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Poison Dart Frogs Killer
Believe Us Media is spreading another Skripal affair like story to again tell its audience to hate Russia (archived):
Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in prison two years ago, was most likely poisoned by a toxin found in a South American frog, the Foreign Ministries of Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said on Saturday in a joint statement.
Samples taken from Mr. Navalny’s body showed the presence of a toxic substance, epibatidine, the statement said.
“Epibatidine is a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America. It is not found naturally in Russia,” the statement said.
Well informed sources contacted Moon of Alabama to provide it with an exclusive picture of the FSB killer suspected of committing the crime.
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WSJ Debunks NYT’s “Ragtag Network Of Activist” Propaganda
On January 16 I lambasted a New York Times piece which claimed (archived) that:
[A] ragtag network of activists, developers and engineers pierced Iran’s digital barricades. Using thousands of Starlink satellite internet systems that they had quietly smuggled into the country, they got online and spread images of troops firing into the streets and families searching for bodies.
The NYT went on to listen a number of Iranian expat groups allegedly involved in the endeavor. In the end all of them seemed to be in one or another way financed and organized by the U.S. of A.:
We are now down at the 18th paragraph of NY Times piece on a ‘ragtag network of activists’ which finally hints to who is organizing and financing it:
The State Department coordinated with SpaceX on the sanctions exemption for digital communication tools in Iran. It also provided support to civil society groups about how to hide the systems from government detection, according to a Biden administration official involved in the plans.
It is the U.S. government which provided the various regime change groups with the money to smuggle some 50,000 Starlink terminals into Iran.
A recent Wall Street Journal report on the issue is more explicit in making the case that whole Starlink operation in Iran was directly run by the Trump administration (archived):
Cont. reading: WSJ Debunks NYT’s “Ragtag Network Of Activist” Propaganda
Russia’s ‘Collapsing’ Economy
The reports about Russia’s ‘collapsing’ economy seem to come in somewhat periodic batches.
- Russia economy: What is the risk of meltdown? – BBC, Dec 17 2014
- Russia’s Looming Economic Collapse – Atlantic, Mar 2 2022
- What’s awaiting Russia may be much worse than the chaos of 1990s – Aljazeerah, Mar 4 2022
- The Russian economy is headed for collapse – The Conversation, Mar 10 2022
- Russia admits it faces economic collapse over Putin’s war – Telegraph, May 9 2022
- ‘Slower burn.’ Russia dodges economic collapse but the decline has started – CNN, Aug 29 2022
- Russia admits it was on the verge of economic collapse – Business Insider, Nov 20 2023
- Why the Russian Economy’s Luck is Running Out – Moscow Times, Nov 21 2023
- Putin under pressure as Russian economy on verge of freefall after US ‘ultimatum’ – Express, May 4 2024
- Russian Economy Faces ‘Creeping Crisis’, Economists Warn – Newsweek, Jul 8 2024
- Russia’s weakened energy trade and lost access to the dollar will spark a severe recession within a year – Business Insider, Jul 13 2024
- An economic catastrophe is lurking beneath Russia’s GDP growth as Putin ‘throws everything into the fireplace’ – Fortune, Aug 19 2024
- The war in Ukraine is straining Russia’s economy and society – Economist, Nov 28 2024
- Russia’s War Economy Shows New Cracks After the Ruble Plunges – WSJ, Nov 29 2024
- How Russia’s economy reached breaking point – Telegraph, Dec 7 2024
- Russia’s economy is entering a year of pain in 2025 – Business Insider, Dec 25 2024
- Russian Economy is on the Brink of Collapse – Modern Diplomacy, Jan 3 2025
- Russian Economy Time Bomb: Putin Warned of ‘Seismically Disruptive’ War Debt – Newsweek, Jan 13 2025
- Addicted to War: Undermining Russia’s Economy – CEPA.org, Feb 5 2025
- Russia’s economy is stagnating – but that won’t force it to end the war – The Conservation, Mar 10 2025
- Russia needs monetary policy changes to avert a recession, says economy minister – Reuters, Jun 19 2025
- The Russian economy is finally stagnating. What does it mean for the war – and for Putin? – Guardian, Feb 6 2026
- Russia economy in meltdown as oil and gas revenues plummet to five-year low – Daily Express, Feb 6 2026
- Putin’s war economy is on the verge of implosion – Telegraph, Feb 9 2026
Each batch smells of a covered Mighty Wurlitzer campaign. A batch is issued whenever it is politically ‘necessary’ to depict Russia as falling down.
Palestine Open Thread 2026-039
News & views related to the war in Palestine …
Ukraine Open Thread 2026-038
News & views related to the war in Ukraine …
Open (Neither Ukraine Nor Palestine) Thread 2026-037
News & views not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine …
NY Times Reports Russian Capture of Ukrainian Cities Months After It Happened
There is rather weird new report about Ukraine in the New York Times depicting Russian progress but based on front line movements that have happened months ago.
Russia Nears Capture of Key Ukrainian Towns After Year of Grinding Assaults (archived) – NY Times, Feb. 10, 2026
Russian troops have advanced at a glacial pace in recent months, but gains in southern and eastern Ukraine could give Moscow an edge in U.S.-mediated peace talks.
The opener:
For over a year, Russian forces have slogged through battlefields in Ukraine without seizing a single urban stronghold.
Now, these attritional advances are on the verge of paying off. Russia appears poised to complete the capture of three strategic areas in the coming weeks or months, according to military experts and independent battlefield monitors.
Capturing all three areas — the town of Huliaipole in the southeast and the cities of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, about 60 miles northeast — would give Russia an urban foothold to base troops and organize logistics for future offensives, as well as new leverage in U.S.-mediated peace talks.
Ooops. Was there a time machine involved in writing that piece?
For starters: Russia has captured Siversk, a Ukrainian city, on December 24 2025. To claim that Russia did not seize “a single urban stronghold” for over a year is obviously nonsense.
As for Pokrovsk the Kyiv Independent, unsuspicious of being a Russian propaganda outlet, headlined more than two months ago:
As Russia takes Pokrovsk, sister city Myrnohrad stares down encirclement – Kyiv Independent, Dec 4, 2025
Cont. reading: NY Times Reports Russian Capture of Ukrainian Cities Months After It Happened
Smearing Chomsky For His Friendship With Epstein Is A Disgrace
I confess to have often linked to Alan Macleod’s pieces a MintPressNews. He seemed to know a lot about South America politics and general media manipulation. It is thus sad to see him take part that practice.
In one of his latest pieces Macleod is smearing Noam Chomsky and his wife for their years-long relation with Jeffrey Epstein.
The Chomsky-Epstein Files: Unravelling a Web of Connections Between a Star Leftist Academic & a Notorious Pedophile
It is a smear piece and a disgrace.
Macleod falls for the media manipulation or manufactured consent which claims that Epstein was some extraordinary monstrous beast.
Just look at the attributes he uses to describe him. It starts with the headline which calls Epstein a ‘notorious pedophile’.
Merriam-Webster defines pedophilia as
a psychiatric disorder in which an adult has sexual fantasies about or engages in sexual acts with a prepubescent child
Jeffrey Epstein was notoriously involved in sexual activities (not intercourse) with female teenagers. In the known cases the youngest was fourteen at the time of her first encounter with Epstein (but had been told to lie to Epstein about her age before meeting him). There is no suspicion and no credible allegation that Epstein did ever do anything sexual with prepubescent children.
The girls were paid by Epstein to perform massages on him while being bare breasted or naked. While they were doing so he tended to masturbate. These contacts were consensual. No force was applied. The girls received $200 to $300 for each session. That’s a lot of money for an hour long effort for someone at that age.
It is certainly a weird habit for Epstein to have but it had nothing to do with pedophilia.
Macleod writes that Chomsky:
Cont. reading: Smearing Chomsky For His Friendship With Epstein Is A Disgrace
‘Trump Administration Asserts Ambition To Dominate Energy Sector’
The U.S. is trying to dominate the control global energy sector and to control the routes through which energy is delivered to global customer.
That accusation is made by Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov in an interview to the TV BRICS media network. The interview also touches on other aspects. The excerpts from the interview posted below are only the ones which regard to energy issues (emphasis added):
Multiple centres of rapid economic growth, power, and financial and political influence have thus emerged. The world is being reshaped through competition. The West is reluctant to relinquish its formerly dominant positions.
Moreover, with the arrival of the Trump administration, this struggle to constrain competitors has become particularly obvious and explicit. Indeed, the Trump administration openly asserts its ambition to dominate in the energy sector and harness their competitors.
Blatantly unfair methods are being used against us: the operations of Russian oil companies such as Lukoil and Rosneft are being banned, and there are attempts to dictate and restrict Russia’s trade, investment cooperation, and military-technical ties with our major strategic partners, including India as well as other BRICS states.
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All of these geopolitical confrontations, along with the attempts to derail the objective course of history, inevitably affect bilateral relations. I am not going to mention them all; those include sanctions, the so-called “shadow fleet” invented by the West, attempts to detain vessels by military force in the open sea in blatant violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and much more. Tariffs imposed for purchasing oil or gas from certain suppliers have now become commonplace.
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They tell us that the Ukraine problem should be resolved. In Anchorage, we accepted the US proposal. If we regard it “as men,” it means that they proposed it and we agreed, so the problem must be resolved. …
So far, the reality is quite the opposite: new sanctions are imposed, a ‘war’ against tankers in the open sea is being waged in violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. They are trying to ban India and our other partners from buying cheap, affordable Russian energy resources (Europe has long been banned) and are forcing them to buy US LNG at exorbitant prices. This means that the Americans have set themselves the task of achieving economic domination.
Furthermore, while they ostensibly made a proposal regarding Ukraine and we were ready to accept it (now they are not), we do not see any bright future in the economic sphere either. The Americans want to take control of all the routes for providing the world’s leading countries and all continents with energy resources. On the European continent, they are eyeing the Nord Streams, which were blown up three years ago, the Ukrainian gas transportation system and the TurkStream.
This illustrates that the US objective – to dominate the world economy – is being realised using a fairly large number of coercive measures that are incompatible with fair competition. Tariffs, sanctions, direct prohibitions, forbidding some from engaging with others – we have to take all of this into account.
A NY Times piece published today on Trump’s oil grab in Venezuela makes, in part, a similar point (archived):
Cont. reading: ‘Trump Administration Asserts Ambition To Dominate Energy Sector’
Palestine Open Thread 2026-036
News & views related to the war in Palestine …
Ukraine Open Thread 2026-036
News & views related to the war in Ukraine …
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2026-034
Last week’s posts on Moon of Alabama:
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Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2026-034
Ukraine – Long-term Countrywide Blackouts – U.S. Presses For Peace Agreement
Last night another large Russian missile and drone strike further degraded the already severely damaged electrical energy system of Ukraine.
The main targets were around Kiev and in western Ukraine. The attack, especially in western Ukraine, was mostly by drones and subsonic cruise missiles. Except for Kiev air defense seems to have been absent or out of munitions.
biggerThe consequences are countrywide blackouts for a prolonged period of time (machine translation):
Ukrenergo reported that due to strikes on the power system, emergency blackouts are introduced in most regions of Ukraine.
Ukrainian publics write that substations connected with the Rivne [Nuclear Power Plant] were attacked.
It is also stated that drones and missiles attacked the Burshtyn, Ladyzhyn, Dobrotvorskaya and Trypillya thermal power plants.
Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the target of today’s strike was substations and overhead power lines with a voltage of 750 and 330 kV — the basis of the Ukrainian energy system.
According to him, the power units of Ukrainian nuclear power plants were unloaded (that is, urgently stopped – Ed. ).
The nuclear power plants (NPP) create the base load of the Ukrainian energy system. The thermal power plants and other sources usually balance the peak loads. But after several substations which connect the NPPs to the wider network were being hit the NPPs were forced to reduce power (machine translation):
Cont. reading: Ukraine – Long-term Countrywide Blackouts – U.S. Presses For Peace Agreement
U.S.-Iran Talks Up To A ‘Good Start’
The first round of new talks between Iran and the United States in Muscat, Oman, has ended with satisfying results.
U.S. President Donald Trump very much needs the talks to chicken out from his threats to again attack Iran. Any attack on Iran would be retaliated for with missile which would cause massive damage to U.S. and Israeli assets.
There had been a little drama about the location, configuration and content of the meeting.
The U.S. at first insisted on talks in Turkey. It wanted the foreign ministers of other Middle Eastern countries to take part in them. It demanded to negotiate about nuclear issues, ballistic missiles, Iranian support for local militia and about the recognizance of Israel by Iran.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the talks needed to include ballistic missiles, Iran’s aligned militias and its treatment of its own people “in order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful.”
Iran rejected all of the conditions Rubio tried to make.
It wanted to limit the talks to the nuclear issue and sanctions relief. It did not like Turkey, which is neither neutral nor a friend of Iran, as the host of the talks and preferred Oman as it traditionally following a neutral foreign policy. Iran also rejected the participation of other Middle Eastern countries as these would likely be under U.S. pressure to gang up against Iran.
Some Middle East countries, interested in preventing another war in their region, intervened with President Trump:
Fearing that talks about Iran’s missiles and regional proxies could cause an immediate impasse, other countries in the region have been pushing for the session to focus on Iran’s nuclear program, two Middle Eastern diplomats said.
They urged to accept Iran’s conditions and the U.S. conceded to them.
The talks held today were indirect. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi shuffled between the rooms to convey each parties position.
Cont. reading: U.S.-Iran Talks Up To A ‘Good Start’
How Arms Control Went Out The Window
Today the last nuclear treaty between the the United States and the Russian Federation expired. It is the first time in 64 years that there will be no limits on each side’s nuclear forces.
The New START Treaty had been limiting the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons and weapon carriers. Other nuclear related treaties like the Anti Ballistic Missile treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Open Skies Treaty have previously been ended by various U.S. presidents.
Russia had offered and asked for prolonging the New START Treaty but the U.S. had, until today, not responded to that request.
Most of these treaties were designed to limit the number of weapon system on both sides to roughly equal numbers. They prevented arms races where one side would produce an overwhelming amount of weapons to destroy the other side in a surprise attack. They guaranteed Mutual Assured Destruction as both sides would be destroyed in an all out nuclear war.
But the real value of these treaties were in their verification elements. Verification allowed to build trust between both sides:
To enforce the [New START] treaty, each side had to notify the other of any activity involving its strategic weapons, including missile test launches and heavy bomber movements, share data about the numbers of deployed missiles and delivery systems, and allow on-site inspections.
One example is that under the treaty all strategic bombers of each side had to be parked in the open, not in shelters, so that the other side could see them in satellite pictures. It guaranteed that there were no ‘secret forces’ hidden somewhere. (Ukraine abused this feature when it launched drone attacks against Russia’s strategic bombers.)
The U.S. has never given any good reason why it wanted the treaties to end.
Cont. reading: How Arms Control Went Out The Window
Palestine Open Thread 2026-033
News & views related to the war in Palestine …
Ukraine Open Thread 2026-032
News & views related to the war in Ukraine …
Open (Neither Ukraine Nor Palestine) Thread 2026-031
News & views not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine …
Ukraine – ‘Security Guarantee’ Details – Why The Energy Ceasefire Ended
Back in December I wrote about the 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.
One point of those one-sided negotiations were some vague ‘security guarantees’ for Ukraine.
Today’s Financial Times is first to discuss these in more detail (archived):
Ukraine has agreed with western partners that persistent Russian violations of any future ceasefire agreement would be met by a co-ordinated military response from Europe and the US, according to people briefed on the discussions.
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Under the plan, three people familiar with the matter said, a Russian ceasefire violation would trigger a response within 24 hours, beginning with a diplomatic warning and any action required from the Ukrainian army to halt the infraction.
If hostilities continued beyond that, a second phase of intervention would be initiated using forces from the so-called coalition of the willing, which includes many EU members plus the UK, Norway, Iceland and Turkey.
If the violation turned into an expanded attack, 72 hours after the initial breach, a co-ordinated military response by a western-backed force involving the US military would take effect, the officials said.
NATO Secretary Rutte has confirmed the three stage theme. I wonder if it has he who came up with that fantasy.
What exactly does ‘intervention’ mean? Sending a battalion of British grenadiers from west-Ukraine towards the east to cover three miles of a who knows how long frontline? How many Iskander missile and KAB bomb strikes strikes would it survive?
The UK and France have pledged to deploy troops and weaponry to Ukraine, as part of security guarantees supported by the US to underpin a 20-point peace deal aimed at ending Russia’s almost four-year-long invasion.
A European-led “deterrence” force would provide “reassurance measures in the air, at sea and on land” after a ceasefire, with the intelligence and logistical support of the US, leaders of Kyiv’s key allies said following the Paris meeting.
How a ceasefire would be monitored and enforced will be critical to its durability. The US has offered to provide high-tech monitoring capabilities along the 1,400km front line.
Luckily none of this nonsense will come to pass. As the FT notes correctly:
Russia has [..] dismissed the security guarantees discussed by the US and Ukraine out of hand. Dmitry Medvedev, a former stand-in president for Putin, said in comments published on Monday that “these guarantees can’t be one-sided”, according to Tass. “These aren’t guarantees for Ukraine. These are guarantees for both sides: Russia and Ukraine. Otherwise the guarantees don’t work.”
Moscow has also said it will not agree to any ceasefire before a comprehensive deal to end the war is reached or accept any western troop deployments to Ukraine.
Meanwhile Politico is falsely accusing Russia of breaking a Trump-brokered energy ceasefire:
Cont. reading: Ukraine – ‘Security Guarantee’ Details – Why The Energy Ceasefire Ended
Trump TACOs on Iran Through Negotiations
The weekend has passed without a U.S. attack on Iran.
Trump would have probably liked to strike if there had been a decent chance of a short, successful war. But there was and is none. Iran would retaliate sharply for any attack and set the region on fire.
A early sharp strike would have been Trump’s best chance of success. The longer he is deterred from a strike the smaller the likelihood that any attack will occur at all.
Trump now needs to find a way to chicken out from his grandiose threats to Iran. He has sent out feelers for negotiations:
The Trump administration has told Iran through multiple channels that it’s open to meeting to negotiate a deal, a senior U.S. official tells Axios.
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Turkey, Egypt and Qatar are working to organize a meeting between White House envoy Steve Witkoff and senior Iranian officials in Ankara later this week, two regional sources tell Axios.
Yves Smith concludes that:
Trump Will TACO With Intent to Strike Later
The most likely course is for some sort of sham negotiations to allow the US to climb down for now and for Trump to depict the mere fact of talks as a win and a proof of US domination. But don’t expect the US to relent. As Greg Stoker pointed out, the Israeli minister of defense was in Washington last week to hand over the strike packages. Israel has not given up on Project Iran. The hawks most assuredly have not.
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Israel can be expected to do the obvious, which is to continue to engage in what is too politely called asymmetric warfare or more accurately called terrorism, both to try to destabilize Iran and to preserve credibility among the warmongers in the Beltway. How far that gets in the next few months will be an indicator of how much Iran has been able to ferret out and destroy Mossad networks in Iran after its 12 Day War decapitation attacks and its recent protest escalations.
Trump is admittedly becoming more and more erratic every day. He might wind up concluding he has too much manhood at stake to back down now or any time very soon with Iran. But as you can see, he has many many reasons to try to find a way to retreat, even if he tells himself it is only temporary.
Just after Yves had published her piece we learned that Iran has agreed to negotiations:
Cont. reading: Trump TACOs on Iran Through Negotiations
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