Tag: perpetual war

Poland Announces Foreign Spy Plot Busted, Involved Photographing Secretive Facilities 

Poland’s National Prosecutor’s Office announced Friday that five individuals have been charged with working on behalf of a foreign intelligence service, following coordinated arrests which spanned November Tuesday through Wednesday of this week by the Internal Security Agency and police.

Those taken into custody include two Ukrainian nationals – identified only as Oleksandr S. and a minor, Sofia Ch. – and in addition three Belarusian citizens identified as Viktoryia M., Anton M., and Uladzimir U.

The group is accused of targeting the Polish state for espionage purposes, with prosecutors alleging that throughout much of 2024 the team collected information on sensitive locations.

“The suspects’ activities involved establishing contact with foreign intelligence representatives via Telegram and carrying out assigned tasks, including the creation and transmission of photographic documentation of critical infrastructure facilities and locations crucial to national security,” a press release translated from Polish to English read.

“For these tasks, the suspects were paid in cryptocurrencies,” it added. Likely Warsaw believes Russian intelligence was ultimately behind the plot. In some instances, Moscow is believed to have used pro-Russian Ukrainian nationals as assets in Europe.

Poland’s investigation comes amid a wider probe into espionage activities carried out by individuals of different nationalities in Rzeszów, Warszawa, Łódź – among some other regions – between March 2024 and February 2025.

But in some instances the activities seem minor, given prosecutors have cited activities as simple as putting up posters and producing graffiti, supposedly associated with foreign operations.

If convicted under Poland’s national laws, acts of espionage can result in five to thirty years in prison.

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Ukrainian Prosecutors Handling More Than 300,000 Desertion Cases

A Ukrainian MP recently made an unsubstantiated claim that there were 400,000 open and ongoing cases of desertion from the Ukrainian military since the invasion by the Russian Federation in 2022. It may have been hyperbole, or they may have had a source in the judiciary.

However, the General Prosecutor’s office wrote to the New Voice of Ukraine in early November that 310,000 criminal cases related to unauthorized absence from a military unit or place of service (AWOL) and desertion are currently registered, 162,000 of which came just this year. There have been over 21,000 desertions in October 2025 alone, claims journalist and former lawmaker Ihor Lutsenko – now commander of a Ukrainian drone unit.

“This is a record. A very bad record. Every two minutes, someone runs away from our army. By the time you finish reading this post, another soldier will have put on skis. Ukraine will be weaker by one defender, and the enemy will become stronger by one,” he wrote, according to the New Voice.He stressed that these are just official figures, and that the real number is only likely to be higher.

Suddenly, the widely dismissed total of 400,000 doesn’t seem impossible, and if a Ukrainian soldier downs his tools every 2 minutes, it leaves quite a lot of time for 400,000 to be reached by the end of the year.

The news comes as a 28-point plan for a lasting peace (later condensed to 19 points) in Ukraine was recently proposed by the Trump Administration in an effort to capitalize on talks with Vladimir Putin held during a summit in Alaska, and to bring the Ukrainians back to the table. Both Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have admitted that within the proposed plan points lies the framework discussed between the leaders in Anchorage without actually endorsing it. Both also acknowledged the “long pause” between the summit and the completion of this new document.

On the other hand, Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev told Axios, that published a full version of the agreement last Thursday, that he was “optimistic” and that “we feel the Russian position is really being heard”.

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Israeli troops caught on camera executing unarmed Palestinians in West Bank’s Jenin

Video footage from 27 November showed Israeli troops executing two unarmed Palestinian resistance fighters in the occupied West Bank, where Tel Aviv has recently escalated raids and attacks as part of a new operation against resistance factions in the territory. 

The two men who were executed were killed as they were surrendering themselves to the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Thursday, the footage showed. In the video, the two lift up their shirts and hold their hands up to show they are unarmed.

An Israeli soldier is seen kicking one of the Palestinians in the footage. Both are then lined up and shot dead at the entrance of the storage facility, where they were initially surrounded by the Israeli army. 

After the execution, an army bulldozer is seen demolishing the facility over their bodies. 

The two were members of the Jenin Brigade of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement’s Quds Brigades. They were killed as they surrendered following a clash with Israeli troops.

They have been identified as 37-year-old commander Yusuf Ali Asasa and 26-year-old fighter Al-Muntasir Billah Mahmoud Abdullah. 

The Quds Brigades released a statement mourning the resistance members, “who ascended to the highest ranks after a journey filled with jihad and resistance, following a field execution carried out by the Nazi enemy army … after their ammunition ran out during an armed clash with enemy forces that besieged them.”

The Israeli army admitted in its own statement that the two men were shot during a joint operation by the military and border police around Jenin city. 

It added that the shooting “is under review by the commanders on the ground and will be transferred to the relevant professional bodies.”

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has been pushing the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners, defended the execution, saying that “terrorists must die.”

“We must put an end to investigations targeting our soldiers who open fire on terrorists,” the minister added. 

Israeli Army Radio reported that three soldiers from the undercover ‘Mista’arvim’ unit are being investigated.

“The extrajudicial killing of two unarmed Palestinians in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, who posed no threat, constitutes another link in the chain of extrajudicial killings targeting Palestinians throughout occupied Palestinian territory. This is a grave violation of international humanitarian law … amounting to war crimes that warrant international criminal prosecution,” said Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. 

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What We Know About the CIA Backed ‘Zero Units’ the Afghan National Guard Shooter Served In

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, CIA Director John Ratcliffe has confirmed, the suspected National Guard shooter, Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, previous worked for a special force unit in Afghanistan that worked under the CIA.

Now new information is coming to light about the Kandahar Strike Force or “Zero Units”, Lakanwal previously served in.

The Kandahar Strike Force also known as “Zero Units” was composed of Afghan nationals under the command of the Afghanistan National Directorate of Security which was an intelligence agency established by the CIA.

The New York Times reported the zero units were trained and equipped directly under the CIA and were trained to conduct clandestine missions across Afghanistan.

Per CBS:

An image of an ID badge circulating widely online Thursday that purportedly shows the suspect in the shooting of the National Guard members says he was assigned to the “Kandahar Strike Force” or “03” unit, one of a number of so-called “Zero Units” that worked closely with U.S. and other foreign forces during the war in Afghanistan.

The badge also carries the words “Firebase Gecko,” which was the name of a base used by the CIA and special forces in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, inside what was previously the compound of the Taliban’s founding leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar. CBS News has not independently verified the authenticity of the ID badge shown in the photos, but CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the suspect had previously worked “with the U.S. Government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar.”

The “Zero Units” were exclusively composed of Afghan nationals and operated under the umbrella of the National Directorate of Security, or NDS, the intelligence agency established with CIA backing for Afghanistan’s previous, U.S.-backed government.

A former senior Afghan general under that previous government told CBS News on Thursday that “03 unit, also known as The Kandahar Strike Force (KSF), was under special forces directorate of NDS. They were the most active and professional forces, trained and equipped by the CIA. All their operations were conducted under the CIA command.”

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France Follows Germany with New (Voluntary) Military Conscription Plan

If you want peace, prepare for war. French President Emmanuel Macron appears to be the latest European leader embracing that ancient maxim, launching a new national military service plan Thursday as France seeks to address shortfalls in its armed forces amidst growing concerns over Russia’s geographical ambitions beyond the war in Ukraine.

Macron announced volunteers – not forced conscripts – aged 18 and 19 will start serving next year in a 10-month new military service programme alongside 6.5 billion euros ($7.6 billion) in extra military spending in the next two years, AP reports.

Germany has already announced it hopes to use the same method to boost its enlistments, as Breitbart News reported. Berlin’s plan remains to be approved by parliament.

“A new national service is set to be gradually established, starting from next summer,” Macron said in a speech at the Varces military base, in the French Alps.

Young volunteers will serve in France’s mainland and oversea territories only, not in France’s military operations abroad, Macron said.

The AP report notes France’s military currently comprises around 200,000 active personnel and over 40,000 reservists, making it the second largest in the European Union, just behind Poland. France wants to increase the number of reservists to 100,000 by 2030.

Macron’s announcement follows the French Chief of Defence Staff warning earlier this month that to present a credible deterrence against Russian aggression in Europe, France’s civilians must stand behind the military, be “prepared to accept losing its children” and “prepared to suffer economically.”

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Taiwan Announces $40 Billion Defense Spending Boost to Protect from China

Taiwanese President William Lai ChinCap Video – No Adsg-te on Wednesday announced a $40 billion boost to defense spending to counter “intensifying” threats from China, which he said is “speeding up military preparations to take Taiwan by force.”

“Taiwan must not become a weak point in regional security. Among all the possible scenarios for China’s annexation of Taiwan, the biggest threat is not force – it is our own surrender,” Lai declared.

Lai said his government was prepared to counter any efforts at “repression” by China, and pledged to achieve a “high level of combat preparedness” within two years, including major upgrades to missile, drone, and artificial intelligence capabilities.

“China’s threats to Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region are escalating. Recently, various types of military intrusions, maritime gray zones and disinformation campaigns have been occurring in Japan, the Philippines and around the Taiwan Strait,” he warned, “causing deep unease and distress to all parties in the region.” 

“Taiwan, as the most important and most critical part of the first island chain, must demonstrate our determination and take on a greater responsibility in self-defense,” he said.

Lai’s language was bound to raise China’s blood pressure, because “first island chain” means the string of islands and reefs from Taiwan to Japan that China is attempting to seize through force and intimidation, even though Beijing’s claims have been rejected by international tribunals.

China is currently embroiled in a highly public feud with Japan because Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae told her parliament that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be a “survival-threatening situation” – in other words, a situation that would justify the use of military force under Japan’s pacifist constitution.

Japanese leaders have never before used those exact words to describe their alliance with Taiwan. China’s seemingly hysterical reaction was triggered in part because Beijing fears the increasingly strong alliance between other Pacific powers aligned with the United States. Lai’s announcement on Wednesday reinforced the importance of that alliance, and supported Takaichi’s contention that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a threat to every nation in the island chain.

“We hope China can understand that each country in the Indo-Pacific region has a responsibility to its peace and stability, and that we especially hope China, as a major power in the region, would also demonstrate the responsibilities of a major power,” Lai said, directly referencing the dispute between Beijing and Tokyo.

“Instead, it has continued to raise threats and attacks toward neighboring countries. This is not the way a responsible major power acts,” he lamented.

The extra spending announced by President Lai, which would be spread out over eight years, brings Taiwan’s defense budget up to 3.3 percent of GDP. Lai has said he plans to bring spending up to five percent of GDP, while President Donald Trump has asked the imperiled island nation to shoot for ten percent.

Lai wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post on Tuesday in which he expressed gratitude to President Trump for pursuing “peace through strength,” and said Taiwan is fully on board with that principle, as demonstrated by his $40 billion supplemental defense spending plan.

“This landmark package will not only fund significant new arms acquisitions from the United States, but also vastly enhance Taiwan’s asymmetrical capabilities,” he wrote. “In doing so, we aim to bolster deterrence by inserting greater costs and uncertainties into Beijing’s decision-making on the use of force.”

“My message here is clear: Taiwan’s dedication to peace and stability is unwavering. No country will be more determined in safeguarding Taiwan’s future than our own,” he declared.

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Were The Brits Behind Bloomberg’s Russian-US Leaks?

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service warned earlier the same day as Bloomberg’s report that the Brits are hellbent on discrediting Trump in order to undermine his latest peace efforts for resolving the conflict from which they profit.

Bloomberg shared what it claimed to be the transcripts of calls between Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Putin’s top foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov as well as between Ushakov and Putin’s other advisor Kirill Dmitriev about the Ukrainian peace process. The gist of the Witkoff-Ushakov call was Witkoff’s proposal to have Putin suggest a Gaza-like 20-point peace deal for Ukraine during an upcoming call with Trump while the Ushakov-Dmitriev one implied that the leaked draft was Russian-influenced.

Ushakov declined to comment on his talks with Witkoff but said that “Somebody tapped, somebody leaked, but not us” whereas Dmitriev flat-out described his purported call with Ushakov as “fake”. For his part, Trump defended Witkoff’s alleged “coaching” of Ushakov on how Putin should deal with him by reminding everyone “That’s what a dealmaker does. You got to say, ‘Look, they want this – you got to convince them with this.’ That’s a very standard form of negotiations.”

As regards the possibility that the draft framework was Russian-influenced, the notion of which has been pushed by the legacy media to discredit the proposed mutual compromises therein, that was already debunked. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as National Security Advisor, said that “The peace proposal was authored by the U.S. It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations It is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”

Therefore, neither transcript is scandalous even if their contents were accurately reported, yet the question arises of who might have tapped and leaked these calls. Intriguingly, earlier the same day that Bloomberg later published their report, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service warned that the UK “aims to undermine Trump’s efforts to resolve the conflict by discrediting him.” Readers will recall the UK’s role in Russiagate, which they conspired with the CIA, FBI, and the Clinton camp to cook up to against him.

Seeing as how they can no longer collude in this way with their three prior conspirators, the UK might therefore have resorted to leaking those two calls with Ushakov that they might have tapped (possibly among many others) as a last-ditch attempt to discredit the latest unprecedented progress towards peace. This provocation might also have been meant to make Trump panic and fire Witkoff out of fear of another Russiagate 2.0 investigation if this scandal helps the Democrats flip Congress next year.

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28 Points of NONSENSE: Russia Unbothered, Ukraine RUNNING OUT of Men

The more revisions the EU and Kiev make to Trump’s 28-point plan for Ukraine, the more ridiculous it is to assume that Russia would accept the document. Especially, as Russia is the side winning this war of attrition with advantages in manpower and weaponry that are leading to signifiant advances on the battlefield, as Kiev’s defensive lines start to fall apart.

Stanislav Krapivnik, a former U.S. Army officer, supply chain exec and military and geopolitical expert, noted that while the West is branding Trump’s offer as a type of surrender for Kiev, it’s actually asking Russia to capitulate to the West’s demand for a ceasefire with a “letter of intent” to try to make it look like NATO wants an end to the war.

As for the question of what Moscow is willing to accept, he pointed out that it seems the Russian government is finally coming to the conclusion that this conflict will have to be settled on the battlefield.

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Why the Meandering Borders of Ukraine Are No Hill For America First To Die On

Here we go again. The Donald had no more than offered a constructive 28-point plan that correctly identified America’s Homeland Security interest in Ukraine as nichts, nada, nugatory and nyet – when the Washington neocon brigade that he foolishly invited back into his government to sabotage it for the second time, did exactly that. This time it pulled the guts right out of his Ukraine peace plan and did so in plain sight.

To wit, the only thing that mattered in the original gussied-up word salad of 28-points was that –

  • Ukraine would be partitioned roughly along the lines of the pre-1918 Novorussiya province of the Russian Empire, meaning that mainly Russian-speaking Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk and the major parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia would be allowed to secede from the tyrannical, corruption-ridden, Nazi-tainted, anti-Russian Kiev regime.
  • the rump of Ukraine would forswear now and forevermore any interest in joining NATO. That is, functioning as a Cuba on Moscow’s borders just like Khrushchev foolishly attempted with JFK way back in October 1962.

Neither of these so-called “concessions” to Putin would harm America’s true homeland security by a whit because Russia with a $2 trillion GDP based on oil, grains and metals is no threat whatsoever to America’s $30 trillion high-tech economy. Nor would they have adversely impacted the so-called “rules-based international order” because the latter is but a beard for the Washington-based Warfare State and global empire, which is already bankrupting America and which remains utterly unnecessary for the maintenance of what’s left of its liberty, democracy and capitalist prosperity.

In short, the Donald was – knowingly or otherwise – fixing to make like the long-ago Senator from Vermont, George Aiken. The latter correctly and famously told LBJ the way to get out of the Vietnam morass was to “declare victory and go home”.

That’s essentially what Trump’s 28-point plan did – just like in the case of that comparable 60-years ago folly that had no bearing on America’s security, either.

But apparently to quell the uproar over its correct answer to the $300 billion financial and human catastrophe that the Washington War Party and its NATO footmen have visited upon the ashes of the Ukrainian steppes, the Donald unaccountably sent Little Marco Rubio to Geneva last weekend. His remit was to negotiate an acceptance of his 28-point plan by the crooks, sadists and war criminals who conduct the Ukrainian version of Mafia rule in their woebegone nation. But what he actually did was agree with them to essentially disembowel Trump’s plan by dropping the aforementioned provisions, which were the only thing that really mattered to the Russians.

Still, Rubio’s treachery in plain sight should not have been a surprise to anyone who has actually paid attention (not the Donald) to Washington’s machination during recent decades. After all, sending the fox into the hen house to gather the eggs is a hardly an adequate metaphor for what happened in Geneva.

To wit, Rubio was, is and always will be the enemy of America First because he is an inveterate neocon interventionist. After having hung around the Deep Swamp most of his adult life, he has no clue that the entire machinery of the Washington-based Warfare State is about selling arms and conducting live-action military exercises abroad against anyone who fails to cow-tow to the dictates of the war-makers on the Potomac and their auxiliaries and proconsuls scattered around the planet.

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The Dangerous, Unhinged Reaction to Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan

President Donald Trump has magicked up some unexpected momentum in Russia–Ukraine peace talks by proposing a 28-point settlement to the war. You might think Ukraine’s Western supporters would welcome the chance for peace, considering how dreadfully the war is going for Ukrainians.

You might be wrong.

Blowhards on both sides of the Atlantic reacted with moral outrage, depicting the proposal as a forced capitulation for Volodymyr Zelensky and a wish list for Vladimir Putin. A rumor even spread that the plan was literally Russian, authored by the Kremlin and transmitted to Washington for delivery to Kiev (a rumor swiftly batted down by Axios and the White House). Thomas Friedman of The New York Times wrote that, if the “surrender” plan is imposed on Zelensky by Thanksgiving, then Turkey Day “will become a Russian holiday.”

This is laughable stuff. But it’s also maddeningly counterproductive. Trump’s peace plan is about as balanced as Ukraine could realistically hope, given Russia’s momentum on the battlefield. Even so, Zelensky may not have the political leeway to accept it, since doing so would risk a revolt by hardline nationalists. One idea that I heard while in Kiev last month is that Zelensky needs Trump to play the bad guy and force him to accept a deal.

If that’s right, then the Thomas Friedmans of the world—the people insisting that Trump’s plan surrenders Ukraine’s freedom, so Zelensky cannot possibly accept it—are acting as peace-spoilers, not democracy-defenders. 

They are reducing the political cover the White House is providing Zelensky to “reluctantly” make a deal. Unwittingly (I hope), they are raising the pressure on Zelensky to continue a war that Ukraine is losing, and on Trump to insert poison pills into the agreement that Moscow cannot accept. They just might succeed. As always, the ones who will pay the costs are the Ukrainians themselves.

If the Trump deal really was a giveaway to Putin, then the critics would have a stronger case. But it’s not.

The very first point—Ukraine’s sovereignty will be confirmed—alone makes it a good deal for Kiev. Under the agreement, Ukraine would remain a sovereign nation-state free to join the European Union and become the Western-style democracy that so many Ukrainians want their nation to be. As Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute writes, “An agreement that leaves three quarters of Ukraine independent and with a path to EU membership would in fact be a Ukrainian victory, albeit a qualified one.”

So, what are the critics carping about? 


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