Tag: russia

Zelensky Desperately Pitches Drones For Tomahawks At White House

In a somewhat lengthy Q&A with the press, Presidents Trump and Zelensky fielded a variety of questions before starting a closed-door meeting at the White House, with each leader’s full delegations present.

All eyes have been on the potential decision to transfer Tomahawks to Ukraine, but President Trump at every turn dodged the question, and did not offer anything clear on Tomahawks one way or the other. But he did say at one point when asked about concerns over the Pentagon’s own dwindling missile stockpiles that “I have to make sure we’re stocked up as a country.”

That opened up an interesting moment where Zelensky offered “thousands” of Ukrainian drones in exchange for receiving Tomahawks, though Trump appeared cool toward the idea, and noted that the United States already possesses excellent and cutting-edge drone production. 

Keep reading

Zelensky calls for ceasefire along current front lines

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has called for a ceasefire with Russia along the current front lines. He made the comment after US President Donald Trump issued a similar appeal on social media.

“We have to stop where we are. The president is right,” Zelensky told reporters in Washington, DC on Friday, adding that the sides could then hammer out the next steps toward a peace deal. “Yes, both sides have to stop,” Zelensky said.

Trump hosted Zelensky at the White House earlier that day, following a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday. He previously expressed frustration over the lack of progress in his efforts to mediate peace between Russia and Ukraine.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that he urged Putin and Zelensky to “stop the killing, and make a DEAL!”

“Enough blood has been shed, with property lines being defined by War and Guts. They should stop where they are. Let both claim Victory, let History decide! No more shooting, no more Death, no more vast and unsustainable sums of money spent,” he said.

Keep reading

Russian Dossier on JFK Assassination Released to Public After Hand Delivery to Rep. Anna Paulina Luna

A 386-page dossier reportedly compiled by the Russian government detailing its findings on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has been delivered to the United States and made public for the first time. The documents, written primarily in Russian, were hand-delivered by the Russian Ambassador to the United States to Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), who announced the release and public posting of the material this week.

According to Luna, her office received the physical dossier directly from the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. “This is of massive historical significance,” she wrote on X. She noted that Congress had previously attempted to obtain the same material in the 1990s but was denied. Luna stated that a “team of experts” is now working to translate and authenticate the files, which have not been edited or redacted and “appear in their original form as delivered.”

The documents have been published in full by veteran journalist and author Jefferson Morley on his Substack platform, JFK Facts. Morley was entrusted with ensuring that the public could access the dossier without restrictions.

Keep reading

More on the Delusional Thinking of Western Zionists

If you think that Donald Trump is the only one living in a fantasy land when it comes to the genocide in Palestine and the war in Ukraine, think again. The following quotes come from an ardent Zionist who has enjoyed financial success in his life and holds at least one post-graduate degree. After you read and absorb this man’s analysis you will understand that money and education does not guarantee one’s competence to comment on geopolitical events.

Let’s start with Trump’s bizarre signing of Sharm El-Sheikh Peace Plan for Gaza, which excluded the two combating sides. My Zionist acquaintance wrote:

Today changed everything. Arrayed behind Trump in Egypt were all of the key leaders in the world other than Putin and Xi. Trump has achieved something nobody thought possible. In the process he has isolated Iran, but just as important, he now made Putin look isolated when the rest of the world is trying to end wars and create peace and prosperity.

Think about that for a moment… He considers clowns like Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, and Frederich Mertz key leaders? Those three combined could not lead hungry Palestinians to a bread line. The fact that neither Xi, Putin nor Modi participated in this charade underscores that this was not a serious effort to peacefully end Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people. The presence of the Arab and Muslim sycophants at the ceremony, who are not wildly popular figures in their own countries, was a further reminder that US influence in the region is eroding, not expanding. Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed Bin Salman had the good sense to stay away.

After convincing himself that the Sharm El-Sheikh photo op had isolated Putin, my Zionist acquaintance waded into the war in Ukraine;

Putin will be under a lot more pressure to end the war now. At the same time, he is not winning the war, and is losing thousands more casualties just when there are severe labor shortages, and the economy is headed to further deterioration. The attacks on the energy facilities is having real impact and a continuation of these attacks and attacks on rail lines will serve to cause much additional economic decline over the winter.

Paying men to go die is beginning to not work. It is very expensive and more men are fleeing. Winter is about here and so the fighting season is ending soon and the trees will no longer provide cover from drones. Putin can try to go on for a long time but the longer he does the worse the economy and the energy situation. The more isolated Putin becomes from the Mideast and other parts of the world who are now working together to build the economic growth the world needs.

He is regurgitating the Ukrainian propaganda that continues to appear in the mainstream media in the West. The reality is the exact opposite… Ukraine is suffering dramatic and substantial economic and military damage. According to a recent Time Magazine report:

2024 has seen wave after wave of basic infrastructure hit with previously unknown accuracy and ferocity. The biggest target is now the country’s power sector, and specifically, its ability to generate electricity. . . . Some 60% of Ukraine’s power generation has been knocked out, as Russian precision bombs, drone strikes, and rocket attacks increasingly home in on power plants and energy infrastructure. The country is now suffering the worst rolling blackouts since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Ukraine’s ability to regenerate and rebuild has now been overwhelmed, at least for the immediate future. Over 9 gigawatts of power generation alone has been taken out just since March. More hydroelectric plants have been destroyed, including the Dnipro station, the largest that was still working. Solar power facilities, too. Every single one of the thermal—coal and natural gas burning—plants has been hit, and of the original 13 no more than two are still operational. DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private power company, has lost 90% of its generation capacity. The current national power deficit is approximately 35%.

What my Zionist acquaintance, as well as most in the Trump administration, fails to grasp is that Russia is not isolated… BRICS is not a novelty nor a flash-in-the-pan. The economic ties between India, China and Russia — which represent three of the top four economies in the world — are growing, and new financial systems of payments and trade are being created. In fact, of the 27 countries that attended the Sharm El-Sheikh ceremony, six of them are members or partners of BRICS and boast GDP growth rates in excess of 4%, while the US and its NATO allies face massive debt burdens and are growing at rates less than 2%.

Keep reading

Trump Says He Will Make ‘Determination’ on Whether Ukraine Can Launch an Offensive

President Trump said on Wednesday that he will make a “determination” on whether Ukraine can launch an offensive, something he will discuss with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Friday.

“We’ll be talking about the war with him. They want to go offensive. I’ll make a determination on that. But they would like to go offensive, you know that, and we’ll have to make a determination,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office.

A report published in The Wall Street Journal last month said that President Trump was made aware of Ukrainian plans for an offensive that would require US intelligence support. He learned of the plans before writing a post on Truth Social, where he claimed Ukraine could retake all of the territory Russia has captured since the invasion.

US War Secretary Pete Hegseth warned on Wednesday that the US would “impose costs” on Russia if it doesn’t end the war. “If there is no path to peace in the short term, then the United States, along with our allies, will take steps necessary to impose costs on Russia for its continued aggression,” he said.

The rhetoric from Trump and Hegseth suggests the Trump administration is preparing to abandon its efforts at reaching a peace deal and continue the proxy war indefinitely. The administration is also considering providing Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, which are nuclear-capable and have a range of over 1,000 miles, which would make a significant escalation and increase the chances of the war turning into a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.

Keep reading

Russia hands over its JFK assassination files to US lawmaker

The Russian ambassador to the US has given Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna copies of the declassified Soviet files on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the embassy announced on Tuesday.

Ambassador Aleksandr Darchiev met with Luna, a Republican from Florida, and handed her files compiled from the Russian state archives, diplomats said.

According to the Russian Embassy, many of the files had already been presented to the US by Soviet officials during Kennedy’s funeral in 1963.

“I have received a hard copy of the report on JFK’s assassination from the Ambassador of Russia. A team of experts is enroute to my office in the morning to begin translation and full review of documents,” Luna wrote on X.

Luna said journalist Jefferson Morley is helping her review the 350-page collection. “We will be posting translations, prepared by fluent Russian speakers, of significant material in the document. We will provide context on what this document is, how it came to be, and how it compares with what is known about Russia’s response to JFK’s assassination,” Morley wrote on X.

Keep reading

The Russian Mathematician Who Exposed the Cannibalistic Nature of Socialism

Igor Rostislavovich Shafarevich is not exactly a household name, but the man richly deserves to be remembered, a century after his birth and six years since his death. In 1923, he was born on this date—June 3—in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, about a hundred miles west of Kyiv. He died in 2017 at the age of 93, leaving behind remarkable contributions to mathematics and, of far greater interest to me, a powerful indictment of the ancient calamity known as socialism.

Shafarevich ranks high in the pantheon of 20th Century mathematicians. His name is attached to numerous pioneering theorems and formulas I can’t begin to understand, but which are celebrated as genius among the numerical cognoscenti. In 1981, he was even inducted into the prestigious Royal Society of London as one of the brightest foreign scientists ever to grace its membership.

Growing up in Ukraine under Soviet-imposed socialism, Shafarevich harbored misgivings about the system from an early age. In his 30s, he began to run afoul of it because of his outspoken support of the Eastern Orthodox faith in an officially atheist empire. He eventually morphed into a full-blown, anti-Marxist dissident and an ally of Andrei Sakharov, the physicist famous for defending human rights against the regime’s assaults. Despite his world-class credentials in mathematics, Shafarevich was fired from Moscow University because of his collaboration with Sakharov.

When the great Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (author of The Gulag Archipelago and other seminal works) delivered his famous address at Harvard University in 1978, he cited a book by Igor Shafarevich that had appeared three years before. Solzhenitsyn, in fact, wrote the Foreword to the book’s English translation. 

Titled The Socialist Phenomenon, it is Shafarevich’s most significant and memorable foray outside mathematics and should rank as a classic in the voluminous, definitive critiques of socialism. My copy, purchased in 1981, is full of marks and notations where I found insights I did not want to forget.

The first 200 pages of the book surveys socialist ideas and experiments in history, from Plato and Greece to Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China to the Inca civilization in South America. You can read a good rendition of the book’s chapter on the Incas here. The Incan nation was short-lived (it couldn’t defend itself against a few hundred Spanish) but it may well be the most thoroughly regimented and centrally planned society the world has ever known.

In the final third of the book, or about a hundred pages, Shafarevich offers his analysis of socialism. He argues persuasively that “at least three components of the socialist ideal—the abolition of private property, the abolition of the family and socialist equality—may be deduced from a single principle: the suppression of individuality.”

Socialism presents itself in multiple flavors, of course, but the unadulterated version promises “the greatest possible equality.” This is the height of hypocrisy and delusion, Shafarevich argues, because at the same time, socialism offers up “a strict regimentation of all of life, which would be impossible without absolute control and an all-powerful bureaucracy which would engender an incomparably greater inequality.”

Individuals participate in life as thinking, acting individuals, not as indistinguishable portions of a collectivist blob. “Cultural creativity, particularly artistic creativity, is an example,” the author points out. Renaissance Italians didn’t paint The Last Supper. Leonardo da Vinci did. “And in periods when socialist movements are on the increase, the call for the destruction of culture is heard ever more distinctly,” Shafarevich explains. 

Keep reading

Military Analyst Warns US Doesn’t Have Enough Tomahawks To Send To Ukraine

Military analysts have told the Financial Times that even if President Trump decides to approve US Tomahawk transfers to Ukraine, this will have limited impact on the trajectory of the war, given especially that a mere dozens will be available to send.

The report also suggests that the US is involved in too many conflicts at once, and that Pentagon stockpiles of advanced weapons are being depleted.

Trump started this week by issuing more ambiguous and vague statements on the Tomahawk issue. On Monday he had said Tomahawks are a “very offensive weapon,” noting, “honestly, Russia does not need that.” He hinted he ‘might’ pull the trigger on this escalation, amid Moscow warnings and threats.

FT found that out of over 4,000 Tomahawk missiles in the US arsenal, only “a few” could be given to Ukraine:

Mark Cancian, a former Pentagon official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank, estimated in a recent war game that the US had 4,150 Tomahawks in total. However, the US would probably be able to supply only a few to Ukraine.

This is in light of the fact that, out of the 200 the Pentagon has procured since 2022, it has already fired more than 120, according to defense experts. The defense department has requested funding for only 57 more Tomahawks in its 2026 budget. Washington would probably also need Tomahawks for any strike on Venezuelan soil.

Again, this reference to Venezuela is interesting, at a moment of unprecedented American military build-up in the southern Caribbean near the Latin American country’s coast. The US has also been expending its missiles on defending Israel, which happened at an increased pace especially over the past year.

Another Washington-based US military analyst put a number to how many Tomahawks American could afford to hand over:

Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security think-tank, said Washington could spare some 20 to 50 Tomahawks for Ukraine, “which will not decisively shift the dynamics of the war”.

While the long-range missiles could complement Ukraine’s own long-range attack drones and cruise missiles “in large complex salvos to greater effect”, they would “still will be a very limited capability . . . certainly not enough to enable sustained, deep attacks against Russia”, they added.

And of course, the understated if not unspoken part is that all of this risks WW3 with Russia, something that Trump has repeatedly and openly voiced that he wants to seek to avoid at all costs.

Keep reading

Russia Accuses Ukrainian Intelligence Of Using ISIS For Assassination Plot

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) stated on Monday that its officers foiled a terrorist attack in Moscow that was planned by ISIS under the direction of Ukrainian intelligence.

ISIS operatives sought to target a high-ranking Russian Defense Ministry official using an explosive device in a densely populated area of the capital city, the agency said in a statement.

“The FSB has prevented a sabotage and terrorist act against one of the senior officers of the Russian Defense Ministry, organized by Ukrainian special services in coordination with leaders of the international terrorist organization Islamic State (banned as a terrorist organization in Russia),” the FSB statement said.

Four suspects connected to the plot were detained, including a native of a Central Asian country. The FSB alleged that the plan was developed by Ukrainian intelligence and would have been carried out by a suicide bomber recruited by an ISIS member named Saidakbar Gulomov.

“On instructions from Ukrainian handlers, S. Gulomov remotely directed the perpetrator’s actions from Ukraine and several Western European countries using multiple foreign messaging applications,” the FSB added.

Gulomov allegedly provided the attacker with funds, information about the target, and materials for assembling explosive devices smuggled into Russia by Ukrainian intelligence using drones.

According to the FSB, Gulomov was also involved in the killing of Russian Lieutenant General Kirillov, commander of the Russian Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defense Troops, in December 2024.

The FSB claims the attack on Kirillov was also orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence. Monday’s foiled terror attack “once again demonstrates the close coordination between the Kiev regime and international terrorist organizations,” the Russian intelligence service stated.

In March 2024, four gunmen attacked a concert hall near Moscow, opening fire on the more than 5,000 people gathered to watch the Russian rock group Piknik. At least 145 people were killed in the attack.  

Russian authorities blamed the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan, ISIS-Khorasan, for the attack, while also accusing Ukrainian intelligence of orchestrating it.

“The investigation has concluded that the terrorist act was planned and organized by the security services of an unfriendly state in order to destabilize the situation in Russia,” stated the Russian Investigative Committee, which was tasked with determining who was responsible. “Members of an international terrorist organization were recruited to carry it out.”

Keep reading

Will Russian-US Tensions Likely Spiral Out Of Control If Ukraine Obtains Tomahawk Missiles?

The precedent set by Russia’s restrained response to Ukraine obtaining the F-16s, which could also be nuclear-equipped, suggests that tensions with the US will remain manageable if Ukraine obtains the Tomahawks too due to the modus vivendi that’s arguably been in place for managing them.

The latest talk about the US transferring longer-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, which Putin said earlier this month could only be used with US military personnel’s direct involvement, has prompted concerns about a potentially uncontrollable escalation spiral. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov assessed that such a development would lead to “a significant change in the situation” but nonetheless reaffirmed that it wouldn’t prevent Russia from achieving its goals in the special operation.

Ukraine’s explicitly stated goal in obtaining these arms is to “pressure” Russia into freezing the Line of Contact without any concessions from Kiev, which would essentially amount to Moscow conceding on its aforesaid goals since none would be achieved in full should that happen, ergo why it hasn’t agreed. In pursuit of that end, Ukraine threatened to cause a blackout in the Russian capital, which would likely be accompanied by more attacks against civilian and military logistics targets far behind the frontlines.

Some are therefore worried that that Russian-US tensions could spiral out of control, especially after Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that the Tomahawks can be nuclear-equipped, but the precedent set by the F-16s suggests that they’ll remain manageable. Putin himself warned in early 2024 that they too could be nuclear-equipped, yet Russia ultimately didn’t treat their use as a potential nuclear first-strike. This is arguably due to the modus vivendi that was described here in late 2024:

“[Comparatively pragmatic US ‘deep state’ figures] who still call the shots always signal their escalatory intentions far in advance so that Russia could prepare itself and thus be less likely to ‘overreact’ in some way that risks World War III. Likewise, Russia continues restraining itself from replicating the US’ ‘shock-and-awe’ campaign in order to reduce the likelihood of the West ‘overreacting’ by directly intervening in the conflict to salvage their geopolitical project and thus risking World War III.

It can only be speculated whether this interplay is due to each’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (‘deep state’) behaving responsibly on their own considering the enormity of what’s at stake or if it’s the result of a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’. Whatever the truth may be, the aforesaid model accounts for the unexpected moves or lack thereof from each, which are the US correspondingly telegraphing its escalatory intentions and Russia never seriously escalating in kind.”

The latest talk about the US transferring longer-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine fits the pattern of leaks serving to tip Russia off about this preplanned escalation so it can prepare its responses in advance. Time and again, Putin has exercised an almost saintly degree of self-restraint in refusing to escalate, whether symmetrically or asymmetrically. Readers can learn more about these precedents from the eight analyses enumerated in the one from late 2024 that was hyperlinked to above.

The only exception was him authorizing the use of the Oreshniks in November after the US and UK let Ukraine use their long-range missiles inside of Russia, obviously through the direct involvement of their military personnel, which he might repeat if Ukraine obtains the Tomahawks. He didn’t authorize them after Ukraine’s strategic drone strikes against parts of Russia’s nuclear triad in June that were much more provocative, however, which might have been due to his diplomatic calculations vis-à-vis Trump.

Keep reading