What is there left to sanction in Russia? Apparently the European Union still sees plenty of opportunity to punish Russia over the Ukraine war, and is set to go after even religious leaders, now in year five of the conflict and many sanctions packages later.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, is among many names to be targeted in the EU's latest anti-Moscow sanctions proposal. Kirill has long been accused of justifying the war based on his several patriotic-themed sermons over the years.

Brussels first tried to impose individual sanctions on the patriarch in 2022, but Hungary under PM Viktor Orban had exercised veto power over the move.

A nonprofit organization led by prominent Trump critic Norm Eisen quietly assisted Democratic attorneys general and prosecutors in efforts targeting supporters of President Donald Trump who challenged the 2020 election, according to internal memos, contracts and public records released under open records laws.

The documents reveal that Eisen's States United Democracy Center (SUDC) provided legal assistance, strategic guidance and, in at least one case, attorneys formally appointed by a state attorney general to aid investigations and prosecutions involving alternate electors and attorneys connected to Trump's post-election challenges.

Legal experts argue the arrangement blurred the line between government prosecutions and outside political advocacy groups.

"This is highly inappropriate for left-wing nonprofits to become the prosecutors against their political enemies," Mike Davis, a former Senate Judiciary Committee lawyer and founder of the Article III Project, told Just the News.

This phase of the Iranian conflict likely will only end when the West falls off the approaching economic cliff

The U.S. war with Iran has moved beyond its initial phase to an emerging new one — one in which Iran implicitly stakes its chances on the next phase being war. Most likely this will be in abbreviated episodes of limited war, but possessing nevertheless a potential to widen regionally, should the U.S. (and Israel) elect to sharply escalate.

The new phase involves risk of course, yet Iran holds the high cards of an ability to impose disproportionately heavier damage upon Gulf infrastructure as retaliation for any hurt inflicted upon it — and the awareness that the West is edging ever closer to dropping off the energy 'cliff'.

The three pillars underlying this shift are firstly, confidence that Iran will not (and cannot) be shifted from its hold over Hormuz, and that in consolidating its administrative structures there, the reality of Iran's hold over Hormuz will increasingly be assimilated by states, and reflected in their coming to terms with Iranian-Omani control.

Aggressive actions take place proving that Washington is not serious about a permanent settlement with Tehran while the Israeli Defense Forces continue their assaults on Southern Lebanon violating the ceasefire of two months earlier.

Although United States President Donald Trump has for more than two months claimed the administration was close to a long-term deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran, they have consistently violated the agreement made in April for a cessation of hostilities.
[...]

U.S. and Israel Escalate Tensions in West Asia

The Iranian government did not collapse after a two-pronged campaign aimed at regime change. In January, counter-revolutionary elements sought to ignite riots throughout the country after the national currency was manipulated downward by the U.S. Treasury Department.

The US support and Israel's military and strategic capabilities, coupled with occupational aspirations, made the country a threat to the region. The country's hostilities and strategic reorientation suggest that it now seeks to confront Turkey.

Israel's escalating aggression with Turkey has sparked new threats in Middle Eastern geopolitics. The Zionist leaders have a decades-old dream of establishing "Greater Israel." To achieve this objective, Israel and its Western allies have been bombing regional countries and fighting against Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and other regional actors for decades. After weakening these proxy groups and bombing their alleged regional supporter, Iran, Israel seems to be widening its strategic lens towards Turkey.

Israel's Expanding Threat Perception

The former Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, has recently warned that "Turkey is the new Iran." Many around this statement merely see it as an isolated slogan. However, this statement reflects a profound Israeli security debate that views many regional states, including Turkey, Syria, Qatar, and even Pakistan's regional alignments, as new strategic threats to its regional aspirations. This demonstrates Israel's strategic and military confidence to challenge Pakistan, Turkey, and Iran, which rests on its deep-rooted regional intelligence network, undeclared nuclear arsenal, US strategic support, and advanced air force capabilities. These capabilities have created a dangerous mentality that has increased the Zionist confidence to pursue their "Greater Israel" agenda through regional dominance and occupation.

Donald Trump understood who Benjamin Netanyahu was during the stolen 2020 US presidential election. Despite appearances, the two men have been completely out of step ever since. President Trump dreams of making peace wherever there is war, while Prime Minister Netanyahu pursues his "revisionist Zionist" project (unrelated to Herzl's "Zionism") of conquering the Middle East. Iranian tenacity has exposed their agendas and shattered their compromises.

We have great difficulty understanding the deterioration of relations between the United States and Israel. To interpret it and grasp its intensity, we must first analyze the historical ties between the two nations, and then the evolution of President Donald Trump's policies during his two terms.

Iran has switched from projecting power via its proxy armed groups around the region to using its own firepower to protect them, analysts say.

After weeks of warning that continuing Israeli attacks on Lebanon would jeopardise diplomacy, Iran launched its first direct strikes on Israel in two months overnight on Sunday, casting new doubts about the likelihood of a US-Iran peace deal.

While Israel and the US have sought to separate Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon from the wider US-Israeli war on Iran, Iran has consistently stated that it will not entertain a peace deal that does not extend to Lebanon as well.

Last night's attacks confirmed this.

Following an initial Israeli raid on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Sunday - despite US assurances last week that Israel would not attack the Lebanese capital as long as Hezbollah refrained from strikes on northern Israel - Iran launched missiles at Israel overnight in retaliation.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said in a statement:

"Tonight's operation was a warning, and if the aggressions are repeated, the responses will be broader and will encompass all American-Zionist targets in the region."

Mohsen Rezaei, a senior adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader and former IRGC Commander, says Tehran will not separate Lebanon from any deal with Washington, including a nuclear deal, as Iran seeks to redefine the terms of negotiations with the U.S.

When Iran launched a barrage of strikes on Israel this week in defense of Lebanon, Tehran was making a point: Hezbollah and Lebanon are red lines. In an exclusive interview with Mondoweiss, Mohsen Rezaei lays out Tehran's strategic thinking, arguing that regional security and diplomacy — including nuclear talks — can no longer be separate negotiations.

Last week, Iran suspended indirect talks with Washington amid renewed Israeli military operations in Lebanon, with Iranian officials directly linking the future of any diplomatic contacts to events on the ground in both Lebanon and Gaza.

On June 7, that point was driven home with force. In direct response to an Israeli strike that hit Beirut's southern suburbs, Iran launched multiple waves of ballistic missiles toward Israel, the first direct attack on Israel since a US-brokered ceasefire that took effect in April.

By choosing to escalate, Tehran demonstrated in real time the contours of its red line: an attack on Lebanon will trigger a forceful response.

A bitter row has erupted between Kiev and Warsaw, after Volodymyr Zelensky renamed a Ukrainian military unit the "Heroes of the UPA". The UPA - Ukrainian Insurgent Army - was an ultranationalist faction heavily implicated in the Holocaust, which slaughtered up to 100,000 Polish civilians during World War II. In addition to commemorating the mass-murdering militant group, the corpse of Andriy Melnyk, leader of UPA parent the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B), was reburied in Kiev. At a grand accompanying ceremony, Zelensky declared:

"Today we all see that the Ukrainian idea can overcome what once seemed absolutely insurmountable. Now, when we are on Ukrainian soil, under our Ukrainian flag, to the sound of the Ukrainian national anthem, paying due tribute to our Ukrainian heroes, we feel in our hearts everything Ukrainians were forced to go through, everything our people had to endure."

The unspeakable horrors inflicted upon Poles - and Communists, Jews, Romani and other "undesirables" - by Melynk and his fellow Nazi collaborators were of course unmentioned. So too that the genocidal nationalism practiced and preached by Melynk was covertly promoted and sponsored for decades by Anglo-American intelligence, within and without Ukraine. The ongoing proxy conflict is a direct product of this little-known spectral meddling, which was specifically concerned with promoting cultural and ethnic difference, and enmity, between Russians and Ukrainians globally.

As this journalist has previously revealed, in August 1957 the CIA secretly drew up elaborate plans for a US special forces invasion of Ukraine. Intended to collapse the wider Soviet Union, the Agency's conspiracy depended heavily on recruiting local fascists as footsoldiers. A significant stumbling block to the Agency's plot, however, was much of Ukraine's population actually harbouring "few grievances" against Russians or Communism. "Points of conflict" between Russians and Ukrainians, which could be exploited by the CIA to foment a mass uprising, were scant.

The Agency lamented how "the long history of union between Russia and Ukraine, which stretches in an almost unbroken line from 1654 to the present day," had resulted in "many Ukrainians" having "adopted the Russian way of life." Moreover, the similarity of their "languages, customs, and backgrounds," and the "great influence" of Russian culture in Ukraine, meant the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians felt "little national antagonism." Yet, the CIA believed "important grievances exist," and "under favorable conditions" Ukrainians would assist US invaders.

Continued Israeli violations in Lebanon and Gaza are the 'main obstacle' to lasting peace, mediators say

Diplomatic efforts to finalize a peace agreement between the US and Iran ran into significant delays due to Israeli violations across West Asia, Pakistani government mediators revealed to Anadolu Agency on 9 June.

US President Donald Trump told reporters in New York on Monday that a settlement could be reached in "two or three days," yet Pakistani mediators say that such an immediate breakthrough is "unlikely."

While Trump continues to maintain that a peace deal is close at hand, officials in Islamabad stress that the "situation is complex and has entered a sensitive phase" due to persistent Israeli military aggression in southern Lebanon.