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Can Brussels raid the tens of billions of euros in Russian assets frozen by the European Union to pay for Ukraine’s recovery? This thorny legal question is currently under examination by the EU Commission as the cash-strapped bloc looks for potentially €18 billion ($18 billion) next year to keep Ukraine afloat as it fends off Moscow’s invasion. Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission's president, told reporters on Tuesday in Berlin that she had set up a task force to both map what assets exist as well as the preconditions that must be met to seize them. “The will is...

Across Ukraine, Putin’s forces are in retreat. Except in the eastern town of Bakhmut - where Russian billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin is sacrificing thousands of his Wagner mercenaries in an attempt to retake the town. This suicidal advance is at first glance strategically insignificant – but as this video explains it could be part of Prigozhin’s attempt to grab more power. VIDEO at UK Daily Mail

We all know how this has played out. This summer Russia started monkeying with the natural gas supply to Germany and the rest of Europe, claiming there was some technical problem that required maintenance. Then they cut the gas off completely and not long after that someone blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. The result of all this has been a huge spike in energy prices in Europe and concern that there might not be enough gas to heat homes this winter.But here we are in late October and the situation is looking very different. For one thing, Europe has...

The U.S. is exporting more LNG to Europe as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine and cuts made to natural gas supplies ahead of winter, but there has been a buildup of LNG vessels waiting to unload at ports with European infrastructure unable to handle the increased LNG shipments. Sixty LNG tankers have been idling or slowly sailing around northwest Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Iberian Peninsula, according to MarineTraffic. One is anchored at the Suez Canal. Eight LNG vessels that came from the U.S. are underway to Spain’s Huelva port. ... European gas prices had soared above 340...

A more nuanced discussion of the false flag operation that the Americans are planning in Ukraine involving a dirty bomb.

Hundreds of CEOs and finance moguls are expected in Riyadh from Tuesday for a Davos-style investment conference that analysts say will highlight Saudi Arabia's geopolitical muscle despite strained ties with the US. The Future Investment Initiative (FII) was launched in 2017 as an economic coming-out party for the world's largest crude exporter, which is trying to diversify away from oil under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The following year's edition, however, was largely overshadowed by the killing several weeks prior of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and many would-be delegates from outside the region stayed away. Attendance picked up in 2019, even...

I can't believe this needs to be said, but Ukraine is not in NATO. It is a highly corrupt country. It is not a "democracy." It has banned 10 political parties. It is not a US state. It has millions of ethnic Russians. This conflict is not worth starting a nuclear war over. I am not sure what drugs the rest of the media is on, but these things need to be said to the audience when reporting on this conflict. There are only MILLIONS OF LIVES at stake.

VLADIMIR Putin has deployed the world's biggest submarine which can be armed with a terrifying nuclear "apocalypse drone", NATO has reportedly warned. As the tyrant edges the world into the most dangerous moment since his shambolic Ukraine invasion, there are fears Russia's giant nuclear-capable torpedo is now on the warpath.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk-0qJXyido Nord Stream sabotage and hybrid war on Europe 123,200 views Oct 4, 2022 Anders Puck Nielsen 66K subscribers Analysis of the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage. I use Kilcullen's theory about liminal warfare and prospect theory to analyse the operational design. This shows that Russia is the most likely suspect, because all other actors would have made different operational choices. I then give some pretty depressing perspectives on how Russia might use hybrid warfare against Europe. 0:00 Intro 1:02 Model for hybrid warfare 1:51 Operational design of Nord Stream sabotage 3:05 Consequences of the attack 4:59 US, Poland and Ukraine...

Poltical rivals express similar sentiment in separate interviews; Kyiv's envoy to Israel says defense minister canceled an upcoming call with his Ukrainian counterpart In a rare expression of units between coalition and opposition figures, Defense Minister Gantz and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday both expressed an unwillingness to alter Israel's policy of not sending defense equipment to Ukraine. 'We are not selling weapons to Ukraine," Gantz told the ultra-Orthodox Kol Chai radio station, noting instead the humanitarian aid Israel has been providing, and vowing to continue such shipments months into Russia's invasion of Ukraine... Meanwhile, in an interview on...

ransomnote: I picked up many memes from other FReepers to use in today's thread and often lost track of whom to thank! For example, I know I picked up memes from cranked...I've been baffled by the aggressive cheer-leading for the puppet Zelensky. Support for Zelensky and the Ukraine is support for Joe Biden/Hunter Biden even though they've already stolen so much money via the Deep State money laundering/fraud operations headquartered there. It's not just the Bidens; the Ukraine is the Deep State's back office. Why pour our money and weapons into a hole in the ground serving the Deep State?I'm...

Reasonable People Won't Launch War: One of the Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO’s Twitter followers on Friday quote-tweeted a Reuters story on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) starting nuclear drills with B-52 bombers on Monday. Responding to him via tweet, Musk suggested no reasonable person would launch a nuclear war. Russia has the ability to destroy USA & Europe utterly with nuclear missiles in less than 30 minutes & vice versa. A surprising number of people don’t know this. Of course, it would be MAD to use them, but it is also MAD to be in this situation at all.

The United States has a history of putting rivals on the world stage in a corner economically, obligating them to make the first moves to war.One of the most famous examples of this strategy came on July 26, 1941.On that date, President Franklin Roosevelt introduced sweeping economic sanctions and asset seizures against Japan.Advertisement - story continues belowAs a result of those sanctions, “Japan lost access to three-fourths of its overseas trade and 88 percent of its imported oil,” according to History.Needing oil to maintain its military might, Japan had little choice but to declare war on the West and mobilize...

State Department ‘Human Rights Report’ reveals what our government really thought of pre-war Ukraine. The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (a branch within the US State Department) releases annual ‘Human Rights Reports’ on 194 different countries around the globe. Their 2021 report for Ukraine was released in April of this year. Despite its relevance to whether US intervention in the RU-UA war is merited, the report received zero media coverage. The report highlights “serious abuses” in the Donbas region citing multiple sources: “International organizations and NGOs, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the HRMMU, issued periodic reports...

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the kind of military alliance the Founding Fathers warned about.Its entangling nature puts America at risk of entering potentially dangerous conflicts where no pressing national interest is at stake. Just look at the present Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Many policymakers in Washington believe that a Slav-on-Slav conflict thousands of miles away somehow involves a critical national interest. In reality, what guides the DC Swamp’s interest in this conflict is the desire to debilitate Russia and make it submit to the liberal hegemonic order. DC is committed to this goal irrespective of the massive risks its entails....

US Senators Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Amy Klobuchar told Ukrainian troops in December 2016 that they would help make 2017 a “year of offense” against Russia and that it was time to make Russia “pay a heavier price”. Knowing they had an agreement with Putin not to let NATO get closer to Russia. The Deep State and NATO have been actively planning and conducting uprisings and unrest worldwide in Afghanistan, Iraq, Serbia, Libya etc. Ukraine is just one more in a long list of countries that have been devastated for the benefit of the very few that pull the...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said there is no need for more massive strikes on Ukraine, days after the heaviest bombardment of the country since the war began. He said most designated targets of the strikes had been hit, adding that it was not his aim to destroy Ukraine. Moscow's goal of mobilising 300,000 men would be met within two weeks, he said. Mr Putin's words come as Russian forces seem stalled and Ukraine advances, almost eight months since the invasion. Speaking to journalists after a summit with regional leaders in Kazakhstan's capital Astana, the Russian leader said that the...

Ukrainian defenders shoot down more and more Iranian kamikaze drones. This was stated by the Secretary of the National Security Council, Oleksii Danilov, in an interview with NT, Censor.NET. "Regarding the "martyrs". Unfortunately, yes, sometimes they break through. Our anti-aircraft forces, and other units that are involved in this process already reaches 85-90%, depending on the day. They launch a lot of them," he explained. Danilov also called on Ukrainians to go to shelter during an air raid.

Biden admin’s lax sanctions enforcement drives Iranian military spending The Biden administration’s lax enforcement of sanctions on Iran’s illicit oil trade has allowed the hardline regime to infuse more than $15 billion into its military and terrorist proxies during the past two years, according to analysis by a watchdog group. Iranian military spending significantly jumped in 2022 as the regime got more access to cash through its multibillion-dollar trade in illicit oil—cash that made its way to the regime as a result of the Biden administration’s decision not to enforce U.S. sanctions, according to United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a...