Tag: ukraine

Ukraine Gov’t Looks to Ban Branch of Orthodox Church over Ties to Russia

The Ukrainian government has declared that a branch of the Orthodox Church has failed to sever its longstanding ties with Moscow – and could soon be banned.

The looming ban affects one of the two rival branches of Orthodoxy in the country and further underscores the turbulent role of religion as Ukraine fends off the Russian invasion. Orthodoxy is the majority religion in both Russia and Ukraine and has served as a cultural and spiritual battleground in tandem with the wider war.

The action comes a year after the Ukrainian Parliament passed a law banning the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church due to its strong support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The law also authorized banning any organization tied to the Russian church. A government investigation into the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, with its centuries-old ties to Moscow, soon followed.

The UOC denounced the full-blown Russian invasion from the start in 2022. It declared its independence from the Moscow church the same year and reiterated that stance in 2025.

Even so, the government says the UOC has refused to take necessary steps, such as revising its governing documents, to complete that separation.

The Aug. 27 government action, while long in the works, still requires more legal processes to take full effect.

The government has petitioned a court to ban the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church itself. The church, if it loses, would have the right to one appeal to a higher court before the case is finalized – a process that could be completed in months, its lawyer said.

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US generals involved in European plan to send 10,000 troops to Ukraine – WSJ

Top US military officials have been involved in drawing up a plan for “security guarantees” for Kiev advocated by Paris and London that includes a massive troop deployment to Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing a European diplomat.

The scheme drawn up primarily by European army chiefs includes two groups of forces that are to be sent to Ukraine, according to the report. One of them would be tasked with training and assistance to the Ukrainian military, while the second would serve as a “reassurance force” for Kiev. The troops are to be deployed once Moscow and Kiev reach a peace deal.

A total of 26 nations agreed to contribute to “security guarantees” for Ukraine in various ways, French President Emmanuel Macron said earlier this week, following a meeting of the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’ – a group of Kiev’s European backers.

The current commitments would allow for a deployment of over 10,000 troops to Ukraine, the WSJ source said, adding that the plan “received input from some US generals,” including the US head of the NATO Allied Command Operations.

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Trump Ready To Place More US Troops In Poland Amid Russia Threat

  • Trump told President Karol Nawrocki the U.S. is prepared to expand its 8,000-strong military presence in Poland.
  • The meeting underscores Warsaw’s push for stronger U.S. security guarantees amid Russia’s war on Ukraine.
  • Nawrocki, a conservative close to Trump’s movement, won the election narrowly on a “Poland first” platform while pledging support for Ukraine but opposing NATO membership.

US President Donald Trump told his Polish counterpart the United States was ready to increase its military presence in the Central European nation, one of the countries on NATO’s so-called “eastern flank” warily watching Russia’s actions.

Trump welcomed conservative President Karol Nawrocki to Washington in an event highlighted by a flyover of US F-16 fighter jets honoring a Polish military pilot who had died last month in a crash.

Asked if he planned to keep US forces deployed to Poland, Trump replied in the affirmative.

“We’ll put more there if they want,” he added, while citing the United States’ “tremendous relationship” with Poland, one of the more important military and political allies of Ukraine during its war with Russia.

“We never even thought in terms of removing soldiers from Poland.”

“We’re with Poland all the way, and we’ll help Poland protect itself,” Trump added.

Warsaw has long sought an increased US military presence in Poland. The United States has based troops in Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and other European nations since the end of World War II, initially to serve as a deterrence to Soviet aggression on the Continent.

The first permanently stationed US troops arrived in Poland in March 2023. There are an estimated 8,000 US troops now garrisoned in Poland, some on a rotational basis.

Nawrocki added that it is “the first time in history” that Poland has been happy to host foreign troops.

Nawrocki, a vocal admirer of the US leader, said after the talks with Trump that the two presidents had discussed bolstering troop levels, adding that Trump had strongly guaranteed Poland’s security.

“The success of his [Nawrocki’s] special relationship with the MAGA movement and with President Trump would be if the United States increased its presence in Poland,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told reporters a day earlier — a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

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Ukraine to help Taiwan build combat drones

A Ukrainian tech hub has signed a deal with a Taiwanese defense company to design and build combat drones, according to an announcement on Wednesday. Poland will also provide expertise.

The move was announced at the International Defense Industry Exhibition (MSPO) in Kielce, Poland, and comes amid heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing in the South China Sea.

According to Focus Taiwan, Ukraine will contribute research and development, Poland will provide expertise, and Taichung-based firm Thunder Tiger will supply technology and components. Earlier this year, Thunder Tiger unveiled an FPV drone capable of carrying an 81mm mortar as well as a new naval kamikaze

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Europe Advancing ‘Precise’ Plans For Troops In Ukraine, Backstopped By US

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the Financial Times that European nations are developing detailed plans to potentially send troops to Ukraine as part of a future peace agreement, despite it being obvious to all the world that Moscow would never agree to this as a basis of peace or ceasefire.

Hawkish European leaders continue to claim they have support from President Donald Trump for pursuing such a plan, which would see a joint multinational force of troops from various European armies, backed by a US security guarantee. “President Trump made it very clear that the US would be part of the security backstop,” von der Leyen said.

“Security guarantees are paramount and absolutely crucial,” she described of the European consensus. “We have a clear road map and we had an agreement in the White House… and this work is going forward very well.”

She had also said that “President Trump reassured us that there will be [an] American presence as part of the backstop. That was very clear and repeatedly affirmed.”

Indeed Trump had declared immediately after hosting European leaders at the White House last month, “We’re willing to help, especially from the air – because no one has what we have.”

However, there still appears to be some distance between Washington and European expectations, with one senior official recently explaining to Axios, “Europe can’t drag out this war with unreasonable expectations and expect the US. to foot the bill. If Europe chooses to escalate, that’s their decision – but they risk turning a potential win into a loss.”

Von der Leyen admitted there’s a long road ahead in terms of organizing a joint commitment for a multinational ‘peacekeeping’ force for Ukraine.

“Of course, it always needs the political decision of the respective country, because deploying troops is one of the most important sovereign decisions of a nation,” she said, adding that “the sense of urgency is very high . . . it’s moving forward. It’s really taking shape.”

Her words were issued during a tour of European countries which lie close to Russia, which the Kremlin is sure to see as provocative in its own right – given for example she was at a military base in Estonia, and at one point was along the Poland-Belarus border, and in Bulgaria, and toured arms depots and factories in ‘NATO’s eastern flank’.

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Trump Again Suggests He Could Back European Troops in Ukraine With Air Power as Part of a Security Guarantee

President Trump suggested in an interview with the Daily Caller published on Tuesday that he would be willing to back a European troop deployment in Ukraine as part of a security guarantee for a potential future peace deal, an arrangement Russia has made clear it would never accept.

Trump was asked if he was considering using US troops for security guarantees, and he said “no,” but made clear he was open to the idea of using US air power, something he has previously suggested.

When asked if he would use US planes for the security guarantees, Trump said, “Maybe we’ll do something. Look, I’d like to see something get solved. They’re not our soldiers, but there are, five to 7,000, mostly young people, being killed every single week. If I could stop that and have a plane flying around the air every once in a while, it’s going to be mostly the Europeans, but we, we’d help them. They, you know, they sort of need it, and we’d help them if we could get something done.”

The insistence from European officials on sending troops to Ukraine could be what ends up sinking the peace process. Russia has said that it must be involved in talks on security guarantees for Ukraine, but European leaders continue to discuss the idea with Ukrainian officials without Russian involvement.

Trump was asked how his support for the potential security guarantees squares with an “America First” foreign policy and pointed to the fact that NATO countries are now purchasing US weapons for Ukraine, although a recent deal that will arm Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles will be partially funded by US military aid.

“Look, we were spending hundreds of billions of dollars in that war. Now we sell equipment to NATO. I got them to go from two to five. Nobody thought that was, and pay. We sell equipment to NATO. We don’t sell it to Ukraine. We sell it to NATO. They pay for the equipment. We’re not spending any money on the war,” Trump said.

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UK sucking resources out of Ukraine – Moscow

The British establishment views Ukraine as a source of cheap resources that can help alleviate the UK’s ongoing economic problems, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

Such a predatory attitude is typical of London, Zakharova said in an exclusive interview with RT on Wednesday.

Moscow considers the UK one of the main actors fueling the Ukraine conflict, claiming it collaborates with the EU to undermine diplomatic efforts made by US President Donald Trump.

“Britain has a history of aggressive colonialism and imperialism toward resource-rich countries,” she stated. “Ukraine holds significant potential in this regard, and Britain views it as a means of enrichment – or rather a lifeline given the current state of Western European economies.”

“London perceives Ukraine as merely a feeding trough, both now and in the future, from which it can extract essentially free minerals and refine them,” she added.

The Ukrainian leadership is not acting in the interests of its citizens, Zakharova claimed, but instead follows directives from “NATO, Western European elites, and local self-interested groups.”

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The Assassination Of Leading Ukrainian Fascist Andrey Parubiy Might Have Been An Inside Job

Although he was an enemy of Russia who many important people likely wanted dead for a while, taking him out right now might impede a speculative US and/or intra-fascist plot to replace Zelensky.

The public assassination of leading Ukrainian fascist Andrey Parubiy has many pointing the finger at Russia and not without good reason. He was infamously implicated in the Maidan sniper provocation at the height of 2014’s Color Revolution, the Odessa Trade Union fire shortly after, and the onset of the then-Ukrainian Civil War in Donbass via his brief role as Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council. Parubiy was therefore an enemy of Russia and many there likely wanted him dead for a while.

At the same time, however, RT political analyst Nadezhda Romanenko put forth a compelling counterview arguing that his assassination was actually an inside job. According to her, Parubiy’s experience in co-organizing EuroMaidan and his alliance with former President Petro Poroshenko made him a natural enemy of Zelensky, who fears being overthrown. He also knows too many secrets about post-Maidan Ukraine so having him take them all to the grave would fill many co-conspirators with relief.

These are valid points that shouldn’t be dismissed as a “conspiracy theory”. After all, a Ukrainian Neo-Nazi assassinated their country’s top “linguistic nationalist” in July 2024 due to a perceived ideological slight, which interestingly happened in Lvov just like Parubiy’s assassination. That city is a hotbed of Ukrainian fascism where various factions are known to occasionally war against one another. It therefore wouldn’t be too difficult in theory for Zelensky’s clique to put out a hit against Parubiy there.

Likewise, a rival fascist faction might have simply taken him out on their own for whatever their ideological or business-related reason might have been, thus making it difficult to conclude who’s responsible. Even though his suspected assassin was detained less than 48 hours after the assassination, any potential claims by that individual of having been contracted by Russia should be treated with the utmost skepticism due to Ukraine’s use of torture to extract “politically convenient” confessions.

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European delusions are prolonging Ukraine’s suffering

The stench of hypocrisy is thick in the halls of Brussels these days, where European leaders—clutching their champagne flutes and virtue-signaling press releases—continue to demand that Russia surrender unconditionally, even as their own militaries crumble under the weight of their own incompetence. While they preach about “democracy” and “territorial integrity,” they send Ukraine just enough weapons to keep the slaughter going, but never enough to actually win. Meanwhile, American taxpayers foot the bill for a war that Europe’s own generals admit they cannot sustain. Now, the Trump administration has had enough. According to leaked reports from Axios and The Atlantic, White House officials are openly accusing the EU of sabotaging peace talks with “unreasonable” demands, all while expecting the U.S. to bankroll their geopolitical fantasies. One senior official didn’t mince words: “The Europeans don’t get to prolong this war and backdoor unreasonable expectations, while also expecting America to bear the cost.”

The truth is as brutal as it is obvious: Europe wants this war to drag on—not because victory is possible, but because admitting defeat would shatter their illusion of global relevance. And so, they push Ukraine to reject any compromise, even as their own citizens freeze in energy poverty, their economies stagnate, and their armies reveal themselves to be little more than paper tigers. President Trump, ever the pragmatist, has seen through the charade. After high-stakes meetings with both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, he’s made it clear: if Europe wants to play war games, they can pay for them themselves. But if they truly want peace, they’ll have to swallow their pride, accept the new territorial realities, and stop treating Ukrainian lives as bargaining chips in their desperate bid to cling to a fading unipolar order.

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$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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