The fate of the conflict, part 1: The state that forgot how to live without war.

2025 can be seen as the year in which the united anti-Russian coalition fell apart. In essence, there are now three distinct players acting against Russia (Ukraine, Europe, the US), and each has its own interests. Analyst Sergey Poletaev has prepared a series of articles in which he analyses the position of each player, their goals and interests in the conflict, and suggests how Russia might respond.

The first one concerns Ukraine.

The untamed lands

One of the scenarios long under consideration is the gradual disintegration of the Ukrainian state, turning it into a sort of Gaza on the Dnieper. As time goes on, the likelihood of this scenario is growing, so let's examine exactly what it entails.

A fully-fledged state possesses an instinct for self-preservation. Apart from heart-warming victories over enemies, a state always has a host of concerns: the economy, demographics, infrastructure, the social sphere, and so on. By definition, a state is a superstructure built upon society, and, one way or another, it wages wars for the sake of the common good. Yet while at war, a state is always thinking about how it will survive afterwards and indeed, it's forced to think of things like this.

Kiev's latest acts of official fascism worship are not a bug but a feature.
As in Mel Brooks dark satire of Western Nazi fetishism, it's hard to believe one's eyes while witnessing the latest performance put on by the comedian tyrant of Ukraine. Within the span of a week or so, the regime of president-in-eternity-no-elections-needed Vladimir Zelensky has repatriated and reburied with pomp and circumstance the remains of Andriy Melnyk, a twentieth-century Ukrainian fascist leader as well as Nazi collaborator, and named a contemporary military elite unit "Heroes of the UPA" (that is, of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army of World War Two).

The UPA was, in effect, the military arm of the OUN, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. The OUN had two political wings that mattered, one under Andriy Melnyk, the other under Stepan Bandera. They were rivals, but both were fascists.

During the war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, both OUN wings tried to collaborate with the Nazis. The Nazis, in their arrogance, did not always let them, but the whole OUN was very eager to please. The OUN and the UPA also participated in murderous German violence against Jews, serving as pro-active mass murder auxiliaries. In addition, they conducted a genocidal ethnic cleansing campaign of their own against Poles.

Predictably, the in-your-face obscenity of Kiev's latest fascism worship moves has provoked Israel as well as Poland. Polish president Nawrocki would like to deprive Zelensky of the high state honors that Warsaw has foolishly bestowed on him and has threatened to curtail Poland's support for Kiev's EU ambitions. In Israel, both its official Holocaust remembrance and exploitation agency Yad Vashem and the foreign ministry have taken exception. That is, of course, ironic, since Israel itself engages obsessively in genocide and ethnic cleansing as well as in, literally, every war crime there is. Maybe, in this case, it takes a genocidal fascist to know one.

Official Kiev is in the middle of devastating corruption scandals - but to be fair, when is it not? - and shaken by mortifying revelations about Zelensky personally (surprise, surprise: a raging narcissist on coke and not a democrat but a kleptocrat) from a well-informed insider speaking to one of America's most influential media outlets. Yet its ruling clique finds time to really rub it in, again, just how much it cannot stop hugging Nazis, dead and alive. Costs in foreign-policy terms? Apparently, no big deal: When the Nazi-loving urge itches really bad, to hell with caution and - very unusually for Kiev - even dissembling.

A Ukrainian drone raid last week devastated a college dormitory in Starobelsk, in Russia's Lugansk People's Republic, killing 21 students - most of them young women - and injuring dozens others.

The attack was a deliberate "double-tap" that included two more waves of drones targeting civilians and first responders who raced to the scene, according to Russian officials. Russia branded the raid a "terrorist attack" and a blatant war crime. Horrific footage from the scene backed up the accusations.

However, speaking at an emergency UN Security Council session, Ukrainian envoy to the UN Andrey Melnik dismissed Moscow's account, denigrating a "so-called incident" in Starobelsk as "a fake story" and accusing Russia of spreading "yet another propaganda narrative."

In the first step towards shifting aid further into the shadows, the House's 2027 NDAA would all but fuse the two countries' armed forces together

At a time when the American public is expressing unprecedented levels of distrust in the Israeli government, Congress just proposed tying the U.S. to the Israeli military more than ever before.

Buried in the House's version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released on Tuesday, is section 224, entitled "United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative." The provision would arguably do more to intertwine the U.S. military with the Israeli military than the more than $200 billion (inflation adjusted) in military assistance Israel has received from the U.S. since its founding in 1948.

In May 2026, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) led a group of 30 House Democrats in sending a formal letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding the United States end its decades-long policy of nuclear ambiguity regarding Israel. Castro explicitly cited the ongoing U.S. and Israel military conflict with Iran, noting that "fighting this war side by side with a country whose potential nuclear weapons program the United States government officially refuses to acknowledge risks miscalculation" and potential nuclear escalation. The signatories cited the classified 1974 Special National Intelligence Estimate confirming Israel had nuclear weapons and asked eleven specific questions, including whether Israel had communicated nuclear red lines to U.S. officials.

One of the indicators of the ongoing shift in the global balance of power is the diminishing influence of Israel over US policy and on the overall situation in the Middle East.

A crucial sign of the emerging divergence between US and Israeli policies was the conversation between Donald Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu on May 20, during which the American president informed his Israeli counterpart that Washington was preparing to reach an agreement with Tehran and would no longer continue military actions against Iran.

Reporting on this, the Jerusalem Post underscored the Israeli leader's evident displeasure, describing (in Hebrew) how "his hair was burning on his head".

In 2023, Commander Cornelis van der Klaauw of the Royal Netherlands Navy and an expert on strategic communication and information operations at the NATO Joint Warfare Centre wrote in an article 'Cognitive Warfare':

"The reason why cognitive attacks go unnoticed by their targets is that cognitive activities bypass the conscious mind and directly target the subconscious of a person. In fact, within the subconscious mind, the primary target is the amygdala. ..., neural nanotechnology can be used to bring nano-sized robots close to a neuron via the bloodstream and make it possible to link the human brain directly (i.e. not intercepted by our senses) to a computer, making use of artificial intelligence in the process."

He concluded his study:

"While other domains can provide tactical and operational victories, the human domain is the only domain in which we can secure a full victory."

Klaauw wrote his article at a time when the EU was moving towards declassifying neurotechnologies that enable remote control of human brain activity, and apparently therefore at its behest. On December 9, 2023, the European Parliament issued a press release stating that it had reached a political agreement with the Council of the European Union "on a bill to ensure AI in Europe is safe, respects fundamental rights and democracy."

The proposed bill was intended to ban "AI systems that manipulate human behaviour to circumvent their free will." According to the press release the deputies "agreed" as well on "clear obligations" with respect to "AI systems used to influence the outcome of elections and voter behaviour." See this.

Israel has been added to a UN blacklist of countries that commit sexual violence in warzones for the first time.

A report by the office of Secretary General António Guterres said the UN had last year verified 31 cases of sexual violence perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. It said 13 of the cases had occurred in 2025, and 18 in the two years prior.

The UN said its report should be seen as "indicative of incidents and patterns" rather than comprehensive.

Israel said it rejected allegations of sexual abuse and intended to break off relations with the secretary general's office.

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, accused Guterres on Thursday of spreading antisemitic lies. The Israeli UN mission said it will refuse contact with his office as long as he serves as head of the international body.

The report said the cases the UN had verified were carried out against 14 men, seven women, nine boys and one girl. The violations included rape, gang rape, forced nudity, and violence to genitals committed by officers from the Israeli military, police and prison service.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the military to occupy 70% of Gaza, in violation of the US-brokered ceasefire deal between West Jerusalem and Hamas, which allows Israel to control no more than 53% of the enclave.

The 2025 agreement, backed by a UN Security Council resolution, envisioned a phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in exchange for Hamas disarming and relinquishing control of the territory. Instead, sporadic fighting has continued, with Israeli forces steadily pushing deeper into the enclave.

Netanyahu told the Jordan Valley Conference in the occupied West Bank on Thursday:

"We now control 60% of the territory in the Strip. You know, we were at 50, we moved to 60. My directive is to move to... first of all 70%. Let's start with that."

He added that the territory would be taken step by step. He did not say whether Israel ultimately intends to occupy all of Gaza.

When "blatant falsehoods are being spread, one cannot let them stand unchallenged," says Weidel's spokesman

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the anti-migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, has successfully sued the Left Party leader and won a retraction after she spread falsehoods about Weidel on live television.

In mid-May, Ines Schwerdtner, the federal chairwoman of the Left Party, claimed during an interview on Welt TV that Wediel neither resides in Germany nor pays taxes.

"Alice Weidel doesn't even live in Germany, she doesn't pay taxes here," she told viewers. This statement is false. While Weidel spends much of her time with her family in Switzerland, she has her primary residence in Germany and pays taxes in the Federal Republic of Germany. Weidel has been very guarded about the issue over the years, as she faces a high threat level and avoids appearing in public due to the security threat she lives under.