Tag: ukraine

West at war with Russia – Polish PM

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is also the West’s war, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said. The most important task for EU leaders is to make people aware of the threat that Russia supposedly poses, he told the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday.

Tusk has taken a particularly hardline stance on the conflict, in which Warsaw has been a key supporter of Kiev. Earlier this month, he complained that fellow Poles have developed “antipathy” towards Ukraine, which he blamed on Russia, while urging Polish politicians to “stem this tide.”

On Monday, he said, “the biggest and most important task for European leaders today is to make Western societies aware” that the Ukraine conflict is the most serious risk they face in the 21st century.

“This war is also our war,” Tusk stated, claiming that it is “of our fundamental interest,” as a defeat would affect all of Western civilization from Poland to the US. He called for “solidarity and unity” within the EU and NATO to counter this.

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Poland Arrests Ukrainian Diver Over Nord Stream Sabotage Explosions

The plot surrounding the mystery of the 2022 Nord Stream gas pipeline sabotage explosions and secret op continues to thicken, as Poland has on Tuesday issued a surprise announcement saying it has arrested a suspected connected with it.

“A Ukrainian man suspected of being involved in causing undersea explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany in 2022 was arrested in Poland, a spokesperson for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw said Tuesday,” The Associated Press reports.

Without irony or satire, the AP identifies further that “Volodymyr Z. was detained in Pruszkow, central Poland, according to Polish radio station RMF FM, which first reported his capture” – based on a European arrest warrant issued by German authorities. 

The man in custody has elsewhere been described, including in Reuters, as a Ukrainian diver wanted by Germany… and his name is Volodymr Z… though the reporting is not based on The Onion.

This is the second recent arrest related to the Nord Stream sabotage investigation, as last month another Ukrainian man was arrested in Italy in connection.

The mainstream media narrative on this major event which came early in the Ukraine war has shifted dramatically several times. In the opening months, the MSM was lockstep in collectively assuming Russia must have bombed its own key pipelines, effectively economically sabotaging itself and a (at the time) leading European energy export partner.

Then, as we highlighted, there was in 2024 the “bombshell” WSJ Nord Stream report which was a shift, but yet another attempt by mainstream gatekeepers to put official distance between President Zelensky and his supposedly ‘rogue’ top general at the time who ‘oversaw’ the covert op.

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Russia Says It’s ‘Analyzing’ the Possibility of the US Sending Tomahawk Missiles to Ukraine

The Kremlin said on Monday that it was “analyzing” the possibility of the US providing Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, a step that would mark a significant escalation of the proxy war.

The comments from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov came after US Vice President JD Vance said that President Trump was considering the possibility of supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks, which have a range of over 1,000 miles, by selling them to European NATO countries.

“We have heard these statements. We are thoroughly analyzing them. Our military specialists are closely monitoring it,” Peskov said, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

Peskov also downplayed the idea that Tomahawks would make a difference for Ukraine. “Even if it happens that the United States sends its Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, currently there is no cure-all that could be a game changer on the front lines for the Kiev regime. No magical weapons exist, and Tomahawk or other missiles simply won’t be a game changer,” he said.

With a range of over 1,000 miles, Tomahawks would put Moscow well in range of Ukrainian missile strikes, and Vance’s comments came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky threatened attacks on Kremlin officials if the war in Ukraine continues. But it’s unclear how Ukraine would fire the missiles since they’re designed to be launched from advanced US warships.

The US has, in recent years, developed two land-based missile launchers that can fire Tomahawk missiles: the Typhon and the Long Range Fires (LRF) systems. These systems were previously prohibited by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which the US withdrew from in 2019.

The Typhon system has been deployed for military drills in Asia and in Europe, but the LRF has been abandoned by the US Marine Corps due to maneuverability issues. A report from Defense Express suggested that the retired LRF launchers could be refitted and sent to Ukraine for the Ukrainian military to use to fire Tomahawks.

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Assessing Reports That Ukraine Is Preparing A False Flag Drone Provocation Against NATO

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova raised global awareness of Hungarian media reports about a planned Ukrainian false flag drone provocation against NATO in her Telegram post on Friday. She hyperlinked to one of the outlets, Pesti Srácok, a little more than two hours after they published their editorial. It ended by citing unspecified Telegram posts about Ukraine’s plans to bomb logistics hubs in Poland and Romania with captured Russian drones and then blame Moscow.

Accordingly, there’s no solid intelligence about this, just social media reports that were picked up by the Russian Foreign Ministry and amplified by their spokeswoman. Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that such a scenario isn’t credible, especially given the larger context. Trump just greenlit NATO downing Russian jets that violate the bloc’s airspace, which could arguably embolden some members to attempt this on false pretexts, thus risking a major escalation of NATO-Russian tensions exactly as Ukraine wants.

Likewise, if the most zealously anti-Russian ones along the alliance’s eastern frontier ultimately get cold feet after fearing that Trump might hang them out to dry, Ukraine could nudge them in the direction of offensive operations against Russia disguised as “reciprocal retaliation” via this false flag plot. The essence is similar to what Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service warned about twice over the summer regarding joint British-Ukrainian plots to stage false flag provocations in the Baltic Sea.

According to their sources, this would involve Ukrainian-transferred Soviet/Russian torpedoes hitting a US ship there or at least exploding in close proximity to it and/or fishing up Ukrainian-transferred Soviet/Russian mines, either of which could suffice for pulling Trump into mission creep. They could also falsely justify offensive actions on the grounds of “reciprocal retaliation”, albeit at sea in these scenarios, while the latest one that Zakharova warned about could include drones, airstrikes, and/or a no-fly zone.

Russia continues to gradually gain ground in the special operation zone, and while no breakthrough has yet to occur, the military-strategic dynamics are clearly in its favor and decisively against Ukraine’s. Taken to its conclusion, this trend will inevitably result in Russia controlling all the disputed territory with time, thus enabling Moscow to end the conflict on more of its terms by then. Ukraine wants to avert that scenario so it’s desperately trying to engineer the game-changer of direct NATO intervention to that end.

It’s only through such a dramatic development that the abovementioned dynamics could possibly be altered to at the very least freeze the conflict, which Ukraine and the West have demanded of Russia to no avail since that would leave unmet many of its goals in the conflict, ergo Ukraine’s false flag motives. Having captured Russian drones bomb NATO logistics hubs in Poland and Romania via a modern-day “Gleiwitz incident” as Zakharova described Ukraine’s reported plans to be might easily achieve that.

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Budapest Says Zelensky ‘Is Losing His Mind’ After Allegations of Hungarian Drones Invading Ukrainian Airspace

During the war, Ukraine has remained in a state of constant conflict with Hungary.

But since the Kiev regime bombed the Druzhba pipeline – that was vital for their energy security of the neighboring country – the bilateral relations took a turn for the worse, and seem to have reached the point of no return.

Not content of calling Viktor Orbán and his conservative, anti-Globalist government ‘Putin’s lackeys’ and some such slanders, Kiev’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky has forwarded the seemingly absurd thesis that Hungarian drones would have invaded his country’s airspace.

And the pushback from the Hungarians has been brutal.

Reuters reported:

“Reconnaissance drones that violated Ukraine’s airspace could have flown from Hungary to check the industrial potential of western border areas, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday, prompting a mocking rebuke from Budapest.

‘President Zelenskiy is losing his mind to his anti-Hungarian obsession. He’s now starting to see things that aren’t there’, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a post on X.”

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Russia unleashes drone-missile attacks on Ukraine

ussia launched a barrage of drone and missile attacks on Ukraine early Sunday, which officials said was one of the most intense attacks on Kyiv since the war began, according to reports.

Authorities reported at least four people were killed nationwide, with more than 14 wounded, and damage suffered to residential buildings, factories, and a cardiology clinic in Kyiv, Reuters reported.

According to Ukraine’s military, Russia launched 595 drones and 48 missiles overnight and air defenses managed to shoot down 568 drones and 43 missiles. 

The capital was the main target of the attacks, with explosions heard across Kyiv for more than 12 hours, Reuters also reported.

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Vance Says Trump Is Considering Supplying Ukraine With Tomahawk Missiles

Vice President JD Vance said in an interview that aired Sunday that President Trump was considering the possibility of supplying Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, a step that would mark a significant escalation of the proxy war, as the missiles have a range of over 1,000 miles.

“You asked this question about Tomahawks. It’s something the president is going to make the final determination on. What the president is going to do is what’s in the best interest for the United States of America … I know that we’re having conversations this very minute about that issue,” Vance said in an appearance on Fox News Sunday.

It’s unclear how Ukraine would use the Tomahawk missiles if they were supplied, as they are designed to be fired by US Navy warships and submarines. Vadym Skibitskyi, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, previously said that Ukraine lacks the naval infrastructure to use sea-launched Tomahawks.

The US could potentially provide Ukraine with its new ground-based Typhon missile launcher, which can fire Tomahawks and was developed after the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019. The INF prohibited land-based missile systems with a range between 310 and 3,400 miles.

Vance didn’t address the risk of escalation that comes with providing Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. Moscow has previously made clear that US-backed missile strikes on its territory risk nuclear escalation, as it changed its nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons after the Biden administration gave the green light for Ukraine to fire US-provided ATACMS missiles into Russia.

When asked about his previous opposition to the US arming Ukraine, the vice president pointed to the fact that the US is now having European countries fund the weapons shipments. However, last month, the administration announced a deal that will arm Ukraine with Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) air-launched missiles, which can hit targets up to 280 miles away, that will be partially funded by US military aid.

Tomahawks would put Moscow in range of Ukrainian missile strikes, and Vance’s comments came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky threatened that Kremlin officials could become targets if the war continues. “They have to know where the bomb shelters are,” Zelensky said in an interview with Axios. “They need it. If they will not stop the war, they will need it in any case.”

In the same interview, Zelensky said that he had the explicit backing of President Trump to hit Russian energy infrastructure and arms factories and warned that if the US provided additional long-range capabilities, “we will use it.”

Russia, which hasn’t targeted Ukrainian leadership, has dismissed Zelensky’s threat. “Zelensky is trying to demonstrate to the Europeans, who now act as the breadwinners, that he is such a brave soldier,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “Meanwhile, the state of affairs at the front indicates the opposite. With every passing day, the situation for Ukraine is inexorably deteriorating.”

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Trump Reportedly Denies Ukraine Tomahawk Cruise Missiles That Could Reach Moscow

Zelensky wants US-made long-range missiles that could escalate conflict into WW3.

In the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, US President Donald J. Trump had dozens of bilateral meetings, including the almost obligatory face-to-face with the Kiev regime leader, Volodymyr Zelensky.

In his statements to the press and in subsequent social media posts, Trump appeared to cheer for Ukraine and incentivize it to regain lost territory, while at the same time reinforcing the understanding that European powers will have to carry the burden of this war.

But there was one item of military hardware that the US president reportedly refused to include in the packages that the EU can buy to send to Zelensky: Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Axios reported:

“Zelensky told ‘The Axios Show’ on Wednesday that he’d asked Trump for an additional weapons system that could force Russian President Vladimir Putin to enter peace talks — perhaps without Ukraine even having to use it.

[…] Zelensky did not name that weapons system during his interview with Axios’ Barak Ravid, but he said that if Russia knew Ukraine had it, the pressure to talk would greatly increase.”

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Kremlin Responds To Zelensky Comment Hinting At Assassination Of Top Leadership

Russia on Friday blasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his “irresponsible” threats after the day prior he said that leaders in Moscow should check for bomb shelters near the Kremlin if the country does not stop its war in Ukraine.

Zelensky had told Axios that Russian officials “have to know where their bomb shelters are,” adding: “If they will not stop the war, they will need it in any case.”

He did caveat the threat by saying he won’t target civilians as “we are not terrorists” but then underscored, “They have to know that we in Ukraine, each day, we will answer. If they attack us, we will answer them.”

Zelensky also stressed that if Ukraine receives long-range weaponry from the United States, then “we will use it.” This is an especially dangerous scenario as it is flirting with WW3, given Moscow has long issued a red line related to such long-range weapons attacking Russian territory.

The Ukrainian leader could be upping these threats not only out of desperation, but after earlier this month Russia struck Ukrainian government buildings in the capital for the first time of the war, and it was not far from Zelensky’s own office.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to the threats as follows: “Zelensky is clearly continuing his desperate efforts. That’s why he’s issuing threats left and right, which is quite irresponsible,” according to the AFP.

Former Russian president and current top national security official Dmitry Medvedev also responded, by saying:

“The freak should understand something else: Russia can use weapons that no bomb shelter will save you from. And the Americans should remember this too.”

This appeared to be another veiled nuclear threat, and hint at runaway escalation if American long-range weapons are used to attack government buildings in Moscow.

There was at least one notable time earlier in the conflict that Ukraine sent small drones against the Kremlin complex in Moscow, damaging a dome and putting the capital on high alert.

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Zelensky is ‘losing his mind’ – EU state’s foreign minister

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has issued a sharp rebuke of Vladimir Zelensky, claiming that Kiev has become obsessed with Budapest and is imagining threats that do not exist.

Zelensky alleged on Friday that Hungarian drones had violated western Ukrainian airspace, suggesting they “may have been conducting reconnaissance on the industrial potential of Ukraine’s border areas.”

“President Zelensky is losing his mind to his anti-Hungarian obsession,” Szijjarto wrote on X in response, adding that “he is now starting to see things that aren’t there.”

Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga fired back, stating that “no amount of your attacks on our President will change what we – and everyone – see.”

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