The electricity and heat supply in Ukraine has stopped in large parts of the country. Kiev had already been on scheduled blackouts where groups of consumers received for example four hours of electricity to then be cutoff for eight hours. That scheduling has ended. The blackout has become permanent.

Over several weeks Russian attacks had isolated the electricity supply in Kiev from other parts of the country. It then attacked generating stations within the city. There is now less than 10% of electricity supply available than the city would normally use. Public lighting has been shut down as much as possible. Factories have closed down. Schools and Universities are on prolonged holidays. Many shops have closed as running their private generators is costing more money than they can make while open.

The electricity generation stations were also supplying hot water for long-distance heating. Several hundred of Soviet era high-rises in Kiev, each of them with hundreds of apartments, have neither heat nor power. The temperature in Ukraine has been below zero degree C for several days. Many of the buildings had not drained their water systems. The radiators and water supply lines have frozen and burst open. Those high rises are now uninhabitable. Experts estimate that up to nine month repair time, and a lot of money, will be needed to fix each of them. There are about 150,000 people affected by this.

Kiev is not the only city in trouble. Odessa is likewise shut down. People are protesting in the streets. Dnipro has similar problems. Today an attack hit Kharkiv and disable one of the last combined heat and electricity station within the city. Sumy and Zaparochia also reported blackouts.

Currently a wave of arctic air is flowing into Ukraine with night temperatures expected to go down to minus 30° centigrade.

The government of Ukraine says that it is expecting a new Russian wave of attacks. This, it says, will likely take out transformer station that make up Ukraine’s long distance 750 kilovolt electricity network which is fed by nuclear power stations. The stations are not endangered but they would have to lower their output or shut down as there will be no-one connected to them to receive the electricity they generate.

Large electric energy systems are very complex. To restart a system once it broke down requires a lot of coordination and planning. Any mistake will immediately lead to new breakdowns and damaged equipment. The systems in Kiev are now in a state where it could take weeks without new Russian attacks to get the it up and running again.

Ukraine had been warned that any attack on Russian infrastructure would be responded to in kind. But it continued to attack Russian cities which led to deaths and serious problems in Belgograd and elsewhere.

For three years Russia had mostly refrained from attacking Ukrainian infrastructure. Electricity and heat supply operated at peace time levels. Only during the last year did attacks increase. In March 2025  President Trump announced a 30 day infrastructure ceasefire. Russia committed to it. Ukraine didn’t.

In November 2015 Ukraine blew up transmission pylons that supplied Crimea. 75% of its populations were left without electricity. A brewery in Lviv celebrated that by creating a dark beer named ‘Crimea by night’.

In 1999 NATO bombed Serbia to further split up Yugoslavia. NATO bombing started on March 23 1999. It took out some 80% of Serbia’s electricity and water supply. During a press conference on May 25 1999 NATO spokesman Jamie Shea justified the attacks as follows:

Cont. reading: Dark Kiev

As the recent ‘regime change’ operation in Iran has now evidently failed the media are allowed to revile some details of the powers behind it.

Inside the Fight to Keep Iran Online (archived) – NY Times, Jan 16 2026
Activists spent years preparing for a communications blackout in Iran, smuggling in Starlink satellite internet systems and making digital shutdowns harder for the authorities to enforce.

Iran’s communications blackout last week seemed complete. Internet and cellular networks had been shut down by the authorities. Online banking, shopping and text messaging services stopped working. Information about the growing protests was scarce.

Yet 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.

A ‘ragtag network’ of ‘activists’ … Let’s see who, according to the piece, belongs to it:

“You need to plan to have that infrastructure in place,” said Fereidoon Bashar, the executive director of ASL19, a digital rights group focused on Iran. “This is because of years of planning and work among different groups.”

ASL19 is an Iranian ‘regime change’ group in Canada. Its website says:

We build innovative solutions to advance human rights and civil liberty in Iran

Its ‘About’ page says nothing about who is behind it or how the group is financed. A Wikipedia page about the organization  leaves some doubt about the its integrity:

Cont. reading: Iran – The ‘Ragtag Network Of Activists’ Run By The State Department

Yesterday U.S. President Donald Trump was ready and willing to bomb Iran. The most important target would have been the Supreme Leader, Ajatollah Khamenei.

But Iran was ready and Khamenei safe. The U.S. military, in contrast, was not ready to defend against the inevitable retaliation that would have come out of Iran. There are only three destroyers with air-defenses in the area that could offer  protection against a ballistic missile onslaught. A few minutes after the first strikes their arsenals would have been empty.

Before the last bombing of Iran THAAD and Patriot air defenses from the U.S. and South Korea had been flown to the Middle East. A U.S. carrier group was stationed nearby and U.S. bases had been depopulated. The military was able to provide Trump with somewhat reasonable options.

U.S. allies, most importantly Israel but also some Gulf countries, were fully on board.

This round was way different.

The military was unable to give any good options for strikes. It had to ask Trump to stand down.

The Gulf countries were anxious and did not want to be part of a campaign:

“Bombing Iran goes against the calculus and interests of the Arab Gulf States,” said Bader al-Saif, an assistant history professor at Kuwait University. “Neutralizing the current regime, whether through regime change or internal leadership reconfiguration, can potentially translate into the unparalleled hegemony of Israel, which won’t serve the Gulf States.”

Even Israel suggested to wait until the ‘regime’ breaks down.

That is not going to happen.

The internal configuration of the Islamic Republic has made ‘regime change’ nearly impossible. A majority of the country and the security forces support the country’s political structure. No bunch of paid terrorists, who shoot at random people as well as security forces, can break that connection.

In consequence, at least for now, Trump chickened out.

 

There is no Internet connection with Iran (except for a few white-listed officials). To whom then is this addressed?

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump – Jan 13, 2026, 14:43 UTC

Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

And what does it mean?

Just two days ago I opined that the riots in Iran would lead nowhere.

Iran Shrugs Off Another Round Of U.S./Israel Sponsored Regime Change Riots – MoA, Jan 10 2026

I especially pointed out that the U.S. had delivered Starlink satellite terminals to organizers of the riots – 40,000 of them is a rumored number – but that the Iranian government had acquired the means to detect them and to shut down their traffic.

Just a day later Forbes reports that the government did indeed used its new tools:

‘Kill Switch’—Iran Shuts Down Starlink Internet For First Time – Forbes, Jan 11 2026

The Iranian government did not bother to track down single terminals but used the new Russian and Chinese equipment to shut down all Starlink traffic in Iran. Packet loss rates of 90% have made the connections unusable.

Today pro-government marches are held in all major cities of Iran. They are much bigger than anything the opposition could ever assemble. The Iranian system has again demonstrated that it is astonishingly stable. Not one official has changed side.

The riots are, for now, over. The streets tonight will likely be quiet. During the next weeks the riot leaders and instigators will be tracked down and punished – harshly one hopes in sight of the casualties on the government side.

The total blocking of Internet traffic and international phone communication in Iran was the decisive step taken to end the riots.

Without Internet access the CIA/Mossad agents directing the rioters were unable to command and control their on-the-ground forces. The lack of ‘horror’ propaganda videos from Iran, submitted via the Internet and used by the media to rake up support for western intervention, is also important. Color-revolutions à la CIA require these tools.

In 2022 the wave of U.S. induced protests in Iran took nearly three month before it subsided. This wave, started on December 28 by a massive short-selling attack on Iran’s currency, took just two weeks before it died down.

Trump, who had threatened to bomb Iran in support of the rioters, will have to pull back. The U.S. military says that it is not ready (archived) for the revenge Iran would unleash on it.

The failing of this regime change attempt shows that the methods used in it have become too obvious and can be countered. It will likely take a while before new methods are developed and new attempts will be launched.

Every two years or so the CIA and Mossad are instigating regime change riots in Iran. These attempts inevitably fail.

Currently a few thousand young men are during nighttime burning cars, mosques, shops and police offices in various cities of Iran. Armed agents are firing at and killing policemen. All these cells are coordinated via Internet connections.

It usually takes a week or two until Iranian government forces find the connections, trace down the ring leaders and shut them down. That process may take a little longer this time because some of the terror cells have been equipped with Starlink terminals.

As the unofficial CIA spokesman David Ignatius at the Washington Post writes (writes):

A harder question for Washington is whether to smuggle in Starlink terminals to reverse the internet blackout that Tehran imposed Friday. The Biden administration weighed that strategy during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests in 2022 and 2023 but decided against it — fearing it would put at risk crucial smuggling routes used by the CIA and Israeli intelligence. Perhaps this time, the benefit outweighs the cost.

That pretty much confirms that those terminals are already there.

Meanwhile Russia has developed equipment that allows to detect active Starlink terminals from the air. Iran has already received copies and will soon produces enough of its own to cover its cities.

Ignatius also claims that the riots are different this time because they are aimed to install a U.S./Israel sponsored puppet:

Cont. reading: Iran Shrugs Off Another Round Of U.S./Israel Sponsored Regime Change Riots

Last night Ukraine was finally confronted with the consequences of attacking Russian infrastructure.

And no, I do not mean last nights Oreshnik strike on the large gas storage facility in west Ukraine. The seismic impulse from that strike likely damaged the geological structure that allowed the gas to be stored in caverns. It can now escape and has been seen burning. Those were the Ukrainian reserves for the rest of the winter. The strike was in revenge for the late December drone strike on Russia’s strategic command facility and Putin’s home near Novgorod. It was also a warning, mostly to Europe.

But the real hurt came with a medium-sized drone and missile strike on Kiev. At least three combined-thermal-electric facilities were taken out. These used to provide water, heating and electricity to the blocks of Soviet era high rises that cover much of Kiev. These strikes, as the Russian Ministry of Defense empathizes in its reports, are in retaliation for strikes on Russian infrastructure facilities. Russia at a time, offered a ceasefire on infrastructure strikes. Ukraine did not keep to it.

Now nearly half of Kiev’s high-rise apartments have lost water, heating and electricity supplies. This while the temperature has gone down to minus 20° Celsius at night. Municipal workers have started to drain (in Russian) all water from intra-house systems. Otherwise the risers and pipes would freeze and break open. But it also means that water and heat supplies will not come back to those high-rises until the temperatures are back in a positive Celsius range.

The buildings have thus become unlivable. Hundreds of thousands if not millions will have to live elsewhere.

The mayor of Kiev Vladimir Klitschko has called on residents to leave the capital:

Half of Kyiv’s apartment buildings, almost 6,000, are currently without heat supply after critical infrastructure in the capital was damaged in a large-scale Russian attack.

“Municipal workers have connected social facilities – in particular hospitals and maternity hospitals – to mobile boiler houses. And together with energy workers they are working to bring electricity and heat supply back to Kyiv residents’ homes,” Klitschko said.

He added that the combined attack on Kyiv on the night of 8-9 January was the most painful for the capital’s critical infrastructure facilities.

“City services are operating under emergency conditions. And unfortunately weather conditions are forecast to be difficult in the coming days.

I also appeal to residents of the capital who have the opportunity to temporarily leave the city and go where there are alternative sources of power and heat, to do so,” Klitschko concluded.

A similar situation exist in Dnipro, one of Ukraine’s most industrial cities, since yesterday.

During the war the parts of the Ukrainian population that were not directly involved in fighting seemed to have little interest in what was happening. There was still a lot of nightlife in Kiev, all goods were available and even the few short interruptions of electricity were not much to bother with.

This will now change. Electricity is off for most of the time. Shops are closing because running business on generators is unprofitable. Local public transport is mostly down. Longer range tail transport is interrupted. Apartments are unlivable. The consequences of the war have become personal.

This will change the mood even of those who want to prolong the war. The numbers of those willing to accept the loss of territory in exchange for peace will rise.

After a while a change of policies will follow for this.

When Trump did win his second term there were many people, including here, who were a bit in panic. Other characterized that as a ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ (TDS).

I had preferred Trump over the blabbering incompetent person the Democrats had put up as their candidate. I did not like Trump’s policies but I also thought that he would do just minor damage just like during his first term in office.

At first it looked like I had been right. The Alaska meeting with President Putin went reasonably well. The war in Ukraine seemed to move towards some sane outcome. His domestic policies were a bit wild but not far off from the expected trajectory.

Things have been going downward since. Something has definitely changed. But why and how this derangement happened is yet unknown.

The late December CIA attack on Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region, which includes strategic command facilities, has broken the rules that have governed relations between nuclear powers over many decades. Those relations have now deteriorated beyond fixing.

The attack on Venezuela was likewise beyond any reasonability. There is little chance that the U.S. will ever get what it wants from the country without on the ground intervention. But any commitment of troops to Caracas would end in disaster.

The administration defense of ICE goons, who clearly broke all rules of policing when they killed an innocent women, is also beyond all reasonability. There are certainly ways to explain the incident but they decided to smear the obvious victim.

That such behavior has become and will stay the norm for the Trump administration can be concluded from two recent interviews.

The first was on January 5 at CNN with Trump aide Stephen Miller:

Cont. reading: Trump Has Changed And TDS With Him

I have asked for suggestions on how Russia, Venezuela and others can respond to U.S. lawless behavior.

Commentator Tom Paine answers thus:

A number of points which are probably more an effort to summarise than to add novelty.

1. US has no legal, moral or geopolitical constraints. It wants war with Russia and China. It will provoke until that happens.
2. The current strategy is to make Putin look weak. Russian prudence may be a rational answer but it is no longer the right one.
3. Much of US behaviour is conditioned by its feeling that it is too remote to suffer. Europe can be made to suffer because it is a satrapy. Logically, the US must be forced to recognise its own vulnerability.
4. Since the US is now attacking and plundering Russian-flagged shipping, the situation is familiar and uncomplicated. Tactics for blockade-busting are well known. Arm your merchantmen, protect them using convoys, seize hostile assets, destroy attackers. The advent of real-time communications and precise missile targeting should decimate exposed USN forces. When in doubt, be a Houthi.
5. Russia and China must stop attempting to wage war with words. Actions speak for themselves.
6. If you do not effectively support your allies, you send a message that you cannot be relied on. Russia must be seen to be active in Iran, VZ, Cuba and elsewhere.
7. Yes, bullies are stopped by fighting back. Bullies are psychologically unable to think except in terms of superior/inferior relationships. Efforts to negotiate rationally just demonstrate that you are not on their ‘ladder’ of relationships, and therefore are weak and must be attacked. Fight first. Establishing that connection will result in much less long-term damage than efforts at rational compromise. It could have avoided Gaza or Syria.
8. US strength is its infinite cash supply, which supports a nearly-infinite collection of CIA cutouts and regime change NGOs. Cut it off.
9. US weakness is its reliance on a financialised PR military with lots of highly-visible targets. The Houthis are right. It must be shown to be overpriced, ineffective and feeble. The US itself has never been weaker militarily.
10. The answer to dirty war and guerilla ops is the same. Russia will always be blamed for black ops so there is no visible gain in avoiding them.
11. Unity, unity, unity. The real fight is about unity. Russia and China can see that they fight for survival. The West fights only for plunder. One is a great force for unity, the other is not.

I mostly agree with the above. To the last point I would add any other country, Iran etc., that wants to retain some sovereignty. It must be a big, global coalition, not just three superpowers fighting it out.

(Meta note: I am in blocking mode. Derailing the comments from the content and context of the post will get you banned.)

Both of these current news items about criminal U.S. behavior trigger the question “What are you going to do about it?”

RT.com

US military breached UN maritime convention – Russia

The Russian Transport Ministry has confirmed that the oil tanker ‘Marinera’ has been captured by the US military.

Earlier on Wednesday, the US European Command announced having taken possession of the ship, previously named the ‘Bella 1’, for alleged “violation of US sanctions.”

The tanker was boarded by US military personnel “in the high seas outside the territorial waters of any state,” and that “contact with the vessel was lost,” the Russian Transport Ministry has said.

“On December 24, 2025, the Marinera received a temporary permit to fly the Russian flag, issued in accordance with Russian and international law,” the ministry stated, adding that the attack on the vessel came in violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which ensures freedom of navigation in international waters.

AP:

Trump’s Energy Department outlines new policies for Venezuelan oil

The Trump administration is “selectively” removing sanctions to enable the shipping and sale of Venezuelan oil to markets worldwide, according to an outline of the policies published Wednesday by the Energy Department.

The oil sales are slated to begin immediately with the sale of 30 million to 50 million barrels from the South American country, and “will continue indefinitely,” the outline says.

Proceeds will settle in U.S. controlled accounts at “globally recognized banks” and then be disbursed to the U.S. and Venezuelan populations at the “discretion” of the Trump administration, it says.

If I were in Russia’s position I would look for valuable U.S. assets, at sea or elsewhere, to seize and hold hostage.

I do not know enough of Venezuela’s alliances and capabilities, but I not do see any other way out for it but to fight the pirates by all possible means.

Please comment with suggestions of other serious means of response.

Jaqcues Baud, who was recently sanctioned by the European Union, is lamenting on Dialog Works that –  The World Is Entering a Lawless Era (vid).

He is right of course, but late.

International law, developed over centuries, has been broken by the U.S. and other imperial forces ever since it was established.

But after World War II such breaches, even when obvious, were clad in propaganda which claimed that each of those was about the enforcement of higher values. Villains had to be fought, dictators opposed, evil communists had to be prevented from stealing from their people. The old and new neo-conservatives were masters in this. The blatant imperial attacks of Iraq and Afghanistan were sold as good men’s missions to bring democracy to the downtrodden and suppressed poor people in those countries. We had to liberate their women.

That propaganda that covered the brutal wars of conquest under the mantle of democracy promotion held up for a while. It served two purposes.

It allowed U.S. vassals to justify their co-operation with the imperialists. It also allowed a significant part of the ‘western’ populations to still feel good about their countries. When the wars went southward and losses increased they acknowledged that waging those wars were bad. But the consoling feeling was that at least “We Meant Well“, as one of those imperialists ransacking Iraq titled his memoir.

It worked for a while for some people. The Iraq war was protested against in Europe. Germany and France rejected the war and Congress renamed french fries into freedom fries.

But even their moral high ground has further deteriorated since.

Cont. reading: Why ‘Might Makes Right’ Is Dangerous For All of Us

In my last piece on Trump’s assault in Venezuela I pointed out that the plan was missing a piece :

One wonders what the next steps are the U.S. is planning to take. It does not have enough forces to invade Venezuela. Nor would a blockade of the country lead to a change of its government. An internal revolution is unlikely to succeed.

The U.S. gnomes managed to steal the underwear. Now comes step 2. Then profits. That sounds like a good plan.

But nobody seems to know so far what step 2 might entail.

It turns out that phase 2 of this underpants gnomes business plan is to do the same as before (archived):

When asked how the United States planned to govern Venezuela, Mr. Rubio did not lay out a plan for a U.S. occupation authority, like the one that the George W. Bush administration put in place in Baghdad during the Iraq War, but instead spoke of coercing a Venezuelan government run by allies of the jailed leader Nicolás Maduro to make policy changes.

U.S. forces will continue to prevent oil tankers on a U.S. sanctions list from entering and leaving the country until the government opens up the state-controlled oil industry to foreign investment — presumably giving priority to American companies — and makes other changes, he said on “Face the Nation” on CBS News.

“That remains in place, and that’s a tremendous amount of leverage that will continue to be in place until we see changes, not just to further the national interest of the United States, which is No. 1, but also that lead to a better future for the people of Venezuela,” he said.

Nothing changed. Venezuela continues to be governed by Chavistas who adhere to the Bolivarian revolution. It continues to be pressured to let U.S. companies explore its oil. The Chavistas, including Maduro, are willing to allow that but they have certain conditions. Those have not, and I believe will not, change.

The whole bombastic action was a virtual war:

Cont. reading: Trump Abducted Maduro But Did Gain Nothing

Last night the U.S. bombed several places in Venezuela. The bomb attacks were likely planned to hit air-defense systems. But several targets were purely administrative government places and one was a mausoleum with Hugo Chavez’s body.

With the air defenses defeated U.S. special forces landed by helicopter near a place that housed President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Both are said to have been abducted and flown out of the country. Maduro was known to often change the place were he was living. The NY Times claims (archived) that a CIA source was involved:

A C.I.A. source within the Venezuelan government monitored the location of Nicolás Maduro in both the days and moments before his capture by American special operation forces, according to people briefed on the operation.

The American spy agency, the people said, produced the intelligence that led to the capture of Mr. Maduro, monitoring his position and movements with a fleet of stealth drones that provided near constant monitoring over Venezuela, in addition to the information provided by its Venezuelan sources.

The human source claim sounds plausible. (The stealth drone fleet doesn’t.)

But where were the body guards that should have been looking after Maduro 24/7?  Why was none of the U.S. helicopters shot down?  This was either a huge failure or treason. Who gave the order to the military to hold its fire?

Maduro will brought to the states and incarcerated. He is out of the picture for now.

But Chavistas still rule in Venezuela. Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez is acting as president and Defense Minister Diosdado Cabello is also in place. The government issued a fierce statement:

The objective of this attack is none other than to seize Venezuela’s strategic resources, particularly its oil and minerals, in an attempt to forcibly break the nation’s political independence. They will not succeed. After more than 200 years of independence, the people and their legitimate government remain steadfast in defending their sovereignty and their inalienable right to decide their own destiny. The attempt to impose a colonial war to destroy the republican form of government and force a “regime change,” in alliance with the fascist oligarchy, will fail like all previous attempts.

It called on its people to defend the country.

One wonders what the next steps are the U.S. is planning to take. It does not have enough forces to invade Venezuela. Nor would a blockade of the country lead to a change of its government. An internal revolution is unlikely to succeed.

The U.S. gnomes managed to steal the underwear. Now comes step 2. Then profits. That sounds like a good plan.

But nobody seems to know so far what step 2 might entail.

Last night the U.S. military attacked several cities in Venezuela with bombs and missiles.

Additionally some type of special operation took place with U.S. helicopters flying above Caracas.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s aim is to steal Venezuela’s oil. But how could he get there by bombing the country?

The acting president of Ukraine Vladimir Zelenski has made an interesting choice by filling the position of his chief of staff with the head of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Service (GUR) General Kyrylo Budanov.

Zelensky Asks General to Replace Chief of Staff Ousted in Graft Scandal (archived) – NY Times, Jan 2 2026

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said Friday that he had asked Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the country’s military intelligence agency, to be his new chief of staff, filling a weekslong vacancy left by the resignation of Mr. Zelensky’s right-hand man over a corruption scandal.

Budanov has accepted his new position.

He is a live long military intelligence man with personal battle experience. He once led a CIA trained unit which in 2016 tried to attack Russian positions in Crimea. He was wounded on several occasions and the CIA once flew him to Washington for rehabilitation in the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The GUR under Budanov has been the main conduit for executing CIA terror attacks in Russia.

The NY Times continues:

Mr. Budanov has been seen as a potential rival to Mr. Zelensky as the United States and Russia call for elections in Ukraine. Bringing the general into the presidential office could complicate any run by Mr. Budanov for the presidency.

In announcing his intention to appoint him, Mr. Zelensky said that Ukraine “needs greater focus on security issues,” the development of its defense and security forces, and further progress on the diplomatic track of negotiations.

The NYT is right in claiming that Budanov has been seen as a potential rival to Zelenski. But the bigger rival to Zelenski is the former commander in chief General Valeri Zaluzhny who was moved aside as ambassador to Britain but could come back to run against Zelenski in upcoming elections.

Lifting Budanov to the informal number two position in Ukraine might have a different purpose than blocking a rival candidate. It is highly questionable that Zelenski will survive in his position until the end of 2026.

When Zelenski leaves office he will be endangered by various forces. He could go to jail for this or that corruption scheme run through his office, or he could be killed for ‘treason’ by one of the ‘nationalist’ extremist formations.

But if Budanov were anointed as his successor Zelenski could sleep well. It would be a deal similar to the one the former Russian president Yelzin made in 1999 when he anointed Vladimir Putin in exchange for protection.

In two days Budanov will celebrate his 40th birthday. His career has only just started.

One aspect of interest here is the rivalry between the CIA and its British MI-6 competition. Yermak, the ousted former head of Zelenki’s office, had good relation with MI-6. Zaluzhni is likewise seen as a British intelligence asset. Budanov in contrast is a CIA figure. The U.S. would like to shut down the war, at least for now. The British have tried to prolong it. In his new position Budanov can move the scale towards the U.S. favored outcome.

Budanov has been warning cryptically for some time that Ukraine will lose the war against Russia. He will now take the role of the de facto chief negotiator of a peace deal.

The Russians will not like to have to deal with someone who has supervised the killing of Russia civilians. On the other side they will acknowledge that Budanov is a competent and resourceful soldier. The various exchanges of prisoners were negotiated with him.  It will be easier to work with him than with some scheming lawyer. Budanov is thus well positioned to make some kind of peace deal with Russia.

Through his position as head of the GUR Budanov has control over several powerful ‘nationalist’ formations who fight under the GUR banner. This will make it easier for him to sell a peace deal within Ukraine and to suppress any forces which want the war to continue.

To all commentators here a big THANKS for giving me so much!

My wish: May the next year be more interesting and peaceful than this one.

A Happy New Year to all moonkind!

Today the NY Times published a long piece on the relations between the Trump administration and the government of Ukraine.

The Separation: Inside the Unraveling U.S.-Ukraine Partnership (archived) – NY Times, Dec 30 2025

There is a lot of gossip about the back and forth between the U.S. Ukraine and Russia in it, but also some interesting nuggets which confirm U.S. intelligence involvement in attacks on Russia and Russia related shipping:

Even as Mr. Trump bullied Mr. Zelensky, he seemed to coddle Mr. Putin. When the Russian stiff-armed peace proposals and accelerated bombing campaigns on Ukrainian cities, Mr. Trump would lash out on Truth Social and ask his aides, “Do we sanction their banks or do we sanction their energy infrastructure?” For months, he did neither.

But in secret, the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. military, with his blessing, supercharged a Ukrainian campaign of drone strikes on Russian oil facilities and tankers to hobble Mr. Putin’s war machine.

The CIA, like usual, seems to work at cross purpose of Pentagon policies:

Cont. reading: NY Times Expose: CIA Fights Russia – Trump’s Peace Deal Runs on Illusion

CNN claims that the CIA bombed Venezuela.

Exclusive: CIA carried out drone strike on port facility on Venezuelan coast

The CIA carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela, sources familiar with the matter told CNN, marking the first known US attack on a target inside that country.

The drone strike, the details of which have not been previously reported, targeted a remote dock on the Venezuelan coast that the US government believed was being used by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to store drugs and move them onto boats for shipping, the sources said. No one was present at the facility at the time it was struck, so there were no casualties, according to the sources.

Two sources said US Special Operations Forces provided intelligence support to the operation, underscoring their continued involvement in the region. But Col. Allie Weiskopf, a spokesperson for US Special Operations Command, denied that, saying, “Special Operations did not support this operation to include intel support.”

President Donald Trump appeared to first acknowledge the attack in an interview last week that initially attracted little notice, though he offered few specifics, including when reporters asked directly about it on Monday.

The NY Times has a similar report (archived) which additionally claims that the strike has happened last Wednesday.

There is however zero evidence that any strike took place. Venezuela Analysis has found no mention of it or of any damage in Venezuelan media, open source data or Venezuelan government statements. Neither have I.

Did this strike even happen? Or is it part of a miscalculated psychological operation to convince the Venezuelan government that it is under immediate threat and needs to get out?

Yesterday’s negotiations between U.S. President Donald Trump and the acting President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelenski about a peace agreement with Russia went nowhere (archived):

A new round of peace talks between President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and President Trump seem to have produced little beyond a promise to meet again next month and a reminder of how distant a peace deal remains.
…
After the meeting on Sunday, Mr. Trump signaled that he would remain engaged in the negotiations — a win for Ukraine given his repeated threats to walk away. Mr. Trump also backed away from setting another deadline to reach a peace deal, after having previously floated Thanksgiving and Christmas as target dates.

“I don’t have deadlines,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he greeted Mr. Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago in Florida for the talks. “You know what my deadline is? Getting the war ended.”

Two weeks ago we were expecting this outcome:

The current negotiated parameters can not lead to a peace agreement with Russia.

The Trump administration needs to take a step back. It can deliver the currently negotiated package to Russia which will study it and ask for negotiations of ‘details’ that will take several years to find some end point. Or it can put the whole issue aside for now and go for a retry in six to twelve months.
…
By then resistance to a peace agreement, be it by Ukraine or Europe, will have decreased. Only then will peace in Ukraine and Europe become a real possibility.

A big win for Russia during this round of negotiations is that Trump has rejected the ceasefire which Zelenski and his European supporters have tried to impose to then prepare for a new round of fighting:

Cont. reading: Ukraine – Negotiations At A Standstill, The War Progresses

Winter solstice has passed and the days are again getting longer. The dark is receding.

Time for a festivity that is about hope, about the birth of a revolutionary and savior who will, we hope, make the walls come down.

Picture courtesy of the Bethlehem AssociationIn my corner of the earth Christmas celebration starts on the eve of the day before Christmas (Heiligabend = holy evening). With kids the gifts that the Christkind (Christ child = Jesus) brought will usually appear between 4 pm and 6 pm followed by a family meal.

When all the unpacking and eating is done we’ll settle down, play some board games and have fun.

To all of you a Merry Christmas. May you have some happy time.

– b.