Most people now realize that the mainstream media is just a mix of propaganda and advertisement. Its audiences are targeted for being "convinced" about everything from commodities to ideas, especially people. Today, I'd like to focus on one idea and one person: Russia and its President Vladimir Putin.

Media Wonderland

Media analysis has become a dark rabbit hole, as in the famous children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Each time you attempt to dig out the truth, you find yourself spiralling ever downward into a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphism (i.e. the personification of nations). A good test of this is simply to Google a person's name or concept. For instance, if you search for Vladimir Putin on any given day, there will never be a positive story on any media outlet Google links you to. Sounds impossible, right? I can show you how it works.

The results today for Russia's president include headlines like "The chilling moment in Russia-Ukraine peace talks — as Putin makes mockery of Trump's efforts to end war" (SkyNews), "How Putin is rebranding the failing of Kursk as a sign of strength" (CNN), or "Trump softens on Putin as Russia's military edge weakens, officials say" (Washington Post). Only the truth lies buried much deeper, as I will demonstrate.

A report on April 15, 2025, by The Conversation titled, "Why does Putin insist Ukrainians and Russians are 'one people'? The answer, spans centuries of colonisation and resistance", is the edge of a pit eventually leading to reason. The Conversation, a non-profit media entity funded by certain universities, government entities, and individual donors, is portrayed as an unbiased academic research portal. However, its value is the extended republication of ideas and "truths." After we begin our freefall into Alice's rabbit hole, the first media entity we come to is Asia Times, supposedly one of the world's most unbiased news outlets. Here's where things get interesting.

A minute deep into the dark abyss of Western propaganda, we discover Asia Times is not objective. There is, as is always the case, an agenda. The subject of Russia and/or Putin on its pages simply reflects all the Russophobia elsewhere. But some would question, "why?" The simple answer is that the people who control The Conversation, Asia Times, and thousands of other media outlets are selling to us. Looking at who runs it, it's important to note that one of the two founders of The Conversation, Andrew Jaspan, initially had a brilliant idea. He and his co-founder, Jack Rejtman, envisioned melding peer-reviewed evidence with real news. Then, once the media outlet expanded internationally, other interests demanded that Jaspan be expunged in 2017 from any say-so at The Conversation. To understand why Jaspan left The Conversation, his new media project, 360info, offers a thousand times more objectivity via the same principles The Conversation was built on. But let's diver further into the abyss.

From discrediting the UN to embedding U.S. contractors, Israel's Gaza strategy replaces humanitarian aid with surveillance, privatized checkpoints, and displacement.

Discrediting the Gatekeepers: Israel's Campaign Against UNRWA and NGOs

Well before Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack, Israel had launched a sustained campaign to delegitimize the international institutions anchoring Gaza's humanitarian lifeline. In early 2023, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen publicly called for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to be "reformed or dismantled," accusing it of perpetuating the refugee crisis. Israeli think tanks like NGO Monitor and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs released reports accusing UNRWA of incitement and harboring Hamas affiliates, claims echoed in U.S. Congressional briefings by AIPAC and CUFI.

Following Hamas's October 7 attack, Israel declared a total siege — cutting off electricity, water, fuel, and humanitarian access. UNRWA became Gaza's primary relief provider for 2 million civilians, even as Israeli officials escalated their effort to discredit it. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for "zero humanitarian aid" so long as Hamas governed, and Prime Minister Netanyahu stated unequivocally that "UNRWA must not be part of Gaza's future."

IDF fighter jets attacked the Houthi-controlled Sanaa International Airport in Yemen on Wednesday morning.

The attack comes after the Houthis launched numerous missiles at Israel over the past week, which were all intercepted by missile defense systems, b'chasdei Hashem.

Minutes after reports of the attack were published, Defense Minister Yisrael Katz confirmed that Israel carried out the strikes and revealed the name of the operation.

"Air Force planes attacked Houthi terror targets at the Sanaa airport and destroyed the Houthis' last remaining plane as part of Operation Golden Jewel," he said. "This is a clear message and a direct continuation of the policy we have set: whoever fires at the State of Israel will pay a heavy price."

Reports say ministers tell UK, France and others that Israel is considering annexing Area C of West Bank and legalizing outposts; Sweden summons Israeli envoy over Gaza aid

Israeli government ministers have reportedly warned key European countries that any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state could prompt Israel to take unilateral measures as well, potentially including the annexation of parts of the West Bank, according to Monday reports.

Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer personally warned French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy that Israel could respond to recognition of a Palestinian state by annexing Area C of the West Bank and legalizing unauthorized outposts, the Haaretz outlet reported, citing a foreign diplomat familiar with the matter.

Russia was left with no choice but to launch its military operation in Ukraine because of the continued persecution of the people of Donbass by Kiev following the 2014 Western-backed Euromaidan coup, President Vladimir Putin has said.

During a meeting with a group of businessmen in the Kremlin on Monday, Putin said Moscow could not ignore the plight of Russian-speakers in the neighboring country. He reiterated Russia's position that the conflict stems from the turbulent events in Kiev in early 2014, when initially peaceful protests spiraled into riots and clashes with police, which led to the ouster of the democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovich. The anti-Yanukovich forces included ultranationalist groups such as Right Sector and Svoboda.

"You need to understand that we weren't the ones who orchestrated the coup in Ukraine," Putin said. "[The West] has always told us that there should be democracy and elections... but they carried out a coup - a bloody one, in fact - as if it were normal. They later went on to suppress the Donbass, killing people with helicopters and jets."

"They practically forced us into doing what we're doing today, and now they're trying to blame us for it," he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused some European leaders of reviving Nazi-era ambitions by supporting efforts to inflict a strategic defeat on Moscow.

Lavrov was responding on Tuesday to remarks by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who the previous day declared there were "no more range limitations" for weapons sent to Ukraine by the West, including Germany. Merz has also vowed to turn the German military into Europe's strongest conventional force.

"Europe has once again found itself a Nazi flag by committing to a completely misguided, disastrous venture of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia," Lavrov stated.

"To hear from the current German leader that Germany will regain its position as the leading military power in Europe, just after we have celebrated the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Hitler's Nazism, is quite symptomatic. History, apparently, taught these people nothing."

The decision runs counter to Moscow's efforts to find a peaceful settlement with Kiev, spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said

The reported decision by Ukraine's Western backers to lift restrictions on Kiev's use of long-range weapons runs counter to Russia's efforts to find a peaceful settlement of the conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

Peskov made the remarks in response to comments by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said Ukraine is no longer subject to range limitations on Western-supplied weaponry.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has officially announced the establishment of a "security buffer zone" along the border with Ukraine. Russian troops, according to the Kremlin, have already been ordered to push ahead and are actively targeting Ukrainian military positions near the frontier. The move is aimed at protecting Russian regions far from the front line - particularly Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk - which have faced frequent shelling, drone strikes, as well as sabotage missions launched by Ukrainian forces.

While talk of such a zone has circulated since 2023, Putin's declaration marks a shift from concept to concrete policy. Here's what this decision means, what it could look like militarily, and why the Kremlin is pursuing it now.

The long-waited announcement

On May 22, during a government meeting, President Putin declared that Russia had begun establishing a buffer zone along the Ukrainian border. He said the military had already started implementing the plan: "Our armed forces are actively carrying out this mission now. The enemy's firing positions are suppressed, the work is going on."

"Is the Blue Party really only the customer service desk for the administrative state?"
— Jeff Childers

It's pretty universally acknowledged that America's recent wars — say, starting with Vietnam — have been stupid, pointless, and fake in instigation. And yet the soldiers we sent into these fiascos acted bravely and honorably for the most part. So, it has felt a little weird to celebrate their sacrifices minus any sense of political justice, victory, or meaning in the endeavors they sacrificed for. Ergo, the holiday is lately reduced to a celebration of grilled meat.

This Memorial Day, for a change, the USA is not actively at war in some distant land, only against ourselves. One faction in this as yet cold civil war seeks to Make America Great Again (MAGA), and the other side seeks what. . . ? To do the opposite of that? Make America Disintegrate (MAD). It's hard to come to another conclusion.

MAGA is led, of course, by Mr. Trump, president again after the strangest executive interregnum in our history. At its plainest, MAGA means returning to an economy based on producing things of value. To many, this might conjure up the image of humming factories, good pay for honest work, and a well-ordered, content, patriotic populace grateful for their prosperity, in other words, something like the America of 1958, when Mr. Trump was entering puberty.

The nature of drone warfare is "changing rapidly," driven by the fight between Moscow and Kiev, the US president believes.

Washington is actively following drone warfare developments in the Ukraine conflict, US President Donald Trump told West Point Military Academy graduates on Saturday. He said the US is "learning" from the tactics used by both Moscow and Kiev and that it is important to stay "at the top" amid the rapidly changing nature of warfare.

"We are studying it. We are seeing different forms of warfare, we are seeing the drones that are coming down at angles, with speed, with precision. We have never seen anything like that. We are learning from it," the president said, referring to their use in the Ukraine conflict.

He called on the cadets to "have the courage to take risks and do things differently" in order to stay up-to-date in the field of military tactics and strategy.