Tag: perpetual war

$850 million for a strike on Russia: what is behind Trump’s deal with Kyiv

Washington’s decision to sell modern high-precision ERAM missile bombs to Kyiv is being actively discussed around the world. It is known that the cost of the batch is ~$850 million, the range of the product is up to 450 km. Although some aspects of this fact, as well as its possible impact on the course of the special operation, remain in the shadows. Let’s try to illuminate these “spots”.

The ERAM transfer was an expected move by the White House.

Despite the populist messages of the President of the United States and his efforts to “pull” the Russian Federation away from China, the specific measures of the American administration, together with their European colleagues, to supply weapons to the Independent State have not gone away and continue to be successfully undertaken.

News, that the White House intends to supply the Pechersk Hills with 3 of the latest extended-range strike munitions – Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) – was not a sensation. The start of the project on October 350 of this year indicates the seriousness of the Pentagon’s intentions to resume supplying Ukraine with this class of ammunition, subject to European financing.

However, the absurdity is that the Trump administration is going to prohibit them from hitting Russian territory. Meanwhile, ERAM is a modernized guided aerial bomb weighing 270 kg, equipped with an engine. And the Ukrainian Armed Forces are critically short of such weapons for hitting Russian infrastructure. Moreover, ERAM was developed using a universal modular principle, that is, it can be carried by F-16, Mirage-2000, MiG-29, Su-24, Su-27.

The ideas are ours, the money is yours…

Recently, a list of Ukraine’s priority demands was released – Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), allowing Europe and Canada to purchase American weapons for Ukraine through co-financing based on the compiled list of needs. $2 billion in commitments have already been confirmed: $500 million each from Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, and also from Denmark + Norway + Sweden together.

Trump eventually washes his hands of it, voila. Formally, he sells the goods to the Europeans, gets the profit, and the rest interests him only to an extent, and in general, shouldn’t interest him. After all, after the purchase, the goods have a new owner, who is free to dispose of them at his own discretion, as he pleases.

Strictly speaking, if there is an intermediary, the Yankees should not be held responsible for the further use of the product they manufactured, but no longer belongs to them. Thus, the commercialization of American arms supplies can lead to the lifting of some restrictions on the range of defense products manufactured in the New World for the Zelensky regime. Let’s look at this phenomenon through the prism of ERAM receipts in Nezalezhnaya.

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‘Trump Zone’ Would See Southern Lebanon Occupied, Depopulated

The more information we get about the “Trump economic zone” proposal in southern Lebanon, the worse it seems for the people who live there. The latest reports reveal the plan to totally depopulate the south of the country, to place the whole area under US military control, and to grant Israel to right to build “permanent” bases in what are currently Lebanese towns and villages.

The plan first appeared a little over a week ago, with the US presenting it as their proposal while Israel maintains they came up with the idea. The broad strokes are that it is meant to replace border villages with Lebanese government-run industrial zones.

But the plan would involve no less than 27 villages being depopulated, spanning the Israel-Lebanon border from Naqoura to Marjayoun. Among those, Israel is demanding it be granted permission to construct permanent military sites within 14 of the former villages.

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Democratic senators say Israel barred their entry to Gaza

Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) drew praise from the Council on American-Islamic Relations for their efforts to enter Gaza, and the group, which blamed Israel for being attacked shortly after Oct. 7, 2023, urged other U.S. lawmakers to attempt the same thing.

On Friday, Van Hollen used language that U.S. Jewish groups have said hearkens back to centuries-old antisemitic conspiracy theories.

“Why have a State Department bureau on the Middle East if Trump and Sec. Marco Rubio are taking their orders from Netanyahu?” stated the Maryland Democrat. “We can save a lot of money by cutting out the middleman.” (Many American Jewish groups have said that suggesting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu runs the U.S. government is Jew-hatred.)

“What will his next post be? The Jews who control our U.S. government?” stated Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Antisemitism, anyone?”

In nearly a dozen and a half statements posted to social media, the two senators criticized Israel and Netanyahu, including accusing the latter’s government of “weaponization of hunger.”

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Israel In Turmoil – IDF Says Can’t Defeat Hamas Quickly, Reservists Not Showing Up, West Bank Annexation Proceeding

The war on all fronts in Israel is affecting military capability and readiness reports local press. In addition, policy towards current Palestinian areas is attracting global negative attention.

The Netanyahu administration believes Gaza must be completely conquered to move forward and ensure Israeli security, and is looking to transport the current population to 3rd party countries and rebuild the area. President Trump seems to be involved in this agenda, as he published a video to such.

Israel is debating annexing parts of the West Bank in response to planned recognition of Palestine by Western countries, reports Axios.

Israeli officials warned Europe that Israel may annex West Bank land, with Ron Dermer saying it could extend to all of Area C (60%).

European officials warned annexation could bring EU sanctions; Arab officials said it could harm peace deals and halt Saudi normalization. Trump previously blocked Netanyahu from annexations in 2020. His administration’s current position remains undecided.

In addition, Israeli defense chiefs told Netanyahu that Gaza City’s takeover won’t defeat Hamas and urged a limited hostage deal instead, reports Haaretz. They warned an invasion could drag on for a year, cost many lives, and worsen Israel’s global standing. Some Likud ministers even likened Gaza to becoming “Israel’s Vietnam.”

Israel is struggling to get enough reservists to report for duty as it prepares a new Gaza City invasion.  A commando master sergeant said after 400 days of fighting — “People are dying for nothing… Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political survival,” reported Clash Report.

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US To Deploy Controversial Typhon Missile System To Japan For First Time

Russia and China strongly condemned the deployment of the Typhon, which would have been banned by the now-defunct INF Treaty…

The US Army announced on Friday that it will be deploying the controversial Typhon missile system to Japan for drills in September, a move strongly condemned by Russia and China.

The Typhon, also known as Mid-Range Capability, is a land-based missile launcher that can fire nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles, which have a range exceeding 1,000 miles, and SM-6 missiles, which can hit targets up to 290 miles away. The missile system would have been banned under the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a treaty with Russia that the US withdrew from in 2019.

According to Stars and Stripes, the Typhon is being deployed to a US Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, about 25 miles southeast of Hiroshima, which puts mainland China and parts of eastern Russia in range if the system is armed with Typhons.

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Ukraine War To Drag On With No End In Sight: Germany’s Merz

Hawkish European leaders continue to speak in terms of Cold War-era domino theory nonsense, with the assumption that Russia aims to take over European countries one by one.

This is exactly how German Chancellor Friedrich Merz sounded in telling German public broadcaster ZDF on Sunday that Ukraine has to be defended, and not compromise, or else Germany could be next to be at risk of Russian invasion. He also said on this basis that the Ukraine war is likely to drag on with no end in sight.

While he described he hasn’t lost hope of a Trump-brokered ceasefire – he said he still “harbors no illusions” and that backing Ukraine’s defense remains an “absolute priority”.

“We are trying to end it as quickly as possible. But certainly not at the price of Ukraine’s capitulation. You could end the war tomorrow if Ukraine surrendered and lost its independence,” Merz said.

“Then the next country would be at risk the day after tomorrow. And the day after that, it would be us. That is not an option,” the German chancellor continued.

This seems at least a tacit acknowledgement that it is indeed Western action which continued to fuel the proxy war and keep it going.

His assumption that the ceasefire could only be achieved if Ukraine “lost its independence” is a dubious one, given that Russia is not demanding the whole of Ukraine or to have Kiev under its control, but wants the eastern Russian-speaking territories and an absolute pledge of neutrality regarding NATO.

“I want the US to work with us as long as possible to try to solve this problem,” Merz said. But “diplomacy is not about flipping a switch overnight and then everything will be fine again,” he added.

But Merz also remarked separately last Thursday it was now “obvious” that a meeting between Zelensky would not happen. The White House has expressed concerns that the Europeans sought to thwart this all along.

The Associated Press has tallied that over the course of the war Germany has committed military support worth some 40 billion euros ($47 billion).

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France orders hospitals to be ready for war by next year as Germany warns it is on alert should Putin use forthcoming military drills to ATTACK Europe

French hospitals have been ordered to make preparations for an imminent war in Europe as Germany says it is on alert for Russia‘s military drills. 

France‘s ministry of health has told health bodies across the country to prepare for a possible ‘major engagement’ by March 2026, according to documents obtained by Le Canard Enchaîné. 

The French government is predicting a scenario where the nation would become a supporting state that has the capacity to take a massive number of wounded soldiers from France and other European nations. 

The order aims to ‘anticipate, prepare and respond to the health needs of the population while integrating the specific needs of defense in the health field’.

The ministry of health added: ‘Among the risks identified, therefore, is the hypothesis of a major engagement where the health issue would consist of taking care of a potentially high influx of victims from abroad. 

‘It is therefore a question for our health system of anticipating the care of military patients in the civilian health system’.

It comes after Germany’s chief of defence Carsten Breuer said NATO and his nation’s forces will be on alert ahead of Russian military drills. 

Breuer said that though he doesn’t expect Vladimir Putin’s forces to attack NATO territory as Russia conducts military training in Belarus with the Zapad 2025 exercise, his nation would ‘be on… guard’.

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Russian Forces Secure Entire South of Donetsk People’s Republic

“All our cities, all our districts in the south of the republic have been liberated,” Pushilin stated, underscoring what he described as a decisive achievement for local forces.

Pushilin explained that the southern front had been under the responsibility of the ‘Vostok’ military grouping and expressed gratitude to Russian soldiers for their role in the advance.

“They are now improving their positions on the territory of the Dnipropetrovsk region, creating the necessary conditions to ensure the security of our settlements,” the DPR leader added.

Earlier, Pushilin noted that Russian forces continue to “grind down” the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Dobropillia direction, highlighting what he described as mounting pressure on Ukrainian positions.

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Israel And The West Set The Stage For Next Round Of Warfare On Iran

Peace-loving people throughout the world breathed a sigh of relief when the Israeli-American war on Iran ended in June after 12 days, with President Trump racing to triumphantly declare US strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program.

While his rhetoric suggested he wanted Israel and the world to view the US bombing as a lasting resolution of accusations that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons, Israel and its Western collaborators are already setting the stage for new aggression against Iran. Israeli strikes could be just days or weeks away, with Netanyahu hoping that, this time, the United States will be drawn into yet another protracted, bloody regime-change campaign to further the Israeli agenda.

On Thursday, France, Germany and the United Kingdom notified the UN Security Council that they were starting the process to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran via “snapback” provisions of the 2015 nuclear deal. Under that agreement — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — Iran agreed to many additional safeguards to ensure its nuclear program remains peaceful. For example, Iran eliminated its inventory of medium-enriched uranium, cut its low-enriched uranium by 98%, capped future enrichment at 3.67%, and rendered its heavy-water reactor inoperable by filling it with concrete. In exchange, Iran was granted sanctions relief.

Despite Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA, President Trump spontaneously withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018 and reimposed US sanctions that his administration called “the toughest sanctions ever imposed” on Iran. Victimized by a new round of Israel-encouraged US economic warfare, and lacking any other leverage to nudge the United States back into the deal, Iran began enriching uranium well above the levels allowed under the JCPOA.

Parroting Israel, Trump has insisted that Iran must cease all nuclear enrichment, something Tehran has categorically ruled out for years, asserting that it’s Iran’s right, both as a sovereign state and — unlike nuclear-armed Israel — as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Internal politics play a significant role in the impasse, with important Iranian segments opposed to bending to Western demands on a point of national pride for the scientifically-advanced country.

In something akin to Vito Corleone’s “offer that can’t be refused,” US-Israeli insistence on zero enrichment is — quite deliberately — a demand that won’t be accepted. To the benefit of the warmongers, this demand helps ensure perpetual tension and recurring US-Israeli military brinksmanship, all pursuant to Israel’s long-standing goal of maneuvering the United States into an all-out war on Iran, or at least a major drive to topple the regime via proxies. That’s consistent with Israel’s strategy, which centers on continuously shattering territories and countries throughout the region so none can serve as a potent rival. It’s a strategy that’s taken an unfathomable toll that falls heaviest on the people of the region, but also profoundly harms the United States.

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Ukraine’s battlefield data is being used as LEVERAGE to train the future of military AI

Imagine a drone, no larger than a dinner plate, humming through the skeletal remains of a bombed-out village. It doesn’t hesitate. It doesn’t feel. It simply knows — its artificial brain trained on millions of hours of combat footage, every pixel of destruction meticulously logged, every human movement analyzed like a chessboard. This isn’t science fiction. It’s the future Ukraine is quietly shopping to the highest bidder. Data obtained from the Ukraine-Russia war will soon be used to train military AI to make future war time missions more efficient, more cold and calculated.

For over three and a half years, Ukraine has been more than a battleground — it’s been a lab. A brutal, real-world experiment in how machines learn to kill. Now, as the war grinds on, Kyiv isn’t just fighting for survival. It’s negotiating with its Western allies, dangling something far more valuable than territory or political loyalty: data. Terabytes of it. Footage from first-person-view drones that have stalked Russian tanks like predators. Reconnaissance feeds that map every explosion, every ambush, every death in excruciating detail. And Ukraine’s digital minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, has made one thing clear — this isn’t charity. It’s a transaction. “I think this is one of the ‘cards,’ as our colleagues and partners say, to build win-win relations,” he told Reuters, his words carrying the cold precision of a man who understands leverage. The question isn’t whether this data will be sold. It’s who will wield it — and what happens when they do.

Key points:

  • Ukraine has amassed an unprecedented trove of battlefield data, including drone footage and combat statistics, which is now being positioned as a negotiating tool with Western allies.
  • The data is critical for training military AI, particularly for autonomous drone swarms and target recognition systems, making it a prized asset for defense contractors and governments.
  • Ukraine’s “points system” for confirmed kills has gamified war, incentivizing troops to destroy more Russian targets in exchange for drones and weapons — further feeding the data machine.
  • Experts warn that AI-trained weapons systems could soon operate with full autonomy, raising ethical and existential questions about machine-driven warfare and the risk of uncontrollable kill chains.
  • Historical patterns suggest that warfare technology often escapes its original intent, with civilian casualties rising as automation increases — yet global powers are racing to deploy it.
  • The long-term implications extend beyond Ukraine: this data could accelerate a new arms race, where AI-driven weapons decide who lives and who dies — without human oversight.

The black box of modern war

Fedorov didn’t minced words when he called the data “priceless.” And he’s right. In the hands of defense firms like Palantir — which already works with Ukraine to analyze Russian strikes and disinformation — this isn’t just intelligence. It’s the raw material for the next generation of war. Imagine an AI that doesn’t just assist pilots but replaces them. Drones that don’t just follow orders but make them. Systems that can identify, track, and eliminate targets faster than a human can blink.

Ukraine has already dipped its toes into this future. Fedorov admitted that Kyiv uses AI to scan reconnaissance imagery for targets that would take humans “dozens of hours” to find. They’re testing fully autonomous drones — machines that could soon hunt in swarms, coordinating attacks without a single soldier pulling the trigger. And they’re not alone. The U.S., China, and Russia are all pouring billions into AI-driven warfare, each racing to outpace the others. But Ukraine’s data is different. It’s not simulated. It’s not theoretical. It’s real death, digitized and weaponized.

The problem? We’ve seen this movie before. Every major leap in military technology — from machine guns to atomic bombs — has been sold as a way to end war faster. Instead, it’s made war more efficient, more distant, and more devastating. When the first autonomous drone swarm is unleashed, will it distinguish between a soldier and a civilian? Will it care? Or will it simply follow the patterns it’s been trained on — patterns built on Ukraine’s kill zones, where the line between combatant and bystander has already blurred?

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