Dmitry Medvedev, relishing his unplugged self, has laid down the law on the Special Military Operation (SMO). Bluntly, he affirmed there is a "one and a half" scenario: either to go all the way, or a military coup d'etat in Ukraine followed by admitting the inevitable. No tertium applies.

That's as stark as it gets: the leadership in Moscow is making it very clear, to internal and international audiences, the new deal consists in slow cooking the Kiev racket inside a massive cauldron while polishing its status of financial black hole for the collective West. Until we reach boiling point - which will be a revolution or a putsch.

In parallel, The Lords of (Proxy) War will continue with their own strategy, which is to pillage an enfeebled, fearful, Europe, then dressing it up as a perfumed colony to be ruthlessly exploited ad nauseam by the imperial oligarchy.

Europe is now a runaway TGV - minus the requisite Hollywood production values. Assuming it does not veer off track - a dicey proposition - it may eventually arrive at a railway station called Agenda 2030, The Great Narrative, or some other NATO/Davos denomination du jour.

As it stands, what's remarkable is how the "marginal" Russian economy hardly broke a sweat to "end the abundance" of the wealthiest region on the planet.

Moscow does not even entertain the notion of negotiating with Brussels because there's nothing to negotiate - considering puny Eurocrats will only be hurled away from their zombified state when the dire socio-economic consequences of "the end of abundance" will finally translate into peasants with pitchforks roaming the continent.

It may be eons away, but inevitably the average Italian, German or Frenchman will connect the dots and realize it is their own "leaders" - national nullities and mostly unelected Eurocrats - who are paving their road to poverty.

You will be poor. And you will like it. Because we are all supporting freedom for Ukrainian neo-nazis. That brings the concept of "multicultural Europe" to a whole new level.

The runaway train, of course, may veer off track and plunge into an Alpine abyss. In this case something might be saved from the wreckage - and "reconstruction" might be on the cards. But reconstruct what?

Europe could always reconstruct a new Reich (collapsed with a bang in 1945); a soft Reich (erected at the end of WWII); or break with its past failures, sing "I'm Free" - and connect with Eurasia. Don't bet on it.

...what they want are uneducated, unhealthy, unhappy, fearful people who are made compliant by their circumstances....'

RT has visited the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine, seeing first-hand the aftermath of the shelling of the facility by Kiev's forces.

The largest nuclear power plant in Europe was seized by Russian troops in late February. Since then, National Guard and Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense Troops have been defending the facility as the plant continues to operate with local staff.

Kiev's troops have been firing at the plant and the nearby city of Energodar from the opposite site of the large Kakhovka water reservoir, the Russian Defense Ministry has consistently claimed. The falling shells damaged the facades of some buildings, while missile parts are still stuck in the ground. One of the water pumping stations was hit, but continues to operate as most of the equipment is hidden underground.

A federal judge in Florida has approved the appearances of two out-of-state Donald Trump attorneys in a court skirmish connected to a search warrant executed on Aug. 8 at the ex-president's palatial Mar-a-Lago club and residence.

U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee to the Southern District of Florida, issued the approval order late Wednesday after several days of wrangling by two Trump attorneys. Those attorneys, James M. Trusty of Washington, D.C. and M. Evan Corcoran of Baltimore, Maryland, sought to appear in Cannon's Florida courtroom for Trump's case only — a process known as pro hac vice admission. As a general rule, lawyers can apply for pro hac admission in connection with a specific proceeding — the phrase means "for this occasion only" — if they're members in good standing of their own local bar, if they agree to work through "local counsel" (someone who is licensed in the forum jurisdiction), and with the permission of the court. However, attorneys admitted pro hac become subject to the ethics rules of the forum jurisdiction, as Judge Cannon rather sternly noted up front in a Wednesday order:

The world is on the edge of nuclear catastrophe in no small part because of the failure of Western political leaders to be forthright about the causes of the escalating global conflicts. The relentless Western narrative that the West is noble while Russia and China are evil is simple-minded and extraordinarily dangerous. It is an attempt to manipulate public opinion, not to deal with very real and pressing diplomacy.

The essential narrative of the West is built into US national security strategy. The core US idea is that China and Russia are implacable foes that are "attempting to erode American security and prosperity." These countries are, according to the US, "determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their. militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence."

The irony is that since 1980 the US has been in at least 15 overseas wars of choice (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Panama, Serbia, Syria, and Yemen just to name a few), while China has been in none, and Russia only in one (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union. The US has military bases in 85 countries, China in 3, and Russia in 1 (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union.

A top Ukrainian security official has said that Kiev had been gearing up for hostilities with Russia since as early as December 2019. The Russian military had earlier reported uncovering classified Ukrainian documents indicating a planned offensive against Donbass rebels.

The revelation about Kiev's military preparation was made by Aleksey Danilov, who chairs Ukraine's national security council, in an interview with the Polish daily Wyborcza on Tuesday.

"We were actually preparing for the war from December 2019, and all the claims that we were not dealing with it are absolutely out of touch with reality," he was quoted as saying. "If we did not prepare for war, today Russian tanks would be in Warsaw, Prague, Tallinn and Vilnius."

Steven Hoffenberg, the disgraced businessman and longtime mentor of Jeffrey Epstein, was found dead Tuesday when Connecticut police discovered his rotting corpse during a wellness check, The Post has learned.


Authorities discovered Hoffenberg, who spent 18 years in prison for running a half-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme, dead in his home around 8 p.m. Tuesday. It is not clear exactly when he died.

Police had been called to the 77-year-old's home in Derby, Conn., at the request of a friend.

FBI officials told agents not to investigate first son Hunter Biden's infamous laptop for months — vowing that the bureau was "not going to change the outcome of the election again," according to whistleblower claims made public Wednesday by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)

"These new allegations provide even more evidence of FBI corruption and renew calls for you to take immediate steps to investigate the FBI's actions regarding the laptop," Johnson wrote in a letter to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

According to the senator, "individuals with knowledge" had told his office that "local FBI leadership" had slow-walked the laptop investigation after the computer was recovered from a Wilmington, Del. repair shop in December 2019.

May I just spit it out? We are the terrorists. Americans are the terrorists creating tremendous suffering and tragedy around the world. And no, I am not the only one admitting to this. Deep down, all of my fellow citizens know what we are up to. A recent incident in Yemen drives home the hegemony my country has created, looted, and still loots the whole world.

I watched talk show host Jimmy Dore a few moments ago, laying out how the US, France, and other nations are robbing other people of this world to prop up failed super-capitalism. Dore, who has an uncanny ability to drive at the heart of matters, was interviewing Ethiopian-American Journalist Hermela Aregawi in a story about the French Foreign Legion securing Yemeni natural gas for sale to the EU. The story begins something like this from The New Arab:

"France could be gearing up to help protect a gas facility in Yemen to allow for exports in a bid to cut Europe's reliance on Russia, according to an ex-Yemeni foreign minister."

Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, told reporters the other day that the French Foreign Legion has arrived in Yemen's Shabwah province to secure control of the Balhaf gas facility. He said the French are making "preparations being made to export gas from the Balhaf facility."

Hermela Aregawi commented with Dore about how current American policies are building up massive resentment toward the United States, even in countries that were once highly favorable towards us. I know from my experience here in Greece too. As recently as three years ago, criticizing the US in any way at all brought about a look of shock among the Greek population. Today, many Greeks question our role not only in Greece but in Ukraine and other lands where proxy wars over resources burn.

The larger Yemen story also reveals the meaning of a July Paris - Abu Dhabi LNG cooperation that depends on securing Yemen's gas resources via the Balhaf facility, owned by French multinational oil and gas company Total.

The facility for Trudeau's new climate cops includes a massive firearms storage space and interrogation rooms.

A Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) facility under construction in Winnipeg includes a sizable firearms storage room, as well as multiple evidence rooms and interrogation rooms, according to CounterSignal. The outlet, which claims to have received a leaked copy of the architectural plans as drawn up by a Winnipeg firm, published a snapshot showing some of the more disturbing labels on Tuesday.

The sprawling 50,000 square-foot building also encases biological labs, media relations offices, a weather forecasting station, and - perhaps most disturbing, given the implications - facilities for housing hundreds of people, including "enforcement officers" working for the ECCC.

The "enforcement officers" are essentially climate police, endowed with equivalent authority by the 2019 Impact Assessment Act, which purports to be legislation aiming to reduce the impact of energy, farming and other large projects on indigenous communities and the environment. They may enter any property without a warrant in order to verify compliance with the IAA, taking photos, accessing computers, phones and other devices, giving orders to anyone operating machinery, or even demanding the premises be vacated and future access prohibited.