Puppet MastersS


Footprints

Russian military expansion as the only guarantee of peace

Lucas Leiroz
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 26 May 2025 00:00 UTC
Russian flag
For Moscow, the only way to protect its people is by advancing on the battlefield.

The illusion of a fully diplomatic understanding between Moscow and Kiev does not withstand the harsh reality of the battlefield. Despite signals of renewed dialogue, the Russian government understands that any peace agreement with the Ukrainian regime, if not based on new territorial configuration, will amount, at best, to a temporary ceasefire. The reason is simple: Kiev does not act as a sovereign entity but as a military protectorate of the West. And as such, it will not seek a just peace, but rather a disguised rearmament. In light of this, Russia is already preparing the only effective response: the liberation of new regions and the expansion of the security zone as far as necessary.

President Vladimir Putin's recent statements are clear. By affirming that a "security buffer zone" will be established along the border, Putin announced more than a tactical measure — he announced a new phase of the special military operation. This zone will not be the result of fragile negotiations, but of military conquest. And it will expand not only to protect oblasts like Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk, but to ensure, once and for all, that no threat can ever arise again at Russia's borders.
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Bad Guys

Here's what they aren't telling you about 'massive Russian strikes on Ukraine'

Nadezhda Romanenko
RT
Mon, 26 May 2025 15:23 UTC
Kursk Russia drone attack
© SputnikSmoke above an airfield following a drone attack in Kursk, Russia.
In the current media frenzy surrounding the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, a glaring double standard continues to distort public perception: the nature and impact of drone warfare. Western outlets, politicians, and NGOs are quick to pounce on Russia for retaliatory actions, yet remain eerily silent about Ukraine's increasingly reckless and escalatory drone campaign. This selective outrage has not only undermined serious dialogue on peace - it has shielded Ukraine from accountability as it wages what can only be described as a campaign of terror against Russian civilians.

Drone war reality: Civilian targets in Russia

Over the past few weeks, Ukraine's use of drones has surged in both frequency and range. On a near-daily basis, dozens - sometimes hundreds - of drones are launched toward Russian territory, many targeting civilian infrastructure or flying indiscriminately toward dense urban centers like Moscow. While Russia's air defense systems have performed admirably in intercepting the majority of these threats, the falling debris poses an unavoidable risk to civilians, including children and the elderly. Russian regions far from the frontlines have been forced into a state of constant vigilance, air raid alerts disrupting the normalcy of everyday life.

What's most alarming is the strategic logic - or lack thereof - behind these strikes. Unlike military-grade precision operations, Ukraine's drone attacks appear designed less to achieve tactical objectives and more to instill fear. The targets are often electrical substations, communication towers, or simply proximity to residential areas. This cannot be framed as mere collateral damage; it is a campaign whose effects are felt most deeply by civilians.
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Attention

A storm in the West: The liberal intellectual paradigm is broken

Alastair Crooke
Strategic Culture Foundation
Tue, 27 May 2025 16:01 UTC
Trump White House
© Strategic Culture Foundation
Presentation at the XXIII International Likhachev Scientific Readings, St Petersburg University of Humanities and Social Sciences, 22-23 May 2025 - Transforming the World: Problems and Prospects', XXIII International Likhachev Scientific Readings, St Petersburg

Last year in St Petersburg, I asked the question: Will the West come out of its cultural war as a more amenable potential partner? Or will the West disaggregate, and resort to bellicosity in an effort to hold things together?

Well, that was then. The 'counter-revolution' is now underway in the form of the Trump 'Storm'. And the West already has come apart: Project Trump is turning America upside down - and in Europe, there is crisis, desperation and a fury to overturn Trump and 'all his works'.

Is this then 'it'? The anticipated revolt against 'Progressive' cultural imposition?

No. This is not the extent of the creeping, thunderous changes underway in the U.S. Those are provoking far more complicated political shifts. It will not be some courteous red versus blue affair. For there is yet another 'shoe' to drop - beyond the MAGA revolution.

The real action in the U.S. is not happening in seminars at Brookings or in op-eds in the New York Times. It is happening backstage, out of sight; beyond the reach of polite society, and mostly off-script. America is undergoing a transformation more akin to what befell Rome in the age of Augustus.

Which is to say, the main happening is the collapse of a paralytic élite order and the consequent unfolding of new political projects.

The collapse of global liberalism's intellectual paradigm - its delusions together with its associated technocratic structure of governance - transcends the red/blue schism in the West. The sheer dysfunctionality associated with western culture wars has underlined that the entire approach to economic governance must change.

For thirty years Wall Street sold a fantasy - and that illusion just shattered. The 2025 trade war has exposed the truth: Most major U.S. companies were duct-taped together by fragile supply chains, cheap energy, and foreign labour. And now? It's all breaking.

Frankly put, liberal élites simply have demonstrated that they are not competent or professional in matters of governance. And they do not understand the gravity of the situation they face - which is that the financial architecture that used to produce easy solutions and effortless prosperity is well-past its 'sell-by' date.
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Bomb

Memorial Day: It's not about the dead soldiers but about glorifying war

Edward Curtin
Off-Guardian
Mon, 26 May 2025 23:12 UTC
Memorial Day
© Off-Guardian
Although Memorial Day in the United Sates is ostensibly a day for honoring soldiers killed in wars, it is, rather, a day for promoting war. If it were to honor the dead, all its pageantry would be in opposition to war.

Rather than being haunted by the ghosts of war, many Americans are very proud of all its soldiers killed while killing foreigners for the military industrial complex and the super-rich who own the country.

For the U.S.A. is a warfare state; it has been waging imperialistic overseas wars for a long, long time, and using its soldiers as cannon fodder. Most families of dead soldiers find it impossible to admit that their loved ones died in vain, even if courageously.

Without waging wars, the US economy, as presently constituted, would collapse. Business goes on as usual.

Remembering all the war dead is like drifting on a ghost ship in a still sea of burning water. Haunted by the eerie silence of their absent presence, if we listen closely enough, we can hear such victims calling to us: Remember me, Remember me, why did it have to be?

"All warfare is ghostly," writes the classical scholar Norman O. Brown, "every army an exercitus feralis (a funereal exercise), every soldier a living corpse."

The world is littered with the corpses of wars' victims, those of the killers and the killed, soldiers of every nation - but the vast majority are innocent civilians who never picked up a gun. The earth is so saturated with all their blood that one would expect the rivers to run red as a reminder. But that only happens in poems, as with Federico Garcia Lorca: "Beneath all the totals, a river of warm blood."
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Bad Guys

The European kakistocracy is locked in a forever war against Russia

Pepe Escobar
ZeroHedge
Mon, 26 May 2025 20:02 UTC
european union leaders zelensky
© Elysee"Leaders" of the European Union
kakistocracy: /kăk″ĭ-stŏk′rə-sē, kä″kĭ-/noun
  1. Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.
  2. Government by the worst men.
  3. Government under the control of a nation's worst or least-qualified citizens.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is committing serial suicide (in reverse American gore-style, when the serial killer always resurrects). In the case of the EU kakistocracy, serial self-destruction is always a given, and always skyrocketing.

So the EUrocrats in Brussels have just adopted their 17th round of sanctions against Russia - the sky is the limit - targeting nearly 200 tankers of the so-called Russian shadow fleet. The package, endorsed by EU member states, includes proverbial scores of asset freezes and visa bans.

The EU + UK combo is also scheming how to tighten the oil price cap on Russia to $50 a barrel, aiming to "hurt" Russia's energy revenue.

Cue to a monster pipeline of laughter from the whole Global South, especially India and China. As if they would impeach any vessels of the shadow fleet, or if OPEC+ would care about a puny unilateral EUrocrat oil price cap.
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X

Europe's defence without the U.S.: What does the new cost report say?

Erkin Oncan
Strategic Culture Foundation
Fri, 23 May 2025 00:00 UTC
triheadsnake
© public domainNATO
A US draw‑down would leave a large "defence gap" for NATO's European members.

The London‑based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has published a report entitled "Defending Europe Without the United States: Costs and Consequences."

Founded in 1958, the IISS examines global security, defence and geopolitical issues, and its reports are frequently cited by NATO, the United Nations and national defence ministries.

Authored by Ben Barry, Douglas Barrie, Henry Boyd, Nick Childs, Michael Gjerstad, James Hackett, Fenella McGerty, Ben Schreer and Tom Waldwyn, the report concludes that if the United States withdrew from NATO, European countries would need to allocate USD 1 trillion to defence over the next 25 years.

That would mean raising defence spending to 3 percent of GDP.

Comment: The price of war: 'inflation' - The price of peace: 'a bargain'

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Jet5

Kiev's Western backers to blame for massive drone strikes on civilians - Lavrov


RT
Sat, 24 May 2025 21:21 UTC
firefighter
© Sergey Bobylev/SputnikA residential building hit in a Ukrainian drone strike • Kursk, Russia • April 15, 2025
Paris, London, Berlin, and Brussels want to derail the peace process between Moscow and Kiev, the Russian foreign minister has said.

Kiev's Western backers, including the EU and the UK, bear responsibility for the latest series of Ukrainian drone strikes targeting Russian civilians, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has told a Q&A session in Moscow. Western nations want to disrupt the renewed peace talks between Russia and Ukraine as they pursue their narrow political goals, he said.

The minister was referring to a series of large-scale drone raids launched by Kiev's forces this week. According to the Russian military, 776 drones and 12 missiles were intercepted above the country's territory between Tuesday and Friday morning, while 12 drones hit their targets. On Saturday morning, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that another 104 UAVs had been intercepted inside Russia overnight.

Kiev's aggressive actions are due to the support that "some European nations led by the UK, France, Germany, and the EU leadership" lend to the "Ukrainian Nazis," Lavrov said on Friday. "We are convinced that they bear their share of responsibility for these crimes," he stated, adding that Moscow would seek to "put an end to this policy."

Comment: Europe is giving Zelensky what he wants to hear.

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Cardboard Box

Ukraine 'can't afford' it if US quits conflict


RT
Sun, 25 May 2025 10:18 UTC
Podoliak
© Emin Sansar/Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesMikhail Podoliak, advisor to Vladimir Zelensky
Once Kiev's top donor, Washington has shifted under Donald Trump from arming Ukraine to focusing on mediating peace with Moscow.

Ukraine can't afford to lose US military aid in its conflict with Russia, Mikhail Podoliak, adviser to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, told the French newspaper Le Point on Friday. According to the official, US support is "essential" for Kiev's war effort.

Under the previous US administration, Washington was Kiev's largest donor. Since returning to office earlier this year, however, US President Donald Trump has not approved any new military aid for Ukraine, while the last remaining assistance package authorized under former President Joe Biden is expected to run out by mid-summer.

Despite pledging on the campaign trail to end the Ukraine conflict within 24 hours, Trump has recently warned he may "back away" from peace mediation unless Kiev and Moscow reach a deal. He has also questioned US commitments to NATO allies unless they boost defense spending, repeatedly insisting the EU should handle its own security and regional conflicts without depending on Washington.

Comment: Peace requires an end to war: be it chosen, foisted-upon or last man standing.

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Sheeple

Europe will be 'destroyed' - Merkel


RT
Mon, 26 May 2025 08:22 UTC
Merkel
Tighter national migration and border control policies could lead to the destruction of the EU, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned, following Berlin's recent move to curb the influx of asylum seekers.

Merkel made the remarks at the Southwestern Press Forum in Neu-Ulm last week, where she appeared to present her memoir, 'Freedom'.

"I do not believe we can decisively combat illegal migration at the German-Austrian or German-Polish border... I have always advocated European solutions," Merkel said when asked about the latest measures adopted by Chancellor Friedrich Merz's cabinet.

The new policies, introduced earlier this month by Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, prohibit asylum applications at all German land borders - marking a sharp reversal of Merkel's 2015 open-border policy. Exceptions are made for children, pregnant women, and other vulnerable individuals.

Comment: The socalled hardline of the current government is due to a growing revolt by ordinary Germans who are footing the bill. The political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has predominantly been the party giving voice to the German taxpayers critical of the destructive globalist designs, which the elite has been advocating. As a consequence the AfD has been maligned and actively attacked by the Ptb, in Germany, yet the current government had to appease the people a little, though they themselves are in the globalist camp.

See also:
Germany's migrant population explodes as 1 in 4 now has migration background, official data reveals

The globalist camp has promoted multiculturalism while destroying cultural, national and sovereign identies of nations (the only exceptions are Israel and Ukraine). A tool in this effort has been the promotion of open borders and the creation of massive influx of refugees, not least due to war and destabilising of countries where the refugees primarily come from.

See:

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Russian Flag

Ukraine peace talks, EU militarization and the fate of Kiev regime: Key takeaways from Lavrov's speeches


RT
Fri, 23 May 2025 08:34 UTC
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
© Sergey Guneev; RIA NovostiRussian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov takes part in a conference on national identity and the self-determination of peoples.
Moscow is finalizing its draft peace proposal, Russia's top diplomat has said, while accusing the EU of seeking to disrupt the peace process.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov covered a broad range of topics related to settling the Ukraine conflict, as well as Moscow's view on the roles the US and EU play in the process, during several events on Friday.

Addressing an international conference in Moscow and talking to journalists during a Q&A session later, Lavrov spoke about the future of Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky's and the Kiev "regime," as well as Washington's role in mediating the conflict and the responsibility the EU bears for protracting the hostilities.

Here are the key takeaways from his statements.
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