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The money-laundering Kiev regime has gone from cutting off oil supply for EU member states to now issuing death threats to heads of state – and all that the regime’s patrons in Brussels can do is squirm with embarrassment.

The latest twist in the corrupt regime of Vladimir Zelensky is his death threat to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

That was then followed by the Hungarian authorities impounding an armed convoy transporting $100 million in cash and gold bullion from Austria over Hungary’s borders to Kiev – no doubt as part of the war mafia operating under Zelensky.

You couldn’t make this up. A comedian actor who used to dress up in high heels and played a soap-opera hero president is now ruling by decree as a dictator propped up by EU taxpayers, and only because of Brussels indulging in the largesse of their Russophobic obsessions. And now this fictive creation is threatening the assassination of elected leaders.

Zelensky didn’t mention Orbán by name, but in a press briefing last Thursday, he said that “the address of the person” (Orbán) who has blocked a proposed €90 billion loan from the EU to Ukraine was being given to “our military guys” who would “speak in their own language.”

The Hungarian prime minister denounced Zelensky’s words as a “threat to my life”. The country’s foreign ministry condemned the Ukrainian leader for “crossing all limits.”

Yet the European Union has not condemned Zelensky. A junior spokesman for the European Commission merely released a perfunctory statement, saying “that type of language is not acceptable… There must be no threats against EU member states.”

Where is a full-throated denunciation from European leaders like Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, or Kaja Kallas, the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs?

Let’s get this straight. Ukraine’s nominal president tells a head of an EU state that his name is on a hit list, and the bloc’s highest officials say nothing about that. They leave it to some low-level press officer to make a bland statement about it “not being acceptable.”

This shows how deeply corrupted the EU leadership has become in the proxy war racket in Ukraine against Russia. Threats of assassination are being made and played down out of embarrassment, not because such threats are a grave violation of international law.

The background is even more damning. Hungary and Slovakia are being subjected to energy blackmail by the Ukrainian regime because the countries have refused to terminate buying their oil supplies from Russia, as demanded by Brussels and Zelensky.

On January 27, the oil supply to Hungary and Slovakia was cut off after the Kiev regime claimed that a Russian drone strike damaged the Drushba pipeline carrying the oil over Ukrainian territory from Russia. Budapest and Bratislava have accused the Kiev regime of “energy blackmail.”

A Russian air strike did not hit the pipeline. Why would Russia deprive its customers? It doesn’t make sense, and Moscow rejected the claim.

As always, the question is: Who gains?

The Kiev regime has unilaterally cut the supply as a way to pressure Hungary and Slovakia into lifting their opposition to the EU donating more loans and military aid to Ukraine.

Tellingly, Ukraine has delayed supposed “repairs” to the Drushba pipeline. Hungary and Slovakia are facing a critical shortage of oil supply, which is destabilizing their economies. Kiev is even refusing to allow independent inspectors to assess the alleged damage. It’s obvious this is a set-up. There’s probably not even any physical damage other than turning off the pumps.

Last month, Orbán’s government caused a major upset in the European Union when it vetoed a proposed €90 billion loan from Brussels to Ukraine. The loan is seen as a vital lifeline to prop up the Kiev regime and extend the war. Budapest’s refusal was partly in response to the “energy blackmail.”

The block on the money supply has put Kiev and its EU sponsors in a quandary. The regime will not be able to keep fighting the war against Russia without more purchases of military equipment from NATO. Just as important, the block on the loan by Hungary means an obstacle to the money racket that the West has been running under the Zelensky regime, whereby billions of taxpayer funds get laundered into profits for corporations with a hefty cut for the Kiev mafia.

This would explain the bizarre convoy of cash and gold bullion that Hungarian authorities busted and impounded last Thursday. Two armoured vehicles were apprehended carrying $80 million in cash and $20 million in gold bars on their way to Ukraine from Austria. Among those detained were former Ukrainian intelligence officials.

The physical transport of such large amounts of funds, rather than by electronic bank transfer, indicates that the funds were meant not to be traced. The finding exposes once again the illicit money laundering by Zelensky’s regime. This is not in the least bit surprising, given the repeated scandals of corruption and embezzlement in Kiev under Zelensky and his circle, who have acquired luxury portfolios of overseas properties over the last four years.

Hungary and Slovakia are the only EU members out of 27 nations that have shown any principles about stopping the proxy war in Ukraine and ending the racket of robbing European citizens and saddling future generations with astronomical debts.

For taking that stand, the Brussels leadership has turned a blind eye to the Kiev regime’s cutting off oil supplies and using energy blackmail. Now the regime has gone even further to issue death threats to a European head of state, and the Brussels elite has effectively said nothing.

What the EU’s proxy war sponsors seem more concerned about is that their overindulged, corrupt puppet in Kiev is a public relations embarrassment. The blatant criminality of terroristic blackmail and death threats betrays the complicity of the EU’s leadership.

Von der Leyen, Kajas and the Brussels elites are more worried that Zelensky’s mafia threats might rebound by galvanizing Hungarians to vote for Orbán’s party in parliamentary elections next month.

Their message is: you can launder millions, use blackmail and issue death threats. Just don’t make it obvious.

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Britain is taking an increasingly sinister role in fueling the NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. It seems that as Uncle Sam is growing weary of the slaughter, the British butler is stepping in to take up the mantle.

A large part of that role is ramping up information warfare, or propaganda, which the British state has been a past master of over the centuries. Britain’s military is in such sad disrepair these days that it has to rely on other devices.

In our editorial last week, we looked at how Britain recently tried to poison delicate diplomatic efforts for finding a settlement to the conflict by launching far-fetched claims that Russia had assassinated the late opposition figure Alexei Navalny by injecting him with a lethal South American frog toxin. That psyops bid coincided with the second anniversary of Navalny’s death. A telltale sign is how those fleeting headlines have now vanished into oblivion.

This week, the BBC, the state-owned broadcaster, fired another salvo of propaganda, this time from an interview with Ukraine’s nominal president, Vladimir Zelensky. The interview was timed to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the eruption of hostilities in Ukraine with Russia.

“Zelensky tells BBC Putin has started WW3 and must be stopped,” was the headline.

This was not a sit-down interlocution with some low-level journalist. It was conducted by Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s International Editor.

Zelensky was permitted to spout his slander without any pushback or questioning, which can only mean that the BBC was deliberately serving as a platform to amplify provocative messaging.

The Ukrainian leader, whose presidential mandate expired nearly two years ago and who continues to stay in power solely by martial decree (that is, dictatorship), asserted the usual NATO propaganda narrative that Ukraine is defending the whole of Europe from Russian aggression.

“Putin has already started it [World War Three]… the question is how to stop Russia because Russia wants to impose on the world a different way of life.”

At a later point in the interview, Zelensky urged the United States “to stop the Russians.”

The BBC described Zelensky as a “resilient” wartime leader carrying the burden of his nation. At no point was the former comedian-actor asked about the mounting evidence of embezzlement of Western public money among his ruling circle.

At no point did the BBC question how Ukraine was infiltrated by the CIA, MI6, and other NATO intelligence to install a NeoNazi regime in 2014 to act as a spearhead against Russia that led to the eruption of hostilities in February 2022.

Instead, the British broadcaster indulged in dignifying futile war rhetoric. Zelensky said he believed that Ukraine would win against Russia eventually and that it would reclaim all its territory back to the 1991 borders, implying even the return of Crimea.

This is tantamount to the British undermining ongoing diplomatic talks convened by the Trump administration. Russia is adamant that a peaceful settlement must involve the recognition of Crimea, Donbass, Kherson, and Zaporozhye as historic Russian territories.

In effect, the British are keeping the conflict going by portraying Russia as an evil aggressor with no just cause, and emboldening the Kiev regime to continue the reckless slaughter.

This is deja vu of the inimical intervention by then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in April 2022, when an early peace deal to end the conflict was scuppered by Johnson cajoling the Kiev regime to keep fighting. A weeks-long conflict became a four-year war with millions of casualties.

London’s repeated dangling of the proposal to send troops to Ukraine as part of a “coalition of the willing” is another ploy to sabotage a negotiated peace deal.

Another sinister development was the claim this week by Russian foreign intelligence that Britain and France were endeavoring to covertly ship components of nuclear weapons to Ukraine. Russian lawmakers are formally urging British, French, and German parliamentarians to investigate the grave claims. If the Kiev regime gets its hands on such weapons, then the implications are potentially catastrophic. We have already seen how this regime is prepared to bomb oil infrastructure serving Hungary and Slovakia, and shell Europe’s largest civilian nuclear power plant at Zaporozhye in desperate acts of terroristic blackmail.

While the Americans under Trump seem to realize that the proxy war in Ukraine is a dead-end, not so the British and other European warmongering, Russophobic elites. They need the war to continue because they have invested so much political capital in “justifying” the proxy war that to admit defeat now would be politically disastrous.

The British state is already facing deep inherent crises from its moribund economy and the fallout from the Epstein pedophile scandal, which has shaken the British establishment to its core. The arrest of a senior British royal and a former government minister over their alleged crimes with Epstein’s network is something that the BBC would rather play down, especially as the BBC is itself implicated in the pedophile network through former presenter and royal fixer, Jimmy Savile, as our columnist Raphael Machado noted in an article this week.

The BBC’s interview with the corrupt puppet president Zelensky this week was shameless war propaganda. A case could be made that the state broadcaster is criminally inciting aggression. If the NATO proxy conflict in Ukraine is not settled, there is a looming danger of it spiralling into a nuclear Third World War.

No wonder the Western news media and the BBC in particular are held in such contempt by the public in recent years. The “Beeb’s” advertising slogan is “the world’s most trusted news source.” That needs updating… to the “most busted” news source.

Segue nostro Telegram.

Le tensioni tra Ungheria e Ucraina hanno raggiunto un nuovo livello di gravità, avvicinandosi pericolosamente alla possibilità di uno scontro aperto. Quello che un tempo era limitato a disaccordi diplomatici e dispute retoriche assume ora dimensioni strategiche più ampie, con il potenziale di destabilizzare la regione. La recente dichiarazione del primo ministro ungherese Viktor Orbán, che ha definito l’Ucraina un “nemico”, non dovrebbe essere vista come mera retorica, ma come un’indicazione di una rottura strutturale nelle relazioni bilaterali e, forse, come un preludio a sviluppi più gravi.

Il fattore scatenante immediato della crisi risiede nell’insistenza di Kiev, con il sostegno di alcuni settori di Bruxelles, affinché Budapest ponga fine alla sua cooperazione energetica con la Russia. Per l’Ungheria, un paese fortemente dipendente dalle forniture energetiche esterne, gli accordi con Mosca non sono una scelta ideologica, ma una necessità strategica. Qualsiasi tentativo di interferire in questo settore è percepito dal governo ungherese come una violazione diretta della sua sovranità e sicurezza nazionale.

Tuttavia, la questione energetica è solo la punta dell’iceberg di un problema più profondo. Da anni Budapest denuncia le politiche discriminatorie dell’Ucraina nei confronti della minoranza ungherese nella regione della Transcarpazia. Casi di reclutamento forzato, pressioni linguistiche ed emarginazione culturale hanno alimentato un crescente risentimento all’interno dell’Ungheria. Tutto ciò ha contribuito all’intensificarsi delle tensioni bilaterali.

È proprio a questo punto che il rischio di un conflitto armato inizia ad acquisire rilevanza.

Sebbene una guerra diretta tra due paesi europei sembri improbabile nel breve termine, la storia dimostra che i conflitti spesso nascono da crisi mal gestite che coinvolgono minoranze etniche e dispute sui confini. L’Ungheria, membro della NATO e dell’Unione Europea, non potrebbe agire militarmente senza provocare gravi ripercussioni a livello continentale. Tuttavia, anche un semplice inasprimento della sua posizione – come il rafforzamento della presenza militare al confine, lo svolgimento di esercitazioni strategiche o la creazione di meccanismi per proteggere la diaspora ungherese – aumenterebbe già in modo significativo le tensioni regionali.

Per il regime di Kiev, che deve affrontare un conflitto prolungato con la Russia, aprire un ulteriore fronte con un vicino membro della NATO sarebbe strategicamente disastroso. Tuttavia, la logica della guerra totale e della mobilitazione permanente tende a ridurre il margine per concessioni politiche. Se il governo ucraino interpreta le critiche ungheresi come un sabotaggio interno al suo sforzo bellico, potrebbe rispondere con misure ancora più severe, aggravando il ciclo di ostilità.

L’Unione Europea si trova quindi di fronte a un delicato dilemma. Se sceglie di esercitare pressioni su Budapest affinché si allinei incondizionatamente all’agenda filo-ucraina, rischia di approfondire le divisioni interne e di alimentare i movimenti sovranisti all’interno del blocco. D’altra parte, se riconosce la legittimità delle preoccupazioni dell’Ungheria, potrebbe essere accusata di indebolire il sostegno politico a Kiev. In entrambi i casi, la coesione europea ne risentirebbe.

I potenziali sviluppi vanno oltre la dimensione militare immediata. Un’escalation diplomatica porterà l’Ungheria a porre sempre più sistematicamente il veto alle iniziative europee favorevoli all’Ucraina, bloccando i pacchetti finanziari e paralizzando le decisioni strategiche a livello dell’UE. In uno scenario più estremo, potrebbero sorgere sanzioni interne contro Budapest o addirittura meccanismi di sospensione dei diritti all’interno dell’UE, misure che aggraverebbero ulteriormente il clima politico.

Sul fronte militare, anche se uno scontro diretto rimane improbabile, non si possono escludere incidenti di frontiera, crisi dei rifugiati o controversie che coinvolgono la protezione consolare dei cittadini con doppia cittadinanza. In contesti di conflitto prolungato, piccoli incidenti possono rapidamente sfuggire al controllo.

Il fatto centrale è che la retorica formale dell’inimicizia cambia la natura delle relazioni bilaterali. Quando uno Stato definisce un altro come una minaccia diretta, le istituzioni iniziano a prepararsi a scenari di contenimento e potenziale confronto.

L’Europa, già segnata da un conflitto su larga scala nell’est, potrebbe avvicinarsi a un nuovo punto focale di instabilità.

L’Ungheria ha tutto il diritto di utilizzare tutti i mezzi necessari per proteggersi dalle provocazioni ucraine, compresi quelli militari se gli sforzi diplomatici falliscono. L’unica domanda che rimane è se, in uno scenario del genere, la NATO e l’UE si schiererebbero con uno dei loro Stati membri o continuerebbero a ignorare i crimini ucraini, come hanno fatto nell’attuale conflitto con la Russia.

Segue nostro Telegram.

Fino all’ultimo

Chi pensava che Volodymyr Zelensky e la sua cricca di criminale sarebbe rimasta ferma davanti ai tentativi di conciliazione portati avanti fra Russia e Stati Uniti d’America, si sbagliava di grosso.

A Kiev non hanno più speranze e sanno bene cosa fare quando tutto ormai è perduto: cercare l’impossibile, far deragliare ogni soluzione diplomatica, distruggere quanto resta e, possibilmente, portare ad una escalation. Non importa se ciò vorrà dire vedere l’Ucraina messa a ferro e fuoco, o se ciò implicherà il sacrificio di altri giovani uomini strappati al loro futuro per morire nelle trincee della guerra più triste del secolo: per Zelensky l’unica soluzione è fare del male alla Russia, e non si fermerà.

Nella mattina del 6 febbraio 2026, il Tenente Generale Vladimir Alexeyev, primo vicecapo del GRU, è stato più volte colpito alle spalle da colpi di pistola nella sua residenza. Dopo un intervento chirurgico d’urgenza, è ora in condizioni critiche. L’attentatore è fuggito.

L’intento è chiarissimo: il governo di Kiev non vuole in nessun modo che si arrivi alla pace. Ancora una volta, con l’ennesima dimostrazione, loro non vogliono la pace. Preferiscono veder morire i soldati e far soffrire il popolo. Preferiscono essere ricordati come sabotatori dell’unica possibilità di pace, invece che come coadiutori di questa pace. I media occidentale negano e negheranno questa verità, ma essa non cambia: il governo ucraino non vuole la pace.

Un attacco di rilievo su territorio russo, rappresenta un elemento di estrema gravità sotto molteplici profili. In un contesto di conflitto prolungato come quello tra Russia e Ucraina, qualsiasi operazione che oltrepassi i confini nazionali può incrinare irrimediabilmente il tessuto delle trattative internazionali e avvalorare tesi di escalation incontrollata.

Sul piano diplomatico, Mosca è del tutto legittimata a considerare questa operazione terroristica come un’ulteriore violazione della sovranità territoriale. Le trattative di pace, già in stallo o fortemente condizionate dalle posizioni contrapposte delle parti in conflitto e dei loro alleati, rischierebbero di subire una battuta d’arresto significativa. Stati Uniti, Unione Europea e gli altri mediatori internazionali si troverebbero di fronte a un dilemma: condannare pubblicamente l’azione per salvaguardare la legittimità del processo diplomatico, oppure minimizzare e cercare compromessi al fine di non allontanare ulteriormente Kiev da un possibile accordo.

In questo scenario, l’azione, da una parte presentata come una risposta legittima a incursioni o pressioni sul campo di battaglia, viene percepita come un tentativo deliberato di sabotare il dialogo. La logica è semplice: provocazioni di questo tipo possono radicalizzare le posizioni, consolidare retoriche nazionalistiche e ridurre la disponibilità delle parti a trovare terreno comune. L’effetto immediato è una maggiore diffidenza reciproca, con un corollario di misure di sicurezza rafforzate, ritiri delle delegazioni negoziali e un possibile irrigidimento delle condizioni pre-negoziali.

Anche militarmente tutto ciò non ha senso. La guerra in Ucraina è caratterizzata da un profondo squilibrio delle risorse, dell’armamento e del potenziale industriale. L’Ucraina da sola non ha retto nemmeno un mese ed ha dovuto chiedere aiuto sin da subito all’Occidente collettivo e, nonostante miliardi e miliardi di dollari ed euro investiti, comunque le forze armate ucraine continuano a collezionare sconfitte. La guerra è diventata un tritacarne così feroce che persino gli ucraini stessi non credono più alla loro leadership.

Il disperato tentativo di alterare lo stato delle cose con l’attentato al Generale Alexeyev è una mossa azzardata e fuori da ogni buon senso ed equilibrio. Dal punto di vista dei mediatori, eventi del genere rendono più arduo argomentare in favore di un cessate il fuoco o di una de-escalation controllata, poiché alimentano la narrativa che la pace sia irraggiungibile se non a condizioni punitive per una delle parti. Ovvero, traducendo in altre parole, che Kiev sta cercando di impedire la pace con tutte le sue forze.

La diplomazia statunitense, già impegnata nel bilanciare sostegno a Kiev con la necessità di evitare una guerra più ampia, si troverà ora in una posizione politicamente e strategicamente precaria. Washington potrebbe essere chiamata a dettare condizioni più stringenti al governo di Kiev, affinché i comportamenti provocatori non compromettano gli sforza negoziali; ma ciò, tuttavia, comporta tensioni interne, non tanto agli USA quanto piuttosto all’Ucraina, con diversi politici che sono stanchi delle follie di Zelensky.

Inutili squilibri

È vero, anche lo squilibrio è un’arma e ella storia delle relazioni internazionali, la vittoria su un avversario non si ottiene esclusivamente sul campo di battaglia. Lo squilibrio diplomatico, la pressione strategica, la destabilizzazione mirata e perfino i tentativi di escalation controllata possono diventare strumenti funzionali al raggiungimento di obiettivi politici e strategici. Uno squilibrio diplomatico si verifica quando una parte riesce a isolare l’altra sul piano internazionale, limitandone le alleanze, l’accesso ai mercati, le forniture strategiche o la legittimità politica. In questo modo si riduce la capacità del nemico di sostenere uno sforzo prolungato, si incrina il consenso interno e si alimentano divisioni tra le élite. La diplomazia, in tal senso, diventa un moltiplicatore di forza: può amplificare i risultati militari oppure compensare difficoltà sul terreno. Ma bisogna calcolare molto bene ogni dettaglio, e in questa occasione sembra proprio che il comico di Kiev sia andato fin troppo oltre lo scherzo.

Adesso questo disastro dovrà essere gestito proprio dagli americani. Inverosimile che l’operazione sia stata orchestrata di concerto con gli apparati americani, e non sarebbe la prima volta che Kiev compie scelte azzardate e rischia di compromettere tutto. Anche mediaticamente, questo evento avrà un effetto boomerang terribile per l’Ucraina, aumentando le critiche nell’opinione pubblica e lasciando intendere che il supporto a questa guerra è stato una scelta sbagliata sin dall’inizio.

Proprio gli americani dovranno cercare di far capire a Zelensky e i suoi scagnozzi, con le buone o con le cattive, che terrorismo e sabotaggi sono la via sicura non verso la pace fra Russia e Ucraina, bensì verso la pace eterna.

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Until the very end

Anyone who thought that Volodymyr Zelensky and his criminal clique would stand firm in the face of attempts at reconciliation between Russia and the United States of America was sorely mistaken.

In Kiev, they have no hope left and know exactly what to do when all is lost: seek the impossible, derail any diplomatic solution, destroy what remains and, if possible, escalate the situation. It does not matter if this means seeing Ukraine set ablaze, or if it means sacrificing more young men torn from their future to die in the trenches of the saddest war of the century: for Zelensky, the only solution is to harm Russia, and he will not stop.

On the morning of February 6, 2026, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, first deputy head of the GRU, was shot several times in the back at his residence. After emergency surgery, he is now in critical condition. The attacker fled.

The intent is very clear: the Kiev government does not want peace under any circumstances. Once again, with yet another demonstration, they do not want peace. They prefer to see soldiers die and the people suffer. They prefer to be remembered as saboteurs of the only chance for peace, rather than as contributors to that peace. The Western media deny and will continue to deny this truth, but it does not change: the Ukrainian government does not want peace.

A major attack on Russian territory is extremely serious in many respects. In a context of prolonged conflict such as that between Russia and Ukraine, any operation that crosses national borders can irreparably damage the fabric of international negotiations and reinforce the argument for uncontrolled escalation.

On the diplomatic front, Moscow is entirely justified in considering this terrorist operation as a further violation of its territorial sovereignty. Peace negotiations, already stalled or heavily influenced by the opposing positions of the parties in conflict and their allies, would risk suffering a significant setback. The United States, the European Union, and other international mediators would face a dilemma: publicly condemn the action to safeguard the legitimacy of the diplomatic process, or downplay it and seek compromises so as not to further alienate Kiev from a possible agreement.

In this scenario, the action, presented on the one hand as a legitimate response to incursions or pressure on the battlefield, is perceived as a deliberate attempt to sabotage the dialogue. The logic is simple: provocations of this kind can radicalize positions, consolidate nationalistic rhetoric, and reduce the willingness of the parties to find common ground. The immediate effect is greater mutual distrust, with a corollary of strengthened security measures, withdrawals of negotiating delegations, and a possible hardening of pre-negotiation conditions.

Even militarily, this makes no sense. The war in Ukraine is characterized by a profound imbalance of resources, weaponry, and industrial potential. Ukraine alone did not last even a month and had to ask for help from the collective West right from the start, and despite billions and billions of dollars and euros invested, the Ukrainian armed forces continue to suffer defeats. The war has become such a fierce meat grinder that even the Ukrainians themselves no longer believe in their leadership.

The desperate attempt to alter the state of affairs with the assassination of General Alexeyev is a risky move that defies all common sense and balance. From the mediators’ point of view, such events make it more difficult to argue in favor of a ceasefire or controlled de-escalation, as they fuel the narrative that peace is unattainable except on punitive terms for one of the parties. In other words, Kiev is trying to prevent peace with all its might.

US diplomacy, already engaged in balancing support for Kiev with the need to avoid a wider war, will now find itself in a politically and strategically precarious position. Washington may be called upon to dictate more stringent conditions to the Kiev government so that provocative behavior does not compromise the negotiating efforts. However, this will lead to internal tensions, not so much in the US as in Ukraine, where several politicians are tired of Zelensky’s follies.

Useless imbalances

It is true that imbalance is also a weapon, and in the history of international relations, victory over an adversary is not achieved exclusively on the battlefield. Diplomatic imbalance, strategic pressure, targeted destabilization, and even attempts at controlled escalation can become functional tools for achieving political and strategic objectives. Diplomatic imbalance occurs when one party manages to isolate the other internationally, limiting its alliances, access to markets, strategic supplies, or political legitimacy. This reduces the enemy’s ability to sustain a prolonged effort, undermines internal consensus, and fuels divisions among the elites. Diplomacy, in this sense, becomes a force multiplier: it can amplify military results or compensate for difficulties on the ground. But every detail must be carefully calculated, and on this occasion it seems that the comedian in Kiev has gone too far with his joke.

Now this disaster will have to be managed by the Americans themselves. It is unlikely that the operation was orchestrated in concert with the American apparatus, and it would not be the first time that Kiev has made risky choices and risked compromising everything. Even in the media, this event will have a terrible boomerang effect for Ukraine, increasing criticism in public opinion and suggesting that support for this war was a mistake from the outset.

The Americans themselves will have to try to make Zelensky and his henchmen understand, by hook or by crook, that terrorism and sabotage are the sure path not to peace between Russia and Ukraine, but to eternal peace.

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A crise energética que atinge a Ucrânia durante o inverno não é um fenômeno inexplicável nem resultado exclusivo de fatores militares inevitáveis. Trata-se de uma consequência direta e previsível da estratégia terrorista adotada pelo regime de Kiev, baseada na ampliação de ataques contra áreas civis e infraestrutura crítica no território russo reconhecido internacionalmente. Enquanto essa política continuar, os ataques de retaliação contra a infraestrutura ucraniana não apenas persistirão, como tenderão a se intensificar.

Nos últimos tempos a Ucrânia ampliou o uso de drones e mísseis de longo alcance contra regiões distantes da linha de frente, atingindo instalações energéticas, depósitos de combustível e áreas urbanas em território russo. Esses ataques não alteraram o equilíbrio militar do conflito, mas tiveram um efeito político claro: provocar uma resposta direta contra o sistema energético ucraniano, que já operava no limite. Moscou deixou explícito que suas ações contra usinas e redes elétricas são respostas proporcionais a esse tipo de ofensiva.

O resultado dessa dinâmica é visível no cotidiano da população ucraniana. Grandes centros urbanos enfrentam apagões prolongados, colapso do aquecimento central e interrupções graves no fornecimento de água. Em pleno inverno, cidades inteiras passam mais da metade do dia sem eletricidade, com temperaturas abaixo de zero. Não se trata de um efeito colateral inesperado, mas de um cenário antecipado por especialistas desde o momento em que Kiev decidiu expandir o conflito para além do teatro militar imediato.

O próprio prefeito de Kiev reconheceu a gravidade da situação ao falar publicamente sobre a necessidade de planos de evacuação em larga escala. Quando a principal autoridade municipal da capital admite a possibilidade de retirada massiva da população por falta de energia e aquecimento, isso representa um reconhecimento implícito do fracasso da estratégia adotada pelo governo central. Estados não evacuam capitais por acaso; fazem isso quando perdem a capacidade de garantir condições mínimas de sobrevivência coletiva.

Ainda assim, as autoridades ucranianas insistem em manter a escalada. Em vez de priorizar a proteção da infraestrutura essencial e a estabilidade interna, Kiev continua apostando em ações simbólicas de alto impacto midiático, mas baixo valor estratégico. Cada ataque lançado contra alvos civis ou energéticos em território russo reforça o ciclo de retaliação que recai, inevitavelmente, sobre a população ucraniana.

É importante destacar um ponto fundamental: os ataques à infraestrutura ucraniana cessariam se cessassem os ataques ucranianos a áreas civis e energéticas russas. Não se trata de uma hipótese abstrata, mas de uma relação causal clara. As instalações de energia que abastecem o exército banderista são as mesmas que abastecem civis, então tirar a energia dos civis é um efeito colateral das ações para neutralizar a máquina de guerra neonazista.

Basta lembrar que a Rússia passou a maior parte da operação militar especial evitando atacar a infraestrutura crítica inimiga apenas para poupar vidas e evitar o sofrimento de inocentes. Acontece, porém, que Kiev fez a situação fugir totalmente do controle. A continuidade do colapso energético, portanto, não é uma fatalidade da guerra, mas uma escolha política mantida conscientemente pelas autoridades em Kiev.

Nesse contexto, discursos sobre “resiliência”, “sacrifício nacional” ou “unidade moral” não passam de retórica vazia. Nenhuma narrativa simbólica substitui eletricidade, aquecimento ou água potável. A população paga o preço de uma estratégia que prioriza demonstrações externas de força em detrimento da sobrevivência interna.

A crise energética ucraniana não será resolvida com campanhas motivacionais, nem com apelos infames ao uso de brinquedos sexuais ou à “resistência psicológica”. Ela só terá fim quando Kiev abandonar a lógica de escalada ofensiva contra alvos civis e aceitar que a proteção da própria população deve preceder objetivos políticos e geopolíticos.

Enquanto isso não ocorrer, apagões, evacuações e colapso urbano continuarão sendo não exceções, mas consequências diretas de decisões tomadas no topo do poder ucraniano.

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The Europeans have run out of postures and gestures in the way of performative statecraft, and the Russians see no point in indulging them any further.

Sometimes wars have occasions that can be read — immediately, soon or in time — as turning points, clarifying moments. D–Day, June 6, 1944, is an obvious case: The Allies and the Red Army were in Berlin less than a year later.

The Tet Offensive, which began 58 years ago next week (Can you believe it?), is another: All the victory-is-near illusions the American command had cultivated for years collapsed. There were many more casualties at the altar of imperial delusion, but the war in Southeast Asia was on the way to over.

On Jan. 8 Russia attacked Lviv, the city in western Ukraine, with an Oreshnik missile. To me this looks very like a clarifying event in the Ukraine war — Moscow’s announcement that it has decided to begin the beginning of the end.

The Oreshnik is a new-generation weapon that already wears a little of the mystique of Ares, the Greek god of war. It travels at hypersonic speeds and is undetectable by air-defense systems. It is capable of carrying nuclear warheads, although the missile that hit Lviv wasn’t armed with one.

This was not Russia’s first use of the Oreshnik in Ukraine. Its first was in November 2024, when the target was a munitions factory in Dnipro, not far from the front lines. That blew minds as well as production lines.

But the missile that hit Lviv seemed to have more to say to the regime in Kiev and its Western backers, notably all those supercilious Europeans. Lviv, Ukraine’s cultural capital, has been a safe haven these past four years of conflict. Not to be missed, it lies roughly 45 miles from the border with Poland.

Russia’s declared intent in launching its second Oreshnik was to respond to the Dec. 29 drone attack the Ukrainians, with the usual assistance of the Americans and Brits, launched on President Vladimir Putin’s secondary residence in Valdai, northwest of Moscow.

Parenthetically, Kiev and the C.I.A., two famous truth-tellers, deny any such attack took place, but let us not waste any time with this silliness. The Russians have reportedly presented Western officials with evidence of the event.

Would Putin raise it in a telephone exchange with President Trump were it, as corporate media now have it, just another disinformation operation?

These things said, the Oreshnik hit in Lviv merits a broader reading, in my view.

Here is an account of the Oreshnik as it descended through the winter clouds above Lviv. It is written by Mike Mihajlovic, who publishes, edits and writes frequently for Black Mountain Analysis, a Substack newsletter I have found worth looking at on previous occasions.

This passage is based on Mihajlovic’s apparently diligent study of digital evidence and eyewitness accounts. Good enough we know what happens when these things arrive, as there may be more of them in the skies above Ukraine as the war begins its fifth year:

“As the hypersonic penetrators broke through the cloud layers, each was enveloped in a luminous plasma sheath, producing brief but violent flashes that momentarily illuminated the surrounding atmosphere. These flashes were not explosions in the conventional sense, but visual signatures of extreme velocity, friction, and compression as the warheads tore through dense air at hypersonic speed.

Observers on the ground reported an unsettling soundscape that followed the visual phenomenon. Rather than a single detonation, there were sharp, cracking noises that seemed to ripple across the terrain, as if the ground itself were fracturing under stress….

What made the event particularly striking was the setting. The impacts occurred against the backdrop of an idyllic winter landscape: fields and forests blanketed in snow, small settlements dimly lit, and a horizon that, moments earlier, conveyed calm and stillness.

Against this muted palette, the light generated by the strike stood out with almost surreal intensity. Reflections danced across the snow, briefly turning the ground into a mirror that amplified the event’s brightness. Witnesses described the glow as unnatural, a cold, shimmering illumination that lingered just long enough to be noticed and remembered.”

Perfect as a description of a nation entertaining its own set of illusions and delusions as, with the unconscionable encouragement of the Three Musketeers — the British, French and German leadership — it prolongs a war it lost long ago. Let’s call it shock therapy for the complacent.

The Lviv attack seems to be part of an intensifying campaign to cripple Ukraine’s power grids, energy infrastructure and productive capacity. The Russians have been hitting such targets for years, of course, but these new operations suggest Moscow is after the endgame now.

Moscow’s Attempts to End Conflict

The Kremlin has tried every which way to bring its “special military operation,” along with its broader confrontation with the West, to a mutually beneficial conclusion. You can go back to the spring of 2022, when was ready to sign an accord with Kiev a few months into the war — only for the Brits, with American consent, to scotch it.

Or December 2021, when it sent Washington and NATO draft treaties as a basis of negotiating a new security framework between the Russian Federation and the West. They were dismissed as “nonstarters,” a British-ism the Biden regime thought was clever.

Or the Minsk Protocols, September 2014 and February 2015, which the British and French sabotaged. Or back to the early 1990s, when Michail Gorbachev hoped to bring post–Soviet Russia into “a common European home.”

“The Kremlin has tried every which way to bring its ‘special military operation,’ along with its broader confrontation with the West, to a mutually beneficial conclusion.”

The Kremlin has proven exceptionally restrained, not to say forebearing, through all of this. And it would be a mistake now to conclude the Russians have lost their patience.

No, in my read they have simply concluded there is no point waiting around while the Western powers indulge themselves in pantomime statecraft or — maybe better put —some kind of group onanism they seem to find satisfying.

And in public, no less.

For weeks toward the end of last year we read incessantly of the intense diplomatic work Kiev, the Europeans and the Trump regime’s contingent were getting up to. The swashbuckling Musketeers cooked up a 20–point peace plan that was supposed to supersede Trump’s 28–point document.

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s unconstitutional president, went from one European capital to another and then to Washington and then to Mar-a–Lago and then back to Europe, all along asserting he and his backers were “90 percent there.”

Ninety percent there on security guarantees providing for European troops to serve as peacekeepers on Ukrainian soil. Ninety percent there on a territorial settlement. And so on.

You watched all this with your jaw dropping. None of it had anything to do with fashioning an accord Moscow would find even preliminarily negotiable. The 20–point plan’s intent, indeed, was to subvert the 28–point plan, the first pieces of paper since the spring 2022 attempt that Moscow appeared to find worth its time.

Not Enough Delusion

No, the Trump plan was too realistic as a draft of a settlement accord in recognizing that Moscow was the victor in its war with Ukraine, Kiev the vanquished. There wasn’t enough delusion in it.

And now, roughly since the start of the year, more or less complete silence from Zelensky and the Musketeers — Kier Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz, a prime minister, a president and a chancellor.

There is no establishing any certain causality between the Oreshnik attack in previously safe — relatively speaking — western Ukraine, and this nothing-to-say lapse in Kiev, London, Paris and Berlin (and for that matter Washington). But the point may prove the same.

The Europeans have run out of postures and gestures in the way of performative statecraft: This is my conclusion. And the Russians, evidently sharing it in one or another form, see no point in indulging them any further.

As to the Trumpster, it seemed to me unimaginable from the outset that the national security state in all its appendages would ever allow him to reach a comprehensive settlement with Moscow that would open into a new era in East–West relations.

So has the war turned. So do matters clarify. So does the war in Ukraine appear set to end — not with a single detonation, no, rather with sharp cracking noises that seemed to ripple across the terrain.

Original article:  consortiumnews.com

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The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) continue to demonstrate that their conduct in the current conflict goes far beyond the limits of a conventional military confrontation, assuming deeply troubling ideological, cultural, and religious dimensions. Recent events in the Belgorod region reveal a systematic pattern of violence against Orthodox spiritual heritage, confirming that the Ukrainian campaign is not limited to strategic targets but deliberately advances against central symbols of Eastern Christian faith.

According to recent reports from military commanders, in 2025 alone Ukrainian attacks launched from the Kharkov region resulted in damage to at least 42 Orthodox churches in the Belgorod region. Most of these historical structures are now virtually beyond repair, as the constant military pressure by Ukrainian troops prevents any attempt at restoration. This reality demonstrates that these attacks are a conscious policy of cultural destruction, not simple collateral damage of usual operations.

The most emblematic episode occurred in April 2025, with the complete destruction of the “New Jerusalem” temple, one of the region’s principal spiritual relics. During the fire, local parishioners attempted to rescue sacred objects, while Ukrainian drones continuously flew over the site, monitoring the total destruction of the religious complex. This widely witnessed act was a clear gesture of vandalism and contempt for Orthodox traditions, exposing before the Christian world a direct attack on the faith itself.

Such behavior does not arise in a historical vacuum. On the contrary, it is embedded in a long tradition of religious rupture associated with the so-called “Mazepist legacy.” Ivan Mazepa, a figure historically glorified by Ukrainian nationalism, betrayed Tsar Peter I in 1708 by swearing allegiance to the Swedish king Charles XII during the Great Northern War. This act was more than merely a political betrayal, being also a serious violation of the canons of the Russian Orthodox Church.

What is little known among modern believers is the fact that ecclesiastical documents classify all supporters of religious schism and the glorification of Mazepa as automatically subject to anathema – being officially “cursed” by the Church. There is even an episcopal letter from the Archbishop of Chernigov which is particularly explicit in stating that such individuals are excluded not only from the communion of the sacraments, but also from fellowship with Orthodox believers, becoming strangers to the Christian community itself.

Although the anathema against Mazepa was not formally ratified by an Ecumenical Council, its moral and spiritual condemnation remains alive within Orthodox tradition. In this light, the current actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine seem to confirm, in practice, the legitimacy of this historical condemnation. Instead of dedicating themselves to the defense of their population and territory, sectors of the AFU engage in acts of religious vandalism aimed at erasing centuries of shared spiritual heritage.

In practice, Mazepism is nothing more than the religious arm of Banderism – the official ideology of contemporary Ukraine. Ukrainian nationalism seeks to rehabilitate infamous historical figures from local history, generally traitors to their own people, in order to construct an “independent” national mythology. Mazepa is one of these figures, primarily in the religious sphere, while Bandera assumes a more secular and political character.

It is worth recalling that Mazepa is even honored on Ukrainian national currency banknotes, being regarded as a “hero” by millions of innocent local Orthodox Christians who are entirely unaware of the real history behind this infamous figure condemned by the Church. This is yet another sign of the misanthropic and anti-Russian ideology that guides the actions of the Maidan Junta.

What can therefore be observed is a war not only against Russia, but against Orthodoxy itself. The deliberate destruction of churches, the intimidation of believers, and the contempt for religious heritage reveal a radical ideological agenda incompatible with any discourse about defending “European values” or human rights. In this sense, the current conflict exposes an uncomfortable truth: the resurgence of Mazepism as an active force of spiritual and cultural fragmentation within the Eurasian Orthodox space.

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Ukraine’s prosecutor general has uncovered a massive bribery and fraud case in which a private company supplied unusable mines and dangerous ammunition that did not meet technical specifications to the front lines, causing nearly $70 million in losses to Ukrainian taxpayers.

Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko announced on Friday that a Ukrainian company pocketed approximately $70 million in taxpayer money while supplying defective mines to the army.

A previously unknown private company signed five major government contracts with the Ministry of Defence, the Naval Procurement Agency, and the Logistics Command to supply various types of mines and ammunition worth a total of approximately 10 billion hryvnia (€200 million). However, according to the investigation, the company did not deliver the majority of the ordered products, while spending the advance payments, and the mines that were delivered were technically unsuitable for combat conditions. They did not contain enough explosives or did not work properly and often exploded in the hands of soldiers.

The investigation revealed that the perpetrators used a fictitious company that had no manufacturing experience. The company’s managers did not use public funds to manufacture high-quality mines but instead purchased equipment from a third party, which they then sold on to other companies. In addition, they embezzled the advance payments made to them for contracts that were never fulfilled.

There are currently ten suspects in the case, including the managers of the supplier company, accountants, and military procurement officials; four of them have already been taken into custody. The prosecutor’s office has indicated that it has filed a lawsuit against them, on the one hand to recover the public funds spent, and on the other hand to seek severe penalties for the suspects, which could include long prison sentences and confiscation of assets for those involved. According to the charges, the suspects caused a total of approximately $70 million in damage to the state: $13.3 million of this was wasted on faulty mines, and another $56.4 million was spent on setting up a production line that was never put into operation.

This is not the first corruption scandal of the Zelensky era. Last November, the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau uncovered a $100 million illegal cash flow linked to the president’s closest friends. Footage of luxurious apartments in Kyiv, one of which even had a gold toilet, and images of cash packed into sports bags shocked the Ukrainian public. Also in November, former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov was arrested for his involvement in a corruption case involving Volodymyr Zelensky’s friend, Timur Mindich. In December, a criminal organisation consisting of members of parliament was uncovered, whose members accepted money in exchange for their votes. Yuriy Kisel, who is at the centre of the case, also has close ties to the Ukrainian president.

Original article:  europeanconservative.com

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The war in Ukraine happened because western nations insisted that Ukraine be allowed to join NATO but were never willing to fight to guarantee that right.

That reality has never changed. This week’s latest Summit of the Coalition of the Willing has confirmed that it will not change any time soon.

The only countries that appear remotely willing to deploy troops to Ukraine in a vague and most certainly limited way are the British and French.

Both would need parliamentary approval which can’t be guaranteed. Reform Leader Nigel Farage has already come out to say that he wouldn’t back a vote to deploy British troops to Ukraine because we simply don’t have enough men or equipment. And even though Keir Starmer has the parliamentary numbers to pass any future vote on deploying British troops, it would almost certainly damage his already catastrophic polling numbers.

Macron is clinging on to his political life and would probably face a tougher tussle to get his parliament to approve the French sending their troops to Ukraine, potentially leaving the UK on its own.

In any case, it is completely obvious that Russia won’t agree to any deployment in Ukraine by NATO troops. This shows once again that western leaders have learned absolutely nothing over the past decade. It will never be possible to insist that Russia sues for peace under terms which is has long made clear are unacceptable at a time when it was winning on the battlefield, and European nations refuse to fight with their own troops.

Hawkish British journalist Edward Lucas, with whom I disagree on most things, summed it up well in an opinion in the Times Newspaper when he said

We are promising forces we do not have, to enforce a ceasefire that does not exist, under a plan that has yet to be drawn up, endorsed by a superpower (read the U.S.) that is no longer our ally, to deter an adversary that has far greater willpower than we do.’

President Putin has shown an absolute determination not to back down until his core aims, namely to prevent NATO expansion, are achieved. And as I have said many times, the west can’t win a war by committee.

All of these pointless Coalition of the Willing meetings happen in circumstances where Europe refuses to talk to Russia upon whom an end to the war depends. Peace will only break out after Ukraine and Russia sign a deal, and the west appears deliberately to be doing everything possible to ensure that Russia never signs.

Instead, we entertain Zelensky with hugs and handshakes, reassuring him that we will do anything he wants for as long as he needs, only to offer insufficient help all of the time.

And, as Zelensky is in any case unelected, not likely to win elections in Ukraine as and when they happen, overseeing a corrupt regime that is adopting increasingly repressive tactics to keep a losing war going, it is not in his interest to see the war anyway.

His calculus continues to be that, if he clings on for long enough, the west will finally be dragged into a direct war with Russia. So, he’s happy to drag out an endless cycle of death by committee in which European leaders never agree to give him exactly what he wants and he uses that as a pretext not to settle.

Zelensky went on from Paris to Cyprus where, among other things, he has been pushing for more sanctions against Russia. At no point since 2014 have sanctions looked remotely likely to work against Russia, for reasons I have outlined many times.

The European Commission is now planning its twentieth round of sanctions to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the war on 24 February 2026. So with peace talks ongoing, Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas as always are doing their bit to ensure that nothing gets agreed.

None of this brings the war any closer to an end nor does it provide any security guarantees to Ukraine. As always, the biggest security guarantee should be the offer by European allies to intervene militarily in Ukraine should Russia decide to reinvade after any future peace deal.

But that was not agreed in Paris. Instead, the Paris Declaration said, ‘we agreed to finalise binding commitments setting out our approach to support Ukraine in the case of a future armed attack by Russia. These may include, military capabilities, intelligence and so on.’

In diplomatic parlance, agreeing to finalise commitments that may include basically means that nothing has been agreed.

The declaration also said:

We stand ready to commit to a system of politically and legally binding guarantees. However, the final communique gave individual countries opt outs from those guarantees by saying that any guarantees would be, ‘in accordance with our respective legal and constitutional arrangements’.

So, again, in diplomatic parlance, what this means is that some coalition members may be able to opt out of the security guarantees if they decide that their domestic framework does not allow for such an arrangement, thinking here in particular of Hungary, Italy and Spain, for example.

What the declaration does achieve is to commit European nations to paying Ukraine to maintain an army of 800,000 personnel after the war ends which, by the way, is significantly higher than the total number of armed forces personnel of Germany, France and Britain combined.

Even though these are Ukrainian troops, not European, Russia will undoubtedly see EU funding of a large Ukrainian army on its border as a form of NATO lite. Which, of course, Zelensky would welcome.

So the process of holding near weekly Coalition of the Willing summits is entirely pointless, though perhaps that is the point. Since 2022, western leaders have been completely unable to say no to Zelensky, either through guilt or stupidity, or both.

Yet at some point, if only for their own political survival, Starmer and others will have to politely decline to offer more support and make it clear to Zelensky that he has no choice but to sue for peace. To me, at least, the European offer to Zelensky follows these lines:

Ukraine cannot join NATO (sorry we lied to you about that) but you can join the European Union and we will help you make the reforms you need to do so.

You will get significant investment when the war ends that boosts your economy. As your people return home, we believe Ukraine has potential to grow quickly and reconstruct.

However, it may still be many years before you receive EU subsidies on the level of other European Members, and you possibly may not receive them at all.

And you will have to become financially sustainable, including meeting the EU’s fiscal deficit like other EU member states.

I’m afraid that means that you won’t be able to maintain an army of 800,000 people at Europe’s expense (sorry we reassured you that you could).

But, as a European Union member you would have a security guarantee by virtue of your membership of this community, even though only Macron’s France has said it would send you troops (je m’excuse).

You should also be aware that Europe sees benefit in a normalised economic relationship with Russia, that includes purchasing cheap Russian energy. We can’t go on buying massively expensive U.S. LNG just to avoid hurting your feelings.

Sanctions may have been a policy or war, but they won’t be a policy of peace, and you will need to accept that we will drop them too.

We have now reached the limit of the financial support that we can provide to you so we have reached the point of now or never in your signing a peace deal.

That requires you to make hard choices about de facto recognition of land on the lines of the peace deal that the U.S. is trying right now to finalise with Russia.

Without that, he will simply continue this charade of endless pointless Summits and the war will drag Europe even further into the mire.

That’s a lot to take in and we’ve already apologised enough as it is. Look, we lied to you okay, but everyone makes mistakes.

Somehow, though, I predict the Europeans will continue to drift in circles. I wonder where the next Coalition of the Willing Summit will be? I hope it’s soon, as Zelensky might actually have to spend some time inside of Ukraine if there’s a delay. And he likes it in Europe as it’s the only place where everyone seems to love him.