News & views related to the war in Palestine …

News & views related to the war in Ukraine …

Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:

• Aug 25 – Ukraine – Zelenski Rejects Giving Land As Fascists Promise To Kill Him
• Aug 29 – Why 3,350 New Bombs For Ukraine Will Not Make A Difference
• Aug 30 – Prominent Ukrainian Fascist Shot Dead In Lviv
  Related:
  – 'A Shot to the Heart of Ukraine' – Andriy Parubiy and the "Bandera Lobby" – Moss Robeson
  – Six months before the murder, Parubiy asked for protection, but was refused (in Russian) – Strana
  – Pro-Western Ukrainian politician and former parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy shot dead in Lviv – Sky News

  – Mapping the Russia-Ukraine War Endgame – National Interest

• Aug 26 – Australia Breaks With Iran – Sign Of A New War Coming?
  Related:
  – West Asia is lurching toward war – Indian Punchline
  – Gallant Warns of Renewed Conflict: Israel Prepares for Second War with Iran – IWN

  – Europe’s Iran ‘Snapback’ Is a Dangerous Escalation – American Conservative
  – Why Europe’s ‘snapback’ miscalculation risks war, not diplomacy – Amwaj
  – Russia, China, reject attempt of E3 to Reimpose Sanctions on Iran over Nuclear Program – Juan Cole

• Aug 28 – They Voted For Brexit To Stop Immigration Only To Get More Of It
  Related:
  – Trump shocks UK business with stealth tariffs on 400 products (archived) – The Times
  – UK sought broad access to Apple customers’ data, court filing shows (archived) – Financial Times
  Document suggests British government’s ‘back-door’ demand was not limited to the company’s most secure iCloud service

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Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-197

Earlier today the Ukraine Member of Parliament Andriy Parubiy was shot dead in Lviv (aka Lvov, Lemberg).

Parubiy was walking down a road near his home when a man with a motorcycle helmet and a delivery bag came up behind him. The man lifted a pistol and shot Parubiy seven or eight times before walking away.

Marta Havryshko @HavryshkoMarta – 11:13 UTC · Aug 30, 2025

Video of today's murder of MP Andriy Parubiy in Lviv. This is my neighborhood. Close to my home. The killer posed as a Glovo courier.
A manhunt has been launched to capture him.
Embedded video

About a year ago another prominent rightwing person, Iryna Farion, was also killed in Lviv.

Parubiy was the organizer and commander of the fascist militia during the Maidan coup in February 2014. During those days several snipers from Georgia, stationed at the Hotel Ukraina which was under opposition control, fired and killed policemen as well as protesters.

Video from those days showed Parubiy supervising the situation as the snipers, with their weapon cases, were leaving the hotel.

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Following the Maidan coup Parubiy's involvement in violence continued:

Cont. reading: Prominent Ukrainian Fascist Shot Dead In Lviv

Despite the best efforts no western made weapon has so far been able to give Ukraine an edge on the battlefield.

The search for wonder weapons to help Ukraine win the NATO proxy-war against Russia thus continues.

On August 20 the Wall Street Journal reported of a new type of weapon to enter this never ending story.

Hidden down in a piece which discussed how the Pentagon Has Quietly Blocked Ukraine’s Long-Range Missile Strikes on Russia (archived) one could find these remarkable paragraphs:

The administration this past week approved the sale of 3,350 Extended Range Attack Munition air-launched missiles, or ERAMs, which are set to arrive in Ukraine in about six weeks, two U.S. officials said. The $850 million arms package, mostly funded by European nations and which includes other items, was delayed until after Trump’s summits with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Several U.S. officials said use of the ERAM, with a range between 150-280 miles, would require Ukraine to seek approval from the Pentagon. The State Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.

At that point there was little known about that type of weapon.

The official announcement by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) of such a weapon delivery was published only yesterday:

Cont. reading: Why 3,350 New Bombs For Ukraine Will Not Make A Difference

What good are democracies when the outcome of elections bring the opposite of what voters wish?

In June 2016 the United Kingdom voted for Brexit:

The 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, was a referendum that took place on 23 June 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar under the provisions of the European Union Referendum Act 2015 to ask the electorate whether the country should continue to remain a member of, or leave, the European Union (EU). The result was a vote in favour of leaving the EU, triggering calls to begin the process of the country's withdrawal from the EU commonly termed "Brexit".

A main public issue in the run-up to the vote was immigration:

The Brexit vote will be debated for years to come. But the story is straightforward. Propagated by an unlikely pair of effective messengers, Leave's "Take Back Control" message harnessed the motive power of immigration, an emotionally charged issue that had been baked into British psychology long before the vote was called. These immigration fears, not abstract concerns about a "democratic deficit" that required rescuing UK sovereignty from Brussels bureaucrats, do much to explain why Britain voted for Brexit.

Demagogues like Nigel Farage played a key role in this:

The rise of Nigel Farage and the UK Independence Party (UKIP) also played an important role in cultivating this concern among economically left-behind voters. Between 2013 and 2015 UKIP began to mobilise these voters into politics, convincing them that the issues of immigration and the EU were deeply entwined. At the 2016 referendum the vote for Brexit was strongest in areas that had given UKIP strong support two years previously. Had these voters not been galvanised by UKIP then it is unlikely they would have turned out in the numbers that we saw on June 23rd, 2016. Indeed, we also find that if somebody felt anxious over the immigration issue, and economically left behind, they were significantly more likely to vote in the referendum.

It took three and a half years to finally executed the Brexit move. The results following it though were not what people had expected:

Cont. reading: They Voted For Brexit To Stop Immigration Only To Get More Of It

News & views related to the war in Palestine …

News & views related to the war in Ukraine …

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

The Aussies just trashed their relations with Iran based on nothing but obscure say-so.

Australia throws out Iran ambassador over alleged antisemitic attacks

Canberra expelled Tehran’s ambassador after accusing Iran of masterminding at least two antisemitic attacks on Australian soil.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the country’s intelligence services had linked Iran’s military to arson attacks in Sydney and Melbourne, throwing out an ambassador for the first time since World War II, a move The Sydney Morning Herald’s national affairs editor dubbed “the diplomatic equivalent of the nuclear option.”

Iran rejected the charge.

I have searched and read several news pieces on this issue and have found no mention of any fact that would connect two months ago arson incidents in Australia with Iran.

The whole thing came out of nowhere based solely on the say-so from the Australian spy service ASIO:

What Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called ASIO's "deeply disturbing conclusion" is that the Iranian government was involved in these "extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil", identified as the activities of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

There is no mentioning on what, if anything, ASIO's alleged conclusions are based on. There are guesses:

No doubt “protecting sources” will mean that the detail of these “links” will never see the light of day [despite curiosity as to why Iranian security would have even the slightest interest in attacks on Jewish businesses in Australia] but recent history tells us that Mossad and the CIA are almost certainly responsible. These are the same agencies, after all, that fed us a steady stream of fake war propaganda including the supposed WMDs in Iraq, claims of Hamas bases under Gaza hospitals and fake stories about Iran being on the verge of producing nuclear weapons.

Canberra’s diplomatic attack on Iran comes as the Israelis prepare for a second round of aggression against Iran and while the Australian public, through huge rallies, has been expressing its outrage at the Albanese government’s collaboration with the Gaza genocide and demanding punishment of the Israelis.

How is Iran supposed to profit from arranging criminal arson attempts against some random synagogues in Australia?

One might assume that the whole thing is coming up now to calm Zionist anger at Australia which has become more aggressive after ten-thousands of Australians had expressed outraged over Israels ongoing genocide of Palestinians:

Albanese was just last week labeled “weak” by his Israeli counterpart after he said Australia would recognize a Palestinian state: The two countries have seen relations nosedive, with Canberra barring an Israeli far-right politician from entering Australia and Israel revoking the visas of Australian representatives to the Palestinian Authority.

There may also be a larger context to this:

chinahand @chinahand – 8:01 UTC · Aug 26, 2025

Seems as tell that another attack on Iran spearheaded by Israel and backed by g7 is forthcoming

That another round of Israeli aggression against Iran is coming has been predicted for some time:

Cont. reading: Australia Breaks With Iran – Sign Of A New War Coming?

The (former) President Zelenski of Ukraine is refusing any compromise in negotiations with Russia. He would be killed and replaced by a more right wing figure if he would consider otherwise.

In a speech on Sunday marking Ukraine's independence Zelenski insisted of recapturing all of Ukraine including Crimea.

As the Washington Post summarizes (archived):

In Kyiv on Sunday, Ukraine’s Independence Day, Zelensky addressed the nation and vowed to restore its territorial integrity.

“Ukraine will never again be forced in history to endure the shame that the Russians call a ‘compromise,’” he said. “We need a just peace.”

He listed some of the regions occupied by Russia — including Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea — and said “no temporary occupation” could change the fact that the land belongs to Ukraine.

Zelenski thus rejects calls by U.S. President Trump to give up Ukrainian territory in exchange for peace.

One reason why he does so may be the personal danger he is in. Any compromise about territory may well cost his life.

The London Times continues to make propaganda for Nazis. After a recent whitewashing interview with Azov Nazi leader Biletsky (archived) it yesterday published an interview with the former leader of the fascist Right Sector in Odessa Serhii Sterneneko.

‘Russia has repeatedly tried to kill me — I must be doing something right’ (archived)

Sterneneko had a leading role in the 2014 massacres in Maidan Square and at the Trade Union's House in Odessa. The Times is whitewashing his participation in those events. It does not mind to publish his threats against Zelenski:

[A]mong Ukraine’s younger generation of soldiers and civilians, Sternenko’s brand of truth to power has wide popularity. “I say what I think, and people like what I say.”

His views on President Putin’s demand for Ukraine to cede the territory it defends in the eastern Donbas region as a precondition for possible peace are typically direct. “If [President] Zelensky were to give any unconquered land away, he would be a corpse — politically, and then for real,” Sternenko said. “It would be a bomb under our sovereignty. People would never accept it.”

Sternenko, who himself has avoided the draft, wants the war to go on forever:

Cont. reading: Ukraine – Zelenski Rejects Giving Land As Fascists Promise To Kill Him

News & views related to the war in Palestine …

News & views related to the war in Ukraine …

Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:

• Aug 18 – Europe Demands 'Security Guarantees' For Ukraine … Russia Can Give Those
  Related:
  – For peace in Ukraine, Russia needs 'security guarantees' too – Responsible Statecraft
  – Trump’s Ukraine endgame – An American retreat will be disguised as peace – Unherd
  – Systemic Corruption Doesn’t Give a Chance for Peace in Ukraine – Antiwar
  – Once a top backer, Poland fades from Ukraine peace talks amid domestic turmoil – Kyiv Independent

• Aug 19 – Trump Continues To Humiliate Europe
  Related:
  – Europe Gets a Written Trump Trade Deal, With a Caveat for Automakers (archived) – NY Times
  – Europe to halt postal services to US after tax deal scrapped – Euronews
  – The New Economic Geography – Who Profits in a Post-American World? – Adam S. Posen / Foreign Affairs
  "China, the country whose behavior most U.S. officials want to change, will likely be the least affected, while the United States’ closest allies will be the most damaged."

• Aug 21 – Gaza – First They Came …
• Aug 23 – Dutch Foreign Minister Resigns Over Gaza
  Related:
  – 'Starvation Is Everywhere': Virtual Tours of Gaza Clinics Expose the Scale of the Horror (NOT paywalled) – Haaretz
  – GAZA STRIP: Famine confirmed in Gaza Governorate, projected to expand – IPC
  – Israeli army database suggests at least 83% of Gaza dead were civilians – +972mag
  – Inside the IDF's plan to relocate 1 million Gazans – Israel Hayom

> The unit is responsible for mapping the population, gathering intelligence on it, and coordinating actions to facilitate its movement – distributing leaflets, sending text messages, and, ultimately, firing artillery shells, which send the clearest message to residents that they must evacuate. <

• Aug 21 – Ukraine's Future – A 'Steppe Corridor' – A Neutral, Transit-oriented State
  Related:
  – Trump: I may let Russia and Ukraine fight it out – Telegraph
  – Pentagon Has Quietly Blocked Ukraine’s Long-Range Missile Strikes on Russia WSJ via MSN
  – Fishnets and fortifications: Troops on Ukraine’s southern front dig in as peace talk hopes fade – CNN
  – Ukraine is stepping up attacks on Russian energy – and it’s working – CNN

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Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-191

Hats off for Caspar Veldkamp:

Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp resigned Friday evening, after he failed to secure new sanctions against Israel over the war in Gaza.

Veldkamp had informed the country’s Parliament he intended to bring in new measures in response to Israel’s planned offensive in Gaza City and other heavily populated areas but was unable to secure the support of his coalition partners.

The 61-year-old former ambassador to Israel told reporters he felt he was unable “to implement policy myself and chart the course I deem necessary.”

There should be many more like him.

While Russia is confidently prosecuting the war in Ukraine towards its inevitable end.

Meanwhile the 'West' is still negotiating with itself about the conditions under which it will have to capitulate.

Discussions continue about 'security guarantees' for Ukraine even as the only serious ones are those that Russia is willing to give.

The confused arguments about 'guarantees' are reflected in the reports of them. Consider this nonsense:

A security guarantee could encompass a wide range of issues. In return for Russia ending its invasion, a security pact could include a pledge of U.S. air support for any European-led operations should Russian troops resume their assault.

If Russia ends the war NATO like 'security guarantees' are to be given to Ukraine as a reward?

How is that supposed to compute? Russia started this war to prevent a further extension of NATO into Ukraine. Why should it end the fighting if, in consequence, Ukraine would end up as a quasi-member of that pact?

All the 'security guarantees' talk is just obfuscation of the attempt by some European leaders to prolong the war by further dragging the U.S. into it:

Days before the [sanctions] deadline expired, Putin invited Witkoff to Moscow and offered a proposal, seen by the White House as sufficient grounds to set up last week’s Alaska summit meeting. There, Putin succeeded in convincing Trump that an immediate ceasefire to allow for complex peace negotiations was not required, allowing Russia to continue its attacks on Ukraine, without the risk of new U.S. sanctions.

The move alarmed European leaders, who raced to Washington on Monday to back up Zelensky during a meeting at the White House. After the meeting, they appeared satisfied by Trump’s openness to security guarantees. If Putin does not accept the terms, that could make the Kremlin the obstacle to Trump’s peace deal, insulating Ukraine from having to choose between untenable concessions of territory and inviting Trump’s ire.

Russia is not going to allow any of this:

Cont. reading: Ukraine’s Future – A ‘Steppe Corridor’ – A Neutral, Transit-oriented State

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By Michael Leunig:

Cont. reading: Gaza – First They Came …

News & views related to the war in Palestine …

News & views related to the war in Ukraine …

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