Eswatini has pushed back after Beijing accused some of its politicians of being “kept and fed” by Taipei

China has condemned Eswatini for hosting Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, accusing the southern African kingdom of giving a platform to “Taiwan independence,” in an escalating diplomatic row.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Wednesday that Beijing opposes Eswatini’s decision to receive Lai, who arrived in the kingdom on Saturday for a three-day visit after Taipei said several African states had revoked overflight permits under Chinese pressure.

“Some politicians in Eswatini are kept and fed by Taiwan and provide space for ‘Taiwan independence,’ going against the tide of history. China strongly condemns this,” Lin said.

READ MORE: China announces zero tariffs for African partners

Lin also accused Lai of violating the sovereignty of other countries, saying the Taiwanese leader had “sneaked” into Eswatini by concealing passenger information and later forced his way through foreign airspace after some states denied him access.

He said the trip shows that “Taiwan independence” separatism is “shady business” and “unacceptable to the international community,” adding that there is “but one China in the world” and that Taiwan is an “inalienable part” of China.

Taipei rejected Beijing’s accusations, saying Lai’s visit was lawful and in line with formal diplomatic practice, adding that the travel plan was not disclosed until after he landed for security reasons.

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Eswatini’s acting government spokeswoman, Thabile Mdluli, described China’s remarks as “deeply unfortunate” and said they “fall short” of the standards of respectful diplomacy, Reuters reports.

Africa’s last absolute monarchy, formerly Swaziland, is Taiwan’s only diplomatic ally in Africa and one of 12 countries worldwide that maintain formal relations with Taipei. China claims Taiwan as part of its own territory and opposes official contact between the island and foreign governments. Taiwan rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claim.

The latest row comes as Beijing deepens trade incentives across Africa while excluding Eswatini.

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China said on May 1 it expanded zero-tariff treatment to imports from all 53 African countries with which it has diplomatic relations, leaving Eswatini as the only country on the continent outside the scheme.

The policy, first announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in February, extends duty-free access beyond 33 least-developed African countries to 20 others for two years. China says the tariff plan is intended to boost African exports and narrow trade imbalances.

“Operation Trust Me Bro failed,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has said, after the US president suspended efforts to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz

Iran’s top negotiator has mocked US President Donald Trump after he abruptly suspended American efforts to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz, adding that Washington was again spreading falsehoods about ongoing talks.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf ridiculed Trump with a sarcastic one-liner: “Operation Trust Me Bro failed. Now back to routine with Operation Fauxios.”

Ghalibaf’s comments came after Trump paused ‘Project Freedom’, an operation aimed at clearing a path through the strait for more than 1,500 commercial vessels stranded in the Persian Gulf, just two days after its start. The US president, however, insisted that the decision was made based on what he described as “great progress” in negotiations and a request from Pakistan.

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The move also came after Iran claimed to have hit a US warship attempting to sail through the Strait of Hormuz – an allegation Washington has denied.

Ghalibaf’s ‘Fauxios’ pun was an apparent reference to the US outlet Axios, which previously reported that the US and Iran were making progress on a 14-point memorandum of understanding to end the conflict.

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The report said the one-page document included an Iranian promise to impose a moratorium on nuclear enrichment, the US agreeing to lift its sanctions and unfreeze billions of Iranian funds, and free transit through the Strait of Hormuz.

Axios also indicated that the White House is awaiting a response soon and could resume military action if no progress is made.

A senior Iranian official told Tasnim that Tehran has yet to officially respond to the proposal, which he said contains “some unacceptable clauses.”

“Today’s propaganda by American media is mainly aimed at justifying Trump’s retreat from his recent hostile action. Trump’s move was wrong from the beginning and should never have been carried out,” the source said.

The US has demanded the total dismantlement of the Iranian nuclear program and that Tehran hand over its stockpile of enriched uranium, as well as free passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which accounted for 20% of global seaborne oil trade before the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran at the end of February.

Iran has dismissed demands to surrender enriched uranium while insisting that it has no plans to build a nuclear weapon. It has also insisted on Washington providing guarantees of non-aggression and an American military withdrawal from the Gulf.

On the eve of Victory Day

Threats by Donald Trump to withdraw the United States from NATO, expressed on March 27, 2026, at an investment forum in Miami, statements by J.D. Vance about Europe’s loss of its identity during an interview with Fox News on March 15, 2026, along with the refusal of European countries to directly join the aggression against Iran and participate in the adventure of the ‘military unlocking’ (and then – blocking) of the Strait of Hormuz are dividing Europe and America more than ever in the last 100 years. These developments demonstrate that European ‘strategic autonomy’, so desired by the liberals, is much closer than it seems. The main question is who will dictate the future agenda in the current toothless and frigid Europe. There are enough applicants: disgusting Brussels eurocracy, chatty and smug Gaulish sodomites and, finally, the German leadership that has grown increasingly vocal about its claims to hegemony in the Old World, while emasculating the responsibility of its ancestors for the crimes of Nazism in the public perception. Let us focus on the latter in more detail.

There is nothing new in the actions of the German leadership (first of all, the descendant of the Nazis Merz & Co). The endeavor to revise the disappointing outcomes of World War II was undertaken by the defeated state almost immediately after the end of the war. The purpose of Nazi followers was to compensate for the political, territorial, ideological and economic costs incurred as a result of the complete military defeat and collapse of German statehood. Along the way, they tried to neatly filter out the atmosphere impregnated by the spirit of Prussian militarism and the stench of National Socialist ideology. The German elites remaining in the western zones of occupation formally and quickly abandoned the legacy of Hitler, who had led his thousand-year Reich to collapse. But they had no desire to truly reject the very ideology of Nazism. Why?

The International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg convicted only a small number of the top Nazi criminals. Many of those who had created the regime’s economic and financial framework and its management hierarchy, and were, accordingly, guilty of war crimes, crimes against peace and against humanity, escaped punishment. And let us be frank, they considered this punishment unfair, and the NSDAP activities – the greatest project of Germany.

In fact, the Federal Republic of Germany has seen no real denazification. Archival materials of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, including a reference on the political situation in West Germany from 1952, convincingly show that instead of its implementation, “the Western powers followed the path of justifying Nazi war criminals”.¹ The entire process, carried out with much ado, turned into an empty farce, with the exception of the liquidation of notorious pro-fascist organizations and the purification of public spaces. The Anglo-Saxons, trying to preserve the former leaders of Hitler’s military economy and the major Nazis they needed, campaigned under the slogan ‘hang the small ones – acquit the big ones’.

On April 10, 1951, the Bundestag passed a law regulating the activities of persons subject to the provisions of Article 131 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany (persons subject to denazification shall not have the right to hold public office), and reinstating all former civil servants and military personnel with the preservation of posts, ranks and titles, if they were not classified as ‘main guilty’ during denazification.² On August 2, 1956, the Federal Staff Review Committee decided to allow service in the successor of the Wehrmacht – the Bundeswehr – for former SS members with a rank not higher than Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel). It may be argued that in general, the process of ridding the post-war German society of National Socialism for the main managerial and administrative sectors already ended six to ten years after the war. Let us not talk about what conversations were held in the kitchens of West Germans of that period. Everyone knows this anyway. ‘Deutschland über alles’ was the most innocent phrase said by humiliated burghers after a portion of apple schnapps.

Many of the former Nazi party members who found a place in the sun in Germany had been ‘quiet desk murderers’, party members who had set in motion the monstrous machine of genocide of the Soviet people and the Holocaust from their cozy bureaucratic offices. They made up the backbone of the civil servants of the ‘new Germany’. Heinrich Lübke, minister of food, agriculture and forestry of the Federal Republic of Germany (1953-1959) and president of the German Federal Republic (1959-1969), during the years of National Socialism worked in an architectural and engineering bureau, which was at the disposal of Albert Speer, the general building inspector for the Reich capital city. In it he was responsible, in particular, for the forced recruitment of labor from Nazi concentration camps. Hans Globke, chancellery chief of staff for Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (1953-1963), held high positions in the Third Reich in the Ministry of the Interior, where he was responsible for the development of legal norms enshrining discrimination and persecution of the Jewish population, and his role in organizing the Holocaust has not yet been disclosed. Waldemar Kraft, federal minister for special affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1953-1956, was the managing director of the Imperial Reich Association for Land Management in the Annexed ‘Eastern Territories’ from 1940 to 1945, was a member of the NSDAP and had the title of Honorary SS Hauptsturmführer. And these are just a few examples of the life path of high-ranking officials of the ‘renewed’ German state. From 1949 to 1973, 90 out of 170 leading lawyers and judges of the Ministry of Justice of the Federal Republic of Germany were ex-members of the NSDAP, and in 1957 the share of senior officials of the ministry with a Nazi past was 77%.³ In the Ministry of the Interior of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1970, 53% of employees were former members of the NSDAP, and 8% of them had worked in the Ministry of the Interior in 1943-1945, when one of the top Nazi criminals, the odious Heinrich Himmler, was its head.⁴

According to the archival materials of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, as Moscow already knew in the late 1940s-early 1950s, the western zone of Germany was preparing for a war with the USSR under the auspices of the Americans and the British. In confirmation of the intensification of forced remilitarization, an intelligence message dated July 31, 1948, emphasized that the mobilization of former German officers and other military personnel was easily feasible as a result of the control system established over them.⁵ The former Wehrmacht contingent was ‘on a short leash’ of the new government, which used the military issue for purposes far from peaceful. A note from the Soviet government to the US Embassy in Moscow dated March 31, 1954, directly stated: following the path of the revival of German militarism and the creation of military groupings in Europe means ... to prepare for a new war.⁶

Thus, the idea of arming West Germany firmly reigned over the minds of the ideologists of US foreign policy. Practical steps were also taken. Under the screams of existential ‘aggression from the East’ (sounds familiar, does it not), the remilitarization of the economy was conducted. American ‘injections’ into the necessary sectors of the national economy of West Germany began immediately after the war. Before September 1951, the Federal Republic of Germany received about $9 billion. These funds were placed primarily in heavy industry and such areas that could serve the political and military goals of Washington.⁷

The updated propaganda brainwashing of the population also had a place. In July 1951, as competent authorities reported to Joseph Stalin,⁸ Chancellor Konrad Adenauer set a direct task for the ruling Christian Democratic Union: to convince the broad masses that the Germans had an alternative – either an ‘armed German’ or a ‘German subordinate to the Russian military’. It sounds like the modern horror stories of ‘civilized European technocrats’, doesn’t it?

Under the supervision of the Americans, work was also carried out in relation to ‘major personnel’. Former high-ranking Nazi officials were willingly accepted for military service in the Bundeswehr. Thus, the ex-chief of staff of the 18th Army, Lieutenant General Friedrich Foertsch, 7th Army Lieutenant General Max-Josef Pemsel, and Army Groups A and S Tank General Hans Röttiger took the posts of inspector general of the Bundeswehr, commander of the 2nd Corps of the Bundeswehr, and the first inspector of the army, respectively. The former commander of Luftflotte 5, General Josef Kammhuber, became an inspector of the German Air Force.

The Anglo-Saxons did not hesitate to use the services of fascist war-dogs, appointing them to high posts in NATO. In particular, the ex-chief of staff of Army Group South, Lieutenant General Hans Speidel, during the formation of the Bundeswehr, was appointed head of the armed forces department of the German Ministry of Defense and assumed the post of commander of the Allied NATO ground forces in Central Europe in 1957. Lieutenant General Adolf Heusinger, former acting chief of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht, who had participated in the development of plans for the invasion of Poland, Denmark, Norway, France, the Netherlands, Great Britain and the USSR, and had been held at the Nuremberg Tribunal as a witness, became chairman of the NATO Military Committee in 1961. Friedrich Guggenberger, who had sunk 17 British and American ships, served for four years as deputy chief of staff in the NATO command Allied Forces in Northern Europe. The Anglo-Saxons were not very picky about former members of the SS, recognized in 1946 by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg as a criminal organization. For instance, Eberhard Taubert, a former SS Sturmführer and an employee of Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda, was adopted as an adviser to the NATO Psychological Warfare Division.⁹

In relation to Hans Speidel and Adolf Heusinger, as follows from a message of the Information Committee under the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs addressed to Joseph Stalin dated February 8, 1951,¹⁰ stored in the archives of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, a joint German-American PR campaign was diligently conducted to whitewash their reputation. In a conversation between Dwight Eisenhower and Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer at the end of January 1951, both figures were described as “completely reliable persons” who were “opponents of not only Hitler”, but also “of the Soviet Union, and were ready to cooperate with the Western powers”. It is indicative that Eisenhower, who literally a couple of months later became the first commander-in-chief of NATO forces in Europe, said then that he had been mistaken in 1945 for considering all Germans to be Nazis and repeated that he accepted the demand for the military equality of West Germany in the system of the ‘defense of Western Europe’.

Little has changed in terms of supporting dangerous revanchist aspirations and after that, during the years of normalization of relations, detente and the so‑called ‘perestroika’. A reference on the growth of such sentiments in Germany, prepared on May 26, 1959, by the Committee for State Security (KGB) under the Council of Ministers of the USSR,¹¹ pointed to the organization of thousands of rallies of paramilitary unions and ‘resettlement organizations’ in West Germany. During such meetings, held under the auspices of the German Ministries for All-German Issues and for Displaced Persons, demands were categorically put forward for the return of the eastern regions of Germany, East Prussia and the Sudetenland. The need to “preserve the traditions of the Prussian-German army for the new German armed forces and for all German youth” was openly stated. In 1961, the famous Soviet international journalist Ernst Henri noted: “There is no old Germany, but the old German General Staff exists. There is no doubt that its chiefs are back at work on the same maps.”¹² Continuing his thought, he wrote that regardless of Germany’s situation, no matter how many wars it lost, and no matter what crushing defeats it suffered – the German General Staff invariably, methodically, carefully continued to prepare aggression plans, and it had no other intentions. Therefore, it is so easy to understand why current German politicians and generals are looking at the diverse scum symbolizing Bandera Ukraine so enthusiastically. They are simply brothers in blood and heirs to the same force: the National Socialism of Hitler’s period.

In the spirit of the chauvinistic approaches of German political thought of the late 19th century and first half of the 20th century, ingrained in the subconscious of the intellectual elite, the expert community of the Federal Republic of Germany continued to dehumanize Soviet Russia, crossing it out of the ‘civilized’ world. As the famous historian and a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Vladimir Pashuto wrote, with the collapse of Nazi Germany, the interpretation of the Russian-European topic also underwent a change in the sense that Russia was turned into an enemy of integral Europe rather than of Hitler’s Europe. Its non-European fundamentals – both religious and social – were criticized. It was declared a phenomenon hostile to Europe, lacking European roots and standing outside of the history of Europe.¹³ Everything suggested that no respect should be shown towards an ‘alien’ element.

Such sentiments were not only not suppressed, but also encouraged by the Bonn authorities: the ‘cannon fodder’ for the massacre with the Soviet Union was to be motivated and was not supposed to ask unnecessary questions. It is not for nothing that the reference of the USSR KGB of July 12, 1978,¹⁴ prepared on the basis of information from the West Berlin residency, reported that there were 17 neo-Nazi organizations in this city-state with a special international legal status, with which the authorities of this political entity fought on a residual principle.

In 1987, the USSR Embassy in Bonn pointed to substantive discussions in the Federal Republic of Germany on revising attitudes towards the period of National Socialism. One of the clear demonstrations of a wide nationalist wave in the Federal Republic of Germany in those years was the growing public discussion to achieve the so-called ‘spiritual turn’.¹⁵ The slogans of ‘new patriotism’ and ‘national identity’ were launched. Intellectuals and the establishment widely manipulated calls to free the young generation of Germans (who grew up and turned into the current ‘elitarians’ and rabid militarists: Merz, von der Leyen, and Pistorius) from the burden of historical responsibility, self‑humiliation, and a complex of national inferiority and guilt. The Germans, they say, have already been punished and are aware of the abnormality of their situation, when Germany was declared “a hotbed of worldwide infection and the source of all evil in the world” for the crimes of World War II.¹⁶ Speaking on November 17, 1986, Alfred Dregger, chairman of the CDU/CSU Group in the Bundestag, said: “It is time to finally put an end to the interpretation of history imposed by the victorious powers.”¹⁷ Elaborating on this argument, he proposed to come to terms with the past and to pay tribute to all those who lost their lives – including both the victims of Nazism and German servicemen. In turn, Franz Josef Strauss, minister-president of Bavaria and chairman of the CSU, called in 1987 for ‘a return to the historically cleansed, European-oriented and healthy German national consciousness’.¹⁸ These days, we see how those shoots of virulent nationalism and chauvinism – hidden behind the fig leaf of ‘national identity, patriotism and Europeanness’ – have yielded a bountiful harvest in the form of a new German revanchism. And it is time to acknowledge that the inheritance of the Third Reich has yielded a good harvest in the FRG in the 2020s!

Today, the senior political leadership of the Federal Republic of Germany has declared Russia to be ‘the main threat to security and peace’. In Berlin, the authorities have officially proclaimed a course aimed at inflicting a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia.¹⁹ The most aggressive Russophobes, whose ancestors fought with bestial ferocity on the Eastern Front in World War II, rapturously urge ‘to show the Russians what it is like to lose a war’.²⁰ There is large-scale propaganda brainwashing of public opinion, with theses constantly being injected about the virtual inevitability of a military clash with Russia by 2029. In the first military strategy in Germany’s history, titled ‘Responsibility for Europe’, which was submitted to parliament on April 22, 2026, by Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, the Russian Federation is identified as a fundamental threat to the ‘rules-based world order’. It is alleged that Moscow aims to weaken the unity of the Alliance and to undermine the resilience of transatlantic links for the purpose of expanding its influence. In this regard, attempts to establish dialogue should be suppressed, while military pressure on Russia should only be increased. In other words, the strategy of pursuing a large-scale revanche has now been officially adopted.

The brainwashing of young people through mainstream traditional media, as well as the countering of Russian ‘hybrid propaganda’, has been elevated to the level of official state policy. However, decades of strident ultra-liberal agitation are now producing the opposite effect. Disappointed by the short‑sighted decisions of the narrow-minded German leadership in both domestic and foreign affairs, the younger generation, against the backdrop of a discrepancy between official statistics and the real state of the national economy, is now swinging sharply ‘to the right’. The collapse of multiculturalism, the lack of a clear vision of the future, and the rejection of traditional values provide fertile ground for the growth of right-wing extremist movements that appeal to ressentiment towards a strong national state. It does not take much imagination to see where such willful or non-willful games will take German society.

The process of finally eliminating the political, legal and moral ‘vestiges’ of World War II in Germany has gained particular momentum following the beginning of the special military operation. It is obvious to anyone that this has simply served as a convenient excuse for drastically toughening anti-Russian rhetoric, for a theatrical fear of Russia, and for pushing bilateral relations into a frenziedly confrontational dimension. Neither Germany, nor, for that matter, the European Union as a whole, had either a cause or objective grounds to so unreservedly ‘stand up’ for Ukraine and to designate Moscow as their ‘enemy forever’ – as it was mindlessly and arrogantly stated by the little grey mouse of German foreign policy, the foreign minister with a wonderful surname, Wadephul.

Following the EU’s belligerent policy set out in March 2025 in the Joint White Paper for European Defense Readiness 2030,²¹ the German government is working to transform the Bundeswehr into Europe’s strongest army and accelerate its rearmament.²² Plans have been unveiled to raise the authorized strength from the present 181,000 to 460,000 active-duty servicemen and reservists. On August 27, 2025, the German government swiftly approved, without amendments, the draft law on the reform of conscription to the Bundeswehr put forward by Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, based on a voluntary service principle but retaining the option of a swift return to pre‑2011 conscription.²³ Largely thanks to the alarmism of the authorities and the brainwashing of young people by state propaganda, the German leadership is now able to report an increase in the number of individuals willing to undertake voluntary military service. As of early March 2026, 16,000 people had applied to join the armed forces, 20% more than in the same period of 2025, while overall more than 5,000 recruits joined in the first quarter of 2026, marking a 14%  increase compared with the beginning of the previous year.

No expense is spared on military adventurism, as in the 20th century. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Germany’s aggregate military spending in 2024 reached $88.5 billion (+28% compared with 2023),²⁴ making it the largest in Europe. The Special Fund for the Bundeswehr, worth €100 billion, has become the primary source of financing, making it possible to bring military expenditure up to 2% of GDP. In the country’s approved 2026 budget amounting to €524.54 billion, the German authorities intend to spend over €82 billion on defense (namely, preparations for war), which represents an increase of €20 billion compared to 2025. Total military spending, in conjunction with the funds of the aforementioned special fund, is expected to amount to approximately €108 billion. At the end of February 2026, the German Ministry of Defense reported on the ‘successful results of the activities’ of the Bundeswehr procurement department in 2025, indicating that 103 major projects, each with a value of at least €25 million, had been submitted to the Bundestag for approval, that contracts amounting to an impressive €34 billion had been concluded for the procurement of in-demand weapons and military equipment, and that, within the framework of previously approved initiatives, deliveries to the armed forces had amounted to approximately €24 billion. Rolling in cash since Berlin announced the ‘change of eras’ because of the situation in Ukraine, the local defense sector expresses satisfaction that national producers have received as much as €109 billion out of the total amount spent by the country on military purposes in the years 2020-2025. Thanks to the liberalization of export controls, Germany has moved from sixth to fourth in the ranking of the largest arms exporters. Capitalizing on the specific characteristics of combat operations during the unprovoked aggression against Iran and noting the inefficiency of employing costly interceptor missiles against drones, the German defense industry is actively promoting the ‘Skyranger’ short-range air defense system, claiming that the interception of a single UAV would cost only $4,000. Apparently, only sluggishness prevented German defense industry dealmakers with their Wunderwaffe from following in the steps of the Krivoy Rog clown during his absurd tour of the Persian Gulf states in late March 2026, where he attempted to sell them interceptor missiles as part of the assistance from Bandera’s riffraff.

Many budgeted projects are multi-year, signalling to industry that Berlin views rearmament as a long-term commitment.²⁵ Plans have been made for the opening of territorial subdivisions of the Bundeswehr’s procurement department in cities in which large technical universities are located. The rate of targeted military R&D is accelerating, whereby instead of conducting research in fundamental sciences, young talents are being encouraged, following the old and bad tradition, to start thinking about how to develop deadly new Tigers, Panthers and V-weapons.

In this context, the German dependence on foreign military supplies is being ignored. Critically important components for the modern inventory of weapons are often effectively outsourced and procured abroad. Even the leading domestic arms company, Rheinmetall, serving as the primary supplier of various military equipment to the Bundeswehr, refuses to introduce its own know-how while seeking rapid profits from the fulfilment of state defense contracts. All this is compensated by purchases from other Western manufacturers, just not to lose the status of the exclusive Bundeswehr service provider to the government. In particular, during the visit of the head of Germany’s Ministry of Defense to Australia on March 26, 2026, an agreement was announced between Rheinmetall and the Australian subsidiary of Boeing (namely, the United States) on the development of autonomous unmanned combat aircraft using stealth technology, with a warhead of more than 100 kg and a range of more than 1,000 km, intended for the successors of the Luftwaffe. The degradation of German scientific thought and increased dependence on the United States is evident.

Preparations are being undertaken in an accelerated manner for a potential confrontation with the Russian Federation concerning the improvement of infrastructure. The federal state and municipal levels of government, as well as regional business, are actively inclined to fully implement the 2024 Operational Plan for Germany.²⁶ It envisages Germany becoming the main transit hub for the movement of a mass of NATO troops to the alliance’s ‘eastern flank’. Columns of Bundeswehr and allied troops within NATO will now be able to pass to German ports on the Baltic Sea and to the Polish border without prior consent. Local authorities are being strongly urged to prepare the civilian population for an armed conflict, namely: to elaborate detailed plans for the protection of critical infrastructure, to counter sabotage operations, and to equip bomb shelters.

Members of the business community are targeted by the military and political actors. According to the Operational Plan for Germany mentioned above, the main enterprises should take into account in their personnel policy the high probability of a sharp large-scale reduction in labor resources by mobilizing those fit for military service. Contrary to being mere anecdotes popularized in the USSR – namely that pasta-factory machinery could be quickly adapted for the production of 7.62 mm rounds – such scenarios are currently being implemented in Germany. Real prerequisites are being created for the rapid restructuring of civilian industry for military purposes and for the commencement of production of the defense-related product range. The Bundeswehr is hereby authorized to seize, free of charge, certain goods, equipment and machinery for its own needs.

The military-industrial complex and the German political establishment have already forged a robust lobbying alliance, a development that strengthens the role of the defense industry in the making of decisions that are most important for both the domestic and foreign policy of Germany. Humanity remembers the extremely dangerous linkage between defense industry actors and political figures in the 1930s and 1940s. Then the omnivorous attitude of the ‘merchants of death’ towards the sources of their profits, combined with their sympathies for National Socialism, plunged the world into the abyss of World War II. Having rejected pacifism as a societal value, to which preceding generations arrived only through immense tragedy, the heirs of Krupp, Thyssen and Bosch are once again eagerly undertaking government contracts for the production of military goods, without hesitating to build their enterprises upon blood. The bankers are not falling behind, having cast aside all moral taboos that once existed on the large-volume financing of the military-industrial complex – it is now considered justified to appropriate the ‘helicopter money’ that defense enterprises receive from the state. In this context, it would not be long before some of the current German financiers so ‘free’ themselves from the legacy of the past and become inspired by the prospects of a new crusade to the East as part of the ‘change of eras’ policy that they would hang portraits of Hjalmar Schacht and Walther Funk – the architects of the Third Reich’s military-economic policy. There is a famous saying from the time of the French Revolution: “Ils n’ont rien appris, ni rien oublié.”²⁷

Meanwhile, the general condition of Germany’s economy seems not to concern the establishment, which has chased after the geopolitical mirage of the republic’s ephemeral ‘leadership’ within the European Union. As a result of this self-distancing from domestic difficulties, the country’s GDP in 2025 rose by only 0.2% in real terms, adjusted for inflation.²⁸ The balance of trade – which is of serious importance for the export-oriented German economy – fell to 2.4% of GDP, the volume of exports decreased by 0.3% (a decline recorded for the third consecutive year), and the budget deficit for 2025 amounted to €107 billion.²⁹ The driving forces of Germany’s economy – namely the automotive, metallurgical and chemical sectors – have so far failed to overcome the crisis. Companies are recording a significant drop in profits.³⁰ Deindustrialization is spreading widely across the German federal states – the loss of jobs and the transfer of industrial production from Germany to other European countries has already become a reality. Machine-building plants, chemical factories and electronics production facilities – namely Bosch, Henkel, MAN and Mercedes-Benz – are fleeing. They are unable to remain competitive due to the high cost of electricity, the lengthening of the logistics supply chain caused by self-harming sanctions against Russia, and the high tariffs imposed by the United States. Once an industrial giant, Germany is becoming a chaotically managed workshop from which equipment is being carried off. All of this is impacting the population – consumer activity has ground to a near halt, and even beer sales in 2025 fell to their lowest level since 1993. According to statements by the chancellor, the social welfare state cannot be financed given the resources currently available in Germany.³¹ Does such a brutal reality frighten the inept and arrogant chancellor, in whom the blood of Nazi ancestors is boiling? Is he ready to confront the reality that he will not save the economy by pumping money into the national military-industrial complex, and that hundreds of billions of printed and unsecured euros will be consumed by high energy prices and an unwieldy bureaucracy? Apparently not. While promoting an anti-Russian militarist agenda, deep down he believes that the war will write off everything.

The suggestion to consider acquiring its own nuclear weapons has been cautiously introduced in the German socio-political discourse, so far, it has been done somewhat subtly and indirectly, yet insistently.³² Germany seems to no longer be satisfied with participating in NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements, the agreements between the United States and Germany that allow the Bundeswehr to use American tactical nuclear weapons in the event of military necessity; in peacetime, the weapons controlled by the United States are stored at the Büchel Air Base, Rhineland-Palatinate. The justification put forward for acquiring lethal weapons of mass destruction is painfully simplistic and overused: it is allegedly aimed at deterring Moscow’s aggressive policy in Europe. It is supposed to be a question of national sovereignty. On top of this comes uncertainty about the future of the US military presence in Germany. Berlin is eager to acquire American long-range land-based missiles at the earliest opportunity, pursuant to the 2024 agreement with the sleepy Biden administration. It is highly likely that the authorities will find suitable sites for deploying SM-6 mobile missile launch systems, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and Dark Eagle hypersonic boost-glide systems in one of the federal states best prepared in terms of military logistics and infrastructure, such as Rhineland‑Palatinate. There is little doubt that the Americans will seize the geopolitical moment, and Germany is solely required to provide its territory. Arrogant sheriffs from across the ocean are not bothered about the opinion of both a local population that has effectively been taken hostage and sane politicians who care about national interests and do not support the policy implemented by the German elites. The current Trump administration sees missile deployment not as a gratuitous contribution to European security but as a way to enhance its presence in a strategic location, enabling potential high-precision strikes against adversaries, and there is no need to guess who the adversaries in question are. The only question is what the scale of the US missile deployment will be, whether it will be symbolic and provisional or will disrupt the strategic stability in Europe and thereby compel us to respond directly.

For now, German officials are brainstorming the idea to create a nuclear umbrella together with the United Kingdom and France in the distant future and considering what role Germany might play. It has been reported that the initiative might receive funding, and proposals on how to divide the roles have emerged: partners are expected to provide warheads, while Germany will provide missile carriers and personnel. Meanwhile, the population is being persuaded little by little that even if Germany hypothetically bets on the nuclear capabilities of Paris and London and attempts to create a military alliance with them, this plan might not yield results. It is unlikely that Germany will put up with the traditionally cumbersome French bureaucracy and France’s insistence on retaining exclusive control over its nuclear arsenal even under joint command. The same goes for the questionable stance taken by London, which is unlikely to risk burning in a nuclear apocalypse for the sake of vague goals of transatlantic globalism. This will cast serious doubt on the justifiability of spending resources on common European strategic deterrence forces.

In this context, as it contemplates joining the ranks of nuclear powers, the German expert and scientific community proceeds from the assumption that, given the traditionally high academic standing in natural science and specialists in related fields, it is feasible to promptly acquire non-peaceful nuclear competencies. As is known, it is theoretically possible to produce weapons‑grade material from uranium purchased in the global market using facilities of a specialized enterprise in Gronau, North Rhine-Westphalia, equipped with a gas centrifuge enrichment cascade. It would take some three years to modernize the production, and then they will have it, 17 tons a year, enough to produce about 340 warheads. Besides, the research reactor at the Technical University of Munich in Garching holds highly enriched uranium.

It is important to remember that the Nazis came very close to developing an atomic bomb in the 1940s. Their goal went far beyond merely intimidating their enemies. What grandparents failed to accomplish in 1945, their grandchildren are determined to achieve in the 21st century. In this regard, there is no guarantee that Berlin will restrict its military-political approaches to using a nuclear arsenal only for deterrence. One thing is certain: a nuclear warhead in Germany, whether shared with the UK and France or its own, not only makes the country the Kremlin’s primary European target, as German media note. It constitutes a gross violation of Germany’s international obligations under Article II of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons;³³ according to its provisions, each state party to the treaty, including the Federal Republic of Germany, undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devises directly, or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

I am convinced that, under these circumstances, the international community can and should urgently address the issue of a German nuclear program. To suppress the odious nuclear ambitions at their earliest stage, this must be followed by corresponding measures, such as intensified IAEA inspections, condemnation by the UN Security Council and legitimate international restrictive measures. Yet even this could be sacrificed on the altar of all-out revanche and the creation of a mythical Fourth Reich (Viertes Reich). The key question is, undoubtedly, how present-day German society will respond to this idea. To say the least, not all upstanding Bürger sympathize with the insane model of the Viertes Reich. However, given the inept migration policy of the current German authorities, even more surprising developments cannot be ruled out.

It is also worth noting that even the prospect of Germany acquiring nuclear weapons unequivocally constitutes a casus belli, providing grounds for the use of all appropriate response measures set out in the Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence. I would even go so far as to argue that these exercises could raise similar concerns in the United States, which advocates a new START IV with China as a party. How might it respond to the possibility of a nuclear-armed Europe led by a militaristic Germany with a nuclear capability beyond NATO control? I have a feeling that the targets encoded in Germany’s new nuclear command and control systems will extend beyond Russian territory.

Nevertheless, even if Germany does not possess nuclear weapons, the situation demands vigilance. German politicians are pursuing more than the reckless militarization of the country. The latter is part of a broader, more intricate process endangering millions of people worldwide. The current political course could lead to almost infernal scenarios. It shows an effort to realize the darkest revanchist sentiments of the German elite. These ambitions go far beyond enhancing Germany’s profile in European politics. One should not forget that Germany is the only European state to have fully annexed neighboring countries twice since World War I, stripping them of any semblance of independence and sovereignty. This pertains to the annexation of Austria by the Third Reich in 1938 (Anschluss) and the non‑forceful integration of the German Democratic Republic into the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990. Under the guise of reunifying the German nation, East Germany was effectively merged into West Germany. By the way, not one of the proponents of unification, including, to our disgrace, high-ranking Soviet officials, contemplated observing generally accepted legal procedures; there was no referendum to reflect citizens’ will on this crucial issue. Present-day Germany is hardly in a position to judge the legitimacy of territorial changes in Europe and the genesis of these processes that followed World War II. The very foundation of German statehood is very questionable. All events since the reunification of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic can be assessed through the prism of the principle ex injuria jus non oritur (no legal right can arise from a wrongful act), should such a need arise. In other words, today’s Federal Republic of Germany does not even have a proper legal basis for its very existence, not to mention its absolute dependency from the outset and its horrible vassal submission to the United States. Today’s German nonentities who bashfully attempt to once again position themselves as new Führers should keep this in mind.

Upon taking power, Chancellor Friedrich Merz hit the ground running in foreign policy, suppressing the self‑preservation instinct. It appears that even pro-LGBT bipolar dreamers in Berlin are starting to grasp that Germany is about to face a crushing geopolitical defeat in Ukraine. The EU policy designed to counter the special military operation, an effort in which Germany sought to take the lead, has fallen short of all its objectives. It is highly unlikely that Germany will be able to retreat to the rear and use the Lesser Russia as a blocking unit, possibly alongside Poland, which Germany despises, if it intends to inflict significant damage on our forces.

They need to be the ones taking action. So they act. To mitigate the impact of failed geopolitical investments, Berlin aims to consolidate its position as the leading military and political power of the European Union. To repel a potential Russian invasion, pursuant to an agreement with Lithuania, Germany decided in spring 2025 to deploy the enhanced 45th Armored Brigade of the Bundeswehr near Rūdninkai, 30 km from Belarus and 160 km from Kaliningrad Oblast. The slogan Kanonen statt Butter (Guns over butter), often used with respect to Nazi policies, accurately describes the approach to financing the venture: Vilnius has committed to cover €2 billion in costs, a tremendous sum for the small Baltic state, to build the necessary infrastructure for the German contingent, and Berlin will need to allocate around €11 billion to ensure the operational readiness of the brigade, even as the German economy needs these funds to address challenges due to macroeconomic instability. The unit has been equipped with the latest Leopard 2A8 tanks, communications systems, self‑propelled artillery, etc. To enhance its combat capability, the German authorities continue to supply it with an unprecedented volume of materiel; for instance, on February 25, 2026, the Budget Committee of the German Bundestag expedited a €540 million tranche for major German innovative startup Stark Defence, in which well-known American entrepreneur Peter Thiel holds a significant stake, and Helsing, both producing kamikaze drones. The Bundeswehr plans to arm the Lithuanian outpost with advanced UAVs. Following the transfer of the NATO multinational battle group, stationed in Lithuania since 2017, to the brigade’s command in February 2026, its strength now stands at 1,700 personnel. The unit is projected to reach full combat readiness by the end of 2027. It will comprise 4,800 military personnel and 200 civilians. This marks the first deployment of regular German troops outside the FRG since World War II. The deployment has effectively established an outpost for an eventual attack in the Eastern direction. It is impossible to interpret this military build‑up, coupled with supporting long‑term infrastructure, in any other way.

Whether Germany plans to launch a new Drang nach Osten straight away, or whether it first intends to send the Eastern European countries led by Poland into potential trenches, whilst acting as a blocking unit, makes little difference to us. It is up to the leadership of Poland, which, along with the Third Reich, bears a significant share of the responsibility for the outbreak of World War II, to think who, on whose instigation and with what funding is fueling this militaristic hysteria in Poland, which Polish ultra-patriots regard as a struggle for national interests and a chance for geopolitical revanche in Eastern Europe. Could it be that the belligerent posture of the Polish elite towards Moscow is, in fact, being subtly orchestrated by Berlin, which wields enormous influence in Poland’s socio-political and information space, compelling the Polish elites to hate Russia even more, if that is even possible, in defiance of logic and national interests?

If Germany undergoes a massive rearmament, yet the Teutonic spirit ultimately gives way to reason, then the Poles should seriously ponder against whom the German military machine will then be directed. There is deep-seated historical animosity between Germany and Poland, geopolitical wounds are still raw, and, whatever politicians say, disputed territories certainly do exist. The only way Berlin can get Warsaw to drop its claims for over $1 trillion in reparations is through military action. It is no coincidence that a major NATO military exercise, ‘Steadfast Dart 26’, launched in January 2026 to practice the rapid deployment of alliance troops to the eastern flank using military transport aircraft, railway and motorized units, is taking place without the Polish Armed Forces. The wind in Europe is always changing rapidly, but the Belvedere Palace is unwilling to acknowledge this. There are only two historical paths open to Poland, as has been well established: either to be a destitute vassal of Germany or to be a partner of Russia. America is far away, and the Americans need neither Poland nor, for that matter, the rest of Europe. There is no point in deluding oneself.

Apart from hypothetical victims, such as Poland, which is supposedly still unaware of its future status and proudly bears the title of Berlin’s ally, Germany also has true, loyal friends with whom it can reminisce about days gone by and battles in which they fought alongside each other. In cooperation with its NATO trench mate, Finland, Germany is actively engaged in destructive efforts to turn the Baltic Sea into internal waters of the North Atlantic Alliance. At the summit of NATO and EU heads of state and government in Helsinki in January 2025, Berlin spearheaded the launch of a NATO patrol mission in the Baltic Sea (Baltic Sentinel) aimed at hindering the free passage of Russian vessels. Given the total lack of trust between the East and West, these extremely risky actions could today lead to the worst-case scenario.

In July 2025, Germany and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Kensington, which includes provisions on mutual assistance in the event of an attack, complementing the notorious Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty signed in Washington, as well as on the joint development of military equipment, such as fighter jets and missile systems. Needless to say which targets the missiles will be aimed at.

It is well known that the German elite is desperate to drag anyone within reach into the processes of the accelerated development of precision-guided weapons with a range of at least 1,000 km; in other words, anyone who shares the German hysteria over the Russian threat. It is no coincidence that ArianeGroup, a French-German company with considerable experience in designing rockets, has entered into negotiations on this matter with a number of European countries. Alongside Norway, Germany would like to develop a sea-based supersonic cruise missile (Super Sonic Strike Missile) with a host of European states that endorse their policies, France, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the UK; under the European Long‑Range Strike Approach project, talks are ongoing about designing and subsequently producing a land-based cruise missile with a range of over 2,000 km.

A special role in the rearmament effort has been reserved for
the ex-Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. It is evident that the current temporary ruler on Bankovaya Street is increasingly perceived by Germany as a reincarnation of Pavlo Skoropadsky, the ‘Hetman of the entire Ukraine’, who stayed in power on German bayonets for a few months in 1918, or as a simulacrum of the stillborn operetta-like Austrian initiative to create a ‘Ukrainian throne’ and subsequently place on it Wilhelm Franz von Habsburg-Lothringen (also known under the pseudonym ‘Vasyl Vyshyvany’). In other words, he is seen as a compliant conduit for the interests of external sponsors, interests that run counter to the aspirations of the Lesser Russia’s population.

Demonstrating its resolve to elevate cooperation with Kiev to the highest level across all domains, a declaration of strategic partnership between the two countries was signed in Berlin on April 14, 2026, during the visit of the ‘bloody clown’. Germany has stated its willingness to maintain unprecedented political, diplomatic and military support for Kiev, and to hold consultations on security and defense issues. Despite the well-known recent corruption scandals surrounding the so-called ‘Mindich case’, which have exposed
the all-consuming, shameless venality of the entire Bandera leadership, the Germans are ready to use their Ukrainian vassals as a cheap assembly plant for their products. The goal is to turn Ukraine into a little laboratory mouse upon which sinister experiments are conducted.

Another element of this criminal partnership will be a mechanism for regular consultations between the defense and foreign affairs chiefs, with the participation of representatives of leading defense enterprises. That may sound appealing, yet in practice it boils down to this: Ukraine is to be kept under eternal watch and to produce precisely those goods, in precisely those quantities, that its handlers dictate. A battlefield intelligence-sharing agreement has been signed, under which the Armed Forces of Ukraine will share with the Bundeswehr their experience in operating Delta software, providing real-time situational awareness of combat operations. Through this childlike trick, the de facto plan is to boost both the quantity and quality of active and former Bundeswehr soldiers and other German security personnel on the contact line. Which means that, just like in the old days, the fooled Fritzes will metamorphose into crosses once more.³⁴

In order to indulge the militaristic plans of its defense industry, the political establishment in Berlin, turning a blind eye to the worrying signals emanating from the German economy, is pumping enormous sums into arming the Kiev junta. The ‘country 404’ is to be allocated €4 billion for the purpose of intensifying bilateral dialogue in the military-technical domain. These funds are intended to expand the joint production of UAVs and medium-to-long-range drone systems, a move that, it is claimed, will result in thousands of drones being supplied to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. German company Quantum Systems has gleefully reported the establishment of two new joint ventures with Ukrainian military manufacturers of tactical reconnaissance and attack aerial vehicles and interceptor drones, WIY Drones and Tencore, to develop and mass-produce unmanned systems. In addition, cooperation in the fields of information, innovation and research will be strengthened.

All these boastful and supposedly hopeful wishes are being recited to the accompaniment of rhetoric about a common and direct threat from Russia to the freedom of the Ukrainian failed state and to the security, stability and prosperity of Germany and Europe. One cannot but notice the bragging remarks of Vladimir Zelensky, who claims that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have “the richest combat experience among all European armies.” It is worth recalling that many analysts used precisely this kind of language when writing about the Iraqi army at the end of the 1980s – back then considered the largest among the Gulf states. Where did Western‑fueled ambitions and the ‘dizziness of success’ eventually take Iraq’s leadership as early as in 1990? The answer is well known. The placeholders in power on Bankovaya Street stand every chance of following the same path.

Germany’s foreign-policy revisionism does not end at Ukraine’s borders. In its revanchist course, Berlin is blatantly sabotaging its fundamental obligations under international law. The problem in this case relates to the establishment in October 2024 of NATO’s Commander Task Force Baltic at the German Navy headquarters in Rostock (Mecklenburg‑Western Pomerania), which is de facto spying on Russian vessels. Furthermore, the very deployment of this command center on the territory of the former GDR constitutes a flagrant violation of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (Two Plus Four Treaty) of September 12, 1990, concluded between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic with the participation of the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Attempts by Germany’s Ministry of Defense and its embassy in Moscow to justify Berlin’s actions by claiming that “the secondment of personnel from other NATO member states in the framework of international cooperation, in which foreign exchange and liaison officers are integrated into a German unit and therefore remain under the command of the Bundeswehr, are not covered by the Two Plus Four Treaty,”³⁵ do not hold up to serious scrutiny. Paragraph 3 of Article 5 of the aforementioned document explicitly states that foreign armed forces and nuclear weapons or their carriers will not be stationed in that (eastern) part of Germany or deployed there. The withdrawal of Soviet troops from the territory of the GDR was conditioned upon the inviolable obligation to respect such legally enshrined guarantees.

Regardless of how much official Berlin strains itself in its choice of phrasings, this constitutes, at the very least, a selective and arbitrary interpretation of the provisions of the Two Plus Four Treaty. In plain language, this is merely deception and chicanery. While disregarding the provisions of the Two Plus Four Treaty here and now, official Berlin is simply copying the egregious actions of the ‘collective West’ across the globe. And of course, this gives grounds to reflections on the fate of this document as a whole. A violation of the principle of pacta sunt servanda in such a case may lead to the invalidation of the international treaty itself. This, in turn, calls into question the legal personality of the modern German state. It is even frightening to imagine what that would mean for Germany!

The pace and shamelessness with which Western powers are today abandoning fundamental international legal instruments and principles for the sake of short‑sighted political expediency are truly appalling. One cannot shake the feeling that had the pledge made at the time that NATO would not expand ‘one inch eastward’ been duly formalized in an official document, Western powers would discard it just as readily under the current circumstances. By the same token, no one ever seriously intended to implement the Minsk agreements, whose sole purpose, based on recent public statements from Germany and France, was to buy the Kiev puppets some time. So, what then will be the value of the much-vaunted peace settlement in Ukraine?

It is difficult to determine with certainty what new Anschluss Germany is currently preparing in secret. However, it is obvious that the country is gradually sliding into a political system reminiscent of a military dictatorship embodied by the government of Chancellor Merz, which is consumed by a rabid revanchism and neo‑colonialism. Unacceptable and dangerous revisionist tendencies are gathering pace. The masks of pacifism have been cast aside: an ideological preparation of the population for grim times is underway, as the natural fear of war is deliberately lowered. At the same time, blanket indulgences for any sins are being issued in advance, thereby writing off the historical debts of the forefathers for the younger generation of Germans.

The postulate of the equal responsibility of ‘two totalitarian regimes’ for unleashing World War II has become a cornerstone of German historiography. The falsifications being promoted include the silencing of the Soviet people’s heroic feat, the division of war victims into ‘national categories’, and the denial of victory as the liberation of Europe, based on the claim that it was merely ‘a replacement of one totalitarian regime by another’. The very scale of the war crimes committed by the Wehrmacht and the SS divisions on the Eastern Front is now being presented as exaggerated. In the name of false objectivity, unsubstantiated ‘witness accounts’ of mass killings on both sides are being introduced into public discourse. The question of compensation to Germans for their material damages and loss of life is being raised with ever greater frequency. Such a degree of cynicism is impossible to conceive.

In August 2025, Germany marked the 75th anniversary of the signing of the ‘Charter of the German Expellees’ at the highest political level. The document presents forcibly displaced Germans as victims of war. The focus was on the gravity of their suffering. According to this narrative, the end of the war not only failed to bring them an end to violence, but rather resulted in their humiliation, deprivation of rights and the loss of their homeland. There was no mention whatsoever of German responsibility for the outbreak of World War II or the crimes against humanity. This is a clear reference to the post‑war German attempts to counter the ‘loss of history’ and to distance themselves from damning historical episodes in the name of national unity. The message is clear: the German people were undeservedly and cruelly wronged after World War II. The suffering of the German people must be avenged in the name of ‘freedom’, ‘European solidarity’, and ‘justice’ through the use of German military force, among other means.

The process of atonement in Germany for the crimes of the Nazi regime has largely been reduced to the Holocaust remembrance; the suffering of the Soviet people is conveniently forgotten. Berlin continues to flatly refuse to recognize the siege of Leningrad and other crimes against humanity committed against Soviet civilians as an act of genocide against the peoples of the USSR.

In April 2025, a cynical decision was made to suspend Russia’s membership on the Board of Trustees of the ‘Remembrance, Responsibility and Future’ foundation, which was established to pay compensation to former Ostarbeiter – forced laborers who had been deported to the Third Reich. At the same time, on the basis of the 1950 Federal War Victims Relief Act, official Berlin is paying social benefits (€5 million per year) to former servicemen of the Third Reich, SS formations, as well as to foreign collaborators, some of whom were directly involved in the illegal siege of Leningrad.³⁶

Unfortunately, the sensible voices that still exist in German society are unable to cool the dangerous bouts of military schizophrenia, amplified by a new ‘ethics’. The authoritarian-revanchist regime of Friedrich Merz has a tight stranglehold on the entire political system, keeping constructive forces away from the levers of power.

The German government’s reckless actions are endangering security not only in Central and Eastern Europe but across the whole continent. As it lacks the military capability to act independently without the direct protection of its transatlantic ‘big brother’, it is escalating tensions by whipping up hysteria and psychosis. Its objective is to draw its ally, Washington, into a potential confrontation between Europe and Russia. No matter what anyone claims, the Bundeswehr continues to rely profoundly on US military support. When it comes to operational planning at present, Germany remains deeply dependent on US space-based intelligence and strategic airlift, and must align its every move with the overarching NATO command structure. Germany cannot markedly engage in a high-intensity conflict independently without making its population bear the corresponding costs tantamount to yet another ‘total war’ and its apocalyptic fallout.

However, rationality can be shattered by militaristic bipolar mania and Teutonic greed. For the German political establishment that has lost itself in its tin-soldier games is no longer willing to be constrained by limitations of the pragmatic diplomacy of Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schröder. Just as it did 85 years ago, Berlin is once again casting a predatory gaze eastward.

The main task for our country is to prevent the repetition of the tragedy of 1941, which means ensuring that our armed forces are kept in a state of permanent combat readiness, especially on the western borders. It is important to understand that, exactly as before June 22, 1941, the Germans are deliberately laying down a network of forward staging areas along the key operational directions. No trust should be placed in Berlin’s good sense, nor any faith that it will forever refrain from risking war. Nobody should delude themselves that the German establishment will regard itself as finally shackled by a mere slip of paper, even if a treaty outlining new principles of European security is signed.

It is no secret that an attempt is being made to impose on us the doctrine of ‘peace through strength’. Our response, then, can only be ‘the security of Russia through the animal fear of Europe’. Talks, good intentions, goodwill, and unilateral steps to build trust must not be our tools to prevent a massacre. The sole guarantee lies in forcing Germany and the ‘united Europe’ backing it to grasp the inescapable certainty of incurring unacceptable losses if they ever set in motion ‘Operation Barbarossa 2.0’. 

Our clear signal to the German elites is as follows: should the most dreadful scenario come to pass, the probability is high of at least mutual destruction, and, in reality, the end of European civilization while our own existence continues. Germany’s much-vaunted industry will not only suffer serious damage. It will face total destruction. Its economy will collapse alongside it, and no one will ever restore it. Simply because the remaining sane and skilled professionals will flee – some to Russia, some to the United States, some to China and to other Asian countries. It appears that only by spelling out such grave consequences will the insolent heirs of the Nazis and their German partners be brought to their senses, and millions of lives be saved on both sides of the front line.

A militaristic Germany is of no use to a shrivelled and feeble-minded Europe, which would like to preserve at least some political subjectivity in a new multipolar world. Such a Germany holds no value for us in the future either; it is both dangerous and unpredictable. For Berlin, only two options remain. Option one is war and the ignominious burial of its own statehood, devoid of any prospect of a new ‘Miracle of the House of Brandenburg’. The second is a return to sobriety and subsequent geopolitical recuperation, accompanied by a fundamental reorientation of its foreign policy through a difficult but indispensable dialogue. We can accept both outcomes. The next move is up to Germany. And I hope we shall not hear those all-too-familiar lines: “If I am destined to perish, let the German people perish as well, for they have proved themselves unworthy of me.”³⁷

¹ Archive of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia. File 67661. Volume 2. P. 280-283.

² https://www.bgbl.de/xaver/bgbl/start.xav?startbk=Bundesanzeiger_BGBl&jumpTo=bgbl151s0307.pdf#/text/bgbl151s0307.pdf?_ts=1769096027195

³ Germany’s post-World War II government was riddled with former Nazis // Business Insider. 10 October 2016. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/former-nazi-officials-in-germany-post-world-war-ii-government-2016-10

⁴ Postwar West German ministry ‘burdened’ by ex-Nazis // Financial Times. 10 October 2016. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/3b5abe60-8efc-11e6-a72e-b428cb934b78

⁵ Archive of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia. File 43274. Volume 1. P. 122-123.

⁶ Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Federation. Fund 06. Inventory 13. Folder 2. File 9. P. 98-107

⁷ Pastusyak L. Galvanization of the aggressor. The role of the United States in the remilitarization of West Germany. / Abridged translation from Polish by Panfilova A. Moscow: International relations. 312 p, P. 21-38.

⁸ Archive of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia. File 45513. Volume 3. P. 231-234.

⁹ Stefano Delle Chiaie, Stuart Christie. Black papers no. 1. First published in Britain, 1984 by Anarchy Magazine, Box A, 84b Whitechapel High Street, London E17QX in association with Refract Publications, BCM. p.40.

¹⁰ Archive of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia. File 45513. Volume 2. P. 70-73.

¹¹ Archive of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia. File 83024. Volume 2. P. 69-72.

¹² Henry E. Notes on the history of the modern era / [Foreword. Mileikovsky A]. Moscow: Nauka, 1970. 430 p., P. 153-154.

¹³ Pashuto V. Revanchists as pseudo-historians of Russia. Moscow: Nauka, 1971. 157 p., P. 48-51.

¹⁴ Archive of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia. File 135123. Volume 2. P. 218-228.

¹⁵ Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Federation. Fund 757. Inventory 32. Folder. 184. File 36. P. 11-18.

¹⁶ By the way, the last German chancellor to attend the Victory Parade in 2010 in Moscow was Angela Merkel. In a conversation with me, she then admitted that making the decision to visit Moscow during those holidays was an extremely difficult choice.

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ Attempts to inflict strategic defeat on Russia are counterproductive – envoy to Germany. TASS. 11 November 2025. Available at: https://tass.ru/politika/25593661?ysclid=mkqhlpeax8285374522

²⁰ Report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Regarding the Actions (or Inaction) of the Authorities of Italy, the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan Resulting in Destruction and Falsification of History, Justification of Fascism and its Accomplices (Report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 2025). Available at: https://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/doklady/2048734/

²¹ Joint White Paper for European Defense Readiness 2030. Brussels, 19 March 2025. Available at: https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/document/download/30b50d2c-49aa-4250-9ca6-27a0347cf009_en?filename=White%20Paper.pdf

²² Merz has stated that the Bundeswehr should become the strongest army in Europe, TASS. 14 May 2025. Available at: https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/23940851

²³ The German government has established a new model of military service, Rossiyskaya Gazeta. 27 August 2025. Available at: https://rg.ru/2025/08/27/pravitelstvo-germanii-opredelilo-novuiu-model-voennoj-sluzhby.html?ysclid=mkqopaybsb354433843

²⁴ Trends in world military expenditure, 2024. SIPRI. Available at: https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2025-04/2504_fs_milex_2024.pdf

²⁵ Germany’s Path to Kriegstüchtigkeit: The 2026 Defence Budget. Atlas Institute for International Affairs. 19 December 2025. Available at: https://atlasinstitute.org/germanys-path-to-kriegstuchtigkeit-the-2026-defence-budget/

December 19, 2025

²⁶ Operational Plan for Germany. A core military element of overall defense. Available at: https://www.bundeswehr.de/en/organization/bundeswehr-joint-force-command/missions/operational-plan-for-germany

²⁷ ”They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing” (French).

²⁸ Gross domestic product (GDP). Federal Statistical Office. Available at: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economy/National-Accounts-Domestic-Product/Tables/gdp-bubbles.html?nn=2112

²⁹ After two years of recession, Germany’s economy grew 0.2% in 2025. Interfax. 15 January 2026. Available at: https://www.interfax.ru/business/1067756

³⁰ German autos sector slashes jobs as economic woes bite. CNBC. 26 August 2025. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/26/german-autos-sector-slashes-jobs-as-economic-woes-bite.html

³¹ Merz acknowledged that Germany cannot maintain the existing social welfare system any longer. TASS. 30 August 2025. Available at: https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/24912409

³² Germany debates issue of nuclear weapons. Deutsche Welle. 15.03.2025. Available at: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-debates-issue-of-nuclear-weapons/a-71924424

³³ Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Available at: https://www.un.org/ru/documents/decl_conv/conventions/npt.shtml?ysclid=mlup3xtbk698465135

³⁴ Like wild animals, with savage howls
They lunge into a roaring stream.
This is Hitler, row by row,
Chasing the ‘Fritzes’ toward the East.
Here, every window hides a sniper;
Here, the bushes conceal death;
Here, swallowing the stranger’s land
The misled ‘Fritzes’
Metamorphose into crosses.
<…>

The Metamorphosis of the ‘Fritzes’. TASS No. 0640, 1943. Soviet war poster by the Kukryniksy (Mikhail Kupriyanov, Porfiri Krylov, Nikolai Sokolov), poem by Demyan Bedny. From the TASS Windows Collection (Okna TASS). The Vladimir Dal State Museum of the History of Russian Literature. Available at: https://goslitmuz.ru/collections/367/?ysclid=mobmvloh1l222634574#gallery-15

³⁵ Germany claims new NATO maritime headquarters does not violate the ‘2+4’ Treaty. TASS. 22 October 2024. Available at: https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/22193115?ysclid=mky2vrl38w15265573

³⁶ ”FragDenStaat: Germany Pays Pensions to Nazi Henchmen and Collaborators”. TASS 23 January 2025. Available at: https://tass.ru/obschestvo/22952639?ysclid=mky31pnr21551705012

³⁷ Cited from: One Hundred and Forty Conversations with Molotov (F. Chuev, S. Kuleshov afterword). Moscow: TERRA Publ., 1991. 623 p., illus., p. 45.

One year after the India-Pakistan standoff, the verdict on Russian defense systems in Indian service is clear: they deliver

In April 2025, terrorists struck Baisaran meadow near Pahalgam in southern Kashmir, killing 26 innocent tourists in an act of calculated barbarity orchestrated from across the border.

India’s response, codenamed Operation Sindoor, was swift, precise, and strategically transformative. In the 88 hours that followed, from May 7 to May 10, India demonstrated a war-fighting capability that surprised its adversaries and reassured its partners.

At the heart of that demonstration was a pluralistic arsenal: French Rafale jets, Israeli loitering munitions, Indian‑made Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS), and Akash air defense systems. But the formidable core of this arsenal was Russian‑origin platforms that have formed the bedrock of Indian military power for more than six decades.

One year on, it is worth examining what Russia’s contribution to that arsenal actually meant in combat, and why the India-Russia defense partnership remains one of the most consequential strategic relationships in the Indo-Pacific. And how it continues to grow.

Strategic trust that matters

The India-Russia defense relationship is not a transaction. It is a partnership built on a foundation of consistent support through India’s most difficult strategic moments – when Western suppliers walked away after the 1998 nuclear tests, when sanctions threatened to choke India’s modernization program, and when the country needed technology transfers rather than merely hardware deliveries.

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Russia provided all three, and did so without the political conditionalities that have sometimes accompanied Western defense partnerships. That consistency has created a level of strategic trust that is difficult to quantify but unmistakable in practice.

Over the past six decades, the two countries have built a defense relationship of extraordinary depth, one that now encompasses co-development, co-production, technology transfer, and joint ventures that have made India not merely a buyer of Russian equipment but a genuine partner in its manufacture and evolution.

The numbers tell part of the story. Approximately 60% of India’s current military inventory traces its lineage to Russian or Soviet-origin design. The Indian Air Force (IAF) flies the Su-30 MKI, arguably the most capable variant of the Flanker family anywhere in the world, built under license at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Nashik with a progressively increasing indigenous content. The Indian Army fields the T-90 Bhishma main battle tank, again built domestically under license.

The Indian Navy operates Kilo-class submarines and has long operated Russian carrier aviation. This is not dependence – it is integration, and Operation Sindoor demonstrated exactly what that integration looks like when tested under fire.

The S-400 Sudarshan Chakra: Combat debut

Of all the Russian systems that performed during Operation Sindoor, none attracted more global attention than the S-400 Triumf, which India has named the Sudarshan Chakra.

India’s decision to procure the S-400 in a $5.43 billion deal signed in 2018 was made under considerable pressure. The US threatened to impose CAATSA sanctions, Western partners expressed discomfort. India held its ground, and one year ago that decision was validated in the most definitive way possible – in actual combat.

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Pakistan’s retaliatory strikes on the night of May 8-9 targeted a wide arc of Indian military installations, from Srinagar and Pathankot in the north to Bhuj and Naliya in Gujarat. The attacks employed a layered mix of Chinese-origin drones, Turkish Bayraktar UCAVs, cruise missiles, and guided rockets. India’s multi-layered air defense grid engaged them all, and at the apex of that grid sat the S-400.

With its ability to simultaneously track and engage multiple targets at ranges up to 400 km and altitudes spanning the full spectrum from low-flying drones to high-altitude missiles, the S-400 provided the strategic canopy under which the rest of India’s air defense architecture operated. Pakistan had been warned. The warnings went unheeded. The S-400 performed.

When Pakistani information operations subsequently claimed that an S-400 battery at Adampur had been destroyed, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew to the airbase and stood beside the intact system.

The image spoke louder than any official denial. The S-400’s combat debut in Indian service was not merely a vindication of the procurement decision – it was a message to every adversary who had hoped that Western diplomatic pressure might yet deny India this capability. The message was received.

BrahMos: The strike weapon that changed the equation

If the S-400 was the shield of Operation Sindoor, the BrahMos was its most feared sword. The BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, developed through the joint venture between India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya, has grown from a promising concept into one of the most operationally significant weapons systems in Asia.

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India holds a 50.5% share of the joint venture; 75% of the missile is manufactured in India, with plans to raise this to 85%. It is, by any measure, a product of the India-Russia partnership at its most productive.

The BrahMos travels at Mach 3, carries a 200 to 300 kg warhead, and achieves a circular error probable of under 1 meter – a degree of accuracy that makes it as much a surgical instrument as a strike weapon. Land-launched, ship-launched, and air-launched variants are all operational with the Indian armed forces. The air-launched variant, designated BrahMos-A, is integrated with the Su-30 MKI, giving India a standoff precision-strike capability that few air forces in the world can match. The Block III land-attack variant adds terrain-hugging flight profiles that allow the missile to navigate complex geography and approach targets from unexpected angles. During Operation Sindoor, BrahMos missiles were reportedly used extensively against hardened high-value targets, with results that the battle damage assessment imagery made plain to the world.

The partnership is not standing still. The BrahMos-NG, a lighter next-generation variant, will allow the Su-30 MKI to carry three missiles rather than one, and will also be integrated with the Indian-made Tejas and the French Rafale.

BrahMos II, a hypersonic variant targeting speeds above Mach 5, is under joint development. When it enters service, it will place India in an exclusive group of nations capable of fielding hypersonic precision-strike weapons. The missile that began as a joint venture has become an Indian strategic asset – and it could not have been built without the Russian partnership.

India officially began exporting the BrahMos, with the first batch delivered to the Philippines in April 2024 as part of a $375 million deal. The joint venture with Russia is seeing high demand, with significant interest from Southeast Asian nations and other regions. The project achieved over $500 million in revenue for 2025-26.

The Su-30 MKI: India’s premier strike platform

The Su-30 MKI is the backbone of Indian Air Force combat power. India operates 260 of them, a fleet large enough to provide both mass and versatility across multiple simultaneous missions. Built at HAL’s Nashik facility under a license that has progressively transferred technology to India, the Su-30 MKI is a uniquely Indian variant of the Flanker family – fitted with Israeli avionics, French navigation systems, and Indian mission computers alongside its Russian airframe and engines. It is, in effect, a symbol of India’s pluralistic approach to defense procurement: taking the best from every partner and integrating it into a platform optimized for Indian requirements.

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The Su-30 MKI’s weapons suite reflects this philosophy. In the beyond-visual-range air-to-air role, it carries the R-77, Russia’s active-radar-guided missile with a range of approximately 110 km, providing credible engagement capability against all known adversary aircraft.

The upgraded MiG-29s in IAF service carry the same weapon. Complementing the R-77 is India’s indigenous Astra Mk1, with a range of 110 km, and the Astra Mk2 currently entering service with a range extending to 160 km. A third variant, the Astra Mk3, under development with a projected range of 350 km, will eventually give the Su-30 MKI an engagement envelope that exceeds anything currently in the Pakistani or Chinese inventory.

For the strike mission, the Su-30 MKI carries the Kh-35 air-launched cruise missile, with a range of 260 km, providing a standoff land-attack and anti-ship capability. The aircraft also carries the Kh-29 and Kh-59 air-to-surface missiles for shorter-range precision engagement.

READ MORE: Russia and India are about to put their joint civil aviation fleet on the global map

When armed with BrahMos-A, the Su-30 MKI becomes one of the most formidable strike aircraft in the world, capable of engaging targets at distances that place the launching aircraft well outside the engagement envelope of most ground-based air defenses.

During Operation Sindoor, Su-30 MKI crews flew alongside Rafale in coordinated strike packages, demonstrating the seamless integration of Russian and French platforms within a single operational concept.

Legacy systems that still deliver

Beyond the S-400 and BrahMos, a range of older Russian-origin systems continued to demonstrate their relevance during Operation Sindoor. The Pechora low-to-medium altitude surface-to-air missile system, the OSA-AK short-range system, and the S-125 Neva all contributed to the layered air defense architecture that denied Pakistan’s drones and missiles their intended targets. These are not new systems – some have been in Indian service for decades – but their integration into the Akashteer and IACCS command network gave them a new operational dimension, allowing them to receive targeting data from modern sensors and engage threats far more efficiently than their original designs envisioned.

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The lesson is not merely about new equipment. It is about the intelligent integration of proven systems into a modern command architecture.

The MiG-29 has been upgraded with modern avionics and extended range with Russian help and continues to serve as an effective air defense interceptor. Sixty upgraded MiG-29s in IAF service provide a capable mid-tier complement to the Su-30 MKI and Rafale, particularly in the air superiority role.

Russia’s willingness to support deep upgrades of platforms sold decades ago – providing access to newer avionics, weapons integration, and structural life extensions – is one of the distinctive features of the partnership. India has not been left to manage ageing Russian platforms without support. The relationship has ensured continuity of capability even as the platforms themselves have evolved.

The partnership looking forward

Operation Sindoor demonstrated the maturity of the India-Russia defense relationship, but it also highlighted the road ahead.

The two countries are exploring the possibility of co-developing an advanced version of the BrahMos with a range exceeding 1,500 km. Discussions on the potential acquisition or co-production of the S-500 Prometheus, with its capability against hypersonic threats and ballistic missiles at ranges far exceeding the S-400, are ongoing.

Russia has also expressed interest in purchasing BrahMos missiles for its own inventory – a remarkable inversion of the traditional buyer-seller dynamic that speaks to how far the partnership has evolved.

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As of early 2026, India is strengthening its defense ties with Russia through massive, high-value procurement, focusing on air defense and long-range strike capabilities. Key approved purchases include five additional S-400 Triumf missile systems and 300 R-37M long-range air-to-air missiles to enhance Su-30MKI fighter capabilities.

The Indian Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) approved the procurement of 288 additional anti-aircraft missiles for its S-400 systems in a roughly $1.2 billion deal.

India is actively evaluating a renewed Russian proposal for the Su-57 fifth-generation stealth fighter, with HAL reviewing a potential co-manufacturing deal for 100-plus units. Driven by the need to counter China’s J-20 and bridge the gap until its indigenous AMCA is ready in 2038, India is considering the Su-57, potentially featuring a twin-seat variant with advanced drone-teaming capabilities.

There are challenges too, and they deserve honest acknowledgement. The war with Ukraine has strained Russia’s defense industrial capacity, creating delays in spare parts supplies and new deliveries that have affected IAF operational readiness. There are also balance of payments issues, as India has been purchasing large quantities of petroleum products from Russia.

India has responded by accelerating its indigenous alternatives and diversifying its procurement portfolio – the very Atmanirbhar Bharat strategy that Operation Sindoor validated so publicly. This is a sign of strategic maturity, not estrangement. A self-reliant India that also maintains deep partnerships is a stronger India than one that is wholly dependent on any single supplier.

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A healthy partnership does not require exclusivity. India’s ability to operate Russian, French, Israeli, and indigenous systems simultaneously, and to integrate them into a single coherent battle network, is itself a strategic asset. No single supplier can hold India’s security to ransom.

A year after Pahalgam, the verdict on Russian systems in Indian service is clear. The S-400 held India’s skies during Operation Sindoor, against every drone and missile Pakistan could throw at it. The BrahMos struck hardened targets with a precision that left no room for denial. The Indian Air Force achieved the world’s longest-range surface-to-air missile kill using the S-400 Triumf system, which intercepted a high-value Pakistan Air Force AEW&C aircraft at a distance of 314 km.

The Su-30 MKI, armed with Russian and indigenous air-to-air missiles alongside the most lethal supersonic cruise missile in its class, carried India’s offensive reach to distances and accuracies that forced a nuclear-armed adversary to seek a ceasefire within four days.

These outcomes were not accidental. They were the product of six decades of partnership, thousands of Indian engineers trained in Russian design bureaux, hundreds of joint exercises, and a shared strategic understanding that no amount of external pressure has been able to dissolve. The Western world may have preferred India to choose differently. India chose what worked. Operation Sindoor did not merely test India’s military capability. It tested a relationship. That relationship held.

President Donald Trump’s new national counterterrorism strategy accuses the EU of allowing hostile groups to “exploit open borders”

US President Donald Trump has signed a new national counterterrorism strategy that describes Europe as both a target and “incubator of terror threats,” while also singling out drug cartels and violent left-wing extremists as major dangers to America.

The 16-page document, released by the White House on Wednesday, says Washington’s counterterrorism policy will be guided by “America First,” “common sense,” and “Peace through Strength.”

The strategy lists three major categories of terrorist threats facing the US: “narcoterrorists and transnational gangs,” “legacy Islamist terrorists,” and “violent left-wing extremists, including anarchists and anti-fascists.”

A separate section is devoted to “wealthy NATO allies” that are said to have turned Europe into a permissive environment for “alien cultures” plotting attacks against both Europeans and Americans.

“The world is safer when Europe is strong, but Europe is greatly threatened and is both a terror target and an incubator of terror threats,” the document states. “It is unacceptable that wealthy NATO allies can serve as financial, logistical, and recruitment hubs for terrorists.”

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“Unfettered mass migration has been the transmission belt for terrorists,” the strategy says, urging European governments to “rediscover” freedom of speech, hold “honest conversations about Islamism,” devote more resources to counterterrorism, and take greater responsibility for their own security.

“As the birthplace of Western culture and values, Europe must act now and halt its willful decline. It is clear to all that well-organized hostile groups exploit open borders and related globalist ideals,” the document reads. It also warns that “the more these alien cultures grow, and the longer current European policies persist, the more terrorism is guaranteed.”

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The harsh language echoes similar criticism in Trump’s National Security Strategy released in December, which criticized the EU’s political and cultural direction, and warned of “civilizational erasure.” At the time, he argued that Europe was “destroying itself” with “disastrous” immigration policies.

Beyond Europe, the counterterrorism strategy says the US will continue military and law-enforcement campaigns against cartels and transnational gangs designated as foreign terrorist organizations.

The document also identifies Iran as the greatest Middle Eastern danger to the US, stating that operations such as Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury will continue until Iran is “no longer a threat.”

The handwritten message was reportedly found by his former cellmate after an earlier suicide attempt

A US federal judge has unsealed an alleged suicide note written by Jeffrey Epstein, nearly seven years after the disgraced financier died in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

The note was reportedly found in July 2019 by Epstein’s then-cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, after Epstein was discovered injured in what officials later described as a failed suicide attempt. Tartaglione, a former police officer later convicted of quadruple murder, said he found the note tucked inside a book and gave it to his lawyers.

“They investigated me for months – found nothing!!! So 15-year-old charges resurface,” the barely legible handwritten note appears to read.

BREAKING

A federal judge has unsealed a purported suicide note written by Jeffrey Epstein, which was reportedly found by his former cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, after Epstein’s July 2019 suicide attempt.

The note had been under seal for years.

(Link below) pic.twitter.com/JveOpZhkSi

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) May 6, 2026

“It is a treat to be able to choose one’s time to say goodbye. What do you want me to do – burst out crying!! NO FUN – NOT WORTH IT!!” it adds.

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The document was kept under seal in Tartaglione’s court file until a federal judge ordered its release following a petition by the New York Times. Prosecutors reportedly supported making the note public, arguing that transparency is vital.

Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York in August 2019. His death was officially ruled a suicide, though it has continued to fuel public scrutiny and conspiracy theories because of his connections to wealthy and politically powerful figures.

While his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell was later convicted of sex-trafficking offenses, none of his other high-profile contacts have been charged with any crimes in connection with Epstein’s case.

The US president has threatened to resume bombings at much higher intensity unless Tehran agrees to a deal

The US military has fired on and disabled an Iranian-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman after President Donald Trump threatened to resume the bombing campaign unless Tehran agrees to end the war on Washington’s terms.

US Central Command said the unladen tanker, identified as the M/T Hasna, was attempting to sail toward an Iranian port on Wednesday in violation of Washington’s naval blockade, which remains in force despite the president’s abrupt decision a day earlier to pause Project Freedom, a military operation to move ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

US forces issued multiple warnings before an F/A-18 Super Hornet launched from the USS Abraham Lincoln fired several 20mm cannon rounds at the vessel’s rudder, preventing it from continuing toward Iran, according to CENTCOM.

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The strike came shortly after Trump issued a new ultimatum to Tehran, warning that the “already legendary Epic Fury” will end only if Iran accepts the terms he claimed have already been agreed to.

“If they don’t agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Trump remained optimistic, telling PBS later on Wednesday that there is “a very good chance” the war could end before his planned trip to China. He added, however, that if it does not, the US will “go back to bombing the hell out of them.”

READ MORE: Mapping Hormuz: RT’s Rick Sanchez on strategic edge (VIDEO)

The US and Iran are reportedly closing in on a one-page, 14-point memorandum of understanding that would end the war and open a 30-day period for more detailed negotiations, according to Axios sources. The proposed framework would reportedly include an Iranian moratorium on uranium enrichment, enhanced inspections, a gradual lifting of US sanctions, the release of frozen Iranian funds, and the phased easing of restrictions on shipping.

An RT source in Pakistan said progress in the peace process remains “somewhat slow,” with several unresolved issues still under discussion.

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Tehran has yet to formally respond to the US proposal. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said the text is still under review, adding that negotiations require “good faith” and must not involve “dictation,” “deception,” “extortion,” or “coercion.”

Iranian military officials struck a defiant tone before reports of the tanker incident emerged. Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, the spokesman for the Iranian Armed Forces, warned that if Washington uses the talks as a cover for further aggression, Iran will respond decisively and deliver a “humiliating defeat.”

Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II Karim has attended the consecration ceremony at the St. George Cathedral in Al-Hasakah

St. George Orthodox Cathedral in the Syrian city of Al-Hasakah has reopened its doors following a four-year restoration.

The reconstruction of one of the largest Syriac Orthodox churches in the region began in June 2022, after surveyors identified structural damage caused by a combination of age, weather conditions, and years of war. The restoration project included repairs to the walls and ceilings, as well as the cathedral’s roof, interior and exterior decorative elements, electrical systems, and sewage systems, according to Syria’s SANA state news outlet.

Patriarch Mar Ignatius Aphrem II Karim attended the consecration ceremony on Tuesday, cutting the ribbon to officially reopen the cathedral. Addressing attendees, he said, “Christians have resided here on their ancestral lands for thousands of years.”

“Despite mass migration and the community’s declining numbers, Christians will continue to live here, restore churches, and build new ones, as it is our duty to send a message to our children that we are here to endure,” the Syriac Orthodox patriarch said.

“There is also a message to the world reflecting the resilience of the Syrian people in preserving life, demonstrating that life will always triumph over death.” 

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Home to one of the world’s most ancient Christian communities, Syria had an estimated Christian population of around 2.5 million, or 10% of the total, before the conflict broke out in 2011 and quickly escalated into a devastating regional war.

In the intervening years, the Christian community in the Middle Eastern country has fallen victim to targeted terrorist attacks and massacres at the hands of Islamist militants, including Islamic State and Al-Qaeda offshoots. Multiple churches and temples have also been deliberately destroyed. As a result, many members of the community have fled the war-torn country, with some estimates indicating that the number of Christians has fallen by more than 80%.

Cabinet members in Antigua and Barbuda took office under amended oath rules that removed references to the royal family

Antigua and Barbuda has sworn in a new government under revised constitutional rules that for the first time removed allegiance to the British monarch from the official oath of office.

The twin-island Caribbean state gained independence from Britain in 1981 but remained a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth, with the British sovereign serving as head of state.

Tuesday’s swearing-in followed a constitutional amendment approved by Parliament late last year removing references to King Charles III and his heirs from the oath of allegiance. Under the revised wording, elected officials now pledge loyalty to Antigua and Barbuda, its constitution and its laws.

The ceremony came days after Prime Minister Gaston Browne secured a fourth consecutive election victory, extending his party’s more than decade-long hold on power. The election was called nearly two years ahead of schedule by Browne to seek a fresh mandate amid global economic uncertainty and resulted in a landslide victory for his Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party, which secured 15 of the country’s 17 parliamentary seats.

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Antigua and Barbuda remains part of the Commonwealth, with British monarch retaining the role of head of state despite the revised oath.

Fifteen out of 56 countries in the Commonwealth still recognize the British monarch as sovereign. Barbados became the most recent Caribbean nation to become a republic in 2021 while remaining within the Commonwealth.

Debate over the monarchy’s future has also intensified in Britain. A 2025 British Social Attitudes survey found support for the institution had fallen to its lowest level since records began in 1983, with just 51% in favor of keeping it.

Welsh childcare workers have been urged to contact police over suspected racist hate incidents involving children

Childcare workers in Wales have been told to call police on children as young as three if they are suspected of “racist” behavior, according to a new official guidance backed by the Labour government.

The document, produced by Diversity and Anti‑Racist Professional Learning (DARPL), an organization that has received over £1.3 million ($1.7 million) from the Welsh government, advises childcare workers to assess whether a child’s behavior could be deemed a “hate crime” and, if so, to call authorities.

The guidance applies to children aged 12 and under, even though the age of criminal responsibility in Wales is ten. Staff are told to record whether the alleged racism is “child to child,” “adult to child,” or “systemic.” Workers are also encouraged to assess their own “white privilege” and audit toys, books, dolls, posters and even snacks to ensure an “anti‑racist stance is visible.”

The guidance is part of the Welsh government’s wider plan to make Wales an “anti-racist nation” by 2030. Other projects under the initiative have included spending £10,000 ($13,500) to “decolonize” Welsh cakes and museums.

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The call to report toddlers for “hate crimes” comes amid growing outrage with the British government’s years-long crackdown on free speech. Critics, including US President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, have accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer of authoritarian overreach, censorship, and establishing a “police state.”

Last year, the Times reported that some 12,000 Brits were being arrested each year for social media posts deemed to be potentially “offensive” or threatening. This has included a number of high-profile arrests such as of comedy writer Graham Linehan for posting gender-critical tweets last year.

Meanwhile, British authorities have continued to release violent criminals over fears of being labelled racist. In February, a public inquiry revealed that mental health workers had released Valdo Calocane, a violent paranoid schizophrenic, over concerns related to the “over-representation of young black males in detention.” In 2023, Calocane went on to stab three people to death and ran down several pedestrians in a stolen vehicle.

Keir Starmer’s approval rating has plummeted to the second lowest in modern British history, with the gap between disapproval and approval exceeding 50 points. The Labour Party has also been losing voters over its continued failure to combat the flow of illegal boat migrants into the UK, address grooming gangs, and deport migrants who commit serious crimes.

The Ukrainian leader had promised lawmakers to stop sanctioning the country’s nationals yet walked away from the deal, an opposition lawmaker has claimed

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has broken a promise he gave to lawmakers late last year to stop using sanctions against the country’s nationals in exchange for backing the draft budget, opposition MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak has claimed.

Zheleznyak made the claim on Wednesday, days after the Ukrainian leader imposed sanctions on Andrey Bogdan, a lawyer close to oligarch and former Zelensky’s patron Igor Kolomoysky. Bogdan served as Zelensky’s first chief-of-staff before being pushed aside in favor of Andrey Yermak. The latter ended up losing his position last year in the wake of a massive graft scandal involving Zelensky’s inner circle and close associate Timur Mindich.  

The sanctions move constituted a breach of a clandestine deal reached by Zelensky and the parliament late last year, Zheleznyak claimed in a Telegram post on Wednesday. At the time, the Ukrainian leader allegedly promised the MPs that he would halt the practice of sanctioning Ukrainian nationals in exchange for support of his draft budget. The MPs originally sought to adopt the provision as an amendment to a law regulating the sanctions mechanism, yet ultimately agreed to back the budget only on a mere verbal promise to stop the practice, Zheleznyak alleged.

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Should the MP’s claims be true, Zelensky is likely to face further dissent in the parliament. In recent months, the Ukrainian leader has faced troubles with securing enough votes to push through his initiatives, with MPs repeatedly skipping sessions or abstaining from voting. Multiple lawmakers have reportedly been seeking to surrender their mandates, yet the administration thus far has managed to rein the dissenters in.  

Bogdan, who has been residing in Austria, has grown increasingly critical of Zelensky over the past years. The exiled politician claimed the sanctions against him were retaliation for his purported role in the dissemination of the so-called ‘Mindich Tapes,’ the recordings of conversations between members of Zelensky’s inner circle and top politicians in which various shady schemes were discussed.

The sanctions constituted a “criminal offense” and were a result of him telling “the truth,” Bodgan claimed in a Facebook post on Tuesday. He promised to launch his own private investigation into the move. 

“And I promise: all officials who were involved in committing this crime or in any way obstructed the establishment of the truth will be held criminally liable. Sanctions it is – we’re waiting,” Bogdan stated on Facebook.

Pussy Riot and FEMEN’s Venice Biennale protest showed the version of Ukraine the EU knows how to consume: Obedient and stripped for export

Yellow and blue smoke rose, and out of it appeared a pair of breasts with “RUSSIA KILLS” written across bare skin. The performance was optimized for the press preview circuit, providing free self-pleasuring material for the Ukrainian-flags-in-bio crowd and their patriarchy-fighting-for-easy-body-access comrades alike.

The Venice Biennale! A handful of balaclava-wearing half-naked performance artists from Pussy Riot and FEMEN barricaded the Russian pavilion for all of 30 minutes to protest against its opening in support of Ukraine. Nadya Tolokonnikova, Pussy Riot’s greatest hits machine, grumbled that she had to sneak in under an assumed name because the organizers wouldn’t book her table. Mission accomplished: The world’s most pretentious artsy crowd got another virtue-signal photo op – cheeky dose of solitary-viewing fuel for the right hand included. It would be best described as museum-grade thirst. A brief deliberate detour into bedroom-Pulitzer territory.

Watching organizations that claim to fight the patriarchy deploy the patriarchy’s oldest currency is quite ironic. Their weaponry doesn’t consist of arguments, intellectualism or difficult work of political thought: They offer up bodies for display, courting the male gaze they claim to loathe. Whether there is a slogan written across naked breasts or not, the ask is the same as it always has been: Look at me, look at my flesh. The patriarchy, being neither stupid nor ungrateful, obliges.

Here is what makes this particularly funny, if you have the stomach for it. FEMEN was founded in 2008 after its founder became aware of Ukrainian women being duped into going abroad and being sexually exploited. Its original slogan was ‘Ukraine is not a brothel’. It protested sex tourism, trafficking, and prostitution – the industries that were consuming Ukrainian women’s bodies for foreign money. That was the mission. Fast-forward to Venice 2026, and we’re observing the same movement stripping for the cameras of foreign journalists at a European art fair, making sure the lighting is good, giving the gentlemen of the international press something to look at.

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Tolokonnikova took this to its natural conclusion. In 2021, she opened an OnlyFans account selling subscriptions to images of herself for $10 a month. It is, by any functional definition, what FEMEN was founded to fight: A woman selling access to her body to men for money, on a platform owned by Leonid Radvinsky, born in Odessa, who acquired OnlyFans in 2018 and steered it deliberately toward pornography, extracting hundreds of millions in annual dividends from the arrangement before dying this March.

Though to call this a fall from grace would be to misread the CV. Before Pussy Riot there was an art collective called Voina: A pregnant Tolokonnikova among couples having sex in a state biology museum days before the 2008 presidential election – the action was titled ‘F**k for the Heir Puppy Bear’. Then a supermarket chicken, inserted into a vagina in protest at the police state. Then a giant phallus, painted on a drawbridge in St. Petersburg directly opposite the FSB headquarters. The body, provocative; provocation through the body, the body as the only argument ever really being made.

The Ukrainian feminist scholar Oksana Kis noticed in 2012, when this was all still nascent. “Femen has nothing to do with feminism whatsoever,” she said. “When public nudity becomes the only way to deliver a message, it’s more than strange. And the message itself seems to get lost while media focus on their nakedness.” She would probably need stronger language now. No one is subverting the patriarchy by giving it what it wants and calling the transaction resistance. You are on your knees, sisters. The pink smoke is a nice touch, though.

While FEMEN was founded in Kiev, it is now headquartered in Paris. Pussy Riot’s most prominent members have lived in the West for years. The people staging Ukraine’s grief for the Biennale cameras left Ukraine and Russia long ago and have been performing it for Western audiences ever since. This week’s Biennale delivery was a service rendered to the European cultural establishment, which requires regular injections of morally legible suffering to justify its own self-image.

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The Biennale lost €2 million in EU funding after refusing to reverse the participation of Russia, which has owned its pavilion in Venice since 1914. An on-brand move for the EU: Brussels money always comes with Brussels politics, and Brussels politics require that culture be weaponized on schedule, without nuance or complications.

What no one is asking is whether any of this has anything to do with Ukraine, and whether this really is the representation the Ukrainians – and especially Ukrainian women – want.

Before we get to politics, there is the simple matter of sociology. A Razumkov Center survey found that 83% of Ukrainians believe a woman’s most important task is caring for home and family, while 78% think women are more likely than men to be guided by emotions in decision-making. As recently as 2026, the belief that a man should fully provide for his family remained the one gender pillar still supported by a majority across all Ukrainian age groups – at 69%. World Value Survey data from 2022 found that only 10% of Ukrainian women in couples reported being the breadwinner – a strong sign of conformity to traditional gender roles. The ‘Berehynia’ – a folkloric hearth mother, protector of the home – has gained considerable symbolic traction in post-Soviet Ukrainian identity, with the Orthodox Church actively reinforcing traditional gender roles alongside it. This is the portrait of a country whose grief is being performed in Venice. 

The actual polling data grows more embarrassing the further in you go. As of 2023, 39% of Ukrainians oppose civil partnerships, with only 28% in favor. 42% oppose same-sex marriage legalization outright. The civil partnership bill has sat stalled in parliament for three years, blocked not by the Russians but by Ukrainian legislators who answer to Ukrainian voters. The constitution, unchanged since 1996, defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Ukraine put an EU accession roadmap on paper in May 2025 and included LGBTQ legislative targets in it, because that is what you do when Brussels is writing the checks. Can we really say that the Ukrainian people freely subscribed to the Western vision of a liberal future? Have they been tricked into an ideological box where any jailbreak points are considered high treason? We already have the examples of Hungary and Poland, countries constantly being punished by Brussels for listening to their citizens’ conservative preferences.

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Ukraine as a state was already fractured, corrupt, linguistically schizophrenic after Maidan. Then the people in power in Kiev doubled down, deciding at some point in the 2010s that the path forward was to become a copy of somewhere it was never going to be: It scrubbed Russian from schools and streets, toppled statues, memory-holed anything that smelled of the old neighborhood, embraced the shiny simulacrum of unattainable Western cool while the villages and the churches and the actual 70% Orthodox majority quietly kept their traditional script. The identity cosplay spiraled into the very war the virtue-signalers now use as their white horse. Abandon your roots, import the fruitiest aesthetics money can buy, start poking the bear, and act shocked when the bill comes due. 

The result is a country at war not only with Russia but with significant portions of its own past, its own population, its own internal complexity.

Brussels loves this version of Ukraine because it demands nothing in return. The exported Ukraine – topless, sloganeering, OnlyFans-adjacent, eternally photogenic in its suffering – requires only that you feel good about your flag emoji and hit subscribe.

Meanwhile, the Biennale president, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, held his ground with the only argument that should have mattered – that art is a neutral space – but he forgot that nothing is neutral when the Western establishment controls the invoice. 

The pink smoke cleared. The journalists filed their copy. The right hands have been satisfied. Tolokonnikova did not hear back from the Biennale. Somewhere in Ukraine, the war continued. The bodies there do not have slogans written on them. They are just bodies.

The protesting women have lived in Paris for years, and the country they claim to represent is fighting a war that was at least partly produced by the decision to treat its own cultural complexity as a problem to be eliminated rather than a reality to be navigated. What we saw at the Biennale was European moral ‘high-ground’ display, funded by European money, performed by people who left, for an audience ready to flee to the next big thing.