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NEW YORK, UN. Sept 7 (Interfax) - UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday he believes that the area around the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant should become a demilitarized zone, while the Ukrainian side should pledge not to move into this territory. "An agreement on a demilitarized perimeter should be secured," Guterres said at a UN Security Council meeting. "That would include the commitment by Russian forces to withdraw all the military personnel and the equipment from this perimeter and the commitment by the Ukrainian forces not to move into it," he said. "The Zaporizhzhya facility and its surrounding...

Big banks in Europe are preparing for an energy crisis as Russia tightens the gas taps, per Reuters. JPMorgan may use diesel generators, while Deutsche Bank turned off fountains and hot water. The insurer Zurich said it could close its gym and some office floors if the situation worsens. Major banks across Europe are implementing measures in the workplace to cut down on energy consumption as Russia tightens its gas supply to the continent. The Kremlin shut off its natural-gas flow to Europe via the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline last week and said it wouldn't reopen it until the...

Is that on sale? White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre received social media scorn Tuesday after she accidentally called Russia’s Nord Stream 1 pipeline “Nordstrom” — as in the department store. The slip of the tongue came as President Biden’s chief spokeswoman accused Russia of fueling an energy crisis in Europe by shutting down the pipeline, which supplies natural gas to large swathes of the continent. “What we see Russia is doing, we’ve been very clear about this, they’re using energy, they’re weaponizing energy,” Jean-Pierre told reporters during her regular press briefing. “One of the things that has been out...

As the war in Ukraine rages on and the people living there suffer as their leaders stubbornly resist any rational diplomatic settlement to end the crisis, it is important to take a closer look at the idea of Ukrainian territorial integrity. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky intransigently stated when discussing possible negotiations to end the conflict, “Our priorities in the negotiations are known. Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are beyond doubt.” President Biden and other American political leaders have vociferously declared “the commitment of the United States to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” But if we are supporting a war...

What is the scale of the energy challenge?We got a very shocking sense of the staggering numbers involved in the existential, crippling European crisis earlier today when Norwegian energy giant Equinor echoed what Zoltan Pozsar said in March, warning that “European energy trading risks grinding to a halt unless governments extend liquidity to cover margin calls of at least $1.5 trillion." As Bloomberg put it, in its best non-Zoltan imitation, "aside from inflating bills and fanning inflation, the biggest energy crisis in decades is sucking up capital to guarantee trades amid wild price swings. That’s putting pressure on European Union...

You gotta see this... Making an art form out of messing people's minds... Roughly, 'This winter's going to be really serious, see ya in the spring.....' А зима будет большая, Вот, гляди-ка, за рекой Осень тихо умирает, Машет желтою рукой. Плачут мокрые осины, Плачет дедушка Aрбат, Плачет синяя Россия, Превратившись в листопад. И, сугробы сокрушая, Солнце брызнет по весне, А зима будет большая - Только сумерки да снег.

Yesterday, Medvedev posted a rant on his messaging app (for some reason) in which he accused the United States and NATO of plotting to “break up” the Russian Federation. But he warned that even if the alleged plot succeeded, the result would be “doomsday,” and any country attempting it would be engaged in a “chess game with Death.” And I think we all know what that means. (Associated Press)

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is the bookmakers' favorite to become the next prime minister of the United Kingdom, but the Kremlin is unlikely to be betting on a different British approach to relations with Moscow, or the war in Ukraine, should she take over from incumbent Boris Johnson. Although enjoying less support among fellow Conservative Party MPs, Truss's greater popularity among grassroots Tories than Chancellor Rishi Sunak in the final run-off has seen Betfair put her odds-on 4/6 to win. If successful, she will be the face of the British response to the war in Ukraine during which she...

Vladimir Putin has approved a 31-page "humanitarian policy" which says Russia should "protect, safeguard and advance the traditions and ideals of the Russian World". The foreign policy concept of a "Russian World" is a notion that hardliners have used to justify intervening abroad to support Russian speakers, such as in parts of Ukraine. It means that the idea is now enshrined in official policy, though it was presented as a soft power strategy. The new policy stated that Moscow should further deepen its ties with the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic - two breakaway entities in...

It was supposed to be the bright spot in a grim day. Of a dozen unclaimed bodies set for burial recently at Bucha City Cemetery, one had just been identified. The dead man’s family was present and would be able to bury him with full ceremony. His grave would be marked with his name instead of just a number. But there was a hitch. No one could find the body. (snip)When Russian troops retreated at the end of March from the region around Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, they left behind a trail of more than 1,200 bodies. At least 458 dead...

Russia is reportedly buying millions of artillery shells and rockets from North Korea to shore up its arsenal in its ongoing war with Ukraine. The New York Times reported on Monday, citing newly declassified U.S. intelligence, which lacked detail on the type of North Korean weaponry being sent to Russia, as well as the scale and timing of their shipment. The Times quoted a Washington official as saying that Moscow was expected to seek additional purchases of military equipment from Pyongyang in the future. Other global media outlets also issued similar reports, with the Associated Press citing a U.S. official...

Berlin (AFP) – Germany said Monday it would keep two nuclear plants on standby beyond the end of the year in a policy U-turn, as the shut-off of Russian gas supplies sends Europe scrambling for energy sources.Following a new network stress test, two of the three remaining power plants would "remain available until mid-April 2023 in case needed", Economy Minister Robert Habeck said in a statement.The move partly delays a nuclear exit planned under former chancellor Angela Merkel.The plants would be kept in reserve to potentially "make a further contribution to the electricity grid in southern Germany", where the development...

The Kremlin has issued its sharpest comments about cutting off Russia's natural-gas flow to Europe via the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Monday, saying supplies wwould not resume until the "collective West" lifts sanctions against Moscow. "Problems with gas supply arose because of the sanctions imposed on our country by Western states, including Germany and Britain," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov during a conference call, Reuters reported on Monday. "We see incessant attempts to shift responsibility and blame onto us. We categorically reject this and insist that the collective West – in this case, the EU, Canada, the UK...

A former U.S. general has forecast the surrender of Russian forces in Kherson, a strategic city in Ukraine. The Kherson region has been almost entirely controlled by Russian troops since March, when it became the first major city to fall during Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian forces have launched a counteroffensive to take back the critical port city. Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling commented Monday on a Ukrainian soldier's video from the frontlines showing destroyed Russian positions in Kherson. According to Hertling's analysis on Twitter, the footage indicated "extremely poor soldier discipline" and "horrible fieldcraft/training"...

BRUSSELS (AP) – Weapons stocks in the European Union are running low as member countries continue to sends arms and ammunition to Ukraine, the bloc’s top diplomat warned Monday as he urged EU nations to better coordinate their spending on military materiel. “The military stocks of most member-states has been, I wouldn’t say exhausted, but depleted in a high proportion, because we have been providing a lot of capacity to the Ukrainians,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a debate with European lawmakers.

Ukraine’s First Lady’s message to Britons facing crippling energy bill hikes and a cost of living crisis is that while they might be “counting pennies”, her county is counting casualties. “There is no comparison to the suffering of people here, but at home in the United Kingdom, as you acknowledge, people are facing very painful choices because of the soaring cost of energy that’s going to make things very tough for people,” said BBC presenter Laura Kuenssberg in an interview with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wife, First Lady Olena Zelenska.

A representative of the Moscow-installed military administration in the occupied parts of Ukraine's Kherson region says a referendum on joining Russia has been postponed as Ukrainian armed forces continue military operations aimed at regaining control over the area. "We have prepared for the voting, and we wanted to hold the referendum in the nearest future, but due to the developments happening at the moment, I think we will pause [with the referendum]," the Russian-appointed deputy governor of Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, told the TASS news agency on September 5. Kherson, an important port city on the Black Sea, has been fully...

After the first Ukrainian attempt to push towards had failed it is now reinforcing that failure. As I describe the move: The only 'successful' attack was across the Inhulet river near Andriivka in the direction of the dam and river crossing that closes off the Kakhovka Dnieper reservoir. The troops were cut off and mostly destroyed. On the western side of the salient a Russian unit crossed the Inhulet towards north and attacked the Ukrainians on that side. It soon had to pull back and the Ukrainians used the Russian crossing to reconnect with the cut off units in the...

An estimated 70,000 people protested in Prague against the Czech government on Saturday, calling on the ruling coalition to do more to control soaring energy prices and voicing opposition to the European Union and NATO. Organizers of the demonstration from a number of far-right and fringe political groups including the Communist party, said the central European nation should be neutral militarily and ensure direct contracts with gas suppliers, including Russia.\ Police estimates put the number of protesters at around 70,000 by mid-afternoon. The aim of our demonstration is to demand change, mainly in solving the issue of energy prices, especially...

I’ve been warning about this since January 2020. Sounded crazy then. But it wasn’t. I devour history books and it’s all written over and over and over. Normalcy bias is a great killer of nations. There will be famine There will be actual pandemic There will be war There will be migrations big and small. Both personal and population-sized. Entire tribes will move, as has been happening already. Many of these Europeans and Americans will soon realize they did not just welcome in millions of individuals. They welcomed in tribes and groups that come with their own structures. These are...