ukraine is facing is manpower. Millions have left the country, hundreds of thousands have avoided the draft, and, worst of all, hundreds of thousands have been killed or seriously injured. Already by the end of 2023, a close aid to Zelensky had complained that, even if Ukraine had all the weapons they needed, they “don’t have the men to use them.” Two years later, the situation is very much worse.

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Another Nuclear Warning From Medvedev, This Time Over Tomahawks

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has issued a nuclear warning in the face of reports that Washington may authorize transferring US long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.

President Trump’s latest remarks weighing in on the issue saw him veil his intentions in usually cryptic wording. Aboard Air Force One while traveling to the Middle East earlier Monday he had said Tomahawks are a “very offensive weapon,” noting, “honestly, Russia does not need that.”

Headlines throughout the say said he ‘might’ approve of sending them. These are missiles capable of hitting Moscow. This is also as last month Trump surprised observers by claiming that Ukraine could still ‘win’ the war and actually regain territory.

Medvedev’s chilling response on Monday spelled out that this “could end badly for everyone … most of all, for Trump himself,” according to a translation of his Telegram post.

“It’s been said a hundred times, in a manner understandable even to the star-spangled man, that it’s impossible to distinguish a nuclear Tomahawk missile from a conventional one in flight,” Medvedev, who serves as the Russian Security Council Deputy Chair, further noted.

Medvedev here is alluding to Russian strategic doctrine. In a scenario where Moscow leaders believed or suspected a nuclear payload had been launched at Russia, its military would have the right to respond in kind, with nukes.

The past couple months have seen Trump and Medvedev direct threatening messages at each other, particularly related to Trump proclaiming that he had deployed a pair of nuclear submarines somewhere near Russia.

Thankfully it has all so far been confined to social media barbs, and not any clear instance of either side’s strategic forces being placed on emergency alert.

But Medvedev’s latest message is meant as a clear ‘red line’ warning to Washington – that things could rapidly and uncontrollably escalate in Ukraine if the US sends Tomahawk missiles to use against Russia.

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Legalized Mass Murder & the Balkans

Trump is on the WRONG side of this war with Russia, and this is the most significant risk of taking us into World War III. You cannot deal with the Balkans as if it were any other place in the world. The region has experienced centuries of imperial domination, forced religious conversion, and forced assimilation. Because these groups lived side-by-side for so long, their grievances are almost exclusively against each other. A Serb’s historical trauma is often linked to a Croat or an Ottoman (Bosniak), and vice versa. There is a cyclical pattern of eternal vengeance in the Balkans. The violence of the 1940s was avenged in the 1990s, creating a seemingly endless cycle where each generation feels it must settle the score for the last.

Then there has been the political manipulation—the most critical factor in the modern era. The hatred was not a spontaneous outburst; it was carefully, deliberately, and ruthlessly manufactured by elites for political gain over time. Bandera of Ukraine launched his ethnic cleansing to terminate anyone without Ukrainian blood to forge their own country, which today are the Neonazis who still market and display Bandera’s image following his call for ruthless ethnic cleansing. His image dominated the Maidan Revolution of 2014.

In conclusion, the ethnic hatred in the Balkans is a tragic story of how deep historical fault lines, when combined with the modern political tool of nationalism and weaponized by unscrupulous leaders, can be exploded into catastrophic violence. It is a stark warning about the power of history and the danger of politicians who use ethnic identity as a weapon. The West is now supporting the followers of Adolf Hitler. The ethnic hatred of the Ukrainians toward Russians started the separation movement of the Donbas when they were killing Russian-speaking people in Odessa, and the West turned a blind eye because the victims were Russians.

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Trump’s plan, Blair’s hand

Those who don’t die will meet again

There is an old saying that goes, “Those who don’t die will meet again,” which somehow fits politicians perfectly, because sooner or later, they all reappear on the political scene.

In fact, shortly after the announcement of the formal recognition of Palestine as a state, the United Kingdom sent former Prime Minister Tony Blair with the task of hindering the Palestinian self-determination process, in accordance with the so-called “Peace Agreement” of then-US President Donald Trump. A truly masterful move.

This decision once again highlighted the usual hypocrisy and colonial mentality of Washington, London, and, more generally, the West.

Who remembers Tony Blair?

It is worth giving a brief summary, because his presence is by no means a random choice.

The Middle East knows Blair well, especially for his infamous conduct during the 2003 Iraq War, alongside then-US President George W. Bush, leader of the so-called “war on terror.” On the strength of false accusations about weapons of mass destruction, Blair dragged Britain into a conflict that caused hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties, earning himself a well-deserved reputation as a war criminal. Nothing new, you might say, since the United Kingdom has been an imperialist entity for a long time.

This confirms that Blair is the last person who should appear in an organization called the “Peace Council.”

While Bush retired to a quiet life painting dogs and portraits of Vladimir Putin, Blair continued to make himself indispensable in the Middle East—and to reap considerable profits from it. After resigning as prime minister in 2007, he was appointed special envoy of the international “Quartet” – composed of the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations – officially committed to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue. A coincidence? No, not at all: the choice of an emissary with close ties to Israel made any progress towards genuine peace impossible, which shows us how much it was in the interests of the Western powers to maintain a certain tension in the region. At the same time, Blair’s diplomatic activities were intertwined with a network of extremely lucrative business deals in the region: consulting for Arab governments and private assignments, such as the one he took on in 2008 as senior advisor to the American investment bank JP Morgan, which paid him over $1 million a year.

No philanthropy, no spirit of humanitarian aid. When Blair attended meetings in the Middle East, no one knew which Tony Blair they were dealing with: the Quartet envoy, the founder of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, or the head of the consulting firm Tony Blair Associates.

On the other hand, the beauty of conflicts of interest is that they always pay off well.

For example, in 2009, he obtained radio frequencies from Israel to create a mobile phone network in the West Bank, in exchange for a commitment from the Palestinian leadership not to bring accusations of Israeli war crimes to the UN for Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in December 2008, during which approximately 1,400 Palestinians were killed in 22 days. Blair had private economic interests linked to that agreement: both Wataniya and JP Morgan had a lot to gain from the opening of the telecommunications market in the West Bank.

It is therefore easy to imagine that Blair will also have a certain interest in Trump’s plan for Palestine, perhaps with his Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, committed to “changing the world,” perhaps by helping Israel and the United States build the infamous 5-star resort that businessman Donald Trump has long dreamed of, as if capitalism and the tyranny of foreign investors could suffice for the Palestinians in place of freedom and security.

It therefore seems that the West’s “brilliant idea” (sic!) is once again to entrust the fate of Gaza to international war criminals. Not bad, right?

Today, Blair appears not simply as an “advisor,” but as an official charged with protecting the joint interests of Israel and the West in Gaza and managing the post-war transition phase.

Tony Blair’s experience in Iraq is a clear sign of his unreliability on the Palestinian question.

During the US invasion in 2003, thousands of civilians were killed and entire cities were destroyed. Blair, who convinced President Bush to wage that war, admitted years later that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that the military campaign had been based on falsified intelligence reports.

Despite these admissions, no international court has ever tried him for the serious violations of international law he committed.

Today, paradoxically, the same person is being proposed as a key figure in the “reconstruction” of Gaza, based on a supposed peace plan that in fact only protects Israeli interests.

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Russia Continues Bombardment of Ukraine Energy Infrastructure

Russia attacked Ukraine’s power grid overnight into Sunday, part of an ongoing campaign to cripple Ukrainian energy infrastructure before winter. This came as Moscow expressed “extreme concern” over the United States potentially providing Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukriane.

Kyiv regional Gov. Mykola Kalashnyk said two employees of Ukraine´s largest private energy company, DTEK, were wounded in Russian strikes on a substation in the region. Ukraine´s Energy Ministry said that energy infrastructure was also attacked in the regions of Donetsk, Odesa, and Chernihiv.

“Russia continues its aerial terror against our cities and communities, intensifying strikes on our energy infrastructure,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X, noting that Russia had launched “more than 3,100 drones, 92 missiles, and around 1,360 glide bombs” against Ukraine over the past week.

Zelenskyy also called for tighter secondary sanctions on buyers of Russian oil.

“Sanctions, tariffs, and joint actions against the buyers of Russian oil – those who finance this war – must all remain on the table,” he wrote on X.

The Ukrainian president said Saturday he had a “very positive and productive” phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump, in which he told Trump about Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy system and opportunities to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense. A day earlier, Zelenskyy said he was in discussions with U.S. officials about the possible provision of various long-range precision strike weapons, including Tomahawks and more ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles.

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Trump’s Sham Peace Plan

here is no shortage of failed peace plans in occupied Palestine, all of them incorporating detailed phases and timelines, going back to the presidency of Jimmy Carter. They end the same way. Israel gets what it wants initially — in the latest case the release of the remaining Israeli hostages — while it ignores and violates every other phase until it resumes its attacks on the Palestinian people.

It is a sadistic game. A merry-go-round of death. This ceasefire, like those of the past, is a commercial break. A moment when the condemned man is allowed to smoke a cigarette before being gunned down in a fusillade of bullets.

Once Israeli hostages are released, the genocide will continue. I do not know how soon. Let’s hope the mass slaughter is delayed for at least a few weeks. But a pause in the genocide is the best we can anticipate. Israel is on the cusp of emptying Gaza, which has been all but obliterated under two years of relentless bombing. It is not about to be stopped. This is the culmination of the Zionist dream. The United States, which has given Israel a staggering $22 billion in military aid since Oct, 7, 2023, will not shut down its pipeline, the only tool that might halt the genocide.

Israel, as it always does, will blame Hamas and the Palestinians for failing to abide by the agreement, most probably a refusal — true or not — to disarm, as the proposal demands. Washington, condemning Hamas’s supposed violation, will give Israel the green light to continue its genocide to create Trump’s fantasy of a Gaza Riviera and “special economic zone” with its “voluntary”relocation of Palestinians in exchange for digital tokens.

Of the myriads of peace plans over the decades, the current one is the least serious. Aside from a demand that Hamas release the hostages within 72-hours after the ceasefire begins, it lacks specifics and imposed timetables. It is filled with caveats that allow Israel to abrogate the agreement. And that is the point. It is not designed to be a viable path to peace, which most Israeli leaders understand. Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, Israel Hayom, established by the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson to serve as a mouthpiece for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and champion messianic Zionism, instructed its readers not to be concerned about the Trump plan because it is only “rhetoric.”

Israel, in one example from the proposal, will “not return to areas that have been withdrawn from, as long as Hamas fully implements the agreement.”

Who decides if Hamas has “fully implemented” the agreement? Israel. Does anyone believe in Israel’s good faith? Can Israel be trusted as an objective arbitrator of the agreement? If Hamas — demonized as a terrorist group — objects, will anyone listen?

How is it possible that a peace proposal ignores the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion, which reiterated that Israel’s occupation is illegal and must end?

How can it fail to mention the Palestinian’s right to self-determination?

Why are Palestinians, who have a right under international law to armed struggle against an occupying power, expected to disarm while Israel, the illegally occupying force, is not?

By what authority can the U.S. establish a “temporary transitional government,” — Trump’s and Tony Blair’s so-called “Board of Peace” — sidelining the Palestinian right to self-determination?

Who gave the U.S. the authority to send to Gaza an “International Stabilization Force,” a polite term for foreign occupation?

How are Palestinians supposed to reconcile themselves to the acceptance of an Israeli “security barrier” on Gaza’s borders, confirmation that the occupation will continue?

How can any proposal ignore the slow-motion genocide and annexation of the West Bank?

Why is Israel, which has destroyed Gaza, not required to pay reparations?

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