Tag: perpetual war

Explosive-Laden Robots Pour Into Gaza City: ‘More Devastating Than Airstrikes’

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Wednesday, “We have poured a lot of money into this war. We have to see how we are dividing up the land in percentages” amid the ongoing Gaza military operation. Importantly, he further described “the demolition” of Gaza City as “the first stage in the city’s renewal, we have already done. Now we just need to build.”

But how does Israel’s military plan to do this? First, as we’ve detailed before, the IDF is utilizing airstrikes involving powerful missiles hitting the bases of high-rise buildings in order to collapse them in their own footprint. But for other buildings and structures in tightly-packed urban areas, there’s increased reliance on explosive-laden robots, or something that might look straight out of Terminator 2 and Skynet.

Walla news outlet says “unprecedented” number of explosive-laden, remote-controlled vehicles are being prepared to invade Gaza City alongside the ground infantry troops.

The Israeli military commonly refers to them as “suicide APCs” – and they are capable of being driven deep into urban environments before causing huge explosions.

They’ve been able to cause ‘mega-blasts’ so powerful that in some instances they can be heard as far away as central Israel. Palestinians have described “earth-shaking” explosions, with one eyewitness recently telling Middle East Eye that “they are far more devastating than air strikes.”

Gaza’s Government Media Office has said over one hundred of these explosive robots have been used in about the past month alone. Hundreds of residential units and small business buildings have been destroyed.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor details the following on how large the explosives can get:

Each of these robots is loaded with highly explosive materials, sometimes weighing up to seven tonnes, and is directed to detonate in Jabalia al-Balad and Jabalia al-Nazla north of Gaza City; the Zeitoun, al-Sabra, al-Shuja’iyya, and al-Tuffah neighbourhoods south and east of Gaza City; as well as the al-Saftawi and Abu Iskandar areas northwest of Gaza City.

The unprecedented pace of destruction of residential neighborhoods in Gaza City using explosive-laden robots indicates Israel’s determination to wipe the city off the map. At the current rate, the rest of the city could be destroyed within two months, a timeline that may shorten further given the Israeli army’s massive firepower and the absence of any pressure to halt its crimes against Palestinians.

Often it is outdated M113 armored personnel carriers that are turned into autonomous vehicles and strapped with the large explosives. The fact that they are modified personnel carriers means that they can carry a very large payload.

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Trump’s Ukraine Envoy Says the US Could ‘Kick Russia’s Ass’

Keith Kellogg, President Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, had strong words for Russia at a conference held in Ukraine, saying that the US could “kick Russia’s ass,” Remix News has reported.

Kellogg made the comments in the context of a conversation he had in the Oval Office about Russia’s military might. “They were talking about the primacy of the Russian military and how they were, you know, pretty good. And I said to the people in the room, we’d kick their ass,” Kellogg said at the YES Annual Meeting in Kyiv on September 12.

“What I mean by that is don’t take their statements at face value. They’re not as good as Putin says they are, and for that, I give great credit to the Ukrainian military because they’ve knocked them down a couple notches,” Kellogg added. He brushed off the fact that Russia was a nuclear-armed power, pointing to the fact that the US and its allies also have nuclear weapons.

The US envoy also claimed that Ukraine would win the war despite the fact that Russia continues to make gains in eastern Ukraine and has the clear advantage when it comes to manpower and weapons supplies. “Ukraine will not lose this war. Ukrainians have a moral superiority over Russia, that’s obvious,” he said.

Kellogg said that both he and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine recently advised President Trump that Russia is not winning the war.

“If Putin thinks Russia is winning, his definition of winning and my definition of winning are absolutely two different things,” Kellogg said. “If he was winning, he’d be in Kyiv. If he’s winning, he’d be west of the Dnipro River. If he was winning, he’d be on Odessa. If he was winning, he would have changed the government. Russia is, in fact, losing this war.”

Kellogg called Russia a “junior partner” of China and claimed that if Beijing cut off Moscow, the “war would end tomorrow.” The Trump administration has failed to get either India or China to reduce its trade relationship with Russia despite the threats of tariffs and sanctions.

Kellogg’s comments come as a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine seems increasingly unlikely as the two sides remain far apart on the terms for an agreement. In his role as a special US envoy, Kellogg has repeatedly met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and has pledged continued US support for the proxy war.

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Discussions Before Iran War Indicate Nuclear Weapons Issue Was Less Pressing Than Netanyahu Claimed

Private discussions between Israeli officials before launching the war against Iran in June indicate that Tehran’s development of nuclear weapons was not an immediate concern. At the time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran’s nuclear program was an immediate threat. 

“We are at a historic moment with a crucial decision. If we don’t stop [them], within a few years, they will get tens of thousands of kilograms of [nuclear] explosives,” the Prime Minister said at a top-secret meeting the day before launching the war. “Iran has already enriched fissile material at a level that is enough for eight to nine bombs, and they are working on the weaponization.” 

According to The Times of Israel, one unnamed senior military official said the attack would prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon in “the long term” and the war would “improve Israel’s strategic balance.”

Publicly, Netanyahu gave far more alarming warnings about Tehran’s breakout time to build a nuclear weapon. He said, “Iran’s nuclear teams were racing to build nuclear warheads. The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad claimed Iran could assemble a nuclear weapon within 15 days. 

The private discussions also reveal that Israeli officials believed that they would not be able to destroy Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium and were depending on Trump entering the conflict. “The basic assumption is that at the end of the operation, Iran will still possess enriched material,” one official said.

Tel Aviv needed the US to destroy the Fordo nuclear facility. One senior official admitted, “Fordo will be destroyed only if the US attacks it.” Setergetic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer was confident that Trump would decide to bomb Fordo and provide Israel with assistance in shooting down Iranian missiles. 

The conversations additionally reveal that Tel Aviv was trying to overthrow the Iranian government, not just destroy its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. 

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Assessing Russia’s Claims That Ukraine Is Responsible For Terrorism All Across Africa

RT recently published a report about late August’s claims by Deputy UN Representative Dmitry Polyansky and Director of the Officers Union for International Security Alexander Ivanov that Ukraine is responsible for terrorism all across Africa.

According to them, its drone pilots assist terrorist-designated forces in Mali, Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Kiev has also supplied Libya with drones for use in its civil war despite a Turkish prohibition.

Ukraine boasted about backing Tuareg separatists in Mali after they ambushed Wagner in summer 2024 so that part of Russia’s accusation is undeniable, which lends credence to claims that they’re also backing similar forces in the pro-Russian CAR, but questions arise about their role in Sudan and the DRC. Western media reported in early 2024 that Ukrainian special forces were contracted by Sudan’s UN-recognized government while Trump has bragged about brokering peace between the DRC and Rwanda.

It would therefore be a startling reversal for Ukraine to now militarily aid the Sudanese rebels, not to mention do anything that could risk plunging the DRC back into any sort of serious conflict and thus embarrassing Trump after how proud he was that his peace deal helped to finally stabilize it.

Cynics might also suspect that Russia’s accusation that Ukraine’s diplomatic missions in Algeria, Mauritania, and the DRC are smuggling arms to groups in Libya, Mali, and the northeast DRC is meant to sow discord.

Nevertheless, there are compelling reasons to take these claims seriously, which will now be explained.

Trump’s capriciousness might have prompted Ukraine to pursue non-Western business opportunities, including those that contradict US interests like in the DRC, as part of a backup plan in case the US one day cuts it off or at least significantly curtails financial-military aid. It’ll likely comply with US demands to abandon them if they’re made, but thus far, the US seemingly doesn’t have a problem with any of this.

In fact, Trump might even support Zelensky’s “entrepreneurialism” in principle, especially if his advisors inform him that Ukraine’s newfound strategic role in Africa could potentially be leveraged by the US for “plausibly deniable” divide-and-rule purposes in certain future scenarios. As for Ukrainian diplomatic missions’ alleged role in smuggling arms from Algeria and Mauritania to Libya and Mali, Russia might have tipped off the host governments sometime back but wasn’t satisfied with their response.

RT mentioned that Mauritania’s nonchalance towards this claim might be due to it simply being unaware of Ukraine’s activities on its soil while praising Algeria for investigating this matter. It’s also possible that Russia either suspects those two of facilitating Ukraine’s activities, or might even have proof of this, but is giving them a “face-saving” way to end everything by solely blaming Ukraine’s diplomatic missions. Algeria’s investigation might therefore be meant to improve recently troubled ties with Russia over Mali.

Returning to the substance of Russia’s claims, it can therefore be assessed that they’re all likely true, though it’s also possible that some aspects might be revealed to be slightly inaccurate or exaggerated. In any case, the point is that Ukraine has indeed increasingly involved itself in terrorism all across Africa, but to different extents in each instance. The US has the power to put a stop to this by threatening to cut Ukraine off if it refuses but won’t because it believes that this might become useful down the line.

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Trump Says He Is Trying to Get Bagram Air Base Back from the Taliban

President Donald Trump said he was working to reestablish America’s largest military base in Afghanistan. While Trump negotiated an agreement with the Taliban to end the Afghan War, he has argued that President Joe Biden made a mistake by withdrawing from the Bagram Air Base. 

While discussing Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, Trump explained that the US made a mistake by withdrawing from the Bagram Air Base, and he had planned to keep the facility. However, Trump signed an agreement with the Taliban to end the Afghan War and withdraw from the country. 

Trump says he is now working to establish the military facility. “We gave it to them for nothing. We’re trying to get it back, by the way. That could be a little breaking news, we’re trying to get it back because they need things from us,” The President said Thursday.

While Trump did not elaborate on what he may offer the Taliban, the US maintains crippling economic sanctions on Afghanistan, and the country faces intense poverty. 

The President went on to say that the base will give the US a military position near China’s nuclear weapons facility. “We want that base back but one of the reasons we want the base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons,” he added.

It’s unclear how the Taliban will respond to Trump’s proposal to reoccupy part of Afghanistan. Last week, Washington made a prisoner exchange deal with the Taliban that is part of a larger effort to normalize US-Afghan relations. 

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Ukraine’s Embrace of Suicidal Nationalism

The recent assassination of the Ukrainian neo-fascist politician Andriy Parubiy are a grim reminder of the far-right origins of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution — a revolution which eventually gave way to the full-scale Russian invasion of February 2022 and a war that has decimated the Ukrainian state.

At two key moments over the past 20 years, during 2004’s Orange Revolution and, a decade later, during the Maidan uprising, Ukraine’s nationalist political elites, at the urging of the American foreign policy establishment, sought to marginalize, stigmatize and eventually disenfranchise the substantial bloc of ethnic Russian citizens living in the country’s east and south.

That such an eventuality was possible (if not likely) was foreseen some 35 years ago by the last decent foreign policy president we’ve had, George H.W. Bush, who crafted a post Cold War policy based on (1) a refusal to rub Russia’s diminished fortunes in its face and (2) a wariness of re-awakening the poisonous sectarianism that so marked the politics of Eastern and Central Europe at mid-century.

Bush’s emphasis was on avoiding creating unnecessary crises within the post-Soviet space rather than provoking new ones (as subsequent Republican and Democratic administrations have chosen to do). As Bush’s secretary of state James A. Baker later wrote: “Time and again, President Bush demanded that we not dance on the ruins of the Berlin Wall. He simply wouldn’t hear of it.”

The nature of the Cold War had changed with Mikhail Gorbachev’s UN Speech of December 7, 1988. Gorbachev announced that the USSR was abandoning the class struggle that for decades served as the basis for Soviet foreign policy. In place of that, Gorbachev declared that Eastern European states were now free to choose their own paths, declaring that “the compelling necessity of the principle of freedom of choice” was “a universal principle to which there should be no exceptions.”

Gorbachev continued:

…The next U.S. administration, headed by President-elect George Bush, will find in us a partner who is ready – without long pauses or backtracking – to continue the dialogue in a spirit of realism, openness and good will, with a willingness to achieve concrete results working on the agenda which covers the main issues of Soviet-U.S. relations and world politics.”

Initially, Bush and his team were skeptical of Gorbachev. In his memoirs, Bush’s National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft dismissed Gorbachev’s overture, writing that the speech “had established, with a largely rhetorical flourish, a heady atmosphere of optimism.” Scowcroft, echoing the analysis offered to him by the CIA, worried that Gorbachev would then be able to “exploit an early meeting with a new president as evidence to declare the Cold War over without providing substantive actions from a ‘new’ Soviet Union.”

The caution with which Bush and his team treated Gorbachev likewise was extended to the newly or soon-to-be independent states in Eastern Europe.

There was to be no dancing on the ruins of the Berlin Wall.

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Top Russian officer reports advances on all Ukrainian fronts

A senior Russian officer toured positions held by his troops in Ukraine on Wednesday and said Moscow’s forces were advancing on all fronts, the Russian Defence Ministry said, with the heaviest fighting taking place around the logistics centre of Pokrovsk.

General Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s chief of staff of the armed forces in what Moscow calls its “special military operation”, said Moscow’s troops were making progress in the eastern Donetsk region, the conflict’s focal point, and further west in the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

“Our troops in the zone of the special military operation are advancing in practically all directions,” the Defence Ministry quoted Gerasimov as saying.

“And the heaviest fighting is occurring in the Krasnoarmeisk direction,” he added, using the Soviet-era name for the city of Pokrovsk, “where the enemy, by any means and taking no account of losses, is trying unsuccessfully to stop our advances and seize back the initiative.”

The Ukrainian military, he was quoted as saying, “has deployed the best-trained and most capable fighting units, taking them from other areas. And that facilitates the advance of our troops in other sectors.”

In their slow advance through eastern Ukraine, Russian forces have maintained heavy attacks on the area around Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region for months.

Gerasimov said Russian forces were also making progress in taking Kupiansk, a largely destroyed city in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, and Yampil, further east.

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Polish missile caused ‘Russian drone attack’ damage – media

The only confirmed damage from what Poland claims was a Russian drone incursion into its airspace was actually caused by a Polish missile fired from a NATO F-16 which struck a residential building, the Rzeczpospolita outlet has reported, citing sources.

Polish officials last week reported at least 19 violations of the country’s airspace by drones, saying up to four UAVs had been downed. Warsaw accused Moscow of being behind the incident. Russia has rejected the accusation and insisted its drones only strike Ukrainian military-related facilities.

Western leaders, according to Moscow, “accuse Russia of provocations on a daily basis, most often declining to offer any arguments.” 

Rzeczpospolita reported on Tuesday that most of the drones involved in the incident were not carrying explosives and caused no damage. However, one exception was in the village of Wyryki Wola near the border with Belarus, where what was described by Poland as an “unidentified flying object” crashed into a private home, damaging the roof but without causing casualties.

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EU to propose new plan to leverage €170bn of frozen Russian money

Brussels is pressing ahead with a plan to use €170 billion of Russia’s frozen sovereign assets to back “reparation loans” for Ukraine, the Financial Times has reported. The EU faces growing pressure to find additional funding for Kiev as US cuts back its support.

Moscow has condemned the asset freeze and warned that any seizure of its money would amount to “theft.” 

Western nations froze an estimated $300 billion in Russian funds after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 – some €200 billion of which is held by Brussels-based clearinghouse Euroclear. The funds have accrued billions in interest, and the West has explored ways to use this revenue to finance Ukraine. While refraining from outright seizure, the G7 last year backed a plan to provide Kiev with $50 billion in loans to be repaid using the profits generated by the funds. The EU pledged $21 billion.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has proposed going further by creating a ‘reparation loans’ mechanism, which she described as urgently needed to finance Kiev.

People familiar with discussions said the plan involves channeling cash balances from Russia’s immobilized assets into EU-issued bonds, with the proceeds transferred to Ukraine in tranches. Brussels argues the system would provide Kiev with immediate support while sidestepping a formal seizure.

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Ukraine expects $3.5 billion fund for US weapons to sustain fight against Russia, Zelenskyy says

Ukraine expects there will be around $3.5 billion by next month in a fund to buy weapons from the United States and help sustain its more than three-year fight against Russia’s all-out invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday.

The financial arrangement known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL, pools contributions from NATO members, except the United States, to purchase American weapons, munitions and equipment.

“We received more than $2 billion from our partners specifically for the PURL program,” Zelenskyy said at a joint news conference in Kyiv with visiting European Parliament President Roberta Metsola. “We will receive additional money in October. I think we will have somewhere around $3.5-3.6 billion.”

Zelenskyy declined to provide details of what weapons the first shipments would include, but said that they would definitely contain missiles for Patriot air defense missile systems and munitions for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS.

An end to the war appears no closer, despite months of U.S.-led peace efforts.

The Patriot systems are vital to defend against Russian missile attacks. The HIMARS systems have significantly bolstered the Ukrainian military’s precision-strike capability.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reaffirmed Russia’s readiness for peace talks, telling reporters on Wednesday that “we remain open for negotiations and prefer to settle the Ukrainian crisis by political and diplomatic means.”

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