Ukraine: “Let’s attack Russian refineries. The Russians will run out of gasoline and diesel. There will be protests and Putin will be deposed.”

Result:

Emergency power outages have been introduced in the city of Kyiv as well as Kyiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk and other oblasts on the morning of 27 October.
…
“On the orders of Ukrenergo [Ukraine’s state-owned electricity transmission system operator], emergency power outages have been introduced in Kyiv, Kyiv Oblast and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.”
…
In addition, Sumyoblenergo, Sumy’s distribution system operator, announced emergency outages for its consumers.

The same situation is occurring in Cherkasy, Poltava, Kirovohrad, Zhytomyr and Kharkiv oblasts.

Reaction (machine translated):

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has threatened Russia with “expanding the geography” of long-range strikes.

Zelensky wrote about this in his telegram channel after the stavka meeting.

“Russian oil refining is already paying a significant price for the war and will pay even more. We have defined tasks to expand the geography of our long-range range, ” the Ukrainian president said.

I seriously doubt that these people are sane.

Last week’s posts on Moon of Alabama:

• Oct 20 – Emmanuel Todd – The Institutionalized Europe Is Far-Right
  Related:
  – “Europe’s latest intelligence fakes.” – The Floutist
  – EU Declares War On Its Own Members – Simplicius
  – The Final Split: How Europe Broke Apart Over Gaza – Fair Observer
  – “It’s not about security, it’s about control” – How EU governments want to encrypt their own comms, but break our private chats – Tech Radar

• Oct 21 – EU-NATO Retreats From ‘Ukraine Is Winning’ To Begging For A Ceasefire
  Related:
  – Western Analysts Continue to Push Delusions About Russia – Sonar21
  – New sanctions and weapons will not stop Russia. It’s time for Ukraine’s allies to change their flawed strategy – Guardian
  – NATO secretary general says Putin is “running out of money, troops and ideas” – Ukrainske Pravda, Oct 26 2025
  — How Russia, And Putin, Are Weaponizing, Losing And Running Out Of … Everything – MoA, Jun 3 2022
  — Russia Is Running Out Of [Whatever The Media Claim] – MoA, Jun 26 2022
  — Russia, Having ‘Run Out Of Missiles’, Launches Barrage On Ukraine – MoA, Oct 10 2022

• Oct 23 – Trump Fails To End His Proxy War With Russia
  Related:
  – Successful long-range test of Burevestnik – Russian Forces
  – Rubio’s Skepticism of Russian Spin Spurred US Shift on Putin – Bloomberg via MSN
  – Hungary’s Foreign Minister: Trump Is Ukraine’s Only Hope for Peace – American Conservative
  – Trump may not follow through on Russian oil or Tomahawk – Indian Punchline
  – Will America’s new sanctions on Russian oil force a peace deal? (archived) – Economist
  – Japan Pushes Back on U.S. Pressure to Halt Russian Energy Imports – Oil Price

• Oct 24 – EU Commission Plan Of ‘Russian Assets’ Loan To Ukraine Ends In Defeat
  Related:
  – German business association criticizes EU plans for Russian assets – DPA
  – The Canadian behind the West’s massive sanctions on Russia says it’s time for Round 2 (Mar 2024) – Politico
  – European leaders are unable to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia yet unwilling to face the political consequences of peace in Ukraine – The Peace Monger
  – Von der Leyen and Costa fail to cash in on Trump smacking Putin – Politico
  EU chiefs lost some credibility when they failed to get a deal to fund Ukraine using Russian assets. 

• Oct 25 – Trump Targets Venezuela
  Related:
  – Inside Marco Rubio’s Push for Regime Change in Venezuela – Drop Site
  – Officials, locals undercut Trump claims about Venezuela drug boats (archived) – Washington Post
  – On Ukraine and Venezuela, Trump needs to dump the sycophants – Responsible Statecraft
  – Norwegian Peace Council Will Not Celebrate María Corina Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize – Orinoco Tribune
  – U.S. Sanctions Colombia’s Leader, One of President Trump’s Harshest Critics (archived) – NY Times

—
Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-248

One never know how serious Trump’s ‘leaked’ plans are. Their purpose often seem to be solely to increase pressure on opponents, to move things into a direction he likes. If that does not work the plans may just be discarded. Or may, just may, be carried out.

Trump considering plans to target cocaine facilities inside Venezuela, officials say – Politico

President Donald Trump is considering plans to target cocaine facilities and drug trafficking routes inside Venezuela, though he has not yet made a decision on whether to move forward with them, three US officials told CNN.

Outward signs on Friday pointed toward a major potential military escalation, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordering the Navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier strike group currently stationed in Europe to the Caribbean region amid a massive buildup of US forces there. Trump has also authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela.

The president has not ruled out taking a diplomatic approach with Venezuela to stem the flow of drugs into the US, two officials said, even after the administration cut off active talks with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in recent weeks.

Venzuela is, as Politico points out, not known for drug trafficking. It does not have ‘cocaine facilities’. But it does have the largest oil reserves in the world. That has always made it a target for a U.S. regime-change operations.

But Venezuela is also a huge country double the size of Iraq with a mountainous and often densely wooded countryside. The U.S. military is unable to invade, occupy and control it.

But what the U.S. might want to try in Venezuela is a variant of the Israeli plan for Iran.

A decapitation strike killing President Maduro and the military leadership accompanied by a bombing campaign to take out air defenses and primary defense units. Meanwhile the CIA and special forces will have to work on the ground in Caracas to organize local thugs for an assault on the main government sites and radio/TV buildings.

As soon as those are captured the U.S. selected regime-change puppet, as identified by the Nobel Peace Prize committee, can declare herself president.

The rest is just media work. Unless – and that is a big question – there will be some real resistance.

The Venezuelan Bolvarian movement can motivate its youth to resist the U.S. coup even a well planned operation may end up like the Bay of Pigs.

A month ago I discussed a new hair-brained scheme by which the EU would confiscate Russian government money parked in Belgium.

The Russian money would be used to finance a EU ‘reparation loan’ to Ukraine which would only have to be paid back when Russia would pay war reparations to Ukraine. That at least was the official pronunciation which turned out to be a quote obvious fake.

Another Crazy Idea On How To Steal Russia’s Assets: Make EU Taxpayers Pay For It

A look into the details left many question which no one had answered:

Why would this scheme, as [German Chancellor] Merz say, ‘require budgetary guarantees from member states’? Doesn’t that mean that the tax-payers of those member state will eventually have to pay it? Who’s money is at risk when Russia wins its litigation? Who pays if something goes wrong?

Russia will of course never pay reparations to Ukraine. Nor would the loan be spend on repair or rebuild things in Ukraine. Instead the money would be used to buy weapons from Europe to continue the war for another two years.

The whole idea was a scam. Merz or others did no say so directly but in the end it would obviously be EU taxpayers who have to pay for the ‘loan’.

Earlier this week a Financial Times column confirmed (archived) my interpretation of the deal:Cont. reading: EU Commission Plan Of ‘Russian Assets’ Loan To Ukraine Ends In Defeat

It there any politician who is less reliable than U.S. President Donald Trump?

At the August summit in Anchorage with President Vladimir Putin of Russia Trump had aimed at a ceasefire along the frontline in Ukraine. But Putin made clear that the war required a long term solution of the underlying problem, NATO enlargement, and that a preliminary ceasefire would not be helpful in that regard. Russia also demanded full control of the Donbas and other regions.

Trump did agree to that and announced it as the brilliant result of the talks. This was his first turn on the issue.

But Ukraine’s (former) President Zelenski rejected any retreat from the regions Russia intends to acquire. European politicians, who fear losing the war against Russia, chimed in. Republican war hawks in Congress likewise put pressure on Trump.

A month after the talks in Alaska Trump again changed his position. This was his second turn. He criticized Putin and threatened Russia with new sanctions. Talk about sending Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine crept up.

A day before Zelenski was supposed to visit the White House Putin preemptively intervened by holding a phone call with Donald Trump. There followed another, the third, change in mind. Trump announced that there would soon be another summit. The Kremlin was more cautious with that claim. It said that a summit would need extensive preparation.

The Europeans, Zelenski and Republican hawks immediately renewed their campaign against any agreement with Russia.

A phone call between the Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov followed. After the call any further preparations for another summit were called off.

Trump turned again – the fourth time – and again demanded a ceasefire in Ukraine. The Russians said that this constitutes a breach of the agreements reached during the Anchorage talks.

While Trump nixed any talk of Tomahawks for Ukraine he lifted restriction on Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles (archived) to be fired into Russia:

The unannounced U.S. move to enable Kyiv to use the missile in Russia comes after authority for supporting such attacks was recently transferred from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon to the top U.S. general in Europe, Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, who also serves as NATO commander.

The U.S. also issued sanctions against two major Russian oil companies (archived) and their subsidiaries:
Cont. reading: Trump Fails To End His Proxy War With Russia

This war will be won on the battlefield. Ukraine will prevail and rise back even stronger – WeAreUkraine, Apr 10, 2022

“This war will be won on the battlefield,” said [EU foreign policy chief Josep] Borrell on Twitter. “Ukraine will prevail and rise back even stronger. And the EU will continue to stand by you, every step of the way.”

Speech by President [of the European Council] Charles Michel to the Verkhovna Rada in Kyiv – Consilium, Jan 19 2023

We are determined to help you win on the battlefield. When President Zelenskyy called me on February 24th, he said, “Charles, we need weapons, we need ammunition”. Three days later, we formally decided to provide lethal equipment to a third country for the first time in the history of the EU.

Boris Johnson vows Ukraine ‘will win’ as he visits Kyiv on two-year anniversary of war Independent, Feb 24 2024

Mr Johnson said: “On this grim second anniversary of Putin’s invasion I am honoured to be here in Ukraine. With their indomitable courage I have no doubt that the Ukrainians will win and expel Putin’s forces – provided we give them the military, political and economic help that they need.”

Ukraine Must Win, Regain Full Territory: Germany’s Merz – Kyiv Post, Jan 21 2025

Merz said he wants peace in Ukraine but not “at the price of submission to an imperialist power” and stressed that “Ukraine must win the war.”

“To me, winning means restoring territorial integrity,” said Merz, whose conservative CDU-CSU is leading in polls ahead of Germany’s Feb. 23 election. “Winning also means that Ukraine must have complete freedom to choose its political and, if necessary, military alliances.”

A few months later … and the delusion of ‘winning’ is gone …
Cont. reading: EU-NATO Retreats From ‘Ukraine Is Winning’ To Begging For A Ceasefire

In his latest essay Emmanuel Todd compares the various -isms of foregone and current times:

Hitlerism, Trumpism, Netanyahuism, Le Penism, Macronism

Two of many good points deserve to be highlighted. The first in on Trump’s active service for Zionism which is in fact anti-semitic:

In my opinion, Trumpism’s radical pro-Israel stance masks a visceral and vicious anti-Semitism: the identification of all Jews with Netanyahuism, a truly monstrous historical phenomenon and a cancer in Jewish history, will only serve to renew the Nazi conception of a monstrous Jewish people. I am talking here about anti-Semitism 2.0.

Another, totally different point to highlight, is his analysis of European centrism à la Macron:

Some European middle classes between the [world] wars went mad. The working class was more reasonable. But are today’s middle classes, particularly the upper middle classes, reasonable? Are they peaceful? What are their dreams?

They are crazy. The construction of a post-national Europe is a delusional project when one considers the diversity of the continent. It has led to the expansion of the European Union, cobbled together and unstable, into the former Soviet space. The EU is now Russophobic and warmongering, with its aggression renewed by its economic defeat at the hands of Russia. The EU is trying to drag the British, French, German and many other peoples into a real war. But what a strange war it would be, in which the Western elites have adopted Hitler’s dream of destroying Russia!

The comparison by social class therefore allows us to make a major intellectual breakthrough. Europeanism, and therefore Macronism, fall, through their external aggressiveness, on the side of nationalism, on the side of the pre-war far right. If we add to this the increasingly massive and systematic violations of freedom of information and popular suffrage within the EU, we come even closer to the notion of the far right. Founded as an association of liberal democracies, Europe is mutating into a far-right space. Yes, the comparison with the 1930s is useful, even indispensable.

In the grandiose Europeanist project, we find a psychopathological dimension already observable in Hitlerism: paranoia. Europeanist paranoia focuses on Russia. Nazi paranoia made the Jewish threat a priority, without however neglecting Russian Bolshevism (known as Judeo-Bolshevism).

Todd goes on to expand on that by looking at the irrational European Union reaction to the war in Ukraine. A bizarre reaction that is destined to destroy the EU itself.

In his latest part of his argument on why the EU needs to be dismantled Thomas Fazi makes a somewhat related point:

It is worth stressing that the European Commission, led by von der Leyen, played a crucial role in devising the sanctions regime against Russia and ensuring the bloc’s alignment with (or better, subordination to) the aggressive US-NATO strategy. By using the Ukraine crisis to surreptitiously broaden the powers of the Commission, at the expense of the Council and member states, von der Leyen was able to assume the role of de facto “commander in chief” of the Union, ensuring a much more hawkish response — and a much more destructive economic blowback — than a more consensual intergovernmental approach would likely have led to. In other words, the search for the underlying structural causes of the EU’s lack of competitiveness leads us once again right back to… the EU itself.

The question left about the EU is how to peacefully end it.

Last week’s posts on Moon of Alabama:

• Oct 13 – Mahbubani on Europe’s Strategic Disease
  Related:
  – Europe is the biggest loser in US-China rare earth wars (archived) – Financial Times
  – Hubris and Theatrics Mark Atlanticist West’s Detachment from Reality – Simplicius
  – Europe’s future depends on dismantling the EU — part four – Thomas Fazi

• Oct 14 – China Reacts After U.S. Pushed Netherlands To Seize Chinese Owned Company
  Related:
  – The Auto Industry Is Panicking About Another Potential Chip Shortage – WSJ via MSN
  – Automaker group warns Nexperia chip supply issue could quickly disrupt US production – MSN
  – EU Leaders Determined To Win “Most Supine Slave Award”: Nexperia Edition – Ian Welsh
  – Netherlands mocked as ‘pirate’ after taking over China’s Nexperia – Asia Times
  – Dutch government in talks with China over Nexperia export controls – Reuters
  – Nexperia says Chinese unit operating as usual as tensions with the Netherlands run high – Reuters

• Oct 16 – Trump’s War Against ‘Left-leaning’ Groups Extends Further
  Related:
  – ICE amps up its surveillance powers, targeting immigrants and antifa – WaPo via MSN
  – Protesters gather nationwide for ‘No Kings’ rallies opposing Trump administration – Anadolu
  – Democrats Have Let Republicans Become the ‘Peace’ Party – Common Dreams
  – Roaming Charges: Aspirations to Omnipotence – Counterpunch
  – Data Centers Spark Bipartisan Fury Over As Energy Costs Soar – Naked Capitalism

• Oct 17 – A Preemptive Putin-Trump Call And The Prospects Of A New Summit
  Related:
  – Putin demanded Ukraine surrender key territory in call with Trump (archived) – Washington Post
  – Pentagon chief wears tie in Russian flag colors to Trump-Zelensky meeting – TASS
  – Trump rejects Zelensky on Tomahawk missiles in “tough” meeting – Axios

—
Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-242

Today the Ukrainian former president Vladimir Zelenski will be in Washington to convince U.S. President Donald Trump to further turn the screws on Russia.

A call yesterday between President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Trump was initiated by the Russians to preempt any concessions from Trump to Ukraine.

A major headache for the Russians was the potential introduction of U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles onto the battlefield. While these weapons are old, and can easily be defended against, they are, in principle, nuclear capable. They are also complex and can not be fired without the input from U.S. satellites, U.S. intelligence analysis and specialized software.

Tomahawks are naval missiles. There are less than a handful of ground launchers which were only recently introduced to the U.S. military. Any launch of a Tomahawk from Ukrainian ground would thus have to be done by the U.S. military. Any U.S. firing of a potentially nuclear armed missile towards Moscow would have to have serious consequences.

Russia would HAVE to respond to such an attack with a direct attack on major U.S. assets. Otherwise its means of (nuclear) deterrence would lose of all of their values.

Putin wanted to avoid that situation and the decisions that would have followed from it. Thus his call to Donald Trump.

So far that part of the call of seems to have been successful:

In recent days, Mr Trump had shown an openness to selling Ukraine long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, even as Mr Putin warned that such a move would further strain the US-Russian relationship.

But following Thursday’s call with Mr Putin, Mr Trump appeared to downplay the prospects of Ukraine getting the missiles, which have a range of about 995 miles (1,600km).

“We need Tomahawks for the United States of America too,” Mr Trump said.

“We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean, we can’t deplete our country.”

After the call Trump announced that there would soon be a new summit between him and President Putin:
Cont. reading: A Preemptive Putin-Trump Call And The Prospects Of A New Summit

There are a number of indicators which lets one predict that the Trump administration, during the next election, will use government forces to severely attack and disrupt all opposition to it.

Trump has send the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into the cities to harass and arrest alleged illegal immigrants. Due cause is disregarded and the methods used by the agents are brutal.

Trump has also sent National Guard troops into cities where, he claimed, riots were taking place. There were no riots or ‘terrorist incidents’ but the presence of troops is used to create a militarized atmosphere.

A new National Security Presidential Memorandum, NSPM-7 issued by Trump has defined new classes of internal enemies:

With the mainstream media distracted by the made-for-TV drama of James Comey’s indictment, Trump has signed a little-noticed national security directive identifying “anti-Christian” and “anti-American” views as indicators of radical left violence.
…
In NSPM-7, “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” President Trump directs the Justice Department, the FBI, and other national security agencies and departments to fight his version of political violence in America, retooling a network of Joint Terrorism Task Forces to focus on “leftist” political violence in America. This vast counterterrorism army, made up of federal, state, and local agents would, as Trump aide Stephen Miller said, form “the central hub of that effort.”
…
The Trump administration isn’t only targeting organizations or groups but even individuals and “entities” whom NSPM-7 says can be identified by any of the following “indicia” (indicators) of violence:
anti-Americanism,

• anti-capitalism,
• anti-Christianity,
• support for the overthrow of the United States Government,
• extremism on migration,
• extremism on race,
• extremism on gender,
• hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family,
• hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and
• hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.

“The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts,” the directive states (emphasis mine).

That all may sound laughable but these are unfortunately serious policies .  The target list includes organizations which do not exist:
Cont. reading: Trump’s War Against ‘Left-leaning’ Groups Extends Further

News & views not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine …