Tag: perpetual war

Ukraine Strikes Bar in Kherson Killing 24 – Including a Child – And Wounding 50, as Russians Send US ‘Decrypted Drone Data’ Proving Massive Attack Against Putin’s Residence

Zelensky has gone too far.

Now that the peace process was really about to bear fruits, the Kiev regime – allegedly with the help of British Intelligence – has started a campaign of provocations intended to make Russians retaliate in a way that can be used against them in the court of public opinion.

After the massive – and unacceptable – Ukrainian drone attack on Vladimir Putin’s residence, now the Kiev regime struck a New Year’s Eve celebration in a civilian bar in Kherson region, killing 25 people, including a child, and injuring 50 others.

To being with, Russia wants to demonstrate for all to see, especially for US President Donald J. Trump, that the attack on Putin’s residence was real and targeted a command-and-control center for the nuclear weapons.

This has become important, since reports are out saying the CIA doubts the attack ever took place, and even Trump shared a NYP article that throws doubt into it.

So, Russia announced it will give the US ‘decrypted data from a Ukrainian drone’ that flew towards Putin’s residence but was shot down.

Sputnik reported:

“Russian intelligence services retrieved a flight mission file from one of the Ukrainian drones that attacked Putin’s residence

The decryption revealed that the final target of the attack was specifically the object of this residence in the Novgorod region”

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Russia Hands US Evidence That It Says Confirms Ukraine Targeted Putin’s Residence in Drone Attack

A senior Russian military official on Thursday handed over to a US official what he said was evidence that Ukrainian drones targeted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region.

Ukraine has denied the allegations that it was trying to target Putin’s home, and US officials speaking to US media outlets said the CIA assessed that Ukraine was targeting a military facility in the same region that wasn’t close by. But Russian officials insist they have the evidence that Ukraine was attempting to hit the Russian president’s residence.

A video posted by the Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday shows Igor Kostykov, the chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff, meeting with the US defense attache based in Moscow and handing over what he said was a “navigation unit” from one of the drones downed in the Novgorod region.

“The decryption of the content of the memory of the navigation controller of the drones carried out by specialists of Russia’s special services confirms without question that the target of the attack was the complex of buildings of the Russian president’s residence in the Novgorod region,” Kostykov said.

President Trump was informed about the alleged attack by Putin the day it happened, and initially appeared to believe Russia’s account, saying that he “wasn’t happy about it.” But he later shared a New York Post article on Truth Social that cast doubt on the Russian claim and said Moscow “is the one standing in the way of peace.”

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Spook Story: Ex-US amb. to Venezuela monetizes coup-plotting alongside former CIA officials

Former US ambassador to Venezuela James “Jimmy” Story has gone from de facto manager of the putschist, Washington-backed opposition in Venezuela to one of the most prominent voices promoting the Trump-Rubio regime change policy inside legacy media.

On December 7, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria featured his calls for toppling Venezuela’s government during a panel with convicted Iran-Contra felon Elliot Abrams, while the New York Times provided Story with space to argue that “Washington should approach dismantling the Maduro regime as we would any criminal enterprise.” Story’s appearance on Piers Morgan did not work out quite as well because Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal was present to dismantle his neocolonial propaganda.

While he pushes a US war on Venezuela in the media, Story is also monetizing his coup-plotting experience by soliciting clients for a series of consulting firms, where he works alongside top former CIA officials who orchestrated destabilization operations inside Venezuela.

The first of these firms is Dinámica Americas, where Story serves as a senior advisor helping “companies, philanthropies, non-profits, and multilateral and other organizations successfully navigate evolving conditions in the Americas.” Among his colleagues at Dinámica is Juan Cruz, the former CIA director for Latin America, whom The Grayzone exposed for his role in managing opposition assets in the lead-up to the failed Operation Gideon mercenary invasion.

At Frontier Advisors, a risk management firm he co-founded, Story works alongside Zodiac Gold CEO David Kol, whose company exploits the mineral wealth of Liberia, which suffers from rampant smuggling and deforestation due to foreign domination of its gold mining zones. Story’s fellow managing partner at Frontier, former Lt. Gen. Dave Bellon also runs a private equity firm, Global Frontier Capital, that “create[s] carbon credits to sell to investors and polluters in need of offsets” in South Asia and South America. These are precisely the kind of figures yearning to feast on the carcass of the Venezuelan state in a fantasy post-Maduro scenario.

Finally, Story is listed as “strategic partner” at Tower Strategy LLC, a lobbying firm founded by the ex-CIA station chief for Venezuela, Enrique “Rick” de la Torre. As journalist Jack Poulson explains in the article we’ve republished from his All Source Intelligence, de la Torre previously worked at a lobbying firm founded by one of the closest confederates of Secretary of State Marco Rubio – the lead architect of Trump’s regime change strategy in Venezuela.

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No Theft of Russian Sovereign Assets: Belgium & Orbán Stop the EU’s Legal Madness

While Brussels was preparing yet another moralistic coup against reality, Belgium pulled the emergency brake.

Against the will of Berlin, against the ideological intoxication of the European Commission, and against the growing temptation to trample international law in the name of “virtue,” the European Union has abandoned the outright seizure of Russian sovereign assets. Instead, it has opted for a €90 billion “joint loan” for Ukraine—a loan in name only, a gift in substance.

This is not a technical adjustment.
It is a political defeat for Germany, a strategic victory for Belgium, and a rare moment of lucidity in a Union drifting toward legal nihilism.

The German Plan Collapses

For months, Berlin pushed a dangerous idea: confiscate Russian sovereign assets frozen in Europe and rebrand the theft as “reparations.” The logic was crude, emotional, and legally suicidal. No court ruling. No peace treaty. No settlement. Just brute force dressed up as righteousness.

Germany wanted to force this plan through—on the back of others.

Why? Because Belgium holds the bomb.

The bulk of Russian assets are immobilized at Euroclear in Brussels. Which means that if Russia—or any future claimant—wins in court, Belgium alone would face catastrophic financial liability.

Belgium’s Moment of Truth

Prime Minister Bart De Wever asked a simple, devastating question:

If you want us to confiscate these assets, will you guarantee Belgium against all legal and financial consequences—without limit?

Silence.

The so-called “partners” demanded unlimited risk from Belgium, while refusing any unlimited guarantee in return.

That was the end of the fantasy.

No sovereign state—especially a small one—can accept infinite liability to satisfy Berlin’s moral exhibitionism. At that moment, the German plan collapsed.

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US To Fund $8.6 Billion Boeing Contract for Israeli F-15 Fighter Jets

The US Department of War announced on Monday that Boeing has been awarded a contract worth up to $8.6 billion to sell Israel new F-15 fighter jets as part of a deal funded by US military aid.

The Israeli Defense Ministry announced the initial deal in November 2024 and said it would be funded by US aid that was included in a massive foreign assistance bill President Biden signed into law earlier that year. At the time, the F-15 deal was valued at $5.2 billion and included 25 new F-15s.

The updated contract with Boeing has a ceiling of up to $8.6 billion since it includes an option to purchase an additional 25 F-15s. The Pentagon said in its announcement that the work on the fighter jets will be “performed at St. Louis, Missouri, and is expected to be complete by December 31, 2035.”

The US has continued to provide Israel with massive amounts of weapons despite its genocidal campaign in Gaza, which, according to several studies, has likely killed more than 100,000 Palestinians, including tens of thousands of women and children. US military aid and direct military intervention have also supported Israel’s wars in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and the occupation of the West Bank.

According to Brown University’s Costs of War Project, in the two years following the October 7 attack, the US government spent at least $21.7 billion on military aid to Israel and another $9.65 billion to $12.07 billion on US military operations in the region in support of Israel.

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Smotrich hails ‘full US support’ for illegal settler expansion in occupied West Bank

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister and staunch backer of the illegal settler movement, said on 30 December that Washington has given Tel Aviv “full support” to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank in violation of international law.

“The US administration is giving us full support to expand settlements in the West Bank in order to undermine the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Smotrich said. 

The statement coincided with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the US and came after a meeting between Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump.

“We have had a discussion, big discussion for a long time on the West Bank. And I wouldn’t say we agree on the West Bank 100 percent, but we’ll come to a conclusion on the West Bank,” Trump said after the meeting.

When asked by reporters what the disagreement was about, Trump said, “I don’t want to do that, it will be announced at an appropriate time.”

Netanyahu “will do the right thing,” the US president went on to say. 

Since coming to power in late 2022, Netanyahu’s government has been rapidly advancing Israel’s longstanding goal of annexing the West Bank, which was occupied illegally during the 1967 war. 

New illegal settlements are being established at an accelerated rate, and the Knesset has approved a bill calling to impose Israeli “sovereignty” over the territory. 

Trump recently claimed that he would “not allow” Israel to annex the occupied West Bank.

“Trump and his top advisors asked Netanyahu to change Israel’s policies in the occupied West Bank during their meeting on Monday,” informed sources told Axios on 30 December.

“The White House thinks a violent escalation in the West Bank would undermine efforts to implement the Gaza peace agreement and prevent the expansion of the Abraham Accords before the end of Trump’s term,” the sources went on to say, adding that the US president’s team asked the Israelis to “calm things down.”

“The president and his team raised settler violence against Palestinian civilians, the financial instability of the Palestinian Authority, and Israeli settlements expansion. Netanyahu spoke very strongly against settler violence and said he is going to take more action,” the sources said.

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Russia Accuses Ukraine of Targeting Putin’s House, Threatening Fragile Peace Talks

The fog of war is thick in Eastern Europe, where Russia has accused Ukraine of sending a swarm of kamikaze drones to strike one of President Vladimir Putin’s houses. The Russians say they thwarted the attack.

So far, it’s been difficult to verify whether the Russians are telling the truth. But whatever it is, any slight chance there may have been at a peace agreement seems to have further diminished.

The “Attack”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov decried the alleged attack. On Monday, he said, “The Kiev regime has fully switched to state terrorism policies, and Moscow will review its negotiating position accordingly.” He emphasized that although the Kremlin won’t completely abandon negotiations, “Russia’s negotiating position will be revised.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the attack never happened. He says Russia is making it up to serve as an excuse for torpedoing the working peace negotiations and to keep charging ahead into Ukraine. “Russia must stop inventing ways to wage war and start thinking about how to restore security,” he said in a social media post.

President Donald Trump answered questions on Monday about the supposed attack. “I don’t like it. It’s not good,” he said, adding that he heard about it from Putin himself and conceding that it might not be true. He then said that he made the right decision in refusing to give the Ukrainians long-range Tomahawk missiles. “It’s a delicate period of time,” he noted, adding:

It’s one thing to be offensive, because they’re offensive. It’s another thing to attack his house. It’s not the right time to do any of that. … I was very angry about it.

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Bloody Diamonds: How Your Engagement Ring Helps Fund a Genocide in Gaza

Did your engagement ring help fund a genocide in Gaza? Quite possibly. Despite possessing no mines of their own, Israel is a major player in the world’s diamond business, buying up minerals across Africa and selling them to the West, netting billions in the process. Diamonds are Israel’s most important export, and directly bankroll the country’s ongoing genocide against the people of Gaza. MintPress explores the dark world of Israeli blood diamonds.

A Gigantic Industry

Any visitor walking through Tel Aviv’s exclusive Ramat Gan district will be struck by its wealth. Skyscrapers are everywhere, and expensive jewelry stores lines the streets. Ramat Gan is the center of the world’s diamond industry, with more than 15,000 people employed by the Israel Diamond Exchange in the business of cutting, polishing, importing, exporting, and marketing the stones.

Israel’s largest export is not tech industry or its food. Diamonds alone account for over 15% of all the country’s exports, with other jewelry also contributing significantly to its economy. Between 2018 and 2023, Israel exported over $60 billion dollars worth of precious stones.

Their number one customer is the United States. Historically, Israel has accounted for between one third and one half of all the diamonds sold across America, a growing market already worth $20 billion per year.

Genocide Stones

Unlike gold, diamonds are rarely hallmarked, meaning that few American brides know that their engagement and wedding rings were crafted and polished in Israel. Even fewer are aware that their purchase directly funds the slaughter in Gaza and Israel’s ongoing seizure of land in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria.

“Overall, the Israeli diamond industry contributes about $1 billion annually to the Israeli military and security industries … every time somebody buys a diamond that was exported from Israel, some of that money ends up in the Israeli military,” Israeli economist, Shir Hever, testified at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in 2010.

Perhaps the key figure in the Israeli diamond industry is business magnate, Beny Steinmetz. Considered by many to be Israel’s richest man, the 69-year-old founder of Steinmetz Diamond Group first entered the industry in 1988, purchasing a production factory in Apartheid South Africa.

Through his charitable foundation, Steinmetz has poured money into the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), including “adopting” a unit of the Givati Brigade, buying equipment for them. During Operation Cast Lead in 2009, the brigade carried out a massacre, forcing dozens of Palestinian civilians into a house in Gaza, bombed the house, and prevented ambulances from approaching. Rescue workers who eventually found their bodies also reported seeing the words “The only good Arab is a dead Arab” daubed in Hebrew on the remains of the building.

More recently, the Givati Brigade has been filmed setting fire to Palestinian food supplies, and a Gaza sewage plant, as well as demolishing more homes.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has destroyed 92% of the schools and residential buildings of Gaza, shot around 300 journalists, and killed at least 20,000 children. UNICEF estimates that 3,000 to 4,000 children in Gaza have lost one or more limbs. In addition to its violence in Palestine, Israel has invaded and occupied Lebanon and Syria, and bombed Iran, Tunisia, Yemen, and Qatar.

The US Pays in Dollars, Africa Pays in Blood

Israel’s appetite for diamonds is directly fueling civil war and bloodshed across Africa, where it supplies military hardware with governments, warlords, and local armed groups in exchange for access to the continent’s mineral wealth. Israel-based International Diamond Industries (IDI), for example, secured a monopoly on diamond production in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a deal that, according to a United Nations panel, included covert weapons transfers and the training of Congolese security forces by IDF commanders. The deal was fantastically lucrative for IDI, who paid only $20 million for a monopoly generating $600 million per year.

Meanwhile, in 2002 in war-ravaged Sierra Leone, for just $1.2 million in cash, Steinmetz himself managed to acquire half of the Koidu Ltd., a company that accounted for 90% of the country’s diamonds. In 2011, Koidu produced a reported $200 million worth of diamonds.

Why authorities would agree to such ludicrously low purchase prices might be explained by a 2021 ruling by a Swiss court, that found Steinmetz guilty of paying $8.5 million in bribes to the wife of the president of Guinea. These bribes, the court ruled, secured him the rights to lucrative iron ore concessions in the country’s Simandou region. Steinmetz was sentenced to five years in prison. The Israeli billionaire is currently facing similarly grave corruption charges in Romania.

The diamond rush in D.R. Congo, Sierra Leone and other African nations has resulted in civil war, human trafficking, forced child labor, and other serious human rights violations by groups intent on securing a slice of the diamond industry for themselves. But they are relatively small players in comparison to the Israelis.

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Trump Says He’ll Support an Israeli Attack on Iran If Tehran ‘Continues’ Its Missile Program

President Trump said on Monday that he would support an Israeli attack on Iran if Tehran “continues” its conventional missile program or if it works to rebuild its civilian nuclear program that was damaged by US airstrikes during the US-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic in June.

The president made the comments at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida before a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when asked if he would back more Israeli attacks on Iran. “If they continue with the missiles, yes. The nuclear, fast,” he said.

“One will be yes, absolutely,” he added, appearing to reference Iran’s missiles. “The other was we’ll do it immediately,” he said, referencing the possibility of Iran rebuilding its nuclear program. The president also threatened to “knock the hell” out of Iran if it “builds up again.”

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Trump Claims Israel Is Complying With Gaza Deal ‘100%’ Despite Constant IDF Ceasefire Violations

During a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida on Monday, President Trump claimed Israel was holding up its end of the Gaza ceasefire deal “100%” despite constant IDF attacks on Palestinians in the Strip and other Israeli violations.

Since the deal went into effect on October 10, the Israeli military has killed at least 414 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The IDF has continued demolitions and has expanded the so-called “yellow line,” the vague boundary that separates the IDF-occupied side of Gaza and the Hamas-controlled side. Israel has also maintained restrictions on aid and shelter materials entering Gaza.

When asked by a reporter at Mar-a-Lago if he was concerned that Israel wasn’t moving quickly enough into “phase two” of the plan, Trump said he was “not concerned about anything Israel is doing” and that Israel has “lived up to the plan 100%.”

Trump also appeared to issue an ultimatum to Hamas during the press conference, saying that if the group doesn’t disarm within a certain amount of time, there will be “hell to pay” and that it will be “horrible for them.”

The president said that Hamas has already agreed to disarm, but the group has been consistent in its position that it won’t give up its weapons unless a Palestinian state is established, or if progress is made in that direction. Trump’s 20-point peace plan said that Gaza would be “demilitarized,” but Hamas only agreed to use the plan as a basis for negotiations.

So far, the only deal Israel and Hamas have signed outlined a ceasefire and the exchange of Israeli captives and Palestinians held in Israeli jails. “Our people are defending themselves and will not give up their weapons as long as the occupation remains,” the new spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said on Monday.

Trump also claimed during the press conference that the US and Israel are helping the “people of Gaza” even though both countries are not allowing reconstruction to take place, as civilians are living in flimsy tents and the rubble of bombed-out buildings amid harsh winter storms. In recent weeks, at least 20 people in Gaza have died due to the weather.

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