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Russia Is In A Security Dilemma – Europe Pretends To Be In One
Yesterday the President of the Russian Federation took part in an extended board meeting of the Ministry of Defense.
This is a yearly event meant to recap the developments in the military sphere over last year and to give a high level outlook of the future. This goes from strategic overview to details of operations. It touches on weapon supplies, technical development, medical, social and housing issues of the military. The addressee is mainly the Russian military but also the national and international public.
President Vladimir Putin spoke first, followed by a detailed presentation by Defense Minister Andrey Belousov followed by another Putin talk. Both Putin parts are available in English at the Kremlin site. Belousov’s presentation is only available in the Russian language transcript of the event. Karlof1 has put up an English machine translation of all parts at his website. There is also a video of the event available with English live translation.
The whole thing is lengthy.
The most important point, in my opinion, of Putin and Belausov said is about the potentially upcoming conflict with NATO. Russia feels threatened!
This from Putin’s first part [emph. add.]:
We are aware that that the Kiev regime is backed by the potential of the countries comprising the world’s largest military-political bloc, NATO. Large-scale military assistance is being continuously provided, with advisers, instructors, and mercenaries dispatched, and intelligence data shared.
…
Today, we can see that the geopolitical situation remains tense throughout the world, and even critical in some regions. NATO countries are actively building up and modernising their offensive forces, and creating and deploying new types of weapons, including in outer space.
Meanwhile, people in Europe are being indoctrinated with fears of an inevitable confrontation with Russia, with claims that preparations must be made for a major war. Various figures who have held or continue to hold positions of responsibility appear to have simply forgotten what that responsibility entails.
They are whipping up hysteria, guided by momentary, personal or group political interests rather than the interests of their people. I have said many times that this is a lie and an irrational narrative about an imaginary Russian threat to European countries. But they are doing this deliberately.
The truth is that Russia has always, until the last possible moment tried, even in the most complicated circumstances, to find diplomatic solutions to differences and conflicts. Responsibility for the failure to use these chances lies squarely with those who believe that they can use the language of force with us.
We continue to call for developing mutually beneficial and equal cooperation with the United States and European countries, and for creating a joint security system in the Eurasian region. We welcome nascent progress in our dialogue with the new US administration, which cannot be said of the current leaders of the majority of European countries.
At the same time, we realise that our Armed Forces remain the key guarantor of Russia’s sovereignty and independence in any international situation. As I have stated, we must work consistently to strengthen them.
Belousov echos this (machine translation, emph. add.):
Cont. reading: Russia Is In A Security Dilemma – Europe Pretends To Be In One
English Outsider On Dirty British Intel And Other Stuff
by English Outsider (lifted from a comment)
“Hudson’s chat with Glenn Diesen today is excellent, Michael Hudson: The Economic Unravelling of the Political West” “
Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 16 2025 18:21 utc | 42
Karlof1 – a lovely lucid opening exposition from Hudson. Covers the ground he covered in “Super Imperialism” on the demise of the Sterling Area. Hudson’s practical experience in the money markets gives him a credibility almost all other economists lack.
How did we in the UK get from there to here, to a state of affairs where we in Europe, and particularly the UK, are now pretty well US subordinates? Hudson explains how and I find his explanation convincing though I’m no economist myself.
That subordination is particularly evident when it comes to the work the Western countries do in the sphere of information war and destabilisation activities. One can call that the Intel sphere for short, though it goes well beyond formal Intelligence work.
In that sphere the UK is now maid of all work for the scrubbier jobs our American cousins delegate to us. For there’s no doubt that’s our function. You never followed SST but it was there that Colonel Lang set that out. The Colonel had vast experience in the ME and also knew his way round US officialdom. His verdict cannot now be directly confirmed since the site’s been scrubbed but my impression was that he was contemptuous of what UK Intel got up to in Syria and elsewhere. All the “dirty tricks” stuff. And from bits and pieces one picks up here and there it’s quite possible our Intel is up to the same tricks in Ukraine.
How come a smallish island off the coast of Europe, broke and increasingly dysfunctional when it comes to running its own affairs, can punch so much above its weight when it comes to such work?
Cont. reading: English Outsider On Dirty British Intel And Other Stuff
Flim Flam Theater Of Peace Talks On Ukraine
The negotiations over the weekend between the U.S., Ukraine and Europe about the parameters of a ceasefire or peace agreement with Russia were surreal. The three sides are fighting each other over detailed points that Russia is sure to reject. They also left out important points which Russia had named as its priority items.
There is no way that any of this will lead to peace. Which may well be the point of the whole theater.
Zelenskyy and Trump hail peace talks progress as US offers security guarantees – Politico.eu
Western leaders welcomed major progress in talks on a potential peace deal on Monday after nearly four years of full-scale war in Ukraine, for the first time outlining how security guarantees could prevent Vladimir Putin from invading again.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave an upbeat assessment of a dramatic new offer from American officials to provide a NATO-style assurance to protect Ukraine.
The proposals look “pretty good,” Zelenskyy said at the end of two days of talks with Donald Trump’s negotiators in Berlin. Trump himself said “we are closer now than we have been ever” to peace.
But the Ukrainian president cautioned that the plans were only a “first draft,” with significant questions remaining unresolved. For example, there was still no deal on what should happen to contested territory in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, much of which is occupied by Russian troops. And there’s no indication that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin will agree to any of it.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who hosted the talks, welcomed what he called the “remarkable” legal and “material” security guarantees that American negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, had proposed.
“For the first time since 2022, a ceasefire is conceivable,” Merz said at a press conference with Zelenskyy. “It is now entirely up to Russia whether a ceasefire can be achieved by Christmas.”
Where to start?
No, Mr. Merz, there is no conceivable ceasefire. Russia does not want one. A ceasefire would allow Ukraine to recover and get ready for the next round of war. Russia wants a peace agreement that not only covers Ukraine but defines a new security architecture for the whole of Europe. Russia also wants physical control over the four oblast, plus Crimea, that voted to become members of the Russian Federation. It wants a Ukraine that is disarmed and denazified.
Neither seems to be on offer.
Instead we get some spectacle over U.S. ‘security guarantees’ conditioned on Ukrainian concessions of land. Zelenski is trying to cash in the first while not conceding the second:
Cont. reading: Flim Flam Theater Of Peace Talks On Ukraine
EU Sanctions Swiss Intelligence Expert Jacques Baud
The European Union is trying to eliminate sources of information that do not confirm with its official interpretation of real world events.
One of the latest persons hit with official EU restrictions is the former Swiss intelligence official and author Jacques Baud:
Jacques Baud is a former colonel of the General Staff, ex-member of the Swiss strategic intelligence, specialist on Eastern countries. He was trained in the American and British intelligence services. He has served as Policy Chief for United Nations Peace Operations. As a UN expert on rule of law and security institutions, he designed and led the first multidimensional UN intelligence unit in the Sudan. He has worked for the African Union and was for 5 years responsible for the fight, at NATO, against the proliferation of small arms. He was involved in discussions with the highest Russian military and intelligence officials just after the fall of the USSR. Within NATO, he followed the 2014 Ukrainian crisis and later participated in programs to assist the Ukraine. He is the author of several books on intelligence, war and terrorism, in particular Le Détournement published by SIGEST, Gouverner par les fake news, L’affaire Navalny, and many other books.
I have quoted Baud in several of my pieces on Ukraine and have linked to his writings in the magazine Postil.
Several Youtube channels like Glenn Diesen, Daniel Davis and Nima Alkhorshid’s Dialog Works have regular discussions with him. The latest one, by Dialog Works, was published (vid) just seven days ago.
I have bought and read one of Baud’s books, The Russian art of war – How the West led Ukraine to defeat and can highly recommend it.
Baud is not writing fantasies. There are footnotes on nearly every page of his books with links to the sources. His analyses are objective and well founded.
That of course does not sit well with a EU officialdom that is living in a fantasy world where Russia is so weak that its economy will crash the next month and so strong that it will conquer Europe by next summer. Such Russophrenia is used for a power grab by technocrats and the dismantling of the last traces of democracy in Europe.
This is one of the outcomes:
Alfred de Zayas @Alfreddezayas – 12:24 utc · Dec 14, 2025
We are witnessing a civilizational collapse with the EU sanctioning Jacques Baud, a retired Swiss colonel and intelligence officer, for publishing books and articles expressing views on the Ukraine war contrary to those of the NATO leadership.
I had difficulties to believe that the EU would be stupid enough to hit out at one rather prominent expert that is criticizing it. A search of English news items came up with only one item by the U.S. propaganda outlet RFERL:
Cont. reading: EU Sanctions Swiss Intelligence Expert Jacques Baud
Palestine Open Thread 2025-289
News & views related to the war in Palestine …
Ukraine Open Thread 2025-288
News & views related to the war in Ukraine …
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-287
Last week’s posts on Moon of Alabama:
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Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-287
Russia Counters EU Shenanigans To Steal Its Frozen Assets
The prime minister of Hungary Victor Orbán posted this morning:
Today, the Brusselians are crossing the Rubicon. At noon, a written vote will take place that will cause irreparable damage to the Union.
The subject of the vote is the frozen Russian assets, on which the EU member states have so far voted every 6 months and adopted a unanimous decision. With today’s procedure, the Brusselians are abolishing the requirement of unanimity with a single stroke of the pen, which is clearly unlawful.
With today’s decision, the rule of law in the European Union comes to an end, and Europe’s leaders are placing themselves above the rules. Instead of safeguarding compliance with the EU treaties, the European Commission is systematically raping European law. It is doing this in order to continue the war in Ukraine, a war that clearly isn’t winnable. All this is happening in broad daylight, less than a week before the meeting of the European Council, the Union’s most important decision-making body, bringing together heads of state and government. With this, the rule of law in the European Union is being replaced by the rule of bureaucrats. In other words, a Brusselian dictatorship has taken hold.
Hungary protests this decision and will do everything in its power to restore a lawful order.
The EU used the Article 122 of the treaty to make the freezing of the Russian assets in Europe permanent by the vote of a qualified majority in the Council of Europe where each nation has a vote. Previously that freeze was voted on every six month and required unanimity. Any country could thus veto further sanctions. Putting the freeze under Art.122 in effect deprives Hungary and others of their veto power.
The whole issue came up because Belgium, where most of the assets are frozen, has fears that any use of the Russian assets for an EU ‘loan’ to Ukraine would in the end require it to pay Russia if the sanctions were lifted. Making the freeze permanent are supposed to shield it from EU member veto.
It is very doubtful that the use of Art. 122, which is for economic emergency “in particular if severe difficulties arise in the supply of certain products, notably in the area of energy”, is applicable. The decision will likely be challenged in court:
Cont. reading: Russia Counters EU Shenanigans To Steal Its Frozen Assets
Palestine Open Thread 2025-286
News & views related to the war in Palestine …
Ukraine Open Thread 2025-285
News & views related to the war in Ukraine …
Open (Neither Ukraine Nor Palestine) Thread 2025-284
News & views not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine …
Will CentCom Condemn This Blatant Act Of Piracy?
U.S. Central Command – Press Release Nov. 16, 2025
[Country] Forces Illegally Seize Commercial Tanker in International Waters
November 16, 2025
Release Number 20251116-01
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TAMPA, Fla. – U.S. Central Command forces monitored an incident involving [Country] forces illegally boarding and seizing a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker transiting international waters in the Strait of Hormuz, Nov. 14.
M/V Talara was seized after being boarded by [Country] forces who arrived by helicopter. [Country] operatives then steered the tanker to [Country’s] territorial waters where the ship remains.
[Country’s] use of military forces to conduct an armed boarding and seizure of a commercial vessel in international waters constitutes a blatant violation of international law, undermining freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce. We call on [Country] to articulate to the international community the legal basis for its actions.
U.S. forces will continue to remain vigilant and work alongside our partners and allies to promote regional peace and stability.
I am now waiting for CentCom’s statement on this:
U.S. seizes oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, escalating tensions – CBS, Dec 10 2025
Washington — The U.S. has seized a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, officials said Wednesday, escalating tensions between the two countries. President Trump said he assumes the U.S. will keep the oil.
Bloomberg first reported the oil tanker seizure. Mr. Trump announced the seizure during a roundtable meeting at the White House, saying the tanker was “seized for a very good reason.”
…
The M/V Talara had been boarded by Iranian forces on November 15 because there was reason to believe that it was carrying Iranian oil that had been illegally smuggled out of the country. On November 19, after the oil on board had been tested, the vessel, its crew and its cargo were released.
The U.S. move, with the intent to keep the oil the tanker Skipper is carrying, is in contrast just blatant piracy.
U.S. Requires Social Strip-Search On Entry
During the 1990s and up to the year 2001 I had visited the United States more than a dozen times. I had touched down and traveled through 22 of its 50 states. About half of that traveling was part of my job, the other half was vacationing and visiting friends.
After the 9/11 attacks the U.S. shut down. Coming in by air plane required to take part in some ridiculous security theater. The previously already annoying waiting in line and questioning by custom and immigration officials got worse. Travelers were no longer welcome. I canceled my already planned future visits.
It now gets worse:
U.S. plans to ask visitors to disclose 5 years of social media history (archived) – WaPo
The United States could begin requiring visitors from countries on the visa waiver program to provide up to five years of their social media history, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection proposal posted to the Federal Register to be officially published Wednesday.
There are dozens of countries on the visa waiver program list, including many European nations, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Brunei, Singapore, Qatar, Israel and Chile.
The proposal suggests adding social media as a “mandatory data element” for an Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) application.
Applicants would also have to provide additional information “when feasible,” according to the proposal. The list includes telephone numbers used in the last five years, email addresses used in the last 10 years, IP addresses and metadata from electronically submitted photos, and biometrics, including facial, fingerprint, DNA and iris data.
It would also require applicants to provide information about their family members, including names, telephone numbers, dates of birth, places of birth and residences.
A visitor will also have to use a U.S. government supplied app and pay some US$ 40 for the privilege. European visitors will have to break their countries data protection laws to provide family member data.
The most egregious request though is for social media data. The proposal says:
Cont. reading: U.S. Requires Social Strip-Search On Entry
Zelenski Defies Trump, Rejects Peace Deal
Trump’s ceasefire or peace initiative for the war in Ukraine is in tatters after the acting president of Ukraine Vladimir Zelenski rejected (archived) one of its core points:
Ukraine will not surrender territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky declared Monday, rejecting a central Russian demand that President Donald Trump had incorporated into his latest proposal to end the Kremlin’s war.
“Under our laws, under international law — and under moral law — we have no right to give anything away,” Zelensky said, after meeting with top European leaders to discuss Trump’s plan Monday. “That is what we are fighting for.”
Zelenski would not reject Trump’s plan without the support from European leaders. Indeed, as Blooomberg reported two days ago, Starmer (24% approval rating), Merz (22%) and Macron (10%) had set out to sabotage it:
The continent’s primary objective is to avoid a situation where a battered Zelenskiy is forced by the US to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s Donbas region and agree to a deal without any serious American security guarantees.
We have noted long ago that the only real security guarantee a sovereign Ukraine can get is from Russia:
But any such guarantee will of course come with conditions attached to it. Either Ukraine will accept those or it will never be secure from outer interference.
That is simply a fact of life Ukraine has had to, and will have to live with.
Trump’s recent National Security Strategy set out the end of the conflict in Ukraine as one of its aims. The U.S. is thus likely to press further on Kyiv.
There are several ways to do that. The U.S. could threaten to end all intelligence support for the Ukrainian military. It is still delivering constant detailed analyses from satellite pictures and other sources that only the U.S. can provide. This allows Ukraine to know where Russian forces are moving. Blocking such data would be immediately felt on the battlefield.
Another possibility is for the U.S. to tell the NABU anti-corruption investigators, which it controls, to open a case against Zelenski. After recently removing Zelenski’s advisor Andrei Yermak simply by searching his office NABU has been remarkably silent. Yermak has not even been served with an official suspicion. He might be offered a deal to become a witness against Zelenski.
Another alternative is for Trump to simply walk away from the issue for another six months or so. By then the already catastrophic electricity situation in Ukrainian cities (2×4 hours per day max) as well as on the battlefield will have worsened sufficiently to make a land-for-peace deal even more attractive than it is today.
Russia’s Economy Is Still ‘Bleeding Out’?
> Russia’s economy is bleeding out. And despite western worries about the Kremlin propaganda offensive in Africa and Asia, it is largely isolated internationally. <
Source: Vladimir Putin’s ship of fools is sinking fast. Will he take everyone down with him? – Simon Tisdall / Guardian, Sep 24, 2022
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> Putin’s economic ruination of Russia, though still a work in progress, is matched by plummeting geopolitical influence. <
Source: Putin should have accepted Trump’s deal. Now Russia’s collapsing economy could lead to his downfall – Simon Tisdall / Guardian, Dec 7, 2025
Meanwhile Russia’s GDP continues to rise.
h/t: Brian McDonald
Palestine Open Thread 2025-283
News & views related to the war in Palestine …
Ukraine Open Thread 2025-282
News & views related to the war in Ukraine …
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-281
Last week’s posts on Moon of Alabama:
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Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-281
Ukraine – Roadblocks To A Peace Agreement
The new U.S. National Security Strategy says with regards to Ukraine:
It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia, as well as to enable the post-hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to enable its survival as a viable state.
The U.S. is pressing forward with that mission. With the help of the Ukrainian anti-corruption vertical (the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the Specialized Anti-corruption Prosecutor Office (SAPO) and the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) – all created by the U.S. after the 2014 Maidan coup) it has removed Andreij Yermak from his position as the head of the president’s office.
The next step is to press the acting President Vladimir Zelensky to agree to a peace agreement with Moscow. This will require him to give up land that the Ukrainian army is still holding.
If Zelenski proves to be unwilling to do so the anti-corruption vertical will open a case against him and remove him from his office.
A piece on Ukrainian corruption in today’s NY Times can be seen as an urgent warning:
Zelensky’s Government Sabotaged Oversight, Allowing Corruption to Fester (archived)
Ukrainian leaders blame independent advisers for failing to prevent graft. A Times investigation found that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s own administration removed guardrails.
To protect their money, the United States and European nations insisted on oversight. They required Ukraine to allow groups of outside experts, known as supervisory boards, to monitor spending, appoint executives and prevent corruption.
Over the past four years, a New York Times investigation found, the Ukrainian government systematically sabotaged that oversight, allowing graft to flourish.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration has stacked boards with loyalists, left seats empty or stalled them from being set up at all. Leaders in Kyiv even rewrote company charters to limit oversight, keeping the government in control and allowing hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent without outsiders poking around.
Supervisory boards serve an essential oversight function, allowing independent experts, typically from other countries, to scrutinize major decisions inside Ukrainian state-owned companies.
Isn’t it funny that the NY Times has known this ‘for the past four years’ and was only now ready to reveal it? It is quite obvious that something has switched.
Cont. reading: Ukraine – Roadblocks To A Peace Agreement
New U.S. National Security Strategy – Fortify America, Compete China, Strangle Europe, Forget The Rest
The White House has released the new National Security Strategy of the United States (NSS) (pdf, 33 pages).
It is quite different from the last one released in 2022 under the Biden administration.
The new NSS marks the end of the rather infamous Wolfowitz doctrine:
The “Wolfowitz Doctrine” is an unofficial name given to the initial version of the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–1999 fiscal years (dated February 18, 1992). As the first post-Cold War DPG, it asserted that the United States had become the world’s sole remaining superpower following the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, and declared that its principal objective was to preserve that status.
The memorandum, drafted under the direction of Under Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, generated considerable controversy and was subsequently revised in response to public criticism.
In contrast to the Wolfowitz doctrine the introduction to the new NSS asserts:
After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country. Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests.
The NSS is based on different consideration:
The questions before us now are: 1) What should the United States want? 2) What are our available means to get it? and 3) How can we connect ends and means into a viable National Security Strategy?
It next lays out principals, priorities and global regions.
The most remarkable point in the new NSS is, in my view, the acceptance of China as a (near) equal competitor.
As Twitter commentator summarized the paper:
- “Trump Corollary” to Monroe Doctrine is now the core pillar.
- China downgraded from existential threat to economic competitor.
- Taiwan deterrence = “ideal” but conditional on allies paying up.
- Indo-Pacific secondary, Western Hemisphere + homeland first.
- No more democracy crusades, no value imposition abroad.
- Tariffs quietly admitted as failure, focus shifts to multilateral pressure.
- Biggest shift since 1945: from global cop to fortified hemisphere power.
- Allies will be asked to foot the bill while US rebuilds at home.
- Fortress America is back.
Cont. reading: New U.S. National Security Strategy – Fortify America, Compete China, Strangle Europe, Forget The Rest
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